Part 1151

"After grave consideration and protracted discussion in both houses of Congress, the [Tenure-of-Office bill] was passed near the close of the session. On the 2d of March [1867] the bill encountered the veto of the President, who saw in the measure serious interference with the ability of the Executive to keep his oath to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. The bill was immediately passed over the veto without debate. The act thus passed provides that officers appointed by and with the advice and consent of the Senate shall hold their offices until their successors are in like manner appointed and qualified. Members of the Cabinet hold their offices during the term of the President by whom they are appointed, and for one month thereafter, subject to removal by consent of the Senate."

_W. H. Barnes, History of the 39th Congress, page 560._

Soon after the inauguration of President Grant, in 1868, the Tenure-of-Office act was so far modified as to practically release the President from the restraint which it put upon his power of removal.

_J. G. Blaine, Twenty Years of Congress, volume 2, chapter 18, and Appendix B._

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1866-1869. Organization of the Bureau of Education.

See EDUCATION, MODERN: AMERICA: A. D. 1866-1869.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1866-1871. The Ku-Klux Klan of the Southern States and its outrages.

"It would have been contrary to the experience of mankind, and an exception to all the teachings of history, if the social and political revolution which the results of the war had imposed on the states then recently insurgent had gone into operation peacefully, harmoniously, and successfully. It was impossible for such to be the case. The transition was from a state in which the superiority and domination of the white race over the colored race existed unquestioned for centuries. It was to a condition of things in which the most prominent whites were disfranchised and deprived of the right to hold public offices. Their late slaves were enfranchised, and the judicial and other offices were largely filled by dishonest and unfriendly strangers from the North. What was worse still, many of these places were filled by ignorant and brutal negroes. The transition was too sudden and violent. It was hard to submit to it quietly. {3568} No people, least of all such a proud and intolerant people as that of the South, could see their local governments transferred from their own hands into the hands of their former slaves without being goaded into violent resistance. This resistance took the form, in most of the Southern States, not of armed opposition to the Federal or the state governments, but of organized intimidation and terrorism. It was directed against the colored people and against their white allies and leaders. It made an objective point of the agents of the Freedmen's Bureau, ministers of the gospel, and school teachers,—all adventurers from the North, or men who had, in quest of fortune, immigrated into these states. All of these classes were regarded as public or private enemies. They were designated by the opprobrious title of 'carpet-baggers.' The history of these outrages fills many volumes of reports made by joint and separate committees of the two houses of Congress. It is from these volumes, from reports of military commanders in the South, and from other official documents, that the following epitome, exhibiting the lawlessness that prevailed in the Southern States during the … decade between 1865 and 1875, is made. These documents are so full of the details of crime and violence, and are so voluminous, that it is exceedingly difficult to select from them, or to convey a correct idea of their relations. Very soon after the close of the Civil War, almost as soon as the Reconstruction acts were begun to be put in operation, secret societies were organized in various states of the South. Their object, either secret or avowed, was to prevent the exercise of political rights by the negroes. These societies took various names, such as 'The Brotherhood,' 'The Pale Faces,' 'The Invisible Empire,' 'The Knights of the White Camellia'; but all these were finally merged into, or compounded with, the formidable and dreaded society denominated the 'Ku-Klux Klan.' Their acts of lawlessness and cruelty have passed into local and congressional history as 'Ku-Klux outrages.' The State of Virginia was a remarkable exception to the other states in its exemption from crimes of this character; while the two neighboring States of North Carolina and Tennessee furnished, perhaps, more material for investigation into Ku-Klux outrages than any other portion of the South. This barbarous and bloodthirsty organization is said to have originated in 1866. There is no doubt that the Ku-Klux Klan was organized at first only to scare the superstitious blacks. It is true that it arose out of the frivolities of some young Tennesseans. Horrid tales were told to frighten the negroes from roaming about and pilfering. The testimony before the committee on that subject, of which the writer was a member, showed that they daily visited houses and talked their foolish talk; that they were 'mummicking about,'—whatever that means. … There is no doubt that political reasons had their influence after the Ku-Klux were under way. … Certain it is, that they soon came to be made use of, in the most arbitrary, cruel, and shocking manner, for the furtherance of political ends, and for the crushing out of Republicanism in the Southern States; to which party the colored people were almost unanimously attached. The crimes and outrages narrated in these pages had their origin, almost exclusively, in political causes,—in the effort on the part of the whites to set at naught the rights of suffrage guaranteed to the negroes, and to exclude from Federal, state, county, and local offices all persons whose reliance for election to such offices was mainly if not altogether, on negro votes. General Forrest estimated the strength of the Ku-Klux organization in Tennessee at 40,000. He expressed the belief that it was still stronger in other states. The members were sworn to secrecy, under the penalty of death for breach of fidelity. Their ordinary mode of operation—as gathered from the mass of evidence—was to patrol the country at night. They went well armed and mounted. They wore long white gowns. They masked their faces. Their appearance terrified the timid and superstitious negroes who happened to see them as they rode past, and who then regarded them as ghostly riders. But most frequently they surrounded and broke into the cabins of the negroes; frightened and maltreated the inmates; warned them of future vengeance; and probably carried off some obnoxious negro, or 'carpet-bagger,' whose fate it was to be riddled with murderous bullets, hung to the limb of a tree, or mercilessly whipped and tortured, for some offense, real or imaginary, but generally because he was active in politics or in negro schools or churches. … According to the majority report of the Senate select committee of March 10, 1871, the Ku-Klux associations, by whatever name known, were instituted in North Carolina in 1867 or 1868. … The report of the Senate committee of the 10th of March, 1871, before referred to, recites a startling number of Ku-Klux outrages. They embrace whipping, mutilation, and murder. These cruelties took place in North Carolina, between December, 1868, and December, 1870. The report gives some of the horrifying details."

