f
nations, his residence abroad for several years, and his long
membership in the Senate, now of fourteen years' duration, all marked
him as wisely chosen for his important position.

On account of the immense National debt accumulated in the war, and
the complication of the financial affairs of the nation, the Committee
on Finance has an important bearing upon the interests of the country,
unknown until recent years. William P. Fessenden was the Senator
chosen chairman of this committee. His success in his private
business, his appointment, in 1864, as the head of the Treasury
Department, and his service in the Senate since 1853 as member of the
Finance Committee, and since 1859 as its chairman, all indicated the
propriety of his continuance in this position. Second on the list of
this committee stood Senator Sherman, of Ohio, who has been described
as "_au fait_ on National Banks, fond of figures, and in love with
finances."

The Committee on Commerce was constituted with Senator Chandler, of
Michigan, as its chairman. Himself most successful in commercial life,
in which he had attained distinction before coming to the Senate, and
representing a State having a greater extent of coast and better
facilities for commerce than any other inland community in the world,
Senator Chandler was eminently suitable as head of the Committee on
Commerce. His associates being selected from Maine, New York, Vermont,
Wisconsin, Kansas, and Oregon, left unrepresented no important
commercial interest in the nation.

The Committee on Manufactures was headed by William Sprague, Senator
from Rhode Island, a State having the largest capital invested, and
most persons employed in manufactures, in proportion to population, of
any in the Union. Senator Sprague himself having been educated in the
counting-room of a manufacturing establishment, and having control of
one of the largest manufacturing interests in the country, was the
appropriate person for such a position.

The agricultural States of Ohio, Kansas, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and
Kentucky furnished the members of the Committee on Agriculture, with
Senator Sherman at its head.

Of the Committee on the Judiciary, a Senator has given a description.
In a speech delivered in the Senate, December 12, 1865, Mr. Doolittle,
of Wisconsin, said: "From its very organization the Senate designs to
make that committee its constitutional adviser--not that its opinions
are to be conclusive or con