The plan of Lincoln was, in theory and at first in practice, objectionable. It would recognize as the political people of a state the loyal minority, which would be an oligarchy, and the principle of the rule of majorities would thus be repudiated. Those who claimed to be loyal were not promising material for a new political people, and the "10 per cent" governments were treated with just contempt. But the plan was based, not on any narrow principle of legality, but on the broader grounds of justice and expediency, and was capable of expansion into a very different plan from what it was in the beginning. As applied to Louisiana and Arkansas, it was severely, and in theory justly, criticised on the ground that the President was assuming absolute authority in dealing with the seceded states, and that by this plan the entire political power would be given to a small class not capable of using it. As later modified, his plan would have admitted to participation in Reconstruction nearly or quite all the citizens of the southern states. President Johnson, a war Democrat, gave promise of being more harsh than Lincoln in the work of restoration. Lincoln's policy was based on expediency; Johnson's, on the narrow legal principles of a State Rights Democrat. He had a strong regard for the "sacred rights of a state." He proposed to reëstablish the state governments by means of a political people of the lower classes, and the old political leaders were to be disfranchised. Lincoln imposed certain conditions on individuals as a prerequisite to participation in reconstruction. Having created by the pardoning power a political people, he expected the initiative to come from them. The executive then retired into the background and waited the impulse of the people. He shrank from interfering with the states, not from any great respect for their rights, but from motives of policy. As Johnson applied his theory, there was little initiative left to the people. The executive authority as the source of power set the machinery of restoration in motion, and the people were obliged to do as he ordered, many of them being at first excluded from participation. The whole programme was prescribed by him, and he watched every step of the progress made. For a firm believer in the rights of states he took strange liberties with them while restoring their suspended animation. Lincoln advised a limited suffrage for the blacks; but negroes could have no part in the Johnson scheme. Like Lincoln, however, Johnson so modified his plan that practically all the white people were to take part in the reëstablishment of the government. The conservative theories contemplated restoration, not reconstruction. Radical Theories