tories in connection with Arizona and Dakota as Jefferson," but with pro-slavery features in the bills which caused the House to reject them. Oregon was admitted into the Union, the member from the Ninth Indiana voting with fifteen Republicans for admission, all other Republicans voting against it.' He writes:

"I never felt a doubt as to the proper course, and any one who hesitates in what he thinks duty requires is not fit to be here. Oregon is now to govern herself, instead of having rulers sent her by pro-slavery Administrations three thousand miles away. The question of admitting a State should not be decided on the politics of her first Senators, since in these times they could hardly be expected to be anything but pro-slavery. Oregon is a free State, however, and it will have to be an extraordinary case which shall cause me to vote against other free States that are to follow."

When the Thirty-fifth Congress met, the friends of the Administration organized it without difficulty. Their pet measures were the admission of Kansas under the Lecompton Constitution; the grant to the President of thirty millions to apply in his discretion toward the acquisition of Cuba; the lodgment of the war-making power in his hands, so far as Mexico and Central America were concerned; the establishment of an armed protectorate over Sonora and Chihuahua; the increase of the rate of postage, and the reissue of twenty millions of Treasury notes. All of them but the reissue of the Treasury notes met the fate of Lecompton, and that was carried through the House only by personal appeals of Cabinet Ministers on the last night of the session. The defeat in Kansas was like a stroke of paralysis to the Administration. Its own Committee of Ways and Means could not secure the passage of any measure for the improvement of the revenue.

1. Mr. Greeley writes him, February 14th, 1859: "I do think you fifteen bolters ought to be whipped. At least, you ought to have had a full share in the Buck and Breck' demonstration of Saturday night, and listened to their speeches on Cuba, expansion, and 'manifest destiny.' It is a great responsibility which a few take when they beat their own party, and I should not like to take it without the best of reasons. But the milk is spilt, and I only hope that Joe Lane and Delusion's' votes will beat your Senators... Well, we are going to be defeated in 1860. Everything done this winter in Washington foreshadows it. You have made no good point but passing the Homestead Bill, and that is going to be killed in the Senate, without giving us the benefit of a veto from 'Old Buck.' So good-night to the Republican Party."

The House materially razeed the appropriation bills, especially the Navy Bill, upon startling exposures of corruption and profligacy in the administration of the Navy Department. The House resisted the Senate's proposed increase in the rate of postage, the Senate insisted, and so the PostOffice Appropriation Bill failed. To punish the contumacy of the House, the Senate, or the Presidential veto, killed the Agricultural College Bill, the Homestead Bill, and a bill for the improvement of the St. Clair Flats; and the Senate retained the two fraudulent Senators from Indiana, Bright and Fitch, in their seats, notwithstanding the protest of their State. If it was not for the Thirty-sixth Congress, the Thirty-fifth might rank as the most disgraceful and demoralizing and, at the same time, as the most imbecile in our annals.

After the adjournment, but before leaving Washington for home, Colfax wrote Mr. Bowles :

"You have seen how Congress broke up, Toombs playing over again his 'let-discord-reign' part in the Speaker's contest of 1849. I think we have them at a decided disadvantage. Many of our folks wanted our side to revolutionize, ' filibuster,' etc., against the Treasury-note amendment, but we could not have stood on that. They wanted to prevent the Senate's amendments to our bill being considered, and let it fail from lack of two thirds to take it up. But Morrill, Winter Davis, the Washburnes, Stanton, myself, and others insisted not, exciting their wrath for a while. We wanted the stand on the Senate's increasing the postage rate, which is far stronger and more defensible for us, and all our folks now acknowledge that it is far better, putting the revolutionary boot, as it did, on our opponents' legs instead of our own.

"We have been razeeing the appropriation bills more than you suppose, so much that I fear we shall not be able to show the retrenchment we should, next session, especially as we will have to commence with a twenty-million Post-Office deficiency. But our folks got a taste of their power, and they slashed away a million here and another there, without mercy. Not counting the reissue of Treasury notes, which is not an appropriation proper, and leaving out the bill that Toombs and Mason choked to death, the actual appropriations are less than fifty millions.

