Johnson's policy squarely in issue, was
answered by Henry J. Raymond, now the selected and acknowledged leader
of the Administration in the House. Raymond had entered Congress with
a prestige rarely if ever equalled by a new member. There had been
greater orators, abler debaters, and more profound statesmen, but no
one had ever preceded him with an environment more influential. He was
the favourite of the President; he had been brought into more or less
intimate association with all the men of his party worth knowing; he
was the close friend of Weed and the recognized ally of Seward; his
good will could make postmasters and collectors, and his displeasure,
like that of a frigid and bloodless leader, could carry swift penalty.
Indeed, there was nothing in the armory of the best equipped
politician, including able speaking and forceful writing, that he did
not possess, and out of New York as well as within it he had been
regarded the earnest friend and faithful champion of Republican
doctrines. On the surface, too, it is doubtful if a member of
Congress, whether new or old, ever seemed to have a better chance of
winning in a debate. Only three months before the people of the North,
with great unanimity, had endorsed the President and approved his
policy. Besides, the great body of Republicans in Congress preferred
to work with the President. He held the patronage, he had succeeded by
the assassin's work to the leadership of the party, and thus far had
evinced no more dogmatism than Stevens or Sumner. Moreover, the
sentiment of the North at that time was clearly against negro
suffrage. All the States save six[1048] denied the vote to the negro,
and in the recent elections three States had specifically declared
against extending it to him.

[Footnote 1048: New York and the New England States except Connecticut,
although New York required a property qualification, but none for the
white.]

Thus fortified Raymond did not object to speaking for the
Administration. To him Stevens' idea of subjecting the South to the
discipline and tutelage of Congress was repulsive, and his ringing
voice filled the spacious hall of the House with clear-cut sentences.
He denied that the Southern States had ever been out of the Union. "If
they were," he asked, "how and when did they become so? By what
specific act, at what precise time, did any one of those States take
itself out of the American Union? Was it by the ordinance of
secession? An