best they could, but
there was no great commanding figure. The days of Webster, Clay,
and Calhoun had passed; the great men of the Civil War period were
gone. Stevens, Sumner, Chase of the Reconstruction era, had all
passed away.

Among the leaders at the beginning of the Forty-eighth Congress
were Senators Aldrich and Anthony, of Rhode Island; Edmunds and
Morrill, of Vermont; Sherman and Pendleton, of Ohio; Sewell, of
New Jersey; Don Cameron, of Pennsylvania; Platt and Hawley, of
Connecticut; Harrison, of Indiana; Dawes and Hoar, of Massachusetts;
Allison, of Iowa; Ingalls, of Kansas; Hale and Frye, of Maine;
Sawyer, of Wisconsin; Van Wyck and Manderson, of Nebraska; all on
the Republican side. There were a number of quite prominent
Democrats--Bayard, of Delaware; Voorhees, of Indiana; Morgan, of
Alabama; Ransom and Vance, of North Carolina; Butler and Hampton,
of South Carolina; Beck, of Kentucky; Lamar and George, of Mississippi;
and Cockrell and Vest, of Missouri.

The Senate was controlled by the Republicans, there being forty
Republican and thirty-six Democratic Senators; and Senator George
F. Edmunds, of Vermont, was chosen President _pro tempore_. In
the House the Democrats had the majority, and John G. Carlisle was
chosen Speaker.

Senator Edmunds is still living, and he has been for many years
regarded as one of the foremost lawyers of the American bar. I
know that in the Senate when I entered it, he was ranked as its
leading lawyer. He was chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary
of the Senate and, with Senator Thurman, of Ohio, dominated that
committee. I became very intimately acquainted with him. He was
dignified in his conversation and deportment, and I never knew him
to say a vicious thing in debate.

I believe I had considerable influence with Senator Edmunds. He
always seemed to have a prejudice against appropriations for the
Rock Island (Illinois) Arsenal. He had never visited Rock Island,
but he seemed to think that the money spent there was more or less
wasted, and he was disposed to oppose appropriations for its
maintenance. One day we were considering an appropriation bill
carrying several items in favor of Rock Island, and I anticipated
Senator Edmunds' objections. Sitting beside him, I asked him not
to oppose these items. I told him that I did not think he was
doing right by such a course. He asked me where they were in the
bill and I showed them to him without saying a wo