Thereupon he assumed that the
President would take the opinion of the Attorney-General. Having
advanced thus far, he next proceeded to write the questions that he
imagined the President would prepare and submit to the Attorney-General.

These questions he transmitted to a brother correspondent in New York
--Mr. F. A. Abbott--under cover of a letter which was not produced.
Flint gave the substance of his letter to Abbott in these words:

"These questions are supposed or believed to have submitted by the
President to the Attorney-General." Speaking of Abbott, Flint said:
"I knew he was connected with several newspapers and I had no doubt
when I sent these questions that they would appear in some paper in
some shape. . . . The object I had in view in writing these questions
and in sending them to Mr. Abbott was that they might appear before the
public, and that the public mind might be directed to that point, and
that the newspapers particularly might be led to express their
sentiments upon the questions involved in it."

When the publication "had given rise to considerable discussion" in the
language of Flint, "I thought," he says, "I ought to go the President
and tell him what part of the despatch was mine and what connection I
had had with the publication of it."

Of his interview with the President, he gives this report: "He showed
me an article, which I think, appeared the day after the questions were
published, in the _Daily News_ of Philadelphia, which took pretty
nearly the same ground my questions would indicate. . . . He spoke of
it rather approvingly."

Flint adds: "I had remarked to him: 'Mr. Johnson, it seemed to me
that it would be by no means remarkable that you should prepare such
questions as bear upon a subject which I know must have occupied your
mind as it has the public mind.' I forget what reply he made; it was
a sort of affirmative response or assent."

Whatever may have been the origin of Flint's questions, their
appearance in the manner indicated is an instance of volunteer service
not often paralleled in the rough contests of life. Without any
effort on his own part the President gained knowledge of a public
sentiment upon the question of the legality of the Thirty-ninth
Congress--a question in which he had much interest in the autumn of
1866.

The project to increase the army around Washington and the project
to proclaim the Thirty-ninth Congress an illegal body may have had an