John W. Johnston

For other people by the same name, see John Johnston (disambiguation).

John Warfield Johnston
Personal details
Born	September 9, 1818 "Panicello", Washington County, Virginia
Died	February 27, 1889 Richmond, Virginia
Political party	Democratic
Spouse	Nicketti Buchanan Floyd
Residence(s)	Abingdon, Virginia Richmond, Virginia

John Warfield Johnston (September 9, 1818–February 27, 1889) was an American lawyer and politician from Abingdon, Virginia. He served in the Virginia State Senate, and represented Virginia in the United States Senate when the state was readmitted after the Civil War.

Johnston was initially ineligible to serve in Congress due to the Fourteenth Amendment, which removed the ability of anyone to hold public office who had sworn allegiance to the United States and subsequently sided with the Confederacy during the Civil War. However his restrictions were removed at the suggestion of the Freedman's Bureau. Thus, he was the first person who had sided with the Confederacy to serve in the U.S. Senate.

Biography

Family and early life

Johnston was born at his grandfather's house "Panicello", near Abingdon, Virginia, September 9, 1818, as the only child of Dr. John Warfield Johnston and Louisa Smith Bowen. His grandfather was Judge Peter Johnston, who had fought under "Light Horse" Harry Lee during the Revolutionary War, and his great-grandmother was Patrick Henry's sister. His mother was the sister of Rees T. Bowen, a Virginia politician; two of his uncles were Charles Clement Johnston and General Joseph Eggleston Johnston, and his nephew was politician Henry Bowen. Johnston attended Abingdon Academy, South Carolina College at Columbia, and the law department of the University of Virginia at Charlottesville. He was admitted to the bar in 1839 and commenced practice in Tazewell, Tazewell County, Virginia.

Marriage and children

On October 12, 1841, he married Nicketti Buchanan Floyd, who was the daughter of Governor John Floyd and Letitia Preston, and sister of Governor John Buchanan Floyd. His new wife was Catholic (having converted when young) and Johnston also converted after the marriage.

In 1859, he moved his family to Abingdon, Virginia, and lived at first on East Main Street. "It was a delightful home to visit and the young men enjoyed the cordial welcome that they received from the old and the young," an Abingdon resident described. While there, the family started construction of a new home called "Eggleston", three miles east of town. The family's affectionate name for it, however, was "Castle Dusty". They moved in sometime after August of 1860.

Johnston and Nicketti Buchanan Floyd had the following children:

• John Warfield Johnston III (1842-1851)
• Letitia "Letty" Floyd Johnston (1844-)
• Louisa Bowen Johnston (1846-1895) - married Daniel Trigg of Abingdon.
• Sally Buchanan Johnston (1848-) - married Henry Carter Lee, son of Sydney Smith Lee, CSN, and brother of General Fitzhugh Lee.
• Lavalette Estell Johnston (1850-) - married John F. McMullen of Maryland
• William Floyd Johnston (1852-)
• Dr. George Ben Johnston (1853-) - prominent physician in Richmond and is credited with the first antiseptic operation performed in Virginia. Both the Johnston Memorial Hospital in Abingdon and the Johnston-Willis Hospital in Richmond are named after him. Married Mary McClung.
• Mary Nicketti Floyd Johnston (1855-1855)
• Miriam Hartford Johnston (1857-1876)
• Joseph Beverly Johnston (1859-)
• Coralie Henry Johnston (1861-)
• Sebastian Warfield Johnston (1864-1865)

Career

Johnston served as commonwealth attorney for Tazewell County between 1844 and 1846 and state senator from 1846 to 1848. During the Civil War, he held the position of Confederate States receiver, and was also elected as a councilman for the town of Abingdon in 1861. After the war, he was judge of the Circuit Superior Court of Law and Chancery of Virginia 1869-1870. In 1867, he founded the Villa Maria Academy of the Visitation in Abingdon for the education of girls. Around 1869, he formed a law partnership with a young local attorney, and his future son-in-law, Daniel Trigg. In 1872, they set up their offices in a small building near the courthouse which became known as the Johnston-Trigg Law Office.

