Part 1150

The Joint Committee on Reconstruction was constituted by the appointment (December 14), on the part of the House, of Thaddeus Stevens, Elihu B. Washburn, Justin S. Morrill, Henry Grider, John A. Bingham, Roscoe Conkling, George S. Boutwell, Henry T. Blow, and Andrew J. Rogers; and by the appointment (December 21), on the part of the Senate, of William Pitt Fessenden, James W. Grimes, Ira Harris, Jacob M. Howard,. Reverdy Johnson, and George H. Williams. The most serious question connected with the problem of reconstruction was that arising from the great increase of representation in Congress, and consequent augmentation of political weight and power, that must necessarily accrue to the lately rebellious States from the emancipation of their slaves. To this question the Committee gave their attention first. By an original provision of the Constitution, representation is based on the whole number of free persons in each State and three-fifths of all other persons. "When all become free, representation for all necessarily follows. As a consequence the inevitable effect of the rebellion would be to increase the political power of the insurrectionary States, whenever they should be allowed to resume their positions as States of the Union. As representation is by the Constitution based upon population, your committee [said their report, when made, on the 8th of June, 1866] did not think it advisable to recommend a change of that basis. … It appeared to your committee that the rights of these persons by whom the basis of representation had been thus increased should be recognized by the general government. … It did not seem just or proper that all the political advantages derived from their becoming free should be confined to their former masters, who had fought against the Union, and withheld from themselves, who had always been loyal. … Doubts were entertained whether Congress had power, even under the amended Constitution, to prescribe the qualifications of voters in a State, or could act directly on the subject. It was doubtful, in the opinion of your committee, whether the States would consent to surrender a power they had always exercised, and to which they were attached. As the best if not the only method of surmounting the difficulty, and as eminently just and proper in itself, your committee came to the conclusion that political power should be possessed in all the States exactly in proportion as the right of suffrage should be granted, without distinction of color or race. This it was thought would leave the whole question with the people of each State, holding out to all the advantage of increased political power as an inducement to allow all to participate in its exercise." To this conclusion the committee arrived as early as the 22d of January, when they made a preliminary report, recommending an amendment to the constitution to the effect that "Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed: Provided, That whenever the elective franchise shall be denied or abridged in any State on account of race or color, all persons of such race or color shall be excluded from the basis of representation." Grave objections were found to the proposed exclusion of the colored race as a whole from the basis of representation, in case the suffrage should be denied to any part of it. It was shown, moreover, that disfranchisement might be practically accomplished on other grounds than that of race or color and the intended effect of the constitutional provision evaded. {3665} Hence the proposition of the Committee failed in the Senate (March 9, 1866), though adopted by the House (January 31). On the 20th of February, the Committee on Reconstruction reported a concurrent resolution, "That in order to close agitation upon a question which seems likely to disturb the action of the Government, as well as to quiet the uncertainty which is agitating the minds of the people of the eleven States which have been declared to be in insurrection, no Senator or Representative shall be admitted into either branch of Congress from any of said States until Congress shall have declared such State entitled to such representation." The House adopted this important concurrent resolution the same evening. In the Senate it was debated until the 2d of March, when it was passed by a vote of 29 to 18. On the 30th of April the Reconstruction Committee reported a joint resolution embodying a comprehensive amendment to the Constitution, designed to protect the rights of the freedmen of the South, as citizens of the United States, and to fix the basis of representation in Congress, as well as to settle other questions arising out of the Rebellion. As adopted by Congress in June, and subsequently ratified by the legislatures of the necessary number of States this became what appears as the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1866 (JUNE).

"This proposed amendment to the Constitution was accompanied by two bills, one of which provided that when any State lately in insurrection should have ratified the amendment, its Senators and Representatives, if found duly elected and qualified, should be admitted as members of Congress. The other bill declared the high ex-officials of the late Confederacy ineligible to any office under the Government of the United States."

_W. H. Barnes, History of the 39th Congress, chapters 3, and 13-19._

ALSO IN: _Report of Joint Committee on Reconstruction, 39th Congress, 1st session. H. R. Report, number. 30._

_A. R. Conkling, Life and Letters of Roscoe Conkling, chapter 14._

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1866. The Fenian movement and invasion of Canada.

See IRELAND: A. D. 1858-1867; and CANADA: A. D. 1866-1871.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1866 (February). The French warned out of Mexico.

See MEXICO: A. D.1861-1867.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1866 (April). The passage of the first Civil Rights Bill over the President's veto.

