By its adversaries the plan of Mr. Lincoln was condemned for its failure to exact any security for the future beyond the oath of allegiance, the telegraphic supervision by the President and the power of Congress over the admission of members. This defect the legislative theory endeavored to supply, but even the guardianship proposed by Wade and Davis could give no assurance that the rebellious communities would not, after reinstatement, eliminate by constitutional amendment the conditions imposed on their readmission.[[497]]
However crude we may now consider Mr. Lincoln’s system it should not be forgotten that with him the paramount consideration was the overthrow of the Confederacy. With that purpose all his measures harmonized, and it is scarcely critical to examine them from any other point of view. How far necessity, which had originally suggested, would subsequently have modified his plan it is now impossible to state. Without detracting a particle from his well-won fame it may be admitted that his method, which could not have foreseen the rapid succession of changes following his death, was but indifferently adapted to solve the problem with which Congress was compelled to deal in 1867; but the measure of permanent success which attended the deliberate legislation of that body by no means justifies the conclusion that some other system would have proved a total failure. With all its immaturity the plan of the President was not without its advantages. It aimed to restore with as little innovation as possible the Union of the Fathers; with some exceptions the natural leaders of Southern society were to participate in the work of reorganization, and the author of this simple plan approached his difficult task in a generous and enlightened spirit.
On the life and character of Abraham Lincoln an admiring generation has exhausted the language of panegyric; the terms of censure have been reserved almost exclusively for his method of restoring the Union; but neither the critic’s ken, nor the ambitious phrase of eulogy, nor all the thoughts that since his death have dropped from poets’ pens affords that clear insight into his nature which is unconsciously revealed in the simple and beautiful exhortation that concludes his last inaugural. The sentiments which immortalize that celebrated state paper could have proceeded only from the depths of a noble soul—a soul that would have imposed silence on the voice of vengeance and would never have consented to the revenge of section upon section. In this book an endeavor has been made fully to discuss his plan of reconstruction; the spirit in which he approached that difficult task is best stated in his own generous and patriotic words, with which may be fittingly closed this long though interesting inquiry: “With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan—to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations.”[[498]]
THE END.
APPENDIX A
THIRTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS
SENATE
First session, July 4, 1861, to August 6, 1861. Republicans (31) in Roman, Democrats (10) in Italics, Unionists (7) in SMALL CAPITALS, vacancies 2.
Second session, Dec. 1, 1862, to Mar. 4, 1864.
CALIFORNIA.—Milton S. Latham and James A. McDougall (vice E. D. Baker, who died).
CONNECTICUT.—James Dixon and Lafayette S. Foster.