the remaining portion of the domain, destined by God for his American Israel. The great object accomplished, they returned, not as prodigals whose estates had been wasted, or with even specimens of the production of their delightful acquisitions, but with the country itself. "This country," said he, "they are willing to lay down at our feet. Will we refuse them admission into the family of States? They are our kindred and our blood! our brothers and our sisters! Have they not proved themselves worthy of being associated with their own noble race?" For himself he was willing when he took "a glance at the historic page giving an account of their rise and progress; the privations they had undergone; the money and toil they expended; the valor and patriotism they had displayed in the hour of danger; the magnanimity and forbearance in the hour of triumph over a captive foe, whose garments were red with their brother's blood; the battles they had fought and the fields of carnage through which they have passed; the brilliant and unexampled victories they have won on their grand and glorious march to freedom and independence, to extend to them the right hand of fellowship, and to welcome them into our glorious sisterhood of States."

In the course of the exciting debate upon the Texas question, Mr. Clingman of North Carolina intimated that British gold had been used to carry the election of Polk. Mr. Johnson denounced the suggestion as a vile slander, without the shadow of a foundation, and called on the gentleman from North Carolina for his proof, relying on the fact, that if there were no authority for the assertion, it was a slander. In the course of Mr. Clingman's remarks, he said that, "had the foreign Catholics been divided in the late election, as other sects and classes generally were, Mr. Clay would have carried, by a large majority, the State of New York, as also the States of Pennsylvania, Louisiana, and probably some others in the Northwest." There werc

but few Catholics in Mr. Johnson's district, and he was not called upon to do battle with the prejudices that might or did exist against them; but he protested against the doctrine advanced by the Representative from North Carolina. He wished to know if Clingman desired to arouse a spirit of persecution; to sweep away or divide all those who dared to differ from the Whig party; and in the course of the speech alluded to, delivered the following broad and truly republican doctrine, based on a complete appreciation of the civil and religious rights extended by the Constitution to all children, native or adopted, of the Republic:

"The Catholics of this country had the right secured to them by the Constitution of worshiping the God of their fathers in the manner dictated by their own consciences. They sat down under their own vine and fig tree, and no man could interfere with them. This country was not prepared to establish an inquisition to try and punish men for their religious belief; and those who assailed any religious sect in this country would find a majority of the people arrayed against them. He said he desired to know-aye, he demanded to know, of the gentleman from North Carolina, what he meant by the employment of the language just read from his speech? Does the gentleman mean that there is to be a spirit of persecution aroused which is to sweep away' any one of the numerous religious denominations that now prevail in this country? Is the guillotine to be erected in this republican form of government, and all who differ in opinion with the Whig party brought to the block? Is then a crusade to be commenced against the Church to satiate disappointed party vengeance? Are the persecutions of olden times to be revived? Are the ten thousand temples that have been erected, based upon the sufferings and atonement of a crucified Saviour, with their glittering spires wasting themselves in the very heavens, all to topple and fall, crushed and buried beneath the ravings of party excitement? Is man to be set upon man, and in the name of God lift his hand against the throat of his fellow? Is the land that gave a brother birth to be watered by a brother's blood? Are the bloodhounds of persecution and proscription to be let loose upon foreigners and Catholics, because some of them have acted with the Democratic party in the recent contest? Are the fires of heaven that have been lighted up by the cross, and now burn upon so many altars consecrated to the true and living God, to be quenched in the blood of

their innocent and defenceless worshipers, and the gutters of our streets made to flow with human gore? This is but a faint reality of what is shadowed forth in the gentleman's speech, but for the purpose of showing the country how ignorant he was of the facts, and how reckless he was in bold statement, he would read from a pamphlet he held in his hand, which was written by a Whig in the city of Nashville, Tenn., and dedicated to the Hon. John Bell:

