In December 1865, the majority of Congress would have accepted with little modification the work of Lincoln and Johnson.

Three months later the Civil Rights Act measured the advance.

Very soon the new Freedmen's Bureau Act and the Fourteenth Amendment indicated the rising tide of radicalism.

The campaign of 1866 and the attitude of the Southern states swept all radicals and most moderate Republicans swiftly into a merciless course of reconstruction.

Moderate reconstruction had nowhere strong support.
Congress, touched in its amour propre by presidential disregard, was eager for extremes.