I never met President Johnson but once during his term in the White House. I had met him casually before and during the war, but cherished a strong prejudice against him as an arch demagogue because of a debate between him and Senator Bell, his colleague from Tennessee, that I happened to hear in the Senate. Bell was one of the ablest and most dignified of Senators, and I never witnessed a more offensive exhibition of the studied arts of the demagogue than Johnson displayed in that Senatorial controversy. It was on some phase of the sectional issue, and Bell’s exalted patriotism and manly plea for union and fellowship contrasted with Johnson as the soaring eagle contrasts with the mousing owl. I had voted for his nomination for Vice-President in the Republican convention of 1864, because I surrendered my own preferences to considerations of expediency presented by Lincoln. When he made the disgraceful exhibition of himself on inauguration day as he appeared as Vice-President in the Senate, I published an editorial in my Chambersburg paper denouncing Johnson as having offended against the dignity and decency not only of our own Government, but of civilized governments throughout the world, and demanded his resignation. Little more than a month thereafter he became President, and a troop of new friends flocked about him. It is needless to say that he was soon advised of the severe criticism I had made upon the inauguration address. I did not see or hear from him or communicate with him in any way until the early fall, when Governor Curtin informed me that he had received a request from the President for Curtin and myself to visit him at Washington. My answer to Curtin was that as he was in an official position it was probably his duty to regard a request from the President as a command, but as I was not anybody of consequence, I would not go. Within a fortnight a second and more pressing request was made to Curtin for us to come to Washington to confer with the President on the political situation. Curtin felt that we should go. He thought it possible that Johnson might yet be saved from political apostasy, although I had no confidence whatever in the future of the administration, judging from the surroundings he had invited, but I accompanied the Governor to Washington and called upon the President.