failed. And
now there was small hesitation or delay in framing and enforcing the
final plan.

CHAPTER XXXII

RECONSTRUCTION: THE FINAL PLAN

The Congress which met in December, 1866, was the same body as in the
previous winter; but the prolonged contest, the President's misbehavior,
the South's rejection of the offered terms, and the popular verdict at
the November election, had strengthened the hands of the Republicans and
intensified their temper. Thaddeus Stevens brought in, February 6, 1867,
a bill which was trenchant indeed. It superseded the governments of the
ten unreconstructed States, divided their territory into five military
districts, placed their commanders under the orders, not of the
President, but of the general of the army, and suspended the habeas
corpus. It was military rule in its barest form, and for an indefinite
period. Blaine moved an amendment, specifying the terms on which the
States might be released from this military control and restored to
their normal status. But Stevens's despotic sway shut out the amendment
and carried the bill through the House. In the Senate, Sherman
successfully carried a substitute, much the same as the Blaine
amendment. This went back to the House, where a majority of Republicans
favored the change, but Stevens still opposed it, and had enough
followers to make together with the Democrats a majority that threw out
the whole measure. But success by such allies was undesired by the
radicals and alarming to the moderate Republicans. There was
reconsideration, minor concessions to Stevens, and the bill finally
passed February 20, not at all as he had designed it, but in a form due
either to Blaine or Sherman. It is singular that so important a measure
should be of doubtful paternity. It seems more like a production of
Sherman, who in constructive ability was far ahead of Blaine and of most
of his congressional colleagues. In its substance it represents
apparently the judgment and purpose of the great majority of the
Republicans in Congress.

It is remarkable that so vital and momentous a law should have been
enacted with so little discussion. It was hurried through, in order that
its passage twelve days before the close of the session might prevent
the President from "pocketing" it--letting it fail for want of his
signature, without risking a veto. The debate, as Blaine reports it in
his _Twenty Years of Congress_, seems to have been mainly for the
scheme