Part 2 — CHAPTER IV. Concerning the infallible teaching of the Roman Pontiff: (continued 75)

J. G. Blaine, Twenty Years of Congress, volume 2, chapters 3-4.

ALSO IN: S. S. Cox, Three Decades of Federal Legislation, chapters 18-20.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1865 (July-December). Reports of Carl Schurz and General Grant on the condition of affairs in the lately rebellious States.

In the summer of 1865 the Honorable Carl Schurz was commissioned by President Johnson to visit the Southern States and investigate the condition of affairs in them. Mr. Schurz, on returning from this mission, made a report of the result of his observations and inquiries, and the conclusions to which they led him, which was transmitted to the Senate, by the President, on the 18th of December. The views thus submitted were summarized at the close of the report, as follows: "I may sum up all I have said in a few words. If nothing were necessary but to restore the machinery of government in the States lately in rebellion in point of form, the movements made to that end by the people of the south might be considered satisfactory. But if it is required that the southern people should also accommodate themselves to the results of the war in point of spirit, those movements fall far short of what must be insisted upon. The loyalty of the masses and most of the leaders of the southern people consists in submission to necessity. There is, except in individual instances, an entire absence of that national spirit which forms the basis of true loyalty and patriotism. The emancipation of the slaves is submitted to only in so far as chattel slavery in the old form could not be kept up. But although the freedman is no longer considered the property of the individual master, he is considered the slave of society, and all independent State legislation will share the tendency to make him such. The ordinances abolishing slavery passed by the conventions under the pressure of circumstances will not be looked upon as barring the establishment of a new form of servitude. Practical attempts on the part of the southern people to deprive the negro of his rights as a freeman may result in bloody collisions, and will certainly plunge southern society into restless fluctuations and anarchical confusion. Such evils can be prevented only by continuing the control of the national government in the States lately in rebellion until free labor is fully developed and firmly established, and the advantages and blessings of the new order of things have disclosed themselves. This desirable result will be hastened by a firm declaration on the part of the government, that national control in the south will not cease until such results are secured. Only in this way can that security be established in the south which will render numerous immigration possible, and such immigration would materially aid a favorable development of things. The solution of the problem would be very much facilitated by enabling all the loyal and free-labor elements in the south to exercise a healthy influence upon legislation. It will hardly be possible to secure the freedman against oppressive class legislation and private persecution, unless he be endowed with a certain measure of political power. As to the future peace and harmony of the Union, it is of the highest importance that the people lately in rebellion be not permitted to build up another 'peculiar institution' whose spirit is in conflict with the fundamental principles of our political system; for as long as they cherish interests peculiar to them in preference to those they have in common with the rest of the American people, their loyalty to the Union will always be uncertain. I desire not to be understood as saying that there are no well-meaning men among those who were compromised in the rebellion. There are many, but neither their number nor their influence is strong enough to control the manifest tendency of the popular spirit. There are great reasons for hope that a determined policy on the part of the national government will produce innumerable and valuable conversions. This consideration counsels lenity as to persons, such as is demanded by the humane and enlightened spirit of our times, and vigor and firmness in the carrying out of principles, such as is demanded by the national sense of justice and the exigencies of our situation." With the report of Mr. Schurz, the President transmitted to the Senate, at the same time, a letter written by General Grant after making a hurried tour of inspection in some of the Southern States, during the last week of November and early in December. General Grant wrote: "Four years of war, during which law was executed only at the point of the bayonet throughout the States in rebellion, have left the people possibly in a condition not to yield that ready obedience to civil authority the American people have generally been in the habit of yielding. This would render the presence of small garrisons throughout those States necessary until such time as labor returns to its proper channel, and civil authority is fully established. I did not meet anyone, either those holding places under the government or citizens of the southern States, who think it practicable to withdraw the military from the south at present. The white and the black mutually require the protection of the general government. There is such universal acquiescence in the authority of the general government throughout the portions of country visited by me, that the mere presence of a military force, without regard to numbers, is sufficient to maintain order. The good of the country, and economy, require that the force kept in the interior, where there are many freedmen, (elsewhere in the southern States than at forts upon the seacoast no force is necessary,) should all be white troops. The reasons for this are obvious without mentioning many of them. The presence of black troops, lately slaves, demoralizes labor, both by their advice and by furnishing in their camps a resort for the freedmen for long distances around. White troops generally excite no opposition, and therefore a small number of them can maintain order in a given district. Colored troops must be kept in bodies sufficient to defend themselves. It is not the thinking men who would use violence towards any class of troops sent among them by the general government, but the ignorant in some places might; and the late slave seems to be imbued with the idea that the property of his late master should, by right, belong to him, or at least should have no protection from the colored soldier. {3563} There is danger of collisions being brought on by such causes. My observations lead me to the conclusion that the citizens of the southern States are anxious to return to self-government, within the Union, as soon as possible; that whilst reconstructing they want and require protection from the government; that they are in earnest in wishing to do what they think is required by the government, not humiliating to them as citizens, and that if such a course were pointed out they would pursue it in good faith. It is to be regretted that there cannot be a greater commingling, at this time, between the citizens of the two sections, and particularly of those intrusted with the lawmaking power. … In some instances, I am sorry to say, the freedman's mind does not seem to be disabused of the idea that a freedman has the right to live without care or provision for the future. The effect of the belief in division of lands is idleness and accumulation in camps, towns, and cities. In such cases I think it will be found that vice and disease will tend to the extermination or great reduction of the colored race. It cannot be expected that the opinions held by men at the south for years can be changed in a day, and therefore the freedmen require, for a few years, not only laws to protect them, but the fostering care of those who will give them good counsel, and on whom they rely."

39th Congress, 1st Session, Senate Ex. Doc. no. 2, pages 45-46, 106-107.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1865 (December). The end of Slavery. Proclamation of the adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1865 (JANUARY).

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1865-1866. The creation of the Freedmen's Bureau.

On the last day of the 38th Congress, March 3, 1865, an Act was passed to establish a bureau for the relief of freedmen and refugees. It was among the last Acts approved by Mr. Lincoln, and was designed as a protection to the freedmen of the South and to the class of white men known as "refugees,"— driven from their homes on account of their loyalty to the Union. The Act provided that the Bureau should have "supervision and management of all abandoned lands, and the control of all subjects relating to refugees and freedmen from rebel States, or from any district of country within the territory embraced in the operations of the army, under such rules and regulations as may be prescribed by the head of the bureau and approved by the President. The said bureau shall be under the management and control of a commissioner, to be appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate. … The Secretary of War may direct such issues of provisions, clothing, and fuel as he may deem needful for the immediate and temporary shelter and supply of destitute and suffering refugees and freedmen, and their wives and children, under such rules and regulations as he may direct. … The President may, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, appoint an assistant commissioner for each of the States declared to be in insurrection, not exceeding ten. … Any military officer may be detailed and assigned to duty under this act without increase of pay or allowances. … The commissioner, under the direction of the President, shall have authority to set apart for the use of loyal refugees and freedmen such tracts of land, within the insurrectionary States, as shall have been abandoned, or to which the United States shall have acquired title by confiscation, or sale, or otherwise. And to every male citizen, whether refugee or freedman, as aforesaid, there shall be assigned not more than 40 acres of such land, and the person to whom it is so assigned shall be protected in the use and enjoyment of the land for the term of three years, at an annual rent not exceeding 6 per centum upon the value of said land as it was appraised by the State authorities in the year 1860. … At the end of said term, or at any time during said term, the occupants of any parcels so assigned may purchase the land and receive such title thereto as the United States can convey. … On the 20th of May, 1865, Major-General O. O. Howard was appointed Commissioner of the Freedmen's Bureau. He gave great attention to the subject of education; and after planting schools for the freedmen throughout a great portion of the South, in 1870—five years after the work was begun—he made a report. It was full of interest. In five years there were 4,239 schools established, 9,307 teachers employed, and 247,333 pupils instructed. In 1868 the average attendance was 89,396; but in 1870 it was 91,398, or 79¾ per-cent. of the total number enrolled. The emancipated people sustained 1,324 schools themselves, and owned 592 school buildings. The Freedmen's Bureau furnished 654 buildings for school purposes."

