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General Lee Signing the Terms of Surrender at Appomattox Court-House.
While all loyal hearts were rejoicing over the news of Lee's surrender, recognized as virtually ending the war, a pall suddenly fell upon the land. On the evening of April 14th, while President Lincoln was sitting in a box at Ford's Theatre in Washington, an actor, John Wilkes Booth, crept up behind him, placed a pistol to his head, and fired. Brandishing his weapon, and crying, "Sic semper tyrannis," the assassin leaped to the stage, sustaining a severe injury. Regaining his feet, he shouted, "The South is avenged!" and made his escape.
The bullet had pierced the President's brain and rendered him insensible. He was removed to a house near by, where he died next morning. His body was taken to Springfield, Ill., for burial, and a nation mourned above his grave, as no American since Washington had ever been mourned for before. The South repudiated and deplored the foul deed. Well it might, for, had Lincoln lived, much of its sorrow during the next years would have been avoided.
Booth was only one of a band of conspirators who had intended also to take off General Grant and the whole Cabinet. By a strange good fortune Secretary Seward, sick in bed, was the only victim besides the President. He was stabbed three times with a bowie-knife, but not fatally. After a cunning flight and brave defence Booth was captured near Port Royal, and killed. Of the other conspirators some were hanged, some imprisoned.
The Confederacy collapsed. Johnston's army surrendered to Sherman on April 26th. President Davis fled south. On May 10th he was captured in Georgia, muffled in a lady's cloak and shawl, and became a prisoner at Fortress Monroe. The war had called into military (land) service in the two armies together hardly fewer than 4,000,000 men; 2,750,000, in round numbers, on the Union side, and 1,250,000 on the other. The largest number of northern soldiers in actual service at anyone time was 1,000,516, on May 1, 1865, 650,000 of them being able for duty. The largest number of Confederate land forces in service at any time was 690,000, on January 1, 1863. The Union armies lost by death 304,369—44,238 of these being killed in battle, 49,205 dying of wounds. Over 26,000 are known to have died in Confederate prisons.
CHAPTER IX.
THE WAR ON THE SEA
[1861]
Naval operations during the war fall into three great classes: Those upon inland waters, the Mississippi especially; those along the coast; and those upon the high seas. The first class has already been touched upon in connection with the Mississippi campaigns. The naval work along the coast and upon the high seas is the subject of the present chapter. Only the more important features can be sketched. At the outbreak of the Rebellion our navy was totally unprepared for war. Forty-two vessels were in commission, but most of them were in distant seas or in southern ports. The service was weak with secession sentiment. Between March and July, 1861, 259 naval officers resigned or were dismissed.
Gideon Welles.
Secretary Welles went energetically to work. Vessels in foreign waters were called home, the keels of new craft laid in northern dockyards, and stout merchant ships bought and fitted up for the rough usage of war. By the end of 1861 the navy numbered 264 vessels. At the close of the war it had 671 ships, carrying 4,610 guns and 50,000 sailors.
The first work—a gigantic one—was to blockade the southern ports. This involved the constant patrolling of more than 3,000 miles of dangerous coast, indented with innumerable inlets, sounds, and bays. But within a year a fairly effective blockade was in force from Virginia to Texas, drawn tighter and tighter as the navy increased in size. The effectiveness of the blockade is sufficiently proved by the dearth at the South. The South had cotton enough to sell—$300,000,000 worth in gold at the end of the war—and Europe was greedy to buy; but she could not get her wares to market. Fifteen hundred prizes, worth $30,000,000, were taken during the war.
The details of the blockade must be left to the reader's imagination. Important as the work was, it was comparatively monotonous and dull—ceaseless watching day and night in all weather, week after week and month after month. Now and then the routine would be broken by the excitement of a chase. A suspicious-looking sail would be spied in the offing and pursued, perhaps, far out to sea. Again, the low hull of a blockade-runner would be seen creeping around a point and heading for the open sea. Or on a still night the throb of engines and the splash of paddle-wheels would give warning that some guilty vessel was trying to steal into port under cover of darkness. Then came the flare of rockets to notify the rest of the blockading fleet, the hot pursuit with boilers crowded to bursting, the boom of the big guns fired at random in the dark, and the exultation of a capture or the disappointment of failure.
Blockade-running became a regular business, enormously profitable. Moonless and cloudy nights were of course the most favorable times for eluding the blockade; but the swift steamers, sitting low in the water and painted a light neutral tint, could not easily be detected by day at a little distance, especially as they burned smokeless coal. The bolder skippers would take all chances. Under cover of a fog they would steal into or out of harbor at risk of going aground, or set sail boldly on a bright moonlight night, when the blockaders would naturally relax their vigilance a little. Occasionally some dare-devil would crowd on all steam and dash openly through the sentinel fleet, trusting to speed to escape being hit or captured. When hard pressed, the blockade-runner would beach his craft, set it afire, and take to the woods. At the close of the war thirty wrecks of blockade-runners were rotting on the sands near Charleston Harbor.
In connection with the blockade a number of naval expeditions were sent against various points along the coast. In October, 1861, a fleet under Flag-Officer Dupont, consisting of a steam frigate, a dozen or more gunboats, with numerous transports and coaling-schooners, and carrying 12,000 troops under General T. W. Sherman, set sail from Hampton Roads for Port Royal, S. C. After a stormy passage the fleet anchored off the harbor on November 4th. On opposite sides of the entrance, two and a half miles apart, stood Forts Walker and Beauregard—strong earthworks, mounting one 23 the other 20 guns, and garrisoned by 1,700 men. The 7th dawned bright and clear, the sea smooth as glass. About nine o'clock the bombardment began. The fleet steamed slowly round and round in an ellipse between the forts, each vessel as it came within range pouring in its fire, then passing on and waiting its turn to fire again. The cannonade was concentrated upon Fort Walker. The moving ships offered a poor mark to the fort, while the aim of the fleet was very accurate, covering the gunners with sand and dismounting the guns. After four hours' action Fort Walker was evacuated, and soon Fort Beauregard also in consequence.
Map of Hampton Roads.
Port Royal was the finest harbor on the coast, and was of great value to the navy all through the war as a repair and supply station. Dupont sent out expeditions, and by the end of the year had possession of a large part of the coast of South Carolina and Georgia. In the following spring expeditions from Port Royal regained Fernandina and St. Augustine on the Florida coast. In April Fort Pulaski, a strong brick work at the mouth of the Savannah River, was reduced by eleven batteries planted on a neighboring island, its surrender completing the blockade of Savannah.
[1862]
Albemarle and Pamlico Sounds, on the coast of North Carolina, swarmed with blockade-runners. Rivers, canals, and railroads formed a network of communications with the interior, and vessels were constantly slipping to sea with cargoes of cotton, to return with munitions of war. Hatteras Inlet, seized in August, 1861, was not a sufficient basis for the blockade. In February, 1862, a fleet bearing 11,500 soldiers, under General Burnside, arrived at Roanoke Island, which lies between the two great sounds. The troops were landed, and on the 8th, charging over marshy ground, sometimes waist-deep in water, carried the batteries and gained possession of the island. Newbern, one of the most important ports of North Carolina, was captured a month later, and Fort Macon, commanding the entrance to Beaufort Harbor, surrendered in April.
Meanwhile what had the Confederates been doing in naval matters? When the Norfolk navy-yard was abandoned in April, 1861, the fine old frigate Merrimac was scuttled. She was raised by the Davis Government and converted into an ironclad ram—a novelty in those days. The hull was cut down to the water's edge, and a stout roof, 170 feet long, with sloping sides and a flat top, built amidships and plated with four inches of iron. This roof was pierced for ten guns—four rifles and six nine-inch smooth-bores.
On March 8, 1862, the Union fleet, consisting of the Cumberland, Congress, Minnesota, and some smaller craft, rode lazily at anchor in Hampton Roads. About noon a curious looking structure was seen coming down Elizabeth River. It was the Merrimac. She steered straight for the Cumberland. The latter poured in a broadside from her heavy ten-inch guns, but the balls glanced off the ram's sloping iron sides like peas. The Merrimac's iron beak crashed into the Cumberland's side, making a great hole. In a few minutes the old warsloop, working her guns to the water's edge, went down in fifty-four feet of water, 120 sick and wounded sinking with her.
The Sinking of the Frigate Cumberland by the Merrimac in Hampton Roads, March 8, 1862.
