for any other man. We simply must begin with
and mould from disorganized and discordant elements. Nor is it a small
additional embarrassment that we, the loyal people, differ among ourselves
as to the mode, manner, and measure of reconstruction. As a general rule,
I abstain from reading the reports of attacks upon myself, Wishing not to
be provoked by that to which I cannot properly offer an answer. In spite
of this precaution, however, it comes to my knowledge that I am much
censured for some supposed agency in setting up and seeking to sustain the
new State government of Louisiana. In this I have done just so much and no
more than the public knows. In the Annual Message of December, 1863, and
the accompanying proclamation, I presented a plan of reconstruction,
as the phrase goes, which I promised, if adopted by any State, would be
acceptable to and sustained by the Executive Government of the nation. I
distinctly stated that this was not the only plan that might possibly be
acceptable, and I also distinctly protested that the Executive claimed
no right to say when or whether members should be admitted to seats in
Congress from such States. This plan was in advance submitted to the then
Cabinet, and approved by every member of it. One of them suggested that I
should then and in that connection apply the Emancipation Proclamation to
the theretofore excepted parts of Virginia and Louisiana; that I should
drop the suggestion about apprenticeship for freed people, and that I
should omit the protest against my own power in regard to the admission
of members of Congress. But even he approved every part and parcel of the
plan which has since been employed or touched by the action of Louisiana.
The new constitution of Louisiana, declaring emancipation for the whole
State, practically applies the proclamation to the part previously
excepted. It does not adopt apprenticeship for freed people, and is
silent, as it could not well be otherwise, about the admission of members
to Congress. So that, as it applied to Louisiana, every member of the
Cabinet fully approved the plan. The message went to Congress, and I
received many commendations of the plan, written and verbal, and not
a single objection to it from any professed emancipationist came to my
knowledge until after the news reached Washington that the people of
Louisiana had begun to move in accordance with it. From about July, 1862,
I had corresponded with different persons sup