sage giving his reasons for not signing the bill is one of his most dispassionate, little revealing the sting he felt. It was an uncalled-for act, and the circumstances changing in the election of General Grant to the Presidency, Congress hastened to repeal it, virtually, early in the spring of 1869.

Some of the less important acts passed at this session of Congress were: Providing for an extraordinary session of Congress beginning at the expiration of that term, March 4, 1867; providing for general suffrage without reference to race or color in the Territories (this act, the President not returning it in ten days, became a law without his signature); providing in the Army Appropriation Bill against the suspending or removal of the General of the Army; providing against peonage in New Mexico or any other Territory; and a resolution was passed authorizing the Secretary of War to contract for a bronze equestrian statue of General Winfield Scott.

Political affairs were now in an exceedingly unsettled condition, both North and South, and there was some diversity of opinion as to the course of the President and Congress, the Democrats, however, siding with the President, and the Republicans mainly with Congress.

On the 17th of August, 1866, a number of men calling themselves the National Union Convention met in Philadelphia, and in their resolutions or statement of principles said :

"Representation in the Congress of the United States and in the Electoral College is a right recognized by the Constitu

tion as abiding in every State, and as a duty imposed upon the people, fundamental in its nature, and essential to the existence of our republican institutions, and neither Congress nor the General Government has any authority or power to deny this right to any State, or to withhold its enjoyment under the Constitution from the people thereof.

"We call upon the people of the United States to elect to Congress as members thereof none but men who admit this fundamental right of representation, and who will receive to seats therein loyal Representatives from every State in allegiance to the United States, subject to the Constitutional right of each House to judge of the elections, returns, and qualifications of its own members.

"In Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, who, in his great office, has proved steadfast in his devotion to the Constitution, the laws, and interests of his country, unmoved by persecution and undeserved reproach, having faith unassailable in the people and in the principles of free government, we recognize a Chief Magistrate worthy of the Nation, and equal to the great crisis upon which his lot is cast; and we tender to him in the discharge of his high and responsible duties our profound respect and assurance of our cordial and sincere support."

These resolutions were reported by Edgar Cowan, of Pennsylvania, who had but recently been emphatically invited by his constituents to resign his seat in the United States Senate. Elected as a Republican, he had taken a course in opposition to the general purposes and spirit of his party.

About the same time a considerable body of men assembled at Philadelphia calling themselves Southern Loyalists. They also announced a set of principles, the more prominent of which were as

follows:

"That we demand now, as we have demanded at all times since the cessation of hostilities, the restoration of the States in

which we live to their old relations with the Union, on the simplest and fewest conditions consistent with the protection of our lives, property, and political rights, now in jeopardy from the unquenched enmity of rebels lately in arms.

"That the unhappy policy pursued by Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, is, in its effects upon the loyal people of the South, unjust, oppressive, and intolerable; and accordingly, however ardently we desire to see our respective States once more represented in the Congress of the Nation, we would deplore their restoration on the inadequate conditions prescribed by the President, as tending not to abate, but only to magnify the perils and sorrows of our condition.

"That with pride in the patriotism of the Congress, with gratitude for the fearless and persistent support they have given to the cause of loyalty, and their efforts to restore all the States to their former condition as States in the American Union, we will stand by the positions taken by them, and use all means consistent with a peaceful and lawful course to secure the ratification of the amendments to the Constitution of the United States, as proposed by Congress at its last session, and regret that Congress, in its wisdom, did not provide by law for the greater security of the loyal people in the States not yet admitted to representation.

"

In September a convention of soldiers and sailors at Cleveland ratified the action of the "National Union Convention" of the 17th of August at Philadelphia. But later in the same month another convention of soldiers and sailors, of very different views, met at Pittsburgh, and among the resolutions reported by General Benj. F. Butler, were these:

"Resolved, That the action of the present Congress in passing the pending Constitutional amendment is wise, prudent, just. It clearly defines American citizenship, and guarantees all his rights to every citizen. It places on a just and equal basis the right of representation, making the vote of a man in one State equally potent with the vote of another man in any

State. It righteously excludes from places of honor and trust the chief conspirators, guiltiest rebels, whose perjured crimes have drenched the land in fraternal blood. It puts into the very frame of our Government the inviolability of the national debt and the nullity forever of all obligations contracted in support of the Rebellion.

2. That it is unfortunate for the country that these propositions have not been received in the spirit of conciliation, clemency, and fraternal feeling in which they were offered, as they are the mildest terms ever granted to subdued rebels.

"3. That the President, as an executive officer, has no right to a policy as against the Legislative Department of the Government; that his attempt to fasten his scheme of reconstruction upon the country is as dangerous as it is unwise; his acts in sustaining it have retarded the restoration of peace and unity; they have converted conquered rebels into impudent claimants to rights which they have forfeited, and places which they have desecrated. If consummated, it would render the sacrifices of the Nation useless, the loss of the lives of our buried comrades vain, and the war in which we have so gloriously triumphed, what his present friends at Chicago in 1864 declared to be a failure.

"4. That the right of the conqueror to legislate for the conquered has been recognized by the public law of all civilized nations; by the operation of that law for the conservation of the good of the whole country, Congress has the undoubted right to establish measures for the conduct of the revolted States, and to pass all acts of legislation that are necessary for the complete restoration of the Union.

"5. That when the President claims that by the aid of the army and navy he might have made himself dictator, he insulted every soldier and sailor in the Republic. He ought distinctly to understand that the tried patriots of this Nation can never be used to overthrow civil liberty or popular government.

"6. That the neutrality laws should be so amended as to give the fullest liberty to the citizen consistent with the national faith; that the great Union Republican party is pledged to sustain liberty and equality of rights everywhere, and therefore we

tender to all peoples struggling for freedom our sympathy and cordial co-operation.

"7. That the Union men of the South, without distinction of race or color, are entitled to the gratitude of every loyal -soldier and sailor who served his country in suppressing the Rebellion, and that in their present dark hours of trial, when they are being persecuted by thousands, solely because they are now, and have been, true to the Government, we will not prove recreant to our obligations, but will stand by and protect with our lives, if necessary, those brave men who remain true to us when all around are false and faithless."

In the spring of 1867 party conventions were held in several of the States. A few extracts from platforms, resolutions, etc., put forth by these conventions, will sufficiently exhibit the spirit of the times, and how completely the President was separated from his recent associates.

The Democrats of Ohio talked of Congress, as then organized, as the "So-called Congress," and these are some of their resolutions :

"That Congress is not an omnipotent law-making power; that the Constitution provides that no bill shall become a law without the approval of the President, unless it be passed by two-thirds of each House of Congress; that one of the objects of the present so-called Congress in excluding ten States from representation is to pass bills by a two-thirds vote, which, were all the States represented, could not pass, and thus to abolish the Constitutional provision aforesaid; that, if the precedent be acquiesced in, there will be nothing to prevent a bare majority of Congress, at any time in the future, from nullifying the Constitutional veto of the President, and usurping uncontrolled legislative power by an exclusion of the minority from their seats; that the exclusion of a single State might give this control, and a pretext for such an exclusion would never be wanting to an unscrupulous and revolutionary party.