“On the justice of the amendment itself no arguments are necessary. The reasons crowd in on every side. To enumerate them would be a work of superfluity. To me it is a matter of great surprise that gentlemen on the other side should wish to delay the death of slavery. I can only account for it on the ground of long continued familiarity and friendship. I should be glad to hear them say of slavery, their beloved, as did the jealous Moor: “Yet she must die, else she’ll betray more men.” “Has she not betrayed and slain men enough? Are they not strewn over a thousand battle-fields? Is not this Moloch already gorged with the bloody feast? Its best friends know that its final hour is fast approaching. The avenging gods are on its track. Their feet are not now, as of old, shod with wool, for slow and stately stepping, but winged, like Mercury’s, to bear the swift message of vengeance. No human power can avert the final catastrophe.” Five days after this address, Mr. Garfield, together with Henry Winter Davis, made a lively attack on the War Department. At this time the writ of _habeas corpus_ was suspended, and the art of imprisoning men without warrant or accusation was reaching a high state of perfection. The Carroll and Old Capital prisons were full of victims who could not find out why they were thus arbitrarily confined. This tyrannical practice having been brought before the committee on military affairs, some of them investigated the subject. As a result, a resolution was offered calling for a public inquiry, which resolution passed. The next day Thaddeus Stevens attempted to get it rescinded, whereupon he was met by a fiery speech from Mr. Garfield, which saved the resolution; and in a few days there was a general freeing of all prisoners against whom no sufficient charges could be made. In his speech, Mr. Garfield graphically told of the great injustice which was being done, especially to men who had served the country in the field. One of these was a colonel in the Union army, who had been wounded and discharged from the service, but now, for some unknown reason, perhaps maliciously, had been deprived of his liberty. Mr. Garfield had been an admirer of Stanton, and recognized the great Secretary’s ability and patriotism; but this could not save either him or his subordinates from just censures. This action was the occasion of much admiring notice from the public, and even from Stanton himself. For such was the reputed roughness of Stanton’s temper that few men ever had enough temerity to criticise him. On the night of April 14, 1865, the war-heated blood of this nation was frozen with sudden horror at a deed which then had no parallel in American history—the murder of Abraham Lincoln. That night General Garfield was in New York City.