[Grand Old Partisan]

"If Andrew Johnson was part of the Rebellion, please explain why Abraham Lincoln and the Republican Party made him the Vice-President."

During the Civil War, Andrew Johnson was the only loyal southern Senator, even though as a Democrat he had campaigned for Breckinridge and had criticized Lincoln during the campaign. A clue to his thinking is his middle name -- Jackson -- named after another southern-born nationalist Democrat. There were also two or three loyal southern Representatives, including one the rebels imprisoned rather than allow take his seat in Washington. Anyway, Andrew Johnson became President Lincoln's Military Governor of Tennessee, and Lincoln, wanting a loyal Democrat as his 1864 running mate, chose Johnson. Johnson revealed himself to be a die-hard Democrat after the war, allied with the ex-rebel Democrats to preserve as much as possible of pre-war power structure as possible.

Stevens' plan was to confiscate land held by rebels, which was already authorized by the Confiscstion Act of 1862, and give it to the slaves who actually worked it (and also sell it for a nominal fee to the millions of landless whites). Anyway, this "40 acres and a mule" program was never enacted.

[nolu chan]

[GOP] A clue to his thinking is his middle name -- Jackson -- named after another southern-born nationalist Democrat.

By this middle-name logic I suppose William Jefferson Clinton... ah, forget it.

[nolu chan]

[GOP] Lincoln, wanting a loyal Democrat as his 1864 running mate, chose Johnson

Why did Lincoln want a Democrat? Did he find that Johnson was not the right man for the office but was politically expedient to his own re-election chances?

Did the Republican party support this notion?