It was to obviate this
question that I earnestly favored the movement for an amendment to the
Constitution abolishing slavery, which passed the Senate and failed in
the House. I thought it much better, if it were possible, to restore the
Union without the necessity of a violent quarrel among its friends as to
whether certain States have been in or out of the Union during the
war--a merely metaphysical question and one unnecessary to be forced
into discussion."
But though every member of the cabinet agreed with him, he foresaw the
importance of the step he had resolved to take, and its possible
disastrous consequences to himself. When some one said that the threats
of the radicals were without foundation, and that the people would not
bolt their ticket on a question of metaphysics, he answered:
"If they choose to make a point upon this, I do not doubt that they can
do harm. They have never been friendly to me. At all events, I must keep
some consciousness of being somewhere near right. I must keep some
standard or principle fixed within myself."
Convinced, after fullest deliberation, that the bill was too restrictive
in its provisions, and yet unwilling to reject whatever of practical
good might be accomplished by it, he disregarded precedents, and acting
on his lifelong rule of taking the people into his confidence, issued a
proclamation on July 8, giving a copy of the bill of Congress, reciting
the circumstances under which it was passed, and announcing that while
he was unprepared by formal approval of the bill to be inflexibly
committed to any single plan of restoration, or to set aside the
free-State governments already adopted in Arkansas and Louisiana, or to
declare that Congress was competent to decree the abolishment of
slavery; yet he was fully satisfied with the plan as one very proper
method of reconstruction, and promised executive aid to any State that
might see fit to adopt it.
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