The Great Conspiracy, Complete
by
John Alexander Logan
Part 13 out of 13
imagined they saw the form and heard the voice of one of the great
prophets and leaders of Israel; while others were more reminded of one
of the Holy Apostles of the later Dispensation who preached the glorious
Gospel "On Earth, Peace, good will toward Men," and received in the end
the crown of Christian martyrdom. But not one soul of those present
--unless his own felt such presentiment--dreamed for a moment that, all
too soon, the light of those brave and kindly eyes was fated to go out
in darkness, that sad voice to be hushed forever, that form to lie
bleeding and dead, a martyred sacrifice indeed, upon the altar of his
Country!
CHAPTER XXX.
COLLAPSE OF THE ARMED CONSPIRACY.
Meantime, Sherman's Armies were pressing along upward, toward Raleigh,
from Columbia, marching through swamps and over quicksands and across
swollen streams--cold, wet, hungry, tired--often up to their armpits in
water, yet keeping their powder dry, and silencing opposing batteries or
driving the Enemy, who doggedly retired before them, through the
drenching rains which poured down unceasingly for days, and even weeks,
at a time. On the 16th of March, 1865, a part of Sherman's Forces met
the Enemy, under General Joe Johnston, at Averysboro, N. C., and forced
him to retire. On the 19th and 20th of March, occurred the series of
engagements, about Mill Creek and the Bentonville and Smithfield
cross-roads, which culminated in the attack upon the Enemy, of the 21st
of March, and his evacuation, that night, of his entire line of works,
and retreat upon Smithfield. This was known as the Battle of
Bentonville, and was the last battle fought between the rival Forces
under Sherman and Johnston. The Armies of Sherman, now swollen by
having formed a junction with the troops under Schofield and Terry,
which had come from Newbern and Wilmington, went into camp at Goldsboro,
North Carolina, to await the rebuilding of the railroads from those two
points on the coast, and the arrival of badly needed clothing,
provision, and other supplies, after which the march would be resumed to
Burksville, Virginia. By the 25th of March, the railroad from Newbern
was in running order, and General Sherman, leaving General Schofield in
command of his eighty thousand troops, went to Newbern and Morehead
City, and thence by steamer to City Point, for a personal interview with
General Grant. On the same day, Lee made a desperate but useless
assault, with twenty thousand (of his seventy thousand) men upon Fort
Stedman--a portion of Grant's works in front of Petersburg. On the
27th, President Lincoln reached City Point, on the James River, in the
steamer "Ocean Queen." Sherman reached City Point the same day, and,
after meeting the General-in-Chief, Grant took him on board the "Ocean
Queen" to see the President. Together they explained to Mr. Lincoln the
Military situation, during the "hour or more" they were with him. Of
this interview with Mr. Lincoln, General Sherman afterwards wrote:
"General Grant and I explained to him that my next move from Goldsboro
would bring my Army, increased to eighty thousand men by Schofield's and
Terry's reinforcements, in close communication with General Grant's
Army, then investing Lee in Richmond, and that unless Lee could effect
his escape, and make junction with Johnston in North Carolina, he would
soon be shut up in Richmond with no possibility of supplies, and would
have to surrender. Mr. Lincoln was extremely interested in this view of
the case, and when we explained that Lee's only chance was to escape,
join Johnston, and, being then between me in North Carolina, and Grant
in Virginia, could choose which to fight. Mr. Lincoln seemed unusually
impressed with this; but General Grant explained that, at the very
moment of our conversation, General Sheridan was passing his Cavalry
across James River, from the North to the South; that he would, with
this Cavalry, so extend his left below Petersburg as to meet the South
Shore Road; and that if Lee should 'let go' his fortified lines, he
(Grant) would follow him so close that he could not possibly fall on me
alone in North Carolina. I, in like manner, expressed the fullest
confidence that my Army in North Carolina was willing to cope with Lee
and Johnston combined, till Grant could come up. But we both agreed
that one more bloody battle was likely to occur before the close of the
War. Mr. Lincoln * * * more than once exclaimed: 'Must more blood be
shed? Cannot this last bloody battle be avoided?' We explained that we
had to presume that General Lee was a real general; that he must see
that Johnston alone was no barrier to my progress; and that if my Army
of eighty thousand veterans should reach Burksville, he was lost in
Richmond; and that we were forced to believe he would not await that
inevitable conclusion, but make one more desperate effort."
President Lincoln's intense anxiety caused him to remain at City Point,
from this time forth, almost until the end--receiving from General
Grant, when absent, at the immediate front, frequent dispatches, which,
as fast as received and read, he transmitted to the Secretary of War,
at Washington. Grant had already given general instructions to
Major-Generals Meade, Ord, and Sheridan, for the closing movements of his
immediate Forces, against Lee and his lines of supply and possible
retreat. He saw that the time had come for which he had so long waited,
and he now felt "like ending the matter." On the morning of the 29th of
March--preliminary dispositions having been executed--the movements
began. That night, Grant wrote to Sheridan, who was at Dinwiddie Court
House, with his ten thousand Cavalry: "Our line is now unbroken from the
Appomattox to Dinwiddie. * * * I feel now like ending the matter, if
it is possible to do so, before going back. * * * In the morning, push
around the Enemy, if you can, and get on his right rear. * * * We will
all act together as one Army, until it is seen what can be done with the
Enemy." The rain fell all that night in torrents. The face of the
country, where forests, swamps, and quicksands alternated in presenting
apparently insuperable obstacles to immediate advance, was very
discouraging next morning, but Sheridan's heart was gladdened by orders
to seize Five Forks.
On the 31st, the Battle of Dinwiddie Court House occurred--the Enemy
attacking Sheridan and Warren with a largely superior force. During the
night, Sheridan was reinforced with the Fifth Corps, and other troops.
On April 1st, Sheridan fought, and won, the glorious Battle of Five
Forks, against this detached Rebel force, and, besides capturing 6,000
prisoners and six pieces of artillery, dispersed the rest to the North
and West, away from the balance of Lee's Army. That night, after Grant
received the news of this victory, he went into his tent, wrote a
dispatch, sent it by an orderly, and returning to the fire outside his
tent, calmly said: "I have ordered an immediate assault along the
lines." This was afterward modified to an attack at three points, on
the Petersburg works, at 4 o'clock in the morning--a terrific
bombardment, however, to be kept up all night. Grant also sent more
reinforcements to Sheridan. On the morning of April 2nd, the assault
was made, and the Enemy's works were gallantly carried, while Sheridan
was coming up to the West of Petersburg.
The Rebel Chieftain Lee, when his works were stormed and carried, is
said to have exclaimed: "It has happened as I thought; the lines have
been stretched until they broke." At 10.30 A. M. he telegraphed to
Jefferson Davis: "My lines are broken in three places. Richmond must be
evacuated this evening." This dispatch of Parke, Ord on Wright's left,
Humphreys on Ord's left and Warren on Humphrey's left-Sheridan being to
the rear and left of Warren, reached Davis, while at church. All
present felt, as he retired, that the end of the Rebellion had come. At
10.40 A. M. Lee reported further: "I see no prospect of doing more than
holding our position here till night. I am not certain that I can do
that. If I can, I shall withdraw tonight, North of the Appomattox, and
if possible, it will be better to withdraw the whole line to-night from
James river. * * * Our only chance of concentrating our Forces is to
do so near Danville railroad, which I shall endeavor to do at once.
I advise that all preparations be made for leaving Richmond to-night.
I will advise you later, according to circumstances. "At 7 o'clock P. M.
Lee again communicated to the Rebel Secretary of War this information:
"It is absolutely necessary that we should abandon our position
to-night, or run the risk of being cut off in the morning. I have given
all the orders to officers on both sides of the river, and have taken
every precaution that I can to make the movement successful. It will be
a difficult operation, but I hope not impracticable. Please give all
orders that you find necessary, in and about Richmond. The troops will
all be directed to Amelia Court House." This was the last dispatch sent
by Lee to the Rebel Government.
On the 3rd of April, Petersburg and Richmond were evacuated, and again
under the Union flag, while Grant's immediate Forces were pressing
forward to cut off the retreat of Lee, upon Amelia Court House and
Danville, in an effort to form a junction with Johnston. On the 6th,
the important Battle of Sailor's Creek, Va., was fought and won by
Sheridan. On the evening of the 7th, at the Farmville hotel, where Lee
had slept the night before, Grant, after sending dispatches to Sheridan
at Prospect Station, Ord at Prince Edward's Court House, and Mead at
Rice Station, wrote the following letter to Lee:
"FARMVILLE, April 7th, 1865.
"GENERAL: The results of the last week must convince you of the
hopelessness of further resistance, on the part of the Army of Northern
Virginia, in this struggle. I feel that it is so, and regard it as my
duty to shift from myself the responsibility of any further effusion of
blood, by asking of you the surrender of that portion of the Confederate
States' army known as the Army of Northern Virginia.
"U. S. GRANT,
"Lieutenant-General."
Lee, however, in replying to this demand, and in subsequent
correspondence, seemed to be unable to see "the hopelessness of further
resistance." He thought "the emergency had not yet come." Hence, Grant
decided to so press and harass him, as to bring the emergency along
quickly. Accordingly, by the night of the 8th of April, Sheridan with
his Cavalry had completely headed Lee off, at Appomattox Court House.
