hought it necessary, to suspend the writ of _habeas corpus._
This measure, which had a considerable majority in the Senate,
was voted down in the House under the influence of Speaker
Blaine, Mr. Dawes, General Farnsworth, and other prominent
Republicans. During the controversy Mr. Blaine left the
chair and engaged in the debate, being provoked by some thrust
of Butler's. There was a lively passage at arms, in which
Blaine said he was obliged to leave the chair, as his predecessor
Mr. Colfax had been compelled to do, "to chastise the insolence
of the gentleman from Massachusetts." Butler replied by some
charge against Blaine, to which Blaine, as he was walking
back to take the gavel again, shouted out: "It's a calumny."
My sympathies in the matter, so far as the measure of legislation
was concerned, were with Butler, though I had, as is well
known, little sympathy with him in general.

The House undertook to adjourn the session, but the Senate
refused to do so without action on the bill for the protection
of human rights at the South. While things were in this condition,
I was summoned one morning into the President's room at the
Capitol, where I found President Grant, his Cabinet, several
of the leading Senators, including Mr. Conkling, I think
Mr. Edmunds, Mr. Howe of Wisconsin, and I believe General
Wilson, Judge Shellabarger of Ohio, and one or two other members
of the House. All the persons who were there were favorable
to the proposed legislation, I believe. President Grant said
that he had been asked to send in a message urging Congress
to pass a law giving him larger powers for the suppression
of violence at the South; but he had sent for us to explain
the reason why he was unwilling to do it. He thought that
the country would look with great disapprobation upon a request
to enlarge the powers of the President, and especially to
suspend the writ of _habeas corpus_ in time of peace, and that he
felt especially unwilling to subject himself to that criticism
as he had not come to that office from civil life, but had been
a soldier, and it might be supposed he favored military methods
of government. Several of the gentlemen present expressed
rather guardedly their dissent from this view, but Grant seemed
to remain firm. I kept silent, as became a person young in
public life, until Mr. Howe and Judge Shellabarger whispered
together, and then came to me and said: "Mr. Hoar, you may
perhaps, be able to hav