The Crittenden Resolution contained these declarations of facts and policy:
1. The present deplorable war has been forced upon the country by the disunionists of the Southern States.
2. Congress has no purpose of conquest or subjugation, nor purpose of overthrowing or interfering with the established rights of those States.
Upon a motion to include disunionists in the North under the first charge, Mr. Johnson voted in the negative with Sumner, Wilson, Wade, and other Republicans.
This brief survey of Mr. Johnson's Congressional career at the opening of the war may indicate the characteristics of his mind in controversy and debate, and furnish means for comprehending his actions in the troublous period of his administration.
Some conclusions are deducible from this survey. First of all it is to be said that he never assumed to be a member of the Republican Party. Next, I do not find evidence which will justify the statement that he was a disbeliever in the right of a State to secede from the Union. It is manifest that he was not an advocate of the doctrine of political equality as it came to be taught by the leaders of the Republican Party. When he became President, he was an opponent of negro suffrage.
This record, though not concealed, was not understood by the members of the convention that placed him in nomination for the second office in the country.
This analysis prepares the way for an extract from the testimony of Mr. Stanley Matthews, who was afterwards a justice of the Supreme Court, and who was examined by the Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives when engaged in investigating the doings of the President previous to his impeachment. Mr. Johnson was appointed Military Governor of Tennessee the third day of March, 1862. Colonel Matthews was provost-marshal at Nashville, where Johnson resided during his term as Governor. In that term Matthews and Johnson became acquainted. When Johnson was on his way to Washington to take the oath of office, he stopped at the Burnet House in Cincinnati. Matthews called upon him. Matthews had been a Democrat until the troubles in Kansas. In the conversation at the Burnet House Mr. Johnson made these remarks, after some personal matters had been disposed of. I quote from the testimony of Judge Matthews:
"I inquired as to the state of public feeling on political matters in Tennessee at that time. He remarked that very great changes had taken place since I had been there, that many of those who at first were the best Union men had turned to be the worst rebels, and that many of those who had originally been the worst rebels were now the best Union men. I expressed surprise and regret at what he said in reference to the matter.
"We were sitting near each other on the sofa. He then turned to me and said, 'You and I were old Democrats.' I said, 'Yes.' He then said, 'I will tell you what it is, if the country is ever to be saved, it is to be done through the old Democratic Party.'