opportunity, nobly employed, of standing as a buttress for human rights? The other signal occasion, when he showed much of the same character, and was surely inspired by the same sentiment, was during the last year, when the illustrious President, who now reposes in immortality, undertook, in disregard of Congress, and solely by executive power, to institute civil governments throughout that region of the Union where civil governments had been overthrown,--imitating, in the agencies he employed, the Cromwellian system of ruling by “major-generals.” The case of distant and oppressed Kansas was revived. Who can forget the awakened leonine energy of the aged Senator, when, contrary to his custom, he interrupted another in debate to declare his judgment against the power of the President to institute permanent civil governments “to last beyond the war”?[14] The dividing line was clear. The President might exercise a temporary military power, but Congress must lay the foundations of permanent peace. This simple principle was, of course, only the corollary of that rule of Jefferson, which has become one of the commonplaces of our political system, asserting “the supremacy of the civil over the military authority.”[15] The eggs of crocodiles can produce only crocodiles; and it is not easy to see how eggs laid by military power can be hatched into an American State. This interjected judgment was afterward developed in a speech, which for sententious wisdom and solid sense is, perhaps, the best he ever delivered. It is not long, but, like the Roman sword, it is effective from its very shortness. He spoke with the authority of years, but he spoke also with another peculiar authority; for it was he who drew the Act of Congress which placed the Rebel States under the ban.[16] Positively, earnestly, and most persuasively, he insisted that Congress should not abdicate its control of this question. His conclusion was repeated again and again. It was for Congress, he said, to say when that state of things existed which would entitle the Rebel States to perform their functions as integral parts of the Union. It was for Congress to decide this question, and not for the President, except so far as the President unites in an Act of Congress by his signature. And he asked, “When will and when ought Congress to admit these States as being in their normal condition?” To which he answers: “It is not enough that they stop their hostility and are repentant. They should present fruits meet for repentance. They should furnish to us, by their actions, some evidence that the condition of loyalty and obedience is their true condition again, and Congress must pass upon it; _otherwise we have no securities_.… And I insist that the President, making peace with them, if you please, by surceasing military operations, _does not alter their status, until Congress passes upon it_.” Then, again, filled with the thought, he exclaims, “The great and essential thing