dominating.

In the South the pressure of war so united the people that party
divisions disappeared for a time, but the causes of division continued
to exist, and two parties, at least, would have developed had the
pressure been removed. Though all factions supported the war after it
began, the former Whigs and Douglas Democrats, when it was over, liked
to remember that they had been "Union" men in 1860 and expected to
organize in opposition to the extreme Democrats, who were now charged
with being responsible for the misfortunes of the South. They were in
a position to affiliate with the National Union party of the North if
proper inducements were offered, while the regular Democrats were ready
to rejoin their old party. But the embittered feelings resulting from
the murder of Lincoln and the rapid development of the struggle between
President Johnson and Congress caused the radicals "to lump the old
Union Democrats and Whigs together with the secessionists--and many were
driven where they did not want to go, into temporary affiliation with
the Democratic party." Thousands went very reluctantly; the old Whigs,
indeed, were not firmly committed to the Democrats until radical
reconstruction had actually begun. Still other "loyalists" in the
South were prepared to join the Northern radicals in advocating the
disfranchisement of Confederates and in opposing the granting of
suffrage to the Negroes.

The man upon whom fell the task of leading these opposing factions,
radical and conservative, along a definite line of action looking to
reunion had few qualifications for the task. Johnson was ill-educated,
narrow, and vindictive and was positive that those who did not agree
with him were dishonest. Himself a Southerner, picked up by the National
Union Convention of 1864, as Thaddeus Stevens said, from "one of those
damned rebel provinces," he loved the Union, worshiped the Constitution,
and held to the strict construction views of the State Rights Democrats.
Rising from humble beginnings, he was animated by the most intense
dislike of the "slavocracy," as he called the political aristocracy of
the South. Like many other American leaders he was proud of his humble
origin, but unlike many others he never sloughed off his backwoods
crudeness. He continually boasted of himself and vilified the
aristocrats, who in return treated him badly. His dislike of them was
so marked that Isham G. Harris, a rival politician, remarked that "