In the early part of the controversy President Johnson insisted that General Lee should be tried for treason. That purpose on the part of the President was resisted by General Grant. His position, in his own language, was this: "I insisted on it that General Lee would not have surrendered his army and given up all their arms if he had supposed that after surrender, he was going to be tried for treason and hanged. I thought we got a very good equivalent for the lives of a few leaders in getting all those arms and getting themselves under control bound by the oaths to obey the laws. That was the consideration, which I insisted upon, we had received." General Grant added: "Afterwards he got to agreeing with me on that subject." On the question of political rights as involved in the surrender and in the parole, General Grant said: "I never claimed that the parole gave those prisoners any political right whatever. I thought that that was a matter entirely with Congress, over which I had no control, that simply as general-in-chief commanding the army, I had a right to stipulate for the surrender on terms which protected their lives. The parole gave them protection and exemption from punishment for all offences not in violation of the rules of civilized warfare." The point of difference between General Grant and President Johnson in regard to the parole is very clear from General Grant's answers to questions by Mr. Thomas and Mr. Eldridge. "You have stated your opinion as to the rights and privileges of General Lee and his soldiers; do you mean that to include any political rights?" "I have explained that I did not." "Was there any difference of opinion on that point between yourself and President Johnson at any time?" "On that point there was no difference of opinion; but there was as to whether the parole gave them any privileges or rights . . . He claiming that the time must come when they would be tried and punished, and I claiming that that time could not come except by a violation of their parole." Grant claimed also that the army that had surrendered to Sherman came under the same rules. These quotations give General Grant's standing as an interpreter of public law and as a leader capable of applying the rules and principles of public law to practical affairs. His training at West Point may have given him a knowledge of principles and his good sense enabled him to apply the principles in the terms that he dictated at Appomattox. General Grant's natural qualities were such that with training he might have succeeded in great causes involving principles, but he was not adapted to the ordinary business of a county-court lawyer. It is quite certain from the testimony of General Grant that Mr. Lincoln had had in mind a scheme for the organization of the States that had been in rebellion and that Mr. Johnson's proclamation for the government of North Carolina was not a wide departure from that scheme.