6. After his accession to the Presidency, the only modification of his policy was an increased clemency to the conquered rebel. This can be accounted for easily as the natural result of actual contact with the problem. Rhetorically to assert that all traitors must be punished is one thing--to apply the punishment is another. Then Johnson's most able advisers approved his attitude and urged even greater moderation. Finally, his firm faith in the success of his provisional governments persuaded him to a still more liberal use of the pardoning power, while the growing opposition of Congress added the element of stubbornness to the complication. But, the true explanation of the change is to be found in his general constitutional views.
So early as April 21 he frankly states his position. In his speech on that day he says: "Provision" (in the Constitution) "is made for the admission of new States; no provision is made for the secession of old ones. * * * The Government is composed of parts, each essential to the whole, and the whole essential to each part."[46] He emphatically urges that the Constitution provides a panacea for rebellion. "The United States (that is, the great integer) shall guarantee to each State (the integers composing the whole) in this Union a republican form of government. Yes, if rebellion has been rampant, and set aside the machinery of a State for a time, there stands the great law to remove the paralysis and revitalize it, and put it on its feet again." He also harmonizes his strict construction views with the fact of emancipation. "A State may be in the Government with a peculiar institution, and by the operation of rebellion lose that feature; but it was a State when it went into rebellion, and when it comes out without the institution it is still a State."
President Johnson did not allow many days to pass by after his installation, before he began to give practical evidence of his attitude towards the conquered South.[47] The first step which he made was an order, issued April 29, restoring partial commercial intercourse to that portion of the Confederate States lying east of the Mississippi river and within the lines of national military occupation. This removed at the outset one of the chief burdens that had resulted from the insurrection, and would he thought act powerfully in the restoration of peaceful pursuits in that section. The following August another proclamation removed all remaining restrictions on trade in those States, declaring that all necessity for restriction had ceased.[48]