The Impeachment of President Andrew Johnson. Edmund G. Ross
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of the great mass of the people of the country, of both parties and on both sides of the line of hostilities, there seem to be excellent reasons for believing that he would have succeeded, and that the extraordinary and exasperating differences and local turmoils that followed the drastic measures which were afterward adopted by Congress over the President's vetoes, would have been in a very large degree avoided, and there would have been no impeachment — either of Mr. Lincoln had he lived, or of Mr. Johnson after him.
It was the misfortune of the time, and of the occasion, which determined Mr. Lincoln to institute a plan of restoration during the interim of Congress, that the Republican party, then in absolute control of Congress, was in no sense equipped for such a work. Its first and great mission had been the destruction of slavery. Though not phrased in formal fashion, that was the logic of its creation and existence. It was brought into being purely as an anti-slavery party, illustrated in the fact that its membership included every pronounced anti-slavery man, known as abolitionists, in the United States. All its energies, during all its life up to the close of the war had been bent to that end. It had been born and bred to the work of destruction. It came to destroy slavery, and its forces had been nurtured, to the last day of the war, in pulling down — in fact, did not then wholly cease.
The work of restoration — the rebuilding of fallen States — had now come. The Republican party approached that work in the hot blood of war and the elation of victory — a condition illy fitting the demands of exalted statesmanship so essential to perfect political effort.
Never had nation or party thrust upon it a more delicate duty or graver responsibility. It was that of leading a conquered people to build a new civilization wholly different from the one in ruins. It was first to reconcile two races totally different from each other, so far as possible to move in harmony in supplanting servile by free labor, and the slave by a free American citizen. The transition was sudden, and the elements antagonistic in race, culture, self-governing power — indeed, in all the qualities which characterize a free people.
There was a wide margin for honest differences between statesmen of experience. A universal sentiment could not obtain. The accepted political leaders of the time were illy equipped to meet the issue — much less those who had been brought to prominence, and too often to control, in the hot blood of war and the frictions of the time, when intemperate denunciation and a free use of the epithets of "rebel," and "traitor," had become a ready passport to public honors. It was a time when the admonition to make haste slowly was of profound significance. A peril greater than any other the civil war had developed, overhung the nation. Greater than ever the demand for courage in conciliation — for divesting the issues of all mere partyism, and the yielding of something by the extremes, both of conservatism and radicalism.
CHAPTER II — THE BALTIMORE CONVENTION
LINCOLN AND JOHNSON NOT NOMINATED AS REPUBLICANS.
Mr. Lincoln had been elected President in 1860, distinctively as a Republican. In 1864, however, the conditions had changed. The war had been in progress some three years, during which the insurgents had illustrated a measure of courage, endurance, and a command of the engineries of successful warfare that had not been anticipated by the people of the North. It was seen that to insure the success of the Union cause it was imperative that there should be thorough unity and cooperation of the loyal people of all parties — that it was no time for partisan division among those who hoped ever to see a restored Republic — that it was necessary to lay aside, as far as possible, mere partisan issues, and to unite, in the then approaching campaign, upon a non-partisan, distinctively Union ticket and platform.
Mr. Lincoln had given so satisfactory an administration so wisely, efficiently, and patriotically had he conducted his great office, that he was on all sides conceded to be the proper person for nomination and election. The Convention of 1861 was not called as a Republican Convention, but distinctively as a Union Convention.
"The undersigned," so ran the call, "who by original appointment, or subsequent delegation to fill vacancies, constitute the Executive Committee created by the National Convention held at Chicago on the 10th day of May, 1860, do hereby call upon all qualified voters who desire the unconditional maintenance of the Union, the supremacy of the Constitution, and the complete suppression of the existing rebellion, with the cause thereof, by vigorous war, and all apt and effective means; to send delegates to a convention to assemble at Baltimore, on Tuesday, the 7th day of June, 1864, at 12 o'clock noon, for the purpose of presenting candidates for the offices of President and Vice President of the United States."
The delegates met pursuant to this call. Hon. Edwin D. Morgan, of New York, Chairman of the Union National Committee, called the Convention to order, and Robert J. Breckinridge, of Kentucky, was chosen temporary Chairman. In the course of his introductory address, Mr. Breckinridge said:
Passing over many things which it would be right for me to say, did the time serve, and were this the occasion — let me add, — you are a Union party. Your origin has been referred to as having occurred eight years ago. In one sense it is true. But you are far older than that. I see before me not only primitive Republicans and primitive Abolitionists, but I see also primitive Democrats and primitive Whigs. * * * As a Union party I will follow you to the ends of the earth, and to the gates of death. But as an Abolition party — as a Republican party — as a Whig party — as a Democratic party — as an American party, I will not follow you one foot.
Mr. William Dennison, of Ohio, was chosen President of the Convention. On taking the chair he said:
'In no sense do we meet as members or representatives of either of the old political parties which bound the people, or as the champions of any principle or doctrine peculiar to either. The extraordinary condition of the country since the outbreak of the rebellion has, from necessity, taken from the issues of these parties their practical significance, and compelled the formation of substantially new political organizations; hence the organization of the Union Party — if party it can be called — of which this Convention is for the purpose of its assembling, the accredited representative, and the only test of membership in which is an unreserved, unconditional loyalty to the Government and the Union.'
After perfecting its organization the Convention proceeded to ballot for a nominee for the Presidency, and Mr. Lincoln was unanimously nominated — the Missouri delegation at first casting its 22 votes for Gen. Grant, but afterwards changing them to Mr. Lincoln, giving him the total vote of the Convention — 506 — on the first and only ballot.
Nominations for the Vice Presidency being next in order, Mr. Lyman Tremaine, of New York, an old time Democrat, nominated Daniel S. Dickinson, another old time Democrat and a very distinguished citizen of that State. In his nominating speech Mr. Tremaine again emphasized that this Convention was a Union, and not a partisan body, in these words:
'It was well said by the temporary and by the permanent Chairman, that we meet not here as Republicans. If we do, I have no place in this Convention; but, like Daniel S. Dickinson, when the first gun was fired on Sumter, I felt that I should prove false to my revolutionary ancestry if I could have hesitated to cast partisan ties to the breeze, and rally around the flag of the Union for the preservation of the Government.'
The Indiana delegation nominated Andrew Johnson, also a Democrat, and the nomination was seconded by Mr. Stone, speaking for the Iowa delegation.
In the earlier proceedings of the Convention there had seemed a disposition to exclude the Tennessee delegation, and Parson Brownlow, an old line Whig, being called on for a speech, evidenced in the course of his remarks the small part which partisan considerations were permitted to play in the purposes and proceedings of the Convention. He said:
'There need be no detaining this Convention for two days in discussions of various kinds, and the idea I suggest to you as an inducement not to exclude our delegation is, that we may take it into our heads, before the thing is over, to present a candidate from