Mr. Chandler aided in shaping and passing the reconstruction measures of 1866-'67-'68, not for the reason that they precisely embodied his ideas of the true method to be pursued, but because they presented a plan upon which the Republicans could be united, which was practicable, and which promised to reorganize the Southern States on the basis of the supremacy of the loyal elements in their population. When Andrew Johnson took the first step in unfolding his "policy" (by his general amnesty proclamation and by the appointment of a provisional governor for North Carolina, both acts bearing the date of May 29, 1865) the "Confederacy" had ceased to exist, its chieftain was a captive, its armies were prisoners of war on parole, its capacity for resistance had been consumed in the furnace of battle, but its bitterness still glowed and the prejudices and ambitions which gave it being were undestroyed. The amnesty proclamation relieved, with a few exceptions, those who bore arms against the government and the most virulent supporters of rebellion who remained at home from all pains and penalties on the sole condition that they should subscribe to an oath of future loyalty. The provisional government proclamations permitted all persons thus amnestied, who were voters according to laws of the States previous to the rebellion, to elect delegates to conventions to amend the local constitutions and restore the States to their "constitutional relations with the federal government." By this process the loyal colored men of the South were denied the right to participate in the work of reconstruction and the entire machinery of reorganization was placed in the control of men whose hands were yet red with Union blood. Their discretion was only hampered by three conditions, compliance with which was made essential to the presidential approval of their work. They were required to annul the secession ordinances, to formally recognize the abolition of slavery, and to repudiate all debts created to promote rebellion. Beyond this, the disloyal classes of the South were left in undisputed mastery of the situation. The control of the insurgent States, and of the lives and fortunes of the loyalists, white and black, were surrendered absolutely to the men who but a few weeks before had been wrecked in the catastrophe which overwhelmed the rebellion. That they were prompt to improve this unexpected, undeserved and mistaken leniency need not be said. Their use of their new power was both presumptuous and intolerant. In elections, which proscribed Union men as unworthy of trust, conventions were chosen which accepted ungraciously the mere fact of emancipation, and which repudiated the rebel debts only under repeated presidential compulsion. State governments were then organized, which placed men whose disloyalty had been conspicuous in responsible positions, and which sent unamnestied leaders of the rebellion in the field and in council to Washington as claimants of Congressional seats. The State legislation which followed embodied in shameful laws the unquenched diabolism of the slave power. In statutory phraseology these enactments declared, "politically and socially this is a white man's government," and, impudently asserting that Congress was without any power over the matter, the men who had, in form, admitted the death of slavery proceeded to establish peonage in its stead. No body of laws adopted by any civilized nation in this century has equaled in studied injustice and cruelty those by which the "Johnson governments" of 1865 and 1866 sought to prevent the freedmen from rising from the level of admitted and hopeless inferiority, and to convince the blacks that in ceasing to be slaves they had only become serfs. Colored people were denied the right to acquire or dispose of public property. It was made a crime for a negro to enter a plantation without the consent of its owner or agent. Freedmen were declared vagrants, and punished as such for preaching the gospel without a license from some regularly organized church. Colored men failing to pay capitation tax were declared vagrants and the sale of their services was permitted as a penalty. Black persons were prohibited from renting or leasing lands except in incorporated towns or villages. Their owning or bearing arms was declared to be a violation of the peace. For a negro to break a labor contract was made an offense punishable by imprisonment. Colored laborers on farms were prohibited from selling poultry or farm products, and it was made a misdemeanor to purchase from them.