These appointments are strictly Presidential, not requiring confirmation by the Senate, and are much desired and sought after, being considered a high honor and a special favor from the chief executive of the nation. We met and selected a very distinguished Texan, Judge George W. Paschal, and sent up his name. A few days later Colonel Cooper said to one of our friends: “The President does not like the selection of Paschal. He says he is going to appoint Mills. Tell Mills to come and see him.” I called and thanked the President, and had some conversation with him, but later gave my brother, Capt. Anson Mills, a letter to the President, requesting him to substitute his name for mine, which was done. I have known and conversed with four Presidents—Lincoln, Johnson, Grant and McKinley—and have held office under all of them; but I knew Andy Johnson best, and I liked the rugged, stubborn Southerner, who had stood firm as a rock against rebellion in his own section. If I had been older, or bolder, I am vain enough to believe I might possibly have been of service to him. He had inherited his Cabinet from Mr. Lincoln, and some of them were, from the start, not very devoted to him personally. He was being flattered and cajoled by his late enemies, and he had been fretted and angered by certain Republican leaders, “wise men of the East,” who believed that no good could come out of Nazareth, and he was about to make the mistake of his life—_the break with his party_. I was pleased when, years later, he came to the United States Senate, supported by the votes of his best and truest friends—the Union people of Tennessee. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ RECONSTRUCTION—CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION OF 1868-69. In 1868 I was elected to represent El Paso county in the State Constitutional Convention, which was to meet at Austin in May of that year, to frame a constitution under which Texas might be readmitted into the Union. At the start I was opposed for that office by Major Joseph Smith, a popular Democrat, who had been honorably discharged from the United States military service at El Paso, but early in the contest I badgered him into saying that if he found a single “Nigger” in the convention, he would resign. I then suggested to the Mexican audience that if he had that much race prejudice, he would not do to represent _them_. Major Smith soon saw certain defeat before him, and withdrew, and I was unanimously elected.