He said on one occasion: "Traitors should take a back seat in the work of restoration....

My judgment is that he [a rebel] should be subjected to a severe ordeal before he is restored to citizenship.

Treason should be made odious, and traitors must be punished and impoverished.

Their great plantations must be seized, and divided into small farms and sold to honest, industrious men." The violence of Johnson's views subsequently underwent considerable modification but to the last he held to the plan of executive restoration based upon state perdurance.

Neither Lincoln nor Johnson favored a change of Southern institutions other than the abolition of slavery, though each recommended a qualified Negro suffrage.
There were, however, other theories in the field, notably those of the radical Republican leaders.