The effect of the startling revelation was such that the most absolute political oligarchy ever organized in this country crumbled to dust in a moment, and the Republicans carried New York for the first time since 1866.

The renomination of General Grant was seen to be inevitable; and they were left to determine whether they would remain in the party and acquiesce in what they were unable to prevent, or whether they would try from the outside the…

In his brief speech he said that those who had assembled in this gathering were still Republicans, and he urged in justification of their independent action that the forces in control of the party machinery had perverted it to personal and…

Whatever other reasons he might have had for joining the movement, his lifelong and conspicuous championship of Protection would have made it impossible for him to sustain any demonstration against that great doctrine.

Even before his nomination was anticipated he was the most important factor in the revolt against the Administration, and any division (of a division) which sacrificed or endangered the chief pillar of strength seemed peculiarly fatuous…

He had always been a man of the people, and, though not shining with brilliant qualitites, had acquired influence and respect through his robust sense, his sound judgment, and his practical ability.

In ready debate, and in the clear and forcible presentation of political issues, he held a high place among Republican leaders.

Equal suffrage had been established, and the danger of repudiation which had threatened the country in 1868 had apparently passed away.

While the Democrats as a body had persistently opposed emancipation, and regarded it as a great political wrong, the party now resolved to maintain it.

He was the ablest polemic this country has ever produced.

His command of strong, idiomatic, controversial English was unrivaled.

His faculty of lucid statement and compact reasoning has never been surpassed.

Without the graces of fancy or the arts of rhetoric, he was incomparable in direct, pungent, forceful discussion.

A keen observer and an omnivorous reader, he had acquired an immense fund of varied knowledge, and he marshaled facts with singular skill and aptness.

Great as was his intellectual power, his chief strength came from the depth and earnestness of his moral convictions.

In the long and arduous battle against the aggressions of Slavery, he had been sleepless and untiring in rousing and quickening the public conscience.

He was keenly alive to the distinctions of right and wrong, and his philanthropy responded to every call of humanity.

His sympathies were equally touched by the sufferings of the famine-stricken Irish and by the wrongs of the plundered Indians.

He had on all occasions zealously defended the rights of labor; he had waged unsparing war on the evils of intemperance; he had made himself an oracle with the American farmers; and his influence was even more potent in the remote prairie…

With his dogmatic earnestness, his extraordinary mental qualities, his moral power, and his quick sympathy with the instincts and impulses of the masses, he was in a peculiar sense the Tribune of the people.

He could not escape from his self-imposed thraldom and he ended by following a cause whose success could bring no peace, instead of sustaining a cause whose righteousness was the assurance of victory.

In joining the Rebellion he renounced a creed of Nationality in which the Democratic promoters of the Confederacy had never believed.

Stephens had maintained his original devotion to the National idea, a noble course lay before him; but when he drifted from his moorings of loyalty to the Union he surrendered the position that could have given him fame.

Instead of the admiration which his speeches were once said to have elicited in the House, the wonder now grew that he ever could have been considered an oracle or a leader.

Whatever fault may be found, whatever charges may be made, the fact remains that Governor Shepherd wrought a complete revolution in the appearance of the Capital.