Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER VII THE CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEE The origin of the congressional committee, as was mentioned in a previous chapter, belongs to a time of sharp conflict between the executive and legislative, branches of the government. The Union convention of 1864 was called by the national Republican committee appointed by the Republican convention which nominated Mr. Lincoln in 1860. It included and represented many supporters of the Lincoln administration who were not Republicans, and it was on account of the Union Democrats in the convention that Mr. Johnson's name was placed upon the ticket. When, after the assassination of Lincoln, Johnson became President, the great body of the Republicans in Congress were driven into opposition, and the support of the Executive came mainly from the Democrats. This was the situation when the time approached for the election of a new Congress in 1866. The President, having control of the public patronage, was using it to strengthen his administration. The national committee, closely identified as it was with the Executive, was an unsatisfactory agency for the use of the Republicans in Congress. In this emergency the Republican members of the two Houses agreed upon the ap- pointment of a national committee of their own, organized and conducted a campaign, and secured a strong enough representation in Congress to enable them to overcome the President's veto. In the beginning, then, the congressional committee was an emergency tool, adopted by one of the great parties only. But it was not long before it had so commended itself to the party leaders as to be accepted and made a permanent part of the organization, and was soon adopted by the Democratic party likewise. It meets a real party need. The national convention and the national committee... --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.