Nothing in the reorganization of Alabama or of South Carolina calls for especial mention. The same is true of Florida. Both the spirit and tendency of Southern legislation, however, require to be noticed, and with that examination a brief recapitulation will complete this investigation.

Before concluding this inquiry two related topics require briefly to be noticed, namely, the character of the reconstruction conventions, and the personnel as well as the spirit of the legislatures organized under their authority. As to the former it may be observed that there were several modes in which constitutional conventions could have been assembled; all, however, were objectionable because of an element of irregularity. Considering them chronologically, rather than logically, the first was the method employed by the Union men of western Virginia. The Wheeling convention of June, 1861, was composed of delegates chosen at elections called, not by the constituted authorities, for they were already committed to a policy of rebellion, but by a spontaneous popular movement inaugurated by loyal and influential leaders. The work of this body, even though revolutionary, or at least irregular in its origin, was acquiesced in by the people affected and subsequently approved by the General Government. So few, however, were the loyalists of the insurgent States generally, that it was not practicable elsewhere in the South to reorganize governments in a similar manner.

A second mode was that adopted by Mr. Lincoln. Under this method, the President, as Commander-in-Chief, protected Union minorities in their efforts to reestablish local governments in harmony with the Federal Constitution. This plan, it is evident, could be justified merely as a military measure, and, therefore, was lawful only during the continuance of the Rebellion. On the return of peace all such provisional schemes would disappear unless tolerated by the neglect or confirmed by the legislation of Congress. The conventions held under

this theory rested on the authority of the commanding officer, who was himself acting by Executive direction. In reorganizing the government of Louisiana, General Banks, it will be remembered, declared that the fundamental law of that commonwealth was martial law, which was no more than his arbitrary will. In purging the electoral people and amending the constitution of that State he acted in strict conformity with that assumption. If in the preceding pages the reconstruction measures of Mr. Lincoln have been characterized as legitimate, it must not be supposed that it was intended to assert that they would have been lawful in time of peace, for under the American system it has never been deemed competent for the national Executive to call a convention. Though the establishments instituted under his authority, except in the case of Tennessee, never received the permanent sanction of Congress, the conventions which organized these governments stand on a foundation somewhat different from those assembled by the appointees of President Johnson, for in the summer of 1865 the plea of military necessity could no longer be urged. If, therefore, the conventions held in Louisiana, Arkansas and Tennessee were tainted with irregularity, those assembled in the remaining States were undoubtedly revolutionary. Technically, however, the conventions of both classes stand on the same footing. Governor Perry, of South Carolina, regarded as revolutionary the body which he convoked to reorganize his commonwealth, and for that reason, as he alleged, dissolved the convention before it had taken final action on the important question of the Southern debt.

The course of the Confederate governors of Mississippi, Georgia and Texas, who summoned the insurgent legislatures of their respective States for the purpose of calling conventions, suggests a third mode in which the machinery of government could have been set in motion. This plan, however, presented an evident difficulty, inasmuch as these assemblies

could not have been recognized without admitting in some sort the validity of the secession and kindred ordinances. Mr. Lincoln, it is true, intended, before hostilities had ceased, to permit the members of the Virginia Legislature to meet as influential individuals for the purpose of recalling their State troops from the Confederate army. The surrender of Lee occurring soon after, and the President's action having been misunderstood, he withdrew this permission, and did it the more readily as the necessity which suggested it had passed completely away. The department commanders prevented any response to the proclamations of the Executives in the three States named above, and President Johnson by his prompt appointment of provisional governors ignored or anticipated their action. To say nothing of the revolutionary course contemplated by the ex-Confederate governors, the success of their plan required the approval or at least the connivance of Federal authorities.

Still another manner of proceeding was for Congress, by calling or authorizing conventions, to inaugurate the movement for reconstruction; but the power of the national Legislature extends only to the passage of enabling acts for Territories, and these commonwealths appear to have been neither constitutional Territories nor constitutional States. However, as some irregularity was inseparable from any system of reorganization, the Legislative branch of Government was the authority least objectionable for controlling informal changes in the nature of the Union. If powers not conferred by the Constitution must be assumed, it is better in the interests of civil liberty for the representatives of the people to transcend the organic law.

The second mode, it need scarcely be observed, was that embodied in the Executive plan. The conventions which assembled under encouragement and direction of President Johnson

had an opportunity unequaled since the formation of the Constitution of winning the gratitude of the nation. By adopting an enlightened and humane policy they could have furnished an example of patriotism that would serve to influence the deliberations not only of the first assemblies to meet under the new order, but of all future legislatures in those States. It is well known that they did not prove equal to this emergency; the concessions to Northern opinion were not gracefully yielded, and lost much of their merit by having been extorted from the fears of the delegates. In some instances the conventions, by assuming functions of the ordinary legislative character, transcended their powers, and many of them "repealed" the ordinances without condemning the principle of secession. They amended and even adopted constitutions that were never submitted to the people. The civil rights of the negro were abandoned to the mercy of those who had fought to perpetuate human servitude. No provision was made for freedmen in the fundamental law, it having been assumed that the new legislatures could be trusted to extend justice equally to all classes in the community. In a word, those were disappointed who had expected from the conventions a display of civic virtues commensurate to the occasion.

The remaining topic, that is, the character of the reconstructed governments as well as the spirit and tendency of their legislation, may in this place be briefly dismissed. Not, indeed, that the subject is unimportant, for it was mainly upon this question that the Thirty-ninth Congress justified its refusal to admit members from the South, and vindicated its rigorous treatment of the subjugated States. While an investigation of public opinion in that section is essential to a correct understanding of legislative action, the full consideration of the subject belongs properly to a treatise on

Congressional reconstruction, a theme to which this essay is only introductory. For the present purpose, therefore, a brief outline must suffice.

Though the reconstruction conventions were correctly regarded as revolutionary, that character would not affect the legislatures instituted by their authority if the people concerned acquiesced in their proceedings. Americans of that day were not altogether indifferent to the sacred right of revolution, even if the principle was not so highly esteemed as formerly. An objection far more serious than the irregular origin of these conventions was the spirit which animated Southern legislators.

When the Thirty-ninth Congress convened at its first session members had before them only the merest fragments of the mass of testimony subsequently reported by the Joint Committee on Reconstruction, though even then they possessed evidence of the temper of the Southern mind sufficient, they believed, to recommend the most deliberate procedure. It would not be difficult to collect from contemporary literature proofs of hostility to the General Government sufficient to justify the attitude of Congress when it assembled on the 4th of December, 1865. From various sources the Northern people had caught glimpses of the actual condition of affairs within the late Confederacy. These manifestations of unfriendliness to the Union were enough to excite suspicion, and, in a matter affecting the future welfare of a great and powerful nation, suspicion is a just ground for inquiry.

The alacrity with which the Southern people rushed to battle, as well as the vigor with which they prosecuted the war, was a phenomenon not more remarkable than the unanimity and promptness with which they apparently acquiesced in the result. It was long before the people of the North could believe that the rebellion was anything more than a leaders' insurrection, and they could not easily be persuaded after its