the south would retain a very limited share of authority, while the freedmen would be put in a position of political security. Freedmen were, in the first place, full citizens of the United States. If they were not full citizens of the state in which they lived, the state would suffer in its congressional representation, and would therefore be under pressure to give them full citizenship - in other words, the right to vote. Here was the essential difference between the presidential and the congressional plans; the latter sought suffrage for the freedman, the former avoided it. The legislature of Tennessee immediately accepted the fourteenth amendment, and the state was thereupon readmitted to the Union, July 23, 1866. With regard to the other states, a long delay ensued. The quarrel between the president and Congress became bitterer, and as he encouraged the states seeking re-admission to hold to his policy instead of yielding to that of Congress, they remained where they were. Congress gave suffrage to the freedmen in the District of Columbia, (January, 1867,) and admitted the state of Nebraska only on condition that it should not deny suffrage to the freedmen within its limits, (March 1.) These, and many other acts, were passed over the president's veto. More decisive than any

other measure, the reconstruction act of March 2, 1867, divided the ten states waiting admission into military districts, each with its commanding officer, and so to remain until a convention of delegates "elected by male citizens twenty-one years old and upward, of whatever race, color, or previous condition," excepting those disqualified by the fourteenth amendment, should frame a state constitution, which, being ratified by the people and approved by Congress, should go into operation, and the legislature thereupon elected should adopt the fourteenth amendment, and it should become a part of the United States Constitu

tion. All this came to pass with seven of the states in the following year, when North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, (June 25, 1868,) and Arkansas, (June 22,) were re-admitted. For many, if not all these states, it was a cruel experience. They were released from military rule to pass under a civil rule exercised largely not by their own people, but by mere adventurers who had come among them with sordid purposes, and whose success came very near being the ruin of the states where they succeeded. Nearly two years more passed before the other three states were re-admitted, Virginia in January, Mississippi in February, and Texas in March, 1870.

Johnson.

A year before this last date President Johnson's Impeachment of troubled term had closed. He had taken a posiPresident tion so antagonistic to Congress, that Congress may be excused for all its antagonism to him. But the extreme to which it went in impeaching him can be justified on no other than party grounds. An act of 1867, regulating the tenure of certain civil offices, was intended to prevent the president from removing their incumbents, as had been the rule, without the consent of the Senate. On the president's disregarding this act, and removing the secretary of war without consulting the Senate, his opponents thought they had their opportunity of impeaching him, and he was accordingly impeached by the House of Representatives, to be tried by the Senate for high crimes and misdemeanors, (February, 1868.) After a trial lasting nearly two months, a few senators were independent enough to vote against their party, and he was acquitted, (May 26.)

Four

fifteenth

The fourteenth amendment was officially proteenth and claimed a part of the Constitution in July, 1868. amend- In the following February, a fifteenth amendment was adopted by Congress, to the intent that the

ments.

right to vote should not be denied by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. In March, the adminstration of President Grant began, and at the end of a year, in March, 1870, he announced the final adoption of the amendment in a special message to Congress as completing "the greatest civil change that has occurred since the nation came into life." The freedman was now fully a citizen.

Enforcing

Such changes as benefited him were not accepted the four- by many of his neighbors as benefiting them. In numerous parts of the Southern States the colored

teenth

amendment.

people were much harried by the whites, who often turned upon their own people likewise. An association called the Ku-Klux spread in various quarters, and violence was on the increase, when Congress passed an act to enforce the provisions of the fourteenth amendment, authorizing the president to suspend the privilege of habeas corpus, that is, to use military power wherever the constituted authorities did not suppress unlawful combinations, (April, 1871.) It may be questioned whether the remedy was not worse than the disease; but Congress had become wonted to high-handed rule. The president made proclamation exhorting "the people of those portions of the country to suppress all such combinations by their own voluntary efforts through the agency of local laws." Reluctant as President Grant was to exercise the powers which the act conferred, he suspended habeas corpus in certain parts of South Carolina, (October.) But this was not helping a real reunion.

Amnesty.

A better step was taken in May, 1872, when Congress removed all legal and political disabilities, except from senators and representatives of the thirty-sixth and thirty-seventh Congresses, (1859-63,) officers in the judicial, military, and naval service, heads of departments,

and foreign ministers, who had violated their oath to support the Constitution. This left a very small number, comparatively, to pay the penalty of rebellion, and completed, as far as legislation could complete, the work of reconstruction.

Financial

The public debt did not reach its full proportions adminis- until some time after the close of the war. Many tration. doubted the power, many more doubted the will, of the nation to bear so heavy a burden, without attempting to lighten it at the expense of those to whom it was due. It was, therefore, a great relief when the House of Representatives, on the day after it assembled in December, 1865, voted, one hundred and sixty-two to one, that the public debt is sacred and inviolable, and that any attempt to impair it shall be promptly rejected. But the difficulty of wisely administering the national finances was very great. The best measures involved immediate sacrifices, which financiers, public and private, were unwilling to make. Taxation was a trouble that could be remedied by means of reductions and improvements, until an easier system was established. The debt could be diminished by paying off instalments from the surplus revenue. But the paper money, which constituted the only currency, and which affected all prices and all habits of living throughout the country, could not be redeemed, or even brought near to redemption, without some temporary losses; and these were too great for the moral force of the government, as for that of the nation. The financial administration of seven years of peace left the people almost as far from a sound financial condition as it found them.

Civil

One administrative reform was begun upon. service. Congress authorized the president to prescribe such rules and regulations for the admission of persons into the civil service as would promote its efficiency, (March, 1871.)

The president appointed a commission, and received from them a scheme of rules which he communicated to Congress, (December.) That body was disposed to be inactive. The civil service, as it stood, was at congresssional disposal; its offices were filled or vacated, generally speaking, according to the demands of members of Congress, each managing his own locality, or claiming his share in general appointments. This patronage would cease with the reform of the civil service; delay in reforming it was therefore inevitable. The commission recommended the competitive examination of candidates for office, and the probationary appointment of those who succeeded at examination, together with securities for the tenure and promotion of deserving officers. It was a system vitally needed.

It

Another great reform was carried farther. Indians. was the president's planning and the president's doing. He brought it forward in his inaugural address, (March, 1869,) and followed it up by active measures. A board of commissioners was created to take supervision of the Indians. In place of the agents hitherto appointed, officers of the army and persons nominated by different religious societies were intrusted with a charge which had been long abused. Some reservations were placed entirely under the immediate control of the Society of Friends and other bodies which had sent missionaries among the Indians. “I have attempted," said President Grant, new policy towards these wards of the nation with fair results so far as tried." Indian hostilities did not cease. They had broken out during the civil war, and after its close. They broke out again after the new policy was tried. But with this policy there came a hope, that had not come before, of winning over the Indians to civilization and peace.

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