The passage of a bill on February 6, 1866, extending the life of the Freedmen's Bureau furnished the occasion for the beginning of the open struggle.

On the 19th of February, Johnson vetoed the bill, and the next day an effort was made to pass it over the veto.

Not succeeding in this attempt, the House of Representatives adopted a concurrent resolution that Senators and Representatives from the Southern states should be excluded until Congress declared them entitled to representation.

Ten days later the Senate also adopted the resolution.
Though it was not yet too late for Johnson to meet the conservatives of Congress on middle ground, he threw away his opportunity by an intemperate and undignified speech on the 22d of February to a crowd at the White House.

As usual when excited, he forgot the proprieties and denounced the radicals as enemies of the Union and even went so far as to charge Stevens, Sumner, and Wendell Phillips with endeavoring to destroy the fundamental principles of the government.