egard to it.

" ... In honestly seeking to preserve the Union, it is not for President
Lincoln to seek, by a special edict applied to a particular State or
locality, to do violence to a universal rule, accepted and acted upon
from the beginning till now by the States in their individual
sovereignty.... Nor, if the freed blacks were admitted to the polls by
Presidential fiat do I see any permanent advantage likely to be secured
by it; for, submitted to as a necessity at the outset, as soon as the
State was organized and left to manage its own affairs, the white
population with their superior intelligence, wealth, and power, would
unquestionably alter the franchise in accordance with their prejudices,
and exclude those thus summarily brought to the polls. Coercion would
gain nothing." A very remarkable prophecy, which has since been exactly
fulfilled in the Southern States. Garrison, however, in the subsequent
struggle between Congress and Mr. Lincoln's successor over this selfsame
point in its wider relation to all of the Southern States, took sides
against Andrew Johnson and in favor of the Congressional fiat method of
transforming chattels personal into citizens. The elimination of Abraham
Lincoln from, and the introduction of Andrew Johnson upon the National
stage at this juncture, did undoubtedly effect such a change of
circumstances, as to make the Congressional fiat method a political
necessity. It was distinctly the less of two evils which at the moment
was thrust upon the choice of the Northern people.

The same breadth and liberality of view, which marked his treatment of
Mr. Lincoln upon the subject of emancipation and of that of
reconstruction, marked his treatment also of other questions which the
suppression of the rebellion presented to his consideration. Although a
radical peace man, how just was his attitude toward the men and the
measures of the War for the Union. Nothing that he did evinced on his
part greater tact or toleration than his admirable behavior in this
respect. To his eldest son, George Thompson, who was no adherent of the
doctrine of non-resistance, and who was commissioned by Governor Andrew,
a second lieutenant in the Fifty-fifth Massachusetts Regiment, the
pioneer wrote expressing his regret that the young lieutenant had not
been able "to adopt those principles of peace which are so sacred and
divine to my soul, yet you will bear me witness that I have not laid a
straw in your way to pr