At 18:12 03/09/2005, Steve Brust wrote: >I respect your hero worship; the more I learn about the Lincoln, the >more I admire him. But it seems to me that during the remainder of what >would have been Lincoln's last term, Congress did just about everything >that could have been done. I may be full of it here; I'm only just >starting to study Reconstruction. But it does seem like the real >counterrevolution didn't get going until around 1868-9; and that Grant >should get more credit for fighting the good fight it then he's usually >given. Conventional wisdom is that Lincoln would probably have been a moderating influence on the Republicans in Congress who passed the worst of the Reconstruction measures over Johnson's veto. Johnson had been a Democrat, thus had no power base in Congress. I have no idea how accurate that idea is. -- Regards, Pete pgranzeau at cox.net