the Southern states was composed of eight radicals, four moderate
Republicans, and three Democrats. As James Gillespie Blaine wrote
later, "it was foreseen that in an especial degree the fortunes of the
Republican party would be in the keeping of the fifteen men who might
be chosen." This committee was divided into four subcommittees to take
testimony. The witnesses, all of whom were examined at Washington,
included army officers and Bureau agents who had served in the South,
Southern Unionists, a few politicians, and several former Confederates,
among them General Robert E. Lee and Alexander H. Stephens. Most of
the testimony was of the kind needed to support the contentions of the
radicals that Negroes were badly treated in the South; that the whites
were disloyal; that, should they be left in control, the Negro, free
labor, the nation, and the Republican party would be in danger; that
the army and the Freedmen's Bureau must be kept in the South; and that
a radical reconstruction was necessary. No serious effort, however, was
made to ascertain the actual conditions in the South. Slow to formulate
a definite plan, the Joint Committee guided public sentiment toward
radicalism, converted gradually the Republican Congressmen, and little
by little undermined the power and influence of the President.

Not until after the new year was it plain that there was to be a fight
to the finish between Congress and the President. Congress had refused
in December 1865, to accept the President's program, but there was still
hope for a compromise. Many conservatives had voted for the delay merely
to assert the rights of Congress; but the radicals wanted time to frame
a program. The Northern Democrats were embarrassingly cordial in their
support of Johnson and so also were most Southerners. The moderates were
not far away from the position of the President and the administration
Republicans. But the radicals skillfully postponed a test of strength
until Stevens and Sumner were ready. The latter declared that a
generation must elapse "before the rebel communities have so far been
changed as to become safe associates in a common government. Time,
therefore, we must have. Through time all other guarantees may be
obtained; but time itself is a guarantee."

To the Joint Committee were referred without debate all measures
relating to reconstruction, but the Committee was purposely making
little progress--contented merely to take testimony and