When he took his seat in the Twenty-ninth Congress the issue in regard to the extension of slavery in the Territories was beginning to enlist public interest.

In truth he has gone as far as the most rancorous rebel leader of the South, touching the Reconstruction laws and the suffrage of the negro.

Bayard joined with the minority of the committee in the distinct avowal that negro suffrage would practically cease when the Republican party should be defeated.

Bayard united with other Democrats in this declaration the right of the negro to vote had already been protected by an Amendment to the Constitution.

His language was, therefore, a distinct threat to override the Constitution in order to strip the negro of the political power which the Constitution had conferred upon him.

This threat was so serious and so lawless that it should have received more attention than was bestowed upon it when first put forth.

He spoke earnestly against the use of the National power to hold these States to their duty as members of a common government, and expressed the belief that it would be better to have two republics, than to have one strong enough to…

No man wrought so effectively in exposing the condemnation of public opinion the evil work of the Ku-Klux organizations in the South.

But their misfortune was that they had assumed a responsibility which could be successfully discharged only by men of extraordinary endowments.

If any considerable number of them had been gifted in a high degree as orators, they would have had great advantages among a people who rate mere eloquence above its true value.

The Fifteenth Article of Amendment to the Constitution, now pending and about to be adopted, would confirm the colored man's elective franchise and add the right of holding office.

But his presence, while demonstrating the extent to which the assertion of equal rights had been carried, served to increase and stimulate the Southern resistance to the whole system of Republican reconstruction.

But General Grant was resolved that neither he nor the members of his Cabinet would go through the disagreeable and undignified process of filing reasons for suspending an officer, when in fact no reason existed aside from obnoxious…

The Republican members of both branches quickly perceived that tying the hands of a hostile President like Andrew Johnson afforded more satisfaction than the same process applied to a friendly President like General Grant.

He knew, the accused men declared, as much about their character when their names were before the Senate, as he knew now when he sought, behind the protection of his privilege, to brand them with infamy.

There was something so baldly and shamelessly partisan in the proposition to suspend the Act just long enough to permit President Grant, without obstruction or encumbrance, to remove the Democrats whom President Johnson had appointed to…

The Tenure- of-office Act was either right or wrong, expedient or inexpedient, Constitutional or unconstitutional, and it was easy to see that men could honestly differ as to its character in these respects.

But it was impossible to comprehend how a candid legislator could maintain the Constitutionality and expediency of the Act, and then propose to suspend it for that specific period of General Grant's administration, when, if needed at all…

With all the plausible defenses that can be made for this contradictory course, the fact remains that the authors of the law precipitately fled from its enforcement the moment a President with whom they were in sympathy was installed in…

They thereby admitted the partisan intent that had governed the enactment, just as they admitted the partisan intent that now led to the practical repeal.

Casting off all political disguises and personal pretenses, the simple truth remains that the Tenure-of-office Law was enacted lest President Johnson should remove Republican office-holders too rapidly; and it was practically repealed lest…

What faith can an Executive put in officials forced upon him, and those, too, whom he has suspended for reason?

How will such officials be likely to serve an Administration which they know does not trust them?

Members of the same party, supporters of the same general measures, with perfect appreciation and with profound respect each for the other, it seemed as impossible to unite them cordially, as in earlier days it was to unite Adams and…

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.