Life and select literary remains of Sam Houston of Texas/Chapter 22
CHAPTER XXII.
As Houston had preserved his equanimity in the House when the executive administration on the 4th March, 1825, passed from the hand of President Monroe to that of Mr. Adams, so his equanimity was far from being disturbed when Mr. Polk's administration was succeeded by that of the General whom he had been foremost in commending for his Mexican campaign. His first act in the Thirty-first Congress, which met Dec. 3, 1849, brought out Houston's character and principles in an entirely new field.
In this Congress Millard Fillmore, as Vice-President, presided in the Senate until the death of Gen. Taylor, July 9, 1850, when W. R. King, of Alabama, made Vice-President in the election of 1852, was chosen permanent President pro ton. There came also into the Senate, as men of mark, J. Clemens of Alabama, W. H. Seward of New York, Gen. Shields of Illinois, and R. C. Winthrop of Massachusetts; while the admission of California brought in, after a long session, two Senators from California, J. C. Fremont and W. M. Gwinn, who took their seats in September, 1850, the session lasting till September 30th. In the House, Howell Cobb, of Georgia, was Speaker.
On the 20th December, 1849, Houston was unexpectedly called to support a resolution inviting Father Mathew, the Catholic Irish apostle of temperance, to a seat on the floor of the Senate. While some manifestly wished to court Irish votes, and many sought occasion to be known as advocates of abstinence from intoxicants, Houston was called out by the fact that, in an address made in New England, Father Mathew had opposed slavery. Houston said, addressing the presiding officer:
"I, sir, am a disciple of temperance advocates. I needed the discipline of reformation, and I embraced it. I am proud upon this floor to proclaim it, sir. I could enforce the example upon every American heart that influences or is influenced by filial affection, conjugal love, or parental tenderness." He scorned the suggestion that Father Mathew had once spoken against slavery.
On the 14th January, 1850, Houston supported a resolution coming from the House of Representatives, providing that if the habitants of New Mexico, whose southern limit ran south of 36° 30', should prohibit the introduction of slavery, it should be no bar to the admission of the State into the Union. On the 30th January Houston supported a resolution giving a homestead to Hungarian exiles who fled to this country after the defeat of Kossuth. On the 8th February Houston spoke on the question of slavery in the Territories; alluding with much feeling to Mr. Calhoun, then detained from the Senate, and who died on the 31st March, a few weeks later; and he said it gave him pleasure to say he agreed with the eminent Senator from South Carolina on that question. Alluding, however, to Mr. Clemens of Alabama, who had spoken of the Union as already dissolved, he exclaimed:
"I deny the power of all the ultraists in the world to rend the Union in twain. If the contending parties would only approach these questions in the spirit of the precept laid down by the Divine Mediator, 'As ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them likewise,' it would be better for the country in all its sections, and for the people of all classes."
He had given his vote in 1847 for the admission of Oregon with slavery prohibited, and he had refused to sign the "Southern Address " in 1849. He referred to the movement of South Carolina in 1832 for nullification on the one hand, and to the agitation against slavery in 1835, when he was out of the country. This balanced position he had held and still maintained.
This allusion of Houston to the recent "Southern Address," which he would not sign, drew out Senators Davis and Foote of Mississippi, and Butler of South Carolina. After they had spoken, Houston rose and read the warning of Madison against disunion. This called forth another irrepressible outburst of applause from the galleries. When it had subsided, with the earnest tone and manner of a prophet of Israel, Houston looked upward, and exclaimed:
"I must say that I am sorry that I can not offer the prayers of the righteous, that my petition might be heard. But I beseech those whose piety will permit them reverentially to offer such petitions, that they will pray for this Union, and that they will ask of Him that buildeth up and pulleth down nations that He will in mercy preserve and unite us. I wish, if this Union must be dissolved, that its ruins may be the monument of my grave, and of the graves of my family. I wish no epitaph to be written that I survived the ruins of this glorious Union!"
Certainly no child, no friend of Houston who lived to see the events of 1860 to 1863, when, heart-broken, he died in an exile more complete and sad than any of his former life, can fail to believe that Houston's prophetic fervor was as sincere in its utterance as in historic fact it became true in his closing career.
On the 25th July Houston made a lengthy speech on the claim of Texas to the territory of New Mexico east of the Rio Grande. He said:
"Texas asserts no new claim. She made the same prior to annexation. Texas is loyal; she has assented to everything that goes for peace. The treaty of annexation promised protection to the inhabitants of that portion of her territory; but we will be magnanimous. If we yield, we shall do it as parties in a matrimonial alliance who have determined to say 'yes' anyhow."
