Sumner and Lincoln agreed on many things regarding reconstruction: both agreed that there could be no peace or readmittance without the end of slavery; both agreed that former slaves—freedmen—and white Southern Unionists needed guarantees of safety before a state could seek readmission; and both agreed that before a state returned to the Union, it must provide its citizens with the constitutional guarantee of a “republican form of government” through free elections and protection from domestic violence. But their differences were real and sharp.