The Congress had meanwhile been run aground. The Merrimac fired hot shot, setting her afire. Nearly half the crew being killed or wounded, she surrendered, her magazine exploding and blowing her up at midnight. The Minnesota, hastening up with two other vessels from Fortress Monroe to aid her sisters, had run aground. Being of heavy draught, the Merrimac could not get near enough to do her much damage, and at nightfall steamed back to her landing. As the telegraph that night flashed over the land the news of the Merrimac's victory, dismay filled the North, exultation the South. What was to stay the career of the invulnerable monster? Could it not destroy the whole United States navy of wooden ships?
Next morning the Merrimac reappeared to complete her work of destruction. As she drew near the stranded Minnesota, a strange little craft moved out from the side of the big frigate and headed straight for the iron-clad. It was Ericsson's Monitor, which had arrived from New York at midnight. The Confederate characterization of it as a "cheese-box on a raft" is still the best description of its appearance. Its lower hull, 122 feet long and 34 wide, was protected by a raft-like overhanging upper hull, 172 feet long and 41 wide. Midway upon her low deck, which rose only a foot above the water, stood a revolving turret 21 feet in diameter and nine in height. It was made of iron eight inches thick, and bore two eleven-inch guns throwing each a 180-pound ball. Near the bow rose the pilot-house, made of iron logs nine inches by twelve in thickness. The side armor of the hull was five inches thick, and the deck was covered with heavy iron plates.
John Ericsson.
Sectional View of Monitor through Turret and Pilot House.
[1863]
For three hours the iron-clads fought. The Merrimac's shot glanced harmlessly off the round turret, while her attempts to run the Monitor down failed. Meanwhile the big guns in the Monitor's turret, firing every seven minutes, were pounding the ram's sides with terrible blows. The Merrimac's armor was at points crushed in several inches, but nowhere pierced, About noon the fight stopped, as if by mutual consent. It was a drawn battle, but the career of the Merrimac had ended. Upon McClellan's advance, in May, she was blown up. The Monitor received no serious injury in this action, but the next December she foundered in a storm off Cape Hatteras.
The invention of the Monitor revolutionized naval warfare, and set European nations to building the ponderous iron-clad navies of the present day. The United States Government soon contracted for twenty single-turret monitors, and four double-turreted ones with fifteen-inch guns.
The Confederates now went to building iron-clads on the model of the Merrimac. On the morning of January 31, 1863, the iron-clads Palmetto State and Chicora steamed out of Charleston Harbor, in a dense fog, and attacked the blockading fleet of wooden vessels. After ramming one ship and sending a shot through the boiler of another, they put back to port.
In April, Admiral Dupont tried to seize Charleston Harbor with his fleet of seven monitors and two iron-clads. In a two hours' action the monitors were seriously injured by the heavy guns of the forts, and the fleet withdrew. In August, land batteries reduced Fort Sumter almost to ruins, and in the following month Fort Wagner was abandoned. June 17th, the iron-clad Atlanta, armed with a torpedo at the end of a spar, ran down from Savannah to engage with two monitors guarding the mouth of the river. She got aground, rendering the torpedo useless. The fifteen-inch guns of the monitors pierced her armor, and in a few minutes she surrendered.
[1884]
The Albemarle proved a more dangerous foe. The last of April, 1864, it descended Roanoke River, smashed the gunboats at the mouth, and compelled the surrender of the forts and the town of Plymouth. A few days later it attacked a fleet of gunboats below the mouth of the river. After a severe tussle, inflicting and receiving considerable damage, it steamed back to Plymouth. Here it lay at the wharf till October, when it was sunk by Lieutenant Cushing, already famous for daring exploits under the very noses of the enemy. On the night of October 27th, young Cushing approached the ironclad in a steam launch with a torpedo at the end of a spar projecting from the bow. Jumping his boat over the log boom surrounding the ram, in the thick of musketry fire from deck and shore, Cushing calmly worked the strings by which the intricate torpedo was fired. It exploded under the vessel's overhang, and she soon sunk. At the moment of the explosion a cannonball crashed through the launch. Cushing plunged into the river and swam to shore through a shower of bullets. After crawling through the swamps next day, be found a skiff and paddled off to the fleet. Of the launch's crew of fourteen, only one other escaped.
The Original Monitor.
The stronghold of the Confederacy on the Gulf was Mobile. Two strong forts, mounting twenty-seven and forty-seven guns, guarded the channel below the city, which was further defended by spiles and torpedoes. In the harbor, August 5, 1864, lay the iron-clad ram, Tennessee, and three gunboats, commanded by Admiral Buchanan, formerly captain of the Merrimac. Farragut determined to force a passage. Before six o'clock in the morning his fleet of four monitors and fourteen wooden ships, the latter lashed together two and two, got under way, Farragut taking his station in the main rigging of the Hartford. The action opened about seven. One of the monitors struck a torpedo and sunk. The Brooklyn, which was leading, turned back to go around what seemed to be a nest of torpedoes. The whole line was in danger of being huddled together under the fire of the forts. Farragut boldly took the lead, and the fleet followed. The torpedo cases could be heard rapping against the ships' bottoms, but none exploded.
The forts being safely passed, the Confederate gunboats advanced to the attack. One of these was captured, the other two escaped. The powerful iron-clad Tennessee now moved down upon the Union fleet. It was 209 feet long, with armor from five to six inches thick. Farragut ordered his wooden vessels to run her down. Three succeeded in ramming her squarely. She reeled under the tremendous blows, and her gunners could not keep their feet. A monitor sent a fifteen-inch ball through her stern. Her smoke-stack and steering-chains were shot away, and several port shutters jammed. About ten A.M., after an action of an hour and a quarter, the ram hoisted the white flag. The forts surrendered in a few days.
January 15, 1865, Fort Fisher, a strong work near Wilmington, N. C, mounting seventy-five guns, was captured by a joint land and naval expedition under General Terry and Admiral Porter. This was the last great engagement along the coast.
The story of the war upon the high seas is quickly told. Swift and powerful cruisers were built in English ship-yards, with the connivance of the British Government, whence they sailed to prey upon our commerce. The Florida, Georgia, Shenandoah, Chameleon, and Tallahassee, were some of the most famous in the list of Confederate cruisers. During 1861, fifty-eight prizes were taken by them. American merchant vessels were driven from the sea. The Shenandoah alone destroyed over $6,000,000 worth in vessels and cargoes.
[1862]
The two most celebrated of these sea-rovers were the Sumter and the Alabama, both commanded by Captain Semmes, formerly of the United States Navy. The Sumter was a screw steamer of 600 tons, a good sailer and sea-boat. She was bought by the Confederate Government and armed with a few heavy guns. On June 30, 1861, she ran the blockade at Charleston, and began scouring the seas. All through the fall she prowled about the Atlantic, taking seventeen prizes, most of which were burned. Many United States cruisers were sent after her, but she eluded or escaped them all. Early in 1862 the Sumter entered the port of Gibraltar. Here she was blockaded by two Union gunboats, and Semmes finally sold her to take command of the Alabama.
The Alabama was built expressly for the Confederacy at Laird's ship-yard, Liverpool, and although her character was perfectly well known, the British Government permitted her to go to sea. She was taken to one of the Azores Islands, where she received her armament and her captain. The officers were Confederates, the crew British. She began her destructive career in August, 1862. By the last of October she had taken twenty-seven prizes. In January she sunk the gunboat Hatteras, one of the blockading fleet off Galveston, Tex. After cruising in all seas, the Alabama, in 1864, returned to the European coast, having captured sixty-five vessels and destroyed property worth between $6,000,000 and $7,000,000.
[1864]
On June 11th, Semmes put into the harbor of Cherbourg, on the coast of France. Captain Winslow, commanding the United States steamer Kearsarge, cruising in the neighborhood, heard of the famous rover's arrival, and took his station outside the harbor. About ten o'clock on the morning of June 19, 1864, the Alabama was seen coming out of port, attended by a French man-of-war and an English steam yacht. Captain Winslow immediately cleared the decks for action. It was a clear, bright day, with a smooth sea. The fight took place about seven miles from shore. The two ships were pretty equally matched, each being of about 1,000 tons burden. The Kearsarge had the heavier smooth-bore guns, but the Alabama carried a 100-pound Blakely rifle. The Kearsarge was protected amidships by chain cables.
