During Judge Matthews’ entire service as United States District Attorney, the slave states were secluded as pertaining to things and persons of the “North”--papers, books, teachers, preachers, and citizens were effectually ostracized; northern colleges and seminaries had their southern patronage withdrawn; and, finally, when, by the aid of the Secretary of War, they secured large quantities of United States arms and military supplies, and felt thoroughly prepared and equipped, the states stepped out of the Union with defiance, leaving poor Kentucky with a governor that threatened to chastise either of the belligerents if they dared to interfere with her “_neutrality_.” And it is not known to history that either the cotton states or neutral Kentucky ever gave Judge Matthews a vote of thanks for his vigorous enforcement of the fugitive law. But this is not all. In 1876, Judge Matthews ran for Congress in the Second District of Cincinnati, and his defeat, says the biographer,[8] was in consequence of an act of his while United States District Attorney--that while he had the office he prosecuted W. B. Connelly, a white resident of Cincinnati, and reporter of the Gazette, for giving to a young runaway slave and his wife “a glass of water and piece of bread”--a _crime_ under the fugitive slave law. It was shown that the negroes were captured and were shut up in Connelly’s room, and while there they were furnished “bread and water.” It was further shown, that a letter was written by Connelly, as a Master Mason, to Judge Matthews, as a brother Mason, in which he confessed that he had “furnished the negroes with food.” But, with all these influential relations, the offense was prosecuted--Connelly found guilty and was sentenced to serve time of imprisonment. “The publication of these facts destroyed Judge Matthews’ chance for Congress,” and that his brother Masons obtained full credit for his defeat can not well be doubted. It is not stated that any _promise_ had been made by Judge Matthews--_none violated_; and differed materially from ordinary cases, like that of O. A. Gardner, a Master Mason, arrested for robbing the mails at Minneapolis, who said in court that his confession was made to Postal Inspector Gould, a brother Mason, on the promise that Gould, as a fellow Mason, would see that he was acquitted--“that his acquittal was assured--that the judge, the lawyers on both sides, and most of the jury were _Masons_.” Judge Matthews had taken the oath of office as district attorney, which to him was above all other oaths, and was not the man to play the Marshal Ney performance. And it would seem the “defeat for congress” was not “the consequence of an _act of his_” as much as it was his declining to “act” crooked for the benefit of a brother Mason.