To the end that there might be a peaceful determination of the perilous question, that of disputed succession to the Presidency, I was an earnest advocate of the bill creating the Commission. Upon the question of concurrence by the House of Representatives in the final determination of the Commission, bitter opposition was manifested upon the part of friends of Mr. Tilden, and a heated partisan debate resulted, and during this debate I spoke as follows: "When this Congress assembled in December, it witnessed the American people from one end of the country to the other divided upon the question as to which candidate had been lawfully elected to the high office of President of the United States. The business industries of the country were paralyzed, public confidence destroyed, and the danger of civil war was imminent. That Mr. Tilden had received a majority of more than two hundred thousand of the popular vote was not disputed. That he had secured a majority of the Presidential electors in the several States, and was lawfully entitled to be inducted into the great office, was the firm belief of fully one-half of the people of this country. The hour was one of great peril to our institutions, and many were apprehensive that we were but entering into the dark night of anarchy and confusion. After many weeks of angry discussion, which resulted in still further arousing the passions of the people, a measure of adjustment was proposed. It was believed that there was still patriotism enough left in the American Congress to secure an honorable and fair settlement of this most dangerous question. We all recall how our hopes revived, and how gladly we hailed the introduction of the bill recommended by a joint committee of conference of the Senate and House of Representatives. It was welcomed as the harbinger of peace by the entire people of our country. "I gave that bill my earnest support. It had in the House no friend more ardent in its advocacy than myself. I believed it to be a measure in the interest of peace. I believed that those who framed it, as well as those who gave it their support upon the floor, were honest in their statements, that no man could afford to take the Presidency with a clouded title, and that the object of the bill was to ascertain which of the candidates was lawfully entitled to the electoral votes of Florida and Louisiana. I never mistrusted for a moment that statesmen of high repute could in so perilous an hour, upon so grave a question, palter with words in a double sense.