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It was my fortune, as Mr. secretary, to have been for two years somewhat familiar with the Senate of the United States when Mr. entered that body on March 4th, 1869, in what I have since learned to consider the bloom of his youth.

It was a critical time in our country's history. It was a period of reaction. After the strain of the war, men had turned with relief to the pursuits of peace. The intense earnestness, the high moral purpose of the anti-slavery contest, were yielding to dreams of ease and wealth; to the feeling that we had earned repose, which General expressed when he said “Let us have peace.”

It was a period of demoralization. In the South society was overturned. The character and intelligence of the community were disfranchised, while men just emancipated and largely inspired and controlled by corrupt adventurers, ruled the States where but now they had been slaves. In the North the Republican party, flushed with triumph, was at its zenith. Respect for the constitutional limitations of power which are recognized in times of peace had been weakened by war and its methods. The most successful soldier of the time had