In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.
Done at the City of Washington, this 29th day of May, in the year, of our Lord 1865, and of the Independence of the United States the 89th.
By the President: Andrew Johnson.
William H. Seward.
Secretary of State.
North Carolina was the first of the revolted States to which this identical plan of reconstruction, or reorganization, was applied by Mr. Johnson. Its application to the several States then lately in revolt, was continued till the meeting of Congress in the following December, 1865.
On this matter Mr. Johnson, himself, testifies in his communication to the Senate in 1867, relating to the removal of Mr. Stanton, that "This grave subject (Reconstruction) had engaged the attention of Mr. Lincoln in the last days of his life, and the plan according to which it was to be managed had been prepared and was ready for adoption. A leading feature of that plan was that it was to be carried out by Executive authority. * * * The first business, transacted in the Cabinet after I became President was this unfinished business of my predecessor. A plan or scheme of reconstruction had been prepared for Mr. Lincoln by Mr. Stanton. It was approved, and at the earliest moment practicable was applied, in the form of a proclamation, to the State of North Carolina, and afterwards became the basis of action in turn for the other States."Mr. Stanton also testified before the House Impeachment Committee of 1867, that he had "entertained no doubt of the authority of the President to take measures for the reorganization of the rebel States on the plan proposed, during the vacation of Congress, and agreed in the plan specified in the proclamation in the case of North Carolina."In the first attempt to impeach the President, in 1867, Mr.
Johnson's method of Reconstruction was the most conspicuous feature of the prosecution. It was insisted by the extremists that it was a departure from Mr. Lincoln's plan--an unwarranted assumption of authority by Mr. Johnson--that its purpose was the recognition of the people of the South as American citizens with the rights of such, and even as an act not far removed from treason. In reference to this action of the President, General Grant was called before the Committee and testified as follows:
Question: I wish to know whether, at or about the time of the war being ended, you advised the President that it was, in your judgment, best to extend a liberal policy towards the people of the South, and to restore as speedily as possible the fraternal relations that existed prior to the war between the sections?
Answer: I know that immediately after the close of the rebellion there was a very fine feeling manifested in the South, and Ithought we ought to take advantage of it as soon as possible.
Ques. I understood you to say that Mr. Lincoln had inaugurated a policy intended to restore these governments?
Ans. Yes Sir.
Ques. You were present when the subject was brought before the Cabinet?
Ans. I was present, I think, twice before the assassination of Mr. Lincoln, when a plan was read.
Ques. I want to know whether the plan adopted by Mr. Johnson was substantially the plan which had been inaugurated by Mr. Lincoln as the basis for his future action.
Ans. Yes sir: substantially. I do not know but that it was verbatim the same.
Ques. I suppose the very paper of Mr. Lincoln was the one acted on?
Ans. I should think so. I think that the very paper which I heard read twice while Mr. Lincoln was President, was the one which was carried right through.
Ques. What paper was that?
Ans. The North Carolina Proclamation.
In additional testimony that Mr. Johnson was endeavoring to carry out Mr. Lincoln's methods of reconstruction, the following extracts from a speech by Gov. O. P. Morton, of Indiana, delivered at Richmond, that State, Sept. 29th, 1865, are here inserted:
An impression has gotten abroad in the North that Mr. Johnson has devised some new policy by which improper facilities are granted for the restoration of the rebel States, and that he is presenting improperly and unnecessarily hurrying forward the work of reconstruction, and that he is offering improper facilities for restoring those who have been engaged in the rebellion to the possession of their civil and political rights.
It is one of my purposes here this evening to show that so far as his policy of amnesty and reconstruction is concerned, he has absolutely presented nothing new, but that he has simply presented, and is simply continuing THE POLICY WHICH MR. LINCOLNPRESENTED TO THE NATION ON THE 8TH OF DECEMBER, 1863. Mr.
Johnson's policy differs from Mr. Lincoln's in some restrictions it contains, which Mr. Lincoln's did not contain. His plan of reconstruction is absolutely and simply that of Mr. Lincoln, nothing more or less, with one difference only, that Mr. Lincoln required that one-tenth of the people of the disloyal States should be willing to embrace his plan of reconstruction, whereas Mr. Johnson says nothing about the number; but, so far as it has been acted upon yet, it has been done by a number much greater than one-tenth. * * * Their plans of amnesty and reconstruction cannot be distinguished from each other except in the particulars already mentioned, that Mr. Johnson proposed to restrict certain persons from taking the oath, unless they have a special pardon from him, whom Mr. Lincoln permitted to come forward and take the oath without it. * * * That was Mr. Lincoln's policy at the time he was nominated for re-election by the Union Convention at Baltimore, last summer; and in that convention the party sustained him and strongly endorsed his whole policy, of which this was a prominent part. MR. LINCOLN WAS TRIUMPHANTLY ANDOVERWHELMINGLY RE-ELECTED UPON THAT POLICY.
In his last annual message to Congress, December, 1864, he again brings forward this same policy of his, and presents it to the Nation.
