Recent circumstances had separated him from active sympathy with the Republicans and placed him in opposition to the policy of some of its leading members.

He had taken occasion to criticise what he called the military governments in the Southern States.

Other causes had tended to separate him from the Republican party and to commend him to the Democracy.

When he took his seat on the bench of the Supreme Court a majority of the judges belonged to the Democratic party, and with them he soon acquired personal intimacy and confidential relations.

He had secured many friends in the South by joining in the opinions pronounced by Mr.Justice Field for the court in 1867, in regard to the test-oaths prescribed in the Missouri constitution, and also in regard to the test-oath of lawyers known as the case _ex parte_ Garland.