"As to the vote [on the admission of Oregon], the more I think of it the better I like it. Had we all gone with the crowd, there would have been a million and a half of Republicans all over the land to-day on the defensive, explaining why free-State Representatives rejected a free State, and they would have been explaining till after the Presidential

election, losing votes all the time by their explanations. The Democracy would have recovered much lost ground by appearing to favor admission of a free State, and being foiled in it by the Republicans. Seward's speech in its favor would have been quoted against us as a self-condemnation, and they would have made the people believe that we were not only opposed to slave States, but also to free States, unless they were Republican. I am glad that enough of us had the firmness to stand fast to avert this suicidal policy."

CHAPTER V.

THIRTY-SIXTH CONGRESS.

1859-1861.

POLITICS IN 1859.-EDWARD Bates for President.-SUCCESS IN 1860 A DUTY. JOHN BROWN AT HARPER'S FERRY.-Eight Weeks' BALLOTING FOR SPEAKER.-CHAIRMAN OF THE COMMITTEE ON POST-OFFICES AND POST-ROADS.-IMPROVEMENTS IN THE SERVICE.-DAILY OVERLAND MAIL.-HIS WAY IN THE HOUSE.-PRESIDES IN A NIGHT SESSION, VOTE OF THANKS.-RE-elected, a WALK OVER.-Secession.— COMPROMISE WINTER.-SOUTHERN DELEGATIONS WITHDRAW FROM CONGRESS. - FIRST PRACTICAL COUNTER-MOVE.-" VOTES BETTER THAN SPEECHES."-COMPROMISE IMPOSSIBLE.-SEIZURE OF GOVERNMENT PROPERTY BY THE SECEDED STATES.-CRITICAL TIMES IN WASHINGTON.-STRIFE FOR OFFICE.

UPON the adjournment of Congress in March, the Congressman again became editor. A new press was bought, and as the paper entered upon its fifteenth year it was enlarged to its size previous to the fire of 1855. "Schuyler gets up a good paper," said the North Iowa Times; "a little too political generally for our taste, and, by the way, its politics don't suit us either; but Schuyler is a member of Congress, spoken of for Speaker, and threatened with the nomination for Governor of Indiana, and it is expected that he will overload his paper with politics."

The battles of the late Congress were discussed by the editor, confusion eliminated, and the responsibility for what was well or ill done, or was not done at all, placed where it belonged. The Republicans carried the important spring elections, but were imperfectly organized and undisciplined. The editor contemplated this with some impatience, and, commenting on the town election of South Bend, he said that "while the Republicans could have elected their entire ticket, part of them had chosen to elect

two of their political opponents over their political friends.” He admitted their perfect right to do so, but for himself, he said he took pleasure in working and voting for his political friends rather than for his political adversaries. After numberless defeats in the most offensively aggressive warfare on the North, the South was able to keep the field, by reason of the high organization, the strict discipline, the systematic and unceasing work of the party it controlled. The North, on the other hand, strong in principles and votes, frittered away, from its lack of organization and discipline, the fruits of one victory, while another battle was drawing on.

His frequent absences to deliver orations or addresses were indicated by interesting letters to his paper from the points he visited. At the request of the Republican State Committee of Minnesota, he canvassed that State in September, travelling forty to sixty miles and speaking every day, for four weeks. It was an important battle-ground, and several speakers of national reputation took part in the canvass. A Republican (Mr. R. N. McLaren) wrote him from Red Wing, Minn., in October: "We have met the enemy, and they are ours; they are flying to the hills, they are hunting for hiding-places among the mountains of Hepsidam.' Hurrah! Hurrah! Our cannon is roaring, it is a glorious day !"

In the summer and onward till the next summer newspaper discussion had large reference to the coming Presidential election. The Register held that the Republicans must succeed, or the title of "American citizen' would become a disgrace instead of an honor. Living in a doubtful State, and an October State, he was impressed with the necessity of choosing a candidate who would draw to his support the anti-Lecompton Democrats. With this in view, he favored Edward Bates, of Missouri, for the Republican nomination."

1. Mr. Bates had declined a portfolio in a Whig Cabinet years before. He was an early and steadfast friend of emancipation in Missouri, and had freed his own slaves. "His views were never the echo of other men's opinions, nor could he brook factious dictation. Those who understood him felt little occasion to be proud of any difference with him." He was the first member of Mr. Lincoln's Cabinet decided on; he was Lin