Wide were the dissensions in the North during that year and the Republicans, while selecting Lincoln as their candidate again, cast off their old name and chose the simple title of the “Union party.”  Moreover, they selected a Southern man, Andrew Johnson, of Tennessee, to be associated with him as candidate for Vice President.  This combination the Northern Democrats boldly confronted with a platform declaring that “after four years of failure to restore the union by the experiment of war, during which, under the pretence of military necessity or war power higher than the Constitution, the Constitution itself has been disregarded in every part and public liberty and private right alike trodden down ... justice, humanity, liberty, and public welfare demand that immediate efforts be made for a cessation of hostilities, to the end that peace may be restored on the basis of the federal union of the states.”  It is true that the Democratic candidate, General McClellan, sought to break the yoke imposed upon him by the platform, saying that he could not look his old comrades in the face and pronounce their efforts vain; but the party call to the nation to repudiate Lincoln and his works had gone forth.  The response came, giving Lincoln 2,200,000 votes against 1,800,000 for his opponent.  The bitter things said about him during the campaign, he forgot and forgave.  When in April, 1865, he was struck down by the assassin’s hand, he above all others in Washington was planning measures of moderation and healing.

THE RESULTS OF THE CIVIL WAR

There is a strong and natural tendency on the part of writers to stress the dramatic and heroic aspects of war; but the long judgment of history requires us to include all other significant phases as well.  Like every great armed conflict, the Civil War outran the purposes of those who took part in it.  Waged over the nature of the union, it made a revolution in the union, changing public policies and constitutional principles and giving a new direction to agriculture and industry.

=The Supremacy of the Union.=—­First and foremost, the war settled for all time the long dispute as to the nature of the federal system.  The doctrine of state sovereignty was laid to rest.  Men might still speak of the rights of states and think of their commonwealths with affection, but nullification and secession were destroyed.  The nation was supreme.

=The Destruction of the Slave Power.=—­Next to the vindication of national supremacy was the destruction of the planting aristocracy of the South—­that great power which had furnished leadership of undoubted ability and had so long contested with the industrial and commercial interests of the North.  The first paralyzing blow at the planters was struck by the abolition of slavery.  The second and third came with the fourteenth (1868) and fifteenth (1870) amendments, giving the ballot to freedmen and excluding from public