ABSTRACT
Constitutional arguments about reconstruction were often tortuous and the constitutional debate was often confused, and sometimes riddled with contradiction. By the second half of 1863 the great divide between radical and conservative approaches to reconstruction was still whether or not complete abolition should be an essential condition of restoration to the Union. Throughout 1864, reconstruction and the election took turns to occupy the political limelight. The man who was most responsible for Lincoln’s re-nomination and re-election was Abraham Lincoln himself. Whereas the Democrats and their forebears had dominated the presidency until 1860, only Henry Cleveland and James H. Wilson were to break the run of Republican success in the seven decades from Lincoln to Herbert Hoover. Lincoln looked to the speediest possible restoration of the states, while radical opinion was more and more impressed by the idea of postponing the main business of reconstruction until after the war.
