st have seen the legal weakness of the
case against Andrew Johnson, still labored so hard to find some point
upon which he might be convicted. It was for political, not for legal
reasons that they did so--not reasons of political partizanship, but the
higher political reason that they thought the public interest made the
removal of Andrew Johnson from his place of power eminently desirable. I
have to confess that I leaned somewhat to that opinion myself--not that
I believed in the sinister revolutionary designs of Mr. Johnson, but
because I thought that the presence of Mr. Johnson in the presidential
office encouraged among the white people of the South hopes and
endeavors which, the longer they were indulged in, the more grievous the
harm they would do to both races. It can indeed not be said that
President Johnson failed to execute the reconstruction laws enacted by
Congress by refusing to perform the duties imposed upon him, such as the
appointment of the commanders of military divisions. He even effectively
opposed, through his able and accomplished Attorney-General, Mr.
Stanbery, the attempts of two Southern governors to stop the enforcement
of the Reconstruction Act by the legal process of injunction. But the
mere fact that he was believed to favor the reactionary element in the
South and would do all in his power to let it have its way was in itself
an influence constantly inflaming the passions kindled by mischievous
hopes.

_The Fatal Bungling of Reconstruction_

The condition of things in the South had become deplorable in the
extreme. Had the reconstruction measures enacted by Congress, harsh as
they were, been imposed upon the Southern people immediately after the
War, when the people were stunned by their overwhelming defeat, and when
there was still some apprehension of bloody vengeance to be visited upon
the leaders of the rebellion--as was the case, for instance, in Hungary
in 1849 after the collapse of the great insurrection--those measures
would have been accepted as an escape from something worse. Even negro
suffrage in a qualified form, as General Lee's testimony before the
Reconstruction Committee showed, might then have been accepted as a
peace-offering.

But the propitious moment was lost. Instead of gently persuading the
Southerners, as Lincoln would have done, that the full restoration of
the States lately in rebellion would necessarily depend upon the
readiness and good faith with which th