eventful years to follow are evidence alike of the sincerity of the speakers and their insight into the temper of the times. Except Tennessee, all the States that attempted secession did so by means of revolutionary bodies styled conventions; this description of them is justified both by the general powers of administration and government which they assumed and by the fact that the legislatures in convoking them transcended their authority, the members of every State legislature being "bound by oath or affirmation to support" the Federal Constitution, which forms a part of the fundamental law of each commonwealth. Though the Legislature of Tennessee, following the example of law-making bodies in other disloyal States, passed a "Convention Bill," it was promptly defeated by a majority of 13,204 in a total vote of more than 120,000. Notwithstanding the constitutional prohibition that "no State shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or confederation," the Legislature on May 1 authorized Governor Harris to appoint commissioners to form a military league with the Confederate States. Six days later the relations entered into by these agents were ratified in a secret session, the State government thereby turning over temporarily to the President of the Confederacy its entire military force. These matters disposed of, the plans of disunionists were completed by the passage on the same day of a declaration of independence and an ordinance dissolving all Federal relations between Tennessee and the United States. Though this measure was to be voted upon a month later, the Legislature, as if anticipating the result, adopted and ratified the Confederate constitution. What was so ardently desired by secessionists was finally accomplished, and on June 24 the Governor declared his State out of the Union, the vote being 104,019 for, and 47,238 against, separation. 2 The Tennes 1 Art. I. sec. 10, Constitution of the United States. 'McPherson's Pol. Hist., p. 5. see Legislature did not assume the functions of a secession convention till after the commencement of hostilities; but from that date the forms of law ceased to be seriously regarded. While the disunion party scored a present triumph, loyalist leaders like Horace Maynard, Thomas A. R. Nelson and Andrew Johnson, at the imminent risk of injury or even of death, were speaking and working actively against the spirit of secession. The strong Union feeling thus excited resulted ultimately in local insurrections and in the meeting, June 17, of a convention at Greeneville in which a remonstrance was adopted and a committee appointed to petition the Legislature for the separation of East Tennessee and such counties of Middle Tennessee as were willing to cooperate in the formation of a new commonwealth. But the presence there during the following years of veteran Confederate armies prevented Union men from organizing a separate government, and saved the State from the fate of Virginia. All who were known to have had a connection, or who were suspected of sympathy, with this movement were especially obnoxious to the secession party, and at the hands of soldiers were subjected to many indignities. In various ways the feeling of opposition to the Confederacy was intensified, and it was not long before measures of retaliation were considered. Union people were quick to perceive the advantage which the South derived from the use of railways within the State, and, in expectation of assistance from Federal forces in Kentucky, five railroad bridges were burned. East Tennesseeans, however, were destined to be sorely disappointed in the matter of aid from the Union army; and, without effective organization or arms, Were easily captured or dispersed. Of the former, many were sent as prisoners of war to Alabama, hundreds were crowded into loathsome jails in the State and others hanged, with circumstances of deliberate cruelty, near the scenes of their alleged crimes. These were among the outrages to which Mr. Lincoln referred in his letter to the Federal commander. By Horace Maynard a Representative, and Andrew Johnson a Senator, in Congress the President was kept very accurately informed of events in the State and often importuned to relieve their constituents. This he constantly endeavored to do, but his intentions were effectually defeated by the inactivity of Geaeral Buell, who cherished other plans for destroying his antagonist. More than two years were to elapse, from the time President Lincoln urged his policy, before Tennesseeans received any aid from Federal armies; long before that time they had been ruthlessly punished for their patriotism, and then their oppressors were chastised by the hand of an abler warrior than General Buell. Within a month from the date of President Lincoln's letter of January 6 General Grant had possession of Fort Henry and, ten days later, February 16, received the surrender of Fort Donelson. Nashville, becoming unsafe, was evacuated on February 23, 1862; the State appeared for the first time to be slipping from the grasp of the Confederacy, and a question, hitherto more or less academic, presented itself for practical settlement. In the territory from which hostile armies were reluctantly retiring there would be involved a great derangement in the administration of local civil law from the necessary displacement there of all officials heretofore acting in obedience to the Confederate States. By other Union victories in the Spring of 1862 the same situation confronted the Federal Government in Arkansas, in North Carolina and in Louisiana. Indeed, this identical question arose as early as 1861 in Virginia and Missouri, but in the former the rebel government was abrogated by a delegate convention that restored a loyal government from which in due time sprang the separate State of West Virginia. In Missouri a lawfully chosen convention appointed a pro visional government in sympathy with the Union. This subject, however, will be more conveniently discussed elsewhere. When General Johnston received tidings of the disaster at Donelson he retired with his army to Murfreesboro, leaving Nashville, which he was unable to protect, a scene of panic and dismay, first advising Governor Harris to secure the public archives and convoke the Legislature elsewhere. It was in these circumstances that President Lincoln, on the same day, February 23, nominated, and the Senate, March 5, 1862, confirmed, Andrew Johnson as military governor of Tennessee with the rank of brigadier-general. As the commission antedates the action of the Senate by two days the President, no doubt, consulted the leaders of that body relative to the contemplated nomination, and received assurance of its favorable consideration. Nothing in any way connected with the appointment of Senator Johnson, who was destined to act so conspicuous a part in the important and difficult work of reconstruction, can fail to be of interest, and any account of the execution of his office would be incomplete without some observations on the nature of his commission of which the following is a copy: WA DE ARTM NT, Ma ch 3, 18 2. o the Hon. NDREW JO NSON: Sir: You are hereby appointed military governor of the State of Tennessee, with authority to exercise and perform, within the limits of that State, all and singular the powers, duties, and functions pertaining to the office of military governor, including the power to establish all necessary offices, tribunals, etc. EDWIN M. STANTON, Quoting the essential part of this document a recent coöperative work has this comment: "The office [that of military governor] was new to the laws and history of the State 'Misc. Doc. No. 55, H. of R., 1 Sess. 39th Cong., p. 5. and country. Its powers and duties were limited only by the will of one man, the occupant."1 From the commission itself we derive our prime conception of both the nature of the office and the functions which it comprehended. The authority of the incumbent extended to the exercise, within the limits of Tennessee, of all " the powers, duties, and functions pertaining to the office of military governor." Nothing in this language implies that the office was of recent creation. Nor is its nature to be discovered by a perusal of the supplemental authority contained in the President's letter of September 19, 1863, to Governor Johnson, for the official conduct of the latter on his arrival in Nashville can not be seriously thought to have been influenced by instructions received nineteen months later. It is perfectly true, as Mr. Ira P. Jones, author of the chapter on Reconstruction in Tennessee, asserts, that the office of military governor had never been exercised within that State; but it is not a fact that it was new to the laws and history of the "country," if by this indefinite expression he means the United States. During the war with Mexico the American people had been made familiar with military commissions and with military governors. Secretary Marcy prepared, June 3, 1846, for General Stephen W. Kearny the following instructions: "Should you conquer and take possession of New Mexico and Upper California, or considerable places in either, you will establish temporary civil governments therein." 2 To this direction general rules of conduct were added, and the letter authorized the assurance that "It is the wish and design of the United States to provide for them [the people of New Mexico) a free government with the least possible delay, similar to that which exists in our Territories." By virtue of this authority General Kearny appointed Charles Bent governor of New 'Why The Solid South? p. 170. 'Cutt's Conquest of California and New Mexico, p. 246. |