Belief 5 - Reading 6 of 9, The Reconstruction Convention

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Belief 5 - Reading 6 of 9

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REORGANIZATION

Harper's Weekly, July 1, 1865, page 402 (Editorial)

President Johnson has issued his proclamations for the reorganization of most of the late rebel States. The first movement in every instance is to be a convention chosen by those who were voters by the State Constitution just before the ordinance of secession was passed, and who take an oath to the amnesty proclamation. The duty of the convention will be to re-form the State Constitution, and to prescribe the qualifications of electors and the eligibility of persons to hold office in the State.

If this were all that the convention is to do we might well be alarmed. The result of the late election in Virginia shows what the consequences would be. But President Johnson is doing what President Lincoln did: he is feeling his way. Summoned to deal with an unprecedented condition of public affairs he moves with a proper and prudent caution. He know, of course, as well as any man that his proclamations proceed from the necessity of the case. There are practically no "people," politically speaking, in the late rebel States. There will be none except by the consent and upon the terms of the national Government. The President is now taking the first step toward deciding who shall be the people of those States and exercise the power of determining electors—a power which, as he truly remarks, the people of the several States composing the Federal Union have rightfully exercised from the origin of the Government to the present time. The decision of this important point-namely, who are henceforth to be the people of the late rebel States, the President does not finally leave to a body of persons in the State arbitrarily selected by himself, but refers to the sole authority in the country which can rightfully determine it—the Congress of the United States.

It is not enough, in the President’s opinion, that those who were voters at the time of secession, and who now take the oath, shall re-form the Constitution of the State. It is not enough that the Constitution so re-formed shall be accepted by such voters as that Constitution prescribes. The convention and people must, in the words of the proclamation, "present such a republican form of State government as will entitle the State to the guaranty of the United States therefor." Congress alone is the judge of what is such a republican form; and until Congress accepts the re-formed or new Constitution of the State, there are no people in the State who have the power of determining electors. Thus by his proclamations the President merely invites those residents of the States who were formerly voters, and who satisfy his other conditions, to suggest to Congress what kind of a State Constitution they wish, leaving Congress to decide whether it be truly republican or not. When Congress approves, then the electors, recognized tin the Constitution, become "the people," who rightfully exercise all State authority.

The rights of States, as of counties and towns, are not to be denied. But certainly no portion of the late people of the rebel States are competent to declare who shall exercise those rights. If they are, the interference of the President is impertinent. If there be a State of Texas which has rights not to be touched, that of settling the suffrage is one of the chief among them; and, in that case, according to the theory of States which is now asserted in some quarters, the call of Mr. Murrah, elected Governor according to the laws of Texas, convening the Legislature similarly elected, is more legitimate than that of President Johnson, which entirely disregards the action of the people of the State until authorized by himself.

Happily, by the terms of the President’s proclamation, Congress will determine who are the people who shall exercise political power in the late rebel States. The proceedings in those States toward reorganization will therefore be extremely interesting as they are more or less likely to be recognized by Congress. What is already known of the character and views of the new House of Representatives assures us that no constitution will be approved which is not truly republican. The frank expression of Senator Sherman, one of the most cautious men in the Senate, indicates also the probable action of that body.

The power of Congress in the matter is incontestable, not only from the necessity of the case, which is so important a consideration in the whole question of reconstruction, but from the decisions of the Supreme Court. According to the President’s proclamation, those who may be summoned to vote are "to present such a republican form of State Government as will entitle the State to the guaranty of the United States therefor." The process of reorganizing the States thus indicated by the President is analogous to that of organizing a Territory. We may not be willing to allow that the States have become Territories. We may insist that the States, as such, are only dormant, or in abeyance, or disabled, or whatever term better suits our theory. But all such speculations are, as Mr. Lincoln called them, "pernicious abstractions." The important consideration is the return of the people of the State under a republican form of government to their relations with the National Union, and Congress may properly declare the principles upon which those State Governments shall rest.

In his excellent treatise upon "Secession and Slavery," which we commend to all who are interested in this question, Mr. Joel Prentiss Bishop quotes the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in the case of Permoli v. the First Municipality of New Orleans. When Louisiana was to be admitted Congress prescribed the insertion of certain specific matters in the Constitution to be framed for the State. Mr. Justice Catron, delivering the opinion of the Court, said: "All Congress intended was to declare in advance to the people of the Territory the fundamental principles their Constitution should contain: this was every way proper under the circumstances: the instrument having been duly formed and presented, it was for the National Legislature to judge whether it contained the proper principles, and to accept it if it did, or reject it if it did not." Mr. Bishop does not hold that the States have ceased to be States; by the accepts facts, and acknowledges, as every thoughtful man must acknowledge, that the late rebel States have at present no government within the Union, and can obtain one only upon the conditions which the Union may prescribe. For, as he cogently puts the argument, if there be no recognized Government in a State, there is certainly no republican form there, while the United States are constitutionally bound to secure such a form to every State.

When therefore, Congress meets and encounters this question, it will proceed to settle it a hundred-fold more wisely than it could have been settled under the Louisiana debate last winter. For the subject will be thoroughly discussed before the assembling of Congress; and the American people will pronounce unmistakably their conviction that no form of State Government is republican which is not founded upon the whole body of adult freemen.

Harper's Weekly, July 1, 1865, page 402 (Editorial)

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