Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. President, my acquaintance with our deceased colleague began several years before I became with him a member of the Senate. Having then allotted to us adjoining seats, that acquaintance soon ripened into intimacy, which continued unabated to the last day of his attendance in the Chamber. I was thus afforded an opportunity to form an opinion of him as a man and a servant, and to esteem him highly in both characters. In the 1st he possessed every quality to inspire confidence and win respect. Beginning life with no resources except such as industry, enterprise, and integrity afford resources that in our country, if not in every other, never fail when properly used to achieve success he soon secured the esteem of the community in which he cast his lot, and almost at once earned for himself and family a competency, and years before his death a fortune. This, and a spotless character, an inheritance far more valuable than wealth, he has left behind him, the only solace there can be to the affliction which death under any circumstance ever brings to a surviving wife and children. Nothing can fully supply to them the happiness of their domestic circle caused by the kindness of heart, liberality, and domestic habits of the husband and father. These they can never more enjoy but in memory. In memory, however, they will live, and be a constant source of comfort and happiness. And they will have also this other and higher consolation, that in the world to which he has been translated, and where he is to account for his conduct in this, he is to be judged according to the “integrity” that was in him, and that by such a judgment he can never suffer. Nor was Mr. WRight's excellence in private life limited to his household. As a friend he was sincere and constant, and in supplying the wants of the suffering was, as I am informed, ever most liberal. Of his public character I know enough to say that it was worthy of praise. His political opinions were of the school of Jefferson and Madison and of the statesmen who came into }. in the beginning of the century, the Republicans of that day. He believed, as his teachers did, that a strict as distinguished from what was termed a liberal construction of the Constitution of the U.S., and a liberal as distinguished from a strict construction of the rights reserved to the States and the people by that Constitution, was not only conducive to the harmonious operation of both Governments, but absolutely necessary to their continuing existence. With those great men who participated in the framing of the Constitution and in procuring for it the sanction of the people of each State, Mr. WRIGHT was convinced that the preservation inviolate of the rights which the States and the people not only did not delegate, but for greater security by an amendment expressly and in the strong est terms reserved, was vital to the success of the Government. To govern a territory then more extensive than that of almost any other one nation, and certain to be in a compara tively brief future greatly enlarged, he thought, as they thought, could only be done consistently with political liberty through the combined operation of the General and State Governments, the one dealing with subjects that the others were incompetent to manage, and they with those that the 1st was equally incompetent to manage. This is not a fit occasion to discuss the correctness of this opinion. Mr. WRight, however and this it is admissible to state was sin cere in holding it and in believing that it was vindicated by the fact which he thought to be well authenticated, that with the doctrine the country for more than half a century had enjoyed almost unbroken peace and prosperity and undisturbed harmony within its limits. He also thought that the prevailing political doctrines of the day served to disturb such peace, arrest such prosperity, and interrupt such harmony, and that the principal cause was to be referred to what he believed to be true, the absorption of the most important of the rights and powers of the States in those assumed by the General Government. In the last conversation I had with him he expressed this sentiment in a few words and with evident sincerity, for he knew that death was near at hand. e said in substance that from this cause he feared our country was in imminent peril. I trust that he ceased to have this apprehension before the final hour of his departure from the world. I trust so, for 1 can imagine that even the pang of leaving loved ones behind, acute as i. must always be, must be made the more acute by the fear that countrymen are ever to lost; the priceless blessings of a Government founded on principles of liberty, and so framed in its powers, in their limitations, and in the checks calculated to guard against their abuse, as to promise an ever enduring existence. May I be excused for saying that, were I to die now and in the possession of my consciousness, that additional pang would not be felt by me; the honorable and patriotic men in whose presence I stand I know will never designedly adopt measures or pursue a policy which they believe will result in so do. a calamity; a calamity which would deprive them and their countrymen of the invaluable inheritance of freedom secured and regulated by law. Clouds and darkness may for a time involve us in gloom, but it cannot be that they will not ere long be dispelled and the country be seen again in all its original brightness, with every one of its lights.; transfusing equal happiness throughout our wide domain, exciting the wonder and admiration of the world, and proving that we can preserve the admirable institutions, Federal and State, which our fathers successfully labored to establish, and under which we have reached a place in the community of nations of which we have reason to be proud and to which they now render all proper respect. In joining in this tribute to the memory of our departed brother, I conclude with saying what I said to him on the occasion referred to let us not despair, let us not bate, “a jot o heart and hope, but still bear up and steer right onward, ” and all will yet be well. And if it be given to departed spirits to know the things of this world, when that is seen his happiness, great as it may now be, will be the greater; for. love of country was so sincere and intense that he will ever rejoice in its continuing safety and prosperity.