Ans. I was present, I think, twice before the assassination of Mr. Lincoln, when a plan was read.
Ques. I want to know whether the plan adopted by Mr. Johnson was substantially the plan which had been inaugurated by Mr. Lincoln as the basis for his future action.
Ans. Yes sir: substantially. I do not know but that it was verbatim the same.
Ques. I suppose the very paper of Mr. Lincoln was the one acted on?
Ans. I should think so. I think that the very paper which I heard read twice while Mr. Lincoln was President, was the one which was carried right through.
Ques. What paper was that?
Ans. The North Carolina Proclamation.
In additional testimony that Mr. Johnson was endeavoring to carry out Mr. Lincoln's methods of reconstruction, the following extracts from a speech by Gov. O. P. Morton, of Indiana, delivered at Richmond, that State, Sept. 29th, 1865, are here inserted:
An impression has gotten abroad in the North that Mr. Johnson has devised some new policy by which improper facilities are granted for the restoration of the rebel States, and that he is presenting improperly and unnecessarily hurrying forward the work of reconstruction, and that he is offering improper facilities for restoring those who have been engaged in the rebellion to the possession of their civil and political rights.
It is one of my purposes here this evening to show that so far as his policy of amnesty and reconstruction is concerned, he has absolutely presented nothing new, but that he has simply presented, and is simply continuing THE POLICY WHICH MR. LINCOLN PRESENTED TO THE NATION ON THE 8TH OF DECEMBER, 1863. Mr. Johnson's policy differs from Mr. Lincoln's in some restrictions it contains, which Mr. Lincoln's did not contain. His plan of reconstruction is absolutely and simply that of Mr. Lincoln, nothing more or less, with one difference only, that Mr. Lincoln required that one-tenth of the people of the disloyal States should be willing to embrace his plan of reconstruction, whereas Mr. Johnson says nothing about the number; but, so far as it has been acted upon yet, it has been done by a number much greater than one-tenth. * * * Their plans of amnesty and reconstruction cannot be distinguished from each other except in the particulars already mentioned, that Mr. Johnson proposed to restrict certain persons from taking the oath, unless they have a special pardon from him, whom Mr. Lincoln permitted to come forward and take the oath without it. * * * That was Mr. Lincoln's policy at the time he was nominated for re-election by the Union Convention at Baltimore, last summer; and in that convention the party sustained him and strongly endorsed his whole policy, of which this was a prominent part. MR. LINCOLN WAS TRIUMPHANTLY AND OVERWHELMINGLY RE-ELECTED UPON THAT POLICY.