When Congress declared that the Fourteenth Amendment, giving the negroes citizenship, should be ratified by every seceding State as a preliminary to readmission to the Union, the President vetoed the resolution. During the next session nets were passed requiring the right of voting to be granted without. regard to color in Territories applying for admission as States. These, too, were vetoed; but in all cases the bills were repassed and became laws. In :Mandl, 1867, in spite of the veto, an act was passed dividing the Southern States, save Tennessee, into military districts, and trouble immediately arose over the appointments of the generals to command and their functions, Johnson's Cabinet, with the exception of Secretary Stanton, sup porting him in his obstruction of the legisla tion of the radicals in Congress. In August Stanton was displaced as Secretary of War, and General Grant. was given the position. Stanton protested that his removal was in violation of the Tenure-of-Office Law, and at the meeting of Congress in September the Senate refused to ratify the suspension, whereupon Grant resigned and Stanton resumed his post. Five months afterwards Johnson again removed Stanton, and pa Gen. Lorenzo Thomas in his place. The Sen ate immediately resolved that "the President has no power to remove the Secretary of War and des ignate any other person to perform the duties of that office." The day after the adoption of the resolutions of the Senate. the House of Repre sentatives determined upon President's im peachment. The articles of impeachment recited many offenses, the principal of which were the removal of the Secretary- of War; the public expression of disregard of and contempt for the legislative branch of the Government; the decla ration that. the one in session was not a constitu tional Congress; and particularly his obstruction to the exeeution of Congressional acts. The point of the defense was that Johnson's course in the work of reeonstruetion was merely the continuation of a plan resolved upon by President Lincoln and the members of his Cabinet. In the
Senate, sitting as the court of impeachment, the test vote was: ;guilty. 35; not guilty, 10. The requisite t•o-thirds vote not having been ob tained. Johnson was acquitted—a result which is now considered just and fortunate by temperate historians. As soon as the trial was over Stan ton voluntarily gave up his office, and was suc ceeded by General Schofield.
At the Democratic. National Convention in New York, July 4. 1868, Mr..Tohnson's name was among the list of candidates for President. On the first ballot he had 05 votes, standing seeond on the list, George 11. Pendleton having 105; but •Tohnson's vote diminished rapidly until. on the nineteenth ballot, his name did not appear. on Christmas Day, 1868, he proclaimed complete pardon to all who had been directly or indirectly concerned in secession. 'This was his last im portant official act. lie was succeeded, March 4, 1869, by General Giant, and at once repaired to his home in Greenville. He was not satisfied with retirement, and sought unsuccessfully to be sent to the Senate, and also failed as all in dependent candidate for Congress. At last, in January, 1875, he was chosen United States Sen ator. and was in his seat during the short extra session in Starch. But his triumph was not for long, for he died on duly 31, 1875. Ile was buried at Greenville, and the memory of his stormy career faded from the public mind. Johnson showed great ability, courage, and po litical acumen, and his loyalty was never doubt ed. llis messages, which represent his views, whether or not he was their author in the full est sense, are documents of great power, and will serve some future biographer to make a strenuous defense of a man who. with grave faults, was perhaps oftener in the right than were his partisan opponents, Consult Moore, •`-'pecelis of _I ndrcu Johnson, with a Biographi rut Introduction (Boston, 1865) ; The 7'rial of .1 nd rely Johnson (3 vols., Washington, 1868) ; Dunning, EsRays on the Civil War and Recon (1S08), and Dewitt, The Impeachment and Trial of Andress Johnson (Ne• York, 1903).