A year ago I remember
writing an article in which I revealed the depth of stupidity some on the left
show in regards to Lincoln. One writer argued that Lincoln wasn’t a real hero
because of a famous quote in which he said: “If there were a way to preserve
the Union without freeing a single slave, I would do so.” By association this
genius argued that Lincoln’s freeing of the slaves was empty because it was
simply a military tactic and not done out of some deep held belief.
This is wrong in so
many ways: first because Lincoln did believe slavery was an evil, something he
said multiple times in his political career before gaining the White House.
More prominently it shows the left’s own prejudice in which they seem to think either
that it would have been better for Lincoln to let the Union divide if it meant
slavery couldn’t go (which would be an argument against Lincoln’s message that
a house divided could not stand) or that somehow laws only work in the Peter
Pan sense of the word in which if you don’t believe in a low, it doesn’t work. I’m pretty sure the
slaves freed by the Emancipation Proclamation didn’t care if Lincoln believed
in the law or not.
That said, it is not
as if Lincoln deserves beatification. Several tactics he used during the war
were either close to violating the constitution or did so outright. In the 1862
midterms in Kentucky Republicans stationed troops around polling places and made
sure Democrats were threatened if they were dare to vote. Many Democrats, in
the days of open ballot, went home without voting. As a result Kentucky – and
by extension the House – ended up going Republican that year.
In later years when
rebel organizations in states like Indiana and Ohio tried to carry the fight on,
counties with Democratic majorities were referred to by Republicans as ‘nests
of traitors’. During the war Lincoln also suspended the writ of habeas corpus,
which meant many men were jailed without trial and held for the duration. While
some of these men were traitors, journalists and other figures known for being
‘disreputable’ were held in military locations, among them Fort McHenry. It was
not until after the war that the Supreme Court ruled in what would be known as
‘ex parte Milligan’ that these trials and convictions had no jurisdiction
because the civil courts were still open. The ruling took place on April 3,
1866, almost a full year after Lincoln’s assassination.
Many historians have
ignored this part of Lincoln’s behavior, even though evidence suggests he was
fully aware of it and said nothing. In a way what happened during the war had
repercussion far beyond the battles. For the remainder of the 20th
century, Republicans went out of their way to periodically remind voters that
the Democratic Party was full of traitors in order to win elections. The fact
that abolitionists used the machinery of the federal government to shift the
war from preserving the Union to freeing the slaves led to alienation among
Democrats in the South that has, in a sense, never gone away even with the
shifting of political labels. It would also lead to the sense of the Midwest
being a separate nation from the East, a divide that would effect how the
Republican Party operating for the next century.
Lincoln’s actions
also in a way have been the model for more than what happened during the war. His
use of ‘war powers’ a term never clearly defined is something that every single
President has used since to expand the power of the office beyond checks and
balances. While some would argue that he did so to preserve the union, it does
not change the fact that these noble words are little more than a variation of
‘the ends justifying the means” Both Democratic and Republican Presidents have
been more than willing to do similarly horrible things in war time and after
attacks ever since. It might be an exaggeration that there is a link between
Lincoln’s actions in the Civil War and the undeclared War on Terror, but it is
there without having to blink that hard.
They are the kind of
offenses that Northern Democrats often felt were impeachable and considered
Lincoln a tyrant for doing so. But it is worth remembering that Lincoln was
backed by this by a sufficient wing of his party who thought that his actions
did not go nearly far enough.
They were called the
Radical Republicans and just as frequently the Black Republicans. Both terms
were meant to be derivative, all those followed the ideology wore is as a badge
of honor. One of Lincoln’s greatest tricks as President was that he had to spend
much of term dealing with this groups unending frustration at every aspect of
his Presidency, particularly in regard to abolition and the prospect of
Reconstruction. Lincoln was able to hold these forces at bay during his term,
but after he was assassinated, it was inevitable these forces – many of whom
had supported Fremont for President before the tide had turned for the North –
were going to come into conflict constantly.
I will deal with the
four most prominent members of this party who were Johnson’s greatest
antagonists: Thaddeus Stevens and Benjamin Butler in the House of
Representatives, and Charles Sumner and Benjamin Wade in the Senate. All four
would have critical roles in what led to the conflict of Johnson’s presidency
as well as his impeachment.
Thaddeus Stevens had
begun his career in the Anti-Masonry Party in 1826, which largely formed in
opposition to Andrew Jackson. The party would be politically dead by 1836 but
Stevens remained an opponent of the Masonic order for the rest of the life. It would
be the first of many issues that made him a political gadfly for forty years.
