REPUBLICAN PARTY. 



351 



Abraham," and all who viewed the result of the mur- 

 der troui sectional or partisan standpoints thought 

 his policy of keeping with the people would have pro- 

 tected every proper interest. No man in public life 

 ever hud less pride of opinion, and had he lived to 

 serve out his term of office it is more than probable 

 he would have shaped events, as he had during the 

 war, to the best interests of the victors and without 

 unnecessary harshness to the vanquished. 



The decisive victory at the elections, giving the 

 Republican candidate 212 out of 233 electoral votes, 

 gave the Republicans more aggressiveness, because 

 they had been sustained by such an overwhelming 

 majority. The anti-slavery amendment to the Con- 

 stitution, which had failed to pass the House at the 

 previous session of Congress, received more than 

 the necessary two-thirds vote. The elections showed 

 the strong drift of public feeling, and the Republicans 

 construed the result as a virtual adoption of this 

 amendment. When it was first suggested it aroused 

 some opposition, but the majority of the people con- 

 sidered the amendment a political necessity to settle 

 forever the question that had so long disturbed the 

 country ; 27 States voted in it-* favor, and in December, 

 1 Sf>5, it was proclaimed a part of the Constitution. (See 

 RECONSTRUCTION. ) 



Vice-Pres. Andrew Johnson had succeeded to the 

 Presidency, and his administration was marked by a 

 fierce conflict between him and the party that elected 

 him. The result was that nearly all tho Republicans 

 d his policy and nearly all the Democrats ap- 

 proved it So radical had this difference become that 

 he vetoed nearly all the political bills passed by the 

 Republican Congress from ISfiti until the close of his 

 administration, but such was the Republican prepon- 

 derance in both Houses of Congress that they passed 

 them over his vetoes by the necessary two-thirds vote. 

 He vetoed the several freedmcn's bureau bills, the 

 civil rights bill, that for the admission of Nebraska 

 nnd Colorado, the bill to permit colored suffrage in 

 the District of Columbia, one of the reconstruction 

 bills, and finally he made a direct issue with the powers 

 of Congress by his veto of the civil tenure bill, March 

 7, 1867, and his subsequent attempt to oust Secretary 

 Stnnton from the cabinet 



The political differences between Pics. Johnson and 

 the Republicans were not softened by their attempt to 

 impeach him, which needed only one more vote to 

 make the necessary two-thirds. It is indeed remark- 

 able that the failure of their efforts did not weaken the 

 Republicans as a party. They were so well united, 

 and so strong in that unity, that the seven Republican 

 Senators who voted to :ir.|uit the President passed at 

 least temporarily from public life, some of the ablest, 

 like Senators Trumbull and Fessendcn, retiring per- 

 manently. Pres. Johnson pursued his policy, save 

 where he was prevented by Congress, until the end, 

 and he then retired to his native State, but was subse- 

 quently elected to the Senate. 



The presidential campaign of 1808 resulted in the 

 election of Gen. U. 8. Grant by a majority of 134 

 electoral votes, Schuylcr Coif ax being elected Vice- 

 President At the commencement of ni& administra- 

 tion the colored people had not suffrage in some of the 

 States, and to make it universal the Fifteenth Amend- 

 ment was proposed and adopted by the State Legisla- 

 tures. It did not receive a Democratic vote in either 

 branch of Congress, and it was opposed by that party 

 in the State Legislatures. On March :;o. 1H70, it was 

 proclaimed a portion of the Constitution. Pros. Grant, 

 in a special message announcing the ratification of the 

 a:neii Iment, declared it a " measure of grander im- 

 portance than any other one act of the kind from the 

 foundation of our free government to the present 

 day." Thus the proclamation of Mr. Lincoln, declar- 

 ing what would IK: done in a subsequent order, found 

 its continuation in tliis- amendment, making its primal 

 object and the resultant a patt of the Constitution. 



Reconstruction having been completed, a new ques- 

 , tion was brought before (lie Forty-first Congress by Pres. 

 Grant, which was the annexation of San Domingo. 

 The treaty of 1869. looking to that object, was rejected 

 by the Senate, and a dispute about its negotiation was 

 the origin of the rupture between Pres. Grant and Sena- 

 tor Sumner, who had been chairman of the Senate 

 committee on foreign affairs. 



With the exception of Louisiana, Florida, and 

 South Carolina, the Southern State governments were 

 under Democratic control, and Pres. Grant was called 

 on by the Republicans for military aid to prevent the 

 disfranchisement of the negroes, but he declined to 

 interfere except to request the U. S. attorney-general 

 to give them legal advice. 



The Fifteenth Amendment did not produce the de- 

 sired results in the South, because it was evaded or 

 resisted, and the Republicans insisted that additional 

 legislation was necessary to enforce its provisions. 

 On Feb. 28, 1871, such an act was passed, and a sup- 

 plementary bill became a law a vear later. This legis- 

 lation, enacted through Republican votes, extended 

 the powers of the Federal supervisors and marshals 

 and gave the Federal circuit courts exclusive jurisdic- 

 tion of all cases tried under the provisions of the act 

 and its supplements. It also empowered these courts 

 to punish any State officer who should attempt to in- 

 terfere with or try such cases as in contempt of the 

 courts' jurisdiction. 



The Forty-second Congress, organized in March, 

 1871, was not so strongly Republican as its prede- 

 cessor. The most exciting question that came before 

 that body was the Force bill, as it was called, intended 

 to enforce the provisions of the Fourteenth Amend- 

 ment. The act allowed suit in the Federal courts 

 against any person who should deprive another of the 

 rights of a citizen. It also provided that inability, 

 neglect, or refusal by any Slate government to sup- 

 press such conspiracies, or their refusal to call upon 

 the President for aid, should be deemed a denial by 

 such State of the equal protection of the laws under 

 the Fourteenth Amendment. It further declared such 

 conspiracies "a rebellion against the government of 

 the United States," and authorized the President, 

 when in his judgment the public safety required it, 

 to suspend the privilege of habeas curpi/x in any dis- 

 trict, and suppress any such insurrection by the army 

 and navy. 



The first regular session of this Congress began 

 Dec. 4, 1871. The Democrats consumed much of (he 

 time in efforts to pass bills to remove the political dis- 

 abilities of former Southern rebels, and they were ma- 

 terially aided by the editorials of Horace Greeley in 

 the New York Tribune, which had long contended for 

 universal amnesty. At this session all such efforts 

 were defeated by the Republicans, who invariably 

 amended such propositions by adding Sum tier's sup- 

 plementary civil rights bill, which was Intended to 

 prevent any discrimination against colored persons by 

 common carriers, hotels, or other chartered or licensed 

 servants. The Amnesty bill, however, was passed, 

 May 22, 1872, after an agreement to exclude from 

 its provisions all who held the higher military and 

 civic positions under the U. S. government pre- 

 vious to their joining the Confederacy in all about 

 350 persons. Subsequently many special acts remov- 

 ing the disabilities of these excepted persons were 

 passed. 



During Pres. Grant's second term civil service re- 

 form became a leading topic. March 3, 1871, an art 

 was passed empowering the President to commence 

 said reform, and he appointed a commission willi 

 George W. Curtis as chairman. A section in the 

 sundry civil appropriation bill gave the President 

 authority to prescribe the rules, and a commission 

 was appointed by him to draft them. The committee's 

 plan was approved by the President, and they are sub- 

 , stantially the same as those now in force. In its exe- 



