FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY AT THE AGE OF SIXTY-FIVE. FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY DANIEL WOLSEYVOORHEES \\ * LECTURES, ADDRESSES AND SPEECHES COMPILED AND EDITED BY HIS THREE SONS AND HIS DAUGHTER HARRIET CECILIA VOORHEES A BRIEF SKETCH OF HIS LIFE BY JUDGE THOMAS B. LONG OF INDIANA Knowledge is power, the power to maintain free government and preserve constitutional liberty. * IN TWO VOLUMES Volume I Illustrated with portraits, Historical Scenes, INDIANAPOLIS AND KANSAS CITY THE BOWEN-MERRILL COMPANY 1898 V7 COPYRIGHT 1897 r.y THE BOWEN-MERRILL COMPANY PRESS OF CARLON & HOLLENBECK INDIANAPOLIS ANNA HARDESTY VOORHEES. TO THE MEMORY OF OUR MOTHER WHO LIVED BUT FOR THE HAPPINESS OF OTHERS THIS WORK IS REVERENTLY INSCRIBED PREFACE IN committing these volumes of Mr. Voorhees oratorical pro ductions during his more than forty years of unremitting labor, to the reading public, it is deemed fitting to state that the matter embraced by them has been selected with the view of indicating, so far as may be in this space, the exceptionally broad scope of his work and its finished and substantial character. The accompanying lectures are, however, all his work in that especial field of effort. While he was indentified with many celebrated causes in the courts of sixteen different states of the Union, it is believed that the forensic addresses here presented are amply illustrative of his marked and brilliant powers as a lawyer and an advocate. Such political and economic speeches, delivered during his thirty years service in the senate and house of representatives, are included as will, it is hoped, sufficiently exhibit his views upon the public questions of his times and his earnest and aggressive man ner of making them known. THE EDITORS. (vii) CONTENTS OF CHAPTERS CONTENTS VOL. I. DANIEL W. VOORMEES. A brief sketch by Judge Thomas B. Long, of Indiana, THE HOLY SEPULCHER, Or a lawyer s view of the divinity of Jesus of Nazareth. A lecture. Written near the close of Mr.Voorhees life, in refutation of the prevalent skepti cism of the day. A presentation to the people as a jury, by the dis tinguished advocate, of the facts surrounding and following the birth and life of Christ, and a forcible dem6nstration that man s reason, logically applied to them, must reach the same conclusion as faith alone 1 1 THOMAS JEFFERSON. A lecture. An analysis of the life and character of the illustrious statesman, of his relations to the Revolution, to the formation of the government, and to Washington, Hamilton, Adams and others of his time. His abolition of the law of primogeniture and establishment of religious freedom in Virginia. His relations to slavery. His mission to France. His study of its peasantry and their wrongs, in their own homes, and his relations to the French Revolution. The struggle for a monarchy in America. His unfaltering antagonism. In the cabinet. President. At Monticello 43 THE PUBLIC MEN OF MY OWN TIMES. A lecture. This is Mr. Voorhees last work, abruptly cut short by death, and left unfinished A narration of incident and analysis of character, largely based on personal knowledge, of the most interesting men whom he had known during his long public service. It contains the portrayal of Kossuth, Lincoln and Grant, each complete 78 (xi) Xii CONTENTS. PLUNDER OF ELEVEN STATES. Delivered in the house of representatives of the United States, March 23, 1872. A caustic Philippic against the maladministration of the local governments of the South placed in power by the federal government during the period of reconstruction ., 113 THE TARIFF. Delivered in the senate of the United States, March 19, 1890. How a pro tective tariff affects the farmer. Mr. Voorhees sympathies were strongly enlisted in behalf of the farmers, from whom he himself de scended, and he made this plea in their behalf, forcibly presenting his views of the injustice of protection. A contrast of its effect on the farmer and its effect on the manufacturer. The feast of Belshazzar. . 143 THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. Delivered in the senate of the United States, May 5, 1880. Mr. Voorhees first speech in advocacy of the erection of the grand new national library building at Washington. A history of the infancy, struggles, and maturity of the nation s superb collection of books 170 ARREARS OF PENSIONS FOR UNION SOLDIERS. Delivered in the senate of the United States, January 16, 1882, in earnest opposition to the effort then making, to repeal the arrears of pensions act and make the disabled soldier s pension begin from the date of filing his claim instead of from the date of his discharge from the serv ice, if not filed within a prescribed period. " We were not quite capa ble of saying to those who had been swift in battle that they should lose their pensions because they had been slow in peace to make their claims." Discrimination against the soldier by the government in pay ing its debts 187 PENSIONS FOR MEXICAN VETERANS. Delivered in the senate of the United States, April 14, 1880. " Thirty-four years ago he moved with the elastic step of youth to battle and to vic tory. He is now old, and waits from year to year for that recognition which, though it may be small in amount, is always dear to a soldier s heart." The mighty fruits of their conquest. The pension list of Great Britain 213 CONTENTS. Kill "THE CONFEDERATE BRIGADIER." Delivered in the senate of the United States, June 18, 1879. A refutation of the charge, made by Senator Elaine, of misconduct on the field of Buena Vista by one of Indiana s regiments. Senator Conkling and other republican leaders had also sternly denounced the democratic party for its alleged hostility to the federal soldier, laying great stress on the fact that there were only four federal soldiers in the senate, while there were many " Confederate brigadiers," whose presence, it was charged, was pregnant with evil to the country. These charges answered. The speech is a most happy illustration of Mr. Voorhees power as a debater 219 REPEAL OF THE PURCHASING CLAUSE OF THE "SHERMAN ACT." Silver and gold must be our coin standard. Delivered in the senate, Au gust 22, 1893. Mr. Voorhees was at this time chairman of the committee on finance. This speech, perhaps, better than any other of his many on that subject, shows his unswerving fidelity to silver as a money metal, and the consistency with his whole record of his method of effecting its restoration