[Illustration: Th Jefferson]
AMERICAN POLITICS
(NON-PARTISAN)
FROM THE BEGINNING TO DATE.
EMBODYING
A HISTORY OF ALL THE POLITICAL PARTIES,
WITH
THEIR VIEWS AND RECORDS ON ALL IMPORTANT QUESTIONS.
GREAT SPEECHES ON ALL GREAT ISSUES,
AND
TABULATED HISTORY AND CHRONOLOGICAL EVENTS.
BY HON. THOMAS V. COOPER,
Member Pennsylvania House of Representatives, 1870–72. Senate, 1874–84.
Chairman Republican State Committee of Pennsylvania,
1881–82–83–84–85–86–87.
AND
HECTOR T. FENTON, ESQ.,
Of the Philadelphia Bar.
FIFTEENTH AND REVISED EDITION.
PHILADELPHIA:
FIRESIDE PUBLISHING COMPANY.
1892.
Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1892, by the
FIRESIDE PUBLISHING COMPANY,
in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C.
ALTEMUS’ BOOK BINDERY,
PHILADELPHIA.
Respectfully Dedicated
TO THE
PROPOSITION
THAT ALL AMERICAN CITIZENS SHOULD TAKE AN INTEREST IN PUBLIC AFFAIRS.
PREFACE.
The writer of this volume, in the pursuit of his profession as an
editor, and throughout an active political life, has always felt the
need of a volume from which any important fact, theory or record could
be found at a moment’s glance, and without a search of many records. He
has also remarked the singular fact that no history of the political
parties of the country, as they have faced each other on all leading
issues, has ever been published. These things prompted an undertaking of
the work on his own part, and it is herewith presented in the hope that
it will meet the wants not only of those connected with politics, but of
all who take an interest in public affairs. In this work very material
aid has been rendered by the gentleman whose name is also associated
with its publication, and by many political friends, who have freely
responded during the past year to the calls made upon them for records,
which have been liberally employed in the writing and compilation of
this work.
THOS. V. COOPER.
[Illustration: _A Hamilton_]
TABLE OF CONTENTS
BOOK I.—HISTORY OF THE POLITICAL PARTIES.
PAGE.
COLONIAL PARTIES—WHIG AND TORY 3
PARTICULARISTS AND STRONG GOVERNMENT WHIGS 5
FEDERALS AND ANTI-FEDERALS 6
REPUBLICANS AND FEDERALS 8
DOWNFALL OF THE FEDERALS 12
DEMOCRATS AND FEDERALS 17
JEFFERSON DEMOCRATS 19
HARTFORD CONVENTION 20
TREATY OF GHENT 20
CONGRESSIONAL CAUCUS 21
PROTECTIVE TARIFF 21
MONROE DOCTRINE 23
MISSOURI COMPROMISE 24
TARIFF—AMERICAN SYSTEM 25
TENURE OF OFFICE—ELIGIBILITY 27
NULLIFICATION—DEMOCRATS AND FEDERALS 29
UNITED STATES BANK 31
JACKSON’S SPECIAL MESSAGE ON THE UNITED STATES BANK 33
CONCEPTION OF SLAVERY QUESTION 35
DEMOCRATS AND WHIGS 37
THE HOUR RULE 39
NATIONAL BANK BILL—FIRST 41
„ „ „ SECOND 43
OREGON TREATY OF 1846 47
TREATY OF PEACE WITH MEXICO 49
CLAY’S COMPROMISE RESOLUTIONS 51
ABOLITION PARTY—RISE AND PROGRESS OF 53
KANSAS-NEBRASKA BILL 55
RITUAL OF THE AMERICAN PARTY 57
KANSAS STRUGGLE 71
LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS DEBATE 73
CHARLESTON CONVENTION—DEMOCRATIC, 1860 81
DOUGLAS CONVENTION, 1860, BALTIMORE 86
BRECKINRIDGE CONVENTION, 1860, BALTIMORE 86
CHICAGO REPUBLICAN CONVENTION, 1860 86
AMERICAN CONVENTION, 1860 87
SECESSION—PREPARING FOR 87
SECESSION—VIRGINIA CONVENTION, 1861 91
„ INTER-STATE COMMISSIONERS 96
„ SOUTHERN CONGRESS, PROCEEDINGS OF 97
„ CONFEDERATE CONSTITUTION 97
„ CONFEDERATE STATES 98
BUCHANAN’S VIEWS 99
CRITTENDEN COMPROMISE 104
PEACE CONVENTION 106
ACTUAL SECESSION 109
„ „ TRANSFERRING ARMS TO THE SOUTH 109
FERNANDO WOOD’S SECESSION MESSAGE 112
CONGRESS ON THE EVE OF THE REBELLION 113
LINCOLN’S VIEWS 115
JUDGE BLACK’S VIEWS 115
ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS’ SPEECH ON SECESSION 116
LINCOLN’S FIRST ADMINISTRATION 120
CONFEDERATE MILITARY LEGISLATION 128
GUERRILLAS 129
TWENTY-NEGRO EXEMPTION LAW 130
DOUGLAS ON THE REBELLION 130
POLITICAL LEGISLATION INCIDENT TO THE WAR 130
THIRTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS 131
COMPENSATED EMANCIPATION 135
LINCOLN’S APPEAL TO THE BORDER STATES 137
REPLY OF THE BORDER STATES 138
BORDER STATE SLAVES 139
EMANCIPATION 141
„ PRELIMINARY PROCLAMATION OF 141
„ PROCLAMATION OF 143
LOYAL GOVERNORS, THE ADDRESS OF 144
FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW, REPEAL OF 145
FINANCIAL LEGISLATION 149
SEWARD AS SECRETARY OF STATE 149
INTERNAL TAXES 151
CONFEDERATE DEBT 152
CONFEDERATE TAXES 153
WEST VIRGINIA—ADMISSION OF 158
COLOR IN WAR POLITICS 159
THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT—PASSAGE OF 167
LOUISIANA—ADMISSION OF REPRESENTATIVES 168
RECONSTRUCTION 169
ARKANSAS—ADMISSION OF 170
RECONSTRUCTION MEASURES—TEXT OF 171
FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT 174
MCCLELLAN’S POLITICAL LETTERS 175
LINCOLN’S SECOND ADMINISTRATION 177
ANDREW JOHNSON AND HIS POLICY 178
„ „ —IMPEACHMENT TRIAL 179
GRANT 191
ENFORCEMENT ACTS 193
READMISSION OF REBELLIOUS STATES 193
LEGAL TENDER DECISION 194
GREENBACK PARTY 194
PROHIBITORY PARTY 196
SAN DOMINGO—ANNEXATION OF 196
ALABAMA CLAIMS 197
FORCE BILL 197
CIVIL SERVICE—ORDER OF PRESIDENT HAYES 198
AMNESTY 199
LIBERAL REPUBLICANS 199
REFORM IN THE CIVIL SERVICE 200
CREDIT MOBILIER 200
SALARY GRAB 214
RETURNING BOARDS 217
GRANGERS 218
„ —ILLINOIS RAILROAD ACT OF 1873 218
CIVIL RIGHTS BILL—SUPPLEMENTARY 221
MORTON AMENDMENT 222
WHISKY RING 222
BELKNAP IMPEACHED 223
WHITE LEAGUE 223
WHEELER COMPROMISE—TEXT OF 226
ELECTION OF HAYES AND WHEELER 228
ELECTORAL COUNT 229
TITLE OF PRESIDENT HAYES 233
CIPHER DESPATCHES 234
THE HAYES ADMINISTRATION 239
NEGRO EXODUS 240
CAMPAIGN OF 1880 242
THREE PER CENT. FUNDING BILL 244
HISTORY OF THE NATIONAL LOANS 245
GARFIELD AND ARTHUR—INAUGURATION OF 253
REPUBLICAN FACTIONS 253
THE CAUCUS 256
ASSASSINATION OF GARFIELD 260
ARTHUR, PRESIDENT 261
BOSS RULE 261
READJUSTERS 263
MORMONISM—SUPPRESSION OF 264
„ TEXT OF THE BILL 265
SOUTH AMERICAN QUESTION 269
STAR ROUTE SCANDAL 277
THE COMING STATES 278
CHINESE QUESTION 281
„ „ —SPEECH OF SENATOR MILLER ON 281
„ „ —REPLY OF SENATOR HOAR 285
MERCHANT MARINE 296
CURRENT POLITICS 298
POLITICAL CHANGES IN 1882, 1883, 1884 304–318
CLEVELAND’S ADMINISTRATION 321
CONTESTS OF 1885, 1886, 1887 321
THE CAMPAIGNS OF 1884, 1886, 1887, 1888 318–335
THE NATIONAL CONVENTIONS OF 1888 336
THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 1888 337
PRESIDENT HARRISON’S MESSAGE ON THE CHILEAN TROUBLES 339
THE NATIONAL CONVENTIONS OF 1892 347
BOOK II.—POLITICAL PLATFORMS.
VIRGINIA RESOLUTIONS, 1798 2003
VIRGINIA RESOLUTIONS, 1798—ANSWERS OF THE STATE LEGISLATURES 2006
RESOLUTIONS OF 1798 AND 1799 2010
WASHINGTON’S FAREWELL ADDRESS 2014
ALL NATIONAL PLATFORMS FROM 1800 TO 1892 2021–2079
COMPARISON OF PLATFORM PLANKS ON GREAT QUESTIONS 2079–2104
BOOK III.—GREAT SPEECHES ON GREAT ISSUES.
JAMES WILSON’S VINDICATION OF THE COLONIES 3003
PATRICK HENRY BEFORE VIRGINIA DELEGATES 3007
JOHN ADAMS ON THE DECLARATION 3008
PATRICK HENRY ON THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION 3010
JOHN RANDOLPH AGAINST TARIFF 3013
EDWARD EVERETT ON THE EXAMPLE OF THE NORTHERN TO THE SOUTHERN
REPUBLICS OF AMERICA 3018
DANIEL WEBSTER ON THE GREEK QUESTION 3019
JOHN RANDOLPH’S REPLY TO WEBSTER 3020
ROBERT Y. HAYNE AGAINST TARIFF 3021
HENRY CLAY ON HIS LAND BILL 3023
JOHN C. CALHOUN’S REPLY TO CLAY 3024
ROBT. Y. HAYNE ON SALES OF PUBLIC LAND—THE FOOTE RESOLUTION 3025
DANIEL WEBSTER’S GREAT REPLY TO HAYNE 3048
JOHN C. CALHOUN ON THE RIGHTS OF THE STATES 3080
HENRY CLAY ON THE AMERICAN PROTECTIVE SYSTEM 3086
JAMES BUCHANAN ON AN INDEPENDENT TREASURY 3095
LEWIS CASS ON THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE 3096
CLEMENT L. VALLANDIGHAM ON SLAVERY 3097
HORACE GREELEY ON PROTECTION 3099
HENRY A. WISE AGAINST KNOW-NOTHINGISM 3109
KENNETH RAYNOR ON THE FUSION OF FREMONT AND FILLMORE FORCES 3112
RELIGIOUS TEST—DEBATE ON THE ARTICLE IN THE CONSTITUTION IN
REGARD TO IT 3114
HENRY WINTER DAVIS ON THE AMERICAN PARTY 3115
JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS AGAINST THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW 3116
ROBERT TOOMBS IN FAVOR OF SLAVERY 3117
JUDAH P. BENJAMIN ON SLAVE PROPERTY 3119
WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON ON THE SLAVERY QUESTION 3120
THEODORE PARKER AGAINST THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW AND THE RETURN
OF SIMS 3121
WILLIAM H. SEWARD ON THE HIGHER LAW 3122
CHARLES SUMNER ON THE FALLIBILITY OF JUDICIAL TRIBUNALS 3123
GALUSHA A. GROW ON HIS HOMESTEAD BILL 3123
LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS DEBATE—
„ „ „ DOUGLAS’S SPEECH 3126
„ „ „ LINCOLN’S REPLY 3133
„ „ „ DOUGLAS’S REJOINDER 3143
JEFFERSON DAVIS ON RETIRING FROM THE UNITED STATES SENATE 3147
HENRY WILSON ON THE GREELEY CANVASS 3149
OLIVER P. MORTON ON THE NATIONAL IDEA 3151
J. PROCTOR KNOTT ON “DULUTH” 3154
HENRY CAREY ON THE RATES OF INTEREST 3159
SIMON CAMERON ON INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS 3163
JOHN A. LOGAN ON SELF-GOVERNMENT 3165
JAMES G. BLAINE ON THE “FALSE ISSUE” 3171
ROSCOE CONKLING ON THE EXTRA SESSION OF 1879 3176
LINCOLN’S SPEECH AT GETTYSBURG 3186
JOHN M. BROOMALL ON CIVIL RIGHTS 3186
CHARLES A. ELDRIDGE AGAINST CIVIL RIGHTS 3189
A. K. MCCLURE ON “WHAT OF THE REPUBLIC?” 3191
ROBT. G. INGERSOLL NOMINATING BLAINE 3201
ROSCOE CONKLING NOMINATING GRANT 3202
JAMES A. GARFIELD NOMINATING SHERMAN 3203
DANIEL DOUGHERTY NOMINATING HANCOCK 3205
GEORGE GRAY NOMINATING BAYARD 3205
WILLIAM P. FRYE NOMINATING BLAINE (AT CHICAGO) 3206
SENATOR HILL’S DENUNCIATION OF MAHONE 3207
SENATOR MAHONE’S REPLY 3217
JUSTIN S. MORRILL ON THE TARIFF COMMISSION 3223
J. DON CAMERON ON REDUCTION OF REVENUE AS AFFECTING THE
TARIFF 3233
THOMAS H. BENTON ON THE ELECTION OF PRESIDENTS 3237
JAMES G. BLAINE’S EULOGY ON PRESIDENT GARFIELD 3240
G. H. PENDLETON ON CIVIL SERVICE 3251
JOHN J. INGALLS AGAINST CIVIL SERVICE 3262
SAMUEL J. RANDALL ON THE TARIFF 3274
WILLIAM MCKINLEY, JR., ON THE TARIFF 3277
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW NOMINATING HARRISON 3283
LEON ABBETT NOMINATING CLEVELAND 3285
BOOK IV.—PARLIAMENTARY PRACTICE, Etc.
DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 4003
ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION 4006
JEFFERSON’S MANUAL 4022
BOOK V.—TABULATED HISTORY AND CHRONOLOGICAL POLITICS.
STATISTICS OF GENERAL INFORMATION 5003–5024
CHRONOLOGICAL POLITICS 5025
------------------------------------------------------------------------
AMERICAN POLITICS.
BOOK I.
HISTORY OF THE POLITICAL PARTIES
OF THE
UNITED STATES.
Colonial Parties—Whig and Tory.
The parties peculiar to our Colonial times hardly have a place in
American politics. They divided people in sentiment simply, as they did
in the mother country, but here there was little or no power to act, and
were to gather results from party victories. Men were then Whigs or
Tories because they had been prior to their emigration here, or because
their parents had been, or because it has ever been natural to show
division in individual sentiment. Political contests, however, were
unknown, for none enjoyed the pleasures and profits of power; the crown
made and unmade rulers. The local self-government which our forefathers
enjoyed, were secured to them by their charters, and these were held to
be contracts not to be changed without the consent of both parties. All
of the inhabitants of the colonies claimed and were justly entitled to
the rights guaranteed by the Magna Charta, and in addition to these they
insisted upon the supervision of all internal interests and the power to
levy and collect taxes. These claims were conceded until their growing
prosperity and England’s need of additional revenues suggested schemes
of indirect taxation. Against these the colony of Plymouth protested as
early as 1636, and spasmodic protests from all the colonies followed.
These increased in frequency and force with the growing demands of King
George III. In 1651 the navigation laws imposed upon the colonies
required both exports and imports to be carried in British ships, and
all who traded were compelled to do it with England. In 1672
inter-colonial duties were imposed, and when manufacturing sought to
flank this policy, their establishment was forbidden by law.
The passage of the Stamp Act in 1765 caused high excitement, and for the
first time parties began to take definite shape and manifest open
antagonisms, and the words Whig and Tory then had a plainer meaning in
America than in England. The Stamp Act was denounced by the Whigs as
direct taxation, since it provided, that stamps previously paid for
should be affixed to all legal papers. The colonies resented, and so
general were the protests that for a time it seemed that only those who
owed their livings to the Crown, or expected aid and comfort from it,
remained with the Tories. The Whigs were the patriots. The war for the
rights of the colonies began in 1775, and it was supported by majorities
in all of the Colonial Assemblies. These majorities were as carefully
organized then as now to promote a popular cause, and this in the face
of adverse action on the part of the several Colonial Governors. Thus in
Virginia, Lord Dunmore had from time to time, until 1773, prorogued the
Virginia Assembly, when it seized the opportunity to pass resolves
instituting a committee of correspondence, and recommending joint action
by the legislatures of the other colonies. In the next year, the same
body, under the lead of Henry, Randolph, Lee, Washington, Wythe and
other patriots, officially deprecated the closing of the port of Boston,
and set apart a day to implore Divine interposition in behalf of the
colonies. The Governor dissolved the House for this act, and the
delegates, 89 in number, repaired to a tavern, organized themselves into
a committee, signed articles of association, and advised with other
colonial committees the expediency of “appointing deputies to meet in a
general correspondence”—really a suggestion for a Congress. The idea of
a Congress, however, originated with Doctor Franklin the year before,
and it had then been approved by town meetings in Providence, Boston and
New York. The action of Virginia lifted the proposal above individual
advice and the action of town meetings, and called to it the attention
of all the colonial legislatures. It was indeed fortunate in the
incipiency of these political movements, that the people were
practically unanimous. Only the far-seeing realized the drift and
danger, while nearly all could join their voices against oppressive
taxes and imposts.
The war went on for colonial rights, the Whigs wisely insisting that
they were willing to remain as colonists if their rights should be
guaranteed by the mother country; the Tories, chiefly fed by the Crown,
were willing to remain without guarantee—a negative position, and one
which in the high excitement of the times excited little attention, save
where the holders of such views made themselves odious by the enjoyment
of high official position, or by harsh criticism upon, or treatment of
the patriots.
The first Continental Congress assembled in Philadelphia in September,
1774, and there laid the foundations of the Republic. While its
assemblage was first recommended by home meetings, the cause, as already
shown, was taken up by the assemblies of Massachusetts and Virginia.
Georgia alone was not represented. The members were called delegates,
who declared in their official papers that they were “appointed by the
good people of these colonies.” It was called the “revolutionary
government,” because it derived its power from the people, and not from
the functionaries of any existing government. In it each colony was
allowed but a single vote, regardless of the number of delegates, and
here began not only the unit rule, but the practice which obtains in the
election of a President when the contest reaches, under the constitution
and law, the National House of Representatives. The original object was
to give equality to the colonies as colonies.
In 1776, the second Continental Congress assembled at Philadelphia, all
the colonies being again represented save Georgia. The delegates were
chosen principally by conventions of the people, though some were sent
by the popular branches of the colonial legislatures. In July, and soon
after the commencement of hostilities, Georgia entered the Confederacy.
The Declaration of Independence, passed in 1776, drew yet plainer lines
between the Whigs and Tories. A gulf of hatred separated the opposing
parties, and the Tory was far more despised than the open foe, when he
was not such, and was the first sought when he was. Men who contend for
liberty ever regard those who are not for them as against them—a feeling
which led to the expression of a political maxim of apparent undying
force, for it has since found frequent repetition in every earnest
campaign. After the adoption of the Declaration by the Continental
Congress, the Whigs favored the most direct and absolute separation,
while the Tories supported the Crown. On the 7th of June, 1776, Richard
Henry Lee, of Virginia, moved the Declaration in these words:
“_Resolved_, That these united colonies are, and of right ought to be,
free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance
to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and
the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.”
Then followed preparations for the formal declaration, which was adopted
on the 4th of July, 1776, in the precise language submitted by Thomas
Jefferson. All of the state papers of the Continental Congress evince
the highest talent, and the evils which led to its exhibition must have
been long but very impatiently endured to impel the study of the
questions involved. Possibly only the best lives in our memory invite
our perusal, but certain it is that higher capacity was never called to
the performance of graver political duties in the history of the world.
It has been said that the Declaration is in imitation of that published
by the United Netherlands, but whether this be true or false, the
liberty-loving world has for more than a century accepted it as the best
protest against oppression known to political history. A great occasion
conspired with a great author to make it grandly great.
Dr. Franklin, as early as July, 1775, first prepared a sketch of
articles of confederation between the colonies, to continue until their
reconciliation with Great Britain, and in failure thereof to be
perpetual. John Quincy Adams says this plan was never discussed in
Congress. June 11, 1776, a committee was appointed to prepare the force
of a colonial confederation, and the day following one member from each
colony was appointed to perform the duty. The report was submitted, laid
aside August 20, 1776, taken up April 7, 1777, and debated from time to
time until November 15th, of the same year, when the report was agreed
to. It was then submitted to the legislatures of the several states,
these being advised to authorize their delegates in Congress to ratify
the same. On the 26th of June, 1778, the ratification was ordered to be
engrossed and signed by the delegates. Those of New Hampshire,
Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania,
Virginia and South Carolina signed July 9th, 1778; those of North
Carolina July 21st; Georgia July 24th; Jersey November 26th, same year;
Delaware February 22d and May 5th, 1779. Maryland refused to ratify
until the question of the conflicting claims of the Union and of the
separate States to the property of the crown-lands should be adjusted.
This was accomplished by the cession of the lands in dispute to the
United States, and Maryland signed March 1st, 1781. On the 2d of March,
Congress assembled under the new powers, and continued to act for the
Confederacy until the 4th of March, 1789, the date of the organization
of the government under the Federal constitution. Our political life has
therefore three periods, “the revolutionary government,” “the
confederation,” and that of the “federal constitution,” which still
obtains.
The federal constitution is the result of the labors of a convention
called at Philadelphia in May, 1787, at a time when it was feared by
many that the Union was in the greatest danger, from inability to pay
soldiers who had, in 1783, been disbanded on a declaration of peace and
an acknowledgment of independence; from prostration of the public credit
and faith of the nation; from the neglect to provide for the payment of
even the interest on the public debt; and from the disappointed hopes of
many who thought freedom did not need to face responsibilities. A large
portion of the convention of 1787 still clung to the confederacy of the
states, and advocated as a substitute for the constitution a revival of
the old articles of confederation with additional powers to Congress. A
long discussion followed, and a most able one, but a constitution for
the people, embodying a division of legislative, judicial and executive
powers prevailed, and the result is now daily witnessed in the federal
constitution. While the revolutionary war lasted but seven years, the
political revolution incident to, identified with and directing it,
lasted thirteen years. This was completed on the 30th of April, 1789,
the day on which Washington was inaugurated as the first President under
the federal constitution.
The Particularists.
As questions of government were evolved by the struggles for
independence, the Whigs, who of course greatly outnumbered all others
during the Revolution, naturally divided in sentiment, though their
divisions were not sufficiently serious to excite the establishment of
rival parties—something which the great majority of our forefathers were
too wise to think of in time of war. When the war closed, however, and
the question of establishing the Union was brought clear to the view of
all, one class of the Whigs believed that state government should be
supreme, and that no central power should have sufficient authority to
coerce a state, or keep it to the compact against its will. All accepted
the idea of a central government; all realized the necessity of union,
but the fear that the states would lose their power, or surrender their
independence was very great, and this fear was more naturally shown by
both the larger and the smaller states. This class of thinkers were then
called Particularists. Their views were opposed by the
Strong Government Whigs
who argued that local self-government was inadequate to the
establishment and perpetuation of political freedom, and that it
afforded little or no power to successfully resist foreign invasion.
Some of these went so far as to favor a government patterned after that
of England, save that it should be republican in name and spirit. The
essential differences, if they can be reduced to two sentences, were
these: The Particularist Whigs desired a government republican in form
and democratic in spirit, with rights of local self-government and state
rights ever uppermost. The Strong Government Whigs desired a government
republican in form, with checks upon the impulses or passions of the
people; liberty, sternly regulated by law, and that law strengthened and
confirmed by central authority—the authority of the national government
to be final in appeals.
As we have stated, the weakness of the confederation was acknowledged by
many men, and the majority, as it proved to be after much agitation and
discussion thought it too imperfect to amend. The power of the
confederacy was not acknowledged by the states, its congress not
respected by the people. Its requisitions were disregarded, foreign
trade could not be successfully regulated; foreign nations refused to
bind themselves by commercial treaties, and there was a rapid growth of
very dangerous business rivalries and jealousies between the several
states. Those which were fortunate enough, independent of congress, to
possess or secure ports for domestic or foreign commerce, taxed the
imports of their sister states. There was confusion which must soon have
approached violence, for no authority beyond the limits of the state was
respected, and Congress was notably powerless in its attempts to command
aid from the states to meet the payment of the war debt, or the interest
thereon. Instead of general respect for, there was almost general
disregard of law on the part of legislative bodies, and the people were
not slow in imitating their representatives. Civil strife became
imminent, and Shay’s Rebellion in Massachusetts was the first warlike
manifestation of the spirit which was abroad in the land.
Alive to the new dangers, the Assembly of Virginia in 1786, appointed
commissioners to invite all the states to take part in a convention for
the consideration of questions of commerce, and the propriety of
altering the Articles of Confederation. This convention met at
Annapolis, Sept. 11th, 1786. But five states sent representatives, the
others regarding the movement with jealousy. This convention, however,
adapted a report which urged the appointment of commissioners by all the
states, “to devise such other provisions as shall, to them seem
necessary to render the condition of the Federal government adequate to
the exigencies of the Union; and to report such an act for that purpose
to the United States in Congress assembled, as, when agreed to by them
and afterwards confirmed by the legislatures of every state, will
effectually provide for the same.” Congress approved this action, and
passed resolutions favoring a meeting in convention for the “sole and
express purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation, and report to
Congress and the State legislatures.” The convention met in Philadelphia
in May, 1787, and continued its sessions until September 17th, of the
same year. The Strong Government Whigs had previously made every
possible effort for a full and able representation, and the result did
not disappoint them, for instead of simply revising the Articles of
Confederation, the convention framed a constitution, and sent it to
Congress to be submitted to that body and through it to the several
legislatures. The act submitting it provided that, if it should be
ratified by nine of the thirteen states, it should be binding upon those
ratifying the same. Just here was started the custom which has since
passed into law, that amendments to the national constitution shall be
submitted after approval by Congress, to the legislatures of the several
states, and after approval by three-fourths thereof, it shall be binding
_upon all_—a very proper exercise of constitutional authority, as it
seems now, but which would not have won popular approval when Virginia
proposed the Annapolis convention in 1786. Indeed, the reader of our
political history must ever be impressed with the fact that changes and
reforms ever moved slowly, and that those of slowest growth seem to
abide the longest.
The Federal and Anti-Federal Parties.
The Strong Government Whigs, on the submission of the constitution of
1787 to Congress and the legislatures, and indirectly through the latter
to the people, who elect the members on this issue, became the Federal
party, and all of its power was used to promote the ratification of the
instrument. Its ablest men, headed by Alexander Hamilton and James
Madison, advocated adoption before the people, and their pens supplied
much of the current political literature of that day. Eighty-five
essays, still noted and quoted for their ability, under the _nom de
plume_ of “Publius,” were published in “The Federalist.” They were
written by Hamilton, Madison and Jay, and with irresistible force
advocated the Federal constitution, which was ratified by the nine
needed states, and Congress was officially informed of the fact July 2d,
1788, and the first Wednesday in March, 1789, was fixed as the time “for
commencing proceedings under the constitution.”
This struggle for the first time gave the Federalists an admitted
majority. The complexion of the State legislature prior to it showed
them in fact to be in a minority, and the Particularist Whigs, or
Anti-Federals opposed every preliminary step looking to the abandonment
of the Articles of Confederation and the adoption of a Federal
constitution. They were called Anti-Federals because they opposed a
federal government and constitution and adhered to the rights of the
States and those of local self-government. Doubtless party rancor, then
as now, led men to oppose a system of government which it seems they
must have approved after fighting for it, but the earlier jealousies of
the States and the prevailing ideas of liberty certainly gave the
Anti-Federals a popularity which only a test so sensible as that
proposed could have shaken. They were not without popular orators and
leaders. Patrick Henry, the earliest of the patriots, and
“the-old-man-eloquent,” Samuel Adams, took special pride in espousing
their cause. The war questions between Whig and Tory must have passed
quickly away, as living issues, though the newspapers and
contemporaneous history show that the old taunts and battle cries were
applied to the new situation with a plainness and virulence that must
still be envied by the sensational and more bitterly partisan journals
of our own day. To read these now, and some of our facts are gathered
from such sources, is to account for the frequent use of the saying
touching “the ingratitude of republics,” for when partisan hatred could
deride the still recent utterances of Henry before the startled assembly
of Virginians, and of Adams in advocating the adoption of the
Declaration, there must at least to every surface view have been rank
ingratitude. Their good names, however, survived the struggle, as good
names in our republic have ever survived the passions of the law. In
politics the Americans then as now, hated with promptness and forgave
with generosity.
The Anti-Federals denied nearly all that the Federals asserted. The
latter had for the first time assumed the aggressive, and had the
advantage of position. They showed the deplorable condition of the
country, and their opponents had to bear the burdens of denial at a time
when nearly all public and private obligations were dishonored; when
labor was poorly paid, workmen getting but twenty-five cents a day, with
little to do at that; when even the rich in lands were poor in purse,
and when commerce on the seas was checked by the coldness of foreign
nations and restricted by the action of the States themselves; when
manufactures were without protection of any kind, and when the people
thought their struggle for freedom was about to end in national poverty.
Still Henry, and Adams and Hancock, with hosts of others, claimed that
the aspirations of the Anti-Federals were the freest, that they pointed
to personal liberty and local sovereignty. Yet many Anti-Federals must
have accepted the views of the Federals, who under the circumstances
must have presented the better reason, and the result was as stated, the
ratification of the Federal constitution of 1787 by three-fourths of the
States of the Union. After this the Anti-Federalists were given a new
name, that of “Close Constructionists,” because they naturally desired
to interpret the new instrument in such a way as to bend it to their
views. The Federalists became “Broad Constructionists,” because they
interpreted the constitution in a way calculated to broaden the power of
the national government.
The Confederacy once dissolved, the Federal party entered upon the
enjoyment of full political power, but it was not without its
responsibilities. The government had to be organized upon the basis of
the new constitution, as upon the success of that organization would
depend not alone the stability of the government and the happiness of
its people, but the reputation of the party and the fame of its leaders
as statesmen.
Fortunately for all, party hostilities were not manifested in the
Presidential election. All bowed to the popularity of Washington, and he
was unanimously nominated by the congressional caucus and appointed by
the electoral college. He selected his cabinet from the leading minds of
both parties, and while himself a recognized Federalist, all felt that
he was acting for the good of all, and in the earlier years of his
administration, none disputed this fact.
As the new measures of the government advanced, however, the
anti-federalists organized an opposition to the party in power.
Immediate danger had passed. The constitution worked well. The laws of
Congress were respected; its calls for revenue honored, and Washington
devoted much of his first and second messages to showing the growing
prosperity of the country, and the respect which it was beginning to
excite abroad. But where there is political power, there is opposition
in a free land, and the great leaders of that day neither forfeited
their reputations as patriots, or their characters as statesmen by the
assertion of honest differences of opinion. Washington, Adams, and
Hamilton were the recognized leaders of the Federalists, the firm
friends of the constitution. The success of this instrument modified the
views of the anti-Federalists, and Madison of Virginia, its recognized
friend when it was in preparation, joined with others who had been its
friends—notably,[1] Doctor Williamson, of North Carolina, and Mr.
Langdon, of Georgia, in opposing the administration, and soon became
recognized leaders of the anti-Federalists. Langdon was the President
_pro tem._ of the Senate. Jefferson was then on a mission to France, and
not until some years thereafter did he array himself with those opposed
to centralized power in the nation. He returned in November, 1789, and
was called to Washington’s cabinet as Secretary of State in March, 1790.
It was a great cabinet, with Jefferson as its premier (if this term is
suited to a time when English political nomenclature was anything but
popular in the land;) Hamilton, Secretary of the Treasury; Knox,
Secretary of War, and Edmund Randolph, Attorney-General. There was no
Secretary of the Navy until the administration of the elder Adams, and
no Secretary of the Interior.
The first session of Congress under the Federal constitution, held in
New York, sat for nearly six months, the adjournment taking place
September 29th, 1789. Nearly all the laws framed pointed to the
organization of the government, and the discussions were able and
protracted. Indeed, these discussions developed opposing views, which
could easily find separation on much the same old lines as those which
separated the founders of constitutional government from those who
favored the old confederate methods. The Federalists, on pivotal
questions, at this session, carried their measures only by small
majorities.
Much of the second session was devoted to the discussion of the able
reports of Hamilton, and their final adoption did much to build up the
credit of the nation and to promote its industries. He was the author of
the protective system, and at the first session gave definite shape to
his theories. He recommended the funding of the war debt, the assumption
of the state war debts by the national government, the providing of a
system of revenue from the collection of duties on imports, and an
internal excise. His advocacy of a protective tariff was plain, for he
declared it to be necessary for the support of the government and _the
encouragement of manufactures_ that duties be laid on goods, wares, and
merchandise imported.
The third session of the same Congress was held at Philadelphia, though
the seat of the national government had, at the previous one, been fixed
on the Potomac instead of the Susquehanna—this after a compromise with
Southern members, who refused to vote for the Assumption Bill until the
location of the capital in the District of Columbia had been agreed
upon; by the way, this was the first exhibition of log-rolling in
Congress. To complete Hamilton’s financial system, a national bank was
incorporated. On this project both the members of Congress and of the
cabinet were divided, but it passed, and was promptly approved by
Washington. By this time it was well known that Jefferson and Hamilton
held opposing views on many questions of government, and these found
their way into and influenced the action of Congress, and passed
naturally from thence to the people, who were thus early believed to be
almost equally divided on the more essential political issues. Before
the close of the session, Vermont and Kentucky were admitted to the
Union. Vermont was the first state admitted in addition to the original
thirteen. True, North Carolina and Rhode Island had rejected the
constitution, but they reconsidered their action and came in—the former
in November, 1789, and the latter in May, 1790.
The election for members of the Second Congress resulted in a majority
in both branches favorable to the administration. It met at Philadelphia
in October, 1791. The exciting measure of the session was the excise
act, somewhat similar to that of the previous year, but the opposition
wanted an issue on which to rally, they accepted this, and this
agitation led to violent and in one instance warlike opposition on the
part of a portion of the people. Those of western Pennsylvania, largely
interested in distilleries, prepared for armed resistance to the excise,
but at the same session a national militia law had been passed, and
Washington took advantage of this to suppress the “Whisky Rebellion” in
its incipiency. It was a hasty, rash undertaking, yet was dealt with so
firmly that the action of the authorities strengthened the law, and the
respect for order. The four counties which rebelled did no further
damage than to tar and feather a government tax collector and rob him of
his horse, though many threats were made and the agitation continued
until 1794, when Washington’s threatened appearance at the head of
fifteen thousand militia settled the whole question.
The first session of the Second Congress also passed the first methodic
apportionment bill, which based the congressional representation on the
census taken in 1790, the basis being 33,000 inhabitants for each
representative. The second session which sat from November, 1792, to
March, 1793, was mainly occupied in a discussion of the foreign and
domestic relations of the country. No important measures were adopted.
The Republican and Federal Parties.
The most serious objection to the constitution before its ratification
was the absence of a distinct bill of rights, which should recognize
“the equality of all men, and their rights to life, liberty and the
pursuit of happiness,” and at the first session of Congress a bill was
framed containing twelve articles, ten of which were afterwards ratified
as amendments to the constitution. Yet state sovereignty, then
imperfectly defined, was the prevailing idea in the minds of the
Anti-Federalists, and they took every opportunity to oppose any extended
delegation of authority from the states of the Union. They contended
that the power of the state should be supreme, and charged the
Federalists with monarchical tendencies. They opposed Hamilton’s
national bank scheme, and Jefferson and Randolph plainly expressed the
opinion that it was unconstitutional—that a bank was not authorized by
the constitution, and that it would prevent the states from maintaining
banks. But when the Bill of Rights had been incorporated in and attached
to the constitution as amendments, Jefferson with rare political
sagacity withdrew all opposition to the instrument itself, and the
Anti-Federalists gladly followed his lead, for they felt that they had
labored under many partisan disadvantages. The constitution was from the
first too strong for successful resistance, and when opposition was
confessedly abandoned the party name was changed, also at the suggestion
of Jefferson, to that of Republican. The Anti-Federalists were at first
disposed to call their party the Democratic-Republicans, but finally
called, it simply Republican, to avoid the opposite of the extreme which
they charged against the Federalists. Each party had its taunts in use,
the Federalists being denounced as monarchists, the Anti-Federalists as
Democrats; the one presumed to be looking forward to monarchy, the other
to the rule of the mob.
By 1793 partisan lines under the names of Federalists and Republicans,
were plainly drawn, and the schism in the cabinet was more marked than
ever. Personal ambition may have had much to do with it, for Washington
had previously shown his desire to retire to private life. While he
remained at the head of affairs he was unwilling to part with Jefferson
and Hamilton, and did all in his power to bring about a reconciliation,
but without success. Before the close of the first constitutional
Presidency, however, Washington had become convinced that the people
desired him to accept a re-election, and he was accordingly a candidate
and unanimously chosen. John Adams was re-elected Vice-President,
receiving 77 votes to 50 for Geo. Clinton, (5 scattering) the Republican
candidate. Soon after the inauguration Citizen Genet, an envoy from the
French republic, arrived and sought to excite the sympathy of the United
States and involve it in a war with Great Britain. Jefferson and his
Republican party warmly sympathized with France, and insisted that
gratitude for revolutionary favors commanded aid to France in her
struggles. The Federalists, under Washington and Hamilton, favored
non-intervention, and insisted that we should maintain friendly
relations with Great Britain. Washington showed his usual firmness, and
before the expiration of the month in which Genet arrived, had issued
his celebrated proclamation of neutrality. This has ever since been the
accepted foreign policy of the nation.
Genet, chagrined at the issuance of this proclamation, threatened to
appeal to the people, and made himself so obnoxious to Washington that
the latter demanded his recall. The French government sent M. Fauchet as
his successor, but Genet continued to reside in the United States, and
under his inspiration a number of Democratic Societies, in imitation of
the French Jacobin clubs, were founded, but like all such organizations
in this country, they were short-lived. Secret political societies
thrive only under despotisms. In Republics like ours they can only live
when the great parties are in confusion and greatly divided. They
disappear with the union of sentiment into two great parties. If there
were many parties and factions, as in Mexico and some of the South
American republics, there would be even a wider field for them here than
there.
The French agitation showed its impress upon the nation as late as 1794,
when a resolution to cut off intercourse with Great Britain passed the
House, and was defeated in the Senate only by the casting vote of the
Vice-President. Many people favored France, and to such silly heights
did the excitement run that these insisted on wearing a national
cockade. Jefferson had left the cabinet the December previous, and had
retired to his plantation in Virginia, where he spent his leisure in
writing political essays and organizing the Republican party, of which
he was the acknowledged founder. Here he escaped the errors of his party
in Congress, but it was a potent fact that his friends in official
station not only did not endorse the non-intervention policy of
Washington, but that they actively antagonized it in many ways. The
Congressional leader in these movements was Mr. Madison. The policy of
Britain fed this opposition. The forts on Lake Erie were still occupied
by the British soldiery in defiance of the treaty of 1783; American
vessels were seized on their way to French ports, and American citizens
were impressed. To avoid a war, Washington sent John Jay as special
envoy to England. He arrived in June, 1794, and by November succeeded in
making a treaty. It was ratified in June, 1795, by the Senate by the
constitutional majority of two-thirds, though there was much declamatory
opposition, and the feeling between the Federal and Republican parties
ran higher than ever before. The Republicans denounced while the
Federals congratulated Washington. Under this treaty the British
surrendered possession of all American ports, and as Gen’l Wayne during
the previous summer had conquered the war-tribes and completed a treaty
with them, the country was again on the road to prosperity.
In Washington’s message of 1794, he plainly censured all “self-created
political societies,” meaning the democratic societies formed by Genet,
but this part of the message the House refused to endorse, the speaker
giving the casting vote in the negative. The Senate was in harmony with
the political views of the President. Party spirit had by this time
measurably affected all classes of the people, and as subjects for
agitation here multiplied, the opposition no longer regarded Washington
with that respect and decorum which it had been the rule to manifest.
His wisdom as President, his patriotism, and indeed his character as a
man, were all hotly questioned by political enemies. He was even charged
with corruption in expending more of the public moneys than had been
appropriated—charges which were soon shown to be groundless.
At the first session of Congress in December, 1795, the Senate’s
administration majority had increased, but in the House the opposing
Republicans had also increased their numbers. The Senate by 14 to 8
endorsed the message; the House at first refused but finally qualified
its answers.
In March, 1796, a new political issue was sprung in the House by Mr.
Livingstone of New York, who offered a resolution requesting of the
President a copy of the instructions to Mr. Jay, the envoy who made the
treaty with Great Britain. After a debate of several days, more bitter
than any which had preceded it, the House passed the resolution by 57 to
35, the Republicans voting aye, the Federals no. Washington in answer,
took the position that the House of Representatives was not part of the
treaty-making power of the government, and could not therefore be
entitled to any papers relating to such treaties. The constitution had
placed this treaty-making and ratifying power in the hands of the
Senate, the Cabinet and the President.
This answer, now universally accepted as the proper one, yet excited the
House and increased political animosities. The Republicans charged the
Federals with being the “British party,” and in some instances hinted
that they had been purchased with British gold. Indignation meetings
were called, but after much sound and fury, it was ascertained that the
people really favored abiding by the treaty in good faith, and finally
the House, after more calm and able debates, passed the needed
legislation to carry out the treaty by a vote of 51 to 48.
In August, 1796, prior to the meeting of the Congressional caucus which
then placed candidates for the Presidency in nomination, Washington
issued his celebrated Farewell Address, in which he gave notice that he
would retire from public life at the expiration of his term. He had been
solicited to be a candidate for re-election (a third term) and told that
all the people could unite upon him—a statement which, without abating
one jot, our admiration for the man, would doubtless have been called in
question by the Republicans, who had become implacably hostile to his
political views, and who were encouraged to believe they could win
control of the Presidency, by their rapidly increasing power in the
House. Yet the address was everywhere received with marks of admiration.
Legislatures commended it by resolution and ordered it to be engrossed
upon their records; journals praised it, and upon the strength of its
plain doctrines the Federalists took new courage, and prepared to win in
the Presidential battle which followed. Both parties were plainly
arrayed and confident, and so close was the result that the leaders of
both were elected—John Adams, the nominee of the Federalists, to the
Presidency, and Thomas Jefferson, the nominee of the Republicans, to the
Vice-Presidency. The law which then obtained was that the candidate who
received the highest number of electoral votes, took the first place,
the next highest, the second. Thomas Pinckney of South Carolina was the
Federal nominee for Vice-President, and Aaron Burr of the Republicans.
Adams received 71 electoral votes, Jefferson 68, Pinckney 59, Burr 30,
scattering 48. Pinckney had lost 12 votes, while Burr lost 38—a loss of
popularity which the latter regained four years later. The first
impressions which our forefathers had of this man were the best.
John Adams was inaugurated as President in Philadelphia, at Congress
Hall, March 4th, 1797, and in his inaugural was careful to deny the
charge that the Federal party had any sympathy for England, but
reaffirmed his endorsement of the policy of Washington as to strict
neutrality. To this extent he sought to soften the asperities of the
parties, and measurably succeeded, though the times were still stormy.
The French revolution had reached its highest point, and our people
still took sides. Adams found he would have to arm to preserve
neutrality and at the same time punish the aggression of either of the
combatants. This was our first exhibition of “armed neutrality.” An
American navy was quickly raised, and every preparation made for
defending the rights of Americans. An alliance with France was refused,
after which the American Minister was dismissed and the French navy
began to cripple our trade. In May, 1797, President Adams felt it his
duty to call an extra session of Congress, which closed in July. The
Senate approved of negotiations for reconciliation with France. They
were attempted but, proved fruitless; in May, 1798, a full naval
armament was authorized, and soon several French vessels were captured
before there was any declaration of war. Indeed, neither power declared
war, and as soon as France discovered how earnest the Americans were she
made overtures for an adjustment of difficulties, and these resulted in
the treaty of 1800.
The Republicans, though warmly favoring a contest, did not heartily
support that inaugurated by Adams, and contended after this that the
militia and a small naval force were sufficient for internal defense.
They denounced the position of the Federals, who favored the enlargement
of the army and navy, as measures calculated to overawe public sentiment
in time of peace. The Federals, however, through their prompt resentment
of the aggressions of France, had many adherents to their party. They
organized their power and sought to perpetuate it by the passage of the
alien and sedition, and a naturalization law.
The alien and sedition law gave the President authority “to order all
such aliens as he shall judge dangerous to the peace and safety of the
United States, or shall have reasonable grounds to suspect are concerned
in any treasonable or secret machinations against the government
thereof, to depart out of the territory of the United States, within
such time as shall be expressed in such order.” The provisions which
followed were in keeping with that quoted, the 3d section commanding
every master of a ship entering a port of the United States, immediately
on his arrival, to make report in writing to the collector of customs,
the names of all aliens on board, etc. The act was to continue in force
for two years from the date of its passage, and it was approved June
25th, 1798.
A resolution was introduced in the Senate on the 25th of April, 1798, by
Mr. Hillhouse of Connecticut, to inquire what provision of law ought to
be made, &c., as to the removal of such aliens as may be dangerous to
the peace of the country, &c. This resolution was adopted the next day,
and Messrs. Hillhouse, Livermore and Read were appointed the committee,
and subsequently reported the bill. It passed the Senate by 16 to 7, and
the House by 46 to 40, the Republicans in the latter body resisting it
warmly. The leading opposing idea was that it lodged with the Executive
too much power, and was liable to great abuse. It has frequently since,
in arguments against centralized power, been used for illustration by
political speakers.
The Naturalization law, favored by the Federalists, because they knew
they could acquire few friends either from newly arrived English or
French aliens, among other requirements provided that an alien must
reside in the United States _fourteen years_ before he could vote. The
Republicans denounced this law as calculated to check immigration, and
dangerous to our country in the fact that it caused too many inhabitants
to owe no allegiance. They also asserted, as did those who opposed
Americanism later on in our history, that America was properly an asylum
for all nations, and that those coming to America should freely share
all the privileges and liberties of the government.
These laws and the political resentments which they created gave a new
and what eventually proved a dangerous current to political thought and
action. They were the immediate cause of the Kentucky and Virginia
resolutions of 1798, Jefferson being the author of the former and
Madison of the latter.
These resolutions were full of political significance, and gave tone to
sectional discussion up to the close of the war for the Union. They
first promulgated the doctrine of nullification or secession, and
political writers mistake who point to Calhoun as the father of that
doctrine. It began with the old Republicans under the leadership of
Jefferson and Madison, and though directly intended as protests against
the alien and sedition, and the naturalization laws of Congress, they
kept one eye upon the question of slavery—rather that interest was kept
in view in their declarations, and yet the authors of both were anything
but warm advocates of slavery. They were then striving, however, to
reinforce the opposition to the Federal party, which the administration
of Adams had thus far apparently weakened, and they had in view the
brief agitation which had sprung up in 1793, five years before, on the
petition to Congress of a Pennsylvania society “to use its powers to
stop the traffic in slaves.” On the question of referring this petition
to a committee there arose a sectional debate. Men took sides not
because of the party to which they belonged, but the section, and for
the first time the North and South were arrayed against each other on a
question not then treated either as partisan or political, but which
most minds then saw must soon become both partisan and sectional. Some
of the Southern debaters, in their protests against interference, thus
early threatened civil war. With a view to better protect their rights
to slave property, they then advocated and succeeded in passing the
first fugitive slave law. This was approved February 12, 1793.
The resolutions of 1798 will be found in the book devoted to political
platforms. So highly were these esteemed by the Republicans of that day,
and by the interests whose support they so shrewdly invited, that they
more than counterbalanced the popularity acquired by the Federals in
their resistance to France, and by 1800 they caused a rupture in the
Cabinet of Adams.
In the Presidential election of 1800 John Adams was the nominee for
President and C. C. Pinckney for Vice-President. A “Congressional
Convention” of Republicans, held in Philadelphia, nominated Thomas
Jefferson and Aaron Burr as candidates for these offices. On the
election which followed the Republicans chose 73 electors and the
Federalists 65. Each elector voted for two persons, and the Republicans
so voted that they unwisely gave Jefferson and Burr each 73 votes.
Neither being highest, it was not legally determined which should be
President or Vice-President, and the election had to go to the House.
The Federalists threw 65 votes to Adams and 64 to Pinckney. The
Republicans could have done the same, but Burr’s intrigue and ambition
prevented this, and the result was a protracted contest in the House,
and one which put the country in great peril, but which plainly pointed
out some of the imperfections of the electoral features of the
Constitution. The Federalists proposed to confess the inability of the
House to agree through the vote by States, but to this proposition the
Republicans threatened armed resistance. The Federalists next attempted
a combination with the friends of Aaron Burr, but this specimen of
bargaining to deprive a nominee of the place to which it was the plain
intention of his party to elect him, really contributed to Jefferson’s
popularity, if not in that Congress, certainly before the people. He was
elected on the 36th ballot.
The bitterness of this strife, and the dangers which similar ones
threatened, led to an abandonment of the system of each Elector voting
for two, the highest to be President, the next highest Vice-President,
and an amendment was offered to the Constitution, and fully ratified by
September 25, 1804, requiring the electors to ballot separately for
President and Vice-President.
Jefferson was the first candidate nominated by a Congressional caucus.
It convened in 1800 at Philadelphia, and nominated Jefferson for
President and Burr for Vice-President. Adams and Pinckney were not
nominated, but ran and were accepted as natural leaders of their party,
just as Washington and Adams were before them.
Downfall of the Federal Party.
This contest broke the power of the Federal party. It had before relied
upon the rare sagacity and ability of its leaders, but the contest in
the House developed such attempts at intrigue as disgusted many and
caused all to quarrel, Hamilton having early showed his dislike to
Adams. As a party the Federal had been peculiarly brave at times when
high bravery was needed. It had framed the Federal Government and stood
by the powers given it until they were too firmly planted for even newer
and triumphant partisans to recklessly trifle with. It stood for
non-interference with foreign nations against the eloquence of
adventurers, the mad impulses of mobs, the generosity of new-born
freemen, the harangues of demagogues, and best of all against those who
sought to fan these popular breezes to their own comfort, It provided
for the payment of the debt, had the courage to raise revenues both from
internal and external sources, and to increase expenditures, as the
growth of the country demanded. Though it passed out of power in a cloud
of intrigue and in a vain grasp at the “flesh-pots,” it yet had a
glorious history, and one which none untinctured with the better
prejudices of that day, can avoid admiring.
The defeat of Adams was not unexpected by him, yet it was greatly
regretted by his friends, for he was justly regarded as second to no
other civilian in the establishment of the liberties of the colonies. He
was eloquent to a rare degree, possessed natural eloquence, and made the
most famous speech in advocacy of the Declaration. Though the
proceedings of the Revolutionary Congress were secret, and what was said
never printed, yet Webster gives his version of the noted speech of
Adams, and we reproduce it in Book III. of this volume as one of the
great speeches of noted American orators.
Mr. Jefferson was inaugurated the third President, in the new capitol at
Washington, on the 4th of March, 1801, and Vice-President Burr took his
seat in the Senate the same day. Though Burr distinctly disavowed any
participancy in the House contest, he was distrusted by Jefferson’s warm
friends, and jealousies rapidly cropped out. Jefferson endeavored
through his inaugural to smooth factious and party asperities, and so
well were his words chosen that the Federalists indulged, the hope that
they would not be removed from office because of their political views.
Early in June, however, the first question of civil service was raised.
Mr. Jefferson then removed Elizur Goodrich, a Federalist, from the
Collectorship of New Haven, and appointed Samuel Bishop, a Republican,
to the place. The citizens remonstrated, saying that Goodrich was
prompt, reliable and able, and showed that his successor was 78 years
old, and too infirm for the duties of the office. To these remonstrances
Mr. Jefferson, under date of July 12th, replied in language which did
not then, as he did later on, plainly assert the right of every
administration to have its friends in office. We quote the following:
“Declarations by myself, in favor of political tolerance, exhortations
to harmony and affection in social intercourse, and respect for the
equal rights of the minority, have, on certain occasions, been quoted
and misconstrued into assurances that the tenure of office was not to be
disturbed. But could candor apply such a construction? When it is
considered that, during the late administration, those who were not of a
particular sect of politics were excluded from all office; when, by a
steady pursuit of this measure, nearly the whole offices of the United
States were monopolized by that sect; when the public sentiment at
length declared itself, and burst open the doors of honor and confidence
to those whose opinions they approved; was it to be imagined that this
monopoly of office was to be continued in the hands of the minority?
Does it violate their equal rights to assert some rights in the majority
also? Is it political intolerance to claim a proportionate share in the
direction of the public affairs? If a due participation of office is a
matter of right, how are vacancies to be obtained? Those by death are
few, by resignation none. Can any other mode than that of removal be
proposed? This is a painful office; but it is made my duty, and I meet
it as such. I proceed in the operation with deliberation and inquiry,
that it may injure the best men least, and effect the purposes of
justice and public utility with the least private distress, that it may
be thrown as much as possible on delinquency, on oppression, on
intolerance, on ante-revolutionary adherence to our enemies.
“I lament sincerely that unessential differences of opinion should ever
have been deemed sufficient to interdict half the society from the
rights and the blessings of self-government, to proscribe them as
unworthy of every trust. It would have been to me a circumstance of
great relief, had I found a moderate participation of office in the
hands of the majority. I would gladly have left to time and accident to
raise them to their just share. But their total exclusion calls for
prompter corrections. I shall correct the procedure; but that done,
return with joy to that state of things when the only questions
concerning a candidate shall be: Is he honest? Is he capable? Is he
faithful to the constitution?”
Mr. Adams had made few removals, and none because of the political views
held by the incumbents, nearly all of whom had been appointed by
Washington and continued through good behavior. At the date of the
appointment of most of them, Jefferson’s Republican party had no
existence; so that the reasons given in the quotation do not comport
with the facts. Washington’s rule was integrity and capacity, for he
could have no regard for politics where political lines had been
obliterated in his own selection. Doubtless these office-holders were
human, and adhered with warmth to the administration which they served,
and this fact, and this alone, must have angered the Republicans and
furnished them with arguments for a change.
Mr. Jefferson’s position, however, made his later conduct natural. He
was the acknowledged leader of his party, its founder indeed, and that
party had carried him into power. He desired to keep it intact, to
strengthen its lines with whatever patronage he had at his disposal, and
he evidently regarded the cause of Adams in not rewarding his friends as
a mistake. It was, therefore, Jefferson, and not Jackson, who was the
author of the theory that “to the victors belong the spoils.” Jackson
gave it a sharp and perfectly defined shape by the use of these words,
but the spirit and principle were conceived by Jefferson, who throughout
his life showed far greater originality in politics than any of the
early patriots. It was his acute sense of just what was right for a
growing political party to do, which led him to turn the thoughts of his
followers into new and popular directions. Seeing that they were at
grave disadvantage when opposing the attitude of the government in its
policy with foreign nations; realizing that the work of the Federalists
in strengthening the power of the new government, in providing revenues
and ways and means for the payment of the debt, were good, he changed
the character of the opposition by selecting only notoriously arbitrary
measures for assault—and changed it even more radically than this. He
early saw that simple opposition was not progress, and that it was both
wise and popular to be progressive, and in all his later political
papers he sought to make his party the party favoring personal freedom,
the one of liberal ideas, the one which, instead of shirking, should
anticipate every change calculated to enlarge the liberties and the
opportunities of citizens. These things were not inconsistent with his
strong views in favor of local self-government; indeed, in many
particulars they seemed to support that theory, and by the union of the
two ideas he shrewdly arrayed political enthusiasm by the side of
political interest. Political sagacity more profound than this it is
difficult to imagine. It has not since been equalled in the history of
our land, nor do we believe in the history of any other.
After the New Haven episode, so jealous was Jefferson of his good name,
that while he confided all new appointments to the hands of his
political friends, he made few removals, and these for apparent cause.
The mere statement of his position had proved an invitation to the
Federalists in office to join his earlier friends in the support of his
administration. Many of them did it, so many that the clamorings of
truer friends could not be hushed. With a view to create a new excuse,
Jefferson declared that all appointments made by Adams after February
14th, when the House began its ballotings for President, were void,
these appointments belonging of right to him, and from this act of Adams
we date the political legacies which some of our Presidents have since
handed down to their successors. One of the magistrates whose commission
had been made out under Adams, sought to compel Jefferson to sign it by
a writ of mandamus before the Supreme Court, but a “profound
investigation of constitutional law” induced the court not to grant the
motion. All commissions signed by Adams after the date named were
suppressed.
Jefferson’s apparent bitterness against the Federalists is mainly
traceable to the contest in the House, and his belief that at one time
they sought a coalition with Burr. This coalition he regarded as a
violation of the understanding when he was nominated, and a supposed
effort to appoint a provisional office he regarded as an usurpation in
fact. In a letter to James Monroe, dated February 15th, speaking of this
contest, he says:
“Four days of balloting have produced not a single change of a vote. Yet
it is confidently believed that to-morrow there is to be a coalition. I
know of no foundation for this belief. If they could have been permitted
to pass a law for putting the government in the hands of an officer,
they would certainly have prevented an election. But we thought it best
to declare openly and firmly, one and all, that the day such an act
passed, the Middle States would arm, and that no such usurpation, even
for a single day, should be submitted to.”
It is but fair to say that the Federalists denied all such intentions,
and that James A. Bayard, of Delaware, April 3, 1806, made formal oath
to this denial. In this he says that three States, representing
Federalist votes, offered to withdraw their opposition if John Nicholas,
of Virginia, and the personal friend of Jefferson, would secure pledges
that the public credit should be supported, the navy maintained, and
that subordinate public officers, employed only in the execution of
details, established by law, should not be removed from office on the
ground of their public character, nor without complaint against their
conduct. The Federalists then went so far as to admit that officers of
“high discretion and confidence,” such as members of the cabinet and
foreign ministers, should be known friends of the administration. This
proposition goes to show that there is nothing very new in what are
called our modern politics; that the elder Bayard, as early as 1800,
made a formal proposal to bargain. Mr. Nicholas offered _his_ assurance
that these things would prove acceptable to and govern the conduct of
Jefferson’s administration, but he declined to consult with Jefferson on
the points. General Smith subsequently engaged to do it, and Jefferson
replied that the points given corresponded with his views and
intentions, and that Mr. Bayard and his friends might confide in him
accordingly. The opposition of Vermont, Maryland and Delaware was then
immediately withdrawn, and Mr. Jefferson was made President. Gen’l
Smith, twelve days later, made an affidavit which substantially
confirmed that of Bayard. Latimer, the collector of the port of
Philadelphia, and M’Lane, collector of Wilmington, (Bayard’s special
friend) were retained in office. He had cited these two as examples of
his opposition to any change, and Jefferson seemed to regard the pledges
as not sacred beyond the parties actually named in Bayard’s negotiations
with Gen’l Smith.
This misunderstanding or misconstruction of what in these days would be
plainly called a bargain, led to considerable political criticism, and
Jefferson felt it necessary to defend his cause. This he did in letters
to friends which both then and since found their way into the public
prints. One of these letters, written to Col. Monroe, March 7th, shows
in every word and line the natural politician. In this he says:
“Some (removals) I know must be made. They must be as few as possible,
done gradually, and bottomed on some malversation or inherent
disqualification. Where we shall draw the line between all and none, is
not yet settled, and will not be till we get our administration
together; and perhaps even then we shall proceed _ā talons_, balancing
our measures according to the impression we perceive them to make. This
may give you a general view of our plan.”
A little later on, March 28, he wrote to Elbridge Gerry:
“Officers who have been guilty of gross abuses of office, such as
marshals packing juries, etc., I shall now remove, as my predecessor
ought in justice to have done. The instances will be few, and governed
by strict rule, not party passion. The right of opinion shall suffer no
invasion from me.”
Jefferson evidently tired of this subject, and gradually modified his
views, as shown in his letter to Levi Lincoln, July 11, wherein he says:
“I am satisfied that the heaping of abuse on me personally, has been
with the design and the hope of provoking me to make a general sweep of
all Federalists out of office. But as I have carried no passion into the
execution of this disagreeable duty, I shall suffer none to be excited.
The clamor which has been raised will not provoke me to remove one more,
nor deter me from removing one less, than if not a word had been said on
the subject. In the course of the summer, all which is necessary will be
done; and we may hope that, this cause of offence being at an end, the
measures we shall pursue and propose for the amelioration of the public
affairs, will be so confessedly salutary as to unite all men not
monarchists in principle.” In the same letter he warmly berates the
monarchical federalists, saying, “they are incurables, to be taken care
of in a madhouse if necessary, and on motives of charity.”
The seventh Congress assembled. Political parties were at first nearly
equally divided in the Senate, but eventually there was a majority for
the administration. Jefferson then discontinued the custom established
by Washington of delivering in person his message to Congress. The
change was greatly for the better, as it afforded relief from the
requirement of immediate answers on the subjects contained in the
message. It has ever since been followed.
The seventh session of Congress, pursuant to the recommendation of
President Jefferson, established a uniform system of naturalization, and
so modified the law as to make the required residence of aliens five
years, instead of fourteen, as in the act of 1798, and to permit a
declaration of intention to become a citizen at the expiration of three
years. By his recommendation also was established the first sinking fund
for the redemption of the public debt. It required the setting apart
annually for this purpose the sum of seven millions and three hundred
thousand dollars. Other measures, more partisan in their character, were
proposed, but Congress showed an aversion to undoing what had been
wisely done. A favorite law of the Federalists establishing circuit
courts alone was repealed, and this only after a sharp debate, and a
close vote. The provisional army had been disbanded by a law of the
previous Congress. A proposition to abolish the naval department was
defeated, as was that to discontinue the mint establishment.
At this session the first law in relation to the slave trade was passed.
It was to prevent the importation of negroes, mulattoes and other
persons of color into any port of the United States within a state which
had prohibited by law the admission of any such person. The penalty was
one thousand dollars and the forfeiture of the vessel. The slave trade
was not then prohibited by the constitution, nor was the subject then
generally agitated, though it had been as early as 1793, when, as
previously stated, an exciting sectional debate followed the
presentation of a petition from Pennsylvania to abolish the slave trade.
Probably the most important occurrence under the first administration of
Jefferson was that relating to the purchase and admission of Louisiana.
There had been apprehensions of a war with Spain, and with a view to be
ready Congress had passed an act authorizing the President to call upon
the executives of such of the states as he might deem expedient, for
detachments of militia not exceeding eighty thousand, or to accept the
services of volunteers for a term of twelve months. The disagreement
arose over the southwestern boundary line and the right of navigating
the Mississippi. Our government learned in the spring of 1802, that
Spain had by a secret treaty made in October, 1800, actually ceded
Louisiana to France. Our government had in 1795 made a treaty with Spain
which gave us the right of deposit at New Orleans for three years, but
in October, 1802, the Spanish authorities gave notice by proclamation
that this right was withdrawn. Excitement followed all along the valley
of the Mississippi, and it was increased by the belief that the
withdrawal of the privilege was made at the suggestion of France, though
Spain still retained the territory, as the formalities of ceding it had
not been gone through with. Jefferson promptly took the ground that if
France took possession of New Orleans, the United States would
immediately become allies of England, but suggested to Minister
Livingston at Paris that France might be induced to cede the island of
New Orleans and the Floridas to the United States. It was his belief,
though a mistaken one, that France had also acquired the Floridas.
Louisiana then comprised much of the territory west of the Mississippi
and south of the Missouri.
The Federalists in Congress seized upon this question as one upon which
they could make an aggressive war against Jefferson’s administration,
and resolutions were introduced asking information on the subject.
Jefferson, however, wisely avoided all entangling suggestions, and sent
Monroe to aid Livingston in effecting a purchase. The treaty was formed
in April, 1803, and submitted by Jefferson to the Senate in October
following. The Republicans rallied in favor of this scheme of
annexation, and claimed that it was a constitutional right in the
government to acquire territory—a doctrine widely at variance with their
previous position, but occasions are rare where parties quarrel with
their administrations on pivotal measures. There was also some latitude
here for endorsement, as the direct question of territorial acquisition
had not before been presented, but only hypothetically stated in the
constitutional disputations then in great fashion. Jefferson would not
go so far as to say that the constitution warranted the acquisition to
foreign territory, but the scheme was nevertheless his, and he stood in
with his friends in the political battle which followed.
The Federalists claimed that we had no power to acquire territory, and
that the acquirement of Louisiana would give the South a preponderance
which would “continue for all time (poor prophets they!), since southern
would be more rapid than northern development;” that states created west
of the Mississippi would injure the commerce of New England, and they
even went so far as to say that the “admission of the Western World into
the Union would compel the Eastern States to establish an eastern
empire.” Doubts were also raised as to the right of Louisianians, when
admitted to citizenship under our laws, as their lineage, language and
religion were different from our own. Its inhabitants were French and
descendants of French, with some Spanish creoles, Americans, English and
Germans—in all about 90,000, including 40,000 slaves. There were many
Indians of course, in a territory then exceeding a million of square
miles—a territory which, in the language of First Consul Napoleon,
“strengthens forever the power of the United States, and which will give
to England a maritime rival that will sooner or later humble her
pride”—a military view of the change fully justified by subsequent
history. Napoleon sold because of needed preparations for war with
England, and while he had previously expressed a willingness to take
fifty million francs for it, he got sixty through the shrewd diplomacy
of his ministers, who hid for the time their fear of the capture of the
port of New Orleans by the English navy.
Little chance was afforded the Federalists for adverse criticism in
Congress, for the purchase proved so popular that the people greatly
increased the majority in both branches of the eighth Congress, and
Jefferson called it together earlier for the purpose of ratification.
The Senate ratified the treaty on the 20th of October, 1803, by a vote
of 24 to 7, while the House adopted a resolution for carrying the treaty
into effect by a vote of 90 to 25. Eleven million dollars of the
purchase money was appropriated, the remaining four millions being
reserved for the indemnity of American citizens who had sustained losses
by French assaults upon our commerce—from which fact subsequently came
what is known as the French Spoliation Bill.
Impeachment trials were first attempted before the eighth Congress in
1803. Judge Pickering, of the district court of the United States for
New Hampshire, was impeached for occasional drunkenness, and dismissed
from office. Judge Chase of the U. S. Supreme Court, and Judge Peters of
the district court of Pennsylvania, both Federalists, were charged by
articles proposed in the House with illegal and arbitrary conduct in the
trial of parties charged with political offenses. The Federalists took
alarm at these proceedings, and so vehement were their charges against
the Republicans of a desire to destroy the judiciary that their
impeachments were finally abandoned.
The Republicans closed their first national administration with high
prestige. They had met several congressional reverses on questions where
defeat proved good fortune, for the Federalists kept a watchful defence,
and were not always wrong. The latter suffered numerically, and many of
their best leaders had fallen in the congressional contest of 1800 and
1802, while the Republicans maintained their own additions in talent and
number.
In 1804, the candidates of both parties were nominated by congressional
caucuses. Jefferson and Clinton were the Republican nominees; Charles C.
Pinckney and Rufus King, the nominees of the Federalists, but they only
received 14 out of 176 electoral votes.
The struggle of Napoleon in Europe with the allied powers now gave
Jefferson an opportunity to inaugurate a foreign policy. England had
forbidden all trade with the French and their allies, and France had in
return forbidden all commerce with England and her colonies. Both of
these decrees violated our neutral rights, and were calculated to
destroy our commerce, which by this time had become quite imposing.
Congress acted promptly, and on the 21st of December passed what is
known as the Embargo Act, under the inspiration of the Republican party,
which claimed that the only choice of the people lay between the embargo
and war, and that there was no other way to obtain redress from England
and France. But the promised effects of the measure were not realized,
and so soon as any dissatisfaction was manifested by the people, the
Federalists made the question a political issue. They declared it
unconstitutional because it was not limited as to time; that it helped
England as against France (a cunning assertion in view of the early love
of the Republicans for the cause of the French), and that it laid
violent hands on our home commerce and industries. Political agitation
increased the discontent, and public opinion at one time turned so
strongly against the law that it was openly resisted on the eastern
coast, and treated with almost as open contempt on the Canadian border.
The bill had passed the House by 87 to 35, the Senate by 19 to 9. In
January, 1809, the then closing administration of Jefferson had to
change front on the question, and the law was repealed on the 18th of
March. The Republicans when they changed, went all the way over, and
advocated full protection by the use of a navy, of all our rights on the
high seas. If the Federals could have recalled their old leaders, or
retained even a considerable portion of their power, the opportunity
presented by the embargo issue could have brought them back to full
political power, but lacking these leaders, the opportunity passed.
Democrats and Federals.
During the ninth Congress, which assembled on the second of December,
1805, the Republicans dropped their name and accepted that of
“Democrats.” In all their earlier strifes they had been charged by their
opponents with desiring to run to the extremes of the democratic or “mob
rule,” and fear of too general a belief in the truth of the charge led
them to denials and rejection of a name which the father of their party
had ever shown a fondness for. The earlier dangers which had threatened
their organization, and the recollection of defeats suffered in their
attempts to establish a government anti-federal and confederate in their
composition, had been greatly modified by later successes, and with a
characteristic cuteness peculiar to Americans they accepted an epithet
and sought to turn it to the best account. In this they imitated the
patriots who accepted the epithets in the British satirical song of
“Yankee Doodle,” and called themselves Yankees. From the ninth Congress
the Jeffersonian Republicans called themselves Democrats, and the word
Republican passed into disuse until later on in the history of our
political parties, the opponents of the Democracy accepted it as a name
which well filled the meaning of their attitude in the politics of the
country.
Mr. Randolph of Roanoke, made the first schism in the Republican party
under Jefferson, when he and three of his friends voted against the
embargo act. He resisted its passage with his usual earnestness, and all
attempts at reconciling him to the measure were unavailing. Self-willed,
strong in argument and sarcasm, it is believed that his cause made it
even more desirable for the Republicans to change name in the hope of
recalling some of the more wayward “Democrats” who had advocated Jacobin
democracy in the years gone by. The politicians of that day were never
short of expedients, and no man so abounded in them as Jefferson
himself.
Randolph improved his opportunities by getting most of the Virginia
members to act with him against the foreign policy of the
administration, but he was careful not to join the Federalists, and
quickly denied any leaning that way. The first fruit of this faction was
to bring forth Monroe as a candidate for President against Madison—a
movement which proved to be quite popular in Virginia, but which
Jefferson flanked by bringing about a reconciliation between Monroe and
Madison. The now usual Congressional caucus followed at Washington, and
although the Virginia Legislature in its caucus previously held had been
unable to decide between Madison and Monroe, the Congressional body
chose Madison by 83 to 11, the minority being divided between Clinton
and Monroe, though the latter could by that time hardly be considered as
a candidate. This action broke up Randolph’s faction in Virginia, but
left so much bitterness behind it that a large portion attached
themselves to the Federalists. In the election which followed Madison
received 122 electoral votes against 47 for C. C. Pinckney, of South
Carolina, and 6 for Geo. Clinton of New York.
Before Jefferson’s administration closed he recommended the passage of
an act to prohibit the African slave trade after January 1st, 1808, and
it was passed accordingly. He had also rejected the form of a treaty
received from the British minister Erskine, and did this without the
formality of submitting it to the Senate—first, because it contained no
provision on the objectionable practice of impressing our seamen;
second,[2] “because it was accompanied by a note from the British
ministers, by which the British government reserved to itself the right
of releasing itself from the stipulations in favor of neutral rights, if
the United States submitted to the British decree, or other invasion of
those rights by France.” This rejection of the treaty by Jefferson
caused public excitement, and the Federalists sought to arouse the
commercial community against his action, and cited the fact that his own
trusted friends, Monroe and Pinckney had negotiated it. The President’s
party stood by him, and they agreed that submission to the Senate was
immaterial, as its advice could not bind him. This refusal to consider
the treaty was the first step leading to the war of 1812, for embargoes
followed, and Britain openly claimed the right to search American
vessels for her deserting seamen. In 1807 this question was brought to
issue by the desertion of five British seamen from the _Halifax_, and
their enlistment on the U. S. frigate _Chesapeake_. Four separate
demands were made for these men, but all of the commanders, knowing the
firm attitude of Jefferson’s administration against the practice,
refused, as did the Secretary of State refuse a fifth demand on the part
of the British minister. On the 23d of June following, while the
_Chesapeake_ was near the capes of Virginia, Capt. Humphreys of the
British ship _Leopard_ attempted to search her for deserters. Capt.
Barron denied the right of search, but on being fired into, lowered his
flag, Humphreys then took four men from the _Chesapeake_, three of whom
had previously entered the British service, but were Americans by birth,
and had been formally demanded by Washington. The act was a direct
violation of the international law, for a nation’s ship at sea like its
territory is inviolable. The British government disavowed the act of its
officer and offered apology and reparation, which were accepted. This
event, however, strengthened Jefferson’s rejection of the
Monroe-Pinckney treaty, and quickly stopped adverse political criticism
at home, Foreign affairs remained, however, in a complicated state,
owing to the wars between England and the then successful Napoleon, but
they in no wise shook the firm hold which Jefferson had upon the people,
nor the prestige of his party. He stands in history as one of the best
politicians our land has ever seen, and then as now no one could
successfully draw the line between the really able politician and the
statesman. He was accepted as both. His administration closed on the 3d
of March, 1809, when he expressed great gratification at being able to
retire to private life.
Mr. Madison succeeded at a time when the country, through fears of
foreign aggression and violence, was exceedingly gloomy and despondent—a
feeling not encouraged in the least by the statements of the
Federalists, some of whom then thought political criticism in hours of
danger not unpatriotic. They described our agriculture as discouraged,
our fisheries abandoned, our commerce restrained, our navy dismantled,
our revenues destroyed at a time when war was at any moment probable
with either France, England or Spain.
Madison, representing as he did the same party, from the first resolved
to follow the policy of Jefferson, a fact about which there was no
misunderstanding. He desired to avert war as long as possible with
England, and sought by skilful diplomacy to avert the dangers presented
by both France and England in their attitude with neutrals. England had
declared that a man who was once a subject always remained a subject,
and on this plea based her determination to impress again into her
service all deserters from her navy. France, because of refusal to
accede to claims equally at war with our rights, had authorized the
seizure of all American vessels entering the ports of France. In May,
1810, when the non-intercourse act had expired, Madison caused proposals
to be made to both belligerents, that if either would revoke its hostile
edict, the non-intercourse act should be revived and enforced against
the other nation. This act had been passed by the tenth Congress as a
substitute for the embargo. France quickly accepted Madison’s proposal,
and received the benefits of the act, and the direct result was to
increase the growing hostility of England. From this time forward the
negotiations had more the character of a diplomatic contest than an
attempt to maintain peace. Both countries were upon their mettle, and
early in 1811, Mr. Pinckney, the American minister to Great Britain, was
recalled, and a year later a formal declaration of war was made by the
United States.
Just prior to this the old issue, made by the Republicans against
Hamilton’s scheme for a National Bank, was revived by the fact that the
charter of the bank ceased on the 4th of March, 1811, and an attempt was
made to re-charter it. A bill for this purpose was introduced into
Congress, but on the 11th of January, 1811, it was indefinitely
postponed in the House, by a vote of 65 to 64, while in the Senate it
was rejected by the casting vote of the Vice-President, Geo. Clinton, on
the 5th of February, 1811—this notwithstanding its provisions had been
framed or approved by Gallatin, the Secretary of the Treasury. The
Federalists were all strong advocates of the measure, and it was so
strong that it divided some of the Democrats who enjoyed a loose rein in
the contest so far as the administration was concerned, the President
not specially caring for political quarrels at a time when war was
threatened with a powerful foreign nation. The views of the Federalists
on this question descended to the Whigs some years later, and this fact
led to the charges that the Whigs were but Federalists in disguise.
The eleventh Congress continued the large Democratic majority, as did
the twelfth, which met on the 4th of November, 1811, Henry Clay, then an
ardent supporter of the policy of Madison, succeeding to the House
speakership. He had previously served two short sessions in the U. S.
Senate, and had already acquired a high reputation as an able and fluent
debater. He preferred the House, at that period of life, believing his
powers better calculated to win fame in the more popular representative
hall. Calhoun was also in the House at this time, and already noted for
the boldness of his views and their assertion.
In this Congress jealousies arose against the political power of
Virginia, which had already named three of the four Presidents, each for
two terms, and De Witt Clinton, the well-known Governor of New York,
sought through these jealousies to create a division which would carry
him into the Presidency. His efforts were for a time warmly seconded by
several northern and southern states. A few months later the Legislature
of New York formally opened the ball by nominating DeWitt Clinton for
the Presidency. An address was issued by his friends, August 17th, 1812,
which has since become known as the Clintonian platform, and his
followers were known as Clintonian Democrats. The address contained the
first public protest against the nomination of Presidential candidates
by Congressional caucuses. There was likewise declared opposition to
that “official regency which prescribed tenets of political faith.” The
efforts of particular states to monopolize the principal offices was
denounced, as was the continuance of public men for long periods in
office.
Madison was nominated for a second term by a Congressional caucus held
at Washington, in May, 1812. John Langdon was nominated for
Vice-President, but as he declined on account of age, Elbridge Gerry of
Massachusetts, took his place. In September of the same year a
_convention_ of the opposition, representing eleven states, was held in
the city of New York, which nominated De Witt Clinton, with Jared
Ingersoll for Vice-President. This was the first national convention,
partisan in character, and the Federalists have the credit of
originating and carrying out the idea. The election resulted in the
success of Madison, who received 128 electoral votes to 89 for Clinton.
Though factious strife had been somewhat rife, less attention was paid
to politics than to the approaching war. There were new Democratic
leaders in the lower House, and none were more prominent than Clay of
Kentucky, Calhoun, Cheves and Lowndes, all of South Carolina. The policy
of Jefferson in reducing the army and navy was now greatly deplored, and
the defenceless condition in which it left the country was the partial
cause, at least a stated cause of the factious feuds which followed.
Madison sought to change this policy, and he did it at the earnest
solicitation of Clay, Calhoun and Lowndes, who were the recognized
leaders of the war party. They had early determined that Madison should
be directly identified with them, and before his second nomination had
won him over to their more decided views in favor of war with England.
He had held back, hoping that diplomacy might avert a contest, but when
once convinced that war was inevitable and even desirable under the
circumstances, his official utterances were bold and free. In the June
following the caucus which renominated him, he declared in a message
that our flag was continually insulted on the high seas; that the right
of searching American vessels for British seamen was still in practice,
and that thousands of American citizens had in this way been impressed
in service on foreign ships; that peaceful efforts at adjustment of the
difficulties had proved abortive, and that the British ministry and
British emissaries had actually been intriguing for the dismemberment of
the Union.
The act declaring war was approved by the President on the 18th of June,
1812, and is remarkably short and comprehensive. It was drawn by the
attorney-general of the United States, William Pinckney, and is in the
words following:—
“_An act declaring war between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and
Ireland, and the dependencies thereof, and the United States of
America and their territories._
“_Be it enacted, &c._ That war be, and the same is hereby declared to
exist between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and the
dependencies thereof, and the United States of America, and their
territories; and that the President of the United States is hereby
authorized to use the whole land and naval force of the United States
to carry the same into effect, and to issue to private armed vessels
of the United States commissions, or letters of marque and general
reprisal, in such form as he shall think proper, and under the seal of
the United States, against the vessels, goods, and effects, of the
government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and the
subjects thereof.”
This was a soul-stirring message, but it did not rally all the people as
it should have done. Political jealousies were very great, and the
frequent defeats of the Federalists, while they tended to greatly reduce
their numbers and weaken their power, seemed to strengthen their
animosity, and they could see nothing good in any act of the
administration. They held, especially in the New England states, that
the war had been declared by a political party simply, and not by the
nation, though nearly all of the Middle, and all of the Southern and
Western States, warmly supported it. Clay estimated that nine-tenths of
the people were in favor of the war, and under the inspiration of his
eloquence and the strong state papers of Madison, they doubtless were at
first. Throughout they felt their political strength, and they just as
heartily returned the bitterness manifested by those of the Federalists
who opposed the war, branding them as enemies of the republic, and
monarchists who preferred the reign of Britain.
Four Federalist representatives in Congress went so far as to issue an
address, opposing the war, the way in which it had been declared, and
denouncing it as unjust. Some of the New England states refused the
order of the President to support it with their militia, and
Massachusetts sent peace memorials to Congress.
A peace party was formed with a view to array the religious sentiment of
the country against the war, and societies with similar objects were
organized by the more radical of the Federalists. To such an extreme was
this opposition carried, that some of the citizens of New London, Conn.,
made a practice of giving information to the enemy, by means of blue
lights, of the departure of American vessels.
The Hartford Convention.
This opposition finally culminated in the assembling of a convention at
Hartford, at which delegates were present from all of the New England
states. They sat for three weeks with closed doors, and issued an
address which will be found in this volume in the book devoted to
political platforms. It was charged by the Democrats that the real
object of the convention was to negotiate a separate treaty of peace, on
behalf of New England, with Great Britain, but this charge was as warmly
denied. The exact truth has not since been discovered, the fears of the
participants of threatened trials for treason, closing their mouths, if
their professions were false. The treaty of Ghent, which was concluded
on December 14th, 1814, prevented other action by the Hartford
convention than that stated. It had assembled nine days before the
treaty, which is as follows:
Treaty of Ghent.
This treaty was negotiated by the Right Honorable James Lord Gambier,
Henry Goulburn, Esq., and William Adams, Esq., on the part of Great
Britain, and John Quincy Adams, James A. Bayard, Henry Clay, Jonathan
Russell, and Albert Gallatin, on behalf of the United States.
The treaty can be found on p. 218, vol. 8, of Little & Brown’s Statutes
at Large. The first article provided for the restoration of all
archives, records, or property taken by either party from the other
during the war. This article expressly provides for the restoration of
“slaves or other private property.” The second article provided for the
cessation of hostilities and limitation of time of capture. The third
article provided for the restoration of prisoners of war.
The fourth article defined the boundary established by the treaty of
1783, and provided for commissioners to mark the same.
The fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth articles established rules to
govern the proceedings of the commissioners.
The ninth article bound the United States and His Britannic Majesty to
end all hostilities with Indian tribes, with whom they were then
respectively at war.
The tenth article reads as follows:—
“Whereas the traffic in slaves is irreconcilable with the principles
of humanity and justice; and, whereas, both His Majesty and the United
States are desirous of continuing their efforts to promote its entire
abolition, it is hereby agreed that both the contracting parties shall
use their best endeavors to accomplish so desirable an object.”
The eleventh and last article provides for binding effect of the treaty,
upon the exchange of ratifications.
The position of New England in the war is explained somewhat by her
exposed position. Such of the militia as served endured great hardships,
and they were almost constantly called from their homes to meet new
dangers. Distrusting their loyalty, the general government had withheld
all supplies from the militia of Massachusetts and Connecticut for the
year 1814, and these States were forced to bear the burden of supporting
them, at the same time contributing their quota of taxes to the general
government—hardships, by the way, not greater than those borne by
Pennsylvania and Ohio in the late war for the Union, nor half as hard as
those borne by the border States at the same time. True, the coast towns
of Massachusetts were subjected to constant assault from the British
navy, and the people of these felt that they were defenceless. It was on
their petition that the legislature of Massachusetts finally, by a vote
of 226 to 67, adopted the report favoring the calling of the Hartford
Convention. A circular was then addressed to the Governors of the other
States, with a request that it be laid before their legislatures,
inviting them to appoint delegates, and stating that the object was to
deliberate upon the dangers to which the eastern section was exposed,
“and to devise, if practicable, means of security and defence which
might be consistent with the preservation of their resources from total
ruin, _and not repugnant to their obligations as members of the Union_.”
The italicized portion shows that there was at least then no design of
forming a separate treaty, or of promoting disunion. The legislatures of
Connecticut and Rhode Island endorsed the call and sent delegates. Those
of New Hampshire and Vermont did not, but delegates were sent by local
conventions. These delegates, it is hardly necessary to remark, were all
members of the Federal party, and their suspected designs and action
made the “Hartford Convention” a bye-word and reproach in the mouths of
Democratic orators for years thereafter. It gave to the Democrats, as
did the entire history of the war, the prestige of superior patriotism,
and they profited by it as long as the memory of the war of 1812 was
fresh. Indeed, directly after the war, all men seemed to keep in
constant view the reluctance of the Federalists to support the war, and
their almost open hostility to it in New England. Peace brought
prosperity and plenty, but not oblivion of the old political issues, and
this was the beginning of the end of the Federal party. Its decay
thereafter was rapid and constant.
The eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth Congresses had continued
Democratic. The fourteenth began Dec. 4, 1815, with the Democratic
majority in the House increased to 30. Clay had taken part in
negotiating the treaty, and on his return was again elected to the
House, and was for the third time elected speaker. Though 65 Federalists
had been elected, but 10 were given to Federal candidates for speaker,
this party now showing a strong, and under the circumstances, a very
natural desire to rub out party lines. The internal taxes and the
postage rates were reduced.
The Protective Tariff.
President Madison, in his message, had urged upon Congress a revision of
the tariff, and pursuant to his recommendation what was at the time
called a protective tariff was passed. Even Calhoun then supported it,
while Clay proclaimed that protection must no longer be secondary to
revenue, but of primary importance. The rates fixed, however, were
insufficient, and many American manufactures were soon frustrated by
excessive importations of foreign manufactures. The position of Calhoun
and Lowndes, well known leaders from South Carolina, is explained by the
fact that just then the proposal of a protective tariff was popular in
the south, in view of the heavy duties upon raw cotton which England
then imposed. The Federalists in weakness changed their old position
when they found the Democrats advocating a tariff, and the latter quoted
and published quite extensively Alexander Hamilton’s early report in
favor of it. Webster, in the House at the time and a leading Federalist,
was against the bill. The parties had exchanged positions on the
question.
Peace brought with it another exchange of positions. President Madison,
although he had vetoed a bill to establish a National Bank in 1815, was
now (in 1816) anxious for the establishment of such an institution. Clay
had also changed his views, and claimed that the experiences of the war
showed the necessity for a national currency. The bill met with strong
opposition from a few Democrats and nearly all of the Federalists (the
latter having changed position on the question since 1811), but it
passed and was signed by the President.
A bill to promote internal improvements, advocated by Clay, was at first
favored by Madison, but his mind changed and he vetoed the measure—the
first of its kind passed by Congress.
The Democratic members of Congress, before the adjournment of the first
session, held a caucus for the nomination of candidates to succeed
Madison and Gerry. It was understood that the retiring officers and
their confidential friends favored James Monroe of Virginia. Their
wishes were carried out, but not without a struggle, Wm. H. Crawford of
Georgia receiving 54 votes against 65 for Monroe. The Democrats opposed
to Virginia’s domination in the politics of the country, made a second
effort, and directed it against Monroe in the caucus. Aaron Burr
denounced him as an improper and incompetent candidate, and joined in
the protest then made against any nomination by a Congressional caucus;
he succeeding in getting nineteen Democrats to stay out of the caucus.
Later he advised renewed attempts to break down the Congressional caucus
system, and before the nomination favored Andrew Jackson as a means to
that end. Daniel B. Tompkins was nominated by the Democrats for
Vice-President. The Federalists named Rufus King of New York, but in the
election which followed he received but 24 out of 217 electoral votes.
The Federalists divided their votes for Vice-President.
Monroe was inaugurated on the 14th of March, 1817, the oath being
administered by Chief Justice Marshall. The inaugural address was so
liberal in its tone that it seemed to give satisfaction to men of all
shades of political opinion. The questions which had arisen during the
war no longer had any practical significance, while the people were
anxious to give the disturbing ones which ante-dated at least a season
of rest. Two great and opposing policies had previously obtained, and
singularly enough each seemed exactly adapted to the times when they
were triumphant. The Federal power had been asserted in a government
which had gathered renewed strength during what was under the
circumstances a great and perilous war, and the exigencies of that war
in many instances compelled the Republicans or Democrats, or the
Democratic-Republicans as some still called them, to concede points
which had theretofore been in sharp dispute, and they did it with that
facility which only Americans can command in emergencies: yet as a party
they kept firm hold of the desire to enlarge the scope of liberty in its
application to the citizens, and just here kept their original landmark.
It is not singular then that the administration of Monroe opened what
has ever since been known in politics as the “Era of Good Feeling.”
Party differences rapidly subsided, and political serenity was the order
of the day. Monroe made a tour of the States, with the direct object of
inspecting fortifications and means of defence, and in this way spread
the good feeling, without seeming to have any such object. He was
everywhere favorably greeted by the people, and received by delegations
which in many instances were specially made up of all shades of opinion.
The Cabinet was composed of men of rare political distinction, even in
that day of great men. It was probably easier to be great then than now,
just as it is easier to be a big political hero in the little State of
Delaware than it is in the big States of New York or Pennsylvania. Yet
these men were universally accepted as great without regard to their
localities. All were Republicans or Democrats, with John Quincy Adams as
Secretary of State, Wm. H. Crawford (Monroe’s competitor for the
nomination) as Secretary of the Treasury, John C. Calhoun as Secretary
of War, William Wirt as Attorney-General. All of these united with the
President in the general desire to call a halt upon the political
asperities which were then recognized as a public evil. On one occasion,
during his tour, the citizens of Kennebunk and its vicinity, in Maine,
having in their address alluded to the prospects of a political union
among the people in support of the administration, the President said in
reply:
“You are pleased to express a confident hope that a spirit of mutual
conciliation may be one of the blessings which may result from my
administration. This indeed would be an eminent blessing, and I pray it
may be realized. Nothing but union is waiting to make us a great people.
The present time affords the happiest presage that this union is fast
consummating. It cannot be otherwise; I daily see greater proofs of it.
The further I advance in my progress in the country, the more I perceive
that we are all Americans—that we compose but one family—that our
republican institutions will be supported and perpetuated by the united
zeal and patriotism of all. Nothing could give me greater satisfaction
than to behold a perfect union among ourselves—a union which is
necessary to restore to social intercourse its former charms, and to
render our happiness, as a nation, unmixed and complete. To promote this
desirable result requires no compromise of principle, and I promise to
give it my continued attention, and my best endeavors.”
Even General Jackson, since held up to public view by historians as the
most austere and “stalwart” of all politicians, caught the sweet
infection of peace, and thus advised President Monroe:—
“Now is the time to exterminate that monster, called party spirit. By
selecting [for cabinet officers] characters most conspicuous for their
probity, virtue, capacity, and firmness, without regard to party, you
will go far to, if not entirely, eradicate those feelings, which, on
former occasions, threw so many obstacles in the way of government. The
chief magistrate of a great and powerful nation should never indulge in
party feelings. His conduct should be liberal and disinterested; always
bearing in mind, that he acts for the whole and not a part of the
community.”
This advice had been given with a view to influence the appointment of a
mixed political Cabinet, but while Monroe professed to believe that a
free government could exist without political parties, he nevertheless
sought to bring all of the people into one political fold, and that the
Democratic. Yet he certainly and plainly sought to allay factions in his
own party, and with this view selected Crawford for the Treasury—the
gentleman who had been so warmly supported in the nominating struggle by
the Clintonians and by all who objected to the predominating influence
of Virginia in national politics.
Monroe, like his immediate predecessor, accepted and acted upon the
doctrines of the new school of Republicans as represented by Clay and
Calhoun, both of whom still favored a tariff, while Clay had become a
warm advocate of a national system of internal improvements. These two
statesmen thus early differed on some questions, but they were justly
regarded as the leading friends and advisers of the administration, for
to both still clung the patriotic recollections of the war which they
had so warmly advocated and supported, and the issue of which attested
their wisdom. Clay preferred to be called a Republican; Calhoun
preferred to be called a Democrat, and just then the terms were so often
exchanged and mingled that history is at fault in the exact designation,
while tradition is colored by the bias of subsequent events and lives.
Monroe’s first inaugural leaned toward Clay’s scheme of internal
improvements, but questioned its constitutionality. Clay was next to
Jefferson the most original of all our statesmen and politicians. He was
prolific in measures, and almost resistless in their advocacy. From a
political standpoint he was the most direct author of the war of 1812,
for his advocacy mainly brought it to the issue of arms, which through
him and Calhoun were substituted for diplomacy. And Calhoun then stood
in broader view before the country than since. His sectional pride and
bias had been rarely aroused, and like Clay he seemed to act for the
country as an entirety. Subsequent sectional issues changed the views
held of him by the people of both the North and South.
We have said that Monroe leaned toward internal improvements, but he
thought Congress was not clothed by the Constitution with the power to
authorize measures supporting it, and when the opportunity was presented
(May 4, 1822) he vetoed the bill “for the preservation and repair of the
Cumberland road,” and accompanied the veto with a most elaborate message
in which he discussed the constitutional aspects of the question. A
plain majority of the friends of the administration, under the
leadership of Clay, supported the theory of internal improvements from
the time the administration began, but were reluctant to permit a
division of the party on the question.
Mississippi and Illinois were admitted to the Union during the “Era of
Good Feeling,” without serious political disturbance, while Alabama was
authorized to form a state constitution and government, and Arkansas was
authorized as a separate territorial government from part of Missouri.
In 1819 President Monroe made a tour through the Southern States to
examine their defenses and see and get acquainted with the people. From
the first inauguration of Monroe up to 1819 party lines can hardly be
said to have existed, but in the sixteenth session of Congress, which
continued until May, 1820, new questions of national interest arose,
prominent among which were additional protective duties for our
manufactures; internal improvements by the government; acknowledgments
of the independence of the South American States.
The Monroe Doctrine.
Upon the question of recognizing the independence of the South American
States, the President made a record which has ever since been quoted and
denominated “The Monroe Doctrine.” It is embodied in the following
abstract of his seventh annual message, under date of Dec. 2d, 1823:
“It was stated, at the commencement of the last session, that a great
effort was then making in Spain and Portugal to improve the condition of
the people of those countries, and that it appeared to be conducted with
extraordinary moderation. It need scarcely be remarked that the result
has been, so far, very different from what was then anticipated. Of
events in that quarter of the globe, with which we have so much
intercourse, and from which we derive our origin, we have always been
anxious and interested spectators. The citizens of the United States
cherish sentiments the most friendly in favor of the liberty and
happiness of their fellow-men on that side of the Atlantic. In the wars
of the European powers, in matters relating to themselves, we have never
taken any part nor does it comport with our policy to do so. It is only
when rights are invaded or seriously menaced, that we resent injuries,
or make preparation for our defense. With the movements in this
hemisphere we are of necessity more immediately connected, and by causes
which must be obvious to all enlightened and impartial observers. The
political system of the allied powers is essentially different in this
respect from that of America. This difference proceeds from that which
exists in their respective governments. And to the defense of our own,
which has been achieved by the loss of so much blood and treasure, and
matured by the wisdom of their most enlightened citizens, and under
which we have enjoyed unexampled felicity, this whole nation is devoted.
We owe it, therefore, to candor, and to the amicable relations existing
between the United States and those powers, to declare, that we should
consider any attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion
of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety. With the
existing colonies or dependencies of any European power we have not
interfered, and shall not interfere. But with the governments who have
declared their independence, and maintained it, and whose independence
we have, on great consideration, and on just principles, acknowledged,
we could not view any interposition for the purpose of oppressing them,
or controlling in any other manner their destiny, by any European power,
in any other light than as the manifestation of an unfriendly
disposition toward the United States. In the war between those new
governments and Spain, we declared our neutrality at the time of their
recognition, and to this we have adhered, and shall continue to adhere,
provided no change shall occur which, in the judgment of the competent
authorities of this government, shall make a corresponding change on the
part of the United States indispensable to their security.
“The late events in Spain and Portugal show that Europe is still
unsettled. Of this important fact no stronger proof can be adduced, than
that the allied powers should have thought it proper, on a principle
satisfactory to themselves, to have interposed by force in the internal
concerns of Spain. To what extent such interposition may be carried, on
the same principle, is a question to which all independent powers, whose
governments differ from theirs, are interested; even those most remote,
and surely none more so than the United States. Our policy in regard to
Europe, which was adopted at an early stage of the wars which have so
long agitated that quarter of the globe, nevertheless remains the same,
which is, not to interfere in the internal concerns of any of its
powers; to consider the government, _de facto_, as the legitimate
government for us: to cultivate friendly relations with it, and to
preserve those relations by a frank, firm, and manly policy; meeting, in
all instances, the just claims of every power, submitting to injuries
from none. But in regard to these continents, circumstances are
eminently and conspicuously different. It is impossible that the allied
powers should extend their political system to any portion of either
continent without endangering our peace and happiness; nor can any one
believe, that our southern brethren, if left to themselves, would adopt
it of their own accord. It is equally impossible, therefore, that we
should behold such interposition, in any form, with indifference. If we
look to the comparative strength and resources of Spain and those new
governments, and their distance from each other, it must be obvious that
she can never subdue them. It is still the true policy of the United
States to leave the parties to themselves, in the hope that other powers
will pursue the same course.”
The second election of Monroe, in 1820, was accomplished without a
contest. Out of 231 electoral votes, but one was cast against him, and
that for John Quincy Adams. Mr. Tompkins, the candidate for
Vice-President, was only a little less fortunate, there being 14
scattering votes against him. Neither party, if indeed there was a
Federalist party left made any nominations.
The Missouri Compromise.
The second session of the 17th Congress opened on the 4th day of March,
1820, with James Monroe at the head of the Executive Department of the
Government, and the Democratic party in the majority in both branches of
the Federal Legislature. The Cabinet at that time was composed of the
most brilliant minds of the country, indeed as most justly remarked by
Senator Thomas H. Benton in his published review of the events of that
period, it would be difficult to find in any government, in any country,
at any time, more talent and experience, more dignity and decorum, more
purity of private life, a larger mass of information, and more addiction
to business, than was comprised in the list of celebrated names then
constituting the executive department of the government. The legislative
department was equally impressive. The exciting and agitating question
then pending before Congress was on the admission of the State of
Missouri into the Federal Union, the subject of the issue being the
attempted tacking on of conditions restricting slavery within her
limits. She was admitted without conditions under the so-called
compromise, which abolished it in certain portions of the then province
of Louisiana. In this controversy, the compromise was sustained and
carried entirely by the Democratic Senators and members from the
Southern and slaveholding States aided and sanctioned by the Executive,
and it was opposed by fifteen Senators from non-slaveholding States, who
represented the opposite side on the political questions of the day. It
passed the House by a close vote of 86 to 82. It has been seriously
questioned since whether this act was constitutional. The real struggle
was political, and for the balance of power. For a while it threatened
the total overthrow of all political parties upon principle, and the
substitution of geographical parties discriminated by the slave line,
and thus destroying the proper action of the Federal government, and
leading to a separation of the States. It was a federal movement,
accruing to the benefit of that party, and at first carried all the
Northern democracy in its current, giving the supremacy to their
adversaries. When this effect was perceived, democrats from the northern
non-slaveholding States took early opportunity to prevent their own
overthrow, by voting for the admission of the States on any terms, and
thus prevent the eventual separation of the States in the establishment
of geographical parties divided by a slavery and anti-slavery line.
The year 1820 marked a period of financial distress in the country,
which soon became that of the government. The army was reduced, and the
general expenses of the departments cut down, despite which measures of
economy the Congress deemed it necessary to authorize the President to
contract for a loan of five million dollars. Distress was the cry of the
day; relief the general demand, the chief demand coming from debtors to
the Government for public lands purchased under the then credit system,
this debt at that time aggregating twenty-three millions of dollars. The
banks failed, money vanished, instalments were coming due which could
not be met; and the opening of Congress in November, 1820, was saluted
by the arrival of memorials from all the new States praying for the
relief to the purchaser of the public lands. The President referred to
it in his annual message of that year, and Congress passed a measure of
relief by changing the system to cash sales instead of credit, reducing
the price of the lands, and allowing present debtors to apply payments
already made to portions of the land purchased, relinquishing the
remainder. Applications were made at that time for the establishment of
the preemptive system, but without effect; the new States continued to
press the question and finally prevailed, so that now the preemptive
principle has become a fixed part of our land system, permanently
incorporated with it, and to the equal advantage of the settler and the
government.
The session of 1820–21, is remarkable as being the first at which any
proposition was made in Congress for the occupation and settlement of
our territory on the Columbia river—the only part then owned by the
United States on the Pacific coast. It was made by Dr. Floyd, a
representative from Virginia, who argued that the establishment of a
civilized power on the American coast of the Pacific could not fail to
produce great and wonderful benefits not only to our own country, but to
the people of Eastern Asia, China and Japan on the opposite side of the
Pacific Ocean, and that the valley of the Columbia might become the
granary of China and Japan. This movement suggested to Senator Benton,
to move, for the first time publicly in the United States, a resolution
to send ministers to the Oriental States.
At this time treaties with Mexico and Spain were ratified, by which the
United States acquired Florida and ceded Texas; these treaties, together
with the Missouri compromise—a measure contemporaneous with
them—extinguished slave soil in all the United States territory west of
the Mississippi, except in that portion which was to constitute the
State of Arkansas; and, including the extinction in Texas consequent
upon its cession to a non-slaveholding power, constituted the largest
territorial abolition of slavery that was ever up to that period
effected by any political power of any nation.
The outside view of the slave question in the United States, at this
time, is that the extension of slavery was then arrested, circumscribed,
and confined within narrow territorial limits, while free States were
permitted an almost unlimited expansion.
In 1822 a law passed Congress abolishing the Indian factory system,
which had been established during Washington’s administration, in 1796,
under which the Government acted as a factor or agent for the sale of
supplies to the Indians and the purchase of furs from them; this branch
of the service then belonged to the department of the Secretary of War.
The abuses discovered in it led to the discontinuance of that system.
The Presidential election of 1824 was approaching, the candidates were
in the field, their respective friends active and busy, and popular
topics for the canvass in earnest requisition. Congress was full of
projects for different objects of internal improvement, mainly in roads
and canals, and the friends of each candidate exerted themselves in
rivalry of each other, under the supposition that their opinions would
stand for those of their principals. An act for the preservation of the
Cumberland Road, which passed both houses of Congress, met with a veto
from President Monroe, accompanied by a state paper in exposition of his
opinions upon the whole subject of Federal interference in matters of
inter state commerce and roads and canals. He discussed the measure in
all its bearings, and plainly showed it to be unconstitutional. After
stating the question, he examined it under every head of constitutional
derivation under which its advocates claimed the power, and found it to
be granted by no one of them and virtually prohibited by some of them.
This was then and has since been considered to be the most elaborate and
thoroughly considered opinion upon the general question which has ever
been delivered by any American statesman. This great state paper,
delivered at a time when internal improvement by the federal government
had become an issue in the canvass for the Presidency and was ardently
advocated by three of the candidates and qualified by two others, had an
immense current in its power, carrying with it many of the old strict
constructionists.
The revision of the tariff, with a view to the protection of home
industry, and to the establishment of what was then called “The American
System,” was one of the large subjects before Congress at the session of
1823–24, and was the regular commencement of the heated debates on that
question which afterwards ripened into a serious difficulty between the
federal government and some of the Southern States. The presidential
election being then depending, the subject became tinctured with party
politics, in which so far as that ingredient was concerned, and was not
controlled by other considerations, members divided pretty much on the
line which always divided them on a question of constructive powers. The
protection of domestic industry not being among the powers granted, was
looked for in the incidental; and denied by the strict constructionists
to be a substantive term, to be exercised for the direct purpose of
protection; but admitted by all at that time and ever since the first
tariff act of 1789, to be an incident to the revenue raising power, and
an incident to be regarded in the exercise of that power. Revenue the
object, protection the incident, had been the rule in the earlier
tariffs; now that rule was sought to be reversed, and to make protection
the object of the law, and revenue the incident. Mr. Henry Clay was the
leader in the proposed revision and the champion of the American system;
he was ably supported in the House by many able and effective speakers;
who based their argument on the general distress then alleged to be
prevalent in the country. Mr. Daniel Webster was the leading speaker on
the other side, and disputed the universality of the distress which had
been described; and contested the propriety of high or prohibitory
duties, in the present active and intelligent state of the world, to
stimulate industry and manufacturing enterprise.
The bill was carried by a close vote in both Houses. Though brought
forward avowedly for the protection of domestic manufactures, it was not
entirely supported on that ground; an increase of revenue being the
motive with some, the public debt then being nearly ninety millions. An
increased protection to the products of several States, as lead in
Missouri and Illinois, hemp in Kentucky, iron in Pennsylvania, wool in
Ohio and New York, commanded many votes for the bill; and the impending
presidential election had its influence in its favor.
Two of the candidates, Messrs. Adams and Clay, voted for and avowedly
supported General Jackson, who voted for the bill, was for it, as
tending to give a home supply of the articles necessary in time of war,
and as raising revenue to pay the public debt; Mr. Crawford was opposed
to it, and Mr. Calhoun had withdrawn as a Presidential candidate. The
Southern planting States were dissatisfied, believing that the new
burdens upon imports which it imposed, fell upon the producers of the
exports, and tended to enrich one section of the Union at the expense of
another. The attack and support of the bill took much of a sectional
aspect; Virginia, the two Carolinas, Georgia, and some others, being
unanimous against it. Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio, and Kentucky being
unanimous for it. Massachusetts, which up to this time had no small
influence in commerce, voted, with all, except one member, against it.
With this sectional aspect, a tariff for protection, also began to
assume a political aspect, being taken under the care of the party,
afterwards denominated as Whig. The bill was approved by President
Monroe; a proof that that careful and strict constructionist of the
constitution did not consider it as deprived of its revenue character by
the degree of protection which it extended.
A subject which at the present time is exciting much criticism, viz:
proposed amendments to the constitution relative to the election of
President and Vice-President, had its origin in movements in that
direction taken by leading Democrats during the campaign of 1824. The
electoral college has never been since the early elections, an
independent body free to select a President and Vice-President; though
in theory they have been vested with such powers, in practice they have
no such practical power over the elections, and have had none since
their institution. In every case the elector has been an instrument,
bound to obey a particular impulsion, and disobedience to which would be
attended with infamy, and with every penalty which public indignation
could inflict. From the beginning they have stood pledged to vote for
the candidate indicated by the public will; and have proved not only to
be useless, but an inconvenient intervention between the people and the
object of their choice. Mr. McDuffie in the House of Representatives and
Mr. Benton in the Senate, proposed amendments; the mode of taking the
direct vote to be in districts, and the persons receiving the greatest
number of votes for President or Vice-President in any district, to
count one vote for such office respectively which is nothing but
substituting the candidates themselves for their electoral
representatives.
In the election of 1824 four candidates were before the people for the
office of President, General Jackson, John Quincy Adams, William H.
Crawford and Henry Clay. None of them received a majority of the 261
electoral votes, and the election devolved upon the House of
Representatives. John C. Calhoun had a majority of the electoral votes
for the office of Vice-President, and was elected. Mr. Adams was elected
President by the House of Representatives, although General Jackson was
the choice of the people, having received the greatest number of votes
at the general election. The election of Mr. Adams was perfectly
constitutional, and as such fully submitted to by the people; but it was
a violation of the _demos krateo_ principle; and that violation was
equally rebuked. All the representatives who voted against the will of
their constituents, lost their favor, and disappeared from public life.
The representation in the House of Representatives was largely changed
at the first general election, and presented a full opposition to the
new President. Mr. Adams himself was injured by it, and at the ensuing
presidential election was beaten by General Jackson more than two to
one.
Mr. Clay, who took the lead in the House for Mr. Adams, and afterwards
took upon himself the mission of reconciling the people to his election
in a series of public speeches, was himself crippled in the effort, lost
his place in the democratic party, and joined the Whigs (then called the
national republicans). The democratic principle was victor over the
theory of the Constitution, and beneficial results ensued. It vindicated
the people in their right and their power. It re-established parties
upon the basis of principle, and drew anew party lines, then almost
obliterated under the fusion of parties during the “era of good
feeling,” and the efforts of leading men to make personal parties for
themselves. It showed the conservative power of our government to lie in
the people, more than in its constituted authorities. It showed that
they were capable of exercising the function of self-government, and
lastly, it assumed the supremacy of the democracy for a long time, and
until lost by causes to be referred to hereafter. The Presidential
election of 1824 is remarkable under another aspect—its results
cautioned all public men against future attempts to govern presidential
elections in the House of Representatives; and it put an end to the
practice of caucus nominations for the Presidency by members of
Congress. This mode of concentrating public opinion began to be
practiced as the eminent men of the Revolution, to whom public opinion
awarded a preference, were passing away, and when new men, of more equal
pretensions, were coming upon the stage. It was tried several times with
success and general approbation, because public sentiment was
followed—not led—by the caucus. It was attempted in 1824 and failed; all
the opponents of Mr. Crawford, by their joint efforts, succeeded, and
justly in the fact though not in the motive, in rendering these Congress
caucus nominations odious to the people, and broke them down. They were
dropped, and a different mode adopted—that of party nominations by
conventions of delegates from the States.
The administration of Mr. Adams commenced with his inaugural address, in
which the chief topic was that of internal national improvement by the
federal government. This declared policy of the administration furnished
a ground of opposition against Mr. Adams, and went to the reconstruction
of parties on the old line of strict, or latitudinous, construction of
the Constitution. It was clear from the beginning that the new
administration was to have a settled and strong opposition, and that
founded in principles of government—the same principles, under different
forms, which had discriminated parties at the commencement of the
federal government. Men of the old school—survivors of the contest of
the Adams and Jefferson times, with some exceptions, divided
accordingly—the federalists going for Mr. Adams, the republicans against
him, with the mass of the younger generation. The Senate by a decided
majority, and the House by a strong minority, were opposed to the policy
of the new President.
In 1826 occurred the famous debates in the Senate and the House, on the
proposed Congress of American States, to contract alliances to guard
against and prevent the establishment of any future European colony
within its borders. The mission though sanctioned was never acted upon
or carried out. It was authorized by very nearly a party vote, the
democracy as a party being against it. The President, Mr. Adams, stated
the objects of the Congress to be as follows: “An agreement between all
the parties represented at the meeting, that each will guard, by its own
means, against the establishment of any future European colony within
its own borders, may be advisable. This was, more than two years since,
announced by my predecessor to the world, as a principle resulting from
the emancipation of both the American continents. It may be so developed
to the new southern nations, that they may feel it as an essential
appendage to their independence.”
Mr. Adams had been a member of Mr. Monroe’s cabinet, filling the
department from which the doctrine would emanate. The enunciation by him
as above of this “Monroe Doctrine,” as it is called, is very different
from what it has of late been supposed to be, as binding the United
States to guard all the territory of the New World from European
colonization. The message above quoted was written at a time when the
doctrine as enunciated by the former President through the then
Secretary was fresh in the mind of the latter, and when he himself in a
communication to the American Senate was laying it down for the adoption
of all the American nations in a general congress of their deputies.
According to President Adams, this “Monroe Doctrine” (according to which
it has been of late believed that the United States were to stand guard
over the two Americas, and repulse all intrusive colonists from their
shores), was entirely confined to our own borders; that it was only
proposed to get the other States of the New World to agree that, each
for itself, and by its own means, should guard its own territories; and,
consequently, that the United States, so far from extending gratuitous
protection to the territories of other States, would neither give, nor
receive, aid in any such enterprise, but that each should use its own
means, within its own borders, for its own exemption from European
colonial intrusion.
No question in its day excited more intemperate discussion, excitement,
and feeling between the Executive and the Senate, and none died out so
quickly, than this, relative to the proposed congress of American
nations. The chief advantage to be derived from its retrospect—and it is
a real one—is a view of the firmness with which the minority maintained
the old policy of the United States, to avoid entangling alliances and
interference with the affairs of other nations; and the exposition, by
one so competent as Mr. Adams, of the true scope and meaning of the
Monroe doctrine.
At the session of 1825–26 attempt was again made to procure an amendment
to the Constitution, in relation to the mode of election of President
and Vice-President, so as to do away with all intermediate agencies, and
give the election to the direct vote of the people. In the Senate the
matter was referred to a committee who reported amendments dispensing
with electors, providing for districts equal in number to the whole
number of Senators and Representatives to which the State was entitled
in Congress, and obviating all excuses for caucuses and conventions to
concentrate public opinion by providing that in the event of no one
receiving a majority of the whole number of district votes cast, that a
second election should be held limited to the two persons receiving the
highest number of votes; and in case of an equal division of votes on
the second election then the House of Representatives shall choose one
of them for President, as is prescribed by the Constitution. The idea
being that the first election, if not resulting in any candidate
receiving a majority, should stand for a popular nomination—a nomination
by the people themselves, out of which the election is almost sure to be
made on the second trial. The same plan was suggested for choosing a
Vice-President, except that the Senate was to finally elect, in case of
failure to choose at first and second elections. The amendments did not
receive the requisite support of two-thirds of either the Senate or the
House. This movement was not of a partisan character; it was equally
supported and opposed respectively by Senators and Representatives of
both parties. Substantially the same plan was recommended by President
Jackson in his first annual message to Congress, December 8, 1829.
It is interesting to note that at this Session of 1825 and ’26, attempt
was made by the Democrats to pass a tenure of office bill, as applicable
to government employees and office-holders; it provided “that in all
nominations made by the President to the Senate, to fill vacancies
occasioned by an exercise of the President’s power to remove from
office, the fact of the removal shall be stated to the Senate at the
same time that the nomination is made, with a statement of the reasons
for which such officer may have been removed.” It was also sought at the
same time to amend the Constitution to prohibit the appointment of any
member of Congress to any federal office of trust or profit, during the
period for which he was elected; the design being to make the members
wholly independent of the Executive, and not subservient to the latter,
and incapable of receiving favors in the form of bestowals of official
patronage.
The tariff of 1828 is an era in our political legislation; from it the
doctrine of “nullification” originated, and from that date began a
serious division between the North and the South. This tariff law was
projected in the interest of the woolen manufacturers, but ended by
including all manufacturing interests. The passage of this measure was
brought about not because it was favored by a majority, but because of
political exigencies. In the then approaching presidential election, Mr.
Adams, who was in favor of the “American System,” supported by Mr. Clay
(his Secretary of State) was opposed by General Jackson. This tariff was
made an administration measure, and became an issue in the canvass. The
New England States, which had formerly favored free trade, on account of
their commercial interests, changed their policy, and, led by Mr.
Webster, became advocates of the protective system. The question of
protective tariff had now not only become political, but sectional. The
Southern States as a section, were arrayed against the system, though
prior to 1816 had favored it, not merely as an incident to revenue, but
as a substantive object. In fact these tariff bills, each exceeding the
other in its degree of protection, had become a regular appendage of our
presidential elections—carrying round in every cycle of four years, with
that returning event; starting in 1816 and followed up in 1820–24, and
now in 1828; with successive augmentations of duties; the last being
often pushed as a party measure, and with the visible purpose of
influencing the presidential election. General Jackson was elected,
having received 178 electoral votes to 83 received by John Quincy Adams.
Mr. Richard Rush, of Pennsylvania, who was on the ticket with Mr. Adams,
was defeated for the office of Vice-President, and John C. Calhoun, of
South Carolina, was elected to that office.
The election of General Jackson was a triumph of democratic principle,
and an assertion of the people’s right to govern themselves. That
principle had been violated in the presidential election in the House of
Representatives in the session of 1824–25; and the sanction, or rebuke,
of that violation was a leading question in the whole canvass. It was
also a triumph over the high protective policy, and the federal internal
improvement policy, and the latitudinous construction of the
Constitution; and of the democracy over the federalists, then called
national republicans; and was the re-establishment of parties on
principle, according to the landmarks of the early years of the
government. For although Mr. Adams had received confidence and office
from Mr. Madison and Mr. Monroe, and had classed with the democratic
party during the “era of good feeling,” yet he had previously been
federal; and on the re-establishment of old party lines which began to
take place after the election of Mr. Adams in the House of
Representatives, his affinities and policy became those of his former
party; and as a party, with many individual exceptions, they became his
supporters and his strength. General Jackson, on the contrary, had
always been democratic, so classing when he was a Senator in Congress
under the administration of the first Mr. Adams; and when party lines
were most straightly drawn, and upon principle, and as such now
receiving the support of men and States which took this political
position at that time, and maintained it for years afterwards; among the
latter, notably the States of Virginia and Pennsylvania.
The short session of 1829–30 was rendered famous by the long and earnest
debates in the Senate on the doctrine of nullification, as it was then
called. It started by a resolution of inquiry introduced by Mr. Foot of
Connecticut; it was united with a proposition to limit the sales of the
public lands to those then in the market—to suspend the surveys of the
public lands—and to abolish the office of Surveyor-General. The effect
of such a resolution, if sanctioned upon inquiry and carried into
legislative effect, would have been to check emigration to the new
States in the West, and to check the growth and settlement of these
States and Territories. It was warmly opposed by Western members. The
debate spread and took an acrimonious turn, and sectional, imputing to
the quarter of the Union from which it came an old and early policy to
check the growth of the West at the outset by proposing to limit the
sale of the Western lands, by selling no tract in advance until all in
the rear was sold out; and during the debate Mr. Webster referred to the
famous ordinance of 1787 for the government of the northwestern
territory, and especially the anti-slavery clause which it contained.
Closely connected with this subject to which Mr. Webster’s remarks,
during the debate, related, was another which excited some warm
discussion—the topic of slavery—and the effect of its existence or
non-existence in different States. Kentucky and Ohio were taken for
examples, and the superior improvement and population of Ohio were
attributed to its exemption from the evils of slavery. This was an
excitable subject, and the more so because the wounds of the Missouri
controversy in which the North was the undisputed aggressor, were still
tender. Mr. Hayne from South Carolina answered with warmth and resented
as a reflection upon the Slave States this disadvantageous comparison.
Mr. Benton of Missouri followed on the same side, and in the course of
his remarks said, “I regard with admiration, that is to say, with
wonder, the sublime morality of those who cannot bear the abstract
contemplation of slavery, at the distance of five hundred or a thousand
miles off.” This allusion to the Missouri controversy, and invective
against the free States for their part in it, by Messrs. Hayne and
Benton, brought a reply from Mr. Webster, showing what their conduct had
been at the first introduction of the slavery topic in the Congress of
the United States, and that they totally refused to interfere between
master and slave in any way whatever. But the topic which became the
leading feature of the whole debate, and gave it an interest which
cannot die, was that of nullification—the assumed right of a State to
annul an act of Congress—then first broached in the Senate—and in the
discussion of which Mr. Webster and Mr. Hayne were the champion speakers
on opposite sides—the latter voicing the sentiments of the
Vice-President, Mr. Calhoun. This turn in the debate was brought about,
by Mr. Hayne having made allusion to the course of New England during
the war of 1812, and especially to the assemblage known as the Hartford
Convention, and to which designs unfriendly to the Union had been
attributed. This gave Mr. Webster an opportunity to retaliate, and he
referred to the public meetings which had just then taken place in South
Carolina on the subject of the tariff, and at which resolves were
passed, and propositions adopted significant of resistance to the act;
and consequently of disloyalty to the Union. He drew Mr. Hayne into
their defence and into an avowal of what has since obtained the current
name of “_Nullification_.” He said, “I understand the honorable
gentleman from South Carolina to maintain, that it is a right of the
State Legislature to interfere, whenever, in their judgment, this
government transcends its constitutional limits, and to arrest the
operation of its laws,*** that the States may lawfully decide for
themselves, and each State for itself, whether, in a given case, the act
of the general government transcends its powers,*** that if the exigency
of the case, in the opinion of any State government require it, such
State government may, by its own sovereign authority, annul an act of
the general government, which it deems plainly and palpably
unconstitutional.” Mr. Hayne was evidently unprepared to admit, or fully
deny, the propositions as so laid down, but contented himself with
stating the words of the Virginia Resolution of 1798, as follows: “That
this assembly doth explicitly and peremptorily declare, that it views
the powers of the federal government as resulting from the compact, to
which the States are parties, as limited by the plain sense and
intention of the instrument constituting that compact, as no farther
valid than they are authorized by the grants enumerated in that compact,
and that, in case of a deliberate, palpable and dangerous exercise of
other powers, not granted by the said compact, the States who are
parties thereto have the right, and are in duty bound, to interpose, for
arresting the progress of the evil, and for maintaining, within their
respective limits, the authorities, rights, and liberties appertaining
to them.”
This resolution came to be understood by Mr. Hayne and others on that
side of the debate, in the same sense that Mr. Webster stated, as above,
he understood the gentleman from the South to interpret it. On the other
side of the question, he argued that the doctrine had no foundation
either in the Constitution, or on the Virginia resolutions—that the
Constitution makes the federal government act upon citizens within the
States, and not upon the States themselves, as in the old confederation:
that within their Constitutional limits the laws of Congress were
supreme—and that it was treasonable to resist them with force: and that
the question of their constitutionality was to be decided by the Supreme
Court: with respect to the Virginia resolutions, on which Mr. Hayne
relied, Mr. Webster disputed the interpretation put upon them—claimed
for them an innocent and justifiable meaning—and exempted Mr. Madison
from the suspicion of having framed a resolution asserting the right of
a State legislature to annul an Act of Congress, and thereby putting it
in the power of one State to destroy a form of government which he had
just labored so hard to establish.
Mr. Hayne on his part gave (as the practical part of his doctrine) the
pledge of forcible resistance to any attempt to enforce unconstitutional
laws. He said, “The gentleman has called upon us to carry out our scheme
practically. Now, sir, if I am correct in my view of this matter, then
it follows, of course, that the right of a State being established, the
federal government is bound to acquiesce in a solemn decision of a
State, acting in its sovereign capacity, at least so far as to make an
appeal to the people for an amendment to the Constitution. This solemn
decision of a State binds the federal government, under the highest
constitutional obligation, not to resort to any means of coercion
against the citizens of the dissenting State.*** Suppose Congress should
pass an agrarian law, or a law emancipating our slaves, or should commit
any other gross violation of our constitutional rights, will any
gentlemen contend that the decision of every branch of the federal
government, in favor of such laws, could prevent the States from
declaring them null and void, and protecting their citizens from their
operation?*** Let me assure the gentlemen that, whenever any attempt
shall be made from any quarter, to enforce unconstitutional laws,
clearly violating our essential rights, our leaders (whoever they may
be) will not be found reading black letter from the musty pages of old
law books. They will look to the Constitution, and when called upon by
the sovereign authority of the State, to preserve and protect the rights
secured to them by the charter of their liberties, they will succeed in
defending them, or ‘perish in the last ditch.’”
These words of Mr. Hayne seem almost prophetic in view of the events of
thirty years later. No one then believed in anything serious in the new
interpretation given to the Virginia resolutions—nor in anything
practical from nullification—nor in forcible resistance to the tariff
laws from South Carolina—nor in any scheme of disunion.
Mr. Webster’s closing reply was a fine piece of rhetoric, delivered in
an elaborate and artistic style, and in an apparent spirit of deep
seriousness. He concluded thus—“When my eyes shall be turned to behold,
for the last time, the sun in heaven, may I not see him shining on the
broken and disfigured fragments of a once glorious Union; on States
dissevered, discordant, belligerent; on a land rent with civil feuds, or
drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood. Let their last feeble and
lingering glance, rather, behold the gorgeous ensign of the Republic,
now known and honored throughout the earth, still full high advanced,
its arms and trophies streaming in their original lustre, not a stripe
erased or polluted, nor a single star obscured, bearing for its motto no
such miserable interrogatory as, What is all this worth? nor those other
words of delusion and folly, Liberty first and Union afterwards; but
everywhere, spread all over in characters of living light, blazing in
all its ample folds, as they float over the sea and over the land, and
in every wind under the whole heavens, that other sentiment, dear to
every true American heart—Liberty _and_ Union, now and forever, one and
inseparable!”
[Illustration: Andrew Jackson]
President Jackson in his first annual message to Congress called
attention to the fact of expiration in 1836 of the charter of
incorporation granted by the Federal government to a moneyed institution
called The Bank of the United States, which was originally designed to
assist the government in establishing and maintaining a uniform and
sound currency. He seriously doubted the constitutionality and
expediency of the law creating the bank, and was opposed to a renewal of
the charter. His view of the matter was that if such an institution was
deemed a necessity it should be made a national one, in the sense of
being founded on the credit of the government and its revenues, and not
a corporation independent from and not a part of the government. The
House of Representatives was strongly in favor of the renewal of the
charter, and several of its committees made elaborate, ample and
argumentative reports upon the subject. These reports were the subject
of newspaper and pamphlet publication; and lauded for their power and
excellence, and triumphant refutation of all the President’s opinions.
Thus was the “war of the Bank” commenced at once in Congress, and in the
public press; and openly at the instance of the Bank itself, which,
forgetting its position as an institution of the government, for the
convenience of the government, set itself up as a power, and struggled
for continued existence, by demand for renewal of its charter. It allied
itself at the same time to the political power opposed to the President,
joined in all their schemes of protective tariff, and national internal
improvement, and became the head of the American system. Its moneyed and
political power, numerous interested affiliations, and control over
other banks and fiscal institutions, was truly great and extensive, and
a power which was exercised and made to be felt during the struggle to
such a degree that it threatened a danger to the country and the
government almost amounting to a national calamity.
The subject of renewal of the charter was agitated at every succeeding
session of Congress down to 1836, and many able speeches made for and
against it.
In the month of December, 1831, the National Republicans, as the party
was then called which afterward took the name of “whig,” held its
convention in Baltimore, and nominated candidates for President and
Vice-President, to be voted for at the election in the autumn of the
ensuing year. Henry Clay was the candidate for the office of President,
and John Sergeant for that of Vice-President. The platform or address to
the people presented the party issues which were to be settled at the
ensuing election, the chief subjects being the tariff, internal
improvement, removal of the Cherokee Indians, and the renewal of the
United States Bank charter. Thus the bank question was fully presented
as an issue in the election by that part of its friends who classed
politically against President Jackson. But it had also Democratic
friends without whose aid the re-charter could not be got through
Congress, and they labored assiduously for it. The first Bank of the
United States, chartered in 1791, was a federal measure, favored by
General Hamilton, opposed by Mr. Jefferson, Mr. Madison, and the
Republican party; and became a great landmark of party, not merely for
the bank itself, but for the latitudinarian construction of the
constitution in which it was founded, and the precedent it established
that Congress might in its discretion do what it pleased, under the plea
of being “_necessary_” to carry into effect some granted power. The
non-renewal of the charter in 1811, was the act of the Republican party,
then in possession of the government, and taking the opportunity to
terminate, upon its own limitation, the existence of an institution
whose creation they had not been able to prevent. The charter of the
second bank, in 1816, was the act of the Republican party, and to aid
them in the administration of the government, and, as such, was opposed
by the Federal party—not seeming then to understand that, by its
instincts, a great moneyed corporation was in sympathy with their own
party, and would soon be with it in action—which the bank soon was—and
now struggled for a continuation of its existence under the lead of
those who had opposed its creation and against the party which effected
it. Mr. Webster was a Federal leader on both occasions—against the
charter in 1816; for the re-charter in 1832. The bill passed the Senate
after a long and arduous contest; and afterwards passed the House,
quickly and with little or no contest at all.
It was sent to the President, and vetoed by him July 10, 1832; the
message stating his objections being an elaborate review of the subject;
the veto being based mainly on the unconstitutionality of the measure.
The veto was sustained. Following this the President after the
adjournment removed from the bank the government deposits, and referred
to that fact in his next annual message on the second day of December,
1833, at the opening of the first session of the twenty-third Congress.
Accompanying it was the report of the Secretary of the Treasury, Hon.
Roger B. Taney, afterwards Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the
United States, giving the reasons of the government for the withdrawal
of the public funds. Long and bitter was the contest between the
President on the one side and the Bank and its supporters in the Senate
on the other side. The conduct of the Bank produced distress throughout
the country, and was so intended to coerce the President. Distress
petitions flooded Congress, and the Senate even passed resolutions of
censure of the President. The latter, however, held firm in his
position. A committee of investigation was appointed by the House of
Representatives to inquire into the causes of the commercial
embarrassment and the public distress complained of in the numerous
distress memorials presented to the two Houses during the session; and
whether the Bank had been instrumental, through its management of money,
in producing the distress and embarrassment of which so much complaint
was made; to inquire whether the charter of the Bank had been violated,
and what corruptions and abuses, if any, existed in its management; and
to inquire whether the Bank had used its corporate power or money to
control the press, to interpose in politics, or to influence elections.
The committee were granted ample powers for the execution of these
inquiries. It was treated with disdain and contempt by the Bank
management; refused access to the books and papers, and the directors
and president refused to be sworn and testify. The committee at the next
session made report of their proceedings, and asked for warrants to be
issued against the managers to bring them before the Bar of the House to
answer for contempt; but the friends of the Bank in the House were able
to check the proceedings and prevent action being taken. In the Senate,
the President was sought to be punished by a declination by that body to
confirm the President’s nomination of the four government directors of
the Bank, who had served the previous year; and their re-nomination
after that rejection again met with a similar fate. In like manner his
re-nomination of Roger B. Taney to be Secretary of the Treasury was
rejected, for the action of the latter in his support of the President
and the removal of the public deposits. The Bank had lost much ground in
the public estimation by resisting the investigation ordered and
attempted by the House of Representatives, and in consequence the
Finance Committee of the Senate made an investigation, with so weak an
attempt to varnish over the affairs and acts of the corporation that the
odious appellation of “white-washing committee” was fastened upon it.
The downfall of the Bank speedily followed; it soon afterwards became a
total financial wreck, and its assets and property were seized on
executions. With its financial failure it vanished from public view, and
public interest in it and concern with it died out.
About the beginning of March, 1831, a pamphlet was issued in Washington,
by Mr. John C. Calhoun, the Vice-President, and addressed to the people
of the United States, explaining the cause of a difference which had
taken place between himself and the President, General Jackson,
instigated as the pamphlet alleged, by Mr. Van Buren, and intended to
make trouble between the first and second officers of the government,
and to effect the political destruction of himself (Mr. Calhoun) for the
benefit of the contriver of the quarrel, the then Secretary of State,
and indicated as a candidate for the presidential succession upon the
termination of Jackson’s term. The differences grew out of certain
charges against General Jackson respecting his conduct during the
Seminole war which occurred in the administration of President Monroe.
The President justified himself in published correspondence, but the
inevitable result followed—a rupture between the President and
Vice-President—which was quickly followed by a breaking up and
reconstructing the Cabinet. Some of its members classed as the political
friends of Mr. Calhoun, and could hardly be expected to remain as
ministers to the President. Mr. Van Buren resigned; a new Cabinet was
appointed and confirmed. This change in the Cabinet made a great figure
in the party politics of the day, and filled all the opposition
newspapers, and had many sinister reasons assigned to it—all to the
prejudice of General Jackson and Mr. Van Buren.
It is interesting to note here that during the administration of
President Jackson,—in the year 1833,—the Congress of the United States,
as the consequence of the earnest efforts in that behalf, of Col. R. M.
Johnson, of Kentucky, aided by the recommendation and support of the
President, passed the first laws, abolishing imprisonment for debt,
under process from the Courts of the United States: the only extent to
which an act of Congress could go, by force of its enactments; but by
force of example and influence, has led to the cessation of the practice
of imprisoning debtors, in all, or nearly all, of the States and
Territories of the Union; and without the evil consequences which had
been dreaded from the loss of this remedy over the person. The act was a
total abolition of the practice, leaving in full force all the remedies
against fraudulent evasions of debt.
The American system, and especially its prominent feature of a high
protective tariff was put in issue, in the Presidential canvass of 1832;
and the friends of that system labored diligently in Congress in
presenting its best points to the greatest advantage; and staking its
fate upon the issue of the election. It was lost; not only by the result
of the main contest, but by that of the congressional election which
took place simultaneously with it. All the States dissatisfied with that
system, were satisfied with the view of its speedy and regular
extinction, under the legislation of the approaching session of
Congress, excepting only South Carolina. She has held aloof from the
Presidential contest, and cast her electoral votes for persons who were
not candidates—doing nothing to aid the election of General Jackson,
with whom her interests were apparently identified. On the 24th
November, 1832, two weeks after the election which decided the fate of
the tariff, that State issued an “Ordinance to nullify certain acts of
the Congress of the United States, purporting to be laws laying duties
and imposts on the importation of foreign commodities.” It declared that
the Congress had exceeded its constitutional powers in imposing high and
excessive duties on the theory of “protection,” had unjustly
discriminated in favor of one class or employment, at the expense and to
the injury and oppression of other classes and individuals; that said
laws were in consequence not binding on the State and its citizens; and
declaring its right and purpose to enact laws to prevent the enforcement
and arrest the operation of said acts and parts of the acts of the
Congress of the United States within the limits of that State after the
first day of February following. This ordinance placed the State in the
attitude of forcible resistance to the laws of the United States, to
take effect on the first day of February next ensuing—a date prior to
the meeting of the next Congress, which the country naturally expected
would take some action in reference to the tariff laws complained of.
The ordinance further provided that if, in the meantime, any attempt was
made by the federal government to enforce the obnoxious laws, except
through the tribunals, all the officers of which were sworn against
them, the fact of such attempt was to terminate the continuance of South
Carolina in the Union—to absolve her from all connection with the
federal government—and to establish her as a separate government, wholly
unconnected with the United States or any State. The ordinance of
nullification was certified by the Governor of South Carolina to the
President of the United States, and reached him in December of the same
year; in consequence of which he immediately issued a proclamation,
exhorting the people of South Carolina to obey the laws of Congress;
pointing out and explaining the illegality of the procedure; stating
clearly and distinctly his firm determination to enforce the laws as
became him as Executive, even by resort to force if necessary. As a
state paper, it is important as it contains the views of General Jackson
regarding the nature and character of our federal government, expressed
in the following language: “The people of the United States formed the
constitution, acting through the State Legislatures in making the
compact, to meet and discuss its provisions, and acting in separate
conventions when they ratified those provisions; but, the terms used in
the constitution show it to be a government in which the people of all
the States collectively are represented. We are one people in the choice
of President and Vice-President. Here the States have no other agency
than to direct the mode in which the votes shall be given. * * * The
people, then, and not the States, are represented in the executive
branch. * * * In the House of Representatives the members are all
representatives of the United States, not representatives of the
particular States from which they come. They are paid by the United
States, not by the State, nor are they accountable to it for any act
done in the performance of their legislative functions. * * *
“The constitution of the United States, then, forms a government, not a
league; and whether it be formed by a compact between the States, or in
any other manner, its character is the same. It is a government in which
all the people are represented, which operates directly on the people
individually, not upon the States—they retained all the power they did
not grant. But each State, having expressly parted with so many powers
as to constitute, jointly with the other States, a single nation,
cannot, from that period, possess any right to secede, because such
secession does not break a league, but destroys the unity of the nation,
and any injury to that unity, is not only a breach which could result
from the contravention of a compact, but it is an offence against the
whole Union. To say that any State may at pleasure secede from the
Union, is to say that the United States are not a nation; because it
would be a solecism to contend that any part of a nation might dissolve
its connection with the other parts, to their injury or ruin, without
committing any offence.”
Without calling on Congress for extraordinary powers, the President in
his annual message, merely adverted to the attitude of the State, and
proceeded to meet the exigency by the exercise of the powers he already
possessed. The proceedings in South Carolina not ceasing, and taking
daily a more aggravated form in the organization of troops, the
collection of arms and of munitions of war, and in declarations hostile
to the Union, he found it necessary early in January to report the facts
to Congress in a special message, and ask for extraordinary powers.
Bills for the reduction of the tariff were early in the Session
introduced into both houses, while at the same time the President,
though not relaxing his efforts towards a peaceful settlement of the
difficulty, made steady preparations for enforcing the law. The result
of the bills offered in the two Houses of Congress, was the passage of
Mr. Clay’s “compromise” bill on the 12th of February 1833, which
radically changed the whole tariff system.
The President in his message on the South Carolina proceedings had
recommended to Congress the revival of some acts, heretofore in force,
to enable him to execute the laws in that State; and the Senate’s
committee on the judiciary had reported a bill accordingly early in the
session. It was immediately assailed by several members as violent and
unconstitutional, tending to civil war, and denounced as “the bloody
bill”—the “force bill,” &c. The bill was vindicated in the Senate, by
its author, who showed that it contained no novel principle; was
substantially a revival of laws previously in force; with the authority
superadded to remove the office of customs from one building or place to
another in case of need. The bill was vehemently opposed, and every
effort made to render it odious to the people, and even extend the odium
to the President, and to every person urging or aiding in its passage.
Mr. Webster justly rebuked all this vituperation, and justified the
bill, both for the equity of its provisions, and the necessity for
enacting them. He said, that an unlawful combination threatened the
integrity of the Union; that the crisis called for a mild, temperate,
forbearing but inflexibly firm execution of the laws; and finally, that
public opinion sets with an irresistible force in favor of the Union, in
favor of the measures recommended by the President, and against the new
doctrines which threatened the dissolution of the Union. The support
which Mr. Webster gave to these measures was the regular result of the
principles which he laid down in his first speeches against
nullification in the debate with Mr. Hayne, and he could not have done
less without being derelict to his own principles then avowed. He
supported with transcendent ability, the cause of the constitution and
of the country, in the person of a President to whom he was politically
opposed, whose gratitude and admiration he earned for his patriotic
endeavors. The country, without distinction of party, felt the same; and
the universality of the feeling was one of the grateful instances of
popular applause and justice when great talents are seen exerting
themselves for the good of the country. He was the colossal figure on
the political stage during that eventful time; and his labors, splendid
in their day, survive for the benefit of distant posterity.
During the discussion over the re-charter of the Bank of the United
States, which as before mentioned, occupied the attention of Congress
for several years, the country suffered from a money panic, and a
general financial depression and distress was generally prevalent. In
1834 a measure was introduced into the House, for equalizing the value
of gold and silver, and legalizing the tender of foreign coin, of both
metals. The good effects of the bill were immediately seen. Gold began
to flow into the country through all the channels of commerce, foreign
and domestic; the mint was busy; and specie payment, which had been
suspended in the country for thirty years, was resumed, and gold and
silver became the currency of the land; inspiring confidence in all the
pursuits of industry.
As indicative of the position of the democratic party at that date, on
the subject of the kind of money authorized by the Constitution, Mr.
Benton’s speech in the Senate is of interest. He said: “In the first
place, he was one of those who believed that the government of the
United States was intended to be a hard-money government; that it was
the intention and the declaration of the Constitution of the United
States, that the federal currency should consist of gold and silver, and
that there is no power in Congress to issue, or to authorize any company
of individuals to issue, any species of federal paper currency
whatsoever. Every clause in the Constitution (said Mr. B.) which bears
upon the subject of money—every early statute of Congress which
interprets the meaning of these clauses—and every historic recollection
which refers to them, go hand in hand in giving to that instrument the
meaning which this proposition ascribes to it. The power granted to
Congress to coin money is an authority to stamp metallic money, and is
not an authority for emitting slips of paper containing promises to pay
money. The authority granted to Congress to regulate the value of coin,
is an authority to regulate the value of the metallic money, not of
paper. The prohibition upon the States against making anything but gold
and silver a legal tender, is a moral prohibition, founded in virtue and
honesty, and is just as binding upon the Federal Government as upon the
State Governments; and that without a written prohibition; for the
difference in the nature of the two governments is such, that the States
may do all things which they are not forbid to do; and the Federal
Government can do nothing which it is not authorized by the Constitution
to do. The framers of the Constitution (said Mr. B.) created a
hard-money government. They intended the new government to recognize
nothing for money but gold and silver; and every word admitted into the
Constitution, upon the subject of money, defines and establishes that
sacred intention.
Legislative enactment came quickly to the aid of constitutional
intention and historic recollection. The fifth statute passed at the
first session of the first Congress that ever sat under the present
Constitution was full and explicit on this head. It declared, “that the
fees and duties payable to the federal government shall be received in
gold and silver coin only.” It was under General Hamilton, as Secretary
of the Treasury, in 1791, that the policy of the government underwent a
change. In the act constituting the Bank of the United States, he
brought forward his celebrated plan for the support of the public
credit—that plan which unfolded the entire scheme of the paper system
and immediately developed the great political line between the
federalists and the republicans. The establishment of a national bank
was the leading and predominant feature of that plan; and the original
report of the secretary, in favor of establishing the bank, contained
this fatal and deplorable recommendation: “The bills and notes of the
bank, originally made payable, or which shall have become payable, on
demand, in gold and silver coin, shall be receivable in all payments to
the United States.” From the moment of the adoption of this policy, the
moneyed character of the government stood changed and reversed. Federal
bank notes took the place of hard-money; and the whole edifice of the
government slid, at once, from the solid rock of gold and silver money,
on which its framers had placed it, into the troubled and tempestuous
ocean of paper currency.
The first session of the 35th Congress opened December 1835. Mr. James
K. Polk was elected Speaker of the House by a large majority over Mr.
John Bell, the previous Speaker; the former being supported by the
administration party, and the latter having become identified with those
who, on siding with Mr. Hugh L. White as a candidate for the presidency,
were considered as having divided from the democratic party. The chief
subject of the President’s message was the relations of our country with
France relative to the continued non-payment of the stipulated indemnity
provided for in the treaty of 1831 for French spoliations of American
shipping. The obligation to pay was admitted, and the money even voted
for that purpose; but offense was taken at the President’s message, and
payment refused until an apology should be made. The President commented
on this in his message, and the Senate had under consideration measures
authorizing reprisals on French shipping. At this point Great Britain
offered her services as mediator between the nations, and as a result
the indemnity was shortly afterwards paid.
Agitation of the slavery question in the United States really began
about this time. Evil-disposed persons had largely circulated through
the Southern states, pamphlets and circulars tending to stir up strife
and insurrection; and this had become so intolerable that it was
referred to by the President in his message. Congress at the session of
1836 was flooded with petitions and memorials urging federal
interference to abolish slavery in the States; beginning with the
petition of the Society of Friends of Philadelphia, urging the abolition
of slavery in the District of Columbia. These petitions were referred to
Committees after an acrimonious debate as to whether they should be
received or not. The position of the government at that time is embodied
in the following resolution which was adopted in the House of
Representatives as early as 1790, and substantially reaffirmed in 1836,
as follows: “That Congress have no authority to interfere in the
emancipation of slaves, or in the treatment of them within any of the
States; it remaining with the several States to provide any regulations
therein which humanity and true policy may require.”
In the Summer preceding the Presidential election of 1836, a measure was
introduced into Congress, which became very nearly a party measure, and
which in its results proved disastrous to the Democratic party in after
years. It was a plan for distributing the public land money among the
States either in the shape of credit distribution, or in the disguise of
a deposit of surplus revenue; and this for the purpose of enhancing the
value of the State stocks held by the United States Bank, which
institution, aided by the party which it favored, led by Mr. Clay, was
the prime mover in the plan. That gentleman was the author of the
scheme, and great calculations were made by the party which favored the
distribution upon its effect in adding to their popularity. The Bill
passed the Senate in its original form, but met with less favor in the
House where it was found necessary. To effectuate substantially the same
end, a Senate Bill was introduced to regulate the keeping of the public
money in the deposit banks, and this was turned into distribution of the
surplus public moneys with the States, in proportion to their
representation in Congress, to be returned when Congress should call for
it; and this was called a deposit with the States, and the faith of the
States pledged for a return of the money. It was stigmatized by its
opponents in Congress, as a distribution in disguise—as a deposit never
to be reclaimed; as a miserable evasion of the Constitution; as an
attempt to debauch the people with their own money; as plundering
instead of defending the country. The Bill passed both houses, mainly by
the efforts of a half dozen aspirants to the Presidency, who sought to
thus increase their popularity. They were doomed to disappointment in
this respect. Politically, it was no advantage to its numerous and
emulous supporters, and of no disservice to its few determined
opponents. It was a most unfortunate act, a plain evasion of the
Constitution for a bad purpose; and it soon gave a sad overthrow to the
democracy and disappointed every calculation made upon it. To the States
it was no advantage, raising expectations which were not fulfilled, and
upon which many of them acted as realities. The Bill was signed by the
President, but it is simple justice to him to say that he did it with a
repugnance of feeling, and a recoil of judgment, which it required great
efforts of his friends to overcome, and with a regret for it afterwards
which he often and publicly expressed. In a party point of view, the
passage of this measure was the commencement of calamities, being an
efficient cause in that general suspension of specie payments, which
quickly occurred, and brought so much embarrassment on the Van Buren
administration, ending in the great democratic defeat of 1840.
The presidential election of 1836 resulted in the choice of the
democratic candidate, Mr. Van Buren, who was elected by 170 electoral
votes; his opponent, General Harrison, receiving seventy-three electoral
votes. Scattering votes were given for Mr. Webster, Mr. Mangum, and Mr.
Hugh L. White, the last named representing a fragment of the democracy
who, in a spirit of disaffection, attempted to divide the democratic
party and defeat Mr. Van Buren. At the opening of the second session of
the twenty-fourth Congress, December, 1836, President Jackson delivered
his last annual message, under circumstances exceedingly gratifying to
him. The powerful opposition in Congress had been broken down, and he
had the satisfaction of seeing full majorities of ardent and tried
friends in each House. The country was in peace and friendship with all
the world; all exciting questions quieted at home; industry in all its
branches prosperous, and the revenue abundant. And as a happy sequence
of this state of affairs, the Senate on the 16th of March, 1837,
expunged from the Journal the resolution, adopted three years
previously, censuring the President for ordering the removal of the
deposits of public money in the United States Bank. He retired from the
presidency with high honors, and died eight years afterwards at his
home, the celebrated “Hermitage,” in Tennessee, in full possession of
all his faculties, and strong to the last in the ruling passion of his
soul—love of country.
The 4th of March, 1837, ushered in another Democratic administration—the
beginning of the term of Martin Van Buren as President of the United
States. In his inaugural address he commented on the prosperous
condition of the country, and declared it to be his policy to strictly
abide by the Constitution as written—no latitudinarian constructions
permitted, or doubtful powers assumed; that his political chart should
be the doctrines of the democratic school, as understood at the original
formation of parties.
The President, however, was scarcely settled in his new office when a
financial panic struck the country with irresistible force. A general
suspension of the banks, a depreciated currency, and insolvency of the
federal treasury were at hand. The public money had been placed in the
custody of the local banks, and the notes of all these banks, and of all
others in the country, were received in payment of public dues. On the
10th of May, 1837, the banks throughout the country suspended specie
payments. The stoppage of the deposit banks was the stoppage of the
Treasury. Non-payment by the government was an excuse for non-payment by
others. The suspension was now complete; and it was evident, and as good
as admitted by those who had made it, that it was the effect of
contrivance on the part of politicians and the so-called Bank of the
United States (which, after the expiration of its national charter, had
become a State corporation chartered by the Legislature of Pennsylvania
in January, 1836) for the purpose of restoring themselves to power. The
whole proceeding became clear to those who could see nothing while it
was in progress. Even those of the democratic party whose votes had
helped to do the mischief, could now see that the attempt to deposit
forty millions with the States was destruction to the deposit banks;
that the repeal of President Jackson’s order, known as the “specie
circular”—requiring payment for public lands to be in coin—was to fill
the treasury with paper money, to be found useless when wanted; that
distress was purposely created to throw blame of it upon the party in
power; that the promptitude with which the Bank of the United States had
been brought forward as a remedy for the distress, showed that it had
been held in reserve for that purpose; and the delight with which the
whig party saluted the general calamity, showed that they considered it
their own passport to power. Financial embarrassment and general
stagnation of business diminished the current receipts from lands and
customs, and actually caused an absolute deficit in the public treasury.
In consequence, the President found it an inexorable necessity to issue
his proclamation convening Congress in extra session.
The first session of the twenty-fifth Congress met in extra session, at
the call of the President, on the first Monday of September, 1837. The
message was a review of the events and causes which had brought about
the panic; a defense of the policy of the “specie circular,” and a
recommendation to break off all connection with any bank of issue in any
form; looking to the establishment of an Independent Treasury, and that
the Government provide for the deficit in the treasury by the issue of
treasury notes and by withholding the deposit due to the States under
the act then in force. The message and its recommendations were
violently assailed both in the Senate and House by able and effective
speakers, notably by Messrs. Clay and Webster, and also by Mr. Caleb
Cushing, of Massachusetts, who made a formal and elaborate reply to the
whole document under thirty-two distinct heads, and reciting therein all
the points of accusation against the democratic policy from the
beginning of the government down to that day. The result was that the
measures proposed by the Executive were in substance enacted; and their
passage marks an era in our financial history—making a total and
complete separation of Bank and State, and firmly establishing the
principle that the government revenues should be receivable in coin
only.
The measures of consequence discussed and adopted at this session, were
the graduation of price of public lands under the pre-emption system,
which was adopted; the bill to create an independent Treasury, which
passed the Senate, but failed in the House; and the question of the
re-charter of the district banks, the proportion for reserve, and the
establishment of such institutions on a specie basis. The slavery
question was again agitated in consequence of petitions from citizens
and societies in the Northern States, and a memorial from the General
Assembly of Vermont, praying for the abolition of slavery in the
District of Columbia and territories, and for the exclusion of future
slave states from the Union. These petitions and memorials were disposed
of adversely; and Mr. Calhoun, representing the ultra-Southern interest,
in several able speeches, approved of the Missouri compromise, he urged
and obtained of the Senate several resolutions declaring that the
federal government had no power to interfere with slavery in the States;
and that it would be inexpedient and impolitic to interfere, abolish or
control it in the District of Columbia and the territories. These
movements for and against slavery in the session of 1837–38 deserve to
be noticed, as of disturbing effect at the time, and as having acquired
new importance from subsequent events.
The first session of the twenty-sixth Congress opened December, 1839.
The organization of the House was delayed by a closely and earnestly
contested election from the State of New Jersey. Five Democrats claiming
seats as against an equal number of Whigs. Neither set was admitted
until after the election of Speaker, which resulted in the choice of
Robert M. T. Hunter, of Virginia, the Whig candidate, who was elected by
the full Whig vote with the aid of a few democrats—friends of Mr.
Calhoun, who had for several previous sessions been acting with the
Whigs on several occasions. The House excluding the five contested seats
from New Jersey, was really Democratic; having 122 members, and the
Whigs 113 members. The contest for the Speakership was long and arduous,
neither party adhering to its original caucus candidate. Twenty
scattering votes, eleven of whom were classed as Whigs, and nine as
Democrats, prevented a choice on the earlier ballots, and it was really
Mr. Calhoun’s Democratic friends uniting with a solid Whig vote on the
final ballot that gained that party the election. The issue involved was
a vital party question as involving the organization of the House. The
chief measure, of public importance, adopted at this session of Congress
was an act to provide for the collection, safe-keeping, and disbursing
of the public money. It practically revolutionized the system previously
in force, and was a complete and effectual separation of the federal
treasury and the Government, from the banks and moneyed corporations of
the States. It was violently opposed by the Whig members, led by Mr.
Clay, and supported by Mr. Cushing, but was finally passed in both
Houses by a close vote.
At this time, and in the House of Representatives, was exhibited for the
first time in the history of Congress, the present practice of members
“_pairing off_,” as it is called; that is to say, two members of
opposite political parties, or of opposite views on any particular
subject, agreeing to absent themselves from the duties of the House, for
the time being. The practice was condemned on the floor of the House by
Mr. John Quincy Adams, who introduced a resolution: “That the practice,
first openly avowed at the present session of Congress, of pairing off,
involves, on the part of the members resorting to it, the violation of
the Constitution of the United States, of an express rule of this House,
and of the duties of both parties in the transaction, to their immediate
constituents, to this House, and to their country.” This resolution was
placed in the calendar to take its turn, but not being reached during
the session, was not voted on. That was the first instance of this
justly condemned practice, fifty years after the establishment of the
Government; but since then it has become common, even inveterate, and is
now carried to great lengths.
The last session of the twenty-sixth Congress was barren of measures,
and necessarily so, as being the last of our administration superseded
by the popular voice, and soon to expire; and therefore restricted by a
sense of propriety, during the brief remainder of its existence, to the
details of business and the routine of service. The cause of this was
the result of the presidential election of 1840. The same candidates who
fought the battle of 1836 were again in the field. Mr. Van Buren was the
Democratic candidate. His administration had been satisfactory to his
party, and his nomination for a second term was commended by the party
in the different States in appointing their delegates; so that the
proceedings of the convention which nominated him were entirely
harmonious and formal in their nature. Mr. Richard M. Johnson, the
actual Vice-President, was also nominated for Vice-President.
On the Whig ticket, General William Henry Harrison, of Ohio, was the
candidate for President, and Mr. John Tyler, of Virginia, for
Vice-President. The leading statesmen of the Whig party were again put
aside, to make way for a military man, prompted by the example in the
nomination of General Jackson, the men who managed presidential
elections believing then as now that military renown was a passport to
popularity and rendered a candidate more sure of election.
Availability—for the purpose—was the only ability asked for. Mr. Clay,
the most prominent Whig in the country, and the acknowledged head of the
party, was not deemed available; and though Mr. Clay was a candidate
before the convention, the proceedings were so regulated that his
nomination was referred to a committee, ingeniously devised and directed
for the afterwards avowed purpose of preventing his nomination and
securing that of General Harrison; and of producing the intended result
without showing the design, and without leaving a trace behind to show
what was done. The scheme (a modification of which has since been
applied to subsequent national conventions, and out of which many bitter
dissensions have again and again arisen) is embodied and was executed in
and by means of the following resolution adopted by the convention:
“_Ordered_, That the delegates from each State be requested to assemble
as a delegation, and appoint a committee, not exceeding three in number,
to receive the views and opinions of such delegation, and communicate
the same to the assembled committees of all the delegations, to be by
them respectively reported to their principals; and that thereupon the
delegates from each State be requested to assemble as a delegation, and
ballot for candidates for the offices of President and Vice-President,
and having done so, to commit the ballot designating the votes of each
candidate, and by whom given, to its committee, and thereupon all the
committees shall assemble and compare the several ballots, and report
the result of the same to their several delegations, together with such
facts as may bear upon the nomination; and said delegation shall
forthwith reassemble and ballot again for candidates for the above
offices, and again commit the result to the above committees, and if it
shall appear that a majority of the ballots are for any one man for
candidate for President, said committee shall report the result to the
convention for its consideration; but if there shall be no such
majority, then the delegation shall repeat the balloting until such a
majority shall be obtained, and then report the same to the convention
for its consideration. That the vote of a majority of each delegation
shall be reported as the vote of that State; and each State represented
here shall vote its full electoral vote by such delegation in the
committee.” This was a sum in political algebra, whose quotient was
known, but the quantity unknown except to those who planned it; and the
result was—for General Scott, 16 votes; for Mr. Clay, 90 votes; for
General Harrison, 148 votes. And as the law of the convention impliedly
requires the absorption of all minorities, the 106 votes were swallowed
up by the 148 votes and made to count for General Harrison, presenting
him as the unanimity candidate of the convention, and the defeated
candidates and all their friends bound to join in his support. And in
this way the election of 1840 was effected—a process certainly not
within the purview of those framers of the constitution who supposed
they were giving to the nation the choice of its own chief magistrate.
The contest before the people was a long and bitter one, the severest
ever known in the country, up to that time, and scarcely equalled since.
The whole Whig party and the large league of suspended banks, headed by
the Bank of the United States making its last struggle for a new
national charter in the effort to elect a President friendly to it, were
arrayed against the Democrats, whose hard-money policy and independent
treasury schemes, met with little favor in the then depressed condition
of the country. Meetings were held in every State, county and town; the
people thoroughly aroused; and every argument made in favor of the
respective candidates and parties, which could possibly have any effect
upon the voters. The canvass was a thorough one, and the election was
carried for the Whig candidates, who received 234 electoral votes coming
from 19 States. The remaining 60 electoral votes of the other 9 States,
were given to the Democratic candidate; though the popular vote was not
so unevenly divided; the actual figures being 1,275,611 for the Whig
ticket, against 1,135,761 for the Democratic ticket. It was a complete
rout of the Democratic party, but without the moral effect of victory.
On March 4, 1841, was inaugurated as President, Gen’l Wm. H. Harrison,
the first Chief Magistrate elected by the Whig party, and the first
President who was not a Democrat, since the installation of Gen’l
Jackson, March 4, 1829. His term was a short one. He issued a call for a
special session of Congress to convene the 31st of May following, to
consider the condition of the revenue and finances of the country, but
did not live to meet it. Taken ill with a fatal malady during the last
days of March, he died on the 4th of April following, having been in
office just one month. He was succeeded by the Vice-President, John
Tyler. Then, for the first time in our history as a government, the
person elected to the Vice-Presidency of the United States, by the
happening of a contingency provided for in the constitution, had
devolved upon him the Presidential office.
The twenty-seventh Congress opened in extra session at the call of the
late President, May 31, 1841. A Whig member—Mr. White of Kentucky—was
elected Speaker of the House of Representatives. The Whigs had a
majority of forty-seven in the House and of seven in the Senate, and
with the President and Cabinet of the same political party presented a
harmony of aspect frequently wanting during the three previous
administrations. The first measure of the new dominant party was the
repeal of the independent treasury act passed at the previous session;
and the next in order were bills to establish a system of bankruptcy,
and for distribution of public land revenue. The former was more than a
bankrupt law; it was practically an insolvent law for the abolition of
debts at the will of the debtor. It applied to all persons in debt,
allowed them to institute the proceedings in the district where the
petitioner resided, allowed constructive notices to creditors in
newspapers—declared the abolition of the debt where effects were
surrendered and fraud not proved; and gave exclusive jurisdiction to the
federal courts, at the will of the debtor. It was framed upon the model
of the English insolvent debtors’ act of George the Fourth, and embodied
most of the provisions of that act, but substituting a release from the
debt instead of a release from imprisonment. The bill passed by a close
vote in both Houses.
The land revenue distribution bill of this session had its origin in the
fact that the States and corporations owed about two hundred millions to
creditors in Europe. These debts were in stocks, much depreciated by the
failure in many instances to pay the accruing interest—in some instances
failure to provide for the principal. These creditors, becoming uneasy,
wished the federal government to assume their debts. The suggestion was
made as early as 1838, renewed in 1839, and in 1840 became a regular
question mixed up with the Presidential election of that year, and
openly engaging the active exertions of foreigners. Direct assumption
was not urged; indirect by giving the public land revenue to the States
was the mode pursued, and the one recommended in the message of
President Tyler. Mr. Calhoun spoke against the measure with more than
usual force and clearness, claiming that it was unconstitutional and
without warrant. Mr. Benton on the same side called it a squandering of
the public patrimony, and pointed out its inexpediency in the depleted
state of the treasury, apart from its other objectionable features. It
passed by a party vote.
This session is remarkable for the institution of the hour rule in the
House of Representatives—a very great limitation upon the freedom of
debate. It was a Whig measure, adopted to prevent delay in the enactment
of pending bills. It was a rigorous limitation, frequently acting as a
bar to profitable debate and checking members in speeches which really
impart information valuable to the House and the country. No doubt the
license of debate has been frequently abused in Congress, as in all
other deliberative assemblies, but the incessant use of the previous
question, which cuts off all debate, added to the hour rule which limits
a speech to sixty minutes (constantly reduced by interruptions)
frequently results in the transaction of business in ignorance of what
they are about by those who are doing it.
The rule worked so well in the House, for the purpose for which it was
devised—made the majority absolute master of the body—that Mr. Clay
undertook to have the same rule adopted in the Senate; but the
determined opposition to it, both by his political opponents and
friends, led to the abandonment of the attempt in that chamber.
Much discussion took place at this session, over the bill offered in the
House of Representatives, for the relief of the widow of the late
President—General Harrison—appropriating one year’s salary. It was
strenuously opposed by the Democratic members, as unconstitutional, on
account of its principle, as creating a private pension list, and as a
dangerous precedent. Many able speeches were made against the bill, both
in the Senate and House; among others, the following extract from the
speech of an able Senator contains some interesting facts. He said:
“Look at the case of Mr. Jefferson, a man than whom no one that ever
existed on God’s earth were the human family more indebted to. His
furniture and his estate were sold to satisfy his creditors. His
posterity was driven from house and home, and his bones now lay in soil
owned by a stranger. His family are scattered: some of his descendants
are married in foreign lands. Look at Monroe—the able, the patriotic
Monroe, whose services were revolutionary, whose blood was spilt in the
war of Independence, whose life was worn out in civil service, and whose
estate has been sold for debt, his family scattered, and his daughter
buried in a foreign land. Look at Madison, the model of every virtue,
public or private, and he would only mention in connection with this
subject, his love of order, his economy, and his systematic regularity
in all his habits of business. He, when his term of eight years had
expired, sent a letter to a gentleman (a son of whom is now on this
floor) [Mr. Preston], enclosing a note of five thousand dollars, which
he requested him to endorse, and raise the money in Virginia, so as to
enable him to leave this city, and return to his modest retreat—his
patrimonial inheritance—in that State. General Jackson drew upon the
consignee of his cotton crop in New Orleans for six thousand dollars to
enable him to leave the seat of government without leaving creditors
behind him. These were honored leaders of the republican party. They had
all been Presidents. They had made great sacrifices, and left the
presidency deeply embarrassed; and yet the republican party who had the
power and the strongest disposition to relieve their necessities, felt
they had no right to do so by appropriating money from the public
Treasury. Democracy would not do this. It was left for the era of
federal rule and federal supremacy—who are now rushing the country with
steam power into all the abuses and corruptions of a monarchy, with its
pensioned aristocracy—and to entail upon the country a civil pension
list.”
There was an impatient majority in the House in favor of the passage of
the bill. The circumstances were averse to deliberation—a victorious
party, come into power after a heated election, seeing their elected
candidate dying on the threshold of his administration, poor and
beloved: it was a case for feeling more than of judgment, especially
with the political friends of the deceased—but few of whom could follow
the counsels of the head against the impulsions of the heart.
The bill passed, and was approved; and as predicted, it established a
precedent which has since been followed in every similar case.
The subject of naval pensions received more than usual consideration at
this session. The question arose on the discussion of the appropriation
bill for that purpose. A difference about a navy—on the point of how
much and what kind—had always been a point of difference between the two
great political parties of the Union, which, under whatsoever names, are
always the same, each preserving its identity in principles and policy,
but here the two parties divided upon an abuse which no one could deny
or defend. A navy pension fund had been established under the act of
1832, which was a just and proper law, but on the 3d of March, 1837, an
act was passed entitled “An act for the more equitable distribution of
the Navy Pension Fund.” That act provided: I. That Invalid naval
pensions should commence and date back to the time of receiving the
inability, instead of completing the proof. II. It extended the pensions
for death to all cases of death, whether incurred in the line of duty or
not. III. It extended the widow’s pensions for life, when five years had
been the law both in the army and navy. IV. It adopted the English
system of pensioning children of deceased marines until they attained
their majority.
The effect of this law was to absorb and bankrupt the navy pension fund,
a meritorious fund created out of the government share of prize money,
relinquished for that purpose, and to throw the pensions, arrears as
well as current and future, upon the public treasury, where it was never
intended they were to be. It was to repeal this act, that an amendment
was introduced at this session on the bringing forward of the annual
appropriation bill for navy pensions, and long and earnest were the
debates upon it. The amendment was lost, the Senate dividing on party
lines, the Whigs against and the Democrats for the amendment. The
subject is instructive, as then was practically ratified and re-enacted
the pernicious practice authorized by the act of 1837, of granting
pensions to date from the time of injury and not from the time of proof;
and has grown up to such proportions in recent years that the last act
of Congress appropriating money for arrears of pensions, provided for
the payment of such an enormous sum of money that it would have appalled
the original projectors of the act of 1837 could they have seen to what
their system has led.
Again, at this session, the object of the tariff occupied the attention
of Congress. The compromise act, as it was called, of 1833, which was
composed of two parts—one to last nine years, for the benefit of
manufactures; the other to last for ever, for the benefit of the
planting and consuming interest—was passed, as hereinbefore stated, in
pursuance of an agreement between Mr. Clay and Mr. Calhoun and their
respective friends, at the time the former was urging the necessity for
a continuance of high tariff for protection and revenue, and the latter
was presenting and justifying before Congress the nullification
ordinance adopted by the Legislature of South Carolina. To Mr. Clay and
Mr. Calhoun it was a political necessity, one to get rid of a
stumbling-block (which protective tariff had become); the other to
escape a personal peril which his nullifying ordinance had brought upon
him, and with both, it was a piece of policy, to enable them to combine
against Mr. Van Buren, by postponing their own contention; and a device
on the part of its author (Mr. Clayton, of Delaware) and Mr. Clay to
preserve the protective system. It provided for a reduction of a certain
per centage each year, on the duties for the ensuing nine years, until
the revenue was reduced to 20 per cent. ad valorem on all articles
imported into the country. In consequence the revenue was so reduced
that in the last year, there was little more than half what the
exigencies of the government required, and different modes, by loans and
otherwise, were suggested to meet the deficiency. The Secretary of the
Treasury had declared the necessity of loans and taxes to carry on the
government; a loan bill for twelve millions had been passed; a tariff
bill to raise fourteen millions was depending; and the chairman of the
Committee of Ways and Means, Mr. Millard Fillmore, defended its
necessity in an able speech. His bill proposed twenty per cent.
additional to the existing duty on certain specified articles,
sufficient to make up the amount wanted. This encroachment on a measure
so much vaunted when passed, and which had been kept inviolate while
operating in favor of one of the parties to it, naturally excited
complaint and opposition from the other, and Mr. Gilmer, of Virginia, in
a speech against the new bill, said: “In referring to the compromise
act, the true characteristics of that act which recommended it strongly
to him, were that it contemplated that duties were to be levied for
revenue only, and in the next place to the amount only necessary to the
supply of the economical wants of the government. He begged leave to
call the attention of the committee to the principle recognized as the
language of the compromise, a principle which ought to be recognized in
all time to come by every department of the government. It is, that
duties to be raised for revenue are to be raised to such an amount only
as is necessary for an economical administration of the government. Some
incidental protection must necessarily be given, and he, for one, coming
from an anti-tariff portion of the country, would not object to it.”
The bill went to the Senate where it found Mr. Clay and Mr. Calhoun in
positions very different from what they occupied when the compromise act
was passed—then united, now divided—then concurrent, now antagonistic,
and the antagonism general, upon all measures, was to be special upon
this one. Their connection with the subject made it their function to
lead off in its consideration; and their antagonist positions promised
sharp encounters, which did not fail to come. Mr. Clay said that he
“observed that the Senator from South Carolina based his abstractions on
the theories of books on English authorities, and on the arguments urged
in favor of free trade by a certain party in the British Parliament. Now
he, (Mr. Clay,) and his friends would not admit of these authorities
being entitled to as much weight as the universal practice of nations,
which in all parts of the world was found to be in favor of protecting
home manufactures to an extent sufficient to keep them in a flourishing
condition. This was the whole difference. The Senator was in favor of
book theory and abstractions: he (Mr. Clay) and his friends, were in
favor of the universal practice of nations, and the wholesome and
necessary protection of domestic manufactures.”
Mr. Calhoun in reply, referring to his allusion to the success in the
late election of the tory party in England, said: “The interests,
objects, and aims of the tory party there and the whig party here, are
identical. The identity of the two parties is remarkable. The tory party
are the patrons of corporate monopolies; _and are not you?_ They are
advocates of a high tariff; _and are not you?_ They are supporters of a
national bank; _and are not you?_ They are for corn laws—laws oppressive
to the masses of the people, and favorable to their own power; _and are
not you?_ Witness this bill.*** The success of that party in England,
and of the whig party here, is the success of the great money power,
which concentrates the interests of the two parties, and identifies
their principles.”
The bill was passed by a large majority, upon the general ground that
the government must have revenue.
The chief measure of the session, and the great object of the whig
party—the one for which it had labored for ten years—was for the
re-charter of a national bank. Without this all other measures would be
deemed to be incomplete, and the victorious election itself but little
better than a defeat. The President, while a member of the Democratic
party, had been opposed to the United States Bank; and to overcome any
objections he might have the bill was carefully prepared, and studiously
contrived to avoid the President’s objections, and save his
consistency—a point upon which he was exceedingly sensitive. The
democratic members resisted strenuously, in order to make the measure
odious, but successful resistance was impossible. It passed both houses
by a close vote; and contrary to all expectation the President
disapproved the act, but with such expressions of readiness to approve
another bill which should be free from the objections which he named, as
still to keep his party together, and to prevent the resignation of his
cabinet. In his veto message the President fell back upon his early
opinions against the constitutionality of a national bank, so often and
so publicly expressed.
The veto caused consternation among the whig members; and Mr. Clay
openly gave expression to his dissatisfaction, in the debate on the veto
message, in terms to assert that President Tyler had violated his faith
to the whig party, and had been led off from them by new associations.
He said: “And why should not President Tyler have suffered the bill to
become a law without his signature? Without meaning the slightest
possible disrespect to him (nothing is further from my heart than the
exhibition of any such feeling towards that distinguished citizen, long
my personal friend), it cannot be forgotten that he came into his
present office under peculiar circumstances. The people did not foresee
the contingency which has happened. They voted for him as
Vice-President. They did not, therefore, scrutinize his opinions with
the care which they probably ought to have done, and would have done, if
they could have looked into futurity. If the present state of the fact
could have been anticipated—if at Harrisburg, or at the polls, it had
been foreseen that General Harrison would die in one short month after
the commencement of his administration; so that Vice-President Tyler
would be elevated to the presidential chair; that a bill passed by
decisive majorities of the first whig Congress, chartering a national
bank, would be presented for his sanction; and that he would veto the
bill, do I hazard anything when I express the conviction that he would
not have received a solitary vote in the nominating convention, nor one
solitary electoral vote in any State in the Union?”
The vote was taken on the bill over again, as required by the
constitution, and so far from receiving a two-thirds vote, it received
only a bare majority, and was returned to the House with a message
stating his objections to it, where it gave rise to some violent
speaking, more directed to the personal conduct of the President than to
the objections to the bill stated in his message. The veto was
sustained; and so ended the second attempt to resuscitate the old United
States Bank under a new name. This second movement to establish the bank
has a secret history. It almost caused the establishment of a new party,
with Mr. Tyler as its head; earnest efforts having been made in that
behalf by many prominent Whigs and Democrats. The entire cabinet, with
the exception of Mr. Webster, resigned within a few days after the
second veto. It was a natural thing for them to do, and was not
unexpected. Indeed Mr. Webster had resolved to tender his resignation
also, but on reconsideration determined to remain and publish his
reasons therefor in a letter to the National Intelligencer, in the
following words:
“Lest any misapprehension should exist, as to the reasons which led me
to differ from the course pursued by my late colleagues, I wish to say
that I remain in my place, first, because I have seen no sufficient
reasons for the dissolution of the late Cabinet, by the voluntary act of
its own members. I am perfectly persuaded of the absolute necessity of
an institution, under the authority of Congress, to aid revenue and
financial operations, and to give the country the blessings of a good
currency and cheap exchanges. Notwithstanding what has passed, I have
confidence that the President will co-operate with the legislature in
overcoming all difficulties in the attainment of these objects; and it
is to the union of the Whig party—by which I mean the whole party, the
Whig President, the Whig Congress, and the Whig people—that I look for a
realization of our wishes. I can look nowhere else. In the second place
if I had seen reasons to resign my office, I should not have done so,
without giving the President reasonable notice, and affording him time
to select the hands to which he should confide the delicate and
important affairs now pending in this department.”
The conduct of the President in the matter of the vetoes of the two bank
bills produced revolt against him in the party; and the Whigs of the two
Houses of Congress held several formal meetings to consider what they
should do in the new condition of affairs. An address to the people of
the United States was resolved upon. The rejection of the bank bill gave
great vexation to one side, and equal exultation to the other. The
subject was not permitted to rest, however; a national bank was the
life—the vital principle—of the Whig party, without which it could not
live as a party; it was the power which was to give them power and the
political and financial control of the Union. A second attempt was made,
four days after the veto, to accomplish the end by amendments to a bill
relating to the currency, which had been introduced early in the
session. Mr. Sargeant of Pennsylvania, moved to strike out all after the
enacting clause, and insert his amendments, which were substantially the
same as the vetoed bill, except changing the amount of capital and
prohibiting discounts on notes other than bills of exchange. The bill
was pushed to a vote with astonishing rapidity, and passed by a decided
majority. In the Senate the bill went to a select committee which
reported it back without alteration, as had been foreseen, the committee
consisting entirely of friends of the measure; and there was a majority
for it on final passage. Concurred in by the Senate without alteration,
it was returned to the House, and thence referred to the President for
his approval or disapproval. It was disapproved and it was promulgated
in language intended to mean a repudiation of the President, a permanent
separation of the Whig party from him, and to wash their hands of all
accountability for his acts. An opening paragraph of the address set
forth that, for twelve years the Whigs had carried on a contest for the
regulation of the currency, the equalization of exchanges, the
economical administration of the finances, and the advancement of
industry—all to be accomplished by means of a national bank—declaring
these objects to be misunderstood by no one and the bank itself held to
be secured in the Presidential election, and its establishment the main
object of the extra session. The address then proceeds to state how
these plans were frustrated:
“It is with profound and poignant regret that we find ourselves called
upon to invoke your attention to this point. Upon the great and leading
measure touching this question, our anxious endeavors to respond to the
earnest prayers of the nation have been frustrated by an act as unlooked
for as it is to be lamented. We grieve to say to you that by the
exercise of that power in the constitution which has ever been regarded
with suspicion, and often with odium, by the people—a power which we had
hoped was never to be exhibited on this subject, by a Whig President—we
have been defeated in two attempts to create a fiscal agent, which the
wants of the country had demonstrated to us, in the most absolute form
of proof to be eminently necessary and proper in the present emergency.
Twice have we with the utmost diligence and deliberation matured a plan
for the collection, safe-keeping and disbursing of the public moneys
through the agency of a corporation adapted to that end, and twice has
it been our fate to encounter the opposition of the President, through
the application of the veto power.*** We are constrained to say that we
find no ground to justify us in the conviction that the veto of the
President has been interposed on this question solely upon conscientious
and well-considered opinions of constitutional scruple as to his duty in
the case presented. On the contrary, too many proofs have been forced
upon our observation to leave us free from the apprehension that the
President has permitted himself to be beguiled into an opinion that by
this exhibition of his prerogative he might be able to divert the policy
of his administration into a channel which should lead to new political
combinations, and accomplish results which must overthrow the present
divisions of party in the country; and finally produce a state of things
which those who elected him, at least, have never contemplated.
* * * * *
“In this state of things, the Whigs will naturally look with anxiety to
the future, and inquire what are the actual relations between the
President and those who brought him into power; and what, in the opinion
of their friends in Congress, should be their course hereafter.*** The
President by his withdrawal of confidence from his real friends in
Congress and from the members of his cabinet; by his bestowal of it upon
others notwithstanding their notorious opposition to leading measures of
his administrations has voluntarily separated himself from those by
whose exertions and suffrage he was elevated to that office through
which he has reached his present exalted station.*** The consequence is,
that those who brought the President into power can be no longer, in any
manner or degree, justly held responsible or blamed for the
administration of the executive branch of the government; and the
President and his advisers should be exclusively hereafter deemed
accountable.*** The conduct of the President has occasioned bitter
mortification and deep regret. Shall the party, therefore, yielding to
sentiments of despair, abandon its duty, and submit to defeat and
disgrace? Far from suffering such dishonorable consequences, the very
disappointment which it has unfortunately experienced should serve only
to redouble its exertions, and to inspire it with fresh courage to
persevere with a spirit unsubdued and a resolution unshaken, until the
prosperity of the country is fully re-established, and its liberties
firmly secured against all danger from the abuses, encroachments or
usurpations of the executive department of the government.”
This was the manifesto, so far as it concerns the repudiation of
President Tyler, which Whig members of Congress put forth: it was
answered (under the name of an address to his constituents) by Mr.
Cushing, in a counter special plea—counter to it on all
points—especially on the main question of which party the President was
to belong to; the manifesto of the Whigs assigning him to the
democracy—the address of Mr. Cushing, claiming him for the Whigs. It was
especially severe on Mr. Clay, as setting up a caucus dictatorship to
coerce the President; and charged that the address emanated from this
caucus, and did not embody or represent the sentiments of all Whig
leaders; and referred to Mr. Webster’s letter, and his remaining in the
cabinet as proof of this. But it was without avail against the
concurrent statements of the retiring senators, and the confirmatory
statements of many members of Congress. The Whig party recoiled from the
President, and instead of the unity predicted by Mr. Webster, there was
diversity and widespread dissension. The Whig party remained with Mr.
Clay; Mr. Webster retired, Mr. Cushing was sent on a foreign mission,
and the President, seeking to enter the democratic ranks, was refused by
them, and left to seek consolation in privacy, for his political errors
and omissions.
The extra session, called by President Harrison, held under Mr. Tyler,
dominated by Mr. Clay, commenced May 31, and ended Sept. 13, 1841—and
was replete with disappointed calculations, and nearly barren of
permanent results. The purposes for which it was called into being,
failed. The first annual message of President Tyler, at the opening of
the regular session in December, 1841, coming in so soon after the
termination of the extra session, was brief and meagre of topics, with
few points of interest.
In the month of March, 1842, Mr. Henry Clay resigned his place in the
Senate, and delivered a valedictory address to that body. He had
intended this step upon the close of the previous presidential campaign,
but had postponed it to take personal charge of the several measures
which would be brought before Congress at the special session—the
calling of which he foresaw would be necessary. He resigned not on
account of age, or infirmity, or disinclination for public life; but out
of disgust—profound and inextinguishable. He had been basely defeated
for the Presidential nomination, against the wishes of the Whig party,
of which he was the acknowledged head—he had seen his leading measures
vetoed by the President whom his party had elected—the downfall of the
Bank for which he had so often pledged himself—and the insolent attacks
of the petty adherents of the administration in the two Houses: all
these causes acting on his proud and lofty spirit, induced this
withdrawal from public life for which he was so well fitted.
The address opened with a retrospect of his early entrance into the
Senate, and a grand encomium upon its powers and dignity as he had found
it, and left it. Memory went back to that early year, 1806, when just
past thirty years of age, he entered the United States Senate, and
commenced his high career—a wide and luminous horizon before him, and
will and talent to fill it. He said: “From the year 1806, the period of
my entering upon this noble theatre of my public service, with but short
intervals, down to the present time, I have been engaged in the service
of my country. Of the nature and value of those services, which I may
have rendered during my long career of public life, it does not become
me to speak. History, if she deigns to notice me, and posterity—if a
recollection of any humble service which I may have rendered, shall be
transmitted to posterity—will be the best, truest, and most impartial
judges; and to them I defer for a decision upon their value. But, upon
one subject, I may be allowed to speak. As to my public acts and public
conduct, they are for the judgment of my fellow-citizens; but my private
motives of action—that which prompted me to take the part which I may
have done, upon great measures during their progress in the national
councils, can be known only to the Great Searcher of the human heart and
myself; and I trust I shall be pardoned for repeating again a
declaration which I made thirty years ago: that whatever error I may
have committed—and doubtless I have committed many during my public
service—I may appeal to the Divine Searcher of hearts for the truth of
the declaration which I now make, with pride and confidence, that I have
been actuated by no personal motives—that I have sought no personal
aggrandizement—no promotion from the advocacy of those various measures
on which I have been called to act—that I have had an eye, a single eye,
a heart, a single heart, ever devoted to what appeared to be the best
interests of the country.”
Mr. Clay led a great party, and for a long time, whether he dictated to
it or not, and kept it well bound together, without the usual means of
forming and leading parties. It was surprising that, without power and
patronage, he was able so long and so undividedly to keep so great a
party together, and lead it so unresistingly. He had great talents, but
not equal to some whom he led. He had eloquence—superior in popular
effect, but not equal in high oratory to that of some others. But his
temperament was fervid, his will was strong, and his courage daring; and
these qualities, added to his talents, gave him the lead and supremacy
in his party, where he was always dominant. The farewell address made a
deep impression upon the Senators present; and after its close, Mr.
Preston brought the ceremony to a conclusion, by moving an adjournment,
which was agreed to.
Again at this session was the subject of the tariff considered, but this
time, as a matter of absolute necessity, to provide a revenue. Never
before were the coffers and the credit of the treasury at so low an ebb.
A deficit of fourteen millions in the treasury—a total inability to
borrow, either at home or abroad, the amount of the loan of twelve
millions authorized the year before—the treasury notes below par, and
the revenues from imports inadequate and decreasing.
The compromise act of 1833 in reducing the duties gradually through nine
years, to a fixed low rate; the act of 1837 in distributing the surplus
revenue; and the continual and continued distribution of the land
revenue, had brought about this condition of things. The remedy was
sought in a bill increasing the tariff, and suspending the land revenue
distribution. Two such bills were passed in a single month, and both
vetoed by the President. It was now near the end of August. Congress had
been in session for an unprecedentedly long time. Adjournment could not
be deferred, and could not take place without providing for the
Treasury. The compromise act and the land distribution were the
stumbling-blocks: it was resolved to sacrifice them together; and a bill
was introduced raising the duties above the fixed rate of twenty per
cent., and that breach of the mutual assurance in relation to the
compromise, immediately in terms of the assurance, suspended the land
revenue distribution—to continue it suspended while duties above the
compromise limit continued to be levied. And as that has been the case
ever since, the distribution of the land revenue has been suspended ever
since. The bill was passed, and approved by the President, and Congress
thereupon adjourned.
The subject of the navy was also under consideration at this session.
The naval policy of the United States was a question of party division
from the origin of parties in the early years of the government—the
Federal party favoring a strong and splendid navy, the Republican a
moderate establishment, adapted to the purposes of defense more than of
offense. And this line of division has continued. Under the Whig regime
the policy for a great navy developed itself. The Secretary of the Navy
recommended a large increase of ships, seamen and officers, involving a
heavy expense, though the government was not in a condition to warrant
any such expenditure, and no emergency required an increase in that
branch of the public service. The vote was taken upon the increase
proposed by the Secretary of the Navy, and recommended by the President;
and it was carried, the yeas and nays being well defined by the party
line.
The first session of the twenty-eighth Congress, which convened December
1843, exhibited in its political complexion, serious losses in the Whig
following. The Democratic candidate for Speaker of the House of
Representatives, was elected over the Whig candidate—the vote standing
128 to 59. Thus an adverse majority of more than two to one was the
result to the Whig party at the first election after the extra session
of 1841. The President’s message referred to the treaty which had lately
been concluded with Great Britain relative to the northwestern territory
extending to the Columbia river, including Oregon and settling the
boundary lines; and also to a pending treaty with Texas for her
annexation to the United States; and concluded with a recommendation for
the establishment of a paper currency to be issued and controlled by the
Federal government.
For more than a year before the meeting of the Democratic Presidential
Convention in Baltimore, in May 1844, it was evident to leading
Democrats that Martin Van Buren was the choice of the party. To overcome
this popular current and turn the tide in favor of Mr. Calhoun, who
desired the nomination, resort was had to the pending question of the
annexation of Texas. Mr. Van Buren was known to be against it, and Mr.
Calhoun for it. To gain time, the meeting of the convention was
postponed from December previous, which had been the usual time for
holding such elections, until the following May. The convention met, and
consisted of two hundred and sixty-six delegates, a decided majority of
whom were for Mr. Van Buren, and cast their votes accordingly on the
first ballot. But a chairman had been selected, who was adverse to his
nomination; and aided by a rule adopted by the convention, which
required a concurrence of two-thirds to effect a nomination, the
opponents of Mr. Van Buren were able to accomplish his defeat. Mr.
Calhoun had, before the meeting of the convention, made known his
determination, in a public address, not to suffer his name to go before
that assemblage as a candidate for the presidency, and stated his
reasons for so doing, which were founded mainly on the manner in which
the convention was constituted; his objections being to the mode of
choosing delegates, and the manner of their giving in their votes—he
contending for district elections, and the delegates to vote
individually. South Carolina was not represented in the convention.
After the first ballot Mr. Van Buren’s vote sensibly decreased, until
finally, Mr. James K. Polk, who was a candidate for the Vice-Presidency,
was brought forward and nominated unanimously for the chief office. Mr.
Geo. M. Dallas was chosen as his colleague for the Vice-Presidency. The
nomination of these gentlemen, neither of whom had been mentioned until
late in the proceedings of the convention, for the offices for which
they were finally nominated, was a genuine surprise to the country. No
voice in favor of it had been heard; and no visible sign in the
political horizon had announced it.
The Whig convention nominated Henry Clay, for President; and Theodore
Frelinghuysen for Vice-President.
The main issues in the election which ensued, were mainly the party ones
of Whig and Democrat, modified by the tariff and Texas questions. It
resulted in the choice of the Democratic candidates, who received 170
electoral votes as against 105 for their opponents; the popular majority
for the Democrats being 238,284, in a total vote of 2,834,108. Mr. Clay
received a larger popular vote than had been given at the previous
election for the Whig candidate, showing that he would have been elected
had he then been the nominee of his party; though the popular vote at
this election was largely increased over that of 1840. It is conceded
that the 36 electoral votes of New York State gave the election to Mr.
Polk. It was carried by a bare majority; due entirely to the
Gubernatorial candidacy of Mr. Silas Wright, who had been mentioned for
the vice-presidential nomination in connection with Mr. Van Buren, but
who declined it after the sacrifice of his friend and colleague; and
resigning his seat in the Senate, became a candidate for Governor of New
York. The election being held at the same time as that for president,
his name and popularity brought to the presidential ticket more than
enough votes to make the majority that gave the electoral vote of the
State to the Democrats.
President Tyler’s annual and last message to Congress, in December 1844,
contained, (as did that of the previous year) an elaborate paragraph on
the subject of Texas and Mexico; the idea being the annexation of the
former to the Union, and the assumption of her causes of grievance
against the latter; and a treaty was pending to accomplish these
objects. The scheme for the annexation of Texas was framed with a double
aspect—one looking to the then pending presidential election, the other
to the separation of the Southern States; and as soon as the rejection
of the treaty was foreseen, and the nominating convention had acted, the
disunion aspect manifested itself over many of the Southern
States—beginning with South Carolina. Before the end of May, a great
meeting took place at Ashley, in that State, to combine the slave States
in a convention to unite the Southern States to Texas, if Texas should
not be received into the Union; and to invite the President to convene
Congress to arrange the terms of the dissolution of the Union if the
rejection of the annexation should be persevered in. Responsive
resolutions were adopted in several States, and meetings held. The
opposition manifested, brought the movement to a stand, and suppressed
the disunion scheme for the time being—only to lie in wait for future
occasions. But it was not before the people only that this scheme for a
Southern convention with a view to the secession of the slave States was
a matter of discussion; it was the subject of debate in the Senate; and
there it was further disclosed that the design of the secessionists was
to extend the new Southern republic to the Californias.
The treaty of annexation was supported by all the power of the
administration, but failed; and it was rejected by the Senate by a
two-thirds vote against it. Following this, a joint resolution was early
brought into the House of Representatives for the admission of Texas as
a State of the Union, by legislative action; it passed the House by a
fair majority, but met with opposition in the Senate unless coupled with
a proviso for negotiation and treaty, as a condition precedent. A bill
authorizing the President and a commissioner to be appointed to agree
upon the terms and conditions of said admission, the question of slavery
within its limits, its debts, the fixing of boundaries, and the cession
of territory, was coupled or united with the resolution; and in this
shape it was finally agreed to, and became a law, with the concurrence
of the President, March 3, 1845. Texas was then in a state of war with
Mexico, though at that precise point of time an armistice had been
agreed upon, looking to a treaty of peace. The House resolution was for
an unqualified admission of the State; the Senate amendment or bill was
for negotiation; and the bill actually passed would not have been
concurred in except on the understanding that the incoming President
(whose term began March 4, 1845, and who was favorable to negotiation)
would act under the bill, and appoint commissioners accordingly.
Contrary to all expectation, the outgoing President, on the last day of
his term, at the instigation of his Secretary of State, Mr. Calhoun,
assumed the execution of the act providing for the admission of
Texas—adopted the legislative clause—and sent out a special messenger
with instructions. The danger of this had been foreseen, and suggested
in the Senate; but close friends of Mr. Calhoun, speaking for the
administration, and replying to the suggestion, indignantly denied it
for them, and declared that they would not have the “audacity” to so
violate the spirit and intent of the act, or so encroach upon the rights
of the new President. These statements from the friends of the Secretary
and President that the plan by negotiation would be adopted, quieted the
apprehension of those Senators opposed to legislative annexation or
admission, and thus secured their votes, without which the bill would
have failed of a majority. Thus was Texas incorporated into the Union.
The legislative proposition sent by Mr. Tyler was accepted: Texas became
incorporated with the United States, and in consequence the state of war
was established between the United States and Mexico; it only being a
question of time and chance when the armistice should end and
hostilities begin. Although Mr. Calhoun was not in favor of war with
Mexico—he believing that a money payment would settle the differences
with that country—the admission of Texas into the Union under the
legislative annexation clause of the statute, was really his act and not
that of the President’s; and he was, in consequence, afterwards openly
charged in the Senate with being the real author of the war which
followed.
The administration of President Polk opened March 4, 1845; and on the
same day, the Senate being convened for the purpose, the cabinet
ministers were nominated and confirmed. In December following the 29th
Congress was organized. The House of Representatives, being largely
Democratic, elected the Speaker, by a vote of 120, against 70 for the
Whig candidate. At this session the “American” party—a new political
organization—first made its appearance in the National councils, having
elected six members of the House of Representatives, four from New York
and two from Pennsylvania. The President’s first annual message had for
its chief topic, the admission of Texas, then accomplished, and the
consequent dissatisfaction of Mexico; and referring to the preparations
on the part of the latter with the apparent intention of declaring war
on the United States, either by an open declaration, or by invading
Texas. The message also stated causes which would justify this
government in taking the initiative in declaring war—mainly the
non-compliance by Mexico with the terms of the treaty of indemnity of
April 11, 1839, entered into between that State and this government
relative to injuries to American citizens during the previous eight
years. He also referred to the fact of a minister having been sent to
Mexico to endeavor to bring about a settlement of the differences
between the nations, without a resort to hostilities. The message
concluded with a reference to the negotiations with Great Britain
relative to the Oregon boundary; a statement of the finances and the
public debt, showing the latter to be slightly in excess of seventeen
millions; and a recommendation for a revision of the tariff, with a view
to revenue as the object, with protection to home industry as the
incident.
At this session of Congress, the States of Florida and Iowa were
admitted into the Union; the former permitting slavery within its
borders, the latter denying it. Long before this, the free and the slave
States were equal in number, and the practice had grown up—from a
feeling of jealousy and policy to keep them evenly balanced—of admitting
one State of each character at the same time. Numerically the free and
the slave States were thus kept even: in political power a vast
inequality was going on—the increase of population being so much greater
in the northern than in the southern region.
The Ashburton treaty of 1842 omitted to define the boundary line, and
permitted, or rather did not prohibit, the joint occupation of Oregon by
British and American settlers. This had been a subject of dispute for
many years. The country on the Columbia River had been claimed by both.
Under previous treaties the American northern boundary extended “to the
latitude of 49 degrees north of the equator, and along that parallel
indefinitely to the west.” Attempts were made in 1842 and continuing
since to 1846, to settle this boundary line, by treaty with Great
Britain. It had been assumed that we had a dividing line, made by
previous treaty, along the parallel of 54 degrees 40 minutes from the
sea to the Rocky mountains. The subject so much absorbed public
attention, that the Democratic National convention of 1844 in its
platform of principles declared for that boundary line, or war as the
consequence. It became known as the 54–40 plank, and was a canon of
political faith. The negotiations between the governments were resumed
in August, 1844. The Secretary of State, Mr. Calhoun, proposed a line
along the parallel of 49 degrees of north latitude to the summit of the
Rocky mountains and continuing that line thence to the Pacific Ocean;
and he made this proposition notwithstanding the fact that the
Democratic party—to which he belonged—were then in a high state of
exultation for the boundary of 54 degrees 40 minutes, and the
presidential canvass, on the Democratic side, was raging upon that cry.
The British Minister declined this proposition in the part that carried
the line to the ocean, but offered to continue it from the summit of the
mountains to the Columbia River, a distance of some three hundred miles,
and then follow the river to the ocean. This was declined by Mr.
Calhoun. The President had declared in his inaugural address in favor of
the 54–40 line. He was in a dilemma; to maintain that position meant war
with Great Britain; to recede from it seemed impossible. The proposition
for the line of 49 degrees having been withdrawn by the American
government on its non-acceptance by the British, had appeased the
Democratic storm which had been raised against the President. Congress
had come together under the loud cry of war, in which Mr. Cass was the
leader, but followed by the body of the democracy, and backed and
cheered by the whole democratic newspaper press. Under the authority and
order of Congress notice had been served on Great Britain which was to
abrogate the joint occupation of the country by the citizens of the two
powers. It was finally resolved by the British Government to propose the
line of 49 degrees, continuing to the ocean, as originally offered by
Mr. Calhoun; and though the President was favorable to its acceptance,
he could not, consistently with his previous acts, accept and make a
treaty, on that basis. The Senate, with whom lies the power, under the
constitution, of confirming or restricting all treaties, being favorable
to it, without respect to party lines, resort was had, as in the early
practice of the Government, to the President, asking the advice of the
Senate upon the articles of a treaty before negotiation. A message was
accordingly sent to the Senate, by the President, stating the
proposition, and asking its advice, thus shifting the responsibility
upon that body, and making the issue of peace or war depend upon its
answer. The Senate advised the acceptance of the proposition, and the
treaty was concluded.
The conduct of the Whig Senators, without whose votes the advice would
not have been given nor the treaty made, was patriotic in preferring
their country to their party—in preventing a war with Great Britain—and
saving the administration from itself and its party friends.
The second session of the 29th Congress was opened in December, 1847.
The President’s message was chiefly in relation to the war with Mexico,
which had been declared by almost a unanimous vote in Congress. Mr.
Calhoun spoke against the declaration in the Senate, but did not vote
upon it. He was sincerely opposed to the war, although his conduct had
produced it. Had he remained in the cabinet, to do which he had not
concealed his wish, he would, no doubt, have labored earnestly to have
prevented it. Many members of Congress, of the same party with the
administration, were extremely averse to the war, and had interviews
with the President, to see if it was inevitable, before it was declared.
Members were under the impression that the war could not last above
three months.
The reason for these impressions was that an intrigue was laid, with the
knowledge of the Executive, for a peace, even before the war was
declared, and a special agent dispatched to bring about a return to
Mexico of its exiled President, General Santa Anna, and conclude a
treaty of peace with him, on terms favorable to the United States. And
for this purpose Congress granted an appropriation of three millions of
dollars to be placed at the disposal of the President, for negotiating
for a boundary which should give the United States additional territory.
While this matter was pending in Congress, Mr. Wilmot of Pennsylvania
introduced and moved a proviso, “_that no part of the territory to be
acquired should be open to the introduction of slavery_.” It was a
proposition not necessary for the purpose of excluding slavery, as the
only territory to be acquired was that of New Mexico and California,
where slavery was already prohibited by the Mexican laws and
constitution. The proviso was therefore nugatory, and only served to
bring on a slavery agitation in the United States. For this purpose it
was seized upon by Mr. Calhoun and declared to be an outrage upon and
menace to the slaveholding States. It occupied the attention of Congress
for two sessions, and became the subject of debate in the State
Legislatures, several of which passed disunion resolutions. It became
the watchword of party—the synonym of civil war, and the dissolution of
the Union. Neither party really had anything to fear or to hope from the
adoption of the proviso—the soil was free, and the Democrats were not in
a position to make slave territory of it, because it had just enunciated
as one of its cardinal principles, that there was “_no power in Congress
to legislate upon slavery in Territories_.” Never did two political
parties contend more furiously about nothing. Close observers, who had
been watching the progress of the slavery agitation since its
inauguration in Congress in 1835, knew it to be the means of keeping up
an agitation for the benefit of the political parties—the abolitionists
on one side and the disunionists or nullifiers on the other—to
accomplish their own purposes. This was the celebrated Wilmot Proviso,
which for so long a time convulsed the Union; assisted in forcing the
issue between the North and South on the slavery question, and almost
caused a dissolution of the Union. The proviso was defeated; that chance
of the nullifiers to force the issue was lost; another had to be made,
which was speedily done, by the introduction into the Senate on the 19th
February, 1847, by Mr. Calhoun of his new slavery resolutions, declaring
the Territories to be the common property of the several States; denying
the right of Congress to prohibit slavery in a Territory, or to pass any
law which would have the effect to deprive the citizens of any slave
State from emigrating with his property (slaves) into such Territory.
The introduction of the resolutions was prefaced by an elaborate speech
by Mr. Calhoun, who demanded an immediate vote upon them. They never
came to a vote; they were evidently introduced for the mere purpose of
carrying a question to the slave States on which they could be formed
into a unit against the free States; and so began the agitation which
finally led to the abrogation of the Missouri Compromise line, and
arrayed the States of one section against those of the other.
The Thirtieth Congress, which assembled for its first session in
December, 1847, was found, so far as respects the House of
Representatives, to be politically adverse to the administration. The
Whigs were in the majority, and elected the Speaker; Robert C. Winthrop,
of Massachusetts, being chosen. The President’s message contained a full
report of the progress of the war with Mexico; the success of the
American arms in that conflict; the victory of Cerro Gordo, and the
capture of the City of Mexico; and that negotiations were then pending
for a treaty of peace. The message concluded with a reference to the
excellent results from the independent treasury system.
The war with Mexico was ended by the signing of a treaty of peace, in
February, 1848, by the terms of which New Mexico and Upper California
were ceded to the United States, and the lower Rio Grande, from its
mouth to El Paso, taken for the boundary of Texas. For the territory
thus acquired, the United States agreed to pay to Mexico the sum of
fifteen million dollars, in five annual installments; and besides that,
assumed the claims of American citizens against Mexico, limited to three
and a quarter million dollars, out of and on account of which claims the
war ostensibly originated. The victories achieved by the American
commanders, Generals Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott, during that war,
won for them national reputations, by means of which they were brought
prominently forward for the Presidential succession.
The question of the power of Congress to legislate on the subject of
slavery in the Territories, was again raised, at this session, on the
bill for the establishment of the Oregon territorial government. An
amendment was offered to insert a provision for the extension of the
Missouri compromise line to the Pacific Ocean; which line thus extended
was intended by the amendment to be permanent, and to apply to all
future territories established in the West. This amendment was lost, but
the bill was finally passed with an amendment incorporating into it the
anti-slavery clause of the ordinance of 1787. Mr. Calhoun, in the
Senate, declared that the exclusion of slavery from any territory was a
subversion of the Union; openly proclaimed the strife between the North
and South to be ended, and the separation of the States accomplished.
His speech was an open invocation to disunion, and from that time forth,
the efforts were regular to obtain a meeting of the members from the
slave States, to unite in a call for a convention of the slave States to
redress themselves. He said: “The great strife between the North and the
South is ended. The North is determined to exclude the property of the
slaveholder, and, of course, the slaveholder himself, from its
territory. On this point there seems to be no division in the North. In
the South, he regretted to say, there was some division of sentiment.
The effect of this determination of the North was to convert all the
Southern population into slaves; and he would never consent to entail
that disgrace on his posterity. He denounced any Southern man who would
not take the same course. Gentlemen were greatly mistaken if they
supposed the Presidential question in the South would override this more
important one. The separation of the North and the South is completed.
The South has now a most solemn obligation to perform—to herself—to the
constitution—to the Union. She is bound to come to a decision not to
permit this to go on any further, but to show that, dearly as she prizes
the Union, there are questions which she regards as of greater
importance than the Union. This is not a question of territorial
government, but a question involving the continuance of the Union.” The
President, in approving the Oregon bill, took occasion to send in a
special message, pointing out the danger to the Union from the progress
of the slavery agitation, and urged an adherence to the principles of
the ordinance of 1787—the terms of the Missouri compromise of 1820—as
also that involved and declared in the Texas case in 1845, as the means
of averting that danger.
The Presidential election of 1848 was coming on. The Democratic
convention met in Baltimore in May of that year; each State being
represented in the convention by the number of delegates equal to the
number of electoral votes it was entitled to; saving only New York,
which sent two sets of delegates, and both were excluded. The delegates
were, for the most part, members of Congress and office-holders. The
two-thirds rule, adopted by the previous convention, was again made a
law of the convention. The main question which arose upon the formation
of the platform for the campaign, was the doctrine advanced by the
Southern members of non-interference with slavery in the States or in
the Territories. The candidates of the party were, Lewis Cass, of
Michigan, for President, and General Wm. O. Butler, of Kentucky, for
Vice-President.
The Whig convention, taking advantage of the popularity of Genl. Zachary
Taylor, for his military achievements in the Mexican war, then just
ended; and his consequent availability as a candidate, nominated him for
the Presidency, over Mr. Clay, Mr. Webster and General Scott, who were
his competitors before the convention. Millard Fillmore was selected as
the Vice-presidential candidate.
A third convention was held, consisting of the disaffected Democrats
from New York who had been excluded from the Baltimore convention. They
met at Utica, New York, and nominated Martin Van Buren for President,
and Charles Francis Adams for Vice-President. The principles of its
platform, were, that Congress should abolish slavery wherever it
constitutionally had the power to do so—[which was intended to apply to
the District of Columbia]—that it should not interfere with it in the
slave States—and that it should prohibit it in the Territories. This
party became known as “Free-soilers,” from their doctrines thus
enumerated, and their party cry of “free-soil, free-speech, free-labor,
free-men.” The result of the election, as might have been foreseen, was
to lose New York State to the Baltimore candidate, and give it to the
Whigs, who were triumphant in the reception of 163 electoral votes for
their candidates, against 127 for the democrats; and none for the
free-soilers.
The last message of President Polk, in December following, gave him the
opportunity to again urge upon Congress the necessity for some measure
to quiet the slavery agitation, and he recommended the extension of the
Missouri compromise line to the Pacific Ocean, passing through the new
Territories of California and New Mexico, as a fair adjustment, to meet
as far as possible the views of all parties. The President referred also
to the state of the finances; the excellent condition of the public
treasury; government loans, commanding a high premium; gold and silver
the established currency; and the business interests of the country in a
prosperous condition. And this was the state of affairs, only one year
after emergency from a foreign war. It would be unfair not to give
credit to the President and to Senator Benton and others equally
prominent and courageous, who at that time had to battle against the
bank theory and national paper money currency, as strongly urged and
advocated, and to prove eventually that the money of the
Constitution—gold and silver—was the only currency to ensure a
successful financial working of the government, and prosperity to the
people.
The new President, General Zachary Taylor, was inaugurated March 4,
1849. The Senate being convened, as usual, in extra session, for the
purpose, the Vice-President elect, Millard Fillmore, was duly installed;
and the Whig cabinet officers nominated by the President, promptly
confirmed. An additional member of the Cabinet was appointed by this
administration to preside over the new “Home Department” since called
the “Interior,” created at the previous session of Congress.
The following December Congress met in regular session—the 31st since
the organization of the federal government. The Senate consisted of
sixty members, among whom were Mr. Webster, Mr. Calhoun, and Mr. Clay,
who had returned to public life. The House had 230 members; and although
the Whigs had a small majority, the House was so divided on the slavery
question in its various phases, that the election for Speaker resulted
in the choice of the Democratic candidate, Mr. Cobb, of Georgia, by a
majority of three votes. The annual message of the President plainly
showed that he comprehended the dangers to the Union from a continuance
of sectional feeling on the slavery question, and he averred his
determination to stand by the Union to the full extent of his
obligations and powers. At the previous session Congress had spent six
months in endeavoring to frame a satisfactory bill providing territorial
governments for California and New Mexico, and had adjourned finally
without accomplishing it, in consequence of inability to agree upon
whether the Missouri compromise line should be carried to the ocean, or
the territories be permitted to remain as they were—slavery prohibited
under the laws of Mexico. Mr. Calhoun brought forward, in the debate, a
new doctrine—extending the Constitution to the territory, and arguing
that as that instrument recognized the existence of slavery, the
settlers in such territory should be permitted to hold their slave
property taken there, and be protected. Mr. Webster’s answer to this was
that the Constitution was made for States, not territories; that it
cannot operate anywhere, not even in the States for which it was made,
without acts of Congress to enforce it. The proposed extension of the
constitution to territories, with a view to its transportation of
slavery along with it, was futile and nugatory without the act of
Congress to vitalize slavery under it. The early part of the year had
witnessed ominous movements—nightly meetings of large numbers of members
from the slave States, led by Mr. Calhoun, to consider the state of
things between the North and the South. They appointed committees who
prepared an address to the people. It was in this condition of things,
that President Taylor expressed his opinion, in his message, of the
remedies required. California, New Mexico and Utah, had been left
without governments. For California, he recommended that having a
sufficient population and having framed a constitution, she be admitted
as a State into the Union; and for New Mexico and Utah, without mixing
the slavery question with their territorial governments, they be left to
ripen into States, and settle the slavery question for themselves in
their State constitutions.
[Illustration: H. Clay]
With a view to meet the wishes of all parties, and arrive at some
definite and permanent adjustment of the slavery question, Mr. Clay
early in the session introduced compromise resolutions which were
practically a tacking together of the several bills then on the
calendar, providing for the admission of California—the territorial
government for Utah and New Mexico—the settlement of the Texas
boundary—slavery in the District of Columbia—and for a fugitive slave
law. It was seriously and earnestly opposed by many, as being a
concession to the spirit of disunion—a capitulation under threat of
secession; and as likely to become the source of more contentions than
it proposed to quiet.
The resolutions were referred to a special committee, who promptly
reported a bill embracing the comprehensive plan of compromise which Mr.
Clay proposed. Among the resolutions offered, was the following:
“Resolved, that as slavery does not exist by law and is not likely to be
introduced into any of the territory acquired by the United States from
the Republic of Mexico, it is inexpedient for Congress to provide by law
either for its introduction into or exclusion from any part of the said
territory; and that appropriate territorial governments ought to be
established by Congress in all of the said territory, and assigned as
the boundaries of the proposed State of California, without the adoption
of any restriction or condition on the subject of slavery.” Mr.
Jefferson Davis of Mississippi, objected that the measure gave nothing
to the South in the settlement of the question; and he required the
extension of the Missouri compromise line to the Pacific Ocean as the
least that he would be willing to take, with the specific recognition of
the right to hold slaves in the territory below that line; and that,
before such territories are admitted into the Union as States, slaves
may be taken there from any of the United States at the option of their
owner.
Mr. Clay in reply, said: “Coming from a slave State, as I do, I owe it
to myself, I owe it to truth, I owe it to the subject, to say that no
earthly power could induce me to vote for a specific measure for the
introduction of slavery where it had not before existed, either south or
north of that line.*** If the citizens of those territories choose to
establish slavery, and if they come here with constitutions establishing
slavery, I am for admitting them with such provisions in their
constitutions; but then it will be their own work, and not ours, and
their posterity will have to reproach them, and not us, for forming
constitutions allowing the institution of slavery to exist among them.”
Mr. Seward of New York, proposed a renewal of the Wilmot Proviso, in the
following resolution: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude,
otherwise than by conviction for crime, shall ever be allowed in either
of said territories of Utah and New Mexico;” but his resolution was
rejected in the Senate by a vote of 23 yeas to 33 nays. Following this,
Mr. Calhoun had read for him in the Senate, by his friend James M. Mason
of Virginia, his last speech. It embodied the points covered by the
address to the people, prepared by him the previous year; the
probability of a dissolution of the Union, and presenting a case to
justify it. The tenor of the speech is shown by the following extracts
from it: “I have, Senators, believed from the first, that the agitation
of the subject of slavery would, if not prevented by some timely and
effective measure, end in disunion. Entertaining this opinion, I have,
on all proper occasions, endeavored to call the attention of each of the
two great parties which divide the country to adopt some measure to
prevent so great a disaster, but without success. The agitation has been
permitted to proceed, with almost no attempt to resist it, until it has
reached a period when it can no longer be disguised or denied that the
Union is in danger. You have had forced upon you the greatest and
gravest question that can ever come under your consideration: How can
the Union be preserved?*** Instead of being weaker, all the elements in
favor of agitation are stronger now than they were in 1835, when it
first commenced, while all the elements of influence on the part of the
South are weaker. Unless something decisive is done, I again ask what is
to stop this agitation, before the great and final object at which it
aims—the abolition of slavery in the States—is consummated? Is it, then,
not certain that if something decisive is not now done to arrest it, the
South will be forced to choose between abolition and secession? Indeed
as events are now moving, it will not require the South to secede to
dissolve the Union.*** If the agitation goes on, nothing will be left to
hold the States together except force.” He answered the question, _How
can the Union be saved?_ with which his speech opened, by suggesting:
“To provide for the insertion of a provision in the constitution, by an
amendment, which will restore to the South in substance the power she
possessed of protecting herself, before the equilibrium between the
sections was destroyed by the action of the government.” He did not
state of what the amendment should consist, but later on, it was
ascertained from reliable sources that his idea was a dual executive—one
President from the free, and one from the slave States, the consent of
both of whom should be required to all acts of Congress before they
become laws. This speech of Mr. Calhoun’s, is important as explaining
many of his previous actions; and as furnishing a guide to those who ten
years afterwards attempted to carry out practically the suggestions
thrown out by him.
Mr. Clay’s compromise bill was rejected. It was evident that no
compromise of any kind whatever on the subject of slavery, under any one
of its aspects separately, much less under all put together, could
possibly be made. There was no spirit of concession manifested. The
numerous measures put together in Mr. Clay’s bill were disconnected and
separated. Each measure received a separate and independent
consideration, and with a result which showed the injustice of the
attempted conjunction; for no two of them were passed by the same vote,
even of the members of the committee which had even unanimously reported
favorably upon them as a whole.
Mr. Calhoun died in the spring of 1850; before the separate bill for the
admission of California was taken up. His death took place at
Washington, he having reached the age of 68 years. A eulogy upon him was
delivered in the Senate by his colleague, Mr. Butler, of South Carolina.
Mr. Calhoun was the first great advocate of the doctrine of secession.
He was the author of the nullification doctrine, and an advocate of the
extreme doctrine of States Rights. He was an eloquent speaker—a man of
strong intellect. His speeches were plain, strong, concise, sometimes
impassioned, and always severe. Daniel Webster said of him, that “he had
the basis, the indispensable basis of all high characters, and that was
unspotted integrity, unimpeached honor and character!”
In July of this year an event took place which threw a gloom over the
country. The President, General Taylor, contracted a fever from exposure
to the hot sun at a celebration of Independence Day, from which he died
four days afterwards. He was a man of irreproachable private character,
undoubted patriotism, and established reputation for judgment and
firmness. His brief career showed no deficiency of political wisdom nor
want of political training. His administration was beset with
difficulties, with momentous questions pending, and he met the crisis
with firmness and determination, resolved to maintain the Federal Union
at all hazards. His first and only annual message, the leading points of
which have been stated, evinces a spirit to do what was right among all
the States. His death was a public calamity. No man could have been more
devoted to the Union nor more opposed to the slavery agitation; and his
position as a Southern man and a slaveholder—his military reputation,
and his election by a majority of the people as well as of the States,
would have given him a power in the settlement of the pending questions
of the day which no President without these qualifications could have
possessed.
In accordance with the Constitution, the office of President thus
devolved upon the Vice-President, Mr. Millard Fillmore, who was duly
inaugurated July 10, 1850. The new cabinet, with Daniel Webster as
Secretary of State, was duly appointed and confirmed by the Senate.
The bill for the admission of California as a State in the Union, was
called up in the Senate and sought to be amended by extending the
Missouri Compromise line through it, to the Pacific Ocean, so as to
authorize slavery in the State below that line. The amendment was
introduced and pressed by Southern friends of the late Mr. Calhoun, and
made a test question. It was lost, and the bill passed by a two-third
vote; whereupon ten Southern Senators offered a written protest, the
concluding clause of which was: “We dissent from this bill, and solemnly
protest against its passage, because in sanctioning measures so contrary
to former precedents, to obvious policy, to the spirit and intent of the
constitution of the United States, for the purpose of excluding the
slaveholding States from the territory thus to be erected into a State,
this government in effect declares that the exclusion of slavery from
the territory of the United States is an object so high and important as
to justify a disregard not only of all the principles of sound policy,
but also of the constitution itself. Against this conclusion we must now
and for ever protest, as it is destructive of the safety and liberties
of those whose rights have been committed to our care, fatal to the
peace and equality of the States which we represent, and must lead, if
persisted in, to the dissolution of that confederacy, in which the
slaveholding States have never sought more than equality, and in which
they will not be content to remain with less.” On objection being made,
followed by debate, the Senate refused to receive the protest, or permit
it to be entered on the Journal. The bill went to the House of
Representatives, was readily passed, and promptly approved by the
President. Thus was virtually accomplished the abrogation of the
Missouri compromise line; and the extension or non-extension of slavery
was then made to form a foundation for future political parties.
The year 1850 was prolific with disunion movements in the Southern
States. The Senators who had joined with Mr. Calhoun in the address to
the people, in 1849, united with their adherents in establishing at
Washington a newspaper entitled “The Southern Press,” devoted to the
agitation of the slavery question; to presenting the advantages of
disunion, and the organization of a confederacy of Southern States to be
called the “United States South.” Its constant aim was to influence the
South against the North, and advocated concert of action by the States
of the former section. It was aided in its efforts by newspapers
published in the South, more especially in South Carolina and
Mississippi. A disunion convention was actually held, in Nashville,
Tennessee, and invited the assembly of a Southern Congress. Two States,
South Carolina and Mississippi responded to the appeal; passed laws to
carry it into effect, and the former went so far as to elect its quota
of Representatives to the proposed new Southern Congress. These
occurrences are referred to as showing the spirit that prevailed, and
the extraordinary and unjustifiable means used by the leaders to mislead
and exasperate the people. The assembling of a Southern “Congress” was a
turning point in the progress of disunion. Georgia refused to join; and
her weight as a great Southern State was sufficient to cause the failure
of the scheme. But the seeds of discord were sown, and had taken root,
only to spring up at a future time when circumstances should be more
favorable to the accomplishment of the object.
Although the Congress of the United States had in 1790 and again in 1836
formally declared the policy of the government to be non-interference
with the States in respect to the matter of slavery within the limits of
the respective States, the subject continued to be agitated in
consequence of petitions to Congress to abolish slavery in the District
of Columbia, which was under the exclusive control of the federal
government; and of movements throughout the United States to limit, and
finally abolish it. The subject first made its appearance in national
politics in 1840, when a presidential ticket was nominated by a party
then formed favoring the abolition of slavery; it had a very slight
following which was increased tenfold at the election of 1844 when the
same party again put a ticket in the field with James G. Birney of
Michigan, as its candidate for the Presidency; who received 62,140
votes. The efforts of the leaders of that faction were continued, and
persisted in to such an extent, that when in 1848 it nominated a ticket
with Gerritt Smith for President, against the Democratic candidate,
Martin Van Buren, the former received 296,232 votes. In the presidential
contest of 1852 the abolition party again nominated a ticket, with John
P. Hale as its candidate for President, and polled 157,926 votes. This
large following was increased from time to time, until uniting with a
new party then formed, called the Republican party, which latter adopted
a platform endorsing the views and sentiments of the abolitionists, the
great and decisive battle for the principles involved, was fought in the
ensuing presidential contest of 1856; when the candidate of the
Republican party, John C. Fremont, supported by the entire abolition
party, polled 1,341,812 votes. The first national platform of the
Abolition party, upon which it went into the contest of 1840, favored
the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia and Territories;
the inter-state slave trade, and a general opposition to slavery to the
full extent of constitutional power.
Following the discussion of the subject of slavery, in the Senate and
House of Representatives, brought about by the presentation of petitions
and memorials, and the passage of the resolutions in 1836 rejecting such
petitions, the question was again raised by the presentation in the
House, by Mr. Slade of Vermont, on the 20th December 1837, of two
memorials praying the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia,
and moving that they be referred to a select committee. Great excitement
prevailed in the chamber, and of the many attempts by the Southern
members an adjournment was had. The next day a resolution was offered
that thereafter all such petitions and memorials touching the abolition
of slavery should, when presented, be laid on the table; which
resolution was adopted by a large vote. During the 24th Congress, the
Senate pursued the course of laying on the table the motion to receive
all abolition petitions; and both Houses during the 25th Congress
continued the same course of conduct; when finally on the 25th of
January 1840, the House adopted by a vote of 114 to 108, an amendment to
the rules, called the 21st Rule, which provided:—“that no petition,
memorial or resolution, or other paper, praying the abolition of slavery
in the District of Columbia, or any state or territory, or the
slave-trade between the States or territories of the United States, in
which it now exists, shall be received by this House, or entertained in
any way whatever.” This rule was afterwards, on the 3d of December,
1844, rescinded by the House, on motion of Mr. J. Quincy Adams, by a
vote of 108 to 80; and a motion to re-instate it, on the 1st of December
1845, was rejected by a vote of 84 to 121. Within five years
afterwards—on the 17th September 1850,—the Congress of the United States
enacted a law, which was approved by the President, abolishing slavery
in the District of Columbia.
On the 25th of February, 1850, there was presented in the House of
Representatives, two petitions from citizens of Pennsylvania and
Delaware, setting forth that slavery, and the constitution which permits
it, violates the Divine law; is inconsistent with republican principles;
that its existence has brought evil upon the country; and that no union
can exist with States which tolerate that institution; and asking that
some plan be devised for the immediate, peaceful dissolution of the
Union. The House refused to receive and consider the petitions; as did
also the Senate when the same petitions were presented the same month.
The presidential election of 1852 was the last campaign in which the
Whig party appeared in National politics. It nominated a ticket with
General Winfield Scott as its candidate for President. His opponent on
the Democratic ticket was General Franklin Pierce. A third ticket was
placed in the field by the Abolition party, with John P. Hale as its
candidate for President. The platform and declaration of principles of
the Whig party was in substance a ratification and endorsement of the
several measures embraced in Mr. Clay’s compromise resolutions of the
previous session of Congress, before referred to; and the policy of a
revenue for the economical administration of the government, to be
derived mainly from duties on imports, and by these means to afford
protection to American industry. The main plank of the platform of the
Abolition party (or Independent Democrats, as they were called) was for
the non-extension and gradual extinction of slavery. The Democratic
party equally adhered to the compromise measure. The election resulted
in the choice of Franklin Pierce, by a popular vote of 1,601,474, and
254 electoral votes, against a popular aggregate vote of 1,542,403 (of
which the abolitionists polled 157,926) and 42 electoral votes, for the
Whig and Abolition candidates. Mr. Pierce was duly inaugurated as
President, March 4, 1853.
The first political parties in the United States, from the
establishment of the federal government and for many years afterwards,
were denominated Federalists and Democrats, or Democratic-Republicans.
The former was an anti-alien party. The latter was made up to a large
extent of naturalized foreigners; refugees from England, Ireland and
Scotland, driven from home for hostility to the government or for
attachment to France. Naturally, aliens sought alliance with the
Democratic party, which favored the war against Great Britain. The
early party contests were based on the naturalization laws; the first
of which, approved March 26, 1790, required only two years’ residence
in this country; a few years afterwards the time was extended to five
years; and in 1798 the Federalists taking advantage of the war fever
against France, and then being in power, extended the time to fourteen
years. (See Alien and Sedition Laws of 1798). Jefferson’s election and
Democratic victory of 1800, brought the period back to five years in
1802, and reinforced the Democratic party. The city of New York,
especially, from time to time became filled with foreigners; thus
naturalized; brought into the Democratic ranks; and crowded out native
Federalists from control of the city government, and to meet this
condition of affairs, the first attempt at a Native American
organization was made. Beginning in 1835; ending in failure in
election of Mayor in 1837, it was revived in April, 1844, when the
Native American organization carried New York city for its Mayoralty
candidate by a good majority. The success of the movement there,
caused it to spread to New Jersey and Pennsylvania. In Philadelphia,
it was desperately opposed by the Democratic, Irish and Roman Catholic
element, and so furiously, that it resulted in riots, in which two
Romish Churches were burned and destroyed. The adherents of the
American organization were not confined to Federalists or Whigs, but
largely of native Democrats; and the Whigs openly voted with
Democratic Natives in order to secure their vote for Henry Clay for
the Presidency; but when in November, 1844, New York and Philadelphia
both gave Native majorities, and so sapped the Whig vote, that both
places gave majorities for the Democratic Presidential electors, the
Whigs drew off. In 1845, at the April election in New York, the
natives were defeated, and the new party disappeared there. As a
result of the autumn election of 1844, the 29th Congress, which
organized in December, 1845, had six Native Representatives; four from
New York and two from Pennsylvania. In the 30th Congress, Pennsylvania
had one. Thereafter for some years, with the exception of a small vote
in Pennsylvania and New York, Nativism disappeared. An able writer of
that day—Hon. A. H. H. Stuart, of Virginia—published under the
nom-de-plume of “Madison” several letters in vindication of the
American party (revived in 1852,) in which he said: “The vital
principle of the American party is _Americanism_—developing itself in
a deep-rooted attachment to our own country—its constitution, its
union, and its laws—to American men, and American measures, and
American interests—or, in other words, a fervent patriotism—which,
rejecting the transcendental philanthropy of abolitionists, and that
kindred batch of wild enthusiasts, who would seek to embroil us with
foreign countries, in righting the wrongs of Ireland, or Hungary, or
Cuba—would guard with vestal vigilance American institutions and
American interests against the baneful effects of foreign influence.”
About 1852, when the question of slavery in the territories, and its
extension or its abolition in the States, was agitated and causing
sectional differences in the country, many Whigs and Democrats forsook
their parties, and took sides on the questions of the day. This was
aggravated by the large number of alien naturalized citizens constantly
added to the ranks of voters, who took sides with the Democrats and
against the Whigs. Nativism then re-appeared, but in a new form—that of
a secret fraternity. Its real name and objects were not revealed—even to
its members, until they reached a high degree in the order; and the
answer of members on being questioned on these subjects was, “I don’t
know”—which gave it the popular name, by which it is yet known, of
“Know-nothing.” Its moving causes were the growing power and designs of
the Roman Catholic Church in America; the sudden influx of aliens; and
the greed and incapacity of naturalized citizens for office. Its
cardinal principle was: “Americans must rule America”; and its
countersign was the order of General Washington on a critical occasion
during the war: “Put none but Americans on guard to-night.” Its early
nominations were not made public, but were made by select committees and
conventions of delegates. At first these nominations were confined to
selections of the best Whig or best Democrat on the respective tickets;
and the choice not being made known, but quietly voted for by all the
members of the order, the effect was only visible after election, and
threw all calculation into chaos. For a while it was really the arbiter
of elections.
On February 8, 1853, a bill passed the House of Representatives
providing a territorial government for Nebraska, embracing all of what
is now Kansas and Nebraska. It was silent on the subject of the repeal
of the Missouri Compromise. The bill was tabled in the Senate; to be
revived at the following session. In the Senate it was amended, on
motion of Mr. Douglas, to read: “That so much of the 8th section of an
act approved March 6, 1820, (the Missouri compromise) *** which, being
inconsistent with the principles of non-intervention by Congress with
slavery in the States and Territories, as recognized by the legislature
of 1850, commonly called the Compromise measures, is hereby declared
inoperative and void; it being the true intent and meaning of this act
not to legislate slavery into any Territory or State, nor to exclude it
therefrom, but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and
regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to
the Constitution of the United States.” It was further amended, on
motion of Senator Clayton, to prohibit “alien suffrage.” In the House
this amendment was not agreed to; and the bill finally passed without
it, on the 25th May, 1854.
So far as Nebraska was concerned, no excitement of any kind marked the
initiation of her territorial existence. The persons who emigrated there
seemed to regard the pursuits of business as of more interest than the
discussion of slavery. Kansas was less fortunate. Her territory became
at once the battle-field of a fierce political conflict between the
advocates of slavery, and the free soil men from the North who went
there to resist the establishment of that institution in the territory.
Differences arose between the Legislature and the Governor, brought
about by antagonisms between the Pro-slavery party and the Free State
party; and the condition of affairs in Kansas assumed so frightful a
mien in January, 1856, that the President sent a special message to
Congress on the subject, January 24, 1856; followed by a Proclamation,
February 11, 1856, “warning all unlawful combinations (in the territory)
to retire peaceably to their respective abodes, or he would use the
power of the local militia, and the available forces of the United
States to disperse them.”
Several applications were made to Congress for several successive years,
for the admission of Kansas as a state in the Union; upon the basis of
three separate and distinct constitutions, all differing as to the main
questions at issue between the contending factions. The name of Kansas
was for some years synonymous with all that is lawless and anarchical.
Elections became mere farces, and the officers thus fraudulently placed
in power, used their authority only for their own or their party’s
interest. The party opposed to slavery at length triumphed; a
constitution excluding slavery was adopted in 1859, and Kansas was
admitted into the Union January 29, 1861.
Under the fugitive slave law, which was passed by Congress at the
session of 1850, as one of the Compromise measures, introduced by Mr.
Clay, a long and exciting litigation occurred to test the validity and
constitutionality of the act, and the several laws on which it depended.
The suit was instituted by Dred Scott, a negro slave, in the Circuit
Court of the United States for the District of Missouri, in April Term,
1854, against John F. A. Sanford, his alleged owner, for trespass _vi et
armis_, in holding the plaintiff and his wife and daughters in slavery
in said District of Missouri, where by law slavery was prohibited; they
having been previously lawfully held in slavery by a former owner—Dr.
Emerson—in the State of Illinois, from whence they were taken by him to
Missouri, and sold to the defendant, Sanford. The case went up on appeal
to the Supreme Court of the United States, and was clearly and
elaborately argued. The majority opinion, delivered by Chief Justice
Taney, as also the dissenting opinions, are reported in full in Howard’s
U. S. Supreme Court Reports, Volume 19, page 393. In respect to the
territories the Constitution grants to Congress the power “to make all
needful rules and regulations concerning the territory and _other
property_ belonging to the United States.” The Court was of opinion that
the clause of the Constitution applies only to the territory within the
original States at the time the Constitution was adopted, and that it
did not apply to future territory acquired by treaty or conquest from
foreign nations. They were also of opinion that the power of Congress
over such future territorial acquisitions was not unlimited, that the
citizens of the States migrating to a territory were not to be regarded
as colonists, subject to absolute power in Congress, but as citizens of
the United States, with all the rights of citizenship guarantied by the
Constitution, and that no legislation was constitutional which attempted
to deprive a citizen of his property on his becoming a resident of a
territory. This question in the case arose under the act of Congress
prohibiting slavery in the territory of upper Louisiana, (acquired from
France, afterwards the State), and of which the territory of Missouri
was formed. Any obscurity as to what constitutes citizenship, will be
removed by attending to the distinction between local rights of
citizenship of the United States according to the Constitution.
Citizenship at large in the sense of the Constitution can be conferred
on a foreigner only by the naturalization laws of Congress. But each
State, in the exercise of its local and reserved sovereignty, may place
foreigners or other persons on a footing with its own citizens, as to
political rights and privileges to be enjoyed within its own dominion.
But State regulations of this character do not make the persons on whom
such rights are conferred citizens of the United States or entitle them
to the privileges and immunities of citizens in another State. See 5
Wheaton, (U. S. Supreme Court Reports), page 49.
The Court said in The Dred Scott case, above referred to, that:—“The
right of property in a slave is distinctly and expressly affirmed in the
Constitution. The right to traffic in it like the ordinary article of
merchandise and property was guarantied to the citizens of the United
States, in every State that might desire it for twenty years, and the
government in express terms is pledged to protect it in all future time
if the slave escapes from his owner. This is done in plain words—too
plain to be misunderstood, and no word can be found in the Constitution
which gives Congress a greater power over slave property, or which
entitles property of that kind to less protection than the property of
any other description. The only power conferred is the power coupled
with the duty of guarding and protecting the owner in his rights. Upon
these considerations, it is the opinion of the Court that the Act of
Congress which prohibited a citizen from holding and owning property of
this kind in the territory of the United States north of the line
therein mentioned, is not warranted by the Constitution and is therefore
void; and that neither Dred Scott himself, nor any of his family were
made free by being carried into this territory; even if they had been
carried there by the owner with the intention of becoming a permanent
resident.” The abolition of slavery by the 13th amendment to the
Constitution of the United States ratified and adopted December 18,
1865, has put an end to these discussions formerly so numerous.
As early as 1854, the Kansas-Nebraska controversy on the territorial
government bill, resulted in a division of the Whig party in the North.
Those not sufficiently opposed to slavery to enter the new Republican
party, then in its incipiency, allied themselves with the Know-Nothing
order, which now accepting the name of American party established a
separate and independent political existence. The party had no hold in
the West; it was entirely Middle State at this time, and polled a large
vote in Massachusetts, Delaware and New York. In the State elections of
1855 the American party made a stride Southward. In 1855, the absence of
naturalized citizens was universal in the South, and even so late as
1881 the proportion of foreign born population in the Southern States,
with the exception of Florida, Louisiana, and Texas was under two per
cent. At the early date—1855—the nativist feeling among the Whigs of
that section, made it easy to transfer them to the American party, which
thus secured in both the Eastern and Southern States, the election of
Governor and Legislature in the States of New Hampshire, Massachusetts,
Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, California and Kentucky; and also
elected part of its State ticket in Maryland, and Texas; and only lost
the States of Virginia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, by
small majorities against it.
The order began preparations for a campaign as a National party, in
1856. It aimed to introduce opposition to aliens and Roman Catholicism
as a national question. On the 21st of February, 1856, the National
Council held a session at Philadelphia, and proceeded to formulate a
declaration of principles, and make a platform, which were as follows:
“An humble acknowledgement to the Supreme Being, for his protecting care
vouchsafed to our fathers in their successful Revolutionary struggle,
and hitherto manifested to us, their descendants, in the preservation of
the liberties, the independence, and the union of these States.
2d. The perpetuation of the Federal Union, as the palladium of our civil
and religious liberties, and the only sure Bulwark of American
independence.
3d. Americans must rule America, and to this end, native-born citizens
should be selected for all state, federal, and municipal offices or
government employment, in preference to all others; nevertheless,
4th. Persons born of American parents residing temporarily abroad,
should be entitled to all the rights of native-born citizens; but,
5th. No person shall be selected for political station (whether of
native or foreign birth), who recognizes any allegiance or obligation,
of any description, to any foreign prince, potentate, or power, or who
refuses to recognize the Federal and State constitutions (each within
its sphere) as paramount to all other laws, as rules of political
action.
6th. The unqualified recognition and maintenance of the reserved rights
of the several States, and the cultivation of harmony and fraternal good
will, between the citizens of the several States, and to this end,
non-interference by congress with questions appertaining solely to the
individual States, and non-intervention by each State with the affairs
of any other State.
7th. The recognition of the right of the native-born and naturalized
citizens of the United States, permanently residing in any territory
thereof, to frame their constitution and laws, and to regulate their
domestic and social affairs in their own mode, subject only to the
provisions of the Federal Constitution, with the privilege of admission
into the Union, whenever they have the requisite population for one
representative in Congress.—Provided always, that none but those who are
citizens of the United States, under the Constitution and laws thereof,
and who have a fixed residence in any such territory, ought to
participate in the formation of the Constitution, or in the enactment of
laws for said Territory or State.
8th. An enforcement of the principle that no State or Territory ought to
admit others than citizens of the United States to the right of
suffrage, or of holding political office.
9th. A change in the laws of naturalization, making a continued
residence of twenty-one years, of all not hereinbefore provided for, an
indispensable requisite for citizenship hereafter, and excluding all
paupers, and persons convicted of crime, from landing upon our shores;
but no interference with the vested rights of foreigners.
10th. Opposition to any union between Church and State; no interference
with religious faith, or worship, and no test oaths for office.
11th. Free and thorough investigation into any and all alleged abuses of
public functionaries, and a strict economy in public expenditures.
12th. The maintenance and enforcement of all laws constitutionally
enacted, until said laws shall be repealed, or shall be declared null
and void by competent judicial authority.
The American Ritual, or Constitution, rules, regulations, and ordinances
of the Order were as follows:—
AMERICAN RITUAL.
_Constitution of the National Council of the United States of North
America._
ART. 1st. This organization shall be known by the name and title of THE
NATIONAL COUNCIL OF THE UNITED STATES OF NORTH AMERICA, and its
jurisdiction and power shall extend to all the states, districts, and
territories of the United States of North America.
ART. 2d. The object of this organization shall be to protect every
American citizen in the legal and proper exercise of all his civil and
religious rights and privileges; to resist the insidious policy of the
Church of Rome, and all other foreign influence against our republican
institutions in all lawful ways; to place in all offices of honor,
trust, or profit, in the gift of the people, or by appointment, none but
native-born Protestant citizens, and to protect, preserve, and uphold
the union of these states and the constitution of the same.
ART. 3d. Sec. 1.—A person to become a member of any subordinate council
must be twenty-one years of age; he must believe in the existence of a
Supreme Being as the Creator and preserver of the universe. He must be a
native-born citizen; a Protestant, either born of Protestant parents, or
reared under Protestant influence; and not united in marriage with a
Roman Catholic; provided, nevertheless, that in this last respect, the
state, district, or territorial councils shall be authorized to so
construct their respective constitutions as shall best promote the
interests of the American cause in their several jurisdictions; and
provided, moreover, that no member who may have a Roman Catholic wife
shall be eligible to office in this order; and provided, further, should
any state, district, or territorial council prefer the words “Roman
Catholic” as a disqualification to membership, in place of “Protestant”
as a qualification, they may so consider this constitution and govern
their action accordingly.
Sec. 2.—There shall be an interval of three weeks between the conferring
of the first and second degrees; and of three months between the
conferring of the second and third degrees—provided, that this
restriction shall not apply to those who may have received the second
degree previous to the first day of December next; and provided,
further, that the presidents of state, district, and territorial
councils may grant dispensations for initiating in all the degrees,
officers of new councils.
Sec. 3.—The national council shall hold its annual meetings on the first
Tuesday in the month of June, at such place as may be designated by the
national council at the previous annual meeting, and it may adjourn from
time to time. Special meetings may be called by the President, on the
written request of five delegations representing five state councils;
provided, that sixty days’ notice shall be given to the state councils
previous to said meeting.
Sec. 4.—The national council shall be composed of seven delegates from
each state, to be chosen by the state councils; and each district or
territory where a district or territorial council shall exist, shall be
entitled to send two delegates, to be chosen from said council—provided
that in the nomination of candidates for President and Vice-President of
the United States, and each state shall be entitled to cast the same
number of votes as they shall have members in both houses of Congress.
In all sessions of the national council, thirty-two delegates,
representing thirteen states, territories, or districts, shall
constitute a quorum for the transaction of business.
Sec. 5.—The national council shall be vested with the following powers
and privileges:
It shall be the head of the organization for the United States of North
America, and shall fix and establish all signs, grips, pass-words, and
such other secret work, as may seem to it necessary.
It shall have the power to decide all matters appertaining to national
politics.
It shall have the power to exact from the state councils, quarterly or
annual statements as to the number of members under their jurisdictions,
and in relation to all other matters necessary for its information.
It shall have the power to form state, territorial, or district
councils, and to grant dispensations for the formation of such bodies,
when five subordinate councils shall have been put in operation in any
state, territory, or district, and application made.
It shall have the power to determine upon a mode of punishment in case
of any dereliction of duty on the part of its members or officers.
It shall have the power to adopt cabalistic characters for the purpose
of writing or telegraphing. Said characters to be communicated to the
presidents of the state councils, and by them to the presidents of the
subordinate councils.
It shall have the power to adopt any and every measure it may deem
necessary to secure the success of the organization; provided that
nothing shall be done by the said national council in violation of the
constitution; and provided further, that in all political matters, its
members may be instructed by the state councils, and if so instructed,
shall carry out such instructions of the state councils which they
represent until overruled by a majority of the national council.
Art. 4. The President shall always preside over the national council
when present, and in his absence the Vice-President shall preside, and
in the absence of both the national council shall appoint a president
_pro tempore_; and the presiding officers may at all times call a member
to the chair, but such appointment shall not extend beyond one sitting
of the national council.
Art. 5. Sec. 1.—The officers of the National Council shall be a
President, Vice-President, Chaplain, Corresponding Secretary, Recording
Secretary, Treasurer, and two Sentinels, with such other officers as the
national council may see fit to appoint from time to time; and the
secretaries and sentinels may receive such compensation as the national
council shall determine.
Sec. 2.—The duties of the several officers created by this constitution
shall be such as the work of this organization prescribes.
Art. 6. Sec. 1.—All officers provided for by this constitution, except
the sentinels, shall be elected annually by ballot. The president may
appoint sentinels from time to time.
Sec. 2.—A majority of all the votes cast shall be requisite to an
election for an office.
Sec. 3.—All officers and delegates of this council, and of all state,
district, territorial, and subordinate councils, must be invested with
all the degrees of this order.
Sec. 4.—All vacancies in the elective offices shall be filled by a vote
of the national council, and only for the unexpired term of the said
vacancy.
Art. 7. Sec. 1.—The national council shall entertain and decide all
cases of appeal, and it shall establish a form of appeal.
Sec. 2.—The national council shall levy a tax upon the state, district,
or territorial councils, for the support of the national council, to be
paid in such manner and at such times as the national council shall
determine.
Art. 8.—This national council may alter and amend this constitution at
its regular annual meeting in June next, by a vote of the majority of
the whole number of the members present. (Cincinnati, Nov. 24, 1854.)
RULES AND REGULATIONS.
Rule 1.—Each State, District, or Territory, in which there may exist
five or more subordinate councils working under dispensations from the
National Council of the United States of North America, or under regular
dispensations from some State, District, or Territory, are duly
empowered to establish themselves into a State, District, or Territorial
council, and when so established, to form for themselves constitutions
and by-laws for their government, in pursuance of, and in consonance
with the Constitution of the National Council of the United States;
provided, however, that all State, District, or Territorial
constitutions shall be subject to the approval of the National Council
of the United States. (June, 1854.)
Rule 2.—All State, District, or Territorial councils, when established,
shall have full power and authority to establish all subordinate
councils within their respective limits; and the constitutions and
by-laws of all such subordinate councils must be approved by their
respective State, District, or Territorial councils. (June, 1854.)
Rule 3.—All State, District, or Territorial councils, when established
and until the formation of constitutions, shall work under the
constitution of the National Council of the United States. (June, 1854.)
Rule 4.—In all cases where, for the convenience of the organization, two
State or Territorial councils may be established, the two councils
together shall be entitled to but thirteen delegates[3] in the National
Council of the United States—the proportioned number of delegates to
depend on the number of members in the organizations; provided, that no
State shall be allowed to have more than one State council, without the
consent of the National Council of the United States. (June, 1854.)
Rule 5.—In any State, District, or Territory, where there may be more
than one organization working on the same basis, (to wit, the lodges and
“councils,”) the same shall be required to combine; the officers of each
organization shall resign and new officers be elected; and thereafter
these bodies shall be known as State councils, and subordinate councils,
and new charters shall be granted to them by the national council.
(June, 1854.)
Rule 6.—It shall be considered a penal offence for any brother not an
officer of a subordinate council, to make use of the sign or summons
adopted for public notification, except by direction of the President;
or for officers of a council to post the same at any other time than
from midnight to one hour before daybreak, and this rule shall be
incorporated into the by-laws of the State, District, and Territorial
councils. (June, 1854.)
Rule 7.—The determination of the necessity and mode of issuing the
posters for public notification shall be intrusted to the State,
District, or Territorial councils. (June, 1854.)
Rule 8.—The respective State, District, or Territorial councils shall be
required to make statements of the number of members within their
respective limits, at the next meeting of this national council, and
annually thereafter, at the regular annual meeting. (June, 1854.)
Rule 9.—The delegates to the National Council of the United States of
North America shall be entitled to three dollars per day for their
attendance upon the national council, and for each day that may be
necessary in going and returning from the same; and five cents per mile
for every mile they may necessarily travel in going to, and returning
from the place of meeting of the national council; to be computed by the
nearest mail route: which shall be paid out of the treasury of the
national council. (November, 1854.)
Rule 10.—Each State, District, or Territorial council shall be taxed
four cents per annum for every member in good standing belonging to each
subordinate council under its jurisdiction on the first day of April,
which shall be reported to the national council, and paid into the
national treasury, on or before the first day of the annual session, to
be held in June; and on the same day in each succeeding year. And the
first fiscal year shall be considered as commencing on the first day of
December, 1854, and ending on the fifteenth day of May, 1855. (November,
1854.)
Rule 11.—The following shall be the key to determine and ascertain the
purport of any communication that may be addressed to the President of a
State, District, or Territorial council by the President of the national
council, who is hereby instructed to communicate a knowledge of the same
to said officers:
A B C D E F G H I J K L M
1 7 13 19 25 2 8 14 20 26 3 9 15
N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
21 4 10 16 22 5 11 17 23 6 12 18 24
Rule 12.—The clause of the article of the constitution relative to
belief in the Supreme Being is obligatory upon every State and
subordinate council, as well as upon each individual member. (June,
1854.)
Rule 13.—The following shall be the compensation of the officers of this
council:
1st. The Corresponding Secretary shall be paid two thousand dollars per
annum, from the 17th day of June, 1854.
2d. The Treasurer shall be paid five hundred dollars per annum, from the
17th day of June, 1854.
3d. The Sentinels shall be paid five dollars for every day they may be
in attendance on the sittings of the national council.
4th. The Chaplain shall be paid one hundred dollars per annum, from the
17th day of June, 1854.
5th. The Recording Secretary shall be paid five hundred dollars per
annum, from the 17th day of June, 1854.
6th. The Assistant Secretary shall be paid five dollars per day, for
every day he may be in attendance on the sitting of the national
council. All of which is to be paid out of the national treasury, on the
draft of the President. (November, 1854.)
SPECIAL VOTING.
Vote 1st.—This national council hereby grants to the State of Virginia
two State councils, the one to be located in Eastern and the other in
Western Virginia, the Blue Ridge Mountains being the geographical line
between the two jurisdictions. (June, 1854.)
Vote 2d.—The President shall have power, till the next session of the
national council, to grant dispensations for the formation of State,
District, or Territorial councils, in form most agreeable to his own
discretion, upon proper application being made. (June, 1854.)
Vote 3d.—The seats of all delegates to and members of the present
national council shall be vacated on the first Tuesday in June, 1855, at
the hour of six o’clock in the forenoon; and the national council
convening in annual session upon that day, shall be composed exclusively
of delegates elected under and in accordance with the provisions of the
constitution, as amended at the present session of this national
council; provided, that this resolution shall not apply to the officers
of the national council. (November, 1854.)
Vote 4th.—The Corresponding Secretary of this council is authorized to
have printed the names of the delegates to this national council; also,
those of the Presidents of the several State, District, and Territorial
councils, together with their address, and to forward a copy of the same
to each person named; and further, the Corresponding Secretaries of each
State, District, and Territory are requested to forward a copy of their
several constitutions to each other. (November, 1854.)
Vote 5th.—In the publication of the constitution and the ritual, under
the direction of the committee—brothers Deshler, Damrell, and
Stephens—the name, signs, grips, and pass-words of the order shall be
indicated by [* * *], and a copy of the same shall be furnished to each
State, District, and Territorial council, and to each member of that
body. (November, 1854.)
Vote 6th.—A copy of the constitution of each State, District, and
Territorial council, shall be submitted to this council for examination.
(November, 1854.)
Vote 7th.—It shall be the duty of the Treasurer, at each annual meeting
of this body, to make a report of all moneys received or expended in the
interval. (November, 1854.)
Vote 8th.—Messrs. Gifford of Pa., Barker of N. Y., Deshler of N. J.,
Williamson of Va., and Stephens of Md., are appointed a committee to
confer with similar committees that have been appointed for the purpose
of consolidating the various American orders, with power to make the
necessary arrangement for such consolidation—subject to the approval of
this national council, at its next session. (November, 1854.)
Vote 9th.—On receipt of the new ritual by the members of this national
council who have received the third degree, they or any of them may, and
they are hereby empowered to, confer the third degree upon members of
this body in their respective states, districts, and territories, and
upon the presidents and other officers of their state, district, and
territorial councils. And further, the presidents of the state,
district, and territorial councils shall in the first instance confer
the third degree upon as many of the presidents and officers of their
subordinate councils as can be assembled together in their respective
localities; and afterwards the same may be conferred upon officers of
other subordinate councils, by any presiding officer of a council who
shall have previously received it under the provisions of the
constitution. (November, 1854.)
Vote 10th.—To entitle any delegate to a seat in this national council,
at its annual session in June next, he must present a properly
authenticated certificate that he was duly elected as a delegate to the
same, or appointed a substitute in accordance with the requirements of
the constitutions of state, territorial, or district councils. And no
delegate shall be received from any state, district, or territorial
council which has not adopted the constitution and ritual of this
national council. (November, 1854.)
Vote 11th.—The committee on printing the constitution and ritual is
authorized to have a sufficient number of the same printed for the use
of the order. And no state, district, or territorial council shall be
allowed to reprint the same. (November, 1854.)
Vote 12th.—The right to establish all subordinate councils in any of the
states, districts, and territories represented in this national council,
shall be confined to the state, district, and territorial councils which
they represent. (November, 1854.)
CONSTITUTION FOR THE GOVERNMENT OF SUBORDINATE COUNCILS.
Art. I. Sec. 1.—Each subordinate council shall be composed of not less
than thirteen members, all of whom shall have received all the degrees
of the order, and shall be known and recognised as —— Council, No. ——,
of the —— of the county of ——, and State of North Carolina.
Sec. 2.—No person shall be a member of any subordinate council in this
state, unless he possesses all the qualifications, and comes up to all
the requirements laid down in the constitution of the national council,
and whose wife (if he has one), is not a Roman Catholic.
Sec. 3. No application for membership shall be received and acted on
from a person residing out of the state, or resides in a county where
there is a council in existence, unless upon special cause to be stated
to the council, to be judged of by the same; and such person, if the
reasons be considered sufficient, may be initiated the same night he is
proposed, provided he resides five miles or more from the place where
the council is located. But no person can vote in any council, except
the one of which he is a member.
Sec. 4. Every person applying for membership, shall be voted for by
ballot, in open council, if a ballot is requested by a single member. If
one-third of the votes cast be against the applicant, he shall be
rejected. If any applicant be rejected, he shall not be again proposed
within six months thereafter. Nothing herein contained shall be
construed to prevent the initiation of applicants privately, by those
empowered to do so, in localities where there are no councils within a
convenient distance.
Sec. 5. Any member of one subordinate council wishing to change his
membership to another council, shall apply to the council to which he
belongs, either in writing or orally through another member, and the
question shall be decided by the council. If a majority are in favor of
granting him an honorable dismission, he shall receive the same in
writing, to be signed by the president and countersigned by the
secretary. But until a member thus receiving an honorable dismission has
actually been admitted to membership in another council, he shall be
held subject to the discipline of the council from which he has received
the dismission, to be dealt with by the same, for any violation of the
requirements of the order. Before being received in the council to which
he wishes to transfer his membership, he shall present said certificate
of honorable dismission, and shall be received as new members are.
Sec. 6. Applications for the second degree shall not be received except
in second degree councils, and voted on by second and third degree
members only, and applications for the third degree shall be received in
third degree councils, and voted on by third degree members only.
Art. II.—Each subordinate council shall fix on its own time and place
for meeting: and shall meet at least once a month, but where not very
inconvenient, it is recommended that they meet once a week. Thirteen
members shall form a quorum for the transaction of business. Special
meetings may be called by the president at any time, at the request of
four members of the order.
Art. III.—Sec. 1. The members of each subordinate council shall consist
of a president, vice-president, instructor, secretary, treasurer,
marshal, inside and outside sentinel, and shall hold their offices for
the term of six months, or until their successors are elected and
installed.
Sec. 2. The officers of each subordinate council (except the sentinels,
who shall be appointed by the president), shall be elected at the first
regular meetings in January and July, separately, and by ballot; and
each shall receive a majority of all the votes cast to entitle him to an
election. No member shall be elected to any office, unless he be present
and signify his assent thereto at the time of his election. Any vacancy
which may occur by death, resignation, or otherwise, shall be filled at
the next meeting thereafter, in the manner and form above described.
Sec. 3. The President.—It shall be the duty of the president of each
subordinate council, to preside in the council, and enforce a due
observance of the constitution and rules of the order, and a proper
respect for the state council and the national council; to have sole and
exclusive charge of the charter and the constitution and ritual of the
order, which he must always have with him when his council is in
session, to see that all officers perform their respective duties; to
announce all ballotings to the council; to decide all questions of
order; to give the casting vote in all cases of a tie; to convene
special meetings when deemed expedient; to draw warrants on the
treasurer for all sums, the payment of which is ordered by the council;
and to perform such other duties as are demanded of him by the
Constitutions and ritual of the order.
Sec. 4. The vice-president of each subordinate council shall assist the
president in the discharge of his duties, whilst his council is in
session; and, in his absence, shall perform all the duties of the
president.
Sec. 5. The instructor shall perform the duties of the president in the
absence of the president and vice-president, and shall, under the
direction of the president, perform such duties as may be assigned to
him by the ritual.
Sec. 6. The secretary shall keep an accurate record of the proceedings
of the council. He shall write all communications, fill all notices,
attest all warrants drawn by the president for the payment of money; he
shall keep a correct roll of all the members of the council, together
with their age, residence, and occupation, in the order in which they
have been admitted; he shall, at the expiration of every three months,
make out a report of all work done during that time, which report he
shall forward to the secretary of the state council; and when superseded
in his office shall deliver all books, papers, &c., in his hands to his
successor.
Sec. 7. The treasurer shall hold all moneys raised exclusively for the
use of the state council, which he shall pay over to the secretary of
the state council at its regular sessions, or whenever called upon by
the president of the state council. He shall receive all moneys for the
use of the subordinate council, and pay all amounts drawn for on him, by
the president of the subordinate council, if attested by the secretary.
Sec. 8. The marshal shall perform such duties, under the direction of
the president, as may be required of him by the ritual.
Sec. 9. The inside sentinel shall have charge of the inner door, and act
under the directions of the president. He shall admit no person, unless
he can prove himself a member of this order, and of the same degree in
which the council is opened, or by order of the president, or is
satisfactorily vouched for.
Sec. 10. The outside sentinel shall have charge of the outer door, and
act in accordance with the orders of the president. He shall permit no
person to enter the outer door unless he give the pass-word of the
degree in which the council is at work, or is properly vouched for.
Sec. 11. The secretary, treasurer, and sentinels, shall receive such
compensation as the subordinate councils may each conclude to allow.
Sec. 12. Each subordinate council may levy its own fees for initiation,
to raise a fund to pay its dues to the state council, and to defray its
own expenses. Each council may, also, at its discretion, initiate
without charging the usual fee, those it considers unable to pay the
same.
Sec. 13. The president shall keep in his possession the constitution and
ritual of the order. He shall not suffer the same to go out of his
possession under any pretence whatever, unless in case of absence, when
he may put them in the hands of the vice-president or instructor, or
whilst the council is in session, for the information of a member
wishing to see it, for the purpose of initiation, or conferring of
degrees.
Art. IV. Each subordinate council shall have power to adopt such
by-laws, rules, and regulations, for its own government, as it may think
proper, not inconsistent with the constitutions of the national and
state councils.
FORM OF APPLICATION FOR A CHARTER TO ORGANIZE A NEW COUNCIL.
Post Office —— county,
Date ——.
To ——
President of the State Council of North Carolina:—
We, the undersigned, members of the Third Degree, being desirous of
extending the influence and usefulness of our organization, do hereby
ask for a warrant of dispensation, instituting and organizing us as a
subordinate branch of the order, under the jurisdiction of the State
Council of the State of North Carolina, to be known and hailed as
Council No. ——, and to be located at ——, in the county of ——, State of
North Carolina.
And we do hereby pledge ourselves to be governed by the Constitution of
the State Council of the State of North Carolina, and of the Grand
Council of the U. S. N. A., and that we will in all things conform to
the rules and usages of the order.
Names. Residences.
FORM OF DISMISSION FROM ONE COUNCIL TO ANOTHER.
This is to certify that Brother ——, a member of —— Council, No. ——,
having made an application to change his membership from this council to
that of —— Council, No. ——, at ——, in the county of ——, I do hereby
declare, that said brother has received an honorable dismission from
this council, and is hereby recommended for membership in —— Council,
No. ——, in the county of ——, N. C.; provided, however, that until
Brother —— has been admitted to membership in said council, he is to be
considered subject to the discipline of this council, to be dealt with
by the same for any violation of the requirements of the order. This the
—— day of ——, 185—, and the —— year of American Independence.
—— President, —— Council,
No. ——.
—— Secretary.
FORM OF CERTIFICATE FOR DELEGATES TO THE STATE COUNCIL.
—— Council, No. ——,
—— county of ——, N. C.
This is to certify that —— and —— were at the regular meeting of this
council, held on the ——, 185—, duly elected delegates to represent this
council in the next annual meeting of the state council, to be held in
——, on the 3d Monday in November next. And by virtue of the authority in
me reposed, I do hereby declare the said —— and —— to be invested with
all the rights, powers, and privileges of the delegates as aforesaid.
This being the —— day of ——, 185—, and the —— year of our national
independence.
—— —— President of
—— Council, No. ——
—— —— Secretary.
FORM OF NOTICE
_From the Subordinate Council to the State Council, whenever any Member
of a Subordinate Council is expelled._
—— Council, No. ——,
—— county of ——, N. C.
To the President of the State Council of North Carolina:
Sir:—This is to inform you that at a meeting of this council, held on
the —— day of ——, 185—, —— —— was duly expelled from membership in said
council, and thus deprived of all the privileges, rights, and benefits
of this organization.
In accordance with the provisions of the constitution of the state
council, you are hereby duly notified of the same, that you may
officially notify all the subordinate councils of the state to be upon
their guard against the said ——, as one unworthy to associate with
patriotic and good men, and (_if expelled for violating his obligation_)
as a perjurer to God and his country. The said —— is about —— years of
age, and is by livelihood a ——.
Duly certified, this the —— day of —— 185—, and in the —— year of our
national independence.
—— —— President of
—— Council, No. ——.
—— Secretary.
FIRST DEGREE COUNCIL.
To be admitted to membership in this order, the applicant shall be—
1st. Proposed and found acceptable.
2nd. Introduced and examined under the guarantee of secrecy.
3rd. Placed under the obligation which the order imposes.
4th. Required to enrol his name and place of residence.
5th. Instructed in the forms and usages and ceremonies of the order.
6th. Solemnly charged as to the objects to be obtained, and his duties.
[A recommendation of a candidate to this order shall be received only
from a brother of approved integrity. It shall be accompanied by minute
particulars as to name, age, calling, and residence, and by an explicit
voucher for his qualifications, and a personal pledge for his fidelity.
These particulars shall be recorded by the secretary in a book kept for
that purpose. The recommendation may be referred, and the ballot taken
at such time and in such a manner as the state council may prescribe;
but no communication shall be made to the candidate until the ballot has
been declared in his favor. Candidates shall be received in the
ante-room by the marshal and secretary.]
OUTSIDE.
_Marshal._—Do you believe in a Supreme Being, the Creator and Preserver
of the universe?
_Ans._—I do.
_Marshal._—Before proceeding further, we require a solemn obligation of
secrecy and truth. If you will take such an obligation, you will lay
your right hand upon the Holy Bible and cross.
(When it is known that the applicant is a Protestant, the cross may be
omitted, or affirmation may be allowed.)
OBLIGATION.
You do solemnly swear (or affirm) that you will never reveal anything
said or done in this room, the names of any persons present, nor the
existence of this society, whether found worthy to proceed or not, and
that all your declarations shall be true, so help you God?
_Ans._—“I do.”
_Marshal._—Where were you born?
_Marshal._—Where is your permanent residence?
(If born out of the jurisdiction of the United States, the answer shall
be written, the candidate dismissed with an admonition of secrecy, and
the brother vouching for him suspended from all the privileges of the
order, unless upon satisfactory proof that he has been misinformed.)
_Marshal._—Are you twenty-one years of age?
_Ans._—“I am.”
_Marshal._—Were you born of Protestant parents, or were you reared under
Protestant influence?
_Ans._—“Yes.”
_Marshal._—If married, is your wife a Roman Catholic?
(“No” or “Yes”—the answer to be valued as the Constitution of the State
Council shall provide.)
_Marshal._—Are you willing to use your influence and vote only for
native-born American citizens for all offices of honor, trust, or profit
in the gift of the people, to the exclusion of all foreigners and
aliens, and Roman Catholics in particular, and without regard to party
predilections?
_Ans._—“I am.”
INSIDE.
(The marshal shall then repair to the council in session, and present
the written list of names, vouchers, and answers to the president, who
shall cause them to be read aloud, and a vote of the council to be taken
on each name, in such manner as prescribed by its by-laws. If doubts
arise in the ante-room, they shall be referred to the council. If a
candidate be dismissed, he shall be admonished to secrecy. The
candidates declared elected shall be conducted to seats within the
council, apart from the brethren. When all are present the president by
one blow of the gavel, shall call to order and say:)
_President._—Brother marshal, introduce the candidates to the
vice-president.
_Marshal._—Worthy Vice-President, I present to you these candidates, who
have duly answered all questions.
_Vice-President_, rising in his place.—Gentlemen, it is my office to
welcome you as friends. When you shall have assumed the patriotic vow by
which we are all bound, we will embrace you as brothers. I am authorized
to declare that our obligations enjoin nothing which is inconsistent
with the duty which every good man owes to his Creator, his country, his
family, or himself. We do not compel you, against your convictions, to
act with us in our good work; but should you at any time wish to
withdraw, it will be our duty to grant you a dismissal in good faith. If
satisfied with this assurance, you will rise upon your feet (_pausing
till they do so_), place the left hand upon the breast, and raise the
right hand towards heaven.
(The brethren to remain seated till called up.)
OBLIGATION.
In the presence of Almighty God and these witnesses, you do solemnly
promise and swear, that you will never betray any of the secrets of this
society, nor communicate them even to proper candidates, except within a
lawful council of the order; that you never will permit any of the
secrets of this society to be written, or in any other manner made
legible, except for the purpose of official instruction; that you will
not vote, nor give your influence for any man for any office in the gift
of the people, unless he be an American born citizen, in favor of
Americans ruling America, nor if he be a Roman Catholic; that you will
in all political matters, so far as this order is concerned, comply with
the will of the majority, though it may conflict with your personal
preference, so long as it does not conflict with the Constitution of the
United States of America, or that of the state in which you reside; that
you will not, under any circumstances whatever, knowingly recommend an
unworthy person for initiation, nor suffer it to be done, if in your
power to prevent it; that you will not, under any circumstances, expose
the name of any member of this order, nor reveal the existence of such
an association; that you will answer an _imperative notice_ issued by
the proper authority; obey the command of the state council, president,
or his deputy, while assembled by such notice, and respond to the claim
of a _sign_ or _cry_ of the order, unless it be physically impossible;
and that you will acknowledge the State Council of —— as the legislative
head, the ruling authority, and the supreme tribunal of the order in the
state of ——, acting under the jurisdiction of the National Council of
the United States of North America.
Binding yourself in the penalty of excommunication from the order, the
forfeiture of all intercourse with its members, and being denounced in
all the societies of the same, as a wilful traitor to your God and your
country.
(The president shall call up every person present, by three blows of the
gavel, when the candidates shall all repeat after the vice-president in
concert:)
All this I voluntarily and sincerely promise, with a full understanding
of the solemn sanctions and penalties.
_Vice-President._—You have now taken solemn oaths, and made as sacred
promises as man can make, that you will keep all our secrets inviolate;
and we wish you distinctly to understand that he that takes these oaths
and makes these promises, and then violates them, leaves the foul, the
deep and blighting stain of perjury resting on his soul.
_President._—(Having seated all by one blow of the gavel.)—Brother
Instructor, these new brothers having complied with the demand of the
order, are entitled to the secrets and privileges of the same. You will,
therefore, invest them with everything appertaining to the first degree.
_Instructor._—Brothers: the practices and proceedings in our order are
as follows:
We have pass-words necessary to be used to obtain admission to our
councils; forms for our conduct while there; means of recognizing each
other when abroad; means of mutual protection; and methods for giving
notices to members.
At the outer door you will[4] (_make any ordinary alarm_ to attract the
attention of the outside sentinel).
When the wicket is opened you will pronounce the (_words—what’s the
pass_), in a whisper. The outside sentinel will reply (_Give it_), when
you will give the term pass-word and be admitted to the ante-room. You
will then proceed to the inner door and give (one rap). When the wicket
is opened, give your name, the number of, and location of your council,
the explanation of the term pass, and the degree pass-word.
If these be found correct, you will be admitted; if not, your name will
be reported to the vice president, and must be properly vouched for
before you can gain admission to the council. You will then proceed to
the centre of the room and address the (_President_) with the
countersign, which is performed thus (_placing the right hand diagonally
across the mouth_). When this salutation is recognized, you will quietly
take your seat.
This sign is peculiar to this degree, and is never to be used outside
the council room, nor during the conferring of this degree. When
retiring, you will address the (_Vice-President_) in the same manner,
and also give the degree pass-word to the inside sentinel.
The “term pass-word” is (_We are_).
(The pass-word and explanation is to be established by each State
Council for its respective subordinates.)
The “explanation” of the “term pass,” to be used at the inner door, is
(_our country’s hope_).
The “degree pass-word” is (_Native_).
The “traveling pass-word” is (_The memory of our pilgrim fathers_).
(This word is changed annually by the President of the National Council
of the United States, and is to be made and used only when the brother
is traveling beyond the jurisdiction of his own state, district, or
territory. It and all other pass-words must be communicated in a
whisper, and no brother is entitled to communicate them to another,
without authority from the presiding officer.)
“The sign of recognition” is (_grasping the right lappel of the coat
with the right hand, the fore finger being extended inwards_).
The “answer” is given by (_a similar action with the left hand_).
The “grip” is given by (_an ordinary shake of the hand_).
The person challenging shall (_then draw the fore finger along the palm
of the hand_). The answer will be given by (_a similar action forming a
link by hooking together the ends of the fore finger_); when the
following conversation ensues—the challenging party first saying (_is
that yours?_). The answer, (_it is_). Then the response (_how did you
get it?_), followed by the rejoinder (_it is my birthright_).
Public notice for a meeting is given by means of a (_piece of white
paper the shape of a heart_).
(In cities[5] the *** of the *** where the meeting is to be held, will
be written legibly upon the notice; and upon the election day said ***
will denote the *** where your presence is needed. This notice will
never be passed, but will be *** or thrown upon the sidewalk with a ***
in the centre.)
If information is wanting of the object of the gathering, or of the
place, &c., the inquirer will ask of an undoubted brother (_where’s
when?_) The brother will give the information if possessed of it; if not
it will be yours and his duty to continue the inquiry, and thus
disseminate the call throughout the brotherhood.
If the color of _the paper_ (be _red_), it will denote actual trouble,
which requires that you come prepared to meet it.
The “cry of distress”—to be used only in time of danger, or where the
American interest requires an immediate assemblage of the brethren—is
(_oh, oh, oh_). The response is (_hio, hio, h-i-o_).
The “sign of caution”—to be given when a brother is speaking unguardedly
before a stranger—is (_drawing the fore finger and thumb together across
the eyes, the rest of the hand being closed_), which signifies “keep
dark.”
Brothers, you are now initiated into and made acquainted with the work
and organization of a council of this degree of the order; and the
marshal will present you to the worthy president for admonition.
_President._—It has no doubt, been long apparent to you, brothers, that
foreign influence and Roman Catholicism have been making steady and
alarming progress in our country. You cannot have failed to observe the
significant transition of the foreigner and Romanist from a character
quiet, retiring, and even abject, to one bold, threatening, turbulent,
and despotic in its appearance and assumptions. You must have become
alarmed at the systematic and rapidly augmenting power of these
dangerous and unnatural elements of our national condition. So it is,
brothers, with others beside yourselves in every state of the Union. A
sense of danger has struck the great heart of the nation. In every city,
town, and hamlet, the danger has been seen and the alarm sounded. And
hence true men have devised this order as a means of disseminating
patriotic principles, of keeping alive the fire of national virtue, of
fostering the national intelligence, and of advancing America and the
American interest on the one side, and on the other of checking the
strides of the foreigner or alien, or thwarting the machinations and
subverting the deadly plans of the papist and Jesuit.
Note.—The President shall impress upon the initiates the importance of
secrecy, the manner of proceeding in recommending candidates for
initiation, and the responsibility of the duties which they have
assumed.
SECOND DEGREE COUNCIL.
_Marshal._—Worthy President: These brothers have been duly elected to
the second degree of this order. I present them to you for obligation.
_President._—Brothers: You will place your left hand upon your right
breast, and extend your right hand towards the flag of our country,
preparatory to obligation. (Each council room should have a neat
American flag festooned over the platform of the President.)
OBLIGATION.
You, and each of you, of your own free will and accord, in the presence
of Almighty God and these witnesses, your left hand resting upon your
right breast, and your right hand extended to the flag of your country,
do solemnly and sincerely swear, that you will not under any
circumstances disclose in any manner, nor suffer it to be done by
others, if in your power to prevent it, the name, signs, pass-words, or
other secrets of this degree, except in open council for the purpose of
instruction; that you will in all things conform to all the rules and
regulations of this order, and to the constitution and by-laws of this
or any other council to which you may be attached, so long as they do
not conflict with the Constitution of the United States, nor that of the
State in which you reside; that you will under all circumstances, if in
your power so to do, attend to all regular signs or summons that may be
thrown or sent to you by a brother of this or any other degree of this
order; that you will support in all political matters, for all political
offices, members of this order in preference to other persons; that if
it may be done legally, you will, when elected or appointed to any
official station conferring on you the power to do so remove all
foreigners, aliens, or Roman Catholics from office or place, and that
you will in no case appoint such to any office or place in your gift.
You do also promise and swear that this and all other obligations which
you have previously taken in this order shall ever be kept through life
sacred and inviolate. All this you promise and declare, as Americans, to
sustain and abide by, without any hesitation or mental reservation
whatever. So help you God and keep you steadfast.
(Each will answer “I do.”)
_President._—Brother Marshal, you will now present the brothers to the
instructor for instructions in the second degree of the order.
_Marshal._—Brother Instructor, by direction of our worthy president, I
present these brothers before you that you may instruct them in the
secrets and mysteries of the second degree of the order.
_Instructor._—Brothers, in this degree we have an entering sign and a
countersign. At the outer door proceed (_as in the first degree_). At
the inner door you will make (_two raps_), and proceed as in the first
degree, giving the second degree pass-word, which is _American_, instead
of that of the first degree. If found to be correct, you will then be
admitted, and proceed (_to the centre of the room_), giving the
countersign, which is made thus (_extending the right arm to the
national flag over the president, the palm of the hand being upwards_).
The sign of recognition in this degree is the same as in the first
degree, with the addition of (_the middle finger_), and the response to
be made in a (_similar manner_).
Marshal, you will now present the brothers to the worthy president for
admonition.
_Marshal._—Worthy President, I now present these candidates to you for
admonition.
_President._—Brothers, you are now duly initiated into the second degree
of this order. Renewing the congratulations which we extended to you
upon your admission to the first degree, we admonish you by every tie
that may nerve patriots, to aid us in our efforts to restore the
political institutions of our country to their original purity. Begin
with the youth of our land. Instil into their minds the lessons of our
country’s history—the glorious battles and the brilliant deeds of
patriotism of our fathers, through which we received the inestimable
blessings of civil and religious liberty. Point them to the example of
the sages and the statesmen who founded our government. Implant in their
bosoms an ardent love for the Union. Above all else, keep alive in their
bosoms the memory, the maxims, and the deathless example of our
illustrious WASHINGTON.
Brothers, recalling to your minds the solemn obligations which you have
severally taken in this and the first degree, I now pronounce you
entitled to all the privileges of membership in this the second degree
of our order.
THIRD DEGREE COUNCIL.
_Marshal._—Worthy President, these brothers having been duly elected to
the third degree of this order, I present them before you for
obligation.
_President._—Brothers, you will place yourselves in a circle around me,
each one crossing your arms upon your breasts, and grasping firmly each
other’s hands, holding the right hand of the brother on the right and
the left hand of the brother on the left, so as to form a circle,
symbolical of the links of an unbroken chain, and of a ring which has no
end.
Note.—This degree is to be conferred with the national flag elevated in
the centre of the circle, by the side of the president or instructor,
and not on less than five at any one time, in order to give it
solemnity, and also for the formation of the circle—except in the first
instance of conferring it on the officers of the state and subordinate
councils, that they may be empowered to progress with the work.
The obligation and charge in this degree may be given by the president
or instructor, as the president may prefer.
OBLIGATION.
You, and each of you, of your own free will and accord, in the presence
of Almighty God and these witnesses, with your hands joined in token of
that fraternal affection which should ever bind together the States of
this Union—forming a ring, in token of your determination that, so far
as your efforts can avail, this Union shall have no end—do solemnly and
sincerely swear [or affirm] that you will not under any circumstances
disclose in any manner, nor suffer it to be done by others if in your
power to prevent it, the name, signs, pass-words, or other secrets of
this degree, except to those to whom you may prove on trial to be
brothers of the same degree, or in open council, for the purpose of
instruction; that you do hereby solemnly declare your devotion to the
Union of these States; that in the discharge of your duties as American
citizens, you will uphold, maintain, and defend it; that you will
discourage and discountenance any and every attempt, coming from any and
every quarter, which you believe to be designed or calculated to destroy
or subvert it, or to weaken its bonds; and that you will use your
influence, so far as in your power, in endeavoring to procure an
amicable and equitable adjustment of all political discontents or
differences which may threaten its injury or overthrow. You further
promise and swear [or affirm] that you will not vote for any one to fill
any office of honor, profit or trust of a political character, whom you
know or believe to be in favor of a dissolution of the Union of these
States, or who is endeavoring to produce that result; that you will vote
for and support for all political offices, third or union degree members
of this order in preference to all others; that if it may be done
consistently with the constitution and laws of the land, you will, when
elected or appointed to any official station which may confer on you the
power to do so, remove from office or place all persons whom you know or
believe to be in favor of a dissolution of the Union, or who are
endeavoring to produce that result; and that you will in no case appoint
such person to any political office or place whatever. All this you
promise and swear [or affirm] upon your honor as American citizens and
friends of the American Union, to sustain and abide by without any
hesitation or mental reservation whatever. You also promise and swear
[or affirm] that this and all other obligations which you have
previously taken in this order, shall ever be kept sacred and inviolate.
To all this you pledge your lives, your fortunes, and your sacred
honors. So help you God and keep you steadfast.
(Each one shall answer, “I do.”)
_President._—Brother Marshal, you will now present the brothers to the
instructor for final instruction in this third degree of the order.
_Marshal._—Instructor, by direction of our worthy president, I present
these brothers before you that you may instruct them in the secrets and
mysteries of this the third degree of our order.
_Instructor._—Brothers, in this degree as in the second, we have an
entering pass-word, a degree pass-word, and a token of salutation. At
the outer door (_make any ordinary alarm_. The outside sentinel will say
_U_; you say _ni_; the sentinel will rejoin _on_). This will admit you
to the inner door. At the inner door you will make (_three_) distinct
(_raps_), Then announce your name, with the number (or name) and
location of the council to which you belong, giving the explanation to
the pass-word, which is (_safe_). If found correct, you will then be
admitted, when you will proceed to the centre of the room, and placing
the (_hands on the breast with the fingers interlocked_), give the token
of salutation, which is (_by bowing to the president_). You will then
quietly take your seat.
The sign of recognition is made by the same action as in the second
degree, with the addition of (_the third finger_), and the response is
made by (a similar action with _the left hand_).
(The grip is given by taking hold of the _hand in the usual way_, and
then by _slipping the finger around on the top of the thumb_; then
extending the _little finger and pressing the inside_ of the _wrist_.
The person challenging shall say, _do you know what that is?_ The answer
is _yes_. The challenging party shall say, further, _what is it?_ The
answer is, _Union_.)
[The instructor will here give the grip of this degree, with
explanations, and also the true pass-word of this degree, which is
(_Union_).]
CHARGE.
To be given by the president.
Brothers, it is with great pleasure that I congratulate you upon your
advancement to the third degree of our order. The responsibilities you
have now assumed, are more serious and weighty than those which
preceded, and are committed to such only as have been tried and found
worthy. Our obligations are intended as solemn avowals of our duty to
the land that gave us birth; to the memories of our fathers; and to the
happiness and welfare of our children. Consecrating to your country a
spirit unselfish and a fidelity like that which distinguished the
patriots of the Revolution, you have pledged your aid in cementing the
bonds of a Union which we trust will endure for ever. Your deportment
since your initiation has attested your devotion to the principles we
desire to establish, and has inspired a confidence in your patriotism,
of which we can give no higher proof than your reception here.
The dangers which threaten American liberty arise from foes without and
from enemies within. The first degree pointed out the source and nature
of our most imminent peril, and indicated the first measure of safety.
The second degree defined the next means by which, in coming time, such
assaults may be rendered harmless. The third degree, which you have just
received, not only reiterates the lessons of the other two, but it is
intended to avoid and provide for a more remote, but no less terrible
danger, from domestic enemies to our free institutions.
Our object is briefly this:—to perfect an organization modeled after
that of the Constitution of the United States, and coextensive with the
confederacy. Its object and principles, in all matters of national
concern, to be uniform and identical whilst in all local matters the
component parts shall remain independent and sovereign within their
respective limits.
The great result to be attained—the only one which can secure a perfect
guarantee as to our future—is UNION; permanent, enduring, fraternal
UNION! Allow me, then, to impress upon your minds and memories the
touching sentiments of the Father of his Country, in his Farewell
Address:—
“The unity of government which constitutes you one people,” says
Washington, “is justly dear to you, for it is the main pillar in the
edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquillity at
home, of your peace abroad, of your safety, your prosperity—even that
liberty you so justly prize.
“* * * It is of infinite moment that you should properly estimate the
immense value of your _National Union_, to your collective and
individual happiness. You should cherish a cordial, habitual, and
immovable attachment to it; accustoming yourselves to think and speak of
it, as the palladium of your political safety and prosperity; watching
for its preservation with jealous anxiety; discountenancing whatever may
suggest even a suspicion that it can in any event be abandoned; and
indignantly frowning upon the dawning of every attempt to alienate any
portion of our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties
which now bind together the various parts.”
Let these words of paternal advice and warning, from the greatest man
that ever lived, sink deep into your hearts. Cherish them, and teach
your children to reverence them, as you cherish and reverence the memory
of Washington himself. The Union of these states is the great
conservator of that liberty so dear to the American heart. Without it,
our greatness as a nation would disappear, and our boasted
self-government prove a signal failure. The very name of liberty, and
the hopes of struggling freedom throughout the world, must perish in the
wreck of this Union. Devote yourselves, then, to its maintenance, as our
fathers did to the cause of independence; consecrating to its support,
as you have sworn to do, your lives, your fortunes, and your sacred
honors.
Brothers: Recalling to your minds the solemn obligations which you have
severally taken in this and the preceding degrees, I now pronounce you
entitled to all the privileges of membership in this organization, and
take pleasure in informing you that you are now members of the order of
(_the American Union_.)
American, Whig, Republican and Democratic Nominations of 1856.
The American convention met the next day after the session of the
National Council of the Order, on the 22d February, 1856. It was
composed of 227 delegates; all the States being represented except
Maine, Vermont, Georgia and South Carolina. Hon. Millard Fillmore was
nominated for President, and Andrew J. Donelson for Vice-President.
The Whig Convention met at Baltimore, September 17, 1856, and endorsed
the nominations made by the American party, and in its platform declared
that “without adopting or referring to the peculiar doctrines of the
party which has already selected Mr. Fillmore as a candidate” * * *
Resolved, that in the present exigency of political affairs, we are not
called upon to discuss the subordinate questions of the administration
in the exercising of the constitutional powers of the government. It is
enough to know that civil war is raging, and that the Union is in peril;
and proclaim the conviction that the restoration of Mr. Fillmore to the
Presidency will furnish the best if not the only means of restoring
peace.
The first National Convention of the new Republican party met at
Philadelphia, June 18, 1856, and nominated John C. Fremont for
President, and William L. Dayton for Vice-President. Since the previous
Presidential election, a new party consisting of the disaffected former
adherents of the other parties—Native and Independent Democrats,
Abolitionists, and Whigs opposed to slavery—had sprung into existence,
and was called by its adherents and friends, the Republican party.
This convention of delegates assembled in pursuance of a call addressed
to the people of the United States, without regard to past political
differences or divisions, who were opposed to the repeal of the Missouri
Compromise. To the policy of President Pierce’s administration: To the
extension of slavery into free territory: In favor of the admission of
Kansas as a free State: Of restoring the action of the federal
government to the principles of Washington and Jefferson.
It adopted a platform, consisting of a set of resolutions, the principal
one of which was: “That we deny the authority of Congress, of a
territorial legislature, of any individual, or association of
individuals, to give legal existence to slavery in any territory of the
United States, while the present Constitution shall be maintained.” And
closed with a resolution: “That we invite the approbation and
co-operation of the men of all parties, however different from us in
other respects, in support of the principles herein declared; and
believing that the spirit of our institutions, as well as the
Constitution of our country, guaranties liberty of conscience and
equality of rights among citizens, we oppose all legislation impairing
their security.”
The Democratic Convention, met at Cincinnati, in May 1856, and nominated
James Buchanan for President, and John C. Breckenridge for
Vice-President. It adopted a platform which contained the material
portions of all its previous platforms, and also defined its position on
the new issues of the day, and declared (1) that the revenue to be
raised should not exceed the actual necessary expenses of the
government, and for the gradual extinction of the public debt; (2) that
the Constitution does not confer upon the general government the power
to commence and carry on a general system of internal improvements; (3)
for a strict construction of the powers granted by the Constitution to
the federal government; (4) that Congress has no power to charter a
national bank; (5) that Congress has no power to interfere with slavery
in the States and Territories; the people of which have the exclusive
right and power to settle that question for themselves. (6) Opposition
to native Americanism.
At the election which followed, in November, 1856, the Democratic
candidates were elected, though by a popular minority vote, having
received 1,838,160 popular votes, and 174 electoral votes, against
2,215,768 popular votes, and 122 electoral votes for John C. Fremont,
the Republican candidate, and Mr. Fillmore, the Whig and American
candidate.
The aggregate vote cast for Mr. Fillmore, who was the nominee on both
the Whig and American tickets, was 874,534, and his electoral vote was
eight; that of the State of Maryland. This was the last national
election at which the Whigs appeared as a party, under that name; they
having joined with the American and with the Republican parties, and
finally united with the latter after the downfall and extinction of the
former. In the State elections of that year, (1856) the American party
carried Rhode Island and Maryland; and in the 35th Congress, which met
in December, 1857, the party had 15 to 20 Representatives and five
Senators. When the 36th Congress met, in 1859, it had become almost a
border State or Southern party, having two Senators; one from Kentucky
and one from Maryland; and 23 Representatives, five from Kentucky, seven
from Tennessee, three from Maryland, one from Virginia, four from North
Carolina, two from Georgia, and one from Louisiana. The American party
had none of the elements of persistence. It made another desperate
effort, however, in the next Presidential campaign, but having failed to
carry the South, disappeared finally from politics.
The new Republican party polled a very large vote—1,341,234 out of a
total vote of 4,053,928—and its candidates received 114 votes out of
296, in the electoral college; having secured majorities in all the free
States, except Illinois, Indiana, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and
California.
The successful candidate, Mr. James Buchanan, was duly inaugurated as
President of the United States, and entered upon the discharge of his
duties as such, March 4, 1857.
After the election of November, 1856, the Republican Association of
Washington issued an address to the people, in which the results of the
election were examined, and the future policy of the party stated. It is
an interesting paper, as laying the foundation of the campaign of 1860,
which followed, and is here given in full:
“Republican Association of Washington.
_Address to the Republicans of the United States._
“WASHINGTON, _Nov. 27, 1856_.
“The Presidential contest is over, and at last we have some materials
to enable us to form a judgment of the results.
“Seldom have two parties emerged from a conflict with less of joy in
the victors, more of hope in the vanquished. The pro-slavery party has
elected its Presidential candidate, only, however, by the votes of a
minority, and that of such a character as to stamp the victory as the
offspring of sectionalism and temporary causes. The Republicans,
wherever able to present clearly to the public the real issue of the
canvass—slavery restriction or slavery extension—have carried the
people with them by unprecedented majorities; almost breaking up in
some States the organization of their adversaries. A sudden gathering
together of the people, alarmed at the inroads of the slave power,
rather than a well organized party, with but a few months to attend to
the complicated details of party warfare; obstructed by a secret
Order, which had pre-occupied the field, and obtained a strong hold of
the national and religious prejudices of the masses; opposed to an old
party, commencing the canvass with the united support of a powerful
section, hardened by long party drill, accustomed to victory, wielding
the whole power of the federal administration—a party which only four
years ago carried all but four of the States, and a majority of the
popular vote—still, under all these adverse circumstances, they have
triumphed in eleven, if not twelve of the free States, pre-eminent for
enterprise and general intelligence, and containing one-half of the
whole population of the country; given to their Presidential candidate
nearly three times as many electoral votes as were cast by the Whig
party in 1852; and this day control the governments of fourteen of the
most powerful States of the Union.
“Well may our adversaries tremble in the hour of their victory. ‘The
Democratic and Black Republican parties,’ they say, ‘are nearly
balanced in regard to power. The former was victorious in the recent
struggle, but success was hardly won, with the aid of important
accidental advantages. The latter has abated nothing of its zeal, and
has suffered no pause in its preparations for another battle.’
“With such numerical force, such zeal, intelligence, and harmony in
counsel; with so many great States, and more than a million voters
rallied to their standard by the efforts of a few months, why may not
the Republicans confidently expect a victory in the next contest?
“The necessity for their organization still exists in all its force.
Mr. Buchanan has always proved true to the demands of his party. He
fully accepted the Cincinnati platform, and pledged himself to its
policy—a policy of filibustering abroad, propagandism at home.
Prominent and controlling among his supporters are men committed, by
word and deed, to that policy; and what is there in his character, his
antecedents, the nature of his northern support, to authorize the
expectation that he will disregard their will? Nothing will be so
likely to restrain him and counteract their extreme measures, as a
vigorous and growing Republican organization, as nothing would be more
necessary to save the cause of freedom and the Union, should he, as we
have every reason to believe, continue the pro-slavery policy of the
present incumbent. Let us beware of folding our arms, and waiting to
see what he will do. We know the ambition, the necessities, the
schemes of the slave power. Its policy of extension and aggrandizement
and universal empire, is the law of its being, not an accident—is
settled, not fluctuating. Covert or open, moderate or extreme,
according to circumstances, it never changes in spirit or aim. With
Mr. Buchanan, the elect of a party controlled by this policy,
administering the government, the safety of the country and of free
institutions must rest in the organization of the Republican party.
“What, then, is the duty before us? Organization, vigilance, action;
action on the rostrum, through the press, at the ballot-box; in state,
county, city, and town elections; everywhere, at all times; in every
election, making Republicanism, or loyalty to the policy and
principles it advocates, the sole political test. No primary or
municipal election should be suffered to go by default. The party that
would succeed nationally must triumph in states—triumph in the state
elections, must be prepared by municipal success.
“Next to the remaining power in the states already under their
control, let the Republicans devote themselves to the work of
disseminating their principles, and initiating the true course of
political action in the states which have decided the election against
them. This time we have failed, for reasons nearly all of which may be
removed by proper effort. Many thousand honest, but not well-informed
voters, who supported Mr. Buchanan under the delusive impression that
he would favor the cause of free Kansas will soon learn their mistake,
and be anxious to correct it. The timid policy of the Republicans in
New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Indiana, in postponing their independent
action, and temporizing with a party got up for purposes not
harmonizing with their own, and the conduct of Mr. Fillmore’s friends
in either voting for Mr. Buchanan, or dividing the opposition by a
separate ticket, can hardly be repeated again. The true course of the
Republicans is to organize promptly, boldly, and honestly upon their
own principles, so clearly set forth in the Philadelphia platform,
and, avoiding coalitions with other parties, appeal directly to the
masses of all parties to ignore all organizations and issues which
would divert the public mind from the one danger that now threatens
the honor and interests of the country, and the subtlety of the
Union—slavery propagandism allied with disunionism.
“Let us not forget that it is not the want of generous sentiment, but
of sufficient information, that prevents the American people from
being united in action against the aggressive policy of the slave
power. Were these simple questions submitted to-day to the people of
the United States:—Are you in favor of the extension of slavery? Are
you in favor of such extension by the aid or connivance of the federal
government? And could they be permitted to record their votes in
response, without embarrassment, without constraint of any kind,
nineteen-twentieths of the people of the free States, and perhaps more
than half of the people of the slave States, would return a decided
negative to both.
“Let us have faith in the people. Let us believe, that at heart they
are hostile to the extension of slavery, desirous that the territories
of the Union be consecrated to free labor and free institutions; and
that they require only enlightenment as to the most effectual means of
securing this end, to convert their cherished sentiment into a fixed
principle of action.
“The times are pregnant with warning. That a disunion party exists in
the South, no longer admits of a doubt. It accepts the election of Mr.
Buchanan as affording time and means to consolidate its strength and
mature its plans, which comprehend not only the enslavement of Kansas,
and the recognition of slavery in all territory of the United States,
but the conversion of the lower half of California into a slave State,
the organization of a new slavery territory in the Gadsden purchase,
the future annexation of Nicaragua and subjugation of Central America,
and the acquisition of Cuba; and, as the free States are not expected
to submit to all this, ultimate dismemberment of the Union, and the
formation of a great slaveholding confederacy, with foreign alliances
with Brazil and Russia. It may assume at first a moderate tone, to
prevent the sudden alienation of its Northern allies; it may delay the
development of its plot, as it did under the Pierce administration;
but the repeal of the Missouri compromise came at last, and so will
come upon the country inevitably the final acts of the dark
conspiracy. When that hour shall come, then will the honest Democrats
of the free States be driven into our ranks, and the men of the slave
States who prefer the republic of Washington, Adams and Jefferson—a
republic of law, order and liberty—to an oligarchy of slaveholders and
slavery propagandists, governed by Wise, Atchison, Soulé, and Walker,
founded in fraud and violence and seeking aggrandizement by the
spoliation of nations, will bid God speed to the labors of the
Republican party to preserve liberty and the Union, one and
inseparable, perpetual and all powerful.
“Washington, D. C., Nov. 27, 1856.”
The Kansas Struggle.
It was the removal of the interdiction against slavery, in all the
territory north of 36° 30′, by the repeal of the Missouri Compromise
which gave legality to the struggle for Kansas, and it was the doctrine
of popular sovereignty which gave an impartial invitation to both sides
to enter the struggle. The aggressive men of both parties hurried
emigrants to the Territory. Each accused the other of organized efforts,
and soon in the height of the excitement these charges were rather
confessed than denied.
A new question was soon evolved by the struggle, for some who entered
from the South took their slaves with them. The Free State men now
contended that slavery was a local institution and confined to the
States where it existed, and that if an emigrant passed into the
territory with his slaves these became free. The Southern view was, that
slaves were recognized as property by the National Constitution; that
therefore their masters had a right to take them there and hold them
under constitutional guarantees, the same as any other property; that to
assert anything else would be to deny the equality of the States within
their common territory, and degrade them from the rank of equals to that
of inferiors. This last proposition had such force that it would
doubtless have received more general recognition if the North had not
felt that the early compact dedicating the territories north of 36° 30′
to freedom, had been violated. In answer to this proposition they
therefore proclaimed in their platforms and speeches, and there was no
other logical answer, “that freedom was National, and slavery
Sectional.”
We cannot enter upon a full description of the scenes in Kansas, but
bloodshed and rapine soon followed the attempts of the opposing parties
to get control of its government. What were called the “Border Ruffians”
by the Free State men, because of active and warlike organization in
Missouri and upon its borders, in the earlier parts of the struggle,
seemed to have the advantage. They were supported by friends near at
hand at all times, and warlike raids were frequent. The Free State men
had to depend mainly upon New England for supplies in arms and means,
but organizations were in turn rapidly completed to meet their calls,
and the struggle soon became in the highest degree critical.
The pro-slavery party sustained the Territorial government appointed by
the administration; the anti-slavery party repudiated it, because of its
presumed committal to slavery. The election for members of the
Territorial legislature had been attended with much violence and fraud,
and it was claimed that these things properly annulled any action taken
by that body. A distinct and separate convention was called at Topeka to
frame a State constitution, and the Free State men likewise elected
their own Governor and Legislature to take the place of those appointed
by Buchanan, and when the necessary preliminaries were completed, they
applied for admission into the Union. After a long and bitter struggle
Congress decided the question by refusing to admit Kansas under the
Topeka Constitution, and by recognizing the authority of the territorial
government. These proceedings took place during the session of 1856–7,
which terminated immediately before the inauguration of President
Buchanan.
At the beginning of Buchanan’s administration in 1857, the Republicans
almost solidly faced the Democrats. There still remained part of the
division caused by the American or Know-Nothing party, but its
membership in Congress had already been compelled to show at least the
tendency of their sentiments on the great question which was now rapidly
dividing the two great sections of the Union. The result of the long
Congressional struggle over the admission of Kansas and Nebraska was
simply this: “That Congress was neither to legislate slavery into any
Territory or State, nor to exclude it therefrom; but to leave the people
thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions
in their own way, subject only to the Constitution of the United
States,”[6] and it was specially prescribed that when the Territory of
Kansas shall be admitted as a State, it shall be admitted into the Union
with or without slavery as the constitution adopted should prescribe at
the time of admission.
This was, as it proved, but a temporary settlement on the principle of
popular sovereignty, and was regarded at the time as a triumph of the
views of Stephen A. Douglas by the friends of that great politician. The
more radical leaders of the South looked upon it with distrust, but the
blood of the more excitable in both sections was rapidly rising toward
fever heat, and the border men from the Free and Slave States alike were
preparing to act upon a compromise which in effect invited a conflict.
The Presidential election in 1856 had singularly enough encouraged the
more aggressive of both sections. Buchanan’s election was a triumph for
the South; Fremont’s large vote showed the power of a growing party as
yet but partially organized, and crippled by schisms which grew out of
the attempt to unite all elements of opposition to the Democrats. The
general plan of the latter was now changed into an attempt to unite all
of the free-soil elements into a party organization against slavery, and
from that time forward until its total abolition slavery was the
paramount issue in the minds of the more aggressive men of the north.
Lincoln voiced the feelings of the Republicans when he declared in one
of his Illinois speeches:—
“We will, hereafter, speak for freedom, and against slavery, as long as
the Constitution guaranties free speech; until everywhere, on this wide
land, the sun shall shine, and the rain shall fall, and the wind shall
blow upon no man who goes forth to unrequited toil.”
In the Congressional battle over the admission of Kansas and Nebraska,
Douglas was the most conspicuous figure, and the language which we have
quoted from Buchanan’s inaugural was the literal meaning which Douglas
had given to his idea of “popular” or “squatter sovereignty.”
Prior to the Kansas struggle the Free Soilers of the North had regarded
Douglas as an ally of the South, and his admitted ambition for the
Presidency gave color to this suspicion. He it was who reported and
carried through Congress the bill for the repeal of the Missouri
Compromise, a measure which at that time was thought to obstruct
Southern designs in the territories of the great West, but this repeal
proved in fact the first plain steps toward the freedom of the
territories. Having repealed that compromise, something must take its
place, and what better than “popular sovereignty,” thought Douglas.
Territories contiguous to the Slave States, or in the same latitude,
would thus naturally revert to slavery; while those farther north, and
at that time least likely of early settlement, would be dedicated to
freedom. There was a grave miscalculation just here. Slave-owners were
not apt to change their homesteads, and could not with either profit or
convenience carry their property to new lands which might or might not
be fruitful in the crops best adapted to slave labor. Slave-owners were
few in number compared with the free citizens of the North and the
thousands of immigrants annually landing on our shores. People who had
once moved from the New England or Middle States westward, were rather
fond of it, and many of these swelled the tide which constantly sought
homes in the territories; and where these did not go in person their
sons and daughters were quite willing to imitate the early adventures of
their parents. All these counted for the North under the doctrine of
“popular sovereignty,” and it was the failure of that doctrine to aid
the South which from this time forward caused that section to mistrust
the friendship of Douglas.
No political writer has since questioned his motives, and we doubt if it
can be done successfully. His views may have undergone some change since
1850, and it would be singular if they had not; for a mind as discerning
as his could hardly fail to note the changes going on all about him, and
no where more rapidly than in his own State. He thought his doctrine at
least adapted to the time, and he stood by it with rare bravery and
ability. If it had been accepted by the Republicans, it would have been
fatal to their organization as a party. We doubt the ability of any
party to stand long upon any mere compromise, made to suit the
exigencies and avoid the dangers of the moment. It may be said that our
government, first based on a confederacy and then a constitution, with a
system of checks and balances, with a division of power between the
people and the States, is but a compromise; but the assertion will not
hold good. These things were adopted because of a belief at the time
that they were in themselves right, or as nearly right as those who
participated in their adoption were given to see the right. There was
certainly no attempt at a _division of right and wrong_, and the closest
investigation will show nothing beyond a surrender of power for the good
of all, which is in itself the very essence and beginning of government.
We have said that Douglas fought bravely for his idea, and every
movement in his most remarkable campaign with Lincoln for the U. S.
Senate demonstrated the fact. The times were full of agitation and
excitement, and these were increased when it became apparent that
Buchanan’s administration would aid the effort to make Kansas a slave
State. Douglas was the first to see that the application of
administration machinery to his principle, would degrade and rob it of
its fairness. He therefore resented Buchanan’s interference, and in turn
Buchanan’s friends sought to degrade him by removing him from the
chairmanship of the Senate Committee on Territories, the position which
had given him marked control over all questions pertaining to the
organization of territories and the admission of new States.
The Lincoln and Douglas Debate.
The Senatorial term of Douglas was drawing near to its close, when in
July, 1858, he left Washington to enter upon the canvass for
re-election. The Republican State Convention of Illinois had in the
month previous met at Springfield, and nominated Abraham Lincoln as a
candidate for United States Senator, this with a view to pledge all
Republican members of the Legislature to vote for him—a practice since
gone into disuse in most of the States, because of the rivalries which
it engenders and the aggravation of the dangers of defeat sure to follow
in the selection of a candidate in advance. “First get your goose, then
cook it,” inelegantly describes the basic principles of improved
political tactics. But the Republicans, particularly of the western part
of Illinois, had a double purpose in the selection of Lincoln. He was
not as radical as they, but he well represented the growing Republican
sentiment, and he best of all men could cope with Douglas on the stump
in a canvass which they desired should attract the attention of the
Nation, and give shape to the sentiment of the North on all questions
pertaining to slavery. The doctrine of “popular sovereignty” was not
acceptable to the Republicans, the recent repeal of the Missouri
compromise having led them, or the more radical portion of them, to
despise all compromise measures.
The plan of the Illinois Republicans, if indeed it was a well-settled
plan, accomplished even more than was anticipated, though it did not
result in immediate success. It gave to the debate which followed
between Lincoln and Douglas a world-wide celebrity, and did more to
educate and train the anti-slavery sentiment, taken in connection with
the ever-growing excitement in Kansas, than anything that could have
happened.
Lincoln’s speech before the convention which nominated him, gave the
first clear expression to the idea that there was an “irrepressible
conflict” between freedom and slavery. Wm. H. Seward on October 25th
following, at Rochester, N. Y., expressed the same idea in these words:
“It is an _irrepressible conflict_ between opposing and enduring forces,
and it means that the United States will sooner or later become either
an entire slaveholding Nation, or an entirely free labor Nation.”
Lincoln’s words at Springfield, in July, 1858, were:
“If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we
could better judge what to do, and how to do it. We are now far into the
fifth year, since a policy was initiated with the avowed object, and
confident promise of putting an end to the slavery agitation. Under the
operation of that policy, that agitation has not only not ceased, but
has constantly augmented. In my opinion it will not cease, until a
crisis shall have been reached and passed. ‘A house divided against
itself cannot stand.’ I believe this government cannot endure
permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be
dissolved—I do not expect the house to fall—but I do expect it will
cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other.
Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it,
and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is
in the course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it
forward, till it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as
well as new—North as well as South.”
Douglas arrived in Chicago on the 9th of July, and was warmly received
by enthusiastic friends. His doctrine of “popular sovereignty” had all
the attractions of novelty and apparent fairness. For months it divided
many Republicans, and at one time the New York _Tribune_ showed
indications of endorsing the position of Douglas—a fact probably
traceable to the attitude of jealousy and hostility manifested toward
him by the Buchanan administration. Neither of the great debaters were
to be wholly free in the coming contest. Douglas was undermined by
Buchanan, who feared him as a rival, and by the more bitter friends of
slavery, who could not see that the new doctrine was safely in their
interest; but these things were dwarfed in the State conflict, and those
who shared such feelings had to make at least a show of friendship until
they saw the result. Lincoln was at first handicapped by the doubts of
that class of Republicans who thought “popular sovereignty” not bad
Republican doctrine.
On the arrival of Douglas he replied to Lincoln’s Springfield speech; on
the 16th he spoke at Bloomington, and on the 17th, in the afternoon, at
Springfield. Lincoln had heard all three speeches, and replied to the
last on the night of the day of its delivery. He next addressed to
Douglas the following challenge to debate:
CHICAGO, July 24th, 1858.
HON. S. A. DOUGLAS:—_My Dear Sir_:—Will it be agreeable to you to make
an arrangement to divide time, and address the same audience, during
the present canvass? etc. Mr. Judd is authorized to receive your
answer, and if agreeable to you, to enter into terms of such
agreement, etc.
Your obedient servant,
A. LINCOLN.
Douglas promptly accepted the challenge, and it was arranged that there
should be seven joint debates, each alternately opening and closing, the
opening speech to occupy one hour, the reply one hour and a half, and
the closing half an hour. They spoke at Ottawa, August 21st; Freeport,
August 27th; Jonesboro’, September 15th; Charleston, September 18th;
Galesburg, October 7th; Quincy, October 13th; and Alton, October 15th.
We give in Book III of this volume their closing speeches in full.
Great crowds attended, and some of the more enterprising daily journals
gave phonographic reports of the speeches. The enthusiasm of the North
soon ran in Lincoln’s favor, though Douglas had hosts of friends; but
then the growing and the aggressive party was the Republican, and even
the novelty of a new and attractive doctrine like that of “popular
sovereignty” could not long divert their attention. The prize suspended
in view of the combatants was the United States Senatorship, and to
close political observers this was plainly within the grasp of Douglas
by reason of an apportionment which would give his party a majority in
the Legislature, even though the popular majority should be twenty
thousand against him—a system of apportionment, by the way, not confined
to Illinois alone, or not peculiar to it in the work of any of the great
parties at any period when party lines were drawn.
Buchanan closely watched the fight, and it was charged and is still
believed by the friends of the “Little Giant,” that the administration
secretly employed its patronage and power to defeat him. Certain it is
that a few prominent Democrats deserted the standard of Douglas, and
that some of them were rewarded. In the heat of the battle, however,
Douglas’ friends were careless of the views of the administration. He
was a greater leader than Buchanan, and in Illinois at least he
overshadowed the administration. He lacked neither money nor friends.
Special trains of cars, banners, cannon, bands, processions, were all
supplied with lavish hands. The democracy of Illinois, nor yet of any
other State, ever did so well before or since, and if the administration
had been with him this enthusiasm might have spread to all other States
and given his doctrine a larger and more glorious life. Only the border
States of the South, however, saw opportunity and glory in it, while the
office-holders in other sections stood off and awaited results.
Lincoln’s position was different. He, doubtless, early realized that his
chances for election were remote indeed, with the apportionment as it
was, and he sought to impress the nation with the truth of his
convictions, and this without other display than the force of their
statement and publication. Always a modest man, he was never more so
than in this great battle. He declared that he did not care for the
local result, and in the light of what transpired, the position was
wisely taken. Douglas was apparently just as earnest, though more
ambitious; for he declared in the vehemence of the advocacy of his
doctrine, that “he did not care whether slavery was voted up or voted
down.” Douglas had more to lose than Lincoln—a place which his high
abilities had honored in the United States Senate, and which intriguing
enemies in his own party made him doubly anxious to hold. Beaten, and he
was out of the field for the Presidency, with his enthroned rival a
candidate for re-election. Successful, and that rival must leave the
field, with himself in direct command of a great majority of the party.
This view must have then been presented, but the rapid rise in public
feeling made it in part incorrect. The calculation of Douglas that he
could at one and the same time retain the good will of all his political
friends in Illinois and those of the South failed him, though he did at
the time, and until his death, better represent the majority of his
party in the whole country than any other leader.
At the election which followed the debate, the popular choice in the
State as a whole was for Lincoln by 126,084 to 121,940 for Douglas; but
the apportionment of 1850 gave to Douglas a plain majority of the
Senators and Representatives.
At the Freeport meeting, August 27th, there were sharp questions and
answers between the debaters. They were brought on by Lincoln, who,
after alluding to some questions propounded to him at Ottawa, said:
“I now propose that I will answer any of the interrogatories, upon
condition that he will answer questions from me not exceeding the same
number, to which I give him an opportunity to respond. The judge remains
silent; I now say that I will answer his interrogatories, whether he
answer mine or not, and that after I have done so I shall propound mine
to him.
“I have supposed myself, since the organization of the Republican party
at Bloomington in May, 1856, bound as a party man by the platforms of
the party, there, and since. If, in any interrogatories which I shall
answer, I go beyond the scope of what is within these platforms, it will
be perceived that no one is responsible but myself.
“Having said thus much, I will take up the judge’s interrogatories as I
find them printed in the _Chicago Times_, and answer them _seriatim_. In
order that there may be no mistake about it, I have copied the
interrogatories in writing, and also my answers to them. The first one
of these interrogatories is in these words:
_Question 1._—I desire to know whether Lincoln to-day stands, as he did
in 1854, in favor of the unconditional repeal of the Fugitive Slave Law?
_Answer._—I do not now, nor ever did, stand in favor of the
unconditional repeal of the Fugitive Slave Law.
_Q. 2._—I desire him to answer whether he stands pledged to-day, as he
did in 1854, against the admission of any more slave States into the
Union, even if the people want them?
_A._—I do not now, nor ever did, stand pledged against the admission of
any more slave States into the Union.
_Q. 3_—I want to know, whether he stands pledged against the admission
of a new State into the Union, with such a Constitution as the people of
the State may see fit to make?
_A._—I do not stand pledged against the admission of a new State into
the Union, with such a Constitution as the people of the State may see
fit to make.
_Q. 4._—I want to know whether he stands to-day pledged to the abolition
of slavery in the District of Columbia?
_A._—I do not stand to-day pledged to the abolition of slavery in the
District of Columbia.
_Q. 5._—I desire him to answer whether he stands pledged to the
prohibition of the slave trade between the different States?
_A._—I do not stand pledged to prohibition of the slave trade between
the different States.
_Q. 6._—I desire to know whether he stands pledged to prohibit slavery
in all the Territories of the United States, North as well as South of
the Missouri Compromise line?
_A._—I am impliedly, if not expressly, pledged to a belief in the RIGHT
and DUTY of Congress to prohibit slavery in all of the United States’
Territories.
_Q. 7._—I desire him to answer, whether he is opposed to the acquisition
of any new territory, unless slavery is first prohibited therein?
_A._—I am not generally opposed to honest acquisition of territory; and
in any given case, I would or would not oppose such acquisition,
according as I might think such acquisition would or would not aggravate
the slavery question among ourselves.
“Now, my friends, it will be perceived upon an examination of these
questions and answers, that so far, I have only answered that I was not
_pledged_ to this, that, or the other.
The judge has not framed his interrogatories to ask me anything more
than this and I have answered in strict accordance with the
interrogatories, and have answered truly, that I am not _pledged_ at all
upon any of the points to which I have answered. But I am not disposed
to hang upon the exact form of his interrogatories. I am rather disposed
to take up, at least some of these questions, and state what I really
think upon them.
“The fourth one is in regard to the abolition of slavery in the District
of Columbia. In relation to that, I have my mind very distinctly made
up. I should be very glad to see slavery abolished in the District of
Columbia. I believe that Congress possesses the constitutional power to
abolish it. Yet, as a member of Congress, I should not, with my present
views, be in favor of _endeavoring_ to abolish slavery in the District
of Columbia, unless it should be upon these conditions: FIRST, That the
abolition should be gradual; SECOND, That it should be on a vote of a
majority of qualified voters in the District; and THIRD, That
compensation should be made to unwilling owners. With these three
conditions, I confess I would be exceedingly glad to see Congress
abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, and in the language of
Henry Clay, ‘sweep from our Capital that foul blot upon our nation.’
I now proceed to propound to the judge the interrogatories, so far as I
have framed them. I will bring forward a new instalment when I get them
ready. I will bring now only four. The first one is:—
1. If the people of Kansas shall, by means entirely unobjectionable in
all other respects, adopt a State Constitution and ask admission into
the Union under it _before_ they have the requisite number of
inhabitants, according to the English bill—some ninety-three
thousand—will he vote to admit them?
2. Can the people of the United States Territory, in any lawful way,
against the wish of any citizen of the United States, exclude slavery
from its limits prior to the formation of a State Constitution?
3. If the Supreme Court of the United States shall decide that States
cannot exclude slavery from their limits, are you in favor of
acquiescing in, adopting and following such decision as a rule of
political action?
4. Are you in favor of acquiring additional territory in disregard of
how much acquisition may affect the nation on the slavery question?
To these questions Mr. Douglas said: “In reference to Kansas, it is my
opinion that, as she has population enough to constitute a slave State,
she has people enough for a free State. I hold it to be a sacred rule of
universal application, to require a Territory to contain the requisite
population for a member of Congress, before it is admitted as a State
into the Union.
2. “It matters not what way the Supreme Court may hereafter decide, as
to the abstract question whether slavery may or may not go into a
Territory under the Constitution, the people have the lawful means to
introduce it, or exclude it as they please, for the reason that slavery
cannot exist a day, or an hour, anywhere, unless it is supported by
local police regulations. These police regulations can only be
established by the local legislature, and if the people are opposed to
slavery, they will elect representatives to that body, who will, by
unfriendly legislation, effectually prevent the introduction of it into
their midst. If, on the contrary, they are for it, their legislation
will favor its extension. Hence, no matter what the decision of the
Supreme Court may be on that abstract question, still the right of the
people to make a slave Territory or a free Territory is perfect and
complete under the Nebraska bill.
“3. The third question which Mr. Lincoln presented is, if the Supreme
Court of the United States shall decide that a State of this Union
cannot exclude slavery from its own limits, will I submit to it? I am
amazed that Mr. Lincoln should ask such a question.
“He casts an imputation upon the Supreme Court of the United States by
supposing that they would violate the constitution of the United States.
I tell him that such a thing is not possible. It would be an act of
moral treason that no man on the bench could ever descend to. Mr.
Lincoln, himself, would never, in his partisan feelings, so far forget
what was right as to be guilty of such an act.
“4. With our natural increase, growing with a rapidity unknown in any
other part of the globe, with the tide of emigration that is fleeing
from despotism in the old world, to seek refuge in our own, there is a
constant torrent pouring into this country that requires more land, more
territory upon which to settle, and just as fast as our interests and
our destiny require an additional territory in the North, in the South,
or on the Island of the Ocean, I am for it, and when we require it, will
leave the people, according to the Nebraska bill, free to do as they
please on the subject of slavery, and every other question.”
The bitterness of the feelings aroused by the canvass and boldness of
Douglas, can both be well shown by a brief abstract from his speech at
Freeport. He had persisted in calling the Republicans “_Black_
Republicans,” although the crowd, the great majority of which was there
against him, insisted that he should say “_White_ Republican.” In
response to these oft repeated demands, he said:—
“Now, there are a great many Black Republicans of you who do not know
this thing was done. (“White, white,” and great clamor). I wish to
remind you that while Mr. Lincoln was speaking, there was not a Democrat
vulgar and blackguard enough to interrupt him. But I now that the shoe
is pinching you. I am clinching Lincoln now, and you are scared to death
for the result. I have seen this thing before. I have seen men make
appointments for discussions and the moment their man has been heard,
try to interrupt and prevent a fair hearing of the other side. I have
seen your mobs before and defy your wrath. (Tremendous applause.)
“My friends, do not cheer, for I need my whole time.
“I have been put to severe tests. I have stood by my principles in fair
weather and in foul, in the sunshine and in the rain. I have defended
the great principle of self-government here among you when Northern
sentiment ran in a torrent against me, and I have defended that same
great principle when Southern sentiment came down like an avalanche upon
me. I was not afraid of any test they put to me. I knew I was right—I
knew my principles were sound—I knew that the people would see in the
end that I had done right, and I knew that the God of Heaven would smile
upon me if I was faithful in the performance of my duty.”
As an illustration of the earnestness of Lincoln’s position we need only
quote two paragraphs from his speech at Alton:—
“Is slavery wrong? That is the real issue. That is the issue that will
continue in this country when these poor tongues of Judge Douglas and
myself shall be silent. It is the eternal struggle between these two
principles—right and wrong—throughout the world. They are two principles
that have stood face to face from the beginning of time; and will ever
continue to struggle. The one is the common right of humanity, and the
other the divine right of Kings. It is the same principle in whatever
shape it develops itself. It is the same spirit that says, ‘you work and
toil, and earn bread, and I’ll eat it.’ No matter in what shape it
comes, whether from the mouth of a King who seeks to bestride the people
of his own nation and life by the fruit of their labor, or from one race
of men as an apology for enslaving another race, it is the same
tyrannical principle.”
And again:—
“On this subject of treating it as a wrong, and limiting its spread, let
me say a word. Has anything ever threatened the existence of this Union
save and except this very institution of slavery? What is it that we
hold most dear among us? Our own liberty and prosperity. What has ever
threatened our liberty and prosperity save and except this institution
of slavery? If this is true, how do you propose to improve the condition
of things? by enlarging slavery?—by spreading it out and making it
bigger? You may have a wen or cancer upon your person and not be able to
cut it out, lest you bleed to death; but surely it is no way to cure it,
to engraft it and spread it over your whole body. That is no proper way
of treating what you regard a wrong. You see this peaceful way of
dealing with it as a wrong—restricting the spread of it, and not
allowing it to go into new countries where it has not already existed.
That is the peaceful way, the old-fashioned way, the way in which the
fathers themselves set us the example.”
The administration of Pierce had left that of Buchanan a dangerous
legacy. He found the pro-slavery party in Congress temporarily
triumphant, it is true, and supported by the action of Congress in
rejecting the Topeka constitution and recognizing the territorial
government, but he found that that decision was not acceptable either to
the majority of the people in the country or to a rapidly rising
anti-slavery sentiment in the North. Yet he saw but one course to
pursue, and that was to sustain the territorial government, which had
issued the call for the Lecompton convention. He was supported in this
view by the action of the Supreme Court, which had decided that slavery
existed in Kansas under the constitution of the United States, and that
the people therein could only relieve themselves of it by the election
of delegates who would prohibit it in the constitution to be framed by
the Lecompton convention. The Free State men refused to recognize the
call, made little, if any, preparation for the election, yet on the last
day a number of them voted for State officials and a member of Congress
under the Lecompton constitution. This had the effect of suspending
hostilities between the parties, yet peace was actually maintained only
by the intervention of U. S. troops, under the command of Col. Sumner,
who afterwards won distinction in the war of the rebellion. The Free
State people stood firmly by their Topeka constitution, and refused to
vote on questions affecting delegates to the Lecompton convention. They
had no confidence in Governor Walker, the appointee of President
Buchanan, and his proclamations passed unheeded. They recognized their
own Governor Robinson, who in a message dated December 7th, 1857,
explained and defended their position in these words:
“The convention which framed the constitution at Topeka originated with
the people of Kansas territory. They have adopted and ratified the same
twice by a direct vote, and also indirectly through two elections of
State officers and members of the State Legislature. Yet it has pleased
the administration to regard the whole proceeding as revolutionary.”
The Lecompton convention, proclaimed by Governor Walker to be lawfully
constituted, met for the second time, Sept. 4th, 1857, and proceeded to
frame a constitution, and adjourned finally Nov. 7th. A large majority
of the delegates, as in the first, were of course pro-slavery, because
of the refusal of the anti-slavery men to participate in the election.
It refused to submit the whole constitution to the people, it is said,
in opposition to the desire of President Buchanan, and part of his
Cabinet. It submitted only the question of whether or not slavery should
exist in the new State, and this they were required to do under the
Kansas-Nebraska act, if indeed they were not required to submit it all.
Yet such was the hostility of the pro-slavery men to submission, that it
was only by three majority the proposition to submit the main question
was adopted—a confession in advance that the result was not likely to
favor their side of the controversy. But six weeks’ time was also
allowed for preparation, the election being ordered for Dec. 21st, 1857.
Still another advantage was taken in the printing of the ballots, as
ordered by the convention. The method prescribed was to endorse the
ballots, “Constitution with Slavery,” and “Constitution with no
Slavery,” thus compelling the voter, however adverse his views, as to
other parts of the Constitution, to vote for it as a whole. As a
consequence, (at least this was given as one of the reasons) the Free
State men as a rule refused to participate in the election, and the
result as returned was 6,143 votes in favor of slavery, and 589 against
it. The constitution was announced as adopted, an election was ordered
on the first Monday of January, 1858, for State officers, members of the
Legislature, and a member of Congress. The opponents of the Lecompton
constitution did not now refrain from voting, partly because of their
desire to secure the representative in Congress, but mainly to secure an
opportunity, as advised by their State officers, to vote down the
Lecompton constitution. Both parties warmly contested the result, but
the Free State men won, and with their general victory secured a large
majority in the Legislature.
The ballots of the Free State men were now headed with the words
“Against the Lecompton Constitution,” and they returned 10,226 votes
against it, to 134 for it with slavery, and 24 for it against slavery.
This return was certified by J. W. Denver, “Secretary and Acting
Governor,” and its validity was endorsed by Douglas in his report from
the Senate Territorial Committee. It was in better accord with his idea
of popular sovereignty, as it showed almost twice as large a vote as
that cast under the Lecompton plan, the fairness of the return not being
disputed, while that of the month previous was disputed.
But their previous refusal to vote on the Lecompton constitution gave
their opponents an advantage in position strangely at variance with the
wishes of a majority of the people. The President of that convention, J.
Calhoun, forwarded the document to the President with an official
request that it be submitted to Congress. This was done in a message
dated 2d February, 1858, and the President recommended the admission of
Kansas under it.
This message occasioned a violent debate in Congress, which continued
for three months. It was replete with sectional abuse and bitterness,
and nearly all the members of both Houses participated. It finally
closed with the passage of the “Act for the admission of the State of
Kansas into the Union,” passed May 4th, 1858. This Act had been reported
by a committee of conference of both Houses, and was passed in the
Senate by 31 to 22, and in the House by 112 to 103. There was a strict
party vote in the Senate with the exception of Mr. Douglas, C. E. Stuart
of Michigan, and D. C. Broderick of California, who voted with the
Republican minority. In the House several anti-Lecompton democrats voted
with the Republican minority. These were Messrs. Adrian of New Jersey;
Chapman of Pennsylvania; Clark of New York; Cockerill of Ohio; Davis of
Indiana; Harris of Illinois; Haskin of New York; Hickman of
Pennsylvania; McKibben of California; Marshall of Illinois; Morgan of
New York; Morris, Shaw, and Smith of Illinois. The Americans who voted
with the Republicans were Crittenden of Kentucky; Davis of Maryland;
Marshall of Kentucky; Ricaud of Maryland; Underwood of Kentucky. A
number of those previously classed as Anti-Lecompton Democrats voted
against their colleagues of the same faction, and consequently against
the bill. These were Messrs. Cockerill, Gwesheck, Hall, Lawrence,
Pendleton and Cox of Ohio; English and Foley of Indiana; and Jones of
Pennsylvania. The Americans who voted against the bill were Kennedy of
Maryland; Anderson of Missouri; Eustis of Louisiana; Gilmer of North
Carolina; Hill of Georgia; Maynard, Ready and Zollicoffer of Tennessee;
and Trippe of Georgia.
Lecompton Constitution.
The following are the political features of the Lecompton constitution:
ARTICLE VII.—_Slavery._
SEC. 1. The right of property is before and higher than any
constitutional sanction, and the right of the owner of a slave to such
slave and its increase is the same, and as inviolable as the right of
the owner of any property whatever.
SEC. 2. The legislature shall have no power to pass laws for the
emancipation of slaves without the consent of the owners, or without
paying the owners previous to their emancipation a full equivalent in
money for the slaves so emancipated. They shall have no power to prevent
emigrants to the state from bringing with them such persons as are
deemed slaves by the laws of any one of the United States or
territories, so long as any person of the same age or description shall
be continued in slavery by the laws of this state: _Provided_, That such
person or slave be the bona fide property of such emigrants: _And
provided, also_, That laws may be passed to prohibit the introduction
into this state of slaves who have committed high crimes in other states
or territories. They shall have power to pass laws to permit the owners
of slaves to emancipate them, saving the rights of creditors, and
preventing them from becoming a public charge. They shall have power to
oblige the owners of slaves to treat them with humanity, to provide for
them necessary food and clothing, to abstain from all injuries to them
extending to life or limb, and, in case of their neglect or refusal to
comply with the direction of such laws, to have such slave or slaves
sold for the benefit of the owner or owners.
SEC. 3. In the prosecution of slaves for crimes of higher grade than
petit larceny, the legislature shall have no power to deprive them of an
impartial trial by a petit jury.
SEC. 4. Any person who shall maliciously dismember, or deprive a slave
of life, shall suffer such punishment as would be inflicted in case the
like offence had been committed on a free white person, and on the like
proof, except in case of insurrection of such slave.
_Free Negroes._
_Bill of Rights_, SEC. 23. Free negroes shall not be allowed to live in
this state under any circumstances.
ARTICLE VIII.—_Elections and Rights of Suffrage._
SEC. 1. Every male citizen of the United States, above the age of
twenty-one years, having resided in this state one year, and in the
county, city, or town in which he may offer to vote, three months next
preceding any election, shall have the qualifications of an elector, and
be entitled to vote at all elections. And every male citizen of the
United States, above the age aforesaid, who may be a resident of the
state at the time this constitution shall be adopted, shall have the
right of voting as aforesaid; but no such citizen or inhabitant shall be
entitled to vote except in the county in which he shall actually reside
at the time of the election.
The Topeka Constitution.
The following are the political features of the Topeka constitution:
_Slavery._
_Bill of Rights_, SEC. 6. There shall be no slavery in this state, nor
involuntary servitude, unless for the punishment of crime.
_Amendments to the Constitution._
SEC. 1. All propositions for amendments to the constitution shall be
made by the General Assembly.
SEC. 2. A concurrence of two-thirds of the members elected to each house
shall be necessary, after which such proposed amendments shall be again
referred to the legislature elected next succeeding said publication. If
passed by the second legislature by a majority of two-thirds of the
members elected to each house, such amendments shall be republished as
aforesaid, for at least six months prior to the next general election,
at which election such proposed amendments shall be submitted to the
people for their approval or rejection; and if a majority of the
electors voting at such election shall adopt such amendments, the same
shall become a part of the constitution.
SEC. 3. When more than one amendment is submitted at the same time, they
shall be so submitted as to enable the electors to vote upon each
amendment separately. No convention for the formation of a new
constitution shall be called, and no amendment to the constitution shall
be, by the general assembly, made before the year 1865, nor more than
once in five years thereafter.
_Submission of Constitution to the People._
_Schedule_, SEC. 2. That this constitution shall be submitted to the
people of Kansas for ratification on the 15th day of December next. That
each qualified elector shall express his assent or dissent to the
constitution by voting a written or printed ticket, labelled
“Constitution,” or “No Constitution;” which election shall be held by
the same judges, and conducted under the same regulations and
restrictions as is hereinafter provided for the election of members of
the general assembly.
The Douglas Amendment.
The following is the Douglas amendment, which really formed the basis of
the bill for admission:
“It being the true intent and meaning of this act not to legislate
slavery into any state or territory, nor to exclude it therefrom, but to
leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their
domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the Constitution
of the United States.”
The bill which passed on the 4th of May was known as the English bill,
and it met the approval of Buchanan. To the measure was attached “a
fundamental condition precedent,” which arose from the fact that the
ordinance of the convention accompanying the constitution claimed for
the new State a cession of the public lands six times greater than had
been granted to other States, amounting in all to 23,500,000 acres. In
lieu of this Congress proposed to submit to a vote of the people a
proposition specifying the number of acres and the purposes for which
the money arising from their sale were to be used, and the acceptance of
this was to be followed by a proclamation that “thereafter, and without
further proceedings from Congress the admission of the State of Kansas,
into the Union, upon an equal footing with the original States in all
respects whatever, shall be complete and absolute.” The condition was
never fulfilled, for the people at the election on the 2d of August,
1858, rejected it by a majority of 9,513, and Kansas was not admitted
under the Lecompton constitution.
Finally, and after continued agitation, more peaceful, however, than
that which characterized the earlier stages of the struggle, the
territorial legislature of Kansas called an election for delegates to
meet and form a constitution. They assembled in convention at Wyandot,
in July, 1859, and reported a constitution prohibiting slavery. This was
adopted by a majority exceeding 4000, and under it Kansas was admitted
to the Union on the 29th of January, 1861.
The comparative quiet between the rejection of the English proposition
and the adoption of the Wyandot constitution, was at one time violently
disturbed by a raid made by John Brown at Harper’s Ferry, with a view to
excite the slaves to insurrection. This failed, but not before Gov.
Wise, of Virginia, had mustered his militia, and called for the aid of
United States troops. The more radical anti-slavery men of the North
were at first shocked by the audacity of an offense which many looked
upon as an act of treason, but the anxiety oi Virginia to hang Brown and
all his followers who had been captured alive, changed a feeling of
conservatism in the North to one of sympathy for Brown and deeper hatred
of slavery. It is but fair to say that it engendered hostility to the
Union in the South. The right and wrong of slavery was thereafter more
generally discussed than ever. The talent of the South favored it;
while, with at least a large measure of truth it can be said that the
talent of the North opposed it. So bitter grew the feeling that soon the
churches of the sections began to divide, no other political question
having ever before disturbed the Union.
We have not pretended to give a complete history of the Kansas trouble
either in that State or in Congress, nor yet a full history of the many
issues raised on questions which were but subsidiary to the main one of
slavery. Our object is to show the relation of the political parties
throughout that struggle, for we are dealing with the history of parties
from a national view, and not with battles and the minor questions or
details of parliamentary struggles. The contest had cemented the
Democrats of the South as it had the Republicans of the North; it
divided both the Democrats of the North and the Americans in all
sections. John Bell, of Tennessee, and Sam Houston of Texas, recognized
leaders of the Americans, had shown their sympathy with the new stand
taken by Douglas, as early as 1854. Bell, however, was less decided than
Houston, and took his position with many qualifications. Houston opposed
even the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, and made the last speech
against it in the Senate. He closed with these words:
“In the discharge of my duty I have acted fearlessly. The events of the
future are left in the hands of a wise Providence, and, in my opinion,
on the decision which we make upon this question must depend union or
disunion.”
These sentiments were shared by many Americans, and the great majority
of them drifted into the Republican party. The Abolitionists from the
beginning of the struggle, allied themselves with the Republicans, a few
of their leaders proclaiming, however, that this party was not
sufficiently advanced in its views.
The Charleston Convention.
Such was the condition of the parties when the Democratic national
convention met at Charleston, S. C., on the 23d of April, 1860, it being
then the custom of the Democratic party, as it is of all majority
parties, to call its convention first. It was composed of delegates from
all the thirty-three States of the Union, the whole number of votes
being 303. After the example of former Democratic conventions it adopted
the two-third rule, and 202 votes were required to make nominations for
President and Vice-President. Caleb Cushing, of Mass., presided. From
the first a radical difference of opinion was exhibited among the
members on the question of slavery in the Territories. Almost the entire
Southern and a minority of the Northern portion believed in the Dred
Scott decision, and held that slave property was as valid under the
constitution as any other class of property. The Douglas delegates stood
firmly by the theory of popular sovereignty, and avowed their
indifference to the fact whether it would lead to the protection of
slave property in the territories or not. On the second day a committee
on resolutions consisting of one member from each State, selected by the
State delegates, was named, and then a resolution was resolved
unanimously “that this convention will not proceed to ballot for a
candidate for the Presidency until the platform shall have been
adopted.” On the fifth day the committee on resolutions presented
majority and minority reports.
After a long discussion on the respective merits of the two reports,
they were both, on motion of Mr. Bigler, of Pennsylvania, recommitted to
the Committee on Resolutions, with a view, if possible, to promote
harmony; but this proved to be impracticable. On the sixth day of the
Convention (Saturday, April 28th,) at an evening session, Mr. Avery, of
North Carolina, and Mr. Samuels, of Iowa, from the majority and minority
of the committee, again made opposite and conflicting report on the
question of slavery in the Territories. On this question the committee
had divided from the beginning, the one portion embracing the fifteen
members from the slaveholding States, with those from California and
Oregon, and the other consisting of the members from all the free States
east of the Rocky Mountains. On all other questions both reports
substantially agreed.
The following is the report of the majority made on this subject by Mr.
Avery, of North Carolina, the chairman of the committee: “_Resolved_,
That the platform adopted by the Democratic party at Cincinnati be
affirmed with the following explanatory resolutions: 1st. That the
Government of a Territory, organized by an act of Congress, is
provisional and temporary, and during its existence all citizens of the
United States have an equal right to settle with their property in the
Territory, without their rights, either of person or property, being
destroyed or impaired by Congressional or Territorial legislation. 2d.
That it is the duty of the Federal Government, in all its departments,
to protect, when necessary, the rights of persons and property in the
Territories, and wherever else its constitutional authority extends. 3d.
That when the settlers in a Territory having an adequate population form
a State Constitution, the right of sovereignty commences, and being
consummated by admission into the Union, they stand on an equal footing
with the people of other States, and the State thus organized ought to
be admitted into the Federal Union whether its constitution prohibits or
recognizes the institution of slavery.”
The following is the report of the minority, made by Mr. Samuels, of
Iowa. After reaffirming the Cincinnati platform by the first resolution,
it proceeds: “Inasmuch as differences of opinion exist in the Democratic
party, as to the nature and extent of the powers of a Territorial
Legislature, and as to the powers and duties of Congress, under the
Constitution of the United States, over the institution of slavery
within the Territories, _Resolved_, That the Democratic party will abide
by the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States upon
questions of constitutional law.”
After some preliminary remarks, Mr. Samuels moved the adoption of the
minority report as a substitute for that of the majority. This gave rise
to an earnest and excited debate. The difference between the parties was
radical and irreconcilable. The South insisted that the Cincinnati
platform, whose true construction in regard to slavery in the
Territories had always been denied by a portion of the Democratic party,
should be explained and settled by an express recognition of the
principles decided by the Supreme Court. The North, on the other hand,
refused to recognize this decision, and still maintained the power to be
inherent in the people of a Territory to deal with the question of
slavery according to their own discretion. The vote was then taken, and
the minority report was substituted for that of the majority by a vote
of one hundred and sixty-five to one hundred and thirty-eight. The
delegates from the six New England States, as well as from New York,
Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Minnesota,
fourteen free States, cast their entire vote in favor of the minority
report. New Jersey and Pennsylvania alone among the free States east of
the Rocky Mountains, refused to vote as States, but their delegates
voted as individuals.
The means employed to attain this end were skillfully devised by the
minority of the Pennsylvania delegation in favor of nominating Mr.
Douglas. The entire delegation had, strangely enough, placed this power
in their hands, by selecting two of their number, Messrs. Cessna and
Wright, to represent the whole on the two most important committees of
the Convention—that of organization and that of resolutions. These
gentlemen, by adroitness and parliamentary tact, succeeded in abrogating
the former practice of casting the vote of the State as a unit. In this
manner, whilst New York indorsed with her entire thirty-five votes the
peculiar views of Mr. Douglas, notwithstanding there was in her
delegation a majority of only five votes in their favor on the question
of Territorial sovereignty, the effective strength of Pennsylvania
recognizing the judgment of the Supreme Court, was reduced to three
votes, this being the majority of fifteen on the one side over twelve on
the other.
The question next in order before the Convention was upon the adoption
of the second resolution of the minority of the committee, which had
been substituted for the report of the majority. On this question
Georgia, Louisiana, Alabama, Arkansas, Texas, Florida, and Mississippi
refused to vote. Indeed, it soon appeared that on the question of the
final adoption of this second resolution, which in fact amounted to
nothing, it had scarcely any friends of either party in the Convention.
The Douglas party, without explanation or addition, voted against it. On
the other hand, the old Democracy could not vote for it without
admitting that the Supreme Court had not already placed the right over
slave property in the Territories on the same footing with all other
property, and therefore they also voted against it. In consequence the
resolution was negatived by a vote of only twenty-one in its favor to
two hundred and thirty-eight. Had the seven Southern States just
mentioned voted, the negatives would have amounted to two hundred and
eighty-two, or more than thirteen to one. Thus both the majority and the
minority resolutions on the Territorial question were rejected, and
nothing remained before the Convention except the Cincinnati platform.
At this stage of the proceedings (April 30th), the States of Louisiana,
Alabama, South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Texas, and Arkansas,
having assigned their reasons for the act, withdrew in succession from
the Convention. After these seven States had retired, the delegation
from Virginia made an effort to restore harmony. Mr. Russell, their
chairman, addressed the Convention and portrayed the alarming nature of
the crisis. He expressed his fears that we were on the eve of a
revolution, and if this Convention should prove a failure it would be
the last National Convention of any party which would ever assemble in
the United States. “Virginia,” said he, “stands in the midst of her
sister States, in garments red with the blood of her children slain in
the first outbreak of the ‘irrepressible conflict.’ But, sir, not when
her children fell at midnight beneath the weapon of the assassin, was
her heart penetrated with so profound a grief as that which will wring
it when she is obliged to choose between a separate destiny with the
South, and her common destiny with the entire Republic.”
Mr. Russell was not then prepared to answer, in behalf of his
delegation, whether the events of the day (the defeat of the majority
report, and the withdrawal of the seven States) were sufficient to
justify her in taking the irrevocable step in question. In order,
therefore, that they might have time to deliberate, and if they thought
proper make an effort to restore harmony in the Convention, he expressed
a desire that it might adjourn and afford them an opportunity for
consultation. The Convention accordingly adjourned until the next day,
Tuesday, May 1st; and immediately after its reassembling the delegation
from Georgia, making the eighth State, also withdrew.
In the mean time the Virginia delegation had consulted among themselves,
and had conferred with the delegation of the other Southern States which
still remained in the Convention, as to the best mode of restoring
harmony. In consequence Mr. Howard, of Tennessee, stated to the
Convention that “he had a proposition to present in behalf of the
delegation from Tennessee, whenever, under parliamentary rules, it would
be proper to present it.” In this Tennessee was joined by Kentucky and
Virginia. He should propose the following resolution whenever it would
be in order: ‘_Resolved_, That the citizens of the United States have an
equal right to settle with their property in the Territories of the
United States; and that, under the decision of the Supreme Court of the
United States, which we recognize as the correct exposition of the
Constitution of the United States, neither the rights of person nor
property can be destroyed or impaired by Congressional or Territorial
legislation.’
On a subsequent day (May 3d), Mr. Russell informed the Convention that
this resolution had, “he believed, received the approbation of all the
delegations from the Southern States which remained in the Convention,
and also received the approbation of the delegation from New York. He
was informed there was strength enough to pass it when in order.”
Mr. Howard, however, in vain attempted to obtain a vote on his
resolution. When he moved to take it up on the evening of the day it had
been offered, he was met by cries of “Not in order,” “Not in order.” The
manifest purpose was to postpone its consideration until the hour should
arrive which had been fixed by a previous order of the Convention, in
opposition to its first order on the same subject, for the balloting to
commence for a Presidential candidate, when it would be too late. This
the friends of Mr. Douglas accomplished, and no vote was ever taken upon
it either at Charleston or Baltimore.
Before the balloting commenced Mr. Howard succeeded, in the face of
strong opposition, with the aid of the thirty-five votes from New York,
in obtaining a vote of the Convention in re-affirmance of the two-thirds
rule. On his motion they resolved, by 141, to 112 votes, “that the
President of the Convention be and he is hereby directed not to declare
any person nominated for the office of President or Vice-President,
unless he shall have received a number of votes equal to two-thirds of
the votes of all the electoral colleges.” It was well known at the time
that this resolution rendered the regular nomination of Mr. Douglas
impossible.
The balloting then commenced (Tuesday evening, May 1st), on the eighth
day of the session. Necessary to a nomination, under the two-thirds
rule, 202 votes. On the first ballot Mr. Douglas received 145½ votes;
Mr. Hunter, of Virginia, 42; Mr. Guthrie, of Kentucky, 35½; Mr. Johnson,
of Tennessee, 12; Mr. Dickinson, of New York, 7; Mr. Lane, of Oregon, 6;
Mr. Toucey, of Connecticut, 2½; Mr. Davis, of Mississippi, 1½; and Mr.
Pearce, of Maryland, 1 vote.
The voting continued until May 3d, during which there were fifty-four
additional ballotings. Mr. Douglas never rose to more than 152½, and
ended in 151½ votes, 202 votes being necessary to a nomination.
Until 1824 nominations had been made by Congressional caucus. In these
none participated except Senators and Democratic States, and
Representatives from Democratic Congressional districts. The simple
majority rule governed in these caucuses, because it was morally certain
that, composed as they were, no candidate could be selected against the
will of the Democratic States on whom his election depended. But when a
change was made to National Conventions, it was at once perceived that
if a mere majority could nominate, then the delegates from
Anti-Democratic States might be mainly instrumental in nominating a
candidate for whom they could not give a single electoral vote. Whilst
it would have been harsh and inexpedient to exclude these States from
the Convention altogether, it would have been unjust to confer on them a
controlling power over the nomination. To compromise this difficulty,
the two-thirds rule was adopted. Under its operation it would be almost
impossible that a candidate could be selected, without the votes of a
simple majority of delegates from the Democratic States. This was the
argument of its friends.
It had now become manifest that it was impossible to make a nomination
at Charleston. The friends of Mr. Douglas adhered to him and would vote
for him and him alone, whilst his opponents, apprehending the effect of
his principles should he be elected President, were equally determined
to vote against his nomination.
In the hope that some compromise might yet be effected, the Convention,
on the motion of Mr. Russell, of Virginia, resolved to adjourn to meet
at Baltimore on Monday, the 18th June; and it was “respectfully
recommended to the Democratic party of the several States, to make
provision for supplying all vacancies in their respective delegations to
this Convention when it shall reassemble.”
The Convention reassembled at Baltimore on the 18th June, 1860,
according to its adjournment, and Mr. Cushing, the President, took the
chair.
Immediately after the reorganization of the Convention, Mr. Howard, of
Tennessee, offered a resolution, “that the President of this Convention
direct the sergeant-at-arms to issue tickets of admission to the
delegates of the Convention, as originally constituted and organized at
Charleston.” Thus the vitally important question was distinctly
presented. It soon, however, became manifest that no such resolution
could prevail. In the absence of the delegates who had withdrawn at
Charleston, the friends of Mr. Douglas constituted a controlling
majority. At the threshold they resisted the admission of the original
delegates, and contended that by withdrawing they had irrevocably
resigned their seats. In support of this position, they relied upon the
language of the resolution adjourning the Convention to Baltimore,
which, as we have seen, “recommended to the Democratic party of the
several States to make provision for supplying all vacancies in their
respective delegations to this Convention, when it shall reassemble.” On
the other hand, the advocates of their readmission contended that a
simple withdrawal of the delegates was not a final renunciation of their
seats, but they were still entitled to reoccupy them, whenever, in their
judgment, this course would be best calculated to restore the harmony
and promote the success of the Democratic party; that the Convention had
no right to interpose between them and the Democracy of their respective
States; that being directly responsible to this Democracy, it alone
could accept their resignation; that no such resignation had ever been
made, and their authority therefore continued in full force, and this,
too, with the approbation of their constituents.
In the mean time, after the adjournment from Charleston to Baltimore,
the friends of Mr. Douglas, in several of these States, had proceeded to
elect delegates to take the place of those who had withdrawn from the
Convention. Indeed, it was manifest at the time, and has since been
clearly proved by the event, that these delegates represented but a
small minority of the party in their respective States. These new
delegates, nevertheless, appeared and demanded seats.[7]
After a long and ardent debate, the Convention adopted a resolution,
offered by Mr. Church, of New York, and modified on motion of Mr.
Gilmore, of Pennsylvania, as a substitute for that of Mr. Howard, to
refer “the credentials of all persons claiming seats in this Convention,
made vacant by the secession of delegates at Charleston, to the
Committee on Credentials.” They thus prejudged the question, by deciding
that the seats of these delegates had been made and were still vacant.
The Committee on Credentials had been originally composed of one
delegate from each of the thirty-three States, but the number was now
reduced to twenty-five, in consequence of the exclusion of eight of its
members from the States of Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, South
Carolina, Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Florida. The committee,
therefore, now stood 16 to 9 in favor of the nomination of Mr. Douglas,
instead of 17 to 16 against it, according to its original organization.
The committee, through their chairman, Mr. Krum, of Missouri, made their
report on the 21st June, and Governor Stevens, of Oregon, at the same
time presented a minority report, signed by himself and eight other
members.
It is unnecessary to give in detail these conflicting reports. It is
sufficient to state that whilst the report of the majority maintained
that the delegates, by withdrawing at Charleston, had resigned their
seats, and these were still vacant; that of the minority, on the
contrary, asserted the right of these delegates to resume their seats in
the Convention, by virtue of their original appointment.
On the next day (June 22), the important decision was made between the
conflicting reports. Mr. Stevens moved to substitute the minority report
for that of the majority, and his motion was rejected by a vote of 100½
to 150. Of course no vote was given from any of the excluded States,
except one-half vote from each of the parties in Arkansas.
The resolutions of the majority were then adopted in succession. Among
other motions of similar character, a motion had been made by a delegate
in the majority to reconsider the vote by which the Convention had
adopted the minority report, as a substitute for that of the majority,
and to lay his own motion on the table. This is a common mode resorted
to, according to parliamentary tactics, of defeating every hope of a
reconsideration of the pending question, and rendering the first
decision final.
Mr. Cessna with this view called for a vote on laying the motion to
reconsider on the table. Should this be negatived, then the question of
reconsideration would be open. The President stated the question to be
first “on laying on the table the motion to reconsider the vote by which
the Convention refused to amend the majority report of the Committee on
Credentials by substituting the report of the minority.” On this
question New York, for the first time since the meeting at Baltimore,
voted with the minority and changed it into a majority. “When New York
was called,” says the report of the proceedings, “and responded
thirty-five votes” (in the negative) “the response was greeted with loud
cheers and applause.” The result of the vote was 113½ to 138½—“so the
Convention refused to lay on the table the motion to reconsider the
minority report.” The Convention then adjourned until evening, on motion
of Mr. Cochrane, of New York, amidst great excitement and confusion.
This vote of New York, appearing to indicate a purpose to harmonize the
party by admitting the original delegates from the eight absent States,
was not altogether unexpected. Although voting as a unit, it was known
that her delegation were greatly divided among themselves. The exact
strength of the minority was afterwards stated by Mr. Bartlett, one of
its members, in the Breckinridge Convention. He said: “Upon all
questions and especially upon the adoption of the majority report on
credentials, in which we had a long contest, the line was strictly
drawn, and there were thirty on one side and forty on the other.”
The position of New York casting an undivided vote of thirty-five, with
Dean Richmond at their head, had been a controlling power from the
commencement.
Strong expectations were, therefore, now entertained that after the New
York delegation had recorded their vote against a motion which would
have killed the minority report beyond hope of revival, they would now
follow this up by taking the next step in advance and voting for its
reconsideration and adoption. On the evening of the very same day,
however, they reversed their course and voted against its
reconsideration. They were then cheered by the opposite party from that
which had cheered them in the morning. Thus the action of the Convention
in favor of the majority report became final and conclusive.
Mr. Cessna, of Pennsylvania, at once moved “that the Convention do now
proceed to nominate candidates for President and Vice-President of the
United States.”
Mr. Russell rose and stated, “It has become my duty now, by direction of
a large majority of the delegation from Virginia, respectfully to inform
you and this body, that it is not consistent with their convictions of
duty to participate longer in its deliberations.”
Mr. Lander next stated “that it became his duty, as one of the delegates
from North Carolina, to say that a very large majority of the delegation
from that State were compelled to retire permanently from this
Convention, on account, as he conceived, of the unjust course that had
been pursued toward some of their fellow-citizens of the South. The
South had heretofore relied upon the Northern Democracy to give them the
rights which were justly due them; but the vote to-day had satisfied the
majority of the North Carolina delegation that these rights were now
refused them, and, this being the case, they could no longer remain in
the Convention.”
Then followed in succession the withdrawal of the delegations from
Tennessee, Kentucky, Maryland, California, Oregon, and Arkansas. The
Convention now adjourned at half-past-ten o’clock until the next morning
at ten.
Soon after the assembling of the Convention, the President, Mr. Cushing,
whilst tendering his thanks to its members for their candid and
honorable support in the performance of his duties, stated that
notwithstanding the retirement of the delegations of several of the
States at Charleston, in his solicitude to maintain the harmony and
union of the Democratic party, he had continued in his post of labor.
“To that end and in that sense,” said he, “I had the honor to meet you,
gentlemen, here at Baltimore. But circumstances have since transpired
which compel me to pause. The delegations of a majority of the States
have, either in whole or in part, in one form or another, ceased to
participate in the deliberations of the Convention. * * * In the present
circumstances, I deem it a duty of self-respect, and I deem it still
more a duty to this Convention, as at present organized, * * * to resign
my seat as President of this Convention, in order to take my place on
the floor as a member of the delegation from Massachusetts. * * * I deem
this above all a duty which I owe to the members of this Convention, as
to whom no longer would my action represent the will of a majority of
the Convention.”
Governor Tod, of Ohio, one of the Vice-Presidents, then took the vacant
chair, and was greeted with hearty and long-continued cheers and
applause from members of the Convention.
Mr. Butler, of Massachusetts, now announced that a portion of the
Massachusetts delegation desired to retire, but was interrupted by cries
of “No,” “No,” “Call the roll.” Mr. Cessna called for the original
question, to wit, that the Convention now proceed to a nomination for
President and Vice-President.
The President here ordered the Secretary to call the States. Maine, New
Hampshire, and Vermont were called, and they gave an unbroken vote for
Stephen A. Douglas. When Massachusetts was called, Mr. Butler rose and
said he had a respectful paper in his hand which he would desire the
President to have read. A scene of great confusion thereupon ensued,
cries of “I object” being heard upon all sides. Mr. Butler, not to be
baffled, contended for his right at this stage to make remarks pertinent
to the matter, and cited in his support the practice of the Conventions
at Baltimore in 1848 and 1852, and at Cincinnati in 1856. He finally
prevailed, and was permitted to proceed. He then said he “would now
withdraw from the Convention, upon the ground that there had been a
withdrawal, in whole or in part, of a majority of the States; and
further, which was a matter more personal to himself, he could not sit
in a convention where the African slave trade, which was piracy
according to the laws of his country, was openly advocated.”
Mr. Butler then retired, followed by General Cushing and four others of
the Massachusetts delegation. All of these had voted with the South and
against Douglas.
The balloting now proceeded. Mr. Douglas received 173½ votes; Mr.
Guthrie 9; Mr. Breckinridge 6½; Mr. Bocock and Mr. Seymour each 1; and
Mr. Dickerson and Mr. Wise each half a vote. On the next and last ballot
Mr. Douglas received 181½ votes, eight of those in the minority having
changed their votes in his favor.
To account for this number, it is proper to state that a few delegates
from five of the eight States which had withdrawn still remained in the
Convention. On the last ballot Mr. Douglas received all of their votes,
to wit: 3 of the 15 votes of Virginia, 1 of the 10 votes of North
Carolina, 1½ of the 3 votes of Arkansas, 3 of the 12 votes of Tennessee,
3 of the 12 votes of Kentucky, and 2½ of the 8 votes of Maryland, making
in the aggregate 14 votes. To this number may be added the 9 votes of
the new delegates from Alabama and the 6 from Louisiana, which had been
admitted to the exclusion of the original delegates.
Mr. Douglas was accordingly declared to be the regular nominee of the
Democratic party of the Union, upon the motion of Mr. Church, of New
York, when, according to the report of the proceedings, “The whole body
rose to its feet, hats were waved in the air, and many tossed aloft;
shouts, screams, and yells, and every boisterous mode of expressing
approbation and unanimity, were resorted to.”
Senator Fitzpatrick, of Alabama, was then unanimously nominated as the
candidate for Vice-President; and the Convention adjourned _sine die_ on
the 23d June, the sixth and last day of its session. On the same day,
but after the adjournment, Mr. Fitzpatrick declined the nomination, and
it was immediately conferred on Mr. Herschel V. Johnson, of Georgia, by
the Executive Committee. Thus ended the Douglas Convention.
But another Convention assembled at Baltimore on the same 23d June,
styling itself the “National Democratic Convention.” It was composed
chiefly of the delegates who had just withdrawn from the Douglas
Convention, and the original delegates from Alabama and Louisiana. One
of their first acts was to abrogate the two-third rule, as had been done
by the Douglas Convention. Both acted under the same necessity, because
the preservation of this rule would have prevented a nomination by
either.
Mr. Cushing was elected and took the chair as President. In his opening
address he said: “Gentlemen of the Convention, we assemble here,
delegates to the National Democratic Convention, duly accredited thereto
from more than twenty States of the Union, for the purpose of nominating
candidates of the Democratic party for the offices of President and
Vice-President of the United States, for the purpose of announcing the
principles of the party, and for the purpose of continuing and
re-establishing that party upon the firm foundations of the
Constitution, the Union, and the co-equal rights of the several States.”
Mr. Avery, of North Carolina, who had reported the majority resolutions
at Charleston, now reported the same from the committee of this body,
and they “were adopted unanimously, amid great applause.”
The Convention then proceeded to select their candidates. Mr. Loring, on
behalf of the delegates from Massachusetts, who with Mr. Butler had
retired from the Douglas Convention, nominated John C. Breckinridge, of
Kentucky, which Mr. Dent, representing the Pennsylvania delegation
present, “most heartily seconded.” Mr. Ward, from the Alabama
delegation, nominated R. M. T. Hunter, of Virginia; Mr. Ewing, from that
of Tennessee, nominated Mr. Dickinson, of New York; and Mr. Stevens,
from Oregon, nominated General Joseph Lane. Eventually all these names
were withdrawn except that of Mr. Breckinridge, and he received the
nomination by a unanimous vote. The whole number of votes cast in his
favor from twenty States was 103½.
General Lane was unanimously nominated as the candidate for
Vice-President. Thus terminated the Breckinridge Convention.
The Chicago Republican Convention.
The Republicans had named May 16th, 1860, as the date and Chicago as the
place for holding their second National Convention. They had been
greatly encouraged by the vote for Fremont and Dayton, and, what had now
become apparent as an irreconcilable division of the Democracy,
encouraged them in the belief that they could elect their candidates.
Those of the great West were especially enthusiastic, and had
contributed freely to the erection of an immense “Wigwam,” capable of
holding ten thousand people, at Chicago. All the Northern States were
fully represented, and there were besides partial delegations from
Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri and Virginia, with occasional
delegates from other Slave States, there being none, however, from the
Gulf States. David Wilmot, of Penna., author of the Wilmot proviso, was
made temporary chairman, and George Ashmun, of Mass., permanent
President. No differences were excited by the report of the committee on
platform, and the proceedings throughout were characterized by great
harmony, though there was a somewhat sharp contest for the Presidential
nomination. The prominent candidates were Wm. H. Seward, of New York;
Abraham Lincoln, of Illinois; Salmon P. Chase, of Ohio; Simon Cameron,
of Pennsylvania, and Edward Bates, of Missouri. There were three
ballots, Mr. Lincoln receiving in the last 354 out of 446 votes. Mr.
Seward led the vote at the beginning, but he was strongly opposed by
gentlemen in his own State as prominent as Horace Greeley and Thurlow
Weed, and his nomination was thought to be inexpedient. Lincoln’s
successful debate with Douglas was still fresh in the minds of the
delegates, and every addition to his vote so heightened the enthusiasm
that the convention was finally carried “off its feet,” the delegations
rapidly changing on the last ballot. Lincoln had been a known candidate
but a month or two before, while Seward’s name had been everywhere
canvassed, and where opposed in the Eastern and Middle States, it was
mainly because of the belief that his views on slavery were too radical.
He was more strongly favored by the Abolition branch of the party than
any other candidate. When the news of his success was first conveyed to
Mr. Lincoln he was siting in the office of the _State Journal_, at
Springfield, which was connected by a telegraph wire with the Wigwam. On
the close of the third ballot a despatch was handed Mr. Lincoln. He read
it in silence, and then announcing the result said: “There is a little
woman down at our house would like to hear this—I’ll go down and tell
her,” and he started amid the shouts of personal admirers. Hannibal
Hamlin, of Maine, was nominated for Vice-President with much unanimity,
and the Chicago Convention closed its work in a single day.
The American Convention.
A “Constitutional Union,” really an American Convention, had met at
Baltimore on the 9th of May. Twenty States were represented, and John
Bell, of Tennessee, and Edward Everett, of Massachusetts, were named for
the Presidency and Vice-Presidency. Their friends, though known to be
less in number than either those of Douglas, Lincoln or Breckinridge,
yet made a vigorous canvass in the hope that the election would be
thrown into the House, and that there a compromise in the vote by States
would naturally turn toward their candidates. The result of the great
contest is elsewhere given in our Tabulated History of Politics.
THE PRINCIPLES INVOLVED.
Lincoln received large majorities in nearly all of the free States, his
popular vote being 1,866,452; electoral vote, 180. Douglas was next in
the popular estimate, receiving 1,375,157 votes, with but 12 electors.
Breckinridge had 847,953 votes, with 76 electors; Bell, with 570,631
votes, had 39 electors.
The principles involved in the controversy are given at length in the
Book of Platforms, and were briefly these: The Republican party asserted
that slavery should not be extended to the territories; that it could
exist only by virtue of local and positive law; that freedom was
national; that slavery was morally wrong, and the nation should at least
anticipate its gradual extinction. The Douglas wing of the Democratic
party adhered to the doctrine of popular sovereignty, and claimed that
in its exercise in the territories they were indifferent whether slavery
was voted up or down. The Breckinridge wing of the Democratic party
asserted both the moral and legal right to hold slaves, and to carry
them to the territories, and that no power save the national
constitution could prohibit or interfere with it outside of State lines.
The Americans supporting Bell, adhered to their peculiar doctrines
touching emigration and naturalization, but had abandoned, in most of
the States, the secrecy and oaths of the Know-Nothing order. They were
evasive and non-committal on the slavery question.
Preparing for Secession.
Secession, up to this time, had not been regarded as treasonable in all
sections and at all times. As shown in many previous pages, it had been
threatened by the Hartford Convention; certainly by some of the people
of New England who opposed the war of 1812. Some of the more extreme
Abolitionists had favored a division of the sections. The South,
particularly the Gulf States, had encouraged a secret organization,
known as the “Order of the Lone Star,” previous to and at the time of
the annexation of Texas. One of its objects was to acquire Cuba, so as
to extend slave territory. The Gulf States needed more slaves, and
though the law made participancy in the slave trade piracy, many cargoes
had been landed in parts of the Gulf without protest or prosecution,
just prior to the election of 1860. Calhoun had threatened, thirty years
before, nullification, and before that again, secession in the event of
the passage of the Public Land Bill. Jefferson and Madison had indicated
that doctrine of State Rights on which secession was based in the
Kentucky and Virginia resolutions of 1798, facts which were daily
discussed by the people of the South during this most exciting of all
Presidential campaigns.
The leaders in the South had anticipated defeat at the election, and
many of them made early preparations for the withdrawal of their States
from the Union. Some of the more extreme anti-slavery men of the North,
noting these preparations, for a time favored a plan of letting the
South go in peace. South Carolina was the first to adopt a secession
ordinance, and before it did so, Horace Greeley said in the New York
_Tribune_:
“If the Declaration of Independence justified the secession from the
British Empire of three millions of colonists in 1776, we can not see
why it would not justify the secession of five millions of Southrons
from the Federal Union in 1861.”
These views, however, soon fell into disfavor throughout the North, and
the period of indecision on either side ceased when Fort Sumter was
fired upon. The Gulf States openly made their preparations as soon as
the result of the Presidential election was known, as a rule pursuant to
a previous understanding. The following, condensed from Hon. Edward
McPherson’s “_Political History of the United States of America during
the Great Rebellion_,” is a correct statement of the movements which
followed, in the several Southern States:
SOUTH CAROLINA.
November 5th, 1860. Legislature met to choose Presidential electors, who
voted for Breckinridge and Lane for President and Vice-President. Gov.
William H. Gist recommended in his message that in the event of Abraham
Lincoln’s election to the Presidency, a convention of the people of the
State be immediately called to consider and determine for themselves the
mode and measure of redress. He expressed the opinion that the only
alternative left is the “secession of South Carolina from the Federal
Union.”
7th. United States officials resigned at Charleston.
10th. U. S. Senators James H. Hammond and James Chestnut, Jr., resigned
their seats in the Senate. Convention called to meet Dec. 17th.
Delegates to be elected Dec. 6th.
13th. Collection of debts due to citizens of non-slaveholding States
stayed. Francis W. Pickens elected Governor.
17th. Ordinance of Secession adopted unanimously.
21st. Commissioners appointed (Barnwell, Adams, and Orr) to proceed to
Washington to treat for the possession of U. S. Government property
within the limits of South Carolina. Commissioners appointed to the
other slaveholding States. Southern Congress proposed.
24th. Representatives in Congress withdrew.
Gov. Pickens issued a proclamation “announcing the repeal, Dec. 20th,
1860, by the good people of South Carolina,” of the Ordinance of May
23d, 1788, and “the dissolution of the union between the State of South
Carolina and other States under the name of the United States of
America,” and proclaiming to the world “that the State of South Carolina
is, as she has a right to be, a separate, sovereign, free and
independent State, and, as such, has a right to levy war, conclude
peace, negotiate treaties, leagues, or covenants, and to do all acts
whatsoever that rightfully appertain to a free and independent State.
“Done in the eighty-fifth year of the sovereignty and independence of
South Carolina.”
Jan. 3d, 1861. South Carolina Commissioners left Washington.
4th. Convention appointed T. J. Withers, L. M. Keitt, W. W. Boyce, Jas.
Chestnut, Jr., R. B. Rhett, Jr., R. W. Barnwell, and C. G. Memminger,
delegates to Southern Congress.
5th. Convention adjourned, subject to the call of the Governor.
14th. Legislature declared that any attempt to reinforce Fort Sumter
would be considered an open act of hostility and a declaration of war.
Approved the Governor’s action in firing on the _Star of the West_.
Accepted the services of the Catawba Indians.
27th. Received Judge Robertson, Commissioner from Virginia, but rejected
the proposition for a conference and co-operative action.
March 26th. Convention met in Charleston.
April 3d. Ratified “Confederate” Constitution—yeas 114, nays 16.
8th. Transferred forts, etc., to “Confederate” government.
GEORGIA.
November 8th, 1860. Legislature met pursuant to previous arrangement.
18th. Convention called. Legislature appropriated $1,000,000 to arm the
State.
Dec. 3d. Resolutions adopted in the Legislature proposing a conference
of the Southern States at Atlanta, Feb. 20th.
January 17th, 1861. Convention met. Received Commissioners from South
Carolina and Alabama.
18th. Resolutions declaring it the right and duty of Georgia to secede,
adopted—yeas 165, nays 130.
19th. Ordinance of Secession passed—yeas 208, nays 89.
21st. Senators and Representatives in Congress withdrew.
24th. Elected Delegates to Southern Congress at Montgomery, Alabama.
28th. Elected Commissioners to other Slaveholding States.
29th. Adopted an address “to the South and the world.”
March 7th. Convention reassembled.
16th. Ratified the “Confederate” Constitution—yeas 96, nays 5.
20th. Ordinance passed authorizing the “Confederate” government to
occupy, use and possess the forts, navy yards, arsenals, and
custom-houses within the limits of said State.
April 26th. Governor Brown issued a proclamation ordering the
repudiation by the citizens of Georgia of all debts due Northern men.
MISSISSIPPI.
November 26th, 1860. Legislature met Nov. 26th, and adjourned Nov. 30th.
Election for Convention fixed for Dec. 20th. Convention to meet Jan.
7th. Convention bills and secession resolutions passed unanimously.
Commissioners appointed to other Slaveholding States to secure “their
co-operation in effecting measures for their common defence and safety.”
Jan. 7th, 1861. Convention assembled.
9th. Ordinance of Secession passed—yeas 84, nays 15.
In the ordinance the people of the State of Mississippi express their
consent to form a federal union with such of the States as have seceded
or may secede from the Union of the United States of America, upon the
basis of the present Constitution of the United States, except such
parts thereof as embrace other portions than such seceding States.
10th. Commissioners from other States received. Resolutions adopted,
recognizing South Carolina as sovereign and independent.
Jan. 12th. Representatives in Congress withdrew.
19th. The committee on the Confederacy in the Legislature reported
resolutions to provide for a Southern Confederacy, and to establish a
provisional government for seceding States and States hereafter
seceding.
21st. Senators in Congress withdrew.
March 30th. Ratified “Confederate” Constitution—yeas 78, nays 7.
FLORIDA.
November 26th, 1860. Legislature met. Governor M. S. Perry recommended
immediate secession.
Dec. 1st. Convention bill passed.
Jan. 3d, 1861. Convention met.
7th. Commissioners from South Carolina and Alabama received and heard.
10th. Ordinance of Secession passed—yeas 62, nays 7.
18th. Delegates appointed to Southern Congress at Montgomery.
21st. Senators and Representatives in Congress withdrew.
Feb. 14th. Act passed by the Legislature declaring that after any actual
collision between Federal troops and those in the employ of Florida, the
act of holding office under the Federal government shall be declared
treason, and the person convicted shall suffer death. Transferred
control of government property captured, to the “Confederate”
government.
LOUISIANA.
December 10th, 1860. Legislature met.
11th. Convention called for Jan. 23d. Military bill passed.
12th. Commissioners from Mississippi received and heard. Governor
instructed to communicate with Governors of other southern States.
Jan. 23d, 1861. Convention met and organized. Received and heard
Commissioners from South Carolina and Alabama.
25th. Ordinance of Secession passed—yeas 113, nays 17. Convention
refused to submit the ordinance to the people by a vote of 84 to 45.
This was subsequently reconsidered, and the ordinance was submitted. The
vote upon it as declared was 20,448 in favor, and 17,296 against.
Feb. 5th. Senators withdrew from Congress, also the Representatives,
except John E. Bouligny. State flag adopted. Pilots at the Balize
prohibited from bringing over the bar any United States vessels of war.
March 7th. Ordinance adopted in secret session transferring to
“Confederate” States government $536,000, being the amount of bullion in
the U. S. mint and customs seized by the State.
16th. An ordinance voted down, submitting the “Confederate” Constitution
to the people—yeas 26, nays 74.
21st. Ratified the “Confederate” Constitution—yeas 101, nays 7. Governor
authorized to transfer the arms and property captured from the United
States to the “Confederate” Government.
27th. Convention adjourned _sine die_.
ALABAMA.
January 7th, 1861. Convention met.
8th. Received and heard the Commissioner from South Carolina.
11th. Ordinance of Secession passed in secret session—yeas 61, nays 39.
Proposition to submit ordinance to the people lost—yeas 47, nays 53.
14th. Legislature met pursuant to previous action.
19th. Delegates elected to the Southern Congress.
21st. Representatives and Senators in Congress withdrew.
26th. Commissioners appointed to treat with the United States Government
relative to the United States forts, arsenals, etc., within the State.
The Convention requested the people of the States of Delaware, Maryland,
Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi,
Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky and Missouri to meet the
people of Alabama by their delegates in Convention, February 4th, 1861,
at Montgomery, for the purpose of consulting as to the most effectual
mode of securing concerted or harmonious action in whatever measures may
be deemed most desirable for their common peace and security. Military
bill passed. Commissioners appointed to other Slaveholding States.
March 4th. Convention reassembled.
13th. Ratified “Confederate” Constitution, yeas 87, nays 6. Transferred
control forts, of arsenals, etc., to “Confederate” Government.
ARKANSAS.
January 16th, 1861. Legislature passed Convention bill. Vote of the
people on the Convention was 27,412 for it, and 15,826 against it.
February 18th. Delegates elected.
March 4th. Convention met.
18th. The Ordinance of Secession defeated—yeas 35, nays 39. The
convention effected a compromise by agreeing to submit the question of
co-operation or secession to the people on the 1st Monday in August.
May 6th. Passed Secession Ordinance—yeas 69, nays 1. Authorized her
delegates to the Provisional Congress, to transfer the arsenal at Little
Rock and hospital at Napoleon to the “Confederate” Government.
TEXAS.
January 21st, 1861. Legislature met.
28th. People’s State Convention met.
29th. Legislature passed a resolution declaring that the Federal
Government has no power to coerce a Sovereign State after she has
pronounced her separation from the Federal Union.
February 1st. Ordinance of Secession passed in Convention—yeas 166, nays
7. Military bill passed.
7th. Ordinance passed, forming the foundation of a Southern Confederacy.
Delegates to the Southern Congress elected. Also an act passed
submitting the Ordinance of Secession to a vote of the people.
23d. Secession Ordinance voted on by the people; adopted by a vote of
34,794 in favor, and 11,235 against it.
March 4th. Convention declared the State out of the Union. Gov. Houston
issued a proclamation to that effect.
16th. Convention by a vote of 127 to 4 deposed Gov. Houston, declaring
his seat vacant. Gov. Houston issued a proclamation to the people
protesting against this action of the Convention.
20th. Legislature confirmed the action of the Convention in deposing
Gov. Houston by a vote of 53 to 11. Transferred forts, etc., to
“Confederate” Government.
23d. Ratified the “Confederate” Constitution—yeas 68, nays 2.
NORTH CAROLINA.
November 20th, 1860. Legislature met. Gov. Ellis recommended that the
Legislature invite a conference of the Southern States, or failing in
that, send one or more delegates to the neighboring States so as to
secure concert of action. He recommended a thorough reorganization of
the militia, and the enrollment of all persons between 18 and 45 years,
and the organization of a corps of ten thousand men; also, a Convention,
to assemble immediately after the proposed consultation with other
Southern States shall have terminated.
December 9th, Joint Committee on Federal Relations agreed to report a
Convention Bill.
17th. Bill appropriating $300,000 to arm the State, debated.
18th. Senate passed above bill—yeas, 41, nays, 3.
20th. Commissioners from Alabama and Mississippi received and heard—the
latter, J. Thompson, by letter.
22d. Senate bill to arm the State failed to pass the House.
22d. Adjourned till January 7th.
January 8th, 1861. Senate Bill arming the State passed the House, yeas,
73, nays, 26.
30th. Passed Convention Bill—election to take place February 28th. No
Secession Ordinance to be valid without being ratified by a majority of
the qualified voters of the State.
31st. Elected Thos. L. Clingman United States Senator.
February 13th. Commissioners from Georgia publicly received.
20th. Mr. Hoke elected Adjutant General of the State. Military Bill
passed.
28th. Election of Delegates to Convention took place.
28th. The vote for a Convention was 46,671; against 47,333—majority
against a Convention 661.
May 1st. Extra session of the Legislature met at the call of Gov. Ellis.
The same day they passed a Convention Bill, ordering the election of
delegates on the 15th.
2d. Legislature adjourned.
13th. Election of delegates to the Convention took place.
20th. Convention met at Raleigh.
21st. Ordinance of Secession passed; also the “Confederate” Constitution
ratified.
June 5th. Ordinance passed, ceded the arsenal at Fayetteville, and
transferred magazines, etc., to the “Confederate” Government.
TENNESSEE.
January 6th, 1861. Legislature met.
12th. Passed Convention Bill.
30th. Commissioners to Washington appointed.
February 8th. People voted no Convention: 67,360 to 54,156.
May 1st. Legislature passed a joint resolution authorizing the Governor
to appoint Commissioners to enter into a military league with the
authorities of the “Confederate” States.
7th. Legislature in secret session ratified the league entered into by
A. O. W. Totten, Gustavus A. Henry, Washington Barrow, Commissioners for
Tennessee, and Henry W. Hilliard, Commissioner for “Confederate” States,
stipulating that Tennessee until she became a member of the Confederacy
placed the whole military force of the State under the control of the
President of the “Confederate” States, and turned over to the
“Confederate” States all the public property, naval stores and munitions
of war. Passed the Senate, yeas 14, nays 6, absent and not voting 5; the
House, yeas 42, nays 15, absent and not voting, 18. Also a Declaration
of Independence and Ordinance dissolving the Federal relations between
Tennessee and the United States, and an ordinance adopting and ratifying
the Confederate Constitution, these two latter to be voted on by the
people on June 8th were passed.
June 24th. Gov. Isham G. Harris declared Tennessee out of the Union, the
vote for Separation being 104,019 against 47,238.
VIRGINIA.
January 7th, 1861. Legislature convened.
8th. Anti-coercion resolution passed.
9th. Resolution passed, asking that the _status quo_ be maintained.
10th. The Governor transmitted a despatch from the Mississippi
Convention, announcing its unconditional secession from the Union, and
desiring on the basis of the old Constitution to form a new union with
the seceding States. The House adopted—yeas 77, nays 61,—an amendment
submitting to a vote of the people the question of referring for their
decision any action of the Convention dissolving Virginia’s connection
with the Union, or changing its organic law. The Richmond _Enquirer_
denounced “the emasculation of the Convention Bill as imperilling all
that Virginians held most sacred and dear.”
16th. Commissioners Hopkins and Gilmer of Alabama received in the
Legislature.
17th. Resolutions passed proposing the Crittenden resolutions as a basis
for adjustment, and requesting General Government to avoid collision
with Southern States. Gov. Letcher communicated the Resolutions of the
Legislature of New York, expressing the utmost disdain, and saying that
“the threat conveyed can inspire no terror in freemen.” The resolutions
were directed to be returned to the Governor of New York.
18th. $1,000,000 appropriated for the defence of the State.
19th. Passed resolve that if all efforts to reconcile the differences of
the country fail, every consideration of honor and interest demands that
Virginia shall unite her destinies with her sister slaveholding States.
Also that no reconstruction of the Union can be permanent or
satisfactory, which will not secure to each section self-protecting
power against any invasion of the Federal Union upon the reserved rights
of either. (See Hunter’s proposition for adjustment.)
21st. Replied to Commissioners Hopkins and Gilmer, expressing inability
to make a definite response until after the meeting of the State
Convention.
22d. The Governor transmitted the resolutions of the Legislature of
Ohio, with unfavorable comment. His message was tabled by a small
majority.
30th. The House of Delegates to-day tabled the resolutions of the
Pennsylvania Legislature, but referred those of Tennessee to the
Committee on Federal Relations.
February 20th. The resolutions of the Legislature of Michigan were
returned without comment.
28th. Ex-President Tyler and James A. Seddon, Commissioners to the Peace
Congress, presented their report, and denounced the recommendation of
that body as a delusion and a sham, and as an insult and an offense to
the South.
Proceedings of Virginia Convention.
February 4th. Election of delegates to the Convention.
13th. Convention met.
14th. Credentials of John S. Preston, Commissioner from South Carolina,
Fulton Anderson from Mississippi, and Henry L. Benning from Georgia,
were received.
18th. Commissioners from Mississippi and Georgia heard; both pictured
the danger of Virginia remaining with the North; neither contemplated
such an event as reunion.
19th. The Commissioner from South Carolina was heard. He said his people
believed the Union unnatural and monstrous, and declared that there was
no human force—no sanctity of human touch,—that could re-unite the
people of the North with the people of the South—that it could never be
done unless the economy of God were changed.
20th. A committee reported that in all but sixteen counties, the
majority for submitting the action of the Convention to a vote of the
people was 52,857. Numerous resolutions on Federal Relations introduced,
generally expressing attachment to the Union, but denouncing coercion.
26th. Mr. Goggin of Bedford, in his speech, denied the right of
secession, but admitted a revolutionary remedy for wrongs committed upon
a State or section, and said wherever Virginia went he was with her.
March 2d. Mr. Goode of Bedford offered a resolution that, as the powers
delegated to the General Government by Virginia had been perverted to
her injury, and as the Crittenden propositions as a basis of adjustment
had been rejected by their Northern confederates, therefore every
consideration of duty, interest, honor and patriotism requires that
Virginia should declare her connection with the Government to be
dissolved.
5th. The thanks of the State were voted to Hon. John J. Crittenden, by
yeas 107, nays 16, for his efforts to bring about an honorable
adjustment of the national difficulties. Mr. Harvie of Amelia offered a
resolution, requesting Legislature to make needful appropriations to
resist any attempt of the Federal authorities to hold, occupy or possess
the property and places claimed by the United States in any of the
seceded States, or those that may withdraw or collect duties or imposts
in the same.
9th. Three reports were made from the Committee on Federal Relations.
The majority proposed to submit to the other States certain amendments
to the Constitution, awaiting the response of non-slaveholding States
before determining whether “she will resume the powers granted by her
under the Constitution of the United States, and throw herself upon her
reserved rights; meanwhile insisting that no coercion be attempted, the
Federal forts in seceded States be not reinforced, duties be not
collected, etc.,” and proposing a Convention at Frankfort, Kentucky, the
last Monday in May, of the States of Delaware, Maryland, North Carolina,
Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri and Arkansas. Henry A. Wise differed in
details, and went further in the same direction. Messrs. Lewis E.
Harvie, Robert L. Montague and Samuel C. Williams recommended the
immediate passage of an Ordinance of Secession. Mr. Barbour of Culpeper
insisted upon the immediate adoption by the non-slaveholding States of
needed guarantees of safety, and provided for the appointment of three
Commissioners to confer with the Confederate authorities at Montgomery.
19th. Committee on Federal Relations reported proposed amendments to the
Constitution, which were the substitute of Mr. Franklin of Pa., in
“Peace Conference,” changed by using the expression “involuntary
servitude” in place of “persons held to service.” The right of owners of
slaves is not to be impaired by congressional or territorial law, or any
pre-existing law in territory hereafter acquired.
Involuntary servitude, except for crime, to be prohibited north of
36°30′, but shall not be prohibited by Congress or any Territorial
legislature south of that line. The third section has some verbal
alterations, providing somewhat better security for property in transit.
The fifth section prohibits the importation of slaves from places beyond
the limits of the United States. The sixth makes some verbal changes in
relation to remuneration for fugitives by Congress, and erases the
clause relative to the securing of privileges and immunities. The
seventh forbids the granting of the elective franchise and right to hold
office to persons of the African race. The eighth provides that none of
these amendments, nor the third paragraph of the second section of the
first article of the Constitution, nor the third paragraph of the second
section of the fourth article thereof, shall be amended or abolished
without the consent of all the States.
25th. The Committee of the Whole refused (yeas 4, nays 116) to strike
out the majority report and insert Mr. Carlile’s “Peace Conference”
substitute.
26th. The Constitution of the “Confederate” States, proposed by Mr. Hall
as a substitute for the report of the committee, rejected—yeas 9, nays
78.
28th. The first and second resolutions reported by the committee
adopted.
April 6th. The ninth resolution of the majority report came up. Mr.
Bouldin offered an amendment striking out the whole, and inserting a
substitute declaring that the independence of the seceded States should
be acknowledged without delay, which was lost—yeas 68, nays 71.
9th. Mr. Wise’s substitute for the tenth resolution, to the effect that
Virginia recognizes the independence of the seceding States was
adopted—yeas 128, nays 20.
April 17. Ordinance of Secession passed in secret session—yeas 88, nays
55, one excused, and eight not voting.
Same day the Commissioners adopted and ratified the Constitution of the
Provisional Government of the “Confederate” States of America, this
ordinance to cease to have legal effect if the people of Virginia voting
upon the Ordinance of Secession should reject it.
25th. A Convention was made between Commissioners of Virginia, chosen by
the Convention, and A. H. Stephens, Commissioner for “Confederates,”
stipulating that Virginia until she became a member of the Confederacy
should place her military force under the direction of the President of
the “Confederate” States; also turn over to “Confederate” States all her
public property, naval stores, and munitions of war. Signed by J. Tyler,
W. B. Preston, S. McD. Moore, James P. Holcombe, Jas. C. Bruce, Lewis E.
Harvie—for Virginia; and A. H. Stephens for “Confederate” States.
June 25th. Secession vote announced as 128,884 for, and 32,134 against.
July. The Convention passed an ordinance to the effect that any citizen
of Virginia holding office under the Government of the United States
after the 31st of July, 1861, should be forever banished from the State,
and be declared an alien enemy. Also that any citizen of Virginia,
hereafter undertaking to represent the State of Virginia in the Congress
of the United States, should, in addition to the above penalties, be
considered guilty of treason, and his property be liable to
confiscation. A provision was inserted exempting from the penalties of
the act all officers of the United States outside of the United States,
or of the Confederate States, until after July 1st, 1862.
KENTUCKY.
December 12th, 1860. Indiana militia offer their services to quell
servile insurrection. Gov. Magoffin declines accepting them.
January 17th, 1861. Legislature convened.
22d. The House by a vote of 87 to 6 resolved to resist the invasion of
the South at all hazards.
27th. Legislature adopted the Virginia resolutions requiring the Federal
Government to protect Slavery in the Territories and to guarantee the
right of transit of slaves through the Free States.
February 2d. The Senate passed by a vote of 25 to 11, resolutions
appealing to the Southern States to stop the revolution, protesting
against Federal coercion and providing that the Legislature reassemble
on the 24th of April to hear the responses from sister States, also in
favor of making an application to call a National Convention for
proposing amendments to the Constitution of the United States, also by a
vote of 25 to 14 declared it inexpedient at this time to call a State
Convention.
5th. The House by a vote of 54 to 40 passed the above resolutions.
March 22d. State Rights Convention assembled. Adopted resolutions
denouncing any attempt on the part of the Government to collect revenue
as coercion; and affirming that, in case of any such attempt, the border
States should make common cause with the Southern Confederacy. They also
recommended a border State Convention.
April 24th. Gov. Magoffin called an extra session of the Legislature.
May 20th. Gov. Magoffin issued a neutrality proclamation.
September 11th. The House of Representatives by a vote of 71 to 26,
adopted a resolution directing the Governor to issue a proclamation
ordering the Confederate troops to evacuate Kentucky soil. The Governor
vetoed the resolution, which was afterwards passed over his veto, and
accordingly he issued the required proclamation.
October 29th. Southern Conference met at Russellville. H. C. Burnett
elected Chairman, R. McKee Secretary, T. S. Bryan Assistant Secretary.
Remained in secret session two days and then adjourned _sine die_. A
series of resolutions reported by G. W. Johnson were adopted. They
recite the unconstitutional and oppressive acts of the Legislature,
proclaim revolution, provide for a Sovereignty Convention at
Russellville, on the 18th of November, recommend the organization of
county guards, to be placed in the service of and paid by the
Confederate States Government; pledge resistance to all Federal and
State taxes, for the prosecution of the war on the part of the United
States; and appoint Robert McKee, John C. Breckinridge, Humphrey
Marshall, Geo. W. Ewing, H. W. Bruce, Geo. B. Hodge, William Preston,
Geo. W. Johnson, Blanton Duncan, and P. B. Thompson to carry out the
resolutions.
November 18th. Convention met and remained in session three days.
20th. It passed a Declaration of Independence and an Ordinance of
Secession. A Provisional Government consisting of a Governor,
Legislative Council of ten, a Treasurer, and an Auditor were agreed
upon. Geo. W. Johnson was chosen Governor. Legislative Council were:
Willis B. Machen, John W. Crockett, James P. Bates, Jas. S. Chrisman,
Phil. B. Thompson, J. P. Burnside, H. W. Bruce, J. W. Moore, E. M.
Bruce, Geo. B. Hodge.
MARYLAND.
Nov. 27th, 1860. Gov. Hicks declined to call a special session of the
Legislature, in response to a request for such convening from Thomas G.
Pratt, Sprigg Harwood, J. S. Franklin, N. H. Green, Llewellyn Boyle, and
J. Pinkney.
December 19th. Gov. Hicks replied to A. H. Handy, Commissioner from
Mississippi, declining to accept the programme of Secession.
20th. Wm. H. Collins, Esq., of Baltimore, issued an address to the
people, in favor of the Union, and in March a second address.
31st. The “Clipper” denied the existence of an organization in Maryland
to prevent the inauguration of President Lincoln.
A. H. Handy of Mississippi addressed citizens of Baltimore in favor of
disunion.
January 3d, 1861. Henry Winter Davis issued an address in favor of the
Union.
3d. Numerous Union meetings in various part of the State. Gov. Hicks
issued an address to the people against secession.
11th. John C. Legrand in a letter to Hon. Reverdy Johnson replied to the
Union speech of the latter.
14th. James Carroll, former Democratic candidate for Governor, announced
his desire to go with the seceding States.
16th. Wm. A. Spencer, in a letter to Walter S. Cox, Esq., declared
against the right of Secession but for a Convention.
16. Marshal Kane, in a letter to Mayor Berrett, denied that any
organization exists to prevent the inauguration of President Lincoln,
and said that the President elect would need no armed escort in passing
through or sojourning within the limits of Baltimore and Maryland.
24th. Coleman Yellott declared for a Convention.
30th. Messrs. John B. Brooke, President of the Senate, and E. G.
Kilbourn, Speaker of the House of Delegates, asked the Governor to
convene the Legislature in response to public meetings. Senator Kennedy
published his opinion that Maryland must go with Virginia.
February 18th. State Conference Convention held, and insisted upon a
meeting of the Legislature. At a meeting in Howard Co., which Speaker E.
G. Kilbourn addressed, a resolution was adopted that “immediate steps
ought to be taken for the establishment of a Southern Confederacy, by
consultation and co-operation with such other Southern and Slave States
as may be ready therefor.”
April 21st. Gov. Hicks wrote to Gen. Butler, advising that he do not
land his troops at Annapolis. Butler replied that he intended to land
there and march thence to Washington. Gov. Hicks protested against this
and also against his having taken forcible possession of the Annapolis
and Elkridge railroad.
24th. A special election of ten delegates to the Legislature took place
at Baltimore. The total vote cast in all the wards was 9,249. The total
vote cast at the Presidential election in November, 1860, was 30,148.
26th. Legislature reassembled at Frederick, Annapolis being occupied by
Union troops.
29th. Gov. Hicks sent a message to the Legislature communicating to them
the correspondence between himself and Gen. Butler and the Secretary of
War relative to the landing of troops at Annapolis.
The House of Delegates voted against Secession, 53 to 13. Senate
unanimously.
May 2d. The Committee on Federal Relations, “in view of the seizure of
the railroads by the General Government and the erection of
fortifications,” presented resolutions appointing Commissioners to the
President to ascertain whether any becoming arrangements with the
General Government are practicable, for the maintenance of the peace and
honor of the State and the security of its inhabitants. The report was
adopted, and Otho Scott, Robt. M. McLane, and Wm. J. Ross were appointed
such Commissioners.
Mr. Yellott in the Senate introduced a bill to appoint a Board of Public
Safety. The powers given to the Board included the expenditure of the
two millions of dollars proposed by Mr. Brune for the defence of the
State, and the entire control of the military, including the removal and
appointment of commissioned officers. It was ordered to a second reading
by a vote of 14 to 8. The Board was to consist of Ezekiel F. Chambers,
Enoch Louis Lowe, John V. L. MacMahon, Thomas G. Pratt, Walter Mitchell,
and Thomas Winans. Gov. Hicks was made _ex-officio_ a member of the
Board. This measure was strongly pressed by the Disunionists for a long
time, but they were finally compelled to give way, and the bill never
passed.
6th. The Commissioners reported the result of their interview with the
President, and expressed the opinion that some modification of the
course of the General Government towards Maryland ought to be expected.
10th. The House of Delegates passed a series of resolutions reported by
the Committee on Federal Relations by a vote of 43 to 12. The
resolutions declare that Maryland protests against the war, and does
earnestly beseech and implore the President of the United States to make
peace with the “Confederate” States; also, that “the State of Maryland
desires the peaceful and immediate recognition of the independence of
the Confederate States.” Those who voted in the negative are Messrs.
Medders, Lawson, Keene, Routzahn, Naill, Wilson of Harford, Bayless,
McCoy, Fiery, Stake, McCleary, and Gorsuch.
13th. Both Houses adopted a resolution providing for a committee of
eight members, (four from each House) to visit the President of the
United States and the President of the Southern Confederacy. The
committee to visit President Davis were instructed to convey the
assurance that Maryland sympathizes with the Confederate States, and
that the people of Maryland are enlisted with their whole hearts on the
side of reconciliation and peace.
June 11th. Messrs. McKaig, Yellott and Harding, Commissioners to visit
President Davis, presented their report; accompanying which is a letter
from Jefferson Davis, expressing his gratification to hear that the
State of Maryland was in sympathy with themselves, was enlisted on the
side of peace and reconciliation, and avowing his perfect willingness
for a cessation of hostilities, and a readiness to receive any
proposition for peace from the United States Government.
20th. The House of Delegates, and June 22d, the Senate adopted
resolutions unqualifiedly protesting against the arrest of Ross Winans
and sundry other citizens of Maryland, as an “oppressive and tyrannical
assertion and exercise of military jurisdiction within the limits of
Maryland, over the persons and property of her citizens, by the
Government of the United States.”
MISSOURI.
January 15th, 1861. Senate passed Convention Bill—yeas 31, nays 2.
Passed House also.
February 28th. Convention met; motion to go into secret session,
defeated. A resolution requiring members to take an oath to support the
Constitution of the United States and the State of Missouri, was lost—65
against 30.
March 4. Resolution passed, 64 yeas, 35 nays, appointing committee to
notify Mr. Glenn, Commissioner of Georgia, that the Convention was ready
to hear any communication from his State. Mr. Glenn was introduced, read
Georgia’s articles of secession, and made a speech urging Missouri to
join her.
5th. Resolutions were read, ordering that the protest of St. Louis
against coercion be reduced to writing, and a copy sent to the President
of the United States; also, resolutions were adopted informing the
Commissioner from Georgia that Missouri dissented from the position
taken by that State, and refused to share the honors of secession with
her.
6th. Resolutions were offered by several members and referred, calling a
Convention of the Southern States which have not seceded, to meet at
Nashville, April 15th, providing for such amendments to the Constitution
of the United States as shall secure to all the States equal rights in
the Union, and declaring strongly against secession.
9th. The Committee on Federal Relations reported a series of
resolutions, setting forth that at present there is no adequate cause to
impel Missouri to leave the Union, but that on the contrary she will
labor for such an adjustment of existing troubles as will secure peace
and the rights and equality of all the States; that the people of
Missouri regard the amendments to the Constitution proposed by Mr.
Crittenden, with their extension to territory hereafter to be required,
a basis of adjustment which would forever remove all difficulties; and
that it is expedient for the Legislature to call a Convention for
proposing amendments to the Constitution.
The Senate passed resolutions that their Senators be instructed, and
their Representatives requested, to oppose the passage of all acts
granting supplies of men and money to coerce the seceding States into
submission or subjugation; and that, should such acts be passed by
Congress, their Senators be instructed, and their Representatives
requested, to retire from the halls of Congress.
16th. An amendment of the fifth resolution of the majority report of the
Committee on Federal Relations, asserting that Missouri would never
countenance nor aid a seceding State in making war upon the General
Government, nor provide men and money for the purpose of aiding the
General Government to coerce a seceding State, was voted down.
27th. The following resolution was passed by a vote in the House of 62
against 42:—
_Resolved_, That it is inexpedient for the General Assembly to take any
steps for calling a National Convention to propose amendments to the
Constitution, as recommended by the State Convention.
July 22d. The Convention reassembled.
23d. Resolution passed, by a vote of 65 to 21, declaring the office of
President, held by General Sterling Price at the last session of the
Convention, vacant. A committee of seven were appointed to report what
action they deem it advisable to take in the dislocated condition of the
State.
25th. The committee presented their report. It alludes at length to
the present unparalleled condition of things, the reckless course of
the recent Government, and flight of the Governor and other State
officers from the capitol. It declares the offices of Governor,
Lieutenant-Governor, and Secretary of State vacant, and provides that
their vacancies shall be filled by the Convention, the officers so
appointed to hold their positions till August, 1862, at which time it
provides for a special election by the people. It repeals the ninth
section of the sixth article of the Constitution, and provides that
the Supreme Court of the State shall consist of seven members; and
that four members, in addition to the three now comprising the Court,
shall be appointed by the Governor chosen by this Convention to hold
office till 1862, when the people shall decide whether the change
shall be permanent. It abolishes the State Legislature, and ordains
that in case, before the 1st of August, 1862, the Governor chosen by
this Convention shall consider the public exigencies demand, he shall
order a special election for the members of the State Legislature. It
recommends the passage of an ordinance repealing the following bills,
passed by the Legislature in secret session, in May last: The military
fund bill, the bill to suspend the distribution of the school fund,
and the bill for cultivating friendly relations with the Indian
tribes. It repeals the bill authorizing the appointment of one
major-general of the Missouri militia, and revives the militia law of
1859.
A resolution was passed that a committee of seven be appointed by the
President to prepare an address to the people of the State of Missouri.
November 26th. Jefferson Davis transmitted to the “Confederate” Congress
a message concerning the secession of Missouri. It was accompanied by a
letter from Governor Jackson, and also by an act dissolving the union
with the United States, and an act ratifying the Constitution of the
Provisional Government of the Confederate States; also, the Convention
between the Commissioners of Missouri and the Commissioners of the
Confederate States. Congress unanimously ratified the Convention entered
into between the Hon. R. M. T. Hunter for the rebel Government and the
Commissioners for Missouri.
Inter-State Commissioners.
The seceding States, as part of their plan of operation, appointed
Commissioners to visit other slaveholding States. They were as follows,
as announced in the newspapers:
_South Carolina._
To Alabama, A. P. Calhoun.
To Georgia, James L. Orr, Ex-M. C.
To Florida, L. W. Spratt.
To Mississippi, M. L. Bonham, Ex-M. C.
To Louisiana, J. L. Manning.
To Arkansas, A. C. Spain.
To Texas, J. B. Kershaw.
To Virginia, John S. Preston.
_Alabama._
To North Carolina, Isham W. Garrett.
To Mississippi, E. W. Pettus.
To South Carolina, J. A. Elmore.
To Maryland, A. F. Hopkins.
To Virginia, Frank Gilmer.
To Tennessee, L. Pope Walker.
To Kentucky, Stephen F. Hale.
To Arkansas, John Anthony Winston.
_Georgia._
To Missouri, Luther J. Glenn.
To Virginia, Henry L. Benning.
_Mississippi._
To South Carolina, C. E. Hooker.
To Alabama, Jos. W. Matthews, Ex-Gov.
To Georgia, William L. Harris.
To Louisiana, Wirt Adams.
To Texas, H. H. Miller.
To Arkansas, George R. Fall.
To Florida, E. M. Yerger.
To Tennessee, T. J. Wharton, Att’y-Gen.
To Kentucky, W. S. Featherstone, Ex-M. C.
To North Carolina. Jacob Thompson, Ex-M. C.
To Virginia, Fulton Anderson.
To Maryland, A. H. Handy, Judge.
To Delaware, Henry Dickinson.
To Missouri, —— Russell.
Southern Congress.
This body, composed of Deputies elected by the Conventions of the
Seceding States, met at Montgomery, Alabama, February 4th, 1861, to
organize a Southern Confederacy. Each State had a representation equal
to the number of members of the Thirty-sixth Congress. The members were:
_South Carolina._
Robert W. Barnwell, Ex-U. S. Senator.
R. Barnwell Rhett, „ „ „
James Chestnut, jr., „ „ „
Lawrence M. Keitt, Ex-M. C.
William W. Boyce, „ „
Wm. Porcher Miles, „ „
C. G. Memminger.
Thomas J. Withers.
_Alabama._
W. P. Chilton.
Stephen F. Hale.
David P. Lewis.
Thomas Fearn.
Richard W. Walker.
Robert H. Smith.
Colin J. McRae.
John Gill Shorter.
J. L. M. Curry, Ex-M. C.
_Florida._
J. Patten Anderson, Ex-Delegate from Washington Territory.
Jackson Morton, Ex-U. S. Senator.
James Powers.
_Mississippi._
W. S. Wilson.
Wiley P. Harris, Ex-M. C.
James T. Harrison.
Walter Brooke, Ex-U. S. Senator.
William S. Barry, Ex-M. C.
A. M. Clayton.
_Georgia._
Robert Toombs, Ex-U. S. Senator.
Howell Cobb, Ex-M. C.
Martin J. Crawford, „ „
Augustus R. Wright, „ „
Augustus H. Keenan.
Benjamin H. Hill.
Francis S. Bartow.
E. A. Nisbet.
Thomas R. R. Cobb.
Alexander H. Stephens, Ex-M. C.
_Louisiana._
Duncan F. Kenner.
Charles M. Conrad, Ex-U. S. Senator.
Henry Marshall.
John Perkins, jr.
G. E. Sparrow.
E. De Clouet.
_Texas._
(Admitted March 2d, 1861.)
Louis T. Wigfall, Ex-U. S. Senator.
John Hemphill, „ „ „
John H. Reagan, Ex-M. C.
T. N. Waul.
John Gregg.
W. S. Oldham.
W. B. Ochiltree.
Proceedings of the Southern Congress.
February 4th, 1861. Howell Cobb of Georgia elected President, Johnson J.
Hooper of Alabama, Secretary. Mr. Cobb announced that secession “is now
a fixed and irrevocable fact, and the separation is perfect, complete
and perpetual.”
6th. David L. Swain, M. W. Ransom, and John L. Bridgers, were admitted
as Commissioners from North Carolina, under resolutions of the General
Assembly of that State, passed January 29th, 1861, “to effect an
honorable and amicable adjustment of all the difficulties that disturb
the country, upon the basis of the Crittenden resolutions, as modified
by the Legislature of Virginia,” and to consult with the delegates to
the Southern Congress for their “common peace, honor and safety.”
7th. Congress notified that the State of Alabama had placed $500,000 at
its disposal, as a loan to the provisional government of the Confederacy
of Seceding States.
8th. The Constitution of the Provisional Government adopted.[8]
9th. Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi, elected Provisional President of
the Confederate States of America, and Alexander H. Stephens, of
Georgia, Vice-President. The question of attacking Fort Sumter has been
referred to the Congress.
11th. Mr. Stephens announced his acceptance. Committee appointed to
prepare a permanent Constitution.
12th. The Congress assumed “charge of all questions and difficulties now
existing between the sovereign States of this Confederacy and the
Government of the United States, relating to the occupation of forts,
arsenals, navy yards, custom-houses, and all other public
establishments.” The resolution was directed to be communicated to the
Governors of the respective States of the Confederacy.
15th. Official copy of the Texas Ordinance of Secession presented.
16th. President Davis arrived and received with salute, etc.
18th. President Davis inaugurated.
19th. Tariff law passed.
21st. Robert Toombs appointed Secretary of the State; C. G. Memminger,
Secretary of the Treasury; L. Pope Walker, of Alabama, Secretary of War;
Stephen R. Mallory, Secretary of the Navy; Judah P. Benjamin,
Attorney-General, and John H. Reagan, Postmaster-General; Philip
Clayton, of Georgia appointed Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, and
Wm. M. Browne, late of the Washington _Constitution_, Assistant
Secretary of State.
March 2d. The Texas Deputies received.
The Confederate States.
The Confederate States was the name of the government formed in 1861 by
the seven States which first seceded. Belligerent rights were accorded
to it by the leading naval powers, but it was never recognized as a
government, notwithstanding the persevering efforts of its agents near
the principal courts. This result was mainly due to the diplomacy of the
federal Secretary of State, Wm. H. Seward, to the proclamations of
emancipation in 1862–3, which secured the sympathy of the best elements
of Great Britain and France for the federal government, and the
obstinate persistence of the federal government in avoiding, as far as
possible, any recognition of the existence, even _de facto_, of a
confederate government. The federal generals in the field, in their
communications with confederate officers, did not hesitate, upon
occasion, even to give “president” Davis his official title, but no such
embarrassing precedent was ever admitted by the civil government of the
United States. It at first endeavored, until checked by active
preparations for retaliation, to treat the crews of confederate
privateers as pirates; it avoided any official communication with the
confederate government, even when compelled to exchange prisoners,
confining its negotiations to the confederate commissioners of exchange;
and, by its persistent policy in this direction, it succeeded, without
any formal declaration, in impressing upon foreign governments the
belief that any recognition of the confederate States as a separate
people would be actively resented by the government of the United States
as an act of excessive unfriendliness. The federal courts have steadily
held the same ground, that “the confederate states was an unlawful
assemblage, without corporate power;” and that, though the separate
States were still in existence and were indestructible, their state
governments, while they chose to act as part of the confederate States,
did not exist, even _de facto_. Early in January, 1861, while only South
Carolina had actually seceded, though other Southern States had called
conventions to consider the question, the Senators of the seven States
farthest South practically assumed control of the whole movement, and
their energy and unswerving singleness of purpose, aided by the
telegraph, secured a rapidity of execution to which no other very
extensive conspiracy of history can afford a parallel. The ordinance of
secession was a negative instrument, purporting to withdraw the state
from the Union and to deny the authority of the federal government over
the people of the State; the cardinal object of the senatorial group was
to hurry the formation of a new national government, as an organized
political reality which would rally the outright secessionists, claim
the allegiance of the doubtful mass, and coerce those who still remained
recalcitrant. At the head of the senatorial group, and of its executive
committee, was Jefferson Davis, Senator from Mississippi, and naturally
the first official step toward the formation of a new government came
from the Mississippi Legislature, where a committee reported, January
19th, 1861, resolutions in favor of a congress of delegates from the
seceding States to provide for a southern confederacy, and to establish
a provisional government, therefore. The other seceding States at once
accepted the proposal, through their State conventions, which also
appointed the delegates on the ground that the people had intrusted the
State conventions with unlimited powers. The new government therefore
began its existence without any popular ratio of representation, and
with only such popular ratification as popular acquiescence gave. The
provisional congress met Feb. 4th, at Montgomery, Ala., with delegates
from South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, Florida and
Mississippi. The Texas delegates were not appointed until Feb. 14th.
Feb. 8th, a provisional constitution was adopted, being the constitution
of the United States, with some changes. Feb. 9th, Jefferson Davis, of
Mississippi, was unanimously chosen provisional president, and Alexander
H. Stephens, of Georgia, provisional vice-president, each State having
one vote, as in all other proceedings of the body. By acts of Feb. 9th
and 12th, the laws and revenue officers of the United States were
continued in the confederate States until changed. Feb. 18th, the
president and vice-president were inaugurated. Feb. 20th–26th, executive
departments and a confederate regular army were organized, and provision
was made for borrowing money. March 11th, the permanent constitution was
adopted by Congress.
The Internal legislation of the provisional congress was, at first,
mainly the adaptation of the civil service in the Southern States to the
uses of the new government. Wherever possible, judges, postmasters, and
civil as well as military and naval officers, who had resigned from the
service of the United States, were given an equal or higher rank in the
confederate service. Postmasters were directed to make their final
accounting to the United States, May 31st, thereafter accounting to the
Confederate States. April 29th, the provisional congress, which had
adjourned March 16th, reassembled at Montgomery, having been convoked by
President Davis in consequence of President Lincoln’s preparations to
enforce federal authority in the South. Davis’ message announced that
all the seceding States had ratified the permanent constitution; that
Virginia, which had not yet seceded and entered into alliance with the
confederacy, and that other States, were expected to follow the same
plan. He concluded by declaring that “all we ask is to be let alone.”
May 6th, an act was passed recognizing the existence of war with the
United States. Congress adjourned May 22d, reconvened at Richmond, Va.,
July 20th, and adjourned August 22d, until November 18th. Its
legislation had been mainly military and financial. Virginia, North
Carolina, Tennessee and Arkansas, had passed ordinances of secession,
and been admitted to the confederacy. (See the States named, and
secession.) Although Missouri and Kentucky had not seceded, delegates
from these States were admitted in December 1861. Nov. 6, 1861, at an
election under the permanent constitution, Davis and Stephens were again
chosen to their respective offices by a unanimous electoral vote. Feb.
18th, 1862, the provisional congress (of one house) gave way to the
permanent congress, and Davis and Stephens were inaugurated February
22nd. The cabinet, with the successive Secretaries of each department,
was as follows, including both the provisional and permanent cabinets:
_State Department._—Robert Toombs, Georgia, February 21st, 1861; R. M.
T. Hunter, Virginia, July 30th, 1861; Judah P. Benjamin, Louisiana,
February 7th, 1862.
_Treasury Department._—Charles G. Memminger, South Carolina, February
21st, 1861, and March 22d, 1862; James L. Trenholm, South Carolina, June
13th, 1864.
_War Department._—L. Pope Walker, Mississippi, February 21st, 1861;
Judah P. Benjamin, Louisiana, November 10th, 1861; James A. Seddon,
Virginia, March 22d, 1862; John C. Breckinridge, Kentucky, February
15th, 1865.
_Navy Department._—Stephen R. Mallory, Florida, March 4th, 1861, and
March 22d.
_Attorney-General._—Judah P. Benjamin, Louisiana, February 21st, 1861;
Thomas H. Watts, Alabama, September 10th, 1861, and March 22nd, 1862;
George Davis, North Carolina, November 10th, 1863.
_Postmaster-General._—Henry J. Elliot, Mississippi, February 21st, 1865;
John H. Reagan, Texas, March 6th, 1861, and March 22d, 1862.
The provisional Congress held four sessions, as follows: 1. February
4–March 16th, 1861; 2. April 29–May 22d, 1861; 3. July 20–August 22d,
1861; and 4. November 18th, 1861–February 17th, 1862.
Under the permanent Constitution there were two Congresses. The first
Congress held four sessions, as follows: 1. February 18–April 21st,
1862; 2. August 12–October 13th, 1862; 3. January 12–May 8th 1863; and
4. December 7, 1863–February 18th, 1864. The second Congress held two
sessions, as follows: 1. May 2–June 15th, 1864; and 2. From November
7th, 1864, until the hasty and final adjournment, March 18th, 1865.
In the first Congress members chosen by rump State conventions, or by
regiments in the confederate service, sat for districts in Missouri and
Kentucky, though these States had never seceded. There were thus
thirteen States in all represented at the close of the first Congress;
but, as the area of the Confederacy narrowed before the advance of the
Federal armies, the vacancies in the second Congress became
significantly more numerous. At its best estate the Confederate Senate
numbered 26, and the house 106, as follows: Alabama, 9; Arkansas, 4;
Florida, 2; Georgia, 10; Kentucky, 12; Louisiana, 6; Mississippi, 1;
Missouri, 7; North Carolina, 10; South Carolina, 6; Tennessee, 11;
Texas, 6; Virginia, 16. In both Congresses Thomas S. Bocock, of
Virginia, was Speaker of the House.[9]
For four months between the Presidential election and the inauguration
of Mr. Lincoln those favoring secession in the South had practical
control of their section, for while President Buchanan hesitated as to
his constitutional powers, the more active partisans in his Cabinet were
aiding their Southern friends in every practical way. In answer to the
visiting Commissioners from South Carolina, Messrs. R. W. Barnwell, J.
H. Adams and Jas. L. Orr, who formally submitted that State’s ordinance
of secession, and demanded possession of the forts in Charleston harbor,
Buchanan said:—
“In answer to this communication, I have to say that my position as
President of the United States was clearly defined in the message to
Congress on the 3d inst. In that I stated that ‘apart from the execution
of the laws, so far as this may be practicable, the Executive has no
authority to decide what shall be the relations between the Federal
Government and South Carolina. He has been invested with no such
discretion. He possesses no power to change the relations heretofore
existing between them, much less to acknowledge the independence of that
State. This would be to invest a mere executive officer with the power
of recognizing the dissolution of the Confederacy among our thirty-three
sovereign States. It bears no resemblance to the recognition of a
foreign _de facto_ Government, involving no such responsibility. Any
attempt to do this would, on his part, be a naked act of usurpation. It
is, therefore, my duty to submit to Congress the whole question in all
its bearings.’
“Such is my opinion still. I could, therefore, meet you only as private
gentlemen of the highest character, and was entirely willing to
communicate to Congress any proposition you might have to make to that
body upon the subject. Of this you were well aware. It was my earnest
desire that such a disposition might be made of the whole subject by
Congress, who alone possess the power, as to prevent the inauguration of
a civil war between the parties in regard to the possession of the
Federal forts in the harbor of Charleston.”
Further correspondence followed between the President and other seceding
State Commissioners, and the attitude of the former led to the following
changes in his Cabinet: December 12th, 1860, LEWIS CASS resigned as
Secretary of State, because the President declined to reinforce the
forts in Charleston harbor. December 17th, JEREMIAH S. BLACK was
appointed his successor.
December 10th, HOWELL COBB, resigned as Secretary of the Treasury—“his
duty to Georgia requiring it.” December 12th, PHILIP F. THOMAS was
appointed his successor, and resigned, January 11th, 1861, because
differing from the President and a majority of the Cabinet, “in the
measures which have been adopted in reference to the recent condition of
things in South Carolina,” especially “touching the authority, under
existing laws, to enforce the collection of the customs at the port of
Charleston.” January 11th, 1861, JOHN A. DIX appointed his successor.
29th, JOHN B. FLOYD resigned as Secretary of War, because, after the
transfer of Major Anderson’s command from Fort Moultrie to Fort Sumter,
the President declined “to withdraw the garrison from the harbor of
Charleston altogether.”
December 31st, JOSEPH HOLT, Postmaster-General, was entrusted with the
temporary charge of the War Department, and January 18th, 1861, was
appointed Secretary of War.
January 8th, 1861, JACOB THOMPSON resigned as Secretary of the Interior,
because “additional troops, he had heard, have been ordered to
Charleston” in the Star of the West.
December 17th, 1860, JEREMIAH S. BLACK resigned as Attorney-General, and
EDWIN M. STANTON, December 20th, was appointed his successor.
January 18th, 1861, JOSEPH HOLT resigned as Postmaster-General, and
HORATIO KING, February 12th, 1861, was appointed his successor.
President Buchanan, in his annual message of December 3d, 1860, appealed
to Congress to institute an amendment to the constitution recognizing
the rights of the Southern States in regard to slavery in the
territories, and as this document embraced the views which subsequently
led to such a general discussion of the right of secession and the right
to coerce a State, we make a liberal quotation from it:—
“I have purposely confined my remarks to revolutionary resistance,
because it has been claimed within the last few years that any State,
whenever this shall be its sovereign will and pleasure, may secede from
the Union in accordance with the Constitution, and without any violation
of the constitutional rights of the other members of the Confederacy.
That as each became parties to the Union by the vote of its own people
assembled in convention, so any one of them may retire from the Union in
a similar manner by the vote of such a convention.
“In order to justify secession as a constitutional remedy, it must be on
the principle that the Federal Government is a mere voluntary
association of States, to be dissolved at pleasure by any one of the
contracting parties. If this be so, the Confederacy is a rope of sand,
to be penetrated and dissolved by the first adverse wave of public
opinion in any of the States. In this manner our thirty-three States may
resolve themselves into as many petty, jarring, and hostile republics,
each one retiring from the Union without responsibility whenever any
sudden excitement might impel them to such a course. By this process a
Union might be entirely broken into fragments in a few weeks, which cost
our forefathers many years of toil, privation, and blood to establish.
“Such a principle is wholly inconsistent with the history as well as the
character of the Federal Constitution. After it was framed with the
greatest deliberation and care, it was submitted to conventions of the
people of the several States for ratification. Its provisions were
discussed at length in these bodies, composed of the first men of the
country. Its opponents contended that it conferred powers upon the
Federal Government dangerous to the rights of the States, whilst its
advocates maintained that, under a fair construction of the instrument,
there was no foundation for such apprehensions. In that mighty struggle
between the first intellects of this or any other country, it never
occurred to any individual, either among its opponents or advocates, to
assert or even to intimate that their efforts were all vain labor,
because the moment that any State felt herself aggrieved she might
secede from the Union. What a crushing argument would this have proved
against those who dreaded that the rights of the States would be
endangered by the Constitution. The truth is, that it was not until some
years after the origin of the Federal Government that such a proposition
was first advanced. It was afterwards met and refuted by the conclusive
arguments of General Jackson, who, in his message of the 16th of
January, 1833, transmitting the nullifying ordinance of South Carolina
to Congress, employs the following language: ‘The right of the people of
a single State to absolve themselves at will and without the consent of
the other States from their most solemn obligations, and hazard the
liberty and happiness of the millions composing this Union, cannot be
acknowledged. Such authority is believed to be utterly repugnant both to
the principles upon which the General Government is constituted, and to
the objects which it was expressly formed to attain.’
“It is not pretended that any clause in the Constitution gives
countenance to such a theory. It is altogether founded upon inference,
not from any language contained in the instrument itself, but from the
sovereign character of the several States by which it was ratified. But
it is beyond the power of a State like an individual, to yield a portion
of its sovereign rights to secure the remainder? In the language of Mr.
Madison, who has been called the father of the Constitution, ‘It was
formed by the States—that is, by the people in each of the States acting
in their highest sovereign capacity, and formed consequently by the same
authority which formed the State constitutions.’ ‘Nor is the Government
of the United States, created by the Constitution, less a Government, in
the strict sense of the term within the sphere of its powers, than the
governments created by the constitutions of the States are within their
several spheres. It is like them organized into legislative, executive,
and judiciary departments. It operates, like them, directly on persons
and things; and, like them, it has at command a physical force for
executing the powers committed to it.’
“It was intended to be perpetual, and not to be annulled at the pleasure
of any one of the contracting parties. The old Articles of Confederation
were entitled ‘Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union between the
States;’ and by the thirteenth article it is expressly declared that
‘the articles of this confederation shall be inviolably observed by
every State, and the Union shall be perpetual.’ The preamble to the
constitution of the United States, having express reference to the
Articles of Confederation, recites that it was established ‘in order to
form a more perfect union.’ And yet it is contended that this ‘more
perfect union’ does not include the essential attribute of perpetuity.
“But that the Union was designed to be perpetual, appears conclusively
from the nature and extent of the powers conferred by the Constitution
of the Federal Government. These powers embrace the very highest
attributes of national sovereignty. They place both the sword and purse
under its control. Congress has power to make war and to make peace; to
raise and support armies and navies, and to conclude treaties with
foreign governments. It is invested with the power to coin money, and to
regulate the value thereof, and to regulate commerce with foreign
nations and among the several States. It is not necessary to enumerate
the other high powers which have been conferred upon the Federal
Government. In order to carry the enumerated powers into effect,
Congress possesses the exclusive right to lay and collect duties on
imports, and, in common with the States, to lay and collect all other
taxes.
“But the Constitution has not only conferred these high powers upon
Congress, but it has adopted effectual means to restrain the States from
interfering with their exercise. For that purpose it has in strong
prohibitory language expressly declared that ‘no State shall enter into
any treaty, alliance, or confederation; grant letters of marque and
reprisal; coin money; emit bills of credit; make anything but gold and
silver coin a tender in payment of debts; pass any bill of attainder,
_ex post facto_ law, or law impairing the obligation of contracts.’
Moreover, ‘without the consent of Congress no State shall lay any
imposts or duties on any imports or exports, except what may be
absolutely necessary for executing its inspection laws,’ and if they
exceed this amount, the excess shall belong to the United States. And
‘no State shall, without the consent of Congress, lay any duty of
tonnage, keep troops or ships of war in time of peace, enter into any
agreement or compact with another State, or with a foreign power, or
engage in war, unless actually invaded or in such imminent danger as
will not admit of delay.’
“In order still further to secure the uninterrupted exercise of these
high powers against State interposition, it is provided ‘that this
Constitution and the laws of the United States which shall be made in
pursuance thereof, and all treaties made or which shall be made under
the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the
land; and the judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any thing in
the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.’
“The solemn sanction of religion has been superadded to the obligations
of official duty, and all Senators and Representatives of the United
States, all members of State Legislatures, and all executive and
judicial officers, ‘both of the United States and of the several States,
shall be bound by oath or affirmation to support this Constitution.’
“In order to carry into effect these powers, the Constitution has
established a perfect Government in all its forms, legislative,
executive, and judicial; and this Government to the extent of its powers
acts directly upon the individual citizens of every State, and executes
its own decrees by the agency of its own officers. In this respect it
differs entirely from the Government under the old confederation, which
was confined to making requisitions on the States in their sovereign
character. This left it in the discretion of each whether to obey or
refuse, and they often declined to comply with such requisitions. It
thus became necessary, for the purpose of removing this barrier, and ‘in
order to form a more perfect union,’ to establish a Government which
could act directly upon the people and execute its own laws without the
intermediate agency of the States. This has been accomplished by the
Constitution of the United States. In short, the Government created by
the Constitution, and deriving its authority from the sovereign people
of each of the several States, has precisely the same right to exercise
its power over the people of all these States in the enumerated cases,
that each one of them possesses over subjects not delegated to the
United States, but ‘reserved to the States respectively or to the
people.’
“To the extent of the delegated powers the Constitution of the United
States is as much a part of the constitution of each State, and is as
binding upon its people, as though it had been textually inserted
therein.
“This Government, therefore, is a great and powerful Government,
invested with all the attributes of sovereignty over the special
subjects to which its authority extends. Its framers never intended to
implant in its bosom the seeds of its own destruction nor were they at
its creation guilty of the absurdity of providing for its own
dissolution. It was not intended by its framers to be the baseless
fabric of a vision, which, at the touch of the enchanter, would vanish
into thin air, but a substantial and mighty fabric, capable of resisting
the slow decay of time, and of defying the storms of ages. Indeed, well
may the jealous patriots of that day have indulged fears that a
Government of such high power might violate the reserved rights of the
States, and wisely did they adopt the rule of a strict construction of
these powers to prevent the danger. But they did not fear, nor had they
any reason to imagine that the Constitution would ever be so interpreted
as to enable any State by her own act, and without the consent of her
sister States, to discharge her people from all or any of their federal
obligations.
“It may be asked, then, are the people of the States without redress
against the tyranny and oppression of the Federal Government? By no
means. The right of resistance on the part of the governed against the
oppression of their governments cannot be denied. It exists
independently of all constitutions, and has been exercised at all
periods of the world’s history. Under it, old governments have been
destroyed and new ones have taken their place. It is embodied in strong
and express language in our own Declaration of Independence. But the
distinction must ever be observed that this is revolution against an
established Government, and not a voluntary secession from it by virtue
of an inherent constitutional right. In short, let us look the danger
fairly in the face; secession is neither more nor less than revolution.
It may or it may not be a justifiable revolution; but still it is
revolution.”
The President having thus attempted to demonstrate that the Constitution
affords no warrant for secession, but that this was inconsistent both
with its letter and spirit, then defines his own position. He says:
“What, in the mean time, is the responsibility and true position of the
Executive? He is bound by solemn oath, before God and the country, ‘to
take care that the laws be faithfully executed,’ and from this
obligation he cannot be absolved by any human power. But what if the
performance of this duty, in whole or in part, has been rendered
impracticable by events over which he could have exercised no control?
Such, at the present moment, is the case throughout the State of South
Carolina, so far as the laws of the United States to secure the
administration of justice by means of the Federal judiciary are
concerned. All the Federal officers within its limits, through whose
agency alone these laws can be carried into execution, have already
resigned. We no longer have a district judge, a district attorney, or a
marshal in South Carolina. In fact, the whole machinery of the Federal
government necessary for the distribution of remedial justice among the
people has been demolished, and it would be difficult, if not
impossible, to replace it.
“The only acts of Congress on the statute book bearing upon this subject
are those of the 28th February, 1795, and 3rd March, 1807. These
authorize the President, after he shall have ascertained that the
marshal, with his _posse comitatus_, is unable to execute civil or
criminal process in any particular case, to call forth the militia and
employ the army and navy to aid him in performing this service, having
first by proclamation commanded the insurgents ‘to disperse and retire
peaceably to their respective abodes within a limited time.’ This duty
cannot by possibility be performed in a State where no judicial
authority exists to issue process, and where there is no marshal to
execute it, and where, even if there were such an officer, the entire
population would constitute one solid combination to resist him.
“The bare enumeration of these provisions proves how inadequate they are
without further legislation to overcome a united opposition in a single
State, not to speak of other States who may place themselves in a
similar attitude. Congress alone has power to decide whether the present
laws can or cannot be amended so as to carry out more effectually the
objects of the Constitution.
“The same insuperable obstacles do not lie in the way of executing the
laws for the collection of customs. The revenue still continues to be
collected, as heretofore, at the custom-house in Charleston, and should
the collector unfortunately resign, a successor may be appointed to
perform this duty.
“Then, in regard to the property of the United States in South Carolina.
This has been purchased for a fair equivalent, ‘by the consent of the
Legislature of the State,’ ‘for the erection of forts, magazines,
arsenals,’ &c., and over these the authority ‘to exercise exclusive
legislation’ has been expressly granted by the Constitution to Congress.
It is not believed that any attempt will be made to expel the United
States from this property by force; but if in this I should prove to be
mistaken, the officer in command of the forts has received orders to act
strictly on the defensive. In such a contingency the responsibility for
consequences would rightfully rest upon the heads of the assailants.
“Apart from the execution of the laws, so far as this may be
practicable, the Executive has no authority to decide what shall be the
relations between the Federal Government and South Carolina. He has been
invested with no such discretion. He possesses no power to change the
relations heretofore existing between them, much less to acknowledge the
independence of that State. This would be to invest a mere executive
officer with the power of recognizing the dissolution of the Confederacy
among our thirty-three sovereign States. It bears no relation to the
recognition of a foreign _de facto_ Government, involving no such
responsibility. Any attempt to do this would, on his part, be a naked
act of usurpation. It is, therefore, my duty to submit to Congress the
whole question in all its bearings.”
Then follows the opinion expressed in the message, that the Constitution
has conferred no power on the Federal Government to coerce a _State_ to
remain in the Union. The following is the language: “The question fairly
stated is, ‘Has the Constitution delegated to Congress the power to
coerce a State into submission which is attempting to withdraw, or has
actually withdrawn from the Confederacy?’ If answered in the
affirmative, it must be on the principle that the power has been
conferred upon Congress to make war against a State.
“After much serious reflection, I have arrived at the conclusion that no
such power has been delegated to Congress or to any other department of
the Federal Government. It is manifest, upon an inspection of the
Constitution, that this is not among the specific and enumerated powers
granted to Congress; and it is equally apparent that its exercise is not
‘necessary and proper for carrying into execution’ any one of these
powers. So far from this power having been delegated to Congress, it was
expressly refused by the Convention which framed the Constitution.
“It appears from the proceedings of that body that on the 31st May,
1787, the clause ‘_authorizing an exertion of the force of the whole
against a delinquent State_’ came up for consideration. Mr. Madison
opposed it in a brief but powerful speech, from which I shall extract
but a single sentence. He observed: ‘The use of force against a State
would look more like a declaration of war than an infliction of
punishment, and would probably be considered by the party attacked as a
dissolution of all previous compacts by which it might be bound.’ Upon
his motion the clause was unanimously postponed, and was never, I
believe, again presented. Soon afterwards, on the 8th June, 1787, when
incidentally adverting to the subject, he said: ‘Any government for the
United States, formed on the supposed practicability of using force
against the unconstitutional proceedings of the States, would prove as
visionary and fallacious as the government of Congress,’ evidently
meaning the then existing Congress of the old confederation.”
At the time of the delivery of this message the excitement was very
high. The extreme Southerners differed from it, in so far as it disputed
both the right of revolution and secession under the circumstances, but
quickly made a party battle cry of the denial of the right of the
National Government to coerce a State—a view which for a time won the
President additional friends, but which in the end solidified all
friends of the Union against his administration. To show the doubt which
this ingenious theory caused, we quote from the speech of Senator Andrew
Johnson, of Tennessee (subsequently Vice-President and acting
President), delivered Dec. 18th, 1860, (Congressional Globe, page 119):—
“I do not believe the Federal Government has the power to coerce a
State, for by the eleventh amendment of the Constitution of the United
States it is expressly provided that you cannot even put one of the
States of this confederacy before one of the courts of the country as a
party. As a State, the Federal Government has no power to coerce it; but
it is a member of the compact to which it agreed in common with the
other States, and this Government has the right to pass laws, and to
enforce those laws upon individuals within the limits of each State.
While the one proposition is clear, the other is equally so. This
Government can, by the Constitution of the country, and by the laws
enacted in conformity with the Constitution, operate upon individuals,
and has the right and power, not to coerce a State, but to enforce and
execute the law upon individuals within the limits of a State.”
Senator Jefferson Davis of Mississippi, publicly objected to the message
because of its earnest argument against secession, and the determination
expressed to collect the revenue in the ports of South Carolina, by
means of a naval force, and to defend the public property. From this
moment they alienated themselves from the President. Soon thereafter,
when he refused to withdraw Major Anderson from Fort Sumter, on the
demand of the self-styled South Carolina Commissioners, the separation
became complete. For more than two months before the close of the
session all friendly intercourse between them and the President, whether
of a political or social character, had ceased.
The Crittenden Compromise.
Congress referred the request in the message, to adopt amendments to the
constitution recognizing the rights of the Slave States to take slavery
into the territories to a committee of thirteen, consisting of five
Republicans: Messrs. Seward, Collamer, Wade, Doolittle, and Grimes; five
from slaveholding States: Messrs. Powell, Hunter, Crittenden, Toombs,
and Davis; and three Northern Democrats; Messrs. Douglas, Bigler, and
Bright. The latter three were intended to act as mediators between the
extreme parties on the committee.
The committee first met on the 21st December, 1860, and preliminary to
any other proceeding, they “resolved that no proposition shall be
reported as adopted, unless sustained by a majority of each of the
classes of the committee; Senators of the Republican party to constitute
one class, and Senators of the other parties to constitute the other
class.” This resolution was passed, because any report they might make
to the Senate would be in vain unless sanctioned by at least a majority
of the five Republican Senators. On the next day (the 22d), Mr.
Crittenden submitted to the committee “A Joint Resolution” (the same
which he had two days before presented to the Senate), “proposing
certain amendments to the Constitution of the United States,” now known
as the Crittenden Compromise. This was truly a compromise of conflicting
claims, because it proposed that the South should surrender their
adjudged right to take slaves into all our Territories, provided the
North would recognize this right in the Territories south of the old
Missouri Compromise line. The committee rejected this compromise, every
one of its five Republican members, together with Messrs. Davis and
Toombs, from the cotton States, having voted against it. Indeed, not one
of all the Republicans in the Senate, at any period or in any form,
voted in its favor.
The committee, having failed to arrive at a satisfactory conclusion,
reported their disagreement to the Senate on the 31st December, 1860, in
a resolution declaring that they had “not been able to agree upon any
general plan of adjustment.”
Mr. Crittenden did not despair of ultimate success, notwithstanding his
defeat before the Committee of Thirteen. After this, indeed, he could no
longer expect to carry his compromise as an amendment to the
Constitution by the necessary two-thirds vote of Congress. It was,
therefore, postponed by the Senate on his own motion. As a substitute
for it he submitted to the Senate, on the 3d January, 1861, a joint
resolution, which might be passed by a majority of both Houses. This was
to refer his rejected amendment, by an ordinary act of Congress, to a
direct vote of the people of the several States.
He offered his resolution in the following language: “Whereas the Union
is in danger, and, owing to the unhappy division existing in Congress,
it would be difficult, if not impossible, for that body to concur in
both its branches by the requisite majority, so as to enable it either
to adopt such measures of legislation, or to recommend to the States
such amendments to the Constitution, as are deemed necessary and proper
to avert that danger; and whereas in so great an emergency the opinion
and judgment of the people ought to be heard, and would be the best and
surest guide to their Representatives; Therefore, _Resolved_, That
provision ought to be made by law without delay for taking the sense of
the people and submitting to their vote the following resolution [the
same as in his former amendment], as the basis for the final and
permanent settlement of those disputes that now disturb the peace of the
country and threaten the existence of the Union.”
Memorials in its favor poured into Congress from portions of the North,
even from New England. One of these presented to the Senate was from
“the Mayor and members of the Board of Aldermen and the Common Council
of the city of Boston, and over 22,000 citizens of the State of
Massachusetts, praying the adoption of the compromise measures proposed
by Mr. Crittenden.” It may be proper here to observe that the resolution
of Mr. Crittenden did not provide in detail for holding elections by
which “the sense of the people” could be ascertained. To supply this
omission, Senator Bigler, of Pennsylvania, on the 14th January, 1861,
brought in “A bill to provide for taking the sense of the people of the
United States on certain proposed amendments to the Constitution of the
United States;” but never was he able to induce the Senate even to
consider this bill.
President Buchanan exerted all his influence in favor of these measures.
In his special message to Congress of the 8th of January, 1861, after
depicting the consequences which had already resulted to the country
from the bare apprehension of civil war and the dissolution of the
Union, he says:
“Let the question be transferred from political assemblies to the
ballot-box, and the people themselves would speedily redress the serious
grievances which the South have suffered. But, in Heaven’s name, let the
trial be made before we plunge into armed conflict upon the mere
assumption that there is no other alternative. Time is a great
conservative power. Let us pause at this momentous point, and afford the
people, both North and South, an opportunity for reflection. Would that
South Carolina had been convinced of this truth before her precipitate
action! I, therefore, appeal through you to the people of the country,
to declare in their might that the Union must and shall be preserved by
all constitutional means. I most earnestly recommend that you devote
yourselves exclusively to the question how this can be accomplished in
peace. All other questions, when compared with this, sink into
insignificance. The present is no time for palliatives; action, prompt
action is required. A delay in Congress to prescribe or to recommend a
distinct and practical proposition for conciliation, may drive us to a
point from which it will be almost impossible to recede.
“A common ground on which conciliation and harmony can be produced is
surely not unattainable. The proposition to compromise by letting the
North have exclusive control of the territory above a certain line, and
to give Southern institutions protection below that line, ought to
receive universal approbation. In itself, indeed, it may not be entirely
satisfactory, but when the alternative is between a reasonable
concession on both sides and a dissolution of the Union, it is an
imputation on the patriotism of Congress to assert that its members will
hesitate for a moment.”
This recommendation was totally disregarded. On the 14th January, 1861,
Mr. Crittenden made an unsuccessful attempt to have it considered, but
it was postponed until the day following. On this day it was again
postponed by the vote of every Republican Senator present, in order to
make way for the Pacific Railroad bill. On the third attempt (January
16,) he succeeded, but by a majority of a single vote, in bringing his
resolution before the body. Every Republican Senator present voted
against its consideration. Mr. Clark, a Republican Senator from New
Hampshire, moved to strike out the entire preamble and resolution of Mr.
Crittenden, and in lieu thereof insert as a substitute a preamble and
resolution in accordance with the Chicago platform. This motion
prevailed by a vote of 25 to 23, every Republican Senator present having
voted in its favor. Thus Mr. Crittenden’s proposition to refer the
question to the people was buried under the Clark amendment. This
continued to be its position for more than six weeks, until the day
before the final adjournment of Congress, 2d March, when the proposition
itself was defeated by a vote of 19 in the affirmative against 20 in the
negative.
The Clark Amendment prevailed only in consequence of the refusal of six
Secession Senators to vote against it. These were Messrs. Benjamin and
Slidell, of Louisiana; Mr. Iverson, of Georgia; Messrs. Hemphill and
Wigfall, of Texas; and Mr. Johnson, of Arkansas. Had these gentleman
voted with the border slaveholding States and the other Democratic
Senators, the Clark Amendment would have been defeated, and the Senate
would then have been brought to a direct vote on the Crittenden
resolution.
It is proper for reference that the names of those Senators who
constituted the majority on this question, should be placed upon record.
Every vote given from the six New England States was in opposition to
Mr. Crittenden’s resolution. These consisted of Mr. Clark, of New
Hampshire; Messrs. Sumner and Wilson, of Massachusetts; Mr. Anthony, of
Rhode Island; Messrs. Dixon and Foster, of Connecticut; Mr. Foot, of
Vermont; and Mr. Fessenden, of Maine. The remaining twelve votes, in
order to make up the 20, were given by Messrs. Bingham and Wade, of
Ohio; Mr. Trumbull, of Illinois; Messrs. Bingham and Chandler, of
Michigan; Messrs. Grimes and Harlan, of Iowa; Messrs. Doolittle and
Durkee, of Wisconsin; Mr. Wilkinson, of Minnesota; Mr. King, of New
York; and Mr. Ten Eyck, of New Jersey. The Republicans not voting were
Hale of New Hampshire; Simmons of Rhode Island; Collamer of Vermont;
Seward of New York, and Cameron of Pennsylvania. They refrained from
various motives, but in the majority of instances because they
disbelieved in any effort to compromise, for nearly all were recognized
leaders of the more radical sentiment, and in favor of coercion of the
South by energetic use of the war powers of the government. This was
specially true of Hale, Seward, and General Cameron, shortly after
Secretary of War, and the first Cabinet officer who favored the raising
of an immense army and the early liberation and arming of the slaves.
