CHAPTER XVI.

AFTER THE WAR.

The assassination of President Lincoln was in a special way most calamitous to the citizens of the South. It intensified and augmented to the highest degree the angry passions engendered by four years of war and postponed for years that reconciliation of the two sections that the surrender of the Confederate armies should have brought about, happening as it did when the North was ablaze with bonfires in exultation over the downfall of the Confederate government; for General Lee had evacuated Petersburg, Richmond the capital had fallen, and its civil officers were fugitives.

The great crime committed by Booth was the act of a madman, born of the spirit that had suggested the burning of the ancient and famed Temple of Diana. Notwithstanding this, the Northern press teemed with the most exciting and inflammatory editorials, even charging well-known and most respectable citizens of the South and the officials of the Confederate government itself with complicity in the crime. Reason was dethroned, and it was unsafe to express a different conclusion.

At the South the act met with the most profound and pronounced condemnation, not only by the citizens of the South, but by the soldiers who had surrendered and were awaiting their paroles. I remember that when the information reached the army at Greensboro, N. C., one would have supposed that there would have been some indiscreet expressions or exultations, but instead of that it was received in silence and with pronounced expressions of the severest condemnation.

It is believed that if Mr. Lincoln had survived the war there would have been no such radical measures enacted and enforced as existed for years after the declaration of peace. The changed condition that the war had wrought was accepted in good faith by the people of the South, and the legislation necessary to adjust the autonomy of the seceded States would have taken place peaceably and at once. In fact, it is surprising that the good and just people of the North did not intervene to prevent this long period of misrule and the unlawful exercise of power and oppression. It is not my purpose to speak in detail of this now more than to say that I do not think a darker picture was ever spread before human minds than was presented during the long years of reconstruction in the South.

The first ray of sunshine to penetrate the darkness was when Brownlow’s self-constituted legislature elected him to the United States Senate. It was well assumed that his counterpart could not be produced again. DeWitt Senter was Speaker of the Senate and became Governor by virtue of his office. He was from East Tennessee and had been a consistent Union man, with no feelings of enmity toward his fellow citizens from whom he differed regarding public questions. Col. W. B. Stokes, a native of Middle Tennessee, was the logical successor to Brownlow. The Governor and legislature of the State were to be elected in a short time after Brownlow’s election to the Senate, and Acting Governor Senter was a candidate for the office, as well as Colonel Stokes. To beat Stokes it was necessary to have another registration of votes, for as the poll stood Stokes was certain to be elected. Senter was fully aware of this; and having the power by law to ask for another registration, he did so, and at once issued indiscriminately to the voters of the State the necessary certificates. He was elected Governor, with a conservative, representative legislature. A constitutional convention was called, to which was elected by the whole people an able and representative body of men, who enacted a new State constitution in 1870 embracing the necessary amendments. In due time after this all obnoxious and oppressive laws were repealed by the legislature, and the State government was placed in the hands of its citizens again, which was the signal for the accumulated horde of vampires to fold their tents and march away in quest of a more congenial clime.

If there lingered in the minds of the people of the North a feeling that the South was disloyal to the government, it was dispelled by the breaking out of the Spanish-American War in 1898, when they saw with what alacrity and unmistakable patriotism the Southern States answered the call made upon them for their quota of volunteer troops; and tendering at once more than were necessary, it could not but satisfy every doubting Thomas. Besides this, quite a number of the South’s most noted generals during the War between the States tendered their services and were accepted by the President, valiantly assisting in bringing the war to a satisfactory conclusion. If that war effected no other result, it was sufficient, if not necessary, that it had happened in order to silence forever all doubt upon the question of the loyalty and patriotism of the Southern people.

The territory of the United States has broadened by the annexation of a number of new sovereign States. Its population in every section has been increased to a remarkable degree since the war. We feel that we are justified in saying that peace, prosperity, and happiness exist to-day throughout its borders. To extend these national blessings to future generations, we should remember that it can be done only by the enactment and enforcement of laws tempered with justice, founded in wisdom, and in sustaining the decisions of an incorruptible judiciary, which is the last and strongest hope of the liberty and freedom of the people.

The ex-Confederate soldier who faithfully performed his duty during the War between the States can now rest satisfied that the future historian will do him justice in his heroic effort to maintain the Constitution enacted by his rebellious forefathers and his attempt to enforce the decisions made by the highest tribunal of his country. He is as law-abiding to-day, nearly half a century afterwards, as he was then.