to an equality, in its use as such, with gold. 253 THE COINAGE AND USE OF SILVER ON THE SAME TERMS WITH GOLD. Delivered in the senate of the United States, January 28, 1896. The last set speech made by Mr. Voorhees in any forum. The restoration of silver to free coinage was the issue on which he was first elected to the senate, and his last formal declaration of principles in that body was of those on which he first entered it, nearly twenty years before 290 CAPTAIN SAMUEL CHESTER REID AND THE ENGAGEMENT OF THE BRIG ARMSTRONG. Delivered in the senate of the United States, April, 26, 1890. Opposition having unexpectedly appeared on the floor of the senate to the passage of a joint resolution providing for the acceptance by the United States of the battle sword of this warrior of the sea, and for the striking of a gold medal in his honor, Mr. Voorhees told the story of the glorious action of this immortal little vessel and her heroic commander with the British fleet in the Bay of Fayal on the 26th of September, 1814, and the resulting successful defense of New Orleans by Andrew Jack son 308 XIV CONTENTS. PROTECTION OF AMERICAN CITIZENS ABROAD. Delivered in the senate of the United States, April 14, 1882. A citizen of the United States, Daniel McSweeney, was arrested in Ireland, while temporarily residing there, by the British government, and without trial incarcerated in Dundalk jail as a " suspect / where, under circumstances of harsh oppression, our government had allowed him to languish with out succor or relief, and with indifference, for ten months. The speech is a patriotic rebuke of a foreign policy which makes it unsafe for an American citizen to venture outside of his own country, degrading the United States into an object of contemptuous regard among nations. A humiliating contrast with Marcy s policy. The Koszta case. The perfect equality of naturalized and native born citizens 317 ELECTION LAWS, OR LIBERTY AT THE BALLOT-BOX. Delivered in the senate of the United States, April 17, 1879, i support of a bill prohibiting military interference at the polls, and repealing the elec tion laws framed after the war, which put state elections under federal control. " I propose to demonstrate that all the parts of a complete and. systematic machinery for a successful revolution against every prin ciple of free government, against every reserved right of the states, and against the most hallowed safeguards of individual liberty are to be found in the malign legislation of the last fourteen years." The speech is a luminous picture of the operation of these laws and a striking expo sition of the foundations of free government 340 ILLUSTRATIONS VOL. I PAGE. DANIEL W. VOORHEES, AT THE TIME OF HIS DEATH Frontispiece. ANNA HARDESTY VOORHEES Dedication Page. FAC SIMILE OF INVITATION OF THE SENATE AND CABINET TO MR. VOORHEES TO DELIVER THE LECTURE ON "THE HOLY SEPULCHER " 11 THE HOLY SEPULCHER 11 THOMAS JEFFERSON 43 MONTICELLO, THE HOME OF JEFFERSON 58 THE TOMB OF JEFFERSON 75 Louis KOSSUTH 80 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 84 STATUE OF EMANCIPATION 95 ULYSSES S. GRANT 100 THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UNITED STATES 113 THE CAPITOL AT WASHINGTON 143 THE NEW BUILDING FOR THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS AT WASHINGTON 170 THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS IN THE CAPITOL BUILDING 173 MAIN READING ROOM OF THE NEW LIBRARY BUILDING 178 GRAND STAIR-CASE HALL OF THE NEW LIBRARY BUILDING 183 THE PENSION BUILDING AT WASHINGTON 187 INTERIOR OF THE PENSION BUILDING 200 DANIEL W. VOORHEES, WHEN HE ENTERED THE SENATE 219 JAMES G. ELAINE 225 ROSCOE CONKLING 231 JOSEPH E. MCDONALD 237 AMBROSE E. BURNSIDE 243 FINANCE COMMITTEE ROOM, UNITED STATES SENATE 253 THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 290 SAMUEL CHESTER REID 308 JOHN PAUL JONES 315 THE DEPARTMENT OF STATE AT WASHINGTON 317 WILLIAM L. MARGY 334 (XV) DANIEL W. VOORHEES BY JUDGE THOMAS B. LONG OF INDIANA O abide in the hearts and affections of our fel low-men is the most gracious lodgment we can establish during the years of our exist ence in this life ; and to be treasured in the minds and memories of our friends and neighbors after we have been released from the responsibilities and bur dens of humanity is a grateful anticipation to us all. These longings are common to human nature ; and as all men, however humble or exalted, have personal friends and social surroundings, the desire of the heart to this ex tent is accomplished towards almost every soul on earth. But as the field of human usefulness is greatly enlarged to some, and the influence in the direction of good deeds and noble purposes grows broader, and the power of accom plishing useful ends increases in an equal ratio the love of our fellows and the esteem of the public center upon and embrace some fortunate subject, and surround him with a broader cordon of love and affection in the honor (0 2 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. paid him by his countrymen throughout the land. So that, if one can look forward to the time when he shall no longer tread the pathway of life beside his dearest personal friends, or move along its highways amid the plaudits of an admiring public, and yet feel certain that he shall still re tain the love of the former and the honor and esteem of the others, he may see with prophetic eye that, even though all his purposes and aims have not been accomplished, his life has been an unusual success, and he has indeed secured the best rewards of human effort, and the noblest crown that human love can invest him with. We mourn the death of one whose memory is thus em balmed with the love of his personal friends who were legion and who will stand for ages an ideal figure, crowned by the public whom he has so long and faithfully served. The Hon. Daniel W. Voorhees died at the city of Washington in the early morning of April 10, 1897. Un der the solemn announcement of this dread truth we stand appalled and subdued. Our latest advices had been that he was reasonably sure of complete restoration to health, and had already engaged in a peculiar literary labor through which, in his increasing vigor and activity, it was his purpose to instruct and delight his fellow-citizens his friends and admirers throughout the land. Nevertheless, . with the prospect of many years of earnest life and useful labor before him, he sank in a moment under the swift and relentless stroke of