Page:Disunion and restoration in Tennessee (IA disunionrestorat00neal).pdf/35

 *tion law of the State existing immediately before the so-called act of secession, and excluding all others, shall establish a State government which shall be republican in form, and in nowise contravening said oath, such shall be recognized as the true government of the State."

This was, substantially, Lincoln's plan for reconstruction. It was not carried out in any of the Southern States. In all, except Tennessee, it was succeeded by executive reconstruction under Johnson, which was in turn supplanted by congressional reconstruction. In Tennessee an entirely original plan was adopted. This plan shut out from participation in the work of organizing civil government, all those who had taken part in secession. An oath of past loyalty was made the test of political capacity. In short, the restored civil government in Tennessee was based solely on that portion of its inhabitants that had remained loyal to the Union. These Union men, or Radicals as they chose to call themselves, composed about one third of the population of the State, and represented about one fifth of the taxpayers. It will be the object of this chapter to trace the steps by which this small minority seized the reins of government and exercised for three years absolute control of the State.

After the fall of Fort Donelson, on February 15, 1862, the greater part of Tennessee soon came into the possession of the Union army, president Lincoln immediately appointed Andrew Johnson military governor. Athough vested with almost unlimited powers, Governor Johnson had at first little opportunity for their exercise, as the Union army did not remain in peaceful possession of the State. Along the southern border raged the bloody battles of Shiloh, Chickamauga, and Missionary Ridge.

By the fall of 1863, the tide of battle had rolled so far southward that the soil of Tennessee was at last free from contending armies. The time had now arrived for the restoration of civil government. But Governor Johnson felt