of which is
the wonder of the rest of mankind. As a public man, his real position is
similar to that of a commander of an army, who should pass over to the
ranks of the enemy he was commissioned to fight, and then plead his
individual convictions of duty as a justification of his treachery. In
truth, Mr. Johnson's conscience is, like his understanding, a mere form
or expression of his will. The will of ordinary men is addressed through
their understanding and conscience. Mr. Johnson's understanding and
conscience can be addressed only through his will. He puts intellectual
principles and the moral law in the possessive case, thinks he pays them
a compliment and adds to their authority when he makes them the adjuncts
of his petted pronoun "my"; and things to him are reasonable and right,
not from any quality inherent in themselves, but because they are made
so by his determinations. Indeed, he sees hardly anything as it is, but
almost everything as colored by his own dominant egotism. Thus he is
never weary of asserting that the people are on his side; yet his method
of learning the wishes of the people is to scrutinize his own, and, when
acting out his own passionate impulses, he ever insists that he is
obeying public sentiment. Of all the wilful men who, by strange chance,
have found themselves at the head of a constitutional government, he
most resembles the last Stuart king of England, James II.; and the
likeness is increased from the circumstance that the American James has,
in his supple and plausible Secretary of State, one fully competent to
play the part of Sunderland.

The party which, under the ironical designation of the National Union
Party, now proposes to take the policy and character of Mr. Johnson
under its charge, is composed chiefly of Democrats defeated at the
polls, and Democrats defeated on the field of battle. The few apostate
Republicans, who have joined its ranks while seeming to lead its
organization, are of small account. Its great strength is in its
Southern supporters, and, if it comes into power, it must obey a Rebel
direction. By the treachery of the President, it will have the executive
patronage on its side,--for Mr. Johnson's "conscience" is of that
peculiar kind which finds satisfaction in arraying the interest of
others against their convictions; and having thus the power to purchase
support, it will not fail of those means of dividing the North which
come from corrupting it. The party