George F. Hoar

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

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 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.

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.

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.

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…

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.

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…

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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 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.

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

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 never found public employment pleasant or congenial.

I did not undervalue the great honor of representing Massachusetts in the Senate of the United States.

I am quite sure that but for the determination of the people of Massachusetts not to endure Butler and Butlerism any longer, and probably but for the appointment of Simmons, I should never have been elected Senator.

The reform which took the civil service out of politics always found great favor in Massachusetts.

And the people of Massachusetts have never concerned themselves very much as to who should hold the Executive offices, small or large, so that they were honestly and faithfully served, and that the man appointed was of good character and…

There is no State in the Union whose representatives at the seat of Government have less trouble in that way, or that gives less trouble to the Executive Departments or to the President.

The people of Massachusetts were never an office-seeking people.

I had become thoroughly sick of Washington and politics and public life.