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however, elapsed before their mistake was seen, and it became apparent that men had greatly underestimated the magnitude and difficulty of the work to be done, misunderstood Mr. Johnson, and overestimated his qualifications therefor. And still the solution lingers, and men are no wiser than when the blow fell. It still remains a mystery why the good President should die just as victory crowned the Union arms, the success of his stormy and eventful administration had become assured, and the great work of reconstruction was to be undertaken and performed.

What would have been Mr. Lincoln's fortune in grappling with this great problem, had he lived, is of course a question that can never be answered by a finite mind. That he did not fully comprehend its gravity and all the fearful elements that entered as factors therein, is made apparent, not only by the inceptive measures with which he inaugurated the effort, but by words he addressed his wife on the day of his death: "We have had a hard time together since we came to Washington, but now the war is over, and with God's blessing upon us, we may hope for four years of happiness, and then we will go back to Illinois, and pass the remainder of our lives in peace." Without attributing to these words, spoken

in the unconstrained intercourse of the domestic circle, a meaning they will not bear, it can hardly be supposed, had he fully comprehended the character of the work before him, that he would have spoken quite so pleasantly and hopefully of the years in which it was to be carried forward, if not accomplished.

CHAPTER XLIII.

MR. JOHNSON'S POLICY.

INHUMAN LEGISLATION.

Mr. Johnson takes oath of office. Remarks and replies to delegations. - Vigorons policy promised. — Republican hopes and expectations. — Change in the President's views and policy. — Interview with colored delegation. — Claims. -Announces an unfriendly policy. — Emigration. — Inferior race. — Dissev erance from and hostility to his party. Reasons. "Swinging around the circle." Bitter reproaches against Congress. Results. Revival of Rebel spirit. - Proclamation to North Carolina and other States. - Colored people excluded from suffrage. - Persecution of white Union men. - Unfriendly and cruel legislation. - Examples.

THE topical arrangement of chapters has rendered necessary an occasional though somewhat anachronistic reference to a few of Mr. Johnson's official acts as President, before mention of his sudden induction to office and the anomalous administration it introduced. His defection from the party that elected him, and the sharp and bitter antagonism it engendered, not only disappointed hopes his hitherto patriotic and heroic course had encouraged, but it made darker the prospect, more complicated affairs, and more desperate the situation. As that defection and the subsequent course of the President it introduced constitute an important, though dark chapter of American history, it may be well to note its singular and sudden occurrence, and the completeness of the change it inaugurated.

On the day after the assassination, Mr. Johnson, having been apprised of the event, took the oath of office, at his rooms, in the presence of the Cabinet, and of several members of Congress, and was thus quietly inducted into the high position so summarily vacated by the martyred President. In the few remarks made on the occasion as to "an indication of any

policy which may be pursued," he said it "must be left for development as the administration progresses"; and his own past course in connection with the Rebellion "must be regarded as a guaranty for the future." To several delegations which waited upon him he was, however, more explicit. To a delegation from New Hampshire, after saying that it was "not in the wisdom and foresight of man to prescribe a course of action in advance for such disturbed and perilous conditions as now exist in public affairs," and that the country must accept his past course, "especially that part connected with the Rebellion," as an indication of what the future must be, he added:

"I know it is easy, gentlemen, for any one who is so disposed to acquire a reputation for clemency and mercy. But the public good imperatively requires a just discrimination in the exercise of these qualities. What is clemency? What is mercy ? It may be considered merciful to relieve an individual from pain and suffering; but to relieve one from the penalty of crime may be productive of national disaster. The American people must be taught to know and understand that treason is a crime. Arson and murder are crimes, the punishment of which is the loss of liberty and life. If then it is right in the sight of God to take away human life for such crimes, what punishment, let me ask you, should be inflicted on him who is guilty of the atrocious crime of assassinating the Chief Magistrate of a great people? . . . . If his murderer should suffer the severest penalty known in the law, what punishment should be inflicted upon the assassins who have raised their daggers against the life of a nation, against the happiness and lives of thirty millions of people? Treason is a crime, and must be punished as a crime. It must not be regarded as a mere difference of political opinion. It must not be excused as an unsuccessful rebellion, to be overlooked and forgiven. It is a crime before which all other crimes sink into insignificance; and in saying this it must not be consid ered that I am influenced by angry or revengeful feelings."

