nor and Republican
representative in Congress.

The aggregate majority for the Republicans and against the
Administration in the Northern States was about three hundred and
ninety thousand votes. In the South the elections were as significant
as in the North, but in the opposite direction. Wherever Republican
or Union tickets were put forward for State or local offices in the
Confederate States, they were defeated by prodigious majorities.
Arkansas gave a Democratic majority of over nine thousand, Texas over
forty thousand, and North Carolina twenty-five thousand. The border
slave States were divided. Delaware, Maryland and Kentucky gave strong
majorities for the Democrats, while West Virginia and Missouri were
carried by the Republicans. The unhappy indication of the whole result
was that President Johnson's policy had inspired the South with a
determination not to submit to the legitimate results of the war, but
to make a new fight and, if possible, regain at the ballot-box the
power they had lost by war. The result of the whole election was to
give to the Republicans one hundred and forty-three representatives in
Congress and to the Democrats but forty-nine. The defeat was so
decisive that if the President had been wise he would have sought a
return of friendly relations with the party which had elected him, or
at least some form of compromise which would have averted constant
collision, with the certainty of defeat and humiliation. But his
disposition was unyielding. His prejudices obscured his reason.

It was well known that the President felt much cast down by the
result. He had, as is usual with Presidents, been surrounded by
flatterers, and had not been advised of the actual state of public
opinion. Political deserters, place-seekers and personal sycophants
had constantly assured the President that his cause was strong and
his strength irresistible. They had discovered that one of his
especial weaknesses was an ambition to be considered as firm and
heroic in his Administration as General Jackson had proved in the
Executive chair thirty years before. He received, therefore, with
evident welcome the constant adulation of a comparison between his
qualities and those of General Jackson, and he came to fancy that he
would prove, in his contest for the unconditional re-admission of
Southern States to representation, as mighty a power in the land as
Jackson had proved in his struggle with the Bank monopo