G. W. Williams, History of the Negro Race in America, part 8, chapters 21-22 (volume 2).

As the original act, "by experience, had proved somewhat inadequate for the ends in view, Congress, in the early part of February, 1866, submitted an act amendatory … for executive approval. Its main features consisted in the reservation of three millions of acres of public land in the South from the operation of the homestead and pre-emption laws for occupation by former slaves at a rental to be approved by designated authorities, an extension of the former means of relief in the way of food and clothing, and the punishment, by tribunals composed of the agents and officials of the bureau, of all persons who should violate the rights under this act of its designated beneficiaries. … The President, chafing under the non-admission to their representation in Congress of the Southern States which under his policy had been restored, vetoed the bill February 19 on various grounds, among the more important of which, and the only ones of particular import, were that the measure violated constitutional guarantees in that no person by our organic code should be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law, and that taxation should never be imposed without representation. … February 21st the bill was again put upon its passage, but not obtaining a two-thirds vote in the Senate, consequently failed to become a law. … The third Freedmen's Bureau bill, of July, 1866, was another attempt to amend the original law of March 3, 1865, as to juridical measures for the enforcement thereof, and to perfect the distribution of the abandoned and confiscated lands of the South among the blacks. It was much milder in form than the one vetoed in February of the same year, as it did not make violations of the proposed law a criminal offence. {3564} It proposed to give jurisdiction of such violations, however, to military tribunals, made up of the agents and officers of the bureau, until the Southern States had been restored to their representation in Congress. … July 16, 1866, the President vetoed the bill as a matter of course. He could have pursued no other action without self-contradiction. Congress, moreover, could not have reasonably expected a different result. It framed the bill not with an eye for executive approval, but with regard to its ability to pass it over the disapproval of that official, which it did on the same day the veto message was received, thereby making it a law of the land."

O. Skinner, The Issues of American Politics, part 2, chapter 2.

"The law made the agents of this Bureau guardians of freedmen, with power to make their contracts, settle their disputes with employers, and care for them generally. The position of Bureau agent was one of power, of responsibility, capable of being used beneficently, and sometimes, no doubt, it was; but these officials were subjected to great temptation. … Nearly every one of these agents who remained South after reconstruction was a candidate for office; and many actually became Governors, Judges, Legislators, Congressmen, Postmasters, Revenue officers, etc."

H. A. Herbert, Why the Solid South? chapter 1.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1865-1866 (December-April). The Reconstruction question in Congress. The Joint Committee of Fifteen. The shaping of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The "independent measures of the Executive for reconstruction were far from giving satisfaction to the Republican party. Within a few days after the meeting of Congress, in December, 1865, Mr. Stevens, of Pennsylvania, asked leave to introduce a joint resolution which provided that a committee of fifteen members should be appointed—nine of whom were to be members of the House and six to be members of the Senate—for the purpose of inquiring into the condition of the states which had formed the so-called Confederate States of America. This committee was to report whether these states or any of them were entitled to be represented in either house of Congress. Leave was given to report at any time, by bill or otherwise, and until such should be made and finally acted upon by Congress, no member was to be received into either house from any of those states. All papers relating to this representation in Congress were to be referred to this committee without debate. This resolution was adopted in the House by a vote of—yeas 133, nays 36." In the Senate it received amendments which made it a concurrent, instead of a joint resolution, and which struck out the clause relating to the non-admittance of members from the States in question pending the committee's report, and also that which required a reference of papers to the committee without debate.

S. S. Cox, Three Decades of Federal Legislation, chapter 18.

The Joint Committee on Reconstruction was constituted by the appointment (December 14), on the part of the House, of Thaddeus Stevens, Elihu B. Washburn, Justin S. Morrill, Henry Grider, John A. Bingham, Roscoe Conkling, George S. Boutwell, Henry T. Blow, and Andrew J. Rogers; and by the appointment (December 21), on the part of the Senate, of William Pitt Fessenden, James W. Grimes, Ira Harris, Jacob M. Howard,. Reverdy Johnson, and George H. Williams. The most serious question connected with the problem of reconstruction was that arising from the great increase of representation in Congress, and consequent augmentation of political weight and power, that must necessarily accrue to the lately rebellious States from the emancipation of their slaves. To this question the Committee gave their attention first. By an original provision of the Constitution, representation is based on the whole number of free persons in each State and three-fifths of all other persons. "When all become free, representation for all necessarily follows. As a consequence the inevitable effect of the rebellion would be to increase the political power of the insurrectionary States, whenever they should be allowed to resume their positions as States of the Union. As representation is by the Constitution based upon population, your committee [said their report, when made, on the 8th of June, 1866] did not think it advisable to recommend a change of that basis. … It appeared to your committee that the rights of these persons by whom the basis of representation had been thus increased should be recognized by the general government. … It did not seem just or proper that all the political advantages derived from their becoming free should be confined to their former masters, who had fought against the Union, and withheld from themselves, who had always been loyal. … Doubts were entertained whether Congress had power, even under the amended Constitution, to prescribe the qualifications of voters in a State, or could act directly on the subject. It was doubtful, in the opinion of your committee, whether the States would consent to surrender a power they had always exercised, and to which they were attached. As the best if not the only method of surmounting the difficulty, and as eminently just and proper in itself, your committee came to the conclusion that political power should be possessed in all the States exactly in proportion as the right of suffrage should be granted, without distinction of color or race. This it was thought would leave the whole question with the people of each State, holding out to all the advantage of increased political power as an inducement to allow all to participate in its exercise." To this conclusion the committee arrived as early as the 22d of January, when they made a preliminary report, recommending an amendment to the constitution to the effect that "Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed: Provided, That whenever the elective franchise shall be denied or abridged in any State on account of race or color, all persons of such race or color shall be excluded from the basis of representation." Grave objections were found to the proposed exclusion of the colored race as a whole from the basis of representation, in case the suffrage should be denied to any part of it. It was shown, moreover, that disfranchisement might be practically accomplished on other grounds than that of race or color and the intended effect of the constitutional provision evaded. {3665} Hence the proposition of the Committee failed in the Senate (March 9, 1866), though adopted by the House (January 31). On the 20th of February, the Committee on Reconstruction reported a concurrent resolution, "That in order to close agitation upon a question which seems likely to disturb the action of the Government, as well as to quiet the uncertainty which is agitating the minds of the people of the eleven States which have been declared to be in insurrection, no Senator or Representative shall be admitted into either branch of Congress from any of said States until Congress shall have declared such State entitled to such representation." The House adopted this important concurrent resolution the same evening. In the Senate it was debated until the 2d of March, when it was passed by a vote of 29 to 18. On the 30th of April the Reconstruction Committee reported a joint resolution embodying a comprehensive amendment to the Constitution, designed to protect the rights of the freedmen of the South, as citizens of the United States, and to fix the basis of representation in Congress, as well as to settle other questions arising out of the Rebellion. As adopted by Congress in June, and subsequently ratified by the legislatures of the necessary number of States this became what appears as the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1866 (JUNE).

"This proposed amendment to the Constitution was accompanied by two bills, one of which provided that when any State lately in insurrection should have ratified the amendment, its Senators and Representatives, if found duly elected and qualified, should be admitted as members of Congress. The other bill declared the high ex-officials of the late Confederacy ineligible to any office under the Government of the United States."

W. H. Barnes, History of the 39th Congress, chapters 3, and 13-19.

ALSO IN: Report of Joint Committee on Reconstruction, 39th Congress, 1st session. H. R. Report, number. 30.

A. R. Conkling, Life and Letters of Roscoe Conkling, chapter 14.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1866. The Fenian movement and invasion of Canada.

See IRELAND: A. D. 1858-1867; and CANADA: A. D. 1866-1871.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1866 (February). The French warned out of Mexico.

See MEXICO: A. D.1861-1867.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1866 (April). The passage of the first Civil Rights Bill over the President's veto.

"Immediately on the reassembling of Congress after the holidays, January 5, 1866, Mr. Trumbull [in the Senate], in pursuance of previous notice, introduced a bill 'to protect all persons in the United States in their civil rights, and furnish the means of their vindication.' This bill, having been read twice, was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary." A few days later the bill was reported back from the Committee, and it came up for discussion on the 29th of January. On the 1st of February it passed the Senate and went to the House. In that body it was reported from the Judiciary Committee on the 1st of March, and debate upon the measure began. It passed the House, with some amendments, March 13th, by a vote of 111 to 38. The amendments of the House were agreed to by the Senate, and it went to the President, who returned it with an elaborate veto message on the 27th of March. In the Senate, on the 6th of April, by 33 ayes to 15 nays, and in the House three days later, by 122 affirmative votes to 41 in the negative, the bill was passed notwithstanding the veto, and became law. As enacted, the Civil Rights Bill declared "that all persons born in the United States and not subject to any foreign Power, excluding Indians not taxed, are … citizens of the United States; and such citizens of every race and color, without regard to any previous condition of slavery or involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, … shall have the same right in every State and Territory of the United States to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties, and give evidence, to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey real and personal property, and to full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of person and property as is enjoyed by white citizens, and shall be subject to like punishment, pains, and penalties, and to none other, any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom to the contrary notwithstanding." Section 2 of the act provided penalties for its violation. The remaining sections gave to the district and circuit courts of the United States cognizance of all crimes and offenses committed against the provisions of the act; extended the jurisdiction of those courts and enlarged and defined the powers and duties of the district attorneys, marshals, deputy marshals and commissioners of the United States, to that end; made it lawful for the President "to employ such part of the land or naval forces of the United States, or of the militia, as shall be necessary to prevent the violation and enforce the due execution of this act;" and, finally, provided that "upon all questions of law arising in any cause under the provisions of this act a final appeal may be taken to the Supreme Court of the United States."