To the delegation from Indiana he indicated his views upon another point. Speaking of the reconstruction of the States

lately in rebellion, and giving his "understanding of the genius and theory of our government," he said: "Then in adjusting and putting the government upon its legs again, I think the progress of this work must pass into the hands of its friends. If a State is to be nursed until it again gets strength, it must be nursed by its friends, and not smothered by its enemies."

To a colored delegation which had said to him that the "colored American asks but two things, first, complete emancipation, and, secondly, full equality before American law," and had added, "Your past history, as connected with the Rebellion, gives us full assurance that in your hands our cause shall receive no detriment, and that our liberty and rights will be fully protected and sustained," he replied: "I need not state to you my past history. It is well understood by you. In it you will find the guaranty of my future conduct toward your people. Where the colored people know me best they have confidence in me. No man can charge me with having proved false to the promises I have made to any class of the people in my public life.”

To a delegation from South Carolina as late as June, beside assuring them that, being providentially brought to his position, he intended to "exert the power and influence of the government so as to place in power the popular heart of this nation," and also affirming that "slavery is gone as an institution," he said: "The slaves went into the war as slaves, and came out free men of color. The friction of the Rebellion has rubbed out the nature and character of slavery. The loyal men who were compelled to bow and submit to the Rebellion should, now that the Rebellion is ended, stand equal to loyal men everywhere."

It is not surprising, therefore, with utterances like these, in such seeming harmony with his antecedents as a Southern Unionist, antecedents which had secured his nomination and election to the Vice-Presidency, - that many were disposed to regard his advancement to the Presidency at that particular juncture as but another evidence of Providential favor, if not of Divine interposition, by which the nation was to be saved from what many feared might prove Mr. Lincoln's ill-timed

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leniency and misplaced confidence. Feeling that the exigency required a man of a more iron will, and more inflexible purpose, and less sympathetic, they accepted these declarations of Mr. Johnson as indicative of the purpose that one, having fulfilled his mission by carrying the nation through the storms and perils of war, another, better fitted for the different work of reconstruction, was allowed to take his place.

Such gratulations, however, were of short continuance. Whatever the cause or design, the new President soon revealed the change that had taken place and the purpose to adopt and pursue a policy the exact reverse of what, with such prompt and unequivocal words, he had indicated. Instead of treating treason as a crime, making it "odious" and himself a terror to traitors, he pursued a course to conciliate their goodwill, secure their confidence, and become, if not the advocate of their cause, the champion of their claims for readmission to the Union with all the forfeited rights and immunities of citizenship restored. Instead of realizing the hopes and veri fying the assured confidence of the colored delegation that his hands their cause should receive no detriment, and that their liberty and rights would be fully protected and sustained, he soon became one of the most intractable opponents of the policy, deemed necessary by the freedman and his friends, for his protection, improvement, and elevation. For the details of the President's disastrous policy consequent on his defeetion there is not space. But of his complete disseverance from his party, of the prevailing tenor of his views, and of the general purposes of his presidential career, there is no of evidence, not only as announced in his numerous state papers, but as it obtrudes itself on the notice of every reader of the history of his strange and singularly unsatisfactory administration. But more direct and less capable of misap prehension perhaps were his less studied utterances, of which he was never chary, as expressed in speeches, and in replies to delegations who were often as much amused as provoked by his enunciation and defences of "my policy," his laughable exhibitions of self-assertion and self-laudation, and the reiter ated autobiographical reminiscences of his public life, with its

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