The Alabama opened the engagement. The Kearsarge replied with a cool and accurate fire. The action soon grew spirited. Solid shot ricochetted over the smooth water. Shells crashed against the sides or exploded on deck. The two ships sailed round and round a common centre, keeping about half a mile apart. In less than an hour the Alabama was terribly shattered and began to sink. She tried to escape, but water put out her engine fires. Semmes hoisted the white flag. In a few minutes the Alabama went down, her bow rising high in the air. Boats from the Kearsarge rescued some of the crew. The English yacht picked up others, Semmes among them, thus running off with Winslow's prisoners. The Kearsarge had received little damage.
The Sinking of the Alabama.
The sinking of the Alabama ended the career of the Confederate cruisers. American commerce had been nearly driven from the ocean, and, moreover, the days of peace on land and sea alike were near at hand.
CHAPTER X.
FOREIGN RELATIONS—FINANCES—EMANCIPATION
[1861]
A civil war of vast proportions in the world's greatest republic naturally aroused deep interest among the monarchies of Europe. Russia evinced warm friendliness to the United States. The rest of the world, save England and France, showed us no ill-will.
England, with unfriendly haste, admitted the belligerent rights of the Confederacy before Mr. Adams, our minister, could reach the British court. The North was surprised and shocked that liberty-loving, conservative England should so far side with "rebellious slave-holders." It would seem that, besides sympathy with the aristocratic structure of southern society, national envy helped to put England into this false position. Commercial interests had greater weight. Four millions of people in England depended upon cotton manufactures for support. Three-fourths of the cotton they had used came from our southern ports, which the blockade closed. Moreover, the Confederacy declared for free trade, while the North adopted a high war tariff which drove many English goods out of American markets. The London Times complained that nearly $4,000,000 worth of English cutlery alone had been made worthless by our tariff.
An incident early in the war heightened the ill-will between the two countries. On a dark night in October, 1861, Messrs. Mason and Slidell, Confederate commissioners to England and France, ran the blockade at Charleston, and soon after took passage at Havana on the English mail steamer Trent. November 8th, 250 miles out from Havana, the United States sloop of war San Jacinto, Captain Wilkes, compelled the Trent, by a shot across her bows, to heave to, and took off the commissioners.
All England was hot with resentment. Troops were shipped to Canada, and other war preparations begun. A special messenger was hurried to Washington, demanding an apology and the release of the prisoners. Wilkes's action, though without authority in international law, was warmly approved by the people. The House of Representatives tendered him a vote of thanks. But the Government disavowed the seizure and gave up the commissioners. Mr. Seward, Secretary of State, in a dignified reply to England, insisted that the seizure was fully justified by England's own practice of searching neutral vessels on the high seas; but that, as the United States had always condemned this practice, the prisoners would be released, especially as Captain Wilkes should have brought the Trent before a prize court instead of deciding the validity of the prize himself. The action of the Government, though unpopular at the time, was undoubtedly as prudent as it was just. We could not afford to provoke war with England.
The Landing of the Allied Troops at Vera Cruz.
Our real grievance against Great Britain was that the Queen's proclamation of neutrality was not obeyed. Confederate cruisers were built in English yards, whence they publicly and boastfully sailed to prey upon our then vast merchant marine. Crews as well as ships were English. The British ministry were perfectly aware of their destination, but used all manner of artifices to avoid interfering.
Our most vicious enemy abroad was Napoleon III., so profuse yet so hypocritical in his professions of good-will. He, too, hastened to accord belligerent rights to the Confederacy. Had England not been too wary to join him, the two nations would certainly have recognized the South's independence. Napoleon was on the point of doing this alone. Seven war-vessels were, with his sanction, built for the Confederates at Bordeaux and Nantes, though he was too wily to allow them to sail when he became aware that their destination was fully known to our minister.
Far-reaching political schemes were at the bottom of Napoleon's wish for a dismembered Union. He was plotting to restore European influence in America by setting up an empire on the ruins of the Mexican republic, and he knew that the United States would never allow this while her power was unbroken. In the latter part of 1861 a French army invaded Mexico. The feeble government was overthrown after a year or two of fighting. In 1863 an empire was established, and Napoleon offered the throne to the Austrian archduke Maximilian. Meanwhile, the protests of the United States were disregarded. But when our hands were freed by the collapse of the Confederacy, Napoleon changed his tone. The French troops were withdrawn early in 1867, and Maximilian was left to his fate. The unhappy prince, betrayed by his own general, fell into the hands of the old Mexican Government, now in the ascendant, and was tried by court-martial and shot. It should be remembered, however, that France's unfriendly attitude all through the Rebellion was maintained by her unscrupulous emperor and did not reflect the wish of the French people.
The expenses of the war were colossal. From beginning to close they averaged $2,000,000 a day, sometimes running up to $3,500,000. The expenditure for the fiscal year ending July 1, 1865, was nearly $2,000,000,000. Of this the War Department required, in round numbers, $1,000, 000,000; the navy department, $123,000,000. These figures reveal the vast scale upon which the war was waged by land and sea. The national debt rose with frightful rapidity. It was $64,000,000 in 1860, $1,100,000,000 in 1863, $2,800,000,000 (the highest point reached) in 1865. State and local war debts would swell the amount to more than $4,000,000,000.
The position of Secretary of the Treasury during the war was anything but a bed of roses. The ordinary national income was hardly a drop in the bucket compared with the enormous and constantly increasing expenses. The total receipts for the year ending July 1, 1860, were only $81,000,000. How should the vast sums needed to carryon the war be raised? Resort was had to two sources of revenue—taxation and loans.
A considerable revenue was already derived from customs imposed upon imported goods. In 1861, and again in 1863, tariffs were raised enormously, professedly to increase the revenue. These high rates in a measure defeated their own purpose, altogether stopping the importation of not a few articles.
The war compelled the Government to resort to internal taxation—always unpopular and now unknown in the United States for nearly half a century. Taxes were laid upon almost everything—upon trades, incomes, legacies, manufactures. The words of Sydney Smith will apply to our internal taxes during the war:
"Taxes on the ermine which decorates the judge, and the rope which hangs the criminal; on the poor man's salt and the rich man's spice; on the brass nails of the coffin and the ribands of the bride." The tax on many finished products ranged from eight to fifteen per cent.; on some it rose to twenty per cent.
Maximilian Watching the Departure of the Last French Troops from the City of Mexico.
[1864]
But these taxes, severe as they were, could furnish only a small part of the necessary income. The Government must borrow. In the first year of the war the banks loaned the United States $150,000,000 at 7.3 per cent. interest. Many other loans were secured as the war went on—one for $500,000,000, another for $900,000,000. As security the Government issued bonds, bearing various rates of interest and payable after a certain number of years. Treasury notes were also issued and made legal tender for all debts public and private. As the Government paid its own debts with them, they were in the nature of a forced loan. Of those which bore no interest (commonly known as greenbacks) $433,000,000 were issued from first to last. Also, when property was seized for the use of the army, the owners were given certificates of indebtedness which entitled the holders to payment at the United States Treasury.
The proportion of revenue derived from each of the above sources is illustrated by the report of the treasurer of the United States for the year ending July 1, 1865. Customs yielded $85,000,000, internal revenue $209,000,000, loans $1,470,000,000.
Finance legislation during the war was more patriotic than wise, due partly to necessary haste, largely to ignorance. The internal taxes bore very unequally upon different classes. The tariff was ill-adjusted to the internal taxes, letting in at low rates some classes of goods whose home production was heavily taxed, thus discriminating in favor of the foreigner. Millions of debt and half the other economic evil of the war might have been saved by doing more to keep the paper dollar on a par with gold. Thus the banks should not have been compelled to pay in gold the loan of 1861. It forced them to suspend specie payment altogether, December 31st of that year—those of New York City first, followed by others everywhere, and by the United States itself. Gold had been at a nominal premium all through 1861, but the first recorded sale at an advance was on January 13, 1862. It would have been better, also, to resort earlier to heavy loans, even at high rates, instead of flooding the country with greenbacks. The national banks, which were created on purpose to help the sale of government bonds, should have been forced to purchase new bonds instead of supplying themselves with bonds already issued, their purchase of which did the Government no good whatever. Neglect in these regards caused the paper dollar to fall in value. In July, 1864, it was worth only thirty-five cents in gold.
