and lay down its policy in defiance of the efforts and the opposition of the President. The defection of Senator Lane of Kansas from the ranks of the most radical Republicans caused great surprise to the country. He had been so closely identified with all the tragic events in the prolonged struggle to keep slavery out of Kansas, that he was considered to be an irreconcilable foe to the party that tolerated or in any way apologized for its existence. The position he had taken in voting against the Civil Rights Bill worried and fretted him. He keenly felt his separation from the sympathy of such men as Sumner, Chandler, Wade, and the whole host who had nobly fought the battle of Kansas in the halls of Congress. He felt still more keenly the general and somewhat indignant disapproval of his action, freely expressed by the great mass of his constituents. One of his intimate friends said that on the very day of his vote he received a telegram warning him that if he voted against the bill it would be the mistake of his life. The telegram reached him after the roll had been called. He said excitedly, "The mistake has been made. I would give all I possess if it were undone." He was still further disturbed by imputations upon his integrity in connection with some transactions of the Indian Bureau--imputations which were pronounced baseless by the two senators from Indiana (Thomas A. Hendricks and Henry S. Lane), one a political opponent and the other a political friend, who had impartially examined all the facts. But under the mortification caused by parting with old political associates, and the humiliation to which he was subjected by groundless imputations upon his character, his mind gave way and on the 11th of July, 1866 he committed suicide.