I know not if he could be called orator. Perhaps, like Fox, he were better called debater. And yet I doubt if words were ever delivered with more effect than when, broken with years and decay, he stood before the Senate and in the name of the House of Representatives and of all the people of the United States impeached Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, of high crimes and misdemeanors in office. Who can forget his steady, solemn utterance of this great arraignment? The words were few, but they will sound through the ages. The personal triumph in his position at that moment was merged in the historic grandeur of the scene. For a long time, against opposition of all kinds, against misconceptions of the law, and against apologies for transactions without apology, he had insisted on impeachment; and now this old man, tottering to your door, dragged the Chief Magistrate of the Republic to judgment. It was he who did this thing; and I should do poor justice to his life, if on this occasion I failed to declare my gratitude for the heroic deed. His merit is none the less because other influences prevailed in the end. His example will remain forever. In the House, which was the scene of his triumphs, I never heard him but once; and I cannot forget the noble eloquence of that brief speech. I was there by accident just as he rose. He did not speak more than ten minutes, but every sentence seemed an oration. With unhesitating plainness he arraigned Pennsylvania for her denial of equal rights to an oppressed race, and, rising with the theme, declared that this State had not a republican government.[2] His explicitness was the more striking because he was a Representative of Pennsylvania. Nobody, who has considered with any care what constitutes a republican government, especially since the definition supplied by our Declaration of Independence, can doubt that he was right. His words will live as the courageous testimony of a great character on this important question.