.

5. Perhaps the most dangerous attack upon the purity of
the Government was the attempt of General Butler to get possession
of the political power in Massachusetts, and ultimately that
of the country. What I was able to do to resist and baffle
that attempt is the most considerable part of the public service
of my life, if it has been of any public service.

I shall speak of each of these a little more fully.

The responsibility for three of these, I regret to say, rested
upon Massachusetts men, members of the Republican Party. The
Union Pacific Railroad Company and the Credit Mobilier were
made up largely of prominent Massachusetts men for whom General
Butler acted as counsel. When Mr. Ames was on trial before
the House of Representatives General Butler, then a member
of the House, appeared as a member and took part and made
the extraordinary statement to the House that he was there
as counsel for Mr. Ames.

Sanborn, who made the contracts, was a Massachusetts man.
His profits were used largely in affecting elections in Massachusetts.
The Treasury officials who were in fault, whether through
carelessness or corruption, were Massachusetts men, and the
arch contriver of the scheme was a Massachusetts man.

Yet the lesson which these things have taught me is that
the American statesman who believes that the doctrines of
his party are sound should never abandon his principles or
quit political life because of its corruption. Let him never
for any political advantage support or tolerate a corrupt
man, or vote for a corrupt candidate. If a man whose principles
are good will yield to an evil motive, it is not likely that
the man whose principles are bad will resist it. The American
people are upright and honest. They will vindicate and stand
by any man in the contest for honesty and uprightness, be
he Democrat or Republican, so long as they believe that the
ends for which he is striving are for the public good. They
will not sustain a man whose counsel they think bad, however
honest he may be in his own conduct, or however much he may
desire to secure honesty in the conduct of others. No man
ever yet accomplished much good by abandoning his party while
he continued to hold its principles. Many men have accomplished
a great deal of good by striving to purify it.

Every account of political history from the inside will exhibit
abundant evidence of wickedness, wrongdoing, and petty personal
motives, of low