attack upon the presidential policy, were tabled by a vote of 79 to 50, a party vote. This fact is of significance as an evidence of the growing feeling in the House, that the sovereign rights of the States might be too highly considered, and that decided discipline of some kind might be found a measure of necessity. It began to be doubted whether in some of these States there could be found a sufficient number of loyal citizens to carry on the government without modifications of the old constitution and laws. At the same time the small majority by which the resolutions were tabled shows that the old idea still exercised a powerful influence in the House.

On December 14, 1863, resolutions were introduced by Mr. Finck,[8] and others two days later by Mr. Rollins,[9] which were very similar to the Crittenden resolution, and were introduced merely as expressions of the Democratic policy, since the Republican majority was too pronounced to permit their adoption.

From the beginning of the war, the policy of the Democratic party in the North was to bring about some agreement between the North and the South, by compromises and concessions, and should the issue finally be determined in favor of the Union even by dint of superior strength, to restore the Southern States to their former condition. In short, the theory held almost unanimously by Congress at the opening of the 37th Congress, was retained as the Democratic theory,[10] while the Republicans gradually modified their opinions, and with the progress of events developed a theory different from both the Democratic and the presidential theory.

Even after the proclamation of emancipation had come to be recognized as one of the natural results of the war, the policy of the Democratic party was unchanged except as necessarily modified by emancipation, and in the House, on February 8, 1864, Jacob B. Blair submitted resolutions[11] in which it was stated that “every State which has ever been, is still a State in the Union, and that when this rebellion shall have been put down, each of the so-called seceding States will have the same rights, privileges, and immunities under the Constitution as any one of the loyal States, except so far as the holding of African slaves in bondage is affected by the President’s proclamation.” These resolutions also repudiated “the doctrine advanced by some, that the so-called seceding States have ceased to be States of and in the Union, and have become territories thereof, or stand in the relation of foreign powers at war therewith.”

But besides political declarations, the Democratic theory found other ways of expression in Congress. From the very commencement of the war, many of the leaders of the party were confident that hostilities could be brought to an end and peaceful relations restored by a convention of States, and several attempts were made to induce Congress to consider favorably some such plan.[12] As early as July 15, 1861, only eleven days after the convening of the extra session of Congress, Benjamin Wood introduced a resolution in the House,[13] which recommended that the governors of the several States “convene their legislatures for the purpose of calling an election to select two delegates from each Congressional district, to meet in general convention at Louisville, in Kentucky, on the first Monday in September next; the purpose of the said convention to be to devise measures for the restoration of peace to our country.”

Again at the opening of the second session on December 4, 1861, joint resolutions were introduced by Mr. Saulsbury, in the Senate,[14] to appoint Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce, Roger B. Taney, Edward Everett, Geo. M. Dallas, Thomas Ewing, Horace Binney, Reverdy Johnson, John J. Crittenden, George E. Pugh, and R. W. Thompson, “commissioners on the part of Congress, to confer with a like number of commissioners to be appointed by the States” in rebellion, “for the preservation of the Union and the maintenance of the Constitution.” The resolutions also provided that when the several States should have appointed their commissioners, hostilities should cease, “and not be renewed unless said commission shall be unable to agree,” or “agreement shall be rejected either by Congress or by the aforesaid States.”

One year later, December 2, 1862, a third attempt[15] was made by Mr. Davis, who submitted a joint resolution in the Senate (S. 104), proposing a convention from all the States to devise means for the reconstruction of the Union, and on May 30, 1864, Mr. Lazear submitted in the House, resolutions which were to authorize the President to “adopt or agree upon some plan upon which the decision of the great body of the people north and south may be secured upon the question of calling a convention composed of delegates from all the States, to which shall be referred the settlement of all questions now dividing the southern States from the rest of the Union, with a view to the restoration of the several States to the places they were intended to occupy in the Union.”

During the later 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 root of the evil, despite the blow it struck