ver
having been out of it."

President Johnson's position was essentially that of Lincoln, but his
attitude toward the working out of the several problems was different.
He maintained that the states survived and that it was the duty of the
executive to restore them to their proper relations. "The true theory,"
said he, "is that all pretended acts of secession were from the
beginning null and void. The States cannot commit treason nor screen
individual citizens who may have committed treason any more than they
can make valid treaties or engage in lawful commerce with any foreign
power. The states attempting to secede placed themselves in a condition
where their vitality was impaired, but not extinguished; their functions
suspended, but not destroyed." Lincoln would have had no severe
punishments inflicted even on leaders, but Johnson wanted to destroy
the "slavocracy," root and branch. Confiscation of estates would, he
thought, be a proper measure. He said on one occasion: "Traitors should
take a back seat in the work of restoration.... My judgment is that he
[a rebel] should be subjected to a severe ordeal before he is restored
to citizenship. Treason should be made odious, and traitors must be
punished and impoverished. Their great plantations must be seized,
and divided into small farms and sold to honest, industrious men."
The violence of Johnson's views subsequently underwent considerable
modification but to the last he held to the plan of executive
restoration based upon state perdurance. Neither Lincoln nor Johnson
favored a change of Southern institutions other than the abolition of
slavery, though each recommended a qualified Negro suffrage.

There were, however, other theories in the field, notably those of the
radical Republican leaders. According to the state-suicide theory of
Charles Sumner, "any vote of secession or other act by which any State
may undertake to put an end to the supremacy of the Constitution within
its territory is inoperative and void against the Constitution, and when
sustained by force it becomes a practical ABDICATION by the State of
all rights under the Constitution, while the treason it involves still
further works an instant FORFEITURE of all those functions and powers
essential to the continued existence of the State as a body politic,
so that from that time forward the territory falls under the exclusive
jurisdiction of Congress as other territory, and the State, being
according