Class _JL.G^^ Book >T?) fe3 Go]jyrig}it]^^_______ COE«»UGHT DEPOSm CONTENTS Page THE PUBLIC CAEEER OF JAMES GILLESPIE BLAINE . 1 I.— NATIONAL SOVEREIGNTY. ] National and State Sovereignty 9 1 The Shadow of a Dead Confederacy 35 ^ \ II. — A FREE BALLOT, AND AN HONEST COUNT. \ A Fair Vote of Equal Power 52 ^ Military Interference at Elections in the South . 65 ] •< III. — A SOUND CURRENCY. [i An Irredeemable Paper Currency 88 : The Influence of Congress on Silver Currency . . 109 ; IV. — IMPORTED AND CONTRACT LABOR. 1 Chinese Immigration . . . , 116 i \ v. — THE NAVY AND THE MERCHANT MARINE .... 135 j Shall We Build our Ships at Home? 155 1 (] VI. — PROTECTION FOR HOME INDUSTRIES. , The Tariff Question 170 ^ I viii Contents. ] VII. — CIVIL SERVICE A^D FOEEIGN RELATIONS. ■ Civil-Service Reform .197 i A Peace Congress 199 ' Foreign Policy of the Garfield Administration . 201 \ VIIL — THE GARFIELD MEMORIAL ADDRESS 215 j IX. — THE NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CONVENTION OF 1884. > The Plati'oiim 250 \ The Nomination of Mr. Blaine to the Presidency . 2oG ; A List of the Delegates 2G3 X.— MR. BLAINE\S LETTER OF ACCEPTANCE 274 THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICE OF JOHN A. LOGAN . 297 i " 'i THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE OF 1884 304 ' WORDS OF BLAINE. THE PUBLIC CAREER JAMES GILLESPIE BLAINE. If the American people are not misjudged, they are, most of all, interested in the public career of the man who receives the nomination for the highest office within their gift. They may be interested to know what time he arises in the morn- ing, how long and in what way he works, how he dresses, and many other details of his private life ; but they are more interested to know whether he has been patriotic in great emergencies, strong when courage was needed, full of resources at times when the interests of the people were at stake, and alert for the welfare of the nation. It is necessary, however, in this instance, to refer to the antecedents of the man that we may form a just estimate of his power. Without pressing the claim that heredity has much to do with a man's success, we are still confronted with the fact that Charles Darwin came from a race of naturalists; that behind the military career of Count Von Moltke — a most remarkable history — there are three gen- erations of soldiers; and in examining the history of the Blaine family we find evidences of statesmanship reaching back to the days of Washington and the American Rev- olution. 2 Words of James Gr, Blaine. Colonel Ephraim Blaine was an early settler in Middlesex, Pennsylvania, and there had large possessions of land in colonial days. He was not only a man of wealth, but a patriot as well, and espousing the cause of the people in the Revolution, was- appointed to command a regiment of the Pennsylvania line. Beyond his patriotism he was a broad and successful business man, and was soon transferred to the department of supplies, brought order out of chaos, and by his personal credit was able to advance money at certain times for the use of the government. Many a soldier who suffered at Valley Forge, or marched with the " barefooted host " from Philadelphia to Trenton, when their footprints left marks of blood upon the snow, had ample reason to remember the relief afforded by the generosity of Colonel Ephraim Blaine. Among the most cherished mementoes of family history are the letters of Washington expressing thanks for this kindness, and it is still remembered that when the whiskey insurrection broke out in 1793, General Washington, with his secretaries, Hamilton and Knox, stopped a few days with Colonel Blaine in Middlesex, when the old-fashioned hospitality displayed on the part of the host made the event one to be spoken of with pride by the citizens of that section for many years. The characteristics of Colonel Blaine reappeared in mem- bers of the family, and Mr. James G. Blaine has an inheri- tance, in this respect, of which any man might be proud. If the Gillespies were less noted, they were still remarkable people, intelligent and refined, and when we look back on the family history we must see that Mr. Blaine has the advantage of a good ancestry. Hid Public Ca7'eer. 3 Again, Mr. Blaine was fitted for his public career by early and careful training. This is not said to disparage self-made men. The wisdom of Franklin, the foresight, patriotism, and great ability of Lincoln, and the eminent service of Henry Wilson, as well as the long line of men of lesser note, but of high ^lent, prove that some of our most worthy and effi- cient men have been self-made. Still, every one of these men believed that education was the privilege above all others that a man should prize, and every one lamented the envi- ronment which prevented him from obtaining a liberal train- ing in early years. Mr. Blaine was carefully educated in early years, and was graduated from Washington College at the age of seventeen. He was a close student of history, especially of American history, and the history of American politics. He studied law, and thus gained important knowledge of the province and duty of a legislator. He taught in a large military school in Kentucky for two or more years, and gained the knowledge of human nature, which can scarcely be obtained so well in any other position. At the age of twenty-three he came to the State of Maine, first taking charge of the Kennebec Journal, and then of the Portland Advertiser ; and spending several years in the editorial chair, he so perfected himself in the art of expres- sion, that the wholesome influence of these years may be seen in almost every page of his " Twenty Years of Con- gress. " When we look at his personal history we shall no longer say that Mr. Blaine has gained his popularity by "brill- 4 Words of James Gr. Blaine. iancy, " or " dash, " or " personal magnetism, " whatever the last expression may mean. He has been popular because nature endowed him with a clear mind, executive force, quick perception, and much firmness ; because hard study made him master of our past political history, and a capable judge of the present needs ; because his arduous labor as a journalist resulted in giving him a literary culture, and 3reatly strengthened his logical powers. ■At the age of twenty-six, Mr. Blaine really entered on his public career. The time was important. The agitation of the slave question was at its height, and the birth of the Republican party was at hand. At the convention held in Philadelphia, Colonel John C. Fremont was nominated for President, and those who were his supporters entered upon their work with much zeal. Mr. Blaine was a delegate to the convention, and on his return to Augusta a ratification meeting was called. Pressed to speak, he at first refused, but afterward consented. Standing before the large audi- ence he made a poor beginning, but soon entered into the spirit of the hour, and so clear, forcible, and convincing was his speech that from that hour he was considered not only an able writer, but one of tlie most effective platform speakers in the party. Throughout the campaign he spoke in many places, and his reputation soon extended beyond his section. In 1858, he was elected to the Legislature from Augusta, and at once attracted attention by his industry and sound judg- ment. He was re-elected four successive years, and was chosen Speaker of the House for 1861 and 1862. During his term as speaker he gave evidence of the powers which were His Public Career. 5 soon to be displayed in a larger field, and so well was liis work done, that in the autumn of 1862 he Avas elected to Congress. The time was a very important one. The policy of the President and of Congress had been to suppress the Rebellion without emancipation. Conciliatory measures were proposed, and it was fondly hoped that we should "have the Constitution without change, and tlie Union as it was." But the conviction deepened with the passing months that we must strike at the chief support of the Rebellion before it could be suppressed. Mr. Lincoln had been careful and conservative. He had rejected propositions to arm the negroes. He had disallowed the order of General Fremont declaring the negroes free within the limits of his command. Still, at this time he felt the probability of emancipation, a probability which engaged and disturbed the minds of the people ; and to a friend who wrote him strongly against such a movement, replied: "You must not expect me to give up this government Avithout playing my last card." The parties throughout the North had risen to the most decided antag- onism, and so high did feeling run, and so strong was the conservative spirit, that Republican defeat was threatened in many States. At such a time Mr. Blaine entered Con- gress, and so pronounced was his support of the Union, so eagerly did he labor for the welfare of the army, and so patriotic was every movement, that he soon attracted much attention. As a committeeman he distinguished himself by the ease and rapidity with which he did his work. He seemed to catch at a glance the significance of a proposition, and his decision Avas both easy and rapid. 6 Words of James Gr. Blaine. As a speaker and debater lie has few equals. The pages of the Congressional Record bear Avitness to this, and he who doubts has only to examine. When he rose in his place, it was always for a purpose. He was armed with the testi- mony needed, and he pressed his argument as steadily in the face of opponents, as he would have done in a company of friends. Who does not remember the Amnesty Speech, when the proposition to remove political disabilities from leading Southerners was proposed and advocated? The speech was very plain. In the face of men who had been in arms and open rebellion against the government he reread the page of history. He went on in plain language to draw comparisons and denounce their course. He was interrupted by Mr. Hill, of Georgia, and by Mr. Cox, of New York. Men scarcely refrained from applying insulting language, but still he went on. To each man he read from his own acts and speeches, gaining a step in his argument with each move- ment, until the feeling became actually painful, and the oppo- sition, baffled, undertook to take up the remainder of his hour by raising parliamentary questions. Even more dramatic was his defence on an occasion described by Mr. Ramsdell, a well-known journalist, who says : " His management of his own case when the Mulligan Letters came out was worthy of any general who ever set a squadron in the field. For nearlj^ fifteen years I have looked down from the galleries of the House and Senate, and I never saw, and never expect to see, and never read of a scene where the grandeur of human effort was better illus- trated than when this great orator rushed down the aisle, Sis Public Career. 7 and, in the very face of Proctor Knott, charged him with suppressing a telegram favorable to Blaine. The whole floor and all the galleries were wild with excitement. Men jelled and cheered, women waved their handkerchiefs and went into hysterics, and the whole floor was little less than a mob." As Speaker of the House Mr. Blaine gained a wide repu- tation. Intimate knowledge of parliamentary law, intimate knowledge of the rules and precedents of that body, a keen observation, and a power of .quick decision, were some of the characteristics that gave his work efliciency. Add to this a clear voice and impressive manner, and you have the man whose decisions, when appealed from, were uniformly sus- tained, and sustained often by the men who were his most bitter opponents. Mr. Blaine was elected to the House in 1862, and served until 1876, when he was appointed to the Senate, by Governor Connor, to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Senator Morrill. He served three full terms as Speaker, and was elected in every case without opposition in his party. He was elected to the Senate in 1877 for the full term of six years, but resigned in March, 1881, to become secretary of state, holding that office until December 19, 1881, when he resigned. Since that time Mr. Blaine has been in private life, and has devoted his spare hours to the preparation of his '^ Twenty Years of Congress," which has recently ap- peared. This is not the time or place to undertake an estimate of that work. A public man can scarcely hope for justice at the hands of critics. They know his opinions, his 8 Words of James G. Blaiyie. various battles, and any peculiar tendencies that have shown themselves in his life. And they are all ready and waiting to have their fling at these. His book cannot be put up, as you would hang a picture before you, and judged on its merits. So, some will praise and some will condemn, but few will take the trouble to pass an unbiased literary judgment. But the sifting hand of time will change all this, and the day will come when " Twenty Years of Congress " will command a very wide respect, both for the historical value of its pages, and for the excellent style in which it is written. Mr. Blaine is fifty-four years of age, and long ago married his excellent wife. He has six children. The eldest daugh- ter was recently married to Colonel Coppinger, of the army. The eldest son. Walker Blaine, is a lawyer, and served as third assistant-secretary of state under the Garfield adminis- tration. He has also given much time to the study of poli- tics, of which he has a wide and varied knowledge. The second son, Emmons Blaine, now holds an important position in the management of a Western railroad. The other mem- -bers of the family reside at home, and indeed the home is so attractive that all return when a favorable ojDportunity pre- sents itself. If one further word is needed, let me add that the pastors of the church in which Mr. Blaine has worshiped for many years have spoken in the highest terms of him, and that he occupies a position which is flattering to any man, because he is held in the highest regard by his immediate neighbors, who have lived by his side for many years. NATIONAL SOVEREIGNTY. The people of the United States iu 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 whicli should be faith- fully maintained; each should be guarded with zealous care so that the harmony of our system of government may be preserved and the Union be kept inviolate. — Republican Platform, 1884. NATIONAL AND STATE SOVEREIGNTY. [Selections from a speech delivered in the Senate of the United States, May 19, 1874.] Mr. President: Whether the honorable Senator from Connecticut [Mr. Eaton] or myself should the more cor- rectly remember a quotation from Mr. Webster's speeches is a matter of very small personal consequence, and of no public importance whatever. It is not, therefore, with any intention of vindicating a better memory or a more accurate quotation that I refer to this subject ; but it is because there has been a labored and persistent attempt, in v/hich I am sorry the Senator from Connecticut has taken part, TO MISREPRESENT MR. WEBSTER and declare that near the close of his life and at the end of his political career he changed his views, and that he had somewhere to some public assemblage practically retracted the great arguments he had made against the State-rights heresies and in behalf of the Constitution and 10 Words of James G-. Blaine. the Union. The honorable Senator from Connecticut on the occasion to which he has himself made reference spoke thus : " I said that Mr. Webster called this ' a confederacy of States.' I say he called it not only a confederacy of States, but a confederation of States." Further down, during a little colloquy between the Sena- tor and myself, he said : " When he reads a few words from a certain speech of Mr. Webster, does the honorable Senator from Maine undertake to assert on this floor that Mr. Web- ster did not again and again call this government not only a confederation of States but a compact between States ? I say he did." Further on the Senator said: "When the proper time arrives — I have not the library of Mr. Webster in my pocket, I do not carry it around Avith me [laughter] — when the proper time arrives I will show tliat MR. WEBSTER CALLED THIS A CONFEDERACY and the Constitution a compact." The honorable Senator came into the Senate on Friday last and very fully and magnanimously admitted that he had not been able to find, anywhere in Mr. Webster's speeches, that he had called this government a "confederacy of States," but he was very sure he had called it a compact and "a compact between the States." Let me read what the honorable Senator said: "In 1851, in his celebrated Capon Springs speech, the language of Mr. Webster admits of no dispute. Whatever he may have said on other occasions, whatever he said in his great discussion on the floor of the National Sovereignty. 11 Senate with Mr. Hayne or with Mr. Calhoun, on the occasion of this speech, in the most unqualified manner he asserted the fact for which I contend, that the Constitution is a com- pact between parties competent to enter into a compact, to Avit, the States." The honorable Senator held in his hand at that time a very mischievous book, and I may say he derived his facts, if not his inspiration, from that book, which I have now before me. It is a book Avritten by a gentleman of great influence in the Southern country, of acknowledged ability, of long and emi- nent service in the public councils, — Mr. Alexander H. Stephens, of Georgia. It is, as I have said, a mischievous book. It is mischievous in its title, it is mischievous in its preface, it is mischievous in every word from the opening to the closing chapter ; and it is mischievous because, although a sincere man himself, I believe it is an elabonite tissue of absolute misrepresentations, and misrepresentations from a sincere man are much more mischievous than misrepresenta- tions from one Avho designs to misrepresent. In this book, which the honorable Senator from Connecti- cut then held in his hand, Mr. Stephens takes the ground THAT MR. WEBSTER HAD RECANTED and changed his views in regard to the nature of our gov- ernment. On the four hundred and third page of the first volume he says : " But besides all this, as a further proof of Mr. Webster's change of views as to the Constitution being a compact between the States, I cite you to a later speech made by him at Capon Springs, in Virginia, on the twenty- eighth of June, 1851." 12 Wo7'dB of James Gr. Blaine. And lie quotes then what the Senator from Connecticut quoted. Then Mr. Stephens says : " In this speech Mr. Webster distinctly held that the Union was a union of States. That the Union was founded upon compact." Further on Mr. Stephens says : " I did not agree with him [Mr. Webster] in his exposition of the Constitution in 1833, but I did fully and cordially agree with him in his exposition in 1839 and 1851. According to that, the Constitution was and is a compact between the States." And in THIS INGENIOUS ATTEMPT TO JUSTIFY THE SECESSION that took place in 1861, handing it down to posterity in a his- tory entitled " The War Between the States," instead of a rebellion against the government, Mr. Stephens endeavors to enlist Mr. Webster as one of the witnesses that justified that line of proceeding. Mr. President, mere definition is not a matter on which time can be profitably spent, much less on the rhetorical use of a word. When a man speaks of a " compact" rhetorically, when he speaks of a " continental empire " rhetorically, or when he speaks of an " imperial republic " rhetorically, or when, like the Senator from Connecticut, he speaks of a "representative republic of sovereign States," I do not expect to hold him very closely to the line of the definition ; and if it were a mere matter of words as to how this man or that man happened in a piece of public declamation to define the nature of the government, it would not be worth while here to spend the time of the Senate upon it. But the hon- National Sovereignty. 13 orable Senator from Connecticut knows, and all with whom he if associated in the political revolution now attempted in this country know, that upon the line of division involved in these words is waged the contest between the two great par- ties that are contending for mastery in this country; that here is involved the true construction" under which this gov- ernment is to be administered — WHETHER THE GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES SHALL HAVE THE POWER TO UPHOLD ITSELF, or whether it shall be the mere creature of the States, living and breathing and moving at their will and pleasure. On that line the two parties in this country divide ; and I have never known a more extraordinary attempt — I will not say disingenuous, for that would imply motive — I have never known a more extraordinary attempt to twist or turn or con- found distinctions than the attempt to make Mr. Webster's speech at Capon Springs the basis on which this revelation of his change of view should be established. Both Mr. Stephens in his history and the honorable Senator from Con- necticut in his speech quoted from a pamphlet copy of Mr. Webster's Capon Springs address. I thought I discovered when the honorable Senator was speaking, that he was not specially familiar with the writings of Mr. Webster ; I Iiope he will not think me scant in courtesy if I say that I have discovered still less familiarity now, because he need not have gone to Mr. Stephens's history to get these extracts, nor need he have referred to lost pamphlets, containing the whole speech, for here in the 14 Words of James Gr. Blame. AUTHENTIC LIFE OF MR. WEBSTER, the biography to which Mr. Webster's friends are willing to trust his fame, his life by George T. Curtis, the speech is given in full. And just after that speech was delivered this same delusion which the Senator from Connecticut indicates went all over the South. It was everywhere lieralded in the South that Mr. Webster had defined the Union as " a com- pact," and here is what his eminent biographer says in regard to the report : — " What Mr. Webster had said at Capon Springs, in speak- ing of one of the compacts or compromises between the Northern and Southern sections of the Union, on which the Constitution was founded, was at once misrepresented, especially in North Carolina" (there was an important election pending in that State at the time, I believe), " as a confirmation by him of the doctrine that the Constitution itself is a compact between sovereign States, and as drawing after it, as a resulting right, the right of State secession from the Union. A citizen of North Carolina accordingly wrote to Mr. Webster on this subject, and received from him the following answer, which was immediately made public." I will not read the whole of it, but Mr. Webster says, speaking of the government : " It is NOT A LIMITED CONFEDERATION, BUT A GOVERNMENT; and it proceeds upon the idea that it is to be perpetual, like other forms of government, subject only to be dissolved by revolution. . . . What I said at Capon Springs was an argument addressed to the North and intended to convince National Sovereignty, 15 the North that if, by its superiority of numbers, it should defeat the operation of a plain, undou])ted, and undeniable injunction of the Constitution, intended for the especial protection of the South, such a proceeding must necessarily end in the breaking up of the government; that is to say, in a revolution." Here is what Mr. Webster, in the speech itself, said in re- viewing the condition of public sentiment then threatening, as it afterward broke out in revolution ; and here is what Mr. Stephens is careful not to quote, and what, therefore, my honorable friend in his speech could not have been expected to quote. Mr. Webster, in referring to the disunion move- ment found in the SoLith, the State-rights movement then running all over the South, said : — " I make no argument against resolutions, conventions, secession speeches, or proclamations. Let these things go on. The whole matter, it is to be hoped, will blow over, and men will return to a sounder mode of thinking. But one tiling'' (and this is put in italics here as it was in the National Intelligencer, which was Mr. Webster's immediate organ in those days), " But one tiling, gentlemen, he assured of, the first step taken in tlie ^programme of secession, ivhich shall be an actual i'rifringement of the Constitution or the laivs, tvill he promptly met. [Great applause.] And I would not remain an hour in any administration that should not im- mediately meet any such violation of the Constitution and the law effectually and at once. [Prolonged applause.] " 16 Words of James Gr. Blaine. MR. STEPHENS DOES NOT QUOTE THAT. But, Mr. President, how absurd, Iioav unjust, is the idea of going around and catching up a chance speecli at a watering- place in order to convince a certain section of this country which drifted into war in support of a bad theory, and which is drifting back into that theory as fast as it can ! How ab- surd, how unjust, is the idea of picking up a chance speech delivered in answer to a serenade as the conclusive constitu- tional opinions of Mr. Webster, when Mr. Webster himself had left in the very last year of his life, and after that speech was delivered, six volumes of his works, on which he desired to go down to posterity, on which he rested his fame, and on which he inscribed formal introductions ; from which I quote the following : " The principles and opinions expressed in these productions are such as I believe to be essential to the preservation of the Union, the maintenance of the Constitu- tion, and the advancement of the country to still higher stages of prosperity and renown. Tliese objects have con- stituted my polar star during the whole of my political life, which has now extended through more than half the period of the existence of the government." On these speeches, delivered by Mr. Webster in the Senate and in the House and on great public occasions, revised l)y himself, published under his auspices, he committed himself to history; and from these neither Mr. Stephens in his mis- chievous history nor the honorable Senator from Connecticut affects to quote anything at all. You can hardly open a sol- itary page in the whole six volumes that does not contain a startling refutation of all the theories that they now pre- National Sovereij. 17 tend Mr. Webster had admitted in the closing days of his life. Let me pick out one instance at random. In some very brief remarks that I made the other after- noon when the bill was about to be voted upon which the President vetoed, I STATED THAT THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY OF TO-DAY as represented in this chamber were the followers of the State-rights school of Democracy represented by Mr. Calhoun and Mr. Breckinridge. I believe I was correct in stating that ; I believe I was quite within the facts. I read now from Mi*. Calhoun's own definition in his celebrated dis- cussion with Mr. Webster, and I tliink the resolution exactly fits and fills the idea of the Senator from Connecticut as to the true theory of this government, if I understood him aright. Mr. Calhoun submitted the following: '-'•Resolved^ That the people of the several States composing these United States are united as parties to a constitutional compact, to which the people of each State acceded as a separate sov- ereign community, each binding itself by its own particular ratification ; and that the Union, of which the said com- pact is the bond, is a Union between the /States ratifying the same." That is the Democratic theory to-day. I doubt if there is a Senator on the other side of the chamber who will con- trovert these words of Mr. Calhoun ; the Senator from Con- necticut asserts the same doctrine in terms. Mr. Calhoun then goes on in a long series of resolutions controverting the idea that we constitute a nation. In answer, Mr. Webster, 18 Words of James Gr. Blaine, after an elaborate speech, sums up and says : " And now, sir, against all these tlieories and opinions, I maintain — 1. That the Constitution of the United States is not a league, con- federacy, or compact between the people of the several States in their sovereign capacities, but a government proper, founded on the adoption of the people, and creating direct relations between itself and individuals." THE CONSTITUTION AND THE STATES. I know you will not get tired hearing Mr. Webster. I am making a very good speech out of his works, far better than anything I could say myself. The honorable Senator dwelt at length, and dwelt \Yith that modest form of affirma- tion which sometimes distinguishes his utterances, upon the idea that no man could deny that it was the States that formed the Constitution, and he quoted as conclusive on that point the provision that it should go into effect upon the ratification of nine States. Mr. Webster in his second speech on Foote's resolution, spoke thus : " Sir, the opinion Avhich the honorable gentleman [Mr. Calhoun] 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 poAvers ; they have National Sovereignty. 19 theirs," And then Mr. Webster adds: "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 poAvers, 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." He says u\ another speech: "So much, sir, for the argument, even if the premises of the gentleman were granted or could be proved. But, sir, the gentleman has failed to maintain his leading proposition. He has not shown, it cannot be shown, that the Constitution is ' a com- pact between State governments.' The Constitution itself, in its very front, refutes that idea. It declares that it is ordained and established by the people of the United States." And yet Mr. Stephens solemnly represents and asserts that Mr. Webster recanted that opinion. "The Constitution itself, in its very front, refutes that idea. It declares that it is ordained and established by the people of the United States. So far from saying that it is established by the gov- ernments of the several States, it does not even say that it is established by the people of the several States ; but it pronounces that it is established by the people of the United States in the aggregate. The gentleman says it must mean no more than the people of the several States. Doubtless the people of the several States, taken collectively, 20 Words of James G. Blaine. constitute the people of the United States ; but it is in this their collective capacity, it is as all the people of the United States, that they establish the Constitution. So they declai-e, and words cannot be plainer than the words- used. When the gentleman says the Constitution is a compact between tlie States he uses language exactly applicable to the old con- federation. He speaks as if he were in Congress before 1789. He describes fully that old state of things then exist- ing. The confederation Avas in strictness a compact ; the States, as States, were parties to it. We had no other gen- eral government." MR. STEPHENS ANSWERED. The other allegation of Mr. Stephens was that Mr. Web- ster, in 1838, five years after his speeches of 1833, had refused to vote against certain resolutions of Mr. Calhoun, and that this refusal was a very pregnant suggestion that he had then changed his mind. He makes a very solemn presentation of the fact that in a series of five resolutions which Mr. Calhoun introduced in 1838, involving all the heretical doctrines of the State-i-ights, pro-slavery democracy, Mr. Webster had not voted. He does not say that Mr. Webster voted for them, but that he had not voted against them. Those resolutions of Mr. Calhoun were introduced in December, 1837. They went on, as such resolutions will, being a football for political debate, for some months. On the 22d of March, 1838, after they had been passed upon by the Senate, Mr. AVebster referred to them as follows, in regard to the slavery question : " Sir, this is a very grave matter; it is a subject very exciting and inflammable. I National Sovereig7ity, 21 take, of course, all the responsibility belonging to my opin- ions ; but I desire those opinions to be understood, and fairly stated. If I am to be regarded as an enemy to the South because I could not support the gentleman's resolutions, be it so. I cannot purchase favors from any quarter by the sacrifice of clear and conscientious convictions. The prin- cipal resolution declared that Congress had plighted its faith not to interfere either with slavery or the slave trade in the District of Columbia. Now, sir, that is quite a new idea. I never heard it advanced until this session." Mr. Webster then proceeds to argue still further : '' On such a question, sir, when I- am asked what the Constitution is, or whether any power granted by it has been compromised away, or, indeed, could be compromised away, I must express my honest opinion, and always shall express it, if I say anything, not- withstanding it may not meet concurrence either in the South, or the North, or the East, or the West. I cannot express by my vote w]iat I do not believe. The gentleman has chosen to bring that subject into this debate, with which it has no concern, but he may make the most of it, if he thinks he can produce unfavorable impressions against me at the South for my negative to his fifth resolution. As to the rest of them, they were commonplaces generally or abstractions, in regard to which one may well feel himself not called on to vote at all." And with that record right before him Mr. Stephens writes that Mr. Webster's ominous refusal to vote on the resolutions indicated a change of mind, when here was his defiant review of the whole subject of Mr. Calhoun's heresies. And then 09 Words of James Gr. Blaine. Mr. AVebster proceeded with some remarks which I am dis- posed to think might now be addressed to the other side of the chamber, mutatis 7nutandis^ and we should hardly realize that forty years had gone by. Let me read a single paragraph — I wish it were original with me, addressed as Mr. Webster then addressed it — to the opposite side of the chamber : — " The honorable member from Carolina himself habitually indulges in charges of usurpation and oppression against the government of his country. He daily announces its impor- tant measures, in the language in which our revolutionary fathers spoke of the oppressions of the mother country. Not merely against executive usurpation, either real or supposed, does he utter these sentiments, but against laws of Congress, laws passed by large majorities, laws sanctioned for a course of 3'ears by the people. These laws he proclaims, every hour, to be but a series of acts of oppression. He speaks of them as if it were an admitted fact that such is their true character. This is the language he utters, these are the sentiments he expresses, to the rising generation around him. Are they sentiments and language which are likely to inspire our children with the love of union, to enlarge their patriotism, or to teach them, and to make them feel that their destiny has made them common citizens of one grand and glorious Republic ? A principal object in his late political movements, the gentleman himself tells us, was to unite the entire South ; and against whom or what does he wish to unite the entire South ? Is not this the very essence of local feeling and local regard? Is it not the acknoAvledg- National Sovereignty. 23 ment of a wish and object to create political strength by uniting political opinions geographically ? . . . Finally, the honorable member declares that he shall now march off under the banner of State-rights. March off from whom ? March off from what ? We have been contending for great principles. We have been struggling to maintain the liberty and to restore the prosperity of our country. We have made these struggles here, in the nfftional councils, with the old flag the true American flag, the eagle and the stars and stripes — waving over the chamber in which we sit. He now tells us, however, that he marches off under the State-rights banner. Let him go. I remain. I am Avliere I have ever been, and ever mean to be." SOUTHERN SENATORS AND STATE SOVEREIGNTY. The honorable Senator from Georgia the other day made a speech that was somewhat remarkable. Among other things, he depicited the overwhelming grief he had at the secession of the Southern States; and when he was called upon by the independent voters of the county of Troup to represent them in the secession convention he wrote this letter to them as he says : " I will consent to the dissolution of the Union as I would consent to the death of my father, never from choice, only from necessity, and then in sorroAV and sadness of heart." Well, he was elected on that platform, and he went to' the convention, and the convention, as we all know, passed the ordinance of secession. And in the evening of January 19, 1861, he writes to a friend a letter which he quotes himself: 24 Wo/'ds of Jamea G. Blahte, " Dear Sir : The deed is done. Georgia this day left the Union. Cannon have been firing and bells tolling. At this moment people are filling the streets shouting vociferously. A large torchlight procession is moving from house to house and calling out speakers. The resolution declaratory passed on yesterday, and similar scenes were enacted last night. The crowd called loudly for me, but my room was dark, my heart was sad, and my tongue was silent. Whoever may be in fault is not now the question. Whether by the North or by the South or by both, the fact remains : the Union has fallen. The most favored sons of freedom have written a page in history which despots will read to listening subjects for centuries to come to prove that the people are not capable of self-government. How can I think thus and feel otherwise than badly ? " Here is the " ordinance to dissolve the Union between the State of Georgia and other States united with her under a compact of government entitled the Constitution of the United States." This is the original journal of the Georgia convention ; it is a rare book. The literature of that section from some cause is very hard to procure. "We, the people of the State of Georgia, in convention assembled, do declare and ordain, and it is hereby declared and ordained. That the ordinance adopted by the people of the State of Georgia in convention on the second day of January, in the year of our Lord 1788, whereby the Constitution of the United States of America was assented to, ratified, and adopted ; and also all acts and parts of acts by the General Assembly of this State, ratifying and adopt- National Sovereignty. 25 ing amendments of the said Constitution, are hereby repealed, rescinded, and abrogated. AYe do further declare and ordain. That the union now subsisting between the State of Georgia and other States, under the name of ' United States of America,' is hereby dissolved, and that the State of Georgia is in the full possession and exercise of all those rights of sovereignty which belong and appertain to a free and independent State." That was the ordinance which the Senator from Georgia said to the people of Troup he would consent to, as he would to the death of his father, and the ordinance which the evening after it was passed so filled his heart with sadness that he put out the lights in his room and would not make a speech to a crowd outside serenading him. I have read the yeas and nays on that and what is my unbounded surprise to find that the Senator from Georgia himself voted for the ordinance. Here he is, "Hill, of Troup." I believe I am right in saying that he is the man. There were two or three Hills, all voting for it, but " Hill, of Troup," voted for it, and he cannot say in defence of that vote, that he did it because there was one of those tempestuous and tumultuous rushes of public opinion which bear everything before it, and which no man could resist. We know what that is. It sometimes assumes such positive and portentous force as to have moblike violence. That Avas not so in this convention. On the call of the yeas and nays, there were 208 in favor of the ordinance of secession and 89 against it, and in the 89 were Alexander H. Stephens and Herschel V. Johnson, who had that very year run for Vice-President on the Douglas ticket. 26 Wo7-ds of James Cr. Blaine. The Senator from Georgia [Mr. Hill], who would consent to it, just as he would to tlie death of his father, made up his mind that if two hundred and eight men wanted to murder the old man he would join with them. [Great laughter and applause.] Rather than be in a minority he would join the murderous crowd [laughter] and be a parricide. Nobody would possibly infer from the speech the honor- able Senator made tlie other day, that he had voted for the ordinance; and I do not say this with any feeling, because I have none. It is now indeed a most extraordinary thing to find a gentleman from the South who was orignally for secession. I do not know who was. I see very pleasant and complimentary biographies of the various Senators on that side, and they were all dragged into secession. THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY AND THE WAR. I was referring to the fact that the lionorable Senator from Georgia — at the time he rested his eye directly on the Senator from Connecticut, whose pleasant face I love to look into — gave us the assurance on this side, that we were tremendously mistaken in supposing the Republicans had done anything toward saving the Union ; it was the Democrats that had saved it, the Northern Demo- crats. Well, I said, if that be so, Mr. Lincoln was the victim of a prodigious delusion. Mr. Lincoln did not think so. It happened under the authority of a military officer who now graces this body with his presence, the Senator from Rhode Island [Mr. Burnside], that Mr. Vallandigham was arrested. His release was sought by a committee of a National Sovereignty. 