I never found public employment pleasant or congenial.

It has been the custom of Massachusetts to continue her Senators in public life so long as they were willing, and were in general accord with the political opinion of the majority of the people.

I had voted with the Democrats of the House to support that bill against the judgment of a large majority of the Republicans.

I agreed with President Hayes in the matter of a reform in the civil service and in his desire to free the Executive power from the trammel of senatorial dictation.

But I said that each belonged to what might be called a separate faction or division in the Republican Party, and the appointment of either would be distasteful to some of the supporters of the other.

I added that there was one man of whom I thought very highly indeed, an intimate friend of mine, whose appointment I thought would give pleasure to everybody in Massachusetts.

President Hayes was a simple-hearted, sincere, strong and wise man.

He is the only President of the United States who promised, when he was a candidate for office, not to be a candidate again, who kept his pledge.

He carried out the principles of Civil Service Reform more faithfully than any other President before or since down to the accession of President Roosevelt.

The power and duty of the President are conferred and limited by the Constitution.

That is for the express purpose, I have always believed, of giving to Congress, especially to the House of Representatives, which must inaugurate all appropriation bills, absolute control over the use of the Army, and the power to…

Hayes was right and wise in securing this stipulation if he could, by freeing these communities from military grasp a few weeks before he would have been compelled to do it at any rate.

Obedience to this clear mandate of Constitutional duty was not in the least inconsistent with a faithful and vigorous use of all the other powers which were lodged in his hands by the Constitution for securing the rights of the colored…

But the authority to declare who is the President lawfully chosen, and the Constitutional power to maintain the Governor in his seat by force are lodged in very different hands.

He was careful never, for the sake of present success, to commit the country to any doctrine which might be inconvenient in the remote future.

I do not think he ever knew the hold he had upon the respect of the country, or upon the affection of the men with whom he was brought into intimate association in public life, and at the Bar.

I think it would have been easy to make him the Republican candidate, and to elect him to the Presidency in 1888, if he had been willing to take that position himself.

I felt as I listened as though a pail of ice- water had been poured down my spine.

But modesty and disinterestedness are qualities that are so infrequent among public men that we may well pardon this bright and delightful genius for that fault.

It is rarely more than once or twice in a generation that a great figure passes from the earth who seems the very embodiment of the character and temper of his time.

Such men are not always those who have held the highest places or been famous for great genius or even enjoyed great popularity.

They rather are men who represent the limitations as well as the accomplishments of the people around them.

They utter the best thought which their countrymen in their time are able to reach.

They do not rise and fall with the temperature about them.

He has fallen at the very gate of an honorable and eminent career, and a thousand hopes are buried in his grave.