In reply, on the 30th July, to Benton and Clay, he exclaimed: "Texas is not greedy; she only seeks to do her duty." On the 31st July he stated, that when New Mexico was ceded to the United States in 1848, Texas sent a judge to incorporate the inhabitants into the State of Texas.
On the 13th August, responding to Davis of Mississippi, and Clemens of Alabama, who opposed the admission of California, Houston spoke with warmth, opposing disunion sentiments. He said, for many months he had sat and listened to debates on this and kindred topics. He had voted for the California bill, and for another, supposed to be unfriendly to the South. He might not be right, but he declared: .
"My motives are as pure as those of any gentleman on this floor, though my conception of what is beneficial to the South may not be in accord with theirs. I have been actuated by feelings as purely Southern as any gentleman in this body. I know that my constituents desire the harmony of the people of these States, and the perpetuity of the Union. At a celebration on the 4th July the sentiment of Texas was uttered in these words: 'Our brethren from Maine to the Rio Grande, from the Atlantic to the Pacific; we salute them with our love.' In voting for the California bill I can not conceive that free soil, or any soil but American, has been regarded. Are there indications that the South is borne down? Are we to take as proof the expression of the Southern Convention? I respect the men of that convention, but the meeting held at Nashville was surreptitious. The delegates from Texas received some 140 votes out of 1,600 or 1,800. Other representatives stood for the parallel of 36° 30'. If you partition California by that line I have no idea you would create one solitary slave State, but rather that you would multiply free-soil States. I contend that California has a right to come into this Union as a State upon the principle of self-government. Suppose our Union were divided with Mason and Dixon's line as the boundary, what would be our condition? An American in France or England enunciates his country's name with as much pride as Paul when he exclaimed, 'I am a Roman citizen!' Why should we allow that respect to diminish? Let us preserve the sacred name. Let us preserve it with the Constitution under which it stands. We of the South ask no compromise. Give us the Constitution. Tread not upon our rights by undelegated power. I feel confident that if these measures pass, joy and exultation will fill every heart. Your Nashville conventions will die away. Let us meet the difficulties that have come upon us like men, and dispose of them in such a way that if our posterity ever raise their hands against their brethren they may not be able to say, 'Our fathers entailed this upon us.'"
Here Barnwell of South Carolina, Berrien of Georgia, and Davis of Mississippi, made explanatory statements on behalf of their States, and in defence of the Nashville Convention; when Houston responded:
"I meant no reflection on the gentleman from South Carolina, whose demeanor has excited my admiration. As to the Nashville Convention, in Georgia only 3,500 out of 90,000 votes were cast. It is the duty of every friend of the Union to frown down any such means of action as this convention. As to Mississippi, my information is that not one-half of the counties were represented; that several counties represented were by proxies, and some were delegates constituted such by meetings of not exceeding eight or ten persons. I was witness of one case; as I passed by, only seven persons were assembled. As to the statement of the Senator from Mississippi that the rights of Texas were endorsed by that convention he would ask if that endorsement were necessary. Go to the yeomanry, the hard-handed men of the country, the man of substance, and he will tell you, with his family gathered around him: 'This is my home, this is my wife, and these are my children; and thus surrounded, I am as happy and proud as the monarch on his throne. Here the Constitution protects me; and am I going to place all these endearments on the hazard of disunion? Never, never will they do it! I tell you the people are right. Give to them but the benefit of their constitutional guarantees, and all the factions of the day, all the abstractions that can be conjured up by disaffection, by broken-down politicians, by disappointed spirits, by men who have heretofore advocated nullification, by loafers who live upon excitement, and by reckless demagogues—in spite of them all, I say, the South will hug the Union to her heart as the last blessing of heaven."
