This language clearly indicates the legal theory upon which General Banks was proceeding, and citizens understood that Mr. Hahn represented a popular power entirely subordinate to the armed occupation of the State.

On March 13, 1864, the President wrote the following private letter to Governor Hahn:

I congratulate you on having fixed your name in history as the first free-state governor of Louisiana. Now you are about to have a convention, which, among other things, will probably define the elective franchise. I barely suggest for your private consideration whether some of the colored people may not be let in-as, for instance, the very intelligent, and especially those who have fought gallantly in our ranks. They would probably help, in some trying time to come, to keep the jewel of liberty within the family of freedom. But this is only a suggestion, not to the public, but to you alone.1

Speaking of this personal note Mr. Blaine says: "It was perhaps the earliest proposition from any authentic source to endow the negro with the right of suffrage, and was an indirect but most effective answer to those who subsequently attempted to use Mr. Lincoln's name in support of policies which his intimate friends instinctively knew would be abhorrent to his unerring sense of justice."

At the suggestion of General Banks, the President two days later invested Mr. Hahn until further order "with the powers exercised hitherto by the military governor of Louisiana." 3

From the sentiments of the Free State party it requires little insight into human affairs to foretell that in some manner they would soon be found in opposition. Their candidate, Mr. B. F. Flanders, who received fewer votes than either of his competitors, was a prominent official in the Treasury Department, and from this vantage ground, with

'Letters and State Papers of Lincoln, Vol. II. p. 496. 'Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. II, p. 40.

'Letters and State Papers of Lincoln, Vol. II. p. 498.

out, so far as appears, rebuke from Secretary Chase, began to stir up in Congress a feeling of hostility to the new government in Louisiana. Precisely why Mr. Lincoln decided to take into his own hands the entire subject of reconstruction may be collected without difficulty from what has already been said; but that this determination was confirmed by his knowledge of an alliance between the Free State leaders and the "Radicals" in Congress there can be little doubt.

The Department Commander in a general order gave notice on March 11 that an election would be held on the 28th of that month for the choice of delegates to a State convention to meet in New Orleans "for the revision and amendment of the constitution of Louisiana." 1 Five days later, March 16, Governor Hahn, in a proclamation to the sheriffs and other officers concerned, authorized the election and commanded them to give due notice thereof to the qualified voters of the State and to make prompt returns to the Secretary of State in New Orleans.2

Pursuant to these notices the election was held on the 28th, and resulted in the choice of ninety-seven members, two of whom were rejected because of irregular returns. The entire State was entitled to 150 delegates. The parish of Orleans was represented by sixty-three members, leaving to the country parishes but thirty-two. Of the vote, which was exceedingly light, no return appears to have been published. Because of their recent defeat no nominations were made by the Radicals, and this fact, together with heavy rains on election day, was assigned by Governor Hahn in a letter to the President as an explanation of the meagre vote. The Parish of Ascension, which in 1860 had a population of 3,940 whites, elected her delegates by 61 votes; Placquemines, which by the same census had 2,529 white inhabitants, cast 246, while the 1 Ann. Cycl., 1864, p. 478.

single delegate from Madison was chosen by only twenty-eight electors.1

General Banks informed a committee of Congress that all that section of the State as far up as Point Coupee voted; some men from the Red River cast their ballots at Vidalia. In his statement he declared that " The city of New Orleans is really the State of Louisiana "; yet at that time it contained less than half the population of the State.2

The constitutional convention, which assembled April 6, 1864, was organized on the 7th with E. H. Durell as president, and after a session of more than two and a half months adjourned July 25. A proclamation of the Governor appointed the 5th of September as the time for taking a vote on the work of the convention. The result was 6,836 for the adoption, and 1,556 for the rejection of the constitution. Besides these there were a number of electors who did not vote on either side of the question.3

Of the work of the convention General Banks spoke as follows:

In a State which held 331,726 slaves, one half of its entire population in 1860, more than three fourths of whom had been specially excepted from the Proclamation of Emancipation, and were still held de jure in bondage, the convention declared by a majority of all the votes to which the State would have been entitled if every delegate had been present from every district in the State:—

Instantaneous, universal, uncompensated, unconditional emancipation of slaves!

It prohibited forever the recognition of property in man!

It decreed the education of all the children, without distinction of race or color!

It directs all men, white or black, to be enrolled as soldiers for the public defence!

It makes all men equal before the law!

It compels, by its regenerating spirit, the ultimate recognition of all

the rights which national authority can confer upon an oppressed race!

It wisely recognizes for the first time in constitutional history, the interest of daily labor as an element of power entitled to the protection of the State.1

At the same election, that of September 5, the following persons were chosen Representatives in Congress: M. F. Bonzano, A. P. Field, W. D. Mann, T. M. Wells and R. W. Taliaferro. A Legislature was elected at the same time, the members of which were almost entirely in favor of a free State, and by this body seven electors of President and VicePresident were appointed. On October 10th two United States Senators were elected — R. King Cutler for the unexpired term ending March 4, 1867, and Charles Smith for the vacancy created by the resignation of Judah P. Benjamin, and ending March 4, 1865.2

It is matter of familiar history that the State government thus organized was never recognized by Congress. The question was presented to that body December 5, 1864, at the opening of the second session of the Thirty-eighth Congress, when the claimants above named appeared in Washington applying for admission to seats, and again in January and February, 1865, upon consideration of a joint resolution declaring certain States not entitled to representation in the Electoral College. As in the case of Tennessee, however, the vote offered by Louisiana was not counted.

The agency of the President in setting up this civil government, and the successive steps in its accomplishment have been related with some degree of minuteness, so that the nature of the controversy between the Executive and the Legislative branches of the Government may be better understood. Whether Mr. Lincoln exceeded his constitutional authority will be considered when an account has been presented of the result of his efforts to restore civil government in the States where Federal authority had been overthrown.

1 Ann. Cycl., 1864, p. 479. 2 Ibid.

T

III

ARKANSAS

HE people of northern Arkansas were strongly attached to the Union, and until December 20, 1860, when a commissioner from Alabama addressed its Legislature, no secession movement took place within the State. Her geographical position classed her with the Western, her productions bound up her interests with the Southern, States.1 As late as January 5, 1861, resolutions opposing separate action were adopted almost unanimously by the largest meeting ever held at Van Buren. Mr. Lincoln's election was not then deemed a sufficient cause to dissolve the Union. Citizens of every party favored all honorable efforts for its preservation, and demonstrations to the contrary were regarded as the work of only an extreme and inconsiderable faction.2 So rapid, however, was the succession of events that scarcely two weeks had elapsed when she exhibited signs of resting uneasily in the Union; for on January 16 a bill submitting to popular vote the question of holding a convention passed the Legislature. At the election of delegates to this assembly 23,626 votes were cast for the Union, against 17,927 for the secession, candidates. Though this convention, which assembled March 4, was organized by the choice of Union officers, the proposal to hold it had been carried by a majority of 11,586 in the election of February 18. While secession was strongly urged, a 1 Ann. Cycl., 1861, p. 22.

'Ibid.

'McPherson's Pol. Hist., p. 4.