The Restoration of the Union.

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my possession, and from that which I have recently derived from the most reliable authority, I am induced to cherish the belief that sectional animosity is surely and rapidly merging itself into a spirit of nationality, and that representation, connected with a properly adjusted system of taxation, will result in a harmonious restoration of the relations of the States to the national Union.

The report of Carl Schurz is herewith transmitted as requested by the Senate. No reports from Hon. John Covode have been received by the President. The attention of the Senate is invited to the accompanying report of Lieutenant-Gen. Grant, who recently made a tour of inspection through several of the States whose inhabitants participated in the rebellion. ANDREW JOHNSON.

The report of Lieutenant-General Grant, which accompanied the President's communication, contained the following paragraph which illustrates the sentiment of the entire report:

I am satisfied that the mass of thinking men of the South accept the present situation of affairs in good faith. The questions which have heretofore divided the sentiments of the people of the two sections-Slavery and State rights, or the right of a State to secede from the Union-they regard as having been settled forever by the highest tribunal, arms, that man can resort to. I was pleased to learn from the leading men whom I met, that they not only accepted the decision arrived at as final, but that now, when the smoke of battle has cleared away and time has been given for reflection, this decision has been a fortunate one for the whole country, they receiving like benefits from it with those who opposed them in the field and in council.

General Grant in this report called attention to the operations of the Freedmen's Bureau with certain suggestions for future policy concerning this now most important feature of reconstruction.

Early during the war it became apparent that some action must be taken for the relief of those helpless negroes now freed, and without support or means of subsistence. Before the end of 1865 at least half a million of these impoverished and helpless blacks had thrown themselves upon the Government for support. Attempts to establish bureaus for their relief had failed both in 1863 and 1864, but on March 3, 1865,

was enacted the first Freedmen's Bureau bill. It established a "bureau of refugees, freedmen, and abandoned lands" under the control of the War Department, to continue for one year after the close of the rebellion; it authorized the appointment of a chief commissioner, and gave authority to the President to set apart confiscated or abandoned lands in the South for the use of the bureau; it authorized the assignment to each refugee or freedman of not more than forty acres, and guaranteed the possession of such land for three years. General O. O. Howard was appointed by the President chief commissioner, who appointed his staff almost entirely from the officers of the regular army, and the first year's administration of the bureau was both economical and satisfactory.

On February 6, 1866, a supplementary bill was passed, continuing the bureau until otherwise provided by law, authorizing the issue of provisions, clothing, fuel, and other supplies to destitute refugees and freedmen, and made it a penal offence to attempt to deny or hinder the civil rights or immunities of freedmen. President Johnson vetoed the bill February 19th, claiming that it abolished trial by jury in the South, and substituted trial by court-martial; that this abolition was apparently permanent, not temporary; that the bureau was a costly system of poor-relief, and that Congress had no power to apply the public money for this purpose.

On July, 1866, a second Freedmen's Bureau bill was passed corresponding in general to the February bill, but continuing the bureau for two years only. It was vetoed on July 16th, and was passed the same day over the veto. The powers of the bureau were considerably enlarged, and the chief commissioner was authorized to use its funds at discretion, to apply the property of the Confederate States to the education of freedmen, to co-operate with private freedmen's aid societies, and to take military jurisdiction against the civil rights or immunities of freedmen.

The famous Civil Rights bill was passed by the Senate February 2, 1866, by a vote of 33 to 12, and by the House, March 13th, by a vote of 111 to 38. An abstract of its several sections is taken as follows from Lalor's Cyclopedia :

The Fourteenth Amendment.

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1. All persons born in the United States and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, were hereby declared to be citizens of the United States, having the same right as white citizens in every state and territory to sue and to be sued, make and enforce contracts, take and convey property, and enjoy all civil rights whatever. 2. Any person who, under color of any state law, deprived any such citizen of any civil rights secured by this act was made guilty of a misdemeanor. 3. Cognizance of offenses against the act was entirely taken away from state courts and given to federal courts. 4. Officers of the United States courts or of the freedmen's bureau, and special executive agents, were charged with the execution of the act. 5. If such officers refused to execute the act, they were made subject to fine. 6. Resistance to the officers subjected the offender to fine and imprisonment. 7. This section related to fees. 8. The president was empowered to send officers to any district where offenses against the act were likely to be committed. 9. The president was authorized to use the services of special agents, of the army and navy, or of the militia, to enforce the act. 10. An appeal was permitted to the supreme court.

The bill was vetoed March 27th, and passed over the veto in the Senate April 6th, and in the House April 9th. Several attempts had been made to amend the Civil Rights bill for the purpose of overturning the Dred Scott decision. This was finally accomplished by the Fourteenth Amendment, which passed the Senate June 8, 1866, by a vote of 33 to 11, and the House June 13th, by a vote of 138 to 36. It was ratified by thirty-three of the thirty-seven States, and was declared in force July 28, 1868. The Amendment as added to the Constitution was as follows:

Article XIV., 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.

Section 2. Representatives shall be appointed 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 or 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 or 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 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.

The rupture between the President and Congress had widened with his two vetoes of the Freedmen's Bureau bill and the Civil Rights bill, and with the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment Congress felt quite satisfied to leave the issue to the country at the coming fall elections. The session of Congress closed on July 28th, after the enactment of 318 laws and the passage of 108 resolutions. The issue between the President and Congress was now fairly made.

CHAPTER XVII.

IMPEACHMENT OF PRESIDENT JOHNSON-CONVENTIONS OF 1868 AND ELECTION OF GENERAL GRANT TO THE

TH

PRESIDENCY.

HE Republican party took sides with and gave its most emphatic approval to the course of its Senators and Representatives in Congress. The Republican State Conventions in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania declared against the President's policy, and affirmed that reconstruction must be effected by "the law-making power of the Government." In not a single State was the President's policy approved by the Republicans. The opportunity, however, was eagerly grasped by the Democrats, and the leaders of that party united with the president. Republican and war Democrat supporters called a national convention to meet at Philadelphia, August 14, 1866. The convention met, with John A. Dix of New York as temporary chairman; Senator Doolittle of Wisconsin as president, and Henry J. Raymond of New York, who was chairman of the Republican National Committee, as chairman of the Committee on Resolutions. The dramatic entrance of the delegates from Massachusetts and South Carolina gave the gathering the nickname of the “Arm-in-Arm Convention." The assemblage was nothing more nor less than a well-contrived political movement on the part of the friends of the President to bolster up his policy and offset the opposition of Congress. The movement, however, was unsuccessful, and resulted in the denouncement of Secretary Seward by almost every Republican platform, and