On December 4th, 1860, on motion of Mr. Boteler of Virginia, so much of
President Buchanan’s message as related to the perilous condition of the
country, was referred to a special committee of one from each State, as
follows:
Corwin of Ohio; Millson of Virginia; Adams of Massachusetts; Winslow of
North Carolina; Humphrey of New York; Boyce of South Carolina; Campbell
of Pennsylvania; Love of Georgia; Ferry of Connecticut; Davis of
Maryland; Robinson of Rhode Island; Whiteley of Delaware; Tappan of New
Hampshire; Stratton of New Jersey; Bristow of Kentucky; Morrill of
Vermont; Nelson of Tennessee; Dunn of Indiana; Taylor of Louisiana;
Davis of Mississippi; Kellogg of Illinois; Houston of Alabama; Morse of
Maine; Phelps of Missouri; Rust of Arkansas; Howard of Michigan; Hawkins
of Florida; Hamilton of Texas; Washburn of Wisconsin; Curtis of Iowa;
Burch of California; Windom of Minnesota; Stout of Oregon.
Messrs. Hawkins and Boyce asked to be excused from service on the
Committee, but the House refused.
From this Committee Mr. Corwin reported, January 14th, 1861, a series of
propositions with a written statement in advocacy thereof. Several
minority reports were presented, but the following Joint Resolution is
the only one which secured the assent of both Houses.
CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT.
_Be it resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United
States of America in Congress assembled, two-thirds of both Houses
concurring_, That the following article be proposed to the Legislatures
of the several States as an amendment to the Constitution of the United
States, which, when ratified by three-fourths of said Legislatures,
shall be valid, to all intents and purposes, as a part of the said
Constitution, namely:
ART. XII. No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will
authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere within
any State, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of
persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State.
The Legislatures of Ohio and Maryland agreed to the amendment promptly,
but events followed so rapidly, that the attention of other States was
drawn from it, and nothing came of this, the only Congressional movement
endorsed which looked to reconciliation. Other propositions came from
the Border and individual states, but all alike failed.
The Peace Convention.
The General Assembly of Virginia, on the 19th of January, adopted
resolutions inviting Representatives of the several States to assemble
in a Peace Convention at Washington, which met on the 4th of February.
It was composed of 133 Commissioners, many from the border States, and
the object of these was to prevail upon their associates from the North
to unite with them in such recommendations to Congress as would prevent
their own States from seceding and enable them to bring back six of the
cotton States which had already seceded.
One month only of the session of Congress remained. Within this brief
period it was necessary that the Convention should recommend amendments
to the Constitution in sufficient time to enable both Houses to act upon
them before their final adjournment. It was also essential to success
that these amendments should be sustained by a decided majority of the
commissioners both from the Northern and the border States.
On Wednesday, the 6th February, a resolution was adopted,[10] on motion
of Mr. Guthrie, of Kentucky, to refer the resolutions of the General
Assembly of Virginia, and all other kindred subjects, to a committee to
consist of one commissioner from each State, to be selected by the
respective State delegations; and to prevent delay they were instructed
to report on or before the Friday following (the 8th), “what they may
deem right, necessary, and proper to restore harmony and preserve the
Union.”
This committee, instead of reporting on the day appointed, did not
report until Friday, the 15th February.
The amendments reported by a majority of the committee, through Mr.
Guthrie, their chairman, were substantially the same with the Crittenden
Compromise; but on motion of Mr. Johnson, of Maryland, the general terms
of the first and by far the most important section were restricted to
the _present_ Territories of the United States. On motion of Mr.
Franklin, of Pennsylvania, this section was further amended, but not
materially changed, by the adoption of the substitute offered by him.
Nearly in this form it was afterwards adopted by the Convention. The
following is a copy: “In all the present territory of the United States
north of the parallel of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes of north
latitude, involuntary servitude, except in punishment of crime, is
prohibited. In all the present territory south of that line, the status
of persons held to involuntary service or labor, as it now exists, shall
not be changed; nor shall any law be passed by Congress or the
Territorial Legislature to hinder or prevent the taking of such persons
from any of the States of this Union to said territory, nor to impair
the rights arising from said relation; but the same shall be subject to
judicial cognizance in the Federal courts, according to the course of
the common law. When any Territory north or south of said line, within
such boundary as Congress may prescribe, shall contain a population
equal to that required for a member of Congress, it shall, if its form
of government be republican, be admitted into the Union on an equal
footing with the original States, with or without involuntary servitude,
as the Constitution of such State may provide.”
Mr. Baldwin, of Connecticut, and Mr. Seddon, of Virginia, made minority
reports, which they proposed to substitute for that of the majority. Mr.
Baldwin’s report was a recommendation “to the several States to unite
with Kentucky in her application to Congress to call a Convention for
proposing amendments to the Constitution of the United States, to be
submitted to the Legislatures of the several States, or to Conventions
therein, for ratification, as the one or the other mode of ratification
may be proposed by Congress, in accordance with the provisions in the
fifth article of the Constitution.”
The proposition of Mr. Baldwin, received the votes of eight of the
twenty-one States. These consisted of the whole of the New England
States, except Rhode Island, and of Illinois, Iowa, and New York, all
being free States.
The first amendment reported by Mr. Seddon differed from that of the
majority inasmuch as it embraced not only the present but all future
Territories. This was rejected. His second amendment, which, however,
was never voted upon by the Convention, went so far as distinctly to
recognize the right of secession.
More than ten days were consumed in discussion and in voting upon
various propositions offered by individual commissioners. The final vote
was not reached until Tuesday, the 26th February, when it was taken on
the first vitally important section, as amended.
This section, on which all the rest depended, was negatived by a vote of
eight States to eleven. Those which voted in its favor were Delaware,
Kentucky, Maryland, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and
Tennessee. And those in the negative were Connecticut, Illinois, Iowa,
Maine, Massachusetts, Missouri, New York, North Carolina, New Hampshire,
Vermont, and Virginia. It is but justice to say that Messrs. Ruffin and
Morehead, of North Carolina, and Messrs. Rives and Summers, of Virginia,
two of the five commissioners from each of these States, declared their
dissent from the vote of their respective States. So, also, did Messrs.
Bronson, Corning, Dodge, Wool, and Granger, five of the eleven New York
commissioners, dissent from the vote of their State. On the other hand,
Messrs. Meredith and Wilmot, two of the seven commissioners from
Pennsylvania, dissented from the majority in voting in favor of the
section. Thus would the Convention have terminated but for the
interposition of Illinois. Immediately after the section had been
negatived, the commissioners from that State made a motion to reconsider
the vote, and this prevailed. The Convention afterwards adjourned until
the next morning. When they reassembled (February 27,) the first section
was adopted, but only by a majority of nine to eight States, nine being
less than a majority of the States represented. This change was effected
by a change of the vote of Illinois from the negative to the
affirmative, by Missouri withholding her vote, and by a tie in the New
York commissioners, on account of the absence of one of their number,
rendering it impossible for the State to vote. Still Virginia and North
Carolina, and Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and
Vermont, persisted in voting in the negative. From the nature of this
vote, it was manifestly impossible that two-thirds of both Houses of
Congress should act favorably on the amendment, even if the delay had
not already rendered such action impracticable before the close of the
session.
The remaining sections of the amendment were carried by small
majorities. The Convention, on the same day, through Mr. Tyler, their
President, communicated to the Senate and House of Representatives the
amendment they had adopted, embracing all the sections, with a request
that it might be submitted by Congress, under the Constitution, to the
several State Legislatures. In the Senate this was immediately referred
to a select committee, on motion of Mr. Crittenden. The committee, on
the next day (28th Feb.), reported a joint resolution proposing it as an
amendment to the Constitution, but he was never able to bring the Senate
to a direct vote upon it. Failing in this, he made a motion to
substitute the amendment of the Peace Convention for his own.
Mr. Crittenden’s reasons failed to convince the Senate, and his motion
was rejected by a large majority (28 to 7). Then next in succession came
the memorable vote on Mr. Crittenden’s own resolution, and it was in its
turn defeated, as we have already stated, by a majority of 20 against
19.
In the House of Representatives, the amendment proposed by the
Convention was treated with still less consideration than it had been by
the Senate. The Speaker was refused leave even to present it. Every
effort made for this purpose was successfully resisted by leading
Republican members. The consequence is that a copy of it does not even
appear in the Journal.
The refusal to pass the Crittenden or any other Compromise heightened
the excitement in the South, where many showed great reluctance to
dividing the Union. Georgia, though one of the cotton States, under the
influence of conservative men like Alex. H. Stephens, showed greater
concern for the Union than any other, and it took all the influence of
spirits like that of Robert Toombs to bring her to favor secession. She
was the most powerful of the cotton States and the richest, as she is
to-day. On the 22d of December, 1860, Robert Toombs sent the following
exciting telegraphic manifesto from Washington:
_Fellow-Citizens of Georgia_: I came here to secure your constitutional
rights, or to demonstrate to you that you can get no guarantees for
these rights from your Northern Confederates.
The whole subject was referred to a committee of thirteen in the Senate
yesterday. I was appointed on the committee and accepted the trust. I
submitted propositions, which, so far from receiving decided support
from a single member of the Republican party on the committee, were all
treated with either derision or contempt. The vote was then taken in
committee on the amendments to the Constitution, proposed by Hon. J. J.
Crittenden of Kentucky, and each and all of them were voted against,
unanimously, by the Black Republican members of the committee.
In addition to these facts, a majority of the Black Republican members
of the committee declared distinctly that they had no guarantees to
offer, which was silently acquiesced in by the other members.
The Black Republican members of this Committee of Thirteen are
representative men of their party and section, and to the extent of my
information, truly represent the Committee of Thirty-three in the House,
which on Tuesday adjourned for a week without coming to any vote, after
solemnly pledging themselves to vote on all propositions then before
them on that date.
That committee is controlled by Black Republicans, your enemies, who
only seek to amuse you with delusive hope until your election, in order
that you may defeat the friends of secession. If you are deceived by
them, it shall not be my fault. I have put the test fairly and frankly.
It is decisive against you; and now I tell you upon the faith of a true
man that all further looking to the North for security for your
constitutional rights in the Union ought to be instantly abandoned. It
is fraught with nothing but ruin to yourselves and your posterity.
Secession by the fourth of March next should be thundered from the
ballot-box by the unanimous voice of Georgia on the second day of
January next. Such a voice will be your best guarantee for LIBERTY,
SECURITY, TRANQUILLITY and GLORY.
ROBERT TOOMBS.
IMPORTANT TELEGRAPHIC CORRESPONDENCE.
_Atlanta, Georgia_, December 26th, 1860. _Hon. S. A. Douglas or Hon. J.
J. Crittenden_:
Mr. Toombs’s despatch of the 22d inst. unsettled conservatives here. Is
there any hope for Southern rights in the Union? We are for the Union of
our fathers, if Southern rights can be preserved in it. If not, we are
for secession. Can we yet hope the Union will be preserved on this
principle? You are looked to in this emergency. Give us your views by
despatch and oblige
WILLIAM EZZARD.
ROBERT W. SIMS.
JAMES P. HAMBLETON.
THOMAS S. POWELL.
S. G. HOWELL.
J. A. HAYDEN.
G. W. ADAIR.
R. C. HONLESTER.
_Washington_, December 29th, 1860.
In reply to your inquiry, we have hopes that the rights of the South,
and of every State and section, may be protected within the Union. Don’t
give up the ship. Don’t despair of the Republic.
J. J. CRITTENDEN.
S. A. DOUGLAS.
Congress, amid excitement which the above dispatches indicate, and which
was general, remained for several weeks comparatively inactive. Buchanan
sent messages, but his suggestions were distrusted by the Republicans,
who stood firm in the conviction that when Lincoln took his seat, and
the new Congress came in, they could pass measures calculated to restore
the property of and protect the integrity of the Union. None of them
believed in the right of secession; all had lost faith in compromises,
and all of this party repudiated the theory that Congress had no right
to coerce a State. The revival of these questions, revived also the
logical thoughts of Webster in his great reply to Hayne, and the way in
which he then expanded the constitution was now accepted as the proper
doctrine of Republicanism on that question. No partisan sophistry could
shake the convictions made by Webster, and so apt were his arguments in
their application to every new development that they supplied every
logical want in the Northern mind. Republican orators and newspapers
quoted and endorsed, until nearly every reading mind was imbued with the
same sentiments, until in fact the Northern Democrats, and at all times
the Douglas Democrats, were ready to stand by the flag of the Union.
George W. Curtis, in _Harper’s Weekly_ (a journal which at the time
graphically illustrated the best Union thoughts and sentiments), in an
issue as late as January 12th, 1872, well described the power of
Webster’s grand ability[11] over a crisis which he did not live to see,
Mr. Curtis says:—
“The war for the Union was a vindication of that theory of its nature
which Webster had maintained in a memorably impregnable and conclusive
manner. His second speech on Foot’s resolution—the reply to Hayne—was
the most famous and effective speech ever delivered in this country. It
stated clearly and fixed firmly in the American mind the theory of the
government, which was not, indeed, original with Webster, but which is
nowhere else presented with such complete and inexorable reason as in
this speech. If the poet be the man who is so consummate a master of
expression that he only says perfectly what everybody thinks, upon this
great occasion the orator was the poet. He spoke the profound but often
obscured and dimly conceived conviction of a nation. He made the whole
argument of the civil war a generation before the war occurred, and it
has remained unanswered and unanswerable. Mr. Everett, in his discourse
at the dedication of the statute of Webster, in the State-House grounds
in Boston in 1859, described the orator at the delivery of this great
speech. The evening before he seemed to be so careless that Mr. Everett
feared that he might not be fully aware of the gravity of the occasion.
But when the hour came, the man was there. ‘As I saw him in the evening,
if I may borrow an illustration from his favorite amusement,’ said Mr.
Everett, ‘he was as unconcerned and as free of spirit as some here have
often seen him while floating in his fishing-boat along a hazy shore,
gently rocking on the tranquil tide, dropping his line here and there
with the varying fortune of the sport. The next morning he was like some
mighty admiral, dark and terrible, casting the long shadow of his
frowning tiers far over the sea, that seemed to sink beneath him; his
broad pennant streaming at the main, the Stars and Stripes at the fore,
the mizzen, and the peak, and bearing down like a tempest upon his
antagonist, with all his canvas strained to the wind, and all his
thunders roaring from his broadsides.’ This passage well suggests that
indescribable impression of great oratory which Rufus Choate, in his
eulogy of Webster at Dartmouth College, conveys by a felicitous citation
of what Quintilian says of Hortensius, that there was some spell in the
spoken word which the reader misses.”
As we have remarked, the Republicans were awaiting the coming of a near
and greater power to themselves, and at the same time jealously watching
the movements of the friends of the South in Congress and in the
President’s Cabinet. It needed all their watchfulness to prevent
advantages which the secessionists thought they had a right to take.
Thus Jefferson Davis, on January 9th, 1860, introduced to the senate a
bill “to authorize the sale of public arms to the several States and
Territories,” and as secession became more probable he sought to press
its passage, but failed. Floyd, the Secretary of War, was far more
successful, and his conduct was made the subject of the following
historic and most remarkable report:-
Transfer of U. S. Arms South In 1859–60.
Report (Abstract of) made by Mr. B. Stanton, from the Committee on
Military Affairs, in House of Representatives, Feb. 18th, 1861.
The Committee on Military Affairs, to whom was referred the resolution
of the House of Representatives of 31st of December last, instructing
said committee to inquire and report to the House, how, to whom, and at
what price, the public arms distributed since the first day of January,
A. D. 1860, have been disposed of; and also into the condition of the
forts, arsenals, dock-yards, etc., etc., submit the following report:
That it appears from the papers herewith submitted, that Mr. Floyd, the
late Secretary of War, by the authority or under color of the law of
March 3d, 1825, authorizing the Secretary of War to sell any arms,
ammunition, or other military stores which should be found unsuitable
for the public service, sold to sundry persons and States 31,610
flint-lock muskets, altered to percussion, at $2.50 each, between the
1st day of January, A. D. 1860, and the 1st day of January, A. D., 1861.
It will be seen from the testimony of Colonel Craig and Captain
Maynadier, that they differ as to whether the arms so sold had been
found, “upon proper inspection, to be unsuitable for the public
service.”
Whilst the Committee do not deem it important to decide this question,
they say, that in their judgment it would require a very liberal
construction of the law to bring these sales within its provisions.
It also appears that on the 21st day of November last, Mr. Belknap made
application to the Secretary of War for the purchase of from one to two
hundred and fifty thousand United States muskets, flint-locks and
altered to percussion, at $2.15 each; but the Secretary alleges that the
acceptance was made under a misapprehension of the price bid, he
supposing it was $2.50 each, instead of $2.15.
Mr. Belknap denies all knowledge of any mistake or misapprehension, and
insists upon the performance of his contract.
The present Secretary refuses to recognize the contract, and the muskets
have not been delivered to Mr. Belknap.
Mr. Belknap testifies that the muskets were intended for the Sardinian
government.
It will appear by the papers herewith submitted, that on the 29th of
December, 1859, the Secretary of War ordered the transfer of 65,000
percussion muskets, 40,000 muskets altered to percussion, and 10,000
percussion rifles, from the Springfield Armory and the Watertown and
Watervliet Arsenals, to the Arsenals at Fayetteville, N. C., Charleston,
S. C., Augusta, Ga., Mount Vernon, Ala., and Baton Rouge, La., and that
these arms were distributed during the spring of 1860 as follows:
Percussion muskets. Altered muskets. Rifles.
To Charleston Arsenal, 9,280 5,720 2,000
To North Carolina Arsenal, 15,480 9,520 2,000
To Augusta Arsenal, 12,380 7,620 2,000
To Mount Vernon Arsenal, 9,280 5,720 2,000
To Baton Rouge Arsenal, 18,580 11,420 2,000
—————— —————— ——————
65,000 40,000 10,000
All of these arms, except those sent to the North Carolina Arsenal,[12]
have been seized by the authorities of the several States of South
Carolina, Alabama, Louisiana and Georgia, and are no longer in
possession of the United States.
It will appear by the testimony herewith presented, that on the 20th of
October last the Secretary of War ordered forty columbiads and four
thirty-two pounders to be sent from the Arsenal at Pittsburg to the fort
on Ship Island, on the coast of Mississippi, then in an unfinished
condition, and seventy columbiads and seven thirty-two pounders to be
sent from the same Arsenal to the fort at Galveston, in Texas, the
building of which had scarcely been commenced.
This order was given to the Secretary of War, without any report from
the Engineer department showing that said works were ready for their
armament, or that the guns were needed at either of said points.
It will be seen by the testimony of Captain Wright, of the Engineer
department, that the fort at Galveston cannot be ready for its entire
armament in less than about five years, nor for any part of it in less
than two; and that the fort at Ship Island will require an appropriation
of $85,000 and one year’s time before it can be ready for any part of
its armament. This last named fort has been taken possession of by the
State authorities of Mississippi.
The order of the late Secretary of War (Floyd) was countermanded by the
present Secretary (Holt) before it had been fully executed by the
shipment of said guns from Pittsburg.[13]
It will be seen by a communication from the Ordnance office of the 21st
of January last, that by the last returns there were remaining in the
United States arsenals and armories the following small arms, viz:
Percussion muskets and muskets altered to percussion of calibre
69 499,554
Percussion rifles, calibre 54 42,011
———————
Total 541,565
Of these 60,878 were deposited in the arsenals of South Carolina,
Alabama, and Louisiana, and are in the possession of the authorities of
those States, reducing the number in possession of the United States to
480,687.
Since the date of said communication, the following additional forts and
military posts have been taken possession of by parties acting under the
authority of the States in which they are respectively situated, viz:
Fort Moultrie, South Carolina.
Fort Morgan, Alabama.
Baton Rouge Barracks, Louisiana.
Fort Jackson, Louisiana.
Fort St. Philip, „
Fort Pike, Louisiana.
Oglethorpe Barracks, Georgia.
And the department has been unofficially advised that the arsenal at
Chattahoochee, Forts McRea and Barrancas, and Barracks, have been seized
by the authorities of Florida.
To what further extent the small arms in possession of the United States
may have been reduced by these figures, your committee have not been
advised.
The whole number of the seaboard forts in the United States is
fifty-seven; their appropriate garrison in war would require 26,420 men;
their actual garrison at this time is 1,334 men, 1,308 of whom are in
the forts at Governor’s Island, New York; Fort McHenry, Maryland; Fort
Monroe, Virginia, and at Alcatraz Island, California, in the harbor of
San Francisco.
From the facts elicited, it is certain that the regular military force
of the United States, is wholly inadequate to the protection of the
forts, arsenals, dock-yards, and other property of the United States in
the present disturbed condition of the country. The regular army numbers
only 18,000 men when recruited to its maximum strength, and the whole of
this force is required for the protection of the border settlements
against Indian depredations. Unless it is the intention of Congress that
the forts, arsenals, dock-yards and other public property, shall be
exposed to capture and spoliation, the President must be armed with
additional force for their protection.
In the opinion of the Committee the law of February 28th, 1795, confers
upon the President ample power to call out the militia, execute the laws
and protect the public property. But as the late Attorney-General has
given a different opinion, the Committee to remove all doubt upon the
subject, report the accompanying bill, etc.
OTHER ITEMS.
_Statement of Arms distributed by Sale since the first of January, 1860,
to whom sold and the place whence sold._
_To whom sold._ _No._ _1860. _Arsenals.
Date of Sale._ Where sold._
J. W. Zacharie & Co. 4,000 Feb. 3 St. Louis.
James T. Ames 1,000 Mar. 14 New York.
Captain G. Barry 80 June 11 St. Louis.
W. C. N. Swift 400 Aug. 31 Springfield.
do. 80 Nov. 13 do.
State of Alabama 1,000 Sep. 27 Baton Rouge.
do. 2,500 Nov. 14 do.
State of Virginia 5,000 Nov. 6 Washington.
Phillips county, Ark. 50 Nov. 16 St. Louis.
G. B. Lamar 10,000 Nov. 24 Watervliet.
The arms were all flint-lock muskets altered to percussion, and were all
sold at $2.50 each, except those purchased by Captain G. Barry and by
the Phillips county volunteers, for which $2 each were paid.
The Mobile _Advertiser_ says: “During the past year 135,430 muskets have
been quietly transferred from the Northern Arsenal at Springfield alone,
to those in the Southern States. We are much obliged to Secretary Floyd
for the foresight he has thus displayed in disarming the North and
_equipping the South for this emergency_. There is no telling the
quantity of arms and munitions which were sent South from other Northern
arsenals. There is no doubt but that every man in the South who can
carry a gun can now be supplied from private or public sources. The
Springfield contribution alone would arm all the militiamen of Alabama
and Mississippi.”
General Scott, in his letter of December 2d, 1862, on the early history
of the Rebellion, states that “Rhode Island, Delaware and Texas had not
drawn, at the end of 1860, their annual quotas of arms for that year,
and Massachusetts, Tennessee, and Kentucky only in part; Virginia, South
Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and Kansas
were, by order of the Secretary of War, supplied with their quotas for
1861 in advance, and Pennsylvania and Maryland in part.”
This advance of arms to eight Southern States is in addition to the
transfer, about the same time, of 115,000 muskets to Southern arsenals,
as per Mr. Stanton’s report.
Governor Letcher of Virginia, in his Message of December, 1861, says,
that for some time prior to secession, he had been engaged in purchasing
arms, ammunition, etc.; among which were 13 Parrott rifled cannon, and
5,000 muskets. He desired to buy from the United States Government
10,000 more, when buying the 5,000, but he says “the authorities
declined to sell them to us, although five times the number were then in
the arsenal at Washington.”
Had Jefferson Davis’ bill relative to the purchase of arms become a law,
the result might have been different.
This and similar action on the part of the South, especially the
attempted seizure and occupation of forts, convinced many of the
Republicans that no compromise could endure, however earnest its
advocates from the Border States, and this earnestness was unquestioned.
Besides their attachment to the Union, they knew that in the threatened
war they would be the greatest sufferers, with their people divided
neighbor against neighbor, their lands laid waste, and their houses
destroyed. They had every motive for earnestness in the effort to
conciliate the disagreeing sections.
The oddest partisan feature in the entire preliminary and political
struggle was the attempt, in the parlance of the day, of “New York to
secede from New York”—an oddity verified by Mayor Wood’s recommendation
in favor of the secession of New York city, made January 6th, 1861. The
document deserves a place in this history, as it shows the views of a
portion of the citizens then, and an exposition of their interests as
presented by a citizen before and since named by repeated elections to
Congress.
Mayor Wood’s Secession Message.
_To the Honorable the Common Council_:
GENTLEMEN:—We are entering upon the public duties of the year under
circumstances as unprecedented as they are gloomy and painful to
contemplate. The great trading and producing interests of not only the
city of New York, but of the entire country, are prostrated by a
monetary crisis; and although similar calamities have before befallen
us, it is the first time that they have emanated from causes having no
other origin than that which may be traced to political disturbances.
Truly, may it now be said, “We are in the midst of a revolution
_bloodless_ AS YET.” Whether the dreadful alternative implied as
probable in the conclusion of this prophetic quotation may be averted,
“no human ken can divine.” It is quite certain that the severity of
the storm is unexampled in our history, and if the disintegration of
the Federal Government, with the consequent destruction of all the
material interests of the people shall not follow, it will be owing
more to the interposition of Divine Providence, than to the inherent
preventive power of our institutions, or the intervention of any other
human agency.
It would seem that a dissolution of the Federal Union is inevitable.
Having been formed originally on a basis of general and mutual
protection, but separate local independence—each State reserving the
entire and absolute control of its own domestic affairs, it is
evidently impossible to keep them together longer than they deem
themselves fairly treated by each other, or longer than the interests,
honor and fraternity of the people of the several States are
satisfied. Being a Government created by _opinion_, its continuance is
dependent upon the continuance of the sentiment which formed it. It
cannot be preserved by coercion or held together by force. A resort to
this last dreadful alternative would of itself destroy not only the
Government, but the lives and property of the people.
If these forebodings shall be realized, and a separation of the States
shall occur, momentous considerations will be presented to the
corporate authorities of this city. We must provide for the new
relations which will necessarily grow out of the new condition of
public affairs.
It will not only be necessary for us to settle the relations which we
shall hold to other cities and States, but to establish, if we can,
new ones with a portion of our own State. Being the child of the
Union, having drawn our sustenance from its bosom, and arisen to our
present power and strength through the vigor of our mother—when
deprived of her maternal advantages, we must rely upon our own
resources and assume a position predicated upon the new phase which
public affairs will present, and upon the inherent strength which our
geographical, commercial, political, and financial pre-eminence
imparts to us.
With our aggrieved brethren of the Slave States, we have friendly
relations and a common sympathy. We have not participated in the
warfare upon their constitutional rights or their domestic
institutions. While other portions of our State have unfortunately
been imbued with the fanatical spirit which actuates a portion of the
people of New England, the city of New York has unfalteringly
preserved the integrity of its principles in adherence to the
compromises of the Constitution and the equal rights of the people of
all the States. We have respected the local interests of every
section, at no time oppressing, but all the while aiding in the
development of the resources of the whole country. Our ships have
penetrated to every clime, and so have New York capital, energy and
enterprise found their way to every State, and, indeed, to almost
every county and town of the American Union. If we have derived
sustenance from the Union, so have we in return disseminated blessings
for the common benefit of all. Therefore, New York has a right to
expect, and should endeavor to preserve a continuance of uninterrupted
intercourse with every section.
It is, however, folly to disguise the fact that, judging from the
past, New York may have more cause of apprehension from the aggressive
legislation of our own State than from external dangers. We have
already largely suffered from this cause. For the past five years, our
interests and corporate rights have been repeatedly trampled upon.
Being an integral portion of the State, it has been assumed, and in
effect tacitly admitted on our part by nonresistance, that all
political and governmental power over us rested in the State
Legislature. Even the common right of taxing ourselves for our own
government, has been yielded, and we are not permitted to do so
without this authority.***
Thus it will be seen that the political connection between the people
of the city and the State has been used by the latter to our injury.
The Legislature, in which the present partizan majority has the power,
has become the instrument by which we are plundered to enrich their
speculators, lobby agents, and Abolition politicians. Laws are passed
through their malign influence by which, under forms of legal
enactment, our burdens have been increased, our substance eaten out,
and our municipal liberties destroyed. Self-government, though
guaranteed by the State Constitution, and left to every other county
and city, has been taken from us by this foreign power, whose
dependents have been sent among us to destroy our liberties by
subverting our political system.
How we shall rid ourselves of this odious and oppressive connection,
it is not for me to determine. It is certain that a dissolution cannot
be peacefully accomplished, except by the consent of the Legislature
itself. Whether this can be obtained or not, is, in my judgment,
doubtful. Deriving so much advantage from its power over the city, it
is not probable that a partizan majority will consent to a
separation—and the resort to force by violence and revolution must not
be thought of for an instant. We have been distinguished as an orderly
and law-abiding people. Let us do nothing to forfeit this character,
or to add to the present distracted condition of public affairs.
Much, no doubt, can be said in favor of the justice and policy of a
separation. It may be said that secession or revolution in any of the
United States would be subversive of all Federal authority, and, so
far as the Central Government is concerned, the resolving of the
community into its original elements—that, if part of the States form
new combinations and Governments, other States may do the same.
California and her sisters of the Pacific will no doubt set up an
independent Republic and husband their own rich mineral resources. The
Western States, equally rich in cereals and other agricultural
products, will probably do the same. Then it may be said, why should
not New York city, instead of supporting by her contributions in
revenue two-thirds of the expenses of the United States, become also
equally independent? As a free city, with but nominal duty on imports,
her local Government could be supported without taxation upon her
people. Thus we could live free from taxes, and have cheap goods
nearly duty free. In this she would have the whole and united support
of the Southern States, as well as all the other States to whose
interests and rights under the Constitution she has always been true.
It is well for individuals or communities to look every danger square
in the face, and to meet it calmly and bravely. As dreadful as the
severing of the bonds that have hitherto united the States has been in
contemplation, it is now apparently a stern and inevitable fact. We
have now to meet it with all the consequences, whatever they may be.
If the Confederacy is broken up the Government is dissolved, and it
behooves every distinct community, as well as every individual, to
take care of themselves.
When Disunion has become a fixed and certain fact, why may not New
York disrupt the bands which bind her to a venal and corrupt master—to
a people and a party that have plundered her revenues, attempted to
ruin her commerce, taken away the power of self-government, and
destroyed the Confederacy of which she was the proud Empire City? Amid
the gloom which the present and prospective condition of things must
cast over the country, New York, as a _Free City_, may shed the only
light and hope of a future reconstruction of our once blessed
Confederacy.
But I am not prepared to recommend the violence implied in these
views. In stating this argument in favor of freedom, “peaceably if we
can, forcibly if we must,” let me not be misunderstood. The redress
can be found only in appeals to the magnanimity of the people of the
whole State. The events of the past two months have no doubt effected
a change in the popular sentiment of the State and National politics.
This change may bring us the desired relief, and we may be able to
obtain a repeal of the law to which I have referred, and a consequent
restoration of our corporate rights.
FERNANDO WOOD, Mayor
January 6th, 1861.
Congress on the Eve of the Rebellion.
It should be borne in mind that all of the propositions, whether for
compromise, authority to suppress insurrection, or new laws to collect
duties, had to be considered by the Second Session of the 36th Congress,
which was then, with the exception of the Republicans, a few Americans,
and the anti-Lecompton men, supporting the administration of Buchanan.
No Congress ever had so many and such grave propositions presented to
it, and none ever showed more exciting political divisions. It was
composed of the following persons, some of whom survive, and most of
whom are historic characters:
SENATE.
JOHN C. BRECKINRIDGE, of Kentucky, _Vice-President_;
_Maine_—H. Hamlin,[14] W. P. Fessenden.
_New Hampshire_—John P. Hale, Daniel Clark.
_Vermont_—Solomon Foot, J. Collamer.
_Massachusetts_—Henry Wilson, Charles Sumner.
_Rhode Island_—James F. Simmons, H. B. Anthony.
_Connecticut_—L. S. Foster, Jas. Dixon.
_New York_—William H. Seward, Preston King.
_New Jersey_—J. C. Ten Eyck, J. R. Thomson.
_Pennsylvania_—S. Cameron, Wm. Bigler.
_Delaware_—J. A. Bayard, W. Saulsbury.
_Maryland_—J. A. Pearce, A. Kennedy.
_Virginia_—R. M. T. Hunter, James M. Mason.
_South Carolina_—Jas. Chesnut,[15] James H. Hammond.[15]
_North Carolina_—Thomas Bragg, T. L. Clingman.
_Alabama_—B. Fitzpatrick, C. C. Clay, Jr.
_Mississippi_—A. G. Brown, Jeff. Davis.
_Louisiana_—J. P. Benjamin, John Slidell.
_Tennessee_—A. O. P. Nicholson, A. Johnson.
_Arkansas_—R. W. Johnson, W. K. Sebastian.
_Kentucky_—L. W. Powell. J. J. Crittenden.
_Missouri_—Jas. S. Green, Trusten Polk.
_Ohio_—B. F. Wade, Geo. E. Pugh.
_Indiana_—J. D. Bright, G. N. Fitch.
_Illinois_—S. A. Douglas, L. Trumbull.
_Michigan_—Z. Chandler, K. S. Bingham.
_Florida_—D. L. Yulee, S. R. Mallory.
_Georgia_—Alfred Iverson, Robt. Toombs.
_Texas_—John Hemphill, L. T. Wigfall.
_Wisconsin_—Charles Durkee, J. R. Doolittle.
_Iowa_—J. M. Grimes, Jas. Harlan.
_California_—M. S. Latham. William M. Gwin.
_Minnesota_—H. M. Rice, M. S. Wilkinson.
_Oregon_—Joseph Lane, Edward D. Baker.
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.
WILLIAM PENNINGTON, of New Jersey, _Speaker_.
_Maine_—D. E. Somes, John J. Perry, E. B. French, F. H. Morse, Israel
Washburn, Jr.,[16] S. C. Foster.
_New Hampshire_—Gilman Marston, M. W. Tappan, T. M. Edwards.
_Vermont_—E. P. Walton, J. S. Morrill, H. E. Royce.
_Massachusetts_—Thomas D. Eliot, James Buffinton, Charles Francis Adams,
Alexander H. Rice, Anson Burlingame, John B. Alley, Daniel W. Gooch,
Charles R. Train, Eli Thayer, Charles Delano, Henry L. Dawes.
_Rhode Island_—C. Robinson, W. D. Brayton.
_Connecticut_—Dwight Loomis, John Woodruff, Alfred A. Burnham, Orris S.
Ferry.
_Delaware_—W. G. Whiteley.
_New York_—Luther C. Carter, James Humphreys, Daniel E. Sickles, W. B.
Maclay, Thomas J. Barr, John Cochrane, Gorge Briggs, Horace F. Clark,
John B. Haskin, Chas. H. Van Wyck, William S. Kenyon, Charles L. Beale,
Abm. B. Olin, John H. Reynolds, Jas. B. McKean, G. W. Palmer, Francis E.
Spinner, Clark B. Cochrane, James H. Graham, Richard Franchot, Roscoe
Conkling, R. H. Duell, M. Ludley Lee, Charles B. Hoard, Chas. B.
Sedgwick, M. Butterfield, Emory B. Pottle, Alfred Wells, William Irvine,
Alfred Ely, Augustus Frank, Edwin R. Reynolds, Elbridge G. Spaulding,
Reuben E. Fenton.
_New Jersey_—John T. Nixon, John L. N. Stratton, Garnett B. Adrain,
Jetur R. Riggs, Wm. Pennington (Speaker).
_Pennsylvania_—Thomas B. Florence, E. Joy Morris, John P. Verree,
William Millward, John Wood, John Hickman, Henry C. Longnecker, Jacob K.
McKenty, Thaddeus Stevens, John W. Kellinger, James H. Campbell, George
W. Scranton, William H. Dimmick, Galusha A. Grow, James T. Hale,
Benjamin F. Junkin, Edward McPherson, Samuel S. Blair, John Covode,
William Montgomery, James K. Moorhead, Robert McKnight, William Stewart,
Chapin Hall, Elijah Babbitt.
_Maryland_—Jas. A. Stewart, J. M. Harris, H. W. Davis, J. M. Kunkel, G.
W. Hughes.
_Virginia_—John S. Millson, Muscoe R. H. Garnett, Daniel C. De Jarnette,
Roger A. Pryor, Thomas S. Bocock, William Smith, Alex. R. Boteler, John
T. Harris, Albert G. Jenkins, Shelton F. Leake, Henry A. Edmundson,
Elbert S. Martin, Sherrard Clemens.
_South Carolina_—John McQueen, Wm. Porcher Miles, Lawrence M. Keitt,
Milledge L. Bonham, John D. Ashmore, Wm. W. Boyce.
_North Carolina_—W. N. H. Smith, Thos. Ruffin, W. Winslow, L. O’B.
Branch, John A. Gilmer, Jas. M. Leach, Burton Craige, Z. B. Vance.
_Georgia_—Peter E. Love, M. J. Crawford, Thos. Hardeman, Jr., L. J.
Gartrell, J. W. H. Underwood, James Jackson, Joshua Hill, John J. Jones.
_Alabama_—Jas. L. Pugh, David Clopton, Sydenh. Moore, Geo. S. Houston,
W. R. W. Cobb, J. A. Stallworth, J. L. M. Curry.
_Mississippi_—L. Q. C. Lamar, Reuben Davis, William Barksdale, O. R.
Singleton, John J. McRae.
_Louisiana_—John E. Bouligny, Miles Taylor, T. G. Davidson, John M.
Landrum.
_Ohio_—G. H. Pendleton, John A. Gurley, C. L. Vallandigham, William
Allen, James M. Ashley, Wm. Howard, Thomas Corwin, Benj. Stanton, John
Carey, C. A. Trimble, Chas. D. Martin, Saml. S. Cox, John Sherman, H. G.
Blake, William Helmick, C. B. Tompkins, T. C. Theaker, S. Edgerton,
Edward Wade, John Hutchins, John A. Bingham.
_Kentucky_—Henry C. Burnett, Green Adams, S. O. Peyton, F. M. Bristow,
W. C. Anderson, Robert Mallory, Wm. E. Simms, L. T. Moore, John Y.
Brown, J. W. Stevenson.
_Tennessee_—T. A. R. Nelson, Horace Maynard, R. B. Brabson, William B.
Stokes, Robert Hatton, James H. Thomas, John V. Wright, James M.
Quarles, Emerson Etheridge, Wm. T. Avery.
_Indiana_—Wm. E. Niblack, Wm. H. English, Wm. M’Kee Dunn, Wm. S. Holman,
David Kilgore, Albert G. Porter, John G. Davis, James Wilson, Schuyler
Colfax, Chas. Case, John U. Pettit.
_Illinois_—E. B. Washburne, J. F. Farnsworth, Owen Lovejoy, Wm. Kellogg,
I. N. Morris, John A. McClernand, James C. Robinson, P. B. Fouke, John
A. Logan.
_Arkansas_—Thomas C. Hindman, Albert Rust.
_Missouri_—J. R. Barrett, T. L. Anderson, John B. Clark, James Craig, L.
H. Woodson, John S. Phelps, John W. Noell.
_Michigan_—William A. Howard, Henry Waldron, F. W. Kellogg, De W. C.
Leach.
_Florida_—George S. Hawkins.
_Texas_—John H. Regan, A. J. Hamilton.
_Iowa_—S. R. Curtis, Wm. Vandever.
_California_—Charles L. Scott, John C. Burch.
_Wisconsin_—John F. Porter, C. C. Washburne, C. H. Larrabee.
_Minnesota_—Cyrus Aldrich, Wm. Windom.
_Oregon_—Lansing Stout.
_Kansas_—Martin F. Conway, (sworn Jan. 30th, 1861).
MR. LINCOLN’S VIEWS.
While the various propositions above given were under consideration, Mr.
Lincoln was of course an interested observer from his home in Illinois,
where he awaited the legal time for taking his seat as President. His
views on the efforts at compromise were sought by the editor of the New
York _Tribune_, and expressed as follows:
“‘I will suffer death before I will consent or advise my friends to
consent to any concession or compromise which looks like buying the
privilege of taking possession of the Government to which we have a
constitutional right; because, whatever I might think of the merits of
the various propositions before Congress, I should regard any concession
in the face of menace as the destruction of the government itself, and a
consent on all hands that our system shall be brought down to a level
with the existing disorganized state of affairs in Mexico. But this
thing will hereafter be, as it is now, in the hands of the people; and
if they desire to call a convention to remove any grievances complained
of, or to give new guarantees for the permanence of vested rights, it is
not mine to oppose.’”
JUDGE BLACK’S VIEWS.
Jeremiah S. Black, of Pennsylvania, was then Buchanan’s
Attorney-General, and as his position has since been made the subject of
lengthy controversy, it is pertinent to give the following copious
extract from his “Opinion upon the Powers of the President,” in response
to an official inquiry from the Executive:—
The existing laws put and keep the Federal Government strictly on the
defensive. You can use force only to repel an assault on the public
property, and aid the courts in the performance of their duty. If the
means given you to collect the revenue and execute the other laws be
insufficient for that purpose, Congress may extend and make them more
effectual to that end.
If one of the States should declare her independence, your action
cannot depend upon the rightfulness of the cause upon which such
declaration is based. Whether the retirement of a State from the Union
be the exercise of a right reserved in the Constitution or a
revolutionary movement, it is certain that you have not in either case
the authority to recognize her independence or to absolve her from her
Federal obligations. Congress or the other States in convention
assembled must take such measures as may be necessary and proper. In
such an event I see no course for you but to go straight onward in the
path you have hitherto trodden, that is, execute the laws to the
extent of the defensive means placed in your hands, and act generally
upon the assumption that the present constitutional relations between
the States and the Federal Government continue to exist until a new
order of things shall be established, either by law or force.
Whether Congress has the constitutional right to make war against one
or more States, and require the Executive of the Federal Government to
carry it on by means of force to be drawn from the other States, is a
question for Congress itself to consider. It must be admitted that no
such power is expressly given; nor are there any words in the
Constitution which imply it. Among the powers enumerated in article I.
section 8, is that “to declare war, grant letters of marque and
reprisal, and to make rules concerning captures on land and water.”
This certainly means nothing more than the power to commence, and
carry on hostilities against the foreign enemies of the nation.
Another clause in the same section gives Congress the power “to
provide for calling forth the militia,” and to use them within the
limits of the State. But this power is so restricted by the words
which immediately follow, that it can be exercised only for one of the
following purposes: 1. To execute the laws of the Union; that is, to
aid the Federal officers in the performance of their regular duties.
2. To suppress insurrections against the States; but this is confined
by article IV. section 4, to cases in which the State herself shall
apply for assistance against her own people. 3. To repel the invasion
of a State by enemies who come from abroad to assail her in her own
territory. All these provisions are made to protect the States, not to
authorize an attack by one part of the country upon another; to
preserve their peace, and not to plunge them into civil war. Our
forefathers do not seem to have thought that war was calculated “to
form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic
tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general
welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our
posterity.” There was undoubtedly a strong and universal conviction
among the men who framed and ratified the Constitution, that military
force would not only be useless, but pernicious as a means of holding
the States together.
If it be true that war cannot be declared, nor a system of general
hostilities carried on by the central government against a State, then
it seems to follow that an attempt to do so would be _ipso facto_ an
expulsion of such State from the Union. Being treated as an alien and
an enemy, she would be compelled to act accordingly. And if Congress
shall break up the present Union by unconstitutionally putting strife
and enmity, and armed hostility, between different sections of the
country, instead of the “domestic tranquillity” which the Constitution
was meant to insure, will not all the States be absolved from their
Federal obligations? Is any portion of the people bound to contribute
their money or their blood to carry on a contest like that?
The right of the General Government to preserve itself in its whole
constitutional vigor by repelling a direct and positive aggression
upon its property or its officers, cannot be denied. But this is a
totally different thing from an offensive war to punish the people for
the political misdeeds of their State governments, or to prevent a
threatened violation of the Constitution, or to enforce an
acknowledgment that the Government of the United States is supreme.
The States are colleagues of one another, and if some of them shall
conquer the rest and hold them as subjugated provinces, it would
totally destroy the whole theory upon which they are now connected.
If this view of the subject be as correct as I think it is, then the
Union must totally perish at the moment when Congress shall arm one
part of the people against another for any purpose beyond that of
merely protecting the General Government in the exercise of its proper
constitutional functions. I am, very respectfully, yours, etc.,
J. S. BLACK.
_To the President of the United States._
The above expressions from Lincoln and Black well state the position of
the Republican and the administration Democrats on the eve of the
rebellion, and they are given for that purpose. The views of the
original secessionists are given in South Carolina’s declaration. Those
of the conservatives of the South who hesitated and leaned toward the
Union, were best expressed before the Convention of Georgia in the
SPEECH OF ALEX. H. STEPHENS.
This step (of secession) once taken can never be recalled; and all the
baleful and withering consequences that must follow, will rest on the
convention for all coming time. When we and our posterity shall see our
lovely South desolated by the demon of war, _which this act of yours
will inevitably invite and call forth_; when our green fields of waving
harvest shall be trodden down by the murderous soldiery and fiery car of
war sweeping over our land; our temples of justice laid in ashes; all
the horrors and desolations of war upon us; _who but this Convention
will be held responsible for it_? and who but him who shall have given
his vote for this unwise and ill-timed measure, as I honestly think and
believe, _shall be held to strict account for this suicidal act by the
present generation, and probably cursed and execrated by posterity for
all coming time_, for the wide and desolating ruin that will inevitably
follow this act you now propose to perpetrate? Pause, I entreat you, and
consider for a moment what reasons you can give that will even satisfy
yourselves in calmer moments—what reason you can give to your fellow
sufferers in the calamity that it will bring upon us. _What reasons can
you give to the nations of the earth to justify it?_ They will be the
calm and deliberate judges in the case; and what cause or one overt act
can you name or point, on which to rest the plea of justification? _What
right has the North assailed?_ What interest of the South has been
invaded? What justice has been denied? and what claim founded in justice
and right has been withheld? Can either of you to-day name one
governmental act of wrong, deliberately and purposely done by the
government of Washington, of which the South has a right to complain? I
challenge the answer. While on the other hand, let me show the facts
(and believe me, gentlemen, I am not here the advocate of the North; but
I am here the friend, the firm friend, and lover of the South and her
institutions, and for this reason I speak thus plainly and faithfully
for yours, mine, and every other man’s interest, the words of truth and
soberness), of which I wish you to judge, and I will only state facts
which are clear and undeniable, and which now stand as records authentic
in the history of our country. When we of the South demanded the
slave-trade, or the importation of Africans for the cultivation of our
lands, did they not yield the right for twenty years? When we asked a
three-fifths representation in Congress for our slaves, was it not
granted? When we asked and demanded the return of any fugitive from
justice, or the recovery of those persons owing labor or allegiance, was
it not incorporated in the Constitution, and again ratified and
strengthened by the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850? But do you reply that in
many instances they have violated this compact, and have not been
faithful to their engagements? As individual and local communities, they
may have done so; but not by the sanction of Government; for that has
always been true to Southern interests. Again, gentlemen, look at
another act: when we have asked that more territory should be added,
that we might spread the institution of slavery, have they not yielded
to our demands in giving us Louisiana, Florida and Texas, out of which
four States have been carved, and ample territory for four more to be
added in due time, if you by this unwise and impolitic act do not
destroy this hope, and perhaps, by it lose all, and have your last slave
wrenched from you by stern military rule, as South America and Mexico
were; _or by the vindictive decree of a universal emancipation, which
may reasonably be expected to follow_?
But, again, gentlemen, what have we to gain by this proposed change of
our relation to the General Government? We have always had the control
of it, and can yet, if we remain in it, and are as united as we have
been. We have had a majority of the Presidents chosen from the South; as
well as the control and management of most of those chosen from the
North. We have had sixty years of Southern Presidents to their
twenty-four, thus controlling the Executive department. So of the Judges
of the Supreme Court, we have had eighteen from the South, and but
eleven from the North; although nearly four-fifths of the judicial
business has arisen in the Free States, yet a majority of the Court has
always been from the South. This we have required so as to guard against
any interpretation of the Constitution unfavorable to us. In like manner
we have been equally watchful to guard our interests in the Legislative
branch of Government. In choosing the presiding Presidents (_pro tem._)
of the Senate, we have had twenty-four to their eleven. Speakers of the
House we have had twenty-three, and they twelve. While the majority of
the Representatives, from their greater population, have always been
from the North, yet we have so generally secured the Speaker, because
he, to a great extent, shapes and controls the legislation of the
country. Nor have we had less control in every other department of the
General Government. Attorney-Generals we have had fourteen, while the
North have had but five. Foreign ministers we have had eighty-six, and
they but fifty-four. While three-fourths of the business which demands
diplomatic agents abroad is clearly from the Free States, from their
greater commercial interest, yet we have had the principal embassies so
as to secure the world-markets for our cotton, tobacco, and sugar on the
best possible terms. We have had a vast majority of the higher offices
of both army and navy, while a larger proportion of the soldiers and
sailors were drawn from the North. Equally so of Clerks, Auditors, and
Comptrollers filling the executive department, the records show for the
last fifty years that of the three thousand thus employed, we have had
more than two-thirds of the same, while we have but one-third of the
white population of the Republic.
Again, look at another item, and one, be assured, in which we have a
great and vital interest; it is that of revenue, or means of supporting
Government. From official documents, we learn that a fraction over
three-fourths of the revenue collected for the support of the Government
has uniformly been raised from the North.
Pause now while you can, gentlemen, and contemplate carefully and
candidly these important items. Look at another necessary branch of
Government, and learn from stern statistical facts how matters stand in
that department. I mean the mail and Post-Office privileges that we now
enjoy under the General Government as it has been for years past. The
expense for the transportation of the mail in the Free States was, by
the report of the Postmaster-General for the year 1860 a little over
$13,000,000, while the income was $19,000,000. But in the Slave States
the transportation of the mail was $14,716,000, while the revenue from
the same was $8,001,026, leaving a deficit of $6,704,974, to be supplied
by the North for our accommodation, and without it we must have been
entirely cut off from this most essential branch of Government.
Leaving out of view, for the present, the countless millions of dollars
you must expend in a war with the North; with tens of thousands of your
sons and brothers slain in battle, and offered up as sacrifices upon the
altar of your ambition—and for what, we ask again? Is it for the
overthrow of the American Government, established by our common
ancestry, cemented and built up by their sweat and blood, and founded on
the broad principles of _Right_, _Justice_ and _Humanity_? And as such,
I must declare here, as I have often done before, and which has been
repeated by the greatest and wisest of statesmen and patriots in this
and other lands, that it is the best and freest Government—the most
equal in its rights, the most just in its decisions, the most lenient in
its measures, and the most aspiring in its principles to elevate the
race of men, that the sun of heaven ever shone upon. Now, for you to
attempt to overthrow such a government as this, under which we have
lived for more than three-quarters of a century—in which we have gained
our wealth, our standing as a nation, our domestic safety while the
elements of peril are around us, with peace and tranquillity accompanied
with unbounded prosperity and rights unassailed—is the height of
_madness_, _folly_, and _wickedness_, to which I can neither lend my
sanction nor my vote.
The seven seceding States (South Carolina, Mississippi, Georgia,
Florida, Alabama, Louisiana and Texas,) as shown by data previously
given, organized their Provisional Government, with Jefferson Davis, the
most radical secession leader, as President; and Alex. H. Stephens, the
most conservative leader, as Vice-President. The reasons for these
selections were obvious; the first met the views of the cotton States,
the other example was needed in securing the secession of other States.
The Convention adopted a constitution, the substance of which is given
elsewhere in this work. Stephens delivered a speech at Savannah, March
21st, 1861, in explanation and vindication of this instrument, which
says all that need be said about it:
“The new Constitution has put at rest forever all the agitating
questions relating to our peculiar institutions—African slavery as it
exists among us—the proper status of the negro in our form of
civilization. _This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and
present revolution. Jefferson, in his forecast, had anticipated this as
the ‘rock upon which the old Union would split.’_ He was right. What was
conjecture with him, is now a realized fact. But whether he fully
comprehended the great truth upon which that rock stood and stands, may
be doubted. The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of the
leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old Constitution,
were that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of
nature: that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and
politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with, but the
general opinion of the men of that day was, that somehow or other, in
the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass
away. This idea, though not incorporated in the Constitution, was the
prevailing idea at the time. The Constitution, it is true, secured every
essential guarantee to the institution while it should last, and hence
no argument can be justly used against the constitutional guarantees
thus secured, because of the common sentiment of the day. Those ideas,
however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of
the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and
the idea of a government built upon it; when the ‘storm came and the
wind blew, it fell.’
“Our new Government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its
foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests upon the great truth that
the negro is not equal to the white man. That slavery—subordination to
the superior race, is his natural and normal condition. This, our new
Government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this
great physical and moral truth. This truth has been slow in the process
of its development, like all other truths in the various departments of
science. It has been so even amongst us. Many who hear me, perhaps, can
recollect well, that this truth was not generally admitted, even within
their day. The errors of the past generation still clung to many as late
as twenty years ago. Those at the North who still cling to these errors,
with a zeal above knowledged, we justly denominate fanatics.***
“In the conflict thus far, success has been, on our side, complete
throughout the length and breadth of the Confederate States. It is upon
this, as I have stated, our actual fabric is firmly planted; and I
cannot permit myself to doubt the ultimate success of a full recognition
of this principle throughout the civilized and enlightened world.
“As I have stated, the truth of this principle may be slow in
development, as all truths are, and ever have been, in the various
branches of science. It was so with the principles announced by
Galileo—it was so with Adam Smith and his principles of political
economy—it was so with Harvey and his theory of the circulation of the
blood. It is stated that not a single one of the medical profession,
living at the time of the announcement of the truths made by him,
admitted them. Now they are universally acknowledged. May we not,
therefore, look with confidence to the ultimate universal acknowledgment
of the truths upon which our system rests. It is the first government
ever instituted upon principles of strict conformity to nature, and the
ordination of Providence, in furnishing the materials of human society.
Many governments have been founded upon the principle of certain
classes; but the classes thus enslaved, were of the same race, and in
violation of the laws of nature. Our system commits no such violation of
nature’s laws. The negro, by nature, or by the curse against Canaan, is
fitted for that condition which he occupies in our system. The
architect, in the construction of buildings, lays the foundation with
the proper materials, the granite; then comes the brick or the marble.
The substratum of our society is made of the material fitted by nature
for it, and by experience we know that it is best, not only for the
superior, but for the inferior race that it should be so. It is, indeed,
in conformity with the ordinance of the Creator. It is not for us to
inquire into the wisdom of His ordinances, or to question them. For His
own purposes He has made one race to differ from another, as He has made
‘one star to differ from another star in glory.’
“The great objects of humanity are best attained when conformed to His
laws and decrees, in the formation of governments, as well as in all
things else. Our Confederacy is founded upon principles in strict
conformity with these laws. This stone which was first rejected by the
first builders ‘is become the chief stone of the corner’ in our new
edifice.
“The progress of disintegration in the old Union may be expected to go
on with almost absolute certainty. We are now the nucleus of a growing
power, which, if we are true to ourselves, our destiny, and high
mission, will become the controlling power on this continent. To what
extent accessions will go on in the process of time, or where it will
end, the future will determine.”
It was determined by the secession of eleven States in all, the Border
States except Missouri, remaining in the Union, and West Virginia
dividing from old Virginia for the purpose of keeping her place in the
Union.
The leaders of the Confederacy relied to a great extent upon the fact
that President Buchanan, in his several messages and replies to
commissioners, and in the explanation of the law by his
Attorney-General, had tied his own hands against any attempt to
reinforce the garrisons in the Southern forts, and they acted upon this
faith and made preparations for their capture. The refusal of the
administration to reinforce Fort Moultrie caused the resignation of
General Cass, and by this time the Cabinet was far from harmonious. As
early as the 10th of December, Howell Cobb resigned as Secretary of the
Treasury, because of his “duty to Georgia;” January 26th, John B. Floyd
resigned because Buchanan would not withdraw the troops from Southern
forts; and before that, Attorney-General Black, without publicly
expressing his views, also resigned. Mr. Buchanan saw the wreck around
him, and his administration closed in profound regret on the part of
many of his northern friends, and, doubtless, on his own part. His early
policy, and indeed up to the close of 1860, must have been
unsatisfactory even to himself, for he supplied the vacancies in his
cabinet by devoted Unionists—by Philip F. Thomas of Maryland, Gen’l Dix
of New York, Joseph Holt of Kentucky, and Edwin M. Stanton of
Pennsylvania—men who held in their hands the key to nearly every
situation, and who did much to protect and restore the Union of the
States. In the eyes of the North, the very last acts of Buchanan were
the best.
With the close of Buchanan’s administration all eyes turned to Lincoln,
and fears were entertained that the date fixed by law for the counting
of the electoral vote—February 15th, 1861—would inaugurate violence and
bloodshed at the seat of government. It passed, however, peaceably. Both
Houses met at 12 high noon in the hall of the House, Vice-President
Breckinridge and Speaker Pennington, both democrats, sitting side by
side, and the count was made without serious challenge or question.
On the 11th of February Mr. Lincoln left his home for Washington,
intending to perform the journey in easy stages. On parting with his
friends at Springfield, he said:
“_My Friends_: No one, in my position, can realize the sadness I feel at
this parting. To this people I owe all that I am. Here I have lived more
than a quarter of a century. Here my children were born, and here one of
them lies buried. I know not how soon I shall see you again. I go to
assume a task more difficult than that which has devolved upon any other
man since the days of Washington. He never would have succeeded except
for the aid of Divine Providence, upon which he at all times relied. I
feel that I cannot succeed without the same Divine blessing which
sustained him; and on the same Almighty Being I place my reliance for
support. And I hope you, my friends, will all pray that I might receive
that Divine assistance, without which I cannot succeed, but with which
success is certain. Again, I bid you all an affectionate farewell.”
Lincoln passed through Indiana, Ohio, New York, New Jersey and
Pennsylvania on his way to the Capitol. Because of threats made that he
should not reach the Capitol alive, some friends in Illinois employed a
detective to visit Washington and Baltimore in advance of his arrival,
and he it was who discovered a conspiracy in Baltimore to mob and
assassinate him. He therefore passed through Baltimore in the night, two
days earlier than was anticipated, and reached Washington in safety. On
the 22d of February he spoke at Independence Hall and said:
“All the political sentiments I entertain have been drawn, so far as I
have been able to draw them, from the sentiments which originated in,
and were given to the world from, this hall. I never had a feeling,
politically, that did not spring from the sentiments embodied in the
Declaration of Independence.
* * * * *
“It was not the mere matter of the separation of the Colonies from the
motherland, but that _sentiment_ in the Declaration of Independence,
which gave liberty, not alone to the people of this country, but, I
hope, to the world for all future time. It was that which gave promise
that, in due time, the weight would be lifted from the shoulders of men.
This is the sentiment embodied in the Declaration of Independence. Now,
my friends, can this country be saved upon that basis? If it can, I will
consider myself one of the happiest men in the world, if I can help to
save it. If it cannot be saved upon that principle, it will be truly
awful! But if this country cannot be saved without giving up the
principle, I was about to say, ‘I would rather be assassinated on the
spot than surrender it.’ *** I have said nothing but what I am willing
to live by, and if it be the pleasure of Almighty God, to die by!”
Lincoln’s First Administration.
Such was the feeling of insecurity that the President elect was followed
to Washington by many watchful friends, while Gen’l Scott, Col. Sumner,
Major Hunter and the members of Buchanan’s Cabinet quickly made such
arrangements as secured his safety. Prior to his inauguration he took
every opportunity to quell the still rising political excitement by
assuring the Southern people of his kindly feelings, and on the 27th of
February,[17] “when waited upon by the Mayor and Common Council of
Washington, he assured them, and through them the South, that he had no
disposition to treat them in any other way than as neighbors, and that
he had no disposition to withhold from them any constitutional right. He
assured the people that they would have all of their rights under the
Constitution—‘not grudgingly, but freely and fairly.’”
He was peacefully inaugurated on the 4th of March, and yet Washington
was crowded as never before by excited multitudes. The writer himself
witnessed the military arrangements of Gen’l Scott for preserving the
peace, and with armed cavalry lining every curb stone on the line of
march, it would have been difficult indeed to start or continue a riot,
though it was apparent that many in the throng were ready to do it if
occasion offered.
The inaugural ceremonies were more than usually impressive. On the
eastern front of the capitol, surrounded by such of the members of the
Senate and House who had not resigned their seats and entered the
Confederacy, the Diplomatic Corps, the Judges of the Supreme Court,
headed by Chief Justice Taney, the author of the Dred Scott decision;
the higher officers of Army and Navy, while close by the side of the new
President stood the retiring one—James Buchanan—tall, dignified,
reserved, and to the eye of the close observer apparently deeply grieved
at the part his party and position had compelled him to play in a
National drama which was now reaching still another crisis. Near by,
too, stood Douglas (holding Lincoln’s hat) more gloomy than was his
wont, but determined as he had ever been. Next to the two Presidents he
was most observed.
[Illustration: A. Lincoln]
If the country could then have been pacified, Lincoln’s inaugural was
well calculated to do it. That it exercised a wholesome influence in
behalf of the Union, and especially in the border States, soon became
apparent. Indeed, its sentiments seemed for weeks to check the wild
spirit of secession in the cotton States, and it took all the efforts of
their most fiery orators to rekindle the flame which seemed to have been
at its highest when Major Anderson was compelled to evacuate Fort
Moultrie.
It is but proper in this connection, to make a few quotations from the
inaugural address, for Lincoln then, as he did during the remainder of
his life, better reflected the more popular Republican sentiment than
any other leader. The very first thought was upon the theme uppermost in
the minds of all. We quote:
“Apprehension seems to exist among the people of the Southern States
that by the accession of a Republican Administration their property and
their peace and personal security are to be endangered. There has never
been any reasonable cause for such apprehension. Indeed, the most ample
evidence to the contrary has all the while existed and been open to
their inspection. It is found in nearly all the published speeches of
him who now addresses you. I do but quote from one of those speeches
when I declare that ‘I have no purpose directly or indirectly, to
interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists.
I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to
do so.’ Those who nominated and elected me did so with full knowledge
that I had made this and many similar declarations, and had never
recanted them. And more than this, they placed in the platform for my
acceptance, and as a law to themselves and to me, the clear and emphatic
resolution which I now read:
‘_Resolved_, That the maintenance inviolate of the rights of the States,
and especially the right of each State to order and control its own
domestic institutions according to its own judgment exclusively, is
essential to the balance of power on which the perfection and endurance
of our political fabric depend, and we denounce the lawless invasion by
armed force of the soil of any State or Territory, no matter under what
pretext, as among the gravest of crimes.’
I now reiterate these sentiments; and in doing so, I only press upon the
public attention the most conclusive evidence of which the case is
susceptible, that the property, peace, and security of no section are to
be in anywise endangered by the now incoming Administration. I add, too,
that all the protection which, consistently with the Constitution and
the laws, can be given, will be cheerfully given to all the States when
lawfully demanded, for whatever cause—as cheerfully to one section as to
another.
After conveying this peaceful assurance, he argued the question in his
own way, and in a way matchless for its homely force:
“Physically speaking, we cannot separate. We cannot remove our
respective sections from each other, nor build an impassable wall
between them. A husband and wife may be divorced, and go out of the
presence and beyond the reach of each other; but the different parts of
our country cannot do this. They cannot but remain face to face; and
intercourse, either amicable or hostile, must continue between them. Is
it possible, then, to make that intercourse more advantageous or more
satisfactory _after_ separation than _before_? Can aliens make treaties
easier than friends can make laws? Can treaties be more faithfully
enforced between aliens than laws can among friends? Suppose you go to
war, you cannot fight always; and when after much loss on both sides,
and no gain on either, you cease fighting, the identical old questions,
as to terms of intercourse, are again upon you.
“This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit
it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing Government they can
exercise their _constitutional_ right of amending it, or their
_revolutionary_ right to dismember or overthrow it. I cannot be ignorant
of the fact that many worthy and patriotic citizens are desirous of
having the National Constitution amended. While I make no recommendation
of amendments, I fully recognize the rightful authority of the people
over the whole subject, to be exercised in either of the modes
prescribed in the instrument itself; and I should under existing
circumstances, favor rather than oppose a fair opportunity being
afforded the people to act upon it. I will venture to add that to me the
convention mode seems preferable, in that it allows amendments to
originate with the people themselves, instead of only permitting them to
take or reject propositions originated by others, not especially chosen
for the purpose, and which might not be precisely such as they would
wish to either accept or refuse. I understand a proposed amendment to
the Constitution—which amendment, however, I have not seen—has passed
Congress, to the effect that the Federal Government shall never
interfere with the domestic institutions of the States, including that
of persons held to service. To avoid misconstruction of what I have
said, I depart from my purpose not to speak of particular amendments so
far as to say that, holding such a provision now to be implied
constitutional law, I have no objection to its being made express and
irrevocable.
“The Chief Magistrate derives all his authority from the people, and
they have conferred none upon him to fix terms for the separation of the
States. The people themselves can do this also if they choose; but the
Executive, as such, has nothing to do with it. His duty is to administer
the present Government, as it came to his hands, and to transmit it,
unimpaired by him, to his successor.***
“In _your_ hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in _mine_,
is the momentous issue of civil war. The Government will not assail
_you_. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors.
_You_ have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the Government, while
I shall have the most solemn one to ‘preserve, protect and defend it.’
“I am loth to close. We are not enemies but friends. We must not be
enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds
of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every
battle-field and patriot grave to every living heart and hearth-stone,
all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the union, when
again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our
nature.”
Lincoln appointed a Cabinet in thorough accord with his own views, and
well suited to whatever shades of difference there were in the
Republican party. Wm. H. Seward, Secretary of State, and Salmon P. Chase
represented the more advanced anti-slavery element; General Simon
Cameron, Secretary of War, from the first saw only a prolonged war in
which superior Northern resources and appliances would surely win, while
Seward expressed the view that “all troubles would be over in three
months;” Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy; Caleb B. Smith of the
Interior; Edward Bates, Attorney-General, and Montgomery Blair,
Postmaster-General, represented the more conservative Republican
view—the two last named being well adapted to retaining the National
hold on the Border States.
Political events now rapidly succeeded each other. As early as March 11,
John Forsyth of Alabama and Martin J. Crawford of Georgia, submitted to
the Secretary of State a proposition for an unofficial interview. Mr.
Seward the next day, from “purely public considerations,” declined. On
the 13th the same gentlemen sent a sealed communication, saying they had
been duly accredited by the Confederate government as Commissioners, to
negotiate for a speedy adjustment of all questions growing out of the
political separation of seven States, which had formed a government of
their own, etc. They closed this remarkable document by requesting the
Secretary of State to appoint as early a day as possible in order that
they may present to the President of the United States the credentials
which they bear, and the objects of the mission with which they are
charged.
Mr. Seward’s reply in substance, said that his “official duties were
confined, subject to the direction of the President, to the conducting
of the foreign relations of the country, and do not at all embrace
domestic questions or questions arising between the several States and
the Federal Government, is unable to comply with the request of Messrs.
Forsyth and Crawford, to appoint a day on which they may present the
evidences of their authority and the object of their visit to the
President of the United States. On the contrary, he is obliged to state
to Messrs. Forsyth and Crawford that he has no authority, nor is he at
liberty to recognize them as diplomatic agents, or hold correspondence
or other communication with them.”
An extended correspondence followed, but the administration in all
similar cases, refused to recognize the Confederacy as a government in
any way. On the 13th of April the President granted an interview to Wm.
Ballard Preston, Alex. H. Stuart, and George W. Randolph, who had been
sent by the Convention of Virginia, then in session, under a resolution
recited in the President’s reply, the text of which is herewith given:—
GENTLEMEN: As a committee of the Virginia Convention, now in session,
you present me a preamble and resolution in these words:
“Whereas, in the opinion of this Convention, the uncertainty which
prevails in the public mind as to the policy which the Federal Executive
intends to pursue toward the seceded States is extremely injurious to
the industrial and commercial interests of the country, tends to keep up
an excitement which is unfavorable to the adjustment of pending
difficulties, and threatens a disturbance of the public peace:
Therefore,
“_Resolved_, That a committee of three delegates be appointed to wait on
the President of the United States, present to him this preamble and
resolution, and respectfully ask him to communicate to this Convention
the policy which the Federal Executive intends to pursue in regard to
the Confederate States.”
“In answer I have to say, that, having at the beginning of my official
term expressed my intended policy as plainly as I was able, it is with
deep regret and some mortification I now learn that there is great and
injurious uncertainty in the public mind as to what that policy is, and
what course I intend to pursue.
“Not having as yet seen occasion to change, it is now my purpose to
pursue the course marked out in the inaugural address. I commend a
careful consideration of the whole document as the best expression I can
give of my purposes. As I then and therein said, I now repeat:
“The power confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the
property and places belonging to the Government, and to collect the
duties and imposts; but beyond what is necessary for these objects there
will be no invasion, no using of force against or among the people
anywhere.”
“By the words ‘property and places belonging to the Government’ I
chiefly allude to the military posts and property which were in the
possession of the Government when it came into my hands.
“But if, as now appears to be true, in pursuit of a purpose to drive the
United States authority from these places, an unprovoked assault has
been made upon Fort Sumter, I shall hold myself at liberty to repossess,
if I can, like places which had been seized before the Government was
devolved upon me. And, in any event, I shall, to the best of my ability,
repel force by force.
“In case it proves true that Fort Sumter has been assaulted, as is
reported, I shall perhaps cause the United States mails to be withdrawn
from all the States which claim to have seceded, believing that the
commencement of actual war against the Government justifies and possibly
demands it.”
“I scarcely need to say that I consider the military posts and property
situated within the States which claim to have seceded as yet belonging
to the Government of the United States as much as they did before the
supposed secession.
“Whatever else I may do for the purpose, I shall not attempt to collect
the duties and imposts by any armed invasion of any part of the
country—not meaning by this, however, that I may not land a force deemed
necessary to relieve a fort upon the border of the country.
“From the fact that I have quoted a part of the inaugural address, it
must not be inferred that I repudiate any other part, the whole of which
I reaffirm, except so far as what I now say of the mails may be regarded
as a modification.”
We have given the above as not only fair but interesting samples of the
semi-official and official transactions and correspondence of the time.
To give more could not add to the interest of what is but a description
of the political situation.
The Border states and some others were “halting between two opinions.”
North Carolina at first voted down a proposition to secede by 46,671
for, to 47,333 against, but the secessionists called another convention
in May, the work of which the people ratified, the minority, however,
being very large.
Before Lincoln had entered office most of the Southern forts, arsenals,
docks, custom houses, etc., had been seized, and now that preparations
were being made for active warfare by the Confederacy, many officers of
the army and navy resigned or deserted, and joined it. The most notable
were General Robert E. Lee, who for a time hesitated as to his “duty,”
and General David E. Twiggs, the second officer in rank in the United
States Army, but who had purposely been placed by Secretary Floyd in
command of the Department of Texas to facilitate his joining the
Confederacy, which he intended to do from the beginning. All officers
were permitted to go, the administration not seeking to restrain any,
under the belief that until some open act of war was committed it ought
to remain on the defensive. This was wise political policy, for it did
more than all else to hold the Border States, the position of which
Douglas understood fully as well as any statesman of that hour. It is
remarked of Douglas (in Arnold’s “_History of Abraham Lincoln_”) that as
early as January 1, 1861, he said to General Charles Stewart, of New
York, who had made a New Year’s call at his residence in Washington, and
inquired, “What will be the result of the efforts of Jefferson Davis,
and his associates, to divide the Union?” “Rising, and looking,” says my
informant, “like one inspired, Douglas replied, ‘The cotton States are
making an effort to draw in the border States to their schemes of
secession, and I am but too fearful they will succeed. If they do
succeed, there will be the most terrible civil war the world has ever
seen, lasting for years.’ Pausing a moment, he exclaimed, ‘Virginia will
become a charnel house, but the end will be the triumph of the Union
cause. One of their first efforts will be to take possession of this
Capitol to give them prestige abroad, but they will never succeed in
taking it—the North will rise _en masse_ to defend it;—but Washington
will become a city of hospitals—the churches will be used for the sick
and wounded—even this house (Minnesota block, afterwards, and during the
war, the Douglas Hospital) may be devoted to that purpose before the end
of the war.’ The friend to whom this was said inquired, ‘What
justification for all this?’ Douglas replied, ‘There is no
justification, nor any pretense of any—if they remain in the Union, I
will go as far as the Constitution will permit, to maintain their just
rights, and I do not doubt a majority of Congress would do the same.
But,’ said he, again rising on his feet, and extending his arm, ‘if the
Southern States attempt to secede from this Union, without further
cause, I am in favor of their having just so many slaves, and just so
much slave territory, as they can hold at the point of the bayonet, and
NO MORE.’”
In the border states of Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee
and Missouri there were sharp political contests between the friends of
secession and of the Union. Ultimately the Unionists triumphed in
Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri—in the latter state by the active aid of
U. S. troops—in Maryland and Kentucky by military orders to arrest any
members of the Legislature conspiring to take their states out. In
Tennessee, the Union men, under the lead of Andrew Johnson, Governor
(“Parson”) Brownlow, Horace Maynard and others, who made a most gallant
fight to keep the state in, and they had the sympathy of the majority of
the people of East Tennessee. The Secessionists took Virginia out April
17th, and North Carolina May 20th. The leading Southerners encouraged
the timid and hesitating by saying the North would not make war; that
the political divisions would be too great there, and they were
supported in this view by the speeches and letters of leaders like
Clement L. Vallandigham. On the other hand they roused the excitable by
warlike preparations, and, as we have stated, to prevent reconsideration
on the part of those who had seceded, resolved to fire upon Sumter.
Beauregard acted under direct instructions from the government at
Montgomery when he notified Major Anderson on the 11th of April to
surrender Fort Sumter. Anderson replied that he would evacuate on the
15th, but the original summons called for surrender by the 12th, and
they opened their fire in advance of the time fixed for evacuation—a
fact which clearly established the purpose to bring about a collision.
It was this aggressive spirit which aroused and united the North, and
made extensive political division therein impossible.
The Southern leaders, ever anxious for the active aid of the Border
States, soon saw that they could only acquire it through higher
sectional excitement than any yet cultivated, and they acted
accordingly. Roger A. Pryor, in a speech at Richmond April 10th, gave
expression to this thought, when he said in response to a serenade:—
“Gentlemen, I thank you, especially that you have at last annihilated
this accursed Union, [applause,] reeking with corruption, and insolent
with excess of tyranny. Thank God, it is at last blasted and riven by
the lightning wrath of an outraged and indignant people. [Loud
applause.] Not only is it gone, but gone forever. [Cries of ‘You’re
right,’ and applause.] In the expressive language of Scripture, it is
water spilt upon the ground, which cannot be gathered up. [Applause.]
Like Lucifer, son of the morning, it has fallen, never to rise again.
[Continued applause.] _For my part, gentlemen, if Abraham Lincoln and
Hannibal Hamlin to-morrow were to abdicate their offices and were to
give me a blank sheet of paper to write the conditions of reannexation
to the defunct Union, I would scornfully spurn the overture._ * * * I
invoke you, and I make it in some sort a personal appeal—personal so far
as it tends to our assistance in Virginia—I do invoke you, in your
demonstrations of popular opinion, in your exhibitions of official
intent, to give no countenance to this idea of reconstruction. [Many
voices, emphatically, ‘Never,’ and applause.] In Virginia they all say,
if reduced to the dread dilemma of this memorable alternative, they will
espouse the cause of the South as against the interest of the Northern
Confederacy, but they whisper of reconstruction, and they say Virginia
must abide in the Union, with the idea of reconstructing the Union which
you have annihilated. _I pray you, gentlemen, rob them of that idea._
Proclaim to the world that upon no condition, and under no circumstance,
will South Carolina ever again enter into political association with the
Abolitionists of New England. [Cries of ‘Never,’ and applause.]
“Do not distrust Virginia. As sure as to-morrow’s sun will rise upon us,
just so sure will Virginia be a member of this Southern Confederation.
[Applause.] _And I will tell you, gentlemen, what will put her in the
Southern Confederation in less than an hour by Shrewsbury clock_—STRIKE
A BLOW! [Tremendous applause.] _The very moment that blood is shed, old
Virginia will make common cause with her sisters of the South._
[Applause.] It is impossible she should do otherwise.”
Warlike efforts were likewise used to keep some of the states firmly to
their purpose. Hon. Jeremiah Clemens, formerly United States Senator
from Alabama, and a member of the Alabama Seceding Convention who
resisted the movement until adopted by the body, at an adjourned
Reconstruction meeting held at Huntsville, Ala., March 13, 1864, made
this significant statement:—
Mr. Clemens, in adjourning the meeting, said he would tell the
Alabamians how their state was got out of the Union. “In 1861,” said Mr.
C., “shortly after the Confederate Government was put in operation, I
was in the city of Montgomery. One day I stepped into the office of the
Secretary of War, General Walker, and found there, engaged in a very
excited discussion, Mr. Jefferson Davis, Mr. Memminger, Mr. Benjamin,
Mr. Gilchrist, a member of our Legislature from Loundes county, and a
number of other prominent gentlemen. They were discussing the propriety
of immediately opening fire on Fort Sumter, to which General Walker, the
Secretary of War, appeared to be opposed. Mr. Gilchrist said to him,
‘Sir, unless you sprinkle blood in the face of the people of Alabama
they will be back in the old Union in less than ten days!’ The next day
General Beauregard opened his batteries on Sumter, and Alabama was saved
to the Confederacy.”
When the news flashed along the wires that Sumter had been fired upon,
Lincoln immediately used his war powers and issued a call for 75,000
troops. All of the northern governors responded with promptness and
enthusiasm; but this was not true of the governors of the southern
states which at that time had not seceded, and the Border States.
We take from McPherson’s admirable condensation, the evasive or hostile
replies of the Governors referred to, and follow it with his statement
of the military calls and legislation of both governments, but for the
purposes of this work omit details which are too extended.
REPLIES OF SOUTHERN STATE GOVERNORS TO LINCOLN’S CALL FOR 75,000 TROOPS.
Governor BURTON, of Delaware, issued a proclamation, April 26,
recommending the formation of volunteer companies for the protection of
the lives and property of the people of Delaware against violence of any
sort to which they may be exposed, the companies not being subject to be
ordered by the Executive into the United States service, the law not
vesting him with such authority, but having the option of offering their
services to the General Government for the defence of its capital and
the support of the Constitution and laws of the country.
Governor HICKS, of Maryland, May 14, issued a proclamation for the
troops, stating that the four regiments would be detailed to serve
within the limits of Maryland or for the defence of the capital of the
United States.
Governor LETCHER, of Virginia, replied that “The militia of Virginia
will not be furnished to the powers of Washington for any such use or
purpose as they have in view. Your object is to subjugate the southern
States, and a requisition made upon me for such an object—an object, in
my judgment, not within the purview of the Constitution or the act of
1795—will not be complied with. You have chosen to inaugurate civil war,
and having done so we will meet it in a spirit as determined as the
Administration has exhibited toward the South.”
Governor ELLIS, of North Carolina, replied April 15:
“Your dispatch is received, and if genuine—which its extraordinary
character leads me to doubt—I have to say in reply that I regard the
levy of troops made by the Administration, for the purpose of
subjugating the States of the South, as in violation of the Constitution
and a usurpation of power. I can be no party to this wicked violation of
the laws of the country, and to this war upon the liberties of a free
people. You can get no troops from North Carolina. I will reply more in
detail when your call is received by mail.”
Governor MAGOFFIN, of Kentucky, replied, April 15:
“Your dispatch is received. In answer I say emphatically, Kentucky will
furnish no troops for the wicked purpose of subduing her sister Southern
States.”
Governor HARRIS, of Tennessee, replied, April 18:
“Tennessee will not furnish a single man for coercion, but fifty
thousand, if necessary, for the defence of our rights or those of our
southern brethren.”
Governor JACKSON, of Missouri, replied:
“Your requisition is illegal, unconstitutional, revolutionary, inhuman,
diabolical, and cannot be complied with.”
Governor RECTOR, of Arkansas, replied, April 22:
“None will be furnished. The demand is only adding insult to injury.”
ALL OTHER CALLS FOR TROOPS.
May 3, 1861—The President called for thirty-nine volunteer regiments of
infantry and one regiment of cavalry, with a minimum aggregate of 34,506
officers and enlisted men, and a maximum of 42,034; and for the
enlistment of 18,000 seamen.
May 3, 1861—The President directed an increase of the regular army by
eight regiments of infantry, one of cavalry, and one of
artillery—minimum aggregate, 18,054; maximum, 22,714.
August 6—Congress legalized this increase, and all the acts, orders, and
proclamations respecting the Army and Navy.
July 22 and 25, 1861—Congress authorized the enlistment of 500,000
volunteers.
September 17, 1861—Commanding officer at Hatteras Inlet, N. C.,
authorized to enlist a regiment of loyal North Carolinians.
November 7, 1861—The Governor of Missouri was authorized to raise a
force of State militia for State defence.
December 3, 1861—The Secretary of War directed that no more regiments,
batteries, or independent companies be raised by the Governors of
States, except upon the special requisition of the War Department.
July 2, 1862—The President called for three hundred thousand volunteers.
Under the act of July 17, 1862.
August 4, 1862—The President ordered a draft of three hundred thousand
militia, for nine months unless sooner discharged; and directed that if
any State shall not, by the 15th of August, furnish its quota of the
additional 300,000 authorized by law, the deficiency of volunteers in
that State will also be made up by special draft from the militia.
Wednesday, September 3, was subsequently fixed for the draft.
May 8, 1863—Proclamation issued, defining the relations of aliens to the
conscription act, holding all aliens who have declared on oath their
intention to become citizens and may be in the country within sixty-five
days from date, and all who have declared their intention to become
citizens and have voted.
June 15, 1863—One hundred thousand men, for six months, called to repel
the invasion of Maryland, West Virginia, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.
October 17, 1863—A proclamation was issued for 300,000 volunteers, to
serve for three years or the war, not, however, exceeding three years,
to fill the places of those whose terms expire “during the coming year,”
these being in addition to the men raised by the present draft. In
States in default under this call, January 5, 1864, a draft shall be
made on that day.
February 1, 1864—Draft for 500,000 men for three years or during the
war, ordered for March 10, 1864.
March 14, 1864—Draft for 200,000 additional for the army, navy and
marine corps, ordered for April 15, 1864, to supply the force required
for the navy and to provide an adequate reserve force for all
contingencies.
April 23, 1864—85,000 one hundred day men accepted, tendered by the
Governors of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, and Wisconsin; 30,000,
20,000, 20,000, 10,000 and 5,000 being tendered respectively.
UNION MILITARY LEGISLATION.
1861, July 22—The President was authorized to accept the services of
volunteers, not exceeding five hundred thousand, for a period not
exceeding three years. July 27, this authority was duplicated.
1861, July 27—Nine regiments of infantry, one of cavalry, and one of
artillery, added to the regular army.
1861 August 5—Passed bill approving and legalizing the orders of the
President respecting the army and navy, issued from 4th of March to that
date.
1862, July 17—Authorized the President, when calling forth the militia
of the States, to specify the period of such service, not exceeding nine
months; and if by reason of defects in existing laws or in the execution
of them, it shall be found necessary to provide for enrolling the
militia, the President was authorized to make all necessary regulations,
the enrollment to include all able-bodied male citizens between eighteen
and forty-five, and to be apportioned according to representative
population. He was authorized, in addition to the volunteers now
authorized, to accept 100,000 infantry, for nine months; also, for
twelve months, to fill up old regiments, as many as may be presented for
the purpose.
1863, February 7—Authorized the Governor of Kentucky, by the consent and
under the direction of the President, to raise twenty thousand
volunteers, for twelve months, for service within the limits of the
State, for repelling invasion, suppressing insurrection, and guarding
and protecting the public property—two regiments to be mounted riflemen.
With the consent of the President, these troops may be attached to, and
become a part of, the body of three years’ volunteers.
1863, March 3—The conscription act passed. It included as a part of the
national forces, all able-bodied male citizens of the United States, and
persons of foreign birth who shall have declared on oath their intention
to become citizens under and in pursuance of the laws thereof, between
the ages of twenty-one and forty-five years, except such as are rejected
as physically or mentally unfit for the service; also, the
Vice-President, the judges of the various courts of the United States,
the heads of the various executive departments of the Government, and
the Governors of the several States; also, the only son liable to
military service, of a widow dependent upon his labor for support; also,
the only son of aged or infirm parent or parents, dependent upon his
labor for support; also, where there are two or more sons of aged or
infirm parents, subject to draft, the father, or if he be dead, the
mother, may elect which son shall be exempt; also, the only brother of
children not twelve years old, having neither father nor mother,
dependent upon his labor for support; also, the father of motherless
children under twelve years of age, dependent upon his labor for
support; also, where there are a father and sons in the same family and
household, and two of them are in military service of the United States
as non-commissioned officers, musicians, or privates, the residue of
such family; provided that no person who has been convicted of any
felony shall be enrolled or permitted to serve in said forces. It
divided the forces into two classes: 1st, those between twenty and
thirty-five and all unmarried persons above thirty-five and under
forty-five; 2d, all others liable to military duty. It divided the
country into districts, in each of which an enrollment board was
established. The persons enrolled were made subject to be called into
the military service for two years from July 1, 1863, and continue in
service for three years. A drafted person was allowed to furnish an
acceptable substitute, or pay $300, and be discharged from further
liability under that draft. Persons failing to report, to be considered
deserters. All persons drafted shall be assigned by the President to
military duty in such corps, regiments, or branches of the service as
the exigencies of the service may require.
1864, Feb. 24—Provided for equalizing the draft by calculating the quota
of each district or precinct and counting the number previously
furnished by it. Any person enrolled may furnish an acceptable
substitute who is not liable to draft, nor, at any time, in the military
or naval service of the United States; and such person so furnishing a
substitute shall be exempt from draft during the time for which such
substitute shall not be liable to draft, not exceeding the time for
which such substitute shall have been accepted. If such substitute is
liable to draft, the name of the person furnishing him shall again be
placed on the roll and shall be liable to draft in future calls, but not
until the present enrollment shall be exhausted. The exemptions are
limited to such as are rejected as physically or mentally unfit for the
service; to persons actually in the military or naval service of the
Government, and all persons who have served in the military or naval
service two years during the present war and been honorably discharged
therefrom.
The separate enrollment of classes is repealed and the two classes
consolidated.
Members of religious denominations, who shall by oath or affirmation
declare that they are conscientiously opposed to the bearing of arms,
and who are prohibited from doing so by the rules and articles of faith
and practice of said religious denomination, shall when drafted, be
considered non-combatants, and be assigned to duty in the hospitals, or
the care of freedmen, or shall pay $300 to the benefit of sick and
wounded soldiers, if they give proof that their deportment has been
uniformly consistent with their declaration.
No alien who has voted in county, State or Territory shall, because of
alienage, be exempt from draft.
“All able-bodied male colored persons between the ages of twenty and
forty-five years, resident in the United States, shall be enrolled
according to the provisions of this act, and of the act to which this is
an amendment, and form part of the national forces; and when a slave of
a loyal master shall be drafted and mustered into the service of the
United States, his master shall have a certificate thereof; and
thereupon such slave shall be free, and the bounty of one hundred
dollars, now payable by law for each drafted man, shall be paid to the
person to whom such drafted person was owing service or labor at the
time of his muster into the service of the United States. The Secretary
of War shall appoint a commission in each of the slave States
represented in Congress, charged to award to each loyal person to whom a
colored volunteer may owe service a just compensation, not exceeding
three hundred dollars, for each such colored volunteer, payable out of
the fund derived from commutations, and every such colored volunteer on
being mustered into the service shall be free. And in all cases where
men of color have been enlisted, or have volunteered in the military
service of the United States, all the provisions of this act so far as
the payment of bounty and compensation are provided, shall be equally
applicable, as to those who may be hereafter recruited. But men of
color, drafted or enlisted, or who may volunteer into the military
service, while they shall be credited on the quotas of the several
States, or sub-divisions of States, wherein they are respectively
drafted, enlisted, or shall volunteer, shall not be assigned as State
troops, but shall be mustered into regiments or companies as United
States colored troops.”
1864, Feb. 29—Bill passed reviving the grade of Lieutenant-General in
the army, and Major General Ulysses S. Grant was appointed March 2d.
1864, June 15—All persons of color shall receive the same pay and
emoluments, except bounty, as other soldiers of the regular or volunteer
army from and after Jan. 1, 1864, the President to fix the bounty for
those hereafter mustered, not exceeding $100.
1864, June 20—The monthly pay of privates and non-commissioned officers
was fixed as follows, on and after May 1:
Sergeant majors, twenty-six dollars; quartermaster and commissary
sergeants of Cavalry, artillery, and infantry, twenty-two dollars; first
sergeants of cavalry, artillery, and infantry, twenty-four dollars;
sergeants of cavalry, artillery, and infantry, twenty dollars; sergeants
of ordnance, sappers and miners, and pontoniers, thirty-four dollars;
corporals of ordnance, sappers and miners, and pontoniers, twenty
dollars; privates of engineers and ordnance of the first class, eighteen
dollars, and of the second class, sixteen dollars; corporals of cavalry,
artillery, and infantry, eighteen dollars; chief buglers of cavalry,
twenty-three dollars; buglers, sixteen dollars; farriers and
blacksmiths, of cavalry, and artificers of artillery, eighteen dollars;
privates of cavalry, artillery and infantry, sixteen dollars; principal
musicians of artillery and infantry, twenty-two dollars; leaders of
brigade and regimental bands, seventy-five dollars; musicians, sixteen
dollars; hospital stewards of the first class, thirty-three dollars;
hospital stewards of the second class, twenty-five dollars; hospital
stewards of the third class, twenty-three dollars.
July 4—This bill became a law:
_Be it enacted, &c._ That the President of the United States may, at his
discretion, at any time hereafter call for any number of men as
volunteers for the respective terms of one, two, and three years for
military service; and any such volunteer, or, in case of draft, as
hereinafter provided, any substitute, shall be credited to the town,
township, ward of a city, precinct, or election district, or of a county
not so subdivided towards the quota of which he may have volunteered or
engaged as a substitute; and every volunteer who is accepted and
mustered into the service for a term of one year, unless sooner
discharged, shall receive, and be paid by the United States, a bounty of
one hundred dollars; and if for a term of two years, unless sooner
discharged, a bounty of two hundred dollars; and if for a term of three
years, unless sooner discharged, a bounty of three hundred dollars; one
third of which bounty shall be paid to the soldier at the time of his
being mustered into the service, one-third at the expiration of one-half
of his term of service, and one-third at the expiration of his term of
service. And in case of his death while in service, the residue of his
bounty unpaid shall be paid to his widow, if he shall have left a widow;
if not, to his children; or if there be none, to his mother, if she be a
widow.
* * * * *
SEC. 8. That all persons in the naval service of the United States, who
have entered said service during the present rebellion, who have not
been credited to the quota of any town, district, ward, or State, by
reason of their being in said service and not enrolled prior to February
twenty-four, eighteen hundred and sixty-four, shall be enrolled and
credited to the quotas of the town, ward, district, or State, in which
they respectively reside, upon satisfactory proof of their residence
made to the Secretary of War.
“CONFEDERATE” MILITARY LEGISLATION.
February 28, 1861, (four days before the inauguration of Mr.
Lincoln)—The “Confederate” Congress passed a bill providing—
1st. To enable the Government of the Confederate States to maintain its
jurisdiction over all questions of peace and war, and to provide for the
public defence, the President be, and he is hereby authorized and
directed to assume control of all military operations in every State,
having reference to a connection with questions between the said States,
or any of them, and Powers foreign to themselves.
2d. The President was authorized to receive from the several States the
arms and munitions of war which have been acquired from the United
States.
3d. He was authorized to receive into Government service such forces in
the service of the States, as may be tendered, in such number as he may
require, for any time not less than twelve months, unless sooner
discharged.
March 6, 1861—The President was authorized to employ the militia,
military and naval forces of the Confederate States to repel invasion,
maintain rightful possession of the territory, and secure public
tranquillity and independence against threatened assault, to the extent
of 100,000 men, to serve for twelve months.
May 4, 1861—One regiment of Zouaves authorized.
May 6, 1861—Letters of marque and reprisal authorized.
1861, August 8—The Congress authorized the President to accept the
services of 400,000 volunteers, to serve for not less than twelve months
nor more than three years after they shall be mustered into service,
unless sooner discharged.
The Richmond _Enquirer_ of that date announced that it was ascertained
from official data, before the passage of the bill, that there were not
less than 210,000 men then in the field.
August 21—Volunteers authorized for local defence and special service.
1862, January—Publishers of newspapers, or other printed matter are
prohibited from giving the number, disposition, movement, or destination
of the land or naval forces, or description of vessel, or battery,
fortification, engine of war, or signal, unless first authorized by the
President or Congress, or the Secretary of War or Navy, or commanding
officer of post, district, or expedition. The penalty is a fine of
$1,000 and imprisonment not over twelve months.
1862, February—The Committee on Naval Affairs were instructed to inquire
into the expediency of placing at the disposal of the President five
millions of dollars to build gunboats.
1862—Bill passed to “regulate the destruction of property under military
necessity,” referring particularly to cotton and tobacco. The
authorities are authorized to destroy it to keep it from the enemy; and
owners, destroying it for the same purpose, are to be indemnified upon
proof of the value and the circumstances of the destruction.
1862, April 16—The first “conscription” bill became a law.
1864, February. The second conscription bill became a law.
_The Richmond Sentinel_ of February 17, 1864, contains a synopsis of
what is called the military bill, heretofore forbidden to be printed:
The first section provides that all white men residents of the
Confederate States, between the ages of seventeen and fifty, shall be in
the military service for the war.
The second section provides that all between eighteen and forty-five,
now in service, shall be continued during the war in the same regiments,
battalions, and companies to which they belong at the passage of this
act, with the organization, officers, &c., provided that companies from
one State organized against their consent, expressed at the time, with
regrets, &c., from another State, shall have the privilege of being
transferred to the same arm in a regiment from their own State, and men
can be transferred to a company from their own State.
Section three gives a bounty eight months hence of $100 in rebel bonds.
Section four provides that no person shall be relieved from the
operations of this act heretofore discharged for disability, _nor shall
those who furnished substitutes be exempted, where no disability now
exists_; but exempts religious persons who have paid an exemption
tax. * * *
The tenth section provides that no person shall be exempt except the
following: ministers, superintendents of deaf, dumb, and blind, or
insane asylums; one editor to each newspaper, and such employees as he
may swear to be indispensable; the Confederate and State public
printers, and the journeymen printers necessary to perform the public
printing; one apothecary to each drug store, who was and has been
continuously doing business as such since October 10, 1862; physicians
over 30 years of age of seven years’ practice, not including dentists;
presidents and teachers of colleges, academies and schools, who have not
less than thirty pupils; superintendents of public hospitals established
by law, and such physicians and nurses as may be indispensable for their
efficient management.
One agriculturist on such farm where there is no white male adult not
liable to duty employing fifteen able-bodied slaves, between sixteen and
fifty years of age, upon the following conditions:
The party exempted shall give bonds to deliver to the Government in the
next twelve months, 100 pounds of bacon, or its equivalent in salt pork,
at Government selection, and 100 pounds of beef for each such
able-bodied slave employed on said farm at commissioner’s rates.
In certain cases this may be commuted in grain or other provisions.
The person shall further bind himself to sell all surplus provisions now
on hand, or which he may raise, to the Government, or the families of
soldiers, at commissioner’s rates, the person to be allowed a credit of
25 per cent. on any amount he may deliver in three months from the
passage of this act; Provided that no enrollment since Feb. 1, 1864,
shall deprive the person enrolled from the benefit of this exemption.
In addition to the above, the Secretary of War is authorized to make
such details as the public security requires.
The vote in the House of Representatives was—yeas, 41; nays, 31.
GUERRILLAS.
1862, April 21—The President was authorized to commission such officers
as he may deem proper, with authority to form bands of partisan rangers,
in companies, battalions or regiments, either as infantry or cavalry, to
receive the same pay, rations, and quarters, and be subject to the same
regulations as other soldiers. For any arms and munitions of war
captured from the enemy by any body of partisan rangers, and delivered
to any quartermaster at designated place, the rangers shall pay their
full value.[18]
The following resolution, in relation to partisan service, was adopted
by the Virginia Legislature, May 17, 1862:
Whereas, this General Assembly places a high estimate upon the value of
the ranger or partisan service in prosecuting the present war to a
successful issue, and regards it as perfectly legitimate; and it being
understood that a Federal commander on the northern border of Virginia
has intimated his purpose, if such service is not discontinued, to lay
waste by fire the portion of our territory at present under his power.
_Resolved by the General Assembly_, That in its opinion, the policy of
employing such rangers and partisans ought to be carried out
energetically, both by the authorities of this State and of the
Confederate States, without the slightest regard to such threats.
By another act, the President was authorized, in addition to the
volunteer force authorized under existing laws, to accept the services
of volunteers who may offer them, without regard to the place of
enlistment, to serve for and during the existing war.
1862, May 27—Major General John B. Floyd was authorized by the
Legislature of Virginia, to raise ten thousand men, not now in service
or liable to draft, for twelve months.
1862, September 27—The President was authorized to call out and place in
the military service for three years, all white men who are residents,
between the ages of thirty-five and forty-five, at the time the call may
be made, not legally exempt. And such authority shall exist in the
President, during the present war, as to all persons who now are, or
hereafter may become eighteen years of age, and all persons between
eighteen and forty-five, once enrolled, shall serve their full time.
THE TWENTY-NEGRO EXEMPTION LAW.
1862, October 11—Exempted certain classes, described in the repealing
law of the next session, as follows:
The dissatisfaction of the people with an act passed by the Confederate
Congress, at its last session, by which persons owning a certain number
of slaves were exempted from the operation of the conscription law, has
led the members at the present session to reconsider their work, and
already one branch has passed a bill for the repeal of the obnoxious
law. This bill provides as follows:
“_The Congress of the Confederate States do enact_, That so much of the
act approved October 11, 1862, as exempts from military service ‘one
person, either as agent, owner, or overseer, on each plantation on which
one white person is required to be kept by the laws or ordinances of any
State, and on which there is no white male adult not liable to military
service, and in States having no such law, one person, as agent, owner,
or overseer on such plantation of twenty negroes, and on which there is
no white male adult not liable to military service;’ and also the
following clause in said act, to wit: ‘and furthermore, for additional
police of every twenty negroes, on two or more plantations, within five
miles of each other, and each having less than twenty negroes, and on
which there is no white male adult not liable to military duty, one
person, being the oldest of the owners or overseers on such
plantations,’ be and the same are hereby repealed; and the persons so
hitherto exempted by said clauses of said act are hereby made subject to
military duty in the same manner that they would be had said clauses
never been embraced in said act.”
THE POSITION OF DOUGLAS.
After the President had issued his first call, Douglas saw the danger to
which the Capitol was exposed, and he promptly called upon Lincoln to
express his full approval of the call. Knowing his political value and
that of his following Lincoln asked him to dictate a despatch to the
Associated Press, which he did in these words, the original being left
in the possession of Hon. George Ashmun of Massachusetts:
“April 18, 1861, Senator Douglas, called on the President, and had an
interesting conversation, on the present condition of the country. The
substance of it was, on the part of Mr. Douglas, that while he was
unalterably opposed to the administration in all its political issues,
he was prepared to fully sustain the President, in the exercise of all
his Constitutional functions, to preserve the Union, maintain the
Government, and defend the Federal Capitol. A firm policy and prompt
action was necessary. The Capitol was in danger, and must be defended at
all hazards, and at any expense of men and money. He spoke of the
present and future, without any reference to the past.”
Douglas followed this with a great speech at Chicago, in which he
uttered a sentence that was soon quoted on nearly every Northern tongue.
It was simply this, “that there now could be but two parties, patriots
and traitors.” It needed nothing more to rally the Douglas Democrats by
the side of the Administration, and in the general feeling of patriotism
awakened not only this class of Democrats, but many Northern supporters
of Breckinridge also enlisted in the Union armies. The leaders who stood
aloof and gave their sympathies to the South, were stigmatized as
“Copperheads,” and these where they were so impudent as to give
expression to their hostility, were as odious to the mass of Northerners
as the Unionists of Tennessee and North Carolina were to the
Secessionists—with this difference—that the latter were compelled to
seek refuge in their mountains, while the Northern leader who sought to
give “aid and comfort to the enemy” was either placed under arrest by
the government or proscribed politically by his neighbors. Civil war is
ever thus. Let us now pass to
THE POLITICAL LEGISLATION INCIDENT TO THE WAR.
The first session of the 37th Congress began July 4, 1861, and closed
Aug. 6. The second began December 2, 1861, and closed July 17, 1862. The
third began December 1, 1862 and closed March 4, 1863.
All of these sessions of Congress were really embarrassed by the number
of volunteers offering from the North, and sufficiently rapid provision
could not be made for them. And as illustrative of how political lines
had been broken, it need only be remarked that Benjamin F. Butler, the
leader of the Northern wing of Breckinridge’s supporters, was
commissioned as the first commander of the forces which Massachusetts
sent to the field. New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio—the great West—all the
States, more than met all early requirements. So rapid were enlistments
that no song was as popular as that beginning with the lines:
“We are coming, Father Abraham,
Six hundred thousand strong.”
The first session of the 37th Congress was a special one, called by the
President. McPherson, in his classification of the membership, shows the
changes in a body made historic, if such a thing can be, not only by its
membership present, but that which had gone or made itself subject to
expulsion by siding with the Confederacy. We quote the list so concisely
and correctly presented:
MEMBERS OF THE 37TH CONGRESS.
_March 4, 1861, to March 4, 1863._
HANNIBAL HAMLIN, of Maine, President of the Senate.
SENATORS.
_Maine_—Lot M. Morrill, Wm. Pitt Fessenden.
_New Hampshire_—John P. Hale, Daniel Clark.
_Vermont_—Solomon Foot, Jacob Collamer.
_Massachusetts_—Charles Sumner, Henry Wilson.
_Rhode Island_—James F. Simmons,[19] Henry B. Anthony.
_Connecticut_—James Dixon, Lafayette S. Foster.
_New York_—Preston King, Ira Harris.
_New Jersey_—John B. Thomson,[19] John C. Ten Eyck.
_Pennsylvania_—David Wilmot, Edgar Cowan.
_Delaware_—James A. Bayard, Willard Saulsbury.
_Maryland_—Anthony Kennedy, James A. Pearce.[19]
_Virginia._[19]
_Ohio_—Benjamin F. Wade, John Sherman.
_Kentucky_—Lazarus W. Powell, John C. Breckinridge.[19]
_Tennessee_—Andrew Johnson.
_Indiana_—Jesse D. Bright,[19] Henry S. Lane.
_Illinois_—O. H. Browning,[19] Lyman Trumbull.
_Missouri_—Trusten Polk,[19] Waldo P. Johnson.[19]
_Michigan_—Z. Chandler, K. S. Bingham.[19]
_Iowa_—James W. Grimes, James Harlan.
_Wisconsin_—James R. Doolittle, Timothy O. Howe.
_California_—Milton S. Latham, James A. McDougall.
_Minnesota_—Henry M. Rice, Morton S. Wilkinson.
_Oregon_—Edward D. Baker,[19] James W. Nesmith.
_Kansas_—James H. Lane, S. C. Pomeroy.
REPRESENTATIVES.
GALUSHA A. GROW, of Pennsylvania, Speaker of the House.
_Maine_—John N. Goodwin, Charles W. Walton,[19] Samuel C. Fessenden,
Anson P. Morrill, John H. Rice, Frederick A. Pike.
_New Hampshire_—Gilman Marston, Edward H. Rollins, Thomas M. Edwards.
_Vermont_—E. P. Walton, Jr., Justin S. Morrill, Portus Baxter.
_Massachusetts_—Thomas D. Eliot, James Buffinton, Benjamin F. Thomas,
Alexander H. Rice, William Appleton,[19] John B. Alley, Daniel W. Gooch,
Charles R. Train, Goldsmith F. Bailey,[19] Charles Delano, Henry L.
Dawes.
_Rhode Island_—William P. Sheffield, George H. Browne.
_Connecticut_—Dwight Loomis, James E. English, Alfred A. Burnham,[19]
George C. Woodruff.
_New York_—Edward H. Smith, Moses F. Odell, Benjamin Wood, James E.
Kerrigan, William Wall, Frederick A. Conkling, Elijah Ward, Isaac C.
Delaplaine, Edward Haight, Charles H. Van Wyck, John B. Steele, Stephen
Baker, Abraham B. Olin, Erastus Corning, James B. McKean, William A.
Wheeler, Socrates N. Sherman, Chauncey Vibbard, Richard Franchot, Roscoe
Conkling, R. Holland Duell, William E. Lansing, Ambrose W. Clark,
Charles B. Sedgwick, Theodore M. Pomeroy, Jacob P. Chamberlain,
Alexander S. Diven, Robert B. Van Valkenburgh, Alfred Ely, Augustus
Frank, Burt Van Horn, Elbridge G. Spalding, Reuben E. Fenton.
_New Jersey_—John T. Nixon, John L. N. Stratton, William G. Steele,
George T. Cobb, Nehemiah Perry.
_Pennsylvania_—William E. Lehman, Charles J. Biddle,[19] John P. Verree,
William D. Kelley, William Morris Davis, John Hickman, Thomas B.
Cooper,[19] Sydenham E. Ancona, Thaddeus Stevens, John W. Killinger,
James H. Campbell, Hendrick B. Wright, Philip Johnson, Galusha A. Grow,
James T. Hale, Joseph Baily, Edward McPherson, Samuel S. Blair, John
Covode, Jesse Lazear, James K. Moorhead, Robert McKnight, John W.
Wallace, John Patton, Elijah Babbitt.
_Delaware_—George P. Fisher.
_Maryland_—John W. Crisfield, Edwin H. Webster, Cornelius L. L. Leary,
Henry May, Francis Thomas, Charles B. Calvert.
_Virginia_—Charles H. Upton,[19] William G. Brown, John S. Carlile,[19]
Kellian V. Whaley.
_Ohio_—George H. Pendleton, John A. Gurley, Clement L. Vallandigham,
William Allen, James M. Ashley, Chilton A. White, Richard A. Harrison,
Samuel Shellabarger, Warren P. Noble, Carey A. Trimble, Valentine B.
Horton, Samuel S. Cox, Samuel T. Worcester, Harrison G. Blake, Robert H.
Nugen, William P. Cutler, James R. Morris, Sidney Edgerton, Albert G.
Riddle, John Hutchins, John A. Bingham.
_Kentucky_—Henry C. Burnett,[19] James S. Jackson,[19] Henry Grider,
Aaron Harding, Charles A. Wickliffe, George W. Dunlap, Robert Mallory,
John J. Crittenden, William H. Wadsworth, John W. Menzies.
_Tennessee_—Horace Maynard,[19] Andrew J. Clements,[19] George W.
Bridges.[19]
_Indiana_—John Law, James A. Cravens, W. McKee Dunn, William S. Holman,
George W. Julian, Albert G. Porter, Daniel W. Voorhees, Albert S. White,
Schuyler Colfax, William Mitchell, John P. C. Shanks.
_Illinois_—Elihu B. Washburne, Isaac N. Arnold, Owen Lovejoy, William
Kellogg, William A. Richardson,[19] John A. McClernand,[19] James C.
Robinson, Philip B. Fouke, John A. Logan.[19]
_Missouri_—Francis P. Blair, Jr., James S. Rollins, John B. Clark,[19]
Elijah H. Norton, John W. Reid,[19] John S. Phelps,[19] John W. Noell.
_Michigan_—Bradley F. Granger, Fernando C. Beaman, Francis W. Kellogg,
Rowland E. Trowbridge.
_Iowa_—Samuel R. Curtis,[19] William Vandever.
_Wisconsin_—John F. Potter, Luther Hanchett,[19] A. Scott Sloan.
_Minnesota_—Cyrus Aldrich, William Windom.
_Oregon_—Andrew J. Thayer.[19]
_Kansas_—Martin F. Conway.
MEMORANDUM OF CHANGES.
The following changes took place during the Congress:
IN SENATE.
_Rhode Island_—1862, Dec. 1, Samuel G. Arnold succeeded James F.
Simmons, resigned.
_New Jersey_—1862, Dec. 1, Richard S. Field succeeded, by appointment,
John R. Thompson, deceased Sept. 12, 1862. 1863, Jan. 21, James, W.
Wall, succeeded, by election, Richard S. Field.
_Maryland_—1863, Jan. 14, Thomas H. Hicks, first by appointment and then
by election succeeded James A. Pearce, deceased Dec. 20, 1862.
_Virginia_—1861, July 13, John S. Carlile and Waitman T. Willey, sworn
in place of Robert M. T. Hunter and James M. Mason, withdrawn and
abdicated.
_Kentucky_—1861, Dec. 23, Garrett Davis succeeded John C. Breckinridge,
expelled December 4.
_Indiana_—1862, March 3, Joseph A. Wright succeeded Jesse D. Bright,
expelled Feb. 5, 1863, Jan. 22, David Turpie, superseded, by election,
Joseph A. Wright.
_Illinois_—1863, Jan. 30, William A. Richardson superseded, by election,
O. H. Browning.
_Missouri_—1861, Jan. 24, R. Wilson succeeded Waldo P. Johnson, expelled
Jan. 10. 1862, Jan. 29, John B. Henderson succeeded Trusten Polk,
expelled Jan. 10.
_Michigan_—1862, Jan. 17, Jacob M. Howard succeeded K. S. Bingham,
deceased October 5, 1861.
_Oregon_—1862, Dec. 1, Benjamin F. Harding succeeded Edward D. Baker,
deceased Oct. 21, 1862.
IN HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
_Maine_—1862, December 1, Thomas A. D. Fessenden succeeded Charles W.
Walton, resigned May 26, 1862.
_Massachusetts_—1861, December 1, Amasa Walker succeeded Goldsmith F.
Bailey, deceased May 8, 1862; 1861, December 2, Samuel Hooper succeeded
William Appleton, resigned.
_Connecticut_—1861, December 2, Alfred A. Burnham qualified.
_Pennsylvania_—1861, December 2, Charles J. Biddle qualified; 1862, June
3, John D. Stiles succeeded Thomas B. Cooper, deceased April 4, 1862.
_Virginia_—1861, July 13, John S. Carlile resigned to take a seat in the
Senate; 1861, December 2, Jacob B. Blair, succeeded John S. Carlile,
resigned; 1862, February 28, Charles H. Upton unseated by a vote of the
House; 1862, May 6, Joseph Segar qualified.
_Kentucky_—1862, December, 1, George H. Yeaman succeeded James S.
Jackson, deceased; 1862, March 10, Samuel L. Casey succeeded Henry C.
Burnett, expelled December 3, 1861.
_Tennessee_—1861, December 2, Horace Maynard qualified; 1862, January
13, Andrew J. Clements qualified; 1863, February 25, George W. Bridges
qualified.
_Illinois_—1861, December 12, A. L. Knapp qualified, in place of J. A.
McClernand, resigned; 1862, June 2, William J. Allen qualified, in place
of John A. Logan, resigned; 1863, January 30, William A. Richardson
withdrew to take a seat in the Senate.
_Missouri_—1862, January 21, Thomas L. Price succeeded John W. Reid,
expelled December 2, 1861; 1862, January 20, William A. Hall succeeded
John B. Clark, expelled July 13, 1861; 1862, May 9, John S. Phelps
qualified.
_Iowa_—1861, December 2, James F. Wilson succeeded Samuel R. Curtis,
resigned August 4, 1861.
_Wisconsin_—1863, January 26, Walter D. McIndoe succeeded Luther
Hanchett, deceased November 24, 1862.
_Oregon_—1861, July 30, George K. Shiel succeeded Andrew J. Thayer,
unseated.
_Louisiana_—1863, February 17, Michael Hahn qualified; 1863, February
23, Benjamin F. Flanders qualified.
Lincoln, in his message, recited the events which had transpired since
his inauguration, and asked Congress to confer upon him the power to
make the conflict short and decisive. He wanted 400,000 men, and four
hundred millions of money, remarking that “the people will save their
government if the government itself will do its part only indifferently
well.” Congress responded by adding an hundred thousand to each request.
There were exciting debates and scenes during this session, for many of
the Southern leaders remained, either through hesitancy or with a view
to check legislation and aid their section by adverse criticism on the
measures proposed. Most prominent in the latter list was John C.
Breckinridge, late Vice-President and now Senator from Kentucky. With
singular boldness and eloquence he opposed every war measure, and spoke
with the undisguised purpose of aiding the South. He continued this
course until the close of the extra session, when he accepted a
General’s commission in the Confederate army. But before its close,
Senator Baker of Oregon, angered at his general course, said in reply to
one of Breckinridge’s speeches, Aug. 1st:
“What would the Senator from Kentucky, have? These speeches of his, sown
broadcast over the land, what clear distinct meaning have they? Are they
not intended for disorganization in our very midst? Are they not
intended to destroy our zeal? Are they not intended to animate our
enemies? Sir, are they not words of brilliant polished TREASON, even in
the very Capitol of the Republic?” [Here there were such manifestations
of applause in the galleries, as were with difficulty suppressed.]
Mr. Baker resumed, and turning directly to Mr. Breckinridge, inquired:
“What would have been thought, if, in another Capitol, in another
republic, in a yet more martial age, a Senator as grave, not more
eloquent, or dignified than the Senator from Kentucky, yet with the
Roman purple flowing over his shoulders, had risen in his place,
surrounded by all the illustrations of Roman glory, and declared that
the cause of the advancing Hannibal was just, and that Carthage ought to
be dealt with in terms of peace? What would have been thought if, after
the battle of Cannæ, a Senator there had risen in his place, and
denounced every levy of the Roman people, every expenditure of its
treasure, and every appeal to the old recollections and the old
glories?”
There was a silence so profound throughout the Senate and galleries,
that a pinfall could have been heard, while every eye was fixed upon
Breckinridge. Fessenden exclaimed in deep low tones, “he would have been
hurled from the Tarpeian Rock!”
Baker resumed:
“Sir, a Senator himself learned far more than myself, in such lore, (Mr.
Fessenden) tells me, in a low voice, he would have been hurled from the
Tarpeian Rock.” It is a grand commentary upon the American Constitution,
that we permit these words of the Senator from Kentucky, to be uttered.
I ask the Senator to recollect, to what, save to send aid and comfort to
the enemy, do these predictions amount to? Every word thus uttered,
falls as a note of inspiration upon every Confederate ear. Every sound
thus uttered, is a word, (and falling from his lips, a mighty word) of
kindling and triumph to the foe that determines to advance.
The Republicans of the North were the distinctive “war party,” _i. e._,
they gave unqualified support to every demand made by the Lincoln
administration. Most of the Democrats, acting as citizens, did likewise,
but many of those in official position, assuming the prerogative of a
minority, took the liberty in Congress and State Legislature to
criticise the more important war measures, and the extremists went so
far, in many instances, as to organize opposition, and to encourage it
among their constituents. Thus in the States bordering the Ohio and
Mississippi rivers, organized and individual efforts were made to
encourage desertions, and the “Knights of the Golden Circle,” and the
“Sons of Liberty,” secret societies composed of Northern sympathizers
with the South, formed many troublesome conspiracies. Through their
action troops were even enlisted in Southern Indiana, Illinois and
Missouri for the Confederate armies, while the border States in the
Union sent whole regiments to battle for the South. The “Knights of the
Golden Circle” conspired to release Confederate prisoners of war, and
invited Morgan to raid their States. One of the worst forms of
opposition took shape in a conspiracy to resist the draft in New York
city. The fury of the mob was several days beyond control, and troops
had to be recalled from the front to suppress it. The riot was really
political, the prejudices of the mob under cover of resistance to the
draft, being vented on the negroes, many of whom were killed before
adequate numbers could be sent to their succor. The civil authorities of
the city were charged with winking at the occurrence, and it was
afterwards ascertained that Confederate agents really organized the riot
as a movement to “take the enemy in the rear.”
The Republican was as distinctively the war party during the Great
Rebellion, as the Whigs were during the Revolution, the
Democratic-Republicans during the War of 1812, and the Democrats during
the War with Mexico, and, as in all of these war decades, kept the
majority sentiment of the country with them. This is such a plain
statement of facts that it is neither partisan to assert, nor a mark of
party-fealty to deny. The history is indelibly written. It is stamped
upon nearly every war measure, and certainly upon every political
measure incident to growing out of the rebellion.
These were exciting and memorable scenes in the several sessions of the
37th Congress. During the first many Southern Senators and
Representatives withdrew after angry statements of their reasons,
generally in obedience to calls from their States or immediate homes. In
this way the majority was changed. Others remained until the close of
the first session, and then more quietly entered the rebellion. We have
shown that of this class was Breckinridge, who thought he could do more
good for his cause in the Federal Congress than elsewhere, and it is
well for the Union that most of his colleagues disagreed with him as to
the propriety and wisdom of his policy. If all had followed his lead or
imitated his example, the war would in all probability have closed in
another compromise, or possibly in the accomplishment of southern
separations. These men could have so obstructed legislation as to make
all its early periods far more discouraging than they were. As it was
the Confederates had all the advantages of a free and fair start, and
the effect was traceable in all of the early battles and negotiations
with foreign powers. There was one way in which these advantages could
have been supported and continued. Breckenridge, shrewd and able
politician as he was, saw that the way was to keep Southern
Representatives in Congress, at least as long as Northern sentiment
would abide it, and in this way win victories at the very fountain-head
of power. But at the close of the extra session this view had become
unpopular at both ends of the line, and even Breckenridge abandoned it
and sought to hide his original purpose by immediate service in the
Confederate armies.
It will be noted that those who vacated their seats to enter the
Confederacy were afterwards expelled. In this connection a curious
incident can be related, occurring as late as the Senate session of
1882:
The widow of the late Senator Nicholson, of Tennessee, who was in the
Senate when Tennessee seceded, a short time ago sent a petition to
Congress asking that the salary of her late husband, after he returned
to Tennessee, might be paid to her. Mr. Nicholson’s term would have
expired in 1865 had he remained in his seat. He did not appear at the
special session of Congress convened in July, 1861, and with other
Senators from the South was expelled from the Senate on July 11th of
that year. The Senate Committee on Claims, after examining the case
thoroughly, submitted to the Senate an adverse report. After giving a
concise history of the case the committee say: “We do not deem it
proper, after the expiration of twenty years, to pass special acts of
Congress to compensate the senators and Representatives who seceded in
1861 for their services in the early part of that year. We recommend
that the claim of the petitioner be disallowed.”
The Sessions of the 37th Congress changed the political course of many
public men. It made the Southern believers in secession still more
vehement; it separated the Southern Unionists from their former friends,
and created a wall of fire between them; it changed the temper of
Northern Abolitionists, in so far as to drive from them all spirit of
faction, all pride of methods, and compelled them to unite with a
republican sentiment which was making sure advances from the original
declaration that slavery should not be extended to the Territories, to
emancipation, and, finally, to the arming of the slaves. It changed many
Northern Democrats, and from the ranks of these, even in representative
positions, the lines of the Republicans were constantly strengthened on
pivotal questions. On the 27th of July Breckinridge had said in a
speech: “When traitors become numerous enough treason becomes
respectable.” Senator Andrew Johnson, of Tennessee, replied to this, and
said: “God being willing, whether traitors be many or few, as I have
hitherto waged war against traitors and treason, I intend to continue it
to the end.” And yet Johnson had the year before warmly supported
Breckinridge in his presidential campaign.
Among the more conspicuous Republicans and anti-Lecompton Democrats in
this session were Charles Sumner, a man who then exceeded all others in
scholarly attainments and as an orator, though he was not strong in
current debate. Great care and preparation marked every important
effort, but no man’s speeches were more admired throughout the North,
and hated throughout the South, than those of Charles Sumner. An air of
romance surrounded the man, because he was the first victim of a
senatorial outrage, when beaten by Brooks of South Carolina; but,
sneered his political enemies, “no man more carefully preserved his
wounds for exhibition to a sympathetic world.” He had some minor
weaknesses, which were constantly displayed, and these centred in
egotism and high personal pride—not very popular traits—but no enemy was
so malicious as to deny his greatness.
Fessenden of Maine was one of the great lights of that day. He was apt,
almost beyond example, in debate, and was a recognized leader of the
Republicans until, in the attempt to impeach President Johnson, he
disagreed with the majority of his party and stepped “down and out.” Yet
no one questioned his integrity, and all believed that his vote was cast
on this question in a line with his convictions. The leading character
in the House was Thaddeus Stevens, an original Abolitionist in
sentiment, but a man eminently practical and shrewd in all his methods.
The chances of politics often carry men into the Presidential Chair,
into Cabinets, and with later and demoralizing frequency into Senate
seats; but chance never makes a Commoner, and Thaddeus Stevens was
throughout the war, and up to the hour of his death, recognized as the
great Commoner of the Northern people. He led in every House battle, and
a more unflinching party leader was never known to parliamentary bodies.
Limp and infirm, he was not liable to personal assault, even in days
when such assaults were common; but when on one occasion his fiery
tongue had so exasperated the Southerners in Congress as to make them
show their knives and pistols, he stepped out into the aisle, and
facing, bid them defiance. He was a Radical of the Radicals, and
constantly contended that the government—the better to preserve
itself—could travel outside of the Constitution. What cannot be said of
any other man in history, can be said of Thaddeus Stevens. When he lay
dead, carried thus from Washington to his home in Lancaster, with all of
his people knowing that he was dead, he was, on the day following the
arrival of his corpse, and within a few squares of his residence,
unanimously renominated by the Republicans for Congress. If more poetic
and less practical sections or lands than the North had such a hero,
hallowed by such an incident, both the name and the incident would
travel down the ages in song and story.[20]
The “rising” man in the 37th Congress was Schuyler Colfax, of Indiana,
elected Speaker of the 38th, and subsequently Vice-President. A great
parliamentarian, he was gifted with rare eloquence, and with a kind
which won friends without offending enemies—something too rare to
last. In the House were also Justin S. Morrill, the author of the
Tariff Bill which supplied the “sinews of war,” Henry L. Dawes of
Massachusetts, then “the man of Statistics” and the “watch-dog of the
treasury.” Roscoe Conkling was then the admitted leader of the New
York delegation, as he was the admitted mental superior of any other
in subsequent terms in the Senate, up to the time of his resignation
in 1881. Reuben E. Fenton, his factional opponent, was also there.
Ohio was strongly represented in both parties—Pendleton, Cox and
Vallandigham on the side of the Democrats; Bingham and Ashley on the
part of the Republicans. Illinois showed four prominent anti-Lecompton
supporters of the administration—Douglas in the Senate; Logan,
McClernand and Richardson in the House; while prominent among the
Republicans were Lovejoy (an original Abolitionist), Washburne, a
candidate for the Presidential nomination in 1880—Kellogg and Arnold.
John F. Potter was one of the prominent Wisconsin men, who had won
additional fame by accepting the challenge to duel of Roger A. Pryor
of Virginia, and naming the American rifle as the weapon. Fortunately
the duel did not come off. Pennsylvania had then, as she still has,
Judge Kelley of Philadelphia, chairman of Ways and Means in the 46th
Congress; also Edward McPherson, frequently since Clerk of the House,
temporary President of the Cincinnati Convention, whose decision
overthrew the unit rule, and author of several valuable political
works, some of which we freely quote in this history. John Hickman,
subsequently a Republican, but one of the earliest of the
anti-Lecompton Democrats, was an admitted leader, a man of rare force
and eloquence. So radical did he become that he refused to support the
re-election of Lincoln. He was succeeded by John M. Broomall, who made
several fine speeches in favor of the constitutional amendments
touching slavery and civil rights. Here also were James Campbell,
Hendricks B. Wright, John Covode, James K. Morehead, and Speaker
Grow—the father of the Homestead Bill, which will be found in Book V.,
giving the Existing Political Laws.
At this session Senator Trumbull of Illinois, renewed the agitation of
the slavery question, by reporting from the Judiciary Committee of which
he was Chairman, a bill to confiscate all property and free all slaves
used for insurrectionary purposes.[21] Breckinridge fought the bill, as
indeed he did all bills coming from the Republicans, and said if passed
it would eventuate in “the loosening of all bonds.” Among the facts
stated in support of the measure was this, that the Confederates had at
Bull Run used the negroes and slaves against the Union army—a statement
never well established. The bill passed the Senate by 33 to 6, and on
the 3d of August passed the House, though several Republicans there
voted against it, fearing a too rapid advance would prejudice the Union
cause. Indeed this fear was entertained by Lincoln when he recommended
COMPENSATED EMANCIPATION
in the second session of the 37th Congress, which recommendation excited
official discussion almost up to the time the emancipation proclamation
was issued as a war necessity. The idea of compensated emancipation
originated with or was first formulated by James B. McKean of New York,
who on Feb. 11th, 1861, at the 2d session of the 36th Congress,
introduced the following resolution:
WHEREAS, The “Gulf States” have assumed to secede from the Union, and it
is deemed important to prevent the “border slave States” from following
their example; and whereas it is believed that those who are inflexibly
opposed to any measure of compromise or concession that involves, or may
involve, a sacrifice of principle or the extension of slavery, would
nevertheless cheerfully concur in any lawful measure for the
emancipation of the slaves: Therefore,
_Resolved_, That the select committee of five be instructed to inquire
whether, by the consent of the people, or of the State governments, or
by compensating the slaveholders, it be practicable for the General
Government to procure the emancipation of the slaves in some, or all, of
the “border States;” and if so, to report a bill for that purpose.
Lincoln was so strongly impressed with the fact, in the earlier
struggles of the war, that great good would follow compensated
emancipation, that on March 2d, 1862, he sent a special message to the
2d session of the 37th Congress, in which he said:
“I recommend the adoption of a joint resolution by your honorable
bodies, which shall be substantially as follows:
_Resolved_, That the United States ought to co-operate with any State
which may adopt gradual abolishment of slavery, giving to such State
pecuniary aid, to be used by such State in its discretion, to compensate
for the inconveniences, public and private, produced by such change of
system.
“If the proposition contained in the resolution does not meet the
approval of Congress and the country, there is the end; but if it does
command such approval, I deem it of importance that the States and
people immediately interested should be at once distinctly notified of
the fact, so that they may begin to consider whether to accept or reject
it. The Federal Government would find its highest interest in such a
measure, as one of the most efficient means of self-preservation. The
leaders of the existing insurrection entertain the hope that this
Government will ultimately be forced to acknowledge the independence of
some part of the disaffected region, and that all the slave States north
of such part will then say, ‘the Union for which we have struggled being
already gone, we now choose to go with the southern section.’ To deprive
them of this hope, substantially ends the rebellion; and the initiation
of emancipation completely deprives them of it as to all the States
initiating it. The point is not that _all_ the States tolerating slavery
would very soon, if at all, initiate emancipation; but that, while the
offer is equally made to all, the more northern shall, by such
initiation, make it certain to the more southern that in no event will
the former ever join the latter in their proposed confederacy. I say
‘initiation,’ because, in my judgment, gradual, and not sudden
emancipation, is better for all. In the mere financial or pecuniary
view, any member of Congress, with the census tables and Treasury
reports before him, can readily see for himself how very soon the
current expenditures of this war would purchase, at fair valuation, all
the slaves in any named State. Such a proposition on the part of the
General Government sets up no claim of a right by Federal authority to
interfere with slavery within State limits, referring, as it does the
absolute control of the subject in each case to the State and its people
immediately interested. It is proposed as a matter of perfectly free
choice with them.
“In the annual message last December, I thought fit to say, ‘the Union
must be preserved; and hence all indispensable means must be employed.’
I said this not hastily, but deliberately. War has been made, and
continues to be an indispensable means to this end. A practical
reacknowledgment of the national authority would render the war
unnecessary, and it would at once cease. If, however, resistance
continues, the war must also continue; and it is impossible to foresee
all the incidents which may attend, and all the ruin which may follow
it. Such as may seem indispensable, or may obviously promise great
efficiency toward ending the struggle, must and will come.
“The proposition now made, though an offer only, I hope it may be
esteemed no offence to ask whether the pecuniary consideration tendered
would not be of more value to the States and private persons concerned,
than are the institution, and property in it, in the present aspect of
affairs?
“While it is true that the adoption of the proposed resolution would be
merely initiatory, and not within itself a practical measure, it is
recommended in the hope that it would soon lead to important practical
results. In full view of my great responsibility to my God and to my
country, I earnestly beg the attention of Congress and the people to the
subject.”
Mr. Conkling called the question up in the House March 10th, and under a
suspension of the rules, it was passed by 97 to 36. It passed the Senate
April 2, by 32 to 10, the Republicans, as a rule, voting for it, the
Democrats, as a rule, voting against it; and this was true even of those
in the Border States.
The fact last stated excited the notice of President Lincoln, and in
July, 1862, he sought an interview with the Border State Congressmen,
the result of which is contained in _McPherson’s Political History of
the Great Rebellion_, as follows:
The President’s Appeal to the Border States.
The Representatives and Senators of the border slaveholding States,
having, by special invitation of the President, been convened at the
Executive Mansion, on Saturday morning last, (July 12,) Mr. Lincoln
addressed them as follows from a written paper held in his hand:
“GENTLEMEN: After the adjournment of Congress, now near, I shall have no
opportunity of seeing you for several months. Believing that you of the
border States hold more power for good than any other equal number of
members, I feel it a duty which I cannot justifiably waive, to make this
appeal to you.
“I intend no reproach or complaint when I assure you that, in my
opinion, if you all had voted for the resolution in the gradual
emancipation message of last March, the war would now be substantially
ended. And the plan therein proposed is yet one of the most potent and
swift means of ending it. Let the States which are in rebellion see
definitely and certainly that in no event will the States you represent
ever join their proposed Confederacy, and they cannot much longer
maintain the contest. But you cannot divest them of their hope to
ultimately have you with them so long as you show a determination to
perpetuate the institution within your own States. Beat them at
elections, as you have overwhelmingly done, and, nothing daunted, they
still claim you as their own. You and I know what the lever of their
power is. Break that lever before their faces, and they can shake you no
more forever.
“Most of you have treated me with kindness and consideration, and I
trust you will not now think I improperly touch what is exclusively your
own, when, for the sake of the whole country, I ask, ‘Can you, for your
States, do better than to take the course I urge?’ Discarding
_punctilio_ and maxims adapted to more manageable times, and looking
only to the unprecedentedly stern facts of our case, can you do better
in any possible event? You prefer that the constitutional relations of
the States to the nation shall be practically restored without
disturbance of the institution; and, if this were done, my whole duty,
in this respect, under the Constitution and my oath of office, would be
performed. But it is not done, and we are trying to accomplish it by
war. The incidents of the war cannot be avoided. If the war continues
long, as it must, if the object be not sooner attained, the institution
in your States will be extinguished by mere friction and abrasion—by the
mere incidents of the war. It will be gone, and you will have nothing
valuable in lieu of it. Much of its value is gone already. How much
better for you and for your people to take the step which at once
shortens the war and secures substantial compensation for that which is
sure to be wholly lost in any other event! How much better to thus save
the money which else we sink forever in the war! How much better to do
it while we can, lest the war ere long render us pecuniarily unable to
do it! How much better for you, as seller, and the nation, as buyer, to
sell out and buy out that without which the war could never have been,
than to sink both the thing to be sold and the price of it in cutting
one another’s throats!
“I do not speak of emancipation _at once_, but of a _decision_ at once
to emancipate _gradually_. Room in South America for colonization can be
obtained cheaply and in abundance, and when numbers shall be large
enough to be company and encouragement for one another, the freed people
will not be so reluctant to go.
“I am pressed with a difficulty not yet mentioned, one which threatens
division among those who, united, are none too strong. An instance of it
is known to you. General Hunter is an honest man. He was, and I hope
still is, my friend. I valued him none the less for his agreeing with me
in the general wish that all men everywhere could be freed. He
proclaimed all men free within certain States, and I repudiated the
proclamation. He expected more good and less harm from the measure than
I could believe would follow. Yet, in repudiating it, I gave
dissatisfaction, if not offence, to many whose support the country
cannot afford to lose. And this is not the end of it. The pressure in
this direction is still upon me, and is increasing. By conceding what I
now ask you can relieve me, and, much more, can relieve the country in
this important point.
“Upon these considerations I have again begged your attention to the
message of March last. Before leaving the Capitol, consider and discuss
it among yourselves. You are patriots and statesmen, and as such I pray
you consider this proposition; and at the least commend it to the
consideration of your States and people. As you would perpetuate popular
government for the best people in the world, I beseech you that you do
in nowise omit this. Our common country is in great peril, demanding the
loftiest views and boldest action to bring a speedy relief. Once
relieved, its form of government is saved to the world, its beloved
history and cherished memories are vindicated, and its happy future
fully assured and rendered inconceivably grand. To you, more than to any
others, the privilege is given to assure that happiness and swell that
grandeur, and to link your own names therewith forever.”
At the conclusion of these remarks some conversation was had between the
President and several members of the delegations from the border States,
in which it was represented that these States could not be expected to
move in so great a matter as that brought to their notice in the
foregoing address while as yet the Congress had taken no step beyond the
passage of a resolution, expressive rather of a sentiment than
presenting a substantial and reliable basis of action.
The President acknowledged the force of this view, and admitted that the
border States were entitled to expect a substantial pledge of pecuniary
aid as the condition of taking into consideration a proposition so
important in its relations to their social system.
It was further represented, in the conference, that the people of the
border States were interested in knowing the great importance which the
President attached to the policy in question, while it was equally due
to the country, to the President, and to themselves, that the
representatives of the border slaveholding States should publicly
announce the motives under which they were called to act, and the
considerations of public policy urged upon them and their constituents
by the President.
With a view to such a statement of their position, the members thus
addressed met in council to deliberate on the reply they should make to
the President, and, as the result of a comparison of opinions among
themselves, they determined upon the adoption of a majority and minority
answer.
REPLY OF THE MAJORITY.
The following paper was yesterday sent to the President, signed by the
majority of the Representatives from the border slaveholding States:—
WASHINGTON, _July 14, 1862_.
To the PRESIDENT:
The undersigned, Representatives of Kentucky, Virginia, Missouri, and
Maryland, in the two Houses of Congress, have listened to your address
with the profound sensibility naturally inspired by the high source from
which it emanates, the earnestness which marked its delivery, and the
overwhelming importance of the subject of which it treats. We have given
it a most respectful consideration, and now lay before you our response.
We regret that want of time has not permitted us to make it more
perfect.
We have not been wanting, Mr. President, in respect to you, and in
devotion to the Constitution and the Union. We have not been indifferent
to the great difficulties surrounding you, compared with which all
former national troubles have been but as the summer cloud; and we have
freely given you our sympathy and support. Repudiating the dangerous
heresies of the secessionists, we believed, with you, that the war on
their part is aggressive and wicked, and the objects for which it was to
be prosecuted on ours, defined by your message at the opening of the
present Congress, to be such as all good men should approve. We have not
hesitated to vote all supplies necessary to carry it on vigorously. We
have voted all the men and money you have asked for, and even more; we
have imposed onerous taxes on our people, and they are paying them with
cheerfulness and alacrity; we have encouraged enlistments and sent to
the field many of our best men; and some of our number have offered
their persons to the enemy as pledges of their sincerity and devotion to
the country.
We have done all this under the most discouraging circumstances, and in
the face of measures most distasteful to us and injurious to the
interests we represent, and in the hearing of doctrines avowed by those
who claim to be your friends, must be abhorrent to us and our
constituents. But, for all this, we have never faltered, nor shall we as
long as we have a Constitution to defend and a Government which protects
us. And we are ready for renewed efforts, and even greater sacrifices,
yea, any sacrifice, when we are satisfied it is required to preserve our
admirable form of government and the priceless blessings of
constitutional liberty.
A few of our number voted for the resolution recommended by your message
of the 6th of March last, the greater portion of us did not, and we will
briefly state the prominent reasons which influenced our action.
In the first place, it proposed a radical change of our social system,
and was hurried through both Houses with undue haste, without reasonable
time for consideration and debate, and with no time at all for
consultation with our constituents, whose interests it deeply involved.
It seemed like an interference by this Government with a question which
peculiarly and exclusively belonged to our respective States, on which
they had not sought advice or solicited aid. Many of us doubted the
constitutional power of this Government to make appropriations of money
for the object designated, and all of us thought our finances were in no
condition to bear the immense outlay which its adoption and faithful
execution would impose upon the national Treasury. If we pause but a
moment to think of the debt its acceptance would have entailed, we are
appalled by its magnitude. The proposition was addressed to all the
States, and embraced the whole number of slaves.
According to the census of 1860 there were then nearly four million
slaves in the country; from natural increase they exceed that number
now. At even the low average of $300, the price fixed by the
emancipation act for the slaves of this District, and greatly below
their real worth, their value runs up to the enormous sum of
$1,200,000,000; and if to that we add the cost of deportation and
colonization, at $100 each, which is but a fraction more than is
actually paid by the Maryland Colonization Society, we have $400,000,000
more. We were not willing to impose a tax on our people sufficient to
pay the interest on that sum, in addition to the vast and daily
increasing debt already fixed upon them by the exigencies of the war,
and if we had been willing, the country could not bear it. Stated in
this form the proposition is nothing less than the deportation from the
country of $1,600,000,000 worth of producing labor, and the substitution
in its place of an interest-bearing debt of the same amount.
But, if we are told that it was expected that only the States we
represent would accept the proposition, we respectfully submit that even
then it involves a sum too great for the financial ability of this
Government at this time. According to the census of 1860—
_Slaves._
Kentucky had 225,490
Maryland 87,188
Virginia 490,887
Delaware 1,798
Missouri 114,965
Tennessee 275,784
—————————
Making in the whole 1,196,112
At the same rate of valuation these would amount to $358,933,500
Add for deportation and colonization $100 each 118,244,533
————————————
And we have the enormous sum of $478,038,133
We did not feel that we should be justified in voting for a measure
which, if carried out, would add this vast amount to our public debt at
a moment when the Treasury was reeling under the enormous expenditure of
the war.
Again, it seemed to us that this resolution was but the annunciation of
a sentiment which could not or was not likely to be reduced to an actual
tangible proposition. No movement was then made to provide and
appropriate the funds required to carry it into effect; and we were not
encouraged to believe that funds would be provided. And our belief has
been fully justified by subsequent events. Not to mention other
circumstances, it is quite sufficient for our purpose to bring to your
notice the fact that, while this resolution was under consideration in
the Senate, our colleague, the Senator from Kentucky, moved an amendment
appropriating $500,000 to the object therein designated, and it was
voted down with great unanimity. What confidence, then, could we
reasonably feel that if we committed ourselves to the policy it
proposed, our constituents would reap the fruits of the promise held
out; and on what ground could we, as fair men, approach them and
challenge their support?
The right to hold slaves is a right appertaining to all the States of
this Union. They have the right to cherish or abolish the institution,
as their tastes or their interests may prompt, and no one is authorized
to question the right or limit the enjoyment. And no one has more
clearly affirmed that right than you have. Your inaugural address does
you great honor in this respect, and inspired the country with
confidence in your fairness and respect for the law. Our States are in
the enjoyment of that right. We do not feel called on to defend the
institution or to affirm it is one which ought to be cherished; perhaps,
if we were to make the attempt, we might find that we differ even among
ourselves. It is enough for our purpose to know that it is a right; and,
so knowing, we did not see why we should now be expected to yield it. We
had contributed our full share to relieve the country at this terrible
crisis; we had done as much as had been required of others in like
circumstances; and we did not see why sacrifices should be expected of
us from which others, no more loyal, were exempt. Nor could we see what
good the nation would derive from it.
Such a sacrifice submitted to by us would not have strengthened the arm
of this Government or weakened that of the enemy. It was not necessary
as a pledge of our loyalty, for that had been manifested beyond a
reasonable doubt, in every form, and at every place possible. There was
not the remotest probability that the States we represent would join in
the rebellion, nor is there now, or of their electing to go with the
southern section in the event of a recognition of the independence of
any part of the disaffected region. Our States are fixed unalterably in
their resolution to adhere to and support the Union. They see no safety
for themselves, and no hope for constitutional liberty but by its
preservation. They will, under no circumstances, consent to its
dissolution; and we do them no more than justice when we assure you
that, while the war is conducted to prevent that deplorable catastrophe,
they will sustain it as long as they can muster a man or command a
dollar. Nor will they ever consent, in any event, to unite with the
Southern Confederacy. The bitter fruits of the peculiar doctrines of
that region will forever prevent them from placing their security and
happiness in the custody of an association which has incorporated in its
organic law the seeds of its own destruction.
* * * * *
Mr. President, we have stated with frankness and candor the reasons on
which we forbore to vote for the resolution you have mentioned; but you
have again presented this proposition, and appealed to us with an
earnestness and eloquence which have not failed to impress us, to
“consider it, and at the least to commend it to the consideration of our
States and people.” Thus appealed to by the Chief Magistrate of our
beloved country, in the hour of its greatest peril, we cannot wholly
decline. We are willing to trust every question relating to their
interest and happiness to the consideration and ultimate judgment of our
own people. While differing from you as to the necessity of emancipating
the slaves of our States as a means of putting down the rebellion, and
while protesting against the propriety of any extra-territorial
interference to induce the people of our States to adopt any particular
line of policy on a subject which peculiarly and exclusively belongs to
them, yet, when you and our brethren of the loyal States sincerely
believe that the retention of slavery by us is an obstacle to peace and
national harmony, and are willing to contribute pecuniary aid to
compensate our States and people for the inconveniences produced by such
a change of system, we are not unwilling that our people shall consider
the propriety of putting it aside.
But we have already said that we regarded this resolution as the
utterance of a sentiment, and we had no confidence that it would assume
the shape of a tangible, practical proposition which would yield the
fruits of the sacrifice it required. Our people are influenced by the
same want of confidence, and will not consider the proposition in its
present impalpable form. The interest they are asked to give up is to
them of much importance, and they ought not to be expected even to
entertain the proposal until they are assured that when they accept it
their just expectations will not be frustrated. We regard your plan as a
proposition from the Nation to the States to exercise an admitted
constitutional right in a particular manner and yield up a valuable
interest. Before they ought to consider the proposition, it should be
presented in such a tangible, practical, efficient shape as to command
their confidence that its fruits are contingent only upon their
acceptance. We cannot trust anything to the contingencies of future
legislation.
If Congress, by proper and necessary legislation, shall provide
sufficient funds and place them at your disposal, to be applied by you
to the payment of any of our States or the citizens thereof who shall
adopt the abolishment of slavery, either gradual or immediate, as they
may determine, and the expense of deportation and colonization of the
liberated slaves, then will our State and people take this proposition
into careful consideration, for such decision as in their judgment is
demanded by their interest, their honor, and their duty to the whole
country. We have the honor to be, with great respect,
C. A. WICKLIFFE, _Ch’n_,
GARRETT DAVIS,
R. WILSON,
J. J. CRITTENDEN,
JOHN S. CARLILE,
J. W. CRISFIELD,
J. S. JACKSON,
H. GRIDER,
JOHN S. PHELPS,
FRANCIS THOMAS,
CHAS. B. CALVERT,
C. L. LEARY,
EDWIN H. WEBSTER,
R. MALLORY,
AARON HARDING,
JAMES S. ROLLINS,
J. W. MENZIES,
THOMAS L. PRICE,
G. W. DUNLAP,
WM. A. HALL.
Others of the minority, among them Senator Henderson and Horace Maynard,
forwarded separate replies, but all rejecting the idea of compensated
emancipation. Still Lincoln adhered to and advocated it in his recent
annual message sent to Congress, Dec. 1, 1862, from which we take the
following paragraphs, which are in themselves at once curious and
interesting:
“We have two million nine hundred and sixty-three thousand square
miles. Europe has three million and eight hundred thousand, with a
population averaging seventy-three and one-third persons to the square
mile. Why may not our country, at some time, average as many? Is it
less fertile? Has it more waste surface, by mountains, rivers, lakes,
deserts, or other causes? Is it inferior to Europe in any natural
advantage? If, then, we are at some time to be as populous as Europe,
how soon? As to when this _may_ be, we can judge by the past and the
present; as to when it _will_ be, if ever, depends much on whether we
maintain the Union. Several of our States are already above the
average of Europe—seventy-three and a third to the square mile.
Massachusetts has 157; Rhode Island, 133; Connecticut, 99; New York
and New Jersey, each, 80. Also two other great states, Pennsylvania
and Ohio, are not far below, the former having 63 and the latter 59.
The states already above the European average, except New York, have
increased in as rapid a ratio, since passing that point, as ever
before; while no one of them is equal to some other parts of our
country in natural capacity for sustaining a dense population.
“Taking the nation in the aggregate, and we find its population and
ratio of increase, for the several decennial periods, to be as follows:
1790 3,929,827 Ratio of increase.
1800 5,305,937 35.02 per cent.
1810 7,239,814 36.45 „
1820 9,638,131 33.13 „
1830 12,866,020 33.49 „
1840 17,069,453 32.67 „
1850 23,191,876 35.87 „
1860 31,443,790 35.58 „
This shows an annual decennial increase of 34.69 per cent, in population
through the seventy years from our first to our last census yet taken.
It is seen that the ratio of increase, at no one of these seven periods
is either two per cent. below or two per cent. above the average; thus
showing how inflexible, and, consequently, how reliable, the law of
increase in our case is. Assuming that it will continue, gives the
following results:
1870 42,323,341
1880 56,967,216
1890 76,677,872
1900 103,208,415
1910 138,918,526
1920 186,984,335
1930 251,680,914
“These figures show that our country _may_ be as populous as Europe now
is at some point between 1920 and 1930—say about 1925—our territory, at
seventy-three and a third persons to the square mile, being of capacity
to contain 217,186,000.
“And we _will_ reach this, too, if we do not ourselves relinquish the
chance by the folly and evils of disunion, or by long and exhausting war
springing from the only great element of national discord among us.
While it cannot be foreseen exactly how much one huge example of
secession, breeding lesser ones indefinitely, would retard population,
civilization, and prosperity no one can doubt that the extent of it
would be very great and injurious.
The proposed emancipation would shorten the war, perpetuate peace,
insure this increase of population, and proportionately the wealth of
the country. With these, we should pay all the emancipation would cost,
together with our other debt, easier than we should pay our other debt
without it. If we had allowed our old national debt to run at six per
cent. per annum, simple interest, from the end of our revolutionary
struggle until to-day, without paying anything on either principal or
interest, each man of us would owe less upon that debt now than each man
owed upon it then; and this because our increase of men through the
whole period has been greater than six per cent.; has run faster than
the interest upon the debt. Thus, time alone relieves a debtor nation,
so long as its population increases faster than unpaid interest
accumulates on its debt.
“This fact would be no excuse for delaying payment of what is justly
due; but it shows the great importance of time in this connection—the
great advantage of a policy by which we shall not have to pay until we
number a hundred millions, what, by a different policy, we would have to
pay now, when we number but thirty-one millions. In a word, it shows
that a dollar will be much harder to pay for the war than will be a
dollar for emancipation on the proposed plan. And then the latter will
cost no blood, no precious life. It will be a saving of both.”
Various propositions and measures relating to compensated emancipation,
were afterwards considered in both Houses, but it was in March, 1863,
dropped after a refusal of the House to suspend the rules for the
consideration of the subject.
Emancipation as a War Necessity.
Before the idea of compensated emancipation had been dropped, and it was
constantly discouraged by the Democrats and Border Statesmen, President
Lincoln had determined upon a more radical policy, and on the 22d of
September, 1862, issued his celebrated proclamation declaring that he
would emancipate “all persons held as slaves within any State or
designated part of a State, the people whereof shall be in rebellion
against the United States”—by the first of January, 1863, if such
sections were not “in good faith represented in Congress.” He followed
this by actual emancipation at the time stated.
Proclamation of Sept. 22, 1862.
I, ABRAHAM LINCOLN, President of the United States of America, and
Commander-in-Chief of the army and navy thereof, do hereby proclaim and
declare that hereafter, as heretofore, the war will be prosecuted for
the object of practically restoring the constitutional relation between
the United States and each of the States and the people thereof, in
which States that relation is or may be suspended or disturbed.
That it is my purpose, upon the next meeting of Congress, to again
recommend the adoption of a practical measure tendering pecuniary aid to
the free acceptance or rejection of all slave States, so called, the
people thereof may not then be in rebellion against the United States,
and which States may then have voluntarily adopted, or thereafter may
voluntarily adopt, immediate or gradual abolishment of slavery within
their respected limits; and that the effort to colonize persons of
African descent with their consent upon this continent or elsewhere,
with the previously obtained consent of the Governments existing there,
will be continued.
That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand
eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any
State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in
rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and
forever free; and the Executive Government of the United States,
including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and
maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to
repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for
their actual freedom.
That the Executive will, on the first day of January aforesaid, by
proclamation, designate the States and parts of States, if any, in which
the people thereof respectively, shall then be in rebellion against the
United States; and the fact that any State, or the people thereof, shall
on that day be, in good faith, represented in the Congress of the United
States by members chosen thereto at elections wherein a majority of the
qualified voters of such State shall have participated, shall, in the
absence of strong countervailing testimony, be deemed conclusive
evidence that such State, and the people thereof, are not in rebellion
against the United States.
That attention is hereby called to an act of Congress entitled “An act
to make an additional article of war,” approved March 13, 1862, and
which act is in the words and figures following:
“_Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United
States of America in Congress assembled_, That hereafter the following
shall be promulgated as an additional article of war, for the government
of the army of the United States, and shall be obeyed and observed as
such.
“ARTICLE —. All officers or persons in the military or naval service of
the United States are prohibited from employing any of the forces under
their respective commands for the purpose of returning fugitives from
service or labor who may have escaped from any persons to whom such
service or labor is claimed to be due, and any officer who shall be
found guilty by a court-martial of violating this article shall be
dismissed from the service.
“SEC. 2. _And be it further enacted_, That this act shall take effect
from and after its passage.”
Also to the ninth and tenth sections of an act entitled “An act to
suppress insurrection, to punish treason and rebellion, to seize and
confiscate property of rebels, and for other purposes,” approved July
17, 1862, and which sections are in the words and figures following:
“SEC. 9. _And be it further enacted_, That all slaves of persons who
shall hereafter be engaged in rebellion against the Government of the
United States or who shall in any way give aid or comfort thereto,
escaping from such persons and taking refuge within the lines of the
army; and all slaves captured from such persons or deserted by them, and
coming under the control of the Government of the United States; and all
slaves of such persons found _on_ [or] being within any place occupied
by rebel forces and afterwards occupied by the forces of the United
States, shall be deemed captives of war, and shall be forever free of
their servitude, and not again held as slaves.
“SEC. 10. _And be it further enacted_, That no slave escaping into any
State, Territory, or the District of Columbia, from any other State,
shall be delivered up, or in any way impeded or hindered of his liberty,
except for crime, or some offence against the laws, unless the person
claiming said fugitive shall first make oath that the person to whom the
labor or service of such fugitive is alleged to be due is his lawful
owner, and has not borne arms against the United States in the present
rebellion, nor in any way given aid and comfort thereto; and no person
engaged in the military or naval service of the United States shall,
under any pretence whatever, assume to decide on the validity of the
claim of any person to the service or labor of any other person, or
surrender up any such person to the claimant, on pain of being dismissed
from the service.”
And I do hereby enjoin upon and order all persons engaged in the
military and naval service of the United States to observe, obey, and
enforce, within their respective spheres of service, the act and
sections above recited.
And the Executive will in due time recommend that all citizens of the
United States who shall have remained loyal thereto throughout the
rebellion shall (upon the restoration of the constitutional relation
between the United States and their respective States and people, if
that relation shall have been suspended or disturbed) be compensated for
all losses by acts of the United States, including the loss of slaves.
In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand, and caused the seal of
the United States to be affixed.
Done at the city of Washington this twenty-second day of September, in
the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two, and of
the Independence of the United States the eighty-seventh.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
By the President:
WILLIAM H. SEWARD, _Secretary of State_.
Proclamation of January 1, 1863.
WHEREAS, on the twenty-second day of September, in the year of our Lord
one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two, a proclamation was issued by
the President of the United States, containing among other things, the
following, to wit:
“That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand
eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any
State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in
rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and
forever, free; and the Executive Government of the United States,
including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and
maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to
repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for
their actual freedom.
“That the Executive will, on the first day of January aforesaid, by
proclamation, designate the States and parts of States, if any, in which
the people thereof, respectively, shall then be in rebellion against the
United States; and the fact that any State, or the people thereof, shall
on that day be in good faith represented in the Congress of the United
States, by members chosen thereto at elections wherein a majority of the
qualified voters of such States shall have participated, shall, in the
absence of strong countervailing testimony, be deemed conclusive
evidence that such State, and the people thereof, are then in rebellion
against the United States.”
Now, therefore, I, ABRAHAM LINCOLN, President of the United States, by
virtue of the power in me vested as Commander-in-Chief of the Army and
Navy of the United States, in time of actual armed rebellion against the
authority and Government of the United States, and as a fit and
necessary war measure for suppressing said rebellion, do, on this first
day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and
sixty-three, and in accordance with my purpose so to do, publicly
proclaimed for the full period of one hundred days from the day first
above mentioned, order and designate as the States and parts of States
wherein the people thereof, respectively, are this day in rebellion
against the United States, the following, to wit:
Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, (except the parishes of St. Bernard,
Plaquemines, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St. James, Ascension,
Assumption, Terre Bonne, Lafourche, St. Mary, St. Martin, and Orleans,
including the city of New Orleans,) Mississippi, Alabama, Florida,
Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia, (except the
forty-eight counties designated as West Virginia, and also the counties
of Berkeley, Accomac, Northampton, Elizabeth City, York, Princess Ann,
and Norfolk, including the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth,) and which
excepted parts are for the present left precisely as if this
proclamation were not issued.
And by virtue of the power and for the purpose aforesaid, I do order and
declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States
and parts of States are, and henceforward shall be, free; and that the
Executive Government of the United States, including the military and
naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of
said persons.
And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to be free to abstain
from all violence, unless in necessary self-defence; and I recommend to
them that, in all cases when allowed, they labor faithfully for
reasonable wages.
And I further declare and make known that such persons, of suitable
condition, will be received into the armed service of the United States
to garrison forts, positions, stations, and other places, and to man
vessels of all sorts in said service.
And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted
by the Constitution upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate
judgment of mankind and the gracious favor of Almighty God.
In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of
the United States to be affixed.
Done at the city of Washington this first day of January, in the year of
our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the
independence of the United States of America the eighty-seventh.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
By the President:
WILLIAM H. SEWARD,
_Secretary of State_.
These proclamations were followed by many attempts on the part of the
Democrats to declare them null and void, but all such were tabled. The
House on the 15th of December, 1862, endorsed the first by a vote of 78
to 51, almost a strict party vote. Two classed as Democrats, voted for
emancipation—Haight and Noell; seven classed as Republicans, voted
against it—Granger, Harrison, Leary, Maynard, Benj. F. Thomas, Francis
Thomas, and Whaley.
Just previous to the issuance of the first proclamation a meeting of the
Governors of the Northern States had been called to consider how best
their States could aid the general conduct of the war. Some of them had
conferred with the President, and while that meeting and the date of the
emancipation proclamation are the same, it was publicly denied on the
floor of Congress by Mr. Boutwell (June 25, 1864,) that the proclamation
was the result of that meeting of the Governors. That they fully
endorsed and knew of it, however, is shown by the following
Address of loyal Governors to the President.
Adopted at a meeting of Governors of loyal States, held to take
measures for the more active support of the Government, at Altoona,
Pennsylvania, on the 22d day of September, 1862.
After nearly one year and a half spent in contest with an armed and
gigantic rebellion against the national Government of the United States,
the duty and purpose of the loyal States and people continue, and must
always remain as they were at its origin—namely, to restore and
perpetuate the authority of this Government and the life of the nation.
No matter what consequences are involved in our fidelity, this work of
restoring the Republic, preserving the institutions of democratic
liberty, and justifying the hopes and toils of our fathers shall not
fail to be performed.
And we pledge without hesitation, to the President of the United States,
the most loyal and cordial support, hereafter as heretofore, in the
exercise of the functions of his great office. We recognize in him the
Chief Executive Magistrate of the nation, the Commander-in-chief of the
Army and Navy of the United States, their responsible and constitutional
head, whose rightful authority and power, as well as the constitutional
powers of Congress, must be rigorously and religiously guarded and
preserved, as the condition on which alone our form of Government and
the constitutional rights and liberties of the people themselves can be
saved from the wreck of anarchy or from the gulf of despotism.
In submission to the laws which may have been or which may be duly
enacted, and to the lawful orders of the President, co-operating always
in our own spheres with the national Government, we mean to continue in
the most vigorous exercise of all our lawful and proper powers,
contending against treason, rebellion, and the public enemies, and,
whether in public life or in private station, supporting the arms of the
Union, until its cause shall conquer, until final victory shall perch
upon its standard, or the rebel foe shall yield a dutiful, rightful, and
unconditional submission.
And, impressed with the conviction that an army of reserve ought, until
the war shall end, to be constantly kept on foot, to be raised, armed,
equipped, and trained at home, and ready for emergencies, we
respectfully ask the President to call for such a force of volunteers
for one year’s service, of not less than one hundred thousand in the
aggregate, the quota of each State to be raised after it shall have
filled its quota of the requisitions already made, both for volunteers
and militia. We believe that this would be a measure of military
prudence, while it would greatly promote the military education of the
people.
We hail with heartfelt gratitude and encouraged hope the proclamation of
the President, issued on the 22d instant, declaring emancipated from
their bondage all persons held to service or labor as slaves in the
rebel States, whose rebellion shall last until the first day of January
now next ensuing. The right of any person to retain authority to compel
any portion of the subjects of the national Government to rebel against
it, or to maintain its enemies, implies in those who are allowed
possession of such authority the right to rebel themselves; and
therefore the right to establish martial law or military government in a
State or territory in rebellion implies the right and the duty of the
Government to liberate the minds of all men living therein by
appropriate proclamations and assurances of protection, in order that
all who are capable, intellectually and morally, of loyalty and
obedience, may not be forced into treason as the unwilling tools of
rebellious traitors. To have continued indefinitely the most efficient
cause, support, and stay of the rebellion, would have been, in our
judgment, unjust to the loyal people whose treasure and lives are made a
willing sacrifice on the altar of patriotism—would have discriminated
against the wife who is compelled to surrender her husband, against the
parent who is to surrender his child to the hardships of the camp and
the perils of battle, in favor of rebel masters permitted to retain
their slaves. It would have been a final decision alike against
humanity, justice, the rights and dignity of the Government, and against
sound and wise national policy. The decision of the President to strike
at the root of the rebellion will lend new vigor to the efforts and new
life and hope to the hearts of the people. Cordially tendering to the
President our respectful assurance of personal and official confidence,
we trust and believe that the policy now inaugurated will be crowned
with success, will give speedy and triumphant victories over our
enemies, and secure to this nation and this people the blessing and
favor of Almighty God. We believe that the blood of the heroes who have
already fallen, and those who may yet give their lives to their country,
will not have been shed in vain.
The splendid valor of our soldiers, their patient endurance, their manly
patriotism, and their devotion to duty, demand from us and from all
their countrymen the homage of the sincerest gratitude and the pledge of
our constant reinforcement and support. A just regard for these brave
men, whom we have contributed to place in the field, and for the
importance of the duties which may lawfully pertain to us hereafter, has
called us into friendly conference. And now, presenting to our national
Chief Magistrate this conclusion of our deliberations, we devote
ourselves to our country’s service, and we will surround the President
with our constant support, trusting that the fidelity and zeal of the
loyal States and people will always assure him that he will be
constantly maintained in pursuing with the utmost vigor this war for the
preservation of the national life and the hope of humanity.
A. G. CURTIN,
JOHN A. ANDREW,
RICHARD YATES,
ISRAEL WASHBURNE, JR.,
EDWARD SOLOMON,
SAMUEL J. KIRKWOOD,
O. P. MORTON,
By D. G. ROSE, his representative,
WM. SPRAGUE,
F. H. PEIRPOINT,
DAVID TOD,
N. S. BERRY,
AUSTIN BLAIR.
Repeal of the Fugitive Slave Law.
The first fugitive slave law passed was that of February 12th, 1793, the
second and last that of September 18th, 1850. Various efforts had been
made to repeal the latter before the war of the rebellion, without a
prospect of success. The situation was now different. The war spirit was
high, and both Houses of Congress were in the hands of the Republicans
as early as December, 1861, but all of them were not then ready to vote
for repeal, while the Democrats were at first solidly against it. The
bill had passed the Senate in 1850 by 27 yeas to 12 nays; the House by
109 yeas to 76 nays, and yet as late as 1861 such was still the desire
of many not to offend the political prejudices of the Border States and
of Democrats whose aid was counted upon in the war, that sufficient
votes could not be had until June, 1864, to pass the repealing bill.
Republican sentiment advanced very slowly in the early years of the war,
when the struggle looked doubtful and when there was a strong desire to
hold for the Union every man and county not irrevocably against it; when
success could be foreseen the advances were more rapid, but never as
rapid as the more radical leaders desired. The record of Congress in the
repeal of the Fugitive Slave Law will illustrate this political fact, in
itself worthy of grave study by the politician and statesman, and
therefore we give it as compiled by McPherson:—
Second Session, Thirty-Seventh Congress.[22]
In Senate, 1861, December 26—Mr. Howe, of Wisconsin, introduced a bill
to repeal the fugitive slave law; which was referred to the Committee on
the Judiciary.
1862, May 24—Mr. Wilson, of Massachusetts, introduced a bill to amend
the fugitive slave law; which was ordered to be printed and lie on the
table.
June 10—Mr. Wilson moved to take up the bill; which was agreed to—Yeas
25, nays 10, as follows:
YEAS—Messrs. Anthony, Browning, Chandler, Clark, Cowan, Dixon,
Doolittle, Fessenden, Foot, Grimes, Hale, Harlan, Harris, Howard, Howe,
King, Lane of Kansas, Morrill, Pomeroy, Simmons, Sumner, Ten Eyck,
Trumbull, Wade, Wilson, of Massachusetts.—25.
NAYS—Messrs. _Carlile_, _Davis_, _Latham_, _McDougall_, _Nesmith_,
_Powell_, _Saulsbury_, _Stark_, _Willey_, _Wright_—10.[23]
The bill was to secure to claimed fugitives a right to a jury trial in
the district court for the United States for the district in which they
may be, and to require the claimant to prove his loyalty. The bill
repeals sections 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 of the act of 1850, and that part of
section 5, which authorizes the summoning of the _posse comitatus_. When
a warrant of return is made either on jury trial or confession of the
party in the presence of counsel, having been warned of his rights, the
fugitive is to be surrendered to the claimant, or the marshal where
necessary, who shall remove him to the boundary line of the district,
and there deliver him to the claimant. The bill was not further
considered.
In House, 1861, December 20—Mr. Julian offered this resolution:
_Resolved_, That the Judiciary Committee be instructed to report a bill,
so amending the fugitive slave law enacted in 1850 as to forbid the
recapture or return of any fugitive from labor without satisfactory
proof first made that the claimant of such fugitive is loyal to the
Government.
Mr. Holman moved to table the resolution, which was disagreed to—yeas
39, nays 78, as follows:
YEAS—Messrs. _Ancona_, _Joseph Baily_, _Biddle_, _George H. Browne_,
_Cobb_, _Cooper_, _Cox_, _Cravens_, _Crittenden_, _Dunlap_, _English_,
_Fouke_, _Grider_, _Harding_, _Holman_, _Johnson_, _Law_, _Lazear_,
_Leary_, _Lehman_, _Mallory_, _Morris_, _Noble_, _Noell_, _Norton_,
_Nugen_, _Odell_, _Pendleton_, _Robinson_, _Shiel_, _John B. Steele_,
_William G. Steele_, _Vallandigham_, _Wadsworth_, Webster, _Chilton A.
White_, _Wickliffe_, _Woodruff_, _Wright_—39.
NAYS—Messrs. Aldrich, Alley, Arnold, Babbitt, Baker, Baxter, Beaman,
Bingham, Francis P. Blair, Samuel S. Blair, Blake, Buffinton, Burnham,
Chamberlain, Clark, Colfax, Frederick A. Conkling, Roscoe Conkling,
Cutler, Davis, Dawes, Delano, Duell, Edwards, Eliot, Fessenden,
Franchot, Frank, Gooch, Goodwin, Gurley, Hale, Hanchett, Harrison,
Hooper, Hutchins, Julian, William Kellogg, Lansing, Loomis, Lovejoy,
McKnight, McPherson, Marston, Mitchell, Moorhead, Anson P. Morrill,
Justin S. Morrill, Olin, Patton, Pike, Pomeroy, Porter, John H. Rice,
Riddle, Edward H. Rollins, Sargent, Sedgwick, Shanks. Shellabarger,
Sherman, Sloan, Spaulding, Stevens, Benjamin F. Thomas, Train, Vandever,
Wall, Wallace, Walton, Washburne, Wheeler, Whaley, Albert S. White,
Wilson, Windom, Worcester—78.
The resolution was then adopted—yeas 78, nays 39.
1862, June 9—Mr. Julian, of Indiana, introduced into the House a
resolution instructing the Judiciary Committee to report a bill for the
purpose of repealing the fugitive slave law; which was tabled—yeas 66,
nays 51, as follows:
YEAS—Messrs. _William J. Allen_, _Ancona_, _Baily_, _Biddle_, Francis P.
Blair, Jacob B. Blair, _George H. Browne_, William G. Brown, Burnham,
_Calvert_, Casey, Clements, _Cobb_, _Corning_, _Crittenden_, Delano,
Diven, Granger, _Grider_, Haight, Hale, _Harding_, _Holman_, _Johnson_,
William Kellogg, _Kerrigan_, _Knapp_, _Lazear_, Low, Maynard, _Menzies_,
Moorhead, _Morris_, _Noble_, Noell, _Norton_, _Odell_, _Pendleton_,
_John S. Phelps_, Timothy G. Phelps, Porter, _Richardson_, _Robinson_,
_James S. Rollins_, Sargent, Segar, _Sheffield_, _Shiel_, _Smith_, _John
B. Steele_, _William G. Steele_, Benjamin F. Thomas, Francis Thomas,
Trimble, _Vallandigham_, Verree, _Vibbard_, _Voorhees_, _Wadsworth_,
Webster, _Chilton A. White_, _Wickliffe_, _Wood_, Woodruff, Worcester,
_Wright_—66.
NAYS—Messrs. Aldrich, Alley, Baker, Baxter, Beaman, Bingham, Blake,
Buffinton, Chamberlain, Colfax, Frederick A. Conkling, Davis, Dawes,
Edgerton, Edwards, Eliot, Ely, Franchot, Gooch, Goodwin, Hanchett,
Hutchins, Julian, Kelley, Francis W. Kellogg, Lansing, Lovejoy,
McKnight, McPherson, Mitchell, Anson P. Morrill, Pike, Pomeroy, Potter,
Alexander H. Rice, John H. Rice, Riddle, Edward H. Rollins,
Shellabarger, Sloan, Spaulding, Stevens, Train, Trowbridge, Van Horn,
Van Valkenburgh, Wall, Wallace, Washburne, Albert S. White, Windom—51.
Same day—Mr. Colfax, of Indiana, offered this resolution:
_Resolved_, That the Committee on the Judiciary be instructed to report
a bill modifying the fugitive slave law so as to require a jury trial in
all cases where the person claimed denies under oath that he is a slave,
and also requiring any claimant under such act to prove that he has been
loyal to the Government during the present rebellion.
Which was agreed to—yeas 77, nays 43, as follows:
YEAS—Messrs. Aldrich, Alley, Arnold, Ashley, Babbitt, Baker, Baxter,
Beaman, Bingham, Francis P. Blair, Blake, Buffinton, Burnham,
Chamberlain, Colfax, Frederick A. Conkling, Davis, Dawes, Delano, Diven,
Edgerton, Edwards, Eliot, Ely, Franchot, Gooch, Goodwin, Granger,
Gurley, Haight, Hale, Hanchett, Hutchins, Julian, Kelley, Francis W.
Kellogg, William Kellogg, Lansing, Loomis, Lovejoy, Lowe, McKnight,
McPherson, Mitchell, Anson P. Morrill, Justin S. Morrill, Nixon, Timothy
G. Phelps, Pike, Pomeroy, Porter, Potter, Alexander H. Rice, John H.
Rice, Riddle, Edward H. Rollins, Sargent, Shanks, _Sheffield_,
Shellabarger, Sloan, Spaulding, Stevens, Stratton, Benjamin F. Thomas,
Train, Trimble, Trowbridge, Van Valkenburgh, Verree, Wall, Wallace,
Washburne, Albert, S. White, Wilson, Windom, Worcester—77.
NAYS—Messrs. _William J. Allen_, _Ancona_, _Baily_, _Biddle_, Jacob B.
Blair, William G. Brown, _Calvert_, Casey, Clements, _Cobb_, _Corning_,
_Crittenden_, _Fouke_, _Grider_, _Harding_, _Holman_, _Johnson_,
_Knapp_, Maynard, _Menzies_, _Noble_, Noell, _Norton_, _Pendleton_,
_John S. Phelps_, _Richardson_, _Robinson_, _James S. Rollins_, Segar,
_Shiel_, _Smith_, _John B. Steele_, _William G. Steele_, Francis Thomas,
_Vallandigham_, _Vibbard_, _Voorhees_, _Wadsworth_, Webster, _Chilton A.
White_, _Wickliffe_, _Wood_, _Wright_—43.
Third Session, Thirty-Seventh Congress.
In Senate, 1863, February 11—Mr. Ten Eyck, from the Committee on the
Judiciary, to whom was referred a bill, introduced by Senator Howe, in
second session, December 26, 1861, to repeal the fugitive slave act of
1850, reported it back without amendment, and with a recommendation that
it do not pass.
First Session, Thirty-Eighth Congress.
In House, 1863, Dec. 14.—Mr. Julian, of Indiana, offered this
resolution:
_Resolved_, That the Committee on the Judiciary be instructed to report
a bill for a repeal of the third and fourth sections of the “act
respecting fugitives from justice and persons escaping from the service
of their masters,” approved February 12, 1793, and the act to amend and
supplementary to the aforesaid act, approved September 18, 1850.
Mr. Holman moved that the resolution lie upon the table, which was
agreed to—yeas 81, nays 73, as follows:
YEAS—Messrs. _James C. Allen_, _William J. Allen_, _Ancona_, Anderson,
_Baily_, _Augustus C. Baldwin_, Jacob B. Blair, _Bliss_, _Brooks_,
_James S. Brown_, William G. Browne, _Clay_, Cobb, _Coffroth_, _Cox_,
_Cravens_, Creswell, _Dawson_, Demming, _Denison_, _Eden_, _Edgerton_,
_Eldridge_, _English_, _Finck_, _Ganson_, _Grider_, _Griswold_, _Hall_,
_Harding_, _Harrington_, _Benjamin G. Harris_, _Charles M. Harris_,
Higby, _Holman_, _Hutchins_, _William Johnson_, _Kernan_, _King_,
_Knapp_, _Law_, _Lazear_, _Le Blond_, _Long_, _Mallory_, _Marcy_,
Marvin, McBride, _McDowell_, _McKinney_, _William H. Miller_, _James R.
Morris_, _Morrison_, _Nelson_, _Noble_, _Odell_, _John O’Neil_,
_Pendleton_, William H. Randall, _Robinson_, _Rogers_, _James S.
Rollins_, _Ross_, _Scott_, Smith, Smithers, _Stebbins_, _John B.
Steele_, _Stuart_, _Sweat_, Thomas, _Voorhees_, _Wadsworth_, _Ward_,
_Wheeler_, _Chilton A. White_, _Joseph W. White_, Williams, _Winfield_,
_Fernando Wood_, _Yeaman_—81.
NAYS—Messrs. Alley, Allison, Ames, Arnold, Ashley, John D. Baldwin,
Baxter, Beaman, Blaine, Blow, Boutwell, Boyd, Brandegee, Broomall,
Ambrose W. Clark, Freeman Clark, Cole, Henry Winter Davis, Dawes, Dixon,
Donnelly, Driggs, Dumont, Eckley, Eliot, Farnsworth, Fenton, Frank,
Garfield, Gooch, Grinnell, Hooper, Hotchkiss, Asahel W. Hubbard, John H.
Hubbard, Hulburd, Jenckes, Julian, Francis W. Kellogg, Orlando Kellogg,
Loan, Longyear, Lovejoy, McClurg, McIndoe, Samuel F. Miller, Moorhead,
Morrill, Amos Myers, Leonard Myers, Norton, Charles O’Neill, Orth,
Patterson, Pike, Pomeroy, Price, Alexander H. Rice, John H. Rice, Edward
H. Rollins, Schenck, Scofield, Shannon, Spalding, Thayer, Van
Valkenburgh, Elihu B. Washburne, William B. Washburn, Whaley, Wilder,
Wilson, Windom, Woodbidge—73.
1864, June 6, Mr. Hubbard, of Connecticut, offered this resolution:
_Resolved_, That the Committee on the Judiciary be instructed to report
to this House a bill for the repeal of all acts and parts of acts which
provide for the rendition of fugitive slaves, and that they have leave
to make such report at any time.
Which went over under the rule. May 30, he had made an ineffectual
effort to offer it, Mr. Holman objecting.
REPEALING BILLS.
1864, April 19, the Senate considered the bill to repeal all acts for
the rendition of fugitives from service or labor. The bill was taken
up—yeas 26, nays 10.
Mr. Sherman moved to amend by inserting these words at the end of the
bill:
Except the act approved February 12, 1793, entitled “An act respecting
fugitives from justice, and persons escaping from the service of their
masters.”
Which was agreed to—yeas 24, nays 17, as follows:
YEAS—Messrs. _Buckalew_, _Carlile_, Collamer, Cowan, _Davis_, Dixon,
Doolittle, Foster, Harris, Henderson, _Hendricks_, Howe, Johnson, Lane
of Indiana, _McDougall_, _Nesmith_, _Powell_, _Riddle_, _Saulsbury_,
Sherman, Ten Eyck, Trumbull, Van Winkle, Willey—24.
NAYS—Messrs. Anthony, Brown, Clark, Conness, Fessenden, Grimes, Hale,
Howard, Lane of Kansas, Morgan, Morrill, Pomeroy, Ramsey, Sprague,
Sumner, Wilkinson, Wilson—17.
Mr. Saulsbury moved to add these sections:
_And be it further enacted_, That no white inhabitant of the United
States shall be arrested, or imprisoned, or held to answer for a capital
or otherwise infamous crime, except in cases arising in the land or
naval forces, or in the militia when in actual service in time of war or
public danger, without due process of law.
_And be it further enacted_, That no person engaged in the executive,
legislative, or judicial departments of the Government of the United
States, or holding any office or trust recognized in the Constitution of
the United States, and no person in military or naval service of the
United States, shall, without due process of law, arrest or imprison any
white inhabitant of the United States who is not, or has not been, or
shall not at the time of such arrest or imprisonment be, engaged in
levying war against the United States, or in adhering to the enemies of
the United States, giving them aid and comfort, nor aid, abet, procure
or advise the same, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces,
or in the militia when in actual service in time of war or public
danger. And any person as aforesaid so arresting, or imprisoning, or
holding, as aforesaid, as in this and the second section of this act
mentioned, or aiding, abetting, or procuring, or advising the same,
shall be deemed guilty of felony, and, upon conviction thereof in any
court of competent jurisdiction, shall be imprisoned for a term of not
less than one nor more than five years, shall pay a fine of not less
than $1,000 nor more than $5000, and shall be forever incapable of
holding any office or public trust under the Government of the United
States.
Mr. HALE moved to strike out the word “white” wherever it occurs; which
was agreed to.
The amendment of Mr. SAULSBURY, as amended, was then disagreed to—yeas
9, nays 27, as follows:
YEAS—Messrs. _Buckalew_, _Carlile_, Cowan, _Davis_, _Hendricks_,
_McDougall_, _Powell_, _Riddle_, _Saulsbury_—9.
NAYS—Messrs. Anthony, Clark, Collamer, Conness, Doolittle, Fessenden,
Foster, Grimes, Hale, Harris, Howard, Howe, Lane of Indiana, Lane, of
Kansas, Morgan, Morrill, Pomeroy, Ramsey, Sherman, Sprague, Sumner, Ten
Eyck, Trumbull, Van Winkle, Wilkinson, Willey, Wilson—27.
Mr. CONNESS moved to table the bill; which was disagreed to—yeas 9,
(Messrs. _Buckalew_, _Carlile_, Conness, _Davis_, _Hendricks_,
_Nesmith_, _Powell_, _Riddle_, _Saulsbury_,) nays 31.
It was not again acted upon.
1864, June 13—The House passed this bill, introduced by Mr. SPALDING, of
Ohio, and reported from the Committee on the Judiciary by Mr. MORRIS, of
New York, as follows:
_Be it enacted, etc._, that sections three and four of an act entitled
“An act respecting fugitives from justice and persons escaping from the
service of their masters,” passed February 12, 1793, and an Act entitled
“An act to amend, and supplementary to, the act entitled ‘An act
respecting fugitives from justice, and persons escaping from their
masters,’ passed February 12, 1793,” passed September 18, 1850, be, and
the same are hereby, repealed.
Yeas 86, nays 60, as follows:
YEAS—Messrs. Alley, Allison, Ames, Arnold, Ashley, John D. Baldwin,
Baxter, Beaman, Blaine, Blair, Blow, Boutwell, Boyd, Brandegee,
Broomall, Ambrose W. Clarke, Freeman Clark, Cobb, Cole, Creswell, Henry
Winter Davis, Thomas T. Daavis, Dawes, Dixon, Donnelly, Driggs, Eckley,
Eliot, Farnsworth, Fenton, Frank, Garfield, Gooch, _Griswold_, Higby,
Hooper, Hotchkiss, Asahel W. Hubbard, John K. Hubbard, Hulburd,
Ingersoll, Jenckes, Julian, Kelley, Francis W. Kellogg, O. Kellogg,
Littlejohn, Loan, Longyear, Marvin, McClurg, McIndoe, Samuel F. Miller,
Moorhead, Morrill, Daniel Morris, Amos Myers, Leonard Myers, Norton,
Charles O’Neill, Orth, Patterson, Perham, Pike, Price, Alexander H.
Rice, John H. Rice, Schenck, Scofield, Shannon, Sloan, Spalding, Starr,
Stevens, Thayer, Thomas, Tracy, Upson, Van Valkenburgh, Webster, Whaley,
Williams, Wilder, Wilson, Windom, Woodbridge—86.
NAYS—Messrs. _James C. Allen_, _William J. Allen_, _Ancona_, _Augustus
C. Baldwin_, _Bliss_, _Brooks_, _James S. Brown_, _Chanler_, _Coffroth_,
_Cox_, _Cravens_, _Dawson_, _Denison_, _Eden_, _Edgerton_, _Eldridge_,
_English_, _Finck_, _Ganson_, _Grider_, _Harding_, _Harrington_,
_Charles M. Harris_, _Herrick_, _Holman_, _Hutchins_, _Kalbfleisch_,
_Kernan_, _King_, _Knapp_, _Law_, _Lazear_, _Le Blond_, _Mallory_,
_Marcy_, _McDowell_, _McKinney_, _Wm. H. Miller_, _James R. Morris_,
_Morrison_, _Odell_, _Pendleton_, _Pruyn_, _Radford_, _Robinson_, _Jas.
S. Rollins_, _Ross_, Smithers, _John B. Steele_, _Wm. G. Steele_,
_Stiles_, _Strouse_, _Stuart_, _Sweat_, _Wadsworth_, _Ward_, _Wheeler_,
_Chilton A. White_, _Joseph W. White_, _Fernando Wood_—60.
June 22—This bill was taken up in the Senate, when Mr. SAULSBURY moved
this substitute:
That no person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws
thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or
regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall
be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may
be due; and Congress shall pass all necessary and proper laws for the
rendition of all such persons who shall so, as aforesaid, escape.
Which was rejected—yeas 9, nays 29, as follows:
YEAS—Messrs. _Buckalew_, _Carlile_, Cowan, _Davis_, _McDougall_,
_Powell_, _Richardson_, _Riddle_, _Saulsbury_—9.
NAYS—Messrs. Anthony, Brown, Chandler, Clark, Conness, Dixon, Foot,
Grimes, Hale, Harlan, Harris, Hicks, Howard, Howe, Johnson, Lane of
Indiana, Lane of Kansas, Morgan, Morrill, Pomeroy, Ramsey, Sprague,
Sumner, Ten Eyck, Trumbull, Van Winkle, Wade, Willey—29.
Mr. JOHNSON, of Maryland, moved an amendment to substitute a clause
repealing the act of 1850; which was rejected—yeas 17, nays 22, as
follows:
YEAS—Messrs. _Buckalew_, _Carlile_, Cowan, _Davis_, Harris, Hicks,
Johnson, Lane of Indiana, _McDougall_, _Powell_, _Richardson_, _Riddle_,
_Saulsbury_, Ten Eyck, Trumbull, Van Winkle, Willey—17.
NAYS—Messrs. Anthony, Brown, Chandler, Clark, Conness, Dixon, Fessenden,
Foot, Grimes, Hale, Harlan, Howard, Howe, Lane of Kansas, Morgan,
Morrill, Pomeroy, Ramsey, Sprague, Sumner, Wade, Wilson—22.
The bill then passed—yeas 27, nays 12, as follows:
YEAS—Messrs. Anthony, Brown, Chandler, Clark, Conness, Dixon, Fessenden,
Foot, Grimes, Hale, Harlan, Harris, Hicks, Howard, Howe, Lane of
Indiana, Lane of Kansas, Morgan, Morrill, Pomeroy, Ramsey, Sprague,
Sumner, Ten Eyck, Trumbull, Wade, Wilson—27.
NAYS—Messrs. _Buckalew_, _Carlile_, Cowan, _Davis_, Johnson,
_McDougall_, _Powell_, _Richardson_, _Riddle_, _Saulsbury_, Van Winkle,
Willey—12.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN, _President_, approved it, June 28, 1864.
Seward as Secretary of State.
Wm. H. Seward was a master in diplomacy and Statecraft, and to his skill
the Unionists were indebted for all avoidance of serious foreign
complications while the war was going on. The most notable case coming
under his supervision was that of the capture of Mason and Slidell, by
Commodore Wilkes, who, on the 8th of November, 1861, had intercepted the
_Trent_ with _San Jacinto_. The prisoners were Confederate agents on
their way to St. James and St. Cloud. Both had been prominent Senators,
early secessionists, and the popular impulse of the North was to hold
and punish them. Both Lincoln and Seward wisely resisted the passions of
the hour, and when Great Britain demanded their release under the treaty
of Ghent, wherein the right of future search of vessels was disavowed,
Seward yielded, and referring to the terms of the treaty, said:
“If I decide this case in favor of my own Government, I must disavow its
most cherished principles, and reverse and forever abandon its essential
policy. The country cannot afford the sacrifice. If I maintain those
principles and adhere to that policy, I must surrender the case itself.”
The North, with high confidence in their President and Cabinet, readily
conceded the wisdom of the argument, especially as it was clinched in
the newspapers of the day by one of Lincoln’s homely remarks: “_One war
at a time_.” A war with Great Britain was thus happily avoided.
With the incidents of the war, however, save as they affected politics
and politicians, this work has little to do, and we therefore pass the
suspension of the _writ of habeas corpus_, which suspension was employed
in breaking up the Maryland Legislature and other bodies when they
contemplated secession, and it facilitated the arrest and punishment of
men throughout the North who were suspected of giving “aid and comfort
to the enemy.” The alleged arbitrary character of these arrests caused
much complaint from Democratic Senators and Representatives, but the
right was fully enforced in the face of every form of protest until the
war closed. The most prominent arrest was that of Clement L.
Vallandigham, member of Congress from Ohio, who was sent into the
Southern lines. From thence he went to Canada, and when a candidate for
Governor in Ohio, was defeated by over 100,000 majority.
Financial Legislation—Internal Taxes.
The Financial legislation during the war was as follows:
_1860, December 17_—Authorized an issue of $10,000,000 in TREASURY
NOTES, to be redeemed after the expiration of one year from the date of
issue, and bearing such a rate of interest as may be offered by the
lowest bidders. Authority was given to issue these notes in payment of
warrants in favor of public creditors at their par value, bearing six
per cent. interest per annum.
_1861, February 8_—Authorized a LOAN of $25,000,000, bearing interest at
a rate not exceeding six per cent. per annum, and reimbursable within a
period not beyond twenty years nor less than ten years. This loan was
made for the payment of the current expenses, and was to be awarded to
the most favorable bidders.
_March 2_—Authorized a LOAN of $10,000,000, bearing interest at a rate
not exceeding six per cent. per annum, and reimbursable after the
expiration of ten years from July 1, 1861. In case proposals for the
loan were not acceptable, authority was given to issue the whole amount
in TREASURY NOTES, bearing interest at a rate not exceeding six per
cent. per annum. Authority was also given to substitute TREASURE NOTES
for the whole or any part of the loans for which the Secretary was by
law authorized to contract and issue bonds, at the time of the passage
of this act, and such treasury notes were to be made receivable in
payment of all public dues, and redeemable at any time within two years
from March 2, 1861.
_March 2_—Authorized an issue, should the Secretary of the Treasury deem
it expedient, of $2,800,000 in coupon BONDS, bearing interest at the
rate of six per cent. per annum, and redeemable in twenty years, for the
payment of expenses incurred by the Territories of Washington and Oregon
in the suppression of Indian hostilities during the year 1855–’56.
_July 17_—Authorized a loan of $250,000,000, for which could be issued
BONDS bearing interest at a rate not exceeding 7 per cent. per annum,
irredeemable for twenty years, and after that redeemable at the pleasure
of the United States.
TREASURY NOTES bearing interest at the rate of 7.30 per cent. per annum,
payable three years after date; and
United States NOTES without interest, payable on demand, to the extent
of $50,000,000. (Increased by act of February 12, 1862, to $60,000,000.)
The bonds and treasury NOTES to be issued in such proportions of each as
the Secretary may deem advisable.
_August 5_—Authorized an issue of BONDS bearing 6 per cent. interest per
annum, and payable at the pleasure of the United States after twenty
years from date, which may be issued in exchange for 7.30 treasury
notes; but no such bonds to be issued for a less sum than $500, and the
whole amount of such bonds not to exceed the whole amount of 7.30
treasury notes issued.
_February 6, 1862_—Making $50,000,000 of notes, of denominations less
than $5, a legal tender, as recommended by Secretary Chase, was passed
January 17, 1862. In the House it received the votes of the Republicans
generally, and 38 Democrats. In the Senate it had 30 votes for to 1
against, that of Senator Powell.
_1862, February 25_—Authorized the issue of $15,000,000 in _legal tender
United States_ NOTES, $50,000,000 of which to be in lieu of demand notes
issued under act of July 17, 1861, $500,000,000 in 6 per cent. bonds,
redeemable after five years, and payable twenty years from date, which
may be exchanged for United States notes, and a temporary loan of
$25,000,000 in United States notes for not less than thirty days,
payable after ten days’ notice at 5 per cent. interest per annum.
_March 17_—Authorized an increase of TEMPORARY LOANS of $25,000,000,
bearing interest at a rate not exceeding 5 per cent. per annum.
_July 11_—Authorized a further increase of TEMPORARY LOANS of
$50,000,000, making the whole amount authorized $100,000,000.
_March 1_—Authorized an issue of CERTIFICATES OF INDEBTEDNESS, payable
one year from date, in settlement of audited claims against the
Government. Interest 6 per cent. per annum, payable in gold on those
issued prior to March 4, 1863, and in lawful currency on those issued on
and after that date. Amount of issue not specified.
_1862, July 11_—Authorized an additional issue of $150,000,000 _legal
tender_ NOTES, $35,000,000 of which might be in denominations less than
five dollars. Fifty million dollars of this issue to be reserved to pay
temporary loans promptly in case of emergency.
_July 17_—Authorized an issue of NOTES of the fractional part of one
dollar, receivable in payment of all dues, except customs, less than
five dollars. Amount of issue not specified.
_1863, January 17_—Authorized the issue of $100,000,000 in United States
NOTES for the immediate payment of the army and navy; such notes to be a
part of the amount provided for in any bill that may hereafter be passed
by this Congress. The amount in this resolution is included in act of
March 3, 1863.
_March 3_—Authorized a LOAN of $300,000,000 for this and $600,000,000
for next fiscal year, for which could be issued bonds running not less
than ten nor more than forty years, principal and interest payable in
coin, bearing interest at a rate not exceeding 6 per cent. per annum,
payable on bonds not exceeding $100, annually, and on all others
semi-annually. And TREASURY NOTES (to the amount of $400,000,000) not
exceeding three years to run, with interest not over 6 per cent. per
annum, principal and interest payable in lawful money, which may be made
a legal tender for their face value, excluding interest, or convertible
into United States notes. And a further issue of $150,000,000 in United
States NOTES for the purpose of converting the Treasury notes which may
be issued under this act, and for no other purpose. And a further issue,
if necessary, for the payment of the army and navy, and other creditors
of the Government, of $150,000,000 in United States NOTES, which amount
includes the $100,000,000 authorized by the joint resolution of
Congress, January 17, 1863. The whole amount of bonds, treasury notes,
and United States notes issued under this act not to exceed the sum of
$900,000,000.
_March 3_—Authorized to issue not exceeding $50,000,000 in FRACTIONAL
CURRENCY, (in lieu of postage or other stamps,) exchangeable for United
States notes in sums not less than three dollars, and receivable for any
dues to the United States less than five dollars, except duties on
imports. The whole amount issued, including postage and other stamps
issued as currency, not to exceed $50,000,000. Authority was given to
prepare it in the Treasury Department, under the supervision of the
Secretary.
_1864, March 3_—Authorized, in lieu of so much of the loan of March 3,
1863, a LOAN of $200,000,000 for the current fiscal year, for which may
be issued bonds redeemable after five and within forty years, principal
and interest payable in coin, bearing interest at a rate not exceeding 6
per cent. per annum, payable annually on bonds not over $100, and on all
others semi-annually. These bonds to be exempt from taxation by or under
State or municipal authority.
_1864, June 30_—Authorized a LOAN of $400,000,000, for which may be
issued bonds, redeemable after five nor more than thirty years, or if
deemed expedient, made payable at any period not more than forty years
from date—interest not exceeding six per cent. semi-annually, in coin.
Pending the loan bill of June 22, 1862, before the House in Committee of
the Whole, and the question being on the first section, authorizing a
loan of $400,000,000, closing with this clause:
And all bonds, Treasury notes, and other obligations of the United
States shall be exempt from taxation by or under state or municipal
authority.
There was a sharp political controversy on this question, but the House
finally agreed to it by 77 to 71. Party lines were not then distinctly
drawn on financial issues.
INTERNAL TAXES.
The system of internal revenue taxes imposed during the war did not
evenly divide parties until near its close, when Democrats were
generally arrayed against these taxes. They cannot, from the record, be
correctly classed as political issues, yet their adoption and the
feelings since engendered by them, makes a brief summary of the record
essential.
First Session, Thirty-Seventh Congress.
The bill to provide increased revenue from imports, &c., passed the
House August 2, 1861—yeas 89, nays 39.
Same day, it passed the Senate—yeas 34, nays 8, (Messrs. _Breckinridge_,
_Bright_, _Johnson_, of Missouri, _Kennedy_, _Latham_, _Polk_, _Powell_,
_Saulsbury_.)[24]
Second Session, Thirty-Seventh Congress.
_The Internal Revenue Act of 1862._
1862, April 8—The House passed the bill to provide internal revenue,
support the Government, and pay interest on the public debt—yeas 126,
nays 15. The NAYS were:
Messrs. _William Allen_, _George H. Browne_, Buffinton, _Cox_,
_Kerrigan_, _Knapp_, _Law_, _Norton_, _Pendleton_, _Richardson_,
_Shiel_, _Vallandigham_, _Voorhees_, _Chilton A. White_, _Wickliffe_—15.
June 6—The bill passed in the Senate—yeas 37, nay 1, (Mr. _Powell_.)
First Session Thirty-Eighth Congress.
_Internal Revenue Act of 1864._
April 28—The House passed the act of 1864—yeas 110, nays 39. The NAYS
were:
Messrs. _James C. Allen_, _William J. Allen_, _Ancona_, _Brooks_,
_Chanler_, _Cox_, _Dawson_, _Denison_, _Eden_, _Eldridge_, _Finck_,
_Harrington_, _Benjamin G. Harris_, _Herrick_, _Philip Johnson_,
_William Johnson_, _Knapp_, _Law_, _Le Blond_, _Long_, _Marcy_,
_McDowell_, _McKinney_, _James R. Morris_, _Morrison_, _Noble_, _John
O’Neil_, _Pendleton_, _Perry_, _Robinson_, _Ross_, _Stiles_, _Strouse_,
_Stuart_, _Voorhees_, _Ward_, _Chilton A. White_, _Joseph W. White_,
_Fernando Wood_—39.
June 6—The Senate amended and passed the bill—yeas 22, nays 3, (Messrs.
_Davis_, _Hendricks_, _Powell_.)
The bill, as finally agreed upon by a Committee of Conference, passed
without a division.
Second Session, Thirty-Seventh Congress.
_Tariff Act of 1862._
In House—1862, July 1—The House passed, without a division, a bill
increasing temporarily the duties on imports, and for other purposes.
July 8—The Senate passed it without a division.
THE TARIFF ACT OF 1864.
June 4—The House passed the bill—yeas 81, nays 28. The NAYS were:
Messrs. _James C. Allen_, _Bliss_, _James S. Brown_, _Cox_, _Edgerton_,
_Eldridge_, _Finck_, _Grider_, _Harding_, _Harrington_, _Chas. M.
Harris_, _Herrick_, _Holman_, _Hutchins_, _Le Blond_, _Long_, _Mallory_,
_Marcy_, _McDowell_, _Morrison_, _Noble_, _Pendleton_, _Perry_, _Pruyn_,
_Ross_, _Wadsworth_, _Chilton A. White_, _Joseph W. White_—28.
June 17—The Senate passed the bill—yeas 22, nays 5, (Messrs. _Buckalew_,
_Hendricks_, _McDougall_, _Powell_, _Richardson_.)
Second Session, Thirty-Seventh Congress.
_Taxes in Insurrectionary Districts, 1862._
1862, May 12—The bill for the collection of taxes in the insurrectionary
districts passed the Senate—yeas 32, nays 3, as follows:
YEAS—Messrs. Anthony, Browning, Chandler, Clark, _Davis_, Dixon,
Doolittle, Fessenden, Foot, Foster, Harlan, Harris, Henderson, Howe,
King, Lane of Indiana, Lane of Kansas, _Latham_, _McDougall_, Morrill,
_Nesmith_, Pomeroy, _Rice_, Sherman, Sumner, Ten Eyck, Trumbull, Wade,
Wilkinson, Willey, Wilson, of Massachusetts, _Wright_—32.
NAYS—Messrs. Howard, _Powell_, _Saulsbury_—3.
May 28—The bill passed House—yeas 98, nays 17. The NAYS were:
Messrs. _Biddle_, _Calvert_, _Cravens_, _Johnson_, _Kerrigan_, _Law_,
_Mallory_, _Menzies_, _Noble_, _Norton_, _Pendleton_, _Perry_, Francis
Thomas, _Vallandigham_, _Ward_, _Wickliffe_, _Wood_—17.
The Democrats who voted Aye were:
Messrs. _Ancona_, _Baily_, _Cobb_, _English_, _Haight_, _Holman_,
_Lehman_, _Odell_, _Phelps_, _Richardson_, _James S. Rollins_,
_Sheffield_, _Smith_, _John B. Steele_, _Wm. G. Steele_.
TAXES IN INSURRECTIONARY DISTRICTS, 1864.
In Senate, June 27—The bill passed the Senate without a division.
July 2—It passed the House without a division.
Many financial measures and propositions were rejected, and we shall not
attempt to give the record on these. All that were passed and went into
operation can be more readily understood by a glance at our Tabulated
History, in Book VII., which gives a full view of the financial history
and sets out all the loans and revenues. We ought not to close this
review, however, without giving here a tabulated statement, from
“McPherson’s History of the Great Rebellion,” of
The Confederate Debt.
December 31, 1862, the receipts of the Treasury from the commencement of
the “Permanent Government,” (February 18, 1862,) were as follows:
RECEIPTS.
Patent fund $13,920 00
Customs 668,566 00
Miscellaneous 2,291,812 00
Repayments of disbursing officers 3,839,263 00
Interest on loans 26,583 00
Call loan certificates 59,742,796 00
One hundred million loan 41,398,286 00
Treasury notes 215,554,885 00
Interest bearing notes 113,740,000 00
War tax 16,664,513 00
Loan 28th of February, 1861 1,375,476 00
Coin received from Bank of Louisiana 2,539,799 00
———————————————
Total $457,855,704 00
Total debt up to December 31, 1862 556,105,100 00
Estimated amount at that date necessary to support the
Government to July, 1868, was 357,929,229 00
Up to December 31, 1862, the issues of the Treasury were:
Notes $440,678,510 00
Redeemed 30,193,479 50
———————————————
Outstanding $410,485,030 50
From January 1, 1863, to September 30, 1863, the receipts of the
Treasury were:
For 8 per cent. stock $107,292,900 70
For 7 per cent. stock 38,757,650 70
For 6 per cent. stock 6,810,050 00
For 5 per cent. stock 22,992,900 00
For 4 per cent. stock 482,200 00
Cotton certificates 2,000,000 00
Interest on loans 140,210 00
War tax 4,128,988 97
Treasury notes 391,623,530 00
Sequestration 1,862,550 27
Customs 934,798 68
Export duty on cotton 8,101 78
Patent fund 10,794 04
Miscellaneous, including repayments by disbursing
officers 24,498,217 93
———————————————
Total $601,522,893 12
EXPENDITURES DURING THAT TIME.
War Department $377,988,244 00
Navy Department 38,437,661 00
Civil, miscellaneous, etc. 11,629,278 00
Customs 56,636 00
Public debt 32,212,290 00
Notes cancelled and redeemed 59,044,449 00
———————————————
Total expenditures $519,368,559 00
Total receipts 601,522,893 00
———————————————
Balance in treasury $82,154,334 00
But from this amount is to be deducted the amount of all Treasury notes
that have been funded, but which have not yet received a true
estimation, $65,000,000; total remaining, $17,154,334.
CONDITION OF THE TREASURY, JANUARY 1, 1864.
Jan. 25—The Secretary of the Treasury (C. G. Memminger) laid before the
Senate a statement in reply to a resolution of the 20th, asking
information relative to the funded debt, to call certificates, to
non-interest and interest-bearing Treasury notes, and other financial
matters. From this it appears that, January, 1864, the funded debt was
as follows:
Act Feb. 28, 1861, 8 ⅌ cent., 15,000,000 00
Act May 16, 1861, 8 ⅌ cent., 8,774,900 00
Act Aug. 19, 1861, 8 ⅌ cent., 100,000,000 00
Act Apr. 12, 1862, 8 ⅌ cent., 3,612,300 00
Act Feb. 20, 1863, 8 ⅌ cent., 95,785,000 00
Act Feb. 20, 1863, 7 ⅌ cent., 63,615,750 00
Act Mar. 23, 1863, 6 ⅌ cent., 2,831,700 00
Act April 30, 1863 (cotton interest
coupons) 8,252,000 00
—————————————— $297,871,650 00
Call certificates 89,206,770 00
Non-interest bearing Treasury notes
outstanding:
Act May 16, 1861—Payable two years
after date 8,320,875 00
Act Aug. 19, 1861—General currency 189,719,251 00
Act Oct. 13, 1861—All denominations 131,028,366 50
Act March 23—All denominations 391,829,702 50
—————————————— 720,898,095 00
Interest-bearing Treasury notes
outstanding 102,465,450 00
Amount of Treasury notes under $5,
outstanding Jan. 1, 1864, viz:
Act April 17, 1862, denominations of
$1 and $2 4,860,277 50
Act Oct. 13, 1862, $1 and $2 2,344,800 00
Act March 23, 1863, 50 cents 3,419,000 00
Total under $5 —————————————— 10,424,077 50
—————————————————
Total debt, Jan. 1, 1864 $1,220,866,042 50
ITS CONDITION, MARCH 31, 1864.
The Register of the Treasury, Robert Tyler, gave a statement, which
appeared in the Richmond _Sentinel_ after the passage of the funding
law, which gives the amount of outstanding non-interest-bearing Treasury
notes, March 31, 1864, as $796,264,403, as follows:
Act May 16, 1861—Ten-year notes $7,201,375 00
Act Aug. 19, 1861—General currency 154,365,631 00
Act Apr. 19, 1862—ones and twos 4,516,509 00
Act Oct. 18, 1862—General currency 118,997,321 50
Act Mar. 23, 1863—General currency 511,182,566 50
———————————————
Total $796,264,403 00
He also publishes this statement of the issue of non-interest-bearing
Treasury notes since the organization of the “Confederate” government:
Fifty cents $911,258 50
Ones 4,882,000 00
Twos 6,086,320 00
Fives 79,090,315 00
Tens 157,982,750 00
Twenties 217,425,120 00
Fifties 188,088,200 00
———————————————
Total $973,277,363 50
Confederate Taxes.
We also append as full and fair a statement of Confederate taxes as can
be procured, beginning with a summary of the act authorizing the issue
of Treasury notes and bonds, and providing a war tax for their
redemption:
THE TAX ACT OF JULY, 1861.
The Richmond _Enquirer_ gives the following summary of the act
authorizing the issue of Treasury notes and bonds, and providing a war
tax for their redemption:
Section one authorizes the issue of Treasury notes, payable to bearer at
the expiration of six months after the ratification of a treaty of peace
between the Confederate States and the United States. The notes are not
to be of a less denomination than five dollars, to be re-issued at
pleasure, to be received in payment of all public dues, except the
export duty on cotton, and the whole issue outstanding at one time,
including the amount issued under former acts, are not to exceed one
hundred millions of dollars.
Section two provides that, for the purpose of funding the said notes, or
for the purpose of purchasing specie or military stores, &c., bonds may
be issued, payable not more than twenty years after date, to the amount
of one hundred millions of dollars, and bearing an interest of eight per
cent. per annum. This amount includes the thirty millions already
authorized to be issued. The bonds are not to be issued in less amounts
than $100, except when the subscription is for a less amount, when they
may be issued as low as $50.
Section three provides that holders of Treasury notes may at any time
exchange them for bonds.
Section four provides that, for the special purpose of paying the
principal and interest of the public debt, and of supporting the
Government, a war tax shall be assessed and levied of fifty cents upon
each one hundred dollars in value of the following property in the
Confederate States, namely: Real estate of all kinds; slaves;
merchandise; bank stocks; railroad and other corporation stocks; money
at interest or invested by individuals in the purchase of bills, notes,
and other securities for money, except the bonds of the Confederate
States of America, and cash on hand or on deposit in bank or elsewhere;
cattle, horses, and mules; gold watches, gold and silver plate; pianos
and pleasure carriages: _Provided, however_, That when the taxable
property, herein above enumerated, of any head of a family is of value
less than five hundred dollars, such taxable property shall be exempt
from taxation under this act. It provides further that the property of
colleges, schools, and religious associations shall be exempt.
The remaining sections provide for the collection of the tax.
THE TAX ACT OF DECEMBER 19, 1861.
_An act supplementary to an act to authorize the issue of Treasury
notes, and to provide a war tax for their redemption._
SEC. 1. _The Congress of the Confederate States of America do enact_,
That the Secretary of the Treasury is hereby authorized to pay over to
the several banks, which have made advances to the Government, in
anticipation of the issue of Treasury notes, a sufficient amount, not
exceeding $10,000,000, for the principal and interest due upon the said
advance, according to the engagements made with them.
SEC. 2. The time affixed by the said act for making assignments is
hereby extended to the 1st day of January next, and the time for the
completion and delivery of the lists is extended to the 1st day of March
next, and the time for the report of the said lists to the chief
collector is extended to the 1st day of May next; and in cases where the
time thus fixed shall be found insufficient, the Secretary of the
Treasury shall have power to make further extension, as circumstances
may require.
SEC. 3. The cash on hand, or on deposit in the bank, or elsewhere,
mentioned in the fourth section of said act, is hereby declared to be
subject to assessment and taxation, and the money at interest, or
invested by individuals in the purchase of bills, notes, and other
securities for money, shall be deemed to include securities for money
belonging to non-residents, and such securities shall be returned, and
the tax thereon paid by any agent or trustee having the same in
possession or under his control. The term merchandise shall be construed
to include merchandise belonging to any non-resident, and the property
shall be returned, and the tax paid by any person having the same in
possession as agent, attorney, or consignee: _Provided_, That the words
“money at interest,” as used in the act to which this act is an
amendment, shall be so construed as to include all notes, or other
evidences of debt, bearing interest, without reference to the
consideration of the same. The exception allowed by the twentieth
section for agricultural products shall be construed to embrace such
products only when in the hands of the producer, or held for his
account. But no tax shall be assessed or levied on any money at interest
when the notes, bond, bill, or other security taken for its payment,
shall be worthless from the insolvency and total inability to pay of the
payer or obligor, or person liable to make such payment; and all
securities for money payable under this act shall be assessed according
to their value, and the assessor shall have the same power to ascertain
the value of such securities as the law confers upon him with respect to
other property.
SEC. 4. That an amount of money, not exceeding $25,000, shall be and the
same is hereby appropriated, out of any money in the treasury not
otherwise appropriated, to be disbursed under the authority of the
Secretary of the Treasury, to the chief State tax collectors, for such
expenses as shall be actually incurred for salaries of clerks, office
hire, stationery, and incidental charges; but the books and printing
required shall be at the expense of the department, and subject to its
approval.
SEC. 5. The lien for the tax shall attach from the date of the
assessment, and shall follow the same into every State in the
Confederacy; and in case any person shall attempt to remove any property
which may be liable to tax, beyond the jurisdiction of the State in
which the tax is payable, without payment of the tax, the collector of
the district may distrain upon and sell the same, in the same manner as
is provided in cases where default is made in the payment of the tax.
SEC. 6. On the report of any chief collector, that any county, town or
district, or any part thereof, is occupied by the public enemy, or has
been so occupied as to occasion destruction of crops or property, the
Secretary of the Treasury may suspend the collection of tax in such
region until the same can be reported to Congress, and its action had
thereon.
SEC. 7. In case any of the Confederate States shall undertake to pay the
tax to be collected within its limits before the time at which the
district collectors shall enter upon the discharge of their duties, the
Secretary of the Treasury may suspend the appointment of such
collectors, and may direct the chief collector to appoint assessors, and
to take proper measures for the making and perfecting the returns,
assessments and lists required by law; and the returns, assessments and
lists so made, shall have the same legal validity, to all intents and
purposes, as if made according to the provisions of the act to which
this act is supplementary.
SEC. 8. That tax lists already given, varying from the provisions of
this act, shall be corrected so as to conform thereto.
THE TAX ACT OF APRIL 24, 1863.
[From the Richmond Whig, April 21.]
We present below a synopsis of the bill to lay taxes for the common
defence and to carry on the government of the Confederate States, which
has passed both branches of Congress. It is substantially the bill
proposed by the committee on conference:
1. The first section imposes a tax of eight per cent. upon the value of
all naval stores, salt, wines and spirituous liquors, tobacco,
manufactured or unmanufactured, cotton, wool, flour, sugar, molasses,
syrup, rice, and other agricultural products, held or owned on the 1st
day of July next, and not necessary for family consumption for the
unexpired portion of the year 1863, and of the growth or production of
any year preceding the year 1863; and a tax of one per cent. upon all
moneys, bank notes or other currency on hand or on deposit on the 1st
day of July next, and on the value of all credits on which the interest
has not been paid, and not employed in a business, the income derived
from which is taxed under the provisions of this act: _Provided_, That
all moneys owned, held or deposited beyond the limits of the Confederate
States shall be valued at the current rate of exchange in Confederate
treasury notes. The tax to be assessed on the first day of July and
collected on the first day of October next, or as soon thereafter as may
be practicable.
2. Every person engaged, or intending to engage, in any business named
in the fifth section, shall, within sixty days after the passage of the
act, or at the time of beginning business, and on the first of January
in each year thereafter, register with the district collector a true
account of the name and residence of each person, firm, or corporation
engaged or interested in the business, with a statement of the time for
which, and the place and manner in which the same is to be conducted,
&c. At the time of the registry there shall be paid the specific tax for
the year ending on the next 31st of December, and such other tax as may
be due upon sales or receipts in such business.
3. Any person failing to make such registry and pay such tax, shall, in
addition to all other taxes upon his business imposed by the act, pay
double the amount of the specific tax on such business, and a like sum
for every thirty days of such failure.
4. Requires a separate registry and tax for each business mentioned in
the fifth section, and for each place of conducting the same; but no tax
for mere storage of goods at a place other than the registered place of
business. A new registry required upon every change in the place of
conducting a registered business, upon the death of any person
conducting the same, or upon the transfer of the business to another,
but no additional tax.
5. Imposing the following taxes for the year ending 31st of December,
1863, and for each year thereafter:
Bankers shall pay $500.
Auctioneers, retail dealers, tobacconists, pedlers, cattle brokers,
apothecaries, photographers, and confectioners, $50, and two and a half
per centum on the gross amount of sales made.
Wholesale dealers in liquors, $200, and five per centum on gross amount
of sales. Retail dealers in liquors, $100, and ten per centum on gross
amount of sales.
Wholesale dealers in groceries, goods, wares, merchandise, &c., $200,
and two and a half per centum.
Pawnbrokers, money and exchange brokers, $200.
Distillers, $200, and twenty per centum. Brewers, $100, and two and a
half per centum.
Hotels, inns, taverns, and eating-houses, first class, $500; second
class, $300; third class, $200; fourth class, $100; fifth class, $30.
Every house where food or refreshments are sold, and every boarding
house where there shall be six boarders or more, shall be deemed an
eating house under this act.
Commercial brokers or commission merchants, $200, and two and a half per
centum.
Theatres, $500, and five per centum on all receipts. Each circus, $100,
and $10 for each exhibition. Jugglers and other persons exhibiting
shows, $50.
Bowling alleys and billiard rooms, $40 for each alley or table
registered.
Livery stable keepers, lawyers, physicians, surgeons, and dentists, $50.
Butchers and bakers, $50, and one per centum.
6. Every person registered and taxed is required to make returns of the
gross amount of sales from the passage of the act to the 30th of June,
and every three months thereafter.
7. A tax upon all salaries, except of persons in the military or naval
service, of one per cent. when not exceeding $1,500, and two per cent.
upon an excess over that amount: _Provided_, That no taxes shall be
imposed by virtue of this act on the salary of any person receiving a
salary not exceeding $1,000 per annum, or at a like rate for another
period of time, longer or shorter.
8. Provides that the tax on annual incomes, between $500 and $1,500,
shall be five per cent.; between $1,500 and $3,000, five per cent. on
the first $1,500 and ten per cent. on the excess; between $3,000 and
$5,000, ten per cent.; between $5,000 and $10,000, twelve and a half per
cent.; over $10,000, fifteen per cent., subject to the following
deductions: On incomes derived from rents of real estate, manufacturing,
and mining establishments, &c., a sum sufficient for necessary annual
repairs; on incomes from any mining or manufacturing business, the rent,
(if rented,) cost of labor actually hired, and raw material; on incomes
from navigating enterprises, the hire of the vessel, or allowance for
wear and tear of the same, not exceeding ten per cent.; on incomes
derived from the sale of merchandise or any other property, the prime
cost of transportation, salaries of clerks, and rent of buildings; on
incomes from any other occupation, the salaries of clerks, rent, cost of
labor, material, &c.; and in case of mutual insurance companies, the
amount of losses paid by them during the year. Incomes derived from
other sources are subject to no deductions whatever.
All joint stock companies and corporations shall pay one tenth of the
dividend and reserved fund annually. If the annual earnings shall give a
profit of more than ten and less than twenty per cent. on capital stock,
one eighth to be paid; if more than twenty per cent., one sixth. The tax
to be collected on the 1st of January next, and of each year thereafter.
9. Relates to estimates and deductions, investigations, referees, &c.
10. A tax of ten per cent. on all profits in 1862 by the purchase and
sale of flour, corn, bacon, pork, oats, hay, rice, salt, iron or the
manufactures of iron, sugar, molasses made of cane, butter, woolen
cloths, shoes, boots, blankets, and cotton cloths. Does not apply to
regular retail business.
11. Each farmer, after reserving for his own use fifty bushels sweet and
fifty bushels Irish potatoes, one hundred bushels corn or fifty bushels
wheat produced this year, shall pay and deliver to the Confederate
Government one tenth of the grain, potatoes, forage, sugar, molasses,
cotton, wool, and tobacco produced. After reserving twenty bushels peas
or beans he shall deliver one tenth thereof.
12. Every farmer, planter, or grazier, one tenth of the hogs slaughtered
by him, in cured bacon, at the rate of sixty pounds of bacon to one
hundred pounds of pork; one per cent. upon the value of all meat cattle,
horses, mules, not used in cultivation, and asses, to be paid by the
owners of the same; beeves sold to be taxed as income.
13. Gives in detail the duties of post quartermasters under the act.
14. Relates to the duties of assessors and collectors.
15. Makes trustees, guardians, &c., responsible for taxes due from
estates, &c., under their control.
16. Exempts the income and moneys of hospitals, asylums, churches,
schools, and colleges from taxation under the act.
17. Authorizes the Secretary of the Treasury to make all rules and
regulations necessary to the operation of the act.
18. Provides that the act shall be in force for two years from the
expiration of the present year, unless sooner repealed; that the tax on
naval stores, flour, wool, cotton, tobacco, and other agricultural
products of the growth of any year preceding 1863, imposed in the first
section, shall be levied and collected only for the present year.
The tax act of February 17, 1864, levies, in addition to the above
rates, the following, as stated in the Richmond _Sentinel_ of February,
1864:
SEC. 1. Upon the value of real, personal, and mixed property, of every
kind and description, except the exemptions hereafter to be named, five
per cent.; the tax levied on property employed in agriculture to be
credited by the value of property in kind.
On gold and silver ware, plate, jewels, and watches, ten per cent.
The tax to be levied on the value of property in 1860, except in the
case of land, slaves, cotton, and tobacco, purchased since January 1st,
1862, upon which the tax shall be levied on the price paid.
SEC. 2. A tax of five per cent. on the value of all shares in joint
stock companies of any kind, whether incorporated or not. The shares to
be valued at their market value at the time of assessment.
SEC. 3. Upon the market value of gold and silver coin or bullion, five
per cent.; also the same upon moneys held abroad, or all bills of
exchange drawn therefor.
A tax of five per cent. on all solvent credits, and on all bank bills
and papers used as currency, except non-interest-bearing Confederate
Treasury notes, and not employed in a registered business taxed
twenty-five per cent.
SEC. 4. Profits in trade and business taxed as follows:
On the purchase and sale of agricultural products and mercantile wares
generally, from January 1, 1863, to January 1, 1865, ten per cent. in
addition to the tax under the act of April 24, 1863.
The same on the purchase and sale of coin, exchange, stocks, notes, and
credits of any kind, and any property not included in the foregoing.
On the amount of profits exceeding twenty-five per cent. of any bank,
banking company, or joint stock company of any description, incorporated
or not, twenty-five per cent. on such excess.
SEC. 5. The following are exempted from taxation.
Five hundred dollars’ worth of property for each head of a family, and a
hundred dollars additional for each minor child; and for each son in the
army or navy, or who has fallen in the service, and a member of the
family when he enlisted, the further sum of $500.
One thousand dollars of the property of the widow or minor children of
any officer, soldier, sailor, or marine, who has died in the service.
A like amount of property of any officer, soldier, sailor, or marine,
engaged in the service, or who has been disabled therein, provided said
property, exclusive of furniture, does not exceed in value $1,000.
When property has been injured or destroyed by the enemy, or the owner
unable temporarily to use or occupy it by reason of the presence or
proximity of the enemy, the assessment may be reduced in proportion to
the damage sustained by the owner, and the tax in the same ratio by the
district collector.
SEC. 6. The taxes on property for 1864 to be assessed as on the day of
the passage of this act, and collected the 1st of June next, with ninety
days extension west of the Mississippi. The additional tax on incomes or
profits for 1863, to be paid forthwith; the tax on incomes, &c., for
1864, to be collected according to the acts of 1863.
SEC. 7. Exempts from tax on income for 1864, all property herein taxed
_ad valorem_. The tax on Confederate bonds in no case to exceed the
interest payable on the same; and said bonds exempt from tax when held
by minors or lunatics, if the interest do not exceed one thousand
dollars.
THE TAX LAW.
We learn that, according to the construction of the recent tax law in
the Treasury Department, tax payers will be required to state the
articles and objects subjected to a specific or _ad valorem_ tax, held,
owned, or possessed by them on the 17th day of February, 1864, the date
of the act.
The daily wages of detailed soldiers and other employés of the
Government are not liable to taxation as income, although they may
amount, in the aggregate, to the sum of $1,000 per annum.
A tax additional to both the above was imposed as follows, June 1, 1864:
A bill to provide supplies for the army, and to prescribe the mode of
making impressments.
SEC. 1. _The Congress of the Confederate States of America do enact_,
Every person required to pay a tax in kind, under the provisions of the
“Act to lay taxes for the common defense and carry on the Government of
the Confederate States,” approved April 24, 1863, and the act amendatory
thereof, approved February 17, 1864, shall, in addition to the one tenth
required by said acts to be paid as a tax in kind, deliver to the
Confederate Government, of the products of the present year and of the
year 1865, one other tenth of the several products taxed in kind by the
acts aforesaid, which additional one tenth shall be ascertained,
assessed and collected, in all respects, as is provided by law for the
said tax in kind, and shall be paid for, on delivery, by the
Post-Quartermasters in the several districts at the assessed value
thereof, except that payment for cotton and tobacco shall be made by the
agents of the Treasury Department appointed to receive the same.
SEC. 2. The supplies necessary to the support of the producer and his
family, and to carry on his ordinary business, shall be exempted from
the contribution required by the preceding section, and from the
additional impressments authorized by the act: _Provided, however_, That
nothing herein contained shall be construed to repeal or affect the
provisions of an act entitled “An act to authorize the impressment of
meat for the use of the army, under certain circumstances,” approved
Feb. 17, 1864, and if the amount of any article or product so necessary
cannot be agreed upon between the assessor and the producer, it shall be
ascertained and determined by disinterested freeholders of the vicinage,
as is provided in cases of disagreement as to the estimates and
assessments of tax in kind. If required by the assessor, such freeholder
shall ascertain whether a producer, who is found unable to furnish the
additional one tenth of any one product, cannot supply the deficiency by
the delivery of an equivalent in other products, and upon what terms
such commutation shall be made. Any commutation thus awarded shall be
enforced and collected, in all respects, as is provided for any other
contribution required by this act.
SEC. 3. The Secretary of War may, at his discretion, decline to assess,
or, after assessment, may decline to collect the whole or any part of
the additional one tenth herein provided for, in any district or
locality; and it shall be his duty promptly to give notice of any such
determination, specifying, with reasonable certainty, the district or
locality and the product, or the proportion thereof, as to which he so
declines.
SEC. 4. The products received for the contribution herein required,
shall be disposed of and accounted for in the same manner as those
received for the tax in kind; and the Secretary of War may, whenever the
exigencies of the public service will allow, authorize the sale of
products received from either source, to public officers or agents
charged in any State with the duty of providing for the families of
soldiers. Such sale shall be at the prices paid or assessed for the
products sold, including the actual cost of collections.
SEC. 5. If, in addition to the tax in kind and the contribution herein
required, the necessities of the army or the good of the service shall
require other supplies of food or forage, or any other private property,
and the same cannot be procured by contract, then impressments may be
made of such supplies or other property, either for absolute ownership
or for temporary use, as the public necessities may require. Such
impressments shall be made in accordance with the provisions, and
subject to the restrictions of the existing impressment laws, except so
far as is herein otherwise provided.
SEC. 6. The right and the duty of making impressments is hereby confided
exclusively to the officers and agents charged in the several districts
with the assessment and collection of the tax in kind and of the
contribution herein required; and all officers and soldiers in any
department of the army are hereby expressly prohibited from undertaking
in any manner to interfere with these officers and agents in any part of
their duties in respect to the tax in kind, the contribution, or the
impressment herein provided for: _Provided_, That this prohibition shall
not be applicable to any district, county, or parish in which there
shall be no officer or agent charged with the appointment and collection
of the tax in kind.
SEC. 7. Supplies or other property taken by impressment shall be paid
for by the post quartermasters in the several districts, and shall be
disposed of and accounted for by them as is required in respect to the
tax in kind and the contribution herein required; and it shall be the
duty of the post quartermasters to equalize and apportion the
impressments within their districts, as far as practicable, so as to
avoid oppressing any portion of the community.
SEC. 8. If any one not authorized by law to collect the tax in kind or
the contribution herein required, or to make impressments, shall
undertake, on any pretence of such authority, to seize or impress, or to
collect or receive any such property, or shall, on any such pretence,
actually obtain such property, he shall, upon conviction thereof, be
punished by fine not exceeding five times the value of such property,
and be imprisoned not exceeding five years, at the discretion of the
court having jurisdiction. And it shall be the duty of all officers and
agents charged with the assessment and collection of the tax in kind and
of the contribution herein required, promptly to report, through the
post quartermasters in the several districts, any violation or disregard
of the provisions of this act by any officer or soldier in the service
of the Confederate States.
SEC. 9. That it shall not be lawful to impress any sheep, milch cows,
brood mares, stud horses, jacks, bulls, or other stock kept or necessary
for raising horses, mules, or cattle.
The following is the vote by which the bill passed the Senate:
YEAS—Messrs. Caperton, Graham, Haynes, Jemison, Johnson (Ark.), Johnson
(Mo.), Mitchell, Orr, Walker, Watson—10.
NAYS—Messrs. Baker, Burnett, Henry, Hunter, Maxwell, Semmes, Sparrow—7.
Admitting West Virginia.
An important political movement in the early years of the war was the
separation of West Virginia from the mother State, which had seceded,
and her admission into the Union.
SECOND SESSION, THIRTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS.
In Senate, 1862, July 14.—The bill providing for the admission of the
State of West Virginia into the Union, passed—yeas 23, nays 17, as
follows:
YEAS—Messrs. Anthony, Clark, Collamer, Fessenden, Foot, Foster, Grimes,
Hale, Harlan, Harris, Howe, Lane of Indiana, Lane of Kansas, Morrill,
Pomeroy, _Rice_, Sherman, Simmons, Ten Eyck, Wade, Wilkinson, Willey,
Wilson of Massachusetts—23.
NAYS—Messrs. _Bayard_, Browning, _Carlile_, Chandler, Cowan, _Davis_,
Howard, _Kennedy_, King, _McDougal_, _Powell_, _Saulsbury_, _Stark_,
Sumner, Trumbull, _Wilson_ of Missouri, _Wright_—17.
During the pendency of this bill, July 14, 1862, Mr. Sumner moved to
strike from the first section of the second article the words: “the
children of all slaves born within the limits of said State shall be
free,” and insert:
Within the limits of the said State there shall be neither slavery nor
involuntary servitude, otherwise than in punishment of crimes whereof
the party shall be duly convicted.
Which was rejected—yeas 11, nays 24, as follows:
YEAS—Messrs. Chandler, Clark, Grimes, King, Lane of Kansas, Pomeroy,
Sumner, Trumbull, Wilkinson, Wilmot, Wilson, of Massachusetts—11.
NAYS—Messrs. Anthony, _Bayard_, Browning, _Carlile_, Collamer,
Doolittle, Foot, Foster, Harris, Henderson, Howe, _Kennedy_, Lane of
Indiana, _Powell_, _Rice_, _Saulsbury_, Sherman, Simmons, _Stark_, Ten
Eyck, Wade, Wiley, _Wilson_ of Missouri, _Wright_—24.
Mr. Willey proposed to strike out all after the word “That” in the first
section, and insert:
That the State of West Virginia be, and is hereby, declared to be one of
the United States of America, and admitted into the Union on an equal
footing with the original States in all respects whatever, and until the
next general census shall be entitled to three members in the House of
Representatives of the United States: _Provided always_, That this act
shall not take effect until after the proclamation of the President of
the United States hereinafter provided for.
SEC. 2. It being represented to Congress that since the convention of
the 26th of November, 1861, that framed and proposed the constitution
for the said State of West Virginia, the people thereof have expressed a
wish to change the seventh section of the eleventh article of said
constitution by striking out the same, and inserting the following in
its place, namely, “The children of slaves born within the limits of
this State after the 4th day of July, 1863, shall be free, and no slave
shall be permitted to come into the State for permanent residence
therein:” therefore,
_Be it further enacted_, That whenever the people of West Virginia
shall, through their said convention, and by a vote to be taken at an
election to be held within the limits of the State at such time as the
convention may provide, make and ratify the change aforesaid and
properly certify the same under the hand of the president of the
convention, it shall be lawful for the President of the United States to
issue his proclamation stating the fact, and thereupon this act shall
take effect and be in force from and after sixty days from the date of
said proclamation.
Mr. Lane of Kansas moved to amend the amendment by inserting after the
word “Herein,” and before the word, “Therefore” the words:
And that all slaves within the said State who shall at the time
aforesaid be under the age of ten years shall be free when they arrive
at the age of twenty-one years; and all slaves over ten and under
twenty-one years shall be free when they arrive at the age of
twenty-five years.
Which was agreed to—yeas 25, nays 12, as follows:
YEAS—Messrs. Anthony, Clark, Collamer, Doolittle, Foot, Foster, Grimes,
Harlan, Harris, Howard, Howe, King, Lane of Indiana, Lane of Kansas,
Morrill, Pomeroy, Sherman, Simmons, Sumner, Ten Eyck, Trumbull, Wade,
Wilkinson, Wilmot, Wilson, of Massachusetts—25.
NAYS—Messrs. Browning, _Carlile_, _Davis_, Henderson, _Kennedy_,
_McDougall_, _Powell_, _Saulsbury_, _Stark_, Willey, _Wilson_ of
Missouri, _Wright_—12.
The amendment as amended was then agreed to.
A motion to postpone the bill to the first Monday of the next December
was lost—yeas 17, nays 23.
In House, July 16—The bill was postponed until the second Tuesday of the
next December—yeas 63, nays 33.
THIRD SESSION, THIRTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS.
1863, Dec. 10, the House passed the bill—yeas 96, nays 57.
1863, April 20, the President issued a proclamation announcing the
compliance, by West Virginia, of the conditions of admission.
COLOR IN WAR POLITICS.
Emancipation and its attendant agitations brought to the front a new
class of political questions, which can best be grouped under the above
caption. The following is a summary of the legislation:
Second Session, Thirty-Seventh Congress.
_To Remove Disqualification of Color in Carrying the Mails._
In Senate, 1862, April 11—The Senate considered a bill “to remove all
disqualification of color in carrying the mails of the United States.”
It directed that after the passage of the act no person, by reason of
color, shall be disqualified from employment in carrying the mails, and
all acts and parts of acts establishing such disqualification, including
especially the seventh section of the act of March 3, 1825, are hereby
repealed.
The vote in the Senate was, yeas 24, nays 11, as follows:
YEAS—Messrs. Anthony, Browning, Chandler, Clark, Collamer, Dixon,
Doolittle, Fessenden, Foot, Foster, Grimes, Hale, Howard, Howe, King,
Lane of Kansas, Morrill, Pomeroy, Sherman, Simmons, Sumner, Wade,
Wilkinson, and Wilson of Massachusetts—24.
NAYS—Messrs. _Davis_, Henderson, _Kennedy_, Lane of Indiana, _Latham_,
_Nesmith_, _Powell_, _Stark_, Willey, _Wilson_ of Missouri,
Wright—11.[25]
In House, May 21—It was considered in the House and laid on the
table—yeas 83, nays 43.
First Session, Thirty-Eighth Congress.
1864, February 26—The Senate considered the bill—the question being on
agreeing to a new section proposed by the Committee on Post Offices and
Post Roads—as follows:
SEC. 2. That in the courts of the United States there shall be no
exclusion of any witness on account of color.
Mr. Powell moved to amend by inserting after the word “States” the
words: “in all cases for robbing or violating the mails of the United
States.”
No further progress was made on the bill.
NEGRO SUFFRAGE IN MONTANA TERRITORY.
1864, March 18—The House passed, without a division, a bill in the usual
form, to provide a temporary government for the Territory of Montana.
March 31—The Senate considered it, when Mr. Wilkinson moved to strike
from the second line of the fifth section, (defining the qualifications
of voters,) the words “white male inhabitant” and insert the words:
“male citizen of the United States, and those who have declared their
intention to become such;” which was agreed to—yeas 22, nays 17, as
follows:
YEAS—Messrs. Brown, Chandler, Clark, Collamer, Conness, Dixon,
Fessenden, Foot, Foster, Grimes, Hale, Harlan, Harris, Howard, Howe,
Morgan, Morrill, Pomeroy, Sumner, Wade, Wilkinson, Wilson—22.
NAYS—Messrs. _Buckalew_, _Carlile_, Cowan, _Davis_, Harding, Henderson,
Johnson, Lane of Indiana, _Nesmith_, _Powell_, _Riddle_, _Saulsbury_,
Sherman, Ten Eyck, Trumbull, Van Winkle, Willey—17.
The bill was then passed—yeas 29, nays 8, (Messrs. _Buckalew_, _Davis_,
_Johnson_, _Powell_, _Riddle_, _Saulsbury_, Van Winkle, Willey.)
April 15—The Senate adopted the report of the Committee of Conference on
the Montana bill, which recommended the Senate to recede from their
second amendment, and the House to agree to the first and third
amendments of the Senate, (including the above.)
April 15—Mr. Beaman presented the report of the Committee of Conference
on the Montana bill, a feature of which was that the House should recede
from its disagreement to the Senate amendment striking out the word
“white” in the description of those authorized to vote.
Mr. Holman moved that the report be tabled; which was lost by the
casting vote of the Speaker—yeas 66, nays 66.
Upon agreeing to the report the yeas were 54, nays 85.
On motion to adhere to its amendments, and ask another Committee of
Conference, Mr. Webster moved instructions:
And that said committee be instructed to agree to no report that
authorizes any other than free white male citizens, and those who have
declared their intention to become such, to vote.
Which was agreed to—yeas 75, nays 67.
April 15—The Senate declined the conference upon the terms proposed by
the House resolution of that day.
April 18—The House proposed a further free conference, to which, April
25, the Senate acceded.
May 17—In Senate, Mr. Morrill submitted a report from the Conference
Committee who recommend that qualified voters shall be:
All citizens of the United States, and those who have declared their
intention to become such, and who are otherwise described and qualified
under the fifth section of the act of Congress providing for a temporary
government for the Territory of Idaho approved March 3, 1863.
The report was concurred in—yeas 26, nays 13.
May 20—The above report was made by Mr. Webster in the House, and agreed
to—yeas 102, nays 26.
IN WASHINGTON CITY.[26]
1864, May 6—The Senate considered the bill for the registration of
voters in the city of Washington, when
Mr. Cowan moved to insert the word “white” in the first section, so as
to confine the right of voting to white male citizens.
May 12—Mr. Morrill moved to amend the amendment by striking out the
words—
And shall have paid all school taxes and all taxes on personal property
properly assessed against him, shall be entitled to vote for mayor,
collector, register, members of the board of aldermen and board of
common council, and assessor, and for every officer authorized to be
elected at any election under any act or acts to which this is
amendatory or supplementary, and inserting the words—
And shall within the year next preceding the election have paid a tax,
or been assessed with a part of the revenue of the District, county, or
cities, therein, or been exempt from taxation having taxable estate, and
who can read and write with facility, shall enjoy the privileges of an
elector.
May 26—Mr. Sumner moved to amend the bill by adding this proviso:
_Provided_, That there shall be no exclusion of any person from the
registry on account of color.
May 27—Mr. Harlan moved to amend the amendment by making the word
“person” read “persons,” and adding the words—
Who have borne arms in the military service of the United States, and
have been honorably discharged therefrom.
Which was agreed to yeas 26, nays 12, as follows:
YEAS—Messrs. Anthony, Chandler, Clark, Collamer, Conness, Dixon,
Fessenden, Foot, Foster, Grimes, Hale, Harlan, Harris, Johnson, Lane of
Indiana, Lane of Kansas, Morgan, Morrill, Pomeroy, Ramsey, Sherman, Ten
Eyck, Trumbull, Wade, Willey, Wilson—26.
NAYS—Messrs. _Buckalew_, _Carlile_, Cowan, _Davis_, _Hendricks_,
_McDougall_, _Powell_, _Richardson_, _Saulsbury_, Sumner, Van Winkle,
Wilkinson—12.
May 28—Mr. Sumner moved to add these words to the last proviso:
_And provided further_, That all persons, without distinction of color,
who shall, within the year next preceding the election, have paid a tax
on any estate, or been assessed with a part of the revenue of said
District, or been exempt from taxation having taxable estate, and who
can read and write with facility, shall enjoy the privilege of an
elector. But no person now entitled to vote in the said District,
continuing to reside therein, shall be disfranchised hereby.
Which was rejected—yeas 8, nays 27, as follows:
YEAS—Messrs. Anthony, Clark, Lane of Kansas, Morgan, Pomeroy, Ramsey,
Sumner, Wilkinson—8.
NAYS—Messrs. _Buckalew_, _Carlile_, Collamer, Cowan, _Davis_, Dixon,
Fessenden, Foot, Foster, Grimes, Hale, Harlan, Harris, _Hendricks_,
Hicks, Johnson, Lane of Indiana, _McDougall_, Morrill, _Powell_,
_Saulsbury_, Sherman. Ten Eyck, Trumbull, Van Winkle, Willey, Wilson—27.
The other proposition of Mr. Sumner, amended on motion of Mr. Harlan,
was then rejected—yeas 18, nays 20, as follows:
YEAS—Messrs. Anthony, Chandler, Clark, Dixon, Foot, Foster, Hale,
Harlan, Howard, Howe, Lane of Kansas, Morgan, Pomeroy, Ramsey, Sherman,
Sumner, Wilkinson, Wilson—18.
NAYS—Messrs. _Buckalew_, _Carlile_, Cowan, _Davis_, Grimes, Harris,
_Hendricks_, Hicks, Johnson, Lane of Indiana, _McDougall_, Morrill,
_Nesmith_, _Powell_, _Richardson_, _Saulsbury_, Ten Eyck, Trumbull, Van
Winkle, Willey—20.
The bill then passed the Senate, and afterward the House, without
amendment.
Third Session, Thirty-Seventh Congress.
_Excluding Colored Persons from Cars._
In Senate—1863, February 27—Pending a supplement to the charter of the
Washington and Alexandria Railroad Company, Mr. Sumner offered this
proviso to the first section:
That no person shall be excluded from the cars on account of color.
Which was agreed to—yeas 19, nays 18, as follows:
YEAS—Messrs. Arnold, Chandler, Clark, Fessenden, Foot, Grimes, Harris,
Howard, King, Lane of Kansas, Morrill, Pomeroy, Sumner, Ten Eyck,
Trumbull, Wade, Wilkinson, Wilmot, Wilson, of Massachusetts—19.
NAYS—Messrs. Anthony, _Bayard_, _Carlile_, Cowan, _Davis_, Henderson,
Hicks, Howe, _Kennedy_, Lane of Indiana, _Latham_, _McDougall_,
_Powell_, _Richardson_, _Saulsbury_, _Turpie_, Willey, _Wilson_ of
Missouri—18.
March 2.—The House concurred in the amendment without debate, under the
previous question.
First Session, Thirty-Eighth Congress.
In Senate—1864, February 10—Mr. Sumner offered the following:
_Resolved_, That the Committee on the District of Columbia be directed
to consider the expediency of further providing by law against the
exclusion of colored persons from the equal enjoyment of all railroad
privileges in the District of Columbia.
Which was agreed to—yeas 30, nays 10.
February 24—Mr. Willey, from the Committee on the District of Columbia,
made this report, and the committee were discharged.
The Committee on the District of Columbia, who were required by
resolution of the Senate, passed February 8, 1864, “to consider the
expediency of further providing by law against the exclusion of colored
persons from the equal enjoyment of all railroad privileges in the
District of Columbia,” have had the matter thus referred to them under
consideration, and beg leave to report:
The act entitled “An act to incorporate the Washington and Georgetown
Railroad Company,” approved May 17, 1862, makes no distinction as to
passengers over said road on account of the color of the passengers, and
that in the opinion of the committee colored persons are entitled to all
the privileges of said road which other persons have, and to all
remedies for any denial or breach of such privileges which belongs to
any person.
The committee therefore ask to be discharged from the further
consideration of the premises.
March 17—The Senate considered the bill to incorporate the Metropolitan
Railroad Company, in the District of Columbia, the pending question
being an amendment, offered by Mr. Sumner, to add to the fourteenth
section the words:
_Provided_, That there shall be no regulation excluding any person from
any car on account of color.
Which was agreed to—yeas 19, nays 17, as follows:
YEAS—Messrs. Anthony, Brown, Clark, Conness, Fessenden, Foot, Foster,
Grimes, Harlan, Howe, Lane of Kansas, Morgan, Morrill, Pomeroy, Ramsey,
Sumner, Wade, Wilkinson, Wilson—19.
NAYS—Messrs. _Buckalew_, _Carlile_, _Davis_, Doolittle, Harding, Harris,
_Hendricks_, Johnson, Lane of Indiana, _Powell_, _Riddle_, _Saulsbury_,
Sherman, Ten Eyck, Trumbull, Van Winkle, Willey—17.
The bill then passed the Senate.
June 19—The House refused to strike out the proviso last adopted in the
Senate—yeas 60, nays 76.
And the bill passed the House and was approved by the President.
Second Session, Thirty-Seventh Congress.
_Colored Persons as Witnesses._
In Senate—Pending the confiscation bill, June 28, 1862.
Mr. Sumner moved these words as an addition to the 14th section:
And in all the proceedings under this act there shall be no exclusion of
any witness on account of color.
Which was rejected—yeas 14, nays 25, as follows:
YEAS--Messrs. Chandler, Grimes, Harlan, Howard, King, Lane of Kansas,
Morrill, Pomeroy, Sumner, Trumbull, Wade, Wilkinson, Wilmot—14.
NAYS—Messrs. Anthony, Browning, _Carlile_, Clark, Collamer, Cowan,
_Davis_, Dixon, Doolittle, Fessenden, Foot, Foster, Harris, Henderson,
Lane of Indiana, _Nesmith_, _Pearce_, _Powell_, Sherman, Simmons,
_Stark_, Ten Eyck, Willey, _Wilson_ of Missouri, _Wright_—25.
Pending the consideration of the supplement to the emancipation bill for
the District of Columbia,
1862, July 7—Mr. Sumner moved a new section:
That in all the judicial proceedings in the District of Columbia there
shall be no exclusion of any witness on account of color.
Which was adopted—yeas 25, nays 11.
The bill then passed—yeas 29, nays 6; (Messrs. _Carlile_, _Davis_,
_Kennedy_, _Powell_, _Wilson_, of Missouri, _Wright_.)
July 9—The bill passed the House—yeas 69, nays 36. There was no separate
vote on the above proposition.
Pending the consideration in the Senate of the House bill in relation to
the competency of witnesses in trials of equity and admiralty,
1862, July 15—Mr. Sumner offered this proviso to the first section:
_Provided_, That there shall be no exclusion of any witness on account
of color. Which was rejected—yeas 14, nays 23.
First Session, Thirty-Eighth Congress.
1864, June 25—Pending the civil appropriation bill, in Committee of the
Whole, Mr. Sumner offered this proviso:
_Provided_, That in the courts of the United States there shall be no
exclusion of any witness on account of color.
Mr. Buckalew moved to add:
Nor in civil actions because he is a party to or interested in the issue
tried.
Which was agreed to; and the amendment as amended was agreed to—yeas 22,
nays 16.
The Senate subsequently concurred in this amendment—yeas 29, nays 10.
IN HOUSE.
June 29—The question being on agreeing to the amendment,
Mr. Mallory moved to add this proviso to the section amended in the
Senate:
_Provided_, That negro testimony shall only be taken in the United
States courts in those States the laws of which authorize such
testimony.
Which was rejected—yeas 47, nays 66.
The amendment of the Senate was then agreed to—yeas 67, nays 48.
COLORED SCHOOLS.
June 8.—The House passed a bill to provide for the public instruction of
youth in Washington city, with an amendment providing for separate
schools for the colored children, by setting apart such a proportion of
the entire school fund as the number of colored children between the
ages of six and seventeen bear to the whole number of children in the
District. The bill, with amendments, passed both Houses without a
division.
On all of these questions of color, the Democrats invariably, on test
votes, were found against any concession of rights to the negro. These
were frequently aided by some Republicans, more conservative than their
colleagues, or representing closer districts where political prejudices
would affect their return to their seats. It will be observed that on
nearly all these questions Senator Charles Sumner took the lead. He was
at that time pre-eminently the Moses of the colored man, and led him
from one right to another through Senatorial difficulties, which by the
way, were never as strong as that in the House, where Thaddeus Stevens
was the boldest champion of “the rights of the black man.” In the field,
rather in the direction of what should be done with the “contrabands”
and escaped slaves, the Secretary of War, General Cameron, was their
most radical friend, and his instructions were so outspoken that Lincoln
had to modify them. As early as December 1, 1861, General Cameron wrote:
“While it is plain that the slave property of the South is justly
subjected to all the consequences of this rebellious war, and that the
Government would be untrue to its trust in not employing all the rights
and powers of war to bring it to a speedy close, the details of the plan
for doing so, like all other military measures, must, in a great degree,
be left to be determined by particular exigencies. The disposition of
other property belonging to the rebels that becomes subject to our arms
is governed by the circumstances of the case. The Government has no
power to hold slaves, none to restrain a slave of his liberty, or to
exact his service. It has a right, however, to use the voluntary service
of slaves liberated by war from their rebel masters, like any other
property of the rebels, in whatever mode may be most efficient for the
defence of the Government, the prosecution of the war, and the
suppression of rebellion. It is clearly a right of the government to arm
slaves when it may become necessary as it is to take gunpowder from the
enemy. Whether it is expedient to do so is purely a military question.
The right is unquestionable by the laws of war. The expediency must be
determined by circumstances, keeping in view the great object of
overcoming the rebels, re-establishing the laws, and restoring peace to
the nation.
“It is vain and idle for the Government to carry on this war, or hope to
maintain its existence against rebellious force, without enjoying all
the rights and powers of war. As has been said, the right to deprive the
rebels of their property in slaves and slave labor is as clear and
absolute as the right to take forage from the field, or cotton from the
warehouse, or powder and arms from the magazine. To leave the enemy in
the possession of such property as forage and cotton and military
stores, and the means of constantly reproducing them, would be madness.
It is, therefore, equal madness to leave them in peaceful and secure
possession of slave property, more valuable and efficient to them for
war than forage, cotton and military stores. Such policy would be
national suicide. What to do with that species of property is a question
that time and circumstances will solve, and need not be anticipated
further than to repeat that they cannot be held by the Government as
slaves. It would be useless to keep them as prisoners of war; and
self-preservation, the highest duty of a Government, or of individuals,
demands that they should be disposed of or employed in the most
effective manner that will tend most speedily to suppress the
insurrection and restore the authority of the Government. If it shall be
found that the men who have been held by the rebels as slaves are
capable of bearing arms and performing efficient military service, it is
the right, and may become the duty, of this Government to arm and equip
them, and employ their services against the rebels, under proper
military regulations, discipline and command.
“But in whatever manner they may be used by the Government, it is plain
that, once liberated by the rebellious act of their masters, they should
never again be restored to bondage. By the master’s treason and
rebellion he forfeits all right to the labor and service of his slave;
and the slave of the rebellious master, by his service to the
Government, becomes justly entitled to freedom and protection.
“The disposition to be made of the slaves of rebels, after the close of
the war, can be safely left to the wisdom and patriotism of Congress.
The representatives of the people will unquestionably secure to the
loyal slaveholders every right to which they are entitled under the
Constitution of the country.”
[Subsequent events proved the wisdom of this policy, and it was
eventually adopted by an Administration which proclaimed its policy “to
move not ahead but with the people.”]
President Lincoln and his Cabinet modified the above language so as to
make it read:
“It is already a grave question what shall be done with those slaves who
were abandoned by their owners on the advance of our troops into
southern territory, as at Beaufort district, in South Carolina. The
number left within our control at that point is very considerable, and
similar cases will probably occur. What shall be done with them? Can we
afford to send them forward to their masters, to be by them armed
against us, or used in producing supplies to sustain the rebellion?
Their labor may be useful to us; withheld from the enemy it lessens his
military resources, and withholding them has no tendency to induce the
horrors of insurrection, even in the rebel communities. They constitute
a military resource, and, being such, that they should not be turned
over to the enemy is too plain to discuss. Why deprive him of supplies
by a blockade, and voluntarily give him men to produce them?
“The disposition to be made of the slaves of rebels, after the close of
the war, can be safely left to the wisdom and patriotism of Congress.
The Representatives of the people will unquestionably secure to the
loyal slaveholders every right to which they are entitled under the
Constitution of the country.”
Secretary Cameron was at all times in favor of “carrying the war into
Africa” and it was this stern view of the situation which eventually led
him to sanction measures which brought him into plainer differences with
the Administration. Lincoln took offense at the printing of his report
before submitting it to him. As a result he resigned and went to Russia
as Minister, on his return being again elected to the United States
Senate—a place which he filled until the winter of 1877, when he
resigned, and his son, J. Donald Cameron, was elected to the vacancy,
and re-elected for the term ending in 1885. General B. F. Butler was the
author of the “contraband” idea. A year later the views of the
Administration became more radical on questions of color, and July 22,
1862, Secretary Stanton ordered all Generals in command “to seize and
use any property, real or personal, which may be necessary or convenient
for their several commands, for supplies, or for other military
purposes; and that while property may be destroyed for proper military
objects, none shall be destroyed in wantonness or malice.
“_Second._ That military and naval commanders shall employ as laborers,
within and from said States, so many persons of African descent as can
be advantageously used for military or naval purposes, giving them
reasonable wages for their labor.
“_Third._ That, as to both property, and persons of African descent,
accounts shall be kept sufficiently accurate and in detail to show
quantities and amounts, and from whom both property and such persons
shall have come, as a basis upon which compensation can be made in
proper cases; and the several departments of this Government shall
attend to and perform their appropriate parts towards the execution of
these orders.”
The manner and language employed by General McClellan in promulgating
this order to the Army of the Potomac, led to his political differences
with the Administration, and in the end caused him to be the Democratic
candidate for President in 1864, against Lincoln. His language is
peculiar and some of it worthy of presentation as of political
importance. He said:
“Inhabitants, especially women and children, remaining peaceably at
their homes, must not be molested; and wherever commanding officers find
families peculiarly exposed in their persons or property to marauding
from this army, they will, as heretofore, so far as they can do with
safety and without detriment to the service, post guards for their
protection.
“In protecting private property, no reference is intended to persons
held to service or labor by reason of African descent. Such persons will
be regarded by this army, as they heretofore have been, as occupying
simply a peculiar legal status under State laws, which condition the
military authorities of the United States are not required to regard at
all in districts where military operations are made necessary by the
rebellious action of the State governments.
“Persons subject to suspicion of hostile purposes, residing or being
near our forces, will be, as heretofore, subject to arrest and
detention, until the cause or necessity is removed. All such arrested
parties will be sent, as usual, to the Provost Marshal General, with a
statement of the facts in each case.
“The general commanding takes this occasion to remind the officers and
soldiers of this army that we are engaged in supporting the Constitution
and the laws of the United States and suppressing rebellion against
their authority; that we are not engaged in a war of rapine, revenge, or
subjugation; that this is not a contest against populations, but against
armed forces and political organizations; that it is a struggle carried
on with the United States, and should be conducted by us upon the
highest principles known to Christian civilization.”
At this time such were the prejudices of Union soldiers against negroes,
because of growing political agitation in the North, that many would
loudly jeer them when seen within the lines. The feeling was even
greater in the ranks of civilians, and yet Congress moved along, step by
step. The 37th abolished slavery in the District of Columbia; prohibited
it in all the territories; confirmed the freedom of the slaves owned by
those in arms against the government; authorized the employment of
colored men in fortifications, their enlistment, etc.; and enacted an
additional article of war, which prohibited any officer from returning
or aiding the return of any fugitive slave. These were rapid strides,
but not as rapid as were demanded by the more radical wing of the
Republican party. We have shown that most of them were opposed by the
Democrats, not solidly sure where they were plainly political, but this
party became less solid as the war advanced.
Senator Wilson was the author of the bill to abolish slavery in the
District of Columbia. It excited much debate, and the range of the
speeches covered the entire question of slavery. Those from the Border
States opposed it (a few Republicans and all Democrats) but some of the
Democrats of the North supported it. The vote in the Senate was 29 for
to 6 against. In the House Frank P. Blair, Jr., advocated colonization
in connection with the bill, but his idea met with little favor.
Crittenden, Wickliffe and Vallandigham were prominent in opposition. Its
most prominent advocates were Stevens of Pennsylvania, and Bingham of
Ohio. The vote was 92 for to 38 against.
The bill of Arnold, of Illinois, “to render freedom national and slavery
sectional,” the leading idea in the platform of the convention which
nominated Lincoln, prohibited slavery in “all the Territories of the
United States then existing, or thereafter to be formed or acquired in
any way.” It was vehemently opposed, but passed with some modifications
by 58 ayes to 50 noes, and it also passed the Senate.
In the Spring of 1862 General David Hunter brought the question of the
enlistment of colored troops to a direct issue by raising a regiment of
them. On the 9th of June following, Mr. Wickliffe of Kentucky, succeeded
in getting the House to adopt a resolution of inquiry. Correspondence
followed with General Hunter. He confessed the fact, stated that “he
found his authority in the instructions of Secretary Cameron, and said
that he hoped by fall to enroll about fifty thousand of these hardy and
devoted soldiers.” When this reply was read in the House it was greeted
with shouts of laughter from the Republicans, and signs of anger from
the others. A great debate followed on the amendment to the bill
providing for the calling out of the militia, clothing the President
with full power to enlist colored troops, and to proclaim “he, his
mother, and wife and children forever free,” after such enlistment.
Preston King, of New York, was the author of this amendment. Davis, of
Kentucky, and Carlisle of West Virginia, were prominent Senators in
opposition; while Ten Eyck, of New Jersey, Sherman of Ohio, and Browning
of Illinois sought to modify it. Garrett Davis said in opposition:
“Do you expect us to give our sanction and approval to these things? No,
no! We would regard their authors as our worst enemies; and there is no
foreign despotism that could come to our rescue, that we would not
fondly embrace, before we would submit to any such condition of things.”
Senator Fessenden of Maine, in advocacy of the amendment, said:
“I tell the President from my place here as a Senator, and I tell the
generals of our army, they must reverse their practices and course of
proceeding on this subject. * * * Treat your enemies as enemies, as the
worst of enemies, and avail yourselves like men of every power which God
has placed in your hands, to accomplish your purpose, within the rules
of civilized warfare.”
The bill passed, so modified, as to give freedom to all who should
perform military service, but restricting liberty to the families of
such only as belonged to rebel masters. It passed the House July 16th,
1862, and received the sanction of the President, who said:—“And the
promise made must be kept!” General Hunter for his part in beginning
colored enlistments, was outlawed by the Confederate Congress. Hunter
followed with an order freeing the slaves in South Carolina.
In January, 1863, pursuant to a suggestion in the annual report of
Secretary Stanton, who was by this time as radical as his predecessor in
office, the House passed a bill authorizing the President to enroll into
the land and naval service such number of volunteers of African descent
as he might deem useful to suppress the rebellion, and for such term as
he might prescribe, not exceeding five years. The slaves of loyal
citizens in the Border States were excluded from the provisions of this
bill. In the Senate an adverse report was made on the ground that the
resident already possessed these powers.
In January, 1863, Senator Wilson, who was by this time chairman of the
Military Committee of the Senate, secured the passage of a bill which
authorized a draft for the National forces from the ranks of all male
citizens, and those of foreign birth who had declared their intentions,
etc. The bill contained the usual exemptions.
CONFEDERATE USE OF COLORED MEN.
In June, 1861, the rebel Legislature of Tennessee passed this enlistment
bill, which became a law:
SEC. 1. _Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of
Tennessee_, That from and after the passage of this act the Governor
shall be, and he is hereby, authorized, at his discretion, to receive
into the military service of the State all male free persons of color
between the ages of fifteen and fifty, or such numbers as may be
necessary, who may be sound in mind and body, and capable of actual
service.
2. That such free persons of color shall receive, each, eight dollars
per month, as pay, and such persons shall be entitled to draw, each, one
ration per day, and shall be entitled to a yearly allowance each for
clothing.
3. That, in order to carry out the provisions of this act, it shall be
the duty of the sheriffs of the several counties in this State to
collect accurate information as to the number and condition, with the
names of free persons of color, subject to the provisions of this act,
and shall, as it is practicable, report the same in writing to the
Governor.
4. That a failure or refusal of the sheriffs, or any one or more of
them, to perform the duties required, shall be deemed an offence, and on
conviction thereof shall be punished as a misdemeanor.
5. That in the event a sufficient number of free persons of color to
meet the wants of the State shall not tender their services, the
Governor is empowered, through the sheriffs of the different counties,
to press such persons until the requisite number is obtained.
6. That when any mess of volunteers shall keep a servant to wait on the
members of the mess, each servant shall be allowed one ration.
This act to take effect from and after its passage.
W. C. WHITTHORNE,
_Speaker of the House of Representatives_.
B. L. STOVALL,
_Speaker of the Senate_.
Passed June 28, 1861.
1862, November 2—Governor Joseph E. Brown, of Georgia, issued a call
announcing that if a sufficient supply of negroes be not tendered within
ten days, General Mercer will, in pursuance of authority given him,
proceed to impress, and asking of every planter of Georgia a tender of
one fifth of his negroes to complete the fortifications around Savannah.
This one-fifth is estimated at 15,000.
1863. The Governor of South Carolina in July, issued a proclamation for
3,000 negroes to work on the fortifications, “the need for them being
pressing.”
THE CHANGING SENTIMENT OF CONGRESS.
In the Rebel House of Representatives, December 29th, Mr. DARGAN, of
Alabama, introduced a bill to receive into the military service all that
portion of population in Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Florida,
known as “Creoles.”
Mr. Dargan supported the bill in some remarks. He said the Creoles were
a mixed-blooded race. Under the treaty of Paris in 1803, and the treaty
of Spain in 1810, they were recognized as freemen. Many of them owned
large estates, and were intelligent men. They were as much devoted to
our cause as any class of men in the South, and were even anxious to go
into service. They had applied to him to be received into service, and
he had applied to Mr. Randolph, then Secretary of War. Mr. Randolph
decided against the application, on the ground that it might furnish to
the enemy a pretext of arming our slaves against us. Some time after
this he was again applied to by them, and he went to the present
Secretary of War, Mr. Seddon, and laid the matter before him. Mr. Seddon
refused to entertain the proposition, on the ground that it did not come
up before him through the military authorities. To obviate this
objection, Gen. Maury, at Mobile, soon afterwards represented their
wishes to the War Department. Mr. Seddon refused the offer of their
services, on the ground that it would be incompatible with the position
we occupied before the world; that it could not be done.
Mr. Dargan said he differed with the Secretary of War. He cared not for
“the world.” He cared no more for their opinions than they did for ours.
He was anxious to bring into service every free man, be he who he may,
willing to strike for our cause. He saw no objection to employing
Creoles; they would form a potent element in our army. In his district
alone a brigade of them could be raised. The crisis had been brought
upon us by the enemy, and he believed the time would yet come when the
question would not be the Union or no Union, but whether Southern men
should be permitted to live at all. In resisting subjugation by such a
barbarous foe he was for employing all our available force. _He would go
further and say that he was for arming and putting the slaves into
military service. He was in favor even of employing them as a military
arm in the defence of the country._
1864. The Mayor of Charleston, Charles Macbeth, summons all slaveholders
within the city to furnish to the military authorities forthwith,
one-fourth of all their male slaves between the ages of fifteen and
fifty, to labor upon the fortifications. The penalty announced, in case
of failure to comply with this requisition is a fine of $200 for every
slave not forthcoming. Compensation is allowed at the rate of $400 a
year.
All free male persons of color between the ages of fifteen and fifty are
required to give themselves up for the same purpose. Those not complying
will be imprisoned, and set to work upon the fortifications along the
coast. To free negroes no other compensation than rations is allowed.
NEGROES IN THE ARMY.
The Richmond press publish the official copy of “An act to increase the
efficiency of the army by the employment of free negroes and slaves in
certain capacities,” lately passed by the Rebel Congress. The negroes
are to perform “such duties as the Secretary of War or Commanding
General may prescribe.” The first section is as follows:
_The Congress of the Confederate States of America do enact_, That all
male free negroes, and other free persons of color, not including those
who are free under the treaty of Paris, of 1803, or under the treaty of
Spain, of 1819, resident in the Confederate States, between the ages of
eighteen and fifty years, shall be held liable to perform such duties
with the army, or in connection with the military defences of the
country, in the way of work upon the fortifications, or in government
works for the production or preparation of materials of war, or in
military hospitals, as the Secretary of War or the Commanding General of
the Trans-Mississippi Department may, from time to time, prescribe; and
while engaged in the performances of such duties shall receive rations
and clothing and compensation at the rate of eleven dollars a month,
under such rules and regulations as the said Secretary may establish:
_Provided_, That the Secretary of War or the Commanding General of the
Trans-Mississippi Department, with the approval of the President, may
exempt from the operations of this act such free negroes as the
interests of the country may require should be exempted, or such as he
may think proper to exempt on the ground of justice, equity or
necessity.
The third section provides that when the Secretary of War shall be
unable to procure the services of slaves in any military department,
then he is authorized to impress the services of as many male slaves,
not to exceed twenty thousand, as may be required, from time to time, to
discharge the duties indicated in the first section of the act.
The owner of the slave is to be paid for his services; or, if he be
killed or “escape to the enemy,” the owner shall receive his full value.
Governor Smith, of Virginia, has made a call for five thousand male
slaves to work on the batteries, to be drawn from fifty counties. The
call for this force has been made by the President under a resolution of
Congress.
“CONFEDERATE” LEGISLATION UPON NEGRO PRISONERS AND THEIR WHITE OFFICERS
WHEN CAPTURED.[27]
1863, May 1—An act was approved declaring that the commissioned officers
of the enemy ought not to be delivered to the authorities of the
respective States, (as suggested in Davis’s message;) but all captives
taken by the Confederate forces ought to be dealt with and disposed of
by the Confederate Government.
President Lincoln’s emancipation proclamations of September 22, 1862,
and January 1, 1863, were resolved to be inconsistent with the usages of
war among civilized nations, and should be repressed by retaliation; and
the President is authorized to cause full and complete retaliation for
every such violation, in such manner and to such extent as he may think
proper.
Every white commissioned officer commanding negroes or mulattoes in arms
against the Confederate States shall be deemed as inciting servile
insurrection, and shall, if captured, be put to death, or be otherwise
punished, at the discretion of the court.
Every person charged with an offence made punishable under the act shall
be tried by the military court of the army or corps of troops capturing
him; and, _after conviction, the President may commute the punishment in
such manner and on such terms as he may deem proper_.
All negroes and mulattoes who shall be engaged in war or taken in arms
against the Confederate States, or shall give aid or comfort to the
enemies of the Confederate States, shall, when captured in the
Confederate States, be delivered to the authorities of the State or
States in which they shall be captured, to be dealt with according to
the present or future laws of such State or States.
Passage of the Thirteenth Amendment.
The first amendment to the Constitution growing out of the war, and one
of its direct results, was that of abolishing slavery. It was first
introduced to the House December 14th, 1863, by James M. Ashley of Ohio.
Similar measures were introduced by James M. Wilson, Senators Henderson,
Sumner and others. On the 10th of February, Senator Trumbull reported
Henderson’s joint resolution amended as follows:
“That the following article be proposed to the Legislatures of the
several States, as an amendment to the Constitution of the United
States, which, when ratified by three-fourths of said Legislatures,
shall be valid to all intents and purposes as a part of the said
Constitution, namely:
“ART. 13, Sec. 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude except as a
punishment for crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted,
shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their
jurisdiction.
“Sec. 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by
appropriate legislation.”
The Senate began the consideration of the question March 28th, Senator
Trumbull opening the debate in favor of the amendment. He predicted that
within a year the necessary number of States would ratify it. Wilson of
Massachusetts made a long and able speech in favor. Davis of Kentucky
and Saulsbury of Delaware led the opposition, but Reverdy Johnson, an
independent Democratic Senator from Maryland, surprised all by his bold
support of the measure. Among other things he said:
“I think history will bear me out in the statement, that if the men by
whom that Constitution was framed, and the people by whom it was
adopted, had anticipated the times in which we live, they would have
provided by constitutional enactment, that that evil and that sin should
in some comparatively unremote day be removed. Without recurring to
authority, the writings public or private of the men of that day, it is
sufficient for my purpose to state what the facts will justify me in
saying, that every man of them who largely participated in the
deliberations of the Convention by which the Constitution was adopted,
earnestly desired, not only upon grounds of political economy, not only
upon reasons material in their character, but upon grounds of morality
and religion, that sooner or later the institution should terminate.”
Senator McDougall of California, opposed the amendment. Harlan of Iowa,
Hale of New Hampshire, and Sumner, made characteristic speeches in
favor. Saulsbury advocated the divine right of slavery. It passed April
8th, by 38 ayes to 6 noes, the latter comprising Davis and Powell of
Kentucky; McDougall of California; Hendricks of Indiana; Saulsbury and
Riddle of Delaware.
Arnold of Illinois, was the first to secure the adoption in the House
(Feb. 15, 1864,) of a resolution to abolish slavery; but the
Constitutional amendment required a two-thirds vote, and this it was
difficult to obtain, though all the power of the Administration was bent
to that purpose. The discussion began May 31st; the vote was reached
June 15th, but it then failed of the required two-thirds—93 for to 65
against, 23 not voting. Its more pronounced advocates were Arnold,
Ashley, Broomall, Stevens, and Kelly of Pennsylvania; Farnsworth and
Ingersoll of Illinois, and many others. Its ablest opponents were
Holman, Wood, Mallory, Cox and Pendleton—the latter rallying nearly all
of the Democrats against it. Its Democratic friends were McAllister and
Bailey of Pennsylvania; Cobb of Wisconsin; Griswold and Odell of New
York. Before the vote was announced Ashley changed his vote so as to
move a reconsideration and keep control of the question. At the next
session it was passed, receiving every Republican and 16 Democratic
votes, 8 Democrats purposely refraining, so that it would surely pass.
Admission of Representatives from Louisiana.
The capture of New Orleans by Admiral Farragut, led to the enrollment of
60,000 citizens of Louisiana as citizens of the United States. The
President thereupon appointed a Military Governor for the entire State,
and this Governor ordered an election for members of Congress under the
old State constitution. This was held Dec. 3, 1862, when Messrs.
Flanders and Hahn were returned, neither receiving 3,000 votes. They
received certificates, presented them, and thus opened up a new and
grave political question. The Democrats opposed their admission on
grounds so well stated by Voorhees of Indiana, that we quote them:
“Understand this principle. If the Southern Confederacy is a foreign
power, an independent nationality to-day, and you have conquered back
the territory of Louisiana, you may then substitute a new system of laws
in the place of the laws of that State. You may then supplant her civil
institutions by institutions made anew for her by the proper authority
of this _Government_—not by the executive—but by the _legislative_
branch of the Government, assisted by the Executive simply to the extent
of signing his name to the bills of legislation. If the Chairman of the
Committee of Ways and Means, (Mr. Stevens) is correct; if the gentleman
from Kansas (Mr. Conway) is correct, and this assumed power in the South
is a power of the earth, and stands to-day upon equal terms of
nationality with ourselves, and reconquer back State by State its
territory by the power of arms, then we may govern them independently of
their local laws. But if the theory we have been proceeding upon here,
that this Union is unbroken; that no States have sundered the bonds that
bind us together; that no successful disunion has yet taken place,—if
that theory is still to prevail in these halls, then this cannot be
done. You are as much bound to uphold the laws of Louisiana in all their
extent and in all their parts, as you are to uphold the laws of
Pennsylvania or New York, or any other State whose civil policy has not
been disturbed.”
Michael Hahn, one of the Representatives elect, closed a very effective
speech, which secured the personal good will of the House in favor of
his admission, in these words:
“And even, sir, within the limits of the dreary and desolated region of
the rebellion itself, despair, which has already taken hold of the
people, will gain additional power and strength, at the reception of the
news that Louisiana sends a message of peace, good will, and hearty
fellowship to the Union. This intelligence will sound more joyful to
patriot ears than all the oft repeated tidings of ‘Union victories.’ And
of all victories, this will be the most glorious, useful and solid, for
it speaks of _reorganization_, soon to become the great and difficult
problem with which our statesmen will have to familiarize themselves,
and when this shall have commenced, we will be able to realize that God,
in his infinite mercy has looked down upon our misfortunes, and in a
spirit of paternal love and pity, has addressed us in the language
ascribed to him by our own gifted Longfellow:
“I am weary of your quarrels,
Weary of your ware and bloodshed,
Weary of your prayers for vengeance,
Of your wranglings and dissensions;
All your strength is in your _Union_,
All your danger is in _discord_,
Therefore, be at peace, henceforward,
And as _brothers_ live together.”
“Mr. Speaker, Louisiana—ever loyal, honorable Louisiana—seeks no greater
blessing in the future, than to remain a part of this great and glorious
Union. She has stood by you in the darkest hours of the rebellion; and
she intends to stand by you. Sir, raise your eyes to the gorgeous
ceilings which ornament this Hall, and look upon her fair and lovely
escutcheon. Carefully read the patriotic words which surround her
affectionate pelican family, and you will find there inscribed,
‘_Justice, Union, Confidence_.’ Those words have with us no idle
meaning; and would to God that other members of this Union, could
properly appreciate our motto, our motives and our position!”
The debate attracted much attention, because of the novelty of a
question upon which, it has since been contended, would have turned a
different plan of reconstructing the rebellious States if the
President’s plans had not been destroyed by his assassination. Dawes, of
Massachusetts, was the Chairman of the Committee on Elections, and he
closed the debate in favor of admission. The vote stood 92 for to 44
against, almost a strict party test, the Democrats voting no.
RECONSTRUCTION.
In the House as early as Dec. 15, 1863, Henry Winter Davis moved that so
much of the President’s message as relates to the duty of the United
States to guaranty a Republican form of government to the States in
which the governments recognized by the United States have been
abrogated or overthrown, be referred to a select committee of nine to
report the bills necessary and proper for carrying into execution the
foregoing guarantee, was passed, and on May 4th, 1864, the House adopted
the first reconstruction bill by 74 yeas to 66 nays—a strict party
vote.[28] The Senate passed it by yeas 18, nays 14—Doolittle, Henderson,
Lane of Indiana, Ten Eyck, Trumbull, and Van Winkle voting with the
Democrats against it.
The bill authorizes the President to appoint in each of the States
declared in rebellion, a Provisional Governor, with the pay and
emoluments of a brigadier; to be charged with the civil administration
until a State government therein shall be recognized. As soon as the
military resistance to the United States shall have been suppressed, and
the people sufficiently returned to their obedience to the Constitution
and laws, the Governor shall direct the marshal of the United States to
enroll all the white male citizens of the United States, resident in the
State in their respective counties, and whenever a majority of them take
the oath of allegiance, the loyal people of the State shall be entitled
to elect delegates to a convention to act upon the re-establishment of a
State government—the proclamation to contain details prescribed.
Qualified voters in the army may vote in their camps. No person who has
held or exercised any civil, military, State, or Confederate office,
under the rebel occupation, and who has voluntarily borne arms against
the United States, shall vote or be eligible as a delegate. The
convention is required to insert in the constitution provisions—
1st. No person who has held or exercised any civil or military office,
(except offices merely ministerial and military offices below a
colonel,) State or Confederate, under the usurping power, shall vote
for, or be a member of the legislature or governor.
2d. Involuntary servitude is forever prohibited, and the freedom of all
persons is guarantied in said State.
3d. No debt, State or Confederate, created by or under the sanction of
the usurping power, shall be recognized or paid by the State.
Upon the adoption of the constitution by the convention, and its
ratification by the electors of the State, the Provisional Governor
shall so certify to the President, who, after obtaining the assent of
Congress, shall, by proclamation, recognize the government as
established, and none other, as the constitutional government of the
State; and from the date of such recognition, and not before, Senators
and Representatives and electors for President and Vice-President may be
elected in such State. Until reorganization the Provisional Governor
shall enforce the laws of the Union and of the State before the
rebellion.
The remaining sections are as follows:
SEC. 12. That all persons held to involuntary servitude or labor in the
States aforesaid are hereby emancipated and discharged therefrom, and
they and their posterity shall be forever free. And if any such persons
or their posterity shall be restrained of liberty, under pretence of any
claim to such service or labor, the courts of the United States shall,
on _habeas corpus_, discharge them.
SEC. 13. That if any person declared free by this act, or any law of the
United States, or any proclamation of the President, be restrained of
liberty, with intent to be held in or reduced to involuntary servitude
or labor, the person convicted before a court of competent jurisdiction
of such act shall be punished by fine of not less than $1,500, and be
imprisoned not less than five, nor more than twenty years.
SEC. 14. That every person who shall hereafter hold or exercise any
office, civil or military, except offices merely ministerial and
military offices below the grade of colonel, in the rebel service, State
or Confederate, is hereby declared not to be a citizen of the United
States.
Lincoln’s Proclamation on Reconstruction
President Lincoln failed to sign the above bill because it reached him
less than one hour before final adjournment, and thereupon issued a
proclamation which closed as follows:
“Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, do
proclaim, declare, and make known, that, while I am (as I was in
December last, when by proclamation I propounded a plan for restoration)
unprepared, by a formal approval of this bill, to be inflexibly
committed to any single plan of restoration; and, while I am also
unprepared to declare that the free State constitutions and governments
already adopted and installed in Arkansas and Louisiana shall be set
aside and held for nought, thereby repelling and discouraging the loyal
citizens who have set up the same as to further effort, or to declare a
constitutional competency in Congress to abolish slavery in States, but
am at the same time sincerely hoping and expecting that a constitutional
amendment abolishing slavery throughout the nation may be adopted,
nevertheless I am fully satisfied with the system for restoration
contained in the bill as one very proper plan for the loyal people of
any State choosing to adopt it, and that I am, and at all times shall
be, prepared to give the Executive aid and assistance to any such
people, so soon as the military resistance to the United States shall
have been suppressed in any such State, and the people thereof shall
have sufficiently returned to their obedience to the Constitution and
laws of the United States, in which cases Military Governors will be
appointed, with directions to proceed according to the bill.”
Admission of Arkansas.
On the 10th of June, 1864, introduced a joint resolution for the
recognition of the free State government of Arkansas. A new State
government had then been organized, with Isaac Murphy, Governor, who was
reported to have received nearly 16,000 votes at a called election. The
other State officers are:
Lieutenant-Governor, C. C. Bliss; Secretary of State, R. J. T. White;
Auditor, J. B. Berry; Treasurer, E. D. Ayers; Attorney General, C. T.
Jordan; Judges of the Supreme Court, T. D. W. Yowley, C. A. Harper, E.
Baker.
The Legislature also elected Senators, but neither Senators nor
Representatives obtained their seats. Trumbull, from the Senate
Judiciary Committee, made a long report touching the admission of the
Senators, which closed as follows:
“When the rebellion in Arkansas shall have been so far suppressed that
the loyal inhabitants thereof shall be free to re-establish their State
government upon a republican foundation, or to recognize the one already
set up, and by the aid and not in subordination to the military to
maintain the same, they will then, and not before, in the opinion of
your committee, be entitled to a representation in Congress, and to
participate in the administration of the Federal Government. Believing
that such a state of things did not at the time the claimants were
elected, and does not now, exist in the State of Arkansas, the committee
recommend for adoption the following resolution:
“_Resolved_, That William M. Fishback and Elisha Baxter are not entitled
to seats as Senators from the State of Arkansas.”
1864, June 29—The resolution of the Committee on the Judiciary was
adopted—yeas 27, nays 6.
President Lincoln was known to favor the immediate admission of Arkansas
and Louisiana, but the refusal of the Senate to admit the Arkansas
Senators raised an issue which partially divided the Republicans in both
Houses, some of whom favored forcible reconstruction through the aid of
Military Governors and the machinery of new State governments, while
others opposed. The views of those opposed to the President’s policy are
well stated in a paper signed by Benjamin F. Wade and Henry Winter
Davis, published in the New York _Tribune_, August 5th, 1864. From this
we take the more pithy extracts:
The President, by preventing this bill from becoming a law, holds the
electoral votes of the rebel States at the dictation of his personal
ambition.
If those votes turn the balance in his favor, is it to be supposed that
his competitor, defeated by such means, will acquiesce?
If the rebel majority assert their supremacy in those States, and send
votes which elect an enemy of the Government, will we not repel his
claims?
And is not civil war for the Presidency inaugurated by the votes of
rebel States?
Seriously impressed with these dangers, Congress, “_the proper
constitutional authority_,” formally declared that there are no State
governments in the rebel States, and provided for their erection at a
proper time; and both the Senate and the House of Representatives
rejected the Senators and Representatives chosen under the authority of
what the President calls the free constitution and government of
Arkansas.
The President’s proclamation “_holds for naught_” this judgment, and
discards the authority of the Supreme Court, and strides headlong toward
the anarchy his proclamation of the 8th of December inaugurated.
If electors for President be allowed to be chosen in either of those
States, a sinister light will be cast on the motives which induced the
President to “hold for naught” the will of Congress rather than his
government in Louisiana and Arkansas.
That judgment of Congress which the President defies was the exercise of
an authority exclusively vested in Congress by the Constitution to
determine what is the established government in a State, and in its own
nature and by the highest judicial authority binding on all other
departments of the Government. * * *
A more studied outrage on the legislative authority of the people has
never been perpetrated.
Congress passed a bill; the President refused to approve it, and then by
proclamation puts as much of it in force as he sees fit, and proposes to
execute those parts by officers unknown to the laws of the United States
and not subject to the confirmation of the Senate!
The bill directed the appointment of Provisional Governors by and with
the advice and consent of the Senate.
The President, after defeating the law, proposes to appoint without law,
and without the advice and consent of the Senate, _Military_ Governors
for the rebel States!
He has already exercised this dictatorial usurpation in Louisiana, and
he defeated the bill to prevent its limitation. * * *
The President has greatly presumed on the forbearance which the
supporters of his Administration have so long practiced, in view of the
arduous conflict in which we are engaged, and the reckless ferocity of
our political opponents.
But he must understand that our support is of a cause and not of a man;
that the authority of Congress is paramount and must be respected; that
the whole body of the Union men of Congress will not submit to be
impeached by him of rash and unconstitutional legislation; and if he
wishes our support, he must confine himself to his executive duties—to
obey and execute, not make the laws—to suppress by arms armed rebellion,
and leave political reorganization to Congress.
If the supporters of the Government fail to insist on this, they become
responsible for the usurpations which they fail to rebuke, and are
justly liable to the indignation of the people whose rights and
security, committed to their keeping, they sacrifice.
Let them consider the remedy for these usurpations, and, having found
it, fearlessly execute it.
The question, as presented in 1864, now passed temporarily from public
consideration because of greater interest in the closing events of the
war and the Presidential succession. The passage of the 14th or
anti-slavery amendment by the States also intervened. This was
officially announced on the 18th of December 1865, by Mr. Seward, 27 of
the then 36 States having ratified, as follows: Illinois, Rhode Island,
Michigan, Maryland, New York, West Virginia, Maine, Kansas,
Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Ohio, Missouri, Nevada, Indiana,
Louisiana, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Vermont, Tennessee, Arkansas,
Connecticut, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Alabama, North Carolina, and
Georgia.
TEXT OF THE RECONSTRUCTION MEASURES. 14th Constitutional Amendment.
_Joint Resolution proposing an Amendment to the Constitution of the
United States._
_Be it resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United
States of America, in Congress assembled_, (two-thirds of both houses
concurring,) That the following article be proposed to the Legislatures
of the several States as an amendment to the Constitution of the United
States, which, when ratified by three-fourths of said Legislatures,
shall be valid as part of the Constitution, namely:
[Here follows the 14th amendment. See Book IV.]
Reconstruction Act of Thirty-Ninth Congress.
_An Act to provide for the more efficient government of the rebel
States._
Whereas no legal State governments or adequate protection for life or
property now exists in the rebel States of Virginia, North Carolina,
South Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Florida,
Texas, and Arkansas; and whereas it is necessary that peace and good
order should be enforced in said States until loyal and republican State
governments can be legally established: Therefore
_Be it enacted, &c._, That said rebel States shall be divided into
military districts and made subject to the military authority of the
United States, as hereinafter prescribed, and for that purpose Virginia
shall constitute the first district; North Carolina and South Carolina
the second district; Georgia, Alabama, and Florida the third district;
Mississippi and Arkansas the fourth district; and Louisiana and Texas
the fifth district.
SEC. 2. That it shall be the duty of the President to assign to the
command of each of said districts an officer of the army, not below the
rank of brigadier-general, and to detail a sufficient military force to
enable such officer to perform his duties and enforce his authority
within the district to which he is assigned.
SEC. 3. That it shall be the duty of each officer assigned as aforesaid
to protect all persons in their rights of person and property, to
suppress insurrection, disorder, and violence, and to punish, or cause
to be punished, all disturbers of the public peace and criminals, and to
this end he may allow local civil tribunals to take jurisdiction of and
to try offenders, or, when in his judgment it may be necessary for the
trial of offenders, he shall have power to organize military commissions
or tribunals for that purpose; and all interference under color of State
authority with the exercise of military authority under this act shall
be null and void.
SEC. 4. That all persons put under military arrest by virtue of this act
shall be tried without unnecessary delay, and no cruel or unusual
punishment shall be inflicted; and no sentence of any military
commission or tribunal hereby authorized, affecting the life or liberty
of any person, shall be executed until it is approved by the officer in
command of the district, and the laws and regulations for the government
of the army shall not be affected by this act, except in so far as they
conflict with its provisions: _Provided_, That no sentence of death
under the provisions of this act shall be carried into effect without
the approval of the President.
SEC. 5. That when the people of any one of said rebel States shall have
formed a constitution of government in conformity with the Constitution
of the United States in all respects, framed by a convention of
delegates elected by the male citizens of said State twenty-one years
old and upward, of whatever race, color, or previous condition, who have
been resident in said State for one year previous to the day of such
election, except such as may be disfranchised for participation in the
rebellion, or for felony at common law, and when such constitution shall
provide that the elective franchise shall be enjoyed by all such persons
as have the qualifications herein stated for electors of delegates, and
when such constitution shall be ratified by a majority of the persons
voting on the question of ratification who are qualified as electors for
delegates, and when such constitution shall have been submitted to
Congress for examination and approval, and Congress shall have approved
the same, and when said State, by a vote of its legislature elected
under said constitution, shall have adopted the amendment to the
Constitution of the United States, proposed by the Thirty-ninth
Congress, and known as article fourteen, and when said article shall
have become a part of the Constitution of the United States, said State
shall be declared entitled to representation in Congress, and Senators
and Representatives shall be admitted therefrom on their taking the
oaths prescribed by law, and then and thereafter the preceding sections
of this act shall be inoperative in said State: _Provided_, That no
person excluded from the privilege of holding office by said proposed
amendment to the Constitution of the United States shall be eligible to
election as a member of the convention to frame a constitution for any
of said rebel States, nor shall any such person vote for members of such
convention.
SEC. 6. That until the people of said rebel States shall be by law
admitted to representation in the Congress of the United States, any
civil governments which may exist therein shall be deemed provisional
only, and in all respects subject to the paramount authority of the
United States at any time to abolish, modify, control, or supersede the
same; and in all elections to any office under such provisional
governments all persons shall be entitled to vote, and none others, who
are entitled to vote under the provisions of the fifth section of this
act; and no person shall be eligible to any office under any such
provisional governments who would be disqualified from holding office
under the provisions of the third article of said constitutional
amendment.
Passed March 2, 1867.
Supplemental Reconstruction Act of Fortieth Congress.
An Act supplementary to an act entitled “An act to provide for the
more efficient government of the rebel States,” passed March second,
eighteen hundred and sixty-seven, and to facilitate restoration.
_Be it enacted, &c._, That before the first day of September, eighteen
hundred and sixty-seven, the commanding general in each district defined
by an act entitled “An act to provide for the more efficient government
of the rebel States,” passed March second, eighteen hundred and
sixty-seven, shall cause a registration to be made of the male citizens
of the United States, twenty-one years of age and upwards, resident in
each county or parish in the State or States included in his district,
which registration shall include only those persons who are qualified to
vote for delegates by the act aforesaid, and who shall have taken and
subscribed the following oath or affirmation: “I, ——, do solemnly swear,
(or affirm,) in the presence of Almighty God, that I am a citizen of the
State of ——; that I have resided in said State for —— months next
preceding this day, and now reside in the county of ——, or the parish of
——, in said State, (as the case may be;) that I am twenty-one years old;
that I have not been disfranchised for participation in any rebellion or
civil war against the United States, nor for felony committed against
the laws of any State or of the United States; that I have never been a
member of any State legislature, nor held any executive or judicial
office in any State and afterwards engaged in insurrection or rebellion
against the United States, or given aid or comfort to the enemies
thereof; that I have never taken an oath as a member of Congress of the
United States, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of
any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any
State, to support the Constitution of the United States, and afterwards
engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the United States or given
aid or comfort to the enemies thereof; that I will faithfully support
the Constitution and obey the laws of the United States, and will, to
the best of my ability, encourage others so to do, so help me God;”
which oath or affirmation maybe administered by any registering officer.
SEC. 2. That after the completion of the registration hereby provided
for in any State, at such time and places therein as the commanding
general shall appoint and direct, of which at least thirty days’ public
notice shall be given, an election shall be held of delegates to a
convention for the purpose of establishing a constitution and civil
government for such State loyal to the Union, said convention in each
State, except Virginia, to consist of the same number of members as the
most numerous branch of the State legislature of such State in the year
eighteen hundred and sixty, to be apportioned among the several
districts, counties, or parishes of such State by the commanding
general, giving to each representation in the ratio of voters or
registered as aforesaid, as nearly as may be. The convention in Virginia
shall consist of the same number of members as represented the territory
now constituting Virginia in the most numerous branch of the legislature
of said State in the year eighteen hundred and sixty, to be appointed as
aforesaid.
SEC. 3. That at said election the registered voters of each State shall
vote for or against a convention to form a constitution therefor under
this act. Those voting in favor of such a convention shall have written
or printed on the ballots by which they vote for delegates, as
aforesaid, the words “For a convention,” and those voting against such a
convention shall have written or printed on such ballots the words
“Against a convention.” The person appointed to superintend said
election, and to make return of the votes given thereat, as herein
provided, shall count and make return of the votes given for and against
a convention; and the commanding general to whom the same shall have
been returned shall ascertain and declare the total vote in each State
for and against a convention. If a majority of the votes given on that
question shall be for a convention, then such convention shall be held
as hereinafter provided; but if a majority of said votes shall be
against a convention, then no such convention shall be held under this
act: _Provided_, That such convention shall not be held unless a
majority of all such registered voters shall have voted on the question
of holding such convention.
SEC. 4. That the commanding general of each district shall appoint as
many boards of registration as may be necessary, consisting of three
loyal officers or persons, to make and complete the registration,
superintend the election, and make return to him of the votes, lists of
voters, and of the persons elected as delegates by a plurality of the
votes cast at said election; and upon receiving said returns he shall
open the same, ascertain the persons elected as delegates according to
the returns of the officers who conducted said election, and make
proclamation thereof; and if a majority of the votes given on that
question shall be for a convention, the commanding general, within sixty
days from the date of election, shall notify the delegates to assemble
in convention, at a time and place to be mentioned in the notification,
and said convention, when organized, shall proceed to frame a
constitution and civil government according to the provisions of this
act and the act to which it is supplementary; and when the same shall
have been so framed, said constitution shall be submitted by the
convention for ratification to the persons registered under the
provisions of this act at an election to be conducted by the officers or
persons appointed or to be appointed by the commanding general, as
hereinbefore provided, and to be held after the expiration of thirty
days from the date of notice thereof, to be given by said convention;
and the returns thereof shall be made to the commanding general of the
district.
SEC. 5. That if, according to said returns, the constitution shall be
ratified by a majority of the votes of the registered electors qualified
as herein specified, cast at said election, (at least one-half of all
the registered voters voting upon the question of such ratification,)
the president of the convention shall transmit a copy of the same, duly
certified, to the President of the United States, who shall forthwith
transmit the same to Congress, if then in session, and if not in
session, then immediately upon its next assembling; and if it shall,
moreover, appear to Congress that the election was one at which all the
registered and qualified electors in the State had an opportunity to
vote freely and without restraint, fear, or the influence of fraud; and
if the Congress shall be satisfied that such constitution meets the
approval of a majority of all the qualified electors in the State, and
if the said constitution shall be declared by Congress to be in
conformity with the provisions of the act to which this is
supplementary, and the other provisions of said act shall have been
complied with, and the said constitution shall be approved by Congress,
the State shall be declared entitled to representation, and Senators and
Representatives shall be admitted therefrom as therein provided.
SEC. 6. That all elections in the States mentioned in the said “Act to
provide for the more efficient government of the rebel States,” shall,
during the operation of said act, be by ballot; and all officers making
the said registration of voters and conducting said elections shall,
before entering upon the discharge of their duties, take and subscribe
the oath prescribed by the act approved July second, eighteen hundred
and sixty-two, entitled “An act to prescribe an oath of office:”[29]
_Provided_, That if any person shall knowingly and falsely take and
subscribe any oath in this act prescribed, such person so offending and
being thereof duly convicted, shall be subject to the pains, penalties,
and disabilities which by law are provided for the punishment of the
crime of wilful and corrupt perjury.
SEC. 7. That all expenses incurred by the several commanding generals,
or by virtue of any orders issued, or appointments made, by them, under
or by virtue of this act, shall be paid out of any moneys in the
treasury not otherwise appropriated.
SEC. 8. That the convention for each State shall prescribe the fees,
salary, and compensation to be paid to all delegates and other officers
and agents herein authorized or necessary to carry into effect the
purposes of this act not herein otherwise provided for, and shall
provide for the levy and collection of such taxes on the property in
such State as may be necessary to pay the same.
SEC. 9. That the word article, in the sixth section of the act to which
this is supplementary, shall be construed to mean section.
Passed March 23, 1867.
Votes of State Legislatures on the Fourteenth Constitutional
Amendment.[30]
LOYAL STATES.
_Ratified—Twenty-one States._
_Maine_—SENATE, January 16, 1867, yeas 31, nays 0; HOUSE, January 11,
1867, yeas 126, nays 12.
_New Hampshire_—SENATE, July 6, 1866, yeas 9, nays 3; HOUSE, June 28,
1866, yeas 207, nays 112.
_Vermont_—SENATE, October 23, 1866, yeas 28, nays 0; HOUSE, October 30,
1866, yeas 199, nays 11.
_Massachusetts_—SENATE, March 20, 1867, yeas 27, nays 6; HOUSE, March
14, 1867, yeas 120, nays 20.
_Rhode Island_—SENATE, February 5, 1867, yeas 26, nays 2; HOUSE,
February 7, 1867, yeas 60, nays 9
_Connecticut_—SENATE, June 25, 1866, yeas 11, nays 6; HOUSE, June 29,
1866, yeas 131, nays 92.
_New York_—SENATE, January 3, 1867, yeas 23, nays 3; HOUSE, January 10,
1867, yeas 76, nays 40.
_New Jersey_—SENATE, September 11, 1866, yeas 11, nays 10; HOUSE,
September 11, 1866, yeas 34, nays 24.
_Pennsylvania_—SENATE, January 17, 1867, yeas 20, nays 9; HOUSE,
February 6, 1867, yeas 58, nays 29.
_West Virginia_—SENATE, January 15, 1867, yeas 15, nays 3; HOUSE,
January 16, 1867, yeas 43, nays 11.
_Ohio_—SENATE, January 3, 1867, yeas 21, nays 12; HOUSE, January 4,
1867, yeas 54, nays 25.
_Tennessee_—SENATE, July 11, 1866, yeas 15, nays 6; HOUSE, July 12,
1866, yeas 43, nays 11.
_Indiana_—SENATE, January 16, 1867, yeas 29, nays 18; HOUSE, January 23,
1867, yeas —, nays —.
_Illinois_—SENATE, January 10, 1867, yeas 17, nays 7; HOUSE, January 15,
1867, yeas 59, nays 25.
_Michigan_—SENATE, —— 1867, yeas 25, nays 1; HOUSE, —— 1867, yeas 77,
nays 15.
_Missouri_—SENATE, January 5, 1867, yeas 26, nays 6; HOUSE, January 8,
1867, yeas 85, nays 34.
_Minnesota_—SENATE, January 16, 1867, yeas 16, nays 5; HOUSE, January
15, 1867, yeas 40, nays 6.
_Kansas_—SENATE, January 11, 1867, unanimously; HOUSE, January 10, 1867,
yeas, 75, nays 7.
_Wisconsin_—SENATE, January 23, 1867, yeas 22, nays 10; HOUSE, February
7, 1867, yeas 72, nays 12.
_Oregon_—[31]SENATE, ——, 1866, yeas 13, nays 7; HOUSE, September 19,
1866, yeas 25, nays 22.
_Nevada_—[31]SENATE, January 22, 1867, yeas 14, nays 2; HOUSE, January
11, 1867, yeas 34, nays 4.
_Rejected—Three States._
_Delaware_—SENATE, —— ——; HOUSE, February 7, 1867, yeas 6, nays 15.
_Maryland_—SENATE, March 23, 1867, yeas 4, nays 13; HOUSE, March 23,
1867, yeas 12, nays 45.
_Kentucky_—SENATE, January 8, 1867, yeas 7, nays 24; HOUSE, January 8,
1867, yeas 26, nays 62.
_Not acted—Three States._
Iowa, California, Nebraska.
INSURRECTIONARY STATES.
_Rejected—Ten States._
_Virginia_—SENATE, January 9, 1867, unanimously; HOUSE, January 9, 1867,
1 for amendment.
_North Carolina_—SENATE, December 13, 1866, yeas 1, nays 44; HOUSE,
December 13, 1866, yeas 10, nays 93.
_South Carolina_—SENATE —— ——; HOUSE, December 20, 1866, yeas 1, nays
95.
_Georgia_—SENATE, November 9, 1866, yeas 0, nays 36; HOUSE, November 9,
1866, yeas 2, nays 131.
_Florida_—SENATE, December 3, 1866, yeas 0, nays 20; HOUSE, December 1,
1866, yeas 0, nays 49.
_Alabama_—SENATE, December 7, 1866, yeas 2, nays 27; HOUSE, December 7,
1866, yeas 8, nays 69.
_Mississippi_—SENATE, January 30, 1867, yeas 0, nays 27; HOUSE, January
25, 1867, yeas 0, nays 88.
_Louisiana_—SENATE, February 5, 1867, unanimously; HOUSE, February 6,
1867, unanimously.
_Texas_—SENATE, —— ——; HOUSE, October 13, 1866, yeas 5, nays 67.
_Arkansas_—SENATE, December 15, 1866, yeas 1, nays 24; HOUSE, December
17, 1866, yeas 2, nays 68.
The passage of the 14th Amendment and of the Reconstruction Acts, was
followed by Presidential proclamations dated August 20, 1866, declaring
the insurrection at an end in Texas, and civil authority existing
throughout the whole of the United States.
PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 1864.
The Republican National Convention met at Baltimore, June 7th, 1864, and
renominated President Lincoln unanimously, save the vote of Missouri,
which was cast for Gen. Grant. Hannibal Hamlin, the old Vice-President,
was not renominated, because of a desire to give part of the ticket to
the Union men of the South, who pressed Senator Andrew Johnson of
Tennessee. “Parson” Brownlow made a strong appeal in his behalf, and by
his eloquence captured a majority of the Convention.
The Democratic National Convention met at Chicago, August 29th, 1864,
and nominated General George B. McClellan, of New Jersey, for President,
and George H. Pendleton, of Ohio, for Vice-President. General McClellan
was made available for the Democratic nomination through certain
political letters which he had written on points of difference between
himself and the Lincoln administration. Two of these letters are
sufficient to show his own and the views of the party which nominated
him, in the canvass which followed:
Gen. McClellan’s Letters.
_On Political Administration, July 7, 1862._
HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF THE POTOMAC,
CAMP NEAR HARRISON’S LANDING, VA., _July 7, 1862_.
MR. PRESIDENT:—You have been fully informed that the rebel army is in
the front, with the purpose of overwhelming us by attacking our
positions or reducing us by blocking our river communications. I cannot
but regard our condition as critical, and I earnestly desire, in view of
possible contingencies, to lay before your excellency, for your private
consideration, my general views concerning the existing state of the
rebellion, although they do not strictly relate to the situation of this
army, or strictly come within the scope of my official duties. These
views amount to convictions, and are deeply impressed upon my mind and
heart. Our cause must never be abandoned; it is the cause of free
institutions and self-government. The Constitution and the Union must be
preserved, whatever may be the cost in time, treasure, and blood. If
secession is successful, other dissolutions are clearly to be seen in
the future. Let neither military disaster, political faction, nor
foreign war shake your settled purpose to enforce the equal operation of
the laws of the United States upon the people of every State.
The time has come when the government must determine upon a civil and
military policy, covering the whole ground of our national trouble.
The responsibility of determining, declaring, and supporting such civil
and military policy, and of directing the whole course of national
affairs in regard to the rebellion, must now be assumed and exercised by
you, or our cause will be lost. The Constitution gives you power, even
for the present terrible exigency.
This rebellion has assumed the character of a war; as such it should be
regarded, and it should be conducted upon the highest principles known
to Christian civilization. It should not be a war looking to the
subjugation of the people of any State, in any event. It should not be
at all a war upon population, but against armed forces and political
organizations. Neither confiscation of property, political executions of
persons, territorial organization of States, or forcible abolition of
slavery, should be contemplated for a moment.
In prosecuting the war, all private property and unarmed persons should
be strictly protected, subject only to the necessity of military
operations; all private property taken for military use should be paid
or receipted for; pillage and waste should be treated as high crimes;
all unnecessary trespass sternly prohibited, and offensive demeanor by
the military towards citizens promptly rebuked. Military arrests should
not be tolerated, except in places where active hostilities exist; and
oaths, not required by enactments, constitutionally made, should be
neither demanded nor received.
Military government should be confined to the preservation of public
order and the protection of political right. Military power should not
be allowed to interfere with the relations of servitude, either by
supporting or impairing the authority of the master, except for
repressing disorder, as in other cases. Slaves, contraband under the act
of Congress, seeking military protection, should receive it. The right
of the government to appropriate permanently to its own service claims
to slave labor should be asserted, and the right of the owner to
compensation therefor should be recognized. This principle might be
extended, upon grounds of military necessity and security, to all the
slaves of a particular State, thus working manumission in such State;
and in Missouri, perhaps in Western Virginia also, and possibly even in
Maryland, the expediency of such a measure is only a question of time. A
system of policy thus constitutional, and pervaded by the influences of
Christianity and freedom, would receive the support of almost all truly
loyal men, would deeply impress the rebel masses and all foreign
nations, and it might be humbly hoped that it would commend itself to
the favor of the Almighty.
Unless the principles governing the future conduct of our struggle shall
be made known and approved, the effort to obtain requisite forces will
be almost hopeless. A declaration of radical views, especially upon
slavery, will rapidly disintegrate our present armies. The policy of the
government must be supported by concentrations of military power. The
national forces should not be dispersed in expeditions, posts of
occupation, and numerous armies, but should be mainly collected into
masses, and brought to bear upon the armies of the Confederate States.
Those armies thoroughly defeated, the political structure which they
support would soon cease to exist.
In carrying out any system of policy which you may form, you will
require a commander-in-chief of the army, one who possesses your
confidence, understands your views, and who is competent to execute your
orders by directing the military forces of the nation to the
accomplishment of the objects by you proposed. I do not ask that place
for myself. I am willing to serve you in such position as you may assign
me, and I will do so as faithfully as ever subordinate served superior.
I may be on the brink of eternity; and as I hope forgiveness from my
Maker, I have written this letter with sincerity towards you and from
love for my country.
Very respectfully, your obedient servant,
GEORGE B. MCCLELLAN,
_Major-General Commanding_.
His Excellency A. LINCOLN, _President_.
IN FAVOR OF the ELECTION OF GEORGE W. WOODWARD AS GOVERNOR OF
PENNSYLVANIA.
ORANGE, NEW JERSEY, _October 12, 1863_.
DEAR SIR:—My attention has been called to an article in the Philadelphia
_Press_, asserting that I had written to the managers of a Democratic
meeting at Allentown, disapproving the objects of the meeting, and that
if I voted or spoke it would be in favor of Governor Curtin, and I am
informed that similar assertions have been made throughout the State.
It has been my earnest endeavor heretofore to avoid participation in
party politics. I had determined to adhere to this course, but it is
obvious that I cannot longer maintain silence under such
misrepresentations. I therefore request you to deny that I have written
any such letter, or entertained any such views as those attributed to me
in the Philadelphia _Press_, and I desire to state clearly and
distinctly, that having some days ago had a full conversation with Judge
Woodward, I find that our views agree, and I regard his election as
Governor of Pennsylvania called for by the interests of the nation.
I understand Judge Woodward to be in favor of the prosecution of the war
with all the means at the command of the loyal States, until the
military power of the rebellion is destroyed. I understand him to be of
the opinion that while the war is urged with all possible decision and
energy, the policy directing it should be in consonance with the
principles of humanity and civilization, working no injury to private
rights and property not demanded by military necessity and recognized by
military law among civilized nations.
And, finally, I understand him to agree with me in the opinion that the
sole great objects of this war are the restoration of the unity of the
nation, the preservation of the Constitution, and the supremacy of the
laws of the country. Believing our opinions entirely agree upon these
points, I would, were it in my power, give to Judge Woodward my voice
and vote.
I am, very respectfully, yours,
GEORGE B. MCCLELLAN.
HON. CHARLES J. BIDDLE.
The views of Mr. Lincoln were well known; they were felt in the general
conduct of the war. The Republicans adopted as one of their maxims the
words of their candidate, “that it was dangerous to swap horses while
crossing a stream.” The campaign was exciting, and was watched by both
armies with interest and anxiety. In this election, by virtue of an act
of Congress, the soldiers in the field were permitted to vote, and a
large majority of every branch of the service sustained the
Administration, though two years before General McClellan had been the
idol of the Army of the Potomac. Lincoln and Johnson received 212
electoral votes, against 21 for McClellan and Pendleton.
Lincoln’s Second Administration.
In President Lincoln’s second inaugural address, delivered on the 4th of
March, 1865, he spoke the following words, since oft quoted as typical
of the kindly disposition of the man believed by his party to be the
greatest President since Washington: “With malice toward none, with
charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the
right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the
Nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and
for his widow and orphans—to do all which may achieve a just and lasting
peace among ourselves and with all nations.”
Lincoln could well afford to show that generosity which never comes more
properly than from the hands of the victor. His policy was about to end
in a great triumph. In less than five weeks later on General Lee had
surrendered the main army of the South to General Grant at Appomattox,
on terms at once magnanimous and so briefly stated that they won the
admiration of both armies, for the rebels had been permitted to retain
their horses and side arms, and to go at once to their homes, not to be
disturbed by United States authority so long as they observed their
paroles and the laws in force where they resided. Lee’s surrender was
rapidly followed by that of all Southern troops.
Next came a grave political work—the actual reconstruction of the States
lately in rebellion. This work gave renewed freshness to the leading
political issues incident to the war, and likewise gave rise to new
issues. It was claimed at once that Lincoln had a reconstruction policy
of his own, because of his anxiety for the prompt admission of Louisiana
and Arkansas, but it had certainly never taken definite shape, nor was
there time to get such a policy in shape, between the surrender of Lee
and his own assassination. On the night of the 15th of April, six days
after the surrender, J. Wilkes Booth shot him while sitting in a box in
Ford’s theatre. The nation stood appalled at the deed. No man was ever
more sincerely mourned in all sections and by all classes. The Southern
leaders thought that this rash act had lost to them a life which had
never been harsh, and while firm, was ever generous. The North had
looked upon him as “Father Abraham,” and all who viewed the result of
the shooting from sectional or partisan standpoints, thought his policy
of “keeping with the people,” would have shielded every proper interest.
No public man ever felt less “pride of opinion” than Lincoln, and we do
believe, had he lived, that he would have shaped events, as he did
during the war, to the best interests of the victors, but without
unnecessary agitation or harshness. All attempts of writers to evolve
from his proclamation a reconstruction policy, applicable to peace, have
been vain and impotent. He had none which would not have changed with
changing circumstances. A “policy” in an executive office is too often
but another name for executive egotism, and Lincoln was almost
absolutely free from that weakness.
On the morning of Mr. Lincoln’s death, indeed within the same hour (and
very properly so under the circumstances), the Vice-President Andrew
Johnson was inaugurated as President. The excitement was painfully high,
and the new President, in speeches, interviews and proclamations if
possible added to it. From evidence in the Bureau of Military Justice he
thought the assassination of Lincoln, and the attempted assassination of
Secretary Seward had been procured by Jefferson Davis, Clement C. Clay,
Jacob Thompson, Geo. N. Saunders, Beverly Tucker, Wm. C. Cleary, and
“other rebels and traitors harbored in Canada.” The evidence, however,
fully drawn out in the trial of the co-conspirators of J. Wilkes Booth,
showed that the scheme was hair-brained, and from no responsible
political source. The proclamation, however, gave keenness to the search
for the fugitive Davis, and he was soon captured while making his way
through Georgia to the Florida coast with the intention of escaping from
the country. He was imprisoned in Fortress Monroe, and an indictment for
treason was found against him, but he remained a close prisoner for
nearly two years, until times when political policies had been changed
or modified. Horace Greeley was one of his bondsmen. By this time there
was grave doubt whether he could be legally convicted,[32] “now that the
charge of inciting Wilkes Booth’s crime had been tacitly abandoned. Mr.
Webster (in his Bunker Hill oration) had only given clearer expression
to the American doctrine, that, after a revolt has levied a regular
army, and fought therewith a pitched battle, its champions, even though
utterly defeated, cannot be tried and convicted as traitors. This may be
an extreme statement; but surely a rebellion which has for years
maintained great armies, levied taxes and conscriptions, negotiated
loans, fought scores of sanguinary battles with alternate successes and
reverses, and exchanged tens of thousands of prisoners of war, can
hardly fail to have achieved thereby the position and the rights of a
lawful belligerent.” This view, as then presented by Greeley, was
accepted by President Johnson, who from intemperate denunciation had
become the friend of his old friends in the South. Greeley’s view was
not generally accepted by the North, though most of the leading men of
both parties hoped the responsibility of a trial would be avoided by the
escape and flight of the prisoner. But he was confident by this time,
and sought a trial. He was never tried, and the best reason for the fact
is given in Judge Underwood’s testimony before a Congressional Committee
(and the Judge was a Republican) “that no conviction was possible,
except by packing a jury.”
Andrew Johnson.
On the 29th of April, 1865, President Johnson issued a proclamation
removing all restrictions upon internal, domestic and coastwise and
commercial intercourse in all Southern States east of the Mississippi;
the blockade was removed May 22, and on May 29 a proclamation of amnesty
was issued, with fourteen classes excepted therefrom, and the
requirement of an “iron-clad oath” from those accepting its provisions.
Proclamations rapidly followed in shaping the lately rebellious States
to the conditions of peace and restoration to the Union. These States
were required to hold conventions, repeal secession ordinances, accept
the abolition of slavery, repudiate Southern war debts, provide for
Congressional representation, and elect new State Officers and
Legislatures. The several constitutional amendments were of course to be
ratified by the vote of the people. These conditions were eventually all
complied with, some of the States being more tardy than others. The
irreconcilables charged upon the Military officers, the Freedmen’s
Bureau, and the stern application of the reconstruction acts, these
results, and many of them showed a political hostility which, after the
election of the new Legislatures, took shape in what were in the North
at the time denounced as
“THE BLACK CODES.”
These were passed by all of the eleven States in the rebellion. The
codes varied in severity, according to the views of the Legislatures,
and for a time they seriously interfered with the recognition of the
States, the Republicans charging that the design was to restore slavery
under new forms. In South Carolina Gen’l Sickles issued military orders,
as late as January 17, 1866, against the enforcement of such laws.
To assure the rights, of the freedmen the 14th amendment of the
Constitution was passed by Congress, June 18th, 1866. President Johnson
opposed it, refused to sign, but said he would submit it to the several
States. This was done, and it was accepted by the required
three-fourths, January 28th, 1868. This had the effect to do away with
many of the “black codes,” and the States which desired readmission to
the Union had to finally give them up. Since reconstruction, and the
political ousting of what were called the “carpet-bag governments,” some
of the States, notably Georgia, has passed class laws, which treat
colored criminals differently from white, under what are now known as
the “conduct laws.” Terms of sentence are served out, in any part of the
State, under the control of public and private contractors, and
“vagrants” are subjected to sentences which it is believed would be less
extended under a system of confinement.
Johnson’s Policy.
While President Johnson’s policy did not materially check
reconstruction, it encouraged Southern politicians to political effort,
and with their well known tact they were not long in gaining the
ascendancy in nearly every State. This ascendancy excited the fears and
jealousies of the North, and the Republicans announced as their object
and platform “that all the results of the war” should be secured before
Southern reconstruction and representation in Congress should be
completed. On this they were almost solidly united in Congress, but
Horace Greeley trained an independent sentiment which favored complete
amnesty to the South. President Johnson sought to utilize this
sentiment, and to divide the Republican party through his policy, which
now looked to the same ends. He had said to a delegation introduced by
Gov. Oliver P. Morton, April 21, 1865:
“Your slavery is dead, but I did not murder it. As Macbeth said to
Banquo’s bloody ghost:
‘Never shake thy gory locks at me;
Thou canst not say I did it.’
“Slavery is dead, and you must pardon me if I do not mourn over its dead
body; you can bury it out of sight. In restoring the State, leave out
that disturbing and dangerous element, and use only those parts of the
machinery which will move in harmony.
“But in calling a convention to restore the State, who shall restore and
re-establish it? Shall the man who gave his influence and his means to
destroy the Government? Is he to participate in the great work of
reorganization? Shall he who brought this misery upon the State be
permitted to control its destinies? If this be so, then all this
precious blood of our brave soldiers and officers so freely poured out
will have been wantonly spilled. All the glorious victories won by our
noble armies will go for nought, and all the battle-fields which have
been sown with dead heroes during the rebellion will have been made
memorable in vain.”
In a speech at Washington, Feb. 22nd, 1866, Johnson said:
“The Government has stretched forth its strong arm, and with its
physical power it has put down treason in the field. That is, the
section of country that arrayed itself against the Government has been
conquered by the force of the Government itself. Now, what had we said
to those people? We said, ‘No compromise; we can settle this question
with the South in eight and forty hours.’
“I have said it again and again, and I repeat it now, ‘disband your
armies, acknowledge the supremacy of the Constitution of the United
States, give obedience to the law, and the whole question is settled.’
“What has been done since? Their armies have been disbanded. They come
now to meet us in a spirit of magnanimity and say, ‘We were mistaken; we
made the effort to carry out the doctrine of secession and dissolve this
Union, and having traced this thing to its logical and physical results,
we now acknowledge the flag of our country, and promise obedience to the
Constitution and the supremacy of the law.’
“I say, then, when you comply with the Constitution, when you yield to
the law, when you acknowledge allegiance to the Government—I say let the
door of the Union be opened, and the relation be restored to those that
had erred and had strayed from the fold of our fathers.”
It is not partisanship to say that Johnson’s views had undergone a
change. He did not admit this in his speeches, but the fact was accepted
in all sections, and the leaders of parties took position
accordingly—nearly all of the Republicans against him, nearly all of the
Democrats for him. So radical had this difference become that he vetoed
nearly all of the political bills passed by the Republicans from 1866
until the end of his administration, but such was the Republican
preponderance in both Houses of Congress that they passed them over his
head by the necessary two-thirds vote. He vetoed the several Freedmen’s
Bureau Bills, the Civil Rights Bill, that for the admission of Nebraska
and Colorado, the Bill to permit Colored Suffrage in the District of
Columbia, one of the Reconstruction Bills, and finally made a direct
issue with the powers of Congress by his veto of the Civil Tenure Bill,
March 2, 1867, the substance of which is shown in the third section, as
follows:
SEC. 3. That the President shall have power to fill all vacancies which
may happen during the recess of the Senate, by reason of death or
resignation, by granting commissions which shall expire at the end of
their next session thereafter. And if no appointment, by and with the
advice and consent of the Senate, shall be made to such office so vacant
or temporarily filled as aforesaid during such next session of the
Senate, such office shall remain in abeyance without any salary, fees,
or emoluments attached thereto, until the same shall be filled by
appointment thereto, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate;
and during such time all the powers and duties belonging to such office
shall be exercised by such other officer as may by law exercise such
powers and duties in case of a vacancy in such office.
The bill originally passed the Senate by 22 to 10—all of the nays
Democrats save Van Winkle and Willey. It passed the House by 112 to
41—all of the yeas Republicans; all of the nays Democrats save Hawkins,
Latham and Whaley. The Senate passed it over the veto by 35 to 11—a
strict party vote; the House by 138 to 40—a strict party vote, except
Latham (Rep.) who voted nay.
The refusal of the President to enforce this act, and his attempted
removal of Secretary Stanton from the Cabinet when against the wish of
the Senate, led to the effort to impeach him. Stanton resisted the
President, and General Grant took an active part in sustaining the War
Secretary. He in fact publicly advised him to “stick,” and his attitude
showed that in the great political battle which must follow, they would
surely have the support of the army and its great commander.
Impeachment Trial of Andrew Johnson.
[33]The events which led to the impeachment of President Johnson, may be
briefly stated as follows: On the 21st of February, 1868, the President
issued an order to Mr. Stanton, removing him from office as Secretary of
War, and another to General Lorenzo Thomas, Adjutant-General of the
Army, appointing him Secretary of War _ad interim_, directing the one to
surrender and the other to receive, all the books, papers, and public
property belonging to the War Department. As these orders fill an
important place in the history of the impeachment, we give them here.
The order to Mr. Stanton reads:
“By virtue of the power and authority vested in me as President by the
Constitution and laws of the United States, you are hereby removed from
office as Secretary for the Department of War, and your functions as
such will terminate upon the receipt of this communication. You will
transfer to Brevet Major-General Lorenzo Thomas, Adjutant-General of the
Army, who has this day been authorized and empowered to act as Secretary
of War _ad interim_, all records, books, papers, and other public
property now in your custody and charge.”
The order to General Thomas reads:
“The Hon. Edwin M. Stanton having been this day removed from office as
Secretary for the Department of War, you are hereby authorized and
empowered to act as Secretary of War _ad interim_, and will immediately
enter upon the discharge of the duties pertaining to that office. Mr.
Stanton has been instructed to transfer to you all the records, books,
and other public property now in his custody and charge.”
These orders having been officially communicated to the Senate, that
body, after an earnest debate, passed the following resolution:
“_Resolved, by the Senate of the United States_, That under the
Constitution and laws of the United States the President has no power to
remove the Secretary of War and designate any other officer to perform
the duties of that office.”
The President, upon the 24th, sent a message to the Senate, arguing at
length that not only under the Constitution, but also under the laws as
now existing, he had the right of removing Mr. Stanton and appointing
another to fill his place. The point of his argument is: That by a
special proviso in the Tenure-of-Office Bill the various Secretaries of
Departments “shall hold their offices respectively for and during the
term of the President by whom they may have been appointed, and for one
month thereafter, subject to removal by and with the advice of the
Senate.” The President affirms that Mr. Stanton was appointed not by
him, but by his predecessor, Mr. Lincoln, and held office only by the
sufferance, not the appointment, of the present Executive; and that
therefore his tenure is, by the express reading of the law excepted from
the general provision, that every person duly appointed to office, “by
and with the advice and consent of the Senate,” etc., shall be “entitled
to hold office until a successor shall have been in like manner
appointed and duly qualified, except as herein otherwise provided.” The
essential point of the President’s argument, therefore, is that, as Mr.
Stanton was not appointed by him, he had, under the Tenure-of-Office
Bill, the right at any time to remove him; the same right which his own
successor would have, no matter whether the incumbent had, by
sufferance, not by appointment of the existing Executive, held the
office for weeks or even years. “If,” says the President, “my successor
would have the power to remove Mr. Stanton, after permitting him to
remain a period of two weeks, because he was not appointed by him, I who
have tolerated Mr. Stanton for more than two years, certainly have the
same right to remove him, upon the same ground, namely that he was not
appointed by me but by my predecessor.”
In the meantime General Thomas presented himself at the War Department
and demanded to be placed in the position to which he had been assigned
by the President. Mr. Stanton refused to surrender his post, and ordered
General Thomas to proceed to the apartment which belonged to him as
Adjutant-General. This order was not obeyed, and so the two claimants to
the Secretaryship of War held their ground. A sort of legal by-play then
ensued. Mr. Stanton entered a formal complaint before Judge Carter,
Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia, charging
that General Thomas had illegally exercised and attempted to exercise
the duties of Secretary of War; and had threatened to “forcibly remove
the complainant from the buildings and apartments of the Secretary of
War in the War Department, and forcibly take possession and control
thereof under his pretended appointment by the President of the United
States as Secretary of War _ad interim_;” and praying that he might be
arrested and held to answer this charge. General Thomas was accordingly
arrested, and held to bail in the sum of $15,000 to appear before the
court on the 24th. Appearing on that day he was discharged from custody
and bail; whereupon he entered an action against Mr. Stanton for false
imprisonment, laying his damages at $150,000.
On the 22d of February the House Committee on Reconstruction, through
its Chairman, Mr. Stevens, presented a brief report, merely stating the
fact of the attempted removal by the President of Mr. Stanton, and
closing as follows:
“Upon the evidence collected by the Committee, which is hereafter
presented, and in virtue of the powers with which they have been
invested by the House, they are of the opinion that Andrew Johnson,
President of the United States, should be impeached of high crimes and
misdemeanors. They, therefore, recommend to the House the adoption of
the following resolution:
“_Resolved_, That Andrew Johnson, President of the United States be
impeached of high crimes and misdemeanors.”
After earnest debate, the question on the resolution was adopted, on the
24th, by a vote of 126 to 47. A committee of two members—Stevens and
Bingham—were to notify the Senate of the action of the House; and
another committee of seven—Boutwell, Stevens, Bingham, Wilson, Logan,
Julian, and Ward—to prepare the articles of impeachment. On the 25th
(February) Mr. Stevens thus announced to the Senate the action which had
been taken by the House:
“In obedience to the order of the House of Representatives we have
appeared before you, and in the name of the House of Representatives and
of all the people of the United States, we do impeach Andrew Johnson,
President of the United States, of high crimes and misdemeanors in
office. And we further inform the Senate that the House of
Representatives will in due time exhibit particular articles of
impeachment against him, to make good the same; and in their name we
demand that the Senate take due order for the appearance of the said
Andrew Johnson to answer to the said impeachment.”
The Senate thereupon, by a unanimous vote, resolved that this message
from the House should be referred to a select Committee of Seven, to be
appointed by the chair, to consider the same and report thereon. The
Committee subsequently made a report laying down the rules of procedure
to be observed on the trial.
On the 29th of February the Committee of the House appointed for that
purpose presented the articles of impeachment which they had drawn up.
These, with slight modification, were accepted on the 2d of March. They
comprise nine articles, eight of which are based upon the action of the
President in ordering the removal of Mr. Stanton, and the appointment of
General Thomas as Secretary of War. The general title to the impeachment
is:
“Articles exhibited by the House of Representatives of the United
States, in the name of themselves and all the people of the United
States, against Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, as
maintenance and support of their impeachment against him for high crimes
and misdemeanors in office.”
Each of the articles commences with a preamble to the effect that the
President, “unmindful of the high duties of his office, of his oath of
office, and of the requirements of the Constitution that he should take
care that the laws be faithfully executed, did unlawfully and in
violation of the laws and Constitution of the United States, perform the
several acts specified in the articles respectively;” closing with the
declaration: “Whereby the said Andrew Johnson, President of the United
States, did then and there commit and was guilty of a high misdemeanor
in office.” The phraseology is somewhat varied. In some cases the
offense is designated as a “misdemeanor,” in others as a “crime.” The
whole closes thus:
“And the House of Representatives, by protestation, saving to themselves
the liberty of exhibiting at any time hereafter any further articles or
other accusation or impeachment against the said Andrew Johnson,
President of the United States, and also of replying to his answers
which he shall make to the articles herein preferred against him, and of
offering proof to the same and every part thereof, and to all and every
other article, accusation, or impeachment which shall be exhibited by
them as the case shall require, do demand that the said Andrew Johnson
may be put to answer the high crimes and misdemeanors in office herein
charged against him, and that such proceedings, examinations, trials,
and judgments may be thereupon had and given as may be agreeable to law
and justice.”
The following is a summary in brief of the points in the articles of
impeachment, legal and technical phraseology being omitted:
_Article 1._ Unlawfully ordering the removal of Mr. Stanton as Secretary
of War, in violation of the provisions of the Tenure-of-Office
Act.—_Article 2._ Unlawfully appointing General Lorenzo Thomas as
Secretary of War _ad interim_.—_Article 3_ is substantially the same as
Article 2, with the addition that there was at the time of the
appointment of General Thomas no vacancy in the office of Secretary of
War.—_Article 4_ charges the President with “conspiring with one Lorenzo
Thomas and other persons, to the House of Representatives unknown,” to
prevent, by intimidation and threats, Mr. Stanton, the legally-appointed
Secretary of War, from holding that office.—_Article 5_ charges the
President with conspiring with General Thomas and others to hinder the
execution of the Tenure-of-Office Act; and, in pursuance of this
conspiracy, attempting to prevent Mr. Stanton from acting as Secretary
of War.—_Article 6_ charges that the President conspired with General
Thomas and others to take forcible possession of the War
Department.—_Article 7_ repeats the charge, in other terms, that the
President conspired with General Thomas and others to hinder the
execution of the Tenure-of-Office Act, and to prevent Mr. Stanton from
executing the office of Secretary of War.—_Article 8_ again charges the
President with conspiring with General Thomas and others to take
possession of the property in the War Department.—_Article 9_ charges
that the President called before him General Emory, who was in command
of the forces in the Department of Washington, and declared to him that
a law, passed on the 30th of June, 1867, directing that “all orders and
instructions relating to military operations, issued by the President or
Secretary of War, shall be issued through the General of the Army, and,
in case of his inability, through the next in rank,” was
unconstitutional, and not binding upon General Emory; the intent being
to induce General Emory to violate the law, and to obey orders issued
directly from the President.
The foregoing articles of impeachment were adopted on the 2d of March,
the votes upon each slightly varying, the average being 125 ayes to 40
nays. The question then came up of appointment of managers on the part
of the House to conduct the impeachment before the Senate. Upon this
question the Democratic members did not vote; 118 votes were cast, 60
being necessary to a choice. The following was the result, the number of
votes cast for each elected manager being given: Stevens of Penn., 105;
Butler, of Mass., 108; Bingham, of Ohio, 114; Boutwell, of Mass., 113;
Wilson, of Iowa, 112; Williams, of Penn., 107; Logan, of Ill., 106. The
foregoing seven Representatives were, therefore, duly chosen as Managers
of the Bill of Impeachment. The great body of the Democratic members of
the House entered a formal protest against the whole course of
proceedings involved in the impeachment of the President. They claimed
to represent “directly or in principle more than one-half of the people
of the United States.” This protest was signed by forty-five
Representatives.
On the 3d the Board of Managers presented two additional articles of
impeachment, which were adopted by the House. The first charges, in
substance, that
“The President, unmindful of the high duties of his office and of the
harmony and courtesies which ought to be maintained between the
executive and legislative branches of the Government of the United
States, designing to set aside the rightful authority and powers of
Congress, did attempt to bring into disgrace the Congress of the United
States and the several branches thereof, to impair and destroy the
regard and respect of all the good people of the United States for the
Congress and legislative power thereof, and to excite the odium and
resentment of all the good people of the United States against Congress
and the laws by it enacted; and in pursuance of his said design openly
and publicly, and before divers assemblages convened in divers parts
thereof to meet and receive said Andrew Johnson as the Chief Magistrate
of the United States, did on the 18th day of August, in the year of our
Lord 1866, and on divers other days and times, as well before as
afterward, make and deliver with a loud voice certain intemperate,
inflammatory, and scandalous harangues, and did therein utter loud
threats and bitter menaces as well against Congress as the laws of the
United States duly enacted thereby.”
To this article are appended copious extracts from speeches of Mr.
Johnson. The second article is substantially as follows:
“The President did, on the 18th day of August, 1866, at the City of
Washington, by public speech, declare and affirm in substance that the
Thirty-ninth Congress of the United States was not a Congress of the
United States, authorized by the Constitution to exercise legislative
power under the same, but, on the contrary, was a Congress of only a
part of the States, thereby denying and intending to deny that the
legislation of said Congress was valid or obligatory upon him, except in
so far as he saw fit to approve the same, and did devise and contrive
means by which he might prevent Edwin M. Stanton from forthwith resuming
the functions of the office of Secretary for the Department of War; and,
also, by further unlawfully devising and contriving means to prevent the
execution of an act entitled ‘An act making appropriations for the
support of the army for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1868, and for
other purposes,’ approved March 2, 1867; and also to prevent the
execution of an act entitled ‘An act to provide for the more efficient
government of the rebel States,’ passed March 2, 1867, did commit and
was guilty of a high misdemeanor in office.”
On the 4th of March the Senate notified the House that they were ready
to receive the Managers of the Impeachment. They appeared, and the
articles were formally read. The Senate had meanwhile adopted the rules
of procedure. Chief Justice Chase sent a communication to the Senate to
the effect that this body, when acting upon an impeachment, was a Court
presided over by the Chief Justice, and that all orders and rules should
be framed by the Court. On the 5th the Court was formally organized. An
exception was taken to the eligibility of Mr. Wade as a member of the
Court, on the ground that he was a party interested, since, in the event
of the impeachment being sustained, he, as President of the Senate,
would become Acting President of the United States. This objection was
withdrawn, and Mr. Wade was sworn as a member of the Court. On the 7th
the summons for the President to appear was formally served upon him. On
the 13th the Court was again formally reopened. The President appeared
by his counsel, Hon. Henry Stanbery, of Ohio; Hon. Wm. M. Evarts, of New
York; Hon. Wm. S. Groesbeck, of Ohio; Hon. Benjamin R. Curtis, of
Massachusetts; Hon. Thomas A. R. Nelson, of Tennessee, who asked for
forty days to prepare an answer to the indictment. This was refused, and
ten days granted; it being ordered that the proceedings should reopen on
the 23d. Upon that day the President appeared by his counsel, and
presented his answer to the articles of impeachment. This reply was in
substance as follows:
The first eight articles in the Bill of Impeachment, as briefly summed
up in our last record, are based upon the action of the President in
ordering the removal of Mr. Stanton, and the temporary appointment of
General Thomas as Secretary of War. The gist of them is contained in the
first article, charging the unlawful removal of Mr. Stanton; for, this
failing, the others would fail also. To this article a considerable part
of the President’s answer is devoted. It is mainly an amplification of
the points put forth in the Message of February 24th, in which he gave
his reasons for his orders. The President cites the laws by which this
department of the administration was created, and the rules laid down
for the duties pertaining to it; prominent among which are: that the
Secretary shall “conduct the business of the department in such manner
as the President of the United States shall from time to time order and
instruct;” and that he should “hold the office during the pleasure of
the President;” and that Congress had no legal right to deprive the
President of the power to remove the Secretary. He was, however, aware
that the design of the Tenure-of-Office Bill was to vest this power of
removal, in certain cases, jointly in the Executive and the Senate; and
that, while believing this act to be unconstitutional, yet it having
been passed over his veto by the requisite majority of two-thirds, he
considered it to be his duty to ascertain in how far the case of Mr.
Stanton came within the provisions of this law; after consideration, he
came to the conclusion that the case did not come within the
prohibitions of the law, and that, by that law he still had the right of
removing Mr. Stanton; but that, wishing to have the case decided by the
Supreme Court, he, on the 12th of August, issued the order merely
suspending, not removing, Mr. Stanton, a power expressly granted by the
Tenure-of-Office Act, and appointed General Grant Secretary of War _ad
interim_. The President then recites the subsequent action in the case
of Mr. Stanton; and, as he avers, still believing that he had the
constitutional power to remove him from office, issued the order of
February 21st, for such removal, designing to thus bring the matter
before the Supreme Court. He then proceeds formally to deny that at this
time Mr. Stanton was in lawful possession of the office of Secretary of
War; and that, consequently, the order for his removal was in violation
of the Tenure-of-Office Act; and that it was in violation of the
Constitution or of any law; or that it constituted any official crime or
misdemeanor.
In regard to the seven succeeding articles of impeachment the President,
while admitting the facts of the order appointing General Thomas as
Secretary of War _ad interim_, denies all and every of the criminal
charges therein set forth. So of the ninth article, charging an effort
to induce General Emory to violate the law, the President denies all
such intent, and calls attention to the fact that while, for urgent
reasons, he signed the bill prescribing that orders to the army should
be issued only through the General, he at the same time declared it to
be, in his judgment, unconstitutional; and affirms that in his interview
with General Emory he said no more than he had before officially said to
Congress—that is, that the law was unconstitutional.
As to the tenth article, the first of the supplementary ones, the
President, while admitting that he made certain public speeches at the
times and places specified, does not admit that the passages cited are
fair reports of his remark; denies that he has ever been unmindful of
the courtesies which ought to be maintained between the executive and
legislative departments; but he claims the perfect right at all times to
express his views as to all public matters.
The reply to the eleventh article, the second supplementary one, is to
the same general purport, denying that he ever affirmed that the
Thirty-ninth Congress was not a valid Congress of the United States, and
its acts obligatory only as they were approved by him; and denying that
he had, as charged in the article, contrived unlawful means for
preventing Mr. Stanton from resuming the functions of Secretary of War,
or for preventing the execution of the act making appropriations for the
support of the army, or that to provide for the more efficient
government of the rebel States. In his answer to this article the
President refers to his reply to the first article, in which he sets
forth at length all the steps, and the reasons therefor, relating to the
removal of Mr. Stanton. In brief, the answer of the President to the
articles of impeachment is a general denial of each and every criminal
act charged in the articles of impeachment.
The counsel for the President then asked for a delay of thirty days
after the replication of the managers of the impeachment should have
been rendered, before the trial should formally proceed. This was
refused, and the managers of the impeachment stated that their
replication would be presented the next day: it was that,
“The Senate will commence the trial of the President upon the articles
of impeachment exhibited against him on Monday, the 30th day of March,
and proceed therein with all dispatch under the rules of the Senate,
sitting upon the trial of an impeachment.”
The replication of the House of Representatives was a simple denial of
each and every averment in the answer of the President, closing thus:
“The House of Representatives ... do say that the said Andrew Johnson,
President of the United States, is guilty of the high crimes and
misdemeanors mentioned in the said articles, and that the said House of
Representatives are ready to prove the same.”
The trial began, as appointed, on March 30. There being twenty-seven
States represented, there were fifty-four Senators, who constituted the
Court, presided over by Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase, of Ohio.
SENATORS: _California_, Cole, Conness; _Connecticut_, Dixon, Ferry;
_Delaware_, Bayard, Saulsbury; _Indiana_, Hendricks, Morton; _Illinois_,
Trumbull, Yates; _Iowa_, Grimes, Harlan; _Kansas_, Pomeroy, Ross;
_Kentucky_, Davis, McCreery; _Maine_, Fessenden, Morrill (Lot M.);
_Maryland_, Johnson, Vickers; _Massachusetts_, Sumner, Wilson;
_Michigan_, Chandler, Howard; _Minnesota_, Norton, Ramsay; _Missouri_,
Drake, Henderson; _Nebraska_, Thayer, Tipton; _Nevada_, Nye, Stewart;
_New Hampshire_, Cragin, Patterson (J. W.); _New Jersey_, Cattell,
Frelinghuysen; _New York_, Conklin, Morgan; _Ohio_, Sherman, Wade;
_Oregon_, Corbett, Williams; _Pennsylvania_, Buckalew, Cameron; _Rhode
Island_, Anthony, Sprague; _Tennessee_, Fowler, Patterson (David);
_Vermont_, Edmunds, Merrill, (J. S.); _West Virginia_, Van Winkle,
Willey; _Wisconsin_, Doolittle, Howe.
_Managers for the Prosecution_: Messrs. Bingham, Boutwell, Butler,
Logan, Stevens, Williams, Wilson.
_Counsel for the President._ Messrs. Curtis, Evarts, Groesbeck, Nelson,
Stanbery.
The following was the order of procedure: The Senate convened at 11 or
12 o’clock, and was called to order by the president of that body, who,
after prayer, would leave the chair, which was immediately assumed by
the Chief Justice, who wore his official robes. The prosecution was
mainly conducted by Mr. Butler, who examined the witnesses, and, in
conjunction with the others, argued the points of law which came up. The
defense, during the early part of the trial, was mainly conducted by Mr.
Stanbery, who had resigned the office of Attorney-General for this
purpose, but, being taken suddenly ill, Mr. Evarts took his place.
According to the rule at first adopted, the trial was to be opened by
one counsel on each side, and summed up by two on each side; but this
rule was subsequently modified so as to allow as many of the managers
and counsel as chose to sum up, either orally or by filing written
arguments.
THE PROSECUTION.
The whole of the first day (March 30) was occupied by the opening speech
of Mr. Butler. After touching upon the importance of the case, and the
wisdom of the framers of the Constitution in providing for its possible
occurrence, he laid down the following proposition, supporting it by a
copious array of authorities and precedents:
“We define, therefore, an impeachable high crime or misdemeanor to be
one, in its nature or consequences, subversive of some fundamental or
essential principle of government, or highly prejudicial to the public
interest, and this may consist of a violation of the Constitution, of
law, of an official oath, or of duty, by an act committed or omitted,
or, without violating a positive law, by the abuse of discretionary
powers from improper motives, or for any improper purpose.”
He then proceeded to discuss the nature and functions of the tribunal
before which the trial is held. He asked: “Is this proceeding a trial,
as that term is understood, so far as relates to the rights and duties
of a court and jury upon an indictment for crime? Is it not rather more
in the nature of an inquest?” The Constitution, he urged, “seems to have
determined it to be the latter, because, under its provisions, the right
to retain and hold office is the only subject to be finally adjudicated;
all preliminary inquiry being carried on solely to determine that
question, and that alone.” He then proceeded to argue that this body now
sitting to determine the accusation, is the Senate of the United States,
and not a court. This question is of consequence, he argued, because, in
the latter case, it would be bound by the rules and precedents of common
law-statutes; the members of the court would be liable to challenge on
many grounds; and the accused might claim that he could only be
convicted when the evidence makes the fact clear beyond reasonable
doubt, instead of by a preponderance of the evidence. The fact that in
this case the Chief Justice presides, it was argued, does not constitute
the Senate thus acting a court, for in all cases of impeachment, save
that of the President, its regular presiding officer presides. Moreover,
the procedures have no analogy to those of an ordinary court of justice.
The accused merely receives a notice of the case pending against him. He
is not required to appear personally, and the case will go on without
his presence. Mr. Butler thus summed up his position in this regard:
“A constitutional tribunal solely, you are bound by no law, either
statute or common, which may limit your constitutional prerogative. You
consult no precedents save those of the law and custom of parliamentary
bodies. You are a law unto yourselves, bound only by the natural
principles of equity and justice, and that _salus populi suprema est
lex_.”
Mr. Butler then proceeded to consider the articles of impeachment. The
first eight, he says, “set out, in several distinct forms, the acts of
the President in removing Mr. Stanton and appointing General Thomas,
differing, in legal effect, in the purposes for which, and the intent
with which, either or both of the acts were done, and the legal duties
and rights infringed, and the Acts of Congress violated in so doing.” In
respect to all of these articles, Mr. Butler says, referring to his
former definition of what constituted an impeachable high crime:
“All the articles allege these acts to be in contravention of his oath
of office, and in disregard of the duties thereof. If they are so,
however, the President might have the power to do them under the law.
Still, being so done, they are acts of official misconduct, and, as we
have seen, impeachable. The President has the legal power to do many
acts which, if done in disregard of his duty, or for improper purposes,
then the exercise of that power is an official misdemeanor. For example,
he has the power of pardon; if exercised, in a given case, for a corrupt
motive, as for the payment of money, or wantonly pardoning all
criminals, it would be a misdemeanor.”
Mr. Butler affirmed that every fact charged in the first article, and
substantially in the seven following, is admitted in the reply of the
President; and also that the general intent to set aside the
Tenure-of-Office Act is therein admitted and justified. He then
proceeded to discuss the whole question of the power of the President
for removals from office, and especially his claim that this power was
imposed upon the President by the Constitution, and that it could not be
taken from him, or be vested jointly in him and the Senate, partly or in
whole. This, Mr. Butler affirmed, was the real question at issue before
the Senate and the American people. He said:
“Has the President, under the Constitution, the more than royal
prerogative at will to remove from office, or to suspend from office,
all executive officers of the United States, either civil, military or
naval, and to fill the vacancies, without any restraint whatever, or
possibility of restraint, by the Senate or by Congress, through laws
duly enacted? The House of Representatives, in behalf of the people,
join issue by affirming that the exercise of such powers is a high
misdemeanor in office. If the affirmative is maintained by the
respondent, then, so far as the first eight articles are
concerned—unless such corrupt purposes are shown as will of themselves
make the exercise of a legal power a crime—the respondent must go, and
ought to go, quit and free.
This point as to the legal right of the President to make removals from
office, which constitutes the real burden of the articles of
impeachment, was argued at length. Mr. Butler assumed that the Senate,
by whom, in conjunction with the House, the Tenure-of-Office Act had
been passed over the veto of the President, would maintain the law to be
constitutional. The turning point was whether the special case of the
removal of Mr. Stanton came within the provisions of this law. This
rested upon the proviso of that law, that—
“The Secretaries shall hold their office during the term of the
President by whom they may have been appointed, and for one month
thereafter, subject to removal by and with the advice and consent of the
Senate.”
The extended argument upon this point, made by Mr. Butler, was to the
effect that Mr. Stanton having been appointed by Mr. Lincoln, whose term
of office reached to the 4th of March, 1869, that of Mr. Stanton existed
until a month later, unless he was previously removed by the concurrent
action of the President and Senate. The point of the argument is, that
Mr. Johnson is merely serving out the balance of the term of Mr.
Lincoln, cut short by his assassination, so that the Cabinet officers
appointed by Mr. Lincoln held their places, by this very proviso, during
that term and for a month thereafter; for, he argued, if Mr. Johnson was
not merely serving out the balance of Mr. Lincoln’s term, then he is
entitled to the office of President for four full years, that being the
period for which a President is elected. If, continues the argument, Mr.
Stanton’s commission was vacated by the Tenure-of-Office Act, it ceased
on the 4th of April, 1865; or, if the act had no retroactive effect,
still, if Mr. Stanton held his office merely under his commission from
Mr. Lincoln, then his functions would have ceased upon the passage of
the bill, March 2, 1867; and, consequently, Mr. Johnson, in “employing”
him after that date as Secretary of War, was guilty of a high
misdemeanor, which would give ground for a new article of impeachment.
After justifying the course of Mr. Stanton in holding on to the
secretaryship in opposition to the wish of the President, on the ground
that “to desert it now would be to imitate the treachery of his
accidental chief,” Mr. Butler proceeded to discuss the reasons assigned
by the President in his answer to the articles of impeachment for the
attempt to remove Mr. Stanton. These, in substance, were, that the
President believed the Tenure-of-Office Act was unconstitutional, and,
therefore, void and of no effect, and that he had the right to remove
him and appoint another person in his place. Mr. Butler urged that, in
all of these proceedings, the President professed to act upon the
assumption that the act was valid, and that his action was in accordance
with its provisions. He then went on to charge that the appointment of
General Thomas as Secretary of War _ad interim_, was a separate
violation of law. By the act of February 20, 1863, which repealed all
previous laws inconsistent with it, the President was authorized, in
case of the “death, resignation, absence from the seat of Government, or
sickness of the head of an executive department,” or in any other case
where these officers could not perform their respective duties, to
appoint the head of any other executive department to fulfil the duties
of the office “until a successor be appointed, or until such absence or
disability shall cease.” Now, urged Mr. Butler, at the time of the
appointment of General Thomas as Sectary of War _ad interim_, Mr.
Stanton “had neither died nor resigned, was not sick nor absent,” and,
consequently, General Thomas, not being the head of a department, but
only of a bureau of one of them, was not eligible to this appointment,
and that, therefore, his appointment was illegal and void.
The ninth article of impeachment, wherein the President is charged with
endeavoring to induce General Emory to take orders directly from
himself, is dealt with in a rather slight manner. Mr. Butler says, “If
the transaction set forth in this article stood alone, we might well
admit that doubts might arise as to the sufficiency of the proof;” but,
he adds, “the surroundings are so pointed and significant as to leave no
doubt in the mind of an impartial man as to the intents and purposes of
the President”—these intents being, according to Mr. Butler, “to induce
General Emory to take orders directly from himself, and thus to hinder
the execution of the Civil Tenure Act, and to prevent Mr. Stanton from
holding his office of Secretary of War.”
As to the tenth article of impeachment, based upon various speeches of
the President, Mr. Butler undertook to show that the reports of these
speeches, as given in the article, were substantially correct; and
accepted the issue made thereupon as to whether they are “decent and
becoming the President of the United States, and do not tend to bring
the office into ridicule and disgrace.”
After having commented upon the eleventh and closing article, which
charges the President with having denied the authority of the
Thirty-ninth Congress, except so far as its acts were approved by him,
Mr. Butler summed up the purport of the articles of impeachment in these
words:
“The acts set out in the first eight articles are but the culmination of
a series of wrongs, malfeasances, and usurpations committed by the
respondent, and, therefore, need to be examined in the light of his
precedent and concomitant acts to grasp their scope and design. The last
three articles presented show the perversity and malignity with which he
acted, so that the man as he is known may be clearly spread upon record,
to be seen and known of all men hereafter.... We have presented the
facts in the constitutional manner; we have brought the criminal to your
bar, and demand judgment for his so great crimes.”
The remainder of Monday, and a portion of the following day, were
devoted to the presentation of documentary evidence as to the
proceedings involved in the order for the removal of Mr. Stanton and the
appointment of General Thomas. The prosecution then introduced witnesses
to testify to the interviews between Mr. Stanton and General Thomas.
They then brought forward a witness to show that General Thomas had
avowed his determination to take forcible possession of the War Office.
To this Mr. Stanbery, for the defense, objected. The Chief Justice
decided the testimony to be admissible. Thereupon Senator Drake took
exception to the ruling, on the ground that this question should be
decided by the Senate—not by the presiding officer. The Chief Justice
averred that, in his judgment, it was his duty to decide, in the first
instance, upon any question of evidence, and then, if any Senator
desired, to submit the decision to the Senate. Upon this objection and
appeal arose the first conflict in the Senate as to the powers of its
presiding officer. Mr. Butler argued at length in favor of the
exception. Although, in this case, the decision was in favor of the
prosecution, he objected to the power of the presiding officer to make
it. This point was argued at length by the managers for the impeachment,
who denied the right of the Chief Justice to make such decision. It was
then moved that the Senate retire for private consultation on this
point. There was a tie vote—25 ayes and 25 nays.—The Chief Justice gave
his casting vote in favor of the motion for consultation. The Senate, by
a vote of 31 to 19, sustained the Chief Justice, deciding that “the
presiding officer may rule on all questions of evidence and on
incidental questions, which decision will stand as the judgment of the
Senate for decision, or he may, at his option in the first instance,
submit any such question to a vote of the members of the Senate.” In the
further progress of the trial the Chief Justice, in most important
cases, submitted the question directly to the Senate, without himself
giving any decision. Next morning (April 1) Mr. Sumner offered a
resolution to the effect that the Chief Justice, in giving a casting
vote, “acted without authority of the Constitution of the United
States.” This was negatived by a vote of 27 to 21, thus deciding that
the presiding officer had the right to give a casting vote. The witness
(Mr. Burleigh, delegate from Dakotah,) who had been called to prove
declarations of General Thomas, was then asked whether, at an interview
between them, General Thomas had said anything as “to the means by which
he intended to obtain, or was directed by the President to obtain,
possession of the War Department.” To this question Mr. Stanbery
objected, on the ground that any statements made by General Thomas could
not be used as evidence against the President. Messrs. Butler and
Bingham argued that the testimony was admissible, on the ground that
there was, as charged, a conspiracy between the President and General
Thomas, and that the acts of one conspirator were binding upon the
other; and, also, that in these acts General Thomas was the agent of the
President. The Senate, by 39 to 11, decided that the question was
admissible. Mr. Burleigh thereupon testified substantially that General
Thomas informed him that he had been directed by the President to take
possession of the War Department; that he was bound to obey his superior
officer; that, if Mr. Stanton objected, he should use force, and if he
bolted the doors they would be broken down. The witness was then asked
whether he had heard General Thomas make any statement to the clerks of
the War Office, to the effect that, when he came into control, he would
relax or rescind the rules of Mr. Stanton. To this question objection
was made by the counsel of the President on the ground of irrelevancy.
The Chief Justice was of opinion that the question was not admissible,
but, if any Senator demanded, he would submit to the Senate whether it
should be asked. The demand having been made, the Senate, by a vote of
28 to 22, allowed the question to be put, whereupon Mr. Burleigh
testified that General Thomas, in his presence, called before him the
heads of the divisions, and told them that the rules laid down by Mr.
Stanton were arbitrary, and that he should relax them—that he should not
hold them strictly to their letters of instruction, but should consider
them as gentlemen who would do their duty—that they could come in or go
out when they chose. Mr. Burleigh further testified that, subsequently,
General Thomas had said to him that the only thing which prevented him
from taking possession of the War Department was his arrest by the
United States marshal. Other witnesses were called to prove the
declarations of General Thomas. Mr. Wilkeson testified that General
Thomas said to him that he should demand possession of the War
Department, and, in case Mr. Stanton should refuse to give it up, he
should call upon General Grant for a sufficient force to enable him to
do so, and he did not see how this could be refused. Mr. Karsener, of
Delaware, testified that he saw General Thomas at the President’s house,
told him that Delaware, of which State General Thomas is a citizen,
expected him to stand firm; to which General Thomas replied that he was
standing firm, that he would not disappoint his friends, but, that, in a
few days, he would “kick that fellow out,” meaning, as the witness
supposed, Mr. Stanton.
_Thursday, April 2d._—Various witnesses were introduced to testify to
the occurrences when General Thomas demanded possession of the War
Department. After this General Emory was called to testify to the
transactions which form the ground of the ninth article of impeachment.
His testimony was to the effect that the President, on the 22d of
February, requested him to call; that, upon so doing, the President
asked respecting any changes that had been made in the disposition of
the troops around Washington; that he informed the President that no
important changes had been made, and that none could be made without an
order from General Grant, as provided for in an order founded upon a law
sanctioned by the President. The President said that this law was
unconstitutional. Emory replied that the President had approved of it,
and that it was not the prerogative of the officers of the army to
decide upon the constitutionality of a law, and in that opinion he was
justified by the opinion of eminent counsel, and thereupon the
conversation ended.
The prosecution then endeavored to introduce testimony as to the
appointment of Mr. Edmund Cooper, the Private Secretary of the
President, as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, in support of the
eighth and eleventh articles of impeachment, which charge the President
with an unlawful attempt to control the disposition of certain public
funds. This testimony, by a vote of 27 to 22, was ruled out.
The prosecution now, in support of the tenth and eleventh articles of
impeachment, charging the President with endeavoring to “set aside the
rightful authority of Congress,” offered a telegraphic dispatch from the
President to Mr. Parsons, at that time (January 17, 1867) Provisional
Governor of Alabama, of which the following is the essential part:
“I do not believe the people of the whole country will sustain any set
of individuals in the attempt to change the whole character of our
Government by enabling acts in this way. I believe, on the contrary,
that they will eventually uphold all who have patriotism and courage to
stand by the Constitution, and who place their confidence in the people.
There should be no faltering on the part of those who are honest in
their determination to sustain the several coördinate departments of the
Government in accordance with its original design.” The introduction of
this was objected to by the counsel for the President, but admitted by
the Senate, the vote being 27 to 17.
The whole Friday, and a great part of Saturday, (April 3d and 4th,) were
occupied in the examination of the persons who reported the various
speeches of the President which form the basis of the tenth article, the
result being that the reports were shown to be either substantially or
verbally accurate. Then, after some testimony relating to the forms in
which commissions to office were made out, the managers announced that
the case for the prosecution was substantially closed. The counsel for
the President thereupon asked that three working days should be granted
them to prepare for the defense. This, after some discussion, was
granted by the Senate by a vote of 36 to 9, and the trial was adjourned
to Thursday, April 9th.
THE DEFENSE.
The opening speech for the defense, occupying the whole of Thursday, and
a part of Friday, was made by Mr. Curtis. Reserving, for a time, a
rejoinder to Mr. Butler’s argument as to the functions of the Senate
when sitting as a Court of Impeachment, Mr. Curtis proceeded to a
consideration of the articles of impeachment, in their order, his
purpose being “to ascertain, in the first place, what the substantial
allegations in each of them are, what is the legal proof and effect of
these allegations, and what proof is necessary to be adduced in order to
sustain them.” The speech is substantially an elaboration of and
argument for the points embraced in the answer of the President. The
main stress of the argument related to the first article, which, as
stated by Mr. Curtis, when stripped of all technical language, amounts
exactly to these things:
“_First._ That the order set out in the article for the removal of Mr.
Stanton, if executed, would have been a violation of the
Tenure-of-Office Act.
“_Second._ That it was a violation of the Tenure-of-Office Act.
“_Third._ That it was an intentional violation of the Tenure-of-Office
Act.
“_Fourth._ That it was in violation of the Constitution of the United
States.
“_Fifth._ That it was intended by the President to be so.
“Or, to draw all these into one sentence, which I hope may be
intelligible and clear enough, I suppose the substance of this first
article is that the order for the removal of Mr. Stanton was, and was
intended to be, a violation of the Constitution of the United States.
These are the allegations which it is necessary for the honorable
managers to make out in order to support that article.”
Mr. Curtis proceeded to argue that the case of Mr. Stanton did not come
within the provisions of the Tenure-of-Office Act, being expressly
excepted by the proviso that Cabinet officers should hold their places
during the term of the President by whom they were appointed, and for
one month thereafter, unless removed by the consent of the Senate. Mr.
Stanton was appointed by Mr. Lincoln, whose term of office came to an
end by his death. He argued at length against the proposition that Mr.
Johnson was merely serving out the remainder of Mr. Lincoln’s term. The
object of this exception, he said, was evident. The Cabinet officers
were to be “the immediate confidential assistants of the President, for
whose acts he was to be responsible, and in whom he was expected to
repose the gravest honor, trust, and confidence; therefore it was that
this act has connected the tenure of office of these officers with that
of the President by whom they were appointed.” Mr. Curtis gave a new
interpretation to that clause in the Constitution which prescribes that
the President “may require the opinion, in writing, of the principal
officer in each of the executive departments upon any subject relating
to the duties of their several offices.” He understood that the word
“their” included the President, so that he might call upon Cabinet
officers for advice “relating to the duties of the office of these
principal officers, or relating to the duties of the President himself.”
This, at least, he affirmed, had been the practical interpretation put
upon this clause from the beginning. To confirm his position as to the
intent of the Tenure-of-Office Act in this respect, Mr. Curtis quoted
from speeches made in both houses at the time when the act was passed.
Thus, Senator Sherman said that the act, as passed—
“Would not prevent the present President from removing the Secretary of
War, the Secretary of the Navy, or the Secretary of State; and, if I
supposed that either of these gentlemen was so wanting in manhood, in
honor, as to hold his place after the politest intimation from the
President of the United States that his services were no longer needed,
I certainly, as a Senator, would consent to his removal at any time, and
so would we all.”
Mr. Curtis proceeded to argue that there was really no removal of Mr.
Stanton; he still held his place, and so there was “no case of removal
within the statute, and, therefore, no case of violation by removal.”
But, if the Senate should hold that the order for removal was, in
effect, a removal, then, unless the Tenure-of-Office Act gave Mr.
Stanton a tenure of office, this removal would not have been contrary to
the provisions of this act. He proceeded to argue that there was room
for grave doubt whether Mr. Stanton’s case came within the provisions of
the Tenure-of-Office Act, and that the President, upon due
consideration, and having taken the best advice within his power,
considering that it did not, and acting accordingly, did not, even if he
was mistaken, commit an act “so wilful and wrong that it can be justly
and properly, and for the purposes of this prosecution, termed a high
misdemeanor.” He argued at length that the view of the President was the
correct one, and that “the Senate had nothing whatever to do with the
removal of Mr. Stanton, whether the Senate was in session or not.”
Mr. Curtis then went on to urge that the President, being sworn to take
care that the laws be faithfully executed, must carry out any law, even
though passed over his veto, except in cases where a law which he
believed to be unconstitutional has cut off a power confided to him, and
in regard to which he alone could make an issue which would bring the
matter before a court, so as to cause “a judicial decision to come
between the two branches of the Government, to see which of them is
right.” This, said he, is what the President has done. This argument, in
effect, was an answer to the first eight articles of impeachment.
The ninth article, charging the President with endeavoring to induce
General Emory to violate the law by receiving orders directly from him,
was very briefly touched upon, it being maintained that, as shown by the
evidence, “the reason why the President sent for General Emory was not
that he might endeavor to seduce that distinguished officer from his
allegiance to the laws and Constitution of his country, but because he
wished to obtain information about military movements which might
require his personal attention.”
As to the tenth article, based upon the President’s speeches, it was
averred that they were in no way in violation of the Constitution, or of
any law existing at the time when they were made, and were not
therefore, impeachable offenses.
The reply to the eleventh article was very brief. The managers had
“compounded it of the materials which they had previously worked up into
others,” and it “contained nothing new that needed notice.” Mr. Curtis
concluded his speech by saying that—“This trial is and will be the most
conspicuous instance that has ever been, or even can be expected to be
found, of American justice or of American injustice; of that justice
which is the great policy of all civilized States; of that injustice
which is certain to be condemned, which makes even the wisest man mad,
and which, in the fixed and unalterable order of God’s providence, is
sure to return and plague the inventor.”
At the close of this opening speech for the defense, General Lorenzo
Thomas was brought forward as a witness. His testimony, elicited upon
examination and cross-examination, was to the effect that, having
received the order appointing him Secretary of War _ad interim_, he
presented it to Mr. Stanton, who asked, “Do you wish me to vacate the
office at once, or will you give me time to get my private property
together?” to which Thomas replied, “Act your pleasure.” Afterward
Stanton said, “I don’t know whether I will obey your instructions.”
Subsequently Thomas said that he should issue orders as Secretary of
War. Stanton said he should not do so, and afterward gave him a written
direction, not to issue any order except as Adjutant-General. During the
examination of General Thomas a question came up which, in many ways,
recurred upon the trial. He was asked to tell what occurred at an
interview between himself and the President. Objection was made by Mr.
Butler, and the point was argued. The question was submitted to the
Senate, which decided, by a vote of 42 to 10, that it was admissible.
The testimony of General Thomas, from this point, took a wide range,
and, being mainly given in response to questions of counsel, was,
apparently, somewhat contradictory. The substance was that he was
recognized by the President as Secretary of War; that, since the
impeachment, he had acted as such only in attending Cabinet meetings,
but had given no orders; that, when he reported to the President that
Mr. Stanton would not vacate the War Department, the President directed
him to “take possession of the office;” that, without orders from the
President, he had intended to do this by force, if necessary; that,
finding that this course might involve bloodshed, he had abandoned this
purpose, but that, after this, he had, in several cases, affirmed his
purpose to do so, but that these declarations were “merely boast and
brag.” On the following day General Thomas was recalled as a witness, to
enable him to correct certain points in his testimony. The first was the
date of an unimportant transaction; he had given it as taking place on
the 21st of February, whereas it should have been the 22d. The second
was that the words of the President were that he should “take charge,”
not “take possession” of the War Department. In explanation of the fact
that he had repeatedly sworn to the words “take possession,” he said
that these were “put into his mouth.” Finally, General Thomas, in reply
to a direct question from Mr. Butler, said that his testimony on these
points was “all wrong.”
Lieutenant-General Sherman was then called as a witness. After some
unimportant questions, he was asked in reference to an interview between
himself and the President which took place on the 14th of January: “At
that interview what conversation took place between the President and
you in reference to Mr. Stanton?” To this question objection was made by
Mr. Butler, and the point was elaborately argued. The Chief Justice
decided that the question was admissible within the vote of the Senate
of the previous day; the question then was as to the admissibility of
evidence as to a conversation between the President and General Thomas;
the present question was as to a conversation between the President and
General Sherman. “Both questions,” said the Chief Justice, “are asked
for the purpose of procuring the intent of the President to remove Mr.
Stanton.” The question being submitted to the Senate, it was decided, by
a vote of 28 to 23, that it should not be admitted. The examination of
General Sherman was continued, the question of the conversation
aforesaid being frequently brought forward, and as often ruled out by
the Senate. The only important fact elicited was that the President had
twice, on the 25th and 30th of January, tendered to General Sherman the
office of Secretary of War _ad interim_.
On Monday, April 13th, after transactions of minor importance, the
general matter of the conversations between the President and General
Sherman again came up, upon a question propounded by Senator
Johnson—“When the President tendered to you the office of Secretary of
War _ad interim_, did he, at the very time of making such tender, state
to you what his purpose in so doing was?” This was admitted by the
Senate, by a vote of 26 to 22. Senator Johnson then added to his
question, “If he did, what did he state his purpose was?” This was
admitted by a vote of 25 to 26. The testimony of General Sherman,
relating to several interviews, was to the effect that the President
said that the relations between himself and Mr. Stanton were such that
he could not execute the office of President without making provision to
appoint a Secretary of War _ad interim_, and he offered that office to
him (General Sherman), but did not state that his purpose was to bring
the matter directly into the courts. Sherman said that, if Mr. Stanton
would retire, he might, although against his own wishes, undertake to
administer the office _ad interim_, but asked what would be done in case
Mr. Stanton would not yield. To this the President replied, “He will
make no opposition; you present the order, and he will retire. I know
him better than you do; he is cowardly.” General Sherman asked time for
reflection, and then gave a written answer, declining to accept the
appointment, but stated that his reasons were mostly of a personal
nature.
On the 14th the Senate adjourned, on account of the sudden illness of
Mr. Stanbery. It reassembled on the 15th, but the proceedings touched
wholly upon formal points of procedure and the introduction of
unimportant documentary evidence. On the 16th Mr. Sumner moved that all
evidence not trivial or obviously irrelevant shall be admitted, the
Senate to judge of its value. This was negatived by a vote of 23 to 11.
The 17th was mainly taken up by testimony as to the reliability of the
reports of the President’s speeches. Mr. Welles, Secretary of the Navy,
was then called to testify to certain proceedings in Cabinet Council at
the time of the appointment of General Thomas. This was objected to. The
Chief Justice decided that it was admissible, and his decision was
sustained by a vote of 26 to 23. The defense then endeavored to
introduce several members of the Cabinet, to show that, at meetings
previous to the removal of Mr. Stanton, it was considered whether it was
not desirable to obtain a judicial determination of the
unconstitutionality of the Tenure-of-Office Act. This question was
raised in several shapes, and its admission, after thorough argument on
both sides, as often refused, in the last instance by a decisive vote of
30 to 19. The defense considered this testimony of the utmost
importance, as going to show that the President had acted upon the
counsel of his constitutional advisers, while the prosecution claimed
that he could not plead in justification of a violation of the law that
he had been advised by his Cabinet, or any one else, that the law was
unconstitutional. His duty was to execute the laws, and, if he failed to
do this, or violated them, he did so at his own risk of the
consequences. With the refusal of this testimony, the case, except the
final summings up and the verdict of the Senate, was virtually closed.
The case had been so fully set forth in the opening speeches of Messrs.
Butler and Curtis, and in the arguments which came up upon points of
testimony, that there remained little for the other counsel except to
restate what had before been said.
After the evidence had been closed the case was summed up, on the part
of the managers by Messrs. Boutwell, Williams, Stevens, and Bingham in
oral arguments, and Mr. Logan, who filed a written argument, and on the
part of the President by Messrs. Nelson, Groesbeck, Stanbery, and
Evarts. Many of these speeches were distinguished by great brilliancy
and power, but, as no new points were presented, we omit any summary.
The Court decided to take a vote upon the articles on Tuesday, the 12th
of May, at 12 o’clock, M. A secret session was held on Monday, during
which several Senators made short speeches, giving the grounds upon
which they expected to cast their votes. On Tuesday the Court agreed to
postpone the vote until Saturday, the 16th. Upon that day, at 12
o’clock, a vote was taken upon the eleventh article, it having been
determined to vote on that article first. The vote resulted in 35 votes
for conviction, and 19 for acquittal.
The question being put to each Senator, “How say you, is the respondent,
Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, guilty or not guilty of
a high misdemeanor as charged in the article?”—those who responded
guilty were Senators Anthony, Cameron, Cattell, Chandler, Cole,
Conkling, Conness, Corbett, Cragin, Drake, Edmunds, Ferry,
Frelinghuysen, Harlan, Howard, Howe, Morgan, Morrill, of Vermont,
Morrill, of Maine, O. P. Morton, Nye, Patterson, N. H. Pomeroy, Sherman,
Sprague, Stewart, Sumner, Thayer, Tipton, Wade, Willey, Williams, Wilson
and Yates.
Those who responded not guilty were Senators Bayard, Buckalew, Davis,
Dixon, Doolittle, Fessenden, Fowler, Grimes, Henderson, Hendricks,
Johnson, M’Creery, Norton, Patterson of Tennessee, Ross, Saulsbury,
Trumbull, Van Winkle and Vickers.
The Constitution requiring a vote of two-thirds to convict, the
President was acquitted on this article. After taking this vote the
Court adjourned until Tuesday, May 26th, when votes were taken upon the
second and third articles, with precisely the same result as on the
eleventh, the vote in each case standing 35 for conviction and 19 for
acquittal. A verdict of acquittal on the second, third, and eleventh
articles was then ordered to be entered on the record, and, without
voting on the other articles, the Court adjourned _sine die_. So the
trial was ended, and the President acquitted.
The political differences between President Johnson and the Republicans
were not softened by the attempted impeachment, and singularly enough
the failure of their effort did not weaken the Republicans as a party.
They were so well united that those who disagreed with them passed at
least temporarily from public life, some of the ablest, like Senators
Trumbull and Fessenden retiring permanently. President Johnson pursued
his policy, save where he was hedged by Congress, until the end, and
retired to his native State, apparently having regained the love of his
early political associates there.
Grant.
The Republican National Convention met at Chicago, Ill., May 20th, 1868,
and nominated with unanimity, Ulysses S. Grant, of Illinois, for
President, and Schuyler Colfax, of Indiana, for Vice-President. The
Democratic Convention met in New York City, July 4th, and after repeated
ballots finally compromised on its presiding officers,[34]
notwithstanding repeated and apparently decided declarations on his
part, Horatio Seymour, of New York, was therefore nominated
for President, and Francis P. Blair, Jr., of Missouri, for
Vice-President.[35]
An active canvass followed, in which the brief expression—“let us have
peace”—in Grant’s letter of acceptance, was liberally employed by
Republican journals and orators to tone down what were regarded as
rapidly growing race and sectional differences, and with such effect
that Grant carried all of the States save eight, receiving an electoral
vote of 214 against 80.
Grant inaugurated, and the Congressional plan of reconstruction was
rapidly pushed, with at first very little opposition save that
manifested by the Democrats in Congress. The conditions of readmission
were the ratification of the thirteenth and fourteenth constitutional
amendments.
On the 25th of February, 1869, the fifteenth amendment was added to the
list by its adoption in Congress and submission to the States. It
conferred the right of suffrage on all citizens, without distinction of
“race, color or previous condition of servitude.” By the 30th of March,
1870, it was ratified by twenty-nine States, the required three-fourths
of all in the Union. There was much local agitation in some of the
Northern States on this new advance, and many who had never manifested
their hostility to the negroes before did it now, and a portion of these
passed over to the Democratic party. The issue, however, was shrewdly
handled, and in most instances met Legislatures ready to receive it.
Many of the Southern States were specially interested in its passage,
since a denial of suffrage would abridge their representation in
Congress. This was of course true of all the States, but its force was
indisputable in sections containing large colored populations.
The 41st Congress met in extra session March 4th, 1869, with a large
Republican majority in both branches. In the Senate there were 58
Republicans, 10 Democrats and 8 vacancies; in the House 149 Republicans,
64 Democrats and 25 vacancies, Mississippi, Texas, Virginia and Georgia
not being represented. James G. Blaine, for several years previous its
leading parliamentarian and orator, was Speaker of the House. All of
Grant’s nominations for Cabinet places were confirmed, except A. T.
Stewart, of New York, nominated for Secretary of the Treasury, and being
engaged in foreign commerce he was ineligible under the law, and his
name was withdrawn. The names of the Cabinet will be found in the list
of all Cabinet officers elsewhere given. Their announcement at first
created the impression that the Grant administration was not intended to
be partisan, rather personal, but if there ever was such a purpose, a
little political experience on the part of the President quickly changed
it. A political struggle soon followed in Congress as to the admission
of Virginia, Mississippi and Texas, which had not ratified the
Fourteenth Amendment or been reconstructed. A bill was passed April
10th, authorizing their people to vote on the constitutions already
prepared by the State conventions, to elect members of Congress and
State officers, and requiring before readmission to the Union, their
Legislatures to ratify both the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments.
This work done, and the extra session adjourned.
In all of the Southern States, those who then prided themselves in being
“unreconstructed” and “irreconcilable,” bitterly opposed both the
Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, and on these issues excited new
feelings of hostility to the “carpet baggers” and negroes of the South.
With the close of the war thousands of Northern men had settled in the
South. All of them were now denounced as political adventurers by the
rebels who opposed the amendments, reconstruction and freedman’s bureau
acts. Many of these organized themselves first into Ku Klux Klans,
secret societies, organized with a view to affright negroes from
participancy in the elections, and to warn white men of opposing
political views to leave the country. The object of the organization
broadened with the troubles which it produced. Efforts to affright were
followed by midnight assaults, by horrible whippings, outrages and
murders, hardly a fraction of which could be traced to the perpetrators.
Doubtless many of the stories current at the time were exaggerated by
partisan newspapers, but all of the official reports made then and since
go to show the dangerous excesses which political and race hostilities
may reach. In Georgia the whites, by these agencies, soon gained
absolute political control, and this they used with more wisdom than in
most Southern States, for under the advice of men like Stevens and Hill,
they passed laws providing for free public schools, etc., but carefully
guarded their newly acquired power by also passing tax laws which
virtually disfranchised more than half the blacks. Later on, several
Southern States imitated this form of political sagacity, and soon those
in favor of “a white man’s government,” (the popular battle cry of the
period) had undisputed control in Virginia, Alabama, Mississippi,
Arkansas and Texas—States which the Republicans at one time had reason
to believe they could control.
The Enforcement Acts.
To repress the Ku Klux outrages, Congress in May 31, 1870, passed an act
giving to the President all needed powers to protect the freedmen in
their newly acquired rights, and to punish the perpetrators of all
outrages, whether upon whites or blacks. This was called in Congress the
Enforcement Act, and an Amendatory Enforcement Act was inserted in the
Sundry Civil Bill, June 10, 1872. The Ku Klux Act was passed April 20,
1871. All of these measures were strongly advocated by Senator Oliver P.
Morton, who through this advocacy won new political distinction as the
special champion of the rights of the blacks. Later on James G. Blaine,
then the admitted leader of the House, opposed some of the supplements
for its better enforcement, and to this fact is traceable the refusal on
the part of the negroes of the South to give him that warm support as a
Presidential candidate which his high abilities commanded in other
sections.
The several Enforcement Acts and their supplements are too voluminous
for insertion here, and they are of little use save as relics of the
bitter days of reconstruction. They have little force now, although some
of them still stand. They became a dead letter after the defeat of the
“carpet-bag governments,” but the President enforced them as a rule with
moderation and wisdom.
The enforcement of the Ku Klux Act led to the disbanding of that
organization after the trial, arrest and conviction of many of the
leaders. These trials brought out the facts, and awakened many Southern
minds, theretofore incredulous, to the enormity of the secret political
crimes which had been committed in all the Southern States, and for a
time popular sentiment even in the South, and amongst former rebel
soldiers, ran strongly against the Klan. With fresh political
excitements, however, fresh means of intimidation were employed at
elections. Rifle clubs were formed, notably in South Carolina and
Mississippi, while in Louisiana the “White League” sprang into
existence, and was organized in all of the neighboring States. These
were more difficult to deal with. They were open organizations, created
under the semblance of State militia acts. They became very popular,
especially among the younger men, and from this time until the close of
the Presidential election in 1876, were potent factors in several
Southern States, and we shall have occasion further on to describe their
more important movements.
Readmission of Rebellious States.
Before the close of 1869 the Supreme Court, in the case of _Texas vs.
White_, sustained the constitutionality of the Reconstruction acts of
Congress. It held that the ordinances of secession had been “absolutely
null;” that the seceding States had no right to secede and had never
been out of the Union, but that, during and after their rebellion, they
had no governments “competent to represent these States in their
relations with the National government,” and therefore Congress had the
power to re-establish the relations of any rebellious State to the
Union. This decision fortified the position of the Republicans, and did
much to aid President Grant in the difficult work of reconstruction. It
modified the assaults of the Democrats, and in some measure changed
their purpose to make Reconstruction the pivot around which smaller
political issues should revolve.
The regular session of the 41st Congress met Dec. 4th, 1869, and before
its close Virginia, Georgia, Texas, and Mississippi had all complied
with the conditions of reconstruction, and were re-admitted to the
Union. This practically completed the work of reconstruction. To
summarize:—*
Tennessee was re-admitted July 24th, 1866; Arkansas, June 22d, 1868;
North Carolina, South Carolina, Louisiana, Georgia and Florida under the
act of June 25th, 1868, which provided that as soon as they fulfilled
the conditions imposed by the acts of March, 1867, they should be
re-admitted. All did this promptly except Georgia. Virginia was
re-admitted January 25th, 1870; Mississippi, Feb. 23d, 1870; Texas,
March 30th, 1870. Georgia, the most powerful and stubborn of all, had
passed State laws declaring negroes incapable of holding office, in
addition to what was known as the “black code,” and Congress refused
full admission until she had revoked the laws and ratified the 15th
Amendment. The State finally came back into the Union July 15th, 1870.
The above named States completed the ratification of the 15th amendment,
and the powers of reconstruction were plainly used to that end. Some of
the Northern States had held back, and for a time its ratification by
the necessary three-fourths was a matter of grave doubt. Congress next
passed a bill to enforce it, May 30th, 1870. This made penal any
interference, by force or fraud, with the right of free and full manhood
suffrage, and authorized the President to use the army to prevent
violations. The measure was generally supported by the Republicans, and
opposed by all of the Democrats.
The Republicans through other guards about the ballot by passing an act
to amend the naturalization laws, which made it penal to use false
naturalization papers, authorized the appointment of Federal supervisors
of elections in cities of over 20,000 inhabitants; gave to these power
of arrest for any offense committed in their view, and gave alien
Africans the right to naturalize. The Democrats in their opposition laid
particular stress upon the extraordinary powers given to Federal
supervisors, while the Republicans charged that Seymour had carried New
York by gigantic naturalization frauds in New York city, and sought to
sustain these charges by the unprecedented vote polled. A popular
quotation of the time was from Horace Greeley, in the New York
_Tribune_, who showed that under the manipulations of the Tweed ring,
more votes had been cast for Seymour in one of the warehouse wards of
the city, “than there were men, women, children, and cats and dogs in
it.”
The Legal Tender Decision.
The Act of Congress of 1862 had made “greenback” notes a legal tender,
and they passed as such until 1869 against the protests of the Democrats
in Congress, who had questioned the right of Congress to issue paper
money. It was on this issue that Thaddeus Stevens admitted the
Republicans were travelling “outside of the constitution” with a view to
preserve the government, and this soon became one of his favorite ways
of meeting partisan objections to war measures. At the December term of
the Supreme Court, in 1869, a decision was rendered that the action of
Congress was unconstitutional, the Court then being accidentally
Democratic in its composition. The Republicans, believing they could not
afford to have their favorite, and it must be admitted most useful
financial measure questioned, secured an increase of two in the number
of Supreme Justices—one under a law creating an additional Justiceship,
the other in place of a Justice who had resigned—and in March, 1870,
after the complexion of the Court had been changed through Republican
appointments made by President Grant, the constitutionality of the legal
tender act was again raised, and, with Chief Justice Chase (who had been
Secretary of the Treasury in 1862 presiding) the previous decision was
reversed. This was clearly a partisan struggle before the Court, and on
the part of the Republicans an abandonment of old landmarks impressed on
the country by the Jackson Democrats, but it is plain that without the
greenbacks the war could not have been pressed with half the vigor, if
at all. Neither party was consistent in this struggle, for Southern
Democrats who sided with their Northern colleagues in the plea of
unconstitutionality, had when “out of the Union,” witnessed and
advocated the issue of the same class of money by the Confederate
Congress. The difference was only in the ability to redeem, and this
ability depended upon success in arms—the very thing the issue was
designed to promote. The last decision, despite its partisan
surroundings and opposition, soon won popularity, and this popularity
was subsequently taken as the groundwork for the establishment of
The Greenback Party.
This party, with a view to ease the rigors of the monetary panic of
1873, advocated an unlimited issue of greenbacks, or an “issue based
upon the resources of the country.” So vigorously did discontented
leaders of both parties press this idea, that they soon succeeded in
demoralizing the Democratic minority—which was by this time such a plain
minority, and so greatly in need of new issues to make the people forget
the war, that it is not surprising they yielded, at least partially, to
new theories and alliances. The present one took them away from the
principles of Jackson, from the hard-money theories of the early days,
and would land them they knew not where, nor did many of them care, if
they could once more get upon their feet. Some resisted, and
comparatively few of the Democrats in the Middle States yielded, but in
part of New England, the great West, and nearly all of the South, it was
for several years quite difficult to draw a line between Greenbackers
and Democrats. Some Republicans, too, who had tired of the “old war
issues,” or discontented with the management and leadership of their
party, aided in the construction of the Greenback bridge, and kept upon
it as long as it was safe to do so. In State elections up to as late as
1880 this Greenback element was a most important factor. Ohio was
carried by an alliance of Greenbackers and Democrats, Allen being
elected Governor, only to be supplanted by Hayes (afterwards President)
after a most remarkable contest, the alliance favoring the Greenback,
the Republicans not quite the hard-money, but a redeemable-in-gold
theory. Indiana, always doubtful, passed over to the Democratic column,
while in the Southern States the Democratic leaders made open alliances
until the Greenbackers became over-confident and sought to win
Congressional and State elections on their own merits. They fancied that
the desire to repudiate ante-war debts would greatly aid them, and they
openly advocated the idea of repudiation there, but they had experienced
and wise leaders to cope with. They were not allowed to monopolize this
issue by the Democrats, and their arrogance, if such it may be called,
was punished by a more complete assertion of Democratic power in the
South than was ever known before. The theory in the South was welcomed
where it would suit the Democracy, crushed where it would not, as shown
in the Presidential election of 1880, when Garfield, Hancock and Weaver
(Greenbacker) were the candidates. The latter, in his stumping tour of
the South, proclaimed that he and his friends were as much maltreated in
Alabama and other States, as the Republicans, and for some cause
thereafter (the Democrats alleged “a bargain and sale”) he practically
threw his aid to the Republicans—this when it became apparent that the
Greenbackers, in the event of the election going to the House, could
have no chance even there.
Gen’l Weaver went from the South to Maine, the scene of what was
regarded at that moment as a pivotal struggle for the Presidency. Blaine
had twice been the most prominent candidate for the Presidency—1876 and
1880—and had both times been defeated by compromise candidates. He was
still, as he had been for many years, Chairman of the Republican State
Committee of Maine, and now as ever before swallowed the mortification
of defeat with true political grace. The Greenbackers had the year
before formed a close alliance with the Democrats, and in the State
election made the result so close that for many weeks it remained a
matter of doubt who was elected Governor, the Democratic Greenbacker or
the Republican. A struggle followed in the Legislature and before the
Returning Board composed of State officers, who were Democrats, (headed
by Gov. Garcelon) and sought to throw out returns on slight
technicalities. Finally the Republicans won, but not without a struggle
which excited attention all over the Union and commanded the presence of
the State militia. Following Garfield’s nomination another struggle, as
we have stated, was inaugurated, with Davis as the Republican nominee
for Governor, Plaisted the Democratic-Greenback, (the latter a former
Republican). All eyes now turned to Maine, which voted in September.
Gen’l Weaver was on the stump then, as the Greenback candidate for
President, and all of his efforts were bent to breaking the alliance
between the Greenbackers and Democrats.
He advocated a straight-out policy for his Greenback friends, described
his treatment in the South, and denounced the Democracy with such
plainness that it displayed his purpose and defeated his object.
Plaisted was elected by a close vote, and the Republicans yielded after
some threats to invoke the “Garcelon precedents.” This was the second
Democratic-Greenback victory in Maine, the first occurring two years
before, when through an alliance in the Legislature (no candidate having
received a majority of all the popular vote) Garland was returned.
The victory of Plaisted alarmed the Republicans and enthused the
Democrats, who now denounced Weaver, but still sought alliance with his
followers. General B. F. Butler, long a brilliant Republican member of
Congress from Massachusetts, for several years advocated Greenback ideas
without breaking from his Republican Congressional colleagues. Because
of this fact he lost whatever of chance he had for a Republican
nomination for Governor, “his only remaining political ambition,” and
thereupon headed the Greenbackers in Massachusetts, and in spite of the
protests of the hard-money Democrats in that State, captured the
Democratic organization, and after these tactics twice ran for Governor,
and was defeated both times by the Republicans, though he succeeded,
upon State and “anti-blue blood” theories, in greatly reducing their
majority. In the winter of 1882 he still held control of the Democratic
State Committee, after the Greenback organization had passed from view,
and “what will he do next?” is one of the political questions of the
hour.
The Greenback labor party ceased all Congressional alliance with the
Democrats after their quarrel with General Weaver, and as late as the
47th session—1881–82—refused all alliance, and abstained from exercising
what some still believe a “balance of power” in the House, though nearly
half of their number were elected more as Republicans than Greenbackers.
As a party, the Greenbackers, standing alone, never carried either a
State or a Congressional district. Their local successes were due to
alliances with one or other of the great parties, and with the passage
of the panic they dissolved in many sections, and where they still
obtain it is in alliance with labor unions, or in strong mining or
workingmen’s districts. In the Middle States they won few local
successes, but were strong in the coal regions of Pennsylvania.
Advocates of similar theories have not been wanting in all the countries
of Western Europe following great wars or panics, but it was reserved to
the genius of Americans to establish an aggressive political party on
the basis of theories which all great political economists have from the
beginning antagonized as unsafe and unsound.
The Prohibitory Party.
The attempt to establish a third party in the Greenback, begot that to
establish a National Prohibitory Party, which in 1880 ran James Black of
Pennsylvania, as a candidate for the Presidency, and four years previous
ran Neal Dow of Maine. He, however, commanded little attention, and
received but sparsely scattered votes in all the States. The sentiment
at the base of this party never thrived save as in States, particularly
in New England, where it sought to impress itself on the prevailing
political party, and through it to influence legislation. Neal Dow of
Maine, first advocated a prohibitory law, and by his eloquent advocacy,
secured that of Maine, which has stood for nearly thirty years. That of
Massachusetts has recently been repealed. The prohibitory amendment to
the Constitution of Kansas was adopted in 1881, etc. The Prohibitory
Party, however, never accomplished anything by separate political
action, and though fond of nominating candidates for State and local
officers, has not as yet succeeded in holding even a balance of power
between the political parties, though it has often confused political
calculations as to results in New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Connecticut,
Massachusetts, etc. It seems never to have taken hold in any of the
Southern States, and comparatively little in the Western, until the
whole country was surprised in 1880 by the passage of the Kansas
amendment by over 20,000 majority in a vote of the people invoked by the
Legislature. An effort followed to submit a similar amendment through
the Pennsylvania Legislature in 1881. It passed the House by a large
majority, but after discussion in the Senate, and amendments to
indemnify manufacturers and dealers in liquor (an amendment which would
cripple if it would not bankrupt the State) was adopted. Governor St.
John of Kansas, a gentleman fond of stumping for this amendment, insists
that the results are good in his State, while its enemies claim that it
has made many criminals, that liquor is everywhere smuggled and sold,
and that the law has turned the tide of immigration away from that great
State. The example of Kansas, however, will probably be followed in
other States, and the Prohibitory Party will hardly pass from view until
this latest experiment has been fairly tested. It was also the author of
“Local Option,” which for a time swept Pennsylvania, but was repealed by
a large majority after two years’ trial.
Annexation of San Domingo.
The second session of the 41st Congress began December 5th, 1870. With
all of the States represented, reconstruction being complete, the body
was now divided politically as follows: Senate, 61 Republicans, 13
Democrats; House 172 Republicans, 71 Democrats. President Grant’s annual
message discussed a new question, and advocated the annexation of San
Domingo to the United States. A treaty had been negotiated between
President Grant and the President of the Republic of San Domingo as
early as September 4th, 1869, looking to annexation, but it had been
rejected by the Senate, Charles Sumner being prominent in his opposition
to the measure. He and Grant experienced a growing personal
unpleasantness, because of the President’s attempt to negotiate a treaty
without consulting Mr. Sumner, who was Chairman of the Committee on
Foreign Affairs, and it was charged that through the influence of the
President he was removed by the Republican caucus from this
Chairmanship, and Senator Simon Cameron put in his place. Whether this
was true or not, the differences between Grant and Sumner were
universally remarked, and Sumner’s imperious pride led him into a very
vindictive assault upon the proposition. Grant gave few other reasons
for annexation than military ones, suggested that as a naval station it
would facilitate all home operations in the Gulf, while in the hands of
a foreign power, in the event of war, it would prove the depot for many
and dangerous warlike preparations. The question had little political
significance, if it was ever designed to have any, and this second
attempt to bring the scheme to the attention of Congress, was that a
joint resolution (as in the annexation of Texas) might be passed. This
would require but a majority, but the objection was met that no
Territory could be annexed without a treaty, and this must be ratified
by two-thirds of the Senate. A middle course was taken, and the
President was authorized to appoint three Commissioners to visit San
Domingo and ascertain the desires of its people. These reported
favorably, but the subject was finally dropped, probably because the
proposition could not command a two-thirds vote, and has not since
attracted attention.
Amendatory Enforcement Acts.
The operation of the 15th Amendment, being still resisted or evaded in
portions of the South, an Act was passed to enforce it. This extended
the powers of the Federal supervisors and marshals, authorized in the
first, and gave the Federal Circuit Courts exclusive jurisdiction of all
cases tried under the provisions of the Act and its supplements. It also
empowered these Courts to punish any State officer who should attempt to
interfere with or try such cases as in contempt of the Court’s
jurisdiction. The Republicans sustained, the Democrats opposed the
measure, but it was passed and approved February 28, 1871, and another
supplement was inserted in the Sundry Civil Bill, and approved June
10th, 1872, with continued resistance on the part of the Democrats.
After the appointment of a committee to investigate the condition of
affairs in the Southern States, Congress adjourned March 4th, 1871.
The Alabama Claims.
During this year the long disputed Alabama Claims of the United States
against Great Britain, arising from the depredations of the Anglo-rebel
privateers, built and fitted out in British waters, were referred by the
Treaty of Washington, dated May 8th, 1871, to arbitrators, and this was
the first and most signal triumph of the plan of arbitration, so far as
the Government of the United States was concerned. The arbitrators were
appointed, at the invitation of the governments of Great Britain and the
United States, from these powers, and from Brazil, Italy, and
Switzerland. On September 14th, 1872, they gave to the United States
gross damages to the amount of $15,500,000, an amount which has
subsequently proved to be really in excess of the demands of merchants
and others claiming the loss of property through the depredations of the
rebel ram _Alabama_ and other rebel privateers. We append a list of the
representatives of the several governments:
_Arbitrator on the part of the United States_—CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS.
_Arbitrator on the part of Great Britain_—The Right Honorable Sir
ALEXANDER COCKBURN, Baronet, Lord Chief Justice of England.
_Arbitrator on the part of Italy_—His Excellency Senator Count SCLOPIS.
_Arbitrator on the part of Switzerland_—Mr. JACOB STAMPFLI.
_Arbitrator on the part of Brazil_—Baron D’ITAJUBA.
_Agent on the part of the United States_—J. C. BANCROFT DAVIS.
_Agent on the part of Great Britain_—Right Honorable LORD TENTERDEN.
_Counsel for the United States_—CALEB CUSHING, WILLIAM M. EVARTS,
MORRISON R. WAITE.
_Counsel for Great Britain_—Sir ROUNDELL PALMER.
_Solicitor for the United States_—CHARLES C. BEAMAN, Jr.
The Force Bill.
The 42d Congress met March 4, 1871, the Republicans having suffered
somewhat in their representation. In the Senate there were 57
Republicans, 17 Democrats; in the House 138 Republicans, 103 Democrats.
James G. Blaine was again chosen Speaker. The most exciting political
question of the session was the passage of the “Force Bill,” as the
Democrats called it. The object was more rigidly to enforce observance
of the provisions of the 14th Amendment, as the Republicans claim; to
revive a waning political power in the South, and save the “carpet-bag”
governments there, as the Democrats claimed. The Act allowed suit in the
Federal courts against any person who should deprive another of the
rights of a citizen, and it made it a penal offense to conspire to take
away any one’s rights as a citizen. It also provided that inability,
neglect, or refusal by any State governments to suppress such
conspiracies, or their refusal to call upon the President for aid,
should be deemed a denial by such State of the equal protection of the
laws under the 14th Amendment. It further declared such conspiracies “a
rebellion against the government of the United States,” and authorized
the President, when in his judgment the public safety required it, to
suspend the privilege of _habeas corpus_ in any district, and suppress
any such insurrection by the army and navy.
President Hayes’s Civil Service Order.
EXECUTIVE MANSION, Washington, _June 22, 1877_.
SIR:—I desire to call your attention to the following paragraph in a
letter addressed by me to the Secretary of the Treasury, on the conduct
to be observed by the officers of the General Government in relation to
the elections:
“No officer should be required or permitted to take part in the
management of political organizations, caucuses, conventions or election
campaigns. Their right to vote and to express their views on public
questions, either orally or through the press, is not denied, provided
it does not interfere with the discharge of their official duties. No
assessment for political purposes on officers or subordinates should be
allowed.”
This rule is applicable to every department of the Civil Service. It
should be understood by every officer of the General Government that he
is expected to conform his conduct to its requirements.
Very respectfully, R. B. HAYES.
Some of the protests were strong, and it is difficult to say whether
Curtis, Julian, or Eaton—its three leading advocates—or the politicians,
had the best of the argument. It was not denied, however, that a strong
and very respectable sentiment had been created in favor of the reform,
and to this sentiment all parties, and the President as well, made a
show of bowing. It was fashionable to insert civil service planks in
National and State platforms, but it was not such an issue as could live
in the presence of more exciting ones; and while to this day it has
earnest and able advocates, it has from year to year fallen into greater
disuse. Actual trial showed the impracticability of some of the rules,
and President Grant lost interest in the subject, as did Congress, for
in several instances it _neglected_ to appropriate the funds necessary
to carry out the provisions of the law. President Arthur, in his
message, to Congress in December, 1881, argued against its full
application, and showed that it blocked the way to preferment, certainly
of the middle-aged and older persons, who could not recall their early
lessons acquired by rote; that its effect was to elevate the
inexperienced to positions which required executive ability, sound
judgment, business aptitude, and experience. The feature of the message
met the endorsement of nearly the entire Republican press, and at this
writing the sentiment, at least of the Republican party, appears to
favor a partial modification of the rules.
The system was begun January 1st, 1872, but in December, 1874, Congress
refused to make any appropriations, and it was for a time abandoned,
with slight and spasmodic revivals under the administration of President
Hayes, who issued the foregoing order.
By letter from the Attorney-General, Charles Devens, August 1, 1877,
this order was held to apply to the Pennsylvania Republican Association
at Washington. Still later there was a further exposition, in which
Attorney-General Devens, writing from Washington in October 1, 1877,
excuses himself from active participation in the Massachusetts State
campaign, and says: “I learn with surprise and regret that any of the
Republican officials hesitate either to speak or vote, alleging as a
reason the President’s recent Civil Service order. In distinct terms
that order states that the right of officials to vote and express their
views on public questions, either orally or through the press, is not
denied, provided it does not interfere with the discharge of their
official duties. If such gentlemen choose not to vote, or not to express
or enforce their views in support of the principles of the Republican
party, either orally or otherwise, they, at least, should give a reason
for such a course which is not justified by the order referred to, and
which is simply a perversion of it.”
Yet later, when the interest in the Pennsylvania election became
general, because of the sharp struggle between Governor Hoyt and Senator
Dill for Governor, a committee of gentlemen (Republicans) visited
President Hayes and induced him to “suspend the operation of the order”
as to Pennsylvania, where political contributions were collected.
And opposition was manifested after even the earlier trials. Benjamin F.
Butler denounced the plan as English and anti-Republican, and before
long some of the more radical Republican papers, which had indeed given
little attention to the subject, began to denounce it as a plan to
exclude faithful Republicans from and permit Democrats to enter the
offices. These now argued that none of the vagaries of political
dreamers could ever convince them that a free Government can be run
without political parties; that while rotation in office may not be a
fundamental element of republican government, yet the right of the
people to recommend is its corner-stone; that civil service would lead
to the creation of rings, and eventually to the purchase of places; that
it would establish an aristocracy of office-holders, who could not be
removed at times when it might be important, as in the rebellion for the
Administration to have only friends in public office; that it would
establish grades and life-tenures in civic positions, etc.
For later particulars touching civil service, see the Act of Congress of
1883, and the regulations made pursuant to the same in Book V.
Amnesty.
The first regular session of the 42d Congress met Dec. 4th, 1871. The
Democrats consumed much of the time in efforts to pass bills to remove
the political disabilities of former Southern rebels, and they were
materially aided by the editorials of Horace Greeley, in the New York
_Tribune_, which had long contended for universal amnesty. At this
session all such efforts were defeated by the Republicans, who
invariably amended such propositions by adding Sumner’s Supplementary
Civil Rights Bill, which was intended to prevent any discrimination
against colored persons by common carriers, hotels, or other chartered
or licensed servants. The Amnesty Bill, however was passed May 22d,
1872, after an agreement to exclude from its provisions all who held the
higher military and civic positions under the Confederacy—in all about
350 persons. The following is a copy:
_Be it enacted, etc._, (two-thirds of each House concurring therein,)
That all legal and political disabilities imposed by the third section
of the fourteenth article of the amendments of the Constitution of the
United States are hereby removed from all persons whomsoever, except
Senators and Representatives of the Thirty-sixth and Thirty-seventh
Congress, officers in the judicial, military, and naval service of the
United States, heads of Departments, and foreign ministers of the United
States.
Subsequently many acts removing the disabilities of all excepted (save
Jefferson Davis) from the provisions of the above, were passed.
The Liberal Republicans.
An issue raised in Missouri gave immediate rise to the Liberal
Republican party, though the course of Horace Greeley had long pointed
toward the organization of something of the kind, and with equal
plainness it pointed to his desire to be its champion and candidate for
the Presidency. In 1870 the Republican party, then in control of the
Legislature of Missouri, split into two parts on the question of the
removal of the disqualifications imposed upon rebels by the State
Constitution during the war. Those favoring the removal of disabilities
were headed by B. Gratz Brown and Carl Schurz, and they called
themselves Liberal Republicans; those opposed were called and accepted
the name of Radical Republicans. The former quickly allied themselves
with the Democrats, and thus carried the State, though Grant’s
administration “stood in” with the Radicals. As a result the
disabilities were quickly removed, and those who believed with Greeley
now sought to promote a reaction in Republican sentiment all over the
country. Greeley was the recognized head of this movement, and he was
ably aided by ex-Governor Curtin and Col. A. K. McClure in Pennsylvania;
Charles Francis Adams, Massachusetts; Judge Trumbull, in Illinois;
Reuben E. Fenton, in New York; Brown and Schurz in Missouri, and in fact
by leading Republicans in nearly all of the States, who at once began to
lay plans to carry the next Presidential election.
They charged that the Enforcement Acts of Congress were designed more
for the political advancement of Grant’s adherents than for the benefit
of the country; that instead of suppressing they were calculated to
promote a war of races in the South; that Grant was seeking the
establishment of a military despotism, etc. These leaders were, as a
rule, brilliant men. They had tired of unappreciated and unrewarded
service in the Republican party, or had a natural fondness for “pastures
new,” and, in the language of the day, they quickly succeeded in making
political movements “lively.”
In the spring of 1871 the Liberal Republicans and Democrats of Ohio—and
Ohio seems to be the most fertile soil for new ideas—prepared for a
fusion, and after frequent consultations of the various leaders with Mr.
Greeley in New York, a call was issued from Missouri on the 24th of
January, 1872, for a National Convention of the Liberal Republican party
to be held at Cincinnati, May 1st. The well-matured plans of the leaders
were carried out in the nomination of Hon. Horace Greeley for President
and B. Gratz Brown for Vice-President, though not without a serious
struggle over the chief nomination, which was warmly contested by the
friends of Charles Francis Adams. Indeed he led in most of the six
ballots, but finally all the friends of other candidates voted for
Greeley, and he received 482 to 187 for Adams. Dissatisfaction followed,
and a later effort was made to substitute Adams for Greeley, but it
failed. The original leaders now prepared to capture the Democratic
Convention, which met at Baltimore, June 9th. By nearly an unanimous
vote it was induced to endorse the Cincinnati platform, and it likewise
finally endorsed Greeley and Brown—though not without many bitter
protests. A few straight-out Democrats met later at Louisville, Ky.,
Sept. 3d, and nominated Charles O’Conor, of New York, for President, and
John Quincy Adams, of Massachusetts, for Vice-President, and these were
kept in the race to the end, receiving a popular vote of about 30,000.
The regular Republican National Convention was held at Philadelphia,
June 5th. It renominated President Grant unanimously, and Henry Wilson,
of Massachusetts, for Vice-President by 364½ votes to 321½ for Schuyler
Colfax, who thus shared the fate of Hannibal Hamlin in his second
candidacy for Vice-President on the ticket with Abraham Lincoln. This
change to Wilson was to favor the solid Republican States of New
England, and to prevent both candidates coming from the West.
Civil Service Reform.
After considerable and very able agitation by Geo. W. Curtis, the editor
of _Harper’s Weekly_, an Act was passed March 3d, 1871, authorizing the
President to begin a reform in the civil service. He appointed a
Commission headed by Mr. Curtis, and after more than a year’s
preparation this body defeated a measure which secured Congressional
approval and that of President Grant.
The civil service law (and it is still a law though more honored now in
the breach than the observance) embraced in a single section of the act
making appropriations for sundry civil expenses for the year ending June
30, 1872, and authorize the President to prescribe such rules and
regulations for admission into the civil service as will best promote
the efficiency thereof, and ascertain the fitness of each candidate for
the branch of service into which he seeks to enter. Under this law a
commission was appointed to draft rules and regulations which were
approved and are now being enforced by the President. All applicants for
position in any of the government departments come under these
rules:—all classes of clerks, copyists, counters; in the customs service
all from deputy collector down to inspectors and clerks with the
salaries of $1200 or more; in appraisers’ offices all assistants and
clerks; in the naval service all clerks; all lighthouse keepers; in the
revenue, supervisors, collectors, assessors, assistants; in the postal
really all postmasters whose pay is over $200, and all mail messengers.
The rules apply to all new appointments in the departments or grades
named, except that “nothing shall prevent the reappointment at
discretion of the incumbents of any office the term of which is fixed by
law.” So that a postmaster or other officer escapes their application.
Those specially exempt are the Heads of Departments; their immediate
assistants and deputies, the diplomatic service, the judiciary, and the
district attorneys. Each branch of the service is to be grouped, and
admission shall always be to the lowest grade of any group. Such
appointments are made for a probationary term of six months, when if the
Board of Examiners approve the incumbent is continued. This Board of
Examiners, three in number in each case, shall be chosen by the
President from the several Departments, and they shall examine at
Washington for any position there, or, when directed by an Advisory
Board, shall assign places for examination in the several States.
Examinations are in all cases first made of applicants within the office
or department, and from the list three reported in the order of
excellence; if those within fail, then outside applicants may be
examined. In the Federal Blue Book, which is a part of this volume, we
give the Civil Service Rules.
When first proposed, partisan politics had no part or place in civil
service reform, and the author of the plan was himself a distinguished
Republican. In fact both parties thought something good had been
reached, and there was practically no resistance at first to a trial.
The Democrats resisted the passage of this bill with even more
earnestness than any which preceded it, but the Republican discipline
was almost perfect, and when passed it received the prompt approval of
President Grant, who by this time was classed as “the most radical of
the radicals.” Opponents denounced it as little if any less obnoxious
than the old Sedition law of 1798, while the Republicans claimed that it
was to meet a state of growing war in the South—a war of races—and that
the form of domestic violence manifested was in the highest degree
dangerous to the peace of the Union and the safety of the newly
enfranchised citizens.
The Credit Mobilier.
At the second session of the 42d Congress, beginning Dec. 2, 1872, the
speaker (Blaine) on the first day called attention to the charges made
by Democratic orators and newspapers during the Presidential campaign
just closed, that the Vice-President (Colfax), the Vice-President elect
(Wilson), the Secretary of the Treasury, several Senators, the Speaker
of the House, and a large number of Representatives had been bribed,
during the years 1867 and 1868, by Oakes Ames, a member of the House
from Massachusetts; that he and his agents had given them presents of
stock in a corporation known as the Credit Mobilier, to influence their
legislative action for the benefit of the Union Pacific Railroad
Company.
Upon Speaker Blaine’s motion, a committee of investigation was appointed
by Hon. S. S. Cox, of New York, a noted Democrat temporarily called to
the Chair.
After the close of the campaign, (as was remarked by the _Republic
Magazine_ at the time) the dominant party might well have claimed, and
would have insisted had they been opposed to a thorough investigation
and a full exposure of corruption, that the verdict of the people in the
late canvass was sufficient answer to these charges; but the Republican
party not merely granted all the investigations sought, but summoned on
the leading committee a majority of its political foes to conduct the
inquest.
The committee consisted of Messrs. Poland, of Vermont; McCreary, of
Iowa; Banks, of Massachusetts; Niblack, of Indiana, and Merrick, of
Maryland.
Messrs. Poland and McCreary—the two Republicans—were gentlemen of
ability and standing, well known for their integrity, moderation, and
impartiality. General Banks was an earnest supporter of Horace Greeley,
upon the alleged ground that the Republican organization had become
effete and corrupt: while Messrs. Niblack and Merrick are among the
ablest representatives of the Democratic party; in fact, Mr. Merrick
belonged to the extreme Southern school of political thought.
Having patiently and carefully examined and sifted the entire
testimony—often “painfully conflicting,” as the committee remarked—their
report ought to be considered a judicial document commanding universal
approval, yet scraps of the testimony and not the report itself were
used with painful frequency against James A. Garfield in his
Presidential canvass of 1880. There has not been a state paper submitted
for many years upon a similar subject that carried with it greater
weight, or which bore upon its face a fuller realization of the grave
responsibilities assumed, and it is the first time in the political
history of the United States that an all important investigation has
been entrusted by the dominant party to a majority of its political
foes.
The report of the committee gives the best and by far the most reliable
history of the whole affair, and its presentation here may aid in
preventing partisan misrepresentations in the future—misrepresentations
made in the heat of contest, and doubtless regretted afterwards by all
who had the facilities for getting at the facts. We therefore give the
OFFICIAL REPORT OF THE CREDIT MOBILIER INVESTIGATING COMMITTEE.
Mr. Poland, from the select committee to investigate the alleged Credit
Mobilier bribery, made the following report February 18, 1873:
_The special committee appointed under the following resolutions of the
House to wit_:
WHEREAS, Accusations have been made in the public press, founded on
alleged letters of Oakes Ames, a Representative of Massachusetts, and
upon the alleged affidavits of Henry S. McComb, a citizen of Wilmington,
in the State of Delaware, to the effect that members of this House were
bribed by Oakes Ames to perform certain legislative acts for the benefit
of the Union Pacific Railroad Company, by presents of stock in the
Credit Mobilier of America, or by presents of a valuable character
derived therefrom: therefore,
_Resolved_, That a special committee of five members be appointed by the
Speaker pro tempore, whose duty it shall be to investigate whether any
member of this House was bribed by Oakes Ames, or any other person or
corporation, in any matter touching his legislative duty.
_Resolved, further_, That the committee have the right to employ a
stenographer, and that they be empowered to send for persons and papers;
_beg leave to make the following report_:
In order to a clear understanding of the facts hereinafter stated as to
contracts and dealings in reference to stock of the Credit Mobilier of
America, between Mr. Oakes Ames and others, and members of Congress, it
is necessary to make a preliminary statement of the connection of that
company with the Union Pacific Railroad Company, and their relations to
each other.
The company called the “Credit Mobilier of America” was incorporated by
the Legislature of Pennsylvania, and in 1864 control of its charter and
franchises had been obtained by certain persons interested in the Union
Pacific Railroad Company, for the purpose of using it as a construction
company to build the Union Pacific road. In September, 1864, a contract
was entered into between the Union Pacific Company and H. M. Hoxie, for
the building by said Hoxie of one hundred miles of said road from Omaha
west.
This contract was at once assigned by Hoxie to the Credit Mobilier
Company, as it was expected to be when made. Under this contract and
extensions of it some two or three hundred miles of road were built by
the Credit Mobilier Company, but no considerable profits appear to have
been realized therefrom. The enterprise of building a railroad to the
Pacific was of such vast magnitude, and was beset by so many hazards and
risks that the capitalists of the country were generally averse to
investing in it, and, notwithstanding the liberal aid granted by the
Government it seemed likely to fail of completion.
In 1865 or 1866, Mr. Oakes Ames, then and now a member of the House from
the State of Massachusetts, and his brother Oliver Ames became
interested in the Union Pacific Company and also in the Credit Mobilier
Company as the agents for the construction of the road. The Messrs. Ames
were men of very large capital, and of known character and integrity in
business. By their example and credit, and the personal efforts of Mr.
Oakes Ames, many men of capital were induced to embark in the
enterprise, and to take stock in the Union Pacific Company and also in
the Credit Mobilier Company. Among them were the firm of S. Hooper &
Co., of Boston, the leading member of which, Mr. Samuel Hooper, was then
and is now a member of the House; Mr. John B. Alley, then a member of
the House from Massachusetts, and Mr. Grimes, then a Senator from the
State of Iowa. Notwithstanding the vigorous efforts of Mr. Ames and
others interested with him, great difficulty was experienced in securing
the required capital.
In the spring of 1867 the Credit Mobilier Company voted to add 50 per
cent. to their capital stock, which was then two and a half millions of
dollars; and to cause it to be readily taken each subscriber to it was
entitled to receive as a bonus an equal amount of first mortgage bonds
of the Union Pacific Company. The old stockholders were entitled to take
this increase, but even the favorable terms offered did not induce all
the old stockholders to take it, and the stock of the Credit Mobilier
Company was never considered worth its par value until after the
execution of the Oakes Ames contract hereinafter mentioned.
On the 16th day of August, 1867, a contract was executed between the
Union Pacific Railroad Company and Oakes Ames, by which Mr. Ames
contracted to build six hundred and sixty-seven miles of the Union
Pacific road at prices ranging from $42,000 to $96,000 per mile,
amounting in the aggregate to $47,000,000. Before the contract was
entered into it was understood that Mr. Ames was to transfer it to seven
trustees, who were to execute it, and the profits of the contract were
to be divided among the stockholders in the Credit Mobilier Company, who
should comply with certain conditions set out in the instrument
transferring the contract to the trustees. The Ames contract and the
transfer to trustees are incorporated in the evidence submitted, and
therefore further recital of their terms is not deemed necessary.
Substantially, all the stockholders of the Credit Mobilier complied with
the conditions named in the transfer, and thus became entitled to share
in any profits said trustees might make in executing the contract.
All the large stockholders in the Union Pacific were also stockholders
in the Credit Mobilier, and the Ames contract and its transfer to
trustees were ratified by the Union Pacific, and received the assent of
the great body of stockholders, but not of all.
After the Ames contract had been executed, it was expected by those
interested that by reason of the enormous prices agreed to be paid for
the work very large profits would be derived from building the road, and
very soon the stock of the Credit Mobilier was understood by those
holding it to be worth much more than its par value. The stock was not
in the market and had no fixed market value, but the holders of it, in
December, 1867, considered it worth at least double the par value, and
in January and February, 1868, three or four times the par value, but it
does not appear that these facts were generally or publicly known, or
that the holders of the stock desired they should be.
The foregoing statement the committee think gives enough of the historic
details, and condition and value of the stock, to make the following
detailed facts intelligible.
Mr. Oakes Ames was then a member of the House of Representatives, and
came to Washington at the commencement of the session, about the
beginning of December, 1867. During that month Mr. Ames entered into
contracts with a considerable number of members of Congress, both
Senators and Representatives, to let them have shares of stock in the
Credit Mobilier Company at par, with interest thereon from the first day
of the previous July. It does not appear that in any instance he asked
any of these persons to pay a higher price than the par value and
interest, nor that Mr. Ames used any special effort or urgency to get
these persons to take it. In all these negotiations Mr. Ames did not
enter into any details as to the value of the stock or the amount of
dividend that might be expected upon it, but stated generally that it
would be good stock, and in several instances said he would guarantee
that they should get at least 10 per cent. on their money.
Some of these gentlemen, in their conversations with Mr. Ames, raised
the question whether becoming holders of this stock would bring them
into any embarrassment as members of Congress in their legislative
action. Mr. Ames quieted such suggestions by saying it could not, for
the Union Pacific had received from Congress all the grants and
legislation it wanted, and they should ask for nothing more. In some
instances those members who contracted for stock paid to Mr. Ames the
money for the price of the stock, par and interest; in others, where
they had not the money, Mr. Ames agreed to carry the stock for them
until they could get the money or it should be met by the dividends.
Mr. Ames was at this time a large stockholder in the Credit Mobilier,
but he did not intend any of these transactions to be sales of his own
stock, but intended to fulfill all these contracts from stock belonging
to the company.
At this time there were about six hundred and fifty shares of the stock
of the company, which had for some reason been placed in the name of Mr.
T. C. Durant, one of the leading and active men of the concern.
Mr. Ames claimed that a portion of this stock should be assigned to him
to enable him to fulfill engagements he had made for stock. Mr. Durant
claimed that he had made similar engagements that he should be allowed
stock to fulfill. Mr. McComb, who was present at the time, claimed that
he had also made engagements for stock which he should have stock given
him to carry out. This claim of McComb was refused, but after the stock
was assigned to Mr. Ames, McComb insisted that Ames should distribute
some of the stock to his (McComb’s) friends, and named Senators Bayard
and Fowler, and Representatives Allison and Wilson, of Iowa.
It was finally arranged that three hundred and forty-three shares of the
stock of the company should be transferred to Mr. Ames to enable him to
perform his engagements, and that number of shares were set over on the
books of the company to Oakes Ames, trustee, to distinguish it from the
stock held by him before. Mr. Ames at the time paid to the company the
par of the stock and interest from the July previous, and this stock
still stands on the books in the name of Oakes Ames, trustee, except
thirteen shares which have been transferred to parties in no way
connected with Congress. The committee do not find that Mr. Ames had any
negotiation whatever with any of these members of Congress on the
subject of this stock prior to the commencement of the session of
December, 1867, except Mr. Scofield, of Pennsylvania, and it was not
claimed that any obligation existed from Mr. Ames to him as the result
of it.
In relation to the purpose and motives of Mr. Ames in contracting to let
members of Congress have Credit Mobilier stock at par, which he and all
other owners of it considered worth at least double that sum, the
committee, upon the evidence taken by them and submitted to the House,
cannot entertain doubt. When he said he did not suppose the Union
Pacific Company would ask or need further legislation, he stated what he
believed to be true. But he feared the interests of the road might
suffer by adverse legislation, and what he desired to accomplish was to
enlist strength and friends in Congress who would resist any
encroachment upon or interference with the rights and privileges already
secured, and to that end wished to create in them an interest identical
with his own. This purpose is clearly avowed in his letters to McComb,
copied in the evidence. He says he intends to place the stock “where it
will do most good to us.” And again, “we want more friends in this
Congress.” In his letter to McComb, and also in his statement prepared
by counsel, he gives the philosophy of his action, to wit, “That he has
found there is no difficulty in getting men to look after their own
property.” The committee are also satisfied that Mr. Ames entertained a
fear that, when the true relations between the Credit Mobilier Company
and the Union Pacific became generally known, and the means by which the
great profits expected to be made were fully understood, there was
danger that congressional investigation and action would be invoked.
The members of Congress with whom he dealt were generally those who had
been friendly and favorable to a Pacific Railroad, and Mr. Ames did not
fear or expect to find them favorable to movements hostile to it; but he
desired to stimulate their activity and watchfulness in opposition to
any unfavorable action by giving them a personal interest in the success
of the enterprise, especially so far as it affected the interest of the
Credit Mobilier Company. On the 9th day of December, 1867, Mr. C. C.
Washburn, of Wisconsin, introduced in the House a bill to regulate by
law the rates of transportation over the Pacific Railroad.
Mr. Ames, as well as others interested in the Union Pacific road, was
opposed to this, and desired to defeat it. Other measures apparently
hostile to that company were subsequently introduced into the House by
Mr. Washburn of Wisconsin, and Mr. Washburne of Illinois. The committee
believe that Mr. Ames, in his distributions of stock, had specially in
mind the hostile efforts of the Messrs. Washburn, and desired to gain
strength to secure their defeat. The reference in one of his letters to
“Washburn’s move” makes this quite apparent.
The foregoing is deemed by the committee a sufficient statement of facts
as to Mr. Ames, taken in connection with what will be subsequently
stated of his transactions with particular persons. Mr. Ames made some
contracts for stock in the Credit Mobilier with members of the Senate.
In public discussions of this subject the names of members of both
Houses have been so connected, and all these transactions were so nearly
simultaneous, that the committee deemed it their duty to obtain all
evidence in their power, as to all persons then members of either House,
and to report the same to the House. Having done this, and the House
having directed that evidence transmitted to the Senate, the committee
consider their own power and duty, as well as that of the House, fully
performed, so far as members of the Senate are concerned. Some of Mr.
Ames’s contracts to sell stock were with gentlemen who were then members
of the House, but are not members of the present Congress.
The committee have sought for and taken all the evidence within their
reach as to those gentlemen, and reported the same to the House. As the
House has ceased to have jurisdiction over them as members, the
committee have not deemed it their duty to make any special finding of
facts as to each, leaving the House and the country to their own
conclusions upon the testimony.
In regard to each of the members of the present House, the committee
deem it their duty to state specially the facts they find proved by the
evidence, which, in some instances, is painfully conflicting.
MR. JAMES G. BLAINE, OF MAINE.
Among those who have in the public press been charged with improper
participation in Credit Mobilier stock is the present Speaker, Mr.
Blaine, who moved the resolution for this investigation. The committee
have, therefore, taken evidence in regard to him. They find from it that
Mr. Ames had conversation with Mr. Blaine in regard to taking ten shares
of the stock, and recommended it as a good investment. Upon
consideration Mr. Blaine concluded not to take the stock, and never did
take it, and never paid or received anything on account of it; and Mr.
Blaine never had any interest, direct or indirect, in Credit Mobilier
stock or stock of the Union Pacific Railroad Company.
MR. HENRY L. DAWES, OF MASSACHUSETTS.
Mr. Dawes had, prior to December, 1867, made some small investments in
railroad bonds through Mr. Ames. In December, 1867, Mr. Dawes applied to
Mr. Ames to purchase a thousand-dollar bond of the Cedar Rapids road, in
Iowa. Mr. Ames informed him that he had sold them all, but that he would
let him have for his thousand dollars ten shares of Credit Mobilier
stock, which he thought was better than the railroad bond. In answer to
inquiries by Mr. Dawes Mr. Ames said the Credit Mobilier Company had the
contract to build the Union Pacific road, and thought they would make
money out of it, and that it would be a good thing; that he would
guarantee that he should get 10 per cent. on his money, and that if at
any time Mr. Dawes did not want the stock he would pay back his money
with 10 per cent. interest. Mr. Dawes made some further inquiry in
relation to the stock of Mr. John B. Alley, who said he thought it was
good stock, but not as good as Mr. Ames thought, but that Mr. Ames’s
guarantee would make it a perfectly safe investment.
Mr. Dawes thereupon concluded to purchase the ten shares, and on the
11th of January he paid Mr. Ames $800, and in a few days thereafter the
balance of the price of this stock, at par and interest from July
previous. In June, 1868, Mr. Ames received a dividend of 60 per cent. in
money on this stock, and of it paid to Mr. Dawes $400, and applied the
balance of $200 upon accounts between them. This $400 was all that was
paid over to Mr. Dawes as a dividend upon this stock. At some time prior
to December, 1868, Mr. Dawes was informed that a suit had been commenced
in the courts of Pennsylvania by former owners of the charter of the
Credit Mobilier, claiming that those then claiming and using it had no
right to do so. Mr. Dawes thereupon informed Mr. Ames that as there was
a litigation about the matter he did not desire to keep the stock. On
the 9th of December, 1868, Mr. Ames and Mr. Dawes had a settlement of
their matters in which Mr. Dawes was allowed for the money he paid for
the stock with 10 per cent. interest upon it, and accounted to Mr. Ames
for the $400 he had received as a dividend. Mr. Dawes received no other
benefit under the contract than to get 10 per cent. upon his money, and
after the settlement had no further interest in the stock.
MR. GLENNI W. SCOFIELD, OF PENNSYLVANIA.
In 1866 Mr. Scofield purchased some Cedar Rapids bonds of Mr. Ames, and
in that year they had conversations about Mr. Scofield taking stock in
the Credit Mobilier Company, but no contract was consummated. In
December, 1867, Mr. Scofield applied to Mr. Ames to purchase more Cedar
Rapids bonds, when Mr. Ames suggested he should purchase some Credit
Mobilier stock, and explained generally that it was a contracting
company to build the Union Pacific road; that it was a Pennsylvania
corporation, and he would like to have some Pennsylvanians in it; that
he would sell it to him at par and interest, and that he would guarantee
he should get 8 per cent. if Mr. Scofield would give him half the
dividends above that. Mr. Scofield said he thought he would take $1,000
of the stock; but before anything further was done Mr. Scofield was
called home by sickness in his family. On his return, the latter part of
January, 1868, he spoke to Mr. Ames about the stock, when Mr. Ames said
he thought it was all sold, but he would take his money and give him a
receipt, and get the stock for him if he could. Mr. Scofield thereupon
paid Mr. Ames $1,041, and took his receipt therefor.
Not long after Mr. Ames informed Mr. Scofield he could have the stock,
but could not give him a certificate for it until he could get a larger
certificate dividend. Mr. Scofield received the bond dividend of 80 per
cent., which was payable January 3, 1868, taking a bond for $1,000 and
paying Mr. Ames the difference. Mr. Ames received the 60 per cent. cash
dividend on the stock in June, 1868, and paid over to Mr. Scofield $600,
the amount of it.
Before the close of that session of Congress, which was toward the end
of July, Mr. Scofield became, for some reason, disinclined to take the
stock, and a settlement was made between them, by which Mr. Ames was to
retain the Credit Mobilier stock and Mr. Scofield took a thousand
dollars Union Pacific bond and ten shares of Union Pacific stock.
The precise basis of the settlement does not appear, neither Mr. Ames
nor Mr. Scofield having any full date in reference to it; Mr. Scofield
thinks that he only received back his money and interest upon it, while
Mr. Ames states that he thinks Mr. Scofield had ten shares of Union
Pacific stock in addition. The committee do not deem it specially
important to settle this difference of recollection. Since that
settlement Mr. Scofield has had no interest in the Credit Mobilier stock
and derived no benefit therefrom.
MR. JOHN A. BINGHAM, OF OHIO.
In December, 1867, Mr. Ames advised Mr. Bingham to invest in the stock
of the Credit Mobilier, assuring him that it would return him his money
with profitable dividends. Mr. Bingham agreed to take twenty shares, and
about the 1st of February, 1868, paid to Mr. Ames the par value of the
stock, for which Mr. Ames executed to him some receipt or agreement. Mr.
Ames received all the dividends on the stock, whether in Union Pacific
bonds, or stock, or money; some were delivered to Mr. Bingham and some
retained by Mr. Ames. The matter was not finally adjusted between them
until February, 1872, when it was settled, Mr. Ames retaining the twenty
shares of Credit Mobilier stock, and accounting to Mr. Bingham for such
dividends upon it as Mr. Bingham had not already received. Mr. Bingham
was treated as the real owner of the stock from the time of the
agreement to take it, in December, 1867, to the settlement in February,
1872, and had the benefit of all the dividends upon it. Neither Mr. Ames
nor Mr. Bingham had such records of their dealing as to be able to give
the precise amount of those dividends.
MR. WILLIAM D. KELLEY, OF PENNSYLVANIA.
The committee find from the evidence that in the early part of the
second session of the Fortieth Congress, and probably in December, 1867,
Mr. Ames agreed with Mr. Kelley to sell him ten shares of Credit
Mobilier stock at par and interest from July 1, 1867. Mr. Kelley was not
then prepared to pay for the stock, and Mr. Ames agreed to carry the
stock for him until he could pay for it. On the third day of January,
1868, there was a dividend of 80 per cent. on Credit Mobilier stock in
Union Pacific bonds. Mr. Ames received the bonds, as the stock stood in
his name, and sold them for 97 per cent. of their face. In June, 1868,
there was a cash dividend of 60 per cent., which Mr. Ames also received.
The proceeds of the bonds sold, and the cash dividends received by Mr.
Ames, amounted to $1,376. The par value of the stock and interest
thereon from the previous July amounted to $1,047; so that, after paying
for the stock, there was a balance of dividends due Mr. Kelley of $329.
On the 23d day of June, 1868, Mr. Ames gave Mr. Kelley a check for that
sum on the Sergeant-at-Arms of the House of Representatives, and Mr.
Kelley received the money thereon.
The committee find that Mr. Kelley then understood that the money he
thus received was a balance of dividends due him after paying for the
stock.
All the subsequent dividends upon the stock were either in Union Pacific
stock or bonds, and they were all received by Mr. Ames. In September,
1868, Mr. Kelley received from Mr. Ames $750 in money, which was
understood between them to be an advance to be paid out of dividends.
There has never been any adjustment of the matter between them, and
there is now an entire variance in the testimony of the two men as to
what the transaction between them was, but the committee are unanimous
in finding the facts above stated. The evidence reported to the House
gives some subsequent conversations and negotiations between Mr. Kelley
and Mr. Ames on this subject. The committee do not deem it material to
refer to it in their report.
MR. JAMES A. GARFIELD, OF OHIO.
The facts in regard to Mr. Garfield, as found by the committee, are
identical with the case of Mr. Kelley to the point of reception of the
check for $329. He agreed with Mr. Ames to take ten shares of Credit
Mobilier stock, but did not pay for the same. Mr. Ames received the 80
per cent. dividend in bonds and sold them for 97 per cent., and also
received the 60 per cent. cash dividend, which together paid the price
of the stock and interest, and left a balance of $329. This sum was paid
over to Mr. Garfield by a check on the Sergeant-at-Arms, and Mr.
Garfield then understood this sum was the balance of dividends after
paying for the stock. Mr. Ames received all the subsequent dividends,
and the committee do not find that, since the payment of the $329, there
has been any communication between Mr. Ames and Mr. Garfield on the
subject until this investigation began. Some correspondence between Mr.
Garfield and Mr. Ames, and some conversations between them during this
investigation, will be found in the reported testimony.
The committee do not find that Mr. Ames, in his negotiations with the
persons above named, entered into any detail of the relations between
the Credit Mobilier Company and the Union Pacific Company, or gave them
any specific information as to the amount of dividends they would be
likely to receive further than has been already stated. They all knew
from him, or otherwise, that the Credit Mobilier was a contracting
company to build the Union Pacific road, but it does not appear that any
of them knew that the profits and dividends were to be in stock and
bonds of that company.
The Credit Mobilier Company was a State corporation, not subject to
congressional legislation, and the fact that its profits were expected
to be derived from building the Union Pacific road did not, apparently,
create such an interest in that company as to disqualify the holder of
Credit Mobilier stock from participating in any legislation affecting
the railroad company. In his negotiations with these members of
Congress, Mr. Ames made no suggestion that he desired to secure their
favorable influence in Congress in favor of the railroad company, and
whenever the question was raised as to whether the ownership of this
stock would in any way interfere with or embarrass them in their action
as members of Congress, he assured them it would not.
The committee, therefore, do not find, as to the members of the present
House above named, that they were aware of the object of Mr. Ames, or
that they had any other purpose in taking this stock than to make a
profitable investment. It is apparent that those who advanced their
money to pay for their stock present more the appearance of ordinary
investors than those who did not, but the committee do not feel at
liberty to find any corrupt purpose or knowledge founded upon the fact
of non-payment alone.
It ought also to be observed that those gentlemen who surrendered their
stock to Mr. Ames before there was any public excitement upon the
subject, do not profess to have done so upon any idea of impropriety in
holding it, but for reasons affecting the value and security of the
investment. But the committee believe that they must have felt that
there was something so out of the ordinary course of business in the
extraordinary dividends they were receiving as to render the investment
itself suspicious, and that this was one of the motives of their action.
The committee have not been able to find that any of these members of
Congress have been affected in their official action in consequence of
their interest in Credit Mobilier stock.
It has been suggested that the fact that none of this stock was
transferred to those with whom Mr. Ames contracted was a circumstance
from which a sense of impropriety, if not corruption, was to be
inferred. The committee believe this is capable of explanation without
such inference. The profits of building the road, under the Ames
contract, were only to be divided among such holders of Credit Mobilier
stock as should come in and become parties to certain conditions set out
in the contract of transfer to the trustees, so that a transfer from Mr.
Ames to new holders would cut off the right to dividends from the
trustees, unless they also became parties to the agreement; and this the
committee believe to be the true reason why no transfers were made.
The committee are also of opinion that there was a satisfactory reason
for delay on Mr. Ames’s part to close settlements with some of these
gentlemen for stock and bonds he had received as dividends upon the
stock contracted to them. In the fall of 1868 Mr. McComb commenced a
suit against the Credit Mobilier Company, and Mr. Ames and others,
claiming to be entitled to two hundred and fifty shares of the Credit
Mobilier stock upon a subscription for stock to that amount. That suit
is still pending. If McComb prevailed in that suit, Mr. Ames might be
compelled to surrender so much of the stock assigned to him as trustee,
and he was not therefore anxious to have the stock go out of his hands
until that suit was terminated. It ought also to be stated that no one
of the present members of the House above named appears to have had any
knowledge of the dealings of Mr. Ames with other members.
The committee do not find that either of the above named gentlemen, in
contracting with Mr. Ames, had any corrupt motive or purpose himself, or
was aware that Mr. Ames had any, nor did either of them suppose he was
guilty of any impropriety or even indelicacy in becoming a purchaser of
this stock. Had it appeared that these gentlemen were aware of the
enormous dividends upon this stock, and how they were to be earned, we
could not thus acquit them. And here as well as anywhere, the committee
may allude to that subject. Congress had chartered the Union Pacific
road, given to it a liberal grant of lands, and promised a liberal loan
of Government bonds, to be delivered as fast as sections of the road
were completed. As these alone might not be sufficient to complete the
road, Congress authorized the company to issue their own bonds for the
deficit, and secured them by a mortgage upon the road, which should be a
lien prior to that of the Government. Congress never intended that the
owners of the road should execute a mortgage on the road prior to that
of the Government, to raise money to put into their own pockets, but
only to build the road.
The men who controlled the Union Pacific seem to have adopted as the
basis of their action the right to encumber the road by a mortgage prior
to that of the Government to the full extent, whether the money was
needed for the construction of the road or not.
It was clear enough they could not do this directly and in terms, and
therefore they resorted to the device of contracting with themselves to
build the road, and fix a price high enough to require the issue of
bonds to the full extent, and then divide the bonds or the proceeds of
them under the name of profits on the contract. All those acting in the
matter seem to have been fully aware of this, and that this was to be
the effect of the transaction. The sudden rise of value of Credit
Mobilier stock was the result of the adoption of this scheme. Any undue
and unreasonable profits thus made by themselves were as much a fraud
upon the Government as if they had sold their bonds and divided the
money without going through the form of denominating them profits on
building the road.
Now had these facts been known to these gentlemen, and had they
understood they were to share in the proceeds of the scheme, they would
have deserved the severest censure.
Had they known only that the profits were to be paid in stock and bonds
of the Union Pacific Company, and so make them interested in it, we
cannot agree to the doctrine, which has been urged before us and
elsewhere, that it was perfectly legitimate for members of Congress to
invest in a corporation deriving all its rights from and subject at all
times to the action of Congress.
In such case the rules of the House, as well as the rules of decency,
would require such member to abstain from voting on any question
affecting his interest. But, after accepting the position of a member of
Congress, we do not think he has the right to disqualify himself from
acting upon subjects likely to come before Congress without some higher
and more urgent motive than merely to make a profitable investment. But
it is not so much to be feared that in such case an interested member
would vote as that he would exercise his influence by personal appeal to
his fellow-members, and by other modes, which often is far more potent
than a single silent vote.
We do not think any member ought to feel so confident of his own
strength as to allow himself to be brought into this temptation. We
think Mr. Ames judged shrewdly in saying that a man is much more likely
to be watchful of his own interests than those of other people. But
there is a broader view still which we think ought to be taken. This
country is fast becoming filled with gigantic corporations, wielding and
controlling immense aggregations of money, and thereby commanding great
influence and power. It is notorious in many State legislatures that
these influences are often controlling, so that in effect they become
the ruling power of the State. Within a few years Congress has, to some
extent, been brought within similar influences, and the knowledge of the
public on that subject has brought great discredit upon the body, far
more, we believe, than there were facts to justify.
But such is the tendency of the time, and the belief is far too general
that all men can be ruled with money, and that the use of such means to
carry public measures is legitimate and proper. No member of Congress
ought to place himself in circumstances of suspicion, so that any
discredit of the body shall arise on his account. It is of the highest
importance that the national legislature should be free of all taint of
corruption, and it is of almost equal necessity that the people should
feel confident that it is so.
In a free government like ours, we cannot expect the people will long
respect the laws, if they lose respect for the law-makers.
For these reasons we think it behooves every man in Congress or in any
public position to hold himself aloof, as far as possible, from all such
influences, that he may not only be enabled to look at every public
question with an eye only to the public good, but that his conduct and
motives be not suspected or questioned. The only criticism the committee
feel compelled to make on the action of these members in taking this
stock is that they were not sufficiently careful in ascertaining what
they were getting, and that in their judgment the assurance of a good
investment was all the assurance they needed. We commend to them, and to
all men, the letter of the venerable Senator Bayard, in response to an
offer of some of this stock, found on page 74 of the testimony.
The committee find nothing in the conduct or motives of either of these
members in taking this stock, that calls for any recommendation by the
committee of the House.
MR. JAMES BROOKS, OF NEW YORK.
The case of Mr. Brooks stands upon a different state of facts from any
of those already given. The committee find from the evidence as follows:
Mr. Brooks had been a warm advocate of a Pacific Railroad, both in
Congress and in the public press. After persons interested in the Union
Pacific road had obtained control of the Credit Mobilier charter and
organized under it for the purpose of making it a construction company
to build the road, Dr. Durant, who was then the leading man in the
enterprise, made great efforts to get the stock of the Credit Mobilier
taken. Mr. Brooks was a friend of Dr. Durant, and he made some efforts
to aid Dr. Durant in getting subscriptions for the stock, introduced the
matter to some capitalists of New York, but his efforts were not crowned
with success.
During this period Mr. Brooks had talked with Dr. Durant about taking
some of the stock for himself, and had spoken of taking fifteen or
twenty thousand dollars of it, but no definite contract was made between
them, and Mr. Brooks was under no legal obligation to take the stock, or
Durant to give it to him. In October, 1867, Mr. Brooks was appointed by
the President one of the Government directors of the Union Pacific road.
