opinion, that if persons of color were to be employed, and rendered eligible to be employed, as carriers of the mail, by those who have contracted to carry it, and who wish to employ them, it would be unsafe to commit to their hands the mail, when they could not themselves be witnesses against those who should violate that mail, steal it, rob it, and commit depredations upon it." 66 The measure, however, encountered severe criticism and opposition. Mr. Johnson of Maryland regretted its introduction, but expressed the hope that, if adopted, it would be confined to "free persons of color"; Mr. Powell denounced it as "fanatical and radical legislation"; Mr. Saulsbury declared that we are legislating against reason, against our own race, by such enactments"; and Mr. Hendricks, though a Northern man, was not unwilling to leave on record that he was not "content to see a law passed by the Congress of the United States placing the negro upon the platform of equality with the white race in the courts of the country, the sanctuary of our rights. Standing alone, the white race has progressed for a thousand years, without a step backward. Standing alone, the negro race has gone downward and downward for a thousand years." The bill, however, did not reach a vote before adjournment. At the next session it came up again, and was passed on the 19th of December, only five Senators recording their votes against it. In the House it passed by acclamation on the 2d of March, 1865, and it received the President's signature the next day. As finally passed, it enacted, "that from and after the passage of this act no person, by reason of color, shall be disqualified from employment in carrying the mails, and all acts and parts of acts establishing such disqualification, including especially the seventh section of the act of March 3, 1825, are hereby repealed." That such an act, so sweeping in its provisions, should pass both houses of Congress by so nearly a unanimous vote, not only betrayed the absence of the seceding Southern members, but revealed, for the time being at least, a great change in the Northern sentiment. CHAPTER XXXVII. RECONSTRUCTION. PRESIDENT LINCOLN'S POLICY. Difficulties great and manifest. Early efforts. lamation. - - Not provided for. - Questions - Measures proposed but not acted on. - President's annual message and procTerms proposed. - Sharply criticised. — Committee of Nine.-Winter Davis's bill. His speech. — Smithers. — Debate. - Prominence of the emancipation feature. — Beaman, Scofield, Donnelly, Boutwell. - Opposed by Pendleton, Wood, Yeaman, and Kernan. Substitute and passage. Senate and conference. - Bill passed. Not signed by the President.President's proclamation. Condemned. - Address of Wade and Davis. THAT it is easier to destroy than to create, to pull down than to build up, is proverbial. Nor did the proverb ever receive sadder or more serious illustration than in the recent Rebellion, and in the consequent attempts at reconstruction. That the breach which had been so violently and causelessly made should, if possible, be repaired, harmony restored, and the Union again made whole, seemed a natural and necessary corollary of the war. Nothing less justified the terrible waste of life and treasure of that fearful struggle. Consequently, long before its close, before even it had reached the giant proportions it finally assumed, the thoughts of the loyal were turned towards the work of restoration and reconstruction. Before the close of the first year of the war, indeed, propositions were introduced into Congress looking towards the replacing, by loyal governments, of those traitorous bodies which had inaugurated and were then prosecuting the Rebellion. But the dangers and difficulties of such attempts, though not fully appreciated, were recognized. From the first, even superficial observers regarded with painful misgivings the efforts requisite to restore that national integrity which had been so ruthlessly destroyed. For it was most emphatically untrodden ground, an unexplored sea; and there were neither landmarks nor chart. As the ancient Greeks and Romans had, for a long time, no laws against parricide, "from an opinion that nobody could be so wicked as to kill his parents," so the framers of the Constitution did not seem to have had in mind even the possibility that there could be parricides who would destroy the nation's life, or to have anticipated such a crime as the Rebellion proved to be. They left, therefore, no rules for the reconstruction rendered necessary. Without law, organic or other, without precedent, those charged with the work were required to be a law to themselves. The practical questions at issue were of extremest importance, and could be answered only by reference to first principles, by remanding them to those courts of last appeal, reason, equity, and the higher law. Naturally, not to say necessarily, there was difference of opinion and wide divergence of views among men equally earnest and equally honest in their desires and purpose to reconstruct what had been so basely destroyed. Grave questions arose. What constitutes a State? Are the seceded States within or without the Union? Can State take itself out of the Union? Shall they be remanded to a Territorial condition, or still be treated as States? If reconstruction be attempted, what