This posse of maniacs and revolutionists was conspiring to overthrow the government and boot him out of his job, to topple everything sacred and then to nail him to the cross. These traitors were none other than Charles Sumner, Thaddeus Stevens, and Wendell Phillips. Johnson worked himself up to a pitch, and whatever veneer of composure he had adopted cracked wide open. Mixing self-pity with pride, he balefully described his origins,