W_. H. Barnes, History of the 39th Congress, chapters 9-11._

ALSO IN: H. Wilson, History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power, volume 3, chapter 48.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1866 (June). Congressional adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The joint resolution, embodying the important amendment to the Federal Constitution which became, when ratified, the Fourteenth Amendment, reported to Congress on the 30th of April, 1866, by the Joint Committee on Reconstruction was passed by the House of Representatives on the 10th of May, and by the Senate on the 8th of June, with amendments which the House concurred in on the 13th of June.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1865-1866 (DECEMBER-APRIL).

Having no constitutional power to veto the resolution, President Johnson sent a message to Congress on the 22d expressing his disapproval of it. The proposed constitutional amendment as it passed both Houses of Congress, and as it became part of the constitution of the United States by subsequent ratification of the States, is as follows:

"Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

{3566}

Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the executive and judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.

Section 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State Legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

Section 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

Section 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article."

W. H. Barnes, History of the 39th Congress, chapters 17-18.

ALSO IN: J. G. Blaine, Twenty Years of Congress, volume 2, chapter 9.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1866 (July). Restoration of Tennessee to her "former, proper, practical relation to the Union."

See TENNESSEE: A. D. 1865-1866.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1866 (July). The New Orleans Riot.

See LOUISIANA: A. D. 1865-1867.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1866-1867 (October-March). The Reconstruction issue before the people. Congress sustained by the North. President Johnson and the South. Rejection of the Fourteenth Amendment by the Southern States.

In the elections of 1866 the canvass turned upon the issue between Congress and the President concerning Reconstruction, and the popular verdict was overwhelmingly adverse to the Presidential policy, while a new Congress was elected far more Radical in disposition than its predecessor. Every Northern State was swept by the Republicans, with heavily increased majorities. Even those "which had been tenaciously Democratic gave way under the popular pressure. … The aggregate majority for the Republicans and against the Administration in the Northern States was about 390,000 votes. In the South the elections were as significant as in the North, but in the opposite direction. Wherever Republican or Union tickets were put forward for State or local offices in the Confederate States, they were defeated by prodigious majorities. Arkansas gave a Democratic majority of over 9,000, Texas over 40,000, and North Carolina 25,000. The border slave States were divided. Delaware, Maryland and Kentucky gave strong majorities for the Democrats, while West Virginia and Missouri were carried by the Republicans. The unhappy indication of the whole result was that President Johnson's policy had inspired the South with a determination not to submit to the legitimate results of the war, but to make a new fight and, if possible, regain at the ballot-box the power they had lost by war. The result of the whole election was to give to the Republicans 143 representatives in Congress and to the Democrats but 49." But when Congress assembled, in December, the President was found to be inflexibly determined to pursue the line of policy which he had marked out. In his message he reiterated his views "with entire disregard of the popular result which had so significantly condemned him. … The President's position … excited derision and contempt in the North, but it led to mischievous results in the South. The ten Confederate States which stood knocking at the door of Congress for the right of representation, were fully aware, as was well stated by a leading Republican, that the key to unlock the door had been placed in their own hands. They knew that the political canvass in the North had proceeded upon the basis, and upon the practical assurance (given through the press, and more authoritatively in political platforms), that whenever any other Confederate State should follow the example of Tennessee, it should at once be treated as Tennessee had been treated. Yet, when this position had been confirmed by the elections in all the loyal States, and was, by the special warrant of popular power, made the basis of future admission, these ten States, voting upon the Fourteenth Amendment at different dates through the winter of 1866-67, contemptuously rejected it. In the Virginia Legislature only one vote could be found for the Amendment. In the North-Carolina Legislature only 11 votes out of 148 were in favor of the Amendment. In the South-Carolina Legislature there was only one vote for the Amendment. In Georgia only two votes out of 169 in the Legislature were in the affirmative. Florida unanimously rejected the Amendment. Out of 106 votes in the Alabama Legislature only ten could be found in favor of it. Mississippi and Louisiana both rejected it unanimously. Texas, out of her entire Legislature, gave only five votes for it, and the Arkansas Legislature, which had really taken its action in the preceding October, gave only three votes for the Amendment. … It was naturally inferred and was subsequently proved, that the Southern States would not have dared to take this hostile attitude except with the encouragement and the unqualified support of the President."

J. G. Blaine, Twenty Years of Congress, volume 2, chapter 10-11.

{3567}

"No factor in those elections [of 1866] proved more potential than the rejection by Southern Legislatures of the pending Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. The clauses on which its acceptance or rejection turned in these assemblies were: Section II., which apportioned Representatives in Congress upon the basis of the voting population; and Section II!., which provided that no person should hold office under the United States who, having taken an oath as a Federal or state officer to support the Constitution, had subsequently engaged in the war against the Union. It was claimed by the friends of the Amendment to be especially unfair that the South should have representation for its freedmen and not give them the ballot. The right, however, of a state to have representation for all its free inhabitants, whether voters or not, was secured by the Constitution, and that instrument even allowed three-fifths representation for slaves. New York, Ohio, and other states denied the ballot to free negroes; some states excluded by property qualification and others by educational tests, yet all enjoyed representation for all their peoples. The reply to this was that the Constitution ought to be amended because the South would now have, if negroes were denied the ballot, a larger proportion of non-voters than the North. Southern people were slow to see that this was good reason for change in the Constitution, especially as they believed they were already entitled to representation, and conceived that they ought to have a voice in proposing as well as in the ratification of amendments. Five of the restored states had already ratified the Thirteenth Amendment, and such ratification had been counted valid. If they were states, they were certainly entitled to representation. So they claimed. It was perhaps imprudent for Southern people at that time to undertake to chop logic with their conquerors, or indeed to claim any rights at all. … The insuperable objection, however, to the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment was to be found in the clause which required the people of the late Confederate States to disfranchise their own leaders, to brand with dishonor those who had led them in peace and in war."

H. A. Herbert, Why the Solid South? (Noted Men on the Solid South) pages 15-16.

In a letter addressed, November 25, 1866, to General Richard Taylor, lately of the Confederate army, and brother-in-law of Jefferson Davis, General Grant wrote: "I have talked with several members of Congress who are classed with the Radicals; Schenck and Bidwell for instance. They express the most generous views as to what would be done if the Constitutional amendments proposed by Congress were adopted by the Southern States. What was done in the case of Tennessee was an earnest of what would be done in all cases. Even the disqualification to hold office imposed on certain classes by one article of the amendment would, no doubt, be removed at once, except it might be in the cases of the very highest offenders, such, for instance, as those who went abroad to aid in the Rebellion, those who left seats in Congress, etc. All or very nearly all would soon be restored, and so far as security to property and liberty is concerned, all would be restored at once. I would like exceedingly to see one Southern State, excluded State, ratify the amendments to enable us to see the exact course that would be pursued. I believe it would much modify the demands that may be made if there is delay." "But the President's endeavors did not cease. … He used all the authority of his office to dissuade the Southerners from accepting the amendment which the entire North had ratified. … He converted good feeling and good will on both sides into discord, and precipitated disasters almost equal to those from which the State had barely escaped. … This view of Johnson's conduct was thenceforth steadily maintained by Grant."

A. Badeau, Grant in Peace, chapter 5.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1866-1867 (December-March). The Tenure-of-Office Bill.

"Against the early decision of the founders of the Government, … against the repeatedly expressed judgment of ex-President Madison, against the equally emphatic judgment of Chief Justice Marshall, and above all, against the unbroken practice of the Government for 78 years, the Republican leaders now determined to deprive the President of the power of removing Federal officers. Many were induced to join in the movement under the belief that it was important to test the true meaning of the Constitution in the premises, and that this could be most effectively done by directly restraining by law the power which had been so long conceded to the Executive Department. To that end Mr. Williams of Oregon, on the first Monday of December, 1866, introduced a bill 'to regulate the tenure of civil offices.'"

J. G. Blaine, Twenty Years of Congress, volume 2, page 270.

"After grave consideration and protracted discussion in both houses of Congress, the [Tenure-of-Office bill] was passed near the close of the session. On the 2d of March [1867] the bill encountered the veto of the President, who saw in the measure serious interference with the ability of the Executive to keep his oath to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. The bill was immediately passed over the veto without debate. The act thus passed provides that officers appointed by and with the advice and consent of the Senate shall hold their offices until their successors are in like manner appointed and qualified. Members of the Cabinet hold their offices during the term of the President by whom they are appointed, and for one month thereafter, subject to removal by consent of the Senate."

W. H. Barnes, History of the 39th Congress, page 560.

Soon after the inauguration of President Grant, in 1868, the Tenure-of-Office act was so far modified as to practically release the President from the restraint which it put upon his power of removal.

J. G. Blaine, Twenty Years of Congress, volume 2, chapter 18, and Appendix B.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1866-1869. Organization of the Bureau of Education.

See EDUCATION, MODERN: AMERICA: A. D. 1866-1869.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1866-1871. The Ku-Klux Klan of the Southern States and its outrages.

