imated that he would send his name to the
Senate.

I said to him: "Mr. President, the selection of a Chief Justice
is one of the greatest duties you have to perform. _You_ can make
a mistake; we can raise the devil in Congress; but with a capable
Supreme Court standing steady and firm, doing its full duty, the
country is safe."

He agreed with me; and very soon thereafter Melville W. Fuller was
nominated as Chief Justice of the United States.

But this was only the prelude to the real struggle. The nomination
was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary, of which Senator
Edmunds, of Vermont, was chairman. The latter was very much out
of humor with the President, because he had fully expected that
Judge Phelps, of his own State, was to receive the honor, and he
did not take it kindly that the appointment should go to Illinois.
He had told me himself, in confidence, that he had every assurance
that Judge Phelps was to be nominated.

The result was the Senator Edmunds held the nomination, without
any action, in the Judiciary Committee for some three months, as
I now recollect. Finally there began to be more or less scandal
hinted at and suggestions of something wrong, and so forth; which
I considered so entirely uncalled for and unfair to Judge Fuller
that I appeared before the Judiciary Committee of the Senate and
asked that the nomination be reported favorably if possible,
unfavorably if the committee so determined; and if the committee
was not disposed to report the nomination either favorably or
unfavorably that they report the nomination to the Senate without
recommendation, so that the Senate itself might have an opportunity
to act upon it. The latter action was taken, and the nomination
was laid naked before the Senate. The matter was considered in
executive session. Senator Edmunds at once took the floor and
attacked Judge Fuller most viciously as having sympathized with
the Rebellion, together with much to the same effect.

In the meantime some one had sent me a printed copy of a speech
which Judge Phelps had delivered during the war, attacking Mr.
Lincoln in the most outrageous and undignified fashion. When I
read that speech I then and there determined that Judge Phelps
would never be confirmed as Chief Justice, even though the President
might send his nomination to the Senate. I put the speech in my
desk, determining that if I ever had a good chance I would read it
in the Senate, at the same