Born in Vermont, he
later moved to Gettysburg. He spent his career shifting from political party –
he was an alternate times in his life an Anti-Mason, a Whig, Know-Nothing and a
Republican. But he was by far the most prominent man in the north, far thinking
for even the abolitionists of the time. He was more radical then most
politicians, certainly earlier than Lincoln. He refused to sign the 1837
Pennsylvania constitution because it would not enfranchise African-Americans.
He was active in the Underground Railroad and his housekeeper; a mixed-race
woman was rumored to be his longtime companion.
At least in public
Stevens was relatively moderate on Slavery until the Civil War – while he
supported its end and opposed its expansion but would not seek to disturb it in
the South. That quickly changed when he was elected to Congress in 1848. He was
a prominent opponent of the Compromise of 1850 and left the caucus in December
of 1851 when his colleagues refused to join him in its repeal. Retuning to
Lancaster, he joined the nativist Know Nothing Party in 1854 to gain more votes
to the Anti-Slavery movement. In 1858, with the Dred Scott Decision and
Buchanan’s unpopularity Stevens ran for Congress under the Republican label. He
had been one of the first men to join in 1855.
From the moment he
returned to Congress in 1859, Stevens became the South’s greatest antagonist.
At one point a Mississippi Congressman drew a knife on him on the House floor.
After Lincoln’s election in 1860, Stevens was unyielding in any last minute efforts
to compromise with the South. In a quote that gained national attention he
stated that rather than offer concession because of the election, he would see
“this government crumble into a thousand atoms”. While some abolitionists
wanted the South to go its own way, Stevens vehemently disagreed saying “the
forces of the United States would crush any rebellion.”
When war officially
began Stevens became the Confederacy’s boogeyman, arguing they deserved to be
crushed by force. Speaker Galusha Grow, a fellow Radical Republican, named him
chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. One of his first acts was
confiscate property, including slaves, of rebels. In November, he introduced a
resolution to emancipate all slaves, it was defeated. He quickly grew
frustrated with Lincoln and spend every waking moment demanding emancipation for
all slaves.
By the middle of the
Civil War Stevens was so hated that when he was North near Gettysburg in 1863,
Jubal Early learning he had missed the chance to capture Stevens said that if
they had: he would have hung him and divided his bones among the Confederate
states.
Stevens was portrayed
by Tommy Lee Jones in Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln and the portrayal of
Stevens is historically accurate. Stevens never much cared for Lincoln’s
caution but he advocated strongly on the house floor for the passage of the 13th
Amendment. Still he was not Lincoln’s biggest fan: at the 1864 convention
nominated him, he was disgusted by Johnson’s nomination. “Can’t you get a
candidate for Vice-President without going down into a damned rebel province
for one?” When Stevens learned Lincoln attempted peace talks with Confederate
leaders, Stevens was so outraged that he said that the voters should have
chosen Benjamin Butler instead.
He had his own plans
for ‘a radical reorganization of southern institutions, habits and manners’. He
left town in March of 1865 after being sworn in, demanding Lincoln to keep
pressing the South. Lincoln replied: “Stevens, this is a pretty big hog we are
trying to catch and to hold when we catch him. We must take care he does not
slip away from us.” Stevens left frustrated that his plans hadn’t taken. He
would never see Lincoln again.
Benjamin Butler was
an even odder political duck than Stevens. Growing up in Massachusetts, he had
initially been a Democrat who had supported the coalition of Free Soilers and
Democrats that led to colleague George Boutwell governor and got him elected to
the State Legislature. He initially supported pro-slavery Democrats such as
Franklin Pierce for President and ran for Governor in 1859 on a pro-slavery
platform. At the 1860 Democratic Convention, he had done everything in his
power to support Jefferson Davis for the nomination, believing only a moderate
Southerner could keep the Democratic Party whole. When the party did split, he
ignored instructions from the state party and supported Southern Democratic
Nominee John Breckinridge over Stephen Douglas. He ran for governor again that
year on a Breckinridge splinter of the Massachusetts state party and fell
woefully behind.
Butler’s views began
to change after Lincoln’s election. When a secessionist delegation from South
Carolina arrived he recommended to the lame duck President Buchanan they be
arrested and charged with treason an idea Buchanan rejected. A meeting with Davis
revealed to Butler his true principles and he returned to Massachusetts. He
informed the governor hostilities were likely and the state militia should
prepare for war.
Butler had military
experience, rising eventually to the rank of brigadier general of the Lowell
militia. In that capacity he arrived in Baltimore in April 19, 1861. His unit
helped restore rail service between Annapolis and DC, vital considering it
might be isolated from the free states if Maryland, a slave states, seceded.