In December, 1867, after the stock of the Credit Mobilier was
understood, by those familiar with the affairs between the Union Pacific
and the Credit Mobilier, to be worth very much more than par, Mr. Brooks
applied to Dr. Durant, and claimed that he should have two hundred
shares of Credit Mobilier stock. It does not appear that Mr. Brooks
claimed he had any legal contract for stock that he could enforce, or
that Durant considered himself in any way legally bound to let him have
any, but still, on account of what had been said, and the efforts of Mr.
Brooks to aid him, he considered himself under obligations to satisfy
Mr. Brooks in the matter.
The stock had been so far taken up, and was then in such demand, that
Durant could not well comply with Brooks’s demand for two hundred
shares. After considerable negotiation, it was finally adjusted between
them by Durant’s agreeing to let Brooks have one hundred shares of
Credit Mobilier stock, and giving him with it $5,000 of Union Pacific
bonds, and $20,000 of Union Pacific stock. Dr. Durant testifies that he
then considered Credit Mobilier stock worth double the par value, and
that the bonds and stock he was to give Mr. Brooks worth about $9,000,
so that he saved about $1,000 by not giving Brooks the additional
hundred shares he claimed. After the negotiation had been concluded
between Mr. Brooks and Dr. Durant, Mr. Brooks said that as he was a
Government director of the Union Pacific road, and as the law provided
such directors should not be stockholders in that company, he would not
hold this stock, and directed Dr. Durant to transfer it to Charles H.
Neilson, his son-in-law. The whole negotiation with Durant was conducted
by Mr. Brooks himself, and Neilson had nothing to do with the
transaction, except to receive the transfer. The $10,000 to pay for the
one hundred shares was paid by Mr. Brooks, and he received the $5,000 of
Pacific bonds which came with the stock.
The certificate of transfer of the hundred shares from Durant to Neilson
is dated December 26, 1867. On the 3d of January, 1868, there was a
dividend of 80 per cent. in Union Pacific bonds paid on the Credit
Mobilier stock. The bonds were received by Neilson, but passed over at
once to Mr. Brooks. It is claimed, both by Mr. Brooks and Neilson, that
the $10,000 paid by Mr. Brooks for the stock was a loan of that sum by
him to Neilson, and, that the bonds he received from Durant, and those
received for the dividend, were delivered and held by him as collateral
security for the loan.
No note or obligation was given for the money by Neilson, nor, so far as
we can learn from either Brooks or Neilson, was any account or
memorandum of the transaction kept by either of them. At the time of the
arrangement or settlement above spoken of between Brooks and Durant,
there was nothing said about Mr. Brooks being entitled to have 50 per
cent. more stock by virtue of his ownership of the hundred shares.
Neither Brooks nor Durant thought of any such thing.
Some time after the transfer of the shares to Neilson, Mr. Brooks called
on Sidney Dillon, then the president of the Credit Mobilier, and claimed
he or Neilson was entitled to fifty additional shares of the stock, by
virtue of the purchase of the one hundred shares of Durant.
This was claimed by Mr. Brooks as his right by virtue of the 50 per
cent. increase of the stock hereinbefore described. Mr. Dillon said he
did not know how that was, but he would consult the leading
stockholders, and be governed by them. Mr. Dillon, in order to justify
himself in the transaction, got up a paper authorizing the issue of
fifty shares of the stock to Mr. Brooks, and procured it to be signed by
most of the principal shareholders. After this had been done, an entry
of fifty shares was made on the stock-ledger to some person other than
Neilson. The name in two places on the book has been erased, and the
name of Neilson inserted. The committee are satisfied that the stock was
first entered on the books in Mr. Brooks’s name.
Mr. Neilson soon after called for the certificate for the fifty shares,
and on the 29th of February, 1868, the certificate was issued to him,
and the entry on the stock-book was changed to Neilson.
Neilson procured Mr. Dillon to advance the money to pay for the stock,
and at the same time delivered to Dillon $4,000 Union Pacific bonds, and
fifty shares of Union Pacific stock as collateral security. These bonds
and stock were a portion of dividends received at the time, as he was
allowed to receive the same per centage of dividends on these fifty
shares that had previously been paid on the hundred. This matter has
never been adjusted between Neilson and Dillon. Brooks and Neilson both
testify they never paid Dillon. Dillon thinks he has received his pay,
as he has not now the collaterals in his possession. If he has been paid
it is probable that it was from the collaterals in some form. The
subject has never been named between Dillon and Neilson since Dillon
advanced the money, and no one connected with the transaction seems able
to give any further light upon it. The whole business by which these
fifty shares were procured was done by Mr. Brooks. Neilson knew nothing
of any right to have them, and only went for the certificate when told
to do so by Mr. Brooks.
The committee find that no such right to fifty shares additional stock
passed by the transfer of the hundred. And from Mr. Brooks’s familiarity
with the affairs of the company, the committee believe he must have
known his claim to them was unfounded. The question naturally arises,
How was he able to procure them? The stock at this time by the
stockholders was considered worth three or four times its par value.
Neilson sustained no relations to any of these people that commanded any
favor, and if he could have used any influence he did not attempt it; if
he had this right he was unaware of it till told by Mr. Brooks, and left
the whole matter in his hands. It is clear that the shares were procured
by the sole efforts of Mr. Brooks, and, as the stockholders who
consented to it supposed, for the benefit of Mr. Brooks. What power had
Mr. Brooks to enforce an unfounded claim, to have for $5,000, stock
worth $15,000 or $20,000? Mr. McComb swears that he heard conversation
between Mr. Brooks and Mr. John B. Alley, a large stockholder, and one
of the executive committee, in which Mr. Brooks urged that he should
have the additional fifty shares, because he was or would procure
himself to be made a Government director, and also that, being a member
of Congress, he “would take care of the democratic side of the House.”
Mr. Brooks and Mr. Alley both deny having had any such conversation, or
that Mr. Brooks ever made such a statement to Mr. Alley. If, therefore,
this matter rested wholly upon the testimony of Mr. McComb, the
committee would not feel justified in finding that Mr. Brooks procured
the stock by such use of his official position; but all the
circumstances seem to point exactly in that direction, and we can find
no other satisfactory solution of the question above propounded.
Whatever claim Mr. Brooks had to stock, either legal or moral, had been
adjusted and satisfied by Dr. Durant. Whether he was getting this stock
for himself or to give to his son-in-law, we believe, from the
circumstances attending the whole transaction, that he obtained it
knowing that it was yielded to its official position and influence, and
with the intent to secure his favor and influence in such positions. Mr.
Brooks claims that he has had no interest in this stock whatever; that
the benefit and advantage of his right to have it he gave to Mr.
Neilson, his son-in-law, and that he has had all the dividends upon it.
The committee are unable to find this to be the case, for in their
judgment all the facts and circumstances show Mr. Brooks to be the real
and substantial owner, and that Neilson’s ownership is merely nominal
and colorable.
In June, 1868, there was a cash dividend of $9,000 upon this one hundred
and fifty shares of stock. Neilson received it, of course, as the stock
was in his name; but on the same day it was paid over to Mr. Brooks, as
Neilson says, to pay so much of the $10,000 advanced by Mr. Brooks to
pay for the stock. This, then, repaid all but $1,000 of the loan; but
Mr. Brooks continued to hold $16,000 of Union Pacific bonds, which
Neilson says he gave him as collateral security, and to draw the
interest upon all but $5,000. The interest upon the others, Neilson
says, he was permitted to draw and retain, but at one time in his
testimony he spoke of the amount he was allowed as being Christmas and
New Year’s presents. Neilson says that during the last summer he
borrowed $14,000 of Mr. Brooks, and he now owes Mr. Brooks nearly as
much as the collaterals; but, according to his testimony, Mr. Brooks for
four years held $16,000 in bonds as security for $1,000, and received
the interest on $11,000 of the collaterals. No accounts appear to have
been kept between Mr. Brooks and Neilson, and doubtless what sums he has
received from Mr. Brooks, out of the dividends, were intended as
presents rather than as deliveries of money belonging to him.
Mr. Brooks’s efforts procured the stock; his money paid for it; all the
cash dividends he has received; and he holds all the bonds, except those
Dillon received, which seem to have been applied toward paying for the
fifty shares. Without further comment on the evidence, the committee
find that the one hundred and fifty shares of stock appearing on the
books of the Credit Mobilier in the name of Neilson were really the
stock of Mr. Brooks, and subject to his control, and that it was so
understood by both the parties. Mr. Brooks had taken such an interest in
the Credit Mobilier Company, and was so connected with Dr. Durant, that
he must be regarded as having full knowledge of the relations between
that company and the railroad company, and of the contracts between
them. He must have known the cause of the sudden increase in value of
the Credit Mobilier stock, and how the large expected profits were to be
made. We have already expressed our views of the propriety of a member
of Congress becoming the owner of stock, possessing this knowledge.
But Mr. Brooks was not only a member of Congress, but he was a
Government director of the Union Pacific Company. As such it was his
duty to guard and watch over the interests of the Government in the road
and to see that they were protected and preserved. To insure such
faithfulness on the part of Government directors, Congress wisely
provided that they should not be stockholders in the road. Mr. Brooks
readily saw that, though becoming a stockholder in the Credit Mobilier
was not forbidden by the letter of the law, yet it was a violation of
its spirit and essence, and therefore had the stock placed in the name
of his son-in-law. The transfer of the Oakes Ames contract to the
trustees and the building of the road under that contract, from which
the enormous dividends were derived, were all during Mr. Brooks’s
official life as a Government director, must have been within his
knowledge, and yet passed without the slightest opposition from him. The
committee believed this could not have been done without an entire
disregard of his official obligation and duty, and that while appointed
to guard the public interests in the road he joined himself with the
promoters of a scheme whereby the Government was to be defrauded, and
shared in the spoil.
In the conclusions of fact upon the evidence, the committee are entirely
agreed.
In considering what action we ought to recommend to the House upon these
facts, the committee encounter a question which has been much debated:
Has this House power and jurisdiction to inquire concerning offenses
committed by its members prior to their election, and to punish them by
censure or expulsion? The committee are unanimous upon the right of
jurisdiction of this House over the cases of Mr. Ames and Mr. Brooks,
upon the facts found in regard to them. Upon the question of
jurisdiction the committee present the following views:
The Constitution, in the fifth section of the first article, defines the
power of either House as follows:
“Each House may determine the rules of its proceedings, punish its
members for disorderly behavior, and with the concurrence of two-thirds
expel a member.”
It will be observed that there is no qualification of the power, but
there is an important qualification of the manner of its exercise—it
must be done “with the concurrence of two-thirds.”
The close analogy between this power and the power of impeachment is
deserving of consideration.
The great purpose of the power of impeachment is to remove an unfit and
unworthy incumbent from office, and though a judgment of impeachment may
to some extent operate as punishment, that is not its principal object.
Members of Congress are not subject to be impeached, but may be
expelled, and the principal purpose of expulsion is not as punishment,
but to remove a member whose character and conduct show that he is an
unfit man to participate in the deliberations and decisions of the body,
and whose presence in it tends to bring the body into contempt and
disgrace.
In both cases it is a power of purgation and purification to be
exercised for the public safety, and, in the case of expulsion, for the
protection and character of the House. The Constitution defines the
causes of impeachment, to wit, “treason, bribery, or other high crimes
and misdemeanors.” The office of the power of expulsion is so much the
same as that of the power to impeach that we think it may be safely
assumed that whatever would be a good cause of impeachment would also be
a good cause of expulsion.
It has never been contended that the power to impeach for any of the
causes enumerated was intended to be restricted to those which might
occur after appointment to a civil office, so that a civil officer who
had secretly committed such offense before his appointment should not be
subject upon detection and exposure to be convicted and removed from
office. Every consideration of justice and sound policy would seem to
require that the public interests be secured, and those chosen to be
their guardians be free from the pollution of high crimes, no matter at
what time that pollution had attached.
If this be so in regard to other civil officers, under institutions
which rest upon the intelligence and virtue of the people, can it well
be claimed that the law-making Representative may be vile and criminal
with impunity, provided the evidences of his corruption are found to
antedate his election?
In the report made to the Senate by John Quincy Adams in December, 1807,
upon the case of John Smith, of Ohio, the following language is used:
“The power of expelling a member for misconduct results, on the
principles of common sense, from the interests of the nation that the
high trust of legislation shall be invested in pure hands. When the
trust is elective, it is not to be presumed that the constituent body
will commit the deposit to the keeping of worthless characters. But when
a man whom his fellow-citizens have honored with their confidence on a
pledge of a spotless reputation, has degraded himself by the commission
of infamous crimes, which become suddenly and unexpectedly revealed to
the world, defective indeed would be that institution which should be
impotent to discard from its bosom the contagion of such a member; which
should have no remedy of amputation to apply until the poison had
reached the heart.”
The case of Smith was that of a Senator, who, after his election, but
not during a session of the Senate, had been involved in the treasonable
conspiracy of Aaron Burr. Yet the reasoning is general, and was to
antagonize some positions which had been taken in the case of Marshall,
a Senator from Kentucky; the Senate in that case having, among other
reasons, declined to take jurisdiction of the charge for the reason that
the alleged offence had been committed prior to the Senator’s election,
and was matter cognizable by the criminal courts of Kentucky. None of
the commentators upon the Constitution or upon parliamentary law assign
any such limitation as to the time of the commission of the offense, or
the nature of it, which shall control and limit the power of expulsion.
On the contrary they all assert that the power in its very nature is a
discretionary one, to be exercised of course with grave circumspection
at all times, and only for good cause. Story, Kent, and Sergeant, all
seem to accept and rely upon the exposition of Mr. Adams in the Smith
case as sound. May, in his Parliamentary Practice, page 59, enumerates
the causes for expulsion from Parliament, but he nowhere intimates that
the offense must have been committed subsequent to the election.
When it is remembered that the framers of our Constitution were familiar
with the parliamentary law of England, and must have had in mind the
then recent contest over Wilkes’s case, it is impossible to conclude
that they meant to limit the discretion of the Houses as to the causes
of expulsion. It is a received principle of construction that the
Constitution is to be interpreted according to the known rules of law at
the time of its adoption, and therefore, when we find them dealing with
a recognized subject of legislative authority, and while studiously
qualifying and restricting the manner of its exercise, assigning no
limitations to the subject-matter itself, they must be assumed to have
intended to leave that to be determined according to established
principles, as a high prerogative power to be exercised according to the
sound discretion of the body. It was not to be apprehended that
two-thirds of the Representatives of the people would ever exercise this
power in any capricious or arbitrary manner, or trifle with or trample
upon constitutional rights. At the same time it could not be foreseen
what necessities for self-preservation or self-purification might arise
in the legislative body. Therefore it was that they did not, and would
not, undertake to limit or define the boundaries of those necessities.
The doctrine that the jurisdiction of this House over its members is
exclusively confined to matters arising subsequent to their election,
and that the body is bound to retain the vilest criminal as a member if
his criminal secret was kept until his election was secured, has been
supposed by many to have been established and declared in the famous
case of John Wilkes before alluded to. A short statement of that case
will show how fallacious is that supposition. Wilkes had been elected a
member of Parliament for Middlesex, and in 1764 was expelled for having
published a libel on the ministry. He was again elected and again
expelled for a similar offense on the 3d of February, 1769. Being again
elected on the 17th of February, 1769, the commons passed the following
resolution: “That John Wilkes, Esq., having been in this session of
Parliament expelled this house was and is incapable of being elected a
member to serve in this present Parliament.” Wilkes was again elected,
but the House of Commons declared the seat vacant and ordered a new
election. At this election Wilkes was again elected by 1,143 votes,
against 296 for his competitor, Luttrell.
On the 15th of April, 1769, the house decided that by the previous
action Wilkes had become ineligible, and that the votes given for him
were void and could not be counted, and gave the seat to Luttrell.
Subsequently, in 1783, the House of Commons declared the resolution of
February 17, 1769, which had asserted the incapacity of an expelled
member to be re-elected to the same Parliament, to be subversive of the
rights of the electors, and expunged it from the journal. It will be
seen from this concise statement of Wilkes’s case that the question was
not raised as to the power of the house to expel a member for offenses
committed prior to his election; the point decided, and afterward most
properly expunged, was that expulsion _per se_ rendered the expelled
member legally ineligible, and that votes cast for him could not be
counted. Wilkes’s offense was of purely a political character, not
involving moral turpitude; he had attacked the ministry in the press,
and the proceedings against him in Parliament were then claimed to be a
partisan political persecution, subversive of the rights of the people
and of the liberty of the press. These proceedings in Wilkes’s case took
place during the appearance of the famous Junius letters, and several of
them are devoted to the discussion of them. The doctrine that expulsion
creates ineligibility was attacked and exposed by him with great force.
But he concedes that if the cause of expulsion be one that renders a man
unfit and unworthy to be a member, he may be expelled for that cause as
often as he shall be elected.
The case of Matteson, in the House of Representatives, has also often
been quoted as a precedent for this limitation of jurisdiction. In the
proceedings and debates of the House upon that case it will be seen that
this was one among many grounds taken in the debate; but as the whole
subject was ended by being laid on the table, it is quite impossible to
say what was decided by the House. It appeared, however, in that case
that the charge against Matteson had become public, and his letter upon
which the whole charge rested had been published and circulated through
his district during the canvass preceding his election. This fact, we
judge, had a most important influence in determining the action of the
House in his case.
The committee have no occasion in this report to discuss the question as
to the power or duty of the House in a case where a constituency, with a
full knowledge of the objectionable character of a man, have selected
him to be their Representative. It is hardly a case to be supposed that
any constituency, with a full knowledge that a man had been guilty of an
offense involving moral turpitude, would elect him. The majority of the
committee are not prepared to concede such a man could be forced upon
the House, and would not consider the expulsion of such a man any
violation of the rights of the electors, for while the electors have
rights that should be respected, the House as a body has rights also
that should be protected and preserved. But that in such case the
judgment of the constituency would be entitled to the greatest
consideration, and that this should form an important element in its
determination, is readily admitted.
It is universally conceded, as we believe, that the House has ample
jurisdiction to punish or expel a member for an offense committed during
his term as a member, though committed during a vacation of Congress and
in no way connected with his duties as a member. Upon what principle is
it that such a jurisdiction can be maintained? It must be upon one or
both of the following: that the offense shows him to be an unworthy and
improper man to be a member, or that his conduct brings odium and
reproach upon the body. But suppose the offense has been committed prior
to his election, but comes to light afterward, is the effect upon his
own character, or the reproach and disgrace upon the body, if they allow
him to remain a member, any the less? We can see no difference in
principle in the two cases, and to attempt any would be to create a
purely technical and arbitrary distinction, having no just foundation.
In our judgment, the time is not at all material, except it be coupled
with the further fact that he was re-elected with a knowledge on the
part of his constituents of what he had been guilty, and in such event
we have given our views of the effect.
It seems to us absurd to say that an election has given a man political
absolution for an offense which was unknown to his constituents. If it
be urged again, as it has sometimes been, that this view of the power of
the House, and the true ground of its proper exercise, may be laid hold
of and used improperly, it may be answered that no rule, however narrow
and limited, that may be adopted can prevent it. If two-thirds of the
House shall see fit to expel a man because they do not like his
political or religious principles, or without any reason at all, they
have the power, and there is no remedy except by appeal to the people.
Such exercise of the power would be wrongful, and violative of the
principles of the Constitution, but we see no encouragement of such
wrong in the views we hold.
It is the duty of each House to exercise its rightful functions upon
appropriate occasions, and to trust that those who come after them will
be no less faithful to duty, and no less jealous for the rights of free
popular representation than themselves. It will be quite time enough to
square other cases with right reason and principle when they arise.
Perhaps the best way to prevent them will be to maintain strictly public
integrity and public honor in all cases as they present themselves. Nor
do we imagine that the people of the United States will charge their
servants with invading their privileges when they confine themselves to
the preservation of a standard of official integrity which the common
instincts of humanity recognize as essential to all social order and
good government.
The foregoing are the views which we deem proper to submit upon the
general question of the jurisdiction of the House over its members. But
apart from these general views, the committee are of opinion that the
facts found in the present case amply justify the taking jurisdiction
over them, for the following reasons:
The subject-matter upon which the action of members was intended to be
influenced was of a continuous character, and was as likely to be a
subject of congressional action in future Congresses as in the Fortieth.
The influences, brought to bear on members were as likely to be
operative upon them in the future as in the present, and were so
intended. Mr. Ames and Mr. Brooks have both continued members of the
House to the present time, and so have most of the members upon whom
these influences were sought to be exerted. The committee are,
therefore, of opinion that the acts of these men may properly be treated
as offenses against the present House, and so within its jurisdiction
upon the most limited rule.
Two members of the committee, Messrs. Niblack and McCrary, prefer to
express no opinion on the general jurisdictional questions discussed in
the report, and rest their judgment wholly on the ground last stated.
In relation to Mr. Ames, he sold to several members of Congress stock of
the Credit Mobilier Company, at par, when it was worth double that
amount or more, with, the purpose and intent thereby to influence their
votes and decisions upon matters to come before Congress.
The facts found in the report as to Mr. Brooks, show that he used the
influence of his official positions as member of Congress and Government
director in the Union Pacific Railroad Company, to get fifty shires of
the stock of the Credit Mobilier Company, at par, when it was worth
three or four times that sum, knowing that it was given to him with
intent to influence his votes and decisions in Congress, and his action
as a Government director.
The sixth section of the act of February 26, 1853, 10 Stat. United
States, 171, is in the following words:
“If any person or persons shall, directly or indirectly, promise, offer,
or give, or cause or procure to be promised, offered, or given, any
money, goods, right in action, bribe, present, or reward, or any
promise, contract, undertaking, obligation, or security for the payment
or delivery of any money, goods, right in action, bribe, present, or
reward, or any other valuable thing whatever, to any member of the
Senate or House of Representatives of the United States, after his
election as such member, and either before or after he shall have
qualified and taken his seat, or to any officer of the United States, or
person holding any place of trust or profit, or discharging any official
function under or in connection with any Department of the Government of
the United States, or under the Senate or House of Representatives of
the United States, after the passage of this act, with intent to
influence his vote or decision on any question, matter, cause, or
proceeding which may then be pending, or may by law, or under the
Constitution of the United States, be brought before him in his official
capacity, or in his place of trust or profit, and shall thereof be
convicted, such person or persons so offering, promising, or giving, or
causing or procuring to be promised, offered, or given, any such money,
goods, right in action, bribe, present, or reward, or any promise,
contract, undertaking, obligation, or security for the payment or
delivery of any money, goods, right in action, bribe, present, or
reward, or other valuable thing whatever, and the member, officer, or
person who shall in anywise accept or receive the same, or any part
thereof, shall be liable to indictment as for a high crime and
misdemeanor in any of the courts of the United States having
jurisdiction for the trial of crimes and misdemeanors; and shall, upon
conviction thereof, be fined not exceeding three times the amount so
offered, promised, or given, and imprisoned in the penitentiary not
exceeding three years; and the person so convicted of so accepting or
receiving the same, or any part thereof, if an officer or person holding
any such place of trust or profit as aforesaid, shall forfeit his office
or place; and any person so convicted under this section shall forever
be disqualified to hold any office of honor, trust, or profit under the
United States.”
In the judgment of the committee, the facts reported in regard to Mr.
Ames and Mr. Brooks would have justified their conviction under the
above-recited statute and subjected them to the penalties therein
provided.
The committee need not enlarge upon the dangerous character of these
offenses. The sense of Congress is shown by the severe penalty denounced
by the statute itself. The offenses were not violations of private
rights, but were against the very life of a constitutional Government by
poisoning the fountain of legislation.
The duty devolved upon the committee has been of a most painful and
delicate character. They have performed it to the best of their ability.
They have proceeded with the greatest care and deliberation, for while
they desired to do their full duty to the House and the country, they
were most anxious not to do injustice to any man. In forming their
conclusions they have intended to be entirely cool and dispassionate,
not to allow themselves to be swerved by any popular fervor on the one
hand, or any feeling of personal favor and sympathy on the other.
The committee submit to the House and recommend the adoption of the
following resolutions.
“1. Whereas Mr. Oakes Ames, a Representative in this House from the
State of Massachusetts, has been guilty of selling to members of
Congress shares of stock in the Credit Mobilier of America, for prices
much below the true value of such stock, with intent thereby to
influence the votes and decisions of such members in matters to be
brought before Congress for action: Therefore,
_Resolved_, That Mr. Oakes Ames be, and he is hereby, expelled from his
seat as a member of this House.
2. Whereas Mr. James Brooks, a Representative in this House from the
State of New York, did procure the Credit Mobilier Company to issue and
deliver to Charles H. Neilson, for the use and benefit of said Brooks,
fifty shares of the stock of said company, at a price much below its
real value, well knowing that the same was so issued and delivered with
intent to influence the votes and decisions of said Brooks, as a member
of the House, in matters to be brought before Congress for action, and
also to influence the action of said Brooks as a Government director in
the Union Pacific Railroad Company: Therefore,
_Resolved_, That Mr. James Brooks be, and he is hereby, expelled from
his seat as a member of this House.
The House, after much discussion, modified the propositions of the
committee of investigation, and subjected Oakes Ames and James Brooks to
the “absolute condemnation of the House.” Both members died within three
months thereafter.
The session was full of investigations, but all the others failed to
develop any tangible scandals. The Democrats demanded and secured the
investigation of the New York custom-house; the United States Treasury;
the use of Seneca sandstone; the Chorpenning claim, and the Navy
Department, etc. They were, as stated, fruitless.
The “Salary Grab.”
At the same session—1871–’73, acts were passed to abolish the franking
privilege, to increase the President’s salary from $25,000 to $50,000,
and that of Senators and Representatives from $5,000 to $7,500. The last
proved quite unpopular, and was generally denounced as “The Salary
Grab,” because of the feature which made it apply to the Congressmen who
passed the bill, and of course to go backward to the beginning of the
term. This was not new, as earlier precedents were found to excuse it,
but the people were nevertheless dissatisfied, and it was made an issue
by both parties in the nomination and election of Representatives. Many
were defeated, but probably more survived the issue, and are still
enjoying public life. Yet the agitation was kept up until the obnoxious
feature of the bill and the Congressional increase of salary were
repealed, leaving it as now at the rate of $5,000 a year and mileage.
A House committee, headed by B. F. Butler, on Feb. 7th, 1873, made a
report which gave a fair idea of the expenses under given
circumstances—the increase to be preserved, but the franking privilege
and mileage to be repealed. We quote the figures:
Increase of President’s salary $25,000 00
Increase of Cabinet ministers’ salary 14,000 00
Increase of salary of judges United States Supreme Court 18,500 00
Increase of salary of Senators, Members, and Delegates 972,000 00
—————————————
Total increase $1,029,500 00
—————————————
Saving to the Government, according to the official
statement of the Postmaster-General, per annum, by the
abolition of the franking privilege $2,543,327 72
Saving to the Government by abolition of
mileage, stationery, postage, and newspaper accounts
(estimated) 200,000 00
—————————————
$2,753,327 72
1,029,500 00
—————————————
Total net saving $1,713,827 72
The House passed a bill for the abolition of mileage, but in the Senate
it was referred to the Committee on Civil Service and Retrenchment, and
not again heard from. So that the increased pay no longer obtains, the
franking privilege only to the extent of mailing actual Congressional
documents, and mileage remains.
The following curious facts relating to these questions we take from
Hon. Edward McPherson’s admirable compilation in his “Hand-Book of
Politics” for 1874.
Statement of Compensation and Mileage.
_Drawn by U. S. Senators under the various Compensation Acts._
Mr. Gorham, Secretary of the Senate, prepared, under date of January 3,
1874, a statement, in answer to a resolution of the Senate, covering
these points:
I.—_The several rates of compensation fixed by various laws, and the
cases in which the same were retroactive, and for what length of
time._
1. By the act of September 22, 1789, the compensation of Senators and
Representatives in Congress was fixed at six dollars a day, and thirty
cents a mile for traveling to and from the seat of Government. This rate
was to continue until March 4, 1795. The same act fixed the compensation
from March 4, 1795, to March 4, 1796, (at which last named date, by its
terms, it expired,) at seven dollars a day, and thirty-five cents a mile
for travel. This act was retroactive, extending back six months and
eighteen days, namely, to March 4, 1789.
2. The act of March 10, 1796, fixed the compensation at six dollars a
day, and thirty cents a mile for travel. (This act extended back over
six days only.)
3. The act of March 19, 1816, fixed the compensation at $1,500 a year,
“instead of the daily compensation,” and left the mileage unchanged.
This act was retroactive, extending back one year and fifteen days,
namely to March 4, 1815. (This act was repealed by the act of February
6, 1817, but it was expressly declared that no former act was thereby
revived.)
4. The act of January 22, 1818, fixed the compensation at eight dollars
a day, and forty cents a mile for travel. This act was retroactive,
extending back fifty-three days, namely, to the assembling of Congress,
December 1, 1817.
5. The act of August 16, 1856, fixed the compensation at $3,000 a year,
and left the mileage unchanged. This act was retroactive, extending back
one year, five months, and twelve days, namely, to March 4, 1855.
6. The act of July 28, 1866, fixed the compensation at $5,000 a year,
and twenty cents a mile for travel, (not to affect mileage accounts
already accrued.) This act was retroactive, extending back one year,
four months, and twenty-four days, namely, to March 4, 1865.
7. The act of March 3, 1873, fixed the compensation at $7,500 a year,
and actual traveling expenses; the mileage already paid for the
Forty-Second Congress to be deducted from the pay of those who had
received it. This act was retroactive, extending back two years, namely,
to March 4, 1871.
NOTE.—Stationery was allowed to Senators and Representatives without any
special limit until March 3, 1868, when the amount for stationery and
newspapers for each Senator and Member was limited to $125 a session.
This was changed by a subsequent act, taking effect July 1, 1869, to
$125 a year. The act of 1873 abolished all allowance for stationery and
newspapers.
II.—_Names of Senators who drew pay under the retroactive provisions
of the several laws, amounts drawn, and dates of same._
ACT OF 1789.—The records of my office do not furnish the exact
information desired under this head concerning the First Congress, the
compensation of which was fixed by act of September 22, 1789. It
appears, however, that the account of each Senator was made up, and that
each received the amount allowed by law. The following is a copy from
the record:
_January 19, 1790._—That there is due to the Senators of the United
States for attendance in Congress the present session, to the 31st of
March inclusive, and expenses of travel to Congress, as allowed by law,
as follows, to wit:
Messrs. Richard Bassett, $496.50; Pierce Butler, $796; Charles Carroll,
$186; Tristram Dalton, $612; Oliver Ellsworth, $546.50; Jonathan Elmer,
$414; William Few, $833.50; John Henry, $596.50; Benjamin Hawkins, $615;
William S. Johnson, $544; Samuel Johnson, $534; Rufus King, $522; John
Langdon, $618; William Maclay, $585; Robert Morris, $430.50; William
Paterson, $514.50; George Read, $195; Caleb Strong, $575.50; Philip
Schuyler, $571.50; Paine Wingate, $616.50.
ACT OF 1816.—The record contains no showing as to the amount paid to
Senators under the retroactive provision of the act of March 19, 1816.
The following, taken from the books, shows the amount of compensation
paid to each Senator for the entire Congress, exclusive of mileage:
Messrs. Eli P. Ashmun, $920; James Barbour, $2,850; William T. Barry,
$2,080; William W. Bibb, $2,070; James Brown, $2,980; George W.
Campbell, $2,950; Dudley Chace, $3,000; John Condit, $2,980; David
Daggett, $3,000; Samuel W. Dana, $2,640; Elegius Fromentin, $3,000; John
Gaillard, President, $6,000; Robert H. Goldsborough, $2,840; Christopher
Gore, $1,940; Alexander Contee Hanson, $530; Martin D. Hardin, $900;
Robert G. Harper, $1,450; Outerbridge Horsey, $3,000; Jeremiah B.
Howell, $3,000; William Hunter, $2,930; Rufus King, $2,660; Abner
Lacock, $3,000; Nathaniel Macon, $2,946; Jeremiah Mason of New
Hampshire, $2,680; Armistead T. Mason of Virginia, $2,360; Jeremiah
Morrow, $3,000; James Noble, $920; Jonathan Roberts, $3,000; Benjamin
Ruggles, $3,000; Nathan Sanford, $2,720; William Smith, $540; Montfort
Stokes, $810; Charles Tait, $3,000; Isham Talbot, $2,730; John Taylor of
South Carolina, $1,990; Waller Taylor of Indiana, $920; Thomas W.
Thompson, $2,850; Isaac Tichenor, $3,000; George M. Troup, $830; James
Turner, $2,060; Joseph B. Varnum, $3,000; William H. Wells, $2,610; John
Williams, $3,000; James J. Wilson, $3,000.
ACT OF 1818.—Under the retroactive provision of the act of January 22,
1818, the following named Senators drew the amounts for compensation and
mileage opposite their respective names:
Messrs. Eli P. Ashmun, $668; James Barbour, $520; James Burril, $762;
George W. Campbell, $1,008; John J. Crittenden, $1,007.20; David
Daggett, $690.40; Samuel W. Dana, $283.20; Mahlon Dickerson, $628.80;
John W. Eppes, $584; James Fisk, $848; Elegius Fromentin, $1,393.60;
John Gaillard, $880; Robert H. Goldsborough, $483.20; Outerbridge
Horsey, $485.60; William Hunter, $543.20; Henry Johnson, $1,273.60;
Rufus King, $627.20; Abner Lacock, $649.60; Walter Leake, $1,384;
Nathaniel Macon, $600; David L. Morril, $876; Jeremiah Morrow, $776;
James Noble, $918.40; Harrison Gray Otis, $792.80; Jonathan Roberts,
$564.80; Benjamin Ruggles, $688; Nathan Sanford, $616; William Smith,
$774.40; Montfort Stokes, $745.60; Clement Storer, $875.20; Charles
Tait, $952; Isham Talbot, $872; Waller Taylor, $1,080; Isaac Tichenor,
$784; George M. Troup, $952; —— Van Dyke, $380.80; Thomas H. Williams of
Mississippi, $1,433.60; John Williams of Tennessee, $861.60; James J.
Wilson, $568.
ACT OF 1856.—Under the retroactive provision of the act of August 16,
1856, the following named Senators drew the amounts opposite their
respective names:
Messrs. Stephen Adams, $2,243.77; Philip Allen, $2,202.79; James A.
Bayard, $2,088.03; James Bell, $1,083.93; John Bell, $2,268.36; J. P.
Benjamin, $2,210.99; Asa Biggs, $2,161.81; William Bigler, $1,594.24;
Jesse D. Bright, president _pro tempore_, $6,772.40; R. Brodhead,
$2,251.97; A. G. Brown, $2,251.97; A. P. Butler, $2,202.70; Lewis Cass,
$2,251.97; C. C. Clay, jr., $2,251.97; J. M. Clayton, $2,292.95; J.
Collamer, $2,219.18; J. J. Crittenden, $2,243.79; H. Dodge, $2,292.95;
S. A. Douglas, $2,268.36; C. Durkee, $2,235.56; J. J. Evans, $2,121.70;
W. S. Fessenden, $2,276.56; H. Fish, $2,237.28; B. Fitzpatrick,
$2,194.59; S. Foot, $2,292.94; L. F. S. Foster, $2,112.62; H. S. Geyer,
$2,276.56; J. P. Hale, $887.10; H. Hamlin, $1,989.68; J. Harlan,
$2,268.36; S. Houston, $2,292.95; R. M. T. Hunter, $2,210.99; A.
Iverson, $2,210.99; C. T. James, $2,210.99; R. W. Johnson, $632.21; G.
W. Jones, $2,235.58; J. C. Jones, $2,047.05; S. R. Mallory, $2,276.56;
J. M. Mason, $2,170; J. A. Pearce, $2,194.59; T. G. Pratt, $2,129.02; G.
E. Pugh, $2,096.21; D. S. Reid, $2,235.58; T. J. Rusk, $2,292.95; W. K.
Sebastian, $2,137.22; W. H. Seward, $2,292.95; John Slidell, $2,276.56;
C. E. Stuart, $2,292.95; C. Sumner, $2,292.95; J. B. Thompson,
$2,235.57; John R. Thomson, $2,022.46; Robert Toombs, $2,006.07; Isaac
Toucey, $2,292.65; L. Trumbull, $2,251.97; B. F. Wade, $2,202.79; J. B.
Weller, $2,251.97; H. Wilson, $2,178.20; W. Wright, $2,120.82; D. L.
Yulee, $2,194.59.
ACT OF 1866.—Under the retroactive provision of the act of July 28,
1866, the following named Senators received the amounts opposite their
respective names:
Messrs. H. B. Anthony, $2,805.56; B. Gratz Brown, $2,805.56; C. R.
Buckalew, $2,805.56; Z. Chandler, $2,805.56; D. Clark, $2,805.56; J.
Collamer, $1,366.15; J. Conness, $2,805.56; E. Cowan, $2,805.56; A. H.
Cragin, $2,805.56; J. A. J. Creswell, $2,805.56; G. Davis, $2,805.56; J.
Dixon, $2,805.56; J. R. Doolittle, $2,805.56; W. P. Fessenden,
$2,805.56; S. Foot, $2,136.76; L. F. S. Foster, President _pro tempore_,
$261.93; J. W. Grimes, $2,805.56; J. Guthrie, $2,805.56; I. Harris,
$2,805.56; J. B. Henderson, $2,805.56; T. A. Hendricks, $2,805.56; J. M.
Howard, $2,805.56; T. O. Howe, $2,805.56; R. Johnson, $2,805.56; H. S.
Lane, $2,805.56; J. H. Lane, $2,710.49; James A. McDougall, $2,805.56;
E. D. Morgan, $2,805.56; L. M. Morrill, $2,805.56; J. W. Nesmith,
$2,805.56; D. S. Norton, $2,805.56; J. W. Nye, $2,805.56; S. C. Pomeroy,
$2,805.56; A. Ramsey, $2,805.56; G. R. Riddle, $2,805.56; W. Saulsbury,
$2,805.56; J. Sherman, $2,805.56; W. M. Stewart, $2,805.56; C. Sumner,
$2,805.56; L. Trumbull, $2,805.56; P. G. Van Winkle, $2,805.56; B. Wade,
$2,805.56; W. T. Willey, $2,805.56; G. H. Williams, $2,805.56; H.
Wilson, $2,805.56; W. Wright, $2,805.56; R. Yates, $2,805.56; J. Harlan,
$350; L. P. Poland, $1,361; John P. Stockton, $2,131.20; S. J. Kirkwood,
$2,361.10; G. F. Edmunds, $666.66; E. G. Ross, $180 40.
ACT OF 1873.—Under the retroactive provision of the act of March 3,
1873, the following named Senators received the sums set opposite their
respective names:
Messrs. A. Ames, $2,840; J. L. Alcorn, $2,312.39; J. T. Bayard,
$4,865.60; F. P. Blair, $3,761.60; A. I. Boreman, $4,514; W. G.
Brownlow, $4,588; A. Caldwell, $2,647.60; S. Cameron, $4,856; M. H.
Carpenter, $3,887.60; E. Casserly, $970.40; Z. Chandler, $3,906.80; P.
Clayton, $2,600; C. Cole, $970.40; H. Cooper, $3,760; H. G. Davis,
$4,635.20; O. S. Ferry, $4,652; T. W. Ferry, $3,920; J. W. Flanagan,
$2,000; A. Gilbert, $3,680; George Goldthwaite, $3,924.80; M. C.
Hamilton, $2,480; Joshua Hill, $4,083.20; P. W. Hitchcock, $2,852.80; T.
O. Howe, $3,689 60, J. W. Johnston, $4,705.60; John T. Lewis, $4,804.40;
John A. Logan, $3,800; W. B. Machen, $552.98; L. M. Morrill, $4,190; J.
S. Morrill, (draft in favor of the treasurer of the State of Vermont,)
$4,386.80; T. M. Norwood, $4,169.60; J. W. Nye, $2,076.80; T. W. Osborn,
$3,440; J. W. Patterson, $4,280; S. C. Pomeroy, $3,320; John Pool,
$4,620.80; M. W. Ransom, $4,817.60; B. F. Rice, $3,200; T. J. Robertson,
$4,374.80; F. A. Sawyer, $4,294.40; George E. Spencer, $4,106; W.
Sprague, $4,508; W. M. Stewart, $1,486.40; J. P. Stockton, $4,790; T. W.
Tipton, $3,358; Lyman Trumbull, $3,980; G. Vickers, $4,880; J. R. West,
$2,468 80.
III.—_Names of Senators who covered into the Treasury amounts due them
under retroactive provisions of law, with date of such action._
There is no record in my office showing that any Senator covered into
the Treasury any money to which he was entitled by the retroactive
provisions of either of the acts of September 22, 1789, March 19, 1816,
January 22, 1818, August 16, 1856, or July 28, 1866.
The following Senators covered into the Treasury the amounts due them
under the retroactive provision of the act of March 3, 1873, namely:
1873.—May 26, H. B. Anthony, $4,497.20; June 23, W. A. Buckingham,
$4,553.60; May 21, R. E. Fenton, $4,184; June 2, F. T. Frelinghuysen,
$4,644.80; May 19, H. Hamlin, $4,136; August 14, O. P. Morton,
$3,922.40; April 9, D. D. Pratt, $4,121.60; August 25, A. Ramsey,
$3,041.40; March 28, C. Schurz, $3,761.60; May 9, John Scott, $4,733.06;
July 11, John Sherman, $4,336.40; May 2, C. Sumner, $4,445.60; May 22,
A. G. Thurman, $4,359.20; March 28, Henry Wilson, $4,448; September 6,
George G. Wright, $3,140 80.
NOTE.—Several of these Senators, as well as others who have not either
drawn or covered into the Treasury the amounts due them under the
retroactive provision of the act of 1873, expressed to me their
intention to allow the money to lapse into the Treasury by the ordinary
operation of law, which they supposed would occur July 3, 1873. After
learning that it could not be covered in, except by their order, before
July 3, 1875, some gave me written instructions to anticipate the latter
date. I am unable to furnish from any information in my office the names
of Senators who themselves paid into the Treasury salary drawn under the
act of 1873 or previous acts. I have not furnished the names of Senators
who have left increased salary undrawn, as this information was not
called for in the resolution.
IV.—_A Comparative Statement._
Total compensation and allowance of Senators, under act of July 28,
1866, from March 4, 1871, to March 3, 1872: Compensation, $370,000;
mileage, $37,041.20; stationery and newspapers, $9,250; total,
$416,291.20; average per Senator, $5,625.55–²³⁄₃₇.
Under same act, from March 4, 1872, to March 3, 1873, during which year
members of the Senate received mileage for attending the special session
of the Senate, held in May, 1872, the following amounts were paid:
Compensation, $370,000; mileage, $59,002.80; newspapers and stationery,
$9,250; total, $438,252.80; average per Senator, $5,922 23–¹⁹⁄₃₇.
Total compensation and allowance of Senators under act of March 3, 1873:
Compensation, $555,000; traveling expenses, based upon the certificates
of forty-six Senators, (twenty-eight having presented none,) amounting
to $4,607 95, giving an average of $100 17×74=$7,412.58; total,
$562,412.58; average per Senator, $7,600 17.
In connection with this were statements, prepared by the Secretary of
the Senate, and laid before that body by Senator CAMERON, January 9,
1874, of the amounts of mileage paid in dollars (cents omitted) at
particular dates under the acts of 1856 and 1866, are given. The act of
1856 fixed mileage at forty cents per mile each way, and the act of 1866
fixed it at twenty cents per mile each way.
Returning Boards.
At the second session of the 42d Congress that body, and the President
as well, were compelled to consider a new question in connection with
politics—an actual conflict of State Governments. There had always been,
in well regulated State governments, returning boards, but with a view
the better to guard the newly enfranchised citizens of the South from
intimidation, the Louisiana Republicans, under very bold and radical
leaders, had greatly strengthened the powers of her returning boards. It
could canvass the votes, reject the returns in part or as a whole of
parishes where force or fraud had been used, and could declare results
after such revision. The Governor of Louisiana had made several removals
and appointments of State officers for the purpose mainly of making a
friendly majority in the returning board, and this led to the
appointment of two bodies, both claiming to be the legitimate returning
board. There soon followed two State governments and legislatures, the
Democratic headed by Governor John McEnery, the Republican by Governor
Wm. Pitt Kellogg, later in the U. S. Senate. Kellogg brought suit
against the Democratic officers before Judge Durell, of the Federal
District Court, and obtained an order that the U. S. Marshal (S. B.
Packard, afterwards Governor), should seize the State House and prevent
the meetings of the McEnery legislature. Then both governments were
hastily inaugurated, and claimed the recognition of Congress. The Senate
Committee reported that Judge Durell’s decision was not warranted, but
the report refused a decisive recognition of either government. A bill
was introduced declaring the election of Nov. 4, 1872, on which this
condition of affairs was based, null and void, and providing for a new
election, but this bill was defeated by a close vote. Later on,
Louisiana claimed a large share in National politics. Somewhat similar
troubles occurred in Alabama, Arkansas, and Texas, but they were settled
with far greater ease than those of Louisiana. The correspondence in all
of these cases was too voluminous to reproduce here, and we shall
dismiss the subject until the period of actual hostilities were reached
in Louisiana.
The Grangers.
So early as 1867 a secret society had been formed first in Washington,
known as the Patrons of Husbandry, and it soon succeeded in forming
subordinate lodges or granges in Illinois, Wisconsin, and other States.
It was declared not to be political; that its object was co-operation
among farmers in purchasing supplies from first hands, so as to do away
with middle-men, but, like many other secret organizations, it was soon
perverted to political purposes, and for a time greatly disturbed the
political parties of the Western States. This was especially true of the
years 1873–74, when the Grangers announced a contemplated war on
railroad corporations, and succeeded in carrying the legislatures of
Illinois and Wisconsin, and inducing them subsequently to pass acts, the
validity of which the Supreme Courts of the State, under a temporary
popular pressure which was apparently irresistible, could not sustain.
The effect of these laws was to almost bankrupt the Illinois Central,
theretofore wealthy, to cripple all railroads, to interfere largely with
foreign exports, and to react against the interests of the people of the
States passing them, that the demand for repeal was soon very much
greater than the original demand for passage. As these laws, though
repealed, are still often referred to in the discussion of political and
corporate questions, we give the text of one of them:
Illinois Railroad Act of 1873.
An Act to prevent extortion and unjust discrimination in the rates
charged for the transportation of passengers and freights on
railroads in this State, and to punish the same, and prescribe a
mode of procedure and rules of evidence in relation thereto, and to
repeal an act entitled “An act to prevent unjust discrimination and
extortions in the rates to be charged by the different railroads in
this State for the transportation of freights on said roads,”
approved April 7, A. D. 1871.
SECTION 1. _Be it enacted by the People of the State of Illinois,
represented in the General Assembly_, If any railroad corporation,
organized or doing business in this State under any act of
incorporation, or general law of this State now in force, or which may
hereafter be enacted, or any railroad corporation organized or which may
hereafter be organized under the laws of any other State, and doing
business in this State, shall charge, collect, demand, or receive more
than a fair and reasonable rate of toll or compensation for the
transportation of passengers or freight of any description, or for the
use and transportation of any railroad car upon its track, or any of the
branches thereof, or upon any railroad within this State which it has
the right, license, or permission to use, operate, or control, the same
shall be deemed guilty of extortion, and upon conviction thereof shall
be dealt with as hereinafter provided.
SEC. 2. If any such railroad corporation aforesaid shall make any unjust
discrimination in its rates or charges of toll, or compensation, for the
transportation of passengers or freight of any description, or for the
use and transportation of any railroad car upon its said road, or upon
any of the branches thereof, or upon railroads connected therewith,
which it has the right, license, or permission to operate, control, or
use, within this State, the same shall be deemed guilty of having
violated the provisions of this act, and upon conviction thereof shall
be dealt with as hereinafter provided.
SEC. 3. If any such railroad corporation shall charge, collect, or
receive for the transportation of any passenger, or freight of any
description, upon its railroad, for any distance within this State, the
same or a greater amount of toll or compensation than is at the same
time charged, collected, or received for the transportation, in the same
direction, of any passenger, or like quantity of freight of the same
class, over a greater distance of the same railroad; or if it shall
charge, collect, or receive at any point upon this railroad a higher
rate of toll or compensation for receiving, handling, or delivering
freight of the same class and quantity than it shall at the same time
charge, collect, or receive at any other point upon the same railroad;
or if it shall charge, collect or receive for the transportation of any
passenger, or freight of any description, over its railroad a greater
amount as toll or compensation than shall at the same time be charged,
collected, or received by it for the transportation of any passenger or
like quantity of freight of the same class, being transported in the
same direction over any portion of the same railroad of equal distance;
or if it shall charge, collect, or receive from any person or persons a
higher or greater amount of toll or compensation than it shall at the
same time charge, collect, or receive from any other person or persons
for receiving, handling, or delivering freight of the same class and
like quantity at the same point upon its railroad; or if it shall
charge, collect, or receive from any person or persons for the
transportation of any freight upon its railroad a higher or greater rate
of toll or compensation than it shall at the same time charge, collect,
or receive from any other person or persons for the transportation of
the like quantity of freight of the same class being transported from
the same direction over equal distances of the same railroad; or if it
shall charge, collect, or receive from any person or persons for the use
and transportation of any railroad car or cars upon its railroad for any
distance the same or a greater amount of toll or compensation than is at
the same time charged, collected, or received from any person or persons
for the use and transportation of any railroad car of the same class or
number, for a like purpose, being transported in the same direction over
a greater distance of the same railroad; or if it shall charge, collect,
or receive from any person or persons for the use and transportation of
any railroad car or cars upon its railroad a higher or greater rate of
toll or compensation than it shall at the same time charge, collect, or
receive from any other person or persons for the use and transportation
of any railroad car or cars of the same class or number, for a like
purpose, being transported from the same point in the same direction
over an equal distance of the same railroad; all such discriminating
rates, charges, collections, or receipts, whether made directly or by
means of any rebate, drawback, or other shift or evasion, shall be
deemed and taken against such railroad corporation as _prima facie_
evidence of the unjust discriminations prohibited by the provisions of
this act, and it shall not be deemed a sufficient excuse or
justification of such discriminations on the part of such railroad
corporation, that the railway station or point at which it shall charge,
collect, or receive the same or less rates of toll or compensation for
the transportation of such passenger or freight, or for the use and
transportation of such railroad car the greater distance than for the
shorter distance, is a railway station or point at which there exists
competition with any other railroad or means of transportation. This
section shall not be construed so as to exclude other evidence tending
to show any unjust discrimination in freight and passenger rates. The
provisions of this section shall extend and apply to any railroad, the
branches thereof, and any road or roads which any railroad corporation
has the right, license, or permission to use, operate, or control,
wholly or in part, within the State: _Provided, however_, That nothing
herein contained shall be so construed as to prevent railroad
corporations from issuing commutation, excursion, or thousand mile
tickets, as the same are now issued by such corporations.
SEC. 4. Any such railroad corporation guilty of extortion, or of making
any unjust discrimination as to passenger or freight rates, or the rates
for the use and transportation of railroad cars, or in receiving,
handling, or delivering freights shall, upon conviction thereof, be
fined in any sum not less than one thousand dollars ($1,000) nor more
than five thousand dollars ($5,000) for the first offense; and for the
second offense not less than five thousand dollars ($5,000) nor more
than ten thousand dollars ($10,000;) and for the third offense not less
than ten thousand dollars ($10,000) nor more than twenty thousand
dollars ($20,000;) and for every subsequent offense and conviction
thereof shall be liable to a fine of twenty-five thousand dollars
($25,000:) _Provided_, That in all cases under this act either party
shall have the right of trial by jury.
SEC. 5. The fines hereinbefore provided for may be recovered in an
action of debt in the name of the people of the State of Illinois, and
there may be several counts joined in the same declaration as to
extortion and unjust discrimination, and as to passenger and freight
rates, and rates for the use and transportation of railroad cars, and
for receiving, handling, or delivering freights. If, upon the trial of
any case instituted under this act, the jury shall find for the people,
they shall assess and return with their verdict the amount of the fine
to be imposed upon the defendant, at any sum not less than one thousand
dollars ($1,000) nor more than five thousand dollars ($5,000,) and the
court shall render judgment accordingly; and if the jury shall find for
the people, and that the defendant has been once before convicted of a
violation of the provisions of this act, they shall return such finding
with their verdict, and shall assess and return with their verdict the
amount of the fine to be imposed upon the defendant, at any sum not less
than five thousand dollars ($5,000) nor more than ten thousand dollars
($10,000,) and the court shall render judgment accordingly; and if the
jury shall find for the people, and that the defendant has been twice
before convicted of a violation of the provisions of this act, with
respect to extortion or unjust discrimination, they shall return such
finding with their verdict, and shall assess and return with their
verdict the amount of the fine to be imposed upon the defendant, at any
sum not less than ten thousand dollars ($10,000) nor more than twenty
thousand dollars ($20,000;) and in like manner for every subsequent
offense and conviction such defendant shall be liable to a fine of
twenty-five thousand dollars ($25,000.) _Provided_, That in all cases
under the provisions of this act a preponderance of evidence in favor of
the people shall be sufficient to authorize a verdict and judgment for
the people.
SEC. 6. If any such railroad corporation shall, in violation of any of
the provisions of this act, ask, demand, charge, or receive of any
person or corporation, any extortionate charge or charges for the
transportation of any passengers, goods, merchandise, or property, or
for receiving, handling, or delivering freights, or shall make any
unjust discrimination against any person or corporation in its charges
therefor, the person or corporation so offended against may for each
offense recover of such railroad corporation, in any form of action,
three times the amount of the damages sustained by the party aggrieved,
together with cost of suit and a reasonable attorney’s fee, to be fixed
by the court where the same is heard, on appeal or otherwise, and taxed
as a part of the costs of the case.
SEC. 7. It shall be the duty of the railroad and warehouse commissioners
to personally investigate and ascertain whether the provisions of this
act are violated by any railroad corporation in this State, and to visit
the various stations upon the line of each railroad for that purpose, as
often as practicable; and whenever the facts in any manner ascertained
by said commissioners shall in their judgment warrant such prosecution,
it shall be the duty of said commissioners to immediately cause suits to
be commenced and prosecuted against any railroad corporation which may
violate the provisions of this act. Such suits and prosecutions may be
instituted in any county in the State, through or into which the line of
the railroad corporation sued for violating this act may extend. And
such railroad and warehouse commissioners are hereby authorized, when
the facts of the case presented to them shall, in their judgment,
warrant the commencement of such action, to employ counsel to assist the
Attorney-General in conducting such suit on behalf of the State. No such
suits commenced by said commissioners shall be dismissed, except said
railroad and warehouse commissioners and the Attorney-General shall
consent thereto.
SEC. 8. The railroad and warehouse commissioners are hereby directed to
make for each of the railroad corporations doing business in this State,
as soon as practicable, a schedule of reasonable maximum rates of
charges for the transportation of passengers and freight and cars on
each of said railroads; and said schedule shall, in all suits brought
against any such railroad corporations, wherein is in any way involved
the charges of any such railroad corporation for the transportation of
any passenger or freight or cars, or unjust discrimination in relation
thereto, be deemed and taken, in all courts of this State, as _prima
facie_ evidence that the rates therein fixed are reasonable maximum
rates of charges for the transportation of passengers and freights and
cars upon the railroads for which said schedules may have been
respectively prepared. Said commissioners shall, from time to time, and
as often as circumstances may require, change and revise said schedules.
When such schedules shall have been made or revised as aforesaid, it
shall be the duty of said commissioners to cause publication thereof to
be made for three successive weeks, in some public newspaper published
in the city of Springfield in this state: “_Provided_, That the
schedules thus prepared shall not be taken as _prima facie_ evidence as
herein provided until schedules shall have been prepared and published
as aforesaid for all the railroad companies now organized under the laws
of this State, and until the fifteenth day of January, A. D. 1874, or
until ten days after the meeting of the next session of this General
Assembly, provided a session of the General Assembly shall be held
previous to the fifteenth day of January aforesaid.” All such schedules,
purporting to be printed and published as aforesaid, shall be received
and held, in all such suits, as _prima facie_ the schedules of said
commissioners, without further proof than the production of the paper in
which they were published, together with the certificate of the
publisher of said paper that the schedule therein contained is a true
copy of the schedule furnished for publication by said commissioners,
and that it has been published the above specified time; and any such
paper purporting to have been published at said city, and to be a public
newspaper, shall be presumed to have been so published at the date
thereof, and to be a public newspaper.
SEC. 10. In all cases under the provisions of this act, the rules of
evidence shall be the same as in other civil actions, except as
hereinbefore otherwise provided. All fines recovered under the
provisions of this act shall be paid into the county treasury of the
county in which the suit is tried, by the person collecting the same, in
the manner now provided by law, to be used for county purposes. The
remedies hereby given shall be regarded as cumulative to the remedies
now given by law against railroad corporations, and this act shall not
be construed as repealing any statute giving such remedies. Suits
commenced under the provisions of this act shall have precedence over
all other business, except criminal business.
SEC. 11. The term “railroad corporation,” contained in this act, shall
be deemed and taken to mean all corporations, companies, or individuals
now owning or operating, or which may hereafter own or operate any
railroad, in whole or in part, in this State; and the provisions of this
act shall apply to all persons, firms, and companies, and to all
associations of persons, whether incorporated or otherwise, that shall
do business as common carriers upon any of the lines of railways in this
State (street railways excepted) the same as to railroad corporations
thereinbefore mentioned.
SEC. 12. An act entitled “An act to prevent unjust discriminations and
extortions in the rates to be charged by the different railroads in this
State for the transportation of freight on said roads,” approved April
7, A. D. 1871, is hereby repealed, but such repeal shall not affect nor
repeal any penalty incurred or right accrued under said act prior to the
time this act takes effect, nor any proceedings or prosecutions to
enforce such rights or penalties.
Approved May 2, 1873.
S. M. CULLOM,
_Speaker House of Representatives_.
JOHN EARLY,
_President of the Senate_.
JOHN L. BEVERIDGE,
_Governor_.
The same spirit, if not the same organization, led to many petitions to
Congress for the regulation of inter-state commerce and freight rates,
and to some able reports on the subject. Those which have commanded most
attention were by Senator Windom of Minnesota and Representative Reagan
of Texas, the latter being the author of a bill which commanded much
consideration from Congress in the sessions of 1878–’80, but which has
not yet secured favorable action. In lieu of such bill Senator Cameron,
of Pennsylvania, introduced a joint resolution for the appointment of a
Commission to investigate and report upon the entire question. Final
action has not yet been taken, and at this writing interest in the
subject seems to have flagged.
The disastrous political action attempted by the Grangers in Illinois
and Wisconsin, led to such general condemnation that subsequent attempts
were abandoned save in isolated cases, and as a rule the society has
passed away. The principle upon which it was based was wholly unsound,
and if strictly carried out, would destroy all home improvements and
enterprise. Parties and societies based upon a class, and directed or
perverted toward political objects, are very happily short-lived in this
Republic of ours. If they could thrive, the Republic could not long
endure.
Supplementary Civil Rights Bill.
Senator Sumner’s Supplementary Civil Rights Bill was passed by the
second session of the 43d Congress, though its great author had died the
year before—March 11th, 1874. The text of the Act is given in Book V. of
this volume, on Existing Political Laws. Its validity was sustained by
the U. S. District Courts in their instructions to grand juries. The
first conviction under the Act was in Philadelphia, in February, 1876.
Rev. Fields Cook, pastor of the Third Baptist colored church of
Alexandria, Virginia, was refused sleeping and eating accommodations at
the Bingham House, by Upton S. Newcomer, one of its clerks; and upon the
trial of the case, in the U. S. District Court, JOHN CADWALADER, Judge,
instructed the jury as follows:
The fourteenth amendment of the Constitution of the United States makes
all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the
jurisdiction thereof, citizens of the United States, and provides that
no State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the
privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any
State * * * deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal
protection of the laws. This amendment expressly gives to Congress the
power to enforce it by appropriate legislation. An act of Congress of
March 1, 1875, enacts that all persons within the jurisdiction of the
United States shall be entitled to the full and equal enjoyment of the
accommodations, advantages, facilities and privileges of inns, public
conveyances on land or water, theatres and other places of public
amusement, subject only to the conditions and limitations established by
law, and applicable alike to citizens of every race and color, and makes
it a criminal offense to violate these enactments by denying to any
citizen, except for reasons by law applicable to citizens of every race
and color, * * * the full enjoyment of any of the accommodations,
advantages, facilities or privileges enumerated. As the law of
Pennsylvania had stood until the 22d of March, 1867, it was not wrongful
for innkeepers or carriers by land or water to discriminate against
travelers of the colored race to such an extent as to exclude them from
any part of the inns or public conveyances which was set apart for the
exclusive accommodation of white travelers. The Legislature of
Pennsylvania, by an act of 22d of March, 1867, altered the law in this
respect as to passengers on railroads. But the law of the State was not
changed as to inns by any act of the State Legislature. Therefore,
independently of the amendment of the Constitution of the United States
and of the act of Congress now in question, the conduct of the defendant
on the occasion in question might, perhaps, have been lawful. It is not
necessary to express an opinion upon this point, because the decision of
the case depends upon the effect of this act of Congress. I am under
opinion that under the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution the
enactment of this law was within the legislative power of Congress, and
that we are bound to give effect to the act of Congress according to its
fair meaning. According to this meaning of the act I am of opinion that
if this defendant, being in charge of the business of receiving
travelers in this inn, and of providing necessary and proper
accommodations for them in it, refused such accommodations to the
witness Cook, then a traveler, by reason of his color, the defendant is
guilty in manner and form as he stands indicted. If the case depended
upon the unsupported testimony of this witness alone, there might be
some reason to doubt whether this defendant was the person in charge of
this part of the business. But under this head the additional testimony
of Mr. Annan seems to be sufficient to remove all reasonable doubt. If
the jury are convinced of the defendant’s identity, they will consider
whether any reasonable doubt of his conduct or motives in refusing the
accommodations to Fields Cook can exist. The case appears to the court
to be proved; but this question is for the jury, not for the court. If
the jury have any reasonable doubt, they should find the defendant not
guilty; otherwise they will find him guilty.
The jury brought in a verdict of guilty, March 1, 1876, and the Court
imposed a fine of $500.
The Morton Amendment.
In the session of ’73, Senator Morton, of Indiana, introduced an
amendment to the Constitution providing for the general choice of
Presidential Electors by Congressional districts, and delivered several
speeches on the subject which attracted much attention at the time.
Since then many amendments have been introduced on the subject, and it
is a matter for annual discussion. We quote the Morton Amendment as the
one most likely to command favorable action:
“_Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United
States of America in Congress assembled_, (two-thirds of each House
concurring therein:) That the following article is hereby proposed as an
amendment to the Constitution of the United States, and, when ratified
by the Legislatures of three-fourths of the several States, shall be
valid, to all intents and purposes, as a part of the Constitution, to
wit:
“ARTICLE —.
“I. The President and Vice-President shall be elected by the direct vote
of the people in the manner following: Each State shall be divided into
districts, equal in number to the number of Representatives to which the
State may be entitled in the Congress, to be composed of contiguous
territory, and to be as nearly equal in population as may be; and the
person having the highest number of votes in each district for President
shall receive the vote of that district, which shall count one
presidential vote.
“II. The person having the highest number of votes for President in a
State shall receive two presidential votes from the State at large.
“III. The person having the highest number of presidential votes in the
United States shall be President.
“IV. If two persons have the same number of votes in any State, it being
the highest number, they shall receive each one presidential vote from
the State at large; and if more than two persons shall have each the
same number of votes in any State, it being the highest number, no
presidential vote shall be counted from the State at large. If more
persons than one shall have the same number of votes, it being the
highest number in any district, no presidential vote shall be counted
from that district.
“V. The foregoing provisions shall apply to the election of
Vice-President.
“VI. The Congress shall have power to provide for holding and conducting
the elections of President and Vice-President, and to establish
tribunals for the decision of such elections as may be contested.”
VII. The States shall be divided into districts by the legislatures
thereof, but the Congress may at any time by law make or alter the same.
The present mode of election is given in Book V. of this volume.
The Whisky Ring.
During 1875 an extensive Whisky Ring, organized to control revenue
legislation and avoidance of revenue taxes, was discovered in the West.
It was an association of distillers in collusion with Federal officers,
and for a time it succeeded in defrauding the government of the tax on
distilled spirits. This form of corruption, after the declaration by
President Grant—“let no guilty man escape”—was traced by detectives to
the portals of the White House, but even partisan rancor could not
connect the President therewith. O. E. Babcock, however, was his private
Secretary, and upon him was charged complicity with the fraud. He was
tried and acquitted, but had to resign. Several Federal officers were
convicted at St. Louis.
Impeachment of Belknap.
Another form of corruption was discovered in 1876, when the House
impeached Wm. W. Belknap, the Secretary of War, on the charge of selling
an Indian trading establishment. The first and main specification was,
that—
On or about the second day of November, eighteen hundred and seventy,
said William W. Belknap, while Secretary of War as aforesaid, did
receive from Caleb P. Marsh fifteen hundred dollars, in consideration of
his having appointed said John S. Evans to maintain a trading
establishment at Fort Sill aforesaid, and for continuing him therein.
The following summary of the record shows the result, and that Belknap
escaped punishment by a refusal of two-thirds to vote “guilty:”
The examination of witnesses was begun, and continued on various days,
till July 26, when the case was closed.
August 1.—The SENATE voted. On the first article, thirty-five voted
guilty, and twenty-five not guilty. On the second, third and fourth, Mr.
MAXEY made the thirty-sixth who voted guilty. On the fifth, Mr. MORTON
made the thirty-seventh who voted guilty. The vote on first was:
VOTING GUILTY—Messrs. _Bayard_, BOOTH, Cameron of Pennsylvania,
_Cockrell_, _Cooper_, _Davis_, Dawes, _Dennis_, Edmunds, _Gordon_,
Hamilton, Harvey, Hitchcock, _Kelly_, _Kernan_, _Key_, _McCreery_,
_McDonald_, _Merrimon_, Mitchell, Morrill of Vermont, _Norwood_,
Oglesby, _Randolph_, _Ransom_, Robertson, Sargent, _Saulsbury_, Sherman,
_Stevenson_, _Thurman_, Wadleigh, _Wallace_, _Whyte_, _Withers_—35.
VOTING NOT GUILTY—Messrs. Allison, Anthony, Boutwell, Bruce, Cameron of
Wisconsin, Christiancy, Conkling, Conover, Cragin, Dorsey, _Eaton_,
Ferry of Michigan, Frelinghuysen, Hamlin, Howe, Ingalls, Jones of
Nevada, Logan, McMillan, Paddock, Patterson, Spencer, West, Windom,
Wright—25.
Mr. JONES of Florida declined to vote. Those “voting not guilty”
generally denied jurisdiction, and so voted accordingly. Belknap had
resigned and the claim was set up that he was a private citizen.
The White League.
By 1874 the Democrats of the South, who then generally classed
themselves as Conservatives, had gained control of all the State
governments except those of Louisiana, Florida and South Carolina. In
nearly all, the Republican governments had called upon President Grant
for military aid in maintaining their positions, but this was declined
except in the presence of such outbreak as the proper State authorities
could not suppress. In Arkansas, Alabama, Mississippi, and Texas, Grant
declined to interfere save to cause the Attorney-General to give legal
advice. The condition of all these governments demanded constant
attention from the Executive, and his task was most difficult and
dangerous. The cry came from the Democratic partisans in the South for
home-rule; another came from the negroes that they were constantly
disfranchised, intimidated and assaulted by the White League, a body of
men organized in the Gulf States for the purpose of breaking up the
“carpet-bag governments.” So conflicting were the stories, and so great
the fear of a final and destructive war of races, that the Congressional
elections in the North were for the first time since the war greatly
influenced. The Forty-fourth Congress, which met in December, 1875, had
been changed by what was called “the tidal wave,” from Republican to
Democratic, and M. C. Kerr, of Indiana, was elected Speaker. The Senate
remained Republican with a reduced margin.
The troubles in the South, and especially in Louisiana, had been in the
year previous and were still of the gravest character. Gen’l Sheridan
had been sent to New Orleans and on the 10th of January, 1875, made a
report which startled the country as to the doings of the White League.
As it still remains a subject for frequent quotation we give its text:
SHERIDAN’S REPORT.
NEW ORLEANS, January 10, 1875.
HON. W. W. BELKNAP, _Secretary of War_.
Since the year 1866, nearly thirty-five hundred persons, a great
majority of whom were colored men, have been killed and wounded in this
State. In 1868 the official record shows that eighteen hundred and
eighty-four were killed and wounded. From 1868 to the present time, no
official investigation has been made, and the civil authorities in all
but a few cases have been unable to arrest, convict and punish
perpetrators. Consequently, there are no correct records to be consulted
for information. There is ample evidence, however, to show that more
than twelve hundred persons have been killed and wounded during this
time, on account of their political sentiments. Frightful massacres have
occurred in the parishes of Bossier, Caddo, Catahoula, Saint Bernard,
Saint Landry, Grant and Orleans. The general character of the massacres
in the above named parishes is so well known that it is unnecessary to
describe them. The isolated cases can best be illustrated by the
following instances which I have taken from a mass of evidence now lying
before me of men killed on account of their political principles. In
Natchitoches Parish, the number of isolated cases reported is
thirty-three. In the parish of Bienville, the number of men killed is
thirty. In Red River Parish the number of isolated cases of men killed
is thirty-four. In Winn Parish the number of isolated cases where men
were killed is fifteen. In Jackson Parish the number killed is twenty;
and in Catahoula Parish the number of isolated cases reported where men
were killed is fifty; and most of the country parishes throughout the
State will show a corresponding state of affairs. The following
statement will illustrate the character and kind of these outrages. On
the 29th of August, 1874, in Red River Parish, six State and parish
officers, named Twitchell, Divers, Holland, Howell, Edgerton and Willis,
were taken, together with four negroes, under guard, to be carried out
of the State, and were deliberately murdered on the 30th of August,
1874. The White League tried, sentenced, and hung two negroes on the
28th of August, 1874. Three negroes were shot and killed at Brownsville,
just before the arrival of the United States troops in the parish. Two
White Leaguers rode up to a negro cabin and called for a drink of water.
When the old colored man turned to draw it, they shot him in the back
and killed him. The courts were all broken up in this district, and the
district judge driven out. In the parish of Caddo, prior to the arrival
of the United States troops, all of the officers at Shreveport were
compelled to abdicate by the White League, which took possession of the
place. Among those obliged to abdicate were Walsh, the mayor, Rapers,
the sheriff, Wheaton, clerk of the court, Durant, the recorder, and
Ferguson and Renfro, administrators. Two colored men, who had given
evidence in regard to frauds committed in the parish, were compelled to
flee for their lives and reached this city last night, having been
smuggled through in a cargo of cotton. In the parish of Bossier the
White League have attempted to force the abdication of Judge Baker, the
United States Commissioner and parish judge, together with O’Neal, the
sheriff, and Walker, the clerk of the court; and they have compelled the
parish and district courts to suspend operations. Judge Baker states
that the White Leaguers notified him several times that if he became a
candidate on the republican ticket, or if he attempted to organize the
republican party, he should not live until election.
They also tried to intimidate him through his family by making the same
threats to his wife, and when told by him that he was a United States
commissioner, they notified him not to attempt to exercise the functions
of his office. In but few of the country parishes can it be truly said
that the law is properly enforced, and in some of the parishes the
judges have not been able to hold court for the past two years. Human
life in this State is held so cheaply, that when men are killed on
account of political opinions, the murderers are regarded rather as
heroes than as criminals, in the localities where they reside, and by
the White League and their supporters. An illustration of the ostracism
that prevails in the State may be found in a resolution of a White
League club in the parish of De Soto, which states, “That they pledge
themselves under (no?) circumstances after the coming election to
employ, rent land to, or in any other manner give aid, comfort, or
credit, to any man, white or black, who votes against the nominees of
the white man’s party.” Safety for individuals who express their opinion
in the isolated portion of this State has existed only when that opinion
was in favor of the principles and party supported by the Ku-Klux and
White League organizations. Only yesterday Judge Myers, the parish judge
of the parish of Natchitoches, called on me upon his arrival in this
city, and stated that in order to reach here alive, he was obliged to
leave his home by stealth, and after nightfall, and make his way to
Little Rock, Arkansas, and come to this city by way of Memphis. He
further states that while his father was lying at the point of death in
the same village, he was unable to visit him for fear of assassination;
and yet he is a native of the parish, and proscribed for his political
sentiments only. It is more than probable that if bad government has
existed in this State it is the result of the armed organizations, which
have now crystallized into what is called the White League; instead of
bad government developing them, they have by their terrorism prevented
to a considerable extent the collection of taxes, the holding of courts,
the punishment of criminals, and vitiated public sentiment by
familiarizing it with the scenes above described. I am now engaged in
compiling evidence for a detailed report upon the above subject, but it
will be some time before I can obtain all the requisite data to cover
the cases that have occurred throughout the State. I will also report in
due time upon the same subject in the States of Arkansas and
Mississippi.
P. H. SHERIDAN,
_Lieutenant-General_.
President Grant said in a special message to Congress, January 13,
1875:—
“It has been bitterly and persistently alleged that Kellogg was not
elected. Whether he was or not is not altogether certain, nor is it any
more certain that his competitor, McEnery, was chosen. The election was
a gigantic fraud, and there are no reliable returns of its result.
Kellogg obtained possession of the office, and in my opinion has more
right to it than his competitor.
“On the 20th of February, 1873, the Committee on Privileges and
Elections of the Senate made a report, in which they say they were
satisfied by testimony that the manipulation of the election machinery
by Warmoth and others was equivalent to twenty thousand votes; and they
add, to recognize the McEnery government ‘would be recognizing a
government based upon fraud, in defiance of the wishes and intention of
the voters of the State.’ Assuming the correctness of the statements in
this report, (and they seem to have been generally accepted by the
country,) the great crime in Louisiana, about which so much has been
said, is, that one is holding the office of governor who was cheated out
of twenty thousand votes, against another whose title to the office is
undoubtedly based on fraud, and in defiance of the wishes and intentions
of the voters of the State.
“Misinformed and misjudging as to the nature and extent of this report,
the supporters of McEnery proceeded to displace by force in some
counties of the State the appointees of Governor Kellogg; and on the
13th of April, in an effort of that kind, a butchery of citizens was
committed at Colfax, which in blood-thirstiness and barbarity is hardly
surpassed by any acts of savage warfare.
“To put this matter beyond controversy, I quote from the charge of Judge
Woods, of the United States circuit court, to the jury in the case of
the United States vs. Cruikshank and others, in New Orleans, in March,
1874. He said:
“‘In the case on trial there are many facts not in controversy. I
proceed to state some of them in the presence and hearing of counsel on
both sides; and if I state as a conceded fact any matter that is
disputed, they can correct me.’
“After stating the origin of the difficulty, which grew out of an
attempt of white persons to drive the parish judge and sheriff,
appointees of Kellogg, from office, and their attempted protection by
colored persons, which led to some fighting in which quite a number of
negroes were killed, the judge states:
“‘Most of those who were not killed were taken prisoners. Fifteen or
sixteen of the blacks had lifted the boards and taken refuge under the
floor of the courthouse. They were all captured. About thirty-seven men
were taken prisoners; the number is not definitely fixed. They were kept
under guard until dark. They were led out, two by two, and shot. Most of
the men were shot to death. A few were wounded, not mortally, and by
pretending to be dead were afterward, during the night, able to make
their escape. Among them was the Levi Nelson named in the indictment.
“‘The dead bodies of the negroes killed in this affair were left
unburied until Tuesday, April 15, when they were buried by a deputy
marshal and an officer of the militia from New Orleans. These persons
found fifty-nine dead bodies. They showed pistol-shot wounds, the great
majority in the head, and most of them in the back of the head. In
addition to the fifty-nine dead bodies found, some charred remains of
dead bodies were discovered near the courthouse. Six dead bodies were
found under a warehouse, all shot in the head but one or two, which were
shot in the breast.
“‘The only white men injured from the beginning of these troubles to
their close were Hadnot and Harris. The courthouse and its contents were
entirely consumed.
“‘There is no evidence that any one in the crowd of whites bore any
lawful warrant for the arrest of any of the blacks. There is no evidence
that either Nash or Cazabat, after the affair, ever demanded their
offices, to which they had set up claim, but Register continued to act
as parish judge, and Shaw as Sheriff.
“‘These are facts in this case, as I understand them to be admitted.’
“To hold the people of Louisiana generally responsible for these
atrocities would not be just; but it is a lamentable fact that
insuperable obstructions were thrown in the way of punishing these
murderers, and the so-called conservative papers of the State not only
justified the massacre, but denounced as Federal tyranny and despotism
the attempt of the United States officers to bring them to justice.
Fierce denunciations ring through the country about office-holding and
election matters in Louisiana, while every one of the Colfax miscreants
goes unwhipped of justice, and no way can be found in this boasted land
of civilization and Christianity to punish the perpetrators of this
bloody and monstrous crime.
“Not unlike this was the massacre in August last. Several northern young
men of capital and enterprise had started the little and flourishing
town of Coushatta. Some of them were republicans and office-holders
under Kellogg. They were therefore doomed to death. Six of them were
seized and carried away from their homes and murdered in cold blood. No
one has been punished; and the conservative press of the State denounced
all efforts to that end, and boldly justified the crime.”
The House on the 1st of March, 1875, by a strict party vote, 155
Republicans to 86 Democrats, recognized the Kellogg government. The
Senate did the same on March 5th, by 33 to 23, also a party vote.
Under the influence of the resolution unanimously adopted by the House
of Representatives of the United States, recommending that the House of
Representatives of that State seat the persons rightfully entitled
thereto from certain districts, the whole subject was, by consent of
parties, referred to the Special Committee of the House who examined
into Louisiana affairs, viz.: Messrs. George F. Hoar, William A.
Wheeler, William P. Frye, Charles Foster, William Walter Phelps,
Clarkson N. Potter and Samuel S. Marshall, who, after careful
examination, made an award, which was adopted by the Legislature in
April, 1875. It is popularly known as the “Wheeler Compromise.”
Text of the Wheeler Compromise.
NEW ORLEANS, March, 1875.
_Whereas_, It is desirable to adjust the difficulties growing out of the
general election in this State, in 1872, the action of the Returning
Board in declaring and promulgating the results of the general election,
in the month of November last, and the organization of the House of
Representatives, on the 4th day of January last, such adjustment being
deemed necessary to the re-establishment of peace and order in this
State.
Now, therefore, the undersigned members of the Conservative party,
claiming to have been elected members of the House of Representatives,
and that their certificates of election have been illegally withheld by
the Returning Board, hereby severally agree to submit their claims to
seats in the House of Representatives to the award and arbitrament of
George F. Hoar, William A. Wheeler, William P. Frye, Charles Foster,
William Walter Phelps, Clarkson N. Potter, and Samuel S. Marshall, who
are hereby authorized to examine and determine the same upon the
equities of the several cases; and when such awards shall be made, we
hereby severally agree to abide by the same:
And such of us as may become members of the House of Representatives,
under this arrangement, hereby severally agree to sustain by our
influence and votes the joint resolution herein set forth.
[Here follow the signatures of the Democrats who claimed that their
certificates of election as members of the House of Representatives had
been illegally withheld by the Returning Board.]
And the undersigned claiming to have been elected Senators from the
Eighth and Twenty-Second Senatorial Districts, hereby agree to submit
their claims to the foregoing award and arbitrament, and in all respects
to abide the results of the same.
[Here follow the signatures of the Democrats, who made a like claim as
to seats in the Senate.]
And the undersigned, holding certificates of election from the Returning
Board, hereby severally agree that upon the coming in of the award of
the foregoing arbitrators they will, when the same shall have been
ratified by the report of the Committee on Elections and Qualifications
of the body in session at the State House claiming to be the House of
Representatives, attend the sitting of the said House for the purpose of
adopting said report, and if said report shall be adopted, and the
members embraced in the foregoing report shall be seated, then the
undersigned severally agree that immediately upon the adoption of said
report they will vote for the following joint resolution:
[Here follow the signatures of the Democratic members of the House of
Representatives in relation to whose seats there was no controversy.]
JOINT RESOLUTION.
_Resolved, by the General Assembly of the State of Louisiana_, That said
Assembly, without approving the same, will not disturb the present State
Government claiming to have been elected in 1872, known as the Kellogg
Government, or seek to impeach the Governor for any past official acts,
and that henceforth it will accord to said Governor all necessary and
legitimate support in maintaining the laws and advancing the peace and
prosperity of the people of this State: and that the House of
Representatives, as to its members, as constituted under the award of
George F. Hoar, W. A. Wheeler, W. P. Frye, Charles Foster, Samuel S.
Marshall, Clarkson N. Potter, and William Walter Phelps, shall remain
without change except by resignation or death of members until a new
general election, and that the Senate, as now organized, shall also
remain unchanged except so far as that body shall make changes on
contests.
TEXT OF THE AWARD.
NEW YORK, March 13, 1875.
The undersigned having been requested to examine the claims of the
persons hereinafter named to seats in the Senate and House of
Representatives of the State of Louisiana, and having examined the
returns and the evidence relating to such claims, are of opinion, and do
hereby find, award and determine, that F. S. Goode is entitled to a seat
in the Senate from the Twenty-second Senatorial District; and that J. B.
Elam is not entitled to a seat in the Senate from the Eighth Senatorial
District; and that the following named persons are entitled to seats in
the House of Representatives from the following named parishes
respectively: From the Parish of Assumption, R. R. Beaseley, E. F. X.
Dugas; from the Parish of Bienville, James Brice; from the Parish of De
Soto, J. S. Scales, Charles Schuler; from the Parish of Jackson, E.
Kidd; from the Parish of Rapides, James Jeffries, R. C. Luckett, G. W.
Stafford; from the Parish of Terrebone, Edward McCollum, W. H. Keyes;
from the Parish of Winn, George A. Kelley. And that the following named
persons are not entitled to seats which they claim from the following
named parishes respectively, but that the persons now holding seats from
said parishes are entitled to retain the seats now held by them; from
the Parish of Avoyelles, J. O. Quinn; from the Parish of Iberie, W. F.
Schwing; from the Parish of Caddo, A. D. Land, T. R. Vaughan, J. J.
Horan. We are of opinion that no person is entitled to a seat from the
Parish of Grant.
In regard to most of the cases, the undersigned are unanimous; as to the
others the decision is that of a majority.
GEORGE F. HOAR,
W. A. WHEELER,
W. P. FRYE,
CHARLES FOSTER,
CLARKSON N. POTTER,
WILLIAM WALTER PHELPS,
SAMUEL S. MARSHALL.
This adjustment and award were accepted and observed, until the election
in November, 1876, when a controversy arose as to the result, the
Republicans claiming the election of Stephen B. Packard as Governor by
about 3,500 majority, and a Republican Legislature; and the Democrats
claiming the election of Francis T. Nicholls as Governor, by about 8,000
majority, and a Democratic Legislature. Committees of gentlemen visited
New Orleans, by request of President Grant and of various political
organizations, to witness the count of the votes by the Returning Board.
And in December, 1876, on the meeting of Congress, committees of
investigation were appointed by the Senate and by the House of
Representatives. Exciting events were now daily transpiring. On the 1st
of January, 1877, the Legislature organized in the State House without
exhibitions of violence. The Democrats did not unite in the proceedings,
but met in a separate building, and organized a separate Legislature.
Telegraphic communication was had between the State House and the Custom
House, where was the office of Marshal Pitkin, who with the aid of the
United States troops, was ready for any emergency. About noon the
Democratic members, accompanied by about 500 persons, called at the
State House and demanded admission. The officer on duty replied that the
members could enter, but the crowd could not. A formal demand was then
made upon General Badger and other officials, by the spokesman, for the
removal of the obstructions, barricades, police, etc., which prevented
the ingress of members, which being denied, Col. Bush, in behalf of the
crowd, read a formal protest, and the Democrats retired. Gov. Kellogg
was presented by a committee with a copy of the protest, and he replied,
that as chief magistrate and conservator of the peace of the State,
believing that there was danger of the organization of the General
Assembly being violently interfered with, he had caused a police force
to be stationed in the lower portion of the building; that he had no
motive but to preserve the peace; that no member or attache of either
house will be interfered with in any way, and that no United States
troops are stationed in the capitol building. Clerk Trezevant declined
to call the House to order unless the policemen were removed. Upon the
refusal to do so, he withdrew, when Louis Sauer, a member, called the
roll, and 68 members—a full House being 120—answered to their names.
Ex-Gov. Hahn was elected Speaker, receiving 53 votes as against 15 for
Ex-Gov. Warmoth.
The Senate was organized by Lieutenant-Governor Antoine with 19
present—a full Senate being 30—eight of whom held over, and 11 were
returned by the Board. Gov. Kellogg’s message was presented to each
House.
The Democrats organized their Legislature in St. Patrick’s hall. The
Senators were called to order by Senator Ogden. Nineteen Senators,
including nine holding over, and four, who were counted out by the
board, were present.
The Democratic members of the House were called to order by Clerk
Trezevant, and 61 answered to their names. Louis Bush was elected
Speaker.
January 3d—Republican Legislature passed a resolution asking for
military protection against apprehended Democratic violence, and it was
telegraphed to the President.
On Sunday, January 8th, Gov. Kellogg telegraphed to President Grant to
the same effect.
January 8th—Stephen B. Packard took the oath of office as Governor, and
C. C. Antoine as Lieutenant-Governor, at the State House at 1:30, in the
presence of the Legislature.
January 8—Francis T. Nicholls and L. A. Wiltz to-day took the oath of
office of Governor and Lieutenant-Governor, respectively, on the balcony
of St. Patrick’s hall.
By the 11th of January both parties were waiting for the action of the
authorities at Washington. Gov. Packard to-day commissioned A. S. Badger
Major-General of the State National Guard, and directed him to organize
the first division at once. Two members of the Packard Legislature, Mr.
Barrett, of Rapides, and Mr. Kennedy, of St. Charles, had withdrawn from
that body and gone over to the Nicholls Legislature.
Messrs. Breux, Barrett, Kennedy, Estopival, Wheeler, and Hamlet, elected
as Republicans, under the advice of Pinchback—a defeated Republican
candidate for U. S. Senator, left the Packard or Republican, and joined
the Nicholls Legislature.
On the 15th, Governor Packard, after receiving a copy of the telegram of
the President to General Augur, issued a proclamation aimed at the
“organized and armed combination and conspiracy of men now offering
unlawful and violent resistance to the lawful authority of the State
government.”
The Nicholls court issued an order to Sheriff Handy to provide the means
for protecting the court from any violence or intrusion on the part of
the adherents of “S. B. Packard, a wicked and shameless impostor.”
Governor Packard on the 16th, in a letter to Gen. Augur, acknowledges
the receipt of a communication from his aide-de-camp asking for
assurances from him that the President’s wishes concerning the
preservation of the present _status_ be respected, and says that the
request would have been more appropriate if made immediately after his
installation as Governor and before many of the main branches of the
Government had been forcibly taken possession of by the opposition. He
says: “I had scarcely taken the oath of office when the White League
were called to arms; the Court room and the records of the Supreme Court
of the State were forcibly taken possession of, and various precinct
police-stations were captured in like manner by overwhelming forces.
Orders had been issued by the Secretary of War early on that day that
all unauthorized armed bodies should desist. A dispatch from yourself of
the same date to the Secretary of War, conveyed the assurances that
Nicholls had promised the disbandment of his armed forces. * * * It was
my understanding, that neither side should be permitted to interfere
with the _status_ of the other side. Yet the day after this order was
received and the pledge given by Nicholls, a force of several hundred
armed White Leaguers repaired to the State Arsenal and took therefrom
into their own keeping five pieces of artillery, and a garrison of armed
men was placed in and around the Supreme Court building. That on the
following day, January 11, an armed company of the White League broke
into and took possession of the office of the Recorder of
Mortgages. * * * In view of all these facts it seemed to me that to give
the pledge verbally asked of me this morning would be to sanction
revolution, and by acquiescence give it the force of accomplished fact,
and I therefore declined.”
Many telegrams followed between the Secretary of War, J. Don. Cameron,
Gen’l Augur and Mr. Packard, the latter daily complaining of new
“outrages by the White League,” while the Nicholls government professed
to accord rights to all classes, and to obey the instructions from
Washington, to faithfully maintain the _status_ of affairs until
decisive action should be taken by the National government. None was
taken, President Grant being unwilling to outline a Southern policy for
his successor in office.
Election of Hayes and Wheeler.
The troubles in the South, and the almost general overthrow of the
“carpet-bag government,” impressed all with the fact that the
Presidential election of 1876 would be exceedingly close and exciting,
and the result confirmed this belief. The Greenbackers were the first to
meet in National Convention, at Indianapolis, May 17th. Peter Cooper of
New York was nominated for President, and Samuel F. Cary of Ohio, for
Vice-President.
The Republican National Convention met at Cincinnati, June 14th, with
James G. Blaine recognized as the leading candidate. Grant had been
named for a third term, and there was a belief that his name would be
presented. Such was the feeling on this question that the House of
Congress and a Republican State Convention in Pennsylvania, had passed
resolutions declaring that a third term for President would be a
violation of the “unwritten law” handed down through the examples of
Washington, and Jackson. His name, however, was not then presented. The
“unit rule” at this Convention was for the first time resisted, and by
the friends of Blaine, with a view to release from instructions of State
Conventions some of his friends. New York had instructed for Conkling,
and Pennsylvania for Hartranft. In both of these states some delegates
had been chosen by their respective Congressional districts, in advance
of any State action, and these elections were as a rule confirmed by the
State bodies. Where they were not, there were contests, and the right of
district representation was jeopardized if not destroyed by the
reinforcement of the unit rule. It was therefore thought to be a
question of much importance by the warring interests. Hon. Edw.
McPherson was the temporary Chairman of the Convention, and he took the
earliest opportunity presented to decide against the binding force of
the unit rule, and to assert the liberty of each delegate to vote as he
pleased. The Convention sustained the decision on an appeal.
Ballots of the Cincinnati Republican Convention, 1876:
Ballots, 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Blaine, 285 296 292 293 287 308 351
Conkling, 113 114 121 126 114 111 21
Bristow, 99 93 90 84 82 81
Morton, 124 120 113 108 95 85
Hayes, 61 64 67 68 102 113 384
Hartranft, 58 63 68 71 69 50
Jewell, 11
Washb’ne, 1 1 3 3 4
Wheeler, 3 3 2 2 2 2
Gen. Rutherford B. Hayes, of Ohio, was nominated for President, and Hon.
Wm. A. Wheeler, of New York, for Vice-President.
The Democratic National Convention met at St. Louis, June 28th. Great
interest was excited by the attitude of John Kelly, the Tammany leader
of New York, who was present and opposed with great bitterness the
nomination of Tilden. He afterwards bowed to the will of the majority
and supported him. Both the unit and the two-thirds rule were observed
in this body, as they have long been by the Democratic party. On the
second ballot, Hon. Samuel J. Tilden, of New York, had 535 votes to 203
for all others. His leading competitor was Hon. Thomas A. Hendricks, of
Indiana, who was nominated for Vice-President.
The Electoral Count.
The election followed Nov. 7th, 1876, Hayes and Wheeler carrying all of
the Northern States except Connecticut, New York, New Jersey and
Indiana; Tilden and Hendricks carried all of the Southern States except
South Carolina, Florida and Louisiana. The three last named States were
claimed by the Democrats, but their members of the Congressional
Investigating Committee quieted rival claims as to South Carolina by
agreeing that it had fairly chosen the Republican electors. So close was
the result that success or failure hinged upon the returns of Florida
and Louisiana, and for days and weeks conflicting stories and claims
came from these States. The Democrats claimed that they had won on the
face of the returns from Louisiana, and that there was no authority to
go behind these. The Republicans publicly alleged frauds in nearly all
of the Southern States; that the colored vote had been violently
suppressed in the Gulf States, but they did not formally dispute the
face of the returns in any State save where the returning boards gave
them the victory. This doubtful state of affairs induced a number of
prominent politicians of both the great parties to visit the State
capitals of South Carolina, Florida and Louisiana to witness the count.
Some of these were appointed by President Grant; others by the
Democratic National Committee, and both sets were at the time called the
“visiting statesmen,” a phrase on which the political changes were rung
for months and years thereafter.
The electoral votes of Florida were decided by the returning board to be
Republican by a majority of 926,—this after throwing out the votes of
several districts where fraudulent returns were alleged to be apparent
or shown by testimony. The Board was cited before the State Supreme
Court, which ordered a count of the face of the returns; a second
meeting only led to a second Republican return, and the Republican
electors were then declared to have been chosen by a majority of 206,
though before this was done, the Electoral College of the State had met
and cast their four votes for Hayes and Wheeler. Both parties agreed
very closely in their counts, except as to Baker county, from which the
Republicans claimed 41 majority, the Democrats 95 majority—the returning
board accepting the Republican claim.
In Louisiana the Packard returning board was headed by J. Madison Wells,
and this body refused to permit the Democrats to be represented therein.
It was in session three weeks, the excitement all the time being at
fever heat, and finally made the following average returns: Republican
electors, 74,436; Democratic, 70,505; Republican majority, 3,931.
McEnery, who claimed to be Governor, gave the Democratic electors a
certificate based on an average vote of 83,635 against 75,759, a
Democratic majority of 7,876.
In Oregon, the three Republican electors had an admitted majority of the
popular vote, but on a claim that one of the number was a Federal
office-holder and therefore ineligible, the Democratic Governor gave a
certificate to two of the Republican electors, and a Mr. Cronin,
Democrat. The three Republican electors were certified by the Secretary
of State, who was the canvassing officer by law. This Oregon business
led to grave suspicions against Mr. Tilden, who was thereafter freely
charged by the Republicans with the use of his immense private fortune
to control the result, and thereafter, the New York _Tribune_, with
unexampled enterprise, exposed and reprinted the “cipher dispatches”
from Gramercy, which Mr. Pelton, the nephew and private secretary of Mr.
Tilden, had sent to Democratic “visiting statesmen” in the four disputed
sections. In 1878, the Potter Investigating Committee subsequently
confirmed the “cipher dispatches” but Mr. Tilden denied any knowledge of
them.
The second session of the 44th Congress met on Dec. 5th, 1876, and while
by that time all knew the dangers of the approaching electoral count,
yet neither House would consent to the revision of the joint rule
regulating the count. The Republicans claimed that the President of the
Senate had the sole authority to open and announce the returns in the
presence of the two Houses; the Democrats plainly disputed this right,
and claimed that the joint body could control the count under the law.
Some Democrats went so far as to say that the House (which was
Democratic, with Samuel J. Randall in the Speaker’s chair) could for
itself decide when the emergency had arrived in which it was to elect a
President.
There was grave danger, and it was asserted that the Democrats, fearing
the President of the Senate would exercise the power of declaring the
result, were preparing first to forcibly and at least with secrecy swear
in and inaugurate Tilden. Mr. Watterson, member of the House from
Kentucky, boasted that he had completed arrangements to have 100,000 men
at Washington on inauguration day, to see that Tilden was installed.
President Grant and Secretary of War Cameron, thought the condition of
affairs critical, and both made active though secret preparations to
secure the safe if not the peaceful inauguration of Hayes. Grant, in one
of his sententious utterances, said he “would have peace if he had to
fight for it.” To this end he sent for Gov. Hartranft of Pennsylvania,
to know if he could stop any attempted movement of New York troops to
Washington, as he had information that the purpose was to forcibly
install Tilden. Gov. Hartranft replied that he could do it with the
National Guard and the Grand Army of the Republic. He was told to return
to Harrisburg and prepare for such an emergency. This he did, and as the
Legislature was then in session, a Republican caucus was called, and it
resolved, without knowing exactly why, to sustain any action of the
Governor with the resources of the State. Secretary Cameron also sent
for Gen’l Sherman, and for a time went on with comprehensive
preparations, which if there had been need for completion, would
certainly have put a speedy check upon the madness of any mob. There is
a most interesting unwritten history of events then transpiring which no
one now living can fully relate without unjustifiable violations of
political and personal confidences. But the danger was avoided by the
patriotism of prominent members of Congress representing both of the
great political parties. These gentlemen held several important and
private conferences, and substantially agreed upon a result several days
before the exciting struggle which followed the introduction of the
Electoral Commission Act. The leaders on the part of the Republicans in
these conferences were Conkling, Edmunds, Frelinghuysen; on the part of
the Democrats Bayard, Gordon, Randall and Hewitt, the latter a member of
the House and Chairman of the National Democratic Committee.
The Electoral Commission Act, the basis of agreement, was supported by
Conkling in a speech of great power, and of all men engaged in this
great work he was at the time most suspected by the Republicans, who
feared that his admitted dislike to Hayes would cause him to favor a
bill which would secure the return of Tilden, and as both of the
gentlemen were New Yorkers, there was for several days grave fears of a
combination between the two. The result showed the injustice done, and
convinced theretofore doubting Republicans that Conkling, even as a
partisan, was faithful and far-seeing. The Electoral Commission measure
was a Democratic one, if we are to judge from the character of the votes
cast for and against it. In the Senate the vote stood 47 for to 17
against. There were 21 Republicans for it and 16 against, while there
were also 26 Democrats for it to only 1 (Eaton) against. In the House
much the same proportion was maintained, the bill passing that body by
191 to 86. The following is the text of the
ELECTORAL COMMISSION ACT.
An act to provide for and regulate the counting of votes for President
and Vice-President, and the decision of questions arising thereon, for
the term commencing March fourth, Anno Domini eighteen hundred and
seventy-seven.
_Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United
States of America in Congress assembled_, That the Senate and House of
Representatives shall meet in the hall of the House of Representatives,
at the hour of one o’clock post meridian, on the first Thursday in
February, Anno Domini eighteen hundred and seventy-seven; the President
of the Senate shall be their presiding officer. Two tellers shall be
previously appointed on the part of the Senate, and two on the part of
the House of Representatives, to whom shall be handed, as they are
opened by the President of the Senate, all the certificates, and papers
purporting to be certificates, of the electoral votes, which
certificates and papers shall be opened, presented and acted upon in the
alphabetical order of the States, beginning with the letter A; and said
tellers having then read the same in presence and hearing of the two
Houses, shall make a list of the votes as they shall appear from the
said certificates; and the votes having been ascertained and counted as
in this act provided, the result of the same shall be delivered to the
President of the Senate, who shall thereupon announce the state of the
vote, and the names of the persons, if any elected, which announcement
shall be deemed a sufficient declaration of the persons elected
President and Vice-President of the United States, and, together with a
list of the votes, be entered on the journals of the Houses. Upon such
reading of any such certificate or paper when there shall only be one
return from a State, the President of the Senate shall call for
objections, if any. Every objection shall be made in writing, and shall
state clearly and concisely, and without argument, the ground thereof,
and shall be signed by at least one Senator and one Member of the House
of Representatives before the same shall be received. When all
objections so made to any vote or paper from a State shall have been
received and read, the Senate shall thereupon withdraw, and such
objections shall be submitted to the Senate for its decision; and the
Speaker of the House of Representatives shall, in like manner, submit
such objections to the House of Representatives for its decision; and no
electoral vote or votes from any State from which but one return has
been received shall be rejected, except by the affirmative vote of the
two Houses. When the two Houses have votes, they shall immediately again
meet, and the presiding officer shall then announce the decision of the
question submitted.
SEC. 2. That if more than one return, or paper purporting to be a return
from a State, shall have been received by the President of the Senate,
purporting to be the certificate of electoral votes given at the last
preceding election for President and Vice-President in such State
(unless they shall be duplicates of the same return), all such returns
and papers shall be opened by him in the presence of the two Houses when
met as aforesaid, and read by the tellers, and all such returns and
papers shall thereupon be submitted to the judgment and decision as to
which is the true and lawful electoral vote of such State, of a
commission constituted as follows, namely: During the session of each
House, on the Tuesday next preceding the first Thursday in February,
eighteen hundred and seventy-seven, each House shall, by viva voce vote,
appoint five of its members, with the five associate justices of the
Supreme Court of the United States to be ascertained as hereinafter
provided, shall constitute a commission for the decision of all
questions upon or in respect of such double returns named in this
section. On the Tuesday next preceding the first Thursday in February,
Anno Domini, eighteen hundred and seventy-seven, or as soon thereafter
as may be, the associate justices of the Supreme Court of the United
States now assigned to the first, third, eighth, and ninth circuits
shall select, in such manner as a majority of them shall deem fit,
another of the associate justices of said court, which five persons
shall be members of said commission; and the person longest in
commission of said five justices shall be the president of said
commission. The members of said commission shall respectively take and
subscribe the following oath: “I —— do solemnly swear (or affirm, as the
case maybe,) that I will impartially examine and consider all questions
submitted to the commission of which I am a member, and a true judgment
give thereon, agreeably to the Constitution and the laws: so help me
God;” which oath shall be filed with the Secretary of the Senate. When
the commission shall have been thus organized, it shall not be in the
power of either House to dissolve the same, or to withdraw any of its
members; but if any such Senator or member shall die or become
physically unable to perform the duties required by this act, the fact
of such death or physical inability shall be by said commission, before
it shall proceed further, communicated to the Senate or House of
Representatives, as the case may be, which body shall immediately and
without debate proceed by viva voce vote to fill the place so vacated,
and the person so appointed shall take and subscribe the oath
hereinbefore prescribed, and become a member of said commission; and in
like manner, if any of said justices of the Supreme Court shall die or
become physically incapable of performing the duties required by this
act, the other of said justices, members of the said commission, shall
immediately appoint another justice of said court a member of said
commission, and in like manner, if any of said justices of the Supreme
Court shall die or become physically incapable of performing the duties
required by this act, the other of said justices, members of the said
commission, shall immediately appoint another justice of said court a
member of said commission, and, in such appointment, regard shall be had
to the impartiality and freedom from bias sought by the original
appointments to said commission, who shall thereupon immediately take
and subscribe the oath hereinbefore prescribed, and become a member of
said commission to fill the vacancy so occasioned. All the certificates
and papers purporting to be certificates of the electoral votes of each
State shall be opened, in the alphabetical order of the States, as
provided in section one of this act; and when there shall be more than
one such certificate or paper, as the certificates and papers from such
State shall so be opened (excepting duplicates of the same return), they
shall be read by the tellers, and thereupon the President of the Senate
shall call for objections, if any. Every objection shall be made in
writing, and shall state clearly and concisely, and without argument,
the ground thereof, and shall be signed by at least one Senator and one
member of the House of Representatives before the same shall be
received. When all such objections so made to any certificate, vote, or
paper from a State shall have been received and read, all such
certificates, votes and papers so objected to, and all papers
accompanying the same, together with such objections, shall be forthwith
submitted to said commission, which shall proceed to consider the same,
with the same powers, if any, now possessed for that purpose by the two
Houses acting separately or together, and, by a majority of votes,
decide whether any and what votes from such State are the votes provided
for by the Constitution of the United States, and how many and what
persons were duly appointed electors in such State, and may therein take
into view such petitions, depositions, and other papers, if any, as
shall, by the Constitution and now existing law, be competent and
pertinent in such consideration; which decision shall be made in
writing, stating briefly the ground thereof, and signed by the members
of said commission agreeing therein; whereupon the two Houses shall
again meet, and such decision shall be read and entered in the journal
of each house, and the counting of the vote shall proceed in conformity
therewith, unless, upon objection made thereto in writing by at least
five Senators and five members of the House of Representatives, the two
Houses shall separately concur in ordering otherwise, in which case such
concurrent order shall govern. No votes or papers from any other State
shall be acted upon until the objections previously made to the votes or
papers from any State shall have been finally disposed of.
SEC. 3. That, while the two Houses shall be in meeting, as provided in
this act, no debate shall be allowed and no question shall be put by the
presiding officer, except to either House on a motion to withdraw, and
he shall have power to preserve order.
SEC. 4. That when the two Houses separate to decide upon an objection
that may have been made to the counting of any electoral vote or votes
from any State, or upon objection to a report of said commission, or
other question arising under this act, each Senator and Representative
may speak to such objection or question ten minutes, and not oftener
than once; but after such debate shall have lasted two hours, it shall
be the duty of each House to put the main question without further
debate.
SEC. 5. That at such joint meeting of the two Houses, seats shall be
provided as follows: For the President of the Senate, the Speaker’s
chair; for the Speaker, immediately upon his left; the Senators in the
body of the hall upon the right of the presiding officer; for the
Representatives, in the body of the hall not provided for the Senators;
for the tellers, Secretary of the Senate, and Clerk of the House of
Representatives, at the Clerk’s desk; for the other officers of the two
Houses, in front of the Clerk’s desk and upon each side of the Speaker’s
platform. Such joint meeting shall not be dissolved until the count of
electoral votes shall be completed and the result declared; and no
recess shall be taken unless a question shall have arisen in regard to
counting any such votes, or otherwise under this act, in which case it
shall be competent for either House, acting separately, in the manner
hereinbefore provided, to direct a recess of such House not beyond the
next day, Sunday excepted, at the hour of ten o’clock in the forenoon.
And while any question is being considered by said commission, either
House may proceed with its legislative or other business.
SEC. 6. That nothing in this act shall be held to impair or affect any
right now existing under the Constitution and laws to question, by
proceeding in the judicial courts of the United States, the right or
title of the person who shall be declared elected, or who shall claim to
be President or Vice-President of the United States, if any such right
exists.
SEC. 7. That said commission shall make its own rules, keep a record of
its proceedings, and shall have power to employ such persons as may be
necessary for the transaction of its business and the execution of its
powers.
Approved, January 29, 1877.
Members of the Commission.
Hon. NATHAN CLIFFORD, _Associate Justice Supreme Court, First Circuit_.
Hon. WILLIAM STRONG, _Associate Justice Supreme Court, Third Circuit_.
Hon. SAMUEL F. MILLER, _Associate Justice Supreme Court, Eighth
Circuit_.
Hon. STEPHEN J. FIELD, _Associate Justice Supreme Court, Ninth Circuit_.
Hon. JOSEPH P. BRADLEY, _Associate Justice Supreme Court, Fifth
Circuit_.
Hon. GEORGE F. EDMUNDS, _United States Senator_.
Hon. OLIVER P. MORTON, _United States Senator_.
Hon. FREDERICK T. FRELINGHUYSEN, _United States Senator_.
Hon. ALLEN G. THURMAN, _United States Senator_.
Hon. THOMAS F. BAYARD, _United States Senator_.
Hon. HENRY B. PAYNE, _United States Representative_.
Hon. EPPA HUNTON, _United States Representative_.
Hon. JOSIAH G. ABBOTT, _United States Representative_.
Hon. JAMES A. GARFIELD, _United States Representative_.
Hon. GEORGE F. HOAR, _United States Representative_.
The Electoral Commission met February 1st, and by uniform votes of 8 to
7, decided all objections to the Electoral votes of Florida, Louisiana,
South Carolina, and Oregon, in favor of the Republicans, and while the
two Houses disagreed on nearly all of these points by strict party
votes, the electoral votes were, under the provisions of the law, given
to Hayes and Wheeler, and the final result declared to be 185 electors
for Hayes and Wheeler, to 184 for Tilden and Hendricks. Questions of
eligibility had been raised against individual electors from Michigan,
Nevada, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont and Wisconsin, but the
Commission did not sustain any of them, and as a rule they were
unsupported by evidence. Thus closed the gravest crisis which ever
attended an electoral count in this country, so far as the Nation was
concerned; and while for some weeks the better desire to peacefully
settle all differences prevailed, in a few weeks partisan bitterness was
manifested on the part of a great majority of Northern Democrats, who
believed their party had been deprived by a partisan spirit of its
rightful President.
The Title of President Hayes.
The uniform vote of 8 to 7 on all important propositions considered by
the Electoral Commission, to their minds showed a partisan spirit, the
existence of which it was difficult to deny. The action of the
Republican “visiting statesmen” in Louisiana, in practically
overthrowing the Packard or Republican government there, caused distrust
and dissatisfaction in the minds of the more radical Republicans, who
contended with every show of reason that if Hayes carried Louisiana,
Packard must also have done so. The only sensible excuse for seating
Hayes on the one side and throwing out Governor Packard on the other,
was a patriotic desire for peace in the settlement of both Presidential
and Southern State issues. This desire was plainly manifested by
President Hayes on the day of his inauguration and for two years
thereafter. He took early occasion to visit Atlanta, Ga., and while at
that point and _en route_ there made the most conciliatory speeches, in
which he called those who had engaged in the Rebellion, “brothers,”
“gallant soldiers,” etc. These speeches excited much attention. They had
little if any effect upon the South, while the more radical Republicans
accused the President of “slopping over.” They did not allay the
hostility of the Democratic party, and did not restore the feeling in
the South to a condition better than that which it had shown during the
exciting days of the Electoral count. The South then, under the lead of
men like Stephens, Hill and Gordon, in the main showed every desire for
a peaceful settlement. As a rule only the Border States and Northern
Democrats manifested extreme distrust and bitterness, and these were
plainly told by some of the leaders from the Gulf States, that so far as
they were concerned, they had had enough of civil war.
As late as April 22, 1877, the Maryland Legislature passed the
following:
_Resolved by the General Assembly of Maryland_, That the
Attorney-General of the State be, and he is hereby, instructed, in case
Congress shall provide for expediting the action, to exhibit a bill in
the Supreme Court of the United States, on behalf of the State of
Maryland, with proper parties thereto, setting forth the fact that due
effect has not been given to the electoral vote cast by this State on
the 6th day of December, 1876, by reason of fraudulent returns made from
other States and allowed to be counted provisionally by the Electoral
Commission, and subject to judicial revision, and praying said court to
make the revision contemplated by the act establishing said commission;
and upon such revision to declare the returns from the States of
Louisiana and Florida, which were counted for Rutherford B. Hayes and
William A. Wheeler, fraudulent and void, and that the legal electoral
votes of said States were cast for Samuel J. Tilden as President, and
Thomas A. Hendricks as Vice-President, and that by virtue thereof and of
184 votes cast by other States, of which 8 were cast by the State of
Maryland, the said Tilden and Hendricks were duly elected, and praying
said Court to decree accordingly.
It was this resolution which induced the Clarkson N. Potter resolution
of investigation, a resolution the passage of which was resisted by the
Republicans through filibustering for many days, but was finally passed
by 146 Democratic votes to 2 Democratic votes (Mills and Morse) against,
the Republicans not voting.
The Cipher Despatches.
An amendment offered to the Potter resolution but not accepted, and
defeated by the Democratic majority, cited some fair specimens of the
cipher dispatches exposed by the New York _Tribune_. These are matters
of historical interest, and convey information as to the methods which
politicians will resort to in desperate emergencies. We therefore quote
the more pertinent portions.
_Resolved_, That the select committee to whom this House has committed
the investigation of certain matters affecting, as is alleged, the legal
title of the President of the United States to the high office which he
now holds, be and is hereby instructed in the course of its
investigations to fully inquire into all the facts connected with the
election in the State of Florida in November, 1876, and especially into
the circumstances attending the transmission and receiving of certain
telegraphic dispatches sent in said year between Tallahassee in said
State and New York City, viz.:
“TALLAHASSEE, _November 9, 1876_.
“A. S. HEWITT, _New York_:
“Comply if possible with my telegram.
“Geo. P. RAREY.”
Also the following:
“TALLAHASSEE, _December 1, 1876_.
“W. T. PELTON, _New York_:
“Answer Mac’s dispatch immediately, or we will be embarrassed at a
critical time.
WILKINSON CALL.”
Also the following:
“TALLAHASSEE, _December 4, 1876_.
“W. T. PELTON:
“Things culminating here. Answer Mac’s despatch to-day.
W. CALL.”
And also the facts connected with all telegraphic dispatches between one
John F. Coyle and said Pelton, under the latters real or fictitious
name, and with any and all demands for money on or about December 1,
1876, from said Tallahassee, on said Pelton, or said Hewitt, or with any
attempt to corrupt or bribe any official of the said State of Florida by
any person acting for said Pelton, or in the interest of Samuel J.
Tilden as a presidential candidate.
Also to investigate the charges of intimidation at Lake City, in
Columbia county, where Joel Niblack and other white men put ropes around
the necks of colored men and proposed to hang them, but released them on
their promise to join a Democratic club and vote for Samuel J. Tilden.
Also the facts of the election in Jackson county, where the ballot-boxes
were kept out of the sight of voters, who voted through openings or
holes six feet above the ground, and where many more Republican votes
were thus given into the hands of the Democratic inspectors than were
counted or returned by them.
Also the facts of the election in Waldo precinct, in Alachua county,
where the passengers on an emigrant-train, passing through on the day of
election, were allowed to vote.
Also the facts of the election in Manatee county, returning 235 majority
for the Tilden electors, where there were no county officers, no
registration, no notice of the election, and where the Republican party,
therefore, did not vote.
Also the facts of the election in the third precinct of Key West, giving
342 Democratic majority where the Democratic inspector carried the
ballot-box home, and pretended to count the ballots on the next day,
outside of the precinct and contrary to law.
Also the facts of the election in Hamilton, where the election officers
exercised no control over the ballot-box, but left it in unauthorized
hands, that it might be tampered with.
Also the reasons why the Attorney General of the State, Wm. Archer
Cocke, as a member of the Canvassing Board, officially advised the
board, and himself voted, to exclude the Hamilton county and Key West
precinct returns, thereby giving, in any event, over 500 majority to the
Republican electoral ticket, and afterwards protested against the result
which he had voted for, and whether or not said Cocke was afterward
rewarded for such protest by being made a State Judge.
OREGON.
And that said committee is further instructed and directed to
investigate into all the facts connected with an alleged attempt to
secure one electoral vote in the State of Oregon for Samuel J. Tilden
for President of the United States, and Thomas A. Hendricks for
Vice-President, by unlawfully setting up the election of E. A. Cronin as
one of such presidential electors elected from the State of Oregon on
the 7th of November, the candidates for the presidential electors on the
two tickets being as follows:
On the Republican ticket: W. C. Odell, J. C. Cartwright, and John W.
Watts.
On the Democratic ticket; E. A. Cronin, W. A. Laswell, and Henry
Klippel.
The votes received by each candidate, as shown by the official vote as
canvassed, declared, and certified to by the Secretary of State under
the seal of the State,—the Secretary being under the laws of Oregon sole
canvassing officer, as will be shown hereafter,—being as follows:
W. K. Odell received 15,206 votes
John C. Cartwright received 15,214 „
John W. Watts received 15,206 „
E. A. Cronin received 14,157 „
W. A. Laswell received 14,149 „
Henry Klippel received 14,136 „
And by the unlawful attempt to bribe one of said legally elected
electors to recognize said Cronin as an elector for President and
Vice-President, in order that one of the electoral votes of said State
might be cast for said Samuel J. Tilden as President and for Thomas A.
Hendricks as Vice-President; and especially to examine and inquire into
all the facts relating to the sending of money from New York to some
place in said Oregon for the purposes of such bribery, the parties
sending and receiving the same, and their relations to and agency for
said Tilden, and more particularly to investigate into all the
circumstances attending the transmission of the following telegraphic
despatches:
“PORTLAND, Oregon, _Nov. 14, 1876_.
“Gov. L. F. GROVER:
“Come down to-morrow if possible.
“W. H. EFFINGER,
“A. NOLTNER,
“C. P. BELLINGER.”
“PORTLAND, _November 16, 1876_.
“To Gov. GROVER, _Salem_:
“We want to see you particularly on account of despatches from the
East.
“WILLIAM STRONG,
“C. P. BELLINGER,
“S. H. REED,
“W. W. THAYER,
“C. E. BRONAUGH.”
Also the following cipher despatch sent from Portland, Oregon, on the
28th day of November, 1876, to New York City:
“PORTLAND, _November 28, 1876_.
“To W. T. PELTON, _No. 15 Gramercy Park, New York_:
“By vizier association innocuous negligence cunning minutely
previously readmit doltish to purchase afar act with cunning afar
sacristy unweighed afar pointer tigress cattle superannuated syllabus
dilatoriness misapprehension contraband Kountz bisulcuous top usher
spiniferous answer.
J. H. N. PATRICK.
“I fully endorse this.
“JAMES K. KELLY.”
Of which, when the key was discovered, the following was found to be the
true intent and meaning:
“PORTLAND, _November 28, 1876_.
“To W. T. PELTON, _No. 15 Gramercy Park, New York_:
“Certificate will be issued to one Democrat. Must purchase a
Republican elector to recognize and act with Democrats and secure the
vote and prevent trouble. Deposit $10,000 to my credit with Kountz
Brothers, Wall Street. Answer.
J. H. N. PATRICK.
“I fully endorse this.
“JAMES K. KELLY.”
Also the following:
“NEW YORK, _November 25, 1876_.
“A. BUSH, _Salem_:
“Use all means to prevent certificate. Very important.
C. E. TILTON.”
Also the following:
“_December 1, 1876._
“To Hon. SAM. J. TILDEN, _No. 15 Gramercy Park, New York_:
“I shall decide every point in the case of post-office elector in
favor of the highest Democratic elector, and grant certificate
accordingly on morning of 6th instant. Confidential.
GOVERNOR.”
Also the following:
“SAN FRANCISCO, _December 5_.
“LADD & BUSH, _Salem_:
“Funds from New York will be deposited to your credit here to-morrow
when bank opens. I know it. Act accordingly. Answer.
W. C. GRISWOLD.”
Also the following, six days before the foregoing:
“NEW YORK, _November 29, 1876_.
“To J. H. N. PATRICK, _Portland, Oregon_:
“Moral hasty sideral vizier gabble cramp by hemistic welcome
licentiate muskeete compassion neglectful recoverable hathouse live
innovator brackish association dime afar idolator session hemistic
mitre.”
[No signature.]
Of which the interpretation is as follows:
“NEW YORK, _November 29, 1876_.
“To J. H. N. PATRICK, _Portland, Oregon_:
“No. How soon will Governor decide certificate? If you make obligation
contingent on the result in March, it can be done, and slightly if
necessary.”
[No signature.]
Also the following, one day later:
“PORTLAND, _November 30, 1876_.
“To W. T. PELTON, _No. 15 Gramercy Park, New York_:
“Governor all right without reward. Will issue certificate Tuesday.
This is a secret. Republicans threaten if certificate issued to ignore
Democratic claims and fill vacancy, and thus defeat action of
Governor. One elector must be paid to recognize Democrat to secure
majority. Have employed three lawyers, editor of only Republican paper
as one lawyer, fee $3,000. Will take $5,000 for Republican elector;
must raise money; can’t make fee contingent. Sail Saturday. Kelly and
Bellinger will act. Communicate with them. Must act promptly.”
[No signature].
Also the following:
“SAN FRANCISCO, _December 5, 1876_.
“To KOUNTZE BROS., _No. 12 Wall St., New York_:
“Has my account credit by any funds lately? How much?
“J. H. N. PATRICK.”
Also the following:
“NEW YORK, _December 6_.
“J. H. N. PATRICK, _San Francisco_:
“Davis deposited eight thousand dollars December first.
KOUNTZE BROS.”
Also the following:
“SAN FRANCISCO, _December 6_.
“To JAMES K. KELLY:
“The eight deposited as directed this morning. Let no technicality
prevent winning. Use your discretion.”
[No signature.]
And the following:
“NEW YORK, _December 6_.
“HON. JAS. K. KELLY:
“Is your matter certain? There must be no mistake. All depends on you.
Place no reliance on any favorable report from three southward.
Sonetter. Answer quick.”
[No signature.]
Also the following:
“_December 6, 1876._
“To Col. W. T. PELTON, _15 Gramercy Park, N. Y._:
“Glory to God! Hold on to the one vote in Oregon! I have one hundred
thousand men to back it up!
“CORSE.”
And said committee is further directed to inquire into and bring to
light, so far as it may be possible, the entire correspondence and
conspiracy referred to in the above telegraphic despatches, and to
ascertain what were the relations existing between any of the parties
sending or receiving said despatches and W. T. Pelton, of New York, and
also what relations existed between said W. T. Pelton and Samuel J.
Tilden, of New York.
April 15, 1878, Mr. Kimmel introduced a bill, which was never finally
acted upon, to provide a mode for trying and determining by the Supreme
Court of the United States the title of the President and Vice-President
of the United States to take their respective offices when their
election to such offices is denied by one or more of the States of the
Union.
The question of the title of President was finally settled June 14,
1878, by the following report of the House Judiciary Committee:
Report of the Judiciary Committee.
June 14—Mr. HARTRIDGE, from the Committee on the Judiciary, made the
following report:
The Committee on the Judiciary, to whom were referred the bill (H. R.
No. 4315) and the resolutions of the Legislature of the State of
Maryland directing judicial proceedings to give effect to the electoral
vote of that State in the last election of President and Vice-President
of the United States, report back said bill and resolutions with a
recommendation that the bill do not pass.
Your committee are of the opinion that Congress has no power, under the
Constitution, to confer upon the Supreme Court of the United States the
original jurisdiction sought for it by this bill. The only clause of the
Constitution which could be plausibly invoked to enable Congress to
provide the legal machinery for the litigation proposed, is that which
gives the Supreme Court original jurisdiction in “cases” or
“controversies” between a State and the citizens of another State. The
committee are of the opinion that this expression “cases” and
“controversies” was not intended by the framers of the Constitution to
embrace an original proceeding by a State in the Supreme Court of the
United States to oust any incumbent from a political office filled by
the declaration and decision of the two Houses of Congress clothed with
the constitutional power to count the electoral votes and decide as a
final tribunal upon the election for President and Vice-President. The
Forty-fourth Congress selected a commission to count the votes for
President and Vice-President, reserving to itself the right to ratify or
reject such count, in the way prescribed in the act creating such
commission. By the joint action of the two Houses it ratified the count
made by the commission, and thus made it the expression of its own
judgment.
All the Departments of the Federal Government, all the State governments
in their relations to Federal authority, foreign nations, the people of
the United States, all the material interests and industries of the
country, have acquiesced in, and acted in accordance with, the
pronounced finding of that Congress. In the opinion of this committee,
the present Congress has no power to undo the work of its predecessor in
counting the electoral vote, or to confer upon any judicial tribunal the
right to pass upon and perhaps set aside the action of that predecessor
in reference to a purely political question, the decision of which is
confided by the Constitution in Congress.
But apart from these fundamental objections to the bill under
consideration, there are features and provisions in it which are
entirely impracticable. Your committee can find no warrant of authority
to summon the chief justices of the supreme courts of the several States
to sit at Washington as a jury to try any case, however grave and
weighty may be its nature. The right to summon must carry with it the
power to enforce obedience to the mandate, and the Committee can see no
means by which the judicial officers of a State can be compelled to
assume the functions of jurors in the Supreme Court of the United
States.
There are other objections to the practical working of the bill under
consideration, to which we do not think it necessary to refer.
It may be true that the State of Maryland has been, in the late election
for President and Vice-President deprived of her just and full weight in
deciding who were legally chosen, by reason of frauds perpetrated by
returning boards in some of the States. It may also be true that these
fraudulent acts were countenanced or encouraged or participated in by
some who now enjoy high offices as the fruit of such frauds. It is due
to the present generation of the people of this country and their
posterity, and to the principles on which our Government is founded,
that all evidence tending to establish the fact of such fraudulent
practices should be calmly, carefully, and rigorously examined.
But your committee are of the opinion that the consequence of such
examination, if it discloses guilt upon the part of any in high official
position, should not be an effort to set aside the judgment of a former
Congress as to the election of a President and Vice-President, but
should be confined to the punishment, by legal and constitutional means,
of the offenders, and to the preservation and perpetuation of the
evidences of their guilt, so that the American people may be protected
from a recurrence of the crime.
Your committee, therefore, recommend the adoption of the accompanying
resolution:
_Resolved_, That the two Houses of the Forty-fourth Congress having
counted the votes cast for President and Vice-President of the United
States, and having declared Rutherford B. Hayes to be elected President,
and William A. Wheeler to be elected Vice-President, there is no power
in any subsequent Congress to reverse that declaration, nor can any such
power be exercised by the courts of the United States, or any other
tribunal that Congress can create under the Constitution.
* * * * *
We agree to the foregoing report so far as it states the reasons for the
resolution adopted by the committee, but dissent from the concluding
portion, as not having reference to such reasons, as not pertinent to
the inquiry before us, and as giving an implied sanction to the
propriety of the pending investigation ordered by a majority vote of the
House of Representatives, to which we were and are opposed.
WM. P. FRYE.
O. D. CONGER.
E. G. LAPHAM.
Leave was given to Mr. KNOTT to present his individual views, also to
Mr. BUTLER (the full committee consisting of Messrs. _Knott_, _Lynde_,
_Harris_, of Virginia, _Hartridge_, _Stenger_, _McMahon_, _Culberson_,
Frye, Butler, Conger, Lapham.)
The question being on the resolution reported by the committee, it was
agreed to—yeas 235, nays 14, not voting 42.
The Hayes Administration.
It can be truthfully said that from the very beginning the
administration of President Hayes had not the cordial support of the
Republican party, nor was it solidly opposed by the Democrats, as was
the last administration of General Grant. His early withdrawal of the
troops from the Southern States,—and it was this withdrawal and the
suggestion of it from the “visiting statesmen” which overthrew the
Packard government in Louisiana,—embittered the hostility of many
radical Republicans. Senator Conkling was conspicuous in his opposition,
as was Logan of Illinois; and when he reached Washington, the younger
Senator Cameron, of Pennsylvania. It was during this administration, and
because of its conservative tendencies, that these three leaders formed
the purpose to bring Grant again to the Presidency. Yet the Hayes
administration was not always conservative, and many Republicans
believed that its moderation had afforded a much needed breathing spell
to the country. Toward its close all became better satisfied, the
radical portion by the President’s later efforts to prevent the
intimidation of negro voters in the South, a form of intimidation which
was now accomplished by means of rifle clubs, still another advance from
the White League and the Ku Klux. He made this a leading feature in his
annual message to the Congress which began December 2d, 1878, and by a
virtual abandonment of his earlier policy he succeeded in reuniting what
were then fast separating wings of his own party. The conference report
on the Legislative Appropriation Bill was adopted by both Houses June
18th, and approved the 21st. The Judicial Expenses Bill was vetoed by
the President June 23d, on the ground that it would deprive him of the
means of executing the election laws. An attempt on the part of the
Democrats to pass the Bill over the veto failed for want of a two-thirds
vote, the Republicans voting solidly against it. June 26th the vetoed
bill was divided, the second division still forbidding the pay of deputy
marshals at elections. This was again vetoed, and the President sent a
special message urging the necessity of an appropriation to pay United
States marshals. Bills were accordingly introduced, but were defeated.
This failure to appropriate moneys called for continued until the end of
the session. The President was compelled, therefore, to call an extra
session, which he did March 19th, 1879, in words which briefly explain
the cause:—
THE EXTRA SESSION OF 1879.
“The failure of the last Congress to make the requisite appropriation
for legislative and judicial purposes, for the expenses of the several
executive departments of the Government, and for the support of the
Army, has made it necessary to call a special session of the Forty-sixth
Congress.
“The estimates of the appropriations needed, which were sent to Congress
by the Secretary of the Treasury at the opening of the last session, are
renewed, and are herewith transmitted to both the Senate and the House
of Representatives.
“Regretting the existence of the emergency which requires a special
session of Congress at a time when it is the general judgment of the
country that the public welfare will be best promoted by permanency in
our legislation, and by peace and rest, I commend these few necessary
measures to your considerate attention.”
By this time both Houses were Democratic. In the Senate there were 42
Democrats, 33 Republicans and 1 Independent (David Davis). In the House
149 Democrats, 130 Republicans, and 14 Nationals—a name then assumed by
the Greenbackers and Labor-Reformers. The House passed the Warner Silver
Bill, providing for the unlimited coinage of silver, the Senate Finance
Committee refused to report it, the Chairman, Senator Bayard, having
refused to report it, and even after a request to do so from the
Democratic caucus,—a course of action which heralded him every where as
a “hard-money” Democrat.
The main business of the extra session was devoted to the consideration
of the Appropriation Bills which the regular session had failed to pass.
On all of these the Democrats added “riders” for the purpose of
destroying Federal supervision of the elections, and all of these
political riders were vetoed by President Hayes. The discussions of the
several measures and the vetoes were highly exciting, and this
excitement cemented afresh the Republicans, and caused all of them to
act in accord with the administration. The Democrats were equally solid,
while the Nationals divided—Forsythe, Gillette, Kelley, Weaver, and
Yocum generally voting with the Republicans; De La Matyr, Stevenson,
Ladd and Wright with the Democrats.
President Hayes, in his veto of the Army Appropriation Bill, said:
“I have maturely considered the important questions presented by the
bill entitled ‘An Act making appropriations for the support of the Army
for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1880, and for other purposes,’ and I
now return it to the House of Representatives, in which it originated,
with my objections to its approval.
“The bill provides, in the usual form, for the appropriations required
for the support of the Army during the next fiscal year. If it contained
no other provisions, it would receive my prompt approval. It includes,
however, further legislation, which, attached as it is to appropriations
which are requisite for the efficient performance of some of the most
necessary duties of the Government, involves questions of the gravest
character. The sixth section of the bill is amendatory of the statute
now in force in regard to the authority of persons in the civil,
military and naval service of the United States ‘at the place where any
general or special election is held in any State.’ This statute was
adopted February 25, 1865, after a protracted debate in the Senate, and
almost without opposition in the House of Representatives, by the
concurrent votes of both of the leading political parties of the
country, and became a law by the approval of President Lincoln. It was
re-enacted in 1874 in the Revised Statutes of the United States,
sections 2002 and 5528.
* * * * *
“Upon the assembling of this Congress, in pursuance of a call for an
extra session, which was made necessary by the failure of the
Forty-fifth Congress to make the needful appropriations for the support
of the Government, the question was presented whether the attempt made
in the last Congress to engraft, by construction, a new principle upon
the Constitution should be persisted in or not. This Congress has ample
opportunity and time to pass the appropriation bills, and also to enact
any political measures which may be determined upon in separate bills by
the usual and orderly methods of proceeding. But the majority of both
Houses have deemed it wise to adhere to the principles asserted and
maintained in the last Congress by the majority of the House of
Representatives. That principle is that the House of Representatives has
the sole right to originate bills for raising revenue, and therefore has
the right to withhold appropriations upon which the existence of the
Government may depend, unless the Senate and the President shall give
their assent to any legislation which the House may see fit to attach to
appropriation bills. To establish this principle is to make a radical,
dangerous, and unconstitutional change in the character of our
institutions. The various Departments of the Government, and the Army
and Navy, are established by the Constitution, or by laws passed in
pursuance thereof. Their duties are clearly defined, and their support
is carefully provided for by law. The money required for this purpose
has been collected from the people, and is now in the Treasury, ready to
be paid out as soon as the appropriation bills are passed. Whether
appropriations are made or not, the collection of the taxes will go on.
The public money will accumulate in the Treasury. It was not the
intention of the framers of the Constitution that any single branch of
the Government should have the power to dictate conditions upon which
this treasure should be applied to the purpose for which it was
collected. Any such intention, if it had been entertained, would have
been plainly expressed in the Constitution.”
The vote in the House on this Bill, notwithstanding the veto, was 148
for to 122 against—a party vote, save the division of the Nationals,
previously given. Not receiving a two-thirds vote, the Bill failed.
The other appropriation bills with political riders shared the same
fate, as did the bill to prohibit military interference at elections,
the modification of the law touching supervisors and marshals at
congressional elections, etc. The debates on these measures were
bitterly partisan in their character, as a few quotations from the
Congressional _Record_ will show:
The Republican view was succinctly and very eloquently stated by General
Garfield, when, in his speech of the 29th of March, 1879, he said to the
revolutionary Democratic House:
“The last act of Democratic domination in this Capitol, eighteen years
ago, was striking and dramatic, perhaps heroic. Then the Democratic
party said to the Republicans, ‘If you elect the man of your choice as
President of the United States we will shoot your Government to death;’
and the people of this country, refusing to be coerced by threats or
violence, voted as they pleased, and lawfully elected Abraham Lincoln
President of the United States.
“Then your leaders, though holding a majority in the other branch of
Congress, were heroic enough to withdraw from their seats and fling down
the gage of mortal battle. We called it rebellion; but we recognized it
as courageous and manly to avow your purpose, take all the risks, and
fight it out on the open field. Notwithstanding your utmost efforts to
destroy it, the Government was saved. Year by year since the war ended,
those who resisted you have come to believe that you have finally
renounced your purpose to destroy, and are willing to maintain the
Government. In that belief you have been permitted to return to power in
the two Houses.
“To-day, after eighteen years of defeat, the book of your domination is
again opened, and your first act awakens every unhappy memory and
threatens to destroy the confidence which your professions of patriotism
inspired. You turned down a leaf of the history that recorded your last
act of power in 1861, and you have now signalized your return to power
by beginning a second chapter at the same page; not this time by a
heroic act that declares war on the battle-field, but you say if all the
legislative powers of the Government do not consent to let you tear
certain laws out of the statute book, you will not shoot our Government
to death as you tried to do in the first chapter; but you declare that
if we do not consent against our will, if you cannot coerce an
independent branch of this Government against its will, to allow you to
tear from the statute books some laws put there by the will of the
people, you will starve the Government to death. [Great applause on the
Republican side.]
“Between death on the field and death by starvation, I do not know that
the American people will see any great difference. The end, if
successfully reached, would be death in either case. Gentlemen, you have
it in your power to kill this Government; you have it in your power, by
withholding these two bills, to smite the nerve-centres of our
Constitution with the paralysis of death; and you have declared your
purpose to do this, if you cannot break down that fundamental element of
free consent which up to this hour has always ruled in the legislation
of this Government.”
The Democratic view was ably given by Representative Tucker of Virginia,
April 3, 1879: “I tell you, gentlemen of the House of Representatives,
_the Army dies on the 30th day of June, unless we resuscitate it by
legislation_. And what is the question here on this bill? Will you
resuscitate the Army after the 30th of June, with the power to use it as
keepers of the polls? That is the question. It is not a question of
repeal. It is a question of re-enactment. If you do not appropriate this
money, there will be no Army after the 30th of June to be used at the
polls. The only way to secure an Army at the polls is to appropriate the
money. _Will you appropriate the money for the Army in order that they
may be used at the polls? We say no, a thousand times no._ * * * The
gentlemen on the other side say there must be no coercion. Of whom? Of
the President? But what right has the President to coerce us? There may
be coercion one way or the other. He demands an unconditional supply.
_We say we will give him no supply but upon conditions._ * * * When,
therefore, vicious laws have fastened themselves upon the statute book
which imperil the liberty of the people, this House is bound to say it
will appropriate no money to give effect to such laws until and except
upon condition that they are repealed. [Applause on the Democratic
side.] * * * We will give him the Army on a single condition that it
shall never be used or be present at the polls when an election is held
for members of this House, or in any presidential election, or in any
State or municipal election. * * * Clothed thus with unquestioned power,
bound by clear duty, to expunge these vicious laws from the statute
book, following a constitutional method sanctioned by venerable
precedents in English history, we feel that we have the undoubted right,
and are beyond cavil in the right, in declaring that with our grant of
supply there must be a cessation of these grievances, and we make these
appropriations conditioned on securing a free ballot and fair juries for
our citizens.”
The Senate, July 1, passed the House bill placing quinine on the free
list.
The extra session finally passed the Appropriation bills without riders,
and adjourned July 1st, 1879, with the Republican party far more firmly
united than at the beginning of the Hayes administration. The attempt on
the part of the Democrats to pass these political riders, and their
threat, in the words of Garfield, who had then succeeded Stevens and
Blaine as the Republican Commoner of the House, reawakened all the
partisan animosities which the administration of President Hayes had up
to that time allayed. Even the President caught its spirit, and plainly
manifested it in his veto messages. It was a losing battle to the
Democrats, for they had, with the view not to “starve the government,”
to abandon their position, and the temporary demoralization which
followed bridged over the questions pertaining to the title of President
Hayes, overshadowed the claims of Tilden, and caused the North to again
look with grave concern on the establishment of Democratic power. If it
had not been for this extra session, it is asserted and believed by
many, the Republicans could not have so soon gained control of the lower
House, which they did in the year following; and that the plan to
nominate General Hancock for the Presidency, which originated with
Senator Wallace of Pennsylvania, could not have otherwise succeeded if
Tilden’s cause had not been kept before his party, unclouded by an extra
session which was freighted with disaster to the Democratic party.
The Negro Exodus.
During this summer political comment, long after adjournment, was kept
active by a great negro exodus from the South to the Northwest, most of
the emigrants going to Kansas. The Republicans ascribed this to ill
treatment, the Democrats to the operations of railroad agents. The
people of Kansas welcomed them, but other States, save Indiana, were
slow in their manifestations of hospitality, and the exodus soon ceased
for a time. It was renewed in South Carolina in the winter of 1881–82,
the design being to remove to Arkansas, but at this writing it attracts
comparatively little notice. The Southern journals generally advise more
liberal treatment of the blacks in matters of education, labor
contracts, etc., while none of the Northern or Western States any longer
make efforts to get the benefit of their labor, if indeed they ever did.
Closing Hours of the Hayes Administration.
At the regular session of Congress, which met December 1st, 1879,
President Hayes advised Congress against any further legislation in
reference to coinage, and favored the retirement of the legal tenders.
The most important political action taken at this session was the
passage, for Congress was still Democratic, of a law to prevent the use
of the army to keep the peace at the polls. To this was added the
Garfield proviso, that it should not be construed to prevent the
Constitutional use of the army to suppress domestic violence in a
State—a proviso which in the view of the Republicans rid the bill of
material partisan objections, and it was therefore passed and approved.
The “political riders” were again added to the Appropriation and
Deficiency bills, but were again vetoed and failed in this form to
become laws. Upon these questions President Hayes showed much firmness.
During the session the Democratic opposition to the General Election Law
was greatly tempered, the Supreme Court having made an important
decision, which upheld its constitutionality. Like all sessions under
the administration of President Hayes and since, nothing was done to
provide permanent and safe methods for completing the electoral count.
On this question each party seemed to be afraid of the other. The
session adjourned June 16th, 1880.
The second session of the 46th Congress began December 1st, 1880. The
last annual message of President Hayes recommended the earliest
practicable retirement of the legal-tender notes, and the maintenance of
the present laws for the accumulation of a sinking fund sufficient to
extinguish the public debt within a limited period. The laws against
polygamy, he said, should be firmly and effectively executed. In the
course of a lengthy discussion of the civil service the President
declared that in his opinion “every citizen has an equal right to the
honor and profit of entering the public service of his country. The only
just ground of discrimination is the measure of character and capacity
he has to make that service most useful to the people. Except in cases
where, upon just and recognized principles, as upon the theory of
pensions, offices and promotions are bestowed as rewards for past
services, their bestowal upon any theory which disregards personal merit
is an act of injustice to the citizen, as well as a breach of that trust
subject to which the appointing power is held. Considerable space was
given in the Message to the condition of the Indians, the President
recommending the passage of a law enabling the government to give
Indians a title-fee, inalienable for twenty-five years, to the farm
lands assigned to them by allotment. He also repeats the recommendation
made in a former message that a law be passed admitting the Indians who
can give satisfactory proof of having by their own labor supported their
families for a number of years, and who are willing to detach themselves
from their tribal relations, to the benefit of the Homestead Act, and
authorizing the government to grant them patents containing the same
provision of inalienability for a certain period.
The Senate, on the 19th, appointed a committee of five to investigate
the causes of the recent negro exodus from the South. On the same day a
committee was appointed by the House to examine into the subject of an
inter-oceanic ship-canal.
The payment of the award of the Halifax Fisheries
Commission—$5,500,000—to the British government was made by the American
minister in London, November 23, 1879, accompanied by a communication
protesting against the payment being understood as an acquiescence in
the result of the Commission “as furnishing any just measure of the
value of a participation by our citizens in the inshore fisheries of the
British Provinces.”
On the 17th of December 1879, gold was sold in New York at par. It was
first sold at a premium January 13, 1862. It reached its highest rate,
$2.85, July 11, 1864.
The electoral vote was counted without any partisan excitement or
disagreement. Georgia’s electoral college had met on the second instead
of the first Wednesday of December, as required by the Federal law. She
actually voted under her old Confederate law, but as it could not change
the result, both parties agreed to the count of the vote of Georgia “in
the alternative,” _i. e._—“if the votes of Georgia were counted the
number of votes for A and B. for President and Vice-President would be
so many, and if the votes of Georgia were not counted, the number of
votes for A and B. for President and Vice-President would be so many,
and that in either case A and B are elected.”
Among the bills not disposed of by this session were the electoral count
joint rule; the funding bill; the Irish relief bill; the Chinese
indemnity bill; to restrict Chinese immigration; to amend the
Constitution as to the election of President; to regulate the pay and
number of supervisors of election and special deputy marshals; to
abrogate the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty; to prohibit military interference at
elections; to define the terms of office of the Chief Supervisors of
elections; for the appointment of a tariff commission; the political
assessment bill; the Kellogg-Spofford case; and the Fitz-John Porter
bill.
The regular appropriation bills were all completed. The total amount
appropriated was about $186,000,000. Among the special sums voted were
$30,000 for the centennial celebration of the Yorktown victory, and
$100,000 for a monument to commemorate the same.
Congress adjourned March 3d, 1881, and President Hayes on the following
day retired from office. The effect of his administration was, in a
political sense, to strengthen a growing independent sentiment in the
ranks of the Republicans—an element more conservative generally in its
views than those represented by Conkling and Blaine. This sentiment
began with Bristow, who while in the cabinet made a show of seeking out
and punishing all corruptions in government office or service. On this
platform and record he had contested with Hayes the honors of the
Presidential nominations, and while the latter was at the time believed
to well represent the same views, they were not urgently pressed during
his administration. Indeed, without the knowledge of Hayes, what is
believed to be a most gigantic “steal,” and which is now being
prosecuted under the name of the Star Route cases, had its birth, and
thrived so well that no important discovery was made until the incoming
of the Garfield administration. The Hayes administration, it is now
fashionable to say, made little impress for good or evil upon the
country, but impartial historians will give it the credit of softening
party asperities and aiding very materially in the restoration of better
feeling between the North and South. Its conservatism, always manifested
save on extraordinary occasions, did that much good at least.
The Campaign of 1880.
The Republican National Convention met June 5th, 1880, at Chicago, in
the Exposition building, capable of seating 20,000 people. The
excitement in the ranks of the Republicans was very high, because of the
candidacy of General Grant for what was popularly called a “third term,”
though not a third consecutive term. His three powerful Senatorial
friends, in the face of bitter protests, had secured the instructions of
their respective State Conventions for Grant. Conkling had done this in
New York, Cameron in Pennsylvania, Logan in Illinois, but in each of the
three States the opposition was so impressive that no serious attempts
were made to substitute other delegates for those which had previously
been selected by their Congressional districts. As a result there was a
large minority in the delegations of these States opposed to the
nomination of General Grant, and the votes of them could only be
controlled by the enforcement of the unit rule. Senator Hoar of
Massachusetts, the President of the Convention, decided against its
enforcement, and as a result all of the delegates were free to vote upon
either State or District instructions, or as they chose. The Convention
was in session three days. We present herewith the
BALLOTS.
_Ballots._ 1 2 3 4 5 6
Grant, 304 305 305 305 305 305
Blaine, 284 282 282 281 281 281
Sherman, 93 94 93 95 95 95
Edmunds, 34 32 32 32 32 31
Washburne, 30 32 31 31 31 31
Windom, 10 10 10 10 10 10
Garfield, 1 1 1 2 2
Harrison, 1
──────────────────────────────────
_Ballots._ 7 8 9 10 11 12
Grant, 305 306 308 305 305 304
Blaine, 281 284 282 282 281 283
Sherman, 94 91 90 91 62 93
Edmunds, 32 31 31 30 31 31
Washburne, 31 32 32 22 32 33
Windom, 10 10 10 10 10 10
Garfield, 1 1 1 2 2 1
Hayes, 1 2
──────────────────────────────────
_Ballots_, 13 14 15 16 17 18
Grant, 305 305 309 306 303 305
Blaine, 285 285 281 283 284 283
Sherman, 89 89 88 88 90 92
Edmunds, 31 31 31 31 31 31
Washburne, 33 35 36 36 34 35
Windom, 10 10 10 10 10 10
Garfield, 1
Hayes, 1 1
Davis, 1
McCrary, 1
──────────────────────────────────
_Ballots_, 19 20 21 22 23 24
Grant, 305 308 305 305 304 305
Blaine, 279 276 276 275 274 279
Sherman, 95 93 96 95 98 93
Edmunds, 31 31 31 31 31 31
Washburne, 31 35 35 35 36 35
Windom, 10 10 10 10 10 10
Garfield, 1 1 1 1 2 2
Hartranft, 1 1 1 1
──────────────────────────────────
_Ballots_, 25 26 27
Grant, 302 303 306
Blaine, 281 280 277
Sherman, 94 93 93
Edmunds, 31 31 31
Washburne, 36 35 36
Windom, 10 10 10
Garfield, 2 2 2
There was little change from the 27th ballot until the 36th and final
one, which resulted as follows:
Whole number of votes 755
Necessary to a choice 378
Grant 306
Blaine 42
Sherman 3
Washburne 5
Garfield 399
As shown, General James A. Garfield, of Ohio, was nominated on the 36th
ballot, the forces of General Grant alone remaining solid. The result
was due to a sudden union of the forces of Blaine and Sherman, it is
believed with the full consent of both, for both employed the same wire
leading from the same room in Washington in telegraphing to their
friends at Chicago. The object was to defeat Grant. After Garfield’s
nomination there was a temporary adjournment, during which the friends
of the nominee consulted Conkling and his leading friends, and the
result was the selection of General Chester A. Arthur of New York, for
Vice-President. The object of this selection was to carry New York, the
great State which was then almost universally believed to hold the key
to the Presidential position.
The Democratic National Convention met at Cincinnati, June 22d. Tilden
had up to the holding of the Pennsylvania State Convention been one of
the most prominent candidates. In this Convention there was a bitter
struggle between the Wallace and Randall factions, the former favoring
Hancock, the latter Tilden. Wallace, after a contest far sharper than he
expected, won, and bound the delegation by the unit rule. When the
National Convention met, John Kelly, the Tammany leader of New York, was
again there, as at St. Louis four years before, to oppose Tilden, but
the latter sent a letter disclaiming that he was a candidate, and yet
really inviting a nomination on the issue of “the fraudulent counting in
of Hayes.” There were but two ballots, as follows:
FIRST BALLOT.
Hancock 171
Bayard 153½
Payne 81
Thurman 63½
Field 66
Morrison 62
Hendricks 46½
Tilden 38
Ewing 10
Seymour 8
Randall 6
Loveland 5
McDonald 3
McClellan 3
English 1
Jewett 1
Black 1
Lothrop 1
Parker 1
SECOND BALLOT.
Hancock 705
Tilden 1
Bayard 2
Hendricks 30
Thus General Winfield S. Hancock, of New York, was nominated on the
second ballot. Wm. H. English, of Indiana, was nominated for
Vice-President.
The National Greenback-Labor Convention, held at Chicago, June 11,
nominated General J. B. Weaver, of Iowa, for President, and General E.
J. Chambers, of Texas, for Vice-President.
In the canvass which followed, the Republicans were aided by such
orators as Conkling, Blaine, Grant, Logan, Curtis, Boutwell, while the
Camerons, father and son, visited the October States of Ohio and
Indiana, as it was believed that these would determine the result, Maine
having in September very unexpectedly defeated the Republican State
ticket by a small majority. The Democrats were aided by Bayard,
Voorhees, Randall, Wallace, Hill, Hampton, Lamar, and hosts of their
best orators. Every issue was recalled, but for the first time in the
history of the Republicans of the West, they accepted the tariff issue,
and made open war on Watterson’s plank in the Democratic platform—“a
tariff for revenue only.” Iowa, Ohio, and Indiana, all elected the
Republican State tickets with good margins; West Virginia went
Democratic, but the result was, notwithstanding this, reasonably assured
to the Republicans. The Democrats, however, feeling the strong personal
popularity of their leading candidate, persisted with high courage to
the end. In November all of the Southern States, with New Jersey,
California,[36] and Nevada in the North, went Democratic; all of the
others Republican. The Greenbackers held only a balance of power, which
they could not exercise, in California, Indiana, and New Jersey. The
electoral vote of Garfield and Arthur was 214, that of Hancock and
English 155. The popular vote was Republican, 4,442,950; Democratic,
4,442,035; Greenback or National, 306,867; scattering, 12,576. The
Congressional elections in the same canvass gave the Republicans 147
members; the Democrats, 136; Greenbackers, 9; Independents, 1.
Fifteen States elected Governors, nine of them Republicans and six
Democrats.
General Garfield, November 10, sent to Governor Foster, of Ohio, his
resignation as a Senator, and John Sherman, the Secretary of the
Treasury, was in the winter following elected as his successor.
The third session of the Forty-sixth Congress was begun December 6. The
President’s Message was read in both Houses. Among its recommendations
to Congress were the following: To create the office of Captain-General
of the Army for General Grant; to defend the inviolability of the
constitutional amendments; to promote free popular education by grants
of public lands and appropriations from the United States Treasury; to
appropriate $25,000 annually for the expenses of a Commission to be
appointed by the President to devise a just, uniform, and efficient
system of competitive examinations, and to supervise the application of
the same throughout the entire civil service of the government; to pass
a law defining the relations of Congressmen to appointments to office,
so as to end Congressional encroachment upon the appointing power; to
repeal the Tenure-of-office Act, and pass a law protecting
office-holders in resistance to political assessments; to abolish the
present system of executive and judicial government in Utah, and
substitute for it a government by a commission to be appointed by the
President and confirmed by the Senate, or, in case the present
government is continued, to withhold from all who practice polygamy the
right to vote, hold office, and sit on juries; to repeal the act
authorizing the coinage of the silver dollar of 412½ grains, and to
authorize the coinage of a new silver dollar equal in value as bullion
with the gold dollar; to take favorable action on the bill providing for
the allotment of lands on the different reservations.
Two treaties between this country and China were signed at Pekin,
November 17, 1881, one of commerce, and the other securing to the United
States the control and regulation of the Chinese immigration.
President Hayes, February 1, 1881, sent a message to Congress sustaining
in the main the findings of the Ponca Indian Commission, and approving
its recommendation that they remain on their reservation in Indian
Territory. The President suggested that the general Indian policy for
the future should embrace the following ideas: First, the Indians should
be prepared for citizenship by giving to their young of both sexes that
industrial and general education which is requisite to enable them to be
self-supporting and capable of self-protection in civilized communities;
second, lands should be allotted to the Indians in severalty,
inalienable for a certain period; third, the Indians should have a fair
compensation for their lands not required for individual allotments, the
amount to be invested, with suitable safeguards, for their benefit;
fourth, with these prerequisites secured, the Indians should be made
citizens, and invested with the rights and charged with the
responsibilities of citizenship.
The Senate, February 4, passed Mr. Morgan’s concurrent resolution
declaring that the President of the Senate is not invested by the
Constitution of the United States with the right to count the votes of
electors for President and Vice-President of the United States, so as to
determine what votes shall be received and counted, or what votes shall
be rejected. An amendment was added declaring in effect that it is the
duty of Congress to pass a law at once providing for the orderly
counting of the electoral vote. The House concurred February 5, but no
action by bill or otherwise has since been taken.
Senator Pendleton, of Ohio, December 15, 1881, introduced a bill to
regulate the civil service and to promote the efficiency thereof, and
also a bill to prohibit Federal officers, claimants, and contractors
from making or receiving assessments or contributions for political
purposes.
The Burnside Educational Bill passed the Senate December 17, 1881. It
provides that the proceeds of the sale of public land and the earnings
of the Patent Office shall be funded at four per cent., and the interest
divided among the States in proportion to their illiteracy. An amendment
by Senator Morgan provides for the instruction of women in the State
agricultural colleges in such branches of technical and industrial
education as are suited to their sex. No action has yet been taken by
the House.
On the 9th of February the electoral votes were counted by the
Vice-President in the presence of both Houses, and Garfield and Arthur
were declared elected President and Vice-President of the United States.
There was no trouble as to the count, and the result previously stated
was formally announced.
The Three Per Cent. Funding Bill.
The 3 per cent. Funding Bill passed the House March 2, and was on the
following day vetoed by President Hayes on the ground that it dealt
unjustly with the National Banks in compelling them to accept and employ
this security for their circulation in lieu of the old bonds. This
feature of the bill caused several of the Banks to surrender their
circulation, conduct which for a time excited strong political
prejudices. The Republicans in Congress as a rule contended that the
debt could not be surely funded at 3 per cent.; that 3½ was a safer
figure, and to go below this might render the bill of no effect. The
same views were entertained by President Hayes and Secretary Sherman.
The Democrats insisted on 3 per cent., until the veto, when the general
desire to fund at more favorable rates broke party lines, and a 3½ per
cent. funding bill was passed, with the feature objectionable to the
National Banks omitted.
The Republicans were mistaken in their view, as the result proved. The
loan was floated so easily, that in the session of 1882 Secretary
Sherman, now a Senator, himself introduced a 3 per cent. bill, which
passed the Senate Feb. 2d, 1882, in this shape:—
_Be it enacted, &c._ That the Secretary of the Treasury is hereby
authorized to receive at the Treasury and at the office of any Assistant
Treasurer of the United States and at any postal money order office,
lawful money of the United States to the amount of fifty dollars or any
multiple of that sum or any bonds of the United States, bearing three
and a half per cent, interest, which are hereby declared valid, and to
issue in exchange therefore an equal amount of registered or coupon
bonds of the United States, of the denomination of fifty, one hundred,
five hundred, one thousand and ten thousand dollars, of such form as he
may prescribe, bearing interest at the rate three per centum per annum,
payable either quarterly or semi-annually, at the Treasury of the United
States. Such bonds shall be exempt from all taxation by or under state
authority, and be payable at the pleasure of the United States.
“Provided, That the bonds herein authorized shall not be called in and
paid so long as any bonds of the United States heretofore issued bearing
a higher rate of interest than three per centum, and which shall be
redeemable at the pleasure of the United States, shall be outstanding
and uncalled. The last of the said bonds originally issued and their
substitutes under this act shall be first called in and this order of
payment shall be followed until all shall have been paid.”
The money deposited under this act shall be promptly applied solely to
the redemption of the bonds of the United States bearing three and a
half per centum interest, and the aggregate amount of deposits made and
bonds issued under this act shall not exceed the sum of two hundred
million dollars. The amount of lawful money so received on deposit, as
aforesaid, shall not exceed, at any time, the sum of twenty-five million
dollars. Before any deposits are received at any postal money office
under this act, the postmaster at such office shall file with the
Secretary of the Treasury his bond, with satisfactory security,
conditioned that he will promptly transmit to the Treasury of the United
States the money received by him in conformity with regulations to be
prescribed by such secretary; and the deposit with any postmaster shall
not at any time, exceed the amount of his bond.
SECTION 2. Any national banking association now organized or hereafter
organized desiring to withdraw its circulating notes upon a deposit of
lawful money with the Treasury or the United States as provided in
section 4 of the Act of June 20, 1874, entitled “An act fixing the
amount of United States notes providing for a redistribution of National
bank currency and for other purposes,” shall be required to give thirty
days’ notice to the Controller of the Currency of its intention to
deposit lawful money and withdraw its circulating notes; provided that
not more than five million of dollars of lawful money shall be deposited
during any calendar month for this purpose; and provided further, that
the provisions of this section shall not apply to bonds called for
redemption by the Secretary of the Treasury.
SECTION 3. That nothing in this act shall be so construed as to
authorize an increase of the public debt.
In the past few years opinions on the rates of interest have undergone
wonderful changes. Many supposed—indeed it was a “standard”
argument—that rates must ever be higher in new than old countries, that
these higher rates comported with and aided the higher rates paid for
commodities and labor. The funding operations since the war have
dissipated this belief, and so shaken political theories that no party
can now claim a monopoly of sound financial doctrine. So high is the
credit of the government, and so abundant are the resources of our
people after a comparatively short period of general prosperity, that
they seem to have plenty of surplus funds with which to aid any funding
operation, however low the rate of interest, if the government—State or
National—shows a willingness to pay. As late as February, 1882,
Pennsylvania funded seven millions of her indebtedness at 3, 3½ and 4
per cent., the two larger sums commanding premiums sufficient to cause
the entire debt to be floated at a little more than 3 per cent., and
thus floating commands an additional premium in the money exchanges.
History of the National Loans.
In Book VII of this volume devoted to Tabulated History, we try to give
the reader at a glance some idea of the history of our National
finances. An attempt to go into details would of itself fill volumes,
for no class of legislation has taken so much time or caused such a
diversity of opinion. Yet it is shown, by an admirable review of the
loans of the United States, by Rafael A. Bayley, of the Treasury
Department published in the February (1882) number of the _International
Review_, that the “financial system of the government of the United
States has continued the same from its organization to the present
time.” Mr. Bayley has completed a history of our National Loans, which
will be published in the Census volume on “Public Debts.” From his
article in the _Review_ we condense the leading facts bearing on the
history of our national loans.
The financial system of the United States, in all its main features, is
simple and well defined, and its very simplicity may probably be
assigned as the reason why it appears so difficult of comprehension by
many people of intelligence and education. It is based upon the
principles laid down by Alexander Hamilton, and the practical adoption
of the fundamental maxim which he regarded as the true secret for
rendering public credit immortal, viz., “that the creation of the debt
should always be accompanied with the means of extinguishment.” A
faithful adherence to this system by his successors has stood the test
of nearly a century, with the nation at peace or at war, in prosperity
or adversity; so that, with all the change that progress has entailed
upon the people of the age, no valid grounds exist for any change here.
“During the colonial period, and under the confederation, the financial
operations of the Government were based on the law of necessity, and
depended for success upon the patriotism of the people, the co-operation
of the several States, and the assistance of foreign powers friendly to
our cause.
“It was the willingness of the people to receive the various kinds of
paper money issued under authority of the Continental Congress, and used
in payment for services and supplies, together with the issue of similar
obligations by the different States, for the redemption of which they
assumed the responsibility; aided by the munificent gift of money from
Louis XVI. of France, followed by loans for a large amount from both
France and Holland, that made victory possible, and laid the foundations
for the republic of to-day, with its credit unimpaired, and with
securities commanding a ready sale at a high premium in all the
principal markets of the world.
“Authorities vary as to the amount of paper money issued and the cost of
the war for independence. On the 1st of September, 1779, Congress
resolved that it would ‘on no account whatever emit more bills of credit
than to make the whole amount of such bills two hundred millions of
dollars.’ Mr. Jefferson estimates the value of this sum _at the time of
its emission_ at $36,367,719.83 in specie, and says; ‘If we estimate at
the same value the like sum of $200,000,000 supposed to have been
emitted by the States, and reckon the Federal debt, foreign and
domestic, at about $43,000,000, and the State debt at $25,000,000, it
will form an amount of $140,000,000, the total sum which the war cost
the United States. It continued eight years, from the battle of
Lexington to the cessation of hostilities in America. The annual expense
was, therefore, equal to about $17,500,000 in specie.’
“The first substantial aid rendered the colonies by any foreign power
was a free gift of money and military supplies from Louis XVI. of
France, amounting in the aggregate to 10,000,000 livres, equivalent to
$1,815,000.
“These supplies were not furnished openly, for the reason that France
was not in a position to commence a war with Great Britain. The
celebrated Caron de Beaumarchais was employed as a secret agent, between
whom and Silas Deane, as the political and commercial agent of the
United States, a contract was entered into whereby the former agreed to
furnish a large amount of military supplies from the arsenals of France,
and to receive American produce in payment therefor.
“Under this arrangement supplies were furnished by the French Government
to the amount of 2,000,000 livres. An additional 1,000,000 was
contributed by the Government of Spain for the same purpose, and through
the same agency. The balance of the French subsidy was paid through
Benjamin Franklin. In 1777 a loan of 1,000,000 livres was obtained from
the ‘Farmers General of France’ under a contract for its repayment in
American tobacco at a stipulated price. From 1778 to 1783, additional
loans were obtained from the French King, amounting to 34,000,000
livres. From 1782 to 1789, loans to the amount of 9,000,000 guilders
were negotiated in Holland, through the agency of John Adams, then the
American Minister to the Hague.
“The indebtedness of the United States at the organization of the
present form of government (including interest to December 31, 1790) may
be briefly stated, as follows:
Foreign debt $11,883,315.96
Domestic debt 40,256,802.45
Debt due foreign officers 198,208.10
Arrears outstanding (since discharged) 450,395.52
——————————————
Total $52,788,722.03
To this should be added the individual debts of the several States, the
precise amount and character of which was then unknown, but estimated by
Hamilton at that time to aggregate about $25,000,000.
“The payment of this vast indebtedness was virtually guarantied by the
provisions of Article VI. of the Constitution, which says: ‘All debts
contracted, and engagements entered into, before the adoption of this
Constitution shall be as valid against the United States under this
Constitution as under the confederation.’ On the 21st of September,
1789, the House of Representatives adopted the following resolutions:
_Resolved_, That this House consider an adequate provision for the
support of the public credit as a matter of high importance to the
national honor and prosperity.
_Resolved_, That the Secretary of the Treasury be directed to prepare a
plan for that purpose, and to report the same to this House at its next
meeting.
“In reply thereto Hamilton submitted his report on the 9th of January,
1790, in which he gave many reasons for assuming the debts of the old
Government, and of the several States, and furnished a plan for
supporting the public credit. His recommendations were adopted, and
embodied in the act making provision for the payment of the debt of the
United States, approved August 4, 1790.
This act authorized a loan of $12,000,000, to be applied to the payment
of the foreign debt, principal and interest; a loan equal to the full
amount of the domestic debt, payable in certificates issued for its
amount according to their specie value, and computing the interest to
December 31, 1791, upon such as bore interest; and a further loan of
$21,500,000, payable in the principal and interest of the certificates
or notes which, prior to January 1, 1790, were issued by the respective
States as evidences of indebtedness incurred by them for the expenses of
the late war. ‘In the case of the debt of the United States, interest
upon two-thirds of the principal only, at 6 per cent., was immediately
paid; interest upon the remaining third was deferred for ten years, and
only three per cent. was allowed upon the arrears of interest, making
one-third of the whole debt. In the case of the separate debts of the
States, interest upon four-ninths only of the entire sum was immediately
paid; interest upon two-ninths was deferred for ten years, and only 3
per cent. allowed on three-ninths.’ Under this authority 6 per cent.
stock was issued to the amount of $30,060,511, and deferred 6 per cent.
stock, bearing interest from January 1, 1800, amounting to $14,635,386.
This stock was made subject to redemption by payments not exceeding, in
one year, on account both of principal and interest, the proportion of
eight dollars upon a hundred of the sum mentioned in the certificates;
$19,719,237 was issued in 3 per cent. stock, subject to redemption
whenever provision should be made by law for that purpose.
“The money needed for the payment of the principal and interest of the
foreign debt was procured by new loans negotiated in Holland and Antwerp
to the amount of $9,400,000, and the issue of new stock for the balance
of $2,024,900 due on the French debt, this stock bearing a rate of
interest one-half of one per cent. in advance of the rate previously
paid, and redeemable at the pleasure of the Government. Subsequent
legislation provided for the establishment of a sinking fund, under the
management of a board of commissioners, consisting of the President of
the Senate, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Secretary of State,
Secretary of the Treasury, and Attorney-General, for the time being,
who, or any three of whom, were authorized, under the direction of the
President of the United States, to make purchases of stock, and
otherwise provide for the gradual liquidation of the entire debt, from
funds set apart for this purpose. On assuming the position of Secretary
of the Treasury, Hamilton found himself entirely without funds to meet
the ordinary expenses of the Government, except by borrowing, until such
time as the revenues from duties on imports and tonnage began to come
into the Treasury. Under these circumstances, he was forced to make
arrangements with the Bank of New York and the Bank of North America for
temporary loans, and it was from the moneys received from these banks
that he paid the first installment of salary due President Washington,
Senators, Representatives and officers of Congress, during the first
session under the Constitution, which began at the city of New York,
March 4, 1789.
“The first ‘Bank of the United States’ appears to have been proposed by
Alexander Hamilton in December, 1790, and it was incorporated by an act
of Congress, approved February 25, 1791, with a capital stock of
$10,000,000 divided into 25,000 shares at $400 each. The government
subscription of $2,000,000, under authority of the act, was paid by
giving to the bank bills of exchange on Holland equivalent to gold, and
borrowing from the bank a like sum for ten years at 6 per cent.
interest. The bank went into operation very soon after its charter was
obtained, and declared its first dividend in July, 1792. It was
evidently well managed, and was of great benefit to the Government and
the people at large, assisting the Government by loans in cases of
emergency, and forcing the ‘wildcat’ banks of the country to keep their
issues ‘somewhere within reasonable bounds.’ More than $100,000,000 of
Government money was received and disbursed by it without the loss of a
single dollar. It made semi-annual dividends, averaging about 8½ per
cent., and its stock rose to a high price. The stock belonging to the
United States was sold out at different times at a profit, 2,220 shares
sold in 1802 bringing an advance of 45 per cent. The government
subscription, with ten years’ interest amounted to $3,200,600, while
there was received in dividends and for stock sold $3,773,580, a profit
of nearly 28.7 per cent. In 1796 the credit of the Government was very
low, as shown by its utter failure to negotiate a loan for the purpose
of paying a debt to the Bank of the United States for moneys borrowed
and used, partly to pay the expenses of suppressing the whisky
insurrection in Pennsylvania and to buy a treaty with the pirates of
Algiers. On a loan authorized for $5,000,000, only $80,000 could be
obtained, and this at a discount of 12½ per cent.; and, there being no
other immediate resource, United States Bank stock to the amount of
$1,304,260 was sold at a premium of 25 per cent.
“Under an act approved June 30, 1798, the President was authorized to
accept such vessels as were suitable to be armed for the public service,
not exceeding twelve in number, and to issue certificates, or other
evidences of the public debt of the United States, in payment. The ships
George Washington, Merrimack, Maryland and Patapsco, brig Richmond, and
frigates Boston, Philadelphia, John Adams, Essex and New York, were
purchased, and 6 per cent. stock, redeemable at the pleasure of
Congress, was issued in payment to the amount of $711,700.
“The idea of creating a navy by the purchase of vessels built by private
parties and issuing stock in payment therefor, seems to have originated
with Hamilton.
“In the years 1797 and 1798 the United States, though nominally at peace
with all the world, was actually at war with France—a war not formally
declared, but carried on upon the ocean with very great virulence. John
Marshall, Elbridge Gerry and Charles C. Pinckney were appointed envoys
extraordinary to the French Republic, with power for terminating all
differences and restoring harmony, good understanding and commercial and
friendly intercourse between the two nations; but their efforts were in
vain, and extensive preparations were made to resist a French invasion.
It was evident that the ordinary revenues of the country would be
inadequate for the increased expenditure, and a loan of $5,000,000 was
authorized by an act approved July 16, 1798, redeemable at pleasure
after fifteen years. The rate of interest was not specified in the act,
and the market rate at the time being 8 per cent. this rate was paid,
and it was thought by a committee of Congress that the loan was
negotiated ‘upon the best terms that could be procured, and with a
laudable eye to the public interest.’ A loan of $3,500,000 was
authorized by an act approved May 7, 1800, for the purpose of meeting a
large deficit in the revenues of the preceding year, caused by increased
expenditures rendered necessary on account of the difficulties with
France, and stock bearing 8 per cent. interest, reimbursable after
fifteen years, was issued to the amount of $1,481,700, on which a
premium was realized of nearly 5¾ per cent. These are the only two
instances in which the Government has paid 8 per cent. interest on its
bonds.
“The province of Louisiana was ceded to the United States by a treaty
with France, April 30, 1803, in payment for which 6 per cent. bonds,
payable in fifteen years, were issued to the amount of $11,250,000, and
the balance which the Government agreed to pay for the province,
amounting to $3,750,000, was devoted to reimbursing American citizens
for French depredations on their commerce. These claims were paid in
money, and the stock redeemed by purchases made under the direction of
the Commissioners of the Sinking Fund within twelve years. Under an act
approved February 11, 1807, a portion of the ‘old 6 per cent.’ and
‘deferred stocks’ was refunded into new stock, bearing the same rate of
interest, but redeemable at the pleasure of the United States. This was
done for the purpose of placing it within the power of the Government to
reimburse the amount refunded within a short time, as under the old laws
these stocks could only be redeemed at the rate of 2 per cent. annually.
Stock was issued amounting to $6,294,051, nearly all of which was
redeemed within four years. Under the same act old ‘3 per cent. stock’
to the amount of $2,861,309 was converted into 6 per cents., at
sixty-five cents on the dollar, but this was not reimbursable without
the assent of the holder until after the whole of certain other stocks
named in the act was redeemed. The stock issued under this authority
amounted to $1,859,871. It would appear that the great majority of the
holders of the “old stock” preferred it to the new. A loan equal to the
amount of the principal of the public debt reimbursable during the
current year was authorized by an act approved May 1, 1810, and
$2,750,000 was borrowed at 6 per cent. interest from the Bank of the
United States, for the purpose of meeting any deficiency arising from
increased expenditures on account of the military and naval
establishments. This was merely a temporary loan, which was repaid the
following year.
“The ordinary expenses for the year 1812 were estimated by the Committee
of Ways and Means of the House of Representatives at $1,200,000 more
than the estimated receipts for the same period, and the impending war
with Great Britain made it absolutely necessary that some measures
should be adopted to maintain the public credit, and provide the
requisite funds for carrying on the Government. Additional taxes were
imposed upon the people, but as these could not be made immediately
available there was no other resource but new loans and the issue of
Treasury notes. This was the first time since the formation of the new
Government that the issue of such notes had been proposed, and they were
objected to as engrafting on our system of finance a new and untried
measure.
“Under various acts of Congress approved between March 4, 1812, and
February 24, 1815, 6 per cent. bonds were issued to the amount of
$50,792,674. These bonds were negotiated at rates varying from 20 per
cent. discount to par, the net cash realized amounting to $44,530,123. A
further sum of $4,025,000 was obtained by temporary loans at par, of
which sum $225,000 was for the purpose of repairing the public buildings
in Washington, damaged by the enemy on the night of August 24, 1814.
These ‘war loans’ were all made redeemable at the pleasure of the
Government after a specified date, and the faith of the United States
was solemnly pledged to provide sufficient revenues for this purpose.
The ‘Treasury note system’ was a new feature, and its success was
regarded as somewhat doubtful.
“Its subsequent popularity, however, was owing to a variety of causes.
The notes were made receivable everywhere for dues and customs, and in
payment for public lands. They were to bear interest from the day of
issue, at the rate of 5–⅖ per cent. per annum, and their payment was
guaranteed by the United States, principal and interest, at maturity.
They thus furnished a circulating medium to the country, superior to the
paper of the suspended and doubtful State banks. These issues were
therefore considered more desirable than the issue of additional stock,
which could be realized in cash only by the payment of a ruinous
discount. The whole amount of Treasury notes issued during the war
period was $36,680,794. The Commissioners of the Sinking Fund were
authorized to provide for their redemption by purchase, in the same
manner as for other evidences of the public debt, and by authority of
law $10,575,738 was redeemed by the issue of certificates of funded
stock, bearing interest at from 6 to 7 per cent. per annum, redeemable
at any time after 1824.
“During the years 1812–13 the sum of $2,984,747 of the old 6 per cent.
and deferred stocks were refunded into new 6 per cent. stock redeemable
in twelve years; and by an act approved March 31, 1814, Congress having
authorized a settlement of the ‘Yazoo claims’ by an issue of
non-interest-bearing stock, payable out of the first receipts from the
sale of public lands in the Mississippi territory, $4,282,037 was issued
for this purpose. On the 24th of February, 1815, Secretary Dallas
reported to Congress that the public debt had been increased, in
consequence of the war with Great Britain, $68,783,122, a large portion
of which was due and unpaid, while another considerable proportion was
fast becoming due. These unpaid or accruing demands were in part for
temporary loans, and the balance for Treasury notes either due or
maturing daily. To provide for their payment a new loan for the full
amount needed was authorized by act of March 3, 1815, and six per cent.
stock redeemable in fifteen years, was issued in the sum of $12,288,148.
This stock was sold at from 95 per cent. to par, and was nearly all
redeemed in 1820 by purchases made by the Commissioners of the Sinking
Fund.
“The Government became a stockholder in the second Bank of the United
States, to the amount of 70,000 shares, under the act of incorporation,
approved April 10, 1816. The capital stock was limited to $35,000,000,
divided into 350,000 shares of $100 each. The Government subscription
was paid by the issue of 5 per cent. stock to the amount of $7,000,000,
redeemable at the pleasure of the Government. This was a profitable
investment for the United States, as in addition to $1,500,000 which the
bank paid as a bonus for its charter, the net receipts over and above
disbursements amounted to $4,993,167. The available funds in the
Treasury on the 1st of January, 1820, were less than $250,000, and the
estimated deficiency for the year amounted to nearly $4,000,000. This
state of affairs was owing partly to the disastrous effects of the
commercial crisis of 1819, heavy payments for the redemption of the
public debt, continued through a series of years, and large outstanding
claims, amounting to over $30,000,000, resulting from the late war with
Great Britain. To meet the emergency, a loan was authorized by act of
May 15, 1820, and $999,999.13 was borrowed at 5 per cent., redeemable in
twelve years, and $2,000,000 at 6 per cent., reimbursable at pleasure,
this latter stock realizing a premium of 2 per cent. By act of March 3,
1821, 5 per cent. stock amounting to $4,735,276 was issued at a premium
of over 5½ per cent., and the proceeds used in payment of the principal
and interest of the public debt falling due within the year.
“An effort was made in 1822 to refund a portion of the 6 per cent. war
loans of 1812–14 into 5 per cents., but only $56,705 could be obtained.
Two years later the Government was more successful, and, under the act
of May 26, 1824, 6 per cent. stock of 1813 to the amount of $4,454,728
was exchanged for new stock bearing 4½ per cent. interest, redeemable in
1833–34. During the same year $5,000,000 was borrowed at 4½ per cent. to
provide for the payment of the awards made by the Commissioners under
the treaty with Spain of February 22, 1819, and a like amount, at the
same rate of interest, to be applied in paying off that part of the 6
per cent. stock of 1812 redeemable the following year. The act of March
3, 1825, authorized a loan of $12,000,000, at 4½ per cent. interest, the
money borrowed to be applied in paying off prior loans, but only
$1,539,336 was exchanged for an equal amount of 6 per cent. stock of
1813.
“In the year 1836 the United States was, for the first time in the
history of the country, practically out of debt. Secretary Woodbury, in
his report of December 8, 1836, estimated the amount of public debt
still outstanding at about $328,582, and this remained unpaid solely
because payment had not been demanded, ample funds to meet it having
been deposited in the United States Bank and loan offices. The debt
outstanding consisted mainly of unclaimed interest and dividends, of
claims for services and supplies during the Revolution, and of old
Treasury notes, and it is supposed that payment of these had not been
asked for solely because the evidences of the debt had been lost or
destroyed. The estimates showed the probability of a surplus of at least
$14,000,000 in the Treasury at the close of the year 1836, and this
estimate proved to be far below the truth. In this favorable condition
of the public finances, Congress adopted the extraordinary resolution of
depositing the surplus over $5,000,000 with the several States, and
under the act of June 23, 1836, surplus revenue amounting to
$28,101,644.91 was so deposited.
“In 1837, however, the state of the country had changed. The ‘flush’
times of 1835 and 1836 had been succeeded by extraordinary depression,
which ultimately produced a panic. In May most of the banks suspended
specie payments. The sales of public lands, and the duties on the
importations of foreign goods, which had helped to swell the balance in
the Treasury to over $42,000,000, had fallen off enormously. Even on the
goods that were imported it was difficult to collect the duties, for the
law compelled them to be paid in specie, and specie was hard to obtain.
It had become impossible not only to pay the fourth installment of the
surplus at the end of 1836 to the several States, but even to meet the
current expenses of the Government from its ordinary revenues. In this
emergency the Secretary of the Treasury suggested that contingent
authority be given the President to cause the issue of Treasury notes.
This measure was generally supported on the ground of absolute
necessity, as there was a large deficit already existing, and this was
likely to increase from the condition of the country at that time. The
measure was opposed, however, by some who thought that greater economy
in expenditures would relieve the Treasury, while others denounced it as
an attempt “to start a Treasury bank.”
“However, an act was approved October 12, 1837, authorizing an issue of
$10,000,000 in Treasury notes in denominations not less than fifty
dollars, redeemable in one year from date, with interest at rates fixed
by the Secretary, not exceeding 6 per cent. These notes, as usual, were
receivable in payment of all duties and taxes levied by the United
States, and in payment for public lands. Prior to 1846, the issue of
notes of this character amounted to $47,002,900, bearing interest at
rates varying from one tenth of one per cent. to 6 per cent. To provide
in part for their redemption, authority was granted for the negotiation
of several loans, and $21,021,094 was borrowed for this purpose, bonds
being issued for a like sum, bearing interest at from 5 to 6 per cent.,
redeemable at specified dates. These bonds were sold at from 2½ per
cent. discount to 3¾ per cent. premium, and redeemed at from par to 19¼
per cent. advance.
“War with Mexico was declared May 13, 1846, and in order to provide
against a deficiency a further issue of $10,000,000 in Treasury notes
was authorized by act of July 22, 1846, under the same limitations and
restrictions as were contained in the act of October, 1837, except that
the authority given was to expire at the end of one year from the
passage of the act. The sum of $7,687,800 was issued in Treasury notes,
and six per cent. bonds having ten years to run were issued under the
same act to the amount of $4,999,149. These were sold at a small
advance, and redeemed at various rates from par to eighteen and
two-thirds per cent. premium.
“The expenses incurred on account of the war with Mexico were much
greater than the original estimates, and the failure to provide
additional revenues sufficient to meet the increased demands made a new
loan necessary, as well as an additional issue of notes, which had now
become a popular method of obtaining funds. Under the authority granted
by act of January 28, 1847, Treasury notes to the amount of $26,122,100
were issued at par, redeemable one and two years from date, with
interest at from 5–⅖ to 6 per cent. More money still being needed, a 6
per cent. loan, having twenty years to run, was placed upon the market,
under the authority of the same act, and bonds to the amount of
$28,230,350 were sold at various rates, ranging from par to 2 per cent.
premium. Of this stock the sum of $18,815,100 was redeemed at an advance
of from 1½ to 21¼ per cent., the premium paid (exclusive of commissions)
amounting to $3,466,107. Under the act of March 31, 1848, 6 per cent.
bonds, running twenty years, were issued to the amount of $16,000,000,
and sold at a premium ranging from 3 to 4.05 per cent. This loan was
made for the same purpose as the preceding one, and $7,091,658 was
redeemed by purchase at an advance ranging from 8 to 22.46 per cent.,
the premium paid amounting to $1,251,258.
“The widespread depression of trade and commerce which occurred in 1857
was severely felt by the Government, as well as by the people, and so
great was the decrease in the revenues from customs that it became
absolutely necessary to provide the Treasury with additional means for
meeting the demands upon it. Treasury notes were considered as
preferable to a new loan, and by the act of December 23, 1857, a new
issue was authorized for such an amount as the exigencies of the public
service might require, but not to exceed at any one time $20,000,000.
These notes were receivable in payment for all debts due the United
States, including customs, and were issued at various rates of interest,
ranging from 3 to 6 per cent., to the amount of $52,778,900, redeemable
one year from date, the interest to cease at the expiration of sixty
days’ notice after maturity. In May, 1858, the Secretary of the Treasury
informed Congress that, owing to the appropriations having been
increased by legislation nearly $10,000,000 over the estimates, while
the customs revenue had fallen off to a like amount, it would be
necessary to provide some means to meet the deficit. In these
circumstances, a new loan was authorized by act of June 14, 1858, and 5
per cent. bonds amounting to $20,000,000, redeemable in fifteen years,
were sold at an average premium of over 3½ per cent. Under the act of
December 17, 1873, $13,957,000 in bonds of the loan of 1881, and
$260,000 in bonds of a loan of 1907, were issued in exchange for a like
amount of bonds of this loan.
“The act of June 22, 1860, authorized the President to borrow
$21,000,000 on the credit of the United States, the money to be used
only in the redemption of Treasury notes, and to replace any amount of
such notes in the Treasury which should have been paid in for public
dues. Only $7,022,000 was borrowed at 5 per cent. interest, the
certificates selling at from par to 1.45 per cent. premium. The failure
to realize the whole loan was caused by the political troubles which
culminated in the civil war. In September, bids were invited for
$10,000,000, and the whole amount offered was speedily taken. It soon
became evident, however, that war was inevitable, and a commercial
crisis ensued, during which a portion of the bidders forfeited their
deposits, and the balance of the loan was withdrawn from the market.
Authority was granted by the act of December 17, 1860, for a new issue
of Treasury notes, redeemable in one year from date, but not to exceed
$10,000,000 at any one time, with interest at such rates as might be
offered by the lowest responsible bidders after advertisement. An
unsuccessful attempt was made to pledge the receipts from the sale of
public lands specifically for their redemption. The whole amount of
notes issued under this act was $10,010,900, of which $4,840,000 bore
interest at 12 per cent. Additional offers followed, ranging from 15 to
36 per cent., but the Treasury declined to accept them.
“Up to this period of our national existence the obtaining of the money
necessary for carrying on the Government and the preservation inviolate
of the public credit had been comparatively an easy task. The people of
the several States had contributed in proportion to their financial
resources; and a strict adherence to the fundamental maxim laid down by
Hamilton had been maintained by a judicious system of taxation to an
extent amply sufficient to provide for the redemption of all our
national securities as they became due. But the time had come when we
were no longer a united people, and the means required for defraying the
ordinary expenses of the Government were almost immediately curtailed
and jeopardized by the attitude of the States which attempted to secede.
The confusion which followed the inauguration of the administration of
President Lincoln demonstrated the necessity of providing unusual
resources without delay. A system of internal revenue taxation was
introduced, and the tariff adjusted with a view to increased revenues
from customs. As the Government had not only to exist and pay its way,
but also to provide for an army and navy constantly increasing in
numbers and equipment, new and extraordinary methods were resorted to
for the purpose of securing the money which must be had in order to
preserve the integrity of the nation. Among these were the issue of its
own circulating medium in the form of United States notes[37] and
circulating notes,[38] for the redemption of which the faith of the
nation was solemnly pledged. New loans were authorized to an amount
never before known in our history, and the success of our armies was
assured by the determination manifested by the people themselves to
sustain the Government at all hazards. A brief review of the loan
transactions during the period covered by the war is all that can be
attempted within the limited space afforded this article. The first war
loan may be considered as having been negotiated under the authority of
an act approved February 8, 1861. The credit of the Government at this
time was very low, and a loan of $18,415,000, having twenty years to
run, with 6 per cent. interest, could only be negotiated at a discount
of $2,019,776.10, or at an average rate of $89.03 per one hundred
dollars. From this time to June 30, 1865, Government securities of
various descriptions were issued under authority of law to the amount of
$3,888,686,575, including the several issues of bonds, Treasury notes,
seven-thirties, legal tenders and fractional currency. The whole amount
issued under the same authority to June 30, 1880, was $7,137,646,836,
divided as follows:
Six per cent. bonds $1,130,279,000
Five per cent. bonds 196,118,300
Temporary loan certificates 969,992,250
Seven thirty notes 716,099,247
Treasury notes and certificates of indebtedness 1,074,713,132
Old demand notes, legal tenders, coin certificates and
fractional currency 3,050,444,907
——————————————
Total $7,137,646,836
“This increase may be readily accounted for by the continued issue of
legal tenders, compound interest notes, fractional currency and coin
certificates, together with a large amount of bonds issued in order to
raise the money necessary to pay for military supplies, and other forms
of indebtedness growing out of the war. The rebellion was practically at
an end in May, 1865, yet the large amount of money required for
immediate use in the payment and disbandment of our enormous armies
necessitated the still further negotiation of loans under the several
acts of Congress then in force, and it was not until after the 31st of
August, 1865, that our national debt began to decrease. At that time the
total indebtedness, exclusive of the “old funded and unfunded debt” of
the Revolution, and of cash in the Treasury, amounted to
$2,844,646,626.56. The course of our financial legislation since that
date has been constantly toward a reduction of the interest, as well as
the principal of the public debt.
“By an act approved March 3, 1865, a loan of $600,000,000 was authorized
upon similar terms as had been granted for previous loans, with the
exception that nothing authorized by this act should be made a legal
tender, or be issued in smaller denominations than fifty dollars. The
rate of interest was limited to 6 per cent. in coin, or 7.3 per cent. in
currency, the bonds issued to be redeemable in not less than five, nor
more than forty, years. Authority was also given for the conversion of
Treasury notes or other interest-bearing obligations into bonds of this
loan. An amendment to this act was passed April 12, 1866, authorizing
the Secretary of the Treasury, at his discretion, to receive any
Treasury notes or other obligations issued under any act of Congress,
whether bearing interest or not, in exchange for any description of
bonds authorized by the original act; and also to dispose of any such
bonds, either in the United States or elsewhere, to such an amount, in
such manner, and at such rates as he might deem advisable, for lawful
money, Treasury notes, certificates of indebtedness, certificates of
deposit, or other representatives of value, which had been or might be
issued under any act of Congress; the proceeds to be used only for
retiring Treasury notes or other national obligations, provided the
public debt was not increased thereby. As this was the first important
measure presented to Congress since the close of the war tending to
place our securities upon a firm basis, the action of Congress in
relation to it was looked forward to with a great deal of interest. The
discussion took a wide range, in which the whole financial
administration of the Government during the war was reviewed at length.
After a long and exciting debate the bill finally passed, and was
approved by the President. Under the authority of these two acts, 6 per
cent, bonds to the amount of $958,483,550 have been issued to date.
These bonds were disposed of at an aggregate premium of $21,522,074, and
under the acts of July 14, 1870, and January 20, 1871, the same bonds to
the amount of $725,582,400 have been refunded into other bonds bearing a
lower rate of interest. The success of these several loans was
remarkable, every exertion being used to provide for their general
distribution among the people.
“In 1867 the first issue of 6 per cent. bonds, known as five-twenties,
authorized by the act of Feb. 25, 1862, became redeemable, and the
question of refunding them and other issues at a lower rate of interest
had been discussed by the Secretary of the Treasury in his annual
reports, but the agitation of the question as to the kinds of money in
which the various obligations of the Government should be paid, had so
excited the apprehension of investors as to prevent the execution of any
refunding scheme.
“The act to strengthen the public credit was passed March 18, 1869, and
its effect was such as secured to the public the strongest assurances
that the interest and principal of the public debt outstanding at that
time would be paid in coin, according to the terms of the bonds issued,
without any abatement.
“On the 12th of January, 1870, a bill authorizing the refunding and
consolidation of the national debt was introduced in the Senate, and
extensively debated in both Houses for several months, during which the
financial system pursued by the Government during the war was freely
reviewed. The adoption of the proposed measure resulted in an entire
revolution of the refunding system, under which the public debt of the
United States at that time was provided for, by the transmission of a
large amount of debt to a succeeding generation. The effect of this
attempt at refunding the major portion of the public debt was far more
successful than any similar effort on the part of any Government, so far
as known.
“The act authorizing refunding certificates convertible into 4 per cent.
bonds, approved February 26, 1879, was merely intended for the benefit
of parties of limited means, and was simply a continuation of the
refunding scheme authorized by previous legislation.
“The period covered precludes any attempt toward reviewing the operation
by which the immediate predecessor of the present Secretary reduced the
interest on some six hundred millions of 5 and 6 per cent. bonds to 3½
per cent. It is safe to say, however, that under the administration of
the present Secretary there will be no deviation from the original law
laid down by Hamilton.”
James A. Garfield.
James A. Garfield and Chester A. Arthur were publicly inaugurated
President and Vice-President of the United States March 4, 1881.
President Garfield in his inaugural address promised full and equal
protection of the Constitution and the laws for the negro, advocated
universal education as a safeguard of suffrage, and recommended such an
adjustment of our monetary system “that the purchasing power of every
coined dollar will be exactly equal to its debt-paying power in all the
markets of the world.” The national debt should be refunded at a lower
rate of interest, without compelling the withdrawal of the National Bank
notes, polygamy should be prohibited, and civil service regulated by
law.
An extra session of the Senate was opened March 4. On the 5th, the
following cabinet nominations were made and confirmed: Secretary of
State, James G. Blaine, of Maine; Secretary of the Treasury, William
Windom, of Minnesota; Secretary of the Navy, William H. Hunt, of
Louisiana; Secretary of War, Robert T. Lincoln, of Illinois;
Attorney-General, Wayne MacVeagh, of Pennsylvania; Postmaster-General,
Thomas L. James, of New York; Secretary of the Interior, Samuel J.
Kirkwood, of Iowa.
In this extra session of the Senate Vice-President Arthur had to employ
the casting vote on all questions where the parties divided, and he
invariably cast it on the side of the Republicans. The evenness of the
parties caused a dead-lock on the question of organization, for when
David Davis, of Illinois, voted with the Democrats, the Republicans had
not enough even with the Vice-President, and he was not, therefore,
called upon to decide a question of that kind. The Republicans desired
new and Republican officers; the Democrats desired to retain the old and
Democratic ones.
Republican Factions.
President Garfield, March 23d, sent in a large number of nominations,
among which was that of William H. Robertson, the leader of the Blaine
wing of the Republican party in New York, to be Collector of Customs. He
had previously sent in five names for prominent places in New York, at
the suggestion of Senator Conkling, who had been invited by President
Garfield to name his friends. At this interview it was stated that
Garfield casually intimated that he would make no immediate change in
the New York Collectorship, and both factions seemed satisfied to allow
Gen’l Edwin A. Merritt to retain that place for a time at least. There
were loud protests, however, at the first and early selection of the
friends of Senator Conkling to five important places, and these protests
were heeded by the President. With a view to meet them, and, doubtless,
to quiet the spirit of faction rapidly developing between the Grant and
anti-Grant elements of the party in New York, the name of Judge
Robertson was sent in for the Collectorship. He had battled against the
unit rule at Chicago, disavowed the instructions of his State Convention
to vote for Grant, and led the Blaine delegates from that State while
Blaine was in the field, and when withdrawn went to Garfield. Senator
Conkling now sought to confirm his friends, and hold back his enemy from
confirmation; but these tactics induced Garfield to withdraw the
nomination of Conkling’s friends, and in this way Judge Robertson’s name
was alone presented for a time. Against this course Vice-President
Arthur and Senators Conkling and Platt remonstrated in a letter to the
President, but he remained firm. Senator Conkling, under the plea of
“the privilege of the Senate,”—a courtesy and custom which leaves to the
Senators of a State the right to say who shall be confirmed or rejected
from their respective States if of the same party—now sought to defeat
Robertson. In this battle he had arrayed against him the influence of
his great rival, Mr. Blaine, and it is presumed the whole power of the
administration. He lost, and the morning following the secret vote, May
17th, 1881, his own and the resignation of Senator Platt were read.
These resignations caused great excitement throughout the entire
country. They were prepared without consultation with any one—even
Vice-President Arthur, the intimate friend of both, not knowing anything
of the movement until the letters were opened at the chair where he
presided. Logan and Cameron—Conkling’s colleagues in the great Chicago
battle—were equally unadvised. The resignations were forwarded to Gov.
Cornell, of New York, who, by all permissible delays, sought to have
them reconsidered and withdrawn, but both Senators were firm. The Senate
confirmed Judge Robertson for Collector, and General Merritt as
Consul-General at London, May 18th, President Garfield having wisely
renewed the Conkling list of appointees, most of whom declined under the
changed condition of affairs.
These events more widely separated the factions in New York—one wing
calling itself “Stalwart,” the other “Half-Breed,” a term of contempt
flung at the Independents by Conkling. Elections must follow to fill the
vacancies, the New York Legislature being in session. These vacancies
gave the Democrats for the time control of the United States Senate, but
they thought it unwise to pursue an advantage which would compel them to
show their hands for or against one or other of the opposing Republican
factions. The extra session of the Senate adjourned May 20th.
The New York Legislature began balloting for successors to Senators
Conkling and Platt on the 31st of May. The majority of the Republicans
(Independents or “Half-breeds”) supported Chauncey M. Depew as the
successor of Platt for the long term, and William A. Wheeler as the
successor of Conkling for the short term, a few supporting Cornell. The
minority (Stalwarts) renominated Messrs. Conkling and Platt. The
Democrats nominated Francis Kernan for the long term, and John C. Jacobs
for the short term; and, on his withdrawal, Clarkson N. Potter. The
contest lasted until July 22, and resulted in a compromise on Warner A.
Miller as Platt’s successor, and Elbridge G. Lapham as Conkling’s
successor. In Book VII., our Tabulated History of Politics, we give a
correct table of the ballots. These show at a single glance the
earnestness and length of the contest.
The factious feelings engendered thereby were carried into the Fall
nominations for the Legislature, and as a result the Democrats obtained
control, which in part they subsequently lost by the refusal of the
Tammany Democrats to support their nominees for presiding officers. This
Democratic division caused a long and tiresome dead-lock in the
Legislature of New York. It was broken in the House by a promise on the
part of the Democratic candidate for Speaker to favor the Tammany men
with a just distribution of the committees—a promise which was not
satisfactorily carried out, and as a result the Tammany forces of the
Senate joined hands with the Republicans. The Republican State ticket
would also have been lost in the Fall of 1881, but for the interposition
of President Arthur, who quickly succeeded in uniting the warring
factions. This work was so well done, that all save one name on the
ticket (Gen’l Husted) succeeded.
The same factious spirit was manifested in Pennsylvania in the election
of U. S. Senator in the winter of 1881, the two wings taking the names
of “Regulars” and “Independents.” The division occurred before the New
York battle, and it is traceable not alone to the bitter nominating
contest at Chicago, but to the administration of President Hayes and the
experiment of civil service reform. Administrations which are not
decided and firm upon political issues, invariably divide their parties,
and while these divisions are not always to be deplored, and sometimes
lead to good results, the fact that undecided administrations divide the
parties which they represent, ever remains. The examples are plain: Van
Buren’s, Tyler’s, Fillmore’s, Buchanan’s, and Hayes’. The latter’s
indecision was more excusable than that of any of his predecessors. The
inexorable firmness of Grant caused the most bitter partisan assaults,
and despite all his efforts to sustain the “carpet-bag governments” of
the South, they became unpopular and were rapidly supplanted. As they
disappeared, Democratic representation from the South increased, and
this increase continued during the administration of Hayes—the greatest
gains being at times when he showed the greatest desire to conciliate
the South. Yet his administration did the party good, in this, that
while at first dividing, it finally cemented through the conviction that
experiments of that kind with a proud Southern people were as a rule
unavailing. The reopening of the avenues of trade and other natural
causes, apparently uncultivated, have accomplished in this direction
much more than any political effort.
In Pennsylvania a successor to U. S. Senator Wm. A. Wallace was to be
chosen. Henry W. Oliver, Jr., received the nomination of the Republican
caucus, the friends of Galusha A. Grow refusing to enter after a count
had been made, and declaring in a written paper that they would not
participate in any caucus, and would independently manifest their choice
in the Legislature. The following is the first vote in joint Convention:
OLIVER.
Senate 20
House 75
——
Total 95
GROW.
Senate 12
House 44
——
Total 56
BREWSTER.
Senate
House 1
——
Total 1
M’VEAGH.
Senate
House 1
——
Total 1
WALLACE.
Senate 16
House 77
——
Total 93
AGNEW.
Senate 1
House
——
Total 1
BAIRD.
Senate
House 1
——
Total 1
Whole number of votes cast, 248; necessary to a choice, 125.
On the 17th of January the two factions issued opposing addresses. From
these we quote the leading ideas, which divided the factions. The
“Regulars” said:
“Henry W. Oliver, jr., of Allegheny county, was nominated on the third
ballot, receiving 79 of the 95 votes present. Under the rules of all
parties known to the present or past history of our country, a majority
of those participating should have been sufficient; but such was the
desire for party harmony and for absolute fairness, that a majority of
all the Republican members of the Senate and House was required to
nominate. The effect of this was to give those remaining out a negative
voice in the proceedings, the extent of any privilege given them in
regular legislative sessions by the Constitution. In no other caucus or
convention has the minority ever found such high consideration, and we
believe there remains no just cause of complaint against the result.
Even captious faultfinding can find no place upon which to hang a
sensible objection. Mr. Oliver was, therefore, fairly nominated by the
only body to which is delegated the power of nomination and by methods
which were more than just, which, from every standpoint, must be
regarded as generous; and in view of these things, how can we, your
Senators and Representatives, in fairness withhold our support from him
in open sessions; rather how can we ever abandon a claim established by
the rules regulating the government of all parties, accepted by all as
just, and which are in exact harmony with that fundamental principle of
our Government which proclaims the right of the majority to rule? To do
otherwise is to confess the injustice and the failure of that
principle—something we are not prepared to do. It would blot the titles
to our own positions. There is not a Senator or member who does not owe
his nomination and election to the same great principle. To profit by
its acceptance in our own cases and to deny it to Mr. Oliver would be an
exhibition of selfishness too flagrant for our taste. To acknowledge the
right to revolt when no unfairness can be truthfully alleged and when
more than a majority have in the interest of harmony been required to
govern, would be a travesty upon every American notion and upon that
sense of manliness which yields when fairly beaten.”
The “Independent” address said:
“_First._ We recognize a public sentiment which demands that in the
selection of a United States Senator we have regard to that dignity of
the office to be filled, its important duties and functions, and the
qualifications of the individual with reference thereto. This sentiment
is, we understand, that there are other and higher qualifications for
this distinguished position than business experience and success, and
reckons among these the accomplishments of the scholar, the acquirements
of the student, the mature wisdom of experience and a reasonable
familiarity with public affairs. It desires that Pennsylvania shall be
distinguished among her sister Commonwealths, not only by her populous
cities, her prosperous communities, her vast material wealth and
diversified industries and resources, but that in the wisdom, sagacity
and statesmanship of her representative she shall occupy a corresponding
rank and influence. To meet this public expectation and demand we are
and have at all times been willing to subordinate our personal
preferences, all local considerations and factional differences, and
unite with our colleagues in the selection of a candidate in whom are
combined at least some of these important and essential qualifications.
It was only when it became apparent that the party caucus was to be used
to defeat this popular desire and to coerce a nomination which is
conspicuously lacking in the very essentials which were demanded, that
we determined to absent ourselves from it. * * *
“_Second_, Having declined to enter the caucus, we adhere to our
determination to defeat, if possible, its nominee, but only by the
election of a citizen of unquestioned fidelity to the principles of the
Republican party. In declaring our independency from the caucus
domination we do not forget our allegiance to the party whose chosen
representatives we are. The only result of our policy is the transfer of
the contest from the caucus to the joint convention of the two houses.
There will be afforded an opportunity for the expression of individual
preferences and honorable rivalry for an honorable distinction. If the
choice shall fall upon one not of approved loyalty and merit, the fault
will not be ours.”
After a long contest both of the leading candidates withdrew, and
quickly the Regulars substituted General James A. Beaver, the
Independent Congressman, Thomas M. Bayne. On these names the dead-lock
remained unbroken. Without material change the balloting continued till
February 17th, when both Republican factions agreed to appoint
conference committees of twelve each, with a view to selecting by a
three-fourths vote a compromise candidate. The following were the
respective committees: For the Independents: Senators Davis, Bradford;
Lee, Venango; Stewart, Franklin; Lawrence, Washington; Representatives
Wolfe, Union; Silverthorne, Erie; Mapes, Venango; McKee, Philadelphia;
Slack, Allegheny; Stubs, Chester; Niles, Tioga; and Derickson, Crawford.
For the Regulars: Senators Greer, Butler; Herr, Dauphin; Smith,
Philadelphia; Keefer, Schuylkill; Cooper, Delaware; Representatives
Pollock, Philadelphia; Moore, Allegheny; Marshall, Huntingdon; Hill,
Indiana; Eshleman. Lancaster; Thomson, Armstrong; and Billingsley,
Washington.
The joint convention held daily sessions and balloted without result
until February 22d, when John I. Mitchell, of Tioga, Congressman from
the 16th district, was unanimously agreed upon as a compromise
candidate. He was nominated by a full Republican caucus on the morning
of February 23d, and elected on the first ballot in joint convention on
that day, the vote standing: Mitchell, 150; Wallace, 92; MacVeagh, 1;
Brewster, 1.
The spirit of this contest continued until fall. Senator Davies, a
friend of Mr. Grow, was a prominent candidate for the Republican
nomination for State Treasurer. He was beaten by General Silas M. Baily,
and Davies and his friends cordially made Baily’s nomination unanimous.
Charles S. Wolfe, himself the winter before a candidate for United
States Senator, was dissatisfied. He suddenly raised the Independent
flag, in a telegram to the Philadelphia _Press_, and as he announced was
“the nominee of a convention of one” for State Treasurer. After a
canvass of remarkable energy on the part of Mr. Wolfe, General Baily was
elected, without suffering materially from the division. Mr. Wolfe
obtained nearly 50,000 votes, but as almost half of them were
Democratic, the result was, as stated, not seriously affected.
The Independents in Pennsylvania, however, were subdivided into two
wings, known as the Continental and the Wolfe men—the former having met
since the election last fall, (State Senator John Stewart, chairman) and
proclaimed themselves willing and determined to abide all Republican
nominations fairly made, and to advocate “reform within the party
lines.” These gentlemen supported Gen. Baily and largely contributed to
his success, and as a rule they regard with disfavor equal to that of
the Regulars, what is known as the Wolfe movement. These divisions have
not extended to other States, nor have they yet assumed the shape of
third parties unless Mr. Wolfe’s individual canvass can be thus classed.
Up to this writing (March 10, 1882,) neither wing has taken issue with
President Arthur or his appointments, though there were some temporary
indications of this when Attorney General MacVeagh, of Pennsylvania,
persisted in having his resignation accepted. President Arthur refused
to accept, on the ground that he desired MacVeagh’s services in the
prosecution of the Star Route cases, and Mr. MacVeagh withdrew for
personal and other reasons not yet fully explained. In this game of
political fence the position of the President was greatly strengthened.
Singularly enough, in the only two States where factious divisions have
been recently manifested in the Republican ranks, they effected almost
if not quite as seriously the Democratic party. There can be but one
deduction drawn from this, to wit:—That a number in both of the great
parties, were for the time at least, weary of their allegiance. It is
possible that nothing short of some great issue will restore the old
partisan unity, and partisan unity in a Republic, where there are but
two great parties, is not to be deplored if relieved of other than mere
political differences. The existence of but two great parties,
comparatively free from factions, denotes government health; where
divisions are numerous and manifest increasing growth and stubbornness,
there is grave danger to Republican institutions. We need not, however,
philosophize when Mexico and the South American Republics are so near.
The Caucus.
Both the “Independents” of Pennsylvania and the “Half-Breeds” of New
York at first proclaimed their opposition to the caucus system of
nominating candidates for U. S. Senators, and the newspapers in their
interest wrote as warmly for a time against “King Caucus” as did the
dissatisfied Democratic journals in the days of De Witt Clinton. The
situation, however, was totally different, and mere declamation could
not long withstand the inevitable. In Pennsylvania almost nightly
“conferences” were held by the Independents, as indeed they were in
New York, though in both States a show of hostility was kept up to
nominating in party caucus men who were to be elected by
representative, more plainly legislative votes. It was at first
claimed that in the Legislature each man ought to act for himself or
his constituents, but very shortly it was found that the caucuses of
the separate wings were as binding upon the respective wings as they
could have been upon the whole. Dead-locks were interminable as long
as this condition of affairs obtained, and hostility to the caucus
system was before very long quietly discouraged and finally flatly
abandoned, for each struggle was ended by the ratification of a
general caucus, and none of them could have been ended without it. The
several attempts to find other means to reach a result, only led the
participants farther away from the true principle, under republican
forms at least, of the right of the majority to rule. In Pennsylvania,
when Mr. Oliver withdrew, fifty of his friends assembled and
informally named General Beaver, and by this action sought to bind the
original 95 friends of Oliver. Their conduct was excused by the plea
that they represented a majority of their faction. It failed to bind
all of the original number, though some of the Independents were won.
The Independents, rather the original 44, bound themselves in writing
not to change their course of action unless there was secured the
previous concurrence of two-thirds, and this principle was extended to
the 56 who supported Mr. Bayne. Then when the joint committee of 24
was agreed upon, it was bound by a rule requiring three-fourths to
recommend a candidate. All of these were plain departures from a great
principle, and the deeper the contest became, the greater the
departure. True, these were but voluntary forms, but they were
indefensible, and are only referred to now to show the danger of mad
assaults upon great principles when personal and factious aims are at
stake. Opposition to the early Congressional caucus was plainly right,
since one department of the Government was by voluntary agencies
actually controlling another, while the law gave legal forms which
could be more properly initiated through voluntary action. The writer
believes, and past contests all confirm the view that the voluntary
action can only be safely employed by the power by the law with the
right of selection. Thus the people elect township, county and State
officers, and it is their right and duty by the best attainable
voluntary action to indicate their choice. This is done through the
caucus or convention, the latter not differing from the former save in
extent and possibly breadth of representation. The same rule applies
to all offices elective by the people. It cannot properly apply to
appointive offices, and while the attempt to apply it to the election
of U. S. Senators shows a strong desire on the part, frequently of the
more public-spirited citizens, to exercise a greater share in the
selection of these officers than the law directly gives them, yet
their representatives can very properly be called upon to act as they
would act if they had direct power in the premises, and such action
leads them into a party caucus, where the will of the majority of
their respective parties can be fairly ascertained, and when
ascertained respected. The State Legislatures _appoint_ U. S.
Senators, and the Representatives and Senators of the States are bound
to consider in their selection the good of the entire State. If this
comports with the wish of their respective districts, very well; if it
does not, their duty is not less plain. Probably the time will never
come when the people will elect United States Senators; to do that is
to radically change the Federal system, and to practically destroy one
of the most important branches of the Government; yet he is not a
careful observer who does not note a growing disposition on the part
of the people, and largely the people of certain localities, and
imaginary political sub-divisions, to control these selections. The
same is true of Presidential nominations, where masses of people deny
the right of State Conventions to instruct their delegates-at-large.
In many States the people composing either of the great parties now
select their own representative delegates to National Conventions, and
where their selections are not respected, grave party danger is sure
to follow. There is nothing wrong in this, since it points to, and is
but paving the way for a more popular selection of Presidents and
Vice-Presidents—to an eventual selection of Presidential electors
probably by Congressional districts. Yet those to be selected at large
must through practical voluntary forms be nominated in that way, and
the partisan State Convention is the best method yet devised for this
work, and its instructions should be as binding as those of the people
upon their representatives. In this government of ours there is
voluntary and legal work delegated to the people directly; there is
legal work delegated to appointing powers, and an intelligent
discrimination should ever be exercised between the two. “Render unto
Cæsar those things which are Cæsar’s,” unless there be a plain desire,
backed by a good reason, to promote popular reforms as enduring as the
practices and principles which they are intended to support.
Fredrick W. Whitridge, in an able review of the caucus system
published[39] in Lalor’s _Encyclopædia of Political Science_, says:
“A caucus, in the political vocabulary of the United States, is
primarily a private meeting of voters holding similar views, held prior
to an election for the purpose of furthering such views at the election.
With the development of parties, and the rule of majorities, the caucus
or some equivalent has become an indispensable adjunct to party
government, and it may now be defined as a meeting of the majority of
the electors belonging to the same party in any political or legislative
body held preliminary to a meeting thereof, for the purpose of selecting
candidates to be voted for, or for the purpose of determining the course
of the party at the meeting of the whole body. The candidates of each
party are universally selected by caucus, either directly or indirectly
through delegates to conventions chosen in caucuses. In legislative
bodies the course of each party is often predetermined with certainty in
caucus, and often discussion between parties has been, in consequence,
in some degree superseded. The caucus system is, in short, the basis of
a complete electoral system which has grown up within each party, side
by side with that which is alone contemplated by the laws. This
condition has in recent years attracted much attention, and has been
bitterly announced as an evil. It was, however, early foreseen. John
Adams, in 1814, wrote in the “Tenth Letter on Government:” “They have
invented a balance to all balance in their caucuses. We have
congressional caucuses, state caucuses, county caucuses, city caucuses,
district caucuses, town caucuses, parish caucuses, and Sunday caucuses
at church doors, and in these aristocratical caucuses _elections have
been decided_.” The caucus is a necessary consequence of majority rule.
If the majority is to define the policy of a party, there must be some
method within each party of ascertaining the mind of the majority, and
settling the party programme, before it meets the opposing party at the
polls. The Carlton and Reform clubs discharge for the Tories and
Liberals many of the functions of a congressional caucus. Meetings of
the members of the parties in the _reichstag_, the _corps legislatif_
and the chamber of deputies are not unusual, although they have
generally merely been for consultation, and neither in England, France,
Germany or Italy, has any such authority been conceded to the wish of
the majority of a party as we have rested in the decision of a caucus.
What has been called a caucus has been established by the Liberals of
Birmingham, England, as to which, see a paper by W. Fraser Rae, in the
“International Review” for August, 1880. The origin of the term caucus
is obscure. It has been derived from the Algonquin word _Kaw-kaw-wus_—to
consult, to speak—but the more probable derivation makes it a corruption
of caulkers. In the early politics of Boston, and particularly during
the early difficulties between the townsmen and the British troops, the
seafaring men and those employed about the ship yards were prominent
among the town-people, and there were numerous gatherings which may have
very easily come to be called by way of reproach a meeting of caulkers,
after the least influential class who attended them, or from the
caulking house or caulk house in which they were held. What was at first
a derisive description, came to be an appellation, and the gatherings of
so-called caulkers became a caucus. John Pickering, in a vocabulary of
words and phrases peculiar to the United States (Boston, 1816), gives
this derivation of the word, and says several gentlemen mentioned to him
that they had heard this derivation. Gordon, writing in 1774, says:
“More than fifty years ago Mr. Samuel Adams’ father and twenty others,
one or two from the north end of the town where all the ship business is
carried on, used to meet, make a caucus and lay their plan for
introducing certain persons into places of trust and power. When they
had settled it they separated, and each used their particular influence
within his own circle. He and his friends would furnish themselves with
ballots, including the names of the parties fixed upon, which they
distributed on the days of election. By acting in concert, together with
a careful and extensive distribution of ballots, they generally carried
their elections to their own mind. In like manner it was that Mr. Samuel
Adams first became a representative for Boston.” (_History of the
American Revolution_, vol. i., p. 365.) February, 1763, Adams writes in
his diary: “This day I learned that the caucus club meets at certain
times in the garret of Tom Dawes, the adjutant of the Boston regiment.
He has a large house and he has a movable partition in his garret which
he takes down and the whole club meets in his room. There they smoke
tobacco until they cannot see one end of the room from another. There
they drink flip, I suppose, and there they choose a moderator who puts
questions to the vote regularly; and selectmen, assessors, collectors,
wardens, fire wards and representatives are regularly chosen in the
town. Uncle Fairfield, Story, Ruddock, Adams, Cooper, and a _rudis
indigestaques moles_ of others, are members. They send committees to
wait on the merchants’ club, and to propose in the choice of men and
measures. Captain Cunningham says, they have often solicited him to go
to the caucuses; they have assured him their benefit in his business,
etc.” (_Adams’ Works_, vol. ii., p. 144.) Under the title caucus should
be considered the congressional nominating caucus; the caucuses of
legislative assemblies; primary elections, still known outside the
larger cities as caucuses; the evils which have been attributed to the
latter, and the remedies which have been proposed. These will
accordingly be mentioned in the order given.
“The democratic system is the result of the reorganization of the
various anti-Tammany democratic factions, brought about, in 1881, by a
practically self-appointed committee of 100. Under this system primary
elections are to be held annually in each of 678 election districts, at
which all democratic electors resident in the respective districts may
participate, provided they were registered at the last general election.
The persons voting at any primary shall be members of the election
district association for the ensuing year, which is to be organized in
January of each year. The associations may admit democratic residents in
their respective districts, who are not members, to membership, and they
have general supervision of the interests of the party within their
districts. Primaries are held on not less than four days’ public notice,
through the newspapers, of the time and place, and at the appointed time
the meeting is called to order by the chairman of the election district
association, provided twenty persons be present; if that number shall
not be present, the meeting may be called to order with a less number,
at the end of fifteen minutes. The first business of the meeting is to
select a chairman, and all elections of delegates or committeemen shall
take place in open meeting. Each person, as he offers to vote, states
his name and residence, which may be compared with the registration list
at the last election, and each person shall state for whom he votes, or
he may hand to the judges an open ballot, having designated thereon the
persons for whom he votes, and for what positions. Nominations are all
made by conventions of delegates from the districts within which the
candidate to be chosen is to be voted for. There is an assembly district
committee in each assembly district, composed of one delegate for each
100 votes or fraction thereof, from each election district within the
assembly district. There is also a county committee composed of
delegates from each of the assembly district committees. The function of
these committees is generally to look after the interests of the parties
within their respective spheres. This system is too new for its workings
to be as yet fairly criticised. It may prove a really popular system, or
it may prove only an inchoate form of the other systems. At present it
can only be said that the first primaries under it were participated in
by 27,000 electors.
“The evils of the caucus and primary election systems lie in the
stringent obligation which is attached to the will of a formal majority;
in the fact that the process of ascertaining what the will of the
majority is, has been surrounded with so many restrictions that the
actual majority of votes are disfranchised, and take no part in that
process, so that the formal majority is in consequence no longer the
majority in fact, although it continues to demand recognition of its
decisions as such.
“The separation between the organization and the party, between those
who nominate and those who elect, is the sum of the evils of the too
highly organized caucus system. It has its roots in the notion that the
majority is right, because it is the majority, which is the popular view
thus expressed by Hammond: ‘I think that when political friends consent
to go into caucus for the nomination of officers, every member of such
caucus is bound in honor to support and carry into effect its
determination. If you suspect that determination will be so preposterous
that you cannot in conscience support it, then you ought on no account
to become one of its members. To try your chance in a caucus, and then,
because your wishes are not gratified, to attempt to defeat the result
of the deliberation of your friends, strikes me as a palpable violation
of honor and good faith. You caucus for no other possible purpose than
under the implied argument that the opinion and wishes of the minority
shall be yielded to the opinions of the majority, and the sole object of
caucusing is to ascertain what is the will of the majority. I repeat
that unless you intend to carry into effect the wishes of the majority,
however contrary to your own, you have no business at a caucus.’
(_Political History of New York_, vol. i., p. 192).—In accordance with
this theory, the will of the majority becomes obligatory as soon as it
is made known, and one cannot assist at a caucus in order to ascertain
the will of the majority, without thereby being bound to follow it; and
the theory is so deeply rooted that, under the caucus and primary
election system, it has been extended to cases in which the majorities
are such only in form.
“The remedies as well as the evils of the caucus and nominating system
have been made the subject of general discussion in connection with
civil service reform. It is claimed that that reform, by giving to
public officers the same tenure of their positions which is enjoyed by
the employes of a corporation or a private business house, or during the
continuance of efficiency or good behaviour, would abolish or greatly
diminish the evils of the caucus system by depriving public officers of
the illegitimate incentive to maintain it under which they now act.
Other more speculative remedies have been suggested. It is proposed, on
the one hand, to very greatly diminish the number of elective officers,
and, in order to do away with the predetermination of elections, to
restrict the political action of the people in their own persons to
districts so small that they can meet together and act as one body, and
that in all other affairs than those of these small districts the people
should act by delegates. The theory here seems to be to get rid of the
necessity for election and nominating machinery. (See ‘_A True
Republic_,’ by Albert Strickney, New York, 1879; and a series of
articles in _Scribner’s Monthly_ for 1881, by the same writer). On the
other hand, it is proposed to greatly increase the number of elections,
by taking the whole primary system under the protection of the law.[40]
This plan proposes: 1. The direct nomination of candidates by the
members of the respective political parties in place of nominations by
delegates in conventions. 2. To apply the election laws to primary
elections. 3. To provide that both political parties shall participate
in the same primary election instead of having a different caucus for
each party. 4. To provide for a final election to be held between two
candidates, each representative of a party who have been selected by
means of the primary election. This plan would undoubtedly do away with
the evils of the present caucus system, but it contains no guarantee
that a new caucus system would not be erected for the purpose of
influencing ‘the primary election’ in the same manner in which the
present primary system now influences the final election. (See however
‘_The Elective Franchise in the United States_,’ New York, 1880, by D.
C. McClellan.)—The effective remedy for the evils of the caucus system
will probably be found in the sanction of primary elections by
law. * * * Bills for this purpose were introduced by the Hon. Erastus
Brooks in the New York Legislature in 1881, which provided substantially
for the system proposed by Mr. McClellan, but they were left unacted
upon, and no legislative attempt to regulate primaries, except by
providing for their being called, and for their procedure, has been made
elsewhere. In Ohio what is known as the Baber law provides that where
any voluntary political association orders a primary, it must be by a
majority vote of the central or controlling committee of such party or
association; that the call must be published for at least five days in
the newspapers, and state the time and place of the meeting, the
authority by which it was called, and the name of the person who is to
represent that authority at each poll. The law also provides for
challenging voters, for punishment of illegal voting, and for the
bribery or intervention of electors or judges. (_Rev. Stat. Ohio_, secs.
2916–2921.) A similar law in Missouri is made applicable to counties
only of over 100,000 inhabitants, but by this law it is made optional
with the voluntary political association whether it will or not hold its
primaries under the law, and if it does, it is provided that the county
shall incur no expense in the conduct of such elections. (_Laws of
Missouri_, 1815, p. 54.) A similar law also exists in California. (_Laws
of California_, 1865–1866, p. 438.) These laws comprise all the existing
legislation on the subject, except what is known as the Landis Bill of
1881, which requires primary officers to take an oath, and which
punishes fraud.”
Assassination of President Garfield.
At 9 o’clock on the morning of Saturday, July 2d, 1881, President
Garfield, accompanied by Secretary Blaine, left the Executive Mansion to
take a special train from the Baltimore and Potomac depot for New
England, where he intended to visit the college from which he had
graduated. Arriving at the depot, he was walking arm-in-arm through the
main waiting-room, when Charles J. Guiteau, a persistent applicant for
an office, who had some time previously entered through the main door,
advanced to the centre of the room, and having reached within a few feet
of his victim, fired two shots, one of which took fatal effect. The
bullet was of forty-four calibre, and striking the President about four
inches to the right of the spinal column, struck the tenth and badly
shattered the eleventh rib. The President sank to the floor, and was
conveyed to a room where temporary conveniences were attainable, and a
couch was improvised. Dr. Bliss made an unsuccessful effort to find the
ball. The shock to the President’s system was very severe, and at first
apprehensions were felt that death would ensue speedily. Two hours after
the shooting, the physicians decided to remove him to the Executive
Mansion. An army ambulance was procured, and the removal effected. Soon
after, vomiting set in, and the patient exhibited a dangerous degree of
prostration, which threatened to end speedily in dissolution. This
hopeless condition of affairs continued until past midnight, when more
favorable symptoms were exhibited. Dr. Bliss was on this Sunday morning
designated to take charge of the case, and he called Surgeon-General
Barnes, Assistant Surgeon-General Woodward, and Dr. Reyburn as
consulting physician. To satisfy the demand of the country, Drs. Agnew,
of Philadelphia, and Hamilton, of New York, were also summoned by
telegraph, and arrived on a special train over the Pennsylvania
Railroad, Sunday afternoon. For several days immediately succeeding the
shooting, the patient suffered great inconvenience and pain in the lower
limbs. This created an apprehension that the spinal nerves had been
injured, and death was momentarily expected. On the night of July 4th a
favorable turn was observed, and the morning of the 5th brought with it
a vague but undefined hope that a favorable issue might ensue. Under
this comforting conviction, Drs. Agnew and Hamilton, after consultation
with the resident medical attendants, returned to their homes; first
having published to the country an endorsement of the treatment
inaugurated. During July 5th and 6th the patient continued to improve,
the pulse and respiration showing a marked approach to the condition of
healthfulness, the former being reported on the morning of the 6th at
98, and in the evening it only increased to 104. On the 7th Dr. Bliss
became very confident of ultimate triumph over the malady. In previous
bulletins meagre hope was given, and the chances for recovery estimated
at one in a hundred.
From July 7th to the 16th there was a slight but uninterrupted
improvement, and the country began to entertain a confident hope that
the patient would recover.
Hope and fear alternated from day to day, amid the most painful
excitement. On the 8th of August Drs. Agnew and Hamilton had to perform
their second operation to allow a free flow of pus from the wound. This
resulted in an important discovery. It was ascertained that the track of
the bullet had turned from its downward deflection to a forward course.
The operation lasted an hour, and ether was administered, the effect of
which was very unfortunate. Nausea succeeded, and vomiting followed
every effort to administer nourishment for some time. However, he soon
rallied, and the operation was pronounced successful, and, on the
following day, the President, for the first time, wrote his name. On the
10th he signed an important extradition paper, and on the 11th wrote a
letter of hopefulness to his aged mother. On the 12th Dr. Hamilton
expressed the opinion that the further attendance of himself and Dr.
Agnew was unnecessary. The stomach continued weak, however, and on the
15th nausea returned, and the most menacing physical prostration
followed the frequent vomiting, and the evening bulletin announced that
“the President’s condition, on the whole, is less satisfactory.”
Next a new complication forced itself upon the attention of the
physicians. This was described as “inflammation of the right parotid
gland.” On August 24th it was decided to make an incision below and
forward of the right ear, in order to prevent suppuration. Though this
operation was pronounced satisfactory, the patient gradually sank, until
August 25th, when all hope seemed to have left those in attendance.
Two days of a dreary watch ensued; on the 27th an improvement inspired
new hope. This continued throughout the week, but failed to build up the
system. Then it was determined to remove the patient to a more favorable
atmosphere. On the 6th of September this design was executed, he having
been conveyed in a car arranged for the purpose to Long Branch, where,
in a cottage at Elberon, it was hoped vigor would return. At first,
indications justified the most sanguine expectations. On the 9th,
however, fever returned, and a cough came to harass the wasted sufferer.
It was attended with purulent expectoration, and became so troublesome
as to entitle it to be regarded as the leading feature of the case. The
surgeons attributed it to the septic condition of the blood. The trouble
increased until Saturday, September 10th, when it was thought the end
was reached. He rallied, however, and improved rapidly, during the
succeeding few days, and on Tuesday, the 13th, was lifted from the bed
and placed in a chair at the window. The improvement was not enduring,
however, and on Saturday, September 17th, the rigor returned. During the
nights and days succeeding, until the final moment, hope rose and fell
alternately, and though the patient’s spirits fluctuated to justify this
change of feeling, the improvement failed to bring with it the strength
necessary to meet the strain.
President Garfield died at 10.35 on the night of Sept. 19th, 1881, and
our nation mourned, as it had only done once before, when Abraham
Lincoln also fell by the hand of an assassin. The assassin Guiteau was
tried and convicted, the jury rejecting his plea of insanity.
President Arthur.
Vice-President Arthur, during the long illness of the President, and at
the time of his death, deported himself so well that he won the good
opinion of nearly all classes of the people, and happily for weeks and
months all factious or partisan spirit was hushed by the nation’s great
calamity. At midnight on the 19th of September the Cabinet telegraphed
him from Long Branch to take the oath of office, and this he very
properly did before a local judge. The Government cannot wisely be left
without a head for a single day. He was soon afterwards again sworn in
at Washington, with the usual ceremonies, and took occasion to make a
speech which improved the growing better feeling. The new President
requested the Cabinet to hold on until Congress met, and it would have
remained intact had Secretary Windom not found it necessary to resume
his place in the Senate. The vacancy was offered to ex-Governor Morgan,
of New York, who was actually nominated and confirmed before he made up
his mind to decline it. Judge Folger now fills the place. The several
changes since made will be found in the Tabulated History, Book VII.
It has thus far been the effort of President Arthur to allay whatever of
factious bitterness remains in the Republican party. In his own State of
New York the terms “Half-Breed” and “Stalwart” are passing into
comparative disuse, as are the terms “Regulars” and “Independents” in
Pennsylvania.
“Boss Rule.”
The complaint of “Boss Rule” in these States—by which is meant the
control of certain leaders—still obtains to some extent. Wayne MacVeagh
was the author of this very telling political epithet, and he used it
with rare force in his street speeches at Chicago when opposing the
nomination of Grant. It was still further cultivated by Rufus E.
Shapley, Esq., of Philadelphia, the author of “Solid for Mulhooly,” a
most admirable political satire, which had an immense sale. Its many
hits were freely quoted by the Reformers of Philadelphia, who organized
under the Committee of One Hundred, a body of merchants who first banded
themselves together to promote reforms in the municipal government. This
organization, aided by the Democrats, defeated Mayor Wm. S. Stokley for
his third term, electing Mr. King, theretofore a very popular Democratic
councilman. In return for this support, the Democrats accepted John
Hunter, Committee’s nominee for Tax Receiver, and the combination
succeeded. In the fall of 1881 it failed on the city ticket, but in the
spring of 1882 secured material successes in the election of Councilmen,
who were nominees of both parties, but aided by the endorsement of the
Committee of One Hundred. A similar combination failed as between Brown
(Rep.) and Eisenbrown (Dem.) for Magistrate. On this part of the ticket
the entire city voted, and the regular Republicans won by about 500
majority.
The following is the declaration of principles of the Citizens’
Republican Association of Philadelphia, which, under the banner of Mr.
Wolfe, extended its organization to several counties:
I. We adhere to the platform of the National Convention of the
Republican party, adopted at Chicago, June 2d, 1880, and we proclaim our
unswerving allegiance to the great principles upon which that party was
founded, to wit: national supremacy, universal liberty, and governmental
probity.
II. The Republican party, during its glorious career, having virtually
established its principles of national supremacy and universal liberty
as the law of the land, we shall, while keeping a vigilant watch over
the maintenance of those principles, regard the third one, viz.:
governmental probity, as the living issue to be struggled for in the
future; and as the pure administration of government is essential to the
permanence of Republican institutions, we consider this issue as in no
way inferior in importance to any other.
III. The only practical method of restoring purity to administration is
through the adoption of a system of civil service, under which public
officials shall not be the tools of any man or of any clique, subject to
dismissal at their behest, or to assessment in their service; nor
appointment to office be “patronage” at the disposal of any man to
consolidate his power within the party.
IV. It is the abuse of this appointing power which has led to the
formation of the “machine,” and the subjection of the party to “bosses.”
Our chosen leader, the late President Garfield, fell a martyr in his
contest with the “bosses.” We take up the struggle where he left it, and
we hereby declare that we will own no allegiance to any “boss,” nor be
subservient to any “machine;” but that we will do our utmost to liberate
the party from the “boss” domination under which it has fallen.
V. Recognizing that political parties are simply instrumentalities for
the enforcement of certain recognized principles, we shall endeavor to
promote the principles of the Republican party by means of that party,
disenthralled and released from the domination of its “bosses.” But
should we fail in this, we shall have no hesitation in seeking to
advance the principles of the party through movements and organizations
outside of the party lines.
The idea of the Committee of One Hundred is to war against “boss rule”
in municipal affairs. James McManes has long enjoyed the leadership of
the Republican party in Philadelphia, and the reform element has
directed its force against his power as a leader, though he joined at
Chicago in the MacVeagh war against the form of “boss rule,” which was
then directed against Grant, Conkling, Logan and Cameron. This episode
has really little, if anything, to do with Federal politics, but the
facts are briefly recited with a view to explain to the reader the
leading force which supported Mr. Wolfe in his independent race in
Pennsylvania. Summed up, it is simply one of those local wars against
leadership which precede and follow factions.
The factious battles in the Republican party, as we have stated, seem to
have spent their force. The assassination of President Garfield gave
them a most serious check, for men were then compelled to look back and
acknowledge that his plain purpose was to check divisions and heal
wounds. Only haste and anger assailed, and doubtless as quickly
regretted the assault. President Arthur, with commendable reticence and
discretion, is believed to be seeking the same end. He has made few
changes, and these reluctantly. His nomination of ex-Senator Conkling to
a seat in the Supreme Bench, which, though declined, is generally
accepted as an assurance to New Yorkers that the leader hated by one
side and loved by the other, should be removed from partisan politics
peculiar to his own State, but removed with the dignity and honor
becoming his high abilities. It has ever been the policy of wise
administrations, as with wise generals, to care for the wounded, and
Conkling was surely and sorely wounded in his battle against the
confirmation of Robertson and his attempted re-election to the Senate.
He accepted the situation with quiet composure, and saw his friend
Arthur unite the ranks which his resignation had sundered. After this
there remained little if any cause for further quarrel, and while in
writing history it is dangerous to attempt a prophecy, the writer
believes that President Arthur will succeed in keeping his party, if not
fully united, at least as compact as the opposing Democratic forces.
The Readjusters.
This party was founded in 1878 by Gen’l William Mahone, a noted
Brigadier in the rebel army. He is of Scotch-Irish descent, a man of
very small stature but most remarkable energy, and acquired wealth in
the construction and development of Southern railroads. He sounded the
first note of revolt against what he styled the Bourbon rule of
Virginia, and being classed as a Democrat, rapidly divided that party on
the question of the Virginia debt. His enemies charge that he sought the
repudiation of this debt, but in return he not only denied the charge,
but said the Bourbons were actually repudiating it by making no
provision for its payment, either in appropriations or the levying of
taxes needed for the purpose. Doubtless his views on this question have
undergone some modification, and that earlier in the struggle the uglier
criticisms were partially correct. Certain it is that he and his friends
now advocate full payment less the proportion equitably assigned to West
Virginia, which separated from the parent State during the war, and in
her constitution evaded her responsibility by declaring that the State
should never contract a debt except one created to resist invasion or in
a war for the government. This fact shows how keenly alive the West
Virginians were to a claim which could very justly be pressed in the
event of Virginia being restored to the Union, and this claim Gen’l
Mahone has persistently pressed, and latterly urged a funding of the
debt of his State at a 3 per cent. rate, on the ground that the State is
unable to pay more and that this is in accord with proper rates of
interest on the bonds of State governments—a view not altogether fair or
sound, since it leaves the creditors powerless to do otherwise than
accept. The regular or Bourbon Democrats proclaimed in favor of full
payment, and in this respect differed from their party associates as to
ante-war debts in most other Southern States.
Gen. Mahone rapidly organized his revolt, and as the Republican party
was then in a hopeless minority in Virginia, publicly invited an
alliance by the passage of a platform which advocated free schools for
the blacks and a full enforcement of the National laws touching their
civil rights. The Legislature was won, and on the 16th of December,
1880, Gen’l Mahone was elected to the U. S. Senate to succeed Senator
Withers, whose term expired March 4, 1881.
In the Presidential campaign of 1880, the Readjusters supported Gen’l
Hancock, but on a separate electoral ticket, while the Republicans
supported Garfield on an electoral ticket of their own selection. This
division was pursuant to an understanding, and at the time thought
advisable by Mahone, who, if his electors won, could go for Hancock or
not, as circumstances might suggest; while if he failed the Republicans
might profit by the separation. There was, however, a third horn to this
dilemma, for the regular Democratic electors were chosen, but the
political complexion of the Legislature was not changed. Prior to the
Presidential nominations Mahone’s Readjuster Convention had signified
their willingness to support Gen’l Grant if he should be nominated at
Chicago, and this fact was widely quoted by his friends in their
advocacy of Grant’s nomination, and in descanting upon his ability to
carry Southern States.
The Readjuster movement at first had no other than local designs, but
about the time of its organization there was a great desire on the part
of the leading Republicans to break the “Solid South,” and every
possible expedient to that end was suggested. It was solid for the
Democratic party, and standing thus could with the aid of New York,
Indiana and New Jersey (them all Democratic States) assure the election
of a Democratic President.
One of the favorite objects of President Hayes was to break the “Solid
South.” He first obtained it by conciliatory speeches, which were so
conciliatory in fact that they angered radical Republicans, and there
were thus threatened division in unexpected quarters. He next tried it
through Gen’l Key, whom he made Postmaster-General in the hope that he
could resurrect and reorganize the old Whig elements of the South. Key
was to attend to Southern postal patronage with this end in view, while
Mr. Tener, his able First Assistant, was to distribute Northern or
Republican patronage. So far as dividing the South was concerned, the
scheme was a flat failure.
The next and most quiet and effectual effort was made by Gen’l Simon
Cameron, Ex-Senator from Pennsylvania. He started on a brief Southern
tour, ostensibly for health and enjoyment, but really to meet Gen’l
Mahone, his leading Readjuster friends, and the leading Republicans.
Conferences were held, and the union of the two forces was made to
embrace National objects. This was in the Fall of 1879. Not long
thereafter Gen’l Mahone consulted with Senator J. Don. Cameron, who was
of course familiar with his father’s movements, and he actively devised
and carried out schemes to aid the new combination by which the “Solid
South” was to be broken. In the great State campaign of 1881, when the
Bourbon and anti-Bourbon candidates for Governor, were stumping the
State, Gen’l Mahone found that a large portion of his colored friends
were handicapped by their inability to pay the taxes imposed upon them
by the laws of Virginia, and this threatened defeat. He sought aid from
the National administration. President Garfield favored the combination,
as did Secretary Windom, but Secretary Blaine withheld his support for
several months, finally, however, acceding to the wishes of the
President and most of the Cabinet. Administration influences caused the
abandonment of a straight-out Republican movement organized by
Congressman Jorgensen and others, and a movement which at one time
threatened a disastrous division was overcome. The tax question
remained, and this was first met by Senator J. Don. Cameron, who while
summering at Manhattan Island, was really daily engaged in New York City
raising funds for Mahone, with which to pay their taxes. Still, this aid
was insufficient, and in the heat of the battle the revenue officers
throughout the United States, were asked to contribute. Many of them did
so, and on the eve of election all taxes were paid and the result was
the election of William E. Cameron (Readjuster) as Governor by about
20,000 majority, with other State officers divided between the old
Readjusters and Republicans. The combination also carried the
Legislature.
In that great struggle the Readjusters became known as the anti-Bourbon
movement, and efforts are now being made to extend it to other Southern
States. It has taken root in South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee,
Arkansas, Mississippi, and more recently in Kentucky, where the Union
War Democrats in State Convention as late as March 1, 1882, separated
from the Bourbon wing of the party. For a better idea of these two
elements in the South, the reader is referred to the recent speeches of
Hill and Mahone in the memorable Senate scene directly after the latter
took the oath of office, and cast his vote with the Republicans. These
speeches will be found in Book III of this volume.
Suppressing Mormonism.
Polygamy, justly denounced as “the true relic of barbarism” while
slavery existed, has ever since the settlement of the Mormons in Utah,
been one of the vexed questions in American politics. Laws passed for
its suppression have proved, thus far, unavailing; troops could not
crush it out, or did not at a time when battles were fought and won;
United States Courts were powerless where juries could not be found to
convict. Latterly a new and promising effort has been made for its
suppression. This was begun in the Senate in the session of 1882. On the
16th of February a vote was taken by sections on Senator Edmunds’ bill,
which like the law of 1862 is penal in its provisions, but directly
aimed against the crime of polygamy.
President Arthur signed the Edmunds anti-polygamy bill on the 23d of
March, 1882.
Delegate Cannon of Utah, was on the floor of the Senate electioneering
against the bill, and he pled with some success, for several Democratic
Senators made speeches against it. The Republicans were unanimously for
the bill, and the Democrats were not solidly against it, though the
general tenor of the debate on this side was against it.
Senator Vest (Democrat) of Missouri, said that never in the darkest days
of the rule of the Tudors and Stuarts had any measure been advocated
which came so near a bill of attainder as this one. It was monstrous to
contend that the people of the United States were at the mercy of
Congress without any appeal. If this bill passed it would establish a
precedent that would come home to plague us for all time to come. The
pressure against polygamy to-day might exist to-morrow against any
church, institution or class in this broad land, and when the crested
waves of prejudice and passion mounted high they would be told that the
Congress of the United States had trampled upon the Constitution. In
conclusion, he said: “I am prepared for the abuse and calumny that will
follow any man who dares to criticise any bill against polygamy, and
yet, if my official life had to terminate to-morrow, I would not give my
vote for the unconstitutional principles contained in this bill.” Other
speeches were made by Messrs. Morgan, Brown, Jones, of Florida,
Saulsbury, Call, Pendleton, Sherman, and Lamar, and the debate was
closed by Mr. Edmunds in an eloquent fifteen-minutes’ speech, in which
he carefully reviewed and controverted the objections urged against the
bill of the committee.
He showed great anxiety to have the measure disposed of at once and met
a request from the Democratic side for a postponement till other
features should be embodied in the bills with the remark that this was
the policy that had hitherto proven a hindrance to legislation on this
subject and that he was tired of it. In the bill as amended the
following section provoked more opposition than any other, although the
Senators refrained from making any particular mention of it: “That if
any male person in a Territory or other place over which the United
States have exclusive jurisdiction hereafter cohabits with more than one
woman he shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and on conviction
thereof he shall be punished by a fine of not more than $300 or by
imprisonment for not more than six months, or by both said punishments
in the discretion of the court.” The bill passed viva voce vote after a
re-arrangement of its sections, one of the changes being that not more
than three of the commissioners shall be members of the same party. The
fact that the yeas and nays were not called, shows that there is no
general desire on either side to make the bill a partisan measure.
The Edmunds Bill passed the House March 14, 1882, without material
amendment, the Republican majority, refusing to allow the time asked by
the Democrats for discussion. The vote was 193 for to only 45 against,
all of the negative votes being Democratic save one, that of Jones,
Greenbacker from Texas.
The only question was whether the bill, as passed by the Senate, would
accomplish that object, and whether certain provisions of this bill did
not provide a remedy which was worse than the disease. Many Democrats
thought that the precedent of interfering with the right of suffrage at
the polls, when the voter had not been tried and convicted of any crime,
was so dangerous that they could not bring themselves to vote for the
measure. Among these democrats were Belmont and Hewitt, of New York, and
a number of others equally prominent. But they all professed their
readiness to vote for any measure which would affect the abolition of
polygamy without impairing the fundamental rights of citizens in other
parts of the country.
THE TEXT OF THE BILL.
_Be it enacted, &c._, That section 5,352 of the Revised Statutes of the
United States be, and the same is hereby amended so as to read as
follows, namely:
“Every person who has a husband or wife living who, in a Territory or
other place over which the United States have exclusive jurisdiction,
hereafter marries another, whether married or single, and any man who
hereafter simultaneously, or on the same day, marries more than one
woman; in a Territory or other place over which the United States has
exclusive jurisdiction, is guilty of polygamy, and shall be punished by
a fine of not more than $500 and by imprisonment for a term of not more
than five years; but this section shall not extend to any person by
reason of any former marriage whose husband or wife by such marriage
shall have been absent for five successive years, and is not known to
such person to be living, and is believed by such person to be dead, nor
to any person by reason of any former marriage which shall have been
dissolved by a valid decree of a competent court, nor to any person by
reason of any former marriage which shall have been pronounced void by a
valid decree of a competent court, on the ground of nullity of the
marriage contract.”
SEC. 2. That the foregoing provisions shall not affect the prosecution
or punishment of any offence already committed against the section
amended by the first section of this act.
SEC. 3. That if any male person, in a Territory or other place over
which the United States have exclusive jurisdiction, hereafter cohabits
with more than one woman, he shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor,
and on conviction thereof shall be punished by a fine of not more than
$300, or by imprisonment for not more than six months, or by both said
punishments in the discretion of the court.
SEC. 4. That counts for any or all of the offences named in sections 1
and 3 of this act may be joined in the same information or indictment.
SEC. 5. That in any prosecution for bigamy, polygamy or unlawful
cohabitation under any statute of the United States, it shall be
sufficient cause of challenge to any person drawn or summoned as a
juryman or talesman, first, that he is or has been living in the
practice of bigamy, polygamy, or unlawful cohabitation with more than
one woman, or that he is or has been guilty of an offence punishable by
either of the foregoing sections or by section 5352 of the Revised
Statutes of the United States or the act of July 1, 1862, entitled “An
act to punish and prevent the practice of polygamy in the Territories of
the United States and other places, and disapproving and annulling
certain acts of the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Utah;” or,
second, that he believes it right for a man to have more than one living
and undivorced wife at the same time, or to live in the practice of
cohabiting with more than one woman, and any person appearing or offered
as a juror or talesman and challenged on either of the foregoing grounds
may be questioned on his oath as to the existence of any such cause of
challenge, and other evidence may be introduced bearing upon the
question raised by such challenge, and this question shall be tried by
the court. But as to the first ground of challenge before mentioned the
person challenged shall be bound to answer if he shall say upon his oath
that he declines on the ground that his answer may tend to criminate
himself, and if he shall answer to said first ground his answer shall
not be given in evidence in any criminal prosecution against him for any
offense named in sections 1 or 3 of this act, but if he declines to
answer on any ground he shall be rejected as incompetent.
SEC. 6. That the President is hereby authorized to grant amnesty to such
classes of offenders guilty before the passage of this act of bigamy,
polygamy, or unlawful cohabitation before the passage of this act, on
such conditions and under such limitations as he shall think proper; but
no such amnesty shall have effect unless the conditions thereof shall be
complied with.
SEC. 7. That the issue of bigamous or polygamous marriages known as
Mormon marriages, in cases in which such marriages have been solemnized
according to the ceremonies of the Mormon sect, in any Territory of the
United States, and such issue shall have been born before the 1st day of
January, A. D. 1883, are hereby legitimated.
SEC. 8. That no polygamist, bigamist, or any person cohabiting with more
than one woman, and no woman cohabiting with any of the persons
described as aforesaid in this section, in any Territory or other place
over which the United States have exclusive jurisdiction, shall be
entitled to vote at any election held in any such Territory or other
place, or be eligible for election or appointment to or be entitled to
hold any office or place of public trust, honor or emolument in, under,
or for such Territory or place, or under the United States.
SEC. 9. That all the registration and election offices of every
description in the Territory of Utah are hereby declared vacant, and
each and every duty relating to the registration of voters, the conduct
of elections, the receiving or rejection of votes, and the canvassing
and returning of the same, and the issuing of certificates or other
evidence of election in said Territory, shall, until other provision be
made by the Legislative Assembly of said Territory as is hereinafter by
this section provided, be performed under the existing laws of the
United States and of said Territory by proper persons, who shall be
appointed to execute such offices and perform such duties by a board of
five persons, to be appointed by the President, by and with the advice
and consent of the Senate, and not more than three of whom shall be
members of one political party, and a majority of whom shall constitute
a quorum. The members of said board so appointed by the President shall
each receive a salary at the rate of $3,000 per annum, and shall
continue in office until the Legislative Assembly of said Territory
shall make provision for filling said offices as herein authorized. The
secretary of the Territory shall be the secretary of said board, and
keep a journal of its proceedings, and attest the action of said board
under this section. The canvass and return of all the votes at elections
in said Territory for members of the Legislative Assembly thereof shall
also be returned to said board, which shall canvass all such returns and
issue certificates of election to those persons who, being eligible for
such election, shall appear to have been lawfully elected, which
certificate shall be the only evidence of the right of such persons to
sit in such Assembly: _Provided_, That said board of five persons shall
not exclude any person otherwise eligible to vote from the polls on
account of any opinion such person may entertain on the subject of
bigamy or polygamy, nor shall they refuse to count any such vote on
account of the opinion of the person casting it on the subject of bigamy
or polygamy; but each house of such Assembly, after its organization,
shall have power to decide upon the elections and qualifications of its
members. And at or after the first meeting of said Legislative Assembly
whose members shall have been elected and returned according to the
provisions of this act, said Legislative Assembly may make such laws,
conformable to the organic act of said Territory and not inconsistent
with other laws of the United States, as it shall deem proper concerning
the filling of the offices in said Territory declared vacant by this
act.
John R. McBride writing in the February number (1882) of _The
International Review_, gives an interesting and correct view of the
obstacles which the Mormons have erected against the enforcement of
United States laws in the Territory. It requires acquaintance with these
facts to fully comprehend the difficulties in the way of what seems to
most minds a very plain and easy task. Mr. McBride says: Their first
care on arriving in Utah was to erect a “free and Independent State,”
called the “State of Deseret.” It included in its nominal limits, not
only all of Utah as it now is, but one-half of California, all of
Nevada, part of Colorado, and a large portion of four other Territories
now organized. Brigham Young was elected Governor, and its departments,
legislative and judicial, were fully organized and put into operation.
Its legislative acts were styled “ordinances,” and when Congress,
disregarding the State organization, instituted a Territorial Government
for Utah, the legislative body chosen by the Mormons adopted the
ordinances of the “State of Deseret.” Many of these are yet on the
statute book of Utah. They show conclusively the domination of the
ecclesiastical idea, and how utterly insignificant in comparison was the
power of the civil authority. They incorporated the Mormon Church into a
body politic and corporate, and by the third section of the act gave it
supreme authority over its members in everything temporal and spiritual,
and assigned as a reason for so doing that it was because the powers
confirmed were in “support of morality and virtue, and were founded on
the revelations of the Lord.” Under this power to make laws and punish
and forgive offenses, to hear and determine between brethren, the civil
law was superseded. The decrees of the courts of this church, certified
under seal, have been examined by the writer, and he found them
exercising a jurisdiction without limit except that of appeal to the
President of the church. That the assassinations of apostates, the
massacres of the Morrisites at Morris Fort and of the Arkansas emigrants
at Mountain Meadows, were all in pursuance of church decrees, more or
less formal, no one acquainted with the system doubts. This act of
incorporation was passed February 8, 1851, and is found in the latest
compilation of Utah statutes. It is proper also to observe that, for
many years after the erection of the Territorial Government by Congress,
the “State of Deseret” organization was maintained by the Mormons, and
collision was only prevented because Brigham was Governor of both, and
found it unnecessary for his purpose to antagonize either. His church
organization made both a shadow, while _that_ was the substance of all
authority. One of the earliest of their legislative acts was to organise
a Surveyor-General’s Department,[41] and title to land was declared to
be in the persons who held a certificate from that office.[42] Having
instituted their own system of government and taken possession of the
land, and assumed to distribute that in a system of their own, the next
step was to vest certain leading men with the control of the timbers and
waters of the country. By a series of acts granting lands, waters and
timber to individuals, the twelve apostles became the practical
proprietors of the better and more desirable portions of the country. By
an ordinance dated October 4, 1851, there was granted to Brigham Young
the “sole control of City Creek and Cañon for the sum of five hundred
dollars.” By an ordinance dated January 9, 1850, the “waters of North
Mill Creek and the waters of the Cañon next north” were granted to Heber
C. Kimball. On the same day was granted to George A. Smith the “sole
control of the cañons and timber of the east side of the ‘West
Mountains’.” On the 18th of January, 1851, the North Cottonwood Cañon
was granted exclusively to Williard Richards. On the 15th of January,
1851, the waters of the “main channel” of Mill Creek were donated to
Brigham Young. On the 9th of December, 1850, there was granted to Ezra
T. Benson the exclusive control of the waters of Twin Springs and Rock
Springs, in Tooelle Valley; and on the 14th of January, 1851, to the
same person was granted the control of all the cañons of the “West
Mountain” and the timber therein. By the ordinance of September 14,
1850, a “general conference of the Church of Latter Day Saints” was
authorized to elect thirteen men to become a corporation, to be called
the Emigration Company; and to this company, elected exclusively by the
church, was secured and appropriated the two islands in Salt Lake known
as Antelope and Stansberry Islands, to be under the exclusive control of
President Brigham Young. These examples are given to show that the right
of the United States to the lands of Utah met no recognition by these
people. They appropriated them, not only in a way to make the people
slaves, but indicated their claim of sovereignty as superior to any.
Young, Smith, Benson and Kimball were apostles. Richards was Brigham
Young’s counselor. By an act of December 28, 1855, there was granted to
the “University of the State of Deseret” a tract of land amounting to
about five hundred acres, inside the city limits of Salt Lake City,
without any reservation to the occupants whatever; and everywhere was
the authority of the United States over the country and its soil and
people utterly ignored.
Not satisfied with making the grants referred to, the Legislative
Assembly entered upon a system of municipal incorporations, by which the
fertile lands of the Territory were withdrawn from the operation of the
preëmptive laws of Congress; and thus while _they_ occupied these
without title, non-Mormons were unable to make settlement on them, and
they were thus engrossed to Mormon use. From a report made by the
Commissioner of the General Land Office to the United States Senate,[43]
it appears that the municipal corporations covered over 400,000 acres of
the public lands, and over 600 square miles of territory. These
lands[44] are not subject to either the Homestead or Preëmption laws,
and thus the non-Mormon settler was prevented from attempting, except in
rare instances, to secure any lands in Utah. The spirit which prompted
this course is well illustrated by an instance which was the subject of
an investigation in the Land Department, and the proofs are found in the
document just referred to. George Q. Cannon, the late Mormon delegate in
Congress, was called to exercise his duties as an apostle to the Tooelle
“Stake” at the city of Grantville. In a discourse on Sunday, the 20th
day of July, 1875, Mr. Cannon said:[45] “God has given us (meaning the
Mormon people) this land, and, if any outsider shall come in to take
land which we claim, a piece _six feet_ by _two_ is all they are
entitled to, and that will last them to all eternity.”
By measures and threats like these have the Mormons unlawfully
controlled the agricultural lands of the Territory and excluded
therefrom the dissenting settler. The attempt of the United States to
establish a Surveyor-General’s office in Utah in 1855, and to survey the
lands in view of disposing of them according to law, was met by such
opposition that Mr. Burr, the Surveyor-General, was compelled to fly for
life. The monuments of surveys made by his order were destroyed, and the
records were supposed to have met a like fate, but were afterwards
restored by Brigham Young to the Government. The report of his
experience by Mr. Burr was instrumental in causing troops to be sent in
1857 to assert the authority of the Government. When this army,
consisting of regular troops, was on the way to Utah, Brigham Young, as
Governor, issued a proclamation, dated September 15, 1857, declaring
martial law and ordering the people of the Territory to hold themselves
in readiness to march to repel the invaders, and on the 29th of
September following addressed the commander of United States forces an
order forbidding him to enter the Territory, and directing him to retire
from it by the same route he had come. Further evidence of the Mormon
claim that they were independent is perhaps unnecessary. The treasonable
character of the local organization is manifest. It is this organization
that controls, not only the people who belong to it, but the 30,000
non-Mormons who now reside in Utah.
Every member of the territorial Legislature is a Mormon. Every county
officer is a Mormon. Every territorial officer is a Mormon, except such
as are appointive. The schools provided by law and supported by taxation
are Mormon. The teachers are Mormon, and the sectarian catechism
affirming the revelations of Joseph Smith is regularly taught therein.
The municipal corporations are under the control of Mormons. In the
hands of this bigoted class all the material interests of the Territory
are left, subject only to such checks as a Federal Governor and a
Federal judiciary can impose. From beyond the sea they import some
thousands of ignorant converts annually, and, while the non-Mormons are
increasing, they are overwhelmed by the muddy tide of fanaticism shipped
in upon them. The suffrage has been bestowed upon all classes by a
statute so general that the ballot-box is filled with a mass of votes
which repels the free citizen from the exercise of that right. If a
Gentile is chosen to the Legislature (two or three such instances have
occurred), he is not admitted to the seat, although the act of Congress
(June 23, 1874) requires the Territory to pay all the expenses of the
enforcement of the laws of the Territory, and of the care of persons
convicted of offenses against the laws of the Territory. Provision is
made for jurors’ fees in criminal cases only, and none is made for the
care of criminals.[46] While Congress pays the legislative expenses,
amounting to $20,000 per session, the Legislature defiantly refuses to
comply with the laws which its members are sworn to support. And the
same body, though failing to protect the marriage bond by any law
whatever requiring any solemnities for entering it, provided a divorce
act which practically allowed marriages to be annulled at will.[47]
Neither seduction, adultery nor incest find penalty or recognition in
its legal code. The purity of home is destroyed by the beastly practice
of plural marriage, and the brows of innocent children are branded with
the stain of bastardy to gratify the lust which cares naught for its
victims. Twenty-eight of the thirty-six members of the present
Legislature of Utah are reported as having from two to seven wives each.
While the Government of the United States is paying these men their
mileage and _per diem_ as law-makers in Utah, those guilty of the same
offense outside of Utah are leading the lives of felons in convict
cells. For eight years a Mormon delegate has sat in the capitol at
Washington having four living wives in his harem in Utah, and at the
same time, under the shadow of that capitol, lingers in a felon’s prison
a man who had been guilty of marrying a woman while another wife was
still living.
For thirty years have the Mormons been trusted to correct these evils
and put themselves in harmony with the balance of civilized mankind.
This they have refused to do. Planting themselves in the heart of the
continent, they have persistently defied the laws of the land, the laws
of modern society, and the teachings of a common humanity. They degrade
woman to the office of a breeding animal, and, after depriving her of
all property rights in her husband’s estate,[48] all control of her
children,[49] they, with ostentation, bestow upon her the ballot in a
way that makes it a nullity if contested, and compels her to use it to
perpetuate her own degradation if she avails herself of it.
No power has been given to the Mormon Hierarchy that has not been
abused. The right of representation in the legislative councils has been
violated in the apportionment of members so as to disfranchise the
non-Mormon class.[50] The system of revenue and taxation was for
twenty-five years a system of confiscation and extortion.[51] The courts
were so organized and controlled that they were but the organs of the
church oppressions and ministers of its vengeance.[52] The legal
profession was abolished by a statute that prohibited a lawyer from
recovering on any contract for service, and allowed every person to
appear as an attorney in any court.[53] The attorney was compelled to
present “all the facts in the case,” whether for or against his client,
and a refusal to disclose the confidential communications of the latter
subjected the attorney to fine and imprisonment.[54] No law book except
the statutes of Utah and of the United States, “when applicable,” was
permitted to be read in any court by an attorney, and the citation of a
decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, or even a quotation
from the Bible, in the trial of any cause, subjected a lawyer to fine
and imprisonment.[55]
The practitioners of medicine were equally assailed by legislation. The
use of the most important remedies known to modern medical science,
including all anæsthetics, was prohibited except under conditions which
made their use impossible, “and if death followed” the administration of
these remedies, the person administering them was declared guilty of
manslaughter or murder.[56] The Legislative Assembly is but an organized
conspiracy against the national law, and an obstacle in the way of the
advancement of its own people. For sixteen years it refused to lay its
enactments before Congress, and they were only obtained by a joint
resolution demanding them. Once in armed rebellion against the authority
of the nation, the Mormons have always secretly struggled for, as they
have openly prophesied, its entire overthrow. Standing thus in the
pathway of the material growth and development of the Territory, a
disgrace to the balance of the country, with no redeeming virtue to
plead for further indulgence, this travesty of a local government
demands radical and speedy reform.
The South American Question.
If it was not shrewdly surmised before it is now known that had
President Garfield lived he intended to make his administration
brilliant at home and abroad—a view confirmed by the policy conceived by
Secretary Blaine and sanctioned, it must be presumed, by President
Garfield. This policy looked to closer commercial and political
relations with all of the Republics on this Hemisphere, as developed in
the following quotations from a correspondence, the publication of which
lacks completeness because of delays in transmitting all of it to
Congress.
Ex-Secretary Blaine on the 3d of January sent the following letter to
President Arthur:
“The suggestion of a congress of all the American nations to assemble
in the city of Washington for the purpose of agreeing on such a basis
of arbitration for international troubles as would remove all
possibility of war in the Western hemisphere was warmly approved by
your predecessor. The assassination of July 2 prevented his issuing
the invitations to the American States. After your accession to the
Presidency I acquainted you with the project and submitted to you a
draft for such an invitation. You received the suggestion with the
most appreciative consideration, and after carefully examining the
form of the invitation directed that it be sent. It was accordingly
dispatched in November to the independent governments of America North
and South, including all, from the Empire of Brazil to the smallest
republic. In a communication addressed by the present Secretary of
State on January 9, to Mr. Trescot and recently sent to the Senate I
was greatly surprised to find a proposition looking to the annulment
of these invitations, and I was still more surprised when I read the
reasons assigned. If I correctly apprehend the meaning of his words it
is that we might offend some European powers if we should hold in the
United States a congress of the “selected nationalities” of America.
“This is certainly a new position for the United States to assume, and
one which I earnestly beg you will not permit this government to
occupy. The European powers assemble in congress whenever an object
seems to them of sufficient importance to justify it. I have never
heard of their consulting the government of the United States in
regard to the propriety of their so assembling, nor have I ever known
of their inviting an American representative to be present. Nor would
there, in my judgment, be any good reason for their so doing. Two
Presidents of the United States in the year 1881 adjudged it to be
expedient that the American powers should meet in congress for the
sole purpose of agreeing upon some basis for arbitration of
differences that may arise between them and for the prevention, as far
as possible, of war in the future. If that movement is now to be
arrested for fear that it may give offense in Europe, the voluntary
humiliation of this government could not be more complete, unless we
should press the European governments for the privilege of holding the
congress. I cannot conceive how the United States could be placed in a
less enviable position than would be secured by sending in November a
cordial invitation to all the American governments to meet in
Washington for the sole purpose of concerting measures of peace and in
January recalling the invitation for fear that it might create
“jealousy and ill will” on the part of monarchical governments in
Europe. It would be difficult to devise a more effective mode for
making enemies of the American Government and it would certainly not
add to our prestige in the European world. Nor can I see, Mr.
President, how European governments should feel “jealousy and ill
will” towards the United States because of an effort on our own part
to assure lasting peace between the nations of America, unless,
indeed, it be to the interest of European power that American nations
should at intervals fall into war and bring reproach on republican
government. But from that very circumstance I see an additional and
powerful motive for the American Governments to be at peace among
themselves.
“The United States is indeed at peace with all the world, as Mr.
Frelinghuysen well says, but there are and have been serious troubles
between other American nations. Peru, Chili and Bolivia have been for
more than two years engaged in a desperate conflict. It was the
fortunate intervention of the United States last spring that averted
war between Chili and the Argentine Republic. Guatemala is at this
moment asking the United States to interpose its good offices with
Mexico to keep off war. These important facts were all communicated in
your late message to Congress. It is the existence or the menace of
these wars that influenced President Garfield, and as I supposed
influenced yourself, to desire a friendly conference of all the
nations of America to devise methods of permanent peace and consequent
prosperity for all. Shall the United States now turn back, hold aloof
and refuse to exert its great moral power for the advantage of its
weaker neighbors?
If you have not formally and finally recalled the invitations to the
Peace Congress, Mr. President, I beg you to consider well the effect
of so doing. The invitation was not mine. It was yours. I performed
only the part of the Secretary—to advise and to draft. You spoke in
the name of the United States to each of the independent nations of
America. To revoke that invitation for any cause would be
embarrassing; to revoke it for the avowed fear of “jealousy and ill
will” on the part of European powers would appeal as little to
American pride as to American hospitality. Those you have invited may
decline, and having now cause to doubt their welcome will, perhaps, do
so. This would break up the congress, but it would not touch our
dignity.
“Beyond the philanthropic and Christian ends to be obtained by an
American conference devoted to peace and good will among men, we might
well hope for material advantages, as the result of a better
understanding and closer friendship with the nation of America. At
present the condition of trade between the United States and its
American neighbors is unsatisfactory to us, and even deplorable.
According to the official statistics of our own Treasury Department,
the balance against us in that trade last year was $120,000,000—a sum
greater than the yearly product of all the gold and silver mines in
the United States. This vast balance was paid by us in foreign
exchange, and a very large proportion of it went to England, where
shipments of cotton, provisions and breadstuffs supplied the money. If
anything should change or check the balance in our favor in European
trade our commercial exchanges with Spanish America would drain us of
our reserve of gold at a rate exceeding $100,000,000 per annum, and
would probably precipitate a suspension of specie payment in this
country. Such a result at home might be worse than a little jealousy
and ill-will abroad. I do not say, Mr. President, that the holding of
a peace congress will necessarily change the currents of trade, but it
will bring us into kindly relations with all the American nations; it
will promote the reign of peace and law and order; it will increase
production and consumption and will stimulate the demand for articles
which American manufacturers can furnish with profit. It will at all
events be a friendly and auspicious beginning in the direction of
American influence and American trade in a large field which we have
hitherto greatly neglected and which has been practically monopolized
by our commercial rivals in Europe.
As Mr. Frelinghuysen’s dispatch, foreshadowing the abandonment of the
peace congress, has been made public, I deem it a matter of propriety
and justice to give this letter to the press.
JAS. G. BLAINE.
The above well presents the Blaine view of the proposition to have a
Congress of the Republics of America at Washington, and under the
patronage of this government, with a view to settle all difficulties by
arbitration, to promote trade, and it is presumed to form alliances
ready to suit a new and advanced application of the Monroe doctrine.
The following is the letter proposing a conference of North and South
American Republics sent to the U. S. Ministers in Central and South
America:
SIR: The attitude of the United States with respect to the question of
general peace on the American Continent is well known through its
persistent efforts for years past to avert the evils of warfare, or,
these efforts failing, to bring positive conflicts to an end through
pacific counsels or the advocacy of impartial arbitration. This
attitude has been consistently maintained, and always with such
fairness as to leave no room for imputing to our Government any motive
except the humane and disinterested one of saving the kindred States
of the American Continent from the burdens of war. The position of the
United States, as the leading power of the new world, might well give
to its Government a claim to authoritative utterance for the purpose
of quieting discord among its neighbors, with all of whom the most
friendly relations exist. Nevertheless the good offices of this
Government are not, and have not at any time, been tendered with a
show of dictation or compulsion, but only as exhibiting the solicitous
good will of a common friend.
THE CENTRAL AND SOUTH AMERICAN STATES.
For some years past a growing disposition has been manifested by
certain States of Central and South America to refer disputes
affecting grave questions of international relationship and boundaries
to arbitration rather than to the sword. It has been on several
occasions a source of profound satisfaction to the Government of the
United States to see that this country is in a large measure looked to
by all the American powers as their friend and mediator. The just and
impartial counsel of the President in such cases, has never been
withheld, and his efforts have been rewarded by the prevention of
sanguinary strife or angry contentions between peoples whom we regard
as brethren. The existence of this growing tendency convinces the
President that the time is ripe for a proposal that shall enlist the
good will and active co-operation of all the States of the Western
Hemisphere both North and South, in the interest of humanity and for
the common weal of nations.
He conceives that none of the Governments of America can be less alive
than our own to the dangers and horrors of a state of war, and
especially of war between kinsmen. He is sure that none of the chiefs
of Government on the Continent can be less sensitive than he is to the
sacred duty of making every endeavor to do away with the chances of
fratricidal strife, and he looks with hopeful confidence to such
active assistance from them as will serve to show the broadness of our
common humanity, the strength of the ties which bind us all together
as a great and harmonious system of American Commonwealths.
A GENERAL CONGRESS PROPOSED.
Impressed by these views, the President extends to all the independent
countries of North and South America an earnest invitation to
participate in a general Congress, to be held in the city of
Washington, on the 22d of November, 1882, for the purpose of
considering and discussing the methods of preventing war between the
nations of America. He desires that the attention of the Congress
shall be strictly confined to this one great object; and its sole aim
shall be to seek a way of permanently averting the horrors of a cruel
and bloody contest between countries oftenest of one blood and speech,
or the even worse calamity of internal commotion and civil strife;
that it shall regard the burdensome and far-reaching consequences of
such a struggle, the legacies of exhausted finances, of oppressive
debt, of onerous taxation, of ruined cities, of paralyzed industries,
of devastated fields, of ruthless conscriptions, of the slaughter of
men, of the grief of the widow and orphan, of embittered resentments
that long survive those who provoked them and heavily afflict the
innocent generations that come after.
THE MISSION OF THE CONGRESS.
The President is especially desirous to have it understood that in
putting forth this invitation the United States does not assume the
position of counseling or attempting, through the voice of the
Congress, to counsel any determinate solution of existing questions
which may now divide any of the countries. Such questions cannot
properly come before the Congress. Its mission is higher. It is to
provide for the interests of all in the future, not to settle the
individual differences of the present. For this reason especially the
President has indicated a day for the assembling of the Congress so
far in the future as to leave good ground for the hope that by the
time named the present situation on the South Pacific coast will be
happily terminated, and that those engaged in the contest may take
peaceable part in the discussion and solution of the general question
affecting in an equal degree the well-being of all.
It seems also desirable to disclaim in advance any purpose on the part
of the United States to prejudge the issues to be presented to the
Congress. It is far from the intent of this Government to appear
before the Congress as in any sense the protector of its neighbors or
the predestined and necessary arbitrator of their disputes. The United
States will enter into the deliberations of the Congress on the same
footing as other powers represented, and with the loyal determination
to approach any proposed solution, not merely in its own interest, or
with a view to asserting its own power, but as a single member among
many co-ordinate and co-equal States. So far as the influence of this
Government may be potential, it will be exerted in the direction of
conciliating whatever conflicting interests of blood, or government,
or historical tradition that may necessarily come together in response
to a call embracing such vast and diverse elements.
INSTRUCTIONS TO THE MINISTERS.
You will present these views to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of
Costa Rica, enlarging, if need be, in such terms as will readily occur
to you upon the great mission which it is within the power of the
proposed Congress to accomplish in the interest of humanity, and the
firm purpose of the United States of America to maintain a position of
the most absolute and impartial friendship toward all. You will,
therefore, in the name of the President of the United States, tender
to his Excellency, the President of ——, a formal invitation to send
two commissioners to the Congress, provided with such powers and
instructions on behalf of their Government as will enable them to
consider the questions brought before that body within the limit of
submission contemplated by this invitation.
The United States, as well as the other powers, will in like manner be
represented by two commissioners, so that equality and impartiality
will be amply secured in the proceedings of the Congress.
In delivering this invitation through the Minister of Foreign Affairs,
you will read this despatch to him and leave with him a copy,
intimating that an answer is desired by this Government as promptly as
the just consideration of so important a proposition will permit.
I am, sir, your obedient servant,
JAMES G. BLAINE.
Minister Logan’s Reply.
The following is an abstract of the reply of Minister Logan to the
above.
“From a full review of the situation, as heretofore detailed to you, I
am not clear as to being able to obtain the genuine co-operation of all
the States of Central America in the proposed congress.—Each, I have no
doubt, will ultimately agree to send the specified number of
commissioners and assume, outwardly, an appearance of sincere
co-operation, but, as you will perceive from your knowledge of the
posture of affairs, all hope of effecting a union of these States except
upon a basis the leaders will never permit—that of a free choice of the
whole people—will be at an end. The obligation to keep the peace,
imposed by the congress, will bind the United States as well as all
others, and thus prevent any efforts to bring about the desired union
other than those based upon a simple tender of good offices—this means
until the years shall bring about a radical change—must be as
inefficient in the future as in the past. The situation, as it appears
to me, is a difficult one. As a means of restraining the aggressive
tendency of Mexico in the direction of Central America, the congress
would be attended by the happiest results, should a full agreement be
reached. But as the Central American States are now in a chaotic
condition, politically considered, with their future status wholly
undefined, and as a final settlement can only be reached, as it now
appears, through the operation of military forces, the hope of a Federal
union in Central America would be crushed, at least in the immediate
present. Wiser heads than my own may devise a method to harmonize these
difficulties when the congress is actually in session, but it must be
constantly remembered that so far as the Central American commissioners
are concerned they will represent the interests and positive mandates of
their respective government chiefs in the strictest and most absolute
sense. While all will probably send commissioners, through motives of
expediency, they may possibly be instructed to secretly defeat the ends
of the convention. I make these suggestions that you may have the whole
field under view.
“I may mention in this connection that I have received information that
up to the tenth of the present month only two members of the proposed
convention at Panama had arrived and that it was considered as having
failed.”
Contemporaneous with these movements or suggestions was another on the
part of Mr. Blaine to secure from England a modification or abrogation
of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty, with the object of giving to the United
States, rather to the Republics of North and South America, full
supervision of the Isthmus and Panama Canal when constructed. This
branch of the correspondence was sent to the Senate on the 17th of
February. Lord Granville, in his despatch of January 7th to Minister
West in reference to the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty controversy, denies any
analogy between the cases of the Panama and Suez Canals. He cordially
concurs in Mr. Blaine’s statement in regard to the unexampled
development of the Pacific Coast, but denies that it was unexpected.
He says the declaration of President Monroe anterior to the treaty show
that he and his Cabinet had a clear prevision of the great future of
that region. The development of the interests of the British possessions
also continued, though possibly less rapidly. The Government are of the
opinion that the canal, as a water way between the two great oceans and
Europe and Eastern Asia, is a work which concerns not only the American
Continent, but the whole civilized world. With all deference to the
considerations which prompted Mr. Blaine he cannot believe that his
proposals will be even beneficial in themselves. He can conceive a no
more melancholy spectacle than competition between nations in the
construction of fortifications to command the canal. He cannot believe
that any South American States would like to admit a foreign power to
erect fortifications on its territory, when the claim to do so is
accompanied by the declaration that the canal is to be regarded as a
part of the American coast line. It is difficult to believe, he says,
that the territory between it and the United States could retain its
present independence. Lord Granville believes that an invitation to all
the maritime states to participate in an agreement based on the
stipulations of the Convention of 1850, would make the Convention
adequate for the purposes for which it was designed. Her Majesty’s
Government would gladly see the United States take the initiative
towards such a convention, and will be prepared to endorse and support
such action in any way, provided it does not conflict with the
Clayton-Bulwer treaty.
Lord Granville, in a subsequent despatch, draws attention to the fact
that Mr. Blaine, in using the argument that the treaty has been a source
of continual difficulties, omits to state that the questions in dispute
which related to points occupied by the British in Central America were
removed in 1860 by the voluntary action of Great Britain in certain
treaties concluded with Honduras and Nicaragua, the settlement being
recognized as perfectly satisfactory by President Buchanan. Lord
Granville says, further, that during this controversy America disclaimed
any desire to have the exclusive control of the canal.
The Earl contends that in cases where the details of an international
agreement have given rise to difficulties and discussions to such an
extent as to cause the contracting parties at one time to contemplate
its abrogation or modification as one of several possible alternatives,
and where it has yet been found preferable to arrive at a solution as to
those details rather than to sacrifice the general bases of the
engagement, it must surely be allowed that such a fact, far from being
an argument against that engagement, is an argument distinctly in its
favor. It is equally plain that either of the contracting parties which
had abandoned its own contention for the purpose of preserving the
agreement in its entirety would have reason to complain if the
differences which had been settled by its concessions were afterwards
urged as a reason for essentially modifying those other provisions which
it had made this sacrifice to maintain. In order to strengthen these
arguments, the Earl reviews the correspondence, quotes the historical
points made by Mr. Blaine and in many instances introduces additional
data as contradicting the inferences drawn by Mr. Blaine and supporting
his own position.
The point on which Mr. Blaine laid particular stress in his despatch to
Earl Granville, is the objection made by the government of the United
States to any concerted action of the European powers for the purpose of
guarantying the neutrality of the Isthmus canal or determining the
conditions of its use.
CHILI AND PERU.
The entire question is complicated by the war between Chili and Peru,
the latter owning immense guano deposits in which American citizens have
become financially interested. These sought the friendly intervention of
our government to prevent Chili, the conquering Republic, from
appropriating these deposits as part of her war indemnity. The Landreau,
an original French claim, is said to represent $125,000,000, and the
holders were prior to and during the war pressing it upon Calderon, the
Peruvian President, for settlement; the Cochet claim, another of the
same class, represented $1,000,000,000. Doubtless these claims are
speculative and largely fraudulent, and shrewd agents are interested in
their collection and preservation. A still more preposterous and
speculative movement was fathered by one Shipherd, who opened a
correspondence with Minister Hurlburt, and with other parties for the
establishment of the Credit Industriel, which was to pay the $20,000,000
money indemnity demanded of Peru by Chili, and to be reimbursed by the
Peruvian nitrates and guano deposits.
THE SCANDAL.
All of these things surround the question with scandals which probably
fail to truthfully reach any prominent officer of our government, but
which have nevertheless attracted the attention of Congress to such an
extent that the following action has been already taken:
On February 24th Mr. Bayard offered in the Senate a resolution reciting
that whereas publication has been widely made by the public press of
certain alleged public commercial contracts between certain companies
and copartnerships of individuals relative to the exports of guano and
nitrates from Peru, in which the mediation by the Government of the
United States between the Governments of Peru, Bolivia and Chili is
declared to be a condition for the effectuation and continuance of the
said contracts; therefore be it resolved, that the Committee on Foreign
Relations be instructed to inquire whether any promise or stipulation by
which the intervention by the United States in the controversies
existing between Chili and Peru or Chili and Bolivia has been expressly
or impliedly given by any person or persons officially connected with
the Government of the United States, or whether the influence of the
Government of the United States has been in any way exerted, promised or
intimated in connection with, or in relation to the said contracts by
any one officially connected with the Government of the United States,
and whether any one officially connected with the Government of the
United States is interested, directly or indirectly, with any such
alleged contracts in which the mediation as aforesaid of the United
States is recited to be a condition, and that the said committee have
power to send for persons and paper and make report of their proceedings
in the premises to the Senate at the earliest possible day.
Mr. Edmunds said he had drafted a resolution covering all the branches
of “that most unfortunate affair” to which reference was now made, and
in view of the ill policy of any action which would commit the Senate to
inquiries about declaring foreign matters in advance of a careful
investigation by a committee, he now made the suggestion that he would
have made as to his own resolution, if he had offered it, namely, that
the subject be referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations. He
intimated that the proposition prepared by himself would be considered
by the committee as a suggestion bearing upon the pending resolution.
Mr. Bayard acquiesced in the reference with the remark that anything
that tended to bring the matter more fully before the country was
satisfactory to him.
The resolution accordingly went to the Committee on Foreign Relations.
In the House Mr. Kasson, of Iowa, offered a resolution reciting that
whereas, it is alleged, in connection with the Chili Peruvian
correspondence recently and officially published on the call of the two
Houses of Congress, that one or more Ministers Plenipotentiary of the
United States were either personally interested or improperly connected
with a business transaction in which the intervention of this Government
was requested or expected and whereas, it is alleged that certain papers
in relation to the same subject have been improperly lost or removed
from the files of the State Department, that therefore the Committee on
Foreign Affairs be instructed to inquire into said allegations and
ascertain the facts relating thereto, and report the same with such
recommendations as they may deem proper, and they shall have power to
send for persons and papers. The resolution was adopted.
THE CLAIMS.
The inner history of what is known as the Peruvian Company reads more
like a tale from the Arabian Nights than a plain statement of facts. The
following is gleaned from the prospectus of the company, of which only a
limited number of copies was printed. According to a note on the cover
of these “they are for the strictly private use of the gentlemen into
whose hands they are immediately placed.”
The prospects of the corporation are based entirely upon the claims of
Cochet and Landreau, two French chemists, residents of Peru. In the year
1833, the Peruvian government, by published decree, promised to every
discoverer of valuable deposits upon the public domain a premium of
one-third of the discovery as an incentive to the development of great
natural resources vaguely known to exist. In the beginning of 1830,
Alexandre Cochet, who was a man of superior information, occupied
himself in the laborious work of manufacturing nitrate of soda in a
small _oficina_ in Peru, and being possessed with quick intelligence and
a careful observer he soon came to understand that the valuable
properties contained in the guano—an article only known to native
cultivators of the soil—would be eminently useful as a restorative to
the exhausted lands of the old continent. With this idea he made himself
completely master of the mode of application adopted by the Indians and
small farmers in the province where he resided, and after a careful
investigation of the chemical effects produced on the land by the proper
application of the regenerating agent, he proceeded in the year 1840 to
the capital (Lima) in order to interest some of his friends in this new
enterprise. Not without great persuasion and much hesitation, he induced
his countryman, Mr. Achilles Allier, to take up the hazardous
speculation and join with him in his discovery. He succeeded, however,
and toward the end of the same year the firm of Quiroz & Allier obtained
a concession for six years from the government of Peru for the
exportation of all the guano existing in the afterwards famous islands
of Chinchi for the sum of sixty thousand dollars. In consequence of the
refusal of that firm to admit Cochet, the discoverer, to a participation
in the profits growing out of this contract a series of lawsuits
resulted and a paper war ensued in which Cochet was baffled. In vain he
called the attention of the government to the nature and value of this
discovery; he was told that he was a “visionary.” In vain he
demonstrated that the nation possessed hundreds of millions of dollars
in the grand deposits: this only confirmed the opinion of the Council of
State that he was a madman. In vain he attempted to prove that one cargo
of guano was equal to fourteen cargoes of grain; the Council of State
coolly told him that guano was an article known to the Spaniards, and of
no value: that Commissioner Humbolt had referred to it, and that they
could not accept his theory respecting its superior properties, its
value and its probable use in foreign agriculture at a period when no
new discovery could be made relative to an article so long and of so
evident small value.
At length a new light began to dawn on the lethargic understanding of
the officials in power, and as rumors continued to arrive from Europe
confirming the asseverations of Cochet, and announcing the sale of guano
at from $90 to $120 per ton, a degree of haste was suddenly evinced to
secure once more to the public treasury this new and unexpected source
of wealth; and at one blow the contract with Quiroz & Allier, which had
previously been extended, was reduced to one year. Their claims were
cancelled by the payment of ten thousand tons of guano which Congress
decreed them. There still remained to be settled the just and
acknowledged indebtedness for benefits conferred on the country by
Cochet, benefits which could not be denied as wealth and prosperity
rolled in on the government and on the people. But few, if any, troubled
themselves about the question to whom they were indebted for so much
good fortune, nor had time to pay particular attention to Cochet’s
claims. Finally, however, Congress was led to declare Cochet the true
discoverer of the value, uses and application of guano for European
agriculture, and a grant of 5,000 tons was made in his favor September
30th, 1849, but was never paid him. After passing a period of years in
hopeless expectancy—from 1840 to 1851—his impoverished circumstances
made it necessary for him to endeavor to procure, through the influence
of his own government, that measure of support in favor of his claims
which would insure him a competency in his old age.
He resolved upon returning to France, after having spent the best part
of his life in the service of a country whose cities had risen from
desolation to splendor under the sole magic of his touch—a touch that
had in it for Peru all the fabled power of the long-sought
“philosopher’s stone.” In 1853 Cochet returned to France, but he was
then already exhausted by enthusiastic explorations in a deadly climate
and never rallied. He lingered in poverty for eleven painful years and
died in Paris in an almshouse in 1864, entitled to an estate worth
$500,000,000—the richest man in the history of the world—and was buried
by the city in the Potters’ Field; his wonderful history well
illustrating that truth is stranger than fiction.
THE LANDREAU CLAIM.
About the year 1844 Jean Theophile Landreau, also a French citizen, in
partnership with his brother, John C. Landreau, a naturalized American
citizen, upon the faith of the promised premium of 33⅓ per cent. entered
upon a series of extended systematic and scientific explorations with a
view to ascertaining whether the deposits of guano particularly pointed
out by Cochet constituted the entire guano deposit of Peru, and with
money furnished by his partner, John, Theophile prosecuted his searches
with remarkable energy and with great success for twelve years,
identifying beds not before known to the value of not less than
$400,000,000. Well aware, however, of the manner in which his
fellow-countryman had been neglected by an unprincipled people, he had
the discretion to keep his own counsel and to extort from the Peruvian
authorities an absolute agreement in advance before he revealed his
treasure. This agreement was, indeed, for a royalty of less than one
sixth the amount promised, but the most solemn assurances were given
that the lessened amount would be promptly and cheerfully paid, its
total would give the brothers each a large fortune, and payments were to
begin at once. The solemn agreement having been concluded and duly
certified, the precious deposits having been pointed out and taken
possession of by the profligate government, the brothers were at first
put off with plausible pretexts of delay, and when these grew monotonous
the government calmly issued a decree recognizing the discoveries,
accepting the treasure, and annulling the contract, with a suggestion
that a more suitable agreement might be arranged in the future.
It will be seen that these two men, Cochet and Landreau, have been
acknowledged by the Peruvian government as claimants. No attempt has
ever been made to deny the indebtedness. The very decree of repudiation
reaffirmed the obligation, and all the courts refused to pronounce
against the plaintiffs. Both of these claims came into the possession of
Mr. Peter W. Hevenor, of Philadelphia. Cochet left one son whom Mr.
Hevenor found in poverty in Lima and advanced money to push his father’s
claim of $500,000,000 against the government. After $50,000 were spent
young Cochet’s backer was surprised to learn of the Laudreaus and their
claim. Not wishing to antagonize them, he advanced them money, and in a
short time owned nearly all the fifteen interests in the Landreau claim
of $125,000,000.
To the Peruvian Company Mr. Hevenor has transferred his titles, and on
the basis of these that corporation maintains that eventually it will
realize not less than $1,200,000,000, computed as follows:
The amount of guano already taken out of the Cochet Islands—including
the Chinchas—will be shown by the Peruvian Custom House records, and
will aggregate, it is said, not far from $1,200,000,000 worth. The
discoverer’s one-third of this would be $400,000,000, and interest upon
this amount at six per cent. say for an equalized average of twenty
years—would be $480,000,000 more. The amount remaining in these islands
is not positively known, and is probably not more than $200,000,000
worth; and in the Landreau deposits say $300,000,000 more. The Chilean
plenipotentiary recently announced that his government are about opening
very rich deposits on the Lobos Islands—which are included in this
group. It is probably within safe limits, says the Peruvian Company’s
prospectus, to say that, including interest to accrue before the claim
can be fully liquidated, its owners will realize no less than
$1,200,000,000.
THE COUNTRIES INVOLVED.
In South America there are ten independent governments; and the three
Guianas which are dependencies on European powers. Of the independent
governments Brazil is an empire, having an area of 3,609,160 square
miles and 11,058,000 inhabitants. The other nine are republics. In
giving area and population we use the most complete statistics at our
command, but they are not strictly reliable, nor as late as we could
have wished. The area and the population of the republics are:
Venezuela, 426,712 square miles and 2,200,000 inhabitants; United States
of Colombia, 475,000 square miles and 2,900,000 inhabitants; Peru,
580,000 square miles and 2,500,000 inhabitants; Ecuador, 208,000 square
miles and 1,300,000 inhabitants; Bolivia, 842,730 square miles and
1,987,352 inhabitants; Chili, 200,000 square miles and 2,084,960
inhabitants; Argentine Republic, 1,323,560 square miles and 1,887,000
inhabitants; Paraguay, 73,000 square miles and 1,337,439 inhabitants;
Uruguay, 66,716 square miles and 240,000 inhabitants, or a total in the
nine republics of 3,789,220 square miles and 16,436,751 inhabitants. The
aggregate area of the nine republics exceeds that of Brazil 180,060
square miles, and the total population exceeds that of Brazil 5,069,552.
Brazil, being an empire, is not comprehended in the Blaine proposal—she
rather stands as a strong barrier against it. Mexico and Guatemala are
included, but are on this continent, and their character and resources
better understood by our people. In the South American countries
generally the Spanish language is spoken. The educated classes are of
nearly pure Spanish extraction. The laboring classes are of mixed
Spanish and aboriginal blood, or of pure aboriginal ancestry. The
characteristics of the Continent are emphatically Spanish. The area and
population we have already given. The territory is nearly equally
divided between the republics and the empire, the former having a
greater area of only 180,060 square miles; but the nine republics have
an aggregate population of 5,059,522 more than Brazil. The United States
has an area of 3,634,797 square miles, including Alaska; but excluding
Alaska, it has 3,056,797 square miles. The area of Brazil is greater
than that of the United States, excluding Alaska, by 552,363 square
miles, and the aggregate area of the nine republics is greater by
732,423 square miles. This comparison of the area of the nine republics
and of Brazil with that of this nation gives a definite idea of their
magnitude. Geographically, these republics occupy the northern, western
and southern portions of South America, and are contiguous. The
aggregate exports and imports of South America, according to the last
available data, were $529,300,000; those of Brazil, $168,930,000; of the
nine republics, $360,360,000.
These resolutions will bring out voluminous correspondence, but we have
given the reader sufficient to reach a fair understanding of the
subject. Whatever of scandal may be connected with it, like the Star
Route cases, it should await official investigation and condemnation.
Last of all should history condemn any one in advance of official
inquiry. None of the governments invited to the Congress had accepted
formally, and in view of obstacles thrown in the way by the present
administration, it is not probable they will.
Accepting the proposition of Mr. Blaine as stated in his letter to
President Arthur, as conveying his true desire and meaning, it is due to
the truth to say that it comprehends more than the Monroe doctrine, the
text of which is given in President Monroe’s own words in this volume.
While he contended against foreign intervention with the Republics on
this Hemisphere, he never asserted the right of our government to
participate in or seek the control either of the internal, commercial or
foreign policy of any of the Republics of America, by arbitration or
otherwise. So that Mr. Blaine is the author of an advance upon the
Monroe doctrine, and what seems at this time a radical advance. What it
may be when the United States seeks to “spread itself” by an aggressive
foreign policy, and by aggrandizement of new avenues of trade, possibly
new acquisitions of territory, is another question. It is a policy
brilliant beyond any examples in our history, and a new departure from
the teachings of Washington, who advised absolute non-intervention in
foreign affairs. The new doctrine might thrive and acquire great
popularity under an administration friendly to it; but President Arthur
has already intimated his hostility, and it is now beyond enforcement
during his administration. The views of Congress also seem to be adverse
as far as the debates have gone into the question, though it has some
warm friends who may revive it under more favorable auspices.
The Star Route Scandal.
Directly after Mr. James assumed the position of Postmaster-General in
the Cabinet of President Garfield, he discovered a great amount of
extravagance and probably fraud in the conduct of the mail service known
as the Star Routes, authorized by act of Congress to further extend the
mail facilities and promote the more rapid carriage of the mails. These
routes proved to be very popular in the West and Southwest, and the
growing demand for mail facilities in these sections would even in a
legitimate way, if not closely watched, lead to unusual cost and
extravagance; but it is alleged that a ring was formed headed by General
Brady, one of the Assistant Postmaster-Generals under General Key, by
which routes were established with the sole view of defrauding the
Government—that false bonds were given and enormous and fraudulent sums
paid for little or no service. This scandal was at its height at the
time of the assassination of President Garfield, at which time
Postmaster-General James, Attorney-General MacVeagh and other officials
were rapidly preparing for the prosecution of all charged with the
fraud. Upon the succession of President Arthur he openly insisted upon
the fullest prosecution, and declined to receive the resignation of Mr.
MacVeagh from the Cabinet because of a stated fear that the prosecution
would suffer by his withdrawal. Mr. MacVeagh, however, withdrew from the
Cabinet, believing that the new President should not by any circumstance
be prevented from the official association of friends of his own
selection; and at this writing Attorney-General Brewster is pushing the
prosecutions.
On the 24th of March, 1882, the Grand Jury sitting at Washington
presented indictments for conspiracy in connection with the Star Route
mail service against the following named persons: Thomas J. Brady, J. W.
Dorsey, Henry M. Vail, John W. Dorsey, John R. Miner, John M. Peck, M.
C. Rerdell, J. L. Sanderson, Wm. H. Turner. Also against Alvin O. Buck,
Wm. S. Barringer and Albert E. Boone, and against Kate M. Armstrong for
perjury. The indictment against Brady, Dorsey and others, which is very
voluminous, recites the existence, on March 10, 1879, of the Post Office
Department, Postmaster-General and three assistants, and a Sixth
Auditor’s office and Contract office and division.
“To the latter was subject,” the indictment continues, “the arrangement
of the mail service of the United States and the letting out of the same
on contract.” It then describes the duties of the inspecting division.
On March 10, 1879, the grand jurors represent, Thomas J. Brady was the
lawful Second Assistant Postmaster-General engaged in the performance of
the duties of that office. William H. Turner was a clerk in the Second
Assistant Postmaster-General’s office, and attended to the business of
the contract division relating to the mail service over several post
routes in California, Colorado, Oregon, Nebraska, and the Territories.
On the 16th of March, 1879, the indictment represents Thomas J. Brady as
having made eight contracts with John W. Dorsey to carry the mails from
July 1, 1878, to June 30, 1882, from Vermillion, in Dakota Territory, to
Sioux Falls and back, on a fourteen hour time schedule, for $398 each
year; on route from White River to Rawlins, Colorado, once a week of 108
hours’ time, for $1,700 a year; on route from Garland, Colorado, to
Parrott City, once a week, on a schedule of 168 hours’ time, for $2,745;
on route from Ouray, Colorado, to Los Pinos, once a week, in 12 hours’
time, for $348; on route from Silverton, Colorado, to Parrott City,
twice a week, on 36 hours’ time, for $1,488; on route from Mineral Park,
in Arizona Territory, to Pioche and back, once a week, in 84 hours’
time, $2,982; on route from Tres Almos to Clifton and back, once a week,
of 84 hours’ time, for $1,568.
It further sets forth that the Second Assistant Postmaster-General
entered into five contracts with John R. Miner on June 13, 1878, on
routes in Dakota Territory and Colorado, and on March 15, 1879, with
John M. Peck, over eight post routes. In the space of sixty days after
the making of these contracts they were in full force. On March 10,
1879, John W. Dorsey, John R. Miner, and John M. Peck, with Stephen W.
Dorsey and Henry M. Vaile, M. C. Rerdell and J. L. Sanderson, mutually
interested in these contracts and money, to be paid by the United
States to the three parties above named, did unlawfully and
maliciously combine and conspire to fraudulently write, sign, and
cause to be written and signed, a large number of fraudulent letters
and communications and false and fraudulent petitions and applications
to the Postmaster-General for additional service and increase of
expenditure on the routes, which were purported to be signed by the
people and inhabitants in the neighborhood of the routes, which were
filed with the papers in the office of the Second Assistant
Postmaster-General. Further that these parties swore falsely in
describing the number of men and animals required to perform the mail
service over the routes and States as greater than was necessary.
These false oaths were placed on file in the Second Assistant
Postmaster-General’s office; and by means of Wm. H. Turner falsely
making and writing and endorsing these papers, with brief and untrue
statements as to their contents, and by Turner preparing fraudulent
written orders for allowances to be made to these contractors and signed
by Thomas J. Brady fraudulently, and for the benefit and gain of all the
parties named in this bill, the service was increased over these routes;
and that Brady knew it was not lawfully needed and required. That he
caused the order for increasing to be certified to and filed in the
Sixth Auditor’s office for fraudulent additional compensation. That Mr.
Brady gave orders to extend the service so as to include other and
different stations than those mentioned in the contract, that he and
others might have the benefits and profits of it: that he refused to
impose fines on these contracts for failures and delinquencies, but
allowed them additional pay for the service over these routes. During
the continuance of these contracts the parties acquired unto themselves
several large and excessive sums of money, the property of the United
States, fraudulently and unlawfully ordered to be paid them by Mr.
Brady.
These are certainly formidable indictments. Others are pending against
persons in Philadelphia and other cities, who are charged with
complicity in these Star Route frauds, in giving straw bonds, &c. The
Star Route service still continues, the Post Office Department under the
law having sent out several thousand notifications this year to
contractors, informing them of the official acceptance of their
proposals, and some of these contractors are the same named above as
under indictment. This well exemplifies the maxim of the law relative to
innocence until guilt be shown.
The Coming States.
Bills are pending before Congress for the admission of Dakota, Wyoming,
New Mexico and Washington Territories. The Bill for the admission of
Dakota divides the old Territory, and provides that the new State shall
consist of the territory included within the following boundaries:
Commencing at a point on the west line of the State of Minnesota where
the forty-sixth degree of north latitude intersects the same; thence
south along the west boundary lines of the States of Minnesota and Iowa
to the point of intersection with the northern boundary line of the
State of Nebraska; thence westwardly along the northern boundary line of
the State of Nebraska to the twenty-seventh meridian of longitude west
from Washington; thence north along the said twenty-seventh degree of
longitude to the forty-sixth degree of north latitude; to the place of
beginning. The bill provides for a convention of one hundred and twenty
delegates, to be chosen by the legal voters, who shall adopt the United
States Constitution and then proceed to form a State Constitution and
government. Until the next census the State shall be entitled to one
representative, who, with the Governor and other officials, shall be
elected upon a day named by the Constitutional Convention. The report
sets apart lands for school purposes, and gives the State five per
centum of the proceeds of all sales of public lands within its limits
subsequent to its admission as a State, excluding all mineral lands from
being thus set apart for school purposes. It provides that portion of
the Territory not included in the proposed new State shall continue as a
Territory under the name of the Territory of North Dakota.
The proposition to divide comes from Senator McMillan, and if Congress
sustains the division, the portion admitted would contain 100,000
inhabitants, the entire estimated population being 175,000—a number in
excess of twenty of the present States when admitted, exclusive of the
original thirteen; while the division, which shows 100,000 inhabitants,
is still in excess of sixteen States when admitted.
Nevada, with less than 65,000 population, was admitted before the close
Presidential election of 1876, and it may be said that her majority of
1,075, in a total poll of 19,691 votes, decided the Presidential result
in favor of Hayes, and these votes counteracted the plurality of nearly
300,000 received by Mr. Tilden elsewhere. This fact well illustrates the
power of States, as States, and however small, in controlling the
affairs of the country. It also accounts for the jealousy with which
closely balanced political parties watch the incoming States.
Population is but one of the considerations entering into the question
of admitting territories, State sovereignty does not rest upon
population, as in the make up of the U. S. Senate neither population,
size, nor resources are taken into account. Rhode Island, the smallest
of all the States, and New York, the great Empire State, with over
5,000,000 of inhabitants, stand upon an equality in the conservative
branch of the Government. It is in the House of Representatives that the
population is considered. Such is the jealousy of the larger States of
their representation in the U. S. Senate, that few new ones would be
admitted without long and continuous knocking if it were not for
partisan interests, and yet where a fair number of people demand State
Government there is no just cause for denial. Yet all questions of
population, natural division, area and resources should be given their
proper weight.
The area of the combined territories—Utah, Washington, New Mexico,
Dakota, Arizona, Montana, Idaho, Wyoming and Indian is about 900,000
square miles. We exclude Alaska, which has not been surveyed.
Indian Territory and Utah are for some years to come excluded from
admission—the one being reserved to the occupancy of the Indians, while
the other is by her peculiar institution of polygamy, generally thrown
out of all calculation. And yet it may be found that polygamy can best
be made amenable to the laws by the compulsory admission of Utah as a
State—an idea entertained by not a few who have given consideration to
the question. Alaska may also be counted out for many years to come.
There are but 30,000 inhabitants, few of these permanent, and Congress
is now considering a petition for the establishment of a territorial
government there.
Next to Dakota, New Mexico justly claims admission. The lands comprised
within its original area were acquired from Mexico, at the conclusion of
the war with that country, by the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848,
and by act of September 9, 1850, a Territorial government was organized.
By treaty of December 30, 1853, the region south of the Gila river—the
Gadsden purchase, so called—was ceded by Mexico, and by act of August 4,
1854, added to the Territory, which at that time included within its
limits the present Territory of Arizona. Its prayer for admission was
brought to the serious attention of Congress in 1874. The bill was
presented in an able speech by Mr. Elkins, then delegate from the
Territory, and had the warm support of many members. A bill to admit was
also introduced in the Senate, and passed that body February 25, 1875,
by a vote of thirty-two to eleven, two of the present members of that
body, Messrs. Ingalls and Windom, being among its supporters. The matter
of admission came up for final action in the House at the same session,
just prior to adjournment, and a motion to suspend the rules, in order
to put it upon its final passage, was lost by a vote of one hundred and
fifty-four to eighty-seven, and the earnest efforts to secure the
admission of New Mexico were thus defeated. A bill for its admission is
now again before Congress, and it is a matter of interest to note the
representations as to the condition of the Territory then made, and the
facts as they now exist. It has, according to the census of 1880, a
population of 119,565. It had in 1870 a population of 91,874. It was
claimed by the more moderate advocates of the bill that its population
then numbered 135,000 (15,435 more than at present), while others placed
it as high as 145,000. Of this population, 45,000 were said to be of
American and European descent. It was stated by Senator Hoar, one of the
opponents of the bill, that, out of an illiterate population of 52,220,
by far the larger part were native inhabitants of Mexican or Spanish
origin, who could not speak the English language. This statement seems
to be in large degree confirmed by the census of 1880, which shows a
total native white population of 108,721, of whom, as nearly as can be
ascertained, upward of 80 per cent. are not only illiterates of Mexican
and Spanish extraction, but as in 1870, speaking a foreign language. The
vote for Mr. Elkins, Territorial Delegate in 1875, was reported as being
about 17,000. The total vote in 1878 was 18,806, and in 1880, 20,397,
showing a comparatively insignificant increase from 1875 to 1880.
The Territory of Washington was constituted out of Oregon, and organized
as a Territory by act of March 2, 1853. Its population by the census of
1880 was 75,116, an increase from 23,955 in 1870. Of this total, 59,313
are of native and 15,803 of foreign nativity. Its total white population
in the census year was 67,119; Chinese, 3,186; Indian, 4,105; colored,
326, and its total present population is probably not far from 95,000.
Its yield of precious metals in 1880, and for the entire period since
its development, while showing resources full of promise, has been much
less than that of any other of the organized Territories. Its total vote
for Territorial Delegate in 1880, while exceeding that of the
Territories of Arizona, Idaho, and Wyoming, was but 15,823.
The Territory of Arizona, organized out of a portion of New Mexico, and
provided with a territorial government in 1863, contains about 5,000,000
acres less than the Territory of New Mexico, or an acreage exceeded by
that of only five States and Territories. Its total population in 1870
was 9,658, and in 1880, 40,440, 35,160 of whom were whites. Of its total
population in the census year, 24,391 were of native and 16,049 of
foreign birth, the number of Indians, Chinese, and colored being 5,000.
Idaho was originally a part of Oregon, from which it was separated and
provided with a territorial government by the act of March 3, 1863. It
embraces in its area a little more than 55,000,000 acres, and had in
1880 a total population of 32,610, being an increase from 14,999 in
1870. Of this population, 22,636 are of native and 9,974 of foreign
birth; 29,013 of the total inhabitants are white, 3,379 Chinese and 218
Indians and colored.
The Territory of Montana, organized by act of May 26, 1864, contains an
acreage larger than that of any other Territory save Dakota. While it
seems to be inferior in cereal producing capacity, in its area of
valuable grazing lands it equals, if it does not excel, Idaho. The chief
prosperity of the Territory, and that which promises for it a future of
growing importance, lies in its extraordinary mineral wealth, the
productions of its mines in the year 1880 having been nearly twice that
of any other Territory, with a corresponding excess in its total
production, which had reached, on June 30, 1880, the enormous total of
over $53,000,000. Its mining industries represent in the aggregate very
large invested capital, and the increasing products, with the
development of new mines, are attracting constant additions to its
population, which in 1880 showed an increase, as compared with 1870, of
over 90 per cent. For particulars see census tables in tabulated
history.
Wyoming was constituted out of the Territory of Dakota, and provided
with territorial government July 25, 1868. Lying between Colorado and
Montana, and adjoining Dakota and Nebraska on the east, it partakes of
the natural characteristics of these States and Territories, having a
fair portion of land suitable for cultivation, a large area suitable for
grazing purposes, and a wealth in mineral resources whose development,
although of recent beginning, has already resulted in an encouraging
yield in precious metals. It is the fifth in area.
Henry Randall Waite, in an able article in the March number of the
International Review (1882,) closes with these interesting paragraphs:
“It will be thus seen that eleven States organized from Territories,
when authorized to form State governments, and the same number when
admitted to the Union, had free populations of less than 60,000, and
that of the slave States included in this number, seven in all, not one
had the required number of free inhabitants, either when authorized to
take the first steps toward admission or when finally admitted; and that
both of these steps were taken by two of the latter States with a total
population, free and slave, below the required number. Why so many
States have been authorized to form State governments, and have been
subsequently admitted to the Union with populations so far below the
requirements of the ordinance of 1787, and the accepted rules for
subsequent action may be briefly explained as follows: 1st, by the
ground for the use of a wide discretion afforded in the provisions of
the ordinance of 1787, for the admission of States, when deemed
expedient, before their population should equal the required number; and
2d. by the equally wide discretion given by the Constitution in the
words, ‘New States may be admitted by Congress into this Union,’ the
only provision of the Constitution bearing specifically upon this
subject. Efforts have been made at various times to secure the strict
enforcement of the original rules, with the modification resulting from
the increase in the population of the Union, which provided that the
number of free inhabitants in a Territory seeking admission should equal
the number established as the basis of representation in the
apportionment of Representatives in Congress, as determined by the
preceding census. How little success the efforts made in this direction
have met, may be seen by a comparison of the number of inhabitants
forming the basis of representation, as established by the different
censuses, and the free population of the Territories admitted at
corresponding periods.
“At this late date, it is hardly to be expected that rules so long
disregarded will be made applicable to the admission of the States to be
organized from the existing Territories. There is, nevertheless, a
growing disposition on the part of Congress to look with disfavor upon
the formation of States whose population, and the development of whose
resources, render the expediency of their admission questionable; and an
increasing doubt as to the propriety of so dividing the existing
Territories as to multiply to an unnecessary extent the number of
States, with the attendant increase in the number of Representatives in
the National Legislature.
“To recapitulate the facts as to the present condition of the
Territories with reference to their admission as States, it may be said
that only Dakota, Utah, New Mexico and Washington are in possession of
the necessary population according to the rule requiring 60,000; that
only the three first named conform to the rule demanding a population
equal to the present basis of representation; that only Dakota, Utah and
Washington give evidence of that intelligence on the part of their
inhabitants which is essential to the proper exercise, under favorable
conditions, of the extended rights of citizenship, and of that progress
in the development of their resources which makes self-government
essential, safe, or in any way desirable; and that only Dakota can be
said, unquestionably, to possess all of the requirements which, by the
dictates of a sound policy, should be demanded of a Territory at this
time seeking admission to the Union.
“Whatever the response to the Territorial messengers now waiting at the
doors of Congress, a few years, at most, will bring an answer to their
prayers. The stars of a dozen proud and prosperous States will soon be
added to those already blazoned upon the blue field of the Union, and
the term Territory, save as applied to the frozen regions of Alaska,
will disappear from the map of the United States.”
The Chinese Question.
Since 1877 the agitation of the prohibition of Chinese immigration in
California and other States and Territories on the Pacific slope has
been very great. This led to many scenes of violence and in some
instances bloodshed, when one Dennis Kearney led the Workingmen’s party
in San Francisco. On this issue an agitator and preacher named Kalloch
was elected Mayor. The issue was carried to the Legislature, and in the
vote on a constitutional amendment it was found that not only the labor
but nearly all classes in California were opposed to the Chinese. The
constitutional amendment did not meet the sanction of the higher courts.
A bill was introduced into Congress restricting Chinese immigrants to
fifteen on each vessel. This passed both branches, but was vetoed by
President Hayes on the ground that it was in violation of the spirit of
treaty stipulations. At the sessions of 1881–82 a new and more radical
measure was introduced. This prohibits immigration to Chinese or Coolie
laborers for twenty years. The discussion in the U. S. Senate began on
the 28th of February, 1882, in a speech of unusual strength by Senator
John F. Miller, the author of the Bill. From this we freely quote, not
alone to show the later views entertained by the people of the Pacific
slope, but to give from the lips of one who knows the leading facts in
the history of the agitation.
Abstracts from the Text of Senator Miller’s Speech.
_On his Bill to Prohibit Chinese Immigration._
In the Senate, Feb. 28th, 1882, Mr. Miller said:
“This measure is not a surprise to the Senate, nor a new revelation to
the country. It has been before Congress more than once, if not in the
precise form in which it is now presented, in substance the same, and it
has passed the ordeal of analytical debate and received the affirmative
vote of both Houses. Except for the Executive veto it would have been
long ago the law of the land. It is again presented, not only under
circumstances as imperative in their demands for its enactment, but with
every objection of the veto removed and every argument made against its
approval swept away. It is an interesting fact in the history of this
measure, that the action which has cleared its way of the impediments
which were made the reasons for the veto, was inaugurated and
consummated with splendid persistence and energy by the same
administration whose executive interposed the veto against it. Without
stopping to inquire into the motive of the Hayes administration in this
proceeding, whether its action was in obedience to a conviction that the
measure was in itself right and expedient, or to a public sentiment, so
strong and universal as to demand the utmost vigor in the diplomacy
necessary for the removal of all impediments to its progress, it must be
apparent that the result of this diplomatic action has been to add a new
phase to the question in respect of the adoption of the measure itself.
“In order to fully appreciate this fact it may be proper to indulge in
historical reminiscence for a moment. For many years complaints had been
made against the introduction into the United States of the peculiar
people who come from China, and the Congress, after careful
consideration of the subject, so far appreciated the evil complained of
as to pass a bill to interdict it.
“The Executive Department had, prior to that action, with diplomatic
finesse, approached the imperial throne of China, with intent, as was
said, to ascertain whether such an interdiction of coolie importation,
or immigration so called, into the United States would be regarded as a
breach of friendly relations with China, and had been informed by the
diplomat, to whom the delicate task had been committed, that such
interdiction would not be favorably regarded by the Chinese Government.
Hence, when Congress, with surprising audacity, passed the bill of
interdiction the Executive, believing in the truth of the information
given him, thought it prudent and expedient to veto the bill, but
immediately, in pursuance of authority granted by Congress, he appointed
three commissioners to negotiate a treaty by which the consent of China
should be given to the interdiction proposed by Congress. These
commissioners appeared before the Government of China upon this special
mission, and presented the request of the Government of the United
States affirmatively, positively, and authoritatively made, and after
the usual diplomatic ceremonies, representations, misrepresentations,
avowals, and concealments, the treaty was made, the concession granted,
and the interdiction agreed upon. This treaty was presented here and
ratified by the Senate, with what unanimity Senators know, and which the
rules of the Senate forbid me to describe.
“The new phase of this question, which we may as well consider in the
outset, suggests the spectacle which this nation should present if
Congress were to vote this or a similar measure down. A great nation
cannot afford inconsistency in action, nor betray a vacillating,
staggering, inconstant policy in its intercourse with other nations. No
really great people will present themselves before the world through
their government as a nation irresolute, fickle, feeble, or petulant;
one day eagerly demanding of its neighbor an agreement or concession,
which on the next it nervously repudiates or casts aside. Can we make a
solemn request of China, through the pomp of an extraordinary embassy
and the ceremony of diplomatic negotiation, and with prudent dispatch
exchange ratifications of the treaty granting our request, and within
less than half a year after such exchange is made cast aside the
concession and, with childish irresolution, ignore the whole proceeding?
Can we afford to make such a confession of American imbecility to any
oriental power? The adoption of this or some such measure becomes
necessary, it seems to me, to the intelligent and consistent execution
of a policy adopted by this Government under the sanction of a treaty
with another great nation.
“If the Executive department, the Senate, and the House of
Representatives have all understood and appreciated their own action in
respect of this measure; if in the negotiation and ratification of the
new treaty with China, the Executive and the Senate did not act without
thought, in blind, inconsiderate recklessness—and we know they did
not—if the Congress of the United States in the passage of the fifteen
passenger bill had the faintest conception of what it was doing—and we
know it had—then the policy of this Government in respect of so-called
Chinese immigration has been authoritatively settled.
“This proposition is submitted with the greater confidence because the
action I have described was in obedience to, and in harmony with, a
public sentiment which seems to have permeated the whole country. For
the evidence of the existence of such a sentiment, it is only necessary
to produce the declarations upon this subject of the two great
historical parties of the country, deliberately made by their national
conventions of 1880. One of these (the Democratic convention) declared
that there shall be—
“‘No more Chinese immigration except for travel, education, and foreign
commerce, and therein carefully guarded.’
“The other (the Republican) convention declared that—
“‘Since the authority to regulate immigration and intercourse between
the United States and foreign nations rests with Congress, or with the
United States and its treaty-making power, the Republican party,
regarding the unrestricted immigration of the Chinese as an evil of
great magnitude, invokes the exercise of these powers to restrain and
limit the immigration by the enactment of such just, humane, and
reasonable provisions as will produce that result.’
“These are the declarations of the two great political parties, in whose
ranks are enrolled nearly all the voters of the United States; and
whoever voted at the last Presidential election voted for the adoption
of the principles and policy expressed by those declarations, whether he
voted with the one or the other of the two great parties. Both
candidates for the Presidency were pledged to the adoption and execution
of the policy of restriction thus declared by their respective parties,
and the candidate who was successful at the polls, in his letter of
acceptance, not only gave expression to the sentiment of his party and
the country, but with a clearness and conciseness which distinguished
all his utterances upon great public questions, gave the reasons for
that public sentiment.” He said:
“‘The recent movement of the Chinese to our Pacific Coast partakes but
little of the qualities of an immigration, either in its purposes or
results. It is too much like an importation to be welcomed without
restriction; too much like an invasion to be looked upon without
solicitude. We cannot consent to allow any form of servile labor to be
introduced among us under the guise of immigration.’
* * * * *
“In this connection it is proper also to consider the probable effect of
a failure or refusal of Congress to pass this bill, upon the
introduction of Chinese coolies into the United States in the future. An
adverse vote upon such a measure, is an invitation to the Chinese to
come. It would be interpreted to mean that the Government of the United
States had reversed its policy, and is now in favor of the unrestricted
importation of Chinese; that it looks with favor upon the Chinese
invasion now in progress. It is a fact well known that the hostility to
the influx of Chinese upon the Pacific coast displayed by the people of
California has operated as a restriction, and has discouraged the
importation of Chinese to such a degree that it is probable that there
are not a tenth part the number of Chinese in the country there would
have been had this determined hostility never been shown. Despite the
inhospitality, not to say resistance, of the California people to the
Chinese, sometimes while waiting for the action of the General
Government difficult to restrain within the bounds of peaceable
assertion, they have poured through the Golden Gate in constantly
increased numbers during the past year, the total number of arrivals at
San Francisco alone during 1881 being 18,561. Nearly two months have
elapsed since the 1st of January, and there have arrived, as the
newspapers show, about four thousand more.
“The defeat of this measure now is a shout of welcome across the Pacific
Ocean to a myriad host of these strange people to come and occupy the
land, and it is a rebuke to the American citizens, who have so long
stood guard upon the western shore of this continent, and who, seeing
the danger, have with a fortitude and forbearance most admirable, raised
and maintained the only barrier against a stealthy, strategic, but
peaceful invasion as destructive in its results and more potent for
evil, than an invasion by an army with banners. An adverse vote now, is
to commission under the broad seal of the United States, all the
speculators in human labor, all the importers of human muscle, all the
traffickers in human flesh, to ply their infamous trade without
impediment under the protection of the American flag, and empty the
teeming, seething slave pens of China upon the soil of California! I
forbear further speculation upon the results likely to flow from such a
vote, for it presents pictures to the mind which one would not willingly
contemplate.
“These considerations which I have presented ought to be, it seems to
me, decisive of the action of the Senate upon this measure; and I should
regard the argument as closed did I not know, that there still remain
those who do not consider the question as settled, and who insist upon
further inquiry into the reasons for a policy of restriction, as applied
to the Chinese. I am not one of those who would place the consideration
of consistency or mere appearances above consideration of right or
justice; but since no change has taken place in our relations with
China, nor in our domestic concerns which renders a reversal of the
action of the government proper or necessary, I insist that if the
measure of restriction was right and good policy when Congress passed
the fifteenth passenger bill, and when the late treaty with China was
negotiated and ratified, it is right and expedient now.
“This measure had its origin in California. It has been pressed with
great vigor by the Representatives of the Pacific coast in Congress, for
many years. It has not been urged with wild vehement declamation by
thoughtless men, at the behest of an ignorant unthinking, prejudiced
constituency. It has been supported by incontrovertible fact and
passionless reasoning and enforced by the logic of events. Behind these
Representatives was an intelligent, conscientious public
sentiment—universal in a constituency as honest, generous, intelligent,
courageous, and humane as any in the Republic.
“It had been said that the advocates of Chinese restriction were to be
found only among the vicious, unlettered foreign element of California
society. To show the fact in respect of this contention, the Legislature
of California in 1878 provided for a vote of the people upon the
question of Chinese immigration (so called) to be had at the general
election of 1879. The vote was legally taken, without excitement, and
the response was general. When the ballots were counted, there were
found to be 883 votes for Chinese immigration and 154,638 against it. A
similar vote was taken in Nevada and resulted as follows: 183 votes for
Chinese immigration and 17,259 votes against. It has been said that a
count of noses is an ineffectual and illusory method of settling great
questions, but this vote of these two States settled the contention
intended to be settled; and demonstrated that the people of all others
in the United States who know most of the Chinese evil, and who are most
competent to judge of the necessity for restriction are practically
unanimous in the support of this measure.
“It is to be supposed that this vote of California was the effect of an
hysterical spasm, which had suddenly seized the minds of 154,000 voters,
representing the sentiment of 800,000 people. For nearly thirty years
this people had witnessed the effect of coolie importation. For more
than a quarter of a century these voters had met face to face,
considered, weighed, and discussed the great question upon which they
were at last called upon, in the most solemn and deliberate manner, to
express an opinion. I do not cite this extraordinary vote as a
conclusive argument in favor of Chinese restriction; but I present it as
an important fact suggestive of argument. It may be that the people who
have been brought face to face with the Chinese invasion are all wrong,
and that those who have seen nothing of it, who have but heard something
of it, are more competent (being disinterested) to judge of its
possible, probable, and actual effects, than those who have had twenty
or thirty years of actual continuous experience and contact with the
Chinese colony in America; and it may be that the Chinese question is to
be settled upon considerations other than those practical common sense
reasons and principles which form the basis of political science.
“It has sometimes happened in dealing with great questions of
governmental policy that sentiment, or a sort of emotional inspiration,
has seized the minds of those engaged in the solution of great problems,
by which they have been lifted up into the ethereal heights of moral
abstraction. I trust that while we attempt the path of inquiry in this
instance we shall keep our feet firmly upon the earth. This question
relates to this planet and the temporal government of some of its
inhabitants; it is of the earth earthly; it involves principles of
economic, social, and political science, rather than a question of
morals; it is a question of national policy, and should be subjected to
philosophical analysis. Moreover, the question is of to-day. The
conditions of the world of mankind at the present moment are those with
which we have to deal. If mankind existed now in one grand co-operative
society, in one universal union, under one system of laws, in a vast
homogeneous brotherhood, serenely beatified, innocent of all selfish
aims and unholy desires, with one visible temporal ruler, whose
judgments should be justice and whose sway should be eternal, then there
would be no propriety in this measure.
“But the millennium has not yet begun, and man exists now, as he has
existed always—in the economy of Providence—in societies called nations,
separated by the peculiarities if not the antipathies of race. In truth
the history of mankind is for the most part descriptive of racial
conflicts and the struggles between nations for existence. By a
perfectly natural process these nations have evolved distinct
civilizations, as diverse in their characteristics as the races of men
from which they have sprung. These may be properly grouped into two
grand divisions, the civilization of the East and the civilization of
the West. These two great and diverse civilizations have finally met on
the American shore of the Pacific Ocean.
“During the late depression in business affairs, which existed for three
or four years in California, while thousands of white men and women were
walking the streets, begging and pleading for an opportunity to give
their honest labor for any wages, the great steamers made their regular
arrivals from China, and discharged at the wharves of San Francisco
their accustomed cargoes of Chinese who were conveyed through the city
to the distributing dens of the Six Companies, and within three or four
days after arrival every Chinaman was in his place at work, and the
white people unemployed still went about the streets. This continued
until the white laboring men rose in their desperation and threatened
the existence of the Chinese colony when the influx was temporarily
checked; but now since business has revived, and the pressure is
removed, the Chinese come in vastly increased numbers, the excess of
arrivals over departures averaging about one thousand per month at San
Francisco alone. The importers of Chinese had no difficulty in securing
openings for their cargoes now, and when transportation from California
to the Eastern States is cheapened, as it soon will be, they will extend
their operations into the Middle and Eastern States, unless prevented by
law, for wherever there is a white man or woman at work for wages,
whether at the shoe bench, in the factory, or on the farm, there is an
opening for a Chinaman. No matter how low the wages may be, the Chinaman
can afford to work for still lower wages, and if the competition is
free, he will take the white man’s place.
“At this point we are met by the query from a certain class of political
economists, ‘What of it? Suppose the Chinese work for lower wages than
white men, is it not advantageous to the country to employ them?’ The
first answer to such question is, that by this process white men are
supplanted by Chinese. It is a substitution of Chinese and their
civilization for white men and Anglo-Saxon civilization. This involves
considerations higher than mere economic theories. If the Chinese are as
desirable as citizens, if they are in all the essential elements of
manhood the peers or the superiors of the Caucasian; if they will
protect American interests, foster American institutions, and become the
patriotic defenders of republican government; if their civilization does
not antagonize ours nor contaminate it; if they are free, independent
men, fit for liberty and self-government as European immigrants
generally are, then we may begin argument upon the question whether it
is better or worse, wise or unwise, to permit white men, American
citizens, or men of kindred races to be supplanted and the Chinese to be
substituted in their places. Until all this and more can be shown the
advocates of Chinese importation or immigration have no base upon which
to even begin to build argument.
“The statistics of the manufacture of cigars in San Francisco are still
more suggestive. This business was formerly carried on exclusively by
white people, many hundreds finding steady and lucrative employment in
that trade. I have here the certified statement from the office of the
collector of internal revenue at San Francisco, showing the number of
white people and Chinese, relatively, employed on the 1st of November
last in the manufacture of cigars. The statement is as follows:
Number of white men employed 493
Number of white women employed 170
———
Total whites 663
Number of Chinese employed 5 182
“The facts of this statement were carefully ascertained by three deputy
collectors. The San Francisco Assembly of Trades certify that there are
8,265 Chinese employed in laundries. It is a well-known fact that white
women who formerly did this work have been quite driven out of that
employment. The same authority certifies that the number of Chinese now
employed in the manufacture of clothing in San Francisco, is 7,510, and
the number of whites so employed is 1,000. In many industries the
Chinese have entirely supplanted the white laborers, and thousands of
our white people have quit California and sought immunity from this
grinding competition in other and better-favored regions.”
* * * * *
“If you would ‘secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our
posterity,’ there must be some place reserved in which, and upon which,
posterity can exist. What will the blessings of liberty be worth to
posterity if you give up the country to the Chinese? If China is to be
the breeding-ground for peopling this country, what chance of American
posterity? We of this age hold this land in trust for our race and
kindred. We hold republican government and free institutions in trust
for American posterity. That trust ought not to be betrayed. If the
Chinese should invade the Pacific coast with arms in their hands, what a
magnificent spectacle of martial resistance would be presented to a
startled world! The mere intimation of an attempt to make conquest of
our western shore by force would rouse the nation to a frenzy of
enthusiasm in its defense. For years a peaceful, sly, strategic conquest
has been in progress, and American statesmanship has been almost silent,
until the people have demanded action.
“The land which is being overrun by the oriental invader is the fairest
portion of our heritage. It is the land of the vine and the fig tree;
the home of the orange, the olive, and the pomegranate. Its winter is a
perpetual spring, and its summer is a golden harvest. There the northern
pine peacefully sways against the southern palm; the tender azalea and
the hardy rose mingle their sweet perfume, and the tropic vine encircles
the sturdy oak. Its valleys are rich and glorious with luscious fruits
and waving grain, and its lofty
Mountains like giants stand,
To sentinel the enchanted land.
“I would see its fertile plains, its sequestered vales, its vine-clad
hills, its deep blue canons, its furrowed mountain-sides, dotted all
over with American homes—the homes of a free, happy people, resonant
with the sweet voices of flaxen-haired children, and ringing with the
joyous laughter of maiden fair—
Soft as her clime, and sunny as her skies—
like the homes of New England; yet brighter and better far shall be the
homes which are to be builded in that wonderland by the sunset sea, the
homes of a race from which shall spring
The flower of men,
To serve as model for the mighty world,
And be the fair beginning of a time.”
Reply of Senator Geo. P. Hoar.
Senator Hoar, of Massachusetts, replied to Senator Miller, and presented
the supposed view of the Eastern States in a masterly manner. The speech
covered twenty-eight pamphlet pages, and was referred to by the
newspaper as an effort equal to some of the best by Charles Sumner. We
make liberal extracts from the text, as follows:
“Mr. PRESIDENT: A hundred years ago the American people founded a nation
upon the moral law. They overthrew by force the authority of their
sovereign, and separated themselves from the country which had planted
them, alleging as their justification to mankind certain propositions
which they held to be self-evident.
“They declared—and that declaration is the one foremost action of human
history—that all men equally derive from their Creator the right to the
pursuit of happiness; that equality in the right to that pursuit is the
fundamental rule of the divine justice in its application to mankind;
that its security is the end for which governments are formed, and its
destruction good cause why governments should be overthrown. For a
hundred years this principle has been held in honor. Under its
beneficent operation we have grown almost twenty-fold. Thirteen States
have become thirty-eight; three million have become fifty million;
wealth and comfort and education and art have flourished in still larger
proportion. Every twenty years there is added to the valuation of this
country a wealth enough to buy the whole German Empire, with its
buildings and its ships and its invested property. This has been the
magnet that has drawn immigration hither. The human stream, hemmed in by
banks invisible but impassable, does not turn toward Mexico, which can
feed and clothe a world, or South America, which can feed and clothe a
hundred worlds, but seeks only that belt of States where it finds this
law in operation. The marvels of comfort and happiness it has wrought
for us scarcely surpass what it has done for other countries. The
immigrant sends back the message to those he has left behind. There is
scarcely a nation in Europe west of Russia which has not felt the force
of our example and whose institutions are not more or less slowly
approximating to our own.
“Every new State as it takes its place in the great family binds this
declaration as a frontlet upon its forehead. Twenty-four of the States,
including California herself, declare it in the very opening sentence of
their constitutions. The insertion of the phrase ‘the pursuit of
happiness,’ in the enumeration of the natural rights for securing which
government is ordained, and the denial of which constitutes just cause
for its overthrow, was intended as an explicit affirmation that the
right of every human being who obeys the equal laws to go everywhere on
the surface of the earth that his welfare may require is beyond the
rightful control of government. It is a birthright derived immediately
from him who ‘made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all
the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed
and the bounds of their habitation.’ He made, so our fathers held, of
one blood all the nations of men. He gave them the whole face of the
earth whereon to dwell. He reserved for himself by his agents heat and
cold, and climate, and soil, and water, and land to determine the bounds
of their habitation. It has long been the fashion in some quarters, when
honor, justice, good faith, human rights are appealed to, and especially
when the truths declared in the opening sentences of the Declaration of
Independence are invoked as guides in legislation to stigmatize those
who make the appeal as sentimentalists, incapable of dealing with
practical affairs. It would be easy to demonstrate the falsehood of this
notion. The men who erected the structure of this Government were good,
practical builders and knew well the quality of the corner-stone when
they laid it. When they put forth for the consideration of their
contemporaries and of posterity the declaration which they thought a
decent respect for the opinions of mankind required of them, they
weighed carefully the fundamental proposition on which their immortal
argument rested. Lord Chatham’s famous sentence will bear repeating
again:
When your lordships look at the papers transmitted to us from America,
when you consider their decency, firmness, and wisdom, you cannot but
respect their cause and wish to make it your own. For myself I must
declare and avow that in all my reading and observation—and it has been
my favorite study, I have read Thucydides, and have studied and admired
the master states of the world—that for solidity of reasoning, force of
sagacity, and wisdom of conclusion, under such a complication of
difficult circumstances, no nation or body of men can stand in
preference to the general Congress assembled at Philadelphia.
The doctrine that the pursuit of happiness is an inalienable right with
which men are endowed by their Creator, asserted by as religious a
people as ever lived at the most religious period of their history,
propounded by as wise, practical, and far-sighted statesmen as ever
lived as the vindication for the most momentous public act of their
generation, was intended to commit the American people in the most
solemn manner to the assertion that the right to change their homes at
their pleasure is a natural right of all men. The doctrine that free
institutions are a monopoly of the favored races, the doctrine that
oppressed people may sever their old allegiance at will, but have no
right to find a new one, that the bird may fly but may never light, is
of quite recent origin.
California herself owing her place in our Union to the first victory of
freedom in the great contest with African slavery, is pledged to
repudiate this modern heresy, not only by her baptismal vows, but by her
share in the enactment of the statute of 1868. Her constitution read
thus until she took Dennis Kearney for her lawgiver:
We, the people of California, grateful to Almighty God for our freedom,
in order to secure its blessings, do establish this constitution.
DECLARATION OF RIGHTS.
SECTION 1. All men are by nature free and independent, and have certain
inalienable rights, among which are those of enjoying and defending life
and liberty, acquiring, possessing, and defending property, and pursuing
and obtaining safety and happiness.
* * * * *
SEC. 17. Foreigners who are or who may hereafter become bona fide
residents of this State, shall enjoy the same rights in respect to the
possession, enjoyment, and inheritance of property, as native-born
citizens.
In the Revised Statutes, section 1999, Congress in the most solemn
manner declare that the right of expatriation is beyond the lawful
control of government:
SEC. 1999. Whereas the right of expatriation is a natural and inherent
right of all people, indispensable to the enjoyment of the rights of
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; and
Whereas in the recognition of this principle this Government has freely
received emigrants from all nations, and invested them with the rights
of citizenship.
This is a re-enactment, in part, of the statute of 1868, of which Mr.
Conness, then a California Senator, of Irish birth, was, if not the
author, the chief advocate.
The California Senator called up the bill day after day. The bill
originally provided that the President might order the arrest and
detention in custody of “any subject or citizen of such foreign
government” as should arrest and detain any naturalized citizen of the
United States under the claim that he still remained subject to his
allegiance to his native sovereign. This gave rise to debate.
But there was no controversy about the part of the bill which I have
read. The preamble is as follows:
Whereas the right of expatriation is a natural and inherent right of all
people, indispensable to the enjoyment of the rights of life, liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness, for the protection of which the Government
of the United States was established; and whereas in the recognition of
this principle this Government has freely received emigrants from all
nations and vested them with the rights of citizenship, &c.
Mr. Howard declares that—
The absolute right of expatriation is the great leading American
principle.
Mr. Morton says:
That a man’s right to withdraw from his native country and make his home
in another, and thus cut himself off from all connection with his native
country, is a part of his natural liberty, and without that his liberty
is defective. We claim that the right to liberty is a natural, inherent,
God-given right, and his liberty is imperfect unless it carries with it
the right of expatriation.
The bill containing the preamble above recited passed the Senate by a
vote of 39 to 5.
The United States of America and the Emperor of China cordially
recognize the inherent and inalienable right of man to change his home
and allegiance, and also the mutual advantage of the free migration and
emigration of their citizens and subjects respectively from the one
country to the other for purposes of curiosity, of trade, or as
permanent residents.
“The bill which passed Congress two years ago and was vetoed by
President Hayes, the treaty of 1881, and the bill now before the Senate,
have the same origin and are parts of the same measure. Two years ago it
was proposed to exclude Chinese laborers from our borders, in express
disregard of our solemn treaty obligations. This measure was arrested by
President Hayes. The treaty of 1881 extorted from unwilling China her
consent that we might regulate, limit, or suspend the coming of Chinese
laborers into this country—a consent of which it is proposed by this
bill to take advantage. This is entitled “A bill to enforce treaty
stipulations with China.”
“It seems necessary in discussing the statute briefly to review the
history of the treaty. First let me say that the title of this bill is
deceptive. There is no stipulation of the treaty which the bill
enforces. The bill where it is not inconsistent with the compact only
avails itself of a privilege which that concedes. China only relaxed the
Burlingame treaty so far as to permit us to ‘regulate, limit, or suspend
the coming or residence’ of Chinese laborers, ‘but not absolutely to
prohibit it.’ The treaty expressly declares ‘such limitation or
suspension shall be reasonable.’ But here is proposed a statute which
for twenty years, under the severest penalties, absolutely inhibits the
coming of Chinese laborers to this country. The treaty pledges us not
absolutely to prohibit it. The bill is intended absolutely to prohibit
it.
“The second article of the treaty is this:
“Chinese subjects, whether proceeding to the United States as traders,
students, or merchants, or from curiosity, together with their body and
household servants, and Chinese laborers, who are now in the United
States, shall be allowed to go and come of their own free will and
accord, and shall be accorded all the rights, privileges, immunities,
and exemptions which are accorded to the citizens and subjects of the
most favored nations.
“Yet it is difficult to believe that the complex and cumbrous passport
system provided in the last twelve sections of the bill was not intended
as an evasion of this agreement. Upon what other nation, favored or not,
is such a burden imposed? This is the execution of a promise that they
may come and go ‘of their own free will.’
“What has happened within thirteen years that the great Republic should
strike its flag? What change has come over us that we should eat the
bravest and the truest words we ever spoke? From 1858 to 1880 there was
added to the population of the country 42,000 Chinese.
“I give a table from the census of 1880 showing the Chinese population
of each State:
_Statement showing the Chinese population in each State and Territory,
according to the United States censuses of 1870 and of 1880._
Alabama 4
Alaska
Arizona 20 1,630
Arkansas 98 134
California 49,310 75,025
Colorado 7 610
Connecticut 2 124
Dakota 238
Delaware 1
District of Columbia 3 13
Florida 18
Georgia 1 17
Idaho 4,274 3,378
Illinois 1 210
Indiana 33
Iowa 3 47
Kansas 19
Kentucky 1 10
Louisiana 71 481
Maine 1 9
Maryland 2 5
Massachusetts 97 237
Michigan 2 27
Minnesota 53
Mississippi 16 52
Missouri 3 94
Montana 1,949 1,764
Nebraska 18
Nevada 3,152 5,420
New Hampshire 14
New Jersey 15 176
New Mexico 55
New York 29 924
North Carolina
Ohio 1 114
Oregon 3,330 9,513
Pennsylvania 14 160
Rhode Island 27
South Carolina 1 9
Tennessee 26
Texas 25 141
Utah 445 501
Vermont
Virginia 4 6
Washington 234 3,182
West Virginia 14
Wisconsin 16
Wyoming 143 914
—————— ———————
Total 63,254 105,463
“By the census of 1880 the number of Chinese in this country was
105,000—one five-hundredth part of the whole population. The Chinese are
the most easily governed race in the world. Yet every Chinaman in
America has four hundred and ninety-nine Americans to control him.
The immigration was also constantly decreasing for the last half of the
decade. The Bureau of Statistics gives the numbers as follows, (for the
first eight years the figures are those of the entire Asiatic
immigration:)
The number of immigrants from Asia, as reported by the United States
Bureau of Statistics is as follows, namely:
1871 7,236
1872 7,825
1873 20,326
1874 13,857
1875 16,498
1876 22,943
1877 10,640
1878 9,014
———————
Total 108,339
And from China for the year ended June 30—
1879 9,604
1880 5,802
—————
Total 15,406
———————
Grand Total 123,745
“See also, Mr. President, how this class of immigrants, diminishing in
itself, diminishes still more in its proportion to the rapidly
increasing numbers who come from other lands. Against 22,943 Asiatic
immigrants in 1876, there are but 5,802 in 1880. In 1878 there were
9,014 from Asia, in a total of 153,207, or one in seventeen of the
entire immigration; and this includes all persons who entered the port
of San Francisco to go to any South American country. In 1879 there were
9,604 from China in a total of 250,565, or one in twenty-six. In 1880
there were 5,802 from China in a total immigration of 593,359, or one in
one hundred and two. The whole Chinese population, then, when the census
of 1880 was taken, was but one in five hundred of our people. The whole
Chinese immigration was but one in one hundred and two of the total
immigration; while the total annual immigration quadrupled from 1878 to
1880, the Chinese was in 1880 little more than one-half what it was in
1878, and one-fourth what it was in 1876.
“The number of immigrants of all nations was 720,045 in 1881. Of these
20,711 were Chinese. There is no record in the Bureau of Statistics of
the number who departed within the year. But a very high anti-Chinese
authority places it above 10,000. Perhaps the expectation that the
hostile legislation under the treaty would not affect persons who
entered before it took effect stimulated somewhat their coming. But the
addition to the Chinese population was less than one seventy-second of
the whole immigration. All the Chinese in the country do not exceed the
population of its sixteenth city. All the Chinese in California hardly
surpass the number which is easily governed in Shanghai by a police of
one hundred men. There are as many pure blooded Gypsies wandering about
the country as there are Chinese in California. What an insult to
American intelligence to ask leave of China to keep out her people,
because this little handful of almond-eyed Asiatics threaten to destroy
our boasted civilization. We go boasting of our democracy, and our
superiority, and our strength. The flag bears the stars of hope to all
nations. A hundred thousand Chinese land in California and everything is
changed. God has not made of one blood all the nations any longer. The
self-evident truth becomes a self-evident lie. The golden rule does not
apply to the natives of the continent where it was first uttered. The
United States surrender to China, the Republic to the despot, America to
Asia, Jesus to Joss.
“There is another most remarkable example of this prejudice of race
which has happily almost died out here, which has come down from the
dark ages and which survives with unabated ferocity in Eastern Europe. I
mean the hatred of the Jew. The persecution of the Hebrew has never, so
far as I know, taken the form of an affront to labor. In every other
particular the reproaches which for ten centuries have been leveled at
him are reproduced to do service against the Chinese. The Hebrew, so it
was said, was not a Christian. He did not affiliate or assimilate into
the nations where he dwelt. He was an unclean thing, a dog, to whom the
crime of the crucifixion of his Saviour was never to be forgiven. The
Chinese quarter of San Francisco had its type in every city of Europe.
If the Jew ventured from his hiding-place he was stoned. His wealth made
him the prey of the rapacity of the noble, and his poverty and weakness
the victim of the rabble. Yet how has this Oriental conquered
Christendom by the sublimity of his patience? The great poet of New
England, who sits by every American fireside a beloved and perpetual
guest, in that masterpiece of his art, the Jewish Cemetery at Newport,
has described the degradation and the triumph of these persecuted
children of God.
How came they here? What burst of Christian hate,
What persecution, merciless and blind,
Drove o’er the sea—that desert desolate—
These Ishmaels and Hagars of mankind?
They lived in narrow streets and lanes obscure,
Ghetto and Judenstrass, in mirk and mire;
Taught in the school of patience to endure
The life of anguish and the death of fire.
· · · · ·
Anathema maranatha! was the cry
That rang from town to town, from street to street;
At every gate the accursed Mordecai
Was mocked and jeered, and spurned by Christian feet.
Pride and humiliation hand in hand
Walked with them through the world where’er they went;
Trampled and beaten were they as the sand,
And yet unshaken as the continent.
Forty years ago—
Says Lord Beaconsfield, that great Jew who held England in the hollow of
his hand, and who played on her aristocracy as on an organ, who made
himself the master of an alien nation, its ruler, its oracle, and
through it, and in despite of it, for a time the master of Europe—
Forty years ago—not a longer period than the children of Israel were
wandering in the desert—the two most dishonored races in Europe were the
Attic and the Hebrew. The world has probably by this discovered that it
is impossible to destroy the Jews. The attempt to extirpate them has
been made under the most favorable auspices and on the largest scale;
the most considerable means that man could command have been
pertinaciously applied to this object for the longest period of recorded
time. Egyptian Pharaohs, Assyrian kings, Roman emperors, Scandinavian
crusaders, Gothic princes, and holy inquisitors, have alike devoted
their energies to the fulfillment of this common purpose. Expatriation,
exile, captivity, confiscation, torture on the most ingenious and
massacre on the most extensive scale, a curious system of degrading
customs and debasing laws which would have broken the heart of any other
people, have been tried, and in vain.
“Lord Beaconsfield admits that the Jews contribute more than their
proportion to the aggregate of the vile; that the lowest class of Jews
are obdurate, malignant, odious, and revolting. And yet this race of
dogs, as it has been often termed in scorn, furnishes Europe to-day its
masters in finance and oratory and statesmanship and art and music.
Rachel, Mozart, Mendelssohn, Disraeli, Rothschild, Benjamin, Heine, are
but samples of the intellectual power of a race which to-day controls
the finance and the press of Europe.
“I do not controvert the evidence which is relied upon to show that
there are great abuses, great dangers, great offenses, which have grown
out of the coming of this people. Much of the evil I believe might be
cured by State and municipal authority. Congress may rightfully be
called upon to go to the limit of the just exercise of the powers of
government in rendering its aid.
“We should have capable and vigilant consular officers in the Asiatic
ports from which these immigrants come, without whose certificate they
should not be received on board ship, and who should see to it that no
person except those of good character and no person whose labor is not
his own property be allowed to come over. Especially should the trade in
human labor under all disguises be suppressed. Filthy habits of living
must surely be within the control of municipal regulation. Every State
may by legislation or by municipal ordinance in its towns and cities
prescribe the dimension of dwellings and limit the number who may occupy
the same tenement.
“But it is urged—and this in my judgment is the greatest argument for
the bill—that the introduction of the labor of the Chinese reduces the
wages of the American laborer. ‘We are ruined by Chinese cheap labor’ is
a cry not limited to the class to whose representative the brilliant
humorist of California first ascribed it. I am not in favor of lowering
any where the wages of any American labor, skilled or unskilled. On the
contrary, I believe the maintenance and the increase of the purchasing
power of the wages of the American working man should be the one
principal object of our legislation. The share in the product of
agriculture or manufacture which goes to labor should, and I believe
will, steadily increase. For that, and for that only, exists our
protective system. The acquisition of wealth, national or individual, is
to be desired only for that. The statement of the accomplished Senator
from California on this point meets my heartiest concurrence. I have no
sympathy with any men, if such there be, who favor high protection and
cheap labor.
“But I believe that the Chinese, to whom the terms of the California
Senator attribute skill enough to displace the American in every field
requiring intellectual vigor, will learn very soon to insist on his full
share of the product of his work. But whether that be true or not, the
wealth he creates will make better and not worse the condition of every
higher class of labor. There may be trouble or failure in adjusting new
relations. But sooner or later every new class of industrious and
productive laborers elevates the class it displaces. The dread of an
injury to our labor from the Chinese rests on the same fallacy that
opposed the introduction of labor-saving machinery, and which opposed
the coming of the Irishman and the German and the Swede. Within my
memory in New England all the lower places in factories, all places of
domestic service, were filled by the sons and daughters of American
farmers. The Irishmen came over to take their places; but the American
farmer’s son and daughter did not suffer; they were only elevated to a
higher plane. In the increased wealth of the community their share is
much greater. The Irishman rose from the bog or the hovel of his native
land to the comfort of a New England home, and placed his children in a
New England school. The Yankee rises from the loom and the
spinning-jenny to be the teacher, the skilled laborer in the machine
shop, the inventor, the merchant, or the opulent landholder and farmer
of the West.”
* * * * *
A letter from F. A. Bee, Chinese Consul, approving the management of the
estate, accompanied the report of the referee:
“Mr. President, I will not detain the Senate by reading the abundant
testimony, of which this is but the sample, of the possession by the
people of this race of the possibility of a development of every quality
of intellect, art, character, which fits them for citizenship, for
republicanism, for Christianity.
“Humanity, capable of infinite depths of degradation, is capable also of
infinite heights of excellence. The Chinese, like all other races, has
given us its examples of both. To rescue humanity from this degradation
is, we are taught to believe, the great object of God’s moral government
on earth. It is not by injustice, exclusion, caste, but by reverence for
the individual soul that we can aid in this consummation. It is not by
Chinese policies that China is to be civilized. I believe that the
immortal truths of the Declaration of Independence came from the same
source with the Golden Rule and the Sermon on the Mount. We can trust
Him who promulgated these laws to keep the country safe that obeys them.
The laws of the universe have their own sanction. They will not fail.
The power that causes the compass to point to the north, that dismisses
the star on its pathway through the skies, promising that in a thousand
years it shall return again true to its hour and keep His word, will
vindicate His own moral law. As surely as the path on which our fathers
entered a hundred years ago led to safety, to strength, to glory, so
surely will the path on which we now propose to enter ring us to shame,
to weakness, and to peril.”
On the 3d of March the debate was renewed. Senator Farley protested that
unless Chinese immigration is prohibited it will be impossible to
protect the Chinese on the Pacific coast. The feeling against them now
is such that restraint is difficult, as the people, forced out of
employment by them, and irritated by their constantly increasing
numbers, are not in a condition to submit to the deprivations they
suffer by the presence of a Chinese population imported as slaves and
absorbing to their own benefit the labor of the country. A remark of Mr.
Farley about the Chinese led Mr. Hoar to ask if they were not the
inventors of the printing press and of gunpowder. To this question Mr.
Jones, of Nevada, made a brief speech, which was considered remarkable,
principally because it was one of the very few speeches of any length
that he has made since he became a Senator. Instead of agreeing with Mr.
Hoar that the Chinese had invented the printing press and gunpowder, he
said that information he had received led him to believe that the
Chinese were not entitled to the credit of either of these inventions.
On the contrary, they had stolen them from Aryans or Caucasians who
wandered into the kingdom. Mr. Hoar smiled incredulously and made a
remark to the effect that he had never heard of those Aryans or
Caucasians before.
Continuing his remarks, Mr. Farley expressed his belief that should the
Mongolian population increase and the Chinese come in contact with the
Africans, the contact would result in demoralization and bloodshed which
the laws could not prevent. Pig-tailed Chinamen would take the place
everywhere of the working girl unless Congress extended its protection
to California and her white people, who had by their votes demanded a
prohibition of Chinese immigration. Mr. Maxey, interpreting the
Constitution in such a way as to bring out of it an argument against
Chinese immigration, said he found nothing in it to justify the
conclusion that the framers of it intended to bring into this country
all nations and races. The only people the fathers had in view as
citizens were those of the Caucasian race, and they contemplated
naturalization only for such, for they had distinctly set forth that the
heritage of freedom was to be for their posterity. Nobody would pretend
to express the opinion that it was expected that the American people
should become mixed up with all sorts of races and call the result “our
posterity.” While the American people had, in consequence of their
Anglo-Saxon origin, been able to withstand the contact with the African,
the Africans would never stand before the Chinese. Mr. Maxey opposed the
Chinese because they do not come here to be citizens, because the lower
classes of Chinese alone are immigrants, and because by contact they
poison the minds of the less intelligent.
Mr. Saulsbury had something to say in favor of the bill, and Mr.
Garland, who voted against the last bill because the treaty had not been
modified, expressed his belief that the Government could exercise
properly all the powers proposed to be bestowed by this bill. Some time
was consumed by Mr. Ingalls in advocacy of an amendment offered by him,
proposing to limit the suspension of immigration to 10 instead of 20
years. Mr. Miller and Mr. Bayard opposed the amendment, Mr. Bayard
taking the ground that Congress ought not to disregard the substantially
unanimous wish of the people of California, as expressed at the polls,
for absolute prohibition. The debate was interrupted by a motion for an
executive session, and the bill went over until Monday, to be taken up
then as the unfinished business.
On March 6th a vote was ordered on Senator Ingalls’ amendment. It was
defeated on a tie vote—yeas 23, nays 23.
The vote in detail is as follows:
Yeas—Messrs. Aldrich, Allison, Blair, Brown, Cockrell, Conger, Davis of
Illinois, Dawes, Edmunds, Frye, Harris, Hoar, Ingalls, Jackson, Lapham,
McDill, McMillan, Mitchell, Morrell, Saunders, Sewell, Sherman and
Teller—23.
Nays—Messrs. Bayard, Beck, Call, Cameron of Wisconsin, Coke, Fair,
Farley, Garland, George, Hale, Hampton, Hill of Colorado, Jonas, Jones
of Nevada, McPherson, Marcy, Miller of California, Miller of New York,
Morgan, Ransom, Slater, Vest and Walker—23.
Pairs were announced between Davis, of West Virginia, Saulsbury, Butler,
Johnson, Kellogg, Jones, of Florida, and Grover, against the amendment,
and Messrs. Windom, Ferry, Hawley, Platt, Pugh, Rollins and Van Wyck in
the affirmative. Mr. Camden was also paired.
Mr. Edmunds, partially in reply to Mr. Hoar argued that the right to
decide what constitutes the moral law was one inherent in the
Government, and by analogy the right to regulate the character of the
people who shall come into it belonged to a Government. This depended
upon national polity and the fact as to most of the ancient republics
that they did not possess homogeneity was the cause of their fall. As to
the Swiss Republic, it was untrue that it was not homogeneous. The
difference there was not one of race but of different varieties of the
same race, all of which are analogous and consistent with each other. It
would not be contended that it is an advantage to a republic that its
citizens should be made of diverse races, with diverse views and diverse
obligations as to what the common prosperity of all required. Therefore
there was no foundation for the charge of a violation of moral and
public law in our making a distinction as to the foreigners we admit. He
challenged Mr. Hoar to produce an authority on national law which denied
the right of one nation to declare what people of other nations should
come among them. John Hancock and Samuel Adams, not unworthy citizens of
Massachusetts, joined in asserting in the Declaration of Independence
the right of the colonies to establish for themselves, not for other
peoples, a Government of their own, not the Government of somebody else.
The declaration asserted the family or consolidated right of a people
within any Territory to determine the conditions upon which they would
go on, and this included the matter of receiving the people from other
shores into their family. This idea was followed in the Constitution by
requiring naturalization. The Chinaman may be with us, but he is not of
us. One of the conditions of his naturalization is that he must be
friendly to the institutions and intrinsic polity of our Government.
Upon the theory of the Massachusetts Senators, that there is a universal
oneness of one human being with every other human being on the globe,
this traditional and fundamental principle was entirely ignored. Such a
theory as applied to Government was contrary to all human experience, to
all discussion, and to every step of the founders of our Government. He
said that Mr. Sumner, the predecessor of Mr. Hoar, was the author of the
law on the coolie traffic, which imposes fines and penalties more severe
than those in this bill upon any master of an American vessel carrying a
Chinaman who is a servant. The present bill followed that legislation.
Mr. Edmunds added that he would vote against the bill if the twenty-year
clause was retained, but would maintain the soundness of principle he
had enunciated.
Mr. Hoar argued in reply that the right of expatriation carried with it
the right to a home for the citizen in the country to which he comes,
and that the bill violated not only this but the principles of the
Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments which made citizenship the
birthright of every one born on our soil, and prohibited an abridgement
of the suffrage because of race, color, etc.
Mr. Ingalls moved an amendment postponing the time at which the act
shall take effect until sixty days after information of its passage has
been communicated to China.
After remarks by Messrs. Dawes, Teller and Bayard, at the suggestion of
Mr. Brown Mr. Ingalls modified his amendment by providing that the act
shall not go into effect until ninety days after its passage, and the
amendment was adopted.
On motion of Mr. Bayard, amendments were adopted making the second
section read as follows: “That any master of any vessel of whatever
nationality, who shall knowingly on such vessel bring within the
jurisdiction of the United States and permit to be landed any Chinese
laborer,” &c.
Mr. Hoar moved to amend by adding the following: “Provided, that this
bill shall not apply to any skilled laborer who shall establish that he
comes to this country without any contract beyond which his labor is the
property of any person besides himself.”
Mr. Farley suggested that all the Chinese would claim to be skilled
laborers.
Mr. Hoar replied that it would test whether the bill struck at coolies
or at skilled labor.
The amendment was rejected—Yeas, 17; nays, 27.
Mr. Call moved to strike out the section which forfeits the vessel for
the offense of the master. Lost.
Mr. Hoar moved to amend by inserting: “Provided that any laborer who
shall receive a certificate from the U.S. Consul at the port where he
shall embark that he is an artisan coming to this country at his own
expense and of his own will, shall not be affected by this bill.”
Lost—yeas 19, nays 24.
On motion of Mr. Miller, of California, the provision directing the
removal of any Chinese unlawfully found in a Customs Collection district
by the Collector, was amended to direct that he shall be removed to the
place from whence he came.
On motion of Mr. Brown an amendment was adopted providing that the mark
of a Chinese immigrant, duly attested by a witness, may be taken as his
signature upon the certificate of resignation or registration issued to
him.
The question then recurred on the amendment offered by Mr. Farley that
hereafter no State Court or United States Court shall admit Chinese to
citizenship.
Mr. Hawley, of Conn., on the following day spoke against what he
denounced as “a bill of iniquities.”
On the 9th of March what proved a long and interesting debate was
closed, the leading speech being made by Senator Jones (Rep.) of Nevada,
in favor of the bill. After showing the disastrous effects of the influx
of the Chinese upon the Pacific coast and answering some of the
arguments of the opponents of restriction, Mr. Jones said that he had
noticed that most of those favoring Chinese immigration were advocates
of a high tariff to protect American labor. But, judging from
indications, it is not the American laborer, but the lordly
manufacturing capitalist who is to be protected as against the European
capitalist, and who is to sell everything he has to sell in an American
market, one in which other capitalists cannot compete with him, while he
buys that which he has to buy—the labor of men—in the most open market.
He demands for the latter free trade in its broadest sense, and would
have not only free trade in bringing in laborers of our own race, but
the Chinese, the most skilful and cunning laborers of the world. The
laborer, however, is to buy from his capitalist master in a protective
market, but that which he himself has to sell, his labor, and which he
must sell every day (for he cannot wait, like the capitalist, for better
times or travel here and there to dispose of it), he must sell in the
openest market of the world. When the artisans of this country shall be
made to understand that the market in which they sell the only thing
they have to sell is an open one they will demand, as one of the
conditions of their existence, that they shall have an open market in
which to buy what they want. As the Senator from Massachusetts (Mr.
Dawes) said he wanted the people to know that the bill was a blow struck
at labor, Mr. Jones said he reiterated the assertion with the
qualification that it was not a blow at our own, but at underpaid pauper
labor. That cheap labor produces national wealth is a fallacy, as shown
by the home condition of the 350,000,000 of Chinamen.
“Was the bringing of the little brown man a sort of counter balance to
the trades unions of this country? If he may be brought here, why may
not the products of his toil come in? Now, when the laborer is allowed
to get that share from his labor that civilization has decided he shall
have, the little brown man is introduced. He (Mr. Jones) believed in
protection, and had no prejudice against the capitalist, but he would
have capital and labor equally protected. Enlarging upon the
consideration that the intelligence or creative genius of a country in
overcoming obstacles, not its material resources, constitutes its
wealth, and that the low wages of the Chinese, while benefiting
individual employers, would ultimately impoverish the country by
removing the stimulant to create labor-saving machinery and like
inventions. Mr. Jones spoke of what he called the dearth of intellectual
activity in the South in every department but one, that of politics.
“This was because of the presence of a servile race there. The absence
of Southern names in the Patent Office is an illustration. We would not
welcome the Africans here. Their presence was not a blessing to us, but
an impediment in our way. The relations of the white and colored races
of the South were now no nearer adjustment than they were years ago. He
would prophesy that the African race would never be permitted to
dominate any State of the South. The experiment to that end had been a
dismal failure, and a failure not because we have not tried to make it
succeed, but because laws away above human laws have placed the one race
superior to and far above the other. The votes of the ignorant class
might preponderate, but intellect, not numbers, is the superior force in
this world. We clothed the African in the Union blue and the belief that
he was one day to be free was the candle-light in his soul, but it is
one thing to aspire to be free and another thing to have the
intelligence and sterling qualities of character that can maintain free
government. Mr. Jones here expressed his belief that, if left alone to
maintain a government, the negro would gradually retrograde and go back
to the methods of his ancestors. This, he added, may be heresy, but I
believe it to be the truth. If, when the first ship-load of African
slaves came to this country the belief had spread that they would be the
cause of political agitation, a civil war, and the future had been
foreseen, would they have been allowed to land?
“How much of this country would now be worth preserving if the North had
been covered by Africans as is South Carolina to-day, in view of their
non-assimilative character? The wisest policy would have been to exclude
them at the outset. So we say of the Chinese to-day, he exclaimed, and
for greater reason, because their skill makes them more formidable
competitors than the negro. Subtle and adept in manipulation, the
Chinaman can be put into almost any kind of a factory. His race is as
obnoxious to us and as impossible for us to assimilate with as was the
negro race. His race has outlived every other because it is homogeneous,
and for that reason alone. It has imposed its religion and peculiarities
upon its conquerors and still lived. If the immigration is not checked
now, when it is within manageable limits, it will be too late to check
it. What do we find in the condition of the Indian or the African to
induce us to admit another race into our midst? It is because the
Pacific coast favor our own civilization, not that of another race, that
they discourage the coming of these people. They believe in the
homogeneity of our race, and that upon this depends the progress of our
institutions and everything on which we build our hopes.
Mr. MORILL, (Rep.) of Vt., said he appreciated the necessity of
restricting Chinese immigration, but desired that the bill should
strictly conform to treaty requirements and be so perfected that
questions arising under it might enable it to pass the ordeal of
judicial scrutiny.
Mr. SHERMAN, (Rep.) of Ohio, referring to the passport system, said the
bill adopted some of the most offensive features of European despotism.
He was averse to hot haste in applying a policy foreign to the habits of
our people, and regarded the measure as too sweeping in many of its
provisions and as reversing our immigration policy.
After remarks by Messrs. Ingalls, Farley, Maxey, Brown and Teller, the
amendment of Mr. Farley, which provides that hereafter no court shall
admit Chinese to citizenship, was adopted—yeas 25, nays 22.
The following is the vote:
YEAS—Messrs. Bayard, Beck, Call, Cameron of Wisconsin, Cockrell, Coke,
Fair, Farley, Garland, George, Gorman, Harris, Jackson, Jonas, Jones of
Nevada, Maxey, Morgan, Pugh, Ransom, Slater, Teller, Vance, Vest,
Voorhees and Walker—25.
NAYS—Messrs. Aldrich, Allison, Blair, Brown, Conger, Davis of Illinois,
Dawes, Edmunds, Frye, Hale, Hill of Colorado, Hoar, Ingalls, Lapham,
McDill, McMillan, Miller of New York, Mitchell, Morrill, Plumb, Saunders
and Sawyer—22.
Mr. Grover’s amendment construing the words “Chinese laborers,” wherever
used in the act, to mean both skilled and unskilled laborers and Chinese
employed in mining prevailed by the same vote—yeas 25, nays 22.
Mr. BROWN, (Dem.) of Ga., moved to strike out the requirement for the
production of passports by the permitted classes whenever demanded by
the United States authorities. Carried on a _viva voce_ vote, the Chair
(Mr. Davis, of Illinois) creating no little merriment by announcing,
“The nays are loud but there are not many of them.”
MR. INGALLS’ AMENDMENT.
Upon the bill being reported to the Senate from the Committee of the
Whole Mr. INGALLS again moved to limit the suspension of the coming of
Chinese laborers to ten years.
Mr. JONES, of Nevada, said this limit would hardly have the effect of
allaying agitation on the subject as the discussion would be resumed in
two or three years, and ten years, he feared, would not even be a long
enough period to enable Congress intelligently to base upon it any
future policy.
Mr. MILLER, of California, also urged that the shorter period would not
measurably relieve the business interest of the Pacific slope, inasmuch
as the white immigrants, who were so much desired, would not come there
if they believed the Chinese were to be again admitted in ten years.
Being interrupted by Mr. Hoar, he asserted that that Senator and other
republican leaders, as also the last republican nominee for President,
had heretofore given the people of the Pacific slope good reason to
believe that they would secure to them the relief they sought by the
bill.
Mr. HOAR, (Rep.) of Mass., briefly replied.
The amendment was lost—yeas 20, nays 21.
The vote is as follows:
YEAS—Messrs. Aldrich, Allison, Blair, Brown, Conger, Davis of Illinois,
Dawes, Edmunds, Frye, Hale, Hoar, Ingalls, Lapham, McDill, McMillan,
Mahone, Morrill, Plumb, Sawyer and Teller—20.
NAYS—Messrs. Bayard, Beck, Call, Cameron of Wisconsin, Coke, Fair,
Farley, Garland, George, Gorman, Jackson, Jonas, Jones of Nevada, Miller
of California, Miller of New York, Morgan, Ransom, Slater, Yance,
Voorhees and Walker—21.
Messrs. Butler, Camden, McPherson, Johnston, Davis of West Virginia,
Pendleton and Ransom were paired with Messrs. Hawley, Anthony, Sewell,
Platt, Van Wyck, Windom and Sherman.
Messrs. Hampton, Pugh, Vest, Rollins and Jones of Florida were paired
with absentees.
PASSAGE OF THE BILL.
The question recurred on the final passage of the bill, and Mr. EDMUNDS
closed the debate. He would vote against the bill as it now stood,
because he believed it to be an infraction of good faith as pledged by
the last treaty; because he believed it injurious to the welfare of the
people of the United States, and particularly the people on the Pacific
coast, by preventing the development of our great trade with China.
The vote was then taken and the bill was passed—yeas 29, nays 15.
The following is the vote in detail:—
YEAS—Messrs. Bayard, Beck, Call, Cameron of Wisconsin, Cockrell, Coke,
Fair, Farley, Garland, George, Gorman, Hale, Harris, Hill of Colorado,
Jackson, Jonas, Jones of Nevada, Miller of California, Miller of New
York, Morgan, Pugh, Ransom, Sawyer, Teller, Vance, Vest, Voorhees and
Walker—29.
NAYS—Messrs. Aldrich, Allison, Blair, Brown, Conger, Davis of Illinois,
Dawes, Edmunds, Frye, Hoar, Ingalls, Lapham, McDill, McMillan and
Morrill—15.
Pairs were announced of Messrs. Camden, Davis of West Virginia, Grover,
Hampton, Butler, McPherson, Johnston, Jones of Florida and Pendleton in
favor of the bill, with Messrs. Anthony, Windom, Van Wyck, Mitchell,
Hawley, Sewell, Platt, Rollins and Sherman against it.
Mr. FRYE, (Rep.) of Me., in casting his vote, stated that he was paired
with Mr. Hill, of Georgia, on all political questions, but that he did
not consider this a political question, and besides, had express
permission from Senator Hill to vote upon it.
Mr. MITCHELL, (Rep.) of Pa., in announcing his pair with Mr. Hampton
stated that had it not been for that fact he would vote against the
bill, regarding it as un-American and inconsistent with the principles
which had obtained in the government.
The title of the bill was amended so as to read, “An act to execute
certain treaty stipulations relating to Chinese,” though Mr. Hoar
suggested that “execute” ought to be stricken out and “violate”
inserted.
The Senate then, at twenty minutes to six, adjourned until to-morrow.
PROVISIONS OF THE BILL.
The Chinese Immigration bill as passed provides that from and after the
expiration of ninety days after the passage of this act and until the
expiration of twenty years after its passage the coming of Chinese
laborers to the United States shall be suspended, and prescribes a
penalty of imprisonment not exceeding one year and a fine of not more
than $500 against the master of any vessel who brings any Chinese
laborer to this country during that period. It further provides that the
classes of Chinese excepted by the treaty from such prohibition—such as
merchants, teachers, students, travelers, diplomatic agents and Chinese
laborers who were in the United States on the 17th of November,
1880—shall be required, as a condition for their admission, to procure
passports from the government of China personally identifying them and
showing that they individually belong to one of the permitted classes,
which passports must have been indorsed by the diplomatic representative
of the United States in China or by the United States Consul at the port
of departure. It also provides elaborate machinery for carrying out the
purposes of the act, and additional sections prohibit the admission of
Chinese to citizenship by any United States or State court and construes
the words “Chinese laborers” to mean both skilled and unskilled laborers
and Chinese employed in mining.
The sentiment in favor of the passage of this bill has certainly greatly
increased since the control of the issue has passed to abler hands than
those of Kearney and Kalloch, whose conduct intensified the opposition
of the East to the measure, which in 1879 was denounced as “violating
the conscience of the nation.” Mr. Blaine’s advocacy of the first bill
limiting emigrants to fifteen on each vessel, at the time excited much
criticism in the Eastern states, and was there a potent weapon against
him in the nominating struggle for the Presidency in 1880; but on the
other hand it is believed that it gave him strength in the Pacific
States.
Chinese immigration and the attempt to restrict it presents a question
of the gravest importance, and was treated as such in the Senate debate.
The friends of the bill, under the leadership of Senators Miller and
Jones, certainly stood in a better and stronger attitude than ever
before.
The anti-Chinese bill passed the House just as it came from the Senate,
after a somewhat extended debate, on the 23d of March, 1882. Yeas 167,
nays 65, (party lines not being drawn) as follows:
Yeas—Messrs. Aikin, Aldrich, Armfield, Atkins, Bayne, Belford, Belmont,
Berry, Bingham, Blackburn, Blanchard, Bliss, Blount, Brewer, Brumm,
Buckner, Burrows, of Missouri; Butterworth, Cabell, Caldwell, Calkins,
Campbell, Cannon, Casserley, Caswell, Chalmers, Chapman, Clark,
Clements, Cobb, Converse, Cook, Cornell, Cox, of New York; Cox, of North
Carolina; Covington, Cravens, Culbertson, Curtin, Darrell, Davidson;
Davis, of Illinois; Davis, of Missouri; Demotte, Deuster, Dezendorf,
Dibble, Dibrell, Dowd, Dugro, Ermentrout, Errett, Farwell, of Illinois;
Finley, Flowers, Ford, Forney, Fulkerson, Garrison, Geddes, George,
Gibson, Guenther, Gunter, Hammond, of Georgia; Hardy, Harmer, Harris, of
New Jersey; Haseltine, Hatch, Hazelton, Heilman, Herndon, Hewitt, of New
York; Hill, Hiscock, Hoblitzell, Hoge, Hollman, Horr, Houk, House,
Hubbell, Hubbs, Hutchins, Jones, of Texas; Jones, of Arkansas;
Jorgenson, Kenna, King, Klotz, Knott, Ladd, Leedom, Lewis, Marsh,
Martin, Matson, McClure, McCook, McKenzie, McKinley, McLane, McMillan,
Miller, Mills, of Texas; Money, Morey, Moulton, Murch, Mutchler,
O’Neill, Pacheco, Page, Paul, Payson, Pealse, Phelps, Phister, Pound,
Randall, Reagan, Rice of Missouri, Richardson, Robertson, Robinson,
Rosecrans, Scranton, Shallenberger, Sherwin, Simonton, Singleton, of
Mississippi, Smith of Pennsylvania, Smith of Illinois, Smith of New
York, Sparks, Spaulding, Spear, Springer, Stockslager, Strait, Talbott,
Thomas, Thompson of Kentucky, Tillman, Townsend of Ohio, Townsend of
Illinois, Tucker, Turner of Georgia, Turner of Kentucky, Updegraff, of
Ohio, Upson, Valentine, Vance, Van Horn, Warner, Washburne, Webber,
Welborn, Whitthorne, Williams of Alabama, Willis, Willetts, Wilson, Wise
of Pennsylvania, Wise of Virginia, and W. A. Wood of New York—167.
The nays were Messrs. Anderson, Barr, Bragg, Briggs, Brown, Buck, Camp,
Candler, Carpenter, Chase, Crapo, Cullen, Dawes, Deering, Dingley,
Dunnell, Dwight, Farwell of Iowa, Grant, Hall, Hammond, of New York,
Hardenburgh, Harris, of Massachusetts, Haskell, Hawk, Henderson,
Hepburn, Hooker, Humphrey, Jacobs, Jones of New Jersey, Joyce, Kasson,
Ketchum, Lord, McCoid, Morse, Norcross, Orth, Parker, Ramsey, Rice of
Ohio, Rice of Massachusetts, Rich, Richardson of New York, Ritchie,
Robinson of Massachusetts, Russel, Ryan, Shultz, Skinner, Scooner,
Stone, Taylor, Thompson of Iowa, Tyler, Updegraff of Iowa, Urner,
Wadsworth, Wait, Walker, Ward, Watson, White and Williams of
Wisconsin—65.
In the House the debate was participated in by Messrs. Richardson, of
South Carolina; Wise and Brumm, of Pennsylvania; Joyce, of Vermont;
Dunnell, of Minnesota; Orth, of Indiana; Sherwin, of Illinois; Hazelton,
of Wisconsin; Pacheco, of California, and Townsend, of Illinois, and
others. An amendment offered by Mr. Butterworth, of Ohio, reducing the
period of suspension to fifteen years, was rejected. Messrs. Robinson,
of Massachusetts; Curtin, of Pennsylvania, and Cannon, of Illinois,
spoke upon the bill, the two latter supporting it. The speech of
Ex-Governor Curtin was strong and attracted much attention. Mr. Page
closed the debate in favor of the measure. An amendment offered by Mr.
Kasson, of Iowa, reducing the time of suspension to ten years, was
rejected—yeas 100, nays 131—and the bill was passed exactly as it came
from the Senate by a vote of 167 to 65. The House then adjourned.
Our Merchant Marine.
An important current issue is the increase of the Navy and the
improvement of the Merchant Marine, and to these questions the National
Administration has latterly given attention. The New York _Herald_ has
given much editorial ability and research to the advocacy of an
immediate change for the better in these respects, and in its issue of
March 10th, 1882, gave the proceedings of an important meeting of the
members of the United States Naval Institute held at Annapolis the day
before, on which occasion a prize essay on the subject—“Our Merchant
Marine; the Cause of its Decline and the Means to be Taken for its
Revival,” was read. The subject was chosen nearly a year ago, because it
was the belief of the members of the institute that a navy cannot exist
without a merchant marine. The naval institute was organized in 1873 for
the advancement of professional and scientific knowledge in the navy. It
has on its roll 500 members, principally naval officers, and its
proceedings are published quarterly. Rear Admiral C. R. P. Rodgers is
president; Captain J. M. Ramsay, vice president; Lieutenant Commander C.
M. Thomas, secretary; Lieutenant Murdock, corresponding secretary, and
Paymaster R. W. Allen, treasurer. There were eleven competitors for the
prize, which is of $100, and a gold medal valued at $50. The judges were
Messrs. Hamilton Fish, A. A. Low and J. D. Jones. They awarded the prize
to Lieutenant J. D. J. Kelley, U. S. N., whose motto was “Nil Clarius
Æquore,” and designated Master C. T. Calkins, U. S. N., whose motto was
“Mais il faut cultiver notre jardin” as next in the order of merit, and
further mentioned the essays of Lieutenant R. Wainwright, United States
Navy, whose motto was “Causa latet, vis est notissima,” and Lieutenant
Commander J. E. Chadwick, United States Navy, whose motto was “Spes
Meliora,” as worthy of honorable mention, without being entirely agreed
as to their comparative merits.
STRIKING PASSAGES FROM THE PRIZE ESSAY.
From Lieut. Kelley’s prize essay many valuable facts can be gathered,
and such of these as contain information of permanent value we quote:
“So far as commerce influences this country has a vital interest in the
carrying trade, let theorists befog the cool air as they may. Every
dollar paid for freight imported or exported in American vessels accrues
to American labor and capital, and the enterprise is as much a
productive industry as the raising of wheat, the spinning of fibre or
the smelting of ore. Had the acquired, the ‘full’ trade of 1860 been
maintained without increase $80,000,000 would have been added last year
to the national wealth, and the loss from diverted shipbuilding would
have swelled the sum to a total of $100,000,000.
“Our surplus products must find foreign markets, and to retain them
ships controlled by and employed in exclusively American interests are
essential instrumentalities. Whatever tends to stimulate competition and
to prevent combination benefits the producer, and as the prices abroad
establish values here, the barter we obtain for the despised one tenth
of exports—$665,000,000 in 1880—determines the profit or loss of the
remainder in the home market. During the last fiscal year 11,500,000
gross tons of grain, oil, cotton, tobacco, precious metals, &c., were
exported from the United States, and this exportation increases at the
rate of 1,500,000 tons annually; 3,800,000 tons of goods are imported,
or in all about 15,000,000 tons constitute the existing commerce of this
country.
“If only one-half of the business of carrying our enormous wealth of
surplus products could be secured for American ships, our tonnage would
be instantly doubled, and we would have a greater fleet engaged in a
foreign trade, legitimately our own, than Great Britain has to-day. The
United States makes to the ocean carrying trade its most valuable
contribution, no other nation giving to commerce so many bulky tons of
commodities to be transported those long voyages which in every age have
been so eagerly coveted by marine peoples. Of the 17,000 ships which
enter and clear at American ports every year, 4,600 seek a cargo empty
and but 2,000 sail without obtaining it.
“Ships are profitable abroad and can be made profitable here, and in
truth during the last thirty years no other branch of industry has made
such progress as the carrying trade. To establish this there are four
points of comparison—commerce, railways, shipping tonnage and carrying
power of the world, limited to the years between 1850 and 1880:—
_Increase
Per
1850. 1880. Cent._
Commerce of all nations $4,280,000,000 $14,405,000,000 240
Railways (miles open) 44,400 222,600 398
Shipping tonnage 6,905,000 18,720,000 171
Carrying tonnage 8,464,000 34,280,060 304
“In 1850, therefore, for every $5,000,000 of international commerce
there were fifty-four miles of railway and a maritime carrying power of
9,900 tons; and in 1880 the respective ratios had risen to seventy-seven
miles and 12,000 tons; this has saved one-fourth freight and brought
producer and consumers into such contact that we no longer hear “of the
earth’s products being wasted, of wheat rotting in La Mancha, wool being
used to mend wads and sheep being burned for fuel in the Argentine
Republic.” England has mainly profited by this enormous development, the
shipping of the United Kingdom earning $300,000,000 yearly, and
employing 200,000 seamen, whose industry is therefore equivalent to £300
per man, as compared with £190 for each of the factory operatives. The
freight earned by all flags for sea-borne merchandise is $500,000,000,
or about 8 per cent. of the value transported. Hence the toll which all
nations pay to England for the carrying trade is equal to 4 per cent.
(nearly) of the exported values of the earth’s products and
manufactures; and pessimists who declare that ship owners are losing
money or making small profits must be wrong, for the merchant marine is
expanding every year.
“The maximum tonnage of this country at any time registered in the
foreign trade was in 1861, and then amounted to 5,539,813 tons; Great
Britain in the same year owning 5,895,369 tons, and all the other
nations 5,800,767 tons. Between 1855 and 1860 over 1,300,000 American
tons in excess of the country’s needs were employed by foreigners in
trades with which we had no legitimate connection save as carriers. In
1851 our registered steamships had grown from the 16,000 tons of 1848 to
63,920 tons—almost equal to the 65,920 tons of England, and in 1855 this
had increased to 115,000 tons and reached a maximum, for in 1862 we had
1,000 tons less. In 1855 we built 388 vessels, in 1856 306 vessels and
in 1880 26 vessels—all for the foreign trade. The total tonnage which
entered our ports in 1856 from abroad amounted to 4,464,038, of which
American built ships constituted 3,194,375 tons, and all others but
1,259,762 tons. In 1880 there entered from abroad 15,240,534 tons, of
which 3,128,374 tons were American and 12,112,000 were foreign—that is,
in a ratio of seventy-five to twenty-five, or actually 65,901 tons less
than when we were twenty-four years younger as a nation. The grain fleet
sailing last year from the port of New York numbered 2,897 vessels, of
which 1,822 were sailing vessels carrying 59,822,033 bushels, and 1,075
were steamers laden with 42,426,533 bushels, and among all these there
were but seventy-four American sailing vessels and not one American
steamer.
“While this poison of decay has been eating into our vitals the
possibilities of the country in nearly every other industry have reached
a plane of development beyond the dreams of the most enthusiastic
theorizers. We have spread out in every direction and the promise of the
future beggars imaginations attuned even to the key of our present and
past development. We have a timber area of 560,000,000 acres, and across
our Canadian border there are 900,000,000 more acres; in coal and iron
production we are approaching the Old World.
1842. 1879.
Coal— _Tons._ _Tons._
Great Britain 35,000,000 135,000,000
United States 2,000,000 60,000,000
Iron—
Great Britain 2,250,000 6,300,000
United States 564,000 2,742,000
During these thirty-seven years the relative increase has been in coal
300 to 2,900 per cent., in iron 200 to 400 per cent., and all in our
favor. But this is not enough, for England, with a coal area less than
either Pennsylvania or Kentucky, has coaling stations in every part of
the world and our steamers cannot reach our California ports without the
consent of the English producers. Even if electricity takes the place of
steam it must be many years before the coal demand will cease, and
to-day, of the 36,000,000 tons of coal required by the steamers of the
world, three-fourths of it is obtained from Great Britain.
“It is unnecessary to wire-draw statistics, but it may, as a last word,
be interesting to show, with all our development, the nationality and
increase of tonnage entering our ports since 1856:—
_Country._ _Increase._ _Decrease._
England 6,977,163
Germany 922,903
Norway and Sweden 1,214,008
Italy 596,907
France 208,412
Spain 164,683
Austria 226,277
Belgium 204,872
Russia 104,009
United States 65,901
“This,” writes Lindsay, “is surely not decadence, but defeat in a far
nobler conflict than the wars for maritime supremacy between Rome and
Carthage, consisting as it did in the struggle between the skill and
industry of the people of two great nations.”
We have thus quoted the facts gathered from a source which has been
endorsed by the higher naval authorities. Some reader will probably ask,
“What relation have these facts to American politics?” We answer that
the remedies proposed constitute political questions on which the great
parties are very apt to divide. They have thus divided in the past, and
parties have turned “about face” on similar questions. Just now the
Democratic party inclines to “free ships” and hostility to
subsidies—while the Republican party as a rule favors subsidies.
Lieutenant Kelley summarized his proposed remedies in the two words:
“free ships.”
Mr. Blaine would solve the problem by bounties, for this purpose
enacting a general law that should ignore individuals and enforce a
policy. His scheme provides that any man or company of men who will
build in an American yard, with American material, by American
mechanics, a steamship of 3,000 tons and sail her from any port of the
United States to any foreign port, he or they shall receive for a
monthly line a mail allowance of $25 per mile per annum for the sailing
distance between the two ports; for a semi-monthly line $45 per mile,
and for a weekly line $75 per mile. Should the steamer exceed three
thousand tons, a small advance on these rates might be allowed; if less,
a corresponding reduction, keeping three thousand as the average and
standard. Other reformers propose a bounty to be given by the Government
to the shipbuilder, so as to make the price of an American vessel the
same as that of a foreign bought, equal, but presumably cheaper, ship.
Mr. Blaine represents the growing Republican view, but the actual party
views can only be ascertained when bills covering the subject come up
for consideration.
Current Politics.
We shall close this written history of the political parties of the
United States by a brief statement of the present condition of affairs,
as generally remarked by our own people, and by quoting the views of an
interesting cotemporaneous English writer.
President Arthur’s administration has had many difficulties to contend
with. The President himself is the legal successor of a beloved man,
cruelly assassinated, whose well-rounded character and high abilities
had won the respect even of those who defamed him in the heat of
controversy, while they excited the highest admiration of those who
shared his political views and thoughts. Stricken down before he had
time to formulate a policy, if it was ever his intention to do so, he
yet showed a proper appreciation of his high responsibilities, and had
from the start won the kindly attention of the country. Gifted with the
power of saying just the right thing at the right moment, and saying it
with all the grace and beauty of oratory, no President was better
calculated to make friends as he moved along, than Garfield. The
manifestations of factional feeling which immediately preceded his
assassination, but which cannot for a moment be intelligently traced to
that cause, made the path of his successor far more difficult than if he
had been called to the succession by the operation of natural causes.
That he has met these difficulties with rare discretion, all admit, and
at this writing partisan interest and dislike are content to “abide a’
wee” before beginning an assault. He has sought no changes in the
Cabinet, and thus through personal and political considerations seems
for the time to have surrendered a Presidential prerogative freely
admitted by all who understand the wisdom of permitting an executive
officer to seek the advice of friends of his own selection. Mr. Blaine
and Mr. MacVeagh, among the ablest of the late President’s Cabinet, were
among the most emphatic in insisting upon the earliest possible exercise
of this prerogative—the latter upon its immediate exercise. Yet it has
been withheld in several particulars, and the Arthur administration has
sought to unite, wherever divided (and now divisions are rare), the
party which called it into existence, while at the same time it has by
careful management sought to check party strife at least for a time, and
devoted its attention to the advancement of the material interests of
the country. Appointments are fairly distributed among party friends,
not divided as between factions; for such a division systematically made
would disrupt any party. It would prove but an incentive to faction for
the sake of a division of the spoils. No force of politics is or ought
to be better understood in America than manufactured disagreements with
the view to profitable compromises. Fitness, recognized ability, and
adequate political service seem to constitute the reasons for Executive
appointments at this time.
The Democratic party, better equipped in the National Legislature than
it has been for years—with men like Hill, Bayard, Pendleton, Brown,
Voorhees, Lamar and Garland in the Senate—Stephens, Randall, Hewitt,
Cox, Johnson in the House—with Tilden, Thurman, Wallace and Hancock in
the background—is led with rare ability, and has the advantage of
escaping responsibilities incident to a majority party. It has been
observed that this party is pursuing the traditional strategy of
minorities in our Republic. It has partially refused a further test on
the tariff issue, and is seeking a place in advance of the Republicans
on refunding questions—both popular measures, as shown in all recent
elections. It claims the virtue of sympathy with the Mormons by
questioning the propriety of legal assaults upon the liberty of
conscience, while not openly recording itself as a defender of the crime
of polygamy. As a solid minority it has at least in the Senate yielded
to the appeal of the States on the Pacific slope, and favored the
abridgment of Chinese immigration. On this question, however, the
Western Republican Senators as a rule were equally active in support of
the Miller Bill, so that whatever the result, the issue can no longer be
a political one in the Pacific States. The respectable support which the
measure has latterly received has cast out of the struggle the Kearneys
and Kallochs, and if there be demagoguery on either side, it comes in
better dress than ever before.
Doubtless the parties will contest their claims to public support on
their respective histories yet a while longer. Party history has served
partisan purposes an average of twenty years, when with that history
recollections of wars are interwoven, and the last war having been the
greatest in our history, the presumption is allowable that it will be
freely quoted so long as sectional or other forms of distrust are
observable any where. When these recollections fail, new issues will
have to be sought or accepted. In the mere search for issues the
minority ought always to be the most active; but their wise
appropriation, after all, depends upon the wisdom and ability of
leadership. It has ever been thus, and ever will be. This is about the
only political prophecy the writer is willing to risk—and in risking
this he but presents a view common to all Americans who claim to be
“posted” in the politics of their country.
What politicians abroad think of our “situation” is well told, though
not always accurately, by a distinguished writer in the January (1882)
number of “_The London Quarterly Review_.” From this we quote some very
attractive paragraphs, and at the same time escape the necessity of
descriptions and predictions generally believed to be essential in
rounding off a political volume, but which are always dangerous in
treating of current affairs. Speaking of the conduct of both parties on
the question of Civil Service Reform, the writer says:
“What have they done to overthrow the celebrated Jacksonian precept ‘to
the victors belongs the spoils?’ What, in fact, is it possible for them
to do under the present system? The political laborer holds that he is
worthy of his hire, and if nothing is given to him, nothing will he give
in return. There are tens of thousands of offices at the bestowal of
every administration, and the persons who have helped to bring that
administration into power expect to receive them. ‘In Great Britain,’
once remarked the American paper which enjoys the largest circulation in
the country, ‘the ruling classes have it all to themselves, and the poor
man rarely or never gets a nibble at the public crib. Here we take our
turn. We know that, if our political rivals have the opportunity to-day,
we shall have it to-morrow. This is the philosophy of the whole thing
compressed into a nutshell.’ If President Arthur were to begin to-day to
distribute offices to men who were most worthy to receive them, without
reference to political services, his own party would rebel, and
assuredly his path would not be strewn with roses. He was himself a
victim of a gross injustice perpetrated under the name of reform. He
filled the important post of Collector of the Port of New York, and
filled it to the entire satisfaction of the mercantile community.
President Hayes did not consider General Arthur sufficiently devoted to
his interests, and he removed him in favor of a confirmed wire-puller
and caucus-monger, and the administration papers had the address to
represent this as the outcome of an honest effort to reform the Civil
Service. No one really supposed that the New York Custom House was less
a political engine than it had been before. The rule of General Arthur
had been, in point of fact, singularly free from jobbery and corruption,
and not a breath of suspicion was ever attached to his personal
character. If he had been less faithful in the discharge of his
difficult duties, he would have made fewer enemies. He discovered
several gross cases of fraud upon the revenue, and brought the
perpetrators to justice; but the culprits were not without influence in
the press, and they contrived to make the worse appear the better cause.
Their view was taken at second-hand by many of the English journals, and
even recently the public here were gravely assured that General Arthur
represented all that was base in American politics, and moreover that he
was an enemy of England, for he had been elected by the Irish vote. The
authors of these foolish calumnies did not perceive that, if their
statements had been correct, General Garfield, whom they so much
honored, must also have been elected by the Irish vote; for he came to
power on the very same ‘ticket.’ In reality, the Irish vote may be able
to accomplish many things in America, but we may safely predict that it
will never elect a President. General Arthur had not been many weeks in
power, before he was enabled to give a remarkable proof of the injustice
that had been done to him in this particular respect. The salute of the
English flag at Yorktown is one of the most graceful incidents recorded
in American history, and the order originated solely with the President.
A man with higher character or, it may be added, of greater
accomplishments and fitness for his office, never sat in the
Presidential chair. His first appointments are now admitted to be better
than those which were made by his predecessor for the same posts.
Senator Frelinghuysen, the new Secretary of State, or Foreign Secretary,
is a man of great ability, of most excellent judgment, and of the
highest personal character. He stands far beyond the reach of all
unworthy influences. Mr. Folger, the Secretary of the Treasury,
possesses the confidence of the entire country, and the nomination of
the new Attorney-General was received with universal satisfaction. All
this little accords with the dark and forbidding descriptions of
President Arthur which were placed before the public here on his
accession to office. It is surely time that English writers became alive
to the danger of accepting without question the distorted views which
they find ready to their hands in the most bigoted or most malicious of
American journals.
“Democrats and Republicans, then, alike profess to be in favor of a
thorough reform in the Civil Service, and at the present moment there is
no other very prominent question which could be used as a test for the
admission of members into either party. The old issue, which no one
could possibly mistake, is gone. How much the public really care for the
new one, it would be a difficult point to decide. A Civil Service
system, such as that which we have in England, would scarcely be suited
to the “poor man,” who, as the New York paper says, thinks he has a
right occasionally to ‘get a nibble at the public crib.’ If a man has
worked hard to bring his party into power, he is apt, in the United
States, to think that he is entitled to some ‘recognition,’ and neither
he nor his friends would be well pleased if they were told that, before
anything could be done for him, it would be necessary to examine him in
modern languages and mathematics. Moreover, a service such as that which
exists in England requires to be worked with a system of pensions; and
pensions, it is held in America, are opposed to the Republican idea.[57]
If it were not for this objection, it may be presumed that some
provision would have been made for more than one of the ex-Presidents,
whose circumstances placed them or their families much in need of it.
President Monroe spent his last years in wretched circumstances, and
died bankrupt. Mrs. Madison ‘knew what it was to want bread.’ A negro
servant, who had once been a slave in the family, used furtively to give
her ‘small sums’—they must have been very small—out of his own pocket.
Mr. Pierce was, we believe, not far removed from indigence; and it has
been stated that after Andrew Johnson left the White House, he was
reduced to the necessity of following his old trade. General Grant was
much more fortunate; and we have recently seen that the American people
have subscribed for Mrs. Garfield a sum nearly equal to £70,000. But a
pension system for Civil Servants is not likely to be adopted.
Permanence in office is another principle which has found no favor with
the rank and file of either party in America, although it has sometimes
been introduced into party platforms for the sake of producing a good
effect. The plan of ‘quick rotation’ is far more attractive to the
popular sense. Divide the spoils, and divide them often. It is true that
the public indignation is sometimes aroused, when too eager and
rapacious a spirit is exhibited. Such a feeling was displayed in 1873,
in consequence of an Act passed by Congress increasing the pay of its
own members and certain officers of the Government. Each member of
Congress was to receive $7,500 a year, or £1,500. The sum paid before
that date, down to 1865, was $5000 a year, or £1000, and ‘mileage’ free
added—that is to say, members were entitled to be paid twenty cents a
mile for traveling expenses to and from Washington. This Bill soon
became known as the ‘Salary Grab’ Act, and popular feeling against it
was so great that it was repealed in the following Session, and the
former pay was restored. As a general rule, however, the ‘spoils’ system
has not been heartily condemned by the nation; if it had been so
condemned, it must have fallen long ago.
“President Arthur has been admonished by his English counsellors to take
heed that he follows closely in the steps of his predecessor. General
Garfield was not long enough in office to give any decided indications
of the policy which he intended to pursue; but, so far as he had gone,
impartial observers could detect very little difference between his
course of conduct in regard to patronage and that of former Presidents.
He simply preferred the friends of Mr. Blaine to the friends of Mr.
Conkling; but Mr. Blaine is a politician of precisely the same class as
Mr. Conkling—both are men intimately versed in all the intricacies of
‘primaries,’ the ‘caucus,’ and the general working of the ‘machine.’
They are precisely the kind of men which American politics, as at
present practised and understood, are adapted to produce. Mr. Conkling,
however, is of more imperious a disposition than Mr. Blaine; the first
disappointment or contradiction turns him from a friend into an enemy.
President Garfield removed the Collector of New York—the most lucrative
and most coveted post in the entire Union—and instead of nominating a
friend of Mr. Conkling’s for the vacancy, he nominated a friend of Mr.
Blaine’s. Now Mr. Conkling had done much to secure New York State for
the Republicans, and thus gave them the victory; and he thought himself
entitled to better treatment than he received. But was it in the spirit
of true reform to remove the Collector, against whom no complaint had
been made, merely for the purpose of creating a vacancy, and then of
putting a friend of Mr. Blaine’s into it—a friend, moreover, who had
been largely instrumental in securing General Garfield’s own nomination
at Chicago?[58] Is this all that is meant, when the Reform party talk of
the great changes which they desire to see carried out? Again, the new
President has been fairly warned by his advisers in this country, that
he must abolish every abuse, new or old, connected with the distribution
of patronage. If he is to execute this commission, not one term of
office, nor three terms, will be sufficient for him. Over every
appointment there will inevitably arise a dispute; if a totally untried
man is chosen, he will be suspected as a wolf coming in sheep’s
clothing; if a well known partizan is nominated, he will be denounced as
a mere tool of the leaders, and there will be another outcry against
‘machine politics.’ ‘One party or other,’ said an American journal not
long ago, ‘must begin the work of administering the Government on
business principles,’ and the writer admitted that the work would ‘cost
salt tears to many a politician.’ The honor of making this beginning has
not yet been sought for with remarkable eagerness by either party; but
seems to be deemed necessary to promise that something shall be done,
and the Democrats, being out of power, are naturally in the position to
bid the highest. The reform will come, as we have intimated, when the
people demand it; it cannot come before, for few, indeed, are the
politicians in the United States who venture to trust themselves far in
advance of public opinion. And even of that few, there are some who have
found out, by hard experience, that there is little honor or profit to
be gained by undertaking to act as pioneers.
“It is doubtless a step in advance, that both parties now admit the
absolute necessity of devising measures to elevate the character of the
public service, to check the progress of corruption, and to introduce a
better class of men into the offices which are held under the
Government. The necessity of great reforms in these respects has been
avowed over and over again by most of the leading journals and
influential men in the country. The most radical of the Republicans, and
the most conservative of the Democrats, are of one mind on this point.
Mr. Wendell Phillips, an old abolitionist and Radical, once publicly
declared that Republican government in cities had been a complete
failure.[59] An equally good Radical, the late Mr. Horace Greeley, made
the following still more candid statement:—‘There are probably at no
time less than twenty thousand men in this city [New York] who would
readily commit a safe murder for a hundred dollars, break open a house
for twenty, and take a false oath for five. Most of these are of
European birth, though we have also native miscreants who are ready for
any crime that will pay.’[60] Strong testimony against the working of
the suffrage—and it must have been most unwilling testimony—was given in
1875 by a politician whose long familiarity with caucuses and
‘wire-pulling’ in every form renders him an undeniable authority. ‘Let
it be widely proclaimed,’ he wrote, ‘that the experience and teachings
of a republican form of government prove nothing so alarmingly
suggestive of and pregnant with danger as that cheap suffrage involves
and entails cheap representation.’[61] Another Republican, of high
character, has stated that ‘the methods of politics have now become so
repulsive, the corruption so open, the intrigues and personal
hostilities are so shameless, that it is very difficult to engage in
them without a sense of humiliation.’”[62]
Passing to another question, and one worthy of the most intelligent
discussion, but which has never yet taken the shape of a political
demand or issue in this country, this English writer says:
“Although corruption has been suspected at one time or other in almost
every Department of the Government, the Presidential office has hitherto
been kept free from its stain. And yet, by an anomaly of the
Constitution, the President has sometimes been exposed to suspicion, and
still more frequently to injustice and misrepresentation, in consequence
of the practical irresponsibility of his Cabinet officers. They are his
chief advisers in regard to the distribution of places, as well as in
the higher affairs of State, and the discredit of any mismanagement on
their part falls upon him. It is true that he chooses them, and may
dismiss them, with the concurrence of the Senate; but, when once
appointed, they are beyond reach of all effective criticism—for
newspaper attacks are easily explained by the suggestion of party
malice. They cannot be questioned in Congress, for they are absolutely
prohibited from sitting in either House.
For months together it is quite possible for the Cabinet to pursue a
course which is in direct opposition to the wishes of the people. This
was seen, among other occasions, in 1873–4, when Mr. Richardson was
Secretary of the Treasury, and at a time when his management of the
finances caused great dissatisfaction. At last a particularly gross case
of negligence, to use no harsher word, known as the ‘Sanborn contracts,’
caused his retirement; that is to say, the demand for his withdrawal
became so persistent and so general, that the President could no longer
refuse to listen to it. His objectionable policy might have been pursued
till the end of the Presidential term, but for the accidental discovery
of a scandal, which exhausted the patience of his friends as well as his
enemies. Now had Mr. Richardson been a member of either House, and
liable to be subjected to a rigorous cross-questioning as to his
proceedings, the mismanagement of which he was accused, and which was
carried on in the dark, never could have occurred. Why the founders of
the Constitution should have thrown this protection round the persons
who happen to fill the chief offices of State, is difficult to
conjecture, but the clause is clear:—‘No person holding any office under
the United States shall be a member of either House during his
continuance in office.’[63] Mr. Justice Story declares that this
provision ‘has been vindicated upon the highest grounds of public
authority,’ but he also admits that, as applied to the heads of
departments, it leads to many evils. He adds a warning which many events
of our own time have shown to be not unnecessary:—‘if corruption ever
eats its way silently into the vitals of this Republic, it will be
because the people are unable to bring responsibility home to the
Executive through his chosen Ministers. They will be betrayed when their
suspicions are most lulled by the Executive, under the guise of an
obedience to the will of Congress.’[64] The inconveniences occasioned to
the public service under the present system are very great. There is no
official personage in either House to explain the provisions of any
Bill, or to give information on pressing matters of public business.
Cabinet officers are only brought into communication with the nation
when they send in their annual reports, or when a special report is
called for by some unusual emergency. Sometimes the President himself
goes down to the Capitol to talk over the merits of a Bill with members.
The Department which happens to be interested in any particular measure
puts it under the charge of some friend of the Administration, and if a
member particularly desires any further information respecting it he
may, if he thinks proper, go to the Department and ask for it. But
Congress and Ministers are never brought face to face. It is possible
that American ‘Secretaries’ may escape some of the inconvenience which
English Ministers are at times called upon to undergo; but the most
capable and honest of them forfeit many advantages, not the least of
which is the opportunity of making the exact nature of their work known
to their countrymen, and of meeting party misrepresentations and
calumnies in the most effectual way. In like manner, the incapable
members of the Cabinet would not be able, under a different system, to
shift the burden of responsibility for their blunders upon the
President. No President suffered more in reputation for the faults of
others than General Grant. It is true that he did not always choose his
Secretaries with sufficient care or discrimination, but he was made to
bear more than a just proportion of the censure which was provoked by
their mistakes. And it was not in General Grant’s disposition to defend
himself. In ordinary intercourse he was sparing of his words, and could
never be induced to talk about himself, or to make a single speech in
defense of any portion of his conduct. The consequence was, that his
second term of office was far from being worthy of the man who enjoyed a
popularity, just after the war, which Washington himself might have
envied, and who is still, and very justly, regarded with respect and
gratitude for his memorable services in the field.
“The same sentiment, to which we have referred as specially
characteristic of the American people—hostility to all changes in their
method of government which are not absolutely essential—will keep the
Cabinet surrounded by irresponsible, and sometimes incapable, advisers.
Contrary to general supposition, there is no nation in the world so
little disposed to look favorably on Radicalism and a restless desire
for change, as the Americans. The Constitution itself can only be
altered by a long and tedious process, and after every State in the
Union has been asked its opinion on the question. There is no hesitation
in enforcing the law in case of disorder, as the railroad rioters in
Pennsylvania found out a few years ago. The state of affairs, which the
English Government has permitted to exist in Ireland for upwards of a
year, would not have been tolerated twenty-four hours in the United
States. The maintenance of the law first, the discussion of grievances
afterwards; such is, and always has been, the policy of every American
Government, until the evil day of James Buchanan. The governor of every
State is a real ruler, and not a mere ornament, and the President wields
a hundredfold more power than has been left to the Sovereign of Great
Britain. Both parties as a rule, combine to uphold his authority, and,
in the event of any dispute with a foreign Power, all party distinctions
disappear as if by magic. There are no longer Democrats and Republicans,
but only Americans. The species of politician, who endeavors to gain a
reputation for himself by destroying the reputation of his country was
not taken over to America in the ‘Mayflower,’ and it would be more
difficult than ever to establish it on American ground to-day. A man may
hold any opinions that may strike his fancy on other subjects, but in
reference to the Government, he is expected, while he lives under it, to
give it his hearty support, especially as against foreign nations. There
was once a faction called the ‘Know-Nothings,’ the guiding principle of
which was inveterate hostility to foreigners; but a party based upon the
opposite principle, of hostility to one’s own country, has not yet
ventured to lift up its head across the Atlantic. That is an invention
in politics which England has introduced, and of which she is allowed to
enjoy the undisputed monopoly. * * *
“Display and ceremonial were by no means absent from the Government in
the beginning of its history. President Washington never went to
Congress on public business except in a State coach, drawn by six
cream-colored horses. The coach was an object which would excite the
admiration of the throng even now in the streets of London. It was built
in the shape of a hemisphere, and its panels were adorned with cupids,
surrounded with flowers worthy of Florida, and of fruit not to be
equalled out of California. The coachman and postillions were arrayed in
gorgeous liveries of white and scarlet. The Philadelphia ‘Gazette,’ a
Government organ, regularly gave a supply of Court news for the
edification of the citizens. From that the people were allowed to learn
as much as it was deemed proper for them to know about the President’s
movements, and a fair amount of space was also devoted to Mrs.
Washington—who was not referred to as Mrs. Washington, but as ‘the
amiable consort of our beloved President.’ When the President made his
appearance at a ball or public reception, a dais was erected for him
upon which he might stand apart from the vulgar throng, and the guests
or visitors bowed to him in solemn silence. ‘Republican simplicity’ has
only come in later times. In our day, the hack-driver who takes a
visitor to a public reception at the White House, is quite free to get
off his box, walk in side by side with his fare, and shake hands with
the President with as much familiarity as anybody else. Very few persons
presumed to offer to shake hands with General Washington. One of his
friends, Gouverneur Morris, rashly undertook, for a foolish wager, to go
up to him and slap him on the shoulder, saying, ‘My dear General, I am
happy to see you look so well.’ The moment fixed upon arrived, and Mr.
Morris, already half-repenting of his wager, went up to the President,
placed his hand upon his shoulder, and uttered the prescribed words.
‘Washington,’ as an eye-witness described the scene, ‘withdrew his hand,
stepped suddenly back, fixed his eye on Morris for several minutes with
an angry frown, until the latter retreated abashed, and sought refuge in
the crowd.’ No one else ever tried a similar experiment. It is recorded
of Washington, that he wished the official title of the President to be
‘High Mightiness,’[65] and at one time it was proposed to engrave his
portrait upon the national coinage. No royal levies were more
punctiliously arranged and ordered than those of the First President. It
was Jefferson, the founder of the Democratic party, who introduced
Democratic manners into the Republic. He refused to hold weekly
receptions, and when he went to Congress to read his Address, he rode up
unattended, tied his horse to a post, and came away with the same
disregard for outward show. After his inauguration, he did not even take
the trouble to go to Congress with his Message, but sent it by the hands
of his Secretary—a custom which has been found so convenient that it has
been followed ever since. A clerk now mumbles through the President’s
Message, while members sit at their desks writing letters, or reading
the Message itself, if they do not happen to have made themselves
masters of its contents beforehand.”
The writer, after discussing monopolies and tariffs, closes with hopes
and predictions so moderately and sensibly stated that any one will be
safe in adopting them as his own.
“The controversies which have yet to be fought out on these issues [the
tariff and corporate power] may sometimes become formidable, but we may
hope that the really dangerous questions that once confronted the
American people are set at rest for ever. The States once more stand in
their proper relation to the Union, and any interference with their
self-government is never again likely to be attempted, for the feeling
of the whole people would condemn it. It was a highly Conservative
system which the framers of the Constitution adopted, when they decided
that each State should be entitled to make its own laws, to regulate its
own franchise, to raise its own taxes, and settle everything in
connection with its own affairs in its own way. The general government
has no right whatever to send a single soldier into any State, even to
preserve order, until it has been called upon to act by the Governor of
that State. The Federal Government, as it has been said by the Supreme
Court, is one of enumerated powers; and if it has ever acted in excess
of those powers, it was only when officers in States broke the compact
which existed, and took up arms for its destruction. They abandoned
their place in the Union, and were held to have thereby forfeited their
rights as States. In ordinary times there is ample security against the
abuse of power in any direction. If a State government exceeds its
authority, the people can at the next election expel the parties who
have been guilty of the offense; if Congress trespasses upon the
functions of the States, there is the remedy of an appeal to the Supreme
Court, the ‘final interpreter of the Constitution;’ if usurpation should
be attempted in spite of these safeguards, there is the final remedy of
an appeal to the whole nation under the form of a Constitutional
Amendment, which may at any time be adopted with the consent of
three-fourths of the States. Only, therefore, as Mr. Justice Story has
pointed out, when three-fourths of the States have combined to practice
usurpation, is the case ‘irremediable under any known forms of the
Constitution.’ It would be difficult to conceive of any circumstances
under which such a combination as this could arise. No form of
government ever yet devised has proved to be faultless in its operation;
but that of the United States is well adapted to the genius and
character of the people, and the very dangers which it has passed
through render it more precious in their eyes than it was before it had
been tried in the fire. It assures freedom to all who live under it; and
it provides for the rigid observance of law, and the due protection of
every man in his rights. There is much in the events which are now
taking place around us to suggest serious doubts, whether these great
and indispensable advantages are afforded by some of the older European
systems of government which we have been accustomed to look upon as
better and wiser than the American Constitution.”
A final word as to a remaining great issue—that of the tariff. It must
ever be a political issue, one which parties cannot wholly avoid. The
Democratic party as a mass, yet leans to Free Trade; the Republican
party, as a mass, favors Tariffs and high ones, at least plainly
protective. Within a year, two great National Conventions were held, one
at Chicago and one at New York, both in former times, Free Trade
centres, and in these Congress was petitioned either to maintain or
improve the existing tariff. As a result we see presented and advocated
at the current session the Tariff Commission Bill, decisive action upon
which has not been taken at the time we close these pages. The effect of
the conventions was to cause the Democratic Congressional caucus to
reject the effort of Proctor Knott, to place it in its old attitude of
hostility to protection. Many of the members sought and for the time
secured an avoidance of the issue. Their ability to maintain this
attitude in the face of Mr. Watterson’s[66] declaration that the
Democratic party must stand or fall on that issue, remains to be seen.
POLITICAL CHANGES IN 1882.
With a view to carry this work through the year 1882 and into part of
1883, very plain reference should be made to the campaign of 1882, which
in several important States was fully as disastrous to the Republican
party as any State elections since the advent of that party to national
supremacy and power. In 1863 and 1874 the Republican reverses were
almost if not quite as general, but in the more important States the
adverse majorities were not near so sweeping. Political “tidal waves”
had been freely talked of as descriptive of the situation in the earlier
years named, but the result of 1882 has been pertinently described by
Horatio Seymour as the “groundswell,” and such it seemed, both to the
active participants in, and lookers-on, at the struggle.
Political discontent seems to be periodical under all governments, and
the periods are probably quite as frequent though less violent under
republican as other forms. Certain it is that no political party in our
history has long enjoyed uninterrupted success. The National success of
the Republicans cannot truthfully be said to have been uninterrupted
since the first election of Lincoln, as at times one or the other of the
two Houses of Congress have been in the hands of the Democratic party,
while since the second Grant administration there has not been a safe
working majority of Republicans in either House. Combinations with
Greenbackers, Readjusters, and occasionally with dissenting Democrats
have had to be employed to preserve majorities in behalf of important
measures, and these have not always succeeded, though the general
tendency of side-parties has been to support the majority, for the very
plain reason that majorities can reward with power upon committees and
with patronage.
Efforts were made by the Democrats in the first session of the 47th
Congress to reduce existing tariffs, and to repeal the internal revenue
taxes. The Republicans met the first movement by establishing a Tariff
Commission, which was appointed by President Arthur, and composed mainly
of gentlemen favorable to protective duties. In the year previous (1881)
the income from internal taxes was $135,264,385.51, and the cost of
collecting $4,327,793.24, or 3.20 per cent. The customs revenues
amounted to $198,159,676.02, the cost of collecting the same
$6,383,288.10, or 3.22 per cent. There was no general complaint as to
the cost of collecting these immense revenues, for this cost was greatly
less than in former years, but the surplus on internal taxes (about
$146,000,000) was so large that it could not be profitably employed even
in the payment of the public debt, and as a natural result all interests
called upon to pay the tax (save where there was a monopoly in the
product or the manufacture) complained of the burden as wholly
unnecessary, and large interests and very many people demanded immediate
and absolute repeal. The Republicans sought to meet this demand half way
by a bill repealing all the taxes, save those on spirits and tobacco,
but the Democrats obstructed and defeated every attempt at partial
repeal. The Republicans thought that the moral sentiment of the country
would favor the retention of the internal taxes upon spirits and tobacco
(the latter having been previously reduced) but if there was any such
sentiment it did not manifest itself in the fall elections. On the
contrary, every form of discontent, encouraged by these great causes,
took shape. While the Tariff Commission, by active and very intelligent
work, held out continued hope to the more confident industries, those
which had been threatened or injured by the failure of the crops in
1881, and by the assassination of President Garfield, saw only prolonged
injury in the probable work of the Commission, for to meet the close
Democratic sentiment and to unite that which it was hoped would be
generally friendly, moderate tariff rates had to be fixed; notably upon
iron, steel, and many classes of manufactured goods. Manufacturers of
the cheaper grades of cotton goods were feeling the pressure of
competition from the South—where goods could be made from a natural
product close at hand—while those of the North found about the same time
that the tastes of their customers had improved, and hence their cheaper
grades were no longer in such general demand. There was over-production,
as a consequence grave depression, and not all in the business could at
once realize the cause of the trouble. Doubt and distrust prevailed, and
early in the summer of 1882, and indeed until late in the fall, the
country seemed upon the verge of a business panic. At the same time the
leading journals of the country seemed to have joined in a crusade
against all existing political methods, and against all statutory and
political abuses. The cry of “Down with Boss Rule!” was heard in many
States, and this rallied to the swelling ranks of discontent all who are
naturally fond of pulling down leaders—and the United States Senatorial
elections of 1883 quickly showed that the blow was aimed at all leaders,
whether they were alleged Bosses or not. Then, too, the forms of
discontent which could not take practical shape in the great
Presidential contest between Garfield and Hancock, came to the front
with cumulative force after the assassination. There is little use in
philosophizing and searching for sufficient reasons leading to a fact,
when the fact itself must be confessed and when its force has been felt.
It is a plain fact that many votes in the fall of 1882 were determined
by the nominating struggle for the Presidency in 1880, by the quarrels
which followed Garfield’s inauguration, and by the assassination.
Indeed, the nation had not recovered from the shock, and many very good
people looked with very grave suspicion upon every act of President
Arthur after he had succeeded to the chair. The best informed, broadest
and most liberal political minds saw in his course an honest effort to
heal existing differences in the Republican party, but many acts of
recommendation and appointment directed to this end were discounted by
the few which could not thus be traced, and suspicion and discontent
swelled the chorus of other injuries. The result was the great political
changes of 1882. It began in Ohio, the only important and debatable
October State remaining at this time. The causes enumerated above (save
the assassination and the conflict between the friends of Grant and
Blaine) operated with less force in Ohio than any other section—for here
leaders had not been held up as “Bosses;” civil service reform had many
advocates among them; the people were not by interest specially wedded
to high tariff duties, nor were they large payers of internal revenue
taxes. But the liquor issue had sprung up in the Legislature the
previous winter, the Republicans attempting to levy and collect a tax
from all who sold, and to prevent the sale on Sundays. These brief facts
make strange reading to the people of other States, where the sale of
liquor has generally been licensed, and forbidden on Sundays. Ohio had
previously passed a prohibitory constitutional amendment, in itself
defective, and as no legislation had been enacted to enforce it, those
who wished began to sell as though the right were natural, and in this
way became strong enough to resist taxation or license. The Legislature
of 1882, the majority controlled by the Republicans, attempted to pass
the Pond liquor tax act, and its issue was joined. The liquor interests
organized, secured control of the Democratic State Convention, nominated
a ticket pledged to their interests, made a platform which pointed to
unrestricted sale, and by active work and the free use of funds, carried
the election and reversed the usual majority. Governor Foster, the
boldest of the Republican leaders, accepted the issue as presented, and
stumped in favor of license and the sanctity of the Sabbath; but the
counsels of the Republican leaders were divided, Ex-Secretary Sherman
and others enacting the role of “confession and avoidance.” The result
carried with it a train of Republican disasters. Congressional
candidates whom the issue could not legitimately touch, fell before it,
probably on the principle that “that which strikes the head injures the
entire body.” The Democratic State and Legislative tickets succeeded,
and the German element, which of all others is most favorable to freedom
in the observance of the Sabbath, transferred its vote almost as an
entirety from the Republican to the Democratic party.
Ohio emboldened the liquor interests, and in their Conventions and
Societies in other States they agreed as a rule to check and, if
possible, defeat the advance of the prohibitory amendment idea. This
started in Kansas in 1880, under the lead of Gov. St. John, an eloquent
temperance advocate. It was passed by an immense majority, and it was
hardly in force before conflicting accounts were scattered throughout
the country as to its effect. Some of the friends of temperance
contended that it improved the public condition; its enemies all
asserted that in the larger towns and cities it produced free and
irresponsible instead of licensed sale. The latter seem to have had the
best of the argument, if the election result is a truthful witness. Gov.
St. John was again the nominee of the Republicans, but while all of the
remainder of the State ticket was elected, he fell under a majority
which must have been produced by a change of forty thousand votes. Iowa
next took up the prohibitory amendment idea, secured its adoption, but
the result was injurious to the Republicans in the Fall elections, where
the discontent struck at Congressmen, as well as State and Legislative
officers.
The same amendment had been proposed in Pennsylvania, a Republican House
in 1881 having passed it by almost a solid vote (Democrats freely
joining in its support), but a Republican Senate defeated, after it had
been loaded down with amendments. New York was coquetting with the same
measure, and as a result the liquor interests—well organized and with an
abundance of money, as a rule struck at the Republican party in both New
York and Pennsylvania, and thus largely aided the groundswell. The same
interests aided the election of Genl. B. F. Butler of Massachusetts, but
from a different reason. He had, in one of his earlier canvasses, freely
advocated the right of the poor to sell equally with those who could pay
heavy license fees, and had thus won the major sympathy of the interest.
Singularly enough, Massachusetts alone of all the Republican States
meeting with defeat in 1882, fails to show in her result reasons which
harmonize with those enumerated as making up the elements of discontent.
Her people most do favor high tariffs, taxes on liquors and luxuries,
civil service reforms, and were supposed to be more free from legal and
political abuses than any other. Massachusetts had, theretofore, been
considered to be the most advanced of all the States—in notions, in
habit, and in law—yet Butler’s victory was relatively more pronounced
than that of any Democratic candidate, not excepting that of Cleveland
over Folger in New York, the Democratic majority here approaching two
hundred thousand. How are we to explain the Massachusetts’ result? Gov.
Bishop was a high-toned and able gentleman, the type of every reform
contended for. There is but one explanation. Massachusetts had had too
much of reform; it had come in larger and faster doses than even her
progressive people could stand—and an inconsistent discontent took new
shape there—that of very plain reaction. This view is confirmed by the
subsequent attempt of Gov. Butler to defeat the re-election of Geo. F.
Hoar to the U. S. Senate, by a combination of Democrats with
dissatisfied Republicans. The movement failed, but it came very near to
success, and for days the result was in doubt. Hoar had been a Senator
of advanced views, of broad and comprehensive statesmanship, but that
communistic sentiment which occasionally crops out in our politics and
strikes at all leaders, merely from the pleasure of asserting the right
to tear down, assailed him with a vigor almost equal to that which
struck Windom of Minnesota, a statesman of twenty-four years’ honorable,
able and sometimes brilliant service. To prejudice the people of his
State against him, a photograph of his Washington residence had been
scattered broadcast. The print in the photograph intended to prejudice
being a coach with a liveried lackey. It might have been the coach and
lackey of a visitor, but the effect was the same where discontent had
run into a fever.
Political discontent gave unmistakable manifestations of its existence
in Ohio, Massachusetts, New York (where Ex-Governor Cornell’s nomination
had been defeated by a forged telegram), Michigan, Nebraska, Kansas,
Iowa, Connecticut, California, Colorado, Pennsylvania, and Indiana. The
Republican position was well maintained in New Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode
Island, Minnesota, Illinois, and Wisconsin. It was greatly improved in
Virginia, where Mahone’s Republican Readjuster ticket carried the State
by nearly ten thousand, and where a United States’ Senator and
Congressman at large were gained, as well as some of the District
Congressmen. The Republicans also improved the situation in North
Carolina and Tennessee, though they failed to carry either. They also
gained Congressmen in Mississippi and Louisiana, but the Congressional
result throughout the country was a sweeping Democratic victory, the
48th Congress, beginning March 4, 1883, showing a Democratic majority of
71 in a total membership of 325.
In Pennsylvania alone of all the Northern States, were the Republican
elements of discontent organized, and here they were as well organized
as possible under the circumstances. Charles S. Wolfe had the year
previous proclaimed what he called his “independence of the Bosses,” by
declaring himself a candidate for State Treasurer, “nominated in a
convention of one.” He secured 49,984 votes, and this force was used as
the nucleus for the better organized Independent Republican movement of
1882. Through this a State Convention was called which placed a full
ticket in the field, and which in many districts nominated separate
legislative candidates.
The complaints of the Independent Republicans of Pennsylvania were very
much like those of dissatisfied Republicans in other Northern States
where no adverse organizations were set up, and these can best be
understood by giving the official papers and correspondence connected
with the revolt, and the attempts to conciliate and suppress it by the
regular organization. The writer feels a delicacy in appending this
data, inasmuch as he was one of the principals in the negotiations, but
formulated complaints, methods and principles peculiar to the time can
be better understood as presented by organized and official bodies, than
where mere opinions of cotemporaneous writers and speakers must
otherwise be given. A very careful summary has been made by Col. A. K.
McClure, in the Philadelphia _Times Almanac_, and from this we quote the
data connected with the—
The Independent Republican Revolt In Pennsylvania.
The following call was issued by Chairman McKee, of the committee which
conducted the Wolfe campaign in 1881:
HEADQUARTERS STATE COMMITTEE,
CITIZENS’ REPUBLICAN ASSOCIATION, GIRARD HOUSE,
PHILADELPHIA, December 16, 1881.
_To the Independent Republicans of Pennsylvania_:
You are earnestly requested to send representatives from each county
to a State conference, to be held at Philadelphia, Thursday, January
12th, 1882, at 10 o’clock A.M., to take into consideration the wisdom
of placing in nomination proper persons for the offices of Governor,
Lieutenant-Governor, Secretary of Internal Affairs and Supreme Court
Judge, and such other matters as may come before the conference,
looking to the overthrow of “boss rule,” and the elimination of the
pernicious “spoils system,” and its kindred evils, from the
administration of public affairs. It is of the utmost importance that
those fifty thousand unshackled voters who supported the independent
candidacy of Hon. Charles S. Wolfe for the office of State Treasurer
as a solemn protest against ring domination, together with the scores
of thousands of liberty-loving citizens who are ready to join in the
next revolt against “bossism,” shall be worthily represented at this
conference.
I. D. MCKEE, Chairman.
FRANK WILLING LEACH, Secretary.
Pursuant to the above call, two hundred and thirteen delegates,
representing thirty-three of the sixty-six counties, met at the Assembly
Building, January 12th, 1882, and organized by the election of John J.
Pinkerton as chairman, together with a suitable list of vice-presidents
and secretaries. After a general interchange of views, a resolution was
adopted directing the holding of a State Convention for the nomination
of a State ticket, May 24th. An executive committee, with power to
arrange for the election of delegates from each Senatorial district, was
also appointed, consisting of Messrs. I. D. McKee, of Philadelphia;
Wharton Barker, of Montgomery; John J. Pinkerton, of Chester; F. M.
Nichols, of Luzerne; H. S. McNair, of York, and C. W. Miller, of
Crawford. Mr. Nichols afterwards declining to act, George E. Mapes, of
Venango, was substituted in his place. Before the time arrived for the
meeting of the convention of May 24th, several futile efforts were made
to heal the breach between the two wings of the Republican party. At a
conference of leading Independents held in Philadelphia, April 23d, at
which Senator Mitchell was present, a committee was appointed for the
purpose of conferring with a similar committee from the regular
organization, upon the subject of the party differences. The members of
the Peace Conference, on the part of the Independents, were Charles S.
Wolfe, I. D. McKee, Francis B. Reeves, J. W. Lee, and Wharton Barker.
The committee on the part of the Stalwarts were M. S. Quay, John F.
Hartranft, C. L. Magee, Howard J. Reeder, and Thomas Cochran. A
preliminary meeting was held at the Continental Hotel, on the evening of
April 29th, which adjourned to meet at the same place on the evening of
May 1st; at which meeting the following peace propositions were agreed
upon:
_Resolved_, That we recommend the adoption of the following principles
and methods by the Republican State Convention of May 10th.
_First._ That we unequivocally condemn the use of patronage to promote
personal political ends, and require that all offices bestowed within
the party shall be upon the sole basis of fitness.
_Second._ That competent and faithful officers should not be removed
except for cause.
_Third._ That the non-elective minor offices should be filled in
accordance with rules established by law.
_Fourth._ That the ascertained popular will shall be faithfully carried
out in State and National Conventions, and by those holding office by
the favor of the party.
_Fifth._ That we condemn compulsory assessments for political purposes,
and proscription for failure to respond either to such assessments or to
requests for voluntary contributions, and that any policy of political
proscription is unjust, and calculated to disturb party harmony.
_Sixth._ That public office constitutes a high trust to be administered
solely for the people, whose interests must be paramount to those of
persons or parties, and that it should be invariably conducted with the
same efficiency, economy, and integrity as are expected in the execution
of private trusts.
_Seventh._ That the State ticket should be such as by the impartiality
of its constitution and the high character and acknowledged fitness of
the nominees will justly commend itself to the support of the united
Republican party.
_Resolved_, That we also recommend the adoption of the following
permanent rules for the holding of State Conventions, and the conduct of
the party:
_First._ That delegates to State Conventions shall be chosen in the
manner in which candidates for the General Assembly are nominated,
except in Senatorial districts composed of more than one county, in
which conferees for the selection of Senatorial delegates shall be
chosen in the manner aforesaid, and the representation of each county
shall be based upon its Republican vote cast at the Presidential
election next preceding the convention.
_Second._ Hereafter the State Convention of the Republican party shall
be held on the second Wednesday of July, except in the year of the
Presidential election, when it shall be held not more than thirty days
previous to the day fixed for the National Convention, and at least
sixty days’ notice shall be given of the date of the State Convention.
_Third._ That every person who voted the Republican electoral ticket at
the last Presidential election next preceding any State Convention shall
be permitted to participate in the election of delegates to State and
National Conventions, and we recommend to the county organizations that
in their rules they allow the largest freedom in the general
participation in the primaries consistent with the preservation of the
party organization.
M. S. QUAY,
J. F. HARTRANFT,
THOMAS COCHRAN,
HOWARD J. REEDER,
C. L. MAGEE,
On the part of the Republican State Committee, appointed by Chairman
Cooper.
CHARLES S. WOLFE,
I. D. MCKEE,
FRANCIS B. REEVES,
WHARTON BARKER,
J. W. LEE,
On the part of Senator Mitchell’s Independent Republican Committee.
The following resolution was adopted by the joint conference:
_Resolved_, That we disclaim any authority to speak or act for other
persons than ourselves, and simply make these suggestions as in our
opinion are essential to the promotion of harmony and unity.
In order, however, that there might be no laying down of arms on the
part of the Independents, in the false belief that the peace
propositions had ended the contest, without regard to whether they were
accepted in good faith, and put in practice by the regular convention,
the following call was issued by the Independent Executive Committee:
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE,
CITIZENS’ REPUBLICAN ASSOCIATION OF
PENNSYLVANIA, GIRARD HOUSE.
PHILADELPHIA, May 3d, 1882.
_To the Independent Republicans of Pennsylvania_:
At a conference of Independent Republicans held in Philadelphia, on
January 12th, 1882, the following resolution was adopted, to wit:
_Resolved_, That a convention be held on the 24th day of May, 1882,
for the purpose of placing in nomination a full Independent Republican
ticket for the offices to be filled at the general election next
November.
In pursuance and by the authority of the above resolution the
undersigned, the State Executive Committee appointed at the said
conference, request the Independent Republicans of each county of the
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to send delegates to the Independent
Convention of May 24th, the basis of representation to be the same as
that fixed for Senators and Representatives of the General Assembly of
Pennsylvania.
Should the convention of May 10th fail to nominate as its candidates
men who in their character, antecedents and affiliations are
embodiments of the principles of true Republicanism free from the
iniquities of bossism, and of an honest administration of public
affairs free from the evils of the spoils system, such nominations, or
any such nomination, should be emphatically repudiated by the
Independent Convention of May 24th, and by the Independent Republicans
of Pennsylvania in November next.
The simple adoption by the Harrisburg Convention of May 10th of
resolutions of plausible platitudes, while confessing the existence of
the evils which we have strenuously opposed, and admitting the justice
of our position in opposing them, will not satisfy the Independent
Republicans of this Commonwealth. We are not battling, for the
construction of platforms, but for the overthrow of bossism, and the
evils of the spoils system, which animated a despicable assassin to
deprive our loved President Garfield of his life, and our country of
its friend and peacemaker.
The nomination of slated candidates by machine methods, thereby
tending to the perpetuation of boss dominion in our Commonwealth,
should never be ratified by the Independent Republicans in convention
assembled or at the polls. Upon this very vital point there should be
no mistake in the mind of any citizen of this State. The path of duty
in this emergency leads forward, and not backward, and forward we
should go until bossism and machinism and stalwartism—aye, and
Cameronism—are made to give way to pure Republicanism. The people will
not submit to temporizing or compromising.
We appeal to the Independent Republicans of Pennsylvania to take
immediate steps toward perfecting their organization in each county,
and completing the selection of delegates to the Independent State
Convention. Use every exertion to secure the choice as delegates of
representative, courageous men, who will not falter when the time
arrives to act—who will not desert into the ranks of the enemy when
the final time of testing comes. Especially see to it that there shall
not be chosen as delegates any Pharisaical Independents, who preach
reform, yet blindly follow boss leadership at the crack of the
master’s whip. Act quickly and act discreetly.
A State Campaign Committee of fifty, comprising one member from each
Senatorial district, has been formed, and any one desiring to
co-operate with us in this movement against the enemies of the
integrity of our State, who shall communicate with us, will be
immediately referred to the committeeman representing the district in
which he lives. We urgently invite a correspondence from the friends
of political independence from all sections of the State.
Again we say to the Independent Republicans of Pennsylvania in the
interest of justice and the Commonwealth’s honor, leave no stone
unturned to vindicate the rights of the people.
I. D. MCKEE, Chairman.
WHARTON BARKER.
JOHN J. PINKERTON.
GEO. E. MAPES.
H. S. MCNAIR.
CHARLES W. MILLER.
FRANK WILLING LEACH, Secretary.
In pursuance of the above call, the Independent Convention met, May
24th, in Philadelphia, and deciding that the action of the regular
Republican Convention, held at Harrisburg on May 10th, did not give the
guarantee of reform demanded by the Independents, proceeded to nominate
a ticket and adopt a platform setting forth their views.
Although the break between the two wings of the party was thus made
final to all appearances, yet all efforts for a reconciliation were not
entirely abandoned. Thos. M. Marshall having declined the nomination for
Congressman at Large on the Republican ticket, the convention was
reconvened June 21st, for the purpose of filling the vacancy, and while
in session, instructed the State Central Committee to use all honorable
means to secure harmony between the two sections of the party.
Accordingly, the Republican State Committee was called to meet in
Philadelphia, July, 13th. At this meeting the following propositions
were submitted to the Independents:
Pursuant to the resolution passed by the Harrisburg Convention of June
21st, and authorizing the Republican State Committee to use all
honorable means to promote harmony in the party, the said committee,
acting in conjunction with the Republican candidates on the State
ticket, respectfully submit to the State Committee and candidates of the
Independents the following propositions:
_First._ The tickets headed by James A. Beaver and John Stewart,
respectively, be submitted to a vote of the Republican electors of the
State, at primaries, as hereinafter provided for.
_Second._ The selection of candidates to be voted for by the Republican
party in November to be submitted as aforesaid, every Republican
elector, constitutionally and legally qualified, to be eligible to
nomination.
_Third._ A State Convention to be held, to be constituted as recommended
by the Continental Hotel Conference, whereof Wharton Barker was chairman
and Francis B. Reeves secretary, to select candidates to be voted for by
the Republican party in November, its choice to be limited to the
candidates now in nomination, or unlimited, as the Independent State
Committee may prefer.
The primaries or convention referred to in the foregoing propositions to
be held on or before the fourth Wednesday of August next, under
regulations or apportionment to be made by Daniel Agnew, Hampton L.
Carson, and Francis B. Reeves, not in conflict, however, with the acts
of Assembly regulating primary elections, and the candidates receiving
the highest popular vote, or the votes of a majority of the members of
the convention, to receive the united support of the party.
_Resolved_, That in the opinion of the Republican State Committee the
above propositions fully carry out, in letter and spirit, the resolution
passed by the Harrisburg Convention, June 21st, and that we hereby
pledge the State Committee to carry out in good faith any one of the
foregoing propositions which may be accepted.
_Resolved_, That the chairman of the Republican State Committee be
directed to forward an official copy of the proceedings of this meeting,
together with the foregoing propositions, to the Independent State
Committee and candidates.
Whereupon, General Reeder, of Northampton, moved to amend by adding a
further proposition, as follows.
_Fourth._ A State Convention, to be constituted as provided for by the
new rules adopted by the late Republican State Convention, to select
candidates to be voted for by the Republican party in November,
provided, if such convention be agreed to, said convention shall be held
not later than the fourth Wednesday in August. Which amendment was
agreed to, and the preamble and resolutions as amended were agreed to.
This communication was addressed to the chairman of the Independent
State Committee, I. D. McKee, who called the Independent Committee to
meet July 27th, to consider the propositions. In the meantime the
Independent candidates held a conference on the night of July 13th, and
four of them addressed the following propositions to the candidates of
the Stalwart wing of the party:
PHILADELPHIA, July 13th, 1882.
_To General James A. Beaver, Hon. William T. Davies, Hon. John M.
Greer, William Henry Rawle, Esq., and Marriott Brosius, Esq._
_Gentlemen_: By a communication received from the Hon. Thomas V.
Cooper, addressed to us as candidates of the Independent Republicans,
we are advised of the proceedings of the State Committee, which
assembled in this city yesterday.
Without awaiting the action of the Independent State Committee, to
which we have referred the communication, and attempting no discussion
of the existing differences, or the several methods proposed by which
to secure party unity, we beg to say that we do not believe that any
of the propositions, if accepted, would produce harmony in the party,
but on the contrary, would lead to wider divisions. We therefore
suggest that the desired result can be secured by the hearty
co-operation of the respective candidates. We have no authority to
speak for the great body of voters now giving their support to the
Independent Republican ticket, nor can we include them by any action
we may take. We are perfectly free, however, to act in our individual
capacity, and desire to assure you that we are not only willing, but
anxious to co-operate with you in the endeavor to restore peace and
harmony to our party. That this can be accomplished beyond all doubt
we feel entirely assured, if you, gentlemen, are prepared to yield,
with us, all personal considerations, and agree to the following
propositions:
_First._ The withdrawal of both tickets.
_Second._ The several candidates of these tickets to pledge themselves
not to accept any subsequent nomination by the proposed convention.
Under these conditions we will unite with you in urging upon our
respective constituencies the adoption of the third proposition
submitted by your committee, and conclude the whole controversy by our
final withdrawal as candidates. Such withdrawal of both tickets would
remove from the canvass all personal as well as political antagonisms,
and leave the party united and unembarrassed.
We trust, gentlemen, that your judgment will approve the method we
have suggested, and that, appreciating the importance of concluding
the matter with as little delay as possible, you will give us your
reply within a week from this date.
