incoln might have
"prosecuted peace" successfully. His policy was very unlike that
proposed by the radical leaders. They would base the new governments
upon the loyalty of the past plus the aid of enfranchised slaves; he
would establish the new regime upon the loyalty of the future. Like
Governor Andrew he thought that restoration must be effected by the
willing efforts of the South. He would aid and guide but not force the
people. If the latter did not wish restoration, they might remain under
military rule. There should be no forced Negro suffrage, no sweeping
disfranchisement of whites, no "carpetbaggism."

The work of President Johnson demands for its proper understanding some
consideration of the condition of the political parties at the close of
the war, for politics had much to do with reconstruction. The Democratic
party, divided and defeated in the election of 1860, lost its Southern
members in 1861 by the secession and remained a minority party during
the remainder of the war. It retained its organization, however, and
in 1864 polled a large vote. Discredited by its policy of opposition to
Lincoln's administration, its ablest leaders joined the Republicans
in support of the war. Until 1869, the party was poorly represented
in Congress although, as soon as hostilities ended, the War Democrats
showed a tendency to return to the old party. As to reconstruction, the
party stood on the Crittenden-Johnson resolutions of 1861, though most
Democrats were now willing to have slavery abolished.

The Republican party--frankly sectional and going into power on the
single issue of opposition to the extension of slavery--was forced by
the secession movement to take up the task of preserving the Union by
war. Consequently, the party developed new principles, welcomed the aid
of the War Democrats, and found it advisable to drop its name and
with its allies to form the Union or National Union party. It was
this National Union party which in 1864 nominated Abraham Lincoln,
a Republican, and Andrew Johnson, a Democrat, on the same ticket.
Lincoln's second Cabinet was composed of both Republicans and War
Democrats. When the war ended, the conservative leaders were anxious
to hold the Union party together in order to be in a better position
to settle the problems of reconstruction, but the movement of the War
Democrats back to their old party tended to leave in the Union party
only its Republican members, with the radical leaders