As ever, I am proof­read­ing books my wife and I have bought and scanned, and sub­mit­ted to the Dis­trib­uted Proof­read­ers com­mu­nity. Here’s what’s come across the tran­som today. Change the names, change the party affil­i­a­tions, cross your fin­gers and change the fact of the Civil War, and you may not be able to tell the dif­fer­ence between things now, and 140 years ago.

Surely, though, we are all very dif­fer­ent peo­ple. Much more advanced.

Surely.

The­o­ret­i­cal schemes from cul­ti­vated intel­lects, as well as crude notions from less intel­lec­tual but extreme men, found expres­sion in res­o­lu­tions and plans, many of which were absurd and most of them imprac­ti­ca­ble and illegal.

Surely.

From The Galaxy: A Mag­a­zine of Enter­tain­ing Read­ing, Vol­ume 23, Issue 1, Jan­u­ary 1877:

…the Pres­i­dency of Mr. Lin­coln, unrep­re­sented in the national coun­cils, and in open rebel­lion. A belt of bor­der States, extend­ing from the Delaware to the Rocky moun­tains, which, though rep­re­sented in Con­gress, had a divided pop­u­la­tion, was dis­trust­ful of the Pres­i­dent. Yield­ing the Admin­is­tra­tion a qual­i­fied sup­port, and opposed to the Gov­ern­ment in almost all its mea­sures, was an old orga­nized and dis­ci­plined party in all the free States, which seemed to con­sider its oblig­a­tions to party para­mount to duty to the coun­try. This last, if it did not boldly par­tic­i­pate with the rebels, was an aux­il­iary, and as a party, hos­tile to the Admin­is­tra­tion, and opposed to nearly every mea­sure for sup­press­ing the insurrection.

There were among the friends of the Admin­is­tra­tion, and espe­cially dur­ing its last two years, rad­i­cal dif­fer­ences, which in the first stages of the war were unde­vel­oped. The mild and per­sua­sive tem­per of the Pres­i­dent, his gen­er­ous and tol­er­ant dis­po­si­tion, and his kind and mod­er­ate for­bear­ance toward the rebels, whom he invited and would per­suade to return to their alle­giance and their duty, did not cor­re­spond with the schemes and designs of the extreme and vio­lent lead­ers of the Repub­li­can party. They had other objects than recon­struc­tion to attain, were implaca­ble and revenge­ful, and some with ulte­rior rad­i­cal views thought the oppor­tu­nity favor­able to effect a change of administration.

These had for years fomented divi­sion, encour­aged strife, and were as ultra and as unrea­son­able in their demands and exac­tions as the seces­sion­ists. Some had wel­comed war with grim sat­is­fac­tion, and were for pros­e­cut­ing it unre­lent­ingly with fire and sword to the anni­hi­la­tion of the rights, and the absolute sub­ver­sion of the South­ern States and sub­jec­tion of the South­ern peo­ple. There was in their ranks unrea­son­ing fanati­cism, and feroc­ity that par­took of bar­barism, with a mix­ture of polit­i­cal intrigue fatal to our Fed­eral sys­tem. These men, dis­sat­is­fied with Pres­i­dent Lin­coln, accused him of tem­po­riz­ing, of imbe­cil­ity, and of sym­pa­thy with the rebels because he would not con­fis­cate their whole prop­erty, and hang or pun­ish them as pirates or trai­tors. These rad­i­cal Repub­li­cans, as they were proud to call them­selves, occu­pied, like all extreme men in high party and rev­o­lu­tion­ary times, the front rank of their party, and, though really a minor­ity, gave tone and char­ac­ter to the Repub­li­can orga­ni­za­tion. Fired with aveng­ing zeal, and often suc­cess­ful in their extreme views, though to some extent checked and mod­i­fied by the Pres­i­dent, they were pre­sum­ing, and flat­tered them­selves they could, if unsuc­cess­ful with Mr. Lin­coln, effect a change in the admin­is­tra­tion of the Gov­ern­ment in 1864 by elect­ing a Pres­i­dent who would con­form to their ultra demands. Secret meet­ings and whis­pered con­sul­ta­tions were held for that pur­pose, and for a time aspir­ing and cal­cu­lat­ing politi­cians gave them encour­age­ment; but it soon became evi­dent that the con­ser­v­a­tive sen­ti­ment of the Repub­li­cans and the coun­try was with Mr. Lin­coln, and that the con­fi­dence of the peo­ple in his patri­o­tism and integrity was such as could not be shaken. Nev­er­the­less, a small band of the rad­i­cals held out and would not assent to his benig­nant pol­icy. These mal­con­tents under­took to cre­ate a dis­tinct polit­i­cal orga­ni­za­tion which, if pos­sessed of power, would make a more fierce and unre­lent­ing war on the rebels, break down their local insti­tu­tions, over­turn their State gov­ern­ments, sub­ju­gate the whites, ele­vate the blacks, and give not only free­dom to the slaves, but by national decree over­ride the States, and give suf­frage to the whole col­ored race. These extreme and ran­corous notions found no favor with Mr. Lin­coln, who, though nom­i­nally a Whig in the past, had respect for the Con­sti­tu­tion, loved the Fed­eral Union, and had a sacred regard for the rights of the States, which the Whigs as a party did not enter­tain. War two years after seces­sion com­menced brought eman­ci­pa­tion, but eman­ci­pa­tion did not dis­solve the Union, con­sol­i­date the Gov­ern­ment, or clothe it with absolute power; nor did it impair the author­ity and rights which the States had reserved. Eman­ci­pa­tion was a nec­es­sary, not a rev­o­lu­tion­ary mea­sure, forced upon the Admin­is­tra­tion by the seces­sion­ists them­selves, who insisted that slav­ery which was local and sec­tional should be made national.