By morning, Ord's forces had reached Sheridan, and were in line behind
him. Two Corps of the Army of the Potomac, under Meade, were also, by
this time, close on the Enemy's rear. And now the harassed Enemy,
conscious that his rear was threatened, and seeing only Cavalry in his
front, through which to fight his way, advanced to the attack. The
dismounted Cavalry of Sheridan contested the advance, in order to give
Ord and Griffin as much time as possible to form, then, mounting and
moving rapidly aside, they suddenly uncovered, to the charging Rebels,
Ord's impenetrable barrier of Infantry, advancing upon them at a
double-quick! At the same time that this appalling sight staggered
them, and rolled them back in despair, they became aware that Sheridan's
impetuous Cavalry, now mounted, were hovering on their left flank,
evidently about to charge!
Lee at once concluded that the emergency "had now come," and sent, both
to Sheridan and Meade, a flag of truce, asking that hostilities cease,
pending negotiations for a surrender--having also requested of Grant an
audience with a view to such surrender. That afternoon the two great
rival Military Chieftains met by appointment in the plain little
farm-house of one McLean--Lee dressed in his best full-dress uniform and
sword, Grant in a uniform soiled and dusty, and without any sword--and,
after a few preliminary words, as to the terms proposed by Grant, the
latter sat down to the table, and wrote the following:
"APPOMATTOX COURT HOUSE,
"VIRGINIA, April 9, 1865.
"GENERAL: In accordance with the substance of my letter to you of the
8th instant, I propose to receive the surrender of the Army of Northern
Virginia on the following terms, to wit: Rolls of all the officers and
men to be made in duplicate, one copy to be given to an officer to be
designated by me, the other to be retained by such officer or officers
as you may designate. The officers to give their individual paroles not
to take up arms against the Government of the United States, until
properly exchanged; and each company or regimental commander to sign a
like parole for the men of their commands. The arms, artillery, and
public property to be parked and stacked, and turned over to the
officers appointed by me to receive them. This will not embrace the
side-arms of the officers nor their private horses or baggage. This
done, each officer and man will be allowed to return to his home, not to
be disturbed by United States authority so long as they observe their
paroles and the laws in force where they may reside.
"U. S. GRANT,
"Lieutenant-General.
"General R. E. LEE."
After some further conversation, in which Grant intimated that his
officers receiving paroles would be instructed to "allow the Cavalry and
Artillery men to retain their horses, and take them home to work their
little farms"--a kindness which Lee said, would "have the best possible
effect," the latter wrote his surrender in the following words:
"HEAD-QUARTERS, ARMY OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA,
April 9, 1865.
"GENERAL: I received your letter of this date containing the terms of
the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia, as proposed by you. As
they are substantially the same as those expressed in your letter of the
8th instant, they are accepted. I will proceed to designate the proper
officers to carry the stipulations into effect.
"R. E. LEE, General.
"Lieutenant-General U. S. GRANT."
Before parting, Lee told Grant that his men were starving; and Grant at
once ordered 25,000 rations to be issued to the surrendered Rebels--and
then the Rebel Chieftain, shaking hands with the Victor, rode away to
his conquered legions. It was 4.30 P.M. when Grant, on his way to his
own headquarters, now with Sheridan's command, dismounted from his
horse, and sitting on a stone by the roadside, wrote the following
dispatch:
"Hon. E. M. STANTON,
Secretary of War, Washington.
"General Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia this afternoon on
terms proposed by myself. The accompanying additional correspondence
will show the conditions fully.
"U. S. GRANT, Lieutenant General."
Meanwhile on the 5th of April, Grant, who had kept Sherman, as well as
Sheridan, advised of his main movements, had also ordered the former to
press Johnston's Army as he was pressing Lee, so as, between them, they
might "push on, and finish the job." In accordance with this order,
Sherman's Forces advanced toward Smithfield, and, Johnston having
rapidly retreated before them, entered Raleigh, North Carolina, on the
13th. The 14th of April, brought the news of the surrender of Lee to
Grant, and the same day a correspondence was opened between Sherman and
Johnston, looking to the surrender of the latter's Army--terms for which
were actually agreed upon, subject, however, to approval of Sherman's
superiors. Those terms, however, being considered unsatisfactory, were
promptly disapproved, and similar terms to those allowed to Lee's Army,
were substituted, and agreed to, the actual surrender taking place April
26th, near Durham, North Carolina. On the 21st, Macon, Georgia, with
12,000 Rebel Militia, and sixty guns, was surrendered to Wilson's
Cavalry-command, by General Howell Cobb. On the 4th of May, General
Richard Taylor surrendered all the armed Rebel troops, East of the
Mississippi river; and on the 26th of May, General Kirby Smith
surrendered all of them, West of that river.
On that day, organized, armed Rebellion against the United States
ceased, and became a thing of the past. It had been conquered, stamped
out, and extinguished, while its civic head, Jefferson Davis, captured
May 11th, at Irwinsville, Georgia, while attempting to escape, was, with
other leading Rebels, a prisoner in a Union fort. Four years of armed
Rebellion had been enough for them. They were absolutely sick of it.
And the magnanimity of the terms given them by Grant, completed their
subjugation. "The wisdom of his course," says Badeau, "was proved by
the haste which the Rebels made to yield everything they had fought for.
They were ready not only to give up their arms, but literally to implore
forgiveness of the Government. They acquiesced in the abolition of
Slavery. They abandoned the heresy of Secession, and waited to learn
what else their conquerors would dictate. They dreamed not of political
power. They only asked to be let live quietly under the flag they had
outraged, and attempt in some degree to rebuild their shattered
fortunes. The greatest General of the Rebellion asked for pardon."
CHAPTER XXXI.
ASSASSINATION!
But while some of the great Military events alluded to in the preceding
Chapter, had been transpiring at the theatre of War, something else had
happened at the National Capital, so momentous, so atrocious, so
execrable, that it was with difficulty the victorious soldiers of the
Union, when they first heard the news, could be restrained from turning
upon the then remaining armed Rebels, and annihilating them in their
righteous fury.
Let us go back, for a moment, to President Lincoln, whom we left on
board the Ocean Queen, at City Point, toward the end of March and the
beginning of April, receiving dispatches from Grant, who was
victoriously engaged at the front. On the very day that Richmond fell
--April 4th--President Lincoln, with his little son "Tad," Admiral Porter,
and others, visited the burning city, and held a reception in the
parlors of the Mansion which had now, for so many years, been occupied
by the Chief Conspirator, Jefferson Davis, and which had been
precipitately abandoned when the flight of that Arch-Rebel and his
"Cabinet" commenced. On the 6th, the President, accompanied by his
wife, Vice-President Johnson, and others from Washington, again visited
Richmond, and received distinguished Virginians, to whom he addressed
words of wisdom and patriotism.
["On this occasion," says Arnold, "he was called upon by several
prominent citizens of Virginia, anxious to learn what the policy of
the Government towards them would be. Without committing himself
to specific details, he satisfied them that his policy would be
magnanimous, forgiving, and generous. He told these Virginians
they must learn loyalty and devotion to the Nation. They need not
love Virginia less, but they must love the Republic more."]
On the 9th of April, he returned to Washington, and the same day--his
last Sunday on Earth--came the grand and glorious news of Lee's
surrender.
On the Wednesday evening following, he made a lengthy speech, at the
White House, to the great crowd that had assembled about it, to
congratulate him, and the Nation, upon the downfall of Rebellion. His
first thought in that speech, was of gratitude to God. His second, to
put himself in the background, and to give all the credit of Union
Military success, to those who, under God, had achieved it. Said he:
"We meet this evening, not in sorrow, but in gladness of heart. The
evacuation of Petersburg and Richmond, and the surrender of the
principal Insurgent Army, give hope of a righteous and speedy Peace,
whose joyous expression cannot be restrained. In the midst of this,
however, He from whom all blessings flow, must not be forgotten. A Call
for a National Thanksgiving is being prepared, and will be duly
promulgated. Nor must those whose harder part gives us the cause of
rejoicing, be overlooked. Their honors must not be parcelled out with
others. I myself was near the front, and had the high pleasure of
transmitting much of the good news to you; but no part of the honor, for
plan or execution, is mine. To General Grant, his skilful officers and
brave men, all belongs."
This speech was almost entirely devoted to the subject of reconstruction
of the States lately in Rebellion, and to an argument in favor of the
Reconstruction policy, under which a new and loyal government had been
formed for the State of Louisiana. "Some twelve thousand voters in the
heretofore Slave State of Louisiana," said he, "have sworn allegiance to
the Union, assumed to be the rightful political power of the State, held
elections, organized a State government, adopted a Free State
Constitution, giving the benefit of public schools equally to Black and
White, and empowering the Legislature to confer the elective franchise
upon the colored man. Their Legislature has already voted to ratify the
Constitutional Amendment recently passed by Congress, abolishing Slavery
throughout the Nation. These twelve thousand persons are thus fully
committed to the Union, and to perpetual Freedom in the State; committed
to the very things, and nearly all the things, the Nation wants; and
they ask the Nation's recognition and its assistance to make good that
committal. Now, if we reject and spurn them, we do our utmost to
disorganize and disperse them. We, in effect, say to the White men,
'You are worthless, or worse; we will neither help you, nor be helped by
you.' To the Blacks we say, 'This cup of Liberty which these, your old
masters, hold to your lips, we will dash from you and leave you to the
chances of gathering the spilled and scattered contents in some vague
and undefined when, where, and how.' If this course, discouraging and
paralyzing both White and Black, has any tendency to bring Louisiana
into proper practical relations with the Union, I have, so far, been
unable to perceive it. If, on the contrary, we recognize and sustain
the new government of Louisiana, the converse of all this is made true."
