Pertinently questioned on the subject by one whose personal relations entitled him to unreserved confidence, the President answered by one of his homely and apt illustrations: "The pilots on our Western rivers steer from _point to point_ as they call it--setting the course of the boat no farther than they can see; and that is all I propose to myself in this great problem." This position was practically re-affirmed in the speech, already copiously quoted.

"So great peculiarities pertain to each State, and such important and sudden changes occur in the same State, and withal so new and so unprecedented is the whole case, that no exclusive and inflexible plan can safely be prescribed in details and collaterals.
Such exclusive and inflexible plan would only become a new entanglement." Such was the latitude of judgment which the President reserved to himself, such the liberty of action which he deemed essential to the complex problem, for whose solution there was no prescribed rule, no established precedent.

On all questions of expediency the President maintained not only the right but the frequent necessity of change.

"Principle alone," said he, "must be inflexible." Encouraged by the result of the controversy, if it may be so termed, between the President and Congress as to the mode of reconstruction, Andrew Johnson determined to re-organize the government of his State.
Though Vice-President he was still discharging the functions of military governor of Tennessee.

A popular convention, originating from his recommendation and assembling under his auspices, was organized at Nashville on the ninth day of January, 1865.