The latter declared that a generation must elapse "before the rebel communities have so far been changed as to become safe associates in a common government.Time, therefore, we must have.Through time all other guarantees may be obtained; but time itself is a guarantee."To the Joint Committee were referred without debate all measures relating to reconstruction, but the Committee was purposely making little progress--contented merely to take testimony and to act as a clearing house for the radical "facts" about "Southern outrages" while waiting for the tide to turn.The "Black Laws" and the election of popular Confederate leaders to office in the South were effectively used to alarm the friends of the Negroes, and the reports from the Bureau agents gave support to those who condemned the Southern state governments as totally inadequate and disloyal.
So apparent was the growth of radicalism that the President, alarmed by the attitude of Sumner and Stevens and their followers, began to fear for the Constitution and forced the fight.The passage of a bill on February 6, 1866, extending the life of the Freedmen's Bureau furnished the occasion for the beginning of the open struggle.On the 19th of February, Johnson vetoed the bill, and the next day an effort was made to pass it over the veto.Not succeeding in this attempt, the House of Representatives adopted a concurrent resolution that Senators and Representatives from the Southern states should be excluded until Congress declared them entitled to representation.Ten days later the Senate also adopted the resolution.
Though it was not yet too late for Johnson to meet the conservatives of Congress on middle ground, he threw away his opportunity by an intemperate and undignified speech on the 22d of February to a crowd at the White House.As usual when excited, he forgot the proprieties and denounced the radicals as enemies of the Union and even went so far as to charge Stevens, Sumner, and Wendell Phillips with endeavoring to destroy the fundamental principles of the government.Such conduct weakened his supporters and rejoiced his enemies.It was expected that Johnson would approve the bill to confer civil rights upon the Negroes, but, goaded perhaps by the speeches of Stevens, he vetoed it on the 27th of March.Its patience now exhausted, Congress passed the bill over the President's veto.To secure the requisite majority in the Senate, Stockton, Democratic Senator from New Jersey, was unseated on technical grounds, and Senator Morgan, who was "paired" with a sick colleague, broke his word to vote aye--for which Wade offensively thanked God.The moderates had now fallen away from the President, and at least for this session of Congress, his policies were wrecked.On the 16th of July, the supplementary Freedmen's Bureau Act was passed over the veto, and on the 24th of July Tennessee was readmitted to representation by a law the preamble of which asserted unmistakably that Congress had assumed control of reconstruction.
Meanwhile the Joint Committee on Reconstruction had made a report asserting that the Southerners had forfeited all constitutional rights, that their state governments were not in constitutional form, and that restoration could be accomplished only when Congress and the President acted together in fixing the terms of readmission.The uncompromising hostility of the South, the Committee asserted, made necessary adequate safeguards which should include the disfranchisement of the white leaders, either Negro suffrage or a reduction of white representation, and repudiation of the Confederate war debt with recognition of the validity of the United States debt.These terms were embodied in the Fourteenth Amendment, which was adopted by Congress and sent to the States on June 13, 1866.
In the congressional campaign of 1866, reconstruction was almost the sole issue.For success the Administration must gain at least one-third of one house, while the radicals were fighting for two-thirds of each House.If the Administration should fail to make the necessary gain, the work accomplished by the Presidents would be destroyed.The campaign was bitter and extended through the summer and fall.Four national conventions were held: the National Union party at Philadelphia made a respectable showing in support of the President; the Southern Unionists, guided by the Northern radicals met at the same place; a soldiers' and sailors' convention at Cleveland supported the Administration; and another convention of soldiers and sailors at Pittsburgh endorsed the radical policies.A convention of Confederate soldiers and sailors at Memphis endorsed the President, but the Southern support and that of the Northern Democrats did not encourage moderate Republicans to vote for the Administration.Three members of Johnson's Cabinet--Harlan, Speed, and Dennison--resigned because they were unwilling to follow their chief further in opposing Congress.
The radicals had plenty of campaign material in the testimony collected by the Joint Committee, in the reports of the Freedmen's Bureau, and in the bloody race riots which had occurred in Memphis and New Orleans.The greatest blunder of the Administration was Johnson's speechmaking tour to the West which he called "Swinging Around the Circle." Every time he made a speech he was heckled by persons in the crowd, lost his temper, denounced Congress and the radical leaders, and conducted himself in an undignified manner.The election returns showed more than a two-thirds majority in each House against the President.The Fortieth Congress would therefore be safely radical, and in consequence the Thirty-ninth was encouraged to be more radical during its last session.
