"The query comes up," said Johnson in his colloquy with Douglass, "whether these two races, situated as they were before, without preparation, without time for the slightest improvement, whether the one should be turned loose upon the other, and be thrown together at the ballot-box with this enmity and hate existing between them. The question comes up right there, whether we don't commence a war of races. I think I understand this thing, and especially is this the case when you force it upon a people without their consent." Johnson had adopted not only Lincoln's plan of Reconstruction, but his Cabinet also. At its first meeting, April 16, the unfinished project for the establishment of civil government in Virginia, drafted by Secretary Stanton at Lincoln's instance, was presented but not acted on. At a subsequent meeting, May 8, it was considered and adopted, and was promulgated as an Executive Order on the following day. It recognized Francis M. Peirpoint, who had been nominal governor in Lincoln's time, as actual governor, and declared that in order to guarantee to the state of Virginia a republican form of government and to afford the advantage and security of domestic laws, and the full and complete restoration of peace, he would be aided by the Government of the United States in the measures he might take to accomplish those ends. A loyal State Government of considerable scope and solidity, formed by Johnson himself as military governor, already existed in Tennessee. This was now recognized by the President as an accomplished fact. W. G. Brownlow had been elected governor, and a legislature had been constituted, which had passed a franchise act that limited the voting privilege to whites and excluded rebels of a certain grade. The Lincoln State Government of Louisiana and a similar one in Arkansas were allowed to stand.