either in point of honor or of sound policy, to the restoration
of the late rebel States to the functions of self-government and to full
participation in the national government so long as that restoration was
reasonably certain to put the freedom of the emancipated slaves, or the
security of the Southern Union men, or the rights of the public
creditor, into serious jeopardy.

[Illustration: SENATOR LYMAN TRUMBULL

WHO MOVED THAT THE FREEDMEN'S BUREAU BILL OF JANUARY 12 BE PASSED OVER
PRESIDENT JOHNSON'S VETO]

_Lincoln's Policy versus Johnson's_

It was pretended at the time, and it has since been asserted by
historians and publicists of high standing, that Mr. Johnson's
Reconstruction policy was only a continuation of that of Mr. Lincoln.
This was true only in a superficial sense, and not in reality. Mr.
Lincoln had, indeed, put forth reconstruction plans which contemplated
an early restoration of some of the rebel States; but he had done this
while the Civil War was still going on, and for the evident purpose of
encouraging loyal movements in those States and of weakening the
Confederate State governments there by opposing to them governments
organized in the interest of the Union, which could serve as
rallying-points to the Union men. So long as the rebellion continued in
any form and to any extent, the State governments he contemplated would
have been substantially in the control of really loyal men who had been
on the side of the Union during the war. Moreover, he always
emphatically affirmed, in public as well as private utterance, that no
plan of reconstruction he had ever put forth was meant to be "exclusive
and inflexible," but might be changed according to different
circumstances.

Now circumstances did change; they changed essentially with the collapse
of the Confederacy. There was no more organized armed resistance to the
national government, to distract which loyal State governments in the
South might have been efficacious. But there was an effort of persons
lately in rebellion to get possession of the reconstructed Southern
State governments for the purpose, in part, of using their power to save
or restore as much of the system of slavery as could be saved or
restored. The success of these efforts was to be accomplished by the
precipitate and unconditional readmission of the late rebel States to
all their constitutional functions. This situation had not yet developed
when Lincoln was assassinated.