study  a  period  in  the  history  of  the  United   States  as  one    Y
country.      The   main   steps   were   three   in   close   succession,     '
and  they  are  marked  by  as  many  amendments  to  the  Federal
Constitution.      The    earliest   was    the    abolition   of   slavery,
embodied    in   the   Thirteenth   Amendment   as   adopted,   and
we  may  think  of  this  as  due  to  Lincoln  himself.     He  did


20  THE  RECONSTRUCTION  PERIOD

not  live  to  see  its  ratification,  but  he  had  long  urged  it  and
rejoiced  at  its  adoption  by  his  own  State  of  Illinois  as  well
as  others.  So  far  as  the  South  was  concerned,  it  was  to
be  the  principal  element  in  the  Restoration  attempted  by
his  successor,  Andrew  Johnson.  Many  of  the  States  during
that  process  abolished  slavery  by  their  own  constitutions,  but
this  amendment  placed  the  policy  beyond  repeal,  for  it  in
corporated  abolition  in  the  Federal  Constitution.  The  sec
ond  step  might  be  said  to  come  with  the  proposed  Fourteenth
Amendment,  whose  original  design  perhaps  was  to  make  the
negro  in  some  sense  a  ward  of  the  country,  but  in  order  to
do  this  the  measure  had  also  to  create  a  national  citizenship.
This  removed  the  question  of  Federation  vs.  Nationality
forever  from  the  field  of  practical  politics.  The  battle  over
the  amendment  more  particularly  accompanied  the  attempt
which  we  shall  find  made  by  Congress  at  Southern  Recon
struction.  A  third  step  in  the  development  was  marked  by
the  proposed  Fifteenth  Amendment,  designed  to  establish
a  national  standard  for  suffrage.
