een said of him, and not by an enemy, that
his inconsistencies, in a study of his character, form the most
charming part of it, and that no man in public life ever brought
such magnificent resources to the support of both sides of a
question. His force of will was as matchless as his ambition for
power was boundless and unappeasable. He was made for revolutionary
times, and his singular energy of character was pre-eminently
destructive; but it can not be denied that his services to the
country in this crisis were great. Mr. Von Holst, in his
"Constitutional and Political History of the United States," has
a chapter on "The Reign of Andrew Jackson." When the history of
Indiana shall be written, it might fitly contain a chapter on "The
Reign of Oliver P. Morton." He made himself not merely the master
of the Democratic party of the State, and of its Rebel element,
but of his own party as well. His will, to a surprising extent,
had the force of law in matters of both civil and military
administration. His vigor in action and great personal magnetism
so rallied the people to his support, that with the rarest exceptions
the prominent leaders of his party quietly succumbed to his ambition,
and recoiled from the thought of confronting him, even where they
believed him in the wrong.

His hostility to me began with my election to Congress in 1849, in
which, as a Free Soiler, I had the united support of the Democratic
party of my district, of which he was then a member. I never
obtained his forgiveness for my success in that contest, and his
unfriendliness was afterward aggravated by his failure as a Republican
leader to supplant me in the district, and it continued to the end.
I knew him from his boyhood. We resided in the same village nearly
twenty years, and began our acquaintance as members of the same
debating club. For years we were intimate and attached friends,
and I believe no man was before me in appreciating his talents and
predicting for him a career of political distinction and usefulness.
During the war, earnest efforts were made by his friends and mine
looking to a reconciliation, and the restoration of that harmony
in the party which good men on both sides greatly coveted; but all
such efforts necessarily failed. If I had been willing to subordinate
my political convictions and sense of duty to his ambition, peace
could at once have been restored; but as this was impossible, I
was obliged to accept the