Colonel William Preston Johnston, The Life of General Albert Sidney Johnston : His Service in the Armies of the United States, the Republic of Texas, and the Confederate States.

His family affiliations, his early associations, and some of his warmest friendships, inclined him, while young, to the principles of the Whig party, then in its best days. The constitutional text-book at West Point in his cadetship was, I believe, Rawle's “Commentaries,” a book of wholesome doctrine. The military education there had a natural and necessary tendency to inspire affection for the union of the States, and exalt the Federal authority in the youthful mind; and continued service in the army increased the feeling. On the other hand, the temporary severance of his allegiance, and his service under the independent government of Texas, and its formal voluntary annexation to the United States, must have compelled him to define the nature of Federal relations in a clearer way than did most army-officers. In the latter half of his life he saw the Democratic party as the champion, interpreter, and representative of conservative ideas, especially in the South. This, with other causes, contributed to draw him nearer to it. At once strongly Southern and strongly Unionist, he regarded with aversion the Republican party, which was anti-Southern, and, in its inception and tendency, disunionist.

To a soldier, that government commonly seems the best which is best administered; and the nurture and protection of liberty are less apt to engage his admiration than the display of certain other virtues. Order, justice, and vigor, are more apparent agencies than the spirit of freedom which gives them the breath of life. Power, exercised with decision, and restrained only by a sense of responsibility, appears as the model of government; and fetters upon the hands of authority seem the evidence of blind jealousy and unreasoning suspicion. Though General Johnston was something more than a mere soldier, this military ideal was not without its influence on his conception of government. A powerful, stable, energetic government, careful of the interests of the people, presents so many excellences that it is hard not to wish to see it realized. Such a vision influenced to some extent his imagination, the more so, as he deemed the spirit of personal independence the only effectual check upon the tendency to despotism present in all government. Devotion to the Union, fostered by the conviction of its unnumbered blessings, and by his military service, made him unwilling to consider it otherwise than as “perpetual.” In Utah, as the exponent of the military power of the Government, he was intrusted with the execution of its orders; its honor and dignity were in his custody; its welfare was the constant motive of his acts; and in his hands the mere symbols of its power had triumphed over the causeless rebellion of that disaffected yet dependent population.

But his life had not been passed altogether in the service of the