THE REMINISCENCES OF CARL SCHURZ
known to possess and of the troubles it threatened—which, however, at that period were much underestimated, as is apt to be the case under similar circumstances. How visibly strong the popular demand had grown may be concluded from the fact that President Johnson found himself moved to address a circular to the provisional governors advising that the right of suffrage be extended to persons of color who could read the Constitution and write their own name, and also to those who owned real estate valued at not less than two hundred and fifty dollars. Unfortunately for himself, he impaired the moral credit which otherwise would have been due to this proposition by writing to Governor Sharkey of Mississippi that he hoped it would be favorably acted upon, as such action would “completely foil the Radicals in their attempt to keep the Southern States from renewing their relations to the Union.” To him such an extension of the suffrage seemed to be only a shrewd move in his fight with the “Radicals,” while with its limitations it would not have furnished to the negroes the meaning of self-protection. Not one of the Southern States, however, acted according to the President's suggestion.
When the session of Congress opened on the 3rd of December it was virtually certain that unrestricted negro suffrage would come and that President Johnson's reconstruction policy would be swept out of the way. The Republican majority without delay passed a bill extending the suffrage to the negroes in the District of Columbia, which then had a municipal government of its own. The President put his veto on the bill, but the veto was promptly overruled by two-thirds majorities in both Houses. Then followed a series of legislative measures designed substantially to substitute for the reconstruction work done by the President a method of reconstruction based upon universal suffrage including the negro
[ 249 ]