The finances of the Confederacy went steadily from bad to worse. The blockade cut off its revenue from import duties. Its poor credit forbade large loans. The government had to rely mainly upon paper money. This soon became almost worthless. In December, 1861, it took $120 in paper money to buy $100 in gold; in 1863 it took $1,900; in 1864, $5,000. Nearly $1,000,000,000 in paper money was issued in all. The Confederate debt at the close of the war was $2,000,000,000. Under the combined influence of depreciated currency and scarcity of goods, prices became ludicrously high. As early as 1862 flour was $40 a barrel and salt $1 a pound. Before the war was over, a pound of sugar brought $75, a spool of thread $20. Toward the end of the war a Confederate soldier, just paid off, went into a store to buy a pair of boots. The price was $200. He handed the store-keeper a $500 bill. "I can't change this," "Oh, never mind," replied the paper millionaire. "I never let a little matter like $300 interfere with a trade." Of course when the Confederacy collapsed all this paper money became absolutely worthless.
Salmon Portland Chase, Secretary of the Treasury during the Civil War.
Mr. Lincoln and the Republican Party resorted to arms not intending the slightest alteration in the constitutional status of slavery. But the presence of Union armies on slave soil led to new and puzzling questions. What should be done with slaves escaping to the Union lines? Generals Buell and Hooker authorized slave-holders to search their camps for runaway slaves. Halleck gave orders to drive them out of his lines. Butler, alleging that since slaves helped "the rebels" by constructing fortifications they were contraband of war, refused to return those fleeing into his camp. Congress moved up to this position in August, 1861, declaring that slaves used for hostile purposes should be confiscated. But when Fremont and Hunter issued orders freeing slaves in their military districts, President Lincoln felt obliged to countermand them, fearing the effect upon slave States that were still loyal.
As the war went on the conviction grew that peace would never be safe or permanent if slavery remained, and that the suppression of the Rebellion was postponed, jeopardized, and made costlier by every hour of slavery's life. Slaves raised crops, did camp work, and built fortifications, releasing so many more whites for service in hostile ranks, instead of doing all this, and fighting, even, for the Union.
It is interesting to trace the growth of emancipation sentiment during 1862 as it is reflected in congressional legislation. In March army officers were forbidden to return fugitive slaves. In April slavery was abolished in the District of Columbia, with compensation to owners. At the same time Congress adopted a pet scheme of Mr. Lincoln's, offering compensation to any State that would free its slaves. None accepted. There were about 3,000 slaves in the District. Upon the day of their emancipation they assembled in churches and gave thanks to God. In June slavery in the Territories—that bone of contention through so many years—was forever prohibited. In July an act was passed freeing rebels' slaves coming under the Government's protection, and authorizing the use of negro soldiers.
[1863]
Already President Lincoln was meditating universal emancipation. September 22d the friends of liberty were made glad by a preliminary proclamation, announcing the President's intention to free the slaves on January 1, 1863, should rebellion then continue to exist. It is said that Mr. Lincoln would have given this notice earlier but for the gloomy state of military affairs. The day comes. The proclamation goes forth that all persons held as slaves in the rebellious sections "are and henceforth shall be free." The blot which had so long stained our national banner was wiped away. The Constitution of course does not expressly authorize such an act by the President, but Mr. Lincoln defended it as a "necessary war measure," "warranted by the Constitution upon military necessity."
This bold, epoch-making deed, the death-warrant of slavery here and throughout the world, evoked serious hostility even at the North. The elections in the fall of 1862 and the spring of 1863 showed serious losses for the administration party. Emancipation, too, doubtless added rancor and verve for a time to southern belligerency. But the fresh union, spirit, and strength it soon brought to the northern cause were tenfold compensation. Besides, it vastly exalted our struggle in the moral estimate of Christendom, and lessened danger of foreign intervention.
The War President trod at no time a path of flowers. Strong and general as was Union sentiment at the North, extremely diverse feelings and views prevailed touching the methods and spirit which should govern the conduct of the war. Certain timid, discouraged, or disappointed Republicans, seeing the appalling loss of blood and treasure as the war went on, and the Confederacy's unexpected tenacity of life, demanded peace on the easiest terms inclusive of intact Union. Secretaries Seward and Chase were for a time in this temper. The doctrinaire abolitionists bitterly assailed President and Congress for not making, from the outset, the extirpation of slavery the main aim of hostilities. Even the great emancipation pacified them but little.
The Democrats proper entered a far more sensible, in fact a not wholly groundless, complaint exactly the contrary. They charged that the Administration, in hopes to exhibit the Democracy as a peace party (which from 1862 it more and more became), was making the overthrow of slavery its main aim, waging war for the negro instead of for the Union. They complained also that not only in anti-slavery measures but in other things as well, notably in suspending habeas corpus, the Administration was grievously infringing the Constitution.
Yet a fourth class, a democratic rump of southern sympathizers, popularly called "copperheads," wishing peace at any price, did their best to encourage the Rebellion .. They denounced the war as cruel, needless, and a failure. They opposed the draft for troops, and were partly responsible for the draft riots in 1863. Many of them were in league with southern leaders, and held membership in treasonable associations. Some were privy to, if not participants in, devilish plots to spread fire and pestilence in northern camps and cities, Partly through influence of the more moderate, several efforts to negotiate peace were made, fortunately every one in vain.
[1864]
But despite the attacks of enemies and the importunities of weak or short-sighted friends, President Lincoln steadily held on his course. The masses of the people rallied to his support, and in the presidential election of 1864 he was re-elected by an overwhelming majority, receiving 212 electoral votes against 21 for General McClellan, the democratic candidate.
CHAPTER XI.
RECONSTRUCTION
Though arms were grounded, there remained the new task, longer and more perplexing, if not more difficult, than the first, of restoring the South to its normal position in the Union. It was, from the nature of the case, a delicate one. The proud and sensitive South smarted under defeat and was not yet cured of the illusions which had led her to secede. Salve and not salt needed to be rubbed in to her wounds. The North stood ready to forgive the past, but insisted, in the name of its desolate homes and slaughtered President, that the South must be restored on such conditions that the past could never be repeated. The difficulty was heightened by the lack of either constitutional provision or historical precedent. Not strange, therefore, that the actors in this new drama of reconstruction played their parts awkwardly and with many mistakes.
Facsimile of a portion of President Lincoln's draft of the Preliminary Proclamation of Emancipation, September. 1862 From the original in the Library of the State of New York, Albany.
[1865]
A most interesting constitutional problem had to be faced at the outset: What effect had secession had upon the States guilty of it; was it or was it not an act of state suicide? This question was warmly debated in Congress and out. Although ridiculed in some quarters as a mere metaphysical quibble, it lay at the bottom of men's political thinking on reconstruction, and their views of the proper answer to it powerfully influenced their action.
All loyal Democrats and most Republicans answered it in the negative. Secession, they said, being an invalid act, had no effect whatever; the rebellious tracts were still States of the Union in spite of themselves. But the two parties reasoned their way to this conclusion by different roads. The Democrats deduced the view from the State's intrinsic sovereignty, the Republicans from the national Constitution as ordaining "an indestructible Union of indestructible States." This class of thinkers, in whichever party they were found, naturally preferred the term "restoration" to "reconstruction."
The theory of state suicide was held by many, but with a difference. Sumner and a few others deemed that secession had destroyed statehood alone; that over individuals the Constitution still extended its authority and its protection, as in Territories. Thaddeus Stevens and his followers viewed secession as having left the State not only defunct but a washed slate governmentally, like soil won by conquest. Both these parties conceived the work before Congress to be out-and-out "reconstruction," involving the right to change old state lines and institutions at will. Not even this position was more ultra than the course which reconstruction actually took.
Closely related to this main problem were several other questions nearly or quite as vexing. Were any conditions to be imposed upon the peoples seeking re-admission to the Union as States? If so, what, aside from the loyalty of voters and officeholders, were these conditions? Was the President to initiate and oversee the process of redintegration, prescribing the conditions of re-admission, and determining when they were fulfilled, or was all this the business of Congress? And, lastly, did the right thus to oversee and impose conditions depend upon a certain war power of Congress or of President, or upon the clause of the Constitution which guarantees to every State a republican form of government? Nearly the same question as this, in another form, would be, Was this right explicitly constitutional or only impliedly so?
The answer practically returned to these difficult inquiries was that Congress, as a quasi war right, must exact of the States lately in secession all the conditions necessary, in its view, to their permanent loyalty and the peace of the Union.
The history of reconstruction divides into three periods: Reconstruction during the war, President Johnson's work, and Congressional reconstruction.