While, however, Mr. Lincoln thus upheld and defended this Louisiana plan
of reconstruction, yet he conceded that in applying it to other States,
with their varying conditions, "no exclusive and inflexible plan can
safely be prescribed as to details and collaterals." The entire speech
shows the greatest solicitude to make no mistake necessitating backward
steps, and consequent delay in reconstructing the Rebel States into
Loyal ones; and especially anxious was he, in this, his last public
utterance, touching the outcome of his great life-work, Emancipation.
"If," said he, "we reject Louisiana, we also reject one vote in favor of
the proposed Amendment to the National Constitution. To meet this
proposition it has been argued that no more than three-fourths of those
States which have not attempted Secession are necessary to validly
ratify the Amendment. I do not commit myself against this further than
to say that such a ratification would be questionable, and sure to be
persistently questioned; whilst a ratification by three-fourths of all
the States would be unquestioned and unquestionable."
On Thursday, by the President's direction, a War Department Order was
drawn up and issued, putting an end to drafting and recruiting, and the
purchase of Military supplies, and removing all restrictions which
Military necessity had imposed upon the trade and commerce and
intercourse of any one part of the Union with the other. On Friday, the
14th of April, there was a meeting of the Cabinet at noon, to receive a
report from General Grant, in person--he having just arrived from the
scene of Lee's surrender. Later, the President rode out with Mrs.
Lincoln, and talked of the hard time they had had since coming to
Washington; "but," continued he, "the War is over, and, with God's
blessing, we may hope for four years of Peace and happiness, and then we
will go back to Illinois, and pass the rest of our lives in quiet." At
Ford's Theatre, that evening, was played "The American Cousin," and it
had been announced that both the President and General Grant would be
present. Grant, however, was prevented from attending. President
Lincoln attended with reluctance--possibly because of a presentiment
which he had that day had, that "something serious is going to happen,"
of which he made mention at the Cabinet meeting aforesaid.
It was about 9 o-clock P.M., that the President, with Mrs. Lincoln,
Major Rathbone, and Miss Harris, entered the Theatre, and, after
acknowledging with a bow the patriotic acclamations with which the
audience saluted him, entered the door of the private box, reserved for
his party, which was draped with the folds of the American flag. At
half past 10 o'clock, while all were absorbed in the play, a pistol-shot
was heard, and a man, brandishing a bloody dagger, was seen to leap to
the stage from the President's box, crying "Sic Semper Tyrannis!" His
spurred boot, catching in the bunting, tripped him, so that he half fell
and injured one leg, but instantly recovered himself, and, shouting "The
South is avenged!" rushed across the stage, and disappeared. It was an
actor, John Wilkes Booth by name, who--inspired with all the mad,
unreasoning, malignant hatred of everything representing Freedom and
Union, which was purposely instilled into the minds and hearts of their
followers and sympathizers by the Rebel leaders and their chief
accomplices in the North--had basely skulked into the box, behind Mr.
Lincoln, mortally wounded him with a pistol-bullet, and escaped--after
stabbing Major Rathbone for vainly striving to arrest the vile
assassin's flight.
Thus this great and good Ruler of our reunited People was foully
stricken down in the very moment of his triumph; when the Union troops
were everywhere victorious; when Lee had surrendered the chief Army of
the downfallen Confederacy; when Johnston was on the point of
surrendering the only remaining Rebel force which could be termed an
Army; on the self-same day too, which saw the identical flag of the
Union, that four years before had been sadly hauled down from the
flagstaff of Fort Sumter, triumphantly raised again over that historic
fort; when, the War being at an end, everything in the future looked
hopeful; at the very time when his merciful and kindly mind was
doubtless far away from the mimic scenes upon which he looked, revolving
beneficent plans for reconstructing and rebuilding the waste and
desolate places in the South which War had made; at this time, of all
times, when his clear and just perceptions and firm patriotism were most
needed,
[For his last public words, two nights before, had been: "In the
present 'situation,' as the phrase goes, it may be my duty to make
some new announcement to the people of the South. I am
CONSIDERING, and shall not fail to act when satisfied that action
will be proper."]
alike by conquerors and conquered, to guide and aid the Nation in the
difficult task of reconstruction, and of the new departure, looming up
before it, with newer and broader and better political issues upon which
all Patriot might safely divide, while all the old issues of
States-rights, Secession, Free-Trade, and Slavery, and all the mental
and moral leprosy growing out of them, should lie buried far out of
sight as dead-and-gone relics of the cruel and devastating War which
they alone had brought on! Abraham Lincoln never spoke again. The
early beams of the tomorrow's sun touched, but failed to warm, the
lifeless remain of the great War-President and Liberator, as they were
borne, in mournful silence, back to the White House, mute and ghastly
witness of the sheer desperation of those who, although armed Rebellion,
in the open field, by the fair and legitimate modes of Military warfare,
had ceased, were determined still to keep up that cowardly "fire in the
rear" which had been promised to the Rebel leaders by their Northern
henchmen and sympathizers.
The assassination of President Lincoln was but a part of the plot of
Booth and his murderous Rebel-sympathizing fellow conspirators. It was
their purpose also to kill Grant, and Seward, and other prominent
members of the Cabinet, simultaneously, in the wild hope that anarchy
might follow, and Treason find its opportunity. In this they almost
miraculously failed, although Seward was badly wounded by one of the
assassins.
That the Rebel authorities were cognizant of, and encouraged, this
dastardly plot, cannot be distinctly proven. But, while they naturally
would be likely, especially in the face of the storm of public
exasperation which it raised throughout the Union, to disavow all
knowledge of, or complicity in, the vengeful murder of President
Lincoln, and to destroy all evidences possible of any such guilty
knowledge or complicity, yet there will ever be a strong suspicion that
they were not innocent. From the time when it was first known that Mr.
Lincoln had been elected President, the air was full of threats that he
should not live to be inaugurated.
That the assassination, consummated in April, 1865, would
have taken place in February of 1861, had it not been for the timely
efforts of Lieutenant-General Scott, Brigadier-General Stone, Hon.
William H. Seward, Frederick W. Seward, Esq., and David S. Bookstaver of
the Metropolitan Police of New York--is abundantly shown by
Superintendent John A. Kennedy, in a letter of August 13, 1866, to be
found in vol. ii., of Lossing's "Civil War in America," pages 147-149,
containing also an extract from a letter of General Stone, in which the
latter--after mentioning that General Scott and himself considered it
"almost a certainty that Mr. Lincoln could not pass Baltimore alive by
the train on the day fixed"--proceeds to say: "I recommended that Mr.
Lincoln should be officially warned; and suggested that it would be
altogether best that he should take the train of that evening from
Philadelphia, and so reach Washington early the next day." * * *
General Scott, after asking me how the details could be arranged in so
short a time, and receiving my suggestion that Mr. Lincoln should be
advised quietly to take the evening train, and that it would do him no
harm to have the telegraph wires cut for a few hours, he directed me to
seek Mr. W. H. Seward, to whom he wrote a few lines, which he handed to
me. It was already ten o'clock, and when I reached Mr. Seward's house
he had left; I followed him to the Capitol, but did not succeed in
finding him until after 12 M. I handed him the General's note; he
listened attentively to what I said, and asked me to write down my
information and suggestions, and then, taking the paper I had written,
he hastily left. The note I wrote was what Mr. Frederick Seward carried
to Mr. Lincoln in Philadelphia. Mr. Lincoln has stated that it was this
note which induced him to change his journey as he did. The stories of
disguise are all nonsense; Mr. Lincoln merely took the sleeping-car in
the night train.
Equally certain also, is it, that the Rebel authorities were utterly
indifferent to the means that might be availed of to secure success to
Rebellion. Riots and arson, were among the mildest methods proposed to
be used in the Northern cities, to make the War for the Union a
"failure"--as their Northern Democratic allies termed it--while,
among other more devilish projects, was that of introducing cholera
and yellow fever into the North, by importing infected rags! Another
much-talked-of scheme throughout the War, was that of kidnapping
President Lincoln, and other high officials of the Union Government.
There is also evidence, that the Rebel chiefs not only received, but
considered, the plans of desperadoes and cut-throats looking to the
success of the Rebellion by means of assassination. Thus, in a footnote
to page 448, vol. ii., of his "Civil War in America," Lossing does not
hesitate to characterize Jefferson Davis as "the crafty and malignant
Chief Conspirator, who seems to have been ready at all times to
entertain propositions to assassinate, by the hand of secret murder, the
officers of the Government at Washington;" and, after fortifying that
statement by a reference to page 523 of the first volume of his work,
proceeds to say: "About the time (July, 1862) we are now considering, a
Georgian, named Burnham, wrote to Jefferson Davis, proposing to organize
a corps of five hundred assassins, to be distributed over the North, and
sworn to murder President Lincoln, members of his Cabinet, and leading
Republican Senators, and other supporters of the Government. This
proposition was made in writing, and was regularly filed in the
'Confederate War Department,' indorsed 'Respectfully referred to the
Secretary of War, by order of the President,' and signed 'J. C Ives.'
Other communications of similar tenor, 'respectfully referred' by
Jefferson Davis, were placed on file in that 'War Department.'" All the
denials, therefore, of the Rebel chieftains, as to their complicity in
the various attempts to assassinate Abraham Lincoln, ending with his
dastardly murder in April, 1865, will not clear their skirts of the
odium of that unparalleled infamy. It will cling to them, living or
dead, until that great Day of Judgment when the exact truth shall be
made known, and "their sin shall find them out."
[The New York Tribune, August 16, 1885, under the heading "A NARROW
ESCAPE OF LINCOLN," quotes an interesting "Omaha Letter, to the St.
