they had anticipated. They were well led in the great contest of 1866. In New England the President really secured no Republican support whatever. Soon after his accession to the Presidency he had induced Hannibal Hamlin, with whom he had been on terms of personal intimacy in Congress, to accept the Collectorship of Customs at Boston, but as soon as Mr. Hamlin discovered the tendency of Johnson's policy he made haste, with that strict adherence to principle which has always marked his political career, to separate himself from the Administration by resigning the office. It was urged upon him that he could maintain his official position without in any degree compromising his principles, but his steady reply to earnest friends who presented this view, was that he was an old-fashioned man in his conception of public duty, and he would not consent to hold a political office under a President from whose policy he instinctively and radically dissented. Mr. Hamlin's course was highly applauded by the mass of Republicans throughout the country, and especially by his old constituents in Maine. His action took from Mr. Johnson the last semblance of a prominent Republican friend in New England and gave an almost unprecedented solidity to the public opinion of that section.

The adherence of Mr. Seward to the Administration, the loss of Thurlow Weed as an organizer, and the desertion of the New-York Times, had created great fear as to the result in New York, but the popularity of Governor Fenton, supplemented by the support of Senator Morgan and of the younger class of men then coming forward, of whom Roscoe Conkling was the recognized chief, imparted an energy and enthusiasm to the canvass which proved irresistible. In Pennsylvania the contest was waged with great energy by both parties. The result would determine not merely the control of the local administration, not merely the character of the delegation in Congress, but the future leadership of the Republican party of the State. Simon Cameron sought a restoration to his old position of power by a return to the Senate. During the five years that had elapsed since he retired from the War Department Mr. Cameron's supremacy had been challenged by the political coterie that surrounded Governor Curtin. They boastfully proclaimed indeed that the sceptre of power was in their hands and could not be wrenched from them. But the reaction against them was strong and did not cease until Cameron had driven his leading enemies to seek refuge in the Democratic party.

In the West the hostility to the President and the support of the policy of Congress were even more demonstrative than in the East. All the prominent Republicans of Ohio were on the stump and the canvass was extraordinarily heated, even for a State which has had an animated contest every year since the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. Governor Morton's candidacy for the Senate gave great earnestness to the struggle in Indiana, while Senator Chandler not only rallied Michigan to the necessity of giving an immense majority, but with his tremendous vitality added nerve and zeal to every contest in the North-western States. The whole result proved to be one of commanding influence on the future course of public events. The Republicans plainly saw that the triumph of President Johnson meant a triumph of the Democratic party under an alias, that the first-fruits of such a victory would be the re-establishment of the late Confederate States in full political power inside the Union, and that in a little more than five years from the firing on Sumter, and a little more than one year from the surrender of Lee, the same political combination which had threatened the destruction of the Union would be recalled to its control.

The importance, therefore, of the political struggle of 1866 cannot be overestimated. It has, perhaps, been underestimated. If the contest had ended in a victory for the Democrats the history of the subsequent years would, in all probability, have been radically different. There would have been no further amendment to the Constitution, there would have been no conditions of reconstruction, there would have been such a neutralization of the anti-slavery amendment as would authorize and sustain all the State laws already passed for the practical re-enslavement of the negro, with such additional enactments as would have made them cruelly effective. With the South re-admitted and all its representatives acting in cordial cooperation with the Northern Democrats, the result must have been a deplorable degradation of the National character and an ignoble surrender to the enemies of the Union, thenceforth to be invested with the supreme direction of its government.

There was an unmistakable manifestation throughout the whole political canvass of 1866, by the more advanced section of the Republican party, in favor of demanding impartial suffrage as the basis of reconstruction in the South. It came from the people rather than from the political leaders. The latter class, with few exceptions, shunned the issue, preferring to wait until public sentiment should

become more pronounced in favor of so radical a movement. But a large number of thinking people, who gave more heed to the absolute right of the question than to its political expediency, could not see how, with consistency, or even with good conscience and common sense, the Republican party could refrain from calling to its aid the only large mass of persons in the South whose loyalty could be implicitly trusted. To their apprehension it seemed little less than an absurdity, to proceed with a plan of reconstruction which would practically leave the State governments of the South under the control of the same men that brought on the civil war.

They were embarrassed, however, in this step by the constantly recurring obstacle presented by the constitutions of a majority of the loyal States. In five New-England States suffrage to the colored man was conceded, but in Connecticut only those negroes were allowed to vote who were admitted freedmen prior to 1818. New York permitted a negro to vote after he had been three years a citizen of the State and had been for one year the owner of a freehold worth two hundred and fifty dollars, free of all incumbrances. In every other Northern State none but "white men" were permitted to vote. Even Kansas, which entered the Union under the shadow of the civil war, after a prolonged and terrible struggle with the spirit of slavery, at once restricted suffrage to the white man; while Nevada, whose admission to the Union was after the Thirteenth Amendment had been passed by Congress, denied suffrage to "any negro, Chinaman or mulatto." A still more recent test was applied. The question of admitting the negro to suffrage was submitted to popular vote in Connecticut, Wisconsin and Minnesota in the autumn of 1865, and at the same time in Colorado, when she was forming her constitution preparatory to seeking admission to the Union. In all four, under the control of the Republican party at the time, the proposition was defeated.

