is no irreverence in making this appeal, which I do with all solemnity, for I know myself and the deep interest which I and others around me have in the welfare of our country and the harmonious working of our institutions-I hope and trust that Whigs and Democrats, the reflecting, the intelligent and the patriotic of both parties, will look to the extent, the length and breadth and height of this momentous question. I trust, in looking to the amount of public property and tranquillity and happiness, as well as the great value of property which is involved in the adjustment of our present difficulties, they will be brought to feel that the preservation of this Union is paramount to all other considerations."

The positive force in Andrew Johnson's character was such that he was not a believer in compromises of any sort, and he had little faith in those measures by which men like Clay and Fillmore sought to ward off the dangers that from 1850 to 1860 lowered all about the political horizon. He was for each of the measures because he believed it to be right, but advised both sections to abandon the idea of compromise and rely upon the guarantees of the Constitution. He believed there never was a compromise in which some party was not wronged, and fell back upon his old idea that there was a principle of right somewhere which would eventually be brought to light. Expressing his views upon the question, he said:

'Whenever there is a difficulty between vice and virtue, vice can get up an agitation, an issue with virtue, and of course vice is always ready to compromise; but when virtue compromises with vice, vice obtains the ascendency. Whenever there is a contest between truth and falsehood and it is settled by a compromise, truth gives way and falsehood triumphs. Is it not time to stop compromising? I think we have compromises enough, and I will say here in my place to-day that I believe the agitation which has taken place, first in getting up compromises, and then upon the compromises after they are made, has done more to make the institution of slavery permanent than all the other action of the Federal government."

When Lincoln was elected to the Presidency, and the ultra slaveholders of the south gave evidence that their threats for the destruction of the Union had not been the empty rhetoric of politics, Andrew Johnson was one of the few of the south who stood firm for the Union, and declared that it must be preserved at all hazards, and punishment. meted out to those who would raise hand against it. His course during that time of danger and trouble was that of a patriot; and while other leaders of the south were renouncing their allegiance to the old flag and declaring that they would draw their swords only in behalf of their states, he stood upon the floor of the senate and denounced treason from whatever source it might come, and in tones of stern eloquence pledged

himself and his state to the Union cause. It was on the eighteenth and nineteenth of December, 1860, when he had come to understand that all the talk so long going on about him in favor of secession and the destruction of the Union was not the mere rhetoric of the politician, that he electrified the north and filled the south with anger by one of the greatest and most powerful speeches ever delivered in congress. While he was resolutely opposed to secession, he was in favor of giving the south the fullest rights she could demand under the Constitution. Tennessee had denied the doctrine of secession, and as for himself he meant to hold on to the Union and the guarantees under the Constitution. In order that the south might have no excuse for withdrawing, he had introduced three amendments to the Constitution which he believed would open a way for an adjustment of all difficulties, provided the south had any desire to remain in the Union. One proposed to change the mode of election of President and vice-president of the United States from the electoral college to a vote direct of the people; the second that the senators of the United States should be elected by the people once in six years, rather than by the state legislatures; while the third provided that the supreme court should be divided into three classes: the term of the first class to expire in four years from the time the classification should be made, of the second class in eight years, and of the third class in twelve years; and as these vacancies should occur they were to be filled by persons chosen one-half from the slave states and the other half from the free states, thereby taking the judges of the supreme court, so far as their selection. went, from the respective divisions of the country. The measures also provided that at each election the President or vice-president must be from the slaveholding states.

It was upon these propositions that Senator Johnson made his great speech. Opening upon the eighteenth, he had so far advanced in his conclusions by the evening that all parties could understand his position, and he was the subject of discussion by Unionist and secessionist alike. The latter class was bitter in denunciation, which fact, instead of embarrassing him, nerved him to even more vehement efforts upon the following day. His line of argument was to show that a state could not, of its own motion, withdraw from the general compact. The Constitution was made perpetual, and to that end provision was made for its own amendment, improvement and continuance. No attempt will be made to follow that speech of two days, with the exception of isolated quotations showing his position upon the one great question by which all other issues. were for the time swallowed:

"Sir, if the doctrine of secession is to be carried out upon the mere whim of a state, this government is at an end! I am as much opposed to a strong, or what may be called by some a consolidated government,

as it is possible for man to be; but while I am greatly opposed to that, I want a government strong enough to preserve its own existence; that will not fall to pieces by its own weight or when a little dissatisfaction takes place in one of its members. If the states have the right to secede at will or pleasure, for real or imaginary evils or oppressions, I repeat again, this government is at an end; it is no stronger than a rope of sand; its own weight will crumble it to pieces and it cannot exist.

I have an abiding faith, I have an unshaken confidence in man's capability to govern himself. I will not give up this government that is now called an experiment, which some are prepared to abandon for a constitutional monarchy. No; I intend to stand by it, and I entreat every man throughout the Nation who is a patriot, and who has seen, and is compelled to admit the success of this great experiment, to come forward, not in heat, not in fanaticism, not in haste, not in precipitancy, but in deliberation, in full view of all that is before us, in the spirit of brotherly love and fraternal affection, and rally around the altar of our common country, and lay the Constitution upon it as our last libation, and swear by our God and all that is holy and sacred that the Constitution shall be saved and the Union preserved."

