arrest or suspend for the time being unconstitutional, hasty and improvident legislation, until the people, the sovereigns in this country, have time and opportunity to consider of its propriety."

This speech supplied the Democratic Review for the January following with the basis for an interesting article.

True to the welfare of the people from whom he sprung, Mr. Johnson was the prime mover in Congress of the Homestead bill, to give every man who is the head of a family and a citizen of the United States, a homestead of one hundred and sixty acres of land out of the public domain, upon the condition that he should occupy and cultivate the same for five years. As early as 1846 he commenced the agitation of this question, and has been the forcible and untiring advocate of it, not only in the Capitol, but everywhere and on every occasion. In another chapter the reader will have an opportunity of comprehending Mr. Johnson's love for and devoted labors in behalf of this benign, wise and paternal policy.

Mr. Johnson sat in the House of Representatives for five consecutive Congresses, and while in that position labored as few men have ever labored to improve the condition of the people. It seemed to be his mission, as well by the example afforded by his own life as by his enlightened and passionately fervid advocacy of their cause, to make labor respected and its rewards respectable. Of course, within these ten years of active service, a Southern Representative must have had something to say on the Slavery question— the touch-stone of all political faith-during a period which resulted in the Compromise Measures of 1850, and which has since led to some of the greatest events ever presented to the genius of history to record. Of Mr. Johnson's views on the Slavery and other questions, a consecutive resumé will be presented further on.

It was predicted when Johnson went to Washington that his ultra notions would bury him fathoms deep, and that he

would return to Tennessee only to prey upon a broken heart. But, as J. W. Forney said, "any one who gazed into his dark eyes, and perused his pale face, would have seen there an unquenchable spirit and an almost fanatical obstinacy that spoke another language." Johnson can look back on those years of his Congressional career as years of noble and manly triumph, inasmuch as they were given to the service of his country and humanity.

The compliment paid by Sir James Mackintosh to Lord Nugent's parliamentary services, in a letter to the constituents of the latter, is singularly appropriate to the legis lative career of Andrew Johnson, and as equally true of the spirit of the people who sent him to and approved his course in Congress. Alluding to the constituents, Mackintosh says, "They have set the example of a popular election, exempt from disorder and expense, from the domineering ascendant of a few, and from the slightest suspicion of corruption. Among them the suffrages of the people have neither been disturbed, nor enslaved, nor dishonored. No purse-proud stranger can boast of having bought their votes. Without attacking the just influence of property, they have exercised their own judgment on public men; they have calmly and firmly asserted its independence;

they have deprived great wealth of that monopoly which it may otherwise exercise against the most tried integrity, and the most eminent capacity for public service."

Sir James Mackintosh truly believed that an electoral body can render no greater benefit to the community than by an example which recommends the most popular institutions of a free government to the approbation of all mankind. The very words used by him in justification of the claim of Lord Nugent's constituents, may fitly be applied to the American Representative as "the advocate of a reduced military force, of economy of public expense, of liberty in

* Author of Memorials of John Hampden, his Party and his Times.

discussing public measures, the enemy of slavery, the friend of that right to worship God according to the dictates of their conscience, which the sincere follower of every religious community ought to consider as the most valuable and sacred of the rights of mankind." How true also of the instance before us, his remark that "it is always an advantage that constituents should be familiarly acquainted with the ordinary and daily life of their representatives, which throws the clearest light on the true springs of every part of his conduct." If these kind and judicious remarks were true of an English parliamentarian and his constituency, they are in a still wider degree apposite to the Tennessean Representative and the people who felt proud to honor themselves in honoring him.

The same animus which inspired jealous politicians to prognosticate evil for Johnson on his advent in Congress, inspired an equal desire to cut short his career there. But the people relied on their great advocate and defender. Hence what could not be done by political tactics before the eye of the populace, must be done by strategy behind their backs. Johnson's Congressional district was therefore changed by the opposition party in the Legislature, so as to make it overwhelmingly against him and thus end his public

career.

But the people came forward, adopted him as their candidate, and after an exciting contest elected him in 1853 Governor of Tennessee over Gustavus A. Henry, one of the ablest Whigs in the State. He delivered his Inaugural on the 17th October of the same year. In this document he put forth what his critical rivals used to call his "ultra notions," such as they predicted would prove his ruin in

Memoir of Lord Nugent.

+ Appointed by Isham G. Harris, the rebel Governor of Tennessee, one of three commissioners to enter into and perfect a military league with "the authorities of the Confederate States," and recently a rebel Senator in the "Confederate" Congress.

Congress; and it was severely censured, not only by the "conservative statesmen of this country, but by the aristocratic press of England and France." Democratic opinion here, and especially in the great West, thought it better than almost any thing else from Governor Johnson's pen.*

With the occasion, Governor Johnson's devotion to the rights of the people rose above all sectionalities. In 1855 he made a very able speech at Murfreesboro', Tenn., against "Know-Nothingism ;" and, in his own clear and earnest way, turned the arguments by which the persecution was sought to be upheld, against the persecutors themselves. In the course of this speech he said: "The Know-Nothings were opposed to the Catholic religion because it was of foreign origin, and many of its members in this country were foreigners also. He said that if it was a valid objection to tolerating the Catholic religion in this country because it was of foreign origin, and many of its members were foreigners, we would be compelled to expel most of the other religions of the country for the same reason. Who, he asked, was John Wesley, and where did the Methodist religion have its origin? It was in Old England, and John Wesley was an Englishman. But, if John Wesley were alive to-day and here in this country, Know-Nothingism would drive him and his religion back to England whence they came, because they were foreign. Who, he asked, was John Calvin, and where did Calvinism take its rise? Was it not Geneva? And were Calvin alive, this new order would send him and his doctrines back whence they came. Who, he asked, was Roger Williams? And would not Roger Williams and the Baptists share the same fate? And so with Martin Luther, the great Reformer; he would have been subjected to the same proscriptive test."

In the new position to which he had been elevated, Governor Johnson exhibited such personal and official integrity *See Western Democratic Review of the period.

such impartiality and devotion to the people's interests, that he was re-elected in 1855, after an active canvass, over Meredith P. Gentry, the "Great Know-Nothing" and Whig party leader in Tennessee. Of this contest, and the main issue, he gives us a graphic sketch in a debate in the United States Senate, some three years afterward, with John Bell. He said: "I canvassed the State from the mountains of Johnson County to the Chickasaw Bluffs in Shelby County. I was in nearly every county in the State, and well do I recollect the exciting events that took place during that canvass. I had a competitor who was eloquent, who is known to many members of this House, who was with me on every stump in the State. One of the leading issues in that canvass was the Kansas-Nebraska bill. I pressed my competitor upon it before every audience, and there were scarcely ever such turn-outs in the State as during that canvass. It was one of the main issues between him and me. I pressed him upon it in every single speech I made in the State; and he uniformly declined to take ground. He was afraid to take ground against it or for it, as was then believed, for fear it would injure him in the canvass.

.. There was no doubt, in fact, that he harmonized with the Democratic party on that point, yet he shrank from the responsibility with a view of getting many votes by taking a non-committal course. If he had taken bold ground against the Kansas-Nebraska bill, with the other issues pending in that canvass, he would have been beaten thousands and thousands throughout the State; but from the fact of his taking a non-committal position on the KansasNebraska Act, he was enabled to get many votes which he would not have received if he had taken bold ground on that question."

From a rival Tennessean source we also learn something of the force and ability of Johnson's competitor. As Johnson tells us that Gentry would not take ground on the