“I would be glad for her to make a new constitution recognizing the emancipation proclamation and adopting emancipation in those parts of the State to which the proclamation does not apply.  And while she is at it, I think it would not be objectionable for her to adopt some practical system by which the two races could gradually live themselves out of their old relation to each other, and both come out better prepared for the new.  Education for young blacks should be included in the plan.  After all, the power or element of ‘contract’ may be sufficient for this probationary period, and by its simplicity and flexibility may be the better.”

During the autumn months the President’s mind dwelt more and more on the subject of reconstruction, and he matured a general plan which he laid before Congress in his annual message to that body on December 8, 1863.  He issued on the same day a proclamation of amnesty, on certain conditions, to all persons in rebellion except certain specified classes, who should take a prescribed oath of allegiance.  The proclamation further provided that whenever a number of persons so amnestied in any rebel State, equal to one tenth the vote cast at the presidential election of 1860, should “reestablish a State government which shall be republican, and in no wise contravening said oath,” such would be recognized as the true government of the State.  The annual message discussed and advocated the plan at length, but also added:  “Saying that reconstruction will be accepted if presented in a specified way, it is not said it will never be accepted in any other way.”

This plan of reconstructing what came to be called “ten percent States,” met much opposition in Congress, and that body, reversing its action in former instances, long refused admission to members and senators from States similarly organized; but the point needs no further mention here.

A month before the amnesty proclamation the President had written to General Banks, expressing his great disappointment that the reconstruction in Louisiana had been permitted to fall in abeyance by the leading Union officials there, civil and military.

“I do, however,” he wrote, “urge both you and them to lose no more time.  Governor Shepley has special instructions from the War Department.  I wish him—­these gentlemen and others cooeperating—­without waiting for more territory, to go to work and give me a tangible nucleus which the remainder of the State may rally around as fast as it can, and which I can at once recognize and sustain as the true State government.”

He urged that such reconstruction should have in view a new free-State constitution, for, said he: 

“If a few professedly loyal men shall draw the disloyal about them, and colorably set up a State government repudiating the emancipation proclamation and reestablishing slavery, I cannot recognize or sustain their work....  I have said, and say again, that if a new State government, acting in harmony with this government and consistently with general freedom, shall think best to adopt a reasonable temporary arrangement in relation to the landless and houseless freed people, I do not object; but my word is out to be for and not against them on the question of their permanent freedom.”