Restoration was the universal thought at first. Congressional resolutions in 1861 declared that the war was not waged "for the purpose of overthrowing or interfering with the rights or established institutions" of the seceding States. Their action was looked upon as an insurrection against the state government as well as against the United States. Accordingly, when a handful of Virginia loyalists, in the summer of 1861, formed a state government and elected national senators and representatives, President and Congress recognized them as the true State of Virginia.
Following out the same idea, President Lincoln proclaimed in 1863 that as soon as one-tenth of the voters of any seceded State would swear to abide by the Constitution and the emancipation laws they might form a state government. In this way Louisiana, Arkansas, and Tennessee were reconstructed during 1863 and 1865.
The hand of the assassin removed Lincoln from the scene of action at a time when North and South alike stood most in need of his kind heart, tact, and firmness. Andrew Johnson succeeded to a task for which he was ill-fitted. Conceited, obstinate, and pugnacious, he began by alarming the South with threats of wholesale punishment for the "crime of treason," and ended by alienating his own party through his slack methods of re-establishing the States. Johnson declared, and no doubt honestly, that he was carrying out Lincoln's ideas. In May, 1865, he offered amnesty to all but certain excepted classes, mainly civil and military leaders, upon condition of an oath to support the Constitution, including its Thirteenth Amendment, forbidding slavery. Though the proclamation declaring this to be in force did not issue till December 18, 1865, it had been approved by Congress the preceding February.
President Johnson then proceeded to reorganize the state governments. For each seceded State, except the four already reconstructed, he appointed a provincial governor. The governor called a State convention. Only whites who had taken the amnesty oath could elect delegates, or themselves be elected, to this convention. At the instance of the President the convention adopted a constitution or legislation which forbade slavery, declared the ordinance of secession null and void, and repudiated the Confederate debt. The convention then appointed times and places for the election of a legislature and a permanent governor. In a few months the governmental machinery had been set in motion in all the late Confederate States, and in December senators and representatives from all except Texas were knocking at the doors of Congress.
Thus far the President had had full sway. But upon the re-assembling of Congress in December, it became apparent that he and his party were not in harmony. Congress, still overwhelmingly republican, refused to admit the southern delegates, and appointed a committee to investigate the condition of affairs in the southern States. Its report was anything but re-assuring, and Congress, mainly under the lead of Thaddeus Stevens, boldly proceeded to rip up the entire presidential work.
Several considerations led Congress to this course. They denied the President's right, on his own sole authority, to re-establish permanent governments in the States in question. Furthermore, the new state governments were declared unlawful because their constitutions had not been submitted to the people for ratification. Congress also maintained that only the law-making power could of right determine the conditions of re-admission to the Union, and judge whether or not those conditions had been fulfilled.
But the consideration which outweighed all others in favor of the congressional procedure was the alarming temper and acts of the South itself. The Carolinas and Georgia had simply repealed the ordinance of secession instead of declaring it null and void. The reconstructed legislatures pensioned Confederate soldiers and their families. "Notorious and unpardoned rebels" were elected as state officers and to Congress.
Worse than this, nearly all the southern States passed laws which went far toward reducing the blacks again to slavery. In Virginia, if a negro broke his labor-contract, the employer could pursue him and compel him to work an extra month, with chain and ball if necessary. In Mississippi negro children who were orphans, or whose parents did not support them, were to be apprenticed till they became of age. Their masters could inflict upon them "moderate corporal punishment," and re-capture such as ran away. In South Carolina any negro engaging in business had to pay one hundred dollars yearly as a license. Mechanics were fined ten dollars each a year for prosecuting their trades. No negro could settle in the State without giving bonds for his good behavior and support. In Louisiana a farm laborer was required to make a year's contract; if he failed to work out the time, he could be punished by forced labor upon public works. Not all the new southern legislation was of this savage character, and this itself must be viewed in the light of the fact that the negroes, trained in irresponsibility, were inclined to idleness and theft. But it was nevertheless unjust. In some sections only the interposition of the military and of the Freedman's Bureau made life tolerable to the blacks.
[1866]
As an offset to the above dangerous acts and tendencies, Congress, in the spring of 1866, passed the Fourteenth Amendment [footnote: Declared in force July 28, 1868, having been ratified by three-fourths of the States] and submitted it to the States for ratification. It was meant to insure to negroes in every State all the rights of citizens and the equal protection of the laws. If and so long as negroes were in any State forbidden to vote, it reduced that State's representation in Congress proportionally; it excluded from national and state offices certain specified Confederate leaders; and it guarded the national debt, repudiating all indebtedness on behalf of the Rebellion. Every secession State but Tennessee rejected the amendment.
[1868]
Congress replied by the "iron law" of March 2, 1867. "Secessia" was divided into five districts and placed under military rule, there to remain until certain conditions were fulfilled. These conditions were, in brief, the calling of a state convention by the loyal citizens, blacks included; the framing by the convention of a constitution enfranchising negroes; the ratification of this constitution by the people and its approval by Congress; the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment by the new legislature. Having conformed to these prescriptions the State might be represented in Congress and consider itself fully restored to the Union. A supplementary law of March 19th hastened the process by giving the district commanders surveillance of registration and the initiative in calling conventions.
By June, 1868, a sufficient number of the southern States had complied with the conditions to make the Fourteenth Amendment law. Virginia, Mississippi, and Texas held out till 1870, and hence were forced to ratify the Fifteenth Amendment also. Not till January 30, 1871, were all the States again represented in both Houses of Congress as in 1860.
Edwin M. Stanton.
All through the days of congressional reconstruction the antagonism between President and Congress steadily increased. Every step in the progress encountered the President's uttermost opposition and spite. He vetoed all important reconstruction measures, which were promptly carried over his veto. There was much violent language and bitter feeling on both sides. The irritation finally culminated when the House entered articles of impeachment against Johnson—the only case of the kind in our history involving a President. The charges were tried before the Senate in March, 1868, the Chief Justice presiding, and occupied three weeks. William M. Evarts was Johnson's counsel, and a glittering array of legal talent appeared on both sides. The main charge was that the President had wilfully violated the Tenure of Office Act in removing Secretary Stanton from the Cabinet after the Senate had once refused to concur in his removal. The House was hasty in bringing the prosecution. The President was acquitted by a vote of 19 against and 35 for impeachment—one vote less than the two-thirds necessary to impeach. The Johnson-Congressional conflict proved one of the most mortifying episodes in our country's history.
Ulysses S. Grant.
PERIOD V.
THE CEMENTED UNION
1868-1888
CHAPTER I.
POLITICAL HISTORY OF THE LAST TWO DECADES
[1868]
The presidential election of 1868 was decided at Appomattox. General Grant was borne to the White House on a floodtide of popularity, carrying twenty-six out of the thirty-four voting States. Schuyler Colfax, of Indiana, became Vice-President. The Democrats had nominated Horatio Seymour, of New York, and F. P. Blair, of Missouri. Reconstruction was the great issue. The democratic platform demanded universal amnesty and the immediate restoration of all the commonwealths lately in secession, and insisted that the regulation of the franchise should be left with States.
[1870]
The management of the South was the most serious problem before the new administration. The whites were striving by fair means and foul to get political power back into their own hands. The reconstructed state governments, dependent upon black majorities, were too weak for successful resistance. The Ku-Klux and similar organizations were practically a masked army. The President was appealed to for military aid, and he responded. Small detachments of United States troops hurried hither and thither. Wherever they appeared resistance ceased; but when fresh outbreaks elsewhere called the soldiers away, the fight against the hated state government was immediately renewed. The negroes soon learned to stay at home on election day, and the whites, once in the saddle, were too skilful riders to be thrown.
[1872]
Congress, meanwhile, still strongly republican, was taking active measures to protect the blacks. In 1870 it passed an act imposing fines and damages for a conspiracy to deprive negroes of the suffrage. The Force Act of 1871 was a much harsher measure. It empowered the President to employ the army, navy, and militia to suppress combinations which deprived the negro of the rights guaranteed him by the Fourteenth Amendment. For such combinations to appear in arms was made rebellion against the United States, and the President might suspend habeas corpus in the rebellious district. By President Grant, in the fall of 1871, this was actually done in parts of the Carolinas. State registrations and elections were to be supervised by United States marshals, who could command the help of the United States military or naval forces.
