A Just and Lasting Peace: A Documentary History of Reconstruction (24 page)

(April 9, 1866)

In the immediate aftermath of the debates over the Civil Rights Bill, Johnson submitted to the Senate a glowing report on conditions in the South by his friend and former aide, the journalist Benjamin C. Truman (1835–1916). In early September 1865, Truman began recording his impressions in what became an eight-month-long tour of eight of the eleven former Confederate states. In contrast to the indictments of Schurz and Dennett, Truman found much to praise generally about the former Rebels and, particularly, about race relations and the progress of Reconstruction under Johnson's program. “It is the former slave-owners who are the best friends the negro has in the south,” Truman concluded.

I will speak first of the sentiments of the white people, touching their relations with the general government and the people of the north.

I distinguish between
loyalty
and
patriotism;
and I believe the distinction not ill-grounded. That glorious spontaneous burst of popular enthusiasm with which the north responded as one man to the echoing thunders of Sumter was the most sublime exhibition of
patriotism
the world has yet witnessed; the quietness, and even cheerfulness, with which the same people once yielded obedience to the rule of James Buchanan, whose administration they hated and despised, was an instance of
loyalty
, such as only American citizens could have furnished.

The north never rebelled against James Buchanan, nor seriously proposed to; but I assert without hesitation, that, now the war has swept over the south, there is no more disposition in that section of the country to rebel against the national government than there was in the north at the time above referred to.

If any general assertion can be made that will apply to the masses of the people of the south, it is that they are at the present time
indifferent
toward the general government. For four years of eventful life as a nation, they were accustomed to speak of and regard “our government” as the one which had its seat in Richmond; and thousands who at first looked upon that government with great suspicion and distrust, gradually, from the mere lapse of time and the force of example, came to admit it into their ideas as
their
government. The great body of the people in any country always move slowly; the transfer of allegiance from one
de facto
government to another is not effected in a day, whatever oaths of loyalty may be taken; and I have witnessed many amusing instances of mistakes on the part of those of whose attachment to the government there could be no question. Ignorance and prejudice always lag furthest behind any radical change, and no person can forget that the violent changes of the past few years have left the ideas of the populace greatly unsettled and increased their indifference. Fully one-half of the southern people never cherished an educated and active attachment to any government that was over them, and the war has left them very much as it found them.

The rank and file of the disbanded southern army—those who remained in it to the end—are the backbone and sinew of the south. Long before the surrender, corps, divisions, brigades, and regiments had been thoroughly purged of the worthless class—the skulkers—those of whom the south, as well as any other country, would be best rid; and these it is that are now prolonging past bitternesses. These are they, in great part, as I abundantly learned by personal observation, that are now editing reckless newspapers, and that put forth those pernicious utterances that so little represent the thinking, substantial people, and are so eagerly seized out and paraded by certain northern journalists, who themselves as little represent the great north. To the disbanded regiments of the rebel army, both officers and men, I look with great confidence as the best and altogether most hopeful element of the south, the real basis of reconstruction and the material of worthy citizenship. On a thousand battle-fields they have tested the invincible power of that government they vainly sought to overthrow, and along a thousand picket lines, and under the friendly flag of truce, they have learned that the soldiers of the Union bore them no hatred, and shared with them the common attributes of humanity. Around the returned soldier of the south gathers the same circle of admiring friends that we see around the millions of hearth-stones in our own section, and from him they are slowly learning the lesson of charity and of brotherhood. I know of very few more potent influences at work in promoting real and lasting reconciliation and reconstruction than the influence of the returned southern soldier.

The question above all others that our people are anxious to ask is, In case of a war with a foreign nation, what would be the action of the south? Of course, all answers to this must be founded chiefly on speculation, since a great deal would depend upon the character of the nation with whom we were at war, and much upon the action of the government between now and any such event. I need hardly say that, whatever might be their sympathies, in case of a war with England, not a regiment of men could be recruited in the south in her support, even if it were freely permitted. In other cases it would be different. There is a certain loose floating population in the south, as everywhere, and largely disproportionate to that of the north, in consequence of the more complete disruption caused by the war, that would be eager to enlist in any army, whether for or against the United States. It would be necessary, then, as things are at present, to keep a strict surveillance over the harbors of the principal ports to prevent them from sailing to join the common enemy, if such an object was desired, though I am far from certain that the class spoken of would not be well gotten rid of in foreign camps. They would consist almost entirely of that class of persons who are preparing to emigrate to Mexico and Brazil; men whose reputations in the rebel army were greatly overdone, or men who never did any service at the front, but who were valorous with words alone. If a large foreign army were to invade the south, and march uninterruptedly through the country—a very improbable contingency—without doubt it would receive many recruits. In Texas it would probably get eight thousand recruits—discontented, roving men, who are not engaged in any profitable employment, and are adding nothing to the State's productive capacity. I estimate that there are five thousand men in that State—deserters, principally, and rebel refugees from Arkansas and Missouri—that are to-day depending entirely upon robbery and murder for a precarious subsistence. These would, of course, rejoice at such an opportunity. In other States the proportion would be very much less. But if no invasion were accomplished, the substantial assistance that a foreign enemy would receive at the hands of the late insurgents would be quite insignificant; and the fears that many otherwise well-informed persons entertain in this regard are highly absurd. Naturally, the American people, as a nation, are devoted to the arts of peace. The soldiers of the late rebel army are, if possible, infinitely more wearied and disgusted with war and all its works than those of our army, and long for nothing so much as quiet. The best proof of this is the fact that our noble volunteers, though crowned with the honors of almost limitless success and victory, are clamorous and even mutinous to be discharged from military duty. Therefore, I am constrained to believe that, with few exceptions, the great masses of those who have been in the rebel army will never again seek to enter the lists. If there is anything that I certainly learned in the south, it was that its people are tired of war and are anxious to establish and perpetuate peace. . . .

