160 a short history of the united states
would provide a milder form of Reconstruction. As a result of their
rejection, Congress made ratifi cation of the Fourteenth Amendment a
condition for the southern states to win readmission to the Union.
Conditions in the South worsened. Race riots broke out in Memphis
and New Orleans in the spring and summer of 1866. In Memphis an
altercation between white and black drivers of horse- drawn hacks on
May 1 started a free-for-all that ended with forty-eight persons dead
(all but two were blacks); five black women raped; and many schools,
churches, and homes burned to the ground. Twelve weeks later, New
Orleans erupted in violence on the opening day of a constitutional con-
vention that had been summoned to enfranchise freedmen. A massacre
of blacks in the convention hall resulted, even though white fl ags of
surrender were raised. These unfortunate incidents only proved to north-
erners that the South was unregenerate, that it was still arrogant and
defiant. It proved that the rebel states were not ready to be restored to
full membership in the Union.
In an effort to turn the situation around in this election year, Presi-
dent Johnson undertook a speaking tour of the North, stopping off at
Philadelphia and New York and then swinging around to Cleveland
and St. Louis—a tour that was laughingly called a “swing around the
circle.” Accompanied by General Grant, Admiral David Farragut, and
Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles, Johnson stumped the North; but
during his speeches he frequently lost his temper, giving his opponents
additional ammunition with which to ridicule and demean him. At
times he seemed hysterical, wild, certainly unpresidential. “I have been
traduced,” he ranted. “I have been slandered. I have been maligned.
I have been called Judas Iscariot.... Who has been my Christ that
I have played the Judas role? Was it Thad Stevens?”
The tour was a disaster, and the electorate showed its disgust by
trouncing the Democrats at the polls. Republicans now had a two-thirds
majority with which to override any future presidential veto. Johnson
was completely neutralized. “The President has no power to control or
influence anybody,” claimed Senator James W. Grimes of Iowa, “and
legislation will be carried on entirely regardless of his opinions or
wishes.”
“It is now our turn to act,” declared Representative James A. Gar-
field of Ohio. The Confederate states “would not co-operate with us in