"It would have been contrary to the experience of mankind, and an exception to all the teachings of history, if the social and political revolution which the results of the war had imposed on the states then recently insurgent had gone into operation peacefully, harmoniously, and successfully. It was impossible for such to be the case. The transition was from a state in which the superiority and domination of the white race over the colored race existed unquestioned for centuries. It was to a condition of things in which the most prominent whites were disfranchised and deprived of the right to hold public offices. Their late slaves were enfranchised, and the judicial and other offices were largely filled by dishonest and unfriendly strangers from the North. What was worse still, many of these places were filled by ignorant and brutal negroes. The transition was too sudden and violent. It was hard to submit to it quietly. {3568} No people, least of all such a proud and intolerant people as that of the South, could see their local governments transferred from their own hands into the hands of their former slaves without being goaded into violent resistance. This resistance took the form, in most of the Southern States, not of armed opposition to the Federal or the state governments, but of organized intimidation and terrorism. It was directed against the colored people and against their white allies and leaders. It made an objective point of the agents of the Freedmen's Bureau, ministers of the gospel, and school teachers,—all adventurers from the North, or men who had, in quest of fortune, immigrated into these states. All of these classes were regarded as public or private enemies. They were designated by the opprobrious title of 'carpet-baggers.' The history of these outrages fills many volumes of reports made by joint and separate committees of the two houses of Congress. It is from these volumes, from reports of military commanders in the South, and from other official documents, that the following epitome, exhibiting the lawlessness that prevailed in the Southern States during the … decade between 1865 and 1875, is made. These documents are so full of the details of crime and violence, and are so voluminous, that it is exceedingly difficult to select from them, or to convey a correct idea of their relations. Very soon after the close of the Civil War, almost as soon as the Reconstruction acts were begun to be put in operation, secret societies were organized in various states of the South. Their object, either secret or avowed, was to prevent the exercise of political rights by the negroes. These societies took various names, such as 'The Brotherhood,' 'The Pale Faces,' 'The Invisible Empire,' 'The Knights of the White Camellia'; but all these were finally merged into, or compounded with, the formidable and dreaded society denominated the 'Ku-Klux Klan.' Their acts of lawlessness and cruelty have passed into local and congressional history as 'Ku-Klux outrages.' The State of Virginia was a remarkable exception to the other states in its exemption from crimes of this character; while the two neighboring States of North Carolina and Tennessee furnished, perhaps, more material for investigation into Ku-Klux outrages than any other portion of the South. This barbarous and bloodthirsty organization is said to have originated in 1866. There is no doubt that the Ku-Klux Klan was organized at first only to scare the superstitious blacks. It is true that it arose out of the frivolities of some young Tennesseans. Horrid tales were told to frighten the negroes from roaming about and pilfering. The testimony before the committee on that subject, of which the writer was a member, showed that they daily visited houses and talked their foolish talk; that they were 'mummicking about,'—whatever that means. … There is no doubt that political reasons had their influence after the Ku-Klux were under way. … Certain it is, that they soon came to be made use of, in the most arbitrary, cruel, and shocking manner, for the furtherance of political ends, and for the crushing out of Republicanism in the Southern States; to which party the colored people were almost unanimously attached. The crimes and outrages narrated in these pages had their origin, almost exclusively, in political causes,—in the effort on the part of the whites to set at naught the rights of suffrage guaranteed to the negroes, and to exclude from Federal, state, county, and local offices all persons whose reliance for election to such offices was mainly if not altogether, on negro votes. General Forrest estimated the strength of the Ku-Klux organization in Tennessee at 40,000. He expressed the belief that it was still stronger in other states. The members were sworn to secrecy, under the penalty of death for breach of fidelity. Their ordinary mode of operation—as gathered from the mass of evidence—was to patrol the country at night. They went well armed and mounted. They wore long white gowns. They masked their faces. Their appearance terrified the timid and superstitious negroes who happened to see them as they rode past, and who then regarded them as ghostly riders. But most frequently they surrounded and broke into the cabins of the negroes; frightened and maltreated the inmates; warned them of future vengeance; and probably carried off some obnoxious negro, or 'carpet-bagger,' whose fate it was to be riddled with murderous bullets, hung to the limb of a tree, or mercilessly whipped and tortured, for some offense, real or imaginary, but generally because he was active in politics or in negro schools or churches. … According to the majority report of the Senate select committee of March 10, 1871, the Ku-Klux associations, by whatever name known, were instituted in North Carolina in 1867 or 1868. … The report of the Senate committee of the 10th of March, 1871, before referred to, recites a startling number of Ku-Klux outrages. They embrace whipping, mutilation, and murder. These cruelties took place in North Carolina, between December, 1868, and December, 1870. The report gives some of the horrifying details."

S. S. Cox, Three Decades of Federal Legislation, chapters 25-26.

"Senator Scott, in a speech in the Senate, gave as the result of the investigation that came to his own knowledge, as follows: In North Carolina, in 14 counties, there were 18 murders and 315 whippings. In South Carolina, 9 counties, 35 murders and 276 other flagrant outrages. In Georgia, 20 counties, 72 murders and 126 whippings. In Alabama, 26 counties, 215 murders and 116 other outrages. In Florida, in one county alone there were 153 cases of homicide. In Mississippi, 20 counties, 23 homicides and 76 other cases of outrage. In 99 counties in different States he found 526 homicides and 2,009 cases of whipping. But the committee state that in Louisiana alone in the year 1868 there were more than 1,000 murders, and most of them were the result of the operations of the Ku Klux."

H. Wilson, History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power, volume 3, chapter 45.

ALSO IN: Report of Joint Select Committee (42d Congress, 2d session, Senate Report, number 41).

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1867 (January). Negro Suffrage in the District of Columbia.

As early as the 18th of January, 1866, the House of Representatives passed a bill extending the suffrage in the District of Columbia, by striking out the word "white" from all laws and parts of laws prescribing the qualification of electors for any office in the District, and declaring that no person should be disqualified from voting at any election in the District on account of color. {3569} As it was known that the President would veto the bill if sent to him, the Senate held it until the next session. In December, 1866, it was called up in that body by Senator Sumner, and after considerable debate was passed, December 13th. On the 7th of January following it was returned by the President with his veto, but was passed over the veto by the Senate (29 to 10) the same day, and by the House (113 to 38) the day following, thus becoming a law.

W. H. Barnes, History of the 39th Congress, chapters 4 and 21.

ALSO IN: G. W. Julian, Political Recollections, chapter 12.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1867 (March). The Purchase of Alaska.

See ALASKA: A. D. 1867.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1867 (March). The Military Reconstruction Acts of Congress.

"Congress had declared amply enough how the rebel States should not be reinstated. Two years after the close of the war, however, the Union was still unrestored, and while claiming, under the Constitution, absolute jurisdiction of the question, Congress had failed to prescribe the terms on which the Union should be restored. … Both the country and Congress were at last convinced by the course of events that affirmative Congressional action was indispensable, involving the sweeping away of Mr. Johnson's ex-rebel State governments and the enfranchisement of the emancipated slaves. Mr. Stevens had been of that opinion ever since the emasculation by the Senate of the Fourteenth Amendment, as adopted by the House [which had proposed to exclude from the right to vote for Representatives in Congress and for Presidential electors, 'until the 4th day of July, in the year 1870, all persons who voluntarily adhered to the late insurrection, giving it aid and comfort'], and immediately thereupon proposed a measure containing the germ of the Military Reconstruction Act. Called up from time to time, and pressed upon the attention of the House by Mr. Stevens, it was passed on the 13th day of February, 1867, after a four weeks' debate upon it in Committee of the Whole. By the 20th both Houses had agreed upon it, and passed it. On the 2d day of March the President returned it to the House with his veto, over which it was at once passed by both Houses; and with only two days of the Thirty-ninth Congress to spare, it become law."

O. J. Hollister, Life of Schuyler Colfax, chapter 9.

The Military Reconstruction Act set forth in its preamble that "Whereas, no legal State governments or adequate protection for life or property now exists in the rebel States [enumerating all the late Confederate States except Tennessee]; … and whereas it is necessary that peace and good order should be enforced in said States until loyal and republican State governments can be legally established: therefore, Be it enacted, … That said rebel States shall be divided into military districts and made subject to the military authority of the United States, as hereinafter prescribed; and for that purpose Virginia shall constitute the first district, North Carolina and South Carolina the second district, Georgia, Alabama and Florida the third district, Mississippi and Arkansas the fourth district, and Louisiana and Texas the fifth district." Sections 2, 3 and 4 of the act made it the duty of the President to assign to the command of each of the said districts an officer of the army not below the rank of brigadier-general, and defined the duties and powers of such commander, providing for the assignment to him of an adequate military force. Section 5 provided "That when the people of any one of said rebel States shall have formed a constitution of government in conformity with the Constitution of the United States in all respects, framed by a convention of delegates elected by the male citizens of said State 21 years old and upward, of whatever race, color, or previous condition, who have been resident in said State for one year previous to the day of such election, except such as may be disfranchised for participation in the rebellion or for felony at common law, and when such constitution shall provide that the elective franchise shall be enjoyed by all such persons as have the qualifications herein stated for electors of delegates, and when such constitution shall be ratified by a majority of the persons voting on the question of ratification who are qualified as electors for delegates, and when such constitution shall have heen submitted to Congress for examination and approval, and Congress shall have approved the same, and when said State, by a vote of its Legislature elected under said constitution, shall have adopted the amendment to the Constitution of the United States, proposed by the Thirty-ninth Congress, and known as article fourteen, and when said article shall have become a part of the Constitution of the United States, said State shall be declared entitled to representation in Congress, and Senators and Representatives shall be admitted therefrom on their taking the oath prescribed by law, and then and thereafter the preceding sections of this act shall be inoperative in said State." It was further provided that no person excluded from office by the Fourteenth Amendment should be a member of the convention to frame a constitution for any of said rebel States, and that any civil government which might exist in any of the said States prior to the admission of its representatives to Congress should be deemed provisional only, and subject to the paramount authority of the United States. "The friends of this measure were dissatisfied with it on the ground of its incompleteness in not containing provisions for carrying it into effect in accordance with the purpose of its framers. … The Fortieth Congress, meeting on the 4th of March, immediately upon the close of its predecessor, proceeded without delay to perfect and pass over the President's veto [March 23, 1867] a bill supplementary to the act to provide for the more efficient government of the rebel States." By this supplementary act specific instructions were given as to the course of procedure to be followed in making a registration of the voters qualified under the act and in conducting the elections provided for.

