Congress takes a hand in re readmitting the Southern States on the terms offered by the president. A peculiar feature of the situation was that as a result of the abolition of slavery the representation of the Southern States in Congress would be greatly increased. Prior to the war only three construction fifths of the slaves were counted as population in apportioning representatives; now that slavery was abolished the entire negro population would be counted. If white men continued in control in the South there was little chance that the Republican party could long continue in control of the national government. In the minds of the radical leaders the only hope lay in undoing what Lincoln and Johnson had done and in reorganizing the South on the basis of negro suffrage. The first step was to refuse to seat the representatives and senators from the Southern States. In this matter the president could not interfere. In making up the preliminary list of the House, therefore, the clerk was instructed by the Republican caucus to omit the names of representatives from the Southern States, and Thaddeus Stevens offered a resolution that a joint committee of nine from the House and six from the Senate be appointed to inquire into the condition of the former Confederate States and report “whether they or any of them are entitled to be represented in either House of Congress." This resolution was adopted by a large majority without waiting to hear the president's message, and a week later it passed the Senate. The president's message, which was read December 5, was an able state paper written in admirable tone probably Conditions by George Bancroft, the historian. It reviewed in the South at length the course of the administration with reference to the Southern States. On December 18 the president announced in a special message to Congress that the "Rebellion" had been suppressed; that in all the insurrectionary States, except Florida and Texas, the people had reorganized their governments, and that in those two States satisfactory progress was being made. He also submitted to Congress reports from General Grant and Carl Schurz on conditions in the South. Grant declared, as a result of his observations on an extended tour, that there was no further thought of resistance in the minds of the Southern people, that they had accepted the results of the war and were anxious to resume as speedily as possible their accustomed occupations. Schurz's report, likewise based on extended personal observations, set forth very different views. He said that the people of the Southern States had not accepted in good faith the results of the war, that they had no sense of loyalty to the government of the United States, and that they were not yet ready to be restored to the control of public affairs. Unfortunately indiscreet measures adopted by the reorganized Southern legislatures between October, 1865, and March, 1866, gave color to Schurz's views. These measures were the so-called "Black Codes," intended to define the legal status of the freedmen, to regulate conditions of labor, and to check the disorder and vagrancy which were already making such alarming progress among the negro population suddenly freed from white control and unaccustomed to the exercise of self-restraint. These laws were not very different from those in force in Jamaica and other places where there was a large negro population, but the North did not understand the necessities of the situation and considered them an outrageous infringement of personal liberty. On February 19 Johnson vetoed the Freedmen's Bureau bill, which enlarged the powers of the Bureau established by act of March 3, 1865, for the purpose of protect- The breach ing and aiding the newly liberated slaves. The between the necessary two thirds to pass it could not be ob- and tained in the Senate, so the bill failed. On Congress February 22 the president, who was suddenly called upon president to address a large gathering that had collected at the White House, made a very unfortunate speech, in which he severely criticized the radical members of Congress. This speech made a bad impression on the country, and it tended to widen the breach between the president and the radical leaders. Along with the Freedmen's Bureau bill, Trumbull had reported from the judiciary committee the Civil Rights bill. This bill, its authors claimed, simply made effective the provisions of the Thirteenth Amendment, but there was considerable doubt of its constitutionality. It passed the Senate February 2, 1866, by a vote of 33 to 12, and after considerable discussion, it finally passed the House March 13, by a vote of 111 to 38. Stevens made a violent attack on the president in the House, taking as his text the 22d of February speech, which he caused to be read for the purpose, apparently, of goading him into vetoing the bill. In a message to the Senate the president stated his objections to the bill at length, the main one being that it conferred citizenship on the negro when eleven of the thirty-six States were unrepresented, and attempted to fix by Federal law "a perfect equality of the white and black races in every State of the Union." He considered it unconstitutional and an invasion of the rights of the States. The Senate passed the Bill over his veto on April 6, by a vote of 33 to 15. Three days later the House passed it by a vote of 122 to 41. This was the most important measure that had ever been passed by Congress over the veto of a president. The Four In view of the doubt as to the constitutionality of the Civil Rights bill, its main provisions were embodied in the Fourteenth Amendment, which was proposed in teenth the House by Stevens. In June Congress decided Amendment to submit it to the States, and its ratification by the Southern States was made a further condition of their readmission. The amendment did not directly impose negro suffrage on the States, but it aimed to accomplish that purpose indirectly by the second section, whereby the representation of a State in the House was to be cut down in proportion to the number of male citizens over twentyone years of age who were deprived of the right to vote. The first section, which was of even more far-reaching importance, declared: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." The original Constitution undertook to protect individuals against the encroachments of the central government; the Fourteenth Amendment undertook to protect life, liberty, and property against State interference. It had the effect of placing not only individuals, but corporations, under the protection of the Federal Courts and involved the most radical changes ever made in the American constitutional system. During the congressional campaign in the summer and fall of 1866, the president made a tour through the Middle West which was popularly referred to as "swing- "Swinging ing the circle." On this tour he addressed large the Circle" bodies of citizens who were frequently disorderly and illmannered, and amid frequent interruptions he denounced in severe terms the leaders of the radical Republicans. This tour lined up most of the Republicans against Johnson, and the Republican majorities in the election of members of Congress were larger than those given to Lincoln two years before. In the new Congress there were in the Senate forty-two Republicans and eleven Democrats, and in the House one hundred and forty-three Republicans and forty nine Democrats, a working majority of considerably over two thirds. The Republicans could now carry out any reconstruction policy which they chose, notwithstanding the opposition of the president. The radical members of Congress were quick to catch the drift of public sentiment. On December. 10, Blaine, Negro who had not hitherto been regarded as an exsuffrage tremist, declared in the House that the people had now demanded at the polls an additional condition of reconstruction; namely, the bestowal of the suffrage on the negro. Meanwhile, Texas in October and Georgia in November, 1866, had refused to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment. In December the Amendment was rejected by Florida, Alabama, North Carolina, and Arkansas, and in January, 1867, by South Carolina and Virginia. Alabama and Virginia came very near ratifying it, and would probably have done so but for the influence of President Johnson. The opinion is expressed by some historians that if the Southern States had ratified the Fourteenth Amendment, the more conservative Republicans would have remained in control and been able to carry out the plan already agreed on in the case of Tennessee, but the temper of Congress after the election of 1866 was distinctly radical. It was not the rejection of the Fourteenth Amendment, but the big Republican majorities of November, 1866, that decided the fate of the Southern States. Early in the session Congress extended the suffrage in the District of Columbia to the negro. This was a forewarning of what was coming. The constitutional status of the Southern States was a question upon which neither lawyers nor political philoso The constitutional phers had been able to formulate a consistent theory. According to the Southern theory the States that had attempted secession were still States, all the essentials of statehood remaining unchanged. This was the theory on which Sherman status of the Southern States |