The Force Act outran popular feeling. It came dangerously near the practical suspension of state government in the South, and many at the North, including some Republicans, thought the latter result a greater evil than even the temporary abeyance of negro suffrage. The "Liberal Republicans" bolted. In 1872 they nominated Horace Greeley for the Presidency, and adopted a platform declaring local self-government a better safeguard for the rights of all citizens than centralized power. The platform also protested against the supremacy of the military over the civil power and the suspension of habeas corpus, and favored universal amnesty to men at the South. Charles Sumner, Stanley Matthews, Carl Schurz, David A. Wells, and many other prominent Republicans engaged in the opposition.
Thinking their opportunity had come, the Democrats indorsed the Liberals' platform and nominees. The Republicans re-nominated Grant by acclamation, and joined with him on the ticket Henry Wilson, of Massachusetts.
As the campaign went on, the Greeley movement developed remarkable strength and remarkable weakness. Speaking for years through the New York Tribune, Mr. Greeley had won, in a remarkable degree, the respect and even the affection of the country. His offer to give bail for Jefferson Davis in his imprisonment, and his stanch advocacy of mercy to all who had engaged in secession, so soon as they had grounded arms, made him hosts of friends even in the South, He took the stump himself, making the tour of Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana, and crowds of Republicans came to see and hear their former champion.
But the Democrats could not heartily unite in the support of such a lifelong and bitter opponent of their party. Some supported a third ticket, while many others did not vote at all. Mr. Greeley, too, an ardent protectionist, was not popular with the influential free-trade element among the Liberals themselves. The election resulted in a sweeping victory for the republican ticket. The Democrats carried but six States, and those were all in the South. Within a month after the election, Mr. Greeley died, broken down by over-exertion, family bereavement, and disappointed ambition.
[1874]
Troubles in the South continued during Grant's second term. The turmoil reached its height in Louisiana in 1874. Ever since 1872 the whites in that State had been chafing under republican rule. The election of Governor Kellogg was disputed, and he was accused of having plunged the State into ruinous debt. In August, 1874, a disturbance occurred which ended in the deliberate shooting of six republican officials. President Grant prepared to send military aid to the Kellogg government. Thereupon Penn, the defeated candidate for Lieutenant-governor in 1872, issued an address to the people, claiming to be the lawful executive of Louisiana, and calling upon the state militia to arm and drive "the usurpers from power." Barricades were thrown up in the streets of New Orleans, and on September 14th a severe fight took place between the insurgents and the state forces, in which a dozen were killed on each side. On the next day the state-house was surrendered to the militia, ten thousand of whom had responded to Penn's call. Governor Kellogg took refuge in the custom-house. Penn was formally inducted into office. United States troops were hurried to the scene. Agreeably to their professions of loyalty toward the Federal Government, the insurgents surrendered the state property to the United States authorities without resistance, but under protest. The Kellogg government was re-instated.
[1875]
Troops at the polls secured quiet in the November elections. The returning board decided that the Republicans had elected their governor and fifty-four members of the legislature. Fifty-two members were democratic, while the election of five members remained in doubt, and was left to the decision of the legislature. The Democrats vehemently protested against the decision of the returning board, claiming an all-round victory. Fearing trouble at the assembling of the legislature in January, 1875, President Grant placed General Sheridan in command at New Orleans. The legislature met on January 4th. Our reports of what followed are conflicting. The admitted facts are that the democratic members, lawfully or unlawfully, placed a speaker in the chair. Some disorder ensuing, United States soldiers were called in and, at the request of the democratic speaker, restored quiet. The Republicans meanwhile had left the house. The Democrats then elected members to fill the five seats left vacant by the returning board. Later in the day, United States troops, under orders from Governor Kellogg, to whom the republican legislators had appealed, ejected the five new members. The Republicans re-entered the house, and the Democrats thereupon withdrew. Subsequently a congressional committee made unsuccessful attempts to settle the dispute. The democratic members finally returned, and a sullen acquiescence in the Kellogg government gradually prevailed.
[1876]
By 1876 every southern State was solidly democratic except Louisiana, South Carolina, and Florida, and in these republican governments were upheld only by the bayonet.
The presidential election of 1876 was a contest of general tendencies rather than of definite principles. The opposing parties were more nearly matched than they had been since 1860. The Democrats nominated Samuel J. Tilden, of New York, and Thomas A. Hendricks, of Indiana. Rutherford B. Hayes, of Ohio, and William A. Wheeler, of New York, became the republican standard-bearers. The election passed off quietly, troops being stationed at the polls in turbulent quarters. Mr. Tilden carried New York, New Jersey, Indiana, and Connecticut. With a solid South, he had won the day. But the returning boards of Louisiana, Florida, and South Carolina, throwing out the votes of several democratic districts on the ground of fraud or intimidation, decided that those States had gone republican, giving Hayes a majority of one in the electoral college. The Democrats raised the cry of fraud. Suppressed excitement pervaded the country. Threats were even muttered that Hayes would never be inaugurated. President Grant quietly strengthened the military force in and about Washington. The country looked to Congress for a peaceful solution of the problem, and not in vain.
The Constitution provides that "the President of the Senate shall, in presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the [electoral] certificates, and the votes shall then be counted." Certain Republicans held that the power to count the votes lay with the President of the Senate, the House and Senate being mere spectators. The Democrats naturally objected to this construction, since Mr. Ferry, the republican president of the Senate, could then count the votes of the disputed States for Hayes.
The Democrats insisted that Congress should continue the practice followed since 1865, which was that no vote objected to should be counted except by the concurrence of both houses. The House was strongly democratic; by throwing out the vote of one State it could elect Tilden.
Samuel J. Tilden. After a pastel by Sarony in the house at Gramercy Park.
[1877]
The deadlock could be broken only by a compromise. A joint committee reported the famous Electoral Commission Bill, which passed House and Senate by large majorities; 186 Democrats voting for the bill and 18 against it, while the republican vote stood 52 for and 75 against. The bill created a commission of five senators, five representatives, and five justices of the United States Supreme Court, the fifth justice being chosen by the four appointed in the bill. Previous to this choice the commission contained seven Democrats and seven Republicans. It was expected that the fifth justice would be Hon. David Davis, of Illinois, a neutral with democratic leanings; but his unexpected election as democratic senator from his State caused Justice Bradley to be selected to the post of decisive umpire. The votes of all disputed States were to be submitted to the commission for decision.
It was drawing perilously near to inauguration day. The commission met on the last day of January. The cases of Florida, Louisiana, Oregon, and South Carolina were in succession submitted to it by Congress. Eminent counsel appeared for each side. There were double sets of returns from everyone of the States named. In the three southern States the governor recognized by the United States had signed the republican certificates. The democratic certificates from Florida were signed by the state attorney-general and the new democratic governor; those from Louisiana by the democratic gubernatorial candidate, who claimed to be the lawful governor; those from South Carolina by no state official, the Tilden electors simply claiming to have been chosen by the popular vote and rejected by the returning board. In Oregon the democratic governor declared one of the Hayes electors ineligible because an office-holder, and gave a certificate to Cronin, the highest Tilden elector, instead. The other two Hayes electors refused to recognize Cronin, and, associating with them the rejected republican elector, presented a certificate signed by the secretary of state. Cronin, appointing two new electors to act with him, cast his vote for Tilden, his associates voting for Hayes. This certificate was signed by the governor and attested by the secretary of state.
After deciding not to go behind any returns which were prima facie lawful, the commission, by a strict party vote of eight to seven, gave a decision for the Hayes electors in every case. March 2d it adjourned, and three days later Hayes was inaugurated without disturbance.
The whole country heaved a sigh of relief. All agreed that provision must be made against such peril in the future; but it was not till late in 1886 that Congress could agree upon the necessary measure. The Electoral Count Bill was then passed, and signed by the President on February 3, 1887. It aims to throw upon each State, so far as possible, the responsibility of determining how its own presidential vote has been cast. It provides that the President of the Senate shall open the electoral certificates in the presence of both houses, and hand them to the tellers, two from each house, who are to read them aloud and record the votes.
If there has been no dispute as to the list of electors from a State, such list, where certified in due form, is to be accepted as a matter of course. In case of dispute, the procedure is as follows: If but one set of returns appears and this is authenticated by a state electoral tribunal constituted to settle the dispute, such returns shall be conclusive. If there are two or more sets of returns, the set approved by the state tribunal shall be accepted. If there are two rival tribunals, the vote of the State shall be thrown out, unless both houses, acting separately, agree upon the lawfulness of one tribunal or the other. If there has been no decision by a tribunal, those votes shall be counted which both houses, acting separately, decide to be lawful. If the houses disagree, the votes certified to by the governor shall be accepted.