W. H. Barnes, History of the 39th Congress, chapter 22.

ALSO IN: Why the Solid South? (Noted Men on the Solid South.)

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1868 (March-May). Impeachment and Trial of President Johnson.

"Until the spring of 1866, a year after Mr. Johnson became President, there was entire harmony between him and his Cabinet. … No objection was raised even to that part of the President's first message which treated of the suffrage question, by any member of the Cabinet. It was in fact approved by all, and by none more heartily than by Mr. Stanton. A change took place soon after the Civil Rights bill became a law over the President's veto, and bitter controversy arose between the President and Congress. {3570} In this controversy, and at its commencement, Mr. Dennison [Postmaster-general] and Mr. Harlan [Secretary of the Interior] sided with Congress and tendered their resignations, which were very reluctantly accepted. They resigned because they could not heartily sustain the President, but there was no breach of the social relations which had existed between them. Mr. Speed [Attorney-general] soon after followed the example of Dennison and Harlan. Mr. Stanton [Secretary of War] also sided with Congress, but he did not resign. He was advised by prominent political and personal friends to 'stick,' and he did so, contrary to all precedent and in opposition to the judgment of conservative men of his party. … He attended the Cabinet meetings, not as an adviser of the President, but as an opponent of the policy to which he had himself been committed, and the President lacked the nerve to dismiss him. … In this crisis of his political life, Mr. Johnson exhibited a want of spirit and decision which astonished those who were familiar with his antecedents. He knew when the Tenure-of-Office Bill was before Congress that the object of its leading supporters was to tie his hands, and yet he refrained from using them when they were free. … When he did act he acted unwisely. He retained Mr. Stanton in his Cabinet when his right to remove him was unquestionable. He suspended him [August 12, 1867] after the Tenure-of-Office Bill had become a law, and in accordance with its provisions, [directing General Grant to act as Secretary of War ad interim]; and when the Senate refused to approve of the suspension [January 13, 1868], he issued orders for his removal and the appointment of Lorenzo Thomas to be Secretary of War ad interim. If he had tried to give his enemies an advantage over him, to furnish them with weapons for his own discomfiture, he could not have done it more effectually. … If he had removed Mr. Stanton instead of suspending him, and justified his action on the ground that his control of the members of his Cabinet was a constitutional right of which he could not be deprived by Congress, he probably would not have been impeached. The gist of the charges against him was that he had violated a law of Congress in removing Mr. Stanton, or issuing an order for his removal, after the Senate had refused to sanction his suspension. In the articles of impeachment there were other charges against the President, the most serious of which were that he had delivered intemperate, inflammatory speeches, which were intended to bring into contempt the Congress of the United States and duly enacted laws. The speeches made by the President in Cleveland, St. Louis, and other places in August and September, 1866—in fact, all his public addresses during his contest with Congress—were in the worst possible taste, derogatory to himself and to his high position; but they … did not constitute good ground for his impeachment; and this was the opinion of the House, which in January, 1867, after they were made, refused to impeach him by the decisive vote of 108 to 57. Other causes for his impeachment were subsequently sought for. His bank account was examined. His private conduct in Washington was carefully scrutinized. Men were employed to investigate his public and private character in Tennessee, but nothing was found to his discredit. … Nothing was found to justify his impeachment but the order which he issued for the removal of Mr. Stanton and his appointment of General Thomas to be Secretary of the War Department ad interim after the Senate had refused to sanction Mr. Stanton's suspension." The formal presentment by the House of Representatives of its Impeachment against the President, at the bar of the Senate, sitting as a Court of Impeachment, was made on the 5th day of March, 1868. The answer of the President was presented on the 23d; the trial opened on Monday, the 30th of March, and closed on the 26th of May following. "The trial was a very interesting one, not only to the people of the United States, but to the people of other countries. … It was the first instance in the history of nations of the trial of the head of a government before one of the branches of the law-making power, sitting as a judicial tribunal, on charges presented by another. The presiding officer was the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court—the senators of the respective States were the jury—the House of Representatives the prosecutor. The managers to conduct the impeachment for the House were John A. Bingham, George S. Boutwell, James F. Wilson, Benjamin F. Butler, Thomas Williams, Thaddeus Stevens and John A. Logan, all members of the House, all lawyers, and some of them distinguished in the profession. The President entered his appearance by Henry Stanbery, Benjamin K. Curtis, Jeremiah S. Black, William H. Evarts, and Thomas A. K. Nelson. William S. Groesbeck, in the course of the trial, appeared and took part as counsel for the President in place of Mr. Black." The result of the trial was a failure of the Impeachment. The senators who voted "guilty" were 35 in number—being less than two-thirds of the whole—against 19. Of those who voted in the negative, seven were Republicans who had steadily opposed the President's policy; four were Republicans who had adhered to him throughout; eight were Democrats.

H. McCulloch, Men and Measures of Half a Century, chapter 26.

In the opinion of Mr. Blaine, "the sober reflection of later years has persuaded many who favored Impeachment that it was not justifiable on the charges made," and that "the President was impeached for one series of misdemeanors, and tried for another series."

J. G. Blaine, Twenty Years of Congress, volume 2, chapter 14.

ALSO IN: Trial of Andrew Johnson, (Published by Order of the Senate), 3 volumes.

Trial of Andrew Johnson, Congressional Globe, Supplement, 40th Congress, 2d session.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1868. The Burlingame Treaty with China.

See CHINA: A. D. 1857-1868.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1868 (November). The Twenty-first Presidential Election.

General Ulysses S. Grant, nominated by the Republican party, was elected President in November 1868, by 3,012,833 votes of the people against 2,703,249 votes cast for Horatio Seymour, ex-Governor of New York, the candidate of the Democratic party. The electoral vote returned and counted was 214 for Grant and 80 for Seymour, who carried the States of New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Georgia, Louisiana, Kentucky, and Oregon. Schuyler Colfax, of Indiana, was elected Vice President, over General Frank P. Blair.

E. Stanwood, History of Presidential Elections, chapter 22.

{3571}

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1868-1870. Reconstruction complete. Restoration of all the Southern States to representation in Congress.

"On the 22d of June, 1868, an act was passed, with the following preamble and resolution, for the admission of Arkansas:—'Whereas the people of Arkansas, in pursuance of an act entitled, An act for the more efficient government of the Rebel States, passed March 2, 1867, and the acts supplementary thereto, have framed and adopted a constitution of State government, which is republican, and the legislature of said State has duly ratified the amendment of the Constitution of the United States proposed by the XXXIXth Congress, and known as Article XIV.; Therefore, Be it enacted, etc., that the State of Arkansas is entitled and admitted to representation in Congress, as one of the States of the Union, upon the following fundamental condition.' The 'fundamental condition,' as finally agreed upon, was, 'That there shall never be in said State any denial or abridgment of the elective franchise, or of any other right, to any person by reason or on account of race or color, except Indians not taxed.' The bill was vetoed by the President on the 20th, but passed over the veto on the 22d in the House by the vote of 111 to 31, and in the Senate by a vote of 30 to 7. On the 25th of June a similar act was passed admitting the States of North Carolina, South Carolina, Louisiana, Georgia, Alabama, and Florida, in pursuance of a similar preamble, with the conditions that they should ratify the Fourteenth Amendment, that they should not deprive 'any citizen, or class of citizens of the State of the right to vote by the constitution thereof'; and that no person prohibited from holding office by said Amendment should be 'deemed eligible to any office in either of said States unless relieved from disability as provided in said amendment'; the State of Georgia being also required to declare 'null and void' certain provisions of its constitution, and 'in addition give the assent of said State to the fundamental condition herein before imposed on the same.' The bill passed the House, May 14,—yeas 110, nays 35; in the Senate, June 9,—yeas 31, nays 5. It was vetoed by the President on the 25th, and passed, the same day, by both houses, over the Presidential veto. On the 27th of January, 1870, Virginia was admitted into the Union by a vote, in the House, of 136 to 58; and in the Senate by a vote of 47 to 10. The following were the preamble, oaths, and conditions precedent: 'Whereas the people of Virginia have framed and adopted a constitution of State government which is republican; and whereas the legislature of Virginia, elected under said constitution, has ratified the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments of the Constitution of the United States; and whereas the performance of these several acts in good faith is a condition precedent to a representation of the State in Congress,' said State should be admitted to a representation in Congress; with the additional conditions precedent, however, that the constitution should never be so amended as to deprive any class of citizens of the right 'to vote,' 'to hold office,' on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude; neither should there be 'other qualifications' required for such reason; nor should any be deprived of 'school rights or privileges' on such account. On the 3d of February Mississippi was admitted by a bill resembling the former in every particular, by substantially the same vote. On the 30th of March Texas was readmitted to the Union on a bill very similar, though not identical with the above. … By this act of Congress the last of the 'wayward sisters' was brought back and restored to the family of States, and the fractured Union was, outwardly at least, repaired. It was ten years, eight months, and twenty days after South Carolina raised the banner of revolt and led off in 'the dance of death.'"

