Senator in the opinion that all the acts and ordinances of secession were mere nullities, and should be so treated; that while such acts might subject individuals to penalties and forfeitures, they did not in any degree affect the States as commonwealths, and their relations to the Federal Government; that such acts were rebellious, insurrectionary, and hostile on the part of the persons engaged in them, but that the States, notwithstanding the acts and conspiracies of individuals, were still members of the Federal Union, and that the loyal citizens of these States had forfeited none of their rights, but were entitled to all the protection and privileges guaranteed by the Constitution.

The theory and principles set forth in Senator Dixon's resolutions were the opinions and convictions of the President, deliberately formed and consistently maintained while he lived, on the subject of reconstruction and the condition of the States and people in the insurrectionary region. In his view there was no actual secession, no dismembering of the Union, no change in the Constitution and Government; the relative position of the States and the Federal Government were unchanged; the organic, fundamental laws of neither were altered by the sectional conspiracy; the whole people, North and South, were American citizens; each person was responsible for his own acts and amenable to law; and he was also entitled to the protection of the law, and the rights and privileges secured by the Constitution. The confiscation and emancipation schemes concerning which there was so much excitement in Congress were of secondary consideration to the all-absorbing one of preserving the Union.

The second session of the Thirty-seventh Congress closed on the 17th of July. Its proceedings had been confused and uneasy, with a good deal of discontented and revolutionary feeling, which increased toward the close. The decisive stand which the President had taken, and which he calmly, firmly, and persistently maintained against the extreme measures of some of the most prominent Republicans in Congress, was unsatisfactory. It was insinuated that his sympathies on important measures had more of a Democratic than Republican tendency; yet the Democratic party maintained an organized and often unreasonable, if not unpatriotic, opposition.

Military operations, aside from naval success at New Orleans and on the upper Mississippi, had been a succession of military reverses. Disagreement between the Secretary of War and the General-in-Chief, which the President could not reconcile, caused the latter to be superseded after the disastrous result before Richmond. Dissensions in the army and among the Republicans in Congress, the persistent opposition of Democrats to the Administration, and the general depression that prevailed were discouraging. "In my position," said the President, "I am environed with difficulties." Friends on whom he felt he ought to be able to rely were dissatisfied with his conscientious scruples and lenity, and party opponents were unrelenting against the Administration.

A few days before Congress adjourned, the President made another but unsuccessful effort to dispose of the slavery question, by trying to induce the border States to take the initiative in his plan of compensated emancipation. The interview between him and the representatives of the border States, which took place on the 12th of July, convinced him that the project of voluntary emancipation by the States would not succeed. Were it commenced by one or more of the States, he had little doubt it would be followed by others, and eventuate in general emancipation by the States themselves. Failing in the voluntary plan, he was compelled, as a war necessity, to proclaim freedom to all slaves in the rebel section, if the war continued to be prosecuted after a certain date. This bold and almost revolutionary measure, which would change the industrial character of many States, could be justified on no other ground than as a war measure, the result of military necessity. It was an unexpected and startling demonstration when announced, that was welcomed by a vast majority of the people in the free States. In Congress, however, neither this nor his project of compensated emancipation was entirely acceptable to either the extreme anti-slavery or pro-slavery men. The radicals disliked the way in which emancipation was effected by the President. But, carried forward by the force of public opinion, they could not do otherwise than acquiesce in the decree, complaining, however, that it was an unauthorized assumption by the Executive of power which belonged to Congress.

The opponents of the President seized the occasion of this bold measure to create distrust and alarm, and the result of the policy of emancipation in the election which followed in the autumn of 1862 was adverse to the Administration. Confident, however, that the step was justifiable and necessary, the President persevered and consummated it by a final proclamation on the 1st of January, 1863.

The fact that the Administration lost ground in the elections in consequence of the emancipation policy served for a time to promote unity of feeling among the members when Congress convened in December. The shock occasioned by the measure when first announced had done its work. The timid, who had doubted the necessity and legality of the act, and feared its consequences, recovered their equipoise, and a reaction followed which strengthened the President in public confidence. But the radical extremists, especially the advocates of Congressional supremacy, began in the course of the winter to reassert their own peculiar ideas and their intention of having a more extreme policy pursued by the Government.

Thaddeus Stevens embraced an early opportunity to declare his extreme views, which were radically and totally antagonistic to those of the President. But Stevens, whose ability and acquirements as a politician, and whose skill and experience as a party tactician were unsurpassed if not unequalled in either branch of Congress, made no open, hostile demonstration toward the President. He restricted himself to contemptuous expressions in private conversation against the Executive policy and general management of affairs. Without an attack on the President, whom he personally liked, the Administration was sneered at as weak and inefficient, of which little could be expected until a more aggressive and scathing policy was adopted. His personal intercourse with members and his talents and eloquence on the floor of the House gave him influence with the representatives on ordinary occasions, but his ultra radical and revolutionary ideas caused the calm and considerate to distrust and disclaim his opinions and his leadership. It was not until a later period, and under another Executive, less affable but not less honest and sincere than Mr. Lincoln, that the suggestions of Stevens were much regarded. When his disciples and adherents became more partisan and numerous, they, in order to give him power and consequence and reconcile their constituents, denominated him the "Great Commoner."

If his political hopes and party schemes had been sometimes successful, his reverses and disappointments had been much greater. Many and severe trials during an active, embittered, and often unscrupulous partisan experience, had tempered his enthusiasm if they had not brought him wisdom. Defeats can hardly be said to have made him misanthropic; but having little philosophy in his composition, he vented his spleen when there was occasion on his opponents in ironical remarks that made him dreaded, and which were often more effective than arguments; but his sagacity and knowledge of men taught him that a hostile and open conflict with a chief magistrate whose honesty even he respected, and whose patriotism the people so generally regarded, would be not only unavailing, but to himself