_S. S. Cox, Three Decades of Federal Legislation, chapters 25-26._

"Senator Scott, in a speech in the Senate, gave as the result of the investigation that came to his own knowledge, as follows: In North Carolina, in 14 counties, there were 18 murders and 315 whippings. In South Carolina, 9 counties, 35 murders and 276 other flagrant outrages. In Georgia, 20 counties, 72 murders and 126 whippings. In Alabama, 26 counties, 215 murders and 116 other outrages. In Florida, in one county alone there were 153 cases of homicide. In Mississippi, 20 counties, 23 homicides and 76 other cases of outrage. In 99 counties in different States he found 526 homicides and 2,009 cases of whipping. But the committee state that in Louisiana alone in the year 1868 there were more than 1,000 murders, and most of them were the result of the operations of the Ku Klux."

_H. Wilson, History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power, volume 3, chapter 45._

ALSO IN: _Report of Joint Select Committee (42d Congress, 2d session, Senate Report, number 41)._

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1867 (January). Negro Suffrage in the District of Columbia.

As early as the 18th of January, 1866, the House of Representatives passed a bill extending the suffrage in the District of Columbia, by striking out the word "white" from all laws and parts of laws prescribing the qualification of electors for any office in the District, and declaring that no person should be disqualified from voting at any election in the District on account of color. {3569} As it was known that the President would veto the bill if sent to him, the Senate held it until the next session. In December, 1866, it was called up in that body by Senator Sumner, and after considerable debate was passed, December 13th. On the 7th of January following it was returned by the President with his veto, but was passed over the veto by the Senate (29 to 10) the same day, and by the House (113 to 38) the day following, thus becoming a law.

_W. H. Barnes, History of the 39th Congress, chapters 4 and 21._

ALSO IN: _G. W. Julian, Political Recollections, chapter 12._

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1867 (March). The Purchase of Alaska.

See ALASKA: A. D. 1867.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1867 (March). The Military Reconstruction Acts of Congress.

"Congress had declared amply enough how the rebel States should not be reinstated. Two years after the close of the war, however, the Union was still unrestored, and while claiming, under the Constitution, absolute jurisdiction of the question, Congress had failed to prescribe the terms on which the Union should be restored. … Both the country and Congress were at last convinced by the course of events that affirmative Congressional action was indispensable, involving the sweeping away of Mr. Johnson's ex-rebel State governments and the enfranchisement of the emancipated slaves. Mr. Stevens had been of that opinion ever since the emasculation by the Senate of the Fourteenth Amendment, as adopted by the House [which had proposed to exclude from the right to vote for Representatives in Congress and for Presidential electors, 'until the 4th day of July, in the year 1870, all persons who voluntarily adhered to the late insurrection, giving it aid and comfort'], and immediately thereupon proposed a measure containing the germ of the Military Reconstruction Act. Called up from time to time, and pressed upon the attention of the House by Mr. Stevens, it was passed on the 13th day of February, 1867, after a four weeks' debate upon it in Committee of the Whole. By the 20th both Houses had agreed upon it, and passed it. On the 2d day of March the President returned it to the House with his veto, over which it was at once passed by both Houses; and with only two days of the Thirty-ninth Congress to spare, it become law."

