A School History of the United States by John Bach McMaster

J >> John Bach McMaster >> A School History of the United States

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35

[Footnote 1: A table giving the size of the armies and the loss of life
will be found in _Battles and Leaders of the Civil War_, Vol. IV., pp.
767-768.]

%474. Suffering in the South.%--The South raised all the cotton,
nearly all the rice and tobacco, and one third of the Indian corn grown
in our country, and depended on Europe and the North for manufactured
goods. But when the North, in 1861 and 1862, blockaded her ports and cut
off these supplies, her distress began. Brass bells and brass kettles
were called for to be melted and cast into cannon, and every sort of
fowling piece and old musket was pressed into service and sent to the
troops in the field. As money could not be had, treasury notes were
issued by the million, to be redeemed "six months after the close of the
war." Planters were next pledged to loan the government a share of the
proceeds of their cotton, receiving bonds in return. But the blockade
was so rigorous that very little cotton could get to Europe. When this
failed, provisions for the army were bought with bonds and with paper
money issued by the states.

This steady issue of paper money, with nothing to redeem it, led to its
rapid decrease in value. In 1864 it took $40 in Confederate paper money
to buy a yard of calico. A spool of thread cost $20; a ham, $150; a
pound of sugar, $75; and a barrel of flour, $1200.

%475. Makeshifts.%--Thrown on their own resources, the Southern people
became home manufacturers. The inner shuck of Indian corn was made into
hats. Knitting became fashionable. Homespun clothing, dyed with the
extract of black-walnut bark or wild indigo or swamp maple or
elderberries, was worn by everybody. Barrels and boxes which had been
used for packing salt fish and pork were soaked in water, which was
evaporated for the sake of the salt thus extracted. Rye or wheat roasted
and ground became a substitute for coffee, and dried raspberry
leaves for tea.

Quite as desperate were the shifts to which the South was put for
soldiers. At first every young man was eager to rush to the front. But
as time passed, and the great armies of the North were formed, it became
necessary to force men into the ranks, to "conscript" them; and in 1862
an act of the Confederate Congress made all males from eighteen to
thirty-five subject to military duty. In September, 1862, all men from
eighteen to forty-five, and later from sixteen to sixty, were subject to
conscription. The slaves, of course, worked on the fortifications, drove
teams, and cooked for the troops.

%476. Cost to the South%.--Thus drained of her able-bodied
population, the South went rapidly to rack and ruin. Crops fell off,
property fell into decay, business stopped, railroads were ruined
because men could not be had to keep them in repair, and because no
rails could be obtained. The loss inflicted by this general and
widespread ruin can never be even estimated. Cotton, houses, property of
every sort, was destroyed to prevent capture by the Union forces. On
every battlefield incalculable damage was done to woods, villages,
farmhouses, and crops. Bridges were burned; cities, such as Richmond,
Atlanta, Columbia, Charleston, were well-nigh destroyed by fire;
thousands of miles of railroad were torn up and ruined. The loss
entailed by the emancipation of the slaves, supposing each negro worth
$500, amounts to $2,000,000,000.

SUMMARY

1. When the war opened, and the army and navy were called into the
field, Congress proceeded to raise money by three methods: A. Increasing
taxation. B. Issuing bonds. C. Issuing paper money.

2. Taxation was in three forms: A. Direct tax. B. Tariff duties. C.
Internal revenue, which included a vast number of taxes.

3. Paper money consisted of treasury notes, United States notes
(greenbacks), fractional currency.

4. Besides the cost to the nation, there was the cost to the states,
counties, cities, and towns for bounties, and in aid of the war in
general; and the cost to individuals.

6. There is again the cost produced by the war and still being paid as
pensions, care of national cemeteries, etc., and interest on the
public debt.

6. The cost in human life was great to both North and South; there was
also a destruction of property and business, the money value of which
cannot be estimated.

