the best political judges were as yet uncertain concerning the strength it might exhibit at the November polls. To the minds of many men there were reasons why the War-Democratic element of the Republican Party should be recognized in the selection of its candidate for Vice-President. There was also a strong feeling among original members of the party in favor of making no change, but of again naming Hannibal Hamlin. When, however, the delegates assembled at Baltimore, it was made generally understood that President Lincoln's policy for the restoration of the South to its relations with the Union would in his opinion be greatly promoted by the selection of a Southern man, representing the loyalties of the border States, past, present, and to come, and that he had made choice of Andrew Johnson.

The reaction against this proposition was very strong at the outset, but the President's immediate friends worked diligently, and a more or less reluctant assent was given by a steadily increasing number. The convention was composed of men who were even oppressively aware of the political peril there might be in any appearance of internal factions or jarring counsels. The nomination of Mr. Lincoln having been duly attended to, a ballot for the Vice-Presidential nomination was taken. When the ballots were counted, it was found that Andrew Johnson had received two hundred; Daniel S. Dickinson, one hundred and thirteen; Hannibal Hamlin, one hundred and forty-five; General Benjamin F. Butler, twenty-six; General Lovell H. Rousseau, twenty-one, with a few scattering. The

one danger to be avoided, it was felt, was any kind of contest, and several delegations at once changed their votes to the candidate having the highest number for that reason only. The vote was held and the process continued, until it was finally announced that Andrew Johnson had received four hundred and ninety-four; Daniel S. Dickinson, seventeen, and Hannibal Hamlin, nine. The nomination of Mr. Johnson was at once made unanimous.

The Republican nominees received two hundred and twelve electoral votes, against twenty-one given for those of the composite opposition; but it could not be said that the victorious ticket had obtained additional strength from the name of Andrew Johnson. A very large number of the men who voted for him openly declared their distrust of him as a pro-slavery man. The post of Vice-President was of no special importance, to be sure, but then it should, they said, be filled by a man who was sound upon the vital question.

March 4th, 1865, arrived, and Mr. Lincoln the second time took the oath of office, delivering the solemn and eloquent address which was in reality his farewell.

On the same day, in the Senate chamber, the oath of office was administered to Andrew Johnson as Vice-President. Both the manner and the matter of the speech which he made gave deep and lasting · offence to the nation, and prepared the way for future trouble. It was an exceedingly important speech, however, for it contained a plain statement of the political doctrine which his very nature for

bade him to abandon. Referring to the current action of the State of Tennessee, under his own supervision, to that date, he said:

"I desire to proclaim that Tennessee, whose representative I have been, is free. . . . She stands to-day redeemed. She waited not for the exercise of power by Congress; it was her own act ; and she is now as loyal, Mr. Attorney-General, as the State from which you came. It is the doctrine of the Federal Constitution that no State can go out of this Union, and, moreover, Congress cannot eject a State from this Union. Thank God, Tennessee has never been out of the Union! It is true, the operations of her government were for a time interrupted, there was an interregnum, but she is still in the Union, and I am her representative. This day she elects her governor and her Legislature, which will be convened on the first Monday of April, and her senators and representatives will soon mingle with those of her sister States; and who shall gainsay it? for the Constitution provides that every State shall be guaranteed a republican form of government."

The principles by which President Lincoln proposed to direct his policy, and which were to be accepted and adopted by the Republican Party and by Congress, were indicated by him in various ways; but a few days later he made an all-sufficient commentary upon the crude and illogical talk of the Vice-President. Among other trenchant utterances, he said:

"The question whether the seceded States, so called, are in the Union or out of it is . . . a merely pernicious abstraction. We all agree that the seceded States, so called, are out of their proper practical relations with the Union, and that the sole object of the Government is to get them back into proper practical relations. I believe it is easier to do this without deciding or even considering whether those States have ever been out of the Union. The States, finding themselves once more at home, it would seem to me immaterial to inquire whether they had ever been abroad."

It was evident that something like a political chaos existed at the South, to be dealt with as a great fact resulting from a long civil war, and without much reference to ancient party creeds. The words of Mr. Lincoln, however, served to deepen in the minds of many Republican leaders and a multitude of the people the impression that the Vice-President had neither changed his views nor advanced one step since the day when he voted for the electoral ticket of Breckinridge and Lane. It proved to be a thoroughly correct impression. He had not forgotten anything or learned anything, and in trying to shut up new wine in old bottles he narrowly escaped utter ruin.

CHAPTER IV.

Fall of the Confederacy-Death of President Lincoln -Andrew Johnson President of the United States -An Unfortunate Beginning-Johnson and Grant and the Cabinet-The President's Policy of Reconstruction-Lincoln and Negro Suffrage-The Return to a Peace Establishment.

The

THE last days of the Confederacy had come. Union forces closed in upon Richmond, and then the Army of Northern Virginia, under Lee, surrendered to the Army of the Potomac, under Grant. The liberal terms of surrender accorded by the Union. commander were made the subject of a vigorous protest by the Vice-President, and in this and in other ways the latter gave cause for a common opinion that he entertained extreme and vindictive ideas as to the manner in which the leaders, at least, of the secession movement should now be dealt with. At the North as well as at the South there were numerous expressions of gratification that the settlement of affairs was to be in the hands of the forgiving and merciful Lincoln, and not in those of the severe and implacable Johnson.

It was not so to be, and the utterly unexpected change was wrought by the hand of an assassin. On April 15th, 1865, at twenty-two minutes past seven o'clock in the morning, Abraham Lincoln