overnment
on the President's authority. As an incident in the history of
reconstruction, this whole matter has its place in another volume.* But
it also has a place in the history of the presidential campaign of
1864. Lincoln's plan of reconstruction was obnoxious to the Radicals in
Congress inasmuch as it did not definitely abolish slavery in Louisiana,
although it required the new Government to give its adherence to the
Emancipation Proclamation. Congress passed a bill taking reconstruction
out of the President's hands and definitely requiring the reconstructed
States to abolish slavery. Lincoln took the position that Congress had
no power over slavery in the States. When his Proclamation was thrown in
his teeth, he replied, "I conceive that I may in an emergency do things
on military grounds which cannot be done constitutionally by Congress."
Incidentally there was a further disagreement between the President and
the Radicals over negro suffrage. Though neither scheme provided for
it, Lincoln would extend it, if at all, only to the exceptional negroes,
while the Radicals were ready for a sweeping extension. But Lincoln
refused to sign their bill and it lapsed. Thereupon Benjamin Wade of
Ohio and Henry Winter Davis of Maryland issued a savage denunciation of
Lincoln which has been known ever since as the "Wade-Davis Manifesto".

* Walter L. Fleming, "The Sequel of Appomattox". In "The
Chronicles of America".

There was a faction in the Union Party which we may justly name the
Vindictives. The "Manifesto" gave them a rallying cry. At a conference
in New York they decided to compel the retirement of Lincoln and the
nomination of some other candidate. For this purpose a new convention
was to be called at Cincinnati in September. In the ranks of the
Vindictives at this time was the impetuous editor of the "New York
Tribune", Horace Greeley. His presence there calls for some explanation.
Perhaps the most singular figure of the time, he was one of the most
irresponsible and yet, through his paper, one of the most influential.
He had a trick of phrase which, somehow, made him appear oracular to the
plain people, especially in the rural districts--the very people on whom
Lincoln relied for a large part of his support. Greeley knew his
power, and his mind was not large enough to carry the knowledge well.
Furthermore, his was the sort of nature that relates itself to life
above all through the sensibilities. Kipling