onservatives were as curious to know what line of policy he would
follow as they were anxious to point his way. His demeanor, at
first, seemed modest and commendable, but his egotism soon began
to assert itself, while his passion for stump-speaking was pampered
by the delegations which began to pour into the city from various
States and flatter him by formal addresses, to which he replied at
length. This business was kept up till the people became weary of
the din and clatter of words, and impatient for action.

CHAPTER XII.
RECONSTRUCTION AND SUFFRAGE--THE LAND QUESTION.
Visit of Indianans to the President--Gov. Morton and reconstruction
--Report of Committee on the Conduct of the War--Discussion of
negro suffrage and incidents--Personal matters--Suffrage in the
District of Columbia--The Fourteenth Constitutional Amendment--
Breach between the President and Congress--Blaine and Conkling--
Land bounties and the Homestead Law.

On the twenty-first of April I joined a large crowd of Indianans
in one of the calls on the President referred to at the close of
the last chapter. Gov. Morton headed the movement, which I now
found had a decidedly political significance. He read a lengthy
and labored address on "The Whole Duty of Man" respecting the
question of Reconstruction. He told the President that a State
could "neither secede nor by any possible means be taken out of
the Union"; and he supported and illustrated this proposition by
some very remarkable statements. He elaborated the proposition
that the loyal people of a State have the right to govern it; but
he did not explain what would become of the State if the people
were all disloyal, or the loyal so few as to be utterly helpless.
The lawful governments of the South were overthrown by treason;
and the Governor declared there was "no power in the Federal
Government to punish the people of a State collectively, by reducing
it to a territorial condition, since the crime of treason is
individual, and can only be treated individually." According to
this doctrine a rebellious State become independent. If the people
could rightfully be overpowered by the national authority, that
very fact would at once re-clothe them in all their rights, just
as if they had never rebelled. In framing their new governments
Congress would have no right to prescribe any conditions, or to
govern them in any way pending the work of State reconstruction,
since this would be to recogn