Firm stance Quotes
This statement is often misquoted as “Important principles may and must be inflexible” which, of course, is the opposite of what he actually said.
Johnson had proposed an extremely strong civil rights bill. Most Washington insiders assumed that he would gain favor amongst fair minded whites and Blacks for making the attempt, but then he would compromise with the Southerners, and water down the bill to something that had little or no teeth. His staff were trying to learn from Johnson, which aspects of the bill he was willing to compromise on assuming that the President could never get Congress to pass the bill in its original form. They were really surprised at the President’s answer and assumed that he could not do it. They were more surprised when he did drive the bill through Congress without any substantive compromises. It was the most powerful and effective Civil Rights legislation passed since Reconstruction a century earlier.
Douglass visited the White House to ask if Lincoln was going to implement his previous position and allow Black troops to serve in the military in other than labor battalions.
