Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume Three).djvu/306

 payment of debts incurred in aid of the rebellion be objected to. A really exceptional provision was that which excluded so large a class of Southern men from public office, and just that class a friendly understanding with which was most desirable. I saw this a few years later much more clearly than I did at the time. Regarded as a punishment of “treason,” those political disabilities were altogether too lenient. They could in that respect only serve to lay us open to the suspicion that, far from being generous at heart, we would have treated the rebels more severely if we had known how to accomplish it. The disqualification of a very few particularly obnoxious chieftains of the rebellion would have sufficed to satisfy public sentiment. But the disqualification of this large class was, irrespective of justice or generosity, a grave blunder in statesmanship. It struck nearly all those to whom the great mass of the Southern people was accustomed to look up for that sort of leadership which superior intelligence, wealth and social prestige could give. This leadership was by no means destroyed by the disqualification for office, because no other leadership was thereby substituted for it. Those so disqualified could indeed not hold office themselves, but their influence could in a large measure dictate who should, and control their conduct. And there were among the disqualified, especially among those who under the Confederacy had held military rank, many who understood the advantage of accommodation to the new order of things, and who were disposed to promote it. To discourage their good will by chafing their pride was decidedly unwise policy. The provision that their disqualification could be removed by a two-thirds vote in each House of Congress mended the mischief thus done a little, but not enough for the public good.

It was not expressly enacted, but it was generally