LITMIR.BIZ

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of our government on principles of eternal justice, which will endure for all time. There are those in our midst who are for perpetuating the institution of slavery. Let me say to you, Tennesseeans, and men from the Northern States, that slavery is dead. It was not murdered by me. I told you long ago what the result would be if you endeavored to go out of the Union to save slavery; and that the result would be bloodshed, rapine, devastated fields, plundered villages and cities; and therefore I urged you to remain in the Union. In trying to save slavery you killed it, and lost your own freedom.”^[40]

      In his letter to Hon. William Dennison, accepting the nomination, he wrote:

      The authority of the Government is supreme, and will admit of no rivalry. No institution can rise above it whether it be slavery or any organized power. In our happy form of government all must be subordinate to the will of the people, when reflected through the Constitution and the laws made pursuant thereto—State or Federal. This great principle lies at the foundation of every government, and cannot be disregarded without the destruction of the government itself.

      In accepting the nomination I might here close, but I cannot forego the opportunity of saying to my old friends of the Democratic party proper, with whom I have so long and pleasantly been associated, that the hour has now come when that great party can justly vindicate its devotion to true democratic policy and measures of expediency. The war is a war of great principles. It involves the supremacy and life of the Government itself. If the rebellion triumphs, free government—North and South—fails. If, on the other hand, the Government is successful, as I do not doubt, its destiny is fixed, its basis permanent and enduring, and its career of honor and glory just begun. In a great contest like this, for the existence of free government, the path of duty is patriotism and principle. Minor considerations and questions of administrative policy should give way to the higher duty of first preserving the Government, and then there will be time enough to wrangle over the men and measures pertaining to its administration.^[41]

      For reasons at which Mr. Lincoln hinted in his letter of March 26, 1863, few men in Congress exerted in the beginning of the war so decided an influence upon public opinion in the North as did Mr. Johnson. His conduct as military governor in no way diminished this popularity. His courage in that trying position no less than his devotion to the interests of the Union won him ardent admirers in every loyal State.

      Vice-President Hamlin appears to have been the victim of an intrigue which represented him as being no material source of strength to the government and as scarcely loyal to the administration. This injurious suspicion, which seems to have had no substantial basis in truth, happened to coincide with a growing conviction that the Republican party should strengthen itself by placing on the ticket with Lincoln some prominent leader of the opposition. In this connection the names of General Butler, John A. Dix, Daniel S. Dickinson and Andrew Johnson were mentioned. The last named was charged in his administration of the office of military governor with harshness and even with oppression. Investigation proved these rumors to be without foundation, and Mr. Lincoln was not displeased to find them groundless. It does not appear that he was especially favorable to Johnson, but he regarded him as indispensable to the Union cause in Tennessee; Johnson was a slave-holder, was somewhat more outspoken than Butler or Dix, and a more conspicuous representative of the large class known as War Democrats; above all he was an able exponent of Southern Union sentiment and he came from the very heart of the Confederacy. Perhaps no single element of strength made him more acceptable to the majority of the convention than this last consideration. Even these qualifications might not have singled him out for the distinction conferred were it not for the enthusiasm created by a remarkable speech of Horace Maynard, which mentioned Mr. Johnson as a man who “stood in the furnace of treason.” His administration as military governor had been distinguished for vigor and ability, and it does not appear that the radical Republicans then regarded his State without the Union. Some of his measures were undoubtedly severe, but the peculiar situation in Tennessee required the employment of methods not adapted to times of peace. Mr. Lincoln could not, of course, show his hand in the Baltimore convention. In fact he repeatedly declined to interfere.^[42]

      On October 15, 1864, the ten electors on the McClellan ticket presented through Mr. John Lellyett, one of their number, a protest to the President against the proclamation published by Governor Johnson relative to the pending election. His paper, they asserted, contained provisions for holding elections which differed materially from the mode prescribed by the laws of Tennessee. The proclamation, it was alleged, would admit persons to vote who were not entitled by the State constitution to participate in the election; by another provision which authorized the opening of but one polling-place in each county, many legal voters would be unable to exercise the franchise. The unusual and impracticable test oath proposed, was stated as a further grievance, and they complained generally of military interference with the freedom of elections. To their representations Mr. Lincoln replied orally that General McClellan and his friends could manage their side of the contest in their own way. He could manage his side of it in his way.^[43] In a written reply of the 22d, however, the President said that he perceived no military reason for interfering in the matter, and on the same occasion reminded the protestants that the conducting of a Presidential election in Tennessee under the old code had become an impossibility.^[44]

      In their reply to the written communication of the President, they asserted that an orderly meeting of General McClellan’s friends had been broken up by Union soldiers, and a reign of terror inaugurated in Nashville. These acts having been countenanced by Governor Johnson, they announced the withdrawal of the McClellan electoral ticket in Tennessee.^[45]

      In these circumstances the Union electors were, of course, chosen; but their votes, though offered, were not counted by Congress in the joint convention of February 8, 1865, for the reason that Tennessee was on November 8 preceding in such a state that no free election was held.^[46]

II

       LOUISIANA

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      The first movement toward reconstruction in Louisiana, as in the case of Tennessee, was bound up with the war powers of the President, and, no doubt, was made with some expectation of aiding his military plans. The thought of restoring a loyal government there proceeded quite naturally from the peculiar situation in the State. Though not so nearly unanimous for secession as South Carolina, her people acted with energy and promptness when they received tidings of “this last insult and outrage,” as the election of Mr. Lincoln was sensationally styled.^[47] Three days were deemed sufficient for deliberation, and the convention, January 25, 1861, passed an ordinance of secession. Two weeks before this assembly met at Baton Rouge, the arsenal and the forts, a public building and a revenue cutter had been seized by State troops from New Orleans. In the mint and the custom house of that city more than half a million dollars was secured for the Confederate States, and in accepting these funds the Montgomery Congress expressed its “high sense of the patriotic liberality” of Louisiana.^[48] This act of generosity, however, loses much of its merit when it is remembered that both the coin and bullion in the mint, as well as the customs, belonged to the Federal government. Besides, there was then no scarcity of money in the State, for Northern enterprise had found for her cotton and her sugar profitable markets both at home and abroad. It was benefits of this sort, enjoyed in the Union, that enabled Governor Moore in January, 1861, to report to his Legislature an overflowing treasury.^[49] This undoubted prosperity served only to aggravate the war fever. Enthusiasm in New Orleans was only less ardent and general than in Charleston. Business was almost suspended, and by the first of June no less than 16,000 residents of Louisiana were serving in the Confederate army.^[50]

      President Lincoln’s proclamation of April 19 preceding had inaugurated a blockade of every port within the State. The early days of July witnessed the disappearance of Governor Moore’s boasted surplus, and during the summer New Orleans became bankrupt;^[51] her foreign commerce was destroyed by the blockade, her credit had vanished. Though enlistments continued without interruption, signs of financial distress multiplied with the approach of winter. Rebellion, it was soon discovered, was

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