The circumstances of his death made it peculiarly touching and sacramental, and I was inexpressibly glad that I had fought his battle so unflinchingly, and defended him everywhere against his conscienceless assailants. CHAPTER XVI. CONCLUDING NOTES. Party changes caused by the slavery issue--Notable men in Congress during the war--Sketches of prominent men in the Senate and House --Scenes and incidents--Butler and Bingham--Cox and Butler--Judge Kelley and Van Wyck--Lovejoy and Wickliffe--Washburne and Donnelly --Oakes Ames--Abolitionism in Washington early in the war--Life at the capital--The new dispensation and its problems. In the early part of the period covered by the preceding chapters our political parties were divided on mere questions of policy and methods of administration. Trade, Currency, Internal Improvements, and the Public Lands were the absorbing issues, while both parties took their stand against the humanitarian movement which subsequently put those issues completely in abeyance, and compelled the country to face a question involving not merely the policy of governing, but the existence of the Government itself. When the slavery question finally forced its way into recognition it naturally brought to the front a new class of public men, and their numbers, as I have shown, steadily increased in each Congress from the year 1845 till the outbreak of the Rebellion in 1861. The Congress which came into power with Mr. Lincoln did not fully represent the anti-slavery spirit of the Northern States, but it was a decided improvement upon its predecessors. In the Senate were such men as Collamer, Fessenden, Doolittle, Baker, Browning, Anthony, Grimes, Hale, Harlan, Sherman, Trumbull, Sumner, Wade, Henry Wilson, Chandler, Lane of Indiana, Harris of New York, Andrew Johnson, B. Gratz Brown and Howard. In the House were Conkling, Bingham, Colfax, Dawes, Grow, Hickman, Kelley, Potter, Lovejoy, Pike of Maine, Ashley, Rollins of Missouri, Shellabarger, Thaddeus Stevens, Elihu B. Washburne, Isaac N. Arnold and James F. Wilson.