Restoring the Union
late Confederate States an attempt which, but for that provision of the Constitution, would doubtless have been made.
This formidable amendment, comprising these four topics, was purely of Republican authorship and advocacy. Proposed to the states in June, 1866 it was naturally the foremost political issue before the people in the Congressional campaign of that summer and fall, and was very widely debated upon the stump and in the press. The President, having broken with the Republican party, threw all the influence of his administration against that party, and in consequence of that circumstance the Republicans that year organized for the first time the Congressional Campaign Committee which has in every second year since then played an important part in national politics. The contest was between the “Congressional Party” and the "Presidential Party,” the former consisting of the great mass of the Republican party and a few “War Democrats,” and the latter of the mass of the Democratic party and a few Republicans who followed the President in his vagaries. The result of the polling was ing a more than two-thirds majority of the new Congress. Obviously, the nation repudiated the President and his policy and approved the Republican party and its plans for the reorganization of affairs.
The rejection of the fourteenth amendment by the ten southern states temporarily prevented the ratification of that instrument. It also indicated the revival of the sectional spirit which had in the past been so prolific of evil. The Republican leaders therefore determined to adopt more rigorous measures for the reconstruction of the South and the settlement of the
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