Book Reviews and Notices feeling persisted that the President had learned a lesson and would be willing to cooperate. Only slowly was it fully realized that Congress could get nowhere in its effort to work with the President. 2. Republican leaders—and they were moderate men: Fessenden, Trumbull, Grimes, Sherman—tried their best to get the cooperation of the President. They accepted his first moves, and were not entirely discouraged by his first annual message. Trumbull conferred with Johnson on the Freedmen's Bureau Bill and the Civil Rights Act. Fessenden, while supporting these measures, spoke highly of the President. Surprised when Johnson vetoed the former bill, they were still his well-wishers. When he vetoed the Civil Rights Act, he cut the ground out from under them. Thus moderate leadership, and moderate public opinion, moved in the direction of the Fourteenth Amendment and the Reconstruction Acts. 3. The real "radicals" were, in the early period of Reconstruction, "marginal men"; leadership was not in their hands. The establishment of the Joint Committee did not mean runaway radicalism. It was a balanced committee, headed by the conservative, Fessenden. Stevens was not the chairman, and Sumner was not even a member. The "radicals" did not get to the front until the situation had so deteriorated that public opinion demanded more drastic steps. 4. There was no well-thought-out "conspiracy" on the part of Republican leaders to "rule or ruin." Policies took shape gradually, in an atmosphere of uncertainty. Republicans were not unanimous on what should be done—on how soon Southern States should be readmitted or on what terms. But as events transpired, they did come to see the need for unity, for without unity, they would lose control of the situation entirely. The "radical" legend was started by Democrats for political advantage. By charging the Republicans with conspiring to shackle the South, give Negroes the vote, and ruin the President, they could rehabilitate their party, embarrass the Republicans, and get back into power themselves. 5. Attitudes and events in the South had a determining influence on the evolution of Congressional policy. Victory, says McKitrick, demands more than merely the surrender of arms. There must be also a psychological satisfaction that the sacrifices of war have not been in vain. "Peace on the battlefield must be followed by a willingness to bring peace to the Northern mind." This the South could not, or would not, give. Instead, Southerners demonstrated an imperviousness to Northern feelings, quibbled over abstract points ("repealing" secession rather than "repudiating" it), talked about "white man's government," passed the Black Codes, and showed a brazen willingness to put secession leaders back in power. Before long, there was an uneasy feeling which "seemed to ooze from everywhere" that the South had never surrendered at all! Rejection of the Fourteenth Amendment, riots and injustice to Unionists in the South, 423