for this the judgment of history coincides with the judgment of the court. {195} CHAPTER X RECONSTRUCTION RESUMED The McCardle Case--The Congressional Acts Admitting the Senators- and Representatives-elect from the Reconstructed "States" to Seats in Congress--The Veto of these Bills by the President--The Vetoes Overridden--Ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment and the President's Proclamations Declaring Reconstruction Completed--Seward's Proclamation Declaring the Ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment by the Required Number of "States"--The Questions Suggested by Mr. Seward's First Proclamation--The Concurrent Resolution of Congress upon these Questions--The Correct Procedure--The National Conventions of 1868--Platform and Nominees of the Republican Party--Democratic Platform and Nominees--The Election and the Electoral Vote--The Conduct of the President during the Campaign--Congress and the President--The President's Last Annual Message--The President's Amnesty Proclamation of December 25th, 1868--The President's Veto of the Bill in Regard to the Colored Schools in the District of Columbia--The Fifteenth Amendment--Criticism of the Republican View--Johnson's Retirement from the Presidency--The President and the Republican Party. [Sidenote: The McCardle case.] During the period of the impeachment trial, a case was in progress before the Supreme Court of the United States, which in its final settlement was destined to deprive the President of any hope that a judicial decision in regard to the constitutionality of the Reconstruction Acts could ever be attained. We have seen that in the cases of Mississippi vs. Johnson and of Georgia vs. Stanton the President had resisted the jurisdiction of the Court when {196} aimed directly at the Executive and his immediate agents. This was his duty, and he performed it sincerely and successfully. But it is not to be inferred from this that he would not have welcomed a judicial decision from the Supreme Court of the United States pronouncing these Acts null and void, if it could have been reached through the forms of a proper case, one not involving the executive authority at all.