with force to be used in executing the laws, he
regarded himself as sole judge of the time when force should no longer
be needed. And in this spirit he offered pardon to many leaders of the
Confederacy in May, 1865. He followed amnesty with provisional
governments, and proclaimed rules according to which the conquered
States should revise their constitutions and reestablish orderly and
loyal governments. He had reorganized the last of the eleven States
before Congress could interfere with him.

The difference between Johnson and his Republican associates lay in the
character of the restored electorates in the South. The whole white
population had, in most States, been implicated in secession. There was
no Union faction in the South that remained loyal throughout the war.
Pardoned and restored to a full share in the Government, these Southern
leaders would come back into Congress as Democrats, and with increased
strength. The Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery, and raised the
representation of the negroes in the South from the old three-fifths
ratio to par. Every State would come back with more Representatives than
it had had before the war, and with the aid of Northern Democrats it was
not unlikely that a control of Congress might be obtained.

To Northern Republicans it was unreasonable that the conquered South
should be rewarded instead of punished, and that any theory of
reconstruction should risk bringing into power the party that Union men,
headed by Lincoln, had defeated in 1864. Politicians, interested in the
spoils of office, were enraged at the thought of losing them.
Disinterested Northerners, who had sacrificed much to save the Union,
believed it unsafe at once to hand it over to a combination of peace
Democrats and former "rebels." Yet this was Johnson's plan, and
Congress, with radical Republicans in control, set about to prevent it.

Although Johnson, as President, controlled the patronage, Congress
possessed the power, if not the moral right, to limit him in its use. No
appointment could be made without the consent of the Senate, which was
Republican. In 1867 Congress enacted that no removal should be made
without the same consent, in a Tenure-of-Office Bill that brought the
dispute to a climax. More important than this power of concurrence was
the exclusive right of each house to judge of "the elections, returns,
and qualifications" of its own members. So long as the Southern Senators
and Represen