But at the same time I endeavored to do full justice to the better qualities of the Southern people and to explain how it happened that men otherwise so honorable and brave and humane could be led by the passions of a political warfare and race prejudice to commit such offences.

Mr.Lamar, of Mississippi, one of the most brilliant and able statesmen of his time, sought an interview with me after the report went in and thanked me for what I had said of the Southern people, and told me that "I was the first Northern man who seemed to be capable of doing them justice." What he thought will be found also stated by him.
In a speech made before a Democratic meeting in the spring of 1875, Mr.Lamar said ("Life of Lamar," p.

221); "Well, the character of that last Committee--especially of its Chairman, Mr.George F.Hoar--was such as to lead to no expectation that there would be any indulgence shown to the people of the South, or any very harsh criticisms of his own party.

By inheritance, by training, by political association, he was intensely anti-Southern.

His manners toward Southern men, so bitter are his feelings, are often cold and reserved; and nothing but his instinct and refinement as a gentleman, which he is in every respect, saved him from sometimes being supercilious; acute in intellect, cultured, trained to the highest expression of his powers, quick in his resentments and combative in temperament, we certainly expected no quarter from his hands.