Tarbell on Otto Eisenschiml

[Bill Richter]

Something about this debate bothers me. First, Reconstruction was a political problem. During the Civil War Lincoln issued at least two Reconstrution plans, one in 1862 that envisioned a 50 year period of gradual emancipation and another that allowed the process to be begun by 10% of the population of a seceded state. Congress had responded to these by ignoring the first and issuing the Wade-Davis Bill proposing that Reconstruction begin with 50% of the seceded state's population agreeing to rejoin the Union. Lincoln pocket vetoed the Wade-Davis Bill, but admitted that he would not stand in the way of any state that wished to use it over any of his proposals. It was in this same state of mind that he agreed with John Campbell to get Virginia started in Reconstruction. Stanton favored the Congressional approach and stymied Lincoln's off the cuff agreement with Campbell. None of these proposals were set in concrete, not Lincoln's at least 3 suggestions, all confirmed in his April 11 speech that so infuriated John Wilkes Booth that he asked Lewis Powell to shoot the presider off the White House balcony. But in reality we do not know, despite those historians who say otherwise, what Lincoln's real plan of Reconstruction was. He was a realist here--he knew that he would have to agree with Congress. It was Congress that would determine when reconstruction had been completed because it had the right to recognize legal state government by seating their representatives and senators (Luther v. Borden, ca. 1849).

Now John Campbell was not a Confederate judge. He was a former associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court in the 1850s. He was in the Confederate Department of War. I don't think he ever served on the bench in the Confederacy, but I am open to correction here. He had great influence as a part of the Confederate government and was greatly respected in Virginia and the South. He was a good man for Lincoln to negotiate with on a provisional basis because both me thought getting one state back into the union would be a good example to the others. But it was not Stanton's prerogative to disagree with his boss on policy. He got away with it because Lincoln was a very self-sacrificing president when it came to other's egos--of which Stanton smugly had much. What this shows is that Lincoln was open to any plan that would heal the nation and not set in his ways. Stanton would pull this same stuff under Johnson. He had done this during the war with Lincoln, too. He was a Radical Republican spy in both presidents' cabinets. He drafted an emancipation policy in 1862 and then had his boss Sec of War Cameron issue it and then attacked Cameron for doing it and then accepted his job. Stanton knew that he knew the bast for the country and bad mouthed Lincoln behind lincoln's back when Lincoln saw otherwise. But he could run the war department as could no other--ruthlessly. Lincoln decided to use that talent and ignore Stanton's character faults.

I now yield to those who know more than I and apologize for interfering with the normal flow of things. Enough history as I see it. Back to mules and horses!