Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 12.djvu/295

Rh the Constitution was to be further strained and violent coercive measures inaugurated after the South had laid down her arms. There can be little doubt now that most of the conservative Democrats at the North, and even conservative Republicans, entertained these views, until the breach between the President and Congress became so wide and bitter, and the President so violent in his denunciation of Congress.

There were many complex problems to be solved as a result of the war. The responsibility of their solution necessarily rested in the greater degree upon the United States government. It had been completely victorious in the struggle. It had all the power in its hands, and it was evident, as every foot of the lately seceded States was occupied by its troops, that the South could only expect such treatment as it dictated. These prob- lems may be stated generally as follows: To restore the seceded States to the Union; to establish tranquillity throughout the Union; to legally abolish slavery, and invest the negro with the civil rights necessary for his protection; to provide ways and means for liquidating the vast war debt incurred on both sides by both governments and by the individual States; to determine whether there was criminality in secession or in the conduct of the war by the Confederates; to preserve the essential radical principles of the Constitution and prevent change in the structure of the United States government; to reinstate fraternal feelings among the late antagonists.

The main question was not as to the freedom of the negroes, for their freedom was unquestionable not doubted by any one as a result of the war, the success of the Union armies, the proclamation of President Lincoln, and the establishment of the Freedmen's bureau by the Congress of the United States. Nor was the question whether secession should be made forever illegal by posi-