President Lincoln had no such regard for the "sacred rights of a state" as had the Democrats and his successor, Andrew Johnson. In his inaugural address he asserted that the Union existed before the states and was perpetual; that no state could withdraw from the Union; that secession was null and void; and that the Union was unbroken.[856] In the formation of the provisional governments by the aid of the military authorities in Tennessee, Arkansas, and Louisiana, Lincoln showed that he expected the political institutions of 1861 to be restored. In December, 1863, he brought forth this plan for restoration: When one-tenth of the voting population of a state in 1861 should take an oath to support the Constitution and should establish a government on the basis of the state constitution and laws in 1861, such a government would be recognized as the government of the state.[857] In July, 1864, he announced by proclamation that he was unwilling to commit himself formally to any fixed plan of restoration. This was in answer to the Wade-Davis bill passed by Congress, which, if approved, would set aside the governments he had erected in Louisiana, Tennessee, and Arkansas, and it showed that he considered it the prerogative of the executive to bring about and recognize the restored government.[858] These restored states he expected to take their places in the Union on the old terms,[859] for as soon as the people submitted and civil governments were established, constitutional relations would be resumed, and Congress would be obliged to admit their representatives.[860] Early in the war, he said nothing about abolition, but rather to the contrary. Later he advocated gradual and compensated emancipation by state action. At the close of the war, after the practical, if not the theoretical, abolition of slavery, he suggested that the newly established governments might, as a measure of expediency, confer the privilege of voting upon the best negroes.[861] He considered the matter of the suffrage beyond the control of the central government. The enfranchisement of the negro as a measure of revenge, and as a means of keeping the southern whites down and the Republican party in power, never entered his thoughts. President Johnson succeeded to the policy of Lincoln, or, at least, to Lincoln's belief that restoration was a matter for the executive attention, not for the legislative. He asserted that secession was null and void from the beginning; that a state could not commit treason; that by the attempted revolution the vitality of the state was impaired and its functions suspended but not destroyed; that it was the duty of the executive to breathe into the inanimate state the life-giving breath of the Constitution. He recognized no power in Congress to pass laws preliminary to or restricting the admission of duly qualified representatives of the states.[862] [Illustration: RECONSTRUCTION LEADERS. ANDREW JOHNSON. CHARLES SUMNER. THADDEUS STEVENS.]