As Johnson said, he promulgated nothing new in this statement of his beliefs regarding the treatment of the South, save possibly a more definite affirmation of clemency to the masses. In the Nashville speech of June 9, 1864, he had still more emphatically urged extreme measures towards the leaders.[42] "Treason must be made odious, and traitors must be punished and impoverished. Their great plantations must be seized and divided into small farms, and sold to honest, industrious men. The day for protecting the lands and negroes of these authors of the rebellion is past." Again on April 24, 1865, in an interview with a number of Virginia refugees, he reiterated the necessity of severity. In this case, perhaps owing to the nature of the interview, and the character of those to whom he was speaking, he makes no distinction between the leaders and their followers, his definition of treason apparently including all soldiers and their abettors. In it he says:[43] "It is time that our people were taught that treason is a crime, not a mere political difference, not a mere contest between two parties, in which one succeeded and the other simply failed. They must know it is treason; for if they had succeeded, the life of the nation would have been reft from it, the Union would have been destroyed. Surely the Constitution sufficiently defines treason. It consists in levying war against the United States, and in giving their enemies aid and comfort." The great liberality with which, beginning with the following month, the President used the pardoning power, and the extreme leniency with which all the leaders were treated, were in striking contrast with these sentiments. A situation was presented for Johnson to meet as President, which necessitated modifications of views held by him as governor. His attitude towards the leaders must be admitted to have undergone actual modification, notwithstanding his claim a few months later that he simply wished to make the leaders sue for pardon and realize the enormity of their offence.