"_THE INDESTRUCTIBLE UNION OF INDESTRUCTIBLE STATES._"

CHAPTER XXX

RECONSTRUCTION OF THE SOUTH

%477. The Reelection of Lincoln%.--While the war was still raging,
the time came, in 1864, for the nomination of candidates for the
Presidency and Vice Presidency. The situation was serious. On the one
hand was the Democratic party, denouncing Mr. Lincoln, insisting that
the war was a failure, and demanding peace at any price. On the other
hand was a large faction of the Republican party, finding fault with Mr.
Lincoln because he was not severe enough, because he had done things
they thought the Constitution did not permit him to do, and because he
had fixed the conditions on which people in the so-called seceding
states might send representatives and senators to Congress. Between
these two was a party made up of Republicans and of war Democrats, who
insisted that the Union must be preserved at all costs. These men held a
convention, and dropping the name "Republicans" for the time being, took
that of "National Union party," and renominated Lincoln. For Vice
President they selected Andrew Johnson, a Union man and war Democrat
from Tennessee.

The dissatisfied or Radical Republicans held a convention and nominated
John C. Fremont and General John Cochrane. They demanded one term for a
President; the confiscation of the land of rebels; the reconstruction of
rebellious states by Congress, not by the President; vigorous war
measures; and the destruction of slavery forever.

The Democrats nominated General George B. McClellan and George H.
Pendleton. The platform demanded "a cessation of hostilities with a view
to a convention of the states," and described the sacrifice of lives and
treasure in behalf of Union as "four years of failure to restore the
Union by the experiment of war." McClellan, in his letter of acceptance,
repudiated both of these sentiments. The platform called for peace
first, and then union if possible. McClellan said union first, and then
peace. "No peace can be permanent without union." The platform said the
war was a failure. McClellan said, "I could not look in the faces of my
gallant comrades of the army and navy ... and tell them that their
labors and the sacrifice of so many of our slain and wounded brethren
had been in vain."

The result was never in doubt. By September Fremont and Cochrane both
withdrew, and in November Lincoln and Johnson were elected, and on March
4, 1865, were sworn into office.

%478. The Murder of Lincoln%.--By that time the Confederacy was
doomed. Sherman had made his march to the sea; Savannah and Charleston
were in Union hands, and Lee hard pressed at Richmond. April 9 he
surrendered, and on April 14, 1865, the fourth anniversary of the
evacuation of Fort Sumter, Anderson, now a major general, visited the
fort which he had so gallantly defended, and in the presence of the army
and navy raised the tattered flag he pulled down in 1861.

That night Lincoln went to Ford's Theater in Washington, and while he
was sitting quietly in his box, an actor named John Wilkes Booth came in
and shot him through the head, causing a wound from which the President
died early next morning. His deed done, the assassin leaped from the box
to the stage, and shouting, "Sic semper tyrannis" (So be it always to
tyrants), the motto of Virginia, made his escape in the confusion of the
moment, and mounting a horse, rode away.

The act of Booth was one result of a conspiracy, the details of which
were soon discovered and the criminals punished. Booth was hunted by
soldiers and shot in a barn in Virginia. His accomplices were either
hanged or imprisoned for life.[1]

[Footnote 1: The best account of the murder of Lincoln is given in "Four
Lincoln Conspiracies" in the _Century Magazine_ for April, 1896.]

%479. Andrew Johnson, President.%--Lincoln had not been many hours
dead when Andrew Johnson, as the Constitution provides, took the oath of
office and became President of the United States. Before him lay the
most gigantic task ever given to any President.

%480. Reconstruction.%--To dispose of the Confederate soldiers and
politicians was an easy matter; but to decide what to do with the
Confederate states proved most difficult. Lincoln had always held that
they could not secede. If they could not secede, they had never been out
of the Union, and if they had never been out of the Union, they were
entitled, as of old, to send senators and representatives to Congress.

[Illustration: Andrew Johnson]

But whether the states had or had not seceded, the old state governments
of 1861, and the relations these governments once held with the Union,
were destroyed by the so-called secession, and it was necessary to
define some way by which they might be reestablished, or, as it was
called, "reconstructed."

Toward the end of 1863, accordingly, when the Union army had acquired
possession of Tennessee, Arkansas, and Louisiana, Lincoln issued his
"Amnesty Proclamation" and began the work of reconstruction. He
promised, in the first place, that, with certain exceptions, which he
mentioned, he would pardon[1] every man who should lay down his arms and
swear to support and obey the Constitution, and the Emancipation
Proclamation. He promised, in the second place, that whenever, in any
state that had attempted secession, voters equal in number to one tenth
of those who in 1860 voted for presidential electors, should take this
oath and organize a state government, he would recognize it; that is, he
would consider the state "reconstructed," loyal, and entitled to
representation in Congress.

