the public men who offered
it were conscious that the people were on his side, and concealed
anxiety for their own popularity under a feigned indisposition to
quarrel with him.

The President seems to belong to that class of men who act not so much
from principles as from moods; as his moods vary, his conduct changes;
but while he is possessed by one of them, his mind is inaccessible to
evidence which does not sustain his dominant feeling, and uninfluenced
by arguments which do not confirm his dominant ideas. Mr. Covode and Mr.
Schurz could get no hearing from him, because they were sent south to
collect evidence while he was in one mood, and had to report the results
of their investigations when he had passed into another. This
peculiarity of his mind makes the idea of a "Johnson party" so difficult
of realization; for a party cannot be founded on a man, unless that
man's intellect and integrity are so manifestly pre-eminent as to dwarf
all comparison with others, or unless his conduct obeys laws, and can
therefore be calculated. Thus the gentlemen who spoke for him in New
York, on the 22d of February, at the time he was speaking for himself in
Washington, found that they were unwittingly his opponents, while
appearing as his mouth-pieces, and had accordingly to send telegrams to
Washington of such fond servility, that the vindication of their
partisanship could only be made at the expense of provoking the hilarity
of the public. But one principle, taken up from personal feeling, at the
time he resented the idea that "Tennessee had ever gone out of the
Union," has had a mischievous influence in directing his policy, though
it has never been consistently carried out; for Mr. Johnson's mode of
dealing with a principle is strikingly individual. He uses it to justify
his doing what he desires, while he does not allow it to restrain him
from doing what he pleases. The principle which he thus adopted was,
that the seceded States had never been out of the Union as _States_. It
would seem to be clear that, constitutionally speaking, a State in the
American Union is a vital part of the government, to which, at the same
time, it owes allegiance. The seceded States solemnly, by conventions of
their people, broke away from this allegiance, and have not, up to the
present moment, formed a part of the government. The condition in which
they were left by their own acts may be variously stated; it may be said
that they were "States ou