some
standard or principle fixed within myself."

Convinced, after fullest deliberation, that the bill was too restrictive
in its provisions, and yet unwilling to reject whatever of practical
good might be accomplished by it, he disregarded precedents, and acting
on his lifelong rule of taking the people into his confidence, issued a
proclamation on July 8, giving a copy of the bill of Congress, reciting
the circumstances under which it was passed, and announcing that while
he was unprepared by formal approval of the bill to be inflexibly
committed to any single plan of restoration, or to set aside the
free-State governments already adopted in Arkansas and Louisiana, or to
declare that Congress was competent to decree the abolishment of
slavery; yet he was fully satisfied with the plan as one very proper
method of reconstruction, and promised executive aid to any State that
might see fit to adopt it.

The great mass of Republican voters, who cared little for the
"metaphysics" of the case, accepted this proclamation, as they had
accepted that issued six months before, as the wisest and most
practicable method of handling the question; but among those already
hostile to the President, and those whose devotion to the cause of
freedom was so ardent as to make them look upon him as lukewarm, the
exasperation which was already excited increased. The indignation of Mr.
Davis and of Mr. Wade, who had called the bill up in the Senate, at
seeing their work thus brought to nothing, could not be restrained; and
together they signed and published in the New York "Tribune" of August 5
the most vigorous attack ever directed against the President from his
own party; insinuating that only the lowest motives dictated his action,
since by refusing to sign the bill he held the electoral votes of the
rebel States at his personal dictation; calling his approval of the bill
of Congress as a very proper plan for any State choosing to adopt it, a
"studied outrage"; and admonishing the people to "consider the remedy of
these usurpations, and, having found it," to "fearlessly execute it."

Congress had already repealed the fugitive-slave law, and to the voters
at large, who joyfully accepted the emancipation proclamation, it
mattered very little whether the "institution" came to its inevitable
end, in the fragments of territory where it yet remained, by virtue of
congressional act or executive decree. This tempest over the method of
reconstru