97 great convention of the Democrats of Ohio. They had a very notable intervicAV, and a very notable correspondence with Mr. Lincoln, and I beg after the lapse of fifteen or sixteen years to refer to that correspondence. I will read an extract, the moral of which will explain itself: "At the same time" (says Mr. Lincoln) " yonr nominee for governor, in whose behalf you appeal, is known to you and to the world to declare against the use of an army to suppress the rebellion. Your own attitude, therefore, en- courages desertion, resistance to the draft, and the like, because it teaches those who incline to desert and to escape the draft, to believe it is your purpose to protect them, and to hope that you will become strong enougli to do so. After a short personal intercourse with you, gentlemen of the committee, I cannot say I think you desire this effect to follow your attitude ; but I ass-ure you that both friends and enemies of the Union look upon it in this light." Mr. Lincoln distinctly understood how the South regarded it. " Both friends and enemies of the Union look upon it in this light. It is a substantial hope, and by consequence a real strength to the enemy. It is a false hope, and one w^hich you would willingly dispel. I will make the way exceedingly easy. I send you duplicates of this letter, in order that you, or a majority, may, if you choose, indorse your names upon one of them, and return it thus indorsed to me, with the understanding that those signing are thereby committed to the following propositions, and to nothing else." Now, mark you, he was addressing a committee that 28 Words of James Gr. Blaine, represented the Democratic party of Ohio, speaking for the whole party. Mr. Lincoln says, I want you to commit yourself just to this, gentlemen, nothing else: "1. That there is now a rebellion in the United States, the object and tendency of which is to destroy the National Union ; and that, in your opinion, an army and navy are constitutional means for suppressing that rebellion ; 2. That no one will do anything which, in his own judgment, will tend to hinder the increase or favor the decrease or lessen the effi- ciency of the army and navy, while engaged in the effort to suppress that rebellion ; and 3. That each of you will, in his sphere, do all he can to have the officers, soldiers, and seamen of the army and navy, while engaged in the effort to suppress the rebellion, paid, fed, clad, and otherwise well provided for and supported. And with the further under- standing that, upon receiving the letter and names thus indorsed, I will cause them to be published, which publica- tion shall be, within itself, a revocation of the order in relation to Mr. Vallandigham." And this party, this Northern Democratic party that fought out the rebellion and restored the Union, would not put their names to these propositions. These representa- tives of a State convention that spoke for the entire party would not acknowledge that there was a rebellion, would not acknowledge that an army and navy could be used to suppress it, would not acknowledge that they would do anything whatever to aid in jDaying or feeding or clothing or supporting that army. So Mr. Lincoln gave them in another letter on the same subject, a letter addressed to National Sovereignty. 29 Mr. Corning, of New York, a little advice, applicable to both — -advice which I think will live for its patriotism and eloquence almost as long as his Gettysburg speech. He wrote to Mr. Corning : " Long experience has shown that armies cannot be maintained unless desertion shall be punislied by the severe penalty of death. The case requires, and the law and Constitution sanction, this punishment. Must I shoot a simple-minded soldier-boy who deserts, while I must not touch a hair of a wily agitator who induces him to desert ? This is none the less injurious when effected by getting a father, or brother, or friend, into a public meeting, and there working upon his feelings until he is persuaded to write the soldier-boy that he is fighting in a bad cause, for a wicked administration of a contemptible government, too weak to arrest and punish him if he shall desert. I think that, in such a case, to silent the agitator and to save the boy is' not only constitutional, but withal a great mercy." That is what he did. He sent a good many of the Demo- cratic agitators to Fort Lafayette and saved the boys. SCHOOLBOOKS WITH PARTY SENTIMENT. Mr. President, I do not think that the evil that has been done to this country, by publications like the one I referred to from Mr. Alexander H. Stephens, has yet been measured. I do not think the evil that has been done to the Southern country by the schoolbooks in the hands of their children has been measured. Many of the books put into the hands of the rising generation of the South are tinctured all through with prejudice and misrepresentation and with a spirit of hatred. 30 Wo7^ds of James Gr. Blaine. AYe are accused by our friends on the opposite side of the chamber of stirring up strife and generating hatred. I do not believe it would be possible to find in all the literature of the North for the schools and for the young a solitary paragraph intended or calculated to arouse hatred or suggest unpatriotic feelings toward any portion of the Union. A large portion of the South has been furnished with special schoolbooks calculated for the meridian, with the facts appended to suit that particular locality. It was said that for two generations a large portion of the English people believed that the American colonies had never achieved their independence but had been kicked off as a useless appendage to the British empire, and that they were glad to be rid of us. There is a large number of school children in the South who are educated with radically wrong notions and radically erroneous facts. I saw an arithmetic that was filled with examples — think of putting politics into arithme- tic — such as this : If ten cowardly Yankees had so many miles the start, and five brave confederates were following them, the first going at so many miles an hour, and the others following at so many miles an hour, how long before tlie Yankees would be overtaken ? Now think of putting that deliberately in a schoolbook and having school histories made up on that basis for children. I have here from a gen- tleman who, I believe, is a man of high j)osition, an extract which is so pertinent that I desire to read it. It is from an address before the literary societies of the Virginia Univer- sity, by Mr. John S. Preston, a gentleman of distinction, I believe, in the State of South Carolina. I want to read this National Sovereignty, 31 merely to put it on record to show the pabulum on which the Southern mind feeds : " The Mayflower freight under the laws of England was heresy and crime. The Jamestown emigrant was an English freeman, loyal to his country and his God, with England's honor in his heart and English piety in his soul, and carrying in his right hand the charters, usages, and the laws which were achieving the regeneration of England. . . . These two people spoke the same language, and nominally read the same Bible ; but like the offspring of the Syrian princes, they were two manner of people, and they could not coalesce or commune. Their feud began beyond the broad Atlantic, and has never ceased on its Western shores. Not space, or time, or the convenience of any human law, or the power of any human arm, can reconcile institutions for the turbulent fanatic of Plymouth Rock and the God-fearing Christian of Jamestown. You may assign them to the closest territorial proximity, with all the forms, modes, and shows of civilization ; but you can never cement them into the bonds of brotherhood. Great nature, in her supremest law, forbids it. Territorial localization drove them to a hollow and un- natural armistice in effecting their segregation from England — the one for the lucre of traffic, the other to obtain a more perfect law of liberty ; the one to destroy foreign tea, the other to drive out foreign tyrants ; the one to offer thanks- giving for the fruit of the earth, the other to celebrate the gift of grace by the birth of Christ." SOUTHERN ORATORY AND THE UNION. I have here also a speech delivered by the honorable Sen- ator from South Carolina, the junior Senator from that State 32 Words of James Gr. Blaine. [Mr. Hampton], before the Historical Society, I believe, of the South, and this has arrested my attention. Of course, I read it in no spirit of captious or personal criticism, but as a great public document; and if what I read means any- thing, it means a great deal : — " Lessoris from history. — These are the lessons our chil- dren should learn from tlieir mothers. Nor are these the only ones which should be iiiculcated, for the pages of history furnish many which should not be overlooked. These teach, in the clearest and most emphatic manner, that there is always hope for a people who cherish the spirit of freedom, who will not tamely give up their rights, and who, amid all the changes of time, the trials of adversity, remain steadfast to their convictions that liberty is their birthright. . . . " The South compared to Prussia and the North to France. — When Napoleon, in that wonderful campaign of Jena, struck down in a few weeks the whole military strength of Prussia, destroyed that army with which the great Frederick had held at bay the combined forces of Europe, and crushed out, apparently forever, the liberties, seemingly the very existence, of that great state, but one hope of her disenthral- ment and regeneration was left her — the unconquered and unconquerable patriotism of lier sons. As far as human foresight could penetrate the future, this hope appeared but a vain and delusive one ; yet only a few years passed before her troops turned the scale of victory of Waterloo, and the treaty of Paris atoned in part for the mortification of that of Tilsit. . . . She educated her children by a system Avhich made them good citizens in peace and formidable soldiers in National Sovereignty. 33 war ; she kindled and kept alive the sacred fire of patriotism ; she woke the slumbering spirit of the Fatherland ; and what has been the result of this self-devotion of a whole people for half a century? Single-handed she has just met her old antagonist. The shame of her defeats of yore has been wiped out by glorious victories ; • the contributions extorted from her have been more than repaid ; her insults have been avenged, and her victorious eagles, sweeping over the broken lilies of her enemy, waved in triumph from the walls of con- quered Paris, while she dictated peace to prostrate and humbled France. Is not the moral to be drawn from this noble dedication of a people to the interests and honor of their country worth remembering? Hungary, in her recent struggle to throw off the yoke of Austria, was crushed to the earth, and yet to-day the Hungarians, as citizens of Austria, exercise a controlling power in that great empire." If the Senator speaks of a revival of a power that was once conquered, to be victorious at another Waterloo, with a crowning peace in Paris to atone for the humiliation of Tilsit,— if that means anything by analogy at all, it has a deep and far-reaching significance. Mk. Hampton. '• Peace hnth her victories No less renownil than war.'"' Mr. Blaine. But peace does not celebrate her victories on the plains of Waterloo. That is where war celebrates its triumphs. Peace does not celebrate itself by great armed hosts that are employed and marshaled for avenging result-, to which the honorable Senator called attention. That is not 34 Words of James Gr. Blaine. the language of peace, and without the slightest intention to say anything discourteous, I sa}^ it is mere rhetoric — I leave out the adjective — it is mere rhetoric, or it is a prodigious menace. It is the one or the other. As to the pending bill, I need only to say that the laws proposed to be repealed are precisely the kind which Mr. Webster alluded to when he addressed Mr. Calhoun ; laws that have received the sanction of Congress and been for 3^ears on the statute-book. They are there properly. They have secured justice ; they have assured fair and equal elec- tions ; they ought to be upheld ; and to this hour not one solitary reason has been shown for their repeal, with the single exception of a desire to grasp partisan power. It all moves in one direction. Every step has been taken since the Democratic party got into power in the House aud in the Senate in one direction, and that direction has been to the striking down of the Federal power arid the exaltation of the State power. This measure is but one. Others have gone before it ; others are to follow it. What may be their fate I do not know. We on this side will resist by every constitu- tional means, and you on that side, despite the threats of the Senator from Connecticut, will be obliged to submit in the end, and the power of this government will not be put down by a threat : it will not be put down by a combination : it will not be put down by a political party. It was not put down by a rebellion. It can meet another, either in the form of organized resistance in withholding supplies or in the more serious form which the language of the Senator from South Carolina seemed to foreshadow. National Sovereignty. 35 THE SHADOW OF A DEAD CONFEDERACY. [Speech delivered in the House of Bepresentatives, January 13, 1876.] Mr. Speaker: Before proceeding with the remarks which I shall address to the questions before the House, I desire to say that in the discussion on the point of order that was raised just prior to the adjournment last evening I did not intend to be understood and hope no gentleman under- stood me as implying that the honorable Speaker intended in any wa}^ to deprive me of the right to speak. I did not so understand the Speaker, nor did I understand it to be the motive or object of the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Randall]. I say this much in justice to myself and in justice to the honorable incumbent of the chair. From the tone of the debate on the opposite side of the chamber, Mr. Speaker, one would certainly imagine that the Republican party, as represented in Congress, was trying to inflict some new punishment or add some fresh stigma to the name of Jefferson Davis, as well indeed as to lay some additional burden on those other citizens of the South who are not yet fully amnestied. It may therefore not be un- profitable just to recall to the attention of the House the precise question at issue, and how it came here, and who it was that brought it here. The gentleman from Pennsylvania introduced a BILL TO CONFER SPECIAL HONOR OX JEFFERSON DAVIS; for what honor can be higher than tlie full panoplied citizenship of the United States of America ? He has lost 36 Words of James Gr. Blaine. it by his crimes, and the gentleman from Pennsylvania proposes in hot haste, without debate, without amendment, to drag every gentleman up to say "Aye" or "No" upon a bill declaring him to be entitled now and henceforth to all the rights and all the honors of American citizenship. From that we dissent. We did not bring the question here. We are not seeking to throw any fresh element of an inflammatory kind into any discussion or difference that may be between two parties or two sections, and whatever of that kind has grown from this discussion lies at the door of the gentleman from Pennsylvania and those who stand with him. Remember, Mr. Speaker, it is no proposition to punish but a proposition to honor, and while we disclaim any intention or desire to punish Jefferson Davis, we resist the proposition to honor him. And right here, as a preliminary matter, I desire to address myself for a moment to the constitutional point suggested by the honorable gentleman from Massachu- setts [Mr. Seelye], who addressed the House last evening. He sees and APPRECIATES THE MAGNrXUDE OF THE CRIME laid at the door of Jefferson Davis, and he clearly pointed out that neither the gentleman from New York nor the gentle- man from Georgia had palliated or dared to palliate the crimes with which I charged him. But he is bothered by the scruple that because we are permitted to punish for partici- pancy in insurrection or rebellion we cannot make any dis- crimination or distinction. Why, the honorable gentleman National Sovereignty, 37 must have forgotten that this is jDrecisely what we have been doing ever since the disability was imposed. We first removed the disabilities from the least offensive class ; then in the next list we removed those next in order of guilty participancy, and so on, until in 1872 we removed the disability from all, except the army and navy officers, mem- bers of Congress, and heads of departments. Why, sir, are we not as much justified to-day in excepting Jefferson Davis as we were in 1872 in excepting the seven hundred and fifty of whom he constitutes one ? Therefore I beg to say to my honorable friend, whose co-operation I crave, that that point is re% adjudicata by a hundred acts upon the statute-book. We are entirely competent to do just what is proposed in my amendment Now, Mr. Speaker, on the question of THE TREATMENT OF OUR PRISONERS and on the great question as to who was to blame for breaking exchange, the speech of the honorable gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Garfield] has left me literally nothing to say. He exhausted the subject. His speech was unan- swerable, and I undertake to say that as yet no gentleman has answered one fact that he alleged — no gentleman in this House can answer one fact presented by him. I shall not therefore at any length dwell upon that. But in connection with one point in history there is something which I should feel it my duty, not merely as a member of the Republican party which upheld the administration that conducted the war, but as a citizen of the American Union, to resist and 38 Worch of James (7. Blaine. resent, and that is, the allegations that were made in regard to the manner in which confederate prisoners were treated in the prisons of the Union. The gentleman from Georgia says : " I have also proved that with all the horrors you have made such a noise about as occurring at Andersonville, greater horrors occurred in the prisons where our troops were held." And I could not but admire the "our" and the ''your" with which the gentleman conducted the whole discussion. It ill comported with his later profession of Unionism. It was certainly flinging the shadow of a dead confederacy a long way over the dial of the National House of Representa- tives ; and I think the gentleman from New York fell into a little of the same line. Of that I shall sjDeak again. I AM QUOTING THE GENTLEMAN'S SPEECH as he delivered it. I quote it as it appeared in tlie Daily Chronicle and the Associated Press report. I do not pretend to be bound by the version which may appear hereafter, because I observed that the gentleman from New York [Mr. Cox] spoke one speech and published another [great laugh- ter], and I suppose the gentleman from Georgia will do the same. I admit that the gentleman has a difficult role to play. He has to harmonize himself with the great Northern Democracy and keep himself in high line as a Democratic candidate for Senator from Georgia ; and it is a very difficult thing to reconcile the two. [Laughter.] The " barn-burner Democrats " in 1853 tried very hard to adhere to their anti- N'ational Sovereignty. 39 slavery principles in New York and still support the Pierce administration ; and Mr. Greeley, with that inimitable humor which he possessed, said that they found it a very hard road to straddle, like a militia general on parade on Broadway, wlio finds it an almost im[)ossible task to follow the music and dodge the omnibuses. [Laughter.] And that is what the gentleman does. The gentleman tries to keep step to the music of the Union and dodge his hre-eating constituency in Georgia. [Great laughter.] Tlien here is another quota- tion : "We know our prisoners suffered in Federal hands, and we know how if we chose to tell. Thousands of our poor men came home from Fort Delaware and other places with their fingers frozen off, with their toes frozen oif, with their teeth fallen out." The gentleman from New York stated that "he had it on tire authority of sixty and odd gentlemen here, many of them having been in the service of the Confederacy during the war, that NO ORDER WAS ISSUED AT ANY TIME IN THE SOUTH relative to prisoners who were taken by the South as to rations or clothing that did not apply equally to their own soldiers, and that any ex parte statements taken by that humbug committee on the conduct of the war could not controvert the facts of history." The gentleman, therefore, stands up here as denying the atrocities of Andersonville. He seconds the gentleman from Georgia and gives the weight of whatever may be attached to his word to denying that 40 Words of James Gr. Blaine. fact. Now, the gentleman himself did not always talk so. I have here a debate that occurred on the twenty-first of December, 1864, in which, while the proposition was pending in the house for retaliation, the gentleman, then from Ohio, said : " This resolution provides for inflicting upon the rebel prisoners who may be in our hands the same inhumane, barbarous, horrible treatment, which has been inflcted upon our soldiers held as prisoners by the rebels. Now, Mr. Speaker " (continued th.e enraged gentleman at that time), "it does not follow that because the rebels have made brutes a'nd fiends of themselves that we should do likewise." "There is," he says, "a certain law of retaliation in war, I know; but" (continued the gentleman) "no man will stand up here and say, after due deliberation, that he would reduce these prisoners thrust into our hands into the same condition exhibited by these skeletons, these pictures, these anatomies brought to our attention and laid upon the desks of members of Congress." Then the gentle- man says : " It does not follow because our prisoners are treated in the way represented, and no doubt truthfully rep- resented." That is what the gentleman said in 1864; but when a solemn committee of Congress," made up of honorable gentlemen of both sides of the House, bring in exactly the statements Avhich verify all this, then the gentleman states " that the authority was a humbug committee." "Senator Hill, of Georgia, introduced the following res- olution in the Confederate Congress in October, 1862: ' That every person pretending to be a soldier or officer of National Sovereignty . 41 the United States who shall be captured on the soil of the Confederate States after the first day of January, 1863, shall be presumed to have entered the territory of the Confederate States with intent to incite insurrection and to abet murder ; and, unless satisfactory proof be adduced to the contrary before the military court before which the trial shall be had, he shall suffer death. And this section shall continue in force until the proclamation issued by Abraham Lincoln, dated Washington, September 22, 1862, shall be rescinded.' " Mr. Speaker, what does this mean ? What did THE GENTLEMAN FROM GEORGIA MEAN when, from the committee on the judiciary, he introduced the following: "2. Every white person who shall act as a com- missioned or non-commissioned officer, commanding negroes or mulattoes against the Confederate States, or who shall arm organize, train, or prepare negroes or mulattoes for mili- tary service, or aid them in any military enterprise against the Confederate States, shall, if captured, suffer death. 3. Every commissioned or non-commissionrd officer of the enemy who shall incite slaves to rebellion, or pretend to give them freedom, under the afore-mentioned act of Con- gress and proclamation, by abducting, or causing them to be abducted, or inducing them to abscond, shall, if captured, suffer death." Now, Mr. Speaker, I have searched some- what, but in vain, for anything in the world that rivals this. I did find, and have here in my minutes, the proclamation of Valmeseda, the Captain-General of Cuba, who was recalled by Spain because of his atrocious cruelties to the inhabitants 42 Words of James (7. Blaine. of that island ; and the worst thing in all the atrocities laid to his charge was that he proclaimed '' that every man or boy over fifteen years fonnd away from his house, not being able to give a satisfactory reason therefor, should suffer death." He copied it from the resolution of the gentleman from Georgia. Now, Mr. Speaker, I hold in my hand a copy of the Atlan- ta Constitution, printed on the twenty-fourth, of January, 1875. We are told that all these ALLEGATIONS AGAINST JEFFERSON DAVIS SHOULD BE FORGIVEN because they are all of the dead past. We are told that Ave should not revive them, that there should be nothing in the world brought up in any way to disturb the beautiful serenity of the centennial year, and that to make any allusion to them whatever is to do an unwelcome and unpatriotic act. The very last declaration we have from Jefferson Davis authentically, in the life which the gentleman from Georgia held the other day as a text- book, reads thus : — " Time will show, however, the amount of truth in the pro- phecy of Jefferson Davis " (says the biographer, made in reply to the remark that the cause of the Confederacy was lost. Mr. Davis said) : " It appears so, but the principle for which we contended is bound to reassert itself, though it may be at another time and in another form." Now, I have here, of the date of January 24, 1875, a speech by the Honorable B. H. Hill, in the Atlanta Constitution, and it is said to have been the "grandest speech" he ever delivered. . . . National Sovereignty. 43 I quote from liim : " Fellow-citizens : I look to the contest of 1876 not only as the most important that ever occurred in American history, but as the most important in the history of the world ; for if the people of the country cannot be aroused to give an OVERWHELMING VOTE AGAINST THIS REPUBLICAN PARTY it will perpetuate itself in power in the United States by precisely the same means that the President has taken in Louisiana, and the people will be powerless to prevent it except they go to war. [Applause.] If we fail with the ballot-box in 1876 by reason of force, a startling question will present itself to the American people. I trust we will not fail. I hope the Northern people have had a sufficient subsidence of passion to see this question fairly." . . . The gentleman saj^s: "If we must have war; if we cannot preserve this Constitution and constitutional gov- ernment by the ballot; if force is to defeat the ballot; if the war must come — God forbid that it should come — but if it must come ; if folly, if wickedness, if inordinate love of power, shall decree that America must save her Con- stitution by blood, let it come ; I am ready." [Laughter.] And then the gentleman said, in another speech, of May 12: " He impressed upon the colored men of the country the truth that, if the folly and wickedness were consummated in war, they would be the greatest sufferers. If peace was pre- served they were safe, but as sure as one war had freed them, just as sure another war would re-enslave them." Now that was precisely the kind of talk we had here by folios and 44 Words of James Gr. Blaine. reams before the rebellion. Oh, yes, you were for war then. The gentleman in his speech says that the Union now is an unmixed blessing, providing the Democratic party can rule it, but that if the Republican party must rule it he is for war. Why, that is just what Jefferson Davis said in 1861. I have here very much more of the same kind. I have been supplied with very abundant literature emanating from the gentleman, more indeed, than I have had time to read. He seems to have been as voluminous as the Spanish Chroni- clers. In one speech he says : " I must say a word about this list of disabilities removed. I would rather see my name recorded in the Georgia penitentiary than to find it on a list of the removal of disabilities. Why, my friends, do you not know that when you go to that Congress and ask for a removal of disabilities, jon admit that you are a traitor." Mr. Hill. What do you read from ? Mr. Blaine. From a report in a Cincinnati Daily Gazette, giving an account of a great meeting in 1868, at which Howell Cobb, Robert Toombs, and the Honorable B. H. Hill made speeches. And there the gentleman declared that he would rather have his name on the list of the Georgia penitentiary than on the list of the removal of dis- abilities. Mr. Speaker, I do not desire to stir up more needless ill- blood, but the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Garfield] yesterday, apparently without much thought, spoke of a class of men in the Southern States who had committed perjury, and I would like to address the gentleman a question that he can answer when he gets the floor. National Sovereignty. 45 Mr. Hill. Will you not allow me to answer it now ? Mr. Blaine. No, sir ; not now. SUPPOSE YOU INAUGURATE A GREAT WAR if the Republican party retains power, and you and all these gentlemen who sympathize with you upon this floor, and who had taken an oath to bear true allegiance to the government of the United States, and that you took that oath without mental reservation, then revolt against the country : what would that be ? Would it have any relation to perjury ? But, Mr. Speaker, you see the effect of the speeches of the gentleman from Georgia. They are very tremendous down there. The very earth quakes under him. One of his organs says : " We assert without fear of contradiction that Mr. Hill in his bitter denunciation of scalawags and carpet- baggers has deterred thousands of them from entering the ranks of the Radical party. They dare not do so for fear of social ostracism, and to-day the white population of Georgia are unanimous in favor of the Democratic party." And when he can get the rest of the States to the same standard he is for war. Now, Mr. Speaker, the gentleman cannot, by withholding his speech here and revising it and adapting it to the North- ern Democracy, erase his speeches in Georgia. I have quoted from them. I have quoted from Democratic papers. There is no accusation that there is any perversion in Republican papers or that he was misrepresented. But the gentleman deliberately states that in a certain con- tingency of the 46 Words of James G. Blaine. REPUBLICAN PARTY HAVING POWER HE IS FOR WAR; and I undertake here to say that, in all the mad, hot wrath in the Thirty-sixth Congress that precipitated the revolt in this country there is not one speech to be found that breathes a more determined rebellion against lawful authority or a guiltier readiness to resist it than the speech of the gentleman from Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I have not mnch time left. I said briefly in my first speech, that God forbid I should lay at the door of the Southern people, as a people, these atrocities. I repeat it. I lay no such charge at their door. Sir, I have read in this " ex parte humbug report " that there were deep movements among the Southern people abont these atroci- ties ; that there was a profound sensibility. I know that the leading officers of the Confederacy protested against them; 1 know that many of the snbordinate officers pro- tested against them. I know that an honorable gentleman from North Carolina, now representing his State in the other end of the Capitol, protested against them. But I have searched the records in vain to find that the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Hill] protested against them. THEY WERE KNOWN TO TPIE CONFEDERATE CONGRESS; they were known at the doorway of your Senate and along the corridors of your Ca})itol. The honorable and venerable gentleman in my eye at this moment, who served in the Con- federate Congress, and who had before served in the Senate of the United States, himself brought them to the attention of the Confederate Congress, and I class him with great National Sovereignty. 47 gladness among those whose humanity was never quenched by the fires of the rebellion. I allude to the Honorable Henry S. Foote. My time is running and I have but very little left. I confess — and I say it to the gentleman from Georgia with no per- sonal unkindness — I confess that my very blood boiled, if there was anything of tradition, of memory, of feeling, it boiled when I heard the gentleman, with his record, which I have read, seconded and sustained by the gentleman from New York, arraigning the administration of Abraham Lincoln, throwhig obloquy and slander upon the grave of Edwin M. Stanton, and demanding that Jefferson Davis should be restored to full citizenship in this country ! Ah I that is a novel spectacle ; the gentleman from. Georgia does not know how novel. The gentleman from Georgia does not know and he cannot know how many hundred thousand of Northern bosoms were lacerated by his course. I repeat, that proposition strikes — I might say ALMOST TERROR INTO NORTHERN HEARTS; that here, in an American Congress, the gentleman who offered that resolution in the Confederate Congress, who in his campaign for a seat in this House comes here breathing threatenings and slaughter, who comes here telling you that in a certain contingency he means war, advising his people to be ready for it — that gentleman, j^rofaning the very altar of patriotic liberty with the speech that sends him here, arraigning the administration that conducted the war and 48 Words of James Gr. Blaine. saved the Union — that gentleman asks us to join with him in paying the last full measure of honor that an American Congress can pay to the arch enemy of the Union, the arch fiend of the rebellion. Suppose Jefferson Davis is not pardoned; suppose he is not amnestied. Oh 1 you cannot have a centennial year without that ! No man on this side has ever intimated that Jefferson Davis should be refused pardon on account of any political crimes; it is too late for that; it is because of a personal crime. If you ask that there may be harmonious and universal rejoicing over every forgiven man, release all your criminals ; set free every man who has been sentenced for piracy or for murder by your United States Courts; proclaim the jubilee indeed. But I am authorized, if the gentleman desires it — not authorized especially to mention it here, but I mention it on the authority of General Grant, whom the gentleman from Georgia impugned in connection with the exchange of prisoners — to say that one thing touching the exchange of prisoners was that the DAVIS GOVERNMENT OBSERVED NO HONOR in regard to it ; and General Grant states that the brigade of Carter L. Stephenson, that was dislodged at Chattanooga, was made up of paroled prisoners from Vicksburg, and that Stephenson himself was one of them. He states that the paroled prisoners of one day in front of his line were taken the next. But in stating this he was careful to National Sovereignty. 49 say that, as to Lee and the two Johnstons and Pemberton, and the other leading Confederate generals, their ^Yord was honor itself; but that for the Davis executive government there was no honor in it — none whatever. The gentleman has got enough of General Grant by this time, I hope. Now in regard to the relative number of prisoners that died in the North and the South respectively, the gentleman undertook to show that a great many more prisoners died in the hands of the Union authorities than in the hands of the rebels. I have had conversations with surgeons of the army about that, and they say that there were a large number of deaths of rebel prisoners, but that during the latter period of the war they came into our hands very much exhausted, ill- clad, ill-fed, diseased so that they died in our prisons of diseases that they brought with them. And one eminent surgeon said, without wishing at all to be quoted in this debate, that, the question was not only what was the condi- tion of the prisoners Avhen they came to us, but what it was when they were sent back. OUR MEN WERE TAKEN IN FULL HEALTH AND STRENGTH; they came back wasted and worn — mere skeletons. The rebel prisoners, in large numbers, were, when taken, ema- ciated and reduced; and General Grant says that at the time such superhuman efforts were made for exchange there were 90,000 men that would have re-enforced your armies the next day, prisoners in our hands who were in good health and ready for fight. This consideration sheds a great deal of light on what the gentleman states. 50 Wo7%1s of James Gr. Blame. The gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Hurlbut] puts a letter into my hands. I read it without really knowing what it may show : — Confederate States of America, War Department, Richmond, Virginia, March 21, 1863. My Dear Sir : — If the exigencies of our army require the use of trains for transportation of corn, pay no regard to the Yankee prisoners. I would rather that they sliould starve than our own people suffer. I suppose I can safely put in writing : " Let them suffer." The words are memorable, and it is fortunate that in this case they can be applied properly and without the intervention of a lying quartermaster. Very truly your faithful friend, Robert Ould. Colonel A. C. Myers. That is a good piece of literature in this connection. Mr. Ould, I believe, was the rebel commissioner to exchange. When the gentleman from Georgia next takes the floor I want him to state what excuse there was for ordering the Florida artillery, in case General Sherman's army got within seven miles of Andersonville, to fire on that stockade. Why, Mr. Speaker, the administration of Martin Van Buren, that went down in a popular convulsion in 1840, had no little of obloquy thrown upon it because it had ventured to hunt the Seminoles in the swamps of Florida with blood- hounds. . . . Bloodthirsty dogs were sent after the hiding savages, and the civilization of the nineteenth century and the Christian feeling of the American people revolted at it. And I state here, and the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Hill] cannot deny it, that upon the testimony of witnesses as National Sovereignty, 51 numerous as would require me all day to read, bloodhounds were used ; that large packs of them were kept, and Georgia officers commanded them ; that they were sent after the poor unfortunate, shrinking men who by any accident could get out of that horrible stockade. I state, sir, that the civilization of the world stands aghast at what was done at Andersonville. And the man who did that was sustained by Jefferson Davis, and promoted. Yet the gentleman says that was analogous to General Grant sending McDonald to the penitentiary. Mr. Speaker, in view of all these facts I have only to say that if the American Congress, by a two-thirds vote, shall pronounce Jefferson Davis worthy to be restored to the full rights of American citizenship, I can only vote against it and hang my head in silence, and regret it. [Applause.] II. A FREE BALLOT, AND AN HONEST COUNT. The perpetuity of our institutions rests upon the maintenance of a free ballot, an honest count, and a correct return. We denounce the fraud and violence practised by the Democracy in Southern States, by which the will of tlie voter is defeated, as danger- ous to the preservation of free institutions, and Ave 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 M'hatever race and color the full and complete recognition, possession, and exercise of all civil and political rights.— Republican Platform, 1884. A FAIR VOTE OF EQUAL POWER. On the second of December, 1878, Mr. Blaine submitted the following resolutions to the Senate : — Besolved., That the Committee on the Judiciary be instructed to inquire and report to the Senate whether at the recent elections the constitu- tional rights of American citizens were violated in any of the States of the Union; whether the right of suffrage of citizens of the United States, or of any class of such citizens, was denied or abridged by the action of the election officers of any State in refusing to receive their votes, in failing to count them, or in receiving and counting fraudulent ballots in pursuance of a conspiracy to make the lawful votes of such citizens of none effect ; and whether such citizens were prevented from exercising the elective franchise, or forced to use it against their wishes, by violence or threats, or hostile demonstrations of armed men or other organizations, or by any other unlawful means or practices. Besolved., That the Committee on the Judiciary be further instructed to inquire and report w^hether it is within the competency of Congress to provide by additional legislation for the more perfect seciu-ity of the A Free Ballot^ and an Honest Count. 58 right of suffrage to citizens of the United States in all the States of the Union. Besolved., That in prosecuting these inquiries the Judiciary Committee shall have the right to send for persons and papers. On Wednesday, December 11, he addressed the Senate as follows : — Mr. Pkesident : The pending resolutions were offered by me with a twofold purpose in view : — First, to place on record in a definite and authentic form, THE FRAUDS AND OUTRAGES BV WHICH SOME RECENT ELECTIONS WERE CARRIED by the Democratic party in the Southern States. Second, to find if there be any methods by Avhich a repetition of these crimes against a free ballot may be prevented. The newspaper is the channel through which the people of the United States are informed of current events, and the accounts given in the press represent the elections in some of the Southern States to have been accompanied by vio- lence ; in not a few cases reaching the destruction of life ; to have been controlled by threats that awed and intimidated a large class of voters ; to have been manipulated by fraud of the most shameless and shameful description. Indeed, in South Carolina there seems to have been no election at all in any proper sense of the term. There was instead a series of skirmishes over the State in which the polling-places were regarded as forts to be captured by one party and held against the other, and where this could not be done with convenience, frauds in the count and tissue-ballot devices 54 Words of James G. Blaine. were resorted to in order to effectually destroy the voice of the majority. These in brief are the accounts given in the non-partisan press, of the disgraceful outrages that attended the recent elections, and, so far as I have seen, these state- ments are without serious contradiction. It is but just and fair to all parties, however, that an impartial investigation of the facts shall be made by a committee of the Senate, pro- ceeding under the authority of law and representing the power of the nation. Hence my resolution. But we do not need investigation to establish certain facts already of official record. We know that one hundred and six Representatives in Congress were recently chosen in the States formerly slave-holding and that the Democrats elected one hundred and one or possibly one hundred and two and the Republicans four or possibty five. We know tliat thirty- five of these Representatives were assigned to the Southern States by reason of the colored population, and that the entire political power thus founded on the numbers of the colored people HAS BEEN SEIZED AND APPROPRIATED to the aggrandizement of its own strength by the Democratic party of the South. The issue thus raised before the country, Mr. President, is not one of mere sentiment for the rights of the negro — though far distant be the day when the rights of any Amer- ican citizen, however black or however poor, shall form the mere dust of the balance in any controversy; nor still further is the issue as now presented only a question of the A Free Ballot^ and an Honest Comit. 