the caustic sentence of Mr. Stevens it had been totally overthrown.
The average judgement approved the sharply defined and stringent
policy of Congress as set forth by Mr. Stevens, rather than
the policy so comprehensively embodied and so skilfully advocated by
Mr. Seward on behalf of the Administration. Whatever may have been the
temptations presented by the apparent magnanimity and broad charity of
Mr. Seward's line of procedure, they were more than answered by the
instincts of justice and by the sense of safety embodied in the plan of
Reconstruction announced and about to be pursued by Congress.

The Joint Special Committee on Reconstruction, appointed at the
opening of the Thirty-ninth Congress in December, did not meet for
organization until the 6th of January, 1866. As an indication of the
respectful manner in which they desired to treat the President, and
the care with which they would proceed in their important duties, they
appointed a sub-committee to wait on Mr. Johnson and advise him that
the committee desired to avoid all possible collision or
misconstruction between the Executive and Congress in regard to their
relative positions. They informed the President that in their
judgment it was exceedingly desirable that while this subject was
under consideration by the joint committee no further action in regard
to Reconstruction should be taken by him unless it should become
imperatively necessary. The committee plainly declared that mutual
respect would seem to require mutual forbearance on the part of the
President and Congress. Mr. Johnson replied in effect that, while
desiring the question of Reconstruction to be advanced as rapidly as
would be consistent with the public interest, he earnestly sought for
harmony of action, and to that end he would take no further steps
without advising Congress. This promise of each branch of the
Government to wait patiently on the other was no doubt sincere, but it
soon proved difficult, if not impossible, to maintain the compact.
When two co-ordinate departments were holding antagonistic views on
the vital question at issue, collisions between them could not be
averted. As matter of fact the resolution, as has been seen by events
already narrated, so far from proving itself to be an adjustment did
not serve even as a truce between the President and Congress. It was
found impracticable to secure repression and the contest went forward
with constantly accelerating sp