6. While such was the general result of the campaign, the South voted to sustain the President's policy. The fact that Johnson had taken direct issue with Congress, and was actively supporting Democratic principles, had a wonderful influence upon the South. The papers enthusiastically prophesied the complete overthrow of the Republican party. They reasoned that the enormous patronage of the President would ensure him a following so powerful that its coalition with Democracy could not but result in victory. Then, they reasoned, it would only be necessary to wait until the convening of the 40th Congress, when the obnoxious amendment would be discredited and the States readmitted to the possession of all their rights and privileges without further delay or conditions. They utterly failed to realize the injury which their discriminative legislation, the New Orleans riots, the widely spread reports of cruelty and oppression, and the defiant attitude of their press, had inflicted on their cause. They only saw that the administration and Congress were estranged, and believed that to be a sure indication of final success. In this frame of mind they came to the polls, and in all the Southern States overwhelming Democratic majorities evidenced the popular sentiment among the dominant classes. Accordingly, when the State legislatures convened, the 14th amendment was rejected almost unanimously in all except Tennessee, which had ratified it in July. Delaware, Maryland and Kentucky, the border Union States, also rejected the amendment, allying themselves with the Southern cause. Twenty-one of the remaining twenty-four States ratified the amendment, endorsing thereby the action of Congress.[150] Iowa, Nebraska and California did not act upon the amendment at this time. Had Thaddeus Stevens and Charles Sumner been able to persuade Congress to adopt their theory of the status of the Southern States, the amendment would have been assumed to be a part of the Constitution, as twenty-one States were more than three-quarters of twenty-seven, the total number of States represented in Congress. But the majority of congressmen were never able to adopt, in its entirety, the theory that the rebellion had utterly destroyed the States and left them mere territory. It preferred to accomplish the same result by less violent means. The legislation enacted as a result of the attitude of the South towards the amendment practically treated the States as conquered territory, yet they were counted in determining the ratification of both the 13th and the 14th amendment.