His actions in the early weeks of the war brought him nationwide attention and
earned him the rank of major general. But after early defeats his force was
reduced by Winfield Scott, then the commander of the Union armies.
More significant than
Butler’s military triumphs were his decision to refuse to return to their
owners fugitives slaves that came within his lines. He argued that Virginians
considered them property and they could not appeal to the Fugitive Slave Law of
1850 because they were, in his words, ‘a foreign country.’ Lincon’s cabinet
would come to support Butler’s stance and extend it to the Union’s military
policy.
These decisions made
Butler a hero among Radical Republicans which made it difficult for Lincoln to
deny him postings with his horrible handling actions as military governor of
New Orleans. But he had the kind of political policies the radicals loved, including
his forming of the first African-American regiment in the U.S. Army. While most
of these units were commanded by whites, Butler broke precedent by
commissioning 30 African-American officers to lead them. Butler had immense
respect for these officers and they would serve him well in several major
battles to come. He ordered a special medal designed and struck that he would
award to African-American soldiers, known as the Butler medal and made sure
that many also received the Medal of Honor.
His political respect
among radicals masked the fact that he was often incompetent in command,
something that frustrated Grant when he took command of the Union Armies. Lincoln
had asked Butler to be his running mate in 1864 at one point. Finally after a
disastrous rout at Fort Fisher, Grant went over Lincoln’s head and ordered him
recalled.
After Lincoln’s
assassination, he and Johnson initially got along well. In fact Johnson would
consult him about whether Robert E. Lee could be prosecuted for treason. But in
reaction to what he considered a weak position on Reconstruction, Johnson ran
for Congress and won election in 1866. Indeed, in his first campaign in October
of that year he was campaigning across the country delivering speeches
promoting Johnson’s impeachment – something he began to work towards the moment
he took his seat in Congress.
If Thaddeus Stevens
was the loudest critic of Lincoln on the subject of slavery and the prosecution
of the South in the House, Charles Sumner, who like Butler hailed from
Massachusetts, was his equivalent in the Senate. Indeed, Lincoln frequently
lumped the two together as his largest
burden to bear. The South had hated him for far longer.
From the start of his
political career in 1845 when he criticized the move towards War with Mexico as
leading to the westward expansion of slavery, Sumner was the loudest voice in
politics about abolition. Indeed, in 1848 he declined a nomination for Whig
Party for the House so that he could help found the Free Soil Party, the first
major party with anti-slavery almost entirely at the center of the platform.
He was elected to the
Senate in 1851 and represented a break in Massachusetts politics. In his first
major speech in 1852, he denounced the just passed Compromise of 1850, calling
it a violation of the Constitution and an affront to the public conscience. His
opposition to slavery earned him few friends from either side of the aisle in
either party.
In May of 1856, he
denounced the Kansas-Nebraska Act in a two part speech, vehemently attacking
the two authors Stephen Douglas and Andrew Butler of South Carolina. Two days
after he finished his speech, Congressman Preston Brooks, a relative of Sumner
entered the Senate chamber and beat Sumner with a heavy cane, even after he
lost consciousness.
Both the beating of
Sumner and the reaction to it became a symbol of the polarization in the
antebellum period. In the North, Sumner was a martyr, praised throughout New
England. In the South, Brooks was praised as a hero, with newspapers
editorializing Sumner being caned every morning and Southerners sending brooks
hundreds of new canes. Sumner’s assault galvanized the Republican party, then
only two years old and turned it into a major political force.
It took Sumner nearly
two full years to recover from the physical assault and the psychological
damage he suffered. He did not return until 1859 and was no less determined in
his rhetoric. In the election of 1860, he rallied the anti-slavery forces and opposed
any talk of compromise.
When the war began
Sumner became the most prominent Radical Republican in the Senate and for the
next two years constantly visited Lincoln demanding abolition of slavery. He
demanded Lincoln emancipate the slaves under martial law, enlisting African
American’s in the Union Army and the establishment of the Freedman’s Bureau. He
was also one of the earliest advocates for Civil Rights, proposing multiple
bills even before the war was over.
His theory of
Reconstruction was among the most radical, saying that nothing beyond the confines
of the Constitution. He argued that by declaring secession the state government
had effectively killed themselves and could be regulated as territories that
should have to reapply for statehood under conditions of the national
government. His refusal to compromise inhibited his effectiveness as a
legislator and he was largely excluded from work on the Thirteenth Amendment,
in large part because he did not get along with Lyman Trumbull, the chair of
judiciary. He proposed an alternative amendment that would not only have
abolished slavery but declared all people equal before the law. The bill could
not get past the moderates in Congress. He also believed strongly in suffrage
for blacks, free homesteads and public schools. Just as far reaching was his
repeated efforts to remove the word ‘white’ from all Congressional acts
involving the naturalization of immigrants, particularly Chinese and other
Asians.