55 equality of tlie black voter of the South with the white voter of the South ; the issue, Mr. President, has taken a far wider range, one of portentous magnitude ; and that is, WHETHER THE WHITE VOTER OF THE NORTH SHALL BE EQUAL TO THE WHITE VOTER OF THE SOUTH in shaping the policy and fixing the destiny of this country ; or whether, to put it still more baldly, the white man who fought in the ranks of the Union army shall have as weighty and influential a vote in the gov- ernment of the Republic as the wdiite man who fought in the ranks of the rebel army. The one fought to uphold, the other to destroy, the Union of the States, and to-day he who fought to destroy is a far more important factor in the government of the nation than he who fought to uphold it. Let me illustrate my meaning by comparing groups of States of the same representative strength North and South. Take the States of South Carolina, Mississippi, and Louis- iana. They send seventeen Representatives to Congress. Their aggregate population is composed of ten hundred and thirty-five tliousand whites and twelve hundred and twenty- four tliousand colored ; the colored behig nearly two hun- dred thousand in excess of the whites. Of the seventeen Representatives, then, it is evident that nine were apportioned to these States by reason of their colored population, and only eight by reason of their white population; and yet in the choice of the entire seventeen Representatives the colored voters had no more voice or power than their remote kindred on the shores of Senegambia or on the Gold Coast. The ten 56 Words of James G-. Blaine. liundred and thirty-five thousand white people had the sole and absolute choice of the entire seventeen Representatives. In contrast, take two States in the North, Iowa, and Wisconsin, with seventeen Representatives. They have a white popula- tion of two million two hundred and forty-seven thousand — considerably more than double the entire population of the three Southern States I have named. In Iowa and Wiscon- sin, therefore, it takes one hundred and thirty-two thousand white population to send a Representative to Congress, but in South Carolina, Mississippi, and Louisiana, every sixty thousand white people send a Representative. In other words, SIXTY THOUSAND PEOPLE IN THOSE SOUTHERN STATES have precisely the same political power in the government of the country that one hundred and thirty-two thousand white people have in Iowa and Wisconsin. Take another group of seventeen Representatives from the South and from the North. Georgia and Alabama have a white population of eleven hundred and fifty-eight thousand and a colored population of ten hundred and twenty thou- sand. They send seventeen Representatives to Congress, of whom nine Avere apportioned on account of the white popula- tion ■ and eight on account of the colored population. But the colored voters are not able to choose a single Represen- tative, the white Democrats choosing the whole seventeen. The four Northern States, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, and California, have seventeen Representatives, based on a white population of two and a quarter millions, or almost A Free Ballot^ and an Honest Count. 57 double the white population of Georgia and Alabama, so that in these relative groups of States we find the white man South exercises by his vote DOUBLE THE POLITICAL POWER OF THE WHITE MAN NORTH. Let us carry the comparison to a more comprehensive generalization. The eleven States that formed the confed- erate government had by the last census a population of nine and a half millions, of which in round numbers. five and a half millions were white and four millions colored. On this aggregate population seventy-three Representatives in Congress were appointed to those States — forty-two or three of whom were by reason of the white population, and thirty or thirty-one l^y reason of the colored population. At the recent election the white Democracy at the South seized seventy of the seventy-three districts, and thus secured a Democratic majority in the next House of Representatives. Tlius it appears that throughout the States that formed the late confederate government sixty-five thousand whites — the very people that rebelled against the Union — are enabled to elect a Representative in Congress, while in the loyal States it requires one hundred and thirty-two thousand of the white people that fought for the Union to elect a Rep- resentative. In levying every tax, therefore, in making every appropriation of money, in fixing every line of public policy, in decreeing what shall be the fate and fortune of the Republic, the CONFEDERATE SOLDIER SOUTH is enabled to cast a vote tliat is twice as powerful and twice as influential as the vote of the Union soldier North. 58 Wo7'ds of James Cr. Blame. But the white men of the South did not acquire and do not hold this superior power of reason by hiw or justice, but in disregard and defiance of both. The fourteenth amend- ment to the Constitution was expected to be and was designed to be a preventive and corrective of all such possible abuses. The reading of the clause applicable to the case is instructive and suggestive. Hear it : — " 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 repre- sentation 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." The patent, undeniable intent of this provision was that if any class of voters were denied or in any way abridged in their right of suffrage, then the class so denied or abridged should not be counted in the basis of representation ; or, in other words, that NO STATE OR STATES SHOULD GAIN a large increase of representation in Congress by reason of counting any class of population not permitted to take part A Free Ballot^ and an Honest Count. 59 in electing such Representatives. But the construction given to this provision is, that before any forfeiture of rep- resentation can be enforced the denial or abridgment of suffrage must be the result of a law specifically enacted by the State. Under this construction every negro voter may have his suffrage absolutely denied or fatally abridged by the violence, actual or threatened, of irresponsible mobs, or by frauds and deceptions of State officers from the gov- ernor down to the last election clerk, and then, unless some State law can be shown that authorizes the denial or abridg- ment, the State escapes all penalty or peril of reduced repre- sentation. This construction may be upheld by the courts, ruling on the letter of the law, "which killeth," but tlie spirit of justice cries aloud against tlie evasive and atrocious conclusion that deals out oppression to the innocent and shields the guilty from the legitimate consequences of wilful transgression. The colored citizen is thus most unhappily situated; his right of suffrage is but a hollow mockery ; it holds to his ear the word of promise, but breaks it always to his hope, and he ends only in being made the unwilling instrument of increasing the political strength of that party from which he received ever-tightening fetters when he was a slave and contemptuous refusal of civil rights since he was made free. He resembles, indeed, those unhappy captives in the East, who, deprived of their birthright, are compelled to yield their strength to the upbuilding of the monarch from w^hose tyrannies they have most to fear, and to fight against the power from which alone deliverance might be expected. The franchise intended for the 60 Words of James Gr. Blaine. SHIELD AND DEFENCE OF THE NEGRO has been turned against him and against his friends and has vastly increased the power of those from whom he has nothing to hope and everything to dread. The political power thus appropriated by Southern Demo- crats by reason of the negro population amounts to thirty-five Representatives in Congress. It is massed almost solidly and offsets the great State of New York ; or Pennsylvania and New Jersey together ; or the whole of New England ; or Ohio and Indiana united ; or the combined strength of Illi- nois, Minnesota, Kansas, California, Nevada, Nebraska, Colo- rado, and Oregon. The seizure of this power is wanton usurpation ; it is flagrant outrage ; it is violent perversion of the whole theory of republican government. It insures solely to the present advantage and yet, I believe, to the per- manent dishonor of the Democratic party. It is by reason of this trampling down of human rights, this ruthless seizure of unlawful power that the Democratic party holds the popular branch of Congress to-day and will in less than ninety days have control of this body also, thus grasping the entire legis- lative department of the government through the unlawful capture of the Southern States. If the prescribed vote of the South were cast as its lawful owners desire, the Demo- cratic party could not gain power. Nay, if it were not counted on the other side against the instincts and the inter- ests, against the principles and the prejudices, of its lawful owners. Democratic success would be hopeless. It is not enough, then, for modern Democratic tactics that the negro vote shall be silenced ; the demand goes farther and insists A Free Ballot^ and an Honest CounK 61 tliat it shall be counted on their side, that all the Represen- tatives in Congress and all the Presidential electors appor- tioned by reason of the negro vote, shall be so cast and so governed as to insure Democratic success — regardless of jus- tice, in defiance of law. AND THIS INJUSTICE IS WHOLLY UNPROVOKED. I doubt if it be in the power of the most searching inves- tigation to show that in any Southern State during the period of Republican control any legal voter was ever debarred from the freest exercise of his suffrage. Even the revenges which would have leaped into life with many who despise the negro were buried out of sight with a magnanimity which the "superior race" fail to follow and seem reluctant to recognize. I know it is said in retort of such charges against the Southern elections as I am now reviewing that unfairness of equal gravity prevails in Northern elections. I hear it in many quarters and read it in the papers that in the late exciting election in Massachusetts intimidation and bulldozing, if not so rough and rancorous as in the South, were yet as wide-spread and effective. I have read, and yet I refuse to believe, that the distin- guished gentleman who made an energetic but unsuccessful canvass for the governorship of that State, has indorsed and approved these charges, and I have accordingly made my resolution broad enouo^h to include their thoroup'h investisra- tion. I am not demanding fair elections in the South with- out demanding fair elections in the North also. But venturing to speak for the New England States, of whose 62 Words of James Gr, Blaine. laws and customs I know something, I dare assert that in the late election in Massachusetts, or any of her neighboring Commonwealths, it will be impossible to find even one case where a voter was driven from the polls, where a voter did not have the fullest, fairest, freest ojD^^ortunity to cast the ballot of his choice and have it honestly and faithfully counted in the returns. Suffrage on this continent w^as first made universal in New England, and in the administration of their affairs her people have found no other appeal neces- sary than that which is addressed to their honesty of con- viction and to their intelligent self-interest. If there be anytliing different to disclose I pray you show it to us that we may amend our ways. But whenever A FEEBLE PROTEST IS MADE against such injustice as I have described in the South the response Ave get comes to us in the form of a taunt, " What are you going to do about it ? " and " How do you propose to help yourselves? " This is the stereotyped answer of defiance which intrenched wrong always gives to inquiring justice ; and those who imagine it to be conclusive do not know the temper of the American people. For let me assure you that against the complicated outrage upon the right of representation lately triumphant in the South there will be arrayed many phases of public opinion in the North not often hitherto in harmony. Men who have cared little, and affected to care less, for the rights or the wrongs of the negro suddenly find that vast monetary and commercial A Free Ballot^ and an Honest Count. 63 interests, great questions of revenue, adjustments of tariff, vast investments in manufactures, in railways, and in mines, are under the control of a Democratic Congress whose majority was obtained by depriving the negro of his rights under a common constitution and common laws. Men who have been offended with talk about negro equality are begin- ning to perceive that the pending question of to-day relates more pressingly to the equality of white men under this government, and that however careless they may be about the rights or the wrongs of the negro they are very jealous and tenacious about the rights of their own race and the dignity of their own firesides and their own kindred. I know something of public opinion in the North. I know a great deal about the views, wishes, and purposes of the Republican party of the nation. Within that entire great organization there is not one man, whose opinion is entitled to be quoted, that does not desire peace and harmony and friendship and a patriotic and fraternal union between the North, and the South. This wish is spontaneous, instinctive, universal throughout the Northern States ; and yet, among men of character and sense, there is surely no ■ need of attempting to deceive ourselves as to the precise truth. First pure, then peaceable. Gush will not remove a griev- ance, AND NO DISGUISE OF STATE RIGHTS will close the eyes of our people to the necessity of cor- recting a great national wrong. Nor should the South make the fatal mistake of con- cluding that injustice to the negro is not also injustice to 64 Words of James G-. Blame, the white man ; nor should it ever be forgotten that for the wrongs of both a remedy will assuredly be found. The war, with all its costly sacrifices, was fought in vain unless equal riohts for all classes be established in all the States of the Union ; and now, in words which are those of friendship, however differently they ma}^ be accepted, I tell tlie men of the South here on this floor and beyond this chamber, that even if they could strip the negro of his constitutional rights they can never permanently maintain the inequality of white men in this nation ; they can never make a white man's vote in the South double as powerful in the administration of the government as a white man's vote in the North. In a memorable debate in the House of Commons, Mr. Macaulay reminded Daniel O'Connell, when he was moving for repeal, that the English Whigs had endured calumny, abuse, popular fury, loss of position, exclusion from Parlia- ment, rather than the great agitator himself should be less than a British subject ; and Mr. Macaulay warned liim that they would never suffer him to be more. Let me now remind you that the government nnder whose protecting Hag we sit to-day sacrificed myriads of lives and expended thousands of millions of treasure that our countrymen of the South should remain citizens of the United States, having equal personal rights and equal political privileges with all other citizens. And I venture, now and here, to warn the men of the South, in the exact, words of Macaulay, that we will never suffer them to be more ! A Free Ballot^ and an Honest Count, Q^ MILITARY INTERFERENCE AT THE ELECTIONS IN THE SOUTH. [Speech in the Senate, Monday, April 14, 1879.] 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 con- trol, 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 Jceep the peace at the polish 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 sen- tence at the end of a section in the Revised Statutes the ordinary way is to strike off' tliose words, but the mode chosen in this bill is to repeal 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 66 Words of James G. Blaine. 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 govern- ment 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 the time, of whom only ten or at most eleven were Democrats. Tlie House of Representatives was over- Avhelmingiy 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 pos- sible poAver 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 A Free Ballot^ and an Honest Coimt. 67 instance in the legislation of the United States in which any restrictive clause wliatever is 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 aii 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 DENOI^NCE IT HERE AS A FALSE ISSUE. I am not at liberty to say that any gentleman making the 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 68 Words of James G, Blaine. any man that 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 OmaluV I mean all the United States east of the Mississippi River and the belt of States that borders the Mississippi River on the west, including forty-one millions at least out of the forty-five millions of people that this country is sup- posed 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 2,797 ! 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 Law- rence and down the valley of the Saint John and down the Saint Croix striking the Atlantic Ocean and following it down to Key West, around the Gulf up to the mouth of the IMississippi 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. I believe the Senator from Delaware is alarmed, greatly alarmed, about the overriding of the popular ballot by troops of the United States ! In Delaware there is not a single armed man — not one. The United States has not even one soldier in the State. A Free Ballot^ and an Honest Count. 60 The honorable Senator from West Virginia [Mr. Here- ford] on Friday last lashed himself into a passion, or at least into a perspiration, over the wrongs of his State, trod- den down by the iron heel of military despotism. There is not a solitary man of the United States army on the soil of West Virginia, and there has not been for years. In Maryland. I do not know whether my esteemed friend from Maryland [Mr. Whyte] has been greatly alarmed or not; but at Fort McHenry, guarding the entrance to the beautiful harbor of his beautiful city, there are one hundred and ninety-two artillerymen located. In Virginia there is a school of practice at Fortress Mon- roe. My honorable friend who has charge of this bill [Mr. Withers] knows very well, and if he does not I will tell him, that outside of that school of practice at Fortress Mon- roe, which has two hundred and eighty-two men in it, there is not a Federal soldier on the soil of Virginia — not one. North Carolina. Are the Senators from that State alarmed at the immediate and terrible prospect of being overrun by the army of the United States ? On the whole soil of North Carolina there are but thirty soldiers guarding a fort at the mouth of Cape Fear River — just thirty. South Carolina. I do not see a Senator on the floor from that State. There are oiie hundred and twenty artillerymen guarding the approaches to Charleston Harbor, and not another soldier on her soil. Georgia. Does my gallant friend from Georgia [Mr. Gor- don] who knows better than I the force and strength of mili- tary organization, the senior Senator and the junior also — 70 Words of James G-. Blaine. are both or either of those Senators alarmed at the presence of twenty-nine soldiers in Georgia ? There are just twenty- nine there. Florida has one hundred and eighty-two at three separate posts, principally guarding the navy-yard near which my friend on the opposite side [Mr. Jones] lives. Tennessee-. Is the honorable Senator from Tennessee [Mr. Bailey] alarmed at the progress of military despotism in his State. There is not a single Federal soldier on the soil of Tennessee — not one. Kentucky. I see both the honorable Senators from Ken- tucky here. They have equal cause with Tennessee to be alarmed for there is not a Federal soldier in Kentucky — not one ! Missouri. Not one. Arkansas. Fifty-seven in Arkansas. Alabama. I think my friend from Alabama [Mr. Morgan] is greatly excited over this question, and in his State there are thirty-two Federal soldiers, located at an arsenal of the United States. Mississippi. The great State of Mississippi, that is in danger of being trodden under the iron hoof of military power, has not a Federal soldier on its soil. Louisiana has two hundred and thirty-nine. Texas, apart from the regiments that guard the frontier on the Rio Grande and the Indian frontier, has not one. And the entire South has eleven hundred and fifty-five soldiers to intimidate, overrun, oppress, and destroy the lib- erties of fifteen million people ! In the Southern States there A Free Ballot^ and an Honest Count, 71 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 IX 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 appro- priately, I should say without blushing — the whole thing is such a prodigious and absolute farce, such a miser- ably manufactured false issue, such a pretense w^ithout 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. 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 very great fear of their liberties being endangered by the presence of a handful of troops. 72 Words of James G. Blaine. As I have said, the tendency of this talk is to give us a bad name in Europe. Republican institutions are looked ujDon there with jealous}^ 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 tliat 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 terri- tory, not double the number of 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 cross-roads believe that they are afraid of eleven liundred and fifty-five soldiers distributed one to each county in the South. The minute you state that everybody sees the utter, palpable, and A Free Ballot, and an Honest Count. 73 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 sim23ly 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, know 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 permis- sible for me to discuss a bill that is pending before the other House. I am quite well aware that propriety and parlia- mentary rule forbid that I should speak of Avhat is done in the House of Representatives ; but I know very well that I 74 Wo7xis of James Cr. Blaine. am not forbidden to speak of that Avhicli is not done in the House of Representatives. I ain quite free to speak of the things that are not done there, and tlierefore I am free to dechire 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 Repre- sentatives and, although the present House of Representa- tives is almost evenly balanced in party division, there has been allowed no solitarj^ suggestion 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 Av^ords here — "that the honor- able Senator from Ohio [Mr. Thurman] was the chairman of a committee appointed by the Democratic party to see how it Avas best to present all these questions before us." Therefore Avhen T discuss these two bills together I am violating no parliamentary hiAV ; I am discussing the offspring and the creation of the Democratic caucus, of Avhich the Senator from Ohio, Avhom I do not see in his seat, is the chairman. There are thirteen thousand polling-places in the South, and there are eleven hundred and fifty-five soldiers down there, and this great intimi(hition is to be carried on by one soldier distributing himself around to twelve polling- places. A Free Ballot^ and an Honest Count. 75 THAT IS TJIK INTIMIDATION that tlireutcns the South just now; and I am just rem indcd by the honorable Senator from Wisconsin [Mr. Carpenter] that the Supreme Court decided — a fact 1 did not recall at the moment — that the war did not close till April, 18GG ; a state of peace liad not come, and tliorcfore tlie honorable Senator from Kentucky does not bring himscU' within tlie line of evidence. He only saw troops there in ISOf), during tlie war. Has he seen them since April, 18GG, in time of peace ? . . . All we get, llien, in the testimony is, tliat the Senator from Kentucky SAVS niO SA^V TROOPS in his State during tlie war, and the Senator from West Vir- ginia says he saw them in his State once since the war — ten years ago. That is the amount of actual testimony we get on the subject. Now, Mr. President, I say this bill connects itself directly with the provisions which are inserted by the Demo- cratic caucus in the legislative, executive, and judicial bill. The two stand together : they cannot be separated; because if to-day Ave enact that no civil ofiicer whatever shall appear under any circumstances with ainicd men at the polls — 1 am not speaking of Federal troops or military or naval officers — I should like to know how if you strike that out to-day ill the military bill that is pending, you are going to enforce any provisions of the election laws, even if we leave them standing. Take this section of the election law, section 2024 of the Revised Statutes: " The marshal or his general deputies, or such special 76 Words of James Cf. Blaine. deputies as are thereto specially empowered by him, in writing, and under his hand and seal, whenever he or either or any of them is forcibly resisted in executing their duties under this title, or shall, by violence, threats, or menaces, be prevented from executing such duties, or from arresting any person who has committed any offence for wliich the marshal or his general or his special deputies are authorized to make such arrest, are, and each of them is, empoAvered to summon and call to his aid the bystanders or posse eomitatus of his district." I should like any one to tell me whether a marshal can call together armed men under that if you repeal this section in the military bill. Under heavy penalties you say that no civil officer whatever, no matter what the disturbances, at an election of Representatives to Congress — NO CIVIL OFFICER OF THE UNITED STATES SHALL KEEP ORDER. You do not say that in that same election the State officer may not be there with all the force he chooses, legal or illegal. You say that the United States, in an election which specially concerns the Federal government, shall not have anything whatever to do with it. That is what you say, although the Constitution, as broadly as language can express it, gives the government of the United States, if it chooses to exercise it, the absolute control of the whole subject — familiar to scliool-bo3^s who have never once read the Constitution, in the clause : " The times, places, and manner of holding elections for Senators and Representatives shall be pre- scribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the A Free Ballot, and an Honest Count. 77 Congress may at any time, by law, make or alter such regu- lations, except as to the places of choosing Senators." And every one knows that the contemporaneous exposition of that part of the Constitution, familiar also to every one in the country, the exposition by Madison and Hamilton, was to the effect that " every government ought to contain in itself the means of its own preservation " ; and according to Mr. Madi- son, quoting a Southern authority, it was " more conso- nant to just theories to intrust the Union with the care of its own existence than to transfer that care to any other hands." There is not the slightest possible denial here that THIS IS A CONSTITUTIONAL EXERCISE OF POWER. If there is such a denial it is a mere individual opinion. There has been no adjudication in the least degree look- ing to the unconstitutionality of these laws. Your indi- vidual opinion is no better than mine ; mine is no better than that of any other man who can hear a horn blown from the front steps of the Capitol. No individual opinion is worth anything. We have a department of the government to pass upon the question. The legisla- tive department has enacted these laws under what it believed to be a clear and explicit grant of power, and you have never had it judicially determined otlierwise. But now you propose to assault the election laws, the supervisors, and the marshals, in this militar}" bill ; and under the pretence of getting rid of troops at tlie polls you propose that no Federal officer — no civil officer of the Federal government — shall be 78 Words of James G. Blaine. there. That is the design ; that is the phain, palpable object. An amendment that will be offered here will test yonr sin- cerity on that subject ; whether you will allow the Federal government to be i)resent at all. I believe you do propose to allow two men of straw to stand up without any power; to be present as witnesses ; to be counted themselves but not to count, as my friend from Massachusetts [Mr. Hoar] well suggests ; with no power whatever , mere spectators on suf- ferance, not to be liustled out nor kicked nor clubbed if they behave themselves, but entirely at the mercy of the mob ; guests standing there by the courtesy of the State, not standing there armed with the panoply of the Federal government and commanding in its great name an observance of law and of justice. You propose simply to permit, and permit is the word, two officers to be designated by Federal authority to be pre- sent, that is all; not to have one particle of power, not to be clothed with a solitary attribute of authority, not to have any force, not to have any legal status beyond that of casual spectators ; and, therefore, I say that you cannot debate this question without associating these two bills together. The one runs right into the otlier ; and I go so far as to say that if the military bill should go through in its present form and Ijecome the law of the land, the remainder of this law on election day is not worth anything at all. The whole law of marshals and supervisors is worth nothing unless the civil authority of the United States has the power there to enforce its edicts. We are told, too, rather a novel thing, that if we do not take these laws, we are A Free Ballot^ and an Honest Count. 79 NOT TO HLVVE 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 j 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 legisla- tive 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, etc., "12,800,000 " : "Pro- vided" — what? "That the folloAving sections of the Re- vised 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 legisla- tive, 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 80 Words of James Gr. Blaine. have ever known. We do not merely propose to starve the Executive if he does not sign the bill, but we propose to starve the judiciary that has had nothing Avliatever 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 cliange 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 Presi- dent 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 wlrich it has conducted our foreign affairs ; it is also to be starved. You say we shall not have any intercourse with foreign A Free Ballot, and a7i Honest Coimt. 81 nations, not a dollar shall be appropriated therefore 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 from which embody the invention of the country — not a dollar for them. The Pen- sion 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 these 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 Demo- cratic congressional caucus. That is wliat it is ; simply that. No committee of this Congress in either branch has ever recommended that legislation — not one. Simply a Demo- cratic 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 indus- trious in that search than I have ever been, and much more observant than I have ever been : to hnd 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 82 Words of James Gr. Blaine. 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 b}^ 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 wrong- fully 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 wellbeing and prosperity of the Union. That was believed by the great and shining lights of that day. It was believed by that man of imperial charac- ter and imperious will, the great Senator from Kentucky. It was believed by Mr. Webster, the greatest of New Eng- land 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, Avhen tem- per was at its lieight ; 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 Presi- dent whom they had chosen ; and wlien 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 ; — - A Free Ballot^ and an Honest Coimt. 83 " 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 Sena- tor, 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 j^ears, and they do not intend to stop until they HAVE WIPED OUT EVERY VESTIGE of every war measure. Well, "forewarned in forearmed," and you begin appropriately on a measure tliat 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 defence! 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 administra- tion of the government should live to hear men in j^ublic 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 84 Wo?\ls of James G. Blaine. . eighteen years, proposes not to stay its hand until every ves- tige of the war measures has been wiped out ! The hxte vice-president of the confederacy boasted — perhaps I liad better say stated — that for sixty out of the seventy-two years preceding the outbreak of the rebellion, 4'rom the foundation of the government, the South, though in a minority, had, by combining with wliat lie 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 Avith the same successful result. I read that speech at the time ; but I little thought I should live to see so near a fulfilment 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 cliamber professing the Democratic faith thirty are from the South — twenty-three, a positive and pronounced majorit}', having themselves been participants in the war against the Union either in military or civil sta- tion. So that as a matter of fact, plainl}" deducible from counting your fingers, the legislation of this country to-day, shaped and fashioned in a Democratic caucus where the con- federates of the South hold the majority, is the realization of Mr. S tephens's prophecy. And very appropriately the House under that control and the Senate under that control em- bodying thus the entire legislative powers of the govern-, ment, deriving its political strength from the South, elected A Free Ballot, and an Honest Count. 85 from the South, say to the President of the United States, at the head of the executive department of the government, elected as he Avas 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 botli 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 A REVOLUTION to put an amendment on an appropriation bill?" Of course not. There have been a great many amendments put on app^'opriation bills, some mischievous and some harm- less : but I call it the audacity of revolution for any Senator or Representative, or any caucus of Senators or Representa- tives, 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 it is a revo- lution which will not revolve ; I think that it 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 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. 86 Words of James G. Blaine. 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 forty-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 Sen- ators on this floor, certainly as little as any Senator ori'this floor, do I profess to know, wliat 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 certainl}- should never speak a solitary word of disrespect of tlie gen- tleman 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 specu- lation here and there on both sides as to what he would do, it seems to me that the dead heroes of the Union Avould rise from their graves if he should consent to be intimidated and A Free Ballot^ and art Honest Count. 87 outraged in liis proper constitutional power by threats like these. All the war measures of Abraham Lincoln are to be wiped out I 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 glor}^ ; 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 part}- 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." III. A SOUND CURRENCY. 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 wliich shall fix, for all, the relative value of gold and silver coinage. — Eepublican Platform, 1S84. AN IRREDEEMABLE PAPER CURRENCY. [Fro7n a speech in the House of Representatives, February 10, 1876.] Mr. Chairman : The honor of the national government and the prosperity of the American people are alike menaced by those who demand the perpetuation of an irredeemable paper currency. For more than two years the country has been suffering from prostration in business; confidence returns but slowly ; trade revives only partially ; and to-day, with capital unproductive and labor unemployed, we find ourselves in the midst of an agitation respecting the medium with which business transactions shall be carried on. Until this question is definitely adjusted it is idle to ex^Dect that full measure of prosperity to which the energies of our people and the resources of the land entitle us. In the way of that adjustment one great section of the Democratic party — possibly its controlling power — stubbornly stands to-day. The Republicans, always A Sound Currency. 