Pennsylvanians called upon him with ex-Secretary Simon
Cameron as their spokesman. In reply Mr. Johnson said, "There has been
an effort since this rebellion began, to make the impression that it
was a mere political struggle, or, as I see it thrown out in some of
the papers, a struggle for the ascendency of certain principles from
the dawn of the government to the present time, and now settled by the
final triumph of the Federal arms. If this is admitted, the Government
is at an end; for no question can arise but they will make it a party
issue, and then to whatever length they carry it, the party defeated
will only be a party defeated, with no crime attaching thereto. But I
say that treason is a crime, the very highest crime known to the law,
and there are men who ought to suffer the penalty of their treason!
. . . To the unconscious, the deceived, the conscripted, in short, to
the great mass of the misled, I would say mercy, clemency,
reconciliation, and the restoration of their government. But to those
who have deceived, to the conscious, intelligent, influential traitor
who attempted to destroy the life of a nation, I would say, on you be
inflicted the severest penalties of your crime."

The inflexible sternness of Mr. Johnson's tone and the frequent
repetition of his intention to inflict the severest penalty of the law
upon the leading traitors, began to create apprehension in the North.
It was feared that the country might be called upon to witness, after
the four years' carnival of death on the battle-field and in the
hospital, an era of "bloody assizes," made the more rigorous and
revengeful from the peculiar sense of injury which the President, as a
loyal Southerner, had realized in his own person. This feeling was
probably still further aggravated by his avowed sympathy with the
thousands in the South who had been maimed, driven from home, stripped
of all their property, simply because of the fidelity to the
Constitution and the Union of their fathers. The spirit of the
_Vendetta_, unknown in the Northern States, was frequently shown in the
South, where it had long been domesticated with all its Corsican
ferocity. It had raged in many instances to the extermination of
families, and in many localities to the destruction of peace and the
utter defiance of law--not infrequently indeed paralyzing the
administration of justice in whole counties. Often seeking and waging
open combat with ferocious courage, i