Morning newspapers the next day announced the names of the generals who by Stanton and Grant’s selection were to be the governors of the South. Schofield in the First District, Virginia; “a Conservative Republican when the war broke out,” the Army and Navy Journal described him, who “did not grow any more radical until his recent experiences in Virginia. He is a safe man.” Pope—“a moderate Republican and an excellent administrator”—had the Third District Georgia, Florida, and Alabama. Ord took the Fourth District, Arkansas and Mississippi, and the Journal’s editor worried a bit over the fact that he was a conservative Marylander, though withal a just, reliable officer. Sheridan was assigned to the Fifth District, encompassing Louisiana and Texas. According to the Journal, he “had traveled far” toward radicalism since the war days, when he had thought that “the abolitionists and secessionists ought to be hung together.” Welles worried most over the assignment of Sickles to command the Second District, the Carolinas, because that officer was Stanton’s friend. “The slime of the serpent is over them all,” Welles grumbled.25
A half year later, the younger Frank Blair explained the “spectacular uniformity” of these five generals. “They have their instructions … from Stanton,” he wrote, “& it is this evil genius of our country who has corrupted the mind of Grant & whispered to him the prospect of absolute & permanent power.” Stanton, Blair felt, was trying to be “a Bismarck to our King William [Grant],” and the War Secretary had secured a kingdom in the South for Grant to rule.
The Blairs’ hatred of Stanton, intensified by their bitterness at Grant’s refusal to go along with the President, had blinded them to realities. For Northern opinion generally approved of the choices for the military-governorships. Stanton and Grant had probably insisted only on Sheridan and Sickles; personal friendships bound the four men together in intimate confidence. The President had been free to specify the others. He learned that ranking army officers, almost to a man, were out of sympathy with his policies in the South. This was not Stanton’s doing, or Grant’s, but Johnson’s.
It became quickly apparent, however, that the reconstruction machinery was not working to the satisfaction of either its congressional creators or its uniformed administrators. The first essential step was the compilation of registers of loyal voters. Die-hard Southerners refused to register and by means of threats made white and Negro would-be voters absent themselves from the polls. Ambiguities in the text of the statute, especially in the sections prescribing standards for disfranchisement, confused every district commander.
Therefore, on March 23, Republican leaders in Congress pushed through a supplemental reconstruction act, again overcoming the paper sword of another veto from Johnson. This supplement gave the army commanders in the South authority to initiate registrations and the constitutional conventions that were to follow them, and specified a test oath designed to exclude most former rebels from participation in politics. Feeling that the situation was in hand, congressional leaders then adjourned until July 4, over the protests of Stanton and Grant, who wanted Congress to stay on and continue to keep watch over Johnson.26
Tension eased as the legislators left. Washington relaxed from a pitch of activity too intense to bear without relief. Stanton occupied himself with the upsurge of department business occasioned by the reconstruction laws. Cabinet officers shifted their attention to the Alaskan treaty with Russia and the troublesome Indians of the West. Tempers were restrained on these matters and the cabinet officers disagreed without questioning one another’s integrity.
The Southern question was different. Johnson’s acquiescence in executing the reconstruction laws had not changed the forbidding political fact that, as Senator Dixon phrased it to John Bigelow, “the President made no effort to ease the position of Northern [moderate] Senators and compelled them to vote either with the radicals or with the rebels.”
So the emotional calm following the passage of the first two reconstruction acts in March was not a harbinger of peace. Stanton knew that the basic questions remained unanswered, and that old issues were being revived to exacerbate tempers. The Blairs were still searching for ways to push Johnson into outright championship of extreme Democratic tenets, and their first step, as always, was for the President to oust Stanton from the cabinet so that the seemingly manageable Grant, replacing Stanton, would work with the administration. The next step toward calamity was not long delayed.27
1 Stanton to Ellen, Dec. 4, 6, 1866, owned by Edward S. Corwin; financial details in Pamphila Stanton Wolcott to A. Wylie, Oct. 18, 1870, owned by Craig Wylie; Stanton to Watson, in Flower, Stanton, 314; Grant to Sheridan, Nov. 15, 1866, Sheridan Papers, LC; Thorndike, Sherman Letters, 283–4.
2 “J.C.” to Marble, Dec. 2, 1866, Marble Papers, LC; Black to Johnson, Jan. 22, 1867, Johnson Papers, LC; Gorham, Stanton, II, 346; Fleming, op. cit., I, 238–9.
