President Johnson has finally decided that the reconstruction of the
Union must be accomplished through the States themselves. He was opposed by several members of his Cabinet, but remained firm, and has completed his work by calling a Convention for Texas and dissolving the large army assembled in that State. It is believed that the Conventions will return a majority of violent pro-slavery men, and that the plan of the Southern leaders is of this kind. They will accept abolition, which indeed they cannot avert, will through their alliance with the Democrats endeavour once more to master Congress and fill the offices, and will then pass State laws on vagrancy, apprenticeship, desertion, land- owning, and breach of contract, which will once more bind the negroes to the plantations. If this policy succeeds the struggle is only postponed, and its success can only be averted by military interference, or the insertion of another clause in the Constitution disabling the States from passing any law based upon distinctions of colour.
