Further, it disqualified many former Confederates from office, although the disability could be removed — by Congress, not the president.[141] Both houses passed the Freedmen's Bureau Act a second time, and again the President vetoed it; this time, the veto was overridden. By the summer of 1866, when Congress finally adjourned, Johnson's method of restoring states to the Union by executive fiat, without safeguards for the freedmen, was in deep trouble. His home state of Tennessee ratified the Fourteenth Amendment despite the President's opposition.[142] When Tennessee did so, Congress immediately seated its proposed delegation, embarrassing Johnson.[143]
Efforts to compromise failed,[144] and a political war ensued between the united Republicans on one side, and on the other, Johnson and his Northern and Southern allies in the Democratic Party. He called a convention of the National Union Party. Republicans had returned to using their previous identifier; Johnson intended to use the discarded name to unite his supporters and gain election to a full term, in 1868.[145] The battleground was the election of 1866; Southern states were not allowed to vote. Johnson campaigned vigorously, undertaking a public speaking tour, known as the "Swing Around the Circle". 