89 TRUE TO THE PRIMAL DUTY of supporting the nation's credit, have now cast behind them all miiior differences and dissensions on the financial question, and have gradually consolidated their strength against inflation. The currency, therefore, becomes of neces- sity a prominent political issue, and those Democrats who are in favor of honest dealing by the government and honest money for the people may be compelled to act as they did in that still graver exigency when the existence of the government itself was at stake. While this question should be approached in no spirit of partisan bitterness, it has yet become so entangled with party relations that no intelligent discussion of it can be had without giving its political history, and if that history bears severely on the Democratic party, its defenders must answer the facts, and not quarrel with their presentation. Firmly attached to one political party myself, firmly believing that parties in a free government are as healthful as they are inevitable, I still think there are questions about which parties should agree never to disagree ; and of these is the essential nature and value of the circulating medium. And it is a fact of especial weight and significance that up to the paper-money era, which was precipitated upon us during the rebellion as one of war's inexorable necessities, there never was a political party in this country that believed in an}' other than the specific standard for our currency. If there was any one principle that was rooted and grounded in the minds of our earlier statesmen, it was the evil of paper money ; and no candid man of any party can read the Con- 90 Words of James Gr. Blaine. stitution of the United States and not be convinced that its framers intended to protect and defend our people from the manifold perils of an irredeemable currency. Nathaniel Macon, one of the purest and best of American statesmen, himself a soldier of the Revolution and a member of Con- gress continuously during the administration of our first six Presidents, embracing in all a period of nearly forty years, expressed the whole truth when he declared in the Senate that "THIS WAS A HARD-MONEY GOVERNMENT, founded by hard-money men, who had themselves seen and felt the evil of paper money . and meant to save their pos- terity from it." To this uniform adherence to the specie standard the crisis of the rebellion forced an exception. In January, 1862, with more than a half-million of men in arms, with a daily expenditure of nearly two millions of dollars, the govern- ment suddenly found itself without money. Customs yielded but little, internal taxes had not yet been levied, public credit was feeble, if not paralyzed, our armies had met with one signal reverse and nowhere with marked success, and men's minds were filled with gloom and apprehension. The one supreme need of the hour was money, and money the government did not have. What, then, should be done — rather, what could be done ? The ordinary treasury note had been tried and failed, and those already issued were discredited and below the value of the bills of country banks. The government in this great and perilous need promptly called to its aid a power never before exer- . A Sound Currency. - 91 cised. It authorized the issue of one hundred and fifty millions of notes, and declared them to be a legal tender for all debts, public or private, with two exceptions. The ablest lawyers who sustained this measure did not find warrant for it in the text of the Constitution, but like the late Senator Fessenden, of my own State, placed it on the ground of " absolute, overwhelming necessity " ; and that illustrious Senator declared that " the necessity existing, he had no hesitation." Indeed, sir, to hesitate was to be lost, for the danger was that, if Congress prolonged the debate on points of constitutional construction, its deliberations might be interrupted by the sound of rebel artillery on the opposite shore of the Potomac. The Republican Senators and Repre- sentatives, therefore, dismissing all doubts and casuistry, stood together for the country, and if taunted, as they were,, by the Democracy and disloyalty of that day, with violating the Constitution, they pointed to that law which is older than constitutions. Adopting the sentiment, as they might have quoted the imputed language, of John Milton, they believed that " there is the law of self-preservation, written by God himself on our hearts ; there is the primal compact and bond of society, not graven on stone, nor sealed with wax, nor put down on parchment, nor set forth in any express form of word by men when of old they came together, but implied 'in the very act that they so came together, pre- supposed in all subsequent law, not to be repealed by any authority, not invalidated by being omitted in ^\\j code, inasmuch as from thence are all codes and all authority." But the promptings of patriotism, the pressure of neces- 92 Words of James Gr. Blaine. sity, the " despotism of duty," wliicli thus decided the course of the Republicans failed to influence the Democrats in Congress. Marshaled and led- by Mr. Pendleton, since become the great advocate of inflation, the Democratic Representatives voted in wellnigh solid column against the legal-tender bill. Bankruptcy in the treasury was im- pending; eighty millions of unpaid requisitions lay on the secretary's desk ; a large part of the army had not received a dollar for six months ; supplies were failing ; recruiting halted; the spirits of the people drooped; while the execu- tive department, charged with the conduct of the war, urged that critical campaigns, then in progress, would necessarily end in disaster unless relief could be afforded in this way. But Democrat consciences were too tender, and Pemocratic scruples too intense, at that time to permit such a fearful infraction of the Constitution as the passage of a legal-tender bill, even to save the Union of our fathers and thus preserve the Constitution itself. The necessities of the government were so great and expenditures so enormous that another hundred and fifty millions of legal-tender notes were speedily called for and granted by Congress, THE DEMOCRATS AGAIN VOTING under Mr. Pendleton's lead against the measure. With varying fortunes, the last year of the war was reached, with three hundred millions of legal tender in circulation. With the strain of our public credit and tlie doubts and vicissitudes of the struggle these notes had fallen far below par in gold, A Sound Currency, 93 and it became apparent to every clear-headed observer that the continued issue of legal tenders, with no provision for their redemption and no limit to their amount, would utterly destroy the credit of the government and involve the Union cause in irretrievable disaster. But, at that moment, the military situation, with its perils and its prospects, was such that the government must have money more rapidly than the sale of bonds could furnish it, and the danger was that the sale of bonds would be stopped altogether unless some defi- nite limit could be assigned to the issue of legal-tender notes. Accordingly, Congress sought, and successfully sought, to accomplish both ends at the same time, and they passed a bill granting one hundred millions additional legal-tender circu- lation — making four hundred millions in all — and then incorporated in the same law the solemn assurance and pledge that " the total amount of United States notes, issued and to be issued, shall never exceed four hundred millions of dollars." And to this pledge every Democratic Senator and Representative assented, either actively or silently, as the Journals of both Houses will show. The subsequent readi- ness of many of those gentlemen to trample on it must be upon the broad principle of ethics that the government should keep those pledges which are profitable, and disre- gard those which it will pay to violate. When the war was over and the Union saved, one of the first duties of the government was to improve its credit and restore a sound currency to the people ; and here we might have seasonably expected .the aid of the Democratic party. But we did not receive it. Irreconcilably hostile to the issue 94 Words of James Gr. Blame. of legal tenders when that form of credit was needed for the salvation of the country, the Democracy, as soon as the country was saved, conceived a violent love for these notes, and demanded AN ALMOST ILLIMITABLE ISSUE OF THEM. Mr. Seymour, as the Democratic candidate for President in 1868, scouting the four hundred million pledge, stood on a platform demanding that sixteen hundred millions of five- twenties be paid off in legal tenders ; and he so heartily approved this policy, that in liis letter of acceptance he declared that " he should strive to carry it out in the future, wherever he might be placed in political or private life." His position at that time was approved by every Democrat of high or low degree in New York, was unanimously reaf- firmed in their State convention, was sustained by all their newspaper organs, and was the recognized creed of the party. East as well as West. Mr. Seymour and his political associates in New York have changed their ground and now proclaim an honest financial creed ; and after the manner of the Pharisee, they broaden their phylacteries, make loud pro- fessions of superior zeal, and thank God reverently that they are not as their sinful brethren of the Ohio Democracy — those financial Sadducees, who continue to reject all idea of resurrection or redemption for the legal tender. I have thus briefly referred to the past, Mr. Chairman, only because I think it has an important bearing on the present and the future. I do not assume that the Republi- can party can possibly discharge its pending responsibilities A Sound Currency. 95 by merely pointing to its former grand achievements. " Let not virtue seek remuneration for the thing it was." But I do claim that on this financial question the course of the Republican party in the jDast is a guaranty for the future, and that equally the course of the Democratic party, of both wings and all shades, is a menace and a warning to the people. If, however, the New York school of Democrats, repenting of their former course and seeking better ways for the future, are ready to give honest help in the restoration of a sound currency, they will be gladly welcomed and their faith will be tested by works before this session of Congress closes. They will not, however, deem it strange or harsh if, remembering their past record, we feel an uncomfortable sense of distrust as to their entire sincerity in the future. This distrust is increased when we witness the brazen bold- ness with which, in full view of their repudiation record of but yesterday, they assume a stilted tone of superior honesty on the financial question, and affect patronizing language toward the Republicans Avho saved the nation from the last- ing blight of Mr. Seymour's triumph in 1868. Still further deepened and strengthened is the distrust when we remem- ber the formal alliance which the New York Democrats have renewed with the Democrats of the South, to whom our whole financial system is but a reminder of what they them- selves term their subjugation, and who from past action and present tendency are unfitted to be the safe repository of the nation's pledges for the payment of its war debt. We have passed into a new era, and to recall the Southern Democracy, 96 Words of James Gr. Blaine. with their appalling record, to their ancient control in this country would be as decisive a step backward and nightward as it would have been for the English people to surround William of Orange with a Parliament made up of adherents to the lost house of Stuart, or as it would be to-day for the French Assembly to thrust on McMahon a cabinet devoted to the fortunes of Henr}^ Fifth. As I said at the outset of m)^ remarks, Mr. Chairman, the country is suffering under one of those periodical revulsions in trade common to all commercial nations, and which thus far no wisdom of legislation has been able to avert. The natural restlessness of a people so alive and alert as ours looks for an instant remedy, and the danger in such a condi- tion of the public mind is that something may be adopted that will ultimately deepen the disease rather than lay the groundwork for an effectual cure. Naturally enough in such a time the theories for relief are numerous, and we have marvelous receipts offered whereby the people shall be enabled to pay the dollar the}^ owe with less than a hundred cents: while those who are caught with such a delusion seemingly forget that, even if this be so, they must likewise receive less than a hundred cents for the dollar that is due them. Whether the dollar that they owe to-day or the dollar that is due them to-morrow will have the greater or less number of cents depends on the shifting of causes which they can neither control or foresee ; and therefore all certain calculation in trade is set at defiance, and those branches of business which take on the form of gambling are by a finan- cial paradox the most secure and most promising. A Sound Currency. 97 Uncertainty as to the value of the currency from day to day is INJURIOUS TO ALL HONEST INDUSTRY. And while that which is known as the debtor interest should be fairly and generously considered in the shaping of measures for specie resumption, there is no justice in asking for inflation on its behalf. Rather there is the gravest injustice ; for you must remember that there is a large class of most deserving persons who would be continually and remorselessly robbed by such a policy. I mean the Labor of the country, that is compelled to live from and by its daily earnings. The savings-banks wdiich represent the surj^lus owned by the laborers of the nation, have deposits to-day exceeding eleven hundred millions of dollars — more than the entire capital stock and deposits of the national banks. The pensioners, Avho represent the patriotic suffering of the country, have a capitalized investment of six hundred millions of dollars. Here are seventeen hundred millions of money incapable of receiving anything but instant and lasting injury from inflation. Whatever impairs the pur- chasing power of the dollar correspondingly decreases the resources of the saving-bank depositor and pensioner. The pensioner's loss would be absolute, but it would probably be argued that the laborer would receive compensation by his nominally larger earnings. But this would prove totally delusive, for no possible augmentation of wages in a time of inflation will ever keep pace with the still greater increase of price in the commodities necessary to sustain life, except — and mark the exception — under the condition witnessed 98 Words of James G-. Blaine. during the war, when the number of laborers was con- tinually reduced by the demand of men to serve in the army and navy. And those honest-minded people who recall the startling activity of trade and the large profits during the war, and attribute both to an inflated currency, commit the error of leaving out the most important element of the calculation. They forget that the government^ was a cus- tomer for nearly four years at the rate of two or three millions of dollars per day — buying countless quantities of all staple articles; they forget that the number of con- sumers was continually enlarging as our armed force grew to its ■ gigantic proportions, and that the number of pro- ducers was by the same cause continually growing less, and that thus was presented, on a scale of unprecedented magni- tude, tliat simple problem, familiar alike to the political economist and the village trader, of the demand being greater than the supply, and a consequent rise in the price. Had the government been able to conduct the war on a gold basis and provided the coin for its necessarily large and lavish expenditure, a rise in the price of labor and a rise in the value of commodities would have been inevitable. And the rise of both labor and commodities in gold would have been for the time as marked as in paper, adding, of course, the depreciation of the latter to its scale of prices. While the delusion of creating wealth by the issue of irredeemable paper currency may lead to any ^number of absurd propositions, the advocates of the heresy seem to have settled down on two measures — or, rather, one measure composed of two parts, namely: To abolish the national A Sound Currency/, 99 banks, and then have the government issue legal tenders at once to the amount of the bank circulation, and add to the volume from time to time thereafter "according to the wants of trade." The two propositions are so inseparably connected that I shall discuss them together. THE NATIONAL-BANK SYSTEM, Mr. Chairman, was one of the results of the war, and the credit of its origin belongs to the late Salmon P. Chase, then secretary of the treasury. And it may not be unprofitable just here to recall to the House the circumstances which at the time made the national banks a necessity to the government. At the outbreak of the war there were considerably over a thousand State banks of various degrees of responsibility, or irresponsibility, scattered throughout the country. Their charters demanded the redemption of their bills in specie, and under the pressure of this requirement their aggregate circulation was kept within decent limits, but the amount of it was in most instances left to the discretion of the directors, and not a few of these banks issued ten dollars of bills for one of specie in their vaults. With the passage of the legal tender act, however, followed by an enormous issue of government notes, the State banks would no longer be required to redeem in specie, and would, therefore, at once flood the country v/ith their own bills and take from the government its resource in that direction. To restrict and limit their circulation, and to make the banks as helpful as possible in the great work of sustaining the government finances, the national-bank act was passed. 100 Words of James G-. Blaine. This act required, in effect, that every bank should loan its entire stock to the government ; or, in other words, to invest it in government bonds ; and then, on depositing these bonds with the treasurer of the United States, the bank might receive not exceeding ninety per cent, of their amount in circulating-notes, the government holding the bonds for the protection of the billholder in case the bank should fail. And that, in brief, is precisely what a national bank, is to-day. I do not say the system is perfect. I do not feel called upon to rush to its advocacy or its defence. I do not doubt that as we go forward we may find many points in Avhich the sys- tem can be improved. But this I am bold to maintain, that, contrasted with any other system of banking this country has ever had, it is immeasurably superior ; and whoever asks, as some Democrats now do, for its abolition, with a view of getting back any system of State banks, is a blind leader; and a very deep ditch of disorder and disaster awaits the followers, if the people should ever bo so blinded as to take that fatal step. It is greatly to be deplored, Mr. Chairman, that many candid men have conceived the notion that it would be a saving to the people if all banks could be dispensed with and a circulating medium be furnished by the government issuing legal tenders. I do not stop here to argue that this would be in violation of the government's pledge not to issue more than four hundred millions of its own notes. I merely remark that that pledge is binding in honor until legal tenders are redeemable in coin on presentation, and when that point is reached there will be no desire, as there will A Sound Currency. 101 certainly be no necessity, for the government issuing additional notes. The great and, to my mind, unanswerable objection to this scheme is that it places the currency wholly in the power and under the direction of Congress. Now, Congress always has been and always will be governed by the partisan major- ity, representing one of the political parties of the country ; and the proposition, therefore, reduces itself to this — that the circulating medium, instead of having a fixed, determin- ate character, shall be shifted, and changed, and manipulated, according to the supposed need3 of " the party.'' I profess, Mr. Chairman, to have some knowledge of the American Congress; its general character, its ^personnel., its scope, its limit, its power. I think, on the whole, that it is a far more patriotic, intelligent, and upright body of men than it generally gets credit for in the country ; but, at the same time, I can possibly conceive of no assemblage of respectable gentlemen in the United States MORE UTTERLY UNFITTED TO DETERMINE from time to time the amount of circulation required by " the wants of trade." But, indeed, no body of men could be intrusted with that power. Even if it were possible to trust their discretion, their integrity would be constantly under suspicion. If they performed their duties with the purity of an angel of light, they could not successfully repel those charges which always follow where, the temptation to do wrong is powerful and the way easy. Experience would very soon demonstrate that no more corrupt or corrupting 102 Words of James G. Blaine. device, no wilder or more visionary project, ever entered the brain of the schemer or the empiric. If the people of the United States were fully awake and aroused to their interests, and could see things as they are, instead of increasing the power of Congress over the curren- cy, they would by the shortest practicable process divorce the two, completely and forever. And this can onlj^ be done finally, effectually, irreversibly, by the resumption of specie payment. Why, Mr. Chairman, it is hardly an exaggeration to say that, ever since the government was compelled to resort to irredeemable currency during tlie war, the assem- bling of ConoTcss and its continuance in session have been the most disturbing elements in the business of the countr}^ It is literally true that no man can tell what a day may bring forth. One large interest looks hopefully to contraction and the lowering of the gold premium ; another is ruined unless there is such a movement toward expansion as will send gold up. Each side, of course, endeavors to influence and con- vince Congress. Both sides naturally have their S3'mpa- thizing advocates on this floor, and hence the substantial business interests of the country are kept in a feverish, doubtful, speculative state. Men's minds are turned from honest industry to schemes of financial gambling, the public morals suffer, old-fashioned integrity is forgotten, and solid, enduring prosperity, with honest gains and quiet content- ment, is rendered impossible. We have suffered thus far in perhaps as light a degree as could be expected under the cir- cumstances ; but once adopt the insane idea that all currency shall be issued directly to the government, and that Congress A Sound Currency. 103 shall be the judge of the amount demanded by the "wants of trade," and you have this country adrift, rudderless, on a sea of troubles, shoreless and soundless. It is a singular coincidence, Mr. Chairman — one of those odd happenings sometimes brought about by political muta- tions — that those who ]jrge this scheme upon the govern- ment are Democrats, every one of them would doubtless claim to be a true disciple of Andrew Jackson. And yet all the evils of which Jackson warned the country in his famous controversy with the United States Bank are a thou- sand-fold magnified and a thousand-fold aggravated in this plan of making THE TREASURY DEPARTMENT ITSELF THE BANK, with Congress for the governing board of directors. I com- mend to the gentlemen of Democratic antecedents a careful perusal of Jackson's great message of July 10, 1832, and I wish them to frankly tell this House how they think Jackson would have regarded the establishment of a great national paper-money machine, to be located for all time in the treasury department, the bills of wliich shall have no pro- vision for their redemption, and the amount of those bills to be determined by a majority vote in a party caucus. ^ And then, after Jackson's veto message shall have been diligently perused and inwardly digested by the Democratic advocates of irredeemable paper money, I will ask them if the present national-bank system does not fully meet all of Jackson's objections, and if it is not, indeed, as nearly as the difference of time and circumstances will permit, such 104 Words of James G. Blaine. a system of banking as Jackson indirectly commended and as he professed himself ready to submit a plan for if Con- gress shonld desire it? Disclaiming, as I have done, any special championship of the national banks, but merely referring to the facts of record, 1 would be glad further to ask if the present system, in its entire freedom from monopoly, being equally open to all ; if in the absolute pro- tection it affords to that innocent third party, the billholder (no man ever having lost a dollar by the bills of national banks during the thirteen years the system has been in oper- ation, whereas in tlie preceding thirteen years the losses to the people by bills of State banks exceeded fifty millions of dollars) ; if in that universal credit attached to its bills, saving the people all losses from exchange or discount wher- ever payment is to be made within the United States ; if in its protection of the rights of depositors ; if in its strength and solvency in time of financial disaster ; if in its subjection to taxation, both by the general and State governments, until it confessedly pays a heavier tax than any other species of property : if in its capacity to measure, by the unvarying law of supply and demand, the precise amount of circulation required by the " wants of trade," — I would be glad, I repeat, to ask any Democratic opponent of the system if it does not in each and all" of these features fill the ideal requirements of a bank as foreshadowed by Jackson, and if it does not indeed far transcend any ideal Jackson had, in its freedom for all to engage in it, in its absolute security to the public, and in its singular adaptation to act as a regulator of the currency, preventing undue expansion and undue A Sound Currency. 105 contraction with equal aiid unfailing certainty, and adjusting itself at once to the specie standard whenever the govern- ment shall place its own notes at par with coin? It is urcred bv tlie opponents of the banking system that the three "hundred and twenty millions of bank circulation can be supplied by the legal tenders and the interest on that amount of bonds stopped! How? Does any gentleman suppose that the bonds owned by the banks, and on deposit in the treasury, will be exchanged for legal tenders of a new and inflated issue? Those bonds are payable, prinoipa and interest, in gold; and, with the present amount o legal- tender notes, they are worth in the market from 11.16 to fl 25 What will they be worth in paper money when you double the amount of legal tenders and postpone the day ot specie resumption far beyond the vision of prophet or seer? And this enormous issue of legal tenders' to take the place of banknotes is only the beginning of the policy to be inaugu- rated The "wants of trade" would speedily demand another issue, for the essential nature of an irredeemable cur- rencv is that it has no limit till a reaction is born of crushing disaster. A lesson might be learned (by those willing to be taught by fact and experience) from the course of events durln- the war. When we had one hundred and fifty mill- ions o"f legal tender in circulation, it stood for a long time nearly at par with gold. As the issue increased "^ ^^o™^* the depreciation was very rapid, and at the tune we fixed the four hundred million limit, that whole vast sum had less purchasing power in exchange for lands, or houses, or mer- chandise than the hundred and fifty millions had two years 106 Words of James G. Blaine. before. In the spring of 1862, -$150,000,000 of legal tender would buy in the market $147,000,000 in gold coin. In June, 1864, $400,000,000 of legal tender would buy only $140,000,000 in gold coin. And if we had not fixed the four hundred million limit, but had gone on issuing additional amounts according to the "WANTS OF TRADE," as now argued and urged by the modern Democratic finan- ciers, tlie result would have been that at each successive inflation the purchasing power of the aggregate mass would have been made less, and the value of the whole would have gone down, down, till it reached that point of utter worth- lessness, which so many like experiments have reached before ; and the legal tender, with all its vast capacity for good in a great national crisis, would have taken its place in history alongside of the French assignat and the conti- nental currency. The four hundred million limit happily saved us that direful experience, and at once caused the legal tender to appreciate ; but, unwilling to learn by this striking fact, the inflationists insist upon a scheme of expan- sion which would speedily raise the price of bonds to un|)re- cedented figures, and by the time they should succeed in purchasing those that now stand as security for national- bank circulation they would have increased the national debt by countless millions, and instead of making a saving for the treasury they would end by depriving it of the eight millions of tax annually paid by the banks, and the people would have lost the additional eight millions of local tax derived from the same source. A Sound Currency. 107 I have not spoken of the confnsion, the distress, the ruin, that would result from forcing twenty-one hundred banks suddenly to wind up their affairs with nearly a thousand millions of dollars due them, which in some form must needs be liquidated and paid. The commercial fabric of the country rests upon the bank credits, and notliing short of financial lunacy should demand their rude disturbance. Whoever would strike down the banks under the delusion that they can be driven to surrender their bonds for inflated legal tenders, knows little of the laws of finance and still less of the laws of human action. . . . When the national government was organized in 1789 the most liberal estimate of the property of the entire thirteen States placed it at six hundred millions of dollars — less than the wealth of Boston or of Chicago to-day. The pop- ulation was four millions, showing a property of one hundred and fifty dollars to each inhabitant. By the census of 1870 our population had increased to thirty-eight millions and our wealth to thirty thousand millions, showing eight hundred dollars per capita for the whole people. Our population had increased in the eighty intervening years not quite tenfold, but our wealth had increased fifty-fold. THE PATmOTS OF 1790, with their slender resources, did not hesitate to assume a national debt of ninety millions of dollars, being more than one seventh of their entire possessions ; and it never occurred to them that an abandonment of the specie basis would make their burden lighter. They knew from their terrible experi- 108 Woi'ds of James Gr. Blaine. - ence with continental currency that all their evils would be painfully increased by a resort to paper money. And in their poverty, with no accumulated capital, with manufac- tures in feeblest infancy, with commerce undeveloped, with low prices for their agricultural products, they maintained the gold and silver standard, they paid their great debt, they grew rich in the property which we inherited, but far richer in that bright, unsullied honor which they bequeathed to us. To-day, the total debts of the American people, national, State, and municipal, are not so large in proportion to already acquired property as was the national debt alone in 1790. And when we take into the account the relative pro- ductive power of the two periods, our present burdens are absolutel}^ inconsiderable. When ^ve reflect what the rail- way, the telegraph, the cotton-gin, and our endless mechani- cal inventions and agencies have done for us in the way of increasing our capacity for producing wealth, we should be ashamed to pretend that we cannot bear larger burdens than our ancestors. And remember, Mr. Chairman, that our wealth from 1790 to 1870 increased more than five times as rapidly as our population, and that the same development is even now progressing Avith a continually accelerating- ratio. Remember, also, that the annual income and earnings of our people are larger than those of any European country, larger than those of England, or France, or Russia, or the German empire. The English people stand next to us, but we are largely in advance of them. The annual income of our entire people exceeds six thousand millions in gold, and despite financial reverses and revulsions is steadily in- creasing. A Sound Currency, 109 In view of these facts it would be an unpardonable moral weakness in our people — always heroic when, heroism is demanded — to doubt their own capacity to maintain specie payment. I am not willing, myself, to acknowledge that as a people we are less honorable, less courageous, or less com- petent than were our ancestors in 1790; still less am I ready to own that the people of the entire Union have not the pluck and the capacity of our friends and kinsmen in Cali- fornia ; and last of all would I confess that the United States of America, with forty- four millions of inhabitants, with a territory surpassing all Europe in area, and I might almost say all the world in fertility of resources, are not able to do Avhat a handful of British subjects, scattered from Cape Race to Vancouver's Island, can do so easily, so steadily, and so successfully. THE INFLUENCE OF CONGRESS ON SILVER CURRENCY. The responsibility of re-establishing silver in its ancient and honorable place as money in Europe and America devolves really on the Congress of the United States. If we act here with prudence, wisdom, and firmness, we shall not only successfully remonetize silver and bring it into general use as money in our own country, but the influence of our example will be potential among all European nations, with the possible exception of England.- Indeed, our annual indebtment to Europe is so great, that if we have the right to pay it in silver, we necessarily coerce those nations, by the strongest of all forces, self-interest, to aid us in upholding 110 Words of James Gr. Blaine, the value of silver as money. But if we attempt the remone- tization on a basis which is obviously and notoriously below the fair standard of value as it now exists, we incur all the Qvil consequences of failure at home and the positive certainty of successful opposition abroad. We are and shall be the greatest producers of silver in the world, and we have a larger stake in its complete monetization than any other country. The difference to the United States between the general acceptance of silver as money in the commercial world and its destruction as money, will possibly equal within the Jiext half-century the entire bonded debt of the nation. But to gain this advantage, we must make it actual money — the accepted equal of gold in the markets of the world. Remonetization here, followed by general remone- tization in Europe, will secure to the United States the most stable basis for its currency that we have ever enjoyed, and will effectually aid in solving all the problems by which our financial situation is surrounded. GOLD ALONE ? OR GOLD AND SILVER ? On the mucli-vexed and long-mooted question of a bi- metallic or mono-metallic standard, my own views are suffi- ciently indicated in the remarks I have made. I believe the struggle now going on in this country and in other countries for a single gold standard would, if successful, produce wide- spread disaster in the end throughout the commercial world. The destruction of silver as money and establishing gold as the sole unit of value must have a ruinous effect on all forms of property except those investments which yield a fixed A Sound Currency. Ill return in money. These would be enormously enhanced in value, and would gain a disproportionate and unfair advantage over every other species of property. If, as the most reliable statistics affirm, there are nearly seven thou- sand millions of coin or bullion in the world, not very unequally divided between gold and silver, it is impossible to strike silver out of existence as money without results which will prove distressing to millions and utterly disas- trous to tens of thousands. Alexander Hamilton, in his able and invaluable report in 1791 on the establishment of a mint, declared that " to annul the use of either gold or silver as money is to abridge the quantity of circulating medium, and is liable to all the objections which arise from a comparison of the benefits of a full circulation with the evils of a scanty circulation." I take no risk in saying that the benefits of a full circulation and the evils of a scanty circulation are both immeasurably greater to-day than they were when Mr. Hamilton uttered these weighty words, always provided that the circulation is one of actual money, and not of depreciated promises to pay. FOR THE LABORER GOOD MONEY. The effect of paying the labor of this country in silver coin of full value, as compared with irredeemable paper, — or as compared, even, with silver of inferior value, — will make itself felt in a single generation to the extent of tens of millions — perhaps liun.dreds of millions — in the aggregate savings which represent consolidated capital. It is the instinct of man from the savage to the scholar — developed 112 Words of Jame% G. Blaine. in childhood and remaining with age — to value the metals which in all tongues are called precious. Excessive paper money leads to extravagance, to Avaste, and to want, as we plainly witness on all sides to-day. And in the midst of the proof of its demoralizing and destructive effect, Ave hear it proclaimed in the halls of Congress, that " the people demand cheap money." I deny it. I declare such a phrase to be a total misapprehension — a total misinterpretation of the pop- ular wish. The people do not demand cheap money. They demand an abundance of good money, which is an entirely different thing. They do not want a single gold standard that will exclude silver and benefit those already rich. They do not want an inferior silver standard that will drive out gold and not help those already poor. They want both metals, in full value, in equal honor, in whatever abundance the bountiful earth will yield them to the search- ing eye of science and to the hard hand of labor. The two metals have existed side by side in harmonious, honorable companionship as money ever since intelligent trade was known among men. It is wellnigh forty centuries since " Abraham weighed to Ephron the silver which he had named in the audience of the sons of Heth • — four hundred shekels of silver — current money with the merchant." Since that time nations have risen and fallen, races have dis- appeared, dialects and languages have been forgotten, arts have been lost, treasures have perished, continents have been discovered, islands have been sunk in the sea, and through all these ages and through all these changes silver and gold have reigned supreme as the representatives of value — as A Sound Currency. 113 the media of exchange. The dethronement of each has been attempted in turn, and sometimes the dethronement of both ; but always in vain ! And we are here to-day deliber- ating anew over the problem which comes down to us from Abraham's time — the weight of the silver that shall be " cur- rent money Avith the merchant." AN INTERNATIONAL STANDARD NEEDED. What power, then, has Congress over gold and silver ? It has the exclusive power to coin them ; the exclusive power to regulate their value ; very great, very wise, very necessary powers, for the discreet exercise of which a critical occasion has now risen. However men may differ about causes and processes, all will admit that within a few years a great dis- turbance has taken taken place in the relative values of gold and silver, and that silver is worth less or gold is worth more in the money markets of the w^orld in 1878 than in 1873, when the further coinage of silver dollars was prohibited in this country. To remonetize it now as though the facts and circumstances of that day Vv^ere surrounding us, is to wilfully and blindly deceive ourselves. If our demonetization were the only cause for the decline in the value of silver, then remonetization would be its proper and effectual cure. But other causes, quite beyond our control, have been far more potentially operative than the simple fact of Congress pro- hibiting its further coinage ; and as legislators we are bound to take cognizance of these causes. The demonetization of silver in the great German empire and the consequent par- 114 Words of James Gr. Blaine, tial, or wellnigh complete, suspension of coinage in the governments of the Latin Union, have been the leading, dominant causes for the rapid decline in the value of silver. I do not think the oversu2:)ply of silver has had, in compari- son with these other causes, an appreciable influence in the decline of its value, because its oversupply with respect to gold in these later years has not been nearly so great as was the oversupply of gold with respect to silver for many years after the mines of California and Australia were opened ; and the oversupply of gold from those rich sources did not affect the relative positions and uses of the two metals in any European country. I believe, then, if Germany were to remonetize silver and the kingdoms and states of the Latin Union were to reopen their mints, silver would at once resume its former relation -with gold. The European countries when driven to full remonetization, as I believe they will be, must of necessity adopt their old ratio of fifteen and a half of silver to one of gold, and we shall then be compelled to adopt the same ratio instead of our former sixteen to one. For if we fail to do this we shall, as before, lose our silver, which like all things else seeks the highest market; and if fifteen and a half pounds of silver Avill buy as much gold in Europe as sixteen pounds will buy in America, the silver, of course, will go to Europe. But our line of policy in a joint movement with other nations to remonetize is very simple and very direct. The difficult problem is what we shall do when we aim to re-establish silver without the co-operation of European powers, and really as an advance movement to coerce them A Sound Currency. 115 there into the same policy. Evidently the first dictate of prudence is to coin such a dollar as will not only do justice among our citizens at home but will prove a protection — an absolute barricade — against the gold mono-metallists of Europe, who, whenever the opportunity offers, will quickly draw from us the one hundred and sixty millions of gold coin which we still hold. And if we coin a silver dollar of full legal tender, obviously below the current value of the gold dollar, we are opening wide our doors and inviting Europe to take our gold. And with our gold flowing out from us we are forced to the single silver standard and our relations with the leading commercial countries of the world are at once embarrassed and crippled. IV. IMPORTED AND CONTRACT LABOR. The Republican party, having its birth in a hatred of slave labor and in a desire that al may be free and equal, is unalterably opposed to placing our workingmen in competition Avith 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 offence against the spirit of American institutions, and we pledge ourselves to sustain the present law restricting Chinese immigration and to provide such further legisla- tion as is necessary to carry out its purposes. —i?e?m&Z/crt?» Platform, 1884. [The selections in tliis section have been taken from the speech delivered in the Senate, Februarij 14, 1879, and from the letter to William Lloyd Garrison published in the New York Tribune.] CHINESE IMMIGRATION. THE CHINESE QUESTION NOT NEW. As I said, the Chinese question is not new. We have had it here very often, and proceeding somewhat to the second brancli, I hxy down this principle, that, so far as my vote is concerned, I will not admit a man to immigration to this country that I am not willing to place on the basis of a citizen. Let me repeat that. We ought not to admit to this country of universal suffrage the immigration of a great people, great in numbers, whom we ourselves declare are utterly unfit to become citizens. What do you say on that point? In the Senate of the United States, on the fourth of July, 1870, a patriotic day, Ave were amending the naturalization laws. Wii had made all the negroes of the United States voters practically ; at Imported and Contract Labor, 117 least we had said they should not be deprived of suffrage by reason of race or color. We had admitted them all, and we then amended the naturalization laws so that the gentleman from Africa himself could become a citizen of the United States ; and an immigrant from Africa to-morrow, from the coast of Guinea or Senegambia, can be naturalized and made an American citizen. The Senator Trumbull moved to add: " Or persons born in the Chinese empire." He said : '• I liave offered this amendment so as to brinof the distinct (question before the Senate, whether they will vote to naturalize persons from Africa, and vote to refuse to naturalize those who come from China. I ask for the yeas and nays on my amendment." The yeas and nays were as follows on the question of whether we Avould ever admit a Chinaman to become an American citizen. The yeas were : Messrs. Fenton, Fowler, McDonald, Pomeroy, Rice, Robertson, Sprague, Sumner, and Trumbull — 9. The nays were : Messrs. Bayard, Boreman, Chandler, Conkling, Corbett, Cragin, Drake, Gilbert, Hamilton of Maryland, Hamlin, Harlan, Howe, McCreery, Morrill of Vermont, Morton, Nye, Osborn, Ramsey, Saulsbury, Sawyer, Scott, Stewart, Stockton, Thayer, Thurman, Tipton, Vickers, Warner, Wiley, Williams, and Wilson — 31. My friend from Rhode Island [Mr. Anthony] and the hon- orable chairman of the judiciary committee [Mr. Edmunds] are put among the absent, but there was a vote of 31 against 9 in a Senate three fourths Republican, declaring that the Chinaman never ought to be made a citizen. I think that 118 Words of James Gr. Blaine. settles the whole question, if that was a correct vote, because you cannot in our system of government as it is to-day, Avith safety to all, permit a large immigration of people who are not to be made citizens and take part in the government. The Senator from California tells us that already the male adult Chinese in California are more numerous than the white voters. I take him as an authority from his own State, and I should expect him to take my statement about my own State. It seems to me that if Ave adopt as a permanent policy the free immigration of those who, by overwhelming votes in both branches of Congress, we say shall forever remain politi- cal and social pariahs in a great free government, we have introduced an element that -we cannot handle. You cannot stop where we are ; you are compelled to do one of two things — either exclude the immigration of Chinese or include them in the great family of citizens. THE EASE OF REACHING CALIFORNIA FROM CHINA. Well, what about the question of numbers ? Did it ever occur to my honorable friend from Ohio that the vast myriads of millions almost, as you might call them, the incalculable hordes in China, are much nearer to the Pacific coast of the United States, in point of money and passage, in point of expense of reacliing it, than the people of Kansas ? A man in Shanghai or Song-Kong can be delivered at San Francisco more cheaply than a man in Omaha now. I do not speak of the Atlantic coast, where the population is still more dense; but you may take the Mississippi Valley, Imported and Contract Labor. 