first to alienate the South by vehement denunciation of its leaders and then the North by equally violent urging of his policies when sane persuasion might have brought North and South together in lasting unity of sentiment; Grant would have had no animosities and would have had no policy except the cultivation of good-will. But as General of the Armies, subject always to authority and military discipline, he could not influence events and had to watch them drift. His ideas on the negro problem had been of slow growth. Before the war he had not been an abolitionist nor even an anti-slavery man, but he came to see that slavery must go.

Twenty years later in his book he wrote: "I do not believe that the majority of the Northern people at that time were in favor of negro suffrage. They supposed that it would naturally follow the freedom of the negro, but that there would be a time of probation in which the ex-slaves could prepare themselves for the privileges of citizenship before the full right would be conferred; but Mr. Johnson, after a complete revolution of sentiment, seemed to regard the South, not only as an oppressed people, but as the people best entitled to consideration of any of our citizens. This was more than the people who had secured to us the perpetuation of the Union were prepared for, and they became more radical in their views."

And again: "But for the assassination of Mr. Lincoln, I believe the great majority of the Northern people, and the soldiers unanimously, would have been in favor of a speedy reconstruction on terms that would be the least humiliating to the people who had rebelled against their Government. They believed, I have no doubt, as I did, that besides being the mildest, it was also the wisest policy. The people who had been in rebellion must necessarily come back into the Union and be incorporated as an integral part of the nation. . . . They surely would not make good citizens if they felt they had a yoke around their necks."

Yet with feelings at the outset of consideration toward the South, with his instinctive chivalry, without natural sympathy for radical men or measures, he was driven by events, by the tactlessness of the President, by the perverseness of the time, into a position where he could align himself no otherwise than with the advocates of wholesale suffrage for the negro in the South, protected if need be by military force.

CHAPTER XXVI

JOHNSON'S BREAK WITH CONGRESS

JOHNSON'S programme met with no organized resistance up to December, 1865, when the new Congress gathered after a nine months' vacation from the 4th of March. Indeed, the people of the North left to themselves seemed to approve it. Beginning in August, State after State in the South, acting in accordance with the Executive's decree, had held conventions which repealed or nullified the ordinance of secession, abolished slavery, and in most cases repudiated the debts incurred in war. Mississippi, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, North Carolina, fell into line, balking only at the President's proposal in some cases that the negro should be given qualified suffrage. The men who sat in constitutional conventions and in legislatures chosen under the new order were of high character, willing to accept conditions. The erring sisters," chastened in spirit, were ready to come home. It looked as though a reunited country would stand behind the President. Republican and Democratic conventions in Northern States vied with one another in endorsing his policy and pledging their support. Pennsylvania, under the lead

of Stevens, and Massachusetts, under that of Sumner, alone refused assent. Andrew and Morton, the best of the War Governors, urged coöperation with the President, expressing sympathy for the South and opposing unconditional suffrage for the blacks. Even Stanton, as late as May, 1866, expressed approval of Johnson's acts up to the time that Congress met. His quarrel was of gradual development. It was not until after Congress adjourned in July, 1866, that the open rupture came.

With the gathering of Congress, Stevens in the House and Sumner in the Senate set out to organize the opposition. Up to that time there were no differences which could not have been reconciled, and for nearly three months thereafter nothing happened which might not have been adjusted with fair concession on each side. Sumner and Stevens with their radical proposals could not have carried Congress with them if Johnson had been inclined to counsel with the majority, yielding here and there for harmony; for Sumner and Stevens wanted to go much farther and faster than the great body of Northern men were ready then to follow. And while these two detested Johnson, they wrangled with each other and in reality had slender bonds of sympathy. Stevens, though a partisan fanatic, was intensely practical. Sumner was a turgid visionary, a devotee, who in

spite of his nobility of purpose could never quite adjust himself to facts.

If Johnson had been wise enough to play on individual traits, as Lincoln doubtless would have done, if he had not persisted in having things exactly his own way, he might have gained all his essentials and the story of his stormy term need never have been told. Reconstruction might have come about in such a manner as to leave lasting friendliness between the sections, with the Southern States restored to their old places in the Union and gradual enfranchisement of the negro as he became qualified to vote.

Few Northern people really thought the negroes should have suffrage right away. They looked for it in time, but with a hazy expectation. On the whole they were amenable to Johnson's plan of admitting the Senators from Southern States and leaving to the States themselves the suffrage question so long as former slaves received protection in their natural rights. In the election held that fall, Connecticut, Wisconsin, and Minnesota had declared specifically against giving the vote to colored persons and in a general way the elections were regarded as an endorsement of the Administration. The people were not concerned about the prerogatives of the Executive and Congress. They were interested in results and Johnson seemed to be doing fairly well. There had