It used to be thought that Grant was a man without much literary capacity. Since the publication of his "Memoirs," this notion has been discarded. I can testify to his great readiness as a writer. I saw him write two messages to Congress, both of a good deal of importance, without pause or correction, and as rapidly as his pen could fly over the paper. The first was the message he sent in on the adoption of the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution. I was much interested in a bill in aid of national education. I called on the President when the last State needed had ratified the Fifteenth Amendment, and suggested to him that it might be well to send a special message to Congress congratulating them on the result, and urging the policy of promoting education for the new citizens. I told him of General Washington's interest in a national university, and what he had said about the importance of education in his writings. I said I supposed he had them in his library. He said he believed he had, but he wished I would get the books and bring them to him. I accordingly got the books, carried them up to the White House, showed him the passages, and Grant sat down and wrote in a few minutes, and quite rapidly, the message that was sent to Congress the next day. The other occasion was when he sent in the message at the time of the controversy between the House and the Senate in regard to the policy to be pursued in dealing with the outrages in the South. The Senate had passed a bill giving a discretion to the President to take some firm measures to suppress these disorders, and to protect the colored people and the Republicans of the South, and if in his judgment he thought it necessary, to suspend the writ of _habeas corpus._ This measure, which had a considerable majority in the Senate, was voted down in the House under the influence of Speaker Blaine, Mr. Dawes, General Farnsworth, and other prominent Republicans. During the controversy Mr. Blaine left the chair and engaged in the debate, being provoked by some thrust of Butler's. There was a lively passage at arms, in which Blaine said he was obliged to leave the chair, as his predecessor Mr. Colfax had been compelled to do, "to chastise the insolence of the gentleman from Massachusetts." Butler replied by some charge against Blaine, to which Blaine, as he was walking back to take the gavel again, shouted out: "It's a calumny." My sympathies in the matter, so far as the measure of legislation was concerned, were with Butler, though I had, as is well known, little sympathy with him in general.