President Andrew Johnson.

2

Monday, April 17, 1865.

By the event which has so suddenly plunged the nation into the deepest grief, Vice President ANDREW JOHNSON become President of the United States for the remainder of President LINCOLN'S constitutional term. Our dispatches announce accordingly that he was, on Saturday, at 11 o'clock A.M., sworn into office to fill the vacancy caused by Mr. Lincoln's death. Subsequently a Cabinet meeting was held in the Treasury building, at which he formally announced that he desired to retain the present Secretaries of the several Departments, and that they would go on and discharge their respective duties in the same manner as before the deplorable event that had changed the head of the Government.

Those words are significant, and give promise for the future which will be received with satisfaction by the nation. There is to be no change, then, in the general policy of the Government. The war against rebellion is to go on with undiminished earnestness and determination, until rebels submit to just and constitutional authority. The present head of Departments have not only the advantage of being thoroughly acquainted with the existing condition of our affairs, foreign and domestic, and with the policy of the late administration with reference to the various questions growing out of the rebellion, but they possess the complete and full confidence of the people, and their counsel and advice would seem almost indispensable to the new President.

It is unnecessary for us to say here, that we confide, to the fullest extent, in the ability and patriotism of Andrew Johnson. He has been in public life for nearly a quarter of a century, most of which time was spent in the halls of Congress. He was a Senator from Tennessee at the time the rebellion broke out, and taking his position then firmly on the side of the Constitution and the Union, he has manifested a devotion to the cause of his country which has never flagged, and has never ceased to glow with unvarying hope for the result. We believe he is not only able to crush out all that remains of the rebellion, but that he has the determination to deal with those guilty of this great crime against their Government, in the spirit of strict justice and retribution. Being a southern man, who has himself suffered at then hands of those who are seeking to destroy the Union, and knowing well the despotism which is the origin of this war upon the cause of civil liberty and human rights, he will see to it that everything that belongs to the rebellion is crushed and wiped out with it forever.

Let us, then, let all loyal men, rally around President Johnson and give him as cordial and as generous a support as that which was bestowed upon Mr. Lincoln. Let us stand by him with firm hearts and true courage in this trying hour of our country's peril, trusting implicitly to his integrity, his wisdom and his patriotism, and imploring the blessing of God Almighty to rest upon him in the midst of the vast responsibilities and oppressive labors which now devolve upon him.