[1880]
President Hayes's first important action was the withdrawal of troops from South Carolina and Louisiana, where the rival governments existed side by side. The republican governments at once fell to the ground. As the Democrats had already got control in Florida, the "solid South" was now an accomplished fact. Financial questions were those which chiefly occupied the public mind during Hayes's administration. They are referred to in Chapter VII., below.
Returning from a remarkable tour around the world, General Grant became in 1880 a candidate for a third-term nomination. The deadlock in the republican convention between him and Mr. Blaine was broken by the nomination of James A. Garfield, of Ohio. Chester A. Arthur, of New York, was the vice-presidential candidate. The Democrats nominated the hero of Gettysburg, the brave and renowned General W. S. Hancock, of Pennsylvania, and William H. English, of Indiana. Garfield was elected, receiving 214 electoral votes against 155 for Hancock. Hancock carried every southern State; Garfield every northern State except New Jersey, Nevada, and California.
[1881]
President Garfield had hardly entered upon his high duties when he was cut down by the hand of an assassin. On the morning of July 2, 1881, the President entered the railway station at Washington, intending to take an eastern trip. Charles J. Guiteau, a disappointed office-seeker, crept up behind him and fired two bullets at him, one of which lodged in his back. The President died on September 19th, after weeks of suffering. Vice-President Arthur succeeded to the presidency, and had an uneventful but respectable administration.
[1882]
Guiteau's trial began in November and lasted more than two months. The defence was insanity. The assassin maintained that he was inspired to commit the deed, and that it was a political necessity. The "stalwart" Republicans, headed by Senator Conkling, had quarrelled with the President over certain appointments unacceptable to the New York senator; Guiteau pretended to think the removal of Mr. Garfield necessary to the unity of the party and the salvation of the country. The prosecution showed that Guiteau had long been an unprincipled adventurer, greedy for notoriety; that he first conceived of killing the President after his hopes of office were finally destroyed; and that he had planned the murder several weeks in advance. Guiteau was found guilty, and executed at Washington on June 30, 1882. The autopsy showed no disease of the brain.
James A. Garfield. From a photograph by C. M. Bell, Washington, D. C.
[1881]
Although it had no logical connection with the "spoils" system, the assassination of President Garfield called the attention of the whole country to the crying need of reform in the civil service. Ever since the days of President Jackson, in 1829, appointments to the minor federal offices had been used for the payment of party debts and to keep up partisan interest. This practice incurred the deep condemnation of Webster, Clay, Calhoun, and others, but no practical steps toward reform were taken till 1871. The abuses of the spoils system had then become so flagrant that Congress created a civil service commission, which instituted competitive examinations to test the merits of candidates for office in the departments at Washington. President Grant reported that the new methods "had given persons of superior capacity to the service'" But Congress, always niggardly in its appropriations for the work of the commission, after 1875 cut them off altogether, and the rules were suspended.
Under President Hayes civil service reform made considerable progress in an irregular way. Secretary Schurz enforced competitive examinations in the Interior department. They were also applied by Mr. James to the New York Post-office, and, as the result, one-third more work was done with less cost. Similar good results followed the enforcement of the "merit system" in the New York custom-house after 1879. President Hayes also strongly condemned political assessments upon office-holders, but with small practical effect.
[1874]
The alarming increase of corruption in political circles generally, after the war, helped to create popular sentiment for reform. Corrupt "rings" sprang up in every city. The "whiskey ring," composed of distillers and government employees, assumed national proportions in 1874, cheating the Government out of a large part of its revenue from spirits. Liberal appropriations for building a navy were squandered.
During the campaign of 1872, the Democrats charged several prominent Congressmen with having taken bribes, in 1867-68, to vote for legislation desired by the Union Pacific Railroad. At the request of the accused, an examination was had by a House committee. The committee's report in 1873 recommended the expulsion of Representatives Oakes Ames and James Brooks. Mr. Ames was accused of selling to Congressmen at reduced rates, with intent to influence their votes, shares of stock in the "Credit Mobilier," a corporation for the construction of the Union Pacific Railroad. Mr. Brooks, who was a government director in the railroad, was charged with receiving such shares. The House did not expel the two members, but severely condemned them. Shadows of varying density fell upon many prominent politicians and darkened their subsequent careers.
[1883]
The tragic fate of President Garfield, following these and other revelations of political corruption, brought public sentiment on civil service reform to a head. A bill prepared by the Civil Service Reform League, and introduced by Senator Pendleton, of Ohio, passed Congress in January, 1883, and on the 16th received the signature of the President.
James G. Blaine.
It authorized the President, with the consent of the Senate, to appoint three civil service commissioners, who were to institute competitive examinations open to all persons desiring to enter the government employ. It provided that the clerks in the departments at Washington, and in every customs district or post-office where fifty or more were employed, should be arranged in classes, and that in the future only persons who had passed the examinations should be appointed to service in these offices or promoted from a lower class to a higher, preference being given according to rank in the examinations. Candidates were to serve six months' probation at practical work before receiving a final appointment. The bill struck a heavy blow at political assessments, by declaring that no official should be removed for refusing to contribute to political funds. Congressmen or government officials convicted of soliciting or receiving political assessments from government employees became liable to a five thousand dollar fine, or three years' imprisonment, or both. Persons in the government service were forbidden to use their official authority or influence to coerce the political action of anyone, or to interfere with elections.
[1873-1884]
Dorman B. Eaton, Leroy B. Thoman, and John M. Gregory were appointed commissioners by President Arthur. By the end of the year the new system was fairly in operation. Besides the departments at Washington, it applied to eleven customs districts and twenty-three post-offices where fifty or more officials were employed. The law could be thoroughly tested only when a new party came into power; that time was near at hand.
The deepest and most significant political movement of the last twenty years has been the gradual recovery of power by the Democracy. For some years after the Rebellion, this party's war record was a millstone around its neck. The financial distress in 1873 and the corruption prevalent in political circles weakened the party in power, while the Democracy, putting slavery and reconstruction behind its back, turned to new issues, and raised the cry of "economy" and "reform."
The state elections of 1874 witnessed a "tidal wave" of democratic victories. Out of 292 members of the House in 1875, 198 were democratic. Two-thirds of the Senators were still republican. Even by republican reckoning, the democratic presidential ticket in 1876 received a popular majority of 157,000 and lacked but one electoral vote. In 1879 both houses of Congress were democratic, by small majorities, for the first time since 1856. The tide ebbed in 1880, the Democrats losing control of the House, and suffering a decisive defeat in the presidential election; but with 1884 the fortune of the Democracy reached high-water mark.
In this year James G. Blaine, of Maine, and John A. Logan, of Illinois, received the republican nomination for President and Vice-President. A number of Independent Republicans, including the most earnest advocates of civil service reform, were strongly opposed to Mr. Blaine, alleging him to be personally corrupt and the representative of corrupt political methods. They met in conference, denounced the nominations, and later indorsed the democratic nominees—Grover Cleveland, governor of New York, and Thomas A. Hendricks, of Indiana. George W. Curtis, Carl Schurz, and other prominent Republicans took part in the movement. Several influential Independent Republican papers, including the New York Times, Boston Herald, and Springfield Republican, joined the bolt.
The campaign was bitterly personal, attacks upon the characters of the candidates taking the place of a discussion of principles. Mr. Cleveland was elected, receiving 219 electoral votes against 182 for Mr. Blaine. He carried every southern State, besides New York, Connecticut, Indiana, Delaware, Maryland, and New Jersey. The total popular vote was over 10,000,000—the largest ever cast. Cleveland had 4,911,000, a plurality of 62,000 over Blaine. The Democrats regained control of the House in 1883, and held it by a considerable majority to the end of Mr. Cleveland's first term. In the Senate, until the election of 1892, the Republicans continued to have a small majority.
Grover Cleveland. From a photograph copyrighted by C. M. Bell, Washington, D. C.
Upon the accession of the new administration to power, the country waited with deep interest to see its effect upon the civil service. Mr. Cleveland had pledged himself to a rigid enforcement of the new law, and encouraged all to believe that with him impartial civil service would not be confined to the few offices thus protected. After the first few months of Cleveland's administration, one fact was apparent: for the first time since the days of Jackson a change of the party in power had not been followed by a clean sweep among the holders of offices. But, as the subsequent record painfully shows, office-holders' pressure proved too strong for Mr. Cleveland's resolution.