H. Wilson, History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power, volume 3, chapter 44.

ALSO IN: S. S. Cox, Three Decades of Federal Legislation, chapters 27-31.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1868-1876. The reconstructed government of South Carolina.

See SOUTH CAROLINA: A. D. 1865-1876.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1869. Negotiation of the Johnson-Clarendon Treaty and its rejection by the Senate.

See ALABAMA CLAIMS: A. D. 1862-1869.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1869. Gold Speculation. Black Friday.

See NEW YORK: A. D. 1869.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1869. Founding of the Order of Knights of Labor.

See SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: A. D. 1869-1883.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1869-1870. The Fifteenth Constitutional Amendment.

"The great defect of the Fourteenth Amendment, as freely charged during its discussion, was its at least tacit recognition of the right of States to disfranchise the ex-slaves, should they so elect. True, they could not do it without sacrificing so much in the basis of their representation in Congress; but if they were willing to make that sacrifice, there was nothing in the amendment to prevent such discrimination. To remedy that defect … it was resolved to incorporate into the organic law a new provision for their protection, and to supplement the amendments of the Constitution already adopted by another. There were accordingly introduced into both houses, almost simultaneously, measures for that purpose. … In the House, on the 11th of January, 1869, Mr. Boutwell reported from the Committee on the Judiciary a joint resolution proposing an amendment which provided that the right to vote of no citizen should be abridged by the United States or any State by reason of race, color, or previous condition of slavery." The joint resolution was adopted in the House, 150 affirmative to 42 negative votes, on the 30th of January. Adopted in the Senate with amendments, by 39 to 16 votes, it went to a Committee of Conference, on whose report the joint resolution was finally adopted by both Houses on the 25th of February, and submitted for ratification to the legislatures of the States, in the following form:

"Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation."

"The amendment received the votes of 29 States, constituting the requisite three fourths, and thus became a part of the organic law. On the 30th of March, 1870, President Grant communicated the fact to Congress in a special message."

H. Wilson, History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power, volume 3, chapter 47.

ALSO IN: J. G. Blaine, Twenty Years of Congress, volume 2, chapters 16 and 19.

{3572}

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1869-1890. Recovery of the domination of Whites at the South. Suppression of the Colored vote. Prosperity of the Southern States.

"Between 1869 and 1876, the whites had in every Southern State except South Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana, regained control of the government, and in 1876 those three States were also recovered. The circumstances were different, according to the character of the population in each State. In some a union of the moderate white Republicans with the Democrats, brought about by the disgust of all property holders at the scandals they saw and at the increase to their burdens as tax-payers, had secured legitimately chosen majorities, and ejected the corrupt officials. In some the same result was attained by paying or otherwise inducing the negroes not to go to the polls, or by driving them away by threats or actual violence. Once possessed again of a voting majority, the whites, all of whom had by 1872 been relieved of their disabilities, took good care, by a variety of devices, legal and extra-legal, to keep that majority safe; and in no State has their control of the government been since shaken. President Hayes withdrew, in 1877, such Federal troops as were still left at the South, and none have ever since been despatched thither. … With the disappearance of the carpet-bag and negro governments, the third era in the political history of the South since the war began. The first had been that of exclusively white suffrage; the second, that of predominantly negro suffrage. In the third, universal suffrage and complete legal equality were soon perceived to mean in practice the full supremacy of the whites. To dislodge the coloured man from his rights was impossible, for they were secured by the Federal Constitution which prevails against all State action. The idea of disturbing them was scarcely entertained. Even at the election of 1872 the Southern Democrats no more expected to repeal the Fifteenth Amendment than the English Tories expected at the election of 1874 to repeal the Irish Church Disestablishment Act of 1869. But the more they despaired of getting rid of the amendment, the more resolved were the Southern people to prevent it from taking any effect which could endanger their supremacy. They did not hate the negro, certainly not half so much as they hated his white leaders by whom they had been robbed. 'We have got,' they said, 'to save civilization,' and if civilization could be saved only by suppressing the coloured vote, they were ready to suppress it. … The modes of suppression have not been the same in all districts and at all times. At first there was a good deal of what is called 'bulldozing,' i. e. rough treatment and terrorism, applied to frighten the coloured men from coming to or voting at the polls. Afterwards, the methods were less harsh. Registrations were so managed as to exclude negro voters, arrangements for polling were contrived in such wise as to lead the voter to the wrong place so that his vote might be refused; and, if the necessity arose, the Republican candidates were counted out, or the election returns tampered with. 'I would stuff a ballot-box,' said a prominent man, 'in order to have a good, honest government;' and he said it in good faith, and with no sense of incongruity. Sometimes the local negro preachers were warned or paid to keep their flocks away. … Notwithstanding these impediments, the negro long maintained the struggle, valuing the vote as the symbol of his freedom, and fearing to be re-enslaved if the Republican party should be defeated. Leaders and organizers were found in the Federal office-holders, of course all Republicans. … After 1884, however, when the presidency of the United States passed to a Democrat, some of these office-holders were replaced by Democrats and the rest became less zealous. … Their friends at the North were exasperated, not without reason, for the gift of suffrage to the negroes had resulted in securing to the South a larger representation in Congress and in presidential elections than it enjoyed before the war, or would have enjoyed had the negroes been left unenfranchised. They argued, and truly, that where the law gives a right, the law ought to secure the exercise thereof; and when the Southern men replied that the negroes were ignorant, they rejoined that all over the country there were myriads of ignorant voters, mostly recent immigrants, whom no one thought of excluding. Accordingly in 1890, having a majority in both Houses of Congress and a President of their own party, the Republican leaders introduced a bill subjecting the control of Federal elections to officers to be appointed by the President, in the hope of thus calling out a full negro vote, five sixths of which would doubtless have gone to their party. The measure appeared to dispassionate observers quite constitutional, and the mischief it was designed to remedy was palpable. … It passed the House, but was dropped in the Senate under the threat of an obstructive resistance by the (then Democratic) minority. Secure, however, as the dominance of the whites seems now to be against either Northern legislation or negro revolt, the Southern people are still uneasy and sensitive on the subject. … This horror of negro supremacy is the only point in which the South cherishes its old feelings. Hostility to the Northern people has almost disappeared. … Just because they felt that they had fought well, they submitted with little resentment, and it has become a proverb among them that the two classes which still cherish bitterness are the two classes that did not fight,—the women and the clergy. … Not, however, till the whites regained control between 1870 and 1876, did the industrial regeneration of the country fairly begin. Two discoveries coincided with that epoch which have had an immense effect in advancing material prosperity, and changing the current of men's thoughts. The first was the exploration of the mineral wealth of the highland core of the country. … The second discovery was that of the possibility of extracting oil from the seeds of the cotton plant, which had formerly been thrown away, or given to hogs to feed on. The production of this oil has swelled to great proportions, making the cultivation of cotton far more profitable. … Most of the crop now raised, which averages eight millions of bales, and in 1894 was expected to exceed ten millions (being more than double that which was raised, almost wholly by slave labour, before the war), is now raised by white farmers; while the mills which spin and weave it into marketable goods are daily increasing and building up fresh industrial communities."

J. Bryce, The American Commonwealth (3d edition). chapter 92 (volume 2).

{3573}

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1870. The Ninth Census.

Total population, 38,558,371 (exceeding that of 1860 by 7,115,049), classed and distributed as follows:

North Atlantic division. White. Black. Maine. 624,809 1,606 New Hampshire. 317,697 580 Vermont. 329,613 924 Massachusetts. 1,443,156 13,947 Rhode Island. 212,219 4,980 Connecticut. 527,549 9,668 New York. 4,330,210 52,081 New Jersey. 875,407 30,658 Pennsylvania. 3,456,609 65,294

Total 12,117,269 179,738

South Atlantic division.

