Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 12.djvu/302

286 party leaders demanded a reconstruction that would enable them to control the South as well as the North. The Republican majority distrusted the Northern Democrats, who were less disposed to violate the Constitution by going too far out of the beaten tracks of the past. Mr. Stanton, the great war secretary, said, "If he (Lincoln) had lived, he would have had a hard time with his party, as he would have been at odds with it on reconstruction." His speech made in answer to a serenade immediately preceding his death, showed that, although he had recalled permission for the Virginia legislature to meet at Richmond, he still adhered to a liberal view of reconstructing and restoring the Southern States.

He would certainly have met the opposition of many in his party, and whether or not his persuasive tact in dealing with such matters would have prevented the extremes to which his party carried legislation after his death, is a matter of speculation. It is believed that the appointment of provisional governors was a concession to the extreme party in Congress even before his death. He recognized that the States had control of suffrage, and that negroes had no legal right to vote except as that boon was given them by the State. It is generally agreed now, that the death of Mr. Lincoln was at least a great blow to early reconciliation, if it did not end the last hope entertained for a conservative and wise policy of reconstruction. President Andrew Johnson was of a different temperament from his predecessor most combative, aggressive, and abusive to those who differed with him, and not a safe man for such a great emergency. While he was a great Union man, his ideas were generally Democratic rather than Republican, in that he was more conservative in his construction of the Constitution.

President Johnson was sworn into office April 14, 1865,