Stephens, Alexander

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7 Alexander Stephens

Excerpt from "On Reconstruction" Testimony before Congress April 11, 1866; published in the Report of the Joint Committee on Reconstruction of the First Session Thirty-Ninth Congress, 1866

The former Confederate vice president speaks out on Reconstruction

"It would be best for the peace, harmony, and prosperity of the whole country that there should be an immediate restoration, an immediate bringing back of the States into their original practical relations.…"

The end of the American Civil War (1861–65) raised a thorny question: How would the former Confederate states be brought back into the Union? Many Southerners believed they simply needed to pledge their loyalty to the Union and send their congressmen back to Washington, D.C.—almost as if the war never happened. Some Northerners supported that idea at first, eager for a quick reconciliation that would allow the country to move forward. But others found the idea tough to swallow after four years of bloody conflict. They believed the North's victory would be meaningless if it did not bring equal rights to African Americans. As time went on, a growing number of Northerners wanted the Southern states to grant equal rights to African Americans before returning to the Union.

Eager to reunite the country above all else, President Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865; served 1861–65) outlined generous terms in his "Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction" on December 8, 1863, about a year and a half before the war ended. Lincoln said a Southern state could return to the Union if at least 10 percent of the residents who voted in the 1860 presidential election took a loyalty oath and established a new state government. In time, Louisiana, Arkansas, Tennessee, and Virginia would accept Lincoln's offer. But the plan was roundly criticized by congressmen who thought they should decide the terms for readmitting the Southern states. Antislavery advocates, or abolitionists, also objected that African Americans would have no say in the new state governments under this plan, as they could not vote in 1860, or any previous year for that matter.

Congress outlined a stricter plan for readmitting the Southern states under the Wade-Davis bill of 1864. This plan required a majority of a Southern state's voters, not Lincoln's 10 percent, to pledge to uphold the U.S. Constitution. Then a group of delegates would create a new state government. In order to qualify as delegates, they would have to take an "iron-clad oath" that they never served as a soldier or an official in the Confederacy, and that they never supported "the rebellion" against the Union. Lincoln objected to the plan, however, because it required men to swear that they had not done anything wrong, as noted in Reconstruction: After the Civil War. Lincoln said, "It rejects the Christian principle of forgiveness on terms of repentance. I think it is enough if the man does no wrong hereafter." Lincoln defeated the bill by "pocket veto," meaning it did not become law because he did not sign it within ten days after Congress ended its session.

Lincoln's assassination on April 14, 1865, came less than a week after the surrender of Confederate general Robert E. Lee (1807–1870) ended the war. The fate of the Southern states was now in the hands of the new president, Andrew Johnson (1808–1875; served 1865–69), a Tennesseean who wanted to punish individual "traitors" but spare the South. In May 1865, Johnson announced a plan to grant pardons and restore property rights to anyone who would take an oath of allegiance to the Union. Once they were pardoned, the Southerners could draft new state constitutions and return to the Union.

But there was a catch: High-ranking Confederate officials and anyone with property worth more than $20,000 would have to personally apply to the president for a pardon. Johnson singled out the rich because he blamed the wealthy plantation owners for bringing the South to war. Eager to reclaim their land, Southerners lined up for the pardons, and Johnson created a special office to handle the requests. The office was granting more than one hundred pardons per day by September 1865. About fourteen thousand prominent or wealthy Confederates received their pardons by February 1866.

Johnson believed that once the war was over, the Southern states were entitled to return with the same rights they once had under the Constitution, such as the right to send senators and representatives to Congress. Whitelaw Reid, a Northern visitor who wrote After the War: A Southern Tour in 1866, came across many ex-Confederates who shared that view. In Florida, he met former U.S. senator David Yulee (1810–1886) of Florida, who fully expected to "help the Governor engineer the State back into the Union, and … patch up some policy for 'taking care of the negroes,' and then prepare to resume his seat in the United States Senate at the beginning of the next session." In Savannah, Georgia, Reid debated a couple of men who believed they still enjoyed all of the rights outlined in the Constitution. Reid asked them: "You do not regard any of your rights, then, as destroyed or imperiled by your rebellion?" To Reid's surprise, one of the men answered: "Why should they be? The right to hold slaves has been destroyed by the military authorities; but, unless the Constitution is destroyed, we have all the powers under it we ever had."

That idea horrified some Northerners. The abolitionists feared Johnson's plan would bring an unchanged South back into the Union, with the same ex-Confederate leaders holding office and whites still mistreating African Americans. Abolitionist Theodore Tilton (1835–1907), as quoted in The Struggle for Equality, summed up the fear: "If the whip-using gentry [upper-class] who formerly held sway (had influence) in those regions are to return to their former crown and kingdom, the North will have won only half a victory over the rebellion."