Paul Pioneer Press," as follows:
"That more than one attempt was made to assassinate Abraham Lincoln
is a fact known to John W. Nichols, ex-president of the Omaha Fire
Department. Mr. Nichols was one of the body-guard of President
Lincoln from the Summer of 1862 until 1865. The following
narrative, related to your correspondent by Mr. Nichols, is
strictly true, and the incident is not generally known:
'One night about the middle of August, 1864, I was doing sentinel
duty at the large gate through which entrance was had to the
grounds of the Soldiers' Home. The grounds are situated about a
quarter of a mile off the Bladensburg road, and are reached by
devious driveways. About 11 o'clock I heard a rifle shot in the
direction of the city, and shortly afterwards I heard approaching
hoof-beats. In two or three minutes a horse came dashing-up, and I
recognized the belated President. The horse was very spirited, and
belonged to Mr. Lamon, marshal of the District of Columbia. This
horse was Mr. Lincoln's favorite, and when he was in the White
House stables he always chose him. As horse and rider approached
the gate, I noticed that the President was bareheaded. After
assisting him in checking his steed, the President said to me: 'He
came pretty near getting away with me, didn't he? He got the bit
in his teeth before I could draw the rein.' I then asked him where
his hat was, and he replied that somebody had fired a gun off down
at the foot of the hill, and that his horse had become scared and
jerked his hat off. I led the animal to the Executive Cottage, and
the President dismounted and entered. Thinking the affair rather
strange, a corporal and myself started in the direction of the
place from where the sound of the rifle report had proceeded, to
investigate the occurrence. When we reached the spot where the
driveway intersects with the main road we found the President's
hat--a plain silk hat-and upon examining it we discovered a bullet
hole through the crown. The shot had been fired upwards, and it
was evident that the person who fired the shot had secreted himself
close to the roadside. We listened and searched the locality
thoroughly, but to no avail. The next day I gave Mr. Lincoln his
hat and called his attention to the bullet hole. He rather
unconcernedly remarked that it was put there by some foolish
gunner, and was not intended for him. He said, however, that he
wanted the matter kept quiet, and admonished us to say nothing
about it. We all felt confident that it was an attempt to kill
him, and a well-nigh successful one, too. The affair was kept
quiet, in accordance with his request. After that, the President
never rode alone.'"]
That this dark and wicked and bloody Rebellion, waged by the upholders
and advocates of Slavery, Free Trade, and Secession, had descended so
low as to culminate in murder--deliberate, cold-blooded, cowardly
murder--at a time when the Southern Conspirators would apparently be the
least benefitted by it, was regarded at first as evidencing their mad
fatuity; and the public mind was dreadfully incensed.
The successor of the murdered President-Andrew Johnson-lost little time
in offering (May the 2d) rewards, ranging from $25,000 to $100,000, for
the arrest of Jefferson Davis, Jacob Thompson,
[The same individual at whose death, in 1885, the Secretary of the
Interior, ordered the National flag of the Union--which he had
swindled, betrayed, fought, spit upon, and conspired against--to be
lowered at halfmast over the Interior Departmental Building, at
Washington, D. C.]
Clement C. Clay, Beverly Tucker, George N. Sanders, and W. C. Cleary,
in a Proclamation which directly charged that they, "and other Rebels
and Traitors against the Government of the United States, harbored in
Canada," had "incited, concerted, and procured" the perpetration of the
appalling crime.
On the 10th of May, one of them, Jacob Thompson, from his place of
security, in Canada, published a letter claiming to be innocent;
characterized himself as "a persecuted man;" arrayed certain suspicious
facts in support of an intimation that Johnson himself was the only one
man in the Republic who would be benefited by President Lincoln's death;
and, as he was found "asleep" at the "unusual hour" of nine o'clock
P.M., of the 14th of April, and had made haste to take the oath of
office as President of the United States as soon as the breath had left
the body of his predecessor, insinuated that he (Johnson) might with
more reason be suspected of "complicity" in "the foul work" than the
"Rebels and Traitors" charged with it, in his Proclamation; so charged,
for the very purpose--Thompson insinuated--of shielding himself from
discovery, and conviction!
But while, for a moment, perhaps, there flitted across the public mind a
half suspicion of the possibility of what this Rebel intimated as true,
yet another moment saw it dissipated. For the People remembered that
between "Andrew Johnson," one of the "poor white trash" of Tennessee,
and the "aristocratic Slave-owners" of the South, who headed the
Rebellion, there could be neither sympathy nor cooperation--nothing, but
hatred; and that this same Andrew Johnson, who, by power of an
indomitable will, self-education, and natural ability, had, despite the
efforts of that "aristocracy," forced himself upward, step by step, from
the tailor's bench, to the successful honors of alderman and Mayor, and
then still upward through both branches of his State Legislature, into
the House of Representatives and the Senate of the United States--and,
in the latter Body, had so gallantly met, and worsted in debate, the
chosen representatives of that class upon whose treasonable heads he
poured forth in invective, the gathered hatred of a life-time--would
probably be the very last man whom these same "aristocratic"
Conspirators, "Rebels, and Traitors," would prefer as arbiter of their
fate.
The popular feeling responded heartily, at this time, to the
denunciations which, in his righteous indignation, he had, in the
Senate, and since, heaped upon Rebellion, and especially his declaration
that "Treason must be made odious!"--utterances now substantially
reiterated by him more vehemently than ever, and multiplied in posters
and transparencies and newspapers all over the Land. Thus the public
mind rapidly grew to believe it impossible that the Rebel leaders could
gain, by the substitution, in the Executive chair, of this harsh,
determined, despotic nature, for the mild, kindly, merciful,
even-tempered, Abraham Lincoln. With Andrew Johnson for President, the
People felt that justice would fall upon the heads of the guilty, and
that the Country was safe. And so it happened that, while the mere
instruments of the assassination conspiracy were hurried to an
ignominious death, in the lull that followed, Jefferson Davis and others
of the Rebel chiefs, who had been captured and imprisoned, were allowed
to go "Scott-free, without even the semblance of a trial for their
Treason!"
It is not the purpose of this work to deal with the history of the
Reconstruction or rehabilitation of the Rebel States; to look too
closely into the devious ways and subtle methods through and by which
the Rebel leaders succeeded in flattering the vanity, and worming
themselves into the confidence and control, of Andrew Johnson--by
pretending to believe that his occupation of the Presidential Office had
now, at last, brought him to their "aristocratic" altitude, and to a
hearty recognition by them of his "social equality;" or to follow,
either in or out of Congress, the great political conflict, between
their unsuspecting Presidential dupe and the Congress, which led to the
impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson, for high crimes and
misdemeanors in office, his narrow escape from conviction and
deposition, and to much consequent excitement and turmoil among the
People, which, but for wise counsels and prudent forethought of the
Republican leaders, in both Civil and Military life, might have
eventuated in the outbreak of serious civil commotions. Suffice it to
say, that in due time; long after the Thirteenth Amendment to the United
States Constitution had been ratified by three-fourths of all the
States; after Johnson had vexed the White House, with his noisy
presence, for the nearly four years succeeding the death of the great
and good Lincoln; and after the People, with almost unexampled
unanimity, had called their great Military hero, Grant, to the helm of
State; the difficult and perplexing problems involved in the
Reconstruction of the Union were, at last, successfully solved by the
Republican Party, and every State that had been in armed Rebellion
against that Union, was not only back again, with a Loyal State
Constitution, but was represented in both branches of Congress, and in
other Departments of the National Government.
CHAPTER XXXII.
TURNING BACK THE HANDS!
And now, the War having ended in the defeat, conquest, and capture, of
those who, inspired by the false teachings of Southern leaders, had
arrayed themselves in arms beneath the standard of Rebellion, and fought
for Sectional Independence against National Union, for Slavery against
Freedom, and for Free Trade against a benignant Tariff protective alike
to manufacturer, mechanic, and laborer, it might naturally be supposed
that, with the collapse of this Rebellion, all the issues which made up
"the Cause"--the "Lost Cause," as those leaders well termed it--would be
lost with it, and disappear from political sight; that we would never
again hear of a Section of the Nation, and last of all the Southern
Section, organized, banded together, solidified in the line of its own
Sectional ideas as against the National ideas prevailing elsewhere
through the Union; that Free Trade, conscious of the ruin and desolation
which it had often wrought, and of the awful sacrifices, in blood and
treasure, that had been made in its behalf by the conquered South, would
slink from sight and hide its famine-breeding front forever; and that
Slavery, in all its various disguises, was banished, never more to
obtrude its hateful form upon our Liberty-loving Land. That was indeed
the supposition and belief which everywhere pervaded the Nation, when
Rebellion was conquered by the legions of the Union--and which
especially pervaded the South. Never were Rebels more thoroughly
exhausted and sick of Rebellion and of everything that led to it, than
these. As Badeau said, they made haste "to yield everything they had
fought for," and "dreamed not of political power." They had been
brought to their knees, suing for forgiveness, and thankful that their
forfeit lives were spared.
For awhile, with chastened spirit, the reconstructed South seemed to
reconcile itself in good faith to the legitimate results of the War, and
all went well. But Time and Peace soon obliterate the lessons and the
memories of War. And it was not very long after the Rebellion had
ceased, and the old issues upon which it was fought had disappeared from
the arena of National politics, when its old leaders and their
successors began slowly, carefully, and systematically, to relay the
tumbled-down, ruined foundations and walls of the Lost Cause--a work in
which, unfortunately, they were too well aided by the mistaken clemency
and magnanimity of the Republican Party, in hastily removing the
political disabilities of those leaders.
