erick
Frelinghuysen, was a senator during the first term of Jackson and ran
for Vice-President on the ticket with Mr. Clay in 1844. The family
came with the early emigration from Holland and soon acquired a hold
upon the confidence of the people of New Jersey which has been long
and steadily maintained.--Mr. Frelinghuysen soon attained prominence
in the Senate, and grew in strength and usefulness throughout his
service in that body.

CHAPTER VIII.

With the disposition manifested in both Houses of Congress it was
feared that the conflict between the Legislative and Executive
Departments of the Government would assume a virulent and vindictive
spirit. It was known that President Johnson was deeply offended by the
indirect refusal of the House to pass any resolution in the remotest
degree approving his course. He had doubtless been led to believe that
the influence of such eminent Republicans as Mr. Seward in his Cabinet,
Mr. Cowan and Mr. Doolittle in the Senate and Mr. Raymond in the House,
would bring about so considerable a division in the Republican ranks
as to give the Administration, by uniting with the Democratic party,
the control of Congress, or at least of one branch. The test vote of
January 9th was an unwelcome demonstration of the degree to which the
President had almost wilfully deceived himself and had been innocently
deceived by others. He foresaw the struggle and with his combative
nature prepared for it.

On the last day of the preceding Congress, March 3, 1865, an Act had
been passed to establish a bureau for the relief of freedmen and
refugees. It was among the very last Acts approved by Mr. Lincoln,
and was primarily designed as a protection to the freedmen of the
South and to the class of white men known as "refugees,"--driven from
their homes by the rebels on account of their loyalty to the Union.
Protection was needed by both classes during the disorganization
necessarily incident to so great and sudden a change in their condition
and in their relations to society. The total destruction of the
long-established labor system of the South--based as it had been on
chattel-slavery--led inevitably to great confusion, indeed almost to
social anarchy. The result was that many of the freedmen, removed from
the protection of their old masters, were exposed to destitution and to
many forms of suffering. But for the interposition of the National
Government there was serious danger that thousand