isplay of a
manly appreciation and noble course on the part of those who had
participated in the Rebellion.

The desire for a complete restoration of all the States to their normal
position, as pictured so attractively by Mr. Seward, was general and
deep throughout the North. The policy of the President was therefore
essentially aided by the patriotic and ardent love for the Union,--a
love always present with the loyal people of the free States, but
developed in an extraordinary degree by the costly struggle which the
slaveholders' rebellion had precipitated. If the Southern States
should meet the overture of the Administration in the spirit in which
it was made, the probability was decidedly in favor of their
restoration to their old places without condition, without promise,
without sacrifice. Observing men in the loyal States regarded such a
policy not only as weak and maudlin, but as utterly insufficient and
assuredly dangerous to the future safety of the Government. But they
realized at the same time that the most important demands of far-seeing
statesmanship and of true patriotism might be disregarded, and even
contemned, by a wild, unreasoning wish of the people to see the old
Government, in all its parts, promptly and fully re-established. The
popular cry which demanded "the Union as it was, the Constitution as
it is," was echoed by many from emotional love of country, and by many
more from a conviction that the financial interests of the Government
and the commercial interest of the people called for the speediest
settlement of all political questions. The Administration believed,
and with good reason, that the combined influence of sentiment for the
Union and the supposed necessities of trade would overcome all
obstacles, and that the rebellious States would be so promptly and
completely reconstructed that their senators and representatives would
be admitted at the beginning of the next session of Congress.

In forming an estimate of the probably response of the South to the
plan of reconstruction now submitted, the Administration was certainly
justified in believing that its own spirit of liberality and good will
would be met with like spirit by those who, having failed in war, were
specially interested in promptly securing all the conditions of a
magnanimous peace. It could not anticipate that quibbles would be
made by the defeated and lately suppliant parties, that captious
objections would be inte