Year: 1866




personal affairs. know right well the diff
ncuity. If not the danger Of the position |
occupy. L know that for sternly holding
you 10 your pledges | am assailed and
threatened by every copperhead and traitor
between Maine and Mexico, and know al
so 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 to demoralize the
party that elected you, and ruin those who
refuse to follow you into the rauks of
the common enemy. 1t is not the
hrst time | have been thrown into conflict
with faithless and corrupt Executive but
1t is the first time | have ever been called
upon to contemplate and to expose such
pertidy as yours. [ will not remind you of
my earnest and uncalculating 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 lamented lincoln and
such earnest radicals as BENJAMIN f. Wade,
OF Ohio, attended alone for the purpose
OF pressing your nomination for the Vice
Presidency, after it became apparent that
Hannibal Hamlin. the iucorruptible patriot
was willing to give way in order TO allow a
representative Of the War Democracy a po-
siti0n upon the national ticket That you
should have forgotten these facts, amounts
to nothing in comparison with your heart
less ingratitude to the party which placed
you in nomination and elected you Vice
President. Individual ingrattude and cru
city concern only the person betrayed and
injured; but when, as IN your case, the be-
trayal of the whole country is contemplated,
the offence becomes national and should be
accordingly checked and counteracted.


There is, how ever, one part of your ex-
perience which deserves to be differently
considered, especially in view of the new
system of revenge you have adopted, viz
that of publishing the private letters Of gen
tleman who refuse TO sustain your attempt
TO make loyalty odious and treason hcnora-
BILE Need [ tell you that I allude to the
disgraceful 4tho March, 1865? When YOu
Fes0lred to desert the broUe and beaeU0ieat
men 7ChO utrea0 OUer yOu the cloak Of thetr
f07qireBess and charity on that d0y-y0W
coaScjeRtj0astg or 1tRcoascleRt501Sty prepared
for eueJy succeeding treachery. W hen you
obtained your own consent to do that single
act of shame your intrigues with the Cop
perheads before the tall elections of 1865,
your veto of the treedmen's bureau bill af
ter having almost explicitly promised to
sign il. 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 natu-
rally and irresistibly. Supposing that any
other gentleman could have been guilty as
you were guilty on the 4th Of March, 1865,
what would such a gentlemen have done?
You stood before your own country and the
world dishonored and degraded.


The ordinary calumuies of the Copper
heads and traitors were coined into the most
fEI- i L. IL
of no scene in history where public char
acter, for an act of inexcusable weakness,
was at the same time so universally execra-
ted by one party and so indulgently and
magnanimously treated by another. Any
true man, equally unfortunate aud equally
forgiven and defended, would have turned
to the great Republican Union party, and
have said For this act of noble ciemency
| 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 | shall forever
cherish | feel thatI have disgraced you
and dishonored myself, and by alife of graf
ltude [ will prove that, although unworthy
of your confidence, and unworthy OF your
yindication | can at least do my best to
atone for my offence. But as you seem TO
be made of different metal from such
character. you nave not Only cOoiy lUiSOttcn
the generous men who saved you from dis
grace, but are now engaged in the pleasant
pastime OF slandering them and proscri-
bing their friends | will postpone a de-
scription of my own part in that sad
drama, preferring to wait for the 9th
.er 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 connection with yourself
during that unhappy experience Proba-
bly, no more graphic and instructive page
could be added to the curious history of
your Administration than a detailed account
of that celebrated day. | have not been as
careful in treasuring all the incidents, as you
have been in preserving the private, letters
of the gentlemen whom you intended to be-
tray; but where my own memory fails L
shall be able to exc out a complete narra-
tive by turning to the copious and fascrna-
ting columns of those traitor and Copper
head newspapers which are now defending
your character and your conduct,


j. W. FoRNEY.


A minister's wife says: THE first time [
took my eldest boy to church, when he was
two years and half old, | managed with