Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. President, in the latitude which the press or rather positions of the press sometimes take, it very often hap ens that every man in public life is more or ess aspersed, or that injustice is done him in some form or other, either from party motives or as frequently from interested motives. f felt that the instance to which the honorable member from Iowa [Mr. GRIMEs] called the attention of the Senate was one of the latter character; and I was at the moment about to rise, and I believe my friendfrom Maine [Mr. FEssenDEN] was about to rise, for the purpose of saying a word upon that subject, when other matters intervened. The honorable member from Iowa, wherever he is known, (and he is known well to all of us,) needed not for his vindication anything to be said by himself in contradiction of the charge, or the assumed charge, to which the editor of this paper alluded to by him has subjected him. I cannot say all that I think in is presence; but I may, without violating any good taste, I hope, say that every Senator upon this floor must be convinced that there is no member of the body who is more incapable of acting from improperor interested motives than the honorable member from Iowa. o His apin this Chamber is not of a day only; he has been with us for years, he was reelected by an almost unanimous vote of his legislature, and has resolved, wisely I suppose for himself, long before his term expired, to do nothing more than serve out that term, and then retire to private life, where I am sure he will be respected as much as he has been respected, and by those who know him beloved, by the Inembers of this body. The public, however, may not know the character of the honorable member, and I think it is due a debt which we owe each to the other at all times and under all circumstances when we find a brother member as sailed to denounce it, if we believe it to be false, as a groundless slander. such, I am sure, is the case in the instance to which the honorable member has called the attention of the Senate. But, not satisfied with impeaching almost the honesty of the member from Iowa, charging him with having been in his public course influenced by considerations of personal interest, the writer of this article has ventured to say that he has been able through that instrumentality, or some other, to influence the members of the ComFinance. Those who know the members of that committeer from its chairman down and including all its members, know that that must be false. The may be mistaken in relation to the tariffs which they may propose from time to time, or in relation to the internal taxes which they may propose to have levied from time to fime; but no man who knows the chairman of that committee, and the honorable men with whom he has been associated during the period he has been the chairman of that committee, will hesitate for a moment to charge as a vile calumny if it be asserted that they have been influenced, anyone of them, by improper motives in any measure to which they have given the recommendation of that committee. I have said this, Mr. President, not because we ourselves demand or require any vindication to satisfy us that they stand above just reproach, but to say to those who deal in cal umny or in slander that their efforts, as far as relates to the standing of the members of this body, will be aimless, if they are founded in falsehood.