Directing attention to my idea of the undoing of Reconstruction he maintains:
Mr. Lynch's statement that the failure of Reconstruction was due to unwise judicial interpretation need not be considered. It is anachronistic and does not agree with the views now generally accepted by historical students. But what he says of the infidelity of Waite and Bradley can be refuted directly from the Supreme Court Reports. As to the appointment of these justices, there is no evidence that it was because of any specially strong nationalistic position on their part. Bradley, if chosen for any particular views, got the justiceship because of his attitude on legal tender; and the conditions under which Waite was appointed do not show up any such bias on his part. In U. S. _v._ Reese the court stood seven to two; and the dissentients were Clifford, a Democrat, and Hunt, appointed by Grant.
In U. S. _v._ Harris (the Ku Klux decision) Woods delivered the decision. Harlan alone dissented and only on the question of jurisdiction. The bench at that time held two judges appointed by Lincoln, two by Grant, two by Hayes, one by Garfield, and two by Arthur. The Civil Rights Cases decision was delivered by Bradley. Harlan was the only dissenter. These were the three important Reconstruction decisions during the term of Waite and Bradley. All of them were delivered after Reconstruction had failed. On the other hand, Bradley delivered the opinion in Ex parte Siebold, in which the federal election laws were upheld, and Field and Clifford were the only ones who disagreed with it.
In the first place, I frankly confess that what I have written and shall write in defense of the reconstructed governments at the South has been and will be of very little value if it were conceded that the acts accredited to the men to whom I have referred were of a low character. This is the very point upon which the public has been misinformed, misled and deceived. I do not hesitate to assert that the Southern Reconstructed Governments were the best governments those States ever had before or have ever had since, statements and allegations made by Mr. Rhodes and some other historical writers to the contrary notwithstanding. It is not claimed that they were perfect, but they were a decided improvement on those they succeeded and they were superior in every way to those which are representative of what Mr. Rhodes is pleased to term the restoration of home rule. They were the first and only governments in that section that were based upon the consent of the governed. If Mr. Rhodes honestly believed that what he wrote in condemnation and denunciation of those governments was based upon authenticated facts, then the most charitable view that can be taken in his case is that he, like thousands of others, is simply an innocent victim of a gross deception.