at Baltimore
June 8, 1864, and was elected on November 8. In his letter of acceptance
of the nomination Mr. Johnson virtually disclaimed any departure from
his principles as a Democrat, but placed his acceptance upon the ground
of "the higher duty of first preserving the Government." On the night of
the 14th of April, 1865, President Lincoln was shot by an assassin and
died the next morning. At 11 o'clock a.m. April 15 Mr. Johnson was sworn
in as President, at his rooms in the Kirkwood House, Washington, by
Chief Justice Chase, in the presence of nearly all the Cabinet officers
and others. April 29, 1865, issued a proclamation for the removal of
trade restrictions in most of the insurrectionary States, which, being
in contravention of an act of Congress, was subsequently modified.
May 9 issued an Executive order restoring Virginia to the Union. May 22
proclaimed all ports, except four in Texas, opened to foreign commerce
on July 1, 1865. May 29 issued a general amnesty proclamation, after
which the fundamental and irreconcilable differences between President
Johnson and the party that had elevated him to power became more
apparent. He exercised the veto power to a very great extent, but it was
generally nullified by the two-thirds votes of both Houses. From May 29
to July 13, 1865, proclaimed provisional governors for North Carolina,
Mississippi, Georgia, Texas, Alabama, South Carolina, and Florida, whose
duties were to reorganize the State governments. The State governments
were reorganized, but the Republicans claimed that the laws passed were
so stringent in reference to the negroes that it was a worse form of
slavery than the old. The thirteenth amendment to the Constitution
became a law December 18, 1865, with Mr. Johnson's concurrence. The first
breach between the President and the party in power was the veto of the
Freedmen's Bureau bill, in February, 1866, which was designed to protect
the negroes. March 27 vetoed the civil-rights bill, but it was passed
over his veto. In a message of June 22, 1866, opposed the joint
resolution proposing the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution. In
June, 1866, the Republicans in Congress brought forward their plan of
reconstruction, called the "Congressional plan," in contradistinction
to that of the President. The chief features of the Congressional plan
were to give the negroes the right to vote, to protect them in this
right, and to prevent Confederate leaders from voting.