On the 15th August, in the midst of the general debate, continued from the 30th July, Houston was called out by a dishonorable attempt to involve him in a traitorous scheme. Mr. Hunter, of Virginia, called attention to an anonymous publication, which stated that in January, 1850, he had been called on by a Mexican General, who consulted him as to a plan for a union of Mexico with a Southern confederacy, of which Houston was to be made President. The writer stated that when the plan was presented to Houston he "indignantly refused to have anything to do with the base and traitorous scheme," and that he declared he was not a Cataline to betray his country. It was stated that Calhoun was fully aware of the proposition, but was opposed to any action until after the effort to amend the Constitution should have failed. It was further stated that Gen. Houston had in his possession the paper, and that he knew the author of the conspiracy. After the reading, Butler, of South Carolina, called out Gen. Houston, who declared the article to be simply a "canard," utterly unjust to Mr. Calhoun, who had died only two months after the professed interview. Houston's special trial came two or three weeks later. His frank and earnest opposition to the spirit of disunion, led to a scurrilous attack on his early career, especially when engaged, in 1818, as an agent of the War Department, in appeasing the hostile Indians in Georgia, on the borders of Florida. The substance of his statement, published at length as a "personal explanation," in the Congressional Globe, took the form of a speech in the Senate, September 9, 1850. He said:
"During twenty-six years since I entered the House of Representatives no personal assault upon my character has been made. Now, however, the Southern press of Charleston, S. C, has brought against me a charge of malfeasance in office, as lieutenant in the U. S. Army. I was appointed under President Monroe and J. C. Calhoun, Secretary of War, by George Graham, Assistant Secretary', on the 29th of September, 1817, to special service relating to the Indians of Georgia. I had enlisted as private in the ranks, March 24, 1813; and no demerit for any cause was received up to March 1, 1818. The highest commendations six months before that date had been given by General Jackson, for my appointment as sub-agent among the southern Indian tribes. To Assistant Secretary Graham, under date August 26, 1817, Jackson wrote of his former lieutenant: 'He is a young man of sound integrity, who has my entire confidence, and in every way he is capacitated to fill the appointment. Moreover, he has some claims upon the Government for a severe wound received in the service, which may be considered a disability.' On the same date Jackson wrote to Col. Meigs, the agent: 'In him I have had full confidence, and in him you will have a friend clear of design or deceit, on whom you can rely under all and every circumstance, as capable to aid you in every respect.' On the strength of these letters my commission was signed by J. C. Calhoun, August 29, 1817. On December 29, 1817, Gov. McMunn, who had succeeded Col. Meigs as agent, wrote as follows to Mr. Calhoun, as Secretary: 'Mr. Houston carried this Government order into effect, with a promptitude not less characteristic of his integrity, than of zeal for his country. The band of outlaws was dispersed, and Houston was sent to Washington with a delegation of chiefs, entrusted with funds for their expenses.' Gov. McMunn, addmg to this statement of confidence in his subagent, wrote: 'By his vigilance and address the parties will be much profited.' The delegation was conducted to Washington, and the object sought was accomplished. The commission was resigned March 1, 1818, because the pay was cut down to $500. His account, when made out, showed that the Government owed him $318.54. He charged up $67.52 then in his hands; leaving a balance due him of $251.02. He was not disturbed, except by political enemies, till December 10, 1821, when the Government's indebtedness was acknowledged and settled by check, 13th of June, 1822, for $170. On the 17th of April, 1824, when as Representative he could demand full justice, the balance still due, amounting to $80.93, was paid."
With great humor, Houston then related a threat of exposure held over him in the Southern Express a year or more before the present article, the writer thinking to frighten him from his earnest appeals against disunion. The Congressional record of this speech states: "Amusement and applause followed the humor and eloquence of Senator Houston. It showed that his relations to Mr. Calhoun had been honorable from his youth." In closing he declared his fidelity to the South; and in so doing, drew a parallel between disunionists per se and Benedict Arnold. He declared: "Disunionists per se sink below Benedict Arnold in the scale of infamy." He added: "Sir, when assailed hereafter because I am faithful to the Union, let it be understood that without union we are without a country; for, without union we can have no country and no home."
Houston's earnestness drew a reply from Mr. Butler, of South Carolina. He fully accorded integrity to General Houston; but declared that Mr. Calhoun, now deceased, had no hand in the threat of the Southern press, a year before, to which allusion had been made. General Houston responded with equal cordiality: "I can assure the gentleman that I cast no reflection on Mr. Calhoun. As to the Senator himself, he has only acted in his uniform demeanor of unceasing and becoming courtesy, politeness, and good feeling."