Very respectfully, your obedient servants,
JOHN STEWART.
LEVI BIRD DUFF.
GEORGE W. MERRICK.
GEORGE JUNKIN.
William McMichael, Independent candidate for Congressman at Large,
dissented from the proposition of his colleagues, and addressed the
following communication to Chairman Cooper:
PHILADELPHIA, July 13th, 1882.
_Hon. Thomas V. Cooper, Chairman, etc._
_Dear Sir_: Your letter of July 12th is received, addressed to the
chairman of the State Committee of the Independent Republicans and
their candidates, containing certain propositions of your committee. I
decline those propositions, because they involve an abandonment of the
cause of the Independent Republicans.
If a new convention, representing all Republicans, had nominated an
entirely new ticket, worthy of popular support, and not containing the
name of any candidate on either of the present tickets, and sincerely
supporting the principles of the Independent Republicans, the
necessity for a separate Independent Republican movement would not
exist. Your proposition, however, practically proposes to re-nominate
General Beaver, and reaffirm the abuse which we oppose.
The convention of Independent Republicans which met in Philadelphia on
May 24th, announced principles in which I believe. It nominated me for
Congressman at Large, and I accepted that nomination. It declared
boldly against bossism, the spoils system, and all the evils which
impair Republican usefulness, and in favor of popular rule, equal
rights of all, national unity, maintenance of public credit,
protection to labor, and all the great principles of true
Republicanism. No other ticket now in the field presents those issues.
The people of Pennsylvania can say at the polls, in November, whether
they approve of those principles, and will support the cause which
represents them. I will not withdraw or retire unless events hereafter
shall give assurance that necessary reform in the civil service shall
be adopted; assessments made upon office-holders returned, and not
hereafter exacted; boss, machine, and spoils methods forever
abandoned; and all our public offices, from United States Senator to
the most unimportant officials, shall be filled only by honest and
capable men, who will represent the people, and not attempt to dictate
to or control them.
I shall go on with the fight, asking the support of all my
fellow-citizens who believe in the principles of the Independent
Republican Convention of May 24th.
Yours truly,
WILLIAM MCMICHAEL.
To these propositions General Beaver and his colleagues replied in the
following communication:
PHILADELPHIA, July 15th, 1882.
_Hon. Thomas V. Cooper, Chairman Republican State Committee,
Philadelphia, Pa._
_Sir_: We have the honor to acknowledge the receipt through you of a
communication addressed to us by the Hon. John Stewart, Colonel Levi
Bird Duff, Major G. W. Merrick, and George Junkin, Esq.; in response
to certain propositions submitted by the Republican State Committee,
representing the Republican party of Pennsylvania, looking to an
amicable and honorable adjustment of whatever differences there may be
among the various elements of the party. Without accepting any of the
propositions submitted by your committee, this communication asks us,
as a condition precedent to any recommendation on the part of the
writers thereof, to declare that in the event of the calling of a new
convention, we will severally forbid the Republicans of Pennsylvania
to call upon us for our services as candidates for the various
positions to be filled by the people at the coming election. To say
that in the effort to determine whether or not our nomination was the
free and unbiased choice of the Republican party we must not be
candidates, is simply to try the question at issue. We have no desire
to discuss the question in any of its numerous bearings. We have
placed ourselves unreservedly in the hands of the Republicans of
Pennsylvania. We have pledged ourselves to act concurrently with your
committee, and are bound by its action. We therefore respectfully
suggest that we have no power or authority to act independently of the
committee, or make any declaration at variance with the propositions
submitted in accordance with its action. There ought to be and can be
no such thing as personal antagonism in this contest. We socially and
emphatically disclaim even the remotest approach to a feeling of this
kind toward any person. We fraternize with and are ready to support
any citizen who loves the cause of pure Republicanism, and with this
declaration we submit the whole subject to your deliberate judgment
and wise consideration.
JAMES A. BEAVER.
WILLIAM HENRY RAWLE.
MARRIOTT BROSIUS.
W. T. DAVIES.
JOHN M. GREER.
At the meeting of the Independent State Committee, July 27th, the
propositions of the Regular Committee were unanimously rejected, and a
committee appointed to draft a reply, which was done in the following
terms:
_Thomas V. Cooper, Esq., Chairman Republican State Committee._
_Dear Sir_: I am instructed to advise you that the Independent
Republican State Committee have considered the four suggestions
contained in the minutes of the proceedings of your committee,
forwarded to me by you on the 12th instant.
I am directed to say that this committee find that none of the four
are methods fitted to obtain a harmonious and honorable unity of the
Republican voters of Pennsylvania. All of them are inadequate to that
end, for the reason that they afford no guarantee that, being
accepted, the principles upon which the Independent Republicans have
taken their stand would be treated with respect or put into action.
All of them contain the probability that an attempt to unite the
Republicans of the State by their means would either result in
reviving and strengthening the political dictatorship which we condemn
or would permanently distract the Republican body, and insure the
future and continued triumph of our common opponent, the Democratic
party.
Of the four suggestions, the first, second and fourth are so
inadequate as to need no separate discussion: the third, which alone
may demand attention, has the fatal defect of not including the
withdrawal of that “slated” ticket which was made up many months ago,
and long in advance of the Harrisburg Convention, to represent and to
maintain the very evils of control and abuses of method to which we
stand opposed. This proposition, like the others, supposing it to have
been sincerely put forward, clearly shows that you misconceive the
cause of the Independent Republican movement, as well as its aims and
purposes. You assume that we desire to measure the respective numbers
of those who support the Harrisburg ticket and those who find their
principles expressed by the Philadelphia Convention. This is a
complete and fatal misapprehension. We are organized to promote
certain reforms, and not to abandon them in pursuit of votes. Our
object is the overthrow of the “boss system” and of the “spoils
system.”
In behalf of this we are willing and anxious to join hands with you
whenever it is assured that the union will be honestly and earnestly
for that purpose. But we cannot make alliances or agree to compromises
that in their face threaten the very object of the movement in which
we have engaged. Whether your ticket has the support of many or few,
of a majority or a minority of the Republican voters, does not affect
in the smallest degree the duty of every citizen to record himself
against the abuses which it represents. Had the gentlemen who compose
it been willing to withdraw themselves from the field, as they were
invited to join in doing, for the common good, by the Independent
Republican candidates, this act would have encouraged the hope that a
new convention, freely chosen by the people, and unembarrassed by
claims of existing candidates, might have brought forth the needed
guarantee of party emancipation and public reform.
This service, however, they have declined to render their party; they
not only claim and receive your repeated assurances of support, but
they permit themselves to be put forward to secure the use of the
Independent Republican votes at the same time that they represent the
“bossism,” the “spoils” methods, and the “machine” management which we
are determined no longer to tolerate. The manner in which their
candidacy was decreed, the means employed to give it convention
formality, the obligations which they incur by it, the political
methods with which it identifies them, and the political and personal
plans for which their official influence would be required, all join
to make it the most imperative public duty not to give them support at
this election under any circumstances.
In closing this note, this committee must express its regret, that,
having considered it desirable to make overtures to the Independent
Republicans, you should have so far misapprehended the facts of the
situation. It is our desire to unite the Republican party on the sure
ground of principle, in the confidence that we are thus serving it
with the highest fidelity, and preserving for the future service of
the Commonwealth that vitality of Republicanism which has made the
party useful in the past, and which alone confers upon it now the
right of continued existence. The only method which promises this
result in the approaching election is that proposed by the Independent
Republican candidates in their letter of July 13th, 1882, which was
positively rejected by your committee.
On behalf of the Independent Republican State Committee of
Pennsylvania,
I. D. MCKEE, Chairman.
With this communication ended all efforts at conciliation.
* * * * *
The election followed, and the Democratic ticket, headed by Robert E.
Pattison of Philadelphia, received an average plurality of 40,000, and
the Independent Republican ticket received an average vote of about
43,000–showing that while Independence organized did not do as well in a
gubernatorial as it had in a previous off-year, it yet had force enough
to defeat the Republican State ticket headed by Gen. James A. Beaver.
All of the three several State tickets were composed of able men, and
the force of both of the Republican tickets on the hustings excited
great interest and excitement; yet the Republican vote, owing to the
division, was not out by nearly one hundred thousand, and fifty thousand
more Republicans than Democrats remained at home, many of them
purposely. In New York, where dissatisfaction had no rallying point,
about two hundred thousand Republicans remained at home, some because of
anger at the defeat of Gov. Cornell in the State nominating
convention—some in protest against the National Administrations, which
was accused of the desire for direct endorsement where it presented the
name of Hon. Chas. J. Folger, its Secretary of the Treasury, as the home
gubernatorial candidate,—others because of some of the many reasons set
forth in the bill of complaints which enumerates the causes of the
dissatisfaction within the party.
At this writing the work of Republican repair is going on. Both the
Senate and House at Washington are giving active work to the passage of
a tariff bill, the repeal of the revenue taxes, and the passage of a
two-cent letter postage bill—measures anxiously hastened by the
Republicans in order to anticipate friendly and defeat unfriendly
attempts on the part of the Democratic House, which comes in with the
first session of the 48th Congress.
In Pennsylvania, as we close this review of the struggle of 1882, the
Regular and Independent Republican State Committees—at least the heads
thereof—are devising a plan to jointly call a Republican State
Convention to nominate the State ticket to be voted for in November,
1883. The groundswell was so great that it had no sooner passed, than
Republicans of all shades of opinion, felt the need of harmonious
action, and the leaders everywhere set themselves to the work of repair.
The Republicans in the South differed from those of the North in the
fact that their complaints were all directed against a natural political
enemy—the Bourbons—and wherever there was opportunity they favored and
entered into movements with Independent and Readjuster Democrats, with
the sole object of revolutionizing political affairs in the South. Their
success in these combinations was only great in Virginia, but it proved
to be promising in North Carolina, Mississippi, and Louisiana, and may
take more definite and general shape in the great campaign of 1884.
The Democratic party was evidently surprised at its great victory in
1882, and has not yet formally resolved what it will do with it. The
Congress beginning with December, 1883, will doubtless give some
indication of the drift of Democratic events.
The most notable law passed in the closing session of the 47th Congress,
was the Civil Service Reform Bill, introduced by Senator Geo. H.
Pendleton of Ohio, but prepared under the direction of the Senate
Judiciary Committee. The Republicans, feeling that there was some public
demand for the passage of a measure of the kind, eagerly rushed to its
support, at a time when it was apparent that the spoils of office might
slip from their hands. From opposite motives the Democrats, who had
previously encouraged, now ran away from it, but it passed both Houses
with almost a solid Republican vote, a few Democrats in each House
voting with them. President Arthur signed the bill, but at this writing
the Commission which it creates has not been appointed, and of course
none of the rules and constructions under the act have been formulated.
Its basic principles are fixed tenure in minor places, competitive
examinations, and non-partisan selections.
POLITICAL CHANGES—1883.
In the fall of 1883 nearly all of the States swept by the tidal wave of
1882 showed that it had either partially or completely receded, and for
the first time since the close of the Hayes administration (always
excepting the remarkable Garfield-Hancock campaign), the Republican
party exhibited plain signs of returning unity and strength. Henry Ward
Beecher has wittily said that “following the war the nation needed a
poultice, and got it in the Hayes administration.” The poultice for a
time only drew the sores into plainer view, and healing potions were
required for the contests immediately following. The divisions of 1882
were as much the result of the non-action of the Hayes administration,
as of the misunderstandings and feuds which later on found bitter
manifestation between the Stalwarts and Half-Breeds of New York.
The Independents took no organized form except in New York and
Pennsylvania, and yet the underlying causes of division for the time
swept from their Republican moorings not only the States named, but also
Massachusetts, Connecticut, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Kansas, Colorado
and California.
The year 1882 seemed the culmination of every form of Republican
division, and then everything in the States named gave place to faction.
Very wisely the Republican leaders determined to repair the mischief, as
far as possible, in the otherwise uneventful year of 1883. Their efforts
were in most instances successful, especially in Massachusetts where
Robinson overthrew Gen. Butler’s State administration by 20,000
majority; in Pennsylvania, where the Republican State ticket received
about 20,000 majority, after the reunion of the Regular and independent
factions. In Pennsylvania the efforts at reconciliation made in the
Continental Conference, and in subsequent conventions, gave fruit in
1883, and at this writing in July, 1884 there is no mark of division
throughout the entire State, if we except such as must inevitably follow
the plain acceptance of Free Trade and Protective issues. Very few of
the Republicans of Pennsylvania favor Free Trade, and only in the ranks
of this few could any division be traced after the close of the
elections of 1883.
Ohio was an exception to the Republican work of reconciliation. Division
still continued, and Judge Hoadly, a leading and very talented Democrat,
was elected Governor by about 15,000 majority, after a contest which
involved the expenditure of large sums of money. In the Convention which
nominated Hoadly, Senator Pendleton was practically overthrown because
of his attachment to the Civil Service law which takes his name, and
later on he was defeated for U. S. Senator by Mr. Payne, the McLean and
Bookwalter factions uniting for his overthrow, which was accomplished
despite the efforts of Thurman, Ward and other leaders of the older
elements of the party. Both the Hoadly and Payne battles were won under
the banners of the “Young Democracy.”
Any compilation of the returns of 1883 must be measurably imperfect, for
in only a few of the States were important and decisive battles waged.
Such as they were, however, are given in the table on the next page:
State Elections of 1882 and 1883, compared with the Presidential
Election of 1880.
┌───────────────┬───────────────────────────────────────────────
│ STATES. │ 1880.[67]
├───────────────┼───────────┬───────────┬───────────┬───────────
│ „ │ Garfield, │ Hancock, │ Weaver, │ Dow,
│ │ Rep. │ Dem. │ Gbk. │ Pro.
├───────────────┼───────────┼───────────┼───────────┼───────────
│Alabama │ 56,221│ 91,185│ 4,642│
│Arkansas │ 42,436│ 60,775│ 4,079│
│California │ 80,348│ 80,426│ 3,392│
│Colorado │ 27,450│ 24,647│ 1,435│
│[68]Connecticut│ 67,071│ 64,415│ 868│ 40
│Delaware │ 14,133│ 15,275│ 120│
│Florida │ 23,654│ 27,964│ │
│Georgia │ 54,086│ 102,470│ 969│
│Illinois │ 318,037│ 277,321│ 26,358│ 443
│Indiana │ 232,164│ 225,522│ 12,986│
│Iowa │ 183,927│ 105,845│ 32,701│ 592
│Kansas │ 121,549│ 59,801│ 19,851│ 25
│Kentucky │ 106,306│ 149,068│ 11,499│ 258
│Louisiana │ 38,637│ 65,067│ 439│
│Maine │ 74,039│ 65,171│ 4,408│ 93
│Maryland │ 78,515│ 93,706│ 818│
│Massachusetts │ 165,205│ 111,960│ 4,548│ 682
│Michigan │ 185,341│ 131,597│ 34,895│ 942
│Minnesota │ 93,903│ 53,315│ 3,267│ 286
│Mississippi │ 34,854│ 75,750│ 5,797│
│Missouri │ 153,567│ 200,699│ 35,135│
│Nebraska │ 54,979│ 28,523│ 3,950│
│Nevada │ 8,732│ 9,613│ │
│New Hampshire │ 44,852│ 40,794│ 528│ 180
│New Jersey │ 120,555│ 122,565│ 2,617│ 191
│New York │ 555,544│ 534,511│ 12,373│ 1,517
│North Carolina │ 115,874│ 124,208│ 1,126│
│Ohio │ 375,048│ 340,821│ 6,456│ 2,616
│Oregon │ 20,619│ 19,948│ 249│
│Pennsylvania │ 444,704│ 407,428│ 20,668│ 1,939
│Rhode Island │ 18,195│ 10,779│ 236│ 20
│South Carolina │ 58,071│ 112,312│ 556│
│Tennessee │ 107,677│ 128,191│ 5,917│ 43
│Texas │ 57,893│ 156,428│ 27,405│
│Vermont │ 45,567│ 18,316│ 1,215│
│Virginia │ 84,020│ 128,586│ │
│West Virginia │ 46,243│ 57,391│ 9,079│
│Wisconsin │ 144,400│ 114,649│ 7,986│ 69
├───────────────┼───────────┼───────────┼───────────┼───────────
│ Total │ 4,454,416│ 4,444,952│ 308,578│ 10,305
│ │ │ │ │
│Plurality │ 9,464│ │ │
│ │ │ │ │
│Total vote │ 9,219,947
│
├───────────────┬───────────────────────────────────────────────
│ STATES. │ 1882.[69]
├───────────────┼───────────┬───────────┬───────────┬───────────
│ „ │ Rep. │ Dem. │ Gbk. │ Pro.
├───────────────┼───────────┼───────────┼───────────┼───────────
│Alabama │ 46,386│ 100,591│ │
│Arkansas │ 49,352│ 87,675│ 10,142│
│California │ 67,175│ 90,694│ 1,020│ 5,772
│Colorado │ 27,552│ 29,897│ │
│[68]Connecticut│ 54,853│ 59,014│ 607│ 1,034
│Delaware │ 10,088│ 12,053│ │
│Florida │ 20,139│ 24,067│ 3,553│
│Georgia │ 24,930│ 81,443│ 68│
│Illinois │ 254,551│ 249,067│ 11,306│ 11,202
│Indiana │ 210,234│ 220,918│ 13,520│
│Iowa │ 149,051│ 112,180│ 30,817│
│Kansas │ [70]98,166│ [70]61,547│ [70]23,300│
│Kentucky │ 79,036│ 110,813│ 736│
│Louisiana │ 33,953│ 49,892│ │
│Maine │ 72,724│ 63,852│ 1,302│ 395
│Maryland │ 74,515│ 80,725│ 1,833│
│Massachusetts │[70]134,358│[70]116,678│ [70]4,033│ [70]2,141
│Michigan │[70]157,925│[70]149,443│ [70]1,572│ [70]4,440
│Minnesota │ 92,802│ 46,653│ 3,781│ 1,545
│Mississippi │ 30,282│ 48,159│ │
│Missouri │ 128,239│ 198,620│ 33,407│
│Nebraska │ 43,495│ 28,562│ 16,991│
│Nevada │ [69]7,362│ [69]6,906│ │
│New Hampshire │ 38,299│ 36,879│ 449│ 338
│New Jersey │ 97,860│ 99,962│ 6,063│ 2,004
│New York │[70]409,422│[71]482,822│ [71]10,527│ [71]16,234
│North Carolina │ 111,320│ 111,763│ │
│Ohio │ 297,759│ 316,874│ 5,345│ 12,202
│Oregon │ 21,481│ 20,069│ │
│Pennsylvania │[72]359,232│[72]355,791│ [72]23,996│ [72]5,196
│Rhode Island │ 10,056│ 5,311│ 120│
│South Carolina │ │ 67,458│ 17,719│
│Tennessee │ [73]91,693│[73]123,929│ [73]9,538│
│Texas │ 41,761│ 142,087│ 41,825│
│Vermont │ 35,839│ 14,466│ 1,535│
│Virginia │ 100,690│ 94,184│ │
│West Virginia │ 43,440│ 46,661│ │
│Wisconsin │ 94,606│ 103,630│ 2,496│ 13,800
├───────────────┼───────────┼───────────┼───────────┼───────────
│ Total │ 3,620,844│ 4,051,035│ 277,691│ 76,303
│ │ │ │ │
│Plurality │ │ 130,195│ │
│ │ │ │ │
│Total vote │ 8,025,975
│
├───────────────┬───────────────────────────────────────────────
│ STATES. │ 1883.[68]
├───────────────┼───────────┬───────────┬───────────┬───────────
│ „ │ Rep. │ Dem. │ Gbk. │ Pro.
├───────────────┼───────────┼───────────┼───────────┼───────────
│Alabama │ │ │ │
│Arkansas │ │ │ │
│California │ │ │ │
│Colorado │ │ │ │ [68]
│Connecticut │ 51,749│ 46,146│ │
│Delaware │ │ │ │
│Florida │ │ │ │
│Georgia │ │ 23,680│ │
│Illinois │ │ │ │
│Indiana │ │ │ │
│Iowa │ 164,182│ 139,093│ 23,089│
│Kansas │ │ │ │
│Kentucky │ 89,181│ 133,615│ │
│Louisiana │ │ │ │
│Maine │ │ │ │
│Maryland │ 80,707│ 92,694│ │ 1,881
│Massachusetts │ 160,092│ 150,228│ │ 13,950
│Michigan │ 122,330│ 127,376│ │
│Minnesota │ 72,404│ 57,859│ │
│Mississippi │ │ │ │
│Missouri │ │ │ │
│Nebraska │ 52,305│ 47,795│ │
│Nevada │ │ │ │
│New Hampshire │ │ │ │
│New Jersey │ 97,047│ 103,856│ 2,960│ 4,153
│New York │ 429,252│ 445,817│ 7,187│ 19,368
│North Carolina │ │ │ │
│Ohio │ 347,164│ 359,793│ 2,937│ 8,362
│Oregon │ │ │ │
│Pennsylvania │ 319,106│ 302,031│ 4,452│ 6,602
│Rhode Island │ 13,068│ 10,907│ │
│South Carolina │ │ │ │
│Tennessee │ │ │ │
│Texas │ │ │ │
│Vermont │ │ │ │
│Virginia │ │ │ │
│West Virginia │ │ │ │
│Wisconsin │ │ │ │
├───────────────┼───────────┼───────────┼───────────┼───────────
│ Total │ 1,998,587│ 2,040,890│ 40,629│ 54,316
│ │ │ │ │
│Plurality │ │ 42,303│ │
│ │ │ │ │
│Total vote │ 4,134,458
POLITICAL CHANGES—1884.
The Republican National Convention met at Chicago, in the Exposition
Building, on Tuesday, June 3d, 1884. It was called to order by Senator
Sabin, the Chairman of the National Committee, who at the conclusion of
his address, at the request of his Committee, presented the name of Hon.
Powell Clayton, of Arkansas, for temporary President. Gen. Clayton, as a
friend of Blaine, was antagonized by the field, which named Hon. John R.
Lynch for the place. An exciting debate followed, at the close of which
Mr. Lynch received 431 votes to 387 for Clayton. Ex-Senator Henderson of
Missouri was made permanent President without a contest. The contested
seats were amicably settled, the most notable being that of the
straight-out Republicans of Virginia against Gen. Mahone’s delegation.
The latter was admitted, the only contest being in the Committee. The
Blaine leaders did not antagonize, but rather favored Mahone’s
admission, as did the field generally, for the State Convention which
elected this delegation had openly abandoned the name of the Readjuster
Party and taken that of the Republican. None of the Straightouts
expressed dissatisfaction at what appeared to be the almost universal
sentiment.
Candidates for the Nomination.
On the third day the following candidates were formally placed in
nomination, after eloquent eulogies, the most notable being those of
Judge West of Ohio, in behalf of Blaine; Gen. H. H. Bingham, of Penna.,
for President Arthur; and Geo. W. Curtis for Senator Edmunds:
JAMES G. BLAINE, _of Maine_.
CHESTER A. ARTHUR, _of New York_.
JOHN SHERMAN, _of Ohio_.
GEORGE F. EDMUNDS, _of Vermont_.
JOHN A. LOGAN, _of Illinois_.
JOSEPH R. HAWLEY, _of Connecticut_.
On the adjoining page is given the result of the ballots.
The convention sat four days, completed its work harmoniously, and
adopted a platform without a negative vote. [We give it in full in our
Book of Platforms, and compare its vital issues with that of the
Democratic in our comparison of Platform Planks.]
The Democratic National Convention.
This body assembled at Chicago, in the Exposition Building, on Tuesday,
July 8th, 1884, and was called to order by Ex-Senator Barnum, the
Chairman of the National Committee. The Committee presented Governor
Richard B. Hubbard, of Texas, for temporary chairman. After his address
a notable contest followed on the adoption of the unit rule, the debate
being participated in by many delegates. Mr. Fellows, of New York,
favored the rule, as did all of the advocates of Governor Cleveland’s
nomination for President, while John Kelly opposed it with a view to
give freedom of choice to the twenty-five delegates from New York who
were acting with him. The contest was inaugurated by Mr. Smalley, of
Vermont, who was instructed by the National Committee to offer the
following resolution:
_Resolved_, that the rules of the last Democratic Convention govern this
body until otherwise ordered, subject to the following modification:
That in voting for candidates for President and Vice-President no State
shall be allowed to change its vote until the roll of the States has
been called, and every State has cast its vote.
Mr. Grady, of New York, offered the following amendment to the
resolution:
When the vote of a State, as announced by the chairman of the delegation
from such State is challenged by any member of the delegation, then the
Secretary shall call the names of the individual delegates from the
State, and their individual preferences as expressed shall be recorded
as the vote of such State.
After discussion the question was then put, the chairman of each State
delegation announcing its vote as follows:
THE VOTE IN DETAIL.
──────────────┬──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
_States._ │ First Ballot.
──────────────┼──────┬───────┬───────┬──────┬──────┬─────┬───────┬─────┬─────
│ No. │ │ │ │ │Sher-│ │ │Sher-
„ │Dele- │ │ │ Ed- │ │man, │ │Lin- │man,
│gates.│Blaine.│Arthur.│munds.│Logan.│John.│Hawley.│coln.│W. T.
──────────────┼──────┼───────┼───────┼──────┼──────┼─────┼───────┼─────┼─────
[74]Alabama │ 20│ 1│ 17│ │ 1│ │ │ │
Arkansas │ 14│ 8│ 4│ 2│ │ │ │ │
California │ 16│ 16│ │ │ │ │ │ │
Colorado │ 6│ 6│ │ │ │ │ │ │
Connecticut │ 12│ │ │ │ │ │ 12│ │
Delaware │ 6│ 5│ 1│ │ │ │ │ │
Florida │ 8│ 1│ 7│ │ │ │ │ │
Georgia │ 24│ │ 24│ │ │ │ │ │
Illinois │ 44│ 3│ 1│ │ 40│ │ │ │
Indiana │ 30│ 18│ 9│ 1│ │ 2│ │ │
Iowa │ 26│ 26│ │ │ │ │ │ │
Kansas │ 18│ 12│ 4│ │ 1│ │ 1│ │
Kentucky │ 26│ 5½│ 16│ │ 2½│ 1│ │ 1│
[74]Louisiana │ 16│ 2│ 10│ │ 3│ │ │ │
Maine │ 12│ 12│ │ │ │ │ │ │
Maryland │ 16│ 10│ 6│ │ │ │ │ │
Massachusetts │ 28│ 1│ 2│ 25│ │ │ │ │
Michigan │ 26│ 15│ 2│ 7│ │ │ │ │ 2
Minnesota │ 14│ 7│ 1│ 6│ │ │ │ │
Mississippi │ 18│ 1│ 17│ │ │ │ │ │
Missouri │ 32│ 5│ 10│ 6│ 10│ 1│ │ │
Nebraska │ 10│ 8│ 2│ │ │ │ │ │
Nevada │ 6│ 6│ │ │ │ │ │ │
New Hampshire │ 8│ │ 4│ 4│ │ │ │ │
New Jersey │ 18│ 9│ │ 6│ │ 1│ │ 2│
New York │ 72│ 28│ 31│ 12│ │ │ │ 1│
North Carolina│ 22│ 2│ 19│ │ 1│ │ │ │
Ohio │ 46│ 21│ │ │ │ 25│ │ │
Oregon │ 6│ 6│ │ │ │ │ │ │
Pennsylvania │ 60│ 47│ 11│ 1│ 1│ │ │ │
Rhode Island │ 8│ │ │ 8│ │ │ │ │
South Carolina│ 18│ 1│ 17│ │ │ │ │ │
Tennessee │ 24│ 7│ 16│ │ 1│ │ │ │
Texas │ 26│ 13│ 11│ │ 1│ │ │ │
Vermont │ 8│ │ │ 8│ │ │ │ │
Virginia │ 24│ 2│ 21│ │ 1│ │ │ │
West Virginia │ 12│ 12│ │ │ │ │ │ │
Wisconsin │ 22│ 10│ 6│ 6│ │ │ │ │
_Territories._│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
Arizona │ 2│ 2│ │ │ │ │ │ │
Dakota │ 2│ 2│ │ │ │ │ │ │
Idaho │ 2│ │ 2│ │ │ │ │ │
Montana │ 2│ 1│ │ 1│ │ │ │ │
New Mexico │ 2│ │ 2│ │ │ │ │ │
Utah │ 2│ │ 2│ │ │ │ │ │
Washington │ 2│ 2│ │ │ │ │ │ │
Wyoming │ 2│ │ 2│ │ │ │ │ │
Dist. of │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
Columbia │ 2│ 1│ 1│ │ │ │ │ │
──────────────┼──────┼───────┼───────┼──────┼──────┼─────┼───────┼─────┼─────
Total │ 820│ 334½│ 278│ 93│ 63½│ 30│ 13│ 4│ 2
──────────────┴──────┴───────┴───────┴──────┴──────┴─────┴───────┴─────┴─────
──────────────┬──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
_States._ │ Second Ballot.
──────────────┼──────┬───────┬───────┬──────┬──────┬─────┬───────┬─────┬─────
│ No. │ │ │ │ │ J. │ │ │ G.
„ │Dele- │ │ │ Ed- │ │Sher-│ │Lin- │Sher-
│gates.│Blaine.│Arthur.│munds.│Logan.│ man │Hawley.│coln.│ man
──────────────┼──────┼───────┼───────┼──────┼──────┼─────┼───────┼─────┼─────
[74]Alabama │ 20│ 2│ 17│ │ 1│ │ │ │
Arkansas │ 14│ 11│ 3│ │ │ │ │ │
California │ 16│ 16│ │ │ │ │ │ │
Colorado │ 6│ 6│ │ │ │ │ │ │
Connecticut │ 12│ │ │ │ │ │ 12│ │
Delaware │ 6│ 5│ 1│ │ │ │ │ │
Florida │ 8│ 1│ 7│ │ │ │ │ │
Georgia │ 24│ │ 24│ │ │ │ │ │
Illinois │ 44│ 3│ 1│ │ 40│ │ │ │
Indiana │ 30│ 18│ 9│ 1│ │ 2│ │ │
Iowa │ 26│ 26│ │ │ │ │ │ │
Kansas │ 18│ 13│ 2│ │ 2│ │ 1│ │
Kentucky │ 26│ 5│ 17│ │ 2│ 1│ │ 1│ [74]
Louisiana │ 16│ 4│ 9│ │ 2│ │ │ │
Maine │ 12│ 12│ │ │ │ │ │ │
Maryland │ 16│ 12│ 4│ │ │ │ │ │
Massachusetts │ 28│ 1│ 3│ 24│ │ │ │ │
Michigan │ 26│ 15│ 4│ 5│ │ │ │ │ 2
Minnesota │ 14│ 7│ 1│ 6│ │ │ │ │
Mississippi │ 18│ 1│ 17│ │ │ │ │ │
Missouri │ 32│ 7│ 10│ 5│ 8│ 1│ │ │
Nebraska │ 10│ 8│ 2│ │ │ │ │ │
Nevada │ 6│ 6│ │ │ │ │ │ │
New Hampshire │ 8│ │ 5│ 3│ │ │ │ │
New Jersey │ 18│ 9│ │ 6│ │ 1│ │ 2│
New York │ 72│ 28│ 31│ 12│ │ │ │ 1│
North Carolina│ 22│ 3│ 18│ │ 1│ │ │ │
Ohio │ 46│ 23│ │ │ │ 23│ │ │
Oregon │ 6│ 6│ │ │ │ │ │ │
Pennsylvania │ 60│ 47│ 11│ 1│ 1│ │ │ │
Rhode Island │ 8│ │ │ 8│ │ │ │ │
South Carolina│ 18│ 1│ 17│ │ │ │ │ │
Tennessee │ 24│ 7│ 16│ │ 1│ │ │ │
Texas │ 26│ 13│ 11│ │ 2│ │ │ │
Vermont │ 8│ │ │ 8│ │ │ │ │
Virginia │ 24│ 2│ 21│ │ 1│ │ │ │
West Virginia │ 12│ 12│ │ │ │ │ │ │
Wisconsin │ 22│ 11│ 6│ 5│ │ │ │ │
_Territories._│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
Arizona │ 2│ 2│ │ │ │ │ │ │
Dakota │ 2│ 2│ │ │ │ │ │ │
Idaho │ 2│ │ 2│ │ │ │ │ │
Montana │ 2│ 1│ │ 1│ │ │ │ │
New Mexico │ 2│ │ 2│ │ │ │ │ │
Utah │ 2│ │ 2│ │ │ │ │ │
Washington │ 2│ 2│ │ │ │ │ │ │
Wyoming │ 2│ │ 2│ │ │ │ │ │
Dist. of │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
Columbia │ 2│ 1│ 1│ │ │ │ │ │
──────────────┼──────┼───────┼───────┼──────┼──────┼─────┼───────┼─────┼─────
Total │ 820│ 349│ 275│ 85│ 61│ 28│ 13│ 4│ 2
──────────────┴──────┴───────┴───────┴──────┴──────┴─────┴───────┴─────┴─────
──────────────┬──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
_States._ │ Third Ballot.
──────────────┼──────┬───────┬───────┬──────┬──────┬─────┬───────┬─────┬─────
│ No. │ │ │ │ │ J. │ │ │ G.
„ │Dele- │ │ │ Ed- │ │Sher-│ │Lin- │Sher-
│gates.│Blaine.│Arthur.│munds.│Logan.│ man │Hawley.│coln.│ man
──────────────┼──────┼───────┼───────┼──────┼──────┼─────┼───────┼─────┼─────
[75]Alabama │ 20│ 2│ 17│ │ 1│ │ │ │
Arkansas │ 14│ 11│ 3│ │ │ │ │ │
California │ 16│ 16│ │ │ │ │ │ │
Colorado │ 6│ 6│ │ │ │ │ │ │
Connecticut │ 12│ │ │ │ │ │ 12│ │
Delaware │ 6│ 5│ 1│ │ │ │ │ │
Florida │ 8│ 1│ 7│ │ │ │ │ │
Georgia │ 24│ │ 24│ │ │ │ │ │
Illinois │ 44│ 3│ 1│ │ 40│ │ │ │
Indiana │ 30│ 18│ 10│ │ │ 2│ │ │
Iowa │ 26│ 26│ │ │ │ │ │ │
Kansas │ 18│ 15│ │ │ 2│ │ 1│ │
Kentucky │ 26│ 6│ 16│ │ 2│ 1│ │ 1│ [75]
Louisiana │ 16│ 4│ 9│ │ 2│ │ │ │
Maine │ 12│ 12│ │ │ │ │ │ │
Maryland │ 16│ 12│ 4│ │ │ │ │ │
Massachusetts │ 28│ 1│ 3│ 24│ │ │ │ │
Michigan │ 26│ 18│ 3│ 3│ │ 1│ │ │
Minnesota │ 14│ 7│ 2│ 5│ │ │ │ │
Mississippi │ 18│ 1│ 16│ │ │ │ │ 1│
Missouri │ 32│ 12│ 11│ 4│ 4│ 1│ │ │
Nebraska │ 10│ 10│ │ │ │ │ │ │
Nevada │ 6│ 6│ │ │ │ │ │ │
New Hampshire │ 8│ │ 5│ 3│ │ │ │ │
New Jersey │ 18│ 11│ 1│ │ │ │ 6│ │
New York │ 72│ 28│ 32│ 12│ │ │ │ │
North Carolina│ 22│ 4│ 18│ │ │ │ │ │
Ohio │ 46│ 25│ │ │ │ 21│ │ │
Oregon │ 6│ 6│ │ │ │ │ │ │
Pennsylvania │ 60│ 50│ 8│ 1│ 1│ │ │ 1│
Rhode Island │ 8│ │ │ 8│ │ │ │ │
South Carolina│ 18│ 2│ 16│ │ │ │ │ │
Tennessee │ 24│ 7│ 17│ │ │ │ │ │
Texas │ 26│ 14│ 11│ │ 1│ │ │ │
Vermont │ 8│ │ │ 8│ │ │ │ │
Virginia │ 24│ 4│ 20│ │ │ │ │ │
West Virginia │ 12│ 12│ │ │ │ │ │ │
Wisconsin │ 22│ 11│ 10│ │ │ │ │ │
_Territories._│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
Arizona │ 2│ 2│ │ │ │ │ │ │
Dakota │ 2│ 2│ │ │ │ │ │ │
Idaho │ 2│ │ 2│ │ │ │ │ │
Montana │ 2│ 1│ │ 1│ │ │ │ │
New Mexico │ 2│ │ 2│ │ │ │ │ │
Utah │ 2│ │ 2│ │ │ │ │ │
Washington │ 2│ 2│ │ │ │ │ │ │
Wyoming │ 2│ │ 2│ │ │ │ │ │
Dist. of │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
Columbia │ 2│ 1│ 1│ │ │ │ │ │
──────────────┼──────┼───────┼───────┼──────┼──────┼─────┼───────┼─────┼─────
Total │ 820│ 375│ 274│ 69│ 53│ 25│ 13│ 8│ 2
──────────────┴──────┴───────┴───────┴──────┴──────┴─────┴───────┴─────┴─────
──────────────┬────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
_States._ │ Fourth Ballot.
──────────────┼──────┬───────┬───────┬──────┬──────┬─────┬───────┬─────
│ No. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Dele- │ │ │ Ed- │ │Sher-│ │Lin-
│gates.│Arthur.│Blaine.│munds.│Logan.│man. │Hawley.│coln.
──────────────┼──────┼───────┼───────┼──────┼──────┼─────┼───────┼─────
[76]Alabama │ 20│ 12│ 8│ │ │ │ │
Arkansas │ 14│ 3│ 11│ │ │ │ │
California │ 16│ │ 16│ │ │ │ │
Colorado │ 6│ │ 6│ │ │ │ │
Connecticut │ 12│ │ │ │ │ │ 12│
Delaware │ 6│ 1│ 5│ │ │ │ │
Florida │ 8│ 5│ 3│ │ │ │ │
Georgia │ 24│ 24│ │ │ │ │ │
Illinois │ 44│ 3│ 34│ │ 6│ │ │
Indiana │ 30│ │ 30│ │ │ │ │
Iowa │ 26│ 2│ 24│ │ │ │ │
Kansas │ 18│ │ 18│ │ │ │ │
Kentucky │ 26│ 15│ 9│ │ 1│ │ │1[77]
Louisiana │ 16│ 7│ 9│ │ │ │ │
Maine │ 12│ │ 12│ │ │ │ │
Maryland │ 16│ 1│ 15│ │ │ │ │
Massachusetts │ 28│ 7│ 3│ 18│ │ │ │
Michigan │ 26│ │ 26│ │ │ │ │
Minnesota │ 14│ │ 14│ │ │ │ │
Mississippi │ 18│ 16│ 2│ │ │ │ │
Missouri │ 32│ │ 32│ │ │ │ │
Nebraska │ 10│ │ 10│ │ │ │ │
Nevada │ 6│ │ 6│ │ │ │ │
New Hampshire │ 8│ 2│ 5│ 3│ │ │ │
New Jersey │ 18│ 0│ 17│ 1│ │ │ │
New York │ 72│ 30│ 26│ 9│ │ │ 2│ 1
North Carolina│ 22│ 12│ 8│ │ │ │ 1│
Ohio │ 46│ 0│ 46│ │ │ │ │
Oregon │ 6│ 0│ 6│ │ │ │ │
Pennsylvania │ 60│ 8│ 51│ 1│ │ │ │
Rhode Island │ 8│ 1│ 7│ │ │ │ │
South Carolina│ 18│ 15│ 2│ 1│ │ │ │
Tennessee │ 24│ 12│ 11│ │ │ │ │
Texas │ 26│ 8│ 15│ │ │ │ │
Vermont │ 8│ 0│ 0│ 8│ │ │ │
Virginia │ 24│ 20│ 4│ │ │ │ │
West Virginia │ 12│ 0│ 12│ │ │ │ │
Wisconsin │ 22│ 0│ 22│ │ │ │ │
_Territories._│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
Arizona │ 2│ 0│ 2│ │ │ │ │
Dakota │ 2│ 0│ 2│ │ │ │ │
Idaho │ 2│ 0│ 2│ │ │ │ │
Montana │ 2│ 0│ 2│ │ │ │ │
New Mexico │ 2│ 2│ 0│ │ │ │ │
Utah │ 2│ 0│ 2│ │ │ │ │
Washington │ 2│ 0│ 2│ │ │ │ │
Wyoming │ 2│ 2│ 0│ │ │ │ │
Dist. of │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
Columbia │ 2│ 1│ 1│ │ │ │ │
──────────────┼──────┼───────┼───────┼──────┼──────┼─────┼───────┼─────
Total │ 820│ 207│ 541│ 41│ 7│ │ 15│ 2
──────────────┴──────┴───────┴───────┴──────┴──────┴─────┴───────┴─────
_States._ _Yeas_ _Nays_
Alabama 15 5
Arkansas 14
California 16
Colorado 4 2
Connecticut 2 10
Delaware 6
Florida 2 6
Georgia 12 12
Illinois 22 22
Indiana 30
Iowa 6 20
Kansas 3 15
Kentucky 20 6
Louisiana 16
Maine 2 10
Maryland 16
Massachusetts 21 7
Michigan 12 12
Minnesota 14
Mississippi 18
Missouri 18 24
Nebraska 5 5
Nevada 6
New Hampshire 8
New Jersey 14 4
New York 72
North Carolina 10 12
Ohio 25 21
Oregon 6
Pennsylvania 21 39
Rhode Island 8
South Carolina 3 14
Tennessee 17 7
Texas 12 10
Vermont 8
Virginia 6 18
West Virginia 9 3
Wisconsin 5 17
The Secretary announced the result of the vote as follows: Total number
of votes cast, 795; yeas, 332; nays, 463.
The report of the Committee on Permanent Organization was then made; the
name of W. H. Vilas, of Wisconsin, being presented as President, with a
list of vice-presidents (one from each state) and several secretaries
and assistants, and that the secretaries and clerks of the temporary
organization be continued under the permanent organization.
The Contest over the Platform.
There was a two-days contest in the Committee on Resolutions over the
adoption of the revenue features of the Platform. It advocated the
collection of revenue for public uses _exclusively_, the italicized word
being the subject of the controversy. It was retained by a vote of 20 to
18. To avoid extended debate in the Convention an agreement was made
that Gen. Butler should make a minority report, and that three speeches
should be made, these by Butler, Converse and Watterson. Col. Morrison,
of Illinois, made the majority report, which was adopted with but 97½
negative votes out of a total of 820.
The Ballots.
Before balloting an effort was made to abolish the two-third rule, but
this met with such decided disfavor that it was withdrawn before the
roll of States was completed.
There were two ballots taken on the Presidential candidates, and they
were as follows:
First. Second.
Total number of votes 820 820
Necessary to a choice 547 547
Grover Cleveland, of New York 392 684
Thomas F. Bayard, of Delaware 168 81½
Allen G. Thurman, of Ohio 88 4
Samuel J. Randall, of Penn 78 4
Joseph E. McDonald of Indiana 56 1
John G. Carlisle, of Kentucky 27
Roswell P. Flower, of New York 4
George Hoadly, of Ohio 3
Samuel J. Tilden, of New York 1
Thomas A. Hendricks, of Indiana 1 45½
Mr. Hendricks, of Indiana, who was defeated eight years ago on the
Tilden ticket, was nominated for Vice-President by acclamation.
The Kelly and Butler elements of the Convention, at all of the important
stages, manifested their hostility to Cleveland, but there was no open
bolt, and the Convention completed its work after sitting four days.
[In the Book of Platform is given the Democratic Platform in full, and
its tariff plank will be found in comparison with the Republican in the
same book.]
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1884.
In what were regarded as the pivotal States the campaign of 1884, was
attended with the utmost interest and excitement. Blaine, the most
brilliant political leader of modern times, was acceptable to all of the
more active and earnest elements of the Republican party, and the
ability with which he had championed the protective system and a more
aggressive foreign policy, attracted very many Irishmen who had formerly
been Democrats. The young and more intelligent leaders of this element
promptly espoused the cause of the Republicans, and their action caused
a serious division in the Democratic ranks. Wherever Irish-Americans
were sufficiently numerous to form societies of their own, such as the
“Irish-American League,” the “Land League,” the “Clan na Gael,” etc.,
there supporters of Blaine were found, and these were by a singular
coincidence most numerous in the doubtful States of New York, New
Jersey, Connecticut, Ohio and Indiana. Cleveland’s nomination by the
Democrats had angered the Tammany wing of the party in New York, and not
until very close to the election was a reconciliation effected. Tilden
had from the first favored Cleveland, and with Daniel Manning as his
manager in New York, no effort was spared to heal Democratic divisions
and to promote them in the Republican ranks. Thus the Independent or
Civil Service wing of the Republican party, which in Boston and New York
cities, and in the cities of Connecticut, confessed attachment to free
trade, was easily rallied under the Democratic banner. In convention in
New York city this element denounced Blaine on what it pronounced a
paramount moral issue, and for a time such brilliant orators as Rev.
Henry Ward Beecher, George W. Curtis and Carl Schurz, “rang the changes”
upon the moral questions presented by the canvass. They were halted by
scandals about Cleveland, and the Maria Halpin story, almost too
indecent for historical reference, became a prominent feature of the
campaign with the acquiescence, if not under the direction of the
Republican managers. Many of our best thinkers deplored the shape thus
given to the canvass, but the responsibility for it is clearly traceable
to the plan of campaign instituted by the Independents, or “Mugwumps,”
as they were called—“Mugwump” implying a small leader.
Only Ohio, West Virginia and Iowa remained as October States, and in the
height of the canvass all eyes were turned upon Ohio. In all of the
Western States both of the great parties had been distracted by
prohibitory and high license issues, and Ohio,—because of temperance
agitations, which still remained as disturbing elements—had drifted into
the Democratic column. If it were again lost to the Republicans, their
national campaign would practically have ended then and there, so far as
reasonable hopes could be entertained for the election of Blaine. This
fact led to an extraordinary effort to influence favorable action there,
and both Blaine and Logan made tours of the State, and speeches at the
more important points. Mr. Blaine first went to New York city, thence
through New Jersey, speaking at night at all important points on the
Pennsylvania Railroad, and was the following day received by the Union
League of Philadelphia. In the evening he reviewed a procession of
20,000 uniformed men. He then returned to New York, not yet having
uttered a partisan sentence, but in passing westward through its towns,
he occasionally referred to their progress under the system of
protection. Reaching Ohio, he spoke more and more plainly of the issues
of the canvass as his journey proceeded, and wherever he went his
speeches commanded national comment and attention. His plain object was,
for the time at least, to smother local issues by the graver national
ones, and he did this with an ability which has never been matched in
the history of American oratory. The result was a victory for the
Republicans in October; they carried Ohio by about 15,000, and greatly
reduced the Democratic majority in West Virginia.
From this time forward the battle on the part of the Republicans was
hopeful; on the part of the Democrats desperate but not despairing.
Senator Barnum, the Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, was a
skilled and trained politician, and he sedulously cultivated Independent
and Prohibition defection in New York, Connecticut, New Jersey,
Wisconsin and Indiana. Whether the scandals growing out of the result be
true or false, every political observer could see that the elements
named were under at least the partial direction of the Democratic
National Committee, for their support was inconsiderable in States where
they were not needed in crippling the chances of the Republicans. The
Republican National Committee, headed by Mr. B. F. Jones, of
Pennsylvania, an earnest and able, but an untrained leader, did not seek
to check these plain efforts at defection. This Committee thought, and
at the time seemed to be justified in the belief that the defection of
Irish-Americans in the same States would more than counterbalance all of
the Independent and Prohibitory defection. The Republicans were likewise
aided by General Butler, who ran as the Greenback or “People’s”
candidate, as he called himself. It would have done it easily, but for
an accident, possibly a trick, on the Thursday preceding the November
election. Mr. Blaine was at the Fifth Avenue Hotel in New York, and
among the many delegations which visited him was one of three hundred
ministers who wished to show their confidence in his moral and
intellectual fitness for the Chief Magistracy. The oldest of the
ministers present was Mr. Burchard, and he was assigned to deliver the
address. In closing it he referred to what he thought ought to be a
common opposition to “Rum, Romanism and Rebellion,”—an alliteration
which not only awakened the wrath of the Democracy, but which quickly
estranged many of the Irish-American supporters of Blaine and Logan. Mr.
Blaine on the two following days tried to counteract the effects of an
imprudence for which he was in no way responsible, but the alliteration
was instantly and everywhere employed to revive religious issues and
hatreds, and to such an extent that circulars were distributed at the
doors of Catholic churches, implying that Blaine himself had used the
offensive words. A more unexpected blow was never known in our political
history; it was quite as sudden and more damaging than the Morey forgery
at the close of the Garfield campaign. It determined the result, and was
the most prominent of half a dozen mishaps, which if they had not
happened, must have inevitably led to the election of Blaine.
As it was, the result was so close in New York, Connecticut, New Jersey,
Indiana and West Virginia, that it required several days to determine
it, and it was not known as to New York until the 19th of November.
The popular vote for Presidential electors was cast on the 4th of
November last, and the results are tabulated below. Where differences
were found to exist in the vote for Electors in any State the vote for
the highest on each ticket is given in all cases where the complete
statement of the vote of the State has been received. The results show a
total vote of 10,046,073, of which the Cleveland ticket received
4,913,901, the Blaine ticket 4,847,659, the Butler ticket 133,880, and
the St. John ticket 150,633, showing a plurality of 66,242 for
Cleveland. The total vote in 1880 was 9,218,251, and Garfield’s
plurality 9464. It should be noted, in considering the tabulated
statement of this year’s vote, that the Blaine Electoral tickets were
supported by the Republicans and the People’s Party in Missouri and West
Virginia, and that Cleveland Electoral tickets were supported by the
Democrats and the People’s Party in Iowa, Michigan and Nebraska. The
People’s Party claims to have cast about 41,300 votes for the fusion
ticket in Michigan and about 33,000 votes in Iowa. The vote of
California is official from all but two counties; the unofficial reports
from these are included in the totals given in the table. South Carolina
returns 1237 “scattering” votes.
─────────────┬──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
STATES. │ 1884.
─────────────┼─────────┬───────────┬─────────┬───────┬──────────────────────
│ │ │ │ _St. │
„ │_Blaine, │_Cleveland,│_Butler, │ John, │
│ Rep._ │ Dem._ │People’s_│ Pro._ │ ELECTORAL VOTE.
─────────────┼─────────┼───────────┼─────────┼───────┼─────────┬────────────
„ │ „ │ „ │ „ │ „ │_Blaine._│_Cleveland._
─────────────┼─────────┼───────────┼─────────┼───────┼─────────┼────────────
Alabama │ 59,444│ 92,973│ 762│ 610│ │ 10
Arkansas │ 50,895│ 72,927│ 1,847│ │ │ 7
California │ 102,397│ 89,264│ 2,017│ 2,920│ 8│
Colorado │ 36,277│ 27,627│ 1,957│ 759│ 3│
Connecticut │ 65,898│ 67,182│ 1,685│ 2,494│ │ 6
Delaware │ 12,778│ 17,054│ 6│ 55│ │ 3
Florida │ 28,031│ 31,769│ │ 74│ │ 4
Georgia │ 47,603│ 94,567│ 125│ 184│ │ 12
Illinois │ 340,497│ 312,314│ 10,910│ 12,074│ 22│
Indiana │ 238,480│ 244,992│ 8,293│ 3,013│ │ 15
Iowa │ 197,082│ 177,286│ │ 1,472│ 13│
Kansas │ 154,406│ 90,132│ 16,346│ 4,495│ 9│
Kentucky │ 118,674│ 152,757│ 1,655│ 3,106│ │ 13
Louisiana │ 46,347│ 62,546│ 120│ 338│ │ 8
Maine │ 72,209│ 52,140│ 3,953│ 2,160│ 6│
Maryland │ 85,699│ 96,932│ 531│ 2,794│ │ 8
Massachusetts│ 146,724│ 122,481│ 24,433│ 10,026│ 14│
Michigan │ 192,669│ 189,361│ 763│ 18,403│ 13│
Minnesota │ 111,685│ 70,065│ 3,583│ 4,684│ 7│
Mississippi │ 42,774│ 78,547│ │ │ │ 9
Missouri │ 202,029│ 235,988│ │ 2,153│ │ 16
Nebraska │ 76,877│ 54,354│ │ 2,858│ 5│
Nevada │ 7,193│ 5,577│ │ │ 3│
New Hampshire│ 43,249│ 39,192│ 552│ 1,575│ 4│
New Jersey │ 123,436│ 127,798│ 3,496│ 6,159│ │ 9
New York │ 562,005│ 563,154│ 17,064│ 25,003│ │ 36
North │ │ │ │ │ │
Carolina │ 125,068│ 142,905│ │ 448│ │ 11
Ohio │ 400,082│ 368,280│ 5,179│ 11,069│ 23│
Oregon │ 26,852│ 24,593│ 723│ 488│ 3│
Pennsylvania │ 474,268│ 393,747│ 16,992│ 15,306│ 30│
Rhode Island │ 19,030│ 12,394│ 422│ 928│ 4│
South │ │ │ │ │ │
Carolina │ 21,733│ 69,890│ │ │ │ 9
Tennessee │ 124,078│ 133,258│ 957│ 1,131│ │ 12
Texas │ 88,353│ 223,208│ 3,321│ 3,511│ │ 13
Vermont │ 38,411│ 17,342│ 785│ 1,612│ 4│
Virginia │ 139,356│ 145,497│ │ 143│ │ 12
West Virginia│ 63,913│ 67,331│ 805│ 927│ │ 6
Wisconsin │ 161,157│ 146,477│ 4,598│ 7,656│ 11│
─────────────┼─────────┼───────────┼─────────┼───────┼─────────┼────────────
Total │4,847,659│ 4,913,901│ 133,880│150,663│ 182│ 219
Plurality │ │ 66,242│ │ │ │
─────────────┴─────────┴───────────┴─────────┴───────┴─────────┴────────────
There was no hitch in the count of the vote in any of the Electoral
Colleges, held at the capitols of the various States. On the 9th of
February, 1885, the two Houses of Congress assembled to witness the
counting of the vote. Mr. Edmunds, President of the Senate, upon its
completion, announced that “it appears” from the count that Mr.
Cleveland has been elected President, etc. This form was used upon his
judgment as the only one which he could lawfully use, the Electoral law
not having as yet determined the power or prescribed the form for
declaring the result of Presidential elections.
Cleveland’s Administration.
President Cleveland was inaugurated on the 4th of March, 1885, amid much
military and civic pomp and ceremony. Jubilant Democrats from all parts
of the country visited the National Capital to celebrate their return to
National power after a series of Republican successes extending through
twenty-four years. The inaugural address was chiefly noted for its
promises in behalf of civil service reform. It showed a determination on
the part of the President to adhere to the pledges given to what are
still termed the “Mugwumps” prior to the election. The sentiments
expressed secured the warm approval of Geo. W. Curtis, Carl Schurz,
Henry Ward Beecher and other civil service reformers, but were
disappointing to the straight Democrats, who naturally wished to enjoy
all of the fruits of the power won after so great a struggle.
Vice-President Hendricks voiced this radical Democratic sentiment, and
was rapidly creating a schism in the ranks of the party, but his sudden
death checked the movement and deprived it of organization, though there
still remains the seed of dissatisfaction, much of which displayed
itself in the contests of 1885.
President Cleveland appointed the following Cabinet:
_Secretary of State_: Thomas F. Bayard of Delaware.
_Secretary of the Treasury_: Daniel Manning of New York.
_Secretary of War_: W. C. Endicott of Massachusetts.
_Postmaster-General_: Wm. F. Vilas of Wisconsin.
_Secretary of the Interior_: L. Q. C. Lamar of Mississippi.
_Attorney-General_: Augustus H. Garland of Arkansas.
Up to this writing, May, 1886, the Administration of President Cleveland
has not been marked by any great event or crisis—its greatest political
efforts being directed toward appeasing the civil and holding in close
political alliance with the civil service reformers, without disrupting
the Democratic party by totally refusing to distribute the spoils of
office. It had long been predicted by practical politicians that a
serious attempt to defeat the doctrine “to the victor belongs the
spoils,” would destroy the administration attempting it. The elections
of 1885 point to a realization of this prophecy, though it is yet too
soon to accurately judge the result with nearly three years of
administration yet to be devoted to its pursuit.
Ohio witnessed in her last October election the first great struggle
under the Democratic State and National Administrations. Gov. Hoadley
was renominated by the Democrats, and Judge Foraker was renominated by
the Republicans. The latter were aided by the strong canvass of John
Sherman for his return to the U. S. Senate. The contest was throughout
exciting, some of the best speakers of the country taking the stump. The
result was as follows:
Foraker, R. 359,538
Hoadley, D. 341,380
Leonard, Pro. 28,054
Northrop, G. 2,760
The Irish-Americans who had left the Democratic party to vote for
Blaine, adhered to the Republican standard, and really increased their
numbers—more than a third more voting for Foraker than for Blaine, while
the Mugwump element practically disappeared. The Prohibition vote had
almost doubled, but as all third or fourth parties as a rule attract
their vote from the parties in which the most discontent prevails, the
excess came not from the Republican but the Democratic ranks.
Pennsylvania’s result, following in November, was similar in all
material points to that of Ohio. Col. M. S. Quay, an acknowledged
political leader and a man of national reputation, thought it wise that
his party should oppose in the most radical and direct way, the
Democratic State and National Administration, and with this purpose
became a candidate for State Treasurer. The Democrats nominated Conrad
B. Day of Philadelphia. The result was as follows:
Quay, R. 324,694
Day, D. 281,178
Spangler, Pro. 15,047
Whitney, G. 2,783
Col. Quay’s majority greatly exceeded all expectation, and was
universally accepted as a condemnation of the two Democratic
administrations.
New York, of all the November States, very properly excited the most
attention. The Democrats renominated Gov. Hill upon a platform
tantamount to a condemnation of civil service reform—a platform dictated
by Tammany Hall, which was already quarrelling with the National
administration. The Mugwump leaders and journals immediately condemned
both the Democratic ticket and platform, and joined with the Republicans
in support of Davenport. The result was:
GOVERNOR.
Hill, D. 501,418
Davenport, R. 489,727
Bascom, Pro 30,866
Jones, G. 2,127
LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR.
Jones, D. 495,450
Carr, R. 492,288
Demorest, Pro. 31,298
Gage, G. 2,087
In New York the Irish-Americans, angered by the return of the Mugwumps,
whose aristocratic and free trade tendencies they were especially
hostile to, under the lead of the _Irish World_ left the Republicans and
returned to the support of the Democracy. They decided the contest and
their attitude in the future will be of immediate concern in all
political calculations. The net results in three great States gave
satisfaction to both parties—probably the most to the Republicans, but
it is certain that they left politics in a very interesting and very
uncertain shape.
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1886.
The campaign of 1886 showed that the Republican party was capable of
making gains in the South, especially in Congressional districts and
upon protective and educational issues. Indeed, so plain was this in the
State of Virginia that Randolph Tucker, for whom the Legislature had
apportioned a district composed of eleven white counties, refused to run
again, and Mr. Yost, editor of the Staunton _Virginian_, who had
canvassed the entire district on tariff issues and in favor of the Blair
educational bill, was returned over a popular Democrat, by 1900
majority. Of the ten Congressmen from Virginia the Republicans elected
six. Morrison, the tariff reform leader of Illinois, was defeated, as
was Burd of Ohio, while Speaker Carlisle’s seat was contested by Mr.
Thoche, a protectionist candidate of the Knights of Labor. These and
other gains reduced the Democratic majority in the House to about
fifteen, and this could not be counted upon for any tariff reduction or
financial measures. The Republicans lost one in the U. S. Senate.
Local divisions in the Republican ranks were seriously manifested in but
one State, that of California, which chose a Democratic Governor and a
Republican Lieutenant-Governor, so close was the contest. The Governor
has since died, the Lieutenant-Governor has taken his place, but the
Legislature re-elected Senator Hearst, Democrat, who had previously been
appointed before the retirement of Governor Stoneman.
New York city witnessed, not a revolution, but such a marked change in
politics that it excited comment throughout the entire country. The
Labor party ran Henry George, the author of _Progress and Poverty_, and
other works somewhat socialistic and certainly agrarian in their
tendencies, for Mayor of the city. Hewitt, the well-known Congressman,
was the candidate of the Democracy, while the Republicans presented
Roosevelt, known chiefly for his municipal-reform tendencies. Hewitt was
elected, but George received over 60,000 votes, and this unlooked-for
poll changed the direction of political calculations for a year. George
was aided by nearly all the Labor organizations, and he drew from the
Democrats about two to the one drawn from the Republicans—a fact which
greatly raised the hopes of the latter and at the same time made the
Democrats more cautious.
In 1886 the Republicans and Democrats, with the qualifications noted
above, held their party strength, with the future prospects so promising
to both that at this early date preparations began for the Presidential
campaign, General Beaver, defeated for Governor of Pennsylvania in 1882
by a plurality of 40,000, was now elected by a plurality of 43,000,
though the Prohibitionists polled 32,000 votes, two-thirds of which came
from the Republican party. The general result of the campaign indicated
that the Republicans were gaining in unity and numbers.
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1887.
Interest in the forthcoming Presidential campaign was everywhere
manifested in the struggles of 1887. The first skirmish was lost by the
Republicans, and while it encouraged Mr. Cleveland’s administration, it
gave warning to the Republicans throughout the country that they must
heal all differences and do better work. So quickly was this
determination reached that Rhode Island came back to the Republican
column in November, by the election of a Congressman.
The elections of the year, as a whole, were largely in favor of the
Republicans, and three pivotal States were captured—Connecticut, New
Jersey, and Indiana, with Virginia claimed by both parties. True the
issues and candidates in Indiana and Connecticut were purely local, a
fact which contributed largely to the continued hopefulness of the
Democracy, who had again carried New York by an average majority of
14,000, notwithstanding Henry George now ran for Secretary of State in
the hope of more greatly dividing the Democratic than the Republican
vote. He did this, in somewhat less proportion than when he ran for
Mayor of the city, but the agitation of High License for the cities
alone, and the Prohibitory agitation led to the union of all the saloon
interests with the Democracy. These interests, headed by the
organization of brewers, established Personal Liberty Leagues in all of
the larger cities, which Leagues held a State Convention at Albany said
to represent 75,000 voters, or 500 to each delegate. The figures were
grossly exaggerated, but nevertheless an alliance was formed with the
Democratic party in the State by the substantial adoption of the
anti-sumptuary plank in its platform. Sufficient Republicans were in
this way won to balance the Henry George defections from the Democracy,
and the result was practically the same as in 1886. The Mugwumps
supported the Republicans in 1886, but they cut little if any figure in
1887. It was very plain to the hind-sight of the Republican leaders of
New York, that if they had resisted and resented the formation of the
Personal Liberty Leagues, and made a direct and open issue against the
control of the saloon in politics, they would have easily won a victory
like that achieved in Pennsylvania. Two acts contributed to the swelling
of the Prohibitory vote, which in 1887 came more equally from both
parties. Governor Hill had vetoed the High License act, and thus angered
the Temperance Democrats, while the Republicans had failed to submit to
a vote of the people the prohibitory amendment, thus angering an
additional number of Republicans, so that the Prohibitory vote was
swelled to 42,000.
New York’s complete vote for Secretary of State was:
Grant, Republican 452,822
Cook, Democrat 469,802
Huntington, Prohibitionist 41,850
George, United Labor 69,836
Beecher, Greenback 988
Preston, Union Labor 988
Hall, Progressive Labor 7,768
Scattering 1,351
—————————
Total vote 1,045,405
The Republicans of Pennsylvania met the growing temperance agitation in
such a way as to keep within and recall to its lines nearly all who
naturally affiliated with that party. The State Convention of 1886
promised to submit the prohibitory amendment to a vote of the people,
and the Republican Legislature of 1887 passed the amendment for a first
time, and also passed a High License law, which placed the heaviest
licenses upon the cities, but increased all, and gave four-fifths and
three-fifths of the amount to the city and country treasuries.
During the closing week of the campaign of 1885 in Pennsylvania, a
combination was made by the brewers of Allegheny County with the
Democracy for a combined raid against the Republican State ticket headed
by General Beaver. A large sum of money was raised, and the sinking
societies, or such of them as could be induced to enter the movement,
were marshalled as a new and potent element. The result was a surprise
to the Republicans and a reduction of about 4,000 in their majority.
Thus began the movement which this year culminated in the organization
of Personal Liberty Leagues throughout the cities of New York and
Pennsylvania. Encouraged by this local success in Pennsylvania and
angered by the passage of a High License law, an immense fund was raised
in Philadelphia and Pittsburg, and the Democratic workers in all singing
and social clubs and societies were employed to create from these, as
their nucleus, the Personal Liberty Leagues. In Philadelphia alone the
Central Convention represented over 300 societies, and this fact led to
extravagant claims as to the number of voters whose views were thus
reflected. The organization was secret, but the brewers, maltsters, and
wholesale dealers who created it, opened State headquarters and likewise
established a State headquarters for the Leagues. Much the same plan was
adopted in Pittsburg and great boasts were made that it would be
extended to all the towns and cities of the State. From the first
combinations were made by the Democratic city committees, the State
Committee giving them a friendly wink.
This work was allowed to go on for a full month, the Republican State
Committee, and the Republican city committees as well, giving such
careful investigation to the facts that every charge could be proven.
Then it was that the State Address was issued, wherein all the leading
facts were given and each and every challenge accepted. The Republican
party thus publicly renewed its pledge to cast the second and final
legislative vote for submission to the people the prohibitory amendment
for the maintenance of high license, and just as unequivocally pledged
the maintenance of the Sunday laws assailed by the Personal Liberty
Leagues.
The effect was to group in a solid and an aggressive mass of good
citizens all who believed that the people should not be denied the right
to make their own laws upon liquor as upon other questions; all who
valued a high license which, while general, placed the higher charges
upon the cities, and which gave three and four-fifths of all the
revenues to the city and county treasuries, and as well all who believed
in maintaining an American Sabbath.
The grouping of these three positions proved more powerful than the
quarter of a million dollars supplied the combination by the brewing and
wholesale liquor interests; more powerful than the hundreds of social
and singing societies supposed to be grouped with the Democratic liquor
combination; more powerful than all of the combined elements of disorder
planted by the side of the Democracy.
It was a royal battle, fought out in the open day! Indeed, the
Republican address compelled publicity and made a secret battle
thereafter impossible. Every effort at continued secrecy was immediately
exposed by the Republican State Committee and the leading daily
Republican journals, and every country paper bristled with these
exposures. In very desperation the combination became more and more
public as the canvass advanced. It was shown that the Personal Liberty
Leagues were under the direction of the Socialists, and this arrayed
against them all of the Israelites in the State besides thousands of
other law-abiding citizens; the demand for the repeal of the Sunday laws
compelled the opposition of all branches of religious Germans—Catholics,
Lutherans, Mennonites, Dunkards, etc.—and called forth the protests of
nearly all of the pulpits. The fact that in Philadelphia and Allegheny
the brewers and wholesale dealers, just as they do in the great cities
of New York, own nearly all of the saloons—drinking places without
accommodations for strangers and travellers—and that their battle was
for the saloon in competition with the hotel, inn or tavern, divided the
liquor interests and induced all who favored the High License bill,
partially framed to protect this class, to support the Republican party.
So true was this that a resolution before the Convention of the State
Liquor League indorsing high license save a few vexatious features, came
so near passing that the saloon keepers subsequently established a
separate organization.
The battle at no time and in no place took shape for prohibition beyond
that sense of fair play which suggests submission to a vote of the
people any question which a law-abiding and respectable number desire to
vote upon. The battle was almost distinctly for and against the Sunday
laws and for and against high license, and the Republicans everywhere
gave unequivocal support to these measures. In Allegheny, shocked the
year before by the sudden raid of the brewers, some of the leading
politicians for a time feared to face the issues as presented by the
Republican State Committee, and really forced upon them by the
Democratic liquor combination, but an eloquent Presbyterian divine
sounded from his pulpit the slogan, a great Catholic priest followed,
the Catholic Temperance Union and the T. A. B.’s, not committed to
prohibition, but publicly committed to high license, passed resolutions
denouncing the combination. Some of the assemblies of the Knights of
Labor followed, and in open battle the Republicans of Allegheny accepted
the issue and the challenge and were rewarded for their courage by a
gain of 1,200 just where brewing and distillery interests are strongest.
The Democratic liquor combination did not show a gain over their
Gubernatorial majorities in a single German county except Northampton,
where a citizens’ local movement by its sharp antagonism drew out the
full Democratic vote for their State ticket. The combination, with all
of the power of money, with the entire saloon interests, with the
Personal Liberty Leagues, called from the Republican ranks in the entire
State not over 12,000 votes, of which 6,000 were in Philadelphia and
4,000 in Allegheny. These were more than made up by 15,000 out of 32,000
Prohibitionists who returned to the Republican party, and by 5,000
Democrats who joined the Republican column. Given more time, and with
the issues as universally acknowledged by all parties as they have been
since the election, far more Prohibitionists would have returned and
more Democrats would have voted the Republican ticket. As it was, the
Prohibition vote cast was about equally divided between the Democrats
and Republicans; there was probably more Democrats than Republicans. In
1886 the 32,000 Prohibitionists comprised 24,000 Republicans and 8000
Democrats. All of the latter remained and were reinforced in nearly
every quarter. There had always been from 5,000 to 6,000 third party
Prohibitionists.
If the Republicans had not bravely faced the issues thus forced upon
them they would have lost the State, for the Democratic liquor
combination polled 15,000 votes more than the Republican
candidate—Colonel Quay, an exceptionally strong man—had received in
1885; but the bravery of the Republicans and the fact that their
attitude was right called out 60,000 more votes than the party cast in
’85, and in this way increased its majority despite all combinations.
These are the leading facts in the most novel of all the campaigns known
to Pennsylvania’s history. The situation was much the same in New York.
The total vote for State Treasurer was:
Hart, Republican 385,514
McGrann, Democrat 340,269
Irish, Prohibitionist 18,471
Kennedy, Greenback 8,900
———————
Total 753,154
An important feature of the year was the interest shown in the question
of prohibiting the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors. Four
States have voted on this issue, Michigan leading off in April, Texas
voting in August, Tennessee in September, and Oregon in November.
Prohibition was defeated in each instance, but its advocates succeeded
in polling a surprisingly large vote. The poll in these States was as
follows:
For Pro. Against Pro.
Michigan 178,488 184,429
Texas 129,273 221,627
Tennessee 117,504 145,197
Oregon 19,973 27,958
——————— ———————
Totals 445,238 579,211
Majority against prohibition 133,973
To this should be added the defeat of prohibition in Atlanta and Fulton
counties, Ga., by 1122 majority, where it had won two years before by
228 majority. The interest shown in local option and high license as a
solution of the temperance question, and its popularity wherever
adopted, is also a marked feature of the year’s politics. In Michigan
local option succeeded the failure of prohibition, while in Pennsylvania
the people are promised a choice between high license and prohibition.
The elections of 1887 as a whole, without removing doubts as to the
future, were generally accepted as favorable to the Republicans. The
following is a fair comparison with Rhode Island omitted, for the plain
reason that her spring result was reversed in the fall:
1883. 1887.
Rep. Dem. Rep. Dem.
Mass 160,092 150,228 136,000 118,394
New York 429,757 445,976 452,435 469,886
New Jersey 97,047 103,856 107,026 104,407
Penna 319,106 302,031 385,514 340,269
Maryland 80,707 92,694 86,644 98,936
Ohio 347,164 359,793 356,937 333,205
Kentucky 89,181 133,615 126,476 143,270
Iowa 164,182 139,093 168,696 152,886
Nebraska 56,381 41,998 86,725 56,548
Virginia 144,419 124,080 119,380 119,806
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Totals 1,888,036 1,893,364 2,025,833 1,937,607
Democratic majority in 1883 5,328
Republican majority in 1887 88,226
Gain in the Dem. vote in four years 44,243
Gain in the Rep. vote in four years 137,797
The vote in Rhode Island would probably reduce the Republican gain of
the year about 5000. But as the figures for Virginia are disputed and
not the official vote, which it is known would add several thousand to
the Republican total, the above result can be taken as a just estimate
of the gain made by the Republicans in these eleven states, where
general elections were held. It would be at least 25,000 larger if the
vote of the highest candidate, instead of the head of the ticket, were
taken.
OPENING OF THE CAMPAIGN OF 1888.
The fiftieth Congress convened in December, 1887, the Senate consisting
of 38 Republicans, 37 Democrats, and 1 Readjuster, Mr. Riddleberger, of
Virginia. In the House there were 168 Democrats, 153 Republicans, and 4
Independents—Anderson, of Iowa and Hopkins, of Virginia, classed with
the Democrats, and Smith of Wisconsin and Nichols of North Carolina,
classed with the Republicans upon tariff and educational subjects—two
questions which in the form of Revenue measures and of the Blair
educational bill, gave early promise of becoming the issues for the
campaign of 1888.
Upon the assembling of the fiftieth Congress President Cleveland,
instead of sending the usual message describing the condition of the
Nation and its relations with foreign nations, together with such
recommendations as he desired to make, sent simply a message upon
questions of revenue, and in this way gave the subject such emphasis as
to make his views the issue in the campaign to follow. The message
excited wide and varied political comment, and when Mr. Blaine, who at
the time was in Paris, permitted an answer to be wired to the New York
_Tribune_, the two opposing views seemed to meet the wishes of the two
great opposing parties, and they were at once accepted as defining the
tendencies of each party, at least, upon tariff and revenue subjects.
As these two papers will prove the text for much of the discussion
incident to the campaign of 1888, we give below their text:
President Cleveland’s Message.
_To the Congress of the United States_:
You are confronted at the threshold of your legislative duties with a
condition of the national finances which imperatively demands immediate
and careful consideration.
The amount of money annually exacted, through the operation of the
present laws, from the industries and necessities of the people, largely
exceeds the sum necessary to meet the expenses of the government.
When we consider that the theory of our institutions guarantees to every
citizen the full enjoyment of all the fruits of his industry and
enterprise, with only such deduction as may be his share towards the
careful and economical maintenance of the government which protects him,
it is plain that the exaction of more than this is indefensible
extortion, and a culpable betrayal of American fairness and justice.
This wrong inflicted upon those who bear the burden of national
taxation, like other wrongs, multiplies a brood of evil consequences.
The public treasury, which should only exist as a conduit conveying the
people’s tribute to its legitimate objects of expenditure, becomes a
hoarding-place for money needlessly withdrawn from trade and the
people’s use, thus crippling our national energies, suspending our
country’s development, preventing investment in productive enterprise,
threatening financial disturbance, and inviting schemes of public
plunder.
This condition of our treasury is not altogether new; and it has more
than once of late been submitted to the people’s representatives in the
Congress, who alone can apply a remedy. And yet the situation still
continues, with aggravated incidents, more than ever presaging financial
convulsion and widespread disaster.
It will not do to neglect this situation because its dangers are not now
palpably imminent and apparent. They exist none the less certainly, and
await the unforeseen and unexpected occasion when suddenly they will be
precipitated upon us.
On the 30th day of June, 1885, the excess of revenues over public
expenditures after complying with the annual requirement of the sinking
fund act, was $17,859,735.84; during the year ended June 30, 1886, such
excess amounted to $49,405,545.20; and during the year ended June 30,
1887, it reached the sum of $55,567,849.54.
The annual contributions to the sinking fund during the three years
above specified, amounting in the aggregate to $138,058,320.94, and
deducted from the surplus as stated, were made by calling in for that
purpose outstanding three per cent. bonds of the government. During the
six months prior to June 30, 1887, the surplus revenue had grown so
large by repeated accumulations, and it was feared the withdrawal of
this great sum of money needed by the people would so affect the
business of the country that the sum of $79,864,100 of such surplus was
applied to the payment of the principal and interest of the three per
cent. bonds still outstanding, and which were then payable at the option
of the government. The precarious condition of financial affairs among
the people still needing relief, immediately after the 30th day of June,
1887, the remainder of the three per cent. bonds then outstanding,
amounting with principal and interest to the sum of $18,877,500, were
called in and applied to the sinking fund contribution for the current
fiscal year. Notwithstanding these operations of the Treasury
Department, representations of distress in business circles not only
continued but increased, and absolute peril seemed at hand. In these
circumstances the contribution to the sinking fund for the current
fiscal year was at once completed by the expenditure of $27,684,283.55
in the purchase of government bonds not yet due bearing four and four
and a half per cent. interest, the premium paid thereon averaging about
twenty-four per cent. for the former and eight per cent. for the latter.
In addition to this, the interest accruing during the current year upon
the outstanding bonded indebtedness of the government was to some extent
anticipated, and banks selected as depositories of public money were
permitted to somewhat increase their deposits.
While the expedients thus employed, to release to the people the money
lying idle in the Treasury, served to avert immediate danger, our
surplus revenues have continued to accumulate, the excess for the
present year amounting on the 1st day of December to $55,258,701.19, and
estimated to reach the sum of $113,000,000 on the 30th of June next, at
which date it is expected that this sum, added to prior accumulations,
will swell the surplus in the Treasury to $140,000,000.
There seems to be no assurance that, with such a withdrawal from use of
the people’s circulating medium, our business community may not in the
near future be subjected to the same distress which was quite lately
produced from the same cause. And while the functions of our National
Treasury should be few and simple, and while its best condition would be
reached, I believe, by its entire disconnection with private business
interests, yet when, by a perversion of its purposes, it idly holds
money uselessly subtracted from the channels of trade, there seems to be
reason for the claim that some legitimate means should be devised by the
government to restore in an emergency, without waste or extravagance,
such money to its place among the people.
If such an emergency arises there now exists no clear and undoubted
executive power of relief. Heretofore the redemption of three per cent.
bonds, which were payable at the option of the government, has afforded
a means for the disbursement of the excess of our revenues; but these
bonds have been all retired, and there are no bonds outstanding the
payment of which we have the right to insist upon. The contribution to
the sinking fund which furnishes the occasion for expenditure in the
purchase of bonds has been already made for the current year, so that
there is no outlet in that direction.
In the present state of legislation the only pretence of any existing
executive power to restore, at this time, any part of our surplus
revenues to the people by its expenditure, consists in the supposition
that the Secretary of the Treasury may enter the market and purchase the
bonds of the government not yet due, at a rate of premium to be agreed
upon. The only provision of law from which such a power could be derived
is found in an appropriation bill passed a number of years ago; and it
is subject to the suspicion that it was intended as temporary and
limited in its application, instead of conferring a continuing
discretion and authority. No condition ought to exist which would
justify the grant of power to a single official, upon his judgment of
its necessity, to withhold from or release to the business of the
people, in an unusual manner, money held in the Treasury, and thus
affect, at his will, the financial situation of the country; and if it
is deemed wise to lodge in the Secretary of the Treasury the authority
in the present juncture to purchase bonds, it should be plainly vested,
and provided, as far as possible, with such checks and limitations as
will define this official’s right and discretion, and at the same time
relieve him from undue responsibility.
In considering the question of purchasing bonds as a means of restoring
to circulation the surplus money accumulating in the Treasury, it should
be borne in mind that premiums must of course be paid upon such
purchase, that there may be a large part of these bonds held as
investments which cannot be purchased at any price, and that
combinations among holders who are willing to sell may unreasonably
enhance the cost of such bonds to the government.
It has been suggested that the present bonded debt might be refunded at
a less rate of interest, and the difference between the old and new
security paid in cash, thus finding use for the surplus in the Treasury.
The success of this plan, it is apparent, must depend upon the volition
of the holders of the present bonds; and it is not entirely certain that
the inducement which must be offered them would result in more financial
benefit to the Government than the purchase of bonds, while the latter
proposition would reduce the principal of the debt by actual payment,
instead of extending it.
The proposition to deposit the money held by the Government in banks
throughout the country, for use by the people, is, it seems to me,
exceedingly objectionable in principle, as establishing too close a
relationship between the operations of the Government Treasury and the
business of the country, and too extensive a commingling of their money,
thus fostering an unnatural reliance in private business upon public
funds. If this scheme should be adopted it should only be done as a
temporary expedient to meet an urgent necessity. Legislative and
executive effort should generally be in the opposite direction and
should have a tendency to divorce, as much and as fast as can safely be
done, the Treasury Department from private enterprise.
Of course it is not expected that unnecessary and extravagant
appropriations will be made for the purpose of avoiding the accumulation
of an excess of revenue. Such expenditure, beside the demoralization of
all just conceptions of public duty which it entails, stimulates a habit
of reckless improvidence not in the least consistent with the mission of
our people or the high and beneficent purposes of our government.
I have deemed it my duty to thus bring to the knowledge of my
countrymen, as well as to the attention of their representatives charged
with the responsibility of legislative relief, the gravity of our
financial situation. The failure of the Congress heretofore to provide
against the dangers which it was quite evident the very nature of the
difficulty must necessarily produce, caused a condition of financial
distress and apprehension since your last adjournment, which taxed to
the utmost all the authority and expedients within executive control;
and these appear now to be exhausted. If disaster results from the
continued inaction of Congress, the responsibility must rest where it
belongs.
Though the situation thus far considered is fraught with danger which
should be fully realized, and though it presents features of wrong to
the people as well as peril to the country, it is but a result growing
out of a perfectly palpable and apparent cause, constantly reproducing
the same alarming circumstances—a congested national treasury and a
depleted monetary condition in the business of the country. It need
hardly be stated that while the present situation demands a remedy, we
can only be saved from a like predicament in the future by the removal
of its cause.
Our scheme of taxation, by means of which this needless surplus is taken
from the people and put into the public treasury, consists of a tariff
or duty levied upon importations from abroad, and internal revenue taxes
levied upon the consumption of tobacco and spirituous and malt liquors.
It must be conceded that none of the things subjected to internal
revenue taxation are, strictly speaking, necessaries; there appears to
be no just complaint of this taxation by the consumers of these
articles, and there seems to be nothing so well able to bear the burden
without hardship to any portion of the people.
But our present tariff laws, the vicious, inequitable and illogical
source of unnecessary taxation, ought to be at once revised and amended.
These laws, as their primary and plain effect, raise the price to
consumers of all articles imported and subject to duty, by precisely the
sum paid for such duties. Thus the amount of the duty measures the tax
paid by those who purchase for use these imported articles. Many of
these things, however, are raised or manufactured in our own country,
and the duties now levied upon foreign goods and products are called
protection to these home manufactures, because they render it possible
for those of our people who are manufacturers, to make these taxed
articles and sell them for a price equal to that demanded for the
imported goods that have paid customs duty. So it happens that while
comparatively a few use the imported articles, millions of our people,
who never use and never saw any of the foreign products, purchase and
use things of the same kind made in this country, and pay therefor
nearly or quite the same enhanced price which the duty adds to the
imported articles. Those who buy imports pay the duty charged thereon
into the public treasury, but the great majority of our citizens, who
buy domestic articles of the same class, pay a sum at least
approximately equal to this duty to the home manufacturer. This
reference to the operation of our tariff laws is not made by way of
instruction, but in order that we may be constantly reminded of the
manner in which they impose a burden upon those who consume domestic
products as well as those who consume imported articles, and thus create
a tax upon all our people.
It is not proposed to entirely relieve the country of this taxation. It
must be extensively continued as the source of the government’s income;
and in a readjustment of our tariff the interests of American labor
engaged in manufacture should be carefully considered, as well as the
preservation of our manufacturers. It may be called protection, or by
any other name, but relief from the hardships and dangers of our present
tariff laws should be devised with especial precaution against
imperilling the existence of our manufacturing interests. But this
existence should not mean a condition which, without regard to the
public welfare or a national exigency, must always insure the
realization of immense profits instead of moderately profitable returns.
As the volume and diversity of our national activities increase, new
recruits are added to those who desire a continuation of the advantages
which they conceive the present system of tariff taxation directly
affords them. So stubbornly have all efforts to reform the present
condition been resisted by those of our fellow-citizens thus engaged,
that they can hardly complain of the suspicion, entertained to a certain
extent, that there exists an organized combination all along the line to
maintain their advantage.
We are in the midst of centennial celebrations, and with becoming pride
we rejoice in American skill and ingenuity, in American energy and
enterprise, and in the wonderful natural advantages and resources
developed by a century’s national growth. Yet when an attempt is made to
justify a scheme which permits a tax to be laid upon every consumer in
the land for the benefit of our manufacturers, quite beyond a reasonable
demand for governmental regard, it suits the purposes of advocacy to
call our manufactures infant industries, still needing the highest and
greatest degree of favor and fostering care that can be wrung from
Federal legislation.
It is also said that the increase in the price of domestic manufactures
resulting from the present tariff is necessary in order that higher
wages may be paid to our workingmen employed in manufactures, than are
paid for what is called the pauper labor of Europe. All will acknowledge
the force of an argument which involves the welfare and liberal
compensation of our laboring people. Our labor is honorable in the eyes
of every American citizen: and as it lies at the foundation of our
development and progress, it is entitled, without affectation or
hypocrisy, to the utmost regard. The standard of our laborers’ life
should not be measured by that of any other country less favored, and
they are entitled to the full share of all our advantages.
By the last census it is made to appear that of the 17,392,099 of our
population engaged in all kinds of industries 7,670,493 are employed in
agriculture, 4,074,238 in professional and personal service, (2,934,876
of whom are domestic servants and laborers,) while 1,810,256 are
employed in trade and transportation, and 3,837,112 are classed as
employed in manufacturing and mining.
For present purposes, however, the last number given should be
considerably reduced. Without attempting to enumerate all, it will be
conceded that there should be deducted from those which it includes
375,143 carpenters and joiners, 285,401 milliners, dressmakers, and
seamstresses, 172,726 blacksmiths, 133,756 tailors and tailoresses,
102,473 masons, 76,241 butchers, 41,309 bakers, 22,083 plasterers and
4,891 engaged in manufacturing agricultural implements, amounting in the
aggregate to 1,214,023, leaving 2,623,089 persons employed in such
manufacturing industries as are claimed to be benefited by a high
tariff.
To these the appeal is made to save their employment and maintain their
wages by resisting a change. There should be no disposition to answer
such suggestions by the allegation that they are in a minority among
those who labor, and therefore should forego an advantage, in the
interest of low prices for the majority; their compensation, as it may
be affected by the operation of the tariff laws, should at all times be
scrupulously kept in view; and yet with slight reflection they will not
overlook the fact that they are consumers with the rest; that they, too,
have their own wants and those of their families to supply from their
earnings, and that the price of the necessaries of life, as well as the
amount of their wages, will regulate the measure of their welfare and
comfort.
But the reduction of taxation demanded should be so measured as not to
necessitate or justify either the loss of employment by the working man
nor the lessening of his wages; and the profits still remaining to the
manufacturer, after a necessary readjustment, should furnish no excuse
for the sacrifice of the interests of his employés either in their
opportunity to work or in the diminution of their compensation. Nor can
the worker in manufactures fail to understand that while a high tariff
is claimed to be necessary to allow the payment of remunerative wages,
it certainly results in a very large increase in the price of nearly all
sorts of manufactures, which, in almost countless forms, he needs for
the use of himself and his family. He receives at the desk of his
employer his wages, and perhaps before he reaches his home is obliged,
in a purchase for family use of an article which embraces his own labor,
to return in the payment of the increase in price which the tariff
permits, the hard-earned compensation of many days of toil.
The farmer and the agriculturist who manufacture nothing, but who pay
the increased price which the tariff imposes, upon every agricultural
implement, upon all he wears and upon all he uses and owns, except the
increase of his flocks and herds and such things as his husbandry
produces from the soil, is invited to aid in maintaining the present
situation; and he is told that a high duty on imported wool is necessary
for the benefit of those who have sheep to shear, in order that the
price of their wool may be increased. They of course are not reminded
that the farmer who has no sheep is by this scheme obliged, in his
purchase of clothing and woolen goods, to pay a tribute to his fellow
farmer as well as to the manufacturer and merchant; nor is any mention
made of the fact that the sheep-owners themselves and their households,
must wear clothing and use other articles manufactured from the wool
they sell at tariff prices, and thus as consumers must return their
share of this increased price to the tradesman.
I think it may be fairly assumed that a large proportion of the sheep
owned by the farmers throughout the country are found in small flocks
numbering from twenty-five to fifty. The duty on the grade of imported
wool which these sheep yield, is ten cents each pound if of the value of
thirty cents or less, and twelve cents if of the value of more than
thirty cents. If the liberal estimate of six pounds be allowed for each
fleece, the duty thereon would be sixty or seventy-two cents, and this
may be taken as the utmost enhancement of its price to the farmer by
reason of this duty. Eighteen dollars would thus represent the increased
price of the wool from twenty-five sheep and thirty-six dollars that
from the wool of fifty sheep; and at present values this addition would
amount to about one-third of its price. If upon its sale the farmer
receives this or a less tariff profit, the wool leaves his hands charged
with precisely that sum, which in all its changes will adhere to it,
until it reaches the consumer. When manufactured into cloth and other
goods and material for use, its cost is not only increased to the extent
of the farmer’s tariff profit, but a further sum has been added for the
benefit of the manufacturer under the operation of other tariff laws. In
the meantime the day arrives when the farmer finds it necessary to
purchase woolen goods and material to clothe himself and family for the
winter. When he faces the tradesman for that purpose he discovers that
he is obliged not only to return in the way of increased prices, his
tariff profit on the wool he sold, and which then perhaps lies before
him in manufactured form, but that he must add a considerable sum
thereto to meet a further increase in cost caused by a tariff duty on
the manufacture. Thus in the end he is aroused to the fact that he has
paid upon a moderate purchase, as the result of the tariff scheme,
which, when he sold his wool seemed so profitable, an increase in price
more than sufficient to sweep away all the tariff profit he received
upon the wool he produced and sold.
When the number of farmers engaged in wool-raising is compared with all
the farmers in the country, and the small proportion they bear to our
population is considered; when it is made apparent that, in the case of
a large part of those who own sheep, the benefit of the present tariff
wool is illusory; and, above all, when it must be conceded that the
increase of the cost of living caused by such a tariff, becomes a burden
upon those with moderate means and the poor, the employed and the
unemployed, the sick and well, and the young and old, and that it
constitutes a tax which, with relentless grasp, is fastened upon the
clothing of every man, woman, and child in the land, reasons are
suggested why the removal or reduction or this duty should be included
in a revision of our tariff laws.
In speaking of the increased cost to the consumer of our home
manufactures, resulting from a duty laid upon imported articles of the
same description, the fact is not overlooked that competition among our
domestic producers sometimes has the effect of keeping the price of
their products below the highest limit allowed by such duty. But it is
notorious that this competition is too often strangled by combinations
quite prevalent at this time, and frequently called trusts, which have
for their object the regulation of the supply and price of commodities
made and sold by members of the combination. The people can hardly hope
for any consideration in the operation of these selfish schemes.
If, however, in the absence of such combination, a healthy and free
competition reduces the price of any particular dutiable article of home
production, below the limit which it might otherwise reach under our
tariff laws, and if, with such reduced price, its manufacture continues
to thrive, it is entirely evident that one thing has been discovered
which should be carefully scrutinized in an effort to reduce taxation.
The necessity of combination to maintain the price of any commodity to
the tariff point, furnishes proof that some one is willing to accept
lower prices for such commodity, and that such prices are remunerative;
and lower prices produced by competition prove the same thing. Thus
where either of these conditions exists, a case would seem to be
presented for an easy reduction of taxation.
The considerations which have been presented touching our tariff laws
are intended only to enforce an earnest recommendation that the surplus
revenues of the government be prevented by the reduction of our customs
duties, and, at the same time, to emphasize a suggestion that in
accomplishing this purpose, we may discharge a double duty to our people
by granting to them a measure of relief from tariff taxation in quarters
where it is most needed and from sources where it can be most fairly and
justly accorded.
Nor can the presentation made of such considerations be, with any degree
of fairness, regarded as evidence of unfriendliness toward our
manufacturing interests, or of any lack of appreciation of their value
and importance.
These interests constitute a leading and most substantial element of our
national greatness and furnish the proud proof of our country’s
progress. But if in the emergency that presses upon us our manufacturers
are asked to surrender something for the public good and to avert
disaster, their patriotism, as well as a grateful recognition of
advantages already afforded, should lead them to willing coöperation. No
demand is made that they shall forego all the benefits of governmental
regard; but they cannot fail to be admonished of their duty, as well as
their enlightened self-interest and safety, when they are reminded of
the fact that financial panic and collapse, to which the present
condition tends, afford no greater shelter or protection to our
manufactures than to our other important enterprises. Opportunity for
safe, careful, and deliberate reform is now afforded; and none of us
should be unmindful of a time when an abused and irritated people,
heedless of those who have resisted timely and reasonable relief, may
insist upon a radical and sweeping rectification of their wrongs.
The difficulty attending a wise and fair revision of our tariff laws is
not underestimated. It will require on the part of the Congress great
labor and care, and especially a broad and national contemplation of the
subject, and a patriotic disregard of such local and selfish claims as
are unreasonable and reckless of the welfare of the entire country.
Under our present laws more than four thousand articles are subject to
duty. Many of these do not in any way compete with our own manufactures,
and many are hardly worth attention as subjects of revenue. A
considerable reduction can be made in the aggregate, by adding them to
the free list. The taxation of luxuries presents no features of
hardship; but the necessaries of life used and consumed by all the
people, the duty upon which adds to the cost of living in every home,
should be greatly cheapened.
The radical reduction of the duties imposed upon raw material used in
manufactures, or its free importation, is of course an important factor
in any effort to reduce the price of these necessaries; it would not
only relieve them from the increased cost caused by the tariff on such
material, but the manufactured product being thus cheapened, that part
of the tariff now laid upon such product, as a compensation to our
manufacturers for the present price of raw material, could be
accordingly modified. Such reduction, or free importation, would serve
beside to largely reduce the revenue. It is not apparent how such a
change can have any injurious effect upon our manufacturers. On the
contrary, it would appear to give them a better chance in foreign
markets with the manufacturers of other countries, who cheapen their
wares by free material. Thus our people might have the opportunity of
extending their sales beyond the limits of home consumption—saving them
from the depression, interruption in business, and loss caused by a
glutted domestic market, and affording their employés more certain and
steady labor, with its resulting quiet and contentment.
The question thus imperatively presented for solution should be
approached in a spirit higher than partisanship and considered in the
light of that regard for patriotic duty which should characterize the
action of those intrusted with the weal of a confiding people. But the
obligation to declared party policy and principle is not wanting to urge
prompt and effective action. Both of the great political parties now
represented in the Government have, by repeated and authoritative
declarations, condemned the condition of our laws which permits the
collection from the people of unnecessary revenue, and have, in the most
solemn manner, promised its correction; and neither as citizens or
partisans are our countrymen in a mood to condone the deliberate
violation of these pledges.
Our progress toward a wise conclusion will not be improved by dwelling
upon the theories of protection and free trade. This savors too much of
bandying epithets. It is a _condition_ which confronts us—not a theory.
Relief from this condition may involve a slight reduction of the
advantages which we award our home productions, but the entire
withdrawal of such advantages should not be contemplated. The question
of free trade is absolutely irrelevant; and the persistent claim made in
certain quarters, that all efforts to relieve the people from unjust and
unnecessary taxation are schemes of so-called free-traders, is
mischievous and far removed from any consideration for the public good.
The simple and plain duty which we owe the people is to reduce taxation
to the necessary expenses of an economical operation of the government,
and to restore to the business of the country the money which we hold in
the treasury through the perversion of governmental powers. These things
can and should be done with safety to all our industries, without danger
to the opportunity for remunerative labor which our workingmen need, and
with benefit to them and all our people, by cheapening their means of
subsistence and increasing the measure of their comforts.
The Constitution provides that the President “shall, from time to time,
give to the Congress information of the state of the Union.” It has been
the custom of the Executive, in compliance with this provision, to
annually exhibit to the Congress, at the opening of its session, the
general condition of the country, and to detail, with some
particularity, the operations of the different Executive Departments. It
would be especially agreeable to follow this course at the present time,
and to call attention to the valuable accomplishments of these
departments during the last fiscal year. But I am much impressed with
the paramount importance of the subject to which this communication has
thus far been devoted, that I shall forego the addition of any other
topic, and only urge upon your immediate consideration the “state of the
Union” as shown in the present condition of our treasury and our general
fiscal situation, upon which every element of our safety and prosperity
depends.
The reports of the heads of departments, which will be submitted,
contain full and explicit information touching the transaction of the
business intrusted to them, and such recommendations relating to
legislation in the public interest as they deem advisable. I ask for
these reports and recommendations the deliberate examination and action
of the Legislative branch of the government.
There are other subjects not embraced in the departmental reports
demanding legislative consideration and which I should be glad to
submit. Some of them, however, have been earnestly presented in previous
messages, and as to them, I beg leave to repeat prior recommendations.
As the law makes no provision for any report from the department of
State, a brief history of the transactions of that important Department,
together with other matters which it may hereafter be deemed essential
to commend to the attention of the Congress, may furnish the occasion
for a future communication.
GROVER CLEVELAND.
WASHINGTON, _December 6, 1887_.
Mr. Blaine’s Answer to Cleveland.
_By Cable to the N. Y. Tribune._
PARIS, Dec. 7, 1887.—After reading an abstract of the President’s
message, laid before all Europe this morning, I saw Mr. Blaine and asked
him if he would be willing to give his views upon the recommendation of
the President in the form of a letter or interview. He preferred an
interview, if I would agree to send him an intelligent shorthand
reporter, with such questions as should give free scope for an
expression of his views. The following lucid and powerful statement is
the result. Mr. Blaine began by saying to the reporter:
“I have been reading an abstract of the President’s message and have
been especially interested in the comments of the London papers. Those
papers all assume to declare that the message is a free trade manifesto
and evidently are anticipating an enlarged market for English fabrics in
the United States as a consequence of the President’s recommendations.
Perhaps that fact stamped the character of the message more clearly than
any words of mine can.”
“You don’t mean actual free trade without duty?” queried the reporter.
“No,” replied Mr. Blaine. “Nor do the London papers mean that. They
simply mean that the President has recommended what in the United States
is known as a revenue tariff, rejecting the protective feature as an
object and not even permitting protection to result freely as an
incident to revenue duties.”
“I don’t know that I quite comprehend that last point,” said the
reporter.
“I mean,” said Mr. Blaine, “that for the first time in the history of
the United States the President recommends retaining the internal tax in
order that the tariff may be forced down even below the fair revenue
standard. He recommends that the tax on tobacco be retained, and thus
that many millions annually shall be levied on a domestic product which
would far better come from a tariff on foreign fabrics.”
“Then do you mean to imply that you would favor the repeal of the
tobacco tax?”
“Certainly; I mean just that,” said Mr. Blaine. “I should urge that it
be done at once, even before the Christmas holidays. It would in the
first place bring great relief to growers of tobacco all over the
country, and would, moreover, materially lessen the price of the article
to consumers. Tobacco to millions of men is a necessity. The President
calls it a luxury, but it is a luxury in no other sense than tea and
coffee are luxuries. It is well to remember that the luxury of yesterday
becomes a necessity of to-day. Watch, if you please, the number of men
at work on the farm, in the coal mine, along the railroad, in the iron
foundry, or in any calling, and you will find 95 in 100 chewing while
they work. After each meal the same proportion seek the solace of a pipe
or a cigar. These men not only pay the millions of the tobacco tax, but
pay on every plug and every cigar an enhanced price which the tax
enables the manufacturer and retailer to impose. The only excuse for
such a tax is the actual necessity under which the government found
itself during the war, and the years immediately following. To retain
the tax now in order to destroy the protection which would incidentally
flow from raising the same amount of money on foreign imports, is
certainly a most extraordinary policy for our government.”
“Well, then, Mr. Blaine, would you advise the repeal of the whiskey tax
also?”
“No, I would not. Other considerations than those of financial
administration are to be taken into account with regard to whiskey.
There is a moral side to it. To cheapen the price of whiskey is to
increase its consumption enormously. There would be no sense in urging
the reform wrought by high license in many States if the National
Government neutralizes the good effect by making whiskey within reach of
every one at twenty cents a gallon. Whiskey would be everywhere
distilled if the surveillance of the government were withdrawn by the
remission of the tax, and illicit sales could not then be prevented even
by a policy as rigorous and searching as that with which Russia pursues
the Nihilists. It would destroy high license at once in all the States.
“Whiskey has done a vast deal of harm in the United States. I would try
to make it do some good. I would use the tax to fortify our cities on
the seaboard. In view of the powerful letter addressed to the democratic
party on the subject of fortifications by the late Samuel J. Tilden, in
1885, I am amazed that no attention has been paid to the subject by the
democratic administration. Never before in the history of the world has
any government allowed great cities on the seaboard, like Philadelphia,
New York, Boston, Baltimore, New Orleans, and San Francisco, to remain
defenceless.”
“But,” said the reporter, “you don’t think we are to have a war in any
direction?”
“Certainly not,” said Mr. Blaine, “Neither, I presume, did Mr. Tilden
when he wrote his remarkable letter. But we should change a remote
chance into an absolute impossibility. If our weak and exposed points
were strongly fortified; if to-day we had by any chance even such a war
as we had with Mexico our enemy could procure ironclads in Europe that
would menace our great cities with destruction or lay them under
contribution.”
“But would not our fortifying now possibly look as if we expected war?”
“Why should it any more than fortifications made seventy or eighty years
ago by our grandfathers when they guarded themselves against successful
attack from the armaments of that day. We don’t necessarily expect a
burglar because we lock our doors at night, but if by any possibility a
burglar comes it contributes vastly to our peace of mind and our sound
sleep to feel that he can’t get in.”
“But after the fortifications should be constructed would you still
maintain the tax on whiskey?”
“Yes,” said Mr. Blaine, “So long as there is whiskey to tax I would tax
it, and when the National Government should have no use for the money I
would divide the tax among the Federal Union with specific object of
lightening the tax on real estate. The houses and farms of the whole
country pay too large a proportion of the total taxes. If ultimately
relief could be given in that direction it would, in my judgment, be a
wise and beneficent policy. Some honest but misguided friends of
temperance have urged that the government should not use the money
derived from the tax on whiskey. My reply that the tax on whiskey by the
Federal Government, with its suppression of all illicit distillation and
consequent enhancement of price, has been a powerful agent in the
temperance reform by putting it beyond the reach of so many. The amount
of whiskey consumed in the United States per capita to-day is not more
than 40 per cent. of that consumed thirty years ago.”
After a few moments’ silence Mr. Blaine added that in his judgment the
whiskey tax should be so modified as to permit all who use pure alcohol
in the arts or mechanical pursuits to have it free from tax. In all such
cases the tax should be remitted without danger of fraud, just as now
the tax on spirits exported is remitted.
“Besides your general and sweeping opposition to the President’s
recommendation have you any further specific objection?”
“Yes,” answered Mr. Blaine; “I should seriously object to the repeal of
the duty on wool. To repeal that would work great injustice to many
interests and would seriously discourage what we should encourage,
namely, the sheep culture among farmers throughout the Union. To break
wool-growing and be dependent on foreign countries for the blanket under
which we sleep and the coat that covers our back is not a wise policy
for the National Government to enforce.”
“Do you think if the President’s recommendation were adopted it would
increase our export trade?”
“Possibly in some articles of peculiar construction it might, but it
would increase our import trade tenfold as much in the great staple
fabrics, in woollen and cotton goods, in iron, in steel, in all the
thousand and one shapes in which they are wrought. How are we to export
staple fabrics to the markets of Europe unless we make them cheaper than
they do in Europe, and how are we to manufacture them cheaper than they
do in Europe unless we get cheaper labor than they have in Europe?”
“Then you think that the question of labor underlies the whole subject?”
“Of course it does,” replied Mr. Blaine. “It is, in fact, the entire
question. Whenever we can force carpenters, masons, ironworkers, and
mechanics in every department to work as cheaply and live as poorly in
the United States as similar workmen in Europe, we can, of course,
manufacture just as cheaply as they do in England and France. But I am
totally opposed to a policy that would entail such results. To attempt
it is equivalent to a social and financial revolution, one that would
bring untold distress.”
“Yes, but might not the great farming class be benefited by importing
articles from Europe instead of buying them at higher prices at home?”
“The moment,” answered Mr. Blaine, “you begin to import freely from
Europe you drive our own workmen from mechanical and manufacturing
pursuits. In the same proportion they become tillers of the soil,
increasing steadily the agricultural products and decreasing steadily
the large home demand which is constantly enlarging as home manufactures
enlarge. That, of course, works great injury to the farmer, glutting the
market with his products and tending constantly to lower prices.”
“Yes, but the foreign demand for farm products would be increased in
like ratio, would it not?”
“Even suppose it were,” said Mr. Blaine, “do you know the source from
which it will be supplied? The tendency in Russia to-day, and in the
Asiatic possessions of England, is toward a large increase of the grain
supply, the grain being raised by the cheapest possible labor.
Manufacturing countries will buy their breadstuffs where they can get
them the cheapest, and the enlarging of the home market for the American
farmer being checked, he would search in vain for one of the same value.
His foreign sales are already checked by the great competition abroad.
There never was a time when the increase of a large home market was so
valuable to him. The best proof is that the farmers are prosperous in
proportion to the nearness of manufacturing centres, and a protective
tariff tends to spread manufactures. In Ohio and Indiana, for example,
though not classed as manufacturing States, the annual value of fabrics
is larger than the annual value of agricultural products.”
“But those holding the President’s views,” remarked the reporter, “are
always quoting the great prosperity of the country under the tariff of
1846.”
“That tariff did not involve the one destructive point recommended by
the President, namely, the retaining of direct internal taxes in order
to abolish indirect taxes levied on foreign fabrics. But the country had
peculiar advantages under it by the Crimean War involving England,
France, and Russia, and largely impairing their trade. All these
incidents, or accidents, if you choose, were immensely stimulating to
the trade in the United States, regardless to the nature of our tariff.
But mark the end of this European experience with the tariff of 1846,
which for a time gave an illusory and deceptive show of prosperity. Its
enactment was immediately followed by the Mexican War; then, in 1848, by
the great convulsions of Europe; then, in 1849 and succeeding years, by
the enormous gold yield in California. The powers made peace in 1856,
and at the same time the output of gold in California fell off.
Immediately the financial panic of 1857 came upon the country with
disastrous force. Though we had in these years mined a vast amount of
gold in California, every bank in New York was compelled to suspend
specie payment. Four hundred millions in gold had been carried out of
the country in eight years to pay for foreign goods that should have
been manufactured at home, and we had years of depression and distress
as an atonement for our folly.”
“Then do you mean to imply that there should be no reduction of the
national revenue?”
“No; what I have said implies the reverse. I would reduce it by a prompt
repeal of the tobacco tax, and would make here and there some changes in
the tariff, not to reduce protection, but wisely foster it.”
“Would you explain your meaning more fully?”
“I mean,” said Mr. Blaine, “that no great system of revenue, like our
tariff, can operate with efficiency and equity unless the changes of
trade be closely watched and the law promptly adapted to those changes.
But I would make no change that should impair the protective character
of the whole body of the tariff laws. Four years ago, in the act of
1883, we made changes of the character I have tried to indicate. If such
changes were made, and the fortifying of our sea coast thus undertaken
at a very moderate annual outlay, no surplus would be found after that
already accumulated had been disposed of. The outlay of money on
fortifications, while doing great service to the country, would give
good work to many men.”
“But what about the existing surplus?”
“The abstract of the message I have seen,” replied Mr. Blaine, “contains
no reference to that point. I, therefore, make no comment further that
to endorse Mr. Fred. Grant’s remark, that a surplus is always easier to
handle than a deficit.”
The reporter repeated the question whether the President’s
recommendation would not, if adopted, give us the advantage of a large
increase in exports.
“I only repeat,” answered Mr. Blaine, “it would vastly increase our
imports while the only export it would seriously increase would be our
gold and silver. That would flow out bounteously, just as it did under
the tariff of 1846. The President’s recommendation enacted into law
would result, as did an experiment in drainage of a man who wished to
turn a swamp into a productive field. He dug a drain to a neighboring
river, but it happened, unfortunately, that the level of the river was
higher than the level of the swamp. The consequence need not be told. A
parallel would be found when the President’s policy in attempting to
open a channel for an increase of exports should simply succeed in
making way for a deluging inflow of fabrics to the destruction of home
industry.”
“But don’t you think it important to increase our export trade?”
“Undoubtedly; but it is vastly more important not to lose our own great
market or our own people in vain effort to reach the impossible. It is
not our foreign trade that has caused the wonderful growth and expansion
of the republic. It is the vast domestic trade between thirty-eight
States and eight Territories, with their population of, perhaps,
62,000,000 to-day. The whole amount of our export and import trade
together has never, I think, reached $1,900,000,000 any one year. Our
internal home trade on 130,000 miles of railway, along 15,000 miles of
ocean coast, over the five great lakes and along 20,000 miles of
navigable rivers, reaches the enormous annual aggregate of more than
$40,000,000,000, and perhaps this year $50,000,000,000.
“It is into this illimitable trade, even now in its infancy and destined
to attain a magnitude not dreamed of twenty years ago, that the
Europeans are struggling to enter. It is the heritage of the American
people, of their children, and of their children’s children. It gives an
absolutely free trade over a territory nearly as large as all Europe,
and the profit is all our own. The genuine Free-trader appears unable to
see or comprehend that this continental trade—not our exchanges with
Europe—is the great source of our prosperity. President Cleveland now
plainly proposes a policy that will admit Europe to a share of this
trade.”
“But you are in favor of extending our foreign trade, are you not?”
“Certainly I am, in all practical and advantageous ways, but not on the
principle of the Free-traders, by which we shall be constantly
exchanging dollar for dime. Moreover, the foreign trade is often very
delusive. Cotton is manufactured in the city of my residence. If a box
of cotton goods is sent 200 miles to the province Of New Brunswick, it
is foreign trade. If shipped 17,000 miles round Cape Horn to Washington
Territory it is domestic trade. The magnitude of the Union and the
immensity of its internal trade require a new political economy. The
treatises written for European States do not grasp our peculiar
situation.”
“How will the President’s message be received in the South?”
“I don’t dare to answer that question. The truth has been so long
obscured by certain local questions of unreasoning prejudice that nobody
can hope for industrial enlightenment among the leaders just yet. But in
my view the South above all sections of the Union needs a protective
tariff. The two Virginias, North Carolina, Kentucky, Missouri,
Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia have enormous resources and facilities
for developing and handling manufactures. They cannot do anything
without protection. Even progress so vast as some of those States have
made will be checked if the President’s message is enacted into law.
Their Senators and Representatives can prevent it, but they are so used
to following anything labelled ‘democratic’ that very probably they will
follow the President and the progress already made. By the time some of
the Southern States get free iron ore and coal, while tobacco is taxed,
they may have occasion to sit down and calculate the value of democratic
free trade to their local interests.,”
“Will not the President’s recommendation to admit raw material find
strong support?”
“Not by wise Protectionists in our time. Perhaps some greedy
manufacturers may think that with free coal or free iron ore they can do
great things, but if they should succeed in trying will, as the boys
say, catch it on the rebound. If the home trade in raw materials is
destroyed or seriously injured railroads will be the first to feel it.
If that interest is crippled in any direction the financial fabric of
the whole country will feel it quickly and seriously. If any man can
give a reason why we should arrange the tariff to favor the raw material
of other countries in a competition against our material of the same
kind, I should like to hear it. Should that recommendation of the
President be approved it would turn 100,000 American laborers out of
employment before it had been a year in operation.”
“What must be the marked and general effect of the President’s message?”
“It will bring the country where it ought to be brought—to a full and
fair contest on the question of protection. The President himself makes
the one issue by presenting no other in his message. I think it well to
have the question settled. The democratic party in power is a standing
menace to the industrial prosperity of the country. That menace should
be removed or the policy it foreshadows should be made certain. Nothing
is so mischievous to business as uncertainty, nothing so paralyzing as
doubt.”
G. W. SMALLEY.
THE NATIONAL CONVENTIONS OF 1888.
The Democratic Convention.
The Democratic party, being in power, assumed the customary _rôle_ of
the majority party, and after a close struggle its National Committee
called its Convention at St. Louis, June 5th, two weeks in advance of
the time fixed by the Republicans. The sessions continued throughout
three days, being somewhat prolonged by the differences of opinion upon
the platform, the immediate friends of the Cleveland administration
desiring an unqualified endorsement of the Presidential message relating
to the tariff, and as well to the Mills bill, the measure supported in
the lower House of Congress by all of the Democrats save those led by
Samuel J. Randall, who stood upon the platform “straddle” of 1884.
Finally the differences were partially adjusted by a reaffirmation of
the platform of 1884, and very decided endorsements of both the
President’s message and the Mills bill. The result was not satisfactory
to the Protective-Tariff Democrats, but they were without large or
courageous representation, and the platform was adopted with but one
dissenting vote. (For platform and comparison of platforms of the
Conventions of the two great parties, see Book II.)
On the third day Grover Cleveland, of New York, was nominated for
President by acclamation. A ballot was started for Vice-President,
between Allen G.Thurman, of Ohio, and Governor Gray, of Indiana, but
before it closed Thurman’s nomination was so apparent that Gray was
withdrawn, and the nomination made unanimous. In the midst of the
applause which followed, the California delegation presented to the
Convention thousands of the “red bandana” worn by the “old Roman”
Thurman, and it was immediately placed upon the standard of every State,
and accepted as the emblem of the Democratic party.
The Republican Convention.
The National Convention of the Republican party met in Chicago, June
19th, and continued its sessions until the evening of the 25th. Major
McKinley, of Ohio, was the Chairman of the Committee on Platform, and on
the second day made a unanimous report, which was adopted with great
enthusiasm.
The platforms of the two great parties, better than anything else,
illustrate the lines of difference between them. One of the lines was
plainly drawn by President Cleveland’s message to Congress. This paper
plainly advocated a reduction of tariff duties with a view to reduce to
the actual requirements of an economic administration of governmental
affairs, the surplus in the treasury, then approximating $80,000,000. He
opposed the repeal or reduction of the internal revenue taxes, upon the
ground that they were placed upon luxuries. Mr. Blaine answered this
message for the Republican party, and opposed any system of tariff
reduction which tended to free trade, and favored the repeal of the
internal revenue taxes upon tobacco and upon all liquors used in the
arts. So that the truthful and probably the most compact statement of
the position of the two great parties is this: The Democratic party in
the campaign of 1888 favors an established tendency to free trade; the
Republican party opposes any such tendency, and rather than promote it
in any way, would repeal all of the internal revenue taxes and enlarge
the pension list—in this way disposing of the treasury surplus. The
platform of the Republican party not only followed, but went beyond the
expressed views of Mr. Blaine, and accepted in the plainest way the
issue thrust upon the country by Mr. Cleveland’s message. The position
of the two great parties had been anticipated by their respective
leaders, and both Conventions advanced beyond the lines laid down by
these leaders, and entered upon the campaign in this shape.
During the ballotings of the Republican Convention Mr. Blaine was upon
all save the last solidly supported by the California delegation and by
scattering votes. On the last day Hon. Charles A. Boutelle, Chairman of
the Maine delegation, read two cablegrams from Mr. Blaine, who was then
in Edinboro, Scotland, asking his friends to respect his Paris letter of
declination. It was at any time within the power of his friends to
nominate him, but his final refusal led nearly all of them to vote for
General Benjamin Harrison, of Indiana, at all times one of the leading
candidates before the Convention. There was no general combination, but
the nomination was largely traceable to the expediency of selecting both
of the candidates from pivotal States.
Summary of the Ballots.
│ │ │
│ Friday. │ Saturday. │ Monday.
─────────┼──────────────┼───────────┼──────────────
│ 1st 2d 3d│ 4th 5th│ 6th 7th 8th
Sherman, │ 229 249 244│ 235 224│ 244 231 119
Gresham, │ 111 108 123│ 98 87│ 91 91 59
Depew, │ 99 99 91│ Withdrawn.
Alger, │ 84 116 122│ 135 142│ 137 120 100
Harrison,│ 80 91 94│ 217 213│ 231 278 544
Allison, │ 72 75 88│ 88 99│ 73 76
Ingalls, │ 28 16 Withdrawn. │
Phelps, │ 25 18 5│ │
Rusk, │ 25 20 16│ │
Fitler, │ 24 Withdrawn. │
Hawley, │ 13 Withdrawn. │
Lincoln, │ 3 2 2│ 1 │ 2
McKinley,│ 2 3 8│ 11 14│ 12 16 4
Miller, │ 2│ │
Douglas, │ │ 1 │
Foraker, │ │ 1 │ 1 1
Grant, │ │ │ 1
Haymond, │ │ │ 1
Blaine, │ 35 33 35│ 42 48│ 40 15 5
─────────┼──────────────┼───────────┼──────────────
Total, │ 830 830 830│ 829 827│ 829 832 831
Mr. Griggs, of New Jersey, presented the name of William Walter Phelps,
of New Jersey, for Vice-President, which was seconded by Mr. Gibson, of
Ohio, Mr. Eagan, of Nebraska, and Mr. Oliver, of Iowa, and others.
Senator Warner Miller, of New York, presented the name of Hon. Levi P.
Morton, of New York, which was seconded by Mr. Sage, of California,
Governor Foster, of Ohio, Mr. Oliver, of South Carolina, General
Hastings, of Pennsylvania, and others.
Mr. McElwee, of Tennessee, presented the name of William R. Moore, of
that State.
One ballot was taken, resulting as follows:
Morton 591
Phelps 119
Bradly 103
Bruce 11
Thomas 1
The nomination was then made unanimous.
Mr. Boutelle, of Maine, then addressed the Chair and stated that he
desired to offer a resolution to be added to the platform, as follows:
“The first concern of all good government is the virtue and sobriety of
the people and the purity of the home. The Republican party cordially
sympathizes with all wise and well-directed efforts for the promotion of
temperance and morality.”
As soon as this was read there was a rush from the various States to
second the motion, and, after some time, the question was put and the
resolution adopted by a rising vote, only one delegate from Maryland
recording himself in the negative. In this way the above temperance
sentiment was made part of the platform. It was due largely to the
attitude of the Republican party within many of the States, where in the
current and previous year it favored high license laws and the
submission to a vote of the people prohibitory constitutional
amendments.
THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 1888.
Shortly after the adjournment of the National Conventions, the National
Committees of the two great parties opened headquarters in New York
City, Senator M. S. Quay being Chairman of the Republican National and
Executive committees, with full authority in one head, while ex-Senator
Barnum headed the Democratic National, and Calvin Brice its Executive
Committee. Both Committees devoted themselves to practical political
work, and the result was a greater expenditure of money than was ever
previously known. From information gathered by the writer, it can be
safely stated that the Democratic National Committee, with its drafts
upon the Federal office-holders, raised two millions of dollars, while
the Republican business men and manufacturers contributed one million
three hundred thousand to their National Committee. It was a business
battle, largely waged between the manufacturing and importing interests,
the smaller farmers being allies of the manufacturers, the planters
adhering to their support of the Free Trade tendencies of the Democratic
party. The literary and oratorical features of the canvass were not
neglected, and tariff discussion was the order of the day and the night
throughout the entire country. The pivotal States were, in the order of
their importance, New York, Indiana, Connecticut, New Jersey, West
Virginia, and California. From the day of General Harrison’s nomination,
Indiana became, and continued, the scene of the most intense political
excitement. Visiting delegations called upon the nominee from every town
and hamlet in the State, and the fever extended to adjacent States. The
ordeal was a most trying one for a candidate, and, for a time, there was
grave fear that a mistake might be made, or a trap sprung, like that of
Burchard’s upon Blaine in 1884; but General Harrison was singularly
fortunate in all of his remarks, and yet so earnest and able that his
own work soon began to be recognized as the best of the campaign.
President Cleveland was compelled by his official duties, and probably
by inclination, to keep out of even the speaking part of the campaign.
Senator Quay regarded New York as the sole key to the contest, and his
determination to carry that State, even at the risk of all others, was
maintained with the greatest firmness. The usual appeals came from
hopeful States, like Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and even
Delaware and Maryland, while alarming predictions as to Michigan,
Wisconsin, and Iowa flew thick and fast; but the Republican National
Chairman, wisely clothed with absolute authority as general of the
battle, kept up his steady assault upon New York, and organized so
closely that the usual frauds in New York City and Brooklyn became
impossible. The wisdom of this policy was confirmed by the result, and
to it is directly traceable the Republican victory which followed.
General Harrison carried New York by 14,000 plurality, while Governor
Hill, the Democratic candidate for reëlection, carried it by 18,000.
This apparent political phenomenon finds its explanation in the liquor
issue, which attracted wide attention throughout the State. Warner
Miller, the Republican candidate, favored high license, while Governor
Hill opposed it.
The Northwest, always before believed to be inclined to Free Trade, gave
surprising tariff majorities, while Kansas proved the banner Republican
State, giving over 80,000 for Harrison in a territory made up mostly by
farmers. Indeed, the farming excelled many of the manufacturing sections
in showing tariff or Republican gains.
Results proved to be very close in Connecticut, the two Virginias,
Maryland, and Tennessee, and for a time the attitude of the lower House
of Congress was in doubt. At this writing the Republican majority is
estimated at seven, and the new Congress will have to consider more than
a dozen contested seats. The Republicans made a net gain of one in the
Senate by their success in the counties of Sussex and Kent, in Delaware.
This was due to a quarrel between the Bayard and Saulsbury factions of
the State. New Jersey remained with the Democrats, and the Republicans
elected General Goff for Governor of West Virginia, with three Labor men
holding the balance of power in the Legislature.
ELECTORAL VOTE.
Harrison. Cleveland.
California 8 Alabama 10
Colorado 3 Arkansas 7
Illinois 22 Connecticut 6
Indiana 15 Delaware 3
Iowa 13 Florida 4
Kansas 9 Georgia 12
Maine 6 Kentucky 13
Massachusetts 14 Louisiana 8
Michigan 13 Maryland 8
Minnesota 7 Mississippi 9
Nebraska 5 Missouri 16
Nevada 3 New Jersey 9
New Hampshire 4 North Carolina 12
New York 36 South Carolina 9
Ohio 23 Tennessee 11
Oregon 3 Texas 13
Pennsylvania 30 Virginia 12
Rhode Island 4 West Virginia 6
Vermont 4 ———
Wisconsin 11 168
———
233
168
———
Harrison’s majority 65
Here is a majority of 65 electors, and yet less than 3000 votes in New
York, cast for Cleveland, would have reëlected him, but with grave
danger to the country, because of disputed results in the two Virginias.
THE POPULAR VOTE—1888.
Rep. Dem. Pro. Labor.
Alabama 57,197 117,320 583
Arkansas 58,752 85,962 614 10,613
California 124,809 117,899 5,761 1,591
Colorado 50,831 37,345 2,490 1,287
Connecticut 74,584 74,920 4,234 240
Delaware 12,950 16,414 400 1
Florida 26,659 39,561 403
Georgia 40,413 100,742 1,802 136
Illinois 370,241 348,360 21,562 8,556
Indiana 263,361 261,013 9,881 2,694
Iowa 211,598 179,877 3,550 9,105
Kansas 182,610 102,580 6,452 36,236
Kentucky 155,154 183,800 5,225 622
Louisiana 30,181 84,941 130
Maine 73,734 50,482 2,690 1,345
Maryland 99,761 106,172 5,358 1,241
Massachusetts 183,447 151,990 8,641
Michigan 236,307 213,404 20,942 4,542
Minnesota 142,492 104,385 15,341 1,097
Mississippi 30,096 85,476 218 22
Missouri 236,325 261,957 4,954 15,853
Nebraska 108,425 80,552 9,429 4,226
Nevada 7,088 5,149 41
N. Hampshire 45,728 43,457 1,570 13
New Jersey 144,344 151,493 7,904
New York 650,337 635,965 30,321 5,362
N. Carolina 134,784 147,902 2,788
Ohio 416,054 396,455 24,356 3,496
Oregon 33,293 26,524 1,677 363
Pennsylvania 526,223 446,934 20,758 3,873
Rhode Island 21,960 17,533 1,281
South Carolina 13,740 65,825
Tennessee 138,988 158,779 5,969 48
Texas 88,422 234,883 4,749 29,459
Vermont 45,192 16,788 1,459
Virginia 150,442 151,977 1,678
West Virginia 75,052 75,558 669 1,064
Wisconsin 176,553 155,232 14,277 8,552
──────────────────────────────────────────────────
Totals 5,438,157 5,535,626 250,157 150,624
ANALYSIS OF THE POPULAR VOTE.
In the following tables the vote is arranged according to sections: The
Northern States, the Middle or Border States, and the Gulf States.
THE NORTHERN STATES.
1884. │ 1888.
────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────
Rep. Dem. │ Rep. Dem.
Maine 72,209 52,140│ 72,659 49,730
N. Hampsh’e 43,249 39,183│ 45,728 43,444
Vermont 39,514 17,331│ 45,192 16,788
Massachus’ts 146,724 122,352│ 183,447 151,990
Rhode Island 19,030 12,391│ 21,960 17,533
Connecticut 65,923 67,199│ 74,584 74,920
New York 562,005 563,154│ 649,114 635,715
New Jersey 123,366 127,778│ 144,426 151,154
Penna. 473,804 392,785│ 526,223 446,934
Ohio 400,082 368,280│ 416,054 396,455
Indiana 238,463 244,990│ 263,361 261,013
Illinois 337,469 312,351│ 370,241 348,360
Michigan 192,669 149,835│ 236,307 213,404
Wisconsin 161,157 146,459│ 176,553 155,232
Iowa 197,089 177,316│ 211,592 177,899
Minnesota 111,685 70,065│ 136,359 99,664
Colorado 36,166 27,603│ 51,796 37,610
California 102,416 89,288│ 124,809 117,729
Kansas 154,406 90,132│ 182,610 102,580
Nebraska 76,912 54,391│ 108,425 80,552
Nevada 7,193 5,578│ 7,238 5,326
Oregon 26,860 24,604│ 33,293 26,524
────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────
Totals 3,608,965 3,153,912│4,081,971 3,610,556
Republican majority in 1888 471,415
Republican majority in 1884 455,053
———————
Republican gain 16,362
MIDDLE (OR BORDER) STATES.
1884. │ 1888.
────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────
Rep. Dem. │ Rep. Dem.
Delaware 12,951 16,964│ 12,950 16,414
Maryland 85,699 96,932│ 99,761 106,172
Virginia 139,356 145,497│ 150,442 151,977
W. Virginia 63,096 67,317│ 75,052 75,588
Kentucky 118,122 152,961│ 155,154 183,800
Tennessee 124,078 133,258│ 139,815 159,079
Arkansas 50,895 72,927│ 58,752 85,962
N. Carolina 125,068 142,950│ 134,784 147,902
Missouri 202,929 235,988│ 236,325 261,957
────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────
Totals 922,194 1,064,794│1,063,035 1,188,851
Democratic majority in 1884 142,600
Democratic majority in 1888 125,816
———————
Democratic loss 16,784
GULF STATES.
S. Carolina 21,733 69,890│ 13,740 65,825
Florida 28,031 31,766│ 26,659 39,561
Georgia 28,617 97,292│ 40,496 100,499
Alabama 59,444 92,973│ 56,197 117,320
Mississippi 43,509 76,510│ 30,096 85,476
Louisiana 46,347 62,540│ 30,181 84,941
Texas 93,141 225,309│ 88,442 234,883
────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────
Totals 328,822 656,280│ 285,811 728,505
Democratic majority in 1888 442,698
Democratic majority in 1884 327,458
———————
Democratic gain 115,240
PRESIDENT HARRISON’S MESSAGE ON THE CHILEAN TROUBLES.
In October, 1891, directly after the overthrow of Balmaceda by the
Congressionalists of Chile, U. S. Minister Egan sheltered a number of
political refugees, as did other foreign ministers. Both the government
and populace at Valparaiso took special umbrage at the action of the
authorities of the United States, and as a result a mob of citizens,
police and soldiers assaulted American sailors on shore, killing two and
wounding sixteen. President Harrison’s message, sent to Congress on the
25th of January, 1892, is the strongest state paper in behalf of the
rights of American citizens abroad yet given to the country. It explains
all of the facts as to the Chilean difficulties, and as well lays down
the principles which conduct his course. It was well received by the
American Congress, and compelled Chile to act promptly in answer to the
American demands. We quote its text, for it will be historically very
valuable:
TO THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES: In my Annual Message,
delivered to Congress at the beginning of the present session, after a
brief statement of the facts then in the possession of this government
touching the assault in the streets of Valparaiso, Chile, upon the
sailors of the United States steamship Baltimore, on the evening of
the 16th of October last, I said:
“This government is now awaiting the result of an investigation which
has been conducted by the criminal court at Valparaiso. It is reported
unofficially that the investigation is about completed, and it is
expected that the result will soon be communicated to this government,
together with some adequate and satisfactory response to the note by
which the attention of Chile was called to this incident. If these
just expectations should be disappointed, or further needless delay
intervene, I will, by a special message, bring this matter again to
the attention of Congress for such action as may be necessary.”
In my opinion the time has now come when I should lay before the
Congress and the country the correspondence between this government
and the government of Chile from the time of the breaking out of the
revolution against Balmaceda, together with all other facts in the
possession of the Executive Department relating to this matter.
The diplomatic correspondence is herewith transmitted, together with
some correspondence between the naval officers for the time in command
in Chilean waters and the Secretary of the Navy, and also the evidence
taken at the Mare Island navy yard since the arrival of the Baltimore
at San Francisco. I do not deem it necessary in this communication to
attempt any full analysis of the correspondence or of the evidence. A
brief restatement of the international questions involved, and of the
reasons why the responses of the Chilean government are unsatisfactory
is all that I deem necessary.
It may be well, at the outset, to say that whatever may have been said
in this country or in Chile in criticism of Mr. Egan, our minister at
Santiago, the true history of the exciting period in Chilean affairs,
from the outbreak of the revolution until this time, discloses no act
upon the part of Mr. Egan unworthy of his position, or that could
justly be the occasion of serious animadversion or criticism. He has,
I think, on the whole borne himself in very trying circumstances with
dignity, discretion and courage, and conducted the correspondence with
ability, courtesy and fairness.
It is worth while, also, at the beginning to say that the right of Mr.
Egan to give shelter in the legation to certain adherents of the
Balmaceda government who applied to him for asylum has not been denied
by the Chilean authorities, nor has any demand been made for the
surrender of these refugees.
That there was urgent need of asylum is shown by Mr. Egan’s note of
August 24, 1891, describing the disorders that prevailed in Santiago,
and by the evidence of Captain Schley as to the pillage and violence
that prevailed at Valparaiso. The correspondence discloses, however,
that the request of Mr. Egan for a safe conduct from the country, in
behalf of these refugees, was denied.
The precedents cited by him in the correspondence, particularly the
case of the revolution in Peru in 1865, did not leave the Chilean
government in a position to deny the right of asylum to political
refugees, and seemed very clearly to support Mr. Egan’s contention
that a safe conduct to neutral territory was a necessary and
acknowledged incident of the asylum. These refugees have very
recently, without formal safe conduct, but by the acquiescence of the
Chilean authorities, been placed on board the Yorktown, and are now
being conveyed to Callao, Peru.
This incident might be considered wholly closed but for the disrespect
manifested towards this government by the close and offensive police
surveillance of the legation premises which was maintained during most
of the period of the stay of the refugees therein.
After the date of my annual message and up to the time of the transfer
of the refugees to the Yorktown, the legation premises seem to have
been surrounded by police, in uniform, and police agents or
detectives, in citizens’ dress, who offensively scrutinized persons
entering or leaving the legation, and, on one or more occasions,
arrested members of the minister’s family.
Commander Evans, who, by my direction, recently visited Mr. Egan at
Santiago, in his telegram to the Navy Department described the
legation as “a veritable prison,” and states that the police agents or
detectives were, after his arrival, withdrawn during his stay. It
appears further, from the note of Mr. Egan, of November 20, 1891,
that, on one occasion at least, these police agents, whom he declares
to be known to him, invaded the legation premises, pounding upon its
windows and using insulting and threatening language towards persons
therein.
This breach of the right of a minister to freedom from police
espionage and restraint seems to have been so flagrant that the
Argentine minister, who was dean of the diplomatic corps, having
observed it, felt called upon to protest against it to the Chilean
Minister of Foreign Affairs. The Chilean authorities have, as will be
observed from the correspondence, charged the refugees and the inmates
of the legation with insulting the police; but it seems to me
incredible that men whose lives were in jeopardy and whose safety
could only be secured by retirement and quietness, should have sought
to provoke a collision which could only end in their destruction, or
to aggravate their condition by intensifying a popular feeling that at
one time so threatened the legation as to require Minister Egan to
appeal to the Minister of Foreign Affairs.
But the most serious incident disclosed by the correspondence is that
of the attack upon the sailors of the Baltimore in the streets of
Valparaiso on the 16th of October last. In my annual message, speaking
upon the information then in my possession, I said: “So far as I have
yet been able to learn, no other explanation of this bloody work has
been suggested than that it had its origin in hostility to those men
as sailors of the United States, wearing the uniform of their
government, and not in any individual act or personal animosity.”
We have now received from the Chilean government an abstract of the
conclusions of the Fiscal General upon the testimony taken by the
Judge of Crimes in an investigation which was made to extend over
three months. I very much regret to be compelled to say that this
report does not enable me to modify the conclusion announced in my
annual message. I am still of the opinion that our sailors were
assaulted, beaten, stabbed and killed, not for anything they or any of
them had done, but for what the government of the United States had
done, or was charged with having done by its civil officer and naval
commanders. If that be the true aspect of the case, the injury was to
the government of the United States, not to these poor sailors who
were assaulted in the manner so brutal and so cowardly.
Before attempting to give an outline of the facts upon which this
conclusion rests, I think it right to say a word or two upon the legal
aspect of the case. The Baltimore was in the harbor of Valparaiso by
virtue of that general invitation which nations are held to extend to
the war vessels of other powers with which they have friendly
relations. This invitation I think must be held ordinarily to embrace
the privilege of such communication with the shore as is reasonable,
necessary and proper for the comfort and convenience of the officers
and men of such vessels. Captain Schley testifies that when his vessel
returned to Valparaiso, on September 14th, the city officers, as is
customary, extended the hospitalities of the city to his officers and
crew.
It is not claimed that every personal collision or injury in which a
sailor or officer of such naval vessel visiting the shore may be
involved raises an international question; but I am clearly of the
opinion that where such sailors or officers are assaulted by a
resident population, animated by hostility to the government whose
uniform these sailors and officers wear, and in resentment of acts
done by their government, not by them, their nation must take notice
of the event as one involving an infraction of its rights and dignity,
not in a secondary way as where a citizen is injured and presents his
claim through his own government, but in a primary way, precisely as
if its minister or consul of the flag itself had been the object of
the same character of assault.
The officers and sailors of the Baltimore were in the harbor of
Valparaiso under the orders of their government, not by their own
choice. They were upon the shore by the implied invitation of the
government of Chile and with the approval of their commanding officer,
and it does not distinguish their case from that of a consul that his
stay is more permanent or that he holds the express invitation of the
local government to justify his longer residence. Nor does it affect
the question that the injury was the act of a mob. If there had been
no participation by the police or military in this cruel work, and no
neglect on their part to extend protection, the case would still be
one, in my opinion, when its extent and character are considered,
involving international rights.
The incidents of the affair are, briefly, as follows: On the 16th of
October last, Captain Schley, commanding the United States steamer
Baltimore, gave shore leave to 117 petty officers and sailors of his
ship. These men left the ship about 1.30 P.M. No incident of violence
occurred; none of our men were arrested; no complaint was lodged
against them; nor did any collision or outbreak occur until about 6
o’clock P.M. Captain Schley says that he was himself on shore and
about the streets until 5.40 P.M.; that he met very many of his men
who were upon leave; that they were sober and were conducting
themselves with propriety, saluting Chilean and other officers as they
met them. Other officers of the ship, and Captain Jenkins, of the
merchant ship Keweenaw, corroborate Captain Schley as to the general
sobriety and good behavior of our men.
The Sisters of Charity at the hospital to which our wounded men were
taken, when inquired of, stated that they were sober when received. If
the situation had been otherwise, we must believe that the Chilean
police authorities would have made arrests. About 6 P.M. the assault
began, and it is remarkable that the investigation by the Judge of
Crimes, though so protracted, does not enable him to give any more
satisfactory account of its origin than is found in the statement that
it began between drunken sailors. Repeatedly in the correspondence it
is asserted that it was impossible to learn the precise cause of the
riot. The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Matta, in his telegram to Mr.
Montt under date of December 31st, states that the quarrel began
between two sailors in a tavern, and was continued in the street,
persons who were passing joining in it.
The testimony of Talbot, an apprentice, who was with Riggin, is that
the outbreak in which they were involved began by Chilean sailor
spitting in the face of Talbot, which was resented by a knock-down. It
appears that Riggin and Talbot were at that time unaccompanied by any
others of their shipmates.
These two men were immediately beset by a crowd of Chilean citizens
and sailors, through which they broke their way to a street car and
entered it for safety. They were pursued, driven from the car, and
Riggin was so seriously beaten that he fell in the street apparently
dead. There is nothing in the report of the Chilean investigation made
to us that seriously impeaches this testimony. It appears from Chilean
sources that almost instantly, with a suddenness that strongly implies
premeditation and preparation; a mob, stated by the police authorities
at one time to number 2000, and at another 1000, was engaged in the
assault upon our sailors, who are represented as resisting “with
stones, clubs and bright arms.” The report of the Intendente of
October 30th states that the fight began at 6 P.M. in three streets,
which are named, that information was received at the intendencia at
6.15, and that the police arrived on the scene at 6.30, a full half
hour after the assault began. At that time he says that a mob of 2000
men had collected, and that for several squares there was the
appearance of a “real battle-field.”
The scene at this point is very graphically set before us by the
Chilean testimony. The American sailors, who, after so long an
examination, have not been found guilty of any breach of the peace, so
far as the Chilean authorities are able to discover, unarmed and
defenceless, are fleeing for their lives, pursued by overwhelming
numbers, and fighting only to aid their own escape from death or to
succor some mate whose life is in greater peril. Eighteen of them are
brutally stabbed and beaten, while one Chilean seems, from the report,
to have suffered some injury; but how serious or with what character
of weapon, or whether by a missile thrown by our men or by some of his
fellow-rioters is unascertained.
The pretense that our men were fighting “with stones, clubs, and
bright arms,” is, in view of these facts, incredible. It is further
refuted by the fact that our prisoners, when searched, were absolutely
without arms, only seven penknives being found in the possession of
the men arrested, while there were received by our men more than
thirty stab wounds, every one of which was inflicted in the back, and
almost every contused wound was in the back or back of the head. The
evidence of the ship’s officer of the day is that even the jack-knives
of the men were taken from them before leaving the ship.
As to the brutal nature of the treatment received by our men, the
following extract from the account given of the affair by the _La
Patria_ newspaper, of Valparaiso, of October 17th, cannot be regarded
as too friendly: “The Yankees, as soon as their pursuers gave chase,
went by way of the Calle del Arsenal towards the city car station. In
the presence of an ordinary number of citizens, among whom were some
sailors, the North Americans took seats in the street car to escape
from the stones which the Chileans threw at them. It was believed for
an instant that the North Americans had saved themselves from popular
fury, but such was not the case. Scarcely had the car begun to move,
when a crowd gathered around and stopped its progress.
“Under these circumstances, and without any cessation of the howling
and throwing of stones at the North Americans, the conductor entered
the car, and seeing the risk of the situation to the vehicle, ordered
them to get out. At the instant the sailors left the car, in the midst
of a hail of stones, the said conductor received a stone blow on the
head. One of the Yankee sailors managed to escape in the direction of
the plaza Wheelright, but the other was felled to the ground by a
stone. Managing to raise himself from the ground where he lay he
staggered in an opposite direction from the station. In front of the
house of Señor Mazzini he was again wounded, falling then senseless
and breathless.”
No amount of evasion or subterfuge is able to cloud our clear vision
of this brutal work. It should be noticed, in this connection that the
American sailors arrested, after an examination, were, during the four
days following the arrest, every one discharged, no charge of any
breach of the peace or other criminal conduct having been sustained
against a single one of them.
The Judge of Crimes, Foster, in a note to the Intendente, under date
of October 22d, before the dispatch from the government, of the
following day, which aroused the authorities of Chile to a better
sense of the gravity of the affair, says: “Having presided temporarily
over this court in regard to the seamen of the United States cruiser
Baltimore, who have been tried on account of the deplorable conduct
which took place.” The noticeable point here is that our sailors had
been tried before the 22d of October, and that the trial resulted in
their acquittal and return to their vessel.
It is quite remarkable and quite characteristic of the management of
this affair by the Chilean police authorities that we should now be
advised that seaman Davidson, of the Baltimore, has been included in
the indictment, his offence being so far as I have been able to
ascertain, that he attempted to defend a shipmate against an assailant
who was striking at him with a knife. The perfect vindication of our
men is furnished by this report; one only is found to have been guilty
of criminal fault, and that for an act clearly justifiable.
As to the part taken by the police in the affair, the case made by
Chile is also far from satisfactory. The point where Riggin was killed
is only three minutes walk from the police station and not more than
twice that distance from the Intendencia; and yet, according to their
official report, a full half hour elapsed after the assault began
before the police were upon the ground. It has been stated that all
but two of our men have said that the police did their duty. The
evidence taken at Mare Island shows that if such a statement was
procured from our men it was accomplished by requiring them to sign a
writing in a language they did not understand and by the
representation that it was a mere declaration that they had taken no
part in the disturbance. Lieutenant McCrea, who acted as interpreter,
says in his evidence that when our sailors were examined before the
Court the subject of the conduct of the police was so carefully
avoided that he reported the fact to Captain Schley on his return to
the vessel.
The evidences of the existence of animosity toward our sailors in the
minds of the Chilean navy and of the populace of Valparaiso are so
abundant and various as to leave no doubt in the mind of any one who
will examine the papers submitted. It manifested itself in threatening
and insulting gestures toward our men as they passed the Chilean
men-of-war in their boats, and in the derisive and abusive epithets
with which they greeted every appearance of an American sailor on the
evening of the riot.
Captain Schley reports that boats from the Chilean warships several
times went out of their course to cross the bows of his boats,
compelling them to back water. He complained of the discourtesy, and
it was corrected. That this feeling was shared by men of higher rank
is shown by an incident related by Surgeon Stitt, of the Baltimore.
After the battle of Placilla he, with other medical officers of the
war vessels in the harbor, was giving voluntary assistance to the
wounded in the hospitals. The son of a Chilean army officer of high
rank was under his care, and when the father discovered it he flew
into a passion and said he would rather have his son die than have
Americans touch him, and at once had him removed from the ward.
This feeling is not well concealed in the dispatches of the Foreign
Office, and had quite open expression in the disrespectful treatment
of the American Legation. The Chilean boatmen in the bay refused, even
for large offers of money, to return our sailors who crowded the Mole,
to their ship when they were endeavoring to escape from the city on
the night of the assault. The market boats of the Baltimore were
threatened, and even quite recently the gig of Commander Evans, of the
Yorktown, was stoned while waiting for him at the Mole.
The evidence of our sailors clearly shows that the attack was expected
by the Chilean people; that threats have been made against our men,
and that in one case, somewhat early in the afternoon, the keeper of
one house into which some of our men had gone, closed his
establishment in anticipation of the attack, which he advised them
would be made upon them as darkness came on.
In a report of Captain Schley to the Navy Department he says: “In the
only interview that I had with Judge Foster, who is investigating the
case relative to the disturbance before he was aware of the entire
gravity of the matter, he informed me that the entire assault upon my
men was the outcome of hatred for our people among the lower classes
because they thought we had sympathized with the Balmaceda Government
on account of the Itata matter, whether with reason or without he
could, of course, not admit; but such he thought was the explanation
of the assault at that time.”
Several of our men sought security from the mob by such complete or
partial changes in their dress as would conceal the fact of their
being seamen of the Baltimore, and found it then possible to walk the
streets without molestation. These incidents conclusively establish
that the attack was upon the uniform—the nationality—and not upon the
men.
The origin of this feeling is probably found in the refusal of this
government to give recognition to the Congressional party before it
had established itself, in the seizure of the Itata for an alleged
violation of the Neutrality law in the cable incident, and in the
charge that Admiral Brown conveyed information to Valparaiso of the
landing at Quinteros. It is not my purpose to enter here any defense
of the action of this government in these matters. It is enough for
the present purpose to say that if there was any breach of
international comity or duty on our part it should have been made the
subject of official complaint through diplomatic channels, or of
reprisals for which a full responsibility was assumed.
We cannot consent that these incidents and these perversions of the
truth shall be used to excite a murderous attack upon our unoffending
sailors and the Government of Chile go acquit of responsibility. In
fact the conduct of this government during the war in Chile pursued
those lines of international duty which we had so strongly insisted
upon on the part of other nations when this country was in the throes
of civil conflict. We continued the established diplomatic relations
with the government in power until it was overthrown, and promptly and
cordially recognized the new government when it was established.
The good offices of this government were offered to bring about a
peaceful adjustment, and the interposition of Mr. Egan to mitigate
severities and to shelter adherents of the Congressional party were
effective and frequent. The charge against Admiral Brown is too base
to gain credence with any one who knows his high personal and
professional character.
Recurring to the evidence of our sailors, I think it is shown that
there were several distinct assaults, and so nearly simultaneous as to
show that they did not spread from one point. A press summary of the
report of the Fiscal shows that the evidence of the Chilean officials
and others was in conflict as to the place of origin, several places
being named by different witnesses as to the locality where the first
outbreak occurred. This, if correctly reported, shows that there were
several distinct outbreaks, and so nearly at the same time as to cause
this confusion.
_La Patria_, in the same issue from which I have already quoted, after
describing the killing of Riggin and the flight which from that point
extended to the Mole, says: “At the same time in other streets of the
port the Yankee sailors fought fiercely with the people of the town,
who believed to see in them incarnate enemies of the Chilean navy.”
The testimony of Captain Jenkins, of the American merchant ship
Keweenaw, which had gone to Valparaiso for repairs, and who was a
witness of some part of the assault upon the crew of the Baltimore, is
strongly corroborative of the testimony of our own sailors when he
says that he saw Chilean sentries drive back a seaman, seeking
shelter, upon a mob that was pursuing him. The officers and men of
Captain Jenkins’ ship furnish the most conclusive testimony as to the
indignities which were practiced toward Americans in Valparaiso. When
American sailors even of merchant ships, can only secure their safety
by denying their nationality, it must be time to readjust our
relations with a government that permits such demonstrations.
As to the participation of the police, the evidence of our sailors
shows that our men were struck and beaten by police officers before
and after arrest, and that one, at least, was dragged with a lasso
about his neck by a mounted policeman. That the death of Riggin was
the result of a rifle shot fired by a policeman or soldier on duty is
shown directly by the testimony of Johnson, in whose arms he was at
the time, and by the evidence of Charles Langen, an American sailor,
not then a member of the Baltimore’s crew, who stood close and saw the
transaction. The Chilean authorities do not pretend to fix the
responsibility of this shot upon any particular person, but avow their
inability to ascertain who fired it, further than that it was fired
from a crowd.
The character of the wound, as described by one of the surgeons of the
Baltimore, clearly supports his opinion that it was made by a rifle
ball, the orifice of exit being as much as an inch or an inch and a
quarter in width. When shot, the poor fellow was unconscious, and in
the arms of a comrade, who was endeavoring to carry him to a
neighboring drug store for treatment. The story of the police, that in
coming up the street they passed these men and left them behind them
is inconsistent with their own statement as to the direction of their
approach and with their duty to protect them, and is clearly
disproved. In fact, Riggin was not behind, but in front of the
advancing force, and was not standing in the crowd, but was
unconscious and supported in the arms of Johnson when he was shot.
The communications of the Chilean government in relation to this cruel
and disastrous attack upon our men, as will appear from the
correspondence, have not in any degree taken the form of a manly and
satisfactory expression of regret, much less of apology. The event was
of so serious a character that if the injuries suffered by our men had
been wholly the result of an accident in a Chilean port, the incident
was grave enough to have called for some public expression of sympathy
and regret from the local authorities. It is not enough to say that
the affair was lamentable, for humanity would require that expression
even if the beating and killing of our men had been justifiable.
It is not enough to say that the incident is regretted, coupled with
the statement that the affair was not of an unusual character in ports
where foreign sailors are accustomed to meet. It is not for a generous
and sincere government to seek for words of small or equivocal meaning
in which to convey to a friendly power an apology for an offence so
atrocious as this. In the case of the assault by a mob in New Orleans
upon the Spanish consulate in 1851, Mr. Webster wrote to the Spanish
minister, Mr. Calderon, that the acts complained of were a
“disgraceful and flagrant breach of duty and propriety,” and that his
government “regrets them as deeply as Minister Calderon or his
government could possibly do;” that “these acts have caused the
President great pain, and he thinks a proper acknowledgment is due to
her Majesty’s government.” He invited the Spanish consul to return to
his post, guaranteeing protection, and offering to salute the Spanish
flag if the consul should come in a Spanish vessel. Such a treatment
by the government of Chile of this assault would have been more
creditable to the Chilean authorities; and much less can hardly be
satisfactory to a government that values its dignity and honor.
In our note of October 23d last, which appears in the correspondence,
after receiving the report of the board of officers appointed by
Captain Schley to investigate the affair, the Chilean government was
advised of the aspect which it then assumed, and called upon for any
facts in its possession that might tend to modify the unfavorable
impression which our report had created. It is very clear from the
correspondence that before the receipt of this note the examination
was regarded by the police authorities as practically closed. It was,
however, reopened and protracted through a period of nearly three
months. We might justly have complained of this unreasonable delay,
but in view of the fact that the government of Chile was still
provisional, and with a disposition to be forbearing and hopeful of a
friendly termination, I have awaited the report which has but recently
been made.
On the 21st instant I caused to be communicated to the government of
Chile, by the American minister at Santiago, the conclusions of this
government after a full consideration of all the evidence and of every
suggestion affecting this matter, and to these conclusions I adhere.
They were stated as follows:
“First—That the assault is not relieved of the aspect which the early
information of the event gave to it, viz: That an attack was made upon
the uniform of the United States Navy, having its origin and motive in
a feeling of hostility to this government, and not on any account of
the sailors or any of them.
“Second—That the public authorities of Valparaiso flagrantly failed in
their duty to protect our men, and that some of the police and of the
Chilean soldiers and sailors were themselves guilty of unprovoked
assaults upon our sailors before and after arrest. He (the President)
thinks the preponderance of the evidence and of the inherent
probabilities lead to the conclusion that Riggin was killed by the
police or soldiers.
“Third—That he (the President) is therefore compelled to bring the
case back to the position taken by this government in the note of Mr.
Wharton on October 23d last, *** and to ask for a suitable apology and
for some adequate reparation for the injury done to this country.”
In the same note the attention of the Chilean government was called to
the offensive character of a note addressed by Mr. Matta, its Minister
of Foreign Affairs, to Mr. Montt, its minister at this capital, on the
11th ult. This dispatch was not officially communicated to this
government, but as Mr. Montt was directed to translate it, and to give
it to the press of this country, it seemed to me that it could not
pass without official notice. It was not only undiplomatic, but
grossly insulting to our naval officers and to the Executive
Department, as it directly imputed untruth and insincerity to the
reports of the naval officers and to the official communications made
by the Executive Department to Congress. It will be observed that I
have notified the Chilean government that unless this note is at once
withdrawn and an apology as public as the offence made, I will
terminate diplomatic relations.
The request for the recall of Mr. Egan upon the ground that he was not
persona grata, was unaccompanied by any suggestion that could properly
be used in support of it, and I infer that the request is based upon
official acts of Mr. Egan, which have received the approval of this
government. But however that may be, I could not consent to consider
such a question until it had first been settled whether our
correspondence with Chile could be conducted upon a basis of mutual
respect.
In submitting these papers to Congress for that grave and patriotic
consideration which the questions involved demand, I desire to say
that I am of the opinion that the demands made of Chile by this
government should be adhered to and enforced. If the dignity as well
as the prestige and influence of the United States are not to be
wholly sacrificed we must protect those who, in foreign ports, display
the flag or wear the colors of this government against insult,
brutality, and death, inflicted in resentment of the acts of their
government, and not for any faults of their own. It has been my desire
in every way to cultivate friendly and intimate relations with all the
governments of this hemisphere.
We do not covet their territory; we desire their peace and prosperity.
We look for no advantage in our relations with them except the
increased exchanges of commerce upon a basis of mutual benefit. We
regret every civil contest that disturbs their peace and paralyzes
their development, and are always ready to give our good offices for
the restoration of peace. It must, however, be understood that this
government, while exercising the utmost forbearance towards weaker
powers, will extend its strong and adequate protection to its
citizens, to its officers, and to its humblest sailor, when made the
victims of wantonness and cruelty in resentment, not of their personal
misconduct, but of the official acts of their government.
Upon information received that Patrick Shields, an Irishman and
probably a British subject, but at the time a fireman of the American
steamer Keweenaw, in the harbor of Valparaiso for repairs, had been
subjected to personal injuries in that city—largely by the police—I
directed the Attorney-General to cause the evidence of the officers
and crew of that vessel to be taken upon its arrival in San Francisco,
and that testimony is also herewith transmitted.
The brutality and even savagery of the treatment of this poor man by
the Chilean police would be incredible if the evidence of Shields was
not supported by other direct testimony, and by the distressing
condition of the man himself when he was finally able to reach his
vessel. The captain of the vessel says:
“He came back a wreck: black from his neck to his hips, from beating;
weak and stupid, and is still in a kind of paralyzed condition, and
has never been able to do duty since.”
A claim for reparation has been made in behalf of this man, for, while
he was not a citizen of the United States, the doctrine long held by
us, as expressed in the Consular Regulations, is:
“The principles which are maintained by this government in regard to
the protection as distinguished from the relief of seamen are well
settled. It is held that the circumstance that the vessel is American
is evidence that the seamen on board are such; and in every regularly
documented merchant vessel the crew will find their protection in the
flag that covers them.”
I have as yet received no reply to our note of the 21st inst., but, in
my opinion, I ought not to delay longer to bring these matters to the
attention of Congress for such action as may be deemed appropriate.
BENJAMIN HARRISON.
EXECUTIVE MANSION, Jan. 25, 1892.
The National Conventions of 1892.
REPUBLICAN.
The National Republican Convention for 1892 was called to meet at
Minneapolis June 7th. The Convention was close at hand before any
candidates were named, other than President Harrison. In February Mr.
Blaine had written to Mr. Clarkson, Chairman of the National Convention,
saying that his name would not be presented as a candidate, and
declining in such positive terms that it was accepted as meaning what it
said at the time. Later on the opposition to the President’s nomination,
led by a syndicate of very strong names—Platt, of New York; Quay, of
Pennsylvania; Clarkson, of Iowa; Conger, of Ohio; Kellogg, of Louisiana;
Wolcott, of Colorado; Bourne, of Oregon; Filley, of Missouri—agreed to
present Mr. Blaine, upon the statement that he would accept if his
nomination was plainly for the good of the party. Three days preceding
the Convention Mr. Blaine suddenly resigned as Secretary of State, and
thus created the impression that he would accept and that he was a
candidate. The first effect of the resignation was to enthuse his
friends, many of them already assembled at Minneapolis, but when the
correspondence was published, and its terseness was traceable entirely
to Mr. Blaine’s haste, a great reaction followed in all parts of the
country, and groups of businessmen from all prominent towns and cities
wired their delegates of the change in sentiment, and as a rule they
were asked to re-nominate President Harrison. A feeling affected the
Blaine delegates, and many of the leaders began to look for a third man,
in the person of Major McKinley, the father of the tariff bill of 1890,
since chosen Governor of Ohio. Major McKinley himself voted for Harrison
and resisted a proposed stampede in his own behalf, which had been
planned to plump Ohio, Oregon and Pennsylvania solidly for McKinley. The
plan failed, partly because Harrison had gained largely over estimates
after New York had voted, and Pennsylvania cast 19 votes for him at the
only moment which could have been at all critical.
The Convention organized at noon on the 7th, with Major McKinley as its
President. The first contest was upon the question of the majority and
minority reports of the Committee on Contests, the majority being
adopted and generally regarded as a victory for the friends of Harrison.
The contests were important only in the case of Alabama, where two full
sets of delegates disputed for the seats.
Senator Wolcott, of Colorado, presented the name of Mr. Blaine, and it
was seconded by ex-Senator Warner Miller, of New York.
Ex-Secretary of the Navy Richard T. Thompson, of Indiana (on that day
eighty-three years of age, and a delegate to every previous Republican
National Convention), presented the name of President Harrison. It was
seconded by Chauncey M. Depew, of New York, in a speech remarkable for
its force and eloquence.
The first and only ballot was taken on the morning of June 10th, with
the following result:
THE BALLOT IN DETAIL.
─────────────────────────────────────────┬─────────┬─────────┬─────────
STATES. │Harrison.│ Blaine. │McKinley.
─────────────────────────────────────────┼─────────┼─────────┼─────────
Alabama │ 15│ 0│ 7
Arkansas │ 15│ 0│ 1
California │ 8│ 9│ 1
Colorado │ 0│ 8│ 0
Connecticut │ 4│ 0│ 8
Delaware │ 4│ 1│ 1
Florida │ 8│ 0│ 0
Georgia │ 26│ 0│ 0
Idaho │ 0│ 6│ 0
Illinois │ 34│ 14│ 0
Indiana │ 30│ 0│ 0
Iowa │ 20│ 5│ 1
Kansas │ 11│ 0│ 9
Kentucky │ 22│ 2│ 1
Louisiana │ 8│ 8│ 0
Maine │ 0│ 12│ 0
Maryland │ 14│ 0│ 2
Massachusetts │ 18│ 1│ 11
Michigan │ 7│ 2│ 19
Minnesota │ 8│ 9│ 1
Mississippi │ 13½│ 4½│ 0
Missouri │ 28│ 4│ 2
Montana │ 5│ 1│ 0
Nebraska │ 15│ 0│ 1
Nevada │ 0│ 6│ 0
New Hampshire │ 4│ 2│ 0
New Jersey │ 18│ 2│ 0
New York │ 27│ 35│ 10
North Carolina │ 17⅔│ 2⅔│ 1
North Dakota │ 2│ 4│ 0
Ohio │ 1│ 0│ 45
Oregon │ 1│ 0│ 7
Pennsylvania │ 19│ 3│ 42
Rhode Island │ 5│ 1│ 1
South Carolina │ 13│ 3│ 2
South Dakota │ 8│ 0│ 0
Tennessee │ 17│ 4│ 3
Texas │ 22│ 6│ 0
Vermont │ 8│ 0│ 0
Virginia │ 9│ 13│ 2
Washington │ 1│ 6│ 1
West Virginia │ 12│ 0│ 0
Wisconsin │ 19│ 2│ 3
Wyoming │ 4│ 2│ 0
│ │ │
TERRITORIES. │ │ │
Alaska │ 2│ 0│ 0
Arizona │ 1│ 1│ 0
Dist. of Columbia │ 0│ 2│ 0
Indian Territory │ 1│ 1│ 0
New Mexico │ 6│ 0│ 0
Oklahoma │ 2│ 0│ 0
Utah │ 2│ 0│ 0
─────────────────────────────────────────┼─────────┼─────────┼─────────
Total │ 535⅙│ 182⅙│ 182
─────────────────────────────────────────┴─────────┴─────────┴─────────
Absent and not voting, 1⅔.
Reed, of Maine, received 3 votes, and Lincoln, of Illinois, 1.
Major McKinley moved to make the nomination unanimous, and it was
adopted with great enthusiasm.
In response to the unanimous request of the New York delegation, Hon.
Whitelaw Reid was nominated for Vice-President by acclamation.
[See Book II. for Platform and Comparison of Platforms; Book III. for
speech of Hon. Chauncey M. Depew.]
DEMOCRATIC.
The Democratic National Convention assembled at Chicago, June 21st, and
its deliberations excited great interest because of the opposition of
the New York delegation to the nomination of Cleveland. Under the
leadership of Governor Hill, the New York Democracy, in the canvass of
1891, carried the State, electing Flower as Governor, and Hill as U. S.
Senator, the latter only after a severe contest and depriving three
Republican State Senators of their seats by contests settled before
partisan courts. The New York opposition to Cleveland, with the active
aid of Tammany, united upon Hill as a Presidential candidate. A “snap”
or mid-winter State Convention was called to elect delegates to the
National Convention, and 72 Hill men were chosen and instructed. This
system of forestalling public sentiment angered the Cleveland Democrats,
who signed a protest to the number of 200,000 and three months later
elected a contesting delegation, with instructions for Cleveland. Mr.
Croker, Tammany’s Chief, and State Chairman Murphy were the Hill leaders
at Chicago, and they gave early and public notice, in very bitter
language, that if nominated Cleveland could not carry New York.
Ex-Secretary of the Navy Whitney was the Cleveland leader, and he
readily mustered more than two-thirds of the Convention, and felt so
assured of victory that he advised the withdrawal of the contest against
Hill’s delegation. Singularly enough the minority desired the repeal of
the unit rule, for they had ascertained, after a careful canvass, that
Cleveland would lose enough votes to check and possibly prevent his
nomination if all of the delegates were permitted to vote separately.
The unit rule, however, was carefully re-enacted in the report of the
Committee on Rules.
Governor Wm. L. Wilson, of West Virginia, was elected President.
Governor Leon Abbett, of New Jersey, presented the name of Grover
Cleveland; William C. DeWitt, of New York, that of Senator David B.
Hill, and John M. Duncombe, of Iowa, that of Governor Boies. A ballot
was reached at 4 o’clock on the morning of the 23d, the Cleveland
leaders doing this to prevent combinations by the opposition.
THE BALLOT IN DETAIL.
─────────────────┬──────────┬─────┬──────┬───────┬───────────
STATES. │Cleveland.│Hill.│Boies.│Gorman.│Scattering.
─────────────────┼──────────┼─────┼──────┼───────┼───────────
Alabama │ 14│ 2│ 1│ 1│ 4
Arkansas │ 16│ 0│ 0│ 0│ 0
California │ 18│ 0│ 0│ 0│ 0
Colorado │ 0│ 3│ 5│ 0│ 0
Connecticut │ 12│ 0│ 0│ 0│ 0
Delaware │ 6│ 0│ 0│ 0│ 0
Florida │ 5│ 0│ 0│ 0│ 3
Georgia │ 17│ 5│ 0│ 4│ 0
Idaho │ 0│ 0│ 6│ 0│ 0
Illinois │ 48│ 0│ 0│ 0│ 0
Indiana │ 30│ 0│ 0│ 0│ 0
Iowa │ 0│ 0│ 26│ 0│ 0
Kansas │ 20│ 0│ 0│ 0│ 0
Kentucky │ 18│ 0│ 2│ 0│ 6
Louisiana │ 3│ 1│ 11│ 1│ 0
Maine │ 9│ 1│ 0│ 1│ 1
Maryland │ 6│ 0│ 0│ 9½│ 0
Massachusetts │ 24│ 4│ 1│ 0│ 1
Michigan │ 28│ 0│ 0│ 0│ 0
Minnesota │ 18│ 0│ 0│ 0│ 0
Mississippi │ 8│ 3│ 3│ 4│ 0
Missouri │ 34│ 0│ 0│ 0│ 0
Montana │ 0│ 0│ 6│ 0│ 0
Nebraska │ 15│ 0│ 0│ 1│ 0
Nevada │ 0│ 0│ 4│ 2│ 0
New Hampshire │ 8│ 0│ 0│ 0│ 0
New Jersey │ 20│ 0│ 0│ 0│ 0
New York │ 0│ 72│ 0│ 0│ 0
North Carolina │ 3⅓│ 1│ 0│ 0│ 17⅔
North Dakota │ 6│ 0│ 0│ 0│ 0
Ohio │ 14│ 6│ 16│ 5│ 5
Oregon │ 8│ 0│ 0│ 0│ 0
Pennsylvania │ 64│ 0│ 0│ 0│ 0
Rhode Island │ 8│ 0│ 0│ 0│ 0
South Carolina │ 2│ 3│ 13│ 0│ 0
South Dakota │ 7│ 0│ 1│ 0│ 0
Tennessee │ 24│ 0│ 0│ 0│ 0
Texas │ 23│ 1│ 6│ 0│ 0
Vermont │ 8│ 0│ 0│ 0│ 0
Virginia │ 12│ 11│ 0│ 1│ 0
Washington │ 8│ 0│ 0│ 0│ 0
West Virginia │ 7│ 1│ 0│ 3│ 1
Wisconsin │ 24│ 0│ 0│ 0│ 0
Wyoming │ 3│ 0│ 0│ 3│ 0
│ │ │ │ │
TERRITORIES │ │ │ │ │
Alaska │ 2│ 0│ 0│ 0│ 0
Arizona │ 5│ 0│ 0│ 1│ 0
Dist. of Columbia│ 2│ 0│ 0│ 0│ 0
New Mexico │ 4│ 1│ 1│ 0│ 0
Oklahoma │ 2│ 0│ 0│ 0│ 0
Utah │ 2│ 0│ 0│ 0│ 0
Indian Territory │ 2│ 0│ 0│ 0│ 0
─────────────────┼──────────┼─────┼──────┼───────┼───────────
Total │ 617⅓│ 115│ 103│ 36½│ 38⅔
─────────────────┴──────────┴─────┴──────┴───────┴───────────
Number of votes cast, 909½. Necessary to a choice, 607.
Of the scattering votes Campbell got two from Alabama.
Carlisle got 3 from Florida, 6 from Kentucky, 5 from Ohio. Total 14.
Stephenson got 16⅔ from North Carolina.
Pattison got 1 from West Virginia.
Russell got 1 from Massachusetts.
Whitney got 1 from Maine.
Adlai E. Stevenson, of Illinois, former Assistant Postmaster-General,
was nominated Vice-President on the first ballot, his chief competitor
being Senator Gray, of Indiana.
[See Book II. for Democratic National Platform and Comparison; Book III.
for Governor Abbett’s speech nominating Cleveland.]
A notable scene in the Convention was created by Mr. Neal, of Ohio, who
moved to substitute a radical free trade plank as a substitute for the
somewhat moderate utterances reported by ex-Secretary of the Interior
Vilas, who read the report of the Committee on Platform. The substitute
denounced the protective tariff as a fraud.
Mr. Neal made an earnest speech in support of his substitute and was
ably seconded by Mr. Watterson.
Mr. Vilas replied defending the majority report in a vigorous speech,
which was as generously applauded as that which preceded. The debate was
animated and made specially interesting by the suggestions and calls
from the galleries. The substitute was finally accepted by Chairman
Jones on behalf of the committee, but this did not satisfy the friends
of the substitute, who persisted in having a roll call upon its
adoption.
A synopsis of the platform was submitted to and received the approval of
Mr. Cleveland, and it was reported that the Neal substitute was prepared
by the anti-Cleveland leaders, and the fact that the roll call was
persisted in by the anti-Cleveland men gave color to this report.
There was a great deal of confusion and excitement preceding the roll
call, and its progress was watched with as much interest as though its
result was to decide the nomination. The States at the head of the roll
generally cast their votes according to what was believed to be the
feeling of their delegations on the Presidency, but later on the order
was more varied, States known to be for Cleveland casting their solid
vote for the substitute. New York was loudly cheered when the 72 votes
of the State were given for the substitute. It was a most inconsistent
vote, as Tammany is not regarded as a free trade organization—rather as
one favoring moderate tariffs. A ripple of excitement was occasioned
when Chairman Hensel cast the 64 votes of Pennsylvania against the
substitute. Mr. Wallace protested that 15 of the delegates favored the
substitute, and he demanded that the delegation be polled. A colloquy
followed between Hensel and Wallace on the rules of the Convention, and
the point raised by the former that Wallace’s motion was not in order
under the unit rules was sustained by the Chair.
The result of the vote was 564 for the substitute and 342 against it.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration: _John Jay_]
AMERICAN POLITICS.
BOOK II.
POLITICAL PLATFORMS.
THE FIRST POLITICAL PLATFORM ENUNCIATED IN THE UNITED STATES TO
COMMAND GENERAL ATTENTION WAS DRAWN BY MR. MADISON IN 1798, WHOSE
OBJECT WAS TO PRONOUNCE THE ALIEN AND SEDITION LAWS
UNCONSTITUTIONAL, AND TO DEFINE THE RIGHTS OF THE STATES.
Virginia Resolutions of 1798.
_Pronouncing the Alien and Sedition Laws to be unconstitutional, and
Defining the rights of the States.—Drawn by Mr. Madison._
_In the Virginia House of Delegates,
Friday, Dec. 21, 1798._
_Resolved_, That the General Assembly of Virginia doth unequivocally
express a firm resolution to maintain and defend the Constitution of the
United States, and the constitution of this state, against every
aggression either foreign or domestic; and that they will support the
government of the United States in all measures warranted by the former.
That this Assembly most solemnly declares a warm attachment to the Union
of the states, to maintain which it pledges its powers; and, that for
this end, it is their duty to watch over and oppose every infraction of
those principles which constitute the only basis of that Union, because
a faithful observance of them can alone secure its existence and the
public happiness.
That this Assembly doth explicitly and peremptorily declare, that it
views the powers of the federal government, as resulting from the
compact to which the states are parties, as limited by the plain sense
and intention of the instrument constituting that compact, as no farther
valid than they are authorized by the grants enumerated in that compact;
and that in case of a deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise of
other powers, not granted by the said compact, the states, who are
parties thereto, have the right, and are in duty bound, to interpose,
for arresting the progress of the evil, and for maintaining within their
respective limits the authorities, rights, and liberties appertaining to
them.
That the General Assembly doth also express its deep regret, that a
spirit has, in sundry instances, been manifested by the federal
government, to enlarge its powers by forced constructions of the
constitutional charter which defines them; and, that indications have
appeared of a design to expound certain general phrases (which, having
been copied from the very limited grant of powers in the former Articles
of Confederation, were the less liable to be misconstrued) so as to
destroy the meaning and effect of the particular enumeration which
necessarily explains, and limits the general phrases, and so as to
consolidate the states by degrees into one sovereignty, the obvious
tendency and inevitable result of which would be, to transform the
present republican system of the United States into an absolute, or at
best, a mixed monarchy.
That the General Assembly doth particularly protest against the palpable
and alarming infractions of the Constitution, in the two late cases of
the “Alien and Sedition Acts,” passed at the last session of Congress;
the first of which exercises a power nowhere delegated to the federal
government, and which, by uniting legislative and judicial powers to
those of executive, subverts the general principles of free government,
as well as the particular organization and positive provisions of the
Federal Constitution; and the other of which acts exercises, in like
manner, a power not delegated by the Constitution, out on the contrary,
expressly and positively forbidden by one of the amendments thereto; a
power which, more than any other, ought to produce universal alarm,
because it is levelled against the right of freely examining public
characters and measures, and of free communication among the people
thereon, which has ever been justly deemed the only effectual guardian
of every other right.
That this state having by its Convention, which ratified the Federal
Constitution, expressly declared, that among other essential rights,
“the liberty of conscience and the press cannot be cancelled, abridged,
restrained, or modified by any authority of the United States,” and from
its extreme anxiety to guard these rights from every possible attack of
sophistry and ambition, having with other states recommended an
amendment for that purpose, which amendment was, in due time, annexed to
the Constitution, it would mark a reproachful inconsistency, and
criminal degeneracy, if an indifference were now shown to the most
palpable violation of one of the rights, thus declared and secured; and
to the establishment of a precedent which may be fatal to the other.
That the good people of this commonwealth, having ever felt, and
continuing to feel the most sincere affection for their brethren of the
other states; the truest anxiety for establishing and perpetuating the
Union of all: and the most scrupulous fidelity to that Constitution,
which is the pledge of mutual friendship, and the instrument of mutual
happiness; the General Assembly doth solemnly appeal to the like
dispositions in the other States, in confidence that they will concur
with this commonwealth, in declaring, as it does hereby declare, that
the acts aforesaid are unconstitutional; and, that the necessary and
proper measures will be taken by each for co-operating with this state,
in maintaining unimpaired the authorities, rights, and liberties,
reserved to the states, respectively, or to the people.
That the governor be desired to transmit a copy of the foregoing
resolutions to the executive authority of each of the other states, with
a request that the same may be communicated to the legislature thereof;
and that a copy be furnished to each of the Senators and Representatives
representing this state in the Congress of the United States.
Attest, JOHN STEWART.
1798, December 24th. Agreed to by the Senate.
H. BROOKE.
A true copy from the original deposited in the office of the General
Assembly.
JOHN STEWART, Keeper of Rolls.
Extracts from the Address to the People, which accompanied the foregoing
resolutions:—
Fellow-Citizens: Unwilling to shrink from our representative
responsibility, conscious of the purity of our motives, but
acknowledging your right to supervise our conduct, we invite your
serious attention to the emergency which dictated the subjoined
resolutions. Whilst we disdain to alarm you by ill-founded jealousies,
we recommend an investigation, guided by the coolness of wisdom, and a
decision bottomed on firmness but tempered with moderation.
It would be perfidious in those intrusted with the guardianship of the
state sovereignty, and acting under the solemn obligation of the
following oath: “I do swear, that I will support the Constitution of
the United States,” not to warn you of encroachments, which, though
clothed with the pretext of necessity, or disguised by arguments of
expediency, may yet establish precedents, which may ultimately devote
a generous and unsuspicious people to all the consequences of usurped
power.
Encroachments, springing from a government whose organization cannot
be maintained without the co-operation of the states, furnish the
strongest incitements upon the state legislatures to watchfulness, and
impose upon them the strongest obligation to preserve unimpaired the
line of partition.
The acquiescence of the states under infractions of the federal
compact, would either beget a speedy consolidation, by precipitating
the state governments into impotency and contempt; or prepare the way
for a revolution, by a repetition of these infractions, until the
people are aroused to appear in the majesty of their strength. It is
to avoid these calamities, that we exhibit to the people the momentous
question, whether the Constitution of the United States shall yield to
a construction which defies every restraint and overwhelms the best
hopes of republicanism.
Exhortations to disregard domestic usurpations until foreign danger
shall have passed, is an artifice which may be for ever used; because
the possessors of power, who are the advocates for its extension, can
ever create national embarrassments, to be successively employed to
soothe the people into sleep, whilst that power is swelling silently,
secretly, and fatally. Of the same character are insinuations of a
foreign influence, which seize upon a laudable enthusiasm against
danger from abroad, and distort it by an unnatural application, so as
to blind your eyes against danger at home.
The sedition act presents a scene which was never expected by the
early friends of the Constitution. It was then admitted that the state
sovereignties were only diminished by powers specifically enumerated,
or necessary to carry the specified powers into effect. Now federal
authority is deduced from implication, and from the existence of state
law it is inferred that Congress possesses a similar power of
legislation; whence Congress will be endowed with a power of
legislation in all cases whatsoever, and the states will be stript of
every right reserved by the concurrent claims of a paramount
legislature.
The sedition act is the offspring of these tremendous pretensions,
which inflict a death wound on the sovereignty of these states.
For the honor of American understanding, we will not believe that the
people have been allured into the adoption of the Constitution by an
affectation of defining powers, whilst the preamble would admit a
construction which would erect the will of Congress into a power
paramount in all cases, and therefore limited in none. On the
contrary, it is evident that the objects for which the Constitution
was formed were deemed attainable only by a particular enumeration and
specification of each power granted to the federal government;
reserving all others to the people, or to the states. And yet it is in
vain we search for any specified power, embracing the right of
legislation against the freedom of the press.
Had the states been despoiled of their sovereignty by the generality
of the preamble, and had the federal government been endowed with
whatever they should judge to be instrumental towards union, justice,
tranquillity, common defence, general welfare, and the preservation of
liberty nothing could have been more frivolous than an enumeration of
powers.
All the preceding arguments rising from a deficiency of constitutional
power in Congress, apply to the alien act, and this act is liable to
other objections peculiar to itself. If a suspicion that aliens are
dangerous constitute the justification of that power exercised over
them by Congress, then a similar suspicion will justify the exercise
of a similar power over natives. Because there is nothing in the
Constitution distinguishing between the power of a state to permit the
residence of natives and aliens. It is therefore a right originally
possessed, and never surrendered by the respective states, and which
is rendered dear and valuable to Virginia, because it is assailed
through the bosom of the Constitution, and because her peculiar
situation renders the easy admission of artisans and laborers an
interest of vast importance.
But this bill contains other features, still more alarming and
dangerous. It dispenses with the trial by jury; it violates the
judicial system; it confounds legislative, executive, and judicial
powers; it punishes without trial; and it bestows upon the President
despotic power over a numerous class of men. Are such measures
consistent with our constitutional principles? And will an
accumulation of power so extensive in the hands of the executive, over
aliens, secure to natives the blessings of republican liberty?
If measures can mould governments, and if an uncontrolled power of
construction is surrendered to those who administer them, their
progress may be easily foreseen and their end easily foretold. A lover
of monarchy, who opens the treasures of corruption, by distributing
emolument among devoted partisans, may at the same time be approaching
his object, and deluding the people with professions of republicanism.
He may confound monarchy and republicanism, by the art of definition.
He may varnish over the dexterity which ambition never fails to
display, with the pliancy of language, the seduction of expediency, or
the prejudices of the times. And he may come at length to avow that so
extensive a territory as that of the United States can only be
governed by the energies of monarchy; that it cannot be defended,
except by standing armies; and that it cannot be united, except by
consolidation.
Measures have already been adopted which may lead to these
consequences. They consist:
In fiscal systems and arrangements, which keep a host of commercial
and wealthy individuals, embodied and obedient to the mandates of the
treasury.
In armies and navies, which will, on the one hand, enlist the tendency
of man to pay homage to his fellow-creature who can feed or honor him;
and on the other, employ the principle of fear, by punishing imaginary
insurrections, under the pretext of preventive justice.
In swarms of officers, civil and military, who can inculcate political
tenets tending to consolidation and monarchy, both by indulgences and
severities; and can act as spies over the free exercise of human
reason.
In restraining the freedom of the press, and investing the executive
with legislative, executive, and judicial powers, over a numerous body
of men.
And, that we may shorten the catalogue, in establishing by successive
precedents such a mode of construing the Constitution as will rapidly
remove every restraint upon federal power.
Let history be consulted; let the man of experience reflect; nay, let
the artificers of monarchy be asked what farther materials they can
need for building up their favorite system?
These are solemn, but painful truths; and yet we recommend it to you
not to forget the possibility of danger from without, although danger
threatens us from within. Usurpation is indeed dreadful, but against
foreign invasion, if that should happen, let us rise with hearts and
hands united, and repel the attack with the zeal of freemen, who will
strengthen their title to examine and correct domestic measures by
having defended their country against foreign aggression.
Pledged as we are, fellow-citizens, to these sacred engagements, we
yet humbly and fervently implore the Almighty Disposer of events to
avert from our land war and usurpation, the scourges of mankind; to
permit our fields to be cultivated in peace; to instill into nations
the love of friendly intercourse; to suffer our youth to be educated
in virtue; and to preserve our morality from the pollution invariably
incident to habits of war; to prevent the laborer and husbandman from
being harassed by taxes and imposts; to remove from ambition the means
of disturbing the commonwealth; to annihilate all pretexts for power
afforded by war; to maintain the Constitution; and to bless our nation
with tranquillity, under whose benign influence we may reach the
summit of happiness and glory, to which we are destined by Nature and
Nature’s God.
Attest, JOHN STEWART, C.H.D.
1799, Jan. 23. Agreed to by the Senate.
H. BROOKE, C.S.
A true copy from the original, deposited in the office of the General
Assembly.
JOHN STEWART, Keeper of Rolls.
Answers of the several State Legislatures.
STATE OF DELAWARE.—In the House of Representatives, Feb. 1, 1799.
Resolved, By the Senate and House of Representatives of the state of
Delaware, in General Assembly met, that they consider the resolutions
from the state of Virginia as a very unjustifiable interference with the
general government and constituted authorities of the United States, and
of dangerous tendency, and therefore not fit subject for the further
consideration of the General Assembly.
ISAAC DAVIS, Speaker of the Senate.
STEPHEN LEWIS, Speaker of the H. of R’s. Test—
JOHN FISHER, C.S.
JOHN CALDWELL, C.H.R.
STATE OF RHODE ISLAND AND PROVIDENCE PLANTATIONS.—In General Assembly,
February, A. D. 1799. Certain resolutions of the Legislature of
Virginia, passed on 21st of December last, being communicated to this
Assembly,
1. _Resolved_, That in the opinion of this legislature, the second
section of third article of the Constitution of the United States in
these words, to wit: The judicial power shall extend to all cases
arising under the laws of the United States, vests in the federal
courts, exclusively, and in the Supreme Court of the United States
ultimately, the authority of deciding on the constitutionality of any
act or law of the Congress of the United States.
2. _Resolved_, That for any state legislature to assume that authority,
would be,
1st. Blending together legislative and judicial powers.
2d. Hazarding an interruption of the peace of the states by civil
discord, in case of a diversity of opinions among the state
legislatures; each state having, in that case, no resort for vindicating
its own opinions, but to the strength of its own arm.
3d. Submitting most important questions of law to less competent
tribunals; and
4th. An infraction of the Constitution of the United States, expressed
in plain terms.
3. _Resolved_, That although for the above reasons, this legislature, in
their public capacity, do not feel themselves authorized to consider and
decide on the constitutionality of the sedition and alien laws (so
called); yet they are called upon by the exigency of this occasion, to
declare, that in their private opinions, these laws are within the
powers delegated to Congress, and promotive of the welfare of the United
States.
4. _Resolved_, That the governor communicate these resolutions to the
supreme executive of the state of Virginia, and at the same time express
to him that this legislature cannot contemplate, without extreme concern
and regret, the many evil and fatal consequences which may flow from the
very unwarrantable resolutions aforesaid, of the legislature of
Virginia, passed on the twenty-first day of December last.
A true copy. SAMUEL EDDY, Sec.
COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS.—In Senate, Feb. 9, 1799. The legislature
of Massachusetts having taken into serious consideration the resolutions
of the State of Virginia, passed the 21st day of December last, and
communicated by his excellency the governor, relative to certain
supposed infractions of the Constitution of the United States, by the
government thereof, and being convinced that the Federal Constitution is
calculated to promote the happiness, prosperity, and safety of the
people of these United States, and to maintain that union of the several
states, so essential to the welfare of the whole; and being bound by
solemn oath to support and defend that Constitution, feel it unnecessary
to make any professions of their attachment to it, or of their firm
determination to support it against every aggression, foreign or
domestic.
But they deem it their duty solemnly to declare, that while they hold
sacred the principle, that consent of the people is the only pure source
of just and legitimate power, they cannot admit the right of the state
legislatures to denounce the administration of that government to which
the people themselves, by a solemn compact, have exclusively committed
their national concerns: That, although a liberal and enlightened
vigilance among the people is always to be cherished, yet an
unreasonable jealousy of the men of their choice, and a recurrence to
measures of extremity, upon groundless or trivial pretexts, have a
strong tendency to destroy all rational liberty at home, and to deprive
the United States of the most essential advantages in their relations
abroad: That this legislature are persuaded that the decision of all
cases in law and equity, arising under the Constitution of the United
States, and the construction of all laws made in pursuance thereof, are
exclusively vested by the people in the judicial courts of the United
States.
That the people in that solemn compact, which is declared to be the
supreme law of the land, have not constituted the state legislatures the
judges of the acts or measures of the federal government, but have
confided to them the power of proposing such amendments of the
Constitution, as shall appear to them necessary to the interests, or
conformable to the wishes of the people whom they represent.
That by this construction of the Constitution, an amicable and
dispassionate remedy is pointed out for any evil which experience may
prove to exist, and the peace and prosperity of the United States may be
preserved without interruption.
But, should the respectable state of Virginia persist in the assumption
of the right to declare the acts of the national government
unconstitutional, and should she oppose successfully her force and will
to those of the nation, the Constitution would be reduced to a mere
cipher, to the form and pageantry of authority, without the energy of
power. Every act of the federal government which thwarted the views or
checked the ambitious projects of a particular state, or of its leading
and influential members, would be the object of opposition and of
remonstrance; while the people, convulsed and confused by the conflict
between two hostile jurisdictions, enjoying the protection of neither,
would be wearied into a submission to some bold leader, who would
establish himself on the ruins of both.
The legislature of Massachusetts, although they do not themselves claim
the right, nor admit the authority of any of the state governments, to
decide upon the constitutionality of the acts of the federal government,
still, lest their silence should be construed into disapprobation, or at
best into a doubt of the constitutionality of the acts referred to by
the State of Virginia; and, as the General Assembly of Virginia has
called for an expression of their sentiments, do explicitly declare,
that they consider the acts of Congress, commonly called “the alien and
sedition acts,” not only constitutional, but expedient and necessary:
That the former act respects a description of persons whose rights were
not particularly contemplated in the Constitution of the United States,
who are entitled only to a temporary protection, while they yield a
temporary allegiance; a protection which ought to be withdrawn whenever
they become “dangerous to the public safety,” or are found guilty of
“treasonable machination” against the government: That Congress having
been especially intrusted by the people with the general defence of the
nation, had not only the right, but were bound to protect it against
internal as well as external foes. That the United States, at the time
of passing the _act concerning aliens_, were threatened with actual
invasion, had been driven by the unjust and ambitious conduct of the
French government into warlike preparations, expensive and burthensome,
and had then, within the bosom of the country, thousands of aliens, who,
we doubt not, were ready to co-operate in any external attack.
It cannot be seriously believed, that the United States should have
waited till the poignard had in fact been plunged. The removal of aliens
is the usual preliminary of hostility, and is justified by the
invariable usages of nations. Actual hostility had unhappily long been
experienced, and a formal declaration of it the government had reason
daily to expect. The law, therefore, was just and salutary, and no
officer could, with so much propriety, be intrusted with the execution
of it, as the one in whom the Constitution has reposed the executive
power of the United States.
The _sedition act_, so called, is, in the opinion of this legislature,
equally defensible. The General Assembly of Virginia, in their resolve
under consideration, observe, that when that state by its convention
ratified the Federal Constitution, it expressly declared, “That, among
other essential rights, the liberty of conscience and of the press
cannot be cancelled, abridged, restrained, or modified by any authority
of the United States,” and from its extreme anxiety to guard these
rights from every possible attack of sophistry or ambition, with other
states, recommend an amendment for that purpose: which amendment was, in
due time, annexed to the Constitution; but they did not surely expect
that the proceedings of their state convention were to explain the
amendment adopted by the Union. The words of that amendment, on this
subject, are, “Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of
speech or of the press.”
The act complained of is no abridgment of the freedom of either. The
genuine liberty of speech and the press, is the liberty to utter and
publish the truth; but the constitutional right of the citizen to utter
and publish the truth, is not to be confounded with the licentiousness
in speaking and writing, that is only employed in propagating falsehood
and slander. This freedom of the press has been explicitly secured by
most, if not all, the state constitutions; and of this provision there
has been generally but one construction among enlightened men; that it
is a security for the rational use and not the abuse of the press; of
which the courts of law, the juries, and people will judge; this right
is not infringed, but confirmed and established by the late act of
Congress.
By the Constitution, the legislative, executive, and judicial
departments of government are ordained and established; and general
enumerated powers vested in them respectively, including those which are
prohibited to the several states. Certain powers are granted in general
terms by the people to their general government, for the purposes of
their safety and protection. The government is not only empowered, but
it is made their duty to repel invasions and suppress insurrections; to
guaranty to the several states a republican form of government; to
protect each state against invasion, and, when applied to, against
domestic violence; to hear and decide all cases in law and equity,
arising under the Constitution, and under any treaty or law made in
pursuance thereof; and all cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction,
and relating to the law of nations. Whenever, therefore, it becomes
necessary to effect any of the objects designated, it is perfectly
consonant to all just rules of construction, to infer, that the usual
means and powers necessary to the attainment of that object, are also
granted: But the Constitution has left no occasion to resort to
implication for these powers; it has made an express grant of them, in
the 8th section of the first article, which ordains, “That Congress
shall have power to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper
for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers
vested by the Constitution in the government of the United States or in
any department or officer thereof.”
This Constitution has established a Supreme Court of the United States,
but has made no provisions for its protection, even against such
improper conduct in its presence, as might disturb its proceedings,
unless expressed in the section before recited. But as no statute has
been passed on this subject, this protection is, and has been for nine
years past, uniformly found in the application of the principles and
usages of the common law. The same protection may unquestionably be
afforded by a statute passed in virtue of the before-mentioned section,
as necessary and proper, for carrying into execution the powers vested
in that department. A construction of the different parts of the
Constitution, perfectly just and fair, will, on analogous principles,
extend protection and security against the offences in question, to the
other departments of government, in discharge of their respective
trusts.
The President of the United States is bound by his oath “to preserve,
protect, and defend the Constitution,” and it is expressly made his
duty, “to take care that the laws be faithfully executed;” but this
would be impracticable by any created being, if there could be no legal
restraint of those scandalous misrepresentations of his measures and
motives, which directly tend to rob him of the public confidence. And
equally impotent would be every other public officer, if thus left to
the mercy of the seditious.
It is holden to be a truth most clear, that the important trusts before
enumerated cannot be discharged by the government to which they are
committed, without the power to restrain seditious practices and
unlawful combinations against itself, and to protect the officers
thereof from abusive misrepresentations. Had the Constitution withheld
this power, it would have made the government responsible for the
effects without any control over the causes which naturally produce
them, and would have essentially failed of answering the great ends for
which the people of the United States declare, in the first clause of
that instrument, that they establish the same, viz: “To form a more
perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide
for the common defence, promote the general warfare, and secure the
blessings of liberty to ourselves and posterity.”
Seditious practices and unlawful combinations against the federal
government, or any officer thereof, in the performance of his duty, as
well as licentiousness of speech and of the press, were punishable on
the principles of common law in the courts of the United States, before
the act in question was passed. This act then is an amelioration of that
law in favor of the party accused, as it mitigates the punishment which
that authorizes, and admits of any investigation of public men and
measures which is regulated by truth. It is not intended to protect men
in office, only as they are agents of the people. Its object is to
afford legal security to public offices and trusts created for the
safety and happiness of the people, and therefore the security derived
from it is for the benefit of the people, and is their right.
The construction of the Constitution and of the existing law of the
land, as well as the act complained of, the legislature of Massachusetts
most deliberately and firmly believe results from a just and full view
of the several parts of the Constitution: and they consider that act to
be wise and necessary, as an audacious and unprincipled spirit of
falsehood and abuse had been too long unremittingly exerted for the
purpose of perverting public opinion, and threatened to undermine and
destroy the whole fabric of government.
The legislature further declare, that in the foregoing sentiments they
have expressed the general opinion of their constituents, who have not
only acquiesced without complaint in those particular measures of the
federal government, but have given their explicit approbation by
re-electing those men who voted for the adoption of them. Nor is it
apprehended, that the citizens of this state will be accused of
supineness or of an indifference to their constitutional rights; for
while, on the one hand, they regard with due vigilance the conduct of
the government, on the other, their freedom, safety and happiness
require, that they should defend that government and its constitutional
measures against the open or insidious attacks of any foe, whether
foreign or domestic.
And, lastly, that the legislature of Massachusetts feel a strong
conviction, that the several United States are connected by a common
interest which ought to render their union indissoluble, and that this
state will always co-operate with its confederate states in rendering
that union productive of mutual security, freedom, and happiness.
Sent down for concurrence.
SAMUEL PHILIPS, President.
In the House of Representatives, Feb. 13, 1799.
Read and concurred.
EDWARD H. ROBBINS, Speaker.
A true copy. Attest,
JOHN AVERY, Secretary.
STATE OF NEW YORK.—In Senate, March 5, 1799.—Whereas, the people of the
United States have established for themselves a free and independent
national government: And whereas it is essential to the existence of
every government, that it have authority to defend and preserve its
constitutional powers inviolate, inasmuch as every infringement thereof
tends to its subversion: And whereas the judicial power extends
expressly to all cases of law and equity arising under the Constitution
and the laws of the United States whereby the interference of the
legislatures of the particular states in those cases is manifestly
excluded: And whereas our peace, prosperity, and happiness, eminently
depend on the preservation of the Union, in order to which, a reasonable
confidence in the constituted authorities and chosen representatives of
the people is indispensable: And whereas every measure calculated to
weaken that confidence has a tendency to destroy the usefulness of our
public functionaries, and to excite jealousies equally hostile to
rational liberty, and the principles of a good republican government:
And whereas the Senate, not perceiving that the rights of the particular
states have been violated, nor any unconstitutional powers assumed by
the general government, cannot forbear to express the anxiety and regret
with which they observe the inflammatory and pernicious sentiments and
doctrines which are contained in the resolutions of the legislatures of
Virginia and Kentucky—sentiments and doctrines, no less repugnant to the
Constitution of the United States, and the principles of their union,
than destructive to the Federal government and unjust to those whom the
people have elected to administer it: wherefore, _Resolved_, That while
the Senate feel themselves constrained to bear unequivocal testimony
against such sentiments and doctrines, they deem it a duty no less
indispensable, explicitly to declare their incompetency, as a branch of
the legislature of this state, to supervise the acts of the general
government.
_Resolved_, That his Excellency, the Governor, be, and he is hereby
requested to transmit a copy of the foregoing resolution to the
executives of the states of Virginia and Kentucky, to the end that the
same may be communicated to the legislatures thereof.
A true copy.
ABM. B. BAUCKER, Clerk.
STATE OF CONNECTICUT.—At a General Assembly of the state of Connecticut,
holden at Hartford, in the said state, on the second Thursday of May,
Anno Domini 1799, his excellency the governor having communicated to
this assembly sundry resolutions of the legislature of Virginia, adopted
in December, 1798, which relate to the measures of the general
government; and the said resolutions having been considered, it is
_Resolved_, That this Assembly views with deep regret, and explicitly
disavows, the principles contained in the aforesaid resolutions; and
particularly the opposition to the “Alien and Sedition Acts”—acts which
the Constitution authorized; which the exigency of the country rendered
necessary; which the constituted authorities have enacted, and which
merit the entire approbation of this Assembly. They, therefore,
decidedly refuse to concur with the legislature of Virginia, in
promoting any of the objects attempted in the aforesaid resolutions.
And it is further resolved, That his excellency the governor be
requested to transmit a copy of the foregoing resolution to the governor
of Virginia, that it may be communicated to the legislature of that
state.
Passed in the House of Representatives unanimously.
Attest, JOHN C. SMITH, Clerk.
Concurred, unanimously, in the upper House.
Teste, SAM. WYLLYS, Sec’y.
STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE.—In the House of Representatives, June 14,
1799.—The committee to take into consideration the resolutions of the
General Assembly of Virginia, dated December 21, 1798; also certain
resolutions of the legislature of Kentucky, of the 10th of November,
1798; report as follows:—
The legislature of New Hampshire, having taken into consideration
certain resolutions of the General Assembly of Virginia, dated December
21, 1798; also certain resolutions of the legislature of Kentucky, of
the 10th of November, 1798,—
_Resolved_, That the legislature of New Hampshire unequivocally express
a firm resolution to maintain and defend the Constitution of the United
States, and the constitution of this state, against every aggression,
either foreign or domestic, and that they will support the government of
the United States in all measures warranted by the former.
That the state legislatures are not the proper tribunals to determine
the constitutionality of the laws of the general government; that the
duty of such decision is properly and exclusively confided to the
judicial department.
That if the legislature of New Hampshire, for mere speculative purposes,
were to express an opinion on the acts of the general government,
commonly called “the Alien and Sedition Bills,” that opinion would
unreservedly be, that those acts are constitutional and, in the present
critical situation of our country, highly expedient.
That the constitutionality and expediency of the acts aforesaid have
been very ably advocated and clearly demonstrated by many citizens of
the United States, more especially by the minority of the General
Assembly of Virginia. The legislature of New Hampshire, therefore, deem
it unnecessary, by any train of arguments, to attempt further
illustration of the propositions, the truth of which, it is confidently
believed, at this day, is very generally seen and acknowledged.
Which report, being read and considered, was unanimously received and
accepted, one hundred and thirty-seven members being present.
Sent up for concurrence.
JOHN PRENTICE, Speaker.
In Senate, same day, read and concurred in unanimously.
AMOS SHEPARD, President.
Approved June 15, 1799.
J. T. GILMAN, Governor.
A true copy.
Attest, JOSEPH PEARSON, Sec’y.
STATE OF VERMONT.—In the House of Representatives, October 30, A. D.
1799.—The House proceeded to take under their consideration the
resolutions of the General Assembly of Virginia, relative to certain
measures of the general government, transmitted to the legislature of
this state for their consideration; whereupon,
_Resolved_, that the General Assembly of the state of Vermont do highly
disapprove of the resolutions of the General Assembly of the state of
Virginia, as being unconstitutional in their nature and dangerous in
their tendency. It belongs not to state legislatures to decide on the
constitutionality of the laws made by the general government; this power
being exclusively vested in judiciary courts of the Union.
That his excellency the governor be requested to transmit a copy of this
resolution to the executive of Virginia, to be communicated to the
General Assembly of that state; and that the same be sent to the
Governor and Council for their concurrence.
SAMUEL C. CRAFTS, Clerk.
In Council, October 30, 1799.—Read and concurred in unanimously.
RICHARD WHITNEY, Sec’y.
Resolutions of 1798 and 1799.
(The original draught prepared by Thomas Jefferson.)
The following resolutions passed the House of Representatives of
Kentucky, Nov. 10, 1798. On the passage of the first resolution, one
dissentient; 2d, 3d, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, two dissentients; 9th,
three dissentients.
1. _Resolved_, That the several states composing the United States of
America, are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to
their general government; but that by compact under the style and title
of a Constitution for the United States, and of amendments thereto, they
constituted a general government for special purposes, delegated to that
government certain definite powers, reserving, each state to itself, the
residuary mass of right to their own self-government: and, that
whensoever the general government assumes undelegated powers, its acts
are unauthoritative, void, and of no force; that to this compact each
state acceded as a state, and is an integral party; that this
government, created by this compact, was not made the exclusive or final
judge of the extent of the powers delegated to itself; since that would
have made its discretion, and not the Constitution, the measure of its
powers; but, that as in all other cases of compact among parties having
no common judge, each party has an equal right to judge for itself, as
well of infractions as of the mode and measure of redress.
2. _Resolved_, That the Constitution of the United States having
delegated to Congress a power to punish treason, counterfeiting the
securities and current coin of the United States, piracies and felonies
committed on the high seas, and offences against the laws of nations,
and no other crimes whatever; and it being true, as a general principle,
and one of the amendments to the Constitution having also declared,
“that the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution,
nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states
respectively, or to the people,” therefore also the same act of
Congress, passed on the 14th day of July, 1798, and entitled “An act in
addition to the act entitled An act for the punishment of certain crimes
against the United States;” as also the act passed by them on the 27th
day of June, 1798, entitled “An act to punish frauds committed on the
Bank of the United States,” (and all other their acts which assume to
create, define, or punish crimes other than those enumerated in the
Constitution), are altogether void and of no force, and that the power
to create, define, and punish such other crimes is reserved, and of
right appertains solely and exclusively to the respective states, each
within its own territory.
3. _Resolved_, That it is true, as a general principle, and is also
expressly declared by one of the amendments to the Constitution, that
“the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor
prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively,
or to the people;” and that no power over the freedom of religion,
freedom of speech, or freedom of the press being delegated to the United
States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, all
lawful powers respecting the same did of right remain, and were reserved
to the states or to the people; that thus was manifested their
determination to retain to themselves the right of judging how far the
licentiousness of speech and of the press may be abridged without
lessening their useful freedom, and how far those abuses which cannot be
separated from their use should be tolerated rather than the use be
destroyed; and thus also they guarded against all abridgment by the
United States, of the freedom of religious principles and exercises, and
retained to themselves the right of protecting the same, as this, stated
by a law passed on the general demand of its citizens, had already
protected them from all human restraint or interference: and that, in
addition to this general principle and express declaration, another and
more special provision has been made by one of the amendments to the
Constitution, which expressly declares, that “Congress shall make no
laws respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free
exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press,”
thereby guarding in the same sentence, and under the same words, the
freedom of religion, of speech, and of the press, insomuch that whatever
violates either, throws down the sanctuary which covers the others; and
that libels, falsehood, and defamation, equally with heresy and false
religion, are withheld from the cognisance of federal tribunals. That
therefore the act of the Congress of the United States, passed on the
14th of July, 1798, entitled “An act in addition to the act entitled An
act for the punishment of certain crimes against the United States,”
which does abridge the freedom of the press, is not law, but is
altogether void and of no force.
4. _Resolved_, That alien friends are under the jurisdiction and
protection of the laws of the state wherein they are: that no power over
them has been delegated to the United States, nor prohibited to the
individual states distinct from their power over citizens; and it being
true, as a general principle, and one of the amendments to the
Constitution having also declared, that “the powers not delegated to the
United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited to the states, are
reserved to the states respectively, or to the people,” the act of the
Congress of the United States, passed the 22d day of June, 1798,
entitled “An act concerning aliens,” which assumes power over alien
friends not delegated by the Constitution, is not law, but is altogether
void and of no force.
5. _Resolved_, That in addition to the general principle as well as the
express declaration, that powers not delegated are reserved, another and
more special provision inferred in the Constitution, from abundant
caution has declared, “that the migration or importation of such persons
as any of the states now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not
be prohibited by the Congress prior to the year 1808.” That this
commonwealth does admit the migration of alien friends described as the
subject of the said act concerning aliens; that a provision against
prohibiting their migration, is a provision against all acts equivalent
thereto, or it would be nugatory; that to remove them when migrated is
equivalent to a prohibition of their migration, and is, therefore,
contrary to the said provision of the Constitution, and void.
6. _Resolved_, That the imprisonment of a person under the protection of
the laws of this commonwealth on his failure to obey the simple order of
the President to depart out of the United States, as is undertaken by
the said act, entitled, “An act concerning aliens,” is contrary to the
Constitution, one amendment in which has provided, that “no person shall
be deprived of liberty without due process of law,” and, that another
having provided, “that in all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall
enjoy the right to a public trial by an impartial jury, to be informed
as to the nature and cause of the accusation, to be confronted with the
witnesses against him, to have compulsory process for obtaining
witnesses in his favor, and to have assistance of counsel for his
defence,” the same act undertaking to authorize the President to remove
a person out of the United States who is under the protection of the
law, on his own suspicion, without jury, without public trial, without
confrontation of the witnesses against him, without having witnesses in
his favor, without defence, without counsel, is contrary to these
provisions also of the Constitution, is therefore not law, but utterly
void and of no force.
That transferring the power of judging any person who is under the
protection of the laws, from the courts to the President of the United
States, as is undertaken by the same act concerning aliens, is against
the article of the Constitution which provides, that “the judicial power
of the United States shall be vested in the courts, the judges of which
shall hold their office during good behavior,” and that the said act is
void for that reason also; and it is further to be noted that this
transfer of judiciary power is to that magistrate of the general
government who already possesses all the executive, and a qualified
negative in all the legislative powers.
7. _Resolved_, That the construction applied by the general government
(as is evident by sundry of their proceedings) to those parts of the
Constitution of the United States which delegate to Congress power to
lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, excises; to pay the debts, and
provide for the common defence and general welfare of the United States,
and to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying
into execution the powers vested by the Constitution in the government
of the United States, or any department thereof, goes to the destruction
of all the limits prescribed to their power by the Constitution: That
words meant by that instrument to be subsidiary only to the execution of
the limited powers, ought not to be so construed as themselves to give
unlimited powers, nor a part so to be taken as to destroy the whole
residue of the instrument: That the proceedings of the general
government under color of those articles, will be a fit and necessary
subject for revisal and correction at a time of greater tranquillity,
while those specified in the preceding resolutions call for immediate
redress.
8. _Resolved_, That the preceding resolutions be transmitted to the
Senators and Representatives in Congress from this commonwealth, who are
enjoined to present the same to their respective Houses, and to use
their best endeavors to procure at the next session of Congress a repeal
of the aforesaid unconstitutional and obnoxious acts.
9. _Resolved lastly_, That the governor of this commonwealth be, and is
hereby authorized and requested to communicate the preceding resolutions
to the legislatures of the several states, to assure them that this
commonwealth considers union for special national purposes, and
particularly for those specified in their late federal compact, to be
friendly to the peace, happiness, and prosperity of all the states—that,
faithful to that compact, according to the plain intent and meaning in
which it was understood and acceded to by the several parties, it is
sincerely anxious for its preservation; that it does also believe, that
to take from the states all the powers of self-government, and transfer
them to a general and consolidated government, without regard to the
special delegations and reservations solemnly agreed to in that compact,
is not for the peace, happiness, or prosperity of these states; and
that, therefore, this commonwealth is determined, as it doubts not its
co-states are, to submit to undelegated and consequently unlimited
powers in no man, or body of men on earth: that if the acts before
specified should stand, these conclusions would flow from them; that the
general government may place any act they think proper on the list of
crimes and punish it themselves, whether enumerated or not enumerated by
the Constitution as cognisable by them; that they may transfer its
cognisance to the President or any other person, who may himself be the
accuser, counsel, judge, and jury, whose suspicions may be the evidence,
his order the sentence, his officer the executioner, and his breast the
sole record of the transaction; that a very numerous and valuable
description of the inhabitants of these states, being by this precedent
reduced as outlaws to the absolute dominion of one man and the barriers
of the Constitution thus swept from us all, no rampart now remains
against the passions and the power of a majority of Congress, to protect
from a like exportation or other grievous punishment the minority of the
same body, the legislatures, judges, governors, and counsellors of the
states, nor their other peaceable inhabitants who may venture to reclaim
the constitutional rights and liberties of the states and people, or
who, for other causes, good or bad, may be obnoxious to the view or
marked by the suspicions of the President, or to be thought dangerous to
his or their elections or other interests, public or personal; that the
friendless alien has been selected as the safest subject of a first
experiment; but the citizen will soon follow, or rather has already
followed; for, already has a sedition act marked him as a prey: that
these and successive acts of the same character, unless arrested on the
threshold, may tend to drive these states into revolution and blood, and
will furnish new calumnies against republican governments, and new
pretexts for those who wish it to be believed, that man cannot be
governed but by a rod of iron; that it would be a dangerous delusion
were a confidence in the men of our choice to silence our fears for the
safety of our rights; that confidence is everywhere the parent of
despotism; free government is found in jealousy and not in confidence;
it is jealousy and not confidence which prescribes limited constitutions
to bind down those whom we are obliged to trust with power; that our
Constitution has accordingly fixed the limits to which, and no farther,
our confidence may go; and let the honest advocate of confidence read
the alien and sedition acts, and say if the Constitution has not been
wise in fixing limits to the government it created, and whether we
should be wise in destroying those limits? Let him say what the
government is, if it be not a tyranny, which the men of our choice have
conferred on the President, and the President of our choice has assented
to and accepted over the friendly strangers, to whom the mild spirit of
our country and its laws had pledged hospitality and protection; that
the men of our choice have more respected the bare suspicions of the
President than the solid rights of innocence, the claims of
justification, the sacred force of truth, and the forms and substance of
law and justice. In questions of power, then, let no more be said of
confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the
Constitution. That this Commonwealth does therefore call on its
co-states for an expression of their sentiments on the acts concerning
aliens, and for the punishment of certain crimes hereinbefore specified,
plainly declaring whether these acts are or are not authorized by the
federal compact. And it doubts not that their sense will be so announced
as to prove their attachment to limited government, whether general or
particular, and that the rights and liberties of their co-states will be
exposed to no dangers by remaining embarked on a common bottom with
their own: but they will concur with this commonwealth in considering
the said acts as so palpably against the Constitution as to amount to an
undisguised declaration, that the compact is not meant to be the measure
of the powers of the general government, but that it will proceed in the
exercise over these states of all powers whatsoever. That they will view
this as seizing the rights of the states and consolidating them in the
hands of the general government, with a power assumed to bind the states
(not merely in cases made federal) but in all cases whatsoever, by laws
made, not with their consent, but by others against their consent; that
this would be to surrender the form of government we have chosen, and
live under one deriving its powers from its own will, and not from our
authority; and that the co-states recurring to their natural rights in
cases not made federal, will concur in declaring these void and of no
force, and will each unite with this Commonwealth in requesting their
repeal at the next session of Congress.
EDMUND BULLOCK, S. H. R.
JOHN CAMPBELL, S. P. T.
Passed the House of Representatives, Nov. 10, 1798.
Attest, THOS. TODD, C. H. R.
In Senate, Nov. 13, 1798.—Unanimously concurred in.
Attest, B. THURSTON, C. S.
Approved, Nov. 19, 1798.
JAS. GARRARD, Gov. of Ky.
By the Governor,
HARRY TOULMIN, Sec. of State.
House of Representatives, Thursday, Nov. 14, 1799.
The House, according to the standing order of the day, resolved itself
into a committee of the whole House, on the state of the commonwealth,
Mr. Desha in the chair; and after some time spent therein, the speaker
resumed the chair, and Mr. Desha reported that the committee had taken
under consideration sundry resolutions passed by several state
legislatures, on the subject of the alien and sedition laws, and had
come to a resolution thereupon, which he delivered in at the clerk’s
table, where it was read and _unanimously_ agreed to by the House, as
follows:—
The representatives of the good people of this commonwealth, in General
Assembly convened, having maturely considered the answers of sundry
states in the Union, to their resolutions passed the last session,
respecting certain unconstitutional laws of Congress, commonly called
the alien and sedition laws, would be faithless, indeed, to themselves
and to those they represent, were they silently to acquiesce in the
principles and doctrines attempted to be maintained in all those
answers, that of Virginia only excepted. To again enter the field of
argument, and attempt more fully or forcibly to expose the
unconstitutionality of those obnoxious laws, would, it is apprehended,
be as unnecessary as unavailing. We cannot, however, but lament that, in
the discussion of those interesting subjects by sundry of the
legislatures of our sister states, unfounded suggestions and uncandid
insinuations, derogatory to the true character and principles of this
commonwealth, have been substituted in place of fair reasoning and sound
argument. Our opinions of these alarming measures of the general
government, together with our reasons for those opinions, were detailed
with decency and with temper, and submitted to the discussion and
judgment of our fellow-citizens throughout the Union. Whether the like
decency and temper have been observed in the answers of most of those
states who have denied or attempted to obviate the great truths
contained in those resolutions, we have now only to submit to a candid
world. Faithful to the true principles of the Federal Union, unconscious
of any designs to disturb the harmony of that Union, and anxious only to
escape the fangs of despotism, the good people of this commonwealth are
regardless of censure or calumniation. Lest, however, the silence of
this commonwealth should be construed into an acquiescence in the
doctrines and principles advanced and attempted to be maintained by the
said answers, or lest those of our fellow-citizens throughout the Union
who so widely differ from us on those important subjects, should be
deluded by the expectation, that we shall be deterred from what we
conceive our duty, or shrink from the principles contained in those
resolutions—therefore,
_Resolved_, That this commonwealth considers the Federal Union, upon the
terms and for the purposes specified in the late compact, as conducive
to the liberty and happiness of the several states: That it does now
unequivocally declare its attachment to the Union, and to that compact,
agreeably to its obvious and real intention, and will be among the last
to seek its dissolution: That if those who administer the general
government be permitted to transgress the limits fixed by that compact,
by a total disregard to the special delegations of power therein
contained, an annihilation of the state governments, and the creation
upon their ruins of a general consolidated government, will be the
inevitable consequence: That the principle and construction contended
for by sundry of the state legislatures, that the general government is
the exclusive judge of the extent of the powers delegated to it, stop
nothing short of despotism—since the discretion of those who administer
the government, and not the Constitution, would be the measure of their
powers: That the several states who formed that instrument being
sovereign and independent, have the unquestionable right to judge of the
infraction; and that a nullification by those sovereignties of all
unauthorized acts done under color of that instrument is the rightful
remedy: That this commonwealth does, under the most deliberate
reconsideration, declare that the said alien and sedition laws are, in
their opinion, palpable violations of the said Constitution; and,
however cheerfully it may be disposed to surrender its opinion to a
majority of its sister states, in matters of ordinary or doubtful
policy, yet, in momentous regulations like the present, which so vitally
wound the best rights of the citizen, it would consider a silent
acquiescence as highly criminal: That although this commonwealth, as a
party to the federal compact, will bow to the laws of the Union, yet it
does, at the same time, declare that it will not now, or ever hereafter,
cease to oppose in a constitutional manner every attempt, at what
quarter soever offered, to violate that compact. And, finally, in order
that no pretext or arguments may be drawn from a supposed acquiescence
on the part of this commonwealth in the constitutionality of those laws,
and be thereby used as precedents for similar future violations of the
federal compact—this commonwealth does now enter against them its solemn
protest.
Extract, &c. Attest, T. TODD, C. H. R.
In Senate, Nov. 22, 1799—Read and concurred in.
Attest, B. THURSTON, C. S.
Washington’s Farewell Address to the People of the United States, Sept.
17, 1796.
_Accepted as a Platform for the People of the Nation, regardless of
party._
FRIENDS AND FELLOW-CITIZENS:—
The period for a new election of a citizen to administer the executive
government of the United States being not far distant, and the time
actually arrived when your thoughts must be employed in designating the
person who is to be clothed with that important trust, it appears to me
proper, especially as it may conduce to a more distinct expression of
the public voice, that I should now apprise you of the resolution I have
formed to decline being considered among the number of those out of whom
a choice is to be made. I beg you, at the same time, to do me the
justice to be assured that this resolution has not been taken without a
strict regard to all the considerations appertaining to the relation
which binds a dutiful citizen to his country; and that in withdrawing
the tender of service, which silence, in my situation, might imply, I am
influenced by no diminution of zeal for your future interests; no
deficiency of grateful respect of your past kindness; but am supported
by a full conviction that the step is compatible with both.
The acceptance of, and continuance hitherto in, the office to which your
suffrages have twice called me, have been a uniform sacrifice of
inclination to the opinion of duty, and to a deference for what appeared
to be your desire. I constantly hoped that it would have been much
earlier in my power, consistently with motives which I was not at
liberty to disregard, to return to that retirement from which I had been
reluctantly drawn. The strength of my inclination to do this, previous
to the last election, had even led to the preparation of an address to
declare it to you; but mature reflection on the then perplexed and
critical posture of our affairs with foreign nations, and the unanimous
advice of persons entitled to my confidence, impelled me to abandon the
idea.
I rejoice that the state of your concerns, external as well as internal,
no longer renders the pursuit of inclination incompatible with the
sentiment of duty or propriety; and am persuaded, whatever partiality
may be retained for my services, that, in the present circumstances of
our country, you will not disapprove my determination to retire.
The impressions with which I first undertook the arduous trust were
explained on the proper occasion. In the discharge of this trust, I will
only say, that I have with good intentions contributed towards the
organization and administration of the government the best exertions of
which a very fallible judgment was capable. Not unconscious in the
outset of the inferiority of my qualifications, experience, in my own
eyes—perhaps still more in the eyes of others—has strengthened the
motives to diffidence of myself; and every day the increasing weight of
years admonishes me, more and more, that the abode of retirement is as
necessary to me as it will be welcome. Satisfied that if any
circumstances have given peculiar value to my services, they were
temporary, I have the consolation to believe that, while choice and
prudence invite me to quit the political scene, patriotism does not
forbid it.
In looking forward to the moment which is intended to terminate the
career of my public life, my feelings do not permit me to suspend the
deep acknowledgment of that debt of gratitude which I owe to my beloved
country for the many honors it has conferred upon me; still more for the
steadfast confidence with which it has supported me; and for the
opportunities I have thence enjoyed of manifesting my inviolable
attachment, by services faithful and persevering, though in usefulness
unequal to my zeal. If benefits have resulted to our country from these
services, let it always be remembered to your praise, and as an
instructive example in our annals, that under circumstances in which the
passions, agitated in every direction, were liable to mislead; amidst
appearances sometimes dubious, vicissitudes of fortune often
discouraging; in situations in which, not unfrequently, want of success
has countenanced the spirit of criticism,—the constancy of your support
was the essential prop of the efforts, and a guarantee of the plans, by
which they were effected. Profoundly penetrated by this new idea, I
shall carry it with me to my grave, as a strong incitement to unceasing
vows, that Heaven may continue to you the choicest tokens of its
beneficence; that union and brotherly affection may be perpetual; that
the free Constitution, which is the work of your hands, may be sacredly
maintained; that its administration, in every department, may be stamped
with wisdom and virtue; that in fine, the happiness of the people of
these states, under the auspices of liberty, may be made complete, by so
careful a preservation and so prudent a use of this blessing as will
acquire to them the glory of recommending it to the applause, the
affection, and the adoption of every nation which is yet a stranger to
it.
Here, perhaps, I ought to stop; but a solicitude for your welfare, which
cannot end but with my life, and the apprehension of danger natural to
that solicitude, urge me, on an occasion like the present, to offer to
your solemn contemplation, and to recommend to your frequent review,
some sentiments, which are the result of much reflection, of no
inconsiderable observation, and which appear to me all important to the
permanency of your felicity as a people. These will be afforded to you
with the more freedom, as you can only see in them the disinterested
warning of a parting friend, who can possibly have no personal motive to
bias his counsel; nor can I forget, as an encouragement to it, your
indulgent reception of my sentiments on a former and not dissimilar
occasion.
Interwoven as is the love of liberty with every ligament of your hearts,
no recommendation of mine is necessary to fortify or confirm the
attachment.
The unity of government which constitutes you one people, is also now
dear to you. It is justly so; for it is a main pillar in the edifice of
your real independence—the support of your tranquillity at home, your
peace abroad, of your safety, of your prosperity, of that very liberty
which you so highly prize. But as it is easy to foresee that, from
different causes and from different quarters, much pains will be taken,
many artifices employed, to weaken in your minds the conviction of this
truth; as this is the point in your political fortress against which the
batteries of internal and external enemies will be most constantly and
actively, (though often covertly and insidiously) directed,—it is of
infinite moment that you should properly estimate the immense value of
your national union to your collective and individual happiness; that
you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment to it;
accustoming yourself to think and speak of it as of the palladium of
your political safety and prosperity, watching for its preservation with
jealous anxiety; discountenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion
that it can, in any event, be abandoned; and indignantly frowning upon
the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our
country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link
together the various parts.
For this you have every inducement of sympathy and interest. Citizens,
by birth or choice, of a common country, that country has a right to
concentrate your affections. The name of _American_, which belongs to
you in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of
patriotism, more than appellations derived from local discriminations.
With slight shades of difference, you have the same religion, manners,
habits, and political principles. You have, in a common cause, fought
and triumphed together; the independence and liberty you possess are the
work of joint counsels and joint efforts, of common dangers, sufferings,
and successes. But these considerations, however powerfully they address
themselves to your sensibility, are generally outweighed by those which
apply more immediately to your interest; here every portion of our
country finds the most commanding motives for carefully guarding and
preserving the union of the whole.
The North, in an unrestrained intercourse with the South, protected by
the equal laws of a common government, finds, in the productions of the
latter, great additional resources of maritime and commercial
enterprise, and precious materials of manufacturing industry. The South,
in the same intercourse benefiting by the agency of the North, sees its
agriculture grow, and its commerce expanded. Turning partly into its own
channels the seamen of the North, it finds its particular navigation
invigorated; and while it contributes, in different ways, to nourish and
increase the general mass of the national navigation, it looks forward
to the protection of a maritime strength to which itself is unequally
adapted. The East, in like intercourse with the West, already finds, and
in the progressive improvement of interior communication, by land and by
water, will more and more find, a valuable vent for the commodities
which each brings from abroad or manufactures at home. The West derives
from the East supplies requisite to its growth or comfort, and what is
perhaps of still greater consequence, it must, of necessity, owe the
secure enjoyment of indispensable outlets for its own productions, to
the weight, influence, and the maritime strength of the Atlantic side of
the Union, directed by an indissoluble community of interests as one
nation. Any other tenure by which the West can hold this essential
advantage, whether derived from its own separate strength, or from an
apostate and unnatural connexion with any foreign power, must be
intrinsically precarious.
While, then, every part of our country thus feels an immediate and
particular interest in union, all the parts combined cannot fail to
find, in the united mass of means and efforts, greater strength, greater
resource, proportionably greater security from external danger, a less
frequent interruption of their peace by foreign nations; and what is of
inestimable value, they must derive from union an exemption from those
broils and wars between themselves, which so frequently afflict
neighboring countries, not tied together by the same government; which
their own rivalship alone would be sufficient to produce, but which
opposite foreign alliances, attachments and intrigues, would stimulate
and embitter. Hence, likewise, they will avoid the necessity of those
overgrown military establishments, which, under any form of government,
are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as
particularly hostile to republican liberty; in this sense it is that
your union ought to be considered as a main prop of your liberty, and
that the love of one ought to endear to you the preservation of the
other.
These considerations speak a persuasive language to every reflecting and
virtuous mind, and exhibit the continuance of the Union as a primary
object of patriotic desire. Is there a doubt, whether a common
government can embrace so large a sphere? Let experience solve it. To
listen to mere speculation, in such a case, were criminal. We are
authorized to hope, that a proper organization of the whole, with the
auxiliary agency of governments for the respective sub-divisions, will
afford a happy issue to the experiment. It is well worth a fair and full
experiment. With such powerful and obvious motives to Union, affecting
all parts of our country, while experience shall not have demonstrated
its impracticability, there will always be reason to distrust the
patriotism of those who, in any quarter, may endeavor to weaken its
bands.
In contemplating the causes which may disturb our Union, it occurs as a
matter of serious concern, that any ground should have been furnished
for characterizing parties by geographical discriminations—Northern and
Southern—Atlantic and Western: whence designing men may endeavor to
excite a belief that there is a real difference of local interests and
views. One of the expedients of party to acquire influence within
particular districts, is to misrepresent the opinions and aims of other
districts. You cannot shield yourselves too much against the jealousies
and heart-burnings which spring from these misrepresentations; they tend
to render alien to each other those who ought to be bound together by
paternal affection. The inhabitants of our Western country have lately
had a useful lesson on this head; they have seen in the negotiation by
the executive, and in the unanimous ratification by the Senate, of the
treaty with Spain, and in the universal satisfaction at that event
throughout the United States, decisive proof how unfounded were the
suspicions propagated among them, of a policy in the general government,
and in the Atlantic States, unfriendly to their interest in regard to
the Mississippi—that with Great Britain, and that with Spain, which
secure to them everything they could desire in respect to our foreign
relations, towards confirming their prosperity. Will it not be their
wisdom to rely for the preservation of these advantages on the Union by
which they were procured? Will they not henceforth be deaf to those
advisers, if such there are, who would sever them from their brethren,
and connect them with aliens?
To the efficacy and permanency of your Union a government of the whole
is indispensable. No alliance, however strict between the parties, can
be an adequate substitute; they must inevitably experience the
infractions and interruptions which all alliances, in all time, have
experienced. Sensible of this momentous truth, you have improved upon
your first essay, by the adoption of a Constitution of government,
better calculated than your former for an intimate union, and for the
efficacious management of your common concerns. This government, the
offspring of our own choice, uninfluenced and unawed—adopted upon full
investigation and mature deliberation, completely free in its
principles, in the distribution of its powers—uniting security with
energy, and containing within itself a provision for its own amendment,
has a just claim to your confidence and your support. Respect for its
authority, compliance with its laws, acquiescence in its measures, are
duties enjoined by the fundamental maxims of true liberty. The basis of
our political system is the right of the people to make and to alter
their Constitutions of government; but the Constitution which at any
time exists, till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole
people, is sacredly obligatory upon all. The very idea of the power and
right of the people to establish government, presupposes the duty of
every individual to obey the established government.
All obstruction to the execution of laws, all combinations and
associations under whatever plausible character, with the real design to
direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action
of the constituted authorities, are destructive to this fundamental
principle, and of fatal tendency. They serve to organize faction, to
give it an artificial and extraordinary force, to put in the place of
the delegated will of the nation, the will of a party, often a small but
artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the
alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public
administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects
of fashion, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans,
digested by common counsels and modified by mutual interests.
However combinations or associations of the above description may now
and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and
things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and
unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people, and
to usurp for themselves the reins of government; destroying, afterwards,
the very engines which had lifted them to unjust dominion.
Towards the preservation of your government, and the permanency of your
present happy state, it is requisite, not only that you steadily
discountenance irregular oppositions to its acknowledged authority, but
also that you resist with care the spirit of innovation upon its
principles, however specious the pretexts. One method of assault may be
to effect, in the forms of the Constitution, alterations which will
impair the energy of the system, and thus to undermine what cannot be
directly overthrown. In all the changes to which you may be invited,
remember that time and habit are at least as necessary to fix the true
character of governments as of other human institutions; that experience
is the surest standard by which to test the real tendency of the
existing constitution of a country; that facility in changes, upon the
credit of mere hypothesis and opinion exposes to perpetual change, from
the endless variety of hypothesis and opinion; and remember, especially,
that for the efficient management of your common interests, in a country
so extensive as ours, a government of as much vigor as is consistent
with the perfect security of liberty is indispensable. Liberty itself
will find in such a government, with powers properly distributed, and
adjusted, its surest guardian. It is, indeed, little else than a name,
where the government is too feeble to withstand the enterprise of
faction, to confine each member of the society within the limits
described by the laws, and to maintain all in the secure and tranquil
enjoyment of the rights of person and property.
I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in the state with
particular reference to the founding of them on geographical
discriminations. Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn
you, in the most solemn manner, against the baneful effects of the
spirit of party generally.
This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having its
root in the strongest passions of the human mind. It exists under
different shapes in all governments, more or less stifled, controlled,
or repressed; but in those of the popular form it is seen in its
greatest rankness, and is truly their worst enemy.
The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the
spirit of revenge, natural to party dissensions, which, in different
ages and countries, has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is
itself a frightful despotism. But this leads, at length, to a more
formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result,
gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the
absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later, the chief of some
prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors,
turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation on the ruins
of public liberty.
Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind (which,
nevertheless, ought not to be entirely out of sight), the common and
continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the
interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.
It serves always to distract the public councils, and enfeeble the
public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded
jealousies and false alarms; kindles the animosity of one part against
another; foments, occasionally, riot and insurrection. It opens the door
to foreign influence and corruption, which find a facilitated access to
the government itself, through the channels of party passions. Thus the
policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will
of another.
There is an opinion that parties, in free countries, are useful checks
upon the administration of the government, and serve to keep alive the
spirit of liberty. This, within certain limits, is probably true; and in
governments of a monarchical cast, patriotism may look with indulgence,
if not with favor, upon the spirit of party. But in those of the popular
character, in governments purely elective, it is a spirit not to be
encouraged. From their natural tendency, it is certain there will always
be enough of that spirit for every salutary purpose. And there being
constant danger of excess, the effort ought to be, by force of public
opinion, to mitigate and assuage it. A fire not to be quenched, it
demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into a flame, lest,
instead of warming, it should consume.
It is important, likewise, that the habits of thinking, in a free
country, should inspire caution in those intrusted with its
administration, to confine themselves within their respective
constitutional spheres, avoiding, in the exercise of the powers of one
department, to encroach upon another. The spirit of encroachment tends
to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to
create, whatever the form of government, a real despotism. A just
estimate of that love of power, and proneness to abuse it, which
predominates in the human heart, is sufficient to satisfy us of the
truth of this position.
The necessity of reciprocal checks in the exercise of political power,
by dividing and distributing it into different depositories, and
constituting each the guardian of the public weal, against invasions by
the others, has been evinced by experiments, ancient and modern; some of
them in our own country, and under our own eyes. To preserve them must
be as necessary as to institute them. If, in the opinion of the people,
the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers be, in any
particular, wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which
the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation;
for though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is
the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed. The
precedent must always greatly overbalance, in permanent evil, any
partial or transient benefit which the use can at any time yield.
Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity,
religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man
claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great
pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and
citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to
respect and cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connexions
with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked, where is the
security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of
religious obligation desert the oaths which are the instruments of
investigation in courts of justice? And let us with caution indulge the
supposition, that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever
may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of
peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that
national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principles. It
is substantially true, that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of
popular government. The rule, indeed, extends with more or less force to
every species of free government. Who, that is a sincere friend to it,
can look with indifference upon attempts to shake the foundation of the
fabric?
Promote then, as an object of primary importance, institutions for the
general diffusion of knowledge. In proportion as the structure of a
government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public
opinion should be enlightened.
As a very important source of strength and security, cherish public
credit. One method of preserving it is to use it as sparingly as
possible, avoiding occasions of expense by cultivating peace, but
remembering also that timely disbursements to prepare for danger
frequently prevent much greater disbursements to repel it; avoiding,
likewise, the accumulation of debt, not only by shunning occasions of
expense, but by vigorous exertions in time of peace to discharge the
debts which unavoidable wars may have occasioned; not ungenerously
throwing upon posterity the burden which we ourselves ought to bear. The
execution of these maxims belongs to your representatives, but it is
necessary that public opinion should co-operate. To facilitate to them
the performance of their duty, it is essential that you should
practically bear in mind, that toward the payments of debts there must
be revenues; that to have revenue there must be taxes; that no taxes can
be devised, which are not more or less inconvenient and unpleasant; that
the intrinsic embarrassment inseparable from the selection of the proper
objects (which is always a choice of difficulties) ought to be a
decisive moment for a candid construction of the conduct of the
government in making it, and for a spirit of acquiescence in the measure
for obtaining revenue, which the public exigencies may at any time
dictate.
Observe good faith and justice towards all nations; cultivate peace and
harmony with all; religion and morality enjoin this conduct; and can it
be that good policy does not equally enjoin it? It will be worthy of a
free, enlightened, and at no distant period a great nation, to give to
mankind the magnanimous and too novel example of a people always guided
by an exalted justice and benevolence. Who can doubt that, in the course
of time and things, the fruits of such a plan would richly repay any
temporary advantages which might be lost by a steady adherence to it?
Can it be that Providence has not connected the permanent felicity of a
nation with its virtue? The experiment, at least, is recommended by
every sentiment which ennobles human nature. Alas! is it rendered
impossible by its vices?
In the execution of such a plan, nothing is more essential than that
permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular nations, and
passionate attachment for others, should be excluded: and that in place
of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated.
The nation which indulges towards another an habitual hatred, or an
habitual fondness, is, in some degree, a slave. It is a slave to its
animosity or to its affection; either of which is sufficient to lead it
astray from its duty and its interest. Antipathy in one nation against
another, disposes each more readily to offer insult and injury, to lay
hold of slight causes of umbrage, and to be haughty and untractable,
when accidental or trifling occasions of dispute occur. Hence frequent
collisions, obstinate, envenomed, and bloody contests. The nation,
prompted by ill-will and resentment, sometimes impels to war the
government, contrary to the best calculations of policy. The government
sometimes participates in the national propensity, and adopts, through
passion, what reason would reject; at other times it makes the animosity
of the nation subservient to projects of hostility, instigated by pride,
ambition, and other sinister and pernicious motives. The peace often,
sometimes perhaps the liberty, of nations has been the victim.
So likewise a passionate attachment of one nation to another produces a
variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the
illusion of an imaginary common interest, in cases where no real common
interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other,
betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the
latter, without adequate inducement or justification. It leads also to
concessions to the favorite nation of privileges denied to others, which
is apt doubly to injure the nation making the concessions; by
unnecessarily parting with what ought to have been retained, and by
exciting jealousy, ill-will, and a disposition to retaliate, in the
parties from whom equal privileges are withheld; and it gives to
ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens (who devote themselves to the
favorite nation) facility to betray, or sacrifice the interest of their
own country, without odium; sometimes even with popularity; gilding with
the appearance of a virtuous sense of obligation, a commendable
deference for public opinion, or a laudable zeal for public good, the
base or foolish compliances of ambition, corruption, or infatuation.
As avenues to foreign influence in innumerable ways, such attachments
are particularly alarming to the truly enlightened and independent
patriot. How many opportunities do they afford to tamper with domestic
factions, to practice the art of seduction, to mislead public opinion,
to influence or awe the public councils? Such an attachment of a small
or weak, towards a great and powerful nation, dooms the former to be the
satellite of the latter.
Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence (I conjure you to
believe me, fellow-citizens), the jealousy of a free people ought to be
constantly awake; since history and experience prove that foreign
influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government. But
that jealousy, to be useful, must be impartial; else it becomes the
instrument of the very influence to be avoided, instead of a defence
against it. Excessive partiality for one foreign nation, and excessive
dislike for another, cause those whom they actuate to see danger only on
one side, and serve to veil, and even second, the arts of influence on
the other. Real patriots, who may resist the intrigues of the favorite,
are liable to become suspected and odious; while its tools and dupes
usurp the applause and confidence of the people, to surrender their
interests.
The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign nations, is, in
extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little
political connexion as possible. So far as we have already formed
engagements, let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. There let us
stop.
Europe has a set of primary interests, which to us have none, or a very
remote relation. Hence she must be engaged in frequent controversies,
the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence,
therefore, it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves, by artificial
ties, in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics, or the ordinary
combinations and collisions of her friendships or enmities.
Our detached and distant situation invites and enables us to pursue a
different course. If we remain one people under an efficient government,
the period is not far off when we may defy material injury from external
annoyance; when we may take such an attitude as will cause the
neutrality we may at any time resolve upon, to be scrupulously
respected; when belligerent nations, under the impossibility of making
acquisitions upon us, will not lightly hazard the giving us provocation;
when we may choose peace or war, as our interests, guided by justice,
shall counsel.
Why forego the advantages of so peculiar a situation? Why quit our own
to stand upon foreign ground? Why, by interweaving our destiny with that
of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of
European ambition, rivalship, interest, humor, or caprice?
It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any
portion of the foreign world; so far, I mean, as we are now at liberty
to do it; for let me not be understood as capable of patronizing
infidelity to existing engagements. I hold the maxim no less applicable
to public than to private affairs, that honesty is always the best
policy. I repeat it, therefore, let those engagements be observed in
their genuine sense. But, in my opinion, it is unnecessary, and would be
unwise to extend them.
Taking care always to keep ourselves, by suitable establishments, on a
respectable defensive posture, we may safely trust to temporary
alliances for extraordinary emergencies.
Harmony, and a liberal intercourse with all nations, are recommended by
policy, humanity, and interest. But even our commercial policy should
hold an equal and impartial hand; neither seeking nor granting exclusive
favors or preferences; consulting the natural cause of things; diffusing
and diversifying, by gentle means, the streams of commerce, by forcing
nothing; establishing, with powers so disposed, in order to give trade a
stable course, to define the rights of our merchants, and to enable the
government to support them, conventional rules of intercourse, the best
that present circumstances and mutual opinions will permit, but
temporary, and liable to be, from time to time, abandoned or varied, as
experience and circumstances shall dictate; constantly keeping in view,
that it is folly in one nation to look for disinterested favors from
another; that it must pay, with a portion of its independence, for
whatever it may accept under that character; that by such acceptance it
may place itself in the condition of having given equivalents for
nominal favors, and yet of being reproached with ingratitude for not
giving more. There can be no greater error than to expect, or calculate
upon, real favors from nation to nation. It is an illusion which
experience must cure, which a just pride ought to discard.
In offering to you, my countrymen, these counsels of an old and
affectionate friend, I dare not hope they will make the strong and
lasting impression I could wish; that they will control the usual
current of the passions, or prevent our nation from running the course
which has hitherto marked the destiny of nations; but if I may even
flatter myself that they may be productive of some partial benefit, some
occasional good; that they may now and then recur to moderate the fury
of party spirit, to warn against the mischiefs of foreign intrigues, to
guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism; this hope will be
a full recompense for the solicitude for your welfare by which they have
been dictated.
How far, in the discharge of my official duties, I have been guided by
the principles which have been delineated, the public records, and other
evidences of my conduct, must witness to you and the world. To myself,
the assurance of my own conscience is, that I have at least believed
myself to be guided by them.
In relation to the still subsisting war in Europe, my proclamation of
the 23d of April, 1793, is the index to my plan. Sanctioned by your
approving voice, and by that of your representatives in both Houses of
Congress, the spirit of that measure has continually governed me,
uninfluenced by any attempts to deter or divert me from it.
After deliberate examination, with the aid of the best lights I could
obtain, I was well satisfied that our country, under all the
circumstances of the case, had a right to take, and was bound in duty
and interest to take a neutral position. Having taken it, I determined,
as far as should depend upon me, to maintain it with moderation,
perseverance, and firmness.
The considerations which respect the right to hold this conduct, it is
not necessary on this occasion to detail. I will only observe, that,
according to my understanding of the matter, that right, so far from
being denied by any of the belligerent powers, has been virtually
admitted by all.
The duty of holding neutral conduct may be inferred, without anything
more, from the obligation which justice and humanity impose on every
nation, in cases in which it is free to act, to maintain inviolate the
relations of peace and unity towards other nations.
The inducements of interests, for observing that conduct, will best be
referred to your own reflections and experience. With me, a predominant
motive has been to endeavor to gain time to our country to settle and
mature its yet recent institutions, and to progress, without
interruption, to that degree of strength and consistency which is
necessary to give it, humanly speaking, the command of its own fortunes.
Though, in reviewing the incidents of my administration, I am
unconscious of intentional error; I am, nevertheless, too sensible of my
defects not to think it probable that I may have committed many errors.
Whatever they may be, I fervently beseech the Almighty to avert or
mitigate the evils to which they may tend. I shall also carry with me
the hope, that my country will never come to view them with indulgence;
and that, after forty-five years of my life dedicated to its service
with an upright zeal, the faults of incompetent abilities will be
consigned to oblivion, as myself must soon be to the mansions of rest.
Relying on its kindness in this, as in other things, and actuated by
that fervent love towards it which is so natural to a man who views in
it the native soil of himself and his progenitors for several
generations, I anticipate, with pleasing expectation, that retreat in
which I promise myself to realize, without alloy, the sweet enjoyment of
partaking, in the midst of my fellow-citizens, the benign influence of
good laws under a free government—the ever favorite object of my
heart—and happy reward, as I trust, of our mutual cares, labors, and
dangers.
GEORGE WASHINGTON.
United States, 17th of Sept., 1796.
1800.—No Federal Platform.
Republican Platform, Philadelphia.
_Adopted in Congressional Caucus._
1. An inviolable preservation of the Federal constitution, according to
the true sense in which it was adopted by the states, that in which it
was advocated by its friends, and not that which its enemies
apprehended, who, therefore, became its enemies.
2. Opposition to monarchizing its features by the forms of its
administration, with a view to conciliate a transition, first, to a
president and senate for life; and, secondly, to an hereditary tenure of
those offices, and thus to worm out the elective principle.
3. Preservation to the states of the powers not yielded by them to the
Union, and to the legislature of the Union its constitutional share in
division of powers; and resistance, therefore, to existing movements for
transferring all the powers of the states to the general government, and
all of those of that government to the executive branch.
4. A rigorously frugal administration of the government, and the
application of all the possible savings of the public revenue to the
liquidation of the public debt; and resistance, therefore, to all
measures looking to a multiplication of officers and salaries, merely to
create partisans and to augment the public debt, on the principle of its
being a public blessing.
5. Reliance for internal defense solely upon the militia, till actual
invasion, and for such a naval force only as may be sufficient to
protect our coasts and harbors from depredations; and opposition,
therefore, to the policy of a standing army in time of peace which may
overawe the public sentiment, and to a navy, which, by its own expenses,
and the wars in which it will implicate us, will grind us with public
burdens and sink us under them.
6. Free commerce with all nations, political connection with none, and
little or no diplomatic establishment.
7. Opposition to linking ourselves, by new treaties, with the quarrels
of Europe, entering their fields of slaughter to preserve their balance,
or joining in the confederacy of kings to war against the principles of
liberty.
8. Freedom of religion, and opposition to all maneuvers to bring about a
legal ascendency of one sect over another.
9. Freedom of speech and of the press; and opposition, therefore, to all
violations of the constitution, to silence, by force, and not by reason,
the complaints or criticisms, just or unjust, of our citizens against
the conduct of their public agents.
10. Liberal naturalization laws, under which the well disposed of all
nations who may desire to embark their fortunes with us and share with
us the public burdens, may have that opportunity, under moderate
restrictions, for the development of honest intention, and severe ones
to guard against the usurpation of our flag.
11. Encouragement of science and the arts in all their branches, to the
end that the American people may perfect their independence of all
foreign monopolies, institutions and influences.
1801–1811.—No Platforms.
(_No Convention or Caucus held._)
1812.—No Republican Platform.
No Federal Platform.
Clintonian Platform.
_New York, August 17._
1. Opposition to nominations of chief magistrates by congressional
caucuses, as well because such practices are the exercise of undelegated
authority, as of their repugnance to the freedom of elections.
2. Opposition to all customs and usages in both the executive and
legislative departments which have for their object the maintenance of
an official regency to prescribe tenets of political faith, the line of
conduct to be deemed fidelity or recreancy to republican principles, and
to perpetuate in themselves or families the offices of the Federal
government.
3. Opposition to all efforts on the part of particular states to
monopolize the principal offices of the government, as well because of
their certainty to destroy the harmony which ought to prevail amongst
all the constituent parts of the Union, as of their leanings toward a
form of oligarchy entirely at variance with the theory of republican
government; and, consequently, particular opposition to continuing a
citizen of Virginia in the executive office another term, unless she can
show that she enjoys a corresponding monopoly of talents and patriotism,
after she has been honored with the presidency for twenty out of
twenty-four years of our constitutional existence, and when it is
obvious that the practice has arrayed the agricultural against the
commercial interests of the country.
4. Opposition to continuing public men for long periods in offices of
delicate trust and weighty responsibility as the reward of public
services, to the detriment of all or any particular interest in, or
section of, the country; and, consequently, to the continuance of Mr.
Madison in an office which, in view of our pending difficulties with
Great Britain, requires an incumbent of greater decision, energy and
efficiency.
5. Opposition to the lingering inadequacy of preparation for the war
with Great Britain, now about to ensue, and to the measure which allows
uninterrupted trade with Spain and Portugal, which, as it can not be
carried on under our flag, gives to Great Britain the means of supplying
her armies with provisions, of which they would otherwise be destitute,
and thus affording aid and comfort to our enemy.
6. Averment of the existing necessity for placing the country in a
condition for aggressive action for the conquest of the British American
Provinces and for the defence of our coasts and exposed frontiers: and
of the propriety of such a levy of taxes as will raise the necessary
funds for the emergency.
7. Advocacy of the election of De Witt Clinton as the surest method of
relieving the country from all the evils existing and prospective, for
the reason that his great talents and inflexible patriotism guaranty a
firm and unyielding maintenance of our national sovereignty, and the
protection of those commercial interests which were flagging under the
weakness and imbecility of the administration.
1815.—Resolutions passed by the Hartford Convention, January 4.
_Resolved_, That it be and is hereby recommended to the legislatures of
the several states represented in this convention, to adopt all such
measures as may be necessary effectually to protect the citizens of said
states from the operation and effects of all acts which have been or may
be passed by the Congress of the United States, which shall contain
provisions subjecting the militia or other citizens to forcible drafts,
conscriptions, or impressments not authorized by the constitution of the
United States.
_Resolved_, That it be and is hereby recommended to the said
legislatures, to authorize an immediate and an earnest application to be
made to the government of the United States, requesting their consent to
some arrangement whereby the said states may, separately or in concert,
be empowered to assume upon themselves the defense of their territory
against the enemy, and a reasonable portion of the taxes collected
within said states may be paid into the respective treasuries thereof,
and appropriated to the balance due said states and to the future
defense of the same. The amount so paid into said treasuries to be
credited, and the disbursements made as aforesaid to be charged to the
United States.
_Resolved_, That it be and hereby is recommended to the legislatures of
the aforesaid states, to pass laws where it has not already been done,
authorizing the governors or commanders-in-chief of their militia to
make detachments from the same, or to form voluntary corps, as shall be
most convenient and conformable to their constitutions, and to cause the
same to be well armed, equipped, and held in readiness for service, and
upon request of the governor of either of the other states, to employ
the whole of such detachment or corps, as well as the regular forces of
the state, or such part thereof as may be required, and can be spared
consistently with the safety of the state, in assisting the state making
such request to repel any invasion thereof which shall be made or
attempted by the public enemy.
_Resolved_, That the following amendments of the constitution of the
United States be recommended to the states represented as aforesaid, to
be proposed by them for adoption by the state legislatures, and in such
cases as may be deemed expedient by a convention chosen by the people of
each state. And it is further recommended that the said states shall
persevere in their efforts to obtain such amendments, until the same
shall be effected.
First. Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the
several states which may be included within this Union, according to
their respective numbers of free persons, including those bound to serve
for a term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, and all other
persons;
Second. No new state shall be admitted into the Union by Congress, in
virtue of the power granted in the constitution, without the concurrence
of two-thirds of both houses;
Third. Congress shall not have power to lay an embargo on the ships or
vessels of the citizens of the United States, in the ports or harbors
thereof, for more than sixty days;
Fourth. Congress shall not have power, without the concurrence of
two-thirds of both houses, to interdict the commercial intercourse
between the United States and any foreign nation or the dependencies
thereof;
Fifth. Congress shall not make nor declare war, nor authorize acts of
hostility against any foreign nation, without the concurrence of
two-thirds of both houses, except such acts of hostility be in defense
of the territories of the United States when actually invaded;
Sixth. No person who shall hereafter be naturalized shall be eligible as
a member of the Senate or House of Representatives of the United States,
or capable of holding any civil office under the authority of the United
States;
Seventh. The same person shall not be elected President of the United
States a second time, nor shall the President be elected from the same
state two terms in succession.
_Resolved_, That if the application of these states to the government of
the United States, recommended in a foregoing resolution, should be
unsuccessful, and peace should not be concluded, and the defense of
these states should be neglected, as it has been since the commencement
of the war, it will, in the opinion of this convention, be expedient for
the legislatures of the several states to appoint delegates to another
convention, to meet at Boston, in the state of Massachusetts, on the
third Monday of June next, with such powers and instructions as the
exigency or a crisis so momentous may require.
_Resolved_, That the Honorable George Cabot, the Honorable Chauncey
Goodrich, the Honorable Daniel Lyman, or any two of them, be authorized
to call another meeting of this convention, to be holden in Boston at
any time before new delegates shall be chosen as recommended in the
above resolution, if in their judgment the situation of the country
shall urgently require it.
From 1813–1829.—No Platforms by either political party, except that at
Hartford by Federalists, given above.
1830.—Anti-masonic resolution,
_Philadelphia, September_.
_Resolved_, That it is recommended to the people of the United States,
opposed to secret societies, to meet in convention on Monday, the 26th
day of September, 1831, at the city of Baltimore, by delegates equal in
number to their representatives in both Houses of Congress, to make
nominations of suitable candidates for the offices of President and
Vice-President, to be supported at the next election, and for the
transaction of such other business as the cause of Anti-Masonry may
require.
1832.—National Democratic Platform, adopted at a ratification Meeting,
_at Washington City, May 11_.
_Resolved_, That an adequate protection to American industry is
indispensable to the prosperity of the country; and that an abandonment
of the policy at this period would be attended with consequences ruinous
to the best interests of the nation.
_Resolved_, That a uniform system of internal improvements, sustained
and supported by the general government, is calculated to secure, in the
highest degree, the harmony, the strength and permanency of the
republic.
_Resolved_, That the indiscriminate removal of public officers for a
mere difference of political opinion, is a gross abuse of power; and
that the doctrine lately boldly preached in the United States Senate,
that “to the victors belong the spoils of the vanquished,” is
detrimental to the interests, corrupting to the morals, and dangerous to
the liberties of the country.
1836.—“Locofoco” Platform,
_New York, January_.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created free
and equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain
inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness; that the true foundation of republican government is the
equal rights of every citizen in his person and property, and in their
management; that the idea is quite unfounded that on entering into
society we give up any natural right; that the rightful power of all
legislation is to declare and enforce only our natural rights and
duties, and to take none of them from us; that no man has the natural
right to commit aggressions on the equal rights of another, and this is
all from which the law ought to restrain him; that every man is under
the natural duty of contributing to the necessities of society, and this
all the law should enforce on him; that when the laws have declared and
enforced all this, they have fulfilled their functions.
We declare unqualified hostility to bank notes and paper money as a
circulating medium, because gold and silver is the only safe and
constitutional currency; hostility to any and all monopolies by
legislation, because they are violations of equal rights of the people;
hostility to the dangerous and unconstitutional creation of vested
rights or prerogatives by legislation, because they are usurpations of
the people’s sovereign rights; no legislative or other authority in the
body politic can rightfully, by charter or otherwise, exempt any man or
body of men, in any case whatever, from trial by jury and the
jurisdiction or operation of the laws which govern the community.
We hold that each and every law or act of incorporation, passed by
preceding legislatures, can be rightfully altered and repealed by their
successors; and that they should be altered or repealed, when necessary
for the public good, or when required by a majority of the people.
1836.—Whig Resolutions,
_Albany, N. Y., February 3._
_Resolved_, That in support of our cause, we invite all citizens opposed
to Martin Van Buren and the Baltimore nominees.
_Resolved_, That Martin Van Buren, by intriguing with the executive to
obtain his influence to elect him to the presidency, has set an example
dangerous to our freedom and corrupting to our free institutions.
_Resolved_, That the support we render to William H. Harrison is by no
means given to him solely on account of his brilliant and successful
services as leader of our armies during the last war, but that in him we
view also the man of high intellect, the stern patriot, uncontaminated
by the machinery of hackneyed politicians—a man of the school of
Washington.
_Resolved_, That in Francis Granger we recognize one of our most
distinguished fellow-citizens, whose talents we admire, whose patriotism
we trust, and whose principles we sanction.
[Illustration: _Sam Houston_]
1839.—Abolition Resolution,
_Warsaw, N. Y., November 13_.
_Resolved_, That, in our judgment, every consideration of duty and
expediency which ought to control the action of Christian freemen,
requires of the Abolitionists of the United States to organize a
distinct and independent political party, embracing all the necessary
means for nominating candidates for office and sustaining them by public
suffrage.
Abolition Platforms.
The first national platform of the Abolition party upon which it went
into the contest in 1840, favored the abolition of slavery in the
District of Columbia and Territories; the inter-state slave-trade, and a
general opposition to slavery to the full extent of constitutional
power.
In 1848, that portion of the party which did not support the Buffalo
nominees took the ground of affirming the constitutional authority and
duty of the General Government to abolish slavery in the States.
Under the head of “Buffalo,” the platform of the Free Soil party, which
nominated Mr. Van Buren, will be found.
1840.—Democratic Platform,
_Baltimore, May 5_.
_Resolved_, That the Federal government is one of limited powers,
derived solely from the constitution, and the grants of power shown
therein ought to be strictly construed by all the departments and agents
of the government, and that it is inexpedient and dangerous to exercise
doubtful constitutional powers.
2. _Resolved_, That the constitution does not confer upon the general
government the power to commence and carry on a general system of
internal improvements.
3. _Resolved_, That the constitution does not confer authority upon the
Federal government, directly or indirectly, to assume the debts of the
several states, contracted for local internal improvements or other
state purposes; nor would such assumption be just or expedient.
4. _Resolved_, That justice and sound policy forbid the Federal
government to foster one branch of industry to the detriment of another,
or to cherish the interests of one portion to the injury of another
portion of our common country—that every citizen and every section of
the country has a right to demand and insist upon an equality of rights
and privileges, and to complete and ample protection of persons and
property from domestic violence or foreign aggression.
5. _Resolved_, That it is the duty of every branch of the government to
enforce and practice the most rigid economy in conducting our public
affairs, and that no more revenue ought to be raised than is required to
defray the necessary expenses of the government.
6. _Resolved_, That Congress has no power to charter a United States
bank; that we believe such an institution one of deadly hostility to the
best interests of the country, dangerous to our republican institutions
and the liberties of the people, and calculated to place the business of
the country within the control of a concentrated money power, and above
the laws and the will of the people.
7. _Resolved_, That Congress has no power under the constitution, to
interfere with or control the domestic institutions of the several
states; and that such states are the sole and proper judges of
everything pertaining to their own affairs, not prohibited by the
constitution; that all efforts, by Abolitionists or others, made to
induce Congress to interfere with questions of slavery, or to take
incipient steps in relation thereto, are calculated to lead to the most
alarming and dangerous consequences, and that all such efforts have an
inevitable tendency to diminish the happiness of the people, and
endanger the stability and permanence of the Union, and ought not to be
countenanced by any friend to our political institutions.
8. _Resolved_, That the separation of the moneys of the government from
banking institutions is indispensable for the safety of the funds of the
government and the rights of the people.
9. _Resolved_, That the liberal principles embodied by Jefferson in the
Declaration of Independence, and sanctioned in the constitution, which
makes ours the land of liberty and the asylum of the oppressed of every
nation, have ever been cardinal principles in the democratic faith; and
every attempt to abridge the present privilege of becoming citizens, and
the owners of soil among us, ought to be resisted with the same spirit
which swept the alien and sedition laws from our statute book.
_Whereas_, Several of the states which have nominated Martin Van Buren
as a candidate for the presidency, have put in nomination different
individuals as candidates for Vice-President, thus indicating a
diversity of opinion as to the person best entitled to the nomination;
and whereas, some of the said states are not represented in this
convention; therefore,
_Resolved_, That the convention deem it expedient at the present time
not to choose between the individuals in nomination, but to leave the
decision to their republican fellow-citizens in the several states,
trusting that before the election shall take place, their opinions will
become so concentrated as to secure the choice of a Vice-President by
the electoral college.
1843.—Liberty Platform.
_Buffalo, August 30._
1. _Resolved_, That human brotherhood is a cardinal principle of true
democracy, as well as of pure Christianity, which spurns all
inconsistent limitations; and neither the political party which
repudiates it, nor the political system which is not based upon it, can
be truly democratic or permanent.
2. _Resolved_, That the Liberty party, placing itself upon this broad
principle, will demand the absolute and unqualified divorce of the
general government from slavery, and also the restoration of equality of
rights among men, in every state here the party exists, or may exist.
3. _Resolved_, That the Liberty party has not been organized for any
temporary purpose by interested politicians, but has arisen from among
the people in consequence of a conviction, hourly gaining ground, that
no other party in the country represents the true principles of American
liberty, or the true spirit of the constitution of the United States.
4. _Resolved_, That the Liberty party has not been organized merely for
the overthrow of slavery; its first decided effort must, indeed, be
directed against slaveholding as the grossest and most revolting
manifestation of despotism, but it will also carry out the principle of
equal rights into all its practical consequences and applications, and
support every just measure conducive to individual and social freedom.
5. _Resolved_, That the Liberty party is not a sectional party but a
national party; was not originated in a desire to accomplish a single
object, but in a comprehensive regard to the great interests of the
whole country; is not a new party, nor a third party, but is the party
of 1776, reviving the principles of that memorable era, and striving to
carry them into practical application.
6. _Resolved_, That it was understood in the times of the declaration
and the constitution, that the existence of slavery in some of the
states was in derogation of the principles of American liberty, and a
deep stain upon the character of the country, and the implied faith of
the states and the nation was pledged that slavery should never be
extended beyond its then existing limits, but should be gradually, and
yet, at no distant day, wholly abolished by state authority.
7. _Resolved_, That the faith of the states and the nation thus pledged,
was most nobly redeemed by the voluntary abolition of slavery in several
of the states, and by the adoption of the ordinance of 1787, for the
government of the territory northwest of the river Ohio, then the only
territory in the United States, and consequently the only territory
subject in this respect to the control of Congress, by which ordinance
slavery was forever excluded from the vast regions which now compose the
states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and the territory of
Wisconsin, and an incapacity to bear up any other than freemen was
impressed on the soil itself.
8. _Resolved_, That the faith of the states and the nation thus pledged,
has been shamefully violated by the omission, on the part of many of the
states, to take any measures whatever for the abolition of slavery
within their respective limits; by the continuance of slavery in the
District of Columbia, and in the territories of Louisiana and Florida;
by the legislation of Congress; by the protection afforded by national
legislation and negotiation to slaveholding in American vessels, on the
high seas, employed in the coastwise Slave Traffic; and by the extension
of slavery far beyond its original limits, by acts of Congress admitting
new slave states into the Union.
9. _Resolved_, That the fundamental truths of the Declaration of
Independence, that all men are endowed by their Creator with certain
inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness, was made the fundamental law of our national government, by
that amendment of the constitution which declares that no person shall
be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.
10. _Resolved_, That we recognize as sound the doctrine maintained by
slaveholding jurists, that slavery is against natural rights, and
strictly local, and that its existence and continuance rests on no other
support than state legislation, and not on any authority of Congress.
11. _Resolved_, That the general government has, under the constitution,
no power to establish or continue slavery anywhere, and therefore that
all treaties and acts of Congress establishing, continuing or favoring
slavery in the District of Columbia, in the territory of Florida, or on
the high seas, are unconstitutional, and all attempts to hold men as
property within the limits of exclusive national jurisdiction ought to
be prohibited by law.
12. _Resolved_, That the provisions of the constitution of the United
States which confers extraordinary political powers on the owners of
slaves, and thereby constituting the two hundred and fifty thousand
slaveholders in the slave states a privileged aristocracy; and the
provisions for the reclamation of fugitive slaves from service, are
anti-republican in their character, dangerous to the liberties of the
people, and ought to be abrogated.
13. _Resolved_, That the practical operation of the second of these
provisions, is seen in the enactment of the act of Congress respecting
persons escaping from their masters, which act, if the construction
given to it by the Supreme Court of the United States in the case of
Prigg vs. Pennsylvania be correct, nullifies the _habeas corpus_ acts of
all the states, takes away the whole legal security of personal freedom,
and ought, therefore, to be immediately repealed.
14. _Resolved_, That the peculiar patronage and support hitherto
extended to slavery and slaveholding, by the general government, ought
to be immediately withdrawn, and the example and influence of national
authority ought to be arrayed on the side of liberty and free labor.
15. _Resolved_, That the practice of the general government, which
prevails in the slave states, of employing slaves upon the public works,
instead of free laborers, and paying aristocratic masters, with a view
to secure or reward political services, is utterly indefensible and
ought to be abandoned.
16. _Resolved_, That freedom of speech and of the press, and the right
of petition, and the right of trial by jury, are sacred and inviolable;
and that all rules, regulations and laws, in derogation of either, are
oppressive, unconstitutional, and not to be endured by a free people.
17. _Resolved_, That we regard voting, in an eminent degree, as a moral
and religious duty, which, when exercised, should be by voting for those
who will do all in their power for immediate emancipation.
18. _Resolved_, That this convention recommend to the friends of liberty
in all those free states where any inequality of rights and privileges
exists on account of color, to employ their utmost energies to remove
all such remnants and effects of the slave system.
_Whereas_, The constitution of these United States is a series of
agreements, covenants or contracts between the people of the United
States, each with all, and all with each; and,
_Whereas_, It is a principle of universal morality, that the moral laws
of the Creator are paramount to all human laws; or, in the language of
an Apostle, that “we ought to obey God rather than men;” and,
_Whereas_, The principle of common law—that any contract, covenant, or
agreement, to do an act derogatory to natural right, is vitiated and
annulled by its inherent immorality—has been recognized by one of the
justices of the Supreme Court of the United States, who in a recent case
expressly holds that “_any_ contract that rests upon such a basis is
_void_;” and,
_Whereas_, The third clause of the second section of the fourth article
of the constitution of the United States, when construed as providing
for the surrender of a fugitive slave, _does_ “rest upon such a basis,”
in that it is a contract to rob a man of a natural right—namely, his
natural right to his own liberty—and is therefore absolutely _void_.
Therefore,
19. _Resolved_, That we hereby give it to be distinctly understood by
this nation and the world, that, as abolitionists, considering that the
strength of our cause lies in its righteousness, and our hope for it in
our conformity to the laws of God, and our respect for the rights of
man, we owe it to the Sovereign Ruler of the Universe, as a proof of our
allegiance to Him, in all our civil relations and offices, whether as
private citizens, or public functionaries sworn to support the
constitution of the United States, to regard and to treat the third
clause of the fourth article of that instrument, whenever applied to the
case of a fugitive slave, as utterly null and void, and consequently as
forming no part of the constitution of the United States, whenever we
are called upon or sworn to support it.
20. _Resolved_, That the power given to Congress by the constitution, to
provide for calling out the militia to suppress insurrection, does not
make it the duty of the government to maintain slavery by military
force, much less does it make it the duty of the citizens to form a part
of such military force; when freemen unsheathe the sword it should be to
strike for liberty, not for despotism.
21. _Resolved_, That to preserve the peace of the citizens, and secure
the blessings of freedom, the legislature of each of the free states
ought to keep in force suitable statutes rendering it penal for any of
its inhabitants to transport, or aid in transporting from such state,
any person sought to be thus transported, merely because subject to the
slave laws of any other state; this remnant of independence being
accorded to the free states by the decision of the Supreme Court, in the
case of Prigg _vs._ the state of Pennsylvania.
1844.—Whig Platform.
_Baltimore, May 1._
1. _Resolved_, That these principles may be summed as comprising a well
regulated national currency: a tariff for revenue to defray the
necessary expenses of the government, and discriminating with special
reference to the protection of the domestic labor of the country; the
distribution of the proceeds from the sales of the public lands; a
single term for the presidency; a reform of executive usurpations; and
generally such an administration of the affairs of the country as shall
impart to every branch of the public service the greatest practical
efficiency, controlled by a well regulated and wise economy.
1844.—Democratic Platform.
_Baltimore, May 27._
Resolutions 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9, of the platform of 1840, were
reaffirmed, to which were added the following:
10. _Resolved_, That the proceeds of the public lands ought to be
sacredly applied to the national objects specified in the constitution,
and that we are opposed to the laws lately adopted, and to any law for
the distribution of such proceeds among the states, as alike inexpedient
in policy and repugnant to the constitution.
11. _Resolved_, That we are decidedly opposed to taking from the
President the qualified veto power by which he is enabled, under
restrictions and responsibilities amply sufficient to guard the public
interest, to suspend the passage of a bill whose merits can not secure
the approval of two-thirds of the Senate and House of Representatives,
until the judgment of the people can be obtained thereon, and which has
thrice saved the American people from the corrupt and tyrannical
domination of the bank of the United States.
12. _Resolved_, That our title to the whole of the territory of Oregon
is clear and unquestionable; that no portion of the same ought to be
ceded to England or any other power, and that the reoccupation of Oregon
and the reannexation of Texas at the earliest practicable period, are
great American measures, which this convention recommends to the cordial
support of the democracy of the Union.
1848.—Democratic Platform.
_Baltimore, May 22._
1. _Resolved_, That the American democracy place their trust in the
intelligence, the patriotism, and the discriminating justice of the
American people.
2. _Resolved_, That we regard this as a distinctive feature of our
political creed, which we are proud to maintain before the world, as the
great moral element in a form of government springing from and upheld by
the popular will; and contrast it with the creed and practice of
federalism, under whatever name or form, which seeks to palsy the will
of the constituent, and which conceives no imposture too monstrous for
the popular credulity.
3. _Resolved_, Therefore, that entertaining these views, the Democratic
party of this Union, through the delegates assembled in general
convention of the states, coming together in a spirit of concord, of
devotion to the doctrines and faith of a free representative government,
and appealing to their fellow-citizens for the rectitude of their
intentions, renew and reassert before the American people, the
declaration of principles avowed by them on a former occasion, when, in
general convention, they presented their candidates for the popular
suffrage.
Resolutions 1, 2, 3 and 4, of the platform of 1840, were reaffirmed.
8. _Resolved_, That it is the duty of every branch of the government to
enforce and practice the most rigid economy in conducting our public
affairs, and that no more revenue ought to be raised than is required to
defray the necessary expenses of the government, and for the gradual but
certain extinction of the debt created by the prosecution of a just and
necessary war.
Resolution 5, of the platform of 1840, was enlarged by the following:
And that the results of democratic legislation, in this and all other
financial measures, upon which issues have been made between the two
political parties of the country, have demonstrated to careful and
practical men of all parties, their soundness, safety and utility in all
business pursuits.
Resolutions 7, 8 and 9, of the platform of 1840, were here inserted.
13. _Resolved_, That the proceeds of the public lands ought to be
sacredly applied to the national objects specified in the constitution;
and that we are opposed to any law for the distribution of such proceeds
among the states as alike inexpedient in policy and repugnant to the
constitution.
14. _Resolved_, That we are decidedly opposed to taking from the
President the qualified veto power, by which he is enabled, under
restrictions and responsibilities amply sufficient to guard the public
interests, to suspend the passage of a bill whose merits can not secure
the approval of two-thirds of the Senate and House of Representatives,
until the judgment of the people can be obtained thereon, and which has
saved the American people from the corrupt and tyrannical domination of
the Bank of the United States, and from a corrupting system of general
internal improvements.
15. _Resolved_, That the war with Mexico, provoked on her part by years
of insult and injury, was commenced by her army crossing the Rio Grande,
attacking the American troops, and invading our sister state of Texas,
and upon all the principles of patriotism and the laws of nations, it is
a just and necessary war on our part, in which every American citizen
should have shown himself on the side of his country, and neither
morally nor physically, by word or by deed, have given “aid and comfort
to the enemy.”
16. _Resolved_, That we would be rejoiced at the assurance of peace with
Mexico, founded on the just principles of indemnity for the past and
security for the future; but that while the ratification of the liberal
treaty offered to Mexico remains in doubt, it is the duty of the country
to sustain the administration and to sustain the country in every
measure necessary to provide for the vigorous prosecution of the war,
should that treaty be rejected.
17. _Resolved_, That the officers and soldiers who have carried the arms
of their country into Mexico, have crowned it with imperishable glory.
Their unconquerable courage, their daring enterprise, their unfaltering
perseverance and fortitude when assailed on all sides by innumerable
foes and that more formidable enemy—the diseases of the climate—exalt
their devoted patriotism into the highest heroism, and give them a right
to the profound gratitude of their country, and the admiration of the
world.
18. _Resolved_, That the Democratic National Convention of thirty states
composing the American Republic, tender their fraternal congratulations
to the National Convention of the Republic of France, now assembled as
the free suffrage representative of the sovereignty of thirty-five
millions of Republicans, to establish government on those eternal
principles of equal rights, for which their La Fayette and our
Washington fought side by side in the struggle for our national
independence; and we would especially convey to them, and to the whole
people of France, our earnest wishes for the consolidation of their
liberties, through the wisdom that shall guide their councils, on the
basis of a democratic constitution, not derived from the grants or
concessions of kings or dynasties, but originating from the only true
source of political power recognized in the states of this Union—the
inherent and inalienable right of the people, in their sovereign
capacity, to make and to amend their forms of government in such manner
as the welfare of the community may require.
19. _Resolved_, That in view of the recent development of this grand
political truth, of the sovereignty of the people and their capacity and
power for self-government, which is prostrating thrones and erecting
republics on the ruins of despotism in the old world, we feel that a
high and sacred duty is devolved, with increased responsibility, upon
the Democratic party of this country, as the party of the people, to
sustain and advance among us constitutional liberty, equality, and
fraternity, by continuing to resist all monopolies and exclusive
legislation for the benefit of the few at the expense of the many, and
by a vigilant and constant adherence to those principles and compromises
of the constitution, which are broad enough and strong enough to embrace
and uphold the Union as it was, the Union as it is, and the Union as it
shall be in the full expansion of the energies and capacity of this
great and progressive people.
20. _Resolved_, That a copy of these resolutions be forwarded, through
the American minister at Paris, to the National Convention of the
Republic of France.
21. _Resolved_, That the fruits of the great political triumph of 1844,
which elected James K. Polk and George M. Dallas, President and
Vice-President of the United States, have fulfilled the hopes of the
democracy of the Union in defeating the declared purposes of their
opponents in creating a National Bank; in preventing the corrupt and
unconstitutional distribution of the land proceeds from the common
treasury of the Union for local purposes; in protecting the currency and
labor of the country from ruinous fluctuations, and guarding the money
of the country for the use of the people by the establishment of the
constitutional treasury; in the noble impulse given to the cause of free
trade by the repeal of the tariff of ’42, and the creation of the more
equal, honest, and productive tariff of 1846; and that, in our opinion,
it would be a fatal error to weaken the bands of a political
organization by which these great reforms have been achieved, and risk
them in the hands of their known adversaries, with whatever delusive
appeals they may solicit our surrender of that vigilance which is the
only safeguard of liberty.
22. _Resolved_, That the confidence of the democracy of the Union in the
principles, capacity, firmness, and integrity of James K. Polk,
manifested by his nomination and election in 1844, has been signally
justified by the strictness of his adherence to sound democratic
doctrines, by the purity of purpose, the energy and ability, which have
characterized his administration in all our affairs at home and abroad;
that we tender to him our cordial congratulations upon the brilliant
success which has hitherto crowned his patriotic efforts, and assure him
in advance, that at the expiration of his presidential term he will
carry with him to his retirement, the esteem, respect and admiration of
a grateful country.
23. _Resolved_, That this convention hereby present to the people of the
United States Lewis Cass, of Michigan, as the candidate of the
Democratic party for the office of President, and William O. Butler, of
Kentucky, for Vice-President of the United States.
1848.—Whig Principles Adopted at a Ratification Meeting,
_Philadelphia, June 9_.
1. _Resolved_, That the Whigs of the United States, here assembled by
their representatives, heartily ratify the nominations of General
Zachary Taylor as President, and Millard Fillmore as Vice-President, of
the United States, and pledge themselves to their support.
2. _Resolved_, That in the choice of General Taylor as the Whig
candidate for President, we are glad to discover sympathy with a great
popular sentiment throughout the nation—a sentiment which having its
origin in admiration of great military success, has been strengthened by
the development, in every action and every word, of sound conservative
opinions, and of true fidelity to the great example of former days, and
to the principles of the constitution as administered by its founders.
3. _Resolved_, That General Taylor, in saying that, had he voted in
1844, he would have voted the Whig ticket, gives us the assurance—and no
better is needed from a consistent and truth-speaking man—that his heart
was with us at the crisis of our political destiny, when Henry Clay was
our candidate, and when not only Whig principles were well defined and
clearly asserted, but Whig measures depended on success. The heart that
was with us then is with us now, and, we have a soldier’s word of honor,
and a life of public and private virtue, as the security.
4. _Resolved_, That we look on General Taylor’s administration of the
government as one conducive of peace, prosperity and union; of peace,
because no one better knows, or has greater reason to deplore, what he
has seen sadly on the field of victory, the horrors of war, and
especially of a foreign and aggressive war; of prosperity, now more than
ever needed to relieve the nation from a burden of debt, and restore
industry—agricultural, manufacturing, and commercial—to its accustomed
and peaceful functions and influences; of union, because we have a
candidate whose very position as a southwestern man, reared on the banks
of the great stream whose tributaries, natural and artificial, embrace
the whole Union, renders the protection of the interests of the whole
country his first trust, and whose various duties in past life have been
rendered, not on the soil, or under the flag of any state or section,
but over the wide frontier, and under the broad banner of the nation.
5. _Resolved_, That standing, as the Whig party does, on the broad and
firm platform of the constitution, braced up by all its inviolable and
sacred guarantees and compromises, and cherished in the affections,
because protective of the interests of the people, we are proud to have
as the exponent of our opinions, one who is pledged to construe it by
the wise and generous rules which Washington applied to it, and who has
said—and no Whig desires any other assurance—that he will make
Washington’s administration his model.
6. _Resolved_, That as Whigs and Americans, we are proud to acknowledge
our gratitude for the great military services which, beginning at Palo
Alto, and ending at Buena Vista, first awakened the American people to a
just estimate of him who is now our Whig candidate. In the discharge of
a painful duty—for his march into the enemy’s country was a reluctant
one; in the command of regulars at one time, and volunteers at another,
and of both combined; in the decisive though punctual discipline of his
camp, where all respected and loved him; in the negotiation of terms for
a dejected and desperate enemy; in the exigency of actual conflict when
the balance was perilously doubtful—we have found him the same—brave,
distinguished, and considerate, no heartless spectator of bloodshed, no
trifler with human life or human happiness; and we do not know which to
admire most, his heroism in withstanding the assaults of the enemy in
the most hopeless fields of Buena Vista—mourning in generous sorrow over
the graves of Ringgold, of Clay, of Hardin—or in giving, in the heat of
battle, terms of merciful capitulation to a vanquished foe at Monterey,
and not being ashamed to avow that he did it to spare women and
children, helpless infancy and more helpless age, against whom no
American soldier ever wars. Such a military man, whose triumphs are
neither remote nor doubtful, whose virtues these trials have tested, we
are proud to make our candidate.
7. _Resolved_, That in support of this nomination, we ask our Whig
friends throughout the nation to unite, to co-operate zealously,
resolutely, with earnestness, in behalf of our candidate, whom calumny
can not reach, and with respectful demeanor to our adversaries, whose
candidates have yet to prove their claims on the gratitude of the
nation.
1848.—Buffalo Platform.
_Utica, June 22._
_Whereas_, We have assembled in convention as a union of freemen, for
the sake of freedom, forgetting all past political difference, in a
common resolve to maintain the rights of free labor against the
aggression of the slave power, and to secure free soil to a free people;
and,
_Whereas_, The political conventions recently assembled at Baltimore and
Philadelphia—the one stifling the voice of a great constituency,
entitled to be heard in its deliberations, and the other abandoning its
distinctive principles for mere availability—have dissolved the national
party organization heretofore existing, by nominating for the chief
magistracy of the United States, under the slaveholding dictation,
candidates, neither of whom can be supported by the opponents of slavery
extension, without a sacrifice of consistency, duty, and self-respect;
and,
_Whereas_, These nominations so made, furnish the occasion, and
demonstrate the necessity of the union of the people under the banner of
free democracy, in a solemn and formal declaration of their independence
of the slave power, and of their fixed determination to rescue the
Federal government from its control,
1. _Resolved, therefore_, That we, the people here assembled,
remembering the example of our fathers in the days of the first
Declaration of Independence, putting our trust in God for the triumph of
our cause, and invoking His guidance in our endeavors to advance it, do
now plant ourselves upon the national platform of freedom, in opposition
to the sectional platform of slavery.
2. _Resolved_, That slavery in the several states of this Union which
recognize its existence, depends upon the state laws alone, which can
not be repealed or modified by the Federal government, and for which
laws that government is not responsible. We therefore propose no
interference by Congress with slavery within the limits of any state.
3. _Resolved_, That the proviso of Jefferson, to prohibit the existence
of slavery, after 1800, in all the territories of the United States,
southern and northern; the votes of six states and sixteen delegates in
Congress of 1784, for the proviso, to three states and seven delegates
against it; the actual exclusion of slavery from the Northwestern
Territory, by the Ordinance of 1787, unanimously adopted by the states
in Congress; and the entire history of that period, clearly show that it
was the settled policy of the nation not to extend, nationalize or
encourage, but to limit, localize and discourage, slavery; and to this
policy, which should never have been departed from, the government ought
to return.
4. _Resolved_, That our fathers ordained the constitution of the United
States, in order, among other great national objects, to establish
justice, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of
liberty; but expressly denied to the Federal government, which they
created, all constitutional power to deprive any person of life,
liberty, or property, without due legal process.
5. _Resolved_, That in the judgment of this convention, Congress has no
more power to make a slave than to make a king; no more power to
institute or establish slavery than to institute or establish a
monarchy; no such power can be found among those specifically conferred
by the constitution, or derived by just implication from them.
6. _Resolved_, That it is the duty of the Federal government to relieve
itself from all responsibility for the existence or continuance of
slavery wherever the government possesses constitutional power to
legislate on that subject, and it is thus responsible for its existence.
7. _Resolved_, That the true, and, in the judgment of this convention,
the only safe means of preventing the extension of slavery into
territory now free, is to prohibit its extension in all such territory
by an act of Congress.
8. _Resolved_, That we accept the issue which the slave power has forced
upon us; and to their demand for more slave states, and more slave
territory, our calm but final answer is, no more slave states and no
more slave territory. Let the soil of our extensive domains be kept free
for the hardy pioneers of our own land, and the oppressed and banished
of other lands, seeking homes of comfort and fields of enterprise in the
new world.
9. _Resolved_, That the bill lately reported by the committee of eight
in the Senate of the United States, was no compromise, but an absolute
surrender of the rights of the non-slaveholders of all the states; and
while we rejoice to know that a measure which, while opening the door
for the introduction of slavery into the territories now free, would
also have opened the door to litigation and strife among the future
inhabitants thereof, to the ruin of their peace and prosperity, was
defeated in the House of Representatives, its passage, in hot haste, by
a majority, embracing several senators who voted in open violation of
the known will of their constituents, should warn the people to see to
it that their representatives be not suffered to betray them. There must
be no more compromises with slavery; if made, they must be repealed.
10. _Resolved_, That we demand freedom and established institutions for
our brethren in Oregon, now exposed to hardships, peril, and massacre,
by the reckless hostility of the slave power to the establishment of
free government and free territories; and not only for them, but for our
brethren in California and New Mexico.
11. _Resolved_, It is due not only to this occasion, but to the whole
people of the United States, that we should also declare ourselves on
certain other questions of national policy; therefore,
12. _Resolved_, That we demand cheap postage for the people; a
retrenchment of the expenses and patronage of the Federal government;
the abolition of all unnecessary offices and salaries; and the election
by the people of all civil officers in the service of the government, so
far as the same may be practicable.
13. _Resolved_, that river and harbor improvements, when demanded by the
safety and convenience of commerce with foreign nations, or among the
several states, are objects of national concern, and that it is the duty
of Congress, in the exercise of its constitutional power, to provide
therefor.
14. _Resolved_, That the free grant to actual settlers, in consideration
of the expenses they incur in making settlements in the wilderness,
which are usually fully equal to their actual cost, and of the public
benefits resulting therefrom, of reasonable portions of the public
lands, under suitable limitations, is a wise and just measure of public
policy, which will promote in various ways the interests of all the
states of this Union; and we, therefore, recommend it to the favorable
consideration of the American People.
15. _Resolved_, That the obligations of honor and patriotism require the
earliest practical payment of the national debt, and we are, therefore,
in favor of such a tariff of duties as will raise revenue adequate to
defray the expenses of the Federal government, and to pay annual
installments of our debt and the interest thereon.
16. _Resolved_, That we inscribe on our banner, “Free Soil, Free Speech,
Free Labor, and Free Men,” and under it we will fight on, and fight
ever, until a triumphant victory shall reward our exertions.
1852.—Democratic Platform.
_Baltimore, June 1._
Resolutions 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7, of the platform of 1848, were
reaffirmed, to which were added the following:
8. _Resolved_, That it is the duty of every branch of the government to
enforce and practice the most rigid economy in conducting our public
affairs, and that no more revenue ought to be raised than is required to
defray the necessary expenses of the government, and for the gradual but
certain extinction of the public debt.
9. _Resolved_, That Congress has no power to charter a National Bank;
that we believe such an institution one of deadly hostility to the best
interests of the country, dangerous to our republican institutions and
the liberties of the people, and calculated to place the business of the
country within the control of a concentrated money power, and that above
the laws and will of the people; and that the results of Democratic
legislation, in this and all other financial measures, upon which issues
have been made between the two political parties of the country, have
demonstrated to candid and practical men of all parties, their
soundness, safety, and utility, in all business pursuits.
10. _Resolved_, That the separation of the moneys of the government from
banking institutions is indispensable for the safety of the funds of the
government and the rights of the people.
11. _Resolved_, That the liberal principles embodied by Jefferson in the
Declaration of Independence, and sanctioned in the constitution, which
makes ours the land of liberty and the asylum of the oppressed of every
nation, have ever been cardinal principles in the Democratic faith; and
every attempt to abridge the privilege of becoming citizens and the
owners of the soil among us, ought to be resisted with the same spirit
that swept the alien and sedition laws from our statute books.
12. _Resolved_, That Congress has no power under the constitution to
interfere with, or control, the domestic institutions of the several
states, and that such states are the sole and proper judges of
everything appertaining to their own affairs, not prohibited by the
constitution; that all efforts of the Abolitionists or others, made to
induce Congress to interfere with questions of slavery, or to take
incipient steps in relation thereto, are calculated to lead to the most
alarming and dangerous consequences; and that all such efforts have an
inevitable tendency to diminish the happiness of the people, and
endanger the stability and permanency of the Union, and ought not to be
countenanced by any friend of our political institutions.
13. _Resolved_, That the foregoing proposition covers, and is intended
to embrace, the whole subject of slavery agitation in Congress; and
therefore the Democratic party of the Union, standing on this national
platform, will abide by, and adhere to, a faithful execution of the acts
known as the Compromise measures settled by last Congress, “the act for
reclaiming fugitives from service labor” included; which act, being
designed to carry out an express provision of the constitution, can not,
with fidelity thereto, be repealed, nor so changed as to destroy or
impair its efficiency.
14. _Resolved_, That the Democratic party will resist all attempts at
renewing in Congress, or out of it, the agitation of the slavery
question, under whatever shape or color the attempt may be made.
[Here resolutions 13 and 14, of the platform of 1848, were inserted.]
17. _Resolved_, That the Democratic party will faithfully abide by and
uphold the principles laid down in the Kentucky and Virginia resolutions
of 1792 and 1798, and in the report of Mr. Madison to the Virginia
Legislature in 1799; that it adopts those principles as constituting one
of the main foundations of its political creed, and is resolved to carry
them out in their obvious meaning and import.
18. _Resolved_, That the war with Mexico, upon all the principles of
patriotism and the law of nations, was a just and necessary war on our
part, in which no American citizen should have shown himself opposed to
his country, and neither morally nor physically, by word or deed, given
aid and comfort to the enemy.
19. _Resolved_, That we rejoice at the restoration of friendly relations
with our sister Republic of Mexico, and earnestly desire for her all the
blessings and prosperity which we enjoy under republican institutions,
and we congratulate the American people on the results of that war which
have so manifestly justified the policy and conduct of the Democratic
party, and insured to the United States indemnity for the past and
security for the future.
20. _Resolved_, That, in view of the condition of popular institutions
in the old world, a high and sacred duty is devolved with increased
responsibility upon the Democracy of this country, as the party of the
people, to uphold and maintain the rights of every state, and thereby
the union of states, and to sustain and advance among them
constitutional liberty, by continuing to resist all monopolies and
exclusive legislation for the benefit of the few at the expense of the
many, and by a vigilant and constant adherence to those principles and
compromises of the constitution which are broad enough and strong enough
to embrace and uphold the Union as it is, and the Union as it should be,
in the full expansion of the energies and capacity of this great and
progressive people.
1852.—Whig Platform.
_Baltimore, June 16._
The Whigs of the United States, in convention assembled adhering to the
great conservative principles by which they are controlled and governed,
and now as ever relying upon the intelligence of the American people,
with an abiding confidence in their capacity for self-government and
their devotion to the constitution and the Union, do proclaim the
following as the political sentiments and determination for the
establishment and maintenance of which their national organization as a
party was effected:
First. The government of the United States is of a limited character,
and is confined to the exercise of powers expressly granted by the
constitution, and such as may be necessary and proper for carrying the
granted powers into full execution, and that powers not granted or
necessarily implied are reserved to the states respectively and to the
people.
Second. The state governments should be held secure to their reserved
rights, and the General Government sustained in its constitutional
powers, and that the Union should be revered and watched over as the
palladium of our liberties.
Third. That while struggling freedom everywhere enlists the warmest
sympathy of the Whig party, we still adhere to the doctrines of the
Father of his Country, as announced in his Farewell Address, of keeping
ourselves free from all entangling alliances with foreign countries, and
of never quitting our own to stand upon foreign ground; that our mission
as a republic is not to propagate our opinions, or impose on other
countries our forms of government, by artifice or force, but to teach by
example, and show by our success, moderation and justice, the blessings
of self-government, and the advantages of free institutions.
Fourth. That, as the people make and control the government, they should
obey its constitution, laws and treaties as they would retain their
self-respect and the respect which they claim and will enforce from
foreign powers.
Fifth. Governments should be conducted on the principles of the
strictest economy; and revenue sufficient for the expenses thereof, in
time of peace, ought to be derived mainly from a duty on imports, and
not from direct taxes; and on laying such duties sound policy requires a
just discrimination, and, when practicable, by specific duties, whereby
suitable encouragement may be afforded to American industry, equally to
all classes and to all portions of the country.
Sixth. The constitution vests in Congress the power to open and repair
harbors, and remove obstructions from navigable rivers, whenever such
improvements are necessary for the common defense, and for the
protection and facility of commerce with foreign nations or among the
states, said improvements being in every instance national and general
in their character.
Seventh. The Federal and state governments are parts of one system,
alike necessary for the common prosperity, peace and security, and ought
to be regarded alike with a cordial, habitual and immovable attachment.
Respect for the authority of each, and acquiescence in the just
constitutional measures of each, are duties required by the plainest
considerations of national, state and individual welfare.
Eighth. That the series of acts of the 32d Congress, the act known as
the Fugitive Slave Law included, are received and acquiesced in by the
Whig party of the United States as a settlement in principle and
substance of the dangerous and exciting questions which they embrace;
and, so far as they are concerned, we will maintain them, and insist
upon their strict enforcement, until time and experience shall
demonstrate the necessity of further legislation to guard against the
evasion of the laws on the one hand and the abuse of their powers on the
other—not impairing their present efficiency; and we deprecate all
further agitation of the question thus settled, as dangerous to our
peace, and will discountenance all efforts to continue or renew such
agitation whenever, where-ever or however the attempt may be made; and
we will maintain the system as essential to the nationality of the Whig
party, and the integrity of the Union.
1852.—Free-soil Platform.
_Pittsburg, August 11._
Having assembled in national convention as the free democracy of the
United States, united by a common resolve to maintain right against
wrong, and freedom against slavery; confiding in the intelligence,
patriotism, and discriminating justice of the American people; putting
our trust in God for the triumph of our cause, and invoking His guidance
in our endeavors to advance it, we now submit to the candid judgment of
all men, the following declaration of principles and measures:
1. That governments, deriving their just powers from the consent of the
governed, are instituted among men to secure to all those inalienable
rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, with which they
are endowed by their Creator, and of which none can be deprived by valid
legislation, except for crime.
2. That the true mission of American democracy is to maintain the
liberties of the people, the sovereignty of the states, and the
perpetuity of the Union, by the impartial application of public affairs,
without sectional discriminations, of the fundamental principles of
human rights, strict justice, and an economical administration.
3. That the Federal government is one of limited powers derived solely
from the constitution, and the grants of power therein ought to be
strictly construed by all the departments and agents of the government,
and it is inexpedient and dangerous to exercise doubtful constitutional
powers.
4. That the constitution of the United States, ordained to form a more
perfect Union, to establish justice, and secure the blessings of
liberty, expressly denies to the general government all power to deprive
any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;
and, therefore, the government, having no more power to make a slave
than to make a king, and no more power to establish slavery than to
establish a monarchy, should at once proceed to relieve itself from all
responsibility for the existence of slavery, wherever it possesses
constitutional power to legislate for its extinction.
5. That, to the persevering and importunate demands of the slave power
for more slave states, new slave territories, and the nationalization of
slavery, our distinct and final answer is—no more slave states, no slave
territory, no nationalized slavery, and no national legislation for the
extradition of slaves.
6. That slavery is a sin against God, and a crime against man, which no
human enactment nor usage can make right; and that Christianity,
humanity, and patriotism alike demand its abolition.
7. That the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 is repugnant to the constitution,
to the principles of the common law, to the spirit of Christianity, and
to the sentiments of the civilized world; we, therefore, deny its
binding force on the American people, and demand its immediate and total
repeal.
8. That the doctrine that any human law is a finality, and not subject
to modification or repeal, is not in accordance with the creed of the
founders of our government, and is dangerous to the liberties of the
people.
9. That the acts of Congress, known as the Compromise measures of 1850,
by making the admission of a sovereign state contingent upon the
adoption of other measures demanded by the special interests of slavery;
by their omission to guarantee freedom in the free territories; by their
attempt to impose unconstitutional limitations on the powers of Congress
and the people to admit new states; by their provisions for the
assumption of five millions of the state debt of Texas, and for the
payment of five millions more, and the cession of large territory to the
same state under menace, as an inducement to the relinquishment of a
groundless claim; and by their invasion of the sovereignty of the states
and the liberties of the people, through the enactment of an unjust,
oppressive, and unconstitutional fugitive slave law, are proved to be
inconsistent with all the principles and maxims of democracy, and wholly
inadequate to the settlement of the questions of which they are claimed
to be an adjustment.
10. That no permanent settlement of the slavery question can be looked
for except in the practical recognition of the truth that slavery is
sectional and freedom national; by the total separation of the general
government from slavery, and the exercise of its legitimate and
constitutional influence on the side of freedom; and by leaving to the
states the whole subject of slavery and the extradition of fugitives
from service.
11. That all men have a natural right to a portion of the soil; and that
as the use of the soil is indispensable to life, the right of all men to
the soil is as sacred as their right to life itself.
12. That the public lands of the United States belong to the people and
should not be sold to individuals nor granted to corporations, but
should be held as a sacred trust for the benefit of the people, and
should be granted in limited quantities, free of cost, to landless
settlers.
13. That due regard for the Federal constitution, a sound administrative
policy, demand that the funds of the general government be kept separate
from banking institutions; that inland and ocean postage should be
reduced to the lowest possible point; that no more revenue should be
raised than is required to defray the strictly necessary expenses of the
public service and to pay off the public debt; and that the power and
patronage of the government should be diminished by the abolition of all
unnecessary offices, salaries and privileges, and by the election of the
people of all civil officers in the service of the United States, so far
as may be consistent with the prompt and efficient transaction of the
public business.
14. That river and harbor improvements, when necessary to the safety and
convenience of commerce with foreign nations, or among the several
states, are objects of national concern; and it is the duty of Congress,
in the exercise of its constitutional powers, to provide for the same.
15. That emigrants and exiles from the old world should find a cordial
welcome to homes of comfort and fields of enterprise in the new; and
every attempt to abridge their privilege of becoming citizens and owners
of soil among us ought to be resisted with inflexible determination.
16. That every nation has a clear right to alter or change its own
government, and to administer its own concerns in such manner as may
best secure the rights and promote the happiness of the people; and
foreign interference with that right is a dangerous violation of the law
of nations, against which all independent governments should protest,
and endeavor by all proper means to prevent; and especially is it the
duty of the American government, representing the chief republic of the
world, to protest against, and by all proper means to prevent, the
intervention of kings and emperors against nations seeking to establish
for themselves republican or constitutional governments.
17. That the independence of Hayti ought to be recognized by our
government, and our commercial relations with it placed on the footing
of the most favored nations.
18. That as by the constitution, “the citizens of each state shall be
entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several
states,” the practice of imprisoning colored seamen of other states,
while the vessels to which they belong lie in port, and refusing the
exercise of the right to bring such cases before the Supreme Court of
the United States, to test the legality of such proceedings, is a
flagrant violation of the constitution, and an invasion of the rights of
the citizens of other states, utterly inconsistent with the professions
made by the slaveholders, that they wish the provisions of the
constitution faithfully observed by every state in the Union.
19. That we recommend the introduction into all treaties hereafter to be
negotiated between the United States and foreign nations, of some
provision for the amicable settlement of difficulties by a resort to
decisive arbitrations.
20. That the free democratic party is not organized to aid either the
Whig or Democratic wing of the great slave compromise party of the
nation, but to defeat them both; and that repudiating and renouncing
both as hopelessly corrupt and utterly unworthy of confidence, the
purpose of the Free Democracy is to take possession of the Federal
government and administer it for the better protection of the rights and
interests of the whole people.
21. That we inscribe on our banner Free Soil, Free Speech, Free Labor,
and Free Men, and under it will fight on and fight ever, until a
triumphant victory shall reward our exertions.
22. That upon this platform, the convention presents to the American
people, as a candidate for the office of President of the United States,
John P. Hale, of New Hampshire, and as a candidate for the office of
Vice-President of the United States, George W. Julian, of Indiana, and
earnestly commend them to the support of all freemen and all parties.
1856.—The American Platform.
_Adopted at Philadelphia February 21._
1. An humble acknowledgment to the Supreme Being for His protecting care
vouchsafed to our fathers in their successful revolutionary struggle,
and hitherto manifested to us, their descendants, in the preservation of
the liberties, the independence, and the union of these states.
2. The perpetuation of the Federal Union and constitution, as the
palladium of our civil and religious liberties, and the only sure
bulwarks of American independence.
3. _Americans must rule America_; and to this end _native_-born citizens
should be selected for all state, federal, and municipal offices of
government employment, in preference to all others. _Nevertheless_,
4. Persons born of American parents residing temporarily abroad, should
be entitled to all the rights of native-born citizens.
5. No person should be selected for political station (whether of native
or foreign birth), who recognizes any allegiance or obligation of any
description to any foreign prince, potentate, or power, or who refuses
to recognize the federal and state constitutions (each within its
sphere) as paramount to all other laws, as rules of political action.
6. The unequaled recognition and maintenance of the reserved rights of
the several states, and the cultivation of harmony and fraternal good
will between the citizens of the several states, and, to this end,
non-interference by Congress with questions appertaining solely to the
individual states, and non-intervention by each state with the affairs
of any other state.
7. The recognition of the right of native-born and naturalized citizens
of the United States, permanently residing in any territory thereof, to
frame their constitution and laws, and to regulate their domestic and
social affairs in their own mode, subject only to the provisions of the
federal constitution, with the privilege of admission into the Union
whenever they have the requisite population for one Representative in
Congress: _Provided, always_, that none but those who are citizens of
the United States under the constitution and laws thereof, and who have
a fixed residence in any such territory, ought to participate in the
formation of the constitution or in the enactment of laws for said
territory or state.
8. An enforcement of the principles that no state or territory ought to
admit others than citizens to the right of suffrage or of holding
political offices of the United States.
9. A change in the laws of naturalization, making a continued residence
of twenty-one years, of all not heretofore provided for, an
indispensable requisite for citizenship hereafter, and excluding all
paupers and persons convicted of crime from landing upon our shores; but
no interference with the vested rights of foreigners.
10. Opposition to any union between church and state; no interference
with religious faith or worship; and no test oaths for office.
11. Free and thorough investigation into any and all alleged abuses of
public functionaries, and a strict economy in public expenditures.
12. The maintenance and enforcement of all laws constitutionally
enacted, until said laws shall be repealed, or shall be declared null
and void by competent judicial authority.
13. Opposition to the reckless and unwise policy of the present
administration in the general management of our national affairs, and
more especially as shown in removing “Americans” (by designation) and
conservatives in principle, from office, and placing foreigners and
ultraists in their places; as shown in a truckling subserviency to the
stronger, and an insolent and cowardly bravado towards the weaker
powers; as shown in reopening sectional agitation, by the repeal of the
Missouri Compromise; as shown in granting to unnaturalized foreigners
the right of suffrage in Kansas and Nebraska; as shown in its
vacillating course on the Kansas and Nebraska question; as shown in the
corruptions which pervade some of the departments of the government; as
shown in disgracing meritorious naval officers through prejudice or
caprice; and as shown in the blundering mismanagement of our foreign
relations.
14. Therefore, to remedy existing evils and prevent the disastrous
consequences otherwise resulting therefrom, we would build up the
“American Party” upon the principles hereinbefore stated.
15. That each state council shall have authority to amend their several
constitutions, so as to abolish the several degrees, and substitute a
pledge of honor, instead of other obligations, for fellowship and
admission into the party.
16. A free and open discussion of all political principles embraced in
our platform.
1856.—Democratic Platform,
_Adopted at Cincinnati, June 6_.
_Resolved_, That the American democracy place their trust in the
intelligence, the patriotism, and discriminating justice of the American
people.
_Resolved_, That we regard this as a distinctive feature of our
political creed, which we are proud to maintain before the world as a
great moral element in a form of government springing from and upheld by
the popular will; and we contrast it with the creed and practice of
federalism, under whatever name or form, which seeks to palsy the will
of the constituent, and which conceives no imposture too monstrous for
the popular credulity.
_Resolved, therefore_, That entertaining these views, the Democratic
party of this Union, through their delegates, assembled in general
convention, coming together in a spirit of concord, of devotion to the
doctrines and faith of a free representative government, and appealing
to their fellow-citizens for the rectitude of their intentions, renew
and reassert, before the American people, the declaration of principles
avowed by them, when, on former occasions, in general convention, they
have presented their candidates for the popular suffrage.
1. That the Federal government is one of limited power, derived solely
from the constitution, and the grants of power made therein ought to be
strictly construed by all the departments and agents of the government,
and that it is inexpedient and dangerous to exercise doubtful
constitutional powers.
2. That the constitution does not confer upon the general government the
power to commence and carry on a general system of internal
improvements.
3. That the constitution does not confer authority upon the Federal
government, directly or indirectly, to assume the debts of the several
states, contracted for local and internal improvements or other state
purposes; nor would such assumption be just or expedient.
4. That justice, and sound policy forbid the Federal government to
foster one branch of industry to the detriment of another, or to cherish
the interests of one portion of our common country; that every citizen
and every section of the country has a right to demand and insist upon
an equality of rights and privileges, and a complete and ample
protection of persons and property from domestic violence and foreign
aggression.
5. That it is the duty of every branch of the government to enforce and
practice the most rigid economy in conducting our public affairs, and
that no more revenue ought to be raised than is required to defray the
necessary expenses of the government and gradual but certain extinction
of the public debt.
6. That the proceeds of the public lands ought to be sacredly applied to
the national objects specified in the constitution, and that we are
opposed to any law for the distribution of such proceeds among the
states, as alike inexpedient in policy and repugnant to the
constitution.
7. That Congress has no power to charter a national bank; that we
believe such an institution one of deadly hostility to the best
interests of this country, dangerous to our republican institutions and
the liberties of the people, and calculated to place the business of the
country within the control of a concentrated money power and above the
laws and will of the people; and the results of the democratic
legislation in this and all other financial measures upon which issues
have been made between the two political parties of the country, have
demonstrated to candid and practical men of all parties their soundness,
safety, and utility in all business pursuits.
8. That the separation of the moneys of the government from banking
institutions is indispensable to the safety of the funds of the
government and the rights of the people.
9. That we are decidedly opposed to taking from the President the
qualified veto power, by which he is enabled, under restrictions and
responsibilities amply sufficient to guard the public interests, to
suspend the passage of a bill whose merits can not secure the approval
of two-thirds of the Senate and House of Representatives, until the
judgment of the people can be obtained thereon, and which has saved the
American people from the corrupt and tyrannical dominion of the Bank of
the United States and from a corrupting system of general internal
improvements.
10. That the liberal principles embodied by Jefferson in the Declaration
of Independence, and sanctioned in the Constitution, which makes ours
the land of liberty and the asylum of the oppressed of every nation,
have ever been cardinal principles in the democratic faith; and every
attempt to abridge the privilege of becoming citizens and owners of soil
among us, ought to be resisted with the same spirit which swept the
alien and sedition laws from our statute books.
_And whereas_, Since the foregoing declaration was uniformly adopted by
our predecessors in national conventions, an adverse political and
religious test has been secretly organized by a party claiming to be
exclusively Americans, and it is proper that the American democracy
should clearly define its relations thereto; and declare its determined
opposition to all secret political societies, by whatever name they may
be called—
_Resolved_, That the foundation of this union of states having been laid
in, and its prosperity, expansion, and pre-eminent example in free
government built upon, entire freedom of matters of religious
concernment, and no respect of persons in regard to rank or place of
birth, no party can justly be deemed national, constitutional, or in
accordance with American principles, which bases its exclusive
organization upon religious opinions and accidental birthplace. And
hence a political crusade in the nineteenth century, and in the United
States of America, against Catholics and foreign born, is neither
justified by the past history or future prospects of the country, nor in
unison with the spirit of toleration and enlightened freedom which
peculiarly distinguishes the American system of popular government.
_Resolved_, That we reiterate with renewed energy of purpose the
well-considered declarations of former conventions upon the sectional
issue of domestic slavery, and concerning the reserved rights of the
states—
1. That Congress has no power under the constitution to interfere with
or control the domestic institutions of the several states, and that all
such states are the sole and proper judges of everything appertaining to
their own affairs not prohibited by the constitution; that all efforts
of the Abolitionists or others, made to induce Congress to interfere
with questions of slavery, or to take incipient steps in relation
thereto, are calculated to lead to the most alarming and dangerous
consequences, and that all such efforts have an inevitable tendency to
diminish the happiness of the people and endanger the stability and
permanency of the Union, and ought not to be countenanced by any friend
of our political institutions.
2. That the foregoing proposition covers and was intended to embrace the
whole subject of slavery agitation in Congress, and therefore the
Democratic party of the Union, standing on this national platform, will
abide by and adhere to a faithful execution of the acts known as the
compromise measures, settled by the Congress of 1850—“the act for
reclaiming fugitives from service or labor” included; which act, being
designed to carry out an express provision of the constitution, can not,
with fidelity thereto, be repealed, or so changed as to destroy or
impair its efficiency.
3. That the Democratic party will resist all attempts at renewing in
Congress, or out of it, the agitation of the slavery question, under
whatever shape or color the attempt may be made.
4. That the Democratic party will faithfully abide by and uphold the
principles laid down in the Kentucky and Virginia resolutions of 1792
and 1798, and in the report of Mr. Madison to the Virginia legislature
in 1799; that it adopts these principles as constituting one of the main
foundations of its political creed, and is resolved to carry them out in
their obvious meaning and import.
And that we may more distinctly meet the issue on which a sectional
party, subsisting exclusively on slavery agitation, now relies to test
the fidelity of the people, north and south, to the constitution and the
Union—*
1. _Resolved_, That claiming fellowship with and desiring the
co-operation of all who regard the preservation of the Union under the
constitution as the paramount issue, and repudiating all sectional
parties and platforms concerning domestic slavery which seek to embroil
the states and incite to treason and armed resistance to law in the
territories, and whose avowed purpose, if consummated, must end in civil
war and disunion, the American democracy recognize and adopt the
principles contained in the organic laws establishing the territories of
Nebraska and Kansas, as embodying the only sound and safe solution of
the slavery question, upon which the great national idea of the people
of this whole country can repose in its determined conservation of the
Union, and non-interference of Congress with slavery in the territories
or in the District of Columbia.
2. That this was the basis of the compromise of 1850, confirmed by both
the Democratic and Whig parties in national conventions, ratified by the
people in the election of 1852, and rightly applied to the organization
of the territories in 1854.
3. That by the uniform application of the Democratic principle to the
organization of territories and the admission of new states, with or
without domestic slavery, as they may elect, the equal rights of all the
states will be preserved intact, the original compacts of the
constitution maintained inviolate, and the perpetuity and expansion of
the Union insured to its utmost capacity of embracing, in peace and
harmony, every future American state that may be constituted or annexed
with a republican form of government.
_Resolved_, That we recognize the right of the people of all the
territories, including Kansas and Nebraska, acting through the legally
and fairly expressed will of the majority of the actual residents, and
whenever the number of their inhabitants justifies it, to form a
constitution, with or without domestic slavery, and be admitted into the
Union upon terms of perfect equality with the other states.
_Resolved, finally_, That in view of the condition of the popular
institutions in the old world (and the dangerous tendencies of sectional
agitation, combined with the attempt to enforce civil and religious
disabilities against the rights of acquiring and enjoying citizenship in
our own land), a high and sacred duty is devolved, with increased
responsibility, upon the Democratic party of this country, as the party
of the Union, to uphold and maintain the rights of every state, and
thereby the union of the states, and to sustain and advance among us
constitutional liberty, by continuing to resist all monopolies and
exclusive legislation for the benefit of the few at the expense of the
many, and by a vigilant and constant adherence to those principles and
compromises of the constitution which are broad enough and strong enough
to embrace and uphold the Union as it was, the Union as it is, and the
Union as it shall be, in the full expression of the energies and
capacity of this great and progressive people.
1. _Resolved_, That there are questions connected with the foreign
policy of this country which are inferior to no domestic questions
whatever. The time has come for the people of the United States to
declare themselves in favor of free seas and progressive free trade
throughout the world, and, by solemn manifestations, to place their
moral influence at the side of their successful example.
2. _Resolved_, That our geographical and political position with
reference to the other states of this continent, no less than the
interest of our commerce and the development of our growing power,
requires that we should hold sacred the principles involved in the
Monroe doctrine. Their bearing and import admit of no misconstruction,
and should be applied with unbending rigidity.
3. _Resolved_, That the great highway which nature, as well as the
assent of states most immediately interested in its maintenance, has
marked out for free communication between the Atlantic and Pacific
oceans, constitutes one of the most important achievements realized by
the spirit of modern times, in the unconquerable energy of our people;
and that result would be secured by a timely and efficient exertion of
the control which we have the right to claim over it; and no power on
earth should be suffered to impede or clog its progress by any
interference with relations that may suit our policy to establish
between our government and the governments of the states within whose
dominions it lies; we can under no circumstances surrender our
preponderance in the adjustment of all questions arising out of it.
4. _Resolved_, That in view of so commanding an interest, the people of
the United States cannot but sympathize with the efforts which are being
made by the people of Central America to regenerate that portion of the
continent which covers the passage across the inter-oceanic isthmus.
5. _Resolved_, That the Democratic party will expect of the next
administration that every proper effort be made to insure our ascendency
in the Gulf of Mexico, and to maintain permanent protection to the great
outlets through which are emptied into its waters the products raised
out of the soil and the commodities created by the industry of the
people of our western valleys and of the Union at large.
6. _Resolved_, That the administration of Franklin Pierce has been true
to Democratic principles, and, therefore, true to the great interests of
the country; in the face of violent opposition, he has maintained the
laws at home and vindicated the rights of American citizens abroad, and,
therefore, we proclaim our unqualified admiration of his measures and
policy.
1856.—Republican Platform,
_Adopted at Philadelphia, June 17._
This convention of delegates, assembled in pursuance of a call addressed
to the people of the United States, without regard to past political
differences or divisions, who are opposed to the repeal of the Missouri
Compromise, to the policy of the present administration, to the
extension of slavery into free territory; in favor of admitting Kansas
as a free state, of restoring the action of the Federal government to
the principles of Washington and Jefferson; and who purpose to unite in
presenting candidates for the offices of President and Vice-President,
do resolve as follows:
_Resolved_, That the maintenance of the principles promulgated in the
Declaration of Independence, and embodied in the federal constitution,
is essential to the preservation of our Republican institutions, and
that the federal constitution, the rights of the states, and the union
of the states, shall be preserved.
_Resolved_, That with our republican fathers we hold it to be a
self-evident truth that all men are endowed with the inalienable rights
to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and that the primary
object and ulterior design of our Federal government were, to secure
these rights to all persons within its exclusive jurisdiction; that as
our republican fathers, when they had abolished slavery in all our
national territory, ordained that no person should be deprived of life,
liberty, or property, without due process of law, it becomes our duty to
maintain this provision of the constitution against all attempts to
violate it for the purpose of establishing slavery in any territory of
the United States, by positive legislation, prohibiting its existence or
extension therein. That we deny the authority of Congress, of a
territorial legislature, of any individual or association of
individuals, to give legal existence to slavery in any territory of the
United States, while the present constitution shall be maintained.
_Resolved_, That the constitution confers upon Congress sovereign power
over the territories of the United States for their government, and that
in the exercise of this power it is both the right and the imperative
duty of Congress to prohibit in the territories those twin relics of
barbarism—polygamy and slavery.
_Resolved_, That while the constitution of the United States was
ordained and established, in order to form a more perfect union,
establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common
defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of
liberty, and contains ample provisions for the protection of the life,
liberty, and property of every citizen, the dearest constitutional
rights of the people of Kansas have been fraudulently and violently
taken from them; their territory has been invaded by an armed force;
spurious and pretended legislative, judicial, and executive officers
have been set over them, by whose usurped authority, sustained by the
military power of the government, tyrannical and unconstitutional laws
have been enacted and enforced; the rights of the people to keep and
bear arms have been infringed; test oaths of an extraordinary and
entangling nature have been imposed, as a condition of exercising the
right of suffrage and holding office; the right of an accused person to
a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury has been denied; the
right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and
effects against unreasonable searches and seizures, has been violated;
they have been deprived of life, liberty, and property without due
process of law; that the freedom of speech and of the press has been
abridged; the right to choose their representatives has been made of no
effect; murders, robberies, and arsons have been instigated or
encouraged, and the offenders have been allowed to go unpunished; that
all these things have been done with the knowledge, sanction, and
procurement of the present national administration; and that for this
high crime against the constitution, the Union, and humanity, we arraign
the administration, the President, his advisers, agents, supporters,
apologists, and accessories, either before or after the facts, before
the country and before the world; and that it is our fixed purpose to
bring the actual perpetrators of these atrocious outrages, and their
accomplices, to a sure and condign punishment hereafter.
_Resolved_, That Kansas should be immediately admitted as a state of the
Union with her present free constitution, as at once the most effectual
way of securing to her citizens the enjoyment of the rights and
privileges to which they are entitled, and of ending the civil strife
now raging in her territory.
_Resolved_, That the highwayman’s plea that “might makes right,”
embodied in the Ostend circular, was in every respect unworthy of
American diplomacy, and would bring shame and dishonor upon any
government or people that gave it their sanction.
_Resolved_, That a railroad to the Pacific ocean, by the most central
and practicable route, is imperatively demanded by the interests of the
whole country, and that the Federal government ought to render immediate
and efficient aid in its construction, and, as an auxiliary thereto, the
immediate construction of an emigrant route on the line of the railroad.
_Resolved_, That appropriations of Congress for the improvement of
rivers and harbors of a national character, required for the
accommodation and security of our existing commerce, are authorized by
the constitution, and justified by the obligation of government to
protect the lives and property of its citizens.
_Resolved_, That we invite the affiliation and co-operation of the men
of all parties, however differing from us in other respects, in support
of the principles herein declared; and believing that the spirit of our
institutions, as well as the constitution of our country, guarantees
liberty of conscience and equality of rights among citizens, we oppose
all proscriptive legislation affecting their security.
1856.—Whig Platform.
_Baltimore, September 13._
_Resolved_, That the Whigs of the United States, now here assembled,
hereby declare their reverence for the constitution of the United
States, their unalterable attachment to the National Union, and a fixed
determination to do all in their power to preserve them for themselves
and their posterity. They have no new principles to announce; no new
platform to establish; but are content to broadly rest—where their
fathers rested—upon the constitution of the United States, wishing no
safer guide, no higher law.
_Resolved_, That we regard with the deepest interest and anxiety the
present disordered condition of our national affairs—a portion of the
country ravaged by civil war, large sections of our population
embittered by mutual recriminations; and we distinctly trace these
calamities to the culpable neglect of duty by the present national
administration.
_Resolved_, That the government of the United States was formed by the
conjunction in political unity of widespread geographical sections,
materially differing, not only in climate and products, but in social
and domestic institutions; and that any cause that shall permanently
array the different sections of the Union in political hostility and
organize parties founded only on geographical distinctions, must
inevitably prove fatal to a continuance of the National Union.
_Resolved_, That the Whigs of the United States declare, as a
fundamental article of political faith, an absolute necessity for
avoiding geographical parties. The danger, so clearly discerned by the
Father of his Country, has now become fearfully apparent in the
agitation now convulsing the nation, and must be arrested at once if we
would preserve our constitution and our Union from dismemberment, and
the name of America from being blotted out from the family of civilized
nations.
_Resolved_, That all who revere the constitution and the Union, must
look with alarm at the parties in the field in the present presidential
campaign—one claiming only to represent sixteen northern states, and the
other appealing mainly to the passions and prejudices of the southern
states; that the success of either faction must add fuel to the flame
which now threatens to wrap our dearest interests in a common ruin.
_Resolved_, That the only remedy for an evil so appalling is to support
a candidate pledged to neither of the geographical sections nor arrayed
in political antagonism, but holding both in a just and equal regard. We
congratulate the friends of the Union that such a candidate exists in
Millard Fillmore.
_Resolved_, That, without adopting or referring to the peculiar
doctrines of the party which has already selected Mr. Fillmore as a
candidate, we look to him as a well tried and faithful friend of the
constitution and the Union, eminent alike for his wisdom and
firmness—for his justice and moderation in our foreign relations—calm
and pacific temperament, so well becoming the head of a great nation—for
his devotion to the constitution in its true spirit—his inflexibility in
executing the laws but, beyond all these attributes, in possessing the
one transcendent merit of being a representative of neither of the two
sectional parties now struggling for political supremacy.
_Resolved_, That, in the present exigency of political affairs, we are
not called upon to discuss the subordinate questions of administration
in the exercising of the constitutional powers of the government. It is
enough to know that civil war is raging, and that the Union is in peril;
and we proclaim the conviction that the restoration of Mr. Fillmore to
the presidency will furnish the best if not the only means of restoring
peace.
1860.—Constitutional Union Platform.
_Baltimore, May 9._
_Whereas_, Experience has demonstrated that platforms adopted by the
partisan conventions of the country have had the effect to mislead and
deceive the people, and at the same time to widen the political
divisions of the country, by the creation and encouragement of
geographical and sectional parties; therefore,
_Resolved_, That it is both the part of patriotism and of duty to
_recognize_ no political principles other than THE CONSTITUTION OF THE
COUNTRY, THE UNION OF THE STATES, AND THE ENFORCEMENT OF THE LAWS; and
that as representatives of the Constitutional Union men of the country,
in national convention assembled, we hereby pledge ourselves to
maintain, protect, and defend, separately and unitedly, these great
principles of public liberty and national safety against all enemies at
home and abroad, believing that thereby peace may once more be restored
to the country, the rights of the people and of the states
re-established, and the government again placed in that condition of
justice, fraternity, and equality, which, under the example and
constitution of our fathers, has solemnly bound every citizen of the
United States to maintain a more perfect union, establish justice,
insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote
the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves
and our posterity.
1860.—Republican Platform,
_Chicago, May 17_.
_Resolved_, That we, the delegated representatives of the Republican
electors of the United States, in convention assembled, in discharge of
the duty we owe to our constituents and our country, unite in the
following declarations:
1. That the history of the nation, during the last four years, has fully
established the propriety and necessity of the organization and
perpetuation of the Republican party, and that the causes which called
it into existence are permanent in their nature, and now, more than ever
before, demand its peaceful and constitutional triumph.
2. That the maintenance of the principles promulgated in the Declaration
of Independence and embodied in the federal constitution, “That all men
are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain
inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit
of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted
among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,”
is essential to the preservation of our republican institutions; and
that the federal constitution, the rights of the states, and the union
of the states, must and shall be preserved.
3. That to the union of the states this nation owes its unprecedented
increase in population, its surprising development of material
resources, its rapid augmentation of wealth, its happiness at home and
its honor abroad; and we hold in abhorrence all schemes for disunion,
come from whatever source they may; and we congratulate the country that
no Republican member of Congress has uttered or countenanced the threats
of disunion so often made by Democratic members, without rebuke and with
applause from their political associates; and we denounce those threats
of disunion, in case of a popular overthrow of their ascendency, as
denying the vital principles of a free government, and as an avowal of
contemplated treason, which it is the imperative duty of an indignant
people sternly to rebuke and forever silence.
4. That the maintenance inviolate of the rights of the states, and
especially the right of each state to order and control its own domestic
institutions according to its own judgment exclusively, is essential to
that balance of powers on which the perfection and endurance of our
political fabric depends; and we denounce the lawless invasion, by armed
force, of the soil of any state or territory, no matter under what
pretext, as among the gravest of crimes.
5. That the present Democratic administration has far exceeded our worst
apprehensions, in its measureless subserviency to the exactions of a
sectional interest, as especially evinced in its desperate exertions to
force the infamous Lecompton constitution upon the protesting people of
Kansas; in construing the personal relations between master and servant
to involve an unqualified property in persons; in its attempted
enforcement, everywhere, on land and sea, through the intervention of
Congress and of the federal courts, of the extreme pretensions of a
purely local interest; and in its general and unvarying abuse of the
power entrusted to it by a confiding people.
6. That the people justly view with alarm the reckless extravagance
which pervades every department of the Federal government; that a return
to rigid economy and accountability is indispensable to arrest the
systematic plunder of the public treasury by favored partisans; while
the recent startling developments of frauds and corruptions at the
federal metropolis, show that an entire change of administration is
imperatively demanded.
7. That the new dogma, that the constitution, of its own force, carries
slavery into any or all of the territories of the United States, is a
dangerous political heresy, at variance with the explicit provisions of
that instrument itself, with contemporaneous exposition, and with
legislative and judicial precedent—is revolutionary in its tendency, and
subversive of the peace and harmony of the country.
8. That the normal condition of all the territory of the United States
is that of freedom; that as our republican fathers, when they had
abolished slavery in all our national territory, ordained that “no
person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due
process of law,” it becomes our duty, by legislation, whenever such
legislation is necessary, to maintain this provision of the constitution
against all attempts to violate it; and we deny the authority of
Congress, of a territorial legislature, or of any individuals, to give
legal existence to slavery in any territory of the United States.
9. That we brand the recent reopening of the African slave trade, under
the cover of our national flag, aided by perversions of judicial power,
as a crime against humanity and a burning shame to our country and age;
and we call upon Congress to take prompt and efficient measures for the
total and final suppression of that execrable traffic.
10. That in the recent vetoes, by their federal governors, of the acts
of the legislatures of Kansas and Nebraska, prohibiting slavery in those
territories, we find a practical illustration of the boasted Democratic
principle of non-intervention and popular sovereignty, embodied in the
Kansas-Nebraska bill, and a demonstration of the deception and fraud
involved therein.
11. That Kansas should, of right, be immediately admitted as a state
under the constitution recently formed and adopted by her people, and
accepted by the House of Representatives.
12. That, while providing revenue for the support of the general
government by duties upon imports, sound policy requires such an
adjustment of these imports as to encourage the development of the
industrial interest of the whole country; and we commend that policy of
national exchanges which secures to the working men liberal wages, to
agriculture remunerative prices, to mechanics and manufacturers an
adequate reward for their skill, labor, and enterprise, and to the
nation commercial prosperity and independence.
13. That we protest against any sale or alienation to others of the
public lands held by actual settlers, and against any view of the
homestead policy which regards the settlers as paupers or suppliants for
public bounty; and we demand the passage by Congress of the complete and
satisfactory homestead measure which has already passed the House.
14. That the republican party is opposed to any change in our
naturalization laws, or any state legislation by which the rights of
citizenship hitherto accorded to immigrants from foreign lands shall be
abridged or impaired; and in favor of giving a full and efficient
protection to the rights of all classes of citizens, whether native or
naturalized, both at home and abroad.
15. That appropriations by Congress for river and harbor improvements of
a national character, required for the accommodation and security of an
existing commerce, are authorized by the constitution and justified by
the obligations of government to protect the lives and property of its
citizens.
16. That a railroad to the Pacific ocean is imperatively demanded by the
interest of the whole country; that the Federal government ought to
render immediate and efficient aid in its construction; and that as
preliminary thereto, a daily overland mail should be promptly
established.
17. Finally, having thus set forth our distinctive principles and views,
we invite the co-operation of all citizens, however differing on other
questions, who substantially agree with us in their affirmance and
support.
1860.—Democratic (Douglas) Platform,
_Charleston, April 23, and Baltimore, June 18_.
1. _Resolved_, That we, the Democracy of the Union, in convention
assembled, hereby declare our affirmance of the resolutions unanimously
adopted and declared as a Platform of principles by the Democratic
convention at Cincinnati, in the year 1856, believing that democratic
principles are unchangeable in their nature when applied to the same
subject-matters; and we recommend, as the only further resolutions, the
following:
Inasmuch as differences of opinion exist in the Democratic party as to
the nature and extent of the powers of a territorial legislature, and as
to the powers and duties of Congress, under the constitution of the
United States, over the institution of slavery within the territories:
2. _Resolved_, That the Democratic party will abide by the decisions of
the Supreme Court of the United States on the questions of
constitutional law.
3. _Resolved_, That it is the duty of the United States to afford ample
and complete protection to all its citizens, whether at home or abroad,
and whether native or foreign.
4. _Resolved_, That one of the necessities of the age, in a military,
commercial, and postal point of view, is speedy communication between
the Atlantic and Pacific states; and the Democratic party pledge such
constitutional government aid as will insure the construction of a
railroad to the Pacific coast at the earliest practicable period.
5. _Resolved_, That the Democratic party are in favor of the acquisition
of the island of Cuba, on such terms as shall be honorable to ourselves
and just to Spain.
6. _Resolved_, That the enactments of state legislatures to defeat the
faithful execution of the Fugitive Slave Law are hostile in character,
subversive of the constitution, and revolutionary in their effect.
7. _Resolved_, That it is in accordance with the true interpretation of
the Cincinnati platform, that, during the existence of the territorial
governments, the measure of restriction, whatever it may be, imposed by
the federal constitution on the power of the territorial legislature
over the subject of domestic relations, as the same has been, or shall
hereafter be, finally determined by the Supreme Court of the United
States, shall be respected by all good citizens, and enforced with
promptness and fidelity by every branch of the general government.
1860.—Democratic (Breckinridge) Platform.
_Charleston and Baltimore._
_Resolved_, That the platform adopted by the Democratic party at
Cincinnati be affirmed, with following explanatory resolutions:
1. That the government of a territory, organized by an act of Congress,
is provisional and temporary; and, during its existence, all citizens of
the United States have an equal right to settle, with their property, in
the territory, without their rights, either of person or property, being
destroyed or impaired by congressional or territorial legislation.
2. That it is the duty of the Federal government, in all its
departments, to protect, when necessary, the rights of persons and
property in the territories, and wherever else its constitutional
authority extends.
3. That when the settlers in a territory having an adequate population
form a state constitution in pursuance of law, the right of sovereignty
commences, and, being consummated by admission into the Union, they
stand on an equal footing with the people of other states, and the state
thus organized ought to be admitted into the Federal Union, whether its
constitution prohibits or recognizes the institution of slavery.
4. That the Democratic party are in favor of the acquisition of the
island of Cuba, on such terms as shall be honorable to ourselves and
just to Spain, at the earliest practicable moment.
5. That the enactments of state legislatures to defeat the faithful
execution of the Fugitive Slave Law are hostile in character, subversive
of the constitution, and revolutionary in their effect.
6. That the Democracy of the United States recognize it as the
imperative duty of this government to protect the naturalized citizen in
all his rights, whether at home or in foreign lands, to the same extent
as its native-born citizens.
_Whereas_, One of the greatest necessities of the age, in a political,
commercial, postal, and military point of view, is a speedy
communication between the Pacific and Atlantic coasts; therefore, be it
_Resolved_, That the Democratic party do hereby pledge themselves to use
every means in their power to secure the passage of some bill, to the
extent of the constitutional authority of Congress, for the construction
of a Pacific railroad from the Mississippi river to the Pacific ocean,
at the earliest practicable moment.
1864.—Radical Platform.
_Cleveland, May 31._
1. That the Federal Union shall be preserved.
2. That the constitution and laws of the United States must be observed
and obeyed.
3. That the Rebellion must be suppressed by force of arms, and without
compromise.
4. That the rights of free speech, free press and the _habeas corpus_ be
held inviolate, save in districts where martial law has been proclaimed.
5. That the Rebellion has destroyed slavery; and the federal
constitution should be so amended as to prohibit its re-establishment,
and to secure to all men absolute equality before the law.
6. That integrity and economy are demanded, at all times in the
administration of the government, and that in time of war the want of
them is criminal.
7. That the right of asylum, except for crime and subject to law, is a
recognized principle of American liberty; and that any violation of it
can not be overlooked, and must not go unrebuked.
8. That the national policy known as the “Monroe Doctrine” has become a
recognized principle; and that the establishment of an anti-republican
government on this continent by any foreign power can not be tolerated.
9. That the gratitude and support of the nation are due to the faithful
soldiers and the earnest leaders of the Union army and navy, for their
heroic achievements and deathless valor in defense of our imperiled
country and of civil liberty.
10. That the one-term policy for the presidency, adopted by the people,
is strengthened by the force of the existing crisis, and should be
maintained by constitutional amendment.
11. That the constitution should be so amended that the President and
Vice-President shall be elected by a direct vote of the people.
12. That the question of the reconstruction of the rebellious states
belongs to the people, through their representatives in Congress, and
not to the Executive.
13. That the confiscation of the lands of the rebels, and their
distribution among the soldiers and actual settlers, is a measure of
justice.
1864.—Republican Platform.
_Baltimore, June 7._
_Resolved_, That it is the highest duty of every American citizen to
maintain, against all their enemies, the integrity of the union and the
paramount authority of the constitution and laws of the United States;
and that, laying aside all differences of political opinions, we pledge
ourselves, as Union men, animated by a common sentiment and aiming at a
common object, to do everything in our power to aid the government in
quelling, by force of arms, the Rebellion now raging against its
authority, and in bringing to the punishment due to their crimes the
rebels and traitors arrayed against it.
_Resolved_, That we approve the determination of the government of the
United States not to compromise with rebels, nor to offer them any terms
of peace, except such as may be based upon an “unconditional surrender”
of their hostility and a return to their allegiance to the constitution
and laws of the United States; and that we call upon the government to
maintain this position, and to prosecute the war with the utmost
possible vigor to the complete suppression of the Rebellion, in full
reliance upon the self-sacrificing patriotism, the heroic valor, and the
undying devotion of the American people to the country and its free
institutions.
_Resolved_, That as slavery was the cause, and now constitutes the
strength, of this Rebellion, and as it must be always and everywhere
hostile to the principles of republican government, justice and the
national safety demand its utter and complete extirpation from the soil
of the Republic; and that we uphold and maintain the acts and
proclamations by which the government, in its own defense, has aimed a
death-blow at the gigantic evil. We are in favor, furthermore, of such
an amendment to the constitution, to be made by the people in conformity
with its provisions, as shall terminate and forever prohibit the
existence of slavery within the limits or the jurisdiction of the United
States.
_Resolved_, That the thanks of the American people are due to the
soldiers and sailors of the army and navy, who have periled their lives
in defense of their country and in vindication of the honor of its flag;
that the nation owes to them some permanent recognition of their
patriotism and their valor, and ample and permanent provision for those
of their survivors who have received disabling and honorable wounds in
the service of the country; and that the memories of those who have
fallen in its defense shall be held in grateful and everlasting
remembrance.
_Resolved_, That we approve and applaud the practical wisdom, the
unselfish patriotism, and the unswerving fidelity to the constitution
and the principles of American liberty with which Abraham Lincoln has
discharged, under circumstances of unparalleled difficulty, the great
duties and responsibilities of the presidential office; that we approve
and indorse, as demanded by the emergency and essential to the
preservation of the nation, and as within the provisions of the
constitution, the measures and acts which he has adopted to defend the
nation against its open and secret foes; that we approve, especially,
the Proclamation of Emancipation, and the employment, as Union soldiers,
of men heretofore held in slavery; and that we have full confidence in
his determination to carry these, and all other constitutional measures
essential to the salvation of the country, into full and complete
effect.
_Resolved_, That we deem it essential to the general welfare that
harmony should prevail in the national councils, and we regard as worthy
of public confidence and official trust those only who cordially indorse
the principles proclaimed in these resolutions, and which should
characterize the administration of the government.
_Resolved_, That the government owes to all men employed in its armies,
without regard to distinction of color, the full protection of the laws
of war; and that any violation of these laws, or of the usages of
civilized nations in the time of war, by the rebels now in arms, should
be made the subject of prompt and full redress.
_Resolved_, That foreign immigration, which in the past has added so
much to the wealth, development of resources, and increase of power to
this nation—the asylum of the oppressed of all nations—should be
fostered and encouraged by a liberal and just policy.
_Resolved_, That we are in favor of the speedy construction of the
railroad to the Pacific coast.
_Resolved_, That the national faith, pledged for the redemption of the
public debt, must be kept inviolate; and that, for this purpose, we
recommend economy and rigid responsibility in the public expenditures
and a vigorous and just system of taxation; and that it is the duty of
every loyal state to sustain the credit and promote the use of the
national currency.
_Resolved_, That we approve the position taken by the government, that
the people of the United States can never regard with indifference the
attempt of any European power to overthrow by force, or to supplant by
fraud, the institutions of any republican government on the western
continent, and that they will view with extreme jealousy, as menacing to
the peace and independence of this, our country, the efforts of any such
power to obtain new footholds for monarchical governments, sustained by
a foreign military force, in near proximity to the United States.
1864.—Democratic Platform.
_Chicago, August 29._
_Resolved_, That in the future, as in the past, we will adhere with
unswerving fidelity to the Union under the constitution, as the only
solid foundation of our strength, security, and happiness as a people,
and as a framework of government equally conducive to the welfare and
prosperity of all the states, both northern and southern.
_Resolved_, That this convention does explicitly declare, as the sense
of the American people, that after four years of failure to restore the
Union by the experiment of war, during which, under the pretense of a
military necessity of a war power higher than the constitution, the
constitution itself has been disregarded in every part, and public
liberty and private right alike trodden down, and the material
prosperity of the country essentially impaired, justice, humanity,
liberty, and the public welfare demand that immediate efforts be made
for a cessation of hostilities, with a view to an ultimate convention of
all the states, or other peaceable means, to the end that, at the
earliest practicable moment, peace may be restored on the basis of the
federal union of all the states.
_Resolved_, That the direct interference of the military authority of
the United States in the recent elections held in Kentucky, Maryland,
Missouri, and Delaware, was a shameful violation of the constitution;
and the repetition of such acts in the approaching election will be held
as revolutionary, and resisted with all the means and power under our
control.
_Resolved_, That the aim and object of the Democratic party is to
preserve the Federal Union and the rights of the states unimpaired; and
they hereby declare that they consider the administrative usurpation of
extraordinary and dangerous powers not granted by the constitution, the
subversion of the civil by the military law in states not in
insurrection, the arbitrary military arrest, imprisonment, trial, and
sentence of American citizens in states where civil law exists in full
force, the suppression of freedom of speech and of the press, the denial
of the right of asylum, the open and avowed disregard of state rights,
the employment of unusual test oaths, and the interference with and
denial of the right of the people to bear arms in their defense, as
calculated to prevent a restoration of the Union and the perpetuation of
a government deriving its just powers from the consent of the governed.
_Resolved_, That the shameful disregard of the administration to its
duty in respect to our fellow-citizens who now are, and long have been,
prisoners of war, in a suffering condition, deserves the severest
reprobation, on the score alike of public policy and common humanity.
_Resolved_, That the sympathy of the Democratic party is heartily and
earnestly extended to the soldiery of our army and the sailors of our
navy, who are and have been in the field and on the sea under the flag
of their country; and, in the event of our attaining power, they will
receive all the care and protection, regard and kindness, that the brave
soldiers of the Republic have so nobly earned.
1868. Republican Platform.
_Chicago, May 20._
1. We congratulate the country on the assured success of the
reconstruction policy of Congress, as evinced by the adoption, in the
majority of the states lately in rebellion, of constitutions securing
equal civil and political rights to all; and it is the duty of the
government to sustain those institutions and to prevent the people of
such states from being remitted to a state of anarchy.
2. The guarantee by Congress of equal suffrage to all loyal men at the
south was demanded by every consideration of public safety, of
gratitude, and of justice, and must be maintained; while the question of
suffrage in all the loyal states properly belongs to the people of those
states.
3. We denounce all forms of repudiation as a national crime; and the
national honor requires the payment of the public indebtedness in the
uttermost good faith to all creditors at home and abroad, not only
according to the letter but the spirit of the laws under which it was
contracted.
4. It is due to the labor of the nation that taxation should be
equalized and reduced as rapidly as the national faith will permit.
5. The national debt, contracted as it has been for the preservation of
the Union for all time to come, should be extended over a fair period
for redemption; and it is the duty of Congress to reduce the rate of
interest thereon whenever it can be honestly done.
6. That the best policy to diminish our burden of debts is to so improve
our credit that capitalists will seek to loan us money at lower rates of
interest than we now pay, and must continue to pay, so long as
repudiation, partial or total, open or covert, is threatened or
suspected.
7. The government of the United States should be administered with the
strictest economy; and the corruptions which have been so shamefully
nursed and fostered by Andrew Johnson call loudly for radical reform.
8. We profoundly deplore the tragic death of Abraham Lincoln, and regret
the accession to the presidency of Andrew Johnson, who has acted
treacherously to the people who elected him and the cause he was pledged
to support; who has usurped high legislative and judicial functions; who
has refused to execute the laws; who has used his high office to induce
other officers to ignore and violate the laws; who has employed his
executive powers to render insecure the property, the peace, liberty,
and life of the citizen; who has abused the pardoning power; who has
denounced the national legislature as unconstitutional; who has
persistently and corruptly resisted, by every means in his power, every
proper attempt at the reconstruction of the states lately in rebellion;
who has perverted the public patronage into an engine of wholesale
corruption; and who has been justly impeached for high crimes and
misdemeanors, and properly pronounced guilty thereof by the vote of
thirty-five Senators.
9. The doctrine of Great Britain and other European powers, that because
a man is once a subject he is always so, must be resisted at every
hazard by the United States, as a relic of feudal times, not authorized
by the laws of nations, and at war with our national honor and
independence. Naturalized citizens are entitled to protection in all
their rights of citizenship as though they were native-born; and no
citizen of the United States, native or naturalized, must be liable to
arrest and imprisonment by any foreign power for acts done or words
spoken in this country; and, if so arrested and imprisoned, it is the
duty of the government to interfere in his behalf.
10. Of all who were faithful in the trials of the late war, there were
none entitled to more special honor than the brave soldiers and seamen
who endured the hardships of campaign and cruise, and imperiled their
lives in the service of the country. The bounties and pensions provided
by the laws for these brave defenders of the nation are obligations
never to be forgotten; the widows and orphans of the gallant dead are
the wards of the people—a sacred legacy bequeathed to the nation’s
protecting care.
11. Foreign immigration, which in the past has added so much to the
wealth, development, and resources, and increase of power to this
Republic, the asylum of the oppressed of all nations, should be fostered
and encouraged by a liberal and just policy.
12. This convention declares itself in sympathy with all oppressed
people who are struggling for their rights.
13. That we highly commend the spirit of magnanimity and forbearance
with which men who have served in the Rebellion, but who now frankly and
honestly co-operate with us in restoring the peace of the country and
reconstructing the southern state governments upon the basis of
impartial justice and equal rights, are received back into the communion
of the loyal people; and we favor the removal of the disqualifications
and restrictions imposed upon the late rebels, in the same measure as
the spirit of disloyalty shall die out, and as may be consistent with
the safety of the loyal people.
14. That we recognize the great principles laid down in the immortal
Declaration of Independence, as the true foundation of democratic
government; and we hail with gladness every effort toward making these
principles a living reality on every inch of American soil.
1868.—Democratic Platform.
_New York, July 4._
The Democratic party, in national convention assembled, reposing its
trust in the intelligence, patriotism, and discriminating justice of the
people, standing upon the constitution as the foundation and limitation
of the powers of the government and the guarantee of the liberties of
the citizen, and recognizing the questions of slavery and secession as
having been settled, for all time to come, by the war or voluntary
action of the southern states in constitutional conventions assembled,
and never to be revived or re-agitated, do, with the return of peace,
demand—
1. Immediate restoration of all the states to their rights in the Union
under the constitution, and of civil government to the American people.
2. Amnesty for all past political offenses, and the regulation of the
elective franchise in the states by their citizens.
3. Payment of all the public debt of the United States as rapidly as
practicable—all money drawn from the people by taxation, except so much
as is requisite for the necessities of the government, economically
administered, being honestly applied to such payment; and where the
obligations of the government do not expressly state upon their face, or
the law under which they were issued does not provide that they shall be
paid in coin, they ought, in right and in justice, to be paid in the
lawful money of the United States.
4. Equal taxation of every species of property according to its real
value, including government bonds and other public securities.
5. One currency for the government and the people, the laborer and the
office-holder, the pensioner and the soldier, the producer and the
bondholder.
6. Economy in the administration of the government; the reduction of the
standing army and navy; the abolition of the Freedmen’s Bureau and all
political instrumentalities designed to secure negro supremacy;
simplification of the system and discontinuance of inquisitorial modes
of assessing and collecting internal revenue; that the burden of
taxation may be equalized and lessened, and the credit of the government
and the currency made good; the repeal of all enactments for enrolling
the state militia into national forces in time of peace; and a tariff
for revenue upon foreign imports, and such equal taxation under the
internal revenue laws as will afford incidental protection to domestic
manufactures, and as will, without impairing the revenue, impose the
least burden upon, and best promote and encourage, the great industrial
interests of the country.
7. Reform of abuses in the administration; the expulsion of corrupt men
from office; the abrogation of useless offices; the restoration of
rightful authority to, and the independence of, the executive and
judicial departments of the government; the subordination of the
military to the civil power, to the end that the usurpations of Congress
and the despotism of the sword may cease.
8. Equal rights and protection for naturalized and native-born citizens,
at home and abroad; the assertion of American nationality which shall
command the respect of foreign powers, and furnish an example and
encouragement to people struggling for national integrity,
constitutional liberty and individual rights; and the maintenance of the
rights of naturalized citizens against the absolute doctrine of
immutable allegiance and the claims of foreign powers to punish them for
alleged crimes committed beyond their jurisdiction.
In demanding these measures and reforms, we arraign the Radical party
for its disregard of right and the unparalleled oppression and tyranny
which have marked its career. After the most solemn and unanimous pledge
of both Houses of Congress to prosecute the war exclusively for the
maintenance of the government and the preservation of the Union under
the constitution, it has repeatedly violated the most sacred pledge
under which alone was rallied that noble volunteer army which carried
our flag to victory. Instead of restoring the Union, it has, so far as
in its power, dissolved it, and subjected ten states, in time of
profound peace, to military despotism and negro supremacy. It has
nullified there the right of trial by jury; it has abolished the _habeas
corpus_, that most sacred writ of liberty; it has overthrown the freedom
of speech and press; it has substituted arbitrary seizures and arrests,
and military trials and secret star-chamber inquisitions, for the
constitutional tribunals; it has disregarded, in time of peace, the
right of the people to be free from searches and seizures; it has
entered the post and telegraph offices, and even the private rooms of
individuals, and seized their private papers and letters, without any
specific charge or notice of affidavit, as required by the organic law.
It has converted the American capitol into a bastile; it has established
a system of spies and official espionage to which no constitutional
monarchy of Europe would now dare to resort. It has abolished the right
of appeal, on important constitutional questions, to the supreme
judicial tribunals, and threatens to curtail or destroy its original
jurisdiction, which is irrevocably vested by the constitution; while the
learned Chief Justice has been subjected to the most atrocious
calumnies, merely because he would not prostitute his high office to the
support of the false and partisan charges preferred against the
President. Its corruption and extravagance have exceeded anything known
in history; and, by its frauds and monopolies, it has nearly doubled the
burden of the debt created by the war. It has stripped the President of
his constitutional power of appointment, even of his own cabinet. Under
its repeated assaults, the pillars of the government are rocking on
their base; and should it succeed in November next, and inaugurate its
President, we will meet, as a subjected and conquered people, amid the
ruins of liberty and the scattered fragments of the constitution.
And we do declare and resolve that ever since the people of the United
States threw off all subjection to the British crown, the privilege and
trust of suffrage have belonged to the several states, and have been
granted, regulated, and controlled exclusively by the political power of
each state respectively; and that any attempt by Congress, on any
pretext whatever, to deprive any state of this right, or interfere with
its exercise, is a flagrant usurpation of power which can find no
warrant in the constitution, and, if sanctioned by the people, will
subvert our form of government, and can only end in a single,
centralized, and consolidated, government, in which the separate
existence of the states will be entirely absorbed, and an unqualified
despotism be established in place of a federal union of co-equal states.
And that we regard the construction acts (so called) of Congress as
usurpations, and unconstitutional, revolutionary, and void.
That our soldiers and sailors, who carried the flag of our country to
victory against the most gallant and determined foe, must ever be
gratefully remembered, and all the guarantees given in their favor must
be faithfully carried into execution.
That the public lands should be distributed as widely as possible among
the people, and should be disposed of either under the pre-emption of
homestead lands or sold in reasonable quantities, and to none but actual
occupants, at the minimum price established by the government. When
grants of public lands may be allowed, necessary for the encouragement
of important public improvements, the proceeds of the sale of such
lands, and not the lands themselves, should be so applied.
That the President of the United States, Andrew Johnson, in exercising
the power of his high office in resisting the aggressions of Congress
upon the constitutional rights of the states and the people, is entitled
to the gratitude of the whole American people; and, on behalf of the
Democratic party, we tender him our thanks for his patriotic efforts in
that regard.
Upon this platform, the Democratic party appeal to every patriot,
including all the conservative element and all who desire to support the
constitution and restore the Union, forgetting all past differences of
opinion, to unite with us in the present great struggle for the
liberties of the people; and that to all such, to whatever party they
may have heretofore belonged, we extend the right hand of fellowship,
and hail all such, co-operating with us, as friends and brethren.
_Resolved_, That this convention sympathizes cordially with the
workingmen of the United States in their efforts to protect the rights
and interests of the laboring classes of the country.
_Resolved_, That the thanks of the convention are tendered to Chief
Justice Salmon P. Chase, for the justice, dignity, and impartiality with
which he presided over the court of impeachment on the trial of
President Andrew Johnson.
1872.—Labor Reform Platform.
_Columbus, February 21._
We hold that all political power is inherent in the people, and free
government founded on their authority and established for their benefit;
that all citizens are equal in political rights, entitled to the largest
religious and political liberty compatible with the good order of
society, as also the use and enjoyment of the fruits of their labor and
talents; and no man or set of men is entitled to exclusive separable
endowments and privileges or immunities from the government, but in
consideration of public services; and any laws destructive of these
fundamental principles are without moral binding force, and should be
repealed. And believing that all the evils resulting from unjust
legislation now affecting the industrial classes can be removed by the
adoption of the principles contained in the following declaration:
therefore,
_Resolved_, That it is the duty of the government to establish a just
standard of distribution of capital and labor, by providing a purely
national circulating medium, based on the faith and resources of the
nation, issued directly to the people without the intervention of any
system of banking corporations, which money shall be legal tender in the
payment of all debts, public and private, and interchangeable, at the
option of the holder, for government bonds bearing a rate of interest
not to exceed 3.65 per cent., subject to future legislation by Congress.
2. That the national debt should be paid in good faith, according to the
original contract, at the earliest option of the government, without
mortgaging the property of the people or the future exigencies of labor
to enrich a few capitalists at home and abroad.
3. That justice demands that the burdens of government should be so
adjusted as to bear equally on all classes, and that the exemption from
taxation of government bonds bearing extravagant rates of interest, is a
violation of all just principles of revenue laws.
4. That the public lands of the United States belong to the people, and
should not be sold to individuals nor granted to corporations, but
should be held as a sacred trust for the benefit of the people, and
should be granted to landless settlers only, in amounts not exceeding
one hundred and sixty acres of land.
5. That Congress should modify the tariff so as to admit free such
articles of common use as we can neither produce nor grow, and lay
duties for revenue mainly upon articles of luxury and upon such articles
of manufacture as will, we having the raw materials, assist in further
developing the resources of the country.
6. That the presence in our country of Chinese laborers, imported by
capitalists in large numbers for servile use is an evil entailing want
and its attendant train of misery and crime on all classes of the
American people, and should be prohibited by legislation.
7. That we ask for the enactment of a law by which all mechanics and
day-laborers employed by or on behalf of the government, whether
directly or indirectly, through persons, firms, or corporations,
contracting with the state, shall conform to the reduced standard of
eight hours a day, recently adopted by Congress for national employes;
and also for an amendment to the acts of incorporation for cities and
towns, by which all laborers and mechanics employed at their expense
shall conform to the same number of hours.
8. That the enlightened spirit of the age demands the abolition of the
system of contract labor in our prisons and other reformatory
institutions.
9. That the protection of life, liberty, and property are the three
cardinal principles of government, and the first two are more sacred
than the latter; therefore, money needed for prosecuting wars should, as
it is required, be assessed and collected from the wealthy of the
country, and not entailed as a burden on posterity.
10. That it is the duty of the government to exercise its power over
railroads and telegraph corporations, that they shall not in any case be
privileged to exact such rates of freight, transportation, or charges,
by whatever name, as may bear unduly or unequally upon the producer or
consumer.
11. That there should be such a reform in the civil service of the
national government as will remove it beyond all partisan influence, and
place it in the charge and under the direction of intelligent and
competent business men.
12. That as both history and experience teach us that power ever seeks
to perpetuate itself by every and all means, and that its prolonged
possession in the hands of one person is always dangerous to the
interests of a free people, and believing that the spirit of our organic
laws and the stability and safety of our free institutions are best
obeyed on the one hand, and secured on the other, by a regular
constitutional change in the chief of the country at each election;
therefore, we are in favor of limiting the occupancy of the presidential
chair to one term.
13. That we are in favor of granting general amnesty and restoring the
Union at once on the basis of equality of rights and privileges to all,
the impartial administration of justice being the only true bond of
union to bind the states together and restore the government of the
people.
14. That we demand the subjection of the military to the civil
authorities, and the confinement of its operations to national purposes
alone.
15. That we deem it expedient for Congress to supervise the patent laws
so as to give labor more fully the benefit of its own ideas and
inventions.
16. That fitness, and not political or personal considerations, should
be the only recommendation to public office, either appointive or
elective; and any and all laws looking to the establishment of this
principle are heartily approved.
1872.—Prohibition Platform.
_Columbus, Ohio, February 22._
The preamble recites that protection and allegiance are reciprocal
duties; and every citizen who yields obediently to the full commands of
government should be protected in all enjoyment of personal security,
personal liberty, and private property. That the traffic in intoxicating
drinks greatly impairs the personal security and personal liberty of a
great mass of citizens, and renders private property insecure. That all
political parties are hopelessly unwilling to adopt an adequate policy
on this question: Therefore, as a national convention, we adopt the
following declaration of principles:
That while we acknowledge the pure patriotism and profound statesmanship
of those patriots who laid the foundation of this government, securing
at once the rights of the states severally and their inseparable union
by the federal constitution, we would not merely garnish the sepulchres
of our republican fathers, but we do hereby renew our pledges of solemn
fealty to the imperishable principles of civil and religious liberty
embodied in the Declaration of Independence and our federal
constitution.
That the traffic in intoxicating beverages is a dishonor to Christian
civilization, a political wrong of unequalled enormity, subversive of
ordinary objects of government, not capable of being regulated or
restrained by any system of license whatever, and imperatively demands,
for its suppression, effective legal prohibition, both by state and
national legislation.
That there can be no greater peril to a nation than existing party
competition for the liquor vote. That any party not opposed to the
traffic, experience shows will engage in this competition—will court the
favor of criminal classes—will barter away the public morals, the purity
of the ballot, and every object of good government, for party success.
That, as prohibitionists, we will individually use all efforts to
persuade men from the use of intoxicating liquors; and we invite all
persons to assist in this movement.
That competence, honesty, and sobriety are indispensable qualifications
for holding office.
That removals from public office for mere political differences of
opinion are wrong.
That fixed and moderate salaries of public officers should take the
places of fees and perquisites; and that all means should be taken to
prevent corruption and encourage economy.
That the President and Vice-President should be elected directly by the
people.
That we are in favor of a sound national currency, adequate to the
demands of business, and convertible into gold and silver at the will of
the holder, and the adoption of every measure compatible with justice
and public safety to appreciate our present currency to the gold
standard.
That the rates of ocean and inland postage, and railroad telegraph lines
and water transportation, should be made as low as possible by law.
That we are opposed to all discrimination in favor of capital against
labor, as well as all monopoly and class legislation.
That the removal of the burdens imposed in the traffic in intoxicating
drinks will emancipate labor, and will practically promote labor reform.
That suffrage should be granted to all persons, without regard to sex.
That the fostering and extension of common schools is a primary duty of
the government.
That a liberal policy should be pursued to promote foreign immigration.
1872.—Liberal Republican Platform.
_Cincinnati, May 1._
We, the Liberal Republicans of the United States, in national convention
assembled at Cincinnati, proclaim the following principles as essential
to just government.
1. We recognize the equality of all men before the law, and hold that it
is the duty of government, in its dealings with the people, to mete out
equal and exact justice to all, of whatever nativity, race, color, or
persuasion, religious or political.
2. We pledge ourselves to maintain the union of these states,
emancipation, and enfranchisement, and to oppose any reopening of the
questions settled by the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth
amendments of the constitution.
3. We demand the immediate and absolute removal of all disabilities
imposed on account of the Rebellion, which was finally subdued seven
years ago, believing that universal amnesty will result in complete
pacification in all sections of the country.
4. Local self-government, with impartial suffrage, will guard the rights
of all citizens more securely than any centralized power. The public
welfare requires the supremacy of the civil over the military authority,
and the freedom of person under the protection of the _habeas corpus._
We demand for the individual the largest liberty consistent with public
order, for the state self-government, and for the nation a return to the
methods of peace and the constitutional limitations of power.
5. The civil service of the government has become a mere instrument of
partisan tyranny and personal ambition, and an object of selfish greed.
It is a scandal and reproach upon free institutions, and breeds a
demoralization dangerous to the perpetuity of republican government. We,
therefore, regard a thorough reform of the civil service as one of the
most pressing necessities of the hour; that honesty, capacity, and
fidelity constitute the only valid claims to public employment; that the
offices of the government cease to be a matter of arbitrary favoritism
and patronage, and that public station shall become again a post of
honor. To this end, it is imperatively required that no President shall
be a candidate for re-election.
6. We demand a system of federal taxation which shall not unnecessarily
interfere with the industry of the people, and which shall provide the
means necessary to pay the expenses of the government, economically
administered, the pensions, the interest on the public debt, and a
moderate reduction annually of the principal thereof; and recognizing
that there are in our midst honest but irreconcilable differences of
opinion with regard to the respective systems of protection and free
trade, we remit the discussion of the subject to the people in their
congressional districts and the decision of Congress thereon, wholly
free from Executive interference or dictation.
7. The public credit must be sacredly maintained, and we denounce
repudiation in every form and guise.
8. A speedy return to specie payment is demanded alike by the highest
considerations of commercial morality and honest government.
9. We remember with gratitude the heroism and sacrifices of the soldiers
and sailors of the Republic; and no act of ours shall ever detract from
their justly earned fame or the full rewards of their patriotism.
10. We are opposed to all further grants of lands to railroads or other
corporations. The public domain should be held sacred to actual
settlers.
11. We hold that it is the duty of the government, in its intercourse
with foreign nations, to cultivate the friendships of peace, by treating
with all on fair and equal terms, regarding it alike dishonorable either
to demand what is not right or submit to what is wrong.
12. For the promotion and success of these vital principles and the
support of the candidates nominated by this convention, we invite and
cordially welcome the co-operation of all patriotic citizens, without
regard to previous political affiliations.
1872.—Democratic Platform.
_Baltimore, July 9_.
We, the Democratic electors of the United States, in convention
assembled, do present the following principles, already adopted at
Cincinnati, as essential to just government:
[Here followed the “Liberal Republican Platform;” which see above.]
1872.—Republican Platform,
_Philadelphia, June 5_.
The Republican party of the United States, assembled in national
convention in the city of Philadelphia, on the 5th and 6th days of June,
1872, again declares its faith, appeals to its history, and announces
its position upon the questions before the country;
1. During eleven years of supremacy it has accepted, with grand courage,
the solemn duties of the time. It suppressed a gigantic rebellion,
emancipated four millions of slaves, decreed the equal citizenship of
all, and established universal suffrage. Exhibiting unparalleled
magnanimity, it criminally punished no man for political offenses, and
warmly welcomed all who proved their loyalty by obeying the laws and
dealing justly with their neighbors. It has steadily decreased, with
firm hand, the resultant disorders of a great war, and initiated a wise
and humane policy toward the Indians. The Pacific railroad and similar
vast enterprises have been generously aided and successfully conducted,
the public lands freely given to actual settlers, immigration protected
and encouraged, and a full acknowledgment of the naturalized citizen’s
rights secured from European powers. A uniform national currency has
been provided, repudiation frowned down, the national credit sustained
under the most extraordinary burdens, and new bonds negotiated at lower
rates. The revenues have been carefully collected and honestly applied.
Despite annual large reductions of the rates of taxation, the public
debt has been reduced during General Grant’s presidency at the rate of a
hundred millions a year, great financial crises have been avoided, and
peace and plenty prevail throughout the land. Menacing foreign
difficulties have been peacefully and honorably compromised, and the
honor and power of the nation kept in high respect throughout the world.
This glorious record of the past is the party’s best pledge for the
future. We believe the people will not intrust the government to any
party or combination of men composed chiefly of those who have resisted
every step of this beneficent progress.
2. The recent amendments to the national constitution should be
cordially sustained because they are right, not merely tolerated because
they are law, and should be carried out according to their spirit by
appropriate legislation, the enforcement of which can safely be
intrusted only to the party that secured those amendments.
3. Complete liberty and exact equality in the enjoyment of all civil,
political, and public rights should be established and effectually
maintained throughout the Union by efficient and appropriate state and
federal legislation. Neither the law nor its administration should admit
any discrimination in respect to citizens by reason of race, creed,
color, or previous condition of servitude.
4. The national government should seek to maintain honorable peace with
all nations, protecting its citizens everywhere, and sympathizing with
all peoples who strive for greater liberty.
5. Any system of civil service under which the subordinate positions of
the government are considered rewards for mere party zeal is fatally
demoralizing; and we, therefore, favor a reform of the system, by laws
which shall abolish the evils of patronage, and make honesty,
efficiency, and fidelity the essential qualifications for public
positions, without practically creating a life tenure of office.
6. We are opposed to further grants of the public lands to corporations
and monopolies, and demand that the national domain be set apart for
free homes for the people.
7. The annual revenue, after paying current expenditures, pensions, and
the interest on the public debt, should furnish a moderate balance for
the reduction of the principal; and that revenue, except so much as may
be derived from a tax upon tobacco and liquors, should be raised by
duties upon importations, the details of which should be so adjusted as
to aid in securing remunerative wages to labor, and promote the
industries, prosperity, and growth of the whole country.
8. We hold in undying honor the soldiers and sailors whose valor saved
the Union. Their pensions are a sacred debt of the nation, and the
widows and orphans of those who died for their country are entitled to
the care of a generous and grateful people. We favor such additional
legislation as will extend the bounty of the government to all our
soldiers and sailors who were honorably discharged, and who in the line
of duty became disabled, without regard to the length of service or the
cause of such discharge.
9. The doctrine of Great Britain and other European powers concerning
allegiance—“once a subject always a subject”—having at last, through the
efforts of the Republican party, been abandoned, and the American idea
of the individual’s right to transfer allegiance having been accepted by
European nations, it is the duty of our government to guard with jealous
care the rights of adopted citizens against the assumption of
unauthorized claims by their former governments, and we urge continued
careful encouragement and protection of voluntary immigration.
10. The franking privilege ought to be abolished, and a way prepared for
a speedy reduction in the rates of postage.
11. Among the questions which press for attention is that which concerns
the relations of capital and labor; and the Republican party recognizes
the duty of so shaping legislation as to secure full protection and the
amplest field for capital, and for labor, the creator of capital, the
largest opportunities and a just share of the mutual profits of these
two great servants of civilization.
12. We hold that Congress and the President have only fulfilled an
imperative duty in their measures for the suppression of violence and
treasonable organizations in certain lately rebellious regions, and for
the protection of the ballot-box; and, therefore, they are entitled to
the thanks of the nation.
13. We denounce repudiation of the public debt, in any form or disguise,
as a national crime. We witness with pride the reduction of the
principal of the debt, and of the rates of interest upon the balance,
and confidently expect that our excellent national currency will be
perfected by a speedy resumption of specie payment.
14. The Republican party is mindful of its obligations to the loyal
women of America for their noble devotion to the cause of freedom. Their
admission to wider fields of usefulness is viewed with satisfaction; and
the honest demand of any class of citizens for additional rights should
be treated with respectful consideration.
15. We heartily approve the action of Congress in extending amnesty to
those lately in rebellion, and rejoice in the growth of peace and
fraternal feeling throughout the land.
16. The Republican party proposes to respect the rights reserved by the
people to themselves as carefully as the powers delegated by them to the
states and to the federal government. It disapproves of the resort to
unconstitutional laws for the purpose of removing evils, by interference
with rights not surrendered by the people to either the state or
national government.
17. It is the duty of the general government to adopt such measures as
may tend to encourage and restore American commerce and shipbuilding.
18. We believe that the modest patriotism, the earnest purpose, the
sound judgment, the practical wisdom, the incorruptible integrity, and
the illustrious services of Ulysses S. Grant have commended him to the
heart of the American people; and with him at our head, we start to-day
upon a new march to victory.
19. Henry Wilson, nominated for the Vice-Presidency, known to the whole
land from the early days of the great struggle for liberty as an
indefatigable laborer in all campaigns, an incorruptible legislator and
representative man of American institutions, is worthy to associate with
our great leader and share the honors which we pledge our best efforts
to bestow upon them.
1872.—Democratic (Straight-out) Platform,
_Louisville, Ky., September 3_.
_Whereas_, A frequent recurrence to first principles and eternal
vigilance against abuses are the wisest provisions for liberty, which is
the source of progress, and fidelity to our constitutional system is the
only protection for either: therefore,
_Resolved_, That the original basis of our whole political structure is
consent in every part thereof. The people of each state voluntarily
created their state, and the states voluntarily formed the Union; and
each state provided by its written constitution for everything a state
could do for the protection of life, liberty, and property within it;
and each state, jointly with the others, provided a federal union for
foreign and inter-state relations.
_Resolved_, That all governmental powers, whether state or federal, are
trust powers coming from the people of each state, and that they are
limited to the written letter of the constitution and the laws passed in
pursuance of it; which powers must be exercised in the utmost good
faith, the constitution itself stating in what manner they may be
altered and amended.
_Resolved_, That the interests of labor and capital should not be
permitted to conflict, but should be harmonized by judicious
legislation. While such a conflict continues, labor, which is the parent
of wealth, is entitled to paramount consideration.
_Resolved_, That we proclaim to the world that principle is to be
preferred to power; that the Democratic party is held together by the
cohesion of time-honored principles, which they will never surrender in
exchange for all the offices which Presidents can confer. The pangs of
the minorities are doubtless excruciating; but we welcome an eternal
minority, under the banner inscribed with our principles, rather than an
almighty and everlasting majority, purchased by their abandonment.
_Resolved_, That, having been betrayed at Baltimore into a false creed
and a false leadership by the convention, we repudiate both, and appeal
to the people to approve our platform, and to rally to the polls and
support the true platform and the candidates who embody it.
1875.—The American National Platform,
_Adopted in Mass Meeting, Pittsburg, June 9_.
We hold:
1. That ours is a Christian and not a heathen nation, and that the God
of the Christian Scriptures is the author of civil government.
2. That God requires and man needs a Sabbath.
3. That the prohibition of the importation, manufacture, and sale of
intoxicating drinks as a beverage, is the true policy on the temperance
question.
4. The charters of all secret lodges granted by our federal and state
legislatures should be withdrawn, and their oaths prohibited by law.
5. That the civil equality secured to all American citizens by articles
13th, 14th, and 15th of our amended constitution should be preserved
inviolate.
6. That arbitration of differences with nations is the most direct and
sure method of securing and perpetuating a permanent peace.
7. That to cultivate the intellect without improving the morals of men
is to make mere adepts and experts: therefore, the Bible should be
associated with books of science and literature in all our educational
institutions.
8. That land and other monopolies should be discountenanced.
9. That the government should furnish the people with an ample and sound
currency and a return to specie payment, as soon as practicable.
10. That maintenance of the public credit, protection to all loyal
citizens, and justice to Indians are essential to the honor and safety
of our nation.
11. And, finally, we demand for the American people the abolition of
electoral colleges, and a direct vote for President and Vice-President
of the United States.
[Their candidates were James B. Walker, Wheaton, Illinois, for
President; and Donald Kirkpatrick, Syracuse, New York, for
Vice-President.]
1876.—Prohibition Reform Platform,
_Cleveland, Ohio, May 17_.
The Prohibition Reform party of the United States, organized in the name
of the people, to revive, enforce, and perpetuate in the government the
doctrines of the Declaration of Independence, submit, in this centennial
year of the republic, for the suffrages of all good citizens, the
following platform of national reforms and measures:
_First._ The legal prohibition in the District of Columbia, the
territories, and in every other place subject to the laws of Congress,
of the importation, exportation, manufacture, and traffic of all
alcoholic beverages, as high crimes against society; an amendment of the
national constitution, to render these prohibitory measures universal
and permanent; and the adoption of treaty stipulations with foreign
powers, to prevent the importation and exportation of all alcoholic
beverages.
_Second._ The abolition of class legislation, and of special privileges
in the government, and the adoption of equal suffrage and eligibility to
office, without distinction of race, religious creed, property, or sex.
_Third._ The appropriation of the public lands, in limited quantities,
to actual settlers only; the reduction of the rates of inland and ocean
postage; of telegraphic communication; of railroad and water
transportation and travel, to the lowest practical point, by force of
laws, wisely and justly framed, with reference, not only to the interest
of capital employed, but to the higher claims of the general good.
_Fourth._ The suppression, by laws, of lotteries and gambling in gold,
stocks, produce, and every form of money and property, and the penal
inhibition of the use of the public mails for advertising schemes of
gambling and lotteries.
_Fifth._ The abolition of those foul enormities, polygamy and the social
evil; and the protection of purity, peace, and happiness of homes, by
ample and efficient legislation.
_Sixth._ The national observance of the Christian Sabbath, established
by laws prohibiting ordinary labor and business in all departments of
public service and private employment (works of necessity, charity, and
religion excepted) on that day.
_Seventh._ The establishment, by mandatory provisions in national and
state constitutions, and by all necessary legislation, of a system of
free public schools for the universal and forced education of all the
youth of the land.
_Eighth._ The free use of the Bible, not as a ground of religious
creeds, but as a text-book of the purest morality, the best liberty, and
the noblest literature in our public schools, that our children may grow
up in its light, and that its spirit and principles may pervade our
nation.
_Ninth._ The separation of the government in all its departments and
institutions, including the public schools and all funds for their
maintenance, from the control of every religious sect or other
association, and the protection alike of all sects by equal laws, with
entire freedom of religious faith and worship.
_Tenth._ The introduction into all treaties hereafter negotiated with
foreign governments of a provision for the amicable settlement of
international difficulties by arbitration.
_Eleventh._ The abolition of all barbarous modes and instruments of
punishment; the recognition of the laws of God and the claims of
humanity in the discipline of jails and prisons, and of that higher and
wiser civilization worthy of our age and nation, which regards the
reform of criminals as a means for the prevention of crime.
_Twelfth._ The abolition of executive and legislative patronage, and the
election of President, Vice-President, United States Senators, and of
all civil officers, so far as practicable, by the direct vote of the
people.
_Thirteenth._ The practice of a friendly and liberal policy to
immigrants from all nations, the guaranty to them of ample protection,
and of equal rights and privileges.
_Fourteenth._ The separation of the money of government from all banking
institutions. The national government, only, should exercise the high
prerogative of issuing paper money, and that should be subject to prompt
redemption on demand, in gold and silver, the only equal standards of
value recognized by the civilized world.
_Fifteenth._ The reduction of the salaries of public officers in a just
ratio with the decline of wages and market prices; the abolition of
sinecures, unnecessary offices, and official fees and perquisites; the
practice of strict economy in government expenses; and a free and
thorough investigation into any and all alleged abuses of public trusts.
1876.—Independent (Greenback) Platform,
_Indianapolis, Ind., May 17_.
The Independent party is called into existence by the necessities of the
people, whose industries are prostrated, whose labor is deprived of its
just reward by a ruinous policy which the Republican and Democratic
parties refuse to change; and, in view of the failure of these parties
to furnish relief to the depressed industries of the country, thereby
disappointing the just hopes and expectations of the suffering people,
we declare our principles, and invite all independent and patriotic men
to join our ranks in this movement for financial reform and industrial
emancipation.
_First._ We demand the immediate and unconditional repeal of the specie
resumption act of January 14, 1875, and the rescue of our industries
from ruin and disaster resulting from its enforcement; and we call upon
all patriotic men to organize in every congressional district of the
country, with a view of electing representatives to Congress who will
carry out the wishes of the people in this regard and stop the present
suicidal and destructive policy of contraction.
_Second._ We believe that a United States note, issued directly by the
government, and convertible, on demand, into United States obligations,
bearing a rate of interest not exceeding one cent a day on each one
hundred dollars, and exchangeable for United States notes at par, will
afford the best circulating medium ever devised. Such United States
notes should be full legal tenders for all purposes, except for the
payment of such obligations as are, by existing contracts, especially
made payable in coin; and we hold that it is the duty of the government
to provide such a circulating medium, and insist, in the language of
Thomas Jefferson, that “bank paper must be suppressed, and the
circulation restored to the nation, to whom it belongs.”
_Third._ It is the paramount duty of the government, in all its
legislation, to keep in view the full development of all legitimate
business, agricultural, mining, manufacturing, and commercial.
_Fourth._ We most earnestly protest against any further issue of gold
bonds for sale in foreign markets, by which we would be made, for a long
period, “hewers of wood and drawers of water” to foreigners, especially
as the American people would gladly and promptly take at par all bonds
the government may need to sell, provided they are made payable at the
option of the holder, and bearing interest at 3.65 per cent. per annum
or even a lower rate.
_Fifth._ We further protest against the sale of government bonds for the
purpose of purchasing silver to be used as a substitute for our more
convenient and less fluctuating fractional currency, which, although
well calculated to enrich owners of silver mines, yet in operation it
will still further oppress, in taxation, an already overburdened people.
1876.—Republican Platform,
_Cincinnati, Ohio, June 14_.
When, in the economy of Providence, this land was to be purged of human
slavery, and when the strength of the government of the people, by the
people, and for the people, was to be demonstrated, the Republican party
came into power. Its deeds have passed into history, and we look back to
them with pride. Incited by their memories to high aims for the good of
our country and mankind, and looking to the future with unfaltering
courage, hope, and purpose, we, the representatives of the party, in
national convention assembled, make the following declaration of
principles:
1. The United States of America is a nation, not a league. By the
combined workings of the national and state governments, under their
respective constitutions, the rights of every citizen are secured, at
home and abroad, and the common welfare promoted.
2. The Republican party has preserved these governments to the hundredth
anniversary of the nation’s birth, and they are now embodiments of the
great truths spoken at its cradle—“That all men are created equal; that
they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among
which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that for the
attainment of these ends governments have been instituted among men,
deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” Until
these truths are cheerfully obeyed, or, if need be, vigorously enforced,
the work of the Republican party is unfinished.
3. The permanent pacification of the southern section of the Union, and
the complete protection of all its citizens in the free enjoyment of all
their rights, is a duty to which the Republican party stands sacredly
pledged. The power to provide for the enforcement of the principles
embodied in the recent constitutional amendments is vested, by those
amendments, in the Congress of the United States; and we declare it to
be the solemn obligation of the legislative and executive departments of
the government to put into immediate and vigorous exercise all their
constitutional powers for removing any just causes of discontent on the
part of any class, and for securing to every American citizen complete
liberty and exact equality in the exercise of all civil, political, and
public rights. To this end we imperatively demand a Congress and a Chief
Executive whose courage and fidelity to these duties shall not falter
until these results are placed beyond dispute or recall.
4. In the first act of Congress signed by President Grant, the national
government assumed to remove any doubt of its purpose to discharge all
just obligations to the public creditors, and “solemnly pledged its
faith to make provision at the earliest practicable period for the
redemption of the United States notes in coin.” Commercial prosperity,
public morals, and national credit demand that this promise be fulfilled
by a continuous and steady progress to specie payment.
5. Under the constitution, the President and heads of departments are to
make nominations for office, the Senate is to advise and consent to
appointments, and the House of Representatives is to accuse and
prosecute faithless officers. The best interest of the public service
demand that these distinctions be respected; that Senators and
Representatives who may be judges and accusers should not dictate
appointments to office. The invariable rule in appointments should have
reference to the honesty, fidelity, and capacity of the appointees,
giving to the party in power those places where harmony and vigor of
administration require its policy to be represented, but permitting all
others to be filled by persons selected with sole reference to the
efficiency of the public service, and the right of all citizens to share
in the honor of rendering faithful service to the country.
6. We rejoice in the quickened conscience of the people concerning
political affairs, and will hold all public officers to a rigid
responsibility, and engage that the prosecution and punishment of all
who betray official trusts shall be swift, thorough, and unsparing.
7. The public school system of the several states is the bulwark of the
American Republic; and, with a view to its security and permanence, we
recommend an amendment to the constitution of the United States,
forbidding the application of any public funds or property for the
benefit of any schools or institutions under sectarian control.
8. The revenue necessary for current expenditures, and the obligations
of the public debt, must be largely derived from duties upon
importations, which, so far as possible, should be adjusted to promote
the interests of American labor and advance the prosperity of the whole
country.
9. We reaffirm our opposition to further grants of the public lands to
corporations and monopolies, and demand that the national domain be
devoted to free homes for the people.
10. It is the imperative duty of the government so to modify existing
treaties with European governments, that the same protection shall be
afforded to the adopted American citizen that is given to the
native-born; and that all necessary laws should be passed to protect
emigrants in the absence of power in the states for that purpose.
11. It is the immediate duty of Congress to fully investigate the effect
of the immigration and importation of Mongolians upon the moral and
material interests of the country.
12. The Republican party recognizes, with approval, the substantial
advances recently made towards the establishment of equal rights for
women by the many important amendments effected by Republican
legislatures in the laws which concern the personal and property
relations of wives, mothers, and widows, and by the appointment and
election of women to the superintendence of education, charities, and
other public trusts. The honest demands of this class of citizens for
additional rights, privileges, and immunities, should be treated with
respectful consideration.
13. The constitution confers upon Congress sovereign power over the
territories of the United States for their government; and in the
exercise of this power it is the right and duty of Congress to prohibit
and extirpate, in the territories, that relic of barbarism—polygamy; and
we demand such legislation as shall secure this end and the supremacy of
American institutions in all the territories.
14. The pledges which the nation has given to her soldiers and sailors
must be fulfilled, and a grateful people will always hold those who
imperiled their lives for the country’s preservation in the kindest
remembrance.
15. We sincerely deprecate all sectional feeling and tendencies. We,
therefore, note with deep solicitude that the Democratic party counts,
as its chief hope of success, upon the electoral vote of a united south,
secured through the efforts of those who were recently arrayed against
the nation; and we invoke the earnest attention of the country to the
grave truth that a success thus achieved would reopen sectional strife,
and imperil national honor and human rights.
16. We charge the Democratic party with being the same in character and
spirit as when it sympathized with treason; with making its control of
the House of Representatives the triumph and opportunity of the nation’s
recent foes; with reasserting and applauding, in the national capital,
the sentiments of unrepentant rebellion; with sending Union soldiers to
the rear, and promoting Confederate soldiers to the front; with
deliberately proposing to repudiate the plighted faith of the
government; with being equally false and imbecile upon the overshadowing
financial questions; with thwarting the ends of justice by its partisan
mismanagement and obstruction of investigation; with proving itself
through the period of its ascendency in the lower house of Congress,
utterly incompetent to administer the government; and we warn the
country against trusting a party thus alike unworthy, recreant, and
incapable.
17. The national administration merits commendation for its honorable
work in the management of domestic and foreign affairs, and President
Grant deserves the continued hearty gratitude of the American people for
his patriotism and his eminent services in war and in peace.
18. We present, as our candidates for President and Vice-President of
the United States, two distinguished statesmen, of eminent ability and
character, and conspicuously fitted for those high offices, and we
confidently appeal to the American people to intrust the administration
of their public affairs to Rutherford B. Hayes and William A. Wheeler.
1876.—Democratic Platform.
_St. Louis, Mo., June 27._
We, the delegates of the Democratic party of the United States, in
national convention assembled, do hereby declare the administration of
the Federal government to be in urgent need of immediate reform; do
hereby enjoin upon the nominees of this convention, and of the
Democratic party in each state, a zealous effort and co-operation to
this end; and do hereby appeal to our fellow-citizens of every former
political connection to undertake, with us, this first and most pressing
patriotic duty.
For the Democracy of the whole country, we do here reaffirm our faith in
the permanence of the Federal Union, our devotion to the constitution of
the United States, with its amendments universally accepted as a final
settlement of the controversies that engendered civil war, and do here
record our steadfast confidence in the perpetuity of republican
self-government.
In absolute acquiescence in the will of the majority—the vital principle
of republics; in the supremacy of the civil over the military authority;
in the total separation of church and state, for the sake alike of civil
and religious freedom; in the equality of all citizens before just laws
of their own enactment; in the liberty of individual conduct, unvexed by
sumptuary laws; in the faithful education of the rising generation, that
they may preserve, enjoy, and transmit these best conditions of human
happiness and hope—we behold the noblest products of a hundred years of
changeful history; but while upholding the bond of our Union and great
charter of these our rights, it behooves a free people to practice also
that eternal vigilance which is the price of liberty.
Reform is necessary to rebuild and establish in the hearts of the whole
people the Union, eleven years ago happily rescued from the danger of a
secession of states, but now to be saved from a corrupt centralism
which, after inflicting upon ten states the rapacity of carpet-bag
tyranny, has honey-combed the offices of the Federal government itself,
with incapacity, waste, and fraud; infected states and municipalities
with the contagion of misrule; and locked fast the prosperity of an
industrious people in the paralysis of “hard times.”
Reform is necessary to establish a sound currency, restore the public
credit, and maintain the national honor.
We denounce the failure, for all these eleven years of peace, to make
good the promise of the legal tender notes, which are a changing
standard of value in the hands of the people, and the non-payment of
which is a disregard of the plighted faith of the nation.
We denounce the improvidence which, in eleven years of peace, has taken
from the people, in federal taxes, thirteen times the whole amount of
the legal-tender notes, and squandered four times their sum in useless
expense without accumulating any reserve for their redemption.
We denounce the financial imbecility and immorality of that party which,
during eleven years of peace, has made no advance toward resumption, no
preparation for resumption, but, instead, has obstructed resumption, by
wasting our resources and exhausting all our surplus income; and, while
annually professing to intend a speedy return to specie payments, has
annually enacted fresh hindrances thereto. As such hindrance we denounce
the resumption clause of 1875, and we here demand its repeal.
We demand a judicious system of preparation, by public economies, by
official retrenchments, and by wise finance, which shall enable the
nation soon to assure the whole world of its perfect ability and of its
perfect readiness to meet any of its promises at the call of the
creditor entitled to payment. We believe such a system, well devised,
and, above all, intrusted to competent hands for execution, creating, at
no time, an artificial scarcity of currency, and at no time alarming the
public mind into a withdrawal of that vaster machinery of credit by
which ninety-five per cent. of all business transactions are performed.
A system open, public, and inspiring general confidence, would, from the
day of its adoption, bring healing on its wings to all our harassed
industries—set in motion the wheels of commerce, manufactures, and the
mechanic arts—restore employment to labor—and, renew, in all its natural
sources, the prosperity of the people.
Reform is necessary in the sum and modes of federal taxation, to the end
that capital may be set free from distrust and labor lightly burdened.
We denounce the present tariff, levied upon nearly four thousand
articles, as a masterpiece of injustice, inequality, and false pretence.
It yields a dwindling, not a yearly rising, revenue. It has impoverished
many industries to subsidize a few. It prohibits imports that might
purchase the products of American labor. It has degraded American
commerce from the first to an inferior rank on the high seas. It has cut
down the sales of American manufactures at home and abroad, and depleted
the returns of American agriculture—an industry followed by half our
people. It costs the people five times more than it produces to the
treasury, obstructs the processes of production, and wastes the fruits
of labor. It promotes fraud, fosters smuggling, enriches dishonest
officials, and bankrupts honest merchants. We demand that all
custom-house taxation shall be only for revenue.
Reform is necessary in the scale of public expense—federal, state, and
municipal. Our federal taxation has swollen from sixty millions gold, in
1860, to four hundred and fifty millions currency, in 1870; our
aggregate taxation from one hundred and fifty-four millions gold, in
1860, to seven hundred and thirty millions currency, in 1870—or, in one
decade, from less than five dollars per head to more than eighteen
dollars per head. Since the peace, the people have paid to their
tax-gatherers more than thrice the sum of the national debt, and more
than twice that sum for the Federal government alone. We demand a
rigorous frugality in every department and from every officer of the
government.
Reform is necessary to put a stop to the profligate waste of public
lands, and their diversion from actual settlers, by the party in power,
which has squandered 200,000,000 of acres upon railroads alone, and, out
of more than thrice that aggregate, has disposed of less than a sixth
directly to tillers of the soil.
Reform is necessary to correct the omission of a Republican Congress,
and the errors of our treaties and our diplomacy which have stripped our
fellow-citizens of foreign birth and kindred race, recrossing the
Atlantic, of the shield of American citizenship, and have exposed our
brethren of the Pacific coast to the incursions of a race not sprung
from the same great parent stock, and in fact now, by law, denied
citizenship through naturalization, as being neither accustomed to the
traditions of a progressive civilization nor exercised in liberty under
equal laws. We denounce the policy which thus discards the
liberty-loving German and tolerates a revival of the coolie trade in
Mongolian women, imported for immoral purposes, and Mongolian men, held
to perform servile labor contracts and demand such modification of the
treaty with the Chinese Empire, or such legislation within
constitutional limitations, as shall prevent further importation or
immigration of the Mongolian race.
Reform is necessary, and can never be effected but by making it the
controlling issue of the elections, and lifting it above the two false
issues with which the office-holding class and the party in power seek
to smother it:
1. The false issue with which they would enkindle sectarian strife in
respect to the public schools, of which the establishment and support
belongs exclusively to the several states, and which the Democratic
party has cherished from their foundation, and is resolved to maintain,
without prejudice or preference for any class, sect, or creed, and
without largesses from the treasury to any.
2. The false issue by which they seek to light anew the dying embers of
sectional hate between kindred peoples once estranged, but now reunited
in one indivisible republic and a common destiny.
Reform is necessary in the civil service. Experience proves that
efficient, economical conduct of the governmental business is not
possible if its civil service be subject to change at every election, be
a prize fought for at the ballot-box, be a brief reward of party zeal,
instead of posts of honor assigned for proved competency, and held for
fidelity in the public employ; that the dispensing of patronage should
neither be a tax upon the time of all our public men, nor the instrument
of their ambition. Here, again, promises, falsified in the performance,
attest that the party in power can work out no practical or salutary
reform.
Reform is necessary, even more, in the higher grades of the public
service. President, Vice-President, Judges, Senators, Representatives,
Cabinet officers—these, and all others in authority—are the people’s
servants. Their offices are not a private perquisite; they are a public
trust. When the annals of this Republic show the disgrace and censure of
a Vice-President; a ate Speaker of the House of Representatives
marketing his rulings as a presiding officer; three Senators profiting
secretly by their votes as law-makers; five chairmen of the leading
committees of the late House of Representatives exposed in jobbery; a
late Secretary of the Treasury forcing balances in the public accounts;
a late Attorney-General misappropriating public funds; a Secretary of
the Navy enriched, or enriching friends, by percentages levied off the
profits of contractors with his department; an Ambassador to England
concerned in a dishonorable speculation; the President’s private
secretary barely escaping conviction upon trial for guilty complicity in
frauds upon the revenue; a Secretary of War impeached for high crimes
and misdemeanors—the demonstration is complete, that the first step in
reform must be the people’s choice of honest men from another party,
lest the disease of one political organization infect the body politic,
and lest by making no change of men or parties we get no change of
measures and no real reform.
All these abuses, wrongs, and crimes—the product of sixteen years’
ascendency of the Republican party—create a necessity for reform,
confessed by the Republicans themselves; but their reformers are voted
down in convention and displaced from the cabinet. The party’s mass of
honest voters is powerless to resist the 80,000 office-holders, its
leaders and guides.
Reform can only be had by a peaceful civic revolution. We demand a
change of system, a change of administration, a change of parties, that
we may have a change of measures and of men.
_Resolved_, That this convention, representing the Democratic party of
the United States, do cordially indorse the action of the present House
of Representatives, in reducing and curtailing the expenses of the
Federal government, in cutting down salaries and extravagant
appropriations, and in abolishing useless offices and places not
required by the public necessities; and we shall trust to the firmness
of the Democratic members of the House that no committee of conference
and no misinterpretation of the rules will be allowed to defeat these
wholesome measures of economy demanded by the country.
_Resolved_, That the soldiers and sailors of the Republic, and the
widows and orphans of those who have fallen in battle, have a just claim
upon the care, protection, and gratitude of their fellow-citizens.
1878.—National Platform.
_Toledo, Ohio, February 22._
_Whereas_, Throughout our entire country the value of real estate is
depreciated, industry paralyzed, trade depressed, business incomes and
wages reduced, unparalleled distress inflicted upon the poorer and
middle ranks of our people, the land filled with fraud, embezzlement,
bankruptcy, crime, suffering, pauperism, and starvation; and
_Whereas_, This state of things has been brought about by legislation in
the interest of, and dictated by, money-lenders, bankers and
bondholders; and
_Whereas_, While we recognize the fact that the men in Congress
connected with the old political parties have stood up manfully for the
rights of the people, and met the threats of the money power, and the
ridicule of an ignorant and subsidized press, yet neither the Republican
nor the Democratic parties, in their policies, propose remedies for the
existing evils; and
_Whereas_, The Independent Greenback party, and other associations more
or less effective, have been unable, hitherto, to make a formidable
opposition to old party organizations; and
_Whereas_, The limiting of the legal-tender quality of the greenbacks,
the changing of currency bonds into coin bonds, the demonetization of
the silver dollar, the exempting of bonds from taxation, the contraction
of the circulating medium, the proposed forced resumption of specie
payments, and the prodigal waste of the public lands, were crimes
against the people; and, as far as possible, the results of these
criminal acts must be counteracted by judicious legislation:
_Therefore_, We assemble in national convention and make a declaration
of our principles, and invite all patriotic citizens to unite in an
effort to secure financial reform and industrial emancipation. The
organization shall be known as the “National Party,” and under this name
we will perfect, without delay, national, state, and local associations,
to secure the election to office of such men only as will pledge
themselves to do all in their power to establish these principles:
_First._ It is the exclusive function of the general government to coin
and create money and regulate its value. All bank issues designed to
circulate as money should be suppressed. The circulating medium, whether
of metal or paper, shall be issued by the government, and made a full
legal-tender for all debts, duties, and taxes in the United States, at
its stamped value.
_Second._ There shall be no privileged class of creditors. Official
salaries, pensions, bonds, and all other debts and obligations, public
and private, shall be discharged in the legal-tender money of the United
States strictly according to the stipulations of the laws under which
they were contracted.
_Third._ The coinage of silver shall be placed on the same footing as
that of gold.
_Fourth._ Congress shall provide said money adequate to the full
employment of labor, the equitable distribution of its products, and the
requirement of business, fixing a minimum amount _per capita_ of the
population as near as may be, and otherwise regulating its value by wise
and equitable provisions of law, so that the rate of interest will
secure to labor its just reward.
_Fifth._ It is inconsistent with the genius of popular government that
any species of private property should be exempt from bearing its proper
share of the public burdens. Government bonds and money should be taxed
precisely as other property, and a graduated income tax should be levied
for the support of the government and the payment of its debts.
_Sixth._ Public lands are the common property of the whole people, and
should not be sold to speculators nor granted to railroads or other
corporations, but should be donated to actual settlers, in limited
quantities.
_Seventh._ The government should, by general enactments, encourage the
development of our agricultural, mineral, mechanical, manufacturing, and
commercial resources, to the end that labor may be fully and profitably
employed; but no monopolies should be legalized.
_Eighth._ All useless offices should be abolished, the most rigid
economy favored in every branch of the public service, and severe
punishment inflicted upon public officers who betray the trusts reposed
in them.
_Ninth._ As educated labor has devised means for multiplying productions
by inventions and discoveries, and as their use requires the exercise of
mind as well as body, such legislation should be had that the number of
hours of daily toil will be reduced, giving to the working classes more
leisure for mental improvement and their several enjoyments, and saving
them from premature decay and death.
_Tenth._ The adoption of an American monetary system, as proposed
herein, will harmonize all differences in regard to tariff and federal
taxation, reduce and equalize the cost of transportation by land and
water, distribute equitably the joint earnings of capital and labor,
secure to the producers of wealth the results of their labor and skill,
and muster out of service the vast army of idlers, who, under the
existing system, grow rich upon the earnings of others, that every man
and woman may, by their own efforts, secure a competency, so that
overgrown fortunes and extreme poverty will be seldom found within the
limits of our republic.
_Eleventh._ Both national and state governments should establish bureaus
of labor and industrial statistics, clothed with the power of gathering
and publishing the same.
_Twelfth._ That the contract system of employing labor in our prisons
and reformatory institutions works great injustice to our mechanics and
artisans, and should be prohibited.
_Thirteenth._ The importation of servile labor into the United States
from China is a problem of the most serious importance, and we recommend
legislation looking to its suppression.
_Fourteenth._ We believe in the supremacy of law over and above all
perishable material, and in the necessity of a party of united people
that will rise above old party lines and prejudices. We will not
affiliate in any degree with any of the old parties, but, in all cases
and localities, will organize anew, as united National men—nominate for
office and official positions only such persons as are clearly believers
in and identified with this our sacred cause; and, irrespective of
creed, color, place of birth, or past condition of political or other
servitude, vote only for men who entirely abandon old party lines and
organizations.
1879.—National Liberal Platform.
_Cincinnati, Ohio, September 14._
1. Total separation of Church and State, to be guaranteed by amendment
of the United States constitution; including the equitable taxation of
church property, secularization of the public schools, abrogation of
Sabbatarian laws, abolition of chaplaincies, prohibition of public
appropriations for religious purposes, and all measures necessary to the
same general end.
2. National protection for national citizens in their equal civil,
political, and religious rights, to be guaranteed by amendment of the
United States constitution and afforded through the United States
courts.
3. Universal education, the basis of universal suffrage in this secular
Republic, to be guaranteed by amendment of the United States
constitution, requiring every state to maintain a thoroughly secularized
public school system, and to permit no child within its limits to grow
up without a good elementary education.
1880.—Independent Republican Principles.
I. Independent Republicans adhere to the republican principles of
national supremacy, sound finances, and civil service reform, expressed
in the Republican platform of 1876, in the letter of acceptance of
President Hayes, and in his message of 1879; and they seek the
realization of those principles in practical laws and their efficient
administration. This requires,
1. The continuance on the statute book of laws protecting the rights of
voters at national elections. But national supremacy affords no pretext
for interference with the local rights of communities; and the
development of the south from its present defective civilization can be
secured only under constitutional methods, such as those of President
Hayes.
2. The passage of laws which shall deprive greenbacks of their
legal-tender quality, as a first step toward their ultimate withdrawal
and cancellation, and shall maintain all coins made legal tender at such
weight and fineness as will enable them to be used without discount in
the commercial transactions of the world.
3. The repeal of the acts which limit the terms of office of certain
government officials to four years; the repeal of the tenure-of-office
acts, which limit the power of the executive to remove for cause; the
establishment of a permanent civil service commission, or equivalent
measures to ascertain, by open competition, and certify to the President
or other appointing power the fitness of applicants for nomination or
appointment to all non-political offices.
II. Independent Republicans believe that local issues should be
independent of party. The words Republican and Democrat should have no
weight in determining whether a school or city shall be administered on
business principles by capable men. With a view to this, legislation is
asked which shall prescribe for the voting for local and for state
officers upon separate ballots.
III. Independent Republicans assert that a political party is a
co-operation of voters to secure the practical enactment into
legislation of political convictions set forth as its platform. Every
voter accepting that platform is a member of that party; any
representative of that party opposing the principles or evading the
promises of its platform forfeits the support of its voters. No voter
should be held by the action or nomination of any caucus or convention
of his party against his private judgment. It is his duty to vote
against bad measures and unfit men, as the only means of obtaining good
ones; and if his party no longer represents its professed principles in
its practical workings, it is his duty to vote against it.
IV. Independent Republicans seek good nominations through participation
in the primaries and through the defeat of bad nominees; they will labor
for the defeat of any local Republican candidate, and, in co-operation
with those holding like views elsewhere, for the defeat of any general
Republican candidate whom they do not deem fit.
1880. Republican Platform.
_Chicago, Illinois, June 2._
The Republican party, in national convention assembled, at the end of
twenty years since the Federal government was first committed to its
charge, submits to the people of the United States its brief report of
its administration:
It suppressed a rebellion which had armed nearly a million of men to
subvert the national authority. It reconstructed the union of the states
with freedom, instead of slavery, as its corner-stone. It transformed
four million of human beings from the likeness of things to the rank of
citizens. It relieved Congress from the infamous work of hunting
fugitive slaves, and charged it to see that slavery does not exist.
It has raised the value of our paper currency from thirty-eight per
cent. to the par of gold. It has restored, upon a solid basis, payment
in coin for all the national obligations, and has given us a currency
absolutely good and equal in every part of our extended country. It has
lifted the credit of the nation from the point where six per cent. bonds
sold at eighty-six to that where four per cent. bonds are eagerly sought
at a premium.
Under its administration railways have increased from 31,000 miles in
1860, to more than 82,000 miles in 1879.
Our foreign trade has increased from $700,000,000 to $1,150,000,000 in
the same time; and our exports, which were $20,000,000 less than our
imports in 1860, were $264,000,000 more than our imports in 1879.
Without resorting to loans, it has, since the war closed, defrayed the
ordinary expenses of government, besides the accruing interest on the
public debt, and disbursed, annually, over $30,000,000 for soldiers’
pensions. It has paid $888,000,000 of the public debt, and, by refunding
the balance at lower rates, has reduced the annual interest charge from
nearly $151,000,000 to less than $89,000,000.
All the industries of the country have revived, labor is in demand,
wages have increased, and throughout the entire country there is
evidence of a coming prosperity greater than we have ever enjoyed.
Upon this record, the Republican party asks for the continued confidence
and support of the people; and this convention submits for their
approval the following statement of the principles and purposes which
will continue to guide and inspire its efforts:
1. We affirm that the work of the last twenty years has been such as to
commend itself to the favor of the nation, and that the fruits of the
costly victories which we have achieved, through immense difficulties,
should be preserved; that the peace regained should be cherished; that
the dissevered Union, now happily restored, should be perpetuated, and
that the liberties secured to this generation should be transmitted,
undiminished, to future generations; that the order established and the
credit acquired should never be impaired; that the pensions promised
should be paid; that the debt so much reduced should be extinguished by
the full payment of every dollar thereof; that the reviving industries
should be further promoted; and that the commerce, already so great,
should be steadily encouraged.
2. The constitution of the United States is a supreme law, and not a
mere contract; out of confederate states it made a sovereign nation.
Some powers are denied to the nation, while others are denied to states;
but the boundary between the powers delegated and those reserved is to
be determined by the national and not by the state tribunals.
3. The work of popular education is one left to the care of the several
states, but it is the duty of the national government to aid that work
to the extent of its constitutional ability. The intelligence of the
nation is but the aggregate of the intelligence in the several states;
and the destiny of the nation must be guided, not by the genius of any
one state, but by the average genius of all.
4. The constitution wisely forbids Congress to make any law respecting
an establishment of religion; but it is idle to hope that the nation can
be protected against the influences of sectarianism while each state is
exposed to its domination. We, therefore, recommend that the
constitution be so amended as to lay the same prohibition upon the
legislature of each state, to forbid the appropriation of public funds
to the support of sectarian schools.
5. We reaffirm the belief, avowed in 1876, that the duties levied for
the purpose of revenue should so discriminate as to favor American
labor; that no further grant of the public domain should be made to any
railway or other corporation; that slavery having perished in the
states, its twin barbarity—polygamy—must die in the territories; that
everywhere the protection accorded to citizens of American birth must be
secured to citizens by American adoption. That we esteem it the duty of
Congress to develop and improve our water-courses and harbors, but
insist that further subsidies to private persons or corporations must
cease. That the obligations of the republic to the men who preserved its
integrity in the day of battle are undiminished by the lapse of fifteen
years since their final victory—to do them perpetual honor is, and shall
forever be, the grateful privilege and sacred duty of the American
people.
6. Since the authority to regulate immigration and intercourse between
the United States and foreign nations rests with the Congress of the
United States and its treaty-making powers, the Republican party,
regarding the unrestricted immigration of the Chinese as an evil of
great magnitude, invoke the exercise of that power to restrain and limit
that immigration by the enactment of such just, humane, and reasonable
provisions as will produce that result.
That the purity and patriotism which characterized the early career of
Rutherford B. Hayes in peace and war, and which guided the thoughts of
our immediate predecessors to select him for a presidential candidate,
have continued to inspire him in his career as chief executive, and that
history will accord to his administration the honors which are due to an
efficient, just, and courteous discharge of the public business, and
will honor his interposition between the people and proposed partisan
laws.
8. We charge upon the Democratic party the habitual sacrifice of
patriotism and justice to a supreme and insatiable lust for office and
patronage. That to obtain possession of the national and state
governments, and the control of place and position, they have obstructed
all efforts to promote the purity and to conserve the freedom of
suffrage; have devised fraudulent certifications and returns; have
labored to unseat lawfully-elected members of Congress, to secure, at
all hazards, the vote of a majority of the states in the House of
Representatives; have endeavored to occupy, by force and fraud the
places of trust given to others by the people of Maine, and rescued by
the courageous action of Maine’s patriotic sons; have, by methods
vicious in principle and tyrannical in practice, attached partisan
legislation to appropriation bills, upon whose passage the very
movements of government depend; have crushed the rights of the
individual; have advocated the principle and sought the favor of
rebellion against the nation, and have endeavored to obliterate the
sacred memories of the war, and to overcome its inestimably valuable
results of nationality, personal freedom, and individual equality.
Equal, steady, and complete enforcement of the laws, and protection of
all our citizens in the enjoyment of all privileges and immunities
guaranteed by the constitution, are the first duties of the nation. The
danger of a solid south can only be averted by the faithful performance
of every promise which the nation made to the citizen. The execution of
the laws, and the punishment of all those who violate them, are the only
safe methods by which an enduring peace can be secured, and genuine
prosperity established throughout the south. Whatever promises the
nation makes, the nation must perform; and the nation can not with
safety relegate this duty to the states. The solid south must be divided
by the peaceful agencies of the ballot, and all opinions must there find
free expression; and to this end honest voters must be protected against
terrorism, violence, or fraud. And we affirm it to be the duty and the
purpose of the Republican party to use all legitimate means to restore
all the states of this Union to the most perfect harmony which may be
practicable; and we submit to the practical, sensible people of the
United States to say whether it would not be dangerous to the dearest
interests of our country, at this time to surrender the administration
of the national government to a party which seeks to overthrow the
existing policy, under which we are so prosperous, and thus bring
distrust and confusion where there is now order, confidence, and hope.
9. The Republican party, adhering to a principle affirmed by its last
national convention, of respect for the constitutional rule covering
appointments to office, adopts the declaration of President Hayes, that
the reform of the civil service should be thorough, radical, and
complete. To this end it demands the co-operation of the legislative
with the executive department of the government, and that Congress shall
so legislate that fitness, ascertained by proper practical tests, shall
admit to the public service; and that the power of removal for cause,
with due responsibility for the good conduct of subordinates, shall
accompany the power of appointment.
1880.—National (Greenback) Platform,
_Chicago, Illinois, June 9_.
The civil government should guarantee the divine right of every laborer
to the results of his toil, thus enabling the producers of wealth to
provide themselves with the means for physical comfort, and facilities
for mental, social, and moral culture; and we condemn, as unworthy of
our civilization, the barbarism which imposes upon wealth-producers a
state of drudgery as the price of a bare animal existence.
Notwithstanding the enormous increase of productive power by the
universal introduction of labor-saving machinery and the discovery of
new agents for the increase of wealth, the task of the laborer is
scarcely lightened, the hours of toil are but little shortened, and few
producers are lifted from poverty into comfort and pecuniary
independence. The associated monopolies, the international syndicates,
and other income classes demand dear money, cheap labor, and a strong
government, and, hence, a weak people. Corporate control of the volume
of money has been the means of dividing society into hostile classes, of
an unjust distribution of the products of labor, and of building up
monopolies of associated capital, endowed with power to confiscate
private property. It has kept money scarce; and the scarcity of money
enforces debt-trade, and public and corporate loans; debt engenders
usury, and usury ends in the bankruptcy of the borrower. Other results
are—deranged markets, uncertainty in manufacturing enterprises and
agriculture, precarious and intermittent employment for the laborer,
industrial war, increasing pauperism and crime, and the consequent
intimidation and disfranchisement of the producer, and a rapid
declension into corporate feudalism. Therefore, we declare—
_First._ That the right to make and issue money is a sovereign power, to
be maintained by the people for their common benefit. The delegation of
this right to corporations is a surrender of the central attribute of
sovereignty, void of constitutional sanction, and conferring upon a
subordinate and irresponsible power an absolute dominion over industry
and commerce. All money, whether metallic or paper, should be issued,
and its volume controlled, by the government, and not by or through
banking corporations; and, when so issued, should be a full legal tender
for all debts, public and private.
_Second._ That the bonds of the United States should not be refunded,
but paid as rapidly as practicable, according to contract. To enable the
government to meet these obligations, legal-tender currency should be
substituted for the notes of the national banks, the national banking
system abolished, and the unlimited coinage of silver, as well as gold,
established by law.
_Third._ That labor should be so protected by national and state
authority as to equalize its burdens and insure a just distribution of
its results. The eight hour law of Congress should be enforced, the
sanitary condition of industrial establishments placed under the rigid
control, the competition of contract convict labor abolished, a bureau
of labor statistics established, factories, mines, and workshops
inspected, the employment of children under fourteen years of age
forbidden, and wages paid in cash.
_Fourth._ Slavery being simply cheap labor, and cheap labor being simply
slavery, the importation and presence of Chinese serfs necessarily tends
to brutalize and degrade American labor; therefore, immediate steps
should be taken to abrogate the Burlingame treaty.
_Fifth._ Railroad land grants forfeited by reason of non-fulfillment of
contract should be immediately reclaimed by the government, and,
henceforth, the public domain reserved exclusively as homes for actual
settlers.
_Sixth._ It is the duty of Congress to regulate inter-state commerce.
All lines of communication and transportation should be brought under
such legislative control as shall secure moderate, fair, and uniform
rates for passenger and freight traffic.
_Seventh._ We denounce as destructive to property and dangerous to
liberty the action of the old parties in fostering and sustaining
gigantic land, railroad, and money corporations, and monopolies invested
with and exercising powers belonging to the government, and yet not
responsible to it for the manner of their exercise.
_Eighth._ That the constitution, in giving Congress the power to borrow
money, to declare war, to raise and support armies, to provide and
maintain a navy, never intended that the men who loaned their money for
an interest-consideration should be preferred to the soldiers and
sailors who periled their lives and shed their blood on land and sea in
defense of their country; and we condemn the cruel class legislation of
the Republican party, which, while professing great gratitude to the
soldier, has most unjustly discriminated against him and in favor of the
bondholder.
_Ninth._ All property should bear its just proportion of taxation, and
we demand a graduated income tax.
_Tenth._ We denounce as dangerous the efforts everywhere manifest to
restrict the right of suffrage.
_Eleventh._ We are opposed to an increase of the standing army in time
of peace, and the insidious scheme to establish an enormous military
power under the guise of militia laws.
_Twelfth._ We demand absolute democratic rules for the government of
Congress, placing all representatives of the people upon an equal
footing, and taking away from committees a veto power greater than that
of the President.
_Thirteenth._ We demand a government of the people, by the people, and
for the people, instead of a government of the bondholder, by the
bondholder, and for the bondholder; and we denounce every attempt to
stir up sectional strife as an effort to conceal monstrous crimes
against the people.
_Fourteenth._ In the furtherance of these ends we ask the co-operation
of all fair-minded people. We have no quarrel with individuals, wage no
war on classes, but only against vicious institutions. We are not
content to endure further discipline from our present actual rulers,
who, having dominion over money, over transportation, over land and
labor, over the press and the machinery of government, wield
unwarrantable power over our institutions and over life and property.
1880.—Prohibition Reform Platform,
_Cleveland, Ohio, June 17._
The prohibition Reform party of the United States, organized, in the
name of the people, to revive, enforce, and perpetuate in the government
the doctrines of the Declaration of Independence, submit, for the
suffrage of all good citizens, the following platform of national
reforms and measures:
In the examination and discussion of the temperance question, it has
been proven, and is an accepted truth, that alcoholic drinks, whether
fermented, brewed, or distilled, are poisonous to the healthy human
body, the drinking of which is not only needless but hurtful,
necessarily tending to form intemperate habits, increasing greatly the
number, severity, and fatal termination of diseases, weakening and
deranging the intellect, polluting the affections, hardening the heart
and corrupting the morals, depriving many of reason and still more of
its healthful exercise, and annually bringing down large numbers to
untimely graves, producing, in the children of many who drink, a
predisposition to intemperance, insanity, and various bodily and mental
diseases, causing diminution of strength, feebleness of vision,
fickleness of purpose, and premature old age, and inducing, in all
future generations, deterioration of moral and physical character.
Alcoholic drinks are thus the implacable foe of man as an individual.
_First._ The legalized importation, manufacture, and sale of
intoxicating drinks ministers to their use, and teaches the erroneous
and destructive sentiment that such use is right, thus tending to
produce and perpetuate the above mentioned evils.
_Second._ To the home it is an enemy—proving itself to be a disturber
and destroyer of its peace, prosperity, and happiness; taking from it
the earnings of the husband; depriving the dependent wife and children
of essential food, clothing, and education; bringing into it profanity,
abuse, and violence; setting at naught the vows of the marriage altar;
breaking up the family and sundering the children from the parents, and
thus destroying one of the most beneficent institutions of our Creator,
and removing the sure foundation of good government, national
prosperity, and welfare.
_Third._ To the community it is equally an enemy—producing vice,
demoralization, and wickedness; its places of sale being resorts of
gaming, lewdness, and debauchery, and the hiding-place of those who prey
upon society; counteracting the efficacy of religious effort, and of all
means of intellectual elevation, moral purity, social happiness, and the
eternal good of mankind, without rendering any counteracting or
compensating benefits; being in its influence and effect evil and only
evil, and that continually.
_Fourth._ To the state it is equally an enemy—legislative inquiries,
judicial investigations, and official reports of all penal, reformatory,
and dependent institutions showing that the manufacture and sale of such
beverages is the promoting cause of intemperance, crime, and pauperism,
and of demands upon public and private charity, imposing the larger part
of taxation, paralyzing thrift, industry, manufactures, and commercial
life, which, but for it, would be unnecessary; disturbing the peace of
streets and highways; filling prisons and poor-houses; corrupting
politics, legislation, and the execution of the laws; shortening lives;
diminishing health, industry, and productive power in manufactures and
art; and is manifestly unjust as well as injurious to the community upon
which it is imposed, and is contrary to all just views of civil liberty,
as well as a violation of the fundamental maxim of our common law, to
use your own property or liberty so as not to injure others.
_Fifth._ It is neither right nor politic for the state to afford legal
protection to any traffic or any system which tends to waste the
resources, to corrupt the social habits, and to destroy the health and
lives of the people; that the importation, manufacture, and sale of
intoxicating beverages is proven to be inimical to the true interests of
the individual home, community, and state, and destructive to the order
and welfare of society, and ought, therefore, to be classed among crimes
to be prohibited.
_Sixth._ In this time of profound peace at home and abroad, the entire
separation of the general government from the drink-traffic, and its
prohibition in the District of Columbia, territories, and in all places
and ways over which, under the constitution, Congress has control and
power, is a political issue of the first importance to the peace and
prosperity of the nation. There can be no stable peace and protection to
personal liberty, life, or property, until secured by national or state
constitutional provisions, enforced by adequate laws.
_Seventh._ All legitimate industries require deliverance from the
taxation and loss which the liquor traffic imposes upon them; and
financial or other legislation could not accomplish so much to increase
production and cause a demand for labor, and, as a result, for the
comforts of living, as the suppression of this traffic would bring to
thousands of homes as one of its blessings.
_Eighth._ The administration of the government and the execution of the
laws are through political parties; and we arraign the Republican party,
which has been in continuous power in the nation for twenty years, as
being false to duty, as false to loudly-proclaimed principles of equal
justice to all and special favors to none, and of protection to the weak
and dependent, insensible to the mischief which the trade in liquor has
constantly inflicted upon industry, trade, commerce, and the social
happiness of the people; that 5,652 distilleries, 3,830 breweries, and
175,266 places for the sale of these poisonous liquors, involving an
annual waste to the nation of one million five hundred thousand dollars,
and the sacrifice of one hundred thousand lives, have, under its
legislation, grown up and been fostered as a legitimate source of
revenue; that during its history, six territories have been organized
and five states been admitted into the Union, with constitutions
provided and approved by Congress, but the prohibition of this debasing
and destructive traffic has not been provided, nor even the people
given, at the time of admission, power to forbid it in any one of them.
Its history further shows, that not in a single instance has an original
prohibitory law been passed by any state that was controlled by it,
while in four states, so governed, the laws found on its advent to power
have been repealed. At its national convention in 1872, it declared, as
part of its party faith, that “it disapproves of the resort to
unconstitutional laws for the purpose of removing evils, by interference
with rights not surrendered by the people to either the state or
national government,” which, the author of this plank says, was adopted
by the platform committee with the full and implicit understanding that
its purpose was the discountenancing of all so-called temperance,
prohibitory, and Sunday laws.
_Ninth._ We arraign, also, the Democratic party as unfaithful and
unworthy of reliance on this question; for, although not clothed with
power, but occupying the relation of an opposition party during twenty
years past, strong in numbers and organization, it has allied itself
with liquor-traffickers, and become, in all the states of the Union,
their special political defenders, and in its national convention in
1876, as an article of its political faith, declared against prohibition
and just laws in restraint of the trade in drink, by saying it was
opposed to what it was pleased to call “all sumptuary laws.” The
National party has been dumb on this question.
_Tenth._ Drink-traffickers, having the history and experience of all
ages, climes, and conditions of men, declaring their business
destructive of all good—finding no support in the Bible, morals, or
reason—appeal to misapplied law for their justification, and intrench
themselves behind the evil elements of political party for defense,
party tactics and party inertia become battling forces, protecting this
evil.
_Eleventh._ In view of the foregoing facts and history, we cordially
invite all voters, without regard to former party affiliations, to unite
with us in the use of the ballot for the abolition of the drinking
system, under the authority of our national and state governments. We
also demand, as a right, that women, having the privileges of citizens
in other respects, be clothed with the ballot for their protection, and
as a rightful means for the proper settlement of the liquor question.
_Twelfth._ To remove the apprehension of some who allege that a loss of
public revenue would follow the suppression of the direct trade, we
confidently point to the experience of governments abroad and at home,
which shows that thrift and revenue from the consumption of legitimate
manufactures and commerce have so largely followed the abolition of
drink as to fully supply all loss of liquor taxes.
_Thirteenth._ We recognize the good providence of Almighty God, who has
preserved and prospered us as a nation; and, asking for His Spirit to
guide us to ultimate success, we all look for it, relying upon His
omnipotent arm.
1880.—Democratic Platform,
_Cincinnati, Ohio, June 22_.
The Democrats of the United States, in convention assembled, declare:
_First._ We pledge ourselves anew to the constitutional doctrines and
traditions of the Democratic party, as illustrated by the teachings and
examples of a long line of Democratic statesmen and patriots, and
embodied in the platform of the last national convention of the party.
_Second._ Opposition to centralization, and to that dangerous spirit of
encroachment which tends to consolidate the powers of all the
departments in one, and thus to create, whatever the form of government,
a real despotism; no sumptuary laws; separation of the church and state
for the good of each; common schools fostered and protected.
_Third._ Home rule; honest money, consisting of gold and silver, and
paper, convertible into coin on demand; the strict maintenance of the
public faith; state and national; and a tariff for revenue only; the
subordination of the military to the civil power; and a general and
thorough reform of the civil service.
_Fourth._ The right to a free ballot is a right preservative of all
rights; and must and shall be maintained in every part of the United
States.
_Fifth._ The existing administration is the representative of conspiracy
only; and its claim of right to surround the ballot-boxes with troops
and deputy marshals, to intimidate and obstruct the elections, and the
unprecedented use of the veto to maintain its corrupt and despotic
power, insults the people and imperils their institutions. We execrate
the course of this administration in making places in the civil service
a reward for political crime; and demand a reform, by statute, which
shall make it forever impossible for a defeated candidate to bribe his
way to the seat of a usurper by billeting villains upon the people.
_Sixth._ The great fraud of 1876–7, by which, upon a false count of the
electoral votes of two states, the candidate defeated at the polls was
declared to be President, and, for the first time in American history,
the will of the people was set aside under a threat of military
violence, struck a deadly blow at our system of representative
government. The Democratic party, to preserve the country from the
horrors of a civil war, submitted for the time, in the firm and
patriotic belief that the people would punish the crime in 1880. This
issue precedes and dwarfs every other. It imposes a more sacred duty
upon the people of the Union than ever addressed the consciences of a
nation of freemen.
_Seventh._ The resolution of Samuel J. Tilden, not again to be a
candidate for the exalted place to which he was elected by a majority of
his countrymen, and from which he was excluded by the leaders of the
Republican party, is received by the Democrats of the United States with
deep sensibility; and they declare their confidence in his wisdom,
patriotism, and integrity unshaken by the assaults of the common enemy;
and they further assure him that he is followed into the retirement he
has chosen for himself by the sympathy and respect of his
fellow-citizens, who regard him as one who, by elevating the standard of
the public morality, and adorning and purifying the public service,
merits the lasting gratitude of his country and his party.
_Eighth._ Free ships, and a living chance for American commerce upon the
seas; and on the land, no discrimination in favor of transportation
lines, corporations, or monopolies.
_Ninth._ Amendments of the Burlingame treaty; no more Chinese
immigration, except for travel, education, and foreign commerce, and,
therein, carefully guarded.
_Tenth._ Public money and public credit for public purposes solely, and
public land for actual settlers.
_Eleventh._ The Democratic party is the friend of labor and the laboring
man, and pledges itself to protect him alike against the cormorants and
the commune.
_Twelfth._ We congratulate the country upon the honesty and thrift of a
Democratic Congress, which has reduced the public expenditure
$10,000,000 a year; upon the continuation of prosperity at home and the
national honor abroad; and, above all, upon the promise of such a change
in the administration of the government as shall insure a genuine and
lasting reform in every department of the public service.
Virginia Republican.
[_Adopted August 11._]
_Whereas_, It is proper that when the people assemble in convention they
should avow distinctly the principles of government on which they stand;
now, therefore, be it,
_Resolved_, That we, the Republicans of Virginia, hereby make a
declaration of our allegiance and adhesion to the principles of the
Republican party of the country, and our determination to stand squarely
by the organization of the Republican party of Virginia, always
defending it against the assaults of all persons or parties whatsoever.
_Second._ That amongst the principles of the Republican party none is of
more vital importance to the welfare and interest of the country in all
its parts than that which pertains to the sanctity of Government
contracts. It therefore becomes the special duty and province of the
Republican party of Virginia to guard and protect the credit of our
time-honored State, which has been besmirched with repudiation, or
received with distrust, by the gross mismanagement of various factions
of the Democratic party, which have controlled the legislation of the
State.
_Third._ That the Republican party of Virginia hereby pledges itself to
redeem the State from the discredit that now hangs over her in regard to
her just obligations for moneys loaned her for constructing her internal
improvements and charitable institutions, which, permeating every
quarter of the State, bring benefits of far greater value than their
cost to our whole people, and we in the most solemn form pledge the
Republican party of the State to the full payment of the whole debt of
the State, less the one-third set aside as justly falling on West
Virginia; that the industries of the country should be fostered through
protective laws, so as to develop our own resources, employ our own
labor, create a home market, enhance values, and promote the happiness
and prosperity of the people.
_Fourth._ That the public school system of Virginia is the creature of
the Republican party, and we demand that every dollar the Constitution
dedicates to it shall be sacredly applied thereto as a means of
educating the children of the State, without regard to condition or
race.
_Fifth._ That the elective franchise as an equal right should be based
on manhood qualification, and that we favor the repeal of the
requirements of the prepayment of the capitation tax as a prerequisite
to the franchise as opposed to the Constitution of the United States,
and in violation of the condition whereby the State was re-admitted as a
member of our Constitutional Union, as well as against the spirit of the
Constitution; but demand the imposition of the capitation tax as a
source of revenue for the support of the public schools without its
disfranchising effects.
_Sixth._ That we favor the repeal of the disqualification for the
elective franchise by a conviction of petty larceny, and of the infamous
laws which place it in the power of a single justice of the peace
(ofttimes being more corrupt than the criminal before him) to
disfranchise his fellow man.
_Seventh._ Finally, that we urge the repeal of the barbarous law
permitting the imposition of stripes as degrading and inhuman, contrary
to the genius of a true and enlightened people, and a relic of
barbarism.
[The Convention considered it inexpedient to nominate candidates for
State officers.]
Virginia Readjuster.
[_Adopted June 2._]
_First._ We recognize our obligation to support the institution for the
deaf, dumb and blind, the lunatic asylum, the public free schools and
the Government out of the revenues of the State; and we deprecate and
denounce that policy of ring rule and subordinated sovereignty which for
years borrowed money out of banks at high rates of interest for the
discharge of these paramount trusts, while our revenues were left the
prey of commercial exchanges, available to the State only at the option
of speculators and syndicates.
_Second._ We reassert our purpose to settle and adjust our State
obligations on the principles of the “Bill to re-establish public
credit,” known as the “Riddleberger bill,” passed by the last General
Assembly and vetoed by the Governor. We maintain that this measure
recognizes the just debt of Virginia, in this, that it assumes
two-thirds of all the money Virginia borrowed, and sets aside the other
third to West Virginia to be dealt with by her in her own way and at her
own pleasure; that it places those of her creditors who have received
but 6 per cent. instalments of interest in nine years upon an exact
equality with those who by corrupt agencies were enabled to absorb and
monopolize our means of payment; that it agrees to pay such rate of
interest on our securities as can with certainty be met out of the
revenues of the State, and that it contains all the essential features
of finality.
_Third._ We reassert our adherence to the Constitutional requirements
for the “equal and uniform” taxation of property, exempting none except
that specified by the Constitution and used exclusively for “religious,
charitable and educational purposes.”
_Fourth._ We reassert that the paramount obligation of the various works
of internal improvement is to the people of the State, by whose
authority they were created, by whose money they were constructed and by
whose grace they live; and it is enjoined upon our representative and
executive officers to enforce the discharge of that duty; to insure to
our people such rates, facilities and connections as will protect every
industry and interest against discrimination, tend to the development of
our agricultural and mineral resources, encourage the investment of
active capital in manufactures and the profitable employment of labor in
industrial enterprises, grasp for our city and our whole State those
advantages to which by their geographical position they are entitled,
and fulfil all the great public ends for which they were designed.
_Fifth._ The Readjusters hold the right to a free ballot to be the right
preservative of all rights, and that it should be maintained in every
State in the Union. We believe the capitation tax restriction upon the
suffrage in Virginia to be in conflict with the XIVth Amendment to the
Constitution of the United States. We believe that it is a violation of
that condition of reconstruction wherein the pledge was given not so to
amend our State Constitution as to deprive any citizen or class of
citizens of a right to vote, except as punishment for such crimes as are
felony at common law. We believe such a prerequisite to voting to be
contrary to the genius of our institutions, the very foundation of which
is representation as antecedent to taxation. We know that it has been a
failure as a measure for the collection of revenue, the pretended reason
for its invention in 1876, and we know the base, demoralizing and
dangerous uses to which it has been prostituted. We know it contributes
to the increase of monopoly power, and to corrupting the voter. For
these and other reasons we adhere to the purpose hitherto expressed to
provide more effectual legislation for the collection of this tax,
dedicated by the Constitution to the public free schools, and to abolish
it as a qualification for and restriction upon suffrage.
_Sixth._ The Readjusters congratulate the whole people of Virginia on
the progress of the last few years in developing mineral resources and
promoting manufacturing enterprises in the State, and they declare their
purpose to aid these great and growing industries by all proper and
essential legislation, State and Federal. To this end they will continue
their efforts in behalf of more cordial and fraternal relations between
the sections and States, and especially for that concord and harmony
which will make the country to know how earnestly and sincerely Virginia
invites all men into her borders as visitors or to become citizens
without fear of social or political ostracism; that every man, from
whatever section of country, shall enjoy the fullest freedom of thought,
speech, politics and religion, and that the State which first formulated
these principles as fundamental in free government is yet the citadel
for their exercise and protection.
Virginia Democratic.
[_Adopted August 4._]
The Conservative-Democratic party of Virginia—Democratic in its Federal
relations and Conservative in its State policy—assembled in convention,
in view of the present condition of the Union and of this Commonwealth,
for the clear and distinct assertion of its political principles, doth
declare that we adopt the following articles of political faith:
_First._ Equality of right and exact justice to all men, special
privileges to none; freedom of religion, freedom of the press, and
freedom of the person under the protection of the _habeas corpus_; of
trial by juries impartially selected, and of a pure, upright and
non-partisan judiciary; elections by the people, free from force or
fraud of citizens or of the military and civil officers of Government;
and the selection for public offices of those who are honest and best
fitted to fill them; the support of the State governments in all their
rights as the most competent administrations of our domestic concerns
and the surest bulwarks against anti-republican tendencies; and the
preservation of the General Government in its whole constitutional vigor
as the best sheet-anchor of our peace at home and our safety abroad.
_Second._ That the maintenance of the public credit of Virginia is an
essential means to the promotion of her prosperity. We condemn
repudiation in every shape and form as a blot upon her honor, a blow at
her permanent welfare, and an obstacle to her progress in wealth,
influence and power; and that we will make every effort to secure a
settlement of the public debt, with the consent of her creditors, which
is consistent with her honor and dictated by justice and sound public
policy; that it is eminently desirable and proper that the several
classes of the debt now existing should be unified, so that equality,
which is equity, may control in the annual payment of interest and the
ultimate redemption of principal; that, with a view of securing such
equality, we pledge our party to use all lawful authority to secure a
settlement of the State debt so that there shall be but one class of the
public debt; that we will use all lawful and constitutional means in our
power to secure a settlement of the State debt upon the basis of a 3 per
cent. bond, and that the Conservative-Democratic party pledges itself,
as a part of its policy, not to increase the present rate of taxation.
_Third._ That we will uphold, in its full constitutional integrity and
efficiency, our public school system for the education of both white and
colored children—a system inaugurated by the Constitution of the State
and established by the action of the Conservative party years before it
was required by the Constitution; and will take the most effectual means
for the faithful execution of the same by applying to its support all
the revenues set apart for that object by the Constitution or otherwise.
_Fourth._ Upon this declaration of principles we cordially invite the
co-operation of all Conservative Democrats, whatever may have been or
now are their views upon the public debt, in the election of the
nominees of this Convention and in the maintenance of the supremacy of
the Democratic party in this State.
_Resolved, further_, That any intimation, coming from any quarter, that
the Conservative-Democratic party of Virginia has been, is now, or
proposes to be, opposed to an honest ballot and a fair count, is a
calumny upon the State of Virginia as unfounded in fact as it is
dishonorable to its authors.
That special efforts be made to foster and encourage the agricultural,
mechanical, mining, manufacturing and other industrial interests of the
State.
That, in common with all good citizens of the Union, we reflect with
deep abhorrence upon the crime of the man who aimed a blow at the life
of the eminent citizen who was called by the constitutional voice of
fifty millions of people to be the President of the United States; and
we tender to him and to his friends the sympathy and respect of this
Convention and of those we represent, in this great calamity, and our
hearty desire for his complete restoration to health and return to the
discharge of his important duties, for the welfare and honor of our
common country.
1884—Democratic Platform.
_Adopted by the Chicago Convention, July 10th._
The Democratic party of the Union through its representatives in the
National Convention assembled, recognizes that as the Nation grows older
new issues are born, of time and progress, and old issues perish. But
the fundamental principles of the Democracy approved by the united voice
of the people, remain and will ever remain as the best and only security
for the continuance of free government. The preservation of personal
rights, the equality of all citizens before the law, the reserved rights
of the States and the supremacy of the Federal Government within the
limits of the Constitution will ever form the true basis of our
liberties, and can never be surrendered without destroying that balance
of rights and powers which enables a continent to be developed in peace,
and social order to be maintained by means of local self-government. But
it is indispensable for the practical application and enforcement of
these fundamental principles that the Government should not always be
controlled by one political party. Frequent change of administration is
as necessary as a constant recurrence to the popular will. Otherwise
abuses grow, and the Government, instead of being carried on for the
general welfare, becomes an instrumentality for imposing heavy burdens
on the many who are governed for the benefit of the few who govern.
Public servants thus become arbitrary rulers.
This is now the condition of the country, hence a change is demanded.
The Republican party, so far as principle is concerned, is a
reminiscence in practice, it is an organization for enriching those who
control its machinery. The frauds and jobbery which have been brought to
light in every department of the Government are sufficient to have
called for reform within the Republican party. Yet those in authority,
made reckless by the long possession of power, have succumbed to its
corrupting influences, and have placed in nomination a ticket against
which the Independent portion of the party are in open revolt. Therefore
a change is demanded. Such a change was alike necessary in 1876, but the
will of the people was then defeated by a fraud which can never be
forgotten nor condoned. Again in 1880 the change demanded by the people
was defeated by the lavish use of money, contributed by unscrupulous
contractors and shameless jobbers, who had bargained for unlawful
profits or for high office.
The Republican party during its legal, its stolen and its bought tenures
of power, has steadily decayed in moral character and political
capacity. Its platform promises are now a list of its past failures. It
demands the restoration of our navy. It has squandered hundreds of
millions to create a navy that does not exist. It calls upon Congress to
remove the burdens under which American shipping has been depressed. It
imposed and has continued those burdens. It professes the policy of
reserving the public lands for small holdings by actual settlers. It has
given away the people’s heritage till now a few railroads and
non-resident aliens, individual and corporate, possess a larger area
than that of all our farms between the two seas. It professes a
preference for free institutions. It organized and tried to legalize a
control of State elections by Federal troops. It professes a desire to
elevate labor. It has subjected American workingmen to the competition
of convict and imported contract labor. It professes gratitude to all
who were disabled or died in the war leaving widows and orphans. It left
to a Democratic House of Representatives the first effort to equalize
both bounties and pensions. It proffers a pledge to correct the
irregularities of our tariff. It created and has continued them. Its own
tariff commission confessed the need of more than 20 per cent.
reduction. Its Congress gave a reduction of less than 4 per cent. It
professes the protection of American manufacturers. It has subjected
them to an increasing flood of manufactured goods and a hopeless
competition with manufacturing nations, not one of which taxes raw
materials. It professes to protect all American industries. It has
impoverished many to subsidize a few. It professes the protection of
American labor. It has depicted the returns of American agriculture, an
industry followed by half our people. It professes the equality of men
before the law. Attempting to fix the status of colored citizens, the
act of its Congress was overset by the decision of its courts. It
“accepts anew the duty of leading in the work of progress and reform.”
Its caught criminals are permitted to escape through contrived delays or
actual connivance in the prosecution. Honeycombed with corruption,
outbreaking exposures no longer shock its moral sense, its honest
members. Its independent journals no longer maintain a successful
contest for authority in its counsels or a veto upon bad nominations.
That a change is necessary is proved by an existing surplus of more than
$100,000,000, which has yearly been collected from a suffering people.
Unnecessary taxation is unjust taxation. We denounce the Republican
party for having failed to relieve the people from crushing war taxes
which have paralyzed business, crippled industry, and deprived labor of
employment and of just reward. The Democracy pledges itself to purify
the administration from corruption, to restore economy, to revive the
respect of the law, and to reduce taxation to the lowest limit
consistent with due regard to the preservation of the faith of the
nation to its creditors and pensioners.
Knowing full well, however that legislation affecting the occupations of
the people should be cautious and conservative in method, not in advance
of public opinion, but responsive to its demands, the Democratic party
is pledged to revise the tariff in a spirit of fairness to all. But in
making a reduction in taxes, it is not proposed to injure any domestic
industries, but rather to promote their healthy growth. From the
foundation of this Government taxes collected at the custom-house have
been the chief source of Federal revenue. Such they must continue to be.
Moreover, many industries have come to rely upon legislation for
successful continuance, so that any change of law must be at every step
regardful of the labor and the capital thus involved. The process of
reform must be subject in the execution to this plain dictate of
justice. All taxation shall be limited to the requirements of economical
government. The necessary reduction in taxation can and must be effected
without depriving American labor of the ability to compete successfully
with foreign labor, and without imposing lower rates of duty than will
be ample to cover any increased cost of production which may exist in
consequence of the higher rate of wages prevailing in this country.
Sufficient revenue to pay all the expenses of the Federal Government,
economically administered, including pensions, interest and principal of
the public debt, can be got, under our present system of taxation, from
custom house taxes on fewer imported articles, bearing heaviest on
articles of luxury, and bearing lightest on articles of necessity. We
therefore denounce the abuses of the existing tariff, and subject to the
preceding limitations, we demand that Federal taxation shall be
exclusively for public purposes and shall not exceed the needs of the
Government economically administered.
The system of direct taxation, known as the “internal revenue,” is a war
tax, and so long as the law continues, the money derived therefrom
should be sacredly devoted to the relief of the people from the
remaining burdens of the war, and be made a fund to defray the expense
of the care and comfort of the worthy soldiers disabled in line of duty
in the wars of the Republic, and for the payment of such pensions as
Congress may from time to time grant to such soldiers, a like fund for
the sailors having been already provided; and any surplus should be paid
into the treasury.
