and he rendered his account to the proper auditor and comptroller.

"I do not see how it could have been as you state, except by a corrupt or criminal collusion; and I do not think you would make that charge or that I need to deny it. T. A. HENDRICKS."

CHAPTER XI.

CANDIDATE FOR GOVERNOR.

The year 1860, big with fatal destinies for the Democracy, found that party dominant in a majority of the States and in the Federal Congress. But the President had apostatized from the historic principles of the party and from the Cincinnati platform on which he had been elected. The party was rent from center to circumference by a breach whose depth none could fail to see; yet in the arrogance of long-held power it was still confident that internal strifes could be allayed, and did not for a moment doubt its triumph in the approaching campaign. Local politics was completely lost sight of in the absorbing interest of national issues; and in every State, Democrats were arrayed on either side of the Kansas-Nebraska controversy. Some, with President Buchanan, supported the pro-slavery theory; others followed Senator Douglas in his popular sovereignty doctrine, in the belief that its effect would be to give the new Territories to freedom through the exercise of their own. choice.

This contest was peculiarly sharp in Indiana, a State upon whose teeming soil politics has from the early days flourished with as vigorous a growth as the crops of her boundless prairies. Here as in other States, though perhaps less conspicuously than in Illinois, all the powers of the Administration had been exerted to whip the party into line in support of its policy and candidates; and it was said that no postmaster could speak the name of

Douglas otherwise than in denunciation without danger to his official head. The Administration faction was led and disciplined by John L. Robinson, the United States Marshal, under the chief command of Senator Bright, the party "boss" of that day, and one of the greatest of his kind.

Robinson

Abler leaders could not have been found. was a notable man, now in the vigor and maturity of his powers," his forehead broad and high, his eyes coal black and wonderfully expressive, and his hair as the raven's wing; in his day he was a power in Indiana, and when he died one of the brightest intellects in the State went out." Almost in his youth he had won his laurels in public debate with "the Whig Goliah," Caleb B. Smith, and after six years' service in Congress was appointed by President Pierce (in 1853) to the office he still held. His influence was increased by his ownership of the Rushville Jacksonian, which he made a vigorous Administration organ. And now, within three months of his death, he was about to fight with his usual vigor and skill, but with unaccustomed defeat, his last fight.

Jesse D. Bright had been for a score of years the leader of the Indiana Democracy. After a brilliant and triumphant canvass for Lieutenant Governor, he had been sent when scarcely of constitutional age to the Senate of the United States, and was now in the sixteenth year of his service there, during four of which he had stood, as President pro tempore of the Senate, within one step of the Presidential chair. "His physique was splendid, his face was cleanly shaven, and his clothes fitted him well. He had a good head and a good face; he stood straight upon his feet, and carried himself as one having authority. He was imperious in his manner, brooked no opposition from friend or foe, and made personal devotion to himself the test of Democracy." He was elected the third time to the Senate after a bolt in the Legislature; and the

next General Assembly, being Republican, held this election illegal and attempted to fill the alleged vacancies by electing Henry S. Lane and Wm. M. McCarty. These gentlemen were refused admission to the United States Senate, but Douglas, Mason and Broderick, Democrats, voted in their favor. This action of Douglas exasperated Bright, and led him ever after to oppose with all the vehemence of his nature, the aspirations of the Senator from Illinois. His sympathies and interests were wholly with the Administration faction. Living on the Ohio, owning plantations and slaves in Kentucky, he was at heart a Southerner, and gave his influence to the promotion of the slave interest.

The Administration strove to call off the Indiana Democracy from the support of Douglas by flattering the Presidential aspirations of General Joseph Lane, "the Marion of the Mexican War," a pioneer of Indiana, now United States Senator from Oregon. He had been their favorite candidate in the National Convention of 1852, receiving the solid vote of the State delegation through thirty ballots. In that contest Bright and Robinson had been Lane's enthusiastic champions; and whether they still entertained any hope of his nomination or not, they were now willing to use his heroic figure and the charm of his character and reputation as a bulwark against the powerful tide of Douglas sentiment. Among the other active Administration Democrats were the eloquent Willard, Governor of the State; Cyrus L. Dunham, Secretary of State and aspirant for the nomination for Governor; Dr. J. L. Athon, Auditor of State; and Joseph W. Chapman.

But the star of Douglas was in the ascendant. His manly character had won the admiration of the country, his fearless battles against great odds had inspired confidence and enthusiasm; and his happy discovery and masterly demonstration of the way to freedom in the

Territories, within constitutional bounds, commanded the approval of the liberty-loving Democracy of the North. In Indiana his following was the rank and file of the party, the aspiring young men, and a select few of the older leaders. Among the last was John G. Davis, who at this very time was defending his record and defining the positions of the two factions, on the floor of Congress. Elected in 1858 as an independent candidate, over a Republican and an Administration Democrat, he had said in a speech at Indianapolis, November 18th of that year:

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Any candidate nominated for the Presidency in 1860 who takes the ground that the Constitution carries slavery into the Territories without local law, can not carry a single township north of Mason and Dixon's line. It was charged by the opposition in '56 that the Democracy was the pro-slavery party and intended to make slavery national and freedom sectional. If the doctrine of the President, that the Constitution without local law takes slavery into the Territories, is true, then our Republican friends were correct. Fellow citizens, I enter my solemn protest against this new doctrine. No man of any distinction within my knowledge, except John C. Calhoun, ever intimated that the Constitution took slavery into the Territories without existing laws. That doctrine took Mr. Calhoun down the stream of time politically, and will take Mr. Buchanan and his Administration."

When his Democracy was questioned in the House, January 4, 1860, he said:

"I desire to tell the gentleman, the House, and the country that I was elected by a majority of four thousand. I was elected as a Democrat, and in the seventy speeches I made, in which I declared myself a Democrat, I did not cross a t or dot an i as to my political faith. * * I did not denounce the Administration, except on the Lecompton question. My colleague said I

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