U.S. Senate

In 1869, the military zone that comprised modern-day Virginia elected Gilbert C. Walker as governor and ushered in a time of moderate conservatism, with many Whiggish roots. The new General Assembly ratified the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendents to end Reconstruction and also elected two people to represent them in the U.S. Senate. One of them was Johnston. He was one of the few Virginia men eligible to hold office, because at the time, anyone who had fought for the former Confederacy was ineligible to hold office under the Fourteenth Amendment until their "political disabilities" were removed by Congress by a two-thirds vote. Johnston's were removed because word had reached the local Abingdon Freedman's Bureau officer that he had helped care for an elderly former slave, Peter, who had passed through Abingdon on his way to Charlotte County, Virginia from Mississippi.

The Norfolk and Western Railroad passed 200 yards from his house, and in the summer of 1865, Johnston aided many former slaves who used the tracks as a guide to return home from where they had been sold. Generally the aid was in the form of food and shelter, but one day in August he found an elderly man in an old stable near the railroad. The man was near death, and Johnston carried him to the house, where he stayed at least a month. When Peter had regained enough strength, he told his story, which Johnston later wrote down and is now kept with his papers at Duke University. Peter had been a slave of a Mr. Read in Charlotte County, a neighbor of John Randolph. Read was apparently in debt and had to sell Peter and some others to a trader. Peter left behind a wife and young daughter to work a cotton field for thirty-five years in Mississippi. When he was freed, Peter walked all the way from Mississippi until he reached Abingdon in his quest to return home.

As Johnston wrote, "It was evident to me and my wife that all our care could not rebuild that worn out body, and that death was near at hand. He weakened rapidly ... His life was weary, toilsome, and full of trouble. But surely the Lord has rewards for such as he, and will give him rest in all eternity, and permit him to see Susy and his Mammy and Daddy." He died of tuberculosis. The Freedman's Bureau agent wrote to Congressman William Kelly of Pennsylvania requesting the removal of Johnston's disabilities. Kelly did so and the bill passed both houses of Congress. Johnston discovered all this, however, when he read about the passage of the bill in the newspaper.

Johnston went to Washington in December in hopes that Virginia would be readmitted, but it was not until January 26, 1870, that Virginia was readmitted, and Johnston was able to take his seat shortly afterward. They delay was due to Congress needing to pass an act that would allow Virginia to have representation. When Johnston arrived on January 28 to take his seat, he had a little difficulty. First, George F. Edmunds of Vermont questioned whether he was the right Mr. Johnston and thought a fraud was being perpetrated until Waitman T. Willey of West Virginia vouched for his identity and Johnston was qualified. He then was in the process of signing a document put before him that was the oath without reading it, and if the senator sitting next to him, Thomas F. Bayard of Delaware, had not noticed it was the ironclad oath, Johnston would have been "disgraced ... forever in the eyes of the people of Virginia ..." The ironclad oath was a statement requiring the signer to swear they had never fought against the Union or supported the Confederacy. It had been deemed unconstitutional in 1867, but its use was not effectively ended until 1871. Incidentally, at this time, Johnston was the only senator who had side with the Confederacy, all the rest were either Northerners by birth or had been "Union men".

File:Hh6e2.jpg

Arlington House from a pre-1861 sketch, published in 1875.

At the time he joined the Senate, the two parties in Virginia were the Conservatives and the Radicals. Johnston was a Conservative, which was an alliance of pre-War Democrats and Whigs. Because the Democrats had been bitter rivals of the Whigs, they could not join a party by that name, so the Conservative party was born. Which direction Johnston would vote in the national arena was unknown, but mattered little because the Senate was overwhelmingly Republican (there being only 10 Democrats at the time). However, there was speculation that Johnston might side with the Republicans based on a letter he had written to the new Virginia governor and "turn traitor to his party and state ... for patronage." Doubts were settled when Johnston declined a formal invitation to join the Republican caucus and went to a joint meeting of House and Senate Democrats and so it was known that "a Conservative in Virginia was a democrat in Washington."

