After describing the work of the Second Constitutional Convention
Despite widespread disenfranchisement, the new constitution was not sure to pass, because many loyal voters were opposed to “nigger government.” But the ballot was not their only weapon. Armed groups of whites attacked the polling stations where veteran soldiers were casting their first votes, murdering several. Veterans of Union Mills, “the gallant braves who saved our state from rebel rule”, were among those slain. White Unionists were also intimidated, and in a preview of things to come a group of pro-Confederate men started a riot in Frederick that had to be gorily put down by the Federal Army. But this attempt to prevent the Reconstruction of Maryland only resulted in a stronger commitment to its realization on the part of the Union authorities. Lincoln thus suspended the writ of habeas corpus, decreed that those found under arms should be tried as guerrillas, and allowed several Union Leagues to pay the rebels with the same coin. The result was that many people sympathetic to the Confederacy, or suspected of being so, were intimidated or even murdered. Unionists accepted this, saying that “even the most worthless negro is more deserving than a reb", of both the ballot and life itself.
The new constitution was thus approved early in 1864, aided by new disenfranchising provisions and the campaign of intimidation led by the Union Army, and the Union Leagues, by then basically the paramilitaries of the Republican Party. Black veterans, who despite hurdles and danger, came out and voted in great numbers, a fact that, a conservative delegate said, “had raised the spirit of old Roger Taney and made his howls heard all over the land.” At the end, the controversial constitution passed by a mere 589 votes, a victory owed to the Black voters who had so enthusiastically endorsed it. But it was also owed to violent repression, leading to never-ending debates over the legitimacy of the referendum and whether the ends justified the noble means. For Republicans, the answer was an unambiguous yes. Nonetheless, the fact that even after employing all these methods the victory was a close one underscored the inherent weakness of the new Republican regime and the resistance of White Southerners to these astounding changes. But these apprehensions were lost among the chorus of jubilant celebrations. Lincoln himself extended his congratulations to “Maryland, and the nation, and the world, upon the event”, and said that “it gratifies me that those who have served gallantly in our ranks are free to vote”.
When discussing disaffection in the Confederacy
Further aggravating the situation, and the dangerous alienation of yeomen families, was the policy of "impressment" the Confederacy had been forced to adopt. The temporary seizing of property, which included foodstuffs, wagons and even slaves, was often necessary due to the sorry state of Southern logistics. But the process was "arbitrary and insufficient" during the first two years of the war, when Confederate commanders impressed goods at their own discretion, generally under the authority of state laws, and often without leaving any kind of receipt or note. By middle 1863, the Congress sought to regulate the process and correct its worst abuses through a comprehensive law. The resulting legislation was meant to repay the property owners, but it also tried to "suppress attempts to evade or resist it" and "still worse, payment would be made in Confederate currency", whose value continued to plummet, the fall becoming even more precipitous after the disaster of the summer of 1863.
To be sure, Breckinridge, both for political advantage and genuine concern, sought to prevent the impressment of the property of the poor yeomen who already had very little. This was oftentimes honored on the breach, meaning that desperate, almost starving citizens could have their last supplies seized by the Confederate soldiers meant to protect them. A desperate Mississippi woman told the tale of how Grant's soldiers had taken almost all of her flour - and then Cleburne's came and took the rest. Even in areas away from the main theaters of war, impressment could push people to the brink. A resident of Calhoun County, Florida, for instance complained to his Governor of how "there are soldiers' families in my neighborhood that the last head of cattle have been taken from them and drove off, and they left to starve." Breckinridge's herculean efforts at Food Relief did not amount to much when, as one woman complained, "what one soldier gives a miserable thief of the same regiment then takes".