We favor an American continental policy, based upon more intimate
commercial and political relations with the fifteen sister Republics of
North, Central and South America, but entangling alliances with none. We
believe in honest money, the gold and silver coinage of the
Constitution, and a circulating medium convertible into such money
without loss.
Asserting the equality of all men before the law, we hold that it is the
duty of the Government, in its dealings with the people, to mete out
equal and exact justice to all citizens, of whatever nativity, race,
color or persuasion, religious or political. We believe in a free ballot
and a fair count, and we recall to the memory of the people the noble
struggle of the Democrats in the Forty-fifth and Forty-sixth Congresses
by which a reluctant Republican opposition was compelled to assent to
legislation making everywhere illegal the presence of troops at the
polls, as the conclusive proof that a Democratic administration will
preserve liberty with order. The selection of Federal officers for the
Territories should be restricted to citizens previously resident
therein. We oppose sumptuary laws, which vex the citizens and interfere
with individual liberty. We favor honest civil service reform, and the
compensation of all United States officers by fixed salaries; the
separation of Church and State and the diffusion of free education by
common schools, so that every child in the land may be taught the rights
and duties of citizenship.
While we favor all legislation which will tend to the equitable
distribution of property to the prevention of monopoly, and to the
strict enforcement of individual rights against corporate abuses, we
hold that the welfare of society depends upon a scrupulous regard for
the rights of property as defined by law.
We believe that labor is best rewarded where it is freest and most
enlightened. It should, therefore, be fostered and cherished. We favor
the repeal of all laws restricting the free action of labor, and the
enactment of laws by which labor organizations may be incorporated, and
of all such legislation as will tend to enlighten the people as to the
true relations of capital and labor.
We believe that the public lands ought, as far as possible, to be kept
as homesteads for actual settlers; that all unearned lands heretofore
improvidently granted to railroad corporations by the action of the
Republican party, should be restored to the public domain, and that no
more grant of land shall be made to corporations, or be allowed to fall
into the ownership of alien absentees. We are opposed to all
propositions which upon any pretext would convert the General Government
into a machine for collecting taxes to be distributed among the States
or the citizens thereof.
All the great woes of our country have come because of imported labor.
Our fathers made this land the home of the free for all men appreciating
our institutions, with energy enough to bring themselves here, and such
we welcome, but our country ought never to be a lazar-house for the
deportation of the pauper labor of other countries through governmental
aid, or the importation of the same kind of labor as an instrument with
which capital can debase American workingmen and women from the proud
position they now occupy by competing with them by imported labor or
convict labor, while at the same time capital asks and receives
protection of its interests at the hands of the Government, under guise
of providing for American labor. This evil like all others finds birth
in the cupidity and selfishness of men. The laborer’s demands should be
redressed by law. Labor has a right to demand a just share of the
profits of its own productions.
The future of the country unites with the laboring men in the demand for
the liberal support by the United States of the school system of the
States for the common education of all the children, the same affording
a sufficient foundation for the coming generations to acquire due
knowledge of their duties as citizens.
That every species of monopoly engenders two classes, the very rich and
the very poor, both of which are equally hurtful to a Republic which
should give to its people equal rights and equal privileges under the
law.
That the public lands of the United States were the equal heritage of
all the citizens and should have been held open to the use of all in
such quantities only as are needed for cultivation and improvement by
all. Therefore we view with alarm the absorption of these lands by
corporations and individuals in large areas, some of them more than
equal to princely domains, and demand of Congress to apply appropriate
remedies with a stern hand so that the lands of the people may be held
by the many and not by the few.
That the public lands of the Nation are held by the Government in trust
for those who make their homes in the United States, and who mean to
become citizens of the Republic, and we protest against the purchase and
monopolization of these lands by corporations and the alien aristocracy
of Europe.
That all corporate bodies, created either in the States or Nation for
the purpose of performing public duties, are public servants and to be
regulated in all their actions by the same power that created them at
its own will, and that it is within the power and is the duty of the
creator to so govern its creature that by its acts it shall become
neither a monopoly nor a burden upon the people, but be their servant
and convenience, which is the true test of its usefulness. Therefore we
call upon Congress to exercise its great constitutional powers for
regulating inter-estate commerce to provide that by no contrivance
whatever, under forms of law or otherwise, shall discriminating rates
and charges for the transportation of freight and travel be made in
favor of the few against the many or enhance the rates of transportation
between the producer and the consumer.
The various offices of the Government belong to the people thereof and
who rightfully demand to exercise and fill the same whenever they are
fitted by capacity, integrity and energy, the last two qualifications
never to be tested by any scholastic examination. We hold that frequent
changes of Federal officials are shown to be necessary. First, to
counteract the growing aristocratic tendencies to a caste of life
offices. Second, experience having shown that all investigation is
useless while the incumbent and his associates hold their places.
Frequent change of officers is necessary to the discovery and punishment
of frauds, peculations, defalcations and embezzlements of the public
money.
In reaffirming the declaration of the Democratic platform of 1856, that
“The liberal principles embodied by Jefferson in the Declaration of
Independence and sanctioned in the Constitution, which make ours a land
of liberty and the asylum of the oppressed of every nation have ever
been cardinal principles in the Democratic faith,” we nevertheless do
not sanction the importation of foreign labor or the admission of
servile races, unfitted by habits, training, religion or kindred for
absorption into the great body of our people, or for the citizenship
which our laws confer. American civilization demands that against the
immigration or importation of Mongolians to these shores our gates be
closed. The Democratic party insists that it is the duty of this
Government to protect with great fidelity and vigilance the rights of
its citizens, native and naturalized, at home and abroad; and to the end
that this protection may be assured to the United States, papers of
naturalization, issued by courts of competent jurisdiction, must be
respected by the executive legislative departments of our own Government
and by all foreign powers. It is an imperative duty of this Government
to efficiently protect all the rights of persons and property of every
American citizen in foreign lands, and demand and enforce full
reparation for any violation thereof. An American citizen is only
responsible to his own Government for an act done in his own country or
under her flag, and can only be tried therefore on her own soil and
according to her laws; and no power exists in this Government to
expatriate an American citizen to be tried in any foreign land for any
such act. This country has never had a well defined and executed foreign
policy, save under the Democratic administration. That policy has never
been in regard to foreign Nations, so long as they do not act
detrimental to the interests of the country or hurtful to our citizens,
to let them alone. That as the result of this policy we recall the
acquisition of Louisiana, Florida, California and of the adjacent
Mexican Territory by purchase alone, and contrast these grand
acquisitions of Democratic Statesmanship with the purchase of Alaska,
the sole fruit of a Republican administration of nearly a quarter of a
century.
The Federal Government should care for and improve the Mississippi river
and other great water ways of the Republic, so as to secure for the
interior States easy and cheap transportation to tide water.
Under a long period of Democratic rule and policy our merchant marine
was fast overtaking and on the point of outstripping that of Great
Britain. Under twenty-five years of Republican rule and policy our
commerce has been left to British bottoms, and almost has the American
flag been swept off the high seas. Instead of the Republican party’s
British policy, we demand for the people of the United States an
American policy. Under Democratic rule and policy our merchants and
sailors flying the stars and stripes in every port, successfully
searched out a market for the varied products of American industry.
Under a quarter of a century of Republican rule and policy, despite our
manifest advantage over all other nations, high-paid labor, favorable
climates and teeming soils; despite freedom of trade among these United
States; despite their population by the foremost races of men and the
annual immigration of the young, thrifty and adventurous of all nations;
despite our freedom here from the inherited burdens of life and industry
in the Old World monarchies—their costly war navies, their vast
tax-consuming, non-producing standing armies; despite twenty years of
peace—that Republican rule and policy have managed to surrender to Great
Britain, along with our commerce, the control of the markets of the
world. Instead of the Republican party’s British policy, we demand in
behalf of the American Democracy an American policy. Instead of the
Republican party’s discredited scheme and false pretense of friendship
for American labor, expressed by imposing taxes, we demand in behalf of
the Democracy freedom for American labor by reducing taxes, to the end
that these United States may compete with unhindered powers for the
primacy among nations in all the arts of peace and fruits of liberty.
With profound regret we have been apprised by the venerable statesman
through whose person was struck that blow at the vital principle of
republics—acquiescence in the will of the majority—that he cannot permit
us again to place in his hands the leadership of the Democratic hosts
for the reason that the achievement of reform in the administration of
the Federal Government is an undertaking now too heavy for his age and
failing strength. Rejoicing that his life has been prolonged until the
general judgment of our fellow-countrymen is united in the wish that,
wrong were righted in his person for the Democracy of the United States,
we offer to him in his withdrawal from public career not only our
respectful sympathy and esteem, but also the best homage of freedom, the
pledge of our devotion to the principles and the cause now inseparable
in the history of this Republic, from the labors and the name of Samuel
J. Tilden.
With this statement of the hopes, principles and purposes of the
Democratic party, the great issue of reform and change in administration
is submitted to the people in calm confidence that the popular voice
will pronounce in favor of new men and new and more favorable conditions
for the growth of industry, the extension of trade, the employment and
due reward of labor and capital and the general welfare of the whole
country.
1884.—Republican Platform.
_Adopted by the Chicago Convention, June 3d to 6th._
The Republicans of the United States, in National Convention assembled,
renew their allegiance to the principles upon which they have triumphed
in six successive Presidential elections, and congratulate the American
people on the attainment of so many results in legislation and
administration by which the Republican party has, after saving the
Union, done so much to render its institutions just, equal and
beneficent—the safeguard of liberty and the embodiment of the best
thought and highest purposes of our citizens. The Republican party has
gained its strength by quick and faithful response to the demands of the
people for the freedom and the equality of all men; for a united nation,
assuring the rights of all citizens; for the elevation of labor; for an
honest currency; for purity in legislation, and for integrity and
accountability in all departments of the Government; and it accepts anew
the duty of leading in the work of progress and reform.
We lament the death of President Garfield, whose sound statesmanship,
long conspicuous in Congress, gave promise of a strong and successful
administration, a promise fully realized during the short period of his
office as President of the United States. His distinguished success in
war and in peace has endeared him to the hearts of the American people.
In the administration of President Arthur we recognise a wise,
conservative, and patriotic policy, under which the country has been
blessed with remarkable prosperity, and we believe his eminent services
are entitled to, and will receive, the hearty approval of every citizen.
It is the first duty of a good Government to protect the rights and
promote the interests of its own people. The largest diversity of
industry is most productive of general prosperity and of the comfort and
independence of the people. We, therefore, demand that the imposition of
duties on foreign imports shall be made, not for revenue only, but that
in raising the requisite revenues for the Government such duties shall
be so levied as to afford security to our diversified industries and
protection to the rights and wages of the laborer, to the end that
active and intelligent labor, as well as capital, may have its just
reward, and the laboring man his full share in the national prosperity.
Against the so-called economic system of the Democratic party which
would degrade our labor to the foreign standard, we enter our earnest
protest. The Democratic party has failed completely to relieve the
people of the burden of unnecessary taxation by a wise reduction of the
surplus.
The Republican party pledges itself to correct the inequalities of the
tariff, and to reduce the surplus, not by the vicious and indiscriminate
process of horizontal reduction, but by such methods as will relieve the
taxpayer without injuring the laborer or the great productive interests
of the country.
We recognize the importance of sheep husbandry in the United States, the
serious depression which it is now experiencing and the danger
threatening its future prosperity; and we therefore respect the demands
of the representatives of this important agricultural interest for a
readjustment of duty upon foreign wool, in order that such industry
shall have full and adequate protection.
We have always recommended the best money known to the civilized world,
and we urge that an effort be made to unite all commercial nations in
the establishment of an international standard which shall fix for all
the relative value of gold and silver coinage.
The regulation of commerce with foreign nations and between the States
is one of the most important prerogatives of the General Government, and
the Republican party distinctly announces its purpose to support such
legislation as will fully and efficiently carry out the constitutional
power of Congress over inter-State commerce.
The principle of the public regulation of railway corporations is a wise
and salutary one for the protection of all classes of the people, and we
favor legislation that shall prevent unjust discrimination and excessive
charges for transportation, and that shall secure to the people and to
the railways alike the fair and equal protection of the laws.
We favor the establishment of a national bureau of labor, the
enforcement of the eight hour law, and a wise and judicious system of
general education by adequate appropriation from the national revenues
wherever the same is needed. We believe that everywhere the protection
to a citizen of American birth must be secured to citizens of American
adoption, and we favor the settlement of national differences by
international arbitration.
The Republican party having its birth in a hatred of slave labor, and in
a desire that all men may be free and equal, is unalterably opposed to
placing our workingmen in competition with any form of servile labor,
whether at home or abroad. In this spirit we denounce the importation of
contract labor, whether from Europe or Asia, as an offense against the
spirit of American institutions, and we pledge ourselves to sustain the
present law restricting Chinese immigration, and to provide such further
legislation as is necessary to carry out its purposes.
The reform of the civil service, auspiciously begun under Republican
administration, should be completed by the further extension of the
reformed system, already established by law, to all the grades of the
service to which it is applicable. The spirit and purpose of the reform
should be in all executive appointments, and all laws at variance with
the objects of existing reformed legislation should be repealed, to the
end that the danger to free institutions which lurks in the power of
official patronage may be wisely and effectively avoided.
The public lands are a heritage of the people of the United States, and
should be reserved, as far as possible, for small holdings by actual
settlers. We are opposed to the acquisition of large tracts of these
lands by corporations or individuals, especially where such holdings are
in the hands of non-resident aliens, and we will endeavor to obtain such
legislation as will tend to correct this evil. We demand of Congress the
speedy forfeiture of all land grants which have lapsed by reason of
non-compliance with acts of incorporation, in all cases where there has
been no attempt in good faith to perform the conditions of such grants.
The grateful thanks of the American people are due to the Union soldiers
and sailors of the late war, and the Republican party stands pledged to
suitable pensions for all who were disabled, and for the widows and
orphans of those who died in the war. The Republican party also pledges
itself to the repeal of the limitation contained in the arrears act of
1879, so that all invalid soldiers shall share alike and their pensions
shall begin with the date of disability or discharge, and not with the
date of their application.
The Republican party favors a policy which shall keep us from entangling
alliances with foreign nations, and which shall give the right to expect
that foreign nations shall refrain from meddling in American affairs—the
policy which seeks peace, and can trade with all Powers, but especially
with those of the Western Hemisphere.
We demand the restoration of our navy to its old-time strength and
efficiency, that it may, in any sea, protect the rights of American
citizens and the interests of American commerce, and we call upon
Congress to remove the burdens under which American shipping has been
depressed, so that it may again be true that we have a commerce which
leaves no sea unexplored, and a navy which takes no law from superior
force.
_Resolved_, That appointments by the President to offices in the
Territories should be made from the _bona fide_ citizens and residents
of the Territories wherein they are to serve.
_Resolved_, That it is the duty of Congress to enact such laws as shall
promptly and effectually suppress the system of polygamy within our
territory, and divorce the political from the ecclesiastical power of
the so-called Mormon Church, and that the law so enacted should be
rigidly enforced by the civil authorities if possible, and by the
military if need be.
The people of the United States, in their organized capacity, constitute
a Nation and not a mere confederacy of States. The National Government
is supreme within the sphere of its national duty, but the States have
reserved rights which should be faithfully maintained; each should be
guarded with jealous care, so that the harmony of our system of
government may be preserved and the Union be kept inviolate. The
perpetuity of our institutions rests upon the maintenance of a free
ballot, an honest count, and correct returns.
We denounce the fraud and violence practised by the Democracy in
Southern States by which the will of the voter is defeated, as dangerous
to the preservation of free institutions, and we solemnly arraign the
Democratic party as being the guilty recipient of the fruits of such
fraud and violence. We extend to the Republicans of the South,
regardless of their former party affiliations, our cordial sympathy, and
pledge to them our most earnest efforts to promote the passage of such
legislation as will secure to every citizen, of whatever race and color,
the full and complete recognition, possession and exercise of all civil
and political rights.
1888.—Democratic National Platform.
_Adopted by the St. Louis Convention, June 5, 1888._
The Democratic party of the United States, in National Convention
assembled, renews the pledge of its fidelity to Democratic faith, and
reaffirms the platform adopted by its representatives in the Convention
of 1884, and endorses the views expressed by President Cleveland in his
last annual message to Congress as the correct interpretation of that
platform upon the question of tariff reduction; and also endorses the
efforts of our Democratic representatives in Congress to secure a
reduction of excessive taxation. Chief among its principles of party
faith are the maintenance of an indissoluble union of free and
indestructible States, now about to enter upon its second century of
unexampled progress and renown; devotion to a plan of government
regulated by a written constitution strictly specifying every granted
power and expressly reserving to the States or people the entire
ungranted residue of power; the encouragement of a jealous popular
vigilance, directed to all who have been chosen for brief terms to enact
and execute the laws, and are charged with the duty of preserving peace,
ensuring equality and establishing justice.
The Democratic party welcome an exacting scrutiny of the administration
of the executive power which, four years ago, was committed to its
trusts in the election of Grover Cleveland, President of the United
States, but it challenges the most searching inquiry concerning its
fidelity and devotion to the pledges which then invited the suffrages of
the people. During a most critical period or our financial affairs,
resulting from over taxation, the anomalous condition of our currency
and a public debt unmatured, it has, by the adoption of a wise and
conservative course, not only averted a disaster, but greatly promoted
the prosperity of our people.
It has reversed the improvident and unwise policy of the Republican
party touching the public domain, and has reclaimed from corporations
and syndicates alien and domestic and restored to the people nearly one
hundred million acres of valuable land, to be sacredly held as
homesteads for our citizens.
While carefully guarding the interest to the principles of justice and
equity, it has paid out more for pensions and bounties to the soldiers
and sailors of the Republic than was ever paid out during an equal
period. It has adopted and constantly pursued a firm and prudent foreign
policy, preserving peace with all nations while scrupulously maintaining
all the rights and interests of our own Government and people at home
and abroad. The exclusion from our shores of Chinese laborers has been
effectually secured under the provision of a treaty, the operation of
which has been postponed by the action of a Republican majority in the
Senate.
Honest reform in the Civil Service has been inaugurated and maintained
by President Cleveland, and he has brought the public service to the
highest standard of efficiency, not only by rule and precept, but by the
example of his own untiring and unselfish administration of public
affairs.
In every department and branch of the Government, under Democratic
control, the rights and the welfare of all the people have been guarded
and defended; every public interest has been protected, and the equality
of all our citizens before the law without regard to race or color has
been steadfastly maintained. Upon its record thus exhibited, and upon
the pledge of a continuance to the people of the benefits of Democracy,
invokes a renewal of popular trust by the re-election of a Chief
Magistrate who has been faithful, able and prudent. To invoke in
addition to that trust by the transfer also to the Democracy of the
entire legislative power.
The Republican party controlling the Senate and resisting in both Houses
of Congress a reformation of unjust and unequal tax laws, which have
outlasted the necessities of war and are now undermining the abundance
of a long peace, deny to the people equality before the law, and the
fairness and the justice which are their right. Then the cry of American
labor for a better share in the rewards of industry is stifled with
false pretences, enterprise is fettered and bound down to home markets,
capital is discouraged with doubt, and unequal, unjust laws can neither
be properly amended nor repealed.
The Democratic party will continue with all the power confided to it,
the struggle to reform these laws in accordance with the pledges of its
last platform, endorsed at the ballot-box by the suffrages of the
people. Of all the industrious freemen of our land, the immense
majority, including every tiller of the soil, gain no advantage from
excessive tax laws, but the price of nearly everything they buy is
increased by the favoritism of an unequal system of tax legislation. All
unnecessary taxation is unjust taxation.
It is repugnant to the creed of Democracy that by such taxation the cost
of the necessaries of life should be unjustifiably increased to all our
people. Judged by Democratic principles the interests of the people are
betrayed when, by unnecessary taxation, trusts and combinations are
permitted to exist, which, while unduly enriching the few that combine,
rob the body of the citizens by depriving them of the benefits of
natural competition. Every Democratic rule of governmental action is
violated when, through unnecessary taxation, a vast sum of money, far
beyond the needs of an economical administration, is drawn from the
people and the channels of trade and accumulated as a demoralizing
surplus in the National Treasury.
The money now lying idle in the Federal Treasury, resulting from
superfluous taxation, amounts to more than one hundred and twenty-five
millions, and the surplus collected is reaching the sum of more than
sixty millions annually. Debauched by this immense temptation, the
remedy of the Republican party is to meet and exhaust by extravagant
appropriations and expenses, whether constitutional or not, the
accumulation of extravagant taxations. The Democratic policy is to
enforce frugality in public expense and abolish unnecessary taxation.
Our established domestic industries and enterprises should not and need
not be endangered by the reduction and correction of the burdens of
taxation. On the contrary, a fair and careful revision of our tax laws,
with due allowance for the difference between the wages of American and
foreign labor, must promote and encourage every branch of such
industries and enterprises by giving them assurance of an extended
market and steady and continuous operations. In the interests of
American labor, which should in no event be neglected, revision of our
tax laws, contemplated by the Democratic party, should promote the
advantage of such labor by cheapening the cost of necessaries of life in
the home of every working man, and at the same time securing to him
steady and remunerative employment. Upon this question of tariff reform,
so closely concerning every phase of our national life, and upon every
question involved in the problem of good government, the Democratic
party submits its principles and professions to the intelligent
suffrages of the American people.
_Resolved_, That this Convention hereby endorses and recommends the
early passage of the bill for the reduction of the revenue now pending
in the House of Representatives. (Referring to the Mills bill.)
_Resolved_, That we express our cordial sympathy with the struggling
people of all nations in their efforts to secure for themselves the
inestimable blessings of self-government and civil and religious
liberty; and we especially declare our sympathy with the efforts of
those noble patriots who, led by Gladstone and Parnell, have conducted
their grand and peaceful contest for Home Rule in Ireland.
The Republican National Platform,
_Adopted at Chicago Convention, June 19, 1888_.
The Republicans of the United States, assembled by their delegates in
National Convention, pause on the threshold of their proceedings to
honor the memory of their first great leader, the immortal champion of
liberty and the rights of the people—Abraham Lincoln—and to cover also
with wreaths of imperishable remembrance and gratitude the heroic names
of our later leaders who have more recently been called away from our
councils—Grant, Garfield, Arthur, Logan, Conkling. May their memories be
faithfully cherished. We also recall with our greetings, and with prayer
for his recovery, the name of one of our living heroes whose memory will
be treasured in the history both of the Republicans and the republic—the
name of that noble soldier and favorite child of victory, Philip H.
Sheridan.
In the spirit of these great leaders and of our own devotion to human
liberty, and with that hostility to all forms of despotism and
oppression which is the fundamental idea of the Republican party, we add
fraternal congratulation to our fellow-Americans of Brazil upon their
great set of emancipation, which completed the abolition of slavery
throughout the two American continents. We earnestly hope that we may
soon congratulate our fellow-citizens of Irish birth upon the peaceful
recovery of Home Rule for Ireland.
We reaffirm our unswerving devotion to the National Constitution and to
the indissoluble union of the States; to the autonomy reserved to the
States under the Constitution; to the personal rights and liberties of
citizens in all the States and Territories in the Union, and especially
to the supreme and sovereign right of every lawful citizen, rich or
poor, native or foreign born, white or black, to cast one free ballot in
public elections, and to have that duly counted. We hold the free and
honest popular ballot and the just and equal representation of all the
people to be the foundation of our Republican government, and demand
effective legislation to secure the integrity and purity of elections,
which are the fountains of all public authority. We charge that the
present administration and the Democratic majority in Congress owe their
existence to the suppression of the ballot by a criminal nullification
of the Constitution and laws of the United States.
We are uncompromisingly in favor of the American system of protection.
We protest against its destruction as proposed by the President and his
party. They serve the interests of Europe; we will support the interests
of America. We accept the issue and confidently appeal to the people for
their judgment. The protective system must be maintained. Its
abandonment has always been followed by general disaster to all
interests except those of the usurer and the sheriff. We denounce the
Mills bill as destructive to the general business, the labor and the
farming interests of the country, and we heartily endorse the consistent
and patriotic action of the Republican Representatives in Congress in
opposing its passage.
We condemn the proposition of the Democratic party to place wool on the
free list, and we insist that the duties thereon shall be adjusted and
maintained so as to furnish full and adequate protection to that
industry.
The Republican party would effect all needed reduction of the national
revenue by repealing the taxes upon tobacco, which are an annoyance and
burden to agriculture, and the tax upon spirits used in the arts and for
mechanical purposes, and by such revision of the tariff laws as will
tend to check imports of such articles as are produced by our people,
the production of which gives employment to our labor, and release from
import duties those articles of foreign production (except luxuries) the
like of which cannot be produced at home. If there shall still remain a
larger revenue than is requisite for the wants of the Government, we
favor the entire repeal of internal taxes rather than the surrender of
any part of our protective system at the joint behest of the whisky
trusts and the agents of foreign manufacturers.
We declare our hostility to the introduction into this country of
foreign contract labor, and of Chinese labor, alien to our civilization
and our Constitution, and we demand the rigid enforcement of the
existing laws against it, and favor such immediate legislation as will
exclude such labor from our shores.
We declare our opposition to all combinations of capital organized in
trusts or otherwise to control arbitrarily the condition of trade among
our citizens, and we recommend to Congress and to the State Legislatures
in their respective jurisdictions such legislation as will prevent the
execution of all the schemes to oppress the people by undue charges on
their supplies, or by the unjust rates for the transportation of their
products to market. We approve the legislation by Congress to prevent
alike unjust burdens and unfair discriminations between the States.
We reaffirm the policy of appropriating the public lands of the United
States to be homesteads for American citizens and settlers, not aliens,
which the Republican party established in 1862, against the persistent
opposition of the Democrats in Congress, and which has brought our great
western domain into such magnificent development. The restoration of
unearned railroad land grants to the public domain, for the use of the
actual settlers, which was begun under the administration of President
Arthur, should be continued. We deny that the Democratic party has ever
revoked one acre to the people, but declare that, by the joint action of
Republicans and Democrats, about fifty millions of acres of unearned
lands originally granted for the construction of railroads have been
restored to the public domain, in pursuance of the conditions inserted
by the Republican party in the original grants. We charge the Democratic
administration with failure to execute the laws securing to settlers
titles to their homesteads, and with using appropriations made for that
purpose to harass innocent settlers with spies and prosecutions under
the false pretence of exposing frauds and vindicating the law.
The Government by Congress of the Territories is based upon necessity
only, to the end that they may become States in the Union; therefore,
whenever the conditions of population, material resources, public
intelligence and morality are such as to insure a stable Government
therein, the people of such territories should be permitted, as a right
inherent in them, the right to form for themselves constitutions and
State Governments and be admitted into the Union. Pending the
preparation for statehood, all officers thereof should be selected from
the bona fide residents and citizens of the territory wherein they are
to serve. South Dakota should of right be immediately admitted as a
State in the Union under the Constitution framed and adopted by her
people, and we heartily endorse the action of the Republican Senate in
twice passing bills for admission. The refusal of the Democratic House
of Representatives, for partisan purposes, to favorably consider these
bills, is a willful violation of the sacred American principle of local
self government and merits the condemnation of all just men. The pending
bills in the Senate for acts to enable the people of Washington, North
Dakota and Montana territories to form Constitutions and establish State
Governments, should be passed without unnecessary delay. The Republican
party pledges itself to do all in its power to facilitate the admission
of the Territories of New Mexico, Wyoming, Idaho and Arizona to the
enjoyment of self-government as States, such of them as are not
qualified as soon as they may become so.
The political power of the Mormon church in the Territories, as
exercised in the past, is a menace to free institutions, a danger no
longer to be suffered;
Therefore, we pledge the Republican party to appropriate legislation
asserting the sovereignty of the Nation in all Territories where the
same is questioned, and in furtherance of that end to place upon the
statute books legislation stringent enough to divorce the political from
the ecclesiastical power, and thus stamp out the attendant wickedness of
polygamy.
The Republican party is in favor of the use of both gold and silver as
money, and condemns the policy of the Democratic Administration in its
efforts to demonetize silver.
We demand the reduction of letter postage to one cent per ounce.
In a Republic like ours, where the citizen is the sovereign and the
official the servant; where no power is exercised except by the will of
the people, it is important that the sovereign—the people—should possess
intelligence. The free school is the promoter of that intelligence which
is to preserve us as a free nation; the State or nation, or both
combined, should support free institutions of learning sufficient to
afford to every child growing up in the land the opportunity of a good
common-school education.
We earnestly recommend that prompt action be taken by Congress in the
enactment of such legislation as will best secure the rehabilitation of
the American merchant marine, and we protest against the passage by
Congress of a free ship bill, as calculated to work injustice to labor
by lessening the wages of those engaged in preparing materials as well
as those directly employed in our ship yards. We demand appropriations
for the early rebuilding of our navy; for the construction of coast
fortifications and modern ordnance and other approved modern means of
defence for the protection of our defenceless harbors and cities; for
the payment of just pensions to our soldiers; for necessary works of
national importance in the improvement of harbors and the channels of
internal, coastwise and foreign commerce; for the encouragement of the
shipping interests of the Atlantic, Gulf and Pacific States, as well as
for the payment of the maturing public debt. This policy will give
employment to our labor, activity to our various industries, increase
the security of our country, promote trade, open new and direct markets
for our produce, and cheapen the cost of transportation. We affirm this
to be far better for our country than the Democratic policy of loaning
the Government’s money without interest to “pet banks.”
The conduct of foreign affairs by the present administration has been
distinguished by its inefficiency and its cowardice. Having withdrawn
from the Senate all pending treaties affected by Republican
administrations for the removal of foreign burdens and restrictions upon
our commerce and for its extension into better markets, it has neither
effected nor proposed any others in their stead. Professing adherence to
the Monroe doctrine, it has seen with idle complacency the extension of
foreign influence in Central America and of foreign trade everywhere
among our neighbors. It has refused to charter, sanction or encourage
any American organization for constructing the Nicaragua canal, a work
of vital importance to the maintenance of the Monroe doctrine and of our
national influence in Central and South America, and necessary for the
development of trade with our Pacific territory, with South America and
with the islands and further coasts of the Pacific Ocean.
We arraign the present Democratic administration for its weak and
unpatriotic treatment of the fisheries question, and its pusillanimous
surrender of the essential privileges to which our fishing vessels are
entitled in Canadian ports under the treaty of 1818, the reciprocal
maritime legislation of 1830, and the comity of nations, and which
Canadian fishing vessels receive in ports of the United States.
We condemn the policy of the present administration and the Democratic
majority in Congress towards our fisheries as unfriendly and
conspicuously unpatriotic, and as tending to destroy a valuable national
industry and an indispensable resource of defense against a foreign
enemy.
The name of American applies alike to all citizens of the Republic, and
imposes upon all alike the same obligation to obedience to the laws. At
the same time that citizenship is and must be the panoply and safeguard
of him who wears it, and protect him, whether high or low, rich or poor,
in all his civil rights, it should and must afford him protection at
home and follow and protect him abroad in whatever land he may be on a
lawful errand.
The men who abandoned the Republican party in 1884 and continue to
adhere to the Democratic party have deserted not only the cause of
honest government, of sound finance, of freedom and purity of the
ballot, but especially have deserted the cause of reform in the civil
service. We will not fail to keep our pledges because they have broken
theirs or because their candidate has broken his. We therefore repeat
our declaration of 1884, to wit: “The reform of the Civil Service,
auspiciously begun under the Republican administration should be
completed by the further extension of the reform system already
established by law to all grades of the service to which it is
applicable. The spirit and purpose of the reform should be observed in
all executive appointments, and all laws at variance with the object of
existing reform legislation should be repealed, to the end that the
dangers to free institutions which lurk in the power of official
patronage may be wisely and effectively avoided.”
The gratitude of the nation to the defenders of the Union cannot be
measured by laws. The legislation of Congress should conform to the
pledge made by a loyal people, and be so enlarged and extended as to
provide against the possibility that any man who honorably wore the
Federal uniform shall become an inmate of an almshouse, or dependent
upon private charity. In the presence of an overflowing treasury it
would be a public scandal to do less for those whose valorous service
preserved the Government. We denounce the hostile spirit shown by
President Cleveland in his numerous vetoes of measures for pension
relief, and the action of the Democratic House of Representatives in
refusing even a consideration of general pension legislation.
In support of the principles herewith enunciated we invite the
co-operation of patriotic men of all parties, and especially of all
workingmen, whose prosperity is seriously threatened by the free trade
policy of the present administration.
On motion of Hon. Chas. A. Boutelle of Maine, the following was also
adopted:
“The first concern of all good government is the virtue and sobriety of
the people and the purity of the home. The Republican party cordially
sympathizes with all wise and well-directed efforts for the promotion of
temperance and morality.”
COMPARISON OF PLATFORM PLANKS ON GREAT POLITICAL QUESTIONS.
General Party Doctrines.
DEMOCRATIC. REPUBLICAN.
1856—That the liberal principles 1856—That the maintenance of the
embodied by Jefferson in the principles promulgated in the
Declaration of Independence, and Declaration of Independence and
sanctioned in the Constitution, embodied in the Federal
which makes ours the land of Constitution, is essential to the
liberty and the _asylum of the preservation of our Republican
oppressed_ of every nation, have institutions, and that the Federal
ever been cardinal principles in Constitution, the rights of the
the Democratic faith; and every States, and the union of the States
attempt to abridge the present shall be preserved; that with our
privilege of becoming citizens and Republican fathers, we hold it to
the owners of soil among us ought be a self-evident truth that all
to be resisted with the same spirit men are endowed with the
which swept the alien and sedition inalienable rights to life,
laws from our statute books. liberty, and the pursuit of
[Plank 8. happiness, and that the primary
object and ulterior design of our
Federal Government were to secure
these rights to all persons within
its exclusive jurisdiction.
[Plank 1.
1860—Reaffirmed. 1860—That the maintenance of the
principles promulgated in the
Declaration of Independence and
embodied in the Federal
Constitution, “That all men are
created equal; that they are
endowed by their Creator with
certain inalienable rights; that
among these are life, liberty, and
the pursuit of happiness; that to
secure these rights governments are
instituted among men, deriving
their just powers from the consent
of the governed,” is essential to
the preservation of our Republican
institutions; and that the Federal
Constitution, the rights of the
States, and the Union of the States
must and shall be preserved.
[Plank 2.
1864— 1864—
1868— 1868—
1872—We recognize the equality of 1872—Complete liberty and exact
all men before the law, and hold equality in the enjoyment of all
that it is the duty of Government civil, political and public rights
in its dealings with the people to should be established and
mete out equal and exact justice to effectually maintained throughout
all, of whatever nativity, race, the Union by efficient and
color, or persuasion, religious or appropriate State and Federal
political. Legislation. Neither the law nor
[Plank 1. its administration should admit any
discrimination in respect of
citizens by reasons of race, creed,
color or previous condition of
servitude.
[Plank 3.
1876— 1876—_The United States of America
is a Nation not a league._ By the
combined workings of the National
and State Governments, under their
respective constitutions, the
rights of every citizen are secured
at home or abroad, and the common
welfare promoted.
1880—Opposition to 1880—_The constitution of the
centralizationism, and to that United States is a supreme law and
dangerous spirit of encroachment not a mere contract._ Out of
which tends to consolidate the confederate States it made a
powers of all the departments in sovereign nation. Some powers are
one, and thus to create, whatever denied to the nation, while others
be the form of Government, a real are denied to the States, but the
despotism. boundary between the powers
[Plank 2. delegated and those reserved is to
be determined by the National, and
not by the State tribunal.
[Cheers.
[Plank 2.
The Rebellion.
DEMOCRATIC. REPUBLICAN.
1864—That this convention does 1864—That it is the highest duty of
_explicitly declare_, as the sense every American citizen to maintain
of the American people, that _after against all their enemies the
four years of failure to restore integrity of the Union and the
the Union by the experiment of paramount authority of the
war_, during which, under the Constitution and laws of the United
pretense of a military necessity or States; and that laying aside all
war power higher than the differences of political opinions,
Constitution, the Constitution we pledge ourselves as Union men,
itself has been disregarded in animated by a common sentiment, and
every part, and public liberty and aiming at a common object, to do
private right alike trodden down, everything in our power to aid the
and the material prosperity of the Government, in quelling by force of
country essentially impaired, arms the rebellion now raging
justice, humanity, liberty, and the against its authority, and in
public welfare demand that bringing to the punishment due to
_immediate efforts be made for a their crimes the rebels and
cessation of hostilities_, with a traitors arrayed against it.
view to the ultimate convention of
the States, or other peaceable That we approve the determination
means to the end that, at the of the Government of the United
earliest practicable moment peace States not to compromise with
may be restored on the basis of the rebels, or to offer them any terms
Federal Union of the States. of peace, except such as may be
[1st resolution. based upon an unconditional
surrender of their hostility and a
return to their just allegiance to
the Constitution and laws of the
United States; and that we call
upon the Government to maintain
this position and to prosecute the
war with the utmost possible vigor
to the complete suppression of the
rebellion, in full reliance upon
the self-sacrificing patriotism,
the heroic valor, and the undying
devotion of the American people to
the country and its free
institutions.
[1st and 2d resolutions.
Home Rule.
DEMOCRATIC. REPUBLICAN.
1856—That we recognize the right of 1856— * * * The dearest
the people in all the Territories, constitutional rights of the people
including Kansas and Nebraska, of Kansas have been fraudulently
acting through the legally and and violently taken from them;
fairly expressed will of a majority their territory has been invaded by
of actual residents, and wherever an armed force; spurious and
the number of their inhabitants pretended legislative, judicial,
justifies it, to form a and executive officers have been
constitution * * * and be admitted set over them, by whose usurped
into the Union upon terms of authority, sustained by the
perfect equality with the other military power of the Government,
States. tyrannical and unconstitutional
laws have been enacted and
enforced; the right of the people
to keep and bear arms has been
infringed; test oaths of an
extraordinary and entangling nature
have been imposed as a condition of
exercising the right of suffrage
and holding office; the right of an
accused person to a speedy and
public trial by an impartial jury
has been denied; the right of the
people to be secure in their
persons, houses, papers, and
effects against unreasonable
searches and seizures, has been
violated; they have been deprived
of life, liberty, and property
without due process of law; that
the freedom of speech and of the
press has been abridged; the right
to choose their representatives has
been made of no effect; murders,
robberies, and arsons have been
instigated and encouraged, and the
offenders have been allowed to go
unpunished; that all these things
have been done with the knowledge,
sanction, and procurement of the
present Administration, and that
for this high crime against the
Constitution, the Union, and
humanity, we arraign the
Administration, the President, his
advisers, agents, supporters,
apologists, and accessories, either
_before_ or _after_ the fact,
before the country and before the
world; and that it is our fixed
purpose to bring the actual
perpetrators of these atrocious
outrages and their accomplices to a
sure and condign punishment.
[Plank 3.
1860—That when the settlers in a 1860—That the maintenance inviolate
Territory, having an adequate of the rights of the States, and
population, form a State especially the right of each State
Constitution, the right of to order and control its own
sovereignty commences, and, being domestic institutions according to
consummated by admission into the its own judgment exclusively, is
Union, they stand on an equal essential to that balance of power
footing with the people of other on which the perfection and
States; and the State thus endurance of our political fabric
organized ought to be admitted into depends; and we denounce the
the Federal Union, whether its lawless invasion by armed force of
constitution prohibits or the soil of any State or Territory,
recognizes the institution of no matter under what pretext, as
slavery. among the gravest of crimes.
[Plank 3, Breckinridge, Dem. [Plank 4.
1864— 1864—
1868—After the most solemn and 1868—We congratulate the country on
unanimous pledge of both Houses of the assured success of the
Congress to prosecute the war reconstruction policy of Congress,
exclusively for the maintenance of as evinced by the adoption, in the
the Government and the preservation majority of the States lately in
of the Union under the rebellion, of constitutions
Constitution, it [the Republican securing equal civil and political
party] has repeatedly violated that rights to all; and it is the duty
most sacred pledge under which of the Government to sustain those
alone was rallied that noble institutions and prevent the people
volunteer army which carried our of such States from being remitted
flag to victory. Instead of to a state of anarchy.
restoring the Union, it has, so far
as in its power, dissolved it, and
subjected ten States, in time of
profound peace, to military
despotism and negro supremacy. It
has nullified there the right of
trial by jury; it has abolished the
_habeas corpus_, that most sacred
writ of liberty; it has overthrown
the freedom of speech and the
press; it has substituted arbitrary
seizures and arrests, and military
trials and secret star-chamber
inquisitions for the constitutional
tribunals; it has disregarded in
time of peace the right of the
people to be free from searches and
seizures; it has entered the post
and telegraph offices, and even the
private rooms of individuals, and
seized their private papers and
letters without any specific charge
or notice of affidavit, as required
by the organic law; it has
converted the American Capitol into
a bastile; it has established a
system of spies and official
espionage to which no
constitutional monarchy of Europe
would now dare to resort; it has
abolished the right of appeal on
important constitutional questions
to the supreme judicial tribunals,
and threatens to curtail or destroy
its original jurisdiction, which is
irrevocably vested by the
Constitution, while the learned
Chief Justice has been subjected to
the most atrocious calumnies,
merely because he would not
prostitute his high office to the
support of the false and partisan
charges preferred against the
President. * * * Under its repeated
assaults the pillars of the
Government are rocking on their
base, and should it succeed in
November next and inaugurate its
President, we will meet as a
subjected and conquered people,
amid the ruins of liberty and the
scattered fragments of the
Constitution.
1872—Local self-government, with 1872—We hold that Congress and the
impartial suffrage, will guard the President have only fulfilled an
rights of all citizens more imperative duty in their measures
securely than any centralized for the suppression of violent and
power. The public welfare requires treasonable organizations in
the supremacy of the civil over the certain lately rebellious regions,
military authority, and freedom of and for the protection of the
persons under the protection of the ballot-box; and, therefore, they
_habeas corpus_. We demand for the are entitled to the thanks of the
individual the largest liberty nation.
consistent with public order; for [Plank 12.
the State self-government, and for
the nation a return to the methods
of peace and the constitutional
limitations of power.
[Plank 4.
1880—* * “Home Rule.” 1880—
[Plank 3.
Internal Improvements.
DEMOCRATIC. REPUBLICAN.
1856—That the Constitution does not 1856—That appropriations by
confer upon the general Government congress for the improvement of
the power to commence and carry on rivers and harbors of a national
a general system of internal character, required for the
improvements. accommodation and security of our
[Plank 2. existing commerce, are authorized
by the Constitution and justified
by the obligation of Government to
protect the lives and property of
its citizens.
[Plank 7.
1860—Reaffirmed. 1860—That appropriations by
Congress for river and harbor
improvements of a national
character, required for the
accommodation and security of an
existing commerce, are authorized
by the Constitution and justified
by the obligation of Government to
protect the lives and property of
its citizens.
[Plank 15.
1864— 1864—
1868— 1868—
1872— 1872—
1876— 1876—
1880—Plank 2 of 1856 reaffirmed. 1880– * * * That we deem it the
duty of Congress to develop and
improve our seacoast and harbors,
but insist that further subsidies
to private persons or corporations
must cease.
The National Debt and Interest, the Public Credit, Repudiation, etc.
DEMOCRATIC. REPUBLICAN.
1864— 1864—That the National faith,
pledged for the redemption of the
public debt, must be kept
inviolate, and that for this
purpose we recommend economy and
rigid responsibility in the public
expenditures, and a vigorous and
just system of taxation; and that
it is the duty of every loyal State
to sustain the credit and promote
the use of the National currency.
[Plank 10.
1868—Payment of the public debt of 1868—We denounce all forms of
the United States as rapidly as repudiation as a National crime;
practicable; all moneys drawn from and the National honor requires the
the people by taxation, except so payment of the public indebtedness
much as is requisite for the in the uttermost good faith to all
necessities of the Government, creditors at home and abroad, not
economically administered, being only according to the letter, but
honestly applied to such payment, the spirit of the laws under which
and where the obligations of the it was contracted.
Government do not expressly state [Plank 3.
upon their face, or the law under
which they were issued does not It is due to the labor of the
provide that they shall be paid in nation that taxation should be
coin, they ought, in right and in equalized and reduced as rapidly as
justice, to be paid in the _lawful the national faith will permit.
money_ of the United States. [Plank 4.
[Plank 3.
The national debt, contracted as it
Equal taxation of every species of has been for the preservation of
property according to its real the Union for all time to come,
value, including Government bonds should be extended over a fair
and other public securities. period for redemption; and it is
[Plank 4. the duty of Congress to reduce the
rate of interest thereon whenever
it can be honestly done.
[Plank 5.
That the best policy to diminish
our burden of debt is to so improve
our credit that capitalists will
seek to loan us money at lower
rates of interest than we now pay
and must continue to pay so long as
repudiation, partial or total, open
or covert, is threatened or
suspected.
[Plank 6.
1872—We demand a system of Federal 1872—* * * A uniform national
taxation which shall not currency has been provided,
unnecessarily interfere with the repudiation frowned down, the
industries of the people, and which national credit sustained under the
shall provide the means necessary most extraordinary burdens, and new
to pay the expenses of the bonds negotiated at lower
Government, economically rates. * * *
administered, the pensions, the [Plank 1.
interest on the public debt, and a
moderate reduction annually of the We denounce repudiation of the
principal thereof. * * * public debt, in any form of
disguise, as a national crime. We
The public credit must be sacredly witness with pride the reduction of
maintained, and we denounce the principal of the debt, and of
repudiation in every form and the rates of interest upon the
guise. balance.
[Plank 7. [Plank 13.
1876—Reform is necessary to 1876—In the first act of Congress
establish a sound currency, restore signed by President Grant, the
the public credit, and maintain the National Government assumed to
national honor. remove any doubts of its purpose to
discharge all just obligations to
the public creditors, and “solemnly
pledged its faith to make provision
at the earliest practicable period
for the redemption of the United
States notes in coin.” Commercial
prosperity, public morals, and
national credit demand that this
promise be fulfilled by a
continuance and steady progress to
specie payment.
[Plank 4.
1880—* * * Honest money—the strict 1880—It [the Republican party] has
maintenance of the public raised the value of our paper
faith—consisting of gold and currency from 38 per cent. to the
silver, and paper convertible into par of gold [applause]; it has
coin on demand; the strict restored, upon a solid basis,
maintenance of the public faith, payment in coin of all national
State and national. obligations, and has given us a
[Plank 3. currency absolutely good and equal
in every part or our extended
country [applause]; it has lifted
the credit of the nation from the
point of where 6 per cent. bonds
sold at 86, to that where 4 per
cent. bonds are eagerly sought at a
premium.
[Preamble.
Resumption.
DEMOCRATIC. REPUBLICAN.
1872—A speedy return to specie 1872—* * * Our excellent national
payment is demanded alike by the currency will be perfected by a
highest considerations of speedy resumption of specie
commercial morality and honest payment.
government. [Plank 13.
[Plank 8.
1876—We denounce the financial 1876—In the first act of Congress
imbecility and immorality of that signed by President Grant, the
party, which, during eleven years National Government assumed to
of peace, has made no advance remove any doubts of its purpose to
toward resumption, no preparation discharge all just obligations to
for resumption, but instead has the public creditors, and solemnly
obstructed resumption, by wasting pledged its faith to make provision
our resources and exhausting all at the “earliest practicable period
our surplus income; and, while for the redemption of the United
annually professing to intend a States notes in coin.” Commercial
speedy return to specie payments, prosperity, public morals and
has annually enacted fresh national credit demand that this
hindrances thereto. As such promise be fulfilled _by a
hindrance _we denounce the continuous and steady progress to
resumption clause of the act of specie payment_.
1875, and we here demand its
repeal_.
1880—* * * Honest money, * * * 1880—* * * It [the Republican
consisting of gold, and silver, and party] has restored, upon a solid
paper convertible into coin on basis, payment in coin of all
demand. National obligations, and has given
us a currency absolutely good and
equal in every part of our extended
country.
Capital and Labor.
DEMOCRATIC. REPUBLICAN.
1868—_Resolved_, That this 1868—
convention sympathize cordially
with the working men of the United
States in their efforts to protect
the rights and interests of the
laboring classes of the country.
1872— 1872—Among the questions which
press for attention is that which
concerns the relations of capital
and labor, and the Republican party
recognizes the duty of so shaping
legislation as to secure full
protection and the amplest field
for capital, and for labor, the
creator of capital the largest
opportunities and a just share of
the mutual profits of these two
great servants of civilization.
[Plank 11.
1880—The Democratic party is the 1880—
friend of labor and the laboring
man, and pledges itself to protect
him alike against the cormorant and
the commune.
[Plank 13.
Tariff.
DEMOCRATIC. REPUBLICAN.
1856—The time has come for the 1856—
people of the United States to
declare themselves in favor
of * * * progressive free trade
throughout the world, by solemn
manifestations, to place their
moral influence at the side of
their successful example.
[Resolve 1.
That justice and sound policy
forbid the Federal Government to
foster one branch of industry to
the detriment of any other, or to
cherish the interests of one
portion to the injury of another
portion of our common country.
[Plank 4.
1860—Reaffirmed. 1860—That, while providing revenue
for the support of the general
Government by duties upon imports,
sound policy requires such an
adjustment of these imposts as to
encourage the development of the
industrial interests of the whole
country; and we commend that policy
of national exchanges which secures
to the workingmen liberal wages, to
agriculture remunerative prices, to
mechanics and manufacturers an
adequate reward for their skill,
labor, and enterprise, and to the
nation commercial prosperity and
independence.
[Plank 12.
1864— 1864—
1868—* * * A tariff for revenue 1868—
upon foreign imports, and such
equal taxation under the Internal
Revenue laws as will afford
incidental protection to domestic
manufactures, and as will, without
impairing the revenue, impose the
least burden upon and best promote
and encourage the great industrial
interests of the country.
[Plank 6.
1872—* * * Recognizing that there 1872—* * * Revenue except so much
are in our midst honest but as may be derived from a tax upon
irreconcilable differences of tobacco and liquors, should be
opinion with regard to the raised by duties upon importations,
respective systems of protection the details of which should be so
and free trade, we remit the adjusted as to aid in securing
discussion of the subject to the remunerative wages to labor, and
people in their Congressional promote the industries, prosperity,
districts, and to the decision of and growth of the whole country.
the Congress thereon, wholly free [Plank 7.
from executive interference or
dictation.
[Plank 6.
1876—* * * _We demand that all 1876—The revenue necessary for
custom-house taxation shall be only current expenditures and the
for revenue._ obligations of the public debt must
[Plank 11. be largely derived from duties upon
importations, which so far as
possible, should be adjusted to
promote the interests of American
labor and advance the prosperity of
the whole country.
[Plank 8.
1880—* * * A tariff for revenue 1880—Reaffirmed.
only.
[Plank 3.
Education.
DEMOCRATIC. REPUBLICAN.
1876—The false issue with which 1876—The public school system of
they [the Republicans] would the several States is the bulwark
enkindle sectarian strife in of the American Republic, and with
respect to the public schools, of a view to its security and
which the establishment and support permanence we recommend an
belong exclusively to the several Amendment to the Constitution of
States, and which _the Democratic the United States, forbidding the
party has cherished from their application of any public funds or
foundation_, and is resolved to property for the benefit of any
maintain without prejudice or schools or institutions under
preference for any class, sect, or sectarian control.
creed, and without largesses from [Plank 4.
the Treasury to any.
1880—* * * Common Schools fostered 1880—The work of popular education
and protected. is one left to the care of the
[Plank 2. several States, but it is the duty
of the National Government to aid
that work to the extent of its
constitutional ability. The
intelligence of the nation is but
the aggregate of the intelligence
in the several States, and the
destiny of the Nation must be
guided, not by the genius of any
one State, but by the average
genius of all.
[Plank 3.
Duty to Union Soldiers and Sailors.
DEMOCRATIC. REPUBLICAN.
1864—That the sympathy of the 1864—That the thanks of the
Democratic party is heartily and American people are due to the
earnestly extended to the soldiery soldiers and sailors of the army
of our army and sailors of our and navy, who have periled their
navy, who are and have been in the lives in defense of the country and
field and on the sea under the flag in vindication of the honor of its
of our country, and, in the event flag; that the nation owes to them
of its attaining power, they will some permanent recognition of their
receive all the care, protection, patriotism and their valor, and
and regard that the brave soldiers ample and permanent provision for
and sailors of the Republic so those of their survivors who have
nobly earned. received disabling and honorable
[Plank 6. wounds in the service of the
country; and that the memories of
those who have fallen in its
defence shall be held in grateful
and everlasting remembrance.
[Plank 4.
1868—* * * That our soldiers and 1868—Of all who were faithful in
sailors, who carried the flag of the trials of the late war, there
our country to victory, against a were none entitled to more especial
most gallant and determined foe, honor than the brave soldiers and
must ever be gratefully remembered, seamen who endured the hardships of
and all the guarantees given in campaign and cruise and imperiled
their favor must be faithfully their lives in the service of their
carried into execution. country; the bounties and pensions
provided by the laws for these
brave defenders of the nation are
obligations never to be forgotten;
the widows and orphans of the
gallant dead are the wards of the
people—a sacred legacy bequeathed
to the nation’s care.
[Plank 10.
1872—* * * We remember with 1872—We hold in undying honor the
gratitude the heroism and soldiers and sailors whose valor
sacrifices of the soldiers and saved the Union. Their pensions are
sailors of the Republic, and no act a sacred debt of the nation, and
of ours shall ever detract from the widows and orphans of those who
their justly earned fame for the died for their country are entitled
full reward of their patriotism. to the care of a generous and
[Plank 9. grateful people. We favor such
additional legislation as will
extend the bounty of the Government
to all our soldiers and sailors who
were honorably discharged, and who
in the line of duty became
disabled, without regard to the
length of service or the cause of
such discharge.
[Plank 8.
1876—* * * The soldiers and sailors 1876—The pledges which the nation
of the Republic, and the widows and has given to her soldiers and
orphans of those who have fallen in sailors must be fulfilled, and a
battle, have a just claim upon the grateful people will always hold
care, protection, and gratitude of those who imperiled their lives for
their fellow-citizens. the country’s preservation, in the
[Last resolution. kindest remembrance.
[Plank 14.
1880— 1880—That the obligations of the
Republic to the men who preserved
its integrity in the day of battle
are undiminished by the lapse of
fifteen years since their final
victory. To do them honor is and
shall forever be the grateful
privilege and sacred duty of the
American people.
Naturalization and Allegiance.
DEMOCRATIC. REPUBLICAN.
1860—That the Democracy of the 1860—The Republican party is
United States recognize it as the opposed to any change in our
imperative of this Government to naturalization laws, or any State
protect the naturalized citizen in legislation by which the rights of
all his rights, whether at home or citizenship hitherto accorded to
in foreign lands, to the same immigrants from foreign lands shall
extent as its native-born citizens. be abridged or impaired; and in
[Plank 6. favor of giving a full and
efficient protection to the right
of all classes of citizens, whether
native or naturalized, both home
and abroad.
[Plank 14.
1864— 1864—
1868—Equal rights and protection 1868—The doctrine of Great Britain
for naturalized and native-born and other European Powers, that
citizens at home and abroad, the because a man is once a subject he
assertion of American nationality is always so, must be resisted at
which shall command the respect of every hazard by the United States,
foreign powers, and furnish an as a relic of feudal times, not
example and encouragement to people authorized by the laws of nations,
struggling for national integrity, and at war with our national honor
constitutional liberty, and and independence. Naturalized
individual rights and the citizens are entitled to protection
maintenance of the rights of in all their rights of citizenship
naturalized citizens against the as though they were native-born;
absolute doctrine of immutable and no citizen of the United
allegiance, and the claims of States, native or naturalized, must
foreign powers to punish them for be liable to arrest and
alleged crime committed beyond imprisonment by any foreign power
their jurisdiction. for acts done or words spoken in
[Plank 8. this country; and, if so arrested
and imprisoned, it is the duty of
the Government to interfere in his
behalf.
[Plank 9.
1872— 1872—The doctrine of Great Britain
and other European Powers
concerning allegiance—“once a
subject always a subject”—_having
at last, through the efforts of the
Republican party, been abandoned_,
and the American idea of the
individual’s right to transfer
allegiance having been accepted by
European nations, it is the duty of
our Government to guard with
jealous care the rights of adopted
citizens against the assumption of
unauthorised claims by their former
Governments, and we urge continued
careful encouragement and
protection of voluntary
immigration.
[Plank 9.
1876— 1876—It is the imperative duty of
the Government so to modify
existing treaties with European
governments, that the same
protection shall be afforded to the
adopted American citizen that is
given to the native-born, and that
all necessary laws should be passed
to protect emigrants in the absence
of power in the State for that
purpose.
[Plank 10.
1880— 1880—* * * Everywhere the
protection accorded to a citizen of
American birth must be secured to
citizens by American adoption.
[Plank 5.
The Chinese.
DEMOCRATIC. REPUBLICAN.
1876—Reform is necessary to correct 1876—It is the immediate duty of
the omissions of a Republican Congress to fully investigate the
Congress, and the errors of our effect of the immigration and
treaties and our diplomacy, which importation of Mongolians upon the
have stripped our fellow-citizens moral and material interests of the
of foreign birth and kindred race country.
recrossing the Atlantic, of the [Plank 11.
shield of American citizenship, and
have exposed our brethren of the
Pacific coast to the incursions of
a race not sprung from the same
great parent stock, and in fact now
by law denied citizenship through
naturalization as being neither
accustomed to the traditions of a
progressive civilization nor
exercised in liberty under equal
laws. We denounce the policy which
thus discards the liberty-loving
German and tolerates a revival of
the coolie trade in Mongolian women
imported for immoral purposes, and
Mongolian men held to perform
servile labor contracts, and demand
such modification of the treaty
with the Chinese Empire, or such
legislation within constitutional
limitations, as shall prevent
further importation or immigration
of the Mongolian race.
1880—Amendment of the Burlingame 1880—Since the authority to
Treaty. No more Chinese regulate immigration and
immigration, except for travel, intercourse between the United
education, and foreign commerce, States and foreign nations rests
and therein carefully guarded. with the Congress of the United
[Plank 11. States and the treaty-making power,
the Republican party, regarding the
unrestricted immigration of Chinese
as a matter of grave concernment
under the exercise of both these
powers, would limit and restrict
that immigration by the enactment
of such just, humane, and
reasonable laws and treaties as
will produce that result.
[Plank 6.
Civil Service.
DEMOCRATIC. REPUBLICAN.
1872—The civil service of the 1872—Any system of the civil
government has become a mere service, under which the
instrument of partisan tyranny and subordinate positions of the
personal ambition and an object of Government are considered rewards
selfish greed. It is a scandal and for mere party zeal is fatally
reproach upon free institutions and demoralizing, and we therefore
breeds a demoralization dangerous favor a reform of the system by
to the perpetuity of Republican laws which shall abolish the evils
Government. We therefore regard a of patronage and make honesty,
thorough reform of the civil efficiency and fidelity the
service as one of the most pressing essential qualifications for public
necessities of the hour; that positions, without practically
honesty, capacity and fidelity creating a life tenure of office.
constitute the only valid claim to [Plank 5.
public employment; and the offices
of the Government cease to be a
matter of arbitrary favoritism and
patronage, and public station
become again a post of honor. To
this end it is imperatively
required that no President shall be
a candidate for re-election.
1876—Reform is necessary in the 1876—Under the Constitution the
civil service. Experience that President and heads of Departments
proves efficient, economical are to make nominations for office;
conduct of Governmental business is the Senate is to advise and consent
not possible if the civil service to appointments, and the House of
be subject to change at every Representatives to accuse and
election, be a prize fought for at prosecute faithless officers. The
the ballot-box, be a brief reward best interest of the public service
of party zeal, instead of posts of demands that these distinctions be
honor assigned for proved respected; that Senators and
competency, and held for fidelity Representatives who may be judges
in the public employ; that the and accusers should not dictate
dispensing of patronage should appointments to office. The
neither be a tax upon the time of invariable rule in appointments
all our public men, nor the should have reference to the
instrument of their ambition. honesty, fidelity and capacity of
the appointees, giving to the party
in power those places where harmony
and vigor of administration require
its policy to be represented, but
permitting all others to be filled
by persons selected with sole
reference to the efficiency of the
public service, and the right of
all citizens to share in the honor
of rendering faithful service to
the country.
[Plank 5.
1880—* * * Thorough reform in the 1880—The Republican party, adhering
civil service. to the principles affirmed by its
last National Convention of respect
for the Constitutional rules
governing appointments to office,
adopts the declaration of President
Hayes, that the reform of the civil
service should be thorough, radical
and complete. To this end it
demands the co-operation of the
legislative with the executive
departments of the Government, and
that Congress shall so legislate
that fitness, ascertained by proper
practical tests, shall admit to the
public service.
The Tariff Issue of 1884.
REPUBLICAN. DEMOCRATIC.
We therefore demand that the The Democracy pledges itself to
imposition of duties on foreign purify the administration from
imports shall be made not for corruption, to restore economy, to
“revenue only,” but that in raising revive respect for law and to
the requisite revenues for the reduce taxation to the lowest limit
government such duties shall be so consistent with due regard to the
levied as to afford security to our preservation of the faith of the
diversified industries and nation to its creditors and
protection to the rights and wages pensioners. Knowing full well,
of the laborer, to the end that however, that legislation affecting
active and intelligent labor, as the occupations of the people
well as capital, may have its just should be cautious and conservative
award and the laboring man his full in method, not in advance of public
share in the national prosperity. opinion, but responsive to its
Against the so-called economical demands, the Democratic party is
system of the Democratic party, pledged to revise the tariff in a
which would degrade our labor to spirit of fairness to all
the foreign standard, we enter our interests. But in making reduction
earnest protest. The Democratic in taxes it is not proposed to
party has failed completely to injure any domestic industries, but
relieve the people of the burden of rather to promote their healthy
unnecessary taxation by a wise growth. From the foundation of this
reduction of the surplus. government taxes collected at the
Custom House have been the chief
The Republican party pledges itself source of Federal revenue; such
to correct the inequalities of the they must continue to be. Moreover,
tariff and to reduce the surplus, many industries have come to rely
not by the vicious and upon legislation for successful
indiscriminate process of continuance, so that any change of
horizontal reduction, but by such law must be at every step regardful
methods as will relieve the of the labor and capital thus
taxpayer without injuring the involved. The process of reform
laborer or the great productive must be subject in the execution to
interests of the country. this plain dictate of justice.
We recognize the importance of All taxation shall be limited to
sheep husbandry in the United the requirements of economical
States, the serious depression government. The necessary reduction
which it is now experiencing and in taxation can and must be
the danger threatening its future effected without depriving American
prosperity, and we therefore labor of the ability to compete
respect the demands of the successfully with foreign labor and
representatives of this important without imposing lower rates of
agricultural interest for a duty than will be ample to cover
readjustment of duty upon foreign any increased cost of production
wool, in order that such industry which may exist in consequence of
shall have full and adequate the higher rate of wages prevailing
protection. in this country. Sufficient revenue
to pay all the expenses of the
We have always recommended the best Federal government economically
money known to the civilized world administered, including pensions,
and we urge that an effort be made interest and principal of the
to unite all commercial nations in public debt, can be got under our
the establishment of the present system of taxation from
international standard which shall Custom House taxes on fewer
fix for all the relative value of imported articles, bearing heaviest
gold and silver coinage. on articles of luxury and bearing
lightest on articles of necessity.
We therefore denounce the abuses of
the existing tariff and subject to
the preceding limitations we demand
that Federal taxation shall be
exclusively for public purposes and
shall not exceed the needs of the
government economically
administered.
The Tariff and Revenue, 1888.
DEMOCRATIC. REPUBLICAN.
The Democratic party of the United We are uncompromisingly in favor of
States, in National Convention the American system of protection.
assembled, renews the pledge of its We protest against its destruction
fidelity to Democratic faith, and as proposed by the President and
reaffirms the platform adopted by his party. They serve the interests
its representatives in the of Europe; we will support the
Convention of 1884, and endorses interests of America. We accept the
the views expressed by President issue and confidently appeal to the
Cleveland in his last annual people for their judgment. The
message to Congress as the correct protective system must be
interpretation of that platform maintained. Its abandonment has
upon the question of tariff always been followed by general
reduction; and also endorses the disaster to all interests except
efforts of our Democratic those of the usurer and the
representatives in Congress to sheriff. We denounce the Mills bill
secure a reduction of excessive as destructive to the general
taxation. Chief among its business, the labor and the farming
principles of party faith are the interests of the country, and we
maintenance of an indissoluble heartily endorse the consistent and
union of free and indestructible patriotic action of the Republican
States, now about to enter upon its Representatives in Congress in
second century of unexampled opposing its passage.
progress and renown; devotion to a
plan of government regulated by a We condemn the proposition of the
written constitution strictly Democratic party to place wool on
specifying every granted power and the free list, and we insist that
expressly reserving to the States the duties thereon shall be
or people the entire ungranted adjusted and maintained so as to
residue of power; the encouragement furnish full and adequate
of a jealous popular vigilance, protection to that industry.
directed to all who have been
chosen for brief terms to enact and The Republican party would effect
execute the laws, and are charged all needed reduction of the
with the duty of preserving peace, national revenue by repealing the
ensuring equality, and establishing taxes upon tobacco, which are an
justice. annoyance and burden to
* * * * * agriculture, and the tax upon
It is repugnant to the creed of spirits used in the arts and for
Democracy that by such taxation the mechanical purposes, and by such
cost of the necessaries of life revision of the tariff laws as will
should be unjustifiably increased tend to check imports of such
to all our people. Judged by articles as are produced by our
Democratic principles the interest people, the production of which
of the people are betrayed when, by gives employment to our labor, and
unnecessary taxation, trusts and release from import duties those
combinations are permitted to articles of foreign production
exist, which, while unduly (except luxuries) the like of which
enriching the few that combine, rob cannot be produced at home. If
the body of the citizens by there shall still remain a larger
depriving them of the benefits of revenue than is requisite for the
natural competition. Every wants of the Government, we favor
Democratic rule of governmental the entire repeal of internal taxes
action is violated when, through rather than the surrender of any
unnecessary taxation, a vast sum of part of our protective system at
money, far beyond the needs of an the joint behest of the whisky
economical administration, is drawn trusts and the agents of foreign
from the people and the channels of manufacturers.
trade and accumulated as a
demoralizing surplus in the
National Treasury.
The money now lying idle in the
Federal Treasury, resulting from
superfluous taxation, amounts to
more than one hundred and
twenty-five millions, and the
surplus collected is reaching the
sum of more than sixty millions
annually. Debauched by this immense
temptation, the remedy of the
Republican party is to meet and
exhaust by extravagant
appropriations and expenses,
whether constitutional or not, the
accumulation of extravagant
taxations. The Democratic policy is
to enforce frugality in public
expense and abolish unnecessary
taxation. Our established domestic
industries and enterprises should
not and need not be endangered by
the reduction and correction of the
burdens of taxation. On the
contrary, a fair and careful
revision of our tax laws, with due
allowance for the difference
between the wages of America and
foreign labor, must promote and
encourage every branch of such
industries and enterprises by
giving them assurances of an
extended market and steady and
continuous operations. In the
interests of American labor, which
should in no event be neglected,
revision of our tax laws,
contemplated by the Democratic
party, should promote the advantage
of such labor by cheapening the
cost of necessaries of life in the
home of every working man, and at
the same time securing to him
steady and remunerative employment.
Upon this question of tariff
reform, so closely concerning every
phase of our national life, and
upon every question involved in the
problem of good government, the
Democratic party submits its
principles and professions to the
intelligent suffrages of the
American people.
_Resolved_, That this Convention
hereby endorses and recommends the
early passage of the bill for the
reduction of the revenue now
pending in the House of
Representatives.
_Resolved_, That we express our
cordial sympathy with struggling
people of all nations in their
efforts to secure for themselves
the inestimable blessings of
self-government and civil and
religious liberty; and we
especially declare our sympathy
with the efforts of those noble
patriots who, led by Gladstone and
Parnell, have conducted their grand
and peaceful contest for Home rule
in Ireland.
Civil Service Reform, 1888.
DEMOCRATIC. REPUBLICAN.
Honest reform in the Civil Service The men who abandoned the
has been inaugurated and maintained Republican party in 1884 and
by President Cleveland, and he has continue to adhere to the
brought the public service to the Democratic party have deserted not
highest standard of efficiency, not only the cause of honest
only by rule and precept, but by government, of sound finance, of
the example of his own untiring and freedom and purity of the ballot,
unselfish administration of public but especially have deserted the
affairs. cause of reform in the civil
service. We will not fail to keep
our pledges because they have
broken theirs or because their
candidate has broken his. We
therefore repeat our declaration of
1884, to wit: “The reform of the
Civil Service, auspiciously begun
under the Republican administration
should be completed by the further
extension of the reform system
already established by law to all
the grades of the service to which
it is applicable. The spirit and
purpose of the reform should be
observed in all executive
appointments, and all laws at
variance with the object of
existing reform legislation should
be repealed, to the end that the
dangers to free institutions which
lurk in the power of official
patronage may be wisely and
effectively avoided.”
Pensions, Etc., 1888.
DEMOCRATIC. REPUBLICAN.
While carefully guarding the The gratitude of the nation to the
interest to the principles of defenders of the Union cannot be
justice and equity, it has paid out measured by laws. The legislation
more for pensions and bounties to of Congress should conform to the
the soldiers and sailors of the pledge made by a loyal people, and
Republic than was ever paid out be so enlarged and extended as to
during an equal period. provide against the possibility
that any man who honorably wore the
Federal uniform shall become an
inmate of an almshouse, or
dependent upon private charity. In
the presence of an overflowing
treasury it would be a public
scandal to do less for those whose
valorous service preserved the
Government. We denounce the hostile
spirit shown by President Cleveland
in his numerous vetoes of measures
for pension relief, and the action
of the Democratic House of
Representatives in refusing even a
consideration of general pension
legislation.
The Republican party is in favor of
the use of both gold and silver as
money, and condemns the policy of
the Democratic Administration in
its efforts to demonetize silver.
We demand the reduction of letter
postage to one cent per ounce.
Pauper Labor.
DEMOCRATIC. REPUBLICAN.
The exclusion from our shores of We declare our hostility to the
Chinese laborers has been introduction into this country of
effectually secured under the foreign contract labor, and of
provision of a treaty, the Chinese labor, alien to our
operation of which has been civilization and our Constitution,
postponed by the action of a and we demand the rigid enforcement
Republican majority in the Senate. of the existing laws against it,
and favor such immediate
legislation as will exclude such
labor from our shores.
Foreign Policy, 1888.
DEMOCRATIC. REPUBLICAN.
It has adopted and constantly The conduct of foreign affairs by
pursued a firm and prudent foreign the present administration has been
policy, preserving peace with all distinguished by its inefficiency
nations, while scrupulously and its cowardice. Having withdrawn
maintaining all the rights and from the Senate all pending
interests of our government and treaties affected by Republican
people at home and abroad. administrations for the removal of
foreign burdens and restrictions
upon our commerce and for its
extension into better markets, it
has neither affected nor proposed
any others in their stead.
Professing adherence to the Monroe
doctrine, it has seen with idle
complacency the extension of
foreign influence in Central
America and of foreign trade
everywhere among our neighbors. It
has refused to charter, sanction,
or encourage any American
organization for constructing the
Nicaragua canal, a work of vital
importance to the maintenance of
the Monroe doctrine and of our
national influence in Central and
South America, and necessary for
the development of trade with our
Pacific territory, with South
America and with the islands and
further coasts of the Pacific
ocean.
We arraign the present Democratic
administration for its weak and
unpatriotic treatment of the
fisheries question, and its
pusillanimous surrender of the
essential privileges to which our
fishing vessels are entitled in
Canadian ports under the treaty of
1818, the reciprocal maritime
legislation of 1830, and the comity
of nations, and which Canadian
fishing vessels receive in the
ports of the United States.
We condemn the policy of the
present administration and the
Democratic majority in Congress
toward our fisheries as unfriendly
and conspicuously unpatriotic, and
as tending to destroy a valuable
national industry and an
indispensable resource of defence
against a foreign enemy.
The name of American applies alike
to all citizens of the Republic,
and imposes upon all alike the same
obligation to obedience to the
laws. At the same time that
citizenship is and must be the
panoply and safeguard of him who
wears it, and protect him, whether
high or low, rich or poor, in all
his civil rights. It should and
must afford him protection at home
and follow and protect him abroad
in whatever land he may be on a
lawful errand.
THE FARMERS’ ALLIANCE.
This organization sprang into active political existence in 1890, and it
swept Kansas, Nebraska, and the two Dakotas; not, however, without local
fusions with the Democrats. It originated in the State of North
Carolina, and so rapidly extended to South Carolina that it controlled
the Democratic State nominations, and elected a Democratic-Alliance
State ticket against one run by the old or Bourbon Democracy. In Georgia
it sought control of the Legislature, and acquired it, but was defeated
by Gen. Gordon for the United States Senate; not, however, without
committals from the latter upon all anti-corporation points. It was
defeated in like contests in Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida. As yet
it has not adopted a National political platform, unless that at Ocala,
Fla., can be called National. Here the chief idea was a sub-treasury
plan, calling upon the government to establish State agencies for the
receipt of farm products, upon which 80 per cent. of their market value
was to be advanced, at a cost to the producer of not more than 2 per
cent. interest. This plank has since divided the organization, and at
this writing (May, 1892) it seems impossible to make the organization a
National one, committed to political objects. In the elections of
1891–92 it lost its hold upon all of the Western States, and maintains
its spirit only in the Southern States west of the Mississippi river.
The party quickly divided itself upon its sub-treasury and free-coinage
planks, and lost all opportunity for National promise after its first
battle—much of its membership refusing to break old political ties,
while others endeavored to limit the organization to social and business
purposes.
1892.—Republican National Platform.
_Adopted at Minneapolis, June 9th._
The representatives of the Republicans of the United States, assembled
in general convention on the shores of the Mississippi river, the
everlasting bond of an indestructible republic, whose most glorious
chapter of history is the record of the Republican party, congratulate
their countrymen on the majestic march of the nation under the banners
inscribed with the principles of our platform of 1888, vindicated by
victory at the polls and prosperity in our fields, workshops and mines,
and make the following declaration of principles.
We reaffirm the American doctrine of Protection. We call attention to
its growth abroad. We maintain that the prosperous condition of our
country is largely due to the wise revenue legislation of the Republican
Congress.
We believe that all articles which cannot be produced in the United
States, except luxuries, should be admitted free of duty, and that on
all imports coming into competition with the products of American labor
there should be levied duties equal to the difference between wages
abroad and at home.
We assert that the prices of manufactured articles of general
consumption have been reduced under the operations of the tariff act of
1890.
We denounce the efforts of the Democratic majority of the House of
Representatives to destroy our tariff laws, as is manifested by their
attacks upon wool, lead and lead ores, the chief product of a number of
States, and we ask the people for their judgment thereon.
We point to the success of the Republican policy of reciprocity, under
which our export trade has vastly increased and new and enlarged markets
have been opened for the products of our farms and workshops.
We remind the people of the bitter opposition of the Democratic party to
this practical business measure, and claim that, executed by a
Republican administration, our present laws will eventually give us
control of the trade of the world.
The American people, from tradition and interest, favor bi-metallism,
and the Republican party demands the use of both gold and silver as
standard money, with such restrictions and under such provisions, to be
determined by legislation, as will secure the maintenance of the parity
values of the two metals, so that the purchasing and debt-paying power
of the dollar, whether of silver, gold or paper, shall be at all times
equal. The interests of the producers of the country, its farmers and
its workingman, demand that every dollar, paper or coin, issued by the
government, shall be as good as any other. We commend the wise and
patriotic steps already taken by our government to secure an
international conference, to adopt such measures as will insure a parity
of value between gold and silver for use as money throughout the world.
We demand that every citizen of the United States shall be allowed to
cast one free and unrestricted ballot in all public elections and that
such ballot shall be counted and returned as cast; that such laws shall
be enacted and enforced as will secure to every citizen, be he rich or
poor, native or foreign born, white or black, this sovereign right
guaranteed by the Constitution.
The free and honest popular ballot, the just and equal representation of
all the people, as well as their just and equal protection under the
laws, are the foundation of our republican institutions, and the party
will never relax its efforts until the integrity of the ballot and the
purity of election shall be fully guaranteed and protected in every
State.
We denounce the continued inhuman outrages perpetrated upon American
citizens for political reasons in certain Southern States of the Union.
We favor the extension of our foreign commerce, the restoration of our
mercantile marine by home-built ships and the creation of a navy for the
protection of our national interests and the honor of our flag; the
maintenance of the most friendly relations with all foreign powers,
entangling alliance with none, and the protection of the rights of our
fishermen.
We reaffirm our approval of the Monroe doctrine, and believe in the
achievement of the manifest destiny of the Republic in its broadest
sense.
We favor the enactment of more stringent laws and regulations for the
restriction of criminal, pauper and contract immigration.
We favor efficient legislation by Congress to protect the life and limbs
of employés of transportation companies engaged in carrying on
inter-state commerce, and recommend legislation by the respective States
that will protect employés engaged in State commerce, in mining and
manufacturing. The Republican party has always been the champion of the
oppressed and recognizes the dignity of manhood, irrespective of faith,
color or nationality; it sympathizes with the cause of Home Rule in
Ireland, and protests against the persecution of the Jews in Russia.
The ultimate reliance of free popular government is the intelligence of
the people and the maintenance of freedom among its men. We, therefore,
declare anew our devotion to liberty of thought and conscience, of
speech and press, and approve all agencies and instrumentalities which
contribute to the education of the children of the land; but, while
insisting upon the fullest measure of religious liberty, we are opposed
to any union of church and State.
We reaffirm our opposition, declared in the Republican platform of 1888,
to all combinations of capital organized in trusts or otherwise to
control arbitrarily the condition of trade among our citizens. We
heartily endorse the action already taken upon this subject, and ask for
such further legislation as may be required to remedy any defects in
existing laws and to render their enforcement more complete and
effective.
We approve the policy of extending to towns, villages and rural
communities the advantages of the free delivery service, now enjoyed by
the larger cities of the country, and reaffirm the declaration contained
in the Republican platform of 1888, pledging the reduction of letter
postage to one cent at the earliest possible moment consistent with the
maintenance of the Post-office Department and the highest class of
postal service.
We commend the spirit and evidence of reform in the Civil Service and
the wise and consistent enforcement by the Republican party of the laws
regulating the same.
The construction of the Nicaragua Canal is of the highest importance to
the American people as a measure of a national defence and to build up
and maintain American commerce, and it should be controlled by the
United States Government.
We favor the admission of the remaining Territories at the earliest
practical date, having due regard to the interests of the people of the
Territories and of the United States. All the Federal officers appointed
for the Territories should be selected from bona fide residents thereof,
and the right of self-government should be accorded as far as
practicable.
We favor cession, subject to the homestead laws, of the arid public
lands to the States and Territories in which they lie, under such
Congressional restrictions as to disposition, reclamation and occupancy
by settlers as will secure the maximum benefit to the people.
The World’s Columbian Exposition is a great national undertaking, and
Congress should promptly enact such reasonable legislation in aid
thereof as will insure a discharging of the expense and obligations
incident thereto and the attainment of results commensurate with the
dignity and process of the nation.
We sympathize with all wise and legitimate efforts to lessen and prevent
the evils of intemperance and promote morality.
Ever mindful of the services and sacrifices of the men who saved the
life of the nation, we pledge anew to the veteran soldiers of the
republic a watchful care and recognition of their just claims upon a
grateful people.
We commend the able, patriotic and thoroughly American administration of
President Harrison. Under it the country has enjoyed remarkable
prosperity, and the dignity and honor of the nation at home and abroad
have been faithfully managed, and we offer the record of pledges kept as
a guarantee of performance in the future.
1892.—Democratic National Platform.
_Adopted at Chicago, June 22d._
SECTION 1.—The representatives of the Democratic party of the United
States, in National Convention assembled, do reaffirm their allegiance
to the principles of the party as formulated by Jefferson, and
exemplified by the long and illustrious line of his successors in
Democratic leadership from Madison to Cleveland. We believe the public
welfare demands that these principles be applied in the conduct of the
federal government through the accession to power of the party that
advocates them, and we solemnly declare that the need of a return to
these fundamental principles of a free popular government, based on home
rule and individual liberty, was never more urgent than now, when the
tendency to centralize all power at the federal capital has become a
menace to the reserved rights of the States, that strikes at the very
roots of our government under the constitution as framed by the fathers
of the Republic.
SEC. 2.—We warn the people of our common country, jealous for the
preservation of their free institutions, that the policy of federal
control of elections, to which the Republican party has committed
itself, is fraught with the gravest dangers, scarcely less momentous
than would result from a revolution practically establishing monarchy on
the ruins of the Republic. It strikes at the North as well as the South,
and injures the colored citizen even more than the white; it means a
horde of deputy marshals at every polling place, armed with federal
power; returning boards appointed and controlled by federal authority;
the outrage of the electoral rights of the people in the several States;
the subjugation of the colored people to the control of the party in
power and the reviving of race antagonisms now happily abated, of the
utmost peril to the safety and happiness of all; a measure deliberately
and justly described by a leading Republican Senator as “the most
infamous bill that ever crossed the threshold of the Senate.”
Such a policy, if sanctioned by law, would mean the dominance of a
self-perpetuating oligarchy of office-holders, and the party first
intrusted with its machinery could be dislodged from power only by an
appeal to the reserved right of the people to resist oppression which is
inherent in all self-governing communities.
Two years ago this revolutionary policy was emphatically condemned by
the people at the polls; but in contempt of that verdict the Republican
party has defiantly declared in its latest authoritative utterance that
its success in the coming elections will mean the enactment of the Force
bill and the usurpation of despotic control over elections in all the
States.
Believing that the preservation of republican government in the United
States is dependent upon the defeat of this policy of legalized force
and fraud, we invite the support of all citizens who desire to see the
constitution maintained in its integrity, with the laws pursuant
thereto, which have given our country a hundred years of unexampled
prosperity, and we pledge the Democratic party, if it be entrusted with
power, not only to the defeat of the Force bill, but also to relentless
opposition to the Republican policy of profligate expenditure which in
the short space of two years has squandered an enormous surplus and
emptied an overflowing treasury after piling new burdens of taxation
upon the already overtaxed labor of the country.
SEC. 3.—We denounce the Republican policy of protection as a fraud on
the labor of the great majority of the American people for the benefit
of the few.
We declare it to be a fundamental principle of the Democratic party that
the federal government has no constitutional power to impose and collect
tariff duties except for the purposes of revenue only, and we demand
that the collection of such taxes shall be limited to the necessities of
the government when honestly and economically administered.
SEC. 4.—Trade interchange on the basis of reciprocal advantages to the
countries participating is a time-honored doctrine of the Democratic
faith, but we denounce the sham reciprocity which juggles with the
people’s desire for enlarged foreign markets and freer exchanges by
pretending to establish closer trade relations for a country whose
articles of export are almost exclusively agricultural products with
other countries that are also agricultural, while erecting a Custom
House barrier of prohibitive tariff taxes against the rich countries of
the world that stand ready to take our entire surplus of products and to
exchange therefor commodities which are necessaries and comforts of life
among our own people.
SEC. 5.—We recognize in the trusts and combinations which are designed
to enable capital to secure more than its just share of the joint
product of capital and labor, a natural consequence of the prohibitive
taxes which prevent the free competition which is the life of honest
trade, but we believe their worst evils can be abated by law, and we
demand the rigid enforcement of the laws made to prevent and control
them, together with such further legislation in restraint of their
abuses as experience may show to be necessary.
SEC. 6.—The Republican party, while professing a policy of reserving the
public land for small holdings by actual settlers, has given away the
people’s heritage till now a few railroad and non-resident aliens,
individual and corporate, possess a larger area than that of all our
farms between the two seas. The last Democratic administration reversed
the improvident and unwise policy of the Republican party touching the
public domain, and reclaimed from corporations and syndicates, alien and
domestic, and restored to the people nearly one hundred million acres of
valuable land to be sacredly held as homesteads for our citizens, and we
pledge ourselves to continue this policy until every acre of land so
unlawfully held shall be reclaimed and restored to the people.
SEC. 7.—We denounce the Republican legislation known as the Sherman act
of 1890 as a cowardly makeshift fraught with possibilities of danger in
the future which should make all of its supporters, as well as its
author, anxious for its speedy repeal. We hold to the use of both gold
and silver as the standard money of the country, and to the coinage of
both gold and silver without discriminating against either metal or
charge of mintage, but the dollar unit of coinage for both metals must
be of equal intrinsic and exchangeable value, or be adjusted through
international agreement or by such safeguards of legislation as shall
insure the maintenance of the parity of the two metals, and the equal
power of every dollar at all times in the markets and in the payment of
debts, and we demand that all paper currency shall be kept at par with
and redeemable in such coin. We insist upon this policy as especially
necessary for the protection of the farmers and laboring classes, the
first and most defenceless victims of unstable money and a fluctuating
currency.
SEC. 8.—We recommend that the prohibitory ten per cent. tax on State
bank issues be repealed.
SEC. 9.—Public office is a public trust. We reaffirm the declaration of
the Democratic National Convention of 1876 for the reform of the civil
service and we call for the honest enforcement of all laws regulating
the same. The nomination of a President, as in the recent Republican
convention, by delegations composed largely of his appointees, holding
office at his pleasure, is a scandalous satire upon free popular
institutions and a startling illustration of the methods by which a
President may gratify his ambition. We denounce a policy under which
federal office-holders usurp control of party conventions in the States,
and we pledge the Democratic party to the reform of these and all other
abuses which threaten individual liberty and local self-government.
SEC. 10.—The Democratic party is the only party that has ever given the
country a foreign policy consistent and vigorous, compelling respect
abroad and inspiring confidence at home. While avoiding entangling
alliances it has aimed to cultivate friendly relations with other
nations and especially with our neighbors on the American continent
whose destiny is closely linked with our own, and we view with alarm the
tendency to a policy of irritation and bluster, which is liable at any
time to confront us with the alternative of humiliation or war.
We favor the maintenance of a navy strong enough for all purposes of
national defence and to properly maintain the honor and dignity of the
country abroad.
SEC. 11.—The country has always been the refuge of the oppressed from
every land—exiles for conscience sake—and in the spirit of the founders
of our government we condemn the oppression practised by the Russian
government upon its Lutheran and Jewish subjects, and we call upon our
national government, in the interest of justice and humanity, by all
just and proper means, to use its prompt and best efforts to bring about
a cessation of these cruel persecutions in the dominions of the Czar and
to secure to the oppressed equal rights.
We tender our profound and earnest sympathy to those lovers of freedom
who are struggling for home rule and the great cause of local self
government in Ireland.
SEC. 12.—We heartily approve all legitimate efforts to prevent the
United States from being used as the dumping ground for the known
criminals and professional paupers of Europe, and we demand the rigid
enforcement of the laws against Chinese immigration or the importation
of foreign workmen under contract to degrade American labor and lessen
its wages, but we condemn and denounce any and all attempts to restrict
the immigration of the industrious and worthy of foreign lands.
SEC. 13.—This Convention hereby renews the expression of appreciation of
the patriotism of the soldiers and sailors of the Union in the war for
its preservation, and we favor just and liberal pensions for all
disabled Union soldiers, their widows and dependents, but we demand that
the work of the Pension Office shall be done industriously, impartially
and honestly. We denounce the present administration of that office as
incompetent, corrupt, disgraceful and dishonest.
SEC. 14.—The federal government should care for and improve the
Mississippi River and other great waterways of the Republic so as to
secure for the interior States easy and cheap transportation to the
tidewater.
When any waterway of the Republic is of sufficient importance to demand
the aid of the government, that such aid should be extended, a definite
plan of continuous work until permanent improvement is secured.
SEC. 15.—For purposes of national defence and the promotion of commerce
between the States we recognize the early construction of the Nicaragua
Canal and its protection against foreign control as of great importance
to the United States.
SEC. 16.—Recognizing the World’s Columbian Exposition as a national
undertaking of vast importance, in which the general government has
invited the co-operation of all the Powers of the world, and
appreciating the acceptance by many of such Powers of the invitation for
extended and the broadest liberal efforts being made by them to
contribute to the grandeur of the undertaking, we are of the opinion
that Congress should make such necessary financial provision as shall be
requisite to the maintenance of the national honor and public faith.
SEC. 17.—Popular education being the only safe basis of popular
suffrage, we recommend to the several States most liberal appropriations
for the public schools. Free common schools are the nursery of good
government and they have always received the fostering care of the
Democratic party, which favors every means of increasing intelligence.
Freedom of education being an essential of civil and religious liberty
as well as a necessity for the development of intelligence, must not be
interfered with under any pretext whatever. We are opposed to State
interference with parental rights and rights of conscience in the
education of children as an infringement of the fundamental democratic
doctrine that the largest individual liberty consistent with the rights
of others insures the highest type of American citizenship and the best
government.
SEC. 18.—We approve the action of the present House of Representatives
in passing bills for the admission into the Union as States of the
Territories of New Mexico and Arizona, and we favor the early admission
of all the Territories having necessary population and resources to
admit them to Statehood, and while they remain Territories we hold that
the officials appointed to administer the government of any Territory,
together with the Districts of Columbia and Alaska, should be bona fide
residents of the Territory or District in which their duties are to be
performed. The Democratic party believes in home rule and the control of
their own affairs by the people of the vicinage.
SEC. 19.—We favor legislation by Congress and State Legislatures to
protect the lives and limbs of railway employés and those of other
hazardous transportation companies and denounce the inactivity of the
Republican party and particularly the Republican Senate for causing the
defeat of measures beneficial and protective to this class of
wageworkers.
SEC. 20.—We are in favor of the enactment by the States of laws for
abolishing the notorious sweating system, for abolishing contract
convict labor and for prohibiting the employment in factories of
children under fifteen years of age.
SEC. 21.—We are opposed to all sumptuary laws as an interference with
the individual rights of the citizen.
SEC. 22.—Upon this statement of principles and policies the Democratic
party asks the intelligent judgment of the American people. It asks a
change of administration and a change of party in order that there may
be a change of system and a change of methods, thus assuring the
maintenance, unimpaired, of institutions under which the Republic has
grown great and powerful.
The Tariff Issue, 1892.
REPUBLICAN. DEMOCRATIC.
We reaffirm the American doctrine We denounce Republican Protection
of Protection. We call attention to as a fraud—as a robbery of the
its growth abroad. We maintain that great majority of the American
the prosperous condition of our people for the benefit of a few. We
country is largely due to the wise declare it to be a fundamental
revenue legislation of the principle of the Democratic party
Republican Congress. that the government has no
constitutional power to impose and
We believe that all articles which collect a dollar for tax except for
cannot be produced in the United purposes of revenue only, and
States, except luxuries, should be demand that the collection of such
admitted free of duty, and that on taxes be imposed by the government
all imports coming into competition when only honestly and economically
with the products of American labor administered.
there should be levied duties equal
to the difference between wages [The above paragraph was adopted by
abroad and at home. a vote of 504 to 342 as a
substitute for the following,
We assert that the prices of reported from the majority of the
manufactured articles of general committee: “We reiterate the oft
consumption have been reduced under repeated doctrines of the
the operation of the tariff act of Democratic party that the necessity
1890. of the government is the only
justification for taxations, and
We denounce the efforts of the whenever a tax is unnecessary it is
Democratic majority of the House of unjustifiable; that when Custom
Representatives to destroy our House taxation is levied upon
tariff laws, as is manifested by articles of any kind produced in
their attacks upon wool, lead and this country, the difference
lead ores, the chief product of a between the cost of labor here and
number of States, and we ask the labor abroad, when such a
people for their judgment thereon. difference exists, fully measures
any possible benefits to labor, and
the enormous additional impositions
of the existing tariff fall with
crushing force upon our farmers and
workingmen, and, for the mere
advantage of the few whom it
enriches, exact from labor a
grossly unjust share of the
expenses of the government, and we
demand such a revision of the
tariff laws as will remove their
iniquitous inequalities, lighten
their oppressions and put them on a
constitutional and equitable basis.
But in making reduction in taxes,
it is not proposed to injure any
domestic industries, but rather to
promote their healthy growth. From
the foundation of this government,
taxes collected at the Custom House
have been the chief source of
Federal revenue. Such they must
continue to be. Moreover, many
industries have come to rely upon
legislation for successful
continuance, so that any change of
law must be at every step regardful
of the labor and capital thus
involved. The process of reform
must be subject in the execution of
this plain dictate of justice.”]
The Reciprocity Issue, 1892.
REPUBLICAN. DEMOCRATIC.
We point to the success of the Trade interchange on the basis of
Republican policy of reciprocity, reciprocal advantages to the
under which our export trade has countries participating is a
vastly increased and new and time-honored doctrine of the
enlarged markets have been opened Democratic faith, but we denounce
for the products of our farms and the sham reciprocity which juggles
workshops. with the people’s desire for
enlarged foreign markets and free
We remind the people of the bitter exchanges by pretending to
opposition of the Democratic party establish closer trade relations
to this practical business measure, for a country whose articles of
and claim that, executed by a export are almost exclusively
Republican administration, our agricultural products with other
present laws will eventually give countries that are also
us control or the trade of the agricultural, while erecting a
world. Custom House barrier of prohibitive
tariff taxes against the richest
countries of the world that stand
ready to take our entire surplus of
products and to exchange therefor
commodities which are necessaries
and comforts of life among our own
people.
The Silver Issue, 1892.
REPUBLICAN. DEMOCRATIC.
The American people, from tradition We denounce the Republican
and interest, favor bi-metallism, legislation known as the Sherman
and the Republican party demands act of 1890 as a cowardly
the use of both gold and silver as makeshift, fraught with
standard money, with such possibilities of danger in the
restrictions and under such future, which should make all its
provisions, to be determined by supporters, as well as its author,
legislation, as will secure the anxious for its speedy repeal. We
maintenance of the parity values of hold to the use of both gold and
the two metals, so that the silver as the standard money of the
purchasing and debt-paying power of country, and to the coinage of both
the dollar, whether of silver, gold gold and silver, without
or paper, shall be at all times discriminating against either metal
equal. The interests or the or charge for mintage, the dollar
producers of the country, its unit or coinage of both metals must
farmers and its workingmen, demand be of equal intrinsic and
that every dollar, paper or coin, exchangeable value, or be adjusted
issued by the government, shall be through international agreement or
as good as any other. We commend by such safeguards of legislation
the wise and patriotic steps as shall insure the maintenance of
already taken by our government to the parity of the two metals, and
secure an international conference, the equal power of every dollar at
to adopt such measures as will all times in the markets and in the
insure a parity of value between payment of debts, and we demand
gold and silver for use as money that all paper currency shall be
throughout the world. kept at par with and redeemable in
such coin. We insist upon this
policy as specially necessary for
the protection of the farmers and
laboring classes the first and most
defenceless victims of unstable
money and a fluctuating currency.
The Ballot Issue, 1892.
REPUBLICAN. DEMOCRATIC.
We demand that every citizen of the We warn the people of our common
United States shall be allowed to country, jealous for the
cast one free and unrestricted preservation of their free
ballot in all public elections and institutions, that the policy of
that such ballot shall be counted Federal control of elections to
and returned as cast; that such which the Republican party has
laws shall be enacted and enforced committed itself is fraught with
as will secure to every citizen, be the gravest dangers, scarcely less
he rich or poor, native or foreign momentous than would result from a
born, white or black, this revolution practically establishing
sovereign right guaranteed by the a monarchy on the ruins of the
Constitution. republic. It strikes at the North
as well as the South, and injures
The free and honest popular ballot, the colored citizen even more than
the just and equal representation the white; it means a horde of
of all the people, as well as their deputy marshals at every polling
just and equal protection under the place, armed with Federal power,
laws, are the foundation of our returning boards appointed and
republican institutions, and the controlled by Federal authority;
party will never relax its efforts the outrage of the electoral rights
until the integrity of the ballot of the people in the several
and the purity of elections shall States; the subjugation of the
be fully guaranteed and protected colored people to the control of
in every State. the party in power and the reviving
of race antagonisms, now happily
We denounce the continued inhuman abated, of the utmost peril to the
outrages perpetrated upon American safety and happiness of all—a
citizens for political reasons in measure deliberately and justly
certain Southern States of the described by a leading Republican
Union. Senator as “the most infamous bill
that ever crossed the threshold of
the Senate.” Such a policy, if
sanctioned by law, would mean the
dominance of a self-perpetuating
oligarchy of office-holders, and
the party first intrusted with its
machinery could be dislodged from
power only by an appeal to the
reserved right of the people to
resist oppression which is inherent
in all self-governing communities.
Two years ago this revolutionary
policy was emphatically condemned
by the people at the polls; but, in
contempt of that verdict, the
Republican party has defiantly
declared, in its latest
authoritative utterance, that its
success in the coming elections
will mean the enactment of the
Force bill and the usurpation of
despotic control over elections in
all the States.
Believing that the preservation of
republican government in the United
States is dependent upon the defeat
of this policy of legalized force
and fraud, we invite the support of
all citizens who desire to see the
Constitution maintained in its
integrity with the laws pursuant
thereto which have given our
country a hundred years of
unexampled prosperity; and we
pledge the Democratic party, if it
be intrusted with power, not only
to the defeat of the Force bill but
also to relentless opposition to
the Republican policy of profligate
expenditure, which in the short
space of two years has squandered
an enormous surplus and emptied an
overflowing Treasury, after piling
new burdens of taxation upon the
already overtaxed
Civil Service, 1892.
REPUBLICAN. DEMOCRATIC.
We commend the spirit and evidence Public office is a public trust. We
of reform in the Civil Service and reaffirm the declaration of the
the wise and consistent enforcement Democratic National Convention of
by the Republican party of the laws 1876 for the reform of the civil
regulating the same. service, and we call for the honest
enforcement of all laws regulating
the same. The nomination of a
President, as in the recent
Republican Convention, by
delegations composed largely of his
appointees, holding office at his
pleasure, is a scandalous satire
upon free popular institutions and
a startling illustration of the
methods by which a President may
gratify his ambition. We denounce a
policy under which Federal
office-holders usurp control of
party conventions in the States,
and we pledge the Democratic party
to the reform of these and all
other abuses which threaten
individual liberty and local
self-government.
The Third or People’s Party.
The political wing of the Farmers’ Alliance and the elements favoring
the entering of the Labor organizations into politics, united in a
National Convention at Omaha on the 4th of July, 1892. This Convention
was the outcome of several previous efforts on the part of these several
organizations to enter national politics. In many State Conventions of
the Alliance its sub-treasury plan divided the organization into two
factions—political and non-political, and as a result the representation
at Omaha did not reflect the views of the entire organization.
Judge Gresham of Indiana, was prominently named as a Presidential
candidate, and he finally consented to the use of his name if it could
command unanimous support, but this was denied by what were called “the
old guard,” who favored the recognition of those only who were plainly
identified with the Third party.
At 12 o’clock the roll of States for nomination for President was hardly
completed and there were four candidates before the Convention—Weaver,
of Iowa; Kyle, of South Dakota; Field, of Virginia, and Page of
Virginia. The chance seemed favorable to Weaver, but the uncertainty of
a nomination on the first ballot made his friends still painfully
anxious. Gresham’s declination had been at last reluctantly accepted by
his admirers, and the refusal of Van Wyck to allow the consideration of
his name practically left the field to the four candidates who had been
formally presented.
The Ballot.
The first ballot for President resulted as follows, only one ballot
necessary, Weaver being successful:
Alabama, Weaver, 43, Arkansas, Weaver, 12; Kyle, 20; California, Weaver,
25; Colorado, Weaver, 6; Kyle, 10; Connecticut, Weaver, 8; Kyle, 2;
Delaware, Weaver, 1; Florida, Weaver, 16; Georgia, Weaver, 16; Kyle, 39;
Idaho, Weaver, 12; Illinois, Weaver, 41; Kyle, 42; Indiana, Weaver 54;
Kyle, 5; Norton, 1; Iowa, Weaver, 52; Kansas, Weaver, 40; Kentucky,
Weaver, 40; Louisiana, Weaver, 32; Maine, Weaver, 6; Kyle, 3;
Massachusetts, Weaver, 9; Kyle, 18; Page, 1; Michigan, Weaver, 56;
Minnesota, Weaver, 27; Kyle, 9; Mississippi, Weaver, 17; Missouri,
Weaver, 61: Kyle, 7; Montana, Kyle, 12; Nebraska, Weaver, 23; Kyle, 3;
Nevada, Kyle, 7; New Jersey, Weaver, 4; New York, Weaver, 59; North
Carolina, Weaver, 20; Kyle, 5; North Dakota, Weaver, 11; Kyle, 1; Ohio,
Weaver, 30; Kyle, 22; Oregon, Weaver, 16; Pennsylvania, Weaver, 29;
Stanford, 1; South Dakota, Weaver, 1; Kyle, 15; Tennessee, Weaver, 45;
Texas, Weaver, 60; Virginia, Weaver, 48; Washington, Weaver, 15; West
Virginia, Weaver, 17; Wisconsin, Weaver, 7; Kyle, 41; Wyoming, Weaver,
3; District of Columbia, Weaver, 8; Oklahoma, Weaver, 8. Total: Weaver,
995; Kyle, 265; Norton, 1; Page, 1; Stanford, 1.
Maryland, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Vermont, Alaska,
Arizona, Indian Territory, New Mexico and Utah are blank.
Norton moved to make the nomination unanimous, and Schilling, of
Wisconsin, Washburn, of Massachusetts, and the delegates from South
Dakota, Montana and Massachusetts seconded the motion. It was carried
with a hurrah and loud cheering.
General James G. Field, of Virginia, and of the Confederate service, was
nominated on the first ballot for Vice-President.
People’s Party Platform.
_Preamble_: Corruption dominates the ballot-box, the Legislatures, the
Congress and touches even the ermine of the bench. The people are
demoralized, most of the States have been compelled to isolate the
voters at the polling places to prevent universal intimidation or
bribery. The newspapers are largely subsidized or muzzled, public
opinion silenced, business prostrated, our homes covered with mortgages,
labor impoverished and the land concentrating in the hands of the
capitalists.
The urban workmen are denied the right of organization for
self-protection; imported pauperized labor beats down their wages; a
hireling standing army, unrecognized by our laws, is established to
shoot them down, and they are rapidly degenerating into European
conditions. The fruits of the toil of millions are boldly stolen to
build up colossal fortunes for a few, unprecedented in the history of
mankind, and the possessors of these in turn despise the republic and
endanger liberty. From the same prolific womb of governmental injustice
we breed the two great classes—tramps and millionaires.
The national power to create money is appropriated to enrich
bondholders; a vast public debt payable in legal tender currency has
been funded into gold-bearing bonds, thereby adding millions to the
burdens of the people.
Silver, which has been accepted as coin since the dawn of history, has
been demonetized to add to the purchasing power of gold by decreasing
the value of all forms of property as well as human labor, and the
supply of currency is purposely abridged to fatten usurers and bankrupt
enterprise and slave industry.
We declare that this republic can only endure as a free government while
built upon the love of the whole people for each other and for the
nation; that it cannot be pinned together by bayonets; that the civil
war is over, and that every passion and resentment which grew out of it
must die with it, and that we must be, in fact, as we are in name, one
united brotherhood of free men.
Our country finds itself confronted by conditions for which there is no
precedent in the history of the world. Our annual agricultural
productions amount to billions of dollars in value, which must within a
few weeks or months be exchanged for billions of dollars of commodities
consumed in their production. The existing currency supply is wholly
inadequate to make this exchange. The results are falling prices, the
formation of combines and rings, the impoverishment of the producing
class. We pledge ourselves that, if given power, we will labor to
correct these evils by wise and reasonable legislation, in accordance
with the terms of our platform.
The platform proper, declares:
First.—That the union of the labor forces of the United States this day
consummated shall be permanent and perpetual. May its spirit into all
hearts for the salvation of the Republic aid the uplifting of mankind.
Second.—Wealth belongs to him who creates it, and every dollar taken
from industry without an equivalent is robbery. “If any will not work,
neither shall he eat.” The interests of rural and civic labor are the
same: their enemies are identical.
Third.—We believe that the time has come when the railroad corporations
will either own the people or the people must own the railroads, and
should the government enter upon the work of owning and managing all
railroads, we should favor an amendment to the Constitution by which all
persons engaged in the government service shall be placed under a Civil
Service regulation of the most rigid character, so as to prevent the
increase of the power of the national administration by the use of such
additional government employés.
Finance.—We demand a national currency, safe, sound and flexible, issued
by the general government only, a full legal tender for all debts,
public and private, and that without the use of banking corporations, a
just, equitable and efficient means of distribution direct to the
people, at a tax rate not to exceed two per cent, per annum to be
provided as set forth in the sub-Treasury plan of the Farmers’ Alliance
or a better system: also by payments in discharge of its obligations for
public improvements.
(a).—We demand free and unlimited coinage of silver and gold at the
present legal ratio of 16 to 1.
(b).—We demand that the amount of circulating medium be speedily
increased to not less than $50 per capita.
(c).—We demand a graduated income tax.
(d).—We believe that the money of the country should be kept as much as
possible in the hands of the people, and hence we demand that all State
and national revenues shall be limited to the necessary expenses of the
government, economically and honestly administered.
(e).—We demand that postal savings banks be established by the
government for the safe deposit of the earnings of the people and to
facilitate exchange.
Transportation.—Transportation being a means of exchange and a public
necessity, the government should own and operate the railroads in the
interests of the people.
(a).—The telegraph, telephone, like the post-office system, being a
necessity for the transmission of news, should be owned and operated by
the government in the interest of the people.
Land.—The land, including all the natural sources of wealth, is the
heritage of the people and should not be monopolized for speculative
purposes, and alien ownership of land should be prohibited. All land now
held by railroads and other corporations in excess of their actual
needs, and all lands now owned by aliens, should be reclaimed by the
government and held for actual settlers only.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
AMERICAN POLITICS.
BOOK III.
GREAT SPEECHES ON GREAT ISSUES.
Speech of James Wilson,
_January, 1775, in the Convention for the Province of Pennsylvania_,
IN VINDICATION OF THE COLONIES.
“A most daring spirit of resistance and disobedience still prevails in
Massachusetts, and has broken forth in fresh violences of a criminal
nature. The most proper and effectual methods have been taken to
prevent these mischiefs; and the parliament may depend upon a firm
resolution to withstand every attempt to weaken or impair the
supreme authority of parliament over all the dominions of the
crown.”—_Speech of the King of Great Britain to Parliament, Nov.,
1774._
MR. CHAIRMAN:—Whence, sir, proceeds all the invidious and ill-grounded
clamor against the colonists of America? Why are they stigmatized in
Britain as licentious and ungovernable? Why is their virtuous opposition
to the illegal attempts of their governors, represented under the
falsest colors, and placed in the most ungracious point of view? This
opposition, when exhibited in its true light, and when viewed, with
unjaundiced eyes, from a proper situation, and at a proper distance,
stands confessed the lovely offspring of freedom. It breathes the spirit
of its parent. Of this ethereal spirit, the whole conduct, and
particularly the late conduct, of the colonists has shown them eminently
possessed. It has animated and regulated every part of their
proceedings. It has been recognized to be genuine, by all those symptoms
and effects by which it has been distinguished in other ages and other
countries. It has been calm and regular: it has not acted without
occasion: it has not acted disproportionably to the occasion. As the
attempts, open or secret, to undermine or to destroy it, have been
repeated or enforced, in a just degree, its vigilance and its vigor have
been exerted to defeat or to disappoint them. As its exertions have been
sufficient for those purposes hitherto, let us hence draw a joyful
prognostic, that they will continue sufficient for those purposes
hereafter. It is not yet exhausted: it will still operate irresistibly
whenever a necessary occasion shall call forth its strength.
Permit me, sir, by appealing, in a few instances, to the spirit and
conduct of the colonists, to evince that what I have said of them is
just. Did they disclose any uneasiness at the proceedings and claims of
the British parliament, before those claims and proceedings afforded a
reasonable cause for it? Did they even disclose any uneasiness, when a
reasonable cause for it was first given? Our rights were invaded by
their regulations of our internal policy. We submitted to them: we were
unwilling to oppose them. The spirit of liberty was slow to act. When
those invasions were renewed; when the efficacy and malignancy of them
were attempted to be redoubled by the stamp act; when chains were formed
for us; and preparations were made for riveting them on our limbs, what
measures did we pursue? The spirit of liberty found it necessary now to
act; but she acted with the calmness and decent dignity suited to her
character. Were we rash or seditious? Did we discover want of loyalty to
our sovereign? Did we betray want of affection to our brethren in
Britain? Let our dutiful and reverential petitions to the throne; let
our respectful, though firm, remonstrances to the parliament; let our
warm and affectionate addresses to our brethren and (we will still call
them) our friends in Great Britain,—let all those, transmitted from
every part of the continent, testify the truth. By their testimony let
our conduct be tried.
As our proceedings, during the existence and operation of the stamp act,
prove fully and incontestably the painful sensations that tortured our
breasts from the prospect of disunion with Britain; the peals of joy,
which burst forth universally, upon the repeal of that odious statute,
loudly proclaim the heartfelt delight produced in us by a reconciliation
with her. Unsuspicious, because undesigning, we buried our complaints,
and the causes of them, in oblivion, and returned, with eagerness, to
our former unreserved confidence. Our connection with our parent
country, and the reciprocal blessings resulting from it to her and to
us, were the favorite and pleasing topics of our public discourses and
our private conversations. Lulled into delightful security, we dreamed
of nothing but increasing fondness and friendship, cemented and
strengthened by a kind and perpetual communication of good offices.
Soon, however, too soon, were we awakened from the soothing dreams! Our
enemies renewed their designs against us, not with less malice, but with
more art. Under the plausible pretence of regulating our trade, and, at
the same time, of making provision for the administration of justice,
and the support of government, in some of the colonies, they pursued
their scheme of depriving us of our property without our consent. As the
attempts to distress us, and to degrade us to a rank inferior to that of
freemen, appeared now to be reduced into a regular system, it became
proper, on our part, to form a regular system for counteracting them. We
ceased to import goods from Great Britain. Was this measure dictated by
selfishness or by licentiousness? Did it not injure ourselves, while it
injured the British merchants and manufacturers? Was it inconsistent
with the peaceful demeanor of subjects to abstain from making purchases,
when our freedom and our safety rendered it necessary for us to abstain
from them? A regard for our freedom and our safety was our only motive;
for no sooner had the parliament, by repealing part of the revenue laws,
inspired us with the flattering hopes, that they had departed from their
intentions of oppressing and of taxing us, than we forsook our plan for
defeating those intentions, and began to import as formerly. Far from
being peevish or captious, we took no public notice even of their
declaratory law of dominion over us: our candor led us to consider it as
a decent expedient of retreating from the actual exercise of that
dominion.
But, alas! the root of bitterness still remained. The duty on tea was
reserved to furnish occasion to the ministry for a new effort to enslave
and to ruin us; and the East India Company were chosen, and consented to
be the detested instruments of ministerial despotism and cruelty. A
cargo of their tea arrived at Boston. By a low artifice of the governor,
and by the wicked activity of the tools of government, it was rendered
impossible to store it up, or to send it back, as was done at other
places. A number of persons, unknown, destroyed it.
Let us here make a concession to our enemies: let us suppose, that the
transaction deserves all the dark and hideous colors in which they have
painted it: let us even suppose (for our cause admits of an excess of
candor) that all their exaggerated accounts of it were confined strictly
to the truth: what will follow? Will it follow, that every British
colony in America, or even the colony of Massachusetts Bay, or even the
town of Boston, in that colony, merits the imputation of being factious
and seditious? Let the frequent mobs and riots, that have happened in
Great Britain upon much more trivial occasions, shame our calumniators
into silence. Will it follow, because the rules of order and regular
government were, in that instance, violated by the offenders, that, for
this reason, the principles of the constitution, and the maxims of
justice, must be violated by their punishment? Will it follow, because
those who were guilty could not be known, that, therefore, those who
were known not to be guilty must suffer? Will it follow, that even the
guilty should be condemned without being heard—that they should be
condemned upon partial testimony, upon the representations of their
avowed and embittered enemies? Why were they not tried in courts of
justice known to their constitution, and by juries of their
neighborhood? Their courts and their juries were not, in the case of
captain Preston, transported beyond the bounds of justice by their
resentment: why, then, should it be presumed, that, in the case of those
offenders, they would be prevented from doing justice by their
affection? But the colonists, it seems, must be stripped of their
judicial, as well as of their legislative powers. They must be bound by
a legislature, they must be tried by a jurisdiction, not their own.
Their constitutions must be changed: their liberties must be abridged:
and those who shall be most infamously active in changing their
constitutions and abridging their liberties, must, by an express
provision, be exempted from punishment.
I do not exaggerate the matter, sir, when I extend these observations to
all the colonists. The parliament meant to extend the effects of their
proceedings to all the colonists. The plan, on which their proceedings
are formed, extends to them all. From an incident of no very uncommon or
atrocious nature, which happened in one colony, in one town in that
colony, and in which only a few of the inhabitants of that town took a
part, an occasion has been taken by those, who probably intended it, and
who certainly prepared the way for it, to impose upon that colony, and
to lay a foundation and a precedent for imposing upon all the rest, a
system of statutes, arbitrary, unconstitutional, oppressive, in every
view, and in every degree subversive of the rights, and inconsistent
with even the name, of freemen.
Were the colonists so blind as not to discern the consequences of these
measures? Were they so supinely inactive, as to take no steps for
guarding against them? They were not. They ought not to have been so. We
saw a breach made in those barriers, which our ancestors, British and
American, with so much care, with so much danger, with so much treasure,
and with so much blood, had erected, cemented and established for the
security of their liberties, and—with filial piety let us mention it—of
ours. We saw the attack actually begun upon one part: ought we to have
folded our hands in indolence, to have lulled our eyes in slumbers, till
the attack was carried on, so as to become irresistible, in every part?
Sir, I presume to think not. We were roused; we were alarmed, as we had
reason to be. But still our measures have been such as the spirit of
liberty and of loyalty directed; not such as the spirit of sedition or
of disaffection would pursue. Our counsels have been conducted without
rashness and faction: our resolutions have been taken without phrensy or
fury.
That the sentiments of every individual concerning that important
object, his liberty, might be known and regarded, meetings have been
held, and deliberations carried on, in every particular district. That
the sentiments of all those individuals might gradually and regularly be
collected into a single point, and the conduct of each inspired and
directed by the result of the whole united, county committees,
provincial conventions, a continental congress, have been appointed,
have met and resolved. By this means, a chain—more inestimable, and,
while the necessity for it continues, we hope, more indissoluble than
one of gold—a chain of freedom has been formed, of which every
individual in these colonies, who is willing to preserve the greatest of
human blessings, his liberty, has the pleasure of beholding himself a
link.
Are these measures, sir, the brats of disloyalty, of disaffection? There
are miscreants among us, wasps that suck poison from the most salubrious
flowers, who tell us they are. They tell us that all those assemblies
are unlawful, and unauthorized by our constitutions; and that all their
deliberations and resolutions are so many transgressions of the duty of
subjects. The utmost malice brooding over the utmost baseness, and
nothing but such a hated commixture, must have hatched this calumny. Do
not those men know—would they have others not to know—that it was
impossible for the inhabitants of the same province, and for the
legislatures of the different provinces, to communicate their sentiments
to one another in the modes appointed for such purposes, by their
different constitutions? Do not they know—would they have others not to
know—that all this was rendered impossible by those very persons, who
now, or whose minions now, urge this objection against us? Do not they
know—would they have others not to know—that the different assemblies,
who could be dissolved by the governors, were in consequence of
ministerial mandates, dissolved by them, whenever they attempted to turn
their attention to the greatest objects, which, as guardians of the
liberty of their constituents, could be presented to their view? The
arch enemy of the human race torments them only for those actions to
which he has tempted, but to which he has not necessarily obliged them.
Those men refine even upon infernal malice: they accuse, they threaten
us, (superlative impudence!) for taking those very steps, which we were
laid under the disagreeable necessity of taking by themselves, or by
those in whose hateful service they are enlisted. But let them know,
that our counsels, our deliberations, our resolutions, if not authorized
by the forms, because that was rendered impossible by our enemies, are
nevertheless authorized by that which weighs much more in the scale of
reason—by the spirit of our constitutions. Was the convention of the
barons at Runnymede, where the tyranny of John was checked, and _magna
charta_ was signed, authorized by the forms of the constitution? Was the
convention parliament, that recalled Charles the Second, and restored
the monarchy, authorized by the forms of the constitution? Was the
convention of lords and commons, that placed king William on the throne,
and secured the monarchy and liberty likewise, authorized by the forms
of the constitution? I cannot conceal my emotions of pleasure, when I
observe, that the objections of our adversaries cannot be urged against
us, but in common with those venerable assemblies, whose proceedings
formed such an accession to British liberty and British renown.
* * * * *
We can be at no loss in resolving, that the king cannot, by his
prerogative, alter the charter or constitution of the colony of
Massachusetts Bay. Upon what principle could such an exertion of
prerogative be justified? On the acts of parliament? They are already
proved to be void. On the discretionary power which the king has of
acting where the laws are silent? That power must be subservient to the
interest and happiness of those concerning whom it operates. But I go
further. Instead of being supported by law, or the principles of
prerogative, such an alteration is totally and absolutely repugnant to
both. It is contrary to express law. The charter and constitution, we
speak of, are confirmed by the only legislative power capable of
confirming them; and no other power, but that which can ratify, can
destroy. If it is contrary to express law, the consequence is necessary,
that it is contrary to the principles of prerogative; for prerogative
can operate only when the law is silent.
In no view can this alteration be justified, or so much as excused. It
cannot be justified or excused by the acts of parliament; because the
authority of parliament does not extend to it; it cannot be justified or
excused by the operation of prerogative; because this is none of the
cases in which prerogative can operate: it cannot be justified or
excused by the legislative authority of the colony; because that
authority never has been, and, I presume, never will be given for any
such purpose.
If I have proceeded hitherto, as I am persuaded I have, upon safe and
sure ground, I can, with great confidence, advance a step farther, and
say that all attempts to alter the charter or constitution of that
colony, unless by the authority of its own legislature, are violations
of its rights, and illegal.
If those attempts are illegal, must not all force, employed to carry
them into execution, be force employed against law, and without
authority? The conclusion is unavoidable.
Have not British subjects, then, a right to resist such force—force
acting without authority—force employed contrary to law—force employed
to destroy the very existence of law and of liberty? They have, sir, and
this right is secured to them both by the letter and the spirit of the
British constitution, by which the measures and the conditions of their
obedience are appointed. The British liberties, sir, and the means and
the right of defending them, are not the grants of princes; and of what
our princes never granted they surely can never deprive us.
* * * * *
“_Id rex potest_,” says the law, “_quod de jure potest_.” The king’s
power is a power according to law. His commands, if the authority of
lord chief justice Hale may be depended upon, are under the directive
power of the law; and consequently invalid, if unlawful. “Commissions,”
says my lord Coke, “are legal; and are like the king’s writs; and none
are lawful, but such as are allowed by the common law, or warranted by
some act of parliament.”
And now, sir, let me appeal to the impartial tribunal of reason and
truth; let me appeal to every unprejudiced and judicious observer of the
laws of Britain, and of the constitution of the British government; let
me appeal, I say, whether the principles on which I argue, or the
principles on which alone my arguments can be opposed, are those which
ought to be adhered to and acted upon; which of them are most consonant
to our laws and liberties; which of them have the strongest, and are
likely to have the most effectual tendency to establish and secure the
royal power and dignity.
Are we deficient in loyalty to his majesty? Let our conduct convict, for
it will fully convict, the insinuation that we are, of falsehood. Our
loyalty has always appeared in the true form of loyalty; in obeying our
sovereign according to law; let those, who would require it in any other
form, know, that we call the persons who execute his commands, when
contrary to law, disloyal and traitors. Are we enemies to the power of
the crown? No, sir, we are its best friends: this friendship prompts us
to wish, that the power of the crown may be firmly established on the
most solid basis: but we know, that the constitution alone will
perpetuate the former, and securely uphold the latter. Are our
principles irreverent to majesty? They are quite the reverse: we ascribe
to it perfection almost divine. We say, that the king can do no wrong:
we say, that to do wrong is the property, not of power, but of weakness.
We feel oppression, and will oppose it; but we know, for our
constitution tells us, that oppression can never spring from the throne.
We must, therefore, search elsewhere for its source: our infallible
guide will direct us to it. Our constitution tells us, that all
oppression springs from the ministers of the throne. The attributes of
perfection, ascribed to the king, are, neither by the constitution, nor
in fact, communicable to his ministers. They may do wrong; they have
often done wrong; they have been often punished for doing wrong.
Here we may discern the true cause of all the impudent clamor and
unsupported accusations of the ministers and of their minions, that have
been raised and made against the conduct of the Americans. Those
ministers and minions are sensible, that the opposition is directed, not
against his majesty, but against them; because they have abused his
majesty’s confidence, brought discredit upon his government, and
derogated from his justice. They see the public vengeance collected in
dark clouds around them: their consciences tell them, that it should be
hurled, like a thunderbolt, at their guilty heads. Appalled with guilt
and fear, they skulk behind the throne. Is it disrespectful to drag them
into public view, and make a distinction between them and his majesty,
under whose venerable name they daringly attempt to shelter their
crimes? Nothing can more effectually contribute to establish his majesty
on the throne, and to secure to him the affections of his people, than
this distinction. By it we are taught to consider all the blessings of
government as flowing from the throne; and to consider every instance of
oppression as proceeding, which, in truth, is oftenest the case, from
the ministers.
If, now, it is true, that all force employed for the purposes so often
mentioned, is force unwarranted by any act of parliament; unsupported by
any principle of the common law; unauthorized by any commission from the
crown; that, instead of being employed for the support of the
constitution and his majesty’s government, it must be employed for the
support of oppression and ministerial tyranny; if all this is true (and
I flatter myself it appears to be true), can any one hesitate to say,
that to resist such force is lawful; and that both the letter and the
spirit of the British constitution justify such resistance?
Resistance, both by the letter and the spirit of the British
constitution, may be carried further, when necessity requires it, than I
have carried it. Many examples in the English history might be adduced,
and many authorities of the greatest weight might be brought to show,
that when the king, forgetting his character and his dignity, has
stepped forth, and openly avowed and taken a part in such iniquitous
conduct as has been described; in such cases, indeed, the distinction
above mentioned, wisely made by the constitution for the security of the
crown, could not be applied; because the crown had unconstitutionally
rendered the application of it impossible. What has been the
consequence? The distinction between him and his ministers has been
lost; but they have not been raised to his situation: he has sunk to
theirs.
Speech of Patrick Henry,
_March 23, 1775, in the Convention of Delegates of Virginia, On the
following resolutions, introduced by himself_:
“_Resolved_, That a well regulated militia, composed of gentlemen and
yeomen, is the natural strength and only security of a free
government; that such a militia in this colony, would forever render
it unnecessary for the mother country to keep among us, for the
purpose of our defence, any standing army of mercenary soldiers,
always subversive of the quiet, and dangerous to the liberties of
the people, and would obviate the pretext of taxing us for their
support.
“That the establishment of such a militia is, at this time, peculiarly
necessary, by the state of our laws for the protection and defence
of the country, some of which are already expired, and others will
shortly be so; and that the known remissness of government in
calling us together in legislative capacity, renders it too
insecure, in this time of danger and distress, to rely, that
opportunity will be given of renewing them, in general assembly, or
making any provision to secure our inestimable rights and liberties
from those further violations with which they are threatened:
“_Resolved, therefore_, That this colony be immediately put into a
state of defence, and that be a committee to prepare a plan
for imbodying, arming and disciplining such a number of men as may
be sufficient for that purpose.”
MR. PRESIDENT:—No man thinks more highly than I do of the patriotism, as
well as abilities, of the very worthy gentlemen who have just addressed
the house. But different men often see the same subject in different
lights; and, therefore, I hope it will not be thought disrespectful to
those gentlemen, if, entertaining, as I do, opinions of a character very
opposite to theirs, I shall speak forth my sentiments freely and without
reserve. This is no time for ceremony. The question before the house is
one of awful moment to this country. For my own part, I consider it as
nothing less than a question of freedom or slavery; and in proportion to
the magnitude of the subject ought to be the freedom of the debate. It
is only in this way that we can hope to arrive at truth, and fulfil the
great responsibility which we hold to God and our country. Should I keep
back my opinions at such a time, through fear of giving offence, I
should consider myself as guilty of treason towards my country, and of
an act of disloyalty towards the Majesty of Heaven, which I revere above
all earthly kings.
Mr. President, it is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope.
We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the
song of that siren, till he transforms us into beasts. Is this the part
of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we
disposed to be of the number of those, who, having eyes, see not, and,
having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal
salvation? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am
willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst, and to provide for
it.
I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided; and that is the lamp of
experience. I know of no way of judging of the future but by the past.
And judging by the past, I wish to know what there has been in the
conduct of the British ministry for the last ten years, to justify those
hopes with which gentlemen have been pleased to solace themselves and
the house? Is it that insidious smile with which our petition has been
lately received? Trust it not, sir; it will prove a snare to your feet.
Suffer not yourselves to be betrayed with a kiss. Ask yourselves how
this gracious reception of our petition comports with those warlike
preparations which cover our waters and darken our land. Are fleets and
armies necessary to a work of love and reconciliation? Have we shown
ourselves so unwilling to be reconciled, that force must be called in to
win back our love? Let us not deceive ourselves, sir. These are the
implements of war and subjugation; the last arguments to which kings
resort. I ask gentlemen, sir, what means this martial array, if its
purpose be not to force us to submission? Can gentlemen assign any other
possible motive for it? Has Great Britain any enemy, in this quarter of
the world, to call for all this accumulation of navies and armies? No,
sir, she has none. They are meant for us: they can be meant for no
other. They are sent over to bind and rivet upon us those chains, which
the British ministry have been so long forging. And what have we to
oppose to them? Shall we try argument? Sir, we have been trying that for
the last ten years. Have we any thing new to offer upon the subject?
Nothing. We have held the subject up in every light of which it is
capable; but it has been all in vain. Shall we resort to entreaty and
humble supplication? What terms shall we find, which have not been
already exhausted? Let us not, I beseech you, sir, deceive ourselves
longer. Sir, we have done every thing that could be done, to avert the
storm which is now coming on. We have petitioned; we have remonstrated;
we have supplicated; we have prostrated ourselves before the throne, and
have implored its interposition to arrest the tyrannical hands of the
ministry and parliament. Our petitions have been slighted; our
remonstrances have produced additional violence and insult; our
supplications have been disregarded; and we have been spurned, with
contempt, from the foot of the throne! In vain, after these things, may
we indulge the fond hope of peace and reconciliation. There is no longer
any room for hope. If we wish to be free—if we mean to preserve
inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long
contending—if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which
we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never
to abandon, until the glorious object of our contest shall be
obtained—we must fight! I repeat it, sir, we must fight! An appeal to
arms and to the God of Hosts is all that is left us!
They tell us, sir, that we are weak; unable to cope with so formidable
an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week,
or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a
British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather
strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of
effectual resistance, by lying supinely on our backs, and hugging the
delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and
foot? Sir, we are not weak, if we make a proper use of those means which
the God of nature hath placed in our power. Three millions of people,
armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which
we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against
us. Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just
God who presides over the destinies of nations, and who will raise up
friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the
strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. Besides,
sir, we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now
too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat, but in
submission and slavery! Our chains are forged! Their clanking may be
heard on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable—and let it come! I
repeat it, sir, let it come.
It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace,
peace—but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale,
that sweeps from the north, will bring to our ears the clash of
resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we
here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life
so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains
and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may
take; but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!
Supposed Speech of John Adams in favor of the Declaration of
Independence.
_As given by Daniel Webster._
Sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish, I give my hand and my
heart to this vote. It is true, indeed, that in the beginning we aimed
not at independence. But there’s a divinity which shapes our ends. The
injustice of England has driven us to arms; and, blinded to her own
interest for our good, she has obstinately persisted, till independence
is now within our grasp. We have but to reach forth to it, and it is
ours.
Why then should we defer the declaration? Is any man so weak as now to
hope for a reconciliation with England, which shall leave either safety
to the country and its liberties, or safety to his own life and his own
honor? Are not you, sir, who sit in that chair, is not he, our venerable
colleague near you, are you not both already the proscribed and
predestined objects of punishment and of vengeance? Cut off from all
hope of royal clemency, what are you, what can you be, while the power
of England remains, but outlaws?
[Illustration: _John Adams_]
If we postpone independence, do we mean to carry on, or to give up the
war? Do we mean to submit to the measures of parliament, Boston port
bill and all? Do we mean to submit, and consent that we ourselves shall
be ground to powder, and our country and its rights trodden down in the
dust? I know we do not mean to submit. We never shall submit.
Do we intend to violate that most solemn obligation ever entered into by
men, that plighting, before God, of our sacred honor to Washington, when
putting him forth to incur the dangers of war, as well as the political
hazards of the times, we promised to adhere to him, in every extremity,
with our fortunes and our lives? I know there is not a man here, who
would not rather see a general conflagration sweep over the land, or an
earthquake sink it, than one jot or tittle of that plighted faith fall
to the ground.
For myself, having, twelve months ago, in this place, moved you that
George Washington be appointed commander of the forces, raised or to be
raised, for defence of American liberty, may my right hand forget her
cunning, and my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I hesitate or
waver in the support I give him. The war, then, must go on. We must
fight it through. And if the war must go on, why put off longer the
declaration of independence? That measure will strengthen us. It will
give us character abroad.
The nations will then treat with us, which they never can do while we
acknowledge ourselves subjects, in arms against our sovereign. Nay, I
maintain that England, herself, will sooner treat for peace with us on
the footing of independence, than consent, by repealing her acts, to
acknowledge that her whole conduct toward us has been a course of
injustice and oppression. Her pride will be less wounded by submitting
to that course of things which now predestinates our independence, than
by yielding the points in controversy to her rebellious subjects. The
former she would regard as the result of fortune; the latter she would
feel as her own deep disgrace. Why then, why then, sir, do we not as
soon as possible change this from a civil to a national war? And since
we must fight it through, why not put ourselves in a state to enjoy all
the benefits of victory, if we gain the victory?
If we fail, it can be no worse for us. But we shall not fail. The cause
will raise up armies; the cause will create navies. The people, the
people, if we are true to them, will carry us, and will carry
themselves, gloriously, through this struggle. I care not how fickle
other people have been found. I know the people of these colonies, and I
know that resistance to British aggression is deep and settled in their
hearts and cannot be eradicated. Every colony, indeed, has expressed its
willingness to follow, if we but take the lead. Sir, the declaration
will inspire the people with increased courage. Instead of a long and
bloody war for restoration of privileges, for redress of grievances, for
chartered immunities, held under a British king, set before them the
glorious object of entire independence, and it will breathe into them
anew the breath of life.
Read this declaration at the head of the army; every sword will be drawn
from its scabbard, and the solemn vow uttered to maintain it, or to
perish on the bed of honor. Publish it from the pulpit; religion will
approve it, and the love of religious liberty will cling round it,
resolved to stand with it, or fall with it. Send it to the public halls;
proclaim it there; let them hear it, who heard the first roar of the
enemy’s cannon; let them see it, who saw their brothers and their sons
fall on the field of Bunker hill, and in the streets of Lexington and
Concord, and the very walls will cry out in its support.
Sir, I know the uncertainty of human affairs, but I see, I see clearly
through this day’s business. You and I, indeed, may rue it. We may not
live to the time when this declaration shall be made good. We may die;
die, colonists; die, slaves; die, it may be, ignominiously and on the
scaffold. Be it so. Be it so. If it be the pleasure of Heaven that my
country shall require the poor offering of my life, the victim shall be
ready, at the appointed hour of sacrifice, come when that hour may. But
while I do live, let me have a country, or at least the hope of a
country, and that a free country.
But whatever may be our fate, be assured, be assured, that this
declaration will stand. It may cost treasure, and it may cost blood; but
it will stand, and it will richly compensate for both. Through the thick
gloom of the present, I see the brightness of the future, as the sun in
heaven. We shall make this a glorious, an immortal day. When we are in
our graves, our children will honor it. They will celebrate it with
thanksgiving, with festivity, with bonfires and illuminations. On its
annual return they will shed tears, copious, gushing tears, not of
subjection and slavery, not of agony and distress, but of exultation, of
gratitude, and of joy.
Sir, before God, I believe the hour is come. My judgment approves this
measure, and my whole heart is in it. All that I have, and all that I
am, and all that I hope, in this life, I am now ready here to stake upon
it; and I leave off as I begun, that live or die, survive or perish, I
am for the declaration. It is my living sentiment, and by the blessing
of God it shall be my dying sentiment; independence _now_; and
INDEPENDENCE FOR EVER.
Speech of Patrick Henry,
_On the expediency of adopting the Federal Constitution delivered in
the convention of Virginia, June 24, 1788.[78] Enunciating views which
have ever since been accepted by the Democratic party._
MR. CHAIRMAN:—The proposal of ratification is premature. The importance
of the subject requires the most mature deliberation. The honorable
member must forgive me for declaring my dissent from it, because, if I
understand it rightly, it admits that the new system is defective, and
most capitally; for, immediately after the proposed ratification, there
comes a declaration, that the paper before you is not intended to
violate any of these three great rights—the liberty of religion, liberty
of the press, and the trial by jury. What is the inference, when you
enumerate the rights which you are to enjoy? That those not enumerated
are relinquished. There are only three things to be retained—religion,
freedom of the press, and jury trial. Will not the ratification carry
every thing, without excepting these three things? Will not all the
world pronounce, that we intended to give up all the rest? Every thing
it speaks of, by way of rights, is comprised in these three things. Your
subsequent amendments only go to these three amendments. I feel myself
distressed, because the necessity of securing our personal rights seems
not to have pervaded the minds of men; for many other valuable things
are omitted. For instance: general warrants, by which an officer may
search suspected places without evidence of the commission of a fact, or
seize any person without evidence of his crime, ought to be prohibited.
As these are admitted, any man may be seized; any property may be taken,
in the most arbitrary manner, without any evidence or reason. Every
thing, the most sacred, may be searched and ransacked by the strong hand
of power. We have infinitely more reason to dread general warrants here,
than they have in England; because there, if a person be confined,
liberty may be quickly obtained by the writ of _habeas corpus_. But
here, a man living many hundred miles from the judges may rot in prison
before he can get that writ.
Another most fatal omission is, with respect to standing armies. In your
bill of rights of Virginia, they are said to be dangerous to liberty;
and it tells you, that the proper defence of a free state consists in
militia; and so I might go on to ten or eleven things of immense
consequence secured in your bill of rights, concerning which that
proposal is silent. Is that the language of the bill of rights in
England? Is it the language of the American bill of rights, that these
three rights, and these only, are valuable? Is it the language of men
going into a new government? Is it not necessary to speak of those
things before you go into a compact? How do these three things stand? As
one of the parties, we declare we do not mean to give them up. This is
very dictatorial; much more so than the conduct which proposes
alterations as the condition of adoption. In a compact, there are two
parties—one accepting, and another proposing. As a party, we propose
that we shall secure these three things; and before we have the assent
of the other contracting party, we go into the compact, and leave these
things at their mercy. What will be the consequence? Suppose the other
states will call this dictatorial: they will say, Virginia has gone into
the government, and carried with her certain propositions, which, she
says, ought to be concurred in by the other states. They will declare,
that she has no right to dictate to other states the conditions on which
they shall come into the union. According to the honorable member’s
proposal, the ratification will cease to be obligatory unless they
accede to these amendments. We have ratified it. You have committed a
violation, they will say. They have not violated it. We say we will go
out of it. You are then reduced to a sad dilemma—to give up these three
rights, or leave the government. This is worse than our present
confederation, to which we have hitherto adhered honestly and
faithfully. We shall be told we have violated it, because we have left
it for the infringement and violation of conditions, which they never
agreed to be a part of the ratification. The ratification will be
complete. The proposal is made by one party. We, as the other, accede to
it, and propose the security of these three great rights; for it is only
a proposal. In order to secure them, you are left in that state of fatal
hostility, which I shall as much deplore as the honorable gentleman. I
exhort gentlemen to think seriously before they ratify this
constitution, and persuade themselves that they will succeed in making a
feeble effort to get amendments after adoption. With respect to that
part of the proposal which says that every power not granted remains
with the people, it must be previous to adoption, or it will involve
this country in inevitable destruction. To talk of it is a thing
subsequent, not as one of your inalienable rights, is leaving it to the
casual opinion of the congress who shall take up the consideration of
the matter. They will not reason with you about the effect of this
constitution. They will not take the opinion of this committee
concerning its operation. They will construe it as they please. If you
place it subsequently, let me ask the consequences. Among ten thousand
implied powers which they may assume, they may, if we be engaged in war,
liberate every one of your slaves, if they please. And this must and
will be done by men, a majority of whom have not a common interest with
you. They will, therefore, have no feeling for your interests.
It has been repeatedly said here that the great object of a national
government is national defence. That power which is said to be intended
for security and safety, may be rendered detestable and oppressive. If
you give power to the general government to provide for the general
defence, the means must be commensurate to the end. All the means in the
possession of the people must be given to the government which is
intrusted with the public defence. In this state there are two hundred
and thirty-six thousand blacks, and there are many in several other
states; but there are few or none in the Northern States; and yet, if
the Northern States shall be of opinion that our numbers are numberless,
they may call forth every national resource. May congress not say, that
every black man must fight? Did we not see a little of this in the last
war? We were not so hard pushed as to make emancipation general: but
acts of assembly passed, that every slave who would go to the army
should be free. Another thing will contribute to bring this event about:
slavery is detested; we feel its fatal effects; we deplore it with all
the pity of humanity. Let all these considerations, at some future
period, press with full force on the minds of congress. Let that
urbanity, which I trust will distinguish America, and the necessity of
national defence—let all these things operate on their minds, and they
will search that paper, and see if they have power of manumission. And
have they not, sir? Have they not power to provide for the general
defence and welfare? May they not think that these call for the
abolition of slavery? May they not pronounce all slaves free, and will
they not be warranted by that power? There is no ambiguous implication,
or logical deduction. The paper speaks to the point. They have the power
in clear, unequivocal terms, and will clearly and certainly exercise it.
As much as I deplore slavery, I see that prudence forbids its abolition.
I deny that the general government ought to set them free, because a
decided majority of the states have not the ties of sympathy and
fellow-feeling for those whose interest would be affected by their
emancipation. The majority of congress is to the north, and the slaves
are to the south. In this situation, I see a great deal of the property
of the people of Virginia in jeopardy, and their peace and tranquillity
gone away. I repeat it again, that it would rejoice my very soul that
every one of my fellow-beings was emancipated. As we ought with
gratitude to admire that decree of Heaven which has numbered us among
the free, we ought to lament and deplore the necessity of holding our
fellow-men in bondage. But is it practicable, by any human means, to
liberate them, without producing the most dreadful and ruinous
consequences? We ought to possess them in the manner we have inherited
them from our ancestors, as their manumission is incompatible with the
felicity of the country. But we ought to soften, as much as possible,
the rigor of their unhappy fate. I know that in a variety of particular
instances, the legislature, listening to complaints, have admitted their
emancipation. Let me not dwell on this subject. I will only add, that
this, as well as every other property of the people of Virginia, is in
jeopardy, and put in the hands of those who have no similarity of
situation with us. This is a local matter, and I can see no propriety in
subjecting it to congress.
[Here Mr. Henry informed the committee, that he had a resolution
prepared, to refer a declaration of rights, with certain amendments to
the most exceptionable parts of the constitution, to the other states in
the confederacy, for their consideration, previous to its ratification.
The clerk then read the resolution, the declaration of rights, and
amendments, which were nearly the same as those ultimately proposed by
the convention, for the consideration of congress. He then resumed the
subject.] I have thus candidly submitted to you, Mr. Chairman, and this
committee, what occurred to me as proper amendments to the constitution,
and the declaration of rights containing those fundamental, inalienable
privileges, which I conceive to be essential to liberty and happiness. I
believe, that, on a review of these amendments, it will still be found,
that the arm of power will be sufficiently strong for national purposes,
when these restrictions shall be a part of the government. I believe no
gentleman, who opposes me in sentiments, will be able to discover that
any one feature of a strong government is altered; and at the same time
your inalienable rights are secured by them. The government unaltered
may be terrible to America, but can never be loved, till it be amended.
You find all the resources of the continent may be drawn to a point. In
danger, the president may concentre to a point every effort of the
continent. If the government be constructed to satisfy the people and
remove their apprehensions, the wealth and strength of the continent
will go where public utility shall direct. This government, with these
restrictions, will be a strong government united with the privileges of
the people. In my weak judgment, a government is strong, when it applies
to the most important end of all governments—the rights and privileges
of the people. In the honorable member’s proposal, jury trial, the
press, and religion, and other essential rights, are not to be given up.
Other essential rights—what are they? The world will say, that you
intended to give them up. When you go into an enumeration of your
rights, and stop that enumeration, the inevitable conclusion is, that
what is omitted is intended to be surrendered.
Anxious as I am to be as little troublesome as possible, I cannot leave
this part of the subject without adverting to one remark of the
honorable gentleman. He says, that, rather than bring the union into
danger, he will adopt it with its imperfections. A great deal is said
about disunion, and consequent dangers. I have no claim to a greater
share of fortitude than others; but I can see no kind of danger. I form
my judgment on a single fact alone, that we are at peace with all the
world; nor is there any apparent cause of a rupture with any nation in
the world. Is it among the American states that the cause of disunion is
to be feared? Are not the states using all their efforts for the
promotion of union? New England sacrifices local prejudices for the
purposes of union. We hear the necessity of the union, and predilection
for the union, re-echoed from all parts of the continent; and all at
once disunion is to follow! If gentlemen dread disunion, the very thing
they advocate will inevitably produce it. A previous ratification will
raise insurmountable obstacles to union. New York is an insurmountable
obstacle to it, and North Carolina also. They will never accede to it
till it be amended. A great part of Virginia is opposed, most decidedly,
to it, as it stands. This very spirit which will govern us in these
three states, will find a kindred spirit in the adopting states. Give me
leave to say, that it is very problematical whether the adopting states
can stand on their own legs. I hear only on one side, but as far as my
information goes, there are heart-burnings and animosities among them.
Will these animosities be cured by subsequent amendments?
Turn away from American, and consider European politics. The nations
there, which can trouble us, are France, England, and Spain. But at
present we know for a certainty, that those nations are engaged in a
very different pursuit from American conquests. We are told by our
intelligent ambassador, that there is no such danger as has been
apprehended. Give me leave then to say, that dangers from beyond the
Atlantic are imaginary. From these premises, then, it may be concluded,
that, from the creation of the world to this time, there never was a
more fair and proper opportunity than we have at this day to establish
such a government as will permanently establish the most transcendent
political felicity. Since the revolution there has not been so much
experience. Since then, the general interests of America have not been
better understood, nor the union more ardently loved, than at this
present moment. I acknowledge the weakness of the old confederation.
Every man says, that something must be done. Where is the moment more
favorable than this? During the war, when ten thousand dangers
surrounded us, America was magnanimous. What was the language of the
little state of Maryland? “I will have time to consider. I will hold out
three years. Let what may come I will have time to reflect.” Magnanimity
appeared everywhere. What was the upshot?—America triumphed. Is there
any thing to forbid us to offer these amendments to the other states? If
this moment goes away unimproved, we shall never see its return. We now
act under a happy system, which says, that a majority may alter the
government when necessary. But by the paper proposed, a majority will
forever endeavor in vain to alter it. Three-fourths may. Is not this the
most promising time for securing the necessary alterations? Will you go
into that government, where it is a principle, that a contemptible
minority may prevent an alteration? What will be the language of the
majority?—Change the government—Nay, seven eighths of the people of
America may wish the change; but the minority may come with a Roman
_Veto_, and object to the alteration. The language of a magnanimous
country and of freemen is, Till you remove the defects, we will not
accede. It would be in vain for me to show, that there is no danger to
prevent our obtaining those amendments, if you are not convinced
already. If the other states will not agree to them, it is not an
inducement to union. The language of this paper is not dictatorial, but
merely a proposition for amendments. The proposition of Virginia met
with a favorable reception before. We proposed that convention which met
at Annapolis. It was not called dictatorial. We proposed that at
Philadelphia. Was Virginia thought dictatorial? But Virginia is now to
lose her pre-eminence. Those rights of equality, to which the meanest
individual in the community is entitled, are to bring us down infinitely
below the Delaware people. Have we not a right to say, Hear our
propositions? Why, sir, your slaves have a right to make their humble
requests. Those who are in the meanest occupations of human life, have a
right to complain. What do we require? Not pre-eminence, but safety;
that our citizens may be able to sit down in peace and security under
their own fig-trees. I am confident that sentiments like these will meet
with unison in every state; for they will wish to banish discord from
the American soil. I am certain that the warmest friend of the
constitution wishes to have fewer enemies—fewer of those who pester and
plague him with opposition. I could not withhold from my fellow-citizens
anything so reasonable. I fear you will have no union, unless you remove
the cause of opposition. Will you sit down contented with the name of
union without any solid foundation?
Speech of John Randolph
_Against the Tariff Bill, delivered in the House of Representatives of
the United States, April 15, 1824._
I AM, Mr. Speaker, practising no deception upon myself, much less upon
the house, when I say, that if I had consulted my own feelings and
inclinations, I should not have troubled the house, exhausted as it is,
and as I am, with any further remarks upon this subject. I come to the
discharge of this task, not merely with reluctance, but with disgust;
jaded, worn down, abraded, I may say, as I am by long attendance upon
this body, and continued stretch of the attention upon this subject. I
come to it, however, at the suggestion, and in pursuance of the wishes
of those, whose wishes are to me, in all matters touching my public
duty, paramount law; I speak with those reservations, of course, which
every moral agent must be supposed to make to himself.
It was not more to my surprise, than to my disappointment, that on my
return to the house, after a necessary absence of a few days, on
indispensable business, I found it engaged in discussing the general
principle of the bill, when its details were under consideration. If I
had expected such a turn in the debate, I would, at any private
sacrifice, however great, have remained a spectator and auditor of that
discussion. With the exception of the speech, already published, of my
worthy colleague on my right (Mr. P. P. Barbour), I have been nearly
deprived of the benefit of the discussion which has taken place. Many
weeks have been occupied with this bill (I hope the house will pardon me
for saying so) before I took the slightest part in the deliberations of
the details; and I now sincerely regret that I had not firmness enough
to adhere to the resolution which I had laid down to myself, in the
early stage of the debate, not to take any part in the discussion of the
details of the measure. But, as I trust, what I now have to say upon
this subject, although more and better things have been said by others,
may not be the same that they have said, or may not be said in the same
manner. I here borrow the language of a man who has been heretofore
conspicuous in the councils of the country; of one who was unrivalled
for readiness and dexterity in debate; who was long without an equal on
the floor of this body; who contributed as much to the revolution of
1801, as any man in this nation, and derived as little benefit from it;
as, to use the words of that celebrated man, what I have to say is not
that which has been said by others, and will not be said in their
manner, the house will, I trust, have patience with me during the time
that my strength will allow me to occupy their attention. And I beg them
to understand, that the notes which I hold in my hand are not the notes
on which I mean to speak, but of what others have spoken, and from which
I will make the smallest selection in my power.
* * * * *
Sir, when are we to have enough of this tariff question? In 1816 it was
supposed to be settled. Only three years thereafter, another proposition
for increasing it was sent from this house to the senate, _baited_ with
a tax of four cents per pound on brown sugar. It was fortunately
rejected in that body. In what manner _this bill_ is baited, it does not
become me to say; but I have too distinct a recollection of the vote in
committee of the whole, on the duty upon molasses, and afterwards of the
vote in the house on the same question; of the votes of more than one of
the states on that question, not to mark it well. I do not say that the
change of the vote on that question was affected by any man’s _voting_
against his own motion; but I do not hesitate to say that it was
effected by one man’s electioneering against his own motion. I am very
glad, Mr. Speaker, that old Massachusetts Bay, and the province of Maine
and Sagadahock, by whom we stood in the days of the revolution, now
stand by the south, and will not aid in fixing on us this system of
taxation, compared with which the taxation of Mr. Grenville and Lord
North was as nothing. I speak with knowledge of what I say, when I
declare, that this bill is an attempt to reduce the country, south of
Mason and Dixon’s line and east of the Alleghany mountains, to a state
of worse than colonial bondage; a state to which the domination of Great
Britain was, in my judgment, far preferable; and I trust I shall always
have the fearless integrity to utter any political sentiment which the
head sanctions and the heart ratifies; for the British parliament never
would have dared to lay such duties on our imports, or their exports to
us, either “_at home_” or here, as is now proposed to be laid upon the
imports from abroad. At that time we had the command of the market of
the vast dominions then subject, and we should have had those which have
since been subjected, to the British empire; we enjoyed a free trade
eminently superior to any thing that we can enjoy, if this bill shall go
into operation. It is a sacrifice of the interests of a part of this
nation to the ideal benefit of the rest. It marks us out as the victims
of a worse than Egyptian bondage. It is a barter of so much of our
rights, of so much of the fruits of our labor, for political power to be
transferred to other hands. It ought to be met, and I trust it will be
met, in the southern country, as was the stamp act, and by all those
measures, which I will not detain the house by recapitulating, which
succeeded the stamp act, and produced the final breach with the mother
country, which it took about ten years to bring about, as I trust, in my
conscience, it will not take as long to bring about similar results from
this measure, should it become a law.
Sir, events now passing elsewhere, which plant a thorn in my pillow and
a dagger in my heart, admonish me of the difficulty of governing with
sobriety any people who are over head and ears in debt. That state of
things begets a temper which sets at nought every thing like reason and
common sense. This country is unquestionably laboring under great
distress; but we cannot legislate it out of that distress. We may, by
your legislation, reduce all the country south and east of Mason and
Dixon’s line, the whites as well as the blacks, to the condition of
Helots: you can do no more. We have had placed before us, in the course
of this discussion, foreign examples and authorities; and among other
things, we have been told, as an argument in favor of this measure, of
the prosperity of Great Britain. Have gentlemen taken into consideration
the peculiar advantages of Great Britain? Have they taken into
consideration that, not excepting Mexico, and that fine country which
lies between the Orinoco and Caribbean sea, England is decidedly
superior, in point of physical advantages, to every country under the
sun? This is unquestionably true. I will enumerate some of those
advantages. First, there is her climate. In England, such is the
temperature of the air, that a man can there do more days’ work in the
year, and more hours’ work in the day, than in any other climate in the
world; of course I include Scotland and Ireland in this description. It
is in such a climate only, that the human animal can bear without
extirpation the corrupted air, the noisome exhalations, the incessant
labor of these accursed manufactories. Yes, sir, accursed; for I say it
is an accursed thing, which I will neither taste, nor touch, nor handle.
If we were to act here on the English system, we should have the yellow
fever at Philadelphia and New York, not in August merely, but from June
to January, and from January to June. The climate of _this_ country
alone, were there no other natural obstacle to it, says aloud, You shall
not manufacture! Even our tobacco factories, admitted to be the most
wholesome of any sort of factories, are known to be, where extensive,
the very nidus (if I may use the expression) of yellow fever and other
fevers of similar type. In another of the advantages of Great Britain,
so important to her prosperity, we are almost on a par with her, if we
know how properly to use it. _Fortunatos nimium sua si bona norint_—for,
as regards defence, we are, to all intents and purposes, almost as much
an island as England herself. But _one_ of her insular advantages we can
never acquire. Every part of that country is accessible from the sea.
There, as you recede from the sea, you do not get further from the sea.
I know that a great deal will be said of our majestic rivers, about the
father of floods, and his tributary streams; but, with the Ohio, frozen
up all the winter and dry all the summer, with a long tortuous,
difficult, and dangerous navigation thence to the ocean, the gentlemen
of the west may rest assured that they will never derive one particle of
advantage from even a total prohibition of foreign manufactures. You may
succeed in reducing _us_ to your own level of misery; but if we were to
_agree_ to become your slaves, you never can derive one farthing of
advantage from this bill. What parts of this country can derive any
advantage from it? Those parts only, where there is a water power in
immediate contact with navigation, such as the vicinities of Boston,
Providence, Baltimore, and Richmond. Petersburg is the last of these as
you travel south. You take a bag of cotton up the river to Pittsburg, or
to Zanesville, to have it manufactured and sent down to New Orleans for
a market, and before your bag of cotton has got to the place of
manufacture, the manufacturer of Providence has received his returns for
the goods made from his bag of cotton purchased at the same time that
you purchased yours. No, sir, gentlemen may as well insist that because
the Chesapeake bay, _mare nostrum_, our Mediterranean sea, gives us
every advantage of navigation, we shall exclude from it every thing but
steam-boats and those boats called κατ’ ἐξοχὴν, _per emphasin, par
excellence_, Kentucky boats—a sort of huge square, clumsy, wooden box.
And why not insist upon it? Hav’n’t you “the power to REGULATE
COMMERCE”? Would not that too be a “REGULATION OF COMMERCE?” It would,
indeed, and a pretty regulation it is; and so is this bill. And, sir, I
marvel that the representation from the great commercial state of New
York should be in favor of this bill. If operative—and if inoperative
why talk of it?—if operative, it must, like the embargo of 1807–1809,
transfer no small portion of the wealth of the London of America, as New
York has been called, to Quebec and Montreal. She will receive the most
of her imports from abroad, down the river. I do not know any bill that
could be better calculated for Vermont than this bill; because, through
Vermont, from Quebec, Montreal, and other positions on the St. Lawrence,
we are, if it passes, unquestionably to receive our supplies of foreign
goods. It will, no doubt, suit the Niagara frontier.
But, sir, I must not suffer myself to be led too far astray from the
topic of the peculiar advantages of England as a manufacturing country.
Her vast beds of coal are inexhaustible; there are daily discoveries of
quantities of it, greater than ages past have yet consumed; to which
beds of coal her manufacturing establishments have been transferred, as
any man may see who will compare the present population of her towns
with what it was formerly. It is to these beds of coal that Birmingham,
Manchester, Wolverhampton, Sheffield, Leeds, and other manufacturing
towns, owe their growth. If you could destroy her coal in one day, you
would cut at once the sinews of her power. Then, there are her metals,
and particularly tin, of which she has the exclusive monopoly. Tin, I
know, is to be found in Japan, and perhaps elsewhere; but, in practice,
England has now the monopoly of that article. I might go further, and I
might say, that England possesses an advantage, _quoad hoc_, in her
institutions; for _there_ men are compelled to pay their debts. But
_here_, men are not only not compelled to pay their debts, but they are
protected in the refusal to pay them, in the scandalous evasion of their
legal obligations; and, after being convicted of embezzling the public
money, and the money of others, of which they were appointed guardians
and trustees, they have the impudence to obtrude their unblushing fronts
into society, and elbow honest men out of their way. There, though all
men are on a footing of equality on the high way, and in the courts of
law, at will and at market, yet the castes in Hindoostan are not more
distinctly separated, one from the other, than the different classes of
society are in England. It is true that it is practicable for a wealthy
merchant or manufacturer, or his descendants, after having, through two
or three generations, washed out, what is considered the stain of their
original occupation, to emerge, by slow degrees, into the higher ranks
of society; but this rarely happens. Can you find men of vast fortune,
in this country, content to move in the lower circles—content as the ox
under the daily drudgery of the yoke? It is true that, in England, some
of these wealthy people take it into their heads to buy seats in
parliament. But, when they get there, unless they possess great talents,
they are mere nonentities; their existence is only to be found in the
red book which contains a list of the members of parliament. Now, sir, I
wish to know if, in the western country, where any man may get beastly
drunk for three pence sterling—in England, you cannot get a small
wine-glass of spirits under twenty-five cents; one such drink of grog as
I have seen swallowed in this country, would there cost a dollar—in the
western country, where every man can get as much meat and bread as he
can consume, and yet spend the best part of his days, and nights too,
perhaps, on the tavern benches, or loitering at the cross roads asking
the news, can you expect the people of such a country, with countless
millions of wild land and wild animals besides, can be cooped up in
manufacturing establishments, and made to work sixteen hours a day,
under the superintendence of a driver, yes, a driver, compared with whom
a southern overseer is a gentleman and man of refinement; for, if they
do not work, these work people in the manufactories, they cannot eat;
and, among all the punishments that can be devised (put death even among
the number), I defy you to get as much work out of a man by any of them,
as when he knows that he must work before he can eat.
* * * * *
In the course of this discussion, I have heard, I will not say with
surprise, because _nil admirari_ is my motto—no doctrine that can be
broached on this floor, can ever, hereafter, excite surprise in my
mind—I have heard the names of Say, Ganilh, Adam Smith, and Ricardo,
pronounced not only in terms, but in a tone of sneering contempt,
visionary theorists, destitute of practical wisdom, and the whole clan
of Scotch and Quarterly Reviewers lugged in to boot. This, sir, is a
sweeping clause of proscription. With the names of Say, Smith, and
Ganilh, I profess to be acquainted, for I, too, am versed in
_title-pages_; but I did not expect to hear, in this house, a name, with
which I am a little further acquainted, treated with so little ceremony;
and by whom? I leave Adam Smith to the simplicity, the majesty, and
strength of his own native genius, which has canonized his name—a name
which will be pronounced with veneration, when not one in this house
will be remembered. But one word as to Ricardo, the last mentioned of
these writers—a new authority, though the grave has already closed upon
him, and set its seal upon his reputation. I shall speak of him in the
language of a man of as great a genius as this, or perhaps any, age has
ever produced; a man remarkable for the depth of his reflections and the
acumen of his penetration. “I had been led,” says this man, “to look
into loads of books—my understanding had for too many years been
intimate with severe thinkers, with logic, and the great masters of
knowledge, not to be aware of the utter feebleness of the herd of modern
economists. I sometimes read chapters from more recent works, or part of
parliamentary debates. I saw that these [ominous words!] were generally
the very dregs and rinsings of the human intellect.” [I am very glad,
sir, he did not read _our_ debates. What would he have said of ours?]
“At length a friend sent me Mr. Ricardo’s book, and, recurring to my own
prophetic anticipation of the advent of some legislator on this science,
I said, Thou art the man. Wonder and curiosity had long been dead in me;
yet I wondered once more. Had this profound work been really written in
England during the 19th century? Could it be that an Englishman, and he
not in academic bowers, but oppressed by mercantile and senatorial
cares, had accomplished what all the universities and a century of
thought had failed to advance by one hair’s breadth? All other writers
had been crushed and overlaid by the enormous weight of facts and
documents: Mr. Ricardo had deduced, _a priori_, from the understanding
itself, laws which first gave a ray of light into the unwieldy chaos of
materials, and had constructed what had been but a collection of
tentative discussions, into a science of regular proportions, now first
standing on an eternal basis.”
I pronounce no opinion of my own on Ricardo; I recur rather to the
opinion of a man inferior, in point of original and native genius, and
that highly cultivated, too, to none of the moderns, and few of the
ancients. Upon this subject, what shall we say to the following fact?
Butler, who is known to gentlemen of the profession of the law, as the
annotator, with Hargrave, on lord Coke, speaking with Fox as to
political economy—that most extraordinary man, unrivalled for his powers
of debate, excelled by no man that ever lived, or probably ever will
live, as a public debater, and of the deepest political erudition,
fairly confessed that he had never read Adam Smith. Butler said to Mr.
Fox, “that he had never read Adam Smith’s work on the Wealth of
Nations.” “To tell you the truth,” replied Mr. Fox, “nor I neither.
There is something in all these subjects that passes my
comprehension—something so wide that I could never embrace them myself,
or find any one who did.” And yet we see how we, with our little
dividers, undertake to lay off the scale, and with our pack-thread to
take the soundings, and speak with a confidence peculiar to quacks (in
which the regular-bred professor never indulges) on this abstruse and
perplexing subject. Confidence is one thing, knowledge another; of the
want of which, overweening confidence is notoriously the indication.
What of that? Let Ganilh, Say, Ricardo, Smith, all Greek and Roman fame
be against us; we appeal to Dionysius in support of our doctrines; and
to him, not on the throne of Syracuse, but at Corinth—not in absolute
possession of the most wonderful and enigmatical city, as difficult to
comprehend as the abstrusest problem of political economy which
furnished not only the means but the men for supporting the greatest
wars—a kingdom within itself, under whose ascendant the genius of
Athens, in her most high and palmy state, quailed, and stood rebuked.
No; we follow the pedagogue to the schools—dictating in the classic
shades of Longwood—(_lucus a non lucendo_)—to his disciples. * * *
But it is said, a measure of this sort is necessary to create employment
for the people. Why, sir, where are the handles of the plough? Are they
unfit for _young gentlemen_ to touch? Or will they rather choose to
enter your military academies, where the sons of the rich are educated
at the expense of the poor, and where so many political janissaries are
every year turned out, always ready for war, and to support the powers
that be—equal to the strelitzes of Moscow or St. Petersburg. I do not
speak now of individuals, of course, but of the tendency of the
system—the hounds follow the huntsman because he feeds them, and bears
the whip. I speak of the system. I concur most heartily, sir, in the
censure which has been passed upon the greediness of office, which
stands a stigma on the present generation. Men from whom we might
expect, and from whom I did expect, better things, crowd the
ante-chamber of the palace, for every vacant office; nay, even before
men are dead, their shoes are wanted for some barefooted office-seeker.
How mistaken was the old Roman, the old consul, who, whilst he held the
plough by one hand, and death held the other, exclaimed, “_Diis
immortalibus sero!_”
Our fathers, how did they acquire their property? By straightforward
industry, rectitude, and frugality. How did they become dispossessed of
their property? By indulging in speculative hopes and designs; seeking
the shadow whilst they lost the substance; and now, instead of being, as
they were, men of respectability, men of substance, men capable and
willing to live independently and honestly, and hospitably too—for who
so parsimonious as the prodigal who has nothing to give?—what have we
become? A nation of sharks, preying on one another through the
instrumentality of this paper system, which, if Lycurgus had known of
it, he would unquestionably have adopted, in preference to his iron
money, if his object had been to make the Spartans the most accomplished
knaves as well as to keep them poor.
The manufacturer of the east may carry his woolens or his cottons, or
his coffins, to what market he pleases—I do not buy of him. Self-defence
is the first law of nature. You drive us into it. You create heats and
animosities among this great family, who ought to live like brothers;
and, after you have got this temper of mind roused among the southern
people, do you expect to come among us to trade, and expect us to buy
your wares? Sir, not only shall we not buy them, but we shall take such
measures (I will not enter into the detail of them now) as shall render
it impossible for you to sell them. Whatever may be said here of the
“misguided counsels,” as they have been termed, “of the theorists of
Virginia,” they have, so far as regards this question, the confidence of
united Virginia. We are asked—Does the south lose any thing by this
bill—why do you cry out? I put it, sir, to any man from any part of the
country, from the gulf of Mexico, from the Balize, to the eastern shore
of Maryland—which, I thank Heaven, is not yet under the government of
Baltimore, and will not be, unless certain theories should come into
play in that state, which we have lately heard of, and a majority of
men, told by the head, should govern—whether the whole country between
the points I have named, is not unanimous in opposition to this bill.
Would it not be unexampled, that we should thus complain, protest,
resist, and that all the while nothing should be the matter? Are our
understandings (however low mine may be rated, much sounder than mine
are engaged in this resistance), to be rated so low, as that we are to
be made to believe that we are children affrighted by a bugbear? We are
asked, however, why do you cry out? it is all for your good. Sir, this
reminds me of the mistresses of George II., who, when they were insulted
by the populace on arriving in London (as all such creatures deserve to
be, by every mob), put their heads out of the window, and said to them
in their broken English, “_Goot people, we be come for your goots_;” to
which one of the mob rejoined—“Yes, and for our chattels too, I fancy.”
Just so it is with the oppressive exactions proposed and advocated by
the supporters of this bill, on the plea of the good of those who are
its victims. * * *
I had more to say, Mr. Speaker, could I have said it, on this subject.
But I cannot sit down without asking those, who were once my brethren of
the church, the elders of the young family of this good old republic of
the thirteen states, if they can consent to rivet upon us this system,
from which no benefit can possibly result to themselves. I put it to
them as descendants of the renowned colony of Virginia; as children
sprung from her loins; if for the sake of all the benefits, with which
this bill is pretended to be freighted to them, granting such to be the
fact for argument’s sake, they could consent to do such an act of
violence to the unanimous opinion, feelings, prejudices, if you will, of
the whole Southern States, as to pass it? I go farther. I ask of them
what is there in the condition of the nation at this time, that calls
for the immediate adoption of this measure? Are the Gauls at the gate of
the capitol? If they are, the cacklings of the Capitoline geese will
hardly save it. What is there to induce us to plunge into the vortex of
those evils so severely felt in Europe from this very manufacturing and
paper policy? For it is evident that, if we go into this system of
policy, we must adopt the European institutions also. We have very good
materials to work with; we have only to make our elective king president
for life, in the first place, and then to make the succession hereditary
in the family of the first that shall happen to have a promising son.
For a king we can be at no loss—_ex quovis ligno_—any block will do for
him. The senate may, perhaps, be transmuted into a house of peers,
although we should meet with more difficulty than in the other case; for
Bonaparte himself was not more hardly put to it, to recruit the ranks of
his mushroom nobility, than we should be to furnish a house of peers. As
for us, we are the faithful commons, ready made to hand; but with all
our loyalty, I congratulate the house—I congratulate the nation—that,
although this body is daily degraded by the sight of members of Congress
manufactured into placemen, we have not yet reached such a point of
degradation as to suffer executive minions to be manufactured into
members of congress. We have shut _that_ door; I wish we could shut the
other also. I wish we could have a perpetual call of the house in this
view, and suffer no one to get out from its closed doors. The time is
peculiarly inauspicious for the change in our policy which is proposed
by this bill. We are on the eve of an election that promises to be the
most distracted that this nation has ever yet undergone. It may turn out
to be a Polish election. At such a time, ought any measure to be brought
forward which is supposed to be capable of being demonstrated to be
extremely injurious to one great portion of this country, and beneficial
in proportion to another? Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof.
There are firebrands enough in the land, without this apple of discord
being cast into this assembly. Suppose this measure is not what it is
represented to be; that the fears of the south are altogether illusory
and visionary; that it will produce all the good predicted of it—an
honorable gentleman from Kentucky said yesterday—and I was sorry to hear
it, for I have great respect for that gentleman, and for other gentlemen
from that state—that the question was not whether a bare majority should
pass the bill, but whether the majority or the minority should rule. The
gentleman is wrong, and, if he will consider the matter rightly, he will
see it. Is there no difference between the patient and the actor? _We_
are passive: we do not call them to act or to suffer, but we call upon
them not so to act as that we must necessarily suffer; and I venture to
say, that in any government, properly constituted, this very
consideration would operate conclusively, that if the burden is to be
laid on 102, it ought not to be laid by 105. We are the eel that is
being flayed, while the cook-maid pats us on the head, and cries, with
the clown in King Lear, “Down, wantons, down.” There is but one portion
of the country which can profit by this bill, and from that portion of
the country comes this bare majority in favor of it. I bless God that
Massachusetts and old Virginia are once again rallying under the same
banner, against oppressive and unconstitutional taxation; for, if all
the blood be drawn from out the body, I care not whether it be by the
British parliament or the American congress; by an emperor or a king
abroad, or by a president at home.
Under these views, and with feelings of mortification and shame at the
very weak opposition I have been able to make to this bill, I entreat
gentlemen to consent that it may lie over, at least, until the next
session of congress. We have other business to attend to, and our
families and affairs need our attention at home; and indeed I, sir,
would not give one farthing for any man who prefers being here to being
at home; who is a good public man and a bad private one. With these
views and feelings, I move you, sir, that the bill be indefinitely
postponed.
Edward Everett.
_The example of the Northern to the Southern Republics of America._
THE great triumphs of constitutional freedom, to which our independence
has furnished the example, have been witnessed in the southern portion
of our hemisphere. Sunk to the last point of colonial degradation, they
have risen at once into the organization of three republics. Their
struggle has been arduous; and eighteen years of checkered fortune have
not yet brought it to a close. But we must not infer, from their
prolonged agitation, that their independence is uncertain; that they
have prematurely put on the _toga virilis_ of freedom. They have not
begun too soon; they have more to do. Our war of independence was
shorter;—happily we were contending with a government, that could not,
like that of Spain, pursue an interminable and hopeless contest, in
defiance of the people’s will. Our transition to a mature and well
adjusted constitution was more prompt than that of our sister republics;
for the foundations had long been settled, the preparation long made.
And when we consider that it is our example, which has aroused the
spirit of independence from California to Cape Horn; that the experiment
of liberty, if it had failed with us, most surely would not have been
attempted by them; that even now our counsels and acts will operate as
powerful precedents in this great family of republics, we learn the
importance of the post which Providence has assigned us in the world. A
wise and harmonious administration of the public affairs,—a faithful,
liberal, and patriotic exercise of the private duties of the
citizen,—while they secure our happiness at home, will diffuse a
healthful influence through the channels of national communication, and
serve the cause of liberty beyond the Equator and the Andes. When we
show a united, conciliatory, and imposing front to their rising states
we show them, better than sounding eulogies can do, the true aspect of
an independent republic; we give them a living example that the fireside
policy of a people is like that of the individual man. As the one,
commencing in the prudence, order, and industry of the private circle,
extends itself to all the duties of social life, of the family, the
neighborhood, the country; so the true domestic policy of the republic,
beginning in the wise organization of its own institutions, pervades its
territories with a vigilant, prudent, temperate administration; and
extends the hand of cordial interest to all the friendly nations,
especially to those which are of the household of liberty.
It is in this way that we are to fulfil our destiny in the world. The
greatest engine of moral power, which human nature knows, is an
organized, prosperous state. All that man, in his individual capacity,
can do—all that he can effect by his fraternities—by his ingenious
discoveries and wonders of art,—or by his influence over others—is as
nothing, compared with the collective, perpetuated influence on human
affairs and human happiness of a well constituted, powerful
commonwealth. It blesses generations with its sweet influence;—even the
barren earth seems to pour out its fruits under a system where property
is secure, while her fairest gardens are blighted by despotism;—men,
thinking, reasoning men, abound beneath its benignant sway;—nature
enters into a beautiful accord, a better, purer _asiento_ with man, and
guides an industrious citizen to every rood of her smiling wastes;—and
we see, at length, that what has been _called_ a state of nature, has
been most falsely, calumniously so denominated; that the nature of man
is neither that of a savage, a hermit, nor a slave; but that of a member
of a well-ordered family, that of a good neighbor, a free citizen, a
well informed, good man, acting with others like him. This is the lesson
which is taught in the charter of our independence; this is the lesson
which our example is to teach the world.
The epic poet of Rome—the faithful subject of an absolute prince—in
unfolding the duties and destinies of his countrymen, bids them look
down with disdain on the polished and intellectual arts of Greece, and
deem their arts to be
To rule the nations with imperial sway;
To spare the tribes that yield; fight down the proud;
And force the mood of peace upon the world.
A nobler counsel breathes from the charter of our independence; a
happier province belongs to our republic. Peace we would extend, but by
persuasion and example,—the moral force, by which alone it can prevail
among the nations. Wars we may encounter, but it is in the sacred
character of the injured and the wronged; to raise the trampled rights
of humanity from the dust; to rescue the mild form of liberty from her
abode among the prisons and the scaffolds of the elder world, and to
seat her in the chair of state among her adoring children; to give her
beauty for ashes; a healthful action for her cruel agony; to put at last
a period to her warfare on earth; to tear her star-spangled banner from
the perilous ridges of battle, and plant it on the rock of ages. There
be it fixed for ever,—the power of a free people slumbering in its
folds, their peace reposing in its shade!
Close of the Speech of Daniel Webster
_On the Greek question, in the House of Representatives of the United
States, January, 1824._
The house had gone into committee of the whole, Mr. Taylor in the
chair, on the resolution offered by Mr. Webster, which is in the words
following:
“_Resolved_, That provision ought to be made by law for defraying the
expense incident to the appointment of an agent, or commissioner, to
Greece, whenever the President shall deem it expedient to make such
appointment.”
MR. CHAIRMAN,—It may be asked, will this resolution do the Greeks any
good? Yes, it will do them much good. It will give them courage and
spirit, which is better than money. It will assure them of the public
sympathy, and will inspire them with fresh constancy. It will teach them
that they are not forgotten by the civilized world, and to hope one day
to occupy, in that world, an honorable station.
A farther question remains. Is this measure pacific? It has no other
character. It simply proposes to make a pecuniary provision for a
mission, when the president shall deem such mission expedient. It is a
mere reciprocation to the sentiments of his message; it imposes upon him
no new duty; it gives him no new power; it does not hasten or urge him
forward; it simply provides, in an open and avowed manner, the means of
doing, what would else be done out of the contingent fund. It leaves him
at the most perfect liberty, and it reposes the whole matter in his sole
discretion. He might do it without this resolution, as he did in the
case of South America,—but it merely answers the query, whether on so
great and interesting a question as the condition of the Greeks, this
house holds no opinion which is worth expressing? But, suppose a
commissioner is sent, the measure is pacific still. Where is the breach
of neutrality? Where a just cause of offence? And besides, Mr. Chairman,
is all the danger in this matter on one side? may we not inquire, whose
fleets cover the Archipelago? may we not ask, what would be the result
to our trade should Smyrna be blockaded? A commissioner could at least
procure for us what we do not now possess—that is, authentic information
of the true state of things. The document on your table exhibits a
meagre appearance on this point—what does it contain? Letters of Mr.
Luriottis and paragraphs from a French paper. My personal opinion is,
that an agent ought immediately to be sent; but the resolution I have
offered by no means goes so far.
Do gentlemen fear the result of this resolution in embroiling us with
the Porte? Why, sir, how much is it ahead of the whole nation, or rather
let me ask how much is the nation ahead of it? Is not this whole people
already in a state of open and avowed excitement on this subject? Does
not the land ring from side to side with one common sentiment of
sympathy for Greece, and indignation toward her oppressors? nay, more,
sir—are we not giving money to this cause? More still, sir—is not the
secretary of state in open correspondence with the president of the
Greek committee in London? The nation has gone as far as it can go,
short of an official act of hostility. This resolution adds nothing
beyond what is already done—nor can any of the European governments take
offence at such a measure. But if they would, should we be withheld from
an honest expression of liberal feelings in the cause of freedom, for
fear of giving umbrage to some member of the holy alliance? We are not,
surely, yet prepared to purchase their smiles by a sacrifice of every
manly principle. Dare any Christian prince even ask us not to sympathize
with a Christian nation struggling against Tartar tyranny? We do not
interfere—we break no engagements—we violate no treaties; with the Porte
we have none.
Mr. Chairman, there are some things which, to be well done, must be
promptly done. If we even determine to do the thing that is now
proposed, we may do it too late. Sir, I am not of those who are for
withholding aid when it is most urgently needed, and when the stress is
past, and the aid no longer necessary, overwhelming the sufferers with
caresses. I will not stand by and see my fellow man drowning without
stretching out a hand to help him, till he has by his own efforts and
presence of mind reached the shore in safety, and then encumber him with
aid. With suffering Greece now is the crisis of her fate,—her great, it
may be, her last struggle. Sir, while we sit here deliberating, her
destiny may be decided. The Greeks, contending with ruthless oppressors,
turn their eyes to us, and invoke us by their ancestors, slaughtered
wives and children, by their own blood, poured out like water, by the
hecatombs of dead they have heaped up as it were to heaven, they invoke,
they implore us for some cheering sound, some look of sympathy, some
token of compassionate regard. They look to us as the great republic of
the earth—and they ask us by our common faith, whether we can forget
that they are struggling, as we once struggled, for what we now so
happily enjoy? I cannot say, sir, that they will succeed; that rests
with heaven. But for myself, sir, if I should to-morrow hear that they
have failed—that their last phalanx had sunk beneath the Turkish
cimeter, that the flames of their last city had sunk in its ashes, and
that naught remained but the wide melancholy waste where Greece once
was, I should still reflect, with the most heartfelt satisfaction, that
I have asked you in the name of seven millions of freemen, that you
would give them at least the cheering of one friendly voice.
John Randolph on the other side of Same Question.
MR. CHAIRMAN,—It is with serious concern and alarm, that I have heard
doctrines broached in this debate, fraught with consequences more
disastrous to the best interests of this people than any that I have
ever heard advanced during the five-and-twenty years that I have been
honored with a seat on this floor. They imply, to my apprehension, a
total and fundamental change of the policy pursued by this government,
_ab urbe condita_—from the foundation of the republic, to the present
day. Are we, sir, to go on a crusade, in another hemisphere, for the
propagation of two objects—objects as dear and delightful to _my_ heart
as to that of any gentleman in this, or in any other assembly—liberty
and religion—and, in the name of these holy words—by this powerful
spell, is this nation to be conjured and persuaded out of the highway of
heaven—out of its present comparatively happy state, into all the
disastrous conflicts arising from the policy of European powers, with
all the consequences which flow from them?
Liberty and religion, sir! I believe that nothing similar to this
proposition is to be found in modern history, unless in the famous
decree of the French national assembly, which brought combined Europe
against them, with its united strength, and, after repeated struggles,
finally effected the downfall of the French power. Sir, I am wrong—there
is another example of like doctrine; and you find it among that strange
and peculiar people—in that mysterious book, which is of the highest
authority with them, (for it is at once their gospel and their law,) the
Koran, which enjoins it to be the duty of all good Moslems to propagate
its doctrines at the point of the sword—by the edge of the cimeter. The
character of that people is a peculiar one: they differ from every other
race. It has been said, here, that it is four hundred years since they
encamped in Europe. Sir, they were encamped, on the spot where we now
find them, before this country was discovered, and their title to the
country which they occupy is at least as good as ours. They hold their
possessions there by the same title by which all other countries are
held—possession, obtained at first by a successful employment of force,
confirmed by time, usage, prescription—the best of all possible titles.
Their policy has been not tortuous, like that of other states of Europe,
but straightforward: they had invariably appealed to the sword, and they
held by the sword. The Russ had, indeed, made great encroachments on
their empire, but the ground had been contested inch by inch; and the
acquisitions of Russia on the side of Christian Europe—Livonia, Ingria,
Courland—Finland, to the Gulf of Bothnia—Poland!—had been greater than
that of the Mahometans. And, in consequence of this straightforward
policy to which I before referred, this peculiar people could boast of
being the only one of the continental Europe, whose capital had never
been insulted by the presence of a foreign military force. It was a
curious fact, well worthy of attention, that Constantinople was the only
capital in continental Europe—for Moscow was the true capital of
Russia—that had never been in possession of an enemy. It is, indeed,
true, that the Empress Catharine did inscribe over the gate of one of
the cities that she had won in the Krimea, (Cherson, I think,) “the road
to Byzantium;” but, sir, it has proved—perhaps too low a word for the
subject—but a _stumpy road_ for Russia. Who, at that day, would have
been believed, had he foretold to that august (for so she was) and
illustrious woman that her Cossacks of the Ukraine, and of the Don,
would have encamped in Paris before they reached Constantinople? Who
would have been believed, if he had foretold that a French invading
force—such as the world never saw before, and, I trust, will never again
see—would lay Moscow itself in ashes? These are considerations worthy of
attention, before we embark in the project proposed by this resolution,
the consequences of which no human eye can divine.
I would respectfully ask the gentleman from Massachusetts, whether in
his very able and masterly argument—and he has said all that could be
said upon the subject, and more than I supposed could be said by any man
in favor of his resolution—whether he himself has not furnished an
answer to his speech—I had not the happiness myself to hear his speech,
but a friend has read it to me. In one of the arguments in that speech,
toward the conclusion, I think, of his speech, the gentleman lays down,
from Puffendorf, in reference to the honeyed words and pious professions
of the holy alliance, that these are all surplusage, because nations are
always supposed to be ready to do what justice and national law require.
Well, sir, if this be so, why may not the Greeks presume—why are they
not, on this principle, bound to presume, that this government is
disposed to do all, in reference to them, that they ought to do, without
any formal resolutions to that effect? I ask the gentleman from
Massachusetts, whether the doctrine of Puffendorf does not apply as
strongly to the resolution as to the declaration of the allies—that is,
if the resolution of the gentleman be indeed that almost nothing he
would have us suppose, if there be not something _behind_ this nothing
which divides this house (not _horizontally_, as the gentleman has
ludicrously said—but _vertically_) into two unequal parties, one the
advocate of a splendid system of crusades, the other the friends of
peace and harmony; the advocates of a _fireside policy_—for, as had been
truly said, as long as all is right at the fireside, there cannot be
much wrong elsewhere—whether, I repeat, does not the doctrine of
Puffendorf apply as well to the words of the resolution as to the words
of the holy alliance?
But, sir, we have already done more than this. The president of the
United States, the only organ of communication which the people have
seen fit to establish between us and foreign powers, has already
expressed all, in reference to Greece, that the resolution goes to
express _actum est_—it is done—it is finished—there is an end. Not, that
I would have the house to infer, that I mean to express any opinion as
to the policy of such a declaration—the practice of responding to
presidential addresses and messages had gone out for, now, these two or
three-and-twenty years.
Extract from Mr. Hayne’s Speech against the Tariff Bill, in Congress,
_January, 1832._
MR. PRESIDENT,—The plain and seemingly obvious truth, that in a fair and
equal exchange of commodities all parties gained, is a noble discovery
of modern times. The contrary principle naturally led to commercial
rivalries, wars, and abuses of all sorts. The benefits of commerce being
regarded as a stake to be won, or an advantage to be wrested from others
by fraud or by force, governments naturally strove to secure them to
their own subjects; and when they once set out in this wrong direction,
it was quite natural that they should not stop short till they ended in
binding, in the bonds of restriction, not only the whole country, but
all of its parts. Thus we are told that England first protected by her
restrictive policy, her whole empire against all the world, then Great
Britain against the colonies, then the British islands against each
other, and ended by vainly attempting to protect all the great interests
and employment of the state by balancing them against each other. Sir,
such a system, carried fully out, is not confined to rival nations, but
protects one town against another, considers villages, and even families
as rivals; and cannot stop short of “Robinson Crusoe in his goat skins.”
It takes but one step further to make every man his own lawyer, doctor,
farmer, and shoemaker—and, if I may be allowed an Irishism, his own
seamstress and washerwoman. The doctrine of free trade, on the contrary,
is founded on the true social system. It looks on all mankind as
children of a common parent—and the great family of nations as linked
together by mutual interests. Sir, as there is a religion, so I believe
there is a _politics of nature_. Cast your eyes over this various
earth—see its surface diversified by hills and valleys, rocks, and
fertile fields. Notice its different productions—its infinite varieties
of soil and climate. See the mighty rivers winding their way to the very
mountain’s base, and thence guiding man to the vast ocean, dividing, yet
connecting nations. Can any man who considers these things with the eye
of a philosopher, not read the design of the great Creator (written
legibly in his works) that his children should be drawn together in a
free commercial intercourse, and mutual exchanges of the various gifts
with which a bountiful Providence has blessed them. Commerce, sir,
restricted even as she has been, has been the great source of
civilization and refinement all over the world. Next to the Christian
religion, I consider free trade in its largest sense as the greatest
blessing that can be conferred upon any people. Hear, sir, what Patrick
Henry, the great orator of Virginia, whose soul was the very temple of
freedom, says on this subject:—
“Why should we fetter commerce? If a man is in chains, he droops and
bows to the earth, because his spirits are broken, but let him _twist
the fetters from his legs_, and he will stand erect. Fetter not
commerce! Let her be as free as the air. She will range the whole
creation, and return on the four winds of heaven to bless the land
with plenty.”
But, it has been said, that free trade would do very well, if all
nations would adopt it; but as it is, every nation must protect itself
from the effect of restrictions by countervailing measures. I am
persuaded, sir, that this is a great, a most fatal error. If retaliation
is resorted to for the honest purpose of producing a redress of the
grievance, and while adhered to no longer than there is a hope of
success, it may, like war itself, be sometimes just and necessary. But
if it have no such object, “it is the unprofitable combat of seeing
which can do the other the most harm.” The case can hardly be conceived
in which permanent restrictions, as a measure of retaliation, could be
profitable. In every possible situation, a trade, whether more or less
restricted, is profitable, or it is not. This can only be decided by
experience, and if the trade be left to regulate itself, water would not
more naturally seek its level, than the intercourse adjust itself to the
true interest of the parties. Sir, as to this idea of the regulation by
government of the pursuits of men, I consider it as a remnant of
barbarism disgraceful to an enlightened age, and inconsistent with the
first principles of rational liberty. I hold government to be utterly
incapable, from its position, of exercising such a power wisely,
prudently, or justly. Are the rulers of the world the depositories of
its collected wisdom? Sir, can we forget the advice of a great statesman
to his son—“Go, see the world, my son, that you may learn with how
little wisdom mankind is governed.” And is our own government an
exception to this rule, or do we not find here, as every where else,
that
“Man, proud man,
Robed in a little brief authority,
Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven,
As make the angels weep?”
The gentleman has appealed to the example of other nations. Sir, they
are all against him. They have had restrictions enough, to be sure; but
they are getting heartily sick of them, and in England, particularly,
would willingly get rid of them if they could. We have been assured, by
the declaration of a minister of the crown, from his place in
parliament, “that there is a growing conviction, among all men of sense
and reflection in that country, that the true policy of all nations is
to be found in unrestricted industry.” Sir, in England they are now
retracing their steps, and endeavoring to relieve themselves of the
system as fast as they can. Within a few years past, upwards of three
hundred statutes, imposing restrictions in that country, have been
repealed; and a case has recently occurred there, which seems to leave
no doubt that, if Great Britain has grown great, it is, as Mr. Huskisson
has declared, “not in consequence of, but in spite of their
restrictions.” The silk manufacture, protected by enormous bounties, was
found to be in such a declining condition, that the government was
obliged to do something to save it from total ruin. And what did they
do? They considerably reduced the duty on foreign silks, both on the raw
material and the manufactured article. The consequence was the immediate
revival of the silk manufacture, which has since been nearly doubled.
Sir, the experience of France is equally decisive. Bonaparte’s effort to
introduce cotton and sugar has cost that country millions; and, but the
other day, a foolish attempt to protect the iron mines spread
devastation through half of France, and nearly ruined the wine trade, on
which one-fifth of her citizens depend for subsistence. As to Spain,
unhappy Spain, “fenced round with restrictions,” her experience, one
would suppose, would convince us, if anything could, that the protecting
system in politics, like bigotry in religion, was utterly at war with
sound principles and a liberal and enlightened policy. Sir, I say, in
the words of the philosophical statesman of England, “leave a generous
nation free to seek their own road to perfection.” Thank God, the night
is passing away, and we have lived to see the dawn of a glorious day.
The cause of free trade must and will prosper, and finally triumph. The
political economist is abroad; light has come into the world; and, in
this instance at least, men will not “prefer darkness rather than
light.” Sir, let it not be said, in after times, that the statesmen of
America were behind the age in which they lived—that they initiated this
young and vigorous country into the enervating and corrupting practices
of European nations—and that, at the moment when the whole world were
looking to us for an example, we arrayed ourselves in the castoff
follies and exploded errors of the old world, and, by the introduction
of a vile system of artificial stimulants and political gambling,
impaired the healthful vigor of the body politic, and brought on a
decrepitude and premature dissolution.
Mr. Clay’s Speech on his Public Lands Bill.
MR. PRESIDENT,—Although I find myself borne down by the severest
affliction with which Providence has ever been pleased to visit me, I
have thought that my private griefs ought not longer to prevent me from
attempting, ill as I feel qualified, to discharge my public duties. And
I now rise, in pursuance of the notice which has been given, to ask
leave to introduce a bill to appropriate, for a limited time, the
proceeds of the sales of the public lands of the United States, and for
granting land to certain states.
I feel it incumbent on me to make a brief explanation of the highly
important measure which I have now the honor to propose. The bill which
I desire to introduce, provides for the distribution of the proceeds of
the public lands in the years 1833, 1834, 1835, 1836 and 1837, among the
twenty-four states of the union, and conforms substantially to that
which passed in 1833. It is therefore of a temporary character; but if
it shall be found to have salutary operation, it will be in the power of
a future congress to give it an indefinite continuance; and if
otherwise, it will expire by its own terms. In the event of war
unfortunately breaking out with any foreign power, the bill is to cease,
and the fund which it distributes is to be applied to the prosecution of
the war. The bill directs that ten per cent. of the net proceeds of the
public lands sold within the limits of the seven new states, shall be
first set apart for them, in addition to the five per cent. reserved by
their several compacts with the United States; and that the residue of
the proceeds, whether from sales made in the states or territories,
shall be divided among the twenty-four states in proportion to their
respective federal population. In this respect the bill conforms to that
which was introduced in 1832. For one, I should have been willing to
have allowed the new states twelve and a half instead of ten per cent.;
but as that was objected to by the president, in his veto message, and
has been opposed in other quarters, I thought it best to restrict the
allowance to the more moderate sum. The bill also contains large and
liberal grants of land to several of the new states, to place them upon
an equality with others to which the bounty of congress has been
heretofore extended, and provides that, when other new states shall be
admitted into the union, they shall receive their share of the common
fund.
* * * * *
Mr. President, I have ever regarded, with feelings of the profoundest
regret, the decision which the president of the United States felt
himself induced to make on the bill of 1833. If the bill had passed,
about twenty millions of dollars would have been, during the last three
years, in the hands of the several states, applicable by them to the
beneficent purposes of internal improvement, education or colonization.
What immense benefits might not have been diffused throughout the land
by the active employment of that large sum? What new channels of
commerce and communication might not have been opened? What industry
stimulated, what labor rewarded? How many youthful minds might have
received the blessings of education and knowledge, and been rescued from
ignorance, vice, and ruin? How many descendants of Africa might have
been transported from a country where they never can enjoy political or
social equality, to the native land of their fathers, where no
impediment exists to their attainment of the highest degree of
elevation, intellectual, social and political! where they might have
been successful instruments, in the hands of God, to spread the religion
of His Son, and to lay the foundation of civil liberty.
But, although we have lost three precious years, the secretary of the
treasury tells us that the principal of this vast sum is yet safe; and
much good may still be achieved with it. The spirit of improvement
pervades the land in every variety of form, active, vigorous and
enterprising, wanting pecuniary aid as well as intelligent direction.
The states are strengthening the union by various lines of communication
thrown across and through the mountains. New York has completed one
great chain. Pennsylvania another, bolder in conception and more arduous
in the execution. Virginia has a similar work in progress, worthy of all
her enterprise and energy. A fourth, further south, where the parts of
the union are too loosely connected, has been projected, and it can
certainly be executed with the supplies which this bill affords, and
perhaps not without them.
This bill passed, and these and other similar undertakings completed, we
may indulge the patriotic hope that our union will be bound by ties and
interests that render it indissoluble. As the general government
withholds all direct agency from these truly national works, and from
all new objects of internal improvement, ought it not to yield to the
states, what is their own, the amount received from the public lands? It
would thus but execute faithfully a trust expressly created by the
original deeds of cession, or resulting from the treaties of
acquisition. With this ample resource, every desirable object of
improvement, in every part of our extensive country, may in due time be
accomplished.—Placing this exhaustless fund in the hands of the several
members of the confederacy, their common federal head may address them
in the glowing language of the British bard, and,
Bid harbors open, public ways extend,
Bid temples worthier of the God ascend.
Bid the broad arch the dangerous flood contain,
The mole projecting break the roaring main.
Back to his bounds their subject sea command,
And roll obedient rivers through the land.
I confess I feel anxious for the fate of this measure, less on account
of any agency I have had in proposing it, as I hope and believe, than
from a firm, sincere and thorough conviction, that no one measure ever
presented to the councils of the nation, was fraught with so much
unmixed good, and could exert such powerful and enduring influence in
the preservation of the union itself and upon some of its highest
interests. If I can be instrumental, in any degree, in the adoption of
it, I shall enjoy, in that retirement into which I hope shortly to
enter, a heart-feeling satisfaction and a lasting consolation. I shall
carry there no regrets, no complaints, no reproaches on my own account.
When I look back upon my humble origin, left an orphan too young to have
been conscious of a father’s smiles and caresses; with a widowed mother,
surrounded by a numerous offspring, in the midst of pecuniary
embarrassments; without a regular education, without fortune, without
friends, without patrons, I have reason to be satisfied with my public
career. I ought to be thankful for the high places and honors to which I
have been called by the favor and partiality of my countrymen, and I am
thankful and grateful. And I shall take with me the pleasing
consciousness that in whatever station I have been placed, I have
earnestly and honestly labored to justify their confidence by a
faithful, fearless, and zealous discharge of my public duties. Pardon
these personal allusions.
Speech of John C. Calhoun,
_Against the Public Lands Bill, January 23, 1841_.
“Whether the government can constitutionally distribute the revenue from
the public lands among the states must depend on the fact whether they
belong to them in their united federal character, or individually and
separately. If in the former, it is manifest that the government, as
their common agent or trustee, can have no right to distribute among
them, for their individual, separate use, a fund derived from property
held in their united and federal character, without a special power for
that purpose which is not pretended. A position so clear of itself and
resting on the established principles of law, when applied to
individuals holding property in like manner, needs no illustration. If,
on the contrary, they belong to the states in their individual and
separate character, then the government would not only have the right
but would be bound to apply the revenue to the separate use of the
states. So far is incontrovertible, which presents the question: In
which of the two characters are the lands held by the state?
“To give a satisfactory answer to this question, it will be necessary to
distinguish between the lands that have been ceded by the states, and
those that have been purchased by the government out of the common funds
of the Union.
“The principal cessions were made by Virginia and Georgia. The former of
all the tract of country between the Ohio, the Mississippi, and the
lakes, including the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan,
and the territory of Wisconsin; and the latter, of the tract included in
Alabama and Mississippi. I shall begin with the cession of Virginia, as
it is on that the advocates for the distribution mainly rely to
establish the right.
“I hold in my hand an extract of all that portion of the Virginia deed
of cession which has any bearing on the point at issue, taken from the
volume lying on the table before me, with the place marked, and to which
any one desirous of examining the deed may refer. The cession is ‘to the
United States in Congress assembled, for the benefit of said states.’
Every word implies the states in their united federal character. That is
the meaning of the phrase United States. It stands in contradistinction
to the states taken separately and individually; and if there could be,
by possibility, any doubt on that point, it would be removed by the
expression ‘in Congress assembled’—an assemblage which constituted the
very knot that united them. I regard the execution of such a deed to the
United States, so assembled, so conclusive that the cession was to them
in their united and aggregate character, in contradistinction to their
individual and separate character, and, by necessary consequence, that
the lands so ceded belonged to them in their former and not in their
latter character, that I am at a loss for words to make it clearer. To
deny it, would be to deny that there is any truth in language.
“But strong as this is, it is not all. The deed proceeds and says, that
all the lands so ceded ‘shall be considered a common fund for the use
and benefit of such of the United States as have become, or shall
become, members of the confederation or federal alliance of said states,
Virginia inclusive,’ and concludes by saying, ‘and shall be faithfully
and bona fide disposed of for that purpose, and for no other use or
purpose whatever.’ If it were possible to raise a doubt before, those
full, clear, and explicit terms would dispel it. It is impossible for
language to be clearer. To be ‘considered a common fund’ is an
expression directly in contradistinction to separate or individual, and
is, by necessary implication, as clear a negative of the latter as if it
had been positively expressed. This common fund to ‘be for the use and
benefit of such of the United States as have become, or shall become,
members of the confederation or federal alliance.’ That is as clear as
language can express it, for their common use in their united federal
character, Virginia being included as the grantor, out of abundant
caution.”
“The Senator from Kentucky (Mr. Clay), and, as I now understand, the
Senator from Massachusetts (Mr. Webster), agree, that the revenue from
taxes can be applied only to the objects specifically enumerated in the
Constitution. Thus repudiating the general welfare principle, as applied
to the money power, so far as the revenue may be derived from that
source. To this extent they profess to be good State Rights Jeffersonian
Republicans. Now, sir, I would be happy to be informed by either of the
able senators, by what political alchemy the revenue from taxes, by
being vested in land, or other property, can, when again turned into
revenue by sales, be entirely freed from all the constitutional
restrictions to which they were liable before the investment, according
to their own confessions. A satisfactory explanation of so curious and
apparently incomprehensible a process would be a treat.
“When I look, Mr. President, to what induced the states, and especially
Virginia, to make this magnificent cession to the Union, and the high
and patriotic motives urged by the old Congress to induce them to do it,
and turn to what is now proposed, I am struck with the contrast and the
great mutation to which human affairs are subject. The great and
patriotic men of former times regarded it as essential to the
consummation of the Union and the preservation of the public faith that
the lands should be ceded as a common fund; but now, men distinguished
for their ability and influence are striving with all their might to
undo their holy work. Yes, sir; distribution and cession are the very
reverse, in character and effect; the tendency of one is to union, and
the other to disunion. The wisest of modern statesmen, and who had the
keenest and deepest glance into futurity (Edmund Burke), truly said that
the revenue is the state; to which I add, that to distribute the
revenue, in a confederated community, amongst its members, is to
dissolve the community—that is, with us, the Union—as time will prove,
if ever this fatal measure should be adopted.”
Speech of Hon. Robt. Y. Hayne
_Senator from South Carolina, delivered in the Senate Chamber January
21, 1830, on Mr. Foot’s resolution relating to the sales of the public
lands._
Mr. Hayne said, when he took occasion, two days ago, to throw out some
ideas with respect to the policy of the government, in relation to the
public lands, nothing certainly could have been further from his
thoughts, than that he should have been compelled again to throw himself
upon the indulgence of the Senate. Little did I expect, said Mr. H., to
be called upon to meet such an argument as was yesterday urged by the
gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Webster.) Sir, I questioned no man’s
opinions; I impeached no man’s motives; I charged no party, or state, or
section of country with hostility to any other, but ventured, as I
thought, in a becoming spirit to put forth my own sentiments in relation
to a great national question of public policy. Such was my course. The
gentleman from Missouri, (Mr. Benton,) it is true, had charged upon the
Eastern States an early and continued hostility towards the west, and
referred to a number of historical facts and documents in support of
that charge. Now, sir, how have these different arguments been met? The
honorable gentleman from Massachusetts, after deliberating a whole night
upon his course, comes into this chamber to vindicate New England; and
instead of making up his issue with the gentleman from Missouri, on the
charges which _he had preferred_, chooses to consider me as the author
of those charges, and losing sight entirely of that gentleman, selects
me as his adversary, and pours out all the vials of his mighty wrath
upon my devoted head. Nor is he willing to stop there. He goes on to
assail the institutions and policy of the south, and calls in question
the principles and conduct of the state which I have the honor to
represent. When I find a gentleman of mature age and experience, of
acknowledged talents and profound sagacity, pursuing a course like this,
declining the contest offered from the west, and making war upon the
unoffending south, I must believe, I am bound to believe, he has some
object in view which he has not ventured to disclose. Mr. President, why
is this? Has the gentleman discovered in former controversies with the
gentleman from Missouri, that he is overmatched by that senator? And
does he hope for an easy victory over a more feeble adversary? Has the
gentleman’s distempered fancy been disturbed by gloomy forebodings of
“new alliances to be formed,” at which he hinted? Has the ghost of the
murdered COALITION come back, like the ghost of Banquo, to “sear the
eyeballs of the gentleman,” and will it not down at his bidding? Are
dark visions of broken hopes, and honors lost forever, still floating
before his heated imagination? Sir, if it be his object to thrust me
between the gentleman from Missouri and himself, in order to rescue the
east from the contest it has provoked with the west, he shall not be
gratified. Sir, I will not be dragged into the defence of my friend from
Missouri. The south shall not be forced into a conflict not its own. The
gentleman from Missouri is able to fight his own battles. The gallant
west needs no aid from the south to repel any attack which may be made
on them from any quarter. Let the gentleman from Massachusetts
controvert the facts and arguments of the gentleman from Missouri, if he
can—and if he win the victory, let him wear the honors; I shall not
deprive him of his laurels.
The gentleman from Massachusetts, in reply to my remarks on the
injurious operations of our land system on the prosperity of the west,
pronounced an extravagant eulogium on the paternal care which the
government had extended towards the west, to which he attributed all
that was great and excellent in the present condition of the new states.
The language of the gentleman on this topic fell upon my ears like the
almost forgotten tones of the tory leaders of the British Parliament, at
the commencement of the American revolution. They, too, discovered that
the colonies had grown great under the fostering care of the mother
country; and I must confess, while listening to the gentleman, I thought
the appropriate reply to his argument was to be found in the remark of a
celebrated orator, made on that occasion: “They have grown great in
spite of your protection.”
The gentleman, in commenting on the policy of the government in relation
to the new states, has introduced to our notice a certain _Nathan Dane_,
of Massachusetts, to whom he attributes the celebrated ordinance of ’87,
by which he tells us, “_slavery_ was forever excluded from the new
states north of the Ohio.” After eulogizing the wisdom of this provision
in terms of the most extravagant praise, he breaks forth in admiration
of the greatness of Nathan Dane—and great indeed he must be, if it be
true, as stated by the senator from Massachusetts, that “he was greater
than Solon and Lycurgus, Minos, Numa Pompilius, and all the legislators
and philosophers of the world,” ancient and modern. Sir, to such high
authority it is certainly my duty, in a becoming spirit of humility, to
submit. And yet, the gentleman will pardon me, when I say, that it is a
little unfortunate for the fame of this great legislator, that the
gentleman from Missouri should have proved that he was not the author of
the ordinance of ’87, on which the senator from Massachusetts has reared
so glorious a monument to his name. Sir, I doubt not the senator will
feel some compassion for our ignorance, when I tell him, that so little
are we acquainted with the modern great men of New England, that until
he informed us yesterday that we possessed a Solon and a Lycurgus in the
person of Nathan Dane, he was only known to the south as a member of a
celebrated assembly, called and known by the name of the “Hartford
Convention.” In the proceedings of that assembly, which I hold in my
hand, (at p. 19,) will be found in a few lines, the history of Nathan
Dane; and a little farther on, there is conclusive evidence of that
ardent devotion to the interest of the new states, which, it seems, has
given him a just claim to the title of “Father of the West.” By the 2d
resolution of the “Hartford Convention,” it is declared, “that it is
expedient to attempt to make provision _for restraining Congress in the
exercise of an unlimited power to make new states_, and admitting them
into the Union.” So much for Nathan Dane, of Beverly, Massachusetts.
In commenting upon my views in relation to the public lands, the
gentleman insists, that it being one of the conditions of the grants
that these lands should be applied to “the common benefit of all the
states, they must always remain _a fund for revenue_;” and adds, “they
must be _treated as so much treasure_.” Sir, the gentleman could hardly
find language strong enough to convey his disapprobation of the policy
which I had ventured to recommend to the favorable consideration of the
country. And what, sir, was that policy, and what is the difference
between that gentleman and myself on that subject? I threw out the idea
that the public lands ought not to be reserved forever, as “a great fund
for revenue;” that they ought not to be “treated as a great treasure;”
but that the course of our policy should rather be directed toward the
creation of new states, and building up great and flourishing
communities.
Now, sir, will it be believed, by those who now hear me,—and who
listened to the gentleman’s denunciation of my doctrines yesterday,—that
a book then lay open before him—nay, that he held it in his hand, and
read from it certain passages of his own speech, delivered to the House
of Representatives in 1825, in which speech he himself contended for the
very doctrine I had advocated, and almost in the same terms? Here is the
speech of the Hon. Daniel Webster, contained in the first volume of
Gales and Seaton’s Register of Debates, (p. 251,) delivered in the House
of Representatives on the 18th of January, 1825, in a debate on the
_Cumberland road_—the very debate from which the senator read yesterday.
I shall read from the celebrated speech two passages, from which it will
appear that both as to _the past_ and the _future policy_ of the
government in relation to the public lands, the gentleman from
Massachusetts maintained, in 1825, substantially the same opinions which
I have advanced, but which he now so strongly reprobates. I said, sir,
that the system of _credit sales_ by which the west had been kept
constantly in debt to the United States, and by which their wealth was
drained off to be expended elsewhere, had operated injuriously on their
prosperity. On this point the gentleman from Massachusetts, in January,
1825, expressed himself thus: “There could be no doubt, if gentlemen
looked at the money received into the treasury from the sale of the
public lands to the west, and then looked to the whole amount expended
by government, (even including the whole amount of what was laid out for
the army,) the latter must be allowed to be very inconsiderable, and
_there must be a constant drain of money from the west to pay for the
public lands_.” It might indeed be said that this was no more than the
refluence of capital which had previously gone over the mountains. Be it
so. Still its practical effect was to produce inconvenience, _if not
distress, by absorbing the money of the people_.
I contended that the public lands ought not to be treated merely as “a
fund for revenue;” that they ought not to be hoarded “as a great
treasure.” On this point the senator expressed himself thus:
“Government, he believed, had received eighteen or twenty millions of
dollars from the public lands, and it was with the greatest satisfaction
he adverted to the change which had been introduced in the mode of
paying for them; _yet he could never think the national domain was to be
regarded as any great source of revenue_. The great object of the
government, in respect of these lands, was not so much _the money
derived from their sale_, as it was _the getting them settled_. What he
meant to say was, _he did not think they ought to hug that domain_ AS A
GREAT TREASURE, _to enrich the Exchequer_.”
Now, Mr. President, it will be seen that the very doctrines which the
gentleman so indignantly abandons were urged by him in 1825; and if I
had actually borrowed my sentiments from those which he then avowed, I
could not have followed more closely in his footsteps. Sir, it is only
since the gentleman quoted this book, yesterday, that my attention has
been turned to the sentiments he expressed in 1825; and if I had
remembered them, I might possibly have been deterred from uttering
sentiments here, which, it might well be supposed, I had borrowed from
that gentleman.
In 1825, the gentleman told the world that the public lands “ought not
to be treated as a treasure.” He now tells us that “they must be treated
as so much treasure.” What the deliberate opinion of the gentleman on
this subject may be, belongs not to me to determine; but I do not think
he can, with the shadow of justice or propriety, impugn my sentiments,
while his own recorded opinions are identical with my own. When the
gentleman refers to the conditions of the grants under which the United
States have acquired these lands, and insists that, as they are declared
to be “for the common benefit of all the states,” they can only be
treated as so much treasure, I think he has applied a rule of
construction too narrow for the case. If in the deeds of cession it has
been declared that the grants were intended for “the common benefit of
all the states,” it is clear, from other provisions, that they were not
intended merely as _so much property_; for it is expressly declared,
that the object of the grants is the erection of new states; and the
United States, in accepting this trust, bind themselves to facilitate
the foundation of these states, to be admitted into the Union with all
the rights and privileges of the original states. This, sir, was the
great end to which all parties looked, and it is by the fulfillment of
this high trust that “the common benefit of all the states” is to be
best promoted. Sir, let me tell the gentleman, that in the part of the
country in which I live, we do not measure political benefits by the
_money standard_. We consider as more valuable than gold liberty,
principle, and justice. But, sir, if we are bound to act on the narrow
principles contended for by the gentleman, I am wholly at a loss to
conceive how he can reconcile his principles with his own practice. The
lands are, it seems, to be treated “as so much treasure,” and must be
applied to the “common benefit of all the states.” Now, if this be so,
whence does he derive the right to appropriate them for partial and
local objects? How can the gentleman consent to vote away immense bodies
of these lands for canals in Indiana and Illinois, to the Louisville and
Portland Canal, to Kenyon College in Ohio, to Schools for the Deaf and
Dumb, and other objects of a similar description? If grants of this
character can fairly be considered as made “for the common benefit of
all the states,” it can only be, because all the states are interested
in the welfare of each—a principle which, carried to the full extent,
destroys all distinction between local and national objects, and is
certainly _broad enough_ to embrace the principles for which I have
ventured to contend. Sir, the true difference between us I take to be
this: the gentleman wishes to treat the public lands as a great
treasure, just as so much money in the treasury, to be applied to all
objects, constitutional and unconstitutional, to which the public money
is constantly applied. I consider it as a sacred trust which we ought to
fulfil, on the principles for which I have contended.
The senator from Massachusetts has thought proper to present, in strong
contrast, the friendly feelings of the east towards the west, with
sentiments of an opposite character displayed by the south in relation
to appropriations for _internal improvements_. Now, sir, let it be
recollected that the south have made no professions; I have certainly
made none in their behalf, of regard for the west. It has been reserved
for the gentleman from Massachusetts, while he vaunts over his own
personal devotion to western interests, to claim for the entire section
of country to which he belongs an ardent friendship for the west, as
manifested by their support of the system of internal improvement, while
he casts in our teeth the reproach that the south has manifested
hostility to western interests in opposing appropriations for such
objects. That gentleman, at the same time, acknowledged that the south
entertains _constitutional scruples_ on this subject. Are we then, sir,
to understand that the gentleman considers it a just subject of reproach
that we respect our oaths, by which we are bound “to preserve, protect,
and defend the constitution of the U. States?” Would the gentleman have
us manifest our love to the west by trampling under foot our
constitutional scruples? Does he not perceive, if the south is to _be
reproached_ with unkindness to the west, in voting against
appropriations which the gentleman admits they could not vote for
without doing violence to their constitutional opinions, that he exposes
himself to the question, whether, if he was in our situation, he could
vote for these appropriations, regardless of his scruples? No, sir, I
will not do the gentleman so great injustice. He has fallen into this
error from not having duly weighed the force and effect of the reproach
which he was endeavoring to cast upon the south. In relation to the
other point, the friendship manifested by New England towards the west,
in their support of the system of internal improvement, the gentleman
will pardon me for saying, that I think he is equally unfortunate in
having introduced that topic. As that gentleman has forced it upon us,
however, I cannot suffer it to pass unnoticed. When the gentleman tells
us that the appropriations for internal improvement in the west would,
in almost every instance, have failed but for New England votes, he has
forgotten to tell us the _when_, the _how_, and the _wherefore_ this
new-born zeal for the west sprung up in the bosom of New England. If we
look back only a few years, we will find in both houses of Congress a
uniform and steady opposition on the part of the members from the
Eastern States, generally, to all appropriations of this character. At
the time I became a member of this house, and for some time afterwards,
a decided majority of the New England senators were opposed to the very
measures which the senator from Massachusetts tells us they now
cordially support. Sir, the Journals are before me, and an examination
of them will satisfy every gentleman of that fact.
It must be well known to every one whose experience dates back as far as
1825, that up to a certain period, New England was generally opposed to
appropriations for internal improvements in the west. The gentleman from
Massachusetts may be himself an exception, but if he went for the system
before 1825, it is certain that his colleagues did not go with him.
In the session of 1824 and ’25, however, (a memorable era in the history
of this country,) a wonderful change took place in New England, in
relation to western interests. Sir, an extraordinary union of sympathies
and of interests was then effected, which brought the east and the west
into close alliance. The book from which I have before read contains the
first public annunciation of that happy reconciliation of conflicting
interests, personal and political, which brought the east and west
together and locked in a fraternal embrace the two great orators of the
east and the west. Sir, it was on the 18th of January, 1825, while the
result of the presidential election, in the House of Representatives,
was still doubtful, while the whole country was looking with intense
anxiety to that legislative hall where the mighty drama was so soon to
be acted, that we saw the leaders of two great parties in the house and
in the nation, “taking sweet counsel together,” and in a celebrated
debate on the _Cumberland road_, fighting side by side for _western
interests_. It was on that memorable occasion that the senator from
Massachusetts _held out the white flag to the west_, and uttered those
liberal sentiments which he yesterday so indignantly repudiated. Then it
was, that that happy union between the two members of the celebrated
_coalition_ was consummated, whose immediate issue was a president from
_one quarter of the Union_, with the succession (as it was supposed)
_secured to another_. The “American system,” before a rude, disjointed,
and misshapen mass, now assumed form and consistency. Then it was that
it became “the settled policy of the government,” that this system
should be so administered as to create a reciprocity of interests and a
reciprocal distribution of government favors, east and west, (the tariff
and internal improvements,) while the south—yes, sir, the impracticable
south—was to be “out of your protection.” The gentleman may boast as
much as he pleases of the friendship of New England for the west, as
displayed in their support of internal improvement; but when he next
introduces that topic, I trust that he will tell us _when_ that
friendship commenced, _how_ it was brought about, and _why_ it was
established. Before I leave this topic, I must be permitted to say that
the true character of the policy now pursued by the gentleman from
Massachusetts and his friends, in relation to appropriations of land and
money, for the benefit of the west, is in my estimation very similar to
that pursued by Jacob of old towards his brother Esau: “it robs them of
their birthright for a mess of pottage.”
The gentleman from Massachusetts, in alluding to a remark of mine, that
before any disposition could be made of the public lands, the _national
debt_, for which they stand pledged, must be first paid, took occasion
to intimate “that the _extraordinary fervor_ which seems to exist in a
_certain quarter_, (meaning the south, sir,) for the payment of the
debt, arises from a disposition _to weaken the ties which bind the
people to the Union_.” While the gentleman deals us this blow, he
professes an ardent desire to see the debt speedily extinguished. He
must excuse me, however, for feeling some distrust on that subject until
I find this disposition manifested by something stronger than
professions. I shall look for acts, decided and unequivocal acts; for
the performance of which an opportunity will very soon (if I am not
greatly mistaken) be afforded. Sir, if I were at liberty to judge of the
course which that gentleman would pursue, from the principles which he
has laid down in relation to this matter, I should be bound to conclude
that he will be found acting with those with whom it is a darling object
to prevent the payment of the public debt. He tells us he is desirous of
paying the debt, “because we are under an obligation to discharge it.”
Now, sir, suppose it should happen that the public creditors, with whom
we have contracted the obligation, should release us from it, so far as
to declare their willingness to wait for payment for fifty years to
come, provided only the interest shall be punctually discharged. The
gentleman from Massachusetts will then be released from the obligation
which now makes him desirous of paying the debt; and, let me tell the
gentleman, the holders of the stock will not only release us from this
obligation, but they will implore, nay, they will even _pay us_ not to
pay them. But, adds the gentleman, so far as the debt may have an effect
in binding the debtors to the country, and thereby serving as a link to
hold the states together, he would be glad that it should exist forever.
Surely then, sir, on the gentleman’s own principles, he must be opposed
to the payment of the debt.
Sir, let me tell that gentleman, that the south repudiates the idea that
a _pecuniary dependence_ on the federal government is one of the
legitimate means of holding the states together. A moneyed interest in
the government is essentially a base interest; and just so far as it
operates to bind the feelings of those who are subjected to it to the
government,—just so far as it operates in creating sympathies and
interests that would not otherwise exist,—is it opposed to all the
principles of free government, and at war with virtue and patriotism.
Sir, the link which binds the public creditors, _as such_, to their
country, binds them equally to all governments, whether arbitrary or
free. In a free government, this principle of abject dependence, if
extended through all the ramifications of society, must be fatal to
liberty. Already have we made alarming strides in that direction. The
entire class of manufacturers, the holders of stocks, with their
hundreds of millions of capital, are held to the government by the
strong link of _pecuniary interests_; millions of people—entire sections
of country, interested, or believing themselves to be so, in the public
lands, and the public treasure—are bound to the government by the
expectation of _pecuniary favors_. If this system is carried much
further, no man can fail to see that every generous motive of attachment
to the country will be destroyed, and in its place will spring up those
low, grovelling, base, and selfish feelings which bind men to the
footstool of a despot by bonds as strong and enduring as those which
attach them to free institutions. Sir, I would lay the foundation of
this government in the affections of the people—I would teach them to
cling to it by dispensing equal justice, and above all, by securing the
“blessings of liberty” to “themselves and to their posterity.”
The honorable gentleman from Massachusetts has gone out of his way to
pass a high eulogium on the state of Ohio. In the most impassioned tones
of eloquence, he described her majestic march to greatness. He told us,
that, having already left all the other states far behind, she was now
passing by Virginia and Pennsylvania, and about to take her station by
the side of New York. To all this, sir, I was disposed most cordially to
respond. When, however, the gentleman proceeded to contrast the state of
Ohio with Kentucky, to the disadvantage of the latter, I listened to him
with regret; and when he proceeded further to attribute the great, and,
as he supposed, acknowledged superiority of the former in population,
wealth, and general prosperity, to the policy of Nathan Dane, of
Massachusetts, which had secured to the people of Ohio (by the ordinance
of ’87) _a population of freemen_, I will confess that my feelings
suffered a revulsion which I am now unable to describe in any language
sufficiently respectful towards the gentleman from Massachusetts. In
contrasting the state of Ohio with Kentucky, for the purpose of pointing
out _the superiority of the former_, and of attributing that superiority
to _the existence of slavery_ in the one state, and its absence in the
other, I thought I could discern _the very spirit of the Missouri
question_, intruded into this debate, for objects best known to the
gentleman himself. Did that gentleman, sir, when he formed the
determination to cross the southern border, in order to invade the state
of South Carolina, deem it prudent or necessary to enlist under his
banners _the prejudices of the world_, which, like _Swiss troops_, may
be engaged in any cause, and are prepared to serve under any leader? Did
he desire to avail himself of those remorseless allies, _the passions of
mankind_, of which it may be more truly said than of the savage tribes
of the wilderness, “that their known rule of warfare is an
indiscriminate slaughter of all ages, sexes, and conditions?” Or was it
supposed, sir, that, in a premeditated and unprovoked attack upon the
south, it was advisable to begin by a gentle admonition of _our supposed
weakness_, in order to prevent us from making that firm and manly
resistance due to our own character and our dearest interests? Was the
_significant hint_ of the _weakness of slaveholding states_, when
contrasted with _the superior strength of free states_,—like the glare
of the weapon half drawn from its scabbard,—intended to enforce the
lessons of prudence and of patriotism, which the gentleman had resolved,
out of his abundant generosity, gratuitously to bestow upon us? Mr.
President, the impression which has gone abroad of the _weakness of the
south_, as connected with the _slave question_, exposes us to such
constant attacks, has done us so much injury, and is calculated to
produce such infinite mischiefs, that I embrace the occasion presented
by the remarks of the gentleman of Massachusetts, to declare that we are
ready to meet the question promptly and fearlessly. It is one from which
we are not disposed to shrink, in whatever form or under whatever
circumstances it may be pressed upon us.
We are ready to make up the issue with the gentleman, as to the
influence of slavery on individual or national character—on the
prosperity and greatness, either of the United States or of particular
states. Sir, when arraigned before the bar of public opinion, on this
charge of slavery, we can stand up with conscious rectitude, plead not
guilty, and put ourselves upon God and our country. Sir, we will not
consent to look at slavery in the abstract. We will not stop to inquire
whether the black man, as some philosophers have contended, is of an
inferior race, nor whether his color and condition are the effects of a
curse inflicted for the offences of his ancestors. We deal in no
_abstractions_. We will not look back to inquire whether our fathers
were guiltless in introducing slaves into this country. If an inquiry
should ever be instituted in these matters, however, it will be found
that the profits of the slave trade were not confined to the south.
Southern ships and southern sailors were not the instruments of bringing
slaves to the shores of America, nor did our merchants reap the profits
of that “accursed traffic.” But, sir, we will pass over all this. If
slavery, as it now exists in this country, be an evil, we of the present
day _found it ready made to our hands_. Finding our lot cast among a
people whom God had manifestly committed to our care, we did not sit
down to speculate on abstract questions of theoretical liberty. We met
it as a practical question of _obligation and duty_. We resolved to make
the best of the situation in which Providence had placed us, and to
fulfil the high trusts which had devolved upon us as the owners of
slaves, in the only way in which such a trust could be fulfilled,
without spreading misery and ruin throughout the land. We found that we
had to deal with a people whose physical, moral, and intellectual habits
and character totally disqualified them from the enjoyment of the
blessings of freedom. We could not send them back to the shores from
whence their fathers had been taken; their numbers forbade the thought,
even if we did not know that their condition here is infinitely
preferable to what it possibly could be among the barren sands and
savage tribes of Africa; and it was wholly irreconcilable with all our
notions of humanity to tear asunder the tender ties which they had
formed among us, to gratify the feelings of a false philanthropy. What a
commentary on the wisdom, justice, and humanity of the southern slave
owner is presented by the example of certain benevolent associations and
charitable individuals _elsewhere_! Shedding weak tears over sufferings
which had existence in their own sickly imaginations, these “friends of
humanity” set themselves systematically to work to seduce the slaves of
the south from their masters. By means of missionaries and political
tracts, the scheme was in a great measure successful. Thousands of these
deluded victims of fanaticism were seduced into the enjoyment of freedom
in our northern cities. And what has been the consequence? Go to these
cities now and ask the question. Visit the dark and narrow lanes, and
obscure recesses, which have been assigned by common consent as the
abodes of those outcasts of the world, the free people of color. Sir,
there does not exist, on the face of the whole earth, a population so
poor, so wretched, so vile, so loathsome, so utterly destitute of all
the comforts, conveniences, and decencies of life, as the unfortunate
blacks of Philadelphia, and New York, and Boston. Liberty has been to
them the greatest of calamities, the heaviest of curses. Sir, I have had
some opportunities of making comparison between the condition of the
free negroes of the north and the slaves of the south, and the
comparison has left not only an indelible impression of the superior
advantages of the latter, but has gone far to reconcile me to slavery
itself. Never have I felt so forcibly that touching description, “the
foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of
man hath not where to lay his head,” as when I have seen this unhappy
race, naked and houseless, almost starving in the streets, and abandoned
by all the world. Sir, I have seen in the neighborhood of one of the
most moral, religious, and refined cities of the north, a family of free
blacks, driven to the caves of the rocks, and there obtaining a
precarious subsistence from charity and plunder.
When the gentleman from Massachusetts adopts and reiterates the old
charge of weakness as resulting from slavery, I must be permitted to
call for the proof of those blighting effects which he ascribes to its
influence. I suspect that when the subject is closely examined, it will
be found that there is not much force even in the plausible objection of
the want of physical power in slaveholding states. The power of a
country is compounded of its population and its wealth, and in modern
times, where, from the very form and structure of society, by far the
greater portion of the people must, even during the continuance of the
most desolating wars, be employed in the cultivation of the soil and
other peaceful pursuits, it may be well doubted whether slaveholding
states, by reason of the superior value of their productions, are not
able to maintain a number of troops in the field fully equal to what
could be supported by states with a larger white population, but not
possessed of equal resources.
It is a popular error to suppose that, in any possible state of things,
the people of a country could ever be called out _en masse_, or that a
half, or a third, or even a fifth part of the physical force of any
country could ever be brought into the field. The difficulty is, not to
procure men, but to provide _the means of maintaining them_; and in this
view of the subject, it may be asked whether the Southern States are not
a source of _strength_ and _power_, and not of _weakness_, to the
country—whether they have not contributed, and are not now contributing,
largely to the wealth and prosperity of every state in this Union. From
a statement which I hold in my hand, it appears that in ten years—from
1818 to 1827, inclusive—the whole amount of the domestic exports of the
United States was $521,811,045; of which three articles, (_the product
of slave labor_,) viz., cotton, rice, and tobacco, amounted to
$339,203,232—equal to _about two-thirds of the whole_. It is not true,
as has been supposed, that the advantage of this labor is confined
almost exclusively to the Southern States. Sir, I am thoroughly
convinced that, at this time, _the states north of the Potomac actually
derive greater profits from the labor of our slaves than we do
ourselves_. It appears from our public documents, that in seven
years—from 1821 to 1827, inclusive—the six Southern States _exported_
$190,337,281, and _imported_ only $55,646,301. Now, the difference
between these two sums (near $140,000,000) _passed through the hands of
the northern merchants_, and enabled them to carry on their commercial
operations with all the world. Such part of these goods as found its way
back to our hands came charged with the duties, as well as the profits,
of the merchant, the ship owner, and a host of others, who found
employment in carrying on these immense exchanges; and for such part as
was consumed at the north, we received in exchange _northern
manufactures_, charged with an increased price, to cover all the taxes
which the northern consumer had been compelled to pay on the imported
article. It will be seen, therefore, at a glance, how much slave labor
has contributed to the wealth and prosperity of the United States, and
how largely our northern brethren have participated in the profits of
that labor. Sir, on this subject I will quote an authority, which will,
I doubt not, be considered by the Senator from Massachusetts as entitled
to high respect. It is from the great father of the “American System,”
_honest Matthew Carey_—no great friend, it is true, at this time, to
southern rights and southern interests, but not the worst authority on
that account, _on the point in question_.
Speaking of the _relative importance to the Union_ of the SOUTHERN and
the EASTERN STATES, Matthew Carey, in the sixth edition of his Olive
Branch, (p. 278,) after exhibiting a number of statistical tables to
show the decided superiority of the former, thus proceeds:—
“But I am tired of this investigation—I sicken for the honor of the
human species. What idea must the world form of the arrogance of the
pretensions of the one side, [the east,] and of the folly and weakness
of the rest of the Union, to have so long suffered them to pass without
exposure and detection. The naked fact is, that the demagogues in the
Eastern States, not satisfied _with deriving all the benefit from the
southern section of the Union that they would from so many wealthy
colonies_—with making princely fortunes by the carriage and exportation
of its bulky and valuable productions, and _supplying it with their own
manufactures_, and the productions of Europe and the East and West
Indies, to an enormous amount, and at an immense profit, have uniformly
treated it with outrage, insult, and injury. And, regardless of their
vital interests, the Eastern States were lately _courting their own
destruction_, by allowing a few restless, turbulent men to lead them
blindfolded _to a separation_ which was _pregnant with their certain
ruin_. Whenever that event takes place, they sink into insignificance.
If a separation were desirable to any part of the Union, it would be to
the Middle and Southern States, particularly the latter, who have been
so long harassed with the complaints, the restlessness, the turbulence,
and the ingratitude of the Eastern States, that their patience has been
tried almost beyond endurance. ‘_Jeshurun waxed fat and kicked_’—and he
will be severely punished for his kicking, in the event of a dissolution
of the Union.” Sir, I wish it to be distinctly understood that I do not
adopt these sentiments as my own. I quote them to show that very
different sentiments have prevailed in former times as to the weakness
of the slaveholding states from those which now seem to have become
fashionable in certain quarters. I know it has been supposed by certain
ill-informed persons, that the south exists only by the countenance and
protection of the north. Sir, this is the idlest of all idle and
ridiculous fancies that ever entered into the mind of man. In every
state of this Union, except one, the free white population actually
preponderates; while in the British West India Islands, (where the
average white population is _less than ten per cent. of the whole_,) the
slaves are kept in entire subjection: it is preposterous to suppose that
the Southern States could ever find the smallest difficulty in this
respect. On this subject, as in all others, we ask nothing of our
northern brethren but to “let us alone.” Leave us to the undisturbed
management of our domestic concerns, and the direction of our own
industry, and we will ask no more. Sir, all our difficulties on this
subject have arisen from interference from abroad, which has disturbed,
and may again disturb, our domestic tranquillity just so far as to bring
down punishment upon the heads of the unfortunate victims of a fanatical
and mistaken humanity.
There is a _spirit_, which, like the father of evil, is constantly
“walking to and fro about the earth, seeking whom it may devour:” it is
the spirit of FALSE PHILANTHROPY. The persons whom it possesses do not
indeed throw themselves into the flames, but they are employed in
lighting up the torches of discord throughout the community. Their first
principle of action is to leave their own affairs, and neglect their own
duties, to regulate the affairs and duties of others. Theirs is the task
to feed the hungry, and clothe the naked, of other lands, while they
thrust the naked, famished, and shivering beggar from their own doors;
to instruct the heathen, while their own children want the bread of
life. When this spirit infuses itself into the bosom of a statesman, (if
one so possessed can be called a statesman,) it converts him at once
into a visionary enthusiast. Then it is that he indulges in golden
dreams of national greatness and prosperity. He discovers that “liberty
is power,” and not content with vast schemes of improvement at home,
which it would bankrupt the treasury of the world to execute, he flies
to foreign lands, to fulfil obligations to “the human race” by
inculcating the principles of “political and religious liberty,” and
promoting the “general welfare” of the whole human race. It is a spirit
which has long been busy with the _slaves of the south_; and is even now
displaying itself in vain efforts to drive the government from its wise
policy in relation to the _Indians_. It is this spirit which has filled
the land with thousands of wild and visionary projects, which can have
no effect but to waste the energies and dissipate the resources of the
country. It is the spirit of which the aspiring politician dexterously
avails himself, when, by inscribing on his banner the magical words
LIBERTY AND PHILANTHROPY, he draws to his support that class of persons
who are ready to bow down at the very name of their idols.
But, sir, whatever difference of opinion may exist as to the effect of
slavery on national wealth and prosperity, if we may trust to
experience, there can be no doubt that it has never yet produced any
injurious effect on _individual or national character_. Look through the
whole history of the country, from the commencement of the revolution
down to the present hour; where are there to be found brighter examples
of intellectual and moral greatness than have been exhibited by the sons
of the south? From the FATHER OF HIS COUNTRY down to the DISTINGUISHED
CHIEFTAIN who has been elevated by a grateful people to the highest
office in their gift, the interval is filled up by a long line of
orators, of statesmen, and of heroes, justly entitled to rank among the
ornaments of their country, and the benefactors of mankind. Look at the
“Old Dominion,” great and magnanimous Virginia, “whose jewels are her
sons.” Is there any state in this Union which has contributed so much to
the honor and welfare of the country? Sir, I will yield the whole
question—I will acknowledge the fatal effects of slavery upon character,
if any one can say, that for noble disinterestedness, ardent love of
country, exalted virtue, and a pure and holy devotion to liberty, the
people of the Southern States have ever been surpassed by any in the
world. I know, sir, that this _devotion to liberty_ has sometimes been
supposed to be at war with our institutions; but it is in some degree
the result of those very institutions. Burke, the most philosophical of
statesmen, as he was the most accomplished of orators, well understood
the operation of this principle, in elevating the sentiments and
exalting the principles of the people in slaveholding states. I will
conclude my remarks on this branch of the subject, by reading a few
passages from his speech “on moving his resolutions for conciliation
with the colonies,” the 22d of March, 1775.
“There is a circumstance attending the southern colonies which makes the
spirit of liberty still more high and haughty than in those to the
northward. It is, that in Virginia and the Carolinas they have a _vast
multitude of slaves_. Where this is the case, in any part of the world,
those who are free are by far the most proud and jealous of their
freedom. Freedom is to them not only an enjoyment, but a kind of rank
and privilege. Not seeing there, as in countries where it is a common
blessing, and as broad and general as the air, that it may be united
with much abject toil, with great misery, with all the exterior of
servitude, liberty looks among them like something more noble and
liberal. I do not mean, sir, to commend the superior morality of this
sentiment, which has, at least, as much pride as virtue in it—but I
cannot alter the nature of man. The fact is so; and these people of the
southern colonies are much more strongly, and with a higher and more
stubborn spirit, attached to liberty than those to the northward. Such
were all the ancient commonwealths—such were our Gothic ancestors—such,
in our days, were the Poles—_and such will be all masters of slaves who
are not slaves themselves_. In such a people, the haughtiness of
domination combines with the spirit of freedom, fortifies it, _and
renders it invincible_.”
In the course of my former remarks, Mr. President, I took occasion to
deprecate, as one of the greatest evils, the _consolidation of this
government_. The gentleman takes alarm at the sound. “_Consolidation_,”
“like the _tariff_,” grates upon his ear. He tells us, “we have heard
much of late about consolidation; that it is the rallying word of all
who are endeavoring to _weaken the Union_, by adding to the power of the
states.” But consolidation (says the gentleman) was the very object for
which the Union was formed; and, in support of that opinion, he read a
passage from the address of the president of the convention to Congress,
which he assumes to be authority on his side of the question. But, sir,
the gentleman is mistaken. The object of the framers of the
constitution, as disclosed in that address, was not the _consolidation
of the government_, but “the consolidation of the Union.” It was not to
draw power from the states, in order to transfer it to a great national
government, but, in the language of the constitution itself, “to form a
more perfect Union;”—and by what means? By “establishing justice,
promoting domestic tranquillity, and securing the blessings of liberty
to ourselves and our posterity.” This is the true reading of the
constitution. But, according to the gentleman’s reading, the object of
the constitution was, to _consolidate the government_, and the means
would seem to be, the promotion of _injustice_, causing domestic
_discord_, and depriving the states and the people “of the blessings of
liberty” forever.
The gentleman boasts of belonging to the party of NATIONAL REPUBLICANS.
National Republicans! A new name, sir, for a very old thing. The
National Republicans of the present day were the _Federalists_ of ’98,
who became _Federal Republicans_ during the war of 1812, and were
_manufactured_ into _National Republicans_ somewhere about the year
1825.
_As a party_, (by whatever name distinguished,) they have always been
animated by the same principles, and have kept steadily in view a common
object, the consolidation of the government. Sir, the party to which I
am proud of having belonged, from the very commencement of my political
life to the present day, were the _Democrats of ’98_, (_Anarchists_,
_Anti-Federalists_, _Revolutionists_, I think they were sometimes
called.) They assumed the name of _Democratic-Republicans_ in 1822, and
have retained their name and principles up to the present hour. True to
their political faith, they have always, as a party, been in favor of
limitations of power; they have insisted that all powers not delegated
to the federal government are reserved, and have been constantly
struggling, as they now are, to preserve the rights of the states, and
to prevent them from being drawn into the vortex, and swallowed up by
one great consolidated government.
Sir, any one acquainted with the history of parties in this country will
recognize in the points now in dispute between the senator from
Massachusetts and myself the very grounds which have, from the
beginning, divided the two great parties in this country, and which
(call these parties by what names you will, and _amalgamate_ them as you
may) will divide them forever. The true distinction between those
parties is laid down in a celebrated manifesto, issued by the convention
of the Federalists of Massachusetts, assembled in Boston, in February,
1824, on the occasion of organizing a party opposition to the reëlection
of Governor Eustis. The gentleman will recognize this as “the canonical
book of political scripture;” and it instructs us that, when the
American colonies redeemed themselves from British bondage, and became
so many _independent nations_, they proposed to form a NATIONAL UNION,
(not a _Federal_ Union, sir, but a national Union.) Those who were in
favor of a _union of the states in this form_ became known by the name
of _Federalists_; those who wanted no union of the states, or disliked
the proposed form of union, became known by the name of
_Anti-Federalists_. By means which need not be enumerated, the
_Anti-Federalists_ became (after the expiration of twelve years) our
national rulers, and for a period of sixteen years, until the close of
Mr. Madison’s administration, in 1817, continued to exercise the
exclusive direction of our public affairs. Here, sir, is the true
history of the origin, rise, and progress of the party of _National
Republicans_, who date back to the very origin of the government, and
who, then, as now, chose to consider the constitution as having created,
not a _Federal_, but a _National Union_; who regarded “consolidation” as
no evil, and who doubtless considered it “a consummation devoutly to be
wished” to build up a great “central government,” “one and indivisible.”
Sir, there have existed, in every age and every country, two distinct
orders of men—the _lovers of freedom_, and the devoted _advocates of
power_.
The same great leading principles, modified only by the peculiarities of
manners, habits, and institutions, divided parties in the ancient
republics, animated the _whigs_ and _tories_ of Great Britain,
distinguished in our own times the _liberals_ and _ultras_ of France,
and may be traced even in the bloody struggles of unhappy Spain. Sir,
when the gallant _Riego_, who devoted himself, and all that he
possessed, to the liberties of his country, was dragged to the scaffold
followed by the tears and lamentations of every lover of freedom
throughout the world, he perished amid the deafening cries of “Long live
the absolute king!” The people whom I represent, Mr. President, are the
descendants of those who brought with them to this country, as the most
precious of their possessions, “an ardent love of liberty;” and while
that shall be preserved, they will always be found manfully struggling
against the _consolidation of the government_—AS THE WORST OF EVILS.
The senator from Massachusetts, in alluding to the tariff, becomes quite
facetious. He tells us that “he hears of nothing but _tariff, tariff,
tariff_; and, if a word could be found to rhyme with it, he presumes it
would be celebrated in verse, and set to music.” Sir, perhaps the
gentleman, _in mockery of our complaints_, may be himself disposed to
sing the praises of the tariff, in doggerel verse, to the tune of “Old
Hundred.” I am not at all surprised, however, at the aversion of the
gentleman to the very name of _tariff_. I doubt not that it must always
bring up some very unpleasant recollections to his mind. If I am not
greatly mistaken, the senator from Massachusetts was a leading actor at
a great meeting got up in Boston, in 1820, _against the tariff_. It has
generally been supposed that he drew up the resolutions adopted by that
meeting, denouncing the tariff system as unequal, oppressive, and
unjust, and if I am not much mistaken, _denying its constitutionality_.
Certain it is, that the gentleman made a speech on that occasion in
support of those resolutions, denouncing the system in no very measured
terms; and, if my memory serves me, _calling its constitutionality in
question_. I regret that I have not been able to lay my hands on those
proceedings; but I have seen them, and cannot be mistaken in their
character. At that time, sir, the senator from Massachusetts entertained
the very sentiments in relation to the tariff which the south now
entertains. We next find the senator from Massachusetts expressing his
opinion on the tariff, as a member of the House of Representatives from
the city of Boston, in 1824. On that occasion, sir, the gentleman
assumed a position which commanded the respect and admiration of his
country. He stood forth the powerful and fearless champion of _free
trade_. He met, in that conflict, the advocates of restriction and
monopoly, and they “fled from before his face.” With a profound
sagacity, a fulness of knowledge, and a richness of illustration that
have never been surpassed, he maintained and established the principles
of commercial freedom, on a foundation never to be shaken. Great indeed
was the victory achieved by the gentleman on that occasion; most
striking the contrast between the clear, forcible, and convincing
arguments by which he carried away the understandings of his hearers,
and the narrow views and wretched sophistry of _another distinguished
orator_, who may be truly said to have “held up his farthing candle to
the sun.”
Sir, the Senator from Massachusetts, on that, the proudest day of his
life, like a mighty giant, bore away upon his shoulders the pillars of
the temple of error and delusion, escaping himself unhurt, and leaving
his adversaries overwhelmed in its ruins. Then it was that he erected to
free trade a beautiful and enduring monument, and “inscribed the marble
with his name.” Mr. President, it is with pain and regret that I now go
forward to the next great era in the political life of that gentleman
when he was found on this floor, supporting, advocating, and finally
voting for the tariff of 1828—that “bill of abominations.” By that act,
sir, the senator from Massachusetts has destroyed the labors of his
whole life, and given a wound to the cause of free trade never to be
healed. Sir, when I recollect the position which that gentleman once
occupied, and that which he now holds in public estimation, in relation
to this subject, it is not at all surprising that the tariff should be
hateful to his ears. Sir, if I had erected to my own fame so proud a
monument as that which the gentleman built up in 1824, and I could have
been tempted to destroy it with my own hands, I should hate the voice
that should ring “the accursed tariff” in my ears. I doubt not the
gentleman feels very much, in relation to the tariff, as a certain
knight did to “_instinct_,” and with him would be disposed to exclaim,—
“Ah! no more of that, Hal, an thou lovest me.”
But, Mr. President, to be more serious; what are we of the south to
think of what we have heard this day? The senator from Massachusetts
tells us that the tariff is not an eastern measure, and treats it as if
the east had no interest in it. The senator from Missouri insists it is
not a western measure, and that it has done no good to the west. The
south comes in, and, in the most earnest manner, represents to you that
this measure, which we are told “is of no value to the east or the
west,” is “utterly destructive of our interests.” We represent to you
that it has spread ruin and devastation through the land, and prostrated
our hopes in the dust. We solemnly declare that we believe the system to
be wholly unconstitutional, and a violation of the compact between the
states and the Union; and our brethren _turn a deaf ear to our
complaints_, and refuse to relieve us from a system “which not enriches
them, but makes us poor indeed.” Good God! Mr. President, _has it come
to this_? Do gentlemen hold the feelings and wishes of their brethren at
so cheap a rate, that they refuse to gratify them at so small a price?
Do gentlemen value so lightly the peace and harmony of the country, that
they will not yield a measure of this description to the affectionate
entreaties and earnest remonstrances of their friends? Do gentlemen
estimate the value of the Union at so low a price, that they will not
even make one effort to bind the states together with the cords of
affection? And has it come to this? Is this the spirit in which this
government is to be administered? If so, let me tell, gentlemen, the
seeds of dissolution are already sown, and our children will reap the
bitter fruit.
The honorable gentleman from Massachusetts, (Mr. Webster,) while he
exonerates me personally from the charge, intimates that there is a
party in the country who are looking to disunion. Sir, if the gentleman
had stopped there, the accusation would have “passed by me like the idle
wind, which I regard not.” But when he goes on to give to his accusation
“a local habitation and a name,” by quoting the expression of a
distinguished citizen of South Carolina, (Dr. Cooper,) “that it was time
for the south to calculate the value of the Union,” and in the language
of the bitterest sarcasm, adds, “Surely then the Union cannot last
longer than July, 1831,” it is impossible to mistake either the allusion
or the object of the gentleman. Now, Mr. President, I call upon every
one who hears me to bear witness that this controversy is not of my
seeking. The Senate will do me the justice to remember that, at the time
this unprovoked and uncalled-for attack was made on the south, not one
word had been uttered by me in disparagement of New England; nor had I
made the most distant allusion either to the senator from Massachusetts
or the state he represents. But, sir, that gentleman has thought proper,
for purposes best known to himself, to strike the south, through me, the
most unworthy of her servants. He has crossed the border, he has invaded
the state of South Carolina, is making war upon her citizens, and
endeavoring to overthrow her principles and her institutions. Sir, when
the gentleman provokes me to such a conflict, I meet him at the
threshold; I will struggle, while I have life, for our altars and our
firesides; and, if God gives me strength, I will drive back the invader
discomfited. Nor shall I stop there. If the gentleman provokes the war,
he shall have war. Sir, I will not stop at the border; I will carry the
war into the enemy’s territory, and not consent to lay down my arms
until I have obtained “indemnity for the past and security for the
future.” It is with unfeigned reluctance, Mr. President, that I enter
upon the performance of this part of my duty; I shrink almost
instinctively from a course, however necessary, which may have a
tendency to excite sectional feelings and sectional jealousies. But,
sir, the task has been forced upon me; and I proceed right onward to the
performance of my duty. Be the consequences what they may, the
responsibility is with those who have imposed upon me this necessity.
The senator from Massachusetts has thought proper to cast the first
stone; and if he shall find, according to a homely adage, “that he lives
in a glass house,” on his head be the consequences. The gentleman has
made a great flourish about his fidelity to Massachusetts. I shall make
no professions of zeal for the interests and honor of South Carolina; of
that my constituents shall judge. If there be one state in the Union,
Mr. President, (and I say it not in a boastful spirit,) that may
challenge comparison with any other, for a uniform, zealous, ardent, and
uncalculating devotion to the Union, that state is South Carolina. Sir,
from the very commencement of the revolution up to this hour, there is
no sacrifice, however great, she has not cheerfully made, no service she
has ever hesitated to perform. She has adhered to you in your
prosperity; but in your adversity she has clung to you with more than
filial affection. No matter what was the condition of her domestic
affairs, though deprived of her resources, divided by parties, or
surrounded with difficulties, the call of the country has been to her as
the voice of God. Domestic discord ceased at the sound; every man became
at once reconciled to his brethren, and the sons of Carolina were all
seen crowding together to the temple, bringing their gifts to the altar
of their common country.
What, sir, was the conduct of the South during the revolution? Sir, I
honor New England for her conduct in that glorious struggle. But great
as is the praise which belongs to her, I think, at least, equal honor is
due to the south. They espoused the quarrel of their brethren with a
generous zeal, which did not suffer them to stop to calculate their
interest in the dispute. Favorites of the mother country, possessed of
neither ships nor seamen to create a commercial rivalship, they might
have found in their situation a guarantee that their trade would be
forever fostered and protected by Great Britain. But, trampling on all
considerations either of interest or of safety, they rushed into the
conflict and fighting for principle, perilled all, in the sacred cause
of freedom. Never was there exhibited in the history of the world higher
examples of noble daring, dreadful suffering, and heroic endurance, than
by the Whigs of Carolina during the revolution. The whole state, from
the mountains to the sea, was overrun by an overwhelming force of the
enemy. The fruits of industry perished on the spot where they were
produced, or were consumed by the foe. The “plains of Carolina” drank up
the most precious blood of her citizens. Black and smoking ruins marked
the places which had been the habitations of her children. Driven from
their homes into the gloomy and almost impenetrable swamps, even there
the spirit of liberty survived, and South Carolina (sustained by the
example of her Sumpters and her Marions) proved, by her conduct, that
though her soil might be overrun, the spirit of her people was
invincible.
But, sir, our country was soon called upon to engage in another
revolutionary struggle, and that, too, was a struggle for principle. I
mean the political revolution which dates back to ’98, and which, if it
had not been successfully achieved, would have left us none of the
fruits of the revolution of ’76. The revolution of ’98 restored the
constitution, rescued the liberty of the citizens from the grasp of
those who were aiming at its life, and in the emphatic language of Mr.
Jefferson, “saved the constitution at its last gasp.” And by whom was it
achieved? By the south, sir, aided only by the democracy of the north
and west.
I come now to the war of 1812—a war which, I will remember, was called
in derision (while its event was doubtful) the southern war, and
sometimes the Carolina war; but which is now universally acknowledged to
have done more for the honor and prosperity of the country than all
other events in our history put together. What, sir, were the objects of
that war? “Free trade and sailors’ rights!” It was for the protection of
northern shipping and New England seamen that the country flew to arms.
What interest had the south in that contest? If they had sat down coldly
to calculate the value of their interest involved in it, they would have
found that they had every thing to lose, and nothing to gain. But, sir,
with that generous devotion to country so characteristic of the south,
they only asked if the rights of any portion of their fellow-citizens
had been invaded; and when told that northern ships and New England
seamen had been arrested on the common highway of nations, they felt
that the honor of their country was assailed; and acting on that exalted
sentiment “which feels a stain like a wound,” they resolved to seek, in
open war, for a redress of those injuries which it did not become
freemen to endure. Sir, the whole south, animated as by a common
impulse, cordially united in declaring and promoting that war. South
Carolina sent to your councils, as the advocates and supporters of that
war, the noblest of her sons. How they fulfilled that trust let a
grateful country tell. Not a measure was adopted, not a battle fought,
not a victory won, which contributed, in any degree, to the success of
that war, to which southern councils and southern valor did not largely
contribute. Sir, since South Carolina is assailed, I must be suffered to
speak it to her praise, that at the very moment when, in one quarter, we
heard it solemnly proclaimed, “that it did not become a religious and
moral people to rejoice at the victories of our army or our navy,” her
legislature unanimously
“_Resolved_, That we will cordially support the government in the
vigorous prosecution of the war, until a peace can be obtained on
honorable terms, and we will cheerfully submit to every privation that
may be required of us, by our government, for the accomplishment of this
object.”
South Carolina redeemed that pledge. She threw open her treasury to the
government. She put at the absolute disposal of the officers of the
United States all that she possessed—her men, her money, and her arms.
She appropriated half a million of dollars, on her own account, in
defence of her maritime frontier, ordered a brigade of state troops to
be raised, and when left to protect herself by her own means, never
suffered the enemy to touch her soil, without being instantly driven off
or captured.
Such, sir, was the conduct of the south—such the conduct of my own state
in that dark hour “which tried men’s souls.”
When I look back and contemplate the spectacle exhibited at that time in
another quarter of the Union—when I think of the conduct of certain
portions of New England, and remember the part which was acted on that
memorable occasion by the political associates of the gentleman from
Massachusetts—nay, when I follow that gentleman into the councils of the
nation, and listen to his voice during the darkest period of the war, I
am indeed astonished that he should venture to touch upon the topics
which he has introduced into this debate. South Carolina reproached by
Massachusetts! And from whom does this accusation come? Not from the
democracy of New England; for they have been in times past, as they are
now, the friends and allies of the south. No, sir, the accusation comes
from that party whose acts, during the most trying and eventful period
of our national history, were of such a character, that their own
legislature, but a few years ago, actually blotted them out from their
records, as a stain upon the honor of the country. But how can they ever
be blotted out from the recollection of any one who had a heart to feel,
a mind to comprehend, and a memory to retain, the events of that day!
Sir, I shall not attempt to write the history of the party in New
England to which I have alluded—the war party in peace, and the peace
party in war. That task I shall leave to some future biographer of
Nathan Dane, and I doubt not it will be found quite easy to prove that
the peace party of Massachusetts were the only defenders of their
country during their war, and actually achieved all our victories by
land and sea. In the meantime, sir, and until that history shall be
written, I propose, with the feeble and glimmering lights which I
possess, to review the conduct of this party, in connection with the
war, and the events which immediately preceded it.
It will be recollected, sir, that our great causes of quarrel with Great
Britain were her depredations on the northern commerce, and the
impressment of New England seamen. From every quarter we were called
upon for protection. Importunate as the west is now represented to be on
another subject, the importunity of the east on that occasion was far
greater. I hold in my hands the evidence of the fact. Here are
petitions, memorials, and remonstrances from all parts of New England,
setting forth the injustice, the oppressions, the depredations, the
insults, the outrages committed by Great Britain against the unoffending
commerce and seamen of New England, and calling upon Congress for
redress. Sir, I cannot stop to read these memorials. In that from
Boston, after stating the alarming and extensive condemnation of our
vessels by Great Britain, which threatened “to sweep our commerce from
the face of the ocean,” and “to involve our merchants in bankruptcy,”
they call upon the government “to assert our rights, and to adopt such
measures as will support the dignity and honor of the United States.
From Salem we heard a language still more decisive; they call explicitly
for “an appeal to arms,” and pledge their lives and property in support
of any measures which Congress might adopt. From Newbury-port an appeal
was made “to the firmness and justice of the government to obtain
compensation and protection.” It was here, I think, that, when the war
was declared, it was resolved “to resist our own government even unto
blood.” (Olive Branch, p. 101.)
In other quarters the common language of that day was, that our commerce
and our seamen were entitled to protection; and that it was the duty of
the government to afford it at every hazard. The conduct of Great
Britain, we were then told, was “an outrage upon our national
independence.” These clamors, which commenced as early as January, 1806,
were continued up to 1812. In a message from the governor of one of the
New England States, as late as the 10th October, 1811, this language is
held: “A manly and decisive course has become indispensable; a course to
satisfy foreign nations, that, while we desire peace, we have the means
and the spirit to repel aggression. We are false to ourselves when our
commerce, or our territory, is invaded with impunity.”
About this time, however, a remarkable change was observable in the tone
and temper of those who had been endeavoring to force the country into a
war. The language of complaint was changed into that of insult, and
calls for protection converted into reproaches. “Smoke, smoke!” says one
writer; “my life on it, our executive has no more idea of declaring war
than my grandmother.” “The committee of ways and means,” says another,
“have come out with their Pandora’s box of taxes, and yet nobody dreams
of war.” “Congress do not mean to declare war; they dare not.” But why
multiply examples? An honorable member of the other house, from the city
of Boston, [Mr. Quincy,] in a speech delivered on the 3d April, 1812,
says, “Neither promises, nor threats, nor asseverations, nor oaths will
make me believe that you will go to war. The navigation states are
sacrificed, and the spirit and character of the country prostrated by
fear and avarice.” “You cannot,” said the same gentleman, on another
occasion, “be kicked into a war.”
Well, sir, the war at length came, and what did we behold? The very men
who had been for six years clamorous for war, and for whose protection
it was waged, became at once equally clamorous against it. They had
received a miraculous visitation; a new light suddenly beamed upon their
minds; the scales fell from their eyes, and it was discovered that the
war was declared from “subserviency to France;” and that Congress, and
the executive, “had sold themselves to Napoleon;” that Great Britain had
in fact “done us no essential injury;” that she was “the bulwark of our
religion;” that where “she took one of our ships, she protected twenty;”
and that, if Great Britain had impressed a few of our seamen, it was
because “she could not distinguish them from their own.” And so far did
this spirit extend, that a committee of the Massachusetts legislature
actually fell to calculation, and discovered, to their infinite
satisfaction, but to the astonishment of all the world besides, that
only eleven Massachusetts sailors had ever been impressed. Never shall I
forget the appeals that had been made to the sympathies of the south in
behalf of the “thousands of impressed Americans, who had been torn from
their families and friends, and immured in the floating dungeons of
Britain.” The most touching pictures were drawn of the hard condition of
the American sailor, “treated like a slave,” forced to fight the battles
of his enemy, “lashed to the mast, to be shot at like a dog.” But, sir,
the very moment we had taken up arms in their defence, it was discovered
that all these were mere “fictions of the brain;” and that the whole
number in the state of Massachusetts was but eleven; and that even these
had been “taken by mistake.” Wonderful discovery! The secretary of state
had collected authentic lists of no less than six thousand impressed
Americans. Lord Castlereagh himself acknowledged sixteen hundred.
Calculations on the basis of the number found on board of the Guerriere,
the Macedonian, the Java, and other British ships, (captured by the
skill and gallantry of those heroes whose achievements are the treasured
monuments of their country’s glory,) fixed the number at seven thousand;
and yet, it seems, Massachusetts had lost but eleven! Eleven
Massachusetts sailors taken by mistake! A cause of war indeed! Their
ships too, the capture of which had threatened “universal bankruptcy,”
it was discovered that Great Britain was their friend and protector;
“where she had taken one she had protected twenty.” Then was the
discovery made, that subserviency to France, hostility to commerce, “a
determination, on the part of the south and west, to break down the
Eastern States,” and especially as reported by a committee of the
Massachusetts legislature “to force the sons of commerce to populate the
wilderness,” were the true causes of the war. (Olive Branch, pp. 134,
291.) But let us look a little further into the conduct of the peace
party of New England at that important crisis. Whatever difference of
opinion might have existed as to the causes of the war, the country had
a right to expect, that, when once involved in the contest, all America
would have cordially united in its support. Sir, the war effected, in
its progress, a union of all parties at the south. But not so in New
England; there great efforts were made to stir up the minds of the
people to oppose it. Nothing was left undone to embarrass the financial
operations of the government, to prevent the enlistment of troops, to
keep back the men and money of New England from the service of the
Union, to force the president from his seat. Yes, sir, “the Island of
Elba, or a halter!” were the alternatives they presented to the
excellent and venerable James Madison. Sir, the war was further opposed
by openly carrying on illicit trade with the enemy, by permitting that
enemy to establish herself on the very soil of Massachusetts, and by
opening a free trade between Great Britain and America, with a separate
custom house. Yes, sir, those who cannot endure the thought that we
should insist on a free trade, in time of profound peace, could, without
scruple, claim and exercise the right of carrying on a free trade with
the enemy in a time of war; and finally by getting up the renowned
“Hartford Convention,” and preparing the way for an open resistance to
the government, and a separation of the states. Sir, if I am asked for
the proof of those things, I fearlessly appeal to the contemporary
history, to the public documents of the country, to the recorded opinion
and acts of public assemblies, to the declaration and acknowledgments,
since made, of the executive and legislature of Massachusetts
herself.[79]
Sir, the time has not been allowed me to trace this subject through,
even if I had been disposed to do so. But I cannot refrain from
referring to one or two documents, which have fallen in my way since
this debate began. I read, sir, from the Olive Branch of Matthew Carey,
in which are collected “the actings and doings” of the peace party in
New England, during the continuance of the embargo and the war. I know
the senator from Massachusetts will respect the high authority of his
political friend and fellow-laborer in the great cause of “domestic
industry.”
In p. 301, et seq., 309 of this work, is a detailed account of the
measures adopted in Massachusetts during the war, for the express
purpose of embarrassing the financial operations of the government, by
preventing loans, and thereby driving our rulers from their seats, and
forcing the country into a dishonorable peace. It appears that the
Boston banks commenced an operation, by which a run was to be made upon
all the banks of the south; at the same time stopping their own
discounts; the effect of which was to produce a sudden and almost
alarming diminution of the circulating medium, and universal distress
over the whole country—“a distress which they failed not to attribute to
the unholy war.”
To such an extent was this system carried, that it appears, from a
statement of the condition of the Boston banks, made up in January,
1814, that with nearly $5,000,000 of specie in their vaults, they had
but $2,000,000 of bills in circulation. It is added by Carey, that at
this very time an extensive trade was carried on in British government
bills, for which specie was sent to Canada, for the payment of the
British troops, then laying waste our northern frontier; and this too at
the very moment when New England ships, sailing under British licenses,
(a trade declared to be lawful by the courts both of Great Britain and
Massachusetts,[80]) were supplying with provisions those very armies
destined for the invasion of our own shores. Sir, the author of the
Olive Branch, with a holy indignation, denounces these acts as
“treasonable;” “giving aid and comfort to the enemy.” I shall not follow
his example. But I will ask, With what justice or propriety can the
south be accused of disloyalty from that quarter? If we had any evidence
that the senator from Massachusetts had admonished his brethren then, he
might, with a better grace, assume the office of admonishing us now.
When I look at the measures adopted in Boston, at that day, to deprive
the government of the necessary means for carrying on the war, and think
of the success and the consequences of these measures, I feel my pride,
as an American, humbled in the dust. Hear, sir, the language of that
day. I read from pages 301 and 302 of the Olive Branch. “Let no man who
wishes to continue the war, by active means, by vote, or lending money,
dare to prostrate himself at the altar on the fast day.” “Will
federalists subscribe to the loan? Will they lend money to our national
rulers? It is impossible. First, because of principle, and secondly,
because of principal and interest.” “Do not prevent the abusers of their
trust from becoming bankrupt. Do not prevent them from becoming odious
to the public, and being replaced by better men.” “Any federalist who
lends money to government must go and shake hands with James Madison,
and claim fellowship with Felix Grundy.” (I beg pardon of my honorable
friend from Tennessee—but he is in good company. I had thought it was
“James Madison, Felix Grundy, and the devil.”) Let him no more “call
himself a federalist, and a friend to his country: he will be called by
others infamous,” &c.
Sir, the spirit of the people sunk under these appeals. Such was the
effect produced by them on the public mind, that the very agents of the
government (as appears from their public advertisements, now before me)
could not obtain loans without a pledge that “the names of the
subscribers should not be known.” Here are the advertisements: “The
names of all subscribers” (say Gilbert and Dean, the brokers employed by
government) “shall be known only to the undersigned.” As if those who
came forward to aid their country, in the hour of her utmost need, were
engaged in some dark and foul conspiracy, they were assured “that their
names should not be known.” Can any thing show more conclusively the
unhappy state of public feeling which prevailed at that day than this
single fact? Of the same character with these measures was the conduct
of Massachusetts in withholding her militia from the service of the
United States, and devising measures for withdrawing her quota of the
taxes, thereby attempting, not merely to cripple the resources of the
country, but actually depriving the government (as far as depended upon
her) of all the means of carrying on the war—of the bone, and muscle,
and sinews of war—“of man and steel—the soldier and his sword.” But it
seems Massachusetts was to reserve her resources for herself—she was to
defend and protect her own shores. And how was that duty performed? In
some places on the coast neutrality was declared, and the enemy was
suffered to invade the soil of Massachusetts, and allowed to occupy her
territory until the peace, without one effort to rescue it from his
grasp. Nay, more—while our own government and our rulers were considered
as enemies, the troops of the enemy were treated like friends—the most
intimate commercial relations were established with them, and maintained
up to the peace. At this dark period of our national affairs, where was
the senator from Massachusetts? How were his political associates
employed? “Calculating the value of the Union?” Yes, sir, that was the
propitious moment, when our country stood alone, the last hope of the
world, struggling for her existence against the colossal power of Great
Britain, “concentrated one mighty effort to crush us at a blow;” that
was the chosen hour to revive the grand scheme of building up “a great
northern confederacy”—a scheme which, it is stated in the work before
me, had its origin as far back as the year 1796, and which appears never
to have been entirely abandoned.
In the language of the writers of that day, (1796,) “rather than have a
constitution such as the anti-federalists were contending for, (such as
we are now contending for,) the Union ought to be dissolved;” and to
prepare the way for that measure, the same methods were resorted to then
that have always been relied on for that purpose, exciting prejudice
against the south. Yes, sir, our northern brethren were then told, “that
if the negroes were good for food, their southern masters would claim
the right to destroy them at pleasure.” (Olive Branch, p. 267.) Sir, in
1814, all these topics were revived. Again we hear of “northern
confederacy.” “The slave states by themselves;” “the mountains are the
natural boundary;” we want neither “the counsels nor the power of the
west,” &c., &c. The papers teemed with accusations against the _south_
and the _west_, and the calls for a dissolution of all connection with
them were loud and strong. I cannot consent to go through the disgusting
details. But to show the height to which the spirit of disaffection was
carried, I will take you to the temple of the living God, and show you
_that sacred place_, which should be devoted to the extension of “peace
on earth and good will towards men,” where “_one day’s truce_ ought
surely to be allowed to the dissensions and animosities of mankind,”
converted into _a fierce arena of political strife_, where, from the
lips of the priest, standing between the horns of the altar, there went
forth the most _terrible denunciations_ against all who should be true
to their country in the hour of her utmost need.
“If you do not wish,” said a reverend clergyman, in a sermon preached in
Boston, on the 23d of July, 1812, “to become the slaves of those who own
slaves, and who are themselves the slaves of French slaves, you must
either, _in the language of the day_, CUT THE CONNECTION or so far alter
the national compact as to insure to yourselves a due share in the
government.” (Olive Branch, p. 319.) “The Union,” says the same writer,
(p. 320,) “has been long since virtually dissolved, and it is full time
that this part of the disunited states should take care of itself.”
Another reverend gentleman, pastor of a church at Medford, (p. 321,)
issues his anathema—“LET HIM STAND ACCURSED”—against all, all who by
their “personal services,” for “loans of money,” “conversation,” or
“writing,” or “influence,” give countenance or support to the righteous
war, in the following terms: “That man is an accomplice in the
wickedness—he loads his conscience with the blackest crimes—he brings
the guilt of blood upon his soul, and in the sight of God and his law,
_he is a_ MURDERER.”
One or two more quotations, sir, and I shall have done. A reverend
doctor of divinity, the pastor of a church at Byfield, Massachusetts, on
the 7th of April, 1814, thus addresses his flock, (p. 321:) “The
Israelites became weary of yielding the fruit of their labor to pamper
their splendid tyrants. They left their political woes. THEY SEPARATED;
where is our Moses? Where the rod of his miracles? Where is our Aaron?
Alas! no voice from the burning bush has directed them here.”
“We must trample on the mandates of despotism, or remain slaves
forever,” (p. 322.) “You must drag the chains of Virginian despotism,
unless you discover some other mode of escape.” “Those Western States
which have been violent for this abominable war—those states which have
thirsted for blood—God has given them blood to drink,” (p. 323.) Mr.
President, I can go no further. The records of the day are full of such
sentiments, issued from the press, spoken in public assemblies, poured
out from the sacred desk. God forbid, sir, that I should charge the
people of Massachusetts with participating in these sentiments. The
south and the west had there their friends—men who stood by their
country, though encompassed all around by their enemies. The senator
from Massachusetts (Mr. Silsbee) was one of them; the senator from
Connecticut (Mr. Foot) was another; and there are others now on this
floor. The sentiments I have read were the sentiments of a party
embracing the political associates of the gentleman from Massachusetts.
If they could only be found in the columns of a newspaper, in a few
occasional pamphlets, issued by men of intemperate feeling, I should not
consider them as affording any evidence of the opinions even of the
peace party of New England. But, sir, they were the common language of
that day; they pervaded the whole land; they were issued from the
legislative hall, from the pulpit, and the press. Our books are full of
them; and there is no man who now hears me but knows that they were the
sentiments of a party, by whose members they were promulgated. Indeed,
no evidence of this would seem to be required beyond the fact that such
sentiments found their way even into the pulpits of New England. What
must be the state of public opinion, where any respectable clergyman
would venture to preach, and to print, sermons containing the sentiments
I have quoted? I doubt not the piety or moral worth of these gentlemen.
I am told they were respectable and pious men. But they were men, and
they “kindled in a common blaze.” And now, sir, I must be suffered to
remark that, at this awful and melancholy period of our national
history, the gentleman from Massachusetts, who now manifests so great a
devotion to the Union, and so much anxiety lest it should be endangered
from the south, was “with his brethren in Israel.” He saw all these
things passing before his eyes—he heard these sentiments uttered all
around him. I do not charge that gentleman with any participation in
these acts, or with approving of these sentiments.
But I will ask, why, if he was animated by the same sentiments then
which he now professes, if he can “augur disunion at a distance, and
snuff up rebellion in every tainted breeze,” why did he not, at that
day, exert his great talents and acknowledged influence with the
political associates by whom he was surrounded, and who then, as now,
looked up to him for guidance and direction, in allaying this general
excitement, in pointing out to his deluded friends the value of the
Union, in instructing them that, instead of looking “to some prophet to
lead them out of the land of Egypt,” they should become reconciled to
their brethren, and unite with them in the support of a just and
necessary war? Sir, the gentleman must excuse me for saying, that if the
records of our country afforded any evidence that he had pursued such a
course, then, if we could find it recorded in the history of those
times, that, like the immortal Dexter, he had breasted that mighty
torrent which was sweeping before it all that was great and valuable in
our political institutions—if like him he had stood by his country in
opposition to his party, sir, we would, like little children, listen to
his precepts, and abide by his counsels.
As soon as the public mind was sufficiently prepared for the measure,
the celebrated Hartford Convention was got up; not as the act of a few
unauthorized individuals, but by the authority of the legislature of
Massachusetts; and, as has been shown by the able historian of that
convention, in accordance with the views and wishes of the party of
which it was the organ. Now, sir, I do not desire to call in question
the motives of the gentlemen who composed that assembly. I knew many of
them to be in private life accomplished and honorable men, and I doubt
not there were some among them who did not perceive the dangerous
tendency of their proceedings. I will even go further, and say, that if
the authors of the Hartford Convention believed that “gross, deliberate,
and palpable violations of the constitution” had taken place, utterly
destructive of their rights and interests, I should be the last man to
deny their right to resort to any constitutional measures for redress.
But, sir, in any view of the case, the time when and the circumstances
under which that convention assembled, as well as the measures
recommended, render their conduct, in my opinion wholly indefensible.
Let us contemplate, for a moment, the spectacle then exhibited to the
view of the world. I will not go over the disasters of the war, nor
describe the difficulties in which the government was involved. It will
be recollected that its credit was nearly gone, Washington had fallen,
the whole coast was blockaded, and an immense force, collected in the
West Indies, was about to make a descent, which it was supposed we had
no means of resisting. In this awful state of our public affairs, when
the government seemed almost to be tottering on its base, when Great
Britain, relieved from all her other enemies, had proclaimed her purpose
of “reducing us to unconditional submission,” we beheld the peace party
of New England (in the language of the work before us) pursuing a course
calculated to do more injury to their country, “and to render England
more effective service than all her armies.” Those who could not find it
in their hearts to rejoice at our victories sang Te Deum at the King’s
Chapel in Boston, for the restoration of the Bourbons. Those who could
not consent to illuminate their dwellings for the capture of the
Guerriere could give no visible tokens of their joy at the fall of
Detroit. The “beacon fires” of their hills were lighted up, not for the
encouragement of their friends, but as signals to the enemy; and in the
gloomy hours of midnight, the very lights burned blue. Such were the
dark and portentous signs of the times, which ushered into being the
renowned Hartford Convention. That convention met, and, from their
proceedings, it appears that their chief object was to keep back the
money and men of New England from the service of the Union, and to
effect radical changes in the government—changes that can never be
effected without a dissolution of the Union.
Let us now, sir, look at their proceedings. I read from “A Short Account
of the Hartford Convention,” (written by one of its members,) a very
rare book, of which I was fortunate enough, a few years ago, to obtain a
copy. [Here Mr. H. read from the proceedings.[81]]
It is unnecessary to trace the matter further, or to ask what would have
been the next chapter in this history, if the measures recommended had
been carried into effect; and if, with the men and money of New England
withheld from the government of the United States, she had been
withdrawn from the war; if New Orleans had fallen into the hands of the
enemy; and if, without troops and almost destitute of money, the
Southern and the Western States had been thrown upon their own
resources, for the prosecution of the war, and the recovery of New
Orleans.
Sir, whatever may have been the issue of the contest, the Union must
have been dissolved. But a wise and just Providence, which “shapes our
ends, roughhew them as we will,” gave us the victory, and crowned our
efforts with a glorious peace. The ambassadors of Hartford were seen
retracing their steps from Washington, “the bearers of the glad tidings
of great joy.” Courage and patriotism triumphed—the country was
saved—the Union was preserved. And are we, Mr. President, who stood by
our country then, who threw open our coffers, who bared our bosoms, who
freely perilled all in that conflict, to be reproached with want of
attachment to the Union? If, sir, we are to have lessons of patriotism
read to us, they must come from a different quarter. The senator from
Massachusetts, who is now so sensitive on all subjects connected with
the Union, seems to have a memory forgetful of the political events that
have passed away. I must therefore refresh his recollection a little
further on these subjects. The history of disunion has been written by
one whose authority stands too high with the American people to be
questioned; I mean Thomas Jefferson. I know not how the gentleman may
receive this authority. When that great and good man occupied the
presidential chair, I believe he commanded no portion of the gentleman’s
respect.
I hold in my hand a celebrated pamphlet on the embargo, in which
language is held, in relation to Mr. Jefferson, which my respect for his
memory will prevent me from reading, unless any gentleman should call
for it. But the senator from Massachusetts has since joined in singing
hosannas to his name; he has assisted at his apotheosis, and has fixed
him as “a brilliant star in the clear upper sky.” I hope, therefore, he
is now prepared to receive with deference and respect the high authority
of Mr. Jefferson. In the fourth volume of his Memoirs, which has just
issued from the press, we have the following history of disunion from
the pen of that illustrious statesman: “Mr. Adams called on me pending
the embargo, and while endeavors were making to obtain its repeal: he
spoke of the dissatisfaction of the eastern portion of our confederacy
with the restraints of the embargo then existing, and their restlessness
under it; that there was nothing which might not be attempted to rid
themselves of it; that he had information of the most unquestionable
authority, that certain citizens of the Eastern States (I think he named
Massachusetts particularly) were in negotiation with agents of the
British government, the object of which was an agreement that the New
England States should take no further part in the war (the commercial
war, the ‘war of restrictions,’ as it was called) then going on, and
that, without formally declaring their separation from the Union, they
should withdraw from all aid and obedience to them, &c. From that
moment,” says Mr. J., “I saw the necessity of abandoning it, [the
embargo,] and, instead of effecting our purpose by this peaceful
measure, we must fight it out or break the Union.” In another letter Mr.
Jefferson adds, “I doubt whether a single fact known to the world will
carry as clear conviction to it of the correctness of our knowledge of
the treasonable views of the federal party of that day, as that
disclosed by this, the most nefarious and daring attempt to dissever the
Union, of which the Hartford Convention was a subsequent chapter; and
both of these having failed, consolidation becomes the fourth chapter of
the next book of their history. But this opens with a vast accession of
strength, from their younger recruits, who, having nothing in them of
the feelings and principles of ’76, now look to a single and splendid
government, &c., riding and ruling over the plundered ploughman and
beggared yeomanry.” (vol. iv. pp. 419, 422.)
The last chapter, says Mr. Jefferson, of that history, is to be found in
the conduct of those who are endeavoring to bring about consolidation;
ay, sir, that very consolidation for which the gentleman from
Massachusetts is contending—the exercise by the federal government of
powers not delegated in relation to “internal improvements” and “the
protection of manufactures.” And why, sir, does Mr. Jefferson consider
consolidation as leading directly to disunion? Because he knew that the
exercise, by the federal government, of the powers contended for, would
make this “a government without limitation of powers,” the submission to
which he considered as a greater evil than disunion itself. There is one
chapter in this history, however, which Mr. Jefferson has not filled up;
and I must therefore supply the deficiency. It is to be found in the
protests made by New England against the acquisition of Louisiana. In
relation to that subject, the New England doctrine is thus laid down by
one of her learned doctors of that day, now a doctor of laws, at the
head of the great literary institution of the east; I mean Josiah
Quincy, president of Harvard College. I quote from the speech delivered
by that gentleman on the floor of Congress, on the occasion of the
admission of Louisiana into the Union.
“Mr. Quincy repeated and justified a remark he had made, which, to save
all misapprehension, he had committed to writing, in the following
words: If this bill passes, it is my deliberate opinion that it is
virtually a dissolution of the Union; that it will free the states from
their moral obligation; and as it will be the right of all, so it will
be the duty of some, to prepare for a separation, amicably if they can,
violently if they must.”
Mr. President, I wish it to be distinctly understood, that all the
remarks I have made on this subject are intended to be exclusively
applied to a party, which I have described as the “peace party of New
England”—embracing the political associates of the senator from
Massachusetts—a party which controlled the operations of that state
during the embargo and the war, and who are justly chargeable with all
the measures I have reprobated. Sir, nothing has been further from my
thoughts than to impeach the character or conduct of the people of New
England. For their steady habits and hardy virtues I trust I entertain a
becoming respect. I fully subscribe to the truth of the description
given before the revolution, by one whose praise is the highest eulogy,
“that the perseverance of Holland, the activity of France, and the
dexterous and firm sagacity of English enterprise, have been more than
equalled by this recent people.” The hardy people of New England of the
present day are worthy of their ancestors. Still less, Mr. President,
has it been my intention to say anything that could be construed into a
want of respect for that party, who, have been true to their principles
in the worst of times; I mean the democracy of New England.
Sir, I will declare that, highly as I appreciate the democracy of the
south, I consider even higher praise to be due to the democracy of New
England, who have maintained their principles “through good and through
evil report,” who, at every period of our national history, have stood
up manfully for “their country, their whole country, and nothing but
their country.” In the great political revolution of ’98, they were
found united with the democracy of the south, marching under the banner
of the constitution, led on by the patriarch of liberty, in search of
the land of political promise, which they lived not only to behold, but
to possess and to enjoy. Again, sir, in the darkest and most gloomy
period of the war, when our country stood singlehanded against “the
conqueror of the conquerors of the world,” when all about and around
them was dark and dreary, disastrous and discouraging, they stood a
Spartan band in that narrow pass, where the honor of their country was
to be defended, or to find its grave. And in the last great struggle,
involving, as we believe, the very existence of the principle of popular
sovereignty, where were the democracy of New England? Where they always
have been found, sir, struggling side by side, with their brethren of
the south and the west for popular rights, and assisting in that
triumph, by which the man of the people was elevated to the highest
office in their gift.
Who, then, Mr. President, are the true friends of the Union? Those who
would confine the federal government strictly within the limits
prescribed by the constitution; who would preserve to the states and the
people all powers not expressly delegated; who would make this a federal
and not a national Union, and who, administering the government in a
spirit of equal justice, would make it a blessing, and not a curse. And
who are its enemies? Those who are in favor of consolidation; who are
constantly stealing power from the states, and adding strength to the
federal government; who, assuming an unwarrantable jurisdiction over the
states and the people, undertake to regulate the whole industry and
capital of the country. But, sir, of all descriptions of men, I consider
those as the worst enemies of the Union, who sacrifice the equal rights
which belong to every member of the confederacy to combinations of
interested majorities, for personal or political objects. But the
gentleman apprehends no evil from the dependence of the states on the
federal government; he can see no danger of corruption from the
influence of money or of patronage. Sir, I know that it is supposed to
be a wise saying that “patronage is a source of weakness;” and in
support of that maxim, it has been said, that “every ten appointments
make a hundred enemies.” But I am rather inclined to think, with the
eloquent and sagacious orator now reposing on his laurels on the banks
of the Roanoke, that “the power of conferring favors creates a crowd of
dependants;” he gave a forcible illustration of the truth of the remark,
when he told us of the effect of holding up the savory morsel to the
eager eyes of the hungry hounds gathered around his door. It mattered
not whether the gift was bestowed on Towzer or Sweetlips, “Tray,
Blanche, or Sweetheart;” while held in suspense, they were governed by a
nod, and when the morsel was bestowed, expectation of favors of
to-morrow kept up the subjection of to-day.
The senator from Massachusetts, in denouncing what he is pleased to call
the Carolina doctrine, has attempted to throw ridicule upon the idea
that a state has any constitutional remedy, by the exercise of its
sovereign authority, against “a gross, palpable, and deliberate
violation of the constitution.” He calls it “an idle” or “a ridiculous
notion,” or something to that effect, and added, that it would make the
Union a “mere rope of sand.” Now, sir, as the gentleman has not
condescended to enter into any examination of the question, and has been
satisfied with throwing the weight of his authority into the scale, I do
not deem it necessary to do more than to throw into the opposite scale
the authority on which South Carolina relies; and there, for the
present, I am perfectly willing to leave the controversy. The South
Carolina doctrine, that is to say, the doctrine contained in an
exposition reported by a committee of the legislature in December, 1828,
and published by their authority, is the good old republican doctrine of
’98—the doctrine of the celebrated “Virginia Resolutions” of that year,
and of “Madison’s Report” of ’99. It will be recollected that the
legislature of Virginia, in December, ’98, took into consideration the
alien and sedition laws, then considered by all republicans as a gross
violation of the constitution of the United States, and on that day
passed, among others, the following resolutions,—
“The General Assembly doth explicitly and peremptorily declare, that
it views the powers of the federal government, as resulting from the
compact to which the states are parties, as limited by the plain sense
and intention of the instrument constituting that compact, as no
further valid than they are authorized by the grants enumerated in
that compact; and that in case of a deliberate, palpable, and
dangerous exercise of other powers not granted by the said compact,
the states who are parties thereto have the right, and are in duty
bound, to interpose for arresting the progress of the evil, and for
maintaining, within their respective limits, authorities, rights, and
liberties, belonging to them.”
In addition to the above resolution, the General Assembly of Virginia
“appealed to the other states, in the confidence that they would concur
with that commonwealth, that the acts aforesaid [the alien and sedition
laws] are unconstitutional, and that the necessary and proper measures
would be taken by each for co-operating with Virginia in maintaining
unimpaired the authorities, rights, and liberties reserved to the states
respectively, or to the people.”
The legislatures of several of the New England States, having, contrary
to the expectation of the legislature of Virginia, expressed their
dissent from these doctrines, the subject came up again for
consideration during the session of 1799, 1800, when it was referred to
a select committee, by whom was made that celebrated report which is
familiarly known as “Madison’s Report,” and which deserves to last as
long as the constitution itself. In that report, which was subsequently
adopted by the legislature, the whole subject was deliberately
re-examined, and the objections urged against the Virginia doctrines
carefully considered. The result was, that the legislature of Virginia
reaffirmed all the principles laid down in the resolutions of 1798, and
issued to the world that admirable report which has stamped the
character of Mr. Madison as the preserver of that constitution which he
had contributed so largely to create and establish. I will here quote
from Mr. Madison’s report one or two passages which bear more
immediately on the point in controversy. “The resolutions, having taken
this view of the federal compact, proceed to infer ‘that in case of a
deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise of other powers the states
who are parties thereto have the right, and are in duty bound, to
interpose for arresting the progress of the evil, and for maintaining,
within their respective limits, the authorities, rights, and liberties
appertaining to them.’”
“It appears to your committee to be a plain principle, founded in
common sense, illustrated by common practice, and essential to the
nature of compacts, that, where resort can be had to no tribunal
superior to the authority of the parties, the parties themselves must
be the rightful judges in the last resort, whether the bargain made
has been pursued or violated. The constitution of the United States
was formed by the sanction of the states, given by each in its
sovereign capacity. It adds to the stability and dignity, as well as
to the authority, of the constitution, that it rests upon this
legitimate and solid foundation. The states, then, being the parties
to the constitutional compact, and in their sovereign capacity, it
follows of necessity that there can be no tribunal above their
authority, to decide, in the last resort, whether the compact made by
them be violated, and consequently that, as the parties to it, they
must decide, in the last resort, such questions as may be of
sufficient magnitude to require their interposition.”
“The resolution has guarded against any misapprehension of its object
by expressly requiring for such an interposition ‘the case of a
deliberate, palpable, and dangerous breach of the constitution, by the
exercise of powers not granted by it.’ It must be a case, not of a
light and transient nature, but of a nature dangerous to the great
purposes for which the constitution was established.
“But the resolution has done more than guard against misconstructions,
by expressly referring to cases of a deliberate, palpable, and
dangerous nature. It specifies the object of the interposition, which
it contemplates, to be solely that of arresting the progress of the
evil of usurpation, and of maintaining the authorities, rights, and
liberties appertaining to the states, as parties to the constitution.
“From this view of the resolution, it would seem inconceivable that it
can incur any just disapprobation from those who, laying aside all
momentary impressions, and recollecting the genuine source and object
of the federal constitution, shall candidly and accurately interpret
the meaning of the General Assembly. If the deliberate exercise of
dangerous powers, palpably withheld by the constitution, could not
justify the parties to it in interposing even so far as to arrest the
progress of the evil, and thereby to preserve the constitution itself,
as well as to provide for the safety of the parties to it, there would
be an end to all relief from usurped power, and a direct subversion of
the rights specified or recognized under all the state constitutions,
as well as a plain denial of the fundamental principles on which our
independence itself was declared.”
But, sir, our authorities do not stop here. The state of Kentucky
responded to Virginia, and on the 10th of November, 1798, adopted those
celebrated resolutions, well known to have been penned by the author of
the Declaration of American Independence. In those resolutions, the
legislature of Kentucky declare, “that the government created by this
compact was not made the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the
powers delegated to itself, since that would have made its discretion,
and not the constitution, the measure of its powers; but that, as in all
other cases of compact among parties having no common judge, each party
has an equal right to judge, for itself, as well of infractions as of
the mode and measure of redress.”
At the ensuing session of the legislature, the subject was re-examined,
and on the 14th of November, 1799, the resolutions of the preceding year
were deliberately reaffirmed, and it was, among other things, solemnly
declared,—
“That, if those who administer the general government be permitted to
transgress the limits fixed by that compact, by a total disregard to
the special delegations of power therein contained, an annihilation of
the state governments, and the erection upon their ruins of a general
consolidated government, will be the inevitable consequence. That the
principles of construction contended for by sundry of the state
legislatures, that the general government is the exclusive judge of
the extent of the powers delegated to it, stop nothing short of
despotism; since the discretion of those who administer the
government, and not the constitution, would be the measure of their
powers. That the several states who formed that instrument, being
sovereign and independent, have the unquestionable right to judge of
its infraction, and that a nullification, by those sovereignties, of
all unauthorized acts done under color of that instrument, is the
rightful remedy.”
Time and experience confirmed Mr. Jefferson’s opinion on this all
important point. In the year 1821, he expressed himself in this emphatic
manner: “It is a fatal heresy to suppose that either our state
governments are superior to the federal, or the federal to the state;
neither is authorized literally to decide which belongs to itself or its
copartner in government; in differences of opinion, between their
different sets of public servants, the appeal is to neither, but to
their employers peaceably assembled by their representatives in
convention.” The opinion of Mr. Jefferson on this subject has been so
repeatedly and so solemnly expressed, that they may be said to have been
the most fixed and settled convictions of his mind.
In the protest prepared by him for the legislature of Virginia, in
December, 1825, in respect to the powers exercised by the federal
government in relation to the tariff and internal improvements, which he
declares to be “usurpations of the powers retained by the states, mere
interpolations into the compact, and direct infractions of it,” he
solemnly reasserts all the principles of the Virginia Resolutions of
’98, protests against “these acts of the federal branch of the
government as null and void, and declares that, although Virginia would
consider a dissolution of the Union as among the greatest calamities
that could befall them, yet it is not the greatest. There is one yet
greater—submission to a government of unlimited powers. It is only when
the hope of this shall become absolutely desperate, that further
forbearance could not be indulged.”
In his letter to Mr. Giles, written about the same time, he says,—
“I see as you do, and with the deepest affliction, the rapid strides
with which the federal branch of our government is advancing towards
the usurpation of all the rights reserved to the states, and the
consolidation in itself of all powers, foreign and domestic, and that
too by constructions which leave no limits to their powers, &c. Under
the power to regulate commerce, they assume, indefinitely, that also
over agriculture and manufactures, &c. Under the authority to
establish post roads, they claim that of cutting down mountains for
the construction of roads, and digging canals, &c. And what is our
resource for the preservation of the constitution? Reason and
argument? You might as well reason and argue with the marble columns
encircling them, &c. Are we then to stand to our arms with the
hot-headed Georgian? No; [and I say no, and South Carolina has said
no;] that must be the last resource. We must have patience and long
endurance with our brethren, &c., and separate from our companions
only when the sole alternatives left are a dissolution of our Union
with them, or submission. Between these two evils, when we must make a
choice, there can be no hesitation.”
Such, sir, are the high and imposing authorities in support of “The
Carolina doctrine,” which is, in fact, the doctrine of the Virginia
Resolutions of 1798.
Sir, at that day the whole country was divided on this very question. It
formed the line of demarcation between the federal and republican
parties; and the great political revolution which then took place turned
upon the very questions involved in these resolutions. That question was
decided by the people, and by that decision the constitution was, in the
emphatic language of Mr. Jefferson, “saved at its last gasp.” I should
suppose, sir, it would require more self-respect than any gentleman here
would be willing to assume, to treat lightly doctrines derived from such
high resources. Resting on authority like this, I will ask gentlemen
whether South Carolina has not manifested a high regard for the Union,
when, under a tyranny ten times more grievous than the alien and
sedition laws, she has hitherto gone no further than to petition,
remonstrate, and to solemnly protest against a series of measures which
she believes to be wholly unconstitutional and utterly destructive of
her interests. Sir, South Carolina has not gone one step further than
Mr. Jefferson himself was disposed to go, in relation to the present
subject of our present complaints—not a step further than the statesman
from New England was disposed to go, under similar circumstances; no
further than the senator from Massachusetts himself once considered as
within “the limits of a constitutional opposition.” The doctrine that it
is the right of a state to judge of the violations of the constitution
on the part of the federal government, and to protect her citizens from
the operations of unconstitutional laws, was held by the enlightened
citizens of Boston, who assembled in Faneuil Hall, on the 25th of
January, 1809. They state, in that celebrated memorial, that “they
looked only to the state legislature, who were competent to devise
relief against the unconstitutional acts of the general government. That
your power (say they) is adequate to that object, is evident from the
organization of the confederacy.”
A distinguished senator from one of the New England States, (Mr.
Hillhouse,) in a speech delivered here, on a bill for enforcing the
embargo, declared, “I feel myself bound in conscience to declare, (lest
the blood of those who shall fall in the execution of this measure shall
be on my head,) that I consider this to be an act which directs a mortal
blow at the liberties of my country—an act containing unconstitutional
provisions, to which the people are not bound to submit, and to which,
in my opinion, they will not submit.”
And the senator from Massachusetts himself, in a speech delivered on the
same subject in the other house, said, “This opposition is
constitutional and legal; it is also conscientious. It rests on settled
and sober conviction, that such policy is destructive to the interests
of the people, and dangerous to the being of government. The experience
of every day confirms these sentiments. Men who act from such motives
are not to be discouraged by trifling obstacles, nor awed by any
dangers. They know the limit of constitutional opposition; up to that
limit, at their own discretion, they will walk, and walk fearlessly.”
How “the being of the government” was to be endangered by
“constitutional opposition” to the embargo, I leave the gentleman to
explain.
Thus it will be seen, Mr. President, that the South Carolina doctrine is
the republican doctrine of ’98—that it was promulgated by the fathers of
the faith—that it was maintained by Virginia and Kentucky in the worst
of times—that it constituted the very pivot on which the political
revolution of that day turned—that it embraces the very principles, the
triumph of which, at that time, saved the constitution at its last gasp,
and which New England statesmen were not unwilling to adopt, when they
believed themselves to be the victims of unconstitutional legislation.
Sir, as to the doctrine that the federal government is the exclusive
judge of the extent as well as the limitations of its powers, it seems
to me to be utterly subversive of the sovereignty and independence of
the states. It makes but little difference, in my estimation, whether
Congress or the Supreme Court are invested with this power. If the
federal government, in all, or any, of its departments, is to prescribe
the limits of its own authority, and the states are bound to submit to
the decision, and are not to be allowed to examine and decide for
themselves, when the barriers of the constitution shall be overleaped,
this is practically “a government without limitation of powers.” The
states are at once reduced to mere petty corporations, and the people
are entirely at your mercy. I have but one word more to add. In all the
efforts that have been made by South Carolina to resist the
unconstitutional laws which Congress has extended over them, she has
kept steadily in view the preservation of the Union, by the only means
by which she believes it can be long preserved—a firm, manly, and steady
resistance against usurpation. The measures of the federal government
have, it is true, prostrated her interests, and will soon involve the
whole south in irretrievable ruin. But even this evil, great as it is,
is not the chief ground of our complaints. It is the principle involved
in the contest—a principle which, substituting the discretion of
Congress for the limitations of the constitution, brings the states and
the people to the feet of the federal government, and leaves them
nothing they can call their own. Sir, if the measures of the federal
government were less oppressive, we should still strive against this
usurpation. The south is acting on a principle she has always held
sacred—resistance to unauthorized taxation. These, sir, are the
principles which induced the immortal Hampden to resist the payment of a
tax of twenty shillings. Would twenty shillings have ruined his fortune?
No! but the payment of half twenty shillings, on the principle on which
it was demanded, would have made him a slave. Sir, if acting on these
high motives—if animated by that ardent love of liberty which has always
been the most prominent trait in the southern character—we should be
hurried beyond the bounds of a cold and calculating prudence, who is
there, with one noble and generous sentiment in his bosom, that would
not be disposed, in the language of Burke, to exclaim, “You must pardon
something to the spirit of liberty?”
Webster’s Great Reply to Hayne,
_In which he “Expounds the Constitution,” delivered in Senate, January
26, 1830_.
Following Mr. Hayne in the debate, Mr. Webster addressed the Senate as
follows:—
Mr. President: When the mariner has been tossed, for many days, in thick
weather, and on an unknown sea, he naturally avails himself of the first
pause in the storm, the earliest glance of the sun, to take his
latitude, and ascertain how far the elements have driven him from his
true course. Let us imitate this prudence, and before we float farther,
refer to the point from which we departed, that we may at least be able
to conjecture where we now are. I ask for the reading of the resolution.
[The Secretary read the resolution as follows:
“_Resolved_, That the committee on public lands be instructed to
inquire and report the quantity of the public lands remaining unsold
within each state and territory, and whether it be expedient to limit,
for a certain period, the sales of the public lands to such lands only
as have heretofore been offered for sale, and are now subject to entry
at the minimum price. And, also, whether the office of surveyor
general, and some of the land offices, may not be abolished without
detriment to the public interest; or whether it be expedient to adopt
measures to hasten the sales, and extend more rapidly the surveys of
the public lands.”]
We have thus heard, sir, what the resolution is, which is actually
before us for consideration; and it will readily occur to every one that
it is almost the only subject about which something has not been said in
the speech, running through two days, by which the Senate has been now
entertained by the gentleman from South Carolina. Every topic in the
wide range of our public affairs, whether past or present,—every thing,
general or local, whether belonging to national politics or party
politics,—seems to have attracted more or less of the honorable member’s
attention, save only the resolution before us. He has spoken of every
thing but the public lands. They have escaped his notice. To that
subject, in all his excursions, he has not paid even the cold respect of
a passing glance.
When this debate, sir, was to be resumed, on Thursday morning, it so
happened that it would have been convenient for me to be elsewhere. The
honorable member, however, did not incline to put off the discussion to
another day. He had a shot, he said, to return, and he wished to
discharge it. That shot, sir, which it was kind thus to inform us was
coming, that we might stand out of the way, or prepare ourselves to fall
before it, and die with decency, has now been received. Under all
advantages, and with expectation awakened by the tone which preceded it,
it has been discharged, and has spent its force. It may become me to say
no more of its effect than that, if nobody is found, after all, either
killed or wounded by it, it is not the first time in the history of
human affairs that the vigor and success of the war have not quite come
up to the lofty and sounding phrase of the manifesto.
The gentleman, sir, in declining to postpone the debate, told the
Senate, with the emphasis of his hand upon his heart, that there was
something rankling _here_, which he wished to relieve. [Mr. Hayne rose
and disclaimed having used the word _rankling_.] It would not, Mr.
President, be safe for the honorable member to appeal to those around
him, upon the question whether he did, in fact, make use of that word.
But he may have been unconscious of it. At any rate, it is enough that
he disclaims it. But still, with or without the use of that particular
word, he had yet something _here_, he said, of which he wished to rid
himself by an immediate reply. In this respect, sir, I have a great
advantage over the honorable gentleman. There is nothing _here_, sir,
which gives me the slightest uneasiness; neither fear, nor anger, nor
that which is sometimes more troublesome than either, the consciousness
of having been in the wrong. There is nothing either originating _here_,
or now received here, by the gentleman’s shot. Nothing original, for I
had not the slightest feeling of disrespect or unkindness towards the
honorable member. Some passages, it is true, had occurred, since our
acquaintance in this body, which I could have wished might have been
otherwise; but I had used philosophy, and forgotten them. When the
honorable member rose, in his first speech, I paid him the respect of
attentive listening; and when he sat down, though surprised, and I must
say even astonished, at some of his opinions, nothing was farther from
my intention than to commence any personal warfare; and through the
whole of the few remarks I made in answer, I avoided, studiously and
carefully, every thing which I thought possible to be construed into
disrespect. And, sir, while there is thus nothing originating _here_,
which I wished at any time, or now wish to discharge, I must repeat,
also, that nothing has been received _here_ which _rankles_, or in any
way gives me annoyance. I will not accuse the honorable member of
violating the rules of civilized war—I will not say that he poisoned his
arrows. But whether his shafts were, or were not, dipped in that which
would have caused rankling if they had reached, there was not, as it
happened, quite strength enough in the bow to bring them to their mark.
If he wishes now to find those shafts, he must look for them elsewhere;
they will not be found fixed and quivering in the object at which they
were aimed.
[Illustration: _Daniel Webster_]
The honorable member complained that I had slept on his speech. I must
have slept on it, or not slept at all. The moment the honorable member
sat down, his friend from Missouri arose, and, with much honeyed
commendation of the speech, suggested that the impressions which it had
produced were too charming and delightful to be disturbed by other
sentiments or other sounds, and proposed that the Senate should adjourn.
Would it have been quite amiable in me, sir, to interrupt this excellent
good feeling? Must I not have been absolutely malicious, if I could have
thrust myself forward to destroy sensations thus pleasing? Was it not
much better and kinder, both to sleep upon them myself, and to allow
others, also, the pleasure of sleeping upon them? But if it be meant, by
sleeping upon his speech, that I took time to prepare a reply to it, it
is quite a mistake; owing to other engagements, I could not employ even
the interval between the adjournment of the Senate and its meeting the
next morning in attention to the subject of this debate. Nevertheless,
sir, the mere matter of fact is undoubtedly true—I did sleep on the
gentleman’s speech, and slept soundly. And I slept equally well on his
speech of yesterday, to which I am now replying. It is quite possible
that, in this respect, also, I possess some advantage over the honorable
member, attributable, doubtless, to a cooler temperament on my part; for
in truth I slept upon his speeches remarkably well. But the gentleman
inquires why he was made the object of such a reply. Why was he singled
out? If an attack had been made on the east, he, he assures us, did not
begin it—it was the gentleman from Missouri. Sir, I answered the
gentleman’s speech, because I happened to hear it; and because, also, I
choose to give an answer to that speech, which, if unanswered, I thought
most likely to produce injurious impressions. I did not stop to inquire
who was the original drawer of the bill. I found a responsible endorser
before me, and it was my purpose to hold him liable, and to bring him to
his just responsibility without delay. But, sir, this interrogatory of
the honorable member was only introductory to another. He proceeded to
ask me whether I had turned upon him in this debate from the
consciousness that I should find an overmatch if I ventured on a contest
with his friend from Missouri. If, sir, the honorable member, _ex gratia
modestiæ_, had chosen thus to defer to his friend, and to pay him a
compliment, without intentional disparagement to others, it would have
been quite according to the friendly courtesies of debate, and not at
all ungrateful to my own feelings. I am not one of those, sir, who
esteem any tribute of regard, whether light and occasional, or more
serious and deliberate, which may be bestowed on others, as so much
unjustly withholden from themselves. But the tone and manner of the
gentleman’s question, forbid me thus to interpret it. I am not at
liberty to consider it as nothing more than a civility to his friend. It
had an air of taunt and disparagement, a little of the loftiness of
asserted superiority, which does not allow me to pass it over without
notice. It was put as a question for me to answer, and so put as if it
were difficult for me to answer, whether I deemed the member from
Missouri an overmatch for myself in debate here. It seems to me, sir,
that is extraordinary language, and an extraordinary tone for the
discussions of this body.
Matches and overmatches? Those terms are more applicable elsewhere than
here, and fitter for other assemblies than this. Sir, the gentleman
seems to forget where and what we are. This is a Senate; a Senate of
equals; of men of individual honor and personal character, and of
absolute independence. We know no masters; we acknowledge no dictators.
This is a hall of mutual consultation and discussion, not an arena for
the exhibition of champions. I offer myself, sir, as a match for no man;
I throw the challenge of debate at no man’s feet. But, then, sir, since
the honorable member has put the question in a manner that calls for an
answer. I will give him an answer; and I tell him that, holding myself
to be the humblest of the members here, I yet know nothing in the arm of
his friend from Missouri, either alone or when aided by the arm of his
friend from South Carolina, that need deter even me from espousing
whatever opinions I may choose to espouse, from debating whenever I may
choose to debate, or from speaking whatever I may see fit to say on the
floor of the Senate. Sir, when uttered as matter of commendation or
compliment, I should dissent from nothing which the honorable member
might say of his friend. Still less do I put forth any pretensions of my
own. But when put to me as a matter of taunt, I throw it back, and say
to the gentleman that he could possibly say nothing less likely than
such a comparison to wound my pride of personal character. The anger of
its tone rescued the remark from intentional irony, which otherwise,
probably, would have been its general acceptation. But, sir, if it be
imagined that by this mutual quotation and commendation; if it be
supposed that, by casting the characters of the drama, assigning to each
his part,—to one the attack, to another the cry of onset,—or if it be
thought that by a loud and empty vaunt of anticipated victory any
laurels are to be won here; if it be imagined, especially, that any or
all these things will shake any purpose of mine, I can tell the
honorable member, once for all, that he is greatly mistaken, and that he
is dealing with one of whose temper and character he has yet much to
learn. Sir, I shall not allow myself, on this occasion—I hope on no
occasion—to be betrayed into any loss of temper; but if provoked, as I
trust I never shall allow myself to be, into crimination and
recrimination, the honorable member may, perhaps, find that in that
contest there will be blows to take as well as blows to give; that
others can state comparisons as significant, at least, as his own; and
that his impunity may, perhaps, demand of him whatever powers of taunt
and sarcasm he may possess. I commend him to a prudent husbandry of his
resources.
But, sir, the coalition! The coalition! Aye, “the murdered coalition!”
The gentleman asks if I were led or frighted into this debate by the
spectre of the coalition. “Was it the ghost of the murdered coalition,”
he exclaims, “which haunted the member from Massachusetts, and which,
like the ghost of Banquo, would never down?” “The murdered coalition!”
Sir, this charge of a coalition, in reference to the late
administration, is not original with the honorable member. It did not
spring up in the Senate. Whether as a fact, as an argument, or as an
embellishment, it is all borrowed. He adopts it, indeed, from a very low
origin, and a still lower present condition. It is one of the thousand
calumnies with which the press teemed during an excited political
canvass. It was a charge of which there was not only no proof or
probability, but which was, in itself, wholly impossible to be true. No
man of common information ever believed a syllable of it. Yet it was of
that class of falsehoods which, by continued repetition through all the
organs of detraction and abuse, are capable of misleading those who are
already far misled, and of further fanning passion already kindling into
flame. Doubtless it served its day, and, in a greater or less degree,
the end designed by it. Having done that, it has sunk into the general
mass of stale and loathed calumnies. It is the very castoff slough of a
polluted and shameless press. Incapable of further mischief, it lies in
the sewer lifeless and despised. It is not now, sir, in the power of the
honorable member to give it dignity or decency, by attempting to elevate
it, and to introduce it into the Senate. He cannot change it from what
it is—an object of general disgust and scorn. On the contrary, the
contact, if he choose to touch it, is more likely to drag him down,
down, to the place where it lies itself.
But, sir, the honorable member was not, for other reasons, entirely
happy in his allusion to the story of Banquo’s murder and Banquo’s
ghost. It was not, I think, the friends, but the enemies of the murdered
Banquo, at whose bidding his spirit would not down. The honorable
gentleman is fresh in his reading of the English classics, and can put
me right if I am wrong; but according to my poor recollection, it was at
those who had begun with caresses, and ended with foul and treacherous
murder, that the gory locks were shaken. The ghost of Banquo, like that
of Hamlet, was an honest ghost. It disturbed no innocent man. It knew
where its appearance would strike terror, and who would cry out. A
ghost! It made itself visible in the right quarter, and compelled the
guilty, and the conscience-smitten, and none others, to start, with,
“Prithee, see there! behold!—look! lo!
If I stand here, I saw him!”
_Their_ eyeballs were seared—was it not so, sir?—who had thought to
shield themselves by concealing their own hand and laying the imputation
of the crime on a low and hireling agency in wickedness; who had vainly
attempted to stifle the workings of their own coward consciences, by
circulating, through white lips and chattering teeth, “Thou canst not
say I did it!” I have misread the great poet, if it was those who had no
way partaken in the deed of the death, who either found that they were,
_or feared that they should be_, pushed from their stools by the ghost
of the slain, or who cried out to a spectre created by their own fears,
and their own remorse, “Avaunt! and quit our sight!”
There is another particular, sir, in which the honorable member’s quick
perception of resemblances might, I should think, have seen something in
the story of Banquo, making it not altogether a subject of the most
pleasant contemplation. Those who murdered Banquo, what did they win by
it? Substantial good? Permanent power? Or disappointment, rather, and
sore mortification—dust and ashes—the common fate of vaulting ambition
overleaping itself? Did not even-handed justice, ere long, commend the
poisoned chalice to their own lips? Did they not soon find that for
another they had “filed their mind?” that their ambition though
apparently for the moment successful, had but put a barren sceptre in
their grasp? Aye, sir,—
“A barren sceptre in their gripe,
_Thence to be wrenched by an unlineal hand,
No son of theirs succeeding_.”
Sir, I need pursue the allusion no further. I leave the honorable
gentleman to run it out at his leisure, and to derive from it all the
gratification it is calculated to administer. If he finds himself
pleased with the associations, and prepared to be quite satisfied,
though the parallel should be entirely completed, I had almost said I am
satisfied also—but that I shall think of. Yes, sir, I will think of
that.
In the course of my observations the other day, Mr. President, I paid a
passing tribute of respect to a very worthy man, Mr. Dane, of
Massachusetts. It so happened that he drew the ordinance of 1787 for the
government of the Northwestern Territory. A man of so much ability, and
so little pretence; of so great a capacity to do good, and so unmixed a
disposition to do it for its own sake; a gentleman who acted an
important part, forty years ago, in a measure the influence of which is
still deeply felt in the very matter which was the subject of debate,
might, I thought, receive from me a commendatory recognition.
But the honorable gentleman was inclined to be facetious on the subject.
He was rather disposed to make it a matter of ridicule that I had
introduced into the debate the name of one Nathan Dane, of whom he
assures us he had never before heard. Sir, if the honorable member had
never before heard of Mr. Dane, I am sorry for it. It shows him less
acquainted with the public men of the country than I had supposed. Let
me tell him, however, that a sneer from him at the mention of the name
of Mr. Dane is in bad taste. It may well be a high mark of ambition,
sir, either with the honorable gentleman or myself, to accomplish as
much to make our names known to advantage, and remembered with
gratitude, as Mr. Dane has accomplished. But the truth is, sir, I
suspect that Mr. Dane lives a little too far north. He is of
Massachusetts, and too near the north star to be reached by the
honorable gentleman’s telescope. If his sphere had happened to range
south of Mason and Dixon’s line, he might, probably, have come within
the scope of his vision!
I spoke, sir, of the ordinance of 1787, which prohibited slavery in all
future times northwest of the Ohio, as a measure of great wisdom and
foresight, and one which had been attended with highly beneficial and
permanent consequences. I suppose that on this point no two gentlemen in
the Senate could entertain different opinions. But the simple expression
of this sentiment has led the gentleman, not only into a labored defence
of slavery in the abstract, and on principle, but also into a warm
accusation against me, as having attacked the system of slavery now
existing in the Southern States. For all this there was not the
slightest foundation in anything said or intimated by me. I did not
utter a single word which any ingenuity could torture into an attack on
the slavery of the South. I said only that it was highly wise and useful
in legislating for the northwestern country, while it was yet a
wilderness, to prohibit the introduction of slaves; and added, that I
presumed, in the neighboring state of Kentucky, there was no reflecting
and intelligent gentleman who would doubt that, if the same prohibition
had been extended, at the same early period, over that commonwealth, her
strength and population would, at this day, have been far greater than
they are. If these opinions be thought doubtful, they are, nevertheless,
I trust, neither extraordinary nor disrespectful. They attack nobody and
menace nobody. And yet, sir, the gentleman’s optics have discovered,
even in the mere expression of this sentiment, what he calls the very
spirit of the Missouri question! He represents me as making an attack on
the whole south, and manifesting a spirit which would interfere with and
disturb their domestic condition. Sir, this injustice no otherwise
surprises me than as it is done here, and done without the slightest
pretence of ground for it. I say it only surprises me as being done
here; for I know full well that it is and has been the settled policy of
some persons in the south, for years, to represent the people of the
north as disposed to interfere with them in their own exclusive and
peculiar concerns. This is a delicate and sensitive point in southern
feeling; and of late years it has always been touched, and generally
with effect, whenever the object has been to unite the whole south
against northern men or northern measures. This feeling, always
carefully kept alive, and maintained at too intense a heat to admit
discrimination or reflection, is a lever of great power in our political
machine. It moves vast bodies, and gives to them one and the same
direction. But the feeling is without adequate cause, and the suspicion
which exists wholly groundless. There is not, and never has been, a
disposition in the north to interfere with these interests of the south.
Such interference has never been supposed to be within the power of the
government, nor has it been in any way attempted. It has always been
regarded as a matter of domestic policy, left with the states
themselves, and with which the federal government had nothing to do.
Certainly, sir, I am, and ever had been, of that opinion. The gentleman,
indeed, argues that slavery in the abstract is no evil. Most assuredly I
need not say I differ with him altogether and most widely on that point.
I regard domestic slavery as one of the greatest evils, both moral and
political. But, though it be a malady, and whether it be curable, and if
so, by what means; or, on the other hand, whether it be the _culnus
immedicabile_ of the social system, I leave it to those whose right and
duty it is to inquire and to decide. And this I believe, sir, is, and
uniformly has been, the sentiment of the north. Let us look a little at
the history of this matter.
When the present constitution was submitted for the ratification of the
people, there were those who imagined that the powers of the government
which it proposed to establish might, perhaps, in some possible mode, be
exerted in measures tending to the abolition of slavery. This suggestion
would, of course, attract much attention in the southern conventions. In
that of Virginia, Governor Randolph said:—
“I hope there is none here, who, considering the subject in the calm
light of philosophy, will make an objection dishonorable to
Virginia—that, at the moment they are securing the rights of their
citizens, an objection is started, that there is a spark of hope that
those unfortunate men now held in bondage may, by the operation of the
general government, be made free.”
At the very first Congress, petitions on the subject were presented, if
I mistake not, from different states. The Pennsylvania Society for
promoting the Abolition of Slavery, took a lead, and laid before
Congress a memorial, praying Congress to promote the abolition by such
powers as it possessed. This memorial was referred, in the House of
Representatives, to a select committee, consisting of Mr. Foster, of New
Hampshire, Mr. Gerry, of Massachusetts, Mr. Huntington, of Connecticut,
Mr. Lawrence, of New York, Mr. Dickinson, of New Jersey, Mr. Hartley, of
Pennsylvania, and Mr. Parker, of Virginia; all of them, sir, as you will
observe, northern men, but the last. This committee made a report, which
was committed to a committee of the whole house, and there considered
and discussed on several days; and being amended, although in no
material respect, it was made to express three distinct propositions on
the subjects of slavery and the slave trade. First, in the words of the
constitution, that Congress could not, prior to the year 1808, prohibit
the migration or importation of such persons as any of the states then
existing should think proper to admit. Second, that Congress had
authority to restrain the citizens of the United States from carrying on
the African slave trade for the purpose of supplying foreign countries.
On this proposition, our early laws against those who engage in that
traffic are founded. The third proposition, and that which bears on the
present question, was expressed in the following terms:—
“_Resolved_, That Congress have no authority to interfere in the
emancipation of slaves, or of the treatment of them in any of the
states; it remaining with the several states alone to provide rules
and regulations therein, which humanity and true policy may require.”
This resolution received the sanction of the House of Representatives so
early as March, 1790. And, now, sir, the honorable member will allow me
to remind him, that not only were the select committee who reported the
resolution, with a single exception, all northern men, but also that of
the members then composing the House of Representatives, a large
majority, I believe nearly two-thirds, were northern men also.
The house agreed to insert these resolutions in its journal; and, from
that day to this, it has never been maintained or contended that
Congress had any authority to regulate or interfere with the condition
of slaves in the several states. No northern gentleman, to my knowledge,
has moved any such question in either house of Congress.
The fears of the south, whatever fears they might have entertained, were
allayed and quieted by this early decision; and so remained, till they
were excited afresh, without cause, but for collateral and indirect
purposes. When it became necessary, or was thought so, by some political
persons, to find an unvarying ground for the exclusion of northern men
from confidence and from lead in the affairs of the republic, then, and
not till then, the cry was raised, and the feeling industriously
excited, that the influence of northern men in the public councils would
endanger the relation of master and slave. For myself, I claim no other
merit, than that this gross and enormous injustice towards the whole
north has not wrought upon me to change my opinions, or my political
conduct. I hope I am above violating my principles, even under the smart
of injury and false imputations. Unjust suspicions and undeserved
reproach, whatever pain I may experience from them, will not induce me,
I trust, nevertheless, to overstep the limits of constitutional duty, or
to encroach on the rights of others. The domestic slavery of the south I
leave where I find it—in the hands of their own governments. It is their
affair, not mine. Nor do I complain of the peculiar effect which the
magnitude of that population has had in the distribution of power under
this federal government. We know, sir, that the representation of the
states in the other house is not equal. We know that great advantage, in
that respect, is enjoyed by the slaveholding states; and we know, too,
that the intended equivalent for that advantage—that is to say, the
imposition of direct taxes in the same ratio—has become merely nominal;
the habit of the government being almost invariably to collect its
revenues from other sources, and in other modes. Nevertheless, I do not
complain; nor would I countenance any movement to alter this arrangement
of representation. It is the original bargain, the compact—let it stand;
let the advantage of it be fully enjoyed. The Union itself is too full
of benefit to be hazarded in propositions for changing its original
basis. I go for the constitution as it is, and for the Union as it is.
But I am resolved not to submit, in silence, to accusations, either
against myself individually, or against the north, wholly unfounded and
unjust—accusations which impute to us a disposition to evade the
constitutional compact, and to extend the power of the government over
the internal laws and domestic condition of the states. All such
accusations, wherever and whenever made, all insinuations of the
existence of any such purposes, I know and feel to be groundless and
injurious. And we must confide in southern gentlemen themselves; we must
trust to those whose integrity of heart and magnanimity of feeling will
lead them to a desire to maintain and disseminate truth, and who possess
the means of its diffusion with the southern public; we must leave it to
them to disabuse that public of its prejudices. But, in the mean time,
for my own part, I shall continue to act justly, whether those towards
whom justice is exercised receive it with candor or with contumely.
Having had occasion to recur to the ordinance of 1787, in order to
defend myself against the inferences which the honorable member has
chosen to draw from my former observations on that subject, I am not
willing now entirely to take leave of it without another remark. It need
hardly be said, that that paper expresses just sentiments on the great
subject of civil and religious liberty. Such sentiments were common, and
abound in all our state papers of that day. But this ordinance did that
which was not so common, and which is not, even now, universal; that is,
it set forth and declared, _as a high and binding duty of government
itself_, to encourage schools and advance the means of education; on the
plain reason that religion, morality and knowledge are necessary to good
government, and to the happiness of mankind. One observation further.
The important provision incorporated into the constitution of the United
States, and several of those of the states, and recently, as we have
seen, adopted into the reformed constitution of Virginia, restraining
legislative power, in questions of private right, and from impairing the
obligation of contracts, is first introduced and established, as far as
I am informed, as matter of express written constitutional law, in this
ordinance of 1787. And I must add, also, in regard to the author of the
ordinance, who has not had the happiness to attract the gentleman’s
notice heretofore, nor to avoid his sarcasm now, that he was chairman of
that select committee of the old Congress, whose report first expressed
the strong sense of that body, that the old confederation was not
adequate to the exigencies of the country, and recommending to the
states to send delegates to the convention which formed the present
constitution.
An attempt has been made to transfer from the north to the south the
honor of this exclusion of slavery from the Northwestern territory. The
journal, without argument or comment, refutes such attempt. The session
of Virginia was made March, 1784. On the 19th of April following, a
committee, consisting of Messrs. Jefferson, Chase and Howell, reported a
plan for a temporary government of the territory, in which was this
article: “That after the year 1800, there should be neither slavery nor
involuntary servitude in any of the said states, otherwise than in
punishment of crimes, whereof the party shall have been convicted.” Mr.
Speight, of North Carolina, moved to strike out this paragraph. The
question was put according to the form then practiced: “Shall, these
words stand, as part of the plan?” &c. New Hampshire, Massachusetts,
Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania—seven
states—voted in the affirmative; Maryland, Virginia and South Carolina,
in the negative. North Carolina was divided. As the consent of nine
states was necessary, the words could not stand, and were struck out
accordingly. Mr. Jefferson voted for the clause, but was overruled by
his colleagues.
In March of the next year (1785) Mr. King, of Massachusetts, seconded by
Mr. Ellery, of Rhode Island, proposed the formerly rejected article,
with this addition: “_And that this regulation shall be an article of
compact, and remain a fundamental principle of the constitution between
the thirteen original states and each of the states described in the
resolve_,” &c. On this clause, which provided the adequate and thorough
security, the eight Northern States, at that time, voted affirmatively,
and the four Southern States negatively. The votes of nine states were
not yet obtained, and thus the provision was again rejected by the
Southern States. The perseverance of the north held out, and two years
afterwards the object was attained. It is no derogation from the credit,
whatever that may be, of drawing the ordinance, that its principles had
before been prepared and discussed, in the form of resolutions. If one
should reason in that way, what would become of the distinguished honor
of the author of the declaration of Independence? There is not a
sentiment in that paper which had not been voted and resolved in the
assemblies, and other popular bodies in the country, over and over
again.
But the honorable member has now found out that this gentleman, Mr.
Dane, was a member of the Hartford Convention. However uninformed the
honorable member may be of characters and occurrences at the north, it
would seem that he has at his elbows, on this occasion, some highminded
and lofty spirit, some magnanimous and true-hearted monitor, possessing
the means of local knowledge, and ready to supply the honorable member
with every thing, down even to forgotten and moth-eaten twopenny
pamphlets, which may be used to the disadvantage of his own country.
But, as to the Hartford Convention, sir, allow me to say that the
proceedings of that body seem now to be less read and studied in New
England than farther south. They appear to be looked to, not in New
England, but elsewhere, for the purpose of seeing how far they may serve
as a precedent. But they will not answer the purpose—they are quite too
tame. The latitude in which they originated was too cold. Other
conventions, of more recent existence, have gone a whole bar’s length
beyond it. The learned doctors of Colleton and Abbeville have pushed
their commentaries on the Hartford collect so far that the original text
writers are thrown entirely into the shade. I have nothing to do, sir,
with the Hartford Convention. Its journal, which the gentleman has
quoted, I never read. So far as the honorable member may discover in its
proceedings a spirit in any degree resembling that which was avowed and
justified in those other conventions to which I have alluded, or so far
as those proceedings can be shown to be disloyal to the constitution, or
tending to disunion, so far I shall be as ready as any one to bestow on
them reprehension and censure.
Having dwelt long on this convention, and other occurrences of that day,
in the hope, probably, (which will not be gratified,) that I should
leave the course of this debate to follow him at length in those
excursions, the honorable member returned, and attempted another object.
He referred to a speech of mine in the other house, the same which I had
occasion to allude to myself the other day; and has quoted a passage or
two from it, with a bold though uneasy and laboring air of confidence,
as if he had detected in me an inconsistency. Judging from the
gentleman’s manner, a stranger to the course of the debate, and to the
point in discussion, would have imagined, from so triumphant a tone,
that the honorable member was about to overwhelm me with a manifest
contradiction. Any one who heard him, and who had not heard what I had,
in fact, previously said, must have thought me routed and discomfited,
as the gentleman had promised. Sir, a breath blows all this triumph
away. There is not the slightest difference in the sentiments of my
remarks on the two occasions. What I said here on Wednesday is in exact
accordance with the opinions expressed by me in the other house in 1825.
Though the gentleman had the metaphysics of Hudibras—though he were able
“to sever and divide
A hair ’twixt north and north west side,”
he could not yet insert his metaphysical scissors between the fair
reading of my remarks in 1825 and what I said here last week. There is
not only no contradiction, no difference, but, in truth, too exact a
similarity, both in thought and language, to be entirely in just taste.
I had myself quoted the same speech; had recurred to it, and spoke with
it open before me; and much of what I said was little more than a
repetition from it. In order to make finishing work with this alleged
contradiction, permit me to recur to the origin of this debate, and
review its course. This seems expedient, and may be done as well now as
at any time.
Well, then, its history is this: the honorable member from Connecticut
moved a resolution, which constituted the first branch of that which is
now before us; that is to say, a resolution instructing the committee on
public lands to inquire into the expediency of limiting, for a certain
period, the sales of public lands to such as have heretofore been
offered for sale; and whether sundry offices, connected with the sales
of the lands, might not be abolished without detriment to the public
service.
In the progress of the discussion which arose on this resolution, an
honorable member from New Hampshire moved to amend the resolution, so as
entirely to reverse its object; that is to strike it all out, and insert
a direction to the committee to inquire into the expediency of adopting
measures to hasten the sales, and extend more rapidly the surveys of the
lands.
The honorable member from Maine (Mr. Sprague) suggested that both these
propositions might well enough go, for consideration, to the committee;
and in this state of the question, the member from South Carolina
addressed the Senate in his first speech. He rose, he said, to give his
own free thoughts on the public lands. I saw him rise, with pleasure,
and listened with expectation, though before he concluded I was filled
with surprise. Certainly, I was never more surprised than to find him
following up, to the extent he did, the sentiments and opinions which
the gentleman from Missouri had put forth, and which it is known he has
long entertained.
I need not repeat, at large, the general topics of the honorable
gentleman’s speech. When he said, yesterday, that he did not attack the
Eastern States, he certainly must have forgotten not only particular
remarks, but the whole drift and tenor of his speech; unless he means by
not attacking, that he did not commence hostilities, but that another
had preceded him in the attack. He, in the first place, disapproved of
the whole course of the government for forty years, in regard to its
dispositions of the public land; and then, turning northward and
eastward, and fancying he had found a cause for alleged narrowness and
niggardliness in the “accursed policy” of the tariff, to which he
represented the people of New England as wedded, he went on, for a full
hour, with remarks, the whole scope of which was to exhibit the results
of this policy, in feelings and in measures unfavorable to the west. I
thought his opinions unfounded and erroneous, as to the general course
of the government, and ventured to reply to them.
The gentleman had remarked on the analogy of other cases, and quoted the
conduct of European governments towards their own subjects, settling on
this continent, as in point, to show that we had been harsh and rigid in
selling when we should have given the public lands to settlers. I
thought the honorable member had suffered his judgment to be betrayed by
a false analogy; that he was struck with an appearance of resemblance
where there was no real similitude. I think so still. The first settlers
of North America were enterprising spirits, engaging in private
adventure, or fleeing from tyranny at home. When arrived here, they were
forgotten by the mother country, or remembered only to be oppressed.
Carried away again by the appearance of analogy, or struck with the
eloquence of the passage, the honorable member yesterday observed that
the conduct of government towards the western emigrants, or my
representation of it, brought to his mind a celebrated speech in the
British Parliament. It was, sir, the speech of Colonel Barre. On the
question of the stamp act, or tea tax, I forget which, Colonel Barre had
heard a member on the treasury bench argue, that the people of the
United States, being British colonists, planted by the maternal care,
nourished by the indulgence, and protected by the arms of England, would
not grudge their mite to relieve the mother country from the heavy
burden under which she groaned. The language of Colonel Barre, in reply
to this, was, “They planted by your care? Your oppression planted them
in America. They fled from your tyranny, and grew by your neglect of
them. So soon as you began to care for them, you showed your care by
sending persons to spy out their liberties, misrepresent their
character, prey upon them, and eat out their substance.”
And does this honorable gentleman mean to maintain that language like
this is applicable to the conduct of the government of the United States
towards the western emigrants, or to any representation given by me of
that conduct? Were the settlers in the west driven thither by our
oppression? Have they flourished only by our neglect of them? Has the
government done nothing but prey upon them, and eat out their substance?
Sir, this fervid eloquence of the British speaker, just when and where
it was uttered, and fit to remain an exercise for the schools, is not a
little out of place, when it was brought thence to be applied here, to
the conduct of our own country towards her own citizens. From America to
England it may be true; from Americans to their own government it would
be strange language. Let us leave it to be recited and declaimed by our
boys against a foreign nation; not introduce it here, to recite and
declaim ourselves against our own.
But I come to the point of the alleged contradiction. In my remarks on
Wednesday, I contended that we could not give away gratuitously all the
public lands; that we held them in trust; that the government had
solemnly pledged itself to dispose of them as a common fund for the
common benefit, and to sell and settle them as its discretion should
dictate. Now, sir, what contradiction does the gentleman find to this
sentiment in the speech of 1825? He quotes me as having then said, that
we ought not to hug these lands as a very great treasure. Very well,
sir; supposing me to be accurately reported in that expression, what is
the contradiction? I have not now said, that we should hug these lands
as a favorite source of pecuniary income. No such thing. It is not my
view. What I have said, and what I do say, is, that they are a common
fund—to be disposed of for the common benefit—to be sold at low prices,
for the accommodation of settlers, keeping the object of settling the
lands as much in view as that of raising money from them. This I say
now, and this I have always said. Is this hugging them as a favorite
treasure? Is there no difference between hugging and hoarding this fund,
on the one hand, as a great treasure, and on the other of disposing of
it at low prices, placing the proceeds in the general treasury of the
Union? My opinion is, that as much is to be made of the land, as fair
and reasonably may be, selling it all the while at such rates as to give
the fullest effect to settlement. This is not giving it all away to the
states, as the gentleman would propose, nor is it hugging the fund
closely and tenaciously, as a favorite treasure; but it is, in my
judgment, a just and wise policy, perfectly according with all the
various duties which rest on government. So much for my contradiction.
And what is it? Where is the ground of the gentleman’s triumph? What
inconsistency, in word or doctrine, has he been able to detect? Sir, if
this be a sample of that discomfiture with which the honorable gentleman
threatened me, commend me to the word _discomfiture_ for the rest of my
life.
But, after all, this is not the point of the debate; and I must bring
the gentleman back to that which is the point.
The real question between me and him is, Where has the doctrine been
advanced, at the south or the east, that the population of the west
should be retarded, or, at least, need not be hastened, on account of
its effect to drain off the people from the Atlantic States? Is this
doctrine, as has been alleged, of eastern origin? That is the question.
Has the gentleman found anything by which he can make good his
accusation? I submit to the Senate, that he has entirely failed; and as
far as this debate has shown, the only person who has advanced such
sentiments is a gentleman from South Carolina, and a friend to the
honorable member himself. This honorable gentleman has given no answer
to this; there is none which can be given. This simple fact, while it
requires no comment to enforce it, defies all argument to refute it. I
could refer to the speeches of another southern gentleman, in years
before, of the same general character, and to the same effect, as that
which has been quoted; but I will not consume the time of the Senate by
the reading of them.
So then, sir, New England is guiltless of the policy of retarding
western population, and of all envy and jealousy of the growth of the
new states. Whatever there be of that policy in the country, no part of
it is hers. If it has a local habitation, the honorable member has
probably seen, by this time, where he is to look for it; and if it now
has received a name, he himself has christened it.
We approach, at length, sir, to a more important part of the honorable
gentleman’s observations. Since it does not accord with my views of
justice and policy, to vote away the public lands altogether, as mere
matter of gratuity, I am asked, by the honorable gentleman, on what
ground it is that I consent to give them away in particular instances.
How, he inquires, do I reconcile with these professed sentiments my
support of measures appropriating portions of the lands to particular
roads, particular canals, particular rivers, and particular institutions
of education in the west? This leads, sir, to the real and wide
difference in political opinions between the honorable gentleman and
myself. On my part, I look upon all these objects as connected with the
common good, fairly embraced in its objects and its terms; he, on the
contrary, deems them all, if good at all, only local good. This is our
difference. The interrogatory which he proceeded to put, at once
explains this difference. “What interest,” asks he, “has South Carolina
in a canal in Ohio?” Sir, this very question is full of significance. It
develops the gentleman’s whole political system; and its answer expounds
mine. Here we differ _toto cœlo_. I look upon a road over the Alleghany,
a canal round the falls of the Ohio, or a canal or railway from the
Atlantic to the western waters, as being objects large and extensive
enough to be fairly said to be for the common benefit. The gentleman
thinks otherwise, and this is the key to open his construction of the
powers of the government. He may well ask, upon his system, What
interest has South Carolina in a canal in Ohio? On that system, it is
true, she has no interest. On that system, Ohio and Carolina are
different governments and different countries, connected here, it is
true, by some slight and ill-defined bond of union, but in all main
respects separate and diverse. On that system, Carolina has no more
interest in a canal in Ohio than in Mexico. The gentleman, therefore,
only follows out his own principles; he does no more than arrive at the
natural conclusions of his own doctrines; he only announces the true
results of that creed which he has adopted himself, and would persuade
others to adopt, when he thus declares that South Carolina has no
interest in a public work in Ohio. Sir, we narrow-minded people of New
England do not reason thus. Our notion of things is entirely different.
We look upon the states not as separated, but as united. We love to
dwell on that Union, and on the mutual happiness which it has so much
promoted, and the common renown which it has so greatly contributed to
acquire. In our contemplation, Carolina and Ohio are parts of the same
country—states united under the same general government, having
interests common, associated, intermingled. In whatever is within the
proper sphere of the constitutional power of this government, we look
upon the states as one. We do not impose geographical limits to our
patriotic feeling or regard; we do not follow rivers, and mountains, and
lines of latitude, to find boundaries beyond which public improvements
do not benefit us. We, who come here as agents and representatives of
those narrow-minded and selfish men of New England, consider ourselves
as bound to regard, with equal eye, the good of the whole, in whatever
is within our power of legislation. Sir, if a railroad or canal,
beginning in South Carolina, appeared to me to be of national importance
and national magnitude, believing as I do that the power of government
extends to the encouragement of works of that description, if I were to
stand up here and ask, “What interest has Massachusetts in a railroad in
South Carolina?” I should not be willing to face my constituents. These
same narrow-minded men would tell me that they had sent me to act for
the whole country, and that one who possessed too little comprehension,
either of intellect or feeling—one who was not large enough, in mind and
heart, to embrace the whole—was not fit to be intrusted with the
interest of any part. Sir, I do not desire to enlarge the powers of
government by unjustifiable construction, nor to exercise any not within
a fair interpretation. But when it is believed that a power does exist,
then it is, in my judgment, to be exercised for the general benefit of
the whole: so far as respects the exercise of such a power, the states
are one. It was the very great object of the constitution to create
unity of interests to the extent of the powers of the general
government. In war and peace we are one; in commerce one; because the
authority of the general government reaches to war and peace, and to the
regulation of commerce. I have never seen any more difficulty in
erecting lighthouses on the lakes than on the ocean; in improving the
harbors of inland seas, than if they were within the ebb and flow of the
tide; or of removing obstructions in the vast streams of the west, more
than in any work to facilitate commerce on the Atlantic coast. If there
be power for one, there is power also for the other; and they are all
and equally for the country.
There are other objects, apparently more local, or the benefit of which
is less general, towards which, nevertheless, I have concurred with
others to give aid by donations of land. It is proposed to construct a
road in or through one of the new states in which the government
possesses large quantities of land. Have the United States no right, as
a great and untaxed proprietor—are they under no obligation—to
contribute to an object thus calculated to promote the common good of
all the proprietors, themselves included? And even with respect to
education, which is the extreme case, let the question be considered. In
the first place, as we have seen, it was made matter of compact with
these states that they should do their part to promote education. In the
next place, our whole system of land laws proceeds on the idea that
education is for the common good; because, in every division, a certain
portion is uniformly reserved and appropriated for the use of schools.
And, finally have not these new states singularly strong claims, founded
on the ground already stated, that the government is a great untaxed
proprietor in the ownership of the soil? It is a consideration of great
importance that probably there is in no part of the country, or of the
world, so great a call for the means of education as in those new
states, owing to the vast number of persons within those ages in which
education and instruction are usually received, if received at all. This
is the natural consequence of recency of settlement and rapid increase.
The census of these states shows how great a proportion of the whole
population occupies the classes between infancy and childhood. These are
the wide fields, and here is the deep and quick soil for the seeds of
knowledge and virtue; and this is the favored season, the spring time
for sowing them. Let them be disseminated without stint. Let them be
scattered with a bountiful broadcast. Whatever the government can fairly
do towards these objects, in my opinion, ought to be done.
These, sir, are the grounds, succinctly stated, on which my vote for
grants of lands for particular objects rest, while I maintain, at the
same time, that it is all a common fund, for the common benefit. And
reasons like these, I presume, have influenced the votes of other
gentlemen from New England. Those who have a different view of the
powers of the government, of course, come to different conclusions on
these as on other questions. I observed, when speaking on this subject
before, that if we looked to any measure, whether for a road, a canal,
or any thing else intended for the improvement of the west, it would be
found, that if the New England _ayes_ were struck out of the list of
votes, the southern _noes_ would always have rejected the measure. The
truth of this has not been denied, and cannot be denied. In stating
this, I thought it just to ascribe it to the constitutional scruples of
the south, rather than to any other less favorable or less charitable
cause. But no sooner had I done this, than the honorable gentleman asks
if I reproach him and his friends with their constitutional scruples.
Sir, I reproach nobody. I stated a fact, and gave the most respectful
reason for it that occurred to me. The gentleman cannot deny the fact—he
may, if he choose, disclaim the reason. It is not long since I had
occasion, in presenting a petition from his own state, to account for
its being intrusted to my hands by saying, that the constitutional
opinions of the gentleman and his worthy colleague prevented them from
supporting it. Sir, did I state this as a matter of reproach? Far from
it. Did I attempt to find any other cause than an honest one for these
scruples? Sir, I did not. It did not become me to doubt, nor to
insinuate that the gentleman had either changed his sentiments, or that
he had made up a set of constitutional opinions, accommodated to any
particular combination of political occurrences. Had I done so, I should
have felt, that while I was entitled to little respect in thus
questioning other people’s motives, I justified the whole world in
suspecting my own.
But how has the gentleman returned this respect for others’ opinions?
His own candor and justice, how have they been exhibited towards the
motives of others, while he has been at so much pains to maintain—what
nobody has disputed—the purity of his own? Why, sir, he has asked
_when_, and _how_, and _why_ New England votes were found going for
measures favorable to the west; he has demanded to be informed whether
all this did not begin in 1825, _and while the election of President was
still pending_. Sir, to these questions retort would be justified; and
it is both cogent and at hand. Nevertheless, I will answer the inquiry
not by retort, but by facts. I will tell the gentleman _when_, and
_how_, and _why_ New England has supported measures favorable to the
west. I have already referred to the early history of the government—to
the first acquisition of the lands—to the original laws for disposing of
them and for governing the territories where they lie; and have shown
the influence of New England men and New England principles in all these
leading measures. I should not be pardoned were I to go over that ground
again. Coming to more recent times, and to measures of a less general
character, I have endeavored to prove that every thing of this kind
designed for western improvement has depended on the votes of New
England. All this is true beyond the power of contradiction.
And now, sir, there are two measures to which I will refer, not so
ancient as to belong to the early history of the public lands, and not
so recent as to be on this side of the period when the gentleman
charitably imagines a new direction may have been given to New England
feeling and New England votes. These measures, and the New England votes
in support of them, may be taken as samples and specimens of all the
rest. In 1820, (observe, Mr. President, in 1820,) the people of the west
besought Congress for a reduction in the price of lands. In favor of
that reduction, New England, with a delegation of forty members in the
other house, gave thirty-three votes, and one only against it. The four
Southern States, with fifty members, gave thirty-two votes for it, and
seven against it. Again, in 1821, (observe again, sir, the time,) the
law passed for the relief of the purchasers of the public lands. This
was a measure of vital importance to the west, and more especially to
the southwest. It authorized the relinquishment of contracts for lands,
which had been entered into at high prices, and a reduction, in other
cases, of not less than 37½ per cent. on the purchase money. Many
millions of dollars, six or seven I believe at least,—probably much
more,—were relinquished by this law. On this bill New England, with her
forty members, gave more affirmative votes than the four Southern States
with their fifty-two or three members. These two are far the most
important measures respecting the public lands which have been adopted
within the last twenty years. They took place in 1820 and 1821. That is
the time when. And as to the manner how, the gentleman already sees that
it was by voting, in solid column, for the required relief; and lastly,
as to the cause why, I tell the gentleman, it was because the members
from New England thought the measures just and salutary; because they
entertained towards the west neither envy, hatred, nor malice; because
they deemed it becoming them, as just and enlightened public men, to
meet the exigency which had arisen in the west with the appropriate
measure of relief; because they felt it due to their own characters of
their New England predecessors in this government, to act towards the
new states in the spirit of a liberal, patronizing, magnanimous policy.
So much, sir, for the cause _why_; and I hope that by this time, sir,
the honorable gentleman is satisfied; if not, I do not know _when_, or
_how_, or _why_, he ever will be.
Having recurred to these two important measures, in answer to the
gentleman’s inquiries, I must now beg permission to go back to a period
still something earlier, for the purpose still further of showing how
much, or rather how little reason there is for the gentleman’s
insinuation that political hopes, or fears, or party associations, were
the grounds of these New England votes. And after what has been said, I
hope it may be forgiven me if I allude to some political opinions and
votes of my own, of very little public importance, certainly, but which,
from the time at which they were given and expressed, may pass for good
witnesses on this occasion.
This government, Mr. President, from its origin to the peace of 1815,
had been too much engrossed with various other important concerns to be
able to turn its thoughts inward, and look to the development of its
vast internal resources. In the early part of President Washington’s
administration, it was fully occupied with organizing the government,
providing for the public debt, defending the frontiers, and maintaining
domestic peace. Before the termination of that administration, the fires
of the French revolution blazed forth, as from a new opened volcano, and
the whole breadth of the ocean did not entirely secure us from its
effects. The smoke and the cinders reached us, though not the burning
lava. Difficult and agitating questions, embarrassing to government, and
dividing public opinion, sprung out of the new state of our foreign
relations, and were succeeded by others, and yet again by others,
equally embarrassing, and equally exciting division and discord, through
the long series of twenty years, till they finally issued in the war
with England. Down to the close of that war, no distinct, marked and
deliberate attention had been given, or could have been given, to the
internal condition of the country, its capacities of improvement, or the
constitutional power of the government, in regard to objects connected
with such improvement.
The peace, Mr. President, brought about an entirely new and a most
interesting state of things; it opened to us other prospects, and
suggested other duties; we ourselves were changed, and the whole world
was changed. The pacification of Europe, after June, 1815, assumed a
firm and permanent aspect. The nations evidently manifested that they
were disposed for peace: some agitation of the waves might be expected,
even after the storm had subsided; but the tendency was, strongly and
rapidly, towards settled repose.
It so happened, sir, that I was at that time a member of Congress, and,
like others, naturally turned my attention to the contemplation of the
newly-altered condition of the country, and of the world. It appeared
plainly enough to me, as well as to wiser and more experienced men, that
the policy of the government would necessarily take a start in a new
direction, because new directions would necessarily be given to the
pursuits and occupations of the people. We had pushed our commerce far
and fast, under the advantage of a neutral flag. But there were now no
longer flags, either neutral or belligerent. The harvest of neutrality
had been great, but we had gathered it all. With the peace of Europe, it
was obvious there would spring up, in her circle of nations, a revived
and invigorated spirit of trade, and a new activity in all the business
and objects of civilized life. Hereafter, our commercial gains were to
be earned only by success in a close and intense competition. Other
nations would produce for themselves, and carry for themselves, and
manufacture for themselves, to the full extent of their abilities. The
crops of our plains would no longer sustain European armies, nor our
ships longer supply those whom war had rendered unable to supply
themselves. It was obvious that under these circumstances, the country
would begin to survey itself, and to estimate its own capacity of
improvement. And this improvement, how was it to be accomplished, and
who was to accomplish it?
We were ten or twelve millions of people, spread over almost half a
world. We were twenty-four states, some stretching along the same
seaboard, some along the same line of inland frontier, and others on
opposite banks of the same vast rivers. Two considerations at once
presented themselves, in looking at this state of things, with great
force. One was that that great branch of improvement, which consisted in
furnishing new facilities of intercourse, necessarily ran into different
states, in every leading instance, and would benefit the citizens of all
such states. No one state therefore, in such cases, would assume the
whole expense, nor was the co-operation of several states to be
expected. Take the instance of the Delaware Breakwater. It will cost
several millions of money. Would Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware
have united to accomplish it at their joint expense? Certainly not, for
the same reason. It could not be done, therefore, but by the general
government. The same may be said of the large inland undertakings,
except that, in them, government, instead of bearing the whole expense,
co-operates with others to bear a part. The other consideration is, that
the United States have the means. They enjoy the revenues derived from
commerce, and the states have no abundant and easy sources of public
income. The custom houses fill the general treasury, while the states
have scanty resources, except by resort to heavy direct taxes.
Under this view of things, I thought it necessary to settle, at least
for myself, some definite notions, with respect to the powers of
government, in regard to internal affairs. It may not savor too much of
self-commendation to remark, that, with this object, I considered the
constitution, its judicial construction, its contemporaneous exposition,
and the whole history of the legislation of Congress under it; and I
arrived at the conclusion that government had power to accomplish sundry
objects, or aid in their accomplishment, which are now commonly spoken
of as INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS. That conclusion, sir, may have been right
or it may have been wrong. I am not about to argue the grounds of it at
large. I say only that it was adopted, and acted on, even so early as in
1816. Yes, Mr. President, I made up my opinion, and determined on my
intended course of political conduct on these subjects, in the 14th
Congress in 1816. And now, Mr. President, I have further to say, that I
made up these opinions, and entered on this course of political conduct,
_Teucro duce_. Yes, sir, I pursued, in all this, a South Carolina track.
On the doctrines of internal improvement, South Carolina, as she was
then represented in the other house, set forth, in 1816, under a fresh
and leading breeze; and I was among the followers. But if my leader sees
new lights, and turns a sharp corner, unless I see new lights also, I
keep straight on in the same path. I repeat, that leading gentlemen from
South Carolina were first and foremost in behalf of the doctrines of
internal improvements, when those doctrines first came to be considered
and acted upon in Congress. The debate on the bank question, on the
tariff of 1816, and on the direct tax, will show who was who, and what
was what, at that time. The tariff of 1816, one of the plain cases of
oppression and usurpation, from which, if the government does not
recede, individual states may justly secede from the government, is,
sir, in truth, a South Carolina tariff, supported by South Carolina
votes. But for those votes, it could not have passed in the form in
which it did pass; whereas, if it had depended on Massachusetts votes,
it would have been lost. Does not the honorable gentleman well know all
this? There are certainly those who do full well know it all. I do not
say this to reproach South Carolina; I only state the fact, and I think
it will appear to be true, that among the earliest and boldest advocates
of the tariff, as a measure of protection, and on the express ground of
protection, were leading gentlemen of South Carolina in Congress. I did
not then, and cannot now, understand their language in any other sense.
While this tariff of 1816 was under discussion in the House of
Representatives, an honorable gentleman from Georgia, now of this house,
(Mr. Forsyth,) moved to reduce the proposed duty on cotton. He failed by
four votes, South Carolina giving three votes (enough to have turned the
scale) against his motion. The act, sir, then passed, and received on
its passage the support of a majority of the representatives of South
Carolina present and voting. This act is the first, in the order of
those now denounced as plain usurpations. We see it daily in the list by
the side of those of 1824 and 1828, as a case of manifest oppression,
justifying disunion. I put it home to the honorable member from South
Carolina, that his own state was not only “art and part” in this
measure, but the _causa causans_. Without her aid, this seminal
principle of mischief, this root of upas, could not have been planted. I
have already said—and, it is true—that this act preceded on the ground
of protection. It interfered directly with existing interests of great
value and amount. It cut up the Calcutta cotton trade by the roots. But
it passed, nevertheless, and it passed on the principle of protecting
manufactures, on the principle against free trade, on the principle
_opposed to that which lets us alone_.
Such, Mr. President, were the opinions of important and leading
gentlemen of South Carolina, on the subject of internal improvement, in
1816. I went out of Congress the next year, and returning again in 1823,
thought I found South Carolina where I had left her. I really supposed
that all things remained as they were, and that the South Carolina
doctrine of internal improvements would be defended by the same eloquent
voices, and the same strong arms as formerly. In the lapse of these six
years, it is true, political associations had assumed a new aspect and
new divisions. A party had arisen in the south, hostile to the doctrine
of internal improvements, and had vigorously attacked that doctrine.
Anti-consolidation was the flag under which this party fought, and its
supporters inveighed against internal improvements, much after the same
manner in which the honorable gentleman has now inveighed against them,
as part and parcel of the system of consolidation.
Whether this party arose in South Carolina herself, or in her
neighborhood, is more than I know. I think the latter. However that may
have been, there were those found in South Carolina ready to make war
upon it, and who did make intrepid war upon it. Names being regarded as
things, in such controversies, they bestowed on the anti-improvement
gentlemen the appellation of radicals. Yes, sir, the name of radicals,
as a term of distinction, applicable and applied to those who defended
the liberal doctrines of internal improvements, originated, according to
the best of my recollection, somewhere between North Carolina and
Georgia. Well, sir, those mischievous radicals were to be put down, and
the strong arm of South Carolina was stretched out to put them down.
About this time, sir, I returned to Congress. The battle with the
radicals had been fought, and our South Carolina champions of the
doctrine of internal improvements had nobly maintained their ground, and
were understood to have achieved a victory. They had driven back the
enemy with discomfiture; a thing, by the way, sir, which is not always
performed when it is promised. A gentleman, to whom I have already
referred in this debate, had come into Congress, during my absence from
it, from South Carolina, and had brought with him a high reputation for
ability. He came from a school with which we had been acquainted, _et
noscitur a sociis_. I hold in my hand, sir, a printed speech of this
distinguished gentleman, (Mr. MCDUFFIE,) “ON INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS,”
delivered about the period to which I now refer, and printed with a few
introductory remarks upon consolidation; in which, sir, I think he quite
consolidated the arguments of his opponents, the radicals, if to _crush_
be to consolidate. I give you a short but substantive quotation from
these remarks. He is speaking of a pamphlet, then recently published,
entitled, “Consolidation;” and having alluded to the question of
re-chartering the former Bank of the United States, he says: “Moreover,
in the early history of parties, and when Mr. Crawford advocated the
renewal of the old charter, it was considered a federal measure; which
internal improvement never was, as this author erroneously states. This
latter measure originated in the administration of Mr. Jefferson, with
the appropriation for the Cumberland road; and was first proposed, _as a
system_, by Mr. Calhoun, and carried through the House of
Representatives by a large majority of the republicans, including almost
every one of the leading men who carried us through the late war.”
So, then, internal improvement is not one of the federal heresies. One
paragraph more, sir.
“The author in question, not content with denouncing as federalists Gen.
Jackson, Mr. Adams, Mr. Calhoun, and the majority of the South Carolina
delegation in Congress, modestly extends the denunciation to Mr. Monroe
and the whole republican party. Here are his words. ‘During the
administration of Mr. Monroe, much has passed which the republican party
would be glad to approve, if they could!! But the principal feature, and
that which has chiefly elicited these observations, is the renewal of
the SYSTEM OF INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS.’ Now, this measure was adopted by a
vote of 115 to 86, of a republican Congress, and sanctioned by a
republican president. Who, then, is this author, who assumes the high
prerogative of denouncing, in the name of the republican party, the
republican administration of the country—a denunciation including within
its sweep Calhoun, Lowndes, and Cheves; men who will be regarded as the
brightest ornaments of South Carolina, and the strongest pillars of the
republican party, as long as the late war shall be remembered, and
talents and patriotism shall be regarded as the proper objects of the
admiration and gratitude of a free people!!”
Such are the opinions, sir, which were maintained by South Carolina
gentlemen in the House of Representatives on the subject of internal
improvements, when I took my seat there as a member from Massachusetts,
in 1823. But this is not all; we had a bill before us, and passed it in
that house, entitled, “An act to procure the necessary surveys, plans,
and estimates upon the subject of roads and canals.” _It authorized the
president to cause surveys and estimates to be made of the routes of
such roads and canals as he might deem of national importance in a
commercial or military point of view, or for the transportation of the
mail_; and appropriated thirty thousand dollars out of the treasury to
defray the expense. This act, though preliminary in its nature, covered
the whole ground. It took for granted the complete power of internal
improvement, as far as any of its advocates had ever contended for it.
Having passed the other house, the bill came up to the Senate, and was
here considered and debated in April, 1824. The honorable member from
South Carolina was a member of the Senate at that time. While the bill
was under consideration here, a motion was made to add the following
proviso:—
“_Provided_, That nothing herein contained shall be construed to affirm
_or admit_ a power in Congress, on their own authority, to make roads or
canals within any of the states of the Union.”
The yeas and nays were taken on this proviso, and the honorable member
voted _in the negative_. The proviso failed.
A motion was then made to add this proviso, viz:—
“_Provided_, That the faith of the United States is hereby pledged, that
no money shall ever be expended for roads or canals except it shall be
among the several states, and in the same proportion as direct taxes are
laid and assessed by the provisions of the constitution.”
The honorable member voted _against this proviso_ also, and it failed.
The bill was then put on its passage, and the honorable member voted
_for it_, and it passed, and became a law.
Now, it strikes me, sir, that there is no maintaining these votes but
upon the power of internal improvement, in its broadest sense. In truth,
these bills for surveys and estimates have always been considered as
test questions. They show who is for and who against internal
improvement. This law itself went the whole length, and assumed the full
and complete power. The gentleman’s vote sustained that power, in every
form in which the various propositions to amend presented it. He went
for the entire and unrestrained authority, without consulting the
states, and without agreeing to any proportionate distribution. And now,
suffer me to remind you, Mr. President, that it is this very same power,
thus sanctioned, in every form, by the gentleman’s own opinion, that is
so plain and manifest a usurpation, that the state of South Carolina is
supposed to be justified in refusing submission to any laws carrying the
power into effect. Truly, sir, is not this a little too hard? May we not
crave some mercy, under favor and protection of the gentleman’s own
authority? Admitting that a road or a canal must be written down flat
usurpation as ever was committed, may we find no mitigation in our
respect for his place, and his vote, as one that knows the law?
The tariff which South Carolina had an efficient hand in establishing in
1816, and this asserted power of internal improvement—advanced by her in
the same year, and, as we have seen, approved and sanctioned by her
representatives in 1824,—these two measures are the great grounds on
which she is now thought to be justified in breaking up the Union, if
she sees fit to break it up.
I may now safely say, I think, that we have had the authority of leading
and distinguished gentlemen from South Carolina in support of the
doctrine of internal improvement. I repeat that, up to 1824, I, for one,
followed South Carolina; but when that star in its ascension veered off
in an unexpected direction, I relied on its light no longer. [Here the
Vice-President said, Does the Chair understand the gentleman from
Massachusetts to say that the person now occupying the chair of the
Senate has changed his opinion on the subject of internal improvement?]
From nothing ever said to me, sir, have I had reason to know of any
change in the opinions of the person filling the chair of the Senate. If
such change has taken place, I regret it; I speak generally of the state
of South Carolina. Individuals we know there are who hold opinions
favorable to the power. An application for its exercise in behalf of a
public work in South Carolina itself is now pending, I believe, in the
other house, presented by members from that state.
I have thus, sir, perhaps not without some tediousness of detail, shown
that, if I am in error on the subject of internal improvements, how and
in what company I fell into that error. If I am wrong, it is apparent
who misled me.
I go to other remarks of the honorable member—and I have to complain of
an entire misapprehension of what I said on the subject of the national
debt—though I can hardly perceive how any one could misunderstand me.
What I said was, not that I wished to put off the payment of the debt,
but, on the contrary, that I had always voted for every measure for its
reduction, as uniformly as the gentleman himself. He seems to claim the
exclusive merit of a disposition to reduce the public charge; I do not
allow it to him. As a debt, I was, I am, for paying it; because it is a
charge on our finances, and on the industry of the country. But I
observed that I thought I perceived a morbid fervor on that subject; an
excessive anxiety to pay off the debt; not so much because it is a debt
simply, as because, while it lasts, it furnishes one objection to
disunion. It is a tie of common interest while it lasts. I did not
impute such motive to the honorable member himself; but that there is
such a feeling in existence I have not a particle of doubt. The most I
said was, that if one effect of the debt was to strengthen our Union,
that effect itself was not regretted by me, however much others might
regret it. The gentleman has not seen how to reply to this otherwise
than by supposing me to have advanced the doctrine that a national debt
is a national blessing. Others, I must hope, will find less difficulty
in understanding me. I distinctly and pointedly cautioned the honorable
member not to understand me as expressing an opinion favorable to the
continuance of the debt. I repeated this caution, and repeated it more
than once—but it was thrown away.
On yet another point I was still more unaccountably misunderstood. The
gentleman had harangued against “consolidation.” I told him, in reply,
that there was one kind of consolidation to which I was attached, and
that was, the CONSOLIDATION OF OUR UNION; and that this was precisely
that consolidation to which I feared others were not attached; that such
consolidation was the very end of the constitution—the leading object,
as they had informed us themselves, which its framers had kept in view.
I turned to their communication, and read their very words,—“the
consolidation of the Union,”—and expressed my devotion to this sort of
consolidation. I said in terms that I wished not, in the slightest
degree, to augment the powers of this government; that my object was to
preserve, not to enlarge; and that, by consolidating the Union, I
understood no more than the strengthening of the Union and perpetuating
it. Having been thus explicit; having thus read, from the printed book,
the precise words which I adopted, as expressing my own sentiments, it
passes comprehension, how any man could understand me as contending for
an extension of the powers of the government, or for consolidation in
the odious sense in which it means an accumulation, in the federal
government, of the powers properly belonging to the states.
I repeat, sir, that, in adopting the sentiments of the framers of the
constitution, I read their language audibly, and word for word; and I
pointed out the distinction, just as fully as I have now done, between
the consolidation of the Union and that other obnoxious consolidation
which I disclaimed; and yet the honorable gentleman misunderstood me.
The gentleman had said that he wished for no fixed revenue—not a
shilling. If, by a word, he could convert the Capitol into gold, he
would not do it. Why all this fear of revenue? Why, sir, because, as the
gentleman told us, it tends to consolidation. Now, this can mean neither
more or less than that a common revenue is a common interest, and that
all common interests tend to hold the union of the states together. I
confess I like that tendency; if the gentleman dislikes it, he is right
in deprecating a shilling’s fixed revenue. So much, sir, for
consolidation.
As well as I recollect the course of his remarks, the honorable
gentleman next recurred to the subject of the tariff. He did not doubt
the word must be of unpleasant sound to me, and proceeded, with an
effort neither new nor attended with new success, to involve me and my
votes in inconsistency and contradiction. I am happy the honorable
gentleman has furnished me an opportunity of a timely remark or two on
that subject. I was glad he approached it, for it is a question I enter
upon without fear from any body. The strenuous toil of the gentleman has
been to raise an inconsistency between my dissent to the tariff, in 1824
and my vote in 1828. It is labor lost. He pays undeserved compliment to
my speech in 1824; but this is to raise me high, that my fall, as he
would have it, in 1828 may be the more signal. Sir, there was no fall at
all. Between the ground I stood on in 1824 and that I took in 1828,
there was not only no precipice, but no declivity. It was a change of
position, to meet new circumstances, but on the same level. A plain tale
explains the whole matter. In 1816, I had not acquiesced in the tariff,
then supported by South Carolina. To some parts of it, especially, I
felt and expressed great repugnance. I held the same opinions in 1821,
at the meeting in Faneuil Hall, to which the gentleman has alluded. I
said then, and say now, that, as an original question, the authority of
Congress to exercise the revenue power, with direct reference to the
protection of manufactures, is a questionable authority, far more
questionable in my judgment, than the power of internal improvements. I
must confess, sir, that, in one respect, some impression has been made
on my opinions lately. Mr. Madison’s publication has put the power in a
very strong light. He has placed it, I must acknowledge, upon grounds of
construction and argument which seem impregnable. But even if the power
were doubted, on the face of the constitution itself, it had been
assumed and asserted in the first revenue law ever passed under the same
constitution; and, on this ground, as a matter settled by
contemporaneous practice, I had refrained from expressing the opinion
that the tariff laws transcended constitutional limits, as the gentleman
supposes. What I did say at Faneuil Hall, as far as I now remember, was,
that this was originally matter of doubtful construction. The gentleman
himself, I suppose, thinks there is no doubt about it, and that the laws
are plainly against the constitution. Mr. Madison’s letters, already
referred to, contain, in my judgment, by far the most able exposition
extant of this part of the constitution. He has satisfied me, so far as
the practice of the government had left it an open question.
With a great majority of the representatives of Massachusetts, I voted
against the tariff of 1824. My reasons were then given, and I will not
now repeat them. But notwithstanding our dissent, the great states of
New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Kentucky went for the bill, in almost
unbroken column, and it passed. Congress and the president sanctioned
it, and it became the law of the land. What, then, were we to do? Our
only option was either to fall in with this settled course of public
policy, and to accommodate ourselves to it as well as we could, or to
embrace the South Carolina doctrine, and talk of nullifying the statute
by state interference.
The last alternative did not suit our principles, and, of course, we
adopted the former. In 1827, the subject came again before Congress, on
a proposition favorable to wool and woolens. We looked upon the system
of protection as being fixed and settled. The law of 1824 remained. It
had gone into full operation, and in regard to some objects intended by
it, perhaps most of them had produced all its expected effects. No man
proposed to repeal it—no man attempted to renew the general contest on
its principle. But, owing to subsequent and unforeseen occurrences, the
benefit intended by it to wool and woolen fabrics had not been realized.
Events, not known here when the law passed, had taken place, which
defeated its object in that particular respect. A measure was
accordingly brought forward to meet this precise deficiency, to remedy
this particular defect. It was limited to wool and woolens. Was ever any
thing more reasonable? If the policy of the tariff laws had become
established in principle as the permanent policy of the government,
should they not be revised and amended, and made equal, like other laws,
as exigencies should arise, or justice require? Because we had doubted
about adopting the system, were we to refuse to cure its manifest
defects after it became adopted, and when no one attempted its repeal?
And this, sir, is the inconsistency so much bruited. I had voted against
the tariff of 1824—but it passed; and in 1827 and 1828, I voted to amend
it in a point essential to the interest of my constituents. Where is the
inconsistency? Could I do otherwise?
Sir, does political consistency consist in always giving negative votes?
Does it require of a public man to refuse to concur in amending laws
because they passed against his consent? Having voted against the tariff
originally, does consistency demand that I should do all in my power to
maintain an unequal tariff, burdensome to my own constituents, in many
respects,—favorable in none? To consistency of that sort I lay no claim;
and there is another sort to which I lay as little—and that is, a kind
of consistency by which persons feel themselves as much bound to oppose
a proposition after it has become the law of the land as before.
The bill of 1827, limited, as I have said, to the single object in which
the tariff of 1824 had manifestly failed in its effects, passed the
House of Representatives, but was lost here. We had then the act of
1828. I need not recur to the history of a measure so recent. Its
enemies spiced it with whatsoever they thought would render it
distasteful; its friends took it, drugged as it was. Vast amounts of
property, many millions, had been invested in manufactures, under the
inducements of the act of 1824. Events called loudly, I thought, for
further regulations to secure the degree of protection intended by that
act. I was disposed to vote for such regulations and desired nothing
more; but certainly was not to be bantered out of my purpose by a
threatened augmentation of duty on molasses, put into the bill for the
avowed purpose of making it obnoxious. The vote may have been right or
wrong, wise or unwise; but it is a little less than absurd to allege
against it an inconsistency with opposition to the former law.
Sir, as to the general subject of the tariff, I have little now to say.
Another opportunity may be presented. I remarked, the other day, that
this policy did not begin with us in New England; and yet, sir, New
England is charged with vehemence as being favorable, or charged with
equal vehemence as being unfavorable, to the tariff policy, just as best
suits the time, place, and occasion for making some charge against her.
The credulity of the public has been put to its extreme capacity of
false impression relative to her conduct in this particular. Through all
the south, during the late contest, it was New England policy, and a New
England administration, that was inflicting the country with a tariff
policy beyond all endurance, while on the other side of the Alleghany,
even the act of 1828 itself—the very sublimated essence of oppression,
according to southern opinions—was pronounced to be one of those
blessings for which the west was indebted to the “generous south.”
With large investments in manufacturing establishments, and various
interests connected with and dependent on them, it is not to be expected
that New England, any more than other portions of the country, will now
consent to any measures destructive or highly dangerous. The duty of the
government, at the present moment, would seem to be to preserve, not to
destroy; to maintain the position which it has assumed; and for one, I
shall feel it an indispensable obligation to hold it steady, as far as
in my power, to that degree of protection which it has undertaken to
bestow. No more of the tariff.
Professing to be provoked by what he chose to consider a charge made by
me against South Carolina, the honorable member, Mr. President, has
taken up a new crusade against New England. Leaving altogether the
subject of the public lands, in which his success, perhaps, had been
neither distinguished nor satisfactory, and letting go, also, of the
topic of the tariff, he sallied forth in a general assault on the
opinions, politics, and parties of New England, as they have been
exhibited in the last thirty years. This is natural. The “narrow policy”
of the public lands had proved a legal settlement in South Carolina, and
was not to be removed. The “accursed policy” of the tariff, also, had
established the fact of its birth and parentage in the same state. No
wonder, therefore, the gentleman wished to carry the war, as he
expressed it, into the enemy’s country. Prudently willing to quit these
subjects, he was doubtless desirous of fastening others, which could not
be transferred south of Mason and Dixon’s line. The politics of New
England became his theme; and it was in this part of his speech, I
think, that he menaced me with such sore discomfiture.
Discomfiture! why, sir, when he attacks anything which I maintain, and
overthrows it; when he turns the right or left of any position which I
take up; when he drives me from any ground I choose to occupy, he may
then talk of discomfiture, but not till that distant day. What has he
done? Has he maintained his own charges? Has he proved what he alleged?
Has he sustained himself in his attack on the government, and on the
history of the north, in the matter of the public lands? Has he
disproved a fact, refuted a proposition, weakened an argument maintained
by me? Has he come within beat of drum of any position of mine? O, no;
but he has “carried the war into the enemy’s country!” Carried the war
into the enemy’s country! Yes, sir, and what sort of a war has he made
of it? Why, sir, he has stretched a dragnet over the whole surface of
perished pamphlets, indiscreet sermons, frothy paragraphs, and fuming
popular addresses; over whatever the pulpit in its moments of alarm, the
press in its heats, and parties in their extravagances, have severally
thrown off, in times of general excitement and violence. He has thus
swept together a mass of such things, as, but they are not now old, the
public health would have required him rather to leave in their state of
dispersion.
For a good long hour or two, we had the unbroken pleasure of listening
to the honorable member, while he recited, with his usual grace and
spirit, and with evident high gusto, speeches, pamphlets, addresses, and
all that _et ceteras_ of the political press, such as warm heads produce
in warm times, and such as it would be “discomfiture” indeed for any
one, whose taste did not delight in that sort of reading, to be obliged
to peruse. This is his war. This is to carry the war into the enemy’s
country. It is in an invasion of this sort that he flatters himself with
the expectation of gaining laurels fit to adorn a senator’s brow.
Mr. President, I shall not, it will, I trust, not be expected that I
should, either now or at any time, separate this farrago into parts, and
answer and examine its components. I shall hardly bestow upon it all a
general remark or two. In the run of forty years, sir, under this
constitution, we have experienced sundry successive violent party
contests. Party arose, indeed, with the constitution itself, and in some
form or other has attended through the greater part of its history.
Whether any other constitution than the old articles of confederation
was desirable, was itself, a question on which parties divided; if a new
constitution was framed, what powers should be given to it was another
question; and when it had been formed, what was, in fact, the just
extent of the powers actually conferred was a third. Parties, as we
know, existed under the first administration, as distinctly marked as
those which manifested themselves at any subsequent period.
The contest immediately preceding the political change in 1801, and
that, again, which existed at the commencement of the late war, are
other instances of party excitement, of something more than usual
strength and intensity. In all these conflicts there was, no doubt, much
of violence on both and all sides. It would be impossible, if one had a
fancy for such employment, to adjust the relative _quantum_ of violence
between these two contending parties. There was enough in each, as must
always be expected in popular governments. With a great deal of proper
and decorous discussion there was mingled a great deal, also, of
declamation, virulence, crimination, and abuse.
In regard to any party, probably, at one of the leading epochs in the
history of parties, enough may be found to make out another equally
inflamed exhibition as that with which the honorable member has edified
us. For myself, sir, I shall not rake among the rubbish of by-gone times
to see what I can find or whether I cannot find something by which I can
fix a blot on the escutcheon of any state, any party, or any part of the
country. General Washington’s administration was steadily and zealously
maintained, as we all know, by New England. It was violently opposed
elsewhere. We know in what quarter he had the most earnest, constant and
persevering support, in all his great and leading measures. We know
where his private and personal character was held in the highest degree
of attachment and veneration; and we know, too, where his measures were
opposed, his services slighted, and his character vilified.
We know, or we might know, if we turn to the journals, who expressed
respect, gratitude, and regret, when he retired from the chief
magistracy; and who refused to express either respect, gratitude or
regret. I shall not open those journals. Publications more abusive or
scurrilous never saw the light than were sent forth against Washington,
and all his leading measures, from presses south of New England; but I
shall not look them up. I employ no scavengers—no one is in attendance
on me, tendering such means of retaliation; and if there were, with an
ass’s load of them, with a bulk as huge as that which the gentleman
himself has produced, I would not touch one of them. I see enough of the
violence of our own times to be no way anxious to rescue from
forgetfulness the extravagances of times past. Besides, what is all this
to the present purpose? It has nothing to do with the public lands, in
regard to which the attack was begun; and it has nothing to do with
those sentiments and opinions, which I have thought tend to disunion,
and all of which the honorable member seems to have adopted himself, and
undertaken to defend. New England has, at times—so argues the
gentleman,—held opinions as dangerous as those which he now holds. Be it
so. But why, therefore, does he abuse New England? If he finds himself
countenanced by acts of hers, how is it that, while he relies on these
acts, he covers, or seeks to cover, their authors with reproach?
But, sir, if, in the course of forty years, there have been undue
effervescences of party in New England, has the same thing happened no
where else? Party animosity and party outrage, not in New England, but
elsewhere, denounced President Washington, not only as a federalist, but
as a tory, a British agent, a man who, in his high office, sanctioned
corruption. But does the honorable member suppose that, if I had a
tender here, who should put such an effusion of wickedness and folly in
my hand, that I would stand up and read it against the south? Parties
ran into great heats, again, in 1799. What was said, sir, or rather what
was not said, in those years, against John Adams, one of the signers of
the Declaration of Independence, and its admitted ablest defender on the
floor of Congress? If the gentleman wants to increase his stores of
party abuse and frothy violence, if he has a determined proclivity to
such pursuits, there are treasures of that sort south of the Potomac,
much to his taste, yet untouched. I shall not touch them.
The parties which divided the country, at the commencement of the late
war, were violent. But, then, there was violence on both sides, and
violence in every state. Minorities and majorities were equally violent.
There was no more violence against the war in New England than in other
states; nor any more appearance of violence, except that, owing to a
dense population, greater facility for assembling, and more presses,
there may have been more, in quantity, spoken and printed there than in
some other places. In the article of sermons, too, New England is
somewhat more abundant than South Carolina: and for that reason, the
chance of finding here and there an exceptionable one may be greater. I
hope, too, there are more good ones. Opposition may have been more
formidable in New England, as it embraced a larger portion of the whole
population: but it was no more unrestrained in its principle, or violent
in manner. The minorities dealt quite as harshly with their own state
governments as the majorities dealt with the administration here. There
were presses on both sides, popular meetings on both sides, ay, and
pulpits on both sides, also. The gentleman’s purveyors have only catered
for him among the productions of one side. I certainly shall not supply
the deficiency by furnishing samples of the other. I leave to him, and
to them, the whole concern.
It is enough for me to say, that if, in any part of this, their grateful
occupation—if in all their researches—they find anything in the history
of Massachusetts, or New England, or in the proceedings of any
legislative or other public body, disloyal to the Union, speaking
slightly of its value, proposing to break it up, or recommending
non-intercourse with neighboring states, on account of difference of
political opinion, then, sir, I give them all up to the honorable
gentleman’s unrestrained rebuke; expecting, however, that he will extend
his buffetings, in like manner, to all similar proceedings, wherever
else found.
The gentleman, sir, has spoken at large of former parties, now no longer
in being, by their received appellations, and has undertaken to instruct
us, not only in the knowledge of their principles, but of their
respective pedigrees also. He has ascended to their origin and run out
their genealogies. With most exemplary modesty, he speaks of the party
to which he professes to have belonged himself, as the true, pure, the
only honest, patriotic party, derived by regular descent, from father to
son, from the time of the virtuous Romans! Spreading before us the
family tree of political parties, he takes especial care to show himself
snugly perched on a popular bough! He is wakeful to the expediency of
adopting such rules of descent, for political parties, as shall bring
him in, in exclusion of others, as an heir to the inheritance of all
public virtue, and all true political principles. His doxy is always
orthodoxy. Heterodoxy is confined to his opponents. He spoke, sir, of
the federalists, and I thought I saw some eyes begin to open and stare a
little, when he ventured on that ground. I expected he would draw his
sketches rather lightly, when he looked on the circle round him, and
especially if he should cast his thoughts to the high places out of the
Senate. Nevertheless, he went back to Rome, _ad annum urbs condita_, and
found the fathers of the federalists in the primeval aristocrats of that
renowned empire! He traced the flow of federal blood down through
successive ages and centuries, till he got into the veins of the
American tories, (of whom, by the way, there were twenty in the
Carolinas for one in Massachusetts.) From the tories, he followed it to
the federalists; and as the federal party was broken up, and there was
no possibility of transmitting it farther on this side of the Atlantic,
he seems to have discovered that it has gone off, collaterally, though
against all the canons of descent, into the ultras of France, and
finally became extinguished, like exploded gas, among the adherents of
Don Miguel.
This, sir, is an abstract of the gentleman’s history of federalism. I am
not about to controvert it. It is not, at present, worth the pains of
refutation, because, sir, if at this day one feels the sin of federalism
lying heavily on his conscience, he can easily obtain remission. He may
even have an indulgence, if he is desirous of repeating the
transgression. It is an affair of no difficulty to get into this same
right line of patriotic descent. A man, nowadays, is at liberty to
choose his political parentage. He may elect his own father. Federalist
or not, he may, if he choose, claim to belong to the favored stock, and
his claim will be allowed. He may carry back his pretensions just as far
as the honorable gentleman himself; nay, he may make himself out the
honorable gentleman’s cousin, and prove satisfactorily that he is
descended from the same political great-grandfather. All this is
allowable. We all know a process, sir, by which the whole Essex Junto
could, in one hour be all washed white from their ancient federalism,
and come out every one of them, an original democrat, dyed in the wool!
Some of them have actually undergone the operation, and they say it is
quite easy. The only inconvenience it occasions, as they tell us, is a
slight tendency of the blood to the face, a soft suffusion, which,
however, is very transient, since nothing is said calculated to deepen
the red on the cheek, but a prudent silence observed in regard to all
the past. Indeed, sir, some smiles of approbation have been bestowed,
and some crumbs of comfort have fallen, not a thousand miles from the
door of the Hartford Convention itself. And if the author of the
ordinance of 1787 possessed the other requisite qualifications, there is
no knowing, notwithstanding his federalism, to what heights of favor he
might not yet attain.
Mr. President, in carrying his warfare, such as it was, into New
England, the honorable gentleman all along professes to be acting on the
defensive. He desires to consider me as having assailed South Carolina
and insists that he comes forth only as her champion, and in her
defence. Sir, I do not admit that I made any attack whatever on South
Carolina. Nothing like it. The honorable member, in his first speech,
expressed opinions, in regard to revenue, and some other topics, which I
heard both with pain and surprise. I told the gentleman that I was aware
that such sentiments were entertained OUT of the government, but had not
expected to find them advanced in it; that I knew there were persons in
the south who speak of our Union with indifference, or doubt, taking
pains to magnify its evils, and to say nothing of its benefits; that the
honorable member himself, I was sure, could never be one of these; and I
regretted the expression of such opinions as he had avowed, because I
thought their obvious tendency was to encourage feelings of disrespect
to the Union, and to weaken its connection. This, sir, is the sum and
substance of all I said on the subject. And this constitutes the attack
which called on the chivalry of the gentleman, in his opinion, to harry
us with such a forage among the party pamphlets and party proceedings of
Massachusetts. If he means that I spoke with dissatisfaction or
disrespect of the ebullitions of individuals in South Carolina, it is
true. But, if he means that I had assailed the character of the state,
her honor, or patriotism, that I had reflected on her history or her
conduct, he had not the slightest ground for any such assumption. I did
not even refer, I think, in my observations, to any collection of
individuals. I said nothing of the recent conventions. I spoke in the
most guarded and careful manner, and only expressed my regret for the
publication of opinions which I presumed the honorable member
disapproved as much as myself. In this, it seems, I was mistaken.
I do not remember that the gentleman has disclaimed any sentiment, or
any opinion, of a supposed anti-Union tendency, which on all or any of
the recent occasions has been expressed. The whole drift of his speech
has been rather to prove, that, in divers times and manners, sentiments
equally liable to objection have been promulgated in New England. And
one would suppose that his object, in this reference to Massachusetts,
was to find a precedent to justify proceedings in the south, were it not
for the reproach and contumely with which he labors, all along, to load
his precedents.
By way of defending South Carolina from what he chooses to think an
attack on her, he first quotes the example of Massachusetts, and then
denounces that example, in good set terms. This twofold purpose, not
very consistent with itself, one would think, was exhibited more than
once in the course of his speech. He referred, for instance, to the
Hartford Convention. Did he do this for authority, or for a topic of
reproach? Apparently for both; for he told us that he should find no
fault with the mere fact of holding such a convention, and considering
and discussing such questions as he supposes were then and there
discussed; but what rendered it obnoxious was the time it was holden,
and the circumstances of the country then existing. We were in a war, he
said, and the country needed all our aid; the hand of government
required to be strengthened, not weakened; and patriotism should have
postponed such proceedings to another day. The thing itself, then, is a
precedent; the time and manner of it, only, subject of censure.
Now, sir, I go much farther, on this point, than the honorable member.
Supposing, as the gentleman seems to, that the Hartford Convention
assembled for any such purpose as breaking up the Union, because they
thought unconstitutional laws had been passed, or to concert on that
subject, or to calculate the value of the Union; supposing this to be
their purpose, or any part of it, then I say the meeting itself was
disloyal, and obnoxious to censure, whether held in time of peace, or
time of war, or under whatever circumstances. The material matter is the
object. Is dissolution the object? If it be, external circumstances may
make it a more or less aggravated case, but cannot affect the principle.
I do not hold, therefore, that the Hartford Convention was pardonable,
even to the extent of the gentleman’s admission, if its objects were
really such as have been imputed to it. Sir, there never was a time,
under any degree of excitement, in which the Hartford Convention, or any
other convention, could maintain itself one moment in New England, if
assembled for any such purpose as the gentleman says would have been an
allowable purpose. To hold conventions to decide questions of
constitutional law! to try the validity of statutes, by votes in a
convention! Sir, the Hartford Convention, I presume, would not desire
that the honorable gentleman should be their defender or advocate, if he
puts their case upon such untenable and extravagant grounds.
Then, sir, the gentleman has no fault to find with these
recently-promulgated South Carolina opinions. And, certainly, he need
have none; for his own sentiments, as now advanced, and advanced on
reflection, as far as I have been able to comprehend them, go the full
length of all these opinions. I propose, sir, to say something on these,
and to consider how far they are just and constitutional. Before doing
that, however, let me observe, that the eulogium pronounced on the
character of the state of South Carolina, by the honorable gentleman,
for her revolutionary and other merits, meets my hearty concurrence. I
shall not acknowledge that the honorable member goes before me in regard
for whatever of distinguished talent or distinguished character South
Carolina has produced. I claim part of the honor, I partake in the
pride, of her great names. I claim them for countrymen, one and all. The
Laurenses, the Rutledges, the Pinckneys, the Sumpters, the
Marions—Americans all—whose fame is no more to be hemmed in by state
lines than their talents and their patriotism were capable of being
circumscribed within the same narrow limits. In their day and
generation, they served and honored the country, and the whole country;
and their renown is of the treasures of the whole country. Him whose
honored name the gentleman himself bears—does he suppose me less capable
of gratitude for his patriotism, or sympathy for his sufferings, than if
his eyes had first opened upon the light in Massachusetts instead of
South Carolina? Sir, does he suppose it is in his power to exhibit a
Carolina name so bright as to produce envy in my bosom? No, sir,
increased gratification and delight, rather.
Sir, I thank God that if I am gifted with little of the spirit which is
said to be able to raise mortals to the skies, I have yet none, as I
trust, of that other spirit, which would drag angels down. When I shall
be found, sir, in my place here in the Senate, or elsewhere, to sneer at
public merit, because it happened to spring up beyond the little limits
of my own state, or neighborhood; when I refuse, for any such cause, or
for any cause, the homage due to American talent, to elevated
patriotism, to sincere devotion to liberty and the country; or if I see
an uncommon endowment of Heaven, if I see extraordinary capacity and
virtue in any son of the south, and if, moved by local prejudice, or
gangrened by state jealousy, I get up here to abate the tithe of a hair
from his just character and just fame,—may my tongue cleave to the roof
of my mouth! Sir, let me recur to pleasing recollections; let me indulge
in refreshing remembrance of the past; let me remind you that in early
times no states cherished greater harmony, both of principle and
feeling, than Massachusetts and South Carolina. Would to God that
harmony might again return. Shoulder to shoulder they went through the
revolution; hand in hand they stood round the administration of
Washington, and felt his own great arm lean on them for support. Unkind
feeling, if it exist, alienation, and distrust are the growth, unnatural
to such soils, of false principles since sown. They are weeds, the seeds
of which that same great arm never scattered.
Mr. President, I shall enter on no encomium upon Massachusetts—she needs
none. There she is—behold her, and judge for yourselves. There is her
history—the world knows it by heart. The past, at least, is secure.
There is Boston, and Concord, and Lexington, and Bunker Hill; and there
they will remain forever. The bones of her sons, fallen in the great
struggle for independence, now lie mingled with the soil of every state
from New England to Georgia; and there they will lie forever. And, sir,
where American liberty raised its first voice, and where its youth was
nurtured and sustained, there it still lives, in the strength of its
manhood, and full of its original spirit. If discord and disunion shall
wound it; if folly and madness, if uneasiness under salutary and
necessary restraint, shall succeed to separate it from that Union by
which alone its existence is made sure,—it will stand, in the end, by
the side of that cradle in which its infancy was rocked; it will stretch
forth its arm, with whatever vigor it may still retain, over the friends
who gather around it; and it will fall at last, if fall it must, amidst
the proudest monuments of its glory, and on the very spot of its origin.
There yet remains to be performed, Mr. President, by far the most grave
and important duty; which I feel to be devolved on me by this occasion.
It is to state, and to defend, what I conceive to be the true principles
of the constitution under which we are here assembled. I might well have
desired that so weighty a task should have fallen into other and abler
hands. I could have wished that it should have been executed by those
whose character and experience give weight and influence to their
opinions, such as cannot possibly belong to mine. But, sir, I have met
the occasion, not sought it; and I shall proceed to state my own
sentiments, without challenging for them any particular regard, with
studied plainness and as much precision as possible.
I understand the honorable gentleman from South Carolina to maintain
that it is a right of the state legislatures to interfere, whenever in
their judgment, this government transcends its constitutional limits,
and to arrest the operation of its laws.
I understand him to maintain this right as a right existing under the
constitution, not as a right to overthrow it, on the ground of extreme
necessity, such as would justify violent revolution.
I understand him to maintain an authority, on the part of the states,
thus to interfere for the purpose of correcting the exercise of power by
the general government, of checking it, and of compelling it to conform
to their opinion of the extent of its power.
I understand him to maintain that the ultimate power of judging of the
constitutional extent of its own authority is not lodged exclusively in
the general government or any branch of it; but that, on the contrary,
the states may lawfully decide for themselves, and each state for
itself, whether, in a given case, the act of the general government
transcends its power.
I understand him to insist that, if the exigency of the case, in the
opinion of any state government, require it, such state government may,
by its own sovereign authority, annul an act of the general government
which it deems plainly and palpably unconstitutional.
This is the sum of what I understand from him to be the South Carolina
doctrine. I propose to consider it, and to compare it with the
constitution. Allow me to say, as a preliminary remark, that I call this
the South Carolina doctrine, only because the gentleman himself has so
denominated it. I do not feel at liberty to say that South Carolina, as
a state, has ever advanced these sentiments. I hope she has not, and
never may. That a great majority of her people are opposed to the tariff
laws is doubtless true. That a majority, somewhat less than that just
mentioned, conscientiously believe these laws unconstitutional, may
probably be also true. But that any majority holds to the right of
direct state interference, at state discretion, the right of nullifying
acts of Congress by acts of state legislation, is more than I know, and
what I shall be slow to believe.
That there are individuals, besides the honorable gentleman, who do
maintain these opinions, is quite certain. I recollect the recent
expression of a sentiment which circumstances attending its utterance
and publication justify us in supposing was not unpremeditated—“The
sovereignty of the state; never to be controlled, construed, or decided
on, but by her own feelings of honorable justice.”
[Mr. HAYNE here rose, and said, that for the purpose of being clearly
understood, he would state that his proposition was in the words of the
Virginia resolution, as follows:—
“That this Assembly doth explicitly and peremptorily declare, that it
views the powers of the federal government, as resulting from the
compact, to which the states are parties, as limited by the plain
sense and intention of the instrument constituting that compact, as no
further valid than they are authorized by the grants enumerated in
that compact; and that, in case of a deliberate, palpable, and
dangerous exercise of other powers not granted by the same compact,
the states who are parties thereto have the right and are in duty
bound, to interpose for arresting the progress of the evil, and for
maintaining, within their respective limits, the authorities, rights,
and liberties pertaining to them.”]
Mr. WEBSTER resumed:—
I am quite aware, Mr. President, of the existence of the resolution
which the gentleman read, and has now repeated, and that he relies on it
as his authority. I know the source, too, from which it is understood to
have proceeded. I need not say, that I have much respect for the
constitutional opinions of Mr. Madison; they would weigh greatly with
me, always. But, before the authority of his opinion be vouched for the
gentleman’s proposition, it will be proper to consider what is the fair
interpretation of that resolution, to which Mr. Madison is understood to
have given his sanction. As the gentleman construes it, it is an
authority for him. Possibly he may not have adopted the right
construction. That resolution declares, _that in the case of the
dangerous exercise of powers not granted by the general government, the
states may interpose to arrest the progress of the evil_. But how
interpose? and what does this declaration purport? Does it mean no more
than that there may be extreme cases in which the people, in any mode of
assembling, may resist usurpation, and relieve themselves from a
tyrannical government? No one will deny this. Such resistance is not
only acknowledged to be just in America, but in England also. Blackstone
admits as much, in the theory and practice, too, of the English
constitution. We, sir, who oppose the Carolina doctrine, do not deny
that the people may, if they choose, throw off any government, when it
becomes oppressive and intolerable, and erect a better in its stead. We
all know that civil institutions are established for the public benefit,
and that, when they cease to answer the ends of their existence they may
be changed.
But I do not understand the doctrine now contended for to be that which,
for the sake of distinctness, we may call the right of revolution. I
understand the gentleman to maintain, that without revolution, without
civil commotion, without rebellion, a remedy for supposed abuse and
transgression of the powers of the general government lies in a direct
appeal to the interference of the state governments. [Mr. HAYNE here
rose: He did not contend, he said, for the mere right of revolution, but
for the right of constitutional resistance. What he maintained was,
that, in case of a plain, palpable violation of the constitution by the
general government, a state may interpose; and that this interposition
is constitutional.]
Mr. WEBSTER resumed:
So, sir, I understood the gentleman, and am happy to find that I did not
misunderstand him. What he contends for is, that it is constitutional to
interrupt the administration of the constitution itself, in the hands of
those who are chosen and sworn to administer it, by the direct
interference, in form of law, of the states, in virtue of their
sovereign capacity. The inherent right in the people to reform their
government I do not deny; and that they have another right, and that is,
to resist unconstitutional laws without overturning the government. It
is no doctrine of mine, that unconstitutional laws bind the people. The
great question is, _Whose prerogative is it to decide on the
constitutionality or unconstitutionality of the laws?_ On that the main
debate hinges. The proposition that, in the case of a supposed violation
of the constitution by Congress, the states have a constitutional right
to interfere, and annul the law of Congress, is the proposition of the
gentleman; I do not admit it. If the gentleman had intended no more than
to assert the right of revolution for justifiable cause, he would have
said only what all agree to.—But I cannot conceive that there can be a
middle course between submission to the laws, when regularly pronounced
constitutional, on the one hand, and open resistance, which is
revolution or rebellion, on the other. I say the right of a state to
annul a law of Congress cannot be maintained but on the ground of the
unalienable right of man to resist oppression; that is to say, upon the
ground of revolution. I admit that there is no ultimate violent remedy,
above the constitution, and defiance of the constitution, which may be
resorted to, when a revolution is to be justified. But I do not admit
that under the constitution, and in conformity with it, there is any
mode in which a state government, as a member of the Union can interfere
and stop the progress of the general government, by force of her own
laws, under any circumstances whatever.
This leads us to inquire into the origin of this government, and the
source of its power. Whose agent is it? Is it the creature of the state
legislatures, or the creature of the people? If the government of the
United States be the agent of the state governments, then they may
control it, provided they can agree in the manner of controlling it; if
it is the agent of the people, then the people alone can control it,
restrain it, modify or reform it. It is observable enough, that the
doctrine for which the honorable gentleman contends leads him to the
necessity of maintaining, not only that this general government is the
creature of the states, but that it is the creature of each of the
states severally; so that each may assert the power, for itself, of
determining whether it acts within the limits of its authority. It is
the servant of four and twenty masters, of different wills and different
purposes; and yet bound to obey all. This absurdity (for it seems no
less) arises from a misconception as to the origin of this government,
and its true character. It is, sir, the people’s constitution, the
people’s government; made for the people; made by the people; and
answerable to the people. The people of the United States have declared
that this constitution shall be the supreme law. We must either admit
the proposition, or dispute their authority. The states are
unquestionably sovereign, so far as their sovereignty is not affected by
this supreme law. The state legislatures, as political bodies, however
sovereign, are yet not sovereign over the people. So far as the people
have given power to the general government, so far the grant is
unquestionably good, and the government holds of the people, and not of
the state governments. We are all agents of the same supreme power, the
people. The general government and the state governments derive their
authority from the same source. Neither can, in relation to the other,
be called primary; though one is definite and restricted, and the other
general and residuary.
The national government possesses those powers which it can be shown the
people have conferred on it, and no more. All the rest belongs to the
state governments, or to the people themselves. So far as the people
have restrained state sovereignty by the expression of their will, in
the constitution of the United States, so far, it must be admitted,
state sovereignty is effectually controlled. I do not contend that it
is, or ought to be, controlled further. The sentiment to which I have
referred propounds that state sovereignty is only to be controlled by
its own “feelings of justice;” that is to say, it is not to be
controlled at all; for one who is to follow his feelings, is under no
legal control. Now, however men may think this ought to be, the fact is,
that the people of the United States have chosen to impose control on
state sovereignties. The constitution has ordered the matter differently
from what this opinion announces. To make war, for instance, is an
exercise of sovereignty; but the constitution declares that no state
shall make war. To coin money is another exercise of sovereign power;
but no state is at liberty to coin money. Again: the constitution says,
that no sovereign state shall be so sovereign as to make a treaty. These
prohibitions, it must be confessed, are a control on the state
sovereignty of South Carolina, as well as of the other states, which
does not arise “from feelings of honorable justice.” Such an opinion,
therefore, is in defiance of the plainest provisions of the
constitution.
There are other proceedings of public bodies which have already been
alluded to, and to which I refer again for the purpose of ascertaining
more fully what is the length and breadth of that doctrine, denominated
the Carolina doctrine, which the honorable member has now stood up on
this floor to maintain.
In one of them I find it resolved that “the tariff of 1828, and every
other tariff designed to promote one branch of industry at the expense
of others, is contrary to the meaning and intention of the federal
compact; and as such a dangerous, palpable, and deliberate usurpation of
power, by a determined majority, wielding the general government beyond
the limits of its delegated powers, as calls upon the states which
compose the suffering minority, in their sovereign capacity, to exercise
the powers which, as sovereigns, necessarily devolve upon them, when
their compact is violated.”
Observe, sir, that this resolution holds the tariff of 1828, and every
other tariff, designed to promote one branch of industry at the expense
of another, to be such a dangerous, palpable, and deliberate usurpation
of power, as calls upon the states, in their sovereign capacity, to
interfere, by their own power. This denunciation, Mr. President, you
will please to observe, includes our old tariff of 1816, as well as all
others; because that was established to promote the interest of the
manufacturers of cotton, to the manifest and admitted injury of the
Calcutta cotton trade. Observe, again, that all the qualifications are
here rehearsed, and charged upon the tariff, which are necessary to
bring the case within the gentleman’s proposition. The tariff is a
usurpation; it is a dangerous usurpation; it is a palpable usurpation;
it is a deliberate usurpation. It is such a usurpation as calls upon the
states to exercise their right of interference. Here is a case, then,
within the gentleman’s principles, and all his qualifications of his
principles. It is a case for action. The constitution is plainly,
dangerously, palpably, and deliberately violated; and the states must
interpose their own authority to arrest the law. Let us suppose the
state of South Carolina to express this same opinion, by the voice of
her legislature. That would be very imposing; but what then? Is the
voice of one state conclusive? It so happens that, at the very moment
when South Carolina resolves that the tariff laws are unconstitutional,
Pennsylvania and Kentucky resolve exactly the reverse. _They_ hold those
laws to be both highly proper and strictly constitutional. And now, sir,
how does the honorable member propose to deal with this case? How does
he get out of this difficulty, upon any principle of his? His
construction gets us into it; how does he propose to get us out?
In Carolina the tariff is a palpable, deliberate usurpation; Carolina,
therefore, may _nullify_ it, and refuse to pay the duties. In
Pennsylvania, it is both clearly constitutional and highly expedient;
and there the duties are to be paid. And yet we live under a government
of uniform laws, and under a constitution, too, which contains an
express provision, as it happens, that all duties shall be equal in all
the states! Does not this approach absurdity?
If there be no power to settle such questions, independent of either of
the states, is not the whole Union a rope of sand? Are we not thrown
back again precisely upon the old confederation?
It is too plain to be argued. Four and twenty interpreters of
constitutional law, each with a power to decide for itself, and none
with authority to bind anybody else, and this constitutional law the
only bond of their union! What is such a state of things but a mere
connection during pleasure, or, to use the phraseology of the times,
_during feeling_? And that feeling, too, not the feeling of the people
who established the constitution, but the feeling of the state
governments.
In another of the South Carolina addresses, having premised that the
crisis requires “all the concentrated energy of passion,” an attitude of
open resistance to the laws of the Union is advised. Open resistance to
the laws, then, is the constitutional remedy, the conservative power of
the state, which the South Carolina doctrines teach for the redress of
political evils, real or imaginary. And its authors further say that,
appealing with confidence to the constitution itself to justify their
opinions, they cannot consent to try their accuracy by the courts of
justice. In one sense, indeed, sir, this is assuming an attitude of open
resistance in favor of liberty. But what sort of liberty? The liberty of
establishing their own opinions, in defiance of the opinions of all
others; the liberty of judging and of deciding exclusively themselves,
in a matter in which others have as much right to judge and decide as
they; the liberty of placing their opinions above the judgment of all
others, above the laws, and above the constitution. This is their
liberty, and this is the fair result of the proposition contended for by
the honorable gentleman. Or it may be more properly said, it is
identical with it, rather than a result from it. In the same publication
we find the following: “Previously to our revolution, when the arm of
oppression was stretched over New England, where did our northern
brethren meet with a braver sympathy than that which sprung from the
bosom of Carolinians? _We had no extortion, no oppression, no collision
with the king’s ministers, no navigation interest springing up, in
envious rivalry of England._”
This seems extraordinary language. South Carolina no collision with the
king’s ministers in 1775! no extortion! no oppression! But, sir, it is
also most significant language. Does any man doubt the purpose for which
it was penned? Can any one fail to see that it was designed to raise in
the reader’s mind the question, whether, _at this time_,—that is to say,
in 1828,—South Carolina has any collision with the king’s ministers, any
oppression, or extortion, to fear from England? whether, in short,
England is not as naturally the friend of South Carolina as New England,
with her navigation interests springing up in envious rivalry of
England?
Is it not strange, sir, that an intelligent man in South Carolina, in
1828, should thus labor to prove, that in 1775, there was no hostility,
no cause of war, between South Carolina and England? that she had no
occasion, in reference to her own interest, or from regard to her own
welfare, to take up arms in the revolutionary contest? Can any one
account for the expression of such strange sentiments, and their
circulation through the state, otherwise than by supposing the object to
be, what I have already intimated, to raise the question, if they had no
“_collision_” (mark the expression) with the ministers of King George
the Third, in 1775, what _collision_ have they, in 1828, with the
ministers of King George the Fourth? What is there now, in the existing
state of things, to separate Carolina from _Old_, more, or rather less,
than from _New_ England?
Resolutions, sir, have been recently passed by the legislature of South
Carolina. I need not refer to them; they go no further than the
honorable gentleman himself has gone—and I hope not so far. I content
myself therefore, with debating the matter with him.
And now, sir, what I have first to say on this subject is, that at no
time, and under no circumstances, has New England, or any state in New
England, or any respectable body of persons in New England, or any
public man of standing in New England, put forth such a doctrine as this
Carolina doctrine.
The gentleman has found no case—he can find none—to support his own
opinions by New England authority. New England has studied the
constitution in other schools, and under other teachers. She looks upon
it with other regards, and deems more highly and reverently, both of its
just authority and its utility and excellence. The history of her
legislative proceedings may be traced—the ephemeral effusions of
temporary bodies, called together by the excitement of the occasion, may
be hunted up—they have been hunted up. The opinions and votes of her
public men, in and out of Congress, may be explored—it will all be in
vain. The Carolina doctrine can derive from her neither countenance nor
support. She rejects it now; she always did reject it. The honorable
member has referred to expressions on the subject of the embargo law,
made in this place by an honorable and venerable gentleman (MR.
HILLHOUSE) now favoring us with his presence. He quotes that
distinguished senator as saying, that in his judgment the embargo law
was unconstitutional, and that, therefore, in his opinion, the people
were not bound to obey it.
That, sir, is perfectly constitutional language. An unconstitutional law
is not binding; _but then it does not rest with a resolution or a law of
a state legislature to decide whether an act of Congress be or be not
constitutional_. An unconstitutional act of Congress would not bind the
people of this district although they have no legislature to interfere
in their behalf; and, on the other hand, a constitutional law of
Congress does bind the citizens of every state, although all their
legislatures should undertake to annul it, by act or resolution. The
venerable Connecticut senator is a constitutional lawyer, of sound
principles and enlarged knowledge; a statesman practiced and
experienced, bred in the company of Washington, and holding just views
upon the nature of our governments. He believed the embargo
unconstitutional, and so did others; but what then? Who did he suppose
was to decide that question? The state legislature? Certainly not. No
such sentiment ever escaped his lips. Let us follow up, sir, this New
England opposition to the embargo laws; let us trace it, till we discern
the principle which controlled and governed New England throughout the
whole course of that opposition. We shall then see what similarity there
is between the New England school of constitutional opinions and this
modern Carolina school. The gentleman, I think, read a petition from
some single individual, addressed to the legislature of Massachusetts,
asserting the Carolina doctrine—that is, the right of state interference
to arrest the laws of the Union. The fate of that petition shows the
sentiment of the legislature. It met no favor. The opinions of
Massachusetts were otherwise. They had been expressed in 1798, in answer
to the resolutions of Virginia, and she did not depart from them, nor
bend them to the times. Misgoverned, wronged, oppressed, as she felt
herself to be, she still held fast her integrity to the Union. The
gentleman may find in her proceedings much evidence of dissatisfaction
with the measures of government, and great and deep dislike, she claimed
no right still to sever asunder the bonds of the Union. There was heat,
and there was anger in her political feeling. Be it so. Her heat or her
anger did not, nevertheless, betray her into infidelity to the
government. The gentleman labors to prove that she disliked the embargo
as much as South Carolina dislikes the tariff, and expressed her dislike
as strongly. Be it so; _but did she propose the Carolina remedy? Did she
threaten to interfere, by state authority, to annul the laws of the
Union?_ That is the question for the gentleman’s consideration.
No doubt, sir, a great majority of the people of New England
conscientiously believe the embargo law of 1807 unconstitutional—as
conscientiously, certainly, as the people of South Carolina hold that
opinion of the tariff.—They reasoned thus: Congress has power to
regulate commerce; but here is a law, they said, stopping all commerce,
and stopping it indefinitely. The law is perpetual, therefore, as the
law against treason or murder. Now, is this regulating commerce, or
destroying it? Is it guiding, controlling, giving the rule to commerce,
as a subsisting thing, or is it putting an end to it altogether? Nothing
is more certain than that a majority in New England deemed this law a
violation of the constitution. This very case required by the gentleman
to justify state interference had then arisen. Massachusetts believed
this law to be “_a deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise of a
power not granted by the constitution_.” Deliberate it was, for it was
long continued; palpable she thought it, as no words in the constitution
gave the power, and only a construction, in her opinion most violent,
raised it; dangerous it was, since it threatened utter ruin to her most
important interests. Here, then, was a Carolina case. How did
Massachusetts deal with it? It was, as she thought, a plain, manifest,
palpable violation of the constitution; and it brought ruin to her
doors. Thousands of families, and hundreds of thousands of individuals,
were beggared by it. While she saw and felt all this, she saw and felt,
also, that as a measure of national policy, it was perfectly futile;
that the country was no way benefited by that which caused so much
individual distress; that it was efficient only for the production of
evil, and all that evil inflicted on ourselves. In such a case, under
such circumstances, how did Massachusetts demean herself? Sir, she
remonstrated, she memorialized, she addressed herself to the general
government, not exactly “with the concentrated energy of passion,” but
with her strong sense, and the energy of sober conviction. But she did
not interpose the arm of her power to arrest the law, and break the
embargo. Far from it. Her principles bound her to two things; and she
followed her principles, lead where they might. First, to submit to
every constitutional law of Congress; and secondly, if the
constitutional validity of the law be doubted, to refer that question to
the decision of the proper tribunals. The first principle is vain and
ineffectual without the second. A majority of us in New England believe
the embargo law unconstitutional; but the great question was, and always
will be in such cases, Who is to decide this? Who is to judge between
the people and the government? And, sir, it is quite plain, that the
constitution of the United States confers on the government itself, to
be exercised by its appropriate department, this power of deciding,
ultimately and conclusively, upon the just extent of its own authority.
If this had not been done, we should not have advanced a single step
beyond the old confederation.
Being fully of opinion that the embargo law was unconstitutional, the
people of New England were yet equally clear in the opinion—it was a
matter they did not doubt upon—that the question, after all, must be
decided by the judicial tribunals of the United States. Before those
tribunals, therefore, they brought the question. Under the provisions of
the law, they had given bonds, to millions in amount, and which were
alleged to be forfeited. They suffered the bonds to be sued, and thus
raised the question. In the old-fashioned way of settling disputes, they
went to law. The case came to hearing and solemn argument; and he who
espoused their cause and stood up for them against the validity of the
act, was none other than that great man, of whom the gentleman has made
honorable mention, SAMUEL DEXTER. He was then, sir, in the fulness of
his knowledge and the maturity of his strength. He had retired from long
and distinguished public service here, to the renewed pursuit of
professional duties; carrying with him all that enlargement and
expansion, all the new strength and force, which an acquaintance with
the more general subjects discussed in the national councils is capable
of adding to professional attainment, in a mind of true greatness and
comprehension. He was a lawyer, and he was also a statesman. He had
studied the constitution, when he filled public station, that he might
defend it; he had examined its principles, that he might maintain them.
More than all men, or at least as much as any man, he was attached to
the general government, and to the union of the states. His feelings and
opinions all ran in that direction. A question of constitutional law,
too, was, of all subjects, that one which was best suited to his talents
and learning. Aloof from technicality, and unfettered by artificial
rule, such a question gave opportunity for that deep and clear analysis,
that mighty grasp of principle, which so much distinguished his higher
efforts. His very statement was argument; his inference seemed
demonstration. The earnestness of his own conviction wrought conviction
in others. One was convinced, and believed, and consented, because it
was gratifying, delightful, to think, and feel, and believe, in unison
with an intellect of such evident superiority.
Mr. Dexter, sir, such as I have described him, argued the New England
cause. He put into his effort his whole heart, as well as all the powers
of his understanding; for he had avowed, in the most public manner, his
entire concurrence with his neighbors, on the point in dispute. He
argued the cause; it was lost, and New England submitted. The
established tribunals pronounced the law constitutional, and New England
acquiesced. Now, sir, is not this the exact opposite of the doctrine of
the gentleman from South Carolina? According to him, instead of
referring to the judicial tribunals, we should have broken up the
embargo, by laws of our own; we should have repealed it, _quoad_ New
England; for we had a strong, palpable, and oppressive case. Sir, we
believe the embargo unconstitutional; but still, that was matter of
opinion, and who was to decide it? We thought it a clear case; but,
nevertheless, we did not take the laws into our hands, _because we did
not wish to bring about a revolution, nor to break up the Union_; for I
maintain, that, between submission to the decision of the constituted
tribunals, and revolution, or disunion, there is no middle ground—there
is no ambiguous condition, half allegiance and half rebellion. There is
no treason, _madcosy_. And, sir, how futile, how very futile it is, to
admit the right of state interference, and then to attempt to save it
from the character of unlawful resistance, by adding terms of
qualification to the causes and occasions, leaving all the
qualifications, like the case itself in the discretion of the state
governments. It must be a clear case, it is said; a deliberate case; a
palpable case; a dangerous case. But, then, the state is still left at
liberty to decide for herself what is clear, what is deliberate, what is
palpable, what is dangerous.
Do adjectives and epithets avail any thing? Sir, the human mind is so
constituted, that the merits of both sides of a controversy appear very
clear, and very palpable, to those who respectively espouse them, and
both sides usually grow clearer, as the controversy advances. South
Carolina sees unconstitutionality in the tariff—she sees oppression
there, also, and she sees danger. Pennsylvania, with a vision not less
sharp, looks at the same tariff, and sees no such thing in it—she sees
it all constitutional, all useful, all safe. The faith of South Carolina
is strengthened by opposition, and she now not only sees, but
_resolves_, that the tariff is palpably unconstitutional, oppressive,
and dangerous; but Pennsylvania, not to be behind her neighbors, and
equally willing to strengthen her own faith by a confident asseveration,
_resolves_ also, and gives to every warm affirmative of South Carolina,
a plain downright Pennsylvania negative. South Carolina, to show the
strength and unity of her opinions, brings her assembly to a unanimity,
within seven votes; Pennsylvania, not to be outdone in this respect more
than others, reduces her dissentient fraction to one vote. Now, sir,
again I ask the gentleman, what is to be done? Are these states both
right? Is he bound to consider them both right? If not, which is in the
wrong? or, rather, which has the best right to decide?
And if he, and if I, are not to know what the constitution means, and
what it is, till those two state legislatures, and the twenty-two
others, shall agree in its construction what have we sworn to, when we
have sworn to maintain it? I was forcibly struck, sir, with one
reflection, as the gentleman went on with his speech. He quoted Mr.
Madison’s resolutions to prove that a state may interfere, in a case of
deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise of a power not granted. The
honorable member supposes the tariff law to be such an exercise of
power, and that consequently, a case has risen in which the state may,
if it see fit, interfere by its own law. Now, it so happens,
nevertheless, that Madison himself deems this same tariff law quite
constitutional. Instead of a clear and palpable violation, it is, in his
judgment, no violation at all. So that, while they use his authority for
a hypothetical case, they reject it in the very case before them. All
this, sir, shows the inherent futility. I had almost used a stronger
word—of conceding this power of interference to the states, and then
attempting to secure it from abuse by imposing qualifications of which
the states themselves are to judge. One of two things is true: either
the laws of the Union are beyond the control of the states, or else we
have no constitution of general government, and are thrust back again to
the days of the confederacy.
Let me here say, sir, that if the gentleman’s doctrine had been received
and acted upon in New England, in the times of the embargo and
non-intercourse, we should probably not now have been here. The
government would very likely have gone to pieces and crumbled into dust.
No stronger case can ever arise than existed under those laws; no states
can ever entertain a clearer conviction than the New England States then
entertained; and if they had been under the influence of that heresy of
opinion, as I must call it, which the honorable member espouses, this
Union would, in all probability have been scattered to the four winds. I
ask the gentleman, therefore, to apply his principles to that case; I
ask him to come forth and declare whether, in his opinion, the New
England States would have been justified in interfering to break up the
embargo system, under the conscientious opinions which he held upon it.
Had they a right to annul that law? Does he admit, or deny? If that
which is thought palpably unconstitutional in South Carolina justifies
that state in arresting the progress of the law, tell me whether that
which was thought palpably unconstitutional also in Massachusetts would
have justified her in doing the same thing. Sir, I deny the whole
doctrine. It has not a foot of ground in the constitution to stand on.
No public man of reputation ever advanced it in Massachusetts, in the
warmest times, or could maintain himself upon it there at any time.
I wish now, sir, to make a remark upon the Virginia resolutions of 1798.
I cannot undertake to say how these resolutions were understood by those
who passed them. Their language is not a little indefinite. In the case
of the exercise, by Congress, of a dangerous power, not granted to them,
the resolutions assert the right, on the part of the state to interfere,
and arrest the progress of the evil. This is susceptible of more than
one interpretation. It may mean no more than that the states may
interfere by complaint and remonstrance, or by proposing to the people
an alteration of the federal constitution. This would all be quite
unobjectionable; or it may be that no more is meant than to assert the
general right of revolution, as against all governments, in cases of
intolerable oppression. This no one doubts; and this, in my opinion, is
all that he who framed these resolutions could have meant by it; for I
shall not readily believe that he was ever of opinion that a state,
under the constitution, and in conformity with it, could, upon the
ground of her own opinion of its unconstitutionality, however clear and
palpable she might think the case, annul a law of Congress, so far as it
should operate on herself, by her own legislative power.
I must now beg to ask, sir, Whence is this supposed right of the states
derived? Where do they get the power to interfere with the laws of the
Union? Sir, the opinion which the honorable gentleman maintains is a
notion founded in a total misapprehension, in my judgment, of the origin
of this government, and of the foundation on which it stands. I hold it
to be a popular government, erected by the people, those who administer
it responsible to the people, and itself capable of being amended and
modified, just as the people may choose it should be. It is as popular,
just as truly emanating from the people, as the state governments. It is
created for one purpose; the state governments for another. It has its
own powers; they have theirs. There is no more authority with them to
arrest the operation of a law of Congress, than with Congress to arrest
the operation of their laws. We are here to administer a constitution
emanating immediately from the people, and trusted by them to our
administration. It is not the creature of the state governments. It is
of no moment to the argument that certain acts of the state legislatures
are necessary to fill our seats in this body. That is not one of their
original state powers, a part of the sovereignty of the state. It is a
duty which the people, by the constitution itself, have imposed on the
state legislatures, and which they might have left to be performed
elsewhere, if they had seen fit. So they have left the choice of
president with electors; but all this does not affect the proposition
that this whole government—President, Senate and House of
Representatives—is a popular government. It leaves it still all its
popular character. The governor of a state (in some of the states) is
chosen not directly by the people for the purpose of performing, among
other duties, that of electing a governor. Is the government of the
state on that account not a popular government? This government, sir, is
the independent offspring of the popular will. It is not the creature of
state legislatures; nay, more, if the whole truth must be told, the
people brought it into existence, established it, and have hitherto
supported it, for the very purpose, amongst others, of imposing certain
salutary restraints on state sovereignties. The states cannot now make
war; they cannot contract alliances; they cannot make, each for itself,
separate regulations of commerce; they cannot lay imposts; they cannot
coin money. If this constitution, sir, be the creature of state
legislatures, it must be admitted that it has obtained a strange control
over the volition of its creators.
The people then, sir, erected this government. They gave it a
constitution, and in that constitution they have enumerated the powers
which they bestow on it. They have made it a limited government. They
have defined its authority. They have restrained it to the exercise of
such powers as are granted; and all others, they declare, are reserved
to the states or the people. But, sir, they have not stopped here. If
they had, they would have accomplished but half their work. No
definition can be so clear as to avoid possibility of doubt; no
limitation so precise as to exclude all uncertainty. Who, then, shall
construe this grant or the people? Who shall interpret their will, where
it may be supposed they have left it doubtful? With whom do they leave
this ultimate right of deciding on the powers of the government? Sir,
they have settled all this in the fullest manner. They have left it with
the government itself, in its appropriate branches. Sir, the very chief
end, the main design for which the whole constitution was framed and
adopted, was to establish a government that should not be obliged to act
through state agency, or depend on state opinion and discretion. The
people had had quite enough of that kind of government under the
confederacy. Under that system, the legal action—the application of law
to individuals—belonged exclusively to the states. Congress could only
recommend—their acts were not of binding force till the states had
adopted and sanctioned them. Are we in that condition still? Are we yet
at the mercy of state discretion and state construction? Sir, if we are,
then vain will be our attempt to maintain the constitution under which
we sit.
But, sir, the people have wisely provided, in the constitution itself, a
proper, suitable mode and tribunal for settling questions of
constitutional law. There are, in the constitution, grants of powers to
Congress, and restrictions on those powers. There are also prohibitions
on the states. Some authority must therefore necessarily exist, having
the ultimate jurisdiction to fix and ascertain the interpretation of
these grants, restrictions and prohibitions. The constitution has itself
pointed out, ordained, and established that authority. How has it
accomplished this great and essential end? By declaring, sir, that “_the
constitution and the laws of the United States, made in pursuance
thereof, shall be the supreme law of the land, any thing in the
constitution or laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding_.”
This, sir, was the first great step. By this, the supremacy of the
constitution and laws of the United States is declared. The people so
will it. No state law is to be valid which comes in conflict with the
constitution or any law of the United States. But who shall decide this
question of interference? To whom lies the last appeal? This, sir, the
constitution itself decides also, by declaring “_that the judicial power
shall extend to all cases arising under the constitution and laws of the
United States_.” These two provisions, sir, cover the whole ground. They
are, in truth, the keystone of the arch. With these it is a government;
without them it is a confederacy. In pursuance of these clear and
express provisions, Congress established, at its very first session, in
the judicial act, a mode for carrying them into full effect, and for
bringing all questions of constitutional power to the final decision of
the Supreme Court. It then, sir, became a government. It then had the
means of self-protection; and but for this, it would, in all
probability, have been now among things which are passed. Having
constituted the government, and declared its powers, the people have
further said, that since somebody must decide on the extent of these
powers, the government shall itself decide—subject always like other
popular governments, to its responsibility to the people. And now, sir,
I repeat, how is it that a state legislature acquires any right to
interfere? Who, or what, gives them the right to say to the people, “We,
who are your agents and servants for one purpose, will undertake to
decide, that your other agents and servants, appointed by you for
another purpose, have transcended the authority you gave them”? The
reply would be, I think, not impertinent, “Who made you a judge over
another’s servants. To their own masters they stand or fall.”
Sir, I deny this power of state legislatures altogether. It cannot stand
the test of examination. Gentlemen may say, that, in an extreme case, a
state government might protect the people from intolerable oppression.
Sir, in such a case the people might protect themselves, without the aid
of the state governments. Such a case warrants revolution. It must make,
when it comes, a law for itself. A nullifying act of a state legislature
cannot alter the case, nor make resistance any more lawful. In
maintaining these sentiments, sir, I am but asserting the rights of the
people. I state what they have declared, and insist on their right to
declare it. They have chosen to repose this power in the general
government, and I think it my duty to support it, like other
constitutional powers.
For myself, sir, I doubt the jurisdiction of South Carolina, or any
other state, to prescribe my constitutional duty, or to settle, between
me and the people, the validity of laws of Congress for which I have
voted. I decline her umpirage. I have not sworn to support the
constitution according to her construction of its clauses. I have not
stipulated, by my oath of office or otherwise, to come under any
responsibility, except to the people and those whom they have appointed
to pass upon the question, whether the laws, supported by my votes,
conform to the constitution of the country. And, sir, if we look to the
general nature of the case, could any thing have been more preposterous
than to have made a government for the whole Union, and yet left its
powers subject, not to one interpretation, but to thirteen or
twenty-four interpretations? Instead of one tribunal, established by
all, responsible to all, with power to decide for all, shall
constitutional questions be left to four and twenty popular bodies, each
at liberty to decide for itself, and none bound to respect the decisions
of others; and each at liberty, too, to give a new construction, on
every new election of its own members? Would any thing, with such a
principle in it, or rather with such a destitution of all principle, be
fit to be called a government? No, sir. It should not be denominated a
constitution. It should be called, rather, a collection of topics for
everlasting controversy; heads of debate for a disputatious people. It
would not be a government. It would not be adequate to any practical
good, nor fit for any country to live under. To avoid all possibility of
being misunderstood, allow me to repeat again, in the fullest manner,
that I claim no powers for the government by forced or unfair
construction. I admit that it is a government of strictly limited
powers, of enumerated, specified, and particularized powers; and that
whatsoever is not granted is withheld. But, notwithstanding all this,
and however the grant of powers may be expressed, its limits and extent
may yet, in some cases, admit of doubt; and the general government would
be good for nothing, it would be incapable of long existence, if some
mode had not been provided in which those doubts, as they should arise,
might be peaceably, but not authoritatively solved.
And now, Mr. President, let me run the honorable gentleman’s doctrine a
little into its practical application. Let us look at his probable
_modus operandi_. If a thing can be done, an ingenious man can tell
_how_ it is to be done. Now, I wish to be informed _how_ this state
interference is to be put in practice. We will take the existing case of
the tariff law. South Carolina is said to have made up her opinion upon
it. If we do not repeal it, (as we probably shall not,) she will then
apply to the case the remedy of her doctrine. She will, we must suppose,
pass a law of her legislature, declaring the several acts of Congress,
usually called the tariff laws, null and void, so far as they respect
South Carolina, or the citizens thereof. So far, all is a paper
transaction, and easy enough. But the collector at Charleston is
collecting the duties imposed by these tariff laws—he, therefore, must
be stopped. The collector will seize the goods if the tariff duties are
not paid. The state authorities will undertake their rescue: the
marshal, with his posse, will come to the collector’s aid; and here the
contest begins. The militia of the state will be called out to sustain
the nullifying act. They will march, sir, under a very gallant leader;
for I believe the honorable member himself commands the militia of that
part of the state. He will raise the NULLIFYING ACT on his standard, and
spread it out as his banner. It will have a preamble, bearing that the
tariff laws are palpable, deliberate, and dangerous violations of the
constitution. He will proceed, with his banner flying, to the
custom-house in Charleston,—
“all the while
Sonorous metal blowing martial sounds.”
Arrived at the custom-house, he will tell the collector that he must
collect no more duties under any of the tariff laws. This he will be
somewhat puzzled to say, by the way, with a grave countenance,
considering what hand South Carolina herself had in that of 1816. But,
sir, the collector would, probably, not desist at his bidding. Here
would ensue a pause; for they say, that a certain stillness precedes the
tempest. Before this military array should fall on custom-house,
collector, clerks, and all, it is very probable some of those composing
it would request of their gallant commander-in-chief to be informed a
little upon the point of law; for they have doubtless a just respect for
his opinion as a lawyer, as well as for his bravery as a soldier. They
know he has read Blackstone and the constitution, as well as Turenne and
Vauban. They would ask him, therefore, something concerning their rights
in this matter. They would inquire whether it was not somewhat dangerous
to resist a law of the United States. What would be the nature of their
offence, they would wish to learn, if they, by military force and array,
resisted the execution in Carolina of a law of the United States, and it
should turn out, after all, that the law _was constitutional_. He would
answer, of course, treason. No lawyer could give any other answer. John
Fries, he would tell them, had learned that some years ago. How, then,
they would ask, do you propose to defend us? We are not afraid of
bullets, but treason has a way of taking people off that we do not much
relish. How do you propose to defend us? “Look at my floating banner,”
he would reply; “see there the _nullifying law_!” Is it your opinion,
gallant commander, they would then say, that if we should be indicted
for treason, that same floating banner of yours would make a good plea
in bar? “South Carolina is a sovereign state,” he would reply. That is
true; but would the judge admit our plea? “These tariff laws,” he would
repeat, “are unconstitutional, palpably, deliberately, dangerously.”
That all may be so; but if the tribunals should not happen to be of that
opinion, shall we swing for it? We are ready to die for our country, but
it is rather an awkward business, this dying without touching the
ground. After all, this is a sort of _hemp_-tax, worse than any part of
the tariff.
Mr. President, the honorable gentleman would be in a dilemma like that
of another great general. He would have a knot before him which he could
not untie. He must cut it with his sword. He must say to his followers,
Defend yourselves with your bayonets; and this is war—civil war.
Direct collision, therefore, between force and force, is the unavoidable
result of that remedy for the revision of unconstitutional laws which
the gentleman contends for. It must happen in the very first case to
which it is applied. Is not this the plain result? To resist, by force,
the execution of a law, generally, is treason. Can the courts of the
United States take notice of the indulgence of a state to commit
treason? The common saying, that a state cannot commit treason herself,
is nothing to the purpose. Can it authorize others to do it? If John
Fries had produced an act of Pennsylvania, annulling the law of
Congress, would it have helped his case? Talk about it as we will, these
doctrines go the length of revolution. They are incompatible with any
peaceable administration of the government. They lead directly to
disunion and civil commotion; and therefore it is, that at the
commencement, when they are first found to be maintained by respectable
men, and in a tangible form, that I enter my public protest against them
all.
The honorable gentleman argues, that if this government be the sole
judge of the extent of its own powers, whether that right of judging be
in Congress or the Supreme Court, it equally subverts state sovereignty.
This the gentleman sees, or thinks he sees, although he cannot perceive
how the right of judging in this matter, if left to the exercise of
state legislatures, has any tendency to subvert the government of the
Union. The gentleman’s opinion may be that the right _ought not_ to have
been lodged with the general government; he may like better such a
constitution as we should have under the right of state interference;
but I ask him to meet me on the plain matter of fact—I ask him to meet
me on the constitution itself—I ask him if the power is not
there—clearly and visibly found there.
But, sir, what is this danger, and what the grounds of it? Let it be
remembered, that the constitution of the United States is not
unalterable. It is to continue in its present form no longer than the
people who established it shall choose to continue it. If they shall
become convinced that they have made an injudicious or inexpedient
partition and distribution of power between the state governments and
the general government, they can alter that distribution at will.
If anything be found in the national constitution, either by original
provision or subsequent interpretation, which ought not to be in it, the
people know how to get rid of it. If any construction be established,
unacceptable to them, so as to become, practically, a part of the
constitution, they will amend it at their own sovereign pleasure. But
while the people choose to maintain it as it is, while they are
satisfied with it, and refuse to change it, who has given, or who can
give, to the state legislatures a right to alter it, either by
interference, construction, or otherwise? Gentlemen do not seem to
recollect that the people have any power to do anything for themselves;
they imagine there is no safety for them any longer than they are under
the close guardianship of the state legislatures. Sir, the people have
not trusted their safety, in regard to the general constitution, to
these hands they have required other security, and taken other bonds.
They have chosen to trust themselves, first to the plain words of the
instrument, and to such construction as the government itself, in
doubtful cases, should put on its own powers, under their oaths of
office, and subject to their responsibility to them; just as the people
of a state trust their own state governments with a similar power.
Secondly, they have reposed their trust in the efficacy of frequent
elections, and in their own power to remove their own servants and
agents, whenever they see cause. Thirdly, they have reposed trust in the
judicial power, which, in order that it might be trustworthy, they have
made as respectable, as disinterested, and as independent as
practicable. Fourthly, they have seen fit to rely, in case of necessity,
or high expediency, on their known and admitted power to alter or amend
the constitution, peaceably and quietly, whenever experience shall point
out defects or imperfections. And finally, the people of the United
States have at no time, in no way, directly or indirectly, authorized
any state legislature to construe or interpret _their_ instrument of
government; much less to interfere, by their own power, to arrest its
course and operation.
If sir, the people, in these respects, had done otherwise than they have
done, their constitution could neither have been preserved, nor would it
have been worth preserving. And if its plain provision shall now be
disregarded, and these new doctrines interpolated in it, it will become
as feeble and helpless a being as enemies, whether early or more recent,
could possibly desire. It will exist in every state, but as a poor
dependant on state permission. It must borrow leave to be, and will be,
no longer than state pleasure, or state discretion, sees fit to grant
the indulgence, and to prolong its poor existence.
But, sir, although there are fears, there are hopes also. The people
have preserved this, their own chosen constitution, for forty years, and
have seen their happiness, prosperity, and renown grow with its growth
and strengthen with its strength. They are now, generally, strongly
attached to it. Overthrown by direct assault it cannot be; evaded,
undermined, NULLIFIED, it will not be, if we, and those who shall
succeed us here, as agents and representatives of the people, shall
conscientiously and vigilantly discharge the two great branches of our
public trust—faithfully to preserve and wisely to administer it.
Mr. President, I have thus stated the reasons of my dissent to the
doctrines which have been advanced and maintained. I am conscious of
having detained you, and the Senate, much too long. I was drawn into the
debate with no previous deliberation such as is suited to the discussion
of so grave and important a subject. But it is a subject of which my
heart is full, and I have not been willing to suppress the utterance of
its spontaneous sentiments.
I cannot, even now, persuade myself to relinquish it, without expressing
once more, my deep conviction, that since it respects nothing less than
the union of the states, it is of most vital and essential importance to
the public happiness. I profess, sir, in my career hitherto, to have
kept steadily in view the prosperity and honor of the whole country, and
the preservation of our Federal Union. It is to that Union we owe our
safety at home and our consideration and dignity abroad. It is to that
Union we are chiefly indebted for whatever makes us most proud of our
country. That Union we reached only by the discipline of our virtues in
the severe school of adversity. It had its origin in the necessities of
disordered finance, prostrate commerce, and ruined credit. Under its
benign influences, these great interests immediately awoke, as from the
dead, and sprang forth with newness of life. Every year of its duration
has teemed with fresh proofs of its utility and its blessings; and
although our territory has stretched out wider and wider, and our
population spread farther and farther, they have not outrun its
protection or its benefits. It has been to us all a copious fountain of
national, social, personal happiness. I have not allowed myself, sir, to
look beyond the Union, to see what might lie hidden in the dark recess
behind. I have not coolly weighed the chances of preserving liberty,
when the bonds that unite us together shall be broken asunder. I have
not accustomed myself to hang over the precipice of disunion, to see
whether, with my short sight, I can fathom the depth of the abyss below;
nor could I regard him as a safe counsellor in the affairs of this
government, whose thoughts should be mainly bent on considering, not how
the Union should be best preserved, but how tolerable might be the
condition of the people when it shall be broken up and destroyed. While
the Union lasts, we have high, exciting, gratifying prospects spread out
before us, for us and our children. Beyond that I seek not to penetrate
the veil. God grant that in my day at least, that curtain may not rise.
God grant that on my vision never may be opened what lies behind. When
my eyes shall be turned to behold, for the last time, the sun in heaven,
may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of a
once glorious Union; on states dissevered, discordant, belligerent; on a
land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood!
Let their last feeble and lingering glance, rather, behold the gorgeous
ensign of the republic, now known and honored throughout earth, still
full high advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their original
lustre, not a stripe erased or polluted, nor a single star
obscured—bearing for its motto no such miserable interrogatory as, _What
is all this worth?_ nor those other words of delusion and folly,
_Liberty first, and Union afterwards_; but every where, spread all over
in characters of living light, blazing on all its ample folds as they
float over the sea and over the land, and in every wind under the whole
heavens, that other sentiment, dear to every true American heart—Liberty
_and_ Union, now and forever, one and inseparable!
John C. Calhoun on the Rights of the States.
_Delivered July 26, 1831._
The question of the relation which the states and general government
bear to each other, is not one of recent origin. From the commencement
of our system, it has divided public sentiment. Even in the convention,
while the Constitution was struggling into existence, there were two
parties, as to what this relation should be, whose different sentiments
constituted no small impediment in forming that instrument. After the
general government went into operation, experience soon proved that the
question had not terminated with the labors of the convention. The great
struggle that preceded the political revolution of 1801, which brought
Mr. Jefferson into power, turned essentially on it; and the doctrines
and arguments on both sides were embodied and ably sustained; on the
one, in the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions and the report to the
Virginia legislature; and on the other, in the replies of the
legislature of Massachusetts and some of the other states. These
resolutions and this report, with the decision of the Supreme Court of
Pennsylvania about the same time (particularly in the case of Cobbett,
delivered by Chief Justice McKean, and concurred in by the whole bench),
contain what I believe to be the true doctrine on this important
subject. I refer to them in order to avoid the necessity of presenting
my views, with the reasons in support of them in detail.
As my object is simply to state my opinions, I might pause with this
reference to documents that so fully and ably state all the points
immediately connected with this deeply important subject; but as there
are many who may not have the opportunity or leisure to refer to them,
and, as it is possible, however clear they may be, that different
persons may place different interpretations on their meaning, I will, in
order that my sentiments may be fully known, and to avoid all ambiguity,
proceed to state, summarily, the doctrines which I conceive they
embrace.
The great and leading principle is, that the general government emanated
from the people of the several states, forming distinct political
communities, and acting in their separate and sovereign capacity, and
not from all of the people forming one aggregate political community;
that the Constitution of the United States is in fact a compact, to
which each state is a party, in the character already described; and
that the several states, or parties, have a right to judge of its
infractions, and in case of a deliberate, palpable, and dangerous
exercise of power not delegated, they have the right, in the last
resort, to use the language of the Virginia resolutions; “to interpose
for arresting the progress of the evil, and for maintaining, within
their respective limits, the authorities, rights, and liberties
appertaining to them.” This right of interposition thus solemnly
asserted by the state of Virginia, be it called what it may—state right,
veto, nullification, or by any other name—I conceive to be the
fundamental principle of our system, resting on facts, historically as
certain as our revolution itself, and deductions as simple and
demonstrative as that of any political or moral truth whatever; and I
firmly believe that on its recognition depends the stability and safety
of our political institutions.
I am not ignorant that those opposed to the doctrine have always, now
and formerly, regarded it in a very different light, as anarchical and
revolutionary. Could I believe such in fact to be its tendency, to me it
would be no recommendation. I yield to none, I trust, in a deep and
sincere attachment to our political institutions, and the union of these
states. I never breathed an opposite sentiment; but, on the contrary, I
have ever considered them the great instruments of preserving our
liberty, and promoting the happiness of ourselves and our posterity; and
next to these, I have ever held them most dear. Nearly half my life has
passed in the service of the Union, and whatever public reputation I
have acquired, is indissolubly identified with it. To be too national
has, indeed, been considered, by many, even of my friends, to be my
greatest political fault. With these strong feelings of attachment, I
have examined, with the utmost care, the bearing of the doctrine in
question; and so far from anarchical or revolutionary, I solemnly
believe it to be the only solid foundation of our system, and of the
Union itself, and that the opposite doctrine, which denies to the states
the right of protecting their reserved powers, and which would vest in
the general government (it matters not through what department) the
right of determining exclusively and finally the powers delegated to it,
is incompatible with the sovereignty of the states, and of the
Constitution itself, considered as the basis of a Federal Union. As
strong as this language is, it is not stronger than that used by the
illustrious Jefferson, who said, to give to the general government the
final and exclusive right to judge of its powers, is to make “its
discretion and not the Constitution the measure of its powers;” and that
“in all cases of compact between parties having no common judge, each
party has an equal right to judge for itself, as well of the operation,
as of the mode and measure of redress.” Language cannot be more
explicit; nor can higher authority be adduced.
