ia. The army, used to preserve the Union might
be used also to restore disturbed parts of it to normal condition.
Assuming that the "States" still existed, "loyal" state governments were
the first necessity. By his proclamation of December 8, 1863, Lincoln
suggested a method of beginning the reconstruction: he would pardon any
Confederate, except specified classes of leaders, who took an oath
of loyalty for the future; if as many as ten percent of the voting
population of 1860, thus made loyal, should establish a state government
the executive would recognize it. The matter of slavery must, indeed,
be left to the laws and proclamations as interpreted by the courts, but
other institutions should continue as in 1861.

This plan was inaugurated in four States which had been in part
controlled by the Federal army from nearly the beginning of the war:
Tennessee (1862), Louisiana (1862), Arkansas (1862), and Virginia after
the formation of West Virginia (1863). For each state Lincoln appointed
a military governor: for Tennessee, Andrew Johnson; for Arkansas, John
S. Phelps; for Louisiana, General Shepley. In Virginia he recognized the
"reorganized" government, which had been transferred to Alexandria
when the new State of West Virginia was formed. The military governors
undertook the slow and difficult work of reorganization, however,
with but slight success owing to the small numbers of Unionists and of
Confederates who would take the oath. But by 1864, "ten percent" state
governments were established in Arkansas and Louisiana, and progress was
being made in Tennessee.

Congress was impatient of Lincoln's claim to executive precedence in the
matter of reconstruction, and in 1864, both Houses passed the
Wade-Davis Bill, a plan which asserted the right of Congress to control
reconstruction and foreshadowed a radical settlement of the question.
Lincoln disposed of the bill by a pocket veto and, in a proclamation
dated July 8, 1864, stated that he was unprepared "to be inflexibly
committed to any single plan of restoration," or to discourage loyal
citizens by setting aside the governments already established in
Louisiana and Arkansas, or to recognize the authority of Congress to
abolish slavery. He was ready, however, to cooperate with the people
of any State who wished to accept the plan prepared by Congress and
he hoped that a constitutional amendment abolishing slavery would be
adopted.

Lincoln early came to the conclusio