A resolution was impossible following ther civil war for the simple reason that two warning parties. The war had been fought over the confederacys right to exsist as a seperate nation For most of the modern era the process of ending wars involved representatives of the warring nations sitting down at a table and arranging some sort of peace. Depending on the duration, the intensity and the issues over which the war was fought, peace settlements could range from harsh to generous. An unspoken but generally understood assumption was that the warring parties would be likely to meet on the battlefield again, with the results quite possibly reversed. Thus over-harsh settlements were rare.As early as 1863 president Lincoln began to think about reconstruction