When Thomas C. McCreery (D) of Kentucky introduced a resolution to investigate the ownership of Arlington and possibly returning it to Mrs. Robert E. Lee, fix up the premises, return any Washington relics discovered, and whether a suitable location nearby existed to remove the dead buried there, the resolution brought down a firestorm of objections. Johnston described the excitement it caused as the most he would see in his thirteen years in the Senate and put him in "the most painful and embarassing position of my life". He was vehemently opposed to the resolution:

There was something very abhorent to me in the idea of making a job of digging up and carting away the remains of thousands of people -- especially as they were gallant men who had died on the field of battle. Not only was the substance of the resolution displeasing but its tone was equally so. It seemed to say -- "Here, whitewash these fences, scour these floors, fix up this house and grounds, dig up these bones, and hand the premises over to the owners."

— Senator Johnston

However, in the course of the speeches opposing the resolution, Johnston felt General Lee's memory had been attacked and he felt duty bound to defend Lee. The Democratic Party, knowing his views and that of his state, approached him and asked him to keep silent for the sake of the party and the relief of the state of Virginia. Johnston protested that he would be attacked at home, and he was. Johnston was up for re-election, and when the opposing candidates used that against him, a delegation from the Virginia General Assembly traveled to Washington to talk with the Democrats and assess the situation and were satisfied by the reports they received.

Later, Johnston did make a speech, apparently his first before the Senate, on behalf of Mrs. Lee and her Memorial proposal. His first attempt to do so was objected to and he was denied permission, but later, near the end of the session when an unrelated bill was under discussion, Johnston made a motion related to it and then used the opportunity (which was allowed to Senators) to make his speech despite "great indignation and impatience on the floor". The Lee family and their advisors desired that the "true facts about the sale of Arlington and the nature of her claim to the property, should be placed before the country" so that, if found in her favor, she could receive compensation and then donate the property to the government. Eventually the Supreme Court of the United States did find in the family's favor in 1882.

Johnston served from January 26, 1870, to March 3, 1871, and was re-elected on March 15, 1871, for the term beginning March 4, 1871. He was reelected as well in 1877 and served from March 15, 1871, until March 3, 1883. He served as chairman of the Committee on Revolutionary Claims during the Forty-fifth and Forty-seventh Congresses and the Committee on Agriculture during the Forty-sixth Congress.

File:JWJohnston.jpg

Johnston near the end of his life

When Johnston was up for re-election in 1875, he was involved in one of the more controversial issues in politics, the Texas-Pacific Bill. Johnston opposed to Tom Scott and his Texas and Pacific Railway and his bill, and the battle was essentially between Northern and Southern railroad interests. Scott was trying to persuade Southern states to accept his railroad so that the state legislatures would appoint senators who would vote for the bill. Because Johnston was up for re-election by the legislature, his seat was vulnerable if Scott succeeded in influencing the legislature, because it was known that Johnston opposed the bill. Most Southern states went along with Scott, except Virginia and Louisiana, and Johnston was re-elected. The Texas-Pacific Bill was not a dead issue, however, for it was used as a bargaining chip in the Compromise of 1877 during the 1876 Presidential election crisis. Later, Johnston gave a speech in 1878 in Congress against the railroad, specifically Bill No. 942, which he viewed as "a positive menace to the commerical interests of the South."

The other issue that marked his career was the Funder vs. Readjuster debate, which culminated in the end of the Conservative Party in Virginia and the formation of the Readjuster Party, with William Mahone as its boss, and the Virginia Democratic Party. The Readjusters gained control of the state legislature, and because Johnston was an outspoken "Funder", he was replaced in 1883 for prominent Readjuster Harrison H. Riddleberger.

After serving in the Senate, he resumed the practice of his profession and died in Richmond, Virginia, on February 27, 1889. He was buried in St. Mary’s Cemetery, Wytheville, Virginia.

References

• Johnston, John W. (1978). "Hunting for His People". The Historical Society of Washington County, Virginia. 2 (15). {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
• Johnston, John Warfield, "Reminiscences of Thirteen Years in the Senate," John Warfield Johnston Papers, Special Collections Department, Duke University Library, Durham, North Carolina.
• Maddex, Jack P., Jr. (1970). The Virginia Conservatives 1867-1879: A Study in Reconstruction Politics. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 0-8078-1140-8.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• Summers, Lewis Preston (1971). History of Southwest Virginia 1746-1786, Washington County 1777-1870. Baltimore, Maryland: Regional Publishing Company.

External links

• John W. Johnston at Find-A-Grave