Delaware. 102,221 22,794 Maryland. 605,497 175,391 District of Columbia. 88,278 43,404 Virginia. 712,089 512,841 West Virginia. 424,033 17,980 North Carolina. 678,470 391,650 South Carolina. 289,667 415,814 Georgia. 638,926 545,142 Florida. 96,057 91,689

Total 3,635,238 2,216,705

North central division.

Ohio. 2,601,946 63,213 Indiana. 1,655,837 24,560 Illinois. 2,511,096 28,762 Michigan. 1,167,282 11,849 Wisconsin. 1,051,351 2,113 Minnesota. 438,257 759 Iowa. 1,188,207 5,762 Missouri. 1,603,146 118,071 Dakota. 12,887 94 Nebraska. 122,117 789 Kansas. 346,377 17,108

Total 12,698,503 273,080

South central division.

Kentucky. 1,098,692 222,210 Tennessee. 936,119 322,331 Alabama. 521,384 475,510 Mississippi. 382,896 444,201 Louisiana. 362,065 364,210 Texas. 564,700 253,475 Arkansas. 362,115 122,169

Total 4,227,971 2,204,106

Western division. Montana. 18,306 183 Wyoming. 8,726 183 Colorado. 39,221 456 New Mexico. 90,393 172 Arizona. 9,581 26 Utah. 86,044 118 Nevada. 38,959 357 Idaho. 10,618 60 Washington. 22,195 207 Oregon. 86,929 346 California. 499,424 4,272

Total 910,396 6,380

Grand total. 33,589,377 4,880,009

In addition the census shows 63,199 Chinese, 65 Japanese, and 25,731 civilized Indians, making a total of 38,558,371, as stated above. In the decade preceding this census the immigrant arrivals numbered 2,466,752, of which 1,106,970 were from the British Islands, and 1,073,429 from other parts of Europe.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1871. Renewed Negotiations with Great Britain. The Joint High Commission, the Treaty of Washington and the Geneva Award.

See ALABAMA CLAIMS: A. D. 1869-1871; 1871; and 1871-1872.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1871. The first Civil-Service Reform Act.

See CIVIL-SERVICE REFORM IN THE UNITED STATES.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1871 (April). The Force Bill.

At the extra session of Congress, which met March 4, 1871 a sweeping Act was passed to enforce the Fourteenth Amendment. "This Act allowed suit in Federal courts by the party injured against any person who should in any way deprive another of the rights of a citizen; it made it a penal offence to conspire to take away from any person the rights of a citizen; it provided that inability, neglect, or refusal by any State to suppress such conspiracy, to protect the rights of its citizens, or to call upon the President for aid, should be 'deemed a denial by such State of the equal protection of the laws' under the XIVth Amendment; it declared such conspiracies, if not suppressed by the authorities, 'a rebellion against the Government of the United States'; it authorized the President, 'when in his judgment the public safety shall require it,' to suspend the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus in any district, and suppress the insurrection by means of the army and navy; and it excluded from the jury-box any person 'who shall, in the judgment of the court, be in complicity with any such combination or conspiracy.' The authority to suspend the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus was to cease after the end of the next regular Session of Congress."

A. Johnston, History of American Politics, 2d edition, page 214.

ALSO IN: Annual Cyclopœdia, 1871, page 228.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1872. Decision of the San Juan Water Boundary Question by the Emperor of Germany.

See SAN JUAN OR NORTHWESTERN WATER-BOUNDARY QUESTION.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1872. The Twenty-second Presidential Election.

The leading candidates for President in 1872 were General Grant, nominated for re-election by the main body of the Republican Party, and Horace Greeley, of New York, put forward by a revolted section of that party and accepted and supported by the Democratic Party. "In 1870 the Republican party in Missouri had split into two parts. The 'Radical' wing wished to maintain for the present the disqualifications imposed on the late rebels by the State Constitution during the war; the 'Liberal' wing, headed by B. Gratz Brown and Carl Schurz, wished to abolish these disqualifications and substitute 'universal amnesty and universal enfranchisement.' Supported by the Democrats, the Liberal Republicans carried the State, though opposed by the Federal office-holders and the influence of the Administration. This success stimulated a reaction in the National Republican party, many of whose members believed that the powers of the Federal Government over the local concerns of the States had already been enforced up to or beyond constitutional limits, that the various enforcement Acts were designed rather for the political advancement of President Grant's personal adherents than for the benefit of the country, the freedmen, or even of the Republican party; and that the efforts to police the Southern States by the force of the Federal Government ought to cease. {3574} In the spring of 1871 the Liberal Republicans and Democrats of Ohio began to show symptoms of common feeling on these subjects, and during the summer the 'Liberal' movement continued to develop within the Republican party. January 24th, 1872, the Missouri Liberals issued a call for a National Convention at Cincinnati in the following May." At the meeting in Cincinnati the Liberal Republican Convention nominated Horace Greeley for President, and B. Gratz Brown for Vice President. The Democratic National Convention which met at Baltimore, June 9th, adopted these candidates, with the "platform" on which they were nominated. "A few recalcitrant Democrats met at Louisville, Kentucky, September 3d, and nominated Charles O'Conor, of New York, and John Quincy Adams, of Massachusetts."

A. Johnston, History of American Politics, 2d edition., chapter 22.

The Prohibitionists put in nomination James Black, of Pennsylvania, for President, and John Russell, of Michigan, for Vice President. The Republican nominee for Vice President, on the ticket with General Grant, was Henry Wilson, of Massachusetts. The popular vote cast was 3,585,444, or 3,597,132, for Grant, and 2,843,563, or 2,834,125 for Greeley (according to the return that may be counted from Louisiana, where two rival returning boards disputed authority with one another); 29,489 for O'Conor and 5,608 for Black. Mr. Greeley died on the 29th of November, 1872, before the electoral colleges cast their vote, the consequence being that the Democratic votes in the colleges were scattered. The following is the electoral vote for President as counted by Congress: Grant, 286; Thomas A. Hendricks, 42; B. Gratz Brown 18; Charles J. Jenkins 2; David Davis, 1. The votes of Louisiana and Arkansas were rejected, as were three votes cast in Georgia for Horace Greeley, deceased.

E. Stanwood, History of Presidential Elections, chapter 23.

ALSO IN: G. W. Julian, Political Recollections, chapter 15.

E. McPherson, Handbook of Politics for 1872 and 1874.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1872-1873. The Credit Mobilier Scandal.

See CREDIT MOBILIER SCANDAL.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1873. The so-called "demonetization of silver."

"We have heard a great deal in later years about the surreptitious demonetization of silver in 1873. There was, however, vastly too much criticism wasted on the act of 1873; for the real demonetization of silver in the United States was accomplished in 1853. It was not the result of accident; it was a carefully considered plan, deliberately carried into legislation in 1853, twenty years before its nominal demonetization by the act of 1873. … In 1853 the single standard was gold. This was a situation which no one rebelled against. Indeed, no one seemed to regard it as anything else than good fortune (except so far as the subsidiary coins had disappeared). … In the debates it was proposed that, as the cause of the change in the relative values of gold and silver was the increased product of gold, the proper remedy should be to increase the quantity of gold in the gold coins. … There was no discussion as to how a readjustment of the ratio between the two metals might be reached, for it was already decided that only one metal was to be retained. This decision, consequently, carried us to a point where the ratio between the two metals was not of the slightest concern. And so it remained. The United States had no thought about the ratios between gold and silver thereafter until the extraordinary fall in the value of silver in 1876. … In the provisions of the act of 1853 nothing whatever was said as to the silver dollar-piece. It had entirely disappeared from circulation years before, and acquiescence in its absence was everywhere found. No attempt whatever was thereafter made to change the legal ratio, in order that both metals might again be brought into concurrent circulation. Having enough gold, the country did not care for silver. … In 1873 we find a simple legal recognition of that which had been the immediate result of the act of 1853, and which had been an admitted fact in the history of our coinage during the preceding twenty years. In 1853 it had been agreed to accept the situation by which we had come to have gold for large payments, and to relegate silver to a limited service in the subsidiary coins. The act of 1873, however, dropped the dollar piece out of the list of silver coins. In discontinuing the coinage of the silver dollar, the act of 1873 thereby simply recognized a fact which had been obvious to everybody since 1849. It did not introduce anything new, or begin a new policy. Whatever is to be said about the demonetization of silver as a fact must center in the act of 1853. Silver was not driven out of circulation by the act of 1873, which omitted the dollar of 412½ grains, since it had not been in circulation for more than twenty-five years. … The act of February 12, 1873, is known as the act which demonetized the silver dollar. Important consequences have been attached to it, and it has even been absurdly charged that the law was the cause of the commercial crisis of September, 1873. As if a law which made no changes in the actual metallic standard in use, and which had been in use thus for more than twenty' years, had produced a financial disaster in seven months! To any one who knows of the influence of credit and speculation, or who has followed the course of our foreign trade since the Civil War, such a theory is too absurd to receive more than passing mention. To the year 1873 there had been coined of 412½-grain dollars for purposes of circulation, only $1,439,457, and these were coined before 1806."

