"The people have been witness to the mortifying spectacle of the President going about from town to town, accompanied by the prominent members of the Cabinet on an electioneering raid, denouncing his opponents, bandying epithets with men in the crowd, and praising himself and his policies. Such a humiliating exhibition has never before been seen, nor anything even approaching to it."
- Theodore Tilton, writing about Andrew Johnson in The Independent, 1866. Possibly the most tired and fallacious word in present-day American political journalism is "unprecedented."