The war was, in fact, defen­sive on the part of the Gov­ern­ment against a sec­tional insur­rec­tion which had seized the fortresses and pub­lic prop­erty of the nation; a war for the main­te­nance of the Union, not for its dis­so­lu­tion; a war for the preser­va­tion of indi­vid­ual, State, and Fed­eral rights; good admin­is­tra­tion would per­mit nei­ther to be sac­ri­ficed nor one to encroach on the other. The nec­es­sary exer­cise of extra­or­di­nary war pow­ers to sup­press the Rebel­lion had given encour­age­ment and strength to the cen­tral­ists who advo­cated the con­sol­i­da­tion and con­cen­tra­tion of author­ity in the gen­eral Gov­ern­ment in peace as well as war, and national super­vi­sion over the States and peo­ple. Nei­ther the rad­i­cal enthu­si­asts nor the design­ing cen­tral­ists admit­ted or sub­scribed to the doc­trine that polit­i­cal power emanated from the peo­ple; but it was the the­ory of both that the author­ity exer­cised by the States was by grant derived from the parental or gen­eral Gov­ern­ment. It was their the­ory that the Gov­ern­ment cre­ated the States, not that the States and peo­ple cre­ated the Gov­ern­ment. Some of them had acqui­esced in cer­tain prin­ci­ples which were embod­ied in the fun­da­men­tal law called the Con­sti­tu­tion; but the Con­sti­tu­tion was in their view the child of neces­sity, a mere crude attempt of the the­o­rists of 1776, who made suc­cess­ful resis­tance against British author­ity, to limit the power of the new cen­tral Gov­ern­ment which was sub­sti­tuted for that of the crown. For a period after the Rev­o­lu­tion it was admit­ted that fee­ble lim­i­ta­tions on cen­tral author­ity had been observed, though it was main­tained that those lim­i­ta­tions had been obstruc­tions to our advanc­ing pros­per­ity, the cause of con­tin­ual con­tro­versy, and had grad­u­ally from time to time been dis­pensed with, bro­ken down, or made to yield to our grow­ing neces­si­ties. The civil war had made innovations–a sweep, in fact, of many con­sti­tu­tional barriers–and rad­i­cal con­sol­i­da­tion­ists like Thad­deus Stevens and Henry Win­ter Davis felt that the oppor­tu­nity to for­tify cen­tral author­ity and estab­lish its supremacy should be improved.

