together with the secessionists--and many were driven where they did not want
to go, into temporary affiliation with the Democratic party." Thousands went
very reluctantly; the old Whigs, indeed, were not firmly committed to the
Democrats until radical reconstruction had actually begun. Still other
"loyalists" in the South were prepared to join the Northern radicals in
advocating the disfranchisement of Confederates and in opposing the granting
of suffrage to the Negroes.

The man upon whom fell the task of leading these opposing factions, radical
and conservative, along a definite line of action looking to reunion had few
qualifications for the task. Johnson was ill-educated, narrow, and vindictive
and was positive that those who did not agree with him were dishonest. Himself
a Southerner, picked up by the National Union Convention of 1864, as Thaddeus
Stevens said, from "one of those damned rebel provinces," he loved the Union,
worshiped the Constitution, and held to the strict construction views of the
State Rights Democrats. Rising from humble beginnings, he was animated by the
most intense dislike of the "slavocracy," as he called the political
aristocracy of the South. Like many other American leaders he was proud of his
humble origin, but unlike many others he never sloughed off his backwoods
crudeness. He continually boasted of himself and vilified the aristocrats, who
in return treated him badly. His dislike of them was so marked that Isham G.
Harris, a rival politician, remarked that "if Johnson were a snake, he would
lie in the grass to bite the heels of rich men's children." His primitive
notions of punishment were evident in 1865 when he advocated imprisonment,
execution, and confiscation; but like other reckless talkers he often said
more than he meant.

When Johnson succeeded to the presidency, the feeling was nearly universal
among the radicals, according to Julian, that he would prove a godsend to the
country, for "aside from Mr. Lincoln's known policy of tenderness to the