Houston's career during this eventful session, closed with a manly support of a proposed grant of lands to settlers in Oregon. This he urged among other reasons, because North Carolina had, in his orphan days, made a similar grant of lands in Tennessee, then constituting a part of her territory. From first to last during the debates that formed the crisis of the Senate, when its former leaders were withdrawn, and discussions more complicated than any ever before engaged in, grew heated, Houston was the Nestor whose counsel turned the scale of decision. The five measures that constituted the compromise acts then debated, were: first, the fixing of the boundary between Texas and New Mexico; second, the admission of California, with slavery prohibited; third, the establishment of a territorial government for Utah; fourth, the fugitive slave law; fifth, the suppression of the slave trade in the District of Columbia. The three great leaders of the past, Webster, the champion of national unity; Calhoun, the advocate of State rights; and Clay, the mediator in compromise, one after another passed from the Senate. On the 31st March, 1850, Calhoun, after weeks of detention by prostration, breathed his last; and his two comrades for over thirty years, spoke in sincere affection of his memory, and of their expectation that very soon they should join him in a better and purer assembly. Mr. Webster, who had lost his hold on New England by his advocacy of the fugitive slave law as part of the compromise, left the Senate to become Secretary of State, under President Fillmore, on the death of General Taylor, July 9, 1850; an office which he was able to fill only for about one year, when he was prostrated by the infirmity which terminated in his death, October 24, 1852. Mr. Clay, enfeebled and declining, though still keeping his seat in the Senate, could hardly be said to have filled it for the year preceding his death, June 29, 1852. Meanwhile, all eyes had been turned to Houston as the "pillar and ground" of the barrier raised against the dashing waves of disunion.
The 32d Congress, during which Mr. Fillmore was President, brought into the Senate an element counter to the spirit of compromise, ever maintained amid anti-slavery sentiment, by men like Webster. While Lynn Boyd, of Kentucky, was made Speaker of the House, and King, of Alabama, was chosen President of the Senate, Charles Sumner, of Massachusetts, introduced a new antislavery antagonism into the debates of the Senate Chamber. Houston had, from the experience of the past, regarded the extreme Southern agitation, which threatened armed disunion, as a positive danger, to be met by earnest remonstrance; and the result, in less than ten years realized, showed his wisdom, and will perpetuate the record of his patriotism. On the other hand, Houston regarded the extreme Northern agitation, which only expressed theoretical dissent, as an utterance more harmless, when unopposed, than if it were either repressed or discussed. His course was shaped accordingly, in the new debates that arose in the new Congress. The first session of this Congress, prolonged from December 1, 1851, to August 31, 1852, offered few occasions which drew him out, except in quiet discussion of subordinate matters of legislative business.
Soon after the opening of the session, December 12th, a resolution extending hospitalities and a reception by the Senate to Kossuth, the exiled champion of Hungarian independence, was offered and passed. The grand form, the broad intellect, and the captivating eloquence of the Hungarian chief, made an unwonted appeal to the American people; always enthusiastic for leaders, either of popular liberty or of independent government. While the people at large did not discriminate between these two distinct ideas, the statesmen proper of the American Republic were ruled by them in their sympathy for the Hungarian exile. In the vote for the resolution, which prevailed, Houston, in the record of the Senate, is mentioned as abstaining from voting, having paired with Senator Rusk, who was absent. This simple record shows that one or the other of the two Senators from Texas had made the distinction between the separation of one monarchy from another, because of opposing claims to hereditary right to rule, and the struggle of a people for republican government. On the 5th January, 1852, Kossuth was received in the Senate; when, after recording the formal speeches of introduction with Kossuth's replies, the Congressional Globe adds this record:
"Among the incidents of the reception, it may be mentioned that when the martial figure of General Houston approached Kossuth, there appeared to be a special attraction in the person of the hero of San Jacinto. Mr. Houston said: 'Sir, you are welcome to the Senate of the United States.' Kossuth feelingly replied: 'I can only wish I had been as successful as you, sir.' To this Houston responded: 'God grant you may be, sir.'"