The fears of abolitionists like Tilton were confirmed by the end of 1865. Newspapers routinely ran stories about Southern whites attacking African Americans and Union soldiers. Southern state legislatures and local governments passed "Black Codes" that restricted the rights of the recently freed slaves (see Chapter 8). In Tennessee, for example, African Americans could be given stiffer penalties than whites for the same crime, and they could be sold into temporary slavery if they lacked a job or permanent home. When it came time for Southern voters to pick their new congressmen, they sent a slate of ex-Confederate leaders to Washington, D.C.

Northerners were outraged at the list of new Southern congressmen, which included former Confederate vice president Alexander Stephens (1812–1883), as well as six ex-Confederate Cabinet members, nine men who had been high-ranking officers in the Confederate military, and fifty-eight former members of the Confederate Congress. Once sworn in as congressmen, these men could provide the votes for a lenient (merciful) Reconstruction policy that would preserve the Southern status quo.

Ironically, the North's victory in the war would increase the South's political power in Congress. As long as African Americans remained slaves, they counted as only three-fifths of a person for the purpose of drawing congressional districts based on population. Now that the Civil War had freed the slaves, each African American would count as a full person—providing a population boost that would give the South twelve new seats in the House of Representatives.

The Northern congressmen refused to put that much power in the hands of unchanged Southerners. They refused to seat, or swear into office, the Southern congressmen in December 1865. Instead, they created the Joint Committee on Reconstruction to gather testimony on the political atmosphere in the South. The committee would make recommendations on whether the Southern congressmen should be seated, whether the Freedmen's Bureau should be expanded to help ex-slaves start their new lives, and whether Congress should draft laws protecting African Americans' rights.

Slavery had been abolished (outlawed) by the end of 1865 under the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution (see Chapter 2). The debate now centered on civil rights and voting rights for African Americans. Southerners believed the states should decide what rights to grant to African Americans, and President Johnson shared that view. But the newspaper accounts of racial violence and the Black Codes gave Northerners little hope that the Southern states would grant those rights to African Americans on their own. More and more, Northerners argued that the Southern states must provide those rights to African Americans before returning to the Union.

While the Joint Committee on Reconstruction was conducting its hearings in the spring of 1866, Congress was also considering a Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution that would require states to give African Americans the right to vote—or lose the right to include African Americans in the population counts that determine how many congressmen each state gets (see Chapter 9). The committee asked Stephens: Would his native Georgia approve such an amendment in order to return to the Union? In reply, Stephens responded with his famous Reconstruction speech.

Things to remember while reading an excerpt from "On Reconstruction:"

After the Civil War, Southerners believed they should be allowed to instantly return to the Union, with all of the rights they enjoyed before the war (including the right, under the Constitution, to send senators and representatives to Washington, D.C.). They did not think any other conditions could be placed on their ability to rejoin the Union.
Some Northerners feared the Union victory would be a hollow one if the South was not forced to change. They did not want to see ex-Confederate leaders return to power or African Americans remain oppressed.
The end of the war and the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment put an end to slavery. But other questions remained: Would African Americans be allowed to vote? Would they be granted other rights? Southerners believed each state should answer those questions for itself. But many Northerners did not trust the former slave owners to do right by African Americans.

Limited suffrage: Voting rights for some African Americans, such as those who served in the military or knew how to read.

General or universal: Voting rights for all.

Indissolubleness: Unbreakable nature.

Excerpt from "On Reconstruction"

I think the people of the State [of Georgia] would be unwilling [to] do more than they have done for restoration [into the Union]. Restricted tolimited suffrage would not be so objectionable asgeneral or universal. But it is a matter that belongs to the State to regulate. The question of suffrage, whether universal or restricted, is one of State policy exclusively, as they believe. Individually I should not be opposed to a propose[d] system of restricted or limited suffrage to this class [of] our population.… The only view in their opinion that could possibly justify the war that was carried on by the federal government against them was the idea of theindissolubleness of the Union; that those who held the administration for the time werebound to enforce the execution of the laws and the maintenance of the integrity of the country under the Constitution.… They expected as soon as the confederate cause was abandoned that immediately the States would be brought back into theirpractical relations with the government as previouslyconstituted. That is what they looked to. They expected that the States would immediately have their representatives in the Senate and in the House; and they expected in good faith, as loyal men, as the term is frequently used—loyal to law, order, and the Constitution—to support the government under the Constitution.… Towards the Constitution of the United States the great mass of our people were always as muchdevoted in their feelings as any people ever were towards any laws or people. They resorted tosecession with a view of more securely maintaining these principles. And when they found they were not successful in theirobject in perfect good faith, as far as I can judge from meeting with them andconversing with them, looking to the future development of their country … theirearnest desire and expectation was to allow the past struggle … to pass by and to co-operate with … those of allsections who earnestly desire the preservation of constitutional liberty and theperpetuation of the government in itspurity. They have been … disappointed in this, and are … patiently waiting, however, and believing that when thepassions of the hour have passed away this delay in representation will cease.…

