Never Call Retreat by Bruce Catton

Author:Bruce Catton [Catton, Bruce]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Non Fiction, Military
ISBN: 9780385026154
Publisher: Doubleday
Published: 1982-11-03T00:00:00+00:00

3. Amnesty and Suffrage

ALTHOUGH THE 38th Congress had mostly been chosen in the fall of 1862, when the Republicans did poorly in the elections, it had a safe Unionist majority when it convened on December 8, 1863. In the House of Representatives Republican Schuyler Colfax of Indiana was elected speaker, with 101 votes; his principal opponent, the mellifluous Sunset Cox

of Ohio, an unmitigated Democrat, got 42, and 39 votes were scattered to the winds among six candidates who had no hope of winning anything. In the Senate only five members voted against seating two Senators from one of the administration's newest creations, the state of West Virginia.1 Once organized, the two houses heard and applauded a message from the President of the United States.

The message was long, unemotional, and dutifully optimistic, routine except for one point: it included the text of a general Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction which the President had that day issued.

The important word, of course, was "reconstruction." The most sustained fighting of the war lay ahead, but the President had already begun to put the country together again. The proclamation explained how he was going about it; essentially, it was a careful exposition of the ten percent plan which even now was being presented to the people of Louisiana and Arkansas.

Amnesty, it said, would go to residents of seceded states who took a solemn oath, and the wording of the oath showed what Mr. Lincoln expected in the way of a changed mind and heart. The oath taker was called upon to swear "that I will henceforth faithfully support, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and the Union of the States thereunder; and that I will, in like manner, abide by and faithfully support all acts of Congress passed during the existing rebellion with reference to slaves, so long and so far as not repealed, modified or held void by Congress, or by decision of the Supreme Court; and that I will, in like manner, abide by and faithfully support all proclamations of the President made during the existing rebellion having reference to slaves, so long and so far as not modified or declared void by decision of the Supreme Court."

Certain people would not be allowed to take this oath— officials of the Confederate government; colonels and generals in the Confederate army, and naval officers with or above the rank of lieutenant; men who had left United States judicial posts, seats in Congress or commissions in the army and navy in order to join the Confederacy; and any persons who treated white or colored prisoners "otherwise than lawfully as prisoners of war." All others could take the oath, and when ten percent of a state's electorate had done so, any state government they set up would be recognized in Washington and would come under the Constitutional provision guaranteeing to each state a republican form of government and protection against invasion or domestic violence. As Mr. Lincoln had told General Banks, there would be

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