The single Constitutional barrier that had stood between the people of the
stricken section and political extinction was about to be removed by the
exit of Andrew Johnson from the White House. In his place a man of blood
and iron--for such was the estimate at that time placed upon Grant--had
been elected President. The Republicans in Congress, checked for a time
by Johnson, were at length to have entire sway under Thaddeus Stevens.
Reconstruction was to be thorough and merciless. To meet these conditions
was the first requirement of the Courier-Journal, a newspaper conducted by
outlawed rebels and published on the sectional border line. The task was
not an easy one.

There is never a cause so weak that it does not stir into ill-timed
activity some wild, unpractical zealots who imagine it strong. There is
never a cause so just but that the malevolent and the mercenary will seek
to trade upon it. The South was helpless; the one thing needful was to get
it on its feet, and though the bravest and the wisest saw this plainly
enough there came to the front--particularly in Kentucky--a small but noisy
body of politicians who had only worked themselves into a state of war when
it was too late, and who with more or less of aggression, insisted that
"the states lately in rebellion" still had rights, which they were able to
maintain and which the North could be forced to respect.

I was of a different opinion. It seemed to me that whatever of right might
exist the South was at the mercy of the North; that the radical party led
by Stevens and Wade dominated the North and could dictate its own terms;
and that the shortest way round lay in that course which was best
calculated to disarm radicalism by an intelligent appeal to the business
interests and conservative elements of Northern society, supported by a
domestic policy of justice alike to whites and blacks.