At a later period Houston said, explaining his course toward Kossuth:
"When the advent of the illustrious stranger, Kossuth, was announced, I was not captivated by his advent, Mr. President. A portion of my life had been spent among the Indians. They are a cautious and considerate people, and I had learned to reconnoitre character a little when it comes about me, and I am liable to come in contact with it. I played the Indian and was wary. I received him, sir, in concurrence with the other Senators. I wished his country liberty as I wished the world liberty; but I did not wish to disregard our relations and obligations to other countries. He was hailed, he was greeted, he was welcomed on some occasions more triumphantly than even Lafayette, the friend of Washington. What claims had he upon us? He had claims of sympathy. If he ever flashed his sword for liberty he had a claim on our admiration and our fraternal feelings. But he had not done it—he retreated with a body-guard of five thousand; and after he had negotiated for a succedaneum, for a resting-place, he went away, leaving 'poor Hungary ' down-trodden and bleeding. Sir, much as I admire the patriots who strike for liberty —much as I admire the noble people whom Kossuth purported to represent—much as I admire all men who have struggled, even unfortunately or misguidedly, for liberty, no matter where—much as I admire the promptings which actuated them, and love the cause in which they have been engaged, yet when a man proves recreant to a noble cause, forgets his people, lives in comfort, splendor, and display, when they have to bite the dust or gnaw the file in agony, I have no sympathy for that man."
He then compared the course of the United States Government toward Texas:
"Was there then (in the Texan Revolution) a voice heard in this chamber advocating or introducing a resolution in vindication of the rights of Texas? Not one voice was heard at that time. Those gallant spirits who fell in hecatombs, with their footsteps almost on American soil, were hardly washed out or obliterated, yet this nation was not convulsed. Did Texas ever complain to this Government? In 1843, when she did remonstrate, what was it? She said to the three great powers of the earth, to France, England, and the United States: We ask no assistance; we invoke the invasion of our enemies; and upon a well-arranged and well-fought field, we will stake our liberty. But compel our adversary to observe the rules of civilized warfare.' That was all we asked. The Government of the United States, acting upon its wise and prudent and proper policy, did not interfere."
On the 22d of December, Gen. Foote, of Mississippi, offered a resolution to this effect: "That the compromise measures of the last Congress shall be regarded a 'final adjustment' of the questions dividing the North and the South." Houston interposed: "I am the only Senator who voted for all the compromise measures, Mr. Sturgeon, of Pennsylvania, excepted, who is not now a Senator. On questions of internal improvements, of the tariff, and of free soil, I have acted with the Democratic party. To gentlemen who differ from me as to the compromise measures, I say, 'Show me your faith without works, and I will show you my faith by my works.' "He had devoted himself, he went on to say, to the business of the Senate; to legislation for the country; not to fixing political platforms. He had hoped sectional agitation was dying away. "Mr. Clay, author of the compromise measures, true to his spirit for a third of a century, is sick and kept from his seat. I have defended his action. The resolution of the Senator from Mississippi is unnecessary. Why not resolve that the independent treasury bill is a final adjustment?" He had been censured, he continued, for using the word "Oligarchy" as applied to the State Government of South Carolina. He had only used it because the people of the State have no voice in State affairs. He added:
"I recall how, when in the House of Representatives, in 1824, I heard with amazement the idea that there might be secession, .disunion, resistance to the constitutional action of the Federal Government. I could hardly think it possible that a representative of any portion of the American people would have the fierce temerity to suggest this. I have heard principles of disunion announced in this hall, and have heard Senators utter what was treason, not technically, but which was not stripped of one particle of the moral turpitude of treason. What a delightful comment on the freedom of our institutions that this privilege is allowed. I have only to say that they who, for the sake of disunion, conspire against the Union and the Constitution, are aptly described in holy writ as ' raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever.'"
Mr. Butler, of South Carolina, replied courteously that the right of suffrage in that State was restricted by early limitations of property qualification, which in other and newer States have been removed. Mr. Foote, in defence of his resolution, charged General Houston with catering to popular Northern prejudices. Houston merely replied, "I said the same lately at Montgomery, Ala."
The only matter of importance which called out Houston to make a set speech during the remainder of the session, related to appointments and appropriations for the Indians. On a report made to the Senate, June 9, 1852, as to an incompetent Indian agent, Houston stated:
"These men are not accustomed to meet Indians. Texas, when independent, expended only $10,000 annually, and had peace. Now the United States expends $6,000,000 annually on the same border, and there is no protection. I am not saying anything against President Fillmore, for whom I entertain the respect that I hope ever to show toward the Chief Magistrate of this country."
He added afterward:
"The President of the United States, in his relation to the Indians, is the only father we have ever heard of on this continent. So far as the President of Texas was concerned, he was a brother to the Indians."
On the 12th August, when the appropriation made to the Indians was discussed, Houston showed that by withholding $84,000 from the Comanches, the U. S. Government had been led to a war which cost $48,000,000. "Sir," he exclaimed, "until we do justice to the Indians, until we are truthful and righteous in our legislation in regard to them, we can expect nothing but that Heaven will cause retributive justice to fall, if not upon the offenders, upon the nation that despoils the poor Indians. Be truthful, be just, and they will honor our flag; and indeed, defend it."
