I advised them to nominate Lynch, urging that it would be impossible for the Southern colored people, whatever their preference might be as a candidate for the Presidency, to vote against one of their own color.

I was the first person who ever invited a colored man to take the Chair in the Senate.

I thought it would be an excellent opportunity to confer an honor upon a worthy colored man in the presence of a representative of this Royal House.

The one thing he had done in life of which he was very proud and which was of most importance, was bringing about the nomination of Abraham Lincoln at Chicago.

I think he hoped that there might be a union or coalition of the Democrats and Labor men in the Presidential election of 1880, and that in that way he would be elected President.

I do not accept it as a tribute to any personal merit, but rather as a recognition of the independent position which I have long occupied in the politics of the country.

It is quite important that the President of the Senate should be a pleasant-natured gentleman, and the gentleman in the Senator will almost always respond to the gentleman in the Chair.

In writing these recollections, I have dwelt altogether too much on little foibles and weaknesses, which seem to have something amusing in them, and too little, I am afraid, on the greater qualities of the men with whom I have served.

I once told Saulsbury, when he was discoursing in that way, that he must be descended from Adam by some wife he had before Eve, who had nothing to do with the fall.

He declared they came there with their minds made up on the case, a condition of mind which was absolutely unfit for a grave judicial office, in the discharge of which all party considerations and preconceived opinions should be banished.

He said we should have open minds to hear the arguments and the evidence to be introduced, as if it were a solemn trial in a court of justice.

He was zealous for the honor of the country, and never sacrificed the interest of the country to party or sectional feeling.

He deserves great credit, among other things, for his hearty and effective support of the policy of enlarging the Navy, which, when he came into public life, was feeble in strength and antiquated in construction.

With his departure from the Senate, and that of his colleague, General Wade Hampton, ended the power in South Carolina of the old gentry who, in spite of some grave faults, had given to that State an honorable and glorious career.

When he died I think there was no other man left in the Senate, on either side, whose loss would have occasioned a more genuine and profound sorrow.

When he came to the Senate he found there no more powerful, brave or unyielding defender of liberty.

But he believed that the Constitution should be interpreted in the light of the Declaration of Independence, so as to be the law of life to a great, powerful and free people.

To this principle of interpretation, all strict or narrow criticism, founded on its literal meaning, must yield.

He had in this respect no superior in his time, save Lincoln alone.

He was, in my judgment, the ablest administrative officer without an exception who has been in any executive department during my public life.

But he was strong as a rock, true as steel, fearless and brave, honest and incorruptible.

He saw through all the foolish sophistries with which the defenders of fiat money, or debased currency, sought to defend their schemes.

He was strongly stirred by simple and great emotions--love of country, love of freedom, love of justice, love of honesty.

He was a strong pillar of public faith, public liberty, and of the Union.

But without the aid of the men whom he could influence and who honored him, and to whom his great faults were as great virtues, the Union never would have been saved, or slavery abolished, or the faith kept.