That body had evidently sought to gratify the wishes of President Grant, on the one hand, and to preserve some semblance of its power over appointments, on the other.

It was freely predicted at the time that so long as the Senate and the President were in political harmony nothing would be heard of the Tenure-of-office Act, but that when the political interests of the Executive should come in conflict with those of the Senate there would be a renewal of the trouble which had characterized the relations of President Johnson and the Senate, and which led to the original Tenure-of-office Act with its positive assertion of senatorial power over the whole question of appointment and removal.
William Pitt Fessenden took part in the first session of Congress under the Presidency of General Grant.

It was his last public service.

On the eighth day of the following September (1869) he died at his residence in Portland, Maine, in the sixty-third year of his age.
He was one of the many victims of that strange malady which, breaking out with virulence at the National Hotel in Washington on the eve of Mr.Buchanan's inauguration (1856-57), destroyed many lives.

Its deadly poison undermined the constitutions of some who apparently recovered health.