J. L. Laughlin, History of Bimetallism in the United States, part 1, chapters 5 and 7.

See, also, MONEY AND BANKING: A. D. 1848-1893.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1873. The Panic.

"The panic of 1873 differed very materially from the other great panics by which this country has been afflicted. Lack of capital was the main difficulty in 1837 and 1857. Population had increased so rapidly that millions of human beings were out of work, and apprehension spread lest there might not be food enough to go around. In 1873, however, men were well employed. Business of all kinds was in excellent condition, and no one doubted for a moment that there would be plenty for every man to eat. The excellent condition of trade, in fact, was the chief factor in the panic of 1873. Everyone was busy, and wanted money with which to carry on his trade. For two years before the crash, money had been in great demand. {3575} Railroads had recently been built to an extent such as this country had never known before. Whereas, in 1861, railroad construction amounted to only 651 miles, in 1871 it reached the then unprecedented figure of 7,779 miles. This new mileage, moreover, was mainly in the West, where the immediate remuneration was but slight. Railroads were being pushed forward into regions which could not be expected to return an income for twenty years. The cost of railroad construction in this country during the five years preceding September, 1873, was estimated by the Comptroller of the Currency at no less than $1,700,000,000. The money to pay for this extravagant building was obtained, not from the earnings of the old portions of the road, but from enormous issues of railroad bonds, placed to a large extent among the banks of this country, but still more among the capitalists of Europe. In the Northern Pacific Company occurred the most flagrant abuse of railroad credit the world has ever known. … One after another of the Western roads defaulted in paying the interest on its bonds. The result was, that, by the summer of 1873, the market for new issues of railroad bonds had practically disappeared. Meantime the banks and bankers of New York were loaded down with railroad paper. The railroads had borrowed money for short periods in the expectation that before their notes fell due they would have raised the money to make payment by the sale of bonds. A temporary relief was felt, in June, 1873, through the customary midsummer ease in money. But this temporary respite only made the difficulty worse. Deluded by the momentary calm, the New York banks added still further to their loans. … The year before, money had grown tight early in September, and the more cautious banks began gradually to call their loans, fearing that the experience of 1872 might be renewed. But the rates for money did not noticeably increase, and the only cause for excitement early in the month was the failure, on September 8, of the Mercantile Warehouse and Security Company, owing to advances on bonds of the Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railroad. This was followed, on the 13th, by the failure of Kenyon Cox & Co., of which firm Daniel Drew was a member, caused by loans to the Canada Southern Railroad. By this time the sky was heavily overcast. Money was now advancing rapidly, the New York banks were calling loans on every hand, and new loans on railroad paper were scarcely to be had at all. Suddenly, on the 18th of September, the tempest burst. On the morning of that dark day, Jay Cooke, the agent of the U. S. Government, with some four millions of deposits from all parts of the country, and his fifteen millions of Northern Pacific paper, declared his inability to meet his debts. The report flew down 'the street' with the ferocity of a cyclone. Railroad shares were thrown upon the market by the bushel, in utter disregard of their intrinsic value. … Stock brokers continued to announce their failures all day long. Nothing seemed able to withstand the shock, and when, on September 19, the great banking house of Fisk & Hatch went under, terror became universal. A run was started on the Union Trust Co., which was believed to have close intimacy with Vanderbilt's railroads, and on the Fourth National Bank, whose dealings were largely with Wall street brokers. The panic, was by this time so general that the banks began to refuse one another's certified checks, and on the 20th a considerable number of the New York banks suspended payment. On that day the Union Trust Co., the National Trust Co., and the National Bank of the Commonwealth all closed their doors. At 11 o'clock on the 20th, the New York Stock Exchange, for the first time in its history, closed its doors, and the Governing Committee announced that the board would not be opened till further notice. This high-handed measure caused an outcry for the moment, but on calmer judgment it was generally conceded that the measure was a good one. On the evening of that Saturday, September 20, the Clearing House Association met and adopted a plan similar to that adopted in the panic of 1857, and in substance this: Any bank in the Clearing House Association might deposit with a committee of five persons, to be appointed for that purpose, an amount of its bills receivable, or other securities to be approved by the committee, and the committee were then to issue to that bank certificates of deposit, bearing interest at 5 per cent. per annum, to an amount not exceeding 75 per cent. of the securities or bills receivable so deposited. These certificates could be used in settlement of balances at the Clearing House for a period not to extend beyond the 1st of the following November, and they were to be received by creditor banks during that period daily, in the proportion which they bore to the aggregate amount of the debtor balances paid at the Clearing House. The amount of certificates should not exceed $10,000,000. The legal tenders belonging to the associated banks were to be considered and treated as a common fund held for mutual aid and protection, and the committee were given power to equalize the same by assessment or otherwise in their discretion. This scheme, simple as it was, proved of the utmost efficacy in mitigating the evils that must always follow a distrust among banks. The lull occasioned by the intervening Sunday was employed by President Grant and Secretary of the Treasury Richardson in a visit to New York. All day long they gave audience to business men at the Fifth Avenue Hotel. Suggestions of every description were offered as a remedy for the disease. The most feasible proposition, and that which was finally adopted, was the purchase of Government bonds. … Shortly after his return from the Fifth Avenue Hotel, Secretary Richardson announced his intention to buy Government bonds, and, in a few days, $13,000,000 of the U. S. greenbacks were thus absorbed. … On Tuesday, September 30, the Stock Exchange was once more opened. It was expected on all hands that this would be the signal for another onslaught. But so general was this expectation that most persons refrained for the moment from offering their stocks. As a result, the market opened a trifle higher than it had closed ten days before. It continued to advance, moreover, till October 7. On that day a new decline set in, and on October 14 came a fearful drop, which carried prices lower than on September 20. From this reaction there was a gradual improvement till October 31, when the failure of Hoyt, Sprague & Co., the great mill owners of Providence and New York, once more shook the market and brought stocks, on October 31 and November 1, to the lowest prices of the year. {3576} With those prices it became manifest that the panic had reached its end. Money had already begun to flow to New York both from Europe and from the West, and the public, tempted by the excessive decline in stocks, began to purchase freely. The result was a steady though gradual improvement through the remainder of the year."

The Panic of 1873 (Banker's Magazine, November, 1891).

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1875. The Whisky Ring.

See WHISKY RING.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1875. The second Civil Rights Bill and its declared unconstitutionality.

"Congress, to give full effect to the fourteenth amendment to the federal Constitution, passed an act in 1875, which provided that all persons within the jurisdiction of the United States shall be entitled to the full and equal enjoyment of the accommodations, advantages, facilities, and privileges of inns, public conveyances on land and water, theatres and other places of public amusement, subject only to the conditions and limitations established by law, and applicable alike to citizens of every race and color, regardless of any previous condition of servitude. … In 1883 the act was held unconstitutional. The Fourteenth Amendment, says Bradley, J., does not 'invest Congress with power to legislate upon subjects which are within the domain of State legislation, but to provide modes of relief against State legislation or State action of the kinds referred to. It does not authorize Congress to create a code of municipal law for the regulation of private rights; but to provide modes of redress against the operation of State laws and the action of State officers, executive and judicial, when these are subversive of the fundamental rights specified in the amendment.' Civil Rights Cases, 109 United States 3."

T. M. Cooley, Constitutional Limitations which rest upon the Legislative Power of the States, 6th edition, pages 733-734 and foot-note.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1876. Admission of Colorado into the Union.

See COLORADO: A. D. 1806-1876.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1876. The Sioux War. Battle of Little Big Horn. Death of General Custer.

Hostilities with a powerful confederation of Sioux or Dakota tribes of Indians, in the northwest, were brought about, in the spring of 1876, by gold discoveries in the Black Hills and the consequent rush of miners into the Indian reservation. To subdue the hostile Indians, three military expeditions were set in motion,—from Fort Fetterman, under General Crook, from Fort Ellis, in Montana, under General Gibbon, and from Bismarck, in Dakota, under General Terry. These were to converge on the upper waters of the Yellowstone, where Sitting Bull, the able chief of the Sioux, and his camp, in the valley of the small stream commonly known as the Little Big Horn. The Sioux warrior used the advantages of his central position like a Napoleon, striking his assailants in turn, as they came near, with far stronger forces than they knew him to possess. Crook was forced back; Gibbon was brought to a halt. Terry came last on the ground. His command included the famous Seventh Cavalry,—the regiment of General Custer. In ignorance of the surprising number of braves which Sitting Bull had collected, Custer was sent to make a detour and attack the Indian camp from the rear. Doing so, on the 25th of June, he rode into a death trap. Five companies of the regiment, with its heroic commander at their head, were surrounded so overwhelmingly that not one man escaped. The remaining seven companies were too far from the others to cooperate in the attack. They fortified a bluff and held their ground until the 27th, when Terry and Gibbon came to their relief. The Indians retreated toward the mountains. The campaign was soon resumed, and prosecuted through the fall and winter, until Sitting Bull and some of his followers fled into British America and the remaining hostiles surrendered.