Presidential Reconstruction
Before leaving town after Congress adjourned in March 1865,
Stevens privately urged Lincoln to press the South hard militarily, though the war was ending.
Lincoln replied, "Stevens, this is a pretty big hog we are trying to catch and to hold when we catch him.
We must take care that he does not slip away from us."
Never to see Lincoln again,
Stevens left with "a homely metaphor but no real certainty of having left as much as a thumbprint on Lincoln's policy".
On the evening of April 14, 1865, Lincoln was assassinated by Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth.
Stevens did not attend the ceremonies when Lincoln's funeral train stopped in Lancaster; he was said to be ill.
Trefousse speculated he may avoided the rites for other reasons. According to Lincoln biographer Carl Sandburg,
Stevens stood at a railroad bridge and lifted his hat.
In May 1865, Andrew Johnson began what came to be known as "Presidential Reconstruction":
recognizing a provisional government of Virginia led by Francis Harrison Pierpont,
calling for other former rebel states to organize constitutional conventions, declaring amnesty for many southerners,
and issuing individual pardons to even more. Johnson did not push the states to protect the rights of freed slaves,
and immediately began to counteract the land reform policies of the Freedmen's Bureau.
These actions outraged Stevens and others who took his view.
The radicals saw that freedmen in the South risked losing the economic and political liberty necessary to sustain emancipation from slavery.
They began to call for universal male suffrage and continued their demands for land reform.
Stevens wrote to Johnson that his policies were gravely damaging the country and that he should call a special session of Congress,
which was not scheduled to meet until December. When his communications were ignored,
Stevens began to discuss with other radicals how to prevail over Johnson when the two houses convened.
Congress has the constitutional power to be the judge of whether those seeking to be its members are properly elected;
Stevens urged that no senators or representatives from the South be seated.
He argued that the states should not be readmitted as thereafter Congress would lack the power to force race reform.
In September, Stevens gave a widely reprinted speech in Lancaster in which he set forth what he wanted for the South.
He proposed that the government confiscate the estates of the largest 70,000 landholders there, those who owned more than 200 acres (81 ha).
Much of this property he wanted distributed in plots of 40 acres (16 ha) to the freedmen; other lands would go to reward loyalists in both North and South,
or to meet government obligations. He warned that under the President's plan,
the southern states would send rebels to Congress who would join with northern Democrats and Johnson to govern the nation and perhaps undo emancipation.
Through late 1865, the southern states held white-only balloting and in congressional elections,
chose many former rebels, most prominently Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens,
voted as senator by the Georgia Legislature.
Violence against African-Americans was common and unpunished in the South; the new legislatures enacted Black Codes,
depriving the freedmen of most civil rights.
These actions, seen as provocative in the North, both privately dismayed Johnson and helped turn northern public opinion against him.
By this time, Stevens was in his seventies and in poor health; he was carried everywhere in a special chair.
When Congress convened in early December 1865, Stevens made arrangements with the Clerk of the House that when the roll was called,
the names of the southern electees be omitted.
The Senate also excluded southern claimants. A new congressman, Ohio's Rutherford B. Hayes, described Stevens,
"He is radical throughout, except, I am told, he don't believe in hanging. He is leader."
As the responsibilities of the Ways and Means chairman had been divided, Stevens took the post of chairman of the House Committee on Appropriations,
retaining control over the House's agenda.
Stevens focused on legislation that would secure the freedom promised by the newly ratified Thirteenth Amendment.
He proposed and then co-chaired the Joint Committee on Reconstruction with Maine Senator William Pitt Fessenden.
This body, also called the Committee of Fifteen, investigated conditions in the South.
It heard not only of the violence against African-Americans, but against Union loyalists, and against what southerners termed "carpetbaggers",
northerners who had journeyed south after the restoration of peace. Stevens declared: that "our loyal brethren at the South,
whether they be black or white" required urgent protection "from the barbarians who are now daily murdering them."
The Committee of Fifteen began consideration of what would become the Fourteenth Amendment.
