History of the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, by the House of Representatives, and his trial by the Senate for high crimes and misdemeanors in office, 1868Ross, Edmund G. (Edmund Gibson)
History
History of the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, by the House of Representatives, and his trial by the Senate for high crimes and misdemeanors in office, 1868
Ross, Edmund G. (Edmund Gibson)
Johnson, Andrew, 1808-1875 -- Impeachment
'In no sense do we meet as members or representatives of either of the
old political parties which bound the people, or as the champions of any
principle or doctrine peculiar to either. The extraordinary condition
of the country since the outbreak of the rebellion has, from necessity,
taken from the issues of these parties their practical significance, and
compelled the formation of substantially new political organizations;
hence the organization of the Union Party--if party it can be called--of
which this Convention is for the purpose of its assembling, the
accredited representative, and the only test of membership in which is
an unreserved, unconditional loyalty to the Government and the Union.'
After perfecting its organization the Convention proceeded to ballot
for a nominee for the Presidency, and Mr. Lincoln was unanimously
nominated--the Missouri delegation at first casting its 22 votes for
Gen. Grant, but afterwards changing them to Mr. Lincoln, giving him the
total vote of the Convention--506--on the first and only ballot.
Nominations for the Vice Presidency being next in order, Mr. Lyman
Tremaine, of New York, an old time Democrat, nominated Daniel S.
Dickinson, another old time Democrat and a very distinguished citizen of
that State. In his nominating speech Mr. Tremaine again emphasized that
this Convention was a Union, and not a partisan body, in these words:
'It was well said by the temporary and by the permanent Chairman, that
we meet not here as Republicans. If we do, I have no place in this
Convention; but, like Daniel S. Dickinson, when the first gun was fired
on Sumter, I felt that I should prove false to my revolutionary ancestry
if I could have hesitated to cast partisan ties to the breeze, and rally
around the flag of the Union for the preservation of the Government.'
The Indiana delegation nominated Andrew Johnson, also a Democrat,
and the nomination was seconded by Mr. Stone, speaking for the Iowa
delegation.
In the earlier proceedings of the Convention there had seemed a
disposition to exclude the Tennessee delegation, and Parson Brownlow, an
old line Whig, being called on for a speech, evidenced in the course of
his remarks the small part which partisan considerations were permitted
to play in the purposes and proceedings of the Convention. He said:
'There need be no detaining this Convention for two days in discussions
of various kinds, and the idea I suggest to you as an inducement not to
exclude our delegation is, that we may take it into our heads, before
the thing is over, to present a candidate from that State in rebellion,
for the second office in the gift of the people. We have a man down
there whom it has been my good luck and bad fortune to fight untiringly
and perseveringly for the past twenty-five years--Andrew Johnson.
For the first time, in the Providence of God, three years ago we got
together on the same platform, and we are fighting the devil, Tom
Walker, and Jeff. Davis, side by side.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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