dividing the Republican
party, and already encouraging the hopes of those in the North who had
been the steady opponents of Mr. Lincoln's war policy, and of those in
the South who had sought for four years to destroy the Great Republic.
It soon became evident that the Northern Democrats who had been opposed
to the war, and the Southern Democrats who had been defeated in the
war, would unite in political action, and that the course of the
National Administration would exercise a potential influence upon their
success or failure. In turn, the course of the National Administration
would certainly be influenced, and its fate in large degree determined,
by the conduct of the Southern men, in whom the President was placing
unbounded trust. Public interest was therefore transferred for the
time from the acts of the President at the National Capital to the
acts of the Reconstruction conventions about to assemble in the
Southern States.

CHAPTER V.

A great opportunity was now given to the South. It was given
especially to the leading men of the South. Only a few weeks before,
they had all been expecting harsh treatment, many, indeed, anticipated
punishment, not a few were dejectedly looking forward to a life of
exile and want. The President's policy, which had been framed for him
by Mr. Seward, charged all this. Confidence took the place of
apprehension, the fear of punishment was removed, those who conscious
of guilt had been dreading expatriation were bidden by the supreme
authority of the Nation to stay in their own homes, and to assist in
building up the waste and desolate places.

Never in the history of the world had so mighty a rebellion been
subdued. Never had any rebellion been followed by treatment so
lenient, forgiving, and generous on the part of the triumphant
Government. The great mass of those who had resisted the National
authority were restored to all their rights of citizenship by the
simple taking of an oath of future loyalty, and those excepted from
immediate re-instatement were promised full forgiveness on the
slightest exhibition of repentance and good works. Mr. Seward
believed, and had induced the President to believe, that frank and
open generosity on the part of the Government would be responded to in
like spirit on the part of those who had just emerged from rebellion.
The Administration, therefore, waited with confidence for its
justification, which could be made complete only by the d