r approved
it." His "promise was out," he said, to sustain this policy, but "bad
promises," he significantly added, "are better broken than kept, and I
shall treat this as a bad promise and break it whenever I shall be
convinced that keeping it is adverse to the public interest."

It is apparent therefore that Mr. Lincoln had no fixed plan for the
reconstruction of the States. Pertinently questioned on the subject
by one whose personal relations entitled him to unreserved confidence,
the President answered by one of his homely and apt illustrations:
"The pilots on our Western rivers steer from _point to point_ as they
call it--setting the course of the boat no farther than they can see;
and that is all I propose to myself in this great problem." This
position was practically re-affirmed in the speech, already copiously
quoted. "So great peculiarities pertain to each State, and such
important and sudden changes occur in the same State, and withal so
new and so unprecedented is the whole case, that no exclusive and
inflexible plan can safely be prescribed in details and collaterals.
Such exclusive and inflexible plan would only become a new
entanglement." Such was the latitude of judgment which the President
reserved to himself, such the liberty of action which he deemed
essential to the complex problem, for whose solution there was no
prescribed rule, no established precedent. On all questions of
expediency the President maintained not only the right but the
frequent necessity of change. "Principle alone," said he, "must be
inflexible."

Encouraged by the result of the controversy, if it may be so termed,
between the President and Congress as to the mode of reconstruction,
Andrew Johnson determined to re-organize the government of his State.
Though Vice-President he was still discharging the functions of
military governor of Tennessee. A popular convention, originating
from his recommendation and assembling under his auspices, was
organized at Nashville on the ninth day of January, 1865. Membership
of the body was limited to those who "give an active support to the
Union cause, who have never voluntarily borne arms against the
Government, who have never voluntarily given aid and comfort to the
enemy." The manifest purpose, indeed the proclaimed intention, was to
re-organize the State, so as to bring all its powers distinctly and
unreservedly under the control of that small minority of the population
which ha