The defiant attitude taken by the Southern legislatures was a grave mistake. The most of them did not convene until Congress was again in session, after the defeat of the administration, and when they should have been able to see that their only hope was in submission. But the South, ever too ready to act first and consider the consequences afterwards, only saw in the proposed amendment an insult to the white race and an injustice to their leaders. That they should be asked deliberately to inflict upon themselves this punishment, seemed a humiliation which self-respect could permit them only to spurn. They did not stop to realize that the rejection of these terms would cause measures still more severe to be enacted. CHAPTER V. THE CONGRESSIONAL THEORY FULLY DEVELOPED. 1. The second session of the 39th Congress opened with its members in a far different frame of mind from that in which they had assembled in 1865. Then they had approached their work with hesitation; their plans were not formulated; they could not know how far the country would sustain them in their opposition to the President. Now, in the flush of victory, their policy sustained, the President discredited, with their two-thirds majority in both houses unbroken, they were prepared to proceed to enact legislation which not only should secure that which had been accomplished already, but also should settle finally the problem of reconstruction, and place the President in a position where he could do no harm.[151]