By late 1863, the Richmond Enquirer was reporting that "We often hear persons say, 'The Yankees cannot do us any more harm than our own soldiers have done.'" Assistant Secretary of War James A. Seddon admitted that impressment was "a harsh, unequal and odious mode of supply", made all the more distasteful because of how singularly devastating it was against poor families. Infighting did not help matters, as some state governments denounced impressment with every bit as much bitterness as they had denounced conscription and taxes. Governor Brown was undoubtedly acting nobly when he took actions to protect Georgia's poor, from the distribution of salt and corn to ordering his militia to seize the supplies the Army had already seized. But this defiance brought him into conflict with the Breckinridge regime, which believed his actions to be self-aggrandizing political maneuvers and thought that, as despised as impressment was, it had to continue lest the Army collapse.
Brown's defiance, in this case, probably angered Breckinridge less than the widespread resistance of the planter class did. Believing that the central government had no constitutional authority to take their property, the planter aristocracy was the most bitterly opposed to the measure, even as they were also less affected by it. They candidly declared that "they will allow their fodder to rot in the field" rather than allow the Army to seize it, and, without a single shred of irony, planter James H. Hammond said that heeding a request for his maize would be "branding on my forehead 'slave'". A furious Alabaman observed how, at the start of the war, "every man was ready & willing, nay, anxious, to make every sacrifice for the good of the cause" but "now Selfishness & greed of gain has taken possession of a large portion of our people".
Part of this resistance came from the fact that in addition to grain and cattle the Army could also impress "a species of property . . . the confiscation of which is more injurious to pride, right and law than any other" - that is, enslaved people. Requisitions of slaves by the Army had been going on before the Congress enacted the Impressment law, which, labeling slaves as just another kind of property, permitted officers to impress them as well. But planters categorically refused. General Pillow found this when he asked Huntsville planters to rent him slaves. The General reminded the slaveholders that by heeding his call they would be "advancing your own interest by preserving your property and aiding the army to protect the homes and property of the owner", instead of leaving all at the mercy of the Yankee invaders. But planters still refused, such as Catherine Edmondston, who likened the impressment of slaves with abolition, or a Texan who swore that the impressment of slaves "would not be obeyed except at the point of the bayonet."
Such recalcitrance infuriated Breckinridge and his men, who frankly saw this plain refusal to aid the war effort as unpatriotic, short-sighted and unfair. When Robert Toombs loudly proclaimed that he would never bow to the "miscreants" who tried to impress his slaves, Breckinridge fired off an acrid admonition. "It is not possible for us to ask the poor man to give up everything in the name of a rich man who has not given up anything", the President said, not mincing words. A Georgia Congressman agreed, criticizing those who "give up their sons, husbands, brothers & friends, and often without murmuring, to the army; but let one of their negroes be taken, and what a houl you will hear." Responding to these criticisms, a furious Toombs argued that he and all planters would gladly lend their property as long as it was voluntarily. Their refusal was because the government was trying to force them, injuring their pride and violating their rights. "The solution", Bruce Levine summarizes, "lay not in making greater demands on masters but in making fewer", never mind that the planter aristocracy had never responded to softer measures and gentle requests before.
When discussing North Carolina's situation
Western North Carolina had in special become one of the centers of resistance to the Confederacy through brutal guerrilla warfare. As a desire for peace and resentment against the slaveholders who started and kept up the war increased, so did the strength of the Heroes of America, a group whose force was "augmenting their number every day". Attempts to root out these insurgents proved unsuccessful, for they intimidated or commanded the respect of many militiamen. One such cowed officer told Vance that "officers are sometimes shot by them and the community kept in terror". Forced to appeal to Breckinridge, Vance received two Army regiments and started a campaign of terror to try and destroy these bands. Confederate soldiers and militia made "hostages of women and children until husbands and fathers turned themselves in", or later even resorted to outright torture. But no method was capable of completely stamping out this armed insurgency, "the popular sentiments" that sustained it remaining "as strong
and widespread as ever". A forlorn Vance wrote to Joseph E. Brown that among North Carolina Confederates a "general despondency and gloom . . . prevails.”