ual
who would apply for it. The result was, it seemed to be certain
that if the Johnson policy were carried out to the fullest extent,
the supremacy of the Republican party in the councils of the Nation
would be at stake.

To express it in a word, the motive of the opposition to the Johnson
plan of reconstruction was the firm conviction that its success
would wreck the Republican party, and by restoring the Democrats
to power bring back Southern supremacy and Northern vassalage.
The impeachment, in a word, was the culmination of the struggle
between the legislative and the executive departments of the
Government over the problem of reconstruction. The legislative
department claimed exclusive jurisdiction over reconstruction; the
executive claimed that it alone was competent to deal with the
subject.

This is a very brief summary of the conditions which confronted us
when I entered the Thirty-ninth Congress. Representatives of the
eleven seceding States were there to claim their seats in Congress.
The Republican members met in caucus the Saturday evening preceding
the meeting of Congress on Monday. I, as a member-elect, was
present, and I remember how old Thaddeus Stevens at once assumed
the dominating control in opposition to the President's plan.
Stevens was a most remarkable character,--one of the most remarkable
in the legislative history of the United States. He believed firmly
in negro equality and negro suffrage. As one writer eloquently
expresses it:

"According to his creed, the insurgent States were conquered
provinces to be shaped into a paradise for the freedman and a hell
for the rebel. His eye shot over the blackened southern land; he
saw the carnage, the desolation, the starvation, and the shame;
and like a battered old warhorse, he flung up his frontlet, sniffed
the tainted breeze, and snorted 'Ha, Ha!'"

It was at once determined by the Republican majority in Congress
that the representatives of the eleven seceding States should not
be admitted. The Constitution expressly gives to the House and
Senate the exclusive power to judge of the admission and qualification
of its own members.

We were surprised at the moderation of the President's message,
which came in on Tuesday after Congress assembled. In tone and
general character the message was wholly unlike Johnson. It was
an admirable state document, one of the finest from a literary and
probably from every other standpoint that ever c