This decision on the subject of supremacy of authority by no means reconciled or put at rest the perturbed, aggressive spirit in Congress which opposed the President's policy. The enthusiastic adherents of this opposition made the District jail an objective point in the furtherance of their ends. They made personal visits to that institution, and examined all the inmates whose color was not of orthodox Albino-Anglo American tint. They would learn the story of their wrongs and injuries, then straightway proceed to the halls of Congress and make known their discoveries. Detectives were employed by them to make daily reports of the "cruelty" shown to colored inmates of the jail, which reports were soon dressed up in pathetic and classic language for the occasion. Professional and amateur demagogues made sensational speeches (sometimes written for them by department clerks and professional speech-writers), and "Rome was made to howl" in the halls of the American Congress. "Lincoln and his beastly negro catchers" were denounced in unmeasured terms. The jail was now by the necessities of its surroundings made the receptacle for prisoners of all kinds,--civil, military, and State. Orders from the War Department were issued to the custodian of the jail to allow no person whatever to communicate with the military or State prisoners without an order from the War Department. The chairman of the District Committee in the Senate, and certain others of that Committee, claimed the right, by virtue of their position, to go into the jail and to examine all the prisoners, in the face of the orders of the Secretary of War; and this was repeated almost daily. The situation became unbearable, and I sent in my resignation. This, however, was not accepted. The professional opinion of the Attorney-General was again invoked by the President, and he gave his views as to the duties of the custodian of the heterogeneous mass of prisoners in the jail,--which resulted in the request of the President to the Attorney-General to prepare such an order as was proper for the marshal to sign, giving notice of what would be required for admission of visitors to the jail. The paper was prepared in the Attorney-General's office, signed and sent forth; and before the close of the day on which it was signed, resolutions were passed in Congress declaring the marshal guilty of contempt of that body for having presumed to issue what it deemed a contemptuous restriction of its rights, and a committee was appointed to wait upon the President to demand the instant dismissal of that insolent officer. The President showed the committee my resignation already in his hands, and informed them that he would neither accept the resignation nor dismiss me from office, and gave his reasons for this action.