The bitterness engendered resembled that which always distinguishes a family quarrel.

The measure was resorted to as one of self-defense against the alleged aggressions and the unrestrained power of the Executive Department.

But the history of its operation, and of its subsequent modification, which practically amounted to its repeal, is one to which the Republican party cannot recur with any sense of pride or satisfaction.

As matter of fact, a Republican Congress, largely composed of the same members who had enacted the law, indirectly confessed two years later that it could not be maintained.

Regarded only in the light of expediency at the time, it could readily be demonstrated (as was afterwards admitted by candid men among those who supported it) to be a blunder,--a blunder all the more censurable because the Act was not needed to uphold the Reconstruction policy of Congress, in aid of which it was devised.