Meanwhile the President had continued to ply the Congress with his vetoes and messages and to address the country with his proclamations. He had thought that he ought to be vindicated by being nominated by the Democrats for the presidency, and had actually received sixty-five votes on the first ballot. His failure before the convention ought to have taught him that he was no longer a factor to be reckoned with in the domain of politics, and that his proper course was to execute quietly the functions of his office to the end of his term, and then retire to private life. But he seemed to think that his political opinions were still of great value, and in a very few days after the adjournment of the Democratic convention he addressed a message to Congress advising a most radical change in the structure of the government by means of constitutional amendment. He therein recommended that Congress should propose to the "States" so to amend the Constitution as to provide for the election of the President and Vice-President by a direct vote of the people, for the ineligibility of these officers for a second term, for the designation of the members of the Cabinet in a certain order, beginning with the Secretary of State, as the persons to discharge the duties of the President in case of a vacancy in the presidential office by the death, resignation or removal of both the President and the Vice-President, for the election of the Senators by the direct vote of the people, {214} and for the limitation of the terms of the United States judges to a period of years. There was sound reason for the third of these suggestions, the designation by the Constitution of the Cabinet officers in a certain order as the successors to the powers and duties of the President, when the country might be without both a President and a Vice-President, and it has since then been made law under the form of a statute of Congress. [Sidenote: Congress and the President.] But the Congress was not then in a mood to hear anything from Mr. Johnson. Two days later, July 20th, the President vetoed the joint resolution passed by the two Houses, excluding from the electoral college in the coming presidential election the votes of "States" lately in rebellion which should not have been reorganized under the Reconstruction Acts of Congress. In this veto he went over his whole argument once more against the constitutionality of these Acts and in favor of his own method of Reconstruction. But the Congress treated the message with contempt and promptly repassed the resolution. [Sidenote: The President's last annual Message.]