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. Though the institution of African slavery was gone the negro continued the subject of savage contention. I urged that he be taken out of the arena of agitation, and my way of taking him out was to concede him his legal and civil rights. The lately ratified Constitutional Amendments, I contended, were the real Treaty of Peace between the North and South. The recognition of these Amendments in good faith by the white people of the South was indispensable to that perfect peace which was desired by the best people of both sections. The political emancipation of the blacks was essential to the moral emancipation of the whites. With the disappearance of the negro question as cause of agitation, I argued, radicalism of the intense, proscriptive sort would die out; the liberty-loving, patriotic people of the North would assert themselves; and, this one obstacle to a better understanding removed, the restoration of Constitutional Government would follow, being a matter of momentous concern to the body of the people both North and South.