Before the war, Mr. Johnson had been a Democratic Senator from Tennessee, and during the war, a gentleman of great influence in support of the Union cause. So pronounced and effective had been his loyalty that Mr. Lincoln appointed him a Brigadier General and Military Governor of Tennessee, to accept which he resigned his seat in the Senate, and so judicious and successful had been his administration of that office in behalf of the Union cause and of Union men, that Tennessee was the first of the revolted States to be readmitted to representation in Congress after the close of the war.
So it may be said of Mr. Johnson that he was a persistent and consistent Union Democrat of the old school--for war so long as war might be necessary to the preservation of the Union--for peace when the war was ended by the abandonment of the struggle by the insurgents--and for the restoration of the Union on terms consistent with then existing conditions--without slavery, which was dead--and the return of the people of the South to their loyalty to and support of the Government without debasing exactions--after they had laid down their arms. Aggressively radical so long as the people of the South continued in rebellion, he was considerate and merciful so soon as they yielded themselves to the authority of law and of the Union.
Like Mr. Lincoln, he opposed the idea strenuously advanced by Sumner, and Stevens, and that wing of the Republican party which they led, that the States in rebellion had committed suicide and were therefore dead and without rights, or entitled to consideration, even, in any proposition that might be adopted for their rehabilitation.
This record very effectually disposes of the criticisms of Mr.
Johnson's course, so common after he came to the Presidency and growing out of his disagreements with the extremists of Congress, that he had deserted and betrayed the Republican party after it had elected him to the Vice Presidency and thus made him Mr.
Lincoln's immediate successor--the facts of history showing that neither Mr. Lincoln nor Mr. Johnson were elected by the Republican party as Republicans, nor by the Democratic party as Democrats, but by a union of all parties of the North distinctively as a Union party and on a Union ticket and platform for the preservation of the Union and the destruction of slavery--and when those purposes were accomplished, the war ended and the Union party disbanded and was never heard of again. Mr.
Lincoln, had he lived, would doubtless have still been a Republican, as Mr. Johnson was still a Democrat, as before the war--the purpose of that war and of the Convention that nominated him having been accomplished--and under no obligations, especially of a partisan character, to adopt or promote the partisan purposes relative to reconstruction or otherwise, that came to actuate the Republican party.
As stated. Mr. .Johnson had, during the later years of the war, been acting as Military Governor of Tennessee, of which State he had been a citizen nearly all his life. His administration had been so efficient that Tennessee was practically restored to the Union at the close of the War, and so satisfactory to the loyal people of the country, that though an old line Democrat and a Southern man, Mr. Johnson's nomination by the National Convention for Vice President on the ticket with Mr. Lincoln for President, was, as has been shown, logical and consistent. Though a pronounced State Rights Democrat and a citizen of a Southern State in rebellion, he regarded himself as a citizen of the United States, to which he owed his first allegiance. State Rights meant to him, the rights of the States IN the Union, and not OUT of the Union.
In evidence of the confidence and esteem in which Mr. Johnson was generally held by those who knew him and knew of the valuable services he had rendered the cause of the Union, the following letter from Mr. Stanton, then secretary of War under Mr. Lincoln, is here reproduced. It was written to Mr. Johnson on his tender to the War Office of his resignation of the Military Governorship of Tennessee to accept the office of Vice President of the United States:
War Department, Washington, March 3, 1865.
Sir:--This Department has accepted your resignation as Brigadier General and Military Governor of Tennessee. Permit me on this occasion to tender to you the sincere thanks of this Department for your patriotic and able services during the eventful period through which you have exercised the highest trust committed to your charge. In one of the darkest hours of the great struggle for National existence, against rebellious foes, the Government called you from the comparatively safe and easy duties of civil life to place you in front of the enemy and in a position of personal toil and danger, perhaps more hazardous than was encountered by any citizen or military officer of the United States. With patriotic promptness you assumed the post, and maintained it under circumstances of unparalleled trial, until recent events have brought safety and deliverance to your State and to the integrity of the Constitutional Union, for which you so long and so gallantly periled all that is dear to man on earth. That you may be spared to enjoy the new honors and perform the high duties to which you have been called by the people of the United States, is the sincere wish of one who in every official and personal relation has found you worthy of the confidence of the Government and the honor and esteem of your fellow citizens.
Your obedient servant,Edwin M. Stanton.
His Excellency, Andrew Johnson, Vice-President elect.
