Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 12.djvu/310

294 "that this war is not waged on our part in any spirit of oppression, nor for the purpose of conquest or subjugation, nor for the purpose of interfering with or overthrowing the rights of established institutions of those States."

At the close of this first session of the Thirty-ninth Congress, which showed the great divergence between the executive and legislative branches of the government, and which also included the beginning of a darker and more revengeful period of reconstruction for the South, it is necessary to take a retrospective view of certain conditions not already considered. When Congress met in December, 1865, the president accompanied his message with a report of a tour which General Grant had made through the South during the latter part of November preceding the assembling of Congress. This, report, coming from the highest possible authority, confirmed the president as to the correctness of his message in regard to the feeling of the people of the South. It was to this effect:

With the approval of the president and secretary of war, I left Washington on the 27th of last month for the purpose of making a tour of inspection in the Southern States. ... I am satisfied that the mass of thinking men of the South accept the present situation of affairs in good faith. . . . There is universal acquiescence in the authority of the general government. . . . My observations lead to the conclusion that they [the citizens of the Southern States] are anxious to return to self-government within the Union as soon as possible ; that they are in earnest in wishing to do what they think is required by the government, not humiliating to them as citizens, and if such a course was pointed out they would pursue it in good faith.

General Grant could not have given a more correct or accurate statement as to the animus of the people of the South in the winter of 1865. His testimony in reference