No fair mind can claim that the Republicans in their quarrel with the President had not departed from their solemn declaration made in Congress assembled in those dark July days of 1861, just after the first great defeat of the Union arms, "That this war is not waged upon our part in any spirit of oppression, nor for any purpose of conquest or subjugation, nor purpose of overthrowing or interfering with the rights or established institutions of the Southern States, but to defend and maintain the supremacy of the Constitution, and to preserve the Union, with all the dignity, equality, and rights of the several States unimpaired." And it was upon the basis of this understanding that the Democrats in Congress, Mr. Johnson among them, stood with the Republicans in the prosecution of the war. It is indeed a serious question of political casuistry as to how far declarations of policy are binding upon a political party. They are certainly not like agreements entered into between sovereign states, and the law of development rather than the law of contract must be the constructive force in party creed. But this, at least, must be held, viz., that a man originally not of a given political party, but acting with it upon the basis of a given creed, cannot be accused of being an apostate from that party if he does not continue with it when it adopts a new creed in many respects the very opposite of that given creed, except in the most groveling sense of machine politics; and that when he and it do part company, more by its own departures from the given creed than by his, he is certainly not on that account to be necessarily considered as a traitor to his country. The truth is, that while all men who occupy high station are {221} peculiarly subject to wanton, as well as ignorant, assaults upon their purposes and their conduct, few men that have occupied so high a station have ever been so unreasonably slandered and vilified as Andrew Johnson. His own unfortunate and irritating manners and methods will account for a good deal of the misunderstanding of his character, but the violence of the times was the occasion of a great deal more of it. The true Union men of Tennessee will, however, never forget the hope, and encouragement, and support which he gave to them, when they were left in the lurch by their own natural leader, John Bell; and the Nation should for this, if nothing else, write his name in the book of its heroes. {222} CHAPTER XI PRESIDENT GRANT AND RECONSTRUCTION