Before proceeding farther, it is necessary to remark here, that, after
the suppression of the Rebellion and adoption of the Thirteenth
Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which prohibits
Slavery and Involuntary Servitude within the United States, it soon
became apparent that it was necessary to the protection of the Freedmen,
in the civil and political rights and privileges which it was considered
desirable to secure to them, as well as to the creation and fostering of
a wholesome loyal sentiment in, and real reconstruction of, the States
then lately insurgent, and for certain other reasons, that other
safeguards, in the shape of further Amendments to the Constitution,
should be adopted.
Accordingly the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments were, on the 16th of
June, 1866, and 27th of February, 1869, respectively, proposed by
Congress to the Legislatures of the several States, and were declared
duly ratified, and a part of the Constitution, respectively on the 28th
of July, 1868, and March 30, 1870. Those Amendments were in these
words:
"ARTICLE XIV.
"SECTION 1.--All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and
subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States
and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce
any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of
the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life,
liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person
within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
"SECTION 2.--Representatives shall be apportioned among the several
States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number
of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the
right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President
and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress,
the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the
Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such
State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States,
or in any way abridged, except for participation in Rebellion, or other
crime, the basis of Representation therein shall be reduced in the
proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the
whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.
"SECTION 3.--No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress,
or Elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or
military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having
previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of
the United States, or as a member of any State Legislature, or as an
executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution
of the United States, shall have engaged in Insurrection or Rebellion
against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But
Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such
disability.
"SECTION 4.--The validity of the public debt of the United States,
authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and
bounties for services in suppressing Insurrection or Rebellion, shall
not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall
assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of Insurrection or
Rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or
Emancipation of any Slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims
shall be held illegal and void.
"SECTION 5.--The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate
legislation, the provisions of this article."
"ARTICLE XV.
"SECTION 1.--The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall
not be denied or abridged by, the United States or by any State on
account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.
"SECTION 2.--The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by
appropriate legislation."
It would seem, then, from the provisions of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth,
and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution, and the Congressional
legislation subsequently enacted for the purpose of enforcing them, that
not only the absolute personal Freedom of every man, woman, and child in
the United States was thus irrevocably decreed; that United States
citizenship was clearly defined; that the life, liberty, property,
privileges and immunities of all were secured by throwing around them
the "equal protection of the laws;" that the right of the United States
citizen to vote, was placed beyond denial or abridgment, on "account of
race, color, or previous condition of servitude;" but, to make this more
certain, the basis of Congressional Representative-apportionment was
changed from its former mixed relation, comprehending both persons and
"property," so-called, to one of personal numbers--the Black man now
counting quite as much as the White man, instead of only three-fifths as
much; and it was decreed, that, except for crime, any denial to United
States citizens, whether Black or White, of the right to vote at any
election of Presidential electors, Congressional Representatives, State
Governors, Judges, or Legislative members, "shall" work a reduction,
proportioned to the extent of such denial, in the Congressional
Representation of the State, or States, guilty of it. As a further
safeguard, in the process of reconstruction, none of the insurgent
States were rehabilitated in the Union except upon acceptance of those
three Amendments as an integral part of the United States Constitution,
to be binding upon it; and it was this Constitution as it is, and not
the Constitution as it was, that all the Representatives, in both Houses
of Congress, from those insurgent States--as well as all their State
officers--swore to obey as the supreme law of the Land, when taking
their respective oaths of office.
Biding their time, and pretending to act in good faith, as the
years rolled by, the distrust and suspicion with which the old
Rebel-conspirators had naturally been regarded, gradually lessened in
the public mind. With a glad heart, the Congress, year after year,
removed the political disabilities from class after class of those who
had incurred them, until at last all, so desiring, had been reinstated
in the full privileges of citizenship, save the very few unrepentant
instigators and leaders of the Rebellion, who, in the depths of that
oblivion to which they seemingly had been consigned, continued to nurse
the bitterness of their downfall into an implacable hatred of that
Republic which had paralyzed the bloody hands of Rebellion, and
shattered all their ambitious dreams of Oligarchic rule, if not of
Empire.
But, while the chieftains of the great Conspiracy--and of the armed
Rebellion itself--remained at their homes unpunished, through the
clemency of the American People; the active and malignant minds of some
of them were plotting a future triumph for the "Lost Cause," in the
overthrow, in consecutive detail, of the Loyal governments of the
Southern States, by any and all means which might be by them considered
most desirable, judicious, expedient, and effectual; the solidifying of
these Southern States into a new Confederation, or league, in fact--with
an unwritten but well understood Constitution of its own--to be known
under the apparently harmless title of the "Solid South," whose mission
it would be to build up, and strengthen, and populate, and enrich itself
within the Union, for a time, greater or less, according to
circumstances, and in the meanwhile to work up, with untiring devotion
and energy, not only to this practical autonomy and Sectional
Independence within the Union, but also to a practical re-enslavement of
the Blacks, and to the vigorous reassertion and triumph, by the aid of
British gold, of those pernicious doctrines of Free-Trade which, while
beneficial to the Cotton-lords of the South, would again check and drag
down the robust expansion of manufactures and commerce in all other
parts of the Land, and destroy the glorious prosperity of farmers,
mechanics, and laborers, while at the same time crippling Capital, in
the North and West.
In order to accomplish these results--after whatever of suspicion and
distrust that might have still remained in Northern minds had been
removed by the public declaration in 1874, by one of the ablest and most
persuasively eloquent of Southern statesmen, that "The South--prostrate,
exhausted, drained of her life-blood as well as of her material
resources, yet still honorable and true--accepts the bitter award of the
bloody arbitrament without reservation, resolutely determined to abide
the result with chivalrous fidelity"--these old Rebel leaders commenced
in good earnest to carry out their well organized programme, which they
had already experimentally tested, to their own satisfaction, in certain
localities.
The plan was this: By the use of shot-guns and rifles, and cavalcades of
armed white Democrats, in red shirts, riding around the country at dead
of night, whipping prominent Republican Whites and Negroes to death, or
shooting or hanging them if thought advisable, such terror would fall
upon the colored Republican voters that they would keep away from the
polls, and consequently the white Democrats, undeterred by such
influences, and on the contrary, eager to take advantage of them, would
poll not only a full vote, but a majority vote, on all questions,
whether involving the mere election of Democratic officials, or
otherwise; and where intimidation of this, or any other kind, should
fail, then a resort to be had to whatever devices might be found
necessary to make a fraudulent count and return, and thus secure
Democratic triumph; and furthermore, when evidences of these
intimidations and frauds should be presented to those people of the
Union who believe in every citizen of this free Republic having one free
vote, and that vote fairly counted, then to laugh the complainants out
of Court with the cry that such stories are not true; are "campaign
lies" devised solely for political effect; and are merely the product of
Republican "outrage mills," ground out, to order.
This plan was first thoroughly tried in Mississippi, and has hence been
called the "Mississippi plan." So magically effectual was it, that,
with variations adapted to locality and circumstances, this "Mississippi
plan" soon enveloped the entire South in its mesh-work of fraud,
barbarity, and blood. The massacres, and other outrages, while
methodical, were remittent, wave-like, sometimes in one Southern State,
sometimes another, and occurring only in years of hot political
conflict, until one after another of those States had, by these crimes,
been again brought under the absolute control of the old Rebel leaders.
By 1876, they had almost succeeded in their entire programme. They had
captured all, save three, of the Southern States, and strained every
nerve and every resource of unprincipled ingenuity, of bribery and
perjury, after the Presidential election of that year had taken place,
in the effort to defeat the will of the People and "count in," the
Presidential candidate of the Democratic Party.
[The shameful history of the "Tilden barrel" and the "Cipher
Dispatches" is too fresh in the public mind to be entirely
forgotten,]
Failing in this effort, the very failure became a grievance. On the
principle of a fleeing thief diverting pursuit by shouting "Stop thief,"
the cry of "fraud" was raised by the Democratic leaders, North and
South, against the Republican Party, and was iterated and reiterated so
long and loudly, that soon they actually began, themselves, to believe,
that President Hayes had been "counted in," by improper methods! At all
events, under cover of the hue and cry thus raised, the Southern leaders
hurried up their work of Southern solidification, by multiplied outrages
on the "Mississippi plan," so that, by 1880, they were ready to dictate,
and did dictate, the Democratic Presidential nominations.
[Senator Wallace, of Pennsylvania, telegraphed from Cincinnati his
congratulations to General Hancock, and added: "General Buell tells
me that Murat Halsted says Hancock's nomination by the Confederate
Brigadiers sets the old Rebel yell to the music of the Union." In
the Convention which nominated Hancock, Wade Hampton made a speech,
saying; "On behalf of the 'Solid South,' that South which once was
arrayed against the great soldier of Pennsylvania, I stand here to
pledge you its solid vote. [cheers] * * * There is no name which
is held in higher respect among the people of the South, than that
of the man you have given to us as our standard-bearer." And
afterward, in a speech at Staunton, Virginia, the same Southern
leader, in referring to the action of the Democratic Convention at
Cincinnati, said: "There was but one feeling among the Southern
delegates. That feeling was expressed when we said to our Northern
Democratic brethren 'Give us an available man.' They gave us that
man."]
