There is no doubt that the Sumner-Shellabarger theory of Reconstruction was correct. The only question was how exacting Congress would be in realizing it. Under such a situation it behooved the President to act with great caution and moderation, and to do nothing to provoke a conflict in which he was certain to be worsted. And it also behooved the people of the South to make no opposition to the bestowal of a large measure of civil liberty upon the freedmen, nor to such an adjustment of the basis of political representation as would not necessitate negro suffrage, and not to insist upon sending to Congress, at the outset, the men who had made themselves particularly obnoxious to loyal feeling. How both the President and the persons in authority at the South disregarded these considerations of prudence, and how the position assumed by them upon these subjects drove Congress into more and more radical lines, is the further subject of the next three chapters. {62} CHAPTER V THE CONGRESSIONAL PLAN (_Continued_) The Freedmen Codes in the South--The Reports of Grant and Schurz in Regard to the Status in the South--The Freedmen's Bureau Bill of 1866--The President's 22d of February Speech--The Civil Rights Bill--The Veto of the Bill--The Veto Overridden--The Fourteenth Amendment--The Discussion of the Propositions in Congress--The President's Attitude toward the Proposed Amendment--Mr. Seward's Acts in Regard to Ratification--The Requirement that the Ratification of the Proposed Amendment should be the Condition of the Admission of the Senators- and Representatives-elect to Seats in Congress--The Tennessee Precedent. [Sidenote: The Freedmen codes in the South.] We have reviewed the acts of the new legislature of Mississippi concerning the civil status of the freedmen. It is sufficient to say that during the winter of 1865-66, the other reconstructed legislatures followed the example of the legislature of Mississippi. These movements forced upon the Republican party in Congress the conviction that the civil rights of the freedmen must be secured by national law. As yet there existed only the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution upon which to base Congressional statutes, and this, as we know, simply abolished and prohibited slavery and involuntary servitude, and empowered Congress to pass appropriate laws for the execution of the Amendment. By virtue of the war powers still exercised by the Administration several of the Union Generals, as we shall see, had set aside this legislation in {63} some of these reconstructed "States." But, of course, it was well understood that this was only a temporary remedy. During the month of January, 1866, the Republicans in Congress became convinced that the newly organized "States," with the exception of Tennessee, were consciously developing freedmen's codes which would not differ greatly from their old slave codes. [Sidenote: The reports of Grant and Schurz in regard to the status in the South.]