the fell destroyer. He has joined beyond the sky the gentle lady, his wife, long loved, long mourned on earth. Under all these circumstances, we in- DANIEL W. VOORHEES. .3 voluntarily recall the truly said, yet beautiful and impress ive, lines of the poet : " Leaves have their time to fall, And flowers to wither at the North Wind s breath, And stars to set, but all Thou hast all seasons for thine own, O Death. " We know when moons shall wane, When summer birds from far shall cross the sea, When autumn s hues tinge the ripening grain But who shall tell us when to look for Thee ? " Now that the certainty grows upon us that he has passed from us here forever, never again to be with us and of us ; that his noble and manly form shall not even once more stand with commanding presence in our forums, nor his sympathetic, thrilling and elegant utterances be heard among us in social or in public life, there is nothing we can do in this solemn providence but to give expression to what must be but a feeble tribute of our profound and overwhelming sorrow. To combine a life of one who was an incessant and in fluential participant, for more than forty years, in affairs of national interest, with a just and fully illustrative preserva tion of those graces of oratory and accomplishments of high intellectuality that filled the wide definitions of his manhood, could but result in a far too scant portrayal of such a man, if attempted within the limits of one publica tion ; and even to sketch his career in this his home during all the growing and crowning years of his earnest and useful existence would be no more than the utterance of household words. To recount the story of his professional achievements, his great forensic contests and triumphs, 4 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. would be to rehearse the most familiar tales to memories yet fresh and alive with all their details ; while to attempt to condense into the brief limit of this occasion the great story of his public services, his stupendous and lengthened labors for his fellows and his country in the halls of the na tional legislature, his great deeds and noble accomplish ments in the advancement of the welfare of his fellow-citi zens, and the maintenance of the honor and integrity of the government of the United States, would be to vainly invade the province of history where all these are already embalmed, and will continue on record forever. It is enough to point to a few overshadowing features and epochs as an epitome of his great career. He was born September 26, 1827, in Butler county, Ohio, shortly after which his parents moved to Fountain county, Indiana, where he was raised upon his father s farm. He entered Asbury University, at Greencastle, In diana, in 1845, an< ^ graduated therefrom in 1849. He at once read law, and in 1850 was admitted to the bar. At the very outset of rfls professional life, from 1852 to 1858, he practiced in the same circuit and counties with Abraham Lincoln and other noted men of that day ; nor, even then, did his legal conflicts with such leaders of men do aught but give opportunity and scope for a successful exhibition of his great powers. In 1858 he was appointed by Presi dent Buchanan United States district attorney for the dis trict of Indiana. His first opportunity for national fame as a lawyer came in 1859. In that year, in response to the appeal of his friend, Ashbel P. Willard, then governor of Indiana, he DANIEL W. VOORHEES. 5 defended John E. Cook, the brother of Governor Willard s wife, one of John Brown s wayward, misled followers. His speech in this case rilled his country with his fame as a lawyer and orator ; nor, indeed, was its flooding tide stayed by the boundaries of his native land, for this grand achievement of oratory was published abroad in the Ger man, French and Spanish languages. From this time he became a national figure at the bar, his services were in demand all over the country, and during his crowded life he engaged in celebrated cases in sixteen different states of the Union, his employment being dictated where the case was of great difficulty, or the opposing counsel of surpass ing power and reputation. In the political field, also, we need but point, as we pass, to a few of the greater monuments which perpetuate his name as a part of his country s history. He was frank, bold and aggressive. Fidelity to his friends was with him both a duty and a pleasure, from which no exigencies of life ever caused him to swerve. Devotion characterized his following, the bond which held thfcm being profound affection a bond which rarely parted save in death. ^ From his first nomination to congress, in 1856, he never, in any of the many conventions in which his name was presented as a candidate for the house or senate, had opposition in his own party. He served as a member of the lower house of congress for five terms. *In 1877 he was appointed by Governor Williams to fill the unexpired term in the senate occasioned by the death of Oliver P. JVTorton. As a can didate for the senate before the people in 1878, he carried the legislature by a popular majority of more than thirty 6 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. thousand, and a majority on joint ballot of twenty-three against Benjamin Harrison, the rival candidate. Six years later he was elected by forty-six majority, and again, in January, 1891, by a majority of sixty-nine. These majorities are unparalleled, no such generous suffrage hav ing ever been given to any other candidate for this high office in this state. He served in the senate nineteen years, three months and twenty days ; a much longer pe riod of service than has been enjoyed by any other senator from Indiana of any party since the state came into the Union. It may be noted, as an evidence of the strong and en during ties which ever bound him and his friends together, that in the recent legislature which elected his successor, convening in January, 1897, with a republican majority * his own party in the minority although he had not, by reason of his serious illness, been able to make a single speech in the campaign, yet " the old guard" rallied around him, and, with deep emotion, gave him every vote they had to give. It is^ not, however, so much for us now to praise him as it is for us reverently to mourn our loss ; and this can be but most faintly expressed, whether by the graces of the pen or the eloquence of the human tongue. By both of these methods the whole country is eloquent in praise, in sympathy and in sorrow; The press in every city throughout the land has been filled with the grand story of his life and public services. The combined forum of his profession has listened with rapt attention to the laudation of his brethren of the bench and bar, and in these fields of DANIEL W. VOORHEES. 