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.

These divergent practices had been allowed to develop for seventy-seven years of the nation's life, when, admonished by the Stockton case of the latitudinary results to which loose methods might lead, Congress took jurisdiction of the…

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…

I have long since wished that capital punishment were abolished.

Their convention did more to popularize the Fourteenth Amendment as a political issue than any other instrumentality of the year.

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.

In all the revolted states, upon the testimony of your ablest generals, there is no safety to the property or lives of loyal men.

It was the insane folly of the South, in drawing the sword against the life of the Nation, that led irresistibly to the abolition of slavery.

That is his work and it cannot properly be taken out of his hands.

As slavery had been the chief inciting cause of disunion, slavery should die.

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

In Congressional districts where the colored race constituted one-half of the total population (and in many instances the proportion was even larger), the vote of one white man offset the vote of two in a Northern district where suffrage…

This ratio of influence went into the Electoral College, and gave to the white men of South Carolina, Mississippi and Louisiana double the power of that enjoyed by white men in New York, Illinois and California.

It presented a condition of affairs for which there was no precedent, and the wisest could not foresee to what end it might lead.

A flagrant offense against the Constitution and the laws had, in the judgment of a majority of its members, been committed by the President.

There have been grave doubts with regard to the policy and the right of impeaching the President upon the facts as presented heretofore, but at the present hour I know of no man who loves his country more than party who will not pronounce…

We never thought that the remedy to get rid of a ruler would bring assassination into our political experience.

We never thought that political differences under an elective Presidency would bring in array the departments of the Government against one another to anticipate by ten months the operation of the regular election.

But we have met by the powers of the Constitution these great dangers--prophesied when they would arise as likely to be our doom--the distractions of civil strife, the exhaustions of powerful war, the intervention of the regularity of…

The people felt that besides the great qualities he had displayed in war, he was peculiarly fitted to lead in restoring peace and the reign of law.

The position carried with it an element of deception, because every intelligent man knew that it would be impossible to force negro suffrage on the Southern States by National authority, and leave the Northern States free to exclude it…

At the same time they commended the spirit of magnanimity and forbearance with which those who had taken up arms against the Union were received into fellowship with loyal men, and favored the removal of all political disabilities as…

But it is an old maxim, repeatedly illustrated, that while men are ready to profit by the treason, they instinctively detest the traitor.

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.