Executive Reconstruction.—As early as 1862 large portions of Arkansas, Louisiana and Tennessee having been occupied by the military forces of the United States, President Lincoln proceeded to administer these districts through officers called "military governors; who were vested with rather vague Oil undefined powers. After the fall of Gettysburg and Vicksburg the President, foreseeing the ultimate defeat of the Confederate armies, gave his attention to the working out of a more definite and systematic plan of reconstruction which could be applied to all the Southern States. Accordingly in his an nual message to Congress in December 1863, he announced his plan which included an offer of amnesty to all persons who had served the Confederacy, except certain classes of men who had held high military or civil offices under the Confederate regime or who had resigned of fices under the United States to engage in the Confederate service. Whenever a number of,. voters equal to one-tenth of the voters in 1860, had taken the amnesty oath to support the Con, stitution of the United States, and the procla-1 mations of the President made during the was and had re-established a State government, re publican in form, such government should re ceive the recognition of the executive, but whether its representatives in Congress should be allowed their seats was a question to be de cided by each house. "Ten per cent" govern ments so called were accordingly established in Louisiana and Arkansas early in 1864 and rep resentatives in Congress were duly elected but were refused admission to their seats in De cember 1864. Early in 1865 Tennessee was "re according to the President's plan and representatives were chosen, hut they like wise were refused their seats in the National House. In the meantime Congress was mani festing its disapproval of the executive method in a very substantial way. In July 1864 it passed the Wade-Davis bill for the reconstruction of the Southern States along lines radically differ ent from those followed by the President. Mr. Lincoln refused to sign this bill before the ex piration of the session and thus defeated it. In February 1865 Congress aimed another blow at the executive method by the passage of a joint resolution which prohibited the counting of the electoral vote of any State that had passed an ordinance of secession. A breach between the President and Congress now seemed inevitable but had Mr. Lincoln lived it is highly probable that owing to his tact and influence with Con gress the difficulties would have been settled in a manner satisfactory to Congress and to the great advantage of the Southern States. After the assassination of Mr. Lincoln, the Vice President, Andrew Johnson, a man of far more aggressive and obstinate disposition, took up his policy without material change and carried it through only to have it all rejected by Con gress. On 29 May 1865, President Johnson is sued a proclamation of amnesty designed for the benefit of all who had not taken advantage of Mr. Lincoln's offer of 1863. It resembled Mr. Lincoln's proclamation in all essential par ticulars except that it excluded a large number of persons from the privileges of amnesty, among them all owners of $20,000 worth of property who had voluntarily enlisted in the Confederate service. Those who belonged to the excepted classes were allowed to make spe cial application to the President, who agreed to extend such clemency as appeared to be con sistent with the facts of the case and the peace and dignity of the United States. By subse quent proclamations President Johnson ap pointed ((provisional governors)) for North Car olina, "Mississippi, Alabama, South Carolina and Florida, the reconstruction of the other Southern States being regarded as al ready complete. These officials were directed
to call conventions in their respective States for the purpose of amending their old consti tutions so as to adapt them to the new condi tions created by the results of the war, after which they were to be restored to their normal relations with the Union. Before the end of the year conventions had been held in all these States except Texas and they had adopted con stitutional amendments either the ordinances of secession or pronouncing them null and void. Likewise they had all abolished slavery, most of them had repudiated all debts incurred in aid of the rebellion and all but Mississippi and Florida had ratified the 13th Amendment to the Federal Constitution. More over they had held elections, chosen State offi cers and representatives in Congress and the legislatures had elected United States senators. When, therefore, Congress met in December 1865 for the first time since the close of the war, the President took great satisfaction in inform ing that body that all the late insurrectionary States except Texas, whose convention was not to meet tintil March of the following year, had been reconstructed and were ready to resume their constitutional places in the Union. Con gress, however, ignored the whole scheme of reconstruction which Lincoln and Johnson had carried out, refused to admit the senators and representatives from the Southern States to seats in Congress and appointed a joint com mittee of 15 members to inquire into the con dition of these States and report whether any of them were entitled to representation in Con gress. One of the chief reasons which led Congress to veto the executive policy was the drastic character of the police legislation which some of these States had enacted in the summer and autumn of 1865 for the purpose, it was alleged, of keeping the negroes in a condition of involuntary servitude if not of actual slav ery. The offense of vagrancy was so defined that few freedmen could escape punishment. Those who were unable to pay the fines imposed upon them were to be their former masters being given the preference as lessees A harsh and unnecessary apprentice system for binding out colored minors was adopted. In Mississippi negroes were prohibited from rent ing or leasing land in incorporated towns and in most of the Southern States they were denied the right to give testimony in the courts except in cases in which negroes were parties. The demoralization of the negro race in 1865 was undoubtedly such as required stringent police measures to prevent crime and pauperism; but in singling out the black race for especial pun ishment the Southern legislatures greatly of fended the sentiment of the North. In April/ 1866, Texas having complied with the requires ments of the executive scheme of reconstruc tion, the President issued a proclamation of ficially -declaring the rebellion at an end. In June the Reconstruction Committee made its report declaring that the Southern State gov-+ ernments established under executive aus• pices were illegal (although they had been re garded as good enough to ratify the 13th Amendment), that Congress alone had author ity to reconstruct these governments, and that guarantees of future security should be re quired as a condition of restoration to the Union. The committee recommended the de nial of representation to these States until suf ficient guarantees for the protection of the civil rights of the negro were forthcoming and that a portion of those guilty of having taken part in the rebellion be disfranchised from voting and disqualified from holding office.
Congressional Reconstruction. — W h e n Congress met in December 1866 an effort was made to impeach the President (see UNITED