The Test Oath

Only a week had elapsed after this correspondence, when Johnson directed General Grant to assume the position and duties of the Secretary of War. Grant, as a dutiful soldier, obeyed the commands of his superior, when Stanton, satisfied of the firmness and incorruptible patriotism of the general-in-chief of the armies, withdrew, under protest. This change was followed by such arbitrary acts on the part of the President, that the country was thoroughly alarmed. In the face of the most earnest protests of General Grant, in the War Office, Johnson removed Generals Sheridan and Sickles from the command of the Fifth and Second Military Districts. By this act the country was given to understand that the most faithful officers, who were able and willing to work for the speedy restoration of the Union, would be deprived of the power to be useful. He also issued, in defiance of law, a proclamation of amnesty for nearly the whole white population of the Southern States. These, and other unlawful acts, made the loyal inhabitants impatient for the reassembling of Congress, upon whom they relied in that dark hour of seeming peril.

Patriotic men of the opposition party, and even personal friends of the erring President, were amazed and mortified by his unwise conduct; and some of the latter charitably attributed these paroxysms of blind obstinacy to the effects of an unfortunate habit into which Mr. Johnson had fallen, and which appalled them at the time when he took the oath of office as Vice-President, in March, 1865. One of these friends--a distinguished politician--writing from Washington just after the removal of Sheridan and Sickles, said: "The President must be crazy. Does he suppose the country will much longer tolerate this unseemly warfare upon the Legislative branch of the Government? You and I know that he has not a single legitimate ground for his conduct, and that several of his acts are pure usurpations for which he may be impeached. It is neither just nor prudent for the Democratic party to countenance them; and it is in the highest degree impolitic for them to do so at this crisis. It is the best policy always to do right, for, in the long run, the right will prevail."