[Illustration: _J C Calhoun_]
That different opinions are entertained on this subject, I consider but
as an additional evidence of the great diversity of the human intellect.
Had not able, experienced, and patriotic individuals, for whom I have
the highest respect, taken different views, I would have thought the
right too clear to admit of doubt; but I am taught by this, as well as
by many similar instances, to treat with deference opinions differing
from my own. The error may possibly be with me; but, if so, I can only
say, that after the most mature and conscientious examination, I have
not been able to detect it. But with all proper deference, I must think
that theirs is the error, who deny what seems to be an essential
attribute of the conceded sovereignty of the states; and who attribute
to the general government a right utterly incompatible with what all
acknowledge to be its limited and restricted character; an error
originating principally, as I must think, in not duly reflecting on the
nature of our institutions, and on what constitutes the only rational
object of all political constitutions.
It has been well said by one of the most sagacious men of antiquity,
that the object of a constitution is to restrain the government, as that
of laws is to restrain individuals. The remark is correct, nor is it
less true where the government is vested in a majority, than where it is
in a single or a few individuals; in a republic, than a monarchy or
aristocracy. No one can have a higher respect for the maxim that the
majority ought to govern than I have, taken in its proper sense, subject
to the restrictions imposed by the Constitution, and confined to
subjects in which every portion of the community have similar interests;
but it is a great error to suppose, as many do, that the right of a
majority to govern is a natural and not a conventional right; and,
therefore, absolute and unlimited. By nature every individual has the
right to govern himself; and governments, whether founded on majorities
or minorities, must derive their right from the assent, expressed or
implied, of the governed, and be subject to such limitations as they may
impose. Where the interests are the same, that is, where the laws that
may benefit one will benefit all, or the reverse, it is just and proper
to place them under the control of the majority; but where they are
dissimilar, so that the law that may benefit one portion may be ruinous
to another, it would be, on the contrary, unjust and absurd to subject
them to its will: and such I conceive to be the theory on which our
Constitution rests.
That such dissimilarity of interests may exist it is impossible to
doubt. They are to be found in every community, in a greater or less
degree, however small or homogeneous, and they constitute, everywhere,
the great difficulty of forming and preserving free institutions. To
guard against the unequal action of the laws, when applied to dissimilar
and opposing interests, is in fact what mainly renders a constitution
indispensable; to overlook which in reasoning on our Constitution, would
be to omit the principal element by which to determine its character.
Were there no contrariety of interests, nothing would be more simple and
easy than to form and preserve free institutions. The right of suffrage
alone would be a sufficient guarantee. It is the conflict of opposing
interests which renders it the most difficult work of man.
Where the diversity of interests exists in separate and distinct classes
of the community, as is the case in England, and was formerly the case
in Sparta, Rome, and most of the free states of antiquity, the rational
constitutional provision is, that each should be represented in the
government as a separate estate, with a distinct voice, and a negative
on the acts of its co-estates, in order to check their encroachments. In
England the constitution has assumed expressly this form, while in the
governments of Sparta and Rome the same thing was effected, under
different but not much less efficacious forms. The perfection of their
organization, in this particular, was that which gave to the
constitutions of these renowned states all of their celebrity, which
secured their liberty for so many centuries, and raised them to so great
a height of power and prosperity. Indeed, a constitutional provision
giving to the great and separate interests of the community the right of
self-protection, must appear to those who will duly reflect on the
subject, not less essential to the preservation of liberty than the
right of suffrage itself. They in fact have a common object, to effect
which the one is as necessary as the other—to secure responsibility;
that is, that those who make and execute the laws should be accountable
to those on whom the laws in reality operate; the only solid and durable
foundation of liberty. If without the right to suffrage our rulers would
oppress us, so without the right of self-protection, the major would
equally oppress the minor interests of the community. The absence of the
former would make the governed the slaves of the rulers, and of the
latter the feebler interests the victim of the stronger.
Happily for us we have no artificial and separate classes of society. We
have wisely exploded all such distinctions; but we are not, on that
account, exempt from all contrariety of interests, as the present
distracted and dangerous condition of our country unfortunately but too
clearly proves. With us they are almost exclusively geographical,
resulting mainly from difference of climate, soil, situation, industry,
and production, but are not, therefore, less necessary to be protected
by an adequate constitutional provision than where the distinct
interests exist in separate classes. The necessity is, in truth,
greater, as such separate and dissimilar geographical interests are more
liable to come into conflict, and more dangerous when in that state than
those of any other description; so much so, that ours is the first
instance on record where they have not formed in an extensive territory
separate and independent communities, or subjected the whole to despotic
sway. That such may not be our unhappy fate also, must be the sincere
prayer of every lover of his country.
So numerous and diversified are the interests of our country, that they
could not be fairly represented in a single government, organized so as
to give to each great and leading interest a separate and distinct
voice, as in governments to which I have referred. A plan was adopted
better suited to our situation, but perfectly novel in its character.
The powers of the government were divided, not as heretofore, in
reference to classes, but geographically. One general government was
formed for the whole, to which was delegated all of the powers supposed
to be necessary to regulate the interests common to all of the states,
leaving others subject to the separate control of the states, being from
their local and peculiar character such that they could not be subject
to the will of the majority of the whole Union, without the certain
hazard of injustice and oppression. It was thus that the interests of
the whole were subjected, as they ought to be, to the will of the whole,
while the peculiar and local interests were left under the control of
the states separately, to whose custody only they could be safely
confided. This distribution of power, settled solemnly by a
constitutional compact, to which all of the states are parties,
constitutes the peculiar character and excellence of our political
system. It is truly and emphatically American, without example or
parallel.
To realize its perfection, we must view the general government and the
states as a whole, each in its proper sphere, sovereign and independent;
each perfectly adapted to their respective objects; the states acting
separately, representing and protecting the local and peculiar
interests; acting jointly, through one general government, with the
weight respectively assigned to each by the Constitution, representing
and protecting the interest of the whole, and thus perfecting, by an
admirable but simple arrangement, the great principle of representation
and responsibility, without which no government can be free or just. To
preserve this sacred distribution as originally settled, by coercing
each to move in its prescribed orb, is the great and difficult problem,
on the solution of which the duration of our Constitution, of our Union,
and, in all probability our liberty, depends. How is this to be
effected?
The question is new when applied to our peculiar political organization,
where the separate and conflicting interests of society are represented
by distinct but connected governments; but is in reality an old question
under a new form, long since perfectly solved. Whenever separate and
dissimilar interests have been separately represented in any government;
whenever the sovereign power has been divided in its exercise, the
experience and wisdom of ages have devised but one mode by which such
political organization can be preserved; the mode adopted in England,
and by all governments, ancient or modern, blessed with constitutions
deserving to be called free; to give to each co-estate the right to
judge of its powers, with a negative or veto on the acts of the others,
in order to protect against encroachments the interests it particularly
represents; a principle which all of our constitutions recognize in the
distribution of power among their respective departments, as essential
to maintain the independence of each, but which, to all who will duly
reflect on the subject, must appear far more essential, for the same
object, in that great and fundamental distribution of powers between the
states and general government. So essential is the principle, that to
withhold the right from either, where the sovereign power is divided,
is, in fact, to annul the division itself, and to consolidate in the one
left in the exclusive possession of the right, all of the powers of the
government; for it is not possible to distinguish practically between a
government having all power, and one having the right to take what
powers it pleases. Nor does it in the least vary the principle, whether
the distribution of power between co-estates, as in England, or between
distinctly organized but connected governments, as with us. The reason
is the same in both cases, while the necessity is greater in our case,
as the danger of conflict is greater where the interests of a society
are divided geographically than in any other, as has already been shown.
These truths do seem to me to be incontrovertible; and I am at a loss to
understand how any one, who has maturely reflected on the nature of our
institutions, or who has read history or studied the principles of free
government to any purpose, can call them in question. The explanation
must, it appears to me, be sought in the fact, that in every free state,
there are those who look more to the necessity of maintaining power,
than guarding against its abuses. I do not intend reproach, but simply
to state a fact apparently necessary to explain the contrariety of
opinions, among the intelligent, where the abstract consideration of the
subject would seem scarcely to admit of doubt. If such be the true
cause, I must think the fear of weakening the government too much in
this case to be in a great measure unfounded, or at least that the
danger is much less from that than the opposite side. I do not deny that
a power of so high a nature may be abused by a state, but when I reflect
that the states unanimously called the general government into existence
with all of its powers, which they freely surrendered on their part,
under the conviction that their common peace, safety and prosperity
required it; that they are bound together by a common origin, and the
recollection of common suffering and common triumph in the great and
splendid achievement of their independence; and the strongest feelings
of our nature, and among them, the love of national power and
distinction, are on the side of the Union; it does seem to me, that the
fear which would strip the states of their sovereignty, and degrade
them, in fact, to mere dependent corporations, lest they should abuse a
right indispensable to the peaceable protection of those interests which
they reserved under their own peculiar guardianship when they created
the general government, is unnatural and unreasonable. If those who
voluntarily created the system, cannot be trusted to preserve it, what
power can?
So far from extreme danger, I hold that there never was a free state, in
which this great conservative principle, indispensable in all, was ever
so safely lodged. In others, when the co-estates, representing the
dissimilar and conflicting interests of the community, came into
contact, the only alternative was compromise, submission or force. Not
so in ours. Should the general government and a state come into
conflict, we have a higher remedy; the power which called the general
government into existence, which gave it all its authority, and can
enlarge, contract, or abolish its powers at its pleasure, may be
invoked. The states themselves may be appealed to, three-fourths of
which, in fact, form a power, whose decrees are the constitution itself,
and whose voice can silence all discontent. The utmost extent then of
the power is, that a state acting in its sovereign capacity, as one of
the parties to the constitutional compact, may compel the government,
created by that compact, to submit a question touching its infraction to
the parties who created it; to avoid the supposed dangers of which, it
is proposed to resort to the novel, the hazardous, and, I must add,
fatal project of giving to the general government the sole and final
right of interpreting the Constitution, thereby reserving the whole
system, making that instrument the creature of its will, instead of a
rule of action impressed on it at its creation, and annihilating in fact
the authority which imposed it, and from which the government itself
derives its existence.
That such would be the result, were the right in question vested in the
legislative or executive branch of the government, is conceded by all.
No one has been so hardy as to assert that Congress or the President
ought to have the right, or to deny that, if vested finally and
exclusively in either, the consequences which I have stated would not
necessarily follow; but its advocates have been reconciled to the
doctrine, on the supposition that there is one department of the general
government, which, from its peculiar organization, affords an
independent tribunal through which the government may exercise the high
authority which is the subject of consideration, with perfect safety to
all.
I yield, I trust, to few in my attachment to the judiciary department. I
am fully sensible of its importance, and would maintain it to the
fullest extent in its constitutional powers and independence; but it is
impossible for me to believe that it was ever intended by the
Constitution, that it should exercise the power in question, or that it
is competent to do so, and, if it were, that it would be a safe
depository of the power.
Its powers are judicial and not political, and are expressly confined by
the Constitution “to all cases in law and equity arising under this
Constitution, the laws of the United States, and the treaties made, or
which shall be made, under its authority;” and which I have high
authority in asserting, excludes political questions, and comprehends
those only where there are parties amenable to the process of the
court.[82] Nor is its incompetency less clear, than its want of
constitutional authority. There may be many and the most dangerous
infractions on the part of Congress, of which it is conceded by all, the
court, as a judicial tribunal, cannot from its nature take cognisance.
The tariff itself is a strong case in point; and the reason applies
equally to all others, where Congress perverts a power from an object
intended to one not intended, the most insidious and dangerous of all
the infractions; and which may be extended to all of its powers, more
especially to the taxing and appropriating. But supposing it competent
to take cognisance of all infractions of every description, the
insuperable objection still remains, that it would not be a safe
tribunal to exercise the power in question.
It is an universal and fundamental political principle, that the power
to protect, can safely be confided only to those interested in
protecting, or their responsible agents—a maxim not less true in private
than in public affairs. The danger in our system is, that the general
government, which represents the interests of the whole, may encroach on
the states, which represent the peculiar and local interests, or that
the latter may encroach on the former.
In examining this point, we ought not to forget that the government,
through all of its departments, judicial as well as others, is
administered by delegated and responsible agents; and that the power
which really controls ultimately all the movements, is not in the
agents, but those who elect or appoint them. To understand then its real
character, and what would be the action of the system in any supposable
case, we must raise our view from the mere agents, to this high
controlling power which finally impels every movement of the machine. By
doing so, we shall find all under the control of the will of a majority,
compounded of the majority of the states, taken as corporate bodies, and
the majority of the people of the states estimated in federal numbers.
These united constitute the real and final power, which impels and
directs the movements of the general government. The majority of the
states elect the majority of the Senate; of the people of the states,
that of the House of Representatives; the two united, the President; and
the President and a majority of the Senate appoint the judges, a
majority of whom and a majority of the Senate and the House with the
President, really exercise all of the powers of the government with the
exception of the cases where the Constitution requires a greater number
than a majority. The judges are, in fact, as truly the judicial
representatives of this united majority, as the majority of Congress
itself, or the President, is its legislative or executive
representative; and to confide the power to the judiciary to determine
finally and conclusively what powers are delegated and what reserved,
would be in reality to confide it to the majority, whose agents they
are, and by whom they can be controlled in various ways; and, of course,
to subject (against the fundamental principle of our system, and all
sound political reasoning) the reserved powers of the states, with all
of the local and peculiar interests they were intended to protect, to
the will of the very majority against which the protection was intended.
Nor will the tenure by which the judges hold their office, however
valuable the provision in many other respects, materially vary the case.
Its highest possible effect would be to retard, and not finally to
resist, the will of a dominant majority.
But it is useless to multiply arguments. Were it possible that reason
could settle a question where the passions and interests of men are
concerned, this point would have been long since settled for ever, by
the state of Virginia. The report of her legislature, to which I have
already referred, has really, in my opinion, placed it beyond
controversy. Speaking in reference to this subject, it says, “It has
been objected” (to the right of a state to interpose for the protection
of her reserved rights), “that the judicial authority is to be regarded
as the sole expositor of the Constitution; on this subject it might be
observed first that there may be instances of usurped powers which the
forms of the Constitution could never draw within the control of the
judicial department; secondly, that if the decision of the judiciary be
raised above the sovereign parties to the Constitution, the decisions of
the other departments, not carried by the forms of the Constitution
before the judiciary, must be equally authoritative and final with the
decision of that department. But the proper answer to the objection is,
that the resolution of the General Assembly relates to those great and
extraordinary cases, in which all of the forms of the Constitution may
prove ineffectual against infraction dangerous to the essential rights
of the parties to it. The resolution supposes that dangerous powers not
delegated, may not only be usurped and executed by the other
departments, but that the judicial department may also exercise or
sanction dangerous powers beyond the grant of the Constitution, and
consequently that the ultimate right of the parties to the Constitution
to judge whether the compact has been dangerously violated, must extend
to violations by one delegated authority, as well as by another—by the
judiciary, as well as by the executive or legislative.”
Against these conclusive arguments, as they seem to me, it is objected,
that if one of the parties has the right to judge of infractions of the
Constitution, so has the other, and that consequently in cases of
contested powers between a state and the general government, each would
have a right to maintain its opinion, as is the case when sovereign
powers differ in the construction of treaties or compacts, and that of
course it would come to be a mere question of force. The error is in the
assumption that the general government is a party to the constitutional
compact. The states, as has been shown, formed the compact, acting as
sovereign and independent communities. The general government is but its
creature; and though in reality a government with all the rights and
authority which belong to any other government, within the orb of its
powers, it is, nevertheless, a government emanating from a compact
between sovereigns, and partaking, in its nature and object, of the
character of a joint commission, appointed to superintend and administer
the interests in which all are jointly concerned, but having, beyond its
proper sphere, no more power than if it did not exist. To deny this
would be to deny the most incontestable facts, and the clearest
conclusions; while to acknowledge its truth, is to destroy utterly the
objection that the appeal would be to force, in the case supposed. For
if each party has a right to judge, then under our system of government,
the final cognisance of a question of contested power would be in the
states, and not in the general government. It would be the duty of the
latter, as in all similar cases of a contest between one or more of the
principals and a joint commission or agency, to refer the contest to the
principals themselves. Such are the plain dictates of reason and analogy
both. On no sound principle can the agents have a right to final
cognisance, as against the principals, much less to use force against
them, to maintain their construction of their powers. Such a right would
be monstrous; and has never, heretofore, been claimed in similar cases.
That the doctrine is applicable to the case of a contested power between
the states and the general government, we have the authority not only of
reason and analogy, but of the distinguished statesman already referred
to. Mr. Jefferson, at a late period of his life, after long experience
and mature reflection, says, “With respect to our state and federal
governments, I do not think their relations are correctly understood by
foreigners. They suppose the former subordinate to the latter. This is
not the case. They are co-ordinate departments of one simple and
integral whole. But you may ask if the two departments should claim each
the same subject of power, where is the umpire to decide between them?
In cases of little urgency or importance, the prudence of both parties
will keep them aloof from the questionable ground; but if it can neither
be avoided nor compromised, a convention of the states must be called to
ascribe the doubtful power to that department which they may think
best.”—It is thus that our Constitution, by authorizing amendments, and
by prescribing the authority and mode of making them, has by a simple
contrivance, with its characteristic wisdom, provided a power which, in
the last resort, supersedes effectually the necessity and even the
pretext for force; a power to which none can fairly object; with which
the interests of all are safe; which can definitely close all
controversies in the only effectual mode, by freeing the compact of
every defect and uncertainty, by an amendment of the instrument itself.
It is impossible for human wisdom, in a system like ours, to devise
another mode which shall be safe and effectual, and at the same time
consistent with what are the relations and acknowledged powers of the
two great departments of our government. It gives a beauty and security
peculiar to our system, which, if duly appreciated, will transmit its
blessings to the remotest generations; but, if not, our splendid
anticipations of the future will prove but an empty dream. Stripped of
all its covering, and the naked question is, whether ours is a federal
or a consolidated government: a constitutional or absolute one; a
government resting ultimately on the solid basis of the sovereignty of
the states, or on the unrestrained will of a majority; a form of
government, as in all other unlimited ones, in which injustice and
violence, and force, must finally prevail. Let it never be forgotten,
that where the majority rules, the minority is the subject; and that if
we should absurdly attribute to the former the exclusive right of
construing the Constitution, there would be in fact between the
sovereign and subject, under such a government, no constitution; or at
least nothing deserving the name, or serving the legitimate object of so
sacred an instrument.
How the states are to exercise this high power of interposition which
constitutes so essential a portion of their reserved rights that it
cannot be delegated without an entire surrender of their sovereignty,
and converting our system from a federal into a consolidated government,
is a question that the states only are competent to determine. The
arguments which prove that they possess the power, equally prove that
they are, in the language of Jefferson, “the rightful judges of the mode
and measure of redress.” But the spirit of forbearance, as well as the
nature of the right itself, forbids a recourse to it, except in cases of
dangerous infractions of the Constitution; and then only in the last
resort, when all reasonable hope of relief from the ordinary action of
the government has failed; when, if the right to interpose did not
exist, the alternative would be submission and oppression on the one
side, or resistance by force on the other. That our system should
afford, in such extreme cases, an intermediate point between these dire
alternatives, by which the government may be brought to a pause, and
thereby an interval obtained to compromise differences, or, if
impracticable, be compelled to submit the question to a constitutional
adjustment, through an appeal to the states themselves, is an evidence
of its high wisdom; an element not, as is supposed by some, of weakness,
but of strength; not of anarchy or revolution, but of peace and safety.
Its general recognition would of itself, in a great measure, if not
altogether, supersede the necessity of its exercise, by impressing on
the movements of the government that moderation and justice so essential
to harmony and peace, in a country of such vast extent and diversity of
interests as ours; and would, if controversy should come, turn the
resentment of the aggrieved from the system to those who had abused its
powers (a point all important), and cause them to seek redress, not in
revolution or overthrow, but in reformation. It is, in fact, properly
understood, a substitute where the alternative would be force, tending
to prevent, and if that fails, to correct peaceably the aberrations to
which all political systems are liable, and which, if permitted to
accumulate, without correction, must finally end in a general
catastrophe.
Speech of Henry Clay
_In Defence of the American System[83] in which is given the Previous
History of Tariff Contests in the Senate of the United States, February
2d, 3d and 6th, 1832._
[Mr. CLAY, having retired from Congress soon after the establishment
of the American System, by the passage of the Tariff of 1824, did not
return to it till 1831–2, when the opponents of this system had
acquired the ascendency, and were bent on its destruction. An act
reducing the duties on many of the protected articles, was devised and
passed. The bill being under consideration in the Senate, Mr. CLAY
addressed that body as follows:]
In one sentiment, Mr. President, expressed by the honorable gentleman
from South Carolina, (General Hayne,) though perhaps not in the sense
intended by him, I entirely concur. I agree with him, that the decision
on the system of policy embraced in this debate, involves the future
destiny of this growing country. One way I verily believe, it would lead
to deep and general distress, general bankruptcy and national ruin,
without benefit to any part of the Union: the other, the existing
prosperity will be preserved and augmented, and the nation will continue
rapidly to advance in wealth, power, and greatness, without prejudice to
any section of the confederacy.
Thus viewing the question, I stand here as the humble but zealous
advocate, not of the interests of one State, or seven States only, but
of the whole Union. And never before have I felt more intensely, the
overpowering weight of that share of responsibility which belongs to me
in these deliberations. Never before have I had more occasion than I now
have to lament my want of those intellectual powers, the possession of
which might enable me to unfold to this Senate, and to illustrate to
this people great truths, intimately connected with the lasting welfare
of my country. I should, indeed, sink overwhelmed and subdued beneath
the appalling magnitude of the task which lies before me, if I did not
feel myself sustained and fortified by a thorough consciousness of the
justness of the cause which I have espoused, and by a persuasion I hope
not presumptuous, that it has the approbation of that Providence who has
so often smiled upon these United States.
Eight years ago it was my painful duty to present to the other House of
Congress, an unexaggerated picture of the general distress pervading the
whole land. We must all yet remember some of its frightful features. We
all know that the people were then oppressed and borne down by an
enormous load of debt; that the value of property was at the lowest
point of depression; that ruinous sales and sacrifices were everywhere
made of real estate; that stop laws, and relief laws, and paper money
were adopted to save the people from impending destruction; that a
deficit in the public revenue existed, which compelled government to
seize upon, and divert from its legitimate object the appropriations to
the sinking fund, to redeem the national debt; and that our commerce and
navigation were threatened with a complete paralysis. In short, sir, if
I were to select any term of seven years since the adoption of the
present constitution which exhibited a scene of the most widespread
dismay and desolation, it would be exactly that term of seven years
which immediately preceded the establishment of the tariff of 1824.
I have now to perform the more pleasing task of exhibiting an imperfect
sketch of the existing state of the unparalleled prosperity of the
country. On a general survey, we behold cultivation extended, the arts
flourishing, the face of the country improved, our people fully and
profitably employed, and the public countenance exhibiting tranquillity,
contentment and happiness. And if we descend into particulars, we have
the agreeable contemplation of a people out of debt, land rising slowly
in value, but in a secure and salutary degree; a ready though not
extravagant market for all the surplus productions of our industry;
innumerable flocks and herds browsing and gamboling on ten thousand
hills and plains, covered with rich and verdant grasses; our cities
expanded, and whole villages springing up, as it were, by enchantment;
our exports and imports increased and increasing; our tonnage, foreign
and coastwise, swelling and fully occupied; the rivers of our interior
animated by the perpetual thunder and lightning of countless
steam-boats; the currency sound and abundant; the public debt of two
wars nearly redeemed; and, to crown all, the public treasury
overflowing, embarrassing Congress, not to find subjects of taxation,
but to select the objects which shall be liberated from the impost. If
the term of seven years were to be selected, of the greatest prosperity
which this people have enjoyed since the establishment of their present
constitution, it would be exactly that period of seven years which
immediately followed the passage of the tariff of 1824.
This transformation of the condition of the country from gloom and
distress to brightness and prosperity, has been mainly the work of
American legislation, fostering American industry, instead of allowing
it to be controlled by foreign legislation, cherishing foreign industry.
The foes of the American System, in 1824, with great boldness and
confidence, predicted, 1st. The ruin of the public revenue, and the
_creation of a necessity_ to resort to direct taxation. The gentleman
from South Carolina, (General Hayne,) I believe, thought that the tariff
of 1824 would operate a reduction of revenue to the large amount of
eight millions of dollars. 2d. The destruction of our navigation. 3d.
The desolation of commercial cities. And 4th. The augmentation of the
price of objects of consumption, and further decline in that of the
articles of our exports. Every prediction which they made has
failed—utterly failed. Instead of the ruin of the public revenue, with
which they then sought to deter us from the adoption of the American
System, we are now threatened with its subversion, by the vast amount of
the public revenue produced by that system. Every branch of our
navigation has increased.
* * * * *
Whilst we thus behold the entire failure of all that was foretold
against the system, it is a subject of just felicitation to its friends,
that all their anticipations of its benefits have been fulfilled, or are
in progress of fulfillment. The honorable gentleman from South Carolina
has made an allusion to a speech made by me, in 1824, in the other
House, in support of the tariff, and to which, otherwise, I should not
have particularly referred. But I would ask any one, who can now command
the courage to peruse that long production, what principle there laid
down is not true? what prediction then made has been falsified by
practical experience?
It is now proposed to abolish the system, to which we owe so much of the
public prosperity, and it is urged that the arrival of the period of the
redemption of the public debt has been confidently looked to as
presenting a suitable occasion to rid the country of evils with which
the system is alleged to be fraught. Not an inattentive observer of
passing events, I have been aware that, among those who were most early
pressing the payment of the public debt, and upon that ground were
opposing appropriations to other great interests, there were some who
cared less about the debt than the accomplishment of other objects. But
the people of the United States have not coupled the payment of _their_
public debt with the destruction of the protection of _their_ industry,
against foreign laws and foreign industry. They have been accustomed to
regard the extinction of the public debt as relief from a burthen, and
not as the infliction of a curse. If it is to be attended or followed by
the subversion of the American system, and an exposure of our
establishments and our productions to the unguarded consequences of the
selfish policy of foreign powers, the payment of the public debt will be
the bitterest of curses. Its fruit will be like the fruit
“Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste
Brought death into the world, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden.”
If the system of protection be founded on principles erroneous in
theory, pernicious in practice—above all if it be unconstitutional, as
is alleged, it ought to be forthwith abolished, and not a vestige of it
suffered to remain. But, before we sanction this sweeping denunciation,
let us look a little at this system, its magnitude, its ramifications,
its duration, and the high authorities which have sustained it. We shall
see that its foes will have accomplished comparatively nothing, after
having achieved their present aim of breaking down our iron-foundries,
our woolen, cotton, and hemp manufactories, and our sugar plantations.
The destruction of these would, undoubtedly, lead to the sacrifice of
immense capital, the ruin of many thousands of our fellow-citizens, and
incalculable loss to the whole community. But their prostration would
not disfigure, nor produce greater effect upon the _whole_ system of
protection, in all its branches, than the destruction of the beautiful
domes upon the capitol would occasion to the magnificent edifice which
they surmount. Why, sir, there is scarcely an interest, scarcely a
vocation in society, which is not embraced by the beneficence of this
system.
It comprehends our coasting tonnage and trade, from which all foreign
tonnage is absolutely excluded.
It includes all our foreign tonnage, with the inconsiderable exception
made by treaties of reciprocity with a few foreign powers.
It embraces our fisheries, and all our hardy and enterprising fishermen.
It extends to almost every mechanic art: * * *
It extends to all lower Louisiana, the Delta of which might as well be
submerged again in the Gulf of Mexico, from which it has been a gradual
conquest, as now to be deprived of the protecting duty upon its great
staple.
It affects the cotton planter himself, and the tobacco planter, both of
whom enjoy protection.
Such are some of the items of this vast system of protection, which it
is now proposed to abandon. We might well pause and contemplate, if
human imagination could conceive the extent of mischief and ruin from
its total overthrow, before we proceed to the work of destruction. Its
duration is worthy also of serious consideration. Not to go behind the
constitution, its date is coeval with that instrument. It began on the
ever memorable fourth day of July—the fourth day of July, 1789. The
second act which stands recorded in the statute book, bearing the
illustrious signature of George Washington, laid the corner-stone of the
whole system. That there might be no mistake about the matter, it was
then solemnly proclaimed to the American people and to the world, that
it was _necessary_ for “the encouragement and _protection_ of
manufactures,” that duties should be laid. It is in vain to urge the
small amount of the measure of the protection then extended. The great
principle was then established by the fathers of the constitution, with
the father of his country at their head. And it cannot now be
questioned, that, if the government had not then been new and the
subject untried, a greater measure of protection would have been
applied, if it had been supposed necessary. Shortly after, the master
minds of Jefferson and Hamilton were brought to act on this interesting
subject. Taking views of it appertaining to the departments of foreign
affairs and of the treasury, which they respectively filled, they
presented, severally, reports which yet remain monuments of their
profound wisdom, and came to the same conclusion of protection to
American industry. Mr. Jefferson argued that foreign restrictions,
foreign prohibitions, and foreign high duties, ought to be met at home
by American restrictions, American prohibitions, and American high
duties. Mr. Hamilton, surveying the entire ground, and looking at the
inherent nature of the subject, treated it with an ability, which, if
ever equalled, has not been surpassed, and earnestly recommended
protection.
The wars of the French revolution commenced about this period, and
streams of gold poured into the United States through a thousand
channels, opened or enlarged by the successful commerce which our
neutrality enabled us to prosecute. We forgot or overlooked, in the
general prosperity, the necessity of encouraging our domestic
manufactures. Then came the edicts of Napoleon, and the British orders
in council; and our embargo, non-intercourse, non-importation, and war,
followed in rapid succession. These national measures, amounting to a
total suspension, for the period of their duration, of our foreign
commerce, afforded the most efficacious encouragement to American
manufactures; and accordingly they everywhere sprung up. While these
measures of restriction, and this state of war continued, the
manufacturers were stimulated in their enterprise by every assurance of
support, by public sentiment, and by legislative resolves. It was about
that period (1808) that South Carolina bore her high testimony to the
wisdom of the policy, in an act of her legislature, the preamble of
which, now before me, reads:
“Whereas, the establishment and _encouragement_ of domestic
manufactures, is conducive to the interests of a State, by adding new
_incentives to industry_, and as being the means of disposing to
advantage the surplus productions of the _agriculturist_: and whereas,
in the present unexampled state of the world, their establishment in our
country is not only _expedient_, but politic in rendering us
_independent_ of foreign nations.”
The legislature, not being competent to afford the most efficacious aid,
by imposing duties on foreign rival articles, proceeded to incorporate a
company.
Peace, under the treaty of Ghent, returned in 1815, but there did not
return with it the golden days which preceded the edicts levelled at our
commerce by Great Britain and France. It found all Europe tranquilly
resuming the arts and business of civil life. It found Europe no longer
the consumer of our surplus, and the employer of our navigation, but
excluding, or heavily burthening, almost all the productions of our
agriculture, and our rivals in manufactures, in navigation, and in
commerce. It found our country, in short, in a situation totally
different from all the past—new and untried. It became necessary to
adapt our laws, and especially our laws of impost, to the new
circumstances in which we found ourselves. Accordingly, that eminent and
lamented citizen, then at the head of the treasury, (Mr. Dallas,) was
required, by a resolution of the House of Representatives, under date
the twenty-third day of February, 1815, to prepare and report to the
succeeding session of Congress, a system of revenue conformable with the
actual condition of the country. He had the circle of a whole year to
perform the work, consulted merchants, manufacturers, and other
practical men, and opened an extensive correspondence. The report which
he made at the session of 1816, was the result of his inquiries and
reflections, and embodies the principles which he thought applicable to
the subject. It has been said, that the tariff of 1816 was a measure of
mere revenue, and that it only reduced the war duties to a peace
standard. It is true that the question then was, how much and in what
way should the double duties of the war be reduced? Now, also, the
question is, on what articles shall the duties be reduced so as to
subject the amounts of the future revenue to the wants of the
government? Then it was deemed an inquiry of the first importance, as it
should be now, how, the reduction should be made, so as to secure proper
encouragement to our domestic industry. That this was a leading object
in the arrangement of the tariff of 1816, I well remember, and it is
demonstrated by the language of Mr. Dallas. He says in his report:
“There are few, if any governments, which do not regard the
establishment of domestic manufactures as a chief object of public
policy. The United States have _always_ so regarded it. * * * The
demands of the country, while the acquisitions of supplies from foreign
nations was either prohibited or impracticable, may have afforded
sufficient inducement for this investment of capital, and this
application of labor; but the inducement, in its necessary extent, must
fail when the day of _competition_ returns. Upon that change in the
condition of the country, the preservation of the manufactures, which
private citizens under favorable auspices have constituted the property
of the nation, becomes a consideration of general policy, to be resolved
by a recollection of past embarrassments; by the certainty of an
increased difficulty of reinstating, upon any emergency, the
manufactures which shall be allowed to perish and pass away,” &c.
The measure of protection which he proposed was not adopted, in regard
to some leading articles, and there was great difficulty in ascertaining
what it ought to have been. But the _principle_ was then distinctly
asserted and fully sanctioned.
The subject of the American system was again brought up in 1820, by the
bill reported by the chairman of the committee of manufactures, now a
member of the bench of the Supreme Court of the United States, and the
principle was successfully maintained by the representatives of the
people; but the bill which they passed was defeated in the Senate. It
was revived in 1824; the whole ground carefully and deliberately
explored, and the bill then introduced, receiving all the sanctions of
the constitution, became the law of the land. An amendment of the system
was proposed in 1828, to the history of which I refer with no agreeable
recollections. The bill of that year, in some of its provisions, was
framed on principles directly adverse to the declared wishes of the
friends of the policy of protection. I have heard, without vouching for
the fact, that it was so framed, upon the advice of a prominent citizen,
now abroad, with the view of ultimately defeating the bill, and with
assurances that, being altogether unacceptable to the friends of the
American system, the bill would be lost. Be that as it may, the most
exceptional features of the bill were stamped upon it, against the
earnest remonstrances of the friends of the system, by the votes of
southern members, upon a principle, I think, as unsound in legislation
as it is reprehensible in ethics. The bill was passed, notwithstanding
all this, it having been deemed better to take the bad along with the
good which it contained, than reject it altogether. Subsequent
legislation has corrected the error then perpetrated, but still that
measure is vehemently denounced by gentlemen who contributed to make it
what it was.
Thus, sir, has this great system of protection been gradually built,
stone upon stone, and step by step, from the fourth of July, 1789, down
to the present period. In every stage of its progress it has received
the deliberate sanction of Congress. A vast majority of the people of
the United States has approved and continue to approve it. Every chief
magistrate of the United States, from Washington to the present, in some
form or other, has given to it the authority of his name; and however
the opinions of the existing President are interpreted South of Mason’s
and Dixon’s line, on the north they are at least understood to favor the
establishment of a _judicious_ tariff.
The question, therefore, which we are now called upon to determine, is
not whether we shall establish a new and doubtful system of policy, just
proposed, and for the first time presented to our consideration, but
whether we shall break down and destroy a long established system,
patiently and carefully built up and sanctioned, during a series of
years, again and again, by the nation and its highest and most revered
authorities. Are we not bound deliberately to consider whether we can
proceed to this work of destruction without a violation of the public
faith? The people of the United States have justly supposed that the
policy of protecting their industry against foreign legislation and
foreign industry was fully settled, not by a single act, but by repeated
and deliberate acts of government, performed at distant and frequent
intervals. In full confidence that the policy was firmly and
unchangeably fixed, thousands upon thousands have invested their
capital, purchased a vast amount of real and other estate, made
permanent establishments, and accommodated their industry. Can we expose
to utter and irretrievable ruin this countless multitude, without justly
incurring the reproach of violating the national faith?
Such are the origin, duration, extent and sanctions of the policy which
we are now called upon to subvert. Its beneficial effects, although they
may vary in degree, have been felt in all parts of the Union. To none, I
verily believe, has it been prejudicial. In the North, every where,
testimonials are borne to the high prosperity which it has diffused.
There, all branches of industry are animated and flourishing. Commerce,
foreign and domestic, active; cities and towns springing up, enlarging
and beautifying; navigation fully and profitably employed, and the whole
face of the country smiling with improvement, cheerfulness and
abundance.
* * * * *
When gentlemen have succeeded in their design of an immediate or gradual
destruction of the American System, what is their substitute? Free
trade! Free trade! The call for free trade is as unavailing as the cry
of a spoiled child, in its nurse’s arms, for the moon, or the stars that
glitter in the firmament of heaven. It never has existed, it never will
exist. Trade implies, at least two parties. To be free, it should be
fair, equal and reciprocal. But if we throw our ports wide open to the
admission of foreign productions, free of all duty, what ports of any
other foreign nation shall we find open to the free admission of our
surplus produce? We may break down all barriers to free trade on our
part, but the work will not be complete until foreign powers shall have
removed theirs. There would be freedom on one side, and restrictions,
prohibitions and exclusions on the other. The bolts, and the bars, and
the chains of all other nations will remain undisturbed. It is, indeed,
possible, that our industry and commerce would accommodate themselves to
this unequal and unjust state of things; for, such is the flexibility of
our nature, that it bends itself to all circumstances. The wretched
prisoner incarcerated in a jail, after a long time becomes reconciled to
his solitude, and regularly notches down the passing days of his
confinement.
Gentlemen deceive themselves. It is not free trade that they are
recommending to our acceptance. It is in effect, the British colonial
system that we are invited to adopt; and, if their policy prevail, it
will lead substantially to the re-colonization of these States, under
the commercial dominion of Great Britain. And whom do we find some of
the principal supporters, out of Congress, of this foreign system? Mr.
President, there are some foreigners who always remain exotics, and
never become naturalized in our country; whilst, happily, there are many
others who readily attach themselves to our principles and our
institutions. The honest, patient and industrious German readily unites
with our people, establishes himself upon some of our fat land, fills
his capacious barn, and enjoys in tranquillity, the abundant fruits
which his diligence gathers around him, always ready to fly to the
standard of his adopted country, or of its laws, when called by the
duties of patriotism. The gay, the versatile, the philosophic Frenchman,
accommodating himself cheerfully to all the vicissitudes of life,
incorporates himself without difficulty in our society. But, of all
foreigners, none amalgamate themselves so quickly with our people as the
natives of the Emerald Isle. In some of the visions which have passed
through my imagination, I have supposed that Ireland was originally,
part and parcel of this continent, and that, by some extraordinary
convulsion of nature, it was torn from America, and drifting across the
ocean, was placed in the unfortunate vicinity of Great Britain. The same
open-heartedness; the same generous hospitality; the same careless and
uncalculating indifference about human life, characterize the
inhabitants of both countries. Kentucky has been sometimes called the
Ireland of America. And I have no doubt, that if the current of
emigration were reversed, and set from America upon the shores of
Europe, instead of bearing from Europe to America, every American
emigrant to Ireland would there find, as every Irish emigrant here
finds, a hearty welcome and a happy home!
But I have said that the system nominally called “free trade,” so
earnestly and eloquently recommended to our adoption, is a mere revival
of the British colonial system, forced upon us by Great Britain during
the existence of our colonial vassalage. The whole system is fully
explained and illustrated in a work published as far back as the year
1750, entitled “The Trade and Navigation of Great Britain considered, by
Joshua Gee,” with extracts from which I have been furnished by the
diligent researches of a friend. It will be seen from these, that the
South Carolina policy now, is identical with the long cherished policy
of Great Britain, which remains the same as it was when the thirteen
colonies were part of the British empire.
I regret, Mr. President, that one topic has, I think, unnecessarily been
introduced into this debate. I allude to the charge brought against the
manufacturing system, as favoring the growth of aristocracy. If it were
true, would gentlemen prefer supporting foreign accumulations of wealth,
by that description of industry, rather than in their own country? But
is it correct? The joint stock companies of the north, as I understand
them, are nothing more than associations, sometimes of hundreds, by
means of which the small earnings of many are brought into a common
stock, and the associates, obtaining corporate privileges, are enabled
to prosecute, under one superintending head, their business to better
advantage. Nothing can be more essentially democratic or better devised
to counterpoise the influence of individual wealth. In Kentucky, almost
every manufactory known to me, is in the hands of enterprising and
self-made men, who have acquired whatever wealth they possess by patient
and diligent labor. Comparisons are odious, and but in defence, would
not be made by me. But is there more tendency to aristocracy in a
manufactory supporting hundreds of freemen, or in a cotton plantation,
with its not less numerous slaves, sustaining perhaps only two white
families—that of the master and the overseer?
I pass, with pleasure, from this disagreeable topic, to two general
propositions, which cover the entire ground of debate. The first is,
that under the operation of the American System, the objects which it
protects and fosters are brought to the consumer at cheaper prices than
they commanded prior to its introduction, or, than they would command if
it did not exist. If that be true, ought not the country to be contented
and satisfied with the system, unless the second proposition, which I
mean presently also to consider, is unfounded? And that is, that the
tendency of the system is to sustain, and that it has upheld the prices
of all our agricultural and other produce, including cotton.
And is the fact not indisputable, that all essential objects of
consumption effected by the tariff, are cheaper and better since the act
of 1824, than they were for several years prior to that law? I appeal
for its truth to common observation and to all practical men. I appeal
to the farmer of the country, whether he does not purchase on better
terms his iron, salt, brown sugar, cotton goods, and woolens, for his
laboring people? And I ask the cotton planter if he has not been better
and more cheaply supplied with his cotton bagging? In regard to this
latter article, the gentleman from South Carolina was mistaken in
supposing that I complained that, under the existing duty the Kentucky
manufacturer could not compete with the Scotch. The Kentuckian furnishes
a more substantial and a cheaper article, and at a more uniform and
regular price. But it was the frauds, the violations of law of which I
did complain; not smuggling, in the common sense of that practice, which
has something bold, daring, and enterprising in it, but mean, barefaced
cheating, by fraudulent invoices and false denomination.
I plant myself upon this fact, of cheapness and superiority, as upon
impregnable ground. Gentlemen may tax their ingenuity and produce a
thousand speculative solutions of the fact, but the fact itself will
remain undisturbed.
This brings me to consider what I apprehend to have been the most
efficient of all the causes in the reduction of the prices of
manufactured articles—and that is COMPETITION. By competition, the total
amount of the supply is increased, and by increase of the supply, a
competition in the sale ensues, and this enables the consumer to buy at
lower rates. Of all human powers operating on the affairs of mankind,
none is greater than that of competition. It is action and reaction. It
operates between individuals in the same nation, and between different
nations. It resembles the meeting of the mountain torrent, grooving by
its precipitous motion, its own channel, and ocean’s tide. Unopposed, it
sweeps everything before it; but, counterpoised, the waters become calm,
safe and regular. It is like the segments of a circle or an arch; taken
separately, each is nothing; but in their combination they produce
efficiency, symmetry, and perfection. By the American System this vast
power has been excited in America, and brought into being to act in
co-operation or collision with European industry. Europe acts within
itself, and with America; and America acts within itself, and with
Europe. The consequence is, the reduction of prices in both hemispheres.
Nor is it fair to argue from the reduction of prices in Europe, to her
own presumed skill and labor, exclusively. We affect her prices, and she
affects ours. This must always be the case, at least in reference to any
articles as to which there is not a total non-intercourse; and if our
industry, by diminishing the demand for her supplies, should produce a
diminution in the price of those supplies, it would be very unfair to
ascribe that reduction to her ingenuity instead of placing it to the
credit of our own skill and _excited_ industry.
The great law of _price_ is determined by supply and demand. Whatever
affects either, affects the price. If the supply is increased, the
demand remaining the same, the price declines; if the demand is
increased, the supply remaining the same, the price advances; if both
supply and demand are undiminished, the price is stationary, and the
price is influenced exactly in proportion to the degree of disturbance
to the demand or supply. It is therefore a great error to suppose that
an existing or new duty _necessarily_ becomes a component element to its
exact amount of price. If the proportion of demand and supply are varied
by the duty, either in augmenting the supply, or diminishing the demand,
or vice versa, price is affected to the extent of that variation. But
the duty never becomes an integral part of the price, except in the
instances where the demand and the supply remain after the duty is
imposed, precisely what they were before, or the demand is increased,
and the supply remains stationary.
Competition, therefore, wherever existing, whether at home or abroad, is
the parent cause of cheapness. If a high duty excites production at
home, and the quantity of the domestic article exceeds the amount which
had been previously imported the price will fall. This accounts for an
extraordinary fact stated by a Senator from Missouri. Three cents were
laid as a duty upon a pound of lead, by the act of 1828. The price at
Galena, and the other lead mines, afterwards fell to one and a half
cents per pound. Now it is obvious that the duty did not, in this case,
enter into the price: for it was twice the amount of the price. What
produced the fall? It was _stimulated_ production at home, excited by
the temptation of the exclusive possession of the home market. This
state of things could not last. Men would not continue an unprofitable
pursuit; some abandoned the business, or the total quantity produced was
diminished, and living prices have been the consequence. But, break down
the domestic supply, place us again in a state of dependence on the
foreign source, and can it be doubted that we should ultimately have to
supply ourselves at dearer rates? It is not fair to credit the foreign
market with the depression of prices produced there by the influence of
our competition. Let the competition be withdrawn, and their prices
would instantly rise.
But, it is argued that if, by the skill, experience, and perfection
which we have acquired in certain branches of manufacture, they can be
made as cheap as similar articles abroad, and enter fairly into
competition with them, why not repeal the duties as to those articles?
And why should we? Assuming the truth of the supposition the foreign
article would not be introduced in the regular course of trade, but
would remain excluded by the possession of the home market, which the
domestic article had obtained. The repeal, therefore, would have no
legitimate effect. But might not the foreign article be imported in vast
quantities, to glut our markets, break down our establishments, and
ultimately to enable the foreigner to monopolize the supply of our
consumption? America is the greatest foreign market for European
manufactures. It is that to which European attention is constantly
directed. If a great house becomes bankrupt there, its storehouses are
emptied, and the goods are shipped to America, where, in consequence of
our auctions, and our custom-house credits, the greatest facilities are
afforded in the sale of them. Combinations among manufacturers might
take place, or even the operations of foreign governments might be
directed to the destruction of our establishments. A repeal, therefore,
of one protecting duty, from some one or all of these causes, would be
followed by flooding the country with the foreign fabric, surcharging
the market, reducing the price, and a complete prostration of our
manufactories; after which the foreigner would leisurely look about to
indemnify himself in the increased prices which he would be enabled to
command by his monopoly of the supply of our consumption. What American
citizen, after the government had displayed this vacillating policy,
would be again tempted to place the smallest confidence in the public
faith, and adventure once more in this branch of industry?
Gentlemen have allowed to the manufacturing portions of the community no
peace; they have been constantly threatened with the overthrow of the
American System. From the year 1820, if not from 1816, down to this
time, they have been held in a condition of constant alarm and
insecurity. Nothing is more prejudicial to the great interests of a
nation than unsettled and varying policy. Although every appeal to the
national legislature has been responded to in conformity with the wishes
and sentiments of the great majority of the people, measures of
protection have only been carried by such small majorities as to excite
hopes on the one hand, and fears on the other. Let the country breathe,
let its vast resources be developed, let its energies be fully put
forth, let it have tranquillity, and my word for it, the degree of
perfection in the arts which it will exhibit, will be greater than that
which has been presented, astonishing as our progress has been. Although
some branches of our manufactures might, and in foreign markets now do,
fearlessly contend with similar foreign fabrics, there are many others
yet in their infancy, struggling with the difficulties which encompass
them. We should look at the whole system, and recollect that time, when
we contemplate the great movements of a nation, is very different from
the short period which is allotted for the duration of individual life.
The honorable gentleman from South Carolina well and eloquently said, in
1824, “No great interest of any country ever yet grew up in a day; no
new branch of industry can become firmly and profitably established but
in a long course of years; every thing, indeed, great or good, is
matured by slow degrees: that which attains a speedy maturity is of
small value, and is destined to a brief existence. It is the order of
Providence, that powers gradually developed, shall alone attain
permanency and perfection. Thus must it be with our national
institutions, and national character itself.”
I feel most sensibly, Mr. President, how much I have trespassed upon the
Senate. My apology is a deep and deliberate conviction, that the great
cause under debate involves the prosperity and the destiny of the Union.
But the best requital I can make, for the friendly indulgence which has
been extended to me by the Senate, and for which I shall ever retain
sentiments of lasting gratitude, is to proceed with as little delay as
practicable, to the conclusion of a discourse which has not been more
tedious to the Senate than exhausting to me. I have now to consider the
remaining of the two propositions which I have already announced. That
is:
Secondly. That under the operation of the American System, the products
of our agriculture command a higher price than they would do without it,
by the creation of a home market; and by the augmentation of wealth
produced by manufacturing industry, which enlarges our powers of
consumption both of domestic and foreign articles. The importance of the
home market is among the established maxims which are universally
recognized by all writers and all men. However some may differ as to the
relative advantages of the foreign and the home market, none deny to the
latter great value and high consideration. It is nearer to us; beyond
the control of foreign legislation; and undisturbed by those
vicissitudes to which all international intercourse is more or less
exposed. The most stupid are sensible of the benefit of a residence in
the vicinity of a large manufactory, or of a market town, of a good
road, or of a navigable stream, which connects their farms with some
great capital. If the pursuits of all men were perfectly the same,
although they would be in possession of the greatest abundance of the
particular produce of their industry, they might, at the same time, be
in extreme want of other necessary articles of human subsistence. The
uniformity of the general occupation would preclude all exchanges, all
commerce. It is only in the diversity of the vocations of the members of
a community that the means can be found for those salutary exchanges
which conduce to the general prosperity. And the greater that diversity,
the more extensive and the more animating is the circle of exchange.
Even if foreign markets were freely and widely open to the reception of
our agricultural produce, from its bulky nature, and the distance of the
interior, and the dangers of the ocean, large portions of it could never
profitably reach the foreign market. But let us quit this field of
theory, clear as it is, and look at the practical operation of the
system of protection, beginning with the most valuable staple of our
agriculture.
But if all this reasoning were totally fallacious—if the price of
manufactured articles were really higher, under the American system,
than without it, I should still argue that high or low prices were
themselves relative—relative to the ability to pay them. It is in vain
to tempt, to tantalize us with the lower prices of European fabrics than
our own, if we have nothing wherewith to purchase them. If, by the home
exchanges, we can be supplied with necessary, even if they are dearer
and worse, articles of American production than the foreign, it is
better than not to be supplied at all. And how would the large portion
of our country which I have described be supplied, but for the home
exchanges? A poor people, destitute of wealth or of exchangeable
commodities, has nothing to purchase foreign fabrics. To them they are
equally beyond their reach, whether their cost be a dollar or a guinea.
It is in this view of the matter that Great Britain, by her vast
wealth—her _excited and protected_ industry—is enabled to bear a burden
of taxation which, when compared to that of other nations, appears
enormous; but which, when her immense riches are compared to theirs, is
light and trivial. The gentleman from South Carolina has drawn a lively
and flattering picture of our coasts, bays, rivers, and harbors; and he
argues that these proclaimed the design of Providence, that we should be
a commercial people. I agree with him. We differ only as to the means.
He would cherish the foreign, and neglect the internal trade. I would
foster both. What is navigation without ships, or ships without cargoes?
By penetrating the bosoms of our mountains, and extracting from them
their precious treasures; by cultivating the earth, and _securing_ a
home market for its rich and abundant products; by employing the water
power with which we are blessed; by stimulating and protecting our
native industry, in all its forms; we shall but nourish and promote the
prosperity of commerce, foreign and domestic.
I have hitherto considered the question in reference only to a state of
peace; but a season of war ought not to be entirely overlooked. We have
enjoyed near twenty years of peace; but who can tell when the storm of
war shall again break forth? Have we forgotten so soon, the privations
to which, not merely our brave soldiers and our gallant tars were
subjected, but the whole community, during the last war, for the want of
absolute necessaries? To what an enormous price they rose! And how
inadequate the supply was, at any price! The statesman who justly
elevates his views, will look behind, as well as forward, and at the
existing state of things; and he will graduate the policy which he
recommends, to all the probable exigencies which may arise in the
Republic. Taking this comprehensive range, it would be easy to show that
the higher prices of peace, if prices were higher in peace, were more
than compensated by the lower prices of war, during which supplies of
all essential articles are indispensable to its vigorous, effectual and
glorious prosecution. I conclude this part of the argument with the hope
that my humble exertions have not been altogether unsuccessful in
showing—
1. That the policy which we have been considering ought to continue to
be regarded as the genuine American System.
2. That the Free Trade System, which is proposed as its substitute,
ought really to be considered as the British Colonial System.
3. That the American System is beneficial to all parts of the Union, and
absolutely necessary to much the larger portion.
4. That the price of the great staple of cotton, and of all our chief
productions of agriculture, has been sustained and upheld, and a decline
averted by the Protective System.
5. That if the foreign demand for cotton has been at all diminished by
the operation of that system, the diminution has been more than
compensated in the additional demand created at home.
6. That the constant tendency of the system, by creating competition
among ourselves, and between American and European industry,
reciprocally acting upon each other, is to reduce prices of manufactured
objects.
7. That in point of fact, objects within the scope of the policy of
protection have greatly fallen in price.
8. That if, in a season of peace, these benefits are experienced, in a
season of war, when the foreign supply might be cut off, they would be
much more extensively felt.
9. And finally, that the substitution of the British Colonial System for
the American System, without benefiting any section of the Union, by
subjecting us to a foreign legislation, regulated by foreign interests,
would lead to the prostration of our manufactures, general
impoverishment, and ultimate ruin.
The danger to our Union does not lie on the side of persistence in the
American System, but on that of its abandonment. If, as I have supposed
and believe, the inhabitants of all north and east of James river, and
all west of the mountains, including Louisiana, are deeply interested in
the preservation of that system, would they be reconciled to its
overthrow? Can it be expected that two-thirds, if not three-fourths, of
the people of the United States, would consent to the destruction of a
policy, believed to be indispensably necessary to their prosperity?
When, too, the sacrifice is made at the instance of a single interest,
which they verily believe will not be promoted by it? In estimating the
degree of peril which may be incident to two opposite courses of human
policy, the statesman would be shortsighted who should content himself
with viewing only the evils, real or imaginary, which belong to that
course which is in practical operation. He should lift himself up to the
contemplation of those greater and more certain dangers which might
inevitably attend the adoption of the alternative course. What would be
the condition of this Union, if Pennsylvania and New York, those mammoth
members of our confederacy, were firmly persuaded that their industry
was paralyzed, and their prosperity blighted, by the enforcement of the
British colonial system, under the delusive name of free trade? They are
now tranquil and happy, and contented, conscious of their welfare, and
feeling a salutary and rapid circulation of the products of home
manufactures and home industry throughout all their great arteries. But
let that be checked, let them feel that a foreign system is to
predominate, and the sources of their subsistence and comfort dried up;
let New England and the west, and the middle States, all feel that they
too are the victims of a mistaken policy, and let these vast portions of
our country despair of any favorable change, and then indeed might we
tremble for the continuance and safety of this Union!
And now, sir, I would address a few words to the friends of the American
System in the Senate. The revenue must—ought to be reduced. The country
will not, after, by the payment of the public debt, ten or twelve
millions of dollars become unnecessary, bear such an annual surplus. Its
distribution would form a subject of perpetual contention. Some of the
opponents of the system understand the stratagem by which to attack it,
and are shaping their course accordingly. It is to crush the system by
the accumulation of revenue, and by the effort to persuade the people
that they are unnecessarily taxed, while those would really tax them who
would break up the native sources of supply, and render them dependent
upon the foreign. But the revenue ought to be reduced, so as to
accommodate it to the fact of the payment of the public debt. And the
alternative is or may be, to preserve the protecting system, and repeal
the duties on the unprotected articles, or to _preserve_ the duties on
_unprotected_ articles, and endanger if not destroy the system. Let us
then adopt the measure before us, which will benefit all classes; the
farmer, the professional man, the merchant, the manufacturer, the
mechanic; and the cotton planter more than all. A few mouths ago there
was no diversity of opinion as to the expediency of this measure. All,
then, seemed to unite in the selection of these objects for a repeal of
duties which were not produced within the country. Such a repeal did not
touch our domestic industry, violated no principle, offended no
prejudice.
Can we not all, whatever may be our favorite theories, cordially unite
on this neutral ground? When that is occupied, let us look beyond it,
and see if anything can be done in the field of protection, to modify,
or improve it, or to satisfy those who are opposed to the system. Our
southern brethren believe that it is injurious to them, and ask its
repeal. We believe that its abandonment will be prejudicial to them, and
ruinous to every other section of the Union. However strong their
convictions may be, they are not stronger than ours. Between the points
of the preservation of the system and its absolute repeal, there is no
principle of union. If it can be shown to operate immoderately on any
quarter—if the measure of protection to any article can be demonstrated
to be undue and inordinate, it would be the duty of Congress to
interpose and apply a remedy. And none will co-operate more heartily
than I shall in the performance of that duty. It is quite probable that
beneficial modifications of the system may be made without impairing its
efficacy. But to make it fulfill the purposes of its institution, the
measure of protection ought to be adequate. If it be not, all interests
will be injuriously affected. The manufacturer, crippled in his
exertions, will produce less perfect and dearer fabrics, and the
consumer will feel the consequence. This is the spirit, and these are
the principles only, on which, it seems to me, that a settlement of the
great question can be made, satisfactorily to all parts of our Union.
Mr. Buchanan’s Speech on the Independent Treasury,
_January 22, 1840, which gave rise to the “ten cent” charge_.
“We are also charged by the Senator from Kentucky with a desire to
reduce the wages of the poor man’s labor. We have often been termed
agrarians on our side of the House. It is something new under the sun,
to hear the Senator and his friends attribute to us a desire to elevate
the wealthy manufacturer, at the expense of the laboring man and the
mechanic. From my soul, I respect the laboring man. Labor is the
foundation of the wealth of every country; and the free laborers of the
North deserve respect, both for their probity and their intelligence.
Heaven forbid that I should do them wrong! Of all the countries on the
earth, we ought to have the most consideration for the laboring man.
From the very nature of our institutions, the wheel of fortune is
constantly revolving, and producing such mutations in property, that the
wealthy man of to-day may become the poor laborer of to-morrow. Truly,
wealth often takes to itself wings and flies away. A large fortune
rarely lasts beyond the third generation, even if it endure so long. We
must all know instances of individuals obliged to labor for their daily
bread, whose grandfathers were men of fortune. The regular process of
society would almost seem to consist of the efforts of one class to
dissipate the fortunes which they have inherited, whilst another class,
by their industry and economy, are regularly rising to wealth. We have
all, therefore, a common interest, as it is our common duty, to protect
the rights of the laboring man: and if I believed for a moment that this
bill would prove injurious to him, it should meet my unqualified
opposition.
“Although this bill will not have as great an influence as I could
desire, yet, as far as it goes, it will benefit the laboring man as
much, and probably more than any other class of society. What is it he
ought most to desire? Constant employment, regular wages, and uniform
reasonable prices for the necessaries and comforts of life which he
requires. Now, sir, what has been his condition under our system of
expansions and contractions? He has suffered more by them than any other
class of society. The rate of his wages is fixed and known; and they are
the last to rise with the increasing expansion and the first to fall
when the corresponding revulsion occurs. He still continues to receive
his dollar per day, whilst the price of every article which he consumes
is rapidly rising. He is at length made to feel that, although he
nominally earns as much, or even more than he did formerly, yet, from
the increased price of all the necessaries of life, he cannot support
his family. Hence the strikes for higher wages, and the uneasy and
excited feelings which have at different periods, existed among the
laboring classes. But the expansion at length reaches the exploding
point, and what does the laboring man now suffer? He is for a season
thrown out of employment altogether. Our manufactures are suspended; our
public works are stopped; our private enterprises of different kinds are
abandoned; and, whilst others are able to weather the storm, he can
scarcely procure the means of bare subsistence.
“Again, sir; who, do you suppose, held the greater part of the worthless
paper of the one hundred and sixty-five broken banks to which I have
referred? Certainly it was not the keen and wary speculator, who snuffs
danger from afar. If you were to make the search, you would find more
broken bank notes in the cottages of the laboring poor than anywhere
else. And these miserable shinplasters, where are they? After the
revulsion of 1837, laborers were glad to obtain employment on any terms;
and they often received it upon the express condition that they should
accept this worthless trash in payment. Sir, an entire suppression of
all bank notes of a lower denomination than the value of one week’s
wages of the laboring man is absolutely necessary for his protection. He
ought always to receive his wages in gold and silver. Of all men on the
earth, the laborer is most interested in having a sound and stable
currency.
“All other circumstances being equal, I agree with the Senator from
Kentucky that that country is most prosperous where labor commands the
highest wages. I do not, however, mean by the terms ‘highest wages,’ the
greatest nominal amount. During the revolutionary war, one day’s work
commanded a hundred dollars of continental paper; but this would have
scarcely purchased a breakfast. The more proper expression would be, to
say that that country is most prosperous where labor commands the
greatest reward; where one day’s labor will procure not the greatest
nominal amount of a depreciated currency, but most of the necessaries
and comforts of life. If, therefore, you should, in some degree, reduce
the nominal price paid for labor, by reducing the amount of your bank
issues within reasonable and safe limits, and establishing a metallic
basis for your paper circulation, would this injure the laborer?
Certainly not; because the price of all the necessaries and comforts of
life are reduced in the same proportion, and he will be able to purchase
more of them for one dollar in a sound state of the currency, than he
could have done, in the days of extravagant expansion, for a dollar and
a quarter. So far from injuring, it will greatly benefit the laboring
man. It will insure to him constant employment and regular prices, paid
in a sound currency, which, of all things, he ought most to desire; and
it will save him from being involved in ruin by a recurrence of those
periodical expansions and contractions of the currency, which have
hitherto convulsed the country.
“This sound state of the currency will have another most happy effect
upon the laboring man. He will receive his wages in gold and silver; and
this will induce him to lay up, for future use, such a portion of them
as he can spare, after satisfying his immediate wants. This he will not
do at present, because he knows not whether the trash which he is now
compelled to receive as money, will continue to be of any value a week
or a month hereafter. A knowledge of this fact tends to banish economy
from his dwelling, and induces him to expend all his wages as rapidly as
possible, lest they may become worthless on his hands.
“Sir, the laboring classes understand this subject perfectly. It is the
hard-handed and firm-fisted men of the country on whom we must rely in
the day of danger, who are the most friendly to the passage of this
bill. It is they who are the most ardently in favor of infusing into the
currency of the country a very large amount of the precious metals.”
Lewis Cass on the Missouri Compromise.
_From a speech made on the 20th of February, 1854._
Mr. President: I have not withheld the expression of my regret
elsewhere, nor shall I withhold it here, that this question of repeal of
the Missouri compromise, which opens all the disputed points connected
with the subject of Congressional action upon slavery in the territories
of the United States, has been brought before us. I do not think the
practical advantages to result from the measure will outweigh the injury
which the ill-feeling, fated to accompany the discussion of this subject
through the country, is sure to produce. And I was confirmed in this
impression from what was said by the Senator from Tennessee, (Mr.
Jones,) by the Senator from Kentucky, (Mr. Dixon,) and from North
Carolina, (Mr. Badger,) and also by the remarks which fell from the
Senator from Virginia, (Mr. Hunter,) and in which I fully concur, that
the South will never receive any benefit from this measure, so far as
respects the extension of slavery; for, legislate as we may, no human
power can establish it in the regions defined by these bills. And such
were the sentiments of two eminent patriots, to whose exertions we are
greatly indebted for the satisfactory termination of the difficulties of
1850, and who since passed from their labors, and, I trust, to their
reward. Thus believing, I should have been better content had the whole
subject been left as it was by the bill when first introduced by the
Senator from Illinois, without any provision regarding the Missouri
compromise. I am aware that it was reported that I intended to propose
the repeal of that measure, but it was an error. My intentions were
wholly misunderstood. I had no design whatever to take such a step, and
thus resuscitate a deed of conciliation which had done its work, and
done it well, and which was hallowed by patriotism, by success, and by
its association with great names, now transferred to history. It
belonged to a past generation; and in the midst of a political tempest
which appalled the wisest and firmest in the land, it had said to the
waves of agitation, _Peace, be still_, and they became still. It would
have been better, in my opinion, not to disturb its slumber, as all
useful and practical objects could have been attained without it. But
the question is here without my agency.
Clement L. Vallandigham on Slavery.
_October 29, 1855._
“Slavery, gentlemen, older in other countries also, than the records of
human society, existed in America at the date of its discovery. The
first slaves of the European, were natives of the soil: and a Puritan
governor of Massachusetts, founder of the family of Winthrop, bequeathed
his soul to God, and his Indian slaves to the lawful heirs of his body.
Negro slavery was introduced into Hispaniola in 1501: more than a
century before the colonization of America by the English.
Massachusetts, by express enactment in 1641 punishing ‘manstealing’ with
death:—and it is so punished to this day under the laws of the United
States—legalized yet the enslaving of captives taken in war, and of such
‘strangers,’ _foreigners_, as should be acquired by purchase: while
confederate New England, two years later, providing for the equitable
division of lands, goods and ‘_persons_,’ as equally a part of the
‘spoils’ of war, enacted also the first fugitive slave law in America.
White slaves—convicts and paupers some of them; others at a later day,
prisoners taken at the battles of Dunbar and Worcester, and of
Sedgemoor—were at the first, employed in Virginia and the British West
Indies. Bought in England by English dealers, among whom was the queen
of James II., with many of his nobles and courtiers, some of them
perhaps of the house of Sutherland; they were imported and sold at
auction to the highest bidder. In 1620, a Dutch man-of-war first landed
a cargo of slaves upon the banks of James River. But the earliest slave
ship belonging to English colonists, was fitted out in 1645, by a member
of the Puritan church of Boston. Fostered still by English princes and
nobles: confirmed and cherished by British legislation and judicial
decisions, even against the wishes and in spite of the remonstrances of
the Colonies, the traffic increased; slaves multiplied, and on the
Fourth of July, 1776, every colony was now become a slave state; and the
sun went down that day upon four hundred and fifty thousand of those who
in the cant of eighty years later, are styled ‘human chattels,’ but who
were not by the act of that day emancipated.
“Eleven years afterwards, delegates assembled at Philadelphia, from
every state except Rhode Island, ignoring the question of the sinfulness
and immorality of slavery, as a subject with which they as the
representatives of separate and independent states had no concern,
founded a union and framed a constitution, which leaving with each state
the exclusive control and regulation of its own domestic institutions,
and providing for the taxation and representation of slaves, gave no
right to Congress to debate or to legislate concerning slavery in the
states or territories, except for the interdiction of the slave trade
and the extradition of fugitive slaves. The Plan of Union proposed by
Franklin in 1754, had contained no allusion even to slavery; and the
articles of Confederation of 1778, but a simple recognition of its
existence—so wholly was it regarded then, a domestic and local concern.
In 1787 every state, except perhaps Massachusetts, tolerated slavery
either absolutely or conditionally.—But the number of slaves north of
Maryland, never great, was even yet comparatively small; not exceeding
forty thousand in a total slave population of six hundred thousand. In
the North, chief carrier of slaves to others even as late as 1807,
slavery never took firm root. Nature warred against it in that latitude;
otherwise every state in the Union would have been a slaveholding state
to this day. It was not profitable there; and it died out—lingering
indeed in New York till July, 1827. It died out: but not so much by the
manumission of slaves, as by their transportation and sale in the South:
and thus New England, sir, turned an honest penny with her left hand,
and with her right, modestly wrote herself down in history, as both
generous and just.
“In the South, gentlemen, all this was precisely reversed. The earliest
and most resolute enemies to slavery, were Southern men. But climate had
fastened the institution upon them; and they found no way to strike it
down. From the beginning indeed, the Southern colonies especially had
resisted the introduction of African slaves; and at the very outset of
the revolution, Virginia and North Carolina interdicted the slave trade.
The Continental Congress soon after, on the sixth of April, 1776, three
months earlier than the Declaration of Independence, resolved that no
more slaves ought to be imported into the thirteen colonies. Jefferson,
in his draught of the Declaration, had denounced the King of England
alike for encouraging the slave trade, and for fomenting servile
insurrection in the provinces. Ten years later, he boldly attacked
slavery in his “Notes on Virginia;” and in the Congress of the
Confederation, _prior to the adoption of the Constitution, with its
solemn compacts and compromises upon the subject of slavery_, proposed
to exclude it from the territory northwest the river Ohio. Colonel Mason
of Virginia vehemently condemned it, in the convention of 1787.
Nevertheless it had already become manifest that slavery must soon die
away in the North, but in the South continue and harden into perhaps a
permanent, ineradicable system. Hostile interests and jealousies sprang
up, therefore, in bitterness even in the convention. But the blood of
the patriot brothers of Carolina and Massachusetts smoked yet upon the
battle fields of the revolution. The recollection of their kindred
language, and common dangers and sufferings, burned still fresh in their
hearts. Patriotism proved more powerful than jealousy, and good sense
stronger than fanaticism. There were no Sewards, no Hales, no Sumners,
no Greeleys, no Parkers, no Chase, in that convention. There was a
_Wilson_; but he rejoiced not in the name of _Henry_; and he was a
Scotchman. There was a clergyman—no, not in the convention of ’87, but
in the Congress of ’76; but it was the devout, the learned, the pious,
the patriotic Witherspoon; of foreign birth also, a native of Scotland,
too. The men of that day and generation, sir, were content to leave the
question of slavery just where it belonged. It did not occur to them,
that each one among them was accountable for ‘the sin of slaveholding’
in his fellow; and that to ease his tender conscience of the burden, all
the fruits of revolutionary privation and blood and treasure; all the
recollections of the past; all the hopes of the future: nay the Union,
and with it, domestic tranquillity and national independence, ought to
be offered up as a sacrifice. They were content to deal with political
questions; and to leave cases of conscience to the church and the
schools, or to the individual man. And accordingly to this Union and
Constitution, based upon these compromises—execrated now as ‘covenants
with death and leagues with hell’—every state acceded: and upon these
foundations, thus broad and deep, and stable, a political superstructure
has, as if by magic, arisen, which in symmetry and proportion—and, if we
would but be true to our trust, in strength and durability—finds no
parallel in the world’s history.
“Patriotic sentiments, sir, such as marked the era of ’89, continued to
guide the statesmen and people of the country for more than thirty
years, full of prosperity; till in a dead political calm, consequent
upon temporary extinguishment of the ancient party lines and issues, the
MISSOURI QUESTION resounded through the land with the hollow moan of the
earthquake, shook the pillars of the republic even to their deep
foundations.
“Within these thirty years, gentlemen, slavery as a system, had been
abolished by law or disuse, quietly and without agitation, in every
state north of Mason and Dixon’s line—in many of them, lingering,
indeed, in individual cases, so late as the census of 1840. But except
in half a score of instances, the question had not been obtruded upon
Congress. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 had been passed without
opposition and without a division, in the Senate; and by a vote of
forty-eight to seven, in the House. The slave trade had been declared
piracy punishable with death. Respectful petitions from the Quakers of
Pennsylvania, and others, upon the slavery question, were referred to a
committee, and a report made thereon, which laid the matter at rest.
Other petitions afterwards were quietly rejected, and, in one instance,
returned to the petitioner. Louisiana and Florida, both slaveholding
countries, had without agitation been added to our territory. Kentucky,
Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama, slave states each one of
them, had been admitted into the Union without a murmur. No Missouri
Restriction, no Wilmot Proviso had as yet reared its discordant front to
terrify and confound. NON-INTERVENTION was then both the practice and
the doctrine of the statesmen and people of that period: though, as yet,
no hollow platform enunciated it as an article of faith, from which,
nevertheless, obedience might be withheld, and the platform ‘spit upon,’
provided the tender conscience of the recusant did not forbid him to
support the candidate and help to secure the ‘spoils.’
“I know, sir, that it is easy, very easy, to denounce all this as a
defence of slavery itself. Be it so: be it so. But I have not discussed
the institution in any respect; moral, religious, or political. Hear me.
I express no opinion in regard to it: and as a citizen of the north, I
have ever refused, and will steadily refuse, to discuss the system in
any of these particulars. It is precisely this continued and persistent
discussion and denunciation in the North, which has brought upon us this
present most perilous crisis: since to teach men to hate, is to prepare
them to destroy, at every hazard, the object of their hatred. Sir, I am
resolved only to look upon slavery outside of Ohio, just as the founders
of the constitution and Union regarded it. It is no concern of mine;
none, none: nor of yours, Abolitionist. Neither of us will attain
heaven, by denunciations of slavery: nor shall we, I trow, be cast into
hell for the sin of others who may hold slaves. I have not so learned
the moral government of the universe: nor do I presumptuously and
impiously aspire to the attributes of Godhead; and seek to bear upon my
poor body the iniquities of the world.
“I know well indeed, Mr. President, that in the evil day which has
befallen us, all this and he who utters it, shall be denounced as
‘pro-slavery;’ and already from ribald throats, there comes up the
slavering, drivelling, idiot epithet of ‘dough-face.’ Again, be it so.
These, Abolitionist, are your only weapons of warfare: and I hurl them
back defiantly into your teeth. I speak thus boldly, because I speak in
and to and for the North. It is time that the truth should be known, and
heard, in this the age of trimming and subterfuge. I speak this day not
as a northern man, nor a southern man; but, God, be thanked, still as a
United States man, with United States principles;—and though the worst
happen which can happen—though all be lost, if that shall be our fate;
and I walk through the valley of the shadow of political death, I will
live by them and die by them. If to love my country; to cherish the
Union; to revere the Constitution: if to abhor the madness and hate the
treason which would lift up a sacrilegious hand against either; if to
read that in the past, to behold it in the present, to foresee it in the
future of this land, which is of more value to us and the world for ages
to come, than all the multiplied millions who have inhabited Africa from
the creation to this day:—if this it is to be _pro-slavery_, then, in
every nerve, fibre, vein, bone, tendon, joint and ligament, from the
topmost hair of the head to the last extremity of the foot, I am all
over and altogether a PRO-SLAVERY MAN.”
Speech of Horace Greeley on the Grounds of Protection.[84]
MR. PRESIDENT AND RESPECTED AUDITORS:—It has devolved on me, as junior
advocate for the cause of Protection, to open the discussion of this
question. I do this with less diffidence than I should feel in meeting
able opponents and practiced disputants on almost any other topic,
because I am strongly confident that you, my hearers, will regard this
as a subject demanding logic rather than rhetoric, the exhibition and
proper treatment of homely truths, rather than the indulgence of flights
of fancy. As sensible as you can be of my deficiencies as a debater, I
have chosen to put my views on paper, in order that I may present them
in as concise a manner as possible, and not consume my hour before
commencing my argument. You have nothing of oratory to lose by this
course; I will hope that something may be gained to my cause in
clearness and force. And here let me say that, while the hours I have
been enabled to give to preparation for this debate have been few
indeed, I feel the less regret in that my _life_ has been in some
measure a preparation. If there be any subject to which I have devoted
time, and thought, and patient study, in a spirit of anxious desire to
learn and follow the truth, it is this very question of Protection; if I
have totally misapprehended its character and bearings, then am I
ignorant, hopelessly ignorant indeed. And, while I may not hope to set
before you, in the brief space allotted me, all that is essential to a
full understanding of a question which spans the whole arch of Political
Economy,—on which able men have written volumes without at all
exhausting it—I _do_ entertain a sanguine hope that I shall be able to
set before you considerations conclusive to the candid and unbiased mind
of the policy and necessity of Protection. Let us not waste our time on
non-essentials. That unwise and unjust measures have been adopted under
the _pretence_ of Protection, I stand not here to deny; that laws
_intended_ to be Protective have sometimes been injurious in their
tendency, I need not dispute. The logic which would thence infer the
futility or the danger of Protective Legislation would just as easily
prove _all_ laws and all policy mischievous and destructive. Political
Economy is one of the latest born of the Sciences; the very fact that we
meet here this evening to discuss a question so fundamental as this
proves it to be yet in its comparative infancy. The sole favor I shall
ask of my opponents, therefore, is that they will not waste their
efforts and your time in attacking positions that we do not maintain,
and hewing down straw giants of their own manufacture, but meet directly
the arguments which I shall advance, and which, for the sake of
simplicity and clearness, I will proceed to put before you in the form
of Propositions and their Illustrations, as follows:—
PROPOSITION I. _A Nation which would be prosperous, must prosecute
various branches of Industry, and supply its vital Wants mainly by the
Labor of its own Hands._
Cast your eyes where you will over the face of the earth, trace back the
History of Man and of Nations to the earliest recorded periods, and I
think you will find this rule uniformly prevailing, that the nation
which is eminently Agricultural and Grain-exporting,—which depends
mainly or principally on other nations for its regular supplies of
Manufactured fabrics,—has been comparatively a _poor_ nation, and
ultimately a _dependent_ nation. I do not say that this is the _instant_
result of exchanging the rude staples of Agriculture for the more
delicate fabrics of Art; but I maintain that it is the inevitable
_tendency_. The Agricultural nation falls in debt, becomes impoverished,
and ultimately subject. The palaces of “merchant princes” may emblazon
its harbors and overshadow its navigable waters; there may be a mighty
Alexandria, but a miserable Egypt behind it; a flourishing Odessa or
Dantzic, but a rude, thinly peopled southern Russia or Poland; the
exchangers may flourish and roll in luxury, but the producers famish and
die. Indeed, few old and civilized countries become largely exporters of
grain until they have lost, or by corruption are prepared to surrender,
their independence; and these often present the spectacle of the laborer
starving on the fields he has tilled, in the midst of their fertility
and promise. These appearances rest upon and indicate a law, which I
shall endeavor hereafter to explain. I pass now to my
PROPOSITION II. _There is a natural tendency in a comparatively new
Country to become and continue an Exporter of Grain and other rude
Staples and an Importer of Manufactures._
I think I hardly need waste time in demonstrating this proposition,
since it is illustrated and confirmed by universal experience, and rests
on obvious laws. The new country has abundant and fertile soil, and
produces Grain with remarkable facility; also, Meats, Timber, Ashes, and
most rude and bulky articles. Labor is there in demand, being required
to clear, to build, to open roads, &c., and the laborers are
comparatively few; while, in older countries, Labor is abundant and
cheap, as also are Capital, Machinery, and all the means of the cheap
production of Manufactured fabrics. I surely need not waste words to
show that, in the absence of any counteracting policy, the new country
will import, and continue to import, largely of the fabrics of older
countries, and to pay for them, so far as she may, with her Agricultural
staples. I will endeavor to show hereafter that she will continue to do
this long after she has attained a condition to manufacture them as
cheaply for herself, even regarding the _money_ cost alone. But that
does not come under the present head. The whole history of our country,
and especially from 1782 to ’90, when we had no Tariff and scarcely any
Paper Money,—proves that, whatever may be the Currency or the internal
condition of the new country, it will continue to draw its chief
supplies from the old,—large or small according to its measure of
ability to pay or obtain credit for them; but still, putting Duties on
Imports out of the question, it will continue to buy its Manufactures
abroad, whether in prosperity or adversity, inflation or depression.
I now advance to my
PROPOSITION III. _It is injurious to the New Country thus to continue
dependent for its supplies of Clothing and Manufactured Fabrics on the
Old._
As this is probably the point on which the doctrines of Protection first
come directly in collision with those of Free Trade, I will treat it
more deliberately, and endeavor to illustrate and demonstrate it.
I presume I need not waste time in showing that the ruling price of
Grain (as any Manufacture) in a region whence it is considerably
exported, will be _its price at the point to which it is exported, less
the cost of such transportation_. For instance: the cost of transporting
Wheat hither from large grain-growing sections of Illinois was last fall
sixty cents; and, New York being their most available market, and the
price here ninety cents, the market there at once settled at thirty
cents. As this adjustment of prices rests on a law obvious, immutable as
gravitation, I presume I need not waste words in establishing it.
I proceed, then, to my next point. The average price of Wheat throughout
the world is something less than one dollar per bushel; higher where the
consumption largely exceeds the adjacent production, lower where the
production largely exceeds the immediate consumption (I put out of view
in this statement the inequalities created by Tariffs, as I choose at
this point to argue the question on the basis of universal Free Trade,
which is of course the basis most favorable to my opponents). I say,
then, if all Tariffs were abolished to-morrow, the price of Wheat in
England—that being the most considerable ultimate market of surpluses,
and the chief supplier of our manufactures—would govern the price in
this country, while it would be itself governed by the price at which
that staple could be procured in sufficiency from other grain-growing
regions. Now, Southern Russia and Central Poland produce Wheat for
exportation at thirty to fifty cents per bushel; but the price is so
increased by the cost of transportation that at Dantzic it averages some
ninety and at Odessa some eighty cents per bushel. The cost of
importation to England from these ports being ten and fifteen cents
respectively, the actual cost of the article in England, all charges
paid, and allowing for a small increase of price consequent on the
increased demand, would not in the absence of all Tariffs whatever,
exceed one dollar and ten cents per bushel; and this would be the
average price at which we must sell it in England in order to buy thence
the great bulk of our Manufactures. I think no man will dispute or
seriously vary this calculation. Neither can any reflecting man
seriously contend that we could purchase forty or fifty millions’ worth
or more of Foreign Manufactures per annum, and pay for them in
additional products of our Slave Labor—in Cotton and Tobacco. The
consumption of these articles is now pressed to its utmost limit,—that
of Cotton especially is borne down by the immense weight of the crops
annually thrown upon it, and almost constantly on the verge of a glut.
If we are to buy our Manufactures principally from Europe, we must pay
for the additional amount mainly in the products of Northern
Agricultural industry,—that is universally agreed on. The point to be
determined is, whether we could obtain them abroad cheaper—_really_ and
positively cheaper, all Tariffs being abrogated—than under an efficient
system of Protection.
Let us closely scan this question. Illinois and Indiana, natural
grain-growing States, need cloths; and, in the absence of all tariffs,
these can be transported to them from England for two to three per cent.
of their value. It follows, then, that, in order to undersell any
American competition, the British manufacturer need only put his cloths
at his factory _five_ per cent. below the wholesale price of such cloths
in Illinois, in order to command the American market. That is, allowing
a fair broadcloth to be manufactured in or near Illinois for three
dollars and a quarter per yard, cash price, in the face of British
rivalry, and paying American prices for materials and labor, the British
manufacturer has only to make that same cloth at three dollars per yard
in Leeds or Huddersfield, and he can decidedly undersell his American
rival, and drive him out of the market. Mind, I do not say that he
_would_ supply the Illinois market at that price _after_ the American
rivalry had been crushed; I know he _would not_; but, so long as any
serious effort to build up or sustain manufactures in this country
existed, the large and strong European establishments would struggle for
the additional market which our growing and plenteous country so
invitingly proffers. It is well known that in 1815–16, after the close
of the last war, British manufactures were offered for sale in our chief
markets at the rate of “_pound for pound_,”—that is, fabrics of which
the first cost to the manufacturer was $4.44 were offered in Boston
market at $3.33, duty paid. This was not sacrifice—it was dictated by a
profound forecast. Well did the foreign fabricants know that their
self-interest dictated the utter overthrow, at whatever cost, of the
young rivals which the war had built up in this country, and which our
government and a majority of the people had blindly or indolently
abandoned to their fate. William Cobbett, the celebrated radical, but
with a sturdy English heart, boasted upon his first return to England
that he had been actively engaged here in promoting the interests of his
country by compassing the destruction of American manufactories in
various ways which he specified—“_sometimes_ (says he) _by Fire_.” We
all know that great sacrifices are often submitted to by a rich and long
established stage owner, steamboat proprietor, or whatever, to break
down a young and comparatively penniless rival. So in a thousand
instances, especially in a rivalry for so large a prize as the supplying
with manufactures of a great and growing nation. But I here put aside
all calculations of a temporary sacrifice; I suppose merely that the
foreign manufacturers will supply our grain-growing states with cloths
at a trifling profit so long as they encounter American rivalry; and I
say it is perfectly obvious that, if it cost three dollars and a quarter
a yard to make a fair broadcloth in or near Illinois in the infancy of
our arts and a like article could be made in Europe for three dollars,
then the utter destruction of the American manufacture is inevitable.
The foreign drives it out of the market and its maker into bankruptcy;
and now our farmers, in purchasing their cloths, “buy where they can buy
cheapest,” which is the first commandment of free trade, and get their
cloth of England at three dollars a yard. I maintain that this would not
last a year after the American factories had been silenced—that then the
British operator would begin to think of _profits_ as well as bare cost
for his cloth, and to adjust his prices so as to recover what it had
cost him to put down the dangerous competition. But let this pass for
the present, and say the foreign cloth is sold to Illinois for three
dollars per yard. We have yet to ascertain how much she has gained or
lost by the operation.
This, says Free Trade, is very plain and easy. The four simple rules of
arithmetic suffice to measure it. She has bought, say a million yards of
foreign cloth for three dollars, where she formerly paid three and a
quarter for American; making a clear saving of a quarter of a million
dollars.
But not so fast—we have omitted one important element of the
calculation. We have yet to see what effect the purchase of her cloth in
Europe, as contrasted with its manufacture at home, will have on the
price of her Agricultural staples. We have seen already that, in case
she is forced to sell a portion of her surplus product in Europe, the
price of that surplus must be the price which can be procured for it in
England, _less_ the cost of carrying it there. In other words: the
average price in England being one dollar and ten cents, and the average
cost of bringing it to New York being at least fifty cents and then of
transporting it to England at least twenty-five more, the net proceeds
to Illinois cannot exceed thirty-five cents per bushel. I need not more
than state so obvious a truth as that the price at which the surplus can
be sold governs the price of the whole crop; nor, indeed, if it were
possible to deny this, would it at all affect the argument. The real
question to be determined is, not whether the American or the British
manufacturers will furnish the most cloth for the least _cash_, but
which will supply the requisite quantity of Cloth for the least _Grain
in Illinois_. Now we have seen already that the price of Grain at any
point where it is readily and largely produced is governed by its
nearness to or remoteness from the market to which its surplus tends,
and the least favorable market in which any portion of it must be sold.
For instance: If Illinois produces a surplus of five million bushels of
Grain, and can sell one million of bushels in New York, and two millions
in New England, and another million in the West Indies, and for the
fifth million is compelled to seek a market in England, and that, being
the remotest point at which she sells, and the point most exposed to
disadvantageous competition, is naturally the poorest market, that
farthest and lowest market to which she sends her surplus will govern,
to a great extent if not absolutely, the price she receives for the
whole surplus. But, on the other hand, let her Cloths, her wares, be
manufactured in her midst, or on the junctions and waterfalls in her
vicinity, thus affording an immediate market for her Grain, and now the
average price of it rises, by an irresistible law, nearly or quite to
the average of the world. Assuming that average to be one dollar, the
price in Illinois, making allowance for the fertility and cheapness of
her soil, could not fall below an average of seventy-five cents. Indeed,
the experience of the periods when her consumption of Grain has been
equal to her production, as well as that of other sections where the
same has been the case, proves conclusively that the average price of
her Wheat would exceed that sum.
We are now ready to calculate the profit and loss. Illinois, under Free
Trade, with her “workshops in Europe,” will buy her cloth twenty-five
cents per yard cheaper, and thus make a nominal saving of two hundred
and fifty thousand dollars in her year’s supply; but, she thereby
compels herself to pay for it in Wheat at thirty-five instead of
seventy-five cents per bushel, or to give over _nine_ and one third
bushels of Wheat for every yard under Free Trade, instead of _four_ and
a third under a system of Home Production. In other words, while she is
making a quarter of a million dollars by buying her Cloth “where she can
buy cheapest,” she is losing nearly Two Millions of Dollars on the net
product of her Grain. The striking of a balance between her profit and
her loss is certainly not a difficult, but rather an unpromising,
operation.
Or, let us state the result in another form: She can buy her cloth a
little cheaper in England,—Labor being there lower, Machinery more
perfect, and Capital more abundant; but, in order to pay for it, she
must not merely sell her own products at a correspondingly low price,
but enough lower to overcome the cost of transporting them from Illinois
to England. She will give the cloth-maker in England less Grain for her
Cloth than she would give to the man who made it on her own soil; but
for every bushel she sends him in payment for his fabric, she must give
two to the wagoner, boatman, shipper, and factor who transport it
thither. On the whole product of her industry, two-thirds is tolled out
by carriers and bored out by Inspectors, until but a beggarly remnant is
left to satisfy the fabricator of her goods.
And here I trust I have made obvious to you the law which dooms an
Agricultural Country to inevitable and ruinous disadvantage in
exchanging its staples for Manufactures, and involves it in perpetual
and increasing debt and dependence. The _fact_, I early alluded to; is
not the _reason_ now apparent? It is not that Agricultural communities
are more extravagant or less industrious than those in which
Manufactures or Commerce preponderate,—it is because there is an
inevitable disadvantage to Agriculture in the very nature of all distant
exchanges. Its products are far more perishable than any other; they
cannot so well await a future demand; but in their excessive bulk and
density is the great evil. We have seen that, while the English
Manufacturer can send his fabrics to Illinois for less than five per
cent. on their first cost, the Illinois farmer must pay two hundred per
cent. on his Grain for its transportation to English consumers. In other
words: the English manufacturer need only produce his goods five per
cent. below the American to drive the latter out of the Illinois market,
the Illinoisan must produce wheat for _one-third_ of its English price
in order to compete with the English and Polish grain-grower in
Birmingham and Sheffield.
And here is the answer to that scintillation of Free Trade wisdom which
flashes out in wonder that _Manufactures_ are eternally and especially
in want of Protection, while Agriculture and Commerce need none. The
assumption is false in any sense,—our Commerce and Navigation cannot
live without Protection,—never did live so,—but let that pass. It is the
interest of the whole country which demands that that portion of its
Industry which is _most exposed_ to ruinous foreign rivalry should be
cherished and sustained. The wheat-grower, the grazier, is protected by
ocean and land; by the fact that no foreign article can be introduced to
rival his except at a cost for transportation of some thirty to one
hundred per cent. on its value; while our Manufactures can be inundated
by foreign competition at a cost of some two to ten per cent. It is the
grain-grower, the cattle-raiser, who is protected by a duty on Foreign
Manufactures, quite as much as the spinner or shoemaker. He who talks of
Manufactures being protected and nothing else, might just as sensibly
complain that we fortify Boston and New York and not Pittsburg and
Cincinnati.
Again: You see here our answer to those philosophers who modestly tell
us that their views are liberal and enlightened, while ours are
benighted, selfish, and un-Christian. They tell us that the foreign
factory-laborer is anxious to exchange with us the fruits of his
labor,—that he asks us to give him of our surplus of grain for the cloth
that he is ready to make cheaper than we can now get it, while we have a
superabundance of bread. Now, putting for the present out of the
question the fact that, though _our_ Tariff were abolished, _his_ could
remain,—that neither England, nor France, nor any great manufacturing
country, would receive our Grain untaxed though we offered so to take
their goods,—especially the fact that they never _did_ so take of us
while we were freely taking of them,—we say to them, “Sirs, we are
willing to take Cloth of you for Grain; but why prefer to trade at a
ruinous disadvantage to both? Why should there be half the diameter of
the earth between him who makes coats and him who makes bread, the one
for the other? We are willing to give you bread for clothes; but we are
not willing to pay two-thirds of our bread as the cost of transporting
the other third to you, because we sincerely believe it needless and
greatly to our disadvantage. We are willing to work for and buy of you,
but not to support the useless and crippling activity of a falsely
directed Commerce; not to contribute by our sweat to the luxury of your
nobles, the power of your kings. But come to us, you who are honest,
peaceable, and industrious; bring hither your machinery, or, if that is
not yours, bring out your sinews; and we will aid you to reproduce the
implements of your skill. We will give you more bread for your cloth
here than you can possibly earn for it where you are, if you will but
come among us and aid us to sustain the policy that secures steady
employment and a fair reward to Home Industry. We will no longer aid to
prolong your existence in a state of semi-starvation where you are; but
we are ready to share with you our Plenty and our Freedom here.” Such is
the answer which the friends of Protection make to the demand and the
imputation; judge ye whether our policy be indeed selfish, un-Christian,
and insane.
I proceed now to set forth my
PROPOSITION IV. _That Equilibrium between Agriculture, Manufactures and
Commerce, which we need, can only be maintained by means of Protective
Duties._
You will have seen that the object we seek is not to make our country a
Manufacturer for other nations, but for herself,—not to make her the
baker and brewer and tailor of other people, but of her own household.
If I understand at all the first rudiments of National Economy, it is
best for each and all nations that each should mainly fabricate for
itself, freely purchasing of others all such staples as its own soil or
climate proves ungenial to. We appreciate quite as well as our opponents
the impolicy of attempting to grow coffee in Greenland or glaciers in
Malabar,—to extract blood from a turnip or sunbeams from cucumbers. A
vast deal of wit has been expended on our stupidity by our acuter
adversaries, but it has been quite thrown away, except as it has excited
the hollow laughter of the ignorant as well as thoughtless. All this,
however sharply pushed, falls wide of our true position. To all the fine
words we hear about “the impossibility of counteracting the laws of
Nature,” “Trade Regulating itself,” &c., &c., we bow with due deference,
and wait for the sage to resume his argument. What we _do_ affirm is
this, _that it is best for every nation to make at home all those
articles of its own consumption that can just as well—that is, with
nearly or quite as little labor—be made there as anywhere else_. We say
it is not wise, it is not well, to send to France for boots, to Germany
for hose, to England for knives and forks, and so on; because the real
cost of them would be less,—even though the nominal price should be
slightly more,—if we made them in our own country; while the facility of
paying for them would be much greater. We do not object to the
occasional importation of choice articles to operate as specimens and
incentives to our own artisans to improve the quality and finish of
their workmanship,—where the home competition does not avail to bring
the process to its perfection, as it often will. In such cases, the rich
and luxurious will usually be the buyers of these choice articles, and
can afford to pay a good duty. There are gentlemen of extra polish in
our cities and villages who think no coat good enough for them which is
not woven in an English loom,—no boot adequately transparent which has
not been fashioned by a Parisian master. I quarrel not with their taste:
I only say that, since the Government _must_ have Revenue and the
American artisan _should_ have Protection, I am glad it is so fixed that
these gentlemen shall contribute handsomely to the former, and gratify
their aspirations with the least possible detriment to the latter. It
does not invalidate the fact nor the efficiency of Protection that
foreign competition with American workmanship is not entirely shut out.
It is the _general_ result which is important, and not the exception.
Now, he who can seriously contend, as some have seemed to do, that
Protective Duties do not aid and extend the domestic production of the
articles so protected might as well undertake to argue the sun out of
the heavens at mid-day. All experience, all common sense, condemn him.
Do we not know that our Manufactures first shot up under the stringent
Protection of the Embargo and War? that they withered and crumbled under
the comparative Free Trade of the few succeeding years? that they were
revived and extended by the Tariffs of 1824 and ’28? Do we not know that
Germany, crippled by British policy, which inundated her with goods yet
excluded her grain and timber, was driven, years since, to the
establishment of her “Zoll-Verein” or Tariff Union,—a measure of careful
and stringent Protection, under which Manufactures have grown up and
flourished through all her many States? She has adhered steadily,
firmly, to her Protective Policy, while we have faltered and oscillated;
and what is the result? She has created and established her
Manufactures; and in doing so has vastly increased her wealth and
augmented the reward of her industry. Her public sentiment, as expressed
through its thousand channels, is almost unanimous in favor of the
Protective Policy; and now, when England, finding at length that her
cupidity has overreached itself,—that she cannot supply the Germans with
clothes refuse to buy their bread,—talks of relaxing her Corn-Laws in
order to coax back her ancient and profitable customer, the answer is,
“No; it is now too late. We have built up Home Manufactures in repelling
your rapacity,—we cannot destroy them at your caprice. What guarantee
have we that, should we accede to your terms, you would not return again
to your policy of taking all and giving none so soon as our factories
had crumbled into ruin? Besides, we have found that we can make
cheaper—really cheaper—than we were able to buy,—can pay better wages to
our laborers, and secure a better and steadier market for our products.
We are content to abide in the position to which you have driven us.
Pass on!”
But this is not the sentiment of Germany alone. All Europe acts on the
principle of self-protection; because all Europe sees its benefits. The
British journals complain that, though they have made a show of
relaxation in their own Tariff, and their Premier has made a Free Trade
speech in Parliament, the chaff has caught no birds; _but six hostile
Tariffs_—all Protective in their character, and all aimed at the
supremacy of British Manufactures—were enacted within the year 1842. And
thus, while schoolmen plausibly talk of the adoption and spread of Free
Trade principles, and their rapid advances to speedy ascendency, the
practical man knows that the truth is otherwise, and that many years
must elapse before the great Colossus of Manufacturing monopoly will
find another Portugal to drain of her life-blood under the delusive
pretence of a commercial reciprocity. And, while Britain continues to
pour forth her specious treatises on Political Economy, proving
Protection a mistake and an impossibility through her Parliamentary
Reports and Speeches in Praise of Free Trade, the shrewd statesmen of
other nations humor the joke with all possible gravity, and pass it on
to the next neighbor; yet all the time take care of their own interests,
just as though Adam Smith had never speculated nor Peel soberly
expatiated on the blessings of Free Trade, looking round occasionally
with a curious interest to see whether anybody was really taken in by
it.
I have partly anticipated, yet I will state distinctly, my
PROPOSITION V. _Protection is necessary and proper to sustain as well as
to create a beneficent adjustment of our National Industry._
“Why can’t our Manufacturers go alone?” petulantly asks a Free-Trader;
“they have had Protection long enough. They ought not to need it any
more.” To this I answer that, if Manufactures were protected as a matter
of special bounty or favor to the Manufacturers, a single day were too
long. I would not consent that they should be sustained one day longer
than the interests of the _whole_ Country required. I think you have
already seen that, not for the sake of Manufacturers, but for the sake
of all Productive Labor, should Protection be afforded. If I have been
intelligible, you will have seen that the purpose and essence of
Protection is LABOR-SAVING,—the making two blades of grass grow instead
of one. This it does by “planting the Manufacturer as nearly as may be
by the side of the Farmer,” as Mr. Jefferson expressed it, and thereby
securing to the latter a market for which he had looked to Europe in
vain. Now, the market of the latter is certain as the recurrence of
appetite; but that is not all. The Farmer and the Manufacturer, being
virtually neighbors, will interchange their productions directly, or
with but one intermediate, instead of sending them reciprocally across
half a continent and a broad ocean, through the hands of many holders,
until the toll taken out by one after another has exceeded what remains
of the grist. “Dear-bought and far-fetched” is an old maxim, containing
more _essential_ truth than many a chapter by a modern Professor of
Political Economy. Under the Protective policy, instead of having one
thousand men making Cloth in one hemisphere, and an equal number raising
Grain in the other, with three thousand factitiously employed in
transporting and interchanging these products, we have over two thousand
producers of Grain, and as many of Cloth, leaving far too little
employment for one thousand in making the exchanges between them. This
consequence is inevitable; although the production on either side is not
confined to the very choicest locations, the total product of their
labor is twice as much as formerly. In other words, there is a double
quantity of food, clothing, and all the necessaries and comforts of
life, to be shared among the producers of wealth, simply from the
diminution of the number of non-producers. If all the men now enrolled
in Armies and Navies were advantageously employed in Productive Labor,
there would doubtless be a larger dividend of comforts and necessaries
of life for all, because more to be divided than now and no greater
number to receive it; just so in the case before us. Every thousand
persons employed in needless Transportation and in factitious Commerce
are so many subtracted from the great body of Producers, from the
proceeds of whose labor all must be subsisted. The dividend for each
must, of course, be governed by the magnitude of the quotient.
But, if this be so advantageous, it is queried, why is any legislation
necessary? Why would not all voluntarily see and embrace it? I answer,
because the apparent individual advantage is often to be pursued by a
course directly adverse to the general welfare. We know that Free Trade
asserts the contrary of this; maintaining that, if every man pursues
that course most conducive to his individual interest, the general good
will thereby be most certainly and signally promoted. But, to say
nothing of the glaring exceptions to this law which crowd our statute
books with injunctions and penalties, we are everywhere met with pointed
contradictions of its assumption, which hallows and blesses the pursuits
of the gambler, the distiller, and the libertine, making the usurer a
saint and the swindler a hero. Adam Smith himself admits that there are
avocations which enrich the individual but impoverish the community. So
in the case before us. A B is a farmer in Illinois, and has much grain
to sell or exchange for goods. But, while it is demonstrable that, if
_all_ the manufactures consumed in Illinois were produced there, the
price of grain must rise nearly to the average of the world, it is
equally certain that A B’s _single act_, in buying and consuming
American cloth, will not raise the price of grain generally, nor of
_his_ grain. It will not perceptibly affect the price of grain at all. A
solemn compact of the whole community to use only American fabrics would
have some effect; but this could never be established, or never
enforced. A few Free-Traders standing out, selling their grain at any
advance which might accrue, and buying “where they could buy cheapest,”
would induce one after another to look out for No. 1, and let the public
interests take care of themselves: so the whole compact would fall to
pieces like a rope of sand. Many a one would say, “Why should I aid to
keep up the price of Produce? I am only a _consumer_ of it,”—not
realizing or caring for the interest of the community, even though it
less palpably involved his own; and that would be an end. Granted that
it is desirable to encourage and prefer Home Production and Manufacture,
a Tariff is the obvious way, and the only way, in which it can be
effectively and certainly accomplished.
But why is a Tariff necessary after Manufactures are once established?
“You say,” says a Free-Trader, “that you can Manufacture cheaper if
Protected than we can buy abroad: then why not do it _without_
Protection, and save all trouble?” Let me answer this cavil:—
I will suppose that the Manufactures of this Country amount in value to
One Hundred Millions of Dollars per annum, and those of Great Britain to
Three Hundred Millions. Let us suppose also that, under an efficient
Protective Tariff, ours are produced five per cent. cheaper than those
of England, and that our own markets are supplied entirely from the Home
Product. But at the end of this year, 1843, we,—concluding that our
Manufactures have been protected long enough and ought now to go
alone,—repeal absolutely our Tariff, and commit our great interests
thoroughly to the guidance of “Free Trade.” Well: at this very time the
British Manufacturers, on making up the account and review of their
year’s business, find that they have manufactured goods costing them
Three Hundred Millions, as aforesaid, and have sold to just about that
amount, leaving a residue or surplus on hand of Fifteen or Twenty
Millions’ worth. These are to be sold; and their net proceeds will
constitute the interest on their capital and the profit on their year’s
business. But _where_ shall they be sold? If crowded on the Home or
their established Foreign Markets, they will glut and depress those
markets, causing a general decline of prices and a heavy loss, not
merely on this quantity of goods, but on the whole of their next year’s
business. They know better than to do any such thing. Instead of it,
they say, “Here is the American Market just thrown open to us by a
repeal of their Tariff: let us send thither our surplus, and sell it for
what it will fetch.” They ship it over accordingly, and in two or three
weeks it is rattling off through our auction stores, at prices first
five, then ten, fifteen, twenty, and down to thirty per cent. below our
previous rates. Every jobber and dealer is tickled with the idea of
buying goods of novel patterns so wonderfully cheap; and the sale
proceeds briskly, though, at constantly declining prices, till the whole
stock is disposed of and our market is gorged to repletion.
Now, the British manufacturers may not have received for the whole
Twenty Millions’ worth of Goods over Fourteen or Fifteen Millions; but
what of it? Whatever it may be is clear profit on their year’s business
in cash or its full equivalent. All their established markets are kept
clear and eager; and they can now go on vigorously and profitably with
the business of the new year. But more: they have crippled an active and
growing rival; they have opened a new market, which shall erelong be
theirs also.
Let us now look at our side of the question:—
The American Manufacturers have also a stock of goods on hand, and they
come into our market to dispose of them. But they suddenly find that
market forestalled and depressed by rival fabrics of attractive novelty,
and selling in profusion at prices which rapidly run down to twenty-five
per cent. below cost. What are they to do? They cannot force sales at
any price not utterly ruinous; there is no demand at any rate. They
cannot retaliate upon England the mischief they must suffer,—her Tariff
forbids; and the other markets of the world are fully supplied, and will
bear but a limited pressure. The foreign influx has created a scarcity
of money as well as a plethora of goods. Specie has largely been
exported in payment, which has compelled the Banks to contract and deny
loans. Still, their obligations must be met; if _they_ cannot make
sales, _the Sheriff_ will, and must. It is not merely their surplus, but
their whole product, which has been depreciated and made unavailable at
a blow. The end is easily foreseen: our Manufacturers become bankrupt
and are broken up; their works are brought to a dead stand; the Laborers
therein, after spending months in constrained idleness, are driven by
famine into the Western wilderness, or into less productive and less
congenial vocations; their acquired skill and dexterity, as well as a
portion of their time, are a dead loss to themselves and the community;
and we commence the slow and toilsome process of rebuilding and
rearranging our industry on the one-sided or Agricultural basis. Such is
the process which we have undergone twice already. How many repetitions
shall satisfy us?
Now, will any man gravely argue that we have _made_ Five or Six Millions
by this cheap purchase of British goods,—by “buying where we could buy
cheapest?” Will he not see that, though the _price_ was low, the _cost_
is very great? But the apparent saving is doubly deceptive; for the
British manufacturers, having utterly crushed their American rivals by
one or two operations of this kind, soon find here a market, not for a
beggarly surplus of Fifteen or Twenty Millions, but they have now a
demand for the amount of our whole consumption, which, making allowance
for our diminished ability to pay, would probably still reach Fifty
Millions per annum. This increased demand would soon produce activity
and buoyancy in the general market; and now the foreign Manufacturers
would say in their consultations, “We have sold some millions’ worth of
goods to America for less than cost, in order to obtain control of that
market; now we have it, and must retrieve our losses,”—and they _would_
retrieve them, with interest. They would have a perfect right to do so.
I hope no man has understood me as implying any infringement of the
dictates of honesty on their part, still less of the laws of trade. They
have a perfect right to sell goods in our markets on such terms as we
prescribe and they can afford; it is _we_, who set up our own vital
interests to be bowled down by their rivalry, who are alone to be
blamed.
Who does not see that this sending out our great Industrial Interests
unarmed and unshielded to battle against the mailclad legions opposed to
them in the arena of Trade is to insure their destruction? It were just
as wise to say that, because our people are brave, therefore they shall
repel any invader without fire-arms, as to say that the restrictions of
other nations ought not to be opposed by us because our artisans are
skilful and our manufactures have made great advances. The very fact
that our manufactures are greatly extended and improved is the strong
reason why they should not be exposed to destruction. If they were of no
amount or value, their loss would be less disastrous; but now the Five
or Six Millions we should make on the cheaper importation of goods would
cost us One Hundred Millions in the destruction of Manufacturing
Property alone.
Yet this is but an item of our damage. The manufacturing classes feel
the first effect of the blow, but it would paralyze every muscle of
society. One hundred thousand artisans and laborers, discharged from our
ruined factories, after being some time out of employment, at a waste of
millions of the National wealth, are at last driven by famine to engage
in other avocations,—of course with inferior skill and at an inferior
price. The farmer, gardener, grocer, lose them as customers to meet them
as rivals. They crowd the labor-markets of those branches of industry
which we are still permitted to pursue, just at the time when the demand
for their products has fallen off, and the price is rapidly declining.
The result is just what we have seen in a former instance: all that any
man may make by buying Foreign goods cheap, he loses ten times over by
the decline of his own property, product, or labor; while to nine-tenths
of the whole people the result is unmixed calamity. The disastrous
consequences to a nation of the mere derangement and paralysis of its
Industry which must follow the breaking down of any of its great
Producing Interests have never yet been sufficiently estimated. Free
Trade, indeed, assures us that every person thrown out of employment in
one place or capacity has only to choose another; but almost every
workingman knows from experience that such is not the fact,—that the
loss of situation through the failure of his business is oftener a sore
calamity. I know a worthy citizen who spent six years in learning the
trade of a hatter, which he had just perfected in 1798, when an immense
importation of foreign hats utterly paralyzed the manufacture in this
country. He traveled and sought for months, but could find no employment
at any price, and at last gave up the pursuit, found work in some other
capacity, and has never made a hat since. He lives yet, and now
comfortably, for he is industrious and frugal; but the six years he gave
to learn his trade were utterly lost to him,—lost for the want of
adequate and steady Protection to Home Industry. I insist that the
Government has failed of discharging its proper and rightful duty to
that citizen and to thousands, and tens of thousands who have suffered
from like causes. I insist that, if the Government had permitted without
complaint a foreign force to land on our shores and plunder that man’s
house of the savings of six years of faithful industry, the neglect of
duty would not have been more flagrant. And I firmly believe that the
people of this country are One Thousand Millions of Dollars poorer at
this moment than they would have been had their entire Productive
Industry been constantly protected, on the principles I have laid down,
from the formation of the Government till now. The steadiness of
employment and of recompense thus secured, the comparative absence of
constrained idleness, and the more efficient application of the labor
actually performed, would have vastly increased the product,—would have
improved and beautified the whole face of the country; and the Moral and
Intellectual advantages thence accruing would alone have been
inestimable. A season of suspension of labor in a community is usually
one of aggravated dissipation, drunkenness, and crime.
But let me more clearly illustrate the effect of foreign competition in
raising prices to the consumer. To do this, I will take my own calling
for an example, because I understand that best; though any of you can
apply the principle to that with which he may be better acquainted. I am
a publisher of newspapers, and suppose I afford them at a cheap rate.
But the ability to maintain that cheapness is based on the fact that I
can certainly sell a large edition daily, so that no part of that
edition shall remain a dead loss on my hands. Now, if there were an
active and formidable Foreign competition in newspapers,—if the edition
which I printed during the night were frequently rendered unsalable by
the arrival of a foreign ship freighted with newspapers early in the
morning,—the present rates could not be continued: the price must be
increased or the quality would decline. I presume this holds equally
good of the production of calicoes, glass, and penknives as of
newspapers, though it may be somewhat modified by the nature of the
article to which it is applied. That it does hold true of sheetings,
nails, and thousands of articles, is abundantly notorious.
I have not burdened you with statistics,—you know they are the reliance,
the stronghold, of the cause of Protection, and that we can produce them
by acres. My aim has been to exhibit not mere collections of facts,
however pertinent and forcible, but the _laws_ on which those facts are
based,—not the immediate manifestation, but the ever-living necessity
from which it springs. The contemplation of these laws assures me that
those articles which are supplied to us by Home Production alone are
relatively cheaper than those which are rivalled and competed with from
abroad. And I am equally confident that the shutting out of Foreign
competition from our markets for other articles of general necessity and
liberal consumption which can be made here with as little labor as
anywhere would be followed by a corresponding result,—a reduction of the
price to the consumer at the same time with increased employment and
reward to our Producing Classes.
But, Mr. President, were this only on one side true,—were it certain
that the price of the Home product would be permanently higher than that
of the Foreign, I should still insist on efficient Protection, and for
reasons I have sufficiently shown. Grant that a British cloth costs but
$3 per yard, and a corresponding American fabric $4, I still hold that
the latter would be decidedly the cheaper for us. The Fuel, Timber,
Fruits, Vegetables, &c., which make up so large a share of the cost of
the Home product, would be rendered comparatively valueless by having
our workshops in Europe. I look not so much to the nominal price as to
the comparative facility of payment. And, where cheapness is only to be
attained by a depression of the wages of Labor to the neighborhood of
the European standard, I prefer that it should be dispensed with. One
thing must answer to another; and I hold that the farmers of this
country can better afford, as a matter of pecuniary advantage, to pay a
good price for manufactured articles than to obtain them lower through
the depression and inadequacy of the wages of the artisan and laborer.
You will understand me, then, to be utterly hostile to that idol of Free
Trade worship, known as Free or unlimited Competition. The sands of my
hour are running low, and I cannot ask time to examine this topic more
closely; yet I am confident I could show that this Free Competition is a
most delusive and dangerous element of Political Economy. Bear with a
brief illustration: At this moment, common shirts are made in London at
the incredibly low price of _three cents per pair_. Should we admit
these articles free of duty and buy them because they are so cheap? Free
trade says Yes; but I say No! Sound Policy as well as Humanity forbids
it. By admitting them, we simply reduce a large and worthy and suffering
class of our population from the ability they now possess of procuring a
bare subsistence by their labor to unavoidable destitution and
pauperism. They must now subsist upon the charity of relatives or of the
community,—unless we are ready to adopt the demoniac doctrine of the
Free Trade philosopher Malthus, that the dependent Poor ought to be
rigorously starved to death. Then what have we gained by getting these
articles so exorbitantly cheap? or, rather, what have we not lost? The
labor which formerly produced them is mainly struck out of existence;
the poor widows and seamstresses among us must still have a subsistence;
and the imported garments must be paid for: where are the profits of our
speculation?
But even this is not the worst feature of the case. The labor which we
have here thrown out of employment by the cheap importation of this
article is now ready to be employed again at any price,—if not one that
will afford bread and straw, then it must accept one that will produce
potatoes and rubbish; and with the product some Free-Trader proceeds to
break down the price and destroy the reward of similar labor in some
other portion of the earth. And thus each depression of wages produces
another, and that a third, and so on, making the circuit of the
globe,—the aggravated necessities of the Poor acting and reacting upon
each other, increasing the omnipotence of Capital and deepening the
dependence of Labor, swelling and pampering a bloated and factitious
Commerce, grinding down and grinding down the destitute, until Malthus’s
remedy for Poverty shall become a grateful specific, and, amid the
splendors and luxuries of an all-devouring Commercial Feudalism, the
squalid and famished Millions, its dependants and victims, shall welcome
death as a deliverer from their sufferings and despair.
I wish time permitted me to give a hasty glance over the doctrines and
teachings of the Free Trade sophists, who esteem themselves _the_
Political Economists, christen their own views liberal and enlightened,
and complacently put ours aside as benighted and barbarous. I should
delight to show you how they mingle subtle fallacy with obvious truth,
how they reason acutely from assumed premises, which, being mistaken or
incomplete, lead to false and often absurd conclusions,—how they
contradict and confound each other, and often, from Adam Smith, their
patriarch, down to McCulloch and Ricardo, either make admissions which
undermine their whole fabric, or confess themselves ignorant or in the
dark on points the most vital to a correct understanding of the great
subject they profess to have reduced to a Science. Yet even Adam Smith
himself expressly approves and justifies the British Navigation Act, the
most aggressively Protective measure ever enacted,—a measure which, not
being understood and seasonably counteracted by other nations, changed
for centuries the destinies of the World,—which silently sapped and
overthrew the Commercial and Political greatness of Holland,—which
silenced the thunder of Van Tromp, and swept the broom from his
mast-head. But I must not detain you longer. I do not ask you to judge
of this matter by authority, but from facts which come home to your
reason and your daily experience. There is not an observing and
strong-minded mechanic in our city who could not set any one of these
Doctors of the Law right on essential points. I beg you to consider how
few great practical Statesmen they have ever been able to win to their
standard,—I might almost say none; for Huskisson was but a nominal
disciple, and expressly contravened their whole system upon an attempt
to apply it to the Corn Laws; and Calhoun is but a Free-Trader by
location, and has never yet answered his own powerful arguments in
behalf of Protection. On the other hand, we point you to the long array
of mighty names which have illustrated the annals of Statesmanship of
modern times,—to Chatham, William Pitt, and the Great Frederick of
Prussia; to the whole array of memorable French Statesmen, including
Napoleon the first of them all; to our own WASHINGTON, HAMILTON,
JEFFERSON, and MADISON; to our two CLINTONS, TOMPKINS, to say nothing of
the eagle-eyed and genial-hearted LIVING master-spirit [Henry Clay] of
our time. The opinions and the arguments of all these are on record; it
is by hearkening to and heeding their counsels that we shall be prepared
to walk in the light of experience and look forward to a glorious
National destiny. My friends! I dare not detain you longer. I commit to
you the cause of the Nation’s Independence, of her Stability and her
Prosperity. Guard it wisely and shield it well; for it involves your own
happiness and the enduring welfare of your countrymen!
Henry A. Wise
_Against Know-Nothingism, Sept. 18, 1852._
The laws of the United States—federal and state laws—declare and defend
the liberties of our people. They are free in every sense—free in the
sense of Magna Charta and beyond Magna Charta; free by the surpassing
franchise of _American_ charters, which makes them sovereign and their
wills the sources of constitutions and laws.
In this country, at this time, does any man think anything? Would he
think aloud? Would he speak anything? Would he write anything? His mind
is free; his person is safe; his property is secure; his house is his
castle; the spirit of the laws is his body-guard and his house-guard;
the fate of one is the fate of all measured by the same common rule of
right; his voice is heard and felt in the general suffrage of freemen;
his trial is in open court, confronted by witnesses and accusers; his
prison house has no secrets, and he has the judgment of his peers; and
there is nought to make him afraid, so long as he respects the rights of
his equals in the eye of the law. Would he propagate truth? Truth is
free to combat error. Would he propagate error? Error itself may stalk
abroad and do her mischief, and make night itself grow darker, provided
truth is left free to follow, however slowly, with her torches to light
up the wreck! Why, then, should any portion of the people desire to
retire in secret, and by secret means to propagate a political thought,
or word, or deed, by stealth? Why band together, exclusive of others, to
do something which all may not know of, towards some political end? If
it be good, why not make the good known? Why not think it, speak it,
write it, act it out openly and aloud? Or, is it evil, which loveth
darkness rather than light? When there is no necessity to justify a
secret association for political ends, what else can justify it? A
caucus may sit in secret to consult on the general policy of a great
public party. That may be necessary or convenient; but that even is
reprehensible, if carried too far. But here is proposed a great primary,
national organization, in its inception—What? Nobody knows. To do what?
Nobody knows. How organized? Nobody knows. Governed by whom? Nobody
knows. How bound? By what rites? By what test oaths? With what
limitations and restraints? Nobody, nobody knows! All we know is that
persons of foreign birth and of Catholic faith are proscribed; and so
are all others who don’t proscribe them at the polls. This is certainly
against the spirit of Magna Charta.
* * * * *
A Prussian born subject came to this country. He complied with our
naturalization laws in all respects of notice of intention, residence,
oath of allegiance, and proof of good moral character. He remained
continuously in the United States the full period of five years. When he
had fully filled the measure of his probation and was consummately a
naturalized citizen of the United States, he then, and not until then,
returned to Prussia to visit an aged father. He was immediately, on his
return, seized and forced into the Landwehr, or militia system of
Prussia, under the maxim: “Once a citizen, always a citizen!” There he
is forced to do service to the king of Prussia at this very hour. He
applies for protection to the United States. Would the Know-Nothings
interpose in his behalf or not? Look at the principles involved. We, by
our laws, encouraged him to come to our country, and here he was allowed
to become naturalized, and to that end required to renounce and abjure
all allegiance and fidelity to the king of Prussia, and to swear
allegiance and fidelity to the United States. The king of Prussia now
claims no legal forfeiture from him—he punishes him for no crime—he
claims of him no legal debt—he claims alone that very allegiance and
fidelity which we required the man to abjure and renounce. Not only so,
but he hinders the man from returning to the United States, and from
discharging the allegiance and fidelity we required him to swear to the
United States. The king of Prussia says he should do him service for
seven years, for this was what he was born to perform; his obligations
were due to him first, and his laws were first binding him. The United
States say—true, he was born under your laws, but he had a right to
expatriate himself; he owed allegiance first to you, but he had a right
to forswear it and to swear allegiance to us; your laws first applied,
but this is a case of political obligation, not of legal obligation; it
is not for any crime or debt you claim to bind him, but it is for
allegiance; and the claim you set up to his services on the ground of
his political obligation, his allegiance to you, which we allow him to
abjure and renounce, is inconsistent with his political obligation, his
allegiance, which we required him to swear to the United States; he has
sworn fidelity to us, and we have, by our laws, pledged protection to
him.
Such is the issue. Now, with which will the Know-Nothings take sides?
With the king of Prussia against our naturalized citizen and against
America, or with America and our naturalized citizen? Mark, now,
Know-Nothingism is opposed to all foreign influence—against American
institutions. The king of Prussia is a pretty potent foreign
influence—he was one of the holy alliance of crowned heads. Will they
take part with him, and not protect the citizen? Then they will aid a
foreign influence against our laws! Will they take sides with our
naturalized citizen? If so, then upon what grounds? Now, they must have
a good cause of interposition to justify us against all the received
dogmas of European despotism.
Don’t they see, can’t they perceive, that they have no other grounds
than those I have urged? He is our citizen, nationalized, owing us
allegiance and we owing him protection. And if we owe him protection
abroad, because of his sworn allegiance to us as a naturalized citizen,
what then can deprive him of his privileges at home among us when he
returns? If he be a citizen at all, he must be allowed the privileges of
citizenship, or he will not be the equal of his fellow-citizens. And
must not Know-Nothingism strike at the very equality of citizenship, or
allow him to enjoy all its lawful privileges? If Catholics and
naturalized citizens are to be citizens and yet to be proscribed from
office, they must be rated as an inferior class—an excluded class of
citizens. Will it be said that the law will not make this distinction?
Then are we to understand that Know-Nothings would not make them equal
by law? If not by law, how can they pretend to make them unequal, by
their secret order, without law and against law? For them, by secret
combination, to make them unequal, to impose a burthen or restriction
upon their privileges which the law does not, is to set themselves up
above the law, and to supersede by private and secret authority,
intangible and irresponsible, the rule of public, political right.
Indeed, is this not the very essence of the “Higher Law” doctrine? It
cannot be said to be legitimate public sentiment and the action of its
authority. Public sentiment, proper, is a concurrence of the common mind
in some conclusion, conviction, opinion, taste, or action in respect to
persons or things subject to its public notice. It will, and it must
control the minds and actions of men, by public and conventional
opinion. Count Molé said that in France it was stronger than statutes.
It is so here. That it is which should decide at the polls of a
republic. But, here is a secret sentiment, which may be so organized as
to contradict the public sentiment. Candidate A. may be a native and a
Protestant, and may concur with the community, if it be a Know-Nothing
community, on every other subject except that of proscribing Catholics
and naturalized citizens: and candidate B. may concur with the community
on the subject of this proscription alone, and upon no other subject;
and yet the Know-Nothings might elect B. by their secret sentiment
against the public sentiment. Thus it attacks not only American
doctrines of expatriation, allegiance, and protection, but the equality
of citizenship, and the authority of public sentiment. In the affair of
Koszta, how did our blood rush to his rescue? Did the Know-Nothing side
with him and Mr. Marcy, or with Hulseman and Austria? If with Koszta,
why? Let them ask themselves for the rationale, and see if it can in
reason abide with their orders. There is no middle ground in respect to
naturalization. We must either have naturalization laws and let
foreigners become citizens, on equal terms of capacities and privileges,
or we must exclude them altogether. If we abolish naturalization laws,
we return to the European dogma: “Once a citizen, always a citizen.” If
we let foreigners be naturalized and don’t extend to them equality of
privileges, we set up classes and distinctions of persons wholly opposed
to republicanism. We will, as Rome did, have citizens who may be
scourged. The three alternatives are presented—Our present policy,
liberal, and just, and tolerant, and equal: or the European policy of
holding the noses of native born slaves to the grind-stone of tyranny
all their lives; or, odious distinctions of citizenship tending to
social and political aristocracy. I am for the present laws of
naturalization.
As to religion, the Constitution of the United States, art. 6, sec. 3,
especially provides that no religious test shall ever be required as a
qualification to any office or public trust under the United States. The
state of Virginia has, from her earliest history, passed the most
liberal laws, not only towards naturalization, but towards foreigners.
But I have said enough to show the spirit of American laws and the true
sense of American maxims.
3d. Know-Nothingism is against the spirit of Reformation and of
Protestantism.
What was there to reform?
Let the most bigoted Protestant enumerate what he defines to have been
the abominations of the church of Rome. What would he say were the
worst? The secrets of Jesuitism, of the Auto da fe, of the Monasteries
and of the Nunneries. The private penalties of the Inquisition’s
Scavenger’s Daughter. Proscription, persecution, bigotry, intolerance,
shutting up of the book of the word. And do Protestants now mean to
out-Jesuit the Jesuits? Do they mean to strike and not be seen? To be
felt and not to be heard? To put a shudder upon humanity by the masks of
mutes? Will they wear the monkish cowls? Will they inflict penalties at
the polls without reasoning together with their fellows at the hustings?
Will they proscribe? Persecute? Will they bloat up themselves into that
bigotry which would burn nonconformists? Will they not tolerate freedom
of conscience, but doom dissenters, in secret conclave, to a forfeiture
of civil privileges for a religious difference? Will they not translate
the scripture of their faith? Will they visit us with dark lanterns and
execute us by signs, and test oaths, and in secrecy? Protestantism!
forbid it!
If anything was ever open, fair, and free—if anything was ever blatant
even—it was the Reformation. To quote from a mighty British pen: “It
gave a mighty impulse and increased activity to thought and inquiry,
agitated the inert mass of accumulated prejudices throughout Europe. The
effect of the concussion was general, but the shock was greatest in this
country” (England). It toppled down the full grown intolerable abuses of
centuries at a blow; heaved the ground from under the feet of bigoted
faith and slavish obedience; and the roar and dashing of opinions,
loosened from their accustomed hold, might be heard like the noise of an
angry sea, and has never yet subsided. Germany first broke the spell of
misbegotten fear, and gave the watchword; but England joined the shout,
and echoed it back, with her island voice, from her thousand cliffs and
craggy shores, in a longer and louder strain. With that cry the genius
of Great Britain rose, and threw down the gauntlet to the nations. There
was a mighty fermentation: the waters were out; public opinion was in a
state of projection; liberty was held out to all to think and speak the
truth; men’s brains were busy; their spirits stirring; their hearts
full; and their hands not idle. Their eyes were opened to expect the
greatest things, and their ears burned with curiosity and zeal to know
the truth, that the truth might make them free. The death-blow which had
been struck at scarlet vice and bloated hypocrisy, loosened tongues, and
made the talismans and love tokens of popish superstitions with which
she had beguiled her followers and committed abominations with the
people, fall harmless from their necks.
The translation of the Bible was the chief engine in the great work. It
threw open, by a secret spring, the rich treasures of religion and
morality, which had then been locked up as in a shrine. It revealed the
visions of the Prophets, and conveyed the lessons of inspired teachers
to the meanest of the people. It gave them a common interest in a common
cause. Their hearts burnt within them as they read. It gave a mind to
the people, by giving them common subjects of thought and feeling. It
cemented their Union of character and sentiment; it created endless
diversity and collision of opinion. They found objects to employ their
faculties, and a motive in the magnitude of the consequences attached to
them, to exert the utmost eagerness in the pursuit of truth, and the
most daring intrepidity in maintaining it. Religious controversy
sharpens the understanding by the subtlety and remoteness of the topics
it discusses, and braces the will by their infinite importance. We
perceive in the history of this period a nervous, masculine intellect.
No levity, no feebleness, no indifference; or, if there were, it is a
relaxation from the intense activity which gives a tone to its general
character. But there is a gravity approaching to piety, a seriousness of
impression, a conscientious severity of argument, an habitual fervor of
enthusiasm in their method of handling almost every subject. The debates
of the schoolmen were sharp and subtle enough: but they wanted interest
and grandeur, and were besides confined to a few. They did not affect
the general mass of the community. But the Bible was thrown open to all
ranks and conditions “to own and read,” with its wonderful table of
contents, from Genesis to the Revelation. Every village in England would
present the scene so well described in Burns’s “Cotter’s Saturday
Night.” How unlike this agitation, this shock, this angry sea, this
fermentation, this shout and its echoes, this impulse and activity, this
concussion, this general effect, this blow, this earthquake, this roar
and dashing, this longer and louder strain, this public opinion, this
liberty to all to think and speak the truth, this stirring of spirits,
this opening of eyes, this zeal to know—not nothing—but the truth, that
the truth might make them free. How unlike to this is Know-Nothingism,
sitting and brooding in secret to proscribe Catholics and naturalized
citizens! Protestantism protested against secrecy, it protested against
shutting out the light of truth, it protested against proscription,
bigotry, and intolerance. It loosened all tongues, and fought the owls
and bats of night with the light of meridian day. The argument of
Know-Nothings is the argument of silence. The order ignores all
knowledge. And its proscription can’t arrest itself within the limit of
excluding Catholics and naturalized citizens. It must proscribe natives
and Protestants both, who will not consent to unite in proscribing
Catholics and naturalized citizens. Nor is that all; it must not only
apply to birth and religion, it must necessarily extend itself to the
business of life as well as to political preferments.
Kenneth Raynor, of North Carolina, on Fusion of Fremont and Fillmore
Forces.
_Extracts from his Speech at Philadelphia, November 1, 1856._
My brother Americans, do you intend to let these mischief-makers put you
and me together by the ears? [Many voices; “no, no.”] Then let us beat
James Buchanan for the Presidency. [“We will—we will,” and great
applause.] He is the representative of slavery agitation; he is the
representative of discord between sections; he is the man whom Northern
and Southern agitators have agreed to present as their candidate. If he
be elected now, and the difficulties in Kansas be healed, at the end of
four years they will spring upon you another question of slavery
agitation. It will be the taking of Cuba from Spain, or cutting off
another slice from Mexico for the purpose of embroiling the North
against the South; and then, if I shall resist that agitation, I shall
be called an Abolitionist, again.
* * * * *
My countrymen, God forbid that I should attempt to dictate to you or
even advise you. I am not competent to do so. I know that divisions
exist among you, while I feel also confident that the same purpose
animates all your hearts. Do not suppose for one moment that I am the
representative of any clique or faction.
Unfortunately, I find that our friends here are in the same condition in
which the Jews were, when besieged by the Roman general, Titus. Whilst
the battering-rams of the Romans were beating down their walls, and the
firebrand of the heathen was consuming their temple, the historian tells
us that that great people were engaged in intestine commotions, some
advocating the claims of one, and some of another, to the high
priesthood of that nation; and instead of the Romans devouring them,
they devoured each other. God forbid that my brother Americans should
devour each other, at a time when every heart and every hand should be
enlisted in the same cause, of overthrowing the common enemy of us all.
Who is that common enemy? [Voices, “The Democratic party.”] Yes, that
party have reviled us, abused us, persecuted us, and all only because we
are determined to adhere to the Constitution of our country. Give
Buchanan a lease of power for four years, and we must toil through
persecution, submit to degradation, or cause the streets of our cities
to run blood. But we will submit to degradation provided we can see the
end of our troubles. We are willing to go through a pilgrimage, not only
of four years, but of ten, or twenty, or forty years, provided we can
have an assurance that at last we shall reach the top of Pisgah, and see
the promised land which our children are to inherit. God has not given
to us poor frail mortals the power, at all times, of controlling events.
When we cannot control events, should we not, where no sacrifice of
honor is involved, pursue the policy of Lysander, and where the lion’s
skin is too short, eke it out with the fox’s [applause]—not where
principle is involved—not where a surrender of our devotion to our
country is at stake. No; never, never!
I know nothing of your straight-out ticket; I know nothing of your Union
ticket; I know nothing of Fremont. I do know something of Fillmore; but
I would not give my Americanism, and the hopes which I cherish of seeing
Americanism installed as the policy of this nation, for all the
Fillmores, or Fremonts, or Buchanans, that ever lived on the face of the
earth.
St. Paul says, “if it offends my brother, I will eat no meat;” and if it
offends my brother here, I will not open my mouth. Nobody can suspect
me. [Voices: “certainly not.”] Then I say, can’t you combine the vote of
this state, and beat Buchanan? [This question was responded to in the
affirmative, with the greatest enthusiasm.] Repeated cheers were
proposed for the straight ticket, but the responding voices were by no
means numerous, and were mingled with hisses. Such was the universal
excitement, that for some minutes the speaker was obliged to pause. He
finally raised his voice above the subsiding storm, and said:—
Come, my friends, we are all brothers; we are all seeking the same end.
Our object is the same. We are all struggling to reach the same haven of
safety. The only difference of opinion is as to the proper means by
which to accomplish our common end. Will not Americans learn prudence
from the past? Misfortune should have taught us charity for each other.
We have passed through the ordeal of persecution together; we have been
subjected to the same difficulties, and the same oppression; we have
been baptized (I may say) in the same stream of calumny. Then, in the
name of God—in the name of our common country—in the name of
Americanism—in the name of American nationality—in the name of religious
freedom—in the name of the Union, I beseech you to learn charity for the
difference of opinion which prevails among you. Let brethren forbear
with brethren. Let us recollect that it is not by vituperation, by the
censure of our brethren, that we can ever accomplish this great end of
conquering a common enemy. My friends, how long are we to suffer? How
long will it be before we shall learn that it is only by a union of
counsels, a concentration of energy, a combination of purpose, that we
can destroy the common enemy of every conservative man. [Great
applause.]
I shall not attempt to advise you, for I am not competent to do it. You
have information which I do not possess. You know all the undercurrents
of opinion which prevail here in your community, with which I am
unacquainted; but will you allow an humble man to express his opinion to
brethren whom he loves? May I do it? I am a Fillmore man—nothing but a
Fillmore man, and if I resided here, I would vote no ticket which had
not the name of Millard Fillmore at its head, and I would advise no
Fillmore man to vote a ticket with Fremont’s name on it; but I would
vote for that ticket which would make my voice tell at the polls.
Now let us look at this thing practically. In reading history I have
always admired the character of Oliver Cromwell. What was the great
motive by which he was actuated in overthrowing the house of Stuart? It
was unfailing devotion to principle. His motto was, “Put your trust in
God, and keep your powder dry.” I admire the devotion to principle in
every man who says that he does not intend to vote any but the straight
ticket, for it shows that Americanism has such a lodgment in his heart,
that he cannot bear even seemingly to compromise it. That is “putting
your trust in God;” but, my friends, is it “keeping your powder dry?”
The enemy may steal into the camp while you are asleep, and may pour
water upon your cartridges, so that when the day of battle shall come,
you may shoot, but you will kill nobody. I want the vote of every
American, on Tuesday next, to tell. Would to God that you could give the
twenty-seven electoral votes of Pennsylvania to Fillmore. Then vote the
straight ticket, if that will give him the twenty-seven votes. But
suppose it will not (and I am afraid it will not), then the question is,
had you better give Buchanan the twenty-seven votes, or give Fillmore
eight, ten, twelve, or twenty, as the case may be. I go for beating
Buchanan.
Gentlemen, you do not know what we Americans suffer at the South. I am
abused and reviled for standing up in defence of you. When I hear the
whole North denounced as a set of Abolitionists, whose purpose it is to
interfere with the peculiar institutions of the South, I brand such
charges as slanders on the Northern people. I tell them that the great
mass of the Northern people are sound on this question; that they are
opposed to slavery, as I should be if I were a Northern man; but that I
do not believe that the great mass of the Northern people have any idea
of interfering with the constitutional rights of the people of the
South. I know that such men as Garrison and Forney have. I know that
Garrison believes the Constitution to be a “league with hell,” and would
therefore destroy it if he could; and I know that Forney loves office so
well, that even at the risk of snapping the Union, he will keep alive
slavery agitation. But Garrison does not represent New England, and
Forney does not represent you.
As much as I have been reviled for standing by you, I am so anxious to
have Buchanan beaten, that were I residing here, if I could not give
Fillmore the whole twenty-seven votes, I would give him all I could, by
giving him the number to which he might be entitled by the numerical
proportion of the votes at the ballot-box. Yet, if there is a brother
American here who feels in his “heart of hearts,” that by voting that
Union ticket, he would compromise his Americanism, I say to such an one,
“do not vote that ticket.” At the same time, candor compels me to say,
that I differ in opinion with him. If I believed that that ticket was a
fusion, or that it called upon any Fillmore man to vote for Fremont, I
would advise no one to vote it. I would not vote a ticket that had on it
the name of Fremont; but I would vote a ticket with Fillmore’s name upon
it, and which would give him (if not the twenty-seven electoral votes)
seven, or ten, or twenty, just as the numerical proportion of the votes
might decide.
I appeal to every conservative, Union-loving man in this nation, who is
disposed to give to the South all the constitutional privileges to which
she is entitled, and who wishes to rebuke the Democratic party for the
repeal of the Missouri compromise, and for keeping up the eternal
agitation of slavery. I appeal to you as a southern man—as a
slaveholder. I do not ask you to be pro-slavery men, to be the advocates
of slavery, when I say to you that we, your brethren of the South,
expect you to preserve our constitutional rights—and, God knows, we ask
nothing more—against fanatics, either north or south. Will you do it?
My friends, the election is fast approaching. There is but little time
for deliberation left. Is there no way by which the votes of the
anti-Buchanan party can be concentrated on the same ticket? I would shed
tears of blood—God knows I would—if I could be instrumental in
prevailing on all true Americans to combine. I cannot tell you how to
combine; but is it yet too late? If it is too late to do it throughout
the state, cannot you in Philadelphia do it? The Presidential election
may depend upon the state of Pennsylvania, and the state of Pennsylvania
may depend upon the city of Philadelphia. On the vote of the city of
Philadelphia may depend not only our own rights, but the rights of our
children and our children’s children. I appeal to my brother Americans,
for I have no right to appeal to anybody else; I cannot address the
Fremont party, for I have no affiliation with them; I cannot address the
Buchanan party, for my object is to destroy them if possible. To my
American brethren, then, I appeal, for God’s sake, do not let the sun
rise upon that wrath, which I see divides you. Your object is the
same—to rescue your common country.
Let me advise you who know nothing of your divisions—who belong neither
to one clique or the other. I say with the deepest sincerity that I
think all parties ought to have concentrated upon the Fillmore ticket.
Mr. Fillmore is a northern man. Your southern brethren were willing to
support him. He had guided the ship of state safely through the storm,
and it was but reasonable to suppose that in time of difficulty he would
again be found the same good pilot. But if we cannot get all others to
unite on Mr. Fillmore, each of us must inquire, “What is my duty? If the
mountain will not come to Mahomet, shall not Mahomet go to the mountain;
and if he will not go to the mountain, in heaven’s name, shall he not go
half way?”
I am fighting for the victory which we may obtain in this contest. And
what an issue is now pending! We read in the Iliad how, for ten long
years, a great people of antiquity were engaged in the siege of Troy.
What was the stake for which they contended? It was nothing more than a
beautiful woman, who had been ravished by a sprig of the royal line of
Troy. What is the stake for which we contend? It is constitutional
liberty—the right of the American people to govern their own country—the
right of every citizen to worship God according to the dictates of his
conscience. The great issue is, whether the American flag shall still
wave in glory when we shall have gone to our graves, or whether it shall
be trailed in dishonor—whether the “blackness of darkness” which would
follow the dissolution of this Union, shall cover the land.
I do not tell you how to combine: but I urge you to resort to that mode
(if there is such a mode possible), by which you can get together—by
which your votes can be made effectual at the polls—by which Millard
Fillmore can go before the House of Representatives with the strong
moral power which a large electoral vote will give him.
That is the way in which we must view the question as practical men. Yet
so different are the conditions of our nature, so different the
sentiments which actuate us, that I will not be guilty of such
presumption, as to tell any man what particular course he should take.
You know my opinions; if they are worth anything, receive them into your
hearts, simply as the sentiments of a brother American; if they are
worth nothing, let them pass as the idle wind.
In conclusion I will only say that whether we be defeated or whether we
be victorious, the only reward I ask for in the labor in which I am
engaged is, that you may recollect me as one who had at heart only the
welfare of his country, and who endeavored to promote it by appealing to
the associations of the past, and all the hopes of the future.
Religious Test.
_Debate in the Convention on that article in the Constitution in regard
to it._
MR. PINKNEY moved that no religious test shall ever be required as a
qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.
MR. SHERMAN thought it unnecessary, the prevailing liberality being a
sufficient security against all such tests.
REV. MR. BACKUS of Mass. I beg leave to offer a few thoughts upon the
Constitution proposed to us; and I shall begin with the exclusion of any
religious test. Many appear to be much concerned about it; but nothing
is more evident, both in reason and the Holy Scriptures, than that
religion is ever a matter between God and individuals; and that,
therefore, no man or set of men can impose any religious test without
invading the essential prerogatives of our Lord Jesus Christ. Ministers
first assumed this power under the Christian name, and then Constantine
approved of the practice when he adopted the profession of Christianity
as an engine of state policy. And let the history of all nations be
searched, from that day to this, and it will appear that the imposing of
religious tests hath been the greatest engine of tyranny in the world.
OLIVER WOLCOTT of Conn. For myself I should be content either with or
without that clause in the Constitution which excludes test laws.
Knowledge and liberty are so prevalent in this country, that I do not
believe that the United States would ever be disposed to establish one
religious sect and lay all others under legal disabilities. But as we
know not what may take place hereafter, and any such test would be
destructive of the rights of free citizens, I cannot think it
superfluous to have added a clause which secures us from the possibility
of such oppression.
MR. MADISON of Va. I confess to you, sir, that were uniformity of
religion to be introduced by this system, it would, in my opinion, be
ineligible; but I have no reason to conclude that uniformity of
government will produce that of religion. This subject is, for the honor
of America, left perfectly free and unshackled. The government has no
jurisdiction over it—the least reflection will convince us there is no
danger on this ground. Happily for the states, they enjoy the utmost
freedom of religion. This freedom arises from that multiplicity of sects
which pervades America, and which is the best and only security for
religious liberty in any society. For, where there is such a variety of
sects, there cannot be a majority of any one sect to oppress and
persecute the rest.
MR. IREDELL of N. C. used this language: “Every person in the least
conversant with the history of mankind, knows what dreadful mischiefs
have been committed by religious persecution. Under the color of
religious tests, the utmost cruelties have been exercised. Those in
power have generally considered all wisdom centred in themselves, that
they alone had the right to dictate to the rest of mankind, and that all
opposition to their tenets was profane and impious. The consequence of
this intolerant spirit has been that each church has in turn set itself
up against every other, and persecutions and wars of the most implacable
and bloody nature have taken place in every part of the world. America
has set an example to mankind to think more rationally—that a man may be
of religious sentiments differing from our own, without being a bad
member of society. The principles of toleration, to the honor of this
age, are doing away those errors and prejudices which have so long
prevailed even in the most intolerant countries. In Roman Catholic
lands, principles of moderation are adopted, which would have been
spurned a century or two ago. It will be fatal, indeed, to find, at the
time when examples of toleration are set even by arbitrary governments,
that this country, so impressed with the highest sense of liberty,
should adopt principles on this subject that were narrow, despotic, and
illiberal.”
Speech of Henry W. Davis, of Maryland,
_On the Mission of the American Party_.
EXTRACT from Mr. Davis’s speech in the House of Representatives, on
the 6th of Jan., 1857, on the results of the recent Presidential
election:—
* * * * *
“The great lesson is taught by this election that both the parties which
rested their hopes on sectional hostility, stand at this day condemned
by the great majority of the country, as common disturbers of the public
peace of the country.
“The Republican party was a hasty levy, en masse, of the Northern people
to repel or revenge an intrusion by Northern votes alone. With its
occasion it must pass away. The gentlemen of the Republican side of the
House can now do nothing. They can pass no law excluding slavery from
Kansas in the next Congress—for they are in a minority. Within two years
Kansas must be a state of the Union. She will be admitted with or
without slavery, as her people prefer. Beyond Kansas there is no
question that is practically open. I speak to practical men. Slavery
does not exist in any other territory,—it is excluded by law from
several, and not likely to exist anywhere; and the Republican party has
nothing to do and can do nothing. It has no future. Why cumbers it the
ground?
“Between these two stand the firm ranks of the American party, thinned
by desertions, but still unshaken. To them the eye of the country turns
in hope. The gentleman from Georgia saluted the Northern Democrats with
the title of heroes—who swam vigorously down the current. The men of the
American party faced, in each section, the sectional madness. They would
cry neither free nor slave Kansas; but proposed a safe administration of
the laws, before which every right would find protection. Their voice
was drowned amid the din of factions. The men of the North would have no
moderation, and they have paid the penalty. The American party elected a
majority of this House: had they of the North held fast to the great
American principle of silence on the negro question, and, firmly
refusing to join either agitation, stood by the American candidate, they
would not now be writhing, crushed beneath an utter overthrow. If they
would now destroy the Democrats, they can do it only by returning to the
American party. By it alone can a party be created strong at the South
as well as at the North. To it alone belongs a principle accepted
wherever the American name is heard—the same at the North as at the
South, on the Atlantic or the Pacific shore. It alone is free from
sectional affiliations at either end of the Union which would cripple it
at the other. Its principle is silence, peace, and compromise. It abides
by the existing law. It allows no agitation. It maintains the present
condition of affairs. It asks no change in any territory, and it will
countenance no agitation for the aggrandizement of either section.
Though thousands fell off in the day of trial—allured by ambition, or
terrified by fear—at the North and at the South, carried away by the
torrent of fanaticism in one part of the Union, or driven by the fierce
onset of the Democrats in another, who shook Southern institutions by
the violence of their attack, and half waked the sleeping negro by
painting the Republican as his liberator, still a million of men, on the
great day, in the face of both factions, heroically refused to bow the
knee to either Baal. They knew the necessities of the times, and they
set the example of sacrifice, that others might profit by it. They now
stand the hope of the nation, around whose firm ranks the shattered
elements of the great majority may rally and vindicate the right of the
majority to rule, and of the native of the land to make the law of the
land.
The recent election has developed, in an aggravated form, every evil
against which the American party protested. Again in the war of domestic
parties, Republican and Democrat have rivalled each other in bidding for
the foreign vote to turn the balance of a domestic election. Foreign
allies have decided the government of the country—men naturalized in
thousands on the eve of the election—eagerly struggled for by competing
parties, mad with sectional fury, and grasping any instrument which
would prostrate their opponents. Again, in the fierce struggle for
supremacy, men have forgotten the ban which the Republic puts on the
intrusion of religious influence on the political arena. These
influences have brought vast multitudes of foreign born citizens to the
polls, ignorant of American interests, without American feelings,
influenced by foreign sympathies, to vote on American affairs; and those
votes have, in point of fact, accomplished the present result.
The high mission of the American is to restore the influence of the
interests of the people in the conduct of affairs; to exclude appeals to
foreign birth or religious feeling as elements of power in politics; to
silence the voice of sectional strife—not by joining either section, but
by recalling the people from a profitless and maddening controversy
which aids no interest, and shakes the foundation not only of the common
industry of the people, but of the Republic itself; to lay a storm amid
whose fury no voice can be heard in behalf of the industrial interests
of the country, no eye can watch and guard the foreign policy of the
government, till our ears may be opened by the crash of foreign war
waged for purposes of political and party ambition, in the name, but not
by the authority nor for the interests, of the American people.
Return, then, Americans of the North, from the paths of error to which
in an evil hour fierce passions and indignation have seduced you, to the
sound position of the American party—silence on the slavery agitation.
Leave the territories as they are—to the operation of natural causes.
Prevent aggression by excluding from power the aggressors, and there
will be no more wrong to redress. Awake the national spirit to the
danger and degradation of having the balance of power held by
foreigners. Recall the warnings of Washington against foreign
influence—here in our midst—wielding part of our sovereignty; and with
these sound words of wisdom let us recall the people from paths of
strife and error to guard their peace and power; and when once the mind
of the people is turned from the slavery agitation, that party which
waked the agitation will cease to have power to disturb the peace of the
land.
This is the great mission of the American party. The first condition of
success is to prevent the administration from having a majority in the
next Congress; for, with that, the agitation will be resumed for very
different objects. The Ostend manifesto is full of warning; and they who
struggle over Kansas may awake and find themselves in the midst of an
agitation compared to which that of Kansas was a summer’s sea; whose
instruments will be, not words, but the sword.
Joshua R. Giddings Against the Fugitive Slave Law.
_In the House of Representatives, April 25, 1848._
“Why, sir, I never saw a panting fugitive speeding his way to a land of
freedom, that an involuntary invocation did not burst from my lips, that
God would aid him in his flight! Such are the feelings of every man in
our free states, whose heart has not become hardened in iniquity. I do
not confine this virtue to Republicans, nor to Anti-Slavery men; I speak
of all men, of all parties, in all Christian communities. Northern
Democrats feel it; they ordinarily bow to this higher law of their
natures, and they only prove recreant to the law of the ‘Most High,’
when they regard the interests of the Democratic party as superior to
God’s law and the rights of mankind.
“Gentlemen will bear with me when I assure them and the President that I
have seen as many as nine fugitives dining at one time in my own
house—fathers, mothers, husbands, wives, parents, and children. When
they came to my door, hungry and faint, cold and but partially clad, I
did not turn round to consult the Fugitive Law, nor to ask the President
what I should do. I knew the constitution of my country, and would not
violate it. I obeyed the divine mandate, to feed the hungry and clothe
the naked. I fed them. I clothed them, gave them money for their
journey, and sent them on their way rejoicing. I obeyed God rather than
the President. I obeyed my conscience, the dictates of my heart, the law
of my moral being, the commands of Heaven, and, I will add, the
constitution of my country; for no man of intelligence ever believed
that the framers of that instrument intended to involve their
descendants of the free states in any act that should violate the
teachings of the Most High, by seizing a fellow-being, and returning him
to the hell of slavery. If that be treason, make the most of it.
“MR. BENNETT, of Mississippi. I want to know if the gentleman would not
have gone one step farther?
“MR. GIDDINGS. Yes, sir; I would have gone one step farther. I would
have driven the slave-catcher who dared pursue them from my premises. I
would have kicked him from my door-yard, if he had made his appearance
there; or, had he attempted to enter my dwelling, I would have stricken
him down upon the threshold of my door.
Robert Toombs on Slavery,
_At Tremont Temple, Boston, January 24th, 1856_.
In 1790 there were less than seven hundred thousand slaves in the United
States; in 1850 the number exceeded three and one quarter millions. The
same authority shows their increase, for the ten years preceding the
last census, to have been above twenty-eight per cent., or nearly three
per cent. per annum, an increase equal, allowing for the element of
foreign immigration, to the white race, and nearly three times that of
the free blacks of the North. But these legal rights of the slave
embrace but a small portion of the privileges actually enjoyed by him.
He has, by universal custom, the control of much of his own time, which
is applied, at his own choice and convenience, to the mechanic arts, to
agriculture, or to some other profitable pursuit, which not only gives
him the power of purchase over many additional necessaries of life, but
over many of its luxuries, and in numerous cases, enables him to
purchase his freedom when he desires it. Besides, the nature of the
relation of master and slave begets kindnesses, imposes duties (and
secures their performance), which exist in no other relation of capital
and labor. Interest and humanity co-operate in harmony for the
well-being of slave labor. Thus the monster objection to our institution
of slavery, that it deprives labor of its wages, cannot stand the test
of a truthful investigation. A slight examination of the true theory of
wages, will further expose its fallacy. Under a system of free labor,
wages are usually paid in money, the representative of products—under
ours, in products themselves. One of your most distinguished statesmen
and patriots, President John Adams, said that the difference to the
state was “imaginary.” “What matters it (said he) whether a landlord,
employing ten laborers on his farm, gives them annually as much money as
will buy them the necessaries of life, or gives them those necessaries
at short hand?” All experience has shown that if that be the measure of
the wages of labor, it is safer for the laborer to take his wages in
products than in their fluctuating pecuniary value. Therefore, if we pay
in the necessaries and comforts of life more than any given amount of
pecuniary wages will buy, then our laborer is paid higher than the
laborer who receives that amount of wages. The most authentic
agricultural statistics of England show that the wages of agricultural
and unskilled labor in that kingdom, not only fail to furnish the
laborer with the comforts of our slave, but even with the necessaries of
life; and no slaveholder could escape a conviction for cruelty to his
slaves who gave his slave no more of the necessaries of life for his
labor than the wages paid to their agricultural laborers by the noblemen
and gentlemen of England would buy. Under their system man has become
less valuable and less cared for than domestic animals; and noble dukes
will depopulate whole districts of men to supply their places with
sheep, and then with intrepid audacity lecture and denounce American
slaveholders.
The great conflict between labor and capital, under free competition,
has ever been how the earnings of labor shall be divided between them.
In new and sparsely settled countries, where land is cheap, and food is
easily produced, and education and intelligence approximate equality,
labor can successfully struggle in this warfare with capital. But this
is an exceptional and temporary condition of society. In the Old World
this state of things has long since passed away, and the conflict with
the lower grades of labor has long since ceased. There the compensation
of unskilled labor, which first succumbs to capital, is reduced to a
point scarcely adequate to the continuance of the race. The rate of
increase is scarcely one per cent. per annum, and even at that rate,
population, until recently, was considered a curse; in short, capital
has become the master of labor, with all the benefits, without the
natural burdens of the relation.
In this division of the earnings of labor between it and capital, the
southern slave has a marked advantage over the English laborer, and is
often equal to the free laborer of the North. Here again we are
furnished with authentic data from which to reason. The census of 1850
shows that, on the cotton estates of the South, which is the chief
branch of our agricultural industry, one-half of the arable lands are
annually put under food crops. This half is usually wholly consumed on
the farm by the laborers and necessary animals; out of the other half
must be paid all the necessary expenses of production, often including
additional supplies of food beyond the produce of the land, which
usually equals one-third of the residue, leaving but one-third for net
rent. The average rent of land in the older non-slaveholding states is
equal to one-third of the gross product, and it not unfrequently amounts
to one-half of it (in England it is sometimes even greater), the tenant,
from his portion, paying all expenses of production and the expenses of
himself and family. From this statement it is apparent that the farm
laborers of the South receive always as much, and frequently a greater
portion of the produce of the land, than the laborer in the New or Old
England. Besides, here the portion due the slave is a charge upon the
whole product of capital and the capital itself; it is neither dependent
upon seasons nor subject to accidents, and survives his own capacity for
labor, and even the ruin of his master.
But it is objected that religious instruction is denied the slave—while
it is true that religious instruction and privileges are not enjoined by
law in all of the states, the number of slaves who are in connection
with the different churches abundantly proves the universality of their
enjoyment of those privileges. And a much larger number of the race in
slavery enjoy the consolations of religion than the efforts of the
combined Christian world have been able to convert to Christianity out
of all the millions of their countrymen who remained in their native
land.
The immoralities of the slaves, and of those connected with slavery, are
constant themes of abolition denunciation. They are lamentably great;
but it remains to be shown that they are greater than with the laboring
poor of England, or any other country. And it is shown that our slaves
are without the additional stimulant of want to drive them to crime—we
have at least removed from them the temptation and excuse of hunger.
Poor human nature is here at least spared the wretched fate of the utter
prostration of its moral nature at the feet of its physical wants. Lord
Ashley’s report to the British Parliament shows that in the capital of
that empire, perhaps within the hearing of Stafford House and Exeter
Hall, hunger alone daily drives its thousands of men and women into the
abyss of crime.
It is also objected that our slaves are debarred the benefits of
education. This objection is also well taken, and is not without force.
And for this evil the slaves are greatly indebted to the abolitionists.
Formerly in none of the slaveholding states was it forbidden to teach
slaves to read and write; but the character of the literature sought to
be furnished them by the abolitionists caused these states to take
counsel rather of their passions than their reason, and to lay the axe
at the root of the evil; better counsels will in time prevail, and this
will be remedied. It is true that the slave, from his protected
position, has less need of education than the free laborer, who has to
struggle for himself in the warfare of society; yet it is both useful to
him, his master, and society.
The want of legal protection to the marriage relation is also a fruitful
source of agitation among the opponents of slavery. The complaint is not
without foundation. This is an evil not yet removed by law; but marriage
is not inconsistent with the institution of slavery as it exists among
us, and the objection, therefore, lies rather to an incident than to the
essence of the system. But in the truth and fact marriage does exist to
a very great extent among slaves, and is encouraged and protected by
their owners; and it will be found, upon careful investigation, that
fewer children are born out of wedlock among slaves than in the capitals
of two of the most civilized countries of Europe—Austria and France; in
the former, one-half of the children are thus born; in the latter, more
than one-fourth. But even in this we have deprived the slave of no
pre-existing right. We found the race without any knowledge of or regard
for the institution of marriage, and we are reproached with not having
as yet secured to it that, with all other blessings of civilization. To
protect that and other domestic ties by laws forbidding, under proper
regulations, the separation of families, would be wise, proper, and
humane; and some of the slaveholding states have already adopted partial
legislation for the removal of these evils. But the objection is far
more formidable in theory than in practice. The accidents and
necessities of life, the desire to better one’s condition, produce
infinitely a greater amount of separation in families of the white than
ever happens to the colored race. This is true even in the United
States, where the general condition of the people is prosperous. But it
is still more marked in Europe. The injustice and despotism of England
towards Ireland has produced more separation of Irish families, and
sundered more domestic ties within the last ten years, than African
slavery has effected since its introduction into the United States. The
twenty millions of freemen in the United States are witnesses of the
dispersive injustice of the Old World. The general happiness,
cheerfulness, and contentment of slaves attest both the mildness and
humanity of the system and their natural adaptation to their condition.
They require no standing armies to enforce their obedience; while the
evidence of discontent, and the appliances of force to repress it, are
everywhere visible among the toiling millions of the earth; even in the
northern states of this Union, strikes and mobs, unions and combinations
against employers, attest at once the misery and discontent of labor
among them. England keeps one hundred thousand soldiers in time of
peace, a large navy, and an innumerable police, to secure obedience to
her social institutions; and physical force is the sole guarantee of her
social order, the only cement of her gigantic empire.
I have briefly traced the condition of the African race through all ages
and all countries, and described it fairly and truly under American
slavery, and I submit that the proposition is fully proven, that his
position in slavery among us is superior to any which he has ever
attained in any age or country. The picture is not without shade as well
as light; evils and imperfections cling to man and all of his works, and
this is not exempt from them.
Judah P. Benjamin, of Louisiana,
_On Slave Property, in U. S. Senate, March 11, 1858_.
Examine your Constitution; are slaves the only species of property there
recognized as requiring peculiar protection? Sir, the inventive genius
of our brethren of the north is a source of vast wealth to them and vast
benefit to the nation. I saw a short time ago in one of the New York
journals, that the estimated value of a few of the patents now before us
in this Capitol for renewal was $40,000,000. I cannot believe that the
entire capital invested in inventions of this character in the United
States can fall short of one hundred and fifty or two hundred million
dollars. On what protection does this vast property rest? Just upon that
same constitutional protection which gives a remedy to the slave owner
when his property is also found outside of the limits of the state in
which he lives.
Without this protection what would be the condition of the northern
inventor? Why, sir, the Vermont inventor protected by his own law would
come to Massachusetts, and there say to the pirate who had stolen his
property, “render me up my property, or pay me value for its use.” The
Senator from Vermont would receive for answer, if he were the counsel of
this Vermont inventor, “Sir, if you want protection for your property go
to your own state; property is governed by the laws of the state within
whose jurisdiction it is found; you have no property in your invention
outside of the limits of your state; you cannot go an inch beyond it.”
Would not this be so? Does not every man see at once that the right of
the inventor to his discovery, that the right of the poet to his
inspiration, depends upon those principles of eternal justice which God
has implanted in the heart of man, and that wherever he cannot exercise
them, it is because man, faithless to the trust that he has received
from God, denies them the protection to which they are entitled?
Sir, follow out the illustration which the Senator from Vermont himself
has given; take his very case of the Delaware owner of a horse riding
him across the line into Pennsylvania. The Senator says: “Now, you see
that slaves are not property like other property; if slaves were
property like other property, why have you this special clause in your
constitution to protect a slave? You have no clause to protect the
horse, because horses are recognized as property everywhere.” Mr.
President, the same fallacy lurks at the bottom of this argument, as of
all the rest. Let Pennsylvania exercise her undoubted jurisdiction over
persons and things within her own boundary; let her do as she has a
perfect right to do—declare that hereafter, within the state of
Pennsylvania, there shall be no property in horses, and that no man
shall maintain a suit in her courts for the recovery of property in a
horse; and where will your horse owner be then? Just where the English
poet is now; just where the slaveholder and the inventor would be if the
Constitution, foreseeing a difference of opinion in relation to rights
in these subject-matters, had not provided the remedy in relation to
such property as might easily be plundered. Slaves, if you please, are
not property like other property in this: that you can easily rob us of
them; but as to the _right_ in them, that man has to overthrow the whole
history of the world, he has to overthrow every treatise on
jurisprudence, he has to ignore the common sentiment of mankind, he has
to repudiate the authority of all that is considered sacred with man,
ere he can reach the conclusion that the person who owns a slave, in a
country where slavery has been established for ages, has no other
property in that slave than the mere title which is given by the statute
law of the land where it is found.
William Lloyd Garrison Upon the Slavery Question.
“Tyrants! confident of its overthrow, proclaim not to your vassals, that
the American Union is an experiment of freedom, which, if it fails, will
forever demonstrate the necessity of whips for the backs, and chains for
limbs of people. Know that its subversion is essential to the triumph of
justice, the deliverance of the oppressed, the vindication of the
brotherhood of the race. It was conceived in sin, and brought forth in
iniquity; and its career has been marked by unparalleled hypocrisy, by
high-handed tyranny, by a bold defiance of the omniscience and
omnipotence of God. Freedom indignantly disowns it, and calls for its
extinction; for within its borders are three millions of slaves, whose
blood constitutes its cement, whose flesh forms a large and flourishing
branch of its commerce, and who are ranked with four-footed beasts and
creeping things. To secure the adoption of the constitution of the
United States, first, that the African slave trade—till that time a
feeble, isolated, colonial traffic—should, for at least twenty years, be
prosecuted as a national interest, under the American flag, and
protected by the national arm; secondly, that slavery holding oligarchy,
created by allowing three-fifths of the slaveholding population to be
represented by their taskmasters, should be allowed a permanent seat in
congress; thirdly, that the slave system should be secured against
internal revolt and external invasion, by the united physical force of
the country; fourthly, that not a foot of national territory should be
granted, on which the panting fugitive from slavery might stand, and be
safe from his pursuers, thus making every citizen a slave-hunter and
slave catcher. To say that this ‘covenant with death’ shall not be
annulled—that this ‘agreement with hell’ shall continue to stand—that
this refuge of lies shall not be swept away—is to hurl defiance at the
eternal throne, and to give the lie to Him that sits thereon. It is an
attempt, alike monstrous and impracticable, to blend the light of heaven
with the darkness of the bottomless pit, to unite the living with the
dead, to associate the Son of God with the Prince of Evil. Accursed be
the American Union, as a stupendous, republican imposture!”
* * * * *
“I am accused of using hard language. I admit the charge. I have been
unable to find a soft word to describe villainy, or to identify the
perpetrator of it. The man who makes a chattel of his brother—what is
he? The man who keeps back the hire of his laborers by fraud—what is he?
They who prohibit the circulation of the Bible—what are they? They who
compel three millions of men and women to herd together like brute
beasts—what are they? They who sell mothers by the pound, and children
in lots to suit purchasers—what are they? I care not what terms are
applied to them, provided they do apply. If they are not thieves, if
they are not tyrants, if they are not men stealers, I should like to
know what is their true character, and by what names they may be called.
It is as mild an epithet to say that a thief is a thief, as to say that
a spade is a spade. Words are but the signs of ideas. ‘A rose by any
other name would smell as sweet.’ Language may be misapplied, and so be
absurd or unjust; as for example, to say that an abolitionist is a
fanatic, or that a slaveholder is an honest man. But to call things by
their right names is to use neither hard nor improper language. Epithets
may be rightly applied, it is true, and yet be uttered in a hard spirit,
or with a malicious design. What then? Shall we discard all terms which
are descriptive of crime, because they are not always used with fairness
and propriety? He who, when he sees oppression, cries out against
it—who, when he beholds his equal brother trodden under foot by the iron
hoof of despotism, rushes to his rescue—who, when he sees the weak
overborne by the strong, takes his side with the former, at the imminent
peril of his own safety—such a man needs no certificate to the
excellence of his temper, or the sincerity of his heart, or the
disinterestedness of his conduct. Or is the apologist of slavery, he who
can see the victim of thieves lying bleeding and helpless on the cold
earth, and yet turn aside, like the callous-hearted priest or Levite,
who needs absolution. Let us call tyrants, _tyrants_; not to do so is to
misuse language, to deal treacherously with freedom, to consent to the
enslavement of mankind. It is neither amiable nor virtuous, but a
foolish and pernicious thing, not to call things by their right names.
‘Woe unto them,’ says one of the world’s great prophets, ‘that call evil
good, and good evil;’ that put darkness for light, and light for
darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter.”
Theodore Parker Against the Fugitive Slave Law.
_His Protest Against the Return of Simms by the U. S. Commissioner at
Boston._
“Come with me, my friends, a moment more, pass over this golgotha of
human history, treading reverent as you go, for our feet are on our
mother’s graves, and our shoes defile our father’s hallowed bones. Let
us not talk of them; go farther on, look and pass by. Come with me into
the inferno of the nations, with such poor guidance as my lamp can lend.
Let us disquiet and bring up the awful shadows of empires buried long
ago, and learn a lesson from the tomb.” “Come, old Assyria, with the
Ninevitish dove upon thy emerald crown! what laid thee low? ‘I fell by
my own injustice. Thereby Nineveh and Babylon came with me also to the
ground.’” “Oh, queenly Persia, flame of the nations, wherefore art thou
so fallen, who troddest the people under thee, bridgest the Hellespont
with ships, and pouredst thy temple-wasting millions on the world?
Because I trod the people under me, and bridged the Hellespont with
ships, and poured my temple-wasting millions on the western world, I
fell by my own misdeeds.” “Thou muse-like Grecian queen, fairest of all
thy classic sisterhood of states, enchanting yet the world with thy
sweet witchery, speaking in art and most seductive song, why liest thou
there, with beauteous yet dishonored brow, reposing on thy broken harp?
‘I scorned the law of God; banished and poisoned wisest, justest men; I
loved the loveliness of thought, and treasured that in more than Parian
speech. But the beauty of justice, the loveliness of love, I trod them
down to earth! Lo, therefore have I become as those barbarian states—as
one of them!’” “Oh, manly and majestic Rome, thy seven-fold mural crown
all broken at thy feet, why art thou here? It was not injustice brought
thee low; for thy great book of law is prefaced with these words—justice
is the unchanged, everlasting will to give each man his right! ‘It was
not the saint’s ideal; it was the hypocrite’s pretense.’ I made iniquity
my law. I trod the nations under me. Their wealth gilded my
palaces—where thou mayest see the fox and hear the owl—it fed my
courtiers and my courtesans. Wicked men were my cabinet counselors, the
flatterer breathed his poison in my ear. Millions of bondsmen wet the
soil with tears and blood. Do you not hear it crying yet to God? Lo,
here have I my recompense, tormented with such downfall as you see! Go
back and tell the new-born child who sitteth on the Alleghanies, laying
his either hand upon a tributary sea, a crown of thirty stars upon his
youthful brow—tell him that there are rights which states must keep, or
they shall suffer wrongs! Tell him there is a God who keeps the black
man and the white, and hurls to earth the loftiest realm that breaks his
just, eternal law! Warn the young empire, that he come not down dim and
dishonored to my shameful tomb! Tell him that justice is the unchanging,
everlasting will to give each man his right. I knew it, broke it, and am
lost. Bid him know it, keep it, and be safe.”
* * * * *
_The same speaker protests against the return of Simms._
“Where shall I find a parallel with men who will do such a deed—do it in
Boston? I will open the tombs and bring up most hideous tyrants from the
dead. Come, brood of monsters, let me bring up from the deep damnation
of the graves wherein your hated memories continue for all time their
never-ending rot. Come, birds of evil omen! come, ravens, vultures,
carrion crows, and see the spectacle! come, see the meeting of congenial
souls! I will disturb, disquiet, and bring up the greatest monsters of
the human race! Tremble not, women! They cannot harm you now! Fear the
living, not the dead!”
Come hither, Herod, the wicked. Thou that didst seek after that young
child’s life, and destroyed the innocents! Let me look on thy face! No,
go! Thou wert a heathen! Go, lie with the innocents thou hast massacred.
Thou art too good for this company! “Come, Nero; thou awful Roman
emperor, come up! No, thou wast drunk with power! schooled in Roman
depravity. Thou hadst, besides, the example of thy fancied gods. Go,
wait another day. I will seek a worse man.
“Come hither, St. Dominic! come, Torquemada; fathers of the Inquisition!
merciless monsters, seek your equal here. No; pass by. You are no
companion for such men as these. You were the servants of the atheistic
popes, of cruel kings. Go to, and get you gone. Another time I may have
work for you—now, lie there, and persevere to rot. You are not yet quite
wicked and corrupt enough for this comparison. Go, get you gone, lest
the sun goes back at sight of ye!
“Come up, thou heap of wickedness, George Jeffries! thy hands deep
purple with the blood of thy fellow-men. Ah! I know thee, awful and
accursed shade! Two hundred years after thy death men hate thee still,
not without cause. Look me upon thee! I know thy history. Pause, and be
still, while I tell to these men. * * * Come, shade of judicial butcher.
Two hundred years, thy name has been pillowed in face of the world, and
thy memory gibbeted before mankind. Let us see how thou wilt compare
with those who kidnap men in Boston. Go, seek companionship with them.
Go, claim thy kindred if such they be. Go, tell them that the memory of
the wicked shall rot; that there is a God; an eternity; ay, and a
judgment, too, where the slave may appeal against him that made him a
slave, to Him that made him a man.
“What! Dost thou shudder? Thou turn back! These not thy kindred! Why
dost thou turn pale, as when the crowd clutched at thy life in London
street? Forgive me, that I should send thee on such an errand, or bid
thee seek companionship with such—with Boston hunters of the slave! Thou
wert not base enough! It was a great bribe that tempted thee! Again, I
say, pardon me for sending thee to keep company with such men! Thou only
struckest at men accused of crime; not at men accused only of their
birth! Thou wouldst not send a man into bondage for two pounds! I will
not rank thee with men who, in Boston, for ten dollars, would enslave a
negro now! Rest still, Herod! Be quiet, Nero! Sleep, St. Dominic, and
sleep, O Torquemada, in your fiery jail! Sleep, Jeffries, underneath
‘the altar of the church’ which seeks, with Christian charity to hide
your hated bones!”
William H. Seward’s Speech on the Higher Law.
_In the U. S. Senate, March 11, 1850._
“But it is insisted that the admission of California shall be attended
by a COMPROMISE of questions which have arisen out of SLAVERY! I AM
OPPOSED TO ANY SUCH COMPROMISE IN ANY AND ALL THE FORMS IN WHICH IT HAS
BEEN PROPOSED. Because, while admitting the purity and the patriotism of
all from whom it is my misfortune to differ, I think all legislative
compromises radically wrong, and essentially vicious. They involve the
surrender of the exercise of judgment and the conscience on distinct and
separate questions, at distinct and separate times, with the
indispensable advantages it affords for ascertaining the truth. They
involve a relinquishment of the right to reconsider in future the
decision of the present, on questions prematurely anticipated. And they
are a usurpation as to future questions of the providence of future
legislators.
“Sir, it seems to me as if slavery had laid its paralyzing hand upon
myself, and the blood were coursing less freely than its wont through my
veins, when I endeavor to suppose that such a compromise has been
effected, and my utterance forever is arrested upon all the great
questions, social, moral, and political, arising out of a subject so
important, and yet so incomprehensible. What am I to receive in this
compromise? Freedom in California. It is well; it is a noble
acquisition; it is worth a sacrifice. But what am I to give as an
equivalent? A recognition of a claim to perpetuate slavery in the
District of Columbia; forbearance towards more stringent laws concerning
the arrest of persons suspected of being slaves found in the free
States; forbearance from the PROVISO of freedom in the charter of new
territories. None of the plans of compromise offered demand less than
two, and most of them insist on all these conditions. The equivalent
then is, some portion of liberty, some portion of human rights in one
region for liberty in another.”
“It is true indeed that the national domain is ours. It is true it was
acquired by the valor and the wealth of the whole nation. But we hold,
_nevertheless_, no arbitrary power over it. We hold no arbitrary power
over anything, whether acquired by law or seized by usurpation. The
constitution regulates our stewardship; the constitution devotes the
domain to union, to justice, to welfare and to liberty. _But there is a
higher law than the constitution, which regulates our authority over the
domain, and devotes it to the same noble purpose._ The territory is a
part, no inconsiderable part of the common heritage of mankind, bestowed
upon them by the Creator of the universe. We are his stewards, and must
so discharge our trust, as to secure in the highest attainable degree
their happiness. This is a State, and we are deliberating for it, just
as our fathers deliberated in establishing the institutions we enjoy.
Whatever superiority there is in our condition and hopes over those of
any other ‘kingdom’ or ‘estate,’ is due to the fortunate circumstance
that our ancestors did not leave things to ‘take their chances’ but that
they ‘added amplitude and greatness’ to our commonwealth ‘by introducing
such ordinances, constitutions, and customs as were wise.’ We in our
turn have succeeded to the same responsibilities, and we cannot approach
the duty before us wisely or justly, except we raise ourselves to the
great consideration of how we can most certainly ‘sow greatness to our
posterity and successors.’
“And now the simple, bold, and awful question which presents itself to
us is this: shall we, who are founding institutions, social and
political, for countless millions; shall we, who know by experience the
wise and just, and are free to choose them, and to reject the erroneous
and unjust; shall we establish human bondage, or permit it by our
sufferance to be established? Sir, our forefathers would not have
hesitated an hour. They found slavery existing here, and they left it
only because they could not remove it. There is not only no free State
which would now establish it, but there is no slave State which, if it
had had the free alternative, as we now have, would have founded
slavery. Indeed, our revolutionary predecessors had precisely the same
question before them in establishing an organic law, under which the
States of Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Iowa have since come
into the Union, and they solemnly repudiated and excluded slavery from
those States forever.”
Charles Sumner on the Fallibility of Judicial Tribunals.
Let me here say that I hold judges, and especially the Supreme Court of
the country, in much respect; but I am too familiar with the history of
Judicial proceedings to regard them with any superstitious reverence.
Judges are but men and in all ages have shown a full share of frailty.
Alas! alas! the worst crimes of history have been perpetrated under
their sanction. The blood of martyrs and of patriots, crying from the
ground, summons them to judgment.
It was a judicial tribunal which condemned Socrates to drink the fatal
hemlock, and which pushed the Saviour barefoot over the pavements of
Jerusalem, bending beneath his cross. It was a judicial tribunal which,
against the testimony and entreaties of her father, surrendered the fair
Virginia as a slave; which arrested the teachings of the great apostle
to the Gentiles, and sent him in bonds from Judea to Rome; which, in the
name of the _old_ religion, adjured the saints and fathers of the
Christian Church to death, in all its most dreadful forms; and which
afterwards in the name of the _new_ religion, enforced the tortures of
the Inquisition, amidst the shrieks and agonies of its victims, while it
compelled Galileo to declare, in solemn denial of the great truth he had
disclosed, that the earth did not move round the sun.
It was a judicial tribunal which, in France, during the long reign of
her monarchs, lent itself to be the instrument of every tyranny, as
during the brief reign of terror it did not hesitate to stand forth the
unpitying accessory of the unpitying guillotine. Ay, sir, it was a
judicial tribunal in England, surrounded by all the forms of law, which
sanctioned every despotic caprice of Henry the eighth, from the unjust
divorce of his queen to the beheading of Sir Thomas Moore; which lighted
the fires of persecution, that glowed at Oxford and Smithfield, over the
cinders of Latimer, Ridley, and John Rodgers; which, after elaborate
argument, upheld the fatal tyranny of ship money against the patriotic
resistance of Hampden; which, in defiance of justice and humanity, sent
Sydney and Russell to the block; which persistently enforced the laws of
conformity that our Puritan Fathers persistently refused to obey; and
which afterwards, with Jeffries on the bench, crimsoned the pages of
English history with massacre and murder, even with the blood of
innocent women. Ay, sir, and it was a judicial tribunal in _our_
country, surrounded by all the forms of law, which hung witches at
Salem, which affirmed the constitutionality of the Stamp Act, while it
admonished “jurors and the people” to obey; and which now, in our day,
has lent its sanction to the unutterable atrocity of the Fugitive Slave
Law.
Galusha A. Grow’s Speech on the Homestead Bill.
_In the House of Representatives, March 30, 1852. “Man’s Right to the
Soil.”_
* * * * *
But even if the Government could derive any revenue from the actual sale
of public lands, it is neither just nor sound policy to hold them for
that purpose. Aware, however, that it is a poor place, under a one hour
rule, to attempt to discuss any of the natural rights of men, for,
surrounded by the authority of ages, it becomes necessary, without the
time to do it, first to brush away the dust that has gathered upon their
errors. Yet it is well sometimes to go back of the authority of books
and treatises, composed by authors reared and educated under monarchical
institutions, and whose opinions and habits of thought consequently were
more or less shaped and moulded by such influences, and examine, by the
light of reason and nature, the true foundation of government and the
inherent rights of men.
The fundamental rights of man may be summed up in two words—Life and
Happiness. The first is the gift of the Creator, and may be bestowed at
his pleasure; but it is not consistent with his character for
benevolence, that it should be bestowed for any other purpose than to be
enjoyed, and that we call happiness. Therefore, whatever nature has
provided for preserving the one, or promoting the other, belongs alike
to the whole race. And as the means for sustaining life are derived
almost entirely from the soil, every person has a right to so much of
the earth’s surface as is necessary for his support. To whatever
unoccupied portion of it, therefore, he shall apply his labor for that
purpose, from that time forth it becomes appropriated to his own
exclusive use; and whatever improvements he may make by his industry
become his property, and subject to his disposal.
The only true foundation of any right to property is man’s labor. That
is property, and that alone which the labor of man has made such. What
right, then, can the Government have in the soil of a wild and
uncultivated wilderness as a source of revenue, to which not a day nor
hour’s labor has been applied, to make it more productive, and answer
the end for which it was created, the support and happiness of the race?
It is said by the great expounder of the common law in his commentaries,
that “there is no foundation in nature or natural law, why a set of
words upon parchment should convey the dominion of land.” The use and
occupancy alone gives to man, in the language of the commentaries, “an
exclusive right to retain, in a permanent manner, that specific land
which before belonged generally to everybody, but particularly to
nobody.” * * *
It may be said, true, such would be man’s right to the soil in a state
of nature; but when he entered into society, he gave up part of his
natural rights, in order to enjoy the advantages of an organized
community. This is a doctrine, I am aware, of the books and treatises on
society and government; but it is a doctrine of despotism, and belongs
not to enlightened statesmen in a liberal age. It is the excuse of the
despot in encroaching upon the rights of the subject. He admits the
encroachment, but claims that the citizen gave up part of his natural
rights when he entered into society; and who is to judge what ones he
relinquished but the ruling power? It was not necessary that any of
man’s natural rights should be yielded to the state in the formation of
society. He yielded no right, but the right to do wrong, and that he
never had by nature. All that he yielded in entering into organized
society, was a portion of his unrestrained liberty, which was, that he
would submit his conduct, that before was subject to the control of no
living being, to the tribunals to be established by the state, and with
a tacit consent that society, or the Government, might regulate the mode
and manner of the exercise of his rights. Why should he consent to be
deprived of them? It is upon this ground that we justify resistance to
tyrants. Whenever the ruling power so far encroaches upon the natural
rights of men that an appeal to arms becomes preferable to submission,
they appeal from human to divine laws, and plead the natural rights of
man in their justification. That government, and that alone, is just,
which enforces and defends all of man’s natural rights, and protects him
against the wrongs of his fellow-men. But it may be said, although such
might be the natural rights of men, yet the Government has a right to
these lands, and may use them as a source of revenue, under the doctrine
of eminent domain. * * *
What is there in the constitution of things giving to one individual the
sole and exclusive right to any of the bounties provided by nature for
the benefit and support of the whole race, because, perchance, he was
the first to look upon a mere fragment of creation? By the same process
of reasoning, he who should first discover the source or mouth of a
river, would be entitled to a monopoly of the waters that flow in the
channel, or he who should first look upon one of the rills or fountains
of the earth might prevent fainting man from quenching there his thirst,
unless his right was first secured by parchment.
Why has the claim to monopolize any of the gifts of God to man been
confined, by legal codes, to the soil alone? Is there any other reason
than that it is a right which, having its origin in feudal times—under a
system that regarded man but as an appendage of the soil that he tilled,
and whose life, liberty and happiness, were but means of increasing the
pleasures, pampering the passions and appetites of his liege lord—and,
having once found a place in the books, it has been retained by the
reverence which man is wont to pay to the past, and to time-honored
precedents? The human mind is so constituted that it is prone to regard
as right what has come down to us approved by long usage, and hallowed
by gray age. It is a claim that had its origin with the kindred idea
that royal blood flows only in the veins of an exclusive few, whose
souls are more ethereal, because born amid the glitter of courts, and
cradled amid the pomp of lords and courtiers, and, therefore, they are
to be installed as rulers and law-givers of the race. Most of the evils
that afflict society have had their origin in violence and wrong enacted
into law by the experience of the past, and retained by the prejudices
of the present.
Is it not time to sweep from the statute book its still lingering relics
of feudalism; and to blot out the principles engrafted upon it by the
narrow-minded policy of other times, and adapt the legislation of the
country to the spirit of the age, and to the true ideas of man’s rights
and relations to his Government? If a man has a right on earth, he has a
right to land enough to rear a habitation on. If he has a right to live,
he has a right to the free use of whatever nature has provided for his
sustenance—air to breathe, water to drink, and land enough to cultivate
for his subsistence; for these are the necessary and indispensable means
for the enjoyment of his inalienable rights of “life, liberty and the
pursuit of happiness.” And is it for a Government that claims to
dispense equal and exact justice to all classes of men, and that has
laid down correct principles in its great chart of human rights, to
violate those principles and its solemn declarations in its legislative
enactments?
The struggle between capital and labor is an unequal one at best. It is
a struggle between the bones and sinews of men, and dollars and cents.
And in that struggle, is it for the government to stretch forth its arm
to aid the strong against the weak? Shall it continue, by its
legislation, to elevate and enrich idleness on the wail and woe of
industry?
If the rule be correct as applied to governments as well as individuals,
that whatever a person permits another to do, having the right and means
to prevent it, he does himself, then indeed is the government
responsible for all the evils that may result from speculation and land
monopoly in the public domain. For it is not denied that Congress has
the power to make any regulations for the disposal of these lands, not
injurious to the general welfare. Now, when a new tract is surveyed, and
you open the land office and expose it to sale, the man with the most
money is the largest purchaser. The most desirable and available
locations are seized upon by the capitalists of the country, who seek
that kind of investment. The settler who chances not to have a
pre-emption right, or to be there at the time of sale, when he comes to
seek a home for himself and his family, must pay the speculator three or
four hundred per cent. on his investment, or encounter the trials and
hardships of a still more remote border life. And thus, under the
operation of laws that are called equal and just, you take from the
settler three or four dollars per acre, and put it in the pocket of the
speculator—thus, by the operation of law, abstracting so much of his
hard earnings for the benefit of capital; for not an hour’s labor has
been applied to the land since it was sold by the government, nor is it
more valuable to the settler. Has not the laborer a right to complain of
legislation that compels him to endure greater toils and hardships, or
contribute a portion of his earnings for the benefit of the capitalist?
But not upon the capitalist or the speculator is it proper that the
blame should fall. Man must seek a livelihood and do business under the
laws of the country; and whatever rights he may acquire under the laws,
though they may be wrong, yet the well-being of society requires that
they be respected and faithfully observed. If a person engage in a
business legalized and regulated by the law, and uses no fraud or
deception in its pursuit, and evils result to the community, let them
apply the remedy to the proper source—that is to the law-making power.
The laws and the law-makers are responsible for whatever evils
necessarily grow out of their enactments.
While the public lands are exposed to indiscriminate sale, as they have
been since the organization of the government, it opens the door to the
wildest system of _land monopoly_. It requires no lengthy dissertation
to portray its evils. In the Old World its history is written in sighs
and tears. Under its influence, you behold in England, the proudest and
most splendid aristocracy, side by side with the most abject and
destitute people; vast manors hemmed in by hedges as a sporting-ground
for her nobility, while men are dying beside the enclosure for the want
of land to till. Thirty thousand proprietors hold the title deeds to the
soil of Great Britain, while in Ireland alone there are two and a half
millions of tenants who own no part of the land they cultivate, nor can
they ever acquire a title to a foot of it, yet they pay annually from
their hard earnings twenty millions of dollars to absentee landlords for
the privilege of dying on their soil. Under its blighting influence you
behold industry in rags and patience in despair. Such are some of the
fruits of land monopoly in the Old World; and, shall we plant its seeds
in the virgin soil of the New? * * *
If you would raise fallen man from his degradation, elevate the servile
from their grovelling pursuits to the rights and dignity of men, you
must first place within their reach the means for satisfying their
pressing physical wants, so that religion can exert its influence on the
soul, and soothe the weary pilgrim in his pathway to the tomb. It is in
vain you talk of the goodness and benevolence of an _Omniscient Ruler_
to him, whose life from the cradle to the grave is one continued scene
of pain, misery and want. Talk not of free agency to him whose only
freedom is to choose his own method to die. In such cases, there might,
perhaps, be some feeble conceptions of religion and its duties—of the
infinite, everlasting, and pure; but unless there be a more than common
intellect, they would be like the dim shadows that float in the
twilight. * * *
Riches, it is true, are not necessary to man’s real enjoyment; but the
means to prevent starvation are. Nor is a splendid palace necessary to
his real happiness; but a shelter against the storm and winter’s blast
is.
If you would lead the erring back from the paths of vice and crime to
virtue and honor, give him a home—give him a hearth-stone, and he will
surround it with household gods. If you would make men wiser and better,
relieve the almshouse, close the doors of the penitentiary, and break in
pieces the gallows, purify the influences of the domestic fireside. For
that is the school in which human character is formed, and there its
destiny is shaped. There the soul receives its first impress, and man
his first lesson, and they go with him for weal or woe through life. For
purifying the sentiments, elevating the thoughts, and developing the
noblest impulses of man’s nature, the influences of a moral fireside and
agricultural life are the noblest and the best. * * *
It was said by Lord Chatham, in his appeal to the House of Commons, in
1775, to withdraw the British troops from Boston, that “trade, indeed,
increases the glory and wealth of a country; but its true strength and
stamina are to be looked for in the cultivators of the land. In the
simplicity of their lives is found the simpleness of virtue, the
integrity and courage of freedom. These true, genuine sons of the soil
are invincible.”
The history of American prowess has recorded these words as prophetic:
man, in defence of his hearth-stone and fireside, is invincible against
a world of mercenaries. In battling for his home and all that is dear to
him on earth, he is never conquered save with his life. In such a
struggle every pass becomes a Thermopylæ, every plain a Marathon. With
an independent yeomanry scattered over our vast domain, the “young
eagle” may bid defiance to the world in arms. Even though a foe should
devastate our seaboard, lay in ashes its cities, they have made not one
single advance towards conquering the country; for from the interior
comes its hardy yeomanry, with their hearts of oak and nerves of steel,
to expel the invader. Their hearts are the citadel of a nation’s
power—their arms the bulwarks of liberty.
* * * * *
Every consideration of policy, then, both as to revenue for the general
government, and increased taxation for the new States, as well as a
means for removing the causes of pauperism and crime in the old, demands
that the public lands be granted in limited quantities to the actual
settler. Every consideration of justice and humanity calls upon us to
restore man to his natural rights in the soil. * * *
In a new country the first and most important labor, as it is the most
difficult to be performed, is to subdue the forest, and to convert the
lair of the wild beast into a home for civilized man. This is the labor
of the pioneer settler. His achievements, if not equally brilliant with
those of the plumed warrior, are equally, if not more, lasting; his
life, if not at times exposed to so great a hazard, is still one of
equal danger and death. It is a life of toil and adventure, spent upon
one continued battle-field, unlike that, however, on which martial hosts
contend, for there the struggle is short and expected, and the victim
strikes not alone, while the highest meed of ambition crowns the victor.
Not so with the hardy pioneer. He is oft called upon to meet death in a
struggle with fearful odds, while no herald will tell to the world of
the unequal combat. Startled at the midnight hour by the war-whoop, he
wakes from his dreams to behold his cottage in flames; the sharer of his
joys and sorrows, with perhaps a tender infant, hurled, with rude hands,
to the distant council-fire. Still he presses on into the wilderness,
snatching new areas from the wild beast, and bequeathing them a legacy
to civilized man. And all he asks of his country and his Government is,
to protect him against the cupidity of soulless capital and the iron
grasp of the speculator. Upon his wild battle-field these are the only
foes that his own stern heart and right arm cannot vanquish.
Lincoln and Douglas.
_The Last Joint Debate, at Alton, October 15, 1858._[85]
SENATOR DOUGLAS’S SPEECH.
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: It is now nearly four months since the canvass
between Mr. Lincoln and myself commenced. On the 16th of June the
Republican Convention assembled at Springfield and nominated Mr. Lincoln
as their candidate for the United States Senate, and he, on that
occasion, delivered a speech in which he laid down what he understood to
be the Republican creed and the platform on which he proposed to stand
during the contest. The principal points in that speech of Mr. Lincoln’s
were: First, that this Government could not endure permanently divided
into free and slave States, as our fathers made it; that they must all
become free or all become slave; all become one thing or all become the
other, otherwise this Union could not continue to exist. I give you his
opinions almost in the identical language he used. His second
proposition was a crusade against the Supreme Court of the United States
because of the Dred Scot decision; urging as an especial reason for his
opposition to that decision that it deprived the negroes of the rights
and benefits of that clause in the Constitution of the United States
which guaranties to the citizens of each State all the rights,
privileges, and immunities of the citizens of the several States. On the
10th of July I returned home, and delivered a speech to the people of
Chicago, in which I announced it to be my purpose to appeal to the
people of Illinois to sustain the course I had pursued in Congress. In
that speech I joined issue with Mr. Lincoln on the points which he had
presented. Thus there was an issue clear and distinct made up between us
on these two propositions laid down in the speech of Mr. Lincoln at
Springfield, and controverted by me in my reply to him at Chicago. On
the next day, the 11th of July, Mr. Lincoln replied to me at Chicago,
explaining at some length, and reaffirming the positions which he had
taken in his Springfield speech. In that Chicago speech he even went
further than he had before, and uttered sentiments in regard to the
negro being on an equality with the white man. He adopted in support of
this position the argument which Lovejoy and Codding, and other
Abolition lecturers had made familiar in the northern and central
portions of the State, to wit: that the Declaration of Independence
having declared all men free and equal, by Divine law, also that negro
equality was an inalienable right, of which they could not be deprived.
He insisted, in that speech, that the Declaration of Independence
included the negro in the clause, asserting that all men were created
equal, and went so far as to say that if one man was allowed to take the
position, that it did not include the negro, others might take the
position that it did not include other men. He said that all these
distinctions between this man and that man, this race and the other
race, must be discarded, and we must all stand by the Declaration of
Independence, declaring that all men were created equal.
The issue thus being made up between Mr. Lincoln and myself on three
points, we went before the people of the State. During the following
seven weeks, between the Chicago speeches and our first meeting at
Ottawa, he and I addressed large assemblages of the people in many of
the central counties. In my speeches I confined myself closely to those
three positions which he had taken, controverting his proposition that
this Union could not exist as our fathers made it, divided into free and
Slave States, controverting his proposition of a crusade against the
Supreme Court because of the Dred Scott decision, and controverting his
proposition that the Declaration of Independence included and meant the
negroes as well as the white men when it declared all men to be created
equal. I supposed at that time that these propositions constituted a
distinct issue between us, and that the opposite positions we had taken
upon them we would be willing to be held to in every part of the State.
I never intended to waver one hair’s breadth from that issue either in
the north or the south, or wherever I should address the people of
Illinois. I hold that when the time arrives that I cannot proclaim my
political creed in the same terms not only in the northern but the
southern part of Illinois, not only in the Northern but the Southern
States, and wherever the American flag waves over American soil, that
then there must be something wrong in that creed. So long as we live
under a common Constitution, so long as we live in a confederacy of
sovereign and equal States, joined together as one for certain purposes,
that any political creed is radically wrong which cannot be proclaimed
in every State, and every section of that Union, alike. I took up Mr.
Lincoln’s three propositions in my several speeches, analyzed them, and
pointed out what I believed to be the radical errors contained in them.
First, in regard to his doctrine that this Government was in violation
of the law of God, which says that a house divided against itself cannot
stand, I repudiated it as a slander upon the immortal framers of our
Constitution. I then said, I have often repeated, and now again assert,
that in my opinion our Government can endure forever, divided into free
and slave States as our fathers made it,—each State having the right to
prohibit, abolish or sustain slavery, just as it pleases. This
Government was made upon the great basis of the sovereignty of the
States, the right of each State to regulate its own domestic
institutions to suit itself, and that right was conferred with the
understanding and expectation that inasmuch as each locality had
separate interests, each locality must have different and distinct local
and domestic institutions, corresponding to its wants and interests. Our
fathers knew when they made the Government, that the laws and
institutions which were well adapted to the green mountains of Vermont,
were unsuited to the rice plantations of South Carolina. They knew then,
as well as we know now, that the laws and institutions which would be
well adapted to the beautiful prairies of Illinois would not be suited
to the mining regions of California. They knew that in a Republic as
broad as this, having such a variety of soil, climate and interest,
there must necessarily be a corresponding variety of local laws—the
policy and institutions of each State adapted to its condition and
wants. For this reason this Union was established on the right of each
State to do as it pleased on the question of slavery, and every other
question; and the various States were not allowed to complain of, much
less interfere with the policy, of their neighbors.
Suppose the doctrine advocated by Mr. Lincoln and the Abolitionists of
this day had prevailed when the Constitution was made, what would have
been the result? Imagine for a moment that Mr. Lincoln had been a member
of the Convention that framed the Constitution of the United States, and
that when its members were about to sign that wonderful document, he had
arisen in that Convention as he did at Springfield this summer, and
addressing himself to the President, had said, “A house divided against
itself cannot stand; this Government, divided into free and slave
States, cannot endure, they must all be free or all be slave, they must
all be one thing or all be the other, otherwise, it is a violation of
the law of God, and cannot continue to exist;”—suppose Mr. Lincoln had
convinced that body of sages that that doctrine was sound, what would
have been the result? Remember that the Union was then composed of
thirteen States, twelve of which were slaveholding and one free. Do you
think that the one free State would have outvoted the twelve
slaveholding States, and thus have secured the abolition of slavery? On
the other hand, would not the twelve slaveholding States have outvoted
the one free State, and thus have fastened slavery, by a Constitutional
provision, on every foot of the American Republic forever? You see that
if this Abolition doctrine of Mr. Lincoln had prevailed when the
Government was made, it would have established slavery as a permanent
institution, in all the States, whether they wanted it or not, and the
question for us to determine in Illinois now as one of the free States
is, whether or not we are willing, having become the majority section,
to enforce a doctrine on the minority, which we would have resisted with
our hearts’ blood had it been attempted on us when we were in a
minority. How has the South lost her power as the majority section in
this Union, and how have the free States gained it, except under the
operation of that principle which declares the right of the people of
each State and each Territory to form and regulate their domestic
institutions in their own way. It was under that principle that slavery
was abolished in New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New
Jersey, and Pennsylvania; it was under that principle that one-half of
the slaveholding States became free; it was under that principle that
the number of free States increased until from being one out of twelve
States, we have grown to be the majority of States of the whole Union,
with the power to control the House of Representatives and Senate, and
the power, consequently, to elect a President by Northern votes without
the aid of a Southern State. Having obtained this power under the
operation of that great principle, are you now prepared to abandon the
principle and declare that merely because we have the power you will
wage a war against the Southern States and their institutions until you
force them to abolish slavery everywhere.
After having pressed these arguments home on Mr. Lincoln for seven
weeks, publishing a number of my speeches, we met at Ottawa in joint
discussion, and he then began to crawfish a little, and let himself
down. I there propounded certain questions to him. Amongst others, I
asked him whether he would vote for the admission of any more slave
States in the event the people wanted them. He would not answer. I then
told him that if he did not answer the question there I would renew it
at Freeport, and would then trot him down into Egypt and again put it to
him. Well, at Freeport, knowing that the next joint discussion took
place in Egypt, and being in dread of it, he did answer my question in
regard to no more slave States in a mode which he hoped would be
satisfactory to me, and accomplish the object he had in view. I will
show you what his answer was. After saying that he was not pledged to
the Republican doctrine of “no more slave States,” he declared:
“I state to you freely, frankly, that I should be exceedingly sorry to
ever be put in the position of having to pass upon that question. I
should be exceedingly glad to know that there never would be another
slave State admitted into this Union.”
Here permit me to remark, that I do not think the people will ever force
him into a position against his will. He went on to say:
“But I must add in regard to this, that if slavery shall be kept out
of the Territory during the territorial existence of any one given
Territory, and then the people should, having a fair chance and a
clear field when they come to adopt a Constitution, if they should do
the extraordinary thing of adopting a slave Constitution, uninfluenced
by the actual presence of the institution among them, I see no
alternative, if we own the country, but we must admit it into the
Union.”
That answer Mr. Lincoln supposed would satisfy the old line Whigs,
composed of Kentuckians and Virginians down in the southern part of the
State. Now what does it amount to? I desired to know whether he would
vote to allow Kansas to come into the Union with slavery or not, as her
people desired. He would not answer; but in a roundabout way said that
if slavery should be kept out of a Territory during the whole of its
territorial existence, and then the people, when they adopted a State
Constitution, asked admission as a slave State, he supposed he would
have to let the State come in. The case I put to him was an entirely
different one. I desired to know whether he would vote to admit a State
if Congress had not prohibited slavery in it during its territorial
existence, as Congress never pretended to do under Clay’s Compromise
measures of 1850. He would not answer, and I have not yet been able to
get an answer from him. I have asked him whether he would vote to admit
Nebraska if her people asked to come in as a State with a Constitution
recognizing slavery, and he refused to answer. I have put the question
to him with reference to New Mexico, and he has not uttered a word in
answer. I have enumerated the Territories, one after another, putting
the same question to him with reference to each, and he has not said,
and will not say, whether, if elected to Congress, he will vote to admit
any Territory now in existence with such a Constitution as her people
may adopt. He invents a case which does not exist, and cannot exist
under this Government, and answers it; but he will not answer the
question I put to him in connection with any of the Territories now in
existence. The contract we entered into with Texas when she entered the
Union obliges us to allow four States to be formed out of the old State,
and admitted with or without slavery as the respective inhabitants of
each may determine. I have asked Mr. Lincoln three times in our joint
discussions whether he would vote to redeem that pledge, and he has
never yet answered. He is as silent as the grave on the subject. He
would rather answer as to a state of the case which will never arise
than commit himself by telling what he would do in a case which would
come up for his action soon after his election to Congress. Why can he
not say whether he is willing to allow the people of each State to have
slavery or not as they please, and to come into the Union when they have
the requisite population as a slave or a free State as they decide? I
have no trouble in answering the questions. I have said every where, and
now repeat it to you, that if the people of Kansas want a slave State
they have a right, under the Constitution of the United States, to form
such a State, and I will let them come into the Union with slavery or
without, as they determine. If the people of any other Territory desire
slavery, let them have it. If they do not want it, let them prohibit it.
It is their business, not mine. It is none of our business in Illinois
whether Kansas is a free State or a slave State. It is none of your
business in Missouri whether Kansas shall adopt slavery or reject it. It
is the business of her people and none of yours. The people of Kansas
have as much right to decide that question for themselves as you have in
Missouri to decide it for yourselves, or we in Illinois to decide it for
ourselves.
And here I may repeat what I have said in every speech I have made in
Illinois, that I fought the Lecompton Constitution to its death, not
because of the slavery clause in it, but because it was not the act and
deed of the people of Kansas. I said then in Congress, and I say now,
that if the people of Kansas want a slave State, they have a right to
have it. If they wanted the Lecompton Constitution, they had a right to
have it. I was opposed to that Constitution because I did not believe
that it was the act and deed of the people, but on the contrary, the act
of a small, pitiful minority acting in the name of the majority. When at
last it was determined to send that Constitution back to the people, and
accordingly, in August last, the question of admission under it was
submitted to a popular vote, the citizens rejected it by nearly ten to
one, thus showing conclusively, that I was right when I said that the
Lecompton Constitution was not the act and the deed of the people of
Kansas, and did not embody their will.
I hold that there is no power on earth, under our system of Government,
which has the right to force a Constitution upon an unwilling people.
Suppose that there had been a majority of ten to one in favor of slavery
in Kansas, and suppose there had been an Abolition President, and an
Abolition Administration, and by some means the Abolitionists succeeded
in forcing an Abolition Constitution on those slaveholding people, would
the people of the South have submitted to that act for one instant?
Well, if you of the South would not have submitted to it a day, how can
you, as fair, honorable and honest men, insist on putting a slave
Constitution on a people who desire a free State? Your safety and ours
depend upon both of us acting in good faith, and living up to that great
principle which asserts the right of every people to form and regulate
their domestic institutions to suit themselves, subject only to the
Constitution of the United States.
Most of the men who denounced my course on the Lecompton question,
objected to it not because I was not right, but because they thought it
expedient at that time, for the sake of keeping the party together, to
do wrong. I never knew the Democratic party to violate any one of its
principles out of policy or expediency, that it did not pay the debt
with sorrow. There is no safety or success for our party unless we
always do right, and trust the consequences to God and the people. I
chose not to depart from principle for the sake of expediency in the
Lecompton question, and I never intend to do it on that or any other
question.
But I am told that I would have been all right if I had only voted for
the English bill after Lecompton was killed. You know a general pardon
was granted to all political offenders on the Lecompton question,
provided they would only vote for the English bill. I did not accept the
benefits of that pardon, for the reason that I had been right in the
course I had pursued, and hence did not require any forgiveness. Let us
see how the result has been worked out. English brought in his bill
referring the Lecompton Constitution back to the people, with the
provision that if it was rejected Kansas should be kept out of the Union
until she had the full ratio of population required for a member of
Congress, thus in effect declaring that if the people of Kansas would
only consent to come into the Union under the Lecompton Constitution,
and have a slave State when they did not want it, they should be
admitted with a population of 35,000, but that if they were so obstinate
as to insist upon having just such a Constitution as they thought best,
and to desire admission as a free State, then they should be kept out
until they had 93,420 inhabitants. I then said, and I now repeat to you,
that whenever Kansas has people enough for a slave State she has people
enough for a free State. I was and am willing to adopt the rule that no
State shall ever come into the Union until she has the full ratio of
population for a member of Congress, provided that rule is made uniform.
I made that proposition in the Senate last winter, but a majority of the
Senators would not agree to it; and I then said to them if you will not
adopt the general rule I will not consent to make an exception of
Kansas.
I hold that it is a violation of the fundamental principles of this
Government to throw the weight of federal power into the scale, either
in favor of the free or the slave States. Equality among all the States
of this Union is a fundamental principle in our political system. We
have no more right to throw the weight of the Federal Government into
the scale in favor of the slaveholding than the free States, and last of
all should our friends in the South consent for a moment that Congress
should withhold its powers either way when they know that there is a
majority against them in both Houses of Congress.
Fellow-citizens, how have the supporters of the English bill stood up to
their pledges not to admit Kansas until she obtained a population of
93,420 in the event she rejected the Lecompton Constitution? How? The
newspapers inform us that English himself, whilst conducting his canvass
for re-election, and in order to secure it, pledged himself to his
constituents that if returned he would disregard his own bill and vote
to admit Kansas into the Union with such population as she might have
when she made application. We are informed that every Democratic
candidate for Congress in all the States where elections have recently
been held, was pledged against the English bill, with perhaps one or two
exceptions. Now, if I had only done as these anti-Lecompton men who
voted for the English bill in Congress, pledging themselves to refuse to
admit Kansas if she refused to become a slave State until she had a
population of 93,420, and then return to their people, forfeited their
pledge, and made a new pledge to admit Kansas at any time she applied,
without regard to population, I would have had no trouble. You saw the
whole power and patronage of the Federal Government wielded in Indiana,
Ohio and Pennsylvania to re-elect anti-Lecompton men to Congress who
voted against Lecompton, then voted for the English bill, and then
denounced the English bill, and pledged themselves to their people to
disregard it. My sin consists in not having given a pledge, and then in
not having afterward forfeited it. For that reason, in this State, every
postmaster, every route agent, every collector of the ports, and every
federal office-holder, forfeits his head the moment he expresses a
preference for the Democratic candidates against Lincoln and his
Abolition associates. A Democratic Administration which we helped to
bring into power, deems it consistent with its fidelity to principle and
its regard to duty, to wield its power in this State in behalf of the
Republican Abolition candidates in every county and every Congressional
District against the Democratic party. All I have to say in reference to
the matter is, that if that Administration have not regard enough for
principle, if they are not sufficiently attached to the creed of the
Democratic party to bury forever their personal hostilities in order to
succeed in carrying out our glorious principles, I have. I have no
personal difficulty with Mr. Buchanan or his cabinet. He chose to make
certain recommendations to Congress, as he had a right to do, on the
Lecompton question. I could not vote in favor of them. I had as much
right to judge for myself how I should vote as he had how he should
recommend. He undertook to say to me, if you do not vote as I tell you,
I will take off the heads of your friends. I replied to him, You did not
elect me, I represent Illinois and I am accountable to Illinois, as my
constituency, and to God, but not to the President or to any other power
on earth.
And now this warfare is made on me because I would not surrender my
convictions of duty, because I would not abandon my constituency, and
receive the orders of the executive authorities how I should vote in the
Senate of the United States. I hold that an attempt to control the
Senate on the part of the Executive is subversive of the principles of
our Constitution. The Executive department is independent of the Senate,
and the Senate is independent of the President. In matters of
legislation the President has a veto on the action of the Senate, and in
appointments and treaties the Senate has a veto on the President. He has
no more right to tell me how I shall vote on his appointments than I
have to tell him whether he shall veto or approve a bill that the Senate
has passed. Whenever you recognize the right of the Executive to say to
a Senator, “Do this, or I will take off the heads of your friends,” you
convert this Government from a republic into a despotism. Whenever you
recognize the right of a President to say to a member of Congress, “Vote
as I tell you, or I will bring a power to bear against you at home which
will crush you,” you destroy the independence of the representative, and
convert him into a tool of Executive power. I resisted this invasion of
the constitutional rights of a Senator, and I intend to resist it as
long as I have a voice to speak, or a vote to give. Yet, Mr. Buchanan
cannot provoke me to abandon one iota of Democratic principles out of
revenge or hostility to his course. I stand by the platform of the
Democratic party, and by its organization, and support its nominees. If
there are any who choose to bolt, the fact only shows that they are not
as good Democrats as I am.
My friends, there never was a time when it was as important for the
Democratic party, for all national men, to rally and stand together as
it is to-day. We find all sectional men giving up past differences and
continuing the one question of slavery, and when we find sectional men
thus uniting, we should unite to resist them and their treasonable
designs. Such was the case in 1850, when Clay left the quiet and peace
of his home, and again entered upon public life to quell agitation and
restore peace to a distracted Union. Then we Democrats, with Cass at our
head, welcomed Henry Clay, whom the whole nation regarded as having been
preserved by God for the times. He became our leader in that great
fight, and we rallied around him the same as the Whigs rallied around
old Hickory in 1832, to put down nullification. Thus you see that whilst
Whigs and Democrats fought fearlessly in old times about banks, the
tariff, distribution, the specie circular, and the sub-treasury, all
united as a band of brothers when the peace, harmony, or integrity of
the Union was imperilled. It was so in 1850, when Abolitionism had even
so far divided this country, North and South, as to endanger the peace
of the Union; Whigs and Democrats united in establishing the Compromise
measures of that year, and restoring tranquillity and good feeling.
These measures passed on the joint action of the two parties. They
rested on the great principle that the people of each State and each
Territory should be left perfectly free to form and regulate their
domestic institutions to suit themselves. You Whigs, and we Democrats
justified them in that principle. In 1854, when it became necessary to
organize the Territories of Kansas and Nebraska, I brought forward the
bill on the same principle. In the Kansas-Nebraska bill you find it
declared to be the true intent and meaning of the act not to legislate
slavery into any State or Territory, nor to exclude it therefrom, but to
leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their
domestic institutions in their own way. I stand on that same platform in
1858 that I did in 1850, 1854, and 1856. The Washington _Union_,
pretending to be the organ of the Administration, in the number of the
5th of this month, devotes three columns and a half to establish these
propositions: First, that Douglas, in his Freeport speech, held the same
doctrine that he did in his Nebraska bill in 1854; second, that in 1854
Douglas justified the Nebraska bill upon the ground that it was based
upon the same principle as Clay’s Compromise measures of 1850. The
_Union_ thus proved that Douglas was the same in 1858 that he was in
1856, 1854, and 1850, and consequently argued that he was never a
Democrat. Is it not funny that I was never a Democrat? There is no
pretense that I have changed a hair’s breadth. The _Union_ proves by my
speeches that I explained the Compromise measures of 1850 just as I do
now, and that I explained the Kansas and Nebraska bill in 1854 just as I
did in my Freeport speech, and yet says that I am not a Democrat, and
cannot be trusted, because I have not changed during the whole of that
time. It has occurred to me that in 1854 the author of the Kansas and
Nebraska bill was considered a pretty good Democrat. It has occurred to
me that in 1856, when I was exerting every nerve and every energy for
James Buchanan, standing on the same platform then that I do now, that I
was a pretty good Democrat. They now tell me that I am not a Democrat,
because I assert that the people of a Territory, as well as those of a
State, have the right to decide for themselves whether slavery can or
cannot exist in such Territory. Let me read what James Buchanan said on
that point when he accepted the Democratic nomination for the Presidency
in 1856. In his letter of acceptance, he used the following language:
“The recent legislation of Congress respecting domestic slavery,
derived as it has been from the original and pure fountain of
legitimate political power, the will of the majority, promises ere
long to allay the dangerous excitement. This legislation is founded
upon principles as ancient as free government itself, and in
accordance with them has simply declared that the people of a
Territory, like those of a State, shall decide for themselves whether
slavery shall or shall not exist within their limits.”
Dr. Hope will there find my answer to the question he propounded to me
before I commenced speaking. Of course no man will consider it an
answer, who is outside of the Democratic organization, bolts Democratic
nominations, and indirectly aids to put Abolitionists into power over
Democrats. But whether Dr. Hope considers it an answer or not, every
fair-minded man will see that James Buchanan has answered the question,
and has asserted that the people of a Territory like those of a State,
shall decide for themselves whether slavery shall or shall not exist
within their limits. I answer specifically if you want a further answer,
and say that while under the decision of the Supreme Court, as recorded
in the opinion of Chief Justice Taney, slaves are property like all
other property, and can be carried into any Territory of the United
States the same as any other description of property, yet when you get
them there they are subject to the local law of the Territory just like
all other property. You will find in a recent speech delivered by that
able and eloquent statesman, Hon. Jefferson Davis, at Bangor, Maine,
that he took the same view of this subject that I did in my Freeport
speech. He there said:
“If the inhabitants of any Territory should refuse to enact such laws
and police regulations as would give security to their property or to
his, it would be rendered more or less valueless in proportion to the
difficulties of holding it without such protection. In the case of
property in the labor of man, or what is usually called slave
property, the insecurity would be so great that the owner could not
ordinarily retain it. Therefore, though the right would remain, the
remedy being withheld, it would follow that the owner would be
practically debarred, by the circumstances of the case, from taking
slave property into a Territory where the sense of the inhabitants was
opposed to its introduction. So much for the oft repeated arm in arm
fallacy of forcing slavery upon any community.”
You will also find that the distinguished Speaker of the present House
of Representatives, Hon. Jas. L. Orr, construed the Kansas and Nebraska
bill in this same way in 1856, and also that great intellect of the
South, Alex. H. Stephens, put the same construction upon it in Congress
that I did in my Freeport speech. The whole South are rallying to the
support of the doctrine that if the people of a Territory want slavery
they have a right to have it, and if they do not want it that no power
on earth can force it upon them. I hold that there is no principle on
earth more sacred to all the friends of freedom than that which says
that no institution, no law, no constitution, should be forced on an
unwilling people contrary to their wishes; and I assert that the Kansas
and Nebraska bill contains that principle. It is the great principle
contained in that bill. It is the principle on which James Buchanan was
made President. Without that principle he never would have been made
President of the United States. I will never violate or abandon that
doctrine if I have to stand alone. I have resisted the blandishments and
threats of power on the one side, and seduction on the other, and have
stood immovably for that principle, fighting for it when assailed by
Northern mobs, or threatened by Southern hostility. I have defended it
against the North and South, and I will defend it against whoever
assails it, and I will follow it wherever its logical conclusions lead
me. I say to you that there is but one hope, one safety for this
country, and that is to stand immovably by that principle which declares
the right of each State and each Territory to decide these questions for
themselves. This Government was founded on that principle, and must be
administered in the same sense in which it was founded.
But the Abolition party really think that under the Declaration of
Independence the negro is equal to the white man, and that negro
equality is an inalienable right conferred by the Almighty, and hence
that all human laws in violation of it are null and void. With such men
it is no use for me to argue. I hold that the signers of the Declaration
of Independence had no reference to negroes at all when they declared
all men to be created equal. They did not mean negroes, nor savage
Indians, nor the Fejee Islanders, nor any other barbarous race. They
were speaking of white men. They alluded to men of European birth and
European descent—to white men, and to none others, when they declared
that doctrine. I hold that this Government was established on the white
basis. It was established by white men for the benefit of white men and
their posterity forever, and should be administered by white men, and
none others. But it does not follow, by any means, that merely because
the negro is not a citizen, and merely because he is not our equal,
that, therefore, he should be a slave. On the contrary, it does follow
that we ought to extend to the negro race, and to all other dependent
races all the rights, all the privileges, and all the immunities which
they can exercise consistently with the safety of society. Humanity
requires that we should give them all these privileges; Christianity
commands that we should extend those privileges to them. The question
then arises what are these privileges, and what is the nature and extent
of them. My answer is that that is a question which each State must
answer for itself. We in Illinois have decided it for ourselves. We
tried slavery, kept it up for twelve years, and finding that it was not
profitable, we abolished it for that reason, and became a free State. We
adopted in its stead the policy that a negro in this State shall not be
a slave and shall not be a citizen. We have a right to adopt that
policy. For my part I think it is a wise and sound policy for us. You in
Missouri must judge for yourselves whether it is a wise policy for you.
If you choose to follow our example, very good; if you reject it, still
well, it is your business, not ours. So with Kentucky. Let Kentucky
adopt a policy to suit herself. If we do not like it we will keep away
from it, and if she does not like ours let her stay at home, mind her
own business and let us alone. If the people of all the States will act
on that great principle, and each State mind its own business, attend to
its own affairs, take care of its own negroes and not meddle with its
neighbors, then there will be peace between the North and the South, the
East and the West, throughout the whole Union. Why can we not thus have
peace? Why should we thus allow a sectional party to agitate this
country, to array the North against the South, and convert us into
enemies instead of friends, merely that a few ambitious men may ride
into power on a sectional hobby? How long is it since these ambitious
Northern men wished for a sectional organization? Did any one of them
dream of a sectional party as long as the North was the weaker section
and the South the stronger? Then all were opposed to sectional parties;
but the moment the North obtained the majority in the House and Senate
by the admission of California, and could elect a President without the
aid of Southern votes, that moment ambitious Northern men formed a
scheme to excite the North against the South, and make the people be
governed in their votes by geographical lines, thinking that the North,
being the stronger section, would out-vote the South, and consequently
they, the leaders, would ride into office on a sectional hobby. I am
told that my hour is out. It was very short.
Mr. Lincoln’s Reply.
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN:—I have been somewhat, in my own mind, complimented
by a large portion of Judge Douglas’s speech—I mean that portion which
he devotes to the controversy between himself and the present
Administration. This is the seventh time Judge Douglas and myself have
met in these joint discussions, and he has been gradually improving in
regard to his war with the administration. At Quincy, day before
yesterday, he was a little more severe upon the Administration than I
had heard him upon any occasion, and I took pains to compliment him for
it. I then told him to “Give it to them with all the power he had;” and
as some of them were present, I told them I would be very much obliged
if they would _give it to him_ in about the same way. I take it he has
now vastly improved upon the attack he made then upon the
Administration. I flatter myself he has really taken my advice on this
subject. All I can say now is to recommend to him and to them what I
then commended—to prosecute the war against one another in the most
vigorous manner. I say to them again—“Go it, husband!—Go it, bear!”
There is one other thing I will mention before I leave this branch of
the discussion—although I do not consider it much of my business, any
way. I refer to that part of the Judge’s remarks where he undertakes to
involve Mr. Buchanan in an inconsistency. He reads something from Mr.
Buchanan, from which he undertakes to involve him in an inconsistency;
and he gets something of a cheer for having done so. I would only remind
the Judge that while he is very valiantly fighting for the Nebraska bill
and the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, it has been but a little
while since he was the _valiant advocate of_ the Missouri Compromise. I
want to know if Buchanan has not as much right to be inconsistent as
Douglas has? Has Douglas the _exclusive right_, in this country, of
being _on all sides of all questions_? Is nobody allowed that high
privilege but himself? Is he to have an entire _monopoly_ on that
subject?
So far as Judge Douglas addressed his speech to me, or so far as it was
about me, it is my business to pay some attention to it. I have heard
the Judge state two or three times what he has stated to-day—that in a
speech which I made at Springfield, Illinois, I had in a very especial
manner complained that the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case had
decided that a negro could never be a citizen of the United States. I
have omitted by some accident heretofore to analyze this statement, and
it is required of me to notice it now. In point of fact it is _untrue_.
I never have complained _especially_ of the Dred Scott decision because
it held that a negro could not be a citizen, and the Judge is always
wrong when he says I ever did so complain of it. I have the speech here,
and I will thank him or any of his friends to show where I said that a
negro should be a citizen, and complained especially of the Dred Scott
decision because it declared he could not be one. I have done no such
thing, and Judge Douglas so persistently insisting that I have done so,
has strongly impressed me with the belief of a predetermination on his
part to misrepresent me. He could not get his foundation for insisting
that I was in favor of this negro equality any where else as well as he
could by assuming that untrue proposition. Let me tell this audience
what is true in regard to that matter; and the means by which they may
correct me if I do not tell them truly is by a recurrence to the speech
itself. I spoke of the Dred Scott decision in my Springfield speech, and
I was then endeavoring to prove that the Dred Scott decision was a
portion of a system or scheme to make slavery national in this country.
I pointed out what things had been decided by the court. I mentioned as
a fact that they had decided that a negro could not be a citizen—that
they had done so, as I supposed, to deprive the negro, under all
circumstances, of the remotest possibility of ever becoming a citizen
and claiming the rights of a citizen of the United States under a
certain clause of the Constitution. I stated that, without making any
complaint of it at all. I then went on and stated the other points
decided in the case, viz: that the bringing of a negro into the State of
Illinois and holding him in slavery for two years here was a matter in
regard to which they would not decide whether it would make him free or
not; that they decided the further point that taking him into a United
States Territory where slavery was prohibited by act of Congress, did
not make him free, because that act of Congress, as they held, was
unconstitutional. I mentioned these three things as making up the points
decided in that case. I mentioned them in a lump taken in connection
with the introduction of the Nebraska bill, and the amendment of Chase,
offered at the time, declaratory of the right of the people of the
Territories to _exclude slavery_, which was voted down by the friends of
the bill. I mentioned all these things together, as evidence tending to
prove a combination and conspiracy to make the institution of slavery
national. In that connection and in that way I mentioned the decision on
the point that a negro could not be a citizen, and in no other
connection.
Out of this, Judge Douglas builds up his beautiful fabrication—of my
purpose to introduce a perfect, social, and political equality between
the white and black races. His assertion that I made an “especial
objection” (that is his exact language) to the decision on this account,
is untrue in point of fact.
Now, while I am upon this subject, and as Henry Clay has been alluded
to, I desire to place myself, in connection with Mr. Clay, as nearly
right before this people as may be. I am quite aware what the Judge’s
object is here by all these allusions. He knows that we are before an
audience, having strong sympathies southward by relationship, place of
birth, and so on. He desires to place me in an extremely Abolition
attitude. He read upon a former occasion, and alludes without reading
to-day, to a portion of a speech which I delivered in Chicago. In his
quotations from that speech, as he has made them upon former occasions,
the extracts were taken in such a way as, I suppose, brings them within
the definition of what is called _garbling_—taking portions of a speech
which, when taken by themselves, do not present the entire sense of the
speaker as expressed at the time. I propose, therefore, out of that same
speech, to show how one portion of it which he skipped over (taking an
extract before and an extract after) will give a different idea, and the
true idea I intended to convey. It will take me some little time to read
it, but I believe I will occupy the time that way.
You have heard him frequently allude to my controversy with him in
regard to the Declaration of Independence. I confess that I have had a
struggle with Judge Douglas on that matter, and I will try briefly to
place myself right in regard to it on this occasion. I said—and it is
between the extracts Judge Douglas has taken from this speech and put in
his published speeches:
“It may be argued that there are certain conditions that make
necessities and impose them upon us, and to the extent that a necessity
is imposed upon a man he must submit to it. I think that was the
condition in which we found ourselves when we established this
Government. We had slaves among us, we could not get our Constitution
unless we permitted them to remain in slavery, we could not secure the
good we did secure if we grasped for more; and having by necessity
submitted to that much, it does not destroy the principle that is the
charter of our liberties. Let the charter remain as our standard.”
Now I have upon all occasions declared as strongly as Judge Douglas
against the disposition to interfere with the existing institution of
slavery. You hear me read it from the same speech from which he takes
garbled extracts for the purpose of proving upon me a disposition to
interfere with the institution of slavery, and establish a perfect
social and political equality between negroes and white people.
Allow me while upon this subject briefly to present one other extract
from a speech of mine, more than a year ago, at Springfield, in
discussing this very same question, soon after Judge Douglas took his
ground that negroes were not included in the Declaration of
Independence:
“I think the authors of that notable instrument intended to include
_all_ men, but they did not mean to declare all men equal _in all
respects_. They did not mean to say all men were equal in color, size,
intellect, moral development or social capacity. They defined with
tolerable distinctness in what they did consider all men created
equal—equal in certain inalienable rights, among which are life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This they said, and this they
meant. They did not mean to assert the obvious untruth, that all were
then actually enjoying that equality, or yet, that they were about to
confer it immediately upon them. In fact they had no power to confer
such a boon. They meant simply to declare the _right_, so that the
_enforcement_ of it might follow as fast as circumstances should permit.
“They meant to set up a standard maxim for free society which should be
familiar to all: constantly looked to, constantly labored for, and even,
though never perfectly attained, constantly approximated, and thereby
constantly spreading and deepening its influence and augmenting the
happiness and value of life to all people, of all colors, every where.”
There again are the sentiments I have expressed in regard to the
Declaration of Independence upon a former occasion—sentiments which have
been put in print and read wherever any body cared to know what so
humble an individual as myself chose to say in regard to it.
At Galesburg the other day, I said in answer to Judge Douglas, that
three years ago there never had been a man, so far as I knew or
believed, in the whole world, who had said that the Declaration of
Independence did not include negroes in the term “all men.” I reassert
it to-day. I assert that Judge Douglas and all his friends may search
the whole records of the country, and it will be a matter of great
astonishment to me if they shall be able to find that one human being
three years ago had ever uttered the astounding sentiment that the term
“all men” in the Declaration did not include the negro. Do not let me be
misunderstood. I know that more than three years ago there were men who,
finding this assertion constantly in the way of their schemes to bring
about the ascendancy and perpetuation of slavery, _denied the truth of
it_. I know that Mr. Calhoun and all the politicians of his school
denied the truth of the Declaration. I know that it ran along in the
mouth of some Southern men for a period of years, ending at last in that
shameful though rather forcible declaration of Pettit of Indiana, upon
the floor of the United States Senate, that the Declaration of
Independence was in that respect “a self-evident lie,” rather than a
self-evident truth. But I say, with a perfect knowledge of all this
hawking at the Declaration without directly attacking it, that three
years ago there never had lived a man who had ventured to assail it in
the sneaking way of pretending to believe it and then asserting it did
not include the negro. I believe the first man who ever said it was
Chief Justice Taney in the Dred Scott case, and the next to him was our
friend, Stephen A. Douglas. And now it has become the catch-word of the
entire party. I would like to call upon his friends every where to
consider how they have come in so short a time to view this matter in a
way so entirely different from their former belief? to ask whether they
are not being borne along by an irresistible current—whither they know
not?
In answer to my proposition at Galesburg last week, I see that some man
in Chicago has got up a letter addressed to the Chicago _Times_, to
show, as he professes, that somebody _had_ said so before; and he signs
himself “An Old Line Whig,” if I remember correctly. In the first place
I would say he _was not_ an old line Whig. I am somewhat acquainted with
old line Whigs. I was with the old line Whigs from the origin to the end
of that party; I became pretty well acquainted with them, and I know
they always had some sense, whatever else you could ascribe to them, I
know there never was one who had not more sense than to try to show by
the evidence he produces that some man had, prior to the time I named,
said that negroes were not included in the term “all men” in the
Declaration of Independence. What is the evidence he produces? I will
bring forward _his_ evidence and let you see what _he_ offers by way of
showing that somebody more than three years ago had said negroes were
not included in the Declaration. He brings forward part of a speech from
Henry Clay—_the_ part of _the_ speech of Henry Clay which I used to
bring forward to prove precisely the contrary. I guess we are surrounded
to some extent to-day by the old friends of Mr. Clay, and they will be
glad to hear any thing from that authority. While he was in Indiana a
man presented a petition to liberate his negroes, and he (Mr. Clay) made
a speech in answer to it, which I suppose he carefully wrote out himself
and caused to be published. I have before me an extract from that speech
which constitutes the evidence this pretended “Old Line Whig” at Chicago
brought forward to show that Mr. Clay didn’t suppose the negro was
included in the Declaration of Independence. Hear what Mr. Clay said:
“And what is the foundation of this appeal to me in Indiana, to
liberate the slaves under my care in Kentucky? It is a general
declaration in the act announcing to the world the independence of the
thirteen American colonies, that all men are created equal. Now, as an
abstract principle, _there is no doubt of the truth of that
declaration_; and it is desirable, _in the original construction of
society, and in organized societies_, to keep it in view was a great
fundamental principle. But, then, I apprehend that in no society that
ever did exist, or ever shall be formed, was or can the equality
asserted among the members of the human race, be practically enforced
and carried out. There are portions, large portions, women, minors,
insane, culprits, transient sojourners, that will always probably
remain subject to the government of another portion of the community.
“That declaration, whatever may be the extent of its import, was made
by the delegations of the thirteen States. In most of them slavery
existed, and had long existed, and was established by law. It was
introduced and forced upon the colonies by the paramount law of
England. Do you believe, that in making that declaration the States
that concurred in it intended that it should be tortured into a
virtual emancipation of all the slaves within their respective limits?
Would Virginia and other Southern States have ever united in a
declaration which was to be interpreted into an abolition of slavery
among them? Did any one of the thirteen colonies entertain such a
design or expectation? To impute such a secret and unavowed purpose,
would be to charge a political fraud upon the noblest band of patriots
that ever assembled in council—a fraud upon the Confederacy of the
Revolution—a fraud upon the union of those States whose Constitution
not only recognized the lawfulness of slavery, but permitted the
importation of slaves from Africa until the year 1808.”
This is the entire quotation brought forward to prove that somebody
previous to three years ago had said the negro was not included in the
term “all men” in the Declaration. How does it do so? In what way has it
a tendency to prove that? Mr. Clay says _it is true as an abstract
principle_ that all men are created equal, but that we cannot
practically apply it in all cases. He illustrates this by bringing
forward the cases of females, minors, and insane persons, with whom it
cannot be enforced; but he says it is true as an abstract principle in
the organization of society as well as in organized society, and it
should be kept in view as a fundamental principle. Let me read a few
words more before I add some comments of my own. Mr. Clay says a little
further on:
“I desire no concealment of my opinions in regard to the institution
of slavery. I look upon it as a great evil, and deeply lament that we
have derived it from the parental Government, and from our ancestors.
But here they are, and the question is, how can they be best dealt
with? If a state of nature existed, and we were about to lay the
foundations of society, _no man would be more strongly opposed than I
should be, to incorporating the institution of slavery among its
elements_.”
Now, here in this same book—in this same speech—in this same extract
brought forward to prove that Mr. Clay held that the negro was not
included in the Declaration of Independence—no such statement on his
part, but the declaration _that it is a great fundamental truth_, which
should be constantly kept in view in the organization of society and in
societies already organized. But if I say a word about it—if I attempt,
as Mr. Clay said all good men ought to do, to keep it in view—if, in
this “organized society,” I ask to have the public eye turned upon it—if
I ask in relation to the organization of new Territories, that the
public eye should be turned upon it—forthwith I am vilified as you hear
me to-day. What have I done, that I have not the license of Henry Clay’s
illustrious example here in doing? Have I done aught that I have not his
authority for, while maintaining that in organizing new Territories and
societies, this fundamental principle should be regarded, and in
organized society holding it up to the public view and recognizing what
_he_ recognized as the great principle of free government?
And when this new principle—this new proposition that no human being
ever thought of three years ago—is brought forward, _I combat it_ as
having an evil tendency, if not an evil design. I combat it as having a
tendency to dehumanize the negro—to take away from him the right of ever
striving to be a man. I combat it as being one of the thousand things
constantly done in these days to prepare the public mind to make
property, and nothing but property, of the _negro in all the States of
this Union_.
But there is a point that I wish, before leaving this part of the
discussion, to ask attention to. I have read and I repeat the words of
Henry Clay:
“I desire no concealment of my opinions in regard to the institution
of slavery. I look upon it as a great evil, and deeply lament that we
have derived it from the parental Government, and from our ancestors.
I wish every slave in the United States was in the country of his
ancestors. But here they are; the question is how they can best be
dealt with? If a state of nature existed, and we were about to lay the
foundations of society, no man would be more strongly opposed than I
should be, to incorporate the institution of slavery among its
elements.”
The principle upon which I have insisted in this canvass, is in relation
to laying the foundations of new societies. I have ever sought to apply
these principles to the old States for the purpose of abolishing slavery
in those States. It is nothing but a miserable perversion of what I
_have_ said, to assume that I have declared Missouri, or any other slave
State, shall emancipate her slaves. I have proposed no such thing. But
when Mr. Clay says that in laying the foundations of societies in our
Territories where it does not exist, he would be opposed to the
introduction of slavery as an element, I insist that we have _his
warrant_—his license for insisting upon the exclusion of that element
which he declared in such strong and emphatic language _was most hateful
to him_.
Judge Douglas has again referred to a Springfield speech in which I said
“a house divided against itself cannot stand.” The Judge has so often
made the entire quotation from that speech that I can make it from
memory. I used this language:
“We are now far into the fifth year since a policy was initiated with
the avowed object and confident promise of putting an end to the
slavery agitation. Under the operation of this policy, that agitation
has not only not ceased, but has constantly augmented. In my opinion
it will not cease until a crisis shall have been reached and passed.
‘A house divided against itself cannot stand.’ I believe this
Government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do
not expect the house to fall—but I do expect it will cease to be
divided. It will become all one thing or all the other. Either the
opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place
it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the
course of ultimate extinction, or its advocates will push it forward
till it shall become alike lawful in all the States—old as well as
new, North as well as South.”
That extract and the sentiments expressed in it, have been extremely
offensive to Judge Douglas. He has warred upon them as Satan wars upon
the Bible. His perversions upon it are endless. Here now are my views
upon it in brief.
I said we were now far into the fifth year, since a policy was initiated
with the avowed object and confident promise of putting an end to the
slavery agitation. Is it not so? When that Nebraska bill was brought
forward four years ago last January, was it not for the “avowed object”
of putting an end to the slavery agitation? We were to have no more
agitation in Congress, it was all to be banished to the Territories. By
the way, I will remark here that, as Judge Douglas is very fond of
complimenting Mr. Crittenden in these days, Mr. Crittenden has said
there was a falsehood in that whole business, for there was _no slavery
agitation at that time to allay_. We were for a little while _quiet_ on
the troublesome thing, and that very allaying plaster of Judge Douglas’s
stirred it up again. But was it not understood or intimated with the
“confident promise” of putting an end to the slavery agitation? Surely
it was. In every speech you heard Judge Douglas make, until he got into
this “imbroglio,” as they call it, with the Administration about the
Lecompton Constitution, every speech on that Nebraska bill was full of
his felicitations that we were _just at the end_ of the slavery
agitation. The last tip of the last joint of the old serpent’s tail was
just drawing out of view. But has it proved so? I have asserted that
under that policy that agitation “has not only not ceased, but has
constantly augmented.” When was there ever a greater agitation in
Congress than last winter? When was it as great in the country as
to-day?
There was a collateral object in the introduction of that Nebraska
policy which was to clothe the people of the Territories with the
superior degree of self-government, beyond what they had ever had
before. The first object and the main one of conferring upon the people
a higher degree of “self-government,” is a question of fact to be
determined by you in answer to a single question. Have you ever heard or
known of a people any where on earth who had as little to do, as, in the
first instance of its use, the people of Kansas had with this same right
of “self-government?” In its main policy and in its collateral object,
_it has been nothing but a living, creeping lie from the time of its
introduction till to-day_.
I have intimated that I thought the agitation would not cease until a
crisis should have been reached and passed. I have stated in what way I
thought it would be reached and passed, I have said that it might go one
way or the other. We might, by arresting the further spread of it, and
placing it where the fathers originally placed it, put it where the
public mind should rest in the belief that it was in the course of
ultimate extinction. Thus the agitation may cease. It may be pushed
forward until it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as
well as new, North as well as South. I have said, and I repeat, my wish
is that the further spread of it may be arrested, and that it may be
placed where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the
course of ultimate extinction. I have expressed that as my wish. I
entertain the opinion upon evidence sufficient to my mind, that the
fathers of this Government placed that institution where the public mind
_did_ rest in the belief that it was in the course of ultimate
extinction. Let me ask why they made provision that the source of
slavery—the African slave-trade—should be cut off at the end of twenty
years? Why did they make provision that in all the new territory we
owned at that time, slavery should be forever inhibited? Why stop its
spread in one direction and cut off its source in another, if they did
not look to its being placed in the course of ultimate extinction?
Again; the institution of slavery is only mentioned in the Constitution
of the United States two or three times, and in neither of these cases
does the word “slavery” or “negro race” occur; but covert language is
used each time, and for a purpose full of significance. What is the
language in regard to the prohibition of the African slave-trade? It
runs in about this way: “The migration or importation of such persons as
any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be
prohibited by the Congress prior to the year one thousand eight hundred
and eight.”
The next allusion in the Constitution to the question of slavery and
the black race, is on the subject of the basis of representation, and
there the language used is, “Representatives and direct taxes shall be
apportioned among the several states which may be included within this
Union, according to their respective numbers, which shall be
determined by adding to the whole number of free persons, including
those bound to service for a term of years, and excluding Indians not
taxed—three-fifths of all other persons.”
It says “persons,” not slaves, not negroes; but this “three-fifths” can
be applied to no other class among us than the negroes.
Lastly, in the provision for the reclamation of fugitive slaves, it is
said: “No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws
thereof, escaping into another shall in consequence of any law or
regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall
be delivered up, on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may
be due.” There again there is no mention of the word “negro” or of
slavery. In all three of these places, being the only allusion to
slavery in the instrument covert language is used. Language is used not
suggesting that slavery existed or that the black race were among us.
And I understand the cotemporaneous history of those times to be that
covert language was used with a purpose, and that purpose was that in
our Constitution, which it was hoped and is still hoped will endure
forever—when it should be read by intelligent and patriotic men, after
the institution of slavery had passed from among us—there should be
nothing on the face of the great charter of liberty suggesting that such
a thing as negro slavery had ever existed among us. This is part of the
evidence that the fathers of the Government expected and intended the
institution of slavery to come to an end. They expected and intended
that it should be in the course of ultimate extinction. And when I say
that I desire to see the further spread of it arrested, I only say I
desire to see that done which the fathers have first done. When I say I
desire to see it placed where the public mind will rest in the belief
that it is in the course of ultimate extinction, I only say I desire to
see it placed where they placed it. It is not true that our fathers, as
Judge Douglas assumes, made this Government part slave and part free.
Understand the sense in which he puts it. He assumes that slavery is a
rightful thing within itself—was introduced by the framers of the
constitution. The exact truth is, that they found the institution
existing among us, and they left it as they found it. But in making the
Government they left this institution with many clear marks of
disapprobation upon it. They found slavery among them, and they left it
among them because of the difficulty—the absolute impossibility of its
immediate removal. And when Judge Douglas asks me why we cannot let it
remain part slave and part free, as the fathers of the Government made
it, he asks a question based upon an assumption which is itself a
falsehood; and I turn upon him and ask him the question, when the policy
that the fathers of the Government had adopted in relation to this
element among us was the best policy in the world—the only wise
policy—the only policy that we can ever safely continue upon—that will
ever give us peace, unless this dangerous element masters us all and
becomes a national institution—_I turn upon him and ask him why he could
not leave it alone_. I turn and ask him why he was driven to the
necessity of introducing a _new policy_ in regard to it. He has himself
said he introduced a new policy. He said so in his speech on the 22d of
March of the present year, 1858. I ask him why he could not let it
remain where our fathers placed it. I ask, too, of Judge Douglas and his
friends why we shall not again place this institution upon the basis on
which the fathers left it. I ask you, when he infers that I am in favor
of setting the free and slave States at war, when the institution was
placed in that attitude by those who made the Constitution, _did they
make any war_? If we had no war out of it, when thus placed, wherein is
the ground of belief that we shall have war out of it, if we return to
that policy? Have we had any peace upon this matter springing from any
other basis? I maintain that we have not. I have proposed nothing more
than a return to the policy of the fathers.
I confess, when I propose a certain measure of policy, it is not enough
for me that I do not intend any thing evil in the result, but it is
incumbent on me to show that it has not a _tendency_ to that result. I
have met Judge Douglas in that point of view. I have not only made the
declaration that I do not _mean_ to produce a conflict between the
States, but I have tried to show by fair reasoning, and I think I have
shown to the minds of fair men, that I propose nothing but what has a
most peaceful tendency. The quotation that I happened to make in that
Springfield speech, that “a house divided against itself cannot stand,”
and which has proved so offensive to the Judge, was part and parcel of
the same thing. He tries to show that variety in the domestic
institutions of the different States is necessary and indispensable. I
do not dispute it. I have no controversy with Judge Douglas about that.
I shall very readily agree with him that it would be foolish for us to
insist upon having a cranberry law here, in Illinois, where we have no
cranberries, because they have a cranberry law in Indiana, where they
have cranberries. I should insist that it would be exceedingly wrong in
us to deny to Virginia the right to enact oyster laws, where they have
oysters, because we want no such laws here. I understand, I hope, quite
as well as Judge Douglas or any body else, that the variety in the soil
and climate and face of the country, and consequent variety in the
industrial pursuits and productions of a country, require systems of law
conforming to this variety in the natural features of the country. I
understand quite as well as Judge Douglas, that if we here raise a
barrel of flour more than we want, and the Louisianians raise a barrel
of sugar more than they want, it is of mutual advantage to exchange.
That produces commerce, brings us together, and makes us better friends.
We like one another the more for it. And I understand as well as Judge
Douglas, or any body else, that these mutual accommodations are the
cements which bind together the different parts of this Union—that
instead of being a thing to “divide the house”—figuratively expressing
the Union—they tend to sustain it; they are the props of the house
tending always to hold it up.
But when I have admitted all this, I ask if there is any parallel
between these things and this institution of slavery? I do not see that
there is any parallel at all between them. Consider it. When have we had
any difficulty or quarrel amongst ourselves about the cranberry laws of
Indiana, or the oyster laws of Virginia, or the pine lumber laws of
Maine, or the fact that Louisiana produces sugar, and Illinois flour?
When have we had any quarrels over these things? When have we had
perfect peace in regard to this thing which I say is an element of
discord in this Union? We have sometimes had peace, but when was it? It
was when the institution of slavery remained quiet where it was. We have
had difficulty and turmoil whenever it has made a struggle to spread
itself where it was not. I ask, then, if experience does not speak in
thunder-tones, telling us that the policy which has given peace to the
country heretofore, being returned to, gives the greatest promise of
peace again. You may say, and Judge Douglas has intimated the same
thing, that all this difficulty in regard to the institution of slavery
is the mere agitation of office-seekers and ambitious northern
politicians. He thinks we want to get “his place,” I suppose. I agree
that there are office-seekers amongst us. The Bible says somewhere that
we are desperately selfish. I think we would have discovered that fact
without the Bible. I do not claim that I am any less so than the average
of men, but I do claim that I am not more selfish than Judge Douglas.
But is it true that all the difficulty and agitation we have in regard
to this institution of slavery springs from office-seeking—from the mere
ambition of politicians? Is that the truth? How many times have we had
danger from this question? Go back to the day of the Missouri
Compromise. Go back to the Nullification question, at the bottom of
which lay this same slavery question. Go back to the time of the
Annexation of Texas. Go back to the troubles that led to the Compromise
of 1850. You will find that every time, with the single exception of the
Nullification question, they sprang from an endeavor to spread this
institution. There never was a party in the history of this country, and
there probably never will be, of sufficient strength to disturb the
general peace of the country. Parties themselves may be divided and
quarrel on minor questions, yet it extends not beyond the parties
themselves. But does _not_ this question make a disturbance outside of
political circles? Does it not enter into the churches and rend them
asunder? What divided the great Methodist Church into two parts, North
and South? What has raised this constant disturbance in every
Presbyterian General Assembly that meets? What disturbed the Unitarian
Church in this very city two years ago? What has jarred and shaken the
great American Tract Society recently, not yet splitting it, but sure to
divide it in the end? Is it not this same mighty, deep-seated power that
somehow operates on the minds of men, exciting and stirring them up in
every avenue of society—in politics, in religion, in literature, in
morals, in all the manifold relations of life? Is this the work of
politicians? Is that irresistible power which for fifty years has shaken
the Government and agitated the people to be stilled and subdued by
pretending that it is an exceedingly simple thing, and we ought not to
talk about it? If you will get everybody else to stop talking about it,
I assure you I will quit before they have half done so. But where is the
philosophy or statesmanship which assumes that you can quiet that
disturbing element in our society which has disturbed us for more than
half a century, which has been the only serious danger that has
threatened our institutions—I say, where is the philosophy or the
statesmanship based on the assumption that we are to quit talking about
it, and that the public mind is all at once to cease being agitated by
it? Yet this is the policy here in the north that Douglas is
advocating—that we are to care nothing about it! I ask you if it is not
a false philosophy? Is it not a false statesmanship that undertakes to
build up a system of policy upon the basis of caring nothing about _the
very thing that every body does care the most about_?—a thing which all
experience has shown we care a very great deal about?
The Judge alludes very often in the course of his remarks to the
exclusive right which the States have to decide the whole thing for
themselves. I agree with him very readily that the different States have
that right. He is but fighting a man of straw when he assumes that I am
contending against the right of the States to do as they please about
it. Our controversy with him is in regard to the new Territories. We
agree that when States come in as States they have the right and the
power to do as they please. We have no power as citizens of the free
States or in our federal capacity as members of the Federal Union
through the General Government, to disturb slavery in the States where
it exists. We profess constantly that we have no more inclination than
belief in the power of the Government to disturb it; yet we are driven
constantly to defend ourselves from the assumption that we are warring
upon the rights of the _States_. What I insist upon is, that the new
Territories shall be kept free from it while in the Territorial
condition. Judge Douglas assumes that we have no interest in them—that
we have no right whatever to interfere. I think we have some interest. I
think that as white men we have. Do we not wish for an outlet for our
surplus population, if I may so express myself? Do we not feel an
interest in getting at that outlet with such institutions as we would
like to have prevail there? If _you_ go to the Territory opposed to
slavery and another man comes upon the same ground with his slave, upon
the assumption that the things are equal, it turns out that he has the
equal right all his way and you have no part of it your way. If he goes
in and makes it a slave Territory, and by consequence a slave State, is
it not time that those who desire to have it a free State were on equal
ground? Let me suggest it in a different way. How many Democrats are
there about here [“A thousand”] who left slave States and came into the
free State of Illinois to get rid of the institution of slavery?
[Another voice—“A thousand and one.”] I reckon there are a thousand and
one. I will ask you, if the policy you are now advocating had prevailed
when this country was in a Territorial condition, where would you have
gone to get rid of it? Where would you have found your free State or
Territory to go to? And when hereafter, for any cause, the people in
this place shall desire to find new homes, if they wish to be rid of the
institution, where will they find the place to go to?
Now irrespective of the moral aspect of this question as to whether
there is a right or wrong in enslaving a negro, I am still in favor of
our new Territories being in such a condition that white men may find a
home—may find some spot where they can better their condition—where they
can settle upon new soil and better their condition in life. I am in
favor of this not merely (I must say it here as I have elsewhere) for
our own people who are born amongst us, but as an outlet for _free white
people every where_, the world over—in which Hans and Baptiste and
Patrick, and all other men from all the world, may find new homes and
better their conditions in life.
I have stated upon former occasions, and I may as well state again, what
I understand to be the real issue in this controversy between Judge
Douglas and myself. On the point of my wanting to make war between the
free and the slave States, there has been no issue between us. So, too,
when he assumes that I am in favor of introducing a perfect social and
political equality between the white and black races. These are false
issues, upon which Judge Douglas has tried to force the controversy.
There is no foundation in truth for the charge that I maintain either of
these propositions. The real issue in this controversy—the one pressing
upon every mind—is the sentiment on the part of one class that looks
upon the institution of slavery _as a wrong_, and of another class that
_does not_ look upon it as a wrong. The sentiment that contemplates the
institution of slavery in this country as a wrong is the sentiment of
the Republican party. It is the sentiment around which all their
actions—all their arguments circle—from which all their propositions
radiate. They look upon it as being a moral, social and political wrong;
and while they contemplate it as such, they nevertheless have due regard
for its actual existence among us, and the difficulties of getting rid
of it in any satisfactory way and to all the constitutional obligations
thrown about it. Yet having a due regard for these, they desire a policy
in regard to it that looks to its not creating any more danger. They
insist that it should as far as may be, _be treated_ as a wrong, and one
of the methods of treating it as a wrong is to _make provision that it
shall grow no larger_. They also desire a policy that looks to a
peaceful end of slavery at some time, as being wrong. These are the
views they entertain in regard to it as I understand them; and all their
sentiments—all their arguments and propositions are brought within this
range. I have said, and I repeat it here, that if there be a man amongst
us who does not think that the institution of slavery is wrong, in any
one of the aspects of which I have spoken, he is misplaced and ought not
to be with us. And if there be a man amongst us who is so impatient of
it as a wrong as to disregard its actual presence among us and the
difficulty of getting rid of it suddenly in a satisfactory way, and to
disregard the constitutional obligations thrown about it, that man is
misplaced if he is on our platform. We disclaim sympathy with him in
practical action. He is not placed properly with us.
On this subject of treating it as a wrong, and limiting its spread, let
me say a word. Has any thing ever threatened the existence of this Union
save and except this very institution of slavery? What is it that we
hold most dear amongst us? Our own liberty and prosperity. What has ever
threatened our liberty and prosperity save and except this institution
of slavery? If this is true, how do you propose to improve the condition
of things by enlarging slavery—by spreading it out and making it bigger?
You may have a wen or cancer upon your person and not be able to cut it
out lest you bleed to death; but surely it is no way to cure it, to
engraft it and spread it over your whole body. That is no proper way of
treating what you regard a wrong. You see this peaceful way of dealing
with it as a wrong—restricting the spread of it, and not allowing it to
go into new countries where it has not already existed. That is the
peaceful way, the old-fashioned way, the way in which the fathers
themselves set us the example.
On the other hand, I have said there is a sentiment which treats it as
_not_ being wrong. That is the Democratic sentiment of this day. I do
not mean to say that every man who stands within that range positively
asserts that it is right. That class will include all who positively
assert that it is right, and all who like Judge Douglas treat it as
indifferent and do not say it is either right or wrong. These two
classes of men fall within the general class of those who do not look
upon it as a wrong. And if there be among you any body who supposes that
he, as a Democrat, can consider himself “as much opposed to slavery as
anybody,” I would like to reason with him. You never treat it as a
wrong. What other thing that you consider as a wrong, do you deal with
as you deal with that? Perhaps you _say_ it is wrong, _but your leader
never does, and you quarrel with any body who says it is wrong_.
Although you pretend to say so yourself you can find no fit place to
deal with it as a wrong. You must not say any thing about it in the free
States, _because it is not here_. You must not say any thing about it in
the slave States, _because it is there_. You must not say anything about
it in the pulpit, because that is religion and has nothing to do with
it. You must not say any thing about it in politics, _because that will
disturb the security of “my place.”_ There is no place to talk about it
as being a wrong, although you say yourself it is a wrong. But finally
you will screw yourself up to the belief that if the people of the slave
States should adopt a system of gradual emancipation on the slavery
question, you would be in favor of it. You would be in favor of it. You
say that is getting it in the right place, and you would be glad to see
it succeed. But you are deceiving yourself. You all know that Frank
Blair and Gratz Brown, down there in St. Louis, undertook to introduce
that system in Missouri. They fought as valiantly as they could for the
system of gradual emancipation which you pretend you would be glad to
see succeed. Now I will bring you to the test. After a hard fight they
were beaten, and when the news came over here you threw up your hats and
_hurrahed for Democracy_. More than that, take all the argument made in
favor of the system you have proposed, and it carefully excludes the
idea that there is any thing wrong in the institution of slavery. The
arguments to sustain that policy carefully excluded it. Even here to-day
you heard Judge Douglas quarrel with me because I uttered a wish that it
might some time come to an end. Although Henry Clay could say he wished
every slave in the United States was in the country of his ancestors, I
am denounced by those pretending to respect Henry Clay for uttering a
wish that it might some time, in some peaceful way, come to an end. The
Democratic policy in regard to that institution will not tolerate the
merest breath, the slightest hint, of the least degree of wrong about
it. Try it by some of Judge Douglas’s arguments. He says he “don’t care
whether it is voted up or voted down” in the Territories. I do not care
myself in dealing with that expression, whether it is intended to be
expressive of his individual sentiments on the subject, or only of the
national policy he desires to have established. It is alike valuable for
my purpose. Any man can say that he does not see any thing wrong in
slavery, but no man can logically say it who does see a wrong in it;
because no man can logically say he don’t care whether a wrong is voted
up or voted down. He may say he don’t care whether an indifferent thing
is voted up or down, but he must logically have a choice between a right
thing and a wrong thing. He contends that whatever community wants
slaves has a right to have them. So they have if it is not a wrong. But
if it is a wrong, he cannot say people have a right to do wrong. He says
that upon the score of equality, slaves should be allowed to go in a new
Territory, like other property. This is strictly logical if there is no
difference between it and other property. If it and other property are
equal, his argument is entirely logical. But if you insist that one is
wrong and the other right, there is no use to institute a comparison
between right and wrong. You may turn over every thing in the Democratic
policy from beginning to end, whether in the shape it takes on the
statute books, in the shape it takes in the Dred Scott decision, in the
shape it takes in conversation, or the shape it takes in short
maxim-like arguments—it everywhere carefully excludes the idea that
there is any thing wrong in it.
That is the real issue. That is the issue that will continue in this
country when these poor tongues of Judge Douglas and myself shall be
silent. It is the eternal struggle between these two principles—right
and wrong—throughout the world. They are the two principles that have
stood face to face from the beginning of time; and will ever continue to
struggle. The one is the common right of humanity and the other the
divine right of kings. It is the same principle in whatever shape it
develops itself. It is the same spirit that says, “You work and toil and
earn bread, and I’ll eat it.” No matter in what shape it comes, whether
from the mouth of a king who seeks to bestride the people of his own
nation and live by the fruit of their labor, or from one race of men as
an apology for enslaving another race, it is the same tyrannical
principle. I was glad to express my gratitude at Quincy, and I
re-express it here to Judge Douglas—_that he looks to no end of the
institution of slavery_. That will help the people to see where the
struggle really is. It will hereafter place with us all men who really
do wish the wrong may have an end. And whenever we can get rid of the
fog which obscures the real question—when we can get Judge Douglas and
his friends to avow a policy looking to its perpetuation—we can get out
from among that class of men and bring them to the side of those who
treat it as a wrong. Then there will soon be an end of it, and that end
will be its “ultimate extinction.” Whenever the issue can be distinctly
made, and all extraneous matter thrown out so that men can fairly see
the real difference between the parties, this controversy will soon be
settled, and it will be done peaceably too. There will be no war, no
violence. It will be placed again where the wisest and best men of the
world placed it. Brooks of South Carolina once declared that when this
Constitution was framed, its framers did not look to the institution
existing until this day. When he said this, I think he stated a fact
that is fully borne out by the history of the times. But he also said
they were better and wiser men than the men of these days; yet the men
of these days had experience which they had not, and by the invention of
the cotton-gin it became a necessity in this country that slavery should
be perpetual. I now say that, willingly or unwillingly, purposely or
without purpose, Judge Douglas has been the most prominent instrument in
changing the position of the institution of slavery which the fathers of
the Government expected to come to an end ere this—_and putting it upon
Brooks’s cotton-gin basis_—placing it where he openly confesses he has
no desire there shall ever be an end of it.
I understand I have ten minutes yet. I will employ it in saying
something about this argument Judge Douglas uses, while he sustains the
Dred Scott decision, that the people of the Territories can still
somehow exclude slavery. The first thing I ask attention to is the fact
that Judge Douglas constantly said, before the decision, that whether
they could or not, _was a question for the Supreme Court_. But after the
court has made the decision he virtually says it is _not_ a question for
the Supreme Court, but for the people. And how is it he tells us they
can exclude it? He says it needs “police regulations,” and that admits
of “unfriendly legislation.” Although it is a right established by the
Constitution of the United States to take a slave into a Territory of
the United States and hold him as property, yet unless the Territorial
Legislature will give friendly legislation, and, more especially, if
they adopt unfriendly legislation, they can practically exclude him.
Now, without meeting this proposition as a matter of fact, I pass to
consider the real Constitutional obligation. Let me take the gentleman
who looks me in the face before me, and let us suppose that he is a
member of the Territorial Legislature. The first thing he will do will
be to swear that he will support the Constitution of the United States.
His neighbor by his side in the Territory has slaves and needs
Territorial legislation to enable him to enjoy that Constitutional
right. Can he withhold the legislation which his neighbor needs for the
enjoyment of a right which is fixed in his favor in the Constitution of
the United States which he has sworn to support? Can he withhold it
without violating his oath? And more especially, can he pass unfriendly
legislation to violate his oath? Why, this is a _monstrous_ sort of talk
about the Constitution of the United States! _There has never been as
outlandish or lawless a doctrine from the mouth of any respectable man
on earth._ I do not believe it is a Constitutional right to hold slaves
in a Territory of the United States. I believe the decision was
improperly made and I go for reversing it. Judge Douglas is furious
against those who go for reversing a decision. But he is for legislating
it out of all force while the law itself stands. I repeat that there has
never been so monstrous a doctrine uttered from the mouth of a
respectable man.
I suppose most of us (I know it of myself) believe that the people of
the Southern States are entitled to a Congressional Fugitive Slave
law—that is a right fixed in the Constitution. But it cannot be made
available to them without Congressional legislation. In the Judge’s
language, it is a “barren right” which needs legislation before it can
become efficient and valuable to the persons to whom it is guarantied.
And as the right is Constitutional I agree that the legislation shall be
granted to it—and that not that we like the institution of slavery. We
profess to have no taste for running and catching niggers—at least I
profess no taste for that job at all. Why then do I yield support to a
Fugitive Slave law? Because I do not understand that the Constitution,
which guaranties that right, can be supported without it. And if I
believed that the right to hold a slave in a Territory was equally fixed
in the Constitution with the right to reclaim fugitives, I should be
bound to give it the legislation necessary to support it. I say that no
man can deny his obligation to give the necessary legislation to support
slavery in a Territory, who believes it is a Constitutional right to
have it there. No man can, who does not give the Abolitionists an
argument to deny the obligation enjoined by the Constitution to enact a
Fugitive Slave law. Try it now. It is the strongest Abolition argument
ever made. I say if that Dred Scott decision is correct, then the right
to hold slaves in a Territory is equally a Constitutional right with the
right of a slaveholder to have his runaway returned. No one can show the
distinction between them. The one is express, so that we cannot deny it.
The other is construed to be in the Constitution, so that he who
believes the decision to be correct believes in the right. And the man
who argues that by unfriendly legislation, in spite of that
Constitutional right, slavery may be driven from the Territories, cannot
avoid furnishing an argument by which Abolitionists may deny the
obligation to return fugitives, and claim the power to pass laws
unfriendly to the right of the slaveholder to reclaim his fugitive. I do
not know how such an argument may strike a popular assembly like this,
but I defy any body to go before a body of men whose minds are educated
to estimating evidence and reasoning, and show that there is an iota of
difference between the Constitutional right to reclaim a fugitive, and
the Constitutional right to hold a slave, in a Territory, provided this
Dred Scott decision is correct. I defy any man to make an argument that
will justify unfriendly legislation to deprive a slaveholder of his
right to hold his slave in a Territory, that will not equally, in all
its length, breadth and thickness, furnish an argument for nullifying
the Fugitive Slave law. Why, there is not such an Abolitionist in the
nation as Douglas, after all.
MR. DOUGLAS’S REPLY.
Mr. Lincoln has concluded his remarks by saying that there is not such
an Abolitionist as I am in all America. If he could make the
Abolitionists of Illinois believe that, he would not have much show for
the Senate. Let him make the Abolitionists believe the truth of that
statement and his political back is broken.
His first criticism upon me is the expression of his hope that the war
of the Administration will be prosecuted against me and the Democratic
party of this State with vigor. He wants that war prosecuted with vigor;
I have no doubt of it. His hopes of success, and the hopes of his party
depend solely upon it. They have no chance of destroying the Democracy
of this State except by the aid of federal patronage. He has all the
federal office-holders here as his allies, running separate tickets
against the Democracy to divide the party, although the leaders all
intend to vote directly the Abolition ticket, and only leave the
greenhorns to vote this separate ticket who refuse to go into the
Abolition camp. There is something really refreshing in the thought that
Mr. Lincoln is in favor of prosecuting one war vigorously. It is the
first war I ever knew him to be in favor of prosecuting. It is the first
war I ever knew him to believe to be just or Constitutional. When the
Mexican war was being waged, and the American army was surrounded by the
enemy in Mexico, he thought that war was unconstitutional, unnecessary,
and unjust. He thought it was not commenced on the right _spot_.
When I made an incidental allusion of that kind in the joint discussion
over at Charleston some weeks ago, Lincoln, in replying, said that I,
Douglas, had charged him with voting against supplies for the Mexican
war, and then he reared up, full length, and swore that he never voted
against the supplies—that it was a slander—and caught hold of Ficklin,
who sat on the stand, and said, “Here, Ficklin, tell the people that it
is a lie.” Well, Ficklin, who had served in Congress with him, stood up
and told them all that he recollected about it. It was that when George
Ashmun, of Massachusetts, brought forward a resolution declaring the war
unconstitutional, unnecessary, and unjust, that Lincoln had voted for
it. “Yes,” said Lincoln, “I did.” Thus he confessed that he voted that
the war was wrong, that our country was in the wrong, and consequently
that the Mexicans were in the right; but charged that I had slandered
him by saying that he voted against the supplies. I never charged him
with voting against the supplies in my life, because I knew that he was
not in Congress when they were voted. The war was commenced on the 13th
day of May, 1846, and on that day we appropriated in Congress ten
millions of dollars and fifty thousand men to prosecute it. During the
same session we voted more men and more money, and at the next session
we voted more men and more money, so that by the time Mr. Lincoln
entered Congress we had enough men and enough money to carry on the war,
and had no occasion to vote for any more. When he got into the House,
being opposed to the war, and not being able to stop the supplies,
because they had all gone forward, all he could do was to follow the
lead of Corwin, and prove that the war was not begun on the right spot,
and that it was unconstitutional, unnecessary, and wrong. Remember, too,
that this he did after the war had been begun. It is one thing to be
opposed to the declaration of a war, another and very different thing to
take sides with the enemy against your own country after the war has
been commenced. Our army was in Mexico at the time, many battles had
been fought; our citizens, who were defending the honor of their
country’s flag, were surrounded by the daggers, the guns and the poison
of the enemy. Then it was that Corwin made his speech in which he
declared that the American soldiers ought to be welcomed by the Mexicans
with bloody hands and hospitable graves; then it was that Ashmun and
Lincoln voted in the House of Representatives that the war was
unconstitutional and unjust; and Ashmun’s resolution, Corwin’s speech,
and Lincoln’s vote, were sent to Mexico and read at the head of the
Mexican army, to prove to them that there was a Mexican party in the
Congress of the United States who were doing all in their power to aid
them. That a man who takes sides with the common enemy against his own
country in time of war should rejoice in a war being made on me now, is
very natural. And in my opinion, no other kind of a man would rejoice in
it.
Mr. Lincoln has told you a great deal to-day about his being an old line
Clay Whig. Bear in mind that there are a great many old Clay Whigs down
in this region. It is more agreeable, therefore, for him to talk about
the old Clay Whig party than it is for him to talk Abolitionism. We did
not hear much about the old Clay Whig party up in the Abolition
districts. How much of an old line Henry Clay Whig was he? Have you read
General Singleton’s speech at Jacksonville? You know that Gen. Singleton
was, for twenty-five years, the confidential friend of Henry Clay in
Illinois, and he testified that in 1847, when the Constitutional
Convention of this State was in session, the Whig members were invited
to a Whig caucus at the house of Mr. Lincoln’s brother-in-law, where Mr.
Lincoln proposed to throw Henry Clay overboard and take up Gen. Taylor
in his place, giving, as his reason, that if the Whigs did not take up
Gen. Taylor the Democrats would. Singleton testifies that Lincoln, in
that speech, urged, as another reason for throwing Henry Clay overboard,
that the Whigs had fought long enough for principle and ought to begin
to fight for success. Singleton also testifies that Lincoln’s speech did
have the effect of cutting Clay’s throat, and that he (Singleton) and
others withdrew from the caucus in indignation. He further states that
when they got to Philadelphia to attend the National Convention of the
Whig party, that Lincoln was there, the bitter and deadly enemy of Clay,
and that he tried to keep him (Singleton) out of the Convention because
he insisted on voting for Clay, and Lincoln was determined to have
Taylor. Singleton says that Lincoln rejoiced with very great joy when he
found the mangled remains of the murdered Whig statesman lying cold
before him. Now, Mr. Lincoln tells you that he is an old line Clay Whig!
Gen. Singleton testifies to the facts I have narrated, in a public
speech which has been printed and circulated broadcast over the State
for weeks, yet not a lisp have we heard from Mr. Lincoln on the subject,
except that he is an old Clay Whig.
What part of Henry Clay’s policy did Lincoln ever advocate? He was in
Congress in 1848–9, when the Wilmot proviso warfare disturbed the peace
and harmony of the country, until it shook the foundation of the
Republic from its centre to its circumference. It was that agitation
that brought Clay forth from his retirement at Ashland again to occupy
his seat in the Senate of the United States, to see if he could not, by
his great wisdom and experience, and the renown of his name, do
something to restore peace and quiet to a disturbed country. Who got up
that sectional strife that Clay had to be called upon to quell? I have
heard Lincoln boast that he voted forty-two times for the Wilmot
proviso, and that he would have voted as many times more if he could.
Lincoln is the man, in connection with Seward, Chase, Giddings, and
other Abolitionists, who got up that strife that I helped Clay to put
down. Henry Clay came back to the Senate in 1849, and saw that he must
do something to restore peace to the country. The Union Whigs and the
Union Democrats welcomed him the moment he arrived, as the man for the
occasion. We believed that he, of all men on earth, had been preserved
by Divine Providence to guide us out of our difficulties, and we
Democrats rallied under Clay then, as you Whigs in nullification time
rallied under the banner of old Jackson, forgetting party when the
country was in danger, in order that we might have a country first, and
parties afterward.
And this reminds me that Mr. Lincoln told you that the slavery question
was the only thing that ever disturbed the peace and harmony of the
Union. Did not nullification once raise its head and disturb the peace
of this Union in 1832? Was that the slavery question, Mr. Lincoln? Did
not disunion raise its monster head during the last war with Great
Britain? Was that the slavery question, Mr. Lincoln? The peace of this
country has been disturbed three times, once during the war with Great
Britain, once on the tariff question, and once on the slavery question.
His argument, therefore, that slavery is the only question that has ever
created dissension in the Union falls to the ground. It is true that
agitators are enabled now to use this slavery question for the purpose
of sectional strife. He admits that in regard to all things else, the
principle that I advocate, making each State and Territory free to
decide for itself, ought to prevail. He instances the cranberry laws,
and the oyster laws, and he might have gone through the whole list with
the same effect. I say that all these laws are local and domestic, and
that local and domestic concerns should be left to each State and each
Territory to manage for itself. If agitators would acquiesce in that
principle, there never would be any danger to the peace and harmony of
the Union.
Mr. Lincoln tries to avoid the main issue by attacking the truth of my
proposition, that our fathers made this Government divided into free and
slave States, recognizing the right of each to decide all its local
questions for itself. Did they not thus make it? It is true that they
did not establish slavery in any of the States, or abolish it in any of
them; but finding thirteen States, twelve of which were slave and one
free, they agreed to form a government uniting them together, as they
stood divided into free and slave States, and to guaranty forever to
each State the right to do as it pleased on the slavery question. Having
thus made the government, and conferred this right upon each State
forever, I assert that this Government can exist as they made it,
divided into free and slave States, if any one State chooses to retain
slavery. He says that he looks forward to a time when slavery shall be
abolished everywhere. I look forward to a time when each State shall be
allowed to do as it pleases. If it chooses to keep slavery forever, it
is not my business, but its own; if it chooses to abolish slavery, it is
its own business—not mine. I care more for the great principle of
self-government, the right of the people to rule, than I do for all the
negroes in Christendom. I would not endanger the perpetuity of this
Union, I would not blot out the great inalienable rights of the white
men for all the negroes that ever existed. Hence, I say, let us maintain
this Government on the principles that our fathers made it, recognizing
the right of each State to keep slavery as long as its people determine,
or to abolish it when they please. But Mr. Lincoln says that when our
fathers made this Government they did not look forward to the state of
things now existing; and therefore he thinks the doctrine was wrong; and
he quotes Brooks, of South Carolina, to prove that our fathers then
thought that probably slavery would be abolished by each State acting
for itself before this time. Suppose they did; suppose they did not
foresee what has occurred,—does that change the principles of our
Government? They did not probably foresee the telegraph that transmits
intelligence by lightning, nor did they foresee the railroads that now
form the bonds of union between the different States, or the thousand
mechanical inventions that have elevated mankind. But do these things
change the principles of the Government? Our fathers, I say, made this
Government on the principle of the right of each State to do as it
pleases in its own domestic affairs, subject to the Constitution, and
allowed the people of each to apply to every new change of circumstances
such remedy as they may see fit to improve their condition. This right
they have for all time to come.
Mr. Lincoln went on to tell you that he did not at all desire to
interfere with slavery in the States where it exists, nor does his
party. I expected him to say that down here. Let me ask him then how he
expects to put slavery in the course of ultimate extinction every where,
if he does not intend to interfere with it in the States where it
exists? He says that he will prohibit it in all the Territories, and the
inference is, then, that unless they make free States out of them he
will keep them out of the Union; for, mark you, he did not say whether
or not he would vote to admit Kansas with slavery or not, as her people
might apply (he forgot that as usual, etc.); he did not say whether or
not he was in favor of bringing the Territories now in existence into
the Union on the principle of Clay’s Compromise measures on the slavery
question. I told you that he would not. His idea is that he will
prohibit slavery in all the Territories and thus force them all to
become free States, surrounding the slave States with a cordon of free
States and hemming them in, keeping the slaves confined to their present
limits whilst they go on multiplying until the soil on which they live
will no longer feed them, and he will thus be able to put slavery in a
course of ultimate extinction by starvation. He will extinguish slavery
in the Southern States as the French general did the Algerines when he
smoked them out. He is going to extinguish slavery by surrounding the
slave States, hemming in the slaves, and starving them out of existence,
as you smoke a fox out of his hole. He intends to do that in the name of
humanity and Christianity, in order that we may get rid of the terrible
crime and sin entailed upon our fathers of holding slaves. Mr. Lincoln
makes out that line of policy, and appeals to the moral sense of justice
and to the Christian feeling of the community to sustain him. He says
that any man who holds to the contrary doctrine is in the position of
the king who claimed to govern by divine right. Let us examine for a
moment and see what principle it was that overthrew the Divine right of
George the Third to govern us. Did not these colonies rebel because the
British parliament had no right to pass laws concerning our property and
domestic and private institutions without our consent? We demanded that
the British Government should not pass such laws unless they gave us
representation in the body passing them,—and this the British government
insisting on doing,—we went to war, on the principle that the Home
Government should not control and govern distant colonies without giving
them representation. Now, Mr. Lincoln proposes to govern the Territories
without giving them a representation, and calls on Congress to pass laws
controlling their property and domestic concerns without their consent
and against their will. Thus, he asserts for his party the identical
principle asserted by George III. and the Tories of the Revolution.
I ask you to look into these things, and then tell me whether the
Democracy or the Abolitionists are right. I hold that the people of a
Territory, like those of a State (I use the language of Mr. Buchanan in
his letter of acceptance), have the right to decide for themselves
whether slavery shall or shall not exist within their limits. The point
upon which Chief Justice Taney expresses his opinion is simply this,
that slaves being property, stand on an equal footing with other
property, and consequently that the owner has the same right to carry
that property into a Territory that he has any other, subject to the
same conditions. Suppose that one of your merchants was to take fifty or
one hundred thousand dollars’ worth of liquors to Kansas. He has a right
to go there under that decision, but when he gets there he finds the
Maine liquor law in force, and what can he do with his property after he
gets it there? He cannot sell it, he cannot use it, it is subject to the
local law, and that law is against him, and the best thing he can do
with it is to bring it back into Missouri or Illinois and sell it. If
you take negroes to Kansas, as Col. Jeff. Davis said in his Bangor
speech, from which I have quoted to-day, you must take them there
subject to the local law. If the people want the institution of slavery
they will protect and encourage it; but if they do not want it they will
withhold that protection, and the absence of local legislation
protecting slavery excludes it as completely as a positive prohibition.
You slaveholders of Missouri might as well understand what you know
practically, that you cannot carry slavery where the people do not want
it. All you have a right to ask is that the people shall do as they
please; if they want slavery let them have it; if they do not want it,
allow them to refuse to encourage it.
My friends, if, as I have said before, we will only live up to this
great fundamental principle, there will be peace between the North and
the South. Mr. Lincoln admits that under the Constitution on all
domestic questions, except slavery, we ought not to interfere with the
people of each State. What right have we to interfere with slavery any
more than we have to interfere with any other question? He says that
this slavery question is now the bone of contention. Why? Simply because
agitators have combined in all the free States to make war upon it.
Suppose the agitators in the States should combine in one-half of the
Union to make war upon the railroad system of the other half? They would
thus be driven to the same sectional strife. Suppose one section makes
war upon any other peculiar institution of the opposite section and the
same strife is produced. The only remedy and safety is that we shall
stand by the Constitution as our fathers made it, obey the laws as they
are passed, while they stand the proper test and sustain the decisions
of the Supreme Court and the constituted authorities.
Speech of Hon. Jefferson Davis, Senator from Mississippi,
_On retiring from the United States Senate. Delivered in the Senate
Chamber January 21, 1861_.
I rise, Mr. President, for the purpose of announcing to the Senate that
I have satisfactory evidence that the State of Mississippi, by a solemn
ordinance of her people in convention assembled, has declared her
separation from the United States. Under these circumstances, of course
my functions are terminated here. It has seemed to me proper, however,
that I should appear in the Senate to announce that fact to my
associates, and I will say but very little more. The occasion does not
invite me to go into argument; and my physical condition would not
permit me to do so if it were otherwise, and yet it seems to become me
to say something on the part of the State I here represent, on an
occasion so solemn as this. It is known to Senators who have served with
me here, that I have for many years advocated as an essential attribute
of State sovereignty, the right of a State to secede from the Union.
Therefore, if I had not believed there was justifiable cause; if I had
thought that Mississippi was acting without sufficient provocation, or
without an existing necessity, I should still, under my theory of the
government, because of my allegiance to the State of which I am a
citizen, have been bound by her action. I, however, may be permitted to
say that I do think she has justifiable cause and I approve of her act.
I conferred with her people before that act was taken, counseled them
then that if the state of things which they apprehended should exist
when the convention met, they should take the action which they have now
adopted.
I hope none who hear me will confound this expression of mine with the
advocacy of the right of a State to remain in the Union and to disregard
its constitutional obligations by the nullification of the law. Such is
not my theory. Nullification and secession so often confounded are
indeed antagonistic principles. Nullification is a remedy which it is
sought to apply within the Union and against the agents of the States.
It is only to be justified when the agent has violated his
constitutional obligation, and a State, assuming to judge for itself
denies the right of the agent thus to act and appeals to the other
States of the Union for a decision; but when the States themselves and
when the people of the States have so acted as to convince us that they
will not regard our constitutional rights, then, and then for the first
time, arises the doctrine of secession in its practical application.
A great man who now reposes with his fathers and who has been often
arraigned for a want of fealty to the Union advocated the doctrine of
Nullification because it preserved the Union. It was because of his
deep-seated attachment to the Union, his determination to find some
remedy for existing ills short of the severance of the ties which bound
South Carolina to the other States, that Mr. Calhoun advocated the
doctrine of nullification, which he proclaimed to be peaceful, to be
within the limits of State power, not to disturb the Union, but only to
be a means of bringing the agent before the tribunal of the States for
their judgment.
Secession belongs to a different class of remedies. It is to be
justified upon the basis that the States are sovereign. There was a time
when none denied it. I hope the time may come again when a better
comprehension of the theory of our government and the inalienable rights
of the people of the States will prevent any one from denying that each
State is a sovereign, and thus may reclaim the grants which it has made
to any agent whomsoever.
I therefore say I concur in the action of the people of Mississippi,
believing it to be necessary and proper, and should have been bound by
their action if my belief had been otherwise; and this brings me at the
important point which I wish, on this last occasion, to present to the
Senate. It is by this confounding of nullification and secession that
the name of a great man whose ashes now mingle with his mother earth,
has been invoked to justify coercion against a seceding state. The
phrase “to execute the laws” was an expression which General Jackson
applied to the case of a State refusing to obey the laws while yet a
member of the Union. That is not the case which is now presented. The
laws are to be executed over the United States, and upon the people of
the United States. They have no relation with any foreign country. It is
a perversion of terms, at least it is a great misapprehension of the
case, which cites that expression for application to a State which has
withdrawn from the Union. You may make war on a foreign State. If it be
the purpose of gentlemen they may make war against a State which has
withdrawn from the Union; but there are no laws of the United States to
be executed within the limits of a Seceded State. A State finding
herself in the condition in which Mississippi has judged she is; in
which her safety requires that she should provide for the maintenance of
her rights out of the Union, surrenders all the benefits, (and they are
known to be many) deprives herself of the advantages, (they are known to
be great) severs all the ties of affection (and they are close and
enduring) which have bound her to the Union; and thus divesting herself
of every benefit, taking upon herself every burden, she claims to be
exempt from any power to execute the laws of the United States within
her limits.
I well remember an occasion when Massachusetts was arraigned before the
Bar of the Senate, and when then the doctrine of coercion was rife, and
to be applied against her because of the rescue of a fugitive slave in
Boston. My opinion then was the same as it is now. Not in the spirit of
egotism, but to show that I am not influenced in my opinion because the
case is my own, I refer to that time and that occasion as containing the
opinion which I then entertained and on which my present conduct is
based. I then said, if Massachusetts, following her through a stated
line of conduct, chooses to take the last step which separates her from
the Union, it is her right to go, and I will neither vote one dollar nor
one man to coerce her back; but will say to her, “God speed,” in memory
of the kind associations which once existed between her and the other
States. It has been a conviction of pressing necessity, it has been a
belief that we are to be deprived in the Union, of the rights which our
fathers bequeathed to us, which has brought Mississippi into her present
decision. She has heard proclaimed the theory that all men are created
free and equal, and this made the basis of an attack on her social
institutions; and the sacred Declaration of Independence has been
invoked to maintain the position of the equality of the races. That
Declaration of Independence is to be construed by the circumstances and
purposes for which it was made. The communities were declaring their
independence; the people of those communities were asserting that no man
was born—to use the language of Mr. Jefferson—booted and spurred to ride
over the rest of mankind; that men were created equal—meaning the men of
the political community; that there was no divine right to rule; that no
man inherited the right to govern; that there were no classes by which
power and place descended to families, but that all stations were
equally within the grasp of each member of the body politic. These were
the great principles they announced; these were the purposes for which
they made their declaration; these were the ends to which their
enunciation was directed. They have no reference to the slave; else, how
happened it that among the items of arraignment made against George III.
was that he endeavored to do just what the North has been endeavoring of
late to do—to stir up insurrection among our slaves? Had the Declaration
announced that the negroes were free and equal how was it the Prince was
to be arraigned for stirring up insurrection among them? And how was
this to be enumerated among the high crimes which caused the colonies to
sever their connection with the mother country? When our constitution
was formed, the same idea was rendered more palpable, for there we find
provision made for that very class of persons as property; they were not
put upon the footing of equality with white men—not even upon that of
paupers and convicts, but so far as representation was concerned, were
discriminated against as a lower caste only to be represented in a
numerical proportion of three-fifths.
Then, Senators, we recur to the compact which binds us together; we
recur to the principles upon which our government was founded; and when
you deny them, and when you deny to us, the right to withdraw from a
government which thus prevented, threatens to be destructive of our
rights, we but tread in the path of our fathers when we proclaim our
independence, and take the hazard. This is done not in hostility to
others, not to injure any section of the country, not even for our own
pecuniary benefit, but from the high and solemn motive of defending and
protecting the rights we inherited, and which it is our sacred duty to
transmit unshorn to our children.
I find in myself, perhaps, a type of the general feeling of my
constituents towards yours. I am sure I feel no hostility to you,
Senators from the North. I am sure there is not one of you, whatever
sharp discussion there may have been between us, to whom I cannot now
say, in the presence of my God, “I wish you well,” and such, I am sure,
is the feeling of the people whom I represent towards those whom you
represent. I therefore feel that I but express their desire when I say I
hope, and they hope for peaceful relations with you, though we must
part. They may be mutually beneficial to us in the future as they have
been in the past, if you so will it. The reverse may bring disaster on
every portion of the country; and if you will have it thus, we will
invoke the God of our fathers, who delivered them from the power of the
lion, to protect us from the ravages of the bear, and thus, putting our
trust in God, and to our firm hearts and strong arms we will vindicate
the right as best we may.
In the course of my service here, associated at different times with a
great variety of Senators, I see now around me some with whom I have
served long; there have been points of collision, but whatever of
offense there has been to me I leave here; I carry with me no hostile
remembrance. Whatever offense I have given which has not been redressed,
or for which satisfaction has not been demanded, I have, Senators, in
this hour of our parting, to offer you an apology for any harm which, in
the heat of discussion, I have inflicted. I go hence unencumbered of any
injury received, and having discharged the duty of making the only
reparation in my power for any injury offered.
Mr. President and Senators, having made the announcement which the
occasion seemed to me to require, it only remains for me to bid you a
final adieu.
Speech of the Hon. Henry Wilson of Massachusetts
_In the canvass against Horace Greeley at Richmond, Ind., August 3,
1872_.
AN ABSTRACT.
Gentlemen, standing here to-day, in this presence, among these
liberty-loving, patriotic men and women of Wayne county, I want to call
your attention for a few moments to what we have struggled for in the
past.
Nearly forty years ago, when the slave power dominated the country—when
the dark shadow of human slavery fell upon us all here in the
North—there arose a body of conscientious men and women who proclaimed
the doctrine that emancipation was the duty of the master and the right
of the slave; they proclaimed it to be a duty to let the oppressed go
free. Rewards were offered—they were denounced, mobbed—violence pervaded
the land. Yet these faithful ones maintained with fidelity, against all
odds, the sublime creed of human liberty. The struggle, commencing forty
years ago against the assumptions and dominations of the slave power,
went on from one step to another—the slave power went right on to the
conquest of the country—promises were broken, without regard to
constitutions or laws of the human race. The work went on till the
people, in their majesty, in 1860, went to the ballot-box and made
Abraham Lincoln President of the United States. [Cheers.] Then came a
great trial; that trial was whether we should do battle for the
principles of eternal right, and maintain the cause of liberty, or
surrender; whether we would be true to our principles or false. We stood
firm—stood by the sacred cause—and then the slave power plunged the
country into a godless rebellion.
Then came another trial, testing the manhood, the courage, the sublime
fidelity of the lovers of liberty in the country. We met that test as we
had met every other test—trusting in God, trusting in the people—willing
to stand or fall by our principles. Through four years of blood we
maintained those principles; we broke down the rebellion, restored a
broken Union, and vindicated the authority and power of the nation. In
that struggle Indiana played a glorious part in the field, and her voice
in the councils of the nation had great and deserved influence.
[Cheers.]
Now, gentlemen, measured by the high standard of fidelity to country, of
patriotism, the great political party to which we belong to-day was as
true to the country in war as it had been in peace—true to the country
every time, and on all occasions.
Not only true to the country, but the Republican party was true to
liberty. It struck the fetters from the bondman, and elevated four and a
half millions of men from chattel-hood to manhood; gave them civil
rights, gave them political rights, and gave them part and parcel of the
power of the country. [Applause.]
Now, gentlemen, here to-day, I point to this record—this great
record—and say to you, that, measured by the standard of patriotism—one
of the greatest and grandest standards by which to measure public men,
political organizations or nations—measured by that standard which the
whole world recognizes, the Republican party of the United States stands
before the world with none, to accuse it of want of fidelity to country.
[Cheers.] Measured by the standard of liberty, equal, universal,
impartial liberty—liberty to all races, all colors and all
nationalities—the Republican party stands to-day before the country
pre-eminently the party of universal liberty. [Loud cheers.] Measured by
the standard of humanity—that humanity that stoops down and lifts up the
poor and lowly, the oppressed and the castaways, the poor, struggling
sons and daughters of toil and misfortune—measured by that standard, the
Republican party stands before this country to-day without a peer in our
history, or in the history of any other people. [Renewed and general
applause.] We have gone further, embraced more, lifted up lowlier men,
carried them to a higher elevation, labored amid obloquy and reproach to
lift up the despised and lowly nations of the earth than any political
organization that the sun ever shone upon.
And then, gentlemen, tested by the support of all the great ideas that
tend to lift up humanity, to pull none down, to lift all up, to carry
the country upward and forward, ever toward God, the Republican party of
the country has been, and now is, to-day, in advance of any political
organization the world knows.
Gentlemen, I am not here to maintain that this great party, with its
three and a half millions of voters, tested and tried as it has been
during twelve years—I am not here to say that it has made no mistakes.
We have committed errors; we could not always see what the right was; we
failed sometimes; but, gentlemen, take our record—take it as it
stands—it is a bright and glorious record, that any man, or set of men,
may be proud of. We have stood, and we stand to-day, on the side of man,
and on the side of the ideas God has given us in His Holy Word.
[Applause.] There has not been a day since by the labors, the prayers
and the sacrifices of the old anti-slavery men and women of the country,
from 1830 to 1855—during twenty-five years—I say to you, gentlemen,
here, to-day, that this party, the product of these prayers, and these
sacrifices, and these efforts—with all its faults—has been true to
patriotism, true to liberty, true to justice, true to humanity, true to
Christian civilization. [Cheers.]
I say to you here to-day, that all along during this time, the
Democratic party carried the banners of slavery. Whenever the slave
power desired anything they got it. They wielded the entire power of the
nation, until, in their arrogance, when we elected Abraham Lincoln, they
plunged the country into the fire and blood of the greatest civil war
recorded in history. After the war all the measures inaugurated for
emancipation—to make the country free—to lift an emancipated race up—to
give them instruction and make them citizens—to give them civil rights
and make them voters—to put them on an equality with the rest of the
people—to every one of that series of thirty or forty measures the
Democratic party gave their President unqualified and united opposition.
Well, now, we have been accustomed to say that they were mistaken,
misinformed, that they were honest—that they believed what they did;
but, gentlemen, if they have believed what they have said, that they
have acted according to their convictions from 1832 to 1872—a period of
forty years—can they be honest, to-day, in indorsing the Cincinnati
platform—in supporting Horace Greeley? [“No, no!”]
Why, we have read of sudden and miraculous conversions. We read of St.
Paul’s conversion, of the light that shone around him, but I ask you, in
the history of the human family have you ever known three millions of
men—three millions of great sinners for forty years—[laughter]—three
millions of men, all convicted, all converted, and all changed in the
twinkling of an eye. [Renewed laughter.] Why, gentlemen, if it is so,
for one I will lift up my eyes and my heart to God, that those sinners,
that this great political party that has been for forty years, every
time and all the time, on every question and on all questions pertaining
to the human race and the rights of the colored race, on the wrong
side—on the side of injustice, oppression and inhumanity—on the side
that has been against man, and against God’s holy word; I say,
gentlemen, that I will lift up my heart in gratitude to God that these
men have suddenly repented.
Why, I have been accustomed to think that the greatest victory the
Republican party would ever be called upon to win—and I knew it would
win it, because the Republican party, as Napoleon said of his armies,
are accustomed to sleep on the field of victory. The Republican
party—that always won—always ought to win, because it is on the right
side; and when it is defeated, it only falls back to gather strength to
advance again. [Applause.] I did suppose that the greatest task it would
ever have, greater than putting down the rebellion, greater than
emancipating four millions of men, greater than lifting them up to civil
rights—greater than all its grand deeds—would be the conviction and
conversion of the Democratic party of the United States. [Laughter and
cheers.] Just as we are going into a Presidential election—when it was
certain that if the Republican party said and affirmed, said by its
members, said altogether, that its ideas, its principles, its policy,
its measures, were stronger than were the political organization of the
Democrats. I say, just as we are going into the contest, when it was
certain that we would break down and crush out its ideas, and take its
flags and disband it, and out of the wreck we would gather hundreds of
thousands of changed and converted men, the best part of the body—just
at that time some of our men are so anxious to embrace somebody that has
always been wrong that they start out at once in a wild hunt to clasp
hands with our enemies and to save the Democratic party from absolute
annihilation. [Laughter.] To do what they want us is to disband. Well,
gentlemen, I suppose there are some here to-day that belonged to the
grand old Army of the Potomac. If when Lee had retreated on Richmond,
and Phil. Sheridan sent back to Grant that if he pushed things he would
capture the army—if, instead of sending back to Sheridan, as Grant did,
“Push things,” he had said to him, “Let us disband the Army of the
Potomac; don’t hurt the feelings of these retreating men; let us clasp
hands with them,” what would have been the result? I suppose there are
some of you here to-day that followed Sherman—that were with him in his
terrible march from Chattanooga to Atlanta—with him in that great march
from Atlanta to the sea—what would you have thought of him if, when you
came in sight of the Atlantic ocean, you had had orders to disband
before the banners of the rebellion had disappeared from the Southern
heavens?
I tell you, to-day, this movement of a portion of our forces is this and
nothing more. I would as soon have disbanded that Army of the Potomac
after Sheridan’s ride through the valley of the Shenandoah, or when
Sherman had reached the sea, as to disband the Republican party to-day.
The time has not come. [Loud and continued applause.]
I am not making a mere partisan appeal to you. I believe in this
Republican party, and, if I know myself, rather than see it defeated
to-day—rather than see the government pass out of its hands—I would
sacrifice anything on earth in my possession, even life itself. [Loud
applause] I have seen brave and good men—patriotic, liberty-loving,
God-fearing men—I have seen them die for the cause of the country—for
the ideas we profess, and I tell you to-day, with all the faults of the
Republican party—and it has had faults and has made some mistakes—I say
to you that I believe upon my conscience its defeat would be a disaster
to the country, and would be a stain upon our record. It would bring
upon us—we might say what we pleased, our enemies would claim it, and
the world would record it—that this great, patriotic, liberty-loving
Republican party of the United States, after all its great labors and
great history, had been weighed in the balances and found wanting, and
condemned by the American people.
Well, gentlemen, I choose, if it is to fall, to fall with it. I became
an anti-slavery man in 1835. In 1836 I tied myself, pledged myself, to
do all I could to overthrow the slave power of my country. During all
these years I have never given a vote, uttered a word, or written a line
that I did not suppose tended to this result. I invoke you old
anti-slavery men here to-day—and I know I am speaking to men who have
been engaged in the cause—I implore you men who have been true in the
past, no matter what the men or their natures are, to stand with the
grand organization of the Republican party—be true to its cause and
fight its battles—if we are defeated, let us accept the defeat as best
we may; if we are victorious, let us make our future more glorious than
the past. If we fail, let us have the proud consciousness that we have
been faithful to our principles, true to our convictions; that we go
down with our flag flying—that we go down trusting in God that our
country may become, what we have striven to make it, the foremost nation
on the globe. [Immense applause.]
Speech of Senator Oliver P. Morton, of Indiana,
_On the National Idea, at Providence, R. I._
The distinguished orator was introduced by Senator Anthony, and made an
extended speech, from which we take the more pertinent paragraphs:
From this proposition two corollaries have been adduced from time to
time, and I must say with great force of logic. The first is that this
Union is composed of sovereign and independent States who have simply
entered into a compact for particular purposes, and the government is
merely their agent; that any State has the right to withdraw from the
Union at pleasure, or whenever in its judgment the terms of the compact
have been violated, or the interests of the State require its
withdrawal. The second is that each State has the right to nullify any
law of Congress which, in the judgment of the State, is in violation of
the compact by which the government was formed. This doctrine has been
the evil genius of the country from the foundation of our government. It
may be said to be the devil in our political system. It has been our
danger from the first. It is the rock in the straits, and we fear that
the end is not yet. Now what can we oppose to this doctrine? We oppose
what we call “the national idea.” We assume that this government was
formed by the governments of the United States in their aggregate and in
their primary capacity. We assume that, instead of there being
thirty-seven nations, there is but one; instead of there being
thirty-seven sovereignties, there is but one sovereignty. We assume that
the States are not sovereign, but that they are integral and subordinate
parts of one great country. I may be asked the question here, “Are there
no State rights? Would you override the States? Would you obliterate
State lines?” I answer, “No.” I answer that this doctrine is the only
doctrine that can preserve the peace of this nation and preserve the
rights of the States. I answer that there is a vast body of State rights
guaranteed and secured by the Constitution of the United States, by the
same Constitution that created and upholds the government of the United
States; that these State rights have the same guarantee that the rights
of the National Government have, equally entitled to the protection of
the Supreme Court, springing out of the same instrument, and that one
set of rights are just as sacred as the other. Some confound the idea of
State sovereignty and State rights as being one and the same thing.
Others seem to suppose that State rights are only consistent with State
sovereignty, and cannot exist except upon the theory of State
sovereignty; while I assume that State rights are consistent with
National sovereignty, and are safest under the protection of the nation.
The Constitution gives one class of rights to the government of the
United States. They are specified, and they carry with them all the
rights that are indispensable and necessary to their full execution and
enjoyment. The rest are to be held and enjoyed by the States, or
reserved to the people. The States have their rights by the agreement of
the nation. That seems to be the important truth that is so often
overlooked, that the rights of the States, sacred and unapproachable,
are sacred by the agreement of the nation, as much so as are the powers
that are conferred upon the government of the United States, that the
States derive their powers from the same source, viz: The Constitution
of the United States. That Constitution says that the government shall
have one class of powers, and that other powers shall be gained by the
States, to be enjoyed by them or reserved to the people. In the
consideration of this question, we must reflect that the nation had
assembled in convention in 1787, and there formed a government, there
declared what rights should be given to the National Government, and
what rights should be reserved to the States, and that, in either case,
the grant and guarantee is an act of national sovereignty by the people
in convention assembled. When we shall embrace this idea fully, all the
danger of centralization will pass away, though we discard the idea of
State sovereignty.
I do not differ so much with many gentlemen in regard to what the rights
of the States are. I differ with them in regard to the titles by which
they hold them. I say that so far as State rights are concerned, and the
rights of the government, that we are not to go back beyond the period
of 1787, when the Constitution was formed. The rights of the elder
States, and of Rhode Island as she has them now, are to be dated from
the formation of the Constitution. Then they came into convention. They
had the right to make any sort of government they pleased, and they did.
And in that government they guarantied and secured to the States the
great body of rights in regard to local and domestic government, but it
was the agreement of the nation at that time. So far as the new States
are concerned, they are to come in on an equality. They are to have the
same rights with the old; and this theory would be impossible of
execution except upon the idea that the rights of the States and of the
National Government are to be determined from the action that was taken
at that time. The difficulty had been in regard to this theory of State
sovereignty, and the assumed right of secession and of nullification was
the result. They assumed that these States existed as nations separate
and distinct before that time, and that they only loaned a portion of
their rights for a particular purpose. This is the base of that theory;
while we assume that the people were acting together at that time in
their aggregate capacity, raising a system of government, giving the
United States certain powers, and providing that the States should hold
and enjoy the rest, excepting those that were reserved to the people.
The preservation of local self-government is essential to the liberties
of this nation. Nobody endorses that sentiment more strongly than I do.
Nobody will stand by the rights of the States more firmly than I will. I
hold that their rights are consistent with national sovereignty, and
that national sovereignty is consistent with the rights of the States,
and I deny that these rights are the result of inherent original State
sovereignty. In other words, we differ in regard to the title. What the
States should have, and what the government should have, was settled by
the act of the nation in convention in 1787, changed to some extent by
the adoption of amendments since that time. It is not enough for a party
to deny the right of secession. It is not enough for a party to deny the
right of nullification. They must go further. They must deny the
doctrine of State sovereignty; for as long as that doctrine is admitted,
these other things will spring up spontaneously from it, and whenever
the occasion allows it. If we were to admit that the States were
sovereign, then we would be bound to say that Webster did not answer
Hayne, and that Webster and Hayne never answered Calhoun. If once it is
admitted that the States are sovereign, it is hard to resist the
corollaries to which I have referred, that they have the right to
secede, and that they have the right to nullify.
The doctrine of nationality planted deep in the hearts of the American
people is our only sheet-anchor of safety for the future. Our country is
greatly extended, from the tropical to the arctic regions, with every
variety of climate, soil, and productions, with different commercial and
manufacturing interests. The States on the Pacific slopes are separated
from those on this side of the Rocky Mountains by fifteen hundred miles
of mountain and desert. They have a different commerce from what you
have, almost an independent commerce. Their commerce will be with China,
Japan, Australia, the western countries of South America, and the
islands of the Southern Pacific. It is now but in its infancy, but it
bids fair to develop into colossal proportions, and may change the
commercial aspect of the world. We know not what feelings of
independence may arise in those States in time to come. It is difficult
to deny the effect that may be produced by the separation of vast States
with a different commerce acting in conjunction with forced theories of
the origin and laws of our government. In saying this I will cast no
imputation upon the loyalty of those States. They are now as loyal as
any, and were during the war. But we can imagine that what has been may
be again. And we can understand what may be the danger of this doctrine,
if it should still maintain its hold in the minds of the American
people, when conflicting interests arise, and conflicting notions arise
as to what may be the interests of the people; as in 1812 a war was
brought about which was regarded as being fatal to the interests of the
New England States, they took their position upon it. We have had a law
which was regarded in South Carolina as being fatal to her interests,
and she took her position upon it. This doctrine was again seized by
slavery in 1861, and the rebellion was brought on. And what may happen
in the far future upon the eastern and western coasts, upon the northern
and southern extremities of our nation, we cannot tell.
The idea that we are a nation, that we are one people, undivided and
indivisible, should be a plank in the platform of every party. It should
be printed on the banner of every party. It should be taught in every
school, academy, and college. It should be the political North Star by
which every political manager should steer his bark. It should be the
central idea of American politics, and every child, so to speak, should
be vaccinated with this idea, so that he may be protected against this
political distemper that has brought such calamity upon our country.
Were the mind of the nation, so to speak, fully saturated with this
sentiment of nationality, that we are but one people, undivided and
indivisible, there would be no danger though our boundaries came to
embrace the entire continent. It is therefore of the utmost importance
that it should be taught and inculcated upon all occasions. What the sun
is in the heavens, diffusing light, and life, and warmth, and by its
subtle influence holding the planets in their orbits and preserving the
harmony of the universe—such is the sentiment of nationality in a
nation, diffusing light and protection in every part, holding the faces
of Americans always toward their home, protecting the States in the
exercise of their just powers, and preserving the harmony and prosperity
of all.
We must have a nation. It is a necessity of our political existence, and
we find the countries of the Old World now aspiring for nationality.
Italy, after a long absence, has returned. Rome has again become the
centre and the capital of a great nation. The bleeding fragments of the
beautiful land have been bound up together, and Italy again resumes her
place among the nations. And we find the great Germanic family has been
sighing for a nationality. That race, whose overmastering civilization
is acknowledged by all the world, has hitherto been divided into petty
Principalities and States, such as Virginia and South Carolina aspire to
be, but now are coming together and asserting their unity, their
national existence, and are now able to dominate all the nations of
Europe. We should then cherish this idea, that while the States have
their rights sacred and unapproachable, which we should guard with
untiring vigilance, never permitting an encroachment, and remembering
that such encroachment is as much a violation of the Constitution of the
United States as to encroach upon the rights of the general Government,
still bearing in mind that the States are but subordinate parts of one
great nation, and that the nation is over, all even as God is over the
universe. Without entering into any of the consequences that flow from
this doctrine, allow me for to-night to refer to that great national
attribute, that great national duty—the duty and the power to protect
the citizen in the enjoyment of life, liberty, and property. If the
Government of the United States has not the power to protect the
citizens of the United States in the enjoyment of life, liberty, and
property in cases where the States fail, or refuse, or are unable to
grant protection, then that Government should be amended, or should give
place to a better. Great Britain sent forth a costly and powerful
expedition to Abyssinia to rescue four British subjects who had been
captured and imprisoned by the government of that country. She has
recently threatened Greece with war, if she did not use all her power to
bring to justice two brigands who had lately murdered two British
subjects. These things are greatly to the honor of Great Britain. And
our Government threatened Austria with war if she did not release Martin
Kosta, who had declared his intention to become a citizen of the United
States, and was therefore protected by the Government of the United
States. More recently we have made war upon Corea, a province in Asia,
and slaughtered her people, and battered down her forts, because
Americans shipwrecked upon her coast were murdered and the government
had refused to give satisfaction for it. And if a mob in London should
murder half a dozen American citizens, we would call upon that
government to use all its power to bring the murderers to punishment,
and if Great Britain did not do so, it would be regarded as a cause of
war. And yet some people entertain the idea that our Government has the
power to protect its citizens everywhere except upon its own soil. The
idea that I would advocate, the doctrine that I would urge as being the
only true and national one, flowing inevitably from national
sovereignty, is that our Government has the right to protect her
citizens in the enjoyment of life, liberty, and property wherever the
flag floats, whether at home or abroad.
Speech of Hon. J. Proctor Knott, of Kentucky,
_Delivered in the House of Representatives on the St. Croix and Superior
Land Grant, January 21, 1871_.
The house having under consideration the joint resolution (S. R. No. 11)
extending the time to construct a railroad from St. Croix river or lake
to the west end of Lake Superior and to Bayfield—
Mr. Knott said: Mr. Speaker—If I could be actuated by any conceivable
inducement to betray the sacred trust in me by those to whose generous
confidence I am indebted for the honor of a seat on this floor; if I
could be influenced by any possible consideration to become instrumental
in giving away, in violation of their known wishes any portion of their
interest in the public domain for the mere promotion of any railroad
enterprise whatever, I should certainly feel a strong inclination to
give this measure my most earnest and hearty support; for I am assured
that its success would materially enhance the pecuniary prosperity of
some of the most valued friends I have on earth; friends for whose
accommodation I would be willing to make almost any sacrifice not
involving my personal honor or my fidelity as the trustee of an express
trust. And that act of itself would be sufficient to countervail almost
any objection I might entertain to the passage of this bill not inspired
by any imperative and inexorable sense of public duty.
But, independent of the seductive influences of private friendship, to
which I admit I am, perhaps, as susceptible as any of the gentlemen I
see around me, the intrinsic merits of the measure itself are of such an
extraordinary character as to commend it most strongly to the favorable
consideration of every member of this house, myself not excepted,
notwithstanding my constituents, in whose behalf alone I am acting here,
would not be benefited by its passage one particle more than they would
be by a project to cultivate an orange grove on the bleakest summit of
Greenland’s icy mountains.
Now, sir, as to those great trunk lines of railways, spanning the
continent from ocean to ocean, I confess my mind has never been fully
made up. It is true they may afford some trifling advantages to local
traffic, and they may even in time become the channels of a more
extended commerce. Yet I have never been thoroughly satisfied either of
the necessity or expediency of projects promising such meagre results to
the great body of our people. But with regard to the transcendent merits
of the gigantic enterprise contemplated in this bill, I have never
entertained the shadow of a doubt.
Years ago, when I first heard that there was somewhere in the vast
_terra incognita_, somewhere in the bleak regions of the great
northwest, a stream of water known to the nomadic inhabitants of the
neighborhood as the river St. Croix, I became satisfied that the
construction of a railroad from that raging torrent to some point in the
civilized world was essential to the happiness and prosperity of the
American people if not absolutely indispensable to the perpetuity of
republican institutions on this continent. I felt instinctively that the
boundless resources of that prolific region of sand and pine shrubbery
would never be fully developed without a railroad constructed and
equipped at the expense of the government, and perhaps not then. I had
an abiding presentiment that, some day or other, the people of this
whole country, irrespective of party affiliations, regardless of
sectional prejudices, and “without distinction of race, color, or
previous condition of servitude,” would rise in their majesty and demand
an outlet for the enormous agricultural productions of those vast and
fertile pine barrens, drained in the rainy season by the surging waters
of the turbid St. Croix.
These impressions, derived simply and solely from the “eternal fitness
of things,” were not only strengthened by the interesting and eloquent
debate on this bill, to which I listened with so much pleasure the other
day, but intensified, if possible, as I read over this morning, the
lively colloquy which took place on that occasion, as I find it reported
in last Friday’s _Globe_. I will ask the indulgence of the house while I
read a few short passages, which are sufficient, in my judgment, to
place the merits of the great enterprise, contemplated in the measure
now under discussion, beyond all possible controversy.
The honorable gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Wilson), who, I believe, is
managing this bill, in speaking of the character of the country through
which this railroad is to pass, says this:
“We want to have the timber brought to us as cheaply as possible. Now,
if you tie up the lands, in this way, so that no title can be obtained
to them—for no settler will go on these lands, for he cannot make a
living—you deprive us of the benefit of that timber.”
Now, sir, I would not have it by any means inferred from this that the
gentleman from Minnesota would insinuate that the people out in this
section desire this timber merely for the purpose of fencing up their
farms so that their stock may not wander off and die of starvation among
the bleak hills of St. Croix. I read it for no such purpose, sir, and
make no comment on it myself. In corroboration of this statement of the
gentleman from Minnesota, I find this testimony given by the honorable
gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Washburn). Speaking of these same lands,
he says:
“Under the bill, as amended by my friend from Minnesota, nine-tenths of
the land is open to actual settlers at $2.50 per acre; the remaining one
tenth is pine-timbered land, that is not fit for settlement, and never
will be settled upon; but the timber will be cut off. I admit that it is
the most valuable portion of the grant, for most of the grant is not
valuable. It is quite valueless; and if you put in this amendment of the
gentleman from Indiana you may as well just kill the bill, for no man
and no company will take the grant and build the road.”
I simply pause here to ask some gentleman better versed in the science
of mathematics than I am, to tell me if the timbered lands are in fact
the most valuable portion of that section of country, and they would be
entirely valueless without the timber that is in them, what the
remainder of the land is worth which has no timber on it at all?
But, further on, I find a most entertaining and instructive interchange
of views between the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Rogers), the gentleman
from Wisconsin (Mr. Washburn), and the gentleman from Maine (Mr.
Peters), upon the subject of pine lands generally, which I will tax the
patience of the house to read:
“Mr. Rogers—Will the gentleman allow me to ask him a question?
“Mr. Washburn, of Wisconsin—Certainly.
“Mr. Rogers—Are these pine lands entirely worthless except for timber?
“Mr. Washburn, of Wisconsin—They are generally worthless for any other
purpose. I am personally familiar with that subject. These lands are not
valuable for purposes of settlement.
“Mr. Farnsworth—They will be after the timber is taken off.
“Mr. Washburn, of Wisconsin—No, sir.
“Mr. Rogers—I want to know the character of these pine lands.
“Mr. Washburn, of Wisconsin—They are generally sandy, barren lands. My
friend from the Green Bay district (Mr. Sawyer) is himself perfectly
familiar with this question, and he will bear me out in what I say, that
these timber lands are not adapted to settlement.
“Mr. Rogers—The pine lands to which I am accustomed are generally very
good. What I want to know is, what is the difference between our pine
lands and your pine lands?
“Mr. Washburn, of Wisconsin—The pine timber of Wisconsin generally grows
upon barren, sandy land. The gentleman from Maine (Mr. Peters) who is
familiar with pine lands, will, I have no doubt, say that pine timber
grows generally upon the most barren lands.”
“Mr. Peters—As a general thing pine lands are not worth much for
cultivation.”
And further on I find this pregnant question the joint production of the
two gentlemen from Wisconsin.
“Mr. Paine—Does my friend from Indiana suppose that in any event
settlers will occupy and cultivate these pine lands?
“Mr. Washburn, of Wisconsin—Particularly without a railroad.”
Yes, sir, “particularly without a railroad.” It will be asked after
awhile, I am afraid, if settlers will go anywhere unless the government
builds a railroad for them to go on.
I desire to call attention to only one more statement, which I think
sufficient to settle the question. It is one made by the gentleman from
Wisconsin (Mr. Paine), who says:
“These lands will be abandoned for the present. It may be that at some
remote period there will spring up in that region a new kind of
agriculture, which will cause a demand for these particular lands; and
they may then come into use and be valuable for agricultural purposes.
But I know, and I cannot help thinking that my friend from Indiana
understands that, for the present, and for many years to come, these
pine lands can have no possible value other than that arising from the
pine timber which stands on them.”
Now, sir, who, after listening to this emphatic and unequivocal
testimony of these intelligent, competent and able-bodied witnesses, who
that is not as incredulous as St. Thomas himself, will doubt for a
moment that the Goshen of America is to be found in the sandy valleys
and upon the pine-clad hills of the St. Croix? Who will have the
hardihood to rise in his seat on this floor and assert that, excepting
the pine bushes, the entire region would not produce vegetation enough
in ten years to fatten a grasshopper? Where is the patriot who is
willing that his country shall incur the peril of remaining another day
without the amplest railroad connection with such an inexhaustible mine
of agricultural wealth? Who will answer for the consequences of
abandoning a great and warlike people, in the possession of a country
like that, to brood over the indifference and neglect of their
government? How long would it be before they would take to studying the
Declaration of Independence and hatching out the damnable heresy of
secession? How long before the grim demon of civil discord would rear
again his horrid head in our midst, “gnash loud his iron fangs and shake
his crest of bristling bayonets?”
Then, sir, think of the long and painful process of reconstruction that
must follow with its concomitant amendments to the constitution, the
seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth articles. The sixteenth, it is of
course understood, is to be appropriated to those blushing damsels who
are, day after day, beseeching us to let them vote, hold office, drink
cocktails, ride a-straddle, and do everything else the men do. But above
all, sir, let me implore you to reflect for a single moment on the
deplorable condition of our country in case of a foreign war, with all
our ports blockaded, all our cities in a state or siege, the gaunt
specter of famine brooding like a hungry vulture over our starving land;
our commissary stores all exhausted, and our famishing armies withering
away in the field, a helpless prey to the insatiate demon of hunger; our
navy rotting in the docks for want of provisions for our gallant seamen,
and we without any railroad communication whatever with the prolific
pine thickets of the St. Croix.
Ah, sir, I could very well understand why my amiable friends from
Pennsylvania (Mr. Myers, Mr. Kelley and Mr. O’Neill) should be so
earnest in their support of this bill the other day; and if their
honorable colleague, my friend, Mr. Randall, will pardon the remark, I
will say I consider his criticism of their action on that occasion as
not only unjust, but ungenerous. I knew they were looking forward with a
far-reaching ken of enlightened statesmanship to the pitiable condition
in which Philadelphia will be left unless speedily supplied with
railroad connection in some way or other with this garden spot of the
universe. And beside, sir, this discussion has relieved my mind of a
mystery that has weighed upon it like an incubus for years. I could
never understand before why there was so much excitement during the last
Congress over the acquisition of Alta Vela. I could never understand why
it was that some of our ablest statesmen and most disinterested patriots
should entertain such dark forebodings of the untold calamities that
were to befall our beloved country unless we should take immediate
possession of that desirable island. But I see now that they were
laboring under the mistaken impression that the government would need
the guano to manure the public lands on the St. Croix.
Now, sir, I repeat, I have been satisfied for years that if there was
any portion of the inhabited globe absolutely in a suffering condition
for want of a railroad it was these teeming pine barrens of the St.
Croix. At what particular point on that noble stream such a road should
be commenced I knew was immaterial, and it seems so to have been
considered by the draughtsman of this bill. It might be up at the spring
or down at the foot-log, or the water-gate, or the fish-dam, or anywhere
along the bank, no matter where. But in what direction should it run, or
where it should terminate, were always to my mind questions of the most
painful perplexity. I could conceive of no place on “God’s green earth”
in such straitened circumstances for railroad facilities as to be likely
to desire or willing to accept such a connection. I knew that neither
Bayfield nor Superior city would have it, for they both indignantly
spurned the munificence of the government when coupled with such
ignominious conditions, and let this very same land grant die on their
hands years and years ago rather than submit to the degradation of a
direct communication by railroad with the piny woods of the St. Croix;
and I knew that what the enterprising inhabitants of those giant young
cities would refuse to take would have few charms for others, whatever
their necessities or cupidity might be.
Hence as I have said, sir, I was utterly at a loss to determine where
the terminus of this great and indispensable road should be, until I
accidentally overheard some gentleman the other day mention the name of
“_Duluth_.”
_Duluth!_ The word fell upon my ear with a peculiar and indescribable
charm, like the gentle murmur of a low fountain stealing forth in the
midst of roses; or the soft, sweet accents of an angel’s whisper in the
bright, joyous dream of sleeping innocence.
“_Duluth!_” ’Twas the name for which my soul had panted for years, as
the hart panteth for the water-brooks. But where was _Duluth_? Never in
all my limited reading, had my vision been gladdened by seeing the
celestial word in print. And I felt a profound humiliation in my
ignorance that its dulcet syllables had never before ravished my
delighted ear. I was certain the draughtsman in this bill had never
heard of it or it would have been designated as one of the termini of
this road. I asked my friends about it, but they knew nothing of it. I
rushed to the library, and examined all the maps I could find. I
discovered in one of them a delicate hairlike line, diverging from the
Mississippi near a place marked Prescott, which, I supposed, was
intended to represent the river St. Croix, but, could nowhere find
_Duluth_. Nevertheless, I was confident it existed somewhere, and that
its discovery would constitute the crowning glory of the present
century, if not of all modern times. I knew it was bound to exist in the
very nature of things; that the symmetry and perfection of our planetary
system would be incomplete without it. That the elements of maternal
nature would since have resolved themselves back into original chaos if
there had been such a hiatus in creation as would have resulted from
leaving out _Duluth_! In fact, sir, I was overwhelmed with the
conviction that _Duluth_ not only existed somewhere, but that wherever
it was, it was a great and glorious place. I was convinced that the
greatest calamity that ever befell the benighted nations of the ancient
world was in their having passed away without a knowledge of the actual
existence of _Duluth_; that their fabled Atlantis, never seen save by
the hallowed vision of the inspired poesy, was, in fact, but another
name for _Duluth_; that the golden orchard of the Hesperides, was but a
poetical synonym for the beer-gardens in the vicinity of _Duluth_. I was
certain that Herodotus had died a miserable death, because in all his
travels and with all his geographical research he had never heard of
_Duluth_. I knew that if the immortal spirit of Homer could look down
from another heaven than that created by his own celestial genius upon
the long lines of pilgrims from every nation of the earth to the gushing
fountain of poesy opened by the touch of his magic wand, if he could be
permitted to behold the vast assemblage of grand and glorious
productions of the lyric art called into being by his own inspired
strains, he would weep tears of bitter anguish that, instead of
lavishing all the stores of his mighty genius upon the fall of Illion,
it had not been his more blessed lot to crystalize in deathless song the
rising glories of _Duluth_. Yes, sir, had it not been for this map,
kindly furnished me by the legislature of Minnesota, I might have gone
down to my obscure and humble grave in an agony of despair, because I
could nowhere find _Duluth_. Had such been my melancholy fate, I have no
doubt that with the last feeble pulsation of my breaking heart, with the
last faint exhalation of my fleeting breath, I should have whispered,
“Where is _Duluth_?”
But, thanks to the beneficence of that band of ministering angels who
have their bright abodes in the far-off capital of Minnesota, just as
the agony of my anxiety was about to culminate in the frenzy of despair,
this blessed map was placed in my hands; and as I unfolded it a
resplendent scene of ineffable glory opened before me, such as I
imagined burst upon the enraptured vision of the wandering peri through
the opening gates of Paradise. There, there, for the first time, my
enchanted eye rested upon the ravishing word, “_Duluth!_” This map, sir,
is intended, as it appears from its title, to illustrate the position of
_Duluth_ in the United States; but if gentlemen will examine it, I think
they will concur with me in the opinion, that it is far too modest in
its pretensions. It not only illustrates the position of _Duluth_ in the
United States, but exhibits its relations with all created things. It
even goes further than this. It hits the shadowy vale of futurity, and
affords us a view of the golden prospects of _Duluth_ far along the dim
vista of ages yet to come.
If gentlemen will examine it, they will find _Duluth_ not only in the
center of the map, but represented in the center of a series of
concentric circles one hundred miles apart, and some of them as much as
four thousand miles in diameter, embracing alike, in their tremendous
sweep the fragrant savannas of the sunlit South and the eternal
solitudes of snow that mantle the ice-bound North. How these circles
were produced is perhaps one of those primordial mysteries that the most
skilled paleologist will never be able to explain. But the fact is, sir,
_Duluth_ is pre-eminently a central point, for I am told by gentlemen
who have been so reckless of their own personal safety as to venture
away into those awful regions where _Duluth_ is supposed to be, that it
is so exactly in the center of the visible universe that the sky comes
down at precisely the same distance all around it.
I find, by reference to this map, that _Duluth_ is situated somewhere
near the western end of Lake Superior, but as there is no dot or other
mark indicating its exact location, I am unable to say whether it is
actually confined to any particular spot, or whether “it is just lying
around there loose.” I really cannot tell whether it is one of those
ethereal creations of intellectual frostwork, more intangible than the
rose-tinted clouds of a summer sunset; one of those airy exhalations of
the speculator’s brain which, I am told, are very flitting in the form
of towns and cities along those lines of railroad, built with government
subsidies, luring the unwary settler as the mirage of the desert lures
the famishing traveler on, and ever on, until it fades away in the
darkening horizon; or whether it is a real, _bona fide_, substantial
city, all “staked off,” with the lots marked with their owners’ names,
like that proud commercial metropolis recently discovered on the
desirable shores of San Domingo. But, however that may be, I am
satisfied _Duluth_ is there, or thereabouts, for I see it stated here on
the map that it is exactly thirty-nine hundred and ninety miles from
Liverpool, though I have no doubt, for the sake of convenience, it will
be moved back ten miles, so as to make the distance an even four
thousand.
Then, sir, there is the climate of _Duluth_, unquestionably the most
salubrious and delightful to be found anywhere on the Lord’s earth. Now,
I have always been under the impression, as I presume other gentlemen
have, that in the region around Lake Superior it was cold enough for at
least nine months in the year to freeze the smoke-stack off a
locomotive. But I see it represented on this map that _Duluth_ is
situated exactly half way between the latitudes of Paris and Venice, so
that gentlemen who have inhaled the exhilarating air of the one, or
basked in the golden sunlight of the other, may see at a glance that
_Duluth_ must be the place of untold delight, a terrestrial paradise,
fanned by the balmy zephyrs of an eternal spring, clothed in the
gorgeous sheen of ever blooming flowers, and vocal with the silvery
melody of nature’s choicest songsters. In fact sir, since I have seen
this map, I have no doubt that Byron was vainly endeavoring to convey
some faint conception of the delicious charms of _Duluth_ when his
poetic soul gushed forth, in the rippling strains of that beautiful
rhapsody—
“Know ye the land of the cedar and the vine,
Whence the flowers ever blossom, the beams ever shine;
Where the light wings of Zephyr, oppressed with perfume,
Wax faint o’er the gardens of Gul in her bloom;
Where the citron and olive are fairest of fruit,
And the voice of the nightingale never is mute;
Where the tints of the earth and the hues of the sky,
In color though varied, in beauty may vie?”
As to the commercial resources of _Duluth_, sir, they are simply
illimitable and inexhaustible, as is shown by this map. I see it stated
here that there is a vast scope of territory, embracing an area of over
two millions of square miles, rich in every element of material wealth
and commercial prosperity, all tributary to _Duluth_. Look at it, sir,
(pointing to the map.) Here are inexhaustible mines of gold,
immeasurable veins of silver, impenetrable depths of boundless forest,
vast coal measures, wide extended plains of richest pasturage—all, all
embraced in this vast territory—which must, in the very nature of
things, empty the untold treasures of its commerce into the lap of
_Duluth_. Look at it, sir, (pointing to the map); do not you see from
these broad, brown lines drawn around this immense territory, that the
enterprising inhabitants of _Duluth_ intend some day to inclose it all
in one vast corral, so that its commerce will be bound to go there
whether it would or not? And here, sir, (still pointing to the map), I
find within a convenient distance the Piegan Indians, which, of all the
many accessories to the glory of _Duluth_, I consider by far the most
inestimable. For, sir, I have been told that when the small-pox breaks
out among the women and children of the famous tribe, as it sometimes
does, they afford the finest subjects in the world for the strategical
experiments of any enterprising military hero who desires to improve
himself in the noble art of war, especially for any valiant
lieutenant-general whose
“Trenchant blade, Toledo trusty,
For want of fighting has grown rusty,
And eats into itself for lack,
Of somebody to hew and hack.”
Sir, the great conflict now raging in the Old World has presented a
phenomenon in military science unprecedented in the annals of mankind, a
phenomenon that has reversed all the traditions of the past as it has
disappointed all the expectations of the present. A great and warlike
people, renowned alike for their skill and valor, have been swept away
before the triumphant advance of an inferior foe, like autumn stubble
before a hurricane of fire. For aught I know the next flash of electric
fire that simmers along the ocean cable may tell us that Paris, with
every fibre quivering with the agony of impotent despair, writhes
beneath the conquering heel of her loathed invader. Ere another moon
shall wax and wane, the brightest star in the galaxy of nations may fall
from the zenith of her glory never to rise again. Ere the modest violets
of early spring shall ope their beauteous eyes, the genius of
civilization may chant the wailing requiem of the proudest nationality
the world has ever seen, as she scatters her withered and tear-moistened
lilies o’er the bloody tomb of butchered France. But, sir, I wish to ask
if you honestly and candidly believe that the Dutch would have overrun
the French in that kind of style if General Sheridan had not gone over
there, and told King William and Von Moltke how he had managed to whip
the Piegan Indians.
And here, sir, recurring to this map, I find in the immediate vicinity
of the Piegans “vast herds of buffalo” and “immense fields of rich wheat
lands.” [Here the hammer fell.]
[Many cries: “Go on!” “go on!”]
The Speaker—Is there any objection to the gentleman from Kentucky
continuing his remarks? The chair hears none. The gentleman will
proceed.
Mr. Knott—I was remarking, sir, upon these vast “wheat fields”
represented on this map in the immediate neighborhood of the buffaloes
and Piegans, and was about to say that the idea of there being these
immense wheat fields in the very heart of a wilderness, hundreds and
hundreds of miles beyond the utmost verge of civilization, may appear to
some gentlemen as rather incongruous, as rather too great a strain on
the “blankets” of veracity. But to my mind there is no difficulty in the
matter whatever. The phenomenon is very easily accounted for. It is
evident, sir, that the Piegans sowed that wheat there and ploughed it in
with buffalo bulls. Now, sir, this fortunate combination of buffaloes
and Piegans, considering their relative positions to each other and to
_Duluth_, as they are arranged on this map, satisfies me that _Duluth_
is destined to be the best market of the world. Here, you will observe,
(pointing to the map), are the buffaloes, directly between the Piegans
and _Duluth_; and here, right on the road to _Duluth_, are the Creeks.
Now, sir, when the buffaloes are sufficiently fat from grazing on those
immense wheat fields, you see it will be the easiest thing in the world
for the Piegans to drive them on down, stay all night with their
friends, the Creeks, and go into _Duluth_ in the morning. I think I see
them, now, sir, a vast herd of buffaloes, with their heads down, their
eyes glaring, their nostrils dilated, their tongues out, and their tails
curled over their backs, tearing along toward _Duluth_, with about a
thousand Piegans on their grass-bellied ponies, yelling at their heels!
On they come! And as they sweep past the Creeks, they join in the chase,
and away they all go, yelling, bellowing, ripping and tearing along,
amid clouds of dust, until the last buffalo is safely penned in the
stock-yards at _Duluth_.
Sir, I might stand here for hours and hours, and expatiate with rapture
upon the gorgeous prospects of _Duluth_, as depicted upon this map. But
human life is too short, and the time of this house far too valuable to
allow me to linger longer upon this delightful theme. I think every
gentleman upon this floor is as well satisfied as I am that _Duluth_ is
destined to become the commercial metropolis of the universe and that
this road should be built at once. I am fully persuaded that no
patriotic representative of the American people, who has a proper
appreciation of the associated glories of _Duluth_ and the St. Croix,
will hesitate a moment that every able-bodied female in the land,
between the ages of eighteen and forty-five, who is in favor of “woman’s
rights,” should be drafted and set to work upon this great work without
delay. Nevertheless, sir, it grieves my very soul to be compelled to say
that I cannot vote for the grant of lands provided for in this bill.
Ah, sir, you can have no conception of the poignancy of my anguish that
I am deprived of that blessed privilege! There are two insuperable
obstacles in the way. In the first place my constituents, for whom I am
acting here, have no more interest in this road than they have in the
great question of culinary taste now, perhaps, agitating the public mind
of Dominica, as to whether the illustrious commissioners, who recently
left this capital for that free and enlightened republic, would be
better fricasseed, boiled, or roasted, and, in the second place, these
lands, which I am asked to give away, alas, are not mine to bestow! My
relation to them is simply that of trustee to an express trust. And
shall I ever betray that trust? Never, sir! Rather perish _Duluth_!
Perish the paragon of cities! Rather let the freezing cyclones of the
bleak northwest bury it forever beneath the eddying sands of the raging
St. Croix.
Henry Carey’s Speech on the Rates of Interest.
_In the Pennsylvania Constitutional Convention, 1873._
In the Constitutional Convention, in Committee of the Whole on the
article reported from the Committee on Agriculture, Mining,
Manufactures, and Commerce, the first section being as follows:—“In the
absence of special contracts the legal rate of interest and discount
shall be seven per centum per annum, but special contracts for higher or
lower rates shall be lawful. All national and other banks of issue shall
be restricted to the rate of seven per centum per annum.” Mr. H. C.
Carey made an address in favor of striking out the section. The
following is an abstract of his remarks:—
Precisely a century and a half since, in 1723, the General Assembly of
Pennsylvania reduced the legal charge for the use of money from eight to
six per cent. per annum. This was a great step in the direction of
civilization, proving, as it did, that the labor of the present was
obtaining increased power over accumulations of the past, the laborer
approaching toward equality with the capitalist. At that point it has
since remained, with, however, some change in the penalties which had
been then prescribed for violations of the law.
Throughout the recent war the financial policy of the National
Government so greatly favored the money-borrower and the laborer as to
have afforded reason for believing that the actual rate of interest was
about to fall permanently below the legal one, with the effect of
speedily causing usury laws to fall into entire disuse. Since its close,
however, under a mistaken idea that such was the real road to
resumption, all the Treasury operation of favoring the money-lender; the
result exhibiting itself in the facts that combinations are being
everywhere formed for raising the price of money; that the long loans of
the past are being daily more and more superseded by the call loans of
the present; that manufacturer and merchant are more and more fleeced by
Shylocks who would gladly take “the pound of flesh nearest the heart”
from all over whom they are enabled to obtain control.
Anxious for the perpetuation of this unhappy state of things, these
latter now invite their victims to give their aid towards leveling the
barriers by which they themselves are even yet to a considerable extent
protected, assuring them that further grant of power will be followed by
greater moderation in its exercise. Misled thereby, money borrowers,
traders, and manufacturers are seen uniting, year after year with their
common enemy in the effort at obtaining a repeal of the laws in regard
to money, under which the State has so greatly prospered. Happily our
working men, farmers, mechanics, and laborers fail to see that advantage
is likely to accrue to them from a change whose obvious tendency is that
of increasing the power of the few who have money to lend over the many
who need to borrow; and hence it is that their Representatives at
Harrisburg have so steadily closed their ears against the siren song by
which it is sought to lead their constituents to give their aid to the
work of their own destruction.
Under these circumstances is it that we are now asked to give place in
the organic law to a provision by means of which this deplorable system
is to be made permanent, the Legislature being thereby prohibited, be
the necessity what it may, from placing any restraint upon the few who
now control the supply of the most important of all the machinery of
commerce, as against the many whose existence, and that of their wives
and children, is dependent upon the obtaining the use thereof on such
terms as shall not from year to year cause them to become more and more
mere tools in the hands of the already rich. This being the first time
in the world’s history that any such idea has been suggested, it may be
well, before determining on its adoption, to study what has been
elsewhere done in this direction, and what has been the result.
Mr. Carey then proceeded to quote at great length from recent and able
writers the results that had followed in England from the adoption of
the proposition now before the convention. These may be summed up as the
charging of enormous rates of interest, the London joint stock banks
making dividends among their stockholders to the extent of twenty,
thirty, and almost forty per cent., the whole of which has ultimately to
be taken from the wages of labor employed in manufactures, or in
agriculture. At no time, said Mr. Carey, in Britain’s history, have
pauperism and usury traveled so closely hand in hand together; the rich
growing rich to an extent that, till now, would have been regarded as
fabulous, and the wretchedness of the poor having grown in like
proportion.
After discussing the effects of the repeal of the usury laws in some of
the American States, Mr. Carey continued:—
“We may be told, however, that at times money is abundant, and that even
so late as last summer it was difficult to obtain legal interest. Such
certainly was the case with those who desired to put it out on call; but
at that very moment those who needed to obtain the use of money for long
periods were being taxed, even on securities of unexceptionable
character, at double, or more than double, the legal rates. The whole
tendency of the existing system is in the direction of annihilating the
disposition for making those permanent loans of money by means of which
the people of other countries are enabled to carry into effect
operations tending to secure to themselves control of the world’s
commerce. Under that system there is, and there can be, none of that
stability in the price of money required for carrying out such
operations.
Leaving out of view the recent great combination for the maintenance and
perpetuation of slavery, there has been none so powerful, none so
dangerous as that which now exists among those who, having obtained a
complete control of the money power, are laboring to obtain legal
recognition of the right of capital to perfect freedom as regards all
the measures to which it may be pleased to resort for the purpose of
obtaining more perfect control over labor. Already several of the States
have to some extent yielded to the pressure that has been brought to
bear upon them. Chief among these is Massachusetts, the usury laws
having there been totally repealed, and with the effect, says a
distinguished citizen of that State, that “all the savings institutions
of the city at once raised the rate from six to seven per cent.; those
out of the city to seven and a half and eight per cent. and there was no
rate too high for the greedy. The consequence,” as he continues, “has
been disastrous to industrial pursuits. Of farming towns in my county,
more than one quarter have diminished in population.” Rates per day have
now to a great extent, as I am assured, superseded the old rates per
month or year; two cents per day, or $7.30 per annum, having become the
charge for securities of the highest order. What, under such
circumstances, must be the rate for paper of those who, sound and
solvent as they may be, cannot furnish such security, may readily be
imagined. Let the monopoly system be maintained and the rate, even at
its headquarters, New England, will attain a far higher point than any
that has yet been reached; this, too, in despite of the fact that her
people had so promptly secured to themselves a third of the whole
circulation allowed to the 40,000,000 of the population of the Union
scattered throughout almost a continent. How greatly they value the
power that has been thus obtained is proved by the fact that to every
effort at inducing them to surrender, for advantage of the West or
South, any portion thereof, has met with resistance so determined that
nothing has been yet accomplished.
Abandonment of our present policy is strongly urged upon us for the
reason that mortgages bear in New York a higher rate of interest. A
Pennsylvanian in any of the northern counties has, as we are told, but
to cross the line to obtain the best security at seven per cent. Why,
however, is it that his neighbors find themselves compelled to go abroad
when desirous of obtaining money on such security? The answer to this
question is found in the fact that the taxation of mortgages is there so
great as to absorb from half to two-thirds of the interest promised to
be paid.
Again, we are told that Ohio legalizes “special contracts” up to eight
per cent. and, that if we would prevent the efflux of capital we must
follow in the same direction. Is there, however, in the exhibit now made
by that State, anything to warrant us in so doing? Like Pennsylvania,
she has abundant coal and ore. She has two large cities, the one
fronting on the Ohio, and the other on the lakes, giving her more
natural facilities for maintaining commerce than are possessed by
Pennsylvania; and yet, while the addition to her population in the last
decade was but 306,000, that of Pennsylvania was 615,000. In that time
she added 900 to her railroad mileage, Pennsylvania meantime adding
2,500. While her capital engaged in manufactures rose from 57 to 141
millions, that of Pennsylvania grew from 109 to 406, the mere increase
of the one being more than fifty per cent. in excess of the total of the
other. May we find in these figures any evidence that capital has been
attracted to Ohio by a higher rate of interest, or repelled from our
State by a lower one? Assuredly not!
What in this direction is proposed to be done among ourselves is shown
in the section now presented for our consideration. By it the legal rate
in the absence of “special contracts” is to be raised to seven per
cent., such “contracts,” however ruinous in their character, and
whatsoever the nature of the security, are to be legalized; the only
exception to these sweeping changes being that national banks, issuing
circulating notes are to be limited to seven per cent. Shylock asked
only “the due and forfeit of his bond.” Let this section be adopted, let
him then present himself in any of our courts, can its judge do other
than decide that “the law allows it and the court awards it,” monstrous
as may have been the usury, and discreditable as may have been the arts
by means of which the unfortunate debtor may have been entrapped?
Assuredly not. Shylock, happily, was outwitted, the bond having made no
provision for taking even “one jot of blood.” Here, the unfortunate
debtor, forced by his flinty-hearted creditor into a “special contract”
utterly ruinous, may, in view of the destruction of all hope for the
future of his wife and children, shed almost tears of blood, but they
will be of no avail; yet do we claim to live under a system whose
foundation-stone exhibits itself in the great precept from which we
learn that duty requires of us to do to others as we would that others
should do unto ourselves.
By the English law the little landowner, the mechanic who owns the house
in which he lives, is protected against his wealthy mortgagee. Here, on
the contrary, the farmer, suffering under the effects of blight or
drought, and thus deprived of power to meet with punctuality the demands
of his mortgagee, is to have no protection whatsoever. So, too, with the
poor mechanic suffering temporarily by reason of accidental incapacity
for work, and, with the sheriff full in view before him, compelled to
enter into a “special contract” doubling if not trebling, the previous
rate of interest. Infamous as may be its extortion the court may not
deny the aid required for its enforcement.
The amount now loaned on mortgage security in this State at six per
cent. is certainly not less than $400,000,000, and probably extends to
$500,000,000, a large portion of which is liable to be called for at any
moment. Let this section be adopted and we shall almost at once witness
a combined movement among mortgagees for raising the rate of interest.
Notices demanding payment will fly thick as hail throughout the State,
every holder of such security knowing well that the greater the alarm
that can be produced and the more utter the impossibility of obtaining
other moneys the larger may be made the future rate of interest. The
unfortunate mortgagor must then accept the terms, hard as they may be,
dictated to him, be they 8, 10, 12, or 20 per cent. Such, as I am
assured has been the course of things in Connecticut, where distress the
most severe has been produced by a recent abandonment by the State of
the policy under which it has in the past so greatly prospered. At this
moment her savings’ banks are engaged in compelling mortgagers to accept
eight per cent. as the present rate. How long it will be before they
will carry it up to ten or twelve, or what will be the effect, remains
to be seen. Already among ourselves the effects of the sad blunders of
our great financiers exhibit themselves in the very unpleasant fact that
sheriffs’ sales are six times more numerous than they were in the period
from 1861 to 1867, when the country was so severely suffering under the
waste of property, labor, and life, which had but then occurred. Let
this section be adopted, giving perfect freedom to the Shylocks of the
day, and the next half dozen years will witness the transfer, under the
sheriff’s hammer, of the larger portion of the real property of both the
city and the State. Of all the devices yet invented for the subjugation
of labor by capital, there is none that can claim to be entitled to take
precedence of that which has been now proposed for our consideration.
Rightly styled the Keystone of the Union, one duty yet remains to her to
be performed, to wit: that of bringing about equality in the
distribution of power over that machinery for whose use men pay
interest, which is known as money. New England, being rich and having
her people concentrated within very narrow limits, has been allowed to
absorb a portion of that power fully equal to her needs, while this
State, richer still, has been so “cabined, cribbed, confined,” that her
mine and furnace operators find it difficult to obtain that circulating
medium by whose aid alone can they distribute among their workmen their
shares of the things produced.—New York, already rich, has been allowed
to absorb a fourth of the permitted circulation, to the almost entire
exclusion of the States south of Pennsylvania and west of the
Mississippi; and hence it is that her people are enabled to levy upon
those of all these latter such enormous taxes. To the work of correcting
this enormous evil Pennsylvania should now address herself. Instead of
following in the wake of New Jersey and Connecticut, thereby giving to
the monopoly an increase of strength, let her place herself side by side
with the suffering States of the West, the South, and the Southwest,
demanding that what has been made free to New York and New England shall
be made equally free to her and them. Let her do this, and the remedy
will be secured, with such increase in the general power for developing
the wonderful resources of the Union as will speedily make of it an iron
and cloth exporting State, with such power for retaining and controlling
the precious metals as will place it on a surer footing in that respect
than any of the powers of the Eastern world. The more rapid the
societary circulation, and the greater the facility of making exchanges
from hand to hand, and from place to place, the greater is the tendency
toward reduction in the rate of interest, toward equality in the
condition of laborer and employer, and toward growth and power to
command the services of all the metals, gold and silver included.
It will be said, however, that adoption of such measures as have been
indicated would tend to produce a general rise of prices; or, in the
words of our self-styled economists, would cause “inflation.” The vulgar
error here involved was examined some thirty years since by an eminent
British economist, and with a thoroughness never before exhibited in
reference to any other economic question whatsoever, the result
exhibiting itself in the following brief words of a highly distinguished
American one, published some twelve or fifteen years since, to wit:
“Among the innumerable influences which go to determine the general
rate of prices, the quantity of money, or currency, is one of the
least effective.”
Since then we have had a great war, in the course of which there have
been numerous and extensive changes in the price of commodities, every
one of which is clearly traceable to causes widely different from those
to which they so generally are attributed. Be that, however, as it may,
the question now before us is one of right and justice, and not of mere
expediency. North and east of Pennsylvania eight millions of people have
been allowed a greater share of the most important of all powers, the
money one, than has been allotted to the thirty-two millions south and
west of New York, and have thus been granted a power of taxation that
should be no longer tolerated. The basis of our whole system is to be
found in equality before the law, each and every man, each and every
State, being entitled to exercise the same powers that are permitted to
our people, or other States. If the Union is to be maintained, it can be
so on no terms other than those of recognition of the existence of the
equality that has here been indicated. To the work of compelling that
recognition Pennsylvania should give herself, inscribing on her shield
the brief words _fiat justitia, ruat cœlum_—let justice be done though
the heavens fall!
Speech of Gen. Simon Cameron.
_On the benefits derived by Pennsylvania from the Policy of Internal
Improvements._
Any one will see, who will take the trouble to read the debates on the
location of the National Capital, that the decision of that question
seems to have been made solely with reference to a connection of the
East with the then great wilderness of the West. All the sagacious men
then in public life looked to the time when the West, with its wonderful
productive soil brought under subjection by industry, would exercise a
controlling influence on the destiny of the country. Columbia, in the
State of Pennsylvania, was at one time within one vote of becoming the
site of the Capital; and Germantown, near, and now a part of,
Philadelphia, was actually decided on as the proper location by a
majority of one. The first of these was favored because it was believed
to be a favorable point from which to begin a slack water route to the
west. Germantown near the Schuylkill, was chosen for the same reason.
All looked forward to a system of canals which would accomplish this
desirable object, and experience has fully demonstrated their wisdom in
that great design. About 1790, General Washington and the great
financier Robert Morris, traveled on horseback from Philadelphia to the
Susquehanna river, with a view of deciding whether a canal could be
built over that route.
Shortly after this, some gentlemen near Philadelphia actually began
building a canal to the west, did some work on its eastern end, built
one or two locks on the dividing ridge near Lebanon, and for want of
sufficient funds and knowledge of the subject the work was stopped. The
money expended on the enterprise was lost.
But the progressive men of the country, keeping their minds on the
subject, continued to agitate the popular mind on it until 1820, when
the Legislature of Pennsylvania chartered the Union Canal Company, and
appropriated one million dollars to aid its construction. In a few years
the canal was completed between the Schuylkill and Susquehanna. Although
very small, this improvement did a great deal of good. And the most
remarkable thing about it was its unpopularity with the masses. Not only
the members of General Assembly who passed the bill, but Governor
Heister, who signed the act of incorporation, were driven from office at
the first opportunity legally presented for testing public opinion, and
the party to which they belonged went into a minority. I remember well
what a mighty sum a million dollars seemed to be; and the political
revolution caused by this appropriation showed me that the idea of its
vastness was not confined by any means to myself.
Our system of canals was completed, and the benefits derived from them
were incalculable. When they were commenced our State was poor. Industry
languished. The interchange of her products was difficult. Population
was sparse. Intelligence was not generally diffused. Manufactures
struggled weakly along. Work was not plentiful. Wages were low. When
they were finished the busy hum of industry was heard on every hand. Our
population had grown until we numbered millions. Our iron ore beds were
yielding their precious hoards for human use. Coal mines, unknown or
useless until means were provided for transporting their wealth to
market, now sent millions of tons in every direction. Progress in every
walk of advanced civilization was realized, and we were on the high road
to permanent prosperity. But in the meantime a new and better means of
communication had been discovered, and the building of railroads quickly
reduced the value of canals, and the works we had completed at so much
cost, and with such infinite labor, were suddenly superseded. We lost
nearly all the money they had cost us, but this investment was wisely
made. The return to our State was many times greater than the outlay.
Like all great projects intended for the public good, that of Internal
Improvement progressed. In 1823, the New York canal—which had been
pushed through against the prejudiced opposition of the people, by the
genius of De Witt Clinton—was opened. Its success caused a revolution in
the public mind all over the country. The effect was so marked in the
State, that in 1825 a convention was called to consider the subject.
Every county in the State was represented, I believe. That body
pronounced in favor of a grand system of public works, which should not
only connect the East and West, but also the waters of the Susquehanna
with the great lakes, the West and the Northwest. Appropriations were
recommended to the amount of three millions of dollars, and in 1826, I
think the work began. This sum seemed to be enormous, and the estimates
of the engineers reached a total of six millions of dollars. Meeting an
ardent friend of the system one day, he declared that a sum of that
magnitude could never be expended on these works. I ventured to reply,
with great deference to his age and experience, that I thought it would
be insufficient, and before they were completed I would not be surprised
if ten millions would be found necessary. Looking at me steadily for a
few moments, he closed the conversation by exclaiming, “Young man, you
are a d——d fool!” I was thus left in full possession of his opinion of
me. But after we had spent $41,698,594.74 in the construction of these
works, I found my estimate of his judgment was singularly in harmony
with my opinion of his politeness. His candor I never doubted.
In the convention of 1825, there were two gentlemen who voted for
railways instead of canals. One was professor Vethake of Dickinson
College, Carlisle; and the other was Jacob Alter, a man of very little
education, but of strong understanding. The professor was looked upon as
a dreamer, and was supposed to have led his colleague astray in his
vagaries. But they both lived to see railroads extended over the whole
world. As a part of our system of public works, we built a railroad from
the Delaware to the Susquehanna, from Philadelphia to Columbia, and one
from the eastern base of the Allegheny mountains to their western base.
They were originally intended to be used with horse power. In the
meantime the railroad system had been commenced, and the Pennsylvania
Railroad, under the charge of a man of extraordinary ability, John Edgar
Thompson, was rapidly pushed to completion. Another great railway, the
Philadelphia and Reading, was built to carry anthracite coal from the
Schuylkill mines to the market. A railroad was built each side of the
Lehigh river, that another part of our coal territory might find a
market in New York. Another was built from the north branch of the
Susquehanna, connecting with the New York roads, and leading to the
northern coal field. And yet another was built along the Susquehanna,
through the southern coal basin, to the city of Baltimore. The total
cost of these roads, independent of the Pennsylvania railroad, was
$95,250,410.10, as shown by official reports. Their earnings last year
are officially given at $24,753,065.32. Each of these was forced to
contend with difficulty and prejudice. All were unpopular, and all were
looked upon with suspicion until they actually forced their usefulness
on the public mind. Those who made the fight for canals were forced to
go over the whole ground again for railroads, and their double victory
is greater than the success generally vouchsafed to the pioneers in any
cause. These roads, with the Pennsylvania railroad and the lesser lines
of improvements running through the coal region cost over $207,000,000.
The Reading Railroad will serve to illustrate the struggle of these
great schemes. Its stock, now worth over par, once sold for twenty cents
on the dollar; and at one time it was forced to sell its bonds at forty
cents on the dollar to pay operating expenses. The vindication of the
sagacity of the pioneers in these great enterprises is complete. All
these lines are now profitable, and it has been demonstrated everywhere
in the United States, that every new railroad creates the business from
which its stockholders receive their dividends. It seems, therefore,
scarcely possible to fix a limit to our profitable railroad expansion.
They open new fields of enterprise, and this enterprise in turn, makes
the traffic which fills the coffers of the companies.
I cannot now look back to the struggle to impress the people with the
advantages of railways, without a feeling of weariness at the seeming
hopeless struggle, and one of merriment at the general unbelief in our
new-fangled project. Once at Elizabethtown in this State a public
meeting had been called for the purpose of securing subscriptions to the
stock of the Harrisburg and Lancaster Railroad. This road was intended
to complete the railway between Philadelphia and Harrisburg, one hundred
and five miles. A large concourse had gathered. Ovid F. Johnson,
Attorney-General of our State, and a brilliant orator, made an excellent
speech; but the effect was not in proportion to the effort. I determined
to make an appeal, and I gave such arguments as I could. In closing I
predicted that those now listening to me would see the day when a man
could breakfast in Harrisburg, go to Philadelphia, transact a fair day’s
business there, and returning, eat his supper at home. Great applause
followed this, and some additional subscriptions. Abram Harnly, a friend
of the road, and one of the most intelligent of his class, worked his
way to me, and taking me aside whispered, “That was a good idea about
going to Philadelphia and back to Harrisburg the same day;” and then,
bursting with laughter, he added,—“But you and I know better than that!”
We lived to see the road built; and now people can come and go over the
distance twice a day, which Abram seemed to consider impossible for a
single daily trip.
The peculiar condition of the States then known as “the West” was the
subject of anxiety to many. They had attracted a large population, but
the people were exclusively devoted to agriculture. Lacking diversified
industry, they were without accumulated wealth to enable them to build
railways; nor were the States in condition to undertake such an onerous
duty, although several of them made a feeble attempt to do so. At one
time the bonds of Illinois, issued to build her canals, sold as low as
thirty cents on the dollar. So with Indiana. Both States were supposed
to be bankrupt. It became, therefore, an important problem as to how
means of communication should be supplied to the people of the West.
Congress, in 1846, gave a grant of land to aid in building a railroad in
Illinois. Every alternate section was given to the Company, and each
alternate section was reserved by the Government. The road was built;
and the one-half of the land retained by the government sold for a great
deal more than all was worth before the road was constructed. This idea
was original, I think, with Mr. Whitney of Mass., who spent two winters
in Washington, about 1845, endeavoring to induce Congress to adopt that
plan for the construction of a Trans-Continental Railway.
He died before seeing his scheme succeed. Others have built a road
across the continent on the Central route. Another on the Northern route
is now progressing, and the wealth and enterprise of those having it in
charge renders its completion certain. And it yet remains for us to give
the people of the Southern route a road to the Pacific which shall
develop the magnificent region through which it will pass, and give the
country one route to the great ocean protected from the ordinary
difficulty of climate with which railroads must contend over so large a
part of our territory. But I am admonished by the value of your space to
confine myself to the limits of my own State.
I have said that the outlay we have made in building our public works
was of great benefit to us even when the canals had been rendered almost
valueless through the competition of railroads. This is paradoxical, but
it is true nevertheless. That expenditure gave our people a needed
knowledge of our vast resources. It familiarized them with large
expenditures when made for the public good. And it showed them how a
great debt may be beneficially incurred, and yet not break down the
enterprise of the people. We at one time owed $41,698,595.74. By a
steady attention to our finances, it is now reduced to $31,000,000, with
resources,—the proceeds of the sale of public works—on hand amounting to
$10,000,000. And while we have been steadily reducing our State debt, we
have built 5,384 miles of railway on the surface of the earth, and 500
miles underground in our mines, at a cost of not less than $350,000,000,
for a mile of railroad in Pennsylvania means something. We sent 368,000
men to the Federal Army. And our credit stands high on every stock
exchange. Gratifying as this progress is, it is only a fair beginning.
There is a large part of our territory rich in timber and full of iron,
coal, and all kinds of mineral wealth, so entirely undeveloped by
railroads that we call it “the Wilderness.” To open it up is the
business of to-day, and I sincerely hope to see it done soon.
Forty years ago George Shoemaker, a young tavern-keeper of more vigor
and enterprise than his neighbors, came to the conclusion that
anthracite coal could be used as fuel. He went to the expense of taking
a wagon load of it to Philadelphia, a hundred miles away, and, after
peddling it about the streets for some days, was forced to give it away,
and lose his time, his labor and his coal. He afterwards saw a great
railway built to carry the same article to the same point, and enriching
thousands from the profits of the traffic. But his experience did not
end there. He saw a thousand dollars paid eagerly for an acre of coal
land, which at the time of his venture to Philadelphia, no one would
have, and he could not give away.
I have thought that a retrospective survey of our wonderful development
might point plainly to the duty of the future. For if the experience of
what has gone before is not useful to cast light on what is yet to come,
then it will be difficult indeed to discover wherein its value lies. It
teaches me to devote time and labor for the advancement of all Public
Improvements, and I trust it may have a like effect on all who have the
time and patience to read what I have here written.
Speech of Hon. John A. Logan,
_On Self-Government in Louisiana, January 13 and 14, 1875._
The Senate having under consideration the resolution submitted by Mr.
SCHURZ on the 8th of January, directing the Committee of the Judiciary
to inquire what legislation is necessary to secure to the people of the
State of Louisiana their rights of Self-government under the
Constitution Mr. LOGAN said:
Mr. PRESIDENT: I believe it is considered the duty of a good sailor to
stand by his ship in the midst of a great storm. We have been told in
this Chamber that a great storm of indignation is sweeping over this
land, which will rend asunder and sink the old republican craft. We have
listened to denunciations of the President, of the republicans in this
Chamber, of the republican party as an organization, their acts
heretofore and their purposes in reference to acts hereafter, of such a
character as has seldom been listened to in this or in any other
legislative hall. Every fact on the side of the republican party has
been perverted, every falsehood on the part of the opposition has been
exaggerated, arguments have been made here calculated to inflame and
arouse a certain class of the people of this country against the
authorities of the Government, based not upon truth but upon
manufactured statements which were utterly false. The republican party
has been characterized as despotic, as tyrannical, as oppressive. The
course of the Administration and the party toward the southern people
has been denounced as of the most tyrannical character by men who have
received clemency at the hands of this same party.
Now, sir, what is the cause of all this vain declamation? What is the
cause of all this studied denunciation? What is the reason for all these
accusations made against a party or an administration? I may be
mistaken, but, if I am not, this is the commencement of the campaign of
1876. It has been thought necessary on the part of the opposition
Senators here to commence, if I may use a homely phrase, a raid upon the
republican party and upon this Administration, and to base that upon
false statements in reference to the conduct of affairs in the State of
Louisiana.
I propose in this debate, and I hope I shall not be too tedious, though
I may be somewhat so, to discuss the question that should be presented
to the American people. I propose to discuss that question fairly,
candidly, and truthfully. I propose to discuss it from a just, honest,
and legal standpoint. Sir, what is that question? There was a resolution
offered in this Chamber calling on the President to furnish certain
information. A second resolution was introduced, (whether for the
purpose of hanging on it an elaborate speech or not I am not aware,)
asking the Committee on the Judiciary to report at once some legislation
in reference to Louisiana. Without any facts presented officially
arguments have been made, the country has been aroused, and some people
have announced themselves in a manner calculated to produce a very sore
feeling against the course and conduct of the party in power. I say this
is done without the facts; without any basis whatever; without any
knowledge officially communicated to them in reference to the conduct of
any of the parties in the State of Louisiana. In discussing this
question we ought to have a standpoint; we ought to have a beginning;
some point from which we may all reason and see whether or not any great
outrage has been perpetrated against the rights of the American people
or any portion of them.
I then propose to start at this point, that there is a government in the
State of Louisiana. Whether that government is a government of right or
not is not the question. Is there a government in that State against
which treason, insurrection, or rebellion, may be committed? Is there
such a government in the State of Louisiana as should require the
maintenance of peace and order among the citizens of that State? Is
there such a government in the State of Louisiana as requires the
exercise of Executive authority for the purpose of preserving peace and
order within its borders? I ask any Senator on this floor to-day if he
can stand up here as a lawyer, as a Senator, as an honest man, and deny
the fact that a government does exist? Whether he calls it a government
_de jure_ or a government _de facto_, it is immaterial. It is such an
organization as involves the liberties and the protection of the rights
of the people of that State. It will not do for Senators to talk about
the election of 1872. The election of 1872 has no more to do with this
“military usurpation” that you speak of to-day than an election of a
hundred years ago. It is not a question as to whether this man or that
was elected. The question is, is there such a government there as can be
overturned, and has there been an attempt to overturn it? If so, then
what is required to preserve its status or preserve the peace and order
of the people?
But the other day when I asked the question of a Senator on the other
side, who was discussing this question, whether or not he indorsed the
Penn rebellion, he answered me in a playful manner that excited the
mirth of people who did not understand the question, by saying that I
had decided that there was no election, and that therefore there was no
government to overturn. Now I ask Senators, I ask men of common
understanding if that is the way to treat a question of this kind; when
asked whether insurrection against a government recognized is not an
insurrection and whether he endorses it, he says there is no government
to overturn. If there is no government to overturn, why do you make this
noise and confusion about a Legislature there? If there is no State
government, there is no State Legislature. But I will not answer in that
manner. I will not avoid the issue; I will not evade the question. I
answer there is a Legislature, as there is a State government,
recognized by the President, recognized by the Legislature, recognized
by the courts, recognized by one branch of Congress, and recognized by
the majority of the citizens by their recognition of the laws of the
State; and it will not do to undertake to avoid questions in this
manner.
Let us see, then, starting from that standpoint, what the position of
Louisiana is now, and what it has been. On the 14th day of September
last a man by the name of Penn, as to whom we have official information
this morning, with some seven or ten thousand white-leaguers made war
against that government, overturned it, dispersed it, drove the governor
from the executive chamber, and he had to take refuge under the
jurisdiction of the Government of the United States, on the soil
occupied by the United States custom-house, where the exclusive
jurisdiction of the United States Government extends, for the purpose of
protecting his own life.
This then was a revolution; this then was a rebellion; this then was
treason against the State, for which these men should have been
arrested, tried, and punished. Let gentlemen dodge the question as they
may; it may be well for some men there who engaged in this treasonable
act against the government that they had Mr. Kellogg for governor. It
might not have been so well for them, perhaps, had there been some other
man in his place. I tell the Senator from Maryland if any crowd of armed
men should undertake to disperse the government of the State of
Illinois, drive its governor from the executive chamber, enter into his
private drawers, take his private letters, and publish them, and act as
those men did, some of them would pay the penalty either in the
penitentiary or by dancing at the end of a rope.
But when this rebellion was going on against that State, these gentlemen
say it was a State affair; the Government of the United States has
nothing to do with it! That is the old-fashioned secession doctrine
again. The government of the United States has nothing to do with it!
This national government is made up of States, and each State is a part
of the Government, each is a part of its life, of its body. It takes
them all to make up the whole; and treason against any part of it is
treason against the whole of it, and it became the duty of the President
to put it down, as he did do; and, in putting down that treason against
the Kellogg government, the whole country almost responded favorably to
his action.
But our friend from Maryland, not in his seat now, [Mr. HAMILTON] said
that that was part of the cause of the elections going as they did. In
other words, my friend from Maryland undertook in a roundabout way to
endorse the Penn rebellion, and claim that people of the country did the
same thing against the government of the State of Louisiana, and on this
floor since this discussion has been going on, not one Senator on that
side of the chamber has lisped one word against the rebellion against
the government of the State of Louisiana, and all who have spoken of it
have passed it by in silence so as to indicate clearly that they endorse
it, and I believe they do.
Then, going further, the President issued his proclamation requiring
those insurgents to lay down their arms and to resume their peaceful
pursuits. This morning we have heard read at the clerk’s desk that these
men have not yet complied fully with that proclamation. Their rebellious
organization continued up to the time of the election and at the
election. When the election took place, we are told by some of these
Senators that the election was a peaceable, and a fair election, that a
majority of democrats were elected. That is the question we propose to
discuss as well as we are able to do it. They tell us that there was no
intimidation resorted to by any one in the State of Louisiana. I dislike
very much to follow out these statements that are not true and attempt
to controvert them because it does seem to me that we ought to act
fairly and candidly in this Chamber and discuss questions without trying
to pervert the issue or the facts in connection with it.
Now, I state it as a fact, and I appeal to the Senator from Louisiana to
say whether or not I state truly, that on the night before the election
in Louisiana notices were posted all over that country on the doors of
the colored republicans and the white republicans, too, of a character
giving them to understand that if they voted their lives would be in
danger; and here is one of the notices posted all over that country:
[Illustration: 2 × 6]
This “2 × 6” was to show the length and width of the grave they would
have. Not only that, but the negroes that they could impose upon and get
to vote the democratic ticket received, after they had voted, a card of
safety; and here is that card issued to the colored people whom they had
induced to vote the democratic ticket, so that they might present it if
any white-leaguers should undertake to plunder or murder them:
[Illustration: Icon]
NEW ORLEANS, _Nov. 28, 1874_.
_This is to certify that Charles Durassa, a barber by occupation, is a
Member of the 1st Ward Colored Democratic Club, and that at the late
election he voted for and worked in the interests of the Democratic
Candidates._
_WILLIAM ALEXANDER,
President 1st Ward Col’d Democratic Club._
_NICK HOPE, Secretary._
* * * * *
ROOMS DEMOCRATIC PARISH COMMITTEE.
_New Orleans, Nov. 28, 1874._
_The undersigned, Special Committee, appointed on behalf of the Parish
Committee, approve of the above Certificate._
_ED. FLOOD, Chairman._
_PAUL WATERMAN._
_H. J. RIVET._
ATTEST:
_J. H. HARDY, Ass’t Sec. Parish Committee_.
These were the certificates given to negroes who voted the democratic
ticket, that they might present them to save their lives when attacked
by the men commonly known as Ku-Klux or white-leaguers in that country;
and we are told that there is no intimidation in the State of Louisiana!
Our friend from Georgia [Mr. GORDON] has been very profuse in his
declamation as to the civility and good order and good bearing of the
people of Louisiana and the other Southern States. But, sir, this
intimidation continued up to the election. After the election, it was
necessary for the governor of that State to proceed in some manner best
calculated to preserve the peace and order of the country.
* * * * *
Now, Mr. President, I want to ask candid, honest, fair-minded men, after
reading the report of General Sheridan showing the murder, not for gain,
not for plunder, but for political opinions in the last few years of
thirty-five hundred persons in the State of Louisiana, all of them
republicans, not one of them a democrat—I want to ask if they can stand
here before this country and defend the democratic party of Louisiana? I
put this question to them for they have been here for days crying
against the wrongs upon the democracy of Louisiana. I want any one of
them to tell me if he is prepared to defend the democracy of Louisiana.
What is your democracy of Louisiana? You are excited, your extreme wrath
is aroused at General Sheridan because he called your White Leagues down
there “banditti.” I ask you if the murder of thirty-five hundred men in
a short time for political purposes by a band of men banded together for
the purpose of murder does not make them banditti, what it does make
them? Does it make them democrats? It certainly does not make them
republicans. Does it make them honest men? It certainly does not. Does
it make them law-abiding men? It certainly does not. Does it make them
peaceable citizens? It certainly does not. But what does it make them? A
band of men banded together and perpetrating murder in their own State?
Webster says a bandit is “a lawless or desperate fellow; a robber; a
brigand,” and “banditti” are men banded together for plunder and murder;
and what are your White Leagues banded together for if the result proves
that they are banded together for murder for political purposes?
O, what a crime it was in Sheridan to say that these men were banditti!
He is a wretch. From the papers he ought to be hanged to a lamp-post;
from the Senators he is not fit to breathe the free air of heaven or of
this free Republic; but your murderers of thirty-five hundred people for
political offenses are fit to breathe the air of this country and are
defended on this floor to-day, and they are defended here by the
democratic party, and you cannot avoid or escape the proposition. You
have denounced republicans for trying to keep the peace in Louisiana;
you have denounced the Administration for trying to suppress bloodshed
in Louisiana; you have denounced all for the same purpose; but not one
word has fallen from the lips of a solitary democratic Senator
denouncing these wholesale murders in Louisiana. You have said, “I am
sorry these things are done,” but you have defended the White Leagues;
you have defended Penn; you have defended rebellion; and you stand here
to-day the apologists of murder, of rebellion, and of treason in that
State.
I want to ask the judgment of an honest country, I want to ask the
judgment of the moral sentiments of the law-abiding people of this grand
and glorious Republic to tell me whether men shall murder by the score,
whether men shall trample the law under foot, whether men shall force
judges to resign, whether men shall force prosecuting attorneys to
resign, whether men shall take five officers of a State out and hang or
shoot them if they attempt to exercise the functions of their office,
whether men shall terrify the voters and office-holders of a State,
whether men shall undertake in violation of law to organize a
Legislature for revolutionary purposes, for the purpose of putting a
governor in possession and taking possession of the State and then ask
the democracy to stand by them—I appeal to the honest judgment of the
people of this land and ask them to respond whether this was not an
excusable case when this man used the Army to protect the life of that
State and to preserve the peace of that people? Sir, the man who will
not use all the means in his power to preserve the nationality, the
integrity of this Government, the integrity of a State or the peace and
happiness of a people, is not fit to govern, he is not fit to hold
position in this or any other civilized age.
Does liberty mean wholesale slaughter? Does republican government mean
tyranny and oppression of its citizens? Does an intelligent and
enlightened age of civilization mean murder and pillage, bloodshed at
the hands of Ku-Klux or White Leagues or anybody else, and if any one
attempts to put it down, attempts to reorganize and produce order where
chaos and confusion have reigned, they are to be denounced as tyrants,
as oppressors, and as acting against republican institutions? I say then
the happy days of this Republic are gone. When we fail to see that
republicanism means nothing, that liberty means nothing but the
unrestrained license of the mobs to do as they please, then republican
government is a failure. Liberty of the citizen means the right to
exercise such rights as are prescribed within the limits of the law so
that he does not in the exercise of these rights infringe the rights of
other citizens. But the definition is not well made by our friends on
the opposite side of this Chamber. Their idea of liberty is license; it
is not liberty, but it is license. License to do what? License to
violate law, to trample constitutions under foot, to take life, to take
property, to use the bludgeon and the gun or anything else for the
purpose of giving themselves power. What statesman ever heard of that as
a definition of liberty? What man in a civilized age has ever heard of
liberty being the unrestrained license of the people to do as they
please without any restraint of law or of authority? No man, no not one
until we found the democratic party, would advocate this proposition and
indorse and encourage this kind of license in a free country.
Mr. President, I have perhaps said more on this question of Louisiana
than might have been well for me to say on account of my strength, but
what I have said about it I have said because I honestly believed it.
What I have said in reference to it comes from an honest conviction in
my mind and in my heart of what has been done to suppress violence and
wrong. But I have a few remarks in conclusion to submit now to my
friends on the other side, in answer to what they have said not by way
of argument but by way of accusation. You say to us—I had it repeated to
me this morning in private conversation—“Withdraw your troops from
Louisiana and you will have peace.” Ah, I heard it said on this floor
once “Withdraw your troops from Louisiana and your State government will
not last a minute.” I heard that said from the opposite side of the
Chamber, and now you say “Withdraw your troops from Louisiana and you
will have peace.”
Mr. President, I dislike to refer to things that are past and gone; I
dislike to have my mind called back to things of the past; but I well
remember the voice in this Chamber once that rang out and was heard
throughout this land, “Withdraw your troops from Fort Sumter if you want
peace.” I heard that said. Now it is “Withdraw your troops from
Louisiana if you want peace.” Yes, I say, withdraw your troops from
Louisiana if you want a revolution, and that is what is meant. But, sir,
we are told, and doubtless it is believed by the Senators who tell us
so, who denounce the republican party, that it is tyrannical,
oppressive, and outrageous. They have argued themselves into the idea
that they are patriots, pure and undefiled. They have argued themselves
into the idea that the democratic party never did any wrong. They have
been out of power so long that they have convinced themselves that if
they only had control of this country for a short time, what a glorious
country they would make it. They had control for nearly forty long
years, and while they were the agents of this country—I appeal to
history to bear me out—they made the Government a bankrupt, with
rebellion and treason in the land, and were then sympathizing with it
wherever it existed. That is the condition in which they left the
country when they had it in their possession and within their control.
But they say the republican party is a tyrant; that it is oppressive. As
I have said, I wish to make a few suggestions to my friends in answer to
this accusation—oppressive to whom? They say to the South, that the
republican party has tyrannized over the South. Let me ask you how has
it tyrannized over the South? Without speaking of our troubles and
trials through which we passed, I will say this: at the end of a
rebellion that scourged this land, that drenched it with blood, that
devastated a portion of it, left us in debt and almost bankrupt, what
did the republican party do? Instead of leaving these our friends and
citizens to-day in a territorial condition where we might exercise
jurisdiction over them for the next coming twenty years, where we might
have deprived them of the rights of members on this floor, what did we
do? We reorganized them into States, admitted them back into the Union,
and through the clemency of the republican party we admitted
representatives on this floor who had thundered against the gates of
liberty for four bloody years. Is that the tyranny and oppression of
which you complain at the hands of the republican party? Is that a part
of our oppression against you southern people?
Let us go a little further. When the armed democracy, for that is what
they were, laid down their arms in the Southern States, after disputing
the right of freedom and liberty in this land for four years, how did
the republican party show itself in its acts of tyranny and oppression
toward you? You appealed to them for clemency. Did you get it? Not a man
was punished for his treason. Not a man ever knocked at the doors of a
republican Congress for a pardon who did not get it. Not a man ever
petitioned the generosity of the republican party to be excused for his
crimes who was not excused. Was that oppression upon the part of the
republicans in this land? Is that a part of the oppression of which you
accuse us?
Let us look a little further. We find to-day twenty-seven democratic
Representatives in the other branch of Congress who took arms in their
hands and tried to destroy this Government holding commissions there by
the clemency of the republican party. We find in this Chamber by the
clemency of the republican party three Senators who held such
commissions. Is that tyranny; is that oppression; is that the outrage of
this republican party on you southern people? Sir, when Jeff Davis, the
head of the great rebellion, who roams the land free as air, North,
South, East, and West, makes democratic speeches wherever invited, and
the vice-president of the southern rebellion holds his seat in the other
House of Congress, are we to be told that we are tyrants, and oppressing
the southern people? These things may sound a little harsh, but it is
time to tell the truth in this country. The time has come to talk facts.
The time has come when cowards should hide, and honest men should come
to the front and tell you plain, honest truths. You of the South talk to
us about oppressing you. You drenched your land in blood, caused weeping
throughout this vast domain, covered the land in weeds of mourning both
North and South, widowed thousands and orphaned many, made the
pension-roll as long as an army-list, made the debt that grinds the poor
of this land—for all these things you have been pardoned, and yet you
talk to us about oppression. So much for the oppression of the
republican party of your patriotic souls and selves. Next comes the
President of the United States. He is a tyrant, too. He is an oppressor
still, in conjunction with the republican party. Oppressor of what? Who
has he oppressed of your Southern people, and when, and where? When your
Ku-Klux, banded together for murder and plunder in the Southern States,
were convicted by their own confession, your own representatives pleaded
to the President and said, “Give them pardon, and it will reconcile many
of the southern people.” The President pardoned them; pardoned them of
their murder, of their plunder, of their piracy on land; and for this I
suppose he is a tyrant.
More than that, sir, this tyrant in the White House has done more for
you southern people than you ought to have asked him to do. He has had
confidence in you until you betrayed that confidence. He has not only
pardoned the offences of the South, pardoned the criminals of the
democratic party, but he has placed in high official position in this
Union some of the leading men who fought in the rebellion. He has put in
his Cabinet one of your men; he has made governors of Territories of
some of your leading men who fought in the rebellion; he has sent on
foreign missions abroad some of your men who warred against this
country; he has placed others in the Departments; and has tried to
reconcile you in every way on earth, by appealing to your people, by
recognizing them and forgiving them for their offenses, and for these
acts of generosity, for these acts of kindness, he is arraigned to-day
as a Cæsar, as a tyrant, as an oppressor.
Such kindness in return as the President has received from these people
will mark itself in the history of generosity. O, but say they, Grant
wants to oppress the White Leagues in Louisiana; therefore he is an
oppressor. Yes, Mr. President, Grant does desire that these men should
quit their everyday chivalric sports of gunning upon negroes and
republicans. He asks kindly that you stop it. He says to you, “That is
all I want you to do;” and you say that you are desirous that they shall
quit it. You have but to say it and they will quit it. It is because you
have never said it that they have not quit it. It is in the power of the
democratic party to-day but to speak in tones of majesty, of honor, and
justice in favor of human life, and your Ku-Klux and murderers will
stop. But you do not do it; and that is the reason they do not stop. In
States where it has been done they have stopped. But it will not do to
oppress those people; it will not do to make them submit and subject
them to the law; it will not do to stop these gentlemen in their daily
sports and in their lively recreations. They are White Leagues; they are
banded together as gentlemen; they are of southern blood; they are of
old southern stock; they are the chivalry of days gone by; they are
knights of the bloody shield; and the shield must not be taken from
them. Sirs, their shield will be taken from them; this country will be
aroused to its danger; this country will be aroused to do justice to its
citizens; and when it does, the perpetrators of crime may fear and
tremble. Tyranny and oppression! A people who without one word of
opposition allows men who have been the enemies of a government to come
into these legislative Halls and make laws for that government to be
told that they are oppressors is a monstrosity in declamation and
assertion. Who ever heard of such a thing before? Who ever believed that
such men could make such charges? Yet we are tyrants!
Mr. President, the reading of the title of that bill from the House only
reminds me of more acts of tyranny and oppression of the republican
party, and there is a continuation of the same great offenses constantly
going on in this Chamber. But some may say “It is strange to see Logan
defending the President of the United States.” It is not strange to me.
I can disagree with the President when I think he is wrong; and I do not
blame him for disagreeing with me; but when these attacks are made,
coming from where they do, I am ready to stand from the rising sun in
the morning to the setting sun in the evening to defend every act of his
in connection with this matter before us.
I may have disagreed with President Grant in many things; but I was
calling attention to the men who have been accusing him here, on this
floor, on the stump, and in the other House; the kind of men who do it,
the manner of its doing, the sharpness of the shafts that are sent at
him, the poisonous barbs that they bear with them, and from these men
who, at his hands, have received more clemency than any men ever
received at the hands of any President or any man who governed a
country. Why, sir, I will appeal to the soldiers of the rebel army to
testify in behalf of what I say in defense of President Grant—the
honorable men who fought against the country, if there was honor in
doing it. What will be their testimony? It will be that he captured your
armed democracy of the South, he treated them kindly, turned them loose,
with their horses, with their wagons, with their provisions; treated
them as men, and not as pirates. Grant built no prison-pens for the
southern soldiers; Grant provided no starvation for southern men; Grant
provided no “dead-lines” upon which to shoot southern soldiers if they
crossed them; Grant provided no outrageous punishment against these
people that now call him a tyrant. Generous to a fault in all his
actions toward the men who were fighting his country and destroying the
constitution, that man to-day is denounced as a very Cæsar!
Sherman has not been denounced, but the only reason is that he was not
one of the actors in this transaction; but I want now to say to my
friends on the other side, especially to my friend from Delaware, who
repeated his bitter denunciation against Sheridan yesterday—and I say
this in all kindness, because I am speaking what future history will
bear me out in—when Sheridan and Grant and Sherman, and others like
them, are forgotten in this country, you will have no country. When the
democratic party is rotten for centuries in its grave, the life, the
course, the conduct of these men will live as bright as the noonday sun
in the heart of every patriot of a republic like the American Union.
Sirs, you may talk about tyranny, you may talk about oppression, you may
denounce these men; their glory may fade into the darkness of night; but
that darkness will be a brilliant light compared with the darkness of
the democratic party. Their pathway is illuminated by glory; yours by
dark deeds against the Government. That is a difference which the
country will bear witness to in future history when speaking of this
country and the actors on its stage.
Now, Mr. President, I have a word to say about our duty. A great many
people are asking, what shall we do? Plain and simple in my judgment is
the proposition. I say to republicans, do not be scared. No man is ever
hurt by doing an honest act and performing a patriotic duty. If we are
to have a war of words outside or inside, let us have them in truth and
soberness, but in earnest. What then is our duty? I did not believe that
in 1872 there were official data upon which we could decide who was
elected governor of Louisiana. But this is not the point of my argument.
It is that the President has recognized Kellogg as governor of that
State, and he has acted for two years. The Legislature of the State has
recognized him; the supreme court of the State has recognized him; one
branch of Congress has recognized him. The duty is plain, and that is
for this, the other branch of Congress, to do it, and that settles the
question. Then, when it does it, your duty is plain and simple, and as
the President has told you, he will perform his without fear, favor, or
affection. Recognize the government that revolution has been against and
intended to overthrow, and leave the President to his duty, and he will
do it. That is what to do.
Sir, we have been told that this old craft is rapidly going to pieces;
that the angry waves of dissension in the land are lashing against her
sides. We are told that she is sinking, sinking, sinking to the bottom
of the political ocean. Is that true? Is it true that this gallant old
party, that this gallant old ship that has sailed through troubled seas
before is going to be stranded now upon the rock of fury that has been
set up by a clamor in this Chamber and a few newspapers in the country?
Is it true that the party that saved this country in all its great
crises, in all its great trials, is sinking to-day on account of its
fear and trembling before an inferior enemy? I hope not. I remember,
sir, once I was told that the old republican ship was gone; but when I
steadied myself on the shores bounding the political ocean of strife and
commotion, I looked afar off and there I could see a vessel bounding the
boisterous billows with white sails unfurled, marked on her sides
“Freighted with the hopes of mankind,” while the great Mariner above, as
her helmsman, steered her, navigated her to a haven of rest, of peace,
and of safety. You have but to look again upon that broad ocean of
political commotion to-day, and the time will soon come when the same
old craft, provided with the same cargo, will be seen, flying the same
flag, passing through these tempestuous waves, anchoring herself at the
shores of honesty and justice, and there she will lie undisturbed by
strife and tumult, again in peace and safety. [Manifestations of
applause in the galleries.]
Speech of Hon. James G. Blaine, of Maine,
_On the False Issue raised by the Democratic Party, Delivered in the
Senate of the United States, Monday, April 14, 1879_.
The Senate having under consideration the bill (H. R. No. 1,) making
appropriations for the support of the Army for the fiscal year ending
June 30, 1880, and for other purposes—
Mr. Blaine said:
Mr. PRESIDENT: The existing section of the Revised Statutes numbered
2002 reads thus:
No military or naval officer, or other person engaged in the civil,
military, or naval service of the United States, shall order, bring,
keep or have under his authority or control, any troops or armed men at
the place where any general or special election is held in any State,
unless it be necessary to repel the armed enemies of the United States,
_or to keep the peace at the polls_.
The object of the proposed section, which has just been read at the
Clerk’s desk, is to get rid of the eight closing words, namely, “or to
keep the peace at the polls,” and therefore the mode of legislation
proposed in the Army bill now before the Senate is an unusual mode; it
is an extraordinary mode. If you want to take off a single sentence at
the end of a section in the Revised Statutes the ordinary way is to
strike off those words, but the mode chosen in this bill is to repeat
and re-enact the whole section leaving those few words out. While I do
not wish to be needlessly suspicious on a small point I am quite
persuaded that this did not happen by accident but that it came by
design. If I may so speak it came of cunning, the intent being to create
the impression that whereas the republicans in the administration of the
General Government had been using troops right and left, hither and
thither, in every direction, as soon as the democrats got power they
enacted this section. I can imagine democratic candidates for Congress
all over the country reading this section to gaping and listening
audiences as one of the first offsprings of democratic reform, whereas
every word of it, every syllable of it, from its first to its last, is
the enactment of a republican Congress.
I repeat that this unusual form presents a dishonest issue, whether so
intended or not. It presents the issue that as soon as the democrats got
possession of the Federal Government they proceeded to enact the clause
which is thus expressed. The law was passed by a republican Congress in
1865. There were forty-six Senators sitting in this Chamber at that
time, of whom only ten or at most eleven were democrats. The House of
Representatives was overwhelmingly republican. We were in the midst of a
war. The republican administration had a million or possibly twelve
hundred thousand bayonets at its command. Thus circumstanced and thus
surrounded, with the amplest possible power to interfere with elections
had they so designed, with soldiers in every hamlet and county of the
United States, the republican party themselves placed that provision on
the statute book, and Abraham Lincoln, their President, signed it.
I beg you to observe, Mr. President, that this is the first instance in
the legislation of the United States in which any restrictive clause
whatever was put upon the statute book in regard to the use of troops at
the polls. The republican party did it with the Senate and the House in
their control. Abraham Lincoln signed it when he was Commander-in-Chief
of an army larger than ever Napoleon Bonaparte had at his command. So
much by way of correcting an ingenious and studied attempt at
misrepresentation.
The alleged object is to strike out the few words that authorize the use
of troops to keep peace at the polls. This country has been alarmed, I
rather think indeed amused, at the great effort made to create a
widespread impression that the republican party relies for its popular
strength upon the use of the bayonet. This democratic Congress has
attempted to give a bad name to this country throughout the civilized
world, and to give it on a false issue. They have raised an issue that
has no foundation in fact—that is false in whole and detail, false in
the charge, false in all the specifications. That impression sought to
be created, as I say, not only throughout the North American continent
but in Europe to-day, is that elections are attempted in this country to
be controlled by the bayonet.
I denounce it here as a false issue. I am not at liberty to say that any
gentleman making this issue knows it to be false; I hope he does not;
but I am going to prove to him that it is false, and that there is not a
solitary inch of solid earth on which to rest the foot of any man who
makes that issue. I have in my hand an official transcript of the
location and the number of all the troops of the United States east of
Omaha. By “east of Omaha,” I mean all the United States east of the
Mississippi river and that belt of States that border the Mississippi
river on the west, including forty-one million at least out of the
forty-five million of people that this country is supposed to contain
to-day. In that magnificent area, I will not pretend to state its
extent, but with forty-one million people, how many troops of the United
States are there to-day? Would any Senator on the opposite side like to
guess, or would he like to state how many men with muskets in their
hands there are in the vast area I have named? There are two thousand
seven hundred and ninety-seven! And not one more.
From the headwaters of the Mississippi River to the lakes, and down the
great chain of lakes, and down the Saint Lawrence and down the valley of
the Saint John and down the St. Croix striking the Atlantic Ocean and
following it down to Key West, around the Gulf, up to the mouth of the
Mississippi again, a frontier of eight thousand miles either bordering
on the ocean or upon foreign territory is guarded by these troops.
Within this domain forty-five fortifications are manned and eleven
arsenals protected. There are sixty troops to every million of people.
In the South I have the entire number in each State, and will give it.
And the entire South has eleven hundred and fifty-five soldiers to
intimidate, overrun, oppress and destroy the liberties of fifteen
million people! In the Southern States there are twelve hundred and
three counties. If you distribute the soldiers there is not quite one
for each county; and when I give the counties I give them from the
census of 1870. If you distribute them territorially there is one for
every seven hundred square miles of territory, so that if you make a
territorial distribution, I would remind the honorable Senator from
Delaware, if I saw him in his seat, that the quota for his State would
be three—“one ragged sergeant and two abreast,” as the old song has it.
[Laughter.] That is the force ready to destroy the liberties of
Delaware!
Mr. President, it was said, as the old maxim has it, that the
soothsayers of Rome could not look each other in the face without
smiling. There are not two democratic Senators on this floor who can go
into the cloak-room and look each other in the face without smiling at
this talk, or, more appropriately, I should say without blushing—the
whole thing is such a prodigious and absolute farce, such a miserably
manufactured false issue, such a pretense without the slightest
foundation in the world, and talked about most and denounced the loudest
in States that have not and have not had a single Federal soldier. In
New England we have three hundred and eighty soldiers. Throughout the
South it does not run quite seventy to the million people. In New
England we have absolutely one hundred and twenty soldiers to the
million. New England is far more overrun to-day by the Federal soldier,
immensely more, than the whole South is. I never heard anybody complain
about it in New England, or express any great fear of his liberties
being endangered by the presence of a handful of troops.
As I have said, the tendency of this talk is to give us a bad name in
Europe. Republican institutions are looked upon there with jealousy.
Every misrepresentation, every slander is taken up and exaggerated and
talked about to our discredit, and the democratic party of the country
to-day stand indicted, and I here indict them, for public slander of
their country, creating the impression in the civilized world that we
are governed by a ruthless military despotism. I wonder how amazing it
would be to any man in Europe, familiar as Europeans are with great
armies, if he were told that over a territory larger than France and
Spain and Portugal and Great Britain and Holland and Belgium and the
German Empire all combined, there were but eleven hundred and fifty-five
soldiers! That is all this democratic howl, this mad cry, this false
issue, this absurd talk is based on—the presence of eleven hundred and
fifty-five soldiers on eight hundred and fifty thousand square miles of
territory, not double the number of the democratic police in the city of
Baltimore, not a third of the police in the city of New York, not double
the democratic police in the city of New Orleans. I repeat, the number
indicts them; it stamps the whole cry as without any foundation; it
derides the issue as a false and scandalous and partisan makeshift.
What then is the real motive underlying this movement? Senators on that
side, democratic orators on the stump cannot make any sensible set of
men at the crossroads believe that they are afraid of eleven hundred and
fifty-five soldiers distributed one to each county in the South. The
minute you state that, everybody sees the utter, palpable and laughable
absurdity of it, and therefore we must go further and find a motive for
all this cry. We want to find out, to use a familiar and vulgar phrase,
what is “the cat under the meal.” It is not the troops. That is evident.
There are more troops by fifty per cent. scattered through the Northern
States east of the Mississippi to-day than through the Southern States
east of the Mississippi, and yet nobody in the North speaks of it;
everybody would be laughed at for speaking of it; and therefore the
issue, I take no risk in stating, I make bold to declare, that this
issue on the troops, being a false one, being one without foundation,
conceals the true issue, which is simply to get rid of the Federal
presence at Federal elections, to get rid of the _civil power of the
United States_ in the election of Representatives to the Congress of the
United States. That is the whole of it; and disguise it as you may there
is nothing else in it or of it.
You simply want to get rid of the supervision by the Federal Government
of the election of Representatives to Congress through civil means; and
therefore this bill connects itself directly with another bill, and you
cannot discuss this military bill without discussing a bill which we had
before us last winter, known as the legislative, executive, and judicial
appropriation bill. I am quite well aware, I profess to be as well aware
as any one, that it is not permissible for me to discuss a bill that is
pending before the other House. I am quite well aware that propriety and
parliamentary rule forbid that I should speak of what is done in the
House of Representatives; but I know very well that I am not forbidden
to speak of that which is not done in the House of Representatives. I am
quite free to speak of the things that are not done there, and therefore
I am free to declare that neither this military bill nor the
legislative, executive, and judicial appropriation bill ever emanated
from any committee of the House of Representatives at all; they are not
the work of any committee of the House of Representatives, and, although
the present House of Representatives is almost evenly balanced in party
division, no solitary suggestion has been allowed to come from the
minority of that House in regard to the shaping of these bills. Where do
they come from? We are not left to infer; we are not even left to the
Yankee privilege of guessing, because we know. The Senator from Kentucky
[MR. BECK] obligingly told us—I have his exact words here—“that the
honorable Senator from Ohio [MR. THURMAN] was the chairman of a
committee appointed by the democratic party to see how it was best to
present all these questions before us.”
We are told, too, rather a novel thing, that if we do not take these
laws, we are not to have the appropriations. I believe it has been
announced in both branches of Congress, I suppose on the authority of
the democratic caucus, that if we do not take these bills as they are
planned, we shall not have any of the appropriations that go with them.
The honorable Senator from West Virginia [Mr. HEREFORD] told it to us on
Friday; the honorable Senator from Ohio [Mr. THURMAN] told it to us last
session; the honorable Senator from Kentucky [Mr. BECK] told it to us at
the same time, and I am not permitted to speak of the legions who told
us so in the other House. They say all these appropriations are to be
refused—not merely the Army appropriation, for they do not stop at that.
Look for a moment at the legislative bill that came from the democratic
caucus. Here is an appropriation in it for defraying the expenses of the
Supreme Court and the circuit and district courts of the United States,
including the District of Columbia, &c., $2,800,000: “Provided”—provided
what?
That the following sections of the Revised Statutes relating to
elections—going on to recite them—be repealed.
That is, you will pass an appropriation for the support of the judiciary
of the United States only on condition of this repeal. We often speak of
this government being divided between three great departments, the
executive, the legislative, and the judicial—co-ordinate, independent,
equal. The legislative, under the control of a democratic caucus, now
steps forward and says, “We offer to the Executive this bill, and if he
does not sign it, we are going to starve the judiciary.” That is
carrying the thing a little further than I have ever known. We do not
merely propose to starve the Executive if he will not sign the bill, but
we propose to starve the judiciary that has had nothing whatever to do
with the question. That has been boldly avowed on this floor; that has
been boldly avowed in the other House; that has been boldly avowed in
democratic papers throughout the country.
And you propose not merely to starve the judiciary but you propose that
you will not appropriate a solitary dollar to take care of this Capitol.
The men who take care of this great amount of public property are
provided for in that bill. You say they shall not have any pay if the
President will not agree to change the election laws. There is the
public printing that goes on for the enlightenment of the whole country
and for printing the public documents of every one of the Departments.
You say they shall not have a dollar for public printing unless the
President agrees to repeal these laws.
There is the Congressional Library that has become the pride of the
whole American people for its magnificent growth and extent. You say it
shall not have one dollar to take care of it, much less add a new book,
unless the President signs these bills. There is the Department of State
that we think throughout the history of the Government has been a great
pride to this country for the ability with which it has conducted our
foreign affairs; it is also to be starved. You say we shall not have any
intercourse with foreign nations, not a dollar shall be appropriated
therefor unless the President signs these bills. There is the
Light-House Board that provides for the beacons and the warnings on
seventeen thousand miles of sea and gulf and lake coast.
You say those lights shall all go out and not a dollar shall be
appropriated for the board if the President does not sign these bills.
There are the mints of the United States at Philadelphia, New Orleans,
Denver, San Francisco, coining silver and coining gold—not a dollar
shall be appropriated for them if the President does not sign these
bills. There is the Patent Office, the patents issued which embody the
invention of the country—not a dollar for them. The Pension Bureau shall
cease its operations unless these bills are signed and patriotic
soldiers may starve. The Agricultural Bureau, the Post Office
Department, every one of the great executive functions of the Government
is threatened, taken by the throat, highwayman-style, collared on the
highway, commanded to stand and deliver in the name of the democratic
congressional caucus. That is what it is; simply that. No committee of
this Congress in either branch has ever recommended that legislation—not
one. Simply a democratic caucus has done it.
Of course this is new. We are learning something every day. I think you
may search the records of the Federal Government in vain; it will take
some one much more industrious in that search than I have ever been, and
much more observant than I have ever been, to find any possible parallel
or any possible suggestion in our past history of any such thing. Most
of the Senators who sit in this Chamber can remember some vetoes by
Presidents that shook this country to its centre with excitement. The
veto of the national-bank bill by Jackson in 1832, remembered by the
oldest in this Chamber; the veto of the national-bank bill in 1841 by
Tyler, remembered by those not the oldest, shook this country with a
political excitement which up to that time had scarcely a parallel; and
it was believed, whether rightfully or wrongfully is no matter, it was
believed by those who advocated those financial measures at the time,
that they were of the very last importance to the well-being and
prosperity of the people of the Union. That was believed by the great
and shining lights of that day. It was believed by that man of imperial
character and imperious will, the great Senator from Kentucky. It was
believed by Mr. Webster, the greatest of New England Senators. When
Jackson vetoed the one or Tyler vetoed the other, did you ever hear a
suggestion that those bank charters should be put on appropriation bills
or that there should not be a dollar to run the Government until they
were signed? So far from it that, in 1841, when temper was at its
height; when the whig party, in addition to losing their great measure,
lost it under the sting and the irritation of what they believed was a
desertion by the President whom they had chosen; and when Mr. Clay,
goaded by all these considerations, rose to debate the question in the
Senate, he repelled the suggestion of William C. Rives, of Virginia, who
attempted to make upon him the point that he had indulged in some threat
involving the independence of the Executive. Mr. Clay rose to his full
height and thus responded:
“I said nothing whatever of any obligation on the part of the
President to conform his judgment to the opinions of the Senate and
the House of Representatives, although the Senator argued as if I had,
and persevered in so arguing after repeated correction. I said no such
thing. I know and I respect the perfect independence of each
department, acting within its proper sphere, of the other
departments.”
A leading democrat, an eloquent man, a man who has courage and frankness
and many good qualities, has boasted publicly that the democracy are in
power for the first time in eighteen years, and they do not intend to
stop until they have wiped out every vestige of every war measure. Well,
“forewarned is forearmed,” and you begin appropriately on a measure that
has the signature of Abraham Lincoln. I think the picture is a striking
one when you hear these words from a man who was then in arms against
the Government of the United States, doing his best to destroy it,
exerting every power given him in a bloody and terrible rebellion
against the authority of the United States and when Abraham Lincoln was
marching at the same time to his martyrdom in its defense! Strange times
have fallen upon us that those of us who had the great honor to be
associated in higher or lower degree with Mr. Lincoln in the
administration of the Government should live to hear men in public life
and on the floors of Congress, fresh from the battle-fields of the
rebellion, threatening the people of the United States that the
democratic party, in power for the first time in eighteen years,
proposes not to stay its hand until every vestige of the war measures
has been wiped out! the late vice-president of the confederacy
boasted—perhaps I had better say stated—that for sixty out of the
seventy-two years preceding the outbreak of the rebellion, from the
foundation of the Government, the South, though in a minority, had by
combining with what he termed the anti-centralists in the North ruled
the country; and in 1866 the same gentleman indicated in a speech, I
think before the Legislature of Georgia, that by a return to Congress
the South might repeat the experiment with the same successful result. I
read that speech at the time; but I little thought I should live to see
so near a fulfillment of its prediction. I see here to-day two great
measures emanating, as I have said, not from a committee of either
House, but from a democratic caucus in which the South has an
overwhelming majority, two-thirds in the House, and out of forty-two
Senators on the other side of this Chamber professing the democratic
faith thirty are from the South—twenty-three, a positive and pronounced
majority, having themselves been participants in the war against the
Union either in military or civil station. So that as a matter of fact,
plainly deducible from counting your fingers, the legislation of this
country to-day, shaped and fashioned in a democratic caucus where the
confederates of the South hold the majority, is the realization of Mr.
STEPHENS’ prophecy. And very appropriately the House under that control
and the Senate under that control, embodying thus the entire legislative
powers of the Government, deriving its political strength from the
South, elected from the South, say to the President of the United
States, at the head of the Executive Department of the Government,
elected as he was from the North—elected by the whole people, but
elected as a Northern man; elected on Republican principles, elected in
opposition to the party that controls both branches of Congress
to-day—they naturally say, “You shall not exercise your constitutional
power to veto a bill.”
Some gentleman may rise and say, “Do you call it revolution to put an
amendment on an appropriation bill?” Of course not. There have been a
great many amendments put on appropriation bills, some mischievous and
some harmless; but I call it the audacity of revolution for any Senator
or Representative, or any caucus of Senators or Representatives, to get
together and say, “We will have this legislation or we will stop the
great departments of the Government.” That is revolutionary. I do not
think it will amount to revolution; my opinion is it will not. I think
that is a revolution that will not go around; I think that is a
revolution which will not revolve; I think that is a revolution whose
wheel will not turn; but it is a revolution if persisted in, and if not
persisted in, it must be backed out from with ignominy. The democratic
party in Congress have put themselves exactly in this position to-day,
that if they go forward in the announced programme, they march to
revolution. I think they will, in the end, go back in an ignominious
retreat. That is my judgment.
The extent to which they control the legislation of the country is worth
pointing out. In round numbers, the Southern people are about one-third
of the population of the Union. I am not permitted to speak of the
organization of the House of Representatives, but I can refer to that of
the last House. In the last House of Representatives, of the forty-two
standing committees the South had twenty-five. I am not blaming the
honorable Speaker for it. He was hedged in by partisan forces, and could
not avoid it. In this very Senate, out of thirty-four standing
committees the South has twenty-two. I am not calling these things up
just now in reproach; I am only showing what an admirable prophet the
late vice-president of the Southern Confederacy was, and how entirely
true all his words have been, and how he has lived to see them realized.
I do not profess to know, Mr. President, least of all Senators on this
floor, certainly as little as any Senator on this floor, do I profess to
know, what the President of the United States will do when these bills
are presented to him, as I suppose in due course of time they will be. I
certainly should never speak a solitary word of disrespect of the
gentleman holding that exalted position, and I hope I should not speak a
word unbefitting the dignity of the office of a Senator of the United
States. But as there has been speculation here and there on both sides
as to what he would do, it seems to me that the dead heroes of the Union
would rise from their graves if he should consent to be intimidated and
outraged in his proper constitutional powers by threats like these.
All the war measures of Abraham Lincoln are to be wiped out, say leading
democrats! The Bourbons of France busied themselves, I believe, after
the restoration, in removing every trace of Napoleon’s power and
grandeur, even chiseling the “N” from public monuments raised to
perpetuate his glory; but the dead man’s hand from Saint Helena reached
out and destroyed them in their pride and in their folly. And I tell the
Senators on the other side of this Chamber,—I tell the democratic party
North and South—South in the lead and North following,—that, the slow,
unmoving finger of scorn, from the tomb of the martyred President on the
prairies of Illinois, will wither and destroy them. Though dead he
speaketh. [Great applause in the galleries.]
The presiding officer, (Mr. ANTHONY in the chair.) The Sergeant-at-Arms
will preserve order in the galleries and arrest persons manifesting
approbation or disapprobation.
Mr. BLAINE. When you present these bills with these threats to the
living President, who bore the commission of Abraham Lincoln and served
with honor in the Army of the Union, which Lincoln restored and
preserved, I can think only of one appropriate response from his lips or
his pen. He should say to you with all the scorn befitting his station:
Is thy servant a dog that he should do this thing?
Speech of Roscoe Conkling.
_On the Extra Session of 1879. What it Teaches and what it Means. In the
Senate of the United States, April 24, 1879._
The Senate having under consideration the bill (H. R. No. 1) making
appropriations for the support of the Army for the fiscal year ending
June 30, 1880, and for other purposes—
Mr. CONKLING said:
Mr. PRESIDENT: During the last fiscal year the amount of national taxes
paid into the Treasury was $234,831,461.77. Of this sum one hundred and
thirty million and a fraction was collected under tariff laws as duties
on imported merchandise, and one hundred and four million and a fraction
as tax on American productions. Of this total of $235,000,000 in round
numbers, twenty-seven States which adhered to the Union during the
recent war paid $221,204,268.88. The residue came from eleven States. I
will read their names: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana,
Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia.
These eleven States paid $13,627,192.89. Of this sum more than six
million and a half came from the tobacco of Virginia. Deducting the
amount of the tobacco tax in Virginia, the eleven States enumerated paid
$7,125,462.60 of the revenues and supplies of the Republic.
Mr. HILL, of Georgia. Will the Senator from New York allow me to ask him
a question?
Mr. CONKLING. If the Senator thinks that two of us are needed to make a
statement of figures I will.
Mr. HILL, of Georgia. Two no doubt can make it better.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from New York yield to the
Senator from Georgia?
Mr. CONKLING. After the expressed opinion of the Senator from Georgia
that the statement needs his aid, I cannot decline.
Mr. HILL, of Georgia. I will not interrupt the Senator if it is
disagreeable to him, I assure him. I ask if in the computation he has
made of the amount paid he does not ascribe to the States that adhered
to the Union, to use his language, all——
Mr. CONKLING. Having heard the Senator so far, I must ask him to desist.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New York declines to yield
further.
Mr. CONKLING. I have stated certain figures as they appear in the
published official accounts: the Senator seems about to challenge the
process or system by which the accounts are made up. I cannot give way
for this, and must beg him to allow me to proceed with observations
which I fear to prolong lest they become too wearisome to the Senate.
The laws exacting these few millions from eleven States, and these
hundreds of millions from twenty-seven States, originated, as the
Constitution requires all bills for raising revenue to originate, in the
House of Representatives. They are not recent laws. They have been
approved and affirmed by succeeding Congresses. The last House of
Representatives and its predecessor approved them, and both these Houses
were ruled by a democratic Speaker, by democratic committees, and by a
democratic majority. Both Senate and House are democratic now, and we
hear of no purpose to repeal or suspend existing revenue laws. They are
to remain in full force. They will continue to operate and to take
tribute of the people. If the sum they exact this year and next year,
shall be less than last year, it will be only or chiefly because recent
legislation favoring southern and tobacco-growing regions has dismissed
twelve or fourteen million of annual tax on tobacco.
This vast revenue is raised and to be raised for three uses. It is
supplied in time of severe depression and distress, to pay debt
inflicted by rebellion; to pay pensions to widows, orphans, and cripples
made by rebellion; and to maintain the Government and enforce the laws
preserved at inestimable cost of life and treasure.
It can be devoted to its uses in only one mode. Once in the Treasury, it
must remain there useless until appropriated by act of Congress. The
Constitution so ordains. To collect it, and then defeat or prevent its
object or use, would be recreant and abominable oppression.
The Constitution leaves no discretion to Congress whether needful
appropriations shall be made. Discretion to ascertain and determine
amounts needful, is committed to Congress, but the appropriation of
whatever is needful after the amount has been ascertained, is commanded
positively and absolutely. When, for example, the Constitution declares
that the President and the judges at stated periods shall receive
compensation fixed by law, the duty to make the appropriations is plain
and peremptory; to refuse to make them, is disobedience of the
Constitution, and treasonable. So, when it is declared that Congress
shall have power to provide money to pay debts, and for the common
defense and the general welfare, the plain meaning is that Congress
shall do these things, and a refusal to do them is revolutionary, and
subversive of the Constitution. A refusal less flagrant would be
impeachable in the case of every officer and department of the
Government within the reach of impeachment. Were the President to refuse
to do any act enjoined on him by the Constitution, he would be
impeachable, and ought to be convicted and removed from office as a
convict. Should the judges, one, or some, or all of them, refuse to
perform any duty which the Constitution commits to the judicial branch,
the refusal would be plainly impeachable.
Congress is not amenable to impeachment. Congressional majorities are
triable at the bar of public opinion, and in no other human forum. Could
Congress be dissolved instantly here as in England, could Senators and
Representatives be driven instantly from their seats by popular
disapproval, were they amenable presently somewhere, there would be more
of bravery, if not less of guilt, in a disregard of sworn obligation.
Legislators are bound chiefly by their honor and their oaths; and the
very impunity and exemption they enjoy exalts and measures their
obligations, and the crime and odium of violating them. Because of the
fixed tenure by which the members of each House hold their places and
their trusts, irreparable harm may come of their acts any omissions,
before they can be visited with even political defeat, and before the
wrong they do can be undone. A congressional majority is absolutely safe
during its term, and those who suffered such impunity to exist in the
frame of our Government, must have relied on the enormity and turpitude
of the act to deter the representatives of the people and the
representatives of States from betraying a trust so exalted and so
sacred as their offices imply.
Mr. President, it does not escape my attention, as it must occur to
those around me, that in ordinary times obvious aphorisms, I might say
truisms like these would be needless, if not out of place in the Senate.
They are pertinent now because of an occasion without example in
American history. I know of no similar instance in British history.
Could one be found, it would only mark the difference between an
hereditary monarchy without a written constitution, and a free republic
with a written charter plainly defining from the beginning the powers,
the rights, and the duties of every department of the Government. The
nearest approaches in English experience to the transactions which now
menace this country, only gild with broad light the wisdom of those who
established a system to exempt America forever from the struggles
between kingcraft and liberty, between aristocratic pretensions and
human rights, which in succeeding centuries had checkered and begrimed
the annals of Great Britain. It was not to transplant, but to leave
behind and shut out the usurpations and prerogatives of kings, nobles,
and gentry, and the rude and violent resorts which, with varying and
only partial success, had been matched against them, that wise and
far-seeing men of many nationalities came to these shores and founded “a
government of the people, for the people, and by the people.” Such
boisterous conflicts as the Old World had witnessed between subjects and
rulers—between privilege and right, were the warnings which our fathers
heeded, the dangers which they shunned, the evils which they averted,
the disasters which they made impossible so long as their posterity
should cherish their inheritance.
Until now no madness of party, no audacity or desperation of sinister,
sectional, or partisan design, has ever ventured on such an attempt as
has recently come to pass in the two Houses of Congress. The proceeding
I mean to characterize, if misunderstood anywhere, is misunderstood
here. One listening to addresses delivered to the Senate during this
debate, as it is called, must think that the majority is arraigned,
certainly that the majority wishes to seem and is determined to seem
arraigned, merely for insisting that provisions appropriating money to
keep the Government alive, and provisions not in themselves improper
relating to other matters, may be united in the same bill. With somewhat
of monotonous and ostentatious iteration we have been asked whether
incorporating general legislation in appropriation bills is revolution,
or revolutionary? No one in my hearing has ever so contended.
Each House is empowered by the Constitution to make rules governing the
modes of its own procedure. The rules permitting, I know of nothing
except convenience, common sense, and the danger of log-rolling
combinations, which forbids putting all the appropriations into one
bill, and in the same bill, all the revenue laws, a provision admitting
a State into the Union, another paying a pension to a widow, another
changing the name of a steamboat. The votes and the executive approval
which would make one of these provisions a law, would make them all a
law. The proceeding would be outlandish, but it would not violate the
Constitution.
A Senator might vote against such a huddle of incongruities, although
separately he would approve each one of them. If, however, they passed
both Houses in a bunch, and the Executive found no objection to any
feature of the bill on its merits, and the only criticism should be that
it would have been better legislative practice to divide it into
separate enactments, it is not easy to see on what ground a veto could
stand.
The assault which has been made on the executive branch of the
Government and on the Constitution itself, would not be less flagrant if
separate bills had been resorted to as the weapons of attack. Suppose in
a separate bill, the majority had, in advance of the appropriations,
repealed the national-bank act and the resumption act, and had declared
that unless the Executive surrendered his convictions and yielded up his
approval of the repealing act, no appropriations should be made; would
the separation of the bills have palliated or condoned the revolutionary
purpose? In the absence of an avowal that appropriations were to be
finally withheld, or that appropriations were to be made to hinge upon
the approval or veto of something else, a resort to separate bills might
have cloaked and secreted for a time the real meaning of the
transaction. In that respect it would have been wise and artful to
resort to separate bills on this occasion; and I speak, I think, in the
hearing of at least one democratic Senator who did not overlook in
advance the suggestion now made. But when it was declared, or intended,
that unless another species of legislation is agreed to, the money of
the people, paid for that purpose, shall not be used to maintain their
Government and to enforce the laws—when it is designed that the
Government shall be thrown into confusion and shall stop unless private
charity or public succor comes to its relief, the threat is
revolutionary, and its execution is treasonable.
In the case before us, the design to make appropriations hinge and
depend upon the destruction of certain laws is plain on the face of the
bills before us,—the bill now pending, and another one on our tables.
The same design was plain on the face of the bills sent us at the last
session. The very fact that the sections uncovering the ballot-box to
violence and fraud, are not, and never have been separately presented,
but are thrust into appropriation bills, discloses and proves a belief,
if not a knowledge, that in a separate bill the Executive would not
approve them. Moreover both Houses have rung with the assertion that the
Executive would not approve in a separate measure the overthrow of
existing safeguards of the ballot-box, and that should he refuse to give
his approval to appropriations and an overthrow of those safeguards
linked together, no appropriations should be made.
The plot and the purpose then, is by duress to compel the Executive to
give up his convictions, his duty, and his oath, as the price to be paid
a political party for allowing the Government to live! Whether the bills
be united or divided, is mere method and form. The substance in either
form is the same, and the plot if persisted in will bury its aiders and
abettors in opprobrium, and will leave a buoy on the sea of time warning
political mariners to keep aloof from a treacherous channel in which a
political party foundered and went down.
The size of the Army and its pay, have both been exactly fixed by law—by
law enacted by a democratic House, and approved by a second democratic
House. It has been decided and voted that the coast defenses and the
Indian and frontier service, require a certain number of soldiers; and
the appropriations needed for provision and pay have been ascertained to
a farthing. Nothing remains to be done, but to give formal sanction and
warrant for the use of the money from time to time. This was all true at
the last session. But a democratic House, or more justly speaking the
democratic majority in the House refused to give its sanction, refused
to allow the people’s money, to reach the use for which the people paid
it, unless certain long-standing laws were repealed. When the Senate
voted against the repeal, we were bluntly told that unless that vote was
reversed, unless the Senate and the Executive would accept the bills,
repealing clauses and all, the session should die, no appropriations
should be made, and the wheels of the Government should stop. The threat
was executed; the session did die, and every branch of the Government
was left without the power to execute its duties after the 30th of next
June.
We were further told that when the extra session, thus to be brought
about, should convene, the democrats would rule both Houses, that the
majority would again insist on its terms, and that then unless the
Executive submitted to become an accomplice in the design to fling down
the barriers that block the way to the ballot-box against fraud and
force, appropriations would again be refused, and again the session
should die leaving the Government paralyzed. The extra session has
convened; the democrats have indeed the power in both Houses, and thus
far the war and the caucus have come up to the manifesto. So far the
exploit has been easy. The time of trial is to come; the issue has been
made, and of its ignominious failure, there can be no doubt if the
Executive shall plant itself on constitutional right and duty, and stand
firm. The actors in this scheme have managed themselves and their party
into a predicament, and unless the President lets them out they will and
they must back out. [Laughter, and manifestations of applause in the
galleries.]
Should the Executive interpose the constitutional shield against the
political enormities of the proposed bills, and then should the majority
carry out the threat to desert their posts by adjournment without making
the needed appropriations, I hope and trust they will be called back
instantly and called back as often as need be until they relinquish a
monstrous pretension and abandon a treasonable position.
The Army bill now pending, is not, in its political features, the bill
tendered us at the last session a few days ago; it is not the same bill
then insisted on as the ultimatum of the majority. The bill as it comes
to us now, condemns its predecessor as crude and objectionable. It was
found to need alteration. It did need alteration badly, and those who
lately insisted on it as it was, insist on it now as it then was not. A
grave proviso has been added to save the right of the President to aid a
State gasping in the throes of rebellion or invasion and calling for
help. As the provision stood when thrust upon us first and last at the
recent session, it would have punished as a felon the President of the
United States, the General of the Army, and others, for attempting to
obey the Constitution of the United States and two ancient acts of
Congress, one of them signed by George Washington. Shorn of this
absurdity, the bill as it now stands, should it become a law, will be
the first enactment of its kind that ever found its way into the
statutes of the United States. A century, with all its activities and
party strifes, with all its passionate discords, with all its expedients
for party advantage, with all its wisdom and its folly, with all its
patriotism and its treason, has never till now produced a congressional
majority which deemed such a statute fit to be enacted.
Let me state the meaning of the amendments proposed under guise of
enlarging liberty on election day—that day of days when order, peace,
and security for all, as well as liberty, should reign. The amendments
declare in plain legal effect that, no matter what the exigency may be,
no matter what violence or carnage may run riot and trample down right
and life, no matter what mob brutality may become master, if the day be
election day, any officer or person, civil, military, or naval, from the
President down, who attempts to interfere, to prevent or quell violence
by the aid of national soldiers, or armed men not soldiers, shall be
punished, and may be fined $5,000 and imprisoned for five years. This is
the law we are required to set up. Yes, not only to leave murderous
ruffianism untouched, but to invite it into action by assurances of
safety in advance.
In the city of New York, all the thugs and shoulder-hitters and
repeaters, all the carriers of slung-shot, dirks, and bludgeons, all the
fraternity of the bucketshops, the rat-pits, the hells and the slums,
all the graduates of the nurseries of modern so-called democracy,
[laughter;] all those who employ and incite them, from King’s Bridge to
the Battery, are to be told in advance that on the day when the million
people around them choose their members of the National Legislature, no
matter what God-daring or man-hurting enormities they may commit, no
matter what they do, nothing that they can do will meet with the
slightest resistance from any national soldier or armed man clothed with
national authority.
Another bill, already on our tables, strikes down even police officers
armed, or unarmed, of the United States.
In South Carolina, in Louisiana, in Mississippi, and in the other States
where the colored citizens are counted to swell the representation in
Congress, and then robbed of their ballots and dismissed from the
political sun—in all such States, every rifle club, and white league,
and murderous band, and every tissue ballot-box stuffer, night-rider,
and law-breaker, is to be told that they may turn national elections
into a bloody farce, that they may choke the whole proceeding with force
and fraud, and blood, and that the nation shall not confront them with
one armed man. State troops, whether under the name of rifle clubs or
white leagues, or any other, armed with the muskets of the United
States, may constitute the mob, may incite the mob, but the national arm
is to be tied and palsied.
I repeat such an act of Congress has never yet existed. If there ever
was a time when such an act could safely and fitly stand upon the
statute book, that time is not now, and is not likely to arrive in the
near future. Until rebellion raised its iron hand, all parties and all
sections had been content to leave where the Constitution left it the
power and duty of the President to take care that the laws be faithfully
executed.
The Constitution has in this regard three plain commands:
The President “shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed.”
Again, “The President shall be Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy
of the United States, and of the militia of the several States, when
called into the actual service of the United States.”
“The actual service of the United States” some man may say means war
merely, service in time of war. Let me read again, “Congress shall have
power to provide for calling forth the militia.” For what? First of all,
“to execute the laws of the Union.”
Yes, Congress shall have power “to provide for calling forth the militia
to execute the laws of the Union.” Speaking to lawyers, I venture to
emphasize the word “execute.” It is a term of art; it has a long-defined
meaning. The act of 1795, re-enacted since, emphasized these
constitutional provisions.
* * * * *
The election law came in to correct abuses which reached their climax in
1868 in the city of New York. In that year in the State of New York the
republican candidate for governor was elected; the democratic candidate
was counted in. Members of the Legislature were fraudulently seated. The
election was a barbarous burlesque. Many thousand forged naturalization
papers were issued; some of them were white and some were
coffee-colored. The same witnesses purported to attest hundreds and
thousands of naturalization affidavits, and the stupendous fraud of the
whole thing was and is an open secret. Some of these naturalization
papers were sent to other States. So plenty were they, that some of them
were sent to Germany, and Germans who had never left their country
claimed exemption from the German draft for soldiers in the
Franco-Prussian war, because they were naturalized American citizens!
[Laughter.]
Repeating, ballot-box stuffing, ruffianism, and false counting decided
everything. Tweed made the election officers, and the election officers
were corrupt. In 1868, thirty thousand votes were falsely added to the
democratic majority in the cities of New York and Brooklyn alone. Taxes
and elections were the mere spoil and booty of a corrupt junta in
Tammany Hall. Assessments, exactions, and exemptions were made the
bribes and the penalties of political submission. Usurpation and fraud
inaugurated a carnival of corrupt disorder; and obscene birds without
number swooped down to the harvest and gorged themselves on every side
in plunder and spoliation. Wrongs and usurpations springing from the
pollution and desecration of the ballot-box stalked high-headed in the
public way. The courts and the machinery of justice were impotent in the
presence of culprits too great to be punished.
The act of 1870 came in to throttle such abuses. It was not born without
throes and pangs. It passed the Senate after a day and a night which
rang with democratic maledictions and foul aspersions.
In the autumn of that year an election was held for the choice of
Representatives in Congress. I see more than one friend near me who for
himself and for others has reason even unto this day to remember that
election and the apprehension which preceded it. It was the first time
the law of 1870 had been put in force. Resistance was openly counseled.
Democratic newspapers in New York advised that the officers of the law
be pitched into the river. Disorder was afoot. Men, not wanting in
bravery, and not republicans, dreaded the day. Bloodshed, arson, riot
were feared. Ghastly spectacles were still fresh in memory. The draft
riots had spread terror which had never died, and strong men shuddered
when they remembered the bloody assizes of the democratic party. They
had seen men and women, blind with party hate, dizzy and drunk with
party madness, stab and burn and revel in murder and in mutilating the
dead. They had seen an asylum for colored orphans made a funeral pile,
and its smoke sent up from their Christian and imperial city to tell in
heaven of the inhuman bigotry, the horrible barbarity of man.
Remembering such sickening scenes, and dreading their repetition, they
asked the President to protect them—to protect them with the beak and
claw of national power. Instantly the unkenneled packs of party barked
in vengeful chorus. Imprecations, maledictions, and threats were hurled
at Grant; but with that splendid courage which never blanched in battle,
which never quaked before clamor—with that matchless self-poise which
did not desert him even when a continent beyond the sea rose and
uncovered before him, [applause in the galleries,] he responded in the
orders which it has pleased the honorable Senator from Delaware to read.
The election thus protected was the fairest, the freest, the most
secure, a generation has seen. When, two years afterward, New York came
to crown Grant with her vote, his action in protecting her chief city on
the Ides of November, 1870, was not forgotten. When next New York has
occasion to record her judgment of the services of Grant, his action in
1870 touching peace in the city of New York will not be hidden away by
those who espouse him wisely. [Applause in the galleries.]
Now, the election law is to be emasculated; no national soldier must
confront rioters or mobs; no armed man by national authority, though not
a soldier, must stay the tide of brutality or force; no deputy marshal
must be within call; no supervisor must have power to arrest any man who
in his sight commits the most flagrant breach of the peace. But the
democrats tell us “we have not abolished the supervisors; we have left
them.” Yes, the legislative bill leaves the supervisors, two
stool-pigeons with their wings clipped, [laughter,] two licensed
witnesses to stand about idle, and look—yes, “a cat may look at a
king”—but they must not touch bullies or lawbreakers, not if they do
murders right before their eyes.
If a civil officer should, under the pending amendment, attempt to quell
a riot by calling on the bystanders, if they have arms, he is punishable
for that. If a marshal, the marshal of the district in which the
election occurs, the marshal nominated to the Senate and confirmed by
the Senate—I do not mean a deputy marshal—should see an affray or a riot
at the polls on election day and call upon the bystanders to quell it,
if this bill becomes a law, and one of those bystanders has a revolver
in his pocket, or another one takes a stick or a cudgel in his hand, the
marshal may be fined $5,000 and punished by five years’ imprisonment.
Such are the devices to belittle national authority and national law, to
turn the idea of the sovereignty of the nation into a laughing-stock and
a by-word.
Under what pretexts is this uprooting and overturning to be? Any officer
who transgresses the law, be he civil or military, may be punished in
the courts of the State or in the courts of the nation under existing
law. Is the election act unconstitutional? The courts for ten years have
been open to that question. The law has been pounded with all the
hammers of the lawyers, but it has stood the test; no court has
pronounced it unconstitutional, although many men have been prosecuted
and convicted under it. Judge Woodruff and Judge Blatchford have
vindicated its constitutionality. But, as I said before, the
constitutional argument has been abandoned. The supreme political court,
practically now above Congresses or even constitutions, the democratic
caucus, has decided that the law is constitutional. The record of the
judgment is in the legislative bill.
We are told it costs money to enforce the law. Yes, it costs money to
enforce all laws; it costs money to prosecute smugglers, counterfeiters,
murderers, mail robbers and others. We have been informed that it has
cost $200,000 to execute the election act. It cost more than
$5,000,000,000 in money alone, to preserve our institutions and our
laws, in one war, and the nation which bled and the nation which paid is
not likely to give up its institutions and the birthright of its
citizens for $200,000. [Applause in the galleries.]
The presiding officer, (Mr. COCKRELL, in the chair.) The Senator will
suspend a moment. The chair will announce to the galleries that there
shall be no more applause; if so, the galleries will be cleared
immediately.
Mr. CONKLING. Mr. President, that interruption reminds me, the present
occupant of the chair having been deeply interested in the bill, that
the appropriations made and squandered for local and unlawful
improvements in the last river and harbor bill alone, would pay for
executing the election law as long as grass grows or water runs. The
interest on the money wrongfully squandered in that one bill, would
execute it twice over perpetually. The cost of this needless extra
session, brought about as a partisan contrivance, would execute the
election law for a great while. A better way to save the cost, than to
repeal the law, is to obey it. Let White Leagues and rifle clubs
disband; let your night-riders dismount; let your tissue ballot-box
stuffers desist; let repeaters, false-counters, and ruffians no longer
be employed to carry elections, and then the cost of executing the law
will disappear from the public ledger.
Again we are told that forty-five million people are in danger from an
army nominally of twenty-five thousand men scattered over a continent,
most of them beyond the frontiers of civilized abode. Military power has
become an affrighting specter. Soldiers at the polls are displeasing to
a political party. What party? That party whose Administration ordered
soldiers, who obeyed, to shoot down and kill unoffending citizens here
in the streets of Washington on election day; that party which has
arrested and dispersed Legislatures at the point of the bayonet; that
party which has employed troops to carry elections to decide that a
State should be slave and should not be free; that party which has
corraled courts of justice with national bayonets, and hunted panting
fugitive slaves, in peaceful communities, with artillery and dragoons;
that party which would have to-day no majority in either House of
Congress except for elections dominated and decided by violence and
fraud; that party under whose sway, in several States, not only the
right to vote, but the right to be, is now trampled under foot.
Such is the source of an insulting summons to the Executive to become
_particeps criminis_ in prostrating wholesome laws, and this is the
condition on which the money of the people, paid by the people, shall be
permitted to be used for the purposes for which the people paid it.
Has the present national Administration been officiously robust in
checking the encroachments and turbulence of democrats, either by the
use of troops or otherwise? I ask this question because the next
election is to occur during the term of the present Administration.
What is the need of revolutionary measures now? What is all this uproar
and commotion, this daring venture of partisan experiment, for? Why not
make your issue against these laws, and carry your issue to the people?
If you can elect a President and a Congress of your thinking, you will
have it all your own way.
Why now should there be an attempt to block the wheels of government on
the eve of an election at which this whole question is triable before
the principals and masters of us all? The answer is inevitable. But one
truthful explanation can be made of this daring enterprise. It is a
political, a partisan manœuvre. It is a strike for party advantage. With
a fair election and an honest count, the democratic party cannot carry
the country. These laws, if executed, insure some approach to a fair
election. Therefore they stand in the way, and therefore they are to be
broken down.
I reflect upon no man’s motives, but I believe that the sentiment which
finds expression in the transaction now proceeding in the two houses of
Congress, has its origin in the idea I have stated. I believe that the
managers and charioteers of the democratic party think that with a fair
election and a fair count they cannot carry the State of New York. They
know that with free course, such as existed in 1868, to the ballot-box
and count, no matter what majority may be given in that State where the
green grass grows, the great cities will overbalance and swamp it. They
know that with the ability to give eighty, ninety, one hundred thousand
majority in the county of New York and the county of Kings, half of it
fraudulently added, it is idle for the three million people living above
the Highlands of the Hudson to vote.
This is a struggle for power. It is a fight for empire. It is a
contrivance to clutch the National Government. That we believe; that I
believe.
The nation has tasted, and drunk to the dregs, the sway of the
democratic party, organized and dominated by the same influences which
dominate it again and still. You want to restore that dominion. We mean
to resist you at every step and by every lawful means that opportunity
places in our hands. We believe that it is good for the country, good
for every man North and South who loves the country now, that the
Government should remain in the hands of those who were never against
it. We believe that it is not wise or safe to give over our nationality
to the dominion of the forces which formerly and now again rule the
democratic party. We do not mean to connive at further conquests, and we
tell you that if you gain further political power, you must gain it by
fair means, and not by foul. We believe that these laws are wholesome.
We believe that they are necessary barriers against wrongs, necessary
defenses for rights; and so believing, we will keep and defend them even
to the uttermost of lawful honest effort.
The other day, it was Tuesday I think, it pleased the honorable Senator
from Illinois [Mr. Davis] to deliver to the Senate an address, I had
rather said an opinion, able and carefully prepared. That honorable
Senator knows well the regard not only, but the sincere respect in which
I hold him, and he will not misunderstand the freedom with which I shall
refer to some of his utterances.
Whatever else his sayings fail to prove, they did I think, prove their
author, after Mrs. Winslow, the most copious and inexhaustible fountain
of soothing syrup. The honorable Senator seemed like one slumbering in a
storm and dreaming of a calm. He said there was no uproar anywhere—one
would infer you could hear a pin drop—from centre to circumference.
Rights, he said, are secure. I have his language here. If I do not seem
to give the substance aright I will stop and read it. Rights secure
North and South; peace and tranquillity everywhere. The law obeyed and
no need of special provisions or anxiety. It was in this strain that the
Senator discoursed.
Are rights secure, when fresh-done barbarities show that local
government in one portion of our land is no better than despotism
tempered by assassination? Rights secure, when such things can be, as
stand proved and recorded by committees of the Senate! Rights secure,
when the old and the young fly in terror from their homes, and from the
graves of their murdered dead! Rights secure, when thousands brave cold,
hunger, death, seeking among strangers in a far country a humanity which
will remember that—
“Before man made them citizens,
Great nature made them men!”
Read the memorial signed by Judge Dillon, by the democratic mayor of
Saint Louis, by Mr. Henderson, once a member of the Senate, and by other
men known to the nation, detailing what has been done in recent weeks on
the Southern Mississippi. Read the affidavits accompanying this
memorial. Has any one a copy of the memorial here? I have seen the
memorial. I have seen the signatures. I hope the honorable Senator from
Illinois will read it, and read the affidavits which accompany it. When
he does, he will read one of the most sickening recitals of modern
times. He will look upon one of the bloodiest and blackest pictures in
the book of recent years. Yet the Senator says, all is quiet. “There is
not such faith, no not in Israel.” Verily “order reigns in Warsaw.”
_Solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant._
Mr. President, the republican party every where wants peace and
prosperity—peace and prosperity in the South, as much and as sincerely
as elsewhere. Disguising the truth, will not bring peace and prosperity.
Soft phrases will not bring peace. “Fair words butter no parsnips.” We
hear a great deal of loose, flabby talk about “fanning dying embers,”
“rekindling smoldering fires,” and so on. Whenever the plain truth is
spoken, these unctious monitions, with a Peter Parley benevolence, fall
copiously upon us. This lullaby and hush has been in my belief a mistake
from the beginning. It has misled the South and misled the North. In
Andrew Johnson’s time a convention was worked up at Philadelphia, and
men were brought from the North and South, for ecstasy and gush. A man
from Massachusetts and a man from South Carolina locked arms and walked
into the convention arm in arm, and sensation and credulity palpitated,
and clapped their hands, and thought an universal solvent had been
found. Serenades were held at which “Dixie” was played. Later on,
anniversaries of battles fought in the war of Independence, were made
occasions by men from the North and men from the South for emotional,
dramatic, hugging ceremonies. General Sherman, I remember, attended one
of them, and I remember also, that with the bluntness of a soldier, and
the wisdom and hard sense of a statesman, he plainly cautioned all
concerned not to be carried away, and not to be fooled. But many have
been fooled, and being fooled, have helped to swell the democratic
majorities which now display themselves before the public eye.
Of all such effusive demonstrations I have this to say: honest, serious
convictions are not ecstatic or emotional. Grave affairs and lasting
purposes do not express or vent themselves in honeyed phrase or sickly
sentimentality, rhapsody, or profuse professions.
This is as true of political as of religious duties. The Divine Master
tells us, “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter
into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father
which is in heaven.”
Facts are stubborn things, but the better way to deal with them is to
look them squarely in the face.
The republican party and the Northern people preach no crusade against
the South. I will say nothing of the past beyond a single fact. When the
war was over, no man who fought against his flag was punished even by
imprisonment. No estate was confiscated. Every man was left free to
enjoy life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. After the Southern
States were restored to their relations in the Union, no man was ever
disfranchised by national authority—not one. If this statement is
denied, I invite any Senator to correct me. I repeat it. After the
Southern State governments were rebuilded, and the States were restored
to their relations in the Union, by national authority, not one man for
one moment was ever denied the right to vote, or hindered in the right.
From the time that Mississippi was restored, there never has been an
hour when Jefferson Davis might not vote as freely as the honorable
Senator in his State of Illinois. The North, burdened with taxes, draped
in mourning, dotted over with new-made graves tenanted by her bravest
and her best, sought to inflict no penalty upon those who had stricken
her with the greatest, and, as she believed, the guiltiest rebellion
that ever crimsoned the annals of the human race.
As an example of generosity and magnanimity, the conduct of the nation
in victory was the grandest the world has ever seen. The same spirit
prevails now. Yet our ears are larumed with the charge that the
republicans of the North seek to revive and intensify the wounds and
pangs and passions of the war, and that the southern democrats seek to
bury them in oblivion of kind forgetfulness.
We can test the truth of these assertions right before our eyes. Let us
test them. Twenty-seven States adhered to the Union in the dark hour.
Those States send to Congress two hundred and sixty-nine Senators and
Representatives. Of these two hundred and sixty-nine Senators and
Representatives, fifty-four, and only fifty-four, were soldiers in the
armies of the Union. The eleven States which were disloyal send
ninety-three Senators and Representatives to Congress. Of these,
eighty-five were soldiers in the armies of the rebellion, and at least
three more held high civil station in the rebellion, making in all
eighty-eight out of ninety-three.
Let me state the same fact, dividing the Houses. There are but four
Senators here who fought in the Union Army. They all sit here now; and
there are but four. Twenty Senators sit here who fought in the army of
the rebellion, and three more Senators sit here who held high civil
command in the confederacy.
In the House, there are fifty Union soldiers from twenty-seven States,
and sixty-five confederate soldiers from eleven States.
Who, I ask you, Senators, tried by this record, is keeping up party
divisions on the issues and hatreds of the war?
The South is solid. Throughout all its borders it has no seat here save
two in which a republican sits. The Senator from Mississippi [MR. BRUCE]
and the Senator from Louisiana [Mr. KELLOGG] are still spared; and
whisper says that an enterprise is afoot to deprive one of these
Senators of his seat. The South is emphatically solid. Can you wonder
that the North soon becomes solid too? Do you not see that the doings
witnessed now in Congress fill the North with alarm, and distrust of the
patriotism and good faith of men from the South? Forty-two democrats
have seats on this floor; forty-three if you add the honorable Senator
from Illinois, [MR. DAVIS.] He does not belong to the democratic party,
although I must say, after reading his speech the other day, that a
democrat who asks anything more of him is an insatiate monster.
[Laughter.] If we count the Senator from Illinois, there are forty-three
democrats in this Chamber. Twenty-three is a clear majority of all, and
twenty-three happens to be exactly the number of Senators from the South
who were leaders in the late rebellion.
Do you anticipate my object in stating these numbers? For fear you do
not, let me explain. Forty-two Senators rule the Senate; twenty-three
Senators rule the caucus. A majority rules the Senate; a caucus rules
the majority; and the twenty-three southern Senators rule the caucus.
The same thing, in the same way, governed by the same elements, is true
in the House.
This present assault upon the purity and fairness of elections, upon the
Constitution, upon the executive department, and upon the rights of the
people; not the rights of a king, not on such rights as we heard the
distinguished presiding officer, who I am glad now to discover in his
seat, dilate upon of a morning some weeks ago; not the divine right of
kings, but the inborn rights of the people—the present assault upon
them, could never have been inaugurated without the action of the
twenty-three southern Senators here, and the southern Representatives
there, [pointing to the House.]
