Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 12.djvu/316

300 stated in their former privileges by Congress until they should have given substantial pledges of loyalty and submission." (Wilson.) This is certainly a very different conclusion from that arrived at by General Grant.

The Republicans, at the close of the first session of the Thirty-ninth Congress, with the report of the committee of fifteen as a campaign document, inaugurated a most bitter partisan campaign at the North in the election of the new House of Representatives in the fall of 1866. Although the war had been over since April, 1865, the Southern people were represented as still in insurrection and not reconciled to the results of the war, notwithstanding the fact that they had reorganized their State governments, repealed their ordinances of secession, and ratified the Thirteenth amendment abolishing slavery. All the bitterness and hatred of the war were revived by the Republicans in this campaign, and every possible unfair accusation was launched against the sincerity and motives of the people of the lately seceded States. They affirmed that they still intended hostility toward the Union, and had a fixed purpose to defeat the legitimate results of the war. So wrought up were the people of the North that they returned the Republican party to power with an increased majority.

The last session of the Thirty-ninth Congress met in December, 1865, feeling safe in pushing the bitter legislation against the South and in their ability to override any veto of President Johnson's. A caucus committee of the Republican party was appointed to take special charge of this legislation and push it forward with the radical rules of a bitter caucus program. Hostile legislation was at once started in the shape of a tenure of office law to tie the hands of the President and prevent his removal of persons in office who were in sympathy with the policy of Congress. This and other legislation was