3 Laurence Oliphant, On the Present State of Political Parties in the Union (London, 1866), 12–13, analyzes the Johnsonian inconsistencies in an essay based upon information supplied by Stanton; see this correspondence, owned by the estate of Benjamin P. Thomas. Their friendship stemmed from wartime days in Washington.
4 To Ellen, Dec. 4, 1866, owned by Gideon Townsend Stanton; to Greeley, Dec. 5, 1866, Stanton MSS; Morse, Welles Diary, II, 627–8; Browning, Diary, II, 113–14. See also Violations of the Civil Rights Bill, Sen. Exec. Doc. 29, 39th Cong., 2d sess., 17–37, for widespread echoes of Stanton’s concern.
5 Pierrepont to Stanton, Dec. 9, 1866, Stanton MSS; Stanton to Ellen, Dec. 11, 1866, owned by Edward S. Corwin; Stanley Coben, “Northeastern Business and Radical Reconstruction: A Re-examination,” MVHR, XLVI, 88.
6 Stanton to Johnson, Dec. 8, 1866, WD, Executive Letters, LXXV, 77, RG 107, NA; Grant to Johnson, Jan. 29, 1867, Johnson Papers, LC; Browning, Diary, II, 115–16.
7 Stanton to Johnson, Dec. 10, 1866, WD, Executive Letters, LXXV, 81–2, RG 107, NA; Klaus, op. cit., 43–7; King, Davis, 251–8.
8 Duff Green to Johnson, Feb. 2, 1867, Johnson Papers, LC; and see the exchange of letters between Colfax and Stanton, Dec. 1866 through Jan. 1867, in Sec. War Correspondence File, Box 325, RG 107, NA.
9 Boutwell, Reminiscences, II, 107–9; Hesseltine, Grant, 82–3.
10 Stanton to Meade, Dec. 14, 1866, HL; Washington National Intelligencer, Jan. 3, and National Republican, Jan. 12, 1867; Stanton to Rev. Dr. Hall, ca. Jan. 15, 1867, CHS.
11 ANJ (Jan. 19, 1867), 332, 342; Stanton to Stanbery, Jan. 25, 1867, WD, Executive Letters, LXXV, 142, RG 107, NA; S. T. Glover to F. P. Blair, Jr., Jan. 4, 1868, Box XXVI, Blair-Lee Papers, PU.
12 Testimony in Murder of Union Soldiers, House Report 23, 39th Cong., 2d sess., 34–6; see Union Congressional Executive Committee, Review of the Decision of the U. S. Supreme Court in the Cases of Lambdin P. Milligan and Others (Washington, 1867), 1–9; Klaus, op. cit., 45.
13 Grant to Sherman, Jan. 13, 1867, W. T. Sherman Papers, LC; Stanton to Johnson, Jan. 4, 1867, Stanton MSS; Morse, Welles Diary, III, 3–5; “Notes of Colonel W. G. Moore,” loc. cit., 104; Browning, Diary, II, 122. The bill was passed over the veto.
14 Morse, Welles Diary, III, 9–12, 17, 22–3, 26–7; John H. Surratt, House Exec. Doc. 9, 39th Cong., 1st sess.; ibid., House Report 33, 39th Cong., 2d sess., 3–4; Browning, Diary, II, 123–4.
15 D. L. Eaton to Stanton, Jan. 9, and T. D. Eliot to same, Jan. 19, 1867, Stanton MSS; Klaus, op. cit., 45.
16 M. Blair to John A. Andrew, Feb. 18, 1867, Andrew Papers, MHS; Cole to Judge E. Burke, Feb. 13, 1867, UCLA; R. H. Stanton to Col. W. C. Breckinridge, Feb. 13, 1867, Breckinridge Family Papers, LC; “Notes of Colonel W. G. Moore,” loc. cit., 105.
17 Feb. 5, 6, 1867, Meigs ms diary, LC; Weigley, Meigs, 343; Colfax to Stanton, Feb. 8, and James Wilson to same, Feb. 9, 1867, Stanton MSS; Impeachment Report, 183–6; Thayer, Hay, I, 260–1.
18 Chronicle, Feb. 15, 1867; Morse, Welles Diary, 42–6; Browning, Diary, II, 130; memos in Stanton’s hand, Feb. 9, Johnson Papers, LC, and Feb. 14,
1867, Stanton MSS.
