ed. In the Middle and Western States the
feeling was much deeper. In many of their laws a discrimination was
made against the negro, and a direct interference with the habits of
loyal communities on this subject involved many considerations which
did not in any degree attach to legislation affecting only the Southern
States. There was among Democratic leaders a confidence as marked as
the timidity on the part of the Republicans. They were sure of a
re-action in their favor; they believed that the Republicans had taken
the step which would prove fatal to them, and that with the prejudices
of the people supplemented by the patronage of the President a serious
division would ensue, which would prove fatal to Radical ascendency in
a majority of the Northern states. Overcome in both chambers by the
aggressive force of a majority which transcended the limit of two-thirds,
they congratulated themselves that this very power, beyond the
restraint of the Executive and exercised in defiance of his opinions,
would prove the pitfall of Republicanism wherever race prejudice was
kept alive.

The passage of these bills by Congress, their persistent veto by the
President and their re-enactment against his objections, produced, as
had been anticipated, not only an open political hostility, but one
which rapidly advanced to a condition in which violent epithet
and mutual denunciation indicated the deplorable relations of
the two great departments of the Government. The veto of the
Freedmen's-Bureau Bill, on the 19th of February, was followed by a large
popular meeting in Washington, on the 22d, to approve the President's
action. The meeting adjourned to the White House to congratulate the
President, and he in turn made a long speech in which he broke through
all restraint, and spoke his mind with exasperating frankness. "I
have," said the President, "fought traitors and treason in the South.
I opposed Davis, Toombs, Slidell, and a long list of others whose names
I need not repeat, and now, when I turn around at the other end of the
line, I find men--I care not by what name you call them (a voice:
'Call them traitors')--who still stand opposed to the restoration to
the Union of these States. (A voice: 'Give us their names.') A
gentleman calls for their names. Well! suppose I should give them?
I look upon them, I repeat it as President or citizen, as being as much
opposed to the fundamental principles of this Government, and belie