BY Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Political Science Columbia University NEW YORK The Knickerbocker Press 1899 Faculty of Political Science Columbia University NEW YORK The Knickerbocker Press 1899...

The vote of Tennessee in the presidential election of 1860 shows conclusively that at that time a majority of her citizens did not hold disunion sentiments. Her electoral vote was cast for John Bell and Edward Everett, who represented, as their platform expressed it, “no political principle other than the Constitution of the country, the Union of the States, and the enforcement of the laws.” The first step toward secession was not the result of popular initiative, but was mainly due to the effor

This opening statement was followed by an historical review in which was traced the growth of the Republican party. The offences it had committed against the Southern States were then enumerated. Among other things, he said: “It has sought to appropriate to itself, and to exclude the slaveholders from, the territory acquired by the common blood and treasure of all. It has, through the instrumentality of the Emigrants’ Aid Society under State patronage, flooded the territories with its minions ar

Just as radical differences of opinion have existed as to the parties responsible for the whole secession movement, so the action of Tennessee has been variously interpreted. A number of writers have contended that the majority of her citizens were never in favor of secession, and it was only a coup d’état of Governor Harris that carried the State into the Confederacy. This view is a survival of the opinion once so widely prevalent in the North that the Civil War was the result of a conspiracy o

While we have attempted to show the untenable position of those who maintain that the majority of the people of Tennessee were opposed to separation and it was only a coup d’état of Governor Harris that carried the State into the Confederacy, it is, however, true that a great number of her inhabitants did resist withdrawal and remain openly loyal. This was especially the case with East Tennessee. Her persistent loyalty is a striking illustration of the physical conditions and causes which lay be

While Tennessee escaped both executive and congressional reconstruction, it did not follow in the restoration of its civil government the plan laid down by President Lincoln. The most distinctive feature of Lincoln’s reconstruction policy lay in the fact that it made the old political people in each of the Southern States self-acting nuclei, which were to bring order out of chaos. According to this theory, neither the President nor Congress had the power to reconstruct a State government. The pe

The Radical leaders in Tennessee naturally expected that the readmission of the Representatives to their seats in Congress would immediately follow the restoration of the State government. Therefore, upon the assembling of the first session of the Thirty-ninth Congress, the full delegation from Tennessee was present on the floor, ready to answer to their names. When Mr. Edward McPherson, the clerk of the House, omitted the name of Tennessee along with the other Southern States from the prelimina

The deed of cession of Tennessee to the United States by North Carolina contained the provision “that no regulation made or to be made by Congress shall tend to emancipate slaves.” The constitution under which Tennessee was admitted into the Union also recognized slavery by the use of the term “freeman” throughout the bill of rights. It was, however, exceedingly liberal in regard to the suffrage, conferring it upon every “freeman of the age of twenty-one years, and upwards.” Under this provision

The joint resolution of July 24, 1866, completed, so far as Congress was concerned, the restoration of civil government in Tennessee. Her Senators and Representatives were admitted to their seats, and the State, to all intents and purposes, was restored to the same position it had occupied prior to the attempted withdrawal in 1861. The political basis of the restored government was, as we have pointed out, the loyal people of the State. They consisted mainly of four elements, namely, the inhabit

The “carnival of crime and corruption” described in the preceding chapter was not confined to the Legislature. Similar scenes were enacted in almost every county and city in the State. As the suffrage limitations placed upon the ex-Confederates applied to all elections, the Radicals were in complete control of these local governments. The large municipalities, such as Memphis, Nashville, Chattanooga, and Knoxville were the greatest sufferers from the rule of irresponsible and corrupt officials.

It does not fall within the limits of our subject to go into the general history of Ku-Klux Klan. This mysterious organization originated in Tennessee, but it soon spread beyond the borders of the State, and became the organ of all those who believed in resorting to violent measures to secure the emancipation of the Southern States from negro and carpetbag domination. Its history, therefore, belongs under the general history of Reconstruction. Nevertheless, the study of the civil disturbances in

After the recognition of the loyal government by Congress, the only hope of the disfranchised ex-Confederates of regaining political control of the State lay in a division in the ranks of the Union party. So long as Governor Brownlow remained at the head of affairs, no such division occurred. He served as Governor the full term of two years, and was re-elected. Before the expiration of his second term, he was chosen by the Legislature to represent Tennessee in the United States Senate. According

While the Radical leaders were engaged in their futile efforts at Washington to obtain Federal intervention, the Legislature convened at Nashville, and Governor Senter was inaugurated with the usual ceremony. Both the Governor and the Legislature manifested a desire to fulfill their election pledges, by restoring the franchise to the ex-Confederates, but the manner in which this should be accomplished was not at first very apparent. In the Constitution, as it was prior to the war, the suffrage q

Acts of Tennessee: Extra Session, 1861; 2d Extra Session, 1861; 1861-62; 1865; 1865-66; Extra Session, 1866; 1868; 1869; 1869-70; 1870; 1870-71; 1871; 1872; 1873; 1875; 1877; 1879; 1881. Extra Session, 1881; 1882; 1883. Barnes, W. H. “History of the Thirty-ninth Congress.” Bate, W. B. Messages to the General Assembly. Blaine, James G. “Twenty Years of Congress.” Brown, John C. Messages to the General Assembly. Brownlow, W. G. “Sketches of the Rise, Progress, and Decline of Secession, with a Narr

The author of this dissertation, John Randolph Neal, was born September, 16, 1874, at Rhea Springs, Tennessee. His early education was received at the public schools in Tennessee and Washington, D. C. In 1890, he entered the University of Tennessee and was graduated in 1893 with the degree of A.B. During the years 1893-96, he pursued graduate work in Vanderbilt University, taking courses in History, Economics, Literature, and Philosophy. In 1894, he received the degree of A.M. ; and in 1896, the