_O. J. Hollister, Life of Schuyler Colfax, chapter 9._

The Military Reconstruction Act set forth in its preamble that "Whereas, no legal State governments or adequate protection for life or property now exists in the rebel States [enumerating all the late Confederate States except Tennessee]; … and whereas it is necessary that peace and good order should be enforced in said States until loyal and republican State governments can be legally established: therefore, Be it enacted, … That said rebel States shall be divided into military districts and made subject to the military authority of the United States, as hereinafter prescribed; and for that purpose Virginia shall constitute the first district, North Carolina and South Carolina the second district, Georgia, Alabama and Florida the third district, Mississippi and Arkansas the fourth district, and Louisiana and Texas the fifth district." Sections 2, 3 and 4 of the act made it the duty of the President to assign to the command of each of the said districts an officer of the army not below the rank of brigadier-general, and defined the duties and powers of such commander, providing for the assignment to him of an adequate military force. Section 5 provided "That when the people of any one of said rebel States shall have formed a constitution of government in conformity with the Constitution of the United States in all respects, framed by a convention of delegates elected by the male citizens of said State 21 years old and upward, of whatever race, color, or previous condition, who have been resident in said State for one year previous to the day of such election, except such as may be disfranchised for participation in the rebellion or for felony at common law, and when such constitution shall provide that the elective franchise shall be enjoyed by all such persons as have the qualifications herein stated for electors of delegates, and when such constitution shall be ratified by a majority of the persons voting on the question of ratification who are qualified as electors for delegates, and when such constitution shall have heen submitted to Congress for examination and approval, and Congress shall have approved the same, and when said State, by a vote of its Legislature elected under said constitution, shall have adopted the amendment to the Constitution of the United States, proposed by the Thirty-ninth Congress, and known as article fourteen, and when said article shall have become a part of the Constitution of the United States, said State shall be declared entitled to representation in Congress, and Senators and Representatives shall be admitted therefrom on their taking the oath prescribed by law, and then and thereafter the preceding sections of this act shall be inoperative in said State." It was further provided that no person excluded from office by the Fourteenth Amendment should be a member of the convention to frame a constitution for any of said rebel States, and that any civil government which might exist in any of the said States prior to the admission of its representatives to Congress should be deemed provisional only, and subject to the paramount authority of the United States. "The friends of this measure were dissatisfied with it on the ground of its incompleteness in not containing provisions for carrying it into effect in accordance with the purpose of its framers. … The Fortieth Congress, meeting on the 4th of March, immediately upon the close of its predecessor, proceeded without delay to perfect and pass over the President's veto [March 23, 1867] a bill supplementary to the act to provide for the more efficient government of the rebel States." By this supplementary act specific instructions were given as to the course of procedure to be followed in making a registration of the voters qualified under the act and in conducting the elections provided for.

_W. H. Barnes, History of the 39th Congress, chapter 22._

ALSO IN: _Why the Solid South? (Noted Men on the Solid South.)_

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1868 (March-May). Impeachment and Trial of President Johnson.

