The Papers of Andrew Johnson. Vol. 11: August 1866-January 1867 (review)

BOOK REVIEWS79 The Papers ofAndrewJohnson. Vol. 1 1 : August /866-January 1867. Edited by Paul H. Bergeron. (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1994. Pp. xxx, 679. $4950.) The eleventh volume ofThe Papers ofAndrewJohnson, ably edited by Paul H. Bergeron, contains perhaps the most interesting material so far pubUshed in this series. Covering as it does the period of the National Union convention in Philadelphia, the "Swing Around the Circle," and the campaign of 1866, it sheds light once again on Andrew Johnson's efforts to create a third party of conservative Republicans and War Democrats, the failure of this attempt, and his unyielding stand in the face of electoral reverses. Because of the editor's exhaustive footnotes, the reader and researcher can trace these efforts with ease and profit. The most obscure correspondents are amply identified whenever possible, and explanatory notes make the documents readily intelügible. Professor Bergeron and his staff are to be commended for their thoroughness; they have proven once again that they are worthy successors of LeRoy P. Graf and Ralph W. Haskins, who initiated this series. A large part of the volume is devoted to the president's patronage problems. How to satisfy his Democratic supporters without aUenating the conservative Republicans was a difficulty Johnson was unable to solve. Regular Republicans like Hannibal HamUn and Isaac N. Arnold sent him angry letters ofresignation; Democrats and conservative RepubUcans resented the retention of their opponents in crucial positions, and the latter warned against relying on Democrats. While conservative Southerners pleaded for assistance against the radicals, Unionists complained that they were being harassed. The president, in the middle of this tug-of-war and unable to please all petitioners, could neither realize his dream of a new organization nor prevail against his opponents. Yet he constantly reiterated his firm conviction that his pohcy was correct and merited the support of the country. Was not the president obligated to uphold the Constitution? And did not the Constitution guarantee to each state two senators and at least one representative? How then could the refusal to seat Southern congressional members-elect be justified? Notwithstanding appeals to accept the Fourteenth Amendment to end the controversy, he refused to yield. He did not beheve in changing the Constitution. The portions of the volume deahng with the "Swing Around the Circle" are particularly noteworthy. Mercifully, the editor has included only some of the more important speeches delivered by Johnson during thisjourney to the West, those in New York, Cleveland, and St Louis. As the other addresses were substantially identical, those reprinted are sufficient to show unmistakably how the president, in spite of timely warnings by his advisers, could be incited to make extemporaneous remarks that proved highly embarrassing. He was simply incapable of changing the style of campaigning he had been accustomed to in Tennessee, a manner that was not appropriate for a president of the United States. 8oCIVIL WAR HISTORY Johnson's low opinion of the newly freed African-Americans also emerges clearly from these documents. The most obvious indication ofthis sentiment is his veto of the bill enfranchising the freedmen in the District of Columbia, a message in which he distinctly stated his conviction that the blacks were not yet ready to exercise the suffrage. He repeated some of these arguments in his veto of the bills for the admission of Colorado and Nebraska, in which he emphasized his belief that Congress had no right to impose black suffrage as a condition for membership in the Union. That he received numerous letters from Democrats insisting that the Founding Fathers had established a white man's government that ought to be preserved hardly changes the fact that, despite his declaration that he would be a Moses to the blacks, he was no friend of the race. Other matters discussed in this volume are relations with cabinet members, especially the secretary of state, who was resented by many, and the secretary of war, Edwin M. Stanton, whom the president was urged to dismiss long before he did so. In addition, Mexican affairs, particularly the effort to evict the French from the continent, and Johnson's pardoning policies are well covered. It is perhaps to...