Mr. Johnson's antecedents made his speech far more significant than would have been the same expressions from a senator from the north of Mason and Dixon's line, and caused him to be listened to with at least respectful attention by many classes. As was aptly remarked by a leading writer at the time: He was recommended to the attention of the Republicans on account of his earnest advocacy of the measure to open the public lands to actual settlers; to the Breckenridge men because he had supported their candidate for the Presidency; and to Douglas men because he agreed with the great senator from Illinois on the doctrine of non-intervention. If this speech had come from a northern Democrat it would have fallen with small effect upon the south; but that a southern Democrat, one who had sustained Breckenridge, should hurl such thunderbolts against their treason, was more than they could calmly bear; and no higher tribute could have been paid to the courage of his loyalty and the force of his eloquence, than the bitterness with which he was assailed by the senators from the south. On the fifth and sixth of February, 1861, he followed up the attack by a second well prepared and elaborate speech, in which he defined his position as a Union man in language even more direct and bold.

While there were many Union men in Tennessee who sympathized with Senator Johnson's utterance, there were many secessionists in that section who did all that lay in their power to intimidate and silence him. Proceeding on his way homeward from the National capital, he was groaned at and hissed by a mob at Lynchburg, while at another point he was set

upon in the railway cars by an infuriated mob, and only escaped injury by the exhibition of the rare physical courage of which he was possessed. Pistol in hand he met and cowed the ruffians who had made the attack; while his own life, and possibly the lives of some who had threatened him, were alone saved by the presence of ladies who were traveling in his company. But opposition of this character only made him more outspoken, and at the East Tennessee Union convention in May, at Cincinnati in June, and at the extra session of the senate succeeding the inauguration of Mr. Lincoln, he proclaimed with all the force of his nature his faith in the Union and devotion to the flag. Whatever mistakes Andrew Johnson may have made in after years, he certainly performed a loyal service in these days of darkness and danger that will ever hold for him an affectionate place in the regard of the American people.

Events moved rapidly, and Mr. Johnson soon found himself in a position where he could make himself far more effective than in speech or senatorial vote. On the fourth of March, 1862, President Lincoln nominated him as military governor of Tennessee, with the rank of brigadier-general. Near the twelfth of the same month he reached the city of Nashville and assumed the dangerous and perplexing duties of his office. His first movement was to organize a government for the state. The city had only recently been evacuated by the rebels, the southern sympathizers in the vicinity were loud in their threats and open with their insults; and while every indignity that pride or malice could invent was heaped upon the governor, every possible obstacle was thrown in the way of his administration of the affairs of the state. He proceeded steadily upon his determined course, and the people over whom he was placed soon came to understand, as even they had never before known, the fearless and unyielding character of the man in whose hands authority had been placed. On March 18 he issued an address to the people which indicated the purpose of the government to crush treason, and gave some idea of the vigorous policy it was his purpose to purIn the conclusion thereof, he said:

sue.

"To the people themselves the protection of the government is extended. All their rights will be duly respected and their wrongs redressed when made known. Those who through the dark and weary nights of the rebellion have maintained their allegiance to the Federal government will be honored. The erring and misguided will be welcomed on their return. And while it may become necessary, in vindicating the violated majesty of the law and reasserting its imperial sway, to punish intelligent and conscious treason in high places, no merely retaliatory or vindictive policy will be adopted. To those especially who, in a private, unofficial capacity, have assumed an attitude of hostility to the government, a full and competent amnesty for all past acts and declarations is offered, upon the one

condition of their again yielding themselves peaceful citizens to the just supremacy of the laws."

The administration of Governor Johnson in Tennessee during the troubled times that followed would make an interesting chapter of American history, but must be passed over briefly in view of the greater events that followed. His patriotism and courage had long been conceded by all, and he showed himself in possession of such other qualities of planning and execution that made him a valuable ally to the Union generals in command in and about Tennessee. It was while employed in these great labors he

was called by the Union party of the Nation to be its second standardbearer in the important Presidential contest of 1864.

The National Union convention assembled at Baltimore on June 6 of the year last named. The renomination of Mr. Lincoln was a foregone conclusion, and the great question before that body was the choice of an associate upon the ticket who should give it strength and be an additional guarantee of the party's principles and purposes. Many eminent names were mentioned in connection with the place, but when New York presented that of Andrew Johnson, and Pennsylvania followed in her lead, the wave of popular favor broke from all restraint, and his selection was made by the unanimous vote of the convention. Upon receiving official notification of his selection, Governor Johnson wrote an extended letter of acceptance, in which, among many other expressions of like tenor, he used the following words-the meaning of which no man could misunderstand: "At the beginning of this great struggle I entertained the same opinion of it I do now, and in my place in the senate I denounced it as treason worthy of the punishment of death, and warned the government and people of impending danger. And now, if we would save the government from being overwhelmed by it, we must meet it in the true spirit of patriotism and bring the traitors to the punishment due their crime, and by force of arms crush out and subdue the last vestige of rebel authority in every state.

The destruction of the government was deliberately determined upon by wicked and designing conspirators, whose lives and fortunes were pledged to carry it out, and no compromise short of an unconditional recognition of the independence of the southern states could have been, or could now be proposed, which they would accept. . . . It is vain to attempt to reconstruct the Union with the distracting element of slavery in it. Experience has demonstrated its incompatibility with free and republican governments, and it would be unwise and unjust longer to continue it as one of the institutions of the country. . . . The mode by which this great change—the emancipation of the slave-can be effected, is properly found in the power to amend the Constitution of the United States. This plan is effectual, and of no doubtful authority; and while it does not contravene the timely exercise of the war power by the President in his Eman