Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume Three).djvu/287

 mercies of that master class? Can it be imagined that he would have been deaf to the sinister reports coming up from the South, as Johnson was? Would he have sacrificed the rights of the emancipated slave and the security of the Union men to a metaphysical abstraction as to the indestructibility of States? Did he not repeatedly warn against the mere discussion of just such abstractions as something useless and misleading? To assert in the face of all this that the Johnson reconstruction policy was only Lincoln's policy continued, is little less than a perversion of historic truth.

No less striking was the difference of the two policies in what may be called the personal character of the controversies of that time. When the Republican majority in Congress had already declared its unwillingness to accept President Johnson's leadership in the matter of reconstruction, there was still a strong desire manifested by many Republican Senators and members of the House to prevent a decided and irremediable breach with the President. Some of them were sanguine enough to hope that more or less harmonious co-operation, or at least a peaceable modus vivendi might still be obtained. Others apprehended that the President's policy with its plausibilities might, after all, find favor with the popular mind, which was naturally tired of strife and excitement, eager for peace and quiet, and that its opponents might appear as reckless disturbers. Still others stood in fear of a rupture in the Republican party which, among other evil consequences, might prove disastrous to their own political fortunes. Several men of importance, such as Fessenden and Sherman in the Senate and some prominent members of the House, seriously endeavored to pour oil upon the agitated waters by making speeches of a conciliatory tailor. Indeed, if Andrew Johnson had possessed only a little of Abraham Lincoln's sweet temper, generous