It is my belief that the south—the great, substantial, and prevailing element—is more loyal now than it was at the end of the war—more loyal to-day than yesterday, and that it will be more loyal to-morrow than to-day. It would be impossible to present the numerous and scattered evidences upon which I base this belief; but I entertain it in all sincerity, and believe it to be consonant with the facts. “No revolution ever goes backward” is a convenient but shallow truism; or, rather, expressive of no truth whatever, since every revolution has its ultimate revulsion, partially at least; and just as certainly as for four years the mass of popular sentiment in the south was slowly solidifying and strengthening in favor of the bogus confederacy, just so certain it is that from the date of its downfall that opinion has been slowly returning to its old attachments. For many years the dream of independence had been increasingly cherished and nurtured in the breasts of thousands; for four years that dream was a living fact, penetrating the consciousness of all, and receiving the sympathies of scarcely less than all; and then came the sudden and appalling crash—the awakening from this dream to the unwelcome but inexorable truth that the pleasing vision had vanished. As weeks, months, and years steadily accumulate, and the remembrances of that brief happiness vanish in the distance, the yearning for it will grow weak and inconstant. That dream will never be revived, in my opinion—never; and if I am satisfied of anything in relation to the south, it is that the great majority of its leading men have forever renounced all expectations of a separate nationality.

If I were asked to reconcile the above statements with the grossly palpable appearances that argue to the contrary, especially as seen in some of the late constitutional conventions, I would simply answer that this apparent contradiction is an inevitable product of human inconsistency; or, rather, the “consistency of politicians.” For four years they found themselves required—most of them by preference, all of them by circumstances which they could not, if they would, control—to argue in favor of the right of secession and independent government. It is strange how soon and how inevitably defence leads to conviction. I cannot say that, when the confederacy went down, there was not in all its borders a citizen who did not yield it so much of allegiance as he ever gave to any government; but I do not hesitate to declare that there were not five prominent politicians
still remaining within it
who could truly and conscientiously declare that they had not given it, first or last, their sympathy. It has furnished me an interesting branch of historical study to look up the antecedents of those men who, when our troops made their appearance, were forward in their professions of unwavering Unionism. Alas for political human nature! Scarcely one of them but had either accepted an office under the confederacy, or signified his willingness to do so.

There comes now a sudden and imperious necessity that they cannot blink, to declare, by their acts at least, that they were wrong in all this; but who could expect politicians and editors, before they had been reduced to a condition of absolute vassalage, to reverse their “records”
ab initio,
and declare freely and without hesitation that all their utterances of the past four years had been mistaken? But this unwillingness does not necessarily involve a corresponding sluggishness of belief. I record it as my profound conviction, gathered from hundreds of intimate and friendly conversations with leading men in the south, that there are not fifty respectable politicians who still believe in the “constitutional right of secession,” though they are exceedingly slow to acknowledge it in public speeches or published articles. Our conversations generally ended with the confession—which to me was entirely satisfactory, as meaning much more than was intended—“Whatever may be said about the
right
of secession, the thing itself may as well be laid aside, for it is certainly
not practicable,
and probably
never will be
. . . .”

I will now proceed to the second great topic, to wit: “The freedmen and their affairs.”

Almost the only key that furnishes a satisfactory solution to the southern question in its relations to the negro, that gives a reasonable explanation to the treatment which he receives and the estimation in which he is held, is found in the fact—too often forgotten in considering this matter—that the people from their earliest days have regarded slavery as his proper estate, and emancipation as a bane to his happiness. That a vast majority of the southern people honestly entertain this opinion no one who travels among them for eight months can doubt.

To one who looks out from this stand-point of theory, and can see no other that is rational, the question presents itself in a different aspect. Every one who conscientiously seeks to know the whole truth should not ignore their beliefs while he censures the resulting practices. Holding that the negro occupies a middle ground between the human race and the animal, they regard it as a real misfortune to him that he should be stripped of a protector, and that the immortal proclamation of President Lincoln was wicked, or at least mistaken, and a scourge to society. The persistency and honesty with which many, even of the greatest men of the south, hold to this opinion, is almost unaccountable to a northern man, and is an element of such magnitude that it cannot well be omitted from the consideration.

Resulting as a proper corollary from these premises, we have seen various laws passed in some of the States, but more particularly in Mississippi—which State, I am bound to say, has displayed the most illiberal spirit toward the freedmen of all the south—imposing heavy taxes on negroes engaged in the various trades, amounting to a virtual prohibition. Petty, unjust, and discriminating licenses are levied in this State upon mechanics, storekeepers, and various artisans. Following the same absurd train of argument that one will hear in the north in regard to the “proper sphere of women,” their legislature and their common councils contend that in these pursuits the negro is out of his place; that he is not adapted to such labors, but only to the ruder tasks of the field. What are known as the “poor whites” sustain, in fact originate, this legislation, upon the insane dread they share in common with certain skilled laborers at the north, of competition and an overcrowding of the supply. This folly and injustice on the part of the law-makers is being corrected in many sections. The negro, however, has not been discouraged, even in Mississippi; his industry and his thrift are overleaping all obstacles, and in Jackson there are at least two colored craftsmen of most kinds to one of the whites.