"If you could extend the elective franchise to all persons of color who can read the Constitution of the United States in English and write their names, and to all persons of color who own real estate valued at not less than two hundred and fifty dollars and pay taxes thereon, you would completely disarm the adversary and set an example the other states will follow.This you can do with perfect safety, and you would thus place Southern States in reference to free persons of color upon the same basis with the free states....And as a consequence the radicals, who are wild upon Negro franchise, will be completely foiled in their attempts to keep the Southern states from renewing their relations to the Union by not accepting their senators and representatives."In deciding upon a basis of representation, it was clear that the majority of delegates desired to lessen the influence of the Black Belt and place the control of the government with the "up country." In the Alabama convention Robert M.Patton, then a delegate and later governor, frankly avowed this object, and in South Carolina, Governor Perry urged the convention to give no consideration to Negro suffrage, "because this is a white man's government,"and if the Negroes should vote they would be controlled by a few whites.Akindly disposition toward the Negroes was general except on the part of extreme Unionists, who opposed any favors to the race."This is a white man's country" was a doctrine to which all the conventions subscribed.
The conventions held brief sessions, completed their work, and adjourned, after directing that elections be held for state and local officers and for members of Congress.Before December the appointed local officials had been succeeded by elected officers; members of Congress were on their way to Washington; the state legislatures were assembling or already in session; and the elected governors were ready to take office.It was understood that as soon as enough state legislatures ratified the Thirteenth Amendment to make it a part of the Constitution, the President would permit the transfer of authority to the new governors.The legislature of Mississippi alone was recalcitrant about the amendment, and before January 1866, the elected officials were everywhere installed except in Texas, where the work was not completed until March.When Congress met in December 1865, the President reported that all former Confederate States except Texas were ready to be readmitted.Congress, however, refused to admit their senators and representatives, and thus began the struggle which ended over a year later with the victory of the radicals and the undoing of the work of the two Presidents.
The plan of the Presidents was at best only imperfectly realized.It was found impossible to reorganize the Federal Administration in the South with men who could subscribe to the "ironclad oath," for nearly all who were competent to hold office had favored or aided the Confederacy.It was two years before more than a third of the post offices could be opened.The other Federal departments were in similar difficulties, and at last women and "carpetbaggers" were appointed.The Freedmen's Bureau, which had been established coincidently with the provisional governments, assumed jurisdiction over the Negroes, while the army authorities very early took the position that any man who claimed to be a Unionist should not be tried in the local courts but must be given a better chance in a provost court.Thus a third or more of the population was withdrawn from the control of the state government.In several states the head of the Bureau made arrangements for local magistrates and officials to act as Bureau officials, and in such cases the two authorities acted in cooperation.The army of occupation, too, exerted an authority which not infrequently interfered with the workings of the new state government.Nearly everywhere there was a lack of certainty and efficiency due to the concurrent and sometimes conflicting jurisdictions of state government, army commanders, Bureau authorities, and even the President acting upon or through any of the others.
The standing of the Southern state organizations was in doubt after the refusal of Congress to recognize them.Nevertheless, in spite of this uncertainty they continued to function as states during the year of controversy which followed; the courts were opened and steadily grew in influence; here and there militia and patrols were reorganized; officials who refused to "accept the situation" were dismissed; elections were held; the legislatures revised the laws to fit new conditions and enacted new laws for the emancipated blacks.To all this progress in reorganization, the action of Congress was a severe blow, since it gave notice that none of the problems of reconstruction were yet solved.An increasing spirit of irritation and independence was observed throughout the states in question, and at the elections the former Confederates gained more and more offices.The year was marked in the South by the tendency toward the formation of parties, by the development of the "Southern outrages" issue, by an attempt to frustrate radical action, and finally by a lineup of the great mass of the whites in opposition to the Fourteenth Amendment and other radical plans of Congress.
