It was the old story--murder without arrests or investigation.

The knowledge, too, that it was in part the work of the Ku-Klux-Klan, a secret organisation pledged to disfranchise the negro by intimidation, intensified the bitterness.

He made it appear that the South was saved from anarchy by the military, and that the North, to the sincere regret of many Republicans and their ablest journals, was no longer controlled by the sober judgment of the dominant party's safest…

Unscrupulous, designing, and dangerous men, political partisans, are resorting to extraordinary means to increase it.

Threats are made against naturalised citizens, and a federal grand jury has been induced to find, in great haste and secrecy, bills of indictment for the purpose, openly avowed, of intimidating them in the discharge of their public…

But friend and foe admitted that he had shown real ability as governor.

He exercised authority cautiously, marshalled facts with skill, and presented clear and enlightened reasons for his action.

In whatever legislative body he appeared he ranked amongst the foremost debaters, generally speaking with an enlightenment and a moderation that did credit to his intellect and to the sweetness of his nature.

Perhaps in the end he fell short of realising the full measure of strength that his ardent friends anticipated, for he possessed none of the characteristics of the boss and seemed incapable of submitting to the daily drudgery that…

But for several years the reasonableness of his opinions had an unmistakable influence upon the judgment of men.

More than that it was Blaine's long look ahead.

Such action required the highest order of political courage.

It opened an old quarrel, it invited opposition, it challenged to battle.

But Conkling, knowing that though the voice was Garfield's, the hand was Blaine's, quickly precipitated a contest in which the interest of the whole country centred.

It recalled the Arthur controversy, renewed the feverish energy of Stalwart and Half-breed, and furnished glimpses of the dramatic discord which stirred restlessly behind the curtains of Senate secrecy.

I wish to say to the President in my judgment this is the turning point of his whole administration--the crisis of his fate.

If he surrenders now Conkling is president for the rest of the term and Garfield becomes a laughing stock.

On the other hand, he has only to stand firm to succeed.

That action came solely from the belief that Garfield, unlike Hayes, meant to defend his own administration.

In other words, the caucus action practically notified the President that no nomination would be confirmed that did not please a senator, if a Republican.

Such a rule substantially transferred the Executive power to one branch of Congress, making the President the agent of the Senate.

It is high time that the false lights which Senator Conkling displayed to certain Democratic senators, and with the help of whom the nominations of President Hayes were thwarted, should be understood.

Perhaps his nature required a relief from its high-strung irritability in some sort of violence, and resignation backed by the assurance that he would soon be restored to office and to greater power on the shoulders of the party offered…

The humiliation of having gone to Albany, of being deserted by friend after friend, of enduring the taunts of an inhospitable press, and, finally, of having his place taken by one, who, in his opinion, had proven most faithless, was like…

This classified him at once as a common enemy.