Reconstruction in Virginia
The “policy” of President Johnson having resulted in an “irrepressible conflict” between him and Congress, finally culminating in his impeachment, the reconstruction of the States lately in insurrection was undertaken by Congress. First an act dated March 2, 1867, was passed for the military government of the “rebel States,” and then another act, dated March 23, 1867, prescribing the conditions of organization of State governments preparatory to restoration to the Union; the last-named act was supplemented by the act dated July 19, 1867. All of these acts were passed over the President’s veto. They provided for the assignment of military commanders in the several districts, with nearly absolute powers to govern those States and direct the steps in the process of reconstruction. It fell to my lot to command the First Military District, into which Virginia was converted by the act of Congress.
The terrible oppression of the Southern people embodied in those acts of Congress has hardly been appreciated by even the most enlightened and conservative people of the North. Only those who actually suffered the baneful effects of the unrestrained working of those laws can ever realize their full enormity. The radical Congress was not content to impose upon the Southern States impartial suffrage to whites and blacks alike. They were not content even to disfranchise the leading rebels, according to the terms of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. Even those would not be sufficient to put the Southern whites under the domination of their former slaves and of adventurers from the North, and thus to secure the radical supremacy in the reconstructed States. Hence another and an enormous stride was taken, with the purpose of putting those States under what became known as “carpet-bag” governments, so offensive as to be nearly intolerable even to their authors. That stride consisted in imposing the so-called “iron-clad oath” upon all officers, of whatever grade or character, in all the former Confederate States. That oath excluded from office not only all who had in any way taken active part in the rebellion, but even the most constant Union men of the South who had remained at home during the war; for not one of them had escaped “giving aid or comfort” in some way to those engaged in the rebellion. Even so conspicuous a loyalist as Judge Rives, afterward United States district judge, declared, after mature deliberation, that he could not take that oath, although his constant fidelity to the Union was known to all of Virginia.
I asked this noted Union man to accept the office of chief justice of the State, but he could not take the prescribed oath. He had permitted his boy, about to join the Confederate army, to take one of his horses rather than see him go afoot. Perhaps the judge was too conscientious. But it was the evil effect of the law to exclude the highly honorable and let the rascals in. Thus the Union could not have the benefit of Judge Rives’s eminent services in the vital work of reconstruction, and some “carpet-bagger” had to take his place. And thus, although the acts of Congress permitted a majority of the whites to vote, their choice of officers was restricted to negroes and “carpet-baggers”! To these latter, therefore, was committed the entire work of organizing and administering the Southern State governments, which required the aid of the United States troops to support them, and which fell by their own weight the moment that support was withdrawn.