They were enemies not to be despised.  To begin with, they were experienced machine politicians; they had control of well-organized political rings.  They were past masters of the art of working up popular animosities.  And they were going to use this art in that dangerous moment of reaction which invariably follows the heroic tension of a great war.  The alignment in the Senate revealed by the Louisiana battle had also a significance.  The fact that Sumner, who was not quite one of them, became their general on that occasion, was something to remember.  They had made or thought they had made other powerful allies.  The Vice President, Andrew Johnson-the new president of the Senate-appeared at this time to be cheek by jowl with the fiercest Vindictives of them all.  It would be interesting to know when the thought first occurred to them:  “If anything should happen to Lincoln, his successor would be one of us!”

The ninth of April arrived and the news of Lee’s surrender.

“The popular excitement over the victory was such that on Monday, the tenth, crowds gathered before the Executive Mansion several times during the day and called out the President for speeches.  Twice he responded by coming to the window and saying a few words which, however, indicated that his mind was more occupied with work than with exuberant rejoicing.  As briefly as he could he excused himself, but promised that on the following evening for which a formal demonstration was being arranged, he would be prepared to say something."(3)

The paper which he read to the crowd that thronged the grounds of the White House on the night of April eleventh, was his last public utterance.  It was also one of his most remarkable ones.  In a way, it was his declaration of war against the Vindictives.(4) It is the final statement of a policy toward helpless opponents—­he refused to call them enemies—­which among the conquerors of history is hardly, if at all, to be paralleled.(5)

“By these recent successes the reinauguration of the national authority—­reconstruction—­which has had a large share of thought from the first, is pressed more closely upon our attention.  It is fraught with great difficulty.  Unlike a case of war between independent nations, there is no authorized organ for us to treat with-no one man has authority to give up the rebellion for any other man.  We simply must begin with, and mould from, disorganized and discordant elements.  Nor is it a small additional embarrassment that we, the loyal people, differ among ourselves as to the mode, manner and measure of reconstruction.  As a general rule, I abstain from reading the reports of attacks upon myself, wishing not to be provoked by that to which I can not properly offer an answer.  In spite of this precaution, however, it comes to my knowledge that I am much censured for some supposed agency in setting up and seeking to sustain the new State government of Louisiana.”