"Immediately on the reassembling of Congress after the holidays, January 5, 1866, Mr. Trumbull [in the Senate], in pursuance of previous notice, introduced a bill 'to protect all persons in the United States in their civil rights, and furnish the means of their vindication.' This bill, having been read twice, was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary." A few days later the bill was reported back from the Committee, and it came up for discussion on the 29th of January. On the 1st of February it passed the Senate and went to the House. In that body it was reported from the Judiciary Committee on the 1st of March, and debate upon the measure began. It passed the House, with some amendments, March 13th, by a vote of 111 to 38. The amendments of the House were agreed to by the Senate, and it went to the President, who returned it with an elaborate veto message on the 27th of March. In the Senate, on the 6th of April, by 33 ayes to 15 nays, and in the House three days later, by 122 affirmative votes to 41 in the negative, the bill was passed notwithstanding the veto, and became law. As enacted, the Civil Rights Bill declared "that all persons born in the United States and not subject to any foreign Power, excluding Indians not taxed, are … citizens of the United States; and such citizens of every race and color, without regard to any previous condition of slavery or involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, … shall have the same right in every State and Territory of the United States to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties, and give evidence, to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey real and personal property, and to full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of person and property as is enjoyed by white citizens, and shall be subject to like punishment, pains, and penalties, and to none other, any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom to the contrary notwithstanding." Section 2 of the act provided penalties for its violation. The remaining sections gave to the district and circuit courts of the United States cognizance of all crimes and offenses committed against the provisions of the act; extended the jurisdiction of those courts and enlarged and defined the powers and duties of the district attorneys, marshals, deputy marshals and commissioners of the United States, to that end; made it lawful for the President "to employ such part of the land or naval forces of the United States, or of the militia, as shall be necessary to prevent the violation and enforce the due execution of this act;" and, finally, provided that "upon all questions of law arising in any cause under the provisions of this act a final appeal may be taken to the Supreme Court of the United States."

W_. H. Barnes, History of the 39th Congress, chapters 9-11._

ALSO IN: _H. Wilson, History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power, volume 3, chapter 48._

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1866 (June). Congressional adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The joint resolution, embodying the important amendment to the Federal Constitution which became, when ratified, the Fourteenth Amendment, reported to Congress on the 30th of April, 1866, by the Joint Committee on Reconstruction was passed by the House of Representatives on the 10th of May, and by the Senate on the 8th of June, with amendments which the House concurred in on the 13th of June.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1865-1866 (DECEMBER-APRIL).

Having no constitutional power to veto the resolution, President Johnson sent a message to Congress on the 22d expressing his disapproval of it. The proposed constitutional amendment as it passed both Houses of Congress, and as it became part of the constitution of the United States by subsequent ratification of the States, is as follows:

"Section 1. 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.

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Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the executive and judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.

Section 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State Legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

Section 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

Section 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article."

_W. H. Barnes, History of the 39th Congress, chapters 17-18._

ALSO IN: _J. G. Blaine, Twenty Years of Congress, volume 2, chapter 9._

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1866 (July). Restoration of Tennessee to her "former, proper, practical relation to the Union."

See TENNESSEE: A. D. 1865-1866.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1866 (July). The New Orleans Riot.

See LOUISIANA: A. D. 1865-1867.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1866-1867 (October-March). The Reconstruction issue before the people. Congress sustained by the North. President Johnson and the South. Rejection of the Fourteenth Amendment by the Southern States.

In the elections of 1866 the canvass turned upon the issue between Congress and the President concerning Reconstruction, and the popular verdict was overwhelmingly adverse to the Presidential policy, while a new Congress was elected far more Radical in disposition than its predecessor. Every Northern State was swept by the Republicans, with heavily increased majorities. Even those "which had been tenaciously Democratic gave way under the popular pressure. … The aggregate majority for the Republicans and against the Administration in the Northern States was about 390,000 votes. In the South the elections were as significant as in the North, but in the opposite direction. Wherever Republican or Union tickets were put forward for State or local offices in the Confederate States, they were defeated by prodigious majorities. Arkansas gave a Democratic majority of over 9,000, Texas over 40,000, and North Carolina 25,000. The border slave States were divided. Delaware, Maryland and Kentucky gave strong majorities for the Democrats, while West Virginia and Missouri were carried by the Republicans. The unhappy indication of the whole result was that President Johnson's policy had inspired the South with a determination not to submit to the legitimate results of the war, but to make a new fight and, if possible, regain at the ballot-box the power they had lost by war. The result of the whole election was to give to the Republicans 143 representatives in Congress and to the Democrats but 49." But when Congress assembled, in December, the President was found to be inflexibly determined to pursue the line of policy which he had marked out. In his message he reiterated his views "with entire disregard of the popular result which had so significantly condemned him. … The President's position … excited derision and contempt in the North, but it led to mischievous results in the South. The ten Confederate States which stood knocking at the door of Congress for the right of representation, were fully aware, as was well stated by a leading Republican, that the key to unlock the door had been placed in their own hands. They knew that the political canvass in the North had proceeded upon the basis, and upon the practical assurance (given through the press, and more authoritatively in political platforms), that whenever any other Confederate State should follow the example of Tennessee, it should at once be treated as Tennessee had been treated. Yet, when this position had been confirmed by the elections in all the loyal States, and was, by the special warrant of popular power, made the basis of future admission, these ten States, voting upon the Fourteenth Amendment at different dates through the winter of 1866-67, contemptuously rejected it. In the Virginia Legislature only one vote could be found for the Amendment. In the North-Carolina Legislature only 11 votes out of 148 were in favor of the Amendment. In the South-Carolina Legislature there was only one vote for the Amendment. In Georgia only two votes out of 169 in the Legislature were in the affirmative. Florida unanimously rejected the Amendment. Out of 106 votes in the Alabama Legislature only ten could be found in favor of it. Mississippi and Louisiana both rejected it unanimously. Texas, out of her entire Legislature, gave only five votes for it, and the Arkansas Legislature, which had really taken its action in the preceding October, gave only three votes for the Amendment. … It was naturally inferred and was subsequently proved, that the Southern States would not have dared to take this hostile attitude except with the encouragement and the unqualified support of the President."

