begins with his proclamation for the reconstruction of North Carolina. Holden was appointed Provisional Governor, an officer unknown to law, and for whom there was no provision, — although it was notorious that he had been a member of the Convention which adopted the Act of Secession, and that he signed it. Then came Perry, Provisional Governor of South Carolina, who, besides holding a judicial station under the Rebel Government, was one of its Commissioners of Impressments. I have a Rebel newspaper containing one of his advertisements in the latter character. There also was Parsons, Provisional Governor of Alabama, who in 1863 introduced into the Legislature of that State formal resolutions tendering to Jefferson Davis "hearty thanks for his good labors in the cause of our common country, together with the assurance of continued support," — and afterwards, in 1864, denounced our national debt, exclaiming in the Legislature: "Does any sane man suppose we will consent to pay their [the United States] war debt, contracted in sending armies and navies to burn our towns and cities, to lay waste our country, whose soldiers have robbed and murdered our peaceful inhabitants?" Such were the agents appointed by the President to institute loyal governments. But this selection becomes more strange and unaccountable, when it is considered that all this was done in defiance of law.

There is a recent enactment of Congress requiring that no person shall be appointed to any office of the United States, unless such office has been created by law. And there is another enactment of Congress, providing that all officers, civil or military, before entering

1 Act, February 9, 1863: Statutes at Large, Vol. XII. p. 646.

upon their official duties or receiving any salary or compensation, shall take an oath declaring that they have held no office under the Rebellion or given any aid thereto. In face of these enactments, which are sufficiently explicit, the President began his work of Reconstruction by appointing civilians to an office absolutely unknown to law, when besides they could not take the required oath of office; and to complete the disregard of Congress, he fixed their salary, and paid it out of the funds of the War Department.

Of course such proceeding was an instant encouragement and license to all ex-Rebels, no matter how much blood was on their hands. Rebellion was at a premium. It was easy to see, that, if these men were good enough to be governors of States, in defiance of Congress, all others in the same political predicament would be good enough for inferior offices. And it was SO. From top to bottom these States were organized by men who had been warring on their country. ExRebels were appointed by the governors or chosen by the people everywhere. Ex-Rebels sat in Conventions. and in Legislatures. Ex-Rebels became judges, justices of the peace, sheriffs, and everything else, while the faithful Unionist, white or black, was rejected. As with Cordelia, his love was "according to his bond, nor more nor less"; but all this was of no avail. How often during the war have I pleaded for such patriots, and urged to every effort for their redemption!— and now, when our arms have prevailed, it is they who are cast down, while the enemies of the Republic are exalted. The pirate Semmes returns from his ocean cruise to be chosen Probate Judge,-leaping from the

1 Act, July 2, 1862: Statutes at Large, Vol. XII. p. 502.

deck of the Ship Alabama to the judicial bench of the State Alabama. In New Orleans the Rebel mayor at the surrender to the national flag is once more mayor, and employs his regained power in the terrible massacre which rises in judgment against the Presidential policy. Persons are returned to Congress whose service in the Rebellion makes it impossible for them to take the oath of office, as in the case of Georgia, which selects as Senators Herschel V. Johnson, a Senator of the Rebel Congress, and Alexander H. Stephens, VicePresident of the Rebellion. These are instances; but from these learn all.

There is nothing within reach of the President which he has not lavished on ex-Rebels. The power of pardon and amnesty, like the power of appointment, has been used for them, wholesale and retail. It would have been easy to affix a condition to every pardon, requiring, that, before it took effect, the recipient should carve out of his estate a homestead for every one of his freedmen, and thus secure to each what they all covet so much, a piece of land. But the President did no such thing, although, in the words of the old writ, "often requested so to do." Such a condition would have helped the loyal freedmen, rather than the rebel master. In the same spirit, while undertaking to determine who shall be voters, all colored persons, howsoever loyal, were disfranchised, while all white persons, except certain specified classes, although black with rebellion, were constituted voters on taking a simple oath of allegiance, thus investing ex-Rebels with a prevailing power.

Partisans of the Presidential "policy" are in the habit of declaring it a continuation of the policy of

the martyred Lincoln. This is a mistake. Would that he could rise from his bloody shroud to repel the calumny! Happily, he has left his testimony behind, in words which all who have ears to hear can hear. The martyr presented the truth bodily, when he said, in suggestive metaphor, that we must "build up from the sound materials"; but his successor insists upon building from materials rotten with treason and gaping with rebellion. On another occasion, the martyr said that "an attempt to guaranty and protect a revived State government, constructed in whole or in preponderating part from the very element against whose hostility and violence it is to be protected, is simply absurd."1 But this is the very thing the President is now attempting. He is constructing State governments, not merely in preponderating part, but in whole, from the hostile element. Therefore he departs openly from the policy of the martyred Lincoln.

The martyr says to his successor that the policy adopted is "simply absurd." He is right, although he might say more. Its absurdity is too apparent. It is as if, in abolishing the Inquisition, the inquisitors had been continued under another name, and Torquemada had received a fresh license for cruelty. It is as if King William, after the overthrow of James the Second, had made the infamous Jeffreys Lord Chancellor. Common sense and common justice cry out against the outrage; and yet this is the Presidential "policy" now so passionately commended to the American people.

A state, according to Aristotle, is a "copartnership," and I accept the term as especially applicable to our government. And now the President, in the exer

1 Annual Message, December 8, 1863.

cise of the One Man Power, decrees that communities lately in rebellion shall be taken at once into our "copartnership." I object to the decree as dangerous to the Republic. I am not against pardon, clemency, or magnanimity, except where they are at the expense of good men. I trust that they will always be practised; but I insist that recent rebels shall not be admitted, without proper precautions, to the business of the firm. And I insist also that the One Man Power shall not be employed to force them into the firm.

Such are two pivotal blunders. It is not easy to see how he has fallen into these, so strong were his early professions the other way. The powers of Congress he had distinctly admitted. Thus, as early as 24th July, 1865, he had sent to Sharkey, acting by his appointment as Provisional Governor of Mississippi, this despatch: "It must, however, be distinctly understood that the restoration to which your proclamation refers will be subject to the will of Congress." Nothing could be more positive. And he was equally positive against the restoration of Rebels to power. You do not forget, that, in accepting his nomination as Vice-President, he rushed forward to declare that the Rebel States must be remodelled, that confiscation must be enforced, and that Rebels must be excluded from the work of Reconstruction. His language was plain and unmistakable. Announcing that "government must be fixed on the principles of eternal justice," he declared, that, "if the man who gave his influence and his means to destroy the Government should be permitted to participate in the great work of reorganization, then all the precious

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