licans believed, at that moment, that that had been secured by the Fourteenth Amendment; and there can be little question that a very important consideration with such was the fear that after Reconstruction should be accomplished, the Southern "States" might amend negro suffrage out of their "State" constitutions, and thus destroy the Republican party in these "States," unless the Constitution of the United States should be so amended as to prevent it. The most radical among them were no doubt moved chiefly by the extravagant humanitarianism of the period, which had developed in their minds to the point of justifying not only the political equality of the races, but the political superiority, at least in loyalty to the Union, the Constitution and republican government, of the uncivilized negroes over the whites of the South; but that this conviction was not very strong among the masses of them can be readily concluded from the fact that that party is to-day the party which is following the European idea of the duty of civilized races to impose their political sovereignty upon uncivilized, or half civilized, or not fully civilized, races anywhere and everywhere in the world. No party can, in so short a time, so completely change its fundamental principle of political ethics when it is really and conscientiously believed in by the masses of the party. This proposed Fifteenth Amendment was not sent to the President for his approval, but went, according to the custom, to the Secretary of State, to be retirement submitted to the "State" legislatures. The presidency. President was now within a very few days of the end of his term. His sun had fairly set, and the disrespect felt for him by the members of the dominant party in Congress and out of Congress was expressed in the rude and quite unprecedented refusal of General Grant to sit in the same carriage with him in the pro

Johnson's

from the

cession from the White House to the Capitol, on the 4th of March, for the ceremonies of the inauguration of the new President. Discredited, despised, and scoffed at, as a traitor to his party, to his political creed, and to his country, Mr. Johnson stepped down from the high office which he had occupied during one of the two most critical periods in American history since the establishment of the present Constitution.

dent and the

And yet it is certainly true that the Republican party had left him rather than that he had left the party. This party began simply as a Union The Presiparty and an anti-slavery extension party. Republican Mr. Johnson, an original Democrat, joined party. with the Republicans upon this basis, and he never left it. On the other hand, when the necessities of the war for the Union made it evident that the slaves within the Southern communities which had declared secession, and were engaged in rebellion, must be proclaimed free, Mr. Johnson still went with the Republicans in the justification of this measure. And when, finally, the war was ended and the Union was preserved, and the Republicans decided that the legitimate outcome of the victory was the prohibition of slavery everywhere within the United States by an amendment to the Constitution, Mr. Johnson still marched with them, at the head of the column. It was only when they became more and more radical in their policy, and insisted upon transforming rather than restoring the "States" of the South, by placing civil rights under national protection instead of "State" protection, disfranchising the whites of the South, and enfranchising the negroes, and upon overcoming the Executive's objections to these movements not simply by overriding the veto, but by generally subordinating the Executive to Congress-it was only then that he

separated from them and fell back naturally on such support as he could get, which was chiefly from the Democratic party.

No fair mind can claim that the Republicans in their quarrel with the President had not departed from their solemn declaration made in Congress assembled in those dark July days of 1861, just after the first great defeat of the Union arms, "That this war is not waged upon our part in any spirit of oppression, nor for any purpose of conquest or subjugation, nor purpose of overthrowing or interfering with the rights or established institutions of the Southern States, but to defend and maintain the supremacy of the Constitution, and to preserve the Union, with all the dignity, equality, and rights of the several States unimpaired." And it was upon the basis of this understanding that the Democrats in Congress, Mr. Johnson among them, stood with the Republicans in the prosecution of the war. It is indeed a serious question of political casuistry as to how far declarations of policy are binding upon a political party. They are certainly not like agreements entered into between sovereign states, and the law of development rather than the law of contract must be the constructive force in party creed. But this, at least, must be held, viz., that a man originally not of a given political party, but acting with it upon the basis of a given creed, cannot be accused of being an apostate from that party if he does not continue with it when it adopts a new creed in many respects the very opposite of that given creed, except in the most groveling sense of machine politics; and that when he and it do part company, more by its own departures from the given creed than by his, he is certainly not on that account to be necessarily considered as a traitor to his country. The truth is, that while all men who occupy high station are pecul

iarly subject to wanton, as well as ignorant, assaults upon their purposes and their conduct, few men that have occupied so high a station have ever been so unreasonably slandered and vilified as Andrew Johnson. His own unfortunate and irritating manners and methods will account for a good deal of the misunderstanding of his character, but the violence of the times was the occasion of a great deal more of it. The true Union men of Tennessee will, however, never forget the hope, and encouragement, and support which he gave to them, when they were left in the lurch by their own natural leader, John Bell; and the Nation should for this, if nothing else, write his name in the book of its heroes.

CHAPTER XI

PRESIDENT GRANT AND RECONSTRUCTION

The Situation at the Moment of Grant's Accession to Power-The Georgia Question-The Attitude of the New President toward Reconstruction-The Virginia Case-Grant's Message to Congress of April 7th, 1868, and His Proclamation of May 14th -Ratification of the Virginia Constitution and Election of "State" Officers under it-The Restoration of Virginia to Her Federal Relations-Ratification of the Mississippi Constitution and Election of "State " Officers and Legislative Members under it-The Restoration of Mississippi to Her Federal Relations-Ratification of the Texas Constitution and Election of "State" Officers and Legislative Members under it-Restoration of Texas to Her Federal Relations-Grant and the Tenureof Office Act - Congress and the Tenure - of- Office Act after Grant's Accession to the Presidency-The Modification of the Tenure-of-Office Act-The President's Dissatisfaction with the Measure -The Facts in the Georgia Case- - New Conditions Imposed on Georgia-The Final Restoration of Georgia to Her Federal Relations-Negro Rule in the South from the Point of View of Political Science and Ethnical Principle.

The situa

moment of

At the moment of Grant's accession to power, four of the Southern communities were still denied recognition as "States" upon the floor of Congress. Three tion at the of the four had not yet adopted "State" conGrant's acces stitutions, viz.: Virginia, Mississippi and sion to power. Texas; and the fourth, Georgia, the representatives from which to the lower House of Congress had been admitted in December of 1868, was still unrepresented in the Senate, for the reason that the legislature of Georgia, after electing United States Senators,