CHAPTER XVI

ANDREW JOHNSON'S FIRST MESSAGE

Excellent tone and temper of Johnson's first communication to Congress--Written by George Bancroft--Eulogy of the New York _Nation_--Johnson's early life and training--A first-rate stump-speaker--Sumner attacks Johnson for "whitewashing" the ex-slaveholders--Acts of Southern legislatures passed to keep the negroes in order--Senator Wilson moves that all such acts establishing inequality of civil rights be declared invalid--Trumbull argues for postponement of such legislation until the Thirteenth Amendment is ratified--Debate between Trumbull and Saulsbury--Reports of General Grant and General Carl Schurz on the condition and temper of the Southern people--Letter from J. L. M. Curry on the same 244