ad been zealous Southern
champions before the War, at the time of some very bitter
sectional strifes, and because he was charged with having
been the leader and counsellor in some violent and unlawful
conduct toward the colored people after the War. I have not
investigated the matter. But I believe the responsibility
for a good deal of what was ascribed to him belonged to another
person of the same name. But the Republicans of the Senate
came to esteem and value Senator Butler very highly. He deserves
great credit, among other things, for his hearty and effective
support of the policy of enlarging the Navy, which, when he
came into public life, was feeble in strength and antiquated
in construction. With his departure from the Senate, and
that of his colleague, General Wade Hampton, ended the power
in South Carolina of the old gentry who, in spite of some
grave faults, had given to that State an honorable and glorious
career. When the Spanish War broke out, General Butler was
prompt to offer his services, although he had lost a leg in
the Civil War.

James B. Beck came into the House of Representatives when
I did, in 1869. He served there for six years, was out of
public life for two years, and in 1877 came to the Senate
when I did.

I do not think any two men ever disliked each other more
than we did for the first few years of our service. He hated
with all the energy of his Scotch soul,--the _perfervidum
ingenium Scotorum,_--everything I believed. He thought the
New England Abolitionists had neither love of liberty nor
care for the personal or political rights of the negro. Indeed
he maintained that the forefathers of the New England abolitionists
were guilty of bringing slavery into this continent. He hated
the modern New England theological heresies with all the zeal
of his Scotch Presbyterian forbears. He hated the Reconstruction
policy, which he thought was inspired by a desire to put the
white man in the place where the negro had been. He hated
with all the energy of a free-trader the protection policy,
which he deemed the most unscrupulous robbery on a huge scale.
He considered the gold standard a sort of power press with
which the monopolists of the East were trying to squeeze
the last drop of blood out of the farmers and workingmen
of the South. He thought the public debt was held by men
who had paid very little value for it, and who ought to be
paid off in the same cheap money which was