Henry Winter Davis of Maryland, respective chairmen of the Senate and House committees on rebellious States, came out in most vigorous protest against the action of the President. This paper was published broadcast over the signatures of the two statesmen. It was a remarkable document. It arraigned Mr. Lincoln in the most caustic and severe language, reminding him that the Union men in Congress "would not submit to be impeached of rash and unconstitutional legislation," and that he "must confine himself to his executive duties to obey and execute, and not to make the laws."

A short time after this paper had been published Mr. Davis sought a renomination for Congress, but was defeated. This, in slaveholding Maryland, was an index to the reception of the protest by the country. It served to rouse Lincoln's friends on all sides, and doubtless contributed to his great majority at the polls.

On the convening of Congress in December the President wisely refrained from making any reference to the recent controversy or to the subject of reconstruction. Later in the session

Congress passed a joint resolution declaring certain States (Louisiana and Arkansas) not entitled to representation in the electoral college. This was intended as a slap at the President, but he headed them off by signing the resolution and stating at the same time that he considered it wholly unnecessary, as Congress already had the sole power of counting electoral votes. His language was sarcastic and unanswerable.

President Lincoln adhered to his plan of reconstruction with the greatest tenacity. In a speech made on April 11, he reviewed at length his Louisiana plan, stating just what he had done and why he did it. He explained how unwise it would be to reject and spurn the loyal people of the South in their endeavors to bring their erring States back into the Union fold. With these words he closed: "It may be my duty to make some new announcement to the people of the South. I am considering, and shall not fail to act when satisfied that action will be proper."

ment was never made.

But his new announce-
Four days after he

gave the promise the great President was dead.

The New President and the Old Plan

At the moment when this quarrel between the Executive and Congress was assuming alarming proportions Andrew Johnson stepped forth upon the public stage as the chief officer in the land. Twice before this had the VicePresident succeeded to the presidency, and in each case the policy of the Government on the leading public questions was radically changed. And it seemed indeed that the same would be true in the present case, for at first Johnson did little but breathe out threatenings against the leaders of the rebellion. His language was extravagant and undignified, and marked a painful contrast with that of the ever humane, the ever self-possessed Lincoln.

But Johnson's attitude of hostility toward the South was of short duration. He came under the influence of a master mind, and, according to the inevitable law of nature, the less yielded to the greater. William H. Seward had been retained by him as secretary of state. Seward, like Lincoln, was too great, too magnanimous, to entertain a feeling of spite toward the con

quered States, and it is believed that he had almost as much to do in originating the Louisiana plan of reconstruction as had the departed President himself.

Seward, for long years before the war, had been hated and execrated at the South above all men. He had been looked upon as the embodiment of Republicanism, of all that is evil and hateful to the slaveholder; and even now, at the moment when that other noble soul met his fate, at a moment when he was striv ing, at the risk of sacrificing his popularity in the North, to make the pathway of the erring southern sisters easy to retrace, he was attacked upon his sick bed by a half-crazed sympathizer with the cause of disunion, and stabbed and gashed until life was almost gone. Had there been a grain of littleness in Seward's soul, it would now have gained the mastery; his wrath would have been roused to vengeance against a people for whose welfare' he had labored so faithfully, and was rewarded by an attempt to assassinate him by one of their number. But Seward was too great to be little. Recovering from his wounds and resum

VOL. II. M

ing his place in the cabinet, he advocated the same mild reconstruction plan for which he had labored before.

It was Seward who now took Andrew

Johnson aside and whispered something in his ear, and from this time forth Johnson was a changed man. No more do we hear his violent threats; on the other hand, he took up the thread where Lincoln had left off and went even farther, perhaps, than the latter would have gone in his conciliatory attitude toward the South.

President Johnson began his new régime by issuing his great amnesty proclamation on May 29, in which pardon was offered to all who had been in rebellion (except certain specified classes) on taking an oath to support the Constitution and laws of the United States.

This presidential proclamation was accompanied on the same day by another step of still greater importance — the appointment of a provisional governor of North Carolina, and giving into his hands the reconstructing of the civil government of the State. The governor was carefully instructed as to how to proceed