19 John L. Motley, Four Questions for the People, at the Presidential Election, Address at the Music Hall, Oct. 20, 1868 (Boston, 1868), 31–2, echoes Stanton’s views. See also Browning, Diary, II, 131; Morse, Welles Diary, III, 47–9; John Bigelow, Retrospections of an Active Life (New York, 1909), IV, 42–4 (hereafter cited as Bigelow, Retrospections); F. Blair, Jr., to M. Blair, Dec. 6, 1866, Box XXVI, Blair-Lee Papers, PU.
20 Welles’s notes on the tenure bill, in Beale, Welles Diary, III, 736; ibid., 49–54, on cabinet proceedings; Browning, Diary, II, 132; Bancroft, Seward, II, 465; Blair to Johnson, Feb. 24, 1867, Johnson Papers, LC; “Notes of Colonel W. G. Moore,” loc. cit., 110; Flower, Stanton, 315; Pratt, Stanton, 448; Trowbridge, A Picture of the Desolated States and the Work of Restoration, 1865–1868 (Hartford, 1868), 610–11; Richardson, Messages and Papers, VI, 492–8.
21 The entire question of the status of a cabinet officer was recently reviewed, and the Senate has left still unclear the matter of the autonomy of these presidential servants; see Nomination of Lewis L. Strauss to be Secretary of Commerce, Senate Executive Report 4 [Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce], 86th Cong., 1st sess.
22 Grant to Washburne, March 4, 1867, ISHL; Bigelow, Retrospections, IV, 44–5; March 1, 1867, S. P. Chase Letterbook, LC, on appointments; on patronage and printing, J. L. Dunnig to Stanton, March 5, and Stanton to McPherson, March 7, 1867, McPherson Papers, LC; AGO, General Orders, 1867 (Washington, 1868), No. 22.
23 Browning, Diary, II, 134–5; Morse, Welles Diary, III, 59–63; memo, March 5–11, 1867, Welles Papers, LC; “Notes of Colonel W. G. Moore,” loc. cit., 106.
24 Michael J. Cramer, Ulysses S. Grant, Conversations and Unpublished Letters (New York, 1897), 66–7; Sheridan to Grant and Grant to Johnson, with Stanton’s endorsement, March 8–10, 1867, Johnson Papers, LC; Morse, Welles Diary, III, 64; Dawes to wife, March 8, 1867, Dawes Papers, LC.
25 Morse, Welles Diary, III, 65; ANJ (March 30, 1867), 514.
26 F. P. Blair, Jr., to Sr., Aug. 2, 1867, Box XXVI, Blair-Lee Papers, PU; A. N. Rankin to Edward McPherson, March 19, 1867, McPherson Papers, LC; Morse, Welles Diary, III, 74; Randall, The Civil War and Reconstruction, 755–6.
27 Smith, Blair Family, II, 382; Bigelow ms diary, March 28, 30, 1867, NYPL.
CHAPTER XXVI
OFF THE SHARP HOOKS OF UNCERTAINTY
DURING March, Johnson opened a new battle line. His cabinet supporters asserted that Congress had designated the troops in the South a special corps, responsive only to the White House and therefore independent of the untrustworthy War Secretary and the uncertain commanding general. So far as the South was concerned, Johnson decided to ignore them both.
In bypassing the war office, Johnson plotted to thwart the clear intentions of Congress and to augment the powers of the presidency. His strategy assumed that Stanton and Grant had nothing to do with reconstruction beyond paying and supplying the soldiers assigned to occupation duties. By ordering the military governors to interpret the reconstruction law in a limited fashion, so far as the disfranchisement of former rebels and the status of Negroes were concerned, Johnson intended to soften the impact of the law on the South, and keep in office the men now controlling the Southern states. By appearing to execute the reconstruction act, however, Johnson could avoid dangers to himself. He might also, Welles suggested, establish control over the troops in the South and so have an obedient military force to act as a counterweight in the event of impeachment. In short, the President would employ the Republicans’ laws for his purposes.1
He did not even pay Stanton the respect of concealing these intentions. Instead, Johnson displayed his plans at cabinet assemblies as though on signal flags. He should not have been surprised to find that Stanton read the message and took steps to counter the danger.