This long and eventful session of Congress, like the two sessions of the previous Congress, owed much of its success to the heroic and patriotic course of Houston. During the month of August, Charles Sumner uttered the first of his "Philippics," so called because in style and manner they were studiously conformed to the rhetoric of Demosthenes' celebrated appeals against Philip, and of Cicero's rebukes against Cataline; as the very framing of the sentences of this anti-slavery leader revealed. The oration of this session, entitled "Slavery Sectional, Freedom National," designed, as it was, to insist upon theoretical principle rather than to urge any practical matter of legislation, was allowed by Houston to pass without notice. A single remark dropped August 27th, on a bill to give the public printing to Mr. Richie, former editor of the Richmond Enquirer, but then editor of a Democratic organ at Washington, indicated the freedom from partisan as opposed to public interest, which ruled Houston's entire course. He remarked, in supporting the resolution, "I would as soon vote, as for years I have, to give the public printing to Gales & Seaton, who have opposed me in politics, as I would vote for the present resolution, offered in behalf of a gentleman of my own party."
The intelligent and general respect shown for Houston's judgment on questions of international as well as constitutional law, was indicated when, on February 2d, Senator Clarke, of Rhode Island, quoting at length from eminent European and American authors, on a nice question of interpretation, cited at length the statement of Houston on the relations of the United States to European Governments, in their right to intervention in neighboring American States. The death of Mr. Clay, June 29, 1852, called forth the appreciation of his brother Senators, by his appointment to accompany the remains to his home in Kentucky. The declining health of Mr. Webster, who died October 24, 1852, led to a natural and just comparison between the universally admired passages of his reply to Hayne,—grand outbursts, as they were, of deep patriotic sentiment,—and the like utterances of Houston. In Houston, however, there was less of the somber and more of the hopeful. Houston was the Nestor, not the Jeremiah of the national crisis.
The second session of the Thirty-second Congress, opening December 6, 1852, furnished little to call forth the Texan Senator; for the Presidential canvass, resulting in the election of General F. Pierce, of New Hampshire, as President, and of Rufus King, of Alabama, as Vice-President, changed the character of the executive administration which was to follow the brief Congressional session. It was natural that the time of the Senate should be given to legitimate legislative conference; and in this Houston filled his place and bore his share. On the 6th January, 1853, a resolution was proposed that the "Committee on Bribery and Abuses in Elections" investigate local disputes, to which Houston gave his adhesion. On the 13th of January he reported in favor of an increase of the "sword exercise" at the National Military Academy at West Point. On the 1st February he sustained a resolution in favor of supervision of the supply of clothing in the navy, and in opposition to the increase of naval officers. On the 20th February, 1853, his colleague, Mr. Rusk, presented resolutions from the Legislature of Texas, appointing Gen. Sam Houston Senator for the term of six years, from March 4th ensuing; and expressing special confidence in his course on national issues; an annoucement which called forth a general murmur of satisfaction, both on the floor of the Senate and in the galleries. On the 23d February an appropriation for the removal of the Indians from Florida, called forth his usual intelligent and fixed views on the best modes of treating with the Indians. He remarked: "A regiment to hold an Indian tribe in subjection costs no less than $1,200,000 annually; whereas $10,000 to aid them would be more effective. I never knew, during the whole course of my life, a treaty made in good faith with the Indians that was violated by them." On the 25th February he spoke in favor of a supervision of the national armories by civilians who were Intelligent among business men, since army officers failed in knowledge of the tricks of contractors, and in the management of mechanics. On the ist March he spoke in favor of special care in payments for service, in taking and collating census reports. On the 2d March he spoke on the appropriation for mail steamers from San Francisco; replying to the suggestion that the subject should be discussed in secret session, with this remark: "Public opinion is well regulated. When the public decide, their judgment is generally correct." On the 3d March he unfolded frauds in private bills before Congress. Thus up to the last day of the session he showed fidelity in that most important part of civil administration, the watch for unfaithfulness in public office. His sternness, when he thought there was fraud, and his manliness when charges were found to be made by interested parties, became noted in many conspicuous instances; a specimen of which will be cited as characteristic, under the incoming Democratic administration; to whose political policy, though not to all their administrative measures, he was intelligently devoted.