Edward Alfred Pollard, The lost cause; a new Southern history of the War of the Confederates ... Drawn from official sources and approved by the most distinguished Confederate leaders.

It was precisely this enlightened lesson which those who agreed in the sentiment of clemency, proposed to apply to the condition of the Southern States. It was this party which took its instruction from exalted schools of statesmanship; which looked at the situation from the eminence of History; and which desired to bind up with the Federal authority the rights, peace, and prosperity of all parts of the country.

Obviously the policy of this party, with reference to what was called “Reconstruction,” was to consider the Southern States as in the Union, without any ceremonies or conditions other than what might be found in the common Constitution of the country. What may be designated generally as the Conservative party in the North, had long held the doctrine that, as the Union was inviolable and permanent, secession was illegal, revolutionary, null, and void; that it had no legal validity or effect; that it was the act of seditious individuals, and did not affect the status of the States purporting to secede. This branch of their doctrine was accepted by a large number of the Republican party; among them Mr. Seward, the Secretary of State. President Lincoln had acted upon this theory when it became necessary to reorganize States overrun by Federal armies. It was held by the Conservative party, against all rational dispute, that the business of the Federal Government, with respect to the insurgent States, was simply to quell resistance, and to execute everywhere the Constitution and laws. Its contest was not with the States, but with the illegal powers within the States engaged in resisting its authority. When the resistance of these persons ceased, the work was done; and the States were eo instante, ipso facto, as much within the Union as ever; no act of re-admission being necessary. It only remained for the judiciary to proceed by indictment and legal trial, under the forms of law, against the individuals who had resisted the authority of the Union to test the fact of treason, and to vindicate the reputation of the Government. And this was the whole extent to which the policy of penalties could be insisted upon.

On this opinion there was soon to be a sharp and desperate array of parties at Washington. When, by the tragical death of President Lincoln, in a public theatre, at the hands of one of the most indefensible but courageous assassins that history has ever produced, the Executive office passed to the Vice-President, Andrew Johnson, the Southern people ignorantly deplored the change as one to their disadvantage, and the world indulged but small expectations from the coming man. The new President was sprung from a low order of life, and was what Southern gentlemen called a “scrub.” In qualities of mind it was generally considered that he had the shallowness and fluency of the demagogue; but in this there was a mistake. At any rate, it must be confessed, Mr. Johnson had no literature and but little education of any sort ; in his agrarian