home, it would be utterly immaterial whether they had ever been abroad. Let us
all join in doing the acts necessary to restore the proper practical relations
between these States and the Union, and each forever after innocently indulge
his own opinion whether in doing the acts he brought the States from without
into the Union, or only gave them proper assistance, they never having been
out of it."

President Johnson's position was essentially that of Lincoln, but his attitude
toward the working out of the several problems was different. He maintained
that the states survived and that it was the duty of the executive to restore
them to their proper relations. "The true theory," said he, "is that all
pretended acts of secession were from the beginning null and void. The States
cannot commit treason nor screen individual citizens who may have committed
treason any more than they can make valid treaties or engage in lawful
commerce with any foreign power. The states attempting to secede placed
themselves in a condition where their vitality was impaired, but not
extinguished; their functions suspended, but not destroyed." Lincoln would
have had no severe punishments inflicted even on leaders, but Johnson wanted
to destroy the "slavocracy," root and branch. Confiscation of estates would,
he thought, be a proper measure. He said on one occasion: "Traitors should
take a back seat in the work of restoration .. . . My judgment is that he [a
rebel] should be subjected to a severe ordeal before he is restored to
citizenship. Treason should be made odious, and traitors must be punished and
impoverished. Their great plantations must be seized, and divided into small
farms and sold to honest, industrious men." The violence of Johnson's views
subsequently underwent considerable modification but to the last he held to
the plan of executive restoration based upon state perdurance. Neither Lincoln
nor Johnson favored a change of Southern institutions other than the abolition
of slavery, though each recommended a qualified Negro suffrage.