Firm and tenacious in his opinions, even to the point of obstinacy, he was for years an active and useful representative of the people.

He exhibited talent in debate, was distinguished for industry in the work of the House and for inflexible integrity in all his duties.

He was not a party man in the ordinary sense of the word, but was inclined rather to independence of thought and action.

He made no long speeches and was not frequently on the floor, but when he rose he spoke forcibly, aptly, attractively, and with that unerring sense of justice which always carried him to the right side of a question, with unmistakable…

No consideration could induce me to give my approval to such an election law for any purpose, and especially for the great purpose of framing the constitution of a State.

If ever the American citizen should be left to the free exercise of his own judgment, it is when he is engaged in the work of forming the fundamental law under which he is to live.

While I hold the chief executive authority of the United States, while the obligations rests upon me to see that all laws are faithfully executed, I can never willingly surrender that trust or the powers given for its execution.

I can never give my assent to be made responsible for the faithful execution of laws, and at the same time surrender that trust and the powers which accompany it to any other executive officer, high or low, or to any number of executive…

Under any less authoritative mandate than that which is conveyed in a military order with the requisite force behind it, the Southern communities would never have accepted or submitted to the conditions thus imposed.

But the sympathy which their condition under other circumstances might have evoked in the North, was stifled by the pertinent consideration that they had refused other forms of Reconstruction, and had wilfully drawn upon themselves all…

All were ordained in the spirit of liberty, all prohibited the existence of any form of slavery, and all heartily recognized the supreme sovereignty of the National Government as having been indisputably established by the overthrow of the…

It will require a strong standing army, and probably more than two hundred millions per annum, to maintain the supremacy of negro governments after they are established,--a sum thus thrown away which would, if properly used, form a…

If the rebellious State be finally subdued, the National Government must not attach the slightest condition to her re-admission to the Union; must not impose discipline or even administer reproof.

The fact that the rebellion fails is the full warrant for its guilty authors to be at once repossessed of all the rights and all the privileges which in the frenzy of anger and disobedience they had thrown away.

They held that the States which had rushed into a rebellion so wicked, so causeless, and so destructive, should not be allowed to resume their places of authority in the Union except under such conditions as would guard, so far as human…

As the vicious theory of State-rights had been constantly at enmity with the true spirit of Nationality, the Organic Law of the Republic should be so amended that no standing-room for the heresy would be left.

As the basis of representation in the Constitution has always given the slave States an advantage, these States, now that slavery was abolished, should not be permitted to oppress the negro population and use them merely for an enlarged…

As the war to maintain Union and Liberty had cost a vast treasure and sacrificed countless lives, the States that had forced the bloody contest should agree by solemn amendment to the Constitution that the National debt and the pension to…

Those conditions--applying to all the States alike, to the loyal and the disloyal in the same measure--must be honorably agreed to by the States that had gone into Disunion before they should be permitted to resume and enjoy the blessings…

History and the just judgment of mankind will vindicate the wisdom and the righteousness of the Republican policy, and that vindication will always carry with it the condemnation of Andrew Johnson.

It was evident that the admission of the States to representation was to be taken as the signal for a new contest in the South--embittered in its character and sanguinary in its results.

The men who had been foremost in plunging their States into the vortex of rebellion were determined to rule them--their determination being of that type which disregards the restraint of law and considers that the end justifies the means.

Events, as they developed in the stirring and sorrowful years that followed, were but a continual proof of that form of original blunder on the part of the Southern whites, which in affairs of civil administration is worse than a crime.

Neither John Adams nor Thomas Jefferson used it even once.

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.