Stevens had begun drafting versions in December 1865, before the Committee had even formed.
In January 1866, a subcommittee including Stevens and John Bingham proposed two amendments:
one giving Congress the unqualified power to secure equal rights, privileges, and protections for all citizens;
the other explicitly annulling all racially discriminatory laws.
Stevens believed that the Declaration of Independence and Organic Acts already bound the federal government to these principles,
but that an amendment was necessary to allow enforcement against discrimination at the State level.
The resolution providing for what would become the Fourteenth Amendment was watered down in Congress; during the closing debate,
Stevens said these changes had shattered his lifelong dream in equality for all Americans.
Nevertheless, stating that he lived among men, not angels, he supported the passage of the compromise amendment.
Still, Stevens told the House: "Forty acres of land and a hut would be more valuable to [the African-American] than the immediate right to vote."
When Illinois Senator Lyman Trumbull introduced legislation to reauthorize and expand the Freedmen's Bureau,
Stevens called the Bill a "robbery" because it did not include sufficient provisions for land reform
or protect the property of refugees given them by the military occupation of the South.
Johnson vetoed the Bill anyway, calling the Freedmen's Bureau unconstitutional, and decrying its cost—
Congress had never purchased land, established schools, or provided financial help for "our own people".
Congress was unable to override Johnson's veto in February, but five months later passed a similar bill.
Stevens criticized the passage of the Southern Homestead Act of 1866 arguing that the low-quality land it made available would not drive real economic growth for black families.
Congress overrode a Johnson veto to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1866 (also introduced by Trumbull),
granting African-Americans citizenship and equality before the law, and forbidding any action by a state to the contrary.
Johnson made the gap between him and Congress wider when he accused Stevens, Sumner, and Wendell Phillips of trying to destroy the government.
After Congress adjourned in July, the campaigning for the fall elections began.
Johnson embarked on a trip by rail, dubbed the "Swing Around the Circle", that won him few supporters;
his arguments with hecklers were deemed undignified. He attacked Stevens and other radicals during this tour.
Stevens campaigned for firm measures against the South, his hand strengthened by violence in Memphis and New Orleans,
where African-Americans and white Unionists had been attacked by mobs, including the police. Stevens was returned to Congress by his constituents;
Republicans would have a two-thirds majority in both houses in the next Congress
Radical Reconstruction
In January 1867, Stevens introduced legislation to divide the South into five district
each commanded by an army general empowered to override civil authorities.
These military officers were to supervise elections with all males,
of whatever race, entitled to vote,
except for those who could not take an oath of past loyalty—most white southerners could not.
The states were to write new constitutions (subject to approval by Congress) and hold elections for state officials.
Only if a state ratified the Fourteenth Amendment would its delegation be seated in Congress.
The system gave power to a Republican coalitions of freedmen (mobilized by the Union League), carpetbaggers and co-operative southerners
(the last dubbed scalawags by indignant ex-rebels) in most southern states.
These states ratified the Fourteenth Amendment, which became part of the Constitution in mid-1868.
Stevens introduced a Tenure of Office Act, restricting Johnson from firing officials who had received Senate confirmation without getting that body's consent.
The Tenure of Office Act was ambiguous, since it could be read to protect officeholders only during the tenure of the president who appointed them,
and most of the officials the radicals sought to protect had been named by Lincoln. Chief among these was Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, a radical himself.
Stevens steered a bill to enfranchise African-Americans in the District of Columbia
through the House; the Senate passed it in 1867,
and it was enacted over Johnson's veto. Congress was downsizing the Army for peacetime; Stevens offered an amendment,
which became part of the bill as enacted, to have two regiments of African-American cavalry.
His solicitude for African-Americans extended to the Native American;
Stevens was successful in defeating a bill to place reservations under state law, noting that the native people had often been abused by the states.
An expansionist, he supported the railroads.
Although he sought to protect manufacturers with high tariffs,
he also sought unsuccessfully to get a bill passed to protect labor with an eight-hour day in the District of Columbia.
Stevens advocated a bill to give government workers raises; it did not pass.
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