sident
of the United States put Hayes and Wheeler in power by using
all the National forces, military and other, that might be
needful. He was a member of the Committee that framed the
bill for the Electoral Commission, but refused to give it
his support.

I made a very pleasant acquaintance with him during the sessions
of that Committee. I suppose it was due to his kindly influence
that I was put upon the Committee of Privileges and Elections,
of which he was Chairman, when I entered the Senate. But
he died in the following summer, so I never had an opportunity
to know him better. He was a great party leader. He had
in this respect no superior in his time, save Lincoln alone.

It was never my good fortune to be intimate with Zachariah
Chandler. But I had a good opportunity for observing him
and knowing him well. I met him in 1854, at the Convention
held in Buffalo to concert measures for protecting and promoting
Free State immigration to Kansas. He was the leading spirit
of that Convention, full of wisdom, energy and courage. He
was then widely known throughout the country as an enterprising
and successful man of business. When I went into the House
of Representatives, in 1869, Mr. Chandler was already a veteran
in public life. He had organized and led the political forces
which overthrew Lewis Cass and the old Democratic Party,
not only in Michigan but in the Northwest. He had been in
the Senate twelve years. Those twelve years had been crowded
with history. The close of the Administration of Buchanan,
the disruption of the Democratic Party at Charleston, the
election and inauguration of Lincoln, the putting down of
the Rebellion, the organizing, directing and disbanding of
great armies, the great amendments to the Constitution, and
the contest with Andrew Johnson, had been accomplished. The
reconstruction of the rebellious States, the payment of the
public debt, keeping the national faith under great temptation,
reconciliation and the processes of legislation and administration
under the restraints which belonged to peace, were well under
way. In all these Chandler bore a large part, and a part
wise, honest, powerful and on the righteous side. I knew
him afterward in the Department of the Interior. He was,
in my judgment, the ablest administrative officer without
an exception who has been in any executive department during
my public life. His sturdy honesty, his sound, rapid, almost
instin