My own opinion is, that these terms ought not to be offered asconditions precedent .… It would be best for the peace, harmony, andprosperity of the whole country that there should be an immediate restoration, an immediate bringing back of the States into their original practical relations; and let all these questions then be discussed in common council. Then the representatives from the south could be heard, and you and all could judge much better of the tone andtemper of the people than you could from the opinions given by any individuals.…

My judgment, therefore, is verydecided, that it would have been better as soon as thelamentable conflict was over, when the people of the south abandoned their cause and agreed to accept the issue, desiring as they do to resume their places for the future in the Union, and to look to the arena of reason and justice for the protection of their rights in the Union—it would have been better to have allowed that result to take place, to follow under the policy adopted by the [Johnson] administration, than to delay orhinder it bypropositions toamend the Constitution in respect to suffrage.… I think the people of all the southern States would in the halls ofCongress discuss these questions calmly anddeliberately. And if they did not show that the views theyentertained werejust and proper, such as to control the judgment of the people of the other sections and States, they would quietly yield to whatever should be constitutionally determined in common council. But I think they feel very sensitively the offer to them of propositions to accept while they are denied all voice … in the discussion of these propositions. I think they feel very sensitively that they are denied the right to be heard.

What happened next …

The committee heard from 144 witnesses before concluding that many Southerners had a "vindictive and malicious hatred" of African Americans and feelings of "bitterness and defiance" toward the U.S. government, according to the Report of the Joint Committee on Reconstruction. The South's rebellion "is paraded as a virtue" in those states, the report said, while the North's efforts to preserve the country through war "are denounced as unjust and oppressive."

Congress responded with a bill expanding the powers and funding for the Freedmen's Bureau, the agency charged with getting African Americans on their feet. It also passed a series of Reconstruction Acts in 1867 (see Chapter 10) that would reorder the South's political system. New state governments would be formed under the watch of federal troops, and this time, African Americans would be invited to participate, and high-ranking ex-Confederates would be excluded. Some African Americans would hold elected offices in these new governments, and some whites would angrily lash back as members of the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacists (those who believe that whites are superior and should be in charge; see Chapter 15).

But before that happened, Georgia got to vote on the Fourteenth Amendment. Just as Stephens predicted, his state rejected the measure. The amendment later became law anyway.

Did you know …

Stephens was a frail, often sick man who never weighed more than 100 pounds. An attorney who served in Congress before the war, Stephens was reelected to the House of Representatives in 1872. He served for a decade, then resigned and won the governor's election in Georgia. He died a few months after inauguration (being sworn in).
Stephens was arrested at the end of the Civil War on charges of treason, or betraying one's country. He was released after spending five months at Fort Warren in Boston Harbor. Johnson eventually pardoned him and other top Confederates.
Johnson's plan for granting pardons to Southerners created a small industry: For fees ranging from $150 to $500, lawyers and brokers promised to line up presidential pardons for their clients. As noted in Reconstruction: After the Civil War, "this was an ideal climate for corruption, and the enormous pressures applied by those who wanted pardons in order to participate in political activities or to regain their property made graft [the use of bribes or political influence] inevitable."
Johnson and Congress continued to fight over the Reconstruction plans for the South. They later disagreed over the role of the Freedmen's Bureau and the need for civil rights legislation. Ultimately Congress tried—and narrowly failed—to remove Johnson from office by impeachment.

Consider the following …

Why did Congress refuse to admit the newly elected senators and representatives from the South?
Under what conditions would you allow the Southern states to return to the Union after the war? Who would be allowed to create the new state governments and hold elected offices?
Presidents Lincoln and Johnson drafted Reconstruction policies. So did Congress (a couple of times). Who should be responsible for creating such a policy: the president or Congress?

For More Information

Franklin, John Hope. Reconstruction: After the Civil War. 2nd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994.

McPherson, James M. The Struggle for Equality. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1964.

Reid, Whitelaw. After the War: A Southern Tour. New York: Harper & Row, 1965. Also available at Making of America Books.http://www.hti.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=moa;idno=AFJ8942 (accessed on September 17, 2004).

Report of the Joint Committee on Reconstruction of the First Session Thirty-Ninth Congress. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1866.

Schott, Thomas Edwin. Alexander H. Stephens of Georgia: A Biography. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1988.

Practical relations: Previous relationship.

Constituted: Established.

Devoted: Dedicated.

Secession: Leaving the Union.

Object: Goal.

Conversing: Talking.

Earnest: Serious.

Sections: Areas.

Perpetuation: Continuation.

Purity: Unspoiled nature.