119 Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, all the great Commonwealths of that valley, and they are, in point of expense, further off from the Pacific slope than the vast hordes in China and Japan. I am told by those who are familiar with the commercial affairs of the Pacific side that a person can be sent from any of the great Chinese ports to San Francisco for something over $30. I suppose in an emigrant train over the Pacific Railroad from Omaha, not to speak of the expense of reaching Omaha, but from that point alone, it would cost $50 per head, and that would be cheap railroad fare as things go in this country. So that in point of practica- bility — in point of getting there — the Chinaman to-day has an advantage over an American laborer in any part of the country, except in the case of those who are already on the Pacific coast. Ought we to exclude them? The question lies in my mind thus : either the Anglo-Saxon race will possess the Pacific slope or the Mongolians will possess it. You give them the start to-day with the keen thrust of necessity behind them, and with the ease of transportation before them, with the inducements to come, while we are filling up the other portions of the continent, and it is entirely inevitable, if not demonstrable, that they will occupy that great space of country between the Sierras and the Pacific coast. They are them- selves to-day establishing steamship lines ; they are them- selves to-day providing the means of transportation ; and when gentlemen say that we admit from all other countries, where do you find the slightest parallel ? And in a Kepublic 120 Wo7\is of James Gr. Blaine. especially, in any government that maintains itself, the unit of order and of administration is in the family. The emi- grants that come to us from all portions of the British Isles, from Germany, from Norway, from Denmark, from. France, from Spain, from Italy, come here with the idea* of the family as much engraven on their minds and in their customs and in their habits as we have it. The Asiatic cannot go on with our population and make a homogeneous element. The idea of comparing European immigration with an immigration that has no regard to family, that does not recognize the relation of husband and wife, that does not observe the tie of parent and child, that does not have in the slightest degree the ennobling and the civilizing influ- ences of the hearthstone and the fireside ! Why, when gentlemen talk loosely about emigration from European states as contrasted with that, they certainly are forgetting history and forgetting themselves. THERE IS NEITHER VOLUNTARY IMMIGRATION NOR THE ESTABLISH- MENT OF HOMES. There has not been from the outset any immigration of Chinese in the sense in which immigration comes to us from Europe. It has all been " under contract " and through agencies, and if not in every respect of the Coolie type, the entire immigration from China has had the worst and most demoralized features of Coolieism. The Burlingame treaty specially " reprobated any other than an entirely voluntary immigration," and yet from the first Chinaman that came, in' Imported and Contract Labor, ■ 121 1848, to the last one that landed in San Francisco, it is safe to say that not one in one hnndred came in an " entirely vol- nntary " manner. Up to October 1, 1876, the records of the San Francisco custom-honse show that 233,136 Chinese had arrived in this conntry and that 93,273 had returned to China. The immigration since has been quite large, and allowing for returns and deaths, the best statistics I can pro- cure show that about 109,000 Chinese are in California and from 20,000 to 25,000 in the adjacent Pacific States and Ter- ritories. Of this large population fully nine tenths are adult males. The women have not in all numbered over seven thousand, and, according to all accounts, they are impure and lewd far beyond the Anglo-Saxon conception of impurity and lewd- ness. One of the best-informed Californians I ever met says tliat not one score of decent and pure women could ever have been found in the whole Chinese immigration. It is only in the imagined, rather I hope the unimagined, feculence and foulness of Sodom and Gomorrah that any parallel can be found to the atrocious nastiness of the Chinese quarter of San Francisco. I speak of this from abounding testimony — largely from those who have had personal opportunity to study the subject in its revolting details. In the entire Chinese population of the Pacific coast scarcely one family is to be found; no hearthstone of comfort, no fireside of joy; no father nor mother, nor brother nor sister ; no child reared by parents ; no domestic and ennobling influences ; no ties of affection. The relation of wife is degraded beyond all tlescription, the females holding and dishonoring that sacred 122 Words of James Gr, Blame. name being sold and transferred from one man to another, without shame and witliout fear ; one woman being at the same time the wife to several men. Many of these women came to San Francisco under written contracts for prostitu- tion, openly and shamelessly entered into. I have myself read the translation of some of these abominable documents. If as a nation we have the right to keep out infectious diseases, if we have the right to exclude the criminal chisses from coming to us, we surely possess the right to exclude that immigration whicli reeks with impurity and which cannot come to us without plenteously sowing the seeds of moral and physical disease, destitution, and death. CHINESE DO NOT BECOME AMEmCANIZED. The Chinese immigration to California began with the American immigration in 1848. The two races have been side by side for more than thirty years, nearly an entire gen- eration, and not one step toward assimilation has been taken. The Chinese occupy their own peculiar quarter in the city, adhere to their own dress, speak their own language, worship in their own heathen temples, and, inside the muni- cipal law and independent of it, administer a code among themselves, even pronouncing the death penalty and execut- ing it in criminal secrecy. If this were for a year only, or for two or five or even ten years, it might be claimed that more time was needed for domestication and assimilation ; but this has been going on for an entire generation and the Chinaman to-day approaches no nearer to our civilization than he did when the Golden Gate first received him. In Imported and Contract Labor, 123 sworn testimony before an investigating committee of Con- gress, Dr. Mears, tlie health officer of San Francisco, described as " a careful and learned man,' ' testified that the condition of the Chinese quarter is " horrible, inconceivably horrible ! " He stated that the Chinese as a rule " live in large tenement-houses, large numbers crowded into individ- ual rooms, without proper ventilation, with bad drainage, and underground, with a great deal of filth, the odors from Avhich are horrible." He described their " mode of taking a room ten feet high and putting a flooring half-way to the ceiling, both floors being crowded at night with sleepers. In these crowded dens cases of small-pox were concealed from the police." '' They live underground in bunks. The topography of that portion of Chinadom is such that you enter a house sometimes and think that it is a one-story house and you will find two or three stories down below on the side of the hill, where they live in great filth." Anotlier close and accurate observer, a resident of California, says: " The only wonder is that desolating pestilences have not ensued. Small-pox has often been epidemic, and could always be traced to Chinese origin. The Chinese quarter was once occupied by shops, churches, and dwellings of Americans. Now these are as thoroughly Mongolian as any part of Canton. All other races flee from the contact." Dr. Mears further testified and gave many revolting details in proof that the Chinese " are cruel and indiff'erent to their sick." He described cases of Chinese lepers at the city hos- pital : " Their feet dropped off by dry gangrene and their hands were wasted and attenuated. Their finger-nails 124 Words of James Gr. Blaine. dropped off." He said the Chinese were gi-adually working eastward and would by-aiid-by crowd into Eastern cities, where the conditions under which they live in San Francisco would produce, in the absence of its climatic advantages, destructive pestilence." Perhaps a Chinese quarter in Boston, with forty thousand Mongolians located somewhere between the south end and the north end of the city and separating the two would give Mr. Garrison some new views as to the power and right of a nation to exclude moral and physical pestilence from its borders. In San Francisco there is no hot weather, the thermometer rarely rising above 65°. One of the most intelligent physicians in the United States says -that the Chinese quarter of San Francisco transferred to Saint Louis, Chicago, Cincinnati, or any Eastern city, would in a hot summer breed a plague equal to the " black death " that is now alarming the civilized world. When Mr. Garrison says the immigration of Englishmen, Irishmen, Scotchmen, Frenchmen, Germans, and Scandinavians, must be put on the same footing as the Chinese Coolies, he con- founds all distinctions, and, of course without intending it, libels almost the entire white population whose blood is inherited from the races he names. All the immio-ration from Europe to-day assimilates at once with its own blood on this soil, and to place the Chinese Coolies on the same footing is to shut one's eyes to all the instincts of human nature and all the teachings of history. THE CHINESE POPULATION IS THE RUIN OF THE PACIFIC SLOPE. Is it not inevitable that a class of men living in this degraded and filthy condition, and on the poorest of food, Imported and Contract Labor. 125 can work for less than the American laborer is entitled to receive for his daily toil? Put the two classes of labor side by side and the cheap servile labor pulls down the more manly toil to its level. The free white laborer never could compete with slave labor of the South. In the Chinaman the white laborer finds only another form of servile competi- tion — in some aspects more revolting and corrupting than African slavery. Whoever contends for the unrestricted immigration of Chinese Coolies contends for that system of toil which blights the prospects of the white laborer — dooming him to starvation wages, killing his ambition by rendering his struggle hopeless, and ending in a plodding and pitiless poverty. Nor is it a truthful answer to say that this danger is remote. Remote it may be for Mr. Garrison, for Boston, and for New England, but it is instant and pressing on the Pacific slope. Already the Chinese male adults on that coast are wellnigh as numerous as the white voters of California, and it is conceded that a Chinese emi- grant can be placed in San Francisco for one half the amount required to transport a man from the Mississippi valley to the Pacific coast, and for one third what it requires for a New Yorker or a New Engiander to reach California or Oregon. The late Caleb Cushing, who had carefully studied the Chinese question, ever since his mission to Pekin in 1842 maintained that unless resisted by the United States the first general famine in China would be followed by an emi- gration to California that would swamp the white race. I observe that a New England newspaper — I specially regret that such ignorance should be shown in New England — 12G Words of James G-, Blaine. says it is only "a strip" on the Pacific that the Chinaman seeks for a home. The Chinese are ah-eady scattered in three States and two adjacent Territories whose area is larger than the original Thirteen Colonies. California alone is larger than New England, New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, and is capable of maintaining a vast population of Anglo-Saxon freemen if we do not surrender it to Chinese Coolies. Before the same committee of investigation from whose report I have already quoted, Mr. T. W. Jackson, a man of high character, who had traveled extensively in the East, testified that his stroma belief was "that if the Chinese felt that they were safe and had a firm footing in California they would come in enormous numbers, because the population of China is practically inexhaustible." Such, indeed, is the unbroken testimony of all who are entitled to express an opinion. The decision of Congress on this matter therefore becomes of the very last importance. Had it been in favor of Chinese immigration, with the encouragement and protec- tion which would liave that implied, it requires no vivid imagi- nation to foresee that the great slope between the Sierras and the Pacific would become the emigrating ground for the Chinese empire. So that I do not at all exaggerate when I say that on the adoption or rejection of the policy passed upon by Congress hangs the fate of the Pacific slope — whether its labor shall be tliat of American freemen or servile Mongolians. If Mr. Garrison thinks the interests of his own countrymen, his own government, and, in a still larger sense, the interests of humanity and civilization, will be promoted Imported and Contract Labor. 127 by giving up the Pacific to Mongoliaii labor, I beg respect- fully but firmly to differ from him. There is no ground on which we are bound to receive them to our own detriment. Charity is the first of Christian graces. But Mr. Garrison would not feel obliged to receive into his family a person that would physically contaminate or morally corrupt his children. As with a family so with a nation: the same instinct of self-preservation exists, the same right to prefer the interest of our own people, the same daty to exclude that which is corrupting and dangerous to the Republic ! THE TREATIES WITH CHINA. The outcry that we are violating our treaty obligations is without any foundation. The article on emigration in the treaty has not been observed by China for a single hour since it was made. All the testimony taken on the subject — and it has been full and copious — shows conclusively that the entire emigration was "under contract"; that the Coolies had been gathered together for export and gathered as agents in our Western States would gather live-stock for shipment. A very competent witness in California, speaking to this point, says that " On the arrival of the Chinese in California they are consigned like hogs to the different Chinese companies, their contracts are vised, and the Coolie commences to pay to the companies fees to insure care if he is taken sick and his return home dead or alive. His return is prevented until after his contract has been entirely fulfilled. If he breaks his contract the spies of the six companies hunt him to 128 Words of James Gr. Blaine. prevent his returning to China by arrangement with the steamship company or their accents in the steamship emph)y to prevent his getting a ticket. The agents of the steamslii[) companies testified to this same fact. If a ticket is obtained for him by others lie is forcibly stopped on the day of sailing by employees of the six companies, called ' high-binders,' who can always be seen guarding tlie Coolies." Mr. Joseph J. Ray, a Philadelphia merchant, long resident in China, and a close observer of its emigration, says " that tVVo of the Chi4iese who have reached our shores were not free agents in their coming. Files of the Hong-Kong news- papers from 1861 would supply information regarding the 'barracoons' at that port, and when the system had become too great a scandal, their removal to Macao (a Portuguese colony, forty miles distant), in which 'barracoons' the Chinese, in every sense prisoners, were retained until their shipment to San Francisco, Callao, Havana, etc. These, called by courtesy emigrants, were collected from within a radius of two to three hundred miles from Canton, and consisted of the abjectly poor, who, willing or not, were sold to obtain food for their families, or for gambling debts (the Chinese, as you are aware, being inveterate gamblers), or the scapegraces of the country, fleeing to avoid punish- ment." It is of course a mere misuse of terms to call this an "entirely voluntary emigration," and yet none other was permissible under tlie Burlingame treaty. Our government would be clearly justified in disregarding the treaty on the single ground that the Chinese government had never re- Imported and Contract Labor. 129 spectecl its provisions. But without any reference to that, our government possesses the right to abrogate the treaty if it judges that its continuance is " pernicious to the state." Indeed, the two pending propositions in the Senate differed not in regard to our own right to abrogate the treaty, but simply as to whether we should do it in July, 1879, by the exercise of our power without further notice to China, or whether we should do it in January, 1880, after notifying China that we had made up our minds to do it. Nearly a year ago Congress by joint resolution expressed its dis- content with the existing treaty, and thus clearly gave notice to the civilized wT)rld — if notice were needful — of the desire and intention of our people. In the late action of Congress the opposing proposition — moved as a substitute for the bill to which I gave my support — requested the President to notify the Emperor of China that Chinese immigration is "unsatisfactory and pernicious," and in effect if he would not modify the treaty as we desired, then the President should notify the emperor that after January 1, 1880, the United States will "treat the obnoxious stipula- tions as at an end." Both propositions — the bill that we passed and the substitute that we rejected — assumed alike the full right to abrogate the treaty. Whether it were bet- ter to abrogate it after last year's joint resolution, or to inform the Emperor of China directly that if he would not consent to the change "we would make it anyhow," must be relegated for decision to the schools of taste and etiquette. The first proposition resting on our clear constitutional power seemed to me a better mode of proceeding than to ask 130 Words of James Gr. Blaine. the Emperor of China to consent to a modification and informing him at the same time that, whether lie consented or not, we wouhl on next New Year's day treat '' the obnox- ious stipulations as at end." As to the power of Congress to do just what has been done no one will entertain a doubt who examines the whole question. An admirable summar}- of the right and powder is found in an opinion delivered by that eminent jurist, Benjamin R. Curtis, when he was a judge of the United States Supreme Court. Judge Curtis said: — " It cannot be admitted that the only method of escape from a treaty is by the consent of the other party to it or a decla- ration of war. To refuse to execute a treaty for reasons which approve themselves to the conscientious judgment of a nation is a matter of the utmost gravity ; hut the fower to do so is a prerogative of ivliicli no nation can he deprived without deeply affecting its independence. That the people of the United States have deprived their gt)vernment of this power I do not believe. That it must reside somewhere, and be applicable to all cases^ I am convinced, and I feel 7io doidtt that it helomj^ to Congress.^^ OUR CHINESE TRADE. A great deal has been said about the danger to our trade if China should resort to some form of retaliation. The natural and pertinent retaliation is to restrict American immigration to China. Against that we will enter no pro- test, and should have no right to do so. The talk about China closing her ports to our trade is made only by those who do not understand the question. Last year the total amount of our exports to all Chinese ports outside of Hong- Imported and Contract Labor, 131 Kong was about 1692,000. I have called Hong-Kong a Chinese port, hut every child knows that it is under Britisli control, and if we were at war with China to-day Hong- Kono- would be as open to us as Liverpool. To speak of China punishing us by suspending trade is only the sugges- tion of dense ignorance. We pay China an immense bal- ance in coin, and probably we always shall do it. But if the trade question had the importance which some have erro- neously attributed to it, I woidd not seek its continuance by permitting a vicious immigration of Chinese Coolies. The Bristol merchants cried out that commerce would be ruined if England persisted in destroying the slave trade. But history does not record that England sacrificed her honor by yielding to the cry. A THREAT AGAINST CHRISTIAN INSTITUTIONS. The enlightened religious sentiment of the Pacific coast views with profound alarm the tendency and effect of unre- stricted Chinese immigration. The "pastors and delegates of the Congregational churches of California" a year since expressed their " conviction " that '' the Burlingame treaty ought to be so modified hy the general governmeiit as to restrict Chinese immigration." Rev. S. V. Blakeslee, editor of the oldest religious paper on the Pacific coast, spoke thus in an official address: — "Moreover, wealthy English and American companies have organized great money-making plans for bringing millions — it is true — even millions — of these Chinese into our State, and into all parts of the Union ; and they have sent out emissaries into China to induce the people, by every 132 Wo7'ds of James G. Blaine, true and false story, to migrate here. Already hvo hundred avtd fifty thousand have come, of whom one himdred thousand remain. " The tendency of all this is tremendously toward evil ; toward vice and abomination; toward all opposed to the I rue spirit of Americanism, and is very dangerous to our morality, to our stability, and to our success as a people and a nation. Millions more of these Chinese must come if not prevented by any legal, or moral, or mobocratic restraint, increasing incalculably by numbers the evils already exist- ing, while a spirit of race prejudices and clanship jealousies and a conflict of interests must be developed, portending possible evil beyond all description." In regard to the process of converting and Christianizing this people, a missionary who has been in the field since 1849 testifies that not one in a thousand has even nominally pro- fessed a chajige froin heathenism, and that of this small number nearly one half had been taught in missionary schools in China. The same missionary says : " As they c une in still larger numbers they will more effectually sup- port each other in their national peculiarities and vices, become still more confirmed in heathen immoralities, with an influence in every respect incalculably bad." Under what possible sense of duty any American can feel that he pro- motes Christianity by the process of handing California over to heathenism is more than I am able to discover. CHEAP LABOR. I have heard a good deal about their cheap labor. I do not myself believe in cheap labor. I do not believe cheap Im2)orted and Contract Labor. 133 labor should be an object of legislation, and it will not be in a republic. You cannot have the wealthy classes in a republic where suffrage is universal legislate for cheap labor. 1 undertake to repeat that. I say that you cannot have the wealthy classes in a republic where suffrage is universal legislate in wdiat is called the interest of cheap labor. Labor should not be cheap and it should not be dear ; it sliould have its share and it will have its share. There is not a laborer on the Pacific coast to-day, I say that to my honorable colleague — Vvdiose whole life has been consistent and uniform in defence and advocacy of the interests of the laboi'tng-classes — there is not a laboring- man on the Pacific coast to-day who does not feel wounded and grieved and crushed by the competition that comes from this source. Then the answer is : " Well, are not American laborers equal to Chinese laborers ? " I answer that question by asking another. Were not free white laborers equal to African slaves in the South? When you tell me that the Chinaman driving out the free American laborer only proves the superiority of the Chinaman, I ask you, Did the African slave labor driving out the free white labor from the South prove the superiority of slave labor? The conditions are not unlike ; the parallel is not complete, and yet it is a parallel. It is servile labor ; it is not free labor such as we intend to develop and encourage and build up in this country. It is labor that comes here under a mortgage. It is labor that comes here to subsist on what the American laborer cannot subsist on. You cannot work a man who must have beef and bread, and would prefer beer, alongside of a man who can live on rice. It cannot be done. In all 134 Words of Ja/mes Gr. Blaine. siicli conflicts and in all sucli struggles the result is not to bring \ip the man who lives on rice to the beef-and-bread standard, but it is to bring down the beef-and-bread man to the rice standard. Slave labor degraded free labor ; it took outfits respectability; it put an odious cast upon it. It throttled the jDrosperitj of a fine and fair portion of the United States ; and a worse than slave labor will throttle and impair the prosperity of a still finer and fairer section (;!' the United States. We can choose here to-day whether our legislation shall be in the interest of the American free laborer or for the servile laborer from China. I feel and know that I am pleading the cause of the free American laborer and of his children and of his children's children. It has been well said that it is the cause of " the house against the hovel ; of the comforts of the freeman against the squalor of the slave." It has been charged that my position would arraign labor-saving machinery and con- demn it. This answer is not only superficial: it is also absurd. Labor-saving machinery has multiplied the power to pay, lias developed new wants, and has continually enlarged the area of labor and constantly advanced the wages of the laborer. But servile toil has always dragged free labor to its lowest level and has stripped it of one muniment after another until it was helpless and hopeless. Whenever that condition comes to the free laborer of America, the Republic of equal rights is gone, and we shall live under the worst of oligarchies — that of mere wealth, whose profit only measures the wretchedness of the unpaid toilsmen that produce it. V. THE NAVY AND THE MERCHANT MARINE. Wc uld regard them, the more latitudinarian, views of the Federal party. In regard to the protection and encouragement of manufactures there seemed to be no radi- cal difference between parties in the early period of the gov- ernment. On that issue, to quote a phrase used on another occasion, " they were all Federalists and all Republicans." Mr. Hamilton's celebrated report on manufactures, submit- ted in answer to a request from the House of Representatives of December, 1790, sustained and elaborated the views on which Congress had already acted, and brought the whole influence of the Executive Department to the support of a protective tariff. Up to that period no minister of finance among the oldest and most advanced countries of Europe had so ably discussed the principles on which national pros- perity was based. . The report has long been familiar to students of political economy, and has had, like all Mr. Ham- ilton's work, a remarkable value and a singular application in the developments of subsequent years. MR. HAMILTON SUSTAINED THE PLAN of encouraging home manufactures by protective duties, even to the point in some instances of making those " duties 178 Words of James 6r. Blaine. equivalent to proliibition." He did not contemplate a pro- hibitive duty as the means of encouraging a manufacture not already domesticated, but declared it " only fit to be employed when a manufacture has made such a progress, and is in so many hands, as to insure a due competition and an adequate supply on reasonable terms." This argument did not seem to follow the beaten path which leads to the protection of "infant manufactures," but rather aimed to secure the home market for the strong and well-developed enterprises. Mr. Hamilton did not turn back from the con- sequences which his argument involved. He perceived its logical conclusions and frankly accepted them. He consid- ered " the monopoly of the domestic market to its own manufacturers as the reigning policy of manufacturing nations," and declared that " a similar policy on the part of the United States in every proper instance was dictated by the principles of distributive justice, certainly by the duty of endeavoring to secure to their own citizens a reciprocity •'of advantages." He avowed his belief that '' the internal competition which takes place soon does away with everything like monopoly, and by degrees reduces the price of the article to the minimum of a reasonable profit on the capital employed. This accords with the reason of the thing and with experience." He contended that •■' a reduction has in several instances immediately succeeded the establishment of domestic manufacture." But even if this result should not follow, he maintained that " in a national view a tempo- rary enhancement of price must always be well compensated by a permanent reduction of it." The doctrine of protection, Protection for Home Industries. 179 even Avitli the enlarged experience of subsequent years, has never been more succinctly or more felicitously stated. Objections to the enforcement of the "protective " principle founded on a lack of constitutional power were summarily dis- missed by Mr. Hamilton as " having no good foundation." He had been a member of the convention that formed the Consti- tution, and had given attention beyond any other member to the clause relating to the collection and appropriation of revenue. He said the " power to raise money " as embodied in the Constitution "is plenary and indefinite," and "the objects for which it may be appropriated are no less compre- hensive than the payment of the public debts, the providing for the common defence and the general welfare." He gives the widest scope to the phrase "general welfare," and declares that " it is of necessity left to the discretion of the National Legislature to pronounce upon the objects Avhich concern the general welfare, and for which under that description an appropriation of money is requisite and proper." Mr. Hamilton elaborates his argument on this head with con- summate power, and declares that "the only qualification" to the power of appropriation under the phrase "general welfare " is that the purpose for which the money is applied shall "be general, and not local, its operation extendhig in fact throughout the Union, and not being confined to a par- ticular spot." The limitations and hypercritical objections to^ the powers conferred by the Constitution, both in the raising and appropriation of money, originated in large part after the authors of that great charter had passed away, and have been uniformly stimulated by class interests which were not developed when the organic law was enacted. 180 Words of James G. Blaine. SOME DETAILS OF MR. HAMILTON'S REPORT are especially iiiterestiiig in view of the subsequent develop- ment of manufacturing enterprises. " Iron works " he repre- sents as ''greatly increasing in the United States," and so great is the demand that '' iron furnished before the Revolu- tion at an average of sixty-four dollars per ton " was then sold at eighty. Nails and spikes, made in large part by boys, needed " further protection," as 1,800,000 pounds had been imported the previous year. Iron was wholly made by " charcoal," but there were several mines of " fossil coal " already " worked in Virginia," and a " copious supply of it would be of great value to the iron industry." Respecting " cotton " Mr. Hamilton attached far more consideration to its manufacture than to its culture. He distrusted the quality of that grown at home because so far from the equator, and he wished the new factories in Rhode Island and Massachu- setts to have the best article at the cheapest possible rate. To this end the repeal of the three-cent duty on cotton levied the preceding year was " indispensable." He argued that " not being, like hemp, a universal production of the coun- try, cotton aifords less assurance of an adequate internal supply." If the duty levied on glass should not prove suffi- cient inducement to its manufacture, he would stimulate it '' by a direct bounty." Mr. Hamilton's concejDtions of an enlarged plan of "protection" included not only "prohibitive duties," but when necessar}^, a system of "bounties and premiums" in addition. He was earnestly opposed to "a captitation tax," and declared such levies as an income tax to be " unavoid- Protection for Some Industries. 181 ably hurtful to industry." Indirect taxes were obviously preferred by him wherever they were practicable. Indeed upon any other system of taxation he believed it would prove impossible for the Republic of 1790 to endure the burden imposed upon the public treasury by the funding of the debt of the Revolution. More promptly than any other financier of that century, he saw that ten dollars could be more easily collected by indirect tax than one dollar by direct levy, and that he could thus avoid those burdensome exactions from the people which had proved so onerous in Europe, and which had just aided in precipitating France into bloody revolution. IMPORTANT AND RADICAL ADDITIONS to the revenue system promptly followed Mr. Hamilton's recommendations. From that time onward, for a period of more than twenty years, additional tariff laws were passed by each succeeding Congress .modif3ang and generally increasing the rate of duties first imposed and adding many new articles to the dutiable list. When the war of 1812 was reached, a great but temporary change was made in the tariff laws by increasing the entire list of duties one hun- dred per cent., simply doubling the rate in every case. Not content with this sweeping and wholesale increase of duty, the law provided an additional ten per cent, upon all goods imported in foreign vessels, besides collecting an additional tonnage ,tax of one dollar and a half per ton on the vessel. Of • course this was war legislation, and the act was to expire within one year after a treaty of peace should be 182 Words of James Gr. Blame. concluded with Great Britain. With the experience of recent days before him, the reader does not need to be reminded that under the stimulus of this extraordinary rate of duties manufactures rapidly developed throughout the country. Importations from England being absolutely stopped by reason of the war and a large part excluded from other countries by high duties, the American market was for the first time left substantially or in large degree to American manufacturers. With all the disadvantages which so sudden and so ex- treme a policy imposed on the people, the progress for the four years of these extravagant and exceptional duties was very rapid and undoubtedly exerted a lasting influence on the industrial interests of the United States. But the policy was not one which commanded general support. Other interests came forward in opposition. Xew England was radically hostile to high duties, for the reason that tliey seriously interfered Avith the shipping and commercial inter- est in which her people were largely engaged. Tlie natural result, moreover, was a sharp reaction, in which the protective principle suffered. Soon after the treaty of Ghent was signed movements Avere made for a reduction of duties, and the famous tariff of 1816 was the result. IN EXAMINING THE DEBATES on that important act it is worthy of notice that Mr. Clay, from an extreme Western State, was urging a high rate of duties on cotton fabrics, while his chief opponent was Daniel Webster, then a Representative from Massachusetts. An Protection for Home Industries. 18o additional and still stranger feature of the debate is found when Mr. Calhoun, co-operating Avith Mr. Clay, replied to Mr. Webster's free-trade speech in an elaborate defence of the doctrine of protection to our manufactures. Mr. Calhoun spoke with enthusiasm and gave an interest- ing resume of the condition of the country as affected by tlie war with Great Britain. He believed that tlie vital deficiency in our financial condition was the lack of manu- factures, and to supply that deficiency he was Avilling to extend the j)rotectiDg arm of the government. " Wlien our manufactures are grown to a certain perfection, as they soon will be under the fostering care of tlie government, we shall no longer experience these evils. The farmer will find a ready market for his surplus products and, what is almr.st of equal consequence, a certain and clieap supply for all his wants. His prosperity will diffuse itself through every class in the community.*' Not satisfied with this unqualified sup- port of the protective system, Mr. Callioun supplemented it by declaring that " to give perfection to this state of things it will be necessary to add as soon as possible a system of internal improvements." Mr. Webster's opposition to pro- tection was based on the fact that it tended to depress commerce and curtail the profits of the carrying trade. . . CONTRASTED CLAIMS. It is natural that both sides of tlie tariff controversy should endeavor to derive support for their principles from the experience of the country. Nor can it be denied that each side can furnish many ai^uments which apparently sus- 184 Words of James G. Blaine. tain its own views and theories. The difficulty in reaching a satisfactory and impartial conclusion arises from the inabil- ity or unwillingness of the disputants to agree upon a com- mon basis of fact. If the premises could be candidly stated, there would be no trouble in finding a true conclusion. In the absence of an agreement as to the points established, it is the part of fairness to give a succinct statement of the grounds maintained by the two parties to the prolonged con- troversy — grounds which have not essentially changed in a century of legislative and popular contention. It is maintained by free-traders that under the moderate tariff prevailing from the origin of the government to the war of 1812 the country was prosperous, and manufactures were developing as rapidly as was desirable or healthful. Protectionists, on the other hand, aver that the duty levied in 1789 was the first of uniform application throughout all the States, and that, regardless of its percentage, its influence and effect were demonstrably protective ; that it was the first barrier erected against the absolute commercial supremacy of England, and that it effectually did its work in establishing the foundation of the American system. In the absence of that tariff, they maintain that England, under the influence of actual free trade had monopolized our market and controlled our industries. Finally they declare that the free-traders yield the whole case in acknowledging that the first tariff imparted an impetus to manufactures and to commercial independence wholly unknown while the States were under the articles of confederation and unable to levy uniform duties on imports. Protection for Home Industries. 