Incident at an Antique Store

[Wild Bill]

But the seceded states were in effect turned into "territories" by the Military Reconstruction Acts of March 1867 which made them (less Tennessee, which had accepted the proposed 14th Amendment, two of Andrew Johnson's "tools" not voting, according to Gov. Parson Brownlow) 5 military districts to be administered by the US Army with the approval of Congress, for some months or years, depending upon which "territory" one looks at. I agree most of the "purified" territories were reverted to states by July 1868, but one, Georgia, was thrown out again, and four were militarily governed by the Army, albeit under civilians approved by the Army, until spring 1870. How harmful this policy was is still debated by historians today. Further, historians do not really know what Lincoln's Reconstruction program might have been after Appomattox. It is quite possible that he might have compromised with the Radical Republicans more than we think today. But all this is what Lincoln filed under "pernicious abstractions," right?