Finally there was Ben
Wade of Ohio. Wade had been part of the anti-slavery movement since 1831 when
he became a partner with Joshua Giddings, already one of the most prominent figures
in the movement. He was elected to the state Senate as a Whig twice between
1837 and 1842. He eventually became a presiding judge in the third district.
He was elected to the
Senate in 1851 and quickly became associated with future Radical Republicans
such as Stevens and Sumner. He fought against the passage of the Fugitive Slave
Act and the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and after the Whigs declined became a Republican.
Unlike many Republicans of the time (and in the future) he was heavily
criticism of many aspects of how capitalism was practiced, particularly special
privileges for corporations.
In March of 1861, he
became Chairman of the Committee of Territories. After witnessing the Union
defeat at the first battle of Bill Run, he was nearly captured by the
Confederate Army. He was chairman of the Joint Committee on Conduct of the War
and is Chairman of the Committee of Territories, was instrumental in abolishing
slavery in the federal territories.
Like his fellow Radicals,
Wade was highly critical of Lincoln. In one letter he said Lincoln’s views on slavery
“could only come of one born of poor white trash and educated in a slave
state.” He was angry as Lincoln’s slowness at recruiting African-Americans into
the Army and was (ironically considering Andrew Johnson’s part in its creation)
directly responsible for the passing of the Homestead Act.
Wade was also
critical of Lincoln’s plans for Reconstruction. In December of 1863, he and
Henry Davis, a fellow Radical Republican from Maryland, sponsored what would
become known as the Wade-Davis Bill. It mandated that half of all white male
citizens in the Confederacy sign a military oath of loyalty, complete
African-American male suffrage and Military governors for every state confirmed
by the Senate. Both houses of Congress passed it by narrow margins, but Lincoln
used his pocket veto and never put it into effect, believing the harsh nature
of it would make it too difficult to repair the ties within the Union after the
war. Both Wade and Davis would subsequently sign a manifesto, accusing the president
of seeking reelection by the executive establishment of new state governments.
Wade was as radical
as fellow Republicans Sumner, also believing in rights for trade unions and women’s
suffrage. Eventually Wade rose to the position of president pro tempore of the Senate in 1867.
A brief explanation
of this position is now important as it is directly relevant to Johnson’s eventual
fate. Established by the Constitution as being analogous to the Speaker of the
House, the power is more limited by comparison as the majority leader holds
most of the power. Presidents pro tempore are authorized to preside over the
Senate in the absence of the Vice President. Between 1792 and 1866, that
position was second in line in order of presidential only to the Vice President.
However through 1891, it was a position appointed on an intermittent basis
only, mainly when the Vice President was absent.
However between 1812
and 1889, the office gained heightened importance. On ten separate occasions,
the vice presidency was vacant: four times because of the death of a President
and on six other occasion because of the death of the Vice President. This
vacancy in the vice presidency could only be filled by a regular election and
as the Vice President, even after the ascension of both John Tyler and Millard
Fillmore was still considered a figure head job, if the position were vacant it
would remain so until the next election. (Indeed when William Rufus DeVane King,
Franklin Pierce’s vice president, died well before Pierce’s inauguration in
1853, the Senate spent all of Pierce’s
term with the president pro tempore presiding. )
Therefore when
Lincoln was assassinated and Johnson ascended to the Presidency, Wade was next
in line. Among the other jobs of the president pro tempore was to preside over impeachments
something that, prior to April of 1865, was unthinkable to happen to a President
as an assassination.
Lincoln had spent his
Presidency trying to complete the delicate balancing act of trying to save the
union while dealing with members of his own party who were, in almost every
respect, more critical of him than the Democrats were. Whether he could have
managed to do so in the aftermath of the war is something we will never know.
What is clear is that
whatever honeymoon Andrew Johnson might have been able to enjoy with them was
never going to last long under the best of circumstances. For all the contempt
these men held towards Lincoln, at the very least he was still the leader of
their party and their President. Andrew Johnson was a Southern Democrat, the
very kind of man that they had spent their careers considering nothing less than
traitors, in only because of an attempt at unity to win reelection, something
many had been reluctant to support him for. The enemy was now leading the
victors and that was likely too much for them to stomach.
In the next article I
will discuss Reconstruction, the historical irony about what Lincoln’s might
have had in mind and what Johnson did, and why things turned against him so
rapidly.
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