shall be the conditions of return? Whence shall the proffer originate? How many and who shall constitute the primordial elements of the new governments? To these and questions like these different answers were given, as concerning them widely divergent opinions were entertained? For there not only existed the chronic dispute, the conflicting theories, and the still unsettled questions concerning State rights and the line that runs between the jurisdiction. of the Federal and State governments; the Democratic assumption that the Rebel States did not actually, because they could not rightfully, secede, and, therefore, being States still, could legitimately - the Rebellion having been suppressed claim all that the Constitution guarantees to States that had not rebelled; but there were very serious differences among Republicans themselves, concerning both the principles in volved and the policy demanded. Though agreeing as to the self-destruction of the seceding States, their forfeiture of every right under the Constitution except as roughly put by some -"the right to be hung," their entire dependence upon the grace of the Federal government for pardon and restoration, they differed very materially as to the best method of exercising that grace, as to the location in the government, whether in the legislative or executive departments, of the power to exercise it. The President leaned to the opinion that it was work, at least its initiative, for the executive, while others deemed Congress the legitimate agent therefor. But, whatever differences might have existed concerning its methods and the time of its beginning, there was a general agreement that it was a work to be done, and that towards its accomplishment appropriate efforts should be directed. As early as December, 1861, not many months from the opening of the Rebellion, Mr. Harlan of Iowa introduced into the Senate a bill for the establishment of provisional governments for the territory embraced by the States of Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, and Tennessee. It was referred to the Committee on Territories; but it was never reported. A few weeks later, Mr. Sumner introduced a series of resolutions declaratory of the relations subsisting between the United States and the "pretended governments" of the States in rebellion. These resolutions declared that slavery, being a local institution, ceased with the State governments that had hitherto given it existence and support; that it was the duty of Congress to terminate its practical, as they had its legal, continuance; and that any recognition of slavery, or return of pretended slaves, was an unauthorized denial of the rights of persons who had thus become free. But no action was taken. In the House, on the 12th of March, Mr. Ashley of Ohio reported, from the Committee on Territories, a bill providing provisional governments for the territory in rebellion. But it was laid upon the table, Mr. Pendleton of Ohio remarking that it should be "entitled a bill to dissolve the Union and abolish the Constitution." On the 14th of February, Mr. Harris of New York had introduced a bill for a like purpose. When it came up for consideration, an amendment was offered providing against returning fugitive slaves and affixing penalties thereto; but it was laid aside, and did not come up again for action; and no other important measure was either adopted or proposed before the close of the session. 66 In connection with his annual message, on the assembling of Congress in December, in 1863, President Lincoln sent in a proclamation, which he had issued, designed to present to the seceded States "a mode in and by which the national authority and loyal State governments may be re-established." He began by reciting the fact of "a Rebellion," certain acts of Congress concerning "forfeiture and confiscation of property, liberation of slaves," and "conditional pardon"; several proclamations of the executive; and the expressed desire of some persons heretofore engaged in such Rebellion to resume allegiance." He then made proclamation that all such, by taking an oath of loyalty, which he prescribed, should receive pardon, restoration of rights of property "except as to slaves" and when "third parties" have intervened; excluding such, however, as occupied certain official positions in the Federal government when the Rebellion broke out, or, afterward, in the Confederate government. He proposed also that, if in any or all of these seceded States there were one tenth in number of the votes cast in the presidential election of 1860, who should subscribe such an oath, re-establish a State government, republican in form and recognizing the permanent freedom of the ex-slaves, it "shall be recognized as the true government of the State." He also gave his pledge that any proper "temporary arrangement" for the freedmen, as "a laboring, landless, and homeless class," would "not be objected to by the national executive." He admitted that Congress alone must be the judge of the claims of those who should be admitted to seats in either house; and he closed with these words: "While the mode presented is the best the executive can suggest with his present impressions, it must not be understood that no other possible mode would be acceptable." In the message itself, the President devoted considerable |