estimation, of the several
applicants; and, upon his answer in the affirmative, without further
question, authorized him to appoint "No. 1" of his list. A day or two
afterward, certain Democratic members of Congress called on me and
politely inquired whether it was true that I had appointed a Whig to a
position in the War Office. "Certainly not," I answered. "We thought you
were not aware of it," said they, and proceeded to inform me that Mr.
----, the recent appointee to the clerkship just mentioned, was a Whig.
After listening patiently to this statement, I answered that it was they
who were deceived, not I. I had appointed a clerk. He had been appointed
neither as a Whig nor as a Democrat, but merely as the fittest candidate
for the place in the estimation of the chief of the bureau to which it
belonged. I further gave them to understand that the same principle of
selection would be followed in similar cases, so far as my authority
extended. After some further discussion of the question, the visitors
withdrew, dissatisfied with the result of the interview.

The Quartermaster-General, on hearing of this conversation, hastened to
inform me that it was all a mistake--that the appointee to the office
had been confounded with his father, who was a well-known Whig, but that
he (the son) was a Democrat. I assured the General that this was
altogether immaterial, adding that it was "a very pretty quarrel" as it
stood, and that I had no desire to effect a settlement of it on any
inferior issue. Thenceforward, however, I was but little troubled with
any pressure for political appointments in the department.]

CHAPTER V.

The Territorial Question.--An Incident at the White House.--The
Kansas and Nebraska Bill.--The Missouri Compromise abrogated in
1850, not in 1854.--Origin of "Squatter Sovereignty."--Sectional
Rivalry and its Consequences.--The Emigrant Aid Societies.--"The
Bible and Sharpe's Rifles."--False Pretensions as to
Principle.--The Strife in Kansas.--A Retrospect.--The Original
Equilibrium of Power and its Overthrow.--Usurpations of the
Federal Government.--The Protective Tariff.--Origin and Progress
of Abolitionism.--Who were the Friends of the Union?--An
Illustration of Political Morality.

The organization of the Territory of Kansas was the first question that
gave rise to exciting debate after my return to the Senate. The
celebrated Kansas-Nebraska Bill had beco