While these old Rebel leaders of the South had insisted upon, and had
succeeded in, nominating a man whose record as a Union soldier would
make him popular in the North and West, and while their knowledge of his
availability for Southern purposes would help them in their work of
absolutely solidifying the South, they took very good care also to press
forward their pet Free-Trade issue--that principle so dear to the hearts
of the Rebel Cotton-lords that, as has already been hinted, they
incorporated it into their Constitution of Confederation in these words:
"SEC. 8.--Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties,
imposts and excises for revenue necessary to pay the debts, provide for
the common defense, and carry on the Government of the Confederate
States; but no bounty shall be granted from the Treasury, nor shall any
duty or tax on importation from Foreign Nations be laid to promote or
foster any branch of industry."
It may also be remarked that, under the inspiration of those Southern
leaders who afterward rebelled, it had been laid down as Democratic
doctrine, in the National Democratic platform of 1856--and "reaffirmed"
as such, in 1860--that "The time has come for the People of the United
States to declare themselves in favor of * * * progressive Free-Trade.
* * * That justice and sound policy forbid the Federal Government to
foster one branch of industry to the detriment of another." But, by
1864, the Republican Protective-Tariff of 1860, had so abundantly
demonstrated, to all our people engaged in industrial occupations, the
beneficence of the great principle of home industrial Protection, that
Tariff-agitation actually ceased, and the National Democratic platform
of that year had nothing to say in behalf of Free-Trade!
After the close of the War, however, at the very first National
Democratic Convention, in 1868, at which there were delegations from the
lately rebellious States, the question was at once brought to the front,
and, under the inspiration of the old Rebel leaders aforesaid, the
Democratic platform again raised the banner of Free-Trade by declaring
for a Tariff for revenue. But the mass of the People, at that time
still freshly remembered the terrible commercial disasters and
industrial depressions which had befallen the Land, through the
practical operation of that baleful Democratic Free-Trade doctrine,
before the Rebellion broke out, and sharply contrasted the misery and
poverty and despair of those dark days of ruin and desolation, with the
comfort and prosperity and hopefulness which had since come to them
through the Republican Protective-Tariff Accordingly, the Republican
Presidential candidate, representing the great principle of Protection
to American Industries, was elected over the Democratic Free-Trade
candidate, by 214 to 71 electoral votes-or nearly three to one!
Taught, by this lesson, that the People were not yet sufficiently
prepared for a successful appeal in behalf of anything like Free-Trade,
the next National Democratic Convention, (that of 1872), under the same
Southern inspiration, more cautiously declared, in its platform, that
"Recognizing that there are in our midst, honest but irreconcilable
differences of opinion, with regard to the respective systems of
Protection and Free-Trade, we remit the discussion of the subject to the
People in their Congressional districts, and to the decision of the
Congress thereon, wholly free from Executive interference or dictation."
The People, however, rebuked the moral cowardice thus exhibited by the
Democracy--in avoiding a direct issue on the doctrine which Democracy
itself had galvanized at least into simulated life,--by giving 286
electoral votes to the Republican candidate, to 63 for the Democratic,
--or in the proportion of nearly five to one.
Warned, by this overwhelming defeat, not to flinch from, or avoid, or
try to convert the great National question of Tariff, into a merely
local one, the National Democratic platform of 1876, at the instigation
of the old Rebel leaders of the now fast solidifying South, came out
flat-footedly again with the "demand that all Custom-house taxation
shall be only for revenue." This time, the electoral vote stood almost
evenly divided, viz.: for the Republican candidate, 185; for the
Democratic candidate, 184;--a result so extremely close, as to lead to
the attempted perpetration of great frauds against the successful
candidate; the necessary settlement of the questions growing out of
them, by an Electoral commission--created by Congress at the instance of
the Democratic Party; great irritation, among the defeated Democracy,
over the just findings of that august Tribunal; and to the birth of the
alleged Democratic "grievance," aforesaid.
The closeness of this vote--their almost triumph, in 1876,--encouraged
the Solid South to press upon the National Democratic Convention of
1880, the expediency of adopting a Free-Trade "plank" similar to that
with which, in 1876, they had so nearly succeeded. Hence the Democratic
platform of 1880, also declared decidedly for "A Tariff for revenue
only."
The old Rebel leaders, at last in full control of the entire Democratic
Party, had now got things pretty much as they wanted them. They had
created that close corporation within the Union--that /imperium in
imperio/ that oligarchically--governed league of States (within the
Republic of the United States) which they termed the "Solid South," and
which would vote as a unit, on all questions, as they directed; they had
dictated the nomination, by the Democratic Party, of a Presidential
candidate who would not dare to act counter to their wishes; and their
pet doctrine of Free-Trade was held up, to the whole Democratic front,
under the attractive disguise of a Tariff for revenue only.
[As Ex-Senator Toombs, of Georgia, wrote: "The old boys of the
South will see that 'Hancock' does the fair thing by them. In
other words, he will run the machine to suit them, or they will run
the thing themselves. They are not going to be played with any
longer."]
In other words, they had already secured a "Solid South," an "available"
candidate, and an "expedient" Free-Trade platform. All that remained
for them, at this stage, to do, was to elect the candidate, and enact
their Free-Trade doctrine into legislation. This was their current
work, so to speak--to be first attended to--but not all their work; for
one of the most brilliant and candid of their coadjutors had said, only
a few months before: "We do not intend to stop until we have stricken
the last vestige of your War measures from the Statute-book."
Unfortunately, however, for their plans, an attempt made by them, under
the lead of Mr. Morrison of Illinois, in 1876, to meddle with the
Republican Protective-Tariff, had caused considerable public alarm, and
had been credited with having much to do with a succeeding monetary
panic, and industrial depression. Another and more determined effort,
made by them in 1878, under the lead of their old Copperhead ally,
Fernando Wood, to cut down the wise Protective duties imposed by the
Tariff Act, about 15 per cent.,--together with the cold-blooded
Free-Trade declaration of Mr. Wood, touching his ruinous Bill, that "Its
reductions are trifling as compared with what they should be. * * * If
I had the power to commence de novo, I should reduce the duties 50 per
cent., instead of less than 15 per cent., upon an average
as now proposed,"--an effort which was narrowly, and with great
difficulty, defeated by the Republicans, aided by a mere handful of
others,--had also occasioned great excitement throughout the Country,
the suspension and failure of thousands of business firms, the
destruction of confidence in the stability and profitableness of
American industries, and great consequent suffering, and enforced
idleness, to the working men and working women of the Land.
The sad recollection of these facts--made more poignant by the airy
declaration of the Democratic Presidential candidate, that the great
National question of the Tariff is a mere "local issue,"--was largely
instrumental, in connection with the insolent aggressiveness of the
Southern leaders, in Congress, in occasioning their defeat in the
Presidential contest of 1880, the Republican candidate receiving 214
electoral votes, while the Democratic candidate received but 155
electoral votes.
In 1882, the House of Representatives was under Republican control, and,
despite determined Democratic resistance, created a Tariff-commission,
whose duty it was "to take into consideration, and to thoroughly
investigate, all the various questions relating to the agricultural,
commercial, mercantile, manufacturing, mining, and (other) industrial
interests of the United States, so far as the same may be necessary to
the establishment of a judicious Tariff, or a revision of the existing
Tariff, upon a scale of justice to all interests."
That same year, in the face of most protracted and persistent opposition
by the great bulk of Democratic members, both of the Senate and House of
Representatives, and an effort to substitute for it the utterly ruinous
Democratic Free-Trade Tariff of 1846, the Bill recommended by this
Republican Tariff-commission, was enacted; and, in 1883, a modified
Tariff-measure, comprehending a large annual reduction of import duties,
while also carefully preserving the great Republican American principle
of Protection, was placed by the Republicans on the Statute-book,
despite the renewed and bitter opposition of the Democrats, who, as
usual, fought it desperately in both branches of Congress. But
Republican efforts failed in 1884, in the interest of the wool-growers
of the country, to restore the Protective-duties on wool, which had been
sacrificed, in 1883, to an exigency created by Democratic opposition to
them.
Another Democratic effort, in the direction of Free-Trade, known as "the
Morrison Tariff-Bill of 1884," was made in the latter year, which,
besides increasing the free-list, by adding to it salt, coal, timber,
and wood unmanufactured, as well as many manufactures thereof, decreased
the import duties "horizontally" on everything else to the extent of
twenty per cent. The Republicans, aided by a few Democrats, killed this
undigested and indigestible Democratic Bill, by striking out its
enacting clause.
By this time, however, by dint of the incessant special-pleading in
behalf of the obnoxious and un-American doctrine of Free-Trade,--or the
nearest possible approach to it, consistent with the absolutely
essential collection of revenues for the mere support of the Government
--indulged in (by some of the professors) in our colleges of learning;
through a portion of the press; upon the stump; and in Congress;
together with the liberal use of British gold in the wide distribution
of printed British arguments in its favor,--this pernicious but favorite
idea of the Solid South had taken such firm root in the minds of the
greater part of the Democratic Party in the North and West, as well as
the South, that a declaration in the National Democratic platform in its
favor was now looked for, as a matter of course. The "little leaven" of
this monstrous un-American heresy seemed likely to leaven "the whole
mass" of the Democracy.
But, as in spite of the tremendous advantage given to that Party by the
united vote of the Solid South, the Presidential contest of 1884 was
likely to be so close that, to give Democracy any chance to win, the few
Democrats opposed to Free-Trade must be quieted, the utterances of the
Democratic National Platform of that year, on the subject, were so
wonderfully pieced, and ludicrously intermixed, that they could be
construed to mean "all things to all men."
At last, after an exciting campaign, the Presidential election of 1884
was held, and for the first time since 1856, the old Free-Trade
Democracy of the South could rejoice over the triumph of their
Presidential candidate.
