embodiment of the Union element of the South, and at their national convention in 1864, the Republicans decided that the President’s policy of reconstruction for the South would be greatly aided by the presence of a southern man on the ticket, and Johnson was thereupon chosen for the office of Vice-President.  On the same day that Lincoln was inaugurated for the second time, Johnson took the oath of office in the Senate chamber, and delivered a speech which created a sensation.  He declared, in effect, that Tennessee had never been out of the Union, that she was electing representatives who would soon mingle with their brothers from the North at Washington, and that she was entitled to every privilege which the northern states enjoyed.

Three hours after the death of the President, Andrew Johnson took the oath of office as his successor, but he was regarded with suspicion at both North and South—­at the North, because he was believed to be at heart pro-slavery; at the South because of his well-known animosity toward the aristocratic and ruling class.  He was also known to be stubborn, high-tempered and intemperate, and he and Congress were soon at sword’s point.  Johnson was of the opinion that the question of suffrage for the negroes should be left to the several states; a majority of Congress were determined to exact this for their own protection.  This was embodied in the so-called Civil Rights Bill, conferring citizenship upon colored men.  It was promptly vetoed by the President, and was passed over his veto; soon afterwards the fourteenth amendment was passed, conferring the suffrage upon all citizens of the United States without regard to color or previous condition of servitude.  It also was vetoed, and passed over the veto.  Johnson was hailed as a traitor by Republicans, and the campaign against him culminated in his impeachment by Congress early in 1868.  The trial which followed was the most bitter in the history of the Senate, but Andrew Johnson was acquitted by the failure of the prosecution to secure the two-thirds vote necessary for conviction by a single vote, thirty-five senators voting for conviction and nineteen for acquittal.

Johnson’s friends were jubilant, but his power had vanished.  The seceded states one by one came back into the Union in accordance with the Reconstruction act which Johnson had vetoed.  He failed of the nomination on the Democratic ticket, and after the inauguration of his successor, at once returned to his old home in Tennessee.  There he attempted to secure the nomination for United States senator, but his influence was gone and he was defeated.  So ended his public life.