ident were treated in the
beginning as provisional governments and subject to the final judgment
of Congress.

In 1866, when the rupture between Congress and the President had taken
form, the President with the support of Mr. Seward announced the
doctrine that the governments which had been set up were valid
governments, and that claimants for seats in Congress from those who
could prove their loyalty were entitled to admission.

Thus was a foundation laid for the impeachment of President Johnson by
the House of Representatives, and his trial by the Senate.

XXXII
IMPEACHMENT OF ANDREW JOHNSON

The nomination of Andrew Johnson to the Vice-Presidency in 1864, by the
Republican Party, was a repetition of the error committed by the Whig
Party in 1840, in the nomination of John Tyler for the same office.

In each case the nomination was due to an attempt to secure the support
of a body of men who were not in accord in all essential particulars
with the party making the nomination.

John Tyler was opposed to the administration of Mr. Van Buren, but he
was opposed also to a national bank, which was then an accepted idea
and an assured public policy of the Whig Party. Hence, it happened
that when Mr. Tyler came to the Presidency, he resisted the attempt of
Congress to establish a national bank, and by the exercise of the veto-
power, on two occasions, he defeated the measure. This controversy
caused the overthrow of the Whig Party, and it ended the contest in
behalf of a United States bank.

In the case of John Tyler and in the case of Andrew Johnson there was
an application, in dangerous excess, of a policy that prevails in all
national conventions. When the nomination of a candidate for the
Presidency has been secured, the dominant wing of the party turns to
the minority with a tender of the Vice-Presidency. In 1880, when the
nomination of General Garfield had been made, the selection of a
candidate for the Vice-Presidency was tendered to the supporters of
General Grant, and it was declined by more than one person.

Mr. Johnson never identified himself with the Republican Party; and
neither in June, 1864, nor at any other period of his life, had the
Republican Party a right to treat him as an associate member. He was,
in fact, what he often proclaimed himself to be--a Jacksonian Democrat.
He was a Southern Union Democrat. He was an opponent, and a bitter
opponent, of the project for the dissolution of the U