7 his professional triumphs, just and well-deserved tributes will long be paid to his most remarkable successes before the juries of the trial courts of the country. In the states of the Union where general assemblies were in session, the story of his sudden death called forth expressions of pro found sorrow; and the senate of the United States, in which he had so recently closed his most brilliant career, had his death occurred while still a member of that body, would echo to the voice of eloquent eulogy and the earnest and tender tribute of friendship and esteem. He goes from us much as a beloved brother of the blood leaves forever the circle of the family household. It will help us all if we express in each other s hearing our words of commendation, of sympathy and of grief; and after that take grateful consolation from the grand anthem of praise and sorrow whose swelling volume resounds from every state and from every section of our common country. LECTURES Washington, D. C. , January 9, 1837. Dear Sir: The undersigned have been informed that you have prepared with great care, a lecture upon the subject of "The Holy Sepulchre", and as this is a subject of interest to all, we earnestly request you to deliver the lecture at s-uch time and place in Washington as you may designate. Hon. D, W. Voorhees. U. S. Senate. FAC-SIMILE OF THE REQUEST TO MR. VOORHEES FROM THE CABINET AND SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES TO DELIVER His LECTURE ON "THE HOLY SEPULCHER." THE HOLY SEPULCHER, IN THE CHURCH OF THE HOLY SEPULCHER, JERUSALEM. THE HOLY SEPULCHER OE A LAWYER S VIEW OF THE DIVINITY OF JESUS OF NAZARETH HE Augustan Age of Rome was at the zenith of its fame and power when the Christian religion first dawned upon the world, and threw its light on the devious pathways of the human family. The dominions of Caesar Augustus at that tfme embraced the countries now known as England, France, Belgium, Switzerland, Prussia, Spain, Portugal, Turkey, Greece, Italy, and large portions of Austria, and Russia, in Europe; Egypt, Algeria, Tunis, Tripoli, and Morocco, in Africa; Palestine, and nearly all of Persia, Arabia, and Turkey, in Asia ; containing a population of over one hundred and twenty millions. He succeeded to su preme power thirty-five years before the Christian era began, and laid it down only at his death fifty years later. This reign, when tried by the extent of its possessions and population, its long du ration in unbroken splendor, its intense intellectual activity, and its imperishable monuments of genius and learning, stands without a parallel in the history of imperial governments. The most war like power known to history was that of Rome, and yet in the Augustan Age peace had her victories greater far than those won in battle. For more than seven hundred years the temple of Janus had been closed but twice, until it was closed the third time by Augustus in token of universal peace. It is not strange, therefore, that this auspicious epoch was brill- oo 12 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. iantly illuminated by high mental culture. The accomplished races that clustered along the shores of the Mediterranean, both before and after they were under the banners of Rome, have not been surpassed in intellectual strength and activity from the days of Moses to the present hour. The eloquence of Cicero, Demos thenes, and their countrymen, is as familiar to-day in our schools as the eloquence of Patrick Henry or Daniel O Connell. The style in which Tacitus and Thucydides wrote history will remain forever, as it is now, a model for the ablest historians who aspire to fame in the present and future ages. In the domain of art, embracing, as it does, painting, sculpture and architecture, beginning in Egypt, culminating in Greece, and absorbed in Rome, modern ages, the nineteenth century included, have not surpassed, and in many respects have not equaled, the standard attained two thou sand years ago. The philosophy of Socrates, Plato and their as sociates still charm the world, while systems of jurisprudence and a vast body of matchless literature have come down to us as im perishable as the stars over our heads. Nothing was lacking to the physical greatness and power of Rome except electricity and steam, and the consequent develop ment of the physical sciences. If she had possessed these modern discoveries she would not only have dwarfed, as she did, by com parison, all the nations of the earth then known, but none that have existed since would have approached her in physical gran deur, wealth and dominion. This brief description of the most enlightened and most power ful period of Roman history is given in order to say that it was in the high noontide light of that gigantic civilization on the one hand, and in the midst of that great and intellectual race which produced Moses and the prophets on the other, that he who was proclaimed the Messiah appeared and boldly challenged the scru tiny, the investigation and the merciless power of the Hebrew and the pagan world alike. The stage on which he opened his mis sion and set forth his cause was blazing with searchlights of more than electric power, and was presided over by the very genius of learned controversy and free, daring discussion. He faced an in tensely critical, inquiring world as his audience, and in explicit THE HOLY SEPULCHER. 