Great was the joy of the Solid South! At last, its numberless crimes
against personal Freedom, and political Liberty, would reap a generous
harvest. At last, participation in Rebellion would no more be regarded
as a blot upon the political escutcheon. At last, commensurate rewards
for all the long years of disconsolate waiting, and of hard work in
night ridings, and house-burnings, and "nigger"-whippings, and
"nigger"-shootings, and "nigger"-hangings, and ballot-box stuffings, and
all the other dreadful doings to which these old leaders were impelled
by a sense of Solid-Southern patriotism, and pride of race, and lust for
power, would come, and come in profusion.
Grand places in the Cabinet, and foreign Missions, for the old Rebels of
distinction, now Chiefs of the "Solid-Southern" Conspiracy, and for
those other able Northern Democrats who had helped them, during or since
the Rebellion; fat consulates abroad, for others of less degree;
post-offices, without stint, for the lesser lights; all this, and more,
must now come. The long-hidden light of a glorious day was about to
break. The "restoration of the Government to the principles and
practices of the earlier period," predicted by the unreconstructed
"Rebel chieftains" those "same principles for which they fought for four
years" the principles of Southern Independence, Slavery, Free Trade and
Oligarchic rule--were now plainly in sight, and within reach!
The triumph of the Free-Trade Democracy, if continued to another
Presidential election, would make Free-Trade a certainty. The old forms
of Slavery, to be sure, were dead beyond reanimation--perhaps; but, in
their place, were other forms of Slavery, which attracted less attention
and reprobation from the World at large, and yet were quite as effectual
for all Southern purposes. The system of Peonage and contracted
convict-labor, growing out of the codes of Black laws, were
all-sufficient to keep the bulk of the Negro race in practical subjection
and bondage. The solidifying of the South had already made the South
not only practically independent within the Union, but the overshadowing
power, potential enough to make, and unmake, the rulers and policies of
the Democratic Party, and of that Union.
This, indeed, was a grand outcome for the tireless efforts of the once
defeated Conspirators! And as to Oligarchal rule--the rule of the few
(and those the Southern chiefs) over the many,--was not that already
accomplished? For these old Rebel leaders and oligarchs who had secured
the supreme rule over the Solid South, had also, through their ability
to wield the power of that Solid South within the Union, actually
secured the power of practically governing the entire Union!
That Union, then, which we have been wont to look upon as the grandest,
noblest, freest, greatest Republic upon Earth,--is it really such, in
all respects, at the present? Does the Free Republic of the United
States exist, in fact, to-day?
CHAPTER XXXIII.
WHAT NEXT?
And what next? Aye, what next? Do the patriotic, innocent-minded
lovers of a Republican form of Government imagine, for an instant, that
all danger to its continued existence and well-being has ceased to
threaten?--that all the crises perilous to that beneficent popular
governmental form have vanished?--that the climacteric came, and went,
with the breaking out, and suppression, of the Rebellion?--and that
there is nothing alarming in the outlook? Quite likely. The public
mind has not yet been aroused to a sense of the actual revolution
against Republican form of government that has already taken place in
many of the Southern States, much less as to the likelihood of things to
come. The people of any one of the Western, or Northern States,--take
New York, for example,--feel prosperous and happy under the beneficent
workings of the Republican Protective-Tariff system. Business, of all
sorts, recovering from the numerous attacks made upon that prime bulwark
of our American industries, if only let alone, will fairly hum, and look
bright, so far as "the Almighty dollar" is concerned. They know they
have their primaries and conventions, in their wards and counties
throughout their State, and their State Conventions, and their
elections. They know that the voice of the majority of their own
people, uttered through the sacred ballot-box, is practically the Vox
Dei--and that all bow to it. They know also, that this State government
of theirs, with all its ramifications--whether as to its Executive, its
Legislative, its Judicial, and other officials, either elective or
appointed--is a Republican form of government, in the American sense--in
the sense contemplated by the Fathers, when they incorporated into the
revered Constitution of our Country the vital words: "The United States
shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of
government." But they do not realize the vastly different condition of
things in many States of the Solid South, nor how it affects themselves.
And what is this "republican" form of government, thus pledged? It is
true that there are not wanting respectable authorities whose
definitions of the words "republic," and "republican," are strongly
inharmonious with their true meaning, as correctly understood by the
great bulk of Americans. Thus, Brande asserts that "A republic may be
either a democracy or an aristocracy!"--and proceeds to say: "In the
former, the supreme power is vested in the whole body of the people, or
in representatives elected by the people; in the latter, it is vested in
a nobility, or a privileged class of comparatively a small number of
persons." John Adams also wrote: "The customary meanings of the words
republic and commonwealth have been infinite. They have been applied to
every Government under heaven; that of Turkey and that of Spain, as well
as that of Athens and of Rome, of Geneva and San Marino." But the true
meaning of the word "republican" as applied to a "form of government,"
and as commonly and almost invariably understood by those who, above all
others in the wide World, should best understand and appreciate its
blessings--to wit: the American People has none of the looseness and
indefiniteness which these authorities throw about it.
The prevailing and correct American idea is that "Republican" means: of,
or pertaining to, a Republic; that "Republic" means a thing, affair, or
matter, closely related to, and touching the "public;" and that the
"public" are the "people"--not a small proportion of them, but "the
people at large," the whole community, the Nation, the commonalty, the
generality. Hence, "a Republican form of government" is, in their
opinion, plainly that form which is most closely identified with, and
representative of, the generality or majority of the people; or, in the
language of Dr. J. E. Worcester, it is "That form of government or of a
State, in which the supreme power is vested in the people, or in
representatives elected by the people."
It is obvious that there can be no such thing as "a republic," which is,
at the same time, "an aristocracy;" for the moment that which was "a
republic" becomes "an aristocracy," that moment it ceases to be "a
republic." So also can there be no such thing as "a republic" which is
"an oligarchy," for, as "a republic" is a government of the many, or, as
President Lincoln well termed it, "a government of the people, by the
people, for the people"--so it must cease to be "a republic," when the
supreme power is in the hands of the oligarchic few.
There can be but two kinds of republics proper--one a democratic
republic, which is impossible for a great and populous Nation like ours,
but which may have answered for some of the small republics of ancient
Greece; the other, a representative republic, such as is boasted by the
United States. And this is the kind palpably meant by the Fathers,
when, for the very purpose of nipping in the bud any anti-republican
Conspiracy likely to germinate from Slavery, they inserted in the Great
Charter of American Liberties the solemn and irrevocable mandate: "The
United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican
Form of Government." That they meant this majority rule--this
government by the many, instead of the few--this rule of the People, as
against any possible minority rule, by, or through, oligarchs or
aristocrats, is susceptible of proof in other ways.
It is a safe guide, in attempting to correctly expound the Constitution
of the United States, to be careful that the construction insisted on,
is compatible and harmonious with the spirit of that great instrument;
so that--as was said by an eloquent and distinguished Massachusetts
statesman of twenty years ago, in discussing this very point--"the
guarantee of a Republican form of government must have a meaning
congenial with the purposes of the Constitution." Those purposes, of
course, are expressed in its preamble, or in the body of the instrument,
or in both. The preamble itself, in this case, is sufficient to show
them. It commences with the significant words: "We THE PEOPLE of the
United States"--words, instinct with the very consciousness of the
possession of that supreme power by the People or public, which made
this not only a Nation, but a Republic; and, after stating the purposes
or objects sought by the People in thus instituting this Republic,
proceeds to use that supreme political power vested in them, by
ordaining and establishing "this CONSTITUTION for the United States of
America." And, from the very first article, down to the last, of that
"Constitution," or "structure," or "frame," or "form" of government,
already self-evidently and self-consciously and avowedly Republican,
that form is fashioned into a distinctively representative Republican
government.
The purposes themselves, as declared in the preamble, for which the
People of the United States thus spake this representative Republic into
being, are also full of light. Those purposes were "to form a more
perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquillity, provide
for the common defense, promote the General Welfare, and secure the
Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity."
How is it possible, for instance, that "the Blessings
of Liberty" are to be secured to "ourselves and our Posterity," if
citizens of the United States, despite the XVth Amendment of that
Constitution, find-through the machinations of political organizations
--their right to vote, both abridged and denied, in many of the States,
"on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude?" How,
if, in such States, "the right of the people to be secure in their
persons, houses, and effects, against unreasonable searches and
seizures," is habitually violated, despite the IVth Amendment of that
Constitution? How, if, in such States, persons are notoriously and
frequently "deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process
of law," in violation of the Vth Amendment of that Constitution? Yet
such is the state of affairs generally prevalent in many States of the
Solid South.
These provisions in the Constitution were, with others, placed there for
the very purpose of securing "the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and
our Posterity," of promoting the "General Welfare," of establishing
"Justice," of insuring "domestic Tranquillity" and making "a more
perfect Union"--and the violation of those provisions, or any one of
them, in any part of our Land, by any part of our People, in any one of
the States, is not only subversive of the Constitution, and
revolutionary, but constitutes a demand, in itself, upon the National
Government, to obey that imperative mandate of the Constitution (Sec. 4,
article IV.) comprehended in the words: "The United States SHALL
guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government."
[The meaning of these words is correctly given in an opinion of
Justice Bronson of New York (4 Hill's Reports, 146) in these words:
"The meaning of the section then seems to be, that no member of the
State shall be disfranchised or deprived of any of his rights or
privileges unless the matter shall be adjudged against him upon
trial had according to the course of common law. The words 'due
process of law' cannot mean less than a prosecution or suit
instituted and conducted according to the prescribed forms and
solemnities for ascertaining guilt or determining the title to
property."]
