in politics he would doubtless have been what was called a " War Democrat " - a Unionist, when it was a question of the unity of the country, but opposed to the extreme measures adopted by the Republicans at the close of the war. In his letters are several extended reviews of the causes of the war, which are generally judicious and enlightened. After the war came to a close, he became imbued with a fear of the radical element in the dominant party and looked upon its success as fraught with great danger to the Republic. He favored the milder policy of President Johnson toward the South and deprecated the hostility of Congress toward his reconstruction measures.
His feeling on these questions was doubtless largely controlled by the turn things took in the State of Missouri after the close of the war. The radical party for a time held control of the State and proceeded to extreme measures in order to perpetuate it. In 1865 a new constitution was adopted. The convention which drafted it was under the control of a few extremists. Among the more drastic features was the requirement of a test oath as condition precedent to voting, holding office, teaching school, preaching the gospel, solemnizing marriage, practicing law, sitting as a juror, or holding property in trust for any church, religious society or congregation. The principal condition of the oath was that the individual had never sympathized with or aided the South. There were some forty-five offenses that he must never have committed; and so sweeping were its provisions that no one could truthfully take it.
This provision of the new constitution was a failure almost from the start. The better sentiment of the community rebelled against it. Prominent men refused to be bound by it. Finally its validity was passed upon by the Supreme Court of the United States in January, 1867, and it was declared to be unconstitutional.
In one of his letters to friends in Europe, written while the test-oath was still in force, Father De Smet thus sets