[Footnote 1: The Constitution gives the President power to pardon all
offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment.]

Following out this plan, the people of Arkansas, Tennessee, and
Louisiana made reconstructed state governments which Lincoln recognized.
But here Congress stepped in, refused to seat the senators from these
states, and made a plan of its own, which Lincoln vetoed.

%481. Johnson's "My Policy" Plan of Reconstruction.%--So the matter
stood when Lee and Johnston surrendered, when Davis was captured, and
the Confederacy fell to pieces. All the laws enacted by the Confederate
Congress at once became null and void. Taxes were no longer collected;
letters were no longer delivered; Confederate money had no longer any
value. Even the state governments ceased to have any authority. Bands of
Union cavalry scoured the country, capturing such governors, political
leaders, and prominent men as could be found, and striking terror into
others who fled to places of safety. In the midst of this confusion all
civil government ended. To reestablish it under the Constitution and
laws of the United States was, therefore, the first duty of the
President, and he began to do so at once. First he raised the blockade,
and opened the ports of the South to trade; then he ordered the
Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of the Interior, the
Postmaster-general, the Attorney-general, to see that the taxes were
collected, that letters were delivered, that the courts of the United
States were opened, and the laws enforced in all the Southern States;
finally, he placed over each of the unreconstructed states a temporary
or provisional governor. These governors called conventions of delegates
elected by such white men as were allowed to vote, and these conventions
did four things: 1. They declared the ordinances of secession null and
void. 2. They repudiated every debt incurred in supporting the
Confederacy, and promised never to pay one of them. 3. They abolished
slavery within their own bounds. 4. They ratified the Thirteenth
Amendment to the Constitution, which abolished slavery forever in the
United States.

%482. The Thirteenth Amendment%.--This amendment was sent out to the
states by Congress in February, 1865, and was necessary to complete the
work begun by the Emancipation Proclamation. That proclamation merely
set free the slaves in certain parts of the country, and left the right
to buy more untouched. Again, certain slave states (Delaware, Maryland,
West Virginia, Kentucky, Missouri) had not seceded, and in them slavery
still existed. In order, therefore, to abolish the institution of
slavery in every state in the Union, an amendment to the Constitution
was necessary, as many of the states could not be relied on to abolish
it within their bounds by their own act. The amendment was formally
proclaimed a part of the Constitution on December 18, 1865.[1]

[Footnote 1: Before an amendment proposed by Congress can become a part
of the Constitution, it must be accepted or ratified by the legislatures
of three fourths of all the states. In 1865 there were thirty-six states
in the Union, and of these, sixteen free, and eleven slave states
ratified the Thirteenth Amendment, and so made it part of the
Constitution. When an amendment has been ratified by the necessary
number of states, the President states the fact in a proclamation.]

%483. Treatment of the Freedmen in the South%.--Had the Southern
legislatures stopped here, all would have been well. But they went on,
and passed a series of laws concerning vagrants, apprentices, and
paupers, which kept the negroes in a state of involuntary servitude, if
not in actual slavery.

To the men of the South, who feared that the ignorant negroes would
refuse to work, these laws seemed to be necessary. But by the men of the
North they were regarded as signs of a determination on the part of
Southern men not to accept the abolition of slavery. When, therefore,
Congress met in December, 1865, the members were very angry because the
President had reconstructed the late Confederate states in his own way
without consulting Congress, and because these states had made such
severe laws against the negroes.

%484. Congressional Plan of Reconstruction%.--As soon as the two
houses were organized, the President and his work were ignored, the
senators and representatives from the eleven states that had seceded
were refused seats in Congress, and a series of acts were passed to
protect the freedmen.

One of these, enacted in March, 1866, was the "Civil Rights" Bill, which
gave negroes all the rights of citizenship and permitted them to sue for
any of these rights (when deprived of them) in the United States courts.
This was vetoed; but Congress passed the bill over the veto. Now, a law
enacted by one Congress can, of course, be repealed by another, and lest
this should be done, and the freedmen be deprived of their civil rights,
Congress (June, 1866) passed the Fourteenth Amendment to the
Constitution, and made the ratification of it by the Southern States a
condition of readmittance to Congress.

Finally, a Freedmen's Bureau Bill, ordering the sale of government land
to negroes on easy terms, and giving them military protection for their
rights, was passed over the President's veto, just before Congress
adjourned.

