Certainly there can be found among the great men of
that great generation no more pure and brilliant lights than
Samuel F. Miller, William Strong, Joseph P. Bradley, Frederick
T. Frelinghuysen, Oliver P. Morton and James A. Garfield.
There are two survivors of that majority, Mr. Edmunds and
myself. Neither has found that the respect in which his countrymen
held him has been diminished by that decision.
President Hayes has been accused of abandoning the reconstruction
policy of his party. It has also been said that he showed
a want of courage in failing to support the Republican State
Governments in Louisiana and South Carolina; that if the votes
of those States were cast for him they were cast for Packard
and Chamberlain at the elections for Governor held the same
day, and that he should have declined the Presidency, or have
maintained these Governors in place. But these charges are,
at the least, inconsiderate, not the say ignorant. It ought
to be said also that President Grant before he left office
had determined to do in regard to these State Governments
exactly what Hayes afterward did, and that Hayes acted with
his full approval.
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