on and his
supporters claimed that the President held the power by virtue of his
office to convene the people of the respective States, and that under
his direction constitutions might be framed, and that Senators and
Representatives might be chosen who would be entitled to seats in
Congress, as though they represented States that had not been engaged
in secession and war. Others maintained that neither by the ordinances
of secession nor by the war had the States of the Confederacy been
disturbed in their legal relations to the Union.

It was the theory of the Republican Party in Congress that the eleven
States by their own acts had destroyed their legal relations to the
Union; that the jurisdiction of the National Government over the
territory of the seceding States was full and complete; and that, as
a result of the war, the National Government could hold them in a
Territorial condition and subject to military rule. Upon this theory
the re-appearance of a seceded State as a member of the Union was made
to depend upon the assent of Congress, with the approval of the
President, or upon an act of Congress by a two-thirds vote over a
Presidential veto.

General Grant sustained the policy of Congress during the long and
bitter contest with President Johnson, and when he became President
he accepted that policy without reserve in the case of the restoration
of the States of Virginia, Georgia, Texas, and Mississippi. Upon this
statement it appears that General Grant was a Republican, and that he
became a Republican by processes that preclude the suggestion that his
nomination for the Presidency wrought any change in his position upon
questions of principle or policy in the affairs of government. Indeed,
his nomination in 1868 was distasteful to him, as he then preferred to
remain at the head of the army. It was in the nature of things,
however, that he should have wished for re-election. He was re-
elected, and at the end of his second term he accepted a return to
private life as a relief from the cares and duties of office. The
support which he received for the nomination in 1880 was not due to
any effort on his part. Not even to his warmest supporters did he
express a wish, or dictate or advise an act. His only utterance was
a message to four of his friends at the Chicago Convention, that
whatever they might do in the premises would be acceptable to him.
His political career was marked by the same abstention fro