This first debate on reconstruction developed the fact that the Democrats in Congress would endeavor to regain the ground they had lost by their hostility to Mr. Lincoln's Administration during the war. The extreme members of that party, while the war was flagrant, adhered to many dogmas which were considered unpatriotic and in none more so than the declaration that even in the case of secession "there is no power in the Constitution to coerce a State." They now united in the declaration, as embodied in the resolution of Mr. Voorhees, that "no State or number of States confederated together can in any manner sunder their connection with the Federal Union." This was intended as a direct and defiant answer to the heretical creed of Mr. Stevens, that the States by their attempted secession were really no longer members of the Union and could not become so until regularly re-admitted by Congress. By antagonizing this declaration the Democrats strove to convince the country that it was the accepted doctrine of their political opponents, and that they were themselves the true and tried friends of the Union. The great majority of the Republican leaders, however, did not at all agree with the theory of Mr. Stevens and the mass of the party were steadily against him. The one signal proof of their dissent from the extreme doctrine was their absolute unwillingness to attempt an amendment to the Constitution by the ratification of three-fourths of the Loyal States only, and their insisting that it must be three-fourths of all the States, North and South. Mr. Stevens deemed this a fatal step for the party, and his extreme opinion had the indorsement of Mr. Sumner; but against both these radical leaders the party was governed by its own conservative instincts. They believed with Mr. Lincoln that the Stevens plan of amendment would always be questioned, and that in so grave a matter as a change to the organic law of the Nation, the process should be unquestionable--one that could stand every test and resist every assault.