Whitelaw Reid: “When a tree stops growing, our foresters tell us, it is ripe for the ax.”

But proofs were not wanting of the spirit in which, to the very last, the conflict against the Government had been waged.

Here was the opportunity for a statesman to grasp.

Fully believing the debts of their Rebel Government legal and just, they were prepared to repudiate them at a hint from Washington.

Congress is supreme, and, for all the purposes of this department, has all the powers of the people of the United States, except such as have been expressly or by implication reserved in the prohibitions of the Constitution.