13 tones declared his right divine to govern in the hearts and in the homes of the human race. The enemies of the Christian religion, from the days of the Phari sees to the present time, have held that his claims were spurious; his birth, his life, his teachings, his works and his character not truly given by the evangelists ; that nothing miraculous took place in his career; that he was not divine, never wrought a miracle; that he was an impostor; that his associates, those who believed his words and embraced his doctrines, were grossly deceived ; that the minds of men were so benighted at that time that his fraudu lent pretentions and practices could not be detected and exposed. We may admit that if his advent had taken place in some dark, obscure part of the earth, surrounded by midnight mystery, and by savage tribes steeped in ignorance, indifferent to events, with out motive for investigation, these points of objection and accusa tion would be entitled to more weight than has been conceded. But he came not in secret nor by stealth. The star of Bethlehem did not shine in a dark place, nor in a benighted age, nor on an ig norant people. Even the "shepherds abiding in the field, keep ing watch over their flock by night," who saw strange lights and heard voices in the sky, were not sunk in mental darkness. It is shown, in fact, that they were so well informed in the prophecies of their own country that when they saw the heavens in a blaze of glory, and heard the tidings of great joy, they at once arose, say ing: "Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known to us." Nor was the little town itself, where the decree of Caesar Augustus had called his Hebrew subjects together to be taxed, and where the long-foretold birth took place, located in a hidden, out-of-the- way, unknown corner of the world. It was not a place where con spirators could safely lay a deep, juggling, criminal plot for the consummation of an appalling, never-ending fraud. On the con trary, one of the prophets, in his writings, which had been famil iar for a thousand years to Hebrew people, thus designated and pointed out the birthplace of Jesus of Nazareth: And thou Bethlehem, in the land of Juda, art not the least among the princes of Juda, for out of thee shall come a Governor that shall rule my people, Israel. I 4 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. In other words, the thinking, reading, listening Hebrew world had been affected for ages by full notice, a thousand times given and repeated, and universally understood and accepted as true, that the mighty and mysterious event which occurred in this al most suburban village of Jerusalem would take place, as it did, under the eyes, and, as it were, in the very presence of an able, jealous priesthood, critical scribes and learned, disputatious law yers. But it is sometimes insisted that the birth of Christ, foretold and expected as it was, presented nothing so startling to the powers and interests of the world at that time as to beget any deep, wide spread concern, or to excite any immediate and active inquiry. The moment, however, his claims and his doctrines were an nounced, it was apparent at a glance that they were those of an omnipotent God, or of a daring, dangerous impostor. He occu pied no middle ground, admitted of no compromise. To the peo ple of Israel his kingdom meant an ecclesiastical revolution of the most sweeping character; a wholly new dispensation of men and of measures ; and to all the other provinces and peoples of almighty Rome it meant the overthrow of every altar and temple, of every oracle and god in all the boundaries of that vast pagan empire. The issue formed by his birth and mission was an open, aggres sive assault upon all religious systems, organizations, and govern ing powers then in existence. Can it be regarded as incredible, therefore, or even strange, that Herod the Great, as he is styled, an able, ambitious, bloody-minded man, king of Judea under Rome, upon hearing that a prince, with such revolutionary designs, was newly born in one of his towns, should promptly act, and in his terror and wrath slay " all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under, " in his fierce desire to destroy a pretender, a rival, as he thought, to his throne? Herod the Great was a Jew by birth, born at Ascalon, but should in justice be charged to Rome, rather than to Judea. It is stated that he entirely threw off Jewish manners and customs, and cultivated the Romans, and that it was this apostacy from his own people that recommended his selection by the Roman senate as THE HOLY SEPULCHER. 1 5 king of a Roman province. We learn, also, that, aside from his massacre of the children of Bethlehem, he was a most sanguinary monster. He put to death his wife, Mariamne, her mother, her brother, her grandfather, and his own sons by her; in fact, he was in his element when in the commission of the crimes ascribed to him by the sacred writings. The instinct of murder was also hered itary in his family. His son, Herod Antipas, imprisoned and be headed John the Baptist; his grandson, Herod Agrippa, executed James, and threw Peter into prison. This blood-stained house reigned over Judea nearly a hundred years, with but one break in the succession. Pontius Pilate, whose birthplace, lineage, and early history, are all unknown even to this hour, became the Roman procurator of Judea when Jesus of Nazareth was in the twenty-sixth year of his earthly being. He held this great power ten years; was then removed, and banished by Caligula to Gaul, where, in a fit of black despair, tradition says, he took his own life. In speaking of the rule and supremacy of the Herods, and of Pontius Pilate, over Judea, at the time Christ was born, and at the time of his death, I do so for the purpose of making plain the fact that the government of Rome was necessarily fully informed, by its eager and subservient vicegerents at Jerusalem, not only of all their official acts, but also of everything of importance there taking place. The railroad and the telegraph, it is true, did not then exist, and yet, by the waterways of the Mediterranean, communi cation between Jerusalem and Rome, at the beginning of the Christian era, and for nearly a thousand years before, was as sure, easy, and swift, as between New York and Liverpool at the time of the Declaration of American Independence. The navigation of that mighty sea, locked in the embrace of three continents, extending from Gibraltar to Cyprus and Antioch, from Athens to Carthage, from the Dardanelles to the Nile, the pleasure resort of nations, as well as the theater of war, was as well known, as full of commerce, and of the interchanging trans actions and knowledge of the world, two thousand years ago, as it is now. Judea constituted the eastern coast of this busy, swarm ing sea, and Jerusalem, her capital, had the most distinguished 1 6 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. history of all the cities of the Mediterranean countries, not except ing Rome itself, and was the oldest except Damascus, Memphis and Thebes. The relations between the Roman empire and its conquered provinces were always watchful, jealous, and unsparing, and they were especially so with the