Stanton and Grant conferred on this new menace to stability. They agreed on a strategy that, though paralleling the President’s in some details, fit better with the facts of the time. In their thinking, Congress’s reconstruction law had created a second, separate army of the United States, and its officers received their authority from the legislators rather than the President. In respect to this second “army,” Congress had placed certain limits on the President’s commander-in-chief function, left unlimited in the Constitution but not therefore unlimitable. He must appoint the district commanders, and he could remove any who failed to perform properly the responsibilities set down by Congress. But, Stanton and Grant concluded, neither the President nor any of the cabinet members could interpret the reconstruction law. Congress had delegated this power to the military governors alone.
To be sure, by this theory Stanton and Grant seemingly agreed with Johnson that the war office was bypassed. But this was of little concern to the Secretary and the commanding general—or, rather, was of great advantage. Grant maintained unofficial channels of communication with the army’s ranking officers, with whom he enjoyed warm friendships and who shared with him a sense of professional solidarity. He could therefore secretly advise and influence the military governors. Enjoying the certain shield of the Army Appropriations Act, he could counter what he felt were destructive White House policies while furthering his own political ambitions. With the occupation commanders to brave Johnson’s displeasure if they took issue with the President’s views, and with Stanton to take on the cabinet infighting, Grant nestled in a safe haven of apparent neutrality.
As always, Stanton was out in the open. He accepted this exposed position because only in this way could Johnson’s strategy be blocked without triggering the crisis that Stanton so feared. If the theory he and Grant had conceived could be sustained against the counterattacks which the President was sure to launch, then it no longer mattered so greatly if Johnson ousted Stanton or replaced Grant with his champion, or how the President, through Attorney General Stanbery, chipped away at the reconstruction law by restrictive analyses. Perhaps, therefore, Stanton could feel free to resign. The autonomous occupation commanders, independent of the White House as well as of the War Department, would still hold the fort.
The defenses came up barely in time. In the first application of a power of a district commander under the reconstruction law, Sheridan on March 27 removed several municipal and state officials of Louisiana from their offices. Grant, while maintaining silence in public, secretly encouraged Sheridan. “It is just the thing,” he wrote, “and merits the approbation of the loyal people at least.” Then, retreating even in private correspondence to his neutral corner, Grant added: “I only write this to let you know that I at least approve what you have done.”
Johnson asked Stanbery to determine whether a district commander could remove civil officials or set standards for voters, and ordered Sheridan to defer further removals until Stanbery’s opinion was available. On April 3, Grant obediently transmitted this order through regular army channels. But two days later he sent Sheridan a private message, warning him that “there is a decided hostility to the whole Congressional plan of reconstruction at the ‘White House,’ and a disposition to remove you from … command.… Both the Secretary of War and myself will oppose any such move, as will the mass of the people.” Grant “suggested,” however, that Sheridan at his own discretion hold off further removals of state officials until Stanbery’s opinion was in.
Then Grant sketched his and Stanton’s novel view of civil-military relationships. “There is nothing clearer in my mind than that Congress intended to give District Commanders entire control over the civil governments of these [Southern] districts,” he wrote, “and only recognized present civil authorities within these districts at all, for the convenience of their commanders, to make use of, or so much of as suited them, and as would aid them in carrying out the Congressional plan of restoring loyal, permanent governments.” Grant was positive that Congress “contemplates that District Commanders shall be their own judges of the meaning of its provisions. Any opinion from the Attorney General should be weighed, howeve
r. The power of removing District Commanders undoubtedly exists with the President, but no officer is going to be hurt by a faithful performance of his duty.… I will keep you advised officially or otherwise of all that affects you.”2
Stanton’s subtle, complex position confused some of his friends, who could not understand why he stayed on in a turncoat administration. A movement of some strength was developing to make him the Republican presidential nominee in 1868, but as the Cleveland Leader editorialized, “his present cabinet position weakens him as a Republican party man.” While Republican leaders pondered the Stanton paradox, he made it clear that he did not want the nomination. He was in politics, but only to see the Army through the dangers ahead, and to warn the President of limits beyond which it was dangerous to go.
Stanton overestimated his abilities as a pacificator. In his logical, lawyerlike way, he still assumed that Johnson would follow a rational political course. He did not comprehend that the President was bitterly emotional regarding the frustrations he had suffered, and now blamed all his troubles on the War Secretary. Stanton failed to anticipate that Johnson and his supporters would misread almost every event as a favorable augury for the White House and for the Democrats. For example, Welles exulted that a minor Democratic victory in Connecticut on April 1 was “the first loud knock which admonishes the Radicals of their doom.” Unimpressed by the Democrats’ prospects for widespread majorities at the polls, Stanton was concerned over more immediate menaces.
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