out? This, in effect,
was the basis of reconstruction, as finally carried out. The steady
opposition of the Democrats only made the final terms the harder.

The principle urged consistently from the beginning of the war by
Thaddeus Stevens, of Pennsylvania, was that serious resistance to the
Constitution implied the suspension of the Constitution in the area
of resistance. No one, he insisted, could truthfully assert that the
Constitution of the United States was then in force in South Carolina;
why should Congress be bound by the Constitution in matters connected
with South Carolina? If the resistance should be successful, the
suspension of the Constitution would evidently be perpetual; Congress
alone could decide when the resistance had so far ceased that
the operations of the Constitution could be resumed. The terms of
readmission were thus to be laid down by Congress. To much the same
effect was the different theory of Charles Sumner, of Massachusetts.
While he held that the seceding States could not remove themselves from
the national jurisdiction, except by successful war, he maintained
that no Territory was obliged to become a State, and that no State was
obliged to remain a State; that the seceding States had repudiated their
State-hood, had committed suicide as States, and had become Territories;
and that the powers of Congress to impose conditions on their
readmission were as absolute as in the case of other Territories.
Neither of these theories was finally followed out in reconstruction,
but both had a strong influence on the final process.

President Lincoln followed the plan subsequently completed by Johnson.
The original (Pierpont) government of Virginia was recognized and
supported. Similar governments were established in Tennessee, Louisiana,
and Arkansas, and an unsuccessful attempt was made to do so in Florida.
The amnesty proclamation of December, 1863, offered to recognize any
State government in the seceding States formed by one tenth of the
former voters who should take the oath of loyalty and support of the
emancipation measures. At the following session of Congress, the first
bill providing for congressional supervision of the readmission of
the seceding States was passed, but the President retained it without
signing it until Congress had adjourned. At the time of President
Lincoln's assassination Congress was not in session, and President
Johnson had six months in which to complete the work.