185 t.uiffof 1812, xvluch unduly stimulated and then inevitably .pressed the country. They assume this to be a preg,'ant them as to the reaefaon sure to follow an artificial stimulus gnen to any department of trade. The protectionists aeelnung to defend the war duties as applicabl to a o m i Mistake uluch precipitated the country into financial trouble Depression, hey say, would naturally have come; but it wa" hastened and increased by the inconsiderate manner in wl "l be duties were lowered in 1816. From that time onwa he protectionists claim that the experience of the count as favored their theories of revenue and financial adinhS trat 01 The country did not revive or prosperity reappear until the protective tariff of 1824 was enacted. "^The I" Unmg of all branches of industry by that act was further ^i^z^rf/T^ ''' -'-^ *'- i-t-tioiS:: pout as the perfected wisdom of their school. Mr. Clav publicly asserted that the severest depression he had wit- le tariff of 1824 and that the highest prosperity was durinf the seven years following that act ^ The free-traders affirm that the excitement in the South and he sectional resistance to the tariff of 1828 show the im- s;;S;'i"^'"'='''^"^ ''''' ^^"*-- t-- 1--*^! to riv ttl? ^" 7g»'»->t - Pegging the question, and is simply tantamount to admitting that protection is valuable if It can be upheld. The protectionists point to the fact hat 186 Wordii of James G. Blame, their system was not abandoned in 1832 upon a fair consid- eration of its intrinsic merits, but as a peace-offering to those who were threatening the destruction of the government if the duties were not lowered. Many protectionists believe that if Mr. Clay had been willing to give to General Jackson the glory of an absolute victory over the Nallifiers of South Carolina the revenue system of the country would liave been very different. They think, however, that the temptation to settle the question by compromise instead of permitting Jackson to settle it by force was perhaps too strong to be resisted by one who had so many reasons for opposing and hating the President. A MORE REASONABLE VIEW HELD by another school of protectionists is that Mr. Clay did the wisest possible thing in withdrawing the tariff question from a controversy where it was complicated with so many other issues • — some of them bitter and personal. He justly feared that the protective principle might be irretrievably injured in the collision thought to be impending. He believed, moreover, that the best protective lesson would be taught by permitting the free-traders to enforce their theories for a season, trusting for permanent triumph to the popular reaction certain to follow. There was nothing in the legislation to show that Mr. Clay or his followers had in any degree abandoned or changed their faith in protective duties or their confidence in the ultimate decision of the public judgment. The pro- tectionists aver that the evils which flowed from the free- trade tariff of 1833, thus forced on the country by extraneous Protection for Home Industries. 187 considerations, were incalculably great, and negatively estab- lished the value of the tariff in 1828 which had been so unfairly destroyed. They maintain that it l)roke down the manufacturing interest, led to excessive importations, threw the balance of trade heavily against us, drained us of our specie, and directly led to the financial disasters of 1837 and the years ensuing. They further declare that this distressing situation was not relieved until the protective tariff of 1842 was passed, and that thenceforward, for the four years in which that act was allowed to remain in force, the country enjoyed general prosperity — a prosperity so marked and widespread that the opposing party had not dared to make an issue against the tariff in States where there was larp-e investment in manufacturing. THE FREE-TRADERS CONSIDER THE TARIFF of 1846 to be a conclusive proof of the beneficial effect of low duties. They challenge a comparison of the years of its operation, between 1846 and 1857, with any other equal period in the history of the country. Manufacturing, they say, was not forced by a hot-house process to produce high- priced goods for popular consumption, but was gradually encouraged and developed on a healthful and self-sustaining basis, not to be shaken as a reed in the wind by every change in the financial world. Commerce, as they point out, made great advances, and our carrying trade grew so rapidly that in ten years from the day the tariff of 1846 was passed our tonnage exceeded the tonnage of England. The free- traders refer with especial emphasis to what they term the 188 Words of James Gr. Blaine. symmetviccal development of all the great interests of tlie conntiy nnder this liberal tariff. Manufactnres were not stimulated at the expense of the commercial interest. Both Avere developed in harmony, Avhile agriculture, the indis- pensable basis of all, was never more flourishing. The farmers and planters at no other period of our history were in receipt of such good prices, steadily paid to them in gold coin, for their surplus j)roduct, which they could send to the domestic market over our own railways and to the foreign market in our own ships. Assertions as to the progress of manufactures in the period under discussion are DENIED BY THE TROTECTIONISTS. While admitting the general correctness of the free-traders' statements as to the prosperous condition of the country, they call attention to the fact that directly after the enact- ment of the tariff of 1846 the great famine occurred in Ireland, followed in the ensuing years by short crops in Europe. The prosperity which came to the American agriculturist was therefore from causes beyond the sea and not at home — causes which were transient, indeed almost accidental. Moreover an exceptional condition of affairs existed in the United States in consequence of our large acquisition of territory from Mexico at the close of the war and the subsequent and almost immediate discovery of gold in California. A new and extended field was thus opened in which we had the monopoly, and an enormous surplus of money was speedily created from the products of the rich Protection for Home Industries. 189 mines on the Pacific coast. At the same time Europe was in convulsion from the revolutions of 1848, and production was materially hindered over a large part of the continent. This disturbance had scarcely subsided when three leading nations of Europe — England, France, and Russia — engaged in the wasteful and expensive war of the Crimea. This struggle began in 1853 and ended in 185G, and during those years it increased consumption and decreased production abroad, and totally closed the grainfields of Russia from any compe- tition with the United States. THE PROTECTIONISTS, THEREFORE, HOLD that the boasted prosperity of the country under the tariff of 184G was abnormal in origin and in character. It depended upon a series of events exceptional at home and even more exceptional abroad, events which by the doctrine of probabilities Avould not be repeated for centuries. When peace was restored in Europe, when foreign looms and forges were set going with renewed strength, when Russia resumed her export of wheat, and when at home the output of tlie gold mines suddenly decreased, the country was thrown into distress, followed by a panic and by long years of depression. The protectionists maintain that from 1846 to 1857 the United States would have enjoyed prosperity under any form of tariff, but that the moment the exceptional con- ditions in Europe and in America came to an end the country was plunged headlong into a disaster from which the con- servative force of a protective tariff would in large part have saved it. The protectionists claim, moreov.er, that in these 190 Words of James Gr. Blaine. averments they are not wise after the fact. The}^ show a constant series of argnments and warnings from leading teachers of their economic school, especially from Horace Greeley and Henry C. Carey, accurately foretelling the disastrous results which occurred at the height of what was assumed to be our solid and enduring prosperity as a nation. These able w^riters were prophets of adversity, and the inheritors of their faith claim that their predictions were startlingly verified. ENGLAND'S FREE TRADE. As contradistinguished from the theory of protection, England has realized freedom of trade by taxing only that class of imports whicli meet no competition in home produc- tion, thus excluding all pretence of favor or advantage to any of her domestic industries. England came to this policy after having clogged and embarrassed trade for a long period by the most unreasonable and tyrannical restrictions, ruth- lessly enforced, without regard to the interests or even the rights of others. She had more than four hundred acts of Parliament regulating the tax on imports, under the old designations of " tonnage and poundage," adjusted, as the phrase indicates, to heavy and light commodities. Beyond these, she had a cumbersome system of laws regulating, and in many cases prohibiting, the exportation of articles which might teach to other nations the skill by which she had her- self so marvelously prospered. When by long experiment and persistent effort England had carried her fabrics to perfection ; when by the large Protection for Home Indust^nes. 191 accumulation of wealth and the force of reserved capital she could command facilities which poorer nations could not rival ; when by the talent of her inventors, developed under the stin^nlus of large reward, she had surpassed all other countries in the magnitude and effectiveness of her machin- ery, she proclaimed free trade and persuasively urged it upon all lands with which she had commercial intercourse. Maintaining the most arbitrary and most complicated system of protection so long as her statesmen considerecf that policy advantageous, she resorted to free trade only when she felt able to invade the domestic markets of other countries and undersell the fabrics produced by struggling artisans who were sustained by weaker capital and by less advanced skill. So long as tliere was danger that her own marts might be invaded, and the products of her looms and forges undersold at liome, she rigidly excluded the com- peting fabrics and held her own market for her own wares. ENGLAND AVAS, HOWEVER, NEITHER CONSISTENT nor candid in her advocacy and establishment of free trade. She did not apply it to all departments of her enterprise, but only to those in Avhicli she felt confident that she could defy competitio]). Long after the triumph of free trade in manufactures, as proclaimed in 1846, England continued to violate every principle of her own creed in the protection she extended to her navigation interests. She had nothino- to fear from the United States in the dcnnain of maiur- factures, and she therefore asked us to give her the unrc- stricted benefit of our markets in exchange for a similar 192 Words of James G. Blaine. privilege which she offered to iis in her markets. But on the sea we were steadily gaining upon her, and in 1852-55 were nearly equal to her in aggregate tonnage. We could build wooden vessels at less cost than England and our ships excelled hers in speed. When steam began to compete with sail she saw her advantage. She could build engines at less cost than we, and when, soon after- wards, her shipbuilders began to construct the entire steamer of iron, her advantages became evident to the whole world. ENGLAND WAS NOT CONTENT, however, with the superiority which -these circumstances gave to her. She did not wait for her own theory of free trade^ to work out its legitimate results, but forthwith stimulated the growth of her steam marine by the most enormous bounties ever paid by any nation to any enterprise. To a single line of steamers running alternate weeks from Liver- pool to Boston and New York she paid 1900,000 annually, and continued to pay at this extravagant rate for at least twentv years. In all channels of trade where steam could be employed she paid lavish subsidies, and litarally destroyed fair competition, and created for herself a practical monopoly in the building of iron steamers and a superior share in the ocean traffic of the world. But every step she took in the development of her steam marine by tlie payment of bounty was in flat contradiction of the creed which she was at tlie same time advocating in those departments of trade where she could conquer her competitors without bounty. With her superiority in navigation attained and made secure through the instrumentality of subsidies, Protection for Home Industries. 193 ENGT.AND COULD AFFORD TO WITHDRAW THEM. Her ships no longer needed tliem. Thereupon, with a promptness which would be amusing if it did not have so serious a side for America, she proceeded to inveigh through all her organs of public opinion against the discarded and condemned policy of granting subsidies to ocean steamers. Her course in effect is an exact repetition of that in regard to protection of manufactures, but as it is exhibited before a new generation the inconsistency is not so readily appre- hended nor so keenly appreciated as it should be on this side of the Atlantic. Even now there is good reason for believing that many lines of English steamers, in their effort to seize the trade to the exclusion of rivals, are paid such extrava- gant rates for the carrying of letters as practically to amount to a bounty, thus confirming to the present day (1884) the fact that no nation has ever been so persistently and so jealously protective in her policy as England so long as the stimulus of protection is needed to give her the command of trade. What is true of England is true in greater or less degree of all other European nations. They have each in turn regulated the adoption of free trade by the ratio of their progress toward the point where they could overcome competition. In all those departments of trade where com- petition could overcome them they have been quick to inter- pose protective measures for the benefit of their own people. THE AMERICAN PROTECTIONIST DOES NOT SEEK TO EVADE the legitimate results of his theory. He starts with the proposition that whatever is manufactured at home gives 194 Words of James G. Blaine. work and Avages to onr own people, and that if the duty is even pnt so high as to prohibit the import of the foreign article, the competition of home prodncers will, according to the doctrine of Mr. Hamilton, rapidly reduce the price to the -onsumer. He gives numerous illustrations of articles wliich, under the influence of home competition, have fallen ill price below the point at which the foreign article was furnished when there was no protection. The free-trader replies that the fall in price has been still greater in the foreign market, and the protectionist rejoins that the reduc- tion was made to compete Avith the American product, and that the former price would probably have been maintained so long as the importer had the monopoly of our market. Thus our protective tariff reduced the price in both coun- tries. This has notably been the result with respect to steel rails, the production of which in America has reached a magnitude surpassing that of England. Meanwhile rails have largely fallen in price to the consumer, the home man- ufacture has disbursed countless millions of money among American laborers, and has added largely to our industrial independence and to the wealth of the country. While many fabrics have fallen to as Iowa price in the United States as elsewhere, it is not to be denied that articles of clothing and household use, metals and machinery, are, on an average, higher than in Europe. The difference is due in large degree to the wages paid to labor, and thus the question of reducing the tariff carries with it the very serious problem of a reduction in the pay of the artisan and the operative. This involves so many grave considerations Protection for Home Industries. 195 that no par.ty is prepared to advocate it openly. Free- traders do not, and apparently dare not, face the plain truth which is that the lowest-priced fabric means the lowest- priced labor. On this point protectionists are more frank than their opponents ; they realize that it constitutes indeed the most impregnable defence of their school. Free-traders have at times attempted to deny the truth of the statement ; but every impartial investigation thus far has conclusively proved that labor is better paid, and the average condition of the laboring man more comfortable, in the United States than in any European country. An adjustment of the protective duty to the point which represents the average difference between wages of labor in Europe and in America, will, in the judgment of protec- tionists, always prove impracticable. The difference cannot be regulated by a scale of averages because it is constantly subject to arbitrary changes. If the duty be adjusted on that basis for any given date, a reduction of wages would at once be enforced abroad, and the American manufacturer would, in consequence, be driven to the desperate choice of surrendering the home market or reducing the pay of work- men. The theory of protection is not answered, nor can its realization be attained, by any such device. Protection, iu the perfection of its design as described by Mr. Hamilton, does not invite competition from abroad, but it is based on the controlling principle that competition at home will always prevent monopoly on the part of the capitalist, assure good wages to the laborer, and defend the consumer against the evils of extortion. . . . 196 Words of James Gr. Blaine. THE ASSAILANTS OF PROTECTION APPARENTLY OVERLOOK the fact that excessive production is due, both in England and America, to causes beyond the operation of duties either high or low. No cause is more potent than the pro- digious capacity of machinery set in motion by the agency of steam. It is asserted by an intelligent economist that if performed by hand the work done by machinery in Great Britain would require the labor of seven hundred millions of men, a far larger number of adults than inhabit the globe. It is not strange that with this vast enginery power to pro- duce has a constant tendency to outrun the power to con- sume. Protectionists find in this a conclusive arcrument against surrendering the domestic market of the United States to the control of British capitalists, whose power of production has no ap2:)arent limit. When- the harmonious adjustment of international trade shall ultimately be estab- lished by " parliament of man " in " the federation of the world " the power of production and the power of consump- tion will properly balance each other ; but in traversing the long road and enduring the painful process by which that end shall be reached the protectionist claims that his theory of revenue preserves the newer nations from being devoured by the older, and offers to human labor a shield against the exactions of capital. VII. CIVIL SERVICE AND FOREIGN RELATIONS. The reform of the civil service, auspiciously begun under Republican aclmiuistra- Liou, should be completed by the fui'ther extension of the reformed system already established by law to a\\ the grades' of the service to Avhich it is applicable. The spirit and purpose of the reform should be observed in all executive appointments and all laws at variance with the objects of existing reformed 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 efl'ectually avoided. The Republican party favors a policy which shall keep iis from entangling alliances with foreign nations, and Avhich shall give the right to expect that foreign nations shall refrain from meddling in American affairs — the policy which seeks peace and trade with all powers, and especially with those of the Western hemisphere.— Repub- lican platform, 1884. ClVIIv-SERVICE REFOKM. {From an address delivered at Winterport, Maine.'] There are many reforms which I should be glad to see, and which I have for many years believed in. I should be glad to see every Federal officer, however honorable, appointed for a specific period, during which he could not be removed except for cause which cause should be specified, proved, and made matter of record. I should be glad to see the tenure of all subordinate officers made longer at least than a presidential term, so that the incoming of a new administration should not be harassed, annoyed, crippled, and injured by the distribution of offices. Seven years would be a good length of term, and would effect the desired end. It 1*J8 JVvnJs of James Cr. Blaine. would break joints with the presidential term, and would avoid the evil of which I have spoken. There are a great many honest advocates of reform in the civil service who believe in a life tenure for all subordinate officials. I have never been able to persuade myself that this would be wise, even if practicable, and I am quite sure that it is not practi- cable. Life tenure means a pension to the incumbent, and with a hundred thousand office-holders this would impose an intolerable burden on the tax-payer. It would create what might be termed a privileged class, which is always sure in the end to prove unpopular and odious in the eyes of the people. Nor do I believe it was ever demonstrated that life tenure insures the best, most faithful, and most honorable service. It. may often be Avise to retain a man in office fur all the years of his active life, but I believe he will be a better officer if his commission shall expire at stated periods and his efficiency shall be his claim of reappointment and continuance in our administration of State and county office. The gentleman who has practical charge of the treasury of Maine has been in his position forty-one years, his appointment being annually renewed in recognition of his ability and fidelity. Even with his strict integrity, I do not doubt that he has been a more careful officer than if he had been originally appointed for life, or a term of fortj^-one years. In the county of my residence we elected the same man annually for thirty-three years. He was a better officer than though he had been originally chosen to serve for the full generation during which he had honorably discharged Civil Service and Foreign Relations. 199 every duty. I believe, therefore, from such instances an these, and many others Avhich I could name, that it will prove a far easier task to educate public opinion to a renewal of appointment to efficient and valuable officers, with suffi- cient salaries to enable them to lay by something for a rainy day, than it will be to get , popular consent to life tenures, with pensions to a large civil list, constantly growing in numbers and amount, and constantly provoking opposition in the popular mind. A PEACE CONGRESS. {Extract from Mr. Blaine's despatch calling a Peace Congress, Kor ember 29, 7S81.] For some years past a growing disposition has been mani- fested by certain states of Central and South America to refer disputes affecting grave questions of international relation- ship and boundaries to arbitration rather than to the sword. It has been on several such 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 contention 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 goodwill and active co-operation of all the States of the 200 Words of James G. Blaine. Western hemisphere, both North and South, in the interest of humanity and for the commonweal of nations. He con- ceives 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 governments 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, and the strength of the ties whicli bind us all together as a great and harmonious system of American commonwealths. Impressed by these views, the President extends to all the independent countries of North and South America an ear- nest invitation to participate in a general Congress to be held in the city of Washington on the twenty-fourth day of November, 1882, for the purpose of considering and discussing the methods of preventing war between the nations of Amer- ica. He desires that the attention of the Congress shall be strictly confined to this one great object ; that its sole aim shall be to seek a way of permanently averting the horrors of cruel and bloody combat 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 struggles, the legacies of exhausted finances, of oppressive debts, of onerous taxation, of ruined cities, of paralyzed industries, of devastated fields, of ruthless conscription, of the slaughter Civil Service and Foreign Relations. 201 of men, of the grief of the widow and the orphan, of embittered resentments, that long survive tliose who provoke them and lieavily afflict the innocent generations that come after. FOREIGN" POLICY OF THE GARFIELD ADMINISTRATION. PEACE CONGRESS OF THE TWO AMERICAS. {Mr. Bldine's letter in the Chicago Weekly Magazine.) The foreign policy of President Garfield's administration had two principal objects in view: First, to bring about peace and prevent future wars in North and South Amer- ica; Second, t>) cultivate such friendly, commercial relations with all American countries as would lead to a large increase in the export trade of the United States, by supplying those fabrics in whicli we are abundantly able to compete with the manufacturing nations of Europe. To attain the second object the first must be accom- plished. It w^ouhl be idle to attempt the development and enlargement of our trade with the countries of North and South America if that trade were liable at any unforeseen moment to be violently INTERRUPTED P,Y SUCH WARS as that which for three years has engrossed and almost engulfed Chili, Peru, and Bolivia ; as that which was barely averted by the friendly offices of the United States between Chili and the Argentine Republic ; as that which has been 202 Words of James G-. Blaine, postponed- by the same good offices, but not decisively abandoned, between Mexico and Guatemala ; as that which is threatened between Brazil and Uruguay ; as that which is even now foreshadowed between Brazil and the Arofentine States. Peace is essential to commerce, is the very life of honest trade, is the solid basis of international prosj^erity ; and yet there is no part of the world where a resort to arms is so prompt as in tlie Spanish American Republics. Those Republics have grown out of the old colonial divi- sions, formed from capricious grants to favorites by royal charter, and their boundaries are in many cases not clearly defined and consequently aiford the basis of continual disputes, breaking forth too often in open war. To induce the Spanish American States to adopt some peaceful mode of adjusting their frequently recurring contentions was regarded by the late President as one of the most honorable and useful ends to which the diplomacy of the United States could contribute — useful especially to those States by securing permanent peace withiii all their borders, and useful to our own country by affording a coveted oppor- tunity for extending its commerce and securing enlarged fields for our products and manufactures. Instead of friendly intervention here and there, patching up a treaty between two countries to-day, securing a truce between two others to-morrow, it was apparent to the Presi- dent that A MORE COMPREHENSIVE PLAN should be adopted if war was to cease in the Western hemisphere. It was evident that certain European powers Civil Service and Foreign Relations. 203 had in the past been interested in promoting strife between the Spanish-American countries, and might be so interested in the future, while the interest of the United States was wholly and always on the side of peace with all our Ameri- can neighbors, and peace between them all. It was therefore the President's belief that mere incidental and partial adjustments failed to attain the desired end, and that- a common agreement of peace, permanent in its charac- ter and continental in its extent, should if possible be secured. To effect this end it had been resolved, before the fatal shot of July 2, to invite all the independent govern- ments of North and South America to meet in a Peace Con- gress at Washington. The date to be assigned was the fif- teenth of March, 1882, and the invitations would have been issued directly after the New England tour, which the Presi- dent was not permitted to make. Nearly six months later, on the twenty-second of November, President Garfield's successor issued the invitations for the Peace Congress in the same spirit and scoj)e and with the same limitations and restrictions that had been originally designed. As soon as the project was understood in South America IT RECEIVED A MOST CORDIAL APPROVAL, and some of ^ the countries, not following the leisurely routine of diplomatic correspondence, made haste to accept the invitation. There can be no doubt that within a brief period all the nations invited Avould have formally signified their readiness to attend the Congress ; but in six weeks after the invitations had gone to the several countries, 204 Words of James Gr. Blaine, President Arthur caused them to be recalled, or at least suspended. The subject was afterwards referred to Con- gress, in a special message, in which the President ably vin- dicated his constitutional right to assemble the Peace Con- gress, but expressed a desire that the legislative depart- ment of the government should give an opinion upon the expediency of the step before the Congress should be allowed to convene. Meanwhile the nations that received the invitations were in an embarrassing situation ; for after they were asked by the President to come, they found that the matter had been considered and referred to another department of the government. This change was univer- sally accepted as a practical though indirect abandonment of the project, for it was not from tlie first probable that Congress would take any action Avliatever upon the subject. The goodwill and welcome of the invitation would be destroyed by a long debate in the Senate and House, in which the question would necessarily become intermixed with per- sonal and party politics, and the project would be ultimately wrecked from the same cause and by the same process that destroyed the usefulness of the Panama Congress, more than fifty years ago, when Mr. Clay was Secretary of State. The time of congressional action would have been after the Peace Conference had closed its labors. The Con- ference could not agree upon anything that would be binding upon the United States, unless assented to as a treaty by the Senate, or enacted into a law by both branches. The assembling ol the Peace Conference, as Pres- ident Arthur so well demonstrated, was not in derogation Civil Service and Foreign Relations. 205 of any right or prerogative of the Senate or House. The. money necessary for the expenses of the Conference — which would not have exceeded ten thousand dollars — could not, by reason of propriety, have been refused by Congress. If it had been refused, patriotism and philanthropy would have promptly supplied it. The Spanish-American States are in SPECIAL NEED OF THE HELP which the Peace Congress would afford them. They require external pressure to keep them from war. When at war they require external pressure to bring them to peace. Their outbreaks are not onl}^ frequent, but are sanguinary and sometimes cruel. The inhabitants of those countries are a brave people, belonging to a race that has always been brave, descended of men that have always been proud. They are of hot temper, quick to take affront, ready to avenge a wrong whether real or fancied. They are at the same time generous and chivalrous, and though tending for years past to estrangement and alienation from us, they would promptly respond to any advance made by the great Repub- lic o'f the North, as they have for two generations termed our government. The moral influence upon the Spanish- American people of such an international assembly as the Peace Congress, called by the invitation and meeting under the auspices of the United States, would have jDroved bene- ficent and far-reaching. It would have raised the standard of their civilization. It would have turned their attention to the things of peace ; and the continent, whose undevel- 206 Words of James G-. Blaine. oped wealth amazed Humboldt, might have had a new life given to it, a new and splendid career opened, to its inhab- itants. Such friendly interventions as the proposed Peace Con- gress, and as the attempt to restore peace between Chili and Peru, fall within the line of both duty and interest on the part of the United States. Nations, like individuals, often require THP: AM) OF A COMMON FRIEND to restore relations of amity. Peru and Chili are in deplor- able need of a wise and powerful mediator. Though exhausted by w^ar, they are unable to make peace, and, unless they shall be aided by the intervention of a friend, political anarchy and social disorder will come to the conquered, and evils scarcely less serious to the conqueror. Our own gov- ernment cannot take the ground that it will not offer friendly intervention to settle troubles between American countries, unless at the same time it freely concedes to European gov- ernments the right of such intervention, and thus consents to a practical destruction of the Monroe doctrine, and an unlimited increase of European and monarchical influence on this continent. The late special envoy to Peru and Chili, Mr. Trescot, gives it as his deliberate and published conclu- sion that, if the instructions under which he set out upon his mission had not been revoked, peace between those angry belligerents would have been established as the result of his labors — necessarily to the great benefit of the United States. If our government does not resume its efforts to secure peace in. South America some European government Civil Service and Foreign Relations. 207 will be forced to perform that friendly office. The United States cannot play between nations the part of a dog in the manger. We must perform the duty of humane intervention ourselves, or give way to foreign governments that are willing to accept the responsibility of the great trust and secure the enhanced influence and numberless advantages resulting from such a philanthropic and beneficent course. A MOST SIGNIFICANT AND IMPORTANT RESULT would have followed the assembling of the Peace Congress. A friendship and an intimacy would have been established between the states of North and South America, which would have demanded and enforced a closer commercial connection. A movement in the near future, as the legiti- mate- outgrowth of assured peace, would, in all probability, have been a great commercial conference at the City of Mexico or at Rio Janeiro, whose deliberations would be directed to a better system of trade on the two continents. To such a conference the Dominion of Canada could pro- perly be asked to send representatives, as that government is allowed by Great Britain a very large liberty in regu- lating its commercial relations. In the Peace Congress, to be composed of independent governments, the Dominion could not have taken any part, and was consequently not invited. From this trade conference of the two continents the United States could hardly have failed to gain great advantages. At present the commercial relations of this country with the Spanish-American countries, both conti- ]iental and insular, are unsatisfactory and unprofitable — 208 Words of James Gr. Blaine. indeed, those relations are absolutely oppressive to the financial interests of the government and people of the United States. In our current exchanges it requires about one hundred and twenty millions of dollars to pay the balance which Spanish America brings against us every year. This amount is fifty per cent, more than the average annual product of the gold and silver mines of the United States during the past five years. This vast sum does not of course go to Spanish America in coin, but it goes across the ocean in coin or its equivalent, to pay European coun- tries for manufactured articles which they furnish to Spanish America — a large proportion of which should be furnished by the manufacturers of the United States. At this point of the argument the free-trader appears and declares that our protective tariff DESTROYS OUR TOWER OF COMPETITION with European countries, and that if we will abolish protec- tion we shall soon have South American trade. The answer is not sufficient, for to-day there are many articles which we can send to South America and sell as cheaply as European manufacturers can furnish them. It is idle, of course, to make this statement to the genuine apostle of free trade and the implacable, enemy of protection, for the great postulate of his argument, the foundation of his creed, is that nothing can be made as cheaply in America as in Europe. Never- theless, facts are stubborn and the hard figures of arithmetic cannot be satisfactorily answered by airy figures of speech. The truth remains that the coarser descriptions of cottons Civil Service and Foreign Relations. 209' and cotton prints, boots and shoes, ordinary household furni- ture, harness for draft animals, agricultural implements of all kinds, doors, sashes and blinds, locks, bolts and hinges, silver- ware, plated-ware, wooden-ware, ordinary papers and paper hangings, common vehicles, ordinary window glass and glass- ware, rubber goods, coal oils, lard oils, kerosenes, white lead, lead pipe and articles in which lead is a chief component, can be and are produced as cheaply in the United States as in any other part of the world. The list of such articles might be lengthened by the addition of those classed as " notions," but enough only are given to show that this country would, with proper commercial arrangements, export much more largely than it now does to Spanish America. In the trade relations of the world it does not follow that MERE ABILITY TO PRODUCE AS CHEAPLY as another nation insures a division of an established market, or, indeed, any partici]:)ation in it. France manufactures many articles as cheaply as England — some articles at even less cost. Portugal lies nearer to France than to England, and the expense of transporting the French fabric to the Portuguese market is therefore less than the transportation of the English fabric. And yet Great Britain has almost a monopoly in the trade of Portugal. The same condition applies, though in a less degree, in the trade of Turkey, Syria, and Egypt, which England holds to a much greater extent than any of the other European nations that are able to produce the same fabric as cheaply. If it be said in answer that England has special trade relations by treaty 210 Wo7%is of James G. Blaine. Avitli Portugal, and special obligations binding the other countries, the ready answer is that she has no more favorable position with regard to those countries than can be readily and easily acquired by the United States with respect to all the countries of America. That end will be reached when- ever the United States desires it and wills it, and is ready to take the steps necessary to secure it. At present the trade with Spanish America runs so strongly in channels averse to us that, besides our inability to furnish manufactured articles, we do not get the profit on our own raw products that are shipped there. Our petroleum reaches most of the Spanish- American ports after twice crossing the Atlantic, paying often a better profit to the European middle-man who handles it than it does to the producer of the oil in the northwestern counties of Pennsylvania. Flour and pork from the West reach Cuba by way of Spain, and though we bu}^ and consume ninety per cent, of the total products of Cuba, almost that jDroportion of her purchases are made in Europe — made, of course, with money furnished directly from our pockets. AS OUR EXPORTS TO SPANISH AMERICA grow less, as European exports constantly grow larger, the balance against us will show an annual increase, and will continue to exhaust our supply of the precious metals. We are increasing our imports from South America, and the millions we annually pay for coffee, wool, hides, guano, cinchona, caoutchouc, cabinet-woods, dyewoods, and other articles, go for the ultimate benefit of European manufac- Civil Service ayid Foreign Relatio7is. 211 turers who take the gold from us and send their fabrics to Spanish America. If we could send our fabrics our gold would stay at home, and our general prosperity would be sensibly increased. But so long as we repel Spanish Amer- ica', so long as we leave her to cultivate intimate relations with Europe alone, so long our trade relations will remain unsatisfactory and even embarrassing. Those countries sell to us very heavily. They buy from us very lightly. And the amount they bring us in debt each year is larger than the heaviest aggregate balance of trade we ever have against us in the worst of times. The average balance against us for the whole world in the five most adverse years we ever experi- enced was about one hundred millions of dollars. This plainly shows that in our European exchanges there is always a bal- ance in our favor, and that our chief deficiency arises from our maladjusted commercial relations with Spanish America. It follows that if our Spanish-American trade were placed on a better and more equitable foundation, it would be almost impossible, even in years most unfavorable to us, to bring us in debt to the world. With such heavy purchases as we are compelled to make from Spanish America, it could hardly be expected that we should be able to adjust the entire account by exports. But the balance against us of one hundred and twenty millions in gold coin is far too large and in time of stringency is a standing menace of financial disaster. It should not be forgotten that every million dollars of products or fabrics that we sell in Sj^anish America is a million of dollars in gold saved to our own country. The immediate profit is 212 Words of James Gr. Blaine. to the producer and the exporter, but the entire country realizes a gain in the ease and affluence of the money market which is insured by keeping our gold at home. The question involved is so large, the object to be achieved is so great, that no effort on the x^art of the government to accomplish it could be too earnest or too long continued. IT IS ONLY CLAIiNIED FOR THE PEACE CONGRESS, designed under the administration of Garfield, that it was an important and impressive step on the part of the United States towards closer relationship with our continental neighbors. The present tendency in those countries is towards Europe, and it is a lamentable fact that their people are not so near to us in feeling as they were sixty years ago when they threw off the yoke of Spanish tyranny. We were then a weak republic of but ten millions, but we did not hesitate to recognize the independence of the new gov- ernments, even at the risk of a war with Spain. Our foreign policy at that time was especially designed to extend our influence in the Western hemisphere, and the statesmen of that era — the era of De Witt, Clinton, and the younger Adams, of Clay and of Crawford, of Webster and Calhoun, of Van Buren and Benton, of Jackson and of Edward Liv- ingston — were always courageous in the inspiring measures which they advocated for the expansion of our commercial dominion. Threescore years have passed. The power of the Repub- lic in many directions has grown beyond all anticipation, but Civil Service and Foreign Relations. 