cy; those
who had left Congress or the army or navy to aid the Confederate cause;
and those who had maltreated negro prisoners of war. Whether Lincoln in
his own mind regarded the official classes as more blameworthy or more
dangerous than their followers, we can only surmise; but he doubtless
considered that public opinion was not ripe--the war being still
flagrant--for a wider offer of pardon.

Further, he invited a return of the seceded States to their former
relations, under these conditions: Wherever a number of voters equal to
one-tenth of the registered list of 1860, having individually taken the
oath of allegiance, shall unite to form a loyal State government, their
organization will be recognized by the Federal government. It is
desirable to retain as far as practicable the old State boundaries,
constitution, and laws. Such a State government may make regulations for
the negroes,--if their freedom and education are provided for,--as a
"laboring, homeless, and landless class." The admission of
representatives and senators must depend on the action of Congress.

Under this plan--regarded by the President as somewhat tentative and
provisional, and expressly made dependent on Congress for its
consummation by the admission of senators and representatives--within
the next twelve months governments were established in three States
where the Union arms were partly in the ascendant, Louisiana, Arkansas,
and Tennessee. Congress, in July, 1864, passed a reconstruction bill on
more radical lines; assuming that the rebel States were by their own act
extinguished as States and were to be created _de novo_; directing that
a provisional governor be forthwith appointed for every such State;
requiring the new Legislatures to abolish slavery, exclude high
Confederate officials from office, and annul the Confederate debt. The
President let this bill fail for want of his signature, and in a
proclamation explained his objections: He was not ready to accept the
"State suicide" theory; he did not want to rest the abolition of
slavery on the fiat of Congress (he was looking for the adoption of the
Thirteenth Amendment); and he was unwilling to sacrifice the provisional
governments already set up in Louisiana and Arkansas. If in any other
State a movement on the congressional plan was initiated, that might do
well; but for any hard-and-fast, all-round plan the time was not ripe.
The radicals, led by Wade and Henry Winter Davis, chafed