From their ranks came many of the most attractive and most eloquent speakers, who discussed the merits of the Constitutional amendment before popular audiences as ably as they had upheld the flag of the Union through four years of bloody strife.

Their convention did more to popularize the Fourteenth Amendment as a political issue than any other instrumentality of the year.

Not even the members of Congress, who repaired to their districts with the amendment as the leading question, could commend it to the mass of voters with the strength and with the good results which attended the soldier orators who were inspired to enter the field.
Other events powerfully contributed to the political overthrow of the President.

After the change in his policy in the summer and autumn of 1865, which has already been noted, the Southern rebels, who had at first been cast down and discouraged, saw before them the prospect of regaining complete ascendency in their respective States.

As the division between the President and Congress widened, their confidence increased; and as their confidence increased, a reign of lawlessness and outrage against the rights of the defenseless was inaugurated.