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CHAPTER XXIV.

RECONSTRUCTION.

214. The Cost of the War. - General Grant, when arranging with General Lee the terms upon which the Confederate army should surrender, proposed that the soldiers who had horses should retain them. He said the men would "need them for the spring plowing and farm work." The first wish of those who had been most prominent in putting down the Confederacy was that the Union should be restored as quickly as possible to its former state, with the exception of slavery. They desired that the armies should be disbanded, and that the men who had been withdrawn from their homes and industry should return to their old life.

For four years a large part of the strength of the nation had gone into fighting, and the war had caused a terrible loss of life and property. Probably a million Americans perished in battle, or from wounds and disease induced by the war. It has been estimated that the war for the Union, exclusive of pensions, cost the nation not less than ten thousand million dollars, and every year still sees vast sums expended on pensions. We rightly measure the value of a possession by what it has cost us, and the nation preserved at such a cost of men and money becomes of precious worth.

215. The Return of the States into the Union. With the close of the war the government which had been organized as the Confederate States of America came to an end, but the separate States which had formed the Confederacy, each had its government. Since the people of these States, however, had originally claimed the right of a State to secede from the Union, and

had fought for that right, they could not now, when the fight had gone against them, come back into the Union by their own will. That would have established the right which they failed to establish by war. The right of a State to secede had been submitted to the arbitrament of war, and the decision had been given in the negative.

On the other hand, President Lincoln and those who held with him were very eager to restore the Union in the seceding States as fast as possible. Accordingly, proclamation was made in December, 1863, that in any such State, as soon as one tenth of the voters of 1860 should have taken an oath to "support, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and the Union of the States thereunder," and furthermore, should support the acts of Congress made during the war with reference to slavery, the President would recognize the State government they set up. Arkansas had already acted on this plan, and in 1864, Mr. Lincoln recognized similar governments in Louisiana and Tennessee. But his proclamation governed the Executive only; Congress would not yet receive representatives from these States.

216. Legislation in the Interest of the Freedmen. — Upon the death of Lincoln, Andrew Johnson of Tennessee, who had been elected Vice President, became President. He had been selected by the Republican party as representing the Union men of the South. He was not, however, in full sympathy with the Republicans; and it soon became evident that there was a breach between the President and Congress, which constantly widened. The war had been fought to preserve the

1 Andrew Johnson was born in Raleigh, North Carolina, December 29, 1808. So poor was he in his youth and so humble his surroundings that not till he was serving an apprenticeship to a tailor did he learn to read, and his wife, after he was married, taught him to write and cipher. But he had a strong mind and was active in political affairs. He settled in Greenville, Tennessee, and organized a workingman's party. He held local office, was elected to the State Legislature, and in 1843 was sent to Congress. He served in the House of Representatives for ten years. In 1855 he was elected governor of Tennessee, and in 1857 he became United States senator. He was again elected senator in January, 1875, but died July 31 of the same year.

Union, but it had also, necessarily, been a war to extinguish the system of slavery. There was, therefore, a strong sentiment at the North against any restoration of the Union which should leave the blacks in the power of their former masters. A State in the Union could pass many laws which would practically prevent the freedmen from having any voice in the government or from securing full protection under the law. Before the war was

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Andrew Johnson.

February, 1866.

to Congress without his signature, on the ground that it was an interference with the rights of the States in which the freedmen lived. When the President refuses to sign a bill, he is said to veto it, and the bill thus vetoed does not become a law unless, on its return to Congress, two thirds of the members of each House vote to pass it in spite of the President's veto. The Freedmen's Bureau Bill was thus passed over the President's veto.

1 From the Latin word veto, I forbid.

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