cooeperation in a scheme to defeat Mr. Lincoln's election. The
same leaders went to Washington last December with the deliberate
intention to quarrel with the President, who up to that day and hour
had followed in the footsteps of his illustrious predecessor. Their
denunciations have been systematic and fiendish. If, under a keen
sense of injustice, he has since erred in judgment or temper, none
will deny the sufficiency of the provocation. That it would have been
wiser, though less manly, to forbear, I admit. But no nature, merely
human, excepting, perhaps, that of Abraham Lincoln, can patiently
endure wanton public indignities and contumely."[1094]

[Footnote 1094: New York _Times_, October 9, 1866.]

After the October elections it became apparent that the North would
support Congress rather than the President. One cause of distrust was
the latter's replacement of Republican office-holders with men noted
for disloyalty during the war. Weed complained that the appointment of
an obnoxious postmaster in Brooklyn "has cost us thousands of votes in
that city."[1095] During the campaign Johnson removed twelve hundred
and eighty-three postmasters, and relatively as many custom-house
employes and internal revenue officers.[1096] Among the latter was
Philip Dorsheimer of Buffalo. Indeed, the sweep equalled the violent
action of the Council of Appointment in the days when DeWitt Clinton
and Ambrose Spencer, resenting opposition to Morgan Lewis, sent Peter
B. Porter to the political guillotine for supporting Aaron Burr. Such
wholesale removals, however, did not arrest the progress of the
Republican party. After Johnson's "swing around the circle,"
Conservatives were reduced to a few prominent men who could not
consistently retrace their steps, and to hungry office-holders who
were known as "the bread and butter brigade."[1097] The _Post_, a
loyal advocate of the President's policy, thought it a melancholy
reflection "That its most damaging opponent is the President, who
makes a judicious course so hateful to the people that no argument is
listened to, and no appeals to reason, to the Constitution, to common
sense, can gain a hearing."[1098] Henry Ward Beecher voiced a similar
lament. The great divine had suffered severe criticism for casting his
large influence on the side of Johnson, and he now saw success melting
away because of the President's vicious course. "Mr. Johnson just now
and for some time past," he wrote, "has been