Instead of calling forth the natural and proper response, it appeared rather to impress them afresh with that vain imagination of Northern timidity which had always been the besetting weakness of the South.

It seemed impossible at the time, it seems even more plainly impossible on a review of the facts after the lapse of years, that any body of reasonable men could behave with the ineffable folly that marked the proceedings of the Reconstruction Conventions in the South, and the still greater folly that governed the succeeding Legislatures of the lately rebellious States.
In the President's proclamation accompanying the appointment of provisional governors he had taken the ground that "the Rebellion, in its revolutionary progress, has deprived the people (of the revolting States) of all civil Government." It is evident, therefore, that the President--eager and even impatient as he was for the process of reconstruction to be completed--expected that a new Government would be built on the full recognition of the new order of things, casting behind all that pertained to the old, or had the spirit of the old.
"No man putteth a piece of new cloth unto an old garment, for that which is put in to fill it up taketh from the garment, and the rent is made worse." This Scripture was exactly applicable to the Southern Conventions which assembled for reconstruction.

They could begin anew with organic laws adapted to the great revolution which had swept over them, or they could patch up the old constitutions now become indissolubly associated with a rebellion which had been fostered and protected under their provisions.

In every State the Southern leaders chose the latter form of procedure.

They assumed that the old constitutions were still in full force and vigor, and they made only such amendments to them as would in their judgment promptly insure to their States the right of representation in Congress.