The character of President Pierce was that of a punctilious gentleman. Mr. Davis resembled him much in this general trait. In fact, it was said to have been this likeness which drew them so closely together in their friendship for each other. Men of such character are not inclined to meddle, and a strong positive evidence is necessary to substantiate any such charge against them. There is no doubt that the President's view of the doctrine of the bill was well known. There is no doubt that there were members of Congress who made a chief point of coinciding with the Administration upon every subject, and who thought that such servility would give weight to their recommendations for official positions. And there is no doubt that the President appointed some persons to office recommended by such members. But no satisfactory evidence has been as yet produced to prove that President Pierce gave or promised any patronage to any member for supporting the bill, or withheld any to punish any member for not supporting it. In fact, the President's attitude toward the two factions of the Democratic party in New York in the matter of appointments, making selections from both in almost equal numbers, without regard to the Free-soil sentiments of the "Softs," manifests a quite different spirit from that with which these historians represent him to have been animated in meddling with the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill. [Sidenote: The President's consistency.] And, finally, the inconsistency which these historians find between the President's message of December preceding and his attitude toward the Kansas-Nebraska bill can be so explained as to appear a perfect consistency. What the President said in his message was that the {403} acquiescence of distinguished citizens in the Compromise Measures of 1850 had given renewed vigor to our institutions, and restored a sense of repose and security to the public mind throughout the Union, and that this repose should suffer no shock during his official term. If, now, we consider these measures of 1850 as containing the principle of home rule in the Territories in regard to the question of slavery, and if we attribute the repose of the public mind upon this subject to that principle, would it not be maintaining that repose to apply this principle in the organization of the new Territories, and would it not be destructive of that repose to undertake to settle the slavery question in the new Territories by an act of Congress, either original or confirmatory? This view is certainly intelligible. It was professed and advanced by all the supporters of the bill. It was unquestionably the view which the President took of the matter. It proved to be an erroneous view, but the views which mortal men hold, and conscientiously hold, are very frequently erroneous. [Sidenote: The bill taken up in the committee of the Whole of the House of Representatives.] [Sidenote: Mr. A. H. Stephens' management of the bill.]