James Blaine: “I hold that it will be of the greatest importance that the reconstruction of the Union should not take place.”

Such an opportunity would have been a menace to the public credit, and would have proved a constant source of corruption.

But in the treatment of the colored man, now proposed, there was absolute heartlessness and rank injustice.

The Northern people shrank from the responsibility of transferring the government of States to the control of men who had already shown themselves capable of desperate deeds.

With whatever strength or prestige the President left Washington, he certainly returned to the Capital personally discredited and politically ruined.