By quarter to nine there was still no sign of the President. The blunt-featured Chief Executive sailed in a sea of gossip these days. People said he lacked tact, drank heavily. And he was common — well, that was true. Johnson, a tailor, later senator, was the self-educated son of a Tennessee tavern porter, but he did not have the skills that had enabled Lincoln to turn his rustic background into a personal advantage. George had met Johnson. He found him a brusque, opinionated man with an almost religious reverence for the Constitution. That alone would put him at odds with the Radical Republicans, who wanted to expand interpretation of the Constitution to suit their vision of society.

George agreed with many Radical positions, including equal rights and the franchise for eligible males of both races. But frequently he found Radical motives and tactics repugnant. Many of the Radicals made no secret of their intent to use black voters to make the Republicans the majority party, upsetting the traditional Democratic dominance of the country. The Radicals displayed a vicious animosity toward those they had conquered, as well as any others they deemed ideologically impure.

President Johnson and the Radicals were locked in an increasingly vindictive struggle for control of reconstruction of the Union. It was not a new quarrel. In 1862, Lincoln had proposed his Louisiana Plan, later amplifying it to allow for readmission of any seceded state in which a "tangible nucleus" of voters — only ten percent of those qualified to vote in 1860 — took a loyalty oath and organized a pro-Union government.

In July of 1864, the Radical Republicans had retaliated with a bill written by Senator Ben Wade, of Ohio, and Representative Henry Davis, of Maryland. It outlined a much harsher reconstruction plan, which included a provision for military rule of the defeated Confederacy. The bill fixed control of reconstruction in the Congress. Early in 1865, Tennessee had formed a government under the Lincoln plan, headed by a Whig Unionist named Brownlow. The Radicals in Congress refused to seat elected representatives of that government.