,--a very able body of men with
growing influence in the House. The Wisconsin delegation was also in
large part the same. But the new members were men of note. Among them
were Halbert E. Paine and Philetus Sawyer. General Paine had served
with distinction in the war and had lost a leg in battle. He was a
lawyer in full practice, a man of the highest integrity, without fear
and without reproach. Born in the Western Reserve, he was radical in
his views touching the slavery question and progressive in all matters
of governmental reform.--Philetus Sawyer was a native of Vermont, who,
when a young man, had emigrated to Wisconsin. Without early
advantages, either of education or fortune, he was in the best sense
of the phrase a self-made man. He engaged in the business of lumbering
and by sagacity had acquired wealth. It is easy to supply superlatives
in eulogy of popular favorites; but Mr. Sawyer, in modest phrase,
deserves to be ranked among the best of men,--honest, industrious,
generous, true to every tie and to every obligation of life. He
remained for ten years in the House, with constantly increasing
influence, and was afterward promoted to the Senate. California sent
an excellent delegation--McRuer, Higby, and Bidwell; and West Virginia
contributed a valuable member in the person of Chester D. Hubbard.

The members of the House had been elected in 1864--borne to their seats
by the force of the same popular expression that placed Mr. Lincoln in
the Presidential chair for a second term. It is scarcely conceivable
that had Mr. Lincoln lived any serious differences could have arisen
between himself and Congress respecting the policy of reconstruction.
The elections of 1865, held amid the shouts of triumph over a restored
union, went by default in favor of the Republicans, who were justly
credited with the National victory so far as any one political party
was entitled to such honor. The people had therefore given no
expression, in any official or registered form, touching the policy
outlined by Mr. Johnson. He was the duly-elected Vice-President. He
had come to the magistracy in presumed sympathy and close affiliation
with the Republicans whose suffrages he had received. All beyond these
facts was surmise or inference. No one knew any thing with precision
respecting the new President's intentions.

He undoubtedly had control of an enormous public patronage. The Peace
establishment of the Army, it was th