The opening of Preface
The history of the Thirty-Ninth Congress is a sequel to that of the Rebellion. This having been overthrown, it remained for Congress to administer upon its effects. It depended upon the decisions of Congress whether the expected results of our victories should be realized or lost.
Now that the work of the Thirty-Ninth Congress stands forth complete, people naturally desire to know something of the manner in which the rough material was shaped into order, and the workmanship by which the whole was "fitly joined together." It can not be said of this fabric of legislation that it went up without "the sound of the hammer." The rap of the gavel was often heard enforcing order or limiting the length of speeches.