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THE WORK OF THE PRESIDENTS.
The war ended slavery, but it left the problem of the freed slave; it preserved the Union in theory, but it left unsolved many delicate problems of readjustment.

Were the seceded States in or out of the Union?
If in the Union, what rights had they?
If they were not in the Union, what was their status?
What was the status of the Southern Unionist, of the ex-Confederate?
What punishments should be inflicted upon the Southern people?
What authority, executive or legislative, should carry out the work of reconstruction?
The end of the war brought with it, in spite of much discussion, no clear answer to these perplexing questions.
Unfortunately, American political life, with its controversies over colonial government, its conflicting interpretations of written constitutions, and its legally trained statesmen, had by the middle of the nineteenth century produced a habit of political thought which demanded the settlement of most governmental matters upon a theoretical basis.

And now in 1865, each prominent leader had his own plan of reconstruction fundamentally irreconcilable with all the others, because rigidly theoretical.

During the war the powers of the executive had been greatly expanded and a legislative reaction was to be expected.