lan should be accepted by
the country no material change would follow, for the reason, chiefly,
that the abolition of slavery would have been abolition only in name.
While physical slavery would have been abolished, yet a sort of feudal
or peonage system would have been established in its place, the effect
of which would have been practically the same as the system which had
been abolished. The former slaves would have been held in a state of
servitude through the medium of labor-contracts which they would have
been obliged to sign,--or to have signed for them,--from which they, and
their children, and, perhaps, their children's children could never have
been released. This would have left the old order of things practically
unchanged. The large landowners would still be the masters of the
situation, the power being still possessed by them to perpetuate their
own potential influence and to maintain their own political supremacy.

But it was the rejection of the Johnson Plan of Reconstruction that
upset these plans and destroyed these calculations. The Johnson plan was
not only rejected, but what was known as the Congressional Plan of
Reconstruction,--by which suffrage was conferred upon the colored men in
all the States that were to be reconstructed,--was accepted by the
people of the North as the permanent policy of the government, and was
thus made the basis of Reconstruction and readmission of those States
into the Union.

Of course this meant a change in the established order of things that
was both serious and radical. It meant the destruction of the power and
influence of the Southern aristocracy. It meant not only the physical
emancipation of the blacks but the political emancipation of the poor
whites, as well. It meant the destruction in a large measure of the
social, political, and industrial distinctions that had been maintained
among the whites under the old order of things. But was this to be the
settled policy of the government? Was it a fact that the incorporation
of the blacks into the body politic of the country was to be the settled
policy of the government; or was it an experiment,--a temporary
expedient?

These were doubtful and debatable questions, pending the settlement of
which matters could not be expected to take a definite shape. With the
incorporation of the blacks into the body politic of the country,--which
would have the effect of destroying the ability of the aristocracy to
maintain the