Front matter
Reading edition
THE AMERICAN HISTORY SERIES
RECONSTRUCTION AND THE CONSTITUTION
1866-1876
BY
JOHN W. BURGESS, PH.D., LL.D.
PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL SCIENCE AND CONSTITUTIONAL LAW, AND DEAN OF THE FACULTY OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, IN COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 1905
COPYRIGHT, 1902, BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
TROW DIRECTORY PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY NEW YORK
To the memory of RICHMOND MAYO-SMITH, pupil, colleague, and life-long friend, with grief too deep for words at his loss, this volume is affectionately inscribed by the Author
PREFACE
In my preface to "The Middle Period" I wrote that the re-establishment of a real national brotherhood between the North and the South could be attained only on the basis of a sincere and genuine acknowledgment by the South that secession was an error as well as a failure. I come now to supplement this contention with the proposition that a corresponding acknowledgment on the part of the North in regard to Reconstruction between 1866 and 1876 is equally necessary.
In making this demand, I must not be understood as questioning in the slightest degree the sincerity of the North in the main purpose of the Reconstruction policy of that period. On the other hand, I maintain that that purpose was entirely praiseworthy. It was simply to secure the civil rights of the newly emancipated race, and to re-establish loyal Commonwealths in the South. But there is now little question that erroneous means were chosen.
Two ways were open for the attainment of the end sought. One was that which was followed, namely, placing the political power in the hands of the newly emancipated; and the other was the nationalization of civil liberty by placing it under the protection of the Constitution and the national Judiciary, and holding the districts of the South under Territorial civil government until the white race in those districts should have sufficiently recovered from its temporary disloyalty to the Union to be intrusted again with the powers of Commonwealth local government.
There is no doubt in my own mind that the latter was the proper and correct course. And I have just as little doubt that it would have been found to be the truly practicable course. The people in the loyal Commonwealths were ready in 1866 to place civil liberty as a whole under national protection; and not half of the whites of the South entertained, at that moment, disloyal purposes or feelings. Even the solid Democratic South was yet to be made; and I doubt most seriously if it would ever have been made, except for the great mistakes of the Republican party in its choice of means and measures in Reconstruction.
I will not, however, enter upon the argument in reference to this question at this point. That belongs to the body of the book. I will only add that, in my opinion, the North has already yielded assent to this proposition, and has already made the required acknowledgment. The policy of Mr. Hayes's administration, and of all the administrations since his, can be explained and justified only upon this assumption. And now that the United States has embarked in imperial enterprises, under the direction of the Republican party, the great Northern party, the North is learning every day by valuable experiences that there are vast differences in political capacity between the races, and that it is the white man's mission, his duty and his right, to hold the reins of political power in his own hands for the civilization of the world and the welfare of mankind.
Let the South be equally ready, sincere, and manly in the consciousness and the acknowledgment of its share in past errors, and the reconciliation will be complete and permanent!
I have again to express my thanks to my friend and colleague, Dr. Cushing, for his aid in bringing this volume through the press. I desire also to acknowledge the courtesy of the New York Independent for allowing parts of my article on the Geneva Award, published some years ago in that esteemed journal, to be incorporated in the last chapter of this book.
JOHN W. BURGESS.
323 WEST 57TH ST., NEW YORK CITY, January 22d, 1902.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I THE THEORY OF RECONSTRUCTION
CHAPTER II PRESIDENT LINCOLN'S VIEWS AND ACTS IN REGARD TO RECONSTRUCTION
CHAPTER III PRESIDENT JOHNSON'S PLAN OF RECONSTRUCTION AND HIS PROCEEDINGS IN REALIZATION OF IT
CHAPTER IV THE CONGRESSIONAL PLAN OF RECONSTRUCTION
CHAPTER V THE CONGRESSIONAL PLAN (Continued)
CHAPTER VI THE CONGRESSIONAL PLAN (Continued)
CHAPTER VII THE CONGRESSIONAL PLAN (Completed)
CHAPTER VIII THE EXECUTION OF THE RECONSTRUCTION ACTS
CHAPTER IX THE ATTEMPT TO REMOVE THE PRESIDENT
CHAPTER X RECONSTRUCTION RESUMED
CHAPTER XI PRESIDENT GRANT AND RECONSTRUCTION
CHAPTER XII "CARPET-BAG" AND NEGRO DOMINATION IN THE SOUTHERN STATES BETWEEN 1868 AND 1876
CHAPTER XIII THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 1876 AND ITS CONSEQUENCES
CHAPTER XIV INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS OF THE UNITED STATES BETWEEN 1867 AND 1877
INDEX