Mr. JOHNSON. Did he mean to carry it out literally? All that he meant was that he would turn them out. But at last the honorable member is quarreling with a word used by the President, which he thinks was used in bad taste, but which was used merely for the purpose of saying that he would turn out the incumbents wherever he thought it proper to do so. Now, upon what ground did he put his duty to turn . out, or to use the presidential phrase and the Massachusetts phrase, “kick them out?” It was upon a doctrine which swept over the country at one time “rotation in office.” A large majority of the people of the U.S. thought unwisely as I believe that the people individually had a right from time to time to participatein the patronage of the Government; that there should be no life offices; and that the only way in which they could share in the patronage was upon the doctrine of enforcing a rotation in office; and upon that theory Congress, by a vote nearly unanimous, provided that the tenure of office of almost all officers should be for a period only of 4 years, so as to leave the offices vacant and give the President for the time the authority to put in his own friends without “kicking out” his o i. Mr. President,"? have already stated, the POTUS has said a great many things that I could wish, for his sake and for the sake of the office, had not bon said. But he is by nature impetuous. Brought up, springing from the humblest ranks in life, he has been subjected to turmoils from time to time to which perhaps he would not have been subjected, or into which he would not have entered if he had been educated in the colleges which have given to my friendfrom Massachusetts the which he holds in the estimation of the learned. He has been on the stump in Tennessee, meeting men who spoke not in the language of the classics, but in a language which shows what their feelings are for the moment, and the stronger the terms are that they use the better they are liked by themselves and generally by their auditors. The President has fallen into that habit; he exhibited it on the 22d February, and neither the honorable member from Massachusetts nor any other member of the Senate nor an citizen of the country regretted more than did the exhibition of it upon that occasion. He exhibited it upon the journey which during the summer he made through the West. Admit it all to have been in bad taste, admit it all to have been censurable in the judgment of men of taste, even in the individual man, and above all admit it not to have been in accordance with the dignity of the office of which he was the incumbent: does that prove or tend to prove that he is designedly untrue to his country? If the honorable Senfrom Massachusetts, with all the firmness which may characterize him or which belongs to his character, had accompanied the POTUS of when he left this Chamber in the spring of 1861 on his journey home, and met with the difficultiesand been surrounded by the dangers which threatened even his life, even he might have quailed. The President did not. After hurling his anathemas in language which struck the patriotic heart of the country with delight against the men who were plotting treason in this Cham ber, just as they were about to leave for their respective States in order to consummate the treason, he went through the dangers of his travel home, reached that home, and there, surrounded by men who sympathized with the South, and, whether with good or bad reasons, hated the North, was charged with treason to his section and was in imminent peril. He kept on in the even course of his way; he was patriotic to the last, defied the men around im, predicted what the result of the contest would be in which they had involved the nation, and emerging out of it he was selected by the political friends of the member from Massachusetts for the 2nd office in the gift of the people, and he was elected. What has he done since? He has done 2 things: he has, 1st, sought to reorganize the States that seceded precisely in the same manner, upon the same terms, as his predecessor was seeking to reor ganize them; he has, 2nd ly, consistent himself with the principles upon which he was elected by the people to the office, desired to have brought into the Union the States that once were in rebellion, as his predecessor did, and he is met with opposition here and in the other branch of Congress. What was he to do? What would any man have done in his place who was honest in that conviction; and we have no right to doubt his honesty. He would have used the power of appointment; and almost any other man than himself would have used it to a much greater extent than he has done. What else has he done? In the exercise of a right in words conferred upon him he has refused to give his assent to several bills passed by Congress; he had a right to do it. To deprive him of the exercise of his judgment upon bills which cons may pass from time to time is to take om him the very power which the Constitution confers. There is no treason in his doing that. In some cases his veto has been effect. ive; in other cases it has been overruled. Has he not submitted? Who can with truth allege that he has failed to give an honest support to the acts of $o. which have been passed ine to his veto? I think no one can, and I do not know that anyone has attempted to do it. The Constitution providing that if upon reconsideration the 2 Houses of Con. gress give votes which make a bill a law in spite of the veto, he has submitted to it as a law as a good citizen. Whether in.; before the people he has sinned against good taste, whether he has been provoked by political enemies who themselves or through their instruments have endeavored to provoke him to say things which a POTUS should not have said, is one question; but he will be false to the history of the man's life, above all false to the history of that part of his life which has been passed since the rebellion commenced and in anticipation of the rebellion, who will charge him with not being true to his duty to the country according to his understanding of it. Unfortunately some would have us believe, but I believe in the end fortunately for himself upon the true policy in reference to the States that have been in rebellion, he differs from those who were instrumental in placing him in power; he does not differ from his imme diate predecessor. Is he to be condemned for that? Reared in the humblest walks of life, having a trade as contradistinguished from a profession, not calculated, one would suppose to educate him for the Presidency of the U.S., the highest office, as I think, in the gift of the world, he has in every period of his career, from the time he 1st entered into public life to the present hour, never been charged with being faithless to his country until he happened to differ, not with his immediate prede. cessor, but happened to differ from what the party who elected him thought ought to be the policy of the Government as administered by the Executive. He is about to retire to pri. vate life; and when his history shall be writ ten, as written it will be after the passions of the hour have subsided and reason shall have resumed its sway, the biographer and the his. torian will say that no POTUS ever labored more zealously to cure the wounds which the rebellion had inflicted upon us, or had a more earnest desire to place the Government of the U.S. upon a footing which would enable it to stand during all time the honor and admiration of the world, as not only sufficient to work for us a national renown but that greater virtue of securing to every individual citizen the rights which the Constitution and nature and nature's God conferred upon him. Sir, I am no party friend of the POTUS in the strict sense of that term. He has done things which I disapprove, and I have no doubt he will do so in the future; but that he has ever erred consciously, that he has ever usurped power knowingly, that he has ever entertained a thought inimical to the true interest or honor of the country, I have never been as yet able to believe, and I have no reason to suppose I shall ever be made to believe. He has. in the estimation of his party, not upon any ground assumed by the party at the time he was elected; not upon any ground of policy pursued by his immediate predecessor, who died amid the lamentations of the whole country and almost of the world; but because a new state of things has arisen since in which he differs from the men by whom he was ele vated to power. In my judgment, exercising the privilege which every Senator on this floor has and every American citizen has of.; a judgment upon all the political questions o the day, I think that so far from sinning in the course which he has adopted, he would with the opinions which have governed him through his life have sinned if he had adopted a different course. What he has done has obviously been done with a view to bring about a complete restoration of the Union, to have all the States together as they were when Washington presided over its destinies in the executive chair. He may be mistaken personally I think he is not, but that is a matter of little or no moment; that is a matter of individual judgment he may be mistaken in the policy which he has adopted; but as I believe in my existence there is no man living within the broad limits of the U.S. who will more rejoice than the present incumbent of the presidential chair when peace and harmony shall have been restored and we shall again be as we were before, brothers in everything.