ended, the War Democrats showed a tendency to return to the old party. As to
reconstruction, the party stood on the Crittenden-Johnson resolutions of 1861,
though most Democrats were now willing to have slavery abolished.

The Republican party--frankly sectional and going into power on the single
issue of opposition to the extension of slavery--was forced by the secession
movement to take up the task of preserving the Union by war. Consequently, the
party developed new principles, welcomed the aid of the War Democrats, and
found it advisable to drop its name and with its allies to form the Union or
National Union party. It was this National Union party which in 1864 nominated
Abraham Lincoln, a Republican, and Andrew Johnson, a Democrat, on the same
ticket. Lincoln's second Cabinet was composed of both Republicans and War
Democrats. When the war ended, the conservative leaders were anxious to hold
the Union party together in order to be in a better position to settle the
problems of reconstruction, but the movement of the War Democrats back to
their old party tended to leave in the Union party only its Republican
members, with the radical leaders dominating.

In the South the pressure of war so united the people that party divisions
disappeared for a time, but the causes of division continued to exist, and two
parties, at least, would have developed had the pressure been removed. Though
all factions supported the war after it began, the former Whigs and Douglas
Democrats, when it was over, liked to remember that they had been "Union" men
in 1860 and expected to organize in opposition to the extreme Democrats, who
were now charged with being responsible for the misfortunes of the South. They
were in a position to affiliate with the National Union party of the North if
proper inducements were offered, while the regular Democrats were ready to
rejoin their old party. But the embittered feelings resulting from the murder
of Lincoln and the rapid development of the struggle between President Johnson
and Congress caused the radicals "to lump the old Union Democrats and Whigs