[Illustration:  THE PRESENT FLAG, 1900.]

XIV

RECONSTRUCTION AND REUNION,
1865-1888

Books for Study and Reading

References.—­Scribner’s Popular History, V; McMaster’s School
History, chs. xxx-xxxiii; Andrews’s Last Quarter-Century.

Home Readings.—­Hale’s Mr. Merriam’s Scholars.

CHAPTER 42

PRESIDENT JOHNSON AND RECONSTRUCTION, 1861-1869

[Sidenote:  Position of the seceded states.]

[Sidenote:  Lincoln’s policy of reconstruction. McMaster, 427-428.]

437.  Lincoln’s Reconstruction Policy.—­The great question now before the country was what should be done with the Southern states and people.  And what should be done with the freedmen?  On these questions people were not agreed.  Some people thought that the states were “indestructible”; that they could not secede or get out of the Union.  Others thought that the Southern states had been conquered and should be treated as a part of the national domain.  Lincoln thought that it was useless to go into these questions.  The Southern states were out of the “proper practical relations with the Union.”  That was clear enough.  The thing to do, therefore, was to restore “proper practical relations” as quickly and as quietly as possible.  In December, 1863, Lincoln had offered a pardon to all persons, with some exceptions, who should take the oath of allegiance to the United States, and should promise to support the Constitution and the Emancipation Proclamation.  Whenever one-tenth of the voters in any of the Confederate states should do these things, and should set up a republican form of government, Lincoln promised to recognize that government as the state government.  But the admission to Congress of Senators and Representatives from such a reconstructed state would rest with Congress.  Several states were reconstructed on this plan.  But public opinion was opposed to this quiet reorganization of the seceded states.  The people trusted Lincoln, however, and had he lived he might have induced them to accept his plan.

[Sidenote:  Andrew Johnson President, 1865.]

[Sidenote:  His ideas on reconstruction. McMaster, 428.]

438.  President Johnson’s Reconstruction Plan.—­Johnson was an able man and a patriot.  But he had none of Lincoln’s wise patience.  He had none of Lincoln’s tact and humor in dealing with men.  On the contrary, he always lost his temper when opposed.  Although he was a Southerner, he hated slavery and slave owners.  On the other hand, he had a Southerner’s contempt for the negroes.  He practically adopted Lincoln’s reconstruction policy and tried to bring about the reorganization of the seceded states by presidential action.

[Sidenote:  Force of Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation.]