collected and disbursed by this Government, in the very same proportion you increase the centralizing power here.

"The great fault and difficulty is that we legislate too much, and one-half of our legislation is an impediment, an obstruction, thrown in the way of the laws of Nature, preventing our people from conforming their action and conduct to great fundamental laws.

"Let your Government take as little from the people as possible; permit them to enjoy their own industry; protect them in their pursuits; let the people become rich, and let your treasury remain poor. I am glad the treasury is empty. I am not sure that I shall vote to borrow a dollar. I think it is a fortunate thing for the country that it is reduced, and even drained; for the idea has got to be predominant here--I was going to say irrespective of party-that the way to get power, and to become popular, is by the expenditure of large sums of money."

"In some offices there are too many clerks; deploy them, concentrate your forces on some other point, and you can have the business of the country performed without augmenting the number of offices, that are constantly increasing and preying on the vitals of the country. I know that in this particular atmosphere it is a little dangerous to talk about office-holders. Many of them have nothing to do but to write letters to puff particular individuals, and he who dares raise his voice against this interested clique, this set of political vampires, who are fixed upon the Government, and who care nothing for the interests of the people, is, I know, treading on dangerous ground. They write letters to the newspapers in various sections of the country, and misrepresent and vilify any one who dares to expose abuses of this sort. I had almost as soon set my foot in a nest of electric eels as to come in contact with this class of pensioners upon the public treasury. Go along Pennsylvania Avenue of an evening, and whom do you find there? Why, this class of men, lounging about the hotels and places of public resort; some of them with pencil and paper in hand, collecting and noting down facts for a letter. A most enlightened set of gentlemen!"

"We have had various amendments offered here with the view of increasing the salaries and pay of everybody connected with the Government, save the man that labors and produces. The man who wears the dinge of the shop or the dust of the field upon his garments seems to be but little thought of or cared for in this House, except on occasions when the Government needs taxes. When the Government needs men to fight its battles, then it calls on this class of persons; but when money is to be voted out of the treasury, without stint or measure, then they are but little regarded. I should like to know why the men that work in your navy-yards, and forge your anchors, and build your ships-men who wield the broadax, chisel, and hammer, not only five hours in the day, but ten hours, at one dollar and fifty cents to two dollars per dayshould not have twenty per cent added to their wages also. They have not the time, after working ten hours a day, like others who are not employed five, to visit this hall and besiege members of Congress with importunities to increase their pay. They have to work, almost from the rising to the going down of the sun, whilst others in the employment of the Government get much larger wages, although their expenses of living are not more than those who labor in your workshops. Go, for instance, to your armory. Who proposes to increase the pay of the men who are engaged in preparing the implements of war to defend your country in its hour of need? When provisions rise, when bread and meat advance in price, and it is almost impossible for the mechanic to support his family, do we hear these eloquent appeals in behalf of him, his wife, and children ?"

CHAPTER V.

MR. JOHNSON AND SLAVERY AND ITS ARISTOCRACY — BRECKINRIDGE AND LANE-IN THE SENATE

A PATRIOT FOR THE UNION.

HE Presidential campaign of 1860 developed an

THE

Johnson. From his former course there were the best reasons for placing him among those who would, in every emergency, be defenders of the Union. As the signs of the times became more doubtful and dark, his position became more open and satisfactory to the friends of the Union in the North. In all measures for the defense of slavery he had stood firmly with his section, but he did not put slavery against the Union. This fact soon set Southern leaders to suspecting him, and from suspecting they readily fell to hatred and abuse. While he took slavery as it was, and felt it a necessity, or his duty, to act in harmony with the South on all matters belonging to the "institution," he had not the interest in it which was characteristic of Southern politicians. He never did believe, perhaps, that slavery would or should exist always in this country. There was little or no affinity between him and the slaveholding aristocrats. His tendency was to dislike and shun them. This they said came from the vulgarity

of his nature.

But to a great extent, this was spleen on their part. His preferences when at the North were not such as they attributed to him when at home. In his private and social habits he was quite up to the average, or even best, standard of the people among whom he always lived. That slavery ever elevated the highest moral standard in society, or behind the curtains, has yet to be proven. To say that much is an exaggeration of charity, for in its most boisterous and arrogant days it never, in earnest, claimed such a thing.

Although he was a slave-owner, this fact did not materially affect his relation to the institution or its friends. The thread that bound him to slavery was peculiar and weak. The cause of this must be apparent in the course of the exposition of his character given in this work. Between the "institution" and his feelings towards the Union there was never a struggle. Between adhering to the South and adhering to the whole country there never could have been a question with him. His mind was always made up. He was a patriot in the only true and manly sense of the word. He was thoroughly tested. He was for his whole country, the Union, and the fall of slavery, or anything else, had no weight with this sentiment and principle. In him patriotism had one of its few exemplars in the South.

Besides the mere want of congeniality, or as a part of that want, between Mr. Johnson and the slaveholding aristocracy around him, he had a very decided aversion for many of the leaders, both dead

and living. He did not believe in these men at all. He considered them really wrong in their theories and deeds. This was an unpardonable offense. His independence, and indifference towards the Southern political idols, as well as his disposition to be fair in opinion and conduct towards men in other parts of the world, discounted his standing in his section. How could a man hope to escape approbrium in the Democratic party in the South with such views as the following expressed by Mr. Johnson of J. C. Calhoun :

"Mr. Calhoun had some peculiar notions about government; and if he were now living, he and all the men in the United States could not put a government into successful and practical operation under the system he laid down. He was a logician; he could reason from premise to conclusion with unerring certainty, but he was as often wrong in taking his premises as anybody else. Admit his premises, and you were swept off by the conclusions; but look at his premises, and he was just as often wrong as any other statesman; and I think Mr. Calhoun was more of a politician than a statesman. Mr. Calhoun never possessed that class of mind that enabled him to found a great party. He founded a sect; and if he had been a religionist, he would have been a mere sectarian. He never would have gone beyond founding a sect peculiar to himself. His mind was metaphysical and logical, and he was a great man in his peculiar channel, but he might be more properly said to have founded a sect than a great national party."

For such men as Jefferson Davis in his own day, Mr. Johnson entertained a very decided aversion, which was heartily reciprocated. In view of all