_J. G. Blaine, Twenty Years of Congress, volume 2, chapter 10-11._

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"No factor in those elections [of 1866] proved more potential than the rejection by Southern Legislatures of the pending Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. The clauses on which its acceptance or rejection turned in these assemblies were: Section II., which apportioned Representatives in Congress upon the basis of the voting population; and Section II!., which provided that no person should hold office under the United States who, having taken an oath as a Federal or state officer to support the Constitution, had subsequently engaged in the war against the Union. It was claimed by the friends of the Amendment to be especially unfair that the South should have representation for its freedmen and not give them the ballot. The right, however, of a state to have representation for all its free inhabitants, whether voters or not, was secured by the Constitution, and that instrument even allowed three-fifths representation for slaves. New York, Ohio, and other states denied the ballot to free negroes; some states excluded by property qualification and others by educational tests, yet all enjoyed representation for all their peoples. The reply to this was that the Constitution ought to be amended because the South would now have, if negroes were denied the ballot, a larger proportion of non-voters than the North. Southern people were slow to see that this was good reason for change in the Constitution, especially as they believed they were already entitled to representation, and conceived that they ought to have a voice in proposing as well as in the ratification of amendments. Five of the restored states had already ratified the Thirteenth Amendment, and such ratification had been counted valid. If they were states, they were certainly entitled to representation. So they claimed. It was perhaps imprudent for Southern people at that time to undertake to chop logic with their conquerors, or indeed to claim any rights at all. … The insuperable objection, however, to the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment was to be found in the clause which required the people of the late Confederate States to disfranchise their own leaders, to brand with dishonor those who had led them in peace and in war."

_H. A. Herbert, Why the Solid South? (Noted Men on the Solid South) pages 15-16._

In a letter addressed, November 25, 1866, to General Richard Taylor, lately of the Confederate army, and brother-in-law of Jefferson Davis, General Grant wrote: "I have talked with several members of Congress who are classed with the Radicals; Schenck and Bidwell for instance. They express the most generous views as to what would be done if the Constitutional amendments proposed by Congress were adopted by the Southern States. What was done in the case of Tennessee was an earnest of what would be done in all cases. Even the disqualification to hold office imposed on certain classes by one article of the amendment would, no doubt, be removed at once, except it might be in the cases of the very highest offenders, such, for instance, as those who went abroad to aid in the Rebellion, those who left seats in Congress, etc. All or very nearly all would soon be restored, and so far as security to property and liberty is concerned, all would be restored at once. I would like exceedingly to see one Southern State, excluded State, ratify the amendments to enable us to see the exact course that would be pursued. I believe it would much modify the demands that may be made if there is delay." "But the President's endeavors did not cease. … He used all the authority of his office to dissuade the Southerners from accepting the amendment which the entire North had ratified. … He converted good feeling and good will on both sides into discord, and precipitated disasters almost equal to those from which the State had barely escaped. … This view of Johnson's conduct was thenceforth steadily maintained by Grant."

_A. Badeau, Grant in Peace, chapter 5._

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1866-1867 (December-March). The Tenure-of-Office Bill.

"Against the early decision of the founders of the Government, … against the repeatedly expressed judgment of ex-President Madison, against the equally emphatic judgment of Chief Justice Marshall, and above all, against the unbroken practice of the Government for 78 years, the Republican leaders now determined to deprive the President of the power of removing Federal officers. Many were induced to join in the movement under the belief that it was important to test the true meaning of the Constitution in the premises, and that this could be most effectively done by directly restraining by law the power which had been so long conceded to the Executive Department. To that end Mr. Williams of Oregon, on the first Monday of December, 1866, introduced a bill 'to regulate the tenure of civil offices.'"

_J. G. Blaine, Twenty Years of Congress, volume 2, page 270._