It is well that the truth should be spoken out, and known of all men.
The blame for this condition of things belongs partly to the Republican
Party. The question is sometimes asked: "If these outrages against
citizenship, against the purity of the ballot, against humanity, against
both the letter and spirit of the Constitution of our Republic, are
perpetrated, why is it that the Republican Party--so long in power
during their alleged perpetration--did not put a stop to them?" The
answer is: that while there are remedial measures, and measures of
prevention, fully warranted by the Constitution--while there are
Constitutional ways and means for the suppression of such outrages--yet,
out of exceeding tenderness of heart, which prompted the hope and belief
that the folly of continuing them must ere long come home to the
Southern mind and conscience, the Republican Party has been loath to put
them in force. The--best remedy of all, and the best manner of
administering it, lies with the people themselves, of those States where
these outrages are perpetrated. Let them stop it. The People of the
United States may be long-suffering, and slow to wrath; but they will
not permit such things to continue forever.
When the Rebellion was quelled, the evil spirit which brought it about
should have been utterly crushed out, and none of the questions involved
in it should have been permitted to be raised again. But the Republican
Party acted from its heart, instead of its head. It was merciful,
forgiving, and magnanimous. In the magnificent sweep of its generosity
to the erring son, it perhaps failed to insure the exact justice to the
other sons which was their right. For, as has already been shown in
these pages, Free-Trade, imbedded in the Rebel Constitution, as well as
Slavery, entered into and became a part, and an essential part, of the
Rebellion against the Union--to triumph with Slavery, if the Rebellion
succeeded--to fall with Slavery, if the Rebellion failed. And, while
Slavery and Free-Trade, were two leading ideas inspiring the Southern
Conspirators and leaders in their Rebellion; Freedom to Man, and
Protection to Labor, were the nobler ideas inspiring those who fought
for the Union.
The Morrill-Tariff of 1860, with modifications to it subsequently made
by its Republican friends, secured to the Nation, through the triumph of
the Union arms, great and manifold blessings and abundant prosperity
flowing from the American Protective policy; while the Emancipation
proclamations, together with the Constitutional amendments, and
Congressional legislation, through the same triumph, and the acceptance
of the legitimate results of the War, gave Freedom to all within the
Nation's bound aries. This, at least, was the logical outcome of the
failure of the Rebellion. Such was the general understanding, on all
sides, at the conclusion of the War. Yet the Republican Party, in
failing to stigmatize the heresy of Free Trade--which had so large an
agency in bringing about the equally heretical doctrines of State
Sovereignty and the right of Secession, and Rebellion itself,--as an
issue or question settled by the War, as a part and parcel of the
Rebellion, was guilty of a grave fault of omission, some of the
ill-effects of which have already been felt, while others are yet to
come. For, quickly after the War of the Rebellion closed,--as has been
already mentioned--the defeated Rebel leaders, casting in their lot with
their Democratic friends and allies, openly and without special rebuke,
prevailed upon the National Democracy to adopt the Rebel Free-Trade
Shibboleth of "a Tariff for revenue;" and that same Democracy, obtaining
power and place, through violence and fraud and falsehood at the
so-called "elections" in the Solid Southern States, now threatens the
Country once more with iniquitous Free-Trade legislation, and all its
attendant train of commercial disasters and general industrial ruin.
Were Abraham Lincoln able bodily to revisit the United States to-day,
how his keen gray eyes would open in amazement, to find that many
legitimate fruits of our Union victories had been filched from us; that
--save the honorable few, who, accepting the legitimate results of the
War, were still honestly striving for the success of principles
harmonizing with such results, and inuring to the general welfare--they
who strove with all their might to wreck the Government,--were now,
--through the fraudulent and forcible restriction of voters in their right
to vote--at the helm of State; that these, who sought to ruin the
Nation, had thus wrongfully usurped its rule; that Free-Trade--after
"running-a-muck" of panic and disaster, from the birth of the Republic,
to the outbreak of the Rebellion, with whose failure it should naturally
have expired--was now reanimated, and stood, defiantly threatening all
the great industries of our Land; that all his own painstaking efforts,
and those of the band of devoted Patriots who stood by him to free the
Southern Slaves, had mainly resulted in hiding from sight the repulsive
chains of enforced servitude, under the outward garb of Freedom; that
the old Black codes had simply been replaced by enactments adapted to
the new conditions; that the old system of African Slavery had merely
been succeeded by the heartless and galling system of African Peonage;
that the sacrifices made by him--including that of his martyrdom--had,
to a certain extent, been made in vain; that all the sacrifices, the
sorrows, the sufferings, of this Nation, made in blood, in tears, and in
vast expenditures of time and treasure, had, in some degree, and in a
certain sense, been useless; that the Union, to be sure, was saved--but
saved to be measurably perverted from its grand purpose; that the power
which animated Rebellion and which was supposed to have expired in the
"last ditch" with the "Lost Cause" had, by political legerdemain and
jugglery and violence, been regained; that the time had actually come
for Patriots to take back seats, while unrepentant Rebels came to the
front; that the Republic still lived, but only by sufferance, with the
hands of Southern oligarchs about its palpitating throat--a Republic,
not such as he expected, where all men are equal before the law, and
protected in their rights, but where the rights of a certain class are
persistently trampled under foot; that the people of the Northern,
Middle, and Western States, observing nothing beyond their own vicinage,
so to speak, and finding that each of their own States is still
Republican in its form of government, persistently, and perversely, shut
their eyes to the election terrorism practiced in the Solid South by,
which the 16 solid, Southern States were, and are, solidified by these
conspiring oligarchs into one compact, and powerful, political mass,
ever ready to be hurled, in and out of Congress, against the best
interests of the Nation--16 States, not all "Republican" in form, but
many of them Despotisms, in substance,--16 States, misnamed
"Democratic," many of them ruled not by a majority, but by an
Oligarch-ridden minority--16 States, leagued, banded, bound solidly
together, as one great controlling Oligarchy, to hold, in its merciless
and selfish hands, the balance of power within this Republican Union;
and that these confederated Southern States are now actually able to
dictate to all the other States of the Union, the particular man, or
men, to whose rule the Nation must submit, and the particular policy, or
policies, which the Nation must adopt and follow:
"What next?"--you ask--"What next?" Alas, it is not difficult to
predict! Power, lawlessly gained, is always mercilessly used. Power,
usurped, is never tamely surrendered. The old French proverb, that
"revolutions never go backward," is as true to-day, as when it was
written. Already we see the signs of great preparations throughout the
Solid South. Already we hear the shout of partisan hosts marshalled
behind the leaders of the disarmed Rebellion, in order that the same old
political organization which brought distress upon this Land shall again
control the Government. Already the spirit of the former aggressiveness
is defiantly bestirring itself. The old chieftains intend to take no
more chances. They feel that their Great Conspiracy is now assured of
success, inside the Union. They hesitate not to declare that the power
once held by them, and temporarily lost, is regained. Like the Old Man
of the Sea, they are now on top, and they:
MEAN TO KEEP THERE--IF THEY CAN.
BIOGRAPHICAL ADDENDUM: As few readers 150 years later know of John Logan
it seemed appropriate to the eBook editor to append this short biography
taken from the Encyclopedia Britanica of 1911:
LOGAN, JOHN ALEXANDER (1826-1886),
American soldier and political leader, was born in what is now
Murphysborough, Jackson county, Illinois, on the 9th of February 1826.
He had no schooling until he was fourteen; he then studied for three
years in Shiloh College, served in the Mexican War as a lieutenant of
volunteers, studied law in the office of an uncle, graduated from the
Law Department of Louisville University in 1851, and practised law with
success. He entered politics as a Douglas Democrat, was elected county
clerk in 1849, served in the State House of Representatives in 1853-1854
and in 1857, and for a time, during the interval, was prosecuting
attorney of the Third Judicial District of Illinois. In 1858 and 1860
he was elected as a Democrat to the National House of Representatives.
Though unattached and unenlisted, he fought at Bull Run, and then
returned to Washington, resigned his seat, and entered the Union army as
colonel of the 31st Illinois Volunteers, which he organized. He was
regarded as one of the ablest officers who entered the army from civil
life. In Grant's campaigns terminating in the capture of Vicksburg,
which city Logan's division was the first to enter and of which he was
military governor, he rose to the rank of major-general of volunteers;
in November 1863 he succeeded Sherman in command of the XV. Army Corps;
and after the death of McPherson he was in command of the Army of the
Tennessee at the battle of Atlanta. When the war closed, Logan resumed
his political career as a Republican, and was a member of the National
House of Representatives from 1867 to 1871, and of the United States
Senate from 1871 until 1877 and again from 1879 until his death, which
took place at Washington, D.C., on the 26th of December 1886. In 1868
he was one of the managers in the impeachment of President Johnson. His
war record and his great personal following, especially in the Grand
Army of the Republic, contributed to his nomination for Vice-President
in 1884 on the ticket with James G. Blaine, but he was not elected.
His impetuous oratory was popular on the platform. He was
commander-in-chief of the Grand Army of the Republic from 1868 to 1871,
and in this position successfully urged the observance of Memorial or
Decoration Day, an idea which probably originated with him. He was the
author of "The Great Conspiracy: Its Origin and History" (1886), an
account of the Civil War, and of "The Volunteer Soldier of America"
(1887). There is a fine statue of him by St. Gaudens in Chicago.
The best biography is that by George F. Dawson, The Life and Services
of Gen. John A. Logan, as Soldier and Statesman (Chicago and New York,
1887).
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