James G. Randall, one of America’s greatest historians and a leading authority on Abraham Lincoln, died just as he was passing the mid-point of the fourth and final volume of his monumental study of Lincoln in the war years, Lincoln the President . This volume, entitled The Last Full Measure , has been completed through the collaboration of R. N. Current, of the University of Illinois, and will be published later this year by Dodd, Mead and Company. By permission of Ruth Painter Randall, A MERICAN HERITAGE is privileged to present herewith a portion of this book, telling how Lincoln painstakingly evolved a plan for harmonious reconstruction of the Union, and describing the way in which the Radical Republicans moved to sabotage it in favor of what finally became the “carpetbag” program.

LINCOLN’S PLAN FOR RECONSTRUCTION