With these indisputable evidences of the unpopularity of negro suffrage in the great majority of the Northern States, there was ample excuse for the reluctance of leading statesmen to adopt it as a condition of reconstruction, and force it upon the South by law before it had been adopted by the moral sense of the North. The period, however, was one calculated to bring about very rapid changes in public opinion; and there had undoubtedly been great advance in the popular judgment concerning this question since the elections of the preceding year. The question was really in the position

where it would be materially influenced by the course of events in the South. The violence and murder at New Orleans in July had changed the views of many men; and, while the more considerate and conservative tried to regard that outbreak as an exceptional occurrence, the mass of the Northern people feared that it indicated a dangerous sentiment among a people not yet fitted to be entrusted with the administration of a State Government.

While these views were rapidly taking form throughout the North, they were strongly tempered and restrained by the better hope that the people of the South would be able to restore such a feeling of confidence as would prevent the exaction of other conditions of reconstruction and the consequent postponement of the re-admission of the Southern States to representation. The average Republican sentiment of the North was well expressed by the Republican State Convention of New York, which, after reciting the provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment, and declaring that "That amendment commends itself, by its justice, humanity, and moderation, to every patriotic heart," made this important declaration: "That when any of the late insurgent States shall adopt that amendment, such State shall, at once, by its loyal representatives, be permitted to resume its place in Congress." This view was generally concurred in by the Western States; and, if the Southern States had accepted the broad invitation thus given, there is little doubt that before the close of the year they might have been restored to the enjoyment of every power and privilege under the National Constitution. There would have been opposition to it, but the weight of public influence, and the majority in both branches of Congress, would have been sure to secure this result.

CHAPTER XI.

SECOND SESSION THIRTY-NINTH CONGRESS. — PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE. — REPEATS HIS FORMER RECOMMENDATIONS. — MISCHIEVOUS EFFECT PRODUCED IN THE SOUTH.THE TEN CONFEDERATE STATES VOTE ON THE FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT. - REJECTED BY EVERY ONE.-DEFIANCE TO CONGRESS.-MADNESS OF THE SOUTHERN LEADERS. - DeterminatION OF THE NORTH. -NEW PLAN OF RECONSTRUCTION.BILL REPORTED BY MR. STEVENS. — SOUTH DIVIDED INTO MILITARY DISTRICTS.BILL ELABORATELY DEBATED.-VIEWS OF LEADING MEMBERS. — EXTRACTS FROM SPEECHES. BLAINE AMENDMENT. - Debated in THE HOUSE. OPPOSED BY MR. STEVENS. REJECTED IN THE HOUSE. — ADOPTED IN DIFFERENT FORM IN THE SENATE. FINALLY INCORPORATED IN RECONSTRUCTION BILL. PRESIDENT VETOES THE BILL.-PASSED OVER HIS VETO.-CHARACTER OF THE MEASURE. THE SOUTH FORCES THE ADOPTION OF NEGRO SUFFRAGE. —NOT CONTEMPLATED ORIGINALLY BY THE NORTH.-CHARACTER OF THE STRUGGLE. - EXECUTIVE PATRONAGE. PRESIDENT'S POLICY TO BE SUSTAINED BY IT. THE POWER OF REMOVAL. - EARLY DECISION OF THE GOVERNMENT. — VIEWS OF MR. MADISON AND MR. WEBSTER. OF HAMILTON AND OF WASHINGTON. REPUBLICAN LEADERS DETERMINED TO CURTAIL THE POWER.-MR. WILLIAMS INTRODUCES TENURE OF OFFICE BILL. -SPEECHES OF EDMUNDS, HOWE, AND OTHERS. - PRESIDENT VETOES THE BILL.PASSED OVER HIS VETO.-DOUBTFUL CHARACTER OF THE MEASURE. — REPUBLICAN DISTRUST OF IT.-NEW STATES IN THE NORTH-WEST.-MR. LINCOLN'S POLICY SHOWN IN THE Case of NEVADA.-INCREASE OF FREE TERRITORIES. — NEBRASKA AND COLORADO APPLY FOR ADMISSION.-PRESIDENT JOHNSON VETOES THE BILL. - ADMISSION OF COLORADO PREVENTED. - POWER OF PARDON AND AMNESTY BY PROCLAMATION TAKEN FROM THE PRESIDENT. — SCANDALS REPORTED.

HE rejoicing over the result of the elections throughout the free States had scarcely died away when the Thirty-ninth Congress met in its second session (December 3, 1866). There was no little curiosity to hear what the President would say in his message, in regard to the issue upon which he had sustained so conclusive a defeat. He was known to be in a state of great indignation, and as he had broken forth during the campaign in expressions altogether unbecoming his place, there was some apprehension that he might be guilty of the same indiscretion in his official communication to Congress. But he was saved from such humiliation by the evident interposition of a judicious adviser. The message was strikingly moderate and even conciliatory in tone. The President re-argued his case with