The measures adopted at the close of the Thirty-eighth Congress, after four years of desperate struggle and on the very eve on National victory, showed as great readiness to make sacrifices, as little disposition to count the cost of saving the Union, as had marked previous legislation.
Blaine reflects on the sacrifices made by Congress during the critical period leading to the end of the Civil War.
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Emboldened by the support of the National Administration, the Southern leaders believed that they could carry their designs through, and, instead of being restrained by the protest or the advice of Republicans, they chose with apparent…
Another theory and another practice were now to prevail; for it had been demonstrated to the thoughtful statesmen who then controlled the Government, that every thing which may be done by either Nation or State may be better and more…
It is to the eminent credit of the Republican members of Congress that they stood in a crisis of this magnitude true to principle, firm against all the power and all the patronage of the Administration.
The haste with which the question was brought to a decision can hardly be justified, and is a striking illustration of the intense party-feeling which had been engendered by the war.
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