History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States

The Thirty-ninth Congress of the United States, convened in the Capitol at Washington on the fourth of December, 1865. Since the adjournment of the Thirty-eighth Congress, events of the greatest moment had transpired-events which invested its successor with responsibilities unparalleled in the history of any preceding legislative body. Abraham Lincoln, sixteenth President of the United States, had been slain by the hand of the assassin. The crime had filled the land with horror. The loss of its illustrious victim had veiled the nation in unaffected grief. By this great national calamity, Andrew Johnson, who on the fourth of March preceding had taken his seat simply to preside over the deliberations of the Senate, became President of the United States. Meanwhile the civil war, which had been waged with such terrible violence and bloodshed for four years preceding, came to a sudden termination. The rebel armies, under Generals Lee and Johnston, had surrendered to the victorious soldiers of the United States, who in their generosity had granted to the vanquished terms so mild and easy as to excite universal surprise.