There were then about 120,000 government employees. Of these, not far from 14,000 were covered by the Pendleton law. All the other minor places were held at the pleasure of superior officers. These latter officers numbered about 58,000. In August, 1887, from 45,000 to 48,000 of them had been changed, implying change in the offices dependent upon them. There were some 55,000 postmasters, 2,400 of whom were appointed by the President for a term of four years, the rest by the postmaster-general at pleasure. At the date named, from 37,000 to 47,000 changes had been made in this department. These changes, of course, were not all removals, as many vacancies occur by expiration of terms, death of incumbents, and other causes.
[1886]
An important statute regarding the presidential succession, introduced by Senator Hoar, passed Congress in January, 1886. By previous statutes, in case of the removal, death, resignation, or disability of the President and Vice-President, the presidency passed in order to the temporary President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House. The latter two might be of the opposite party from the President's, so that by the succession of either the will of the people as expressed in the presidential election would manifestly be defeated. Moreover, in case of a President's death and the accession of the Vice-President, the latter, too, might die, and thus both the presidency and the vice-presidency become vacant in the interim between two Congresses, when there is neither President of the Senate nor Speaker of the House. Thus President Garfield died September 19, 1881, and the XLVlllth Congress did not convene to choose a Speaker until the next December. The Senate had adjourned without electing a presiding officer. Had President Arthur died at any moment during the intervening period—and it is said that he was for a time in imminent danger of death—the distracting contingency just spoken of would have been upon the country.
According to the new law, in case of a vacancy in both presidency and vice-presidency, the presidency devolves upon the members of the cabinet in the historical order of the establishment of their departments, beginning with the Secretary of State. Should he die, be impeached, or disabled, the Secretary of the Treasury would become President, to be followed in like crisis by the Secretary of War, he by the Attorney-General, he by the Postmaster-General, he by the Secretary of the Navy, he by the Secretary of the Interior, and he by the Secretary of Agriculture.
We have still no legal or official criterion of a President's disability. We do not know whether, during Garfield's illness, for instance—apparently a clear case of disability—it was proper for his cabinet to perform his presidential duties, or whether Arthur should not have assumed these. Barring this chance for conflict, it is not easy to think of an emergency in which the chief magistracy can now fall vacant, or the appropriate incumbent thereof be in doubt.
CHAPTER II.
THE TREATY OF WASHINGTON
[1871]
The year 1871 was marked by the conclusion of an important treaty between England and the United States. Besides settling certain questions which threatened the friendly relations of the two countries, the treaty enunciated important principles of international law, and afforded the world a shining instance of peaceful arbitration as a substitute for the horrors of war.
Ever since 1863 the United States had been seeking satisfaction from Great Britain for the depredations committed by the Alabama and other Confederate cruisers sailing from English ports. Negotiations were broken off in 1865 and again in 1868. The next year Reverdy Johnson, American Minister to England, negotiated a treaty, but it was rejected by the Senate. In January, 1871, the British Government proposed a joint commission for the settlement of questions connected with the Canadian fisheries. Mr. Fish, our Secretary of State, replied that the settlement of the "Alabama Claims" would be "essential to the restoration of cordial and amicable relations between the two governments." England consented to submit this question also to the commission, and on February 27th five high commissioners from each country met at Washington. The British delegation included cabinet officers, the minister to the United States, and an Oxford professor of international law. The American commissioners were of equally high station, the Secretary of State, an associate justice of the Supreme Court, and our minister to England being of their number.
On May 8th the commission completed a treaty which was speedily ratified by both governments. It provided for arbitration upon the "Alabama Claims," upon other claims by citizens of either country for damages during the Rebellion, upon the fisheries, and upon the northwest boundary of the United States. Provisions were also made by it for the common use of the lakes, rivers, and canals along the Canadian border, and for the transit of merchandise free of duty, under certain conditions, across either country to and from certain ports.
The fisheries part of the treaty is discussed in the next chapter. The question of the northwest boundary was referred to the decision of the German emperor, William I. The treaty of 1846 had left it doubtful whether the boundary line through the channel between Vancouver Island and the main-land should be so run as to include the island of San Juan, with its group, in the United States or in Canada. The emperor's decision, given in 1872, was in favor of the United States.
Three commissioners—one appointed by each government and a third appointed jointly—met in Washington, September 26, 1871, to pass judgment upon the war claims other than the "Alabama Claims." The American claims of this class, amounting to less than $1,000,000, were all rejected on the ground that the British Government was not proved responsible for the damages incurred. British subjects put in claims for $96,000,000. The commission allowed less than $2,000,000, which the United States Government promptly paid into the British treasury.
But far the most important and interesting part of the treaty was the provision for the settlement of the "Alabama Claims." England's unfriendly attitude during the war and her subsequent refusal to submit the "claims" to arbitration, had stirred up much hard feeling throughout the United States. The graceful expression, in the preamble to the treaty, of England's regret for the ravages of the cruisers was therefore very gratifying. More material satisfaction was to follow. The treaty provided that the claims should be submitted to a tribunal of five persons—one appointed by each government and one each by the Emperor of Brazil, the President of Switzerland, and the King of Italy.
The tribunal met at Geneva, Switzerland, December 15, 1871. Charles Francis Adams, our minister to England during the war, was the United States member, and Lord Chief Justice Cockburn the English. Baron Itajuba, the Brazilian minister plenipotentiary to France, Count Sclopis, an Italian minister of State, and M. Jaques Staempfli, of Switzerland, comprised the rest of the tribunal. Each side was represented by counsel, Caleb Cushing, William M. Evarts, and Morrison R. Waite appearing for the United States. An agent presented the printed case of each government.
[1872]
The American claims included direct and indirect losses—direct, by the destruction of vessels with their cargoes and by national expenditure in chasing the Confederate cruisers; indirect, by the loss of a large part of the United States ocean carrying trade, by increased marine insurance rates, and by the prolongation of the war with proportionally increased expense. Great Britain vehemently objected to the indirect claims coming before the tribunal, and at one time seemed about to withdraw. Upon reassembling in June, 1872, the tribunal decided that the indirect claims were not admissible, and the case went forward. Counsel having presented their respective arguments, the tribunal took up the case of each cruiser separately. During the consideration of damages it sat with closed doors, only the arbitrators being present. On September 14th, after thirty-two conferences, the tribunal gave its decision.
The Geneva case is of two-fold interest, first, for its decision of the facts involved, and the consequent award; second, for its enunciation of important principles of international law.
The Treaty of Washington laid down three rules for the guidance of the tribunal. They are such important contributions to international law that they must be quoted in full.
"A neutral government is bound,
"First: To use due diligence to prevent the fitting out, arming or equipping, within its jurisdiction, of any vessel which it has reasonable ground to believe is intended to cruise or to carry on war against a power with which it is at peace, and also to use like diligence to prevent the departure from its jurisdiction of any vessel intended to cruise or carry on war as above, such vessel having been specially adapted, in whole or in part, within such jurisdiction, to warlike use.
"Secondly: Not to permit or suffer either belligerent to make use of its ports or waters as the base of naval operations against the other, or for the purpose of the renewal or augmentation of military supplies or arms, or the recruitment of men.
"Thirdly: To exercise due diligence in its own ports and waters, and as to all persons within its jurisdiction, to prevent any violation of the foregoing obligations and duties."
Great Britain denied, in the text of the treaty, that these rules were a true statement of the principles of international law in force during the Rebellion, but consented that the "Alabama Claims" should be decided in accordance with them. Both countries also agreed to abide by them in future and to invite other maritime powers to do the same.
Questions being raised by the counsel as to the interpretation of certain terms and the scope of certain provisions in the three rules, the tribunal found it necessary to make the following preliminary decisions:
1. The meaning of "due diligence." The tribunal took the ground that what constitutes "due diligence" varies with the circumstances of the case. The greater the probable damage to either belligerent, the greater must be the care taken by the neutral government to prevent the escape of cruisers from its ports.
2. Should a neutral detain an escaped cruiser when it re-enters the neutral's jurisdiction, the cruiser having in the meantime been regularly commissioned by its government? The arbitrators decided that the neutral had a right to detain such a cruiser, in spite of its commission, but was under no positive obligation to do so.
3. Does a neutral's responsibility end with the enforcement of its local laws to prevent the escape of cruisers, even if those laws are inadequate? Decision was given that the case must be determined by international law and not by national legislation. If a country's regulations for carrying out its acknowledged international duties are ineffective, they ought to be changed. |
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