"I am a member of a Protestant church and a citizen of Nashville, where there are but few Catholics, and where the citizens generally are somewhat prejudiced against them; I could, if I wished, with impunity speak derogatory of this sect. But let justice be done, though the heavens should fall. From whence or how was obtained the idea that Catholicism is hostile to liberty, political or religious? During the Reformation, the great mother of revolutions, when the foundations of powers and principalities were upheaved as by the eruptions of a volcano, did not the demon of persecution rage as fiercely among the Protestant sects as among the Catholics? Did not the Calvinists, Lutherans, and Arminians oft array themselves against each other? Did not the Protestants previous to the revolution in Great Britain persecute with dire vengeance cach other? and have they not done so in Germany, France, and many other European powers, since? During our colonial state, when Protestants, Puritans and Quakers were disfranchising and waging a relentless war of persecution against each other through Pennsylvania and the New England colonies, did not Catholic Maryland open her free bosom to all, and declare in her domain that no man or sect should be persecuted for opinion's sake? And was she not from this fact the sanctuary of the oppressed and persecuted, not only of America but of Europe? And when the storm-cloud of a seven years' revolution burst with all its destructive wrath, were not Catholics seen fighting in the vans of our armies, and mingling their torrents of blood with those of Protestants in defence of American liberty and independence? Was there an ocean, a bay, or a stream, not impurpled by their blood? Was there a hill or a plain not whitened by their bones? And is Catholicism a foe to liberty? Is Ireland's Catholic isle the nursery of slaves, though her evergreen shamrock no longer wreathed the brows of her warriors, though her palaces are in ruins, her cities in tears, her people in chairs? No! thou didst never cradle a slave; and thy innocent convulsions are but the struggling throes of that unextinguished spirit of liberty which shall yet burst forth with irresistible impetuosity, and shake haughty England to her very anchor, though deep down in the main ! Was Catholic Poland the birthplace of slaves? Go ask Cracow and

Warsaw when they last beheld, against combined Russia, Austria and Prussia, in death arrayed, their patriot bands-few but undis mayed; or ask Freedom, too, as said the bard, Did she not shriek when Poland under Madalinski and Kosciusko fell? Were Lafayette, Pulaski, McNeill, De Kalb and O'Brien foes to liberty? Was Charles Carroll of Carrollton, the last survivor of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, a friend of despotism? Was Thomas Fitzsimmons, one of the immortal Revolutionary fathers that framed the Constitution, a foe to liberty? Have we forgotten what Washington, the great father of his country, said of the Catholics? He said: "I hope ever to see America foremost among the nations of the earth in examples of justice and liberality; and I presume my fellow-citizens will never forget the patriotic part which Catholics took in the accomplishment of their revolution and the establishment of their government, or the important assistance which they received from France, in which the Catholic religion is professed !"'

During this session, one of the Ohio delegation having alluded to General Jackson in an uncalled-for manner, Mr. Johnson gallantly defended the character of Jackson, then living in retirement in the forests of Tennessee, from the unkind allusions, which seemed to him strange, coming from the quarter whence they had emanated.

Thus have we seen the poor orphan-boy struggling through vicissitudes, the romance of which, when viewed from the stand-point of ultimate success, almost dispels their gloomier aspects. We have seen the triumph of his manly honesty, of his manual industry, and of his mental energy. We have seen him fill all the municipal and legislative offices in the gift of his townsmen and fellow-citizens within the State of Tennessee; and we have seen him representing his State in the national Congress of the Republic, taking his stand boldly, broadly and honorably on the most important questions of the time; vindicating the choice of those who sent him, and already accorded, in his first Congressional term, rank as a rising man-a notable man, one who had opinions, and a fervid method of expressing them.

CHAPTER III.

1845 TO 1857.

TWENTY-NINTH Congress - Contention between England and the United States - The Oregon Boundary - How the Discussion was Adjusted - Polk and Pakenham Mr. Johnson's Position - Taxes - Opposes Internal Improvements of Local Nature and Indiscriminate Expenditure- The States and the Federal Government-The War with Mexico; was it "Unholy ?". The Veto Power His Congressional Career - Plan to Defeat him Elected Governor of Tennessee - Speech against "Know-Nothingism"Re-elected Governor - The Canvass - Anecdotes of his Personal Courage -Elected United States Senator.

MR. JOHNSON was re-elected to the national House of Representatives in the summer of 1845.

The Twenty-ninth Congress was for many reasons one of the most important in the political history of the country up to that period. A bitter contention existed between the United States and Great Britain in regard to the line which divided the possessions of the two Powers in Oregon. Eminent and sagacious statesmen in both countries predicted war. While many political leaders in America looked hopefully forward to any cause which would breed a rupture with England, against which the popular sentiment of the Democratic party was settled, there were others in England who thought the opportunity favorable for striking a blow at and waylaying the expanding pride and pretensions of the Great Republic. England had not entirely outgrown the humiliation received at the hands of Barney, Lawrence, Macdonough, Perry, Reid, and others, on sea; and from Scott, Wool, and their comrades, on land; and