It attracts politicians who display affability, shrewdness, dexterity, and eloquence, but who are lacking in discernment of public needs and in ability to provide for them, so that power and opportunity are often associated with gross political incompetency.* The solutions of the great political problems of the United States are accomplished by transferring to Washington men like Hayes and Cleveland whose political experience has been gained in other fields.
* Of this regrettable fact the whole history of emancipation is a monument.

The contrast between the social consequences of emancipation in the West Indies, as guided by British statesmanship, under conditions of meager industrial opportunity, and the social consequences of emancipation in the United States, affords an instructive example of the complicated evils which a nation may experience through the sheer incapacity of its government.
The system of congressional government was subjected to some scrutiny in 1880-81 through the efforts of Senator George H.Pendleton of Ohio, an old statesman who had returned to public life after long absence.

He had been prominent in the Democratic party before the war and in 1864 he was the party candidate for Vice-President.

In 1868 he was the leading candidate for the presidential nomination on a number of ballots, but he was defeated.

In 1869 he was a candidate for Governor of Ohio but was defeated; he then retired from public life until 1879 when he was elected to the United States Senate.