powerful province of Judea. No braver or more warlike race has ever existed than the Jews in their own land, fighting for their own country. They were only made trib utary to Rome when Pompey the Great was called in by the Pharisees, and, taking advantage of their civil dissensions, crushed all contending factions with his veteran legions. This conquest occurred sixty-three years before the Christian era, and was fol lowed by a vigilance characteristic of the conqueror, dealing as he was with a fearless, patriotic people held in subjection by force alone. In the face of these facts of history, who will contend that the birth of an alleged prince, of the lineage and house of David, his growth to manhood, the grandeur of his teachings, his claims and pretensions to the government of mankind, and his tragic execu tion for sedition and treason by order of a Roman magistrate, were unknown, or could possibly have been matters of indifference to the rulers and people of Rome? On the contrary, Tacitus, the greatest and most reliable of all pagan historians, writing, in the latter part of the first century, in regard to the great fire which raged at Rome in the reign of Nero, and within thirty years after the death of the Saviour, makes an awful record of the knowledge which the Roman people had of Christ and his followers. "A rumor had gone forth everywhere," we are told, " that, at the very time when the city was in flames, the emperor appeared on a private stage and sang of the destruc tion of Troy, comparing present misfortunes with the calamities of antiquity," and that, in spite of all his lavish gifts and the propiti ation of the gods, he could not banish the sinister belief that the conflagration was the result of an order. Then, in his famous An nals, in his own terse and graphic language, and in bitter hostility to the Christian religion, speaking from a pagan standpoint, Tac itus proceeds to say : THE HOLY SEPULCHER. I/ Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt, and inflicted the most exquisite tortures, on a class hated for their abominations, called Chris tians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our pro curators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out, not only in Judea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their center and become popular. Accordingly an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty ; then upon their information an immense mul titude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city as of hatred against mankind. Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs, and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burned, to serve as a mighty illumina tion when daylight had expired. Nero offered his gardens for the spectacle and was exhibiting a show in the circus, while he mingled with the people in the dress of a charioteer, or stood aloft on a car. Hence, even for criminals who deserved extreme and exemplary punishment, there arose a feeling of compas sion, for it was not as it seemed for the public good, but to glut one man s cruel ty, that they were being destroyed. Of this " immense multitude," thus horribly massacred, hun dreds, perhaps thousands, were contemporary with the Saviour and his apostles ; some amongst them may have listened thirty years before to the Sermon on the Mount, or witnessed the erection of the cross on Calvary ; all of them were doubtless familiar with the subsequent preaching of Peter and Paul, and their perilous work. From the days of Pontius Pilate to the burning of Rome and the slaughter of the Christians under Nero, the length of time was not greater than has taken place since Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomatox. Nothing could more conclusively show the familiarity of the pagan world with the existence of the individuality of Christ, and with the origin of Christianity, or demonstrate more forcibly the rapidity with which the Christian faith made its way in the face of obloquy, torture and death, than this great historical fact, ob tained, not from the sacred writings, not from the friends, but from the enemies of Christianity. It is one of the well-known assertions and arguments of infidel thinkers, writers and debaters, of Voltaire, Paine, Ingersoll, and their followers, that the existence, the career, the teachings, and the death of the Messiah, as foretold by the prophets, and as re corded by his disciples, were not known at the time they are said to have occurred ; that the writings of the evangelists came long afterwards, and are mere fabrications, not corroborated by disin- 2 1 8 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. terested historians. Not only Tacitus refutes this unwarranted as sumption, but the most illustrious historian of the Jews themselves does the same. Josephus was born only four years after the crucifixion. In his childhood he listened to his parents as they told the marvelous things they had witnessed. He visited Rome when but twenty- three years old, and while Nero was on the throne. He was a Pharisee, of great ability, educated for the priesthood ; also a sol dier of distinction, a man of broad views and of extensive knowl edge of the world. As Josephus advanced in years, and was growing old, he wrote a history of his people, of their antiquities, their wars, their victories, their defeats, their glories and their dis asters, their pride and their downfall. In narrating the events which marked the ten years procuratorship of Pontius Pilate, he says: Now, there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the gentiles. (He was the Christ.) And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him ; for he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians, so named for him, are not extinct at this day. This famous passage, it is true, has been denounced as a for gery; only, however, by those who also denounce every other proof that Christ was the Messiah; while, on the other hand, the most learned and impartial students, thinkers and writers, by a consensus of opinion, now hold this testimony of the great Hebrew historian to be genuine. And it may here be further noted that wherever the light of Christianity has penetrated, in every age and clime, there the ene mies of the Messiah, those who deny and reject him altogether, have followed with unceasing and persistent efforts to obliterate and nullify every record of his mission and individuality; to ob scure his personal identity; to discredit and impugn as a forger and falsifier every writer, sacred or profane, who bears testimony to the truth and integrity of his character and career ; to mystify and bedim the great fact of his presence on earth by declaring him a THE HOLY SEPULCHER. 