THE REMINISCENCES OF CARL SCHURZ
the North. People asked one another: “Does this mean that the rebellion is to begin again?” I heard the question often.
The Administration felt the blow, and to neutralize its effects a National Convention of its adherents, North and South, planned by Thurlow Weed and Secretary Seward, was to serve as the principal means. This “National Union Convention” met in Philadelphia on August 14th. It was respectably attended, in point of character, as well as of numbers. It opened its proceedings with a spectacular performance which under different conditions might have struck the popular imagination favorably. The delegates marched into the Convention Hall in pairs, one from the South arm in arm with one from the North, Massachusetts and South Carolina leading. But with the Memphis riot and the New Orleans “massacre and Andrew Johnson's sinister figure in the background, the theatrical exhibition of restored fraternal feeling, although calling forth much cheering on the spot, fell flat, and even became the victim of ridicule as it earned for the meeting the derisive nickname of the arm-in-arm convention.” The proceedings were rather dull, and much was made by the Republicans of the fact, or the apparent fact, that the Chairman, Senator Doolittle from Wisconsin, was careful not to let Southern members say much, lest they say too much. It was also noticed—and made much of—that among the members of the convention the number of men supposed to curry favor with the Administration for the purpose of getting office—men belonging to the “bread-and-butter-brigade”—was conspicuously large. Among the resolutions passed by the convention was one declaring slavery abolished and the emancipated negro entitled to equal protection in every right of person and property, and another heartily endorsing President Johnson's reconstruction policy.
[ 240 ]
