Chapter One Hundred and Thirty Six A New Beginning - Inauguration and the 39th Congress
Chapter One Hundred and Thirty Six
A New Beginning - Inauguration and the 39th Congress
A New Beginning - Inauguration and the 39th Congress
From “Thundering Voices – Congress & Reconstruction” edited by William Clancy
Buffalo 2000
“At this second appearing to take the oath of the Presidential office there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement somewhat in detail of a course to be pursued seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest and its aftermath which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented. The triumph of our arms, upon which all our prayers rested, is as well known to the public as to myself, and it is, I trust, a matter of great rejoicing to us all. With high hope for the future, I venture to predict a bright future for this our restored Union…
On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it, all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war--seeking to dissolve the Union and divide effects by negotiation. One section of our nation would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came. That time of strife is now passing away…
One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the fire-eaters would rend the Union even by war, while the Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war, the magnitude, or the duration which it attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and prayed to the same God, and each invoked His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces. Indeed the time of judgment for many who did is near at hand for the prayers of both could not be answered. Though that of neither has been answered fully. Both parties have paid a terrible price in blood, in treasure, in innocence…
The Almighty has His own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." Woe indeed, for those from whom this great offence of war has come, an earthly reckoning is near at hand…
Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that the final embers of this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. God has willed that all of us should pay a price for our part in our country’s trial for all of us bear the guilt of slavery that we permitted to flourish in our midst. Through the blood of our country’s sacrifice I fervently pray that the stain of that guilt might have been washed clean. And to those who have sought strife, for those who have reveled in war, for those who have striven to keep their fellow man in bondage I say to them that until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether" but first must come the judgment of your fellow man. That judgment, tempered by justice and a generosity of spirit, must soon be passed down that we might begin to heal the scars of war that have blighted our nation…
With malice toward none, with justice in our hearts, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to break the last chains of bondage, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations…”
Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address
Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address
From “The Rivals – Lincoln and his Cabinet” by Amelia Doggett
Grosvenor 2008
“To the newly convened 39th Congress was granted the signal honor of passing the 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution…
In the certain knowledge that the measure would pass the Radical Republican dominated Congress, Lincoln had swayed the Amendment's managers to hold back the amendment to the new congress. Releasing it for debate brought forth great oratory and contributions from the members of both houses, eager as they were to be seen to back “Hunter’s Amendment” as Benjamin Butler had christened it…
In the frenzy of “speechifying and self congratulation” (Seward) Congress was distracted from its dissatisfaction with the final acts of the 38th Congress…
The 13th Amendment would pass both the House and the Senate with overwhelming majorities. The unreconstructed Democrats were a broken force unable to muster the numbers to threaten passage of the Amendment. Even if they had the Amendment's managers had ample resources to distribute to ease the Amendment's passage. Several Democrats crossed the floor to vote with the majority…
The battle lines that had been hidden by the passage of Hunter’s Amendment, would re-emerge with the introduction of the Undesirable Aliens Act to the floor of the House. It sought to confirm and enlarge the powers of the Naturalization Act to formalize the powers of “proscription”…
It’s passage was never in doubt but it did present an opportunity for those opposed to the Reconstruction Policies of the President to vent their distress…
Thaddeus Stevens and Henry Jarvis Raymond would lead the more liberal minded Republicans in their opposition to the grant of such sweeping powers to either the legislative or executive branches. The power of proscription was described as a “temptation too powerful for those in power to ignore,” (Raymond) “its abuse as inevitable as the rising of the sun”…
Radicals too would have their say. In the Senate Benjamin Wade would pick up where he left off in the previous session, railing against the “iniquitous, misplaced and utterly undeserved spirit of mercy that pervades this bill…justice not mercy is what should be done unto the rebels”. “Blood cries out yet for blood” was the apocalyptic demand of George Washington Julian…
In the end both houses of Congress would grant themselves and the President the power to deport and permanently ban those it deemed undesirable aliens. The restored Union had “resolved to rid itself of those who cannot or will not repent of their treason” (Anson George McCook)…”
From “A True Deputy – The Vice Presidency of Joseph Holt” by Justice McClintock
Grosvenor 2004
“It was already well known that Joseph Holt had been tasked by the President, with a core of trusted legislators, to prepare a 14th Amendment to the Constitution. The President feared that even with the weight of legislation and the majority of Congress behind his Reconstruction measures, they might fail on the steps of the Supreme Court. He had therefore, in conference with the Cabinet, resolved to see the Constitution amended so as to enshrine the rights of the nation’s negro citizens and to enumerate the powers over citizenship which Congress had so recently asserted…”
Kearny's recent bout of ill-health had visably weakened his frame
From “The King and his Heir – Lincoln and Kearny in the Civil War” by Robert Todd Lincoln II
Grafton Press 1939
“It was at this time that Agnes Kearny sought a meeting with the President alone in the White House. She believed that, if her husband went on as he had been for the last 5 years without a proper rest, he would not live to see another year...
Agnes believed that the country owed her husband a great debt, a debt Phil Kearny himself would never call on, but one which Agnes Kearny intended to collect in full from President Lincoln. She requested that General Kearny be granted a leave of absence to fully recover his health, and further she pressed the President to order General Kearny to take it for Agnes believed he would never voluntarily take leave offered, particularly not at this critical juncture with violence still breaking out in the southern states and the demobilization of the army at hand…
Lincoln agreed with Agnes that Phil Kearny deserved a leave of absence. Indeed his own comments to John Hay indicated that he too feared the General would not survive 3 months at the head of the army without a rest. He would try to do too much the President feared, managing the occupation, demobilization and the expansion of the regular army…
The President however also understood his man. General Kearny would not recover idling his time away in New Jersey or upstate New York. Even in rest he was a man of action. No, the President had a task for Kearny that would keep him amply occupied while freeing him from many of the trials of his rank. Both Seward, Butler and a large portion of Congress wished to trade on the new found sense of power the Great Civil War had given the nation. Many were keen to flex their muscle on the world stage. President Lincoln had no such appetite but General Kearny was an impressive figure and it would be an inexpensive way to impress the Courts of Europe that America was a modern power not to be taken lightly. It would also silence Butler to a degree. General Kearny was to take his “leave” in Europe but unofficially he would head a delegation, both political and military, designed to both impress the Governments of Europe and “enhance American prestige” (Seward)…
It was a typical Lincoln stratagem. He would do honor to a great American hero; he could honor a fine lady’s request; he could muzzle the wilder foreign policy demands of Congress; and it would cost him nothing. “All sound and fury signifying nothing” was the quote that came to Secretary Chase’s mind…
General Kearny had recovered sufficiently to have risen from his bed when he received the news. He was to take enforced leave for upwards of six months by the order of the President but in truth he was ordered by the President to take a small party to Europe to study European military ways and impress upon those he met that “notwithstanding the recent unpleasantness American remains a good bet” (Isaac Stevens). General Reynolds was to have temporary command of the army…
It was however a miscalculation by the President to assume that General Kearny, let loose upon the European stage, could not make all that sound and fury signify something when he was moved to…”
Last edited:
