s of the opposition;
whose moral courage quaked at the appearance of the slightest danger to
their own or their party's fortunes; and whose littlenesses exposed them
sometimes with involuntary frankness to the newspaper correspondent whom
they approached to beg for a "favorable notice" or for the suppression
of an unwelcome news item. They were by no means in all instances men of
small parts. On the contrary, there were men of marked ability and large
acquirements among them. But never until then had I known how great a
moral coward a member of Congress may be.

It is probably now as it was then. There were few places in the United
States where the public men appearing on the national stage were judged
as fairly and accurately as they were in Newspaper Row in Washington.

[Illustration: HORACE GREELEY

AT WHOSE REQUEST CARL SCHURZ BECAME THE CHIEF WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT
OF THE NEW YORK TRIBUNE IN 1865]

I remained at the head of the _Tribune_ office in Washington, according
to my promise to Mr. Greeley, to the end of the winter season, and then
accepted the chief-editorship of the Detroit _Post_, a new journal
established at Detroit, Michigan, which was offered to me--I might
almost say urged upon me--by Senator Zachariah Chandler. In the meantime
I had occasion to witness the beginning of the political war between the
executive and the legislative power concerning the reconstruction of the
"States lately in rebellion."

_The Beginnings of the Struggle_

I am sure I do not exaggerate when I say that this political war has
been one of the most unfortunate events in the history of this Republic,
for it made the most important problem of the time, a problem of
extraordinary complexity, which required the calmest and most delicate
and circumspect treatment, the foot-ball of a personal and party brawl
which was in the highest degree apt to inflame the passions and to
obscure the judgment of everybody concerned in it. Since my return from
the South, the evil effects of Mr. Johnson's conduct in encouraging the
reactionary spirit prevalent among the Southern whites had become more
and more evident and alarming from day to day. Charles Sumner told me
that his personal experience with the President had been very much like
mine. When Sumner left Washington in the spring, he had received from
Mr. Johnson at repeated intervals the most emphatic assurances that he
would do nothing to precipitate the restoration of the "Stat