"Until the spring of 1866, a year after Mr. Johnson became President, there was entire harmony between him and his Cabinet. … No objection was raised even to that part of the President's first message which treated of the suffrage question, by any member of the Cabinet. It was in fact approved by all, and by none more heartily than by Mr. Stanton. A change took place soon after the Civil Rights bill became a law over the President's veto, and bitter controversy arose between the President and Congress. {3570} In this controversy, and at its commencement, Mr. Dennison [Postmaster-general] and Mr. Harlan [Secretary of the Interior] sided with Congress and tendered their resignations, which were very reluctantly accepted. They resigned because they could not heartily sustain the President, but there was no breach of the social relations which had existed between them. Mr. Speed [Attorney-general] soon after followed the example of Dennison and Harlan. Mr. Stanton [Secretary of War] also sided with Congress, but he did not resign. He was advised by prominent political and personal friends to 'stick,' and he did so, contrary to all precedent and in opposition to the judgment of conservative men of his party. … He attended the Cabinet meetings, not as an adviser of the President, but as an opponent of the policy to which he had himself been committed, and the President lacked the nerve to dismiss him. … In this crisis of his political life, Mr. Johnson exhibited a want of spirit and decision which astonished those who were familiar with his antecedents. He knew when the Tenure-of-Office Bill was before Congress that the object of its leading supporters was to tie his hands, and yet he refrained from using them when they were free. … When he did act he acted unwisely. He retained Mr. Stanton in his Cabinet when his right to remove him was unquestionable. He suspended him [August 12, 1867] after the Tenure-of-Office Bill had become a law, and in accordance with its provisions, [directing General Grant to act as Secretary of War ad interim]; and when the Senate refused to approve of the suspension [January 13, 1868], he issued orders for his removal and the appointment of Lorenzo Thomas to be Secretary of War ad interim. If he had tried to give his enemies an advantage over him, to furnish them with weapons for his own discomfiture, he could not have done it more effectually. … If he had removed Mr. Stanton instead of suspending him, and justified his action on the ground that his control of the members of his Cabinet was a constitutional right of which he could not be deprived by Congress, he probably would not have been impeached. The gist of the charges against him was that he had violated a law of Congress in removing Mr. Stanton, or issuing an order for his removal, after the Senate had refused to sanction his suspension. In the articles of impeachment there were other charges against the President, the most serious of which were that he had delivered intemperate, inflammatory speeches, which were intended to bring into contempt the Congress of the United States and duly enacted laws. The speeches made by the President in Cleveland, St. Louis, and other places in August and September, 1866—in fact, all his public addresses during his contest with Congress—were in the worst possible taste, derogatory to himself and to his high position; but they … did not constitute good ground for his impeachment; and this was the opinion of the House, which in January, 1867, after they were made, refused to impeach him by the decisive vote of 108 to 57. Other causes for his impeachment were subsequently sought for. His bank account was examined. His private conduct in Washington was carefully scrutinized. Men were employed to investigate his public and private character in Tennessee, but nothing was found to his discredit. … Nothing was found to justify his impeachment but the order which he issued for the removal of Mr. Stanton and his appointment of General Thomas to be Secretary of the War Department ad interim after the Senate had refused to sanction Mr. Stanton's suspension." The formal presentment by the House of Representatives of its Impeachment against the President, at the bar of the Senate, sitting as a Court of Impeachment, was made on the 5th day of March, 1868. The answer of the President was presented on the 23d; the trial opened on Monday, the 30th of March, and closed on the 26th of May following. "The trial was a very interesting one, not only to the people of the United States, but to the people of other countries. … It was the first instance in the history of nations of the trial of the head of a government before one of the branches of the law-making power, sitting as a judicial tribunal, on charges presented by another. The presiding officer was the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court—the senators of the respective States were the jury—the House of Representatives the prosecutor. The managers to conduct the impeachment for the House were John A. Bingham, George S. Boutwell, James F. Wilson, Benjamin F. Butler, Thomas Williams, Thaddeus Stevens and John A. Logan, all members of the House, all lawyers, and some of them distinguished in the profession. The President entered his appearance by Henry Stanbery, Benjamin K. Curtis, Jeremiah S. Black, William H. Evarts, and Thomas A. K. Nelson. William S. Groesbeck, in the course of the trial, appeared and took part as counsel for the President in place of Mr. Black." The result of the trial was a failure of the Impeachment. The senators who voted "guilty" were 35 in number—being less than two-thirds of the whole—against 19. Of those who voted in the negative, seven were Republicans who had steadily opposed the President's policy; four were Republicans who had adhered to him throughout; eight were Democrats.

_H. McCulloch, Men and Measures of Half a Century, chapter 26._

In the opinion of Mr. Blaine, "the sober reflection of later years has persuaded many who favored Impeachment that it was not justifiable on the charges made," and that "the President was impeached for one series of misdemeanors, and tried for another series."

_J. G. Blaine, Twenty Years of Congress, volume 2, chapter 14._

ALSO IN: Trial of Andrew Johnson, (Published by Order of the Senate), 3 volumes.

Trial of Andrew Johnson, Congressional Globe, Supplement, 40th Congress, 2d session.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1868. The Burlingame Treaty with China.

See CHINA: A. D. 1857-1868.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1868 (November). The Twenty-first Presidential Election.