The Struggle between President Johnson and Congress over Reconstruction

years of the war, after hope of success had begun to die out, some of the Southern States looked very favorably upon the plan; but nothing approximating such a convention resulted.[16]

4. At the beginning of his term of office, President Lincoln held the then prevailing belief in the supremacy of the States in all matters not directly under federal control, and as a matter of course believed that at the cessation of hostilities each State should immediately resume its old relations to the government, its local matters untouched by the central administration.[17] But the ability of Lincoln to modify his own beliefs on any subject as his experience widened was never better manifested than on this very question, and had he lived to control the administration through the period of reconstruction, it is not unreasonable to suppose that his attitude would have undergone still greater change. As the magnitude of the struggle became more apparent, he began to deliberate upon the advisability of striking at the