The Central
Directory, or Stevens's Reconstruction Committee, have submitted their plan of
Reconstruction, which means division for four years longer at least. The papers
of the day contain this extraordinary programme, which is an outrage, and yet
is said to have had the approval of all the Republican members of that
extraordinary committee. It makes me sad to see men in trusted and responsible
positions so devoted to party, so trained and subservient to faction as to
trifle with the welfare of a great nation. No one can read the propositions
submitted without seeing that the whole scheme is one for party ascendancy. The
result will be, after a struggle, perhaps of years, the ultimate overwhelming
and disgraceful defeat of the authors and their party.
SOURCE: Gideon
Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and
Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, p. 494
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