19 myth, a fiction, a fraudulent invention, foisted by criminal con spirators, with the apostles and the evangelists at their head, on the blind and stupid faith of mankind. Such has been the dismal and barren mission of the leaders of the anti-Christian thought of the world during all the ages this side of Calvary. And with what result? As well might mere mor tal man stretch forth his puny arm towards the sky and seek to quench its eternal fires, as to attempt to blot out or darken the fig ure of the Son of Man as he stands, in the deathless splendor of his power and his mercy, on the pages of authentic history. In approaching at this point, however, a closer look at the cir cumstances immediately connected with the opening of the Messi ah s active, itinerant mission, we find that within themselves and in all their details they were of a character most strikingly to arrest and fix the startled attention of the world then looking on. The establishment of a new kingdom was announced, but not according to human methods, not by military force, pomp and dis play; a new and mighty ruler, a prince of more than royal blood, was declared, but not by the inspiring strains of martial music, nor by high stewards and lord chamberlains. No brilliant procession in cloth of gold, decorated with stars and garters, heralded his com ing ; no plumed knights with armor on and visors down proclaimed him, and, swords in hand, challenged all who disputed his sway. No armed legions, usual to royalty on such occasions, surrounded him, "prompt to do their master s will." And yet, never before nor since has the right of a monarch to a throne been proclaimed by herald with commission so high and authority so great as he who on the plains of Palestine summoned the world s allegiance to Jesus of Nazareth. In those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judea, And saying, repent ye, for the kingdom of Heaven is at hand. For this is he that was spoken of by the prophet Esaias, saying : " The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight." And the same John had his raiment of camel s hair, and a leathern girdle about his loins ; and his meat was locusts and wild honey. This hermit of the wilderness, this dweller in lonely places, liv ing the hard life of an anchorite, and waiting for the fullness of time when his consecrated voice was to be heard, was a close stu- 20 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. dent of the prophets, and deeply versed in the prophecies. In structed by prophetic light, he knew he was chosen from his birth to proclaim the coming of the Messiah, and as he emerged from the deserts and showed himself unto Israel he cried in a voice that has never died away : There cometh one mightier than I after me, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to stoop down and unloose. And then on the banks of the Jordan ensued that meeting be tween the Messiah and his desert-trained fore-runner, on which all the centuries since have intently gazed, and been electrified by its significance. They came together in no obscure, lonely resort; they met in the presence of curious multitudes who had gone out, as we are told, from Jerusalem and all Judea, and all the region roundabout, to hear the strangely clad, sensational preacher, the newly risen prophet in their midst, as John was held to be. It is recorded as an incident of this meeting, "that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized of John in Jordan." They had never met before; they were cousins by earthly genealogy, through their mothers, Mary and Elizabeth, and were very nearly the same age, so far as time was concerned, but they knew each other only by the celestial light which brought them together. And it may be taken as the clear and distinct verdict of history, whether written in the light of Christian faith or in pa gan unbelief, that from that spot of earth, and by virtue of the revelations there made, and the principles there inculcated, the world has been governed through all the centuries since, and has gathered into its history all that has been known, for nearly two thousand years, of civilization, moral progress, strength, and glory. At the name of him who was there from Nazareth, more heads have bowed, more knees have bent, than to all the crowned monarchs of earth put together since the beginning of time. And yet, never came a claimant to a throne, the most insignifi cant, with an appearance so powerless, so destitute of rank, so poor in apparel, so lowly in demeanor, so solitary in his under taking. On foot, and alone, so far as mortal eye could see, he THE HOLY SEPULCHER. 21 met the herald of his kingdom clothed in skins, and fresh from the wilderness and the desert. No insignia of royalty nor mark of distinction was on his person, no seal nor signet ring; silver and gold had he none; no offices were in his hands, nor earthly pat ronage with which to strengthen his cause. The intellectual, keen-minded, well-read, ambitious Jews, in large numbers, were there in the valley of the Jordan eagerly look ing on. They saw the meeting between Jesus and the great Bap tist, and gazed with breathless wonder, and in bitter disappoint ment at the appearance and the estate of their promised king, their ruler, their deliverer from foreign domination, according to their reading and understanding of the prophets. They saw their long and anxiously expected prince coming, as they thought, to the throne of warlike David, not only without an army or an armed force of any kind, but himself houseless and homeless, not even sharing with the birds of the air and the beasts of the field a place of shelter and rest when nightfall came. Rumors were rife at that time, and especially amongst those most learned in Jewish history, that great events were at hand. The birth in the manger at Bethlehem, and the appearance of the boy at twelve years of age holding high converse with priests in the temple, had agitated all thoughtful minds, and were by no means forgotten or overlooked at this later period. Mingling with those who assembled to hear the preaching of John, and who witnessed his meeting with the Saviour, were doubt less jealous priests, learned students of history, as well as patriotic