ee, I think during my second term,
there was referred to it a bill to rebuild William and Mary
College in Virginia. The principal building of that College
had been destroyed by fire. The Union and Rebel forces had
fought for possession of it. It had been held by the Union
soldiers and a court martial was sitting there when it was
attacked by the other side and the Union men driven out, and
the insurgents held the building for a few hours. They abandoned
it very soon. But before the Union soldiers had got back
in force some stragglers set fire to the building. It was
totally destroyed.

William and Mary was the oldest college in the country, except
Harvard. It numbered among its children many famous statesmen,
including Jefferson, Marshall, Peyton Randolph, and Monroe.
Washington was its Chancellor for twelve years. Its graduates
loved it ardently. I came to the conclusion that it would
tend very much to restore the old affectionate feeling between
the States to rebuild this College without inquiring too strictly
into the merits of the case, as tested by any strict principle
of law. I accordingly reported and advocated a bill for appropriating
sixty or seventy thousand dollars to rebuild the College.
Afterward, when on the Committee of Claims in the Senate,
I advocated extending the same principle to all colleges,
schools and other institutions of education and charity destroyed
by the operations of the War without regard to the question
who was in fault. This policy was, after a good deal of opposition
and resistance, successfully carried out.

But the William and Mary College Bill was reported at the
time when the passions excited by the War were still burning
in the breasts of many Republican statesmen. The measure
was received with derision. I was hardly allowed to go on
with my speech in order, and the ordinary courtesy of a brief
extension of time to finish it was refused amid great clamor.
But I got the Bill through the House the next winter. I had
a powerful ally in Mr. Perce of Mississippi, a Northern soldier,
who had settled in that State after the War. It was not considered
in the Senate. The measure was renewed again later in the
House. But it was bitterly attacked by Mr. Reed of Maine,
afterward Speaker, and defeated. Afterward I succeeded in
getting it through the Senate when the Democrats had possession
of the House, during the Administration of President Harrison,
and it became a l