Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume Three).djvu/272

 at Detroit, Michigan, which was offered to me—I might almost say, urged upon me—by Senator Zachariah Chandler. In the meantime I had occasion to witness the beginning of the political war between the executive and the legislative power concerning the reconstruction of the “States lately in rebellion.”

I am sure I do not exaggerate when I say that this political war has been one of the most unfortunate events in the history of this republic, for it made the most important problem of the time, a problem of extraordinary complexity which required the calmest, most delicate and circumspect treatment,—a foot-ball of a personal and party brawl which was in the highest degree apt to inflame the passions and to obscure the judgment of everybody concerned in it. Since my return from the South, the evil effects of Mr. Johnson's conduct in encouraging the reactionary spirit prevalent among the Southern whites, had become more and more evident and alarming from day to day. Charles Sumner told me that his personal experiences with the President had been very much like mine. When Sumner left Washington in the spring he had received from Mr. Johnson at repeated interviews the most emphatic assurances that he would do nothing to precipitate the restoration of the “States lately in rebellion” to the full exercise of self-governing functions, and even that he favored the extension of the suffrage to the freedmen. The two men had parted with all the appearance of a perfect friendly understanding. But when the Senator returned to Washington in the late autumn, that understanding seemed to have entirely vanished from the President's mind and to have given place to an irritated temper and a certain acerbity of tone in the assertion of the “President's policy.” From various other members of Congress I heard the same story. Mr. Johnson, strikingly unlike