Perhaps you'd be interested in the view of the Detroit Free Press about the conditions the Union placed on Southern states (The Memphis Daily Appeal, [Atlanta, Georgia], February 26, 1864):
How the States are Brought Back Into the UnionNot all the Northern papers endorse Lincolns farce of "dragooning" the seceded States "back into the Union." The Detroit Free Press (the organ of General Cass) says of the game being played in Arkansas:
The President says to the people of Arkansas: I will allow you to return to the Union, but not under your own Constitution and the Constitution of the United States. You must first join the abolition party, and next you must make or I will make for you an abolition Constitution and abolition laws. If you dont do this, Ill send an army there to thrash you till you do it. Ill send Northern politicians to rule you some consistent bantam like T. W. Lockwood, or some virtuous chieftain like Colonel Dorus Fox [I think he may have been charged with buying commissions]. Ill make you a Constitution and enforce it upon you by bayonets, and the First Michigan Ethiopian. It is my will, and you must submit. You must accept this "unconditional Unionism." The interests of God and humanity require it, and the people of Massachusetts wish it.
Not really, no.
Not really, no.