The people of the North know this and see it. They see the lead and
control of the democratic party again where it was before the war, in
the hands of the South. “By their fruits ye shall know them.” The
honorable Senator from Alabama [Mr. MORGAN], educated no doubt by
experience in political appearances, and spectacular effects, said the
other day that he preferred the democrats from the North should go first
in this debate. I admired his sagacity. It was the skill of an
experienced tactician to deploy the northern levies as the sappers and
miners; it was very becoming certainly. It was not from cruelty, or to
make them food for powder, that he set them in the forefront of the
battle; he thought it would appear better for the northern auxiliaries
to go first and tunnel the citadel. Good, excellent, as far as it went;
but it did not go very far in misleading anybody; putting the tail
foremost and the head in the sand, only displayed the species and habits
of the bird. [Laughter.]
We heard the other day that “the logic of events” had filled the
southern seats here with men banded together by a common history and a
common purpose. The Senator who made that sage observation perhaps
builded better than he knew. The same logic of events, let me tell
democratic Senators, and the communities behind them, is destined to
bring from the North more united delegations.
I read in a newspaper that it was proposed the other day in another
place, to restore to the Army of the United States men who, educated at
the nation’s cost and presented with the nation’s sword, drew the sword
against the nation’s life. In the pending bill is a provision for the
retirement of officers now in the Army, with advanced rank and
exaggerated pay. This may be harmless, it may be kind. One swallow
proves not spring, but along with other things, suspicion will see in it
an attempt to coax officers now in the Army to dismount, to empty their
saddles, in order that others may get on.
So hue and cry is raised because courts, on motion, for cause shown in
open court, have a right to purge juries in certain cases. No man in all
the South, under thirty-five years of age, can be affected by this
provision, because every such man was too young when the armies of the
rebellion were recruited to be subject to the provision complained of.
As to the rest, the discretion is a wholesome one. But, even if it were
not, let me say in all kindness to southern Senators, it was not wise to
make it a part of this proceeding, and raise this uproar in regard to
it.
Even the purpose, in part already executed, to remove the old and
faithful officers of the Senate, even Union soldiers, that their places
may be snatched by others—to overturn an order of the Senate which has
existed for a quarter of a century, in order to grasp all the petty
places here, seems to me unwise. It is not wise, if you want to disarm
suspicion that you mean aggrandizing, gormandizing, unreasonable things.
Viewing all these doings in the light of party advantage—advantage to
the party to which I belong, I could not deplore them; far from it; but
wishing the repose of the country, and the real, lasting, ultimate
welfare of the South, and wishing it from the bottom of my heart, I
believe they are flagrantly unwise, hurtfully injudicious.
What the South needs is to heal, build, mend, plant, sow. In short, to
go to work. Invite labor; cherish it; do not drive it out. Quit
proscription, both for opinion’s sake, and for color’s sake. Reform it
altogether. I know there are difficulties in the way. I know there is
natural repugnance in the way; but drop passion, drop sentiment which
signifies naught, and let the material prosperity and civilization of
your land advance. Do not give so much energy, so much restless,
sleepless activity, to an attempt so soon to get possession once more,
and dominate and rule the country. There is room enough at the national
board, and it is not needed, it is not decorous, plainly speaking, that
the South should be the MacGregor at the table, and that the head of the
table should be wherever he sits. For a good many reasons, it is not
worth while to insist upon it.
Mr. President, one of Rome’s famous legends stands in these words: “Let
what each man thinks of the Republic be written on his brow.” I have
spoken in the spirit of this injunction. Meaning offence to no man, and
holding ill-will to no man, because he comes from the South, or because
he differs with me in political opinion, I have spoken frankly, but with
malice toward none.
This session, and the bill pending, are acts in a partisan and political
enterprise. This debate, begun after a caucus had defined and clenched
the position of every man in the majority, has not been waged to
convince anybody here. It has resounded to fire the democratic heart, to
sound a blast to the cohorts of party, to beat the long-roll, and set
the squadrons in the field. That is its object, as plainly to be seen as
the ultimate object of the attempted overthrow of laws.
Political speeches having been thus ordained, I have discussed political
themes, and with ill-will to no portion of the country but good will
toward every portion of it, I have with candor spoken somewhat of my
thoughts of the duties and dangers of the hour. [Applause on the floor
and in the galleries.]
Lincoln’s Speech at Gettysburg.
“Four-score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this
continent, a new Nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the
proposition that all men are created equal.
“Now, we are engaged in a great civil war testing whether that Nation,
or any Nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are
met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a
portion of that field, as a final resting-place for those, who here gave
their lives that that Nation might live. It is altogether fitting and
proper that we should do this.
“But, in a large sense, we cannot dedicate—we cannot consecrate—we
cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled
here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract.
The world will little note, nor long remember what we SAY here, but it
can never forget what they DID here. It is for us the living, rather, to
be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have
thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to
the great task remaining before us, that from these honored dead, we
take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full
measure of devotion, that we here highly resolve that these dead shall
not have died in vain; that this Nation, under God, shall have a new
birth of freedom; and that Government of the people, by the people, and
for the people shall not perish from this earth.”
Speech of Hon. John M. Broomall, of Pennsylvania,
_On the Civil Rights Bill. House of Representatives, March 8, 1866._
Mr. Speaker, it is alleged that this species of legislation will widen
the breach existing between the two sections of the country, will offend
our southern brethren. Do not gentlemen know that those who are most
earnestly asking this legislation are our southern brethren themselves.
They are imploring us to protect them against the conquered enemies of
the country, who notwithstanding their surrender, have managed, through
their skill or our weakness, to seize nearly all the conquered
territory.
This is not the first instance in the world’s history in which all that
had been gained by hard fighting was lost by bad diplomacy.
But they, whose feelings are entitled to so much consideration in the
estimation of those who urge this argument, are not our southern
brethren, but the southern brethren of our political opponents; the
conquered rebels, pardoned and unpardoned; traitors priding themselves
upon their treason.
These people are fastidious. The ordinary terms of the English language
must be perverted to suit their tastes. Though they surrendered in open
and public war, they are not to be treated as prisoners. Though beaten
in the last ditch of the last fortification, they are not to be called a
conquered people. The decision of the forum of their own choosing is to
be explained away into meaningless formality for their benefit. Though
guilty of treason, murder, arson, and all the crimes in the calendar,
they are “our southern brethren.” The entire decalogue must be suspended
lest it should offend these polished candidates for the contempt and
execration of posterity.
Out of deference to the feelings of these sensitive gentlemen, an
executive construction must be given to the word “loyalty,” so that it
shall embrace men who only are not hanged because they have been
pardoned, and who only did not destroy the Government because they could
not. Out of deference to the feelings of these sensitive gentlemen, too,
a distinguished public functionary, once the champion of the rights of
man, a leader in the cause of human progress, a statesman whose keen
foreknowledge could point out the “irrepressible conflict between
slavery and freedom,” cannot now see that treason and loyalty are
uncompromising antagonisms.
It is charged against us that the wheels of Government are stopped by
our refusal to admit the representatives of these southern communities.
When we complain that Europe is underselling us in our markets, and
demand protection for the American laborer, we are told to “admit the
southern Senators and Representatives.” When we complain that excessive
importations are impoverishing the country, and rapidly bringing on
financial ruin, we are told to “admit the southern Senators and
Representatives.” When we complain that an inflated currency is making
the rich richer, and the poor poorer, keeping the prices of even the
necessaries of life beyond the reach of widows and orphans who are
living upon fixed incomes, the stereotyped answer comes, “Admit the
southern Senators and Representatives.” When we demand a tax upon cotton
to defray the enormous outlay made in dethroning that usurping “king of
the world,” still the answer comes, and the executive parrots everywhere
repeat it, “Admit the southern Senators and Representatives.”
The mind of the man who can see in that prescription a remedy for all
political and social diseases must be curiously constituted. Would these
Senators and Representatives vote a tax upon cotton? Would they protect
American industry by increasing duties? Would they prevent excessive
importations? To believe this requires as unquestioning a faith as to
believe in the sudden conversion of whole communities from treason to
loyalty.
We are blocking the wheels of Government! Why, the Government has
managed to get along for four years, not only without the aid of the
Southern Senators and Representatives, but against their efforts to
destroy it; and in the mean time has crushed a rebellion that would have
destroyed any other Government under heaven. Surely the nation can do
without the services of these men, at least during the time required to
examine their claims and to protect by appropriate legislation _our_
Southern brethren. None but a Democrat would think of consulting the
wolf about what safeguard should be thrown around the flock.
Those who advocate the admission of the Senators and Representatives
from the States lately reclaimed from the rebellion, as a means of
protecting the loyal men in those States and as a substitute for the
system of legislation of which this bill is part, well know that the
majority in both Houses of Congress ardently desire the full recognition
of those States, and only ask that the rights and interests of the truly
loyal men in those States shall be first satisfactorily secured.
Much useless controversy has been had about the legal _status_ of those
States. There is no difference between the two parties of the country on
that point. The actual point of difference is this: the Democrats
affiliate with their old political friends in the South, the late
rebels, the friends and followers of Breckinridge, Lee, and Davis. The
Union majority, on the other hand, naturally affiliate with the loyal
men in the South, the men who have always supported the Government
against Breckinridge, Lee, and Davis. Each party wants the South
reconstructed in the hands of its own “southern brethren.”
In short, the northern party corresponding with the loyal men of the
South ask that the legitimate results of Grant’s victory shall be
carried out, while the northern party corresponding with the rebels of
the South ask that things should be considered as if Lee had been the
conqueror, or at least as if there had been a drawn battle, without
victory on either side.
This brings the rights of those in whose behalf the opponents of the
bill under consideration are acting directly in question, and in order
to limit down the field of controversy as far as possible, let us
inquire how far all parties agree upon the legal _status_ of the
communities lately in rebellion. Now, the meanest of all controversies
is that which comes from dialectics. Where the disputants attach
different meanings to the same word their time is worse than thrown
away. I have always looked upon the question whether the States are in
or out of the Union as only worthy of the schoolmen of the middle ages,
who could write volumes upon a mere verbal quibble. The disputants would
agree if they were compelled to use the word “State” in the same sense.
I will endeavor to avoid this trifling.
All parties agree that at the close of the rebellion the people of North
Carolina, for example, had been “deprived of all civil government.” The
President, in his proclamation of May 29, 1865, tells the people of
North Carolina this in so many words, and he tells the people of the
other rebel States the same thing in his several proclamations to them.
This includes the Conservatives and Democrats, who, however they may
disagree, at last agree in this, that the President shall do their
thinking.
The Republicans subscribe to this doctrine, though they differ in their
modes of expressing it. Some say that those States have ceased to
possess any of the rights and powers of government as States of the
Union. Others say, with the late lamented President, that “those States
are out of practical relations with the Government.”
Others hold that the State organizations are out of the Union. And still
others that the rebels are conquered, and therefore that their
organizations are at the will of the conqueror.
The President has hit upon a mode of expression which embraces concisely
all these ideas. He says that the people of those States were, by the
progress of the rebellion and by its termination, “deprived of all civil
government.”
One step further. All parties agree that the people of these States,
being thus disorganized for all State purposes, are still at the
election of the government, citizens of the United States, and as such,
as far as they have not been disqualified by treason, ought to be
allowed to form their own State governments, subject to the requirements
of the Constitution of the United States.
Still one step further. All parties agree that this cannot be done by
mere unauthorized congregations of the people, but that the time, place
and manner must be prescribed by some department of the Government,
according to the argument of Mr. Webster and the spirit of the decision
of the Supreme Court in Luther _vs._ Borden, 7 Howard, page 1.
Yet another step in the series of propositions. All parties agree that
as Congress was not in session at the close of the rebellion, the
President, as Commander-in-Chief, was bound to take possession of the
conquered country and establish such government as was necessary.
Thus far all is harmonious; but now the divergence begins. At the
commencement of the present session of Congress three-fourths of both
Houses held that when the people of the States are “deprived of all
civil government,” and when, therefore, it becomes necessary to
prescribe the time, place, and manner in and by which they shall
organize themselves again into States while the President may take
temporary measures, yet only the law-making power of the Government is
competent to the full accomplishment of the task. In other words, that
only Congress can enable citizens of the United States to create States.
I have said that at the commencement of the session three-fourths of
both houses held this opinion. The proportion is smaller now, and by a
judicious use of executive patronage it may become still smaller; but
the truth of the proposition will not be affected if every
Representative and Senator should be manipulated into denying it.
On the other hand, the remaining fourth, composed of the supple
Democracy and its accessions, maintain that this State-creating power is
vested in the President alone, and that he has already exercised it.
The holy horror with which our opponents affect to contemplate the
doctrine of destruction of States is that much political hypocrisy.
Every man who asks the recognition of the existing local governments in
the South thereby commits himself to that doctrine. The only possible
claim that can be set up in favor of the existing governments is based
upon the theory that the old ones have been destroyed. The present
organizations sprang up at the bidding of the President after the
conquest among a people who, he said, had been “deprived of all civil
government.”
If the President’s “experiment” had resulted in organizing the southern
communities in loyal hands, the majority in Congress would have found no
difficulty in indorsing it and giving it the necessary efficiency by
legislative enactment.
In this case, too, the President never would have denied the power of
Congress in the premises. He never would have set up the theory that the
citizens of the United States, through their representatives, are not to
be consulted when those who have once broken faith with them ask to have
the compact renewed.
Our opponents have no love for the President. They called him a usurper
and a tyrant in Tennessee. They ridiculed him as a negro “Moses.” They
tried to kill him, and failing that, they accused him of being privy to
the murder of his predecessor. But when his “experiment” at
reconstruction was found to result in favor of their friends, the
rebels, then they hung themselves about his neck like so many
mill-stones, and tried to damn him to eternal infamy by indorsing his
policy. Will they succeed? Will he shake them off, or go down with them?
But let us suffer these discordant elements to settle their own terms of
combinations as best they may. The final result cannot be doubtful.
If ten righteous men were needed to save Sodom, even Andrew Johnson will
find it impossible to save the Democratic party.
Our path of duty is plain before us. Let us pass this bill and such
others as may be necessary to secure protection to the loyal men of the
South. If our political opponents thwart our purposes in this, let us go
to the country upon that issue.
I am by no means an advocate of extensive punishment, either in the way
of hanging or confiscation, though some of both might be salutary. I do
not ask that full retribution be enforced against those who have so
grievously sinned. I am willing to make forgiveness the rule and
punishment the exception; yet I have my _ultimatum_. I might excuse the
pardon of the traitors Lee and Davis, even after the hanging of Wirz,
who but obeyed their orders, orders which he would have been shot for
disobeying. I might excuse the sparing of the master after killing the
dog whose bite but carried with it the venom engendered in the master’s
soul. I might look calmly upon a constituency ground down by taxation,
and tell the complainants that they have neither remedy nor hope of
vengeance upon the authors of their wrongs. I might agree to turn
unpityingly from the mother whose son fell in the Wilderness, and the
widow whose husband was starved at Andersonville, and tell them that in
the nature of things retributive justice is denied them, and that the
murderers of their kindred may yet sit in the councils of their country;
yet even I have my _ultimatum_. I might consent that the glorious deeds
of the last five years should be blotted from the country’s history;
that the trophies won on a hundred battle-fields, the sublime visible
evidence of the heroic devotion of America’s citizen soldiery, should be
burned on the altar of reconciliation. I might consent that the cemetery
at Gettysburg should be razed to the ground; that its soil should be
submitted to the plow, and that the lamentation of the bereaved should
give place to the lowing of cattle. But there is a point beyond which I
shall neither be forced nor persuaded. I will never consent that the
government shall desert its allies in the South and surrender their
rights and interests to the enemy, and in this I will make no
distinction of caste or color either among friends or foes.
The people of the South were not all traitors. Among them were knees
that never bowed to the Baal of secession, lips that never kissed his
image. Among the fastness of the mountains, in the rural districts, far
from the contagion of political centres, the fires of patriotism still
burned, sometimes in the higher walks of life, oftener in obscure
hamlets, and still oftener under skins as black as the hearts of those
who claimed to own them.
These people devoted all they had to their country. The homes of some
have been confiscated, and they are now fugitives from the scenes that
gladdened their childhood. Some were cast into dungeons for refusing to
fire upon their country’s flag, and still others bear the marks of
stripes inflicted for giving bread and water to the weary soldier of the
Republic, and aiding the fugitive to escape the penalty of the
disloyalty to treason. If the God of nations listened to the prayers
that ascended from so many altars during those eventful years, it was to
the prayers of these people.
Sir, we talked of patriotism in our happy northern homes, and claimed
credit for the part we acted; but if the history of these people shall
ever be written, it will make us blush that we ever professed to love
our country.
The government now stands guard over the lives and fortunes of these
people. They are imploring us not to yield them up without condition to
those into whose hands recent events have committed the destinies of the
unfortunate South. A nation which could thus withdraw its protection
from such allies, at such a time, without their full and free consent,
could neither hope for the approval of mankind nor the blessing of
heaven.
Speech, of Hon. Charles A. Eldridge, of Wisconsin.
_Against the Civil Rights Bill, in the House of Representatives, March
2, 1866_.
Mr. Speaker: I thought yesterday that I would discuss this measure at
some length; but I find myself this morning very unwell; and I shall
therefore make only a few remarks, suggesting some objections to the
bill.
I look upon the bill before us, Mr. Speaker, as one of the series of
measures rising out of a feeling of distrust and hatred on the part of
certain individuals, not only in this House, but throughout the country,
toward these persons who formerly held slaves. I had hoped that long
before this time the people of this country would have come to the
conclusion that the subject of slavery and the questions connected with
it had already sufficiently agitated this country. I had hoped that now,
when the war is over, when peace has been restored, when in every State
of the Union the institution of slavery has been freely given up, its
abolition acquiesced in, and the Constitution of the United States
amended in accordance with that idea, this subject would cease to haunt
us as it is made to do in the various measures which are constantly
being here introduced.
This bill is, it appears to me, one of the most insidious and dangerous
of the various measures which have been directed against the interest of
the people of this country. It is another of the measures designed to
take away the essential rights of the State. I know that when I speak of
States and State rights, I enter upon unpopular subjects. But, sir,
whatever other gentlemen may think, I hold that the rights of the States
are the rights of the Union, that the rights of the States and the
liberty of the States are essential to the liberty of the individual
citizen. * * *
Now, it may be said that there is no reason for this distinction; but I
claim that there is. And there is no man that can look upon this crime,
horrid as it is, diabolical as it is when committed by the white man,
and not say that such a crime committed by a negro upon a white woman
deserves, in the sense and judgment of the American people, a different
punishment from that inflicted upon the white man. And yet the very
purpose of this section, as I contend, is to abolish or prevent the
execution of laws making a distinction in regard to the punishment.
But, further, it is said the negro race is weak and feeble; that they
are mere children—“wards of the Government.” In many instances it might
be just and proper to inflict a less punishment upon them for certain
crimes than upon men of intelligence and education, whose motives may
have been worse. It might be better for the community to control them by
milder and gentler means. If the judge sitting upon the bench of the
State court shall, in carrying out the law of the State, inflict a
higher penalty upon the white man than that which attaches to the
freedman, not that I suppose it is ever contemplated to enforce that,
yet it would be equally applicable, and the penalty would be incurred by
the judge in the same manner precisely.
But I proceed to the section I was about to remark upon when the
gentleman interrupted me. The marshals who may be employed to execute
warrants and precepts under this bill, as I have already remarked, are
offered a bribe for the execution of them. It creates marshals in great
numbers, and authorizes commissioners to appoint almost anybody for that
purpose, and it stimulates them by the offer of a reward not given in
the case of the arrest of persons guilty of any other crime.
It goes further. It authorizes the President, when he is apprehensive
that some crime of that sort may be committed, on mere suspicion, mere
information or statement that it is likely to be committed, to take any
judge from the bench or any marshal from his office to the place where
the crime is apprehended, for the purpose of more efficiently and
speedily carrying out the provisions of the bill.
The gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Thayer) tells us that it is very
remarkable that it should be claimed that this bill is intended to
create and continue a sort of military despotism over the people where
this law is to be executed. It seems to me nothing is plainer. Where do
we find any laws heretofore passed having no relation to the negro in
which such a provision as this tenth section is to be found? Generally
the marshal seeks by himself to execute this warrant, and failing, he
calls out his POSSE COMITATUS. But this bill authorizes the use in the
first instance of the Army and Navy by the President for the purpose of
executing such writs.
The gentlemen who advocate this bill are great sticklers for equality,
and insist that there shall be no distinction made on account of race or
color.
Why, sir, every provision of this bill carries upon its face the
distinction, and is calculated to perpetuate it forever as long as the
act shall be in force. Where did this measure originate but in the
recognition of the difference between races and colors? Does any one
pretend that this bill is intended to protect white men—to save them
from any wrongs which may be inflicted upon them by the negroes? Not at
all. It is introduced and pressed in the pretended interest of the black
man, and recognizes and virtually declares distinction between race and
color.
* * * * *
I deprecate all these measures because of the implication they carry
upon their face, that the people who have heretofore owned slaves intend
to do them harm. I do not believe it. So far as my knowledge goes, and
so far as my information extends, I believe that the people who have
held the freedmen as slaves will treat them with more kindness, with
more leniency, than those of the North who make such loud professions of
love and affection for them, and are so anxious to pass these bills.
They know their nature; they know their wants; they know their habits;
they have been brought up together; none of the prejudices and unkind
feelings which many in the north would have toward them.
I do not credit all these stories about the general feeling of hostility
in the South toward the negro. So far as I have heard opinions expressed
upon the subject, and I have conversed with many persons from that
section of the country, they do not blame the negro for anything that
has happened. As a general thing, he was faithful to them and their
interests, until the army reached the place and took him from them. He
has supported their wives and children in the absence of the husbands
and fathers in the armies of the South. He has done for them what no one
else could have done. They recognize his general good feeling toward
them, and are inclined to reciprocate that feeling toward him.
I believe that is the general feeling of the southern people to-day. The
cases of ill-treatment are exceptional cases. They are like the cases
which have occurred in the northern States where the unfortunate have
been thrown upon our charity.
Take, for instance, the stories of the cruel treatment of the insane in
the State of Massachusetts. They may have been barbarously confined in
the loathsome dens as stated in particular instances; but is that any
evidence of the general ill-will of the people of the State of
Massachusetts toward the insane? Is that any reason why the Federal arm
should be extended to Massachusetts to control and protect the insane
there?
It has also been said that certain paupers in certain States have been
badly used, paupers, too, who were whites. Is that any reason why we
should extend the arm of the Federal Government to those States to
protect the poor who are thrown upon the charity of the people there?
Sir, we must yield to the altered state of things in this country. We
must trust the people; it is our duty to do so; we cannot do otherwise.
And the sooner we place ourselves in a position where we can win the
confidence of our late enemies, where our counsels will be heeded, where
our advice may be regarded, the sooner will the people of the whole
country be fully reconciled to each other and their changed
relationship; the sooner will all the inhabitants of our country be in
the possession of all the rights and immunities essential to their
prosperity and happiness.
Hon. A. K. McClure on What of the Republic?
_Annual Address delivered before the Literary Societies of Dickinson
College, June 26th, 1873._
GENTLEMEN OF THE LITERARY SOCIETIES:—What of the Republic? The trials
and triumphs of our free institutions are hackneyed themes. They are the
star attractions of every political conflict. They furnish a perpetual
well-spring of every grade of rhetoric for the hustings, and partisan
organs proclaim with the regularity of the seasons, the annual perils of
free government.
But a different occasion, with widely different opportunities and
duties, has brought us together. The dissembling of the partisan would
be unwelcome, but here truth may be manfully spoken of that which so
profoundly concerns us all. I am called to address young men who are to
rank among the scholars, the teachers, the statesmen, the scientists of
their age. They will be of the class that must furnish a large
proportion of the executives, legislators, ministers, and instructors of
the generation now rapidly crowding us to the long halt that soon must
come. Doubtless, here and there, some who have been less favored with
opportunities, will surpass them in the race for distinction; but in our
free government where education is proffered to all, and the largest
freedom of conviction and action invites the humblest to honorable
preferment, the learned must bear a conspicuous part in directing the
destiny of the nation. Every one who moulds a thought or inspires a
fresh resolve even in the remotest regions of the Continent, shapes, in
some measure, the sovereign power of the Republic.
The time and the occasion are alike propitious for a dispassionate
review of our political system, and of the political duties which none
can reject and be blameless. Second only to the claims of religion are
the claims of country. Especially should the Christian, whether teacher
or hearer, discharge political duties with fidelity. I do not mean that
the harangue of the partisan should desecrate holy places, or that men
should join in the brawls of pot-house politicians; but I do mean that a
faithful discharge of our duty to free government is not only consistent
with the most exemplary and religious life, but is a Christian as well
as a civil obligation. The government that maintains liberty of
conscience as one of its fundamental principles, and under which
Christianity is recognized as the common law, has just claims upon the
Christian citizen for the vigilant exercise of all political rights.
If it be true, as is so often confessed around us, that we have suffered
a marked decline in political morality and in our political
administration, let it not be assumed that the defect is in our system
of government, or that the blame lies wholly with those who are
faithless or incompetent. Here no citizen is voiceless, and none can
claim exemption from just responsibility for evils in the body politic.
Ours is, in fact as well as in theory, a government of the people; and
its administration is neither better nor worse than the people
themselves. It was devised by wise and patriotic men, who gave to it the
highest measure of fidelity; and so perfectly and harmoniously is its
framework fashioned, that the sovereign power can always exercise a
salutary control over its own servants. An accidental mistake of popular
judgment, or the perfidy of an executive, or the enactment of profligate
or violent laws, are all held in such wholesome check by co-ordinate
powers, as to enable the supreme authority of the nation to restrain or
correct almost every conceivable evil.
Until the people as a whole are given over to debauchery the safety of
our free institutions cannot be seriously endangered. True, such a
result might be possible without the demoralization of a majority of the
people, if good citizens surrender their rights, and their duties, and
their government to those who desire to rule in profligacy and
oppression.
If reputable citizens refrain from active participation in our political
conflicts, they voluntarily surrender the safety of their persons and
property, and the good order and well-being of society, to those who are
least fitted for the exercise of authority. When such results are
visible in any of the various branches of our political system, turn to
the true source and place the responsibility where it justly belongs. Do
not blame the thief and the adventurer, for they are but plying their
vocations, and they rob public rather than private treasure, because men
guard the one and do not guard the other. Good men employ every proper
precaution to protect their property from the lawless. When an injury is
done to them individually they are swift to invoke the avenging arm of
justice. They are faithful guardians of their own homes and treasures
against the untitled spoiler, while they are criminally indifferent to
the public wrongs done by those who, in the enactment and execution of
the laws, directly affect their happiness and prosperity. Do not answer
that politics have become disreputable. Such a declaration is a
confession of guilt. He who utters it becomes his own accuser. If it be
true that our politics, either generally or in any particular
municipality or State, have become disreputable, who must answer for it?
Who have made our politics disreputable? Surely not the disreputable
citizens, for they are a small minority in every community and in every
party. If they have obtained control of political organizations, and
thereby secured their election to responsible trusts, it must have been
with the active or passive approval of the good citizens who hold the
actual power in their own hands. There is not a disgraceful official
shaming the people of this country to-day, who does not owe his place to
the silent assent or positive support of those who justly claim to be
respectable citizens, and who habitually plead their own wrongs to
escape plain and imperative duties. If dishonest or incompetent
appointments have been made, in obedience to the demands of mere
partisans, a just expression of the honest sentiments of better
citizens, made with the manliness that would point to retribution for
such wrongs, would promptly give us a sound practical civil service, and
profligacy and dishonesty would end.
Our Presidents and Governors are not wholly or even mainly responsible
for the low standard of our officials. If good men concede primary
political control to those who wield it for selfish ends, by refraining
from an active discharge of their political duties, and make the
appointing powers dependent for both counsel and support upon the worst
political elements, who is to blame when public sentiment is outraged by
the selection of unworthy men to important public trusts? The fruits are
but the natural, logical results of good citizens refusing to accept
their political duties. There is not a blot on our body politic to-day
that the better elements of the people could not remove whenever they
resolved to do so,—and they will so resolve in good time, as they have
always done in the past. There is not a defect or deformity in our
political administration that they cannot, and will not correct, by the
peaceful expression of their sober convictions, in the legitimate way
pointed out by our free institutions.
You who are destined to be more or less conspicuous among the teachers
of men, should study well this reserved power so immediately connected
with the preservation of our government. The virtue and intelligence of
the people is the sure bulwark of safety for the Republic. It has been
the source of safety in all times past, in peace and in war, and it is
to-day, and will ever continue to be, the omnipotent power that forbids
us to doubt the complete success of free government. It may, at times,
be long suffering and slow to resent wrongs which grow gradually in
strength and diffuse their poison throughout the land. It may invoke
just censure for its forbearance in seasons of partisan strife. It may
long seem lost as a ruling element of our political system, and may
appear to be faithless to its high and sacred duties. It may be unfelt
in its gentler influences, which should ever be active in maintaining
the purity and dignity of society and government. But if for a season
the better efforts of a free people are not evident to quicken and
support public virtue, it must not be assumed that the source of good
influences has been destroyed, or that public virtue cannot be restored
to its just supremacy. When healthful influences do not come like the
dew drops which glitter in the morning as they revive the harvest of the
earth, they will most surely come in their terrible majesty, as the
tempest comes to purify the atmosphere about us. The miasmas which arise
from material corruption, poison the air we breathe and disease all
physical life within their reach. The poison of political corruption is
no less subtle and destructive in its influences upon communities and
nations. But when either becomes general or apparently beyond the power
of ordinary means of correction, the angry sweep of the hurricane must
perform the work of regeneration. In our government the mild, but
effectual restraints of good men should be ceaseless in their beneficent
offices, but when they fail to be felt in our public affairs, and evil
control has widened and strengthened itself in departments of power, the
storm and the thunderbolt have to be invoked for the public safety, and
our convulsive but lawful revolutions attest the omnipotence of the
reserved virtue of a faithful and intelligent people.
I am not before you to garner the scars and disjointed columns of free
government. The Republic that has been reared by a century of patriotic
labor and sacrifice, more than covers its wounds with the noblest
achievements ever recorded in man’s struggle for the rights of man. It
is not perfect in its administration or in the exercise of its vast and
responsible powers; but when was it so? when shall it be so? No human
work is perfect. No government in all the past has been without its
misshaped ends; and few, indeed, have survived three generations without
revolution. We must have been more than mortals, if our history does not
present much that we would be glad to efface. We should be unlike all
great peoples of the earth, if we did not mark the ebb and flow of
public virtue, and the consequent struggles between the good and evil
elements of a society in which freedom is at times debased to license.
We have had seasons of war and of peace. We have had tidal waves of
passion, with their sweeping demoralization. We have enlisted the
national pride in the perilous line of conquest, and vindicated it by
the beneficent fruits of our civilization. We have had the tempest of
aggression, and the profound calm that was the conservator of peace
throughout the world. We have revolutionized the policy of the
government through the bitter conflicts of opposing opinions, and it has
been strengthened by its trials. We have had the fruits of national
struggles transferred to the vanquished, without a shade of violence;
and the extreme power of impeachment has been invoked in the midst of
intensest political strife, and its judgment patriotically obeyed. We
have had fraternal war with its terrible bereavements and destruction.
We have completed the circle of national perils, and the virtue and
intelligence of the people have ever been the safety of the Republic.
At no previous period of our history have opportunity and duty so
happily united to direct the people of this country to the triumphs and
to the imperfections of our government. We have reached a healthy calm
in our political struggles. The nation has a trusted ruler, just chosen
by an overwhelming vote. The disappointments of conviction or of
ambition have passed away, and all yield cordial obedience and respect
to the lawful authority of the country. The long-lingering passions of
civil war have, for the last time, embittered our political strife, and
must now be consigned to forgetfulness. The nation is assured of peace.
The embers of discord may convulse a State until justice shall be
enthroned over mad partisanship, but peace and justice are the
inexorable purposes of the people, and they will be obeyed. Sectional
hatred, long fanned by political necessities, is henceforth effaced from
our politics, and the unity of a sincere brotherhood will be the
cherished faith of every citizen. We first conquered rebellion, and now
have conquered the bitterness and estrangement of its discomfiture.
The Vice-President of the insurgent Confederacy is a Representative in
our Congress. One who was first in the field and last in the Senate in
support of rebellion has just died while representing the government in
a diplomatic position of the highest honor. Another who served the
Confederacy in the field and in the forum, has been one of the
constitutional advisers of the national administration. One of the most
brilliant of Confederate warriors now serves in the United States
Senate, and has presided over that body. The first Lieutenant of Lee was
long since honored with responsible and lucrative official trust, and
many of lesser note, lately our enemies, are discharging important
public duties. The war and its issues are settled forever. Those who
were arrayed against each other in deadly conflict are now friends. The
appeal from the ballot to the sword has been made, and its arbitrament
has been irrevocably ratified by the supreme power of the nation. Each
has won from the other the respect that is ever awarded to brave men,
and the affection that was clouded by the passion that made both rush to
achieve an easy triumph, has returned chastened and strengthened by our
common sacrifices. Our battle-fields will be memorable as the theatres
of the conflicts of the noblest people the world had to offer to the god
of carnage, and the monuments to our dead, North and South, will be
pointed to by succeeding generations as the proud records of the heroism
of the American people.
The overshadowing issues touching the war and its logical results are
now no longer in controversy, and in vain will the unworthy invoke
patriotism to give them unmerited distinction. No supreme danger can now
confront the citizen who desires to correct errors or abuses of our
political system. He who despairs of free institutions because evils
have been tolerated, would have despaired of every administration the
country has ever had, and of every government the world has ever known.
If corruption pervades our institutions to an alarming extent, let it
not be forgotten that it is the natural order of history repeating
itself. It is but the experience of every nation, and our own experience
returning to us, to call into vigorous action the regenerating power of
a patriotic people. We have a supreme tribunal that is most jealous of
its high prerogatives, and that will wield its authority mercilessly
when the opportune season arrives. We have just emerged from the most
impassioned and convulsive strife of modern history. It called out the
highest type of patriotism, and life and treasure were freely given with
the holiest devotion to the cause of self-government. With it came those
of mean ambition, and of venal purposes, and they could gain power while
the unselfish were devoted to the country’s cause. They could not be
dethroned because there were grave issues which dare not be sacrificed.
Such evils must be borne at times in all governments, rather than
destroy the temple to punish the enemies of public virtue. To whatever
extent these evils exist, they are not the legitimate creation of our
free institutions. They are not the creation of maladministration, nor
of any party. They are the monstrous barnacles spawned by unnatural war,
which clogged the gallant ship of State in her extremity, and had to be
borne into port with her. And now that the battle is ended, and the
issues settled, do not distrust the reserved power of our free
institutions. It will heal the scars of war and efface the stains of
corruption, and present the great Republic to the world surpassing in
grandeur, might and excellence, the sublimest conceptions ever cherished
of human government.
As you come to assume the responsibilities which must be accepted by the
educated citizen, you will be profoundly impressed with the multiplied
dangers which threaten the government. They will appear not only to be
innumerable and likely to defy correction, but they will seem to be of
modern creation. It is common to hear intelligent political leaders
declaim against the moral and intellectual degeneracy of the times, and
especially against the decline in public morality and statesmanship.
They would make it appear that the people and the government in past
times were models of purity and excellence, while we are unworthy sons
of noble sires. Our rulers are pronounced imbecile, or wholly devoted to
selfish ends.
Our law-makers are declared to be reeking with corruption or blinded by
ambition, and greed and faithlessness are held up to the world as the
chief characteristics of our officials. From this painful picture we
turn to the history of those who ruled in the earlier and what we call
the better days of the Republic, and the contrast sinks us deep in the
slough of despair. I am not prepared to say that much of the complaint
against the political degeneracy of the times, and the standard of our
officials, is not just; but in the face of all that can be charged
against the present, I regard it as the very best age this nation has
ever known. The despairing accusations made against our public servants
are not the peculiar creation of the times in which we live, and the
allegation of wide spread demoralization in the body politic, was no
more novel in any of the generations of the past than it is now. We say
nothing of our rulers that was not said of those whose memory we so
sacredly worship. License is one of the chief penalties, indeed the sole
defect of liberty, and it has ever asserted its prerogatives with
tireless industry. It was as irreverent with Washington as it is with
Grant. It racked Jefferson and Jackson, and it pained and scarred
Lincoln and Chase, and their compatriots. It criticised the campaigns
and the heroes of the revolutionary times, as we criticise the living
heroes of our day. It belittled the statesmen of every epoch in our
national progress, just as we belittle those who are now the guardians
of our free institutions. Perhaps we have more provocation than they
had; but if so, they were less charitable, for the tide of ungenerous
criticism and distrust has known no cessation. I believe we have had
seasons when our political system was more free from blemish than it is
now, and that we have had periods when both government and people
maintained a higher standard of excellence than we can boast of; but it
is equally true that we have, in the past, sounded a depth in the
decline of our political administration that the present age can never
reach.
You must soon appear in the active struggles for the perpetuity of free
government, and some of the sealed chapters of the past are most worthy
of your careful study. I would not efface one good inspiration that you
have gathered from the lives and deeds of our fathers, whose courage and
patriotism have survived their infirmities. Whatever we have from them
that is purifying or elevating, is but the truth of history; and when
unborn generations shall have succeeded us, no age in all the long
century of freedom in the New World, will furnish to them higher
standards of heroism and statesmanship than the defamed and
unappreciated times in which we live. And when the future statesmen
shall turn to history for the most unselfish and enlightened devotion to
the Republic, they will pause over the records we have written, and
esteem them the brightest in all the annals of man’s best efforts for
his race. We can judge of the true standard of our government and people
only by a faithful comparison with the true standard of the men and
events which have passed away. You find widespread distrust of the
success of our political system. It is the favorite theme of every
disappointed ambition, and the vanquished of every important struggle
are tempted, in the bitterness of defeat, to despair of the government.
Would you know whence comes this chronic or spasmodic political despair?
If so, you must turn back over the graves of ages, for it is as old as
free government. Glance at the better days of which we all have read,
and to which modern campaign eloquence is so much indebted. Do not stop
with the approved histories of the fathers of the Republic. They tell
only of the transcendent wisdom and matchless perfections of those who
gave us liberty and ordained government of the people. Go to the inner
temple of truth. Seek that which was then hidden from the nation, but
which in these days of newspapers and free schools, and steam and
lightning, is an open record so that he who runs may read. Gather up the
few public journals of a century ago, and the rare personal letters and
sacred diaries of the good and wise men whose examples are so earnestly
longed for in the degenerate present, and your despair will be softened
and your indignation at current events will be tempered, as you learn
that our history is steadily repeating itself, and that with all our
many faults, we grow better as we progress.
Do you point to the unfaltering courage and countless sacrifices of
those who gave us freedom, so deeply crimsoned with their blood? I join
you in naming them with reverence, but I must point to their sons, for
whom we have not yet ceased to mourn, who equalled them in every manly
and patriotic attribute. When wealth and luxury were about us to tempt
our people to indifference and ease, the world has no records of heroism
which dim the lustre of the achievements we have witnessed in the
preservation of the liberty our fathers bequeathed to us. Have
corruption and perfidy stained the triumphs of which we boast? So did
corruption and perfidy stain the revolutionary “times that tried men’s
souls.” Do we question the laurels with which our successful captains
have been crowned by a grateful country? So did our forefathers question
the just distinction of him who was first in war and first in peace, and
he had not a lieutenant who escaped distrust, nor a council of war that
was free from unworthy jealousies and strife. Do politicians and even
statesmen teach the early destruction of our free institutions? It is
the old, old story; “the babbling echo mocks itself.” It distracted the
cabinets of Washington and the elder Adams. It was the tireless
assailant of Jefferson and Madison. It made the Jackson administration
tempestuous. It gave us foreign war under Polk. It was a teeming
fountain of discord under Taylor, Pierce and Buchanan. It gave us deadly
fraternal conflict under Lincoln. Its dying throes convulsed the nation
under Johnson. The promise of peace, soberly accepted from Grant, was
the crown of an unbroken column of triumphs over the distrust of every
age, that was attacking free government. Do we complain of violent and
profligate legislation? Hamilton, the favorite statesman of Washington,
was the author of laws, enacted in time of peace, which could not have
been enforced in our day even under the necessities and passions of war.
And when the judgment of the nation repealed them, he sought to
overthrow the popular verdict, because he believed that the government
was overthrown. Almost before order began after the political chaos of
the revolution, the intensest struggles were made, and the most violent
enactments urged, for mere partisan control. Jefferson, the chief
apostle of government of the people, did not always cherish supreme
faith in his own work. He trembled at the tendencies to monarchy, and
feared because of “the dupery of which our countrymen have shown
themselves susceptible.” He rescued the infant Republic from the
centralization that was the lingering dregs of despotism, and
unconsciously sowed the seeds which ripened into States’ rights and
nullification under Jackson, and into rebellion under Lincoln. But for
the desperate conflict of opposing convictions as to the corner-stone of
the new structure, Jefferson would have been more wise and conservative.
He was faithful to popular government in the broadest acceptation of the
theory. He summed it up in his memorable utterance to his neighbors when
he returned from France. He said:—“The will of the majority, the natural
law of every society, is the only sure guardian of the rights of man.
Perhaps even this may sometimes err, but its errors are honest solitary
and short-lived.” Politically speaking, with the patriots and statesmen
of the “better days” of the Republic, their confidence in, or distrust
of, the government, depended much upon whether Hamilton or Jefferson
ruled. Dream of them as we may, they were but men, with the same
ambition, the same love of power, the same infirmities, which we regard
as the peculiar besetting sins of our times. If you would refresh your
store of distrust of all political greatness, study Jefferson through
Burr and Hamilton, or Washington and Hamilton through Jefferson, or
Jackson through Clay and the second Adams, or Clay and Adams through
Jackson and Randolph, and you will think better of the enlightened and
liberal age in which you live.
No error is so common among free people as the tendency to depreciate
the present and all its agencies and achievements.
We all turn with boundless pride to the Senate of Clay, Webster and
Calhoun. In the period of their great conflicts, it was the ablest
legislative tribunal the world has ever furnished. Rome and Greece in
the zenith of their greatness, never gathered such a galaxy of
statesmen. But not until they had passed away did the nation learn to
judge them justly. Like the towering oaks when the tempest sweeps over
the forest, the storm of faction was fiercest among their crowns, and
their struggles of mere ambition, and their infirmities, which have been
kindly forgotten, often made the thoughtless or the unfaithful despair
of our free institutions. Not one of them escaped detraction or popular
reprobation. Not one was exempt from the grave accusation of shaping the
destruction of our nationality, and yet not one meditated deliberate
wrong to the country on which all reflected so much honor. Calhoun
despaired of the Union, because of the irrepressible antagonism of
sectional interests, but he cherished the sincerest faith in free
institutions. But when the dispassionate historian of the future is
brought to the task of recording the most memorable triumphs of our
political system, he will pass over the great Senate of the last
generation, and picture in their just proportions the grander
achievements of the heroes and statesmen who have been created in our
own time. If we could draw aside the veil that conceals the future from
us, and see how our children will judge the trials and triumphs of the
last decade, we would be shamed at our distrust of ourselves and of the
instruments we have employed to discharge the noblest duties. Our agents
came up from among us. We knew them before they were great, and
remembered well their common inheritance of human defects.—They are not
greater than were men who had lived before them, but the nation has had
none in all the past who could have written their names higher on the
scroll of fame. We knew Lincoln as the uncouth Western campaigner and
advocate; as a man of jest, untutored in the graces, and unschooled in
statesmanship. We know him in the heat and strife of the political
contests which made him our President, and our passions and prejudices
survived his achievements. If his friends, we were brought face to face
with his imperfections, and perhaps complained that he was unequal to
impossibilities. If his enemies, we antagonized his policy and magnified
his errors. We saw him wrestle with the greed of the place-man, with the
ambitious warrior and with the disappointed statesman. We received his
great act of Emancipation as a part of the mere political policy of his
rule, and judged it by the light of prejudiced partisan convictions.
But how will those of the future judge him? When the hatreds which
attached to his public acts have passed into forgetfulness; when his
infirmities shall have been buried in oblivion, and when all his master
monuments shall stand out in bold relief, made stainless by the generous
offices of time, his name will be linked with devotion wherever liberty
has a worshipper. And it will be measurably so of those who were his
faithful co-laborers. It will be forgotten that they were at times weak,
discordant, irresolute men when they had to confront problems the
solution of which had no precedents in the world’s history. It will not
be conspicuous in the future records of those great events, that the
most learned and experienced member of his cabinet would have accepted
peace by any supportable compromise, and that one of the most trusted of
his constitutional advisers would have assented to peaceable
dismemberment to escape internecine war. Few will ever know that our
eminent Minister of War was one of those who was least hopeful of the
preservation of the unity of the States, when armed secession made its
first trial of strength with the administration. It will not be recorded
how the surrender of Sumter was gravely discussed to postpone the
presence of actual hostilities, and how the midsummer madness of
rebellion made weakness and discord give way to might and harmony, by
the first gun that sent its unprovoked messenger of death against the
flag and defenders of the Union. It will not be remembered that faction
ran riot in the highest places, and that the struggle for the throne
embittered cabinet councils and estranged eminent statesmen, even when
the artillery of the enemy thundered within sound of the Capital.
It will not be declared how great captains toyed with armies and
decimated them upon the deadly altar of ambition, and how blighted hopes
of preferment made jangled strife and fruitless campaigns. Nor will the
insidious treason that wounded the cause of free government in the home
of its friends, blot the future pages of our history in the just
proportions in which the living felt and knew it. It will be told that
in the hour of greatest peril, the administration was criticised, and
the constitution and laws expounded, with supreme ability and boldness,
while the meaner struggles of the cowardly and faithless will be effaced
with the passions of the times that created them. And it is best that
these defects of greatness should slumber with mortality. Not only the
heroes and rulers, but the philanthropists as well, of all nations and
ages, have had no exemption from the frailties which are colossal when
in actual view. That we have been no better than we have seen ourselves,
does not prove that we are a degenerate people. On the contrary, it
teaches how much of good and great achievement may be hoped for with all
the imperfections we see about us. In our unexampled struggle, when
faction, and corruption, and faithlessness had done their worst, a
regenerated nationality, saved to perfected justice, liberty and law,
was the rich fruits of the patriotic efforts of the people and their
trusted but fallible leaders. There is the ineffaceable record we have
written for history, and it will be pointed to as the sublimest tribute
the world has given to the theory of self-government. The many grievous
errors and bitter jealousies of the conflict which weakened and
endangered the cause; the venality that grew in hideous strength, while
higher and holier cares gave it safety; the incompetency that grasped
place on the tidal waves of devotion to country, and the widespread
political evils which still linger as sorrowful legacies among us, will
in the fulness of time be healed and forgotten, and only the grand
consummation will be memorable. This generous judgment of the virtue and
intelligence of the people, that corrects the varying efforts and
successes of political prostitution; that pardons the defects of those
who are faithful in purpose, and without which the greatest deeds would
go down to posterity scarred and deformed, is the glass through which
all must read of the noblest triumphs of men.
Our Republic stands alone in the whole records of civil government. In
its theory, in its complete organization, and in its administration, it
is wholly exceptional. We talk thoughtlessly of the overthrow of the old
Republics, and the weak or disappointed turn to history for the evidence
of our destruction. It is true that Republics which have been mighty
among the powers of the earth have crumbled into hopeless decay, and
that the shifting sands of time have left desolate places where once
were omnipotence and grandeur. Rome made her almost boundless conquests
under the banner of the Republic, and a sister Republic was her rival in
greatness and splendor. They are traced obscurely on the pages of
history as governments of the people. Rome became mistress of the world.
Her triumphal arches of costliest art recorded her many victories. Her
temples of surpassing elegance, her colossal and exquisite statues of
her chieftains, her imposing columns dedicated to her invincible
soldiery, and her apparently rapid progress toward a beneficent
civilization, give the story of the devotion and heroism of her
citizens. But Rome never was a free representative government. What is
called her Republic was but a series of surging plebeian and patrician
revolutions, of Tribunes, Consuls and Dictators, with seasons of
marvelous prowess under the desperate lead of as marvelous ambition. The
tranquillity, the safety, and the inspiration of a government of liberty
and law, are not to be found in all the thousand years of Roman
greatness. The lust of empire was the ruling passion in the ancient
Republics. Hannibal reflected the supreme sentiment of Carthage when he
bowed at the altar and swore eternal hostility to Rome; and Cato, the
Censor, as faithfully spoke for Rome when he declared to an approving
Senate—“_Carthago delenda!_” Such was the mission of what history hands
down to us as the great free governments of the ancients. Despotism was
the forerunner of corruption, and the proudest eras they knew were but
hastening them to inevitable destruction.
The imperial purple soon followed in Rome, as a debauched people were
prepared to accept in form what they had long accepted with the mockery
of freedom. Rulers and subjects, noble and ignoble, church and state,
made common cause to precipitate her decay. At last the columns of the
barbarian clouded her valleys. The rude hosts of Attila, the “Scourge of
God,” swarmed upon her, and their battle-axes smote the demoralized
warriors of the tottering empire. The Goth and the Vandal jostled each
other from the degraded sceptre they had conquered, and Rome was left
widowed in her ruins. And Carthage!—she too had reared a great
government by spoliation, and called it a Republic. It was the creation
of ambition and conquest. Her great chieftain swept over the Pyrenees
and the Alps with his victorious legions, and even made the gates of the
Eternal City tremble before the impetuous advance of the Carthaginians.
But Carthage never was free until the cormorant and the bittern
possessed it, and the God of nations had “stretched out upon it the line
of confusion and the stones of emptiness.” Conqueror and conquered are
blotted from the list of the nations of the earth. We read of the
Grecian Republic; but it was a libel upon free government. Her so-called
free institutions consisted of a loose, discordant confederation of
independent States, where despotism ruled in the name of liberty. Sparta
has made romance pale before the achievements of her sons, but her
triumphs were not of peace, nor were they for free government. Athens
abolished royalty more than a thousand years before the Christian era,
and made Athenian history most thrilling and instructive, but her
citizens were strangers to freedom. The most sanguinary wars with sister
States, domestic convulsions almost without cessation, and the grinding
oppression of caste, were the chief offerings of the government to its
subjects. Solon restored her laws to some measure of justice, only to be
cast aside for the usurper. Greece yet has a name among the nations of
the world, but her sceptre for which the mightiest once warred to
enslave her people under the banner of the Republic, has long since been
unfelt in shaping the destiny of mankind. Thus did Rome and Carthage and
Greece fade from the zenith of distinction and power, before
constitutional government of the people had been born among men. To-day
there is not an established sister Republic that equals our single
Commonwealth in population. Spain, France and Mexico have in turn
worshiped Emperors, Kings, Dictators and popular Presidents. Yesterday
they were reckoned Republics. What they have been made to-day, or what
they will be made to-morrow, is uncertain and unimportant. They are not
now, and never have been, Republics save in name, and never can be free
governments until their people are transformed into law-creating and
law-abiding communities. With them monarchy is a refuge from the license
they miscall liberty, and despotism is peace. Switzerland is called a
Republic. She points to her acknowledged independence four hundred years
ago, but not until the middle of the present century did the Republic of
the Alps find tranquillity in a constitutional government that
inaugurated the liberty of law. Away on a rugged mountain-top in Italy,
is the only Republic that has maintained popular government among the
States of Europe. For more than fourteen hundred years a handful of
isolated people, the followers of a Dalmatian hermit priest, have given
the world an example of unsullied freedom. Through all the mutations,
and revolutions, and relinings of the maps of Europe, the little
territory of San Marino has been sacredly respected. Her less than ten
thousand people have prospered without interruption; and civil
commotions and foreign disputes or conflicts have been unknown among
them. She has had no wealth to tempt the spoiler; no commerce or teeming
valleys to invite conquest; no wars to breed dictators; no surplus
revenues to corrupt her officials; and in patient and frugal industry
her citizens have enjoyed the national felicity of having no history.
They have had no trials and no triumphs, and have made civilization
better only by the banner of peace they have worshipped through all the
convulsions and bloody strife of many centuries.
The world has but one Republic that has illustrated constitutional
freedom in all its beneficence, power and grandeur, and that is our own
priceless inheritance. As a government, our Republic has alone been
capable of, and faithful to, representative free institutions, with
equal rights, equal justice, and equal laws for every condition of our
fellows. All the nations of the past furnish no history that can
logically repeat itself in our advancement or decline. Created through
the severest trials and sacrifices; maintained through foreign and civil
war with unexampled devotion; faithful to law as the offspring and
safety of liberty; progressive in all that ennobles our peaceful
industry, and cherishing enlightened and liberal Christian civilization
as the trust and pride of our citizens, for our government of the
people, none but itself can be its parallel.
In what are called free governments of antiquity, we search in vain for
constitutional freedom, or that liberty that subordinates passion and
license to law. The refuge from the constant perils of an unrestrained
Democracy was always found in despotism, and when absolutism became
intolerable, the tide of passion would surge back to Democracy. The
people, in mass councils, would rule Consuls, Presidents and Generals,
but it was fruitful only of chaos and revolution. The victorious
chieftain and the illustrious philosopher would be honored with
thanksgivings to the gods for their achievements, and their banishment
or death would next be demanded by the same supreme tribunal. Grand
temples and columns and triumphal arches would be erected to commemorate
the victories of the dominant power, and the returning waves of
revolution would decree the actors and their monuments to destruction.
Ambitious demagogues prostituted such mockeries of government to the
basest purposes. The Olympic games of Greece became the mere instruments
of unscrupulous leaders to lure the people, in the name of freedom, to
oppression and degradation, and the wealth of Rome was lavishly employed
to corrupt the source of popular power, and spread demoralization
throughout the Republic. The debauched citizens and soldiers were
inflamed by cunning and corrupt devices, against the purest and most
eminent of the sincere defenders of liberty; and the vengeance of the
infuriated mob, usurping the supreme power of the State, would doom to
exile or to death, honest Romans who struggled for Roman freedom. Cato,
the younger, Tribune of the people, and faithful to his country, took
his own life to escape the reprobation of a polluted sovereignty. Cicero
was Consul of the people, made so by his triumph over Cæsar. But the
same people who worshipped him and to whose honor and prosperity he was
devoted, banished him in disgrace, confiscated his wealth and devastated
his home. Again he was recalled through a triumphal ovation, and again
proscribed by the triumvirs and murdered by the soldiers of Antony. The
Grecian Republic banished “Aristides the just,” and Demosthenes, the
first orator of the world, who withstood the temptations of Macedonian
wealth, was fined, exiled and his death decreed. He saved his country
the shame of his murder by suicide. Miltiades won the plaudits of Greece
for his victories, only to die in prison of wounds received in fighting
her battles. Themistocles, orator, statesman and chieftain, was banished
and died in exile. Pericles, once master of Athens, and who gave the
world the highest attainments in Grecian arts, was deposed from military
and civil authority by the people he had honored. Socrates, immortal
teacher of Grecian philosophy, soldier and senator, and one of the most
shining examples of public virtue, was ostracised and condemned and
drank the fatal hemlock. The Republic of Carthage gave the ancients
their greatest general, and as chief magistrate, he was as wise in
statesmanship as he was skillful in war; but in a strange land Hannibal
closed his eyes to his country’s woes by taking his own life. Nor need
we confine our research to Pagan antiquity alone, for such stains upon
what is called popular government. During the present century France has
enthroned and banished the Bourbons, and worshiped and execrated the
Bonapartes; and Spain and Mexico, and scores of States of lesser note,
have welcomed and spurned the same rulers, and created and overthrew the
same dynasties.
For the matchless progress of enlightened rule during the last century,
the world is indebted to England and America. Parent and child, though
separated by violence and estranged in their sympathies even to the
latest days, have been coworkers in the great cause of perfecting and
strengthening liberal government. Each has been too prone to hope and
labor for the decline or subordination of the other, but they both have
thereby “builded wiser than they knew.” Their ceaseless rivalry for the
approving judgment of civilization and for the development of the
noblest attributes of a generous and enduring authority, have made them
vastly better and wiser than either would have been without the other.
We have inherited her supreme sanctity for law, and thus bounded our
liberties by conservative restraints upon popular passions, until the
sober judgment of the people can correct them. She has, however
unwillingly, yielded to the inspiration of our enlarged freedom and
advanced with hesitating steps toward the amelioration of her less
favored classes. She maintains the form and splendor of royalty, but no
monarch, no ministry, no House of Lords, can now defy the Commoners of
the English people. The breath of disapproval coming from the popular
branch of the government, dissolves a cabinet or compels an appeal to
the country. A justly beloved Queen, unvexed by the cares of State, is
the symbol of the majesty of English law, and there monarchy practically
ends. We have reared a nobler structure, more delicate in its framework,
more exquisite in its harmony, and more imposing in its progress. Its
beneficence would be its weakness with any other people than our own.
Solon summed up the history of many peoples, when, in answer to the
question whether he had given the Athenians the best of laws, he said:
“The best they were capable of receiving!” Even England with her marked
distinctions of rank, and widely divided and unsympathetic classes,
could not entrust her administration to popular control, without
inviting convulsive discord and probable disintegration. Here we confide
the enactment and execution of our laws to the immediate representatives
of the people; but executives, and judicial tribunals, and conservative
legislative branches, are firmly established, to receive the occasional
surges of popular error, as the rock-ribbed shore makes harmless the
waves of the tempest. We have no antagonism of rank or caste; no patent
of nobility save that of merit, and the Republic has no distinction that
may not be won by the humblest of her citizens. Our illustrious
patriots, statesmen, and chieftains are cherished as household gods.
They have not in turn been applauded and condemned, unless they have
betrayed public trust. They are the creation of our people under our
exceptional system, that educates all and advances those who are most
eminent and faithful; and they are, from generation to generation, the
enduring monuments of the Republic. We need no triumphal arches, or
towering columns, or magnificent temples to record our achievements.
Every patriotic memory bears in perpetual freshness the inscriptions of
our noblest deeds, and every devoted heart quickens its pulsations at
the contemplation of the power and safety of government of the people.
In every trial, in peace and in war, we have created our warriors, our
pacificators and our great teachers of the country’s sublime duties and
necessities. It is not always our most polished scholars, or our ripest
statesmen who have the true inspiration of the loyal leader. Ten years
ago one of the most illustrious scholars and orators of our age, was
called to dedicate the memorable battle-field of Gettysburg, as the
resting place of our martyred dead. In studied grandeur he told the
story of the heroism of the soldiers of the Republic, and in chaste and
eloquent passages he plead the cause of the imperiled and bleeding
Union. The renowned orator has passed away, and his oration is
forgotten. There was present on that occasion, the chosen ruler and
leader of the people. He was untutored in eloquence, and a stranger to
the art of playing upon the hopes or grief of the nation. He was the
sincere, the unfaltering guardian of the unity of the States, and his
utterance, brief and unstudied, inspired and strengthened every
patriotic impulse, and made a great people renew their great work with
the holiest devotion. As he turned from the dead to the living, he gave
the text of liberty for all time, when he declared: “It is rather for us
to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us,—that from
these honored dead we take increased devotion to the cause for which
they here gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly
resolve that the dead shall not have died in vain; that the nation
shall, under God, have a new birth of freedom, and that the government
of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from
the earth.”
Neither birth, nor circumstance, nor power, can command the devotion of
our people. Our revolutions in enlightened sentiment, have been the
creation of all the varied agencies of our free government, and the
judgments of the nation have passed into history as marvels of justice.
We have wreathed our military and civil heroes with the greenest
laurels. In the strife of ambition, some have felt keenly what they
deemed the ingratitude of the Republic; but in their disappointment,
they could not understand that the highest homage of a free people is
not measured by place or titled honors. Clay was none the less beloved,
and Webster none the less revered, because their chief ambition was not
realized. Scott was not less the “Great Captain of the Age,” because he
was smitten in his efforts to attain the highest civil distinction. But
a few months ago two men of humblest opportunities and opposite
characteristics, were before us as rival candidates for our first
office. One had been a great teacher, who through patient years of
honest and earnest effort, had made his impress upon the civilization of
every clime. He was the defender of the oppressed, and the unswerving
advocate of equal rights for all mankind. Gradually his labors ripened,
but the fruits were to be gathered through the flame of battle, and he
was unskilled in the sword. Another had to come with his brave reapers
into the valley of death. He was unknown to fame, and the nation trusted
others who wore its stars. But he transformed despair into hope, and
defeat into victory. He rose through tribulation and malice, by his
invincible courage and matchless command, until the fruition of his
rival’s teachings had been realized in their own, and their country’s
grandest achievement. In the race for civil trust, partisan detraction
swept mercilessly over both, and two men who had written the proudest
records of their age, in their respective spheres of public duty, were
assailed as incompetent and unworthy. Both taught peace. One dared more
for hastened reconciliation, forgiveness and brotherhood. The other
triumphed, and vindicated his rival and himself by calling the insurgent
to share the honors of the Republic. Soon after the strife was ended,
they met at the gates of the “City of the Silent,” and the victor, as
chief of the nation, paid the nation’s sincere homage to its untitled,
but most beloved and lamented citizen. Had the victor been the
vanquished, the lustre of his crown would have been undimmed in the
judgment of our people or of history. Our rulers are but our agents,
chosen in obedience to the convictions which govern the policy of the
selection, and mere political success is no enduring constituent of
greatness. The public servant, and the private citizen, will alike be
honored or condemned, as they are faithful or unfaithful to their
responsible duties.
When we search for the agencies of the great epochs in our national
progress, we look not to the accidents of place. Unlike all other
governments, ours is guided supremely by intelligent and educated public
convictions, and those who are clothed with authority, are but the
exponents of the popular will. Herein is the source of safety and
advancement of our free institutions. On every hand, in the ranks of
people, are the tireless teachers of our destiny. Away in the forefront
of every struggle, are to be found the masters who brave passion and
prejudice and interest, in the perfection of our nationality.
Our free press reaching into almost every hamlet of the land; our
colleges now reared in every section; our schools with open doors to
all; our churches teaching every faith, with the protection of the law;
our citizens endowed with the sacred right of freedom of speech and
action; our railroads spanning the continent, climbing our mountains,
and stretching into our valleys; our telegraphs making every community
the centre of the world’s daily records—these are the agencies which are
omnipotent in the expression of our national purposes and duties. Thus
directed and maintained, our free government has braved foreign and
domestic war, and been purified and strengthened in the crucible of
conflict. It has grown from a few feeble States east of the Ohio
wilderness, to a vast continent of commonwealths, and forty millions of
population. It has made freedom as universal as its authority within its
vast possessions. The laws of inequality and caste are blotted from its
statutes. It reaches the golden slopes of the Pacific with its
beneficence, and makes beauty and plenty in the valleys of the mountains
on the sunset side of the Father of Waters. From the cool lakes of the
north, to the sunny gulfs of the South, and from the eastern seas to the
waters that wash the lands of the Pagan, a homogeneous people obey one
constitution, and are devoted to one country. Nor have its agencies and
influences been limited to our own boundaries. The whole accessible
world has felt its power, and paid tribute to its excellence. Europe has
been convulsed from centre to circumference by the resistless throbbings
of oppressed peoples for the liberty they cannot know and could not
maintain. The proud Briton has imitated his wayward but resolute child,
and now rules his own throne. France has sung the _Marseillaise_, her
anthem of freedom, and waded through blood in ill-directed struggles for
her disenthralment. The scattered tribes of the Fatherland now worship
at the altar of German unity, with a liberalized Empire. The sad song of
the serf is no longer heard from the children of the Czar. Italy,
dismembered and tempest tossed through centuries, again ordains her laws
in the Eternal City, under a monarch of her choice. The throne of
Ferdinand and Isabella has now no kingly ruler, and the inspiration of
freedom has unsettled the title of despotism to the Spanish sceptre. The
trained lightning flashes the lessons of our civilization to the home of
the Pyramids; the land of the Heathen has our teachers in its desolate
places, and the God of Day sets not upon the boundless triumphs of our
government of the people.
Robert G. Ingersoll, of Illinois,
_In the National Republican Convention at Cincinnati, June, 1876, in
nominating James G. Blaine for the Presidency_.
“Massachusetts may be satisfied with the loyalty of Benjamin H. Bristow;
so am I; but if any man nominated by this convention cannot carry the
State of Massachusetts, I am not satisfied with the loyalty of that
State. If the nominee of this convention cannot carry the grand old
Commonwealth of Massachusetts by seventy-five thousand majority, I would
advise them to sell out Faneuil Hall as a Democratic headquarters. I
would advise them to take from Bunker Hill that old monument of glory.
“The Republicans of the United States demand as their leader in the
great contest of 1876 a man of intelligence, a man of integrity, a man
of well-known and approved political opinions. They demand a reformer
after as well as before the election. They demand a politician in the
highest, broadest and best sense—a man of superb moral courage. They
demand a man acquainted with public affairs, with the wants of the
people; with not only the requirements of the hour, but with the demands
of the future. They demand a man broad enough to comprehend the
relations of this government to the other nations of the earth. They
demand a man well versed in the powers, duties, and prerogatives of each
and every department of this Government. They demand a man who will
sacredly preserve the financial honor of the United States; one who
knows enough to know that the national debt must be paid through the
prosperity of this people; one who knows enough to know that all the
financial theories in the world cannot redeem a single dollar; one who
knows enough to know that all the money must be made, not by law, but by
labor; one who knows enough to know that the people of the United States
have the industry to make the money and the honor to pay it over just as
fast as they make it.
“The Republicans of the United States demand a man who knows that
prosperity and resumption, when they come must come together; that when
they come, they will come hand in hand through the golden harvest
fields; hand in hand by the whirling spindles and the turning wheels;
hand in hand past the open furnace doors; hand in hand by the flaming
forges; hand in hand by the chimneys filled with eager fire—greeted and
grasped by the countless sons of toil.
“This money has to be dug out of the earth. You cannot make it by
passing resolutions in a political convention.
“The Republicans of the United States want a man who knows that this
Government should protect every citizen, at home and abroad; who knows
that any government that will not defend its defenders, and protect its
protectors, is a disgrace to the map of the world. They demand a man who
believes in the eternal separation and divorcement of Church and School.
They demand a man whose political reputation is spotless as a star; but
they do not demand that their candidate shall have a certificate of
moral character signed by a Confederate Congress. The man who has, in
full, heaped and rounded measure, all these splendid qualifications, is
the present grand and gallant leader of the Republican party—James G.
Blaine.
“Our country, crowned with the vast and marvelous achievements of its
first century, asks for a man worthy of the past and prophetic of her
future; asks for a man who has the audacity of genius; asks for a man
who is the grandest combination of heart, conscience and brain beneath
her flag. Such a man is James G. Blaine.
“For the Republican host, led by this intrepid man, there can be no
defeat.
“This is a grand year—a year filled with the recollections of the
Revolution; filled with proud and tender memories of the past; with the
sacred legends of liberty; a year in which the sons of freedom will
drink from the fountains of enthusiasm; a year in which the people call
for a man who has preserved in Congress what our soldiers won upon the
field; a year in which they call for the man who has torn from the
throat of treason the tongue of slander; for the man who has snatched
the mask of Democracy from the hideous face of rebellion; for the man
who, like an intellectual athlete, has stood in the arena of debate and
challenged all comers, and who is still a total stranger to defeat.
“Like an armed warrior, like a plumed knight, James G. Blaine marched
down the halls of the American Congress, and threw his shining lance
full and fair against the brazen foreheads of the defamers of his
country and the maligners of his honor.
“For the Republican party to desert this gallant leader now, is as
though an army should desert their general upon the field of battle.
“James G. Blaine is now and has been for years the bearer of the sacred
standard of the Republican party. I call it sacred, because no human
being can stand beneath its folds without becoming and without remaining
free.
“Gentlemen of the convention, in the name of the great Republic, the
only Republic that ever existed upon this earth; in the name of all her
defenders and of all her supporters; in the name of all her soldiers
living; in the name of all her soldiers dead upon the field of battle,
and in the name of those who perished in the skeleton clutch of famine
at Andersonville and Libby, whose sufferings he so vividly remembers,
Illinois—Illinois nominates for the next President of this country, that
prince of parliamentarians—that leader of leaders—James G. Blaine.”
Roscoe Conkling, of New York,
_In the National Republican Convention at Chicago, June, 1880,
nominating Ulysses S. Grant for the Presidency_.
“And when asked what State he hails from,
Our sole reply shall be,
He hails from Appomattox
And the famous Apple tree.”
Obeying instructions I should never dare to disregard, I rise in behalf
of the State of New York to propose a nomination with which the country
and the Republican party can grandly win. The election before us will be
the Austerlitz of American politics. It will decide whether for years to
come the country will be ‘Republican or Cossack.’ The need of the hour
is a candidate who can carry doubtful States, North and South; and
believing that he more surely than any other can carry New York against
any opponent, and carry not only the North, but several States of the
South, New York is for Ulysses S. Grant. He alone of living Republicans
has carried New York as a Presidential candidate. Once he carried it
even according to a Democratic count, and twice he carried it by the
people’s vote, and he is stronger now. The Republican party with its
standard in his hand, is stronger now than in 1868 or 1872. Never
defeated in war or in peace, his name is the most illustrious borne by
any living man; his services attest his greatness, and the country knows
them by heart. His fame was born not alone of things written and said,
but of the arduous greatness of things done, and dangers and emergencies
will search in vain in the future, as they have searched in vain in the
past, for any other on whom the nation leans with such confidence and
trust. Standing on the highest eminence of human distinction, and having
filled all lands with his renown, modest, firm, simple and self-poised,
he has seen not only the titled but the poor and the lowly in the utmost
ends of the world rise and uncover before him. He has studied the needs
and defects of many systems of government, and he comes back a better
American than ever, with a wealth of knowledge and experience added to
the hard common sense which so conspicuously distinguished him in all
the fierce light that beat upon him throughout the most eventful, trying
and perilous sixteen years of the nation’s history.
“Never having had ‘a policy to enforce against the will of the people,’
he never betrayed a cause or a friend, and the people will never betray
or desert him. Vilified and reviled, truthlessly aspersed by numberless
presses, not in other lands, but in his own, the assaults upon him have
strengthened and seasoned his hold upon the public heart. The ammunition
of calumny has all been exploded; the powder has all been burned once,
its force is spent, and General Grant’s name will glitter as a bright
and imperishable star in the diadem of the Republic when those who have
tried to tarnish it will have mouldered in forgotten graves and their
memories and epitaphs have vanished utterly.
“Never elated by success, never depressed by adversity, he has ever in
peace, as in war, shown the very genius of common sense. The terms he
prescribed for Lee’s surrender foreshadowed the wisest principles and
prophecies of true reconstruction.
“Victor in the greatest of modern wars, he quickly signalized his
aversion to war and his love of peace by an arbitration of international
disputes which stands as the wisest and most majestic example of its
kind in the world’s diplomacy. When inflation, at the height of its
popularity and frenzy, had swept both houses of Congress, it was the
veto of Grant which, single and alone, overthrew expansion and cleared
the way for specie resumption. To him, immeasurably more than to any
other man, is due the fact that every paper dollar is as good as gold.
With him as our leader we shall have no defensive campaign, no apologies
or explanations to make. The shafts and arrows have all been aimed at
him and lie broken and harmless at his feet. Life, liberty and property
will find safeguard in him. When he said of the black man in Florida,
‘Wherever I am they may come also,’ he meant that, had he the power to
help it, the poor dwellers in the cabins of the South should not be
driven in terror from the homes of their childhood and the graves of
their murdered dead. When he refused to receive Denis Kearney he meant
that lawlessness and communism, although it should dictate laws to a
whole city, would everywhere meet a foe in him, and, popular or
unpopular, he will hew to the line of right, let the chips fly where
they may.
“His integrity, his common sense, his courage and his unequaled
experience are the qualities offered to his country. The only argument
against accepting them would amaze Solomon. He thought there could be
nothing new under the sun. Having tried Grant twice and found him
faithful, we are told we must not, even after an interval of years,
trust him again. What stultification does not such a fallacy involve!
The American people exclude Jefferson Davis from public trust. Why?
Because he was the arch traitor and would be a destroyer. And now the
same people are asked to ostracize Grant and not trust him. Why? Because
he was the arch preserver of his country; because, not only in war, but
afterward, twice as a civic magistrate, he gave his highest, noblest
efforts to the Republic. Is such absurdity an electioneering jugglery or
hypocrisy’s masquerade?
“There is no field of human activity, responsibility or reason in which
rational beings object to Grant because he has been weighed in the
balance and not found wanting, and because he has had unequaled
experience, making him exceptionally competent and fit. From the man who
shoes your horse to the lawyer who pleads your case, the officers who
manage your railway, the doctor into whose hands you give your life, or
the minister who seeks to save your souls, what now do you reject
because you have tried him and by his works have known him? What makes
the Presidential office an exception to all things else in the common
sense to be applied to selecting its incumbent? Who dares to put fetters
on the free choice and judgment which is the birthright of the American
people? Can it be said that Grant has used official power to perpetuate
his plan? He has no place. No official power has been used for him.
Without patronage or power, without telegraph wires running from his
house to the convention, without electioneering contrivances, without
effort on his part, his name is on his country’s lips, and he is struck
at by the whole Democratic party because his nomination will be the
death-blow to Democratic success. He is struck at by others who find
offense and disqualification in the very service he has rendered and in
the very experience he has gained. Show me a better man. Name one and I
am answered. But do not point, as a disqualification, to the very facts
which make this man fit beyond all others. Let not experience disqualify
or excellence impeach him. There is no third term in the case, and the
pretense will die with the political dog-days which engendered it.
Nobody is really worried about a third term except those hopelessly
longing for a first term and the dupes they have made. Without bureaus,
committees, officials or emissaries to manufacture sentiment in his
favor, without intrigue or effort on his part, Grant is the candidate
whose supporters have never threatened to bolt. As they say, he is a
Republican who never wavers. He and his friends stood by the creed and
the candidates of the Republican party, holding the right of a majority
as the very essence of their faith, and meaning to uphold that faith
against the common enemy and the charlatans and guerrillas who from time
to time deploy between the lines and forage on one side or the other.
“The Democratic party is a standing protest against progress. Its
purposes are spoils. Its hope and very existence is a solid South. Its
success is a menace to prosperity and order.
“This convention is master of a supreme opportunity, can name the next
President of the United States and make sure of his election and his
peaceful inauguration. It can break the power which dominates and
mildews the South. It can speed the nation in a career of grandeur
eclipsing all past achievements. We have only to listen above the din
and look beyond the dust of an hour to behold the Republican party
advancing to victory, with its greatest marshal at its head.”
James A. Garfield, of Ohio,
_In the National Republican Convention at Chicago, June, 1880,
nominating John Sherman for the Presidency_.
“I have witnessed the extraordinary scenes of this convention with deep
solicitude. No emotion touches my heart more quickly than a sentiment in
honor of a great and noble character. But as I sat on these seats and
witnessed these demonstrations, it seemed to me you were a human ocean
in a tempest. I have seen the sea lashed into a fury and tossed into a
spray, and its grandeur moves the soul of the dullest man. But I
remember that it is not the billows, but the calm level of the sea from
which all heights and depths are measured. When the storm has passed and
the hour of calm settles on the ocean, when sunlight bathes its smooth
surface, then the astronomer and surveyor takes the level from which he
measures all terrestrial heights and depths. Gentlemen of the
convention, your present temper may not mark the healthful pulse of our
people. When our enthusiasm has passed, when the emotions of this hour
have subsided, we shall find the calm level of public opinion below the
storm from which the thoughts of a mighty people are to be measured, and
by which their final action will be determined. Not here, in this
brilliant circle where fifteen thousand men and women are assembled, is
the destiny of the Republic to be decreed; not here, where I see the
enthusiastic faces of seven hundred and fifty-six delegates waiting to
cast their votes into the urn and determine the choice of their party;
but by four million Republican firesides, where the thoughtful fathers,
with wives and children about them, with the calm thoughts inspired by
love of home and love of country, with the history of the past, the
hopes of the future, and the knowledge of the great men who have adorned
and blessed our nation in days gone by—there God prepares the verdict
that shall determine the wisdom of our work to-night. Not in Chicago in
the heat of June, but in the sober quiet that comes between now and the
melancholy days of November, in the silence of deliberate judgment will
this great question be settled. Let us aid them to-night.
“But now, gentlemen of the convention, what do we want? Bear with me a
moment. Hear me for this cause, and for a moment be silent, that you may
hear. Twenty-five years ago this Republic was wearing a triple chain of
bondage. Long familiarity with traffic in the bodies and souls of men
had paralyzed the conscience of a majority of our people. The baleful
doctrine of State Sovereignty had shocked and weakened the noblest and
most beneficent powers of the National Government, and the grasping
power of slavery was seizing the virgin territory of the West and
dragging them into the den of eternal bondage. At that crisis the
Republican party was born. It drew its first inspiration from that fire
of liberty which God has lighted in every man’s heart, and which all the
powers of ignorance and tyranny can never wholly extinguish. The
Republican party came to deliver and save the Republic. It entered the
arena when the beleaguered and assailed territories were struggling for
freedom, and drew around them the sacred circle of liberty which the
demon of slavery has never dared to cross. It made them free forever.
Strengthened by its victory on the frontier, the young party, under the
leadership of that great man who, on this spot, twenty years ago, was
made its leader, entered the national capital and assumed the high
duties of the Government. The light which shone from its banner
dispelled the darkness in which slavery had enshrouded the capital, and
melted the shackles of every slave, and consumed, in the fire of
liberty, every slave-pen within the shadow of the Capitol. Our national
industries, by an impoverishing policy, were themselves prostrated, and
the streams of revenue flowed in such feeble currents that the Treasury
itself was well nigh empty. The money of the people was the wretched
notes of two thousand uncontrolled and irresponsible State banking
corporations, which was filling the country with a circulation that
poisoned rather than sustained the life of business. The Republican
party changed all this. It abolished the babel of confusion, and gave
the country a currency as national as its flag, based upon the sacred
faith of the people. It threw its protecting arm around our great
industries, and they stood erect as with new life. It filled with the
spirit of true nationality all the great functions of the Government. It
confronted a rebellion of unexampled magnitude, with slavery behind it,
and, under God, fought the final battle of liberty until victory was
won. Then, after the storms of battle, were heard the sweet, calm words
of peace uttered by the conquering nation, and saying to the conquered
foe that lay prostrate at its feet: ‘This is our only revenge, that you
join us in lifting to the serene firmament of the Constitution, to shine
like stars for ever and ever, the immortal principles of truth and
justice, that all men, white or black, shall be free and stand equal
before the law.’
“Then came the question of reconstruction, the public debt, and the
public faith. In the settlement of the questions the Republican party
has completed its twenty-five years of glorious existence, and it has
sent us here to prepare it for another lustrum of duty and of victory.
How shall we do this great work? We cannot do it, my friends, by
assailing our Republican brethren. God forbid that I should say one word
to cast a shadow upon any name on the roll of our heroes. This coming
fight is our Thermopylæ. We are standing upon a narrow isthmus. If our
Spartan hosts are united, we can withstand all the Persians that the
Xerxes of Democracy can bring against us. Let us hold our ground this
one year, for the stars in their courses fight for us in the future. The
census taken this year will bring reinforcements and continued power.
But in order to win this victory now, we want the vote of every
Republican, of every Grant Republican and every anti-Grant Republican in
America, of every Blaine man and every anti-Blaine man. The vote of
every follower of every candidate is needed to make our success certain;
therefore I say, gentlemen and brethren, we are here to take calm
counsel together, and inquire what we shall do. We want a man whose life
and opinions embody all the achievements of which I have spoken. We want
a man who, standing on a mountain height, sees all the achievements of
our past history, and carries in his heart the memory of all its
glorious deeds, and who, looking forward, prepares to meet the labor and
the dangers to come. We want one who will act in no spirit of unkindness
toward those we lately met in battle. The Republican party offers to our
brethren of the South the olive branch of peace, and wishes them to
return to brotherhood, on this supreme condition, that it shall be
admitted forever and forevermore, that, in the war for the Union, we
were right and they were wrong. On that supreme condition we meet them
as brethren, and on no other. We ask them to share with us the blessings
and honors of this great Republic.
“Now, gentlemen, not to weary you, I am about to present a name for your
consideration—the name of a man who was the comrade and associate and
friend of nearly all those noble dead whose faces look down upon us from
these walls to-night; a man who began his career of public service
twenty-five years ago, whose first duty was courageously done in the
days of peril on the plains of Kansas, when the first red drops of that
bloody shower began to fall which finally swelled into the deluge of
war. He bravely stood by young Kansas then, and, returning to his duty
in the National Legislature, through all subsequent time, his pathway
has been marked by labors performed in every department of legislation.
You ask for his monuments. I point you to twenty-five years of national
statutes. Not one great beneficent statute has been placed in our
statute books without his intelligent and powerful aid. He aided these
men to formulate the laws that raised our great armies and carried us
through the war. His hand was seen in the workmanship of those statutes
that restored and brought back the unity and married calm of the States.
His hand was in all that great legislation that created the war
currency, and in a still greater work that redeemed the promises of the
Government, and made the currency equal to gold. And when at last called
from the halls of legislation into a high executive office he displayed
that experience, intelligence, firmness and poise of character which has
carried us through a stormy period of three years. With one-half the
public press crying ‘crucify him,’ and a hostile Congress seeking to
prevent success, in all this he remained unmoved until victory crowned
him. The great fiscal affairs of the nation, and the great business
interests of the country, he has guarded and preserved, while executing
the law of resumption and effecting its object without a jar and against
the false prophecies of one-half of the press and all the Democracy of
this continent. He has shown himself able to meet with calmness the
great emergencies of the Government for twenty-five years. He has
trodden the perilous heights of public duty, and against all the shafts
of malice has borne his breast unharmed. He has stood in the blaze of
‘that fierce light that beats against the throne,’ but its fiercest ray
has found no flaw in his armor, no stain on his shield. I do not present
him as a better Republican or as a better man than thousands of others
we honor, but I present him for your deliberate consideration. I
nominate John Sherman, of Ohio.”
Daniel Dougherty, of Pennsylvania,
_In the Democratic National Convention at Cincinnati, June 1880,
nominating Winfield Scott Hancock for the Presidency_.
“I propose to present to the thoughtful consideration of the convention
the name of one who, on the field of battle, was styled ‘The Superb,’
yet won the still nobler renown as a military governor whose first act
when in command of Louisiana and Texas was to salute the Constitution by
proclaiming that the military rule shall ever be subservient to the
civil power. The plighted word of a soldier was proved by the acts of a
statesman. I nominate one whose name will suppress all factions, will be
alike acceptable to the North and to the South—a name that will thrill
the Republic, a name, if nominated, of a man that will crush the last
embers of sectional strife, and whose name will be hailed as the dawning
of the day of perpetual brotherhood. With him we can fling away our
shields and wage an aggressive war. We can appeal to the supreme
tribunal of the American people against the corruption of the Republican
party and their untold violations of constitutional liberty. With him as
our chieftain the bloody banner of the Republicans will fall from their
palsied grasp. Oh, my countrymen, in this supreme moment the destinies
of the Republic are at stake, and the liberties of the people are
imperiled. The people hang breathless on your deliberation. Take heed!
Make no mis-step! I nominate one who can carry every Southern State, and
who can carry Pennsylvania, Indiana, Connecticut, New Jersey and New
York—the soldier-statesman, with a record as stainless as his
sword—Winfield Scott Hancock, of Pennsylvania. If elected, he will take
his seat.”
George Gray, of Delaware,
_In the Democratic National Convention at Cincinnati, June, 1880,
nominating Thomas F. Bayard for the Presidency_.
“I am instructed by the Delaware delegation to make in their behalf a
nomination for the Presidency of the United States. Small in territory
and population, Delaware is proud of her history and of her position in
the sisterhood of States. Always devoted to the principles of that great
party which maintains the equality and rights of the States, as well as
of the individual citizen, she is here to-day in grand council to do all
that in her lies for the advancement of our common cause. Who will best
lead the Democratic hosts in the impending struggle for the restoration
of honest government and the constitutional rights of the States and of
their people, is the important question that we must decide. Delaware is
not blinded by her affections when she presents to this convention, as a
candidate for this great trust, the name of her gallant son, Thomas
Francis Bayard. He is no carpet knight rashly put forth to flash a
maiden sword in this great contest. He is a veteran covered with the
scars of many hard-fought battles, when the principles of constitutional
liberty have been at stake in an arena where the giants of radicalism
were his foes, and his bruised arms, not ‘hung up,’ but still burnished
brightly, are monuments of his prowess. Thomas F. Bayard is a statesman
who will need no introduction to the American people. His name and his
record are known wherever our flag floats—aye, wherever the English
tongue is spoken. His is no sectional fame. With sympathies as broad as
the continent, a private character as spotless as the snow from heaven,
a judgment as clear as the sunlight, an intellect keen and bright as a
flashing sabre, a courage that none dare question, honest in thought and
deed, the people all know him by heart, and, as I said before, they need
not be told who and what he is. But you, gentlemen of the convention,
who must keep in view the success so important to be achieved in
November, pray consider the elements of his strength. Who more than he
will as a candidate appeal to the best traditions of our party and our
country? In whom more than he will the business interests of the
country, now re-awakening to new life and hope, confide for that economy
and repose which shall send capital and labor forth like twin brothers
hand in hand to the great work of building up the country’s prosperity
and advancing its civilization? Who better than he will represent the
heart and intellect of our great party, or give expression to its
noblest inspirations? Who will draw so largely upon the honest and
reflecting independent voters as he, whose very name is a synonym for
honest and fearless opposition to corruption every where and in every
form, and who has dared to follow in what he thought the path of duty
with a chivalrous devotion that never counted personal gains or losses?
Who has contributed more than Thomas Francis Bayard to the commanding
strength that the Democratic party possesses to-day? Blot out him and
his influence, and who would not feel and mourn his loss? Pardon
Delaware if she says too much; she speaks in no disparagement of the
distinguished Democrats whose names sparkle like stars in the political
firmament. She honors them all. But she knows her son, and her heart
will speak. Nominate him and success is assured. His very name will be a
platform. It will fire every Democratic heart with a new zeal and put a
sword in the hand of every honest man with which to drive from place and
power the reckless men who have for four years held both against the
expressed will of the American people. Don’t tell us that you admire and
love him, but that he is unavailable. Tell the country that the sneer of
our Republican enemies is a lie, and that such a man as Thomas F. Bayard
is not too good a man to receive the nomination of the Democratic party.
Take the whole people into your confidence, and tell them that an honest
and patriotic party is to be led by as honest and pure a man as God ever
made; that a brave party is to be led by a brave man whose courage will
never falter, be the danger or emergency what it may. Tell them that our
party has the courage of its convictions, and that statesmanship,
ability and honesty are to be realized once more in the government of
these United States, and the nomination of Thomas F. Bayard will fall
like a benediction on the land, and will be the presage of a victory
that will sweep like a whirlwind from the lakes to the Gulf and from
ocean to ocean.”
Frye Nominating Blaine.
_In the Chicago Convention, 1880_.
“I once saw a storm at sea in the nighttime; an old ship battling for
its life with the fury of the tempest; darkness everywhere; the winds
raging and howling; the huge waves beating on the sides of the ship, and
making her shiver from stem to stern. The lightning was flashing, the
thunders rolling; there was danger everywhere. I saw at the helm, a
bold, courageous, immovable, commanding man. In the tempest, calm; in
the commotion, quiet; in the danger, hopeful. I saw him take that old
ship and bring her into her harbor, into still waters, into safety. That
man was a hero. [Applause.] I saw the good old ship of State, the State
of Maine, within the last year, fighting her way through the same waves,
against the dangers. She was freighted with all that is precious in the
principles of our republic; with the rights of the American citizenship,
with all that is guaranteed to the American citizen by our Constitution.
The eyes of the whole nation were on her, and intense anxiety filled
every American heart lest the grand old ship, the “State of Maine,”
might go down beneath the waves forever, carrying her precious freight
with her. But there was a man at the helm, calm, deliberate, commanding,
sagacious; he made even the foolish man wise; courageous, he inspired
the timid with courage; hopeful, he gave heart to the dismayed, and he
brought that good old ship safely into harbor, into safety; and she
floats to-day greater, purer, stronger for her baptism of danger. That
man too, was heroic, and his name was James G. Blaine. [Loud cheers.]
“Maine sent us to this magnificent Convention with a memory of her own
salvation from impending peril fresh upon her. To you representatives of
50,000,000 of the American people, who have met here to counsel how the
Republic can be saved, she says, “Representatives of the people, take
the man, the true man, the staunch man, for your leader, who has just
saved me, and he will bring you to safety and certain victory.””
Senator Hill’s Denunciation of Senator Mahone.
_In Extra Session of the Senate, March 14, 1881._
Very well; the records of the country must settle that with the Senator.
The Senator will say who was elected as a republican from any of the
States to which I allude. I say what the whole world knows, that there
are thirty-eight men on this floor elected as democrats, declaring
themselves to be democrats, who supported Hancock, and who have
supported the democratic ticket in every election that has occurred, and
who were elected, moreover, by democratic Legislatures, elected by
Legislatures which were largely democratic; and the Senator from New
York will not deny it. One other Senator who was elected, not as a
democrat, but as an independent, has announced his purpose to vote with
us on this question. That makes thirty-nine, unless some man of the
thirty-eight who was elected by a democratic Legislature proves false to
his trust. Now, the Senator from New York does not say that somebody has
been bought. No; I have not said that. He does not say somebody has been
taken and carried away. No; I have not said that. But the Senator has
said, and here is his language, and I hope he will not find it necessary
to correct it:
It may be said, very likely I shall be found to say despite some
criticism that I may make upon so saying in advance, that
notwithstanding the words “during the present session,” day after
to-morrow or the day after that, if the majority then present in the
Chamber changes, that majority may overthrow all this proceeding,
obliterate it, and set up an organization of the Senate in conformity
with and not in contradiction of the edict of the election.
The presidential election he was referring to—
If an apology is needed for the objection which I feel to that, it will
be found I think in the circumstance that a majority, a constitutional
majority of the Senate, is against that resolution, is against the
formation of committees democratic in inspiration and persuasion, to
which are to go for this session all executive matters.
The Senator has announced to-day that the majority on this side of the
Chamber was only temporary. He has announced over and over that it was
to be a temporary majority. I meet him on the fact. I say there are
thirty-eight members sitting in this Hall to-day who were elected by
democratic Legislatures, and as democrats, and one distinguished Senator
who was not elected as a democrat, but by democratic votes, the
distinguished Senator from Illinois, [Mr. DAVIS,] has announced his
purpose to vote with these thirty-eight democrats. Where, then, have I
misrepresented? If that be true, and if those who were elected as
democrats are not faithless to the constituency that elected them, you
will not have the majority when the Senate is full.
Again, so far from charging the Senator from New York with being a
personal party to this arrangement, I acquitted him boldly and
fearlessly, for I undertake to say what I stated before, and I repeat
it, to his credit, he is no party to an arrangement by which any man
chosen by a democratic Legislature and as a democrat is not going to
vote for the party that sent him here. Sir, I know too well what frowns
would gather with lightning fierceness upon the brow of the Senator from
New York if I were to intimate or any other man were to intimate that
he, elected as a republican, because he happened to have a controlling
vote was going to vote with the democrats on the organization. What
would be insulting to him he cannot, he will not respect in another.
Now, sir, I say the Senator has been unjust in the conclusion which he
has drawn, because it necessarily makes somebody who was chosen as a
democrat ally himself with the republicans, not on great questions of
policy, but on a question of organization, on a question of mere
political organization. I assume that that has not been done. No man can
charge that I have come forward and assumed that his fidelity was in
question. I have assumed that the Senator from New York was wrong in his
statement. Why? Because if any gentleman who was chosen to this body as
a democrat has concluded not to vote with the democrats on the
organization, he has not given us notice, and I take it for granted that
when a gentleman changes his opinions, as every Senator has a right to
change his opinions, his first duty is to give notice of that change to
those with whom he has been associated. He has not given that notice; no
democrat of the thirty-eight has given that notice to this side of the
House. I therefore assume that no such change has occurred.
But there is another obligation. While I concede the right of any
gentleman to change his opinions and change his party affiliations, yet
I say that when he has arrived at the conclusion that duty requires him
to make that change he must give notice to the constituency that sent
him here. I have heard of no such notice. If the people of any of these
democratic States, who through democratic Legislatures have sent
thirty-eight democrats to this body and one more by democratic votes,
have received notice of a change of party opinion or a change of party
affiliations by any of those they sent here, I have not heard of it; the
evidence of it has not been produced.
Sir, I concede the right of every man to change his opinions; I concede
the right of every man to change his party affiliations; I concede the
right of any man who was elected to the high place of a seat in this
Senate as a democrat to change and become a republican; but I deny in
the presence of this Senate, I deny in the hearing of this people, that
any man has a right to accept a commission from one party and execute
the trust confided to him in the interest of another party. Demoralized
as this country has become, though every wind bears to us charges of
fraud and bargain and corruption; though the highest positions in the
land, we fear, have been degraded by being occupied by persons who
procured them otherwise than by the popular will, yet I deny that the
people of either party in this country have yet given any man a right to
be faithless to a trust. They have given no man a right to accept a
commission as a democrat and hold that commission and act with the
republicans. Manhood, bravery, courage, fidelity, morality, respect for
the opinions of mankind requires that whenever a man has arrived at the
conclusion that he cannot carry out the trust which was confided to him,
he should return the commission and tell his constituents, “I have
changed my mind and therefore return you the commission you gave me.”
Sir, I do not believe that a single one of the thirty-eight gentlemen
who were elected as democrats and whose names are before me here, will
hold in his pocket a commission conferred by democrats, conferred on him
as a democrat, and without giving notice to his constituency, without
giving notice to his associates, will execute that commission in the
interest of the adversary party and go and communicate his conclusion,
first of all, and only, to the members of the adversary party.
Sir, who is it that has changed? Whom of these thirty-eight does the
Senator rely upon to vote with the republicans? That one has not
notified us; he has not notified his constituency. Therefore I say it is
not true, and I cannot sit here quietly and allow a gentleman on the
other side of the Chamber, however distinguished, to get up here and
assume and asseverate over and over that somebody elected as a democrat
is faithless to his trust, and not repel it. No, gentlemen, you are
deceived; you will be disappointed. I vindicate the character of
American citizenship, I vindicate the honor of human nature when I say
you will be disappointed, and no man elected as a democrat is going to
help you organize the committees of this Senate. I do not say so because
I know. No, I have no personal information, but I will stand here and
affirm that no man who has been deemed by any constituency in this
country to be worthy of a place in this body will be guilty of that
treachery. And how is the Senator’s majority to come? How many are
there? He has not told us. The papers said this morning that there were
two or three, and they named my good friend from Tennessee, [Mr.
HARRIS.] When I saw that I knew the whole thing was absurd. The idea
that anybody in this world would ever believe that my friend from
Tennessee could possibly be guilty of such a thing, and my colleague
[Mr. BROWN] also was named—gentlemen who were born and reared in the
school of fidelity to their party. How many? Have you one? If you have
but one that was elected as a democrat and who has concluded to go with
the republicans, then you have only half, you have 38 to 38, and I
suppose you count upon the vote of the Vice-President. Has that been
arranged? Sir, I will not blame you if you vote for voting according to
the sentiment that elected you, for voting according to the professions
of your principles which you avowed when you were elected. I deny myself
the right of the Vice-President to take part in the constitution and
organization of this Senate; but I shall not make the question. If you
have got one, the vote will be 38 to 38. Who is the one? Who is
ambitious to do what no man in the history of this country has ever
done, to be the first man to stand up in this high presence, after this
country has reached fifty million people, and proclaim from this proud
eminence that he disgraces the commission he holds. [Applause in the
galleries.]
The VICE-PRESIDENT rapped to order.
Mr. HILL, of Georgia. Who is it? Who can he be? Do you receive him with
affection? Do you receive him with respect? Is such a man worthy of your
association? Such a man is not worthy to be a democrat. Is he worthy to
be a republican? If my friend from Illinois, my friend from Kansas, or
my friend from New York, were to come to me holding a republican
commission in his pocket, sent here by a republican Legislature, and
whisper to me “I will vote with the democrats on organization,” I would
tell him that if he so came he would be expelled with ignominy from the
ranks of the party.
And why do you beg us to wait? If all who were elected as democrats are
to remain democrats, what good will waiting do you? You will still be in
a minority of two, the same minority you are in this morning.
Mr. President, I affirm that no man elected and sent here by a
democratic Legislature as a democrat, whatever may have been local
issues, whatever may have been the divisions of factions, and above all
no man who professed to be a democrat when he was elected and who
procured his election by professing to be a democrat, in the name of
democracy and republicanism as well, in the name of American nature, I
charge that no such man will prove false to his trust; and therefore why
wait? Why delay the business of the country? Why should the nominations
lie on the table unacted on? Why should we spend days and days here with
the parties on the other side filibustering for time to get delay, to
get a few days? Why should we do that when upon the assumption that the
Senate is not to blush at an exhibition of treachery the result will be
the same one week, two weeks, six months, two years from now that it is
now?
Sir, I know that there is a great deal in this question. The American
people have had much to humiliate them; all peoples have much to
humiliate them. I know that the patronage of this Government has become
very great. I know that the distinguished gentleman who presides at the
other end of the Avenue holds in his hand millions and hundreds of
millions of patronage. To our shame be it said it has been whispered a
hundred times all through the country by the presses of both parties
until it has become absolutely familiar to American ears that the
patronage of the Federal Government has been used to buy votes and
control elections to keep one party in power. It is a question that
confronts every honest statesman whether something shall not be done to
lessen that patronage. I respond to the sentiment of the President in
his inaugural when I say there ought to be a rule in even the civil
service by which this patronage shall be placed where it cannot be used
for such purposes. If it is not done, I do not know what humiliations
are in store for us all.
But, Mr. President, here are facts that no man can escape. Gentlemen of
the republican party of this Senate, you cannot organize the Senate
unless you can get the vote of some man who was elected as a democrat.
You cannot escape that. Have you gotten it? If so, how? If you have,
nobody knows it but yourselves. How? There is no effect without a cause;
there is no change without a purpose; there is no bargain without a
consideration. What is the cause? If there has been a change, why a
change? How does it happen that you know the change and we do not? What
induced the change? I deny that there has been a change. I maintain that
all the distinguished gentlemen who make up the thirty-eight democrats
on this side of the Chamber are firm, firm to the principles that sent
them here, firm to the professions that sent them here, and firm to the
constituencies that sent them here. They were elected as democrats. Now
on the question of organization, which is nothing in the world but a
pure political question and a party question at that, they will act with
the democratic party, and you, gentlemen, will be deceived if you
calculate otherwise. Therefore, there is no necessity for you to enter
into all this filibustering and producing this delay for the purpose of
getting the organization.
Mr. President, as I said before, the Senate should be a place where
there should be no masquerading; men should deal frankly with each
other. If I were to charge any gentleman on the republican side of the
Chamber who was elected as a republican, who professed to be a
republican when he was elected, with having made arrangements with the
democrats to vote with them, I should insult him and he would resent it
as an insult, and gentlemen excuse me for repelling the charge which if
made against you, you would repel as an insult. I repel as an insult the
charge made against any democrat that he would be false to his colors
and is intending to vote with you on the organization.
Mr. HARRIS. Mr. President, I rise only to say that I regret that the
honorable Senator from Georgia should have deemed it proper to dignify
the miserable newspaper twaddle in respect to my political position——
Mr. HILL, of Georgia. I will say to my friend I did not intend——
Mr. HARRIS. I am quite sure the Senator did not intend anything unkind
to me; yet, by mentioning the matter here, he gives a dignity to it that
it never could have had otherwise, and one that it is not worthy of,
especially in view of the fact, as I very well know, that there is not a
democrat or a republican in America, who knows me, who has ever doubted,
or doubts to-day, what my political position is. It is unworthy of
further notice, and I will notice it no more.
Mr. MAHONE. Mr. President, I do not propose to detain you and the Senate
more than a few minutes. The distinguished Senator from Georgia has
manifestly engaged in an effort to disclose my position on this floor.
Mr. HILL, of Georgia. I do not know what your position is. How could I
disclose it?
Mr. MAHONE. Sir, the Senator might be a little more direct as he might
well have been in the course of his remarks in asking my position; and
that I will give him.
Now, Mr. President, the Senator has assumed not only to be the custodian
here of the democratic party of this nation, but he has dared to assert
his right to speak for a constituency that I have the privilege, the
proud and honorable privilege on this floor, of representing [applause
in the galleries] without his assent, without the assent of such
democracy as that he speaks for. [Applause in the galleries.] I owe
them, sir, I owe you [addressing Mr. HILL] and those for whom you
undertake to speak nothing in this Chamber. [Applause in the galleries.]
I came here, sir, as a Virginian to represent my people, not to
represent that democracy for which you stand. [Applause in the
galleries.] I come with as proud a claim to represent that people as you
to represent the people of Georgia, won on fields where I have vied with
Georgians whom I commanded and others in the cause of my people and of
their section in the late unhappy contest; but thank God for the peace
and the good of the country that contest is over, and as one of those
who engaged in it, and who has neither here nor elsewhere any apology to
make for the part taken, I am here by my humble efforts to bring peace
to this whole country, peace and good will between the sections, not
here as a partisan, not here to represent that Bourbonism which has done
so much injury to my section of the country. [Applause in the
galleries.]
Now, sir, the gentleman undertakes to say what constitutes a democrat. A
democrat! I hold, sir, that to-day I am a better democrat than he,
infinitely better—he who stands nominally committed to a full vote, a
free ballot, and an honest count. I should like to know how he stands
for these things where tissue ballots are fashionable. [Laughter, and
applause in the galleries.]
Now, sir, I serve notice on you that I intend to be here the custodian
of my own democracy. I do not intend to be run by your caucus. I am in
every sense a free man here. I trust I am able to protect my own rights
and to defend those of the people whom I represent, and certainly to
take care of my own. I do not intend that any Senator on this floor
shall undertake to criticise my conduct by innuendoes, a method not
becoming this body or a straightforward legitimate line of pursuit in
argument.
I wish the Senator from Georgia to understand just here that we may get
along in the future harmoniously, that the way to deal with me is to
deal directly. We want no bills of discovery. Now, sir, you will find
out how I am going to vote in a little while. [Applause.]
Mr. DAVIS, of West Virginia. Mr. President, during this temporary
suspension——
Mr. MAHONE. I have not yielded the floor. I am waiting for a little
order.
Mr. DAVIS, of West Virginia. I wish to call the attention of the Chair
to the disorder in the Senate both when my friend from Georgia was
speaking and now. I believe it has been some time since we have had as
much disorder as we have had to-day in the galleries. I hope the Chair
will enforce order.
Mr. TELLER. I should like to say that much of the disorder originated in
the first place from the cheering on the democratic side of the Chamber.
The VICE-PRESIDENT. The Chair announces that order must be maintained in
the galleries; otherwise the Sergeant-at-Arms will be directed to clear
the galleries.
Mr. MAHONE. I promised not to detain the Senate, and I regret that so
early after my appearance here I should find it necessary to intrude any
remarks whatsoever upon the attention of this body. I would prefer to be
a little modest; I would prefer to listen and to learn; but I cannot
feel content after what has passed in this presence, when the gentleman
by all manner of methods, all manner of insinuations, direct and
indirect, has sought to do that which would have been better done and
more bravely pursued if he had gone directly to the question itself. He
has sought to discover where the democrat was who should here choose to
exercise his right to cast his vote as he pleased, who should here
exercise the liberty of manhood to differ with his caucus. Why, sir, the
gentleman seems to have forgotten that I refused positively to attend
his little lovefeast; not only that, I refused to take part in a caucus
which represents a party that has not only waged war upon me but upon
those whom I represent on this floor. They have not only intruded within
the boundaries of my own State, without provocation, to teach honesty
and true democracy, but they would now pursue my people further by
intruding their unsolicited advice and admonition to their
representative in this Chamber. Yes, sir, you have been notified, duly
notified that I would take no part or lot in any political machinery.
Further than that, you have been notified that I was supremely
indifferent to what you did; that I had no wish to prefer, and was
indifferent to your performances; that I should stand on this floor
representing in part the people of the State of Virginia, for whom I
have the right to speak (and not the Senator from Georgia) even of their
democracy. The gentleman may not be advised that the Legislature which
elected me did not require that I should state either that I was a
democrat or anything else. I suppose he could not get here from Georgia
unless he was to say that he was a democrat, anyhow. [Laughter.] I come
here without being required to state to my people what I am. They were
willing to trust me, sir, and I was elected by the people, and not by a
legislature, for it was an issue in the canvass. There was no man
elected by the party with which I am identified that did not go to the
Legislature instructed by the sovereigns to vote for me for the position
I occupy on this floor. It required no oath of allegiance blindly given
to stand by your democracy, such as is, [laughter,] that makes a
platform and practices another thing. That is the democracy they have in
some of the Southern States.
Now, I hope the gentleman will be relieved. He has been chassezing all
around this Chamber to see if he could not find a partner somewhere; he
has been looking around in every direction; occasionally he would refer
to some other Senator to know exactly where the Senator was who stood
here as a democrat that had the manhood and the boldness to assert his
opinions in this Chamber free from the dictation of a mere caucus. Now,
I want the gentleman to know henceforth and forever here is a man, sir,
that dares stand up [applause] and speak for himself without regard to
caucus in all matters. [Applause, long continued, in the galleries and
on the floor.] Mr. President, pardon me; I have done.
Mr. HILL, of Georgia. Mr. President—
The VICE-PRESIDENT. The Senate will be in order. Gentlemen on the floor
not members of the Senate will take seats.
Mr. HILL, of Georgia. Mr. President, I hope nobody imagines that I rise
to make any particular reply to the remarkable exhibition we have just
seen. I rise to say a few things in justification of myself. I certainly
did not say one word to justify the gentleman in the statement that I
made an assault upon him, unless he was the one man who had been elected
as a democrat and was not going to vote with his party. I never saw that
gentleman before the other day. I have not the slightest unkind feeling
for him. I never alluded to him by name; I never alluded to his State;
and I cannot understand how the gentleman says that I alluded to him
except upon the rule laid down by the distinguished Senator from New
York, that a guilty conscience needs no accuser. [Applause and hisses in
the galleries.] I did not mention the Senator. It had been stated here
by the Senator from New York over and over that the other side would
have a majority when that side was full. I showed it was impossible that
they should have a majority unless they could get one democratic vote,
with the vote of the Vice-President. I did not know who it was; I asked
who it was; I begged to know who it was; and to my utter astonishment
the gentleman from Virginia comes out and says he is the man.
The Senator from Virginia makes a very strange announcement. He charged
me not only with attacking him, but with attacking the people of
Virginia? Did I say a word of the people of Virginia? I said that the
people of no portion of this country would tolerate treachery. Was that
attacking the people of Virginia? I said that thirty-eight men had been
elected to this body as democrats. Does the Senator deny that? Does he
say he was elected here not as a democrat? He says he was not required
to declare that he was a democrat, and in the next breath he says he is
a truer, better democrat than I am. Then I commend him to you. Take good
care of him, my friends. Nurse him well. How do you like to have a worse
democrat than I am?
Mr. CONKLING and others. A better democrat.
Mr. HILL, of Georgia. Oh, a better! Then my friend from New York is a
better democrat than I am. You have all turned democrats; and we have in
the United States Senate such an exhibition as that of a gentleman
showing his democracy by going over to the Republicans!
Sir, I will not defend Virginia. She needs no defense. Virginia has
given this country and the world and humanity some of the brightest
names of history. She holds in her bosom to-day the ashes of some of the
noblest and greatest men that ever illustrated the glories of any
country. I say to the Senator from Virginia that neither Jefferson, nor
Madison, nor Henry, nor Washington, nor Leigh, nor Tucker, nor any of
the long list of great men that Virginia has produced ever accepted a
commission to represent one party and came here and represented another.
[Applause on the floor and in the galleries.]
Mr. COCKRELL. I trust that those at least who are enjoying the privilege
of the floor of the Senate Chamber will be prohibited from cheering.
The VICE-PRESIDENT. The Chair will state that the violation of the rules
does not appear to be in the galleries, but by persons who have been
admitted to the privilege of the floor. The Chair regrets to clear the
floor, but if the manifestation is continued he will be obliged to do
so. It is a violation of the rules of the Senate.
Mr. MAHONE rose.
Mr. HILL, of Georgia. Does the Senator from Virginia wish to interrupt
me?
Mr. MAHONE. I do wish to interrupt you.
The VICE-PRESIDENT. Does the Senator from Georgia yield?
Mr. HILL, of Georgia. Certainly.
Mr. MAHONE. I understand you to say that I accepted a commission from
one party and came here to represent another. Do I understand you
correctly?
Mr. HILL, of Georgia. I understood that you were elected as a democrat.
Mr. MAHONE. Never mind; answer the question.
Mr. HILL, of Georgia. Yes, I say you accepted a commission, having been
elected as a democrat. That is my information.
Mr. MAHONE. I ask you the question: Did you say that I had accepted a
commission from one party and came here to represent another? That is
the question.
Mr. HILL, of Georgia. Oh, I said that will be the case if you vote with
the republicans. You have not done it yet, and I say you will not do it.
Mr. MAHONE. If not out of order in this place, I say to the gentleman
that if he undertakes to make that statement it is unwarranted and
untrue.
Mr. HILL, of Georgia. I should like to ask the gentleman a question: Was
he not acting with the democratic party, and was he not elected as a
democrat to this body? Answer that question.
Mr. MAHONE. Quickly, sir. I was elected as a readjuster. Do you know
what they are? [Laughter and applause.]
The VICE-PRESIDENT rapped with his gavel.
Mr. HILL, of Georgia. I understand there are in Virginia what are called
readjuster democrats and debt-paying democrats, or something of that
kind, but as I understand they are all democrats. We have nothing to do
with that issue. We are not to settle the debt of Virginia in the Senate
Chamber; but I ask the Senator again, was he not elected to this body as
a member of the national democratic party?
Mr. MAHONE. I will answer you, sir. No. You have got the answer now.
Mr. HILL, of Georgia. Then I conceive that the gentleman spoke truly
when he said that I do not know what he is. What is he? Everybody has
understood that he voted with the democrats. Did he not support Hancock
for the Presidency? Did not the Senator support Hancock for the
Presidency, I ask him? [A pause] Dumb! Did he not act with the
democratic party in the national election, and was not the Senator from
Virginia himself a democrat? That is the question. Why attempt to evade?
Gentlemen, I commend him to you. Is there a man on that side of the
Chamber who doubts that the Senator was sent to this body as a democrat?
Is there a man in this whole body who doubts it? Is there a man in
Virginia who doubts it? The gentleman will not deny it. Up to this very
hour it was not known on this side of the Chamber or in the country how
he would vote in this case, or whether he was still a democrat or not. I
maintain that he is. The Senator from New York seemed to have
information that somebody who was elected as a democrat was not, and I
went to work to find out who it was. It seems I have uncovered him. For
months the papers of the country have been discussing and debating how
the Senator would vote. Nobody could know, nobody could tell, nobody
could guess. I have been a truer friend to the Senator than he has been
to himself. I have maintained always that when it came to the test the
Senator would be true to his commission; that the Senator would be true
to the democratic professions he made when he was elected. He will not
rise in this presence and say he could have been elected to the Senate
as a republican. He will not rise in the Senate and say he could have
been elected to the Senate if he had given notice that on the
organization of this body he would vote with the republicans. He will
not say it.
The gentleman makes some remarks about the caucus. I have no objection
to a gentleman remaining out of a caucus. That is not the question. I
have no objection to a gentleman being independent. That is not the
question. I have no objection to a gentleman being a readjuster in local
politics. That is not the question. I have no objection to a man dodging
from one side to another on such a question. With that I have nothing to
do. That is a matter of taste with him; but I do object to any man
coming into this high council, sent here by one sentiment, commissioned
by one party, professing to be a democrat, and after he gets here acting
with the other party. If the gentleman wants to be what he so proudly
said, a man, when he changes opinions, as he had a right to do, when he
changes party affiliations as he had a right to do, he should have gone
to the people of Virginia and said, “You believed me to be a democrat
when you gave me this commission; while I differed with many of you on
the local question of the debt, I was with you cordially in national
politics; I belonged to the national democratic party; but I feel that
it is my duty now to co-operate with the republican party, and I return
you the commission which you gave to me.” If the gentleman had done that
and then gone before the people of Virginia and asked them to renew his
commission upon his change of opinion, he would have been entitled to
the eulogy of manhood he pronounced upon himself here in such theatrical
style. I like manhood.
I say once more, it is very far from me to desire to do the Senator
injury. I have nothing but the kindest feelings for him. He is very much
mistaken if he supposes I had any personal enmity against him. I have
not the slightest. As I said before, I never spoke to the gentleman in
my life until I met him a few days ago; but I have done what the
newspapers could not do, both sides having been engaged in the effort
for months; I have done what both parties could not do, what the whole
country could not do—I have brought out the Senator from Virginia.
But now, in the kindest spirit, knowing the country from which the
honorable Senator comes, identified as I am with its fame and its
character, loving as I do every line in its history, revering as I do
its long list of great names, I perform the friendly office unasked of
making a last appeal to the honorable Senator, whatever other fates
befall him, to be true to the trust which the proud people of Virginia
gave him, and whoever else may be disappointed, whoever else may be
deceived, whoever else may be offended at the organization of the
Senate, I appeal to the gentleman to be true to the people, to the
sentiment, to the party which he knows commissioned him to a seat in
this body.
Mr. LOGAN. Mr. President, I have but a word to say. I have listened to a
very extraordinary speech. The Senate of the United States is a body
where each Senator has a right to have a free voice. I have never known
before a Senator, especially a new Senator, to be arraigned in the
manner in which the Senator from Virginia has been, and his conduct
criticised before he had performed any official act, save one, so far as
voting is concerned. He needs no defense at my hands; he is able to take
care of himself; but I tell the Senator from Georgia when he says to
this country that no man has a right to come here unless he fulfills
that office which was dictated to him by a party, he says that which
does not belong to American independence. Sir, it takes more nerve, more
manhood, to strike the party shackles from your limbs and give free
thought its scope than any other act that man can perform. The Senator
from Georgia himself, in times gone by, has changed his opinions. If the
records of this country are true (and he knows whether they are or not)
he, when elected to a convention as a Union man, voted for secession.
[Applause in the galleries.]
The VICE-PRESIDENT rapped with his gavel.
Mr. HOAR. If my friend will pardon me a moment, I desire to call the
attention of the Chair to the fact that there has been more disorder in
this Chamber during this brief session of the Senate than in all the
aggregate of many years before. I take occasion when a gentleman with
whose opinions I perfectly agree myself in speaking to say that I shall
move the Chair to clear any portion of the gallery from which
expressions of applause or dissent shall come if they occur again.
Mr. LOGAN. What I have said in reference to this record I do not say by
way of casting at the Senator, but merely to call attention to the fact
that men are not always criticised so severely for changing their
opinions. The Senator from Georgia spoke well of my colleague. Well he
may. He is an honorable man and a man deserving well of all the people
of this country. He was elected not as a democrat but by democratic
votes. He votes with you. He never was a democrat in his life; he is not
to-day. You applaud him and why? Because he votes with you. You want his
vote; that is all. You criticise another man who was elected by
republican votes and democratic votes, readjusters as they are called,
and say that he has no right to his opinions in this Chamber. The
criticism is not well. Do you say that a man shall not change his
political opinions?
The Senator from Georgia in days gone by, in my boyhood days, I heard
of, not as a democrat. To-day he sits here as a democrat. No one wishes
to criticise him because he has changed his political opinions. He had a
right to do so. I was a democrat once, too, and I had a right to change
my opinions and I did change them. The man who will not change his
opinions when he is honestly convinced that he was in error is a man who
is not entitled to the respect of men. I say this to the Senator from
Georgia. The Senator says to us, “take him,” referring to the Senator
from Virginia. Yes, sir, we will take him if he will come with us, and
we will take every other honest man who will come. We will take every
honest man in the South who wants to come and join the republican party,
and give him the right hand of fellowship, be he black or white. Will
you do as much?
Mr. HILL of Georgia. We have got them already.
Mr. LOGAN. Yes, and if a man happens to differ with you the tyranny of
political opinion in your section of country is such that you undertake
to lash him upon the world and try to expose him to the gaze of the
public as a man unfaithful to his trust. We have no such tyranny of
opinion in the country where I live; and it will be better for your
section when such notions are driven to the shades and retired from the
action of your people.
I do not know that the gentleman from Virginia intends to vote as a
republican. I have never heard him say so. I know only what he has said
here to-day; but I respect him for stating to the Senate and the country
that he is tired of the Bourbon democracy; and if more men were tired of
it the country would be better off. The people are getting tired of it
even down in your country, every where. The sooner we have a division
down there the better it will be for both sides, for the people of the
whole country.
I did not rise to make any defense of the Senator from Virginia, for he
is able, as I said, to defend himself, but merely to say to the Senator
from Georgia that the criticism made upon that Senator without any just
cause is something I never witnessed before in this Chamber or in any
other deliberative body, and in my judgment it was not justified in any
way whatever.
Mr. HILL, of Georgia. I desire to say once more, what everybody in the
audience knows is true, that I did not arraign the Senator from
Virginia. In the first speech I never alluded to Virginia or to the
Senator from Virginia.
Mr. LOGAN. Every one in the Chamber knew to whom the Senator alluded.
Mr. HILL, of Georgia. I alluded to somebody who was elected as a
democrat, and who was going to vote as a republican.
Mr. TELLER. He was not elected as a democrat.
Mr. HILL, of Georgia. Then I did not allude to the Senator from
Virginia.
Mr. TELLER. The Senator said that thirty-eight members of the Senate
were elected as democrats.
Mr. HILL, of Georgia. Certainly they were.
Mr. TELLER. That is a mistake.
Mr. HILL, of Georgia. Certainly they were, and the record shows it.
Mr. CONKLING. May I ask the Senator a question?
Mr. HILL, of Georgia. Let me go on and then you can follow me. I again
say it is strange that the Senator from Virginia should say I arraigned
him, and his valiant defender, the Senator from Illinois, comes to
defend him from an arraignment that was never made.
Mr. LOGAN. Did not the Senator from Georgia ask the Senator from
Virginia in his seat if he was not elected as a Democrat? Did not the
Senator charge that a man was acting treacherously to his constituents?
Did the Senator not make the most severe arraignment of him that he
could possibly make?
Mr. HILL, of Georgia. If the Senator will allow me, I did that only
after the Senator from Virginia had arraigned himself. The Senator from
Virginia insisted that I alluded to him when I had not called his name,
and I had not alluded to his State and when I had arraigned nobody.
Mr. LOGAN. Will the Senator allow me to ask him this question: Did he
not have in his mind distinctly the Senator from Virginia when he made
his insinuations?
Mr. HILL, of Georgia. I will answer the gentleman’s question fairly. I
did believe that the gentlemen on the other side who were counting upon
a democratic vote were counting upon the Senator from Virginia, but I
equally believed that they would be disappointed. I did not believe that
the Senator from Virginia was guilty, and I in perfect sincerity and
good faith, so far from arraigning him, intended to defend him from the
foul suspicion, and my honest repulsion of the insinuation, which was
necessary in consequence of what they expected, was regarded by the
Senator himself as an arraignment. There is an anecdote told in the life
of the great minister, Whitefield. When he was speaking one day in the
country to an audience, he described the enormity of sin and the
characteristics of sin; he did it with wonderful power. When he came out
he was assailed by a gentleman for having made a personal assault on
him. “Why,” said Whitefield, “I never heard of you before; I did not
intend any assault upon you.” He replied, “Well, sir, you told me
everything I have been doing all my life.” I frankly confess I am not a
man to dodge. The papers have justified me in believing, Senators have
justified me in believing, that you are calculating to get the
democratic vote of the Senator from Virginia, whom the whole country has
treated as having been elected as a democrat. I believed you would be
disappointed; I believed that because you would be disappointed it was
wholly unnecessary to delay this organization. I did not believe the
Senator would vote with you, and in vindication of that Senator I will
not believe it yet. He has not said so. He has made the mistake, because
of what the papers say, of assuming that I alluded to him; but I
vindicate him yet. He said if I asserted that he was elected as a
democrat and would be false to his commission, I said what was not
warranted and what was untrue. I am glad he said so. I did not say he
would; but I say you expected it, I say your papers expected it, and I
say it has been calculated on. I vindicate the Senator from Virginia,
and I hope he will vindicate himself by not doing what you expect him to
do. The Senator from Illinois charges me again with criticising a man
for changing his opinion. I distinctly said that every man in this
country has a right to change his opinion. The distinguished Senator
from Illinois has changed his opinion. He says the country is tired of
Bourbon democracy. He ought to know, for he used to be one of the worst
Bourbon democrats this country ever saw.
Mr. LOGAN. That was when you belonged to the other side.
Mr. HILL, of Georgia. The first time I ever heard of that Senator was
when I was battling in the South for the good old whig principles and he
was an outrageous Bourbon democrat. That amounts to nothing. You had a
right to change, if you have changed; I do not say you have.
Mr. LOGAN. I will only say, if the Senator will allow me, that when I
saw the light I changed for the right. The Senator saw the darkness and
changed for the wrong.
Mr. HILL, of Georgia. Ah, that is not argument.
Mr. LOGAN. It is true, however, just the same.
Mr. HILL, of Georgia. I hope the Senator will see more light and change
again.
Mr. LOGAN. I do not think I shall.
Mr. HILL, of Georgia. He needs a great deal of light.
Mr. LOGAN. No doubt of that. I do not expect to get it, however, from
that side.
Mr. HILL, of Georgia. I object to this style of interruption; it is
unworthy of the Senate. I am not here to indulge in such remarks. The
Senator has a right to change; I have arraigned nobody for changing his
opinion. If the Senator from Virginia has changed his opinions he has a
right to change them; I have not said he has not. I do not deny his
right. I admit that a man has a right also to change his party
affiliations if he is convinced he has been wrong; but a man has no
right to hold a commission which was given him while he was a democrat
and because he was a democrat and given to him as a democrat, and change
his opinions and act with the adversary party. It is his duty to return
that commission to the people who gave it and ask them to renew it upon
his change of opinion. That is all I ask.
Mr. LOGAN. Will the Senator allow me to ask him what right has he as a
Senator to undertake to dictate to the Senator from Virginia as to what
shall be required in his State?
Mr. HILL, of Georgia. That is incorrect again. I have not undertaken to
dictate to the Senator from Virginia. The Senator from Virginia can do
just as he pleases; but when the Senator from Virginia acts as a public
man I have a right to my opinion of his public acts, and I have a right
to speak of all public acts and their character. I will not deny his
right; I am not dictating to him—far from it. There is not in my heart
now an unkind feeling for the Senator from Virginia. I would if I could
rescue him from the infamy into which others are trying to precipitate
him. That is what I want to do. I am not assailing him; I am not
arraigning him; I am not dictating to him. I know the proud nature of
the Senator from New York. I know if that Senator was elected to this
body as a republican, although he might have been a readjuster at the
time, and if he should come to this body and the democrats should begin
to intimate in this Hall and the democratic papers should intimate over
the country that he was going to vote with the democrats on the
organization, he would feel insulted just as my friend from Tennessee
(Mr. Harris) justly felt by the allusions to him in the newspapers. So
with any other man on that side. If the Senator from Virginia was
elected as a democrat I am right; but if as a republican I have nothing
more to say.
Mr. LOGAN. Will the Senator allow me right there? Is it not true that
the democracy of the Virginia Legislature that elected the Senator now
in his seat from Virginia did nominate Mr. Withers as their candidate
and supported him, and was not this senator elected by the opponents of
the democrats of that Legislature? Is not that true? I ask the Senator
from Virginia.
Mr. MAHONE. Substantially so.
Mr. LOGAN. Then if that be true, why say that he came here as the
representative of the democracy of Virginia?
Mr. HILL, of Georgia. My understanding is that the democracy of Virginia
is very much like the democracy of other States, as Tennessee. We are
divided down there in several States on local questions that have
nothing to do with national politics. In Virginia the democracy was
divided between what are called readjuster democrats and debt-paying
democrats, but all democrats.
What was called the republican party it was said, although I must
vindicate many of the republicans in the State from the charge,
coalesced with what are called the readjuster democrats. The late
Senator from Virginia was nominated by what are called the debt-paying
democrats, and the present Senator from Virginia, as I understand it,
was run against him as a readjuster democrat.
Mr. LOGAN. And the republicans all supported him.
Mr. HILL, of Georgia. Certainly, because they always support a candidate
who is running against the regular nominee. I suppose the republicans
always go for men who are not in favor of paying debts! I had thought
that republicans professed to affiliate with those who would pay debts.
But I have nothing to do with that question; it does not come in here.
What I say and what will not be denied, and I am ashamed that there is
an attempt to deny it, is, and it is the worst feature of this whole
thing, that anybody should get up here and attempt to deny that the
Senator from Virginia was elected to the Senate as a democrat; should
attempt to evade the fact that he was a Hancock democrat last year; that
he has acted with the national democracy all the time; and that whatever
might have been the local differences in Virginia, he has been a
national democrat every hour, held out to the country as such. I say I
am ashamed that anybody should attempt to make a question of that fact.
He was not only a democrat, a national democrat, and voted for Hancock,
but I remember the historical fact that he had what he called his own
ticket in the field for Hancock and voted for it. He is just as much a
democrat, sent here as a readjuster democrat, as the other candidate,
the debt-paying democrat, would have been if he had been elected.
Mr. LOGAN. The difference is, if the Senator will allow me, if the other
had been elected, he would have been in full accord with the democracy
here. This gentleman does not happen to be, and therefore the criticism
of the Senator from Georgia.
Mr. HILL, of Georgia. I do not wish to do the republicans of Virginia
injustice; I do not wish to do any body injustice. There are some
republicans of Virginia for whom I confess, if reports be true, I have a
profound respect. When a portion of the democrats, under the cry of
readjusterism, sought to get the support of the republicans of Virginia,
there were manly republicans who refused to go into a coalition that
would compromise the character of the State on the question of its debt.
I am told there are republicans now in Virginia who say that if
republicanism here means the Senator from Virginia, and you accept him
as a republican, you must give them up as republicans. I do not know how
true it is. But this is unworthy of the Senate.
I repeat, the worst feature of this whole transaction is that anybody
should get up here and attempt to make an impression that there was a
doubt as to the democracy of the Senator from Virginia heretofore. That
is an evasion unworthy of the issue, unworthy of the place, unworthy of
the occasion, unworthy of Virginia, unworthy of the Senator, unworthy of
his defenders. Admit the fact that he was a democrat, and then claim
that he exercised the inalienable right of changing his opinions and his
party affiliations, but do not claim that he had a right to do it in the
manner you say he has done it.
Once more let me say, the Senator from Virginia ought to know that by
all the memories of the past there is not a man in this body whose whole
soul goes out more in earnest to protect his honor than my own. I would
rather lose the organization of the Senate by the democratic party and
never again have a democratic committee in this body than have Virginia
soiled with dishonor. I do not say that the Senator is going to do it,
but I see the precipice yawning before him. I see whither potential
influences are leading him. I know the danger just ahead. I would rescue
him if I could. He may say it is enmity; he may say it is an unfriendly
spirit; he will live to know the force of the words I am uttering. Men
in this country have a right to be democrats; men in this country have a
right to be republicans; men in this country have a right to divide on
national issues and local issues; but no man has a right to be false to
a trust, I repeat it, and whether the Senator from Virginia shall be
guilty or not is not for me to judge and I will not judge. I say if he
votes as you want him to vote God save him or he is gone. If he comes
here to illustrate his democracy by going over to that side of the House
and voting with that side of the House, he will be beyond my rescue. No,
gentlemen, I honor you. I like a proud republican as well as I do a
proud democrat. I am conscious of the fact that some of the best
personal friends I have in this body sit on that side of the Chamber,
men whose high character I would trust anywhere and everywhere.
Gentlemen, you know your hearts respond to every word I am uttering when
I say you despise treachery, and you honor me to-day for making an
effort to rescue a gentleman, not from treachery, but from the charge of
it. If the Senator shall vote as you desire him to vote, he cannot
escape the charge.
Mr. MAHONE. Mr. President, I want to interrupt the Senator from Georgia.
The VICE-PRESIDENT. Does the Senator from Georgia yield?
Mr. HILL, of Georgia. Certainly.
Mr. MAHONE. I cannot allow you to make any such insinuation.
Mr. HILL, of Georgia. I make no insinuation.
Mr. MAHONE. You did emphatically, and it was unmanly. Now it must stop.
Let us understand that.
Mr. HILL, of Georgia. I repeat, I do not know how the Senator is going
to vote. I believe he is not going to vote as you expect. I believe he
is not going to be guilty of being false to his commission. I will not
charge that he will; I will not insinuate that he will. I have not
insinuated it. The gentleman must be his own keeper; the gentleman must
solve his own questions; but I repeat, I repeat as a friend, I repeat as
a friend whose friendship will be appreciated some day, that the Senator
is in danger of bringing upon himself a charge which he will never have
the power to explain.
Mr. MAHONE. I cannot allow you or any other man to make that charge
without a proper answer.
Mr. HILL, of Georgia. Oh, well.
Senator Mahone’s Reply to Senator Hill
_in Extra Senate Session, March 28th, 1881_.
Mr. MAHONE. Mr. President, my profound respect for the wisdom and
experience of my seniors in this Chamber compels me to renew expression
of the reluctance with which I so soon intrude upon its deliberations.
Senators and the country will concede that to this seeming forwardness I
have been provoked.
If I do not challenge generous consideration from those who would appear
to have found pleasure in their unjustifiable assaults, I do not doubt
that I shall command the respect of the brave and independent here, as I
know I shall command that of my own people. I shall not complain of the
intolerance and indirection which have characterized the allusions of
some Senators to myself. Doubtless they comport entirely with their own
sense of manly deportment and senatorial dignity, however little they do
with mine. Virginia is accustomed to meet occasions where the
independent spirit of the Anglo-Saxon is required to assert itself;
Virginia has ever met, with fortitude and dignity, every duty that
destiny has imposed, always, however, with much contempt for small party
tactics where principles were involved to which her faith and her honor
were committed.
With absolute confidence in my loyalty to her and my devotion to every
interest of her people, I shall not relax my purpose to repel every
impeachment of the constituency which sent me here with clearly defined
duties which they and I comprehend. I was elected to the _Senate_ of the
United States to do _their_ will, not to a _caucus_ to do _its_ petty
bidding. Virginia earned her title of the Old Dominion by the proud and
independent action of her own people, by the loyalty of her sons to the
instincts of independence, without help at the hands of those who would
now interfere with her affairs.
However feebly I may assert that spirit against the gratuitous and
hypocritical concern for her of strangers to her trials, her sacrifices,
and her will, I feel that the spirit of my people inspires me when I
scornfully repel for them and for myself ungracious attempts to instruct
a Virginia Senator as to his duty to them and to himself. Senators
should learn to deal with _their_ constituencies, while I answer to
_mine_.
To him who would insinuate that my action in respect to the organization
of the committees of this body and the proposed election of its officers
has been governed or controlled by impure considerations—and I am loth
to believe that any honorable Senator has so intended—in the language of
another, I say:
If thou saidst I am not peer
To any lord in Scotland here,
Lowland or highland, far or near,
Lord Angus, thou hast lied!
And now, Mr. President, permit me to say that Senators can no more
realize my regret than they can measure my amazement that my colleague
should have felt it incumbent upon him to join the assaulting column in
this Chamber. He first introduces the consideration of my political
consistency, and he next introduces me, with the eighty-odd thousand of
his fellow-citizens who sent me here, to this honorable body as a
repudiator of public obligations. The sense of justice of fellow
Senators renders it unnecessary for me to apologize for noticing my
colleague’s criticisms on the one hand and his perversions on the other.
However much he and his friends may endeavor, by the chop-logic of the
attorney, to demonstrate what I ought to be, I know by my convictions
and by my sense of duty what I am. In this particular I have largely the
advantage of my colleague; for if I take him by his record, diminutive
as it is, he neither knows what he was, what he is, or what duty he came
here to perform. A very brief recital of Virginia political history,
covering but a decade, will give a clear view of the Virginia situation
as it is represented on this floor. My colleague gave the first page,
and then, like the lazy, truant school-boy, skipped many pages, or, like
the shifty lawyer, read only so much of the authority as suited his
case. I am duly grateful to him for the small meed of praise he would
deal out to me for the humble part I bore in the great liberal movement
of 1869, which was undertaken to return our State to her normal
condition in the Union.
I am the more grateful because the organs of the faction he represents
here have recently published columns to prove that I was breathed into
political existence subsequently to that momentous period. Not being
sworn, my colleague thought it was sufficient for him to tell the truth
without the usual obligation to tell the _whole_ truth. It is now my
privilege, as well as duty, to supply all deficiencies. The views I
entertained then I still adhere to, and though, as far as my information
goes, we had no material assistance from him in that severe and trying
ordeal of 1869, I do know that after his election to this body he
confessed himself in entire accord with all that had been done by
Virginia as a condition precedent to her restoration, and with the zeal
of a new convert expressed the hope that other States of the Union
without the same propelling cause should do likewise. In a letter
addressed to the then governor of Virginia (Walker) he wrote as follows:
JOHNSTON TO GOVERNOR WALKER IN 1869.
Believing fully not only that we in Virginia could not prosper, but
that our continued exclusion from the Union interfered with the
business of the whole country, I have been anxious for an early
compliance with the reconstruction laws, and that the State should
itself inaugurate some movement similar to that which resulted in your
election for the purpose, and not wait, like Micawber, “for something
to turn up.”
* * * * *
The fifteenth amendment, which I trust will soon be adopted by States
enough to make it a part of the Constitution of the United States,
will end a question which has agitated the country for half a century.
I entirely approve of the principles of that amendment, and as we have
invested the freedman with the right to vote, let us give him a fair
opportunity to vote understandingly. He has civil rights, and it is
our interest he should know their value.
* * * * *
That we are apparently so near to the consummation of reconstruction
we are greatly indebted to President Grant’s kind offices. The State
was in a dilemma; it wanted a constitution; but the one made for it
has at least two very objectionable features. We felt that we were
suffering in all our material interests by staying out of the Union,
and yet to go in under the constitution with all its provisions would
have been worse.
The Gordian knot was happily cut by the President’s first message to
Congress and the prompt response of that body. Up to this time the
conduct of the administration has been liberal, and if the same policy
is pursued hereafter it ought to have the hearty support of this
State. If we cast dead issues behind us and look only to that line of
conduct which shall restore quiet and confidence, and encourage
enterprise and industry, we shall even see the country richer and more
prosperous than it has ever been.
This movement in 1869 accomplished the restoration of our State under
the expurgated constitution and gave us representation here in the
persons of my colleague and ex-Senator Lewis. We were relieved of
military government, became rehabilitated in our sovereignty, with
entire control of our local autonomy. Thus, for a period, Virginia
seemed to be enjoying the full freedom of her long-deferred hope for
peace.
In the curious panoramic exhibition of my colleague I next appear as a
candidate for governor in 1877. To be a candidate in Virginia is a
privilege which every qualified voter may constitutionally exercise,
and in that year there were three prominent candidates other than
those named by the Senator. Two of them had been major-generals and
one a brigadier-general. What an omission! Shades of departed glory
defend us! when a United States Senator of the Bourbon persuasion can
omit imposing titles in detailing events with which they were
intimately associated. ’Tis true I was not nominated, lacking forty
votes of a certain majority of a convention composed of over fourteen
hundred delegates against a combination of five candidates, one of
whom my colleague preferred, that preference perhaps being based upon
motives as unselfish as are usual in veteran politicians and
office-holders.
Mr. President, I can scarcely hope, in the presence of this body, where
my colleague has served for many years, and where the altitude of his
statesmanship frowns contemptuously down upon all who would aspire to
reach its summit, to attain the awful diffidence with which I should
undertake to correct any of his statements. He is one of the conscript
fathers of the Senate, old in all its ways and usages; and long absence
from his constituency and perpetual service to the national democratic
party in helping to organize its numerous defeats make him forgetful of
recent events in Virginia. Hence the necessity of my attempting to
inform him as to certain matters of recent history at home.
“The next event,” says my colleague, “was that the readjusters separated
themselves from the _democratic_ party;” and after treating this at some
length he says, “This brings us down to what is called Mozart Hall
convention,” in which, he adds, “I spoke of the _conservative_ party as
though I belonged to it.”
Mr. President, I confess my inability to understand all this curious
mixture of the odds and ends of my colleague’s scrap-book. He parades
his facts in curiously-contrived array. He empties his ill-assorted
jewels of information and “chunks of wisdom,” and seems to rely upon
Senators to give them that consecutive arrangement as to fact and date
which they have, possibly, in his own great mind. But, sir, the fact is
there was no remarkable incident in Virginia politics between the
election of 1877 and 1879, the month of February of the latter year
being, the date of the assembling of the Mozart Hall convention.
Certainly until February, 1879, there was no change in the status of
parties in Virginia within that period. There was no organization of
readjusters until February, 1879, and there was no _declared_ democratic
party until 1880.
This brings me, Mr. President, to a period when I propose to do more
than follow my colleague in his half-way candid and nearly always
inaccurate statement. It is at this juncture, he says, that Mr.
Riddleberger and I are so much identified that he cannot separate us. It
is at this point the organization of the readjusters begins; and it is
at this point he appears to seek to make an impression wholly
unwarranted by any act of the readjusters in Virginia. It is at this
point, too, Mr. President, that I am constrained by a sense of duty to
my people, my State, and myself to treat the question of our State debt
as it presents itself in Virginia. In doing this, I wish it distinctly
understood that I hold this to be a matter belonging exclusively to the
State of Virginia, and I should repel any Federal interference with this
as I would with any other question of mere State concern. I shall
presume upon the indulgence of Senators because they have heard but one
side, and that more than once, and I know they will be willing to hear a
defense of Virginia against unjust attacks from those who ought to be
her defenders.
Sir, there is not a fact upon which to base any one of the statements or
arguments of my colleague. Instead of the Mozart Hall convention being
held to effect a repeal of an irrepealable contract, it was a body of
people assembled on a call of members of the General Assembly opposed to
what is known in Virginia as the “brokers’ bill.” They assembled before
that bill had passed either House of the General Assembly, and, coming
fresh from the people, expressed their unqualified disapproval of that
measure. It was apparent the measure was to pass, and organized
opposition began. But, Mr. President, this is neither the beginning nor
the end of this question. It was in 1871 that the first funding bill was
enacted, and this we know in Virginia as the first contract.
I will not go into the details of this measure, as I shall ask the clerk
to read a review of all the Virginia funding acts before concluding my
remarks. It is my purpose now only to notice the speeches of Senators,
notably that of my colleague, in this Chamber. It will be news to
Senators to hear to-day that the readjusters never repealed either of
the funding contracts. That enacted and only partially executed in
1866–’67 was in effect repealed by the Assembly which passed it, and the
work of repeal was consummated by the Legislature that enacted the more
obnoxious measure of 1871. This in turn was repealed by the Assembly of
1872, the propounder of the repeal measure being the present
lieutenant-governor of the State, subsequently in full fellowship with
the alleged debt-payers. Indeed this measure was so obnoxious that
Governor Walker, who was conceded to be its author, subsequently urged
that the Federal Government should assume the debts of the Southern
States.
Mr. President, I might pause to inquire if that is a part of the
doctrine of my colleague and the Senators who co-operate with him, when
they stand here to represent the party for which Governor Walker then
spoke, the pretended debt-payers of Virginia? It was this repeal bill
which the Virginia court of appeals held to be unconstitutional, and
here the matter rested until the State had accumulated interest arrears
to over five million dollars, beside diverting one and a half million
dollars which was dedicated by the constitution to the public free
schools.
In 1877 what is known as the Barbour bill was proposed and passed, not a
few of the latter-day self-styled debt-payers being among its most
zealous supporters. Although this did not repeal in terms the original
funding bill, it was nevertheless vetoed by the governor.
Such was our condition at the succeeding election—schools reduced 50 per
cent., length of sessions abridged, asylums sustained by money borrowed
from the banks—after exhausting every possible expedient even to a
reduction of judicial salaries, that a Legislature was returned pledged
to a resettlement of this debt.
That settlement came in the form of the brokers’ bill, for which my
colleague stands at home and here the champion, aided and abetted by
distinguished gentlemen on this floor. I commend the virtuous democracy
of this Chamber to read that bill, and then tell this Senate whether
there ever was a more undemocratic measure than the bill propounded in
Virginia by the party whose cause they espouse.
That settlement came in the form of the broker’s bill, as I have said,
and this was the last repeal of the original contract. Yet my colleague
would say the readjusters of to-day disregard the court decisions.
Surely he has not forgotten that he was upon the hustings in Virginia
advocating each of the successive measures repealing the “irrepealable”
contract, while in every instance the readjusters proper opposed the new
measure.
But here again I am called upon to answer the charge of personal
inconsistency. My colleague cannot ascertain that I opposed the funding
scheme of 1871—a measure which, I assert without the fear of
contradiction, not only repudiated but forcibly repudiated what my
colleague understands to be one-third of the debt of Virginia. I suggest
to my fellow-Senators on the opposite side to take care of that
contamination of which they have warned the country in respect to the
readjusters of Virginia.
My colleague adverted to the Richmond Whig, and proclaimed it as my
mouthpiece. Mr. President, nobody speaks for me; I speak for myself. Why
not have ascertained from the same source how I stood on the funding
bill of 1871? Senators will not find that I ever supported the measure
of 1871.
Passing over what appears in my colleague’s speech as extracts from
newspapers, to whose misstatements he has contributed a full share, I
come now to notice his animadversions on the Riddleberger bill. If his
criticisms were based on fact and a proper understanding of that
measure, they would be unanswerable. He says that “the ‘Riddleberger
bill’ has been substantially pronounced unconstitutional by the Supreme
Court of the United States.” I ask him in what particular? Is it in
this—that it does not recognize the interest that accrued during the
war? If so, will my learned colleague inform me upon what principle of
right he last summer sustained a measure which repudiated one-half of
the interest that has accrued since the complete restoration of our
State? Does he not know that that measure of forcible readjustment
absolutely repudiated one-half of the accrued and unfunded interest,
while the Riddleberger bill provides for paying it dollar for dollar?
The difference is simply this: that since 1871 we have denied the right
of the creditor to exact war interest and proposed to pay him all else
in full. Our adversaries would and did fund that war interest and
proposed to repudiate one-half of that which we are in honor and in law
bound to pay.
Is it unconstitutional in that it pays but 3 per cent.? The only measure
ever passed by the Virginia Assembly to pay as much as 4 per cent. and
the only one under which one-third of our creditors have received a
penny of interest, was introduced and patronized by Mr. Riddleberger.
The first time that our Legislature ever voiced 3 per cent. was when
they passed the brokers’ job, the pet scheme of my colleague, so ably
re-enforced in his advocacy of it on this floor by distinguished
gentlemen on the other side, the Legislature then themselves admitting
and declaring in the preamble of their bill that this is all the State
can pay for ten years “without destroying its industries;” and last
winter every legislator of their party voted to run the 3 per cent. for
the whole time.
Is it unconstitutional in that it does not exempt the bonds from
taxation _forever_, as the brokers’ bill attempted to do, a feature
peculiar to that measure for paying the debt of Virginia which my
colleague advocates here? If so, I would respectfully refer my colleague
to his State constitution, which says that all property shall be taxed
equally and uniformly; that no one species of property shall be taxed
higher than another, and that only such property as is used for
religious, educational, and charitable purposes may be exempt from
taxation. My learned colleague, who so unkindly characterized the patron
of that bill as a county court lawyer, cites only Hartman _vs._ Greenhow
as the case which holds this bill unconstitutional. That case decided no
principle that this bill infringes. The Riddleberger bill imposes no tax
upon bonds held either in or out of the State. It simply does not exempt
any. By what authority, I would ask my colleague, can such a tax be made
and collected? He must answer to the party which he undertakes to
represent here for doing an unconstitutional act: to tax bonds of the
State of Virginia held by a non-resident. The Riddleberger bill does not
tax them. Whenever the General Assembly, carrying out the Riddleberger
bill, shall endeavor to tax bonds held out of the State, it will be time
for the Senator to renew the test in the Supreme Court of the United
States and cite the precedent of Hartman _vs._ Greenhow.
Is it the much-discussed fourteenth section which is unconstitutional?
If so I would remind my legal colleague that it is a verbatim copy of a
statute passed by the State of Tennessee, adjudicated by the Supreme
Court of the United States, and not only held by that high tribunal to
be constitutional but proper legislation for the protection and
maintenance of government. Is it unconstitutional in what is called its
force feature? If so it has precedent in the bill of ’71, which forbade
the payment of any interest to a creditor who did not accept a reduction
of one-third. It has precedent in the brokers’ bill, which provided tax
certificates to compete at a reduced price with the receivable coupon,
and both of these measures found a hustings advocate in my colleague.
But he would imply that our debt was ascertained at a certain sum in
pursuance of the State Constitution, which he says was $29,667,304.76.
Mr. President, if there is any man in the party which my colleague
represents who agrees with another member of that party in Virginia as
to what the debt of that State is, we have yet to find the concurrence;
it is with one leader this figure, with another leader another figure;
by one report of their officers one sum, and then by another report of
other officers a different sum. Grant that sum to be the true one; but
let the Senator state that our constitution recognized no specific sum.
It says there shall first be a settlement with West Virginia, which has
not yet been had, and commands payment of what Virginia shall owe. That
is the language, that is the instruction of the constitution of
Virginia; that, after a settlement with West Virginia, covering
one-third of old Virginia’s territory, shall have been arrived at by an
adjustment of their relative proportions of the public debt, Virginia
will provide for her share. Now I would like the Senators from West
Virginia in this cry against readjusters as repudiators to tell the
country what answer they have made to their obligation for one-third of
the debt contracted by the old Commonwealth of Virginia. Will they tell
the country where they have ever made a proposition to pay one stiver of
their share of the public debt of that State to maintain the honor and
the dignity of their own Commonwealth? Let them answer.
It was the party of my colleague, that repudiated the settlement of 1871
by the passage of the brokers’ bill in 1879, and in turn attempted to
repudiate the latter by unanimously indorsing what is known as the “Ross
Hamilton bill.” I suppose it would not suit my colleague to tell this
audience who Ross Hamilton is. Yet, I beg Senators to take notice that
the party of my colleague, after a winter spent in the vain effort to
find a leader capable of devising means to overthrow the popular will,
discovered such, as they supposed, in the person of Ross Hamilton, a
colored republican member of the Legislature from the county of
Mecklenburg, and blindly followed him to defeat. Hamilton’s bill, which
was thus unanimously supported by my colleague’s party, not only in
effect repealed their pet scheme, the brokers’ bill, but all other acts
in respect to the public debt of Virginia.
I come now to perform a duty—the most unpleasant in one sense and the
most agreeable in another. It is to repel the charge flippantly, I hope
inconsiderately, made on this floor that we are repudiators and our
proposed measure dishonorable. To the first I reply that my colleague’s
party in eight years of administration of our State affairs paid 2 per
cent. installments of interest on ten millions of our public debt just
six times, or 12 per cent. in all; 6 times 8 would be 48 per cent.
Instead of that they paid 12 per cent., and that is debt-paying!
Let this suffice. But when Senators apply the word dishonorable, they do
not know either whom or what they characterize. Two things they have
endeavored to demonstrate, and one is that I received a majority of the
white conservative vote of both branches of the Virginia General
Assembly. Proudly do I proclaim the truth of this. Every one of those
who voted for me to come to this Chamber gave an unqualified vote for
the Riddleberger bill. Are they dishonorable men? Scornfully do I repel
the charge that any one of them is capable of dishonorable action.
Were it true, what a sad commentary it would be upon those honorable
gentlemen whom it is said I am not representing here. Mr. President, my
colleague comes from what we call in Virginia the great Southwest, a
noble and prosperous section of Virginia. Fifteen white Conservative
counties compose his congressional district, and though the ablest of
the orators of my colleague’s party canvassed it thoroughly against me
and the views set forth in this measure, but two delegates and no
senator of the gentleman’s party came to the Legislature. To a man they
supported the Riddleberger bill. Every senator and every delegate from
my colleague’s own congressional district, save and except two
delegates, supported me for the Senate and the Riddleberger bill as a
measure for debt-paying. He would do well to spend a little more time
with his constituents!
Whatever our differences on this question, it seems to me those people
should have had a defender in him against such foul and slanderous
accusations as have been made—that they are dishonorable men. O Shame!
where is thy blush? Dishonorable in Virginia to beg the privilege of
paying every dollar she borrowed—that is, her rightful share, instead of
not only paying that but also the share of West Virginia—dishonorable to
pay every dollar she borrowed, only abating the war interest!
Dishonorable, too, in the opinion of the gentlemen who represent States
on this floor and municipalities which have by arbitrary legislation
reduced their indebtedness from $243,000,000 down to $84,000,000!
Dishonorable in Virginia not only to assume her full share of her public
obligations, as measured by her territory in this division of it, but
offering to tax her people to an extent threatening the destruction of
her industrial interests! Is that dishonorable in that people? If so,
what have you to say of this tier of Southern States whose public
indebtedness, whose plighted faith, whose sacred obligations—as sacred
as are those of my State of Virginia—have been reduced from $243,000,000
by one or another method of repudiation, upon one or another excuse,
down to $84,000,000, with a reduced interest rate upon the curtailed
principal, and only proposing to pay interest in some cases at 2 per
cent. and in others 3 and in others 4 on the reduced principal? Is it
dishonorable in Virginia to assume $20,000,000 of the debt of the old
State and then to tax her industries within the verge of endurance to
pay on that sum the highest rate of interest? Let Senators who assail
unjustly the conduct of Virginia in this respect put their own houses in
order. I want, Mr. President, the Secretary to read from the
International Review the measures of readjustment in the Southern States
that Senators may know how fashionable readjustment had been in that
section of this great country on which northern democrats rely in a
presidential election.
The Chief Clerk read as follows:
Fluctuation of the Debts of twelve Southern States since the year 1842.
───────────────┬─────────────┬─────────────┬─────────────┬─────────────
States. │ 1842. │ 1852. │ 1860. │ 1870.
───────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────
West Virginia │ │ │ │
Virginia │ $6,994,307│ $13,573,355│ $31,779,062│ $47,390,839
North Carolina │ None.│ 977,000│ 9,699,000│ 29,900,045
South Carolina │ 5,691,234│ 3,144,931│ 4,046,540│ 7,665,909
Georgia │ 1,309,750│ 2,801,972│ 2,670,750│ 6,544,500
Florida │ 4,000,000│ 2,800│ 4,120,000│ 1,288,697
Alabama │ 15,400,060│ 8,500,000│ 6,700,000│ 8,478,018
Mississippi │ 7,000,000│ 7,271,707│ None.│ 1,796,230
Louisiana │ 23,985,000│ 11,492,566│ 4,561,109│ 25,021,734
Texas │ │ 5,725,671│ None.│ 508,641
Arkansas │ 2,676,000│ 1,506,562│ 3,092,624│ 3,459,557
Tennessee │ 3,198,166│ 3,776,856│ 20,896,606│ 38,539,802
Kentucky │ 3,085,500│ 5,726,307│ 5,479,244│ 3,892,480
───────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────
Totals │ 73,340,017│ 64,499,727│ 93,046,934│ 174,486,452
───────────────┴─────────────┴─────────────┴─────────────┴─────────────
──────────────┬─────────────────────┬───────────┬──────────────────────
States. │ Date after the war │ │ Amount of debt
│ when debt reached │ 1880. │repudiated bet. period
│ highest. │ │ wh. highest & June,
│ │ │ 1880
──────────────┼─────────────────────┼───────────┼──────────────────────
West Virginia │ │ No debt.│
Virginia │ $47,390,839│$29,345,226│ $18,045,613
North Carolina│ 29,900,045│ 3,629,511│ 26,270,534
South Carolina│ 24,782,906│ 7,175,454│ 17,607,452
Georgia │ 20,197,500│ 10,334,000│ 9,863,500
Florida │ 5,512,268│ 1,391,357│ 4,120,911
Alabama │ 31,952,000│ 11,613,670│ 20,338,830
Mississippi │ 3,226,847│ 379,485│ 2,847,362
Louisiana │ 40,416,734│ 12,635,810│ 27,780,924
Texas │ 5,782,887│ 5,782,887│
Arkansas │ 18,287,273│ 5,813,627│ 12,473,646
Tennessee │ 41,863,406│ 25,685,822│ 16,177,584
Kentucky │ 3,892,480│ 180,394│ 3,712,086
──────────────┼─────────────────────┼───────────┼──────────────────────
Totals │ 273,205,185│113,967,243│ 159,237,942
──────────────┴─────────────────────┴───────────┴──────────────────────
Mr. MAHONE. There is no mere readjustment there; I will not say it is
repudiation. “Repudiation” is honorable, perhaps; “readjustment”
dishonorable.
Oh, Virginia! It was for this you bared your bosom to soldier’s tread
and horse’s hoof. It was for this you laid waste your fields. It was for
this you displayed your noble virtues of fortitude and courage, your
heroic suffering and sacrifice. It was for this you suffered the
dismemberment of your territory and sent your sons to the field to
return to the ruins where were once their homes. It was for this you so
reluctantly abandoned your allegiance to a common country to be the last
to make war and the last to surrender. O Ingratitude, thou basest and
meanest of crimes!
And now, Mr. President, at the time of my election who constituted my
opponents? Already, as you have been advised, another representing
distinctly the Bourbon democracy of Virginia and the so-called democracy
of this Chamber, another representing distinctly the republican party of
Virginia—these were the candidates before the Legislature which elected
me to this body. I received not only a majority of the so-called
democratic readjusters but of the so-called republican readjusters. And
now what were the efforts, known there if not here to gentlemen, to
defeat me? Were not combinations sought to be made? It is known of all
men there at the capital of my State, if not here, that every influence
from whatsoever quarter it could be adduced, whether democratic or
republican, was brought together at Richmond for the purpose by
combination of defeating my election, of defeating the sovereign will of
the people of that Commonwealth as expressed on the 4th of November,
1879.
There was a democracy which sought to secure the election of an
orthodox, simon-pure, unadulterated republican, but of that kind called
Bourbons in Virginia—a democracy which was not only willing but ready
and anxious to send here in the place I have the honor to hold a
republican whom they would otherwise profess to despise. What for? For
the consideration well known there, that they might elect certain county
judges and control the State offices, and by that means prevent the
disclosures which have subsequently followed since the readjusters have
gotten possession of the capitol. That democracy which like Cæsar’s wife
would stand “above suspicion,” were ready to trade a seat in the United
States Senate so that a few county judges might be preserved, that the
offices in the capitol at Richmond might be retained in their control; I
say in order, perhaps, that the disclosures which have followed the
advent of the party I represent might have been longer concealed;
moreover that control of the ballot-box in the State might continue
where it had been; so certainly I believe; and all this by those who
professed to represent the party which had declared in national
convention for a full vote, a free ballot, and an honest count.
Such were the considerations, such I say were the inducements which
prompted that democracy to its efforts to send to this Chamber a
republican beyond question since these many long and weary years. If
that is the democracy that the gentlemen on that side love, I proclaim
my inability to co-operate with them.
I supported neither of the candidates for Congress in my district, and
emphatically declared that purpose on more than one public occasion,
because one was a candidate of that party, the Bourbon reactionists, and
the other a Bourbon republican with accommodating views on the debt
question.
To obey the behests of the democratic caucus of this body, whose
leadership on this floor, whose representative national authority—the
one here and the other elsewhere—have championed the cause of the
Bourbon-funder party in Virginia, would be an obsequious surrender of
our State policy and self-condemnation of our independent action.
The desire of our people for cordial relations with all sections of a
common country and the people of all the States of the Union, their
devotion to popular education, their efforts for the free enjoyment of a
priceless suffrage and an honest count of ballots, their determination
to make Virginia, in the public belief, a desirable home for all men,
wherever their birthplace, whatever their opinions, and to open her
fields and her mines to enterprise and capital, and to stay the
retrograde movement of years, so as to bring her back from the fifteenth
in grade to her original position among the first in the sisterhood of
States, forbid that my action here should be controlled or influenced by
a caucus whose party has waged war upon my constituency and where party
success is held paramount to what I conceive to be the interests of
Virginia and the welfare of the whole country.
The readjusters of Virginia have no feeling of hostility, no words of
unkindness for the colored man. His freedom has come, and whether by
purpose or by accident, thank God, that among other issues which so long
distracted our country and restrained its growth, was concluded, and I
trust forever, by the results of the sanguinary struggle between the
sections.
I have faith, and it is my earnest hope, that the march of an
enlightened civilization and the progress of human freedom will proceed
until God’s great family shall everywhere enjoy the products of their
own labor and the blessings of civil, political, and religious liberty.
The colored man was loyal to Virginia in all the days of conflict and
devastation which came of the heroic struggle in the war of sections
that made her fields historic. By no act of his was either the clash of
arms provoked or freedom secured. He did not solve his duty by
consideration of self-interest.
Speech of Hon. Justin S. Morrill, of Vermont,
(_Author of the Tariff Bill of 1861_), _delivered in the Senate of the
United Stales, December 8, 1881, on the Bill to Appoint a Tariff
Commission_.
The Senate, being as in Committee of the Whole, and having under
consideration the bill (S. No. 22) to provide for the appointment of a
commission to investigate the question of the tariff and internal
revenue laws—
Mr. MORRILL said: I have brought this subject to the early attention of
the Senate because, if early legislative action on the tariff is to be
had, obviously the measure proposed by Senator Eaton and passed at the
last session of the Senate is a wise and indispensable preliminary,
which cannot be started too soon. The essential information needed
concerns important interests, vast in number and overspreading every
nook and corner of our country; and when made available by the
ingathering and collocation of all the related facts, will secure the
earliest attention of Congress, as well as the trust and confidence of
the country, and save the appropriate committees of both Houses weeks
and months of irksome labor—possibly save them also from some blunders
and from final defeat.
An enlargement of the free list, essential reductions and readjustments
of rates, are to be fully considered, and some errors of conflicting
codifications corrected.
If a general revision of the Bible seems to have been called for, it is
hardly to be wondered at that some revision of our revenue laws should
be invited. But changes in the framework of a law that has had more of
stability than any other of its kind in our history, and from which an
unexampled growth of varied industries has risen up, should be made with
much circumspection, after deliberate consideration, by just and
friendly hands, and not by ill-informed and reckless revolutionists.
When our recent great army was disbanded, war taxes were also largely
dismissed, and we have now, and certainly shall have hereafter, no
unlimited margin for slashing experiments.
THE TARIFF OF 1861.
The tariff act of 1861, which, by a nickname given by baffled opponents
as an echo to a name so humble as my own, it was perhaps hoped to render
odious, was yet approved by a democratic President and gave to Mr.
Buchanan a much needed opportunity to perform at last one official act
approved by the people.
If I refer to this measure, it will not be egotistically nor to shirk
responsibility, but only in defense of those who aided its passage—such
as the never-to-be-forgotten Henry Winter Davis, Thad. Stevens, and,
William A. Howard, and, let me add, the names of Fessenden and
Crittenden—and, without the parliamentary skill of one (Mr. SHERMAN) now
a member of this body, its success would not have been made certain.
And yet this so-called “Morrill tariff,” hooted at as a “Chinese wall”
that was to shut out both commerce and revenue, notwithstanding
amendments subsequently piled and patched upon it at every fresh demand
during the war, but retaining its vertebræ and all of its specific
characteristics, has been as a financial measure an unprecedented
success in spite of its supposed patronymical incumbrance. Transforming
ad valorem duties into specific, then averaging but 25 per cent. upon
the invoice values, imposing much higher rates upon luxuries than upon
necessaries, and introducing compound duties[86] upon woolens, justly
compensatory for the duties on wool, it has secured all the revenue
anticipated, or $198,159,676 in 1881 against $53,187,511 in 1860, and
our total trade, exports and imports, in 1860, of $687,192,176, appears
to have expanded in 1880 to $1,613,770,633, with a grand excess of
exports in our favor of $167,683,912, and an excess in 1881 of
$259,726,254, while it was $20,040,062 against us in 1860. A great
reduction of the public debt has followed, and the interest charged has
fallen from $143,781,591 in 1867 to about $60,500,000 at the present
time.
If such a result is not a practical demonstration of healthy intrinsic
merits, when both revenue and commerce increase in a much greater ratio
than population, what is it? Our imports in the past two years have been
further brilliantly embellished by $167,060,041 of gold and silver coin
and bullion, while retaining in addition all of our own immense domestic
productions; and it was this only which enabled us to resume and to
maintain specie payments. Let the contrast of 1860 be also borne in
mind, when the excess of our exports of gold and silver was $57,996,004.
As a protective measure this tariff, with all its increasing amendments,
has proven more satisfactory to the people and to various industries of
the country than any other on record. The jury of the country has so
recorded its verdict. Agriculture has made immense strides forward. The
recent exports of food products, though never larger, is not equal by
twenty-fold to home consumption, and prices are every where more
remunerative, agricultural products being higher and manufactures lower.
Of wheat, corn, and oats there was produced 1,184,540,849 bushels in
1860, but in 1880 the crop had swelled to 2,622,200,039 bushels, or had
much more than doubled. Since 1860 lands in many of the Western States
have risen from 100 to 175 per cent. The production of rice, during the
same time, rose from 11,000,000 pounds to 117,000,000. The fires of the
tall chimneys have every where been lighted up; and while we made only
987,559 tons of pig iron in 1860, in 1880 we made 4,295,414 tons; and of
railroad iron the increase was from 235,107 tons to 1,461,837 tons. In
twenty years the production of salt rose from 12,717,200 bushels to
29,800,298 bushels. No previous crop of cotton equalled the 4,861,000
bales of 1860; but the crop of 1880 was larger, and that of 1881 is
reported at 6,606,000 bales. The yield of cotton from 1865 to 1881 shows
an increase over the fifteen years from 1845 to 1861 of 14,029,000
bales, or almost an average gain of a million bales a year.
The giant water-wheels have revolved more briskly, showing the
manufacture of 1,797,000 bales of cotton in 1880 against only 979,000
bales in 1860, and this brought up the price of raw cotton to higher
figures than in 1860. Thirteen States and one Territory produced cotton,
but its manufacture spreads over thirty States and one Territory. The
census of cotton manufacture shows:
────────────────────┬────────────┬────────────
│ 1860. │ 1880.
────────────────────┼────────────┼────────────
Capital invested │ $98,585,269│$207,781,868
Number of operatives│ 122,028│ 175,187
Wages paid │ $23,940,108│ $41,921,106
Value of productions│ 115,681,774│ 192,773,960
────────────────────┴────────────┴────────────
It will be found that a larger amount of capital has been invested in
cotton mills than in woolen, and that the increase of productions has
been large and healthy, a very handsome proportion of which is to be
credited to Southern States. Goods of many descriptions have also been
cheapened in price. Standard prints or calicoes which sold in 1860 for
nine and one-half cents per yard now sell for six and one-half cents.
The census returns of woolen manufactures show the following astonishing
results:
───────────────────────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────
│Census of 1880.│Census of 1860.
───────────────────────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────
Males employed │ 74,367│ 24,841
Females employed │ 65,261│ 16,519
Capital invested │ $155,454,105│ $30,862,654
Wages paid │ 47,115,614│ 9,808,254
Value raw material consumed │ 162,609,436│ 36,586,887
Value of annual product │ 265,684,796│ 61,895,217
Importations of woolens │ 33,613,897│ 37,876,945
Annual product’n of wool lbs│ 264,500,000│ 60,511,343
───────────────────────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────
It thus appears, that while the number of hands employed is three times
and a half larger than in 1860, the wages paid is about five times
larger and the capital is five times greater. The annual productions
have been more than quadrupled, and the aggregate importations have
fallen off four millions. With these results in our front, protection on
wool and woolens will be likely to withstand the hand-grenades of all
free-trade besiegers.
In New England and some other States sheep husbandry has fallen off, and
in some places it has been replaced by the dairy business; but in other
States the wool-clip has largely increased, especially has the weight of
the fleece increased. The number of sheep has increased about 80 per
cent. and the weight of wool over 400 per cent. The discovery that the
fine long merino wools, known as the American merino, are in fact the
best of combing wools and now used in many styles of dress goods has
added greatly to their demand and value. Many kinds of woolen goods can
be had at a less price than twenty years ago. Cashmeres that then
brought forty-six cents per yard brought only thirty-eight and
one-fourth cents in 1880, and muslin de laines dropped from twenty cents
to fifteen, showing that the tariff did not make them dearer, but that
American competition caused a reduction of prices.
The length of our railroads has been trebled, rising from 31,185 miles
in 1860 to 94,000 miles in 1881, and possibly to one-half of all in the
world. For commercial purposes the wide area of our country has been
compressed within narrow limits, and transportation in time and expense,
from New York to Kansas, or from Chicago to Baltimore, is now less
formidable than it was from Albany or Pittsburgh to Philadelphia prior
to the era of railroads. The most distant States reach the same markets,
and are no longer neighbors-in-law, but sister States. The cost of
eastern or western bound freight is less than one-third of former rates.
Workingmen, including every ship-load of emigrants, have found
acceptable employment. Our aggregate wealth in 1860 was $19,089,156,289,
but is estimated to have advanced in 1880 to over forty billions.
Further examination will show that the United States are steadily
increasing in wealth, and increasing, too, much more rapidly than
free-trade England, notwithstanding all her early advantages of
practical experience and her supremacy in accumulated capital. The
increase of wealth in France is twice as rapid as in England, but in the
United States it is more rapid than even in France.
These are monumental facts, and they can no more be blinked out of sight
than the Alleghanies or the Rocky Mountains. They belong to our country,
and sufficiently illustrate its progress and vindicate the tariff of
1861. If the facts cannot be denied, the argument remains irrefutable.
If royal “cowboys” who attempted to whistle down American independence
one hundred years ago ingloriously failed, so it may be hoped will fail
royal trumpeters of free-trade who seem to take sides against the United
States in all commercial contests for industrial independence.
Among the branches of manufactures absolutely waked into life by the
tariff of 1861, and which then had no place above zero, may be named
crockery and china ware. The number of white-ware factories is now
fifty-three, with forty decorating establishments; and the products,
amounting to several millions, are sold at prices 25 to 50 per cent.
below the prevailing prices of twenty years ago. Clay and kaolin equal
to the best in China have been found east, west, and south in such
abundance as to promise a large extension of American enterprise, not
only in the ordinary but in the highest branches of ceramic art. Steel
may also here claim its birth. No more of all sorts than 11,838 tons
were made in 1860, but 1,397,015 tons were made in 1880. Those who
objected to a duty on steel have found they were biting something more
than a file. Silks in 1860, hardly unwound from the cocoon, were
creeping along with only a small showing of sewing-silk and a few
trimmings, but now this industry rises to national importance,
furnishing apt employment to many thousand women as well as to men; and
the annual products, sharply competing with even the Bonnét silks of
Lyons, amount to the round sum of $34,500,000. Notwithstanding the
exceptionally heavy duties, I am assured that silk goods in general are
sold for 25 per cent. less than they were twenty years ago.
Plate-glass is another notable manufacture, requiring great scientific
and mechanical skill and large capital, whose origin bears date since
the tariff of 1861. It is made in Missouri and in Indiana, and to a
small extent in Kentucky and Massachusetts; but in Indiana it is made of
the purest and best quality by an establishment which, after surmounting
many perils, has now few equals in the magnitude or perfection of its
productions, whether on this or the other side of the Atlantic, and
richly merits not only the favor but the patronage of the Government
itself. Copper is another industry upon which a specific duty was
imposed in 1861, which has had a rapid growth, and now makes a large
contribution to our mineral wealth. The amount produced in 1860 was less
than one-fifth of the present production, and valued at $2,288,182;
while in 1880 the production rose to the value of $8,849,961. The
capital invested increased from $8,525,500 to $31,675,096. In 1860 the
United States Mint paid from twenty-three and one-half to twenty-five
cents per pound for copper; but has obtained it the present year under a
protective tariff as low as seventeen cents. Like our mines of
inexhaustible coal and iron, copper is found in many States, some of it
superior to any in the world, and for special uses is constantly sought
after by foreign governments.
Many American productions sustain the character they have won by being
the best in the world. Our carpenters and joiners could not be hired to
handle any other than American tools; and there are no foreign
agricultural implements, from a spade to a reaper, that an American
farmer would accept as a gift. There is no saddlery hardware nor
house-furnishing, equal in quality and style to American. Watches and
jewelry and the electric gold and silver plated ware of American
workmanship as to quality have the foremost place in the marts of the
world. The superiority of our staple cotton goods is indisputable, as is
proven by the tribute of frequent counterfeits displayed abroad. The
city of Philadelphia alone makes many better carpets and more in
quantity than the whole of Great Britain. These are noble achievements,
which should neither be obscured nor lost by the sinister handling and
industrious vituperation of free-trade monographists.
The vast array of important and useful inventions recorded in our Patent
Office, and in use the world over, shows that it is hardly arrogance for
us to accept the compliment of Mr. Cobden and claim that the natural
mechanical genius of average Americans will soon appear as much superior
to that of Englishmen as was that of Englishmen one hundred years ago to
that of the Dutch.
THE TARIFF SHIELDED US IN 1873.
If we had been under the banner of free trade in 1873, when the
widespread financial storm struck our sails, what would have been our
fate? Is it not apparent that our people would have been stranded on a
lee shore, and that the general over-production and excess of unsold
merchandise everywhere abroad would have come without hindrance, with
the swiftness of the winds, to find a market here at any price? As it
was the gloom and suffering here were very great, but American
workingmen found some shelter in their home markets, and their recovery
from the shock was much earlier assured than that of those who in
addition to their own calamities had also to bear the pressure of the
hard times of other nations.
In six years, ending June 30, 1881, our exports of merchandise exceeded
imports by over $1,175,000,000—a large sum in itself, largely increasing
our stock of gold, filling the pockets of the people with more than two
hundred and fifty millions not found in the Treasury or banks, making
the return to specie payments easy, and arresting the painful drain of
interest so long paid abroad. It is also a very conclusive refutation of
the wild free-trade chimeras that exports are dependent upon imports,
and that comparatively high duties are invariably less productive of
revenue than low duties. The pertinent question arises, Shall we not in
the main hold fast to the blessings we have? As Americans we must reject
free trade. To use some words of Burke upon another subject: “If it be a
panacea we do not want it. We know the consequences of unnecessary
physic. If it be a plague, it is such a plague that the precautions of
the most severe quarantine ought to be established against it.”
FREE-TRADE PROSPERITY ON THE WANE.
It gives me no pleasure to notice retrograde steps in the prosperity of
Great Britain; and, if some evidence of this sort is brought out, like
that of the five thousand houses now marked “To let” in Sheffield and
ten thousand in Birmingham, it will have no other purpose than to show
that free trade has failed to secure the promised supremacy to English
manufactures. The avowal of Mr. Gladstone that the additional penny to
the income tax produces less revenue than formerly indicates a positive
decrease of wealth; and the steady diminution of British exports since
1873, amounting in 1880 to one hundred and sixty million dollars, with a
diminution in the total of exports and imports of two hundred and fifty
million dollars, is more conclusive proof as well of British decadence
as of the advancement of other nations.
COMMERCIAL PROTECTION.
The sum of our annual support bestowed upon the Navy, like that upon the
Army, may be too close-fisted and disproportionate to our extended ocean
boundaries, and to the value of American commerce afloat; yet whatever
has been granted has been designed almost exclusively for the protection
of our foreign commerce, and amounts in the aggregate to untold
millions. Manufacturers do not complain that this is a needless and
excessive favor to importers; and why, then, should importers object to
some protection to a much larger amount of capital, and to far greater
numbers embarked certainly in an equally laudable enterprise at home?
THE FREE-TRADE PROPAGANDISTS OF ENGLAND.
For the last thirty-five years England has been making extraordinary
efforts, political, industrial, legislative, diplomatic, social, and
literary, all combined, to persuade mankind to follow her example of
reversing that policy of protection, supreme in her Augustan age, or
from Queen Anne down throughout the Georgian era, and the policy
maintained by Chatham, by the younger Pitt, and by Canning with an
energy that created and sustained the most varied and extensive
workshops of the world. Already mistress of the ocean and abounding in
wealth, the sea-girt Island aspired to a world-wide monopoly of trade.
Penetrated with this later free-trade ambition, and not infrequently
accused of trying to make all England tributary to Manchester, and all
the rest of the world tributary to England, the eloquent Mr. Bright, who
grandly rejected any idea of a new nation in America, resorts even to
the infelicitous language of passion when he denounces his opponents, as
he does, by declaring that any looking toward protective legislation
anywhere in the world is proof either of “congenital depravity or defect
of judgment.” Let us be thankful it is no worse, for what would have
happened if the wrathful Englishman had said “total depravity?”
The repeal of the corn laws was not for the benefit of foreign nations,
but solely for the benefit of Englishmen.
FIRST. It was their belief that their skill and great capital gave them
that superiority which would secure them against all competition except
that arising from cheaper food.
SECOND. The cheaper-fed workmen of Germany, France, and America
presented the only competition not to be resisted, and it had to be at
once squarely met. Protection was abandoned, and abandoned possibly
forever, but abandoned because the laboring British population had
become too great and too hungry, with over a million and a half of
paupers, when measured by the supply of home-grown food. Some of the
little Benjamins must go to Egypt for corn. Starving men do little work,
but occasionally do too much. The sole conditions to the continuance of
the dense population and the grand scale of British manufactures in
competition with modern nations appeared to be parsimony and privation,
or lower-priced bread and lowest-priced labor. With these partially
secured there came a season of temporary relief, but, unfortunately,
with no increase of wages. It was barely success at the cost of an
alliance with the discontent of underpaid workmen, with strikes and
organized expatriation. Free trade, it is found, grinds labor to the
bone, and forces it to fly, with muscles and machinery, to more inviting
fields.
British agriculture, long depressed and chronically exposed to bad
harvests, is now threatened with ruin by foreign competition, and
British manufactures also seem almost as destitute of sunshine as their
agriculture, though still owning a reluctant allegiance to the laws of
the universe and to the exact science of the garrulous Bonamy Price.
Lord Derby, in a late speech to the Lancashire farmers, recommended that
some of the farmers should emigrate—five millions, I believe, he
proposed—and those who might remain, said he, will then be able to farm
on better terms.
True enough; but what a cold, sunless, and desperate remedy is that! If
not Roman decimation, at least a sentence of banishment, crushing out
the sweetest affections planted in human hearts, their love for their
birthplaces, the homes of their fathers! But if these ill-fated men have
barely supported life by the pittances daily earned, by what means, at
whose cost, can they be transported to better and more welcome homes?
The advice of Lord Derby is like that of the children of Marie
Antoinette when the populace of Paris were clamoring for bread. Said the
children: “Why don’t they buy cake?” Equally “child-like and bland” is
Lord Derby. It would seem, when over 40 per cent. of their yearly
imports must be of food, that the British Islands are too small for the
foundations of the empire. The grand pyramid stands upon its apex
reversed.
English statesmen have not forgotten the reservation of Sir Robert Peel,
the author of the free-trade bill in 1846: “I reserve to myself,” said
he, “distinctly and unequivocally the right of adapting my conduct to
the exigencies of the moment and to the wants of the country;” and that
is all protectionists ever claim to do.
Already Sir Stafford Northcote, the leader of the Tory opposition in the
House of Commons, is on the fence, and only ventures to favor “universal
free trade.” That is surely a horse of another color, not Wellington’s
“Copenhagen,” but more like Sancho Panza’s “Dapple.”
The recent reaction or change in many organs of British opinion shows
that this right of adaptation to the exigencies of the moment is neither
surrendered nor obsolete. Let me cite an extract from an influential
paper, called the Observer:
There is no obligation upon us to incur industrial martyrdom for the
sake of propagating free-trade principles, even supposing their truth to
be as self-evident as we fondly imagined. Moreover, to speak the honest
truth, we are beginning to doubt how far the creed to which we pinned
our faith is so self-evident as we originally conceived. If we can
persuade other nations to follow our example, then free trade is
unquestionably the best thing for England. It does not follow, however,
that it is the best thing for us, if we are to be left the sole
adherents of free trade in the midst of a community of nations devoted
to protection.
The Observer does not say, as will be seen, that it is best for other
nations, but only, if they will follow her example, “unquestionably the
best thing for England;” and that will not be disputed.
Other nations, however, seem to prefer to profit by the earlier English
example, displayed for seventy years after Smith’s Wealth of Nations
appeared, and free trade, like the favorite English plum-pudding, is now
called for by nobody but themselves, and is getting so cold as to be
unpalatable even at home. Yet it is proposed by the amateur statesmen of
our urban free-trade clubs, guiltless of any drop of perspiration in the
paths of industry, to arrest American development by copying this
foreign example, and thus bring our home labor and all of its rewards
down to the European and Asiatic level. Nevertheless, I have faith that
we shall abide in the track of the principles and politics which elevate
and give character to American citizens, surrounding them with the daily
presence and beauty of the useful arts, which so largely add to the
power and dignity of any people in the great family of nations. To limit
the industrial forces of an active, inventive, and ingenious people to
agriculture alone, excluding manufactures and the mechanic arts, would
be little better than in time of war to restrict an army to infantry
alone, to the exclusion of cavalry and artillery. Great battles are not
often so won.
A diversity of pursuits makes a great nation possible in peace, and
greater in war. General competence, habits of self-reliance, and higher
culture are thus more surely obtained. The improvement in one occupation
is contagious, and spreads to all others. Philosophy, politics, and
liberty all go up higher, and the happiness and dignity of mankind are
promoted.
It is an axiom of British free-trade economy that for any branch of
manufactures to rest on safe foundations it is indispensable that both
the raw material and the skilled labor required should be indigenous.
This seems to be a rule intended to fence out of the field all nations
where either the raw material or the skilled labor called for is not
native and abundant; but, if applied where the raw material is not
indigenous, the British Islands would be stripped of a great share of
their industry. Nor can any nation claim a class of men as born with a
monopoly of skilled endowments; these, at any rate, are not
“congenital,” and trades must be taught by long apprenticeships; but raw
materials are usually planted by nature, and climate and soil fix and
determine inflexible boundaries. Cotton is not indigenous in the British
Islands, though their accomplished cotton manufactures have made it the
leading article of commerce, leading their national policy. Hemp and
silk, also, are the products of other lands. Having no timber or lumber
good enough for ships, it is all brought, like their royal timber, from
any place in the world but home. The steel used at Sheffield for cutlery
is made from iron imported from Sweden and Norway; and no fine or merino
wool consumed is of home growth. Not a little of the best machinery now
alive in England had its birth on this side of the Atlantic, and must be
credited to American genius.
The title of the British Islands to all the raw material, and to
exclusive and hereditary mechanical skill among men, is widely
contested, and the world will not fold its arms unresistingly to any
such pretentious domination. The power of steam, though marvelously
developed by English cleverness, is an auxiliary force belonging of
right to the whole human race, as much as gravity or electricity,
wherever its service may be called for, and its abode can no more be
exclusively monopolized than that of the Promethean fire stolen from
Heaven.
The first steam-engine is supposed to have been employed at Manchester
in 1790, where there are now, it is stated, in daily use within a
circuit of ten miles more than fifty thousand boilers, yielding a total
force equal to the power of one million horses, and the combined
steam-power of Great Britain is represented to be equal to the manual
labor of twice the number of males living on the globe. We greatly
admire the prodigious enterprise of Great Britain, and it would be
strange if, with our immensely greater coal-fields, it should let
Americans sleep.
THE THEORY.
Free trade, as a theory, unembarrassed by contact with practical
affairs, and divorced from any idea of supplying other equal and
legitimate sources of revenue for the support of governments, appears
wonderfully simple and seductive. Tearing down custom-houses, as a
knock-down argument, is held to be scientific, but it is not conclusive.
Some schoolmen, innocent of earning even a coat or a pair of shoes by
the sweat of the brow, and sage without experience, adopt the theory
because it is an article of faith—saving without works—with a ready-made
catechism in imported text-books, and requires no comprehensive
investigation of the multiform and ever-varying facts and exigencies in
national affairs; but when the theory comes to be practically applied
alike to all times, places and conditions of men, it obviously becomes
political quackery, as untenable and preposterous as it would be to
insist upon clothing all mankind in garments of the same material, in
summer or winter, and of equal cut and dimensions, whether for big men
or little, on the Danube or on the Mississippi. But however free trade
comes to America, it comes as a strait-jacket, and whether new or
second-hand, it is equally a misfit and unacceptable.
The affairs of communities are subject to endless differences from age
to age and year to year, and governments that do not recognize these
differences are either stupid or tyrannical, and deserve to be
superseded or overthrown. In 1816 the sound policy of England, as Lord
Brougham declared, was to stifle “in the cradle those infant
manufactures in the United States which the war had forced into
existence.” In 1824 the policy, according to Huskisson, was “an
extension of the principle of reducing duties just so far as was
consistent with complete protection of British industry.” In 1846 duties
upon most foreign manufactures had almost ceased to yield any revenue,
and Sir Robert Peel was forced to listen to the cry for cheap bread,
though he was teased almost to the fighting point by the fertile,
bitter, and matchless sarcasms of Disraeli, who also said: “The time
will come when the working classes of England will come to you on bended
knees and pray you to undo your present legislation.”
At this moment important changes of public opinion seem to be going on
abroad, and the ponderous octavos of Malthus, Ricardo, McCulloch, and
Mill may have some repose. What may have been found expedient yesterday
may be fraught with mischief to-day, and he that has no distrust of an
inflexible free-trade hobby will turn out to be, unwittingly perhaps, as
has been well said, “a friend of every other country but his own,” and
find at last that he has rejected the solid school of experience only to
get astride of an imported catch-word, vainly imagining he is bottomed
on a scientific and universal principle. Daniel Webster declared, “I
give up what is called the science of political economy. There is no
such science. There are no rules on these subjects so fixed and
invariable that their aggregate constitutes a science.”
PRACTICE VERSUS THEORY.
But English free trade does not mean free trade in such articles as the
poor require and must have, like tea and coffee, nor in tobacco, wines
and spirituous liquors. These articles they reserve for merciless
exactions, all specific, yielding a hundred millions of revenue, and at
three times the rate we levy on spirits and more than five times the
rate we levy on tobacco! This is the sly part of the entertainment to
which we are invited by free-traders.
In 1880 Great Britain, upon tobacco and cigars, mainly from the United
States, valued at $6,586,520, collected $43,955,670 duties, or nearly
two-thirds as much as we collect from our entire importations of
merchandise from Great Britain.
After all, is it not rather conspicuous hypocrisy for England to
disclaim all protection, so long as she imposes twenty-nine cents per
pound more upon manufactured tobacco than upon unmanufactured, and
double the rate upon manufactured cocoa of that upon the raw? American
locomotives are supposed to have great merit, and the foreign demand for
them is not unknown, but the use of any save English locomotives upon
English railroads is prohibited. Is there any higher protection than
prohibition? And have not her sugar refiners lived upon the difference
of the rates imposed upon raw and refined sugars? On this side of the
Atlantic such legislation would be called protection.
WHAT THEY MEAN.
One of the cardinal principles of British free-traders is, “Buy where
you can buy cheapest, and sell where you can sell dearest,” and that is
precisely what they mean. They expect to buy of us cheapest and sell to
us dearest. It is the only logical outcome of the whole policy. We are
to be the victims of sharpers, whether we sell or buy. One-half of this
resounding phrase, “buy where you can buy cheapest,” often appears to
touch the pocket nerve of those who, having nothing to sell, derive
their income from capital, or from a fixed salary, and they forget that
their capital or their salary might have been much smaller had it not
been for the greater prosperity and compensation which protection has
given to labor and to all business enterprises. Some part of this class
are accustomed to make periodical journeys through foreign lands, and as
they often bring home more or less of esthetic rarities, they feel
aggrieved that such expensive luxuries, which, if cheap and common,
would have had no attractions for them, often happen to be among the
very tidbits upon which it is the fitting policy of a republican form of
government to levy revenue. The tax falls upon those able to pay. No
country on the globe sends out so many foreign travelers with a
spendable surplus, as the United States, or that scatter their money
more generously, not to say extravagantly. English reciprocity in
pleasure travel, however, like their often proposed commercial
reciprocity, is comparatively jug-handled. They come singly; we go in
droves and caravans.
AMERICA VINDICATED BY THOSE WHO COME TO STAY.
But if foreign countries send comparatively an unequal number of
visitors tending to reimburse the abounding expenditures of Americans
abroad, they do send us a far more numerous if not valuable company who
come to stay, bringing both fortunes and affections, and adding, as they
have added within the past two years, over a million and a quarter of
brave hearts and willing hands to the productive forces of the country.
Their tracks are all one way. None go back and none come here as drones,
for such stay away to absorb honey already stored; but the “tenth
legions,” so to say, of all the conscripted armies of Europe, in health
and fit for any service, are rushing to our shore on the “waves of the
Atlantic, three thousand miles long,” as volunteers for life. Were we to
drop protection this western exodus would cease and the emigrants now
here would be relegated to the same scale of wages from which they so
anxiously attempted to escape.
These facts are pregnant arguments annually reproduced, upholding the
American policy of protection, and show that those who expect to earn
their living—tempted, it is true, by the highest rewards, and tempted by
free schools for their children—know where to find the largest
opportunities for the comforts of life, for happiness and intellectual
progress; and know also that America is not and never intends to be a
transatlantic Ireland nor an agricultural back lot of Europe.
COMMERCIAL RULES NOT A SCIENCE.
We have some worthy literary professors of free trade and some hacks who
know their master’s crib “of quick conception and easy delivery,” as
John Randolph would have described them, who, having determined that the
sun shall hereafter rise in the west, assume for their doctrines, like
their English masters, the basis of absolute science, which they insist
shall be everywhere accepted, regardless of all conditions, wants, or
circumstances, as the latest revelation of economic truth; but free
trade fails, shamefully fails, to stand the admitted tests of an exact
science, as its results must ever be both an inconsistent quantity and
incapable of prediction. It yields to the condition of nations and of
the seasons, to war, to time, and constantly yields to facts. The
blackboard compels universal assent to mathematics, and the laboratory
offers the same service to chemistry; but any test or analysis of free
trade yields nothing but polemical vagaries, and it may appropriately be
consigned to the witches’ cauldron with—
Eye of newt, and toe of frog,
Wool of bat, and tongue of dog.
· · · · ·
Mingle, mingle, mingle,
You that mingle may.
Queerly enough some of the parties referred to, denounce the tariff men
as but “half-educated,” while, perhaps, properly demanding themselves
exclusive copyright protection for all of their own literary
productions, whether ephemeral or abiding. It is right, they seem to
think, to protect brains—and of these they claim the monopoly—but
monstrous to protect muscles; right to protect the pen, but not the hoe
nor the hammer.
Free trade would almost seem to be an aristocratic disease from which
workingmen are exempt, and those that catch it are as proud of it as
they would be of the gout—another aristocratic distinction.
It might be more modest for these “nebulous professors” of political
economy to agree among themselves how to define and locate the leading
idea of their “dismal science” whether in the value in exchange or value
in use, in profits of capital or wages, whether in the desire for wealth
or aversion to labor, or in the creation, accumulation, distribution and
consumption of wealth, and whether rent is the recompense for the work
of nature or the consequence of a monopoly of property, before they ask
a doubting world to accept the flickering and much disputed theory of
free trade as an infallible truth about which they have themselves never
ceased to wrangle. The weight of nations against it is as forty to one.
It may be safe to say that when sea-serpents, mermaids, and centaurs
find a place in natural history, free trade will obtain recognition as a
science; but till then it must go uncrowned, wearing no august title,
and be content with the thick-and-thin championship of the “Cobden
Club.”
THE BRITISH POLICY EVERYWHERE REJECTED.
All of the principal British colonies from the rising to the setting of
the sun—India alone possibly excepted—are in open and successful revolt
against the application of the free-trade tyranny of their mother
country, and European States not only refuse to copy the loudly-heralded
example, but they are retreating from it as though it were charged with
dynamite. Even the London Times, the great “thunderer” of public opinion
in Great Britain, does not refrain from giving a stunning blow to free
trade when it indicates that it has proved a blunder, and reminds the
world that it predicted it would so prove at the start. The ceremony of
free trade, with only one party responding solitary and alone, turns out
as dull and disconsolate as that of a wedding without a bride. The
honeymoon of buying cheap and selling dear appears indefinitely
postponed.
There does not seem to be any party coming to rescue England from her
isolated predicament. Bismarck, while aiming to take care of the
interests of his own country, as do all ministers, on this question
perhaps represents the attitude of the greater part of the far-sighted
statesmen of Europe, and he, in one of his recent parliamentary
speeches, declared:
Without being a passionate protectionist, I am as a financier, however,
a passionate imposer of duties, from the conviction that the taxes, the
duties levied at the frontier, are almost exclusively borne by the
foreigner, especially for manufactured articles, and that they have
always an advantageous, retrospective, protectionist action.
Practically the nations of continental Europe acquiesce in this opinion,
and are a unit in their flat refusal of British free trade. They prefer
the example of America. Before self-confident men pronounce the whole
world of tariff men, at home and abroad, “half-educated or half-witted,”
they would do well to see to it that the stupidity is not nearer home,
or that they have not themselves cut adrift from the logic of their own
brains, only to be wofully imposed upon by free-trade quackery, which
treats man as a mere fact, no more important than any other fact, and
ranks labor only as a commodity to be bought and sold in the cheapest or
dearest markets.
So long as statesmen are expected to study the prosperity and
advancement of the people for whose government and guidance they are
made responsible, so long free-trade theories must be postponed to that
Utopian era when the health, strength and skill, capital and labor of
the whole human race shall be reduced or elevated to an entire equality,
and when each individual shall dwell in an equal climate, upon an equal
soil, freely pasture his herds and flocks where he pleases, and love his
neighbor better than himself.
OUR FARMERS.
The test of profitable farming is the state of the account at the end of
the year. Under free trade the evidence multiplies that the English
farmer comes to the end of the year with no surplus, often in debt, bare
and discontented. Their laborers rarely know the luxury of meat, not
over sixteen ounces per week,[87] and never expect to own a rood of the
soil.
But under the protective policy the American farmer holds and cultivates
his own land, has a surplus at the end of the year for permanent
investments or improvements, and educates and brings up his sons and
daughters with the advantages and comforts of good society. There are
more American houses with carpets than in any other country of the
world. I believe it will not be disputed that the down-trodden tillers
of the soil in Great Britain are not well fed; that they are coarsely
underclad, and that for lack of common-school culture they would hardly
be regarded as fit associates here for Americans who drive their teams
afield, or for the young men who start in life as laborers upon farms.
The claim that free trade is the true policy of the American farmer
would seem to be, therefore, a very courageous falsehood.
It is an unfortunate tendency of the age that nearly one-half of the
population of the globe is concentrated in cities, often badly governed,
and sharply exposed to extravagance, pauperism, immorality, and all the
crimes and vices which overtake mankind reared in hot-beds. I would
neither undervalue the men of brilliant parts, nor blot out the material
splendor of cities, but regret to see the rural districts depopulated
for their unhealthy aggrandizement. Free trade builds up a few of these
custom-house cities, where gain from foreign trade is the chief object
sought, where mechanics, greater in numbers than any other class, often
hang their heads, though Crœsus rolls in Pactolian wealth, and Shylock
wins his pound of flesh; but protection assembles artisans and skilled
workmen in tidy villages and towns, details many squadrons of industry
to other and distant localities, puts idle and playful waterfalls at
work, opens, builds up, and illumines, as with an electric light, the
whole interior of the country; and the farmer of Texas or of New
England, of Iowa or of Wisconsin, is benefited by such reinforcements of
consumers, whether they are by his side or across the river, at Atlanta
or South Bend, at Paterson or at Providence. The farmers own and occupy
more than nineteen-twentieths of our whole territory, and their interest
is in harmony with the even-handed growth and prosperity of the whole
country.
There is not a State whose interests would not be jeopardized by free
trade, and I should like to dwell upon the salient facts as to Missouri,
Kansas, Indiana, Alabama, Illinois, and many other States, but I shall
only refer to one. The State of Texas, surpassing empires in its vast
domains, doubling its population within a decade, and expending over
twenty million dollars within a year in the construction of additional
railroads, with a promised expenditure within the next fifteen months of
over twenty-seven millions more, has sent to market as raw material the
past year 12,262,052 pounds of hides, 20,671,639 pounds of wool, and
1,260,247 bales of cotton. Her mineral resources, though known to be
immense, are as yet untouched. Her bullocks, in countless herds on their
way to market, annually crowd and crop the prairies from Denver to
Chicago. But now possessed of a liberal system of railroads, how long
will the dashing spirit of the Lone Star State—where precious memories
still survive of Austin, of Houston, of Rusk, and of Schleicher—be
content to send off unmanufactured her immense bulk of precious raw
materials, which should be doubled in value at home, and by the same
process largely multiply her population? With half as many in number now
as had the original thirteen, and soon to pass our largest States,
wanting indefinite quantities of future manufactures at home, Texas
should also prepare to supply the opening trade with Mexico, in all of
its magnitude and variety, and far more worthy of ambition than in the
golden days of Montezuma.
No State can run and maintain railroads unless the way-stations, active
and growing settlements and towns, are numerous enough to offer a large,
constant, and increasing support. The through business of long lines of
railroads is of great importance to the termini, and gives the roads
some prestige, but the prosperity and dividends mainly accrue from the
local business of thrifty towns on the line of the roads. It is these,
especially manufacturing towns, which make freight both ways, to and
from, that free trade must ever fail to do, and while through freights,
owing to inevitable competition, pay little or no profit, the local
freights sustain the roads, and are and must be the basis of their chief
future value. Without this efficient local support, cheap and rapid long
transportation would be wholly impracticable.
The Southern States, in the production of cotton, have possibly already
reached the maximum quantity that can be cultivated with greatest
profit, unless the demand of the world expands. A short crop now often
brings producers a larger sum than a full crop. The amount of the
surplus sent abroad determines the price of the whole crop. Production
appears likely soon to outrun the demand. Texas alone has latent power
to overstock the world. Is it not time, therefore, to curtail the crop,
or to stop any large increase of it, while sure to obtain as much or
more for it, and to turn unfruitful capital and labor into other and
more profitable channels of industry? The untrodden fields, where
capital and labor wait to be organized for the development of Southern
manufactures and mining, offer unrivaled temptations to leaders among
men in search of legitimate wealth.
The same facts are almost equally applicable to general agriculture, but
more particularly to the great grain-growing regions of the West. A
great harvest frequently tends to render the labor of the whole year
almost profitless, whenever foreign countries are blessed with
comparatively an equal abundance. The export of corn last year in
October was 8,535,067 bushels, valued at $4,604,840, but the export of
only 4,974,661 bushels this year brings $3,605,813. An equal difference
appears in the increased value of exports of flour. A much larger share
of crops must be consumed nearer home, if any sure and regular market is
to be permanently secured. The foreign demand, fitful and uncertain as
it is, rarely exceeds one-twentieth of even the present home
requirements, and the losses from long transportation, incident to
products of great bulk, can never be successfully avoided except by an
adequate home demand.
Farmers do not look for a market for grain among farmers, but solely
among non-producing consumers, and these it is greatly to their interest
to multiply rather than to diminish by forcing them to join in producing
or doubling crops for which there may be an insufficient demand. Every
ship-load of wheat sent abroad tends to bring down foreign prices; and
such far-off markets should be sought only when the surplus at home is
excessive or when foreign prices are extraordinarily remunerative.
The wheat regions of the West, superb as they undoubtedly are, it is to
be feared, have too little staying character to be prodigally
squandered, and their natural fertility noticeably vanishes in the rear
unless retained by costly fertilizers almost as rapidly as new fields
open in front. Some of the Middle States as well as the New England,
though seeking fertilizers far and near, already look to the West for
much of their corn and bread; and there is written all over Eastern
fields, as Western visitors may read, the old epitaph, “As we are now so
you may be.” It will take time for this threatened decadence, but not
long in the life of nations. The wheat crop runs away from the Atlantic
coast to the Pacific, and sinks in other localities as it looms up in
Minnesota, Nebraska, and Dakota. Six years of cropping in California, it
is said, reduces the yield per acre nearly one-half.
There was in 1880 devoted to wheat culture over thirty-five million
acres, or nearly double the acreage of 1875. In twenty-five years a
hundred million people will more than overtake any present or
prospective surplus, and we may yet need all of our present magnificent
wheat fields to give bread to our own people. Certainly we need not be
in haste to slaughter and utterly exhaust the native fertility of our
fields on the cheap terms now presented.
England, with all her faults, is great, but unfortunately has not room
to support her greatness, and must have cheap food and be able to offer
better wages or part with great numbers of her people. I most sincerely
hope her statesmen—and she is never without those of eminence—will prove
equal to their great trust and to any crisis; but we cannot surrender
the welfare of our Republic to any foreign empire. Free trade may or may
not be England’s necessity. Certainly it is not our necessity; and it
has not reached, and never will reach, the altitude of a science. An
impost on corn there, it is clear, would now produce an exodus of her
laboring population that would soon leave the banner of Victoria waving
over a second-rate power.
Among the nations of the world the high position of the United States
was never more universally and cordially admitted. Our rights are
everywhere promptly conceded, and we ask nothing more. It is an age of
industry, and we can only succeed by doing our best. Our citizens under
a protective tariff are exceptionally prosperous and happy, and not
strangers to noble deeds nor to private virtues. A popular government
based on universal suffrage will be best and most certainly perpetuated
by the elevation of laboring men through the more liberal rewards of
diversified employments, which give scope to all grades of genius and
intelligence and tend to secure to posterity the blessings of universal
education and the better hope of personal independence.
Speech of Hon. J. D. Cameron, of Penna.
_On the Reduction of Revenue as Affecting the Tariff. Delivered in the
United States Senate January 16, 1882_.
Mr. CAMERON, of Pennsylvania. I move to take up the resolution submitted
by me in relation to internal-revenue taxes.
The motion was agreed to; and the Senate proceeded to consider the
following resolution submitted by Mr. CAMERON, of Pennsylvania, December
6, 1881:
_Resolved_, That in the opinion of the Senate it is expedient to reduce
the revenue of the Government by abolishing all existing internal
revenue taxes except those imposed upon high wines and distilled
spirits.
Mr. CAMERON, of Pennsylvania. Mr. President, the surplus revenue of this
Government applicable to the payment of the public debt for the year
ending June 30, 1881, was $100,069,404.98.
The inference from these figures must be that if such surplus receipts
are applied to the reduction of the debt it will be paid within ten or
twelve years. The question then is: Should the people continue to be
taxed as heavily as they now are to pay it off within so short a period?
Is it wise or prudent?
No one will deny the wisdom of the legislators who inaugurated the
system of reducing the debt, or the patriotism of the people who have
endured a heavy load of taxation to pay the interest and reduce the
principal of such indebtedness. Both have been causes of wonder to the
world, and have shown the strength, honesty, and prudence attainable
under a republican form of government in matters where it was thought to
be weak. It is acknowledged that the course thus pursued by Congress,
and supported by the people, has had several good results. The exercise
of the power of the Government and the cheerful submission to the
enacting nature of the laws by the people has had an undoubted tendency
to elevate and strengthen the moral tone of the nation, giving the
people more confidence in each other, and compelling the approval of the
world. It has reduced the principal sum of our national indebtedness
until it is entirely within the ready control of the financial ability
of the people either to pay off or to pay the interest thereon. It has
established the credit of the country, and brought it up from a position
where the 6 per cent. gold bonds of the United States before the war
would not command par to a present premium of 17 per cent, on a 4 per
cent. bond, and to the ready exchange of called 6 per cent. bonds into
new ones bearing 3½ per cent. interest. It has demonstrated the ability
of the country not only to carry on a most expensive internal war, but
to pay off its cost in a time unknown to any other people; and further,
that the ability of the country to furnish men and material of war and
to meet increased financial demands is cumulative. The burden carried by
this country from 1861 to the present day has been much greater than it
would be if laid upon this nation and people from 1881 to 1900.
The burden, therefore, of the present debt would fall but lightly on the
country if the payment thereof should be for a time delayed, or the rate
at which it has been paid be decreased. It thus becomes a question of
prudence with the Government whether they will continue the burden upon
the people, or relieve them of part of it.
The burdens of general taxation borne by the people are very onerous.
They have not only the General Government to sustain, on which devolves
the expenses of legislation, of the Federal judiciary, of the
representatives of our country in all the principal governments and
cities of the world, of the management of such of our internal affairs
and conveniences as belong to Congress, the keeping up of our Army and
Navy, the erection of public buildings, the improvement of the rivers
and harbors, and many other items that require large annual
expenditures. With the increase of population and the filling up of our
unoccupied lands almost all these annual outlays and expenses will tend
to increase in place of decreasing, and all such expenditures must be in
some way met by the people of the country. They have also to sustain
their State governments with the expenses and outlays incident to them,
their legislatures, judiciaries, penitentiaries, places of reform,
hospitals, and all means of aiding the afflicted, to sustain the common
schools, to pay the cost of such improvements of rivers, of canals, of
railways, or of roads as the States may undertake. They have also the
heavy cost to meet of city governments, of county, town and borough
governments; they must pay the inferior Legislatures, erect buildings,
provide water, police, jails, poor-houses, and build roads and take care
of them.
On the liberality of the people the country depends for the building of
charitable institutions, universities, colleges, private schools of high
grade, and every variety of relief to the poor and the afflicted. In
addition to these burdens almost all the States, most of the large
cities, and many of the counties and towns in the States still labor
under the burdens of indebtedness incurred during the war to sustain the
General Government, which indebtedness, incurred on the then value of
paper currency, has now to be paid in gold. They have not had the means
at command to pay off much of such indebtedness like the General
Government, nor to refund it at a lower rate of interest. The superior
credit of the General Government has been made partially at the expense
of the local governments. I have stated these facts that Senators might
keep in mind that the question should not be considered as merely one of
our ability to reduce our indebtedness by paying off annually one
hundred millions of dollars and by continuing our present laws for
raising revenues, as if it were but a small matter for the people to do,
but it should be considered in connection with the total burden of
taxation imposed by the revenue laws of the General Government, as well
as by those of the State and the subordinate governments within their
bounds.
There is, therefore, a strong argument to be found in these facts of the
other burdens of taxation borne by the people in favor of reducing the
amount of revenue applicable to the payment of the public debt when it
can be done without injury to the credit of the Government and without
risking in the least the ability of the Government either to pay such
indebtedness as it matures or to interfere with the ability of the
Government to fully provide for the wants of the country as they may be
developed. A complete statement of the percentage of taxation borne by
each male citizen of the United States over twenty-one years of age in
the various ways stated would astound the Senate and the country. There
is probably no country in the world where the taxation direct and
indirect is so heavy, and only a people situated and circumstanced as
the American people are could prosper under such a burden. If no other
reason could be advanced in favor of a reduction of the amount of moneys
derived from our internal-revenue laws than this one of reducing the
burdens of the people, it would be amply sufficient, in my judgment, to
warrant the proposed reduction. Yet I will say frankly that I have
another object in wishing to have the internal revenue reduced, and I
hope before long that every vestige of that system will cease to exist.
That object is to prevent any material change being made in the tariff
upon imports as it now exists, for upon its existence depends the
prosperity, the happiness, the improvement, the education of the
laboring people of the country, although I do not object to a careful
revision of it by a competent commission.
I want to say a word here about the arrears of pension act. This act
never should be repealed, and in my judgment it never will or can be. It
has lately been held up to contempt by that class of people who twenty
years ago were engaged in exhorting these same pensioners to go to the
front, and who now object to rewarding them; but their opinion is not
shared by the people at large; in fact, no more essentially just law was
ever placed upon the statute book. Its effect is simply and solely to
prevent the Government from pleading the statute of limitation against
its former defenders. It did not increase the rate of pensions in any
way whatever, but merely said that a man entitled to a pension for
physical injury received in Government service should not be debarred
from receiving it because he was late in making his application. To the
payment of these pensions every sentiment of honesty and gratitude
should hold us firmly committed.
My friend the Senator from Kentucky [Mr. BECK] is very honest, is
generally very astute, and has great capacity as a leader. My personal
friendship makes me desire his success, and as an individual I want him
to be the recipient of all the honors his party can bestow upon him, but
I am very sure that he is now opposing a measure that is intended to
promote the welfare of and is in accord with the wishes of the people of
the country. He is leading his party astray, he is holding it back, he
is tying it to the carcass of free trade.
Politically I am glad that he is; on his own account I regret it. He is
opposing the principle of protection, and, in my judgment, no man can do
that and retain the support of the people. No party can to-day proclaim
the doctrine of “a tariff for revenue only” and survive. Opposition to
an earnest prosecution of the war for the suppression of the rebellion
failed to destroy the Democratic party because of the recruits it
received from the South, but opposition to the doctrine of protection to
American productions, hostility to the elevation of American labor, no
party in this enlightened day can advocate and live. I am astonished
that the Democratic party does not learn by experience. The
“tariff-for-a-revenue-only” plank in the Cincinnati platform lost it
Indiana, lost it New York, and in 1884 it will lose it one-half of the
Southern States.
The PRESIDENT _pro tempore_. The morning hour has expired. Is it the
pleasure of the Senate that unanimous consent be given to the Senator
from Pennsylvania to proceed with his remarks?
Mr. BECK. I move that unanimous consent be granted.
The PRESIDENT _pro tempore_. The Chair hears no objection, and the
morning hour will be continued until the Senator from Pennsylvania
closes his remarks.
Mr. CAMERON, of Pennsylvania. The great question of protection to
American labor will be the question which will obliterate old
dissensions and unite the States in one common brotherhood. The
Democratic party has made its last great fight. It will struggle hard,
and in its death throes will, with the aid of a few unsuccessful and
disappointed Republicans, possibly have temporary local successes, but
death has marked it for its victim, die it will, and on its tomb will be
inscribed, “Died because of opposition to the education, the elevation,
the advancement of the people.”
The historic policy of this country has been to raise its revenues
mainly from duties on imports and from the sale of the public lands.
There are many reasons in favor of this policy. It is more just and
equal in its burdens on the States and on the people; it is less
inquisitorial, less expensive, less liable to corruption; it is free
from many vexed questions which our experience of twenty years in
collecting internal revenue has developed. The internal revenue brings
the General Government in contact with the people in almost every thing
they eat, wear, or use. The collection of revenue by duties on imports
is so indirect as to remove much of the harshness felt when the citizen
comes in direct contact with the iron grip of the law compelling him to
affix a stamp to what he makes or uses. No one will question the fact
that the collection of internal duties unfavorably affected the general
morals of the nation.
The internal revenue laws were adopted by the Government as a war
measure, as an extraordinary and unusual means of raising money for an
emergency, and it is proper and in accordance with public opinion that
with the end of the emergency such policy should cease. I cannot but
think that every Senator will agree with me that the end of the
emergency has been reached. The emergency embraced not only the time of
the expenditures, but their continuation until the debt incurred during
the emergency was so reduced as to be readily managed, if not
exclusively by the ordinary revenues of the Government, yet with a
greatly reduced system of internal revenues and for a limited time. But
in determining wherein such reduction shall be made, two great interests
of the country are to be considered:
First, the system of duties on foreign goods, wares, &c.
Second, our national banking system.
It has been proposed to meet this question of reduction by lowering the
rates of duty, and thus to continue in this country indefinitely the use
of direct and indirect taxation, supposing that such reduction would
require the prolonged continuation of internal taxation.
The first effect of this would be to increase the revenues, as lower
duties would lead for awhile to increased importations; but ultimately
these increased importations would destroy our manufactures and
impoverish the people to the point of inability to buy largely abroad,
and when that point would be reached, we should have no other source of
revenue than internal taxes upon an impoverished people. At first we
should have more revenue than we need, but in the end much less.
This statement of the effect of lower duties may at first seem anomalous
and questionable, but that such would be the result is proven by the
effect on the revenues of the country of the reduction in duties in the
tariff of 1846 below that of 1842. This will be evident from the
Treasury statistics of the years 1844, 1845, 1846, 1847, &c., which will
show for the latter years a large increase of revenues. A reduction of
duties which would affect the ability of our manufacturers to compete
with foreign makers would cause a large importation of goods, with two
objects: first, to find a market, the effect of which would be to keep
the mills of England and other countries fully employed; and, second, a
repetition of the custom of English manufacturers to put goods on our
markets at low and losing prices for the purpose of crippling and
breaking down our operators. And the increase of out national revenues
would continue until our fires were stopped, our mills and mines closed,
our laborers starved, and our capital and skill, the work of many years,
lost. This time would be marked, by a renewal of our vassalage to
England. Then the tables would be turned, our revenues would fall off
with our inability to purchase, our taxation would continue and become
very onerous, and in place of a strong, reliant, and self-supporting
people, exercising a healthful influence over the nations of the world,
we would be owned and be the servants of Europe, tilling the ground for
the benefit of its people; our laborers would be brought down to a level
with the pauper labor of Europe.
Our form of government will not permit the employment of ignorant pauper
labor. It is a government of the people, and to have it continue to grow
and prosper the people must be paid such wages as will enable them to be
educated sufficiently to realize and appreciate the benefits of its free
institutions; and knowing these benefits, they will maintain them. If,
on the other hand, it is desirable that the revenues from duties should
be decreased, and thereby retain both kinds of taxation, the direct and
the indirect, the best possible way to do this would be to largely
increase the duties on imported goods, which would for a time decrease
the imports, thereby decreasing the amount of duties received. This
tendency would last until, through this policy, the wealth and
purchasing power of the country would so largely increase that the
revenues would again increase, both by reason of decreased cost in
foreign countries and because of the purchase by us of articles of
special beauty, skill, and luxury. It may be said (and however
paradoxical it may appear, the assertion is proven by the history of the
tariff) that while the immediate tendency with free-trade duties is to
increase imports and revenues, the ultimate result of such low duties is
to decrease the imports and revenues, due to the decreasing ability of
the country to purchase. The immediate tendency of protective tariffs is
to decrease imports and revenues, but the final result is to increase
the imports and duties, arising from the greater ability of the country
to purchase. But my intention is not to discuss at this time the
question of a tariff, but to show the effect of a change in the duties
on imports upon the revenues of the country.
I clearly recognize that while the public mind is decidedly in favor of
encouraging home manufacturers by levying what are called protective
duties, yet the people are opposed to placing those duties so high that
they become prohibitory and making thereby an exclusive market for our
manufacturers at home. It seems very clear to my mind, in view of these
statements as to the result of decreasing or increasing the duties on
our imports, that no reduction of revenue is practicable by changes in
our tariff.
The second great interest of the people, which will very shortly be
directly affected by the large and increasing surplus revenues of the
country, is the system of national banks, and this through the decrease
of the public indebtedness by the application of the annual surplus to
its payment. The large annual reduction of the public debt will very
shortly begin to affect the confidence of the public in the continuation
of the system. It will increase public anxieties and excite their fears
as to a substitution of any other system for this that has proven so
acceptable and so valuable to the country. If the national banking
system is to be worked out of existence, it will inevitably cause
serious financial trouble.
Financial difficulties among a people like those of this country,
however ill-based or slight, are always attended by disastrous
consequences, because in times of prosperity the energies and
hopefulness of the people are stretched to the utmost limits, and the
shock of financial trouble has the effect of an almost total paralysis
on the business of the country. It is certainly the part of
statesmanship to avoid such a calamity whenever it is possible.
I unhesitatingly declare and believe that the value of our system of
national banks is so great in the benefits the country derives therefrom
and the dangers and losses its continuance will avoid that it were
better to continue in existence an indebtedness equal to the wants of
the banks which the country may from time to time require until some
equally conservative plan may be offered that will enable us to dispense
with the system.
It is also important in this connection for Senators to bear in mind
that the increasing business of the country will annually require
increased banking facilities, and consequently increased bonds as the
basis on which they can be organized; and it should not be overlooked
that a possible determination by Congress to pay off by retiring or by
funding the greenbacks will create a great hiatus in the circulating
medium of the country, which can only be replaced by additional
national-bank notes based upon an equivalent amount of public
indebtedness.
In view of the statements I have made, I cannot but conclude that the
wisest and most prudent course for Congress is to leave the question of
changes in the tariff laws to be adjusted as they may from time to time
require, and to make whatever reduction of the income of the Government
that may be found desirable by reducing the changes in the
internal-revenue laws.
The national revenue laws as they now are may be greatly and profitably
changed. They are very burdensome to a heavily-taxed people, and such
burdens should be relieved wherever it is possible. This can now be done
with safety by providing that so much of the public debt may be paid off
from time to time as may not be required to sustain the system of
national banks.
I move that the resolution be referred to the Committee on Finance.
The motion was agreed to.
Extracts from Speech of Hon. Thomas H. Benton,
_On Proposed Amendments of the Constitution in relation to the
election of President and Vice-President, Delivered in the U. S.
Senate Chamber, A. D. 1824_.
He said:—The evil of a want of uniformity in the choice of Presidential
electors, is not limited to its disfiguring effect upon the face of our
government, but goes to endanger the rights of the people, by permitting
sudden alterations on the eve of an election, and to annihilate the
rights of the small States, by enabling the large ones to combine, and
to throw all their votes into the scale of a particular candidate. These
obvious evils make it certain that _any uniform rule_ would be
preferable to the present state of things. But, in fixing on one, it is
the duty of statesmen to select that which is calculated to give to
every portion of the Union its due share in the choice of a chief
magistrate, and to every individual citizen a fair opportunity of voting
according to his will. This would be effected by adopting the _District
System_. It would divide every State into districts equal to the whole
number of votes to be given, and the people of each district would be
governed by its own majority, and not by a majority existing in some
remote part of the State. This would be agreeable to the _rights_ of
individuals: for in entering into society, and submitting to be bound by
the decision of the majority, each individual retained the right of
voting for himself wherever it was practicable, and of being governed by
a majority of the vicinage, and not by majorities brought from remote
sections to overwhelm him with their accumulated numbers. It would be
agreeable to the _interests_ of all parts of the States; for each State
may have different interests in different parts; one part may be
agricultural, another manufacturing, another commercial; and it would be
unjust that the strongest should govern, or that two should combine and
sacrifice the third. The district system would be agreeable to the
_intention_ of our present constitution, which, in giving to each
elector a separate vote, instead of giving to each State a consolidated
vote, composed of all its electoral suffrages, clearly intended that
each mass of persons entitled to one elector, should have the right of
giving one vote, according to their own sense of their own interest.
The general ticket system now existing in ten States, was the offspring
of policy, and not of any disposition to give fair play to the will of
the people. It was adopted by the leading men of those States, to enable
them to consolidate the vote of the State. It would be easy to prove
this by referring to facts of historical notoriety. It contributes to
give power and consequence to the leaders who manage the elections, but
it is a departure from the intention of the constitution; violates the
rights of the minorities, and is attended with many other evils.
The intention of the constitution is violated because it was the
intention of that instrument to give to each mass of persons, entitled
to one elector, the power of giving an electoral vote to any candidate
they preferred. The rights of minorities are violated, because a
majority of _one_ will carry the vote of the whole State. The principle
is the same, whether the elector is chosen by general ticket, or by
legislative ballot; a majority of _one_, in either case, carries the
vote of the whole State. In New York, thirty-six electors are chosen;
nineteen is a majority, and the candidate receiving this majority is
fairly entitled to receive nineteen votes; but he counts in reality
thirty-six: because the minority of seventeen are added to the majority.
These seventeen votes belong to seventeen masses of people, of 40,000
souls each, in all 680,000 people, whose votes are seized upon, taken
away, and presented to whom the majority pleases. Extend the calculation
to the seventeen States now choosing electors by general ticket or
legislative ballot, and it will show that three millions of souls, a
population equal to that which carried us through the Revolution, may
have their votes taken from them in the same way. To _lose_ their votes
is the fate of all minorities, and it is theirs only to submit; but this
is not a case of votes _lost_, but of votes _taken away_, added to those
of the majority, and given to a person to whom the minority was opposed.
He said, this objection (to the direct vote of the people) had a weight
in the year 1787, to which it is not entitled in the year 1824. Our
government was then young, schools and colleges were scarce, political
science was then confined to few, and the means of diffusing
intelligence were both inadequate and uncertain. The experiment of a
popular government was just beginning; the people had been just released
from subjection to an hereditary king, and were not yet practiced in the
art of choosing a temporary chief for themselves. But thirty-six years
have reversed this picture; thirty-six years, which have produced so
many wonderful changes in America, have accomplished the work of many
centuries upon the intelligence of its inhabitants. Within that period,
schools, colleges, and universities have multiplied to an amazing
extent. The means of diffusing intelligence have been wonderfully
augmented by the establishment of six hundred newspapers, and upwards of
five thousand post-offices. The whole course of an American’s life,
civil, social, and religious, has become one continued scene of
intellectual and of moral improvement. Once in every week, more than
eleven thousand men, eminent for learning and for piety, perform the
double duty of amending the hearts, and enlightening the understandings,
of more than eleven thousand congregations of people. Under the benign
influence of a free government, both our public institutions and private
pursuits, our juries, elections, courts of justice, the liberal
professions, and the mechanical arts, have each become a school of
political science and of mental improvement. The federal legislature, in
the annual message of the President, in reports of heads of departments,
and committees of Congress, and speeches of members, pours forth a flood
of intelligence which carries its waves to the remotest confines of the
republic. In the different States, twenty-four State executives and
State legislatures, are annually repeating the same process within a
more limited sphere. The habit of universal travelling, and the practice
of universal interchange of thought, are continually circulating the
intelligence of the country, and augmenting its mass. The face of our
country itself, its vast extent, its grand and varied features,
contribute to expand the human intellect and magnify its power. Less
than half a century of the enjoyment of liberty has given practical
evidence of the great moral truth, that under a free government, the
power of the intellect is the only power which rules the affairs of men;
and virtue and intelligence the only durable passports to honor and
preferment. The conviction of this great truth has created an universal
taste for learning and for reading, and has convinced every parent that
the endowments of the mind and the virtues of the heart, are the only
imperishable, the only inestimable riches which he can leave to his
posterity.
This objection (the danger of tumults and violence at the elections) is
taken from the history of the ancient republics; and the tumultuary
elections of Rome and Greece. But the justness of the example is denied.
There is nothing in the laws of physiology which admits a parallel
between the sanguinary Roman, the volatile Greek, and the phlegmatic
American. There is nothing in the state of the respective countries, or
in the manner of voting, which makes one an example for the other. The
Romans voted in a mass, at a single voting place, even when the
qualified voters amounted to millions of persons.
They came to the polls armed, and divided into classes, and voted, not
by heads, but by centuries.
In the Grecian republics all the voters were brought together in a great
city, and decided the contest in one great struggle.
In such assemblages, both the inducement to violence, and the means of
committing it, were prepared by the government itself. In the United
States all this is different. The voters are assembled in small bodies,
at innumerable voting places, distributed over a vast extent of country.
They come to the polls without arms, without odious instructions,
without any temptation to violence, and with every inducement to
harmony.
If heated during the day of election, they cool off upon returning to
their homes, and resuming their ordinary occupations.
But let us admit the truth of the objection. Let us admit that the
American people would be as tumultuary at this presidential election as
were the citizens of the ancient republics at the election of their
chief magistrates. What then? Are we thence to infer the inferiority of
the officers thus elected, and the consequent degradation of the
countries over which they presided? I answer no. So far from it, that I
assert the superiority of these officers over all others ever obtained
for the same countries, either by hereditary succession, or the most
select mode of election. I affirm those periods of history to be the
most glorious in arms, the most renowned in arts, the most celebrated in
letters, the most useful in practice, and the most happy in the
condition of the people, in which the whole body of the citizens voted
direct for the chief officer of their country. Take the history of that
commonwealth which yet shines as the leading star in the firmament of
nations. Of the twenty-five centuries that the Roman state has existed,
to what period do we look for the generals and statesmen, the poets and
orators, the philosophers and historians, the sculptors, painters and
architects, whose immortal works have fixed upon their country the
admiring eyes of all succeeding ages? Is it to the reign of the seven
first kings?—to the reigns of the emperors, proclaimed by the prætorian
bands?—to the reigns of the Sovereign Pontiffs, chosen by a select body
of electors in a conclave of most holy cardinals? No.—We look to none of
these, but to that short interval of four centuries and a half which
lies between the expulsion of the Tarquins, and the re-establishment of
monarchy in the person of Octavius Cæsar. It is to this short period,
during which the consuls, tribunes, and prætors, were annually elected
by a direct vote of the people, to which we look ourselves, and to which
we direct the infant minds of our children, for all the works and
monuments of Roman greatness; for roads, bridges, and aqueducts,
constructed; for victories gained, nations vanquished, commerce
extended, treasure imported, libraries founded, learning encouraged, the
arts flourishing, the city embellished, and the kings of the earth
humbly suing to be admitted into the friendship, and taken under the
protection of the Roman people. It was of this magnificent period that
Cicero spoke, when he proclaimed the people of Rome to be the masters of
kings, and the conquerors and commanders of all the nations of the
earth. And, what is wonderful, during this whole period, in a succession
of four hundred and fifty annual elections, the people never once
prepared a citizen to the consulship who did not carry the prosperity
and glory of the Republic to a point beyond that at which he had found
it.
It is the same with the Grecian Republics. Thirty centuries have elapsed
since they were founded; yet it is to an ephemeral period of one hundred
and fifty years only the period of popular elections which intervened
between the dispersing of a cloud of petty tyrants, and the coming of a
great one in the person of Philip, King of Macedon, that we are to look
for that galaxy of names which shed so much lustre upon their country,
and in which we are to find the first cause of that intense sympathy
which now burns in our bosoms at the name of Greece.
These short and brilliant periods exhibit the great triumph of popular
elections; often tumultuary, often stained with blood, but always ending
gloriously for the country.
Then the right of suffrage was enjoyed; the sovereignty of the people
was no fiction. Then a sublime spectacle was seen, when the Roman
citizen advanced to the polls and proclaimed: “_I vote for Cato to be
consul_;” the Athenian, “_I vote for Aristides to be Archon_;” the
Hebran, “_I vote for Pelopidas to be Bœotrach_;” the Lacedemonian, “_I
vote for Leonidas to be first of the Ephori_,” and why not an American
citizen the same? Why may he not go up to the poll and proclaim, “_I
vote for Thomas Jefferson to be President of the United States_?” Why is
he compelled to put his vote in the hands of another, and to incur all
the hazards of an irresponsible agency, when he himself could
immediately give his own vote for his own chosen candidate, without the
slightest assistance from agents or managers?
But I have other objections to these intermediate electors. They are the
peculiar and favorite institution of aristocratic republics, and
elective monarchies. I refer the Senate to the late republics of Venice
and Genoa; of France, and her litter; to the Kingdom of Poland; the
empire of Germany, and the Pontificate of Rome. On the contrary, a
direct vote by the people is the peculiar and favorite institution of
democratic republics; as we have just seen in the governments of Rome,
Athens, Thebes, and Sparta; to which may be added the principal cities
of the Amphyctionic and Achaian leagues, and the renowned republic of
Carthage when the rival of Rome.
I have now answered the objections which were brought forward in the
year ’78. I ask for no judgment upon their validity of that day, but I
affirm them to be without force or reason in the year 1824.
TIME and EXPERIENCE have so decided. Yes, _time_ and _experience_, the
only infallible tests of good or bad institutions, have now shown that
the continuance of the electoral system will be both useless and
dangerous to the liberties of the people, and that the only effectual
mode of preserving our government from the corruptions which have
undermined the liberties of so many nations, is, to confide the election
of our chief magistrates to those who are farthest removed from the
influence of his patronage; that is to say, to the whole body of
American citizens.
The electors are not independent; they have no superior intelligence;
they are not left to their own judgment in the choice of a President;
they are not above the control of the people; on the contrary, every
elector is pledged, before he is chosen, to give his vote according to
the will of those who choose him.
He is nothing but an agent, tied down to the execution of a precise
trust. Every reason which induced the convention to institute electors
has failed. They are no longer of any use, and may be dangerous to the
liberties of the people. They are not useful, because they have no power
over their own vote, and because the people can vote for a President as
easily as they can vote for an elector. They are dangerous to the
liberties of the people, because, in the _first_ place, they introduce
extraneous considerations into the election of President; and in the
_second_ place, they may sell the vote which is intrusted to their
keeping. They introduce extraneous considerations, by bringing their own
character and their own exertions into the presidential canvass. Every
one sees this. Candidates for electors are now selected, not for the
reasons mentioned in the Federalist, but for their devotion to a
particular party, for their manners, and their talent at electioneering.
The elector may betray the liberties of the people, by selling his vote.
The operation is easy, because he votes by ballot; detection is
impossible, because he does not sign his vote; the restraint is nothing
but his own conscience, for there is no legal punishment for this breach
of trust. If a swindler defrauds you out of a few dollars of property or
money, he is whipped and pilloried, and rendered infamous in the eye of
the law; but, if an elector should defraud 40,000 people of their vote,
there is no remedy but to abuse him in newspapers, where the best men in
the country may be abused, as Benedict Arnold or Judas Iscariot.
Every reason for instituting electors has failed, and every
consideration of prudence requires them to be discontinued. They are
nothing but agents, in a case which requires no agent; and no prudent
man would, or ought, to employ an agent to take care of his money, his
property, or his liberty, when he is equally capable to take care of
them himself.
But, if the plan of the constitution had not failed—if we were now
deriving from electors all the advantages expected from their
institution—I, for one, would still be in favor of getting rid of them.
I should esteem the incorruptibility of the people, their disinterested
desire to get the best man for President, to be more than a counterpoise
to all the advantages which might be derived from the superior
intelligence of a more enlightened, but smaller, and therefore, more
corruptible body. I should be opposed to the intervention of electors,
because the double process of electing a man to elect a man, would
paralyze the spirit of the people, and destroy the life of the election
itself. Doubtless this machinery was introduced into our constitution
for the purpose of softening the action of the democratic element; but
it also softens the interest of the people in the result of the election
itself. It places them at too great a distance from their first servant.
It interposes a body of men between the people and the object of their
choice, and gives a false direction to the gratitude of the President
elected. He feels himself indebted to the electors who collected the
votes of the people, and not to the people, who gave their votes to the
electors.
It enables a few men to govern many, and, in time, it will transfer the
whole power of the election into the hands of a few, leaving to the
people the humble occupation of confirming what has been done by
superior authority.
IN MEMORIAM.
Hon. James G. Blaine’s Oration on President Garfield.
THE GRAND MORAL OF HIS CAREER.
_An Elaborate, Polished and Scholarly Tribute by an Accomplished Orator,
in the Hall of the House of Representatives, on Monday, Feb. 27, 1882._
At ten o’clock the doors of the House of Representatives were opened to
holders of tickets for the memorial services, and in less than half an
hour the galleries were filled, a large majority of the spectators being
ladies, mostly in black. There were no signs of mourning in the hall,
even the full-length portrait of the late President, James Abram
Garfield, painted by E. F. Andrews, of Washington, being undraped. The
three front rows of desks had been replaced by chairs to accommodate the
invited guests, and the Marine Band was stationed in the lobby, back of
the Speaker’s desk.
Among the distinguished guests first to arrive were George Bancroft, W.
W. Corcoran, Cyrus Field and Admiral Worden, who took seats directly in
front of the clerk’s desk. Among the guests who occupied seats upon the
floor were General Schenck, Governor Hoyt, of Pennsylvania; Foster, of
Ohio; Porter, of Indiana; Hamilton, of Maryland, and Bigelow, of
Connecticut, and Adjutant-General Harmine, of Connecticut.
At 11.30 Generals Sherman, Sheridan, Hancock, Howard and Meigs, and
Admirals Ammen and Rodgers entered at the north door of the chamber and
were assigned seats to the left of the Speaker’s desk, and a few moments
later the members of the Diplomatic Corps, in full regalia, were ushered
in, headed by the Hawaiian Minister, as dean of the Corps. The Supreme
Court of the District, headed by Marshal Henry, arrived next. Mrs.
Blaine occupied a front seat in the gallery reserved for friends of the
President. At twelve o’clock the House was called to order by Speaker
Keifer, and prayer was offered by the Chaplain. The Speaker then
announced that the House was assembled and ready to perform its part in
the memorial services, and the resolutions to that effect were read by
Clerk McPherson. At 12.10 the Senate was announced, and that body,
headed by its officers, entered and took their assigned seats. The Chief
Justice and Associate Justices of the Supreme Court, in their robes of
office, came next, and were followed by President Arthur and his
Cabinet. The President took the front seat on the right of the Presiding
Officer’s chair, next to that occupied by Cyrus W. Field.
Senator Sherman and Representative McKinley (Ohio) occupied seats at the
desk on the right and left of the orator of the day. Mr. West, the
British Minister, was the only member of the Diplomatic Corps who did
not wear the court uniform.
A delegation of gentlemen from the Society of the Army of the Cumberland
acted as ushers at the main entrance to the Rotunda and in the various
corridors leading to the galleries.
At 12.30 the orator of the day was announced, and after a short prayer
by the Chaplain of the House, F. D. Power, president Davis said: “This
day is dedicated by Congress for memorial services of the late President
of the United States, James A. Garfield. I present to you the Hon. James
G. Blaine, who has been fitly chosen as the orator for this historical
occasion.”
Mr. Blaine then rose, and standing at the clerk’s desk, immediately in
front of the two presiding officers, proceeded, with impressiveness of
manner and clearness of tone, to deliver his eulogy from manuscript, as
follows:
Mr. Blaine’s Oration.
_Mr. President_: For the second time in this generation the great
departments of the Government of the United States are assembled in the
Hall of Representatives to do honor to the memory of a murdered
President. Lincoln fell at the close of a mighty struggle in which the
passions of men had been deeply stirred. The tragical termination of his
great life added but another to the lengthened succession of horrors
which had marked so many lintels with the blood of the first born.
Garfield was slain in a day of peace, when brother had been reconciled
to brother, and when anger and hate had been banished from the land.
“Whoever shall hereafter draw the portrait of murder, if he will show it
as it has been exhibited where such example was last to have been looked
for, let him not give it the grim visage of Moloch, the brow knitted by
revenge, the face black with settled hate. Let him draw, rather, a
decorous smooth-faced, bloodless demon; not so much an example of human
nature in its depravity and in its paroxysms of crime, as an infernal
being, a fiend in the ordinary display and development of his
character.”
GARFIELD’S ANCESTORS.
From the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth till the uprising against
Charles First, about twenty thousand emigrants came from old England to
New England. As they came in pursuit of intellectual freedom and
ecclesiastical independence rather than for worldly honor and profit,
the emigration naturally ceased when the contest for religious liberty
began in earnest at home. The man who struck his most effective blow for
freedom of conscience by sailing for the colonies in 1620 would have
been accounted a deserter to leave after 1640. The opportunity had then
come on the soil of England for that great contest which established the
authority of Parliament, gave religious freedom to the people, sent
Charles to the block, and committed to the hands of Oliver Cromwell the
Supreme Executive authority of England. The English emigration was never
renewed, and from these twenty thousand men with a small emigration from
Scotland and from France are descended the vast numbers who have New
England blood in their veins.
In 1685 the revocation of the edict of Nantes by Louis XIV. scattered to
other countries four hundred thousand Protestants, who were among the
most intelligent and enterprising of French subjects—merchants of
capital, skilled manufacturers, and handicraftsmen superior at the time
to all others in Europe. A considerable number of these Huguenot French
came to America; a few landed in New England and became honorably
prominent in its history. Their names have in large part become
anglicised, or have disappeared, but their blood is traceable in many of
the most reputable families, and their fame is perpetuated in honorable
memorials and useful institutions.
From these two sources, the English-Puritan and the French-Huguenot,
came the late President—his father, Abram Garfield, being descended from
the one, and his mother, Eliza Ballou, from the other.
It was good stock on both sides—none better, none braver, none truer.
There was in it an inheritance of courage, of manliness, of imperishable
love of liberty, of undying adherence to principle. Garfield was proud
of his blood; and, with as much satisfaction as if he were a British
nobleman reading his stately ancestral record in Burke’s Peerage, he
spoke of himself as ninth in descent from those who would not endure the
oppression of the Stuarts, and seventh in descent from the brave French
Protestants who refused to submit to tyranny even from the Grand
Monarque.
General Garfield delighted to dwell on these traits, and during his only
visit to England, he busied himself in discovering every trace of his
forefathers in parish registries and on ancient army rolls. Sitting with
a friend in the gallery of the House of Commons one night after a long
day’s labor in this field of research, he said with evident elation that
in every war in which for three centuries patriots of English blood had
struck sturdy blows for constitutional government and human liberty, his
family had been represented. They were at Marston Moor, at Naseby and at
Preston; they were at Bunker Hill, at Saratoga, and at Monmouth, and in
his own person had battled for the same great cause in the war which
preserved the Union of the States.
Losing his father before he was two years old, the early life of
Garfield was one of privation, but its poverty has been made
indelicately and unjustly prominent. Thousands of readers have imagined
him as the ragged, starving child, whose reality too often greets the
eye in the squalid sections of our large cities. General Garfield’s
infancy and youth had none of their destitution, none of their pitiful
features appealing to the tender heart and to the open hand of charity.
He was a poor boy in the same sense in which Henry Clay was a poor boy;
in which Andrew Jackson was a poor boy; in which Daniel Webster was a
poor boy; in the sense in which a large majority of the eminent men of
America in all generations have been poor boys. Before a great multitude
of men, in a public speech, Mr. Webster bore this testimony:
HIS EARLY DAYS.
“It did not happen to me to be born in a log cabin, but my elder
brothers and sisters were born in a log cabin raised amid the snow
drifts of New Hampshire, at a period so early that when the smoke rose
first from its rude chimney and curled over the frozen hills there was
no similar evidence of a white man’s habitation between it and the
settlements on the rivers of Canada. Its remains still exist. I make
to it an annual visit. I carry my children to it to teach them the
hardships endured by the generations which have gone before them. I
love to dwell on the tender recollections, the kindred ties, the early
affections and the touching narratives and incidents which mingle with
all I know of this primitive family abode.”
With the requisite change of scene the same words would aptly portray
the early days of Garfield. The poverty of the frontier, where all are
engaged in a common struggle and where a common sympathy and hearty
co-operation lighten the burdens of each, is a very different poverty,
different in kind, different in influence and effect from that conscious
and humiliating indigence which is every day forced to contrast itself
with neighboring wealth on which it feels a sense of grinding
dependence. The poverty of the frontier is indeed no poverty. It is but
the beginning of wealth, and has the boundless possibilities of the
future always opening before it. No man ever grew up in the agricultural
regions of the West, where a house-raising, or even a corn-husking, is a
matter of common interest and helpfulness, with any other feeling than
that of broad-minded, generous independence. This honorable independence
marked the youth of Garfield as it marks the youth of millions of the
best blood and brain now training for the future citizenship and future
government of the republic. Garfield was born heir to land, to the title
of freeholder which has been the patent and passport of self-respect
with the Anglo-Saxon race ever since Hengist and Horsa landed on the
shores of England. His adventure on the canal—an alternative between
that and the deck of a Lake Erie schooner—was a farmer boy’s device for
earning money, just as the New England lad begins a possibly great
career by sailing before the mast on a coasting vessel or on a
merchantman bound to the farther India or to the China Seas.
No manly man feels anything of shame in looking back to early struggles
with adverse circumstances, and no man feels a worthier pride than when
he has conquered the obstacles to his progress. But no one of noble
mould desires to be looked upon as having occupied a menial position, as
having been repressed by a feeling of inferiority, or as having suffered
the evils of poverty until relief was found at the hand of charity.
General Garfield’s youth presented no hardships which family love and
family energy did not overcome, subjected him to no privations which he
did not cheerfully accept, and left no memories save those which were
recalled with delight, and transmitted with profit and with pride.
Garfield’s early opportunities for securing an education were extremely
limited, and yet were sufficient to develop in him an intense desire to
learn. He could read at three years of age, and each winter he had the
advantage of the district school. He read all the books to be found
within the circle of his acquaintance; some of them he got by heart.
While yet in childhood he was a constant student of the Bible, and
became familiar with its literature. The dignity and earnestness of his
speech in his maturer life gave evidence of this early training. At
eighteen years of age he was able to teach school, and thenceforward his
ambition was to obtain a college education. To this end he bent all his
efforts, working in the harvest field, at the carpenter’s bench, and, in
the winter season, teaching the common schools of the neighborhood.
While thus laboriously occupied he found time to prosecute his studies
and was so successful that at twenty-two years of age he was able to
enter the junior class at Williams College, then under the presidency of
the venerable and honored Mark Hopkins, who, in the fullness of his
powers, survives the eminent pupil to whom he was of inestimable
service.
The history of Garfield’s life to this period presents no novel
features. He had undoubtedly shown perseverance, self-reliance,
self-sacrifice, and ambition—qualities which, be it said for the honor
of our country, are everywhere to be found among the young men of
America. But from his graduation at Williams onward, to the hour of his
tragical death, Garfield’s career was eminent and exceptional. Slowly
working through his educational period, receiving his diploma when
twenty-four years of age, he seemed at one bound to spring into
conspicuous and brilliant success. Within six years he was successively
president of a college, State Senator of Ohio, Major General of the Army
of the United States and Representative-elect to the National Congress.
A combination of honors so varied, so elevated, within a period so brief
and to a man so young, is without precedent or parallel in the history
of the country.
IN THE ARMY.
Garfield’s army life was begun with no other military knowledge than
such as he had hastily gained from books in the few months preceding his
march to the field. Stepping from civil life to the head of a regiment,
the first order he received when ready to cross the Ohio was to assume
command of a brigade, and to operate as an independent force in Eastern
Kentucky. His immediate duty was to check the advance of Humphrey
Marshall, who was marching down the Big Sandy with the intention of
occupying in connection with other Confederate forces the entire
territory of Kentucky, and of precipitating the State into secession.
This was at the close of the year 1861. Seldom, if ever, has a young
college professor been thrown into a more embarrassing and discouraging
position. He knew just enough of military science, as he expressed it
himself, to measure the extent of his ignorance, and with a handful of
men he was marching, in rough winter weather, into a strange country,
among a hostile population to confront a largely superior force under
the command of a distinguished graduate of West Point, who had seen
active and important service in two preceding wars.
The result of the campaign is matter of history. The skill, the
endurance, the extraordinary energy shown by Garfield, the courage
imparted to his men, raw and untried as himself, the measures he adopted
to increase his force and to create in the enemy’s mind exaggerated
estimates of his numbers, bore perfect fruit in the routing of Marshall,
the capture of his camp, the dispersion of his force, and the
emancipation of an important territory from the control of the
rebellion. Coming at the close of a long series of disasters to the
Union arms, Garfield’s victory had an unusual and extraneous importance,
and in the popular judgment elevated the young commander to the rank of
a military hero. With less than two thousand men in his entire command,
with a mobilized force of only eleven hundred, without cannon, he had
met an army of five thousand and defeated them—driving Marshall’s forces
successively from two strongholds of their own selection, fortified with
abundant artillery. Major-General Buell, commanding the Department of
the Ohio, an experienced and able soldier of the regular army, published
an order of thanks and congratulation on the brilliant result of the Big
Sandy campaign which would have turned the head of a less cool and
sensible man than Garfield. Buell declared that his services had called
into action the highest qualities of a soldier, and President Lincoln
supplemented these words of praise by the more substantial reward of a
brigadier-general’s commission, to bear date from the day of his
decisive victory over Marshall.
The subsequent military career of Garfield fully sustained its brilliant
beginning. With his new commission he was assigned to the command of a
brigade in the Army of the Ohio, and took part in the second and
decisive day’s fight in the great battle of Shiloh. The remainder of the
year 1862 was not especially eventful to Garfield, as it was not to the
armies with which he was serving. His practical sense was called into
exercise in completing the task, assigned him by General Buell, of
reconstructing bridges and re-establishing lines of railway
communication for the army. His occupation in this useful but not
brilliant field was varied by service on courts-martial of importance,
in which department of duty he won a valuable reputation, attracting the
notice and securing the approval of the able and eminent
Judge-Advocate-General of the Army. That of itself was a warrant to
honorable fame; for among the great men who in those trying days gave
themselves, with entire devotion, to the service of their country, one
who brought to that service the ripest learning, the most fervid
eloquence, the most varied attainments, who labored with modesty and
shunned applause, who in the day of triumph sat reserved and silent and
grateful—as Francis Deak in the hour of Hungary’s deliverance—was Joseph
Holt, of Kentucky, who in his honorable retirement enjoys the respect
and veneration of all who love the Union of the States.
Early in 1863 Garfield was assigned to the highly important and
responsible post of chief of staff to General Rosecrans, then at the
head of the Army of the Cumberland. Perhaps in a great military campaign
no subordinate officer requires sounder judgment and quicker knowledge
of men than the chief of staff to the commanding general. An indiscreet
man in such a position can sow more discord, breed more jealousy and
disseminate more strife than any other officer in the entire
organization. When General Garfield assumed his new duties he found
various troubles already well developed and seriously affecting the
value and efficiency of the Army of Cumberland. The energy, the
impartiality and the tact with which he sought to allay these
dissensions, and to discharge the duties of his new and trying position,
will always remain one of the most striking proofs of his great
versatility. His military duties closed on the memorable field of
Chickamauga, a field which however disastrous to the Union arms gave to
him the occasion of winning imperishable laurels. The very rare
distinction was accorded him of great promotion for his bravery on a
field that was lost. President Lincoln appointed him a Major-General in
the Army of the United States for gallant and meritorious conduct in the
battle of Chickamauga.
The Army of the Cumberland was reorganized under the command of General
Thomas, who promptly offered Garfield one of its divisions. He was
extremely desirous to accept the position, but was embarrassed by the
fact that he had, a year before, been elected to Congress, and the time
when he must take his seat was drawing near. He preferred to remain in
the military service, and had within his own breast the largest
confidence of success in the wider field which his new rank opened to
him. Balancing the arguments on the one side and the other, anxious to
determine what was for the best, desirous above all things to do his
patriotic duty, he was decisively influenced by the advice of President
Lincoln and Secretary Stanton, both of whom assured him that he could at
that time, be of especial value in the House of Representatives. He
resigned his commission of Major-General on the 5th day of December,
1863, and took his seat in the House of Representatives on the 7th. He
had served two years and four months in the army, and had just completed
his thirty-second year.
IN CONGRESS.
The Thirty-eighth Congress is pre-eminently entitled in history to the
designation of the War Congress. It was elected while the war was
flagrant, and every member was chosen upon the issues involved in the
continuance of the struggle. The Thirty-seventh Congress had, indeed,
legislated to a large extent on war measures but it was chosen before
any one believed that secession of the States would be actually
attempted. The magnitude of the work which fell upon its successor was
unprecedented, both in respect to the vast sums of money raised for the
support of the Army and Navy, and of the new and extraordinary powers of
legislation which it was forced to exercise. Only twenty-four States
were represented, and one hundred and eighty-two members were upon its
roll. Among these were many distinguished party leaders on both sides,
veterans in the public service, with established reputations for
ability, and with that skill which comes only from parliamentary
experience. Into this assemblage of men Garfield entered without special
preparation, and it might almost be said unexpectedly. The question of
taking command of a division of troops under General Thomas, or taking
his seat in Congress was kept open till the last moment so late, indeed,
that the resignation of his military commission and his appearance in
the House were almost contemporaneous. He wore the uniform of a
Major-General of the United States Army on Saturday, and on Monday in
civilian’s dress, he answered to the roll call as a Representative in
Congress from the State of Ohio.
He was especially fortunate in the constituency which elected him.
Descended almost entirely from New England stock, the men of the
Ashtabula district were intensely radical on all questions relating to
human rights. Well educated, thrifty, thoroughly intelligent in affairs,
acutely discerning of character, not quick to bestow confidence, and
slow to withdraw it, they were at once the most helpful and most
exacting of supporters. Their tenacious trust in men in whom they have
once confided is illustrated by the unparalleled fact that Elisha
Whittlesey, Joshua R. Giddings, and James A. Garfield represented the
district for fifty-four years.
There is no test of a man’s ability in any department of public life
more severe than service in the House of Representatives; there is no
place where so little deference is paid to reputation previously
acquired or to eminence won outside; no place where so little
consideration is shown for the feelings or failures of beginners. What a
man gains in the House he gains by sheer force of his own character, and
if he loses and falls back he must expect no mercy and will receive no
sympathy. It is a field in which the survival of the strongest is the
recognized rule and where no pretense can deceive and no glamour can
mislead. The real man is discovered, his worth is impartially weighed,
his rank is irreversibly decreed.
With possibly a single exception Garfield was the youngest member in the
House when he entered, and was but seven years from his college
graduation. But he had not been in his seat sixty days before his
ability was recognized and his place conceded. He stepped to the front
with the confidence of one who belonged there. The House was crowded
with strong men of both parties; nineteen of them have since been
transferred to the Senate, and many of them have served with distinction
in the gubernatorial chairs of their respective States, and on foreign
missions of great consequence; but among them all none grew so rapidly
none so firmly as Garfield. As is said by Trevelyan of his parliamentary
hero, Garfield succeeded “because all the world in concert could not
have kept him in the background, and because when once in the front he
played his part with a prompt intrepidity and a commanding ease that
were but the outward symptoms of the immense reserves of energy, on
which it was in his power to draw.” Indeed the apparently reserved force
which Garfield possessed was one of his great characteristics. He never
did so well but that it seemed he could easily have done better. He
never expended so much strength but that he seemed to be holding
additional power at call. This is one of the happiest and rarest
distinctions of an effective debater, and often counts for as much in
persuading an assembly as the eloquent and elaborate argument.
The great measure of Garfield’s fame was filled by his service in the
House of Representatives. His military life, illustrated by honorable
performance, and rich in promise, was, as he himself felt, prematurely
terminated, and necessarily incomplete. Speculation as to what he might
have done in a field, where the great prizes are so few, cannot be
profitable. It is sufficient to say that as a soldier he did his duty
bravely; he did it intelligently; he won an enviable fame, and he
retired from the service without blot or breath against him. As a
lawyer, though admirably equipped for the profession, he can scarcely be
said to have entered on its practice. The few efforts he made at the bar
were distinguished by the same high order of talent which he exhibited
on every field where he was put to the test, and if a man may be
accepted as a competent judge of his own capacities and adaptations, the
law was the profession to which Garfield should have devoted himself.
But fate ordained otherwise, and his reputation in history will rest
largely upon his service in the House of Representatives. That service
was exceptionally long. He was nine times consecutively chosen to the
House, an honor enjoyed by not more than six other Representatives of
the more than five thousand who have been elected from the organization
of the government to this hour.
ORATOR AND DEBATER.
As a parliamentary orator, as a debater on an issue squarely joined,
where the position had been chosen and the ground laid out, Garfield
must be assigned a very high rank. More, perhaps, than any man with whom
he was associated in public life, he gave careful and systematic study
to public questions, and he came to every discussion in which he took
part with elaborate and complete preparation. He was a steady and
indefatigable worker. Those that imagine that talent or genius can
supply the place or achieve the results of labor will find no
encouragement in Garfield’s life. In preliminary work he was apt, rapid
and skillful. He possessed in a high degree the power of readily
absorbing ideas and facts, and, like Dr. Johnson, had the art of getting
from a book all that was of value in it by a reading apparently so quick
and cursory that it seemed like a mere glance at the table of contents.
He was a pre-eminently fair and candid man in debate, took no petty
advantage, stooped to no unworthy methods, avoided personal allusions,
rarely appealed to prejudice, did not seek to inflame passion. He had a
quicker eye for the strong point of his adversary than for his weak
point, and on his own side he so marshaled his weighty arguments as to
make his hearers forget any possible lack in the complete strength of
his position. He had a habit of stating his opponent’s side with such
amplitude of fairness and such liberality of concession that his
followers often complained that he was giving his cases away. But never
in his prolonged participation in the proceedings of the House did he
give his case away, or fail in the judgment of competent and impartial
listeners to gain the mastery.
These characteristics, which marked Garfield as a great debater, did
not, however, make him a great parliamentary leader. A parliamentary
leader, as that term is understood wherever free representative
government exists, is necessarily and very strictly the organ of his
party. An ardent American defined the instinctive warmth of patriotism
when he offered the toast, “Our country always right, but right or
wrong, our country.” The parliamentary leader who has a body of
followers that will do and dare and die for the cause, is one who
believes his party always right, but right or wrong, is for his party.
No more important or exacting duty devolves upon him than the selection
of the field and the time for contest. He must know not merely how to
strike, but where to strike and when to strike. He often skillfully
avoids the strength of his opponent’s position and scatters confusion in
his ranks by attacking an exposed point when really the righteousness of
the cause and the strength of logical intrenchment are against him. He
conquers often both against the right and the heavy battalions; as when
young Chas. Fox, in the days of his Toryism, carried the House of
Commons against justice, against its immemorial rights, against his own
convictions, if, indeed, at that period Fox had convictions, and, in the
interest of a corrupt administration, in obedience to a tyrannical
sovereign, drove Wilkes from the seat to which the electors of Middlesex
had chosen him and installed Luttrell in defiance, not merely of law,
but of public decency. For an achievement of that kind Garfield was
disqualified—disqualified by the texture of his mind, by the honesty of
his heart, by his conscience, and by every instinct and aspiration of
his nature.
The three most distinguished parliamentary leaders hitherto developed in
this country are Mr. Clay, Mr. Douglas and Mr. Thaddeus Stevens. Each
was a man of consummate ability, of great earnestness, of intense
personality, differing widely each from the others, and yet with a
signal trait in common—the power to command. In the give and take of
daily discussion, in the art of controlling and consolidating reluctant
and refractory followers; in the skill to overcome all forms of
opposition, and to meet with competency and courage the varying phases
of unlooked-for assault or unsuspected defection, it would be difficult
to rank with these a fourth name in all our Congressional history. But
of these Mr. Clay was the greatest. It would, perhaps, be impossible to
find in the parliamentary annals of the world a parallel to Mr. Clay, in
1841, when at sixty-four years of age he took the control of the Whig
party from the President who had received their suffrages, against the
power of Webster in the Cabinet, against the eloquence of Choate in the
Senate, against the Herculean efforts of Caleb Cushing and Henry A. Wise
in the House. In unshared leadership, in the pride and plenitude of
power he hurled against John Tyler with deepest scorn the mass of that
conquering column which had swept over the land in 1840, and drove his
administration to seek shelter behind the lines of his political foes.
Mr. Douglas achieved a victory scarcely less wonderful when, in 1854,
against the secret desires of a strong administration, against the wise
counsel of the older chiefs, against the conservative instincts and even
the moral sense of the country, he forced a reluctant Congress into a
repeal of the Missouri compromise. Mr. Thaddeus Stevens, in his contests
from 1865 to 1868, actually advanced his parliamentary leadership until
Congress tied the hands of the President and governed the country by its
own will, leaving only perfunctory duties to be discharged by the
Executive. With two hundred millions of patronage in his hands at the
opening of the contest, aided by the active force of Steward in the
Cabinet and the moral power of Chase on the Bench, Andrew Johnson could
not command the support of one-third in either House against the
Parliamentary uprising of which Thaddeus Stevens was the animating
spirit and the unquestioned leader.
From these three great men Garfield differed radically, differed in the
quality of his mind, in temperament, in the form and phase of ambition.
He could not do what they did, but he could do what they could not, and
in the breadth of his Congressional work he left that which will longer
exert a potential influence among men, and which, measured by the severe
test of posthumous criticism, will secure a more enduring and more
enviable fame.
GARFIELD’S INDUSTRY.
Those unfamiliar with Garfield’s industry and ignorant of the details of
his work may, in some degree, measure them by the annals of Congress. No
one of the generation of public men to which he belonged has contributed
so much that will be valuable for future reference. His speeches are
numerous, many of them brilliant, all of them well studied, carefully
phrased and exhaustive of the subject under consideration. Collected
from the scattered pages of ninety royal octavo volumes of Congressional
Record they would present an invaluable compendium of the political
history of the most important era through which the national government
has ever passed. When the history of this period shall be impartially
written, when war legislation, measures of reconstruction, protection of
human rights, amendments to the constitution, maintenance of public
credit, steps toward specie resumption, true theories of revenue may be
reviewed, unsurrounded by prejudice and disconnected from partisanism,
the speeches of Garfield will be estimated at their true value, and will
be found to comprise a vast magazine of fact and argument, of clear
analysis and sound conclusion. Indeed, if no other authority were
accessible, his speeches in the House of Representatives from December
1863, to June, 1880, would give a well connected history and complete
defence of the important legislation of the seventeen eventful years
that constitute his Parliamentary life. Far beyond that, his speeches
would be found to forecast many great measures, yet to be
completed—measures which he knew were beyond the public opinion of the
hour, but which he confidently believed would secure popular approval
within the period of his own lifetime, and by the aid of his own
efforts.
Differing, as Garfield does, from the brilliant parliamentary leaders,
it is not easy to find his counterpart anywhere in the record of
American public life. He perhaps more nearly resembles Mr. Seward in his
supreme faith in the all-conquering power of a principle. He had the
love of learning, and the patient industry of investigation, to which
John Quincy Adams owes his prominence and his Presidency. He had some of
those ponderous elements of mind which distinguished Mr. Webster, and
which indeed, in all our public life, have left the great Massachusetts
Senator without an intellectual peer.
In English parliamentary history, as in our own, the leaders in the
House of Commons present points of essential difference from Garfield.
But some of his methods recall the best features in the strong,
independent course of Sir Robert Peel, and striking resemblances are
discernible in that most promising of modern conservatives, who died too
early for his country and his fame, the Lord George Bentinck. He had all
of Burke’s love for the sublime and the beautiful, with, possibly,
something of his superabundance, and in his faith and his magnanimity,
in his power of statement, in his subtle analysis, in his faultless
logic, in his love of literature, in his wealth and world of
illustration, one is reminded of that great English statesman of to-day,
who, confronted with obstacles that would daunt any but the dauntless,
reviled by those whom he would relieve as bitterly as by those whose
supposed rights he is forced to invade, still labors with serene courage
for the amelioration of Ireland, and for the honor of the English name.
NOMINATION TO THE PRESIDENCY.
Garfield’s nomination to the Presidency, while not predicted or
anticipated, was not a surprise to the country. His prominence in
Congress, his solid qualities, his wide reputation, strengthened by his
then recent election as Senator from Ohio, kept him in the public eye as
a man occupying the very highest rank among those entitled to be called
statesmen. It was not mere chance that brought him this high honor. “We
must,” says Mr. Emerson, “reckon success a constitutional trait. If Eric
is in robust health, and has slept well and is at the top of his
condition, and thirty years old at his departure from Greenland, he will
steer west and his ships will reach New Foundland. But take Eric out and
put in a stronger and bolder man and the ships will sail six hundred,
one thousand, fifteen hundred miles farther and reach Labrador and New
England. There is no chance in results.”
As a candidate, Garfield steadily grew in popular favor. He was met with
a storm of detraction at the very hour of his nomination, and it
continued with increasing volume and momentum until the close of his
victorious campaign:
No might nor greatness in mortality
Can censure ’scape; back-wounding calumny
The whitest virtue strikes. What king so strong
Can tie the gall up in the slanderous tongue?
Under it all he was calm, and strong, and confident; never lost his
self-possession, did no unwise act, spoke no hasty or ill-considered
word. Indeed nothing in his whole life is more remarkable or more
creditable than his bearing through those five full months of
vituperation—a prolonged agony of trial to a sensitive man, a constant
and cruel draft upon the powers of moral endurance. The great mass of
these unjust imputations passed unnoticed, and, with the general
_debris_ of the campaign, fell into oblivion. But in a few instances the
iron entered his soul and he died with the injury unforgotten if not
unforgiven.
One aspect of Garfield’s candidacy was unprecedented. Never before in
the history of partisan contests in this country had a successful
Presidential candidate spoken freely on passing events and current
issues. To attempt anything of the kind seemed novel, rash, and even
desperate. The older class of voters recalled the unfortunate Alabama
letter, in which Mr. Clay was supposed to have signed his political
death-warrant. They remembered also the hot-tempered effusion by which
General Scott lost a large share of his popularity before his
nomination, and the unfortunate speeches which rapidly consumed the
remainder. The younger voters had seen Mr. Greeley in a series of
vigorous and original addresses, preparing the pathway for his own
defeat. Unmindful of these warnings, unheeding the advice of friends,
Garfield spoke to large crowds as he journeyed to and from New York in
August, to a great multitude in that city, to delegations and
deputations of every kind that called at Mentor during the summer and
autumn. With innumerable critics, watchful and eager to catch a phrase
that might be turned into odium or ridicule, or a sentence that might be
distorted to his own or his party’s injury, Garfield did not trip or
halt in any one of his seventy speeches. This seems all the more
remarkable when it is remembered that he did not write what he said, and
yet spoke with such logical consecutiveness of thought and such
admirable precision of phrase as to defy the accident of misreport and
the malignity of misrepresentation.
AS PRESIDENT.
In the beginning of his Presidential life Garfield’s experience did not
yield him pleasure or satisfaction. The duties that engross so large a
portion of the President’s time were distasteful to him, and were
unfavorably contrasted with his legislative work. “I have been dealing
all these years with ideas,” he impatiently exclaimed one day, “and here
I am dealing only with persons. I have been heretofore treating of the
fundamental principles of government, and here I am considering all day
whether A or B shall be appointed to this or that office.” He was
earnestly seeking some practical way of correcting the evils arising
from the distribution of overgrown and unwieldy patronage—evils always
appreciated and often discussed by him, but whose magnitude had been
more deeply impressed upon his mind since his accession to the
Presidency. Had he lived, a comprehensive improvement in the mode of
appointment and in the tenure of office would have been proposed by him,
and with the aid of Congress no doubt perfected.
But, while many of the Executive duties were not grateful to him, he was
assiduous and conscientious in their discharge. From the very outset he
exhibited administrative talent of a high order. He grasped the helm of
office with the hand of a master. In this respect, indeed, he constantly
surprised many who were most intimately associated with him in the
government, and especially those who had feared that he might be lacking
in the executive faculty. His disposition of business was orderly and
rapid. His power of analysis, and his skill in classification, enabled
him to despatch a vast mass of detail with singular promptness and ease.
His Cabinet meetings were admirably conducted. His clear presentation of
official subjects, his well-considered suggestion of topics on which
discussion was invited, his quick decision when all had been heard,
combined to show a thoroughness of mental training as rare as his
natural ability and his facile adaptation to a new and enlarged field of
labor.
With perfect comprehension of all the inheritances of the war, with a
cool calculation of the obstacles in his way, impelled always by a
generous enthusiasm, Garfield conceived that much might be done by his
administration towards restoring harmony between the different sections
of the Union. He was anxious to go South and speak to the people. As
early as April he had ineffectually endeavored to arrange for a trip to
Nashville, whither he had been cordially invited, and he was again
disappointed a few weeks later to find that he could not go to South
Carolina to attend the centennial celebration of the victory of the
Cowpens. But for the autumn he definitely counted on being present at
three memorable assemblies in the South, the celebration at Yorktown,
the opening of the Cotton Exposition at Atlanta, and the meeting of the
Army of the Cumberland at Chattanooga. He was already turning over in
his mind his address for each occasion, and the three taken together, he
said to a friend, gave him the exact scope and verge which he needed. At
Yorktown he would have before him the associations of a hundred years
that bound the South and the North in the sacred memory of a common
danger and a common victory. At Atlanta he would present the material
interests and the industrial development which appealed to the thrift
and independence of every household, and which should unite the two
sections by the instinct of self-interest and self-defence. At
Chattanooga he would revive memories of the war only to show that after
all its disaster and all its suffering, the country was stronger and
greater, the Union rendered indissoluble, and the future, through the
agony and blood of one generation, made brighter and better for all.
Garfield’s ambition for the success of his administration was high. With
strong caution and conservatism in his nature, he was in no danger of
attempting rash experiments or of resorting to the empiricism of
statesmanship. But he believed that renewed and closer attention should
be given to questions affecting the material interests and commercial
prospects of fifty millions of people. He believed that our continental
relations, extensive and undeveloped as they are, involved
responsibility, and could be cultivated into profitable friendship or be
abandoned to harmful indifference or lasting enmity. He believed with
equal confidence that an essential forerunner to a new era of national
progress must be a feeling of contentment in every section of the Union,
and a generous belief that the benefits and burdens of government would
be common to all. Himself a conspicuous illustration of what ability and
ambition may do under republican institutions, he loved his country with
a passion of patriotic devotion, and every waking thought was given to
her advancement. He was an American in all his aspirations, and he
looked to the destiny and influence of the United States with the
philosophic composure of Jefferson and the demonstrative confidence of
John Adams.
THE POLITICAL CONTROVERSY.
The political events which disturbed the President’s serenity for many
weeks before that fatal day in July form an important chapter in his
career, and, in his own judgment, involved questions of principle and of
right which are vitally essential to the constitutional administration
of the Federal Government. It would be out of place here and now to
speak the language of controversy, but the events referred to, however
they may continue to be source of contention with others, have become,
so far as Garfield is concerned, as much a matter of history as his
heroism at Chickamauga or his illustrious service in the House. Detail
is not needful, and personal antagonism shall not be rekindled by any
word uttered to-day. The motives of those opposing him are not to be
here adversely interpreted nor their course harshly characterized. But
of the dead President this is to be said, and said because his own
speech is forever silenced and he can be no more heard except through
the fidelity and the love of surviving friends. From the beginning to
the end of the controversy he so much deplored, the President was never
for one moment actuated by any motive of gain to himself or of loss to
others. Least of all men did he harbor revenge, rarely did he even show
resentment, and malice was not in his nature. He was congenially
employed only in the exchange of good offices and the doing of kindly
deeds.
There was not an hour, from the beginning of the trouble till the fatal
shot entered his body, when the President would not gladly, for the sake
of restoring harmony, have retraced any step he had taken if such
retracing had merely involved consequences personal to himself. The
pride of consistency, or any supposed sense of humiliation that might
result from surrendering his position, had not a feather’s weight with
him. No man was ever less subject to such influences from within or from
without. But after the most anxious deliberation and the coolest survey
of all the circumstances, he solemnly believed that the true
prerogatives of the Executive were involved in the issue which had been
raised, and that he would be unfaithful to his supreme obligation if he
failed to maintain, in all their vigor, the constitutional rights and
dignities of his great office. He believed this in all the convictions
of conscience when in sound and vigorous health, and he believed it in
his suffering and prostration in the last conscious thought which his
wearied mind bestowed on the transitory struggles of life.
More than this need not be said. Less than this could not be said.
Justice to the dead, the highest obligation that devolves upon the
living, demands the declaration that in all the bearings of the subject,
actual or possible, the President was content in his mind, justified in
his conscience, immovable in his conclusions.
GARFIELD’S RELIGION.
The religious element in Garfield’s character was deep and earnest. In
his early youth he espoused the faith of the Disciples, a sect of that
great Baptist Communion which in different ecclesiastical establishments
is so numerous and so influential throughout all parts of the United
States. But the broadening tendency of his mind and his active spirit of
inquiry were early apparent and carried him beyond the dogmas of sect
and the restraints of association. In selecting a college in which to
continue his education he rejected Bethany, though presided over by
Alexander Campbell, the greatest preacher of his church. His reasons
were characteristic: first, that Bethany leaned too heavily toward
slavery; and, second, that being himself a Disciple and the son of
Disciple parents, he had little acquaintance with people of other
beliefs, and he thought it would make him more liberal, quoting his own
words, both in his religious and general views, to go into a new circle
and be under new influences.
The liberal tendency which he had anticipated as the result of wider
culture was fully realized. He was emancipated from mere sectarian
belief, and with eager interest pushed his investigations in the
direction of modern progressive thought. He followed with quickening
step in the paths of exploration and speculation so fearlessly trodden
by Darwin, by Huxley, by Tyndall, and by other living scientists of the
radical and advanced type. His own church, binding its disciples by no
formulated creed, but accepting the Old and New Testaments as the word
of God, with unbiased liberality of private interpretation, favored, if
it did not stimulate, the spirit of investigation. Its members profess
with sincerity, and profess only, to be of one mind and one faith with
those who immediately followed the Master, and who were first called
Christians at Antioch.
But however high Garfield reasoned of “fixed fate, free will,
foreknowledge absolute,” he was never separated from the Church of the
Disciples in his affections and in his associations. For him it held the
ark of the covenant. To him it was the gate of Heaven. The world of
religious belief is full of solecisms and contradictions. A philosophic
observer declares that men by the thousand will die in defence of a
creed whose doctrines they do not comprehend and whose tenets they
habitually violate. It is equally true that men by the thousand will
cling to church organizations with instinctive and undenying fidelity
when their belief in maturer years is radically different from that
which inspired them as neophytes.
But after this range of speculation, and this latitude of doubt,
Garfield came back always with freshness and delight to the simpler
instincts of religious faith, which, earliest implanted, longest
survive. Not many weeks before his assassination, walking on the banks
of the Potomac with a friend, and conversing on these topics of personal
religion, concerning which noble natures have an unconquerable reserve,
he said that he found the Lord’s Prayer and the simple petitions learned
in infancy infinitely restful to him, not merely in their stated
repetition, but in their casual and frequent recall as he went about the
daily duties of life. Certain texts of scripture had a very strong hold
on his memory and his heart. He heard, while in Edinburgh some years
ago, an eminent Scotch preacher who prefaced his sermon with reading the
eighth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, which book had been the
subject of careful study with Garfield during his religious life. He was
greatly impressed by the elocution of the preacher and declared that it
had imparted a new and deeper meaning to the majestic utterances of
Saint Paul. He referred often in after years to that memorable service,
and dwelt with exaltation of feeling upon the radiant promise and the
assured hope with which the great apostle of the Gentiles was “persuaded
that neither death, nor life, nor principalities, nor powers nor things
present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other
creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in
Christ Jesus our Lord.”
The crowning characteristic of General Garfield’s religious opinions,
as, indeed, of all his opinions, was his liberality. In all things he
had charity. Tolerance was of his nature. He respected in others the
qualities which he possessed himself—sincerity of conviction and
frankness of expression. With him the inquiry was not so much what a man
believes, but does he believe it? The lines of his friendship and his
confidence encircled men of every creed, and men of no creed, and to the
end of his life, on his ever lengthening list of friends, were to be
found the names of a pious Catholic priest and of an honest-minded and
generous-hearted free-thinker.
THE ASSASSIN’S BULLET.
On the morning of Saturday, July 2d, the President was a contented and
happy man—not in an ordinary degree, but joyfully, almost boyishly
happy. On his way to the railroad station to which he drove slowly, in
conscious enjoyment of the beautiful morning, with an unwonted sense of
leisure, and a keen anticipation of pleasure, his talk was all in the
grateful and gratulatory vein. He felt that after four months of trial
his administration was strong in its grasp of affairs, strong in popular
favor and destined to grow stronger; that grave difficulties confronting
him at his inauguration had been safely passed; that troubles lay behind
him and not before him; that he was soon to meet the wife whom he loved,
now recovering from an illness which had but lately disquieted and at
times almost unnerved him; that he was going to his Alma Mater to renew
the most cherished associations of his young manhood, and to exchange
greetings with those whose deepening interest had followed every step of
his upward progress from the day he entered upon his college course
until he had attained the loftiest elevation in the gift of his
countrymen.
Surely, if happiness can ever come from the honors or triumphs of this
world, on that quiet July morning James A. Garfield may well have been a
happy man. No foreboding of evil haunted him; no slightest premonition
of danger clouded his sky. His terrible fate was upon him in an instant.
One moment he stood erect, strong, confident, in the years stretching
peacefully out before him. The next he lay wounded, bleeding, helpless,
doomed to weary weeks of torture, to silence and the grave.
Great in life, he was surpassingly great in death. For no cause, in the
very frenzy of wantonness and wickedness by the red hand of murder, he
was thrust from the full tide of this world’s interest, from its hopes,
its aspirations, its victories, into the visible presence of death—and
he did not quail. Not alone for one short moment in which, stunned and
dazed, he could give up life, hardly aware of its relinquishment, but
through days of deadly languor, through weeks of agony, that was not
less agony because silently borne, with clear sight and calm courage, he
looked into his open grave. What blight and ruin met his anguished eyes,
whose lips may tell—what brilliant, broken plans, what baffled, high
ambitions, what sundering of strong, warm, manhood’s friendship, what
bitter rending of sweet household ties! Behind him a proud, expectant
nation, a great host of sustaining friends, a cherished and happy
mother, wearing the full, rich honors of her early toil and tears; the
wife of his youth, whose whole life lay in his; the little boys not yet
emerged from childhood’s day of frolic; the fair, young daughter; the
sturdy sons just springing into closest companionship, claiming every
day and every day rewarding a father’s love and care; and in his heart
the eager, rejoicing power to meet all demand. Before him, desolation
and great darkness! And his soul was not shaken. His countrymen were
thrilled with instant, profound, and universal sympathy. Masterful in
his mortal weakness, he became the centre of a nation’s love, enshrined
in the prayers of a world. But all the love and all the sympathy could
not share with him his suffering. He trod the wine-press alone. With
unfaltering front he faced death. With unfailing tenderness he took
leave of life. Above the demoniac hiss of the assassin’s bullet he heard
the voice of God. With simple resignation he bowed to the Divine decree.
As the end drew near, his early craving for the sea returned. The
stately mansion of power had been to him the wearisome hospital of pain,
and he begged to be taken from his prison walls, from its oppressive,
stifling air, from its homelessness and its hopelessness. Gently,
silently, the love of a great people bore the pale sufferer to the
longed-for healing of the sea, to live or to die, as God should will,
within sight of its heaving billows, within sound of its manifold
voices. With wan, fevered face tenderly lifted to the cooling breeze, he
looked out wistfully upon the ocean’s changing wonders; on its far
sails, whitening in the morning light; on its restless waves, rolling
shoreward to break and die beneath the noonday sun; on the red clouds of
evening, arching low to the horizon; on the serene and shining pathway
of the stars. Let us think that his dying eyes read a mystic meaning
which only the rapt and parting soul may know. Let us believe that in
the silence of the receding world he heard the great waves breaking on a
further shore and felt already upon his wasted brow the breath of the
eternal morning.
AFTER THE ORATION.
The eulogy was concluded at 1.50, having taken just an hour and a half
in its delivery. As Mr. Blaine gave utterance to the last solemn words
the spectators broke into a storm of applause, which was not hushed for
some moments. The address was listened to with an intense interest and
in solemn silence, unbroken by any sound except by a sigh of relief
(such as arises from a large audience when a strong tension is removed
from their minds) when the orator passed from his allusion to
differences existing in the Republican party last spring. Benediction
was then offered by the Rev. Dr. Bullock, Chaplain of the Senate. The
Marine Band played the “Garfield Dead March” as the invited guests filed
out of the Chamber in the same order in which they had entered it. The
Senate was the last to leave, and then the House was called to order by
the Speaker.
Mr. McKinley, of Ohio, offered the following resolution:
_Resolved_, The Senate concurring, that the thanks of Congress are
hereby presented to the Hon. James G. Blaine for the appropriate
memorial address delivered by him on the life and services of James A.
Garfield, late President of the United States, in the Representative
Hall, before both houses of Congress and their invited guests, on the
27th of February, 1882, and that he be requested to furnish a copy for
publication.
_Resolved_, That the Chairman of the Joint Committee appointed to make
the necessary arrangements to carry into effect the resolution of
Congress in relation to the memorial exercises in honor of James A.
Garfield be requested to communicate to Mr. Blaine the foregoing
resolution, receive his answer thereto and present the same to both
Houses of Congress. The resolution was adopted unanimously.
Mr. McKinley then offered the following:
_Resolved_, That as a further mark of respect to the memory of the
deceased President of the United States the House do now adjourn.
The resolution was unanimously adopted, and in accordance therewith the
Speaker at 1.55 declared the House adjourned until to-morrow.
CIVIL SERVICE.
Improvement of the Subordinate Civil Service.
_Speech of Hon. George H. Pendleton, of Ohio, in the Senate of the
United States, Tuesday, December 12, 1882._
On the bill (S. 133) to regulate and improve the civil service of the
United States.
MR. PENDLETON said:
MR. PRESIDENT: When I assented yesterday that this bill should be
informally laid aside without losing its place, I had no set speech to
deliver, nor had I the intention of preparing a speech for to-day. I did
not intend to hold up the bill here as an obstruction to any business
before the Senate, or as an aid in passing any measure that might
receive my approbation, as my good Friend, the Senator from Kansas [Mr.
PLUMB], so politely intimated. The bill providing for a bankrupt law was
very speedily, and to me unexpectedly, disposed of yesterday, and this
bill was called up several hours earlier than I supposed it would be,
and I thought the convenience of the Senate as well as of myself would
be subserved if I had an opportunity to condense what I had to say on
the subject.
The necessity of a change in the civil administration of this government
has been so fully discussed in the periodicals and pamphlets and
newspapers, and before the people, that I feel indisposed to make any
further argument. This subject, in all its ramifications, was submitted
to the people of the United States at the fall elections, and they have
spoken in no low or uncertain tone.
I do not doubt that the local questions exerted great influence in many
States upon the result; but it is my conviction, founded on the
observation of an active participation in the canvass in Ohio, that
dissatisfaction with the methods of administration adopted by the
Republican party in the past few years was the most important single
factor in reaching the conclusion that was attained. I do not say that
the civil service of the Government is wholly bad. I can not honestly do
so. I do not say that the men who are employed in it are all corrupt or
inefficient or unworthy. That would do a very great injustice to a great
number of faithful, honest, and intelligent public servants. But I do
say that the civil service is inefficient; that it is expensive; that it
is extravagant; that it is in many cases and in some senses corrupt;
that it has welded the whole body of its employès into a great political
machine; that it has converted them into an army of officers and men,
veterans in political warfare, disciplined and trained, whose salaries,
whose time, whose exertions at least twice within a very short period in
the history of our country have robbed the people of the fair results of
Presidential elections.
I repeat, Mr. President, that the civil service is inefficient,
expensive, and extravagant and that it is in many instances corrupt. Is
it necessary for me to prove facts which are so patent that even the
blind must see and the deaf must hear?
At the last session of Congress, in open Senate, it was stated and
proven that in the Treasury Department at Washington there were 3,400
employès, and that of this number the employment of less than 1,600 was
authorized by law and appropriations made for their payment, and that
more than 1,700 were put on or off the rolls of the Department at the
will and pleasure of the Secretary of the Treasury, and paid not out of
appropriations made for that purpose but out of various funds and
balances of appropriation lapsed in the Treasury in one shape or
another, which are not by law appropriated to the payment of these
employès. I was amazed. I had never before heard that such a state of
affairs existed. I did not believe that it was possible until my
honorable colleague rose in his place and admitted the general truth of
the statement and defended the system as being necessary for the proper
administration of the Treasury Department.
Mr. President, we see in this statement whence comes that immense body
of public officials, inspectors, detectives, deputies, examiners, from
the Treasury Department who have for years past been sent over the
States for the purpose of managing Presidential conventions and securing
Presidential elections at the public expense.
I hold in my hand a statement made before the committee which reported
this bill, showing that in one of the divisions of the Treasury
Department at Washington where more than nine hundred persons were
employed, men and women, five hundred and more of them were entirely
useless, and were discharged without in any degree affecting the
efficiency of the bureau. I read from the testimony taken before the
committee. Every gentleman can find it if he has not it already on his
table. The statement to which I refer I read from page 121 of report of
committee No. 576:
The extravagance of the present system was well shown in the
examination of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing by a committee of
which I was chairman. Of a force of nine hundred and fifty-eight
persons five hundred and thirty-nine, with annual salaries amounting
to $390,000, were found to be superfluous and were discharged. The
committee reported that for years the force in some branches had been
twice and even three times as great as the work required. In one
division—
I beg Senators to listen to this—
In one division a sort of platform had been built underneath the iron
roof, about seven feet above the floor, to accommodate the surplus
counters. It appeared that the room was of ample size without this
contrivance for all persons really needed. In another division were
found twenty messengers doing work which it was found could be done by
one. The committee reported that the system of patronage was chiefly
responsible for the extravagance and irregularities which had marked
the administration of the bureau, and declared that it had cost the
people millions of dollars in that branch of the service alone. Under
this system the office had been made to subserve the purpose of an
almshouse or asylum.
In consequence of this report the annual appropriation for the
Printing Bureau was reduced from $800,000 to $200,000, and out of the
first year’s savings was built the fine building now occupied by that
bureau.
And again, on page 126, this same gentleman says:
My observation teaches me there is more pressure and importunity for
these places—
That is, the $900 clerkship—
and that more time is consumed by heads of Departments, and those
having the appointing power, in listening to applications for that
grade than for all the other places in the Departments combined; and
that when it is discretionary with a Department to appoint a man or a
woman the choice is usually exercised in favor of the woman. I know a
recent case in the Treasury Department where a vacancy occurred which
the head of the bureau deemed it important to fill with a man. It was
a position where a man’s services were almost indispensable; but the
importunity was so great that he was compelled to accept a woman,
although her services were not required. In consequence of this
importunity for places for women a practice has grown up in the
Treasury Department of allowing the salaries of the higher grades of
clerkships to lapse when vacancies occur, and of dividing up the
amount among clerks, usually women, at lower salaries. In the place of
a male clerk at $1,800 a year, for instance, three women may be
employed at $600. Often the services of a man are required in its
higher grade, while the women are not needed at all; but as the man
can not be employed without discharging the women he can not be had.
The persons employed in this way are said to be “on the lapse.” Out of
this grew the practice known in Departmental language as “anticipating
the lapse.”
In the endeavor to satisfy the pressure for place more people are
appointed on this roll than the salaries then lapsing will warrant, in
the hope that enough more will lapse before the end of the fiscal year
to provide funds for their payment. But the funds almost always run
short before the end of the year, and then either the “lapse”
appointees must be dropped or clerks discharged from the regular roll
to make place for them. In some instances, in former administrations,
the employès on the regular roll were compelled, under terror of
dismissal, to ask for leaves of absence, without pay, for a sufficient
time to make up the deficiency caused by the appointment of
unnecessary employès “on the lapse”. Another bad feature is that these
“lapse” employès being appointed without regard to the necessities of
the work, for short periods and usually without regard to their
qualifications, are of little service, while their employment prevents
the filling of vacancies on the regular roll and demoralizes the
service.
In one case thirty-five persons were put on the “lapse fund” of the
Treasurer’s office for eight days at the end of the fiscal year, to
sop up some money which was in danger of being saved and returned to
the Treasury.
MR. MAXEY. Do I understand the Senator to say that that testimony was
taken by the Senate Committee on Civil Service and Retrenchment?
MR. PENDLETON. Yes sir. This testimony was taken in the month of March,
I think, of the present year.
Says this gentleman further—
I have no doubt that under a rigid application of this proposed system
the work of the Treasury Department could be performed with two-thirds
the number of clerks now employed, and that is a moderate estimate of
the saving.
Mr. President, a Senator who is now present in the Chamber and who will
recognize the statement when I make it, though I shall not indicate his
name, told me that the Secretary of one of the Departments of the
Government said to him, perhaps to the Committee on Appropriations, at
the last session, that there were seventeen clerks in his Department for
whom he could find no employment; that he did need one competent clerk
of a higher grade, and if the appropriation were made for that one
clerk, at the proper amount according to the gradations of the service
and the appropriation for the seventeen were left out, he could, without
impairing the efficiency of his Department, leave those seventeen clerks
off the roll; but if the appropriation should be made the personal,
social, and political pressure was so great that he would be obliged to
employ and pay them, though he could find no employment for them.
Need I prove, Mr. President, that which is known to all men, that a
systematic pressure has been brought upon the clerks in the Departments
of the Government this year to extort from them a portion of their
salary under a system which the President himself scouts as being
voluntary, and that they are led to believe and fairly led to believe
that they have bought and paid for the offices which they hold and that
the good faith of those who take from them a portion of the salary is
pledged to their retention in their positions?
I have said before upon the floor of the Senate that this whole system
demoralizes everybody who is engaged in it. It demoralizes the clerks
who are appointed. That is inevitable. It demoralizes those who make the
appointment. That also is inevitable. And it demoralizes Senators and
Representatives who by the exercise of their power as Senators and
Representatives exert pressure upon the appointing power.
I repeat that this system, permeating the whole civil service of the
country, demoralizes everybody connected with it, the clerks, the
appointing power, and those who by their official position and their
relations to the executive administration of the Government have the
influence necessary to put these clerks in office.
Mr. President, how can you expect purity, economy, efficiency to be
found anywhere in the service of the Government if the report made by
this committee to the Senate has even the semblance of truth? If the
civil service of the country is to be filled up with superfluous
persons, if salaries are to be increased in order that assessments may
be paid, if members of Congress having friends or partisan supporters
are to be able to make places for them in public employment, how can you
expect Senators and Representatives to be economical and careful in the
administration of the public money?
I am sure there is no Senator here who will forget a scene which we had
upon the last night session of the last session, when the Senator from
Iowa [Mr. Allison], the chairman of the Committee on Appropriations, the
official leader of the Senate, rising in his place with the last
appropriation bill in his hand, and the report of the committee of
conference, made a statement to the Senate of the result of the
appropriations. He stated that the appropriations that were made during
that session amounted to $292,000,000—I throw off the fractions—and he
felicitated the Senate and himself as the organ and mouthpiece of his
party, that this was an excess of only $77,000,000 over and above the
expenditures of the year before. Instantly the Senator from Connecticut
[Mr. Platt] rose in his place and reminded the Senator that there would
be a deficiency in the Pension Bureau alone of $20,000,000 or
$25,000,000. The honorable Senator from Georgia, who now occupies the
chair [Mr. Brown], inquired of the chairman of the Committee on
Appropriations whether there would be any deficiencies in the expenses
of the current year, or whether the statement was supposed to cover
probable deficiencies in addition to the appropriations, and the
honorable Senator from Kentucky [Mr. BECK], certainly as familiar with
all these subjects as any member of this body, rose in his place and
said that notwithstanding the utmost scrutiny of the Committee on
Appropriations, undoubtedly at the end of the fiscal year the ordinary
deficiencies would be found.
Two hundred and ninety-two millions of dollars of regular
appropriations; $20,000,000 of deficiency in one bureau alone, the usual
deficiencies occurring during the course of the year of $20,000,000
more! As if this were not enough, my honorable colleague arose in his
place and took up the tale and called attention to the fact that the
permanent appropriations amounted annually to one hundred and
thirty-seven or more millions of dollars. According to his statement
made in that speech, which I am sure nobody will forget, the
expenditures of the Government during this present fiscal year would
amount to $402,000,000 or $403,000,000—nearly $9 a head for every man,
woman, and child in the United States—more money than was appropriated
for all the expenses of the Government during the first forty years of
its existence, I will venture to say, though I do not speak by the book.
Harbor and river appropriation bills of $18,000,000! Thirty-two new
buildings commenced in the States, almost every one of which has had
buildings before! Two million five hundred thousand dollars appropriated
for the commencement of those buildings, for laying the foundation!
Before they are finished $25,000,000 more will be needed to complete
them! While these enormous appropriations were being made there came up
from the country a demand for a revision of the tariff, which was
confessedly greatly needed; for a revision of the internal-revenue laws,
which was equally necessary; for a reduction of taxation pressing so
heavily upon all the interests of the country. Our honorable friends
upon the other side of the Chamber chose to answer that demand by a bill
repealing the taxes upon perfumery and cosmetics and bank checks, and
met with a sneer of derision and ridicule every effort that was made on
this side of the Chamber for a reduction of taxation.
Mr. President, it was these methods of administration, it was these acts
of the Republican party, which made it possible for the Democratic
party, and other men who prized their country higher than they did their
party, to elect in Ohio a Democratic ticket by eighteen or twenty
thousand majority, and elect sixteen out of the twenty-one members of
Congress assigned to that State. I say elected sixteen, perfectly
conscious of the fact that thirteen of them only have received their
certificates at present. If three of them, against whom the aggregate
majority is only sixty votes, do not receive certificates under the
action of the returning board or under the powers of our judiciary which
have been invoked, they will be seated, as they ought to be, at the
beginning of the next session of Congress in the other house.
Under the impulse of this election in Ohio, upon these facts and
influences which I have stated as being of great importance there, it
became possible for the Democratic party and its allies, whom I have
described, to elect a Democratic governor in New York, in Massachusetts,
in Kansas, in Michigan, and various other States in which there has been
none but a Republican governor for many years past. The same influences
enable us, having accessions to our ranks from Iowa and Wisconsin and
Michigan and Pennsylvania, to have at the beginning of the next session
of Congress an aggregate of perhaps sixty or more Democratic majority in
the House of Representatives.
MR. HALE. Will the Senator from Ohio let me ask him a question right
here? As he is confining himself very closely to the civil service of
the Government, I should like to ask him one question here relating to
that. He has appealed directly to the Chairman of the Committee on
Appropriations, who was not present at the time, although he has just
come in. The Senator from Ohio has alluded to the remarkable speech made
by the chairman of the Committee on Appropriations upon the expenditures
of the Government at the last session, and the wonderful scene that was
exhibited there at that time. In that speech on the expenditures of the
Government, by the chairman of the Committee on Appropriations, was the
admission that the aggregate expenditures were seventy-odd millions of
dollars more than the year before—remarkable when in that speech of the
Senator from Iowa, the chairman of the Committee on Appropriations, he
showed that every dollar was accounted for by deficiencies on the part
of the previous Democratic Congress and by the increase of pensions and
some other matters.
MR. PENDLETON. I remember the speech of the Senator from Iowa very well;
I have quoted it repeatedly from the RECORD, in which I found it. I did
him no injustice; I know he will not believe I would intentionally do
him injustice at any time. I stated then, I stated a moment ago, I have
stated it on the stump, I repeat it now, that the Senator from Iowa in
that speech said that the appropriations for the current year were
$292,000,000, and that they were $77,000,000 in excess of those made for
the last year: and I might have added if I chose to make it a partisan
affair, that the last Congress was under Democratic control.
MR. HALE. And did he not account for every dollar of that $77,000,000
increase? But I think I will leave it to him, as he is present now.
MR. PENDLETON. Undoubtedly he accounted for it, for he gave all the
items that went to make up the $77,000,000.
I am confining myself more closely, Mr. President, to the discussion of
the reform of the civil service of the Government than the Senator seems
to apprehend. I was showing to him the causes of this very remarkable
revolution in public sentiment which we have seen as exhibited by the
last election. I attributed that result in great measure to the defects
in our civil-service system and to the demoralization which, arising
there and in its practices, has reached the other departments of the
Government.
Mr. President, I was about to say when the Senator from Maine
interrupted me that I begged gentlemen on this side of the Chamber and I
beg the Democratic party throughout the country not to mistake this
result of last fall as a purely Democratic triumph. It was achieved by
the Democratic party with the assistance of men of all parties upon whom
their love of country sat heavier than their love of party. It was a
protest made by an awakened people who were indignant at the wrongs
which had been practiced upon them. It was a tentative stretching out of
that same people to find instrumentalities by which those wrongs could
be righted.
The people demanded economy and the Republican party gave them
extravagance. The people demanded a reduction of taxation and the
Republican party gave them an increase of expenditure. The people
demanded purity of administration and the Republican party revelled in
profligacy; and when the Republican party came to put themselves on
trial before that same people the people gave them a day of calamity.
I beg that my colleagues on this side of the Chamber may remember, I
desire that our party associates throughout the country shall remember,
that the people will continue to us their confidence and increase it,
that they will continue to us power and increase it, just in the
proportion that we honestly and fairly and promptly answer to the
demands which the people have made, and which were thus responded to by
the Republican party. They asked revenue reform and they received none.
They asked civil-service reform and they obtained none. They asked that
the civil service of this Government should not either as to its men or
its expenditures be made the basis upon which political contests were to
be carried on, and they received for answer that that was an old fashion
and a good method of political warfare.
I beg gentlemen upon this side of the Chamber to remember that if they
desire to escape the fate which now seems to be impending over their
adversaries they must avoid the example which those adversaries have set
them.
Mr. President the bill which I have the honor to advocate to-day, and
which is reported by a committee of the Senate, is the commencement, in
my humble judgment, of an attempt to answer one of the demands which the
people have authoritatively made. I speak advisedly. It is the
commencement of an attempt to organize a system which shall respond to
one of the demands which the people have made.
I suppose the most enthusiastic supporter of this bill will not pretend
that it is perfect. I suppose he will not pretend that upon the adoption
of this bill a system will immediately spring into life which will
perfect and purify the civil service of the Government. But it is the
commencement of an attempt to lay the foundations of a system which, if
it shall answer in any reasonable degree the expectation of those who by
experience and faithful study have framed it, it will in the end correct
the abuses to which I have alluded, and which have been delineated by no
enemy of the Republican party or of the Administration in the report
which I have read to the Senate.
The bill has for its foundation the simple and single idea that the
offices of the Government are trusts for the people; that the
performance of the duties of those offices is to be in the interests of
the people; that there is no excuse for the being of one office or the
paying of one salary except that it is in the highest practicable degree
necessary for the welfare of the people; that every superfluous
office-holder should be cut off; that every incompetent office-holder
should be dismissed; that the employment of two where one will suffice
is robbery; that salaries so large that they can submit to the
extortion, the forced payment of 2 or 10 per cent. are excessive and
ought to be diminished. I am not speaking of purely voluntary
contributions.
If it be true that offices are trusts for the people, then it is also
true that the offices should be filled by those who can perform and
discharge the duties in the best possible way. Fidelity, capacity,
honesty, were the tests established by Mr. Jefferson when he assumed the
reins of government in 1801. He said then, and said truly, that these
elements in the public offices of the Government were necessary to an
honest civil service, and that an honest civil service was essential to
the purity and efficiency of administration, necessary to the
preservation of republican institutions.
Mr. Jefferson was right. The experience of eighty years has shown it.
The man best fitted should be the man placed in office, especially if
the appointment is made by the servants of the people. It is as true as
truth can be that fidelity, capacity, honesty, are essential elements of
fitness, and that the man who is most capable and most faithful and most
honest is the man who is the most fit, and he should be appointed to
office.
These are truths that in their statement will be denied by none, and yet
the best means of ascertaining that fitness has been a vexed question
with every Administration of this Government and with every man who has
been charged with the responsibility of its execution. We know what is
the result. Pass examinations have been tried; professions have been
tried; honest endeavors have been tried; a disposition to live
faithfully up to these requirements has been tried; and yet we know and
the experience of to-day shows it, that they have all made a most
lamentable failure. We do now know that so great has been the increase
of the powers of this Government and the number of officers under it
that no President, no Cabinet, no heads of bureaus, can by possibility
know the fitness of all applicants for the subordinate offices of the
Government. The result has been, and under the existing system it must
always be, that the President and his Cabinet and those who are charged
with the responsibility have remitted the question of fitness to their
own partisan friends, and those partisan friends have in their turn
decided the question of fitness in favor of their partisan friends. The
Administration has need of the support of members of Congress in
carrying on its work. It therefore remits to members of Congress of its
own party the questions of appointment to office in the various
districts. These gentlemen, in the course of their political life,
naturally (I do not find fault with them for it) find themselves under
strain and pressure to secure a nomination or a re-nomination or
election, and they use the places to reward those whose friends and
families and connections and aids and deputies will serve their purpose.
I put it to gentlemen, particularly to my friends on this side of the
Chamber, because you have not the opportunity to exercise this patronage
as much as our friends on the other side, whether or not the element of
fitness enters largely into the questions of appointment in your
respective districts and States. It can not be. The necessities of the
case prevent it. The pressure upon men who want to be elected prevents
it. The demands that are made by partisan friends and those who have
been influential and potent in securing personal triumph to gentlemen
who may happen to be in such relation to the appointing power that they
have the influence to secure appointment prevent it. The result is as I
have stated, that instead of making fitness, capacity, honesty, fidelity
the only or the essential qualifications for office, personal fidelity
and partisan activity alone control.
When I came to the Senate I had occasion more than ever before to make
some investigation upon the subject, and found to my surprise the extent
to which the demoralization of the service had gone. I saw the civil
service debauched and demoralized. I saw offices distributed to
incompetent and unworthy men as a reward for the lowest of dirty
partisan work. I saw many men employed to do the work of one man. I saw
the money of the people shamefully wasted to keep up electioneering
funds by political assessments on salaries. I saw the whole body of the
public officers paid by the people organized into a compact, disciplined
corps of electioneerers obeying a master as if they were eating the
bread of his dependence and rendering him personal service. I saw these
evils were fostered, encouraged, stimulated very largely by Senators and
Representatives. They had their friends who lent them a helping hand;
and regardless of the fitness of these friends, of the necessity of
their employment, they insisted on the appointment and had the power,
which on consideration, was found sufficient to secure it.
I believed then, and I believe now, that the existing system which, for
want of a better name, I call the “spoils system,” must be killed or it
will kill the Republic. I believe that it is impossible to maintain free
institutions in the country upon any basis of that sort. I am no prophet
of evil, I am not a pessimist in any sense of the word, but I do believe
that if the present system goes on until 50,000,000 people shall have
grown into 100,000,000, and 140,000 officers shall have grown into
300,000, with their compensation in proportion, and all shall depend
upon the accession of one party or the other to the Presidency and to
the executive functions, the Presidency of the country, if it shall last
in name so long, will be put up for sale to the highest bidder even as
in Rome the imperial crown was put to those who could raise the largest
fund.
I beg gentlemen to believe that whatever I may have said as to the
relations of parties I do not approach the question of the reform of the
civil service in any mere partisan spirit. It was because I thought I
saw this danger, because I believed that it was imminent, because I
believed then as I do now that it is destructive of republicanism and
will end in the downfall of republican government, that I felt it my
duty to devote whatever ability I had to the consideration of this
subject. It was that which induced me a year or two ago to introduce a
bill which after the best reflection, the best study, the best
assistance that I could get I did introduce in the Senate, and which in
some degree modified, has come back from the Committee on Civil Service
Reform, and is now pending before this body.
The purpose of this bill is merely to secure the application of the
Jeffersonian tests, fidelity, honesty, capacity. The methods are those
which are known and familiar to us all in the various avocations of
life—competition, comparison. Perhaps the bill is imperfect. If so, I am
sure I express the wish of every member of the committee that it may be
improved. There is no pride of opinion, there is no determination, if
suggestions of value are made not promptly to adopt them. There is no
disposition to do aught except to perfect, and in the best possible way,
this bill, the sole object of which is to improve this great department
of our Government.
Mr. President, it is because I believe the “spoils system” to be a great
crime, because I believe it to be fraught with danger, because I believe
that the highest duty of patriotism is to prevent the crime and to avoid
the danger, that I advocate this or a better bill if it can be found for
the improvement of the civil service.
I shall say in passing that I find it no objection to this bill at all
that while I believe it is of great value to the country in all its
aspects, I do not believe it will bring disaster to the Democratic
party. There has been great misapprehension as to the methods and the
scope of the bill. I desire the attention of the Senators while I
briefly state them. I see I have spoken a good deal longer than I
intended. The bill simply applies to the Executive Departments of the
Government here in Washington and to those offices throughout the
country, post-offices and custom-houses, which employ more than fifty
persons. I am told, and I am sure that I am not far out of the way, if I
am not exactly accurate, that the number of such offices does not exceed
thirty or perhaps thirty-five, and that the number of persons who are
employed in them, together with those in the Departments here, will not
exceed 10,000.
I said that this was a tentative effort; that it was intended to be an
experiment, and it is because it is tentative, because it is intended to
be an experiment, that the committee thought it advisable in its initial
stages to limit it, as they have limited it, in the bill. The bill does
not apply to elective officers, of course, nor to officers appointed by
the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, nor to
the military, nor to the naval, nor to the judicial establishment. It
applies simply now to those officials who are employed in the
Departments here and in the large offices of the Government elsewhere,
first, because as an experiment it was thought that it gave scope enough
to test its value and labor enough to employ all those who are engaged
in putting it in operation until its merits shall be fairly tried and it
shall commend itself either to the approval or condemnation of the
American people.
There was another reason. The heads of offices and bureaus, where the
number of employès is small, can themselves personally judge of the
fitness of persons who are applicants for appointment, knowing as they
do more or less in their narrow communities their antecedents, their
habits, and their modes of life.
The bill does not touch the question of tenure of office or of removal
from office. I see it stated by those who do not know that it provides
for a seven years’ tenure of office. There is nothing like it in the
bill. I see it stated that it provides against removals from office.
There is nothing like it in the bill. Whether or not it would be
advisable to fix the tenure of office, whether or not it would be
advisable to limit removals are questions about which men will differ;
but the bill as it is and as we invoke the judgment of the Senate upon
it contains no provisions either as to tenure of office or removals from
office. It leaves those questions exactly where the law now finds them.
It concerns itself only with admission to the public service; it
concerns itself only with discovering in certain proper ways or in
certain ways—gentlemen may differ as to whether they are proper or
not—the fitness of the persons who shall be appointed. It takes
cognizance of the fact that it is impossible for the head of a
Department or a large office personally to know all the applicants, and
therefore it provides a method by which, when a vacancy occurs by death,
by resignation, by the unlimited power of removal, a suitable person may
be designated to fill the vacancy. It says in effect that when a vacancy
occurs in the civil service everybody who desires entrance shall have
the right to apply. Everybody, humble, poor, without patronage, without
influence, whatever may be his condition in life, shall have the right
to go before the parties charged with an examination of his fitness and
there be subjected to the test of open, regulated, fair, impartial
examination.
MR. MAXEY. If it is agreeable I should like to interrupt the Senator to
ask a question upon that point. In the plan suggested for examination as
to fitness is it to be a competitive examination by the bill? I ask the
Senator if the committee has fallen upon any plan as to the line of
inquiry that should be instituted in that examination, and if so will he
indicate it? That I think is an important consideration.
MR. PENDLETON. I am glad that the Senator has asked that question, for
it gives me an opportunity of saying to him and to the Senate that if
they will examine the report made by the committee, they will find that
this system is not entirely new, but that to a very large extent in
certain offices in New York, in Philadelphia, and in Boston it has been
put into practical operation under the heads of the offices there, and
that they have devised, with the assistance of the commission originally
appointed by General Grant, but largely upon their own motion, a system
which I suppose would, to some extent, be followed under this bill.
MR. MAXEY. What I desire to know is whether the committee, after
examining the various lines of questions asked in the competitive
examinations, have themselves fallen upon any plan which they could
recommend to the Senate as a proper plan for examination?
MR. PENDLETON. No; the committee have not carried their investigations
to that point for the simple reason that it would be impracticable for a
committee of the Senate charged with the examination of the general
subject to look into the proper examinations as to every Department of
the Government and every department in that Department. For instance,
for a letter-carrier one series of examinations might be very proper,
for an assayer another system of examination, for an accountant still
other examinations, for a weigher and gauger still another. The
examinations must be adapted to the particular offices which it is
sought to fill, and that can only be by the leisurely and competent
investigation of gentlemen who are charged as an official duty with the
determination of what the needs of all the Departments and offices
require.
MR. MAXEY. That may be quite a reasonable view of the case; but some of
the questions which I have seen submitted I am of the opinion have
nothing whatever to do with the examination for a mere clerkship, but
would have something to do perhaps with an examination in a college or
something of that sort.
MR. PENDLETON. The examinations are to be regulated in relation to the
particular offices to be filled. I am not the advocate of any special
system of questions which has been devised. I am not the apologist for
any error which may have been committed. I am not prepared to say that I
have seen any of these series of questions which might not admit of
improvement.
MR. MAXEY. I will state to the Senator that the suggestion he has
himself made is about the best that I have heard. A great many of the
questions which have been submitted I think are nonsensical to be put to
an applicant for a minor clerkship.
MR. PENDLETON. I shall offer some amendments in behalf of the committee
and in behalf of myself before we reach a vote. The details of the bill
are these: The preamble expresses fully the philosophy of the bill. Read
it carefully. It sets forth what common justice demands for the citizen
and for the Government. It sets forth what the economy, efficiency, and
integrity of the public service demand.
WHEREAS COMMON JUSTICE REQUIRES THAT, SO FAR AS PRACTICABLE, ALL
CITIZENS DULY QUALIFIED SHALL BE ALLOWED EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES, ON GROUNDS
OF PERSONAL FITNESS, FOR SECURING APPOINTMENTS, EMPLOYMENT, AND
PROMOTION IN THE SUBORDINATE CIVIL SERVICE OF THE UNITED STATES; AND
WHEREAS JUSTICE TO THE PUBLIC LIKEWISE REQUIRES THAT THE GOVERNMENT
SHALL HAVE THE LARGEST CHOICE AMONG THOSE LIKELY TO ANSWER THE
REQUIREMENTS OF THE PUBLIC SERVICE: AND
WHEREAS JUSTICE, AS WELL AS ECONOMY, EFFICIENCY, AND INTEGRITY IN THE
PUBLIC SERVICE WILL BE PROMOTED BY SUBSTITUTING OPEN AND UNIFORM
COMPETITIVE EXAMINATIONS FOR THE EXAMINATIONS HERETOFORE HELD IN
PURSUANCE OF THE STATUTES OF 1853 AND 1855.
Section 1 provides for the appointment by the President of a commission
of five persons, of different political parties, of whom three shall
hold no official place, and two shall be experienced in the public
service.
The second section is in the following words:
SEC. 2. That it shall be the duty of said commission.
First, To devise and submit to the President for his approval and
promulgation, from time to time, suitable rules, and to suggest
appropriate action for making this act effective: and when so approved
and promulgated it shall be the duty of all officers of the United
States in the Departments and offices to which any such rules may
relate to aid, in all proper ways, in carrying said rules, and any
modifications thereof, into effect.
Second, And, among other things, said rules shall provide and declare,
as nearly as the conditions of good administration will warrant, as
follows:
First, for open, competitive examinations for testing the capacity of
applicants for the public service now classified or to be classified
hereunder.
Second, that all the offices, places, and employments so arranged or
to be arranged in classes shall be filled by selections from among
those graded highest as the results of such competitive examinations.
Third, that original entrance to the public service aforesaid shall be
at the lowest grade.
Fourth, that there shall be a period of probation before any absolute
appointment or employment aforesaid.
Fifth, that promotions shall be from the lower grades to the higher on
the basis of merit and competition.
Sixth, that no person in the public service is for that reason under
any obligations to contribute to any political fund, or to render any
political service, and that he will not be removed or otherwise
prejudiced for refusing to do so.
Seventh, that no person in said service has any right to use his
official authority or influence to coerce the political action of any
person or body.
Eighth, there shall be non-competitive examinations in all proper
cases before the commission, when competition may not be found
practicable.
Ninth, that notice shall be given in writing to said commission of the
persons selected for appointment or employment from among those who
have been examined, of the rejection of any such persons after
probation, and of the date thereof, and a record of the same shall be
kept by said commission.
And any necessary exceptions from said nine fundamental provisions of
the rules shall be set forth in connection with such rules, and the
reasons therefor shall be stated in the annual reports of the
commission.
Third. Said commission shall make regulations for, and have control
of, such examinations, and, through its members or the examiners, it
shall supervise and preserve the records of the same, and said
commission shall keep minutes of its own proceedings.
Fourth. Said commission may make investigations concerning the facts,
and may report upon all matters touching the enforcement and effects
of said rules and regulations, and concerning the action of any
examiner or board of examiners, and its own subordinates, and those in
the public service, in respect to the execution of this act.
Fifth. Said commission shall make an annual report to the President,
for transmission to Congress, showing its own action, the rules and
regulations and the exceptions thereto in force, the practical effects
thereof, and any suggestions it may approve for the more effectual
accomplishment of the purposes of this act.
The third and fourth sections authorize the commission to employ a
chief examiner, a secretary, and the necessary clerical force; to
designate boards of examiners, to direct where examinations shall be
held; and requires that suitable rooms shall be furnished for its
accommodation in the public buildings in Washington and elsewhere.
They require also the chief examiner to act, as far as practicable,
with the examining boards, and to secure accuracy, uniformity, and
justice in all their proceedings.
The fifth section defines the offenses which are calculated to defeat
the just enforcement of the act, and declares the penalties.
The sixth section requires the heads of the different Departments to
make a more perfect classification of clerks and employès, both in the
Departments in the various offices under their charge, in conformity
with the one hundred and sixty-third section of the Revised Statutes,
and to extend and revise such classification at the request of the
President.
The seventh section is in these words:
SEC. 7. After the expiration of four months from the passage of this
act no officer or clerk shall be appointed, and no person shall be
employed to enter or be promoted in either of the said classes now
existing, or that may be arranged hereunder, pursuant to said rules,
until he has passed an examination, or is shown to be specially
exempted from such examination in conformity herewith.
But nothing herein contained shall be construed to take from those
honorably discharged from the military or naval service any preference
conferred by the seventeen hundred and fifty-fourth section of the
Revised Statutes, nor to take from the President any authority not
inconsistent with this act conferred by the seventeen hundred and
fifty-third section of said statutes: nor shall any officer not in the
executive branch of the Government, or any person merely employed as a
laborer or workman, be required to be classified hereunder; nor,
unless by direction of the Senate, shall any person who has been
nominated for confirmation by the Senate be required to be classified
or pass an examination.
Now, Mr. President, recurring to what I have said as to scope of this
bill, to the officers who are embraced in it, to the avoidance of the
question of removal and tenure, I have only to say that the machinery of
the bill is that the President shall call to his aid the very best
assistance, with or without the concurrence of the Senate—for that is a
matter about which gentlemen would differ and upon it I have no very
fixed opinion—that the President shall with the concurrence of the best
advice which he can obtain, form a plan, a scheme of examination free
for all, open to all, which shall secure the very best talent and the
very best capacity attainable for the civil offices of the Government.
The method adopted in the bill is by competitive examination. That
method has been imperfectly tried throughout the country. I have here
the statement of the postmaster of New York who has given much attention
and has had great experience in this matter. I have here his statement
that the business of his office increased 150 per cent. within a certain
number of years, and the expenses increased only 2 per cent.
To be specific—
Says Mr. Pearson—
while the increase in the volume of matter has been from 150 to 300
per cent. the increase in cost has only been about 2 per cent.
Mr. Graves, whose testimony I read before, has stated as the result of
the efforts which were made by General Grant during the period that he
was allowed any funds for the purpose of putting this scheme into
operation, that the expenses of the Departments here can be reduced at
least one-third.
I have heard it said that this system of examination proposes to present
only a scholastic test; that it proposes only to give advantage to those
who are college-bred, and have had the advantage in early life of
superior education. The committee investigated that subject to some
extent, and I have here the result in the city of New York. Says Mr.
Burt:
Taking seven hundred and thirty-one persons examined, 60 per cent. of
the appointees selected from them had been educated simply in the
common schools of the country; 33⅓ per cent. had received what they
call academic or highschool education; and 6½ per cent, a collegiate
education. In all the statistics in regard to common school education
there is one little weakness resulting from the fact that we have to
throw in that class men who have had hardly any education, men who
will say, “I went to school until I was 11 years old,” or “I went to
school in the winter,” or something of that kind. We have to throw
them in that class—
That is the class who have received a common-school education—
and it rather reduces the average standing in that category. As to the
matter of age we have very thoroughly exploded that objection. There
have been some young men of 21 and 22 who have come in, but the
average has been above 30, and it is astonishing that it is the men
above 30 who make the best time on examination, who show a facility to
get through work quickly.
He goes on to say:
Yet about two-thirds of the appointees had a common-school education;
had not even an academic education.
Thereupon the chairman of the committee asked:
Is it from that you get the value of the element of experience and
natural force that I spoke of?
Mr. BURT. Yes, sir; it shows itself there apart from the question of
elaborate education.
Of course these examinations must be proper; of course they must be
regulated upon common-sense principles; of course they must be conducted
to test the fitness of the men who are to be appointed to particular
offices. You have tests everywhere. To-day the law requires that there
shall be a test of examination in the various Departments here in
Washington. They are pass examinations; they are imperfect; they are
insufficient; they are not thorough. Mr. Graves himself says that the
only examination in his case was that the superior in the Department
looked over his shoulder while he was writing and said, “I think you
will pass.” That was when he entered the service twenty-odd years ago.
If you have examinations why not have competitive examinations? If you
have private pass examinations, why not have open examinations? If
examinations are made in the Departments by subordinates of the
Departments, why not have them made by responsible examiners amenable to
the authority of the President under a system devised by the best
intelligence that can be supplied?
I hear the system of competitive examination spoken of as if it were
something extraordinary. Within the last fifteen years it has gotten to
be a custom that I might almost say is universal that when a member of
Congress has the right to appoint a cadet to West Point or to the Naval
Academy he asks his constituents to compete for it. Formerly it was
never done; it was looked on as the mere perquisite of a member of
Congress. I appointed a gentleman to West Point who graduated at the
head of his class, and now is the active and vigorous spirit of the
Military Academy. I appointed him simply upon my own personal
examination and knowledge. It would not be done now; it could not be
done now; the public sentiment is against it. The public sentiment of
the district that I then represented would not permit it; but open
competitive examinations are demanded, and everybody having the
requisite qualifications of age and health and vigor can compete for the
appointment.
Why not apply that system to the Executive Departments of this
Government? What earthly reason can there be why when you desire to
appoint the best and fittest man for the place that is vacant he should
not subject himself to the competition of other people who desire to
have that place? Of course, as I said before, this all goes upon the
basis that there shall be reasonable examinations and reasonable
competition.
Nor are there any aristocratical tendencies about this system, as I have
heard suggested; for while it does not in any wise create an official
caste it does in words and in effect, open up the possibility of the
public service to the poorest and the humblest and least influential in
the land.
Mr. President, I desire to say only one word further. I have spoken
to-day under great disadvantage, and perhaps I may have omitted things
that I shall desire in the course of this discussion to lay before the
Senate.
But I desire, Mr. President, to follow out for one moment the line of
thought which I indicated when I said that I believed this system would
be of great advantage to the country, and that to me it was no
objection, that I believed it would be of great advantage to the
Democratic party. The suggestion has been made here that it might be
better to lay this matter over until after another election, and that
the mutations of parties might fill, under the old system, the various
Departments with members of the faith to which I belong. Aye, Mr.
President, but the next Presidential election may not have that result,
and it will not have the result, in my honest conviction, unless we do
two things: First, respond to the demands which the people make upon the
Democratic party now in its condition of probation; and, second, disarm
that great body of officials who as disciplined armies go forth to
control the Presidential elections.
I believe, and I am only excused from making this remark because of what
I have heard publicly and in private conversation upon the floor of the
Senate—I believe if we argue this question upon the lower plane of mere
partisan advantage we Democrats ought to support the measure. It has
been said that this abandonment of the spoils system will retain in
office the appointees of the Republican party. I conceal nothing; I
state it in my place in Senate, and before my fellow-Senators who are of
the other persuasion, I do not think it. There is no proposition to
extend the term of office where it is now fixed, nor in any wise limit
the constitutional power of removal from office. The proposition is
simply and only that where a new appointment shall be made the element
of fitness shall be decisive. Can any Democrat object to that?
How many Democrats are there in office now? How many will there ever be
under the spoils system? The Republicans have possession of the
Government for two years and more. How many Democrats will be put in
office during that time, except on the merit system? Not one. But if
this system be fairly inaugurated and administered within one year there
will be fifty where now there is one.
It has been said that the abandonment of the spoils system will exclude
Democrats from office when the day of our victory shall come. I do not
think it. On the contrary, I believe that the adoption of this policy as
our party creed will hasten the day of the victory of our party and its
adoption as a law will under any administration fill many offices with
Democrats. I think it will bring to our aid very many men not hitherto
of our political faith who believe this reform a vital question in our
politics. I think it will disarm and disorganize and neutralize the
trained bands of office-holders who have wrested from us, as I have
said, at least two Presidential elections. And finally, repudiating
utterly, as I do, that the animating spirit of the Democratic party is
the love of spoils, and that its cohesive principle is that of public
plunder—repudiating, I say, that doctrine, I think the Democrats
throughout this land—I know that in my own State they can—will stand the
test of any examination, and in a fair field will not come out second
best.
Who shall do them the discredit, who shall do this party, now numbering
at least half the people of this country, the discredit to say that they
can not stand the test of merit for official position and promotion with
any equal number of men in any party of the country.
I have detained the Senate much too long, and yet I must add that the
very best aid to any system of reforming the service is in the most
rigid application of the democratic theory of the Federal Constitution
and Government; that its powers are all granted; that the subjects on
which it can act are very limited; that it should refrain from enlarging
its jurisdiction, or even exercising admitted but unnecessary powers;
that it should scrupulously avoid “undue administration.” Add to this
the election by the people to local Federal offices, and there will be
little necessity and little room for other methods.
* * * * *
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The pending question is on the amendment of the
Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. HOAR] to the amendment of the Senator
from Iowa [Mr. ALLISON].
MR. PENDLETON. The Senator from Iowa is not in his place at this moment,
but gave me authority to withdraw his amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. If there be no objection, it will be considered
as withdrawn for the time being.
MR. PENDLETON. I now move to strike out lines 22 and 23 of section 2, as
follows:
Third. That original entrance to the public service aforesaid shall be
at the grade, and appointments thereto.
And to insert in lieu thereof “appointments to the public service
aforesaid;” so as to read:
Appointments to the public service aforesaid in the Departments at
Washington, shall be apportioned, as nearly as practicable, among the
several States and Territories and the District of Columbia, upon the
basis of population as ascertained at the last preceding census.
This amendment has been discussed, and I do not care to detain the
Senate in the further discussion of it. It opens up the public service
in all its grades to competition, not only from those within but those
outside of the Departments. The objections to the provision that
entrance shall be at the lowest grade, and higher places shall be filled
by promotions only, are so strong that I desire to perfect the bill by
striking out this clause at this time. At the proper time I shall move
to strike out the clause in relation to promotion, if it shall seem
necessary to accomplish my purpose. I wish entrance to the public
service to be open at all grades to every one whether he may be now in
office or not.
The amendment was adopted.
RELATIONS BETWEEN THE SENATE AND EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT.
_Speech of Hon. John J. Ingalls, of Kansas, in the Senate of the United
States, Friday, March 26, 1886._
The Senate having under consideration the resolutions reported by Mr.
EDMUNDS from the Committee on the Judiciary, relative to the refusal of
the Attorney-General to furnish copies of certain papers—
Mr. INGALLS said:
Mr. PRESIDENT: Contemporaneous construction of the Constitution,
fortified by long usage and acquiescence, undisturbed for more than
seventy-five years, has to my mind incontestably and impregnably
established two fundamental propositions: first, that under the
Constitution of the United States the power to appoint includes the
power to remove, and that both these powers are vested in the President
of the United States, subject only to the power of the Senate to
negative in cases of appointment; and, second, that where the tenure of
an office is not fixed by the Constitution it is held at the pleasure of
the Executive.
I therefore take up this argument where the opposition leave it: I begin
where they close. I concede all that they demand as to the
constitutional power of the Executive upon the subject of appointments
to office. If it shall appear that the report of the Committee on the
Judiciary is inconsistent with these declarations, that the report and
the resolutions to which we are now asked to give our assent in any
manner impair or infringe upon, or are in derogation of these admitted
high executive prerogatives, then I shall submit to condemnation, for my
signature is appended to that report.
So far as I have been able to unravel and disentangle the complicated
array of argument by which it has been attempted to destroy the force
and effect of the report of the Committee on the Judiciary, I understand
that the objections are practically four:
First, that by the action of the majority of the Senate an attempt is
made to invade the prerogative of the president by demanding his reasons
for the suspensions from office that he has made. To that I interpose
upon the threshold and in the vestibule of this argument an absolute
contradiction and denial.
The President of the United States in the message that he voluntarily,
of his own motion, sent down to this body, starts out with an absolutely
unfounded imputation upon the position of the majority. He says that the
Senate has been from time to time, in various ways, through committees
of the body and by personal importunity, appealing to the Executive to
give his reasons for the suspension of officials that have been reported
to this body with the designation of others to fill the places thus to
be rendered vacant.
Sir, I deny it, and I now challenge from any supporter or adherent of
the administration the exhibition of a word, or syllable, or justifiable
inference upon which that allegation, so often repeated with so much
variety of iteration, can be properly or justly founded.
The effort has been ingeniously made to shift the issue, to darken
council by words without wisdom, and to make it appear that there has
been a deliberate purpose and intention on the part of the Senate to
interfere with the recognized prerogatives of the Executive by demanding
his reasons for suspension; and unless I hear some Senator while this
debate is now proceeding and while I invite the statement—unless I hear
something said in support of that averment, which I deny, and which I
affirm has been made for the purpose of clouding this controversy in
popular estimation, I shall assume that my denial is not to be met.
Again, sir, it has been alleged in debate, in the public press, by
intimation and declaration, and it has been the basis of many studied
arguments in this Chamber that there had been demands by the Senate upon
the executive for private papers in the cases sent down for
consideration. I deny it. I contradict that statement by an appeal to
the record; and before that great tribunal by whom this issue is to be
tried and determined, I allege that that averment is without foundation.
There has never been in form or in substance, directly or indirectly,
expressly or remotely, any demand made by any committee of this body
upon the Executive or upon the head of any Department for the production
of private papers; and I shall be glad in the front of my explicit
denial and contradiction if some one of the advocates, some one of the
champions of the administration, will point out, before this controversy
is concluded, when, where, and how there has been any demand made by the
Senate upon the President of the United States or upon any head of a
Department for the production of private papers.
That issue was brought in here by the administration. It is said that a
guilty conscience needs no accuser. We have been told of those who “fear
in every bush an officer.” Sir, it was the interior consciousness of the
administration out of which was evolved this phantasy, this farcical
allegation, that there was an attempt on the part of the Senate to
compel the production of private unofficial papers and communications in
the possession of the President of the United States. No Senator doubts
that the President occupies an absolutely independent position, and none
would desire under any circumstances to interfere with his admitted
prerogatives.
I shall strip this controversy of its fallacious incidents. I shall
clear away the undergrowth of misrepresentation, sophistry, and false
pretenses, that has hitherto obstructed the pathway of our consideration
of the real issues that are involved in this contention. With my consent
it shall not hereafter be averred before the popular tribunal that is
ultimately to decide this question that there has been an indefensible
and insolent attempt to impair the constitutional prerogatives of the
President of the United States.
Another allegation has been that while this controversy has proceeded
the Senate has been inactive, interposing partisan objections to the
transaction of executive business, to prevent the execution of his high
trusts by the President of the United States. I yesterday had compiled
from the records of the executive office, for the purpose of showing
what has been done in this particular, a statement, public under our
rules, which shows that from the 25th of January, 1886, to the date of
the last executive session there had been confirmed by the Senate four
hundred and ninety-three nominations of officers sent down by the
President. Never in any single instance where there has been a vacancy,
occurring by resignation, expiration of term or proper removal upon
which we could properly act, has there been an instant of delay. The
Senate has not inquired whether the nominee was a Democrat or
Republican, but has proceeded vigorously, industriously and steadfastly
in the performance of its constitutional duties, and if there has been
inaction or non-action upon nominations, I shall show before I conclude
my remarks that it has been invited by the administration.
Again, it has been alleged that the action of the majority of the Senate
is instigated by the purpose of keeping Republicans in office; that we
are moved by partisan considerations to thwart by all means in our power
the efforts of the Executive to transfer the official patronage of the
Government to the party that was placed in power by the votes of a
majority of the people. I am not authorized to speak for others, but for
myself and for those who have accredited me here, I cannot submit with
patience to such an intolerable accusation.
Mr. President, the Republicans of Kansas are Republicans. They are
neither afraid to be so classified nor ashamed to be thus described.
They do not covet any qualifying or palliative epithets. Their attitude
is neither apologetic nor defensive. They have an unconquerable pride in
their political achievements, in the history they have made, in the
triumphs they have won. For twenty-five years they have stood upon the
skirmish line, neither asking nor giving quarter. They are Republicans
not by inheritance, not by tradition, not by accident, but from
conviction; and they are as steadfast in defeat as in victory. They are
partisans, intrepid, undaunted, uncompromising, and they can give
reasons for the faith that is in them.
They believe and I believe that for the past quarter of a century upon
every vital issue before the American people, secession, slavery,
coercion, the public credit, honest elections, universal freedom, and
the protection of American labor, they have always been right and that
their opponents have always been wrong; and, while they concede
unreservedly patriotism and sincerity to their adversaries, temporary
repulse has not convinced them that they were in error. There is neither
defection nor dismay in their columns. They are ready, they are
impatient to renew the battle. Animated by such impulses, it is not
singular that they should feel that no Republican can hold an appointive
office under a Democratic administration without either sacrificing his
convictions or forfeiting his self-respect.
Accordingly, sir, when a little more than a year ago a Democratic
administration was inaugurated, those who were in public station began
with one consent to make excuse to retire to private life. They did not
stand upon the order of their going; they trampled upon each other in a
tumultuous and somewhat indecent haste to get out of office. There was
no craven cry for mercy; no mercenary camp-follower fled for shelter to
the bomb-proofs of the tenure-of-office act; no sutler crawled behind
the fragile breastworks of civil-service reform for protection. They
lost their baggage, but they retained their colors, their arms, their
ammunition, and their camp equipage, and marched off the field with the
honors of war. If at the expiration of one year a few yet remain in
office, _rari nantes in gurgite vasto_, it is because the victors have
been unable to agree among themselves or been unable to discover among
their own numbers competent and qualified successors.
Mr. President, candor compels me to say that the Democracy of that State
share the same temper and spirit. From 1854, when the Territory was
organized, down to the 29th of January, 1861, when the State was
admitted, if there was a Republican holding any appointive office it was
an inadvertence; and if from 1861 down to 1885 there was a Democrat
holding an official position requiring confirmation by the Senate, it
was an oversight; it escaped the somewhat vigilant scrutiny of my
colleague and myself and those who preceded us here.
Therefore, Mr. President, I am not of those who believe in
non-partisanship in politics; and I should be recreant to the high trust
confided in me were I to refrain from declaring my conviction that
political parties, energetic, vigorous, and well defined, are
indispensable to the success of free popular governments. Wherever the
life of States is freest and most irrepressible, there party spirit is
most active and aggressive. It is by the conflict and collision of
political parties that the latent and richest powers of the State are
made manifest; and those whom I represent have no sympathy with the
dogma that it reflects glory upon a statesman to affect independence of
his party, or that it is an indication of virtue in a citizen to belong
to no political organization.
Political parties are social groups in the nation, allied by common
purposes and kindred aspirations for the accomplishment of beneficial
results. When parties perish this Government will expire, for we all
understand that in this country the only government is the party in
power. Here is no dynasty, no ruling family, nothing corresponding to
the functions of government under other systems except the party that is
for the time being intrusted by the votes of a majority of the people
with the execution of their will. And, sir, when a majority of the
people declare that there shall be a change of administration, it is
necessarily implied that there shall be a change of those agencies
through which alone political administration can be made effectual. It
is useless to juggle and palter about this matter. A change of
administration is a change of policies and methods, and the Chief
Magistrate is entitled to the co-operation of agents and ministers who
are in sympathy with his opinions and the doctrines which he is chosen
to enforce and maintain.
Sir, unless the President of the United States is to be a mummy swathed
in the cerements of the grave, he must have powers commensurate with his
duties. He is charged to “take care that the laws be faithfully
executed,” and unless he has the power to select the agencies through
which the laws are administered, through which the revenues are
collected and disbursed, the post-offices conducted, the Indians
supported and controlled, the glory and honor of the nation maintained,
that duty imposed upon him by the Constitution is an idle phrase; it
means nothing; it is an empty formula. Charged with these great duties,
liable to impeachment if they are not properly performed, how can it be
claimed with justice that there shall be an interpolation of novel
doctrines of reform, under which while the chief is still to be held
responsible, he shall be deprived of all the agencies and ministrations
under the Constitution by which they can alone be so administered, in
sympathy with him and the policy that he represents.
Therefore, sir, I am confident that when it was ascertained in November,
1884, that a change of the political majority in this country had been
registered, there was a general faith and conviction that a change of
official holdings would follow. The Democratic party desired it; the
Republican party expected it, and would have been content; and had it
been done the people at large would have said with one accord, amen. But
this generation has witnessed the genesis of a new political gospel; a
novel organization has appeared upon earth; a new school of political
philosophers who announce that non-partisanship is the panacea for all
the evils that afflict the Republic. Having no avowed opinions upon the
great topics of the hour, they feebly decry the corruptions of the
American system, and peevishly and irritably declare that the Government
is degenerate and degraded, and that the true prescription to elevate,
reform, and purify the public service is to prevent the clerks from
being removed out of their places in the Departments. This brotherhood
has not been hitherto very largely re-enforced from the Democracy. If
there has been an original civil-service reformer who has deserted from
the ranks of the Democracy, history does not record his name. It has
been left to the party to which I belong to afford conspicuous and
shining illustrations of that class of political thinkers who are never
quite sure that they are supporting a party unless they are reviling the
candidates and denouncing its platform, who are not positive that they
are standing erect unless they are leaning over backward, and whose idea
of reforming the organization in which they profess to be classified is
to combine with its adversaries and vote for candidates who openly spurn
their professions and depreciate the stock in trade which they
denominate their principles. Standing on the corners of the streets,
enlarging the borders of their phylacteries, they loudly advertise their
perfections, thanking God that they are not as other men, even these
Republicans and Democrats; they traffic with both to ascertain which
they can most profitably betray.
Mr. President, the neuter gender is not popular either in nature or
society. “Male and female created He them.” But there is a third sex, if
that can sex be called which sex has none, resulting sometimes from a
cruel caprice of nature, at others from accident or malevolent design,
possessing the vices of both and the virtues of neither; effeminate
without being masculine or feminine; unable either to beget or to bear;
possessing neither fecundity nor virility; endowed with the contempt of
men and the derision of women, and doomed to sterility, isolation, and
extinction. But they have two recognized functions. They sing falsetto,
and they are usually selected as the guardians of the seraglios of
Oriental despots.
And thus to pass from the illustration to the fact, these political
epicenes, without pride of ancestry or hope of posterity, chant in
shrill falsetto their songs of praise of non-partisanship and
civil-service reform, and apparently have been selected as the harmless
custodians of the conscience of the national Executive.
Sir, I am not disposed to impugn the good faith, the patriotism, the
sincerity, the many unusual traits and faculties of the President of the
United States. He is the sphinx of American politics. It is said that he
is a fatalist; that he regards himself as the child of fate—the man of
destiny; and that he places devout and implicit reliance upon the
guiding influence of his star. Certainly, whether he be a very great man
or a very small man, he is a very extraordinary man. His career forbids
any other conclusion.
The Democratic party was not wanting when its convention assembled at
Chicago in many renowned and illustrious characters; men who had led the
forlorn hope in its darkest and most desperate days; men for whose
character and achievements, for whose fame and history, not only that
organization but the country had the profoundest admiration and respect.
There was Thurman, and Bayard, and Hendricks, and Tilden, and McDonald,
and others perhaps not less worthy and hardly less illustrious, upon
whom the mantle of that great distinction might have fallen; but the man
at the mature age of thirty-five abandoned a liberal and honored
profession to become the sheriff of Erie, without known opinions and
destitute of experience or training in public affairs, outstripped them
all in the race of ambition; and when but little more than a year ago he
entered this Chamber as the President elect of the United States, he
encountered the curious scrutiny of an audience to whom he was a
stranger in feature as in fame; a stranger to the leaders of his own
party as well as to the representatives of all the nations of the earth
who had assembled to witness the gorgeous pageant of his inauguration.
Sir, the career of Napoleon was sudden, startling, and dramatic. There
have been many soldiers of fortune who have sprung at one bound from
obscurity to fame, but no illustration of the caprices of destiny so
brilliant and bewildering is recorded in history as the elevation of
Grover Cleveland to the Chief Magistracy of sixty millions of people.
If when he was inaugurated he had determined that the functions of
Government should be exercised by officers selected from his own party
the nation would have been content; but he did not so determine, and
herein and hereon is founded the justification that the majority of the
Senate can satisfactorily use and employ in demanding that no action
shall be had in connection with these suspensions from office until
there has been satisfactory assurances that injustice has not been done.
If it were understood that these suspensions and removals were made for
political reasons the country would be content, the Republican majority
in the Senate would be content. But what is the attitude? Ever since his
inauguration and for many months before, by many utterances, official
and private, in repeated declarations never challenged, Mr. Cleveland
announced that he would not so administer this Government. At the very
outset, in his letter of acceptance, he denounced the doctrine of
partisan changes in the patronage, and through all of his political
manifestoes down to the present time he has repeated these assurances
with emphatic and unchanging monotony.
He has declared that there should be no changes in office, where the
incumbents were competent and qualified, for political reasons, but that
they should be permitted to serve their terms. Like those who were
grinding at the mill, one has been taken and another has been left. Some
Republicans have been suspended and others have been retained. What is
the irresistible inference? What is the logic of the events, except
that, in view of what the President has declared, every man who is
suspended is suspended for cause, and not for political reasons? It is
not possible to suspect the President of duplicity and treacherous
deception.
For the purpose of illustration, let me call the attention of the Senate
and through the Senate the attention of the country, which is to judge
of this matter, to the basis on which this inquiry proceeds. I read from
the letter of Grover Cleveland, dated Albany, August 19, 1884, accepting
the nomination for the Presidency of the United States. He says:
The people pay the wages of the public employés, and they are entitled
to the fair and honest work which the money thus paid should command.
It is the duty of those intrusted with the management of their affairs
to see that such public service is forthcoming. The selection and
retention of subordinates in Government employment should depend upon
their ascertained fitness and the value of their work, and they should
be neither expected nor allowed to do questionable party service.
There is another utterance in this document to which I might properly
allude further on, but which appears to me to be so significant that I
will read it now. It has a singular fitness in connection with this
subject that we have been discussing. Speaking of honest administration,
he says,
I believe that the public temper is such that the voters of the land
are prepared to support the party which gives the best promise of
administering the Government in the honest, simple, and plain manner
which is consistent with its character and purposes.
And now:
They have learned that mystery and concealment in the management of
their affairs cover tricks and betrayal.
Yes, they have learned that mystery in the administration of the
patronage of the Government, by the concealment from the people of the
documents and papers that bear upon the character and conduct of
officials suspended and those that are appointed, cover tricks and
betrayal. “I thank thee for that word.” A “Daniel” has “come to
judgment.” No more pertinent and pungent commentary upon the facts of
the present situation could be formulated than that which Grover
Cleveland uttered before his foot was upon the threshold, that mystery
and concealment in the management of the affairs of the people covered
tricks and betrayal. There are tricks and somebody has been betrayed.
Again, on the 20th day of December, 1884, after the election, some of
the contingent of Republican deserters who elected Mr. Cleveland to the
Presidency, becoming apprehensive that there might be trouble about
their thirty pieces of silver, formulated their uneasiness in words and
addressed him a letter calling his attention to the professions upon
which he had been elected and demanding further guarantee. To that
letter, on the 25th day of December, 1884, Mr. Cleveland replied, and
from that reply I select certain paragraphs, not being willing to tax
the patience of the Senate or waste my own strength in reading what is
not strictly material.
I regard myself pledged to this—
That is, to this practical reform in the civil service, this refusal to
turn out competent and qualified officials and put in Democrats—
because my conception of true Democratic faith and public duty
requires that this and all other statutes should be in good faith and
without evasion enforced, and because, in many utterances made prior
to my election as President, approved by the party to which I belong
and which I have no disposition to disclaim, I have in effect promised
the people that this should be done.
Not his party, but the people, Republican as well as Democrats. Then he
proceeds to castigate the Democratic party:
I am not unmindful of the fact to which you refer that many of our
citizens fear that the recent party change in the national Executive
may demonstrate that the abuses which have grown up in the civil
service are ineradicable. I know that they are deeply rooted, and that
the spoils system has been supposed to be intimately related to
success in the maintenance of party organization, and I am not sure
that all those who profess to be the friends of this reform will stand
firmly among its advocates when they find it obstructing their way to
patronage and place.
He goes on thus, and this is a most significant promise and pledge:
There is a class of Government positions which are not within the
letter of the civil-service statute but which are so disconnected with
the policy of an administration that the removal therefrom of present
incumbents, in my opinion, should not be made during the terms for
which they were appointed solely on partisan grounds, and for the
purpose of putting in their places those who are in political accord
with the appointing power—
And then follows that celebrated definition which lifted the lid from
the box of Pandora—
but many men holding such positions have forfeited all just claim to
retention because they have used their places for party purposes in
disregard of their duty to the people, and because, instead of being
decent public servants, they have proved themselves offensive
partisans and unscrupulous manipulators of local party management.
The letter closes with this somewhat frigid assurance of consolation to
the Democratic party.
If I were addressing none but party friends, I should deem it entirely
proper to remind them—
That is, party friends—
that though the coming administration is to be Democratic—
Strictly Democratic—
a due regard for the people’s interest does not permit faithful party
work to be always rewarded by appointment to office, and to say to
them that while Democrats may expect a proper consideration,
selections for office not embraced within the civil-service rules will
be based upon sufficient inquiry as to fitness, instituted by those
charged with that duty, rather than upon persistent importunity or
self-solicited recommendations on behalf of candidates for
appointment.
“Here endeth the first lesson!” This was in the year 1884. I now come to
the declaration of 1885. Just as the Democratic State convention which
nominated the present governor of New York for the position that he now
holds, was about to assemble at Saratoga on the 24th, I think, of
September, the President gave out for publication the letter of
resignation of Dorman B. Eaton, a civil-service commissioner, which was
dated July 28, 1885, and accompanied it with a letter of his own
accepting that resignation which was dated September 11, 1885. It was
alleged in Democratic newspapers that the President held back these
letters in order to give publicity to his reply at that time for effect
upon the convention, and it was remarked that it had caused a panic
among the Democracy. His letter is dated, as I said, September 11, 1885,
and I will read a few paragraphs showing his opinion of the Democratic
party and the course that they had pursued in attempting to force him
off the civil-service reform platform. After some rather glittering
platitudes in regard to the work accomplished by Mr. Eaton, he proceeds:
A reasonable toleration for old prejudices, a graceful recognition of
every aid, a sensible utilization of every instrumentality that
promises assistance and a constant effort to demonstrate the
advantages of the new order of things, are the means by which this
reform movement will in the future be further advanced, the
opposition.
Now, this is an epithet to which I desire to call particular attention—
The opposition of incorrigible spoilsmen rendered ineffectual and the
cause placed upon a sure foundation.
But not content with applying his scourge to the “incorrigible
spoilsmen” of the Democratic party, the President took occasion to
express his opinion in rather picturesque language of another class of
politicians that had somewhat afflicted him, and to whom he was under
bonds:
It is a source of congratulation that there are so many friends of
civil-service reform marshaled on the practical side of the question;
and that the number is not greater of those who profess friendliness
for the cause, and yet, mischievously and with supercilious
self-righteousness, discredit every effort not in exact accord with
their attenuated ideas, decry with carping criticism the labor of
those actually in the field of reform, and ignoring the conditions
which bound and qualify every struggle for a radical improvement in
the affairs of government, demand complete and immediate perfection.
“Supercilious self-righteousness, attenuated ideas, and carping
criticism,” can not be regarded as complimentary phrases when applied to
the apostles of this new evangel of political reformation.
He continues—
I believe in civil-service reform and its application in the most
practicable form attainable, among other reasons, because it opens the
door for the rich and the poor alike to a participation in public
place-holding. And I hope the time is at hand when all our people will
see the advantage of a reliance for such an opportunity upon merit and
fitness, instead of a dependence upon the caprice or selfish interest
of those who impudently—
To whom does he refer?—
who impudently stand between the people and the machinery of the
Government.
You will agree with me, I think, that the support which has been given
to the present administration in its efforts to preserve and advance
this reform by a party restored to power after an exclusion for many
years from participation in the places attached to the public service,
confronted with a new system precluding the redistribution of such
places in its interest, called upon to surrender advantages which a
perverted partisanship had taught the American people belonged to
success, and perturbed with the suspicion, always raised in such an
emergency, that their rights in the conduct of this reform had not
been scrupulously regarded, should receive due acknowledgment and
should confirm our belief that there is a sentiment among the people
better than a desire to hold office, and a patriotic impulse upon
which may safely rest the integrity of our institutions and the
strength and perpetuity of our Government.
The first official utterances of President Cleveland upon the 4th of
March, 1885, renewed the assurance that had been given. He declared:
The people demand reform in the administration of the Government and
the application of business principles to business affairs. As a means
to this end civil-service reform should be in good faith enforced. Our
citizens have the right to protection from the incompetency of public
employés who hold their places solely as the reward of partisan
service, and from the corrupting influences of those who promise and
the vicious who expect such rewards. And those who worthily seek
public employment have the right to insist that merit and competency
shall be recognized instead of party subserviency or the surrender of
honest political belief.
How this system, thus inaugurated, this amphibious plan of distributing
the patronage of the country among his own partisans and at the same
time insisting upon the enforcement of civil-service reform doctrines
practically resulted finds its first illustration in the celebrated
circular of the Postmaster-General that was issued on the 29th of April,
1885. I do not propose to defile my observations by reading that
document. I allude to it for the purpose of saying that a more
thoroughly degraded, loathsome, execrable and detestable utterance never
was made by any public official of any political persuasion in any
country, or in any age. It was an invitation to every libeller, every
anonymous slanderer, every scurrilous defamer, to sluice the feculent
sewage of communities through the Post-Office Department, with the
assurance that, without any intimation or information to the person
aspersed, incumbents should be removed and Democratic partisans
appointed. I offered a resolution on the 4th of this month calling on
the Postmaster-General for information as to the number of removals of
fourth-class postmasters, not requiring confirmation by the Senate,
between the 4th day of March, 1885, and that date. It was a simple
proposition. It required nothing but an inspection of the official
register and a computation of numbers. No names were required and no
dates. There was a simple question of arithmetic to ascertain the number
of removals of fourth-class postmasters not included in the list sent to
the Senate by the President, the salary being less than $1,000. Eighteen
days elapsed. There seemed to be some reluctance on the part of the
Department to comply with that request, and I thereupon offered a
supplemental resolution, which was adopted by the Senate, asking the
Postmaster-General to advise us whether that first resolution had been
received, and, if so, why it was not answered, and when a reply might be
expected.
On the second day following an answer came down. It does not include the
number of places that were filled where there had been resignations. It
does not include the list of those appointed where there had been
vacancies from death or any other cause; but simply those who had been
removed without cause and without hearing in the space of the first
twelve months of this administration pledged to non-partisanship and
civil-service reform. The number foots up 8,635. Eighty-six hundred and
thirty-five removals of fourth-class postmasters under an administration
pledged by repeated utterances not to remove except for cause, making an
average, counting three hundred and thirteen working days in that year,
of twenty-eight every day; and, counting seven hours as a day’s work,
four removals every hour, or at the rate of one for every fifteen
minutes of time from the 4th day of March, 1885, until the 4th of March,
1886. And that is civil-service reform! That is non-partisanship in the
administration of this Government! That is exercising public office as a
public trust!
Mr. COCKRELL. How many of these fourth-class postmasters are there?
Mr. INGALLS. I do not know.
Mr. COCKRELL. About fifty-one thousand, are there not?
Mr. INGALLS. It makes no difference how many; they did the best they
could, and angels could do more. I see that the Senator from Missouri is
impatient; he is anxious that the axe should fall more rapidly.
The PRESIDENT _pro tempore_. The Senator from Kansas will pause a
moment. It is the duty of the Chair to inform the occupants of the
galleries that the rules of the Senate forbid any expression of
approbation or disapprobation. It will be the painful duty of the Chair
to enforce that rule, if it is insisted upon.
Mr. INGALLS. I hope the Senator from Missouri will curb his impatience
and restrain his impetuosity. The Postmaster-General will get through if
you only give him time.
Mr. COCKRELL. He will get through in four years at this rate.
Mr. INGALLS. One every fifteen minutes!
Mr. COCKRELL. Fifty-one thousand is the number of fourth-class
postmasters, I believe, and only eight thousand in a year have been
removed.
Mr. INGALLS. Only one every fifteen minutes! How often do you expect
them to be removed? He has done the best he could. And this does not
include the number of those who resigned; this does not include any
except those who have been removed. To the Senator from Missouri rising
in his seat, impatient at the dilatory procrastination of the
Post-Office Department in not casting out more Republican postmasters, I
say this does not include all. Undoubtedly many more than eighty-six
hundred and thirty-five have fallen beneath the axe of the Department or
have been filled by partisans of the party in power as a reward for
efficient and faithful party service in consequence of the retirement of
thousands of patriotic Republicans: and when the Senator from Missouri
attempts to convey the impression here that out of fifty-one thousand
fourth-class postmasters only eighty-six hundred and thirty-five have
been changed during this past year he is entirely outside the record. It
is to be observed that this is but a single Department. How many have
gone out of the State department, how many have gone out of the Interior
department, how many out of the Army and Navy departments, and out of
that illuminated Department of Justice, and out of the Treasury, of
course is entirely unknown, and probably will always remain unknown till
the secrets of earth are revealed at the last day. They are carefully
concealed; there are no lists furnished to the press for publication.
Therefore I trust that the friends of the administration will be
consoled, that the complaints which have been so frequent hitherto of
the want of activity on the part of the administration in finding places
for their friends will be tempered by the consideration that they have
done the best they could in the time at their disposal.
Mr. President, the list of official utterances is not yet complete. On
the first day of this session President Cleveland again repeated his
declaration that the civil service was to be divorced from partisanship,
and he took occasion to inflict some more castigation upon those who
were endeavoring to force him off the civil-service platform which he
had declared he intended to occupy. This was his language:
Lay siege to the patronage of Government, engrossing the time of
public officers with their importunities, spreading abroad the
contagion of their disappointment, and filling the air with the tumult
of their discontent.
Rather florid, rather oriental phrase, but in its exactness
mathematical; a demonstration in geometry could not be more explicit and
satisfactory than that description by President Cleveland of the
occupation and the lamentations of the Democratic party. It will bear
repetition.
Lay siege to the patronage of Government, engrossing the time of
public officers with their importunities, spreading abroad the
contagion of their disappointment, and filling the air with the tumult
of their discontent.
A besieging, importunate, contagious, tumultuous, discontented
organization.
There is more to the same effect in this document that I should like to
read, but time does not serve, nor is it material, because there are
other independent utterances to which I must pass; and I do this for the
purpose of showing the consistent and persistent adhesion of the
President of the United States to the declarations with which he started
out when he commenced to administer the Government.
On the 30th day of January, 1886, the ordinary avenues of communication
with the public being inaccessible, President Cleveland availed himself
of the interviewer, and in the _Boston Herald_ was printed a long letter
detailing in quotations a conversation with President Cleveland, the
many points of which will be found below. This was after this
controversy, if you call it so, between the President and Senate, had
begun to develop and there were some indications of approaching
misunderstanding or disagreement:
He next spoke of his position toward the Senate in the matter of
confirmations to office. He said it gave him some anxiety, for the
Senate had been a good while in disclosing what it meant to do. “They
seem”—
He says plaintively—
“to distrust me,” said he, “if I am to accept what I hear from others.
But I hear nothing from them. They have not called upon me for
information or for documents.”
That complaint no longer exists.
“I have tried”—
He says—
“to deal honorably and favorably by them. My purpose was announced at
the beginning of my administration. I meant then to adhere to it. I
have never changed it. I do not mean to change it in the future. It
seems to me unjust and ungenerous in them”—
That is, in the Senate—
“unjust and ungenerous in them to suspect that I do. If I had not
meant to adhere to my policy it would have been foolish in me to begin
it. I should have escaped much in refusing to begin it. It is not at
all pleasant for me to disappoint, and I fear sometimes to offend, my
party friends. Nothing but a sense of duty has brought me to this
step. Why run all this risk and incur this hard feeling only in the
end to retreat? It seems to me it would have been as impolitic as it
is wrong. No; I have tried to be true to my own pledges and the
pledges of my party. We both promised to divorce the offices of the
country from being used for party service. I have held to my promise,
and I mean to hold to it.”
Then there was an answer to a question propounded by the interviewer, in
which he defines his relation toward offensive partisanship in the
Democratic party:
“I did not propose to hold party service in the past in the Democratic
ranks as against a man. On the contrary, it gave him a strong,
equitable claim to office. He had been excluded for twenty-four years
because he was a Democrat. He should be remembered for the same reason
when a Democratic administration came into power, provided he was a
competent man for the position to be filled. What I understand by
civil-service reform, as I am carrying it out, is that the
office-holders shall be divorced from politics while they fill their
positions under this government. That rule I have meant to stand by.”
I asked him if he was aware of any deviation from it among his
appointees. “If there has been any,” said he, “it has not been called
to my attention.” I suggested that some such charge had been made in
New York. He said he did not believe that there was any foundation for
it, and that it was well known there that his wishes were that the
office-holders should attend to the duties of their positions, and
interfere neither with candidates nor election contests.
And here comes in the significant statement bearing upon the duty of
Republicans in connection with these suspensions and removals from
office:
“My removals from office, such as are made,” said he, “are made for
cause. It would be absurd for me to undertake to give the country my
reasons in all cases, because it would be impracticable. When I have
removed a Republican for political reasons or for any other reasons, I
would apply the same rule to my own party. I think the Republican
Senators should be just enough to believe this of me. They ought to
appreciate that I am trying to do my duty. Why they should continue to
distrust me I do not see. They do not come to me either personally or
by committee to get an understanding of my attitude, or to obtain
explanations on points of action to which they object. They stand off
and question the sincerity of my purposes.”
The eight thousand six hundred and thirty-five fourth-class postmasters
and the six hundred and forty-three suspensions before the Senate and
the thousands of changes in other departments “are made for cause,” not
for political reasons merely; but to give those who have been so removed
the opportunity to explain or defend themselves would be “absurd” and
“impracticable.”
But this is not all. Later in the winter the Civil Service Commission
was reorganized, and in a newspaper printed in this city appeared a
statement alleged to be “personal” and included in quotation marks, and
which it is commonly reported was in the handwriting of the President.
I cannot rid myself—
He said, after speaking about the _personnel_ of the Civil Service
Commission—
I cannot rid myself of the idea that this civil-service reform is
something intended to do practical good and not a mere sentiment
invented for the purpose of affording opportunity to ventilate
high-sounding notions and fine phrases.
He alludes to the action of the Civil-Service Commission about a weigher
in the city of Brooklyn, and says:
When the Civil Service Commission consulted with me as to the status
of Mr. Sterling and the true construction of the rule bearing upon
that subject, I agreed with them in their second opinion that the
position of weigher was subject to an examination, and that it should
be filled by one who by means of a proper examination under the law
proved himself competent and eligible. But it seemed to me that the
good of the service required that the person to be appointed should be
possessed of certain traits and qualifications which no theoretical
examination would develop. One having in charge two or three hundred
men of the class with which a weigher has to deal should possess
personal courage, energy, decision and firmness of character. It is
entirely certain that the possession of such qualifications could not
in the least be determined by the result of an examination organized
for the purpose of testing an applicant’s knowledge and education.
And he closes:
No cause can gain by injustice or by a twisting of its purposes to
suit particular tastes. And when a result is fairly reached through
the proper operation of methods adopted to further a reform, it should
be accepted—especially by the friends of the movement. They should not
permit those of whom they require submission to say, with any
semblance of truth, that they themselves submit only when the result
accords with their views.
This closes the public declarations of the President of the United
States upon the views which he entertains as to the method and plans and
system upon which the public service is to be conducted under his
administration. There are some interesting details as to the practical
effects and results of the effort of the administration to purify the
public service, which I would be glad if I had time to refer to, but I
believe I will forbear. I can only say that it seems from an inspection
of the record as if the cry “put the rascals out” had been changed in
effect to “put the rascals in.” Of course Mr. President, no party is
exempt from accidents, no organization has a monopoly either of good men
or of bad men, and in calling attention to the results of civil-service
reform as applied to this administration, I should be insincere if I
were to assume that such results had followed from any predetermined
purpose to put bad men into office.
We heard a great deal during the campaign about the corruptions,
profligacy, misdeeds, and maladministration of Republican officials. I
can only say that in view of what has occurred under this
administration, if I were inclined to be uncharitable I could with
entire propriety say that while the Republican party was in power it
endeavored whenever it detected crime anywhere to punish it; but one of
the practical results of Democratic administration has been the reverse,
and that is to place in office a very large number of admitted and
convicted felons. I have before me a selection from which I will, I
believe, in support of this view of the case, give a law extract,
stating in advance that these compilations are made from Democratic
newspapers which, of course, is a mitigation of the slander, though it
does not necessarily destroy its credibility.
Mr. ——, of Baltimore, who was made an Indian inspector in 1885, had been
involved in notorious election frauds and was condemned by the
civil-service reform Independents of Maryland as a companion of Higgins,
as a ballot-box stuffer, and a professional gambler.
The postmaster at Sioux City, Iowa, was convicted and sentenced in
Dakota for violation of the pension laws. The man who was removed to
make a place for this eminent civil-service reformer had eight months
yet to serve, and there was no complaint against him even to the extent
that he was an offensive partisan.
Mr. Holmes, a postmaster in Mississippi, had been involved in notorious
election-fraud scandals.
Mr. Shannon, appointed postmaster at Meriden, Miss., was the editor of
the _Mercury_ newspaper, which after President Grant’s death contained a
rabid editorial attacking the General’s character; and he had been
indicted in the United States court for “unlawfully and criminally
conspiring with many others for the evasion of the civil rights law.”
In Rhode Island a Democratic postmaster was appointed who had been in
the preceding three months arrested nine times for violation of the
liquor law.
In Pennsylvania a man was appointed in the Philadelphia Mint who openly
confessed to writing a forged letter from Neal Dow to be used in
influencing the German vote in the State of Ohio the preceding year.
There have been some strange things done in Maine. I almost hesitate to
quote this, but if I am wrong the Senators from that State will
undoubtedly correct me. It is alleged that the postmaster in the town of
Lincolnville was at the time of his appointment actually in the Portland
jail, where he was serving a term for a misdemeanor.
An agent by the name of Judd, who was appointed in the Bureau of Labor
Statistics, was, upon inquiry as to the fact whether he had been a
horse-thief and served in the penitentiary, suspended from office. The
writer states that the only ground for supposing that he was not a horse
thief arose from the fact that they do not put men in the penitentiary
for stealing horses out West: that if he was alive it was a reasonable,
natural conclusion that he had not stolen any horses. Nobody denied the
penitentiary.
A gentleman named Richard Board, of Kentucky, was appointed in July, on
the recommendation of Comptroller Durham, clerk in the railway mail
service and assigned to duty in New Mexico. This is under the
Postmaster-General, who found leisure between removing postmasters every
fifteen minutes to appoint this man in another branch of the service
where he incautiously mentioned to his friends something about his
previous history, and it appeared that he had been three times arrested
in Cincinnati for obtaining money under false pretenses, that he had
been twice arrested for stealing in Kentucky, and once in Texas—a
variegated and diversified career. “No pent up Utica” contracted his
powers. He had stolen in three states. His father was a very wealthy man
in high standing who had spent a great deal of money to protect his son,
and through him he secured the endorsement of Comptroller Durham, and
after he had been in service for a few weeks he committed a number of
robberies, stole $163 from the money order service, and at the date of
this communication was lying in jail at Santa Fé awaiting trial.
The Senator from Indiana [Mr. VOORHEES] yesterday took occasion to
advert with somewhat of animated hilarity to the suggestion of the
Senator from Iowa about the evolutionary condition of the Democratic
party, and dwelt with considerable unction upon a term that the Senator
from Iowa had applied to the Democracy in his very able and interesting
speech: “a protoplasmic” cell, and the Senator then proceeded to give us
the definition of the term as it appears in the dictionaries, and
suggested that if those facts had been known at the time when the
canvass was pending Mr. Cleveland would undoubtedly have been counted
out in New York.
The Senator from Iowa might have gone further in his application of the
doctrine of evolution with much propriety. Geology teaches us that in
the process of being upward from the protoplasmic cell, through one form
of existence to another there are intermediary and connecting stages, in
which the creature bears some resemblance to the state from which it has
emerged and some to the state to which it is proceeding. History is
stratified politics; every stratum is fossiliferous; and I am inclined
to think that the political geologist of the future in his antiquarian
researches between the triassic series of 1880 and the cretaceous series
of 1888 as he inspects the jurassic Democratic strata of 1884 will find
some curious illustrations of the doctrine of political evolution.
In the transition from the fish to the bird there is an anomalous
animal, long since extinct, named by the geologists the pterodactyl, or
the winged reptile, a lizard with feathers upon its paws and plumes upon
its tail. A political system which illustrates in its practical
operations the appointment by the same administration of Eugene Higgins
and Dorman B. Eaton can properly be regarded as in the transition epoch
and characterized as the pterodactyl of politics. It is, like that
animal, equally adapted to waddling and dabbling in the slime and mud of
partisan politics and soaring aloft with discordant cries into the
glittering and opalescent empyrean of civil-service reform.
The President closes his recent message to the Senate in this language:
The pledges I have made were made to the people, and to them I am
responsible for the manner in which they have been redeemed. I am not
responsible to the Senate and I am unwilling to submit my actions and
official conduct to them for judgment.
There are no grounds for an allegation that the fear of being found
false to my professions influences me in declining to submit to the
demands of the Senate. I have not constantly refused to suspend
officials, and thus incurred the displeasure of political friends, and
yet willfully broken faith with the people for the sake of being false
to them.
Neither the discontent of party friends nor the allurements constantly
offered of confirmation of appointees conditioned upon the avowal that
suspensions have been made on party grounds alone, nor the threat
proposed in the resolution now before the Senate that no confirmations
will be made unless the demands of that body be complied with, are
sufficient to discourage or deter me from following in the way which I
am convinced leads to better government for the people.
He is not responsible to the Senate, nor is the Senate responsible to
him; both are alike responsible to the people. But in the cases at bar
we are compelled to inquire, in justice to the people, whether those
pledges have been redeemed, or whether they have been broken, violated,
and disregarded. Had the patronage of the Government, within proper
limits, been turned over for its exercise to the party intrusted with
power by a majority of the people there could have been no complaint,
but upon the assurances that I have read, the declaration was made that
in every case where an incumbent was competent and qualified he should
remain in office till the expiration of his term.
When, therefore, some were suspended and others were left, what is the
irresistible inference, after the declarations of the President, except
that these persons were suspended for cause either affecting their
personal integrity or their official administration? Upon the ground,
then, of personal justice, if no other, we are entitled to know whether
wrong has been done by the accusations that have been filed in the
Departments, so that we may protect those who are unable to defend
themselves from injustice and defamation.
But there is another reason, and to me a still more convincing reason,
why we should be advised in the case of these suspensions what are the
papers, the official documents, and the reports on the files of the
departments affecting the administration of these offices, and that is
this: under the tenure-of-office act, every official suspended is
reinstated by the provisions of section 1768 of the Revised Statutes, if
the Senate adjourns without confirming the designated person, and
continues to exercise and discharge the duties of that office, until he
is again suspended by the President. Therefore, in acting upon these
cases we have a double duty to perform; in the first place, to decide
whether the person suspended was properly suspended, and in the next
place, whether he is a competent person to be restored to office under
and by virtue of the operation of the statute under which he was
suspended. If he is not a competent person then he ought not to be
restored, and we cannot determine whether he is competent and qualified
and fit to discharge the duties of that office until we have the
official declarations and statements upon which the action of the
President was based.
Since this debate began, there are indications that the President has
become convinced that his position is untenable, and that he has
concluded to yield to the reasonable requests of the Senate and relieve
suspended officials from the otherwise inevitable imputations upon their
conduct and character. I find the following correspondence in one of the
metropolitan journals, which if authentic relieves the relation between
the President and the Senate of the principal restraint:
COMMITTEE ON FINANCE, UNITED STATES SENATE, _March 17, 1886_.
DEAR SIR: Will you please advise the Committee on Finance whether or
not there are any papers or charges on file reflecting against the
official or moral character of ——, late collector of internal revenue
for the first district of ——, suspended?
If there are any such papers or charges will you please communicate
their nature and character to the committee?
Very truly, yours,
JUSTIN S. MORRILL.
Hon. DANIEL MANNING,
_Secretary of the Treasury_.
* * * * *
MARCH 19, 1886.
SIR: Your communication on behalf of the Finance Committee of the
Senate, dated March 17, 1886, asking whether or not there are any
papers or charges on file reflecting against the official or moral
character of ——, late collector of internal revenue for the first
district of ——, suspended, is received.
In reply thereto I have the honor to state that, so far as this
inquiry relates to a suspension from office, I feel bound by the rules
laid down in the President’s recent message to the Senate upon the
general subject of such suspensions.
But in order that I may surely act within the requirements of the
statute relating to the furnishing by this Department of information
to the Senate, I beg leave to remind the committee that the office
referred to has no fixed term attached to it, and to further state
that the President is satisfied that a change in the incumbency of
said office will result in an improvement of the public service, and
that the policy of the present administration will be better carried
out by such change.
Except as the same may be involved in these considerations, no papers
containing charges reflecting upon the official or moral character of
the suspended officer mentioned in your communication are in the
custody of this Department.
Respectfully, yours,
D. MANNING, _Secretary_.
HON. JUSTIN S. MORRILL,
_Chairm’n of the Senate Com. on Finance_.
But whether this be true or not, this is not the forum in which this
controversy is to be ultimately decided. The Executive is not on trial
before the Senate; the Senate is not on trial before the Executive; but
both, as to the sincerity of their professions and the consistency of
their actions, are on trial before that greater, wiser, and more
powerful tribunal—the enlightened conscience of the people, from whose
verdict there is neither exculpation nor appeal.
THE GREAT TARIFF CAMPAIGN OF 1888.
The views which point to the tendency of the Democratic party in the
direction of Free Trade, at least to their antagonism to the theory of
Protection for protection’s sake, are well given in the special message
of President Cleveland, given elsewhere in this work. A wing of the
Democratic party, headed by Samuel J. Randall, of Pennsylvania,
dissented from this view, and opposed both the Morrison and the Mills
bills. For the purpose of illustrating the views of this class of
Democrats, as well as because of the distinction of the speaker, we
append
The Tariff Speech of Samuel J. Randall.
_Delivered in the House of Representatives, May 18, 1888._
He opened by referring to the President’s recent message, in which the
Executive advised Congress that the surplus in the Treasury by the 30th
of June, at the end of the current fiscal year, would be expected to
reach the sum of $140,000,000, including prior accumulations; or more
closely stated, the sum of $113,000,000, apart from prior accumulations,
over and above all authorized expenditures, including the sinking fund
for the current year.
He then quoted from the President’s message defining his position on the
tariff and internal revenue questions, and said that, from the
utterances of the President, he understands the Executive to be adverse
to any reduction of the internal taxes, as that mode of taxation
afforded, in the opinion of the President, “no just complaint, and that
nothing is so well able to bear the burden without hardship to any
portion of the people.”
The President further said that the tariff law was a vicious and illegal
source of inequitable tax, and ought to be revised and modified, and the
President had urged upon Congress the immediate consideration of this
matter to the exclusion of all others. The President had asserted in
substance that the reduction necessary should be made by additions to
the free list, and by the lowering of the rates of duty.
In the presence of such language, emanating from the Executive,
authorized by the direction of the Constitution to communicate and from
time to time give to Congress information on the state of the Union, and
recommend such measures as he should judge necessary, it was
imperatively required of the representatives of the people to give fair,
intelligent, and prompt attention to the suggestions made. He had done
so.
He had introduced and had referred to the Committee on Ways and Means a
bill to reduce and equalize duties on imports and to reduce the internal
revenue taxes, and some provisions of that bill showed that the remedies
he would apply were at variance with those recommended by the President.
The President sought to prevent the continuation of the surplus revenue
by resorting to changes in the customs duties only.
The remedy he (Randall) proposed was through the repeal of internal
revenue taxes as well as by a full revision of the tariff, as promised
to the people by the Democratic Convention of 1884. The reduction
provided for in his bill aggregated $77,000,000 on internal taxes.
Those taxes had always been the last to be levied, and the first to be
repealed when no longer necessary.
Jefferson had given the death-blow to excise taxes, that most vicious of
all taxes, and among the things he received the thanks of the
Legislature of his native State for doing, was for having the internal
taxes abolished. The first tax also to be repealed after the War of 1812
had been the excise tax, which was recommended by Madison, and was the
first law enacted under the administration of Monroe. The Democratic
Convention of 1884 declared that internal revenue was a war tax, and
this declaration, taken in connection with the other declarations of the
platform, clearly established the fact that the opinion of the
Convention was that some of the internal revenue taxes should first go,
and that they should all go whenever a sufficient sum was realized from
custom-house taxes to meet the expenses of the Government economically
administered.
The country was practically in such a condition now, and the true
response to those declarations warranted the repeal of the internal
revenue taxes to the extent proposed by his bill. He favored now, as he
had always done, a total repeal of the internal revenue taxes.
In the bill which he introduced he proposed to sweep all these taxes
from the statute books, except a tax of fifty cents on whiskey, and he
would transfer the collection of that tax to the customs officials if
that was found to be practicable.
With Albert Gallatin, he regarded excise taxes as offensive to the
genius of the people, tolerated only as a measure of emergency, and as
soon as the occasion for them had passed away they should cease to
exist.
Gallatin and Jefferson had secured the repeal of the internal taxes, and
relieved the people from their annoyances and the hordes of officials
clothed with dangerous power. If this internal revenue system was
abolished to-day we would have no surplus revenue to scare the country,
while the administration of public affairs would be rendered purer and
better. His bill proposed a revision of the tariff on the principle
believed to be in harmony with the authorized declarations of the
Democratic party in their last convention.
Those declarations clearly recognized the fact that a difference existed
in the cost of production of commodities in this and other countries on
account of a higher rate of wages in the United States, and declared for
a duty ample to cover that difference. There was a cardinal principle
which must cover every intelligent revision of the tariff. Labor in this
country received a much larger share of what was annually produced than
in any other country, and this advantage to labor could only be
maintained by giving to the industries protection equal to that
difference.
He quoted from Edward Atkinson that since the end of the Civil War, and
yet more since the so-called panic of 1873, there had been greater
progress in the common welfare among the people of the United States
than ever before. The statements of Mr. Atkinson would seem to settle
the question as to whether we should adhere to the benevolent policy of
protecting home manufactures. It demonstrated unmistakably the truth
that, to increase wages, products must be increased, for in the end
wages were but the laborer’s share of products.
While a dollar might buy more in another country than here, a day’s
labor here would obtain more of the comforts of life than anywhere else.
Under free trade this advantage to labor disappeared. It was impossible
it should be otherwise. If the tariff itself did not give higher wages
to the laborer, it did preserve from foreign competition the industries
from which the laborer received his wages. He wished to refer to a few
fundamental propositions which had been maintained throughout this
debate, and which appeared to exercise and control influence over the
opinion of men.
_First._ That the duties were always added to the price to the consumer.
On articles not produced in this country, this doubtless was true as a
general rule, and measurably true on articles in part produced in this
country, but not in sufficient quantities to supply the home market. But
on all commodities produced in sufficient quantities to supply the home
market, a different principle controlled. In these things competition
determined the price, and the foreign producer came into this market,
where the prices were fixed, and the duties were what he paid for the
privilege of coming into the market. Another erroneous proposition was
that duties on articles produced in this country were a tax or bounty
which the consumer paid to the manufacturer, by means of which the
manufacturer derived large profits. If this were true, it was not easy
to see what justification there was for the committee bill any more than
for the present tariff law. But that it was erroneous seemed apparent on
a closer examination of the laws of trade. Adam Smith long ago had laid
down the proposition that larger profits in one industry than in another
could not long prevail in the same country. The United States formed a
world of its own. Would it be possible that one class of consumers would
pay a perpetual tax to another?
Suppose last year we had manufactured $1,000,000,000 worth of products
less than we actually did, and had gone abroad to supply our deficiency,
expecting to pay for the goods with our agricultural products—we had
sold Europe last year all of the wheat and corn the continent could
take—who could tell what prices Europe would have paid if we had thrown
upon her markets $1,000,000,000 worth of agricultural products in excess
of the quantity we had sold. The farmer and manufacturer in this country
must depend almost exclusively upon our home market.
Any other policy would mean ruin and bankruptcy to the country. The
greater the producing power of the people the more independent and
wealthy would the country be.
Mr. Randall next entered into an explanation of the principles upon
which his bill had been constructed. He said that in fixing the duties
the rates had been adjusted as nearly as possible to cover the
difference in the margin of cost of production here and abroad. In
working out the details of the bill it had been his purpose to lower
duties wherever possible.
Between the extreme free trader on one hand and a prohibitory tariff on
the other there were intermediate positions. One of them was to fix a
revenue line on imports just high enough to realize a sufficient revenue
for the needs of the Government. Another was to make the tariff
sufficiently high to cover the difference of cost of production in this
country and other countries. To lower the rate of duty when that line
was passed must be to increase the revenue. To raise the rate of duty
when the line of maximum revenue was reached would result in a decrease
of duty.
Any computation that did not take these facts into account would be
utterly worthless. It might safely be assumed that when the importation
of any line of merchandise steadily increased from year to year, and
there was no good reason why those goods could not be produced in this
country, and the result of the increased importations had been to
suppress our manufactures, it was proof positive that the duty should be
increased.
Otherwise it might be assumed that the duties were quite high enough.
And when the duties were high enough to permit the existence of trusts
to raise the prices of the commodity, the duty should be reduced as
closely as possible to the line. He stated distinctly that if it could
be made to appear in any case that the measure he proposed conferred
more protection than was needed to cover the cost of production, he was
ready to lower it. If in any instance the rate was too low to cover that
cost, he was ready to raise it.
Monopolies existed without the tariff. The standard oil trust, the
whiskey trust, and the cotton-seed oil trust, and others that he could
mention—the greatest trusts in the whole country—were not protected by
the tariff. He was for the protection of labor, not in one State merely,
but in all States.
He was for the protection and maintenance of that system that allows to
labor a larger proportionate share of its products than was realized in
any other country or under any other system.
The late Secretary Manning had signalized his accession to the control
of the Treasury Department by a more thorough examination of the
economic questions of the day than had been made by any of his
predecessors. His reports and public utterances were marvels of honest,
conscientious, and effective labor.
He had strongly urged the necessity for the substitution of specific for
ad valorem duties. The Custom House officers charged with the collection
of the revenues had given valuable and emphatic testimony in favor of
the change. The present Secretary of the Treasury had taken the same
grounds. (At this point Mr. Randall quoted extensively from Secretary
Fairchild’s utterances on the subject. He then proceeded with his
description of the objects of his own bill.) Certain provisions of the
metal schedules, he said, had been very sharply assailed, and he devoted
some time to answering the speakers who had attacked his measure.
He took up the schedules relating to steel rails, and quoted figures at
length to sustain his action in fixing the duties at the rates he
proposed in his bill. The duty on cotton ties, he said, was one of the
inconsistencies of the present tariff. It was only fair that they should
pay a duty as hoop iron and as an article of manufacture. The present
law was a positive discrimination against the home manufacturer and in
favor of the foreign producer. The rate of wages in England in cotton
tie manufactories was hardly one-half of the wages paid in such
manufactories in Pittsburg.
He then proceeded to a criticism of the committee bill as follows:
A declared purpose of this bill is to secure “free raw materials to
stimulate manufactories.”
In execution of this idea, the bill places on the free list a large
number of articles which are really manufactured articles, such as salt,
sawed and dressed lumber, glue, various oils and chemicals, china, clay,
etc. These constitute the products of large and useful industries
throughout the United States in which many millions of capital are
invested, and employing many thousands of working people. At the same
time the bill leaves or puts upon the dutiable list, lead, iron, zinc
and nickel ores, and coal, which might be called raw materials. Further
than this, the bill not only makes so-called “raw materials” free, but
places on the free list the manufactured products of these materials.
Thus the manufacture of such articles is made impossible in this
country, except by reducing American labor to a worse condition than
that of labor in Europe. It goes even further, and places or leaves
dutiable certain so-called raw materials, such as iron ore, lead, coal,
paper, paints, etc., while placing on the free list articles made from
these materials, such as hoop iron and cotton ties, tin plates,
machinery, books and pamphlets, etc.
In other words, the bill leaves or makes dutiable the raw material and
puts on the free list the articles manufactured from it; thus not only
placing an insurmountable barrier in the way of making such articles
here, but actually protecting the foreign manufacturer and laborer
against our own, and imposing for their benefit a burden upon the
consumer in this country. Again, the bill places lower rates on some
manufactured articles than on the raw materials used in making them. For
instance, type metal, 15 per cent.; pig lead, 44 per cent.; carpets, 30
per cent.; yarns used in their manufacture, 40 per cent.
It leaves an internal revenue tax of more than 100 per cent. on alcohol
used in the arts, amounting to as much as the entire amount of duty
collected on raw wool. This article enters as a material into a vast
number of important and needful articles which the committee have either
made free or have so reduced the rates thereon that the duty would be
less than the tax on the alcohol consumed in their manufacture.
In some cases, the difference between the duty imposed by the bill on
the so called raw materials and the articles made from them is so small
as to destroy these industries, except upon the condition of levelling
the wages of home labor to that of Europe. This was so in the case of
pig lead and red lead, which is made from it, and of pig iron and steel
blooms and steel rails.
Such legislation would leave the ore in the mines, or the pig lead in
the smelting works, or the pig iron to rust at the furnaces, while
foreigners would supply our markets with these manufactured products. In
a large number of articles throughout the schedules the reductions
proposed by the bill are so large that the effect must be to destroy or
restrict home production and increase enormously foreign importations,
thus largely increasing customs revenue instead of reducing it, as
claimed by the advocates of the bill. Particular mention in this
connection is made of earthen and chinaware, glass, leaf tobacco,
manufactures of cotton, flax, hemp, and jute, carpets, brushes, leather,
gloves, manufactures of India rubber, and pipes.
Mr. Randall asserted that instead of the bill reducing customs revenues
$64,000,000, as was claimed, it would be fair to estimate that its
effect would be to largely increase the revenue, instead of reducing it,
while the amount of material wealth it would destroy is incalculable.
Those supporting the bill, he said, hold themselves out as the champions
of the farmer, while they take from him the protection duties on his
wool, hemp, flax, meats, vegetables, etc. And what do they give him in
return. They profess to give the manufacturer better rates than he now
has. If this be so, how is the farmer to be benefited, or where does he
get compensation for the loss of his protective duties?
Much has been said about removing taxes on necessaries and imposing them
upon luxuries. What does this bill propose? It gives olive oil to the
epicure and taxes castor oil 95 per cent.; it gives free tin plates to
the Standard Oil Company and to the great meat-canning monopolies, and
imposes a duty of 100 per cent. on rice; it gives the sugar trust free
bone-black and proposes prohibitory duties on grocery grades of sugar;
it imposes a duty of 40 per cent. on the “poor man’s” blanket and only
30 per cent. on the Axminster carpet of the rich; it admits free of duty
the fine animals imported by the gentlemen of the turf, makes free the
paintings and statuary of the railway millionaire and coal baron.
Mr. Randall said he yielded to no man on his side of the House in his
desire for continued Democratic control in the administration of the
Federal Government. He did not believe the adoption of the committee’s
bill would make such result certain, and added:
“I cannot be coerced into any particular action upon economic
questions by the direction of party caucus. The period of the
political caucus has departed never to return, and yet we should
confer and have unity, if it is possible.
“In these matters I speak only for myself. My convictions on the
tariff are strong, and founded, as I think, upon principle, and upon
information and intelligent comprehension of the subject. When any one
here enters upon the task of invoking caucus power or other modes of
coercion, I can only say to him, if he acts with good purpose, that it
will prove a fruitless undertaking; or if with ill motive, then I
consign him to all the natural contempt which such self-constituted
superciliousness deserves.”
In conclusion, Mr. Randall quoted from the earliest statesmen in support
of his views upon the tariff, and said:
“If Jackson could say he was confirmed in his opinions by the opinions
of Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe, how much more am I confirmed in my
opinions by his great authority added to that of the founders and
builders of the Democratic party? I warn the party that it is not safe
to abandon principles so fundamental to our institutions and so
necessary to the maintenance of our industrial system; principles
which attest the wisdom of those who established them by the fruits
they have borne, the full fruition of which, however, can only be
realized in the extension of diversified industries to all parts of
the country, not in the North and East alone, but in the South and
West as well. A new era of industrial enterprise has already dawned
upon the South; no section of the country possesses greater natural
advantages than the South, with her genial climate, her limitless raw
materials, her mines of coal and iron, with abundant labor ready to
develop them. Considering what has been there achieved in a single
decade, what may not a century bring forth from her under a system
calculated to favor the highest industrial development? When I read
the history of my country and consider the past and present, and
reflect on what is before us, I cannot believe that the idea that went
down in the convulsions of 1861 will ever again dominate the destinies
of the Republic.”
Tariff Speech of Major Wm. McKinley, Jr.,
_Member of Congress from Ohio_.
In the great tariff campaign of 1888 the two most distinguished
Republican speakers were Mr. Blaine and Major McKinley. The latter was
invited by the Chautauqua Society of Georgia to explain the doctrine of
Protection, and did so in the following comprehensive speech:
FELLOW-CITIZENS: I make my acknowledgments to the Piedmont Society for
the courtesy and cordiality of its invitation, which has given me the
opportunity to meet, for the first time, an assemblage of the citizens
of Georgia.
I have come, upon the suggestion of the committee, to address you upon a
public question of great national import, which concerns not only the
prosperity of one section, but of all sections of our common country,
and which is of commanding interest to our sixty millions of people. It
is no new subject which I propose to consider. It is as old as
government by men. Taxation, with few exceptions, has been the chief and
absorbing issue for more than a century of the republic.
A revenue tariff is such a one as will produce the largest revenue from
the lowest duty. The lowest rate of duty will encourage importations,
diminish home production, and inevitably increase the revenue. It will,
of necessity, check competition at home, and send our merchants abroad
to buy; it affords no protection, not even incidental, for the very
instant that you discover that such duty favors the home producer, that
instant you discover that importations and revenue are checked, and that
our own producers are able to control the home market or a part of it.
Then at once the advocate of a revenue tariff reduces the duty, brings
it down to the true revenue standard, for it must not be overlooked,
according to the free trade maxim, “where protection begins, revenue
ends,” and the question of revenue is always controlling. A revenue
tariff is inconsistent with protection; it is intended for a wholly
different purpose. It loses its force and character as a genuine revenue
tariff when it becomes to any extent protective. It has but one object.
It can have but one effect—that of opening up our markets to the foreign
producer—impoverishing the home producer and enriching his foreign
rival.
England is more nearly a free trade country than any other, and her
system of taxation furnishes an unmistakable example of the practice and
principle of a revenue tariff. Her import duties are imposed almost
exclusively upon articles which cannot be produced by her own people
upon her own soil. Tobacco, snuff, cigars, chicory, cocoa, currants,
figs, raisins, rum, brandy, wine, tea, and coffee—these are the articles
from which her customs revenue is derived—articles, in the main, not
produced in England, but which must be supplied from abroad; while,
practically, all competing products of foreign make and production are
admitted through her custom-house free of duty.
A brief statement of the dutiable imports of Great Britain will not be
without interest.
It will be observed that her duties are more largely imposed upon the
peculiar American products than upon any others. The duty upon tobacco
is, according to moisture, from 84 to 92 cents per pound for the raw or
unmanufactured article; and, if manufactured, it pays a duty of from
$1.04 to $1.16 per pound. The manufactured article is made dutiable at
20 cents a pound greater than the raw product, which, with all of
England’s boasted free trade, is intended as a protection to those
engaged in the manipulation of tobacco. It is almost prohibitive to
Americans who would export manufactured tobacco. The ad valorem
equivalent of the duty on tobacco is nearly 2000 per cent. Cigars pay a
duty of $1.32 per pound, and from tobacco and snuff over $43,000,000 of
duties are collected annually. The duty on tea is 12 cents a pound. How
would the Americans enjoy paying such a duty upon this article of
everyday use? The duty collected from this source is over $18,000,000
annually. Coffee pays a duty of 3 cents a pound; but, if ground,
prepared, or in any way manufactured, it must pay a duty of 4 cents a
pound—another example of where England protects those engaged in
manufacture. Cocoa pays a duty of 2 cents a pound, but if it is in any
form subjected to manufacture it pays 4 cents a pound, the duty on the
manufactured article being double that on the raw material.
Besides the articles named, there are about ninety or a hundred others,
chiefly of American production, patented and other medicines, which are
dutiable at $3.36 per gallon. More than $96,000,000, or nearly
one-fourth of the British revenues, are raided from customs duties.
You will note the character of taxation to which the revenue reformer
invites the people of the United States. Both the breakfast table and
the sick room are made to bear a large part of the burden under the
British system of taxation. It is not without significance that the
nearer we approach this system the more generous the bestowal of British
commendation. Every step we take in that direction, every enlargement of
the free list of competing foreign products, every reduction of duty
upon such products is hailed as a vindication of Cobden and a
beneficence to British interests. It is in vain for the British
statesman to assure us that their system is best for us. We are not
accustomed to look to our commercial rivals for disinterested favors.
“It is folly,” said Washington in his farewell address, “for one nation
to look for disinterested favors from another; that it must pay, with a
portion of its independence, for whatever it may accept under that
character. There can be no greater error than to expect or calculate
upon real favors from nation to nation. It is an illusion which
experience must cure, and which a just pride ought to discard.” We are
not insensible to the good opinion of mankind and of the
English-speaking race, but when it is to be had only at the expense of
our industrial independence, at the sacrifice of the dignity and
independence of labor and the destruction of national prosperity, we
must regard it with supreme suspicion, and turn from it as the eulogy of
selfish interest and the commendation of interested greed.
The other theory of taxation, and the one which I believe to be
essential to American development and national prosperity, is based upon
an exactly opposite principle. It permits all articles of foreign
production, whether of the field, the factory, or the mine, except
luxuries only, which we cannot produce in the United States, to enter
our ports free and unburdened by custom-house exactions. The duty is to
be imposed upon the foreign competing product; that is, the product
which, if brought into this country, would contend with the products of
our own soil, our own labor, and our own factories, in our own markets.
Under this system, if the foreign producer would enter our market with a
competing product, he must contribute something for the privilege which
he is to enjoy, and this something, in the form of duties, goes into the
Treasury, furnishing revenue to the Government; and these duties operate
to protect the joint product of labor and capital against a like foreign
product.
This mode of levying duties answers a double purpose. It produces
revenue to the Government, and at the same time fosters and encourages
the occupations of our own people, promotes industrial development,
opens up new mines, builds new factories, and sustains those already
established, which in turn furnish employment to labor at fair and
remunerative wages. A revenue tariff accomplishes but a single
purpose—that of raising revenue; it has no other mission; while a
protective tariff accomplishes this and more—it brings revenue to the
American treasury and discriminates in favor of the American citizen. A
revenue tariff invites the product of foreign labor and foreign capital
to occupy our markets free and unrestrained in competition with the
product of our own labor and capital. A protective tariff invites the
product of foreign labor and foreign capital which are necessary to the
wants of our people (which we cannot produce in the United States) to
occupy our markets and go untaxed to the people, but insists that every
foreign product which is produced at home, or can be, successfully, in
quantities capable of supplying the domestic consumption, shall,
whenever necessary to maintain suitable rewards to our labor, bear a
duty which shall not be so high as to prohibit importations, but at such
a rate as will produce the necessary revenues and, at the same time, not
destroy but encourage American production. It says to the world of
producers: “If you want to share with the citizens of the United States
their home market, you must pay for the privilege of doing it. Your
product shall not enter into free and unrestrained competition with the
product of our own people, but shall be discriminated against to such an
extent as to fully protect and defend our own.”
It is alleged as a serious objection to protective duties that the tax,
whatever it may be, increases the cost of the foreign as well as the
domestic product to the extent of such tax or duty, and that it is
wholly paid by the consumer. This objection would be worthy of serious
consideration if it were true; but, as has been demonstrated over and
over again, it is without foundation in fact. Wherever the foreign
product has successful competition at home, the duty is rarely paid by
the consumer. It is paid from the profits of the manufacturer, or
divided between him and the merchant or the importer, and diminishes
their profit to that extent. Duty or no duty, without home competition
the consumer would fare worse than he fares now. There is not in the
long line of staple products consumed by the people a single one which
has not been cheapened by competition at home, made possible by
protective duties. There is not an article that enters into the everyday
uses of the family, which is produced in the United States, that has not
been made cheaper and more accessible as the result of home production
and development, which was to be secured only by the sturdy maintenance
of the protective system. While this is true of protective tariffs,
exactly the opposite is true of revenue tariffs. They are always paid by
the consumer. When a duty is put on a foreign product the like of which
is not produced at home, and which enters our markets free from home
competition, the cost to the American consumer is exactly the foreign
cost with the duty added, whatever that may be, much or little.
Supposing, for example, there was a tax upon tea and coffee. There being
no production of these articles in the United States, and therefore no
competition here, the cost to the American public would be the cost
abroad and the duty added. We imported last year 526,489,000 pounds of
coffee. A duty of 10 cents a pound would have produced to the Government
over $52,000,000, which would have been paid by the 12,000,000 families
of this country, consumers of this article; 87,584,000 pounds of tea
were imported last year; at 10 cents a pound, $8,000,000 and upward
would have gone into the Treasury, every dollar of which would have been
paid by our own people. Take sugar as another example. We produced last
year in this country about eight per cent. of what our people consumed.
The duty collected from imported sugar amounted to $58,000,000. The
domestic production was so inconsiderable as compared with the domestic
consumption as to have had little, if any, appreciable effect upon the
price to the consumer, and therefore this sum was almost wholly paid by
our own citizens, and the cost of sugar to the American consumer,
because of the inadequate home supply, is practically the foreign price,
duty added, the domestic production being so small contrasted with the
domestic demand that it in no wise controlled or influenced the price.
The revenue tariff periods of our history have been periods of greatest
financial revulsions and industrial decadence, want, and poverty among
the people, private enterprises checked and public works retarded. From
1833 to 1842, under the low tariff legislation then prevailing, business
was at a standstill, and our merchants and traders were bankrupted; our
industries were paralyzed, our labor remained idle, and our capital was
unemployed. Foreign products crowded our markets, destroyed domestic
competition, and, as invariably follows, the prices of commodities to
consumers were appreciably raised. It is an instructive fact that every
panic this country has ever experienced has been preceded by enormous
importations. From 1846 to 1861 a similar situation was presented under
the low tariff of that period.
Contrast this period with the period from 1860 to 1880, the former under
a revenue tariff, the latter under a protective tariff. In 1860 we had
163,000,000 acres of improved land, while in 1880 we had 287,000,000, an
increase of 75 per cent. In 1860 our farms were valued at
$3,200,000,000; in 1880 the value had leaped to $10,197,000,000, an
increase of over 300 per cent. In 1860 we raised 173,000,000 bushels of
wheat; in 1880, 498,000,000. In 1860 we raised 838,000,000 bushels of
corn; in 1880, 1,717,000,000 bushels. In 1860 we produced 5,000,000
bales of cotton; in 1880, 7,600,000 bales, an increase of 40 per cent.
In 1860 we manufactured cotton goods to the value of $115,681,774; in
1880 the value reached $211,000,000, an increase of upward of 80 per
cent. In 1860 we manufactured of woollen goods $61,000,000; in 1880,
$267,000,000, an increase of 333 per cent. In 1860 we produced
60,000,000 pounds of wool; in 1880, 240,000,000 pounds, an increase of
nearly 300 per cent. In 1860 we mined 15,000,000 tons of coal; in 1880,
79,000,000 tons, an increase of over 400 per cent. In 1860 we made
987,000 tons of pig iron; in 1880, 3,835,000 tons. In 1860 we
manufactured 235,000 tons of railroad iron, and in 1880, 1,208,000 tons.
In 1860 our aggregate of national wealth was $16,159,000,000; in 1880 it
was $43,000,000,000.
From 1848 to 1860, during the low tariff period, there was but a single
year in which we exported in excess of what we imported. The balance of
trade during twelve of the thirteen years was against us. Our people
were drained of their money to pay for foreign purchases. We sent
abroad, over and above our sales, $396,216,161. This vast sum was drawn
from the United States, from its business, from the channels of trade,
which would have been better employed in productive enterprises, and
thus supplied our wants for which we were compelled to go abroad. During
the last thirteen years, under a protective tariff, there was but one
year that the balance of trade was against us. For twelve years we sold
to our foreign customers in excess of what we bought from them
$1,612,659,755.
This contrast makes an interesting exhibit of the work under the two
systems. You need not be told that the government and the people are
most prosperous whose balance of trade is in their favor. The government
is like the citizen; indeed, it is but an aggregation of citizens; and
when the citizen buys more than he sells, he is soon conscious that his
year’s business has not been a success.
Our wealth increases $875,000,000 every year, while the increase of
France is $375,000,000, Great Britain $325,000,000, and Germany
$200,000,000. The total carrying capacity of all the vessels entered and
cleared from American ports during the year 1886–7 in the foreign trade
was 28,000,000 tons. The amount of freight transported by the railroads
of the United States was alone 482,000,000 tons during the same period.
The sum of our industries exceeds that of any other people, or tribe, or
nationality. Mulhall, the English statistician, places the industries of
the United States at $11,405,000,000 annually, which is $2,205,000,000
greater than those of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, nearly twice
those of France or Germany, nearly three times those of Russia, and
almost equal to the aggregated industries of Austria, Italy, Spain,
Belgium, Holland, Australia, Canada, and Sweden and Norway.
This advancement is the world’s wonder. The nations of the earth cannot
furnish such a splendid exhibition of progress in any age or period. We
defy a revenue tariff policy to present such an exhibition of material
prosperity and industrial development. Art, science, and literature have
held their own in this wonderful march. We are prosperous to-day beyond
any other people. The masses are better cared for, better provided for,
more self-respecting, and more independent than ever before in our
history, which cannot be said of the masses of other countries.
One of the striking differences between a revenue tariff and a
protective tariff is that the former sends the money of its people
abroad for foreign supplies and seeks out a foreign market. The latter
keeps the money at home among our own people, circulating through the
arteries of trade, and creates a market at home, which is always the
best, because the most reliable.
Surely a new era of industrial development has come to the South.
Nothing should be permitted to check or retard it. To her nature has
been most prodigal with her gifts. Her hills and valleys have been made
the storehouses of richest treasure. Coal and iron mines wait
impatiently the touch of labor and capital, and tempt both with the
promise of lavish profit.
Raw materials are found at every turn to invite the skilled artisan to
transform them into the finished product for the highest uses of man.
She possesses the fibres in rich abundance; her skilled labor should
weave the fabric.
It is said that there is nothing grown in any of the States, except
Florida, that Georgia cannot profitably produce. She has coal, iron
deposits, marble and building stone, cotton and the cereals. Nothing but
her own folly, nothing but blindness to her highest and best interests
can keep her from the front rank of the industrial States of the Union.
Whether we discuss this question from principle, from statistics, or
experience, we must reach the same conclusion; all lead to the same
conviction.
One of the chief complaints against the protective system is its alleged
hindrance to foreign trade and a foreign market for our own products. It
is argued that if we could import raw material from other countries
free, and manufacture such raw material into products for use, we could
export them at great profit, and thus secure a standing in the markets
of the world. This theory is wholly, as I believe, illusory. It is
without substance. We have an example of free raw material in a certain
line of manufactures—that of leather for boots, shoes, etc. In 1872
hides and skins were made free, so that our manufacturers could import
them without custom-house burdens. They have had “free trade” in their
raw material now for sixteen years. This industry has been an
exceptionally successful one, and yet you cannot avoid being surprised
when I say to you that in these sixteen years we have been able to
export but two per cent. of the leather production of this country.
But if free raw material be necessary to secure an export trade and the
foreign markets, then I answer that our manufacturers to-day have
substantial free trade in foreign raw materials which they make into the
finished product in the United States, provided they export it. Sections
3019, 3020, 3021, and 3022 of the United States Statutes provide for the
remission of duties on all foreign materials used in manufacturing for
the export trade. The law is positive that all articles manufactured for
export from imported materials upon which duties have been paid, shall,
when exported, be entitled to a drawback of 90 per cent. of the duties
paid on such raw materials. Some use has been made of these laws. The
remission of duties in 1884 paid upon imported material manufactured for
foreign markets amounted to $2,256,638. On some articles the drawback is
equal to the duty paid, but in no instance where articles are imported
to be manufactured here and sent abroad is the duty to exceed 10 per
cent.
And yet we are gravely told by the tariff reformers that we cannot reach
foreign markets on account of the high tariff on the raw material, when,
in fact, for foreign trade foreign raw materials are practically free.
This principle was recognized as early as the administration of George
Washington, and has been enlarged and made applicable to all imported
materials, the drawbacks varying from 60 to 100 per cent. What becomes,
then, of the cry for free raw materials in the presence of this fact?
The truth is, we are not so much concerned about the foreign market as
we are about the home market. The latter is the best, and we have not
yet been able to control it, and, until we do, that should be our chief
concern. But if any of our people are sighing for a foreign market, and
value it more highly than our own, they can import foreign raw material
practically free of duty, and after advancing it into the higher forms
of manufacture, can go out and possess the world’s markets. Taxed raw
materials do not stand in their way, and it is hypocrisy to claim
otherwise.
“The markets of the world,” in our present condition, are a snare and a
delusion. We will reach them whenever we can undersell competing
nations, and not sooner. Tariffs do not keep us out, and free trade will
not make it easier to enter them.
Upon what terms can we adopt a revenue tariff system in this country? In
one way only; by accepting European conditions, and submitting to all
the discomforts and disadvantages of our commercial rivals. The chief
obstruction in the way of a revenue tariff are the wages paid American
workingmen, and any return to that policy involves a reduction of the
cost of labor. We cannot afford to have cheap labor in the United
States. Cheap labor means cheap men and dear money. I would rather
elevate and improve the condition of my fellow-citizens than increase
the value of money and the power of “money-bags.” This is a republic of
free and equal citizenship. The government is in the hands of the
masses, and not of the few. This is our boast, and it is a proud one.
The condition of the masses, their well-being, their intelligence, their
preparation for the civil duties which rest upon them, depend largely
upon the scale of industrial wages. It is essential, therefore, that the
best possible wages attainable shall be secured and maintained. This is
vital and fundamental. We cannot, without grave danger and serious
disturbance—we ought not under any circumstances—adopt a policy which
would scale down the wages and diminish the comforts of the American
workingmen. Their welfare and independence, their progress and elevation
are closely related to the welfare and independence and progress of the
republic. We have got no pampered class in this country, and we want
none. We want the field kept open. No narrowing of the avenues, no
lowering of our standard. We want no barriers raised against a higher
and better civilization. The gateway of opportunity must be open to all,
to the end that they may be first who deserve to be first, whether born
in poverty or reared in luxury. We do not want the masses excluded from
competing for the first rank among their countrymen and for the nation’s
greatest honors, and we do not mean they shall be.
Free trade, or a revenue tariff, will, of necessity, shut them out. It
has no respect for labor. It holds it as the mere machinery of capital.
It would have cheap men that it might have cheap merchandise. With all
of its boasted love for the struggling millions, it is infinitely more
interested in cutting down the wages of labor than in saving twenty-five
cents on a blanket; more intent in reducing the purchasing power of a
man’s labor than the cost of his coat. Things are not always dearest
when their price is nominally the highest. The price is not the only
measure, but the wherewith to buy it is an essential factor. Few men
before me but have found in the course of their lives more than once
that that which was cheapest when measured by mere price was the dearest
when they were without money and employment, or when their products
could find no market, and, finding it, commanded no price at all
commensurate with the labor required to produce them. Primarily, it is
labor which is interested most in this question of protection. The man
with money can seek other avenues of profit and investment, or can wait
for his dividends, but the laborer cannot wait for his dinner, and the
United States do not want citizens who make presidents, and senates, and
the house of representatives, to be in a condition of dependence and
destitution. That is not the sort of citizenship we want.
We are different from any other nation, and it is that difference which
makes us the best. Our political system rests upon a principle different
from that of any other. It is founded upon the consent of the people. If
we had wanted it otherwise we would not have left home, but would have
remained the obedient child of an imperious parent. We would not have
turned away from the mother country. We would have remained one of her
dependencies. We would not have fought our way through blood and
sacrifice to independence. We separated to set up for ourselves a free
and independent political society, and that policy is the best for us
which best subserves the purposes of our organization, our citizenship
and civilization. It is ours to work out our own destiny, and, in doing
so, furnish an example of a free and progressive people, whose
industrial policy has made it possible to satisfy the best and highest
aspirations of men, and which closes no field to human endeavor. We
would wish for all mankind the beneficence of our system and the
opportunities which it presents. We bid them level their condition up to
ours; we will not level ours down to theirs. We will remove all
restrictions from international trade, as we have removed all
restrictions from inter-State trade, whenever they will raise their
labor and their conditions to our standard.
Men of Georgia, upon this great industrial question there should be no
North nor South. To us of every section have been entrusted the
interests of our country—our whole country. To others have been confided
the care of other nations and other people. We will not interfere with
them; we bid them not interfere with us. My fellow-citizens, in this
conflict, influenced by patriotism, national interest, and national
pride, let us be Americans.
Speech of Hon. Chauncey M. Depew.
_Presenting President Harrison for Re-nomination at the Minneapolis
Convention, June 9, 1892._
_Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Convention._—It is the peculiarity
of Republican National Conventions that each one of them has a distinct
and interesting history. We are here to meet conditions and solve
problems which make this gathering not only no exception to the rule but
substantially a new departure. That there should be strong convictions
and their earnest expression as to preferences and politics is
characteristic of the right of individual judgment which is the
fundamental principle of Republicanism. There have been occasions when
the result was so sure that the delegates could freely indulge in the
charming privilege of favoritism and of friendship. But the situation
which now confronts us demands the exercise of dispassionate judgment
and our best thought and experience. We cannot venture on uncertain
ground or encounter obstacles placed in the pathway of success by
ourselves. The Democratic party is now divided, but the hope of the
possession of power once more will make it in the final battle more
aggressive, determined and unscrupulous than ever. It starts with
fifteen States secure without an effort by processes which are a
travesty upon popular government, and, if continued long enough, will
paralyze institutions founded upon popular suffrage. It has to win four
more States in a fair fight, States which, in the vocabulary of
politics, are denominated doubtful. The Republican party must appeal to
the conscience and the judgment of the individual voter in every State
in the Union. This is in accordance with the principles upon which it
was founded and the objects for which it contends. It has accepted this
issue before and fought it out with an extraordinary continuance of
success. The conditions of Republican victory from 1860 to 1880 were
created by Abraham Lincoln and U. S. Grant. They were that the saved
republic should be run by its saviours, the emancipation of slaves, the
reconstruction of the States, the reception of those who had fought to
destroy the republic back into the fold, without the penalties or
punishments, and to an equal share with those who had fought and saved
the nation, in the solemn obligation and inestimable privilege of
American citizenship. They were the embodiment into the Constitution of
the principles for which 2,000,000 of men had fought and 500,000 had
died. They were the restoration of public credit, the resumption of
specie payments and the prosperous condition of solvent business for
twenty-five years. They were names with which to conjure and events
fresh in the public mind which were eloquent with popular enthusiasm. It
needed little else than a recital of the glorious story of its heroes
and a statement of the achievements of the Republican party to retain
the confidence of the people. But from the desire for a change, which is
characteristic of free governments, there came a reversal, there came a
check to the progress of the Republican party and four years of
Democratic administration. Those four years largely relegated to the
realm of history past issues and brought us face to face with what
Democracy, its professions and its practices mean to-day. The great
names which have adorned the roll of the Republican statesman and
soldiers are potent and popular. The great measures of the Republican
party are still the best part of the history of the country. The
unequalled and unexampled story of Republicanism in its progress and its
achievements stands unique in the record of parties in governments which
are free. But we live in practical times, facing practical issues which
affect the business, the wages, the labor and the prosperity of to-day.
“It will be won or lost upon the policy, foreign and domestic, the
industrial measures and the administrative acts of the administration of
Benjamin Harrison. Whoever receives the nomination of this convention
will run upon the judgment of the people as to whether they have been
more prosperous and more happy, whether the country has been in a better
condition at home and stood more honorable abroad under these last four
years of Harrison and Republican administration than during the
preceding four years of Cleveland and Democratic government. Not since
Thomas Jefferson has any administration been called upon to face and
solve so many or such difficult problems as those which have been
exigent in our conditions. No administration since the organization of
the government has ever met difficulties better or more to the
satisfaction of the American people. Chile has been taught that, no
matter how small the antagonist, no community can with safety insult the
flag or murder American sailors. Germany and England have learned in
Samoa that the United States has become one of the powers of the world,
and no matter how mighty the adversary, at every sacrifice American
honor will be maintained. The Bering Sea question, which was the
insurmountable obstacle in the diplomacy of Cleveland and of Bayard, has
been settled upon a basis which sustains the American people until
arbitration shall have determined our right. The dollar of the country
has been placed and kept on the standard of commercial nations, and a
convention has been agreed upon with foreign governments, which, by
making bi-metallism the policy of all nations, may successfully solve
all our financial problems. The tariff, tinkered with and trifled with
to the serious disturbance of trade and disaster to business since the
days of Washington, has been courageously embodied into a code which has
preserved the principle of the protection of American industries. To it
has been added a beneficent policy, supplemented by beneficial treaties
and wise diplomacy, which has opened to our farmers and manufacturers
the markets of other countries. The navy has been builded upon lines
which will protect American citizens and American interests and the
American flag all over the world. The public debt has been reduced. The
maturing bonds have been paid off. The public credit has been
maintained. The burdens of taxation have been lightened. Two hundred
millions of currency have been added to the people’s money without
disturbances of the exchanges.
“Unexampled prosperity has crowned wise laws and their wise
administration. The main question which divides us is to whom does the
credit of all this belong? Orators may stand upon this platform more
able and more eloquent than I who will paint in more brilliant colors,
but they cannot put in more earnest thought the affection and admiration
of Republicans for our distinguished Secretary of State. I yield to no
Republican, no matter from what State he hails, in admiration and
respect for John Sherman, for Governor McKinley, for Thomas B. Reed, for
Iowa’s great Senator, for the favorites of Illinois and Wisconsin, but
when I am told that the credit for the brilliant diplomacy of this
administration belongs exclusively to the Secretary of State, for the
administration of its finances to the Secretary of the Treasury, for the
construction of its ships to the Secretary of the Navy, for the
introduction of American pork in Europe to the Secretary of Agriculture,
for the settlement, so far as it is settled, of the currency question,
to Senator John Sherman, for the formulation of the tariff laws to
Governor McKinley, for the removal of the restrictions placed by foreign
nations upon the introduction of American pork to our ministers at Paris
and Berlin, I am tempted to seriously inquire who, during the last four
years, has been President of the United States anyhow? Cæsar, when he
wrote those commentaries, which were the history of the conquests of
Europe under his leadership, modestly took the position of Eneas when he
said: ‘They are the narrative of events, the whole of which I saw and
the part of which I was.’ General Thomas, as the rock of Chickamauga,
occupies a place in our history with Leonidas among the Greeks, except
that he succeeded where Leonidas failed. The fight of Joe Hooker above
the clouds was the poetry of battle. The resistless rush of Sheridan and
his steed down the valley of the Shenandoah is the epic of our civil
war. The march of Sherman from Atlanta to the sea is the supreme triumph
of gallantry and strategy. It detracts nothing from the splendor or the
merits of the deeds of his lieutenants to say that having selected them
with marvellous sagacity and discretion Grant still remained the supreme
commander of the national army. All the proposed acts of any
administration before they are formulated are passed upon in Cabinet
council, and the measures and suggestions of the ablest Secretaries
would have failed with a lesser President, but for the great good of the
country and the benefit of the Republican party they have succeeded
because of the suggestive mind, the indomitable courage, the intelligent
appreciation of situation and the grand magnanimity of Benjamin
Harrison. It is an undisputed fact that during the few months when both
the Secretary of State and the Secretary of the Treasury were ill the
President personally assumed the duties of the State Department and of
the Treasury Department, and both with equal success. The Secretary of
State in accepting his portfolio under President Garfield wrote: ‘Your
administration must be made brilliant, successful and strong in the
confidence and pride of the people, not at all diverting its energies
for re-election, and yet compelling that result by the logic of events
and by the imperious necessities of the situation.’ Garfield fell before
the bullet of the assassin and Mr. Blaine retired to private life.
General Harrison invited him to take up that unfinished diplomatic
career where its threads had been so tragically broken. He entered the
Cabinet. He resumed his work and has won a higher place in our history.
The prophecy he made for Garfield has been superbly fulfilled by
Harrison. In the language of Mr. Blaine: ‘The President has compelled a
re-election by the logic of events and the imperious necessities of the
situation.’
“The man who is nominated here to-day to win must carry a certain
well-known number of the doubtful States. Patrick Henry, in the
convention which started rolling the ball of the independence of the
Colonies from Great Britain, said: ‘I have but one lamp by which my feet
are guided, and that is the lamp of experience. I know of no way of
judging of the future but by the past.’ New York was carried in 1880 by
General Garfield, and in every important election since then we have
done our best. We have put forward our ablest, our most popular, our
most brilliant leaders for Governor and State officers to suffer
constant defeat. The only light which illumines with the sun of hope the
dark record of those twelve years is the fact that in 1888 the State of
New York was triumphantly carried by President Harrison. He carried it
then as a gallant soldier, a wise Senator, statesman, who inspired
confidence by his public utterances in daily speech from the
commencement of the canvass to its close. He still has all these claims,
and in addition an administration beyond criticism and rich with
elements of popularity with which to carry New York. Ancestry helps in
the old world and handicaps in the new. There is but one distinguished
example of a son first overcoming the limitations imposed by the
pre-eminent fame of his father, and then rising above it, and that was
when the younger Pitt became greater than Chatham. With an ancestor a
signer of the Declaration of Independence and another who saved the
Northwest from savagery and gave it to civilization and empire, who was
also President of the United States, a poor and unknown lawyer of
Indiana has risen by his unaided efforts to such distinction as lawyer,
orator, soldier, statesman and President, that he reflects more credit
on his ancestors than they have devolved upon him and presents in
American history the parallel of the younger Pitt. By the grand record
of a wise administration, by the strength in frequent contact of the
people, in wonderfully versatile and felicitous speech, by the claims of
a pure life in public and in the simplicity of a typical American home,
I nominate Benjamin Harrison.”
Speech of Hon. Leon Abbett.
_Presenting Grover Cleveland for Nomination at the Chicago Convention,
June 22, 1892._
MR. CHAIRMAN AND GENTLEMEN OF THE CONVENTION.—In presenting the name to
this Convention, I speak for the united Democracy of the State of New
Jersey, whose loyalty to Democratic principles, faithful services to the
party, and whose contributions to its success entitle it to the
respectful consideration of the Democracy of the United States. Its
electoral vote has always been cast in support of Democratic principles
and Democratic candidates.
In voicing the unanimous wish of the delegation from New Jersey, I
present as their candidate for the suffrages of this Convention the name
of a distinguished Democratic statesman, born upon its soil, for whom in
the two great Presidential contests the State of New Jersey has given
its electoral vote.
The supreme consideration in the mind of the Democracy of New Jersey is
the success of the Democratic party and its principles. We have been in
the past, and will be in the future, ready to sacrifice personal
preferences in deference to the clear expression of the will of the
Democracy of the Union. It is because of that that this name will awaken
throughout our State the enthusiasm of the Democracy and insure success.
It is because he represents the great Democratic principles and policy
upon which this entire convention is a unit; it is because we believe
that with him as a candidate the Democrats of the Union will sweep the
country and establish its principles throughout the length and breadth
of the land, that we offer to the Convention as a nominee the choice of
New Jersey, Grover Cleveland.
If any doubt existed in the minds of the Democrats of New Jersey of his
ability to lead the great Democratic hosts to victory they would not
present his name to-day. With them success of the party and the
establishment of its principles are beyond their love and admiration for
any man. We feel certain that every Democratic State though its
preferences may be for some other distinguished Democrat, will give its
warm, enthusiastic and earnest support to the nominee of this
Convention.
The man whom we present will rally to his party thousands of independent
voters, whose choice is determined by their personal conviction that the
candidate will represent principles dear to them, and whose public life
and policy gives assurance that if chosen by the people they will secure
an honest, pure and conservative administration and the great interests
of the country will be encouraged and protected.
The time will come when other distinguished Democrats who have been
mentioned in connection with this nomination will receive that
consideration to which the great services they have rendered their party
entitle them, but we stand to-day in the presence of the fact that the
majority of the Democratic masses throughout the country, the rank and
file, the millions of its voters, demand the nomination of Grover
Cleveland.
This sentiment is so strong and overpowering that it has affected and
controlled the actions of delegates who would otherwise present the name
of some distinguished leader of their own State with whom they feel
victory would be assured and in whom the entire country would feel
confidence, but the people have spoken and favorite sons and leaders are
standing aside in obedience to their will.
Shall we listen to the voice of the Democracy of the Union? Shall we
place on our banner the man of our choice, the man in whom they believe,
or shall we, for any consideration of policy or expediency, hesitate to
obey their will?
I have sublime faith in the expression of the people when it is clear
and decisive. When the question before them is one that has excited
discussion and debate; when it appeals to their interests and their
feelings and calls for the exercise of their judgment and they then say
we want this man and we can elect him, we, their representatives, must
not disobey nor disappoint them.
It is incumbent upon us to obey their wishes and concur in their
judgment; then, having given them the candidate of their choice, they
will give us their best, their most energetic efforts to secure success.
We confidently rely upon the loyal and successful work of the Democratic
leaders who have advocated other candidates. We know that in the great
States across the river from New Jersey, now controlled by the
Democratic party, there is no Democrat who will shirk the duty of making
every effort to secure the success of the candidate of this Convention,
notwithstanding his judgment may differ from that of the majority.
The Democracy of New York and its great leaders whose efforts and
splendid generalship have given to us a Democratic Senator and Governor
will always be true to the great party they represent; they will not
waver, nor will they rest in the coming canvass until they have achieved
success.
Their grand victories of the past, their natural and honorable ambition,
their unquestioned Democracy will make them arise and fight as never
before, and with those that they represent and lead they will march in
the great independent vote and will again secure for us the Democratic
victory in New York. The grand Democrats under whose leadership the city
and State of New York are now governed will give to the cause the great
weight of their organizations.
The thundering echoes of this Convention announcing the nomination of
Grover Cleveland will not have died out over the hills and through the
valleys of this land before you will hear and see all our leaders
rallying to the support of our candidate.
They will begin their efforts for organization and success and continue
their work until victory crowns their efforts. All Democrats will fight
for victory, and they will succeed because the principles of the party
enunciated here are for the best interests of the country at large and
because the people of this land have unquestioning faith that Grover
Cleveland will give the country a pure, honest and stable government and
an administration from which the great business interests of the country
and the agricultural and laboring interests of the masses will receive
proper and due consideration.
The question has been asked, Why is it that the masses of the party
demand the nomination of Grover Cleveland? Why is it that this man who
has no offices to distribute, no wealth to command, should have stirred
the spontaneous support of the great body of Democracy? Why is it that
with all that has been urged against him the people still cry “Give us
Cleveland?” Why is it, though he has pronounced in honest, clear and
able language his views upon questions upon which some of his party may
differ with him, that he is still near and dear to the masses?
It is because he has crystallized into a living issue the great
principle upon which this battle is to be fought out. If he did not
create tariff reform he made it a Presidential issue; he vitalized it
and presented it to our party as the issue for which we could fight and
continue to battle until upon it victory is now assured.
There are few men in his position who would have the courage to boldly
make the issue and present it so clearly and forcibly as he did in his
great message of 1887. I believe that his policy then was to force a
national issue which would appeal to the judgment of the people.
We must honor a man who is honest enough and bold enough under such
circumstances to proclaim that the success of the party upon principle
is better than evasion or shirking of true national issues for temporary
success. When victory is obtained upon a principle, it forms the solid
foundation of party success in the future.
It is no longer the question of a battle to be won on the mistakes of
our foes, but it is a victory to be accomplished by a charge along the
whole line under the banner of principle.
There is another reason why the people demand his nomination. They feel
that the tariff reform views of ex-President Cleveland and the
principles laid down in his great message, whatever its temporary effect
may have been, give us a live and a vital issue to fight for, which has
made the great victories since 1888 possible. It consolidated in one
solid phalanx the Democracy of the nation.
In every State of this union that policy has been placed in Democratic
platforms and our battles have been fought upon it, and this great body
of representative Democrats have seen its good results.
Every man in this Convention recognizes the policy of the party. In
Massachusetts it gave us a Russell. In Iowa it gave us a Boies. In
Wisconsin it gave us a Peck for Governor and Vilas for Senator. In
Michigan it gave us Winans for Governor and gave us a Democratic
Legislature, and will give us eight electoral votes for President.
In 1889 in Ohio it gave us James Campbell for Governor, and in 1891, to
defeat him it required the power, the wealth and the machinery of the
entire republican party. In Pennsylvania it gave us Robert E. Pattison.
In Connecticut it gave us a Democratic Governor, who was kept out of
office by the infamous conduct of the Republican party. In New Hampshire
it gave us a Legislature, of which we were defrauded. In Illinois it
gave us a Palmer for Senator and in Nebraska it gave us Boyd for
Governor.
In the great Southern States it has continued in power Democratic
Governors and Democratic Legislatures. In New Jersey the power of the
Democracy has been strengthened, and the Legislature and executive are
now both democratic.
In the great State of New York it gave us David B. Hill for Senator and
Roswell P. Flower for Governor.
With all these glorious achievements it is the wisest and best party
policy to nominate again the man whose policy made these successes
possible. The people believe that these victories, which gave us a
Democratic House of Representatives in 1890 and Democratic Governors and
Senators in Republican and doubtful states, are due to the courage and
wisdom of Grover Cleveland. And so believing, they recognize him as
their great leader.
In presenting his name to the Convention it is no reflection upon any of
them as the leaders of the party. The victories which have been obtained
are not alone the heritage of those States; they belong to the whole
party. I feel that every Democratic State and that every individual
Democrat has reason to rejoice and be proud and applaud these splendid
successes.
The candidacy of Grover Cleveland is not a reflection upon others; it is
not antagonistic to any great Democratic leader. He comes before this
Convention not as the candidate of any one State. He is the choice of
the great majority of Democratic voters.
The Democracy of New Jersey therefore presents to this Convention, in
this the people’s year, the nominee of the people, the plain, blunt,
honest citizen, the idol of the Democratic masses, Grover Cleveland.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
AMERICAN POLITICS.
BOOK IV.
PARLIAMENTARY PRACTICE.
Declaration of Independence.
_A Declaration by the Representatives of the United States of America in
Congress assembled. July 4, 1776._
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people
to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another,
and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal
station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a
decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should
declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal;
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights;
that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That
to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving
their just powers from the consent of the governed; That whenever any
Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of
the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government,
laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in
such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and
Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long
established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and
accordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to
suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by
abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train
of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces
a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it
is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards
for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these
Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter
their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of
Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all
having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over
these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for
the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing
importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should
be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend
to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large
districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of
Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and
formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual,
uncomfortable, and distant from the Depository of their public Records,
for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his
measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with
manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others
to be elected; whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of
Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise;
the State remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of
invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavored to prevent the Population of these States; for that
purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing
to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the
conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent
to laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their
offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of
Officers to harass our People, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the
Consent of our Legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to
the Civil Power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to
our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to
their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders
which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For Imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offenses:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighboring
Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging
its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument
for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and
altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested
with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection
and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and
destroyed the Lives of our People.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to
complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with
circumstances of Cruelty and Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most
barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow-citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to
bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their
friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to
bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages,
whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all
ages, sexes, and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in
the most humble terms; our repeated Petitions have been answered only by
repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act
which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free People.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have
warned them, from time to time, of attempts by their legislature to
extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of
the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have
appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured
them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations,
which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence.
They, too, have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity.
We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity which denounces our
Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in
War, in Peace, Friends.
WE, therefore, the REPRESENTATIVES of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA IN
GENERAL CONGRESS assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the World
for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority
of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly PUBLISH and DECLARE, That
these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be, FREE AND
INDEPENDENT States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the
British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the
State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved; and that
as FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES, they have full Power to levy War,
conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all
other Acts and things which INDEPENDENT STATES may of right do. And for
the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the Protection
of Divine Providence, We mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our
Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.
The foregoing declaration was, by order of Congress, engrossed, and
signed by the following members:
JOHN HANCOCK.
_New Hampshire_ │Josiah Bartlett,
„ │William Whipple,
„ │Matthew Thornton.
_Massachusetts Bay._│Samuel Adams,
„ │John Adams,
„ │Robert Treat Paine,
„ │Elbridge Gerry.
_Rhode Island, etc._│Stephen Hopkins,
„ │William Ellery.
_Connecticut._ │Roger Sherman,
„ │Samuel Huntington,
„ │William Williams,
„ │Oliver Wolcott.
_New York._ │William Floyd,
„ │Philip Livingston,
„ │Francis Lewis,
„ │Lewis Morris.
_New Jersey._ │Richard Stockton,
„ │John Witherspoon,
„ │Francis Hopkinson,
„ │John Hart,
„ │Abraham Clark.
_Pennsylvania._ │Robert Morris,
„ │Benjamin Rush,
„ │Benjamin Franklin,
„ │John Morton,
„ │George Clymer,
„ │James Smith,
„ │George Taylor,
„ │James Wilson,
„ │George Ross.
_Delaware._ │Cesar Rodney,
„ │George Read,
„ │Thomes McKean.
_Maryland._ │Samuel Chase,
„ │William Paca,
„ │Thomas Stone,
„ │Charles Carroll, of Carrollton.
_Virginia._ │George Wythe,
„ │Richard Henry Lee,
„ │Thomas Jefferson,
„ │Benjamin Harrison,
„ │Thomas Nelson, jr.,
„ │Francis Lightfoot Lee,
„ │Carter Braxton.
_North Carolina._ │William Hooper,
„ │Joseph Hewes,
„ │John Penn.
_South Carolina._ │Edward Rutledge,
„ │Thomas Heyward, jr.,
„ │Thomas Lynch, jr.,
„ │Arthur Middleton.
_Georgia._ │Button Gwinnett,
„ │Lyman Hall,
„ │George Walton.
_Resolved_, That copies of the Declaration be sent to the several
assemblies, conventions, and committees or councils of safety, and to
the several commanding officers of the Continental Troops: That it be
PROCLAIMED in each of the UNITED STATES, and at the HEAD of the
ARMY.—[_Jour. Cong., vol. 1, p. 396._]
Articles of Confederation.
_Done at Philadelphia on the 9th day of July, 1778._
[While the Declaration of Independence was under consideration in the
Continental Congress, and before it was finally agreed upon, measures
were taken for the establishment of a constitutional form of government;
and on the 11th of June, 1776, it was “_Resolved_, That a committee be
appointed to prepare and digest the form of a confederation to be
entered into between these Colonies;” which committee was appointed the
next day, June 12, and consisted of a member from each Colony, namely:
Mr. Bartlett. Mr. S. Adams, Mr. Hopkins, Mr. Sherman, Mr. R. R.
Livingston, Mr. Dickinson, Mr. McKean, Mr. Stone, Mr. Nelson, Mr. Hewes,
Mr. E. Rutledge, and Mr. Gwinnett. On the 12th of July, 1776, the
committee reported a draught of the Articles of Confederation, which was
printed for the use of the members under the strictest injunctions of
secrecy.
This report underwent a thorough discussion in Congress, from time to
time, until the 15th of November, 1777; on which day, “Articles of
Confederation and Perpetual Union” were finally agreed to in form, and
they were directed to be proposed to the Legislatures of all the United
States, and if approved by them, they were advised to authorize their
delegates to ratify the same in the Congress of the United States; and
in that event they were to become conclusive. On the 17th of November,
1777, the Congress agreed upon the form of a circular letter to
accompany the Articles of Confederation, which concluded with a
recommendation to each of the several Legislatures “to invest its
delegates with competent powers, ultimately, and in the name and behalf
of the State, to subscribe articles of confederation and perpetual union
of the United States, and to attend Congress for that purpose on or
before the 10th day of March next.” This letter was signed by the
President of Congress and sent, with a copy of the articles, to each
State Legislature.
On the 26th of June, 1778, Congress agreed upon the form of a
ratification of the Articles of Confederation, and directed a copy of
the articles and the ratification to be engrossed on parchment; which,
on the 9th of July, 1778, having been examined and the blanks filled,
was signed by the delegates of New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode
Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania,
Virginia, and South Carolina. Congress then directed that a circular
letter be addressed to the States whose delegates were not present, or
being present, conceived they were not authorized to sign the
ratification, informing them how many and what States had ratified the
Articles of Confederation, and desiring them, with all convenient
dispatch, to authorize their delegates to ratify the same. Of these
States, North Carolina ratified on the 21st and Georgia on the 24th of
July, 1778; New Jersey on the 26th of November following; Delaware on
the 5th of May, 1779; Maryland on the 1st of March, 1781; and on the 2d
of March, 1781, Congress assembled under the new form of government.]
ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION.
_To all to whom these presents shall come_,
We, the undersigned, delegates of the States affixed to our names, send
greeting:
Whereas the delegates of the United States of America in Congress
assembled did, on the fifteenth day of November, in the year of our Lord
one thousand seven hundred and seventy-seven, and in the second year of
the independence of America, agree to certain Articles of Confederation
and Perpetual Union between the States of New Hampshire, Massachusetts
Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New
Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina,
South Carolina, and Georgia, in the words following, viz:
Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union between the States of
New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence
Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania,
Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and
Georgia.
ARTICLE I. The style of this Confederacy shall be, “The United States of
America.”
ARTICLE II. Each State retains its sovereignty, freedom, and
independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by
this confederation expressly delegated to the United States in Congress
assembled.
ARTICLE III. The said States hereby severally enter into a firm league
of friendship with each other for their common defense, the security of
their liberties, and their mutual and general welfare; binding
themselves to assist each other against all force offered to, or attacks
made upon them, or any of them, on account of religion, sovereignty,
trade, or any other pretense whatever.
ARTICLE IV. The better to secure and perpetuate mutual friendship and
intercourse among the people of the different States in this Union, the
free inhabitants of each of these States, paupers, vagabonds, and
fugitives from justice excepted, shall be entitled to all privileges and
immunities of free citizens in the several States; and the people of
each State shall have free ingress and regress to and from any other
State, and shall enjoy therein all the privileges of trade and commerce,
subject to the same duties, impositions, and restrictions, as the
inhabitants thereof respectively: _Provided_, That such restrictions,
shall not extend so far as to prevent the removal of property imported
into any State to any other State, of which the owner is an inhabitant:
_Provided, also_, That no imposition, duties, or restriction shall be
laid by any State on the property of the United States or either of
them.
If any person guilty of or charged with treason, felony, or other high
misdemeanor, in any State, shall flee from justice, and be found in any
of the United States, he shall, upon demand of the governor or executive
power of the State from which he fled, be delivered up, and removed to
the State having jurisdiction of his offense.
Full faith and credit shall be given in each of these States to the
records, acts, and judicial proceedings of the courts and magistrates of
every other State.
ARTICLE V. For the more convenient management of the general interests
of the United States, delegates shall be annually appointed in such
manner as the Legislature of each State shall direct, to meet in
Congress on the first Monday in November, in every year, with a power
reserved to each State to recall its delegates or any of them, at any
time within the year, and to send others in their stead for the
remainder of the year.
No State shall be represented in Congress by less than two nor by more
than seven members; and no person shall be capable of being a delegate
for more than three years in any term of six years; nor shall any
person, being a delegate, be capable of holding any office under the
United States, for which he, or another for his benefit, receives any
salary, fees or emolument of any kind.
Each State shall maintain its own delegates in a meeting of the States,
and while they act as members of the committee of these States.
In determining questions in the United States in Congress assembled,
each State shall have one vote.
Freedom of speech and debate in Congress shall not be impeached or
questioned in any court or place out of Congress; and the members of
Congress shall be protected in their persons from arrests and
imprisonments during the time of their going to and from, and attendance
on, Congress, except for treason, felony, or breach of the peace.
ARTICLE VI. No State, without the consent of the United States in
Congress assembled, shall send any embassy to, or receive any embassy
from, or enter into any conference, agreement, alliance, or treaty with
any King, prince, or state; nor shall any person holding any office of
profit or trust under the United States, or any of them, accept of any
present, emolument, office or title of any kind whatever from any King,
prince, or foreign state; nor shall the United States in Congress
assembled, or any of them, grant any title of nobility.
No two or more States shall enter into any treaty, confederation, or
alliance whatever between them without the consent of the United States
in Congress assembled, specifying accurately the purposes for which the
same is to be entered into, and how long it shall continue.
No State shall lay any imposts or duties, which may interfere with any
stipulations in treaties entered into by the United States in Congress
assembled with any King, prince, or state, in pursuance of any treaties
already proposed by Congress to the Courts of France and Spain.
No vessels of war shall be kept up in time of peace by any State, except
such number only as shall be deemed necessary by the United States in
Congress assembled, for the defense of such State, or its trade; nor
shall any body of forces be kept up by any State in time of peace,
except such number only, as, in the judgment of the United States, in
Congress assembled, shall be deemed requisite to garrison the forts
necessary for the defense of such State; but every State shall always
keep up a well regulated and disciplined militia, sufficiently armed and
accoutered, and shall provide and constantly have ready for use, in
public stores, a due number of field-pieces and tents, and a proper
quantity of arms, ammunition, and camp equipage.
No State shall engage in any war without the consent of the United
States in Congress assembled, unless such State be actually invaded by
enemies, or shall have received certain advice of a resolution being
formed by some nation of Indians to invade such State, and the danger is
so imminent as not to admit of a delay till the United States in
Congress assembled can be consulted; nor shall any State grant
commissions to any ships or vessels of war, nor letters of marque or
reprisal, except it be after a declaration of war by the United States
in Congress assembled; and then only against the kingdom or state, and
the subjects thereof, against which war has been so declared, and under
such regulations as shall be established by the United States in
Congress assembled, unless such State be infested by pirates, in which
case vessels of war may be fitted out for that occasion, and kept so
long as the danger shall continue, or until the United States in
Congress assembled shall determine otherwise.
ARTICLE VII. When land forces are raised by any State for the common
defense, all officers of, or under the rank of colonel, shall be
appointed by the Legislature of each State respectively by whom such
forces shall be raised, or in such manner as such State shall direct;
and all vacancies shall be filled up by the State which first made the
appointment.
ARTICLE VIII. All charges of war, and all other expenses that shall be
incurred for the common defense or general welfare and allowed by the
United States in Congress assembled, shall be defrayed out of a common
treasury, which shall be supplied by the several States, in proportion
to the value of all land within each State, granted to, or surveyed for,
any person, as such land and the buildings and improvements thereon
shall be estimated, according to such mode as the United States in
Congress assembled shall, from time to time, direct and appoint.
The taxes for paying that proportion shall be laid and levied by the
authority and direction of the Legislatures of the several States,
within the time agreed upon by the United States in Congress assembled.
ARTICLE IX. The United States in Congress assembled shall have the sole
and exclusive right and power of determining on peace and war, except in
the cases mentioned in the sixth article; of sending and receiving
embassadors; entering into treaties and alliances: _Provided_, That no
treaty of commerce shall be made whereby the legislative power of the
respective States shall be restrained from imposing such imposts and
duties on foreigners as their own people are subjected to, or from
prohibiting the exportation or importation of any species of goods or
commodities whatsoever; of establishing rules for deciding, in all
cases, what captures on land or water shall be legal, and in what manner
prizes taken by land or naval forces in the service of the United
States, shall be divided or appropriated; of granting letters of marque
and reprisal in times of peace; appointing courts for the trial of
piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and establishing
courts for receiving and determining finally, appeals in all cases of
captures: _Provided_, That no member of Congress shall be appointed a
judge of any of the said courts.
The United States in Congress assembled shall also be the last resort on
appeal in all disputes and differences now subsisting, or that hereafter
may arise between two or more States concerning boundary, jurisdiction,
or any other cause whatever; which authority shall always be exercised
in the manner following: Whenever the legislative or executive authority
or lawful agent of any State in controversy with another, shall present
a petition to Congress, stating the matter in question, and praying for
a hearing, notice thereof shall be given by order of Congress to the
legislative or executive authority of the other State in controversy,
and a day assigned for the appearance of the parties by their lawful
agents, who shall then be directed to appoint, by joint consent,
commissioners or judges to constitute a court for hearing and
determining the matter in question; but if they cannot agree, Congress
shall name three persons out of each of the United States, and from the
list of such persons each party shall alternately strike out one, the
petitioners beginning, until the number shall be reduced to thirteen;
and from that number not less than seven nor more than nine names, as
Congress shall direct, shall, in the presence of Congress, be drawn out
by lot; and the persons whose names shall be so drawn, or any five of
them, shall be commissioners or judges, to hear and finally determine
the controversy, so always as a major part of the judges who shall hear
the cause, shall agree in the determination; and if either party shall
neglect to attend at the day appointed, without showing reasons which
Congress shall judge sufficient, or, being present, shall refuse to
strike, the Congress shall proceed to nominate three persons out of each
State, and the Secretary of Congress shall strike in behalf of such
party absent or refusing; and the judgment and sentence of the court to
be appointed in the manner before prescribed shall be final and
conclusive; and if any of the parties shall refuse to submit to the
authority of such court or to appear or defend their claim or cause, the
court shall, nevertheless, proceed to pronounce sentence or judgment,
which shall, in like manner, be final and decisive; the judgment or
sentence, and other proceedings, being in either case transmitted to
Congress, and lodged among the acts of Congress for the security of the
parties concerned: _Provided_, That every commissioner, before he sits
in judgment, shall take an oath, to be administered by one of the judges
of the supreme or superior court of the State, where the cause shall be
tried, “_well and truly to hear and determine the matter in question,
according to the best of his judgment without favor, affection, or hope
of reward_:” _Provided, also_, That no State shall be deprived of
territory for the benefit of the United States.
