ed reticent and refused to take sides. The true reason why
troops were not sent in compliance with the request of Governor Ames
was that, although the President once directed that the requisition be
complied with, he later rescinded the order when informed by
Republicans from Ohio that such interference would cause the loss of
Ohio to the Republicans at the October election and would not save
Mississippi.[408]

Referring to the Reconstruction policy, Mr. Rhodes says: "Stevens'
Reconstruction Acts, ostensibly in the interest of freedom, were an
attack on civilization.[409] In my judgment Sumner did not show wise
constructive statesmanship in forcing unqualified Negro Suffrage on
the South."[410] The truth is that Stevens and Sumner were wiser than
their day and generation. They were not favorable to an immediate
restoration of the States lately in rebellion upon any conditions.
They knew that after the cessation of hostilities, the flower of the
Confederate Army, an army which it took the entire North with all of
its numbers, immense wealth and almost limitless resources four years
to conquer, would be at the South and that upon the completion of
Reconstruction and the withdrawal of the federal troops, that army
could be utilized to bring about practically the same conditions that
existed before the war. They, therefore, opposed immediate
restoration. This is what Mr. Rhodes characterizes as an attack on
civilization. To what civilization does he refer? He surely could not
have had in mind the civilization which believed in the divine right
of slavery and which recognized and sanctioned the right of one man to
hold another as his property; and yet this was the only civilization
upon which the rebuilding of the rebellious governments was an attack.
But for the adoption of the Congressional plan of Reconstruction and
the subsequent legislation of the nation along the same line, the
abolition of slavery through the ratification of the 13th Amendment
would have been in name only, a legal and constitutional myth. This is
the civilization, however, an attack upon which Mr. Rhodes so deeply
deplores. It is fortunate for the country that a majority of Mr.
Rhodes's fellow citizens did not and do not agree with him along these
lines.

Since Stevens and Sumner could not secure the adoption of the plan
advocated by them, they proceeded to secure the adoption of the best
one that it was possible to obtain under conditions as they t