Unless, therefore, the Loyal States were willing to allow the Rebel States to come back on their own terms, in a spirit of dictation to the Government of the Union, they were under the imperious necessity of providing some other basis of…

The imperative question thenceforward was whether the loyal or the disloyal--the victorious Union or the defeated Confederacy --should prescribe the terms of Reconstruction.

The Northern States were thus compelled to consider whether they would unconditionally surrender to the Rebel element of the South or devise some other plan of reconstruction.

By refusing to co-operate with the Republicans in the work of rehabilitating their States, the Southern rebels forced the Northern States to make impartial suffrage the corner-stone of the restored Union.

To this source of wealth on land that of the water must be added, in the seal and food fish which are found in immeasurable quantities along the coast of the mainland and the islands.

From the time of the acquisition of Louisiana until the purchase of Alaska, the additions of territory to the United States had all been in the interest of slavery.

There is no doubt that many earnest Republicans were so impressed by the perverse course of President Johnson that they came to believe him capable of any atrocious act.

It is difficult to understand the intensity of conviction which had taken possession of certain minds on this subject--difficult to understand why the same causes and the same reasons which operated so powerfully on certain Republicans in…

The advocates of Impeachment were denounced as rash, hot-headed, sensational, bent on leading the party into an indefensible position; while its opponents were spoken of as faint-hearted, as truckling to the Administration, as afraid to…

But outside of this quarrel of partisans the great mass of quiet citizens and more especially the manufacturing, commercial, and financial communities, were profoundly grateful that the country was not, as they now believed, to be…

It has seemed to me that if we revolutionize the practice of the Government in all other respects, we might let this power remain in the hands of the President of the United States; that we should not strip him of this power, which is one…

And if I supposed that either of these gentlemen was so wanting in manhood, in honor, as to hold his place after the politest intimation from the President of the United States that his services were no longer needed, I certainly, as a…

The history of every preceding Administration and of every subsequent Administration of the Federal Government proves that the Senate was in the wrong.

In defiance of the letter and spirit of the Tenure-of-office Act he had removed the Secretary of War from office.

You settle that hereafter a party having a sufficient majority in the House and the Senate can depose the President of the United States.

You establish a precedent which all future parties in all time to come will look to.

And, sir, I shall for one be grievously disappointed if, within ten days from this time, honest old Ben Wade (now President of the Senate) is not President of the United States.

He knew that if he could corrupt the leaders of the Army, if he could bend these men to his will, these ten States were in his control, and that he could send to the Democratic Convention, to be holden on the 4th of July next, men who…

If by fortune, as was his hope, he should receive a sufficient number of votes in the North to make a majority, then, with the support of the Army which he had corrupted, he had determined to be inaugurated President of the United States…

We are therefore free in every sense to submit to the guidance alone of reason and duty.

He said: "In order to sustain Impeachment under our Constitution I do not hold that it is necessary to prove a crime as an indictable offense, or any act malum in se.

It is needed as a remedy for malfeasance in office and to prevent the continuance thereof.

He is an orator,--affluent in diction, graceful in manner, with all the rare and rich gifts which attract and enchain an audience.

He possesses a remarkable combination of wit and humor, and has the happy faculty of using both effectively, without inflicting deadly wounds, without incurring hurtful enmities.

The wonder excited by the raising of the vast army which saved the Union from destruction was even surpassed by the wonder excited by its prompt and peaceful dissolution.