%485. The President abuses Congress%.--During the summer, Johnson
made speeches at Western cities, in which, in very coarse language, he
abused Congress, calling it a Congress of only part of the states; "a
factious, domineering, tyrannical Congress," "a Congress violent in
breaking up the Union." These attacks, coupled with the fact that some
of the Southern States, encouraged by the President's conduct, rejected
the Fourteenth Amendment, made Congress, when it met in December, 1866,
more determined than ever. By one act it gave negroes the right to vote
in the territories and in the District of Columbia. By another it
compelled the President to issue his orders to the army through General
Grant, for Congress feared that he would recall the troops stationed in
the South to protect the freedmen. But the two important acts were the
"Tenure of Office Act" and "Reconstruction Act" (March 2, 1867).

%486. The Reconstruction Act%.--The Reconstruction Act marked out the
ten unreconstructed states (Tennessee had been admitted to Congress in
March, 1866) into five districts, with an army officer in command of
each, and required the people of each state to make a new constitution
giving negroes the right to vote, and send the constitution to Congress.
If Congress accepted it, and if the legislature assembled under it
ratified the Fourteenth Amendment, they might send senators and
representatives to Congress, and not before.

To these terms six states (North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida,
Alabama, Louisiana, and Arkansas) submitted, and in June, 1868, they
were readmitted to Congress. Their ratification of the Fourteenth
Amendment made it a part of the Constitution, and in July, 1868, it was
declared in force.

%487. "Tenure of Office Act"; Johnson impeached%--By this time the
quarrel between the President and Congress had reached such a crisis
that the Republican, leaders feared he would obstruct the execution of
the reconstruction law by removing important officials chiefly
responsible for its administration, and putting in their places men who
would not enforce it. To prevent this, Congress, in 1867, passed the
"Tenure of Office Act." Hitherto a President could remove almost any
Federal office holder at pleasure. Henceforth he could only suspend
while the Senate examined into the cause of suspension. If it approved,
the man was removed; if it disapproved, the man was reinstated. Johnson
denied the right of Congress to make such a law, and very soon
disobeyed it.

In August, 1867, he asked Secretary of War Stanton to resign, and when
the Secretary refused, suspended him and made General Grant temporary
Secretary. All this was legal, but when Congress met, and the Senate
disapproved of the suspension, General Grant gave the office back again
to Stanton. Johnson then appointed General Lorenzo Thomas Secretary of
War, and ordered him to seize the office. For this, and for his abusive
speeches about Congress, the House of Representatives impeached him, and
the Senate tried him "for high crimes and misdemeanors," but failed by
one vote to find him guilty. Stanton then resigned his office.

SUMMARY

1. In 1864 the Republican party was split, and one part, taking the name
of National Union party, renominated Lincoln. The other or radical wing,
which wanted a more vigorous war policy, nominated Fremont and Cochrane.
The Democrats declared the war a failure, demanded peace, and nominated
McClellan and Pendleton.

2. The gradual conquest of the South brought up the question of the
relation to the Federal government of a state which had seceded.

3. Lincoln marked out his own plan of reconstruction in an amnesty
proclamation. Congress thought he had no right to do this, and adopted a
plan which Lincoln vetoed. His death left the question for Johnson
to settle.

4. Johnson adopted a plan of his own and soon came into conflict with
Congress.

5. Congress began by refusing seats to congressmen from states
reconstructed on Johnson's plan. It then passed, over Johnson's veto, a
series of bills to protect the freedmen and give them civil rights.

6. Six states accepted the terms of reconstruction offered, and their
senators and representatives were admitted to Congress (1868).

7. Johnson, in 1866, traveled about the West abusing Congress. For this,
and chiefly for his disregard of the Tenure of Office Act, he was
impeached by the House and tried and acquitted by the Senate.

* * * * *

RECONSTRUCTON.

Lincoln's plan ...

States cannot secede; only some of their people were in insurrection.
Amnesty proclamation.
Recognizes Arkansas, Tennessee, and Louisiana.
Thirteenth Amendment.

Johnson's plan ...

Provisional governors.
Ratify Thirteenth Amendment.
New state constitutions made.
Congressmen chosen.

Congressional plan ...

Congress refuses them seats.
Civil Rights Bill.
Freedmen's Bureau Bill.
Tenure of Office Act.
Reconstruction Act.
Fourteenth Amendment.