213 WE HAVE RELATIVELY LOST GROUND in some great fields of enterprise. We have added thousands of miles to our ocean-front, but our commerce has fallen off, and from ardent friendship with Spanish America we have drifted into indifference if not into coldness. It is but one step further to reach a condition of positive unfriendliness, which may end in what would be equivalent to a commercial alliance against us. Already one of the most dangerous of movements — that of a European guaranty and guardian- ship of the Interoceanic Canal — is suggested and urged upon the great foreign powers by representatives of a South American country. If these tendencies are to be averted, if Spanish-American friendship is to be regained, if the com- mercial empire that legitimately belongs to us is to be ours, we must not lie idle and Avitness its transfer to others. If we would reconquer it a great first step is to be taken. It is the first step that costs. It is also the first step that counts. Can there be suggested a wiser step than the Peace Con- gress of the two Americas, that was devised under Garfield and had the weight of his great name ? In no event COULD HARM HAVE RESULTED from the assembling of the Peace Congress. Failure was next to impossible. Success might be regarded as certain. The subject to be discussed was peace, and how it can be permanently preserved in North and South America. The labors of the Congress would have probably ended in a well-digested system of arbitration, under Avhich all future 214 Words of James Cr. Blaine. troubles between American states could be quickly, effect- ually, and satisfactorily adjusted. Such a consummation would have been worth a great struggle and a great sac- rifice. It could have been reached without any struggle and would have involved no sacrifice. It was within our grasp. It was ours for the asking. It would have been a signal victory of philanthropy over selfishness of human ambition; a complete triumph of Christian principles as applied to the affairs of nations. It would have reflected enduring honor on our own country and— would have imparted a nev/ spirit and a new brotherhood to all America. Nor would its influence beyond the sea have been small. The example of seventeen independent nations solemnly agreeing to abolish the arbitrament of the sword, and to settle every dispute by peaceful methods of adjudication, would have exerted an influence to the utmost confines of civilization, and upon i;he generations of men yet to come. 2. J 3 vm. GARFIELD MEMORIAL. We lament the death of President Garfield, whose sound statemanship, so long con- spicuous in Congress, gave promise of a strong and successful administration — a promise fully realized during the short period of his oilice as President of the United States; and his distinguished success in war and peace have endeared him to the hearts of the American people. — National Republican Convention, 1884. 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 mnrdered 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 succes- sion 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. " Who- ever 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 it^ paroxysms of crime, 216 Words of James Cr. Blaine. as an infernal being, a fiend in the ordinary display and development of his character." From the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth till the uprising against Charles I, about twenty thousand emigrants came from Old England to New England. As they came in pursuit of intellectual freedom and ecclesiastical independ- ence 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 b}^ 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 Eng- land 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, and from a small emigration from Scotland, from Ireland, and from France, are descended the vast nnmbers 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 enter- prising of French subjects — merchants of capital, skilled manufacturers and handicraftsmen, superior at the time Garfield Memorial. 217 to all otliers 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 part become anglicized, or have disap- peared, but their blood is traceable in many of the most reputable families, and their fame is perpetuated in honora- ble memorials and useful institutions. From these two sources, the English-Puritan and the P>ench-Huguenot, came the late President — his father, Abram Garfield, being descended from the one, and his mother, Eliza Ballon, from the other. It Avas 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 noble- man reading his stately ancestral record in Bui'ke's Peerage, he spoke of himself as ninth in descent from those who would not endure the oppression of the Stuarts, the 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 searching out 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 ela- 218 Words of James G. Blaine. tion, that in every war in which for three centuries patriots of English blood had struck sturdy blows for constitutional government and human liberty, HIS FAISriLY 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. His father dyiiig before he was two years old, Garfield's early life 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 this destitution, none of these pitiful features ap})ealing 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 in a public speech, Mr. Webster bore this testimony : — " 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 snowdrifts of New Hampshire, at a period so early that when the smoke rose first from its rude chimney Garfield Memorial. 219 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 C-anada. Its remains still exist. I make to it an annual visit. I carry my children to it to teach tliem the hardships endured by the generations which have gone before them. T love to dwell on the tender recollections, the kindred ties, the early affections, and the touching narra- tives 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-oj)eration lighten the burdens of each, is a very different poverty, different in kind, different in influence and effect, from the 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 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 220 Words of James G. Blaine. the Republic. Garfield was born heir to land, to the title of freeliolder, 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 earn- ing 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 con- quered 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 famil}^ 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 G-arjield 3Iemorial. 221 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 eight- een years of age he was able to teach school, and thencefor- ward 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 labo- riously 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 fulness 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 di- ploma 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. 222 Words of James Gr. Blaine. within a period so brief and to a man so young, is without precedent or parallel in the history of the country. GARFIELD'S ARMY LIFE was begun with no other military knowledge than such as he had hastily gained from books in the few months pre- ceding his march to the field. Stepping from civil life to the head of a regiment, the first order he received when ready to cross to Ohio was to assume command of a brigade, and to operate as an independent force in Eastern Kentucky. His immediate duty was to clieck the advance of Humphrey Marsliall, who was marching down the Big Sandy with the intention of occupying, in connection Avith the other Con- federate 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 dis- couraging 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 extra- ordinary energy shown by Garfield, the courage he imparted to his men, raw and untried as himself, the measures he Garfield Memorial. 223 adopted to increase his force and 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 impor- tance, 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, Avith 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 ' )rds 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 224 Words of James G. Blai tne. second and decisive day's fight on the bloody field 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 Bnell, 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. This of itself was 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 witli modesty and shunned applause, wlio in the day of triumph sat reserved and silent and grateful, — as Francis Deak in the liour of Hungary's deliverance, — was Jose23h Holt, of Kentucky, who in his honorable retirement enjoys the respect and veneration of all wlio love the Union of the States. Early in 1863 Garfield was assigned to the highly impor- tant and responsible post of chief of-staff to General Rose- crans, 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 indis- creci man in such a position can sow more discord, breed Q-arjitld Memorial. 225 more jealousy, and disseminate more strife, than any other othcer 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 the Cumberland. The energy, the impartial- ity, and the tact, with which he sought to allay these dissen- sions, 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 mil/tary duties closed ox 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 a great promotion for 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 226 Wo7\is of James Gr. Blaine. 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 fifth day of December, 1863, and took his seat in the House of Representatives on the seventh. He had served two years and four months in the army, and had just comjDleted his thirty-second year. 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 Con- gress 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 repu- tations 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 divi- aarfield Memorial 227 sioii 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 Repre- sentatives ; there is no place where so little deference is paid to reputation previously acquired, or to eminence won out- side ; no place where so little consideration is shown for the feelings or the failures of beginners. What a man gains in the house he gains by sheer force of his own character, and if 228 Words of James G-. Blaine. he loses and falls back he must expect no ni^rcy, and will receive no sympathy. It is a field in which the survival of the strongest is the recognized rule, and where no pretence can deceive and no glamour can mislead. The Teal man is discovered, his worth is impartially weighed, his rank is irreversibly decreed. With possibly a single exception, Garfield w^as the YOUNGEST MEMBER IN THE HOUSE WHEN HE ENTERED and was but seven years from his college graduation. But he had not been in liis seat sixty days before his ability was recognized and liis 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 tlie Senate, and many of them have served with distinction in the gubernatorial cliairs 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 Avhich 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 appeared to be holding additional aarfield Memorial. 229 power af call. This is one of the happiest and rarest dis- tinctions of an effective debater, and often counts for as much, in persuading an assembly, as the eloquent and elabo- rate 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 neces- sarily 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 distin- guished by the same high order of talent which he exhibited on every field where he w\as 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 ser- vice in the House of Representatives. That service was exceptionally long. He was nine times consecutively chosen to the House, an honor enjoyed probably by not twenty other Representatives of the more than five thousand who have been elected from the organization of the government to this hour. 230 Words of James Cr. Blaine. 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 who 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 skilful. 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 Avas 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 Aveak 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 case aw^ay. But never in his pro- longed 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. (Garfield Memorial 231 These characteristics, which marked Garfielcl as a great debater, did not, hoAvever, make him a great parliamentary leader. A PARLIAMENTARY LEADER, as that term is understood wherever free representative gov- ernment 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 skilfully 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 against the right and the heavy battalions ; as when young Charles Fox, in the days of his Toryism, carried the House of Commons against justice, against its immemorial rights, against his own convec- tions, 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 achievement- of that kind Garfield was disqualified — 232 Words of .James Gr. Blaine. 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. Doug- las, and Mr. Thaddeus Stevens. They were all men of con- summate ability, of great earnestness, of intense personalit}^, differing widely each from the others, and yet with a single trait in common — the power to command. In the give-and- take of daily discussion, in the art of controlling and consoli- dating reluctant and refractory followers, in the skill to overcome all forms of opposition, and to meet with compe- tency 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 Presi- dent wdio 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 1810, and drove his admin- istration to seek shelter behind the lines of its political foes. Mr. Douglas achieved a victory scarcely less wonderful G-arfield Memorial, 233 v/hen, in 1854, against tlie secret desires of a strong adminis- tration, 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 con- tests from 1865 to 1868 actually advanced his parliamentarv leadership until Congress tied the hands of the President and governed the country hj its own will, leaving only perfunc- tory 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 Seward in tlie Cabi- net 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 unques- tioned leader. From these THREE GREAT MEN GARFIELD DIFFERED RADICALLY: differed in the quality of his mind, in teiiiperament, in the form and phase of ambition. Pie 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. 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 234 Words of James Gr. Blaine. that will prove valuable for future refereuce. His speeches are numerous, many of them brilliant, all of them well studied, carefully phrased, and exliaustive 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 events of the most important era through which the National Government has ever passed. When the history of this period shall l^e 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 com- prise a vast magazine of fact and argument, of clear anal- ysis 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 tliat, his speeches would be found to forecast many great measures yet to be com- pleted — 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 parliamentary leaders, Garfield Memorial. 235 IT IS NOT EASY TO FIKD HIS COUNTERPART anywhere in tlie record of American public life. He, per- haps, more nearly resembles INlr. Seward in his supren:!e faith in the all-conquering power of a principle. He had the love of learning, and the patient industry of investigation, to Avhich 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 Sen- ator without an intellectual peer. In English parliamentary history, as in our own, the lead- ers in the House of Commons present points cf essential difference from Garfield. But some of his methods recall the best features in the strong, independent course of Sir Robert Peel, to whom he had striking resemblances in the tj^pe of his mind and in the habit of his speech. He had all of Burke's love for the sublime and the beautiful, with, pos- sibly, something of his superabundance. In his faith and his magnanimit}^, 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 lie would relieve as bitterly as by those whose supposed rights he is forced to invade, still labors ^Aith serene courage for the amelioration of Ireland and for the honor of the English name. ■ Garfield's nomination to the presidency, while not pre- dicted or anticipated, was not a surprise to the country. 236 Words of James a. Blai atne. 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 slept well and is at the top of his condition, and thirty years old at his departure from Greenland, he Avill steer west and his ships will reach Newfoundland. 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 Eng- land. There is no chance in results." ^ As a candidate, Garfield steadily grew in popular favor. He was met Avith a storm of detraction at the very hour of his nomination, and it continued with increasing volume and momentum until tlie close of his victorious campaign : ''No might nor greatness in mortality Can censure 'scape ; backwounding calumny The whitest virtue strikes. What king so strong Can tie the gall up in the slanderous tongue ? " Under it all lie 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 five full months of vituperation — a prolonged agony of trial to a sensitive man, a constant and cruel draft G-ar field Memorial, 237 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 coun- try, 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 con- sumed the remainder. The younger voters had seen Mr. Greeley, in a series of vigorous and original addresses, pre- paring 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 liis seventy speeches. This seems all the more remarkable 238 Words of James G. Blaine. 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 misrepresenta- tion. 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 Presi- dent's time were distasteful to- him, and were unfavorably contrasted Avitli 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 govern- ment, 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 alwaj^s 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 dis- charge. From the very outset Crar field Memorial. 239 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 sur- prised 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 disposi- tion 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 Avhich 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 toward restoring HAEMONY 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 endeav- ored to arrange for a tri^^ to Nashville, whither he had been cordially iuA^ted, 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 C'.-v.- 240 Wo?'ds of James Gr. Blaine, pens. But for tlie autumn he definitely counted on being present at three memorable assemblies in the South ; the celebration at Yorktown, the opening of the Cotton Exposi- tion 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 devel- opment 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 suf- fering, the country Avas 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 attempt- ing rash experiments or of resorting to the empiricism of statesmansliip. But he believed that renewed and closer attention should be given to questions affecting the material interests and commercial prospects of fifty millions of peo23le. He believed that our continental relations, extensive and G-arfield Memorial, 241 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. Him- self 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 Ameri- can 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 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 242 Words of James G. Bhmie. be said, and said because his own speech is forever silenced and he can be no more heard except tlu^ough the fidelity and 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 har- bor 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 A2^Y 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 less subject to such influences from within or from without. But after 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. G-arfield Memorial. 243 More than this need not be said. Less than this coukl 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, immova- ble in his conclusions. 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 appar- ent, 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 towards 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 anticipated as the result of wider culture was fully realized. He was emancipated from mere sectarian belief, 244 Words of James G-. Blaine. 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 interpreta- tion, favored, if it did not stimulate, the spirit of investiga- tion. Its members profess with sincerity, and profess only, to be of one mind and one faith with those Avho -immediately followed the Master, and who were first called Christians at Antioch. But however high Garfield reasoned of " fixed fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute," lie was never separated from the church of the Disciples in his affections and in his asso- ciations. 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 organiza- tions with instinctive and undying 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 Grarfield Memorial. 245 SIMPLER INSTINCTS OF KELIGIOUS FAITH, which, earliest implanted, longest survive. Not many weeks before his assassination, walking on the banks of the Poto- mac with a friend, and conversing on those topics of personal religion, concerning which noble natures have an uncon- querable 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 liold on his memory and his heart. He heard, wdiile 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 all 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 UTTERANCE OF ST. PAUL. He referred often in after 3^ears to that memorable service, and dwelt with exaltation of feeling upon the radiant promise and the assured hope with wliich the great apostle of the Gentiles was " persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, 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 246 Words of James G-. Blaine. all tilings he had charity. Tolerance was of his nature. He respected in others the qualities which he possessed him- self — 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. ON THE MORNING OF SATURDAY, JULY SECOND, 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 un- Avonted 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 trouble 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 un- nerved 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 G-arfield Memorial. 247 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 forebodhig 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 frenzj- of wantonness and wicked- ness, by tlie 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 friendships, what bitter rending of sweet house- hold ties ! Behind him a proud, expectant nation, a great host of sustaining friends, a cherished and happy mother. 248 Wo7xIs of James G. Blame. 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, deso- lation 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 its prison walls, from its oppressive, stifling air, from its homelessness and its hopeless- ness. 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 G-arfield Meynorial. 249 sails, whitening in tlie 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 wrapt and parting soul may know. Let us believe that in the silence of the receding world he heard the great waves breaking on a farther shore, and felt already upon his wasted brow the breath of the eternal morning. IX. THE NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CONVENTION OF 1884. THE PLATFORM. The Republicans of the United States in National Conven- tion 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 admin- istration 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 purpose 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 equality of all men, for a United Nation, as- suring 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 con- The Rejjiihlican Convention. 251 spicuousness 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 peace have endeared him to the hearts of the American people. In the administration of President Arthur we recognize 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 all the 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 aff'ord 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 award, 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 stand- ard, 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 tlie ine- qualities of the tariff, and to reduce the surjDlus, not by the 252 Words of James Gr. Blaine. vicious and indiscriminate process of horizontal reduction, but by such methods as will relieve tlie taxpayer without injuring the labor 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 expe- riencing, 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 ahvays recommended the best money known to the civilized world, and we urge that efforts should be made to unit all commercial nations in the establishment of the in- ternational 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 dis- tinctly 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 people, and we favor legislation that shall prevent unjust discrimination and excessive charges for transportation, and that shall secure to the people and the railways alike the fair and equal protection of the laws. We favor the establishment of a national bureau of labor, The Repiihtican Convention. 253 tlie enforcement of the eiglit-hour law, 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 Ameri- can birth must be secured to citizens by American adoption, and we favor the settlement of national differences by inter- national arbitration. The Republican party, having its birth in a hatred of slave labor, and a desire that all men may be truly free and equal, is unalterably opposed to placing our workingmen in compe- tition with any form of servile labor, whether at home or abroad. In this spirit we denounce the importation of con- tract labor, whether from Europe or Asia, as an offence against the spirit of American institutions, and we pledge ourselves to sustain the present law restricting Chinese im- migration and to provide such further legislation as is neces- sary to carry out its purposes. Reform of the civil service auspiciously begun under Re- publican 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 appointmen-ts, and all laws at variance with the objects of existing reformed legislation should be repealed, to the end that the dangers of free institutions which lurk 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 254 Words of James Gr. Blaine, small holdings by actual settlers. We are opposed to the acquisition to 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 incorpora- tion, in all cases where there his been no attempt in good faith to perform the condition 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 begin Avith the date of disability or discharge, and not with the date of the application. The Republican party favors a policy wliich shall keep us from entangling alliances with foreign nations, and whicli gives us the right to expect that foreign nations shall refrain from meddling in American affairs — the policy wliich seeks peace and can trade with all powers, but especially those of the Western hemisphere. We demand the restoration of our navy to its oldtime 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 bur- dens under which American shipping has been depressed, so The Republican Convention. 255 that it may again ]:»e true that we have a commerce wliich leaves no sea unexplored, and a navy whicli 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 Territories 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 military if need be. The people of the United States, in their organized capacity, constitute a nation, and not a mere confe(]eracy of States. Tlie national government is supreme within tlie 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 kept inviolate. The perpetuity of our institutions rests upon tlie 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 tlie voter is defeated, as dangerous to the preservation of free institutions ; and we solemnly arraign the Democratic party as being the guilty recipient of fruits of such fraud and violence. We extend to the Republicans of the South, regardless of their former party affiliations, our cordial 25G Words of James Cr. Blaine. sympathy, and pledge to them our most earnest efforts to proJDote the passage of such legishition 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. THE NOMINATION OF MR. BLAINE. When the National Convention of the Republican party was called to order on June 6, 1884, in the great hall in the city of Chicago, and it was announced that balloting for a candidate was in order, there was the usual excitement, and the silent interest was most intense. As the States were called the friends of each candidate looked with eager eyes. When California gave sixteen votes for Mr. Blaine a storm of applause broke from the great audience, which was the signal for that kind of demonstration which cannot be sup- pressed in a great gathering where the interests of so mau}^ people are to be considered. The call proceeded, and when the result was announced showing 334 1-2 for Mr. Blaine, the hall was once more shaken with applause. The Convention was now thoroughly aroused. Mr. Curtis and his friends were determined to make any combination to defeat the popular choice, while a most conspicuous figure was William Walter Phelps, of New Jersey. Mr. Phelps is known not only as an able man, but as a scholarly and cul- tured man as well, and his influence was widely felt through- out the session. As the States were called, all eyes were upon Judge Foraker, of Ohio. It had been expected by some that a combination might be formed with one of the Shermans for The Repuhlican Convention. 257 a candidate, and other combinations were hoped for by the men who went to the convention to defeat Mr. Bhiine. But when the result of the second ballot was announced, it was seen that Mr. Blaine had made a substantial gain, his vote running to 349. The third ballot was called and the excitement was intense. All eyes turned toward Ohio again, but Foraker gave no visible sign of his intentions. The Kansas delega- tion lifted a banner bearing the name of Blaine ; it had brooms on each corner and a large broom in the centre. Im- mense enthusiasm was everywhere manifest for Mr. Blaine, and in the midst of the excitement it Avas announced that the Logan men would go for Blaine. William Walter Phelps tele- graphed to Augusta, and tlie Blaine men rested in confidence. The fourth ballot would decide the contest. A combination would be effected, or Mr. Blaine would carr.y the day. This was the feeling when it was announced that Mr. Blaine had 375 votes on the third ballot. The voting began amid great excitement. Obstructions were proposed, but they were swept out of the way. In the midst of this Senator Cullom attempted to read a dispatch from General Logan transferring his strength to Mr. Blaine. He was interrupted, but Illinois replied by casting tliirty-four votes for James G. Blaine. The story was told. Cheer upon cheer ran through the hall. The remainder of the voting only added weight to the victory for the Maine statesman. Seventy thousand people in the streets had caught the sound and their voices were heard inside the great building. There was a pause. The secretary arose and 258 Words of James Gr. Blaine. said : " The whole number of delegates, 820 ; the whole number of votes, 816 ; necessary for a choice, 411, of which Robert T. Lincoln received 2 ; John A. Logan, 7 ; Joseph R. Hawley, 15 ; George F. Edmunds, 41 ; Chester A. Arthur, 207 ; and James G. Blaine, 500 '' — He was heard no farther. Men and women rose in their places and a burst of applause went up, answered from without by another equally loud, to which was added the roar of cannon. James G. Blaine had received 544 votes and was nominee of the Republican National Convention. THE NEWS IX AUGUSTA. In four minutes after the despatch was received that James G. Blaine was nominated, a correspondent of The Boston Globe, in company with Mr. Blaine's intimate friend, Orville D. Baker, and C. C. Hunt, Esq., were quietly informing Mr. Blaine and his family of his nomination. The now nominee of the Republican party was quietly swinging in his hammock under a spreading apple-tree, and sitting around him were Mrs. Blaine and two of her daughters, Miss Stanwood (Mrs. lUaine's sister). Miss Dodge, Mr. and Mrs. Homan, Miss Manly, and Miss Johnson. This was the first authentic news received by the nominee of his selection. He refused a regular interview, saying he did not think it wise to answer questions or pat forward any views at present. His demeanor of quiet composure was in nowise disturbed from what it has been all through the past week. "I did not expect a definite result so soon," said Mr. Blaine ; " but the anxiety in regard to the nomination ques- tion, is over, at least," said he to Mr. Baker. The Hepublican Convention. 259 To Mr. Sprague, editor of his home paper, who at this moment put in an appearance, he said : " Well, no man in the country can say I schemed, or dictated, or traded, or had anything to do with this nomination or con- vention. I have asked no delegate to vote for me, have written to no man, not even to Mr. Manly, or Mr. John L. Stevens, or Mr. Bigelow, or my friend Homan here ; to no one have I said one word, in any way, manner, or shape that can in any way be construed to be a bid or a move toward this nomination." At this time the booming of the old cannon on the wharf at Hallo well, said to be one that was used on the Boxer during her fight with the Enterprise, gave the first boom for Blaine that was SOUNDED IX THE STATE OF MAINE. "Isn't this glorious?" cried Miss Dodge to some ladies who just drove up. The first congratulatory despatch received by Mr. Blaine was from General Cullis, of New York, and was sent before the final vote was taken. It Avas as follows : — To James G. Blaine^ — Allow me to congratulate you on your nomi- nation. Securities in Wall Street advance in proportion as your vote increases. Mr. Blaine and his entire family seemed just as quiet and unconcerned as ever, but as the crowd of friends increased and the streets around began to be crowded with village-folk shouting their huzzas and pushing to get the best view of 260 Words of James G. Blaine. the happy party on the lawn, the children began to show signs of excitement ; then Miss Dodge caught sound of the churchbells as they began to' ring ; this was followed by the shrieks of steam-whistles from factories and steamers on the river. The noise, as it increased, began to relax the severe strain which the entire family have held their over feelings, and one by one they grew more animated, a brighter light came to the eye, and the voices were raised a little higher. The air was filled with shouts of jo}^ as the throngs grew thicker on the streets. The bells and guns from Hallowell and Gardiner, two and six miles down the river, joined in the general din. Newspaper correspondents began to make their way along to the party on the lawn, and Mr. Blaine himself began to show the effects of the tremendous excite- ment as the crowd grew larger and the noise grew in volume. It seemed as though every workshop and store had emptied itself into the streets, and everybody was excited and jubi- lant. The Democrats caught the excitement and were inclined to feel that the selection of an Augusta citizen was at least an honor to good citizens, and they were willing to join in the glad celebration going on. CONGRATULATIONS HAVE POURED IN upon Blaine since five o'clock. Among the first to come were those of President Arthur and Senator Logan. Presi- dent Arthur sent the following : — Executive Mansion, Washington, D.C. Hon. James G. Blaine, — As the candidate of the Republican party you will have my earnest and cordial support. (Sio:ned) Chester A. Arthur. The Republican Conventiben: Zapp. X. W. CnneT. E. Parrish. ' J. Evans. A. Burket- H. L. Davis. Webster Flanao^an. TEXAS. Alexander Berge. A. J. Mallov. ^ Henry Carter. O. T. Lyons^. S. E. Cleaves. John S. Wituier. J. C Akers. L. W. Eenfrow. M. E. Fersruson. Henry Green. A. .J. Eosenthal. Xathan Patton. Henry Blunt. J. C. Degress. L. Hansiele. Bobert Campbell. J. M. C. Connell. Eedlield Pnxtor. Frederick Billings. VER310XT. Boughton D. Harris. Alonz » B. Valentine. Henrv Ballard. B. F. Fiiield. Tniuian C Fletcher. William Mabone. James D. Brady. Frank <. Blair. S. M. Yost. Amos A. DtKlson. William H. Pleasanti JJuS Green. L. E. Stewart. YIKGLS'lA. Harry Libby. Jordan Thompson. William C. Elam. J. Anderson Taylor. William E. Gaines. A. W. Harris. W. E. Sims. Winlield Scott. James A. Frazier. J. M. McLaughlin. L. S. Walker. J. J^. Dunn. E. L. Mitchell. Thomas G. Popham. H. C. Wood. D. F. Houston. • ' hn F. Dezendorf. B. B. Bans. William C. Wiekham H. C. Parsons. William H. Lester. -. P. Graham. X, Schroeder. VIEGLSXA. :STKAlGHTOL-TS. J. Callahan. John Carey. Otis H. EusseU. Lazarus Bibb. B. F. Williams. E. D. .Scott. J. B. Work. Henry Clay. A. M. Lauson. J. W. Cochran. E. O. Hines. W. W. Willoughby. C. C. ITiompkins. E. M. Eucker. TIte Republican Convention, 273 B. B. Dovener. W. 31. O. Dawson. E. L. Butrick. Warren sillier. WEST TTRGrSIA, CD. Thompson. T. Perry .Jacobs. A. C. Scneer. Lamar C. Powell. Xeil Robinson. J. W. Herner. B. .J. Eedmond. 31. C. C. Church. E. H. Brodhead. E. W. Keye>. Jonathan Bowman. Thomas B. Scott. H. A. Cooper. J. W. Sarles. W. T. Eambush. S. S. Barnev. wiscoxsix. Calvert Spensely. A. C. Dodge. F. C. Winckler. Edward Sanderson. J. H. Mead. C. E. Estabrook. A. M. KimbaU. C. B. Clark. C. M. Butt. O. F. Temple. George B. Shaw. Horace A. Taylor. Alexander Stewart. O. A. Ellis. ARIZONA. Clark Churchill. J. H. Stebbins. TERPJTOPJES. IDAHO. D. p. B. Pride. W. X. Shilling. UTAH. Eii H. Murray. Nathan Kimball. DAKOTA. W. E. Nelson. J. L. JoUv. MONTANA. W. F. Sanders. J. Mantle. WA5HIXGTOX. G. D. Hid. John L. Wilson. DIST. OF COLUMBIA. F. B. Conger. Perrr H. Carson. NEW MEXICO. W. H. Llewellyn. Eusrenio Romero. WTOMING. James France. John W. Weldrom. X, LETTER OF ACCEPTANCE. Augusta, Maine, July 15, 1884. The IIo7iorahle John B. Henderson and others of the Com- mittee^ etc. etc. Gentlemen^ — In accepting the nomination for the presi- dency tendered me by the Republican National Convention, I beg to express a deep sense of the honor which is conferred and of the duty which is imposed. I venture to accompany the acceptance with some observations upon the questions involved in the contest — questions whose settlement may affect the future of the nation favorably or unfavorably for a long series of years. In enumerating the issues upon which the Republican party appeals for popular support, the convention has been singularly explicit and felicitous. It has properly given the leading position to the industrial interests of the country as affected by the tariff on imports. On that question the two political parties are radically in conflict. Almost the first act of the Republicans, when they came into power in 1861, was the establishment of the principle of protection to American labor and to American capital. This principle the Republican party has ever since steadily maintained, while Letter of Acceptance, 275 on the other hand the Democratic party in Congress has for fifty years persistently warred upon it. Twice within that period our opponents have destroyed tariffs arranged for protection, and since the close of the Civil War, whenever they have controlled the House of Representatives, hostile legislation has been attempted — never more conspicuously than in their principal measure at the late session of Congress. THE TARIFF QUESTION. Revenue laws are in their very nature subject to frequent revision in order that they may be adapted to changes and modifications of trade. The Republican party is not con- tending for the permanency of any particular statute. The issue between the two parties does not have reference to a specific law. It is far broader and far deeper. It involves a principle of wide application and beneficent influence against a theory which we believe to be unsound in concep- tion and inevitably hurtful in practice. In the many tariff revisions which have been necessary for the past twenty- three years, or which may hereafter become necessary, the Republican party has maintained, and will maintain, the policy of protection to American industry, while our oppo- nents insist upon a revision wliich practically destroys that policy. The issue is thus distinct, well-defined, and unavoid- able. The pending election may determine the fate of protection for a generation. The overthrow of the policy means a large and permanent reduction in the wages of the American laborer, besides involving the loss of vast amounts of American capital invested in manufacturing enterprises. 276 Words of James Cr. Blaine. The value of the present revenue system to the people of the United States is not a matter of theory, and I shall sub- mit no argument to sustain it. I only invite attention to certain facts of official record which seem to constitute a demonstration. In the census of 1850 an effort was made, for the first time in our history, to obtain a valuation of all the property in the United States. The attempt was in large degree unsuc- cessful. Partly from lack of time, partly from prejudice among many who thought the inquiries foreshadowed a new scheme of taxation, the returns were incomplete and unsat- isfactory. Little more was done than to consolidate the local valuation used in the States for purposes of assessment, and that, as every one knows, differs widely from a complete exhibit of all the property. In the census of 1860, however, the work was done with great thoroughness — the distinction between " assessed " value and " true " value being carefully observed. The o-rand result was that the '' true value " of all the property in the States and Territories (excluding slaves) amounted to fourteen thousand millions of dollars (114,000,000,000). This aggregate was the net result of the labor and the savings of all the people within the area of the United States from the time the first British colonist landed in 1607 down to the year 1860. It represented the fruit of the toil of two hundred and fifty years. After 1860 the business of the country was encouraged and developed by a protective tariff. At the end of twenty years the total property of the United States, as returned Letter of Acceptance. 