These were the ideas and prin­ci­ples of lead­ing con­sol­i­da­tion­ists and rad­i­cals in Con­gress who were politi­cians of abil­ity, had stud­ied the sci­ence of gov­ern­ment, and were from con­vic­tion oppo­nents of reserved rights and State sov­er­eignty and of a mere con­fed­er­a­tion or Fed­eral Union, based on the polit­i­cal equal­ity and reserved sov­er­eignty of the States, but insisted that the cen­tral Gov­ern­ment should pen­e­trate fur­ther and act directly on the peo­ple. Few of these had given much study or thought to fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ples, the char­ac­ter and struc­ture of our Fed­eral sys­tem, or the Con­sti­tu­tion itself. Most of them, under the pres­sure of schemers and enthu­si­asts, were will­ing to assume and ready to exer­cise any power deemed expe­di­ent, regard­less of the organic law. Almost unre­strained leg­is­la­tion to carry on the war induced a spirit of indif­fer­ence to con­sti­tu­tional restraint, and brought about an assump­tion by some, a belief by oth­ers, that Con­gress was omnipo­tent; that it was the embod­i­ment of the national will, and that the other depart­ments of the Gov­ern­ment as well as the States were sub­or­di­nate and sub­ject to cen­tral Con­gres­sional con­trol. Absolute power, the cen­tral­ists assumed and their fanat­i­cal asso­ciates seemed to sup­pose, was vested in the leg­isla­tive body of the coun­try, and its decrees, arbi­trary and despotic, often orig­i­nat­ing in and car­ried first by a small vote in party cau­cus, were in all cases claimed to be deci­sive, and to be obeyed by the Exec­u­tive, the judi­ciary, and the peo­ple, regard­less of the Con­sti­tu­tion. Par­lia­men­tary dis­cus­sions were not per­mit­ted, or of lit­tle avail. The acts of cau­cus were dis­crim­i­na­tory, and deci­sive. The sev­eral propo­si­tions and plans of Pres­i­dent Lin­coln to reëstab­lish the Union, and induce the seced­ing States to resume their places and be rep­re­sented in Con­gress, were received with dis­fa­vor by the rad­i­cal lead­ers, who, with­out open assault, set in motion an under­cur­rent against nearly every Exec­u­tive propo­si­tion as the weak and impo­tent off­spring of a well mean­ing and well inten­tioned, but not very com­pe­tent and intel­li­gent mind. It was the dif­fer­ence between Pres­i­dent Lin­coln and the rad­i­cal lead­ers in Con­gress on the ques­tion of rec­on­cil­i­a­tion, the restora­tion of the States, and the reëstab­lish­ment of the Union on the orig­i­nal con­sti­tu­tional basis, which more than even his genial and tol­er­ant feel­ings toward the rebels led to polit­i­cal intrigue among Repub­li­can mem­bers of Con­gress for the nom­i­na­tion of new can­di­dates, and oppo­si­tion to Mr. Lincoln’s reëlec­tion in 1864. At one period this intrigue seemed for­mi­da­ble, and some pro­fessed friends lent it their coun­te­nance, if they did not actu­ally par­tic­i­pate in it, who ulti­mately dis­avowed any con­nec­tion with the proceeding.

Sin­gu­lar ideas were enter­tained and began to be devel­oped in propo­si­tions of an extra­or­di­nary char­ac­ter, rel­a­tive to the pow­ers and the con­struc­tion of the Gov­ern­ment, which were pre­sented to Con­gress, even in the first year of the war. The­o­ret­i­cal schemes from cul­ti­vated intel­lects, as well as crude notions from less intel­lec­tual but extreme men, found expres­sion in res­o­lu­tions and plans, many of which were absurd and most of them imprac­ti­ca­ble and ille­gal. Fore­most and promi­nent among them were a series of stud­ied and elab­o­rate res­o­lu­tions pre­pared by Charles Sum­ner, and sub­mit­ted to the Sen­ate on the 11^th of Feb­ru­ary, 1862. Although pre­sented at that early day, they were the germ of the recon­struc­tion pol­icy adopted at a later period. In this plan or project for the treat­ment of the insur­rec­tionary States and the peo­ple who resided in them, the Mass­a­chu­setts Sen­a­tor man­i­fested lit­tle regard for the fun­da­men­tal law or for State or indi­vid­ual rights. The high posi­tion which this Sen­a­tor held in the Repub­li­can party and in Con­gress and the coun­try, his cul­tured mind and schol­arly attain­ments, his ardent if not always dis­creet zeal and efforts to free the slaves and endow the whole col­ored race, whether capa­ble or oth­er­wise, with all the rights and priv­i­leges, socially and polit­i­cally, of the edu­cated and refined white pop­u­la­tion whom they had pre­vi­ously served, his readi­ness and avowed inten­tion to over­throw the local State gov­ern­ments and the social sys­tem where slav­ery existed, to sub­ju­gate the whites and ele­vate the blacks, will jus­tify a spe­cial notice; for it was one of the first, if not the very first of the rad­i­cal schemes offi­cially pre­sented to change the char­ac­ter of the Gov­ern­ment and the pre­vi­ously exist­ing dis­tinc­tions between the races. His the­ory or plan may be taken as the pio­neer of the many wild and vision­ary projects of the cen­tral and abo­li­tion force, that took shape and form not only dur­ing the war, but after hos­til­i­ties ceased and the rebels were subdued.…