Year: 1866

resisted the idea that you were plotting
to betray our friends, and how earnestly
endeavored to convince the country that
you had no,'sympathy with the common ene-
my. In all my visits to the Presidential
mansion, and they were frequent, it was not
until late in January that l began clearly
to perceive you were conspiring with the
Copperheads and traitors. Before that
time not word had ever fallen from your
lips to excite the suspicion that you were
preparing to become the prosecutor of the
colored race, or that you were preparing to
bring back into full power the red-handed
traitors whom you had so bitterly denounc-
ed during four long years. But when, with
an amazement that can never forget or
faithfully describe, these facts appeared too
plain for doubt, fearlessly discharged my
duty, regardless of, and fully prepared for,
all the consequences. / did not stop to
calculate whether in denounciug the dan
gerous conspiracy of which you were then
proved to be the chief I was helping or
harming the distinguished gentleman in
whose behalf wrote the above letter.


And now, sir, a word in reference to your
personal affairs. know right well the diff
iculty, if not the danger of the position /
occupy. l know that for sternly holding
you to your pledges am assailed and threat
ened by every Copperhead and traitor be-
tween Maine and Mexico, and know also
that stimulated by the passions that have
controlled you since you broke away from
those pledges, there is nothing that you
would not resort to demoralize the party
that elected you, and ruin those who refuse
to follow you in the ranks OF the common
enemy. 1t is not the first time / have been
thrown into conflict with faithless and cor
rupt Executive; but it is the first time |
have ever been called upon to contemplate
and to expose such perfdy as yours. / will
not remind you of my earnest and uncalcu-
lating friendship, from the period when you
took issue with treason in the Senate, in
1860, down to the Baltimore convention in
1864, which body at the request of the Ia
mented LINCOLN and such earnest radicals
as BENJAMIN f. WADE, of Ohio, attended
alone for the purpose of pressing your nom-
ination for the Vice Presidency, after it
became apparent that HANNIBAL HAMLIN,
the incorruptible patriot, was willing to give
way in order to allow representative of
the War Democracy a position upon the
national ticket. That you should have for
gotten these facts amounts to nothing in
comparison with your heartless ingratitude
to the party which placed you in nomina-
tion and elected you Vice President. In
dividual ingratitude and cruelty concern
only the person betrayed and Injured ; but
when, as in your case, the betrayal of the
whole country is contemplated, the offence
becomes national and should be according
ly checked and counteracted.


There is, however, one part ofyour expert
ence which deserves to be differently con-
sidered, especially in view Of the new sys-
tenn of revenge you have adopted, viz: that
of publishing the private letters of gentle
men who refuse to sustain your attempt to
make loyalty odious and treason honorable.
Need tell you that | alude to the dis
graceful 18th Of March, 1865 When you
resolved to desert the brave and benevo-
lent men who threw over you the cloak of
their forgiveness and charity on that day
you consciously or unconsciously prepared
for every succeeding treachery. When
you obtained your own consent to do that
single act of shame, your intrigues with the
Copperheads before the fall elections of
1865, your veto of the freedmen's bureau
bill after having almost explicitly promised
to sign it, your revolving 22d of February
speech, your prescription of the brave
white and colored loyalists of the South,
and your publication of private letters
written to you in unsuspecting confidence,
followed naturally and irresistibly. Sup
posing that any other gentleman could have
been guilty as you were guilty on the 4th
of March, 1865, what would such gentle
man have done You stood before your
own country and the world dishonored and
degraded.


The ordinary calumnies of the Copper
heads and traitors were coined into the
most frightful maledictions against you.-
/ know of no scene in history where pub
lie character, for an act of inexcusable
weakness, was at the same time so univer-
sally execrated by one party and SO indul-
gently and magnanimously treated by
another Any true man, equally unfortu-
would have turned to the great Republican
Union party, and have said 1: For this
act of noble clemency am bound to you
through life and unto death that which
you have done this day, places me under
obligations from which can never escape,
and which l shall forever cherish. I feel
that have disgraced you and dishonored
myself, and by a life of gratitude / will
prove that although unworthy of your con-
idence, and unworthy Of your vindication,
l can at least do my best to atone for my
offence" But you seem to be made OF diff
ferent metal from such character, you
have not only cody forgotten the gener-
Gus men who saved you from disgrace, but
are now engaged in the pleasant pastime
of slandering them and prescribing their
friends. / will postpone description of
my own part in that sad drama, preferring
to wait for the other private revelations you
promise to lay before the country. 1t is
very certain that, if you have forgotten all
shame, you cannot have forgotten my con-
neetion with yourself during that unhappy
experience. Probably no more graphic
and instructive page could be added to the
curious history of your Administration than
a detailed account of that celebrated day.
l have not been as careful in treasuring all
the incidents, as you have been in preserv-
ing the private letters of the gentlemen
whom you intended to betray but where
my own memory fails shall be able to exc
out a complete narrative by turning to the
copious and fascinating columns of traitor
and Copperhead newspapers which are now
defending your character and your conduct


j. W. FoRNEY.


A MAN WITHOUT MoNEY.-A man with