oubted
the expediency of now reaeffirming it. "I regard it," said he, "as a
mere straw in a storm, thrown in at an inopportune moment; the mere
assertion of a naked right which has never yet been disputed, and
never can be successfully; a mere assertion of a right that we have
over and over again asserted. My idea is that the true way to assert
this power is to exercise it, and that it was only necessary for
Congress to exercise that power in order to meet all these complicated
difficulties."

Mr. Sherman regarded the President's speech as humiliating and
unworthy of his high office. A part of the speech he characterized as
"the product of resentment, hatched by anger and passion, and hurled,
without reflection, at those he believed wished to badger and insult
him."

Mr. Sherman favored the prompt restoration of Tennessee. "I think our
first duty," said he, "is at once to prepare a mode and manner by
which she may be admitted into the Union upon such terms and
conditions as will make her way back the way of pleasantness and
peace."

Of the general question of reconstruction he said: "If I had any power
in arranging a plan, I would mark the line as broad and deep between
the loyal people who stood at our side and the rebels who fought
against us as between heaven and hell."

"How can you do it?" asked Mr. Howard.

"Whenever loyal men," replied Mr. Sherman, "present a State
organization, complying with such terms and conditions and tests of
loyalty as you may prescribe, and will send here loyal Representatives,
I would admit them; and whenever rebels send or come here, I would
reject them."

"I fear the storm," said Mr. Sherman, near the conclusion of his
speech. "I fear struggles and contentions in these eleven States,
unless there is some mode by which the local power of those States may
be put in loyal hands, and by which their voices may be heard here in
council and in command, in deliberation and debate, as of old. They
will come back here shorn of their undue political power, humbled in
their pride, with a consciousness that one man bred under free
institutions is as good, at least, as a man bred under slave
institutions. I want to see the loyal people in the South, if they are
few, trusted; if they are many, give them power. Prescribe your
conditions, but let them come back into the Union upon such terms as
you may prescribe. Open the door for them. I hope we may see harmony
restored in this great Union o