day; but in each state there were
signs of the political revolution which a few years later was to put the
radicals out of power.

The executive plan for the restoration of the Union, begun by Lincoln
and adopted by Johnson, was, as we have seen, at first applied in all
the states which had seceded. A military governor was appointed in each
state by the President by virtue of his authority as commander in chief.
This official, aided by a civilian staff of his own choice and supported
by the United States army and other Federal agencies, reorganized the
state administration and after a few months turned the state and local
governments over to regularly elected officials. Restoration should
now have been completed, but Congress refused to admit the senators
and representatives of these states, and entered upon a fifteen
months' struggle with the President over details of the methods of the
reconstruction. Meanwhile the Southern States, though unrepresented
in Congress, continued their activities, with some interference from
Federal authorities, until Congress in 1867 declared their governments
nonexistent.

The work begun by Lincoln and Johnson deserved better success. The
original plan restored to political rights only a small number of
Unionists, the lukewarm Confederates, and the unimportant. But in spite
of the threatening speeches of Johnson, he used his power of pardon
until none except the most prominent leaders were excluded. The
personnel of the Johnson governments was fair. The officials were,
in the main, former Douglas Democrats and Whigs, respectable and
conservative, but not admired or loved by the people. The conventions
and the legislatures were orderly and dignified and manifested a desire
to accept the situation.

There were no political parties at first, but material for several
existed. If things had been allowed to take their course, there would
have arisen a normal cleavage between former Whigs and Democrats,
between the upcountry and the low country, between the slaveholders
and the nonslaveholders. The average white man in these governments was
willing to be fair to the Negro but was not greatly concerned about his
future. In the view of most white people, it was the white man who was
emancipated. The white districts had no desire to let the power return
to the Black Belt by giving the Negro the ballot, for the vote of the
Negroes, they believed, would be controlled by their former masters.

J