Let Us Have Peace by Brooks D. Simpson

Author:Brooks D. Simpson [Simpson, Brooks D.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, United States, Civil War Period (1850-1877)
ISBN: 9781469617466
Google: uEv4AwAAQBAJ
Publisher: UNC Press Books
Published: 2014-06-30T04:15:43+00:00

Southern rejection of the Fourteenth Amendment forced Grant’s hand. Efforts at compromise had failed. Southern whites remained defiant, and Johnson’s inflexibility only stiffened their resolve. Even Sherman complained that “outrages on negroes and Union Men appear to increase. It is alleged that the better people don’t lend their help to stop it, as they say it is none of their business.” Some Southerners saw the mistake. Brown and other Southerners, visiting Grant’s headquarters in February, admitted in the aftermath of rejection “that nothing would be accepted by the North but universal suffrage.”19

Having failed to persuade white Southerners to accept the Fourteenth Amendment, Grant now advocated new legislation to buttress military rule in the occupied South and to establish procedures for the full readmission to the Union of the ten remaining states. Little Jesse Grant later recalled, “Always father seemed in consultation with some one, Senators and Congressmen more in evidence than army men. When he was at home the stream of callers was unbroken, often until late at night.” The visitors were there to discuss proposals under consideration by Congress to establish anew the military governance of the conquered South. They were not the only ones interested in Grant’s opinions. As an English visitor noted, “At the present time, when the President and the Congress are defying one another, and are at open rupture,. . . the General in Chief becomes a very interesting person.”20

These conferences served to reassure many Republicans of Grant’s support for more radical measures. Still, many were concerned about the steadfastness of Grant’s subordinates. This was no idle fear: Sickles, renowned as a Radical, came up from the Carolinas and informed Browning that “the Freedmen’s Bureau had filled the Southern states with petty tyrants, knaves and robbers”; perhaps it would be best, he thought, if the South was left to its own devices. With friends like these, Republican plans for reconstruction faced an uphill battle. George H. Thomas, Thomas J. Wood, Sickles, and the redoubtable Sheridan all visited Washington to testify about conditions in the South. Grant’s aide Cyrus B. Comstock came away from a conversation with Thomas and Wood convinced that “they are all radical, as far as the South is concerned.” Rutherford B. Hayes, a Republican congressman from Ohio, assured the home folks that “Grant, Thomas, and Sheridan are now known to be all right.”21

Such meetings went beyond mere advice, at least in Grant’s case. The general-in-chief took an active role in the framing of reconstruction legislation. Most important was legislation outlining the process whereby Southerners could frame new state constitutions and elect civil governments under military supervision. Grant conferred with Senator John Sherman, who headed a Senate committee charged with reconciling various proposals. He suggested that a House bill that authorized him to name the commanders of the military districts be changed so as to allow the president to make that choice. News of Grant’s support for the legislation was leaked to the press. “General Grant speaks openly in favor of the Reconstruction bill,” reported the Independent.

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