Johnson _vs._ Congress ...

Vetoes Civil Rights Bill.
Freedmen's Bureau Bill.

Denounces Congress.
Violates Tenure of Office Act.
Impeached.

CHAPTER XXXI

THE NEW WEST (1860-1870)

%488. Discovery of Gold near Pikes Peak.%--In the summer of 1858 news
reached the Missouri that gold had been found on the eastern slope of
the Rockies, and at once a wild rush set in for the foot of Pikes Peak,
in what was then Kansas.

[Illustration: Crossing the plains]

During 1858 a party from the gold mines of Georgia pitched a camp on
Cherry Creek and called the place Aurania. Later, in the winter, they
were joined by General Larimer with a party from Leavenworth, Kan., and
by them the rude camp at Aurania was renamed Denver, in honor of the
governor of Kansas. In another six months emigrants came pouring in from
every point along the frontier. Some, providing themselves with great
white-covered wagons, drawn by horses, oxen, or mules, joined forces for
better protection against the Indians, and set out together, making
long wagon trains or caravans. All were accompanied by men fully armed.
Such as could not afford a "prairie schooner," as the canvas-covered
wagon was called, put their worldly goods into handcarts.

By 1859 Denver was a settlement of 1000 people. They needed supplies,
and, to meet this demand, the firm of Russell, Majors, and Waddell put a
daily line of coaches on the road from Leavenworth to Denver. This means
of communication brought so many settlers that by 1860 Denver was a city
of frame and brick houses, with two theaters, two newspapers, and a mint
for coining gold.

%489. The Pony Express; the Overland Stage.%--By that time, too, the
first locomotive had reached the frontier of Kansas. But between the
Missouri and the Pacific there was still a gap of 2000 miles which the
settlers demanded should be spanned at once, and it was. In 1860 the
same firm that sent the first stagecoach over the prairie from
Leavenworth to Denver, ran a pony express from the Missouri to the
Pacific. Their plan was to start at St. Joseph, Mo., and send the mail
on horseback across the continent to San Francisco. As the speed must be
rapid, there must be frequent relays. Stations were therefore
established every twenty-five miles, and at them fresh horses and riders
were kept. Mounted on a spirited Indian pony, the mail carrier would set
out from St. Joseph and gallop at breakneck speed to the first relay
station, swing himself from his pony, vault into the saddle of another
standing ready, and dash on toward the next station. At every third
relay a fresh rider took the mail. Day and night, in sunshine and storm,
over prairie and mountain, the mail carrier pursued his journey alone.
The cost in human life was immense. The first riders made the journey of
1996 miles in ten days. Next came the Wells and Fargo Express, and then
the Butterfield Overland Stage Company.

%490. The Union Pacific Railroad; the Land Grant Roads.%--Meantime
the war opened, and an idea often talked of took definite shape.
California had scarcely been admitted, in 1850, when the plan to bind
her firmly to the Union by a great railroad, built at national cost, was
urged vigorously. By 1856 the people began to demand it, and in that
year the Republican party, and in 1860 both the Republican and
Democratic parties, pledged themselves to build one. The secession of
the South, and the presence at Denver of a growing population, made the
need imperative, and in 1862 Congress began the work.

Two companies were chartered. One, the Union Pacific, was to begin at
Omaha and build westward. The other, the Central Pacific, was to begin
at Sacramento and build eastward till the two met. The Union Pacific was
to receive from the government a subsidy in bonds of $16,000 for each
mile built across the plains, $48,000 for each of 150 miles across the
Rocky Mountains, and $32,000 a mile for the rest of the way. It received
all told on its 1033 miles $27,226,000. The Central Pacific, under like
conditions, received for its 883 miles from San Francisco to Ogden
$27,850,000. But the liberality of Congress did not end here. Each road
was also given every odd-numbered section in a strip of public land
twenty miles wide along its entire length.

%491. Land Grants for Railroads and Canals.%--Grants of land in aid
of such improvements were not new. Between 1827 and 1860 Congress gave
away to canals, roads, and railroads 215,000,000 acres. This magnificent
expanse would make seven states as large as Pennsylvania, or three and a
half as large as Oregon, and is only 6000 acres less than the total area
of the thirteen original states with their present boundaries.

Although the roads were chartered in 1862, the work of construction was
slow at first, and the last rail was not laid till May 10, 1869.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35