and announced his intention to stand by and act under the Constitution.  Retained his seat in the Senate until appointed by President Lincoln military governor of Tennessee, March 4, 1862.  March 12 reached Nashville, and organized a provisional government for the State; March 18 issued a proclamation in which he appealed to the people to return to their allegiance, to uphold the law, and to accept “a full and complete amnesty for all past acts and declarations;” April 5 removed the mayor and other officials of Nashville for refusing to take the oath of allegiance to the United States, and appointed others; urged the holding of Union meetings throughout the State, and frequently attended them in person; completed the railroad from Nashville to the Tennessee River; raised twenty-five regiments for service in the State; December 8, 1862, issued a proclamation ordering Congressional elections, and on the 15th levied an assessment upon the richer Southern sympathizers “in behalf of the many helpless widows, wives, and children in the city of Nashville who have been reduced to poverty and wretchedness in consequence of their husbands, sons, and fathers having been forced into the armies of this unholy and nefarious rebellion.”  Was nominated for Vice-President of the United States at the national Republican convention at Baltimore June 8, 1864, and was elected on November 8.  In his letter of acceptance of the nomination Mr. Johnson virtually disclaimed any departure from his principles as a Democrat, but placed his acceptance upon the ground of “the higher duty of first preserving the Government.”  On the night of the 14th of April, 1865, President Lincoln was shot by an assassin and died the next morning.  At 11 o’clock a.m.  April 15 Mr. Johnson was sworn in as President, at his rooms in the Kirkwood House, Washington, by Chief Justice Chase, in the presence of nearly all the Cabinet officers and others.  April 29, 1865, issued a proclamation for the removal of trade restrictions in most of the insurrectionary States, which, being in contravention of an act of Congress, was subsequently modified.  May 9 issued an Executive order restoring Virginia to the Union.  May 22 proclaimed all ports, except four in Texas, opened to foreign commerce on July 1, 1865.  May 29 issued a general amnesty proclamation, after which the fundamental and irreconcilable differences between President Johnson and the party that had elevated him to power became more apparent.  He exercised the veto power to a very great extent, but it was generally nullified by the two-thirds votes of both Houses.  From May 29 to July 13, 1865, proclaimed provisional governors for North Carolina, Mississippi, Georgia, Texas, Alabama, South Carolina, and Florida, whose duties were to reorganize the State governments.  The State governments were reorganized, but the Republicans claimed that the laws passed were so stringent in reference to the negroes that it was a worse form of slavery than the old.  The thirteenth amendment