The controversies between the President and Congress, thus far narrated, did not involve what have since been specifically known as the Reconstruction measures.

Those were yet to come.

The establishment of the Freedmen's Bureau was at best designed to be a temporary charity; and the Civil Rights Bill, while growing out of changes effected by the war, was applicable alike to all conditions and to all times.

The province of the Special Committee on Reconstruction was to devise and perfect those measures which should secure the fruits of the Union victory, by prescribing the essential grounds upon which the revolted States should be re-admitted to representation in Congress.

The principal objects aimed at were at least four in number.