When we consider the natures and the training of the two men, it is not easy to imagine agreeable co-operation in public affairs by Mr. Sumner and General Grant. Mr. Sumner never believed in General Grant's fitness for the office of President, and General Grant did not recognize in Mr. Sumner a wise and safe leader in the business of government. General Grant's notion of Mr. Sumner, on one side of his character, may be inferred from his answer when, being asked if he had heard Mr. Sumner converse, he said: "No, but I have heard him lecture." As I am to speak of Mr. Sumner in our personal relations, which for thirteen years before his death were intimate, I shall use some words of preface. Never on more than two occasions did we have differences that caused any feeling on either side. Mr. Sumner was chairman in the Senate of the Committee on the Freedmen's Bureau, and Mr. Eliot was chairman of the Committee of the House. A report was made in each House, and each bill contained not less than twenty sections. Each House passed its own bill. A committee of conference was appointed. Its report was rejected. I was appointed a member of the second committee. I examined the bills, and I marked out every section that was not essential to the working of the measure. Four sections remained. I then added a section which provided for the lease and ultimate sale of the confiscated lands to the freedmen and refugees. President Johnson's restoration of those lands made that section non-operative. The committee, upon the motion of General Schenck, transferred the jurisdiction of the Bureau from the Treasury to the War Department. The bill was accepted by the committee, and passed by the two Houses. When within a few days I was in the Senate Chamber, Mr. Sumner came to me, and said in substance: "The Freedmen's Bureau Bill as it passed is of no value. I have spent six months upon the bill, and my work has gone for nothing. You and General Schenck cannot pretend to know as much as I know about the measure." With some feeling, which was not justifiable, I said: "I have not spent six hours upon the measure, but after what you have said I will say that the fifth section is of more value than all the sections which you have written." I did not wait for a reply. The subject was not again mentioned; our friendly relations were not disturbed, and it is to Mr. Sumner's credit on the score of toleration that he passed over my rough remarks, even though he had given some reason for a retort.