277 by the census of 1880, amounted to the enormous aggregate of forty-four thousand millions of dollars (844,000,000,000). This great result was attained, notwithstanding the fact that countless millions had in the interval been wasted in the progress of a bloody war. It thus appears that while our population between 1860 and 1880 increased 60 per cent, the aggregate property of the country increased* 214 per cent. — showing a vastly enhanced wealth per capita among the people. Thirty thousand millions of dollars ($30,000,000,000) had been added during these twenty years to the permanent wealth of the nation. These results are regarded by the older nations of the world as phenomenal. That our country should surmount the peril and the cost of a gigantic war and for an entire period of twenty years make an average gain to its wealth of one hundred and twenty-five millions of dollars per month surpasses the experience of all other nations, ancient or modern. Even the opponents of the present revenue system do not pretend that in the whole history of civilization any parallel can be found to the material progress of the United States, since the accession of the Republican party to power. The period between 1860 and to-day has not been one of material prosperity only. At no time in the history of the United States has there been such progress in the moral and philanthropic field. Religious and charitable institutions, schools, seminaries, and colleges, have been founded and endowed far more generously than at any previous time in our history. Greater and more varied 278 Words of James G. Blaine. relief has been extended to human suffering, and the entire progress of the country in wealth has been accompanied and dignified by a broadening and eleyation 'of our national character as a people. Our opponents find fault that our revenue system pro- duces a surplus. But they should not forget that the law has given a specific purpose to which all of the surplus is profitably and honorably applied — the reduction of the public debt and the consequent relief of the burden of taxation. No dollar has been wasted, and the only extrav- agance with which the party stands charged is the generous pensioning of soldiers, sailors, and their families — an ex- travagance which embodies the highest form of justice in the recognition and payment of a sacred debt. When re- duction of taxation is to be made the Republican party can be trusted to accomplish it in such a form as will most effectively aid the industries of the nation. OUR FOllEIGN COMMERCE. A frequent accusation by our opponents is that the foreign commerce of the country has steadily decayed under the influence of the protective tariff. In this way they seek t - array the importing interest against the Republican party. It is a common and yet radical error to confound the com- merce of the country with its carrying trade — an error often committed innocently and sometimes designedly — but an error so gross that it does not distinguish between the shi]) and the cargo. Foreign commerce rejDresents the exports and imports of a country regardless of the nationality of tlie Letter of AccejAance. 279 vessel that may cany the commodities of exchange. Our carrying trade has, from obvious causes, suffered many dis- couragements since 1860, but our foreign commerce has, in the same period, steadily and prodigiously increased — increased, indeed, at a rate and to an amount which abso- lutely dwarf all previous developments of our trade beyond the sea. From 1860 to the present time the foreign com- merce of the United States (divided with approximate equality between exports and imports) reached the astound- ing aggregate of twenty-four thousand millions of dollars (124,000,000,000). The balance in this vast commerce inclined in our favor, but it would have been much larger if our trade with tlie countries of America, elsewhere . referred to, had been more wisely adjusted. It is difficult even to appreciate the magnitude of our export trade since 1860, and we can gain a correct concep- tion of it onh^ by comparison with preceding results in the same field. The total exports from the United States from tlie Declaration of Independence in 1776 down to the day of Lincoln's election in 1860, added to all that had previously been exported from the American colonies from their original settlement; amounted to less than nine thousand millions of dollars (19,000,000,000). On the other hand, our exports from 1860 to the close of the last fiscal year exceeded twelve thousand millions of dollars (112,000,000,000) — the whole of it being the product of American labor. Evidently a pro- tective tariff has not injured our export trade when, under its influence, we exported in twenty-four j^ears forty per cent, more than the total amount that had been exported in 280 Words of James Gr. Blame. the entire previous history of American commerce. All the details, when analyzed, correspond ^Yith this gigantic result. The commercial cities of the Union never had such growth as they have enjoyed since 1860. Our chief emporium, the city of New York, with its dependencies, has within that period doubled her poptilation and increased her w^ealth five- fold. During the same period the imports and exports which have entered and left her harbor are more than double in bulk and value the whole amount imported and exported by her between the settlement of the first Dutch colony on the island of Manhattan and the outbreak of the Civil War in 1860. AGRICULTURE .VXD THE TARIFF. The agricultural interest is by far the largest in the nation, and is entitled in every adjustment of revenue laws to the first consideration. Any policy hostile to the fullest devel- opment of agriculture in the . United States must be aban- doned. Realizing this fact the opponents of the present system of revenue have labored very earnestly to persuade the farmers of the United States that they are robbed by a pro- tective tariff, and the effort is thus made to consolidate their vast influence in favor of free trade. But happily the far- mers of America are intelligent and cannot be misled by sophistry when conclusive facts are before them. They see plainly that during the past twenty-four years wealth has not been acquired in one section or by one interest at the expense of another section or another interest. They see that the agricultural States have made even more rapid pro- r^ress than the manufacturing States. Letter of Acceptance, 281 The farmers see that in 1860 Massachusetts and Illinois had about the same wealth — between eight and nine hun- dred million dollars each — and that in 1880 Massachusetts had advanced to twentj-six hundred millions, while Illinois had advanced to thirty-two hundred millions. They see that New Jersey and Iowa were just equal in population in 1860, and that in twenty years the wealth of Xew Jersey was increased by the sum of eight hundred and fifty millions of dollars, while the wealth of Iowa was increased by the sum of fifteen hundred millions. They see that the nine leading agri- cultural States of the West have grown so ]-apidly in pros- perity that the aggregate addition to their wealth since 1860 is almost as great as the wealth of the entire country in that year. Tliey see that the South, which is almost exclusively agricultural, has shared in the general prosperity, and that having recovered from the loss and devastation of war, has gained so rapidly that its total wealth is at least the double of that which it possessed in 1860, exclusive of slaves. In these extraordinary developments the farmers see the helpful impulse of a home market, and they see that the financial and revenue S3'stem, enacted since tlie Repub- lican party came into power, has established and constantly expanded the home market. They see that even in the case of Avheat, which is our chief cereal export, they have sold, in the average of the years since the close of the war, three bushels at home to one the}' have sold abroad, and that in the case of corn, the onl}^ other cereal which we export to any extent, one hundred bushels have been used at home to three and a half bushels exported. In some years the dis- 282 Words of James G-. Blame. parity lias been so great that for every peck of corn exported one hundred bushels have been consumed m the home market. The farmers see that in the increasing competition from the grainfields of Russia and from the distant plains of India, the growth of the hr.me market becomes daily of greater concern to them, and that its impairment would depreciate the value of every acre of tillable land in the Union. OUR INTERNAL COMMERCE. Such facts as these touching the growth and consumption of cereals at home give us some slight conception of the vastness of the internal commerce of the United States. They suggest, also, that in addition to the advantages which the American people enjoy from protection against foreign competition, they enjoy the advantages of absolute free trade over a larger area and with a greater population than any other nation. The internal commerce of our thirty- eight States and nine Territories is carried on without let or hindrance, without tax,- detention, or governmental •inter- ference of any kind whatever. It spreads freely, over an area of three and a half million square miles — almost equal in extent to the whole continent of Europe. Its profits are enjoyed to-day by fifty-six millions of American freemen, and from this enjoyment no monopoly is created. Accord- ing to Alexander Hamilton, when he discussed the same subject in 1790, " the internal competition which takes place does away with everything like monopoly, and, by degrees, reduces the prices of articles to the minimum of a reasonable profit on the capital employed." It is impossible to point to Letter of Acceptance. 283 a single monopoly in the United States that has been created or fostered by the industrial system which is upheld hj the Republican party. Compared with our foreign commerce these domestic exchanges are inconceivably great in amount — requiring merely as one instrumentality as large a mileage of railway as exists to-day in all the other nations of the world com- bined. These internal exchanges are estimated by the statistical bureau of the treasury department to be annually twenty times as great in amount as our foreign commerce. It is into this vast field of home trade — at once the creation and the heritage of the American people — that foreign nations are striving by every device to enter. It is into this field that the opponents of our present revenue system would freely admit the countries of Europe — countries into whose internal trade we could not reciprocally enter; coun- tries to which we should be surrendering every advantage of trade ; from which we would be gaining nothing in return. EFFECT UPON THE MECHANIC AND THE LABORER. A policy of this kind would be disastrous to the me- chanics and worldngmen of the United States. Wages are unjustly reduced when an industrious man is not able by his earnings to live in comfort, educate his children, and lay by a sufficient amount for the necessities of age. The reduction of wages inevitably consequent upon throwing our home market open to the world would deprive them of the power to do this. It would prove a great calamitj' to our country. It would produce a conflict between the poor 284 Words of James Gr. Blaine. and the rich, and in the sor^o^yful degradation of labor would plant the seeds of pubUc danger. The Republican party has steadily aimed to maintain just relations between labor and capital — guarding with care the rights of each. A conflict between the two has jilways led in the past and will always lead in the future to the injury of both. Labor is indispensable to the crea- tion and profitable use of capital, and capital increases the efficiency and yalue of labor. Whoeyer arrays the one against the other is an enemy of both. That policy is wisest and best which harmonizes the two on the basis of absolute justice. The Republican party has protected the free labor of America so that its compensation is larger than is real- ized in any other country. It has guarded our people against the unfair competition of contract labor from China, and may be called upon to prohibit the growth of a similar evil from Europe. It is obviously unfair to permit capitalists to make contracts for cheap labor in foreign countries to the hurt and disparagement of the labor of American citizens. Such a policy (like that which would leave the time and other conditions of home labor exclusively in the control of the employer) is injurious to all parties — not the least so to the unhappy persons who are made the subjects of the contract. The institutions of the United States rest upon the intelligence and virtue of all the people. Sufeage is made universal as a just weapon of self-pro- tection to every citizen. It is not the interest of the Republic that any economic system should be adopted which involves the reduction of wages to the hard standard Letter of Acceptance. 285 prevailing elsewhere. The Republican party aims to ele- vate and dignify labor — not to degrade it. As a substitute for the industrial system which, under Republican administrations, has developed such extraordinary prosperity, our opponents offer a policy which is but a series of experiments upon our system of revenue — a policy whose end must be harm to our manufacturers and greater harm to our labor. Experiment in the industrial and financial system is the country's greatest dread, as stability is its greatest boon. Even the uncertainty resulting from the recent tariff agitation in Congress has hurtfully affected the business of the entire country. Who can measure the harm to our shops and our homes, to our farms and our commerce, if the uncertainty of perpetual tariff agitation is to be inflicted upon the country? We are in the midst of an abundant harvest ; we are on the eve of a revival of general prosperity. Nothing stands in our way but the dread of a change in the industrial system which has wrought such wonders in the last twent}' years and which, v/ith the power of increased capital, will work still greater marvels of pros- perity in the twenty years to come. OUR FOREIGN POLICY. Our foreign relations favor our domestic development. We are at peace with the world — at peace upon a sound basis with no unsettled questions of sufficient magnitude to embarrass or distract us. Happily removed by our geo- graphical position from participation or interest in those questions of dynasty or boundary which so frequently dis- 286 Words of James Gr. Blaine. turb the peace of Europe, we are left to cultivate friendly relations with all and are free from possible entanglements in the quarrels of any. The United States has no cause and no desire to engage in conflict with any power on earth, and we may rest in assured confidence that no power desires to attack the United States. With the nations of the Western hemisphere we should cultivate closer relations, and for our common prosperity and advancement we should invite them all to join with us in an agreement that, for the future, all international troubles in North or South America shall be adjusted by impartial arbitration, and not by arms. This project was part of the fixed policy of President Garfield's administra- tion, and it should, in my judgment, be renewed. Its accomplishment on this continent would favorably affect the nations beyond the sea, and thus powerfully contribute, at no distant day, to the universal acceptance of the phil- anthropic and Christian principle of arbitration. The effect even of suggesting it for the Spanish-American States has been most happy and has increased the confidence of those people in our friendly disposition. It fell to my lot as Sec- retary of State in June, 1881, to quiet apprehension in the Republic of Mexico by giving the assurance in an official despatch that " there is not the faintest desire in the United States for territorial extension south of the Rio Grande. The boundaries of the two republics have been established in conformity with the best jurisdictional interests of both. The line of demarcation is not merely conventional. It is more. It separates a Spanish-American people from a Letter of Acceptance. 287 Saxon-American people. It divides one great nation from another v/itli distinct and natural finality." We seek the conquests of peace. We desire to extend our commerce, and in an especial degree with our friends and neighbors on this continent. We have not improved our relations with Spanish America as wisely and persistently as we might have done. For more than a generation the sympathy of those countries has been allowed to drift away from us. We should now make every effort to gain their friendship. Our trade with them is already large. During the last year our exchanges in the Western hemisphere amounted to 8350,000,000 — nearly one fourth of our entire foreign commerce. To those who mav be disposed to underrate the value of our trade with the countries of North and South America, it may be well to state that their population is nearly or quite 50,000,000 and that, in proportion to aggregate numbers, we import nearly double as much from them as we do from Europe. But the result of tlie whole American trade is in a high degree unsatisfactory. The imports during tlie past year exceeded $225,000,000, while the exports were less than $125,000,000 — showing a balance against us of more than $100,000,000. But the money does not go to Spanish 7^merica. We send large sums to EurojiC in coin or its e(|uivalent to pay European manufacturers for the goods whicli they send to Spanish America. We are but paymasters for this enormous amount annually to European factors — an amount which is a serious draft, in every financial depression, upon our resources of specie. 288 Words of James G-. Blaine. Cannot this condition of trade in great part be changed? Cannot the market for our products be greatly enlarged? We have made a beginning in our effort to improve our trade relations with Mexico, and we should not be content until similar and mutually advantageous arrangements have been successfully made with every nation of IS'orth and South America. While the great powers of Europe are steadily enlarging their colonial domination in Asia and Africa, it is the especial province of this country to improve and expand its trade with the nations of America. No field promises so much. No field has been cultivated so little. Our foreign policy should be an American policy in its broadest and most comprehensive sense — a policy of peace, of friendship, of commercial enlargement. ^ The name of American^ which belongs to us in our national capacity, must alwa^'s exalt the just pride of patriotism. Citizenship of the Republic must be the panoply and safe- guard of him who wears it. The American citizen, rich or poor, native or naturalized, white or colored, must every- where walk secure in his personal and civil rights. The Republic should never accept a lesser duty, it can never assume a nobler one, than the protection of the humblest man who owes it loyalty — a protection at home and pro- tection which shall follow him abroad, into whatever land he may go upon a lawful errand. THE SOUTHERN STATES. I recognize, not without regret, the necessity for speaking of two sections of our common country. But the regret Letter of Acceptance. 289 diminishes when I see that the elements which separated them are fast disappearing. Prejudices have yiekled and are yiekling, while a growing cordiality warms the Southern and the Northern heart alike. Can any one doubt that between the sections confidence and esteem are to-day more marked than at any period in the sixty years preceding the election of President Lincoln ? This is the result in part of time and in part of Republican principles applied under the favorable conditions of uniformity. It would be a great calamity to change these influences under which Southern Common- wealths are learning to vindicate civil rights, and adapting themselves to the conditions of political tranquillity and industrial progress. If there be occasional and violent outbreaks in the South against this peaceful progress, the public opinion of the country regards them as exceptional and hopefully trusts that each will prove the last. The South needs capital and occupation, not controversy. As much as any part of the North the South needs the full protection of the revenue laws which the Republican party offers. Some of the Southern States have already entered upon a career of industrial development and prosperity. These, at least, should not lend their electoral votes to destroy their own future. Any effort to unite the Southern States upon issues that grow out of the memories of the war will summon the Northern States to combine in the assertion of that nation- ality which was tlieir inspiration in the civil struggle. And thus great energies which should be united in a common in- dustrial development will be wasted in hurtful strife. The 290 Words of James Cr. Blaine. Democratic party shows itself a foe to Southern ^^rosperity h\ alwa3-s invoking and urging Southern political consolida- tion. Such a policy quenches the rising instinct of j^atriot- ism in the heart of the Southern youth; it revives and stimidates prejudice; it substitutes the spirit of barbaric vengeance for the love of peace, progi^ess, and harmony. THE CIVIL SERVICE. The general character of the civil ser\dce of the United States under all administrations has been honorable. In the one supreme test — tlie collection and disbursement of rev- enue — the record of fidelity has never been surpassed in any nation. With the almost fabulous sums which were received and paid during the late war, scrupulous integrity was the prevailing rule. Indeed, throughout that trying period, it can be said to the honor of tlie American name that unfaithfulness and dishonesty among civil officers were as rare as misconduct and cowardice on the field of battle. The growth of the country lias continually and necessarily enlarged the civil service, until now it includes a vast body of officers. Rules and methods of appointment which pre- vailed when the number was smaller have been found insufficient and impracticable, and earnest efforts have been made to separate the great mass of ministerial officers from partisan influence and personal control. Impartiality in the mode of appointment to be based on qualification, and security of tenure to be based on faithful discharge of duty, are the two ends to be accomplished. The public business will be aided by separating the legislative branch of the Letter of Acceptance. 291 government from all control of appointments and the exec- utive department will be relieved by subjecting appointments to fixed rules and thus removing them from the caprice of favoritism. But there should l)e rigid observance of the law which gives, in all cases of equal competency, the preference to the soldiers who risked their lives in defence of the Union. I entered Congress in 1863, and in a somewhat prolonged service I never found it expedient to request or recommend the removal of a civil officer except in four instances, and then for non-political reasons which were instantly conclusive with the appointing power. The officers in, the district appointed by Mr. Lincoln in 1861 upon the recommendation of my predecessor served, as a rule, until death or resigna- tion. I adopted at the beginning of my service the test of competitive examinations for aj^pointments to West Point and maintained it so long as I had the right by law to nomi- nate a cadet. In the case of many officers I found that the present law which arbitrarily limits the term of commission offered a constant temptation to changes for mere political reasons. I have publicly expressed the belief that the essen- tial modification of that law would be in many respects advantageous. My observation in the department of state confirmed the conclusions of my legislative experience and impressed me with the conviction that the rule of impartial appointment might with advantage be carried beyond any existing pro- vision of the civil-service law. It should be applied to appointments in the consular ser^dce. Consuls should be 292 Words of James G. Blaine. commercial sentinels, encircling the globe with watchful- ness for their country's interests. Their intelligence and' competency become, therefore, matters of great public con- cern. No man should be appointed to an American consul- ate who is not well instructed in the history and resources of his own country, and in tlie requirements and language of commerce in the country to which he is sent. The same rule should be applied even more rigidly to secretaries of legation in our diplomatic service. The people have the right to the most efficient agents in the discharge of public business, and tlie appointing power should regard this as the prior and ulterior consideration. THE MORMON QUESTION. Religious liberty is th.e right of every citizen of the Re- public. Congress is forbidden by tlie Constitution to make any law, " respecting the establishment of religion, or pro- liibiting the free exercise thereof." For a century, under this guaranty, Protestant and Catholic, Jew and Gentile, have Avorshiped God according to the dictates of conscience. But religious liberty must not be prevented to the justifi- cation of offences against the law. A religious sect, strongly intrenched in one of the Territories of the Union, and spreading radily into four other Territories, claims the right to destroy the great safeguard and muniment of social order, and to practise as a religious privilege that Avhich is a crime punished with severe penalty in every State of the Union. The sacredness and unity of the family must be preserved as the foundation of all civil government, as Letter of Aecej^tanee. 293 the source of orderly administration, as the surest guaranty of moral purity. The claim of the Mormons that they are divinely author- ized to practise polygamy should no more be admitted than the claim of certain heathen tribes, if they should come among us, to continue the right of human sacrifice. The law does not interfere with what a man believes; it takes cognizance only of what he does. As citizens, the Mormons are entitled to the same civil rights as others and to these they must be confined. Polygamy can never receive national sanction or toleration by admitting the community that upholds it as a State in the Union. Like others, the Mormons must learn that the liberty of the individual ceases where the rights of society begin. OUR CURRENCY. The people of the United States, though often urged and tempted, have never seriously contemplated the recognition of any other money than gold and silver — and currency directly convertible into them. They have not done sJ, they will not do so, under any necessity less pressing than that of desperate war. lire one special requisite for the completion of our monetary system is the fixing of the rela- tive values of silver and gold. The large use of silver as the money of account among Asiatic nations, taken in con- nection with the increasing commerce of the Avorld, gives the Aveig]iliest reasons for an international agreement in the premises. Our government should not cease to urge this measure until a common standard of value shall be reached and established — a standard that shall enable the United 294 ^ Words of James Cr. Blaine. States to use the silver from its mines as an auxiliary to gold in settling the balances of commercial exchange. THE PUBLIC LANDS. The strength of the Republic is increased by the multipli- cation of landholders. Our laws should look to the judicious encouragement of actual settlers on the public domain, Avhich should henceforth be held as a sacred trust for the benefit of those seeking homes. T4ie tendency to consolidate large tracts of land in the ownership of individuals or corpo- rations should, with j^i'oper regard to vested rights, be discouraged. One hundred thousand acres of land in the hands of one man is far less profitable to the nation in every way than when its ownership is divided among one thousand men. The evil of permitting large tracts of the national domain to be consolidated and controlled by the few against the many is enhanced wlien the persons controlling it are aliens. It is but fair that the public land should be disposed of only to actual settlers and to those w^ho are citizens of the Kepublic or willing to become so. OUK SHIPPING INTERESTS. Among our national interests one languishes — the foreign carrying trade. It was very seriously crippled in our Civil War, and another blow was given to it in the general substitu- tion of steam for sail in ocean traffic. AVith a frontage on the two great oceans, with a freightage larger than that of any other nation, \vg have every inducement to restore our naviga- tion. Yet the government has hitherto refused its help. A small share of the encouragement given by the government to Letter of Acceptance. 295 railways and to manufactures, and a small share of the capital and the zeal given by our citizens to those enterprises, would have carried our ships to every sea and to every port. A law just enacted removes some of the burdens upon our navigation and inspires hope that this great interest may at last receive its due share of attention. All efforts in this direction should receive encouragement. SACREDNESS OF THE BALLOT. This survey of our condition as a nation reminds us that material prosperity is but a mockery if it does not tend to preserve the liberty of the people. A free ballot is the safe- guard of Republican institutions, without which no national welfare is assured. A popular election, honestly conducted embodies the very majesty of true government. Ten millions of voters desire to take part in the pending contest. The safety of the Republic rests upon the integrity of the ballot, upon the security of suffrage to the citizen. To deposit a fraudulent vote is no worse a crime against constitutional liberty than to obstruct the deposit of an honest vote. He who corrupts suffrage strikes at the very root of free gov- ernment. He is the arch enemy of the Republic. He forgets that in trampling upon the rights of others he fatally imperils his own rights. "It is a good land which the Lord our God doth give us," but we can maintain our heritage only by guarding with vigilance the source of popular power. I am, with great respect, Your obedient servant, JAMES G. BLAINE. Sketch of the Life and Public Service OF JOHN ALEXANDER LOGAN. It would be impossible to understand the character of John A. Logan without understanding something of the life in which nearly all his days had been spent. Southern Illinois is a region variously estimated. It is known far and wide as Egypt, and the name is supposed to indicate the character of the land. The majority of people believe that the name was given on account of the intellectual darkness pervading the region, a supposition which I believe is without foundation. Traveling once from Effingham to St. Louis, my neighbor, who occupied the same seat, addressed me the question : — "IS NOT THIS THE SECTION KNOWN AS EGYPT?" I replied that it was, and he then asked me further questions about the soil, products, and habits of the people, for the section, as I told him, was my own home. He then pro- ceeded to relate the tradition that a famine once occurred in Kentucky, and that during the same year there was a bounti- ful supply of corn in Southern Illinois. The hungry Ken- tuckians came across the Ohio and loaded their barges with the generous ears of Indian corn, and remembering the 298 John A, Lou an. famine in the land of Canaan, and liow the Israelites wen down to Egypt to purchase corn, they gave the name o Egypt to the land that supplied their needs. Before tin journey was ended I found this pleasant gentleman, whom knew to be a Southern man from his manner, was Senato Wade Hampton, of South Carolina. The condition of Southern Illinois forty or fifty years ag( cannot be understood by those who visit that section now unless they are tempted to read the early history. Now, yoi have the rich cornfields of Cumberland and Coles, the wheat fields of Effingham, Jasper, and Jackson, the peach orchard of Centralia; and all through the region an abundance o grapes, apples, and small fruits, while on every prairie thi hedges of osage-orange are taking the place of the old Vii ginia fence, making the lanes green and beautiful. Th« villages are thrifty, churches are many, and the brick school house meets the eye at short intervals. THIS WAS NOT SO in John A. Logan's boyhood. The Illinois Central Railroac had not then pierced the rich stretches of the great corn-belt nor penetrated to the fruit-region that lies toward the Ohio The Pennsylvania Railroad had not thrown her iron spai across " the silvery Wabash," and the country was nearly i wilderness. Salt and dry-goods came in wagons from Terr^ Haute. The mail came to the post-office once a week, anc many went twelve miles to the post-office. The corn mil was a necessary adjunct, but in Mr. Logan's boyhood mill were sometimes too far apart to be relied on in mudd; John A. Logan. 299 weather, so that the settler cut a large tree in the neighbor- hood of his house, rounded the top of it into the shape of a bowl, and pouring in a peck of corn, beat it into meal with an iron mortar. Corn was grown in the field or clearing near at hand. Hogs were fattened on the acorns that fell from the trees in autumn, and any man who could load and shoot a gun might provide himself with venison, wild- turkey, and many other kinds of game. The amusements of these people were very few in number. The horserace was an institution brought from Kentucky. The husking was born to the soil. The dance was as dif- ferent from tliat of fashionable life as it is possible for the imagination to conceive. Of more intellectual entertain- iTients the spelling-match by common consent took the lead. The young man of that day was expected to ride a wild horse over the prairie at break-neck speed, to lift his share at the barn-raising, TO D.VXCE WITH THE COMELY GIRLS who came from near and far and stood on the floor of the log-cabin beneath the light of tallow-candles, with their hair combed back from fair foreheads, and their forms clothed in "linsey " dresses of home manufacture. Besides this it was expected that the champion fighter from some foreign neigh- borhood would be there ready for a fray, and every well- regulated young man who desired to stand well in the eyes of the fair must be prepared to defend his rights at all hazards. It was an easy, reckless, and in some respects happy 300 John A. Logan. life, decidedly Southern in all its tendencies, with much to condemn, but with a spirit of generosity never known in the colder regions of more thickly populated sections of the country ; and some men who dreamed the dream of ambition, while looking at night from the straw bed of the attic at the rafters of the dwelling, will never forget, amid all changes, the experiences of their youth. Amid such scenes was the youth of General Logan spent, and the main facts of his life are well expressed in the following lines taken from the Kennebec Daily Journal, a paper once under the editorial control of James G. Blaine. General Logan's father was a native of Ireland and his mother was born in Tennessee. Their honored son was born in Jackson County, Illinois, February 9, 1820. His educa- tional advantages were limited, his father furnishing the most of the early instruction which he receivedo Subsequently he was graduated at the Louisville University. When the Mexican War began he enlisted as a private in the Illinois volunteers, rose to be lieutenant and finally quartermaster. On returning home he began the study of law, was admitted to the bar, and connnenced practice in his native State. But his talents attracted attention and drew liim into politics. He was elected to the Legislature in 1852, 1853, 1856, and 1857. In his early life he was a Democrat, and was elected a presi- dential elector in the Buchanan campaign. Two years later he was sent to Congress. In 1860 he advocated the election of Stephen A. Douglas as President. He was elected to the Thirty-sixth and Thirty-seventh Congresses, but resigned his seat at the breaking out of the war, entered the Union army John A. Logan. 301 as colonel of volunteers, and by his bravery in many battles, his good conduct and soldierly qualities, reached the raidv of major-general before the close of the war. He entered the army as a Union Democrat but soon became an ardent Republican. HE TOOK THE FIELD with the thirty-first Illinois infantry in September, with McClernand's brigade. He had a horse shot under him at the battle of Belmont. He was engaged at Fort Henry, and in leading the assault at Fort Donelson was badly wounded. For gallant and effective service he was steadily promoted. He assisted Grant in the north- ern Mississippi campaign of 1862; and as major-general of volunteers commanded the third division, seventeenth army corps, under McPherson, in the movement against Vicksburg in 1863. Besides brave fighting at Port Gibson, he rendered noble service at Champion Hills. He succeeded General Sherman in command of the fifteenth corps in November, 1863, and made Huntsville, Alabama, his head- quarters. He joined the grand army, which was to march through Georgia the next year, and distinguished himself at Resaca, Dallas, and Kenesaw Mountain. At the battle of Atlanta he succeeded McPherson on the latter's fall, and with marked magnetism rallied the Union forces. After Sherman fairly started for the sea General Logan came North to make speeches for Lincoln and Johnson. He rejoined Sherman at Savannah, and shared in the grand review at Washington, in May, 1865. In 1865 lie was appointed minister to Mexico, but declined 302 Joltn A. Logan. the position. He was elected to the Fortieth and Forty-first Congresses, serving in the House until his election to the Senate in 1871, where he served until 1877, when he resumed the practice of law at Chicago. He was again elected to the Senate and took his seat March 18, 1879. His term of the Senate will expire March 3, 1885. In a brief sketch it is very difficult to give any adequate aiialysis of a strong man's character. But a few words may be said of General Logan in this regard. His history as a soldier HAS PROVED HIS BRAVERY. His early associations, coupled with his natural disposition, made him fearless of bullets. He is one of the men who always rode where missiles were flying, who always shared danger with his men, and who was as willing to sleep in a trench when shells were falling as in the parlors of a palatial residence. This endeared him to the common soldier. Though wearing the stars on his uniform he was one of the boys, and the veteran of to-day is always sure of a welcome when he approaches this hero of a score of battles. General Logan is a strong man intellectually considered. I say this in the face of any criticism that alleges a lack of culture on his part. It is true he is sometimes careless in his use of language, a fault indeed, but not sufficient to establish the claim that he lacks culture. A college president of my acquaintance always says "natur," and an eminent lawyer in New England, whose opinions are respected wherever read, is in the habit of saying "haow" John A. Logan, 303 • and "daown," with the old-fashioned New England accent. And while General Logan may retain certain habits that he formed when a boy, he is at the same a widely informed man, whose opinions are regarded in Congress, and whose hold on the confidence of the people is ver}^ firm. Alto- gether he is a man of culture, courage, and patriotism, whose history is known, and with a character untainted. THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE. The number of electors in the Electoral College, which will meet in December next, is 401. The number of electors in each State is as follows : — Alabama 10 Arkansas 7 California 8 Colorado 3 Connecticut 6 Delaware 3 Florida 4 Georgia 12 Illinois 22 Indiana 15 Iowa ......... 13 Kansas 9 Kentucky 13 Louisiana 8 Maine 6 Marjiand 8 Massachusetts 14 Michigan 13 Minnesota , 7 Mississippi 9 Missouri 16 Nebraska 5 Nevada 3 New Hampshire 4 New Jersey 9 New York 36 North Carolina 11 Ohio 23 Oregon 3 Pennsylvania 30 Ehode Island 4 South Carolina 9 Tennessee 12 Texas 13 Vermont 4 Virginia 12 West Virginia 6 Wisconsin ..,.,.. 11 lM^ ^C^c^ ^iZ^ J Aam^ et^ /iiy^J^ ^ ^ >^^^ d^^U. d/oaz. /2>J^ ^V^A.IsrTED! A.aENTS FOR Our New Work, Just Ready, "aWEAMS FOR THE HOME." With Introduction by Rev. JOHN HALL, D.D. This work has many of the finest gems of Prose and Song, bj- the ablest authors of all lands, and will please all that are so fortunate as to purchase a copy. Finely- Illustrated, moderate in Price, and truly a " Sunbeam for the Home." ALSO, ''Life aqd Labor!? of t H. ^purjeoi]." By GEORGE C. NEEDHAM, Evangelist, With Introduetioi:! by Rev. A. J. GORDON, D.D. One of the Best Family Bool^s Ever Published. ALSO THE NEW WORK, "STREET km% and Life Among the Eowly." BY GEORGE C. NEEDHAM. This work has no rival, and is of intense interest. Fully Illustrated. Just Ready. Will outsell nearly all other books. Thrilling and Dramatic. All people of every sect are full of its praise. The tone of the Book is wholesome and thoroughly Christian. The works noticed here should be bought by every household ; and Ministers, Students, Teachers, and all Avanting a good business, should write at once for Terms. D. L GUERNSEY, Publisher, Boston, Mass. The pero of a pundred Battle?. PATRIOT AND STATESMAN. lRfFe?8