People liked his nerve, believed in his honesty, confided in his judgment, and revelled in the retorts that leaped to his lips.

Yet his votes followed those of Senator Fessenden, and his voice, if not strong in debate, expressed the wisdom and judgment of a safe counsellor.

Time had vindicated his reasons for demanding a bankrupt law, and his voice, raised for economy in the public expense, had made him of special service during the war.

He voted to confiscate the property of rebels, he stood with Stevens for disfranchising all persons who voluntarily adhered to the late insurrection until July 4, 1870, and he would agree to no plan that operated to disfranchise the…

I have resolutely put down my foot that no friend of mine, even without my knowledge, shall pay a cent, upon any pretext nor in any strait, come what will.

If chosen, it will be by the men of character, and if beaten this will be my consolation.

He had a habit of speaking his own mind, and instead of confining his thoughts to the committee room, or whispering them in the ears of a few alleged leaders, it was his custom to take the public into his confidence.

Although a stiff Radical he had no reason to feel bitter toward men who happened to differ with him on governmental policies.

He outlined a policy for which, he contended, his party in the Empire State ought to stand.

There was probably not a Republican in the State capable of forming an opinion who did not know that from the moment Conkling became a senator the division of the party into two stout factions was merely a question of time.

It affirmed impartial suffrage, protested against maladministration and corruption in State affairs, supported Congress in its policy of reconstruction, and rebuked all tampering with the financial obligations of the Union.

Upon these plain, simple issues Conservatives and Radicals stood united.

Democratic politicians accepted this policy the more readily, too, because of the attractive cry--"the same currency for the bondholder and the ploughboy.

Extreme Democrats, taught that the debt was corruptly incurred, resented the suggestion of its payment in gold.

The reports of the Secretary of the Treasury show that we could swiftly wipe out our debt if our income was not diverted to partisan purposes.

Do not the columns of the press teem with statements of official plunder and frauds in every quarter of our land, while public virtue rots under this wasteful expenditure of the public fund?

Build that up; make your paper as good as gold, and this question cannot come up.

The controversy grows out of the fact that men do not believe our legal tenders ever will be as good as gold.

Indeed, without cunning or reason, the plunderers, embracing all who made or paid canal accounts, declared bids informal that contracts at increased prices might be given to members of a ring who divided their ill-gotten gains.

Republicans offered no defence except that their party, having had the courage to investigate and expose the frauds and the methods of the peculators, could be trusted to continue the reform.

Its membership included many men of the highest capacity, whose debates, characterised by good temper and forensic ability, showed an intelligent knowledge of the needs of the State.

If you shrink from giving the ballot to a few thousand negroes at home, it was asked, why do you insist that it should be conferred on millions in the South?

If, as you pretend, you wish the blacks of this State to have the ballot, why do you not give it to them?

How can you blame the South for hesitating when you hesitate?

The Radicals, he said, not only propose to put the white men of the South under the blacks, but the white men of the North as well.