In regard to the decisions of the Supreme Court, the expert simply makes the declaration that the statement made by me that the failure of Reconstruction was due to unwise judicial interpretation need not be considered. In the first place, it is not true that I admitted that Reconstruction was a failure. On the contrary, those who will carefully read what I wrote will not fail to see that my contention is that in its important and essential particulars that policy was a grand and brilliant success and I instanced the ratification of the 14th and 15th Amendments, neither of which could have otherwise been ratified, as a vindication of the wisdom of that legislation even if nothing else had resulted from it. It is admitted that some of the friends and supporters of the Congressional plan of Reconstruction have been disappointed because those governments did not and could not stand the test of time. To this extent and for this reason some persons claim that the policy was a failure. I am not one of that number, the reasons for which the readers of the article referred to will see. But the inability of those governments to stand the test of time I accounted for under three heads, one of which was several unfortunate decisions rendered by the Supreme Court, the result, in my opinion, of two unwise appointments made by President Grant in the persons of Chief Justice Waite and Associate Justice Bradley. I do not assert that those two judges, or any others, for that matter, were appointed with reference to their attitude upon any public question, still I am satisfied that they were believed to be in accord with the other leaders and constitutional lawyers in the Republican party in their construction of the 14th Amendment. The constitutional warrant for the Civil Rights Bill is the clause which declares that "no state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States." It was therefore held that any law or ordinance which provided for, recognized or sanctioned separate facilities for the two races in the exercise and enjoyment of the rights and privileges that are supposed to be common to all classes of persons, would be a violation of this provision of the 14th Amendment; and since Congress was authorized to enforce the Amendment, affirmative legislation for the enforcement of that provision was held to be thus warranted. This view was held by such able and brilliant constitutional lawyers as Edmunds and Conkling in the Senate, and Butler, George F. and E. Rockwood Hoar, Lyman Tremaine, Garfield and Wilson in the House. Senator Carpenter was the only Republican lawyer of any note that took a different view of the matter. While he believed the whole bill was unconstitutional, the section prohibiting race discrimination in the selection of jurors in State courts he believed to be especially obnoxious to the constitution. He declared