citizens of Judea, chafing under the yoke of Roman tyranny, and longing for a military leader to appear, native to Israel, and re establish the independence of their down-trodden country. The history of the Maccabees, whose splendid genius and courage had rescued Judea a century and a half before from Syrian despotism, was very familiar to the educated Jews at the beginning of the Christian era. They pointed to that history with glowing pride, and the supreme wish of their hearts was for the coming of another mighty warrior who would again drive out their enemies, and cause Judah to lift up her head, and to prosper as of old. They longed for freedom from the bondage of Rome, with little 22 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. care or thought of freedom from the bondage of sin. Their ends and aims were of earth ; they gave to the prophecies an earthly limit ; they hungered and thirsted for the pomp and circumstance of glorious war and national supremacy ; they went forth with martial spirit to greet a prince of the sword ; they beheld the Prince of Peace. Some of them in their youth had probably seen the great Pompey in Jerusalem, fifty years before, and thought their newly risen ruler and deliverer might look as did that superb soldier of Rome in his uniform of command and of victory. The contrast was too great to be borne ; their hopes were blighted ; their ambi tion paralyzed ; their pride of race and country incurably offended and insulted. From that hour in which the Messiah made his ap pearance, and publicly assumed his mission, he was rejected by the leading and governing classes of the Jews. The common people heard him gladly, but the ruling minds of Israel turned away, or, if they heard him at all, retorted not with argument, but with mockery and hate, and finally with scornful blows, the bloody scourge, the crown of thorns, the cruel, long- drawn agony of the cross. Not one of the rich or high-born was ever in his train as an open, direct follower during his suffering tramp upon earth. In his selection of the apostolic twelve, he called no one of family distinction, no leader of society, no owner even of a mansion house, no president of a bank, no head of a corporation, no holder of bonds, no speculator in gold reserves, no money changer from the temple, no broker from the stock mar ket, no millionaire from the Wall street of Jerusalem. Matthew, the first evangelist, and prominent as an apostle, was a subordinate tax collector, or toll gatherer, at the Sea of Galilee ; a small official position of bad repute, especially detested by the Jews, and rendering its occupant most odious. John, the best be loved of them all, author of the fourth gospel, the three epistles that bear his name, and the Book of Revelation, was called, with his brother James, from a fishing boat, where, with Zebedee, their father, they were plying the vocation of their lives. No humbler or lowlier people have ever been known than those who shift, and loiter and tent along the waterways of a country, and catch and sell fish for a livelihood ; and yet, seven of the orig- THE HOLY SEPULCHER. 23 inal apostolic twelve were chosen from this obscure, unintelligent pursuit; far below the pale of social recognition, out of the reach of the schools, and utterly destitute of influence or power in the affairs of this world. Peter, in many respects, was the strongest of all the apostles. By nature impetuous and wayward in temper, he committed grave faults, and was gravely rebuked, but when the crucifixion of his Lord, and the day of Pentecost, with its tongues of fire, and its baptism of the holy spirit, had launched him directly into the work that was given him to do, his high, unfaltering courage, his dauntless zeal, his burning eloquence, his intrepid presence and bearing wherever danger and death were to be met, speedily made him a great leader in the foremost rank of the Christian world. He became at once the ideal soldier of the cross. And whence came this man whose name will live in more than earthly splendor until the light of the sun itself shall go out in eternal night? Had he a proud birthright, a lofty lineage, a long string of titles behind him? Was he the proprietor of a rich do main inherited from noble ancestors? Or was he, perhaps, a doc tor of laws, a master of arts from some famous university, erudite and accomplished in the philosophy and sciences of the age in which he lived? The answer to these questions is very easy, sim ple and well known : And Jesus walking by the Sea of Galilee saw two brethren, Simon called Pe ter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishers. And he saith unto them, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. And they straightway left their nets and followed him. Not a question was asked as to their qualifications, their educa tion, their acquirements, their personal history; no civil service commission was appointed to ascertain whether these two unknown, weatherbeaten men from Bethsaida, stained and soiled by their occupation, could even read or write. Most likely they could not, but he who called them supplied their deficiencies. He it was, and he alone, who bestowed all the knowledge, gifts, and powers required in their new and immortal sphere of action. Indeed it is manifest to every unbiased mind that the Messiah purposely and conspicuously notified the world at that time, and 24 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. the ages that were to come, that he relied not in the slightest de gree for the success of his mission, and the establishment of his kingdom, on earthly rank, wealth, culture, intellectual distinction, hereditary greatness, or on any of the well-known agencies which human power employs to accomplish its purposes. A noted English writer of the seventeenth century, Dr. Cave, in his Lives of the Apostles, speaking on this point, says : And here we may justly reflect upon the methods of Divine Providence, which, in planting and propagating the Christian religion in the world, made choice of such mean and unlikely instruments, men that had not been educated in the academies and schools, but brought up to trades ; to catch fish, and mend nets ; most of the apostles being taken from the meanest of trades, and all of them unfurnished of all arts of learning and the advantage of liberal and in genuous education ; and yet these were the men that were designed to run down the world and to overturn its learning and wisdom. Certainