The inflexible sternness of Mr. Johnson's tone and the frequent repetition of his intention to inflict the severest penalty of the law upon the leading traitors, began to create apprehension in the North. It was feared that the country might be called upon to witness, after the four years' carnival of death on the battle-field and in the hospital, an era of "bloody assizes," made the more rigorous and revengeful from the peculiar sense of injury which the President, as a loyal Southerner, had realized in his own person. This feeling was probably still further aggravated by his avowed sympathy with the thousands in the South who had been maimed, driven from home, stripped of all their property, simply because of the fidelity to the Constitution and the Union of their fathers. The spirit of the _Vendetta_, unknown in the Northern States, was frequently shown in the South, where it had long been domesticated with all its Corsican ferocity. It had raged in many instances to the extermination of families, and in many localities to the destruction of peace and the utter defiance of law--not infrequently indeed paralyzing the administration of justice in whole counties. Often seeking and waging open combat with ferocious courage, it did not hesitate at secret murder, at waylaying on lonely roads with superior numbers, and it sometimes went so far as to torture an unhappy victim before the final death-blow. The language of Mr. Johnson was interpreted by the merciful in the North as indicating that his own injuries and fierce conflicts during the war has possibly inspired him with the fell spirit of revenge, which in his zeal he might mistake for the rational demands of justice. A personal and somewhat curious illustration of Mr. Johnson's temper and purpose at the time is afforded by a conference between himself and Senator Wade of Ohio. Mr. Wade was widely known as among the radical and progressive members of the Republican party. His immediate constituents of the Western Reserve were a just and God-fearing people, amply endowed with both moral and physical courage; but they were not men of blood, and they were not in sympathy with the apparent purposes of the President. It is not improbable that Mr. Wade's views were somewhat in advance of those held by the majority of the people he represented, but he was evidently not in accord with the threatenings and slaughter breathed out by the President.