THE FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT AND THE STATES CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION 1 AT the close of the Civil War the Republican Party found itself in full control of every branch of the Federal Government. That Party had become in a large degree the repository of the national spirit. It was preeminently the Union party, and to it was entrusted the sovereign power. The country had passed through a great crisis. The political theories of the South had been put to the test of the sword and were now discredited. Slavery was gone and the Southern States were subordinated to Federal authority. The 1 Outside of the source material as evidenced by the governmental records and other contemporary writings, the following works have been consulted with profit in the preparation of this chapter: Rhodes, History of the United States, Vols. V, VI, and VII; Dunning, Reconstruction Political and Economic; Burgess, Reconstruction and the Constitution; Haynes, Life of Sumner; McCall, Life of Stevens; Blaine, Twenty Years of Congress; McPherson, History of Reconstruction; Fleming, Civil War and Reconstruction in Alabama; Fleming, Documentary History of Reconstruction; and Flack, The Adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment. Republican Party set itself to the stupendous and unparalleled task of reconstructing the Union along the lines of the political theories which had been vindicated by the outcome of the War. It was not a time when men could act in the coolness of deliberation. Hardly had the boom of the cannon ceased or the groans of the dying been hushed before many problems pressed for immediate consideration and action. At an early stage certain of these questions began to assume definite shape. The negroes, nearly five million in number, must be looked after. Their status needed to be defined and fixed. The territory formerly occupied by the seceding States must be reorganized and under certain conditions readmitted into the Union. The rule of the Republican Party must be established and perpetuated. This latter was considered of prime importance even by broadminded Union men of non-partisan tendencies. It was felt that the Democratic Party could not be entrusted with any part of the solution of the problem of reconstruction. To the mind of the North a Democratic victory would have meant the triumph of the forces of the Rebellion. This sentiment was normal in 1865. In the later campaigns it became increasingly abnormal. The continual waving of the "bloody shirt" throughout the political campaigns of the next ten years caused a reaction in the North which finally restored the normal issues of the day. Since the life of the Republic had undergone an extraordinary change within the decade preceding 1865, it was felt necessary that the organic law of the land should give voice to the new principles that had been thus evolved. The Constitution of the United States required certain amendments that it might express and preserve the results of the struggle which culminated in the overthrow of the Confederacy. On January 31, 1865 the proposed Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery passed the House by the necessary two-thirds majority. Since slavery had already been practically abolished, the measure attracted no great attention. A proposed Fourteenth Amendment was introduced in the House by Thaddeus Stevens on December 5, 1865. Other proposals followed in quick succession. Already on March 3, 1865, the Freedman's Bureau had been created. Before discussion of the Fourteenth Amendment had assumed definite shape a civil rights act was adopted, April 9, 1866. This purported to elevate the freedmen to the plane of political and social equality with the white people. The constitutionality of this act was seriously questioned, even by members of the Republican Party. The fight on the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment was long and hard. From the time of its proposal in Congress In this study we are concerned primarily with section one of the Amendment. Although as finally adopted it contained five sections, it was the first section that was to its final proclamation was a period of nearly three years of constant and bitter struggle. The resolution as originally introduced was a much stronger centralizing measure than the Amendment as finally adopted. It practically threw all legislative power into the hands of the Federal Government, leaving the State governments to operate only according to the will of Congress. This met with serious opposition from the conservative wing of the Republican Party and necessitated a long series of debates, committals, recommittals, and compromises. The resolution, in practically its final form, passed the House on May 10, 1866, passed the Senate with the amendment adding the citizenship clause on June 8, 1866, and was concurred in by the House on June 13, ‣ 1866. Sections two, three, and four related to the Southern problem. They were temporary measures growing out of a highly abnormal situation. They gave voice to no permanent constitutional principle, but their incorporation into the Amendment made section one easier of passage and made the whole measure an appeal to the passions and prejudices of the masses at the North. The proposed Amendment was submitted to the States for ratification on June 16, 1866. This was followed by the prompt rejection of the measure by all possessed of great vitality and marked a new departure in the American political ideal. The other sections may have been better adapted to stump speeches and campaign thunder, but section one alone was of permanent importance. |