All controversies concerning the private right of soil claimed under
different grants of two or more States, whose jurisdictions, as they may
respect such lands, and the States which passed such grants, are
adjusted, the said grants or either of them being at the same time
claimed to have originated antecedent to such settlement of
jurisdiction, shall, on the petition of either party to the Congress of
the United States, be finally determined, as near as may be, in the same
manner as is before prescribed for deciding disputes respecting
territorial jurisdiction between different States.
The United States in Congress assembled shall also have the sole and
exclusive right and power of regulating the alloy and value of coin
struck by their own authority, or by that of the respective States;
fixing the standard of weights and measures throughout the United
States; regulating the trade and managing all affairs with the Indians,
not members of any of the States: _Provided_, That the legislative right
of any State within its own limits, be not infringed or violated;
establishing and regulating post-offices from one State to another,
throughout all the United States, and exacting such postage on the
papers passing through the same, as may be requisite to defray the
expenses of the said office; appointing all officers of the land forces
in the service of the United States, excepting regimental officers;
appointing all the officers of the naval forces, and commissioning all
officers whatever in the service of the United States; making rules for
the government and regulation of the said land and naval forces, and
directing their operations.
The United States in Congress assembled shall have authority to appoint
a committee to sit in the recess of Congress, to be denominated “a
Committee of the States,” and to consist of one delegate from each
State, and to appoint such other committees and civil officers as may be
necessary for managing the general affairs of the United States, under
their direction; to appoint one of their number to preside; provided
that no person be allowed to serve in the office of president more than
one year in any term of three years; to ascertain the necessary sums of
money to be raised for the service of the United States, and to
appropriate and apply the same for defraying the public expenses; to
borrow money or emit bills on the credit of the United States,
transmitting every half-year to the respective States, an account of the
sums of money so borrowed or emitted; to build and equip a navy; to
agree upon the number of land forces, and to make requisitions from each
State for its quota, in proportion to the number of white inhabitants in
such State, which requisitions shall be binding; and thereupon the
Legislature of each State shall appoint the regimental officers, raise
the men, and clothe, arm, and equip them in a soldier-like manner, at
the expense of the United States; and the officers and men so clothed,
armed, and equipped, shall march to the place appointed, and within the
time agreed on by the United States in Congress assembled; but if the
United States in Congress assembled shall, on consideration of
circumstances, judge proper that any State should not raise men, or
should raise a smaller number than its quota, and that any other State
should raise a greater number of men than the quota thereof, such extra
number shall be raised, officered, clothed, armed, and equipped in the
same manner as the quota of each State, unless the Legislature of such
State shall judge that such extra number cannot be safely spared out of
the same; in which case they shall raise, officer, clothe, arm, and
equip as many of such extra number as they judge can be safely spared.
And the officers and men so clothed, armed, and equipped shall march to
the place appointed, and within the time agreed on by the United States
in Congress assembled.
The United States in Congress assembled shall never engage in a war, nor
grant letters of marque and reprisal in time of peace, nor enter into
any treaties or alliances, nor coin money, nor regulate the value
thereof, nor ascertain the sums and expenses necessary for the defense
and welfare of the United States or any of them, nor emit bills, nor
borrow money on the credit of the United States, nor appropriate money,
nor agree upon the number of vessels of war to be built or purchased, or
the number of land or sea forces to be raised, nor appoint a
commander-in-chief of the Army or Navy, unless nine States assent to the
same; nor shall a question on any other point, except for adjourning
from day to day, be determined, unless by the votes of a majority of the
United States in Congress assembled.
The Congress of the United States shall have power to adjourn to any
time within the year, and to any place within the United States, so that
no period of adjournment be for a longer duration than the space of six
months; and shall publish the journal of their proceedings monthly,
except such parts thereof relating to treaties, alliances, or military
operations, as in their judgment require secrecy; and the yeas and nays
of the delegates of each State on any question, shall be entered on the
journal, when it is desired by any delegate; and the delegates of a
State, or any of them, at his or their request, shall be furnished with
a transcript of the said journal, except such parts as are above
excepted, to lay before the Legislature of the several States.
ARTICLE X. The committee of the States, or any nine of them, shall be
authorized to execute, in the recess of Congress, such of the powers of
Congress as the United States in Congress assembled, by the consent of
nine States, shall, from time to time, think expedient to vest them
with: _Provided_, That no power be delegated to the said committee, for
the exercise of which, by the Articles of Confederation, the voice of
nine States in the Congress of the United States assembled is requisite.
ARTICLE XI. Canada, acceding to this confederation, and joining in the
measures of the United States, shall be admitted into, and entitled to,
all the advantages of this Union; but no other colony shall be admitted
into the same, unless such admission be agreed to by nine States.
ARTICLE XII. All bills of credit emitted, moneys borrowed, and debts
contracted, by or under the authority of Congress, before the assembling
of the United States, in pursuance of the present confederation, shall
be deemed and considered as a charge against the United States, for
payment and satisfaction whereof the said United States and the public
faith are hereby solemnly pledged.
ARTICLE XIII. Every State shall abide by the determinations of the
United States in Congress assembled, on all questions which by this
confederation are submitted to them. And the articles of this
confederation shall be inviolably observed by every State, and the union
shall be perpetual; nor shall any alteration at any time hereafter be
made in any of them, unless such alteration be agreed to in a Congress
of the United States, and be afterwards confirmed by the Legislatures of
every State.
And whereas it has pleased the Great Governor of the world to incline
the hearts of the Legislatures we respectively represent in Congress, to
approve of, and to authorize us to ratify the said articles of
confederation and perpetual union: _Know ye_, That we, the undersigned
delegates, by virtue of the power and authority to us given for that
purpose, do, by these presents, in the name and in behalf of our
respective constituents, fully and entirely ratify and confirm each and
every of the said Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, and all
and singular the matters and things therein contained. And we do further
solemnly plight and engage the faith of our respective constituents,
that they shall abide by the determinations of the United States, in
Congress assembled, on all questions which, by the said confederation,
are submitted to them; and that the articles thereof shall be inviolably
observed by the States we respectively represent; and that the union
shall be perpetual.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF we have hereunto set our hands, in Congress. DONE AT
PHILADELPHIA, in the State of PENNSYLVANIA, the ninth day of July, in
the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and seventy-eight, and
in the third year of the INDEPENDENCE OF AMERICA.
_On the part and behalf of the State of New Hampshire._—Josiah Bartlett,
John Wentworth, jr., August 8, 1778.
_On the part and behalf of the State of Massachusetts Bay._—John
Hancock, Samuel Adams, Elbridge Gerry, Francis Dana, James Lovell,
Samuel Holten.
_On the part and in behalf of the State of Rhode Island and Providence
Plantations._—William Ellery, Henry Marchant, John Collins.
_On the part and behalf of the State of Connecticut._—Roger Sherman,
Samuel Huntington, Oliver Wolcott, Titus Hosmer, Andrew Adams.
_On the part and behalf of the State of New York._—Jas. Duane, Fra.
Lewis, Wm. Duer, Gouv. Morris.
_On the part and in behalf of the State of New Jersey._—Jno.
Witherspoon, Nath. Scudder, Nov. 26, 1778.
_On the part and behalf of the State of Pennsylvania._—Robt. Morris,
Daniel Roberdeau, Jona. Bayard Smith, William Clingan, Joseph Reed, July
22d, 1778.
_On the part and behalf of the State of Delaware._—Thos. McKean, Feb.
13, 1779, John Dickinson, May 5, 1779, Nicholas Van Dyke.
_On the part and behalf of the State of Maryland._—John Hanson, March 1,
1781, Daniel Carroll, March 1, 1781.
_On the part and behalf of the State of Virginia._—Richard Henry Lee,
John Banister, Thomas Adams, Jno. Harvie, Francis Lightfoot Lee.
_On the part and behalf of the State of North Carolina._—John Penn, July
21, 1778, Corns. Harnett, Jno. Williams.
_On the part and behalf of the State of South Carolina._—Henry Laurens,
William Henry Drayton, Jno. Mathews, Richard Hutson, Thomas Heyward, Jr.
_On the part and behalf of the State of Georgia._—Jno. Walton, July 24,
1778, Edw. Telfair, Edw. Langworthy.
Ordinance of 1787.
_An Ordinance for the Government of the Territory of the United States
Northwest of the Ohio River._ [_In Congress, July 13, 1787._]
_Be it ordained by the United States in Congress assembled_, That the
said Territory, for the purposes of temporary government, be one
district; subject, however to be divided into two districts, as future
circumstances may, in the opinion of Congress, make it expedient.
_Be it ordained by the authority aforesaid_, That the estates both of
resident and non-resident proprietors in the said Territory, dying
intestate, shall descend to and be distributed among their children, and
the descendants of a deceased child, in equal parts; the descendants of
a deceased child or grandchild to take the share of their deceased
parent in equal parts among them; and where there shall be no children
or descendants; then in equal parts to the next of kin, in equal degree;
and among collaterals, the children of a deceased brother or sister of
the intestate shall have, in equal parts among them, their deceased
parents’ share; and there shall, in no case, be a distinction between
kindred of the whole and half blood; saving in all cases to the widow of
the intestate, her third part of the real estate for life, and one-third
part of the personal estate; and this law relative to descents and dower
shall remain in full force until altered by the Legislature of the
district. And until the governor and judges shall adopt laws as
hereinafter mentioned, estates in the said Territory may be devised or
bequeathed by wills in writing, signed and sealed by him or her, in whom
the estate may be, (being of full age,) and attested by three witnesses;
and real estates may be conveyed by lease and release, or bargain and
sale, signed, sealed, and delivered by the person, being of full age, in
whom the estate may be and attested by two witnesses, provided such
wills be duly proved, and such conveyances be acknowledged, or the
execution thereof duly proved and be recorded within one year, after
proper magistrates, courts, and registers shall be appointed for that
purpose; and personal property may be transferred by delivery, saving,
however, to the French and Canadian inhabitants, and other settlers of
the Kaskaskies, Saint Vincent’s, and the neighboring villages, who have
heretofore professed themselves citizens of Virginia, their laws and
customs now in force among them, relative to the descent and conveyance
of property.
_Be it ordained by the authority aforesaid_, That there shall be
appointed, from time to time, by Congress, a governor, whose commission
shall continue in force for the term of three years, unless sooner
revoked by Congress; he shall reside in the district, and have a
freehold estate therein, in one thousand acres of land, while in the
exercise of his office.
There shall be appointed, from time to time, by Congress, a secretary,
whose commission shall continue in force for four years, unless sooner
revoked; he shall reside in the district, and have a freehold estate
therein, in five hundred acres of land, while in the exercise of his
office; it shall be his duty to keep and preserve the acts and laws
passed by the Legislature, and the public records of the district, and
the proceedings of the governor in his executive department; and
transmit authentic copies of such acts and proceedings every six months
to the secretary of Congress. There shall also be appointed a court, to
consist of three judges, any two of whom to form a court, who shall have
a common law jurisdiction, and reside in the district, and have each
therein a freehold estate, in five hundred acres of land, while in the
exercise of their offices, and their commissions shall continue in force
during good behavior.
The governor and judges, or a majority of them, shall adopt and publish
in the district such laws of the original States, criminal and civil, as
may be necessary, and best suited to the circumstances of the district,
and report them to Congress, from time to time, which laws shall be in
force in the district until the organization of the general assembly
therein, unless disapproved of by Congress; but afterwards the
legislature shall have authority to alter them as they shall think fit.
The governor for the time being shall be commander-in-chief of the
militia; appoint and commission all officers in the same below the rank
of general officers. All general officers shall be appointed and
commissioned by Congress.
Previous to the organization of the General Assembly, the governor shall
appoint such magistrates and other civil officers in each county or
township as he shall find necessary for the preservation of the peace
and good order in the same. After the General Assembly shall be
organized, the powers and duties of magistrates and other civil officers
shall be regulated and defined by the said assembly; but all magistrates
and other civil officers, not herein otherwise directed, shall, during
the continuance of this temporary government, be appointed by the
governor.
For the prevention of crimes and injuries, the laws to be adopted or
made shall have force in all parts of the district, and for the
execution of process, criminal and civil, the governor shall make proper
divisions thereof; and he shall proceed from time to time, as
circumstances may require, to lay out the parts of the district in which
the Indian titles shall have been extinguished, into counties and
townships, subject, however, to such alterations as may thereafter be
made by the Legislature.
So soon as there shall be five thousand free male inhabitants of full
age in the district, upon giving proof thereof to the governor, they
shall receive authority, with time and place, to elect representatives
from their counties or townships, to represent them in the General
Assembly; _Provided_, That for every five hundred free male inhabitants,
there shall be one representative; and so on, progressively, with the
number of free male inhabitants, shall the right of representation
increase, until the number of representatives shall amount to
twenty-five; after which the number and proportion of representatives
shall be regulated by the Legislature: _Provided_, That no Person be
eligible or qualified to act as a representative unless he shall have
been a citizen of one of the United States three years, and be a
resident in the district, or unless he shall have resided in the
district three years; and in either case, shall likewise hold in his own
right, in fee simple, two hundred acres of land within the same:
_Provided, also_, That a freehold in fifty acres of land in the
district, having been a citizen of one of the States, and being resident
in the district, or the like free hold and two years’ residence in the
district, shall be necessary to qualify a man as an elector of a
representative.
The representatives thus elected shall serve for the term of two years;
and in case of the death of a representative, or removal from office,
the governor shall issue a writ to the county or township for which he
was a member to elect another in his stead, to serve for the residue of
the term.
The General Assembly, or Legislature, shall consist of the governor,
legislative council, and a house of representatives. The legislative
council shall consist of five members, to continue in office five years,
unless sooner removed by Congress, any three of whom to be a quorum; and
the members of the council shall be nominated and appointed in the
following manner, to wit: As soon as representatives shall be elected,
the governor shall appoint a time and place for them to meet together,
and when met, they shall nominate ten persons, residents in the
district, and each possessed of a freehold in five hundred acres of
land, and return their names to Congress; five of whom Congress shall
appoint and commission to serve as aforesaid; and whenever a vacancy
shall happen in the council, by death or removal from office, the house
of representatives shall nominate two persons, qualified as aforesaid,
for each vacancy, and return their names to Congress; one of whom
Congress shall appoint and commission for the residue of the term. And
every five years, four months at least before the expiration of the time
of service of the members of the council, the said house shall nominate
ten persons, qualified as aforesaid, and return their names to Congress;
five of whom Congress shall appoint and commission to serve as members
of the council five years, unless sooner removed. And the governor,
legislative council, and house of representatives, shall have authority
to make laws in all cases for the good government of the district, not
repugnant to the principles and articles in this ordinance established
and declared, and all bills having passed by a majority in the house,
and by a majority in the council, shall be referred to the governor for
his assent; but no bill or legislative act whatever shall be of any
force without his assent. The governor shall have power to convene,
prorogue, and dissolve the General Assembly when in his opinion it shall
be expedient.
The governor, judges, legislative council, secretary, and such other
officers as Congress shall appoint in the district, shall take an oath
or affirmation of fidelity and of office, the governor before the
President of Congress, and all other officers before the governor. As
soon as a Legislature shall be formed in the district, the council and
house assemble, in one room, shall have authority, by joint ballot, to
elect a delegate to Congress, who shall have a seat in Congress, with a
right of debating, but not of voting during this temporary government.
And for extending the fundamental principles of civil and religious
liberty, which form the basis whereon these republics, their laws and
constitutions, are erected; to fix and establish those principles as the
basis of all laws, constitutions, and governments, which forever
hereafter shall be formed in the said Territory; to provide, also, for
the establishment of States, and permanent government therein, and for
their admission to a share in the Federal councils on an equal footing
with the original States, at as early periods as may be consistent with
the general interest:
_It is hereby ordained and declared, by the authority aforesaid_, That
the following articles shall be considered as articles of compact,
between the original States and the people and States in the said
Territory, and forever remain unalterable, unless by common consent, to
wit:
ARTICLE 1. No person, demeaning himself in a peaceable and orderly
manner, shall ever be molested on account of his mode of worship or
religious sentiments, in the said Territory.
ART. 2. The inhabitants of the said Territory shall always be entitled
to the benefits of the writ of _habeas corpus_, and of the trial by
jury; of a proportionate representation of the people in the
Legislature, and of judicial proceedings according to the course of the
common law. All persons shall be bailable, unless for capital offenses,
where the proof shall be evident or the presumption great. All fines
shall be moderate; and no cruel or unusual punishments shall be
inflicted. No man shall be deprived of his liberty or property but by
the judgment of his peers, or the law of the land; and should the public
exigencies make it necessary for the common preservation to take any
person’s property, or to demand his particular services, full
compensation shall be made for the same. And, in the just preservation
of rights and property, it is understood and declared that no law ought
ever to be made, or have force in the said Territory, that shall, in any
manner whatever, interfere with, or affect, private contracts or
engagements, _bona fide_ and without fraud, previously formed.
ART. 3. Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good
government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of
education shall forever be encouraged. The utmost good faith shall
always be observed toward the Indians; their lands and property shall
never be taken from them without their consent; and in their property,
rights, and liberty they shall never be invaded or disturbed, unless in
just and unlawful wars authorized by Congress; but laws founded in
justice and humanity shall, from time to time, be made for preventing
wrongs being done to them, and for preserving peace and friendship with
them.
ART. 4. The said Territory, and the States which may be formed therein,
shall ever remain a part of this confederacy of the United States of
America, subject to the Articles of Confederation, and to such
alterations therein as shall be constitutionally made; and to all the
acts and ordinances of the United States in Congress assembled,
conformable thereto. The inhabitants and settlers in the Territory shall
be subject to pay a part of the Federal debts, contracted or to be
contracted, and a proportional part of the expenses of Government, to be
apportioned on them by Congress, according to the same common rule and
measure by which apportionments thereof shall be made on the other
States; and the taxes for paying their proportion shall be laid and
levied by the authority and direction of Legislatures of the district or
districts, or new States, as in the original States, within the time
agreed upon by the United States in Congress assembled. The Legislatures
of those districts, or new States shall never interfere with the primary
disposal of the soil by the United States in Congress assembled, nor
with any regulations Congress may find necessary for securing the title
in such soil to the _bona fide_ purchasers. No tax shall be imposed on
lands the property of the United States; and in no case shall
non-resident proprietors be taxed higher than residents. The navigable
waters leading into the Mississippi and St. Lawrence, and the carrying
places between the same, shall be common highways, and forever free, as
well to the inhabitants of the said Territory as to the citizens of the
United States, and those of any other States that may be admitted into
the confederacy, without any tax, impost, or duty therefor.
ART. 5. There shall be formed in the said Territory not less than three,
nor more than five States; and the boundaries of the States, as soon as
Virginia shall alter her act of cession, and consent to the same, shall
become fixed and established as follows, to wit: The western State in
the said territory shall be bounded by the Mississippi, the Ohio, and
Wabash Rivers; a direct line drawn from the Wabash and Post Vincents,
due north, to the territorial line between the United States and Canada;
and by the said territorial line to the Lake of the Woods and
Mississippi. The middle States shall be bounded by the said direct line,
the Wabash, from Post Vincents to the Ohio, by the Ohio, by a direct
line drawn due north from the mouth of the Great Miami to the said
territorial line, and by the said territorial line. The eastern State
shall be bounded by the last mentioned direct line, the Ohio,
Pennsylvania, and the said territorial line: _Provided, however_, And it
is further understood and declared that the boundaries of these three
States shall be subject so far to be altered, that, if Congress shall
hereafter find it expedient, they shall have authority to form one or
two States in that part of the said Territory which lies north of an
east and west line drawn through the southerly bend or extreme of Lake
Michigan. And whenever any of the said States shall have sixty thousand
free inhabitants therein, such State shall be admitted, by its
delegates, into the Congress of the United States, on an equal footing
with the original States in all respects whatever; and shall be at
liberty to form a permanent constitution and State government:
_Provided_, The constitution and government so to be formed shall be
republican, and in conformity to the principles contained in these
articles; and, so far as it can be consistent with the general interest
of the confederacy, such admission shall be allowed at an earlier
period, and when there may be a less number of free inhabitants in the
State than sixty thousand.
ART. 6. There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the
said Territory, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes, whereof the
party shall have been duly convicted: _Provided always_, That any person
escaping into the same, from whom labor or service is lawfully claimed
in any one of the original States, such fugitive may be lawfully
reclaimed, and conveyed to the person claiming his or her labor or
service as aforesaid.
_Be it ordained by the authority aforesaid_, That the resolutions of the
23d of April, 1784, relative to the subject of this ordinance, be, and
the same are hereby repealed and declared null and void.
Done by the United States in Congress assembled, the thirteenth day of
July, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and
eighty-seven, and of their sovereignty and independence the twelfth.
CHARLES THOMPSON,
_Secretary_.
Constitution of the United States of America,
_With amendments and dates of ratification_.
We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect
Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the
common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of
Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this
CONSTITUTION for the United States of America.
ARTICLE I.
_Section 1._ All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a
Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House
of Representatives.
_Section 2._ The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members
chosen every second Year by the People of the several States, and the
Electors in each State shall have the Qualifications requisite for
Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature.
No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the
Age of twenty-five Years, and been seven Years a Citizen of the United
States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State
in which he shall be chosen.
Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several
States which may be included within this Union, according to their
respective Numbers, [which shall be determined by adding to the whole
Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of
Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three-fifths of all other
Persons.[88]] The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years
after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within
every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law
direct. The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every
thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative;
and until such enumeration shall be made, the State of New Hampshire
shall be entitled to chuse three, Massachusetts eight, Rhode Island and
Providence Plantations one, Connecticut five, New York six, New Jersey
four, Pennsylvania eight, Delaware one, Maryland six, Virginia ten,
North Carolina five, South Carolina five, and Georgia three.
When vacancies happen in the Representation from any State, the
Executive Authority thereof shall issue Writs of Election to fill such
Vacancies.
The House of Representatives shall choose their Speaker and other
Officers; and shall have the sole Power of Impeachment.
_Section 3._ The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two
Senators from each State, chosen by the Legislature thereof, for six
Years; and each Senator shall have one Vote.
Immediately after they shall be assembled in Consequence of the first
Election, they shall be divided as equally as may be into three Classes.
The Seats of the Senators of the first Class shall be vacated at the
Expiration of the second Year, of the second Class at the Expiration of
the fourth Year, and of the third Class at the expiration of the sixth
Year, so that one-third may be chosen every second Year; and if
Vacancies happen by Resignation, or otherwise, during the Recess of the
Legislature of any State, the Executive thereof may make temporary
Appointments until the next Meeting of the Legislature, which shall then
fill such Vacancies.
No Person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the Age of
thirty Years, and been nine Years a Citizen of the United States, and
who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State for which he
shall be chosen.
The Vice-President of the United States shall be President of the
Senate, but shall have no Vote, unless they be equally divided.
The Senate shall choose their other Officers, and also a President pro
tempore, in the Absence of the Vice-President, or when he shall exercise
the Office of President of the United States.
The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments. When
sitting for that Purpose, they shall be on Oath or Affirmation. When the
President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall
preside: And no person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of
two-thirds of the Members present.
Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to
removal from Office, and Disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office
of Honour, Trust or Profit under the United States: but the Party
convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial,
Judgment and Punishment, according to Law.
_Section IV._—The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for
Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the
Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by law make or
alter such Regulations, except as to the places of chusing Senators.
The Congress shall assemble at least once in every Year, and such
Meeting shall be on the first Monday in December, unless they shall by
Law appoint a different Day.
_Section V._—Each House shall be the Judge of the Elections, Returns,
and Qualifications of its own Members, and a Majority of each shall
constitute a Quorum to do Business; but a smaller Number may adjourn
from day to day, and may be authorized to compel the Attendance of
Absent Members, in such Manner, and under such Penalties as each House
may provide.
Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings, punish its
Members for disorderly Behaviour, and, with the Concurrence of
two-thirds, expel a Member.
Each House shall keep a Journal of its Proceedings, and from time to
time publish the same, excepting such Parts as may in their Judgment
require Secrecy; and the Yeas and Nays of the Members of either House on
any question shall, at the Desire of one-fifth of those Present, be
entered on the Journal.
Neither House, during the Session of Congress, shall, without the
Consent of the other, adjourn for more than three days, nor to any other
Place than that in which the two Houses shall be sitting.
_Section VI._—The Senators and Representatives shall receive a
Compensation for their Services, to be ascertained by Law, and paid out
of the Treasury of the United States. They shall in all Cases, except
Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest
during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and
in going to and returning from the same; and for any Speech or Debate in
either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place.
No Senator or Representative shall, during the Time for which he was
elected, be appointed to any civil Office under the Authority of the
United States, which shall have been created, or the Emoluments whereof
shall have been increased during such time; and no Person holding any
Office under the United States, shall be a Member of either House during
his Continuance in Office.
_Section VII._—All bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the
House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with
Amendments as on other Bills.
Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the
Senate, shall, before it becomes a Law, be presented to the President of
the United States. If he approve he shall sign it, but if not he shall
return it, with his Objections to that House in which it shall have
originated, who shall enter the Objections at large on their Journal,
and proceed to reconsider it. If after such Reconsideration two-thirds
of that House shall agree to pass the Bill, it shall be sent, together
with the Objections, to the other House, by which it shall likewise be
reconsidered, and if approved by two-thirds of that House, it shall
become a Law. But in all such cases the Votes of both Houses shall be
determined by Yeas and Nays, and the Names of the Persons voting for and
against the Bill shall be entered on the Journal of each House
respectively. If any Bill shall not be returned by the President within
ten Days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him,
the Same shall be a Law, in like Manner as if he had signed it, unless
the Congress by their Adjournment prevent its Return, in which Case it
shall not be a Law.
Every Order, Resolution, or Vote to which the Concurrence of the Senate
and House of Representatives may be necessary (except on a question of
Adjournment) shall be presented to the President of the United States;
and before the Same shall take Effect, shall be approved by him, or
being disapproved by him, shall be repassed by two-thirds of the Senate
and House of Representatives, according to the Rules and Limitations
prescribed in the Case of a Bill.
_Section VIII._—The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes,
Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common
Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties,
Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
To borrow Money on the credit of the United States;
To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States,
and with the Indian Tribes;
To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the
subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;
To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix
the Standard of Weights and Measures;
To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and
current Coin of the United States;
To establish Post Offices and post Roads;
To promote the progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for
limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their
respective Writings and Discoveries;
To constitute Tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court;
To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas,
and Offences against the Law of Nations;
To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules
concerning Captures on Land and Water;
To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use
shall be for a longer Term than two Years;
To provide and maintain a Navy;
To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval
Forces;
To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the
Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;
To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and
for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the
United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of
the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the
Discipline prescribed by Congress;
To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such
District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of
particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of
the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over
all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in
which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals,
Dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings;—And
To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into
Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this
Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any
Department or Officer thereof.
_Section IX._ The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the
States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited
by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight,
but a Tax or duty may be imposed on such Importation, not exceeding ten
dollars for each Person.
The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended,
unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may
require it.
No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.
No Capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion
to the Census or Enumeration hereinbefore directed to be taken.
No Tax or Duty shall be laid on Articles exported from any State.
No Preference shall be given by any Regulation of Commerce or Revenue to
the Ports of one State over those of another: nor shall Vessels bound
to, or from, one State, be obliged to enter, clear, or pay Duties in
another.
No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of
Appropriations made by Law; and a regular Statement and Account of the
Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from
time to time.
No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no
Person holding any office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without
the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office,
or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.
_Section X._—No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or
Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit
Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in
Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law
impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility.
No State shall, without the Consent of the Congress, lay any Imposts or
Duties on Imports or Exports, except what may be absolutely necessary
for executing its inspection Laws: and the net Produce of all Duties and
Imposts, laid by any State on Imports or Exports, shall be for the Use
of the Treasury of the United States; and all such Laws shall be subject
to the Revision and Control of the Congress.
No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any Duty on
Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any
Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or
engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as
will not admit of Delay.
ARTICLE II.
_Section I._—The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the
United States of America. He shall hold his Office during the Term of
four Years, and, together with the Vice-President, chosen for the same
Term, be elected as follows:
Each State shall appoint, in such manner as the Legislature thereof may
direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and
Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but
no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or
Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector. [89] [The
Electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote by Ballot for
two Persons, of whom one at least shall not be an Inhabitant of the same
State with themselves. And they shall make a List of all the Persons
voted for, and of the Number of Votes for each; which List they shall
sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the Seat of the Government of
the United States, directed to the President of the Senate. The
President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House
of Representatives, open all the Certificates, and the Votes shall then
be counted. The Person having the greatest number of Votes shall be the
President, if such Number be a Majority of the whole Number of Electors
appointed; and if there be more than one who have such Majority, and
have an equal Number of Votes, then the House of Representatives shall
immediately choose by Ballot one of them for President; and if no Person
have a Majority, then from the five highest on the List the said House
shall in like manner choose the President. But in choosing the
President, the Votes shall be taken by States, the Representation from
each State having one Vote; A Quorum for this purpose shall consist of a
Member or Members from two-thirds of the States, and a Majority of all
the States shall be necessary to a Choice. In every case, after the
Choice of the President, the Person having the greatest Number of Votes
of the Electors shall be the Vice-President. But if there should remain
two or more who have equal Votes, the Senate shall choose from them by
Ballot the Vice-President.]
The Congress may determine the Time of chusing the Electors, and the Day
on which they shall give their Votes; which Day shall be the same
throughout the United States.
No person except a natural-born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United
States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be
eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be
eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of
thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United
States.
In case of the Removal of the President from Office, or of his Death,
Resignation, or Inability to discharge the Powers and Duties of the said
Office, the same shall devolve on the Vice-President, and the Congress
may by Law provide for the Case of Removal, Death, Resignation, or
Inability, both of the President and Vice-President, declaring what
Officer shall then act as President, and such Officer shall act
accordingly, until the Disability be removed, or a President shall be
elected.
The President shall, at stated Times, receive for his Services, a
Compensation, which shall neither be increased nor diminished during the
Period for which he shall have been elected, and he shall not receive
within that Period any other Emolument from the United States, or any of
them.
Before he enter on the execution of his Office he shall take the
following Oath or Affirmation:—
“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the
Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my
Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United
States.”
_Section II._ The President shall be Commander-in-Chief of the Army and
Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States,
when called into the actual Service of the United States; he may require
the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the
executive Departments, upon any Subject relating to the Duties of their
respective Offices, and he shall have Power to grant Reprieves and
Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of
Impeachment.
He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate,
to make Treaties, provided two-thirds of the Senators present concur;
and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the
Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls,
Judges of the Supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United
States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and
which shall be established by Law; but the Congress may by Law vest the
Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the
President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.
The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen
during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall
expire at the End of their next Session.
_Section III._ He shall from time to time give to the Congress
Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their
Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient;
he may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses, or either of
them, and in Case of Disagreement between them, with Respect to the Time
of Adjournment, he may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think
proper; he shall receive Ambassadors and other public Ministers; he
shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed, and shall
Commission all the officers of the United States.
_Section IV._—The President, Vice-President and all civil Officers of
the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and
Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.
ARTICLE III.
_Section I._—The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in
one Supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from
time to time ordain and establish. The Judges, both of the supreme and
inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour, and
shall, at stated Times, receive for their Services a Compensation, which
shall not be diminished during their Continuance in Office.
_Section II._—The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and
Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States,
and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority;—to all
Cases affecting Ambassadors, or other public Ministers, and Consuls;—to
all Cases of admiralty and maritime Jurisdiction;—to Controversies to
which the United States shall be a Party;—to Controversies between two
or more States;—between a State and Citizens of another State;—between
Citizens of different States,—between Citizens of the same State
claiming Lands under Grants of different States, and between a State, or
the Citizens thereof, and foreign States, Citizens or Subjects.
In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls,
and those in which a State shall be Party, the Supreme Court shall have
original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the
Supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and
Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress
shall make.
The Trial of all Crimes, except in Cases of Impeachment, shall be by
Jury; and such Trial shall be held in the State where the said Crime
shall have been committed; but when not committed within any State, the
Trial shall be at such Place or Places as the Congress may by Law have
directed.
_Section III._—Treason against the United States, shall Consist only in
levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them
Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the
Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in
open Court.
The Congress shall have Power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but
no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture
except during the Life of the Person attainted.
ARTICLE IV.
_Section I._—Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the
public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State. And
the Congress may by general Laws prescribe the Manner in which such
Acts, Records and Proceedings shall be proved, and the Effect thereof.
_Section II._—The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all
Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States.
A Person charged in any State with Treason, Felony, or other Crime, who
shall flee from Justice, and be found in another State, shall on Demand
of the executive Authority of the State from which he fled, be delivered
up, to be removed to the State having Jurisdiction of the Crime.
No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws
thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or
Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall
be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may
be due.
_Section iii._ New States may be admitted by the Congress into this
Union; but no new State shall be formed or erected within the
Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction
of two or more States, or Parts of States, without the Consent of the
Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress.
The Congress shall have Power to dispose of and make all needful Rules
and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to
the United States; and nothing in this Constitution shall be so
construed as to Prejudice any Claims of the United States, or of any
particular State.
SECTION IV. The United States shall guarantee to every State in this
Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them
against Invasion, and on Application of the Legislature, or of the
Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic
Violence.
ARTICLE V.
The Congress, whenever two-thirds of both Houses shall deem it
necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the
Application of the Legislatures of two-thirds of the several States,
shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case,
shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as part of this
Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three-fourths of the
several States, or by Conventions in three-fourths thereof, as the one
or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress;
Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year one
thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first
and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that
no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage
in the Senate.
ARTICLE VI.
All Debts contracted and Engagements entered into, before the Adoption
of this Constitution, shall be as valid against the United States under
this Constitution, as under the Confederation.
This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made
in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made
under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of
the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any
Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary
notwithstanding.
The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of
the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers,
both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by
Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test
shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust
under the United States.
ARTICLE VII.
The Ratification of the Convention of nine States, shall be sufficient
for the Establishment of this Constitution between the States so
ratifying the Same.
Done in Convention by the Unanimous Consent of the States present the
Seventeenth Day of September in the Year of our Lord one thousand
seven hundred and Eighty-seven and of the Independence of the United
States of America the Twelfth. In witness whereof We have hereunto
subscribed our Names.
GEO. WASHINGTON—
_Presidt. and deputy from Virginia._
_New Hampshire._ │John Langdon,
„ │Nicholas Gilman.
_Massachusetts._ │Nathaniel Gorham,
„ │Rufus King.
_Connecticut._ │Wm. Saml. Johnson,
„ │Roger Sherman.
_New York._ │Alexander Hamilton.
_New Jersey._ │Wil: Livingston,
„ │Wm. Paterson,
„ │David Brearley,
„ │Jona. Dayton.
_Pennsylvania._ │B. Franklin,
„ │Robt. Morris,
„ │Tho: Fitzsimons,
„ │James Wilson,
„ │Thomas Mifflin,
„ │Geo: Clymer,
„ │Jared Ingersoll,
„ │Gouv: Morris.
_Delaware._ │Geo: Read,
„ │John Dickinson,
„ │Jaco: Broom,
„ │Gunning Bedford, Jr.,
„ │Richard Bassett.
_Maryland._ │James M’Henry,
„ │Danl. Carroll,
„ │Dan: of St. Thos: Jenifer.
_Virginia._ │John Blair,
„ │James Madison, Jr.
_North Carolina._│Wm. Blount,
„ │Hu. Williamson,
„ │Rich’d Dobbs Spaight.
_South Carolina._│J. Rutledge,
„ │Charles Pinckney,
„ │Charles Cotesworth Pinckney,
„ │Pierce Butler.
_Georgia._ │William Few,
„ │Abr. Baldwin.
Attest: WILLIAM JACKSON, _Secretary_
Articles in Addition to, and Amendment of, the Constitution of the
United States of America,
_Proposed by Congress and Ratified by the Legislatures of the several
States, pursuant to the Fifth Article of the Original Constitution_.
ARTICLE I. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of
religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the
freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably
to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
ARTICLE II. A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of
a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not
be infringed.
ARTICLE III. No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any
house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a
manner to be prescribed by law.
ARTICLE IV. The right of the people to be secure in their persons,
houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures,
shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable
cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the
place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
ARTICLE V.—No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise
infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury,
except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia,
when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any
person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of
life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any Criminal Case to be a
witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property,
without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for
public use, without just compensation.
ARTICLE VI.—In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the
right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State
and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district
shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the
nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses
against him; to have Compulsory process for obtaining Witnesses in his
favor, and to have the assistance of Counsel for his defence.
ARTICLE VII.—In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy
shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be
preserved, and no fact tried by a jury shall be otherwise re-examined in
any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the
common law.
ARTICLE VIII.—Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines
imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishment inflicted.
ARTICLE IX.—The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights,
shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the
people.
ARTICLE X.—The powers not delegated to the United States by the
Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the
States respectively or to the people.
ARTICLE XI.—The Judicial power of the United States shall not be
construed to extend to any suit in law and equity, commenced and
prosecuted against one of the United States by Citizens of another
State, or by Citizens or Subjects of any Foreign State.
ARTICLE XII.—The Electors shall meet in their respective States, and
vote by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least,
shall not be an inhabitant of the same State with themselves; they shall
name in their ballots the person voted for as President, and in distinct
ballots the person voted for as Vice-President, and they shall make
distinct lists of all persons voted for as President, and of all persons
voted for as Vice-President, and of the number of votes for each, which
lists they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of
the government of the United States, directed to the President of the
Senate. The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate
and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes
shall then be counted. The person having the greatest number of votes
for President, shall be the President, if such number be a majority of
the whole number of Electors appointed; and if no person have such
majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding
three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of
Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President. But
in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by States, the
representation from each State having one vote; a quorum for this
purpose shall consist of a member or members from two-thirds of the
States, and a majority of all the States shall be necessary to a choice.
And if the House of Representatives shall not choose a President
whenever the right of choice shall devolve upon them, before the fourth
day of March next following, then the Vice-President shall act as
President, as in the case of the death or other constitutional
disability of the President. The person having the greatest number of
votes as Vice-President shall be the Vice-President, if such number be a
majority of the whole number of Electors appointed, and if no person
have a majority, then from the two highest numbers on the list, the
Senate shall choose the Vice-President; a quorum for the purpose shall
consist of two-thirds of the whole number of Senators, and a majority of
the whole number shall be necessary to a choice. But no person
constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible
to that of Vice-President of the United States.
ARTICLE XIII. _Section I._ Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude,
except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly
convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to
their jurisdiction.
_Section II._ Congress shall have power to enforce this article by
appropriate legislation.
ARTICLE XIV. _Section I._ All persons born or naturalized in the United
States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the
United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make
or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of
citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of
life, liberty, or property, without due process of law, nor deny to any
person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
_Section II._ Representatives shall be apportioned among the several
States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number
of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the
right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President
and Vice-President of the United States, representatives in Congress,
the executive and judicial officers of a State, or the members of the
legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such
State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States,
or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other
crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the
proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the
whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.
_Section III._ No person shall be a senator or representative in
Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any
office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State,
who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an
officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature,
or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the
Constitution of the United States shall have engaged in insurrection or
rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies
thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each house, remove
such disability.
_Section IV._ The validity of the public debt of the United States,
authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and
bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall
not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall
assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or
rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or
emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims
shall be held illegal and void.
_Section V._—The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate
legislation, the provisions of this article.
ARTICLE XV. _Section I._—The right of citizens of the United States to
vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any
State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.
_Section II._—The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by
appropriate legislation.
Ratifications of the Constitution.[90]
Of the thirteen States which originally composed the Union under the
Confederation, eleven ratified the Constitution prior to the 4th of
March, 1789, the time fixed by the resolution of September 13, 1788, for
commencing proceedings under it, viz:
Delaware, December 7, 1787.
Pennsylvania, December 12, 1787.
New Jersey, December 18, 1787.
Georgia, January 2, 1788.
Connecticut, January 9, 1788.
Massachusetts, February 6, 1788.
Maryland, April 28, 1788.
South Carolina, May 23, 1788.
New Hampshire, June 21, 1788.
Virginia, June 26, 1788.
New York, July 26, 1788.
Of the other two States, North Carolina ratified the Constitution on the
21st of November, 1789; of which, information was communicated to
Congress by the President, in a message dated January 28, 1790.
Rhode Island ratified it on the 29th of May, 1790; of which, also,
information was communicated to Congress by the President, in a message
dated June 1, 1790.
The State of Vermont, by convention, ratified the Constitution on the
10th of January, 1791, and was, by an act of Congress of the 18th of
February, 1791, “received and admitted into this Union as a new and
entire member of the United States of America.”
Ratifications of the Amendments to the Constitution.
_From W. J. McDonald’s “Constitution, Rules and Manual.”_
The first ten of the preceding articles of amendment, (with two others
which were not ratified by the requisite number of States,) were
submitted to the several State Legislatures by a resolution of Congress
which passed on the 25th of September, 1789, at the first session of the
First Congress, and were ratified by the Legislatures of the following
States:
New Jersey, November 20, 1789.
Maryland, December 19, 1789.
North Carolina, December 22, 1789.
South Carolina, January 19, 1790.
New Hampshire, January 25, 1790.
Delaware, January 28, 1790.
Pennsylvania, March 10, 1790.
New York, March 27, 1790.
Rhode Island, June 15, 1790.
Vermont, November 3, 1791.
Virginia, December 15, 1791.
The acts of the Legislatures of the States ratifying these amendments
were transmitted by the governors to the President, and by him
communicated to Congress. The Legislatures of Massachusetts,
Connecticut, and Georgia, do not appear by the record to have ratified
them.
The 11th article was submitted to the Legislatures of the several States
by a resolution of Congress passed on the 5th of March, 1794, at the
first session of the Third Congress; and on the 8th of January, 1798, at
the second session of the Fifth Congress, it was declared by the
President, in a message to the two Houses of Congress, to have been
adopted by the Legislatures of three-fourths of the States, there being
at that time sixteen States in the Union.
The twelfth article was submitted to the Legislatures of the several
States, there being then seventeen States, by a resolution of Congress
passed on the 12th of December, 1803, at the first session of the Eighth
Congress; and was ratified by the Legislatures of three-fourths of the
States, in 1804, according to a proclamation of the Secretary of State
dated the 25th of September, 1804.
The thirteenth article was submitted to the Legislatures of the several
States, there being then thirty-six States, by a resolution of Congress
passed on the 1st of February, 1865, at the second session of the
Thirty-eighth Congress, and was ratified, according to a proclamation of
the Secretary of State dated December 18, 1865, by the Legislatures of
the following States:
Illinois, February 1, 1865.
Rhode Island, February 2, 1865.
Michigan, February 2, 1865.
Maryland, February 3, 1865.
New York, February 3, 1865.
West Virginia, February 3, 1865.
Massachusetts, February 3, 1865.
Pennsylvania, February 3, 1865.
Maine, February 7, 1865.
Kansas, February 8, 1865.
Ohio, February 8, 1865.
Minnesota, February 7, 1865.
Virginia, February 9, 1865.
Indiana, February 13, 1865.
Nevada, February 16, 1865.
Louisiana, February 17, 1865.
Wisconsin, February 21, 1865.
Missouri, February 24, 1865.
Tennessee, March 4, 1865.
Vermont, March 9, 1865.
Arkansas, April 14, 1865.
Connecticut, May 4, 1865.
New Hampshire, June 30, 1865.
South Carolina, November 13, 1865.
North Carolina, December 1, 1865.
Alabama, December 2, 1865.
Georgia, December 6, 1865.
The following States not enumerated in the proclamation of the Secretary
of State, also ratified this amendment:
Oregon, December 11, 1865.
California, December 20, 1865.
Florida, June 9, 1868.
The States of Delaware, New Jersey, and Kentucky rejected the amendment.
The fourteenth article was submitted to the Legislatures of the
different States, there being then thirty-seven States, by a resolution
of Congress passed on the 16th of June, 1866, at the first session of
the Thirty-ninth Congress; and was ratified, according to a proclamation
of the Secretary of State, dated July 28, 1868, by the Legislatures of
the following States:
Connecticut, June 30, 1866.
New Hampshire, July 7, 1866.
Tennessee, July 19, 1866.[91]
New Jersey, September 11, 1866.[92]
Oregon, September 19, 1866.
Vermont, November 9, 1866.
New York, January 10, 1867.[93]
Ohio, January 11, 1867.
Illinois, January 15, 1867.
West Virginia, January 16, 1867.
Kansas, January 18, 1867.
Maine, January 19, 1867.
Nevada, January 22, 1867.
Missouri, January 26, 1867.
Indiana, January 29, 1867.
Minnesota, February 1, 1867.
Rhode Island, February 7, 1867.
Wisconsin, February 13, 1867.
Pennsylvania, February 13, 1867.
Michigan, February 15, 1867.
Massachusetts, March 20, 1867.
Nebraska, June 15, 1867.
Iowa, April 3, 1868.
Arkansas, April 6, 1868.
Florida, June 9, 1868.
[94]North Carolina, July 4, 1868.
Louisiana, July 9, 1868.
[94]South Carolina, July 9, 1868.
Alabama, July 13, 1868.
[94]Georgia, July 21, 1868.
[94] The State of Virginia ratified this amendment on the 8th of
October, 1869, subsequent to the date of the proclamation of the
Secretary of State.
The States of Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Texas rejected the
amendment.
The fifteenth article was submitted to the Legislatures of the several
States, there being then thirty-seven States, by a resolution of
Congress passed on the 27th of February, 1869, at the first session of
the Forty-first Congress; and was ratified, according to a proclamation
of the Secretary of State dated March 30, 1870, by the Legislatures of
the following States:
Nevada, March 1, 1869.
West Virginia, March 3, 1869.
North Carolina, March 5, 1869.
Louisiana, March 5, 1869.
Illinois, March 5, 1869.
Michigan, March 8, 1869.
Wisconsin, March 9, 1869.
Massachusetts, March 12, 1869.
Maine, March 12, 1869.
South Carolina, March 16, 1869.
Pennsylvania, March 26, 1869.
Arkansas, March 30, 1869.[95]
New York, April 14, 1869.
Indiana, May 14, 1869.
Connecticut, May 19, 1869.
Florida, June 15, 1869.
New Hampshire, July 7, 1869.
Virginia, October 8, 1869.
Vermont, October 21, 1869.
Alabama, November 24, 1869.
Missouri, January 10, 1870.
Mississippi, January 17, 1870.
Rhode Island, January 18, 1870.
Kansas, January 19, 1870.[96]
Ohio, January 27, 1870.
Georgia, February 2, 1870.
Iowa, February 3, 1870.
Nebraska, February 17, 1870.
Texas, February 18, 1870.
Minnesota, February 19, 1870.
[97] The State of New Jersey ratified this amendment on the 21st of
February, 1871, subsequent to the date of the proclamation of the
Secretary of State.
The States of California, Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, Oregon, and
Tennessee rejected this amendment.
JEFFERSON’S MANUAL OF PARLIAMENTARY PRACTICE.
Importance of Rules.
SEC. I.—IMPORTANCE OF ADHERING TO RULES.
Mr. Onslow, the ablest among the Speakers of the House of Commons, used
to say, “It was a maxim he had often heard when he was a young man, from
old and experienced members, that nothing tended more to throw power
into the hands of administration, and those who acted with the majority
of the House of Commons, than a neglect of, or departure from, the rules
of proceeding; that these forms, as instituted by our ancestors,
operated as a check and control on the actions of the majority, and that
they were, in many instances, a shelter and protection to the minority,
against the attempts of power.” So far the maxim is certainly true, and
is founded in good sense, that as it is always in the power of the
majority, by their numbers, to stop any improper measures proposed on
the part of their opponents, the only weapons by which the minority can
defend themselves against similar attempts from those in power, are the
forms and rules of proceeding which have been adopted as they were found
necessary, from time to time, and are become the law of the House; by a
strict adherence to which, the weaker party can only be protected from
those irregularities and abuses which these forms were intended to
check, and which the wantonness of power is but too often apt to suggest
to large and successful majorities. _2 Hats._, 171, 172.
And whether these forms be in all cases the most rational or not, is
really not of so great importance. It is much more material that there
should be a rule to go by, than what that rule is; that there may be a
uniformity of proceedings in business, not subject to the caprice of the
Speaker, or captiousness of the members. It is very material that order,
decency, and regularity be preserved in a dignified public body. _2
Hats._, 149.
SEC. II.—LEGISLATURE.
[All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of
the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of
Representatives. _Constitution of the United States, Art. 1, Sec. 1._]
[The Senators and Representatives shall receive a compensation for their
services, to be ascertained by law, and paid out of the Treasury of the
United States. _Constitution of the United States, Art. 1, Sec. 6._]
[For the powers of Congress, see the following Articles and Sections of
the Constitution of the United States: I, 4, 7, 8, 9. II, 1, 2. III, 3.
IV, 1, 3, 5,, and all the amendments.]
SEC. III.—PRIVILEGE.
The privileges of members of Parliament, from small and obscure
beginnings, have been advancing for centuries with a firm and
never-yielding pace. Claims seem to have been brought forward from time
to time, and repeated, till some example of their admission enabled them
to build law on that example. We can only, therefore, state the points
of progression at which they now are. It is now acknowledged, 1st. That
they are at all times exempted from question elsewhere, for anything
said in their own House; that during the time of privilege, 2d. Neither
a member himself, his wife, nor his servants, (familiares sui,) for any
matter of their own, may be arrested on mesne process, in any civil
suit: 3d. Nor be detained under execution, though levied before time of
privilege: 4th. Nor impleaded, cited, or subpœnaed in any court: 5th.
Nor summoned as a witness or juror: 6th. Nor may their lands or goods be
distrained: 7th. Nor their persons assaulted, or characters traduced.
And the period of time covered by privilege, before and after the
session, with the practice of short prorogations under the connivance of
the Crown, amounts in fact to a perpetual protection against the course
of justice. In one instance, indeed, it has been relaxed by the 10 G. 3,
C. 50, which permits judiciary proceedings to go on against them. That
these privileges must be continually progressive, seems to result from
their rejecting all definition of them; the doctrine being, that “their
dignity and independence are preserved by keeping their privileges
indefinite; and that ‘the maxim upon which they proceed, together with
the method of proceeding, rest entirely in their own breast, and are not
defined and ascertained by any particular stated laws.’” _1 Blackst._,
163, 164.
[It was probably from this view of the encroaching character of
privilege that the framers of our Constitution, in their care to provide
that the laws shall bind equally on all, and especially that those who
make them shall not exempt themselves from their operation, have only
privileged “Senators and Representatives” themselves from the single act
of “arrest in all cases except treason, felony, and breach of the peace,
during their attendance at the session of their respective Houses, and
in going to and returning from the same, and from being questioned in
any other place for any speech or debate in either House.” _Const. U.
S., Art. 1, Sec. 6._ Under the general authority “to make all laws
necessary and proper for carrying into execution the powers given them,”
_Const. U. S., Art. 2, Sec. 8_, they may provide by law the details
which may be necessary for giving full effect to the enjoyment of this
privilege. No such law being as yet made, it seems to stand at present
on the following ground: 1. The act of arrest is void, ab initio. 2. The
member arrested may be discharged on motion, _1 Bl._, 166; _2 Stra._,
990; or by _habeas corpus_ under the Federal or State authority, as the
case may be; or by a writ of privilege out of the chancery, _2 Stra._,
989, in those States which have adopted that part of the laws of
England. _Orders of the House of Commons, 1550, February 20._ 3. The
arrest being unlawful, is a trespass for which the officer and others
concerned are liable to action or indictment in the ordinary courts of
justice, as in other cases of unauthorized arrest. 4. The court before
which the process is returnable is bound to act as in other cases of
unauthorized proceeding, and liable, also, as in other similar cases, to
have their proceedings stayed or corrected by the superior courts.]
[The time necessary for going to, and returning from, Congress, not
being defined, it will, of course, be judged of in every particular case
by those who will have to decide the case.] While privilege was
understood in England to extend, as it does here, only to exemption from
arrest, eundo, morando, et redeundo, the House of Commons themselves
decided that “a convenient time was to be understood.” (1580,) _1
Hats._, 99, 100. Nor is the law so strict in point of time as to require
the party to set out immediately on his return, but allows him time to
settle his private affairs, and to prepare for his journey; and does not
even scan his road very nicely, nor forfeit his protection for a little
deviation from that which is most direct; some necessity perhaps
constraining him to it. _2 Stra._, 986, 987.
This privilege from arrest, privileges, of course, against all process
the disobedience to which is punishable by an attachment of the person;
as a subpœna ad respondendum, or testificandum, or a summons on a jury;
and with reason, because a member has superior duties to perform in
another place. [When a representative is withdrawn from his seat by
summons, the 40,000 people whom he represents lose their voice in debate
and vote, as they do on his voluntary absence; when a Senator is
withdrawn by summons, his State loses half its voice in debate and vote,
as it does on his voluntary absence. The enormous disparity of evil
admits no comparison.]
[So far there will probably be no difference of opinion as to the
privileges of the two Houses of Congress; but in the following cases it
is otherwise. In December, 1795, the House of Representatives committed
two persons of the name of Randall and Whitney, for attempting to
corrupt the integrity of certain members, which they considered as a
contempt and breach of the privileges of the House; and the facts being
proved, Whitney was detained in confinement a fortnight, and Randall
three weeks, and was reprimanded by the Speaker. In March, 1796, the
House of Representatives voted a challenge given to a member of their
House to be a breach of the privileges of the House; but satisfactory
apologies and acknowledgments being made, no further proceeding was had.
The editor of the _Aurora_ having, in his paper of February 19, 1800,
inserted some paragraphs defamatory of the Senate, and failed in his
appearance, he was ordered to be committed.
In debating the legality of this order, it was insisted, in support of
it, that every man, by the law of nature, and every body of men,
possesses the right of self-defense; that all public functionaries are
essentially invested with the powers of self-preservation; that they
have an inherent right to do all acts necessary to keep themselves in a
condition to discharge the trusts confided to them; that whenever
authorities are given, the means of carrying them into execution are
given by necessary implication; that thus we see the British Parliament
exercise the right of punishing contempts; all the State Legislatures
exercise the same power, and every court does the same; that, if we have
it not, we sit at the mercy of every intruder who may enter our doors or
gallery, and, by noise and tumult, render proceeding in business
impracticable; that if our tranquillity is to be perpetually disturbed
by newspaper defamation, it will not be possible to exercise our
functions with the requisite coolness and deliberation; and that we must
therefore have a power to punish these disturbers of our peace and
proceedings. To this it was answered, that the Parliament and courts of
England have cognizance of contempts by the express provisions of their
law; that the State Legislatures have equal authority, because their
powers are plenary; they represent their constituents completely, and
possess all their powers, except such as their constitutions have
expressly denied them; that the courts of the several States have the
same powers by the laws of their States, and those of the Federal
Government by the same State laws adopted in each State, by a law of
Congress; that none of these bodies, therefore, derive those powers from
natural or necessary right, but from express law; that Congress have no
such natural or necessary power, nor any powers but such as are given
them by the Constitution; that that has given them, directly, exemption
from personal arrest, exemption from question elsewhere for what is said
in their House, and power over their own members and proceedings; for
these no further law is necessary, the Constitution being the law; that,
moreover, by that article of the Constitution which authorizes them “to
make all laws necessary and proper for carrying into execution the
powers vested by Constitution in them,” they may provide by law for an
undisturbed exercise of their functions, e. g., for the punishment of
contempts, of affrays or tumult in their presence, &c.; but, till the
law be made, it does not exist; and does not exist, from their own
neglect; that, in the mean time, however, they are not unprotected, the
ordinary magistrates and courts of law being open and competent to
punish all unjustifiable disturbances or defamations, and even their own
sergeant, who may appoint deputies ad libitum to aid him, _3 Grey_, 59,
147, 255, is equal to small disturbances; that in requiring a previous
law, the Constitution had regard to the inviolability of the citizen, as
well as of the member; as, should one House, in the form of a bill, aim
at too broad privileges, it may be checked by the other, and both by the
President; and also as, the law being promulgated, the citizen will know
how to avoid offense. But if one branch may assume its own privileges
without control, if it may do it on the spur of the occasion, conceal
the law in its own breast, and, after the fact committed, make its
sentence both the law and the judgment on that fact; if the offense is
to be kept undefined, and to be declared only ex re nata, and according
to the passions of the moment, and there be no limitation either in the
manner or measure of the punishment, the condition of the citizen will
be perilous indeed. Which of these doctrines is to prevail, time will
decide. Where there is no fixed law, the judgment on any particular case
is the law of that single case only, and dies with it. When a new and
even a similar case arises, the judgment which is to make and at the
same time apply the law, is open to question and consideration, as are
all new laws. Perhaps Congress, in the mean time, in their care for the
safety of the citizen, as well as that for their own protection, may
declare by law what is necessary and proper to enable them to carry into
execution the powers vested in them, and thereby hang up a rule for the
inspection of all, which may direct the conduct of the citizen, and at
the same time test the judgments they shall themselves pronounce in
their own case.]
Privilege from arrest takes place by force of the election; and before a
return be made a member elected may be named of a committee, and is to
every extent a member except that he cannot vote until he is sworn.
_Memor._, 107, 108. _D’Ewes_, 643, _col._ 2; 643, _col._ 1. _Pet.
Miscel. Parl._, 119. _Lex. Parl._, _c._ 23. _2 Hats._, 22, 62.
Every man must, at his peril, take notice who are members of either
House returned of record. _Lex. Parl._, 23; _4 Inst._, 24.
On complaint of a breach of privilege, the party may either be summoned,
or sent for in custody of the sergeant. _1 Grey_, 88, 95.
The privilege of a member is the privilege of the House. If the member
waive it without leave, it is a ground for punishing him, but cannot in
effect waive the privilege of the House. _3 Grey_, 140, 222.
For any speech or debate in either House, they shall not be questioned
in any other place. _Const. U. S._, I, 6; _S. P. protest of the Commons
to James I_, 1621; _2 Rapin_, No. 54, pp. 211, 212. But this is
restrained to things done in the House in a parliamentary course. _1
Rush._, 663. For he is not to have privilege contra morem
parliamentarium, to exceed the bounds and limits of his place and duty.
_Com. p._
If an offence be committed by a member in the House, of which the House
has cognizance, it is an infringement of their right for any person or
court to take notice of it, till the House has punished the offender, or
referred him to a due course. _Lex. Parl._, 63.
Privilege is in the power of the House, and is a restraint to the
proceedings of inferior courts, but not of the House itself. _2 Nalson_,
450; _2 Grey_, 399. For whatever is spoken in the House is subject to
the censure of the House; and offenses of this kind have been severely
punished by calling the person to the bar to make submission, committing
him to the tower, expelling the House, &c. _Scob._, 72; _L. Parl._, _c._
22.
It is a breach of order for the Speaker to refuse to put a question
which is in order. _1 Hats._, 175–6; _5 Grey_, 133.
And even in cases of treason, felony, and breach of the peace, to which
privilege does not extend as to substance, yet in Parliament a member is
privileged as to the mode of proceeding. The case is first to be laid
before the House, that it may judge of the fact and of the grounds of
the accusation, and how far forth the manner of the trial may concern
their privilege; otherwise it would be in the power of other branches of
the government, and even of every private man, under pretenses of
treason, &c., to take any man from his services in the House, and so, as
many, one after another, as would make the House what he pleaseth. _Dec.
of the Com. on the King’s declaring Sir John Hotham a traitor._ _4
Rushw._, 586. So, when a member stood indicted for felony, it was
adjudged that he ought to remain of the House till conviction; for it
may be any man’s case, who is guiltless, to be accused and indicted of
felony or the like crime. _23 El._, 1580; _D’Ewes_, 283, _col._ 1; _Lex
Parl._, 133.
When it is found necessary for the public service to put a member under
arrest, or when, on any public inquiry, matter comes out which may lead
to affect the person of a member, it is the practice immediately to
acquaint the House, that they may know the reason for such a proceeding,
and take such steps as they think proper. _2 Hats._, 259. Of which see
many examples, _Ib._, 256, 257, 258. But the communication is subsequent
to the arrest. _1 Blackst._, 167.
It is highly expedient, says Hatsel, for the due preservation of the
privileges of the separate branches of the legislature, that neither
should encroach on the other, or interfere in any matter depending
before them, so as to preclude, or even influence, that freedom of
debate which is essential to a free council. They are, therefore, not to
take notice of any bills or other matters depending, or of votes that
have been given, or of speeches which have been held, by the members of
either of the other branches of the legislature, until the same have
been communicated to them in the usual parliamentary manner. _2 Hats._,
252; _4 Inst._, 15; _Seld. Jud._, 53. Thus the King’s taking notice of
the bill for suppressing soldiers, depending before the House; his
proposing a provisional clause for a bill before it was presented to him
by the two Houses; his expressing displeasure against some persons for
matters moved in Parliament during the debate and preparation of a bill,
were breaches of privilege; _2 Nalson_, 743; and in 1783, December 17,
it was declared a breach of fundamental privileges, &c., to report any
opinion or pretended opinion of the King on any bill or proceeding
depending in either House of Parliament, with a view to influence the
votes of the members. _2 Hats._, 251, 6.
SEC. IV.—ELECTIONS.
[The times, places, and manner of holding elections for Senators and
Representatives shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature
thereof; but the Congress may at any time by law make or alter such
regulations, except as to the places of choosing Senators. _Const._, I,
4.]
[Each House shall be the judge of the elections, returns, and
qualifications of its own members. _Const._, I, 5.]
SEC. V.—QUALIFICATIONS.
[The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from
each State, chosen by the Legislature thereof for six years, and each
Senator shall have one vote.]
[Immediately after they shall be assembled in consequence of the first
election, they shall be divided as equally as may be into three classes.
The seats of the Senators of the first class shall be vacated at the end
of the second year; of the second class at the expiration of the fourth
year; and of the third class at the expiration of the sixth year; so
that one-third may be chosen every second year; and if vacancies happen,
by resignation or otherwise, during the recess of the Legislature of any
State, the executive thereof may make temporary appointments until the
next meeting of the Legislature, which shall then fill such vacancies.
_Const._, I, 3.]
[No person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the age of
thirty years, and been nine years a citizen of the United States, and
who shall not, when elected, be an inhabitant of that State for which he
shall be chosen. _Const._ I, 3.]
[The House of Representatives shall be composed of members chosen every
second year by the people of the several States; and the electors in
each State shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the
most numerous branch of the State Legislature. _Const._, I, 2.]
[No person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the
age of twenty-five years and been seven years a citizen of the United
States, and who shall not, when elected, be an inhabitant of that State
in which he shall be chosen. _Const._, I, 2.]
[Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several
States which maybe included within this Union, according to their
respective numbers; which shall be determined by adding to the whole
number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of
years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three-fifths of all other
persons. The actual enumeration shall be made within three years after
the first meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every
subsequent term of ten years, in such manner as they shall by law
direct. The number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every
thirty thousand, but each State shall have at least one Representative.
_Const._, I, 2]
[When vacancies happen in the representation from any State, the
executive authority thereof shall issue writs of election to fill such
vacancies. _Const._, I, 2.]
[No Senator or Representative shall, during the time for which he was
elected, be appointed to any civil office under the authority of the
United States which shall have been created, or the emoluments whereof
shall have been increased, during such time; and no person holding any
office under the United States shall be a member of either House during
his continuance in office. _Const._, I, 6.]
SEC. VI.—QUORUM.
[A majority of each House shall constitute a quorum to do business, but
a smaller number may adjourn from day to day, and may be authorized to
compel the attendance of absent members in such manner and under such
penalties as each House may provide. _Const._, I, 5.]
In general the chair is not to be taken till a quorum for business is
present; unless, after due waiting, such a quorum be despaired of, when
the chair may be taken and the House adjourned. And whenever, during
business, it is observed that a quorum is not present, any member may
call for the House to be counted, and being found deficient, business is
suspended. _2 Hats._, 125, 126.
[The President having taken the chair, and a quorum being present, the
journal of the preceding day shall be read, to the end that any mistake
may be corrected that shall have been made in the entries. _Rules of the
Senate._]
SEC. VII.—CALL OF THE HOUSE.
On a call of the House, each person rises up as he is called, and
answereth; the absentees are then only noted, but no excuse to be made
till the House be fully called over. Then the absentees are called a
second time, and if still absent, excuses are to be heard. _Ord. House
of Commons_, 92.
They rise that their persons may be recognized; the voice, in such a
crowd, being an insufficient verification of their presence. But in so
small a body as the Senate of the United States, the trouble of rising
cannot be necessary.
Orders for calls on different days may subsist at the same time. _2
Hats._, 72.
SEC. VIII.—ABSENCE.
[No member shall absent himself from the service of the Senate without
leave of the Senate first obtained. And in case a less number than a
quorum of the Senate shall convene, they are hereby authorized to send
the Sergeant-at-Arms, or any other person or persons by them authorized,
for any or all absent members, as the majority of such members present
shall agree, at the expense of such absent members, respectively, unless
such excuse for non-attendance shall be made as the Senate, when a
quorum is convened, shall judge sufficient: and in that case the expense
shall be paid out of the contingent fund. And this rule shall apply as
well to the first convention of the Senate, at the legal time of
meeting, as to each day of the session, after the hour is arrived to
which the Senate stood adjourned. _Rule 8._]
SEC. IX.—SPEAKER.
[The Vice-President of the United States shall be President of the
Senate, but shall have no vote unless they be equally divided.
_Constitution_, I, 3.]
[The Senate shall choose their officers, and also a President _pro
tempore_ in the absence of the Vice-President, or when he shall exercise
the office of President of the United States. _Ib._]
[The House of Representatives shall choose their Speaker and other
officers. _Const._, I, 2.]
When but one person is proposed, and no objection made, it has not been
usual in Parliament to put any question to the House; but without a
question the members proposing him conduct him to the chair. But if
there be objection, or another proposed, a question is put by the Clerk.
_2 Hats._, 158. As are also questions of adjournment. _6 Grey_, 406.
Where the House debated and exchanged messages and answers with the King
for a week without a Speaker, till they were prorogued. They have done
it _de die_ in _diem_ for fourteen days. _1 Chand._, 331, 335.
[In the Senate, a President _pro tempore_, in the absence of the
Vice-President, is proposed and chosen by ballot. His office is
understood to be determined on the Vice-President’s appearing and taking
the chair, or at the meeting of the Senate after the first recess.]
Where the Speaker has been ill, other Speakers _pro tempore_ have been
appointed. Instances of this are _1 H._, 4. Sir John Cheyney, and Sir
William Sturton, and in _15 H._, 6. Sir John Tyrrel, in 1656, January
27; 1658, March 9; 1659, January 13.
Sir Job Charlton ill, Seymour chosen, 1673, │Not merely _pro
February 18. │tempore_. _1 Chand._,
│169, 276, 277.
Seymour being ill, Sir Robert Sawyer chosen, │ „
1678, April 15. │
Sawyer being ill, Seymour chosen. │ „
Thorpe in execution, a new Speaker chosen, _31 H. VI_, _3 Grey_, 11; and
March 14, 1694, Sir John Trevor chosen. There have been no later
instances. _2 Hats._, 161; _4 Inst._ 8; _L. Parl._, 263.
A Speaker may be removed at the will of the House, and a Speaker _pro
tempore_ appointed. _2 Grey_, 186; _5 Grey_, 134.
SEC. X.—ADDRESS.
[The President shall, from time to time, give to the Congress
information of the state of the Union, and recommend to their
consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.
_Const._, II, 3.]
A joint address of both Houses of Parliament is read by the Speaker of
the House of Lords. It may be attended by both Houses in a body, or by a
committee from each House, or by the two Speakers only. An address of
the House of Commons only may be presented by the whole House, or by the
Speaker, _9 Grey_, 473; _1 Chandler_, 298, 301; or by such particular
members as are of the privy council. _2 Hats._, 278.
SEC. XI.—COMMITTEES.
Standing committees, as of Privileges and Elections, &c., are usually
appointed at the first meeting, to continue through the session. The
person first named is generally permitted to act as chairman. But this
is a matter of courtesy; every committee having a right to elect their
own chairman, who presides over them, puts questions, and reports their
proceedings to the House. _4 Inst._, 11, 12; _Scob._, 9; _1 Grey_, 122.
At these committees the members are to speak standing, and not sitting;
though there is reason to conjecture it was formerly otherwise.
_D’Ewes_, 630, _col._ 1; _4 Parl., Hist._, 440; _2 Hats._, 77.
Their proceedings are not to be published, as they are of no force till
confirmed by the House, _Rushw._, _part_ 3, _vol._ 2, 74; _3 Grey_, 401;
_Scob._, 39. Nor can they receive a petition but through the House. _9
Grey_, 412.
When a committee is charged with an inquiry, if a member prove to be
involved, they cannot proceed against him, but must make a special
report to the House; whereupon the member is heard in his place, or at
the bar, or a special authority is given to the committee to inquire
concerning him. _9 Grey_, 523.
So soon as the House sits, and a committee is notified of it, the
chairman is in duty bound to rise instantly, and the members to attend
the service of the House. _2 Nals._, 319.
It appears that on joint committees of the Lords and Commons, each
committee acted integrally in the following instances: _7 Grey_, 261,
278, 285, 338; _1 Chandler_, 357, 462. In the following instances it
does not appear whether they did or not; _6 Grey_, 129; _7 Grey_, 213,
229, 321.
SEC. XII.—COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE.
The speech, messages, and other matters of great concernment, are
usually referred to a committee of the Whole House, (_6 Grey_, 311,)
where general principles are digested in the form of resolutions, which
are debated and amended till they get into a shape which meets the
approbation of a majority. These being reported and confirmed by the
House, are then referred to one or more select committees, according as
the subject divides itself into one or more bills. _Scob._, 36, 44.
Propositions for any charge on the people are especially to be first
made in a Committee of the Whole. _3 Hats._, 127. The sense of the whole
is better taken in committee, because in all committees every one speaks
as often as he pleases. _Scob._, 49. They generally acquiesce in the
chairman named by the Speaker; but, as well as all other committees,
have a right to elect one, some member, by consent, putting the
question. _Scob._, 36; _3 Grey_, 301. The form of going from the House
into committee, is for the Speaker, on motion, to put the question that
the House do now resolve itself into a Committee of the Whole to take
into consideration such a matter, naming it. If determined in the
affirmative, he leaves the chair and takes a seat elsewhere, as any
other member; and the person appointed chairman seats himself at the
Clerk’s table. _Scob._, 36. Their quorum is the same as that of the
House; and if a defect happens, the chairman, on a motion and question,
rises, the Speaker resumes the chair, and the chairman can make no other
report than to inform the House of the cause of their dissolution. If a
message is announced during a committee, the Speaker takes the chair and
receives it, because the committee cannot. _2 Hats._, 125, 126.
In a Committee of the Whole, the tellers on a division differing as to
numbers, great heats and confusion arose, and danger of a decision by
the sword. The Speaker took the chair, the mace was forcibly laid on the
table; whereupon, the members retiring to their places, the Speaker told
the House “he had taken the chair without an order, to bring the House
into order.” Some excepted against it; but it was generally approved, as
the only expedient to suppress the disorder. And every member was
required, standing up in his place, to engage that he would proceed no
further in consequence of what had happened in the grand committee,
which was done. _3 Grey_, 128.
A Committee of the Whole being broken up in disorder, and the chair
resumed by the Speaker without an order, the House was adjourned. The
next day the committee was considered as thereby dissolved, and the
subject again before the House; and it was decided in the House, without
returning into committee. _3 Grey_, 130.
No previous question can be put in a committee; nor can this committee
adjourn as others may; but if their business is unfinished, they rise,
on a question, the House is resumed, and the chairman reports that the
Committee of the Whole have, according to order, had under their
consideration such a matter, and have made progress therein; but not
having had time to go through the same, have directed him to ask leave
to sit again. Whereupon a question is put on their having leave, and on
the time the House will again resolve itself into a committee. _Scob._,
38. But if they have gone through the matter referred to them, a member
moves that the committee may rise, and the chairman report their
proceedings to the House; which being resolved, the chairman rises, the
Speaker resumes the chair, the chairman informs him that the committee
have gone through the business referred to them, and that he is ready to
make report when the House shall think proper to receive it. If the
House have time to receive it, there is usually a cry of “now, now,”
whereupon he makes the report; but if it be late, the cry is “to-morrow,
to-morrow,” or “Monday,” &c., or a motion is made to that effect, and a
question put that it be received to-morrow, &c. _Scob._, 38.
In other things the rules of proceeding are to be the same as in the
House. _Scob._, 39.
SEC. XIII.—EXAMINATION OF WITNESSES.
Common fame is a good ground for the House to proceed by inquiry, and
even to accusation. _Resolution House of Commons_, _1 Car._ 1, 1625;
_Rush_, _L. Parl_, 115; _1 Grey_, 16–22, 92; _8 Grey_, 21, 23, 27, 45.
Witnesses are not to be produced but where the House has previously
instituted an inquiry, _2 Hats._, 102, nor then are orders for their
attendance given blank. _3 Grey_, 51.
When any person is examined before a committee, or at the bar of the
House, any member wishing to ask the person a question, must address it
to the Speaker or chairman, who repeats the question to the person, or
says to him, “You hear the question—answer it.” But if the propriety of
the question be objected to, the Speaker directs the witness, counsel,
and parties to withdraw; for no question can be moved or put or debated
while they are there. _2 Hats._, 108. Sometimes the questions are
previously settled in writing before the witness enters. _Ib._, 106,
107; _8 Grey_, 64. The questions asked must be entered in the journals.
_3 Grey_, 81. But the testimony given in answer before the House is
never written down; but before a committee, it must be, for the
information of the House, who are not present to hear it. _7 Grey_, 52,
334.
If either House have occasion for the presence of a person in custody of
the other, they ask the other their leave that he may be brought up to
them in custody. _3 Hats._, 52.
A member, in his place, gives information to the House of what he knows
of any matter under hearing at the bar. _Jour. H. of C._, _Jan._ 22,
1744–5.
Either House may request, but not command, the attendance of a member of
the other. They are to make the request by message of the other House,
and to express clearly the purpose of attendance, that no improper
subject of examination may be tendered to him. The House then gives
leave to the member to attend, if he choose it; waiting first to know
from the member himself whether he chooses to attend, till which they do
not take the message into consideration. But when the peers are sitting
as a court of criminal judicature, they may order attendance, unless
where it be a case of impeachment by the Commons. There, it is to be a
request. _3 Hats._, 17; _9 Grey_, 306, 406; _10 Grey_, 133.
Counsel are to be heard only on private, not on public bills, and on
such points of law only as the House shall direct. _10 Grey_, 61.
SEC. XIV.—ARRANGEMENT OF BUSINESS.
The Speaker is not precisely bound to any rules as to what bills or
other matter shall be first taken up; but it is left to his own
discretion, unless the House on a question decide to take up a
particular subject. _Hakew._, 136.
A settled order of business is, however, necessary for the government of
the presiding person, and to restrain individual members from calling up
favorite measures, or matters under their special patronage, out of
their just turn. It is useful also for directing the discretion of the
House, when they are moved to take up a particular matter, to the
prejudice of others, having priority of right to their attention in the
general order of business.
[In the Senate, the bills and other papers which are in possession of
the House, and in a state to be acted on, are arranged every morning and
brought on in the following order:]
[1. Bills ready for a second reading are read, that they may be referred
to committees, and so be put under way. But if, on their being read, no
motion is made for commitment, they are then laid on the table in the
general file, to be taken up in their just turn.]
[2. After 12 o’clock, bills ready for it are put on their passage.]
[3. Reports in possession of the House, which offer grounds for a bill,
are to be taken up, that the bill may be ordered in.]
[4. Bills or other matters before the House, and unfinished on the
preceding day, whether taken up in turn or on special order, are
entitled to be resumed and passed on through their present stage.]
[5. These matters being dispatched, for preparing and expediting
business, the general file of bills and other papers is then taken up,
and each article of it is brought on according to its seniority,
reckoned by the date of its first introduction to the House. Reports on
bills belong to the dates of their bills.]
[The arrangement of the business of the Senate is now as follows:][98]
[1. Motions previously submitted.]
[2. Reports of committees previously made.]
[3. Bills from the House of Representatives, and those introduced on
leave, which have been read the first time, are read the second time;
and if not referred to a committee, are considered in Committee of the
Whole, and proceeded with as in other cases.]
[4. After twelve o’clock, engrossed bills of the Senate, and bills of
the House of Representatives, on third reading, are put on their
passage.]
[5. If the above are finished before one o’clock, the general file of
bills, consisting of those reported from committees on the second
reading, and those reported from committees after having been referred,
are taken up in the order in which they were reported to the Senate by
the respective committees.]
[6. At one o’clock, if no business be pending, or if no motion be made
to proceed to other business, the special orders are called, at the head
of which stands the unfinished business of the preceding day.]
[In this way we do not waste our time in debating what shall be taken
up. We do one thing at a time; follow up a subject while it is fresh,
and till it is done with; clear the House of business gradatim as it is
brought on, and prevent, to a certain degree, its immense accumulation
toward the close of the session.]
[Arrangement, however, can only take hold of matters in possession of
the House. New matter may be moved at any time when no question is
before the House. Such are original motions and reports on bills. Such
are bills from the other House, which are received at all times, and
receive their first reading as soon as the question then before the
House is disposed of; and bills brought in on leave, which are read
first whenever presented. So messages from the other House respecting
amendments to bills are taken up as soon as the House is clear of a
question, unless they require to be printed, for better consideration.
Orders of the day may be called for even when another question is before
the House.]
SEC. XV.—ORDER.
[Each House may determine the rules of its proceedings; punish its
members for disorderly behavior; and, with the concurrence of
two-thirds, expel a member. _Const._, I, 5.]
In Parliament, “instances make order,” per Speaker Onslow. _2 Hats._,
141. But what is done only by one Parliament, cannot be called custom of
Parliament, by Prynne. _1 Grey_, 52.
SEC. XVI.—ORDER RESPECTING PAPERS.
The Clerk is to let no journals, records, accounts, or papers be taken
from the table or out of his custody. _2 Hats._, 193, 194.
Mr. Prynne, having at a Committee of the Whole amended a mistake in a
bill without order or knowledge of the committee, was reprimanded. _1
Chand._, 77.
A bill being missing, the House resolved that a protestation should be
made and subscribed by the members “before Almighty God, and this
honorable House, that neither myself, nor any other to my knowledge,
have taken away, or do at this present conceal a bill entitled,” &c. _5
Grey_, 202.
After a bill is engrossed, it is put into the Speaker’s hands, and he is
not to let any one have it to look into. _Town. col._, 209.
SEC. XVII.—ORDER IN DEBATE.
When the Speaker is seated in his chair, every member is to sit in his
place. _Scob._, 6; _Grey_, 403.
When any member means to speak, he is to stand up in his place,
uncovered, and to address himself, not to the House, or any particular
member, but to the Speaker, who calls him by his name, that the House
may take notice who it is that speaks. _Scob._, 6; _D’Ewes_, 487, _col._
1; _2 Hats._, 77; _4 Grey_, 66; _8 Grey_, 108. But members who are
indisposed may be indulged to speak sitting. _2 Hats._, 75, 77; _1
Grey_, 143.
[In Senate, every member, when he speaks, shall address the Chair
standing in his place, and, when he has finished, shall sit down. _Rule
3._]
When a member stands up to speak, no question is to be put, but he is to
be heard, unless the House overrule him. _4 Grey_, 390; _5 Grey_, 6,
143.
If two or more rise to speak nearly together, the Speaker determines who
was first up, and calls him by name, whereupon he proceeds, unless he
voluntarily sits down and gives way to the other. But sometimes the
House does not acquiesce in the Speaker’s decision, in which case the
question is put, “which member was first up?” _2 Hats._, 76; _Scob._, 7;
_D’Ewes_, 434, _col._ 1, 2.
[In the Senate of the United States, the President’s decision is without
appeal. Their rule is: _When two members rise at the same time, the
President shall name the person to speak; but in all_ cases the member
who shall first rise and address the Chair shall speak first. _Rule
38._]
No man may speak more than once on the same bill on the same day; or
even on another day, if the debate be adjourned. But if it be read more
than once in the same day, he may speak once at every reading. _Co._,
12, 115; _Hakew._, 148; _Scob._, 58; _2 Hats._, 75. Even a change of
opinion does not give a right to be heard a second time. _Smyth’s Comw.,
L._ 2, _c._ 3; _Arcan. Parl._, 17.
[The corresponding rule of the Senate is in these words: No member shall
speak more than twice, in any one debate, on the same day, without leave
of the Senate. _Rule 39._]
But he may be permitted to speak again to clear a matter of fact, _3
Grey_, 357, 416; or merely to explain himself _2 Hats._, 73, in some
material part of his speech, _Ib._, 75; or to the manner or words of the
question, keeping himself to that only, and not traveling into the
merits of it, _Memorials in Hakew._, 29; or to the orders of the House
if they be transgressed, keeping within that line, and not falling into
the matter itself. _Mem. Hakew._, 30, 31.
But if the Speaker rise to speak, the member standing up ought to sit
down, that he may be first heard. _Town._, _col._ 205; _Hale Parl._,
133; _Mem. in Hakew._, 30, 31. Nevertheless, though the Speaker may of
right speak to matters of order, and be first heard, he is restrained
from speaking on any other subject, except where the House have occasion
for facts within his knowledge; then he may, with their leave, state the
matter of fact. _3 Grey_, 38.
No one is to speak impertinently or beside the question, superfluous, or
tediously. Scob., 31, 33; _2 Hats._, 166, 168; _Hale Parl._, 133.
No person is to use indecent language against the proceedings of the
House; no prior determination of which is to be reflected on by any
member, unless he means to conclude with a motion to rescind it. _2
Hats._, 169, 170; _Rushw._, _p._ 3, _v._ 1, _fol._ 42. But while a
proposition under consideration is still _in fieri_, though it has even
been reported by a committee, reflections on it are no reflections on
the House. _9 Grey_, 508.
No person, in speaking, is to mention a member then present by his name,
but to describe him by his seat in the House, or who spoke last, or on
the other side of the question, &c., _Mem. in Hakew._, 3; _Smyth’s
Comw._, _L._ 2, _c._ 3; nor to digress from the matter to fall upon the
person _Scob._, 31; _Hale Parl._, 133; _2 Hats._, 166 by speaking,
reviling, nipping, or unmannerly words against a particular member.
_Smyth’s Comw._, _L._ 2, _c._ 3. The consequences of a measure may be
reprobated in strong terms; but to arraign the motives of those who
propose to advocate it is a personality, and against order. _Qui
digreditur a materia ad personam_, Mr. Speaker ought to suppress. _Ord.
Com., 1604, Apr. 19._
[When a member shall be called to order by the President or a Senator,
he shall sit down; and every question of order shall be decided by the
President, without debate, subject to an appeal to the Senate; and the
President may call for the sense of the Senate on any question of order.
_Rule 40._]
[No member shall speak to another or otherwise interrupt the business of
the Senate, or read any newspapers while the journals or public papers
are being read, or when any member is speaking in any debate. _Rule
38._]
No one is to disturb another in his speech by hissing, coughing,
spitting, _6 Grey_, 332; _Scob._, 8; _D’Ewes_, 332, _col. 1_, 640, _col.
2_, speaking or whispering to another, _Scob._, 6; _D’Ewes_, 487, _col.
1_; nor stand up to interrupt him, _Town._, _col. 205_; _Mem. in
Hakew._, 31; nor to pass between the Speaker and the speaking member,
nor to go across the House, _Scob._, 6, to walk up and down it, or to
take books or papers from the table or write there, _2 Hats._, 171.
Nevertheless, if a member finds that it is not the inclination of the
House to hear him, and that by conversation or any other noise they
endeavor to drown his voice, it is his most prudent way to submit to the
pleasure of the House, and sit down; for it scarcely ever happens that
they are guilty of this piece of ill-manners without sufficient reason,
or inattentive to a member who says anything worth their hearing. _2
Hats._, 77, 78.
If repeated calls do not produce order, the Speaker may call by his name
any member obstinately persisting in irregularity; whereupon the House
may require the member to withdraw. He is then to be heard in
exculpation, and to withdraw. Then the Speaker states the offense
committed; and the House considers the degree of punishment they will
inflict. _2 Hats._, 167, 7, 8, 172.
For instances of assaults and affrays in the House of Commons, and the
proceedings thereon, see _1 Pet. Misc._, 82; _3 Grey_, 128; _4 Grey_,
328; _5 Grey_, 382; _6 Grey_, 254; _10 Grey_, 8. Whenever warm words or
an assault have passed between members, the House, for the protection of
their members, requires them to declare in their places not to prosecute
any quarrel, _3 Grey_, 128, 293; _5 Grey_, 280; or orders them to attend
the Speaker, who is to accommodate their differences, and report to the
House, _3 Grey_, 419; and they are put under restraint if they refuse,
or until they do. _9 Grey_, 234, 312.
Disorderly works are not to be noticed till the member has finished his
speech. _5 Grey_, 356; _6 Grey_, 60. Then the person objecting to them,
and desiring them to be taken down by the Clerk at the table, must
repeat them. The Speaker then may direct the Clerk to take them down in
his minutes; but if he thinks them not disorderly, he delays the
direction. If the call becomes pretty general, he orders the Clerk to
take them down, as stated by the objecting member. They are then a part
of his minutes, and when read to the offending member, he may deny they
were his words, and the House must then decide by a question whether
they are his words or not. Then the member may justify them, or explain
the sense in which he used them, or apologize. If the House is
satisfied, no further proceeding is necessary. But if two members still
insist to take the sense of the House, the member must withdraw before
that question is stated, and then the sense of the House is to be taken.
_2 Hats._, 199; _4 Grey_, 170; _6 Grey_, 59. When any member has spoken,
or other business intervened, after offensive words spoken, they cannot
be taken notice of for censure. And this is for the common security of
all, and to prevent mistakes which must happen if words are not taken
down immediately. Formerly they might be taken down at any time the same
day. _2 Hats_, 196; _Mem. in Hakew._, 71; _3 Grey_, 48; _9 Grey_, 514.
Disorderly words spoken in a committee must be written down as in the
House; but the committee can only report them to the House for
animadversion. _6 Grey_, 46.
[The rule of the Senate says: If the member be called to order by a
Senator for words spoken, the exceptionable words shall immediately be
taken down in writing, that the President may be better able to judge of
the matter. _Rule 37._]
In Parliament, to speak irreverently or seditiously against the King, is
against order. _Smyth’s Comw._, _L. 2_, _c. 3_; _2 Hats._, 170.
It is a breach of order in debate to notice what has been said on the
same subject in the other House, or the particular votes or majorities
on it there; because the opinion of each House should be left to its own
independency, not to be influenced by the proceedings of the other; and
the quoting them might beget reflections leading to a misunderstanding
between the two Houses. _2 Grey_, 22.
Neither House can exercise any authority over a member or officer of the
other, but should complain to the House of which he is, and leave the
punishment to them. Where the complaint is of words disrespectfully
spoken by a member of another House, it is difficult to obtain
punishment, because of the rules supposed necessary to be observed (as
to the immediate noting down of words) for the security of members.
Therefore it is the duty of the House, and more particularly of the
Speaker, to interfere immediately, and not to permit expressions to go
unnoticed which may give a ground of complaint to the other House, and
introduce proceedings and mutual accusations between the two Houses,
which can hardly be terminated without difficulty and disorder. _3
Hats._, 51.
No member may be present when a bill or any business concerning himself
is debating; nor is any member to speak to the merits of it till he
withdraws. _2 Hats._, 219. The rule is, that if a charge against a
member arise out of a report of a committee, or examination of witnesses
in the House, as the member knows from that to what points he is to
direct his exculpation, he may be heard to those points before any
question is moved or stated against him. He is then to be heard, and
withdraw before any question is moved. But if the question itself is the
charge, as for breach of order or matter arising in the debate, then the
charge must be stated, (that is, the question must be moved,) himself
heard, and then to withdraw. _2 Hats._, 121, 122.
Where the private interests of a member are concerned in a bill or
question he is to withdraw. And where such an interest has appeared, his
voice has been disallowed, even after a division. In a case so contrary,
not only to the laws of decency, but to the fundamental principle of the
social compact, which denies to any man to be a judge in his own cause,
it is for the honor of the House that this rule of immemorial observance
should be strictly adhered to. _2 Hats._, 119, 121; _6 Grey_, 368.
No member is to come into the House with his head covered, nor to remove
from one place to another with his hat on, nor is he to put on his hat
in coming in or removing, until he be set down in his place. _Scob._, 6.
A question of order may be adjourned to give time to look into
precedents. _2 Hats._, 118.
In Parliament, all decisions of the Speaker may be controlled by the
House. _3 Grey_, 319.
SEC. XVIII.—ORDERS OF THE HOUSE.
Of right, the door of the House ought not to be shut, but to be kept by
porters, or Sergeants-at-Arms, assigned for that purpose. _Mod. ten.
Parl._, 23.
[By the rules of the Senate, on motion made and seconded to shut the
doors of the Senate on the discussion of any business which may, in the
opinion of a member, require secrecy, the President shall direct the
gallery to be cleared; and during the discussion of such motion the
doors shall remain shut. _Rule 64._]
[No motion shall be deemed in order to admit any person or persons
whatsoever within the doors of the Senate chamber to present any
petition, memorial, or address, or to hear any such read. _Rule 19._]
The only case where a member has a right to insist on anything, is where
he calls for the execution of a subsisting order of the House. Here,
there having been already a resolution, any person has a right to insist
that the Speaker, or any other whose duty it is, shall carry it into
execution; and no debate or delay can be had on it. Thus any member has
a right to have the House or gallery cleared of strangers, an order
existing for that purpose; or to have the House told when there is not a
quorum present. _2 Hats._, 87, 129. How far an order of the House is
binding, see _Hakew._, 392.
But where an order is made that any particular matter be taken up on a
particular day, there a question is to be put, when it is called for,
whether the House will now proceed to that matter? Where orders of the
day are on important or interesting matter, they ought not to be
proceeded on till an hour at which the House is usually full, [_which in
Senate is at noon_.]
Orders of the day may be discharged at any time, and a new one made for
a different day. _3 Grey_, 48, 313.
When a session is drawing to a close, and the important bills are all
brought in, the House, in order to prevent interruption by further
unimportant bills, sometimes comes to a resolution that no new bill be
brought in, except it be sent from the other House. _3 Grey_, 156.
All orders of the House determine with the session; and one taken under
such an order may, after the session is ended, be discharged on a
_habeas corpus_. _Raym._, 120; _Jacob’s L. D. by Ruffhead_;
_Parliament_, _1 Lev._, 165, _Pritchard’s case_.
[Where the Constitution authorizes each House to determine the rules of
its proceedings, it must mean in those cases (legislative, executive, or
judiciary) submitted to them by the Constitution, or in something
relating to these, and necessary toward their execution. But orders and
resolutions are sometimes entered in the journals having no relation to
these, such as acceptances of invitations to attend orations, take part
in processions, &c. These must be understood to be merely conventional
among those who are willing to participate in the ceremony, and are
therefore, perhaps, improperly placed among the records of the House.]
SEC. XIX.—PETITION.
A petition prays something. A remonstrance has no prayer. _1 Grey_, 58.
Petitions must be subscribed by the petitioners, _Scob._, 87; _L. Parl_,
_c. 22_; _9 Grey_, 362, unless they are attending, _1 Grey_, 401, or
unable to sign, and averred by a member, _3 Grey_, 418. But a petition
not subscribed, but which the member presenting it affirmed to be all in
the handwriting of the petitioner, and his name written in the
beginning, was on the question (March 14, 1800) received by the Senate.
The averment of a member, or of somebody without doors, that they know
the handwriting of the petitioners, is necessary, if it be questioned.
_6 Grey_, 36. It must be presented by a member—not by the petitioners,
and must be opened by him holding it in his hand. _10 Grey_, 57.
[Before any petition or memorial addressed to the Senate shall be
received and read at the table, whether the same shall be introduced by
the President or a member, a brief statement of the contents of the
petition or memorial shall verbally be made by the introducer. _Rule
14._]
Regularly a motion for receiving it must be made and seconded, and a
question put, whether it shall be received? but a cry from the House of
“received,” or even its silence, dispenses with the formality of this
question. It is then to be read at the table and disposed of.
SEC. XX.—MOTIONS.
When a motion has been made, it is not to be put to the question or
debated until it is seconded. _Scob._, 21.
[The Senate says: No motion shall be debated until the same shall be
seconded. _Rule 42._]
It is then, and not till then, in possession of the House, and cannot be
withdrawn but by leave of the House. It is to be put into writing, if
the House or Speaker require it, and must be read to the House by the
Speaker as often as any member desires it for his information. _2
Hats._, 82.
[The rule of the Senate is, when a motion shall be made and seconded, it
shall be reduced to writing, if desired by the President or any member,
delivered in at the table, and read by the President, before the same
shall be debated. _Rule 42._]
It might be asked whether a motion for adjournment or for the orders of
the day can be made by one member while another is speaking? It cannot.
When two members offer to speak, he who rose first is to be heard, and
it is a breach of order in another to interrupt him, unless by calling
him to order if he departs from it. And the question of order being
decided, he is still to be heard through. A call for adjournment, or for
the order of the day, or for the question, by gentlemen from their
seats, is not a motion. No motion can be made without rising and
addressing the Chair. Such calls are themselves breaches of order,
which, though the member who has risen may respect, as an expression of
impatience of the House against further debate, yet, if he chooses, he
has a right to go on.
SEC. XXI.—RESOLUTIONS.
When the House commands, it is by an “order.” But fact, principles, and
their own opinions and purposes, are expressed in the form of
resolutions.
[A resolution for an allowance of money to the clerks being moved, it
was objected to as not in order, and so ruled by the Chair; but on
appeal to the Senate, (_i. e._, a call for their sense by the President,
on account of doubt in his mind, according to Rule 6,) the decision was
overruled. _Jour. Senate, June 1, 1796_. I presume the doubt was,
whether an allowance of money could be made otherwise than by bill.]
SEC. XXII.—BILLS.
[Every bill shall receive three readings previous to its being passed;
and the President shall give notice at each whether it be first, second,
or third; which readings shall be on three different days, unless the
Senate unanimously direct otherwise. _Rule 23._]
SEC. XXIII.—BILLS, LEAVE TO BRING IN.
[One day’s notice, at least, shall be given of an intended motion for
leave to bring in a bill. _Rule 22._]
When a member desires to bring in a bill on any subject, he states to
the House in general terms the causes for doing it, and concludes by
moving for leave to bring in a bill, entitled, &c. Leave being given, on
the question, a committee is appointed to prepare and bring in the bill.
The mover and seconder are always appointed of this committee, and one
or more in addition. _Hakew._, 132; _Scob._, 40.
It is to be presented fairly written, without any erasure or
interlineation, or the Speaker may refuse it. _Scob._, 41; _1 Grey_, 82,
84.
SEC. XXIV.—BILLS, FIRST READING.
When a bill is first presented, the Clerk reads it at the table, and
hands it to the Speaker, who, rising, states to the House the title of
the bill; that this is the first time of reading it; and the question
will be, whether it shall be read a second time? then sitting down to
give an opening for objections. If none be made, he rises again, and
puts the question, whether it shall be read a second time? _Hakew_, 137,
141. A bill cannot be amended on the first reading, _6 Grey_, 286; nor
is it usual for it to be opposed then, but it may be done, and rejected.
_D’Ewes_, 335, _col. 1_; _3 Hats._, 198.
SEC. XXV.—BILLS, SECOND READING.
The second reading must regularly be on another day. _Hakew._, 143. It
is done by the Clerk at the table, who then hands it to the Speaker. The
Speaker, rising, states to the House the title of the bill; that this is
the second time of reading it; and that the question will be, whether it
shall be committed, or engrossed and read a third time? But if the bill
came from the other House, as it always comes engrossed, he states that
the question will be read a third time? and before he has so reported
the state of the bill, no one is to speak to it. _Hakew._, 143–146.
[In the Senate of the United States, the President reports the title of
the bill; that this is the second time of reading it; that it is now to
be considered as in a Committee of the Whole; and the question will be,
whether it shall be read a third time? or that it may be referred to a
special committee?]
SEC. XXVI.—BILLS, COMMITMENT.
If on motion and question it be decided that the bill shall be
committed, it may then be moved to be referred to Committee of the Whole
House, or to a special committee. If the latter, the Speaker proceeds to
name the committee. Any member also may name a single person, and the
Clerk is to write him down as of the committee. But the House have a
controlling power over the names and number, if a question be moved
against any one; and may in any case put in and put out whom they
please.
Those who take exceptions to some particulars in the bill are to be of
the committee, but none who speak directly against the body of the bill;
for he that would totally destroy will not amend it, _Hakew._, 146;
_Town._, _col. 208_; _D’Ewes_, 634, _col. 2_; _Scob._, 47, or, as is
said, _5 Grey_, 145, the child is not to be put to a nurse that cares
not for it, _6 Grey_, 373. It is therefore a constant rule “that no man
is to be employed in any matter who has declared himself against it.”
And when any member who is against the bill hears himself named of its
committee, he ought to ask to be excused. Thus, March 7, 1606, Mr.
Hadley was, on the question being put, excused from being of a
committee, declaring himself to be against the matter itself. _Scob._,
46.
[No bill shall be committed or amended until it shall have been twice
read; after which it may be referred to a committee. _Rule 24._]
In the appointment of the standing committees, the Senate will proceed,
by ballot, severally to appoint the chairman of each committee, and
then, by one ballot, the other members necessary to complete the same;
and a majority of the whole number of votes given shall be necessary to
the choice of a chairman of a standing committee. All other committees
shall be appointed by ballot, and a plurality of votes shall make a
choice. When any subject or matter shall have been referred to a
committee, any other subject or matter of a similar nature, may, on
motion, be referred to such committee.
The Clerk may deliver the bill to any member of the committee, _Town._,
_col. 138_; but it is usual to deliver it to him who is first named.
In some cases the House has ordered a committee to withdraw immediately
into the committee chamber, and act on and bring back the bill, sitting
the House, _Scob._, 48. A committee meet when and where they please, if
the House has not ordered time and place for them, _6 Grey_, 370; but
they can only act when together, and not by separate consultation and
consent—nothing being the report of the committee but what has been
agreed to in committee actually assembled.
A majority of the committee constitutes a quorum for business.
_Elsynge’s Method of Passing Bills_, 11.
Any member of the House may be present at any select committee, but
cannot vote, and must give place to all of the committee, and sit below
them. _Elsynge_, 12; _Scob._, 49.
The committee have full power over the bill or other paper committed to
them, except that they cannot change the title or subject. _8 Grey_,
228.
The paper before a committee, whether select or of the whole, may be a
bill, resolutions, draught of an address, &c., and it may either
originate with them or be referred to them. In every case the whole
paper is read first by the Clerk, and then by the chairman, by
paragraphs, _Scob._, 49, pausing at the end of each paragraph, and
putting questions for amending, if proposed. In case of resolutions on
distinct subjects, originating with themselves, a question is put on
each separately, as amended or unamended, and no final question on the
whole, _3 Hats._, 276; but if they relate to the same subject, a
question is put on the whole. If it be a bill, draught of an address, or
other paper originating with them, they proceed by paragraphs, putting
questions for amending, either by insertion or striking out, if
proposed; but no question on agreeing to the paragraphs separately; this
is reserved to the close, when a question is put on the whole, for
agreeing to it as amended or unamended. But if it be a paper referred to
them, they proceed to put questions of amendment, if proposed, but no
final question on the whole; because all parts of the paper, having been
adopted by the House, stand, of course, unless altered or struck out by
a vote. Even if they are opposed to the whole paper, and think it cannot
be made good by amendments, they cannot reject it, but must report it
back to the House without amendments, and there make their opposition.
The natural order in considering and amending any paper is, to begin at
the beginning, and proceed through it by paragraphs; and this order is
so strictly adhered to in Parliament, that when a latter part has been
amended, you cannot recur back and make any alteration in a former part.
_2 Hats._, 90. In numerous assemblies this restraint is doubtless
important. [But in the Senate of the United States, though in the main
we consider and amend the paragraphs in their natural order, yet
recurrences are indulged; and they seem, on the whole, in that small
body, to produce advantages overweighing their inconveniences.]
To this natural order of beginning at the beginning, there is a single
exception found in parliamentary usage. When a bill is taken up in
committee, or on its second reading, they postpone the preamble till the
other parts of the bill are gone through. The reason is, that on
consideration of the body of the bill such alterations may therein be
made as may also occasion the alteration of the preamble. _Scob._, 50;
_7 Grey_, 431.
On this head the following case occurred in the Senate, March 6, 1800: A
resolution which had no preamble having been already amended by the
House so that a few words only of the original remained in it, a motion
was made to prefix a preamble, which having an aspect very different
from the resolution, the mover intimated that he should afterwards
propose a correspondent amendment in the body of the resolution. It was
objected that a preamble could not be taken up till the body of the
resolution is done with; but the preamble was received, because we are
in fact through the body of the resolution; we have amended that as far
as amendments have been offered, and, indeed, till little of the
original is left. It is the proper time, therefore, to consider a
preamble; and whether the one offered be consistent with the resolution
is for the House to determine. The mover, indeed, has intimated that he
shall offer a subsequent proposition for the body of the resolution; but
the House is not in possession of it; it remains in his breast, and may
be withheld. The rules of the House can only operate on what is before
them. [The practice of the Senate, too, allows recurrences backward and
forward for the purposes of amendment, not permitting amendments in a
subsequent, to preclude those in a prior part, or _e converso_.]
When the committee is through the whole, a member moves that the
committee may rise, and the chairman report the paper to the House, with
or without amendments, as the case may be. _2 Hats._, 289, 292; _Scob._,
53; _2 Hats._, 290; _8 Scob._, 50.
When a vote is once passed in a committee, it cannot be altered but by
the House, their votes being binding on themselves. 1607, _June 4_.
The committee may not erase, interline, or blot the bill itself; but
must, in a paper by itself, set down the amendments, stating the words
which are to be inserted or omitted, _Scob._, 50, and where, by
references to page, line, and word of the bill. _Scob._, 50.
SEC. XXVII.—REPORT OF COMMITTEE.
The chairman of the committee, standing in his place, informs the House
that the committee to whom was referred such a bill, have, according to
order, had the same under consideration, and have directed him to report
the same without any amendment, or with sundry amendments (as the case
may be), which he is ready to do when the House pleases to receive it.
And he or any other may move that it be now received; but the cry of
“now, now,” from the House, generally dispenses with the formality of a
motion and question. He then reads the amendments, with the coherence in
the bill, and opens the alterations and the reasons of the committee for
such amendments, until he has gone through the whole. He then delivers
it at the Clerk’s table, where the amendments reported are read by the
Clerk without the coherence; whereupon the papers lie upon the table
till the House, at its convenience, shall take up the report. _Scob._,
52; _Hakew._, 148.
The report being made, the committee is dissolved, and can act no more
without a new power. _Scob._, 51. But it may be revived by a vote, and
the same matter recommitted to them. _4 Grey_, 361.
SEC. XXVIII.—BILL, RECOMMITMENT.
After a bill has been committed and reported, it ought not, in an
ordinary course, to be recommitted; but in cases of importance, and for
special reasons, it is sometimes recommitted, and usually to the same
committee. _Hakew._, 151. If a report be recommitted before agreed to in
the House, what has passed in committee is of no validity; the whole
question is again before the committee, and a new resolution must be
again moved, as if nothing had passed. _3 Hats._, 131—_note_.
In Senate, January, 1800, the salvage bill was recommitted three times
after the commitment.
A particular clause of a bill may be committed without the whole bill,
_3 Hats._, 131; or so much of a paper to one and so much to another
committee.
SEC. XXIX.—BILL, REPORTS TAKEN UP.
When the report of a paper originating with a committee is taken up by
the House, they proceed exactly as in committee. Here, as in committee,
when the paragraphs have, on distinct questions, been agreed to
_seriatim_, _5 Grey_, 366; _6 Grey_, 368; _8 Grey_, 47, 104, 360; _1
Torbuck’s Deb._, 125; _3 Hats._, 348, no question needs be put on the
whole report. _5 Grey_, 381.
On taking up a bill reported with amendments, the amendments only are
read by the Clerk. The Speaker then reads the first, and puts it to the
question, and so on till the whole are adopted or rejected, before any
other amendment be admitted, except it be an amendment to an amendment.
_Elsynge’s Mem._, 53. When through the amendments of the committee, the
Speaker pauses, and gives time for amendments to be proposed in the
House to the body of the bill; as he does also if it has been reported
without amendments: putting no questions but on amendments proposed; and
when through the whole, he puts the question whether the bill shall be
read a third time?
SEC. XXX.—QUASI-COMMITTEE.
If on motion and question the bill be not committed, or if no
proposition for commitment be made, then the proceedings in the Senate
of the United States and in Parliament are totally different. The former
shall be first stated.
[The 25th rule of the Senate says: “All bills on a second reading shall
first be considered by the Senate in the same manner as if the Senate
were in Committee of the Whole before they shall be taken up and
proceeded on by the Senate agreeably to the standing rules, unless
otherwise ordered;” (that is to say, unless ordered to be referred to a
special committee.) And when the Senate shall consider a treaty, bill,
or resolution, as in Committee of the Whole, the Vice-President or
President _pro tempore_ may call a member to fill the chair during the
time the Senate shall remain in Committee of the Whole; and the chairman
(so called) shall, during such time, have the powers of a President _pro
tempore_.]
[The proceeding of the Senate as in a Committee of the Whole, or in
quasi-committee, is precisely as in a real Committee of the Whole,
taking no questions but on amendments. When through the whole, they
consider the quasi-committee as risen, the House resumed without any
motion, question, or resolution to that effect, and the President
reports that “the House, acting as in a Committee of the Whole, have had
under their consideration the bill entitled, &c., and have made sundry
amendments, which he will now report to the House.” The bill is then
before them, as it would have been if reported from a committee, and
questions are regularly to be put again on every amendment; which being
gone through, the President pauses to give time to the House to propose
amendments to the body of the bill, and, when through, puts the question
whether it shall be read a third time?]
[After progress in amending the bill in quasi-committee, a motion may be
made to refer it to a special committee. If the motion prevails, it is
equivalent in effect to the several votes, that the committee rise, the
House resume itself, discharge the Committee of the Whole, and refer the
bill to a special committee. In that case, the amendments already made
fall. But if the motion fails, the quasi-committee stands _in statu
quo_.]
[How far does this 25th rule subject the House, when in quasi-committee,
to the laws which regulate the proceedings of Committees of the Whole?]
The particulars in which these differ from proceedings in the House are
the following: 1. In a committee every member may speak as often as he
pleases. 2. The votes of a committee may be rejected or altered when
reported to the House. 3. A committee, even of the whole, cannot refer
any matter to another committee. 4. In a committee no previous question
can be taken: the only means to avoid an improper discussion is to move
that the committee rise; and if it be apprehended that the same
discussion will be attempted on returning into committee, the House can
discharge them, and proceed itself on the business, keeping down the
improper discussion by the previous question. 5. A committee cannot
punish a breach of order in the House or in the gallery. _9 Grey_, 113.
It can only rise and report it to the House, who may proceed to punish.
[The first and second of these peculiarities attach to the
quasi-committee of the Senate, as every day’s practice proves, and it
seems to be the only ones to which the 25th rule meant to subject them;
for it continues to be a House, and therefore, though it acts in some
respects as a committee, in others it preserves its character as a
House. Thus (3) it is in the daily habit of referring its business to a
special committee. 4. It admits of the previous question. If it did not,
it would have no means of preventing an improper discussion: not being
able, as a committee is, to avoid it by returning into the House, for
the moment it would resume the same subject there, the 25th rule
declares it again a quasi-committee. 5. It would doubtless exercise its
powers as a House on any breach of order. 6. It takes a question by yea
and nay, as the House does. 7. It receives messages from the President
and the other House. 8. In the midst of a debate it receives a motion to
adjourn, and adjourns as a House, not as a committee.]
SEC. XXXI.—BILL, SECOND READING IN THE HOUSE.
In Parliament, after the bill has been read a second time, if on the
motion and question it be not committed, or if no proposition for
commitment be made, the Speaker reads it by paragraphs, pausing between
each, but putting no question but on amendments proposed; and when
through the whole, he puts the question whether it shall be read a third
time? if it came from the other House; or, if originating with
themselves, whether it shall be engrossed and read a third time? The
Speaker reads sitting, but rises to put questions. The Clerk stands
while he reads.
[[99]But the Senate of the United States is so much in the habit of
making many and material amendments at the third reading, that it has
become the practice not to engross a bill till it has passed—an
irregular and dangerous practice; because in this way the paper which
passes the Senate is not that which goes to the other House, and that
which goes to the other House as the act of the Senate, has never been
seen in Senate. In reducing numerous, difficult, and illegible
amendments into the text, the Secretary may, with the most innocent
intentions, commit errors which can never again be corrected.]
The bill being now as perfect as its friends can make it, this is the
proper stage for those fundamentally opposed to make their first attack.
All attempts at earlier periods are with disjointed efforts, because
many who do not expect to be in favor of the bill ultimately, are
willing to let it go on to its perfect state, to take time to examine it
themselves and to hear what can be said for it, knowing that after all
they will have sufficient opportunities of giving it their veto. Its two
last stages, therefore, are reserved for this—that is to say, on the
question whether it shall be engrossed and read a third time? and,
lastly, whether it shall pass? The first of these is usually the most
interesting contest; because then the whole subject is new and engaging,
and the minds of the members having not yet been declared by any trying
vote the issue is the more doubtful. In this stage, therefore, is the
main trial of strength between its friends and opponents, and it
behooves every one to make up his mind decisively for this question, or
he loses the main battle; and accident and management may, and often do,
prevent a successful rallying on the next and last question, whether it
shall pass?
When the bill is engrossed, the title is to be indorsed on the back, and
not within the bill.—_Hakew._, 250.
SEC. XXXII.—READING PAPERS.
Where papers are laid before the House or referred to a committee, every
member has a right to have them once read at the table before he can be
compelled to vote on them; but it is a great though common error to
suppose that he has a right, _toties quoties_, to have acts, journals,
accounts, or papers on the table, read independently of the will of the
House. The delay and interruption which this might be made to produce
evince the impossibility of the existence of such a right. There is,
indeed, so manifest a propriety of permitting every member to have as
much information as possible on every question on which he is to vote,
that when he desires the reading, if it be seen that it is really for
information and not for delay, the Speaker directs it to be read without
putting a question, if no one objects; but if objected to, a question
must be put.—_2 Hats._, 117, 118.
It is equally an error to suppose that any member has a right, without a
question put, to lay a book or paper on the table, and have it read, on
suggesting that it contains matter infringing on the privileges of the
House.—_Ib._
For the same reason, a member has not a right to read a paper in his
place, if it be objected to, without leave of the House. But this rigor
is never exercised but where there is an intentional or gross abuse of
the time and patience of the House.
A member has not a right even to read his own speech, committed to
writing, without leave. This also is to prevent an abuse of time, and
therefore is not refused but where that is intended.—_2 Grey_, 227.
A report of a committee of the Senate on a bill from the House of
Representatives being under consideration: on motion that the report of
the committee of the House of Representatives on the same bill be read
in the Senate, it passed in the negative.—_Feb. 28, 1793._
Formerly, when papers were referred to a committee, they used to be
first read; but of late only the titles, unless a member insists they
shall be read, and then nobody can oppose it.—_2 Hats._, 117.
SEC. XXXIII.—PRIVILEGED QUESTIONS.
[[100] While a question is before the Senate, no motion shall be
received, unless for an amendment, for the previous question, or for
postponing the main question, or to commit it, or to adjourn.—_Rule 8._]
It is no possession of a bill unless it be delivered to the Clerk to
read, or the Speaker reads the title.—_Lex. Parl._, 274; _Elsynge Mem._,
85; _Ord. House of Commons_, 64.
It is a general rule that the question first moved and seconded shall be
first put. _Scob._, 28, 22; _2 Hats._, 81. But this rule gives way to
what may be called privileged questions; and the privileged questions
are of different grades among themselves.
A motion to adjourn simply takes place of all others; for otherwise the
House might be kept sitting against its will, and indefinitely. Yet this
motion cannot be received after another question is actually put, and
while the House is engaged in voting.
Orders of the day take place of all other questions, except for
adjournment—that is to say, the question which is the subject of an
order is made a privileged one, _pro hac vice_. The order is a repeal of
the general rule as to this special case. When any member moves,
therefore, for the order of the day to be read, no further debate is
permitted on the question which was before the House; for if the debate
might proceed, it might continue through the day and defeat the order.
This motion, to entitle it to precedence, must be for the orders
generally, and not for any particular one; and if it be carried on the
question “Whether the House will now proceed to the orders of the day?”
they must be read and proceeded on in the course in which they stand, _2
Hats._, 83; for priority of order gives priority of right, which cannot
be taken away but by another special order.
After these there are other privileged questions, which will require
considerable explanation.
It is proper that every parliamentary assembly should have certain forms
of questions, so adapted as to enable them fitly to dispose of every
proposition which can be made to them. Such are, 1. The previous
question. 2. To postpone indefinitely. 3. To adjourn a question to a
definite day, 4. To lie on the table. 5. To commit. 6. To amend. The
proper occasion for each of these questions should be understood.
1. When a proposition is moved which it is useless or inexpedient now to
express or discuss, the previous question has been introduced for
suppressing for that time the motion and its discussion. _3 Hats._, 188,
189.
2. But as the previous question gets rid of it only for that day, and
the same proposition may recur the next day, if they wish to suppress it
for the whole of that session, they postpone it indefinitely. _3 Hats._,
183. This quashes the proposition for that session, as an indefinite
adjournment is a dissolution, or the continuance of a suit _sine die_ is
a discontinuance of it.
3. When a motion is made which it will be proper to act on, but
information is wanted, or something more pressing claims the present
time, the question or debate is adjourned to such day within the session
as will answer the views of the House. _2 Hats._, 81. And those who have
spoken before may not speak again when the adjourned debate is resumed.
_2 Hats._, 73. Sometimes, however, this has been abusively used by
adjourning it to a day beyond the session, to get rid of it altogether,
as would be done by an indefinite postponement.
4. When the House has something else which claims its present attention,
but would be willing to reserve in their power to take up a proposition
whenever it shall suit them, they order it to lie on their table. It may
then be called for at any time.
5. If the proposition will want more amendment and digestion than the
formalities of the House will conveniently admit, they refer it to a
committee.
6. But if the proposition be well digested, and may need but few and
simple amendments, and especially if these be of leading consequence,
they then proceed to consider and amend it themselves.
The Senate, in their practice, vary from this regular gradation of
forms. Their practice comparatively with that of Parliament stands thus:
FOR THE PARLIAMENTARY: │ THE SENATE USES:
Postponement indefinite,│Postponement to a day beyond the session.
Adjournment, │Postponement to a day within the session.
Lying on the table. │Postponement indefinite.
„ │Lying on the table.
In their eighth rule, therefore, which declares that while a question is
before the Senate no motion shall be received, unless it be for the
previous question, or to postpone, commit, or amend the main question,
the term postponement must be understood according to their broad use of
it, and not in its parliamentary sense. Their rule, then establishes as
privileged questions, the previous question, postponement, commitment,
and amendment.
But it may be asked: Have these questions any privilege among
themselves? or are they so equal that the common principle of the “first
moved first put” takes place among them? This will need explanation.
Their competitions may be as follows:
│In the first, second, and the third
1. Previous question and │ classes, and the first member of the
postpone commit amend │ fourth class, the rule “first moved
│ first put” takes place.
2. Postpone and previous │ „
question commit amend │
3. Commit and previous │ „
question postpone amend │
4. Amend and previous question│ „
postpone commit │
In the first class, where the previous question is first moved, the
effect is peculiar; for it not only prevents the after motion to
postpone or commit from being put to question before it, but also from
being put after it; for if the previous question be decided
affirmatively, to wit, that the main question shall _now_ be put, it
would of course be against the decision to postpone, or commit; and if
it be decided negatively, to wit, that the main question shall not now
be put, this puts the House out of possession of the main question, and
consequently there is nothing before them to postpone or commit. So that
neither voting for nor against the previous question will enable the
advocates for postponing or committing to get at their object. Whether
it may be amended shall be examined hereafter.
Second class. If postponement be decided affirmatively, the proposition
is removed from before the House, and consequently there is no ground
for the previous question, commitment, or amendment; but if decided
negatively, (that it shall not be postponed,) the main question may then
be suppressed by the previous question, or may be committed, or amended.
The third class is subject to the same observations as the second.
The fourth class. Amendment of the main question first moved, and
afterwards the previous question, the question of amendment shall be
first put.
Amendment and postponement competing, postponement is first put, as the
equivalent proposition to adjourn the main question would be in
Parliament. The reason is that the question for amendment is not
suppressed by postponing or adjourning the main question, but remains
before the House whenever the main question is resumed; and it might be
that the occasion for other urgent business might go by, and be lost by
length of debate on the amendment, if the House had it not in their
power to postpone the whole subject.
Amendment and commitment. The question for committing, though last moved
shall be first put; because, in truth, it facilitates and befriends the
motion to amend. _Scobell_ is express: “On motion to amend a bill, any
one may notwithstanding move to commit it, and the question for
commitment shall be first put.” _Scob._, 46.
We have hitherto considered the case of two or more of the privileged
questions contending for privilege between themselves, when both are
moved on the original or main question; but now let us suppose one of
them to be moved, not on the original primary question, but on the
secondary one, _e. g._:
Suppose a motion to postpone, commit, or amend the main question, and
that it be moved to suppress that motion by putting a previous question
on it. This is not allowed: because it would embarrass questions too
much to allow them to be piled on one another several stories high; and
the same result may be had in a more simple way—by deciding against the
postponement, commitment, or amendment. _2 Hats._, 81, 2, 3, 4.
Suppose a motion for the previous question, or commitment or amendment
of the main question, and that it be then moved to postpone the motion
for the previous question, or for commitment or amendment of the main
question. 1. It would be absurd to postpone the previous question,
commitment, or amendment, alone, and thus separate the appendage from
its principal; yet it must be postponed separately from its original, if
at all; because the eighth rule of Senate says that when a main question
is before the House no motion shall be received but to commit, amend, or
pre-question the original question, which is the parliamentary doctrine
also. Therefore the motion to postpone the secondary motion for the
previous question, or for committing or amending, cannot be received. 2.
This is a piling of questions one on another; which, to avoid
embarrassment, is not allowed. 3. The same result may be had more simply
by voting against the previous question, commitment, or amendment.
Suppose a commitment moved of a motion for the previous question, or to
postpone or amend. The first, second, and third reasons, before stated,
all hold good against this.
Suppose an amendment moved to a motion for the previous question.
Answer: The previous question cannot be amended. Parliamentary usage, as
well as the ninth rule of the Senate, has fixed its form to be, “Shall
the main question be now put?”—_i. e._, at this instant; and as the
present instant is but one, it can admit of no modification. To change
it to to-morrow, or any other moment, is without example and without
utility. But suppose a motion to amend a motion for postponement, as to
one day instead of another, or to a special instead of an indefinite
time. The useful character of amendment gives it a privilege of
attaching itself to a secondary and privileged motion: that is, we may
amend a postponement of a main question. So, we may amend a commitment
of a main question, as by adding, for example, “with instructions to
inquire,” &c. In like manner, if an amendment be moved to an amendment,
it is admitted; but it would not be admitted in another degree, to wit,
to amend an amendment to an amendment of a main question. This would
lead to too much embarrassment. The line must be drawn somewhere, and
usage has drawn it after the amendment to the amendment. The same result
must be sought by deciding against the amendment to the amendment, and
then moving it again as it was wished to be amended. In this form it
becomes only an amendment to an amendment.
[When motions are made for reference of the same subject to a select
committee and to a standing committee, the question on reference to the
standing committee shall be first put. _Rule 48._]
[In filling a blank with a sum, the largest sum shall be first put to
the question, by the thirteenth rule of the Senate,[101]] contrary to
the rule of Parliament, which privileges the smallest sum and longest
time. [_5 Grey_, 179; _2 Hats._, 8, 83; _3 Hats._, 132, 133.] And this
is considered to be not in the form of an amendment to the question, but
as alternative or successive originals. In all cases of time or number,
we must consider whether the larger comprehends the lesser, as in a
question to what day a postponement shall be, the number of a committee,
amount of a fine, term of an imprisonment, term of irredeemability of a
loan, or the terminus in quem in any other case; then the question must
begin a maximo. Or whether the lesser includes the greater, as in
questions on the limitation of the rate of interest, on what day the
session shall be closed by adjournment, on what day the next shall
commence, when an act shall commence, or the terminus a quo in any other
case where the question must begin a minimo; the object being not to
begin at that extreme which, and more, being within every man’s wish, no
one could negative it, and yet, if he should vote in the affirmative,
every question for more would be precluded; but at that extreme which
would unite few, and then to advance or recede till you get to a number
which will unite a bare majority. _3 Grey_, 376, 384, 385. “The fair
question in this case is not that to which, and more, all will agree,
but whether there shall be addition to the question.” _1 Grey_, 365.
Another exception to the rule of priority is when a motion has been made
to strike out, or agree to, a paragraph. Motions to amend it are to be
put to the question before a vote is taken on striking out or agreeing
to the whole paragraph.
But there are several questions which, being incidental to every one,
will take place of every one, privileged or not; to wit, a question of
order arising out of any other question must be decided before that
question. _2 Hats._, 88.
A matter of privilege arising out of any question, or from a quarrel
between two members, or any other cause, supersedes the consideration of
the original question, and must be first disposed of. _2 Hats._, 88.
Reading papers relative to the question before the House. This question
must be put before the principal one. _2 Hats._, 88.
Leave asked to withdraw a motion. The rule of Parliament being that a
motion made and seconded is in the possession of the House, and cannot
be withdrawn without leave, the very terms of the rule imply that leave
may be given, and, consequently, may be asked and put to the question.
SEC. XXXIV.—THE PREVIOUS QUESTION.
When any question is before the House, any member may move a previous
question, “Whether that question (called the main question) shall now be
put?” If it pass in the affirmative, then the main question is to be put
immediately, and no man may speak anything further to it, either to add
or alter. _Memor. in Hakew._, 28; _4 Grey_, 27.
The previous question being moved and seconded, the question from the
Chair shall be, “Shall the main question be now put?” and if the nays
prevail, the main question shall not then be put.
This kind of question is understood by Mr. Hatsell to have been
introduced in 1604. _2 Hats._, 80. Sir Henry Vane introduced it. _2
Grey_, 113, 114; _3 Grey_, 384. When the question was put in this form,
“Shall the main question be put?” a determination in the negative
suppressed the main question during the session; but since the words
“now put” are used, they exclude it for the present only; formerly,
indeed, only till the present debate was over, _4 Grey_, 43, but now for
that day and no longer. _2 Grey_, 113, 114.
Before the question “Whether the main question shall now be put?” any
person might formerly have spoken to the main question, because
otherwise he would be precluded from speaking to it at all. _Mem. in
Hakew._, 28.
The proper occasion for the previous question is when a subject is
brought forward of a delicate nature as to high personages, &c., or the
discussion of which may call forth observations which might be of
injurious consequences. Then the previous question is proposed; and in
the modern usage, the discussion of the main question is suspended, and
the debate confined to the previous question. The use of it has been
extended abusively to other cases; but in these it has been an
embarrassing procedure; its uses would be as well answered by other more
simple parliamentary forms, and therefore it should not be favored, but
restricted within as narrow limits as possible.
Whether a main question may be amended after the previous question on it
has been moved and seconded? _2 Hats._, 88, says, if the previous
question has been moved and seconded, and also proposed from the Chair,
(by which he means stated by the Speaker for debate,) it has been
doubted whether an amendment can be admitted to the main question. He
thinks it may, after the previous question moved and seconded; but not
after it has been proposed from the Chair. In this case, he thinks the
friends to the amendment must vote that the main question be not now
put; and then move their amended question, which being made new by the
amendment, is no longer the same which has been just suppressed, and
therefore may be proposed as a new one. But this proceeding certainly
endangers the main question, by dividing its friends, some of whom may
chose it unamended, rather than lose it altogether; while others of them
may vote, as Hatsell advises, that the main question be not now put,
with a view to move it again in an amended form. The enemies of the main
question, by this maneuver to the previous question, get the enemies to
the amendment added to them on the first vote, and throw the friends of
the main question under the embarrassment of rallying again as they can.
To support this opinion, too, he makes the deciding circumstance,
whether an amendment may or may not be made, to be, that the previous
question has been proposed from the Chair. But, as the rule is that the
House is in possession of a question as soon as it is moved and
seconded, it cannot be more than possessed of it by its being also
proposed from the Chair. It may be said, indeed, that the object of the
previous question being to get rid of a question, which it is not
expedient should be discussed, this object may be defeated by moving to
amend; and in the discussion of that motion, involving the subject of
the main question. But so may the object of the previous question be
defeated, by moving the amended question, as Mr. Hatsell proposes, after
the decision against putting the original question. He acknowledges,
too, that the practice has been to admit previous amendments, and only
cites a few late instances to the contrary. On the whole, I should think
it best to decide it ab inconvenienti, to wit: Which is most
inconvenient, to put it in the power of one side of the House to defeat
a proposition by hastily moving the previous question, and thus forcing
the main question to be put unamended; or to put it in the power of the
other side to force on, incidentally at least, a discussion which would
be better avoided? Perhaps the last is the least inconvenience; inasmuch
as the Speaker, by confining the discussion rigorously to the amendment
only, may prevent their going into the main question; and inasmuch also
as so great a proportion of the cases in which the previous question is
called for, are fair and proper subjects of public discussion, and ought
not to be obstructed by a formality introduced for questions of a
peculiar character.
SEC. XXXV.—AMENDMENTS.
On an amendment being moved, a member who has spoken to the main
question may speak again to the amendment. _Scob._, 23.
If an amendment be proposed inconsistent with one already agreed to, it
is a fit ground for its rejection by the House, but not within the
competence of the Speaker to suppress as if it were against order. For
were he permitted to draw questions of consistence within the vortex of
order, he might usurp a negative on important modifications, and
suppress, instead of subserving, the legislative will.
Amendments may be made so as totally to alter the nature of the
proposition; and it is a way of getting rid of a proposition, by making
it bear a sense different from what it was intended by the movers, so
that they vote against it themselves. _2 Hats._, 79; 4, 82, 84. A new
bill may be ingrafted, by way of amendment, on the words “Be it
enacted,” &c. _1 Grey_, 190, 192.
If it be proposed to amend by leaving out certain words, it may be
moved, as an amendment to this amendment, to leave out a part of the
words of the amendment, which is equivalent to leaving them in the bill.
_2 Hats._, 80, 9. The parliamentary question is, always, whether the
words shall stand part of the bill.
When it is proposed to amend by inserting a paragraph, or part of one,
the friends of the paragraph may make it as perfect as they can by
amendments before the question is put for inserting it. If it be
received, it cannot be amended afterward, in the same stage, because the
House has, on a vote, agreed to it in that form. In like manner, if it
is proposed to amend by striking out a paragraph, the friends of the
paragraph are first to make it as perfect as they can by amendments,
before the question is put for striking it out. If on the question it be
retained, it cannot be amended afterward, because a vote against
striking out is equivalent to a vote agreeing to it in that form.
When it is moved to amend by striking out certain words and inserting
others, the manner of stating the question is first to read the whole
passage to be amended as it stands at present, then the words proposed
to be struck out, next those to be inserted, and lastly the whole
passage as it will be when amended. And the question, if desired, is
then to be divided, and put first on striking out. If carried, it is
next on inserting the words proposed. If that be lost, it may be moved
to insert others. _2 Hats._, 80, 7.
A motion is made to amend by striking out certain words and inserting
others in their place, which is negatived. Then it is moved to strike
out the same words and to insert others of a tenor entirely different
from those first proposed. It is negatived. Then it is moved to strike
out the same words and insert nothing, which is agreed to. All this is
admissible, because to strike out and insert A is one proposition. To
strike out and insert B is a different proposition. And to strike out
and insert nothing is still different. And the rejection of one
proposition does not preclude the offering a different one. Nor would it
change the case were the first motion divided by putting the question
first on striking out, and that negatived; for, as putting the whole
motion to the question at once would not have precluded, the putting the
half of it cannot do it.
[The practice in the United States Senate in this respect is now fixed
by the 31st rule, as follows: If the question in debate contains several
points, any Senator may have the same divided; but on a motion to strike
out and insert, it shall not be in order to move for a division of the
question; but the rejection of a motion to strike out and insert one
proposition shall not prevent a motion to strike out and insert a
different proposition, nor prevent a subsequent motion simply to strike
out; nor shall the rejection of a motion simply to strike out prevent a
subsequent motion to strike out and insert.]
But if it had been carried affirmatively to strike out the words and to
insert A, it could not afterward be permitted to strike out A and insert
B. The mover of B should have notified, while the insertion of A was
under debate, that he would move to insert B; in which case those who
preferred it would join in rejecting A.
After A is inserted, however, it may be moved to strike out a portion of
the original paragraph, comprehending A, provided the coherence to be
struck out be so substantial as to make this effectively a different
proposition; for then it is resolved into the common case of striking
out a paragraph after amending it. Nor does anything forbid a new
insertion, instead of A and its coherence.
In Senate, January 25, 1798 a motion to postpone until the second
Tuesday in February some amendments proposed to the Constitution; the
words “until the second Tuesday in February,” were struck out by way of
amendment. Then it was moved to add, “until the first day of June.”
Objected that it was not in order, as the question should be first put
on the longest time; therefore, after a shorter time decided against, a
longer cannot be put to question. It was answered that this rule takes
place only in filling blanks for time. But when a specific time stands
part of a motion, that may be struck out as well as any other part of
the motion; and when struck out, a motion may be received to insert any
other. In fact, it is not until they are struck out, and a blank for the
time thereby produced, that the rule can begin to operate, by receiving
all the propositions for different times, and putting the questions
successively on the longest. Otherwise it would be in the power of the
mover, by inserting originally a short time, to preclude the possibility
of a longer; for till the short time is struck out, you cannot insert a
longer; and if, after it is struck out, you cannot do it, then it cannot
be done at all. Suppose the first motion had been made to amend by
striking out “the second Tuesday in February,” and inserting instead
thereof “the first of June,” it would have been regular, then, to divide
the question, by proposing first the question to strike out and then
that to insert. Now this is precisely the effect of the present
proceeding; only, instead of one motion and two questions, there are two
motions and two questions to effect it—the motions being divided as well
as the question.
When the matter contained in two bills might be better put into one, the
manner is to reject the one, and incorporate its matter into another
bill by way of amendment. So if the matter of one bill would be better
distributed into two, any part may be struck out by way of amendment,
and put into a new bill. If a section is to be transposed, a question
must be put on striking it out where it stands and another for inserting
it in the place desired.
A bill passed by the one House with blanks. These may be filled up by
the other by way of amendments, returned to the first as such, and
passed. _3 Hats._, 83.
The number prefixed to the section of a bill, being merely a marginal
indication, and no part of the text of the bill, the Clerk regulates
that—the House or committee is only to amend the text.
SEC. XXXVI.—DIVISION OF THE QUESTION.
If a question contains more parts than one, it may be divided into two
or more questions. _Mem. in Hakew._, 29. But not as the right of an
individual member, but with the consent of the House. For who is to
decide whether a question is complicated or not—where it is
complicated—into how many propositions it may be divided? The fact is
that the only mode of separating a complicated question is by moving
amendments to it; and these must be decided by the House, on a question,
unless the House orders it to be divided; as, on the question, December
2, 1640, making void the election of the knights for Worcester, on a
motion it was resolved to make two questions of it, to wit, one on each
knight. _2 Hats._, 85, 86. So, wherever there are several names in a
question, they may be divided and put one by one.
_9 Grey_, 444. So, 1729, April 17, on an objection that a question was
complicated, it was separated by amendment. _2 Hats._, 79.
The soundness of these observations will be evident from the
embarrassments produced by the twelfth rule of the Senate, which says,
“if the question in debate contains several points, any member may have
the same divided.”
1798, May 30, the alien bill in quasi-committee. To a section and
proviso in the original, had been added two new provisos by way of
amendment. On a motion to strike out the section as amended, the
question was desired to be divided. To do this it must be put first on
striking out either the former proviso, or some distinct member of the
section. But when nothing remains but the last member of the section and
the provisos, they cannot be divided so as to put the last member to
question by itself; for the provisos might thus be left standing alone
as exceptions to a rule when the rule is taken away; or the new provisos
might be left to a second question, after having been decided on once
before at the same reading, which is contrary to rule. But the question
must be on striking out the last member of the section as amended. This
sweeps away the exceptions with the rule, and relieves from
inconsistence. A question to be divisible must comprehend points so
distinct and entire that one of them being taken away, the other may
stand entire. But a proviso or exception, without an enacting clause,
does not contain an entire point or proposition.
May 31.—The same bill being before the Senate. There was a proviso that
the bill should not extend—1. To any foreign minister; nor, 2. To any
person to whom the President should give a passport; nor, 3. To any
alien merchant conforming himself to such regulations as the President
shall prescribe; and a division of the question into its simplest
elements was called for. It was divided into four parts, the 4th taking
in the words “conforming himself,” &c. It was objected that the words
“any alien merchant,” could not be separated from their modifying words,
“conforming,” &c., because these words, if left by themselves, contain
no substantive idea, will make no sense. But admitting that the
divisions of a paragraph into separate questions must be so made as that
each part may stand by itself, yet the House having, on the question,
retained the two first divisions, the words “any alien merchant” may be
struck out, and their modifying words will then attach themselves to the
preceding description of persons, and become a modification of that
description.
When a question is divided, after the question on the 1st member, the 2d
is open to debate and amendment; because it is a known rule that a
person may rise and speak at any time before the question has been
completely decided, by putting the negative as well as the affirmative
side. But the question is not completely put when the vote has been
taken on the first member only. One-half of the question, both
affirmative and negative, remains still to be put. See _Execut. Jour.,
June 25, 1795_. The same decision by President Adams.
SEC. XXXVII.—COEXISTING QUESTIONS.
It may be asked whether the House can be in possession of two motions or
propositions at the same time? so that, one of them being decided, the
other goes to question without being moved anew? The answer must be
special. When a question is interrupted by a vote of adjournment, it is
thereby removed from before the House, and does not stand _ipso facto_
before them at their next meeting, but must come forward in the usual
way. So, when it is interrupted by the order of the day. Such other
privileged questions also as dispose of the main question, (_e. g._, the
previous question, postponement, or commitment,) remove it from before
the House. But it is only suspended by a motion to amend, to withdraw,
to read papers, or by a question of order or privilege, and stands again
before the House when these are decided. None but the class of
privileged questions can be brought forward while there is another
question before the House, the rule being that when a motion has been
made and seconded, no other can be received except it be a privileged
one.
SEC. XXXVIII.—EQUIVALENT QUESTIONS.
If, on a question for rejection, a bill be retained, it passes, of
course, to its next reading. _Hakew._, 141; _Scob._, 42. And a question
for a second reading determined negatively, is a rejection without
further question. _4 Grey_, 149. And see _Elsynge’s Memor._, 42, in what
cases questions are to be taken for rejection.
Where questions are perfectly equivalent, so that the negative of the
one amounts to the affirmative of the other, and leaves no other
alternative, the decision of the one concludes necessarily the other. _4
Grey_, 157. Thus the negative of striking out amounts to the affirmative
of agreeing; and therefore to put a question on agreeing after that on
striking out, would be to put the same question in effect twice over.
Not so in questions of amendments between the two Houses. A motion to
recede being negatived, does not amount to a positive vote to insist,
because there is another alternative, to wit, to adhere. A bill
originating in one House is passed by the other with an amendment. A
motion in the originating House to agree to the amendment is negatived.
Does there result from this vote of disagreement, or must the question
on disagreement be expressly voted? The question respecting amendments
from another House are—1st, to agree; 2d, disagree; 3d, recede; 4th,
insist; 5th, adhere,
│Either of these concludes the other necessarily, for the
1st. To │positive of either is exactly the equivalent of the negative
agree. │of the other, and no other alternative remains. On either
2d. To │motion amendments to the amendment may be proposed; _e. g._,
disagree.│if it be moved to disagree, those who are for the amendment
│have a right to propose amendments, and to make it as perfect
│as they can, before the question of disagreeing is put.
3d. To │
recede. │
4th. To │You may then either insist or adhere.
insist. │
5th. To │
adhere. │
„ │You may then either recede or adhere.
„ │You may then either recede or insist.
│Consequently the negative of these is not equivalent to a
│positive vote, the other way. It does not raise so necessary
„ │an implication as may authorize the Secretary by inference to
│enter another vote; for two alternatives still remain, either
│of which may be adopted by the House.
SEC. XXXIX.—THE QUESTION.
The question is to be put first on the affirmative, and then on the
negative side.
After the Speaker has put the affirmative part of the question, any
member who has not spoken before to the question may rise and speak
before the negative be put; because it is no full question till the
negative part be put. _Scob._, 23; _2 Hats._, 73.
But in small matters, and which are of course, such as receiving
petitions, reports, withdrawing motions, reading papers, &c., the
Speaker most commonly supposes the consent of the House where no
objection is expressed, and does not give them the trouble of putting
the question formally. _Scob._, 22; _2 Hats._, 87; _5 Grey_, 129; _9
Grey_, 301.
SEC. XL.—BILLS, THIRD READING.
To prevent bills from being passed by surprise, the House, by a standing
order, directs that they shall not be put on their passage before a
fixed hour, naming one at which the House is commonly full. _Hakew._,
153.
[The usage of the Senate is, not to put bills on their passage till
noon.]
A bill reported and passed to the third reading, cannot on that day be
read the third time and passed; because this would be to pass on two
readings in the same day.
At the third reading the Clerk reads the bill and delivers it to the
Speaker, who states the title, that it is the third time of reading the
bill, and that the question will be whether it shall pass. Formerly the
Speaker, or those who prepared a bill, prepared also a breviate or
summary statement of its contents, which the Speaker read when he
declared the state of the bill, at the several readings. Sometimes,
however, he read the bill itself, especially on its passage. _Hakew._,
136, 137, 153; _Coke_, 22, 115. Latterly, instead of this, he, at the
third reading, states the whole contents of the bill _verbatim_, only,
instead of reading the formal parts, “Be it enacted,” &c., he states
that “preamble recites so and so—the 1st section enacts that, &c.; the
2d section enacts,” &c.
[But in the Senate of the United States, both of these formalities are
dispensed with; the breviate presenting but an imperfect view of the
bill, and being capable of being made to present a false one; and the
full statement being a useless waste of time, immediately after a full
reading by the Clerk, and especially as every member has a printed copy
in his hand.]
A bill on the third reading is not to be committed for the matter or
body thereof, but to receive some particular clause or proviso, it hath
been sometimes suffered, but as a thing very unusual. _Hakew._, 156.
Thus, 27 _El._, 1584, a bill was committed on the third reading, having
been formerly committed on the second, but is declared not usual.
_D’Ewes_, 337, _col. 2_; 414, _col. 2_.
When an essential provision has been omitted, rather than erase the bill
and render it suspicious, they add a clause on a separate paper,
engrossed and called a rider, which is read and put to the question
three times. _Elsynge’s Memo._, 59; _6 Grey_, 335; _1 Blackst._, 183.
For examples of riders, see _3 Hats._, 121, 122, 124, 156. Every one is
at liberty to bring in a rider without asking leave. _10 Grey_, 52.
It is laid down as a general rule, that amendments proposed at the
second reading shall be twice read, and those proposed at the third
reading thrice read; as also all amendments from the other House.
_Town._, _col. 19, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28_.
It is with great and almost invincible reluctance that amendments are
admitted at this reading, which occasion erasures or interlineations.
Sometimes a proviso has been cut off from a bill; sometimes erased. _9
Grey_, 513.
This is the proper stage for filling up blanks; for if filled up before,
and now altered by erasure, it would be peculiarly unsafe.
At this reading the bill is debated afresh, and for the most part is
more spoken to at this time than on any of the former readings.
_Hakew._, 153.
The debate on the question whether it should be read a third time, has
discovered to its friends and opponents the arguments on which each side
relies, and which of these appear to have influence with the House; they
have had time to meet them with new arguments, and to put their old ones
into new shapes. The former vote has tried the strength of the first
opinion, and furnished grounds to estimate the issue; and the question
now offered for its passage is the last occasion which is ever to be
offered for carrying or rejecting it.
When the debate is ended, the Speaker, holding the bill in his hand,
puts the question for its passage, by saying, “Gentlemen, all you who
are of opinion that this bill shall pass, say aye;” and after the answer
of the ayes, “All those of the contrary opinion, say no.” _Hakew._, 154.
After the bill is passed, there can be no further alteration of it in
any point. _Hakew._, 159.
SEC. XLI.—DIVISION OF THE HOUSE.
The affirmative and negative of the question having been both put and
answered, the Speaker declares whether the yeas or nays have it by the
sound, if he be himself satisfied, and it stands as the judgment of the
House. But if he be not himself satisfied which voice is the greater, or
if before any other member comes into the House, or before any new
motion made, (for it is too late after that,) any member shall rise and
declare himself dissatisfied with the Speaker’s decision, then the
Speaker is to divide the House. _Scob._, 24; _2 Hats._, 140.
When the House of Commons is divided, the one party goes forth, and the
other remains in the House. This has made it important which go forth
and which remain; because the latter gain all the indolent, the
indifferent, and inattentive. Their general rule, therefore, is, that
those who give their vote for the preservation of the orders of the
House shall stay in; and those who are for introducing any new matter or
alteration, or proceeding contrary to the established course, are to go
out. But this rule is subject to many exceptions and modifications. _2
Hats._, 134; _1 Rush._, _p. 3_, _fol. 92_; _Scob._, 43, 52; _Co._, 12,
116; _D’Ewes_, 505, _col. 1_; _Mem. in Hakew._, 25, 29; as will appear
by the following statement of who go forth:
Petition that it be received │Ayes.
Read │ „
Lie on the table │Noes.
Rejected after refusal to lie on table │ „
Referred to a committee, for further proceeding │Ayes.
Bill, that it be brought in │Ayes.
Read first or second time │ „
Engrossed or read third time │ „
Proceeding on every other stage │ „
Committed │ „
To Committee of the whole │Noes.
To a select committee │Ayes.
Report of bill to lie on table │Noes.
│Ayes.
Be _now_ read │30, P.J.
│251.
Be taken into consideration three months hence │ „ „
Amendments to be read a second time │Noes.
Clause offered on report of bill to be read second time │Ayes.
For receiving a clause │ „ 334.
With amendments be engrossed │ „ 395.
That a bill be _now_ read a third time │Noes. 398.
Receive a rider │Ayes. 260.
Pass │ „ 259.
Be printed │ „ „
Committees. That A take the chair │Noes. 291.
To agree to the whole or any part of report │ „ „
That the House do _now_ resolve into committee │ „ „
Speaker. That he now leave the chair, after order to go into│ „ „
committee │
That he issue warrant for a new writ │ „ „
Member. That none be absent without leave │ „ „
Witness. That he be further examined │Ayes. 344.
Previous question │Noes.
Blanks. That they be filled with the largest sum. │Ayes.
Amendments. That words stand part of │ „
Lords. That their amendment be read a second time │Noes.
Messenger be received │Ayes.
Orders of day to be now read, if before 2 o’clock │ „
If after 2 o’clock │Noes.
Adjournment. Till the next sitting day, if before 4 o’clock │Ayes.
If after 4 o’clock │Noes.
Over a sitting day, (unless a previous resolution.) │Ayes.
Over the 30th of January │Noes.
For sitting on Sunday, or any other day not being a sitting │Ayes.
day │
The one party being gone forth, the Speaker names two tellers from the
affirmative and two from the negative side, who first count those
sitting in the House and report the number to the Speaker. Then they
place themselves within the door, two on each side, and count those who
went forth as they come in, and report the number to the Speaker. _Mem.
in Hakew._, 26.
A mistake in the report of the tellers may be rectified after the report
made. _2 Hats._, 145, _note_.
[But in both Houses of Congress all these intricacies are avoided. The
ayes first rise, and are counted standing in their places by the
President or Speaker. Then they sit, and the noes rise and are counted
in like manner.]
[In Senate, if they be equally divided, the Vice-President announces his
opinion, which decides.]
[The Constitution, however, has directed that “the yeas and nays of the
members of either House on any question, shall at the desire of
one-fifth of those present, be entered on the journal.” And again: that
in all cases of reconsidering a bill disapproved by the President, and
returned with is objections, “the votes of both Houses shall be
determined by yeas and nays, and the names of persons voting for and
against the bill shall be entered on the journals of each House
respectively.”]
[By the 16th and 17th rules of the Senate, when the yeas and nays shall
be called for by one-fifth of the members present, each member called
upon shall, unless for special reasons he be excused by the Senate,
declare openly, and without debate, his assent or dissent to the
question. In taking the yeas and nays, and upon the call of the House,
the names of the members shall be taken alphabetically.]
[When the yeas and nays shall be taken upon any question in pursuance of
the above rule, no member shall be permitted, under any circumstances
whatever, to vote after the decision is announced from the Chair.]
[When it is proposed to take the vote by yeas and nays, the President or
Speaker states that “the question is whether, _e. g._, the bill shall
pass—that it is proposed that the yeas and nays shall be entered on the
journal. Those, therefore, who desire it, will rise.” If he finds and
declares that one-fifth have risen, he then states that “those who are
of opinion that the bill shall pass are to answer in the affirmative;
those of the contrary opinion in the negative.” The Clerk then calls
over the names, alphabetically, note the yea or nay of each, and gives
the list to the President or Speaker, who declares the result. In the
Senate, if there be an equal division, the Secretary calls on the
Vice-President and notes his affirmative or negative, which becomes the
decision of the House.]
In the House of Commons, every member must give his vote the one way or
the other, _Scob._, 24, as it is not permitted to any one to withdraw
who is in the House when the question is put, nor is any one to be told
in the division who was not in when the question was put. _2 Hats._,
140.
This last position is always true when the vote is by yeas and nays;
where the negative as well as affirmative of the question is stated by
the President at the same time, and the vote of both sides begins and
proceeds _pari passu_. It is true also when the question is put in the
usual way, if the negative has also been put; but if it has not, the
member entering, or any other member, may speak, and even propose
amendments, by which the debate may be opened again, and the question be
greatly deferred. And as some who have answered ay may have been changed
by the new arguments, the affirmative must be put over again. If, then,
the member entering may, by speaking a few words, occasion a repetition
of a question, it would be useless to deny it on his simple call for it.
While the House is telling, no member may speak or move out of his
place; for if any mistake be suspected, it must be told again. _Mem. in
Hakew._, 26; _2 Hats._, 143.
If any difficulty arises in point of order during the division, the
speaker is to decide peremptorily, subject to the future censure of the
House if irregular. He sometimes permits old experienced members to
assist him with their advice, which they do sitting in their seats,
covered, to avoid the appearance of debate; but this can only be with
the Speaker’s leave, else the division might last several hours. _2
Hats._, 143.
The voice of the majority decides; for the _lex majoris partis_ is the
law of all councils, elections, &c., where not otherwise expressly
provided. _Hakew._, 93. But if the House be equally divided, _semper
presumatur pro negante_; that is, the former law is not to be changed
but by a majority. _Towns._, _col. 134_.
[But in the Senate of the United States, the Vice-President decides when
the House is divided. _Const. U. S._, I, 3.]
When from counting the House on a division it appears that there is not
a quorum, the matter continues exactly in the state in which it was
before the division, and must be resumed at that point on any future
day. _2 Hats._, 126.
1606, May 1, on a question whether a member having said yea may
afterwards sit and change his opinion, a precedent was remembered by the
Speaker, of Mr. Morris, attorney of the wards, in _39 Eliz._, who in
like case changed his opinion. _Mem. in Hakew._, 27.
SEC. XLII.—TITLES.
After the bill has passed, and not before, the title may be amended, and
is to be fixed by a question; and the bill is then sent to the other
House.
SEC. XLIII.—RECONSIDERATION.
[When a question has been once made and carried in the affirmative or
negative, it shall be in order for any member of the majority to move
for the reconsideration thereof; but no motion for the reconsideration
of any vote shall be in order after a bill, resolution, message, report,
amendment, or motion upon which the vote was taken shall have gone out
of the possession of the Senate announcing their decision; nor shall any
motion for reconsideration be in order unless made on the same day on
which the vote was taken, or within the two next days of actual session
of the Senate thereafter. _Rule 20._]
[1798, Jan. A bill on its second reading being amended, and on the
question whether it shall be read a third time negatived, was restored
by a decision to reconsider that question. Here the votes of negative
and reconsideration, like positive and negative quantities in equation,
destroy one another, and are as if they were expunged from the journals.
Consequently the bill is open for amendment, just so far as it was the
moment preceding the question for the third reading; that is to say, all
parts of the bill are open for amendment except those on which votes
have been already taken in its present stage. So, also, it may be
recommitted.]
[[102]The rule permitting a reconsideration of a question affixing to it
no limitation of time or circumstance, it may be asked whether there is
no limitation? If, after the vote, the paper on which it is passed has
been parted with, there can be no reconsideration; as if a vote has been
for the passage of a bill, and the bill has been sent to the other
House. But where the paper remains, as on a bill rejected; when, or
under what circumstances, does it cease to be susceptible of
reconsideration? This remains to be settled; unless a sense that the
right of reconsideration is a right to waste the time of the House in
repeated agitations of the same question, so that it shall never know
when a question is done with, should induce them to reform this
anomalous proceeding.]
In Parliament a question once carried cannot be questioned again at the
same session, but must stand as the judgment of the House. _Towns._,
_col. 67_; _Mem. in Hakew._, 33. And a bill once rejected, another of
the same substance cannot be brought in again the same session.
_Hakew._, 158; _6 Grey_, 392. But this does not extend to prevent
putting the same question in different stages of a bill; because every
stage of a bill submits the whole and every part of it to the opinion of
the House, as open for amendment, either by insertion or omission,
though the same amendment has been accepted or rejected in a former
stage. So in reports of committees, _e. g._, report of an address, the
same question is before the House, and open for free discussion.
_Towns._, _col. 26_; _2 Hats._, 98, 100, 101. So orders of the House, or
instructions to committees, may be discharged. So a bill, begun in one
House, and sent to the other, and there rejected, may be renewed again
in that other, passed and sent back _Ib._, 92: _3 Hats._, 161. Or if,
instead of being rejected, they read it once and lay it aside or amend
it, and put it off a month, they may order in another to the same
effect, with the same or a different title. _Hakew._, 97, 98.
Divers expedients are used to correct the effects of this rule; as, by
passing an explanatory act, if anything has been omitted or ill
expressed, _3 Hats._, 278, or an act to enforce, and make more effectual
an act, &c., or to rectify mistakes in an act, &c., or a committee on
one bill may be instructed to receive a clause to rectify the mistakes
of another. Thus, June 24, 1685, a clause was inserted in a bill for
rectifying a mistake committed by a clerk in engrossing a bill of
supply. _2 Hats._, 194, 6. Or the session may be closed for one, two,
three or more days, and a new one commenced. But then all matters
depending must be finished, or they fall, and are to begin de novo. _2
Hats._, 94, 98. Or a part of the subject may be taken up by another
bill, or taken up in a different way. _6 Grey_, 304, 316.
And in cases of the last magnitude, this rule has not been so strictly
and verbally observed as to stop indispensable proceedings altogether.
_2 Hats._, 92, 98. Thus when the address on the preliminaries of peace
in 1782 had been lost by a majority of one, on account of the importance
of the question, and smallness of the majority, the same question in
substance, though with some words not in the first, and which might
change the opinion of some members, was brought on again and carried, as
the motives for it were thought to outweigh the objection of form. _2
Hats._, 99, 100.
A second bill may be passed to continue an act of the same session, or
to enlarge the time limited for its execution. _2 Hats._, 95, 98. This
is not in contradiction to the first act.
SEC. XLIV.—BILLS SENT TO THE OTHER HOUSE.
[All bills passed in the Senate shall, before they are sent to the House
of Representatives, be examined by a committee, consisting of three
members, whose duty it shall be to examine all bills, amendments,
resolutions, or motions, before they go out of the possession of the
Senate, and to make report that they are correctly engrossed; which
report shall be entered on the journal. _Rule 34._]
A bill from the other House is sometimes ordered to lie on the table. _2
Hats._, 97.
When bills, passed in one House and sent to the other, are grounded on
special facts requiring proof, it is usual, either by message or at a
conference, to ask the grounds and evidence; and this evidence, whether
arising out of papers, or from the examination of witnesses, is
immediately communicated. _3 Hats._, 48.
SEC. XLV.—AMENDMENTS BETWEEN THE HOUSES.
When either House, _e. g._, the House of Commons, send a bill to the
other, the other may pass it with amendments. The regular progression in
this case is, that the Commons disagree to the amendment; the Lords
insist on it; the Commons insist on their disagreement; the Lords adhere
to their amendment; the Commons adhere to their disagreement. The term
of insisting may be repeated as often as they choose to keep the
question open. But the first adherence by either renders it necessary
for the other to recede or adhere also; when the matter is usually
suffered to fall. _10 Grey_, 148. Latterly, however, there are instances
of their having gone to a second adherence. There must be an absolute
conclusion of the subject somewhere, or otherwise transactions between
the Houses would become endless. _3 Hats._, 268, 270. The term of
insisting, we are told by Sir John Trevor, was then (1679) newly
introduced into parliamentary usage, by the Lords. _7 Grey_, 94. It was
certainly a happy innovation, as it multiplies the opportunities of
trying modifications which may bring the Houses to a concurrence. Either
House, however, is free to pass over the term of insisting, and to
adhere in the first instance; _10 Grey_, 146; but it is not respectful
to the other. In the ordinary parliamentary course, there are two free
conferences, at least, before an adherence. _10 Grey_, 147.
Either House may recede from its amendment and agree to the bill; or
recede from their disagreement to the amendment, and agree to the same
absolutely, or with an amendment; for here the disagreement and receding
destroy one another, and the subject stands as before the agreement.
_Elsynge_, 23, 27; _9 Grey_, 476.
But the House cannot recede from or insist on its own amendment, with an
amendment; for the same reason that it cannot send to the other House an
amendment to its own act after it has passed the act. They may modify an
amendment from the other House by ingrafting an amendment on it, because
they have never assented to it; but they cannot amend their own
amendment, because they have, on the question, passed it in that form.
_9 Grey_, 363; _10 Grey_, 240. In the Senate, March 29, 1798. Nor where
one House has adhered to their amendment, and the other agrees with an
amendment, can the first House depart from the form which they have
fixed by an adherence.
In the case of a money bill, the Lords’ proposed amendments, become, by
delay, confessedly necessary. The Commons, however, refused them, as
infringing on their privilege as to money bills; but they offered
themselves to add to the bill a proviso to the same effect, which had no
coherence with the Lords’ amendments; and urged that it was an expedient
warranted by precedent, and not unparliamentary in a case become
impracticable, and irremediable in any other way. _3 Hats._, 256, 266,
270, 271. But the Lords refused, and the bill was lost. _1 Chand._, 288.
A like case, _1 Chand._, 311. So the Commons resolved that it is
unparliamentary to strike out, at a conference, anything in a bill which
hath been agreed and passed by both Houses. _6 Grey_, 274; _1 Chand._,
312.
A motion to amend an amendment from the other House takes precedence of
a motion to agree or disagree.
A bill originating in one House is passed by the other with an
amendment.
The originating House agrees to their amendment with an amendment. The
other may agree to their amendment with an amendment, that being only in
the 2d and not the 3d degree; for, as to the amending House, the first
amendment with which they passed the bill is a part of its text; it is
the only text they have agreed to. The amendment to that text by the
originating House, therefore, is only in the 1st degree, and the
amendment to that again by the amending House is only in the 2d, to wit,
an amendment to an amendment, and so admissible. Just so, when, on a
bill from the originating House, the other, at its second reading, makes
an amendment; on the third reading this amendment is become the text of
the bill, and if an amendment to it be moved, an amendment to that
amendment may also be moved, as being only in the 2d degree.
SEC. XLVI.—CONFERENCES.
It is on the occasion of amendments between the Houses that conferences
are usually asked; but they may be asked in all cases of difference of
opinion between the two Houses on matters depending between them. The
request of a conference, however, must always be by the House which is
possessed of the papers. _3 Hats._, 31; _1 Grey_, 425.
Conferences may be either simple or free. At a conference simply,
written reasons are prepared by the House asking it, and they are read
and delivered, without debate, to the managers of the other House at the
conference; but are not then to be answered. _4 Grey_, 144. The other
House then, if satisfied, vote the reasons satisfactory, or say nothing;
if not satisfied, they resolve them not satisfactory and ask a
conference on the subject of the last conference, where they read and
deliver, in like manner, written answers to those reasons. _3 Grey_,
183. They are meant chiefly to record the justification of each House to
the nation at large, and to posterity, and in proof that the miscarriage
of a necessary measure is not imputable to them. _3 Grey_, 255. At free
conferences, the managers discuss, viva voce and freely, and interchange
propositions for such modifications as may be made in a parliamentary
way, and may bring the sense of the two Houses together. And each party
reports in writing to their respective Houses the substance of what is
said on both sides, and it is entered on their journals. _9 Grey_, 220;
_3 Hats._, 280. This report cannot be amended or altered, as that of a
committee may be. _Journal Senate, May 24, 1796._
A conference may be asked, before the House asking it has come to a
resolution of disagreement, insisting or adhering. _3 Hats._, 269, 341.
In which case the papers are not left with the other conferees, but are
brought back to be the foundation of the vote to be given. And this is
the most reasonable and respectful proceeding; for, as was urged by the
Lords on a particular occasion, “it is held vain, and below the wisdom
of Parliament, to reason or argue against fixed resolutions, and upon
terms of impossibility to persuade.” _3 Hats._, 226. So the Commons say,
“an adherence is never delivered at a free conference, which implies
debate.” _10 Grey_, 137. And on another occasion the Lords made it an
objection that the Commons had asked a free conference after they had
made resolutions of adhering. It was then affirmed, however, on the part
of the Commons, that nothing was more parliamentary than to proceed with
free conferences after adhering, _3 Hats._, 269, and we do in fact see
instances of conference, or of free conference, asked after the
resolution of disagreeing, _3 Hats._, 251, 253, 260, 286, 291, 316, 349;
of insisting, _ib._, 280, 296, 299, 319, 322, 355; of adhering, 269,
270, 283, 300; and even of a second or final adherence. _3 Hats._, 270.
And in all cases of conference asked after a vote of disagreement, &c.,
the conferees of the House asking it are to leave the papers with the
conferees of the other; and in one case where they refused to receive
them, they were left on the table in the conference chamber. _ib._, 271,
317, 323, 354; _10 Grey_, 146.
After a free conference, the usage is to proceed with free conferences,
and not to return again to a conference. _3 Hats._, 270; _9 Grey_, 229.
After a conference denied, a free conference may be asked. _1 Grey_, 45.
When a conference is asked, the subject of it must be expressed, or the
conference not agreed to. _Ord. H Com._, 89; _Grey_, 425; _7 Grey_, 31.
They are sometimes asked to inquire concerning an offense or default of
a member of the other House. _6 Grey_, 181; _1 Chand._, 304. Or the
failure of the other House to present to the King a bill passed by both
Houses, _8 Grey_, 302. Or on information received, and relating to the
safety of the nation. _10 Grey_, 171. Or when the methods of Parliament
are thought by the one House to have been departed from by the other, a
conference is asked to come to a right understanding thereon. _10 Grey_,
148. So when an unparliamentary message has been sent, instead of
answering it, they ask a conference. _3 Grey_, 155. Formerly an address
or articles of impeachment, or a bill with amendments, or a vote of the
House, or concurrence in a vote, or a message from the King, were
sometimes communicated by way of conference. _6 Grey_, 128, 300, 387; _7
Grey_, 80; _8 Grey_, 210, 255; _1 Torbuck’s Deb._, 278; _10 Grey_, 293;
_1 Chandler_, 49, 287. But this is not the modern practice. _8 Grey_,
255.
A conference has been asked after the first reading of a bill. _1 Grey_,
194. This is a singular instance.
SEC. XLVII.—MESSAGES.
Messages between the Houses are to be sent only while both Houses are
sitting. _3 Hats._, 15. They are received during a debate without
adjourning the debate. _3 Hats._, 22.
[In Senate the messengers are introduced in any state of business,
except, 1. While a question is being put. 2. While the yeas and nays are
being called. 3. While the ballots are being counted. _Rule 51._ The
first case is short; the second and third are cases where any
interruption might occasion errors difficult to be corrected. So
arranged June 15, 1798.]
In the House of Representatives, as in Parliament, if the House be in
committee when a messenger attends, the Speaker takes the chair to
receive the message, and then quits it to return into committee, without
any question or interruption. _4 Grey_, 226.
Messengers are not saluted by the members, but by the Speaker for the
House. _2 Grey_, 253, 274.
If messengers commit an error in delivering their message, they may be
admitted or called in to correct their message. _4 Grey_, 41.
Accordingly, March 13, 1800, the Senate having made two amendments to a
bill from the House of Representatives, their Secretary, by mistake,
delivered one only; which being inadmissible by itself, that House
disagreed, and notified the Senate of their disagreement. This produced
a discovery of the mistake. The Secretary was sent to the other House to
correct his mistake, the correction was received, and the two amendments
acted on de novo.
As soon as the messenger, who has brought bills from the other House,
has retired, the Speaker holds the bills in his hand, and acquaints the
House “that the other House have by their messenger sent certain bills,”
and then reads their titles, and delivers them to the Clerk, to be
safely kept till they shall be called for to be read. _Hakew._, 178.
It is not the usage for one House to inform the other by what numbers a
bill is passed. _10 Grey_, 150. Yet they have sometimes recommended a
bill, as of great importance, to the consideration of the House to which
it is sent. _3 Hats._, 25. Nor when they have rejected a bill from the
other House, do they give notice of it; but it passes sub silentio, to
prevent unbecoming altercations. _1 Blackst._, 183.
[But in Congress the rejection is notified by message to the House in
which the bill originated.]
A question is never asked by the one House of the other by way of
message, but only at a conference; for this is an interrogatory, not a
message. _3 Grey_, 151, 181.
When a bill is sent by one House to the other, and is neglected, they
may send a message to remind them of it. _3 Hats._, 25; _5 Grey_, 154.
But if it be mere inattention, it is better to have it done informally
by communications between the Speakers or members of the two Houses.
Where the subject of a message is of a nature that it can properly be
communicated to both Houses of Parliament, it is expected that this
communication should be made to both on the same day. But where a
message was accompanied with an original declaration, signed by the
party to which the message referred, its being sent to one House was not
noticed by the other, because the declaration, being original, could not
possibly be sent to both Houses at the same time. _2 Hats._, 260, 261,
262.
The King having sent original letters to the Commons, afterward desires
they may be returned, that he may communicate them to the Lords. _1
Chandler_, 303.
SEC. XLVIII.—ASSENT.
The House which has received a bill and passed it may present it for the
King’s assent, and ought to do it, though they have not by message
notified to the other their passage of it. Yet the notifying by message
is a form which ought to be observed between the two Houses from motives
of respect and good understanding. _2 Hats._, 242. Were the bill to be
withheld from being presented to the King, it would be an infringement
of the rules of Parliament. _Ib._
[When a bill has passed both Houses of Congress, the House last acting
on it notifies its passage to the other, and delivers the bill to the
Joint Committee of Enrolment, who see that it is truly enrolled in
parchment]. When the bill is enrolled, it is not to be written in
paragraphs, but solidly, and all of a piece, that the blanks between the
paragraphs may not give room for forgery. _9 Grey_, 143. [It is then put
into the hands of the Clerk of the House of Representatives to have it
signed by the Speaker. The Clerk then brings it by way of message to the
Senate to be signed by their President. The Secretary of the Senate
returns it to the Committee of Enrolment, who present it to the
President of the United States. If he approve, he signs, and deposits it
among the rolls in the office of the Secretary of State, and notifies by
message the House in which it originated that he has approved and signed
it; of which that House informs the other by message. If the President
disapproves, he is to return it, with his objections, to that House in
which it shall have originated; who are to enter the objections at large
on their journal, and proceed to reconsider it. If, after such
reconsideration, two-thirds of that House shall agree to pass the bill,
it shall be sent, together with the President’s objections, to the other
House, by which it shall likewise be reconsidered; and if approved by
two-thirds of that House, it shall become a law. If any bill shall not
be returned by the President within ten days (Sundays excepted) after it
shall have been presented to him, the same shall be a law, in like
manner after he had signed it, unless the Congress, by their
adjournment, prevent its return; in which case it shall not be a law.
_Const._, I, 7.]
[Every order, resolution, or vote, to which the concurrence of the
Senate and House of Representatives may be necessary, (except on a
question of adjournment), shall be presented to the President of the
United States, and, before the same shall take effect, shall be approved
by him; or, being disapproved by him, shall be repassed by two-thirds of
the Senate and House of Representatives, according to the rules and
limitations prescribed in the case of a bill. _Const._, I, 7.]
SEC. XLIX.—JOURNALS.
[Each House shall keep a journal of its proceedings, and from time to
time publish the same, excepting such parts as may, in their judgment,
require secrecy. _Const._, I, 5.]
[The proceedings of the Senate, when not acting as in a Committee of the
Whole, shall be entered on the journals as concisely as possible, care
being taken to detail a true account of the proceedings. Every vote of
the Senate shall be entered on the journals, and a brief statement of
the contents of each petition, memorial, or paper presented to the
Senate, be also inserted on the journal. _Rule 5._]
[The titles of bills, and such parts thereof, only, as shall be affected
by proposed amendments, shall be inserted on the journals. _Rule 5._]
If a question is interrupted by a vote to adjourn, or to proceed to the
orders of the day, the original question is never printed in the
journal, it never having been a vote, nor introductory to any vote; but
when suppressed by the previous question, the first question must be
stated, in order to introduce and make intelligible the second. _2
Hats._, 83.
So also when a question is postponed, adjourned, or laid on the table,
the original question, though not yet a vote, must be expressed in the
journals; because it makes part of the vote of postponement, adjourning,
or laying it on the table.
Where amendments are made to a question, those amendments are not
printed in the journals, separated from the question; but only the
question as finally agreed to by the House. The rule of entering in the
journals only what the House has agreed to, is founded in great prudence
and good sense; as there may be many questions proposed, which it may be
improper to publish to the world in the form in which they are made. _2
Hats._, 85.
[In both Houses of Congress, all questions whereon the yeas and nays are
desired by one-fifth of the members present, whether decided
affirmatively or negatively, must be entered in the journals. _Const._,
I, 5.]
The first order for printing the votes of the House of Commons was
October 30, 1685. _1 Chandler_, 387.
Some judges have been of opinion that the journals of the House of
Commons are no records, but only remembrances. But this is not law.
_Hob._, 110, 111; _Lex Parl._, 114, 115; _Jour. H. C., Mar. 17, 1592_;
_Hale, Parl._, 105. For the Lords in their House have power of
judicature, the Commons in their House have power of judicature, and
both Houses together have power of judicature; and the book of the Clerk
of the House of Commons is a record, as is affirmed by act of Parl., _6
H_. 8, _c. 16_; _4 Inst._, 23, 24; and every member of the House of
Commons hath a judicial place. _4 Inst._, 15. As records they are open
to every person, and a printed vote of either House is sufficient ground
for the other to notice it. Either may appoint a committee to inspect
the journals of the other, and report what has been done by the other in
any particular case. _2 Hats._, 261; _3 Hats._, 27–30. Every member has
a right to see the journals and to take and publish votes from them.
Being a record, every one may see and publish them. _6 Grey_, 118, 119.
On information of a mis-entry or omission of an entry in the journal, a
committee may be appointed to examine and rectify it, and report it to
the House. _2 Hats._, 194, 1195.
SEC. L.—ADJOURNMENT.
The two Houses of Parliament have the sole, separate, and independent
power of adjourning each their respective Houses. The King has no
authority to adjourn them; he can only signify his desire, and it is in
the wisdom and prudence of either House to comply with his requisition,
or not, as they see fitting. _2 Hats._, 232; _1 Blackst._, 186; _5
Grey_, 122.
[By the Constitution of the United States, a smaller number than a
majority may adjourn from day to day. I, 5. But “neither House, during
the Session of Congress, shall, without the consent of the other,
adjourn for more than three days, nor to any other place than that in
which the two Houses shall be sitting.” I, 5. And in case of
disagreement between them, with respect to the time of adjournment, the
President may adjourn them to such time as he shall think proper.
_Const._, II, 3.]
A motion to adjourn, simply, cannot be amended, as by adding “to a
particular day;” but must be put simply “that this House do now
adjourn;” and if carried in the affirmative, it is adjourned to the next
sitting day, unless it has come to a previous resolution, “that at its
rising it will adjourn to a particular day,” and then the House is
adjourned to that day. _2 Hats._, 82.
Where it is convenient that the business of the House be suspended for a
short time, as for a conference presently to be held, &c., it adjourns
during pleasure; _2 Hats._, 305; or for a quarter of an hour. _5 Grey_,
331.
If a question be put for adjournment, it is no adjournment till the
Speaker pronounces it. _5 Grey_, 137. And from courtesy and respect, no
member leaves his place till the Speaker has passed on.
SEC. LI.—A SESSION.
Parliament have three modes of separation, to wit: by adjournment, by
prorogation or dissolution by the King, or by the efflux of the term for
which they were elected. Prorogation or dissolution constitutes there
what is called a session; provided some act was passed. In this case all
matters depending before them are discontinued, and at their next
meeting are to be taken up _de novo_, if taken up at all. _1 Blackst._,
186. Adjournment, which is by themselves, is no more than a continuance
of the session from one day to another, or for a fortnight, a month,
&c., _ad libitum_. All matters depending remain in _statu quo_, and when
they meet again, be the term ever so distant, are resumed, without any
fresh commencement, at the point at which they were left. _1 Lev._, 165;
_Lex. Parl._, _c. 2_; _1 Ro. Rep._, 29; _4 Inst._, 7, 27, 28; _Hutt._,
61; _1 Mod._, 252; _Ruffh. Jac._, _L. Dict. Parliament_; _1 Blackst._,
186. Their whole session is considered in law but as one day, and has
relation to the first day thereof. _Bro. Abr. Parliament_, 86.
Committees may be appointed to sit during a recess by adjournment, but
not by prorogation. _5 Grey_, 374; _9 Grey_, 350; _1 Chandler_, 50.
Neither House can continue any portion of itself in any parliamentary
function beyond the end of the session, without the consent of the other
two branches. When done, it is by a bill constituting them commissioners
for the particular purpose.
[Congress separate in two ways only, to wit: by adjournment, or
dissolution by the efflux of their time. What, then, constitutes a
session with them? A dissolution certainly closes one session, and the
meeting of the new Congress begins another. The Constitution authorizes
the President “on extraordinary occasions, to convene both Houses, or
either of them.” I, 3. If convened by the President’s proclamation, this
must begin a new session, and of course determine the preceding one to
have been a session. So if it meets under the clause of the
Constitution, which says, “the Congress shall assemble at least once in
every year, and such meeting shall be on the first Monday in December,
unless they shall by law appoint a different day.” I, 4. This must begin
a new session; for even if the last adjournment was to this day, the act
of adjournment is merged in the higher authority of the Constitution,
and the meeting will be under that, and not under their adjournment. So
far we have fixed landmarks for determining sessions. In other cases it
is declared by the joint vote authorizing the President of the Senate
and the Speaker to close the session on a fixed day, which is usually in
the following form: “Resolved by the Senate and House of
Representatives, that the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the
House of Representatives be authorized to close the present session by
adjourning their respective Houses on the —— day of ——.”]
When it was said above that all matters depending before Parliament were
discontinued by the determination of the session, it was not meant for
judiciary cases depending before the House of Lords, such as
impeachments, appeals, and writs of error. These stand continued, of
course, to the next session. _Raym._, 120, 381; _Ruffh. Jac._, _L. D.
Parliament_.
[Impeachments stand, in like manner, continued before the Senate of the
United States.]
SEC. LII.—TREATIES.
[The President of the United States has power, by and with the advice
and consent of the Senate, to make treaties, provided two-thirds of the
Senators present concur. _Const._, II, 2.]
[Resolved, that all confidential communications made by the President of
the United States to the Senate shall be, by the members thereof, kept
secret; and that all treaties which may hereafter be laid before the
Senate shall also be kept secret, until the Senate shall, by their
resolution, take off the injunction of secrecy. _Rule 67._[103]]
[Treaties are legislative acts. A treaty is the law of the land. It
differs from other laws only as it must have the consent of a foreign
nation, being but a contract with respect to that nation. In all
countries, I believe, except England, treaties are made by the
legislative power; and there, also, if they touch the laws of the land,
they must be approved by Parliament. Ware _v._ Hylton, _3 Dallas’s
Rep._, 223. It is acknowledged, for instance, that the King of Great
Britain cannot by a treaty make a citizen of an alien. _Vattel_, _b. 1_,
_c. 19_, _sec. 214_. An act of Parliament was necessary to validate the
American treaty of 1783. And abundant examples of such acts can be
cited. In the case of the treaty of Utrecht, in 1712, the commercial
articles required the concurrence of Parliament; but a bill brought in
for that purpose was rejected. France, the other contracting party,
suffered these articles, in practice, to be not insisted on, and adhered
to the rest of the treaty. _4 Russell’s Hist. Mod. Europe_, 457; _2
Smollet_, 242, 246.]
[By the Constitution of the United States this department of legislation
is confined to two branches only of the ordinary legislature—the
President originating and the Senate having a negative. To what subjects
this power extends has not been defined in detail by the Constitution;
nor are we entirely agreed among ourselves. 1. It is admitted that it
must concern the foreign nation party to the contract, or it would be a
mere nullity, res inter alias acta. 2. By the general power to make
treaties, the Constitution must have intended to comprehend only those
subjects which are usually regulated by treaty, and cannot be otherwise
regulated. 3. It must have meant to except out of these the rights
reserved to the States; for surely the President and Senate cannot do by
treaty what the whole Government is interdicted from doing in any way.
4. And also to except those subjects of legislation in which it gave a
participation to the House of Representatives. This last exception is
denied by some on the ground that it would leave very little matter for
the treaty power to work on. The less the better, say others. The
Constitution thought it wise to restrain the Executive and Senate from
entangling and embroiling our affairs with those of Europe. Besides, as
the negotiations are carried on by the Executive alone, the subjecting
to the ratification of the Representatives such articles are within
their participation is no more inconvenient than to the Senate. But the
ground of this exception is denied as unfounded. For examine, _e. g._,
the treaty of commerce with France, and it will be found that, out of
thirty-one articles, there are not more than small portions of two or
three of them which would not still remain as subjects of treaties,
untouched by these exceptions.]
[Treaties being declared, equally with the laws of the United States, to
be the supreme law of the land, it is understood that an act of the
legislature alone can declare them infringed and rescinded. This was
accordingly the process adopted in the case of France in 1798.]
[It has been the usage for the Executive, when it communicates a treaty
to the Senate for their ratification, to communicate also the
correspondence of the negotiators. This having been omitted in the case
of the Prussian treaty, was asked by a vote of the House of February 12,
1800, and was obtained. And in December, 1800, the convention that year
between the United States and France, with the report of the
negotiations by the envoys, but not their instructions, being laid
before the Senate, the instructions were asked for and communicated by
the President.]
[The mode of voting on questions of ratification is by nominal call.]
[Whenever a treaty shall be laid before the Senate for ratification, it
shall be read a first time for information only; when no motion to
reject, ratify, or modify the whole or any part, shall be received. Its
second reading shall be for consideration, and on a subsequent day, when
it shall be taken up as in a Committee of the Whole, and every one shall
be free to move a question on any particular article in this form: “Will
the Senate advise and consent to the ratification of this article?” or
to propose amendments thereto, either by inserting or by leaving out
words, in which last case the question shall be, “Shall the words stand
part of the article?” And in every of the said cases the concurrence of
two-thirds of the Senators present shall be requisite to decide
affirmatively. And, when through the whole, the proceedings shall be
stated to the House, and questions be again severally put thereon, for
confirmation, or new ones proposed, requiring in like manner a
concurrence of two-thirds for whatever is retained or inserted.]
[The votes so confirmed shall, by the House, or a committee thereof, be
reduced into the form of a ratification, with or without modifications,
as may have been decided, and shall be proposed on a subsequent day,
when every one shall again be free to move amendments, either by
inserting or leaving out words; in which last case the question shall
be, “Shall the words stand part of the resolution?” And in both cases
the concurrence of two-thirds shall be requisite to carry the
affirmative; as well as on the final question to advise and consent to
the ratification in the form agreed to. _Rule 69._[104]]
[When any question may have been decided by the Senate, in which
two-thirds of the members present are necessary to carry the
affirmative, any member who voted on that side which prevailed in the
question, may be at liberty to move for a reconsideration; and a motion
for a reconsideration shall be decided by a majority of votes. _Rule
20._]
SEC. LIII.—IMPEACHMENT.
[The House of Representatives shall have the sole power of impeachment.
_Const._, I, 3.]
[The Senate shall have the sole power to try all impeachments. When
sitting for that purpose they shall be on oath or affirmation. When the
President of the United States is tried the Chief Justice shall preside;
and no person shall be convicted without the concurrence of two-thirds
of the members present. Judgment in cases of impeachment shall not
extend further than to removal from office and disqualification to hold
and enjoy any office of honor, trust, or profit under the United States.
But the party convicted shall, nevertheless, be liable and subject to
indictment, trial, judgment, and punishment according to law. _Const._,
I, 3.]
[The President, Vice-President, and all civil officers of the United
States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction
of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors. _Const._,
II, 4.]
[The trial of crimes, except in cases of impeachment, shall be by jury.
_Const._, III, 2.]
These are the provisions of the Constitution of the United States on the
subject of impeachments. The following is a sketch of some of the
principles and practices of England on the same subject:
Jurisdiction. The Lords cannot impeach any to themselves, nor join in
the accusation, because they are the judges. _Seld. Judic. in Parl._,
12, 63. Nor can they proceed against a commoner but on complaint of the
Commons. _Ib._, 84. The Lords may not, by the law, try a commoner for a
capital offense, on the information of the King or a private person,
because the accused is entitled to a trial by his peers generally; but
on accusation by the House of Commons, they may proceed against the
delinquent, of whatsoever degree, and whatsoever be the nature of the
offense; for there they do not assume to themselves trial at common law.
The Commons are then instead of a jury, and the judgment is given on
their demand, which is instead of a verdict. So the Lords do only judge,
but not try the delinquent. _Ib._, 6, 7. But Wooddeson denies that a
commoner can now be charged capitally before the Lords, even by the
Commons; and cites Fitzharris’s case, 1681, impeached of high treason,
where the Lords remitted the prosecution to the inferior court. _8
Grey’s Deb._, 325–7; _2 Wooddeson_, 576, 601; _3 Seld._, 1604, 1610,
1618, 1619, 1641; _4 Blackst._, 257; _9 Seld._, 1656.
Accusation. The Commons, as the grand inquest of the nation, become
suitors for penal justice. _2 Wood._, 597; _6 Grey_, 356. The general
course is to pass a resolution containing a criminal charge against the
supposed delinquent, and then to direct some member to impeach him by
oral accusation, at the bar of the House of Lords, in the name of the
Commons. The person signifies that the articles will be exhibited, and
desires that the delinquent may be sequestered from his seat, or be
committed, or that the peers will take order for his appearance.
_Sachev. Trial_, 325; _2 Wood._, 602, 605; _Lords’ Journ., 3 June,
1701_; _1 Wms._, 616; _6 Grey_, 324.
Process. If the party do not appear, proclamations are to be issued,
giving him a day to appear. On their return they are strictly examined.
If any error be found in them, a new proclamation issues, giving a short
day. If he appear not, his goods may be arrested, and they may proceed.
_Seld. Jud._, 98, 99.
Articles. The accusation (articles) of the Commons is substituted in
place of an indictment. Thus, by the usage of Parliament, in impeachment
for writing or speaking, the particular words need not be specified.
_Sach. Tr._, 325; _2 Wood._, 602, 605; _Lords’ Journ., 3 June, 1701_; _1
Wms._, 616.
Appearance. If he appear, and the case be capital, he answers in
custody; though not if the accusations be general. He is not to be
committed but on special accusations. If it be for a misdemeanor only,
he answers, a lord in his place, a commoner at the bar, and not in
custody, unless, on the answer, the Lords find cause to commit him, till
he find sureties to attend, and lest he should fly. _Seld. Jud._, 98,
99. A copy of the articles is given him and a day fixed for his answer.
_T. Ray._; _1 Rushw._, 268; _Fost._, 232; _1 Clar. Hist of the Reb._,
379. On a misdemeanor, his appearance may be in person, or he may answer
in writing, or by attorney. _Seld. Jud._, 100. The general rule on
accusation for a misdemeanor is, that in such a state of liberty or
restraint as the party is when the Commons complain of him, in such he
is to answer. _Ib._, 101. If previously committed by the Commons, he
answers as a prisoner. But this may be called in some sort judicium
parium suorum. _Ib._ In misdemeanors the party has a right to counsel by
the common law, but not in capital cases. _Seld. Jud._, 102, 105.
Answer. The answer need not observe great strictness of form. He may
plead guilty as to part, and defend as to the residue; or, saving all
exceptions, deny the whole or give a particular answer to each article
separately. _1 Rush._, 274; _2 Rush._, 1374; _12 Parl. Hist._, 442; _3
Lords’ Journ., 13 Nov., 1643_; _2 Wood._, 607. But he cannot plead a
pardon in bar to the impeachment. _2 Wood._, 615; _2 St. Tr._, 735.
Replication, rejoinder, &c. There may be a replication, rejoinder, &c.
_Sel. Jud._, 114; _8 Grey’s Deb._, 233; _Sach. Tr._, 15; _Journ. H. of
Commons, 6 March, 1640–1_.
Witnesses. The practice is to swear the witnesses in open House, and
then examine them there; or a committee may be named who shall examine
them in committee, either on interrogatories agreed on in the House, or
such as the committee in their discretion shall demand. _Seld. Jud._,
120, 123.
Jury. In the case of Alice Pierce, _1 R._, 2, a jury was impaneled for
her trial before a committee. _Seld. Jud._, 123. But this was on a
complaint, not on impeachment by the Commons. _Seld. Jud._, 163. It must
also have been for a misdemeanor only, as the Lords spiritual sat in the
case, which they do on misdemeanors, but not in capital cases. _Id._,
148. The judgment was a forfeiture of all her lands and goods. _Id._,
188. This, Selden says, is the only jury he finds recorded in Parliament
for misdemeanors; but he makes no doubt, if the delinquent doth put
himself on the trial of his country, a jury ought to be impaneled, and
he adds that it is not so on impeachment by the Commons; for they are in
loco proprio, and there no jury ought to be impaneled. _Id._, 124. The
Ld. Berkeley, _6 E._, 3, was arraigned for the murder of L. 2, on an
information on the part of the King, and not on impeachment of the
Commons; for then they had been patria sua. He waived his peerage and
was tried by a jury of Gloucestershire and Warwickshire. _Id._, 125. In
1 H., 7, the Commons protest that they are not to be considered as
parties to any judgment given or hereafter to be given in Parliament.
_Id._, 133. They have been generally and more justly considered, as is
before stated, as the grand jury; for the conceit of Selden is certainly
not accurate, that they are the patria sua of the accused, and that the
Lords do only judge, but not try. It is undeniable that they do try; for
they examine witnesses as to the facts, and acquit or condemn, according
to their own belief of them. And Lord Hale says, “the peers are judges
of law as well as of fact”; _2 Hale, P. C._, 275; consequently of fact
as well as of law.
Presence of Commons. The Commons are to be present at the examination of
witnesses. _Seld. Jud._, 124. Indeed, they are to attend throughout,
either as a committee of the whole House, or otherwise, at discretion,
appoint managers to conduct the proofs. _Rushw. Tr. of Straff._, 37;
_Com. Journ., 4 Feb., 1709–10_; _2 Wood._, 614. And judgment is not to
be given till they demand it. _Seld. Jud._, 124. But they are not to be
present on impeachment when the Lords consider of the answer or proofs
and determine of their judgment. Their presence, however, is necessary
at the answer and judgment in cases capital, _Id._ 58, 159 as well as
not capital; 162. The Lords debate the judgment among themselves. Then
the vote is first taken on the question of guilty or not guilty; and if
they convict, the question, or particular sentence, is out of that which
seemeth to be most generally agreed on. _Seld. Jud._, 167; _2 Wood._,
612.
Judgment. Judgments in Parliament, for death, have been strictly guided
per legem terræ, which they cannot alter; and not at all according to
their discretion. They can neither omit any part of the legal judgment,
nor add to it. Their sentence must be secundum, non ultra legem. _Seld.
Jud._, 168, 171. This trial, though it varies in external ceremony, yet
differs not in essentials from criminal prosecutions before inferior
courts. The same rules of evidence, the same legal notion of crimes and
punishments, prevailed; for impeachments are not framed to alter the
law, but to carry it into more effectual execution against too powerful
delinquents. The judgment, therefore, is to be such as is warranted by
legal principles or precedents. _6 Sta. Tr._, 14; _2 Wood._, 611. The
Chancellor gives judgment in misdemeanors; the Lord High Steward
formerly in cases of life and death. _Seld. Jud._, 180. But now the
Steward is deemed not necessary. _Fost._, 144; _2 Wood._, 613. In
misdemeanors the greatest corporal punishment hath been imprisonment.
_Seld. Jud._, 184. The King’s assent is necessary in capital judgments,
(but _2 Wood._, 614, contra,) but not in misdemeanors. _Seld. Jud._,
136.
Continuance. An impeachment is not discontinued by the dissolution of
Parliament, but may be resumed by the new Parliament. _T. Ray._, 383; _4
Com. Journ., 23 Dec., 1790_; _Lords’ Jour., May 15, 1791_; _2 Wood._,
618.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
AMERICAN POLITICS.
BOOK V.
TABULATED HISTORY OF THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT.
_ESTIMATE of VALUES of FOREIGN COINS._
─────────────┬────────────────┬───────────────┬──────┬────────────────
Country. │ Monetary unit. │ Standard │Value │ Standard coin
│ │ │ in │
│ │ │United│
│ │ │States│
│ │ │money.│
─────────────┼────────────────┼───────────────┼──────┼────────────────
Austria │Florin │Silver │ $0│
│ │ │ 40.6│
Belgium │Franc │Gold and silver│ 19.3│5, 10, and 20
│ │ │ │ francs.
Bolivia │Boliviano │Silver │ 82.3│Boliviano.
Brazil │Milreis of 1,000│Gold │ 54.6│
│ reis │ │ │
British │Dollar │do │ 1 00│
Possessions│ │ │ │
in North │ │ │ │
America. │ │ │ │
Chili │Peso │Gold and silver│ 91.2│Condor,
│ │ │ │ doubloon, and
│ │ │ │ escudo.
Cuba │do │do │ 93.2│¹⁄₁₆, ⅛, ¼, ½,
│ │ │ │ and 1
│ │ │ │ doubloon.
Denmark │Crown │Gold │ 26.8│10 and 20
│ │ │ │ crowns.
Ecuador │Peso │Silver │ 82.3│Peso.
Egypt │Piaster │Gold │ 04.9│5, 10, 25, 50,
│ │ │ │ and 100
│ │ │ │ piasters.
France │Franc │Gold and silver│ 19.3│5, 10, and 20
│ │ │ │ francs.
Great Britain│Pound Sterling │Gold │ 4│½ sovereign and
│ │ │ 86.6½│ sovereign.
Greece │Drachma │Gold and silver│ 19.3│5, 10, 20, 50,
│ │ │ │ and 100
│ │ │ │ drachmas.
German Empire│Mark │Gold │ 23.8│5, 10, and 20
│ │ │ │ marks.
Hayti │Gourde │Gold and silver│ 96.5│1, 2, 5, and 10
│ │ │ │ gourdes.
India │Rupee of 16 │Silver │ 39│
│ annas │ │ │
Italy │Lira │Gold and silver│ 19.3│5, 10, 20, 50,
│ │ │ │ and 100 lire.
Japan │Yen │Silver │ 88.7│1, 2, 5, 10, and
│ │ │ │ 20 yen; gold
│ │ │ │ and silver
│ │ │ │ yen.
Liberia │Dollar │Gold │ 1 00│
Mexico │do │Silver │ 89.4│Peso or dollar
│ │ │ │ 5, 10, 25, and
│ │ │ │ 50 centavo.
Netherlands │Florin │Gold and silver│ 40.2│
Norway │Crown │Gold │ 26.8│10 and 20
│ │ │ │ crowns.
Peru │Sol │Silver │ 82.3│Sol.
Portugal │Milreis of 1,000│Gold │ 1 08│2, 5, and 10
│ reis │ │ │ milreis.
Russia │Rouble of 100 │Silver │ 65.8│¼, ½, and 1
│ copecks │ │ │ rouble.
Sandwich │Dollar │Gold │ 1 00│
Islands │ │ │ │
Spain │Peseta of 100 │Gold and silver│ 19.3│5, 10, 20, 60,
│ centimes │ │ │ and 100
│ │ │ │ pesetas.
Sweden │Crown │Gold │ 26.8│10 and 20
│ │ │ │ crowns.
Switzerland │Franc │Gold and silver│ 19.3│5, 10, and 20
│ │ │ │ francs.
Tripoli │Mahbub of 20 │Silver │ 74.3│
│ piasters │ │ │
Turkey │Piaster │Gold │ 04.4│25, 50, 100,
│ │ │ │ 250, and 500
│ │ │ │ piasters.
United States│Peso │Silver │ 82.3│Peso.
of Colombia│ │ │ │
Venezuela │Bolivar │Gold and silver│ 19.3│5, 10, 20, 50,
│ │ │ │ and 100
│ │ │ │ Bolivar.
─────────────┴────────────────┴───────────────┴──────┴────────────────
INTEREST LAWS OF ALL THE STATES AND TERRITORIES IN THE UNITED STATES.
STATES & PENALTY OF USURY. LEGAL. SPECIAL.
TERRITORIES.
Alabama Loss of interest 8%
Arizona No penalty 10 No limit.
Arkansas Forfeiture of principal and 6 No limit.
interest
California No penalty 10 No limit.
Colorado No penalty 10 No limit.
Connecticut Forfeiture of all interest 6 No limit.
Dakota Forfeiture of contract 7 18%
Delaware Forfeiture of contract 6 6
District of Columbia Forfeiture of all interest 6 10
Florida No penalty 8 No limit.
Georgia Forfeiture of excess 7 12
Idaho[105] $300 fine, or imprisonment six 10 24
months, or both
Illinois Forfeiture of all interest 6 8
Indiana Forfeiture of interest and costs 6 10
Iowa Forfeiture of interest and costs 6 10
Kansas Forfeiture of excess over 12% 7 12
Kentucky Forfeiture of all interest 6 8
Louisiana Forfeiture of interest 5 8
Maine No penalty 6 No limit.
Maryland Forfeiture of excess 6 6
Massachusetts No penalty; 6% on judgments 6 No limit.
Michigan Forfeiture of excess 7 10
Minnesota Forfeiture of excess over 7% 7 12
Mississippi No penalty 6 No limit.
Missouri Forfeiture of all interest 6 10
Montana No penalty 10
Nebraska Forfeiture of all interest and 10 12
costs
Nevada No penalty 10 No limit.
New Hampshire Forfeit of three times interest 6 6
received
New Jersey Forfeit of all interest 6 7
New Mexico No penalty 6 12
New York[106] Forfeiture of contract 7 7
North Carolina Forfeiture of double amount of 6% 8%
principal, and $1,000 fine
Ohio Forfeiture of excess 6 8
Oregon Forfeiture of principal, interest 10 12
and costs
Pennsylvania Forfeiture of excess, Act of 1858 6 6
Rhode Island[107] Forfeiture, unless by contract 6 No limit.
South Carolina No penalty 7 No limit.
Tennessee Forfeiture of over 6%, and $100 6 10
fine
Texas No penalty 8 12
Utah No penalty 10 7
Vermont Forfeit of excess on Railroad 6
Bonds only
Virginia Forfeit of excess. No corporation 6 No limit.
can plead usury
Washington Territory No penalty 10 6
West Virginia Forfeit of excess 6 6
Wisconsin Forfeit of all interest 7 10
Wyoming Territory No penalty 10 No limit.
AGGREGATE ISSUES OF PAPER MONEY IN WAR TIMES.
The following table exhibits the amount _per capita_ issued of the
Continental money, the French _assignats_, the Confederate currency, and
the legal-tender greenbacks and National bank notes of the United
States.
───────────────────────┬─────────────────────────┬─────────────┬───────
│ POPULATION. │ AMOUNT │AMOUNT
│ │ ISSUED. │ PER
│ │ │ HEAD.
───────────────────────┼─────────────────────────┼─────────────┼───────
Continental money │3,000,000 in 1780. │ $359,546,825│$119.84
French assignats │26,500,000 (France in │9,115,600,000│ 343.98
│ 1790). │ │
Confederate currency │9,103,332 (11 Confederate│ 654,465,963│ 71.89
│ States, 1860). │ │
Greenbacks and National│31,443,321 (United States│ 750,820,228│ 23.87
bank notes │ in 1860). │ │
Highest amount in │ │ 750,820,228│
circulation, Jan. ’66│ │ │
───────────────────────┴─────────────────────────┴─────────────┴───────
ELECTORAL VOTES FOR PRESIDENTS AND VICE-PRESIDENTS
──────────┬──────────────┬─────┬─────┬───────┬─────┬──────┬─────┬────┬──────
│ CANDIDATES. │Maine│ N. │Vermont│Mass.│ R. │Conn.│ N. │ N.
│ │ │Hamp.│ │ │Island│ │York│Jersey
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼─────┼───────┼─────┼──────┼─────┼────┼──────
1788 │Washington, │ │ 5│ │ 10│ │ 7│ │ 6
│ Va. (Fed.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │John Adams, │ │ 5│ │ 10│ │ 5│ │ 1
│ Mass. (Fed.)│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Scattering │ │ │ │ │ │ 2│ │ 5
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼─────┼───────┼─────┼──────┼─────┼────┼──────
1792 │Washington, │ │ 6│ 4│ 16│ 4│ 9│ 12│ 7
│ Va. (Fed.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │John Adams, │ │ 6│ 4│ 16│ 4│ 9│ │ 7
│ Mass. (Fed.)│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│George │ │ │ │ │ │ │ 12│
„ │ Clinton, N. │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Y. (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼─────┼───────┼─────┼──────┼─────┼────┼──────
1796 │Adams, Mass. │ │ 6│ 4│ 16│ 4│ 9│ 12│ 7
│ (Fed.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Jefferson, Va.│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Pinckney, S. │ │ │ 4│ 13│ │ 4│ 12│ 7
│ C. (Fed) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Burr. N. Y. │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Scattering │ │ 6│ │ 3│ 4│ 5│ │
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼─────┼───────┼─────┼──────┼─────┼────┼──────
1800 │Jefferson, Va.│ │ │ │ │ │ │ 12│
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Adams, Mass. │ │ 6│ 4│ 16│ 4│ 9│ │ 7
│ (Fed.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Burr, N.Y. │ │ │ │ │ sc│ │ 12│
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Pinckney, S. │ │ 6│ 4│ 16│ 3│ 9│ │ 7
│ C. (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼─────┼───────┼─────┼──────┼─────┼────┼──────
1804 Pres.│Jefferson, Va.│ │ 7│ 6│ 19│ 4│ │ 19│ 8
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Pinckney, S. │ │ │ │ │ │ 9│ │
│ C. (Fed.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼─────┼───────┼─────┼──────┼─────┼────┼──────
Vice-Pres.│Clinton, N. Y.│ │ 7│ 6│ 19│ 4│ │ 19│ 8
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │King, N. Y. │ │ │ │ │ │ 9│ │
│ (Fed.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼─────┼───────┼─────┼──────┼─────┼────┼──────
1808 Pres.│Madison, Va. │ │ │ 6│ │ │ │ 13│ 8
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Pinckney, S. │ │ 7│ │ 19│ 4│ 9│ sc│
│ C. (Fed.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼─────┼───────┼─────┼──────┼─────┼────┼──────
Vice-Pres.│Clinton, N. Y.│ │ │ │ │ │ │ 13│ 8
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │King, N. Y. │ │ 7│ sc│ 19│ 4│ 9│ sc│
│ (Fed.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼─────┼───────┼─────┼──────┼─────┼────┼──────
1812 Pres.│Madison, Va. │ │ │ 8│ │ │ │ │
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│De Witt │ │ 8│ │ 22│ 4│ 9│ 29│ 8
„ │ Clinton, N. │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Y. (Cl. │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼─────┼───────┼─────┼──────┼─────┼────┼──────
Vice-Pres.│Gerry, Mass. │ │ 1│ 8│ 2│ │ │ │
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Ingersoll, Pa.│ │ 7│ │ 20│ 4│ 9│ 29│ 8
│ (Cl. Dem) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼─────┼───────┼─────┼──────┼─────┼────┼──────
1816 Pres.│Monroe, Va. │ │ 8│ 8│ │ 4│ │ 29│ 8
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │King, N. Y. │ │ │ │ 22│ │ 9│ │
│ (Fed.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼─────┼───────┼─────┼──────┼─────┼────┼──────
│Daniel D. │ │ 8│ 8│ sc│ 4│ sc│ 29│ 8
Vice-Pres.│ Tompkins, N.│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Y. (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼─────┼───────┼─────┼──────┼─────┼────┼──────
1820 Pres.│James Monroe, │ 9│ 7 sc│ 8│ 15│ 4│ 9│ 29│ 8
│ Va. (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼─────┼───────┼─────┼──────┼─────┼────┼──────
│Daniel D. │ 9│ 7 sc│ 8│ 7 sc│ 4│ 9│ 29│ 8
Vice-Pres.│ Tompkins, N.│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Y. (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼─────┼───────┼─────┼──────┼─────┼────┼──────
1824 Pres.│Jackson, Tenn.│ │ │ │ │ │ │ 1│ 8
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │John Q. Adams,│ 9│ 8│ 7│ 15│ 4│ 8│ 26│
│ Mass. (Fed.)│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Crawford, Ga. │ │ │ │ │ │ │ 5│
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Clay, Ky. │ 8│ │ │ │ │ │ 4│
│ (Whig) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼─────┼───────┼─────┼──────┼─────┼────┼──────
Vice-Pres.│Calhoun, S. C.│ 9│ 7│ 7│ 15│ 3│ │ 29│ 8
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Sanford, N. Y │ │ sc│ │ │ │ sc│ 7│
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼─────┼───────┼─────┼──────┼─────┼────┼──────
Vote House│Adams (Fed.) │ 7│ 6│ 5│ 12│ 2│ 6│ 18│ 1
Rep. │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
States │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Jackson (Dem.)│ │ │ │ │ │ │ 2│ 5
„ │Crawford │ │ │ │ 1│ │ │ 14│
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼─────┼───────┼─────┼──────┼─────┼────┼──────
1828 Pres.│Jackson, Tenn.│ 1│ │ │ │ │ │ 20│
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Adams, Mass. │ 8│ 8│ 7│ 15│ 4│ 8│ 16│ 8
│ (Fed.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼─────┼───────┼─────┼──────┼─────┼────┼──────
Vice-Pres.│J. C. Calhoun,│ 1│ │ │ │ │ │ 20│
│ S. C. (Dem.)│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Rush, Pa. │ 8│ 8│ 7│ 15│ 4│ 8│ 16│ 8
│ (Fed.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Smith, S. C. │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼─────┼───────┼─────┼──────┼─────┼────┼──────
1832 Pres.│Jackson, Tenn.│ 10│ 7│ │ │ │ │ 42│ 8
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Clay, Ky. │ │ │ sc│ 14│ 4│ 8│ │
│ (Whig.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼─────┼───────┼─────┼──────┼─────┼────┼──────
Vice-Pres.│Van Buren, N. │ 10│ 7│ │ │ │ │ 42│ 8
│ Y. (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Sergeant, Pa. │ │ │ sc│ 14│ 4│ 8│ │
│ (Whig.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼─────┼───────┼─────┼──────┼─────┼────┼──────
1836 Pres.│Van Buren, N. │ 10│ 7│ │ │ 4│ 8│ 42│
│ Y. (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Harrison, Ohio│ │ │ 7│ sc│ │ │ │ 8
│ (Whig) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼─────┼───────┼─────┼──────┼─────┼────┼──────
Vice-Pres.│Johnson, Ky. │ 10│ 7│ │ │ 4│ 8│ 42│
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│Francis │ │ │ 7│ 14│ │ │ │ 8
„ │ Granger, N. │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Y. (Whig) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼─────┼───────┼─────┼──────┼─────┼────┼──────
1840 Pres.│Harrison, Ohio│ 10│ │ 7│ 14│ 4│ 8│ 42│ 8
│ (Whig) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Van Buren, N. │ │ 7│ │ │ │ │ │
│ Y. (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼─────┼───────┼─────┼──────┼─────┼────┼──────
Vice-Pres.│Tyler, Va. │ 10│ │ 7│ 14│ 4│ 8│ 42│ 8
│ (Whig) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Johnson, Ky. │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼─────┼───────┼─────┼──────┼─────┼────┼──────
1844 Pres.│Polk, Tenn. │ 9│ 6│ │ │ │ │ 36│
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Clay, Ky. │ │ │ 6│ 12│ 4│ 6│ │ 7
│ (Whig) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼─────┼───────┼─────┼──────┼─────┼────┼──────
Vice-Pres.│Dallas, Pa. │ 9│ 6│ │ │ │ │ 36│
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Frelinghuysen,│ │ │ 6│ 12│ 4│ 6│ │ 7
│ N. Y. (Whig)│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼─────┼───────┼─────┼──────┼─────┼────┼──────
1848 Pres.│Taylor, La. │ │ │ 6│ 12│ 4│ 6│ │ 7
│ (Whig) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Cass, Mich. │ 9│ 6│ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼─────┼───────┼─────┼──────┼─────┼────┼──────
Vice-Pres.│Fillmore N. Y.│ │ │ 6│ 12│ 4│ 6│ 36│ 7
│ (Whig) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Butler, Ky. │ 9│ 6│ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼─────┼───────┼─────┼──────┼─────┼────┼──────
1852 Pres.│Pierce, N. H. │ 8│ 5│ │ │ 4│ 6│ 35│ 7
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Scott, Va. │ │ │ 5│ 13│ │ │ │
│ (Whig) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼─────┼───────┼─────┼──────┼─────┼────┼──────
Vice-Pres.│King, Ala. │ 8│ 5│ │ │ 4│ 6│ 35│ 7
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Graham, N. C. │ │ │ 5│ 13│ │ │ │
│ (Whig) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼─────┼───────┼─────┼──────┼─────┼────┼──────
1856 Pres.│Buchanan, Pa. │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ 7
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │J. C. Fremont,│ 8│ 5│ 5│ 13│ 4│ 6│ 35│
│ N. Y. (Rep.)│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Fillmore, N. │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Y. (Am.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼─────┼───────┼─────┼──────┼─────┼────┼──────
Vice-Pres.│Breckinridge, │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ 7
│ Ky. (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Dayton, Ohio │ 8│ 5│ 5│ 13│ 4│ 6│ 35│
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Donnelson, │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Tenn. (Am.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼─────┼───────┼─────┼──────┼─────┼────┼──────
1860 Pres.│Lincoln, Ill. │ 8│ 5│ 5│ 13│ 4│ 6│ 35│ 4
│ (Rep) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Breckinridge, │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Ky. (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Bell, Tenn. │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Am.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Douglas, Ill. │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ 3
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼─────┼───────┼─────┼──────┼─────┼────┼──────
Vice-Pres.│Hamlin, Me. │ 8│ 5│ 5│ 13│ 4│ 6│ 35│ 4
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Lane, Oregon │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Everett, Mass.│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Am.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Johnson, Geo. │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ 3
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼─────┼───────┼─────┼──────┼─────┼────┼──────
1864 Pres.│Lincoln, Ill. │ 7│ 5│ 5│ 12│ 4│ 6│ 33│
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │J McClellan, │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ 7
│ N. J. (Dem.)│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│Vacancies. │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │ Seceded │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ States │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼─────┼───────┼─────┼──────┼─────┼────┼──────
Vice-Pres.│Johnson, Tenn.│ 7│ 5│ 5│ 12│ 4│ 6│ 33│
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Pendleton, │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ 7
│ Ohio (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Vacancies │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼─────┼───────┼─────┼──────┼─────┼────┼──────
1868 Pres.│Grant, Ill. │ 7│ 5│ 5│ 2│ 4│ 6│ │
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Seymour, N. Y.│ │ │ │ │ │ │ 33│ 7
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Vacancies │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼─────┼───────┼─────┼──────┼─────┼────┼──────
Vice-Pres.│Colfax Ind. │ 7│ 5│ 5│ 12│ 4│ 6│ │
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Blair, Me. │ │ │ │ │ │ │ 33│ 7
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Vacancies │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼─────┼───────┼─────┼──────┼─────┼────┼──────
1872 Pres.│Grant, Ill. │ 7│ 5│ 5│ 13│ 4│ 6│ 35│ 9
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Hendricks, │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Ind. (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Brown, Mo. │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Lib. Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Perkins, Ga. │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Davis, Ill. │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Lib. Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Not counted │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│Horace │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Greeley, N. │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Y. (Lib. │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │ Rep.) died │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ before │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ meeting of │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ electoral │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ college │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼─────┼───────┼─────┼──────┼─────┼────┼──────
Vice-Pres.│Wilson, Mass. │ 7│ 5│ 5│ 13│ 4│ 6│ 35│ 9
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Brown, Mo. │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Lib. Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Julian, Ind. │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Colquitt, Ga. │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Palmer, Ill. │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Bramlette, Ky.│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Groesbeck, │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Ohio (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Macken, Ky. │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Banks, Mass. │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Lib. Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Not counted │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼─────┼───────┼─────┼──────┼─────┼────┼──────
1876 Pres.│Hayes, Ohio │ 7│ 5│ 5│ 13│ 4│ │ │
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Tilden, N. Y. │ │ │ │ │ │ 6│ 35│ 9
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼─────┼───────┼─────┼──────┼─────┼────┼──────
Vice-Pres.│Wheeler, N. Y.│ 7│ 5│ 5│ 13│ 4│ │ │
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Hendricks, │ │ │ │ │ │ 6│ 35│ 9
│ Ind. (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼─────┼───────┼─────┼──────┼─────┼────┼──────
1880 Pres.│Garfield, Ohio│ 7│ 5│ 5│ 13│ 4│ 6│ 35│
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Hancock, N. Y.│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ 9
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Weaver, Iowa │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Gr.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼─────┼───────┼─────┼──────┼─────┼────┼──────
Vice-Pres.│Arthur, N. Y. │ 7│ 5│ 5│ 13│ 4│ 6│ 35│
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │English, Ind. │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ 9
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Chambers, Tex.│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Gr.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼─────┼───────┼─────┼──────┼─────┼────┼──────
1884 Pres.│Cleveland, N. │ │ │ │ │ │ 6│ 36│ 9
│ Y. (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Blaine, Me. │ 6│ 4│ 4│ 14│ 4│ │ │
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼─────┼───────┼─────┼──────┼─────┼────┼──────
1888 Pres.│Harrison, Ind.│ 6│ 4│ 4│ 14│ 4│ │ 36│
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Cleveland, N. │ │ │ │ │ │ 6│ │ 9
│ Y. (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┴──────────────┴─────┴─────┴───────┴─────┴──────┴─────┴────┴──────
──────────┬──────────────┬──────┬────────┬────────┬────────┬──┬──┬───────
│ CANDIDATES. │Penna.│Delaware│Maryland│Virginia│N.│S.│Georgia
│ │ │ │ │ │C.│C.│
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼──┼──┼───────
1788 │Washington, │ 10│ 3│ 6│ 10│ │ 7│ 5
│ Va. (Fed.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │John Adams, │ 8│ │ │ 5│ │ │
│ Mass. (Fed.)│ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Scattering │ 2│ 3│ 6│ 5│ │ 7│ 5
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼──┼──┼───────
1792 │Washington, │ 15│ 3│ 8│ 21│12│ 7│ 4
│ Va. (Fed.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │John Adams, │ 14│ 3│ 8│ │ │ 6│
│ Mass. (Fed.)│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│George │ 1│ │ │ 21│12│sc│ 4
„ │ Clinton, N. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Y. (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼──┼──┼───────
1796 │Adams, Mass. │ 1│ 3│ 7│ 1│ 1│ │
│ (Fed.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Jefferson, Va.│ 14│ │ 4│ 20│11│ 8│ 4
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Pinckney, S. │ 2│ 3│ 4│ 1│ 1│ 8│
│ C. (Fed) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Burr. N. Y. │ 13│ │ 3│ 1│ 6│ │
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Scattering │ │ │ 2│ 19│ 5│ │ 4
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼──┼──┼───────
1800 │Jefferson, Va.│ 6│ │ 5│ 21│ 8│ 8│ 4
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Adams, Mass. │ 7│ 3│ 5│ │ 4│ │
│ (Fed.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Burr, N.Y. │ 8│ │ 5│ 21│ 8│ 8│ 4
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Pinckney, S. │ 7│ 3│ 5│ │ 4│ │
│ C. (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼──┼──┼───────
1804 Pres.│Jefferson, Va.│ 20│ │ 9│ 24│14│10│ 6
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Pinckney, S. │ │ 3│ 2│ │ │ │
│ C. (Fed.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼──┼──┼───────
Vice-Pres.│Clinton, N. Y.│ 20│ │ 9│ 24│14│10│ 6
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │King, N. Y. │ │ 3│ 2│ │ │ │
│ (Fed.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼──┼──┼───────
1808 Pres.│Madison, Va. │ 20│ │ 9│ 24│11│10│ 6
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Pinckney, S. │ │ 3│ 2│ │ 3│ │
│ C. (Fed.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼──┼──┼───────
Vice-Pres.│Clinton, N. Y.│ 20│ │ 9│ 24│11│10│ 6
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │King, N. Y. │ │ 3│ 2│ │ 3│ │
│ (Fed.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼──┼──┼───────
1812 Pres.│Madison, Va. │ 25│ │ 6│ 25│15│11│ 8
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│De Witt │ │ 4│ 5│ │ │ │
„ │ Clinton, N. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Y. (Cl. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼──┼──┼───────
Vice-Pres.│Gerry, Mass. │ 25│ │ 6│ 25│15│11│ 8
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Ingersoll, Pa.│ │ 4│ 5│ │ │ │
│ (Cl. Dem) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼──┼──┼───────
1816 Pres.│Monroe, Va. │ 25│ │ 8│ 25│15│11│ 8
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │King, N. Y. │ │ 3│ │ │ │ │
│ (Fed.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼──┼──┼───────
│Daniel D. │ 25│ sc│ 8│ 25│15│11│ 8
Vice-Pres.│ Tompkins, N.│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Y. (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼──┼──┼───────
1820 Pres.│James Monroe, │ 25│ 4│ 11│ 25│15│11│ 8
│ Va. (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼──┼──┼───────
│Daniel D. │ 25│ sc│ 10 s│ 25│15│11│ 8
Vice-Pres.│ Tompkins, N.│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Y. (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼──┼──┼───────
1824 Pres.│Jackson, Tenn.│ 28│ │ 7│ │15│11│
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │John Q. Adams,│ │ 1│ 3│ │ │ │
│ Mass. (Fed.)│ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Crawford, Ga. │ │ 2│ 1│ 24│ 9│ │
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Clay, Ky. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Whig) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼──┼──┼───────
Vice-Pres.│Calhoun, S. C.│ 28│ 1│ 10│ │15│11│
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Sanford, N. Y │ │ sc│ sc│ sc│ │ │ sc
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼──┼──┼───────
Vote House│Adams (Fed.) │ 1│ │ 5│ 1│ 1│ │
Rep. │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
States │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Jackson (Dem.)│ 25│ │ 3│ 1│ 2│ 9│
„ │Crawford │ │ 1│ 1│ 12│10│ │ 7
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼──┼──┼───────
1828 Pres.│Jackson, Tenn.│ 28│ │ 5│ 24│15│11│ 9
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Adams, Mass. │ │ 3│ 6│ │ │ │
│ (Fed.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼──┼──┼───────
Vice-Pres.│J. C. Calhoun,│ 28│ │ 5│ 24│15│11│ 2
│ S. C. (Dem.)│ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Rush, Pa. │ │ 3│ 6│ │ │ │
│ (Fed.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Smith, S. C. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼──┼──┼───────
1832 Pres.│Jackson, Tenn.│ 30│ │ 3│ 23│15│sc│ 11
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Clay, Ky. │ │ 3│ 5│ │ │ │
│ (Whig.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼──┼──┼───────
Vice-Pres.│Van Buren, N. │ │ │ 3│ 23│15│ │ 11
│ Y. (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Sergeant, Pa. │ sc│ 3│ 5│ │ │sc│
│ (Whig.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼──┼──┼───────
1836 Pres.│Van Buren, N. │ 30│ │ │ 23│15│sc│ 7
│ Y. (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Harrison, Ohio│ │ 3│ 10│ │ │ │
│ (Whig) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼──┼──┼───────
Vice-Pres.│Johnson, Ky. │ 30│ │ │ │15│ │ 7
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│Francis │ │ 3│ sc│ sc│ │sc│
„ │ Granger, N. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Y. (Whig) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼──┼──┼───────
1840 Pres.│Harrison, Ohio│ 30│ 3│ 10│ │15│ │ 11
│ (Whig) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Van Buren, N. │ │ │ │ 23│ │11│
│ Y. (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼──┼──┼───────
Vice-Pres.│Tyler, Va. │ 30│ 3│ 10│ │15│11│
│ (Whig) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Johnson, Ky. │ │ │ │ 23│ │sc│
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼──┼──┼───────
1844 Pres.│Polk, Tenn. │ 26│ │ │ 17│ │ 9│ 10
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Clay, Ky. │ │ 3│ 8│ │11│ │
│ (Whig) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼──┼──┼───────
Vice-Pres.│Dallas, Pa. │ 26│ │ │ 17│ │ 9│ 10
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Frelinghuysen,│ │ 3│ 8│ │11│ │
│ N. Y. (Whig)│ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼──┼──┼───────
1848 Pres.│Taylor, La. │ 26│ │ 8│ │11│ │ 10
│ (Whig) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Cass, Mich. │ │ │ │ 17│ │ 9│
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼──┼──┼───────
Vice-Pres.│Fillmore N. Y.│ 26│ 3│ 8│ │11│ │ 10
│ (Whig) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Butler, Ky. │ │ │ │ 17│ │ 9│
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼──┼──┼───────
1852 Pres.│Pierce, N. H. │ 27│ 3│ 8│ 15│10│ 8│ 10
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Scott, Va. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Whig) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼──┼──┼───────
Vice-Pres.│King, Ala. │ 27│ 3│ 8│ 15│10│ 8│ 10
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Graham, N. C. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Whig) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼──┼──┼───────
1856 Pres.│Buchanan, Pa. │ 27│ 3│ │ 15│10│ 8│ 10
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │J. C. Fremont,│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ N. Y. (Rep.)│ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Fillmore, N. │ │ │ 8│ │ │ │
│ Y. (Am.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼──┼──┼───────
Vice-Pres.│Breckinridge, │ 27│ 3│ │ 15│10│ 8│ 10
│ Ky. (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Dayton, Ohio │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Donnelson, │ │ │ 8│ │ │ │
│ Tenn. (Am.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼──┼──┼───────
1860 Pres.│Lincoln, Ill. │ 27│ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Rep) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Breckinridge, │ │ 3│ 8│ │10│ 8│ 10
│ Ky. (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Bell, Tenn. │ │ │ │ 15│ │ │
│ (Am.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Douglas, Ill. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼──┼──┼───────
Vice-Pres.│Hamlin, Me. │ 27│ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Lane, Oregon │ │ 3│ 8│ │10│ 8│ 10
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Everett, Mass.│ │ │ │ 15│ │ │
│ (Am.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Johnson, Geo. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼──┼──┼───────
1864 Pres.│Lincoln, Ill. │ 26│ │ 7│ │ │ │
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │J McClellan, │ │ 3│ │ │ │ │
│ N. J. (Dem.)│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│Vacancies. │ │ │ │ 10│ 9│ 6│ 9
„ │ Seceded │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ States │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼──┼──┼───────
Vice-Pres.│Johnson, Tenn.│ 26│ │ 7│ │ │ │
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Pendleton, │ │ 3│ │ │ │ │
│ Ohio (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Vacancies │ │ │ │ 10│ 9│ 6│ 9
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼──┼──┼───────
1868 Pres.│Grant, Ill. │ 26│ │ │ │ 9│ 6│
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Seymour, N. Y.│ │ 3│ 7│ │ │ │ 9
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Vacancies │ │ │ │ 10│ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼──┼──┼───────
Vice-Pres.│Colfax Ind. │ 26│ │ │ │ 9│ 6│
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Blair, Me. │ │ 3│ 7│ │ │ │ 9
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Vacancies │ │ │ │ 10│ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼──┼──┼───────
1872 Pres.│Grant, Ill. │ 29│ 3│ │ 11│10│ 7│
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Hendricks, │ │ │ 8│ │ │ │
│ Ind. (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Brown, Mo. │ │ │ │ 10│ │ │ 6
│ (Lib. Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Perkins, Ga. │ │ │ │ │ │ │ 2
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Davis, Ill. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Lib. Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Not counted │ │ │ │ │ │ │ 3
│Horace │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Greeley, N. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Y. (Lib. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │ Rep.) died │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ before │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ meeting of │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ electoral │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ college │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼──┼──┼───────
Vice-Pres.│Wilson, Mass. │ 29│ 3│ │ 11│10│ 7│
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Brown, Mo. │ │ │ 8│ │ │ │ 5
│ (Lib. Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Julian, Ind. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Colquitt, Ga. │ │ │ │ │ │ │ 5
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Palmer, Ill. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Bramlette, Ky.│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Groesbeck, │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Ohio (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Macken, Ky. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Banks, Mass. │ │ │ │ │ │ │ 1
│ (Lib. Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Not counted │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼──┼──┼───────
1876 Pres.│Hayes, Ohio │ 29│ │ │ │ │ 7│
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Tilden, N. Y. │ │ 3│ 8│ 11│10│ │ 11
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼──┼──┼───────
Vice-Pres.│Wheeler, N. Y.│ 29│ │ │ │ │ 7│
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Hendricks, │ │ 3│ 8│ 11│10│ │ 11
│ Ind. (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼──┼──┼───────
1880 Pres.│Garfield, Ohio│ 29│ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Hancock, N. Y.│ │ 3│ 8│ 11│10│ 7│ 11
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Weaver, Iowa │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Gr.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼──┼──┼───────
Vice-Pres.│Arthur, N. Y. │ 29│ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │English, Ind. │ │ 3│ 8│ 11│10│ 7│ 11
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Chambers, Tex.│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Gr.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼──┼──┼───────
1884 Pres.│Cleveland, N. │ │ 3│ 8│ 12│11│ 9│ 12
│ Y. (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Blaine, Me. │ 30│ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼──┼──┼───────
1888 Pres.│Harrison, Ind.│ 30│ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Cleveland, N. │ │ 3│ 8│ 12│11│ 9│ 12
│ Y. (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┴──────────────┴──────┴────────┴────────┴────────┴──┴──┴───────
──────────┬──────────────┬───────┬─────┬─────────┬─────┬────────┬────┬───────
│ CANDIDATES. │Alabama│Miss.│Louisiana│Tenn.│Kentucky│Ohio│Indiana
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼───────┼─────┼─────────┼─────┼────────┼────┼───────
1788 │Washington, │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Va. (Fed.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │John Adams, │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Mass. (Fed.)│ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Scattering │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼───────┼─────┼─────────┼─────┼────────┼────┼───────
1792 │Washington, │ │ │ │ │ 4│ │
│ Va. (Fed.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │John Adams, │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Mass. (Fed.)│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│George │ │ │ │ │ sc│ │
„ │ Clinton, N. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Y. (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼───────┼─────┼─────────┼─────┼────────┼────┼───────
1796 │Adams, Mass. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Fed.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Jefferson, Va.│ │ │ │ 3│ 4│ │
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Pinckney, S. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ C. (Fed) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Burr. N. Y. │ │ │ │ 3│ 4│ │
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Scattering │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼───────┼─────┼─────────┼─────┼────────┼────┼───────
1800 │Jefferson, Va.│ │ │ │ 5│ 4│ │
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Adams, Mass. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Fed.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Burr, N.Y. │ │ │ │ 3│ 4│ │
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Pinckney, S. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ C. (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼───────┼─────┼─────────┼─────┼────────┼────┼───────
1804 Pres.│Jefferson, Va.│ │ │ │ 5│ 8│ 3│
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Pinckney, S. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ C. (Fed.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼───────┼─────┼─────────┼─────┼────────┼────┼───────
Vice-Pres.│Clinton, N. Y.│ │ │ │ 5│ 8│ 3│
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │King, N. Y. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Fed.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼───────┼─────┼─────────┼─────┼────────┼────┼───────
1808 Pres.│Madison, Va. │ │ │ │ 5│ 7│ 3│
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Pinckney, S. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ C. (Fed.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼───────┼─────┼─────────┼─────┼────────┼────┼───────
Vice-Pres.│Clinton, N. Y.│ │ │ │ 5│ 7│ sc│
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │King, N. Y. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Fed.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼───────┼─────┼─────────┼─────┼────────┼────┼───────
1812 Pres.│Madison, Va. │ │ │ 3│ 8│ 12│ 7│
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│De Witt │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │ Clinton, N. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Y. (Cl. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼───────┼─────┼─────────┼─────┼────────┼────┼───────
Vice-Pres.│Gerry, Mass. │ │ │ 3│ 8│ 12│ 7│
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Ingersoll, Pa.│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Cl. Dem) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼───────┼─────┼─────────┼─────┼────────┼────┼───────
1816 Pres.│Monroe, Va. │ │ │ 3│ 8│ 12│ 8│ 3
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │King, N. Y. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Fed.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼───────┼─────┼─────────┼─────┼────────┼────┼───────
│Daniel D. │ │ │ 3│ 8│ 12│ 8│ 3
Vice-Pres.│ Tompkins, N.│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Y. (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼───────┼─────┼─────────┼─────┼────────┼────┼───────
1820 Pres.│James Monroe, │ 3│ 3│ 3│ 8│ 12│ 8│ 3
│ Va. (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼───────┼─────┼─────────┼─────┼────────┼────┼───────
│Daniel D. │ 3│ 3│ 3│ 8│ 12│ 8│ 3
Vice-Pres.│ Tompkins, N.│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Y. (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼───────┼─────┼─────────┼─────┼────────┼────┼───────
1824 Pres.│Jackson, Tenn.│ 5│ 3│ 3│ 11│ │ │ 5
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │John Q. Adams,│ │ │ 2│ │ │ │
│ Mass. (Fed.)│ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Crawford, Ga. │ │ │ 2│ │ │ │
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Clay, Ky. │ │ │ │ │ 14│ 16│
│ (Whig) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼───────┼─────┼─────────┼─────┼────────┼────┼───────
Vice-Pres.│Calhoun, S. C.│ 5│ 3│ 5│ 11│ 7│ │ 5
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Sanford, N. Y │ │ │ │ │ 7│ 16│
──────────┼──────────────┼───────┼─────┼─────────┼─────┼────────┼────┼───────
Vote House│Adams (Fed.) │ 3│ │ 2│ │ 8│ 10│
Rep. │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
States │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Jackson (Dem.)│ │ 1│ 1│ 9│ 4│ 2│ 3
„ │Crawford │ │ │ │ │ │ 2│
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼───────┼─────┼─────────┼─────┼────────┼────┼───────
1828 Pres.│Jackson, Tenn.│ 5│ 3│ 5│ 11│ 14│ 16│ 5
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Adams, Mass. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Fed.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼───────┼─────┼─────────┼─────┼────────┼────┼───────
Vice-Pres.│J. C. Calhoun,│ 5│ 3│ 5│ 11│ 14│ 16│ 5
│ S. C. (Dem.)│ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Rush, Pa. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Fed.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Smith, S. C. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼───────┼─────┼─────────┼─────┼────────┼────┼───────
1832 Pres.│Jackson, Tenn.│ 7│ 4│ 5│ 15│ │ 21│ 9
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Clay, Ky. │ │ │ │ │ 15│ │
│ (Whig.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼───────┼─────┼─────────┼─────┼────────┼────┼───────
Vice-Pres.│Van Buren, N. │ 7│ 4│ 5│ 15│ │ 21│ 9
│ Y. (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Sergeant, Pa. │ │ │ │ │ 15│ │
│ (Whig.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼───────┼─────┼─────────┼─────┼────────┼────┼───────
1836 Pres.│Van Buren, N. │ 4│ 5│ sc│ │ │ │ 5
│ Y. (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Harrison, Ohio│ │ │ │ 15│ 21│ 9│
│ (Whig) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼───────┼─────┼─────────┼─────┼────────┼────┼───────
Vice-Pres.│Johnson, Ky. │ 4│ 5│ │ │ │ │ 5
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│Francis │ │ │ sc│ 15│ 21│ 9│
„ │ Granger, N. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Y. (Whig) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼───────┼─────┼─────────┼─────┼────────┼────┼───────
1840 Pres.│Harrison, Ohio│ │ 4│ 5│ 15│ 15│ 21│ 9
│ (Whig) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Van Buren, N. │ 7│ │ │ │ │ │
│ Y. (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼───────┼─────┼─────────┼─────┼────────┼────┼───────
Vice-Pres.│Tyler, Va. │ 4│ 5│ 17│ 15│ 21│ 9│
│ (Whig) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Johnson, Ky. │ 7│ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼───────┼─────┼─────────┼─────┼────────┼────┼───────
1844 Pres.│Polk, Tenn. │ 9│ 6│ 6│ │ │ │ 12
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Clay, Ky. │ │ │ │ 13│ 12│ 23│
│ (Whig) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼───────┼─────┼─────────┼─────┼────────┼────┼───────
Vice-Pres.│Dallas, Pa. │ 9│ 6│ 6│ │ │ │ 12
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Frelinghuysen,│ │ │ │ 13│ 12│ 23│
│ N. Y. (Whig)│ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼───────┼─────┼─────────┼─────┼────────┼────┼───────
1848 Pres.│Taylor, La. │ │ │ 6│ 13│ 12│ │
│ (Whig) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Cass, Mich. │ 9│ 6│ │ │ │ 23│ 12
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼───────┼─────┼─────────┼─────┼────────┼────┼───────
Vice-Pres.│Fillmore N. Y.│ │ │ 6│ 13│ 12│ │
│ (Whig) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Butler, Ky. │ 9│ 6│ │ │ │ 23│ 12
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼───────┼─────┼─────────┼─────┼────────┼────┼───────
1852 Pres.│Pierce, N. H. │ 9│ 7│ 6│ │ │ 23│ 13
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Scott, Va. │ │ │ │ 12│ 12│ │
│ (Whig) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼───────┼─────┼─────────┼─────┼────────┼────┼───────
Vice-Pres.│King, Ala. │ 9│ 7│ 6│ │ │ 23│ 13
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Graham, N. C. │ │ │ │ 12│ 12│ │
│ (Whig) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼───────┼─────┼─────────┼─────┼────────┼────┼───────
1856 Pres.│Buchanan, Pa. │ 9│ 7│ 6│ 12│ 12│ │ 13
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │J. C. Fremont,│ │ │ │ │ │ 23│
│ N. Y. (Rep.)│ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Fillmore, N. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Y. (Am.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼───────┼─────┼─────────┼─────┼────────┼────┼───────
Vice-Pres.│Breckinridge, │ 9│ 7│ 6│ 12│ 12│ │ 13
│ Ky. (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Dayton, Ohio │ │ │ │ │ │ 23│
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Donnelson, │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Tenn. (Am.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼───────┼─────┼─────────┼─────┼────────┼────┼───────
1860 Pres.│Lincoln, Ill. │ │ │ │ │ │ 23│ 13
│ (Rep) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Breckinridge, │ 9│ 7│ 6│ │ │ │
│ Ky. (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Bell, Tenn. │ │ │ │ 12│ 12│ │
│ (Am.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Douglas, Ill. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼───────┼─────┼─────────┼─────┼────────┼────┼───────
Vice-Pres.│Hamlin, Me. │ │ │ │ │ │ 23│ 13
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Lane, Oregon │ 9│ 7│ 6│ │ │ │
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Everett, Mass.│ │ │ │ 12│ 12│ │
│ (Am.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Johnson, Geo. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼───────┼─────┼─────────┼─────┼────────┼────┼───────
1864 Pres.│Lincoln, Ill. │ │ │ │ │ │ 21│ 13
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │J McClellan, │ │ │ │ │ 11│ │
│ N. J. (Dem.)│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│Vacancies. │ 8│ 7│ 7│ 10│ │ │
„ │ Seceded │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ States │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼───────┼─────┼─────────┼─────┼────────┼────┼───────
Vice-Pres.│Johnson, Tenn.│ │ │ │ │ │ 21│ 13
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Pendleton, │ │ │ │ │ 11│ │
│ Ohio (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Vacancies │ 8│ 7│ 7│ 10│ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼───────┼─────┼─────────┼─────┼────────┼────┼───────
1868 Pres.│Grant, Ill. │ 8│ │ │ 10│ │ 21│ 13
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Seymour, N. Y.│ │ │ 7│ │ 11│ │
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Vacancies │ │ 7│ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼───────┼─────┼─────────┼─────┼────────┼────┼───────
Vice-Pres.│Colfax Ind. │ 8│ │ │ 10│ │ 21│ 13
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Blair, Me. │ │ │ 7│ │ 11│ │
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Vacancies │ │ 7│ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼───────┼─────┼─────────┼─────┼────────┼────┼───────
1872 Pres.│Grant, Ill. │ 10│ 8│ │ │ │ 22│ 15
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Hendricks, │ │ │ │ 12│ 8│ │
│ Ind. (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Brown, Mo. │ │ │ │ │ 4│ │
│ (Lib. Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Perkins, Ga. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Davis, Ill. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Lib. Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Not counted │ │ │ 8│ │ │ │
│Horace │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Greeley, N. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Y. (Lib. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │ Rep.) died │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ before │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ meeting of │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ electoral │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ college │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼───────┼─────┼─────────┼─────┼────────┼────┼───────
Vice-Pres.│Wilson, Mass. │ 10│ 8│ │ │ │ 22│ 15
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Brown, Mo. │ │ │ │ 12│ 8│ │
│ (Lib. Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Julian, Ind. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Colquitt, Ga. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Palmer, Ill. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Bramlette, Ky.│ │ │ │ │ 3│ │
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Groesbeck, │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Ohio (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Macken, Ky. │ │ │ 1│ │ │ │
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Banks, Mass. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Lib. Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Not counted │ 6│ │ 8│ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼───────┼─────┼─────────┼─────┼────────┼────┼───────
1876 Pres.│Hayes, Ohio │ │ │ 8│ │ │ 22│
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Tilden, N. Y. │ 10│ 8│ │ 12│ 12│ │ 15
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼───────┼─────┼─────────┼─────┼────────┼────┼───────
Vice-Pres.│Wheeler, N. Y.│ │ │ │ │ │ 22│
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Hendricks, │ 10│ 8│ │ 12│ 12│ │ 15
│ Ind. (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼───────┼─────┼─────────┼─────┼────────┼────┼───────
1880 Pres.│Garfield, Ohio│ │ │ │ │ │ 22│ 15
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Hancock, N. Y.│ 10│ 8│ 8│ 12│ 12│ │
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Weaver, Iowa │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Gr.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼───────┼─────┼─────────┼─────┼────────┼────┼───────
Vice-Pres.│Arthur, N. Y. │ │ │ │ │ │ 22│ 15
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │English, Ind. │ 10│ 8│ 8│ 12│ 12│ │
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Chambers, Tex.│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Gr.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼───────┼─────┼─────────┼─────┼────────┼────┼───────
1884 Pres.│Cleveland, N. │ 10│ 9│ 8│ 12│ 13│ │ 15
│ Y. (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Blaine, Me. │ │ │ │ │ │ 23│
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼───────┼─────┼─────────┼─────┼────────┼────┼───────
1888 Pres.│Harrison, Ind.│ │ │ │ │ │ 23│ 15
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Cleveland, N. │ 10│ 9│ 8│ 12│ 13│ │
│ Y. (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┴──────────────┴───────┴─────┴─────────┴─────┴────────┴────┴───────
──────────┬──────────────┬────────┬────────┬────────┬────────┬───┬───────
│ CANDIDATES. │Illinois│Missouri│Arkansas│Michigan│W. │Florida
│ │ │ │ │ │Va.│
──────────┼──────────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼───┼───────
1788 │Washington, │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Va. (Fed.) │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │John Adams, │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Mass. (Fed.)│ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Scattering │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼───┼───────
1792 │Washington, │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Va. (Fed.) │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │John Adams, │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Mass. (Fed.)│ │ │ │ │ │
│George │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │ Clinton, N. │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Y. (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼───┼───────
1796 │Adams, Mass. │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Fed.) │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Jefferson, Va.│ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Pinckney, S. │ │ │ │ │ │
│ C. (Fed) │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Burr. N. Y. │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Scattering │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼───┼───────
1800 │Jefferson, Va.│ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Adams, Mass. │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Fed.) │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Burr, N.Y. │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Pinckney, S. │ │ │ │ │ │
│ C. (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼───┼───────
1804 Pres.│Jefferson, Va.│ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Pinckney, S. │ │ │ │ │ │
│ C. (Fed.) │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼───┼───────
Vice-Pres.│Clinton, N. Y.│ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │King, N. Y. │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Fed.) │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼───┼───────
1808 Pres.│Madison, Va. │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Pinckney, S. │ │ │ │ │ │
│ C. (Fed.) │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼───┼───────
Vice-Pres.│Clinton, N. Y.│ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │King, N. Y. │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Fed.) │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼───┼───────
1812 Pres.│Madison, Va. │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │
│De Witt │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │ Clinton, N. │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Y. (Cl. │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼───┼───────
Vice-Pres.│Gerry, Mass. │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Ingersoll, Pa.│ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Cl. Dem) │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼───┼───────
1816 Pres.│Monroe, Va. │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │King, N. Y. │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Fed.) │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼───┼───────
│Daniel D. │ │ │ │ │ │
Vice-Pres.│ Tompkins, N.│ │ │ │ │ │
│ Y. (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼───┼───────
1820 Pres.│James Monroe, │ 3│ │ │ │ │
│ Va. (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼───┼───────
│Daniel D. │ 3│ │ │ │ │
Vice-Pres.│ Tompkins, N.│ │ │ │ │ │
│ Y. (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼───┼───────
1824 Pres.│Jackson, Tenn.│ 2│ │ │ │ │
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │John Q. Adams,│ 1│ │ │ │ │
│ Mass. (Fed.)│ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Crawford, Ga. │ 1│ │ │ │ │
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Clay, Ky. │ │ 3│ │ │ │
│ (Whig) │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼───┼───────
Vice-Pres.│Calhoun, S. C.│ 3│ │ │ │ │
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Sanford, N. Y │ │ sc│ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼───┼───────
Vote House│Adams (Fed.) │ │ 1│ │ │ │
Rep. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
States │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Jackson (Dem.)│ 1│ │ │ │ │
„ │Crawford │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼───┼───────
1828 Pres.│Jackson, Tenn.│ 3│ 3│ │ │ │
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Adams, Mass. │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Fed.) │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼───┼───────
Vice-Pres.│J. C. Calhoun,│ 3│ 3│ │ │ │
│ S. C. (Dem.)│ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Rush, Pa. │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Fed.) │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Smith, S. C. │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼───┼───────
1832 Pres.│Jackson, Tenn.│ 5│ 4│ │ │ │
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Clay, Ky. │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Whig.) │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼───┼───────
Vice-Pres.│Van Buren, N. │ 5│ 4│ │ │ │
│ Y. (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Sergeant, Pa. │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Whig.) │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼───┼───────
1836 Pres.│Van Buren, N. │ 4│ 3│ 3│ │ │
│ Y. (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Harrison, Ohio│ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Whig) │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼───┼───────
Vice-Pres.│Johnson, Ky. │ 4│ 3│ 3│ │ │
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │
│Francis │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │ Granger, N. │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Y. (Whig) │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼───┼───────
1840 Pres.│Harrison, Ohio│ │ │ │ 3│ │
│ (Whig) │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Van Buren, N. │ 5│ 4│ 3│ │ │
│ Y. (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼───┼───────
Vice-Pres.│Tyler, Va. │ │ │ │ 3│ │
│ (Whig) │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Johnson, Ky. │ 5│ 4│ 3│ │ │
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼───┼───────
1844 Pres.│Polk, Tenn. │ 9│ 7│ 3│ 5│ │
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Clay, Ky. │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Whig) │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼───┼───────
Vice-Pres.│Dallas, Pa. │ 9│ 7│ 3│ 5│ │
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Frelinghuysen,│ │ │ │ │ │
│ N. Y. (Whig)│ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼───┼───────
1848 Pres.│Taylor, La. │ │ │ │ │ │ 3
│ (Whig) │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Cass, Mich. │ 9│ 7│ 3│ 5│ │
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼───┼───────
Vice-Pres.│Fillmore N. Y.│ │ │ │ │ │ 3
│ (Whig) │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Butler, Ky. │ 9│ 7│ 3│ 5│ │
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼───┼───────
1852 Pres.│Pierce, N. H. │ 11│ 9│ 4│ 6│ │ 3
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Scott, Va. │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Whig) │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼───┼───────
Vice-Pres.│King, Ala. │ 11│ 9│ 4│ 6│ │ 3
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Graham, N. C. │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Whig) │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼───┼───────
1856 Pres.│Buchanan, Pa. │ 11│ 9│ 4│ │ │ 3
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │J. C. Fremont,│ │ │ │ 6│ │
│ N. Y. (Rep.)│ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Fillmore, N. │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Y. (Am.) │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼───┼───────
Vice-Pres.│Breckinridge, │ 11│ 9│ 4│ │ │ 3
│ Ky. (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Dayton, Ohio │ │ │ │ 6│ │
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Donnelson, │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Tenn. (Am.) │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼───┼───────
1860 Pres.│Lincoln, Ill. │ 11│ │ │ 6│ │
│ (Rep) │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Breckinridge, │ │ │ 4│ │ │ 3
│ Ky. (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Bell, Tenn. │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Am.) │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Douglas, Ill. │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼───┼───────
Vice-Pres.│Hamlin, Me. │ 11│ │ │ 6│ │
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Lane, Oregon │ │ 4│ │ │ │ 3
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Everett, Mass.│ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Am.) │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Johnson, Geo. │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼───┼───────
1864 Pres.│Lincoln, Ill. │ 16│ 11│ │ 8│ 5│
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │J McClellan, │ │ │ │ │ │
│ N. J. (Dem.)│ │ │ │ │ │
│Vacancies. │ │ │ 5│ │ │ 3
„ │ Seceded │ │ │ │ │ │
│ States │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼───┼───────
Vice-Pres.│Johnson, Tenn.│ 16│ 11│ │ 8│ 5│
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Pendleton, │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Ohio (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Vacancies │ │ │ 5│ │ │ 3
──────────┼──────────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼───┼───────
1868 Pres.│Grant, Ill. │ 16│ 11│ 5│ 8│ 5│ 3
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Seymour, N. Y.│ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Vacancies │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼───┼───────
Vice-Pres.│Colfax Ind. │ 16│ 11│ 5│ 8│ 5│ 3
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Blair, Me. │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Vacancies │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼───┼───────
1872 Pres.│Grant, Ill. │ 21│ │ 6│ 11│ 5│ 4
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Hendricks, │ │ 6│ │ │ │
│ Ind. (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Brown, Mo. │ │ 8│ │ │ │
│ (Lib. Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Perkins, Ga. │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Davis, Ill. │ │ 1│ │ │ │
│ (Lib. Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Not counted │ │ │ 6│ │ │
│Horace │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Greeley, N. │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Y. (Lib. │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │ Rep.) died │ │ │ │ │ │
│ before │ │ │ │ │ │
│ meeting of │ │ │ │ │ │
│ electoral │ │ │ │ │ │
│ college │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼───┼───────
Vice-Pres.│Wilson, Mass. │ 21│ │ 6│ 11│ 5│ 4
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Brown, Mo. │ │ 6│ │ │ │
│ (Lib. Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Julian, Ind. │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Colquitt, Ga. │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Palmer, Ill. │ │ 3│ │ │ │
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Bramlette, Ky.│ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Groesbeck, │ │ 1│ │ │ │
│ Ohio (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Macken, Ky. │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Banks, Mass. │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Lib. Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Not counted │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼───┼───────
1876 Pres.│Hayes, Ohio │ 21│ │ │ 11│ │ 4
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Tilden, N. Y. │ │ 15│ 6│ │ 5│
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼───┼───────
Vice-Pres.│Wheeler, N. Y.│ 21│ │ │ 11│ │ 4
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Hendricks, │ │ 15│ 6│ │ 5│
│ Ind. (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼───┼───────
1880 Pres.│Garfield, Ohio│ 21│ │ │ 11│ │ 4
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Hancock, N. Y.│ │ 15│ 5│ │ 8│
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Weaver, Iowa │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Gr.) │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼───┼───────
Vice-Pres.│Arthur, N. Y. │ 21│ │ │ 11│ │ 4
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │English, Ind. │ │ 15│ 5│ │ 8│
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Chambers, Tex.│ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Gr.) │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼───┼───────
1884 Pres.│Cleveland, N. │ │ 16│ 7│ │ 6│ 4
│ Y. (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Blaine, Me. │ 22│ │ │ 13│ │
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼───┼───────
1888 Pres.│Harrison, Ind.│ 22│ │ │ 13│ │
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Cleveland, N. │ │ 16│ 7│ │ 6│ 4
│ Y. (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┴──────────────┴────────┴────────┴────────┴────────┴───┴───────
──────────┬──────────────┬─────┬────┬────┬─────┬────────┬──────┬────────
│ CANDIDATES. │Texas│Iowa│Wis.│Minn.│Nebraska│Kansas│Colorado
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼────┼────┼─────┼────────┼──────┼────────
1788 │Washington, │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Va. (Fed.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │John Adams, │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Mass. (Fed.)│ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Scattering │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼────┼────┼─────┼────────┼──────┼────────
1792 │Washington, │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Va. (Fed.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │John Adams, │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Mass. (Fed.)│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│George │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │ Clinton, N. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Y. (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼────┼────┼─────┼────────┼──────┼────────
1796 │Adams, Mass. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Fed.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Jefferson, Va.│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Pinckney, S. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ C. (Fed) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Burr. N. Y. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Scattering │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼────┼────┼─────┼────────┼──────┼────────
1800 │Jefferson, Va.│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Adams, Mass. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Fed.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Burr, N.Y. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Pinckney, S. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ C. (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼────┼────┼─────┼────────┼──────┼────────
1804 Pres.│Jefferson, Va.│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Pinckney, S. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ C. (Fed.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼────┼────┼─────┼────────┼──────┼────────
Vice-Pres.│Clinton, N. Y.│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │King, N. Y. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Fed.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼────┼────┼─────┼────────┼──────┼────────
1808 Pres.│Madison, Va. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Pinckney, S. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ C. (Fed.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼────┼────┼─────┼────────┼──────┼────────
Vice-Pres.│Clinton, N. Y.│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │King, N. Y. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Fed.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼────┼────┼─────┼────────┼──────┼────────
1812 Pres.│Madison, Va. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│De Witt │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │ Clinton, N. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Y. (Cl. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼────┼────┼─────┼────────┼──────┼────────
Vice-Pres.│Gerry, Mass. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Ingersoll, Pa.│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Cl. Dem) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼────┼────┼─────┼────────┼──────┼────────
1816 Pres.│Monroe, Va. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │King, N. Y. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Fed.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼────┼────┼─────┼────────┼──────┼────────
│Daniel D. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
Vice-Pres.│ Tompkins, N.│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Y. (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼────┼────┼─────┼────────┼──────┼────────
1820 Pres.│James Monroe, │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Va. (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼────┼────┼─────┼────────┼──────┼────────
│Daniel D. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
Vice-Pres.│ Tompkins, N.│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Y. (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼────┼────┼─────┼────────┼──────┼────────
1824 Pres.│Jackson, Tenn.│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │John Q. Adams,│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Mass. (Fed.)│ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Crawford, Ga. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Clay, Ky. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Whig) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼────┼────┼─────┼────────┼──────┼────────
Vice-Pres.│Calhoun, S. C.│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Sanford, N. Y │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼────┼────┼─────┼────────┼──────┼────────
Vote House│Adams (Fed.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
Rep. │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
States │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Jackson (Dem.)│ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Crawford │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼────┼────┼─────┼────────┼──────┼────────
1828 Pres.│Jackson, Tenn.│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Adams, Mass. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Fed.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼────┼────┼─────┼────────┼──────┼────────
Vice-Pres.│J. C. Calhoun,│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ S. C. (Dem.)│ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Rush, Pa. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Fed.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Smith, S. C. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼────┼────┼─────┼────────┼──────┼────────
1832 Pres.│Jackson, Tenn.│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Clay, Ky. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Whig.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼────┼────┼─────┼────────┼──────┼────────
Vice-Pres.│Van Buren, N. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Y. (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Sergeant, Pa. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Whig.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼────┼────┼─────┼────────┼──────┼────────
1836 Pres.│Van Buren, N. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Y. (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Harrison, Ohio│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Whig) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼────┼────┼─────┼────────┼──────┼────────
Vice-Pres.│Johnson, Ky. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│Francis │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │ Granger, N. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Y. (Whig) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼────┼────┼─────┼────────┼──────┼────────
1840 Pres.│Harrison, Ohio│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Whig) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Van Buren, N. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Y. (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼────┼────┼─────┼────────┼──────┼────────
Vice-Pres.│Tyler, Va. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Whig) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Johnson, Ky. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼────┼────┼─────┼────────┼──────┼────────
1844 Pres.│Polk, Tenn. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Clay, Ky. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Whig) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼────┼────┼─────┼────────┼──────┼────────
Vice-Pres.│Dallas, Pa. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Frelinghuysen,│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ N. Y. (Whig)│ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼────┼────┼─────┼────────┼──────┼────────
1848 Pres.│Taylor, La. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Whig) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Cass, Mich. │ 4│ 4│ 4│ │ │ │
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼────┼────┼─────┼────────┼──────┼────────
Vice-Pres.│Fillmore N. Y.│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Whig) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Butler, Ky. │ 4│ 4│ 4│ │ │ │
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼────┼────┼─────┼────────┼──────┼────────
1852 Pres.│Pierce, N. H. │ 4│ 4│ 5│ │ │ │
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Scott, Va. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Whig) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼────┼────┼─────┼────────┼──────┼────────
Vice-Pres.│King, Ala. │ 4│ 4│ 5│ │ │ │
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Graham, N. C. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Whig) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼────┼────┼─────┼────────┼──────┼────────
1856 Pres.│Buchanan, Pa. │ 4│ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │J. C. Fremont,│ │ 4│ 5│ │ │ │
│ N. Y. (Rep.)│ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Fillmore, N. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Y. (Am.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼────┼────┼─────┼────────┼──────┼────────
Vice-Pres.│Breckinridge, │ 4│ │ │ │ │ │
│ Ky. (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Dayton, Ohio │ │ 4│ 5│ │ │ │
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Donnelson, │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Tenn. (Am.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼────┼────┼─────┼────────┼──────┼────────
1860 Pres.│Lincoln, Ill. │ │ 4│ 5│ 4│ │ │
│ (Rep) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Breckinridge, │ 4│ │ │ │ │ │
│ Ky. (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Bell, Tenn. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Am.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Douglas, Ill. │ │ │ │ 9│ │ │
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼────┼────┼─────┼────────┼──────┼────────
Vice-Pres.│Hamlin, Me. │ │ 4│ 5│ 4│ │ │
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Lane, Oregon │ 4│ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Everett, Mass.│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Am.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Johnson, Geo. │ │ │ │ 9│ │ │
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼────┼────┼─────┼────────┼──────┼────────
1864 Pres.│Lincoln, Ill. │ │ 8│ 8│ 4│ │ 3│
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │J McClellan, │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ N. J. (Dem.)│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│Vacancies. │ 6│ 8│ │ │ │ │
„ │ Seceded │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ States │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼────┼────┼─────┼────────┼──────┼────────
Vice-Pres.│Johnson, Tenn.│ │ │ 8│ 4│ │ 3│
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Pendleton, │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Ohio (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Vacancies │ 6│ │ │ │ 1│ │
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼────┼────┼─────┼────────┼──────┼────────
1868 Pres.│Grant, Ill. │ │ 8│ 8│ 4│ 3│ 3│
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Seymour, N. Y.│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Vacancies │ 6│ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼────┼────┼─────┼────────┼──────┼────────
Vice-Pres.│Colfax Ind. │ │ 8│ 8│ 4│ 3│ 3│
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Blair, Me. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Vacancies │ 6│ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼────┼────┼─────┼────────┼──────┼────────
1872 Pres.│Grant, Ill. │ │ 11│ 10│ 5│ 3│ 5│
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Hendricks, │ 8│ │ │ │ │ │
│ Ind. (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Brown, Mo. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Lib. Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Perkins, Ga. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Davis, Ill. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Lib. Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Not counted │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│Horace │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Greeley, N. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Y. (Lib. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │ Rep.) died │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ before │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ meeting of │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ electoral │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ college │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼────┼────┼─────┼────────┼──────┼────────
Vice-Pres.│Wilson, Mass. │ │ 11│ 10│ 5│ 3│ 5│
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Brown, Mo. │ 8│ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Lib. Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Julian, Ind. │ │ │ │ │ 5│ │
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Colquitt, Ga. │ │ │ │ │ 5│ │
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Palmer, Ill. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Bramlette, Ky.│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Groesbeck, │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Ohio (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Macken, Ky. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Banks, Mass. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Lib. Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Not counted │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼────┼────┼─────┼────────┼──────┼────────
1876 Pres.│Hayes, Ohio │ │ 11│ 10│ 5│ 3│ 5│ 3
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Tilden, N. Y. │ 8│ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼────┼────┼─────┼────────┼──────┼────────
Vice-Pres.│Wheeler, N. Y.│ │ 11│ 10│ 5│ 3│ 5│ 3
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Hendricks, │ 8│ │ │ │ │ │
│ Ind. (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼────┼────┼─────┼────────┼──────┼────────
1880 Pres.│Garfield, Ohio│ │ 11│ 3│ 5│ 3│ 5│ 3
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Hancock, N. Y.│ 10│ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Weaver, Iowa │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Gr.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼────┼────┼─────┼────────┼──────┼────────
Vice-Pres.│Arthur, N. Y. │ │ 11│ 3│ 5│ 3│ 5│ 3
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │English, Ind. │ 10│ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Chambers, Tex.│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ (Gr.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼────┼────┼─────┼────────┼──────┼────────
1884 Pres.│Cleveland, N. │ 13│ │ │ │ │ │
│ Y. (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Blaine, Me. │ │ 13│ 11│ 7│ 5│ 9│ 3
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼─────┼────┼────┼─────┼────────┼──────┼────────
1888 Pres.│Harrison, Ind.│ │ 13│ 11│ 7│ 5│ 9│ 3
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
„ │Cleveland, N. │ 13│ │ │ │ │ │
│ Y. (Dem.) │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────┴──────────────┴─────┴────┴────┴─────┴────────┴──────┴────────
──────────┬──────────────┬──────┬──────┬────┬──────
│ CANDIDATES. │Nevada│Oregon│Cal.│Total.
│ │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼──────┼────┼──────
1788 │Washington, │ │ │ │ 69
│ Va. (Fed.) │ │ │ │
„ │John Adams, │ │ │ │ 34
│ Mass. (Fed.)│ │ │ │
„ │Scattering │ │ │ │ 35
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼──────┼────┼──────
1792 │Washington, │ │ │ │ 132
│ Va. (Fed.) │ │ │ │
„ │John Adams, │ │ │ │ 77
│ Mass. (Fed.)│ │ │ │
│George │ │ │ │ 50
„ │ Clinton, N. │ │ │ │
│ Y. (Rep.) │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼──────┼────┼──────
1796 │Adams, Mass. │ │ │ │ 71
│ (Fed.) │ │ │ │
„ │Jefferson, Va.│ │ │ │ 68
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │
„ │Pinckney, S. │ │ │ │ 59
│ C. (Fed) │ │ │ │
„ │Burr. N. Y. │ │ │ │ 30
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │
„ │Scattering │ │ │ │ 48
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼──────┼────┼──────
1800 │Jefferson, Va.│ │ │ │ 73
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │
„ │Adams, Mass. │ │ │ │ 65
│ (Fed.) │ │ │ │
„ │Burr, N.Y. │ │ │ │ 73
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │
„ │Pinckney, S. │ │ │ │ 64
│ C. (Rep.) │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼──────┼────┼──────
1804 Pres.│Jefferson, Va.│ │ │ │ 162
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │
„ │Pinckney, S. │ │ │ │ 14
│ C. (Fed.) │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼──────┼────┼──────
Vice-Pres.│Clinton, N. Y.│ │ │ │ 162
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │
„ │King, N. Y. │ │ │ │ 14
│ (Fed.) │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼──────┼────┼──────
1808 Pres.│Madison, Va. │ │ │ │ 122
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │
„ │Pinckney, S. │ │ │ │ 47
│ C. (Fed.) │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼──────┼────┼──────
Vice-Pres.│Clinton, N. Y.│ │ │ │ 113
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │
„ │King, N. Y. │ │ │ │ 47
│ (Fed.) │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼──────┼────┼──────
1812 Pres.│Madison, Va. │ │ │ │ 128
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │
│De Witt │ │ │ │ 89
„ │ Clinton, N. │ │ │ │
│ Y. (Cl. │ │ │ │
│ Dem.) │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼──────┼────┼──────
Vice-Pres.│Gerry, Mass. │ │ │ │ 131
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │
„ │Ingersoll, Pa.│ │ │ │ 86
│ (Cl. Dem) │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼──────┼────┼──────
1816 Pres.│Monroe, Va. │ │ │ │ 183
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │
„ │King, N. Y. │ │ │ │ 34
│ (Fed.) │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼──────┼────┼──────
│Daniel D. │ │ │ │ 183
Vice-Pres.│ Tompkins, N.│ │ │ │
│ Y. (Dem.) │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼──────┼────┼──────
1820 Pres.│James Monroe, │ │ │ │ 231
│ Va. (Dem.) │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼──────┼────┼──────
│Daniel D. │ │ │ │ 218
Vice-Pres.│ Tompkins, N.│ │ │ │
│ Y. (Dem.) │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼──────┼────┼──────
1824 Pres.│Jackson, Tenn.│ │ │ │ 99
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │
„ │John Q. Adams,│ │ │ │ 84
│ Mass. (Fed.)│ │ │ │
„ │Crawford, Ga. │ │ │ │ 41
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │
„ │Clay, Ky. │ │ │ │ 37
│ (Whig) │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼──────┼────┼──────
Vice-Pres.│Calhoun, S. C.│ │ │ │ 183
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │
„ │Sanford, N. Y │ │ │ │ 30
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼──────┼────┼──────
Vote House│Adams (Fed.) │ │ │ │ 13
Rep. │ │ │ │ │
States │ │ │ │ │
„ │Jackson (Dem.)│ │ │ │ 7
„ │Crawford │ │ │ │ 4
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼──────┼────┼──────
1828 Pres.│Jackson, Tenn.│ │ │ │ 178
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │
„ │Adams, Mass. │ │ │ │ 83
│ (Fed.) │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼──────┼────┼──────
Vice-Pres.│J. C. Calhoun,│ │ │ │ 171
│ S. C. (Dem.)│ │ │ │
„ │Rush, Pa. │ │ │ │ 83
│ (Fed.) │ │ │ │
„ │Smith, S. C. │ │ │ │ 7
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼──────┼────┼──────
1832 Pres.│Jackson, Tenn.│ │ │ │ 219
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │
„ │Clay, Ky. │ │ │ │ 49
│ (Whig.) │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼──────┼────┼──────
Vice-Pres.│Van Buren, N. │ │ │ │ 189
│ Y. (Dem.) │ │ │ │
„ │Sergeant, Pa. │ │ │ │ 49
│ (Whig.) │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼──────┼────┼──────
1836 Pres.│Van Buren, N. │ │ │ │ 170
│ Y. (Dem.) │ │ │ │
„ │Harrison, Ohio│ │ │ │ 73
│ (Whig) │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼──────┼────┼──────
Vice-Pres.│Johnson, Ky. │ │ │ │ 147
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │
│Francis │ │ │ │ 77
„ │ Granger, N. │ │ │ │
│ Y. (Whig) │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼──────┼────┼──────
1840 Pres.│Harrison, Ohio│ │ │ │ 234
│ (Whig) │ │ │ │
„ │Van Buren, N. │ │ │ │ 60
│ Y. (Dem.) │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼──────┼────┼──────
Vice-Pres.│Tyler, Va. │ │ │ │ 234
│ (Whig) │ │ │ │
„ │Johnson, Ky. │ │ │ │ 48
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼──────┼────┼──────
1844 Pres.│Polk, Tenn. │ │ │ │ 170
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │
„ │Clay, Ky. │ │ │ │ 105
│ (Whig) │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼──────┼────┼──────
Vice-Pres.│Dallas, Pa. │ │ │ │ 170
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │
„ │Frelinghuysen,│ │ │ │ 105
│ N. Y. (Whig)│ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼──────┼────┼──────
1848 Pres.│Taylor, La. │ │ │ │ 163
│ (Whig) │ │ │ │
„ │Cass, Mich. │ │ │ │ 127
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼──────┼────┼──────
Vice-Pres.│Fillmore N. Y.│ │ │ │ 163
│ (Whig) │ │ │ │
„ │Butler, Ky. │ │ │ │ 127
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼──────┼────┼──────
1852 Pres.│Pierce, N. H. │ │ │ │ 254
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │
„ │Scott, Va. │ │ │ │ 42
│ (Whig) │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼──────┼────┼──────
Vice-Pres.│King, Ala. │ │ │ │ 254
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │
„ │Graham, N. C. │ │ │ │ 42
│ (Whig) │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼──────┼────┼──────
1856 Pres.│Buchanan, Pa. │ │ │ 4│ 174
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │
„ │J. C. Fremont,│ │ │ │ 114
│ N. Y. (Rep.)│ │ │ │
„ │Fillmore, N. │ │ │ │ 8
│ Y. (Am.) │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼──────┼────┼──────
Vice-Pres.│Breckinridge, │ │ │ 4│ 174
│ Ky. (Dem.) │ │ │ │
„ │Dayton, Ohio │ │ │ │ 114
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │
„ │Donnelson, │ │ │ │ 8
│ Tenn. (Am.) │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼──────┼────┼──────
1860 Pres.│Lincoln, Ill. │ │ 3│ 4│ 180
│ (Rep) │ │ │ │
„ │Breckinridge, │ │ │ │ 72
│ Ky. (Dem.) │ │ │ │
„ │Bell, Tenn. │ │ │ │ 39
│ (Am.) │ │ │ │
„ │Douglas, Ill. │ │ │ │ 12
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼──────┼────┼──────
Vice-Pres.│Hamlin, Me. │ │ 3│ 4│ 180
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │
„ │Lane, Oregon │ │ │ │ 72
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │
„ │Everett, Mass.│ │ │ │ 39
│ (Am.) │ │ │ │
„ │Johnson, Geo. │ │ │ │ 12
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼──────┼────┼──────
1864 Pres.│Lincoln, Ill. │ 2│ 3│ 5│ 212
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │
„ │J McClellan, │ │ │ │ 21
│ N. J. (Dem.)│ │ │ │
│Vacancies. │ 1│ │ │ 81
„ │ Seceded │ │ │ │
│ States │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼──────┼────┼──────
Vice-Pres.│Johnson, Tenn.│ 2│ 3│ 5│ 212
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │
„ │Pendleton, │ │ │ │ 21
│ Ohio (Dem.) │ │ │ │
„ │Vacancies │ │ │ │ 81
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼──────┼────┼──────
1868 Pres.│Grant, Ill. │ 3│ │ 5│ 214
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │
„ │Seymour, N. Y.│ │ 3│ │ 80
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │
„ │Vacancies │ │ │ │ 23
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼──────┼────┼──────
Vice-Pres.│Colfax Ind. │ 3│ │ 5│ 214
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │
„ │Blair, Me. │ │ 3│ │ 80
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │
„ │Vacancies │ │ │ │ 23
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼──────┼────┼──────
1872 Pres.│Grant, Ill. │ 3│ 3│ │ 286
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │
„ │Hendricks, │ │ │ │ 42
│ Ind. (Dem.) │ │ │ │
„ │Brown, Mo. │ │ │ │ 18
│ (Lib. Rep.) │ │ │ │
„ │Perkins, Ga. │ │ │ │ 2
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │
„ │Davis, Ill. │ │ │ │ 1
│ (Lib. Rep.) │ │ │ │
„ │Not counted │ │ │ │ 17
│Horace │ │ │ │
│ Greeley, N. │ │ │ │
│ Y. (Lib. │ │ │ │
„ │ Rep.) died │ │ │ │
│ before │ │ │ │
│ meeting of │ │ │ │
│ electoral │ │ │ │
│ college │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼──────┼────┼──────
Vice-Pres.│Wilson, Mass. │ 3│ 3│ │ 286
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │
„ │Brown, Mo. │ │ │ │ 47
│ (Lib. Rep.) │ │ │ │
„ │Julian, Ind. │ │ │ │ 5
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │
„ │Colquitt, Ga. │ │ │ │ 5
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │
„ │Palmer, Ill. │ │ │ │ 3
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │
„ │Bramlette, Ky.│ │ │ │ 3
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │
„ │Groesbeck, │ │ │ │ 1
│ Ohio (Dem.) │ │ │ │
„ │Macken, Ky. │ │ │ │ 1
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │
„ │Banks, Mass. │ │ │ │ 1
│ (Lib. Rep.) │ │ │ │
„ │Not counted │ │ │ │ 14
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼──────┼────┼──────
1876 Pres.│Hayes, Ohio │ 3│ 3│ 6│ 185
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │
„ │Tilden, N. Y. │ │ │ │ 184
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼──────┼────┼──────
Vice-Pres.│Wheeler, N. Y.│ 3│ 3│ 6│ 185
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │
„ │Hendricks, │ │ │ │ 184
│ Ind. (Dem.) │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼──────┼────┼──────
1880 Pres.│Garfield, Ohio│ │ 3│ 1│ 214
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │
„ │Hancock, N. Y.│ 3│ │ 5│ 155
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │
„ │Weaver, Iowa │ │ │ │
│ (Gr.) │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼──────┼────┼──────
Vice-Pres.│Arthur, N. Y. │ │ 3│ 1│ 214
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │
„ │English, Ind. │ 3│ │ │ 155
│ (Dem.) │ │ │ │
„ │Chambers, Tex.│ │ │ │
│ (Gr.) │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼──────┼────┼──────
1884 Pres.│Cleveland, N. │ │ │ │ 219
│ Y. (Dem.) │ │ │ │
„ │Blaine, Me. │ 3│ 3│ 8│ 182
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │
──────────┼──────────────┼──────┼──────┼────┼──────
1888 Pres.│Harrison, Ind.│ 3│ 3│ 8│ 233
│ (Rep.) │ │ │ │
„ │Cleveland, N. │ │ │ │ 168
│ Y. (Dem.) │ │ │ │
──────────┴──────────────┴──────┴──────┴────┴──────
STATES AND TERRITORIAL GOVERNMENTS.
────────────────────┬──────────┬──────────────────────┬──────────
States and │ Area in │ Capitals. │Governor’s
Territories. │sq. miles.│ │ salary.
────────────────────┼──────────┼──────────────────────┼──────────
Alabama │ 50,722│Montgomery │ $4,000
Alaska Territory │ 577,380│Sitka │
Arizona Territory │ 113,916│Tucson │ 2,600
Arkansas │ 52,198│Little Rock │ 5,000
California │ 188,981│Sacramento │ 7,000
Colorado │ 104,500│Denver │
Connecticut │ 4,750│Hartford │ 2,000
Dakota, North } │ 15,200│Bismarck │ 3,000
Dakota, South } │ „ │Pierre │ 2,500
Delaware │ 2,120│Dover │ 2,000
District of Columbia│ 60│Washington │
Florida │ 59,248│Tallahassee │ 5,000
Georgia │ 58,000│Atlanta │ 4,000
Idaho │ 90,932│Boise City │
Illinois │ 55,410│Springfield │ 6,000
Indian Territory │ 68,091│Tahlequah │ 1,000
Iowa │ 55,045│Des Moines │ 2,500
Kansas │ 88,318│Topeka │ 3,000
Kentucky │ 37,680│Frankfort │ 5,000
Louisiana │ 41,346│Baton Rouge │ 7,000
Maine │ 35,000│Augusta │ 2,500
Maryland │ 11,124│Annapolis │ 4,500
Massachusetts │ 7,800│Boston │ 5,000
Michigan │ 56,451│Lansing │ 1,000
Minnesota │ 83,531│St. Paul │ 3,000
Mississippi │ 47,156│Jackson │ 3,000
Missouri │ 65,350│Jefferson City │ 5,000
Montana │ 143,776│Helena │ 5,000
Nebraska │ 75,995│Lincoln │ 1,000
Nevada │ 81,539│Carson City │ 6,000
New Hampshire │ 9,280│Concord │ 1,000
New Jersey │ 8,320│Trenton │ 10,000
New Mexico Territory│ 121,201│Santa Fe │
New York │ 47,000│Albany │ 10,000
North Carolina │ 50,704│Raleigh │ 5,000
Ohio │ 39,964│Columbus │ 4,000
Oregon │ 95,274│Salem │ 1,500
Pennsylvania │ 46,000│Harrisburg │ 10,000
Rhode Island │ 1,306│Newport and Providence│ 1,000
South Carolina │ 34,000│Columbia │ 4,000
Tennessee │ 45,000│Nashville │ 3,000
Texas │ 274,356│Austin │ 5,000
Utah Territory │ 88,056│Salt Lake City │ 2,600
Vermont │ 10,212│Montpelier │ 1,000
Virginia │ 38,352│Richmond │ 5,000
Washington │ 69,994│Olympia │ 4,000
West Virginia │ 23,000│Wheeling │ 2,700
Wisconsin │ 53,924│Madison │ 5,000
Wyoming │ 85,000│Cheyenne │ 2,600
────────────────────┴──────────┴──────────────────────┴──────────
────────────────────┬─────────────────────────┬────────────────────────
States and │ Legislatures meet. │Time of Election in each
Territories. │ │ State.
────────────────────┼─────────────────────────┼────────────────────────
Alabama │2d Monday November│1st Monday August
Alaska Territory │ │
Arizona Territory │ January│Tuesday after November
│ │ 1st Mon.
Arkansas │Tuesday after November│1st Monday September
│ 2d Mon. │
California │1st Monday December│Tuesday after November
│ │ 1st Mon.
Colorado │1st Wednesday January│Tuesday after November
│ │ 1st Mon.
Connecticut │Wednesday after January│Tuesday after November
│ 1st Mon. │ 1st Mon.
Dakota, North } │1st Monday January│Tuesday after November
│ │ 1st Mon.
Dakota, South } │1st Tuesday January│Tuesday after November
│ │ 1st Mon.
Delaware │1st Tuesday January│Tuesday after November
│ │ 1st Mon.
District of Columbia│ │
Florida │Tuesday after January│Tuesday after November
│ 1st Mon. │ 1st Mon.
Georgia │2d Wednesday January│1st Wednesday October
Idaho │ │
Illinois │Wednesday after January│Tuesday after November
│ 1st Mon. │ 1st Mon.
Indiana │1st Wednesday January│Tuesday after November
│ │ 1st Mon.
Indian Territory │ │
Iowa │2d Monday January│2d Tuesday October
Kansas │2d Tuesday January│Tuesday after November
│ │ 1st Mon.
Kentucky │1st Monday December│1st Monday August
Louisiana │1st Monday January│Tuesday after November
│ │ 1st Mon.
Maine │1st Wednesday January│2d Monday September
Maryland │1st Wednesday January│Tuesday after November
│ │ 1st Mon.
Massachusetts │1st Wednesday January│Tuesday after November
│ │ 1st Mon.
Michigan │1st Wednesday January│Tuesday after November
│ │ 1st Mon.
Minnesota │Tuesday after January│Tuesday after November
│ 1st Mon. │ 1st Mon.
Mississippi │1st Monday January│Tuesday after November
│ │ 1st Mon.
Missouri │Last Monday December│Tuesday after November
│ │ 1st Mon.
Montana │1st Monday January│
Nebraska │Tuesday after January│Tuesday after November
│ 1st Mon. │ 1st Mon.
Nevada │1st Monday January│Tuesday after November
│ │ 1st Mon.
New Hampshire │1st Monday January│Tuesday after November
│ │ 1st Mon.
New Jersey │Monday before January│Tuesday after November
│ 3d Tues. │ 1st Mon.
New Mexico Territory│ │
New York │1st Tuesday January│Tuesday after November
│ │ 1st Mon.
North Carolina │Wednesday after January│Tuesday after November
│ 1st Mon. │ 1st Mon.
Ohio │2d Monday January│Tuesday after November
│ │ 1st Mon.
Oregon │2d Monday September│1st Monday June
Pennsylvania │1st Tuesday January│Tuesday after November
│ │ 1st Mon.
Rhode Island │ May and│1st Wednesday April
│ January│
South Carolina │4th Tuesday November│Tuesday after November
│ │ 1st Mon.
Tennessee │1st Monday January│Tuesday after November
│ │ 1st Mon.
Texas │2d Tuesday January│Tuesday after November
│ │ 1st Mon.
Utah Territory │ │
Vermont │1st Wednesday October│1st Tuesday September
Virginia │1st Monday December│Tuesday after November
│ │ 1st Mon.
Washington │ │
West Virginia │1st Monday December│Tuesday after November
│ │ 1st Mon.
Wisconsin │1st Wednesday January│Tuesday after November
│ │ 1st Mon.
Wyoming │ │Tuesday after November
│ │ 1st Mon.
────────────────────┴─────────────────────────┴────────────────────────
THE CUSTOMS TARIFF OF GREAT BRITAIN.
No protective duties are now levied on goods imported, Customs duties
being charged solely for the sake of revenue. Formerly the articles
subject to duty numbered nearly a thousand; now they are only
twenty-two, the chief being tobacco, spirits, tea, and wine. The
following is a complete list:
ARTICLES. Duty.
£ s. d.
Ale or beer, spec. gravity not exceeding 1065°, per bbl. 0 8 0
Ale or beer, spec. gravity not exceeding 1090°, per bbl. 0 11 0
Ale or beer, spec. gravity exceeding 1090°, per bbl. 0 16 0
Beer, Mum, per bbl. 1 1 0
Beer, spruce, spec. gravity not exceeding 1190°, per bbl. 1 1 0
Beer, spruce, exceeding 1190°, per barrel 1 4 0
Cards, playing, per doz. packs 0 3 9
Chicory (raw or kiln-dried), cwt. 0 13 3
Chicory (roasted or ground), lb. 0 0 2
Chloral hydrate, pound 0 1 3
Chloroform, pound 0 3 0
Cocoa, pound 0 0 1
Cocoa, cwt., husks and shells 0 2 0
Cocoa paste and chocolate, pound 0 0 2
Coffee, raw, cwt. 0 14 0
Coffee, kiln-dried, roasted or ground, per pound 0 0 2
Collodion, gallon 0 1 4
Essence of spruce, 10 per cent. ad valorem Ethyl, iodide of,
gallon 0 13 0
Ether, gallon 0 1 5
Fruit, dried, cwt. 0 7 0
Malt, per quarter 1 4 9
Naphtha, purified, gallon 0 10 5
Pickles, in vinegar, gallon 0 0 1
Plate, gold, ounce 0 17 0
Plate, silver, ounce 0 1 6
Spirits, brandy, Geneva, rum, etc., gallon 0 10 5
Spirits, rum, from British Colonies, gallon 0 10 2
Spirits, cologne water, gallon 0 16 6
Tea, pound 0 0 6
Tobacco, unmanufactured, lb. 0 3 1¾
Tobacco, containing less than ten per ct. of moisture, lb. 0 3 6
Cavendish or Negro head 0 4 6
Other manufactured tobacco 0 4 0
Snuff, containing more than 13 per cent. of moisture, lb. 0 3 9
Snuff, less than 13 per cent. of moisture, lb. 0 4 6
Tobacco, cigars, pound 0 5 0
Varnish, containing alcohol, gallon 0 12 0
Vinegar, gallon 0 0 3
Wine, containing less than 26° proof spirit, gallon 0 1 0
Wine, containing more than 26° and less than 42 spirit, gallon 0 2 6
Wine, for each additional degree of strength beyond 42°,
gallon 0 0 3
PRESIDENTS AND VICE-PRESIDENTS.
PRESIDENTS. VICE-PRESIDENTS.
Term Name. Qualified. Name. Qualified.
[108]1 George Washington April 30, 1789 John Adams June 3, 1789
2 „ „ March 4, 1793 „ „ Dec. 2, 1793
3 John Adams March 4, 1797 Thomas Jefferson March 4, 1797
4 Thomas Jefferson March 4, 1801 Aaron Burr March 4, 1801
5 „ „ March 4, 1805 George Clinton March 4, 1805
6 James Madison March 4, 1809 „ „ March 4, 1809
7 „ „ March 4, 1813 Elbridge Gerry March 4, 1813
John Gaillard Nov. 25, 1814
8 James Monroe March 4, 1817 Daniel D. March 4, 1817
Tompkins
9 „ „ March 5, 1821 „ „ March 5, 1821
10 John Q. Adams March 4, 1825 John C. Calhoun March 4, 1825
11 Andrew Jackson March 4, 1829 „ „ March 4, 1829
12 „ „ March 4, 1833 Martin Van Buren March 4, 1833
13 Martin Van Buren March 4, 1837 Richard M. March 4, 1837
Johnson
14 Wm. H. Harrison March 4, 1841 John Tyler March 4, 1841
14a John Tyler April 6, 1841 [109]Samuel L. Apr. 6, 1841
Southard
[109]Willie P. May 31, 1842
Mangum
15 James K. Polk March 4, 1845 George M. Dallas March 4, 1845
16 Zachary Taylor March 5, 1849 Millard Fillmore March 5, 1849
16a Millard Fillmore July 10, 1850 [109]William R. July 11, 1850
King
17 Franklin Pierce March 4, 1853 William R. King March 4, 1853
[109]David R. Apr. 18, 1853
Atchison
[109]Jesse D. Dec. 5, 1854
Bright
18 James Buchanan March 4, 1857 John C. Mar. 4, 1857
Breckinridge
19 Abraham Lincoln March 4, 1861 Hannibal Hamlin March 4, 1861
20 „ „ March 4, 1865 Andrew Johnson March 4, 1865
20a Andrew Johnson April 15, 1865 [109]Lafayette Apr. 15, 1865
S. Foster
[109]Benjamin F. March 2, 1867
Wade
21 Ulysses S. Grant March 4, 1869 Schuyler Colfax March 4, 1869
22 „ „ March 4, 1873 Henry Wilson March 4, 1873
[109]Thomas W. Nov. 22, 1875
Ferry
23 Rutherford B. Mar. 5, 1877 William A. March 5, 1877
Hayes Wheeler
24 James A. Garfield March 4, 1881 Chester A. March 4, 1881
Arthur
24a Chester A. Arthur Oct. 20, 1881 [109]Thomas F. Oct. 12, 1881
Bayard
[109]David Davis Oct. 13, 1881
25 Grover Cleveland March 4, 1885 Thomas A. March 4, 1885
Hendricks
[109]John Dec. 1885
Sherman
26 Benjamin Harrison March 4, 1889 Levi P. Morton March 4, 1889
SUMMARY OF POPULAR AND ELECTORAL VOTES IN PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS,
1789–1888.
─────┬───────┬─────┬──────────┬─────────────────┬───────┬───────┬──────
Year.│Number │Total│ Party. │ Candidates. │States.│Popular│Elect.
│ of │Elect│ │ │ │ Vote. │Vote.
│States.│Vote.│ │ │ │ │
─────┼───────┼─────┼──────────┼─────────────────┼───────┼───────┼──────
1789│ 10│ 73│ │George Washington│ │ │ 63
│ │ │ │John Adams │ │ │ 24
│ │ │ │John Jay │ │ │ 9
│ │ │ │R. R. Harrison │ │ │ 6
│ │ │ │John Rutledge │ │ │ 6
│ │ │ │John Hancock │ │ │ 4
│ │ │ │George Clinton │ │ │ 3
│ │ │ │Samuel Huntington│ │ │ 2
│ │ │ │John Milton │ │ │ 2
│ │ │ │Benjamin Lincoln │ │ │ 1
│ │ │ │James Armstrong │ │ │ 1
│ │ │ │Edward Telfair │ │ │ 1
│ │ │ │Vacancies │ │ │ 4
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
1792│ 15│ 135│Federalist│George Washington│ │ │ 132
│ │ │Federalist│John Adams │ │ │ 77
│ │ │Republican│George Clinton │ │ │ 50
│ │ │Republican│Thomas Jefferson │ │ │ 4
│ │ │Republican│Aaron Burr │ │ │ 1
│ │ │ │Vacancies │ │ │ 3
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
1796│ 16│ 138│Federalist│John Adams │ │ │ 71
│ │ │Republican│Thomas Jefferson │ │ │ 68
│ │ │Federalist│Thomas Pinckney │ │ │ 59
│ │ │Republican│Aaron Burr │ │ │ 30
│ │ │ │Samuel Adams │ │ │ 15
│ │ │ │Oliver Ellsworth │ │ │ 11
│ │ │ │George Clinton │ │ │ 7
│ │ │ │John Jay │ │ │ 5
│ │ │ │James Iredell │ │ │ 3
│ │ │ │George Washington│ │ │ 2
│ │ │ │John Henry │ │ │ 2
│ │ │ │S. Johnson │ │ │ 2
│ │ │ │Charles C. │ │ │ 1
│ │ │ │ Pinckney │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
1800│ 16│ 138│Republican│Thomas Jefferson │ │ │ 73
│ │ │Republican│Aaron Burr │ │ │ 73
│ │ │Federalist│John Adams │ │ │ 65
│ │ │Federalist│Charles C. │ │ │ 64
│ │ │ │ Pinckney │ │ │
│ │ │Federalist│John Jay │ │ │ 1
─────┴───────┴─────┴──────────┴─────────────────┴───────┴───────┴──────
─────┬───────┬─────┬──────────┬─────────────────┬───────┬───────┬──────
Year.│Number │Total│ Party. │ Candidates. │States.│Popular│Elect.
│ of │Elect│ │ │ │ Vote. │Vote.
│States.│Vote.│ │ │ │ │
─────┼───────┼─────┼──────────┼─────────────────┼───────┼───────┼──────
1789│ 10│ 73│ │George Washington│ │ │ 63
│ │ │ │John Adams │ │ │ 24
│ │ │ │John Jay │ │ │ 9
│ │ │ │R. R. Harrison │ │ │ 6
│ │ │ │John Rutledge │ │ │ 6
│ │ │ │John Hancock │ │ │ 4
│ │ │ │George Clinton │ │ │ 3
│ │ │ │Samuel Huntington│ │ │ 2
│ │ │ │John Milton │ │ │ 2
│ │ │ │Benjamin Lincoln │ │ │ 1
│ │ │ │James Armstrong │ │ │ 1
│ │ │ │Edward Telfair │ │ │ 1
│ │ │ │Vacancies │ │ │ 4
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
1792│ 15│ 135│Federalist│George Washington│ │ │ 132
│ │ │Federalist│John Adams │ │ │ 77
│ │ │Republican│George Clinton │ │ │ 50
│ │ │Republican│Thomas Jefferson │ │ │ 4
│ │ │Republican│Aaron Burr │ │ │ 1
│ │ │ │Vacancies │ │ │ 3
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
1796│ 16│ 138│Federalist│John Adams │ │ │ 71
│ │ │Republican│Thomas Jefferson │ │ │ 68
│ │ │Federalist│Thomas Pinckney │ │ │ 59
│ │ │Republican│Aaron Burr │ │ │ 30
│ │ │ │Samuel Adams │ │ │ 15
│ │ │ │Oliver Ellsworth │ │ │ 11
│ │ │ │George Clinton │ │ │ 7
│ │ │ │John Jay │ │ │ 5
│ │ │ │James Iredell │ │ │ 3
│ │ │ │George Washington│ │ │ 2
│ │ │ │John Henry │ │ │ 2
│ │ │ │S. Johnson │ │ │ 2
│ │ │ │Charles C. │ │ │ 1
│ │ │ │ Pinckney │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
1800│ 16│ 138│Republican│Thomas Jefferson │ │ │ 73
│ │ │Republican│Aaron Burr │ │ │ 73
│ │ │Federalist│John Adams │ │ │ 65
│ │ │Federalist│Charles C. │ │ │ 64
│ │ │ │ Pinckney │ │ │
│ │ │Federalist│John Jay │ │ │ 1
─────┴───────┴─────┴──────────┴─────────────────┴───────┴───────┴──────
─────┬───────┬──────┬─────────────┬──────────────┬───────┬─────────┬──────
Year.│Number │Total │ Party. │For President.│States.│ Popular │Elect.
│ of │Elect.│ │ │ │ Vote. │Vote.
│States.│Vote. │ │ │ │ │
─────┼───────┼──────┼─────────────┼──────────────┼───────┼─────────┼──────
1804│ 21│ 176│Republican │Thomas │ 15│ │ 162
│ │ │ │ Jefferson │ │ │
│ │ │Federalist │Chas. C. │ 2│ │ 14
│ │ │ │ Pinckney │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
1808│ 17│ 176│Republican │James Madison │ 12│ │ 122
│ │ │Republican │George Clinton│ │ │ 6
│ │ │Federalist │Chas. C. │ 5│ │ 47
│ │ │ │ Pinckney │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │Vacancy │ │ │ 1
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
1812│ 18│ 218│Republican │James Madison │ 11│ │ 128
│ │ │Federalist │De Witt │ 7│ │ 89
│ │ │ │ Clinton │ │ │
│ │ │ │Vacancy │ │ │ 1
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
1816│ 19│ 221│Republican │James Monroe │ 16│ │ 183
│ │ │Federalist │Rufus King │ 3│ │ 34
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │Vacancies │ │ │ 4
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
1820│ 24│ 235│Republican │James Monroe │ 24│ │ 231
│ │ │ │John Q. Adams │ │ │ 1
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │Vacancies │ │ │ 3
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
1824│ 24│ 261│Republican │Andrew Jackson│ 10│ 155,872│ 99
│ │ │Republican │John Q. Adams │ 8│ 105,321│ 84
│ │ │Republican │Wm. H. │ 3│ 44,282│ 41
│ │ │ │ Crawford │ │ │
│ │ │Republican │Henry Clay │ 3│ 46,587│ 27
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │Vacancy │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
1828│ 24│ 261│Democratic │Andrew Jackson│ 15│ 647,231│ 178
│ │ │Nat. │John Q. Adams │ 9│ 509,097│ 83
│ │ │Republican │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
1832│ 24│ 288│Democratic │Andrew Jackson│ 15│ 687,502│ 219
│ │ │Nat. │Henry Clay │ 7│ 530,189│ 49
│ │ │Republican │ │ │ │
│ │ │Anti-Mason │William Wirt │ 1│ 33,108│ 7
│ │ │ │John Floyd │ 1│ │ 11
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │Vacancies │ │ │ 2
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
1836│ 26│ 294│Democratic │Martin Van │ 15│ 761,549│ 170
│ │ │ │ Buren │ │ │
│ │ │Whig │Wm. H. │ 7│ 736,656│ 73
│ │ │ │ Harrison │ │ │
│ │ │ │Hugh L. White │ 2│ „ │ 26
│ │ │ │Daniel Webster│ 1│ „ │ 14
│ │ │ │W. P. Mangum │ 1│ „ │ 11
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
1840│ 26│ 294│Whig │Wm. H. │ 19│1,275,017│ 234
│ │ │ │ Harrison │ │ │
│ │ │Democratic │Martin Van │ 7│1,128,702│ 60
│ │ │ │ Buren │ │ │
│ │ │Liberty │James G. │ │ 7,059│
│ │ │ │ Birney │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
1844│ 26│ 275│Democratic │James K. Polk │ 15│1,337,243│ 170
│ │ │Whig │Henry Clay │ 11│1,299,068│ 105
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │Liberty │James G. │ │ 62,300│
│ │ │ │ Birney │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
1848│ 30│ 290│Whig │Zachary Taylor│ 15│1,360,101│ 163
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │Democratic │Lewis Cass │ 15│1,220,544│ 127
│ │ │Free Soil │Martin Van │ │ 291,263│
│ │ │ │ Buren │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
1852│ 31│ 296│Democratic │Franklin │ 27│1,601,474│ 254
│ │ │ │ Pierce │ │ │
│ │ │Whig │Winfield Scott│ 4│1,386,578│ 42
│ │ │Free │John P. Hale │ │ 156,149│
│ │ │ Democracy │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
1856│ 31│ 296│Democratic │James Buchanan│ 19│1,838,169│ 174
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │Republican │John C. │ 11│1,341,264│ 114
│ │ │ │ Fremont │ │ │
│ │ │American │Millard │ 1│ 874,534│ 8
│ │ │ │ Fillmore │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
1860│ 33│ 303│Republican │Abraham │ 17│1,866,352│ 180
│ │ │ │ Lincoln │ │ │
│ │ │Democratic │J. C. │ 11│ 845,763│ 72
│ │ │ │ Breckinridge│ │ │
│ │ │Democratic │S. A. Douglas │ 2│1,375,157│ 12
│ │ │“Const. │John Bell │ 3│ 589,581│ 39
│ │ │ Union” │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
1864│ 36│ 314│Republican │Abraham │ 22│2,216,067│ 212
│ │ │ │ Lincoln │ │ │
│ │ │Democratic │Geo. B. │ 3│1,808,725│ 21
│ │ │ │ McClellan │ │ │
│ │ │ │Vacancies[110]│ 11│ │ 81
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
1868│ 37│ 317│Republican │Ulysses S. │ 26│3,015,071│ 214
│ │ │ │ Grant │ │ │
│ │ │Democratic │Horatio │ 8│2,709,613│ 80
│ │ │ │ Seymour │ │ │
│ │ │ │Vacancies[111]│ 3│ │ 23
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
1872│ 37│ 366│Republican │Ulysses S. │ 31│3,597,070│ 286
│ │ │ │ Grant │ │ │
│ │ │Dem. and Lib.│Horace Greeley│ 6│2,834,079│
│ │ │ Rep. │ │ │ │
│ │ │Democratic │Chas. O’Conor │ │ 29,408│
│ │ │Temperance │James Black │ │ 5,608│
│ │ │ │T. A. │ │ │ 42
│ │ │ │ Hendricks │ │ │
│ │ │ │B. Gratz Brown│ │ │ 18
│ │ │ │David Davis │ │ │ 1
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │Not │ │ │ 17
│ │ │ │ counted[112]│ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
1876│ 38│ 369│Republican │R. B. Hayes │ 21│4,033,950│ 185
│ │ │Democratic │S. J. Tilden │ 17│4,284,885│ 184
│ │ │“Greenback” │Peter Cooper │ │ 81,740│
│ │ │“Prohibition”│Green C. Smith│ │ 9,522│
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
1880│ 38│ 369│Republican │James A. │ 19│4,442,950│ 214
│ │ │ │ Garfield │ │ │
│ │ │Democratic │W. S. Hancock │ 19│4,442,035│ 155
│ │ │“Greenback” │James B. │ │ 306,867│
│ │ │ │ Weaver │ │ │
│ │ │ │Scattering │ │ 12,576│
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
1884│ 38│ 401│Democratic │Grover │ 20│4,911,017│ 219
│ │ │ │ Cleveland │ │ │
│ │ │Republican │James G. │ 18│4,848,334│ 182
│ │ │ │ Blaine │ │ │
│ │ │Prohibition │John P. St. │ │ 151,809│
│ │ │ │ John │ │ │
│ │ │Greenback │Benj. F. │ │ 133,825│
│ │ │ │ Butler │ │ │
│ │ │ │Scattering │ │ 11,362│
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
1888│ 38│ 401│Republican │Benjamin │ 20│5,438,157│ 233
│ │ │ │ Harrison │ │ │
│ │ │Democratic │Grover │ 18│5,535,626│ 168
│ │ │ │ Cleveland │ │ │
│ │ │Prohibition │Clinton B. │ │ 250,157│
│ │ │ │ Fisk │ │ │
│ │ │Labor │R. H. Cowdrey │ │ 150,624│
─────┴───────┴──────┴─────────────┴──────────────┴───────┴─────────┴──────
─────┬───────┬──────┬─────────────┬───────────────┬──────
Year.│Number │Total │ Party. │ For │Elect.
│ of │Elect.│ │Vice-President.│Vote.
│States.│Vote. │ │ │
─────┼───────┼──────┼─────────────┼───────────────┼──────
1804│ 21│ 176│Republican │George Clinton │ 162
│ │ │ │ │
│ │ │Federalist │Rufus King │ 14
│ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │
1808│ 17│ 176│Republican │George Clinton │ 113
│ │ │Republican │James Madison │ 3
│ │ │Federalist │Rufus King │ 47
│ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │John Langdon │ 9
│ │ │ │James Monroe │ 3
│ │ │ │ │ 1
│ │ │ │ │
1812│ 18│ 218│Republican │Elbridge Gerry │ 131
│ │ │Federalist │Jared Ingersoll│ 86
│ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ 1
│ │ │ │ │
1816│ 19│ 221│Republican │D. D. Tompkins │ 183
│ │ │Federalist │John E. Howard │ 22
│ │ │ │James Ross │ 5
│ │ │ │John Marshall │ 4
│ │ │ │Robt. G. Harper│ 3
│ │ │ │ │ 4
│ │ │ │ │
1820│ 24│ 235│Republican │D. D. Tompkins │ 218
│ │ │ │Rich. Stockton │ 8
│ │ │ │Daniel Rodney │ 4
│ │ │ │Robt. G. Harper│ 1
│ │ │ │Richard Rush │ 1
│ │ │ │ │ 3
│ │ │ │ │
1824│ 24│ 261│Republican │John C. Calhoun│ 182
│ │ │Republican │Nathan Sanford │ 30
│ │ │Republican │Nathaniel Macon│ 24
│ │ │ │ │
│ │ │Republican │Andrew Jackson │ 13
│ │ │ │M. Van Buren │ 9
│ │ │ │Henry Clay │ 2
│ │ │ │ │ 1
│ │ │ │ │
1828│ 24│ 261│Democratic │John C. Calhoun│ 171
│ │ │Nat. │Richard Rush │ 83
│ │ │Republican │ │
│ │ │ │William Smith │ 7
│ │ │ │ │
1832│ 24│ 288│Democratic │M. Van Buren │ 189
│ │ │Nat. │John Sergeant │ 49
│ │ │Republican │ │
│ │ │Anti-Mason │Amos Ellmaker │ 7
│ │ │ │Henry Lee │ 11
│ │ │ │William Wilkins│ 30
│ │ │ │ │ 2
│ │ │ │ │
1836│ 26│ 294│Democratic │R. M. Johnson │ 147
│ │ │ │ │
│ │ │Whig │Francis Granger│ 77
│ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │John Tyler │ 47
│ │ │ │William Smith │ 23
│ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │
1840│ 26│ 294│Whig │John Tyler │ 234
│ │ │ │ │
│ │ │Democratic │R. M. Johnson │ 48
│ │ │ │ │
│ │ │Liberty │ │
│ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │L. W. Tazewell │ 11
│ │ │ │James K. Polk │ 1
│ │ │ │ │
1844│ 26│ 275│Democratic │Geo. M. Dallas │ 170
│ │ │Whig │T. │ 105
│ │ │ │ Frelinghuysen│
│ │ │Liberty │ │
│ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │
1848│ 30│ 290│Whig │Millard │ 163
│ │ │ │ Fillmore │
│ │ │Democratic │Wm. O. Butler │ 127
│ │ │Free Soil │Chas. F. Adams │
│ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │
1852│ 31│ 296│Democratic │Wm. R. King │ 254
│ │ │ │ │
│ │ │Whig │Wm. A. Graham │ 42
│ │ │Free │Geo. W. Julian │
│ │ │ Democracy │ │
│ │ │ │ │
1856│ 31│ 296│Democratic │J. C. │ 174
│ │ │ │ Breckinridge │
│ │ │Republican │Wm. L. Dayton │ 114
│ │ │ │ │
│ │ │American │A. J. Donelson │ 8
│ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │
1860│ 33│ 303│Republican │Hannibal Hamlin│ 180
│ │ │ │ │
│ │ │Democratic │Joseph Lane │ 72
│ │ │ │ │
│ │ │Democratic │H. V. Johnson │ 12
│ │ │“Const. │Edward Everett │ 39
│ │ │ Union” │ │
│ │ │ │ │
1864│ 36│ 314│Republican │Andrew Johnson │ 212
│ │ │ │ │
│ │ │Democratic │Geo. H. │ 21
│ │ │ │ Pendleton │
│ │ │ │ │ 81
│ │ │ │ │
1868│ 37│ 317│Republican │Schuyler Colfax│ 214
│ │ │ │ │
│ │ │Democratic │F. P. Blair, Jr│ 80
│ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ 23
│ │ │ │ │
1872│ 37│ 366│Republican │Henry Wilson │ 286
│ │ │ │ │
│ │ │Dem. and Lib.│B. Gratz Brown │ 47
│ │ │ Rep. │ │
│ │ │Democratic │John Q. Adams │
│ │ │Temperance │A. H. Colquite │ 5
│ │ │ │Iohn M. Palmer │ 3
│ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │Geo. W. Julian │ 5
│ │ │ │W. S. Groesbeck│ 1
│ │ │ │Willis B. │ 1
│ │ │ │ Machen │
│ │ │ │N. P. Banks │ 1
│ │ │ │ │ 14
│ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │
1876│ 38│ 369│Republican │Wm. A. Wheeler │ 185
│ │ │Democratic │T. A. Hendricks│ 184
│ │ │“Greenback” │S. F. Cary │
│ │ │“Prohibition”│R. T. Stewart │
│ │ │ │ │
1880│ 38│ 369│Republican │Chester A. │ 214
│ │ │ │ Arthur │
│ │ │Democratic │Wm. H. English │ 155
│ │ │“Greenback” │B. J. Chambers │
│ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │
1884│ 38│ 401│Democratic │T. A. Hendricks│ 219
│ │ │ │ │
│ │ │Republican │John A. Logan │ 182
│ │ │ │ │
│ │ │Prohibition │William Daniel │
│ │ │ │ │
│ │ │Greenback │A. M. West │
│ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │
1888│ 38│ 401│Republican │Levi P. Morton │ 233
│ │ │ │ │
│ │ │Democratic │Allan G. │ 168
│ │ │ │ Thurman │
│ │ │Prohibition │John A. Brooks │
│ │ │ │ │
│ │ │Labor │W. Wakefield │
─────┴───────┴──────┴─────────────┴───────────────┴──────
CABINET OFFICERS OF THE ADMINISTRATIONS.
GEORGE WASHINGTON, President.
I. and II.; 1789–1797.
_Secretary of State_, Thomas Jefferson, Virginia, September 26th, 1789;
Edmund Randolph, Virginia, January 2d, 1794; Timothy Pickering,
Pennsylvania, December 10th, 1795. _Secretary of Treasury_, Alexander
Hamilton, New York, September 11th, 1789; Oliver Wolcott, Connecticut
February 2d, 1795. _Secretary of War_, Henry Knox, Massachusetts,
September 12th, 1789; Timothy Pickering, Pennsylvania, January 2d, 1795;
James McHenry, Maryland, January 27th, 1796. _Attorney-General_, Edmund
Randolph, Virginia, September 26th, 1789; William Bradford,
Pennsylvania, January 27th, 1794; Charles Lee, Virginia, December 10th,
1795. _Postmaster-General_,[113] Samuel Osgood, Massachusetts, September
26th, 1789; Timothy Pickering, Pennsylvania, August 12th, 1791; Joseph
Habersham, Georgia, February 25th, 1795.
JOHN ADAMS, President.
III.; 1797–1801.
_Secretary of State_, Timothy Pickering, continued; John Marshall,
Virginia, May 13th, 1800. _Secretary of Treasury_, Oliver Wolcott,
continued; Samuel Dexter, Massachusetts, January 1st, 1801. _Secretary
of War_, James McHenry, continued; Samuel Dexter, Massachusetts, May
13th, 1800; Roger Griswold, Connecticut, February 3d, 1801. _Secretary
of Navy_,[114] George Cabot, Massachusetts, May 3d, 1798; Benjamin
Stoddert, Maryland, May 21st, 1798. _Attorney-General_, Charles Lee,
continued; Theophilus Parsons, Massachusetts, February 20th, 1801.
_Postmaster-General_, Joseph Habersham, continued.
THOMAS JEFFERSON, President.
IV. and V.; 1801–1809.
_Secretary of State_, James Madison, Virginia, March 5th, 1801.
_Secretary of Treasury_, Samuel Dexter, continued; Albert Gallatin,
Pennsylvania, May 14th, 1801. _Secretary of War_, Henry Dearborn,
Massachusetts, March 5th, 1801. _Secretary of Navy_, Benjamin Stoddert,
continued; Robert Smith, Maryland, July 15th, 1801; Jacob Crowninshield,
Massachusetts, May, 3d, 1805. _Attorney-General_, Levi Lincoln,
Massachusetts, March 5th, 1801; Robert Smith, Maryland, March 3d, 1805;
John Breckinridge, Kentucky, August 7th, 1805; Cæsar A. Rodney,
Pennsylvania, January 20th, 1807. _Postmaster-General_, Joseph
Habersham, continued; Gideon Granger, Connecticut, November 28th, 1801.
JAMES MADISON, President.
VI. and VII.; 1809–1817.
_Secretary of State_, Robert Smith, Maryland, March 6th, 1809; James
Monroe, Virginia, April 2d, 1811. _Secretary of Treasury_, Albert
Gallatin, continued; George W. Campbell, Tennessee, February 9th, 1814;
A. J. Dallas, Pennsylvania, October 6th, 1814; William H. Crawford,
Georgia, October 22d, 1816. _Secretary of War_, William Eustis,
Massachusetts, March 7th, 1809; John Armstrong, New York, January 13th,
1813; James Monroe, Virginia, September 27th, 1814; William H. Crawford,
Georgia, August 1st, 1815. _Secretary of Navy_, Paul Hamilton, South
Carolina, March 7th. 1809; William Jones, Pennsylvania, January 12th,
1813; B. W. Crowninshield, Massachusetts, December 19th, 1814.
_Attorney-General_, C. A. Rodney, continued; William Pinckney, Maryland,
December 11th, 1811; Richard Rush, Pennsylvania, February 10th, 1814.
_Postmaster-General_, Gideon Granger, continued; Return J. Meigs, Ohio,
March 17th, 1814.
JAMES MONROE, President.
VIII. and IX.; 1817–1825.
_Secretary of State_, John Quincy Adams, Massachusetts, March 5th, 1817.
_Secretary of Treasury_, William H. Crawford, continued. _Secretary of
War_, George Graham, Virginia, April 7th, 1817; John C. Calhoun, South
Carolina, October 8th, 1817. _Secretary of Navy_, B. W. Crowninshield,
continued; Smith Thompson, New York, November 9th, 1818; John Rogers,
Massachusetts, September 1st, 1823; Samuel L. Southard, New Jersey,
September 16th, 1823. _Attorney-General_, Richard Rush, continued;
William Wirt, Virginia, November 13th, 1817. _Postmaster-General_, R. J.
Meigs, continued; John McLean, Ohio, June 26th, 1823.
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS, President.
X.; 1825–1829.
_Secretary of State_, Henry Clay, Kentucky, March 7th, 1825. _Secretary
of Treasury_, Richard Rush, Pennsylvania, March 7th, 1825. _Secretary of
War_, James Barbour, Virginia, March 7th, 1825; Peter B. Porter, New
York, May 26th 1828. _Secretary of Navy_, S. L. Southard, continued.
_Attorney-General_, William Wirt, continued. _Postmaster-General_, John
McLean, continued.
ANDREW JACKSON, President.
XI. and XII.; 1829–1837.
_Secretary of State_, Martin Van Buren, New York, March 6th, 1829;
Edward Livingston, Louisiana, May 24th, 1831; Louis McLane, Delaware,
May 29th, 1833; John Forsyth, Georgia, June 27th, 1834. _Secretary of
Treasury_, Samuel D. Ingham, Pennsylvania, March 6th, 1829; Louis
McLane, Delaware, August 8th, 1831; William J. Duane, Pennsylvania, May
29th, 1833; Roger B. Taney, Maryland, September 23d, 1833; Levi
Woodbury, New Hampshire, June 27th, 1834. _Secretary of War_, John H.
Eaton, Tennessee, March 9th, 1829; Lewis Cass, Michigan, August 1st,
1831; Benjamin F. Butler, New York, March 3d, 1837. _Secretary of Navy_,
John Branch, North Carolina, March 9th, 1829; Levi Woodbury, New
Hampshire, May 23d, 1831; Mahlon Dickerson, New Jersey, June 30th, 1834.
_Attorney-General_, John M. Berrien, Georgia, March 9th, 1829; Roger B.
Taney, Maryland, July 20th, 1831; Benjamin F. Butler, New York, November
15th, 1833. _Postmaster-General_, William T. Barry, Kentucky, March 9th,
1829; Amos Kendall, Kentucky, May 1st, 1835.
MARTIN VAN BUREN, President.
XIII.; 1837–1841.
_Secretary of State_, John Forsyth, continued. _Secretary of Treasury_,
Levi Woodbury, continued. _Secretary of War_, Joel R. Poinsett, South
Carolina, March 7th, 1837. _Secretary of Navy_, Mahlon Dickerson,
continued; James K. Paulding, New York, June 25th, 1838.
_Attorney-General_, Benjamin F. Butler; Felix Grundy, Tennessee, July
5th, 1838; Henry D. Gilpin, Pennsylvania, January 11th, 1810.
_Postmaster-General_, Amos Kendall, continued; John M. Niles,
Connecticut, May 19th, 1840.
WM. H. HARRISON AND JOHN TYLER, Presidents.
XIV.; 1841–1845.
_Secretary of State_, Daniel Webster, Massachusetts, March 5th, 1841;
Hugh S. Legare, South Carolina, May 9th, 1843; A. P. Upshur, Virginia,
July 24th, 1843; John C. Calhoun, South Carolina, March 6th, 1844.
_Secretary of Treasury_, Thomas Ewing, Ohio, March 5th, 1841; Walter
Forward, Pennsylvania, September 13th, 1841; John C. Spencer, New York,
March 3d, 1843; George M. Bibb, Kentucky, June 15th, 1844. _Secretary of
War_, John Bell, Tennessee, March 5th, 1841; John McLean, Ohio,
September 13th, 1841; John C. Spencer, New York, October 12th, 1841;
James M. Porter, Pennsylvania, March 8th, 1843; William Wilkins,
Pennsylvania, February 15th, 1844. _Secretary of Navy_, G. E. Badger,
North Carolina, March 5th, 1841; A. P. Upshur, Virginia, September 13th,
1841; David Henshaw, Massachusetts, July 24th, 1843; T. W. Gilmer,
Virginia, February 15th, 1844; John Y. Mason, Virginia, March 14th,
1844. _Attorney-General_, John J. Crittenden, Kentucky, March 5th, 1841;
Hugh S. Legare, South Carolina, September 13th, 1841; John Nelson,
Maryland, July 1st, 1843. _Postmaster-General_, Francis Granger, Now
York, March 6th, 1841; Charles A. Wickliffe, Kentucky, September 13th,
1841.
JAMES K. POLK, PRESIDENT.
XV.; 1845–1849.
_Secretary of State_, James Buchanan, Pennsylvania, March 6th, 1845.
_Secretary of Treasury_, Robert J. Walker, Mississippi, March 6th, 1845.
_Secretary of War_, William L. Marcy, New York, March 6th, 1845.
_Secretary of Navy_, George Bancroft, Massachusetts, March 10th, 1845;
John Y. Mason, September 9th, 1846. _Attorney-General_, John Y. Mason,
Virginia, March 5th, 1845; Nathan Clifford, Maine, October 17th, 1846.
_Postmaster-General_, Cave Johnson, Tennessee, March 6th, 1845.
ZACHARY TAYLOR AND MILLARD FILLMORE, Presidents.
XVI.; 1849–1853.
_Secretary of State_, John M. Clayton, Delaware, March 7th, 1840; Daniel
Webster, Massachusetts, July 22d, 1850; Edward Everett, Massachusetts,
December 6th, 1852. _Secretary of Treasury_, W. M. Meredith,
Pennsylvania, March 8th, 1849; Thomas Corwin, Ohio, July 23d, 1850.
_Secretary of War_, George W. Crawford, Georgia, March 8th, 1849;
Winfield Scott (_ad interim_), July 23d, 1850; Charles M. Conrad,
Louisiana, August 15th, 1850. Secretary of Navy, William B. Preston,
Virginia, March 8th, 1849; William A. Graham, North Carolina, July 22d,
1850; J. P. Kennedy, Maryland, July 22d, 1852. _Secretary of Interior_,
Thomas H. Ewing, Ohio, March 8th, 1849; A. H. H. Stuart, Virginia,
September 12th, 1850. _Attorney-General_, Reverdy Johnson, Maryland,
March 8th, 1849; John J. Crittenden, Kentucky, July 22d, 1850.
_Postmaster-General_, Jacob Collamer, Vermont, March 8th, 1849; Nathan
K. Hall, New York, July 23d, 1850; S. D. Hubbard, Connecticut, August
31st, 1852.
FRANKLIN PIERCE, President.
XVII.; 1853–1857.
_Secretary of State_, William L. Marcy, New York, March 7th, 1853.
_Secretary of Treasury_, James Guthrie, Kentucky, March 7th, 1853.
_Secretary of War_, Jefferson Davis, Mississippi, March 7th, 1853.
_Secretary of Navy_, James C. Dobbin, North Carolina, March 7th, 1853.
_Secretary of Interior_, Robert McClelland, Michigan, March 7th, 1853;
Jacob Thompson, Mississippi, March 6th, 1856. _Attorney-General_, Caleb
Cushing, Massachusetts, March 7th, 1853. _Postmaster-General_, James
Campbell, Pennsylvania, March 7th, 1853.
JAMES BUCHANAN, President.
XVIII.; 1857–1861.
_Secretary of State_, Lewis Cass, Michigan, March 6th, 1857; J. S.
Black, Pennsylvania, December 17th, 1860. _Secretary of Treasury_,
Howell Cobb, Georgia, March 6th, 1857; Philip F. Thomas, Maryland,
December 12th, 1860; John A. Dix, New York, January 11th, 1861.
_Secretary of War_, John B. Floyd, Virginia, March 6th, 1857; Joseph
Holt, Kentucky, January 18th, 1861. _Secretary of Navy_, Isaac Toucey,
Connecticut, March 6th, 1857. _Secretary of Interior_, Jacob Thompson,
continued. _Attorney-General_, J. S. Black, Pennsylvania, March 6th,
1857; E. M. Stanton, Pennsylvania, December 20th, 1860.
_Postmaster-General_, Aaron V. Brown, Tennessee, March 6th, 1857; Joseph
Holt, Kentucky, March 14th, 1859; Horatio King, Maine, February 12th,
1861.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN AND ANDREW JOHNSON, Presidents.
XIX. and XX.: 1861–1869.
_Secretary of State_, William H. Seward, New York, March 5th, 1861.
_Secretary of Treasury_, S. P. Chase, Ohio, March 5th, 1861; W. P.
Fessenden, Maine, July 1st, 1864; Hugh McCulloch, Indiana, March 7th,
1865. _Secretary of War_, Simon Cameron, Pennsylvania, March 5th, 1861;
Edwin M. Stanton, Pennsylvania, January 15th, 1862; U. S. Grant (_ad
interim_), August 12th, 1867; Edwin M. Stanton (reinstated), January
14th, 1868; J. M. Schofield, Illinois, May 28th, 1868. _Secretary of
Navy_, Gideon Welles, Connecticut, March 5th, 1861. _Secretary of
Interior_, Caleb P. Smith, March 5th, 1861; John P. Usher, Indiana,
January 8th, 1863; James Harlan, Iowa, May 15th, 1865; O. H. Browning,
Illinois, July 27th, 1866. _Attorney-General_, Edward Bates, Missouri,
March 5th, 1861; Titian J. Coffee, June 22d, 1863; James Speed,
Kentucky, December 2d, 1864; Henry Stanbery, Ohio, July 23d, 1866;
William M. Evarts, New York, July 15th, 1868. _Postmaster-General_,
Montgomery Blair, Maryland, March 5th, 1861; William Dennison, Ohio,
September 24th, 1864; Alexander W. Randall, Wisconsin, July 25th, 1866.
ULYSSES S. GRANT, President.
XXI. and XXII.; 1869–1877.
_Secretary of State_, E. B. Washburne, Illinois, March 5th, 1869;
Hamilton Fish, New York, March 11th, 1869. _Secretary of Treasury_,
George S. Boutwell, Massachusetts, March 11th, 1869; William A.
Richardson, Massachusetts, March 17th, 1873; Benjamin H. Bristow,
Kentucky, June 2d, 1874; Lot M. Morrill, Maine, June 21st, 1876.
_Secretary of War_, John A. Rawlins, Illinois, March 11th, 1869; William
T. Sherman, Ohio, September 9th, 1869; William W. Belknap, Iowa, October
25th, 1869; Alphonso Taft, Ohio, March 8th, 1876; J. D. Cameron,
Pennsylvania, May 22d, 1876. _Secretary of Navy_, Adolph E. Borie,
Pennsylvania, March 5th, 1869; George M. Robeson, New Jersey, June 25th,
1869. _Secretary of Interior_, Jacob D. Cox, Ohio, March 5th, 1869;
Columbus Delano, Ohio, November 1st, 1870; Zachariah Chandler, Michigan,
October 19th, 1875. _Attorney-General_, E. R. Hoar, Massachusetts, March
5th, 1869; Amos T. Akerman, Georgia, June 23d, 1870; George H. Williams,
Oregon, December 14th, 1871; Edwards Pierrepont, New York, April 26th,
1875; Alphonso Taft, Ohio, May 22d, 1876. _Postmaster-General_, J. A. J.
Creswell, Maryland, March 5th, 1869; Marshall Jewell, Connecticut,
August 24th, 1874; James M. Tyner, Indiana, July 12th, 1876.
RUTHERFORD B. HAYES, President.
XXIII.; 1877–1881.
_Secretary of State_, William M. Evarts, New York, March 12th, 1877.
_Secretary of Treasury_, John Sherman, Ohio, March 8th, 1877. _Secretary
of War_, George W. McCrary, Iowa, March 12th, 1877; Alexander Ramsey,
Minnesota, December 12th, 1879. _Secretary of Navy_, Richard W.
Thompson, Indiana, March 12th, 1877; Nathan Goff, Jr., West Virginia,
January 6th, 1881. _Secretary of Interior_, Carl Schurz, Missouri, March
12th, 1877. _Attorney-General_, Charles Devens, Massachusetts, March
12th, 1877. _Postmaster-General_, David M. Key, Tennessee, March 12th,
1877; Horace Maynard, Tennessee, August 25th, 1880.
JAMES A. GARFIELD AND CHESTER A. ARTHUR.
Presidents.
XXIV.; 1881–1885.
_Secretary of State_, James G. Blaine, Maine, March 5th, 1881; Frederick
T. Frelinghuysen, New Jersey, December 12th, 1881. _Secretary of
Treasury_, William H. Windom, Minnesota, March 5th, 1881; Charles J.
Folger, New York, October 27th, 1881; Walter Q. Gresham, Indiana,
September 24th, 1884; Hugh McCulloch, Indiana, October 28th, 1884.
_Secretary of War_, Robert T. Lincoln, Illinois, March 5th, 1881.
_Secretary of Navy_, W. H. Hunt, Louisiana, March 5th, 1881; William E.
Chandler, New Hampshire, April 1st, 1882. _Secretary of Interior_, S. J.
Kirkwood, Iowa, March 5th, 1881; Henry M. Teller, Colorado,
_Attorney-General_, Wayne McVeagh, Pennsylvania, March 5th, 1881;
Benjamin H. Brewster, Pennsylvania, December 16th, 1881.
_Postmaster-General_, Thomas L. James, New York, March 5th, 1881;
Timothy O. Howe, Wisconsin, December 20th, 1881; Walter Q. Gresham,
Indiana, April 3d, 1883; Frank Hatton, Wisconsin, October 14th, 1884.
GROVER CLEVELAND, President.
XXV.; 1885–1889.
_Secretary of State_, James A. Bayard, Delaware, March 5th, 1885.
_Secretary of Treasury_, Daniel J. Manning, New York, March 5th, 1885.
_Secretary of War_, W. C. Endicott, Massachusetts, March 5th, 1885.
_Secretary of Navy_, William C. Whitney, New York, March 5th, 1885.
_Postmaster-General_, William H. Vilas, Wisconsin, March 5th, 1885.
_Secretary of Interior_, Lucius Q. C. Lamar, Mississippi, March 5th,
1885. _Attorney-General_, Augustus H. Garland, Arkansas, March 5th,
1885.
BENJAMIN HARRISON, President.
XXVI.; 1889–1893.
_Secretary of State_, James G. Blaine, Maine, March 5th, 1889.
_Secretary of Treasury_, William Windom, Minnesota, March 5th,
1889.[115] _Secretary of War_, Redfield Proctor, Vermont, March 5th,
1889. _Secretary of Navy_, Benjamin Tracy, New York, March 5th, 1889.
_Postmaster-General_, John Wanamaker, Pennsylvania, March 5th, 1889.
_Secretary of Interior_, John W. Noble, Missouri, March 5th, 1889.
_Attorney-General_, W. H. H. Miller, Indiana, March 5th, 1889.
_Secretary of Agriculture_, Jeremiah Rusk, Wisconsin, March 5th, 1889.
SIGNERS OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. IN CONGRESS ASSEMBLED JULY
4th, 1776.
The following list of members of the Continental Congress, who signed
the Declaration of Independence (although the names are included in the
general list of that Congress, from 1774 to 1778), is given separately
for the purpose of showing the places and dates of their birth, and the
times of their respective deaths, for convenient reference:
─────────────────┬─────────────────┬─────────────────┬─────────────────
│ │ │
NAMES OF THE │ BORN AT │ DELEGATED FROM │ DIED.
SIGNERS. │ │ │
─────────────────┼─────────────────┼─────────────────┼─────────────────
Adams, John │Braintree, Mass.,│Massachusetts │4 July, 1826.
│ 19 Oct. 1735 │ │
Adams, Samuel │Boston, Mass., 27│Massachusetts │2 Oct. 1803.
│ Sept. 1722 │ │
Bartlett, Josiah │Amesbury, Mass., │New Hampshire │19 May 1795.
│ in Nov. 1729 │ │
Braxton, Carter. │Newington, Va., │Virginia │10 Oct. 1797.
│ 10 Sept. 1736 │ │
Carroll, Chas of │Annapolis, Md., │Maryland │14 Nov. 1832.
Carrollton │ 20 Sept. 1737 │ │
Chase, Samuel │Somerset Co., │Maryland │19 June, 1811.
│ Md., 17 Apr. │ │
│ 1741 │ │
Clark, Abraham │Elizabethtown, N.│New Jersey │— Sept. 1794.
│ J., 15 Feb. │ │
│ 1726 │ │
Clymer, George │Philadelphia, │Pennsylvania │23 Jan. 1813.
│ Pa., in 1739 │ │
Ellery, William │Newport, R. I., │R. I. & Prov. Pl.│15 Feb., 1820.
│ 22 Dec. 1727 │ │
Floyd, William │Suffolk Co., N. │New York │4 Aug., 1821.
│ Y., 17 Dec. │ │
│ 1734 │ │
Franklin, │Boston, Mass., 17│Pennsylvania │17 Apr. 1790.
Benjamin │ Jan. 1706 │ │
Gerry, Elbridge │Marblehead, │Massachusetts │23 Nov. 1814.
│ Mass., 1 July │ │
│ 1744 │ │
Gwinnet, Button │England, in 1732 │Georgia │27 May, 1777.
Hall, Lyman │Connecticut, in │Georgia │— Feb. 1790.
│ 1731 │ │
Hancock, John │Braintree, Mass.,│Massachusetts │8 Oct. 1793.
│ in 1737 │ │
Harrison, │Berkley, Va., —— │Virginia │— Apr. 1791.
Benjamin │ —— │ │
Hart, John │Hopewell, N. J., │New Jersey │1880.
│ in 1715 │ │
Heyward, Thomas, │St. Luke’s, S. │S. Carolina │— Mar. 1809.
Jr. │ C., in 1746 │ │
Hewes, Joseph │Kingston, N. J., │N. Carolina │10 Oct. 1779.
│ in 1730 │ │
Hooper, William │Boston, Mass., 17│N. Carolina │— Oct. 1790.
│ June, 1742 │ │
Hopkins, Stephen │Scituate, Mass., │R. I. & Prov. Pl.│13 July, 1785.
│ 7 Mar., 1707 │ │
Huntington, │Windham, Conn., 3│Connecticut │5 Jan. 1796.
Samuel │ July 1732 │ │
Hopkinson, │Philadelphia, │New Jersey │9 May, 1790.
Francis │ Pa., in 1737 │ │
Jefferson, Thomas│Shadwell, Va., 13│Virginia │4 July, 1826.
│ Apr. 1734 │ │
Lee, Richard │Stratford, Va., │Virginia │19 June, 1794.
Henry │ 20 Jan. 1732 │ │
Lee, Francis │Stratford, Va., │Virginia │— Apr. 1797.
Lightfoot │ 14 Oct. 1734 │ │
Lewis, Francis F │Landaff, Wales, │New York │30 Dec. 1803.
│ in Mar. 1713 │ │
Livingston, │Albany, N. Y., 15│New York │12 June, 1778.
Philip │ Jan. 1716 │ │
Lynch, Thomas, Jr│St. George’s, S. │S. Carolina │Lost at sea,
│ C., 5 Aug. 1749│ │ 1779.
McKean, Thomas │Chester Co., Pa.,│Delaware │24 June, 1817.
│ 19 Mar. 1734 │ │
Middleton, Arthur│Middleton Place, │S. Carolina │1 Jan. 1787.
│ S. C., in 1743 │ │
Morris, Lewis │Morrissianna, N. │New York │22 Jan. 1798.
│ Y., in 1726 │ │
Morris, Robert │Lancashire, Eng.,│Pennsylvania │8 May, 1806.
│ Jan. 1733–4 │ │
Morton, John │Ridley, Pa., in │Pennsylvania │— Apr. 1777.
│ 1724 │ │
Nelson, Thomas, │York, Va., 26 │Virginia │4 Jan. 1789.
Jr │ Dec. 1738 │ │
Paca, Wm. │Wye-Hill, Md., 31│Maryland │— ——, 1799.
│ Oct. 1740 │ │
Paine, Robert │Boston, Mass., in│Massachusetts │11 May, 1804.
Treat │ 1731 │ │
Penn, John │Caroline Co., │N. Carolina │26 Oct. 1809.
│ Va., 17 May │ │
│ 1741 │ │
Read, George │Cecil Co., Md., │Delaware │— ——, 1798.
│ in 1734 │ │
Rodney, Cæsar │Dover, Del., in │Delaware │— ——, 1783.
│ 1730 │ │
Ross, George │New Castle, Del.,│Pennsylvania │— July, 1779.
│ in 1730 │ │
Rush, Benjamin, │Byberry, Pa., 24 │Pennsylvania │19 Apr. 1813.
M. D. │ Dec. 1745 │ │
Rutledge, Edward │Charleston, S. │S. Carolina │23 Jan. 1800.
│ C., in Nov. │ │
│ 1749 │ │
Sherman, Roger │Newton, Mass., 19│Connecticut │23 July, 1793.
│ Apr. 1721 │ │
Smith, James │——, Ireland, —— │Pennsylvania │11 July, 1806.
│ —— │ │
Stockton, Richard│Princeton, N. J.,│New Jersey │28 Feb. 1781.
│ 1 Oct. 1730 │ │
Stone, Thomas │Charles Co., Md.,│Maryland │5 Oct. 1787.
│ in 1742 │ │
Taylor, George │——, Ireland, in │Pennsylvania │23 Feb. 1781.
│ 1716 │ │
Thornton, Matthew│——, Ireland, in │New Hampshire │24 June, 1803.
│ 1714 │ │
Walton, George │Frederick Co., │Georgia │2 Feb. 1804.
│ Va., in 1740 │ │
Whipple, Wm. │Kittery, Maine, │New Hampshire │28 Nov. 1785.
│ in 1730 │ │
Williams, Wm │Lebanon, Conn., 8│Connecticut │2 Aug. 1811.
│ Apr. 1731 │ │
Wilson, James │Scotland, about │Pennsylvania │28 Aug. 1798.
│ 1742 │ │
Witherspoon, John│Yester, Scotland,│New Jersey │15 Nov. 1794.
│ 5 Feb. 1722 │ │
Wolcott, Oliver │Windsor, Conn., │Connecticut │1 Dec. 1797.
│ 26 Nov. 1726 │ │
Wythe, George │Elizabeth City │Virginia │8 June, 1806.
│ Co., Va., in │ │
│ 1726 │ │
─────────────────┴─────────────────┴─────────────────┴─────────────────
ANTE-WAR DEBTS OF THE SEVERAL STATES.
Table showing the Debts of the several States before the war (1860–61).
──────────────┬──────────
STATES. │ In
│ 1860–61.
──────────────┼──────────
Maine │ $699,500
New Hampshire │ 31,669
Vermont │ none.
Massachusetts │ 7,132,627
Rhode Island │ none.
Connecticut │ none.
New York │34,182,976
New Jersey │ 104,000
Pennsylvania │37,964,602
Delaware │ none.
Maryland │
Ohio │14,250,173
Indiana │ 7,770,233
Michigan │ 2,388,843
Illinois │10,277,161
Wisconsin │ 100,000
Minnesota │ 250,000
Iowa │ 200,000
Missouri │24,734,000
Kansas │ 150,000
Kentucky │ 4,729,234
California │
Oregon │ 55,372
Virginia │33,248,141
North Carolina│ 9,129,505
South Carolina│ 3,691,574
Georgia │ 2,670,750
Florida │ 383,000
Alabama │ 5,048,000
Mississippi │ none.
Louisiana │10,023,903
Texas │
Arkansas │ 3,092,622
Tennessee │16,643,666
──────────────┴──────────
CANDIDATES FOR PRESIDENT AND VICE PRESIDENT,
Since the adoption of the _Federal Constitution_, March 1st, 1789.
The following is a _list_ of the _Presidents_ and _Vice-Presidents_ of
the _United States_, as well as those who were candidates for each
office, since the organization of the Government: (_vide_ pp. 21–25,
62.)
1789—George Washington[116] and John Adams, two terms, no opposition.
1797—John Adams, opposed by Thomas Jefferson[116] who, having the next
highest electoral vote, became Vice-President.
1801—Thomas Jefferson[116] and Aaron Burr; beating John Adams and
Charles C. Pinckney.[116]
1805—Thomas Jefferson[116] and George Clinton; beating Charles C.
Pinckney[116] and Rufus King.
1809—James Madison[116] and George Clinton; beating Charles C.
Pinckney.[116]
1813—James Madison[116] and Eldridge Gerry; beating De Witt Clinton.
1817—James Monroe[116] and Daniel D. Tompkins; beating Rufus King.
1821—James Monroe[116] and Daniel D. Tompkins; beating John Quincy
Adams.
1825—John Quincy Adams and John C. Calhoun;[116] beating Andrew
Jackson,[116] Henry Clay,[116] and William H. Crawford;[116] there being
four candidates for President, and Albert Gallatin for Vice-President.
1829—Andrew Jackson[116] and John C. Calhoun[116]; beating John Quincy
Adams and Richard Rush.
1833—Andrew Jackson[116] and Martin Van Buren; beating Henry Clay,[116]
John Floyd,[116] and William Wirt for President; and William Wilkins,
John Sergeant, and Henry Lee[116] for Vice-President.
1837—Martin Van Buren and Richard M. Johnson[116]; beating William H.
Harrison, Hugh L. White, and Daniel Webster for President, and John
Tyler[116] for Vice-President.
1841—William H. Harrison and John Tyler[116]; beating Martin Van Buren
and Littleton W. Tazewell.[116] Harrison died one month after his
inauguration, and John Tyler[116] became President for the rest of the
term.
1845—James K. Polk[116] and George M. Dallas; beating Henry Clay[116]
and Theodore Frelinghuysen.
1849—Zachary Taylor[116] and Millard Fillmore; beating Lewis Cass and
Martin Van Buren for President, and William O. Butler[116] and C. F.
Adams, for Vice-President.
1853—Franklin Pierce and William R. King[116]; beating Winfield Scott
and William A. Graham.[116]
1857—James Buchanan and John C. Breckinridge[116]; beating John C.
Fremont and Millard Fillmore for President, and William L. Dayton and A.
J. Donaldson[116] for Vice-President.
1861—Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin; beating John Bell, Stephen A.
Douglas, and J. C. Breckinridge[116] for President.
1865—Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson,[116] Union candidates; beating
G. B. McClellan and G. H. Pendleton.
1869—Ulysses S. Grant and Schuyler Colfax; beating Horatio Seymour and
Frank P. Blair, jr.
1873—Ulysses S. Grant and Henry Wilson; beating Horace Greeley and B.
Gratz Brown, for President and Vice-President.
1877—Rutherford B. Hayes and Wm. A. Wheeler; beating Samuel Tilden and
Thomas A. Hendricks.
1881—James A. Garfield and Chester A. Arthur; beating General W. S.
Hancock and W. H. English. Arthur succeeded Garfield, after his death
from assassination, Sept. 19, 1881, and David Davis is now Acting
Vice-President.
1885—Grover Cleveland and Thomas A. Hendricks, who defeated James G.
Blaine and John A. Logan.
1889—Benjamin Harrison and Levi P. Morton, who defeated Grover Cleveland
and Allen G. Thurman.
NUMBER OF ELECTORAL VOTES TO WHICH EACH STATE HAS BEEN ENTITLED, AT EACH
ELECTION, 1789–1880.
──────────────┬────┬────┬────┬────┬────┬────┬────┬────┬────┬────┬────┬────
States. │1789│1792│1796│1800│1804│1808│1812│1816│1820│1824│1828│1832
──────────────┼────┼────┼────┼────┼────┼────┼────┼────┼────┼────┼────┼────
Alabama │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ 3│ 5│ 5│ 7
Arkansas │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
California │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
Colorado │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
Connecticut │ 7│ 9│ 9│ 9│ 9│ 9│ 9│ 9│ 9│ 8│ 8│ 8
Delaware │ 3│ 3│ 3│ 3│ 3│ 3│ 4│ 4│ 4│ 3│ 3│ 3
Florida │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
Georgia │ 5│ 4│ 4│ 4│ 6│ 6│ 8│ 8│ 8│ 9│ 9│ 11
Illinois │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ 3│ 3│ 3│ 5
Indiana │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ 3│ 3│ 5│ 5│ 9
Iowa │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
Kansas │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
Kentucky │ │ 4│ 4│ 4│ 8│ 8│ 12│ 12│ 12│ 14│ 14│ 15
Louisiana │ │ │ │ │ │ │ 3│ 3│ 3│ 5│ 5│ 5
Maine │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ 9│ 9│ 9│ 10
Maryland │ 8│ 10│ 10│ 10│ 11│ 11│ 11│ 11│ 11│ 11│ 11│ 10
Massachusetts │ 10│ 16│ 16│ 16│ 19│ 19│ 22│ 22│ 15│ 15│ 15│ 14
Michigan │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
Minnesota │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
Mississippi │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ 3│ 3│ 3│ 4
Missouri │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ 3│ 3│ 3│ 4
Nebraska │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
Nevada │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
New Hampshire │ 5│ 6│ 6│ 6│ 7│ 7│ 8│ 8│ 8│ 8│ 8│ 7
New Jersey │ 6│ 7│ 7│ 7│ 8│ 8│ 8│ 8│ 8│ 8│ 8│ 8
New York │ 8│ 12│ 12│ 12│ 19│ 19│ 29│ 29│ 29│ 36│ 36│ 42
North Carolina│ 7│ 12│ 12│ 12│ 14│ 14│ 15│ 15│ 15│ 15│ 15│ 15
Ohio │ │ │ │ │ 3│ 3│ 8│ 8│ 8│ 16│ 16│ 21
Oregon │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
Pennsylvania │ 10│ 15│ 15│ 15│ 20│ 20│ 25│ 25│ 25│ 28│ 28│ 30
Rhode Island │ 3│ 4│ 4│ 4│ 4│ 4│ 4│ 4│ 4│ 4│ 4│ 4
South Carolina│ 7│ 8│ 8│ 8│ 10│ 10│ 11│ 11│ 11│ 11│ 11│ 11
Tennessee │ │ │ 3│ 3│ 5│ 5│ 8│ 8│ 8│ 11│ 11│ 15
Texas │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
Vermont │ │ 4│ 4│ 4│ 6│ 6│ 8│ 8│ 8│ 7│ 7│ 7
Virginia │ 12│ 21│ 21│ 21│ 24│ 24│ 25│ 25│ 25│ 24│ 24│ 23
West Virginia │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
Wisconsin │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
──────────────┼────┼────┼────┼────┼────┼────┼────┼────┼────┼────┼────┼────
Total │ 91│ 135│ 138│ 138│ 176│ 176│ 218│ 221│ 235│ 261│ 261│ 288
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
Number of │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
States │ 13│ 15│ 16│ 16│ 17│ 17│ 18│ 19│ 24│ 24│ 24│ 24
──────────────┴────┴────┴────┴────┴────┴────┴────┴────┴────┴────┴────┴────
──────────────┬────┬────┬────┬────┬────┬────┬────┬────┬────┬────┬────┬────
States. │1836│1840│1844│1848│1852│1856│1860│1864│1868│1872│1876│1880
──────────────┼────┼────┼────┼────┼────┼────┼────┼────┼────┼────┼────┼────
Alabama │ 7│ 7│ 9│ 9│ 9│ 9│ 9│ 8│ 8│ 10│ 10│ 12
Arkansas │ 3│ 3│ 3│ 3│ 4│ 4│ 4│ 5│ 5│ 6│ 6│ 7
California │ │ │ │ │ 4│ 4│ 4│ 5│ 5│ 6│ 6│ 8
Colorado │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ 3│ 3
Connecticut │ 8│ 8│ 6│ 6│ 6│ 6│ 6│ 6│ 6│ 6│ 6│ 6
Delaware │ 3│ 3│ 3│ 3│ 3│ 3│ 3│ 3│ 3│ 3│ 3│ 3
Florida │ │ │ │ 3│ 3│ 3│ 3│ 3│ 3│ 4│ 4│ 4
Georgia │ 11│ 11│ 10│ 10│ 10│ 10│ 10│ 9│ 9│ 11│ 11│ 12
Illinois │ 5│ 5│ 9│ 9│ 11│ 11│ 11│ 16│ 16│ 21│ 21│ 22
Indiana │ 9│ 9│ 12│ 12│ 13│ 13│ 13│ 13│ 13│ 15│ 15│ 15
Iowa │ │ │ │ 4│ 4│ 4│ 4│ 8│ 8│ 11│ 11│ 13
Kansas │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ 3│ 3│ 5│ 5│ 9
Kentucky │ 15│ 15│ 12│ 12│ 12│ 12│ 12│ 11│ 11│ 12│ 12│ 13
Louisiana │ 5│ 5│ 6│ 6│ 6│ 6│ 6│ 7│ 7│ 8│ 8│ 8
Maine │ 10│ 10│ 9│ 9│ 8│ 8│ 8│ 7│ 7│ 7│ 7│ 6
Maryland │ 10│ 10│ 8│ 8│ 8│ 8│ 8│ 7│ 7│ 8│ 8│ 8
Massachusetts │ 14│ 14│ 12│ 12│ 13│ 13│ 13│ 12│ 12│ 13│ 13│ 14
Michigan │ 3│ 3│ 5│ 5│ 6│ 6│ 6│ 8│ 8│ 11│ 11│ 13
Minnesota │ │ │ │ │ │ │ 4│ 4│ 4│ 5│ 5│ 7
Mississippi │ 4│ 4│ 6│ 6│ 7│ 7│ 7│ 7│ 7│ 8│ 8│ 9
Missouri │ 4│ 4│ 7│ 7│ 9│ 9│ 9│ 11│ 11│ 15│ 15│ 16
Nebraska │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ 3│ 3│ 3│ 5
Nevada │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ 3│ 3│ 3│ 3│ 3
New Hampshire │ 7│ 7│ 6│ 6│ 5│ 5│ 5│ 5│ 5│ 5│ 5│ 4
New Jersey │ 8│ 8│ 7│ 7│ 7│ 7│ 7│ 7│ 7│ 9│ 9│ 9
New York │ 42│ 42│ 36│ 36│ 35│ 35│ 35│ 33│ 33│ 35│ 35│ 36
North Carolina│ 15│ 15│ 11│ 11│ 10│ 10│ 10│ 9│ 9│ 10│ 10│ 11
Ohio │ 21│ 21│ 23│ 23│ 23│ 23│ 23│ 21│ 21│ 22│ 22│ 23
Oregon │ │ │ │ │ │ │ 3│ 3│ 3│ 3│ 3│ 3
Pennsylvania │ 30│ 30│ 26│ 26│ 27│ 27│ 27│ 26│ 26│ 29│ 29│ 30
Rhode Island │ 4│ 4│ 4│ 4│ 4│ 4│ 4│ 4│ 4│ 4│ 4│ 4
South Carolina│ 11│ 11│ 9│ 9│ 8│ 8│ 8│ 6│ 6│ 7│ 7│ 9
Tennessee │ 15│ 15│ 13│ 13│ 12│ 12│ 12│ 10│ 10│ 12│ 12│ 12
Texas │ │ │ │ 4│ 4│ 4│ 4│ 6│ 6│ 8│ 8│ 13
Vermont │ 7│ 7│ 6│ 6│ 5│ 5│ 5│ 5│ 5│ 5│ 5│ 4
Virginia │ 23│ 23│ 17│ 17│ 15│ 15│ 15│ 10│ 10│ 11│ 11│ 12
West Virginia │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ 5│ 5│ 5│ 5│ 6
Wisconsin │ │ │ │ 4│ 5│ 5│ 5│ 8│ 8│ 10│ 10│ 11
──────────────┼────┼────┼────┼────┼────┼────┼────┼────┼────┼────┼────┼────
Total │ 294│ 294│ 275│ 290│ 296│ 296│ 303│ 314│ 317│ 366│ 369│ 401
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
Number of │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
States │ 26│ 26│ 26│ 30│ 31│ 31│ 33│ 36│ 37│ 37│ 38│ 38
──────────────┴────┴────┴────┴────┴────┴────┴────┴────┴────┴────┴────┴────
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES.
─┬────────────────┬───────────────┬──────────────┬─────────┬────────┬─────┬─────
│Chief Justices. │ Associate │ State Whence │ Term of │Years of│Born.│Died.
│ │ Justices. │ Appointed. │Service. │Service.│ │
─┼────────────────┼───────────────┼──────────────┼─────────┼────────┼─────┼─────
1│John Jay[117] │ │New York │1789–1795│ 6│ 1745│ 1829
│ │John │South Carolina│1789–1791│ 2│ 1739│ 1800
│ │ Rutledge[117]│ │ │ │ │
│ │William Cushing│Massachusetts │1789–1810│ 21│ 1733│ 1810
│ │James Wilson │Pennsylvania │1789–1798│ 9│ 1742│ 1798
│ │John Blair[117]│Virginia │1789–1796│ 7│ 1732│ 1800
│ │Robert H. │Maryland │1789–1790│ 1│ 1745│ 1790
│ │ Harrison[117]│ │ │ │ │
│ │James Iredell │North Carolina│1790–1799│ 9│ 1751│ 1799
│ │Thomas │Maryland │1791–1793│ 2│ 1732│ 1819
│ │ Johnson[117] │ │ │ │ │
│ │William │New Jersey │1793–1806│ 13│ 1745│ 1806
│ │ Patterson │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
2│John │ │South Carolina│1795–1795│ │ 1739│ 1800
│ Rutledge[118] │ │ │ │ │ │
│ │Samuel Chase │Maryland │1796–1811│ 15│ 1741│ 1811
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
3│Oliver │ │Connecticut │1796–1801│ 5│ 1745│ 1807
│ Ellsworth[117]│ │ │ │ │ │
│ │Bushr’d │Virginia │1798–1829│ 31│ 1762│ 1829
│ │ Washington │ │ │ │ │
│ │Alfred │North Carolina│1799–1804│ 5│ 1755│ 1810
│ │ Moore[117] │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
4│John Marshall │ │Virginia │1801–1835│ 34│ 1755│ 1835
│ │William Johnson│South Carolina│1804–1834│ 30│ 1771│ 1834
│ │Brockh’t │New York │1806–1823│ 17│ 1757│ 1823
│ │ Livingston │ │ │ │ │
│ │Thomas Todd │Kentucky │1807–1826│ 19│ 1765│ 1826
│ │Joseph Story │Massachusetts │1811–1845│ 34│ 1779│ 1845
│ │Gabriel │Maryland │1811–1836│ 25│ 1752│ 1844
│ │ Duval[117] │ │ │ │ │
│ │Smith Thompson │New York │1823–1845│ 22│ 1767│ 1845
│ │Robert Trimble │Kentucky │1826–1828│ 2│ 1777│ 1828
│ │John McLean │Ohio │1829–1861│ 32│ 1785│ 1861
│ │Henry Baldwin │Pennsylvania │1830–1846│ 16│ 1779│ 1846
│ │James M. │Georgia │1835–1867│ 32│ 1790│ 1867
│ │ Wayne[119] │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
5│Roger B. Taney │ │Maryland │1836–1864│ 28│ 1777│ 1864
│ │Philip P. │Virginia │1836–1841│ 5│ 1783│ 1841
│ │ Barbour │ │ │ │ │
│ │John Catron │Tennessee │1837–1865│ 28│ 1778│ 1865
│ │John McKinley │Alabama │1837–1852│ 15│ 1780│ 1852
│ │Peter V. Daniel│Virginia │1841–1860│ 19│ 1785│ 1860
│ │Samuel │New York │1845–1872│ 27│ 1792│ 1873
│ │ Nelson[117] │ │ │ │ │
│ │Levi Woodbury │New Hampshire │1845–1851│ 6│ 1789│ 1851
│ │Robert C. │Pennsylvania │1846–1869│ 23│ 1794│ 1870
│ │ Grier[117] │ │ │ │ │
│ │Benjamin R. │Massachusetts │1851–1857│ 6│ 1809│ 1874
│ │ Curtis[117] │ │ │ │ │
│ │John A. │Alabama │1853–1861│ 8│ 1811│
│ │ Campbell[117]│ │ │ │ │
│ │Nathan Clifford│Maine │1858– │ │ 1803│ 1881
│ │Noah H. │Ohio │1861– │ │ 1805│ 1881
│ │ Swayne[117] │ │ │ │ │
│ │Samuel F. │Iowa │1862– │ │ 1816│
│ │ Miller │ │ │ │ │
│ │David │Illinois │1862–1877│ 15│ 1815│
│ │ Davis[117] │ │ │ │ │
│ │Stephen J. │California │1866– │ │ 1816│
│ │ Field │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
6│Salmon P. Chase │ │Ohio │1864–1873│ 9│ 1808│ 1873
│ │William │Pennsylvania │1870–1880│ 10│ 1808│
│ │ Strong[117] │ │ │ │ │
│ │Joseph P. │New Jersey │1870– │ │ 1813│
│ │ Bradley │ │ │ │ │
│ │Ward Hunt[117] │New York │1872– │ │ 1811│
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
7│Morrison R. │ │Ohio │1874–1887│ 13│ 1816│ 1887
│ Waite │ │ │ │ │ │
│ │John M. Harlan │Kentucky │1877– │ │ 1833│
│ │William B. │Georgia │1880– │ │ 1826│
│ │ Woods │ │ │ │ │
│ │Horace Gray │Massachusetts │1881– │ │ │
│ │Roscoe │New York │1882– │ │ │ .
│ │ Conkling[117]│ │ │ │ │
│ │Samuel │New York │1882– │ │ │
│ │ Blatchford │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
8│Melville W. │ │Illinois │1887– │ │ │
│ Fuller │ │ │ │ │ │
│ │Lucius Q. C. │Mississippi │1887– │ │ │
│ │ Lamar │ │ │ │ │
│ │David J. Brewer│Kansas │1890– │ │ │
─┴────────────────┴───────────────┴──────────────┴─────────┴────────┴─────┴─────
TOTAL NUMBER OF TROOPS CALLED INTO SERVICE DURING THE REBELLION.[120]
The various calls of the President for men were as follows:
1861—3 months’ men 75,000
1861—3 years’ men 500,000
1862—3 years’ men 300,000
1862—9 months’ men 300,000
1864—3 years’ men, February 500,000
1864—3 years’ men, March 200,000
1864—3 years’ men, July 500,000
1864—3 years’ men, December 300,000
—————————
Total 2,675,000
LENGTH OF SESSIONS OF CONGRESS, 1789–1891.
No. of No. of Time of Session.
Congress. Session.
1st 1st March 4, 1789—September 29, 1789
„ 2d January 4, 1790—August 12, 1790
„ 3d December 6, 1790—March 3, 1791
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────
2d 1st October 24, 1791—May 8, 1792
„ 2d November 5, 1792—March 2, 1793
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────
3d 1st December 2, 1793—June 9, 1794
„ 2d November 3, 1794—March 3, 1795
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────
4th 1st December 7, 1795—June 1, 1796
„ 2d December 5, 1796—March 3, 1797
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────
5th 1st May 15, 1797—July 10, 1797
„ 2d November 13, 1797—July 16, 1798
„ 3d December 3, 1798—March 3, 1799
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────
6th 1st December 2, 1799—May 14, 1800
„ 2d November 17, 1880—March 3, 1801
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────
7th 1st December 7, 1801—May 3, 1802
„ 2d December 6, 1802—March 3, 1803
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────
8th 1st October 17, 1803—March 27, 1804
„ 2d November 5, 1804—March 3, 1805
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────
9th 1st December 2, 1805—April 21, 1806
„ 2d December 1, 1806—March 3, 1807
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────
10th 1st October 26, 1807—April 25, 1808
„ 2d November 7, 1808—March 3, 1809
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────
11th 1st May 22, 1809—June 28, 1809
„ 2d November 27, 1809—May 1, 1810
„ 3d December 3, 1810—March 3, 1811
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────
12th 1st November 4, 1811—July 6, 1812
„ 2d November 2, 1812—March 3, 1813
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────
13th 1st May 24, 1813—August 2, 1813
„ 2d December 6, 1813—April 18, 1814
„ 3d September 19, 1814—March 3, 1815
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────
14th 1st December 4, 1815—April 30, 1816
„ 2d December 2, 1816—March 3, 1817
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────
15th 1st December 1, 1817—April 20, 1818
„ 2d November 16, 1818—March 3, 1819
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────
16th 1st December 6, 1819—May 15, 1820
„ 2d November 13, 1820—March 3, 1821
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────
17th 1st December 3, 1821—May 8, 1822
„ 2d December 2, 1822—March 3, 1823
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────
18th 1st December 1, 1823—May 27, 1824
„ 2d December 6, 1824—March 3, 1825
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────
19th 1st December 5, 1825—May 22, 1826
„ 2d December 4, 1826—March 3, 1827
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────
20th 1st December 3, 1827—May 26, 1828
„ 2d December 1, 1828—March 3, 1829
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────
21st 1st December 7, 1829—May 31, 1830
„ 2d December 6, 1830—March 3, 1831
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────
22d 1st December 5, 1831—July 16, 1832
„ 2d December 3, 1832—March 3, 1833
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────
23d 1st December 2, 1833—June 30, 1834
„ 2d December 1, 1834—March 3, 1835
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────
24th 1st December 7, 1835—July 4, 1836
„ 2d December 5, 1836—March 3, 1837
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────
25th 1st September 4, 1837—October 16, 1837
„ 2d December 4, 1837—July 9, 1838
„ 3d December 3, 1838—March 3, 1839
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────
26th 1st December 2, 1839—July 21, 1840
„ 2d December 7, 1840—March 3, 1841
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────
27th 1st May 31, 1841—September 13, 1841
„ 2d December 6, 1841—August 31, 1842
„ 3d December 5, 1842—March 8, 1843
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────
28th 1st December 4, 1843—June 17, 1844
„ 2d December 2, 1844—March 3, 1845
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────
29th 1st December 1, 1845—August 10, 1846
„ 2d December 7, 1846—March 3, 1847
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────
30th 1st December 6, 1847—August 14, 1848
„ 2d December 4, 1848—March 3, 1849
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────
31st 1st December 3, 1849—September 30, 1850
„ 2d December 2, 1850—March 3, 1851
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────
32d 1st December 1, 1851—August 31, 1852
„ 2d December 6, 1852—March 3, 1853
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────
33d 1st December 2, 1853—August 7, 1854
„ 2d December 4, 1854—March 3, 1855
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────
34th 1st December 5, 1855—August 18, 1856
„ 2d August 21, 1856—August 30, 1856
„ 3d December 1, 1856—March 3, 1857
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────
35th 1st December 7, 1857—June 14, 1858
„ 2d December 6, 1858—March 3, 1859
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────
36th 1st December 5, 1859—June 25, 1860
„ 2d December 3, 1860—March 4, 1861
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────
37th 1st July 4, 1861—August 6, 1861
„ 2d December 2, 1861—July 17, 1862
„ 3d December 1, 1862—March 4, 1863
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────
38th 1st December 7, 1863—July 4, 1864
„ 2d December 5, 1864—March 4, 1865
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────
39th 1st December 4, 1865—July 28, 1866
„ 2d December 3, 1866—March 4, 1867
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────
40th 1st March 4, 1867—March 30, 1867
„ „ July 3, 1867—July 20, 1867
„ „ November 21, 1867—December 2, 1867
„ 2d December 2, 1867—July 27, 1868
„ 3d December 7, 1868—March 4, 1869
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────
41st 1st March 4, 1869—April 23, 1869
„ 2d December 6, 1869—July 15, 1870
„ 3d December 5, 1870—March 4, 1871
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────
42d 1st March 4, 1871—April 20, 1871
„ 2d December 4, 1871—June 10, 1872
„ 3d December 2, 1872—March 4, 1873
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────
43d 1st December 1, 1873—June 23, 1874
„ 2d December 7, 1874—March 4, 1875
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────
44th 1st December 6, 1875—August 15, 1876
„ 2d December 4, 1876—March 4, 1877
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────
45th 1st October 15, 1877—December 3, 1877
„ 2d December 3, 1877—June 20, 1878
„ 3d December 2, 1878—March 4, 1879
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────
46th 1st March 18, 1879—July 1, 1879
„ 2d December 1, 1879—June 16, 1880
„ 3d December 6, 1880—March 4, 1881
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────
47th 1st December 5, 1881—August 8, 1882
„ 2d December 4, 1882—March 4, 1883
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────
48th 1st December 3, 1883—July 7, 1884
„ 2d December 1, 1884—March 4, 1885
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────
49th 1st December 7, 1885—August 5, 1886
„ 2d December 6, 1886—March 4, 1887
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────
50th 1st December 5, 1887—October 20, 1888
„ 2d December 3, 1888—March 4, 1889
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────
51st 1st December 2, 1889—October, 1890
„ 2d December 1, 1890—March 4, 1891
CIVIL OFFICERS OF THE UNITED STATES
Number Employed in the several Departments of the Government, July 1st,
1882.
Executive Office 7
Congress 280
State Department 419
Treasury Department 12,130
War Department 1,861
Post-Office Department 52,672
Navy Department 128
Interior Department 2,813
Department of Justice 2,876
Department of Agriculture 77
Government Printing Office 1,168
——————
Total 74,431
THE STATES AND TERRITORIES—when Admitted or Organized—with Area and
Population.
────────────────┬──────────────────┬───────────┬───────────────────────
STATES. │ Date when │ │
[First thirteen │ Admitted. │ Area in │
admitted on │ │ square │ Population nearest
ratifying │ │ miles at │ census to date of
Constitution—all│ │ time of │ admission.
others admitted │ │admission. │
by Acts of │ │ │
Congress.] │ │ │
────────────────┼──────────────────┼───────────┼───────────┬───────────
„ │ „ │ „ │Population.│ Year.
────────────────┼──────────────────┼───────────┼───────────┼───────────
Delaware │December 7, 1787│ 2,050│ 59,096│ 1790
Pennsylvania │December 12, 1787│ 45,215│ 434,373│ 1790
New Jersey │December 18, 1787│ 7,815│ 184,139│ 1790
Georgia │January 2, 1788│ 59,475│ 82,548│ 1790
Connecticut │January 9, 1788│ 4,990│ 237,496│ 1790
Massachusetts │February 6, 1788│ 8,315│ 378,787│ 1790
Maryland │April 28, 1788│ 12,210│ 319,728│ 1790
South Carolina │May 23, 1788│ 30,570│ 249,033│ 1790
New Hampshire │June 21, 1788│ 9,305│ 141,885│ 1790
Virginia │June 25, 1788│ 42,450│ 747,610│ 1790
New York │July 26, 1788│ 49,170│ 340,120│ 1790
North Carolina │November 21, 1789│ 52,250│ 393,751│ 1790
Rhode Island │May 29, 1790│ 1,250│ 68,825│ 1790
Vermont │March 4, 1791│ 9,565│ 85,339│ 1791
Kentucky │June 1, 1792│ 40,400│ 73,077│ 1892
Tennessee │June 1, 1796│ 42,050│ 77,202│ 1796
Ohio │November 29, 1802│ 41,060│ 41,915│ 1802
Louisiana │April 30, 1812│ 48,720│ 76,556│ 1812
Indiana │December 11, 1816│ 36,350│ 63,805│ 1816
Mississippi │December 10, 1817│ 46,810│ 75,512│ 1817
Illinois │December 3, 1818│ 56,650│ 34,620│ 1818
Alabama │December 14, 1819│ 52,250│ 127,901│ 1820
Maine │March 15, 1820│ 33,040│ 298,269│ 1820
Missouri │August 19, 1821│ 69,415│ 66,586│ 1821
Arkansas │June 15, 1836│ 53,850│ 52,240│ 1836
Michigan │January 26, 1837│ 58,915│ 212,267│ 1840
Florida │March 3, 1845│ 58,680│ 54,477│ 1845
Iowa │December 28, 1846│ 56,025│ 81,920│ 1846
Texas │December 29, 1845│ 265,780│ 212,592│ 1850
Wisconsin │May 29, 1848│ 56,040│ 305,391│ 1850
California │September 9, 1850│ 158,360│ 92,597│ 1850
Minnesota │May 11, 1858│ 83,365│ 172,023│ 1860
Oregon │February 14, 1859│ 96,030│ 52,465│ 1859
Kansas │January 29, 1861│ 82,080│ 107,206│ 1860
West Virginia │June 19, 1863│ 24,780│ 442,014│ 1870
Nevada │October 31, 1864│ 110,700│ 40,000│ 1864
Nebraska │March 1, 1867│ 76,855│ 60,000│ 1867
Colorado │August 1, 1876│ 103,926│ 150,000│ 1876
District of │March 3, 1791│ 60│ │
Columbia │ │ │ │
North Dakota │July 4, 1889│ 149,100│ 135,177│ 1880
South Dakota │July 4, 1889│ „ │ „ │ „
Montana │July 4, 1889│ 146,080│ 39,159│ 1880
Washington │July 4, 1889│ 69,180│ 75,116│
Idaho │ │ 84,800│ 32,610│ 1880
Wyoming │ │ 97,890│ 20,789│ 1880
────────────────┼──────────────────┼───────────┼───────────┼───────────
TERRITORIES. │ Dates of │ Present │ │
│ organization. │ area, │Population.│ Census of
│ │ square │ │
│ │ miles. │ │
────────────────┼──────────────────┼───────────┼───────────┼───────────
Utah │September 9, 1850 │ 82,090│ 143,963│ 1880
New Mexico │September 9, 1850 │ 122,580│ 119,565│ 1880
Arizona │February 24, 1863 │ 113,020│ 40,440│ 1880
Indian │ │ 64,690│ │
Alaska │ │ Unsurveyed│ │
────────────────┴──────────────────┴───────────┴───────────┴───────────
SPEAKERS OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.
─────────────────┬──────────────┬─────────────┬────────────────────────
Name. │ State. │ Congress. │ Term of Service.
─────────────────┼──────────────┼─────────────┼────────────────────────
F. A Muhlenberg │Pennsylvania │1st Congress.│April 1, 1789, to March
│ │ │ 4, 1791
Jonathan Trumbull│Connecticut │2d „ │Oct. 24, 1791, to March
│ │ │ 4, 1793
F. A. Muhlenberg │Pennsylvania │3d „ │Dec. 2, 1793, to March
│ │ │ 4, 1795
Jonathan Dayton │New Jersey │4th „ │Dec. 7, 1795, to March
│ │ │ 4, 1797
„ „ │ „ │5th „ │May 15, 1797, to March
│ │ │ 3, 1799
Theodore Sedgwick│Massachusetts │6th „ │Dec. 2, 1799, to March
│ │ │ 4, 1801
Nathaniel Macon │North Carolina│7th „ │Dec. 7, 1801, to March
│ │ │ 4, 1803
„ „ │ „ │8th „ │Oct. 17, 1803, to March
│ │ │ 4, 1805
„ „ │ „ │9th „ │Dec. 2, 1805, to March
│ │ │ 4, 1807
Joseph B. Varnum │Massachusetts │10th „ │Oct. 26, 1807, to March
│ │ │ 4, 1809
„ „ │ „ │11th „ │May 22, 1809, to March
│ │ │ 4, 1811
Henry Clay │Kentucky │12th „ │Nov. 4, 1811, to March
│ │ │ 4, 1813
„ „ │ „ │13th „ │May 24, 1813, to Jan.
│ │ │ 19, 1814
Langdon Cheves │S C., 2d Sess.│13th „ │Jan. 19, 1814, to March
│ │ │ 4, 1815
Henry Clay │Kentucky │14th „ │Dec. 4, 1815, to March
│ │ │ 4, 1817
„ „ │ „ │15th „ │Dec. 1, 1817, to March
│ │ │ 4, 1819
„ „ │ „ │16th „ │Dec. 6, 1819, to May
│ │ │ 15, 1820
John W. Taylor │New York, 2d │16th „ │Nov. 15, 1820, to March
│ Sess. │ │ 4, 1821
Philip P. Barbour│Virginia │17th „ │Dec. 4, 1821, to March
│ │ │ 4, 1823
Henry Clay │Kentucky │18th „ │Dec. 1, 1823, to March
│ │ │ 4, 1825
John W. Taylor │New York │19th „ │Dec. 5, 1825, to March
│ │ │ 4, 1827
Andrew Stephenson│Virginia │20th „ │Dec. 3, 1827, to March
│ │ │ 4, 1829
„ „ │ „ │21st „ │Dec. 7, 1829, to March
│ │ │ 4, 1831
„ „ │ „ │22d „ │Dec. 5, 1831, to March
│ │ │ 4, 1833
„ „ │ „ │23d „ │Dec. 2, 1833, to June
│ │ │ 2, 1834
John Bell │Tennessee, 2d │23d „ │June 2, 1834, to March
│ Sess. │ │ 4, 1835
James K. Polk │ „ „ │24th „ │Dec. 7, 1835, to March
│ │ │ 4, 1837
„ „ │ „ „ │25th „ │Sept. 5, 1837, to March
│ │ │ 4, 1839
Robert M. T. │Virginia │26th „ │Dec. 16, 1839, to March
Hunter │ │ │ 4, 1841
John White │Kentucky │27th „ │May 31, 1841, to March
│ │ │ 4, 1843
John W. Jones │Virginia │28th „ │Dec. 4, 1843, to March
│ │ │ 4, 1845
John W. Davis │Indiana │29th „ │Dec. 1, 1845, to March
│ │ │ 4, 1847
Robert C. │Massachusetts │30th „ │Dec. 6, 1847, to March
Winthrop │ │ │ 4, 1849
Howell Cobb │Georgia │31st „ │Dec. 22, 1849, to March
│ │ │ 4, 1851
Linn Boyd │Kentucky │32d „ │Dec. 1, 1851, to March
│ │ │ 4, 1853
„ „ │ „ │33d „ │Dec. 5, 1853, to March
│ │ │ 4, 1855
Nathaniel P. │Massachusetts │34th „ │Feb. 2, 1856, to March
Banks │ │ │ 4, 1857
James L. Orr │South Carolina│35th „ │Dec. 7, 1857, to March
│ │ │ 4, 1859
William │New Jersey │36th „ │Feb. 1, 1860, to March
Pennington │ │ │ 4, 1861
Galusha A. Grow │Pennsylvania │37th „ │July 4, 1861, to March
│ │ │ 4, 1863
Schuyler Colfax │Indiana │38th „ │Dec. 7, 1863, to March
│ │ │ 4, 1865
„ „ │ „ │39th „ │Dec. 4, 1865, to March
│ │ │ 4, 1867
„ „ │ „ │40th „ │March 4, 1867, to March
│ │ │ 4, 1869
James G. Blaine │Maine │41st „ │March 4, 1869, to March
│ │ │ 4, 1871
„ „ │ „ │42d „ │March 4, 1871, to March
│ │ │ 4, 1873
„ „ │ „ │43d „ │Dec. 1, 1873, to March
│ │ │ 4, 1875
Michael C. Kerr │Indiana │44th „ │Dec. 6, 1875, to Aug.
│ │ │ 20, 1876
Samuel J. Randall│Penna., 2d │44th „ │Dec. 4, 1876, to March
│ Sess. │ │ 4, 1877
„ „ │ „ „ │45th „ │Oct. 15, 1877, to March
│ │ │ 4, 1879
„ „ │ „ „ │46th „ │March 18, 1879, to March
│ │ │ 4, 1881
Warren B. Keifer │Ohio │47th „ │Dec. 5, 1881, to March
│ │ │ 4, 1883
John G. Carlisle │Kentucky │48th „ │Dec. 3, 1883, to March
│ │ │ 4, 1885
„ „ │ „ │49th „ │Dec. 7, 1885, to March
│ │ │ 4, 1887
„ „ │ „ │50th „ │Dec. 5, 1888, to March
│ │ │ 4, 1889
Thomas B. Reed │Maine │51st „ │Dec. 2, 1889, to March
│ │ │ 4, 1891
─────────────────┴──────────────┴─────────────┴────────────────────────
Table, exhibiting, by States, the Aggregate Troops called for by the
President, and furnished to the Union Army, from April 15th, 1861, to
close of War of Rebellion
────────────────────┬─────────────────────────────────────────┬─────────
│ Aggregate │Aggregate
States and │ │ reduced
Territories │ │ to a 3
│ │ years’
│ │standard
────────────────────┼─────────┬─────────┬───────────┬─────────┼─────────
„ │ Quota │ Men │ Paid │ Total │ „
│ │furnished│commutation│ │
────────────────────┼─────────┼─────────┼───────────┼─────────┼─────────
Maine │ 73,587│ 70,107│ 2,007│ 72,114│ 56,776
New Hampshire │ 35,897│ 33,937│ 692│ 34,629│ 30,849
Vermont │ 32,074│ 33,288│ 1,974│ 35,262│ 29,068
Massachusetts │ 139,095│ 146,730│ 5,318│ 152,048│ 124,104
Rhode Island │ 18,898│ 23,236│ 463│ 23,699│ 17,866
Connecticut │ 44,797│ 55,864│ 1,515│ 57,379│ 50,623
New York │ 507,148│ 448,850│ 18,197│ 467,047│ 392,270
New Jersey │ 92,820│ 76,814│ 4,196│ 81,010│ 57,908
Pennsylvania │ 385,369│ 337,936│ 28,171│ 366,107│ 265,517
Delaware │ 13,935│ 12,284│ 1,386│ 13,670│ 10,322
Maryland │ 70,965│ 46,638│ 3,678│ 50,316│ 41,275
West Virginia │ 34,463│ 32,068│ │ 32,068│ 27,714
District of Columbia│ 13,973│ 16,534│ 338│ 16,872│ 11,506
Ohio │ 306,322│ 313,180│ 6,479│ 319,659│ 240,514
Indiana │ 199,788│ 196,363│ 784│ 197,147│ 153,576
Illinois │ 244,496│ 259,092│ 55│ 259,147│ 214,133
Michigan │ 95,007│ 87,364│ 2,008│ 89,372│ 80,111
Wisconsin │ 109,080│ 91,327│ 5,097│ 96,424│ 79,260
Minnesota │ 26,326│ 24,020│ 1,032│ 25,052│ 10,693
Iowa │ 79,521│ 76,242│ 67│ 76,309│ 68,630
Missouri │ 122,496│ 109,111│ │ 109,111│ 86,530
Kentucky │ 100,782│ 75,760│ 3,265│ 79,025│ 70,832
Kansas │ 12,931│ 20,149│ 2│ 20,151│ 18,706
Tennessee │ 1,560│ 31,092│ │ 31,092│ 26,394
Arkansas │ 780│ 8,289│ │ 8,289│ 7,835
North Carolina │ 1,500│ 3,156│ │ 3,156│ 3,156
California │ │ 15,725│ │ 15,725│ 15,725
Nevada │ │ 1,080│ │ 1,080│ 1,080
Oregon │ │ 1,810│ │ 1,810│ 1,773
Washington │ │ 964│ │ 964│ 964
Nebraska Territory │ │ 3,157│ │ 3,157│ 2,175
Colorado Territory │ │ 4,903│ │ 4,903│ 3,697
Dakota │ │ 206│ │ 205│ 206
New Mexico Territory│ │ 6,561│ │ 6,561│ 4,432
Alabama │ │ 2,576│ │ 2,576│ 1,611
Florida │ │ 1,290│ │ 1,290│ 1,290
Louisiana │ │ 5,224│ │ 5,224│ 4,634
Mississippi │ │ 545│ │ 545│ 545
Texas │ │ 1,965│ │ 1,965│ 1,632
Indian Nation │ │ 3,530│ │ 3,530│ 3,530
Colored Troops[121] │ │ 93,441│ │ 93,441│ 91,789
────────────────────┼─────────┼─────────┼───────────┼─────────┼─────────
Total │2,763,670│2,772,408│ 86,724│2,859,132│2,320,272
────────────────────┴─────────┴─────────┴───────────┴─────────┴─────────
STATEMENT SHOWING THE EXPENDITURES,
_As far as ascertained, necessarily growing out of the War of the
Rebellion, from July 1, 1861, to June 30, 1870, inclusive_.
──────────────────┬─────────────────┬────────────────┬─────────────────
APPROPRIATION. │ │ Expenditure │ Expenditure
│ Gross │ other than for │ growing out of
│ Expenditure. │ the war. │ the war.
──────────────────┼─────────────────┼────────────────┼─────────────────
Expenses of │ │ │
national loans │ │ │
and currency │ $51,522,730 77│ │ $51,522,730 77
Premiums │ 59,738,167 73│ │ 59,738,167 73
Interest on public│ │ │
debt │ 1,809,301,485 19│ $45,045,286 74│ 1,764,256,198 45
Expenses of │ │ │
collecting │ │ │
revenue from │ │ │
customs │ 99,690,808 31│ 57,151,550 44│ 42,539,257 87
Judgment of Court │ │ │
of Claims │ 5,516,260 75│ 551,626 07│ 4,964,634 68
Payments of │ │ │
judgments Court │ │ │
of Alabama │ │ │
Claims │ 9,315,753 19│ │ 9,315,753 19
Salaries and │ │ │
expenses of │ │ │
Southern Claims │ │ │
Commission │ 371,321 82│ │ 371,321 82
Salaries and │ │ │
expenses of │ │ │
American and │ │ │
British Claims │ │ │
Commission │ 295,878 54│ │ 295,878 54
Award to British │ │ │
claimants │ 1,929,819 00│ │ 1,929,819 00
Tribunal of │ │ │
arbitration at │ │ │
Geneva │ 244,815 40│ │ 244,815 40
Salaries and │ │ │
expenses of │ │ │
Alabama Claims │ │ │
Commission │ 253,231 12│ │ 253,231 12
Salaries and │ │ │
contingent │ │ │
expenses of │ │ │
Pension Office │ 7,095,968 05│ 1,870,180 00│ 5,225,788 05
Salaries and │ │ │
contingent │ │ │
expenses of War │ │ │
Department │ 15,381,956 58│ 2,712,693 79│ 12,619,262 79
Salaries and │ │ │
contingent │ │ │
expenses of │ │ │
Executive │ │ │
Departm’nt │ │ │
(exclusive of │ │ │
Pension office │ │ │
and War │ │ │
Department) │ 33,944,017 67│ 10,110,745 70│ 23,833,271 97
Expenses of │ │ │
assessing and │ │ │
collecting │ │ │
internal revenue│ 112,803,841 31│ │ 112,803,841 31
Miscellaneous │ │ │
accounts │ 2,664,199 82│ 456,714 21│ 2,207,485 61
Subsistence of the│ │ │
Army │ 420,041,037 75│ 38,623,489 17│ 381,417,548 58
Quartermaster’s │ │ │
Department │ 357,518,966 61│ 58,037,048 95│ 299,481,917 63
Incidental │ │ │
expenses of │ │ │
Quartermaster’s │ │ │
Department │ 101,528,573 37│ 16,185,839 74│ 85,342,733 63
Transportation of │ │ │
the Army │ 407,463,324 81│ 70,669,439 25│ 336,793,885 56
Transportation of │ │ │
officers and │ │ │
their baggage │ 4,626,219 66│ 1,601,000 00│ 3,025,219 66
Clothing of the │ │ │
Army │ 356,651,466 31│ 11,107,586 11│ 345,543,880 20
Purchase of horses│ │ │
for cavalry and │ │ │
artillery │ 130,990,762 95│ 4,318,339 51│ 126,672,423 24
Barracks, │ │ │
quarters, etc. │ 49,872,669 40│ 18,801,822 89│ 31,070,846 59
Heating and │ │ │
cooking stoves │ 487,881 45│ 39,150 00│ 448,731 45
Pay, mileage, │ │ │
general │ │ │
expenses, etc., │ │ │
of the Army │ 184,473,721 26│ 106,388,991 79│ 78,084,729 47
Pay of two and │ │ │
three years’ │ │ │
volunteers │ 1,041,102,702 58│ │ 1,041,102,702 58
Pay of three │ │ │
months’ │ │ │
volunteers │ 886,305 41│ │ 886,305 41
Pay, etc., of one │ │ │
hundred days’ │ │ │
volunteers │ 14,386,778 29│ │ 14,386,778 29
Pay of militia and│ │ │
volunteers │ 6,126,952 65│ │ 6,126,952 65
Pay, etc., to │ │ │
officers and men│ │ │
in the │ │ │
Department of │ │ │
the Missouri │ 844,150 55│ │ 844,150 55
Pay and supplies │ │ │
of one hundred │ │ │
days’ volunteers│ 4,824,877 68│ │ 4,824,877 68
Bounty to │ │ │
volunteers and │ │ │
regulars on │ │ │
enlistment │ 38,522,046 20│ │ 38,522,046 20
Bounty to │ │ │
volunteers and │ │ │
their widows and│ │ │
legal heirs │ 31,760,345 95│ │ 31,760,345 95
Additional bounty │ │ │
act of July 28, │ │ │
1866 │ 69,998,786 71│ │ 69,998,786 61
Collect’n and │ │ │
payment of │ │ │
bounty, etc., to│ │ │
color’d │ │ │
soldiers, etc. │ $268,158 11│ │ $268,158 11
Reimbursing States│ │ │
for moneys │ │ │
expended for │ │ │
payment of │ │ │
military service│ │ │
of the United │ │ │
States │ 9,635,512 85│ │ 9,635,512 85
Defraying expenses│ │ │
of minute-men │ │ │
and volunteers │ │ │
in Pennsylvania,│ │ │
Maryland, Ohio, │ │ │
Indiana and │ │ │
Kentucky │ 597,178 30│ │ 597,178 30
Refunding to │ │ │
States expenses │ │ │
incurred on │ │ │
account of │ │ │
volunteers │ 31,297,242 60│ │ 31,297,242 60
Reimbursements to │ │ │
Baltimore for │ │ │
aid in │ │ │
construction of │ │ │
defensive works │ │ │
in 1863 │ 96,152 00│ │ 96,152 00
Payment to members│ │ │
of certain │ │ │
military │ │ │
organizations in│ │ │
Kansas │ 296,097 28│ │ 296,097 28
Expenses of │ │ │
recruiting │ 2,568,639 91│ 1,270,673 56│ 1,297,966 35
Draft and │ │ │
substitute fund │ 9,713,873 13│ │ 9,713,873 13
Medical and │ │ │
Hospital │ │ │
Department │ 46,954,146 83│ 1,845,376 47│ 45,108,770 36
Medical and │ │ │
Surgical History│ │ │
and Statistics │ 196,048 32│ │ 196,048 32
Medical Museum and│ │ │
Library │ 55,000 00│ │ 55,000 00
Providing for │ │ │
comfort of sick,│ │ │
wounded and │ │ │
discharged │ │ │
soldiers │ 2,232,785 12│ │ 2,232,785 12
Freedmen’s │ │ │
Hospital and │ │ │
Asylum │ 123,487 49│ │ 123,487 49
Artificial limbs │ │ │
and appliances │ 509,283 21│ │ 509,283 21
Ordnance service │ 6,114,533 38│ 1,561,001 67│ 4,553,531 71
Ordnance, ordnance│ │ │
stores and │ │ │
supplies │ 59,798,079 70│ 3,834,146 87│ 55,933,932 83
Armament of │ │ │
fortifications │ 12,336,710 88│ 2,118,238 79│ 10,218,472 09
National armories,│ │ │
arsenals, &c. │ 29,730,717 53│ $6,127,228 21│ 23,603,489 32
Purchase of arms │ │ │
for volunteers │ │ │
and regulars │ 76,378,935 13│ │ 76,378,935 13
Traveling expenses│ │ │
First Michigan │ │ │
Cavalry and │ │ │
California and │ │ │
Nevada │ │ │
Volunteers │ 84,131 50│ │ 84,131 50
Payment of │ │ │
expenses under │ │ │
reconstruction │ │ │
acts │ 3,128,905 94│ │ 3,128,905 94
Secret Service │ 681,587 42│ │ 681,587 42
Books of tactics │ 172,568 15│ │ 172,568 15
Medals of Honor │ 29,890 00│ │ 29,890 00
Support of │ │ │
National Home │ │ │
for disabled │ │ │
volunteer │ │ │
soldiers │ 8,546,184 76│ │ 8,546,184 76
Publication of │ │ │
official records│ │ │
of war of the │ │ │
rebellion │ 170,998 98│ │ 170,998 98
Contingencies of │ │ │
the Army and │ │ │
Adjutant │ │ │
General’s │ │ │
Department │ 3,291,835 14│ 565,136 39│ 2,726,698 75
Payments under │ │ │
special acts of │ │ │
relief │ 1,088,406 83│ │ 1,088,406 83
Copying official │ │ │
reports │ 5,000 00│ │ 5,000 00
Expenses of court │ │ │
of inquiry in │ │ │
1858 and 1869 │ 5,000 00│ │ 5,000 00
United States │ │ │
police for │ │ │
Baltimore │ 100,000 00│ │ 100,000 00
Preparing register│ │ │
of volunteers │ 1,015 45│ │ 1,015 45
Army pensions │ 437,744,192 80│ 30,315,000 00│ 407,429,192 80
Telegraph for │ │ │
military │ │ │
purposes │ 2,500,085 80│ │ 2,500,085 80
Maintenance of │ │ │
gunboat fleet │ │ │
proper │ 5,244,684 32│ │ 5,244,684 32
Keeping, │ │ │
transporting, │ │ │
and supplying │ │ │
prisoners of war│ 7,659,411 60│ │ 7,659,411 60
Permanent forts │ │ │
and │ │ │
fortifications; │ │ │
surveys for │ │ │
military │ │ │
defenses; │ │ │
contingencies of│ │ │
fortifications; │ │ │
platform for │ │ │
cannon of large │ │ │
calibre, &c., │ │ │
from 1862 to │ │ │
1868 │ 20,887,756 96│ 7,483,765 87│ 13,4O3,991 09
Construction and │ │ │
maintenance of │ │ │
steam rams │ 1,370,730 42│ │ 1,370,730 42
Signal service │ 222,269 79│ 78,472 23│ 143,797 56
Gunboats on the │ │ │
Western rivers │ 3,239,314 18│ │ 3,239,314 18
Supplying, │ │ │
transporting, │ │ │
and delivering │ │ │
arms and │ │ │
munitions of war│ │ │
to loyal │ │ │
citizens in │ │ │
States in │ │ │
rebellion │ │ │
against the │ │ │
Government of │ │ │
the United │ │ │
States │ 1,649,596 57│ │ 1,649,596 57
Collecting, │ │ │
organizing, and │ │ │
drilling │ │ │
volunteers │ 29,091,666 57│ │ 29,091,666 57
Bridge-trains and │ │ │
equipage │ 1,413,701 75│ │ 1,413,701 75
Tool and siege │ │ │
trains │ 702,250 00│ │ 702,250 00
Completing the │ │ │
defenses of │ │ │
Washington │ 912,283 01│ │ 912,283 01
Commutation of │ │ │
rations to │ │ │
prisoners of war│ │ │
in rebel States │ 320,636 62│ │ 320,636 62
National │ │ │
cemeteries │ 4,162,848 39│ │ 4,162,848 39
Purchase of Ford’s│ │ │
Theatre │ 88,000 00│ │ 88,000 00
Temporary relief │ │ │
to destitute │ │ │
people in │ │ │
District of │ │ │
Columbia │ 57,000 00│ │ 57,000 00
Headstones, │ │ │
erection of │ │ │
headstones, pay │ │ │
of │ │ │
superintendents,│ │ │
and removing the│ │ │
remains of │ │ │
officers to │ │ │
national │ │ │
cemeteries │ 1,080,185 54│ │ 1,080,185 54
State of Tennessee│ │ │
for keeping and │ │ │
maintaining │ │ │
United States │ │ │
military │ │ │
prisoners │ 22,749 49│ │ 22,749 49
Capture of Jeff. │ │ │
Davis │ 97,031 62│ │ 97,031 62
Removing wreck of │ │ │
gunboat Oregon │ │ │
in Chefunct │ │ │
River, Louisiana│ 5,500 00│ │ 5,500 00
Support of Bureau │ │ │
of Refugees and │ │ │
Freedmen │ 11,454,237 30│ │ 11,454,237 30
Claims for │ │ │
quartermaster’s │ │ │
stores and │ │ │
commissary │ │ │
supplies │ 850,220 91│ │ 850,220 91
Miscellaneous │ │ │
claims audited │ │ │
by Third Auditor│ 94,223 11│ 47,112 11│ 47,111 00
Claims of loyal │ │ │
citizens for │ │ │
supplies │ │ │
furnished during│ │ │
the rebellion │ 4,170,304 54│ │ 4,170,304 54
Payment for use of│ │ │
Corcoran Art │ │ │
Gallery │ 125,000 00│ │ 125,000 00
Expenses of sales │ │ │
of stores and │ │ │
material │ 5,842 43│ │ 5,842 43
Transportation of │ │ │
insane volunteer│ │ │
soldiers │ 1,000 00│ │ 1,000 00
Horses and other │ │ │
property lost in│ │ │
military service│ 4,281,724 91│ │ 4,281,724 91
Purchase of │ │ │
cemetery grounds│ │ │
near Columbus, │ │ │
Ohio │ 500 00│ │ 500 00
Fortifications on │ │ │
the Northern │ │ │
Frontier │ 683,748 12│ │ 683,748 12
Pay of the Navy │ 144,549,073 96│ 70,086,769 62│ 74,462,304 34
Provisions of the │ │ │
Navy │ 32,771,931 16│ 16,403,307 34│ 16,368,623 82
Clothing of the │ │ │
Navy │ 2,709,491 98│ 1,114,701 00│ 1,594,790 98
Construction and │ │ │
repair │ 170,007,781 25│ 35,829,684 80│ 134,178,096 65
Equipment of │ │ │
vessels │ $25,174,614 53│ │ $25,174,614 53
Ordnance │ 38,063,357 67│ $6,641,263 30│ 31,422,094 37
Surgeons’ │ │ │
necessaries │ 2,178,769 74│ 241,025 68│ 1,937,744 06
Yards and docks │ 33,638,156 59│ 3,337,854 52│ 30,300,302 07
Fuel for the Navy │ 19,952,754 36│ 8,612,521 68│ 11,340,232 68
Hemp for the Navy │ 2,836,916 69│ 1,938,664 42│ 898,252 27
Steam machinery │ 49,297,318 57│ │ 49,297,318 57
Navigation │ 2,526,247 00│ │ 2,526,247 00
Naval hospitals │ 875,452 34│ 375,789 40│ 499,662 94
Magazines │ 753,822 13│ 349,290 48│ 404,531 65
Marine corps, pay,│ │ │
clothing, &c. │ 16,726,906 00│ 8,969,290 82│ 7,757,615 18
Naval Academy │ 2,640,440 87│ 778,308 86│ 1,862,132 01
Naval Asylum, │ │ │
Philadelphia │ 652,049 89│ 65,394 00│ 586,655 89
Temporary increase│ │ │
of the Navy │ 8,123,766 21│ │ 8,123,766 21
Miscellaneous │ │ │
appropriations │ 2,614,044 77│ │ 2,614,044 77
Naval pensions │ 7,540,043 00│ 950,000 00│ 6,590,043 00
Bounties to seamen│ 2,821,530 10│ │ 2,821,530 10
Bounty for │ │ │
destruction of │ │ │
enemy’s vessels │ 271,309 28│ │ 271,309 28
Indemnity for lost│ │ │
clothing │ 389,025 33│ │ 389,025 33
──────────────────┼─────────────────┼────────────────┼─────────────────
Total expenditures│$6,844,571,431 03│ $654,641,522 45│$6,189,929,908 58
──────────────────┼─────────────────┼────────────────┼─────────────────
│ │ │
NOTE.—Only the appropriations from which war expenditures were made are
included in the above.
NATIONAL DEBTS, EXPENDITURE AND COMMERCE, PER CAPITA.
───────────────────┬────────────┬────────────┬────────────┬────────────
Country. │ │ Annual │ Annual │ Annual
│ Debt per │expenditure │imports per │exports per
│ head. │ per head. │ head. │ head.
───────────────────┼────────────┼────────────┼────────────┼────────────
Argentine Republic │ $39.07│ $12.04│ $20.31│ $25.66
Austria-Hungary │ 5.73│ 1.63│ 7.19│ 5.70
Austria proper │ 65.26│ 9.29│ │
Hungary proper │ 17.68│ 7.53│ │
Belgium │ 48.08│ 10.13│ 53.41│ 46.06
Bolivia │ 10.04│ 2.58│ 3.30│ 2.08
Brazil │ 36.43│ 6.70│ 8.71│ 10.31
Canada │ 31.16│ 6.69│ 25.87│ 24.94
Chili │ 24.49│ 10.66│ 18.21│ 17.95
Colombia │ 5.22│ .94│ 2.35│ 3.38
Denmark │ 27.19│ 6.83│ 26.31│ 17.95
Ecuador │ 20.20│ 24.36│ 8.77│ 4.51
Egypt │ 85.82│ 10.42│ 5.52│ 12.94
France │ 127.23│ 14.07│ 24.17│ 26.05
German Empire │ .70│ 3.15│ 21.54│ 14.21
Prussia │ 10.55│ 6.33│ │
Great Britain and │ │ │ │
Ireland │ 114.62│ 12.35│ 59.11│ 40.59
Greece │ 27.50│ 5.35│ 16.49│ 10.30
India, British │ 3.01│ 1.42│ .93│ 1.48
Italy │ 71.94│ 10.12│ 9.67│ 8.85
Mexico │ 42.63│ 2.68│ 3.13│ 3.41
Netherlands │ 101.21│ 11.37│ 71.27│ 67.70
Norway │ 7.48│ 5.91│ 28.77│ 18.77
Paraguay │ 54.72│ 3.39│ 2.55│ 2.74
Peru │ 79.82│ 12.62│ │ 14.02
Portugal │ 96.84│ 6.70│ 8.60│ 5.97
Roumania │ 11.82│ 3.85│ 3.19│ 5.60
Russia │ 26.33│ 4.83│ 4.22│ 3.23
Servia │ 3.61│ 1.43│ 4.58│ 4.06
Spain │ 142.71│ 7.83│ 3.96│ 4.48
Sweden │ 8.86│ 4.93│ 19.39│ 14.11
Switzerland │ 2.25│ 3.08│ │
Turkey │ 31.70│ 4.38│ 2.23│ 1.59
United States │ 52.56│ 6.13│ 12.64│ 15.40
Uruguay │ 98.00│ 15.28│ 40.25│ 38.09
Venezuela │ 35.11│ 2.04│ 6.72│ 9.52
───────────────────┴────────────┴────────────┴────────────┴────────────
STATEMENT
_Average Values of Gold in United States Paper Currency in the New York
Market from the Suspension to the Resumption of Specie Payments, during
the period of Seventeen Years, from 1862 to 1878, both
inclusive—Prepared for the U. S. Treasury Department by E. B. Elliott._
Currency Value of Gold.
_Table showing the Average Value in Currency of One Hundred Dollars in
Gold in the New York Market, by Months, Quarter-years, Half-years,
Calendar Years, and Fiscal Years, from January 1, 1862, to December 31,
1878, both inclusive._
─────────────────────────┬─────┬─────┬─────┬─────┬─────┬─────┬─────┬─────
PERIODS. │1862.│1863.│1864.│1865.│1866.│1867.│1868.│1869.
─────────────────────────┼─────┼─────┼─────┼─────┼─────┼─────┼─────┼─────
January │102.5│145.1│155.5│216.2│140.1│134.6│138.5│135.6
February │103.5│160.5│158.6│205.5│138.4│137.4│141.4│134.4
March │101.8│154.5│162.9│173.8│130.5│ 135.│139.5│131.3
April │101.5│151.5│172.7│148.5│127.3│135.6│138.7│132.9
May │103.3│148.9│176.3│135.6│131.8│ 137.│139.6│139.2
June │106.5│144.5│210.7│140.1│148.7│137.5│140.1│138.1
July │115.5│130.6│258.1│142.1│151.6│139.4│142.7│136.1
August │114.5│125.8│254.1│143.5│148.7│109.8│145.5│134.2
September │118.5│134.2│222.5│143.9│145.5│143.4│143.6│136.8
October │128.5│147.7│207.2│145.5│148.3│143.5│137.1│130.2
November │131.1│ 148.│233.5│ 147.│143.8│139.6│134.4│126.2
December │132.3│151.1│227.5│146.2│136.7│134.8│135.2│121.5
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
First quarter-year │102.6│153.4│ 159.│198.5│136.3│135.7│139.8│133.8
Second quarter-year │103.8│148.3│186.6│141.4│135.9│136.7│139.5│136.7
Third quarter-year │116.2│130.2│244.9│143.2│148.6│141.2│143.9│135.7
Fourth quarter-year │130.6│148.9│222.7│146.2│142.9│139.3│135.6│ 126.
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
First half-year │103.2│150.8│172.8│169.9│136.1│136.2│139.6│135.3
Second half-year │123.4│139.6│233.8│144.7│145.8│140.3│139.8│130.8
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
Calendar year │113.3│145.2│203.3│157.3│140.9│138.2│139.7│ 133.
Fiscal year ended June 30│ │137.1│156.2│201.9│140.4│ 141.│139.9│137.5
-
─────────────────────────┬─────┬─────┬─────┬─────┬─────┬─────┬─────┬─────┬─────
PERIODS. │1870.│1871.│1872.│1873.│1874.│1875.│1876.│1877.│1878.
─────────────────────────┼─────┼─────┼─────┼─────┼─────┼─────┼─────┼─────┼─────
January │121.3│110.7│109.1│112.7│111.4│112.5│112.8│106.3│102.1
February │119.5│111.5│110.3│114.1│112.3│114.5│113.4│105.4│ 102.
March │112.6│ 111.│110.1│115.5│112.1│115.5│114.3│104.8│101.2
April │113.1│110.6│111.1│117.8│113.4│114.8│ 113.│106.2│100.6
May │114.7│111.5│113.7│117.7│112.4│115.8│112.6│106.9│100.7
June │112.9│112.4│113.9│116.5│111.3│ 117.│112.5│105.4│100.8
July │116.8│112.4│114.3│115.7│ 110.│114.8│111.9│105.4│100.5
August │117.9│112.4│114.4│115.4│109.7│113.5│111.2│ 105.│100.6
September │114.8│114.5│113.5│112.7│109.7│115.8│ 110.│103.3│100.4
October │112.8│113.2│113.2│108.9│ 110.│116.4│109.7│102.8│100.6
November │111.4│111.2│112.9│108.6│110.9│114.7│109.1│102.8│100.2
December │110.7│109.3│112.2│ 110.│111.7│113.9│109.8│102.8│100.1
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
First quarter-year │117.8│111.1│109.8│114.1│111.9│114.2│113.5│105.5│101.7
Second quarter-year │113.6│111.5│112.9│117.3│112.4│115.9│112.7│106.2│100.7
Third quarter-year │116.5│113.1│114.1│114.6│109.8│114.7│ 111.│104.6│101.5
Fourth quarter-year │111.6│111.2│112.8│109.2│110.9│ 115.│108.9│102.8│101.3
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
First half-year │115.7│111.3│111.4│115.7│112.2│115.1│113.1│105.9│101.2
Second half-year │ 114.│121.1│113.4│111.9│110.3│114.8│109.9│103.7│100.4
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
Calendar year │114.9│111.7│112.4│113.8│111.2│114.9│111.5│104.8│100.8
Fiscal year ended June 30│123.3│112.7│111.8│114.6│ 112.│112.7│113.9│107.9│102.8
─────────────────────────┴─────┴─────┴─────┴─────┴─────┴─────┴─────┴─────┴─────
CHRONOLOGICAL POLITICS.
=1765.=—March 8.—Parliament passes the Stamp Act. Oct. 7.—Colonial
Congress met at New York.
=1766.=—Stamp Act repealed, Mar. 18.
=1767.=—June 29.—Bill passed taxing tea, glass, paper, etc., in the
American colonies.
=1768.=—Massachusetts assembly petition the King against the late tax.
=1773.=—The inhabitants of Boston throw 342 chests of the taxed tea into
the sea.
=1774.=—Mar. 31.—The Boston Port Bill passed by Parliament. Sept. 5.—The
first Continental Congress meets at Philadelphia.
=1775.=—April 19.—The war for American Independence commences with the
Battle of Lexington.
=1776.=—July 4.—America is declared “Free, sovereign, and independent”—a
declaration which is signed by the following States: New Hampshire,
Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia,
North Carolina, South Carolina, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and
Georgia.
=1777.=—Dec. 16.—France acknowledges the independence of the United
States.
=1778.=—Feb. 6.—Treaties of Amity and Commerce adopted between the
United States and France.
=1781.=—Feb.—Articles of Confederation ratified by the States.
=1782.=—Oct. 8.—Independence of United States acknowledged by Holland.
Nov. 3.—Temporary Treaty of Peace signed at Paris.
=1783.=—Sept. 3.—Treaty of Peace signed at Paris. Nov. 3.—American army
disbanded. Nov. 25.—New York evacuated by the British. Dec.
19.—Charleston evacuated by British. Dec. 23.—Washington resigns his
commission to Congress.
=1785.=—June 1.—John Adams, first minister from U. S. to London.
=1786.=—Nov.—Shay’s insurrection broke out in Massachusetts.
=1787.=—Sept. 17.—Constitution of the United States adopted by all the
States, except Rhode Island.
=1788.=—Cotton planted in Georgia.
=1789.=—First Congress. Ten Amendments to the Constitution passed.
Departments of Government organized. Washington appoints a National
Thanksgiving. April 14.—George Washington declared the first President
of the United States. Ratio of Representatives, 30,000; Members of
Congress 65.
=1789.=—Many Treaties with the Indians. Hamilton recommends the first
Tariff; passed and approved.
=1790.=—The territory south of the Ohio river ceded to the United
States. Naturalization Law passed. Treason defined and penalty
determined. First Census, 3,929,326. System of Finance adopted;
Government assumes State Debts; Public Debt funded; Seat of government
removed from New York to Philadelphia.
=1791.=—First United States bank established at Philadelphia; Capital,
$10,000,000. First Tax on Distilled Spirits.
=1792.=—U. S. Mint established. Apportionment Bill passed, fixing ratio
of Representation at, 33,000; 103 members in Congress. Uniform system of
Militia established. Post Office department organized anew.
=1793.=—Washington again inaugurated President. Neutrality declared in
regard to France. First Fugitive Slave Law passed. French Minister
Gernet recalled by request of Government; returns to organize Democratic
or Jacobin Societies.
=1794.=—Commercial Treaty concluded with Great Britain. The Whiskey
Insurrection in Pennsylvania. Regulation of Slave Trade by law. A sixty
days Embargo as a retaliation on British “Order in Council.”
=1795.=—Second Naturalization Law passed. Jay’s Commercial Treaty with
Great Britain. Treaty of Madrid. Disagreement of the United States with
Algeria.
=1796.=—Washington’s Farewell Address. Contest between the President and
House over the British Treaty. John Adams elected President.
=1797.=—Congress declares the treaties with France annulled.
Privateering against friendly nations forbidden.
=1798.=—Congress passes an Act for raising a regular army. Washington
appointed Lieutenant-General and Commander-in-Chief. Congress authorizes
Naval Warfare with France; Commercial Intercourse with France suspended;
Navy Department organized.
=1799.=—Congress votes to raise an army of 40,000 men. American Navy
consists of 42 vessels with 950 guns. Pennsylvania seat of government
removed to Lancaster. Washington dies at Mount Vernon, Va.
=1800.=—Treaty of Peace with France. General Law of Bankruptcy approved.
Second official census—population 5,308,483. Removal of the Capitol from
Philadelphia to Washington. Election of Thomas Jefferson President.
=1801.=—War against Tripoli declared. The Republican party under Thomas
Jefferson, comes into power with Jefferson President.
=1802.=—Louisiana ceded to France by Spain. Naturalization Laws made
more liberal. Representatives, 141.
=1803.=—Louisiana purchased of France for $15,000,000. Congress gives
the President extraordinary authority to maintain Free Navigation of the
Mississippi. A brief war with the Barbary States.
=1804.=—Re-election of Jefferson as a Republican. Treaty of Peace
concluded with Tripoli.
=1805.=—Troubles with Great Britain begin.
=1806.=—Congress provides the importation of certain goods. Disputes
with England and France respecting Neutral Rights. England plainly
claims the right to search American vessels for deserting seamen;
Jefferson disputes it.
=1807.=—Congress lays an embargo. United States Coast Survey authorized.
Conspiracy of Aaron Burr to divide the Union. English ships of war
ordered to leave American waters. The first boat goes by steam.
=1808.=—The Slave Trade abolished by act of Congress. Madison elected
President as a Republican.
=1809.=—Proclamation forbidding all intercourse with Great Britain and
France. Embargo repealed. Madison inaugurated.
=1810.=—Third official census.
=1811.=—Population of United States 7,239,903. Ratio of Representation
fixed at 35,000. Continued troubles with England. War with Tecumseh.
=1812.=—Congress lays an embargo on American shipping. General Land
Office established. More than 6,000 cases of impressment recorded. War
declared on the 18th of June against Great Britain. Madison re-elected
President, as a Republican.
=1813.=—Congress authorizes an issue of $5,000,000 and a loan of
$16,000,000. Entire American coast blockaded by British ships. Several
battles on land and sea.
=1814.=—Treaty of peace between the United States and England signed at
Ghent. A loan of $25,000,000 authorized.
=1815.=—A loan of $18,400,000 and an issue of $25,000,000 authorized.
Government ratifies Treaty of Ghent, and President proclaims peace 18th
Feb. Government ceases to pay tribute to Algiers. Battle of New Orleans.
Peace followed, though treaty of peace preceded the battle.
=1816.=—First high Protective Tariff enacted. Second United States Bank
chartered for twenty years; Capital, $35,000,000. Monroe elected
President as Republican or Democrat.
=1817.=—Internal Taxes abolished. DeWitt Clinton causes the Erie canal
to be commenced. The Era of Peace. United States Bank opened at
Philadelphia. Commencement of the Seminole war.
=1818.=—Pension Law enacted. National Flag re-arranged, so that the
Stripes represent the Original Thirteen Colonies and the Stars the
present number of States. Treaty of Commerce and Boundary with England.
Seminole war in Florida and Georgia.
=1819.=—Congress ratifies the Treaty for the Cession of Florida.
Beginning of the discussion between the North and South in regard to the
Slavery Question. The “Savannah”—the first steamer from New York to
Liverpool.
=1820.=—Missouri Compromise passed. Navigation Act restricting
importation to United States vessels. Country agitated over the Slavery
question. Fourth official census, 9,633,822.
=1822.=—Florida made a territory. Ratio of Representation fixed at
40,000; Members, 213. Commercial treaty with France. Federal party
disbands. Clintonian Democratic party organized in New York.
=1823.=—Independence of South American Republics acknowledged. Treaty
with Great Britain for mutual suppression of the Slave Traffic. The
“Monroe Doctrine” advanced. Party politics quiet.
=1824.=—John Quincy Adams, Whig, elected by the House. Second high
Protective Tariff.
=1825.=—Panama Mission discussed. John Quincy Adams inaugurated.
=1826.=—Extensive Internal Improvements under the leadership of Clay.
The Fiftieth Anniversary of American Independence. Death of Adams and
Jefferson. Webster delivers his celebrated eulogy on them.
=1827.=—Experimenting on the construction of a railroad.
=1828.=—Tariff amended and Duties increased. Jackson elected President.
=1829.=—Webster’s great speech against Nullification. Treaty of Amity
and Commerce with Brazil. Jackson inaugurated. “_To the victor belongs
the spoils._”
=1830.=—Treaty with Turkey, securing for the United States freedom of
the Black Sea. Treaty between the United States and Ottoman Porte. Fifth
official census: population 12,866,020.
=1831.=—Building railroads actively.
=1832.=—Treaty of Commerce with Russia. Treaty of Commerce and Boundary
with Mexico. Bill for re-chartering United States Bank vetoed by
President Jackson. His proclamation against Nullifiers. Resignation of
John C. Calhoun. Black Hawk War commences. South Carolina declares the
doctrine of nullification. Representatives 240.
=1833.=—Andrew Jackson commences his second administration. Gen. Santa
Anna elected President of Mexico. Public deposits removed from the
United States Bank by the President, and distributed among certain State
banks. Secretary of Treasury, W. P. Duane, refusing to carry out the
policy, is removed. Lucifer, or Locofoco matches introduced, and the
Democrats called “Locofocos.”
=1834.=—President Jackson censured by Congress for removing Government
deposits.—France and Portugal, slow in paying for injuries done United
States commerce, are brought to terms by the President.
=1835.=—War with Seminoles.
=1836.=—Office of Commissioner of Patents created. Treaty of Friendship
and Commerce with Venezuela. Charter for United States Bank expires. Not
renewed. Financial trouble brewing. Martin VanBuren, Democrat, elected
President.
=1837.=—The Independence of Texas acknowledged. Issue of $10,000,000
Treasury notes authorized. President refuses to remit the regulation
regarding the “Specie Circular.” Financial panic follows, banks suspend
Specie Payments in March, and resume in July. VanBuren inaugurated.
=1838.=—National debt paid—surplus revenue divided among the States.
President enjoins neutrality during Canadian Rebellion.
=1839.=—United States Bank suspends payment. Disturbances on the
Northeastern boundaries of Maine.
=1840.=—Sub-Treasury bill passed. Sixth official census; population
17,069,453. Gen’l Harrison, Whig, elected President. “Tippecanoe and
Tyler too” campaign. =1826.=—Extensive Internal Improvements under the
leadership of Clay. The Fiftieth Anniversary of American Independence.
Death of Adams and Jefferson. Webster delivers his celebrated eulogy on
them.
=1827.=—Experimenting on the construction of a railroad.
=1828.=—Tariff amended and Duties increased. Jackson elected President.
=1829.=—Webster’s great speech against Nullification. Treaty of Amity
and Commerce with Brazil. Jackson inaugurated. “To the victor belongs
the spoils.”
=1830.=—Treaty with Turkey, securing for the United States freedom of
the Black Sea. Treaty between the United States and Ottoman Porte. Fifth
official census: population 12,866,020.
=1831.=—Building railroads actively.
=1832.=—Treaty of Commerce with Russia. Treaty of Commerce and Boundary
with Mexico. Bill for re-chartering United States Bank vetoed by
President Jackson. His proclamation against Nullifiers. Resignation of
John C. Calhoun. Black Hawk War commences. South Carolina declares the
doctrine of nullification. Representatives 240.
=1833.=—Andrew Jackson commences his second administration. Gen. Santa
Anna elected President of Mexico. Public deposits removed from the
United States Bank by the President, and distributed among certain State
banks. Secretary of Treasury, W. P. Duane, refusing to carry out the
policy, is removed. Lucifer, or Locofoco matches introduced, and the
Democrats called “Locofocos.”
=1834.=—President Jackson censured by Congress for removing Government
deposits.—France and Portugal, slow in paying for injuries done United
States commerce, are brought to terms by the President.
=1835.=—War with Seminoles.
=1836.=—Office of Commissioner of Patents created. Treaty of Friendship
and Commerce with Venezuela. Charter for United States Bank expires. Not
renewed. Financial trouble brewing. Martin VanBuren, Democrat, elected
President.
=1837.=—The Independence of Texas acknowledged. Issue of $10,000,000
Treasury notes authorized. President refuses to remit the regulation
regarding the “Specie Circular.” Financial panic follows, banks suspend
Specie Payments in March, and resume in July. VanBuren inaugurated.
=1838.=—National debt paid—surplus revenue divided among the States.
President enjoins neutrality during Canadian Rebellion.
=1839.=—United States Bank suspends payment. Disturbances on the
Northeastern boundaries of Maine.
=1840.=—Sub-Treasury bill passed. Sixth official census; population
17,069,453. Gen’l Harrison, Whig, elected President. “Tippecanoe and
Tyler too” campaign.
=1841.=—Congress meets in extra session. Imprisonment for debts due the
United States abolished. Central Bankrupt Law passed. A loan of
$12,000,000 authorized. Sub-Treasury Act repealed. Revenues received
from public lands ordered to be distributed among the States. Two bills
for re-chartering the United States Bank vetoed. All members of the
Cabinet, except Mr. Webster, resign. Failure of United States Bank under
Pennsylvania charter. Harrison dies; Tyler succeeds him.
=1842.=—The Dover Insurrection in Rhode Island. The Seminole war
terminated. Treaty with England settling NorthEastern boundary question.
Senate ratifies the Ashburton-Webster Treaty. Ratio of representation
fixed at 70,680; Representatives 223. United States fiscal year ordered
to begin with July 1st.
=1843.=—$30,000 appropriated for the construction of Morse’s Electric
Telegraph between Washington and Baltimore.
=1844.=—First message by the electric telegraph. James K. Polk,
Democrat, elected President.
=1845.=—Anti-rent riots in New York. The first Tuesday after the first
Monday in November on which to hold Presidential elections. Treaty made
with China. Speech of Mr. Cass on NorthWestern boundary of Oregon.
Annexation of Texas, and war with Mexico.
=1846.=—Hostilities commence with Mexico. New Mexico annexed to the
United States, 10,000,000 voted; and 50,000 men called out, to carry on
the war. The Wilmot Proviso, Tariff on Imports reduced. Treaty settling
Northwestern boundary. Congress declared the war “existed by act of
Mexico.”
=1847.=—The city of Mexico taken by Americans under General Scott. War
rages with Mexico.
=1848.=—Congress ratifies Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Postal Treaty
with England negotiated; concluded in 1849. Peace with Mexico declared,
July 4th. Zachary Taylor, Whig, elected President. Upper California
ceded to United States. First deposit of California gold in the mint.
=1849.=—The French Embassador dismissed from Washington. Taylor
inaugurated, dies; Fillmore succeeds him.
=1850.=—The Fugitive Slave Act passed. Texas boundary settled by payment
of $10,000,000 to Texas. New Mexico and Utah admitted as territories.
Slave trade abolished in the District of Columbia. Webster’s great
speech on the Union delivered in reply to Hayne. Treaty of Amity and
Commerce with Switzerland. Treaty with England securing a transit over
Panama. Seventh census; population 23,191,876.
=1851.=—Southern Rights Convention at South Carolina. A Cheap Postage
Law enacted. Kossuth visits United States.
=1852.=—Ratio of Representation fixed at 93,423; members, 237. Dispute
with England in regard to fisheries. Henry Clay and Daniel Webster died
this year. Franklin Pierce, Democrat, elected President.
=1853.=—Pierce inaugurated. A partisan inaugural address.
=1854.=—Congress passes the Kansas-Nebraska bill. United States Neutral
on the Eastern Question.
=1854.=—Treaty of Reciprocity with England. Commercial Treaty with Japan
concluded through Commodore Perry. American party formed.
=1855.=—The Court of Claims established. Election troubles in Kansas. U.
S. steamer “Waterwitch” fired on, on the Paraguay. Passmore Williamson
released from three months imprisonment in the Wheeler Slave Case.
=1856.=—Quebec made the seat of Canadian government, P. W. Geary
confirmed as Governor of Kansas. Extra session of Congress adjourns. 133
ballots required to elect Nathaniel P. Banks Speaker of the House. Mr.
Brooks of S. C., assaults Senator Summer in the Senate Chamber. British
envoy ordered to leave Washington. Great excitement in Congress on the
Slavery question and over the admission of Kansas and Nebraska.
Republican party formed. James Buchanan, Democrat, elected President.
=1857.=—A great Financial Panic; 5,123 Commercial Failures. Buchanan
inaugurated; pays 8 and 10 per cent. for loans. The Dred Scott Decision
delivered by Chief Justice Taney. R. J. Walker appointed Governor of
Kansas.
=1858.=—Congress passes the English Kansas Bill but State refuses to
accept. Treaty of amity with China.
=1858.=—First Atlantic Cable laid; second in 1866. U. S. Army defeats
the Mormons in Utah. Minnesota State Government organized. Nicaragua
seeks the protection of the United States.
=1859.=—John Brown’s raid at Harper’s Ferry, Va., his capture and
execution.
=1860.=—Ratio of Representation fixed at 127,000. Crittenden Compromise
introduced and defeated. Prince of Wales visits the United States.
Senators and Federal Officers from the South favoring disunion, resign.
President Buchanan denies the right of a State to secede, and declines
to receive the South Carolina Commission. Eighth census; population
31,443,321. Abraham Lincoln, Republican, elected President. The
“Palmetto Flag” hoisted in Charleston harbor. Georgia appropriates
$1,000,000 to another state. Maj. Anderson takes possession of Fort
Sumter.
=1861.=—Congress meets in Special Session. The President calls the
volunteers and $400,000,000 to put down the Rebellion. Jacob Thompson,
Secretary of Interior, resigns. Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia,
Louisiana, and Texas passed secession ordinances. John A. Dix appointed
Secretary of Treasury, vice Thomas, resigned. Jeff Davis resigns his
seat in the U. S. Senate.
Southern Confederacy formed at Montgomery, Ala. Peace Congress meets at
Washington. Jeff Davis elected President of Southern Confederacy. Gen.
Twiggs expelled from the army for treason. Peace Congress adjourned
after a stormy session—accomplished nothing. Beauregard takes command at
Charleston, S. C.; and stops intercourse between Fort Sumter and
Charleston. President Lincoln calls for 75,000 volunteers. Jeff Davis
offers letters of marque to privateers. President Lincoln declares the
Southern ports in a state of blockade. Virginia proclaimed a member of
the Southern Confederacy. McClellan placed in command of the Department
of Ohio. Arkansas secedes. England acknowledges the insurgent States as
belligerents. North Carolina secedes; Kentucky declares neutrality.
Tennessee secedes. Federal troops cross the Potomac. All postal services
in the seceded States suspended. Gen. McClellan assumes command in West
Virginia. The Wheeling Government, Virginia, acknowledged by the
President. July 4, Congress meets in extra session. Fremont appointed to
command of Western Department. Nine Southern members expelled from U. S.
Senate.
Confiscation bill passed. Congress adjourns. President suspends all
commerce with seceded States. President Lincoln orders Gen. Fremont to
modify his emancipation proclamation. Secession members of Maryland
Legislature sent to Fort McHenry. Gen. Scott resigns as
Commander-in-Chief; Gen. McClellan succeeds him. C. S. Congress convened
at Richmond, Va. Breckinridge expelled from U. S. Senate for treason.
New York and Boston banks suspend specie payment.
=1862.=—Slavery prohibited in the Territories. Internal Revenue Bill
passed. Polygamy forbidden in United Stales. Union Pacific Railroad
chartered. Department of Agriculture organized. A draft of 300,000 men
to serve for nine months, ordered by the Secretary of war; 600,000
volunteers called. Mason and Slidell delivered to the British Minister.
E. M. Stanton appointed Secretary of war, vice Cameron, resigned.
Cameron nominated Minister to Russia, vice Clay, resigned. Jesse D.
Bright expelled from U. S. Senate. Jefferson Davis inaugurated President
of the Southern Confederacy. Brigham Young elected Governor of Deseret,
Utah. National Tax Bill passed U. S. House of Representatives. Gen.
Halleck (July 11) appointed commander of all land forces. Martial law
declared in Cincinnati. McClellan, Sept. 7, takes command in person of
Potomac Army. Sept. 22, President Lincoln issues his Emancipation
Proclamation. _Habeas Corpus_ suspended by U. S. Government. Nov. 5,
Gen. Burnside succeeds McClellan. All political prisoners released. Nov.
22, West Virginia admitted as a state.
=1863.=—Jan. 1.—Lincoln declares all the slaves free. Bureau of Currency
and National Banks established. Death of “Stonewall” Jackson. First
colored regiment from the north leaves Boston. A loan of $900,000,000
ten-forties authorized. Proclamation issued. Gen. Grant takes command of
the West. Slavery abolished by Proclamation.
=1864.=—Fugitive Slave Law repealed. A draft of 500,000 men ordered, and
700,000 men called for, 85,000 men accepted from Governors of Western
States. Lincoln re-elected President. Gen. Grant appointed to command U.
S. Armies.
=1865.=—The 13th Amendment passed. Amnesty Proclamation issued. Blockade
of Southern ports ended. $98,000,000 subscribed to the 7:30 loan during
the week ending May 13. A day of fasting on account of the death of
President Lincoln. All the nation in mourning. Lee surrenders to Grant.
Johnson succeeds Lincoln.
=1866.=—Freedman’s Bureau Bill and Civil Rights Bill passed. 14th
Amendment passed. Proclamation of Peace. Colorado bill vetoed. Suffrage
given to colored men in District of Columbia.
=1867.=—Southern States organized into Military Districts. Military
Government Bill and Tenure-of-Office Bill passed. Treaty with Russia for
purchase of Alaska concluded, price $7,200,000. Nebraska admitted as a
State. Reconstruction bill passed over President Johnson’s veto. Russian
American Treaty approved by the Senate. Jeff Davis released on bail.
Congress meets in extra session. Supplementary Reconstruction Bill
passed, over veto.
=1868.=—Impeachment trial of President Johnson ends in acquittal.
Fourteenth Amendment declared part of the Constitution. Proclamation of
Political Amnesty issued. Grant, Republican, elected President. Congress
meets. Senate bill passed for the reduction of the army. Bill passed to
abolish tax on manufactures. The Chinese Embassy received by the
President. Bill passed Senate for admission of S. States. Commencement
of difficulties between U. S. Ambassador and the Government of Paraguay.
The Senate ratifies the Chinese Treaty. Freedman’s Bureau Bill passed
over Johnson’s veto. Laws of United States extended over Alaska. Failure
of the Atlantic Cable of 1866. President Johnson issues a universal
amnesty proclamation.
=1869.=—Central Pacific and Union Pacific railroads completed.—1,913
miles in length. United States Supreme Court decides Internal Revenue
laws constitutional. The Copper Tariff Bill passed over the veto.
Passage of the Reconstruction Bill. Indiana Supreme Court decide
National Bank currency taxable. Female Suffrage Bill passed by Wyoming
Legislature. E. M. Stanton confirmed as Judge of United States Supreme
Court.
=1870.=—Fifteenth Amendment passed. Recall of the Russian Minister,
Catacazy, requested. Proclamation against Fenian raids into Canada
issued. Ninth census, population 38,555,883. Bill passed for the
readmission of Virginia. Legal Tender Act declared unconstitutional. The
Saint Thomas treaty expires by limitation. The North Pacific R. R. Bill
becomes a law. Bill to abolish Franking privilege defeated. The San
Domingo Treaty rejected by the Senate. The new Constitution of Illinois
adopted.
=1871.=—Congress passes Bill against Ku-Klux, also Enforcement Bill. The
United States Senate passes the San Domingo Commission Bill. The
$300,000, on Five Per Cent. Refunding Bill passed by the House. Congress
admits the Georgia Senators. Deadlock in Indiana Legislature;
thirty-four Republicans resign. The Forty-first Congress expires;
Forty-second organized. Alabama Claims $12,830,384. Expenses of the
United States census reported at $3,287,600. The Apportionment Bill
passed by Congress.
=1872.=—Tax and Tariff Bill passed diminishing Revenue. Ratio of
Representation fixed at 131,425; Representatives limited to 293. General
Amnesty Bill signed. $15,500,000 awarded the United States by Geneva
Tribunal. Emperor William of Germany decides the San Juan Question in
favor of the United States. Salary Retroactive Act passed. First repeal
of the Franking privilege. Federal officers are forbidden to hold State
Offices. Suspension of the Bank of Jay Cook & Co., causes a financial
panic. Modoc War.
=1874.=—Political excitement in Louisiana. Grant vetoes the Finance
Bill. United States Senate passes Civil Rights Bill. Currency Bill
vetoed. Fillmore and Sumner die.
=1875.=—Senate ratifies the Treaty with Hawaii. Civil Rights Bill
passed. New Treaty with Belgium concluded. Financial trouble continued.
Louisiana Legislative hall taken possession of by United States troops.
Colorado admitted as a State.
=1876.=—Centennial Bill appropriating $15,000,000 passed. Secretary
Belknap impeached by the House, acquitted by the Senate. Postal Treaty
with Japan. Termination of the English Extradition Treaty announced.
=1877.=—Electoral Commission decided in favor of Hays. Spanish
Extradition Treaty announced. Federal troops recalled from the South.
Nez Perces War.
=1878.=—Silver Bill. Halifax Fishing Award; Ben Butler opposes it.
=1879.=—Specie payment. Negro exodus begins. Ute War.
=1880.=—Election of Garfield as President, the October election in Ohio
and Indiana virtually deciding the issue in advance.
=1881.=—Assassination of President Garfield by Charles J. Guiteau;
Vice-President Arthur succeeds him. Resignation of Senators Conkling and
Platt, of New York.
=1882.=—Extended trial and final conviction of Guiteau, who set up the
plea that his assassination of President Garfield was due to an
irresistible pressure from Deity. Nomination of Roscoe Conkling to the
Supreme Court. Blaine’s eulogy on Garfield. The Mormon issue revived by
Edmunds’ Bill; Chinese issue revived by bill to prevent their
immigration for twenty years. California and Nevada make a holiday of
Saturday, March 4, and devote it to mass meetings, which said “the
Chinese must go.” March 1, Senator Hoar, of Massachusetts, makes a great
speech against Chinese Bill; Senator Miller, of California, replies.
=1883.=—Jefferson Davis replies to ex-Judge Jeremiah S. Black’s article
on “Secession Secrets.” Death of ex-Attorney-General Black.
=1884.=—Nomination of James G. Blaine, and John A. Logan, at Chicago,
for President and Vice-President, who were defeated by Grover Cleveland
and Thomas A. Hendricks. Death of Hon. Charles J. Folger, Secretary of
the Treasury.
=1885.=—General Ulysses S. Grant, ex-President of the United States,
died at Mt. McGregor, July 22d, after a lingering and most painful
illness of many months. Death of Vice-President Thomas A. Hendricks, and
election of Hon. John Sherman as Acting Vice-President of the United
States.
=1886.=—Marriage of Grover Cleveland and Miss Frances Folsom at the
Executive Mansion; and death of General George B. McClellan, General
Winfield Scott Hancock, ex-Governor Samuel J. Tilden—all three of whom
had been nominated for President of the United States; McClellan in
1864, Tilden in 1876, and Hancock in 1880.
=1887.=—High License Campaign in Pennsylvania; liquor men resisted and
formed Personal Liberty Leagues; Republicans contended for High License
and Sunday Laws, and won by 46,000 majority. Death of General Philip
Sheridan. In December, at opening of Congress, President Cleveland sent
in an Annual Message devoted alone to Revenue Reform; Mr. Blaine wired
an answer from Paris in favor of Protection, and in this way the issue
was opened.
=1888.=—Re-nomination of President Cleveland on Tariff for Revenue
platform; the Republicans nominated General Benjamin Harrison on a
Protective platform. A brilliant campaign followed and resulted in a
Republican victory. Warner Miller led a High License battle for Governor
of New York; beaten by Governor Hill by 18,000 majority. Delaware
elected Anthony Higgins, a Republican, for United States Senator.
=1889.=—Admission by Congress as States of North and South Dakota,
Montana and Washington, making 42 in all. The Pan-American Congress
assembled in Washington. Representatives of nearly all the Central and
South American governments attended. International Marine Conference
also assembled. Race troubles in the Southern States. Death of Jefferson
Davis.
=1890.=—Death of Hon. William D. Kelly, known as “The Father of the
House,” after a service of thirty years in Congress.
The McKinley Tariff Bill and the Anti-Lottery Bill become laws.
Democratic “tidal wave” in the fall elections, overturning the
Republican majority in the House of Representatives and the State
governments in many heretofore reliable Republican States.
=1892.=—Re-nomination of President Harrison and nomination of Whitelaw
Reid at Minneapolis, for President and Vice-President. Re-nomination of
ex-President Cleveland and nomination of Adlai Stevenson at Chicago, for
President and Vice-President.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
INDEX.
BOOK I.
HISTORY OF POLITICAL PARTIES.
Abolition of Indian factory system, 25
Abolition Party, rise and progress of, 53
Act to elect President and Vice-President by a direct vote of the
people, 27
Act to prohibit African slave trade, 17
Act to provide for collection, disbursement and safe-keeping of public
money, 37
Acquisition of Florida, 25
Adams, John, inaugurated, 10
Adams, John Quincy, elected, 26
Adams, John Quincy, policy, 27
Admission of Florida and Iowa, 47
Admission of Mississippi and Illinois, 23
Admission of Missouri, to the Union, with an attempt to restrict
slavery in its limit, 24
Alabama claims, 197
Alien law and (sedition), 11
Amendment to Constitution (Sept. 25th, 1804), 12
Amendment of Morton, 222
Amendment 13th, passed, 167
Amendment 14th, votes on, 147
Amendment, 15th, to enforce same, 197
American party, 57
American ritual, 57
American Convention, 87
American nomination of 1856, 69
American system for protection of home industry, 25
American system lost, 32
Amnesty, 199
Anti-Federal Party, 6
Annexation of Texas, 46
Approval of act declaring war, June 18, 1812, 19
Apportionment bill, first, 8
Arkansas admitted, 170
Arthur, 261
Arms, transferred South, 1859, ’60, 109
Armed neutrality, first, 10
Attempt to amend bill for admission of California by extension of
Missouri Compromise to the Pacific, 52
Attempt to pass Tenure of Office bill, 28
Bank of the United States, expiration of charter, 30
Bank and State, separation of, 37
Belknap, impeachment of, 223
Benton’s speech, 34
Bill for appropriating one year’s Salary to the widow of Gen. Harrison,
39
Bill to distribute public land money among the States, 35
Bill for distribution of public land revenue, 39
Bill for establishment of system of bankruptcy, 39
Bill for equalizing value of gold and silver, 34
Bill of Rights, 8
Border States, appeal of President to, 137
“Boss Rule”, 261
Broad Constructionists, 7
Buchanan’s nomination, 69
Buchanan’s views, 99
Calhoun on causes of difference between himself and the President, 32
Calhoun, death of, 52
Calhoun, extends constitution to the territories, 50
Campaign of 1880, 242
Caucus, 256
Charleston Convention, 81
Chesapeake, search of the, 17
Chinese question, 281
Chinese question—Senator Miller’s speech, 281
Chinese question—Senator Hoar’s reply, 285
Circuit Courts, law for establishment of repealed, 15
Civil Rights Bill, supplementary, 221
Civil Service Order of President Hayes, 198
Civil Service Question, first, 12
Clay’s compromise bill, 33
Clay’s compromise resolutions, 51
Clay’s compromise bill rejected, 52
Clay, resignation of, 44
Clay, Speaker of the House, 18
Clintonian Platform, 19
Close Constructionists, 7
Colonial Parties, 3
Color in War Politics, 159
Columbia river, settlement of territory, of, 25
Confederate Constitution, 97
Confederate Debt, 152
Confederate States, 98
Confederate Taxes, 153
Continental Congress, first and second, 4
Congress, origin of, 4
Congress, first under Federal constitution, 7
Congress, 26th, 37
Congress, 37th, 2d session, 145
Congress, 37th, 3d session, 147
Congress, 38th, 1st session, 147
Constitution ratified, 6
Constitution, revision of articles of confederation, 6
Credit Mobilier, 200
Crittenden Compromise, 104
Cumberland road act, 25
Declaration of Independence, 4
Democratic Party, 17
Democratic nomination, 1856, 17
Despatches, Cipher, 234
Disunion Conventions, 53
Disbandment of provisional army, 15
Douglas’ amendment, 80
Electoral Commission, members of, 232
Electoral Count (Hayes and Wheeler), 229
Emancipation a war necessity, 141
Embargo Act, 16
Enforcement Acts, 193
Enforcement Acts, amendatory, 197
England, rejection of treaty with, 17
Era of Good Feeling, 21
Factions, Republican, 253
Federal Party, 17
Federal Party, downfall of, 12
Fillmore, Millard, succession of, 52
Financial crisis, 36
Financial distress, 24
Financial Legislation, internal taxes, 149
Force Bill, 197
Free-Soilers, 50
French agitation by Republicans, 9
Fugitive Slave Law, first, 11
Fugitive Slave Law, repeal of, 145
Funding Bill, 3 per cent., 244
Garfield, 253
———— —assassinated, 260
Ghent, treaty of, 20
Governors, loyal, address to President, 144
Grangers, 218
Grant, 191
Greenback Party, 194
Hardships endured by the New England States in war of 1812, 20
Harrison, nomination of, 38
———— inauguration of, 39
Hartford Convention, 20
Hartford Convention, delegates, 20
Hayes, administration of, 237
Hayes, closing hours of his administration, 240
Hayes and Wheeler, election of, 228
Hayes’ title to the Presidency, 233
Hour Rule in the House, 39
Impeachment trial, first, 16
Independent treasury act repealed, 39
Interior Department, creation of, 50
Jackson, Andrew, death of, 36
———— election of, 28
Jay’s treaty with England, 9
Jay’s instructions demanded, 10
Jefferson, election of, 12
Jefferson, inauguration of, 12
Johnson, Andrew, 178
———— impeachment of, 179
———— policy of, 178
Kansas admitted, 56
Kansas-Nebraska Bill, 55
Kansas struggle, 71
Know-Nothing Party, 55
Land distribution, 45
League, White, 223
Lecompton constitution, 79
Legal Tender Decision, 194
Liberal Republicans, 199
Lincoln, 1st administration of, 120
———— 2d „ „, 177
Lincoln and Douglas debate, 73
Log-Rolling, first exhibition of, 8
Louisiana, purchase of, 15
———— fears of the people for the result, 15
———— price paid, 16
Louisiana’s Representatives admitted, 168
Madison, James, election of, 18
Marine, Merchant, 296
McClellan’s political letters, 175
Mexico, treaty with, 49
Mileage, 214
Missouri Compromise, 24
Monroe, inauguration of, 21
Monroe Doctrine, 23
Monroe’s re-election, 24
Mormonism, suppression of, 264
National Bank scheme, old issue against revived, 18
———— ———— ———— passage of bill to establish, 21
National Bank of the United States, Bill, 41
———— ———— ———— ———— bill for renewal of charter vetoed, 31
———— ———— ———— ———— conduct of the, 31
———— ———— ———— ———— downfall of, 32
———— ———— ———— ———— Second Bill, 43
———— ———— ———— ———— vetoed, 42
———— ———— ———— ———— war of the, 31
National Loans, history of, 245
National Republicans, convention of, 31
Native American Party, 54
Naturalization law, 11
———— uniform system of, 15
Naval Department proposition to abolish defeated, 15
Navy, 45
Negro Exodus, 240
Neutrality, armed, the first, 10
Neutrality, proclamation of, 9
New Jersey elections contested, 37
Non-intercourse act, revival of, 18
Nullification, origin of doctrine of, 28
———— doctrine of discussed, 29
Ordinance of State of South Carolina, 32
Oregon treaty, 47
Pairing off, 37
Particularists, 5
Peace Convention, 106
Peace Parties, 19
Pensions, naval, 40
Pierce, Franklin, election of, 54
Politics, current, 298
Polk, James K., nomination of, 45
Pre-emption system, 37
Prohibitory Party, 196
Protective tariff, 21
Protective Tariff discussions, 28
Proclamation, Lincoln, 169
———— Emancipation, Sept. 22, 1862, 141
———— ———— January 1, 1863, 143
Readjusters, 263
Rebellion, Congress on the eve of, 113
Recall of American Minister and declaration of war of 1812, 18
Reconstruction, 169
———— act 39th Congress, 171
———— act supplemental 40th Congress, 172
———— measures, text of, 171
Reform in Civil Service, 200
Republican Association of Washington, 70
———— Convention, Chicago, 86
———— and Federal Parties, 8
———— Party, 69
———— Liberal, 199
Returning Boards, 217
Salary Grab, 214
San Domingo, annexation of, 196
Scott, Dred, suit, 56
Secession Message, Mayor Wood’s, 112
———— Preparing for, 87
Sedition law, 11
Seizure of American vessels, 9
Seward as Secretary of State, 149
Seward’s proposal, 51
Sinking Fund for redemption of public debt, 15
Slave Trade, first law in relation to passed, 15
Slavery question, inception of, 35
Slavery in the territories, 49
South American States, question of recognizing the independence of, 23
Southern Congress, proceedings of, 97
South American question, 269
Star Route scandal, 277
Strong Government Whigs, 5
States, the coming, 278
———— rebellious, readmission of, 193
Tariff, 44
Taxes, Confederate, 153
Taxes, Internal, 151
Taylor, Zach., nomination of, 50
Topeka Constitution, 79
Tory Party, 3
Treasury, deficit, 45
Twenty-first rule, 53
Tyler, John, succession of, 39
Van Buren, election of, 36
———— resignation from Cabinet, 32
Virginia’s political power, jealousy of, 18
Virginia Convention, proceedings of, 91
Washington, Farewell Address, 10
———— re-election of, 9
War of 1812, primary cause of, 17
West Virginia admitted, 158
Whig Party, 3
———— appears for the last time, 54
Whiskey Rebellion, 8
Whiskey Ring, 222
Wilmot Proviso, 48
ADDITIONS TO REVISED EDITION. BOOK I.
Civil Service Reform Bill in Congress, 313
Cleveland’s Administration, 320
Discontent of 1882, 307
“Groundswells”, 304
Independent Republican Revolt in Pennsylvania, 307
Political Changes in 1882, 304
Prohibitory Amendments, 306
Republican Differences—Efforts to Harmonize, 307–313
Revenue Taxes, Attempt to Repeal, 305
Tariff, Attempt to Reduce, 305
Tariff Commission, 305
“Tidal waves,” 304
Political Changes in 1883, 314
State Elections of 1882 and 1883 compared with the Presidential
Election of 1880, 315
Political Changes in 1884, 316
The Vote in Detail, 317
The Campaign of 1884, 318
Contests of 1886–7, 322
The Campaign of 1888, 326
President Harrison’s Message on the Chilean Troubles, 339
National Conventions of 1892, 347