efense
against the alleged aggressions and the unrestrained power of the
Executive Department. But the history of its operation, and of its
subsequent modification, which practically amounted to its repeal, is
one to which the Republican party cannot recur with any sense of pride
or satisfaction. As matter of fact, a Republican Congress, largely
composed of the same members who had enacted the law, indirectly
confessed two years later that it could not be maintained. Regarded
only in the light of expediency at the time, it could readily be
demonstrated (as was afterwards admitted by candid men among those who
supported it) to be a blunder,--a blunder all the more censurable
because the Act was not needed to uphold the Reconstruction policy of
Congress, in aid of which it was devised. That policy relied for its
vindication upon the judgment and conscience of the loyal people, and
it was an impeachment of their good faith to say that either could be
affected by the removal of one man, or of many men, from official
position under the Federal Government. The Reconstruction policy stood
upon a strong and enduring principle,--as strong and enduring as the
question of human right,--and was sustained with vigor and enthusiasm
by the great party which was responsible for the war measures
that had saved the Union. The same sentiment did not attach to the
Tenure-of-office Law, which indeed was only the cause of subsequent
humiliation to all who had taken part in its enactment.(2)

It was part of the fixed policy of Mr. Lincoln's administration to
increase the number of distinctively free States from that section of
the public domain which had never been in any way contaminated by the
institution of slavery. To this end he was anxious to encourage the
settlement of the Territories already organized west of the Missouri
river. To provide for the still more rapid creation of North-western
States, two additional Territories, Idaho and Montana, were organized
from the area which had been included in Dakota. Mr. Lincoln's evident
motive was to place beyond the calculation, or even the hope of the
disloyal States the possibility of ever again having sufficient
political power to compete in the Senate for the mastery of the
Republic. He was persuaded that the sectional contest would be
fatally pursued as long as the chimerical idea of equality in the
Senate should stimulate Southern ambition. He knew, moreover, that
the war co