In an interesting move this week, Mr. Lincoln sent Alpheus Lewis into the south to meet with plantation owners in Mississippi and Arkansas with a revolutionary test plan in hand. The president's plan was to allow plantation owners to re-hire newly freed slaves on their plantation to keep the southern plantations in business and stave off a complete collapse of their economy, bringing starvation to both the former slaves and the whites on the plantation.
It was no surprise that the radical Republicans vehemently opposed the idea and instead wanted the southern economy to undergo change from agriculture to industrial at the end of the war.
Mr. Lincoln also added Union General Daniel Sickles to his list of emissaries with assignments in the south. Sickle has his leg amputated following the battle at Gettysburg and had requested the president give him an assignment to help aid the Union. Mr. Lincoln asked Sickles to look into preparations for the new government of Arkansas.
The president's social calendar for the week included a public reception at the White House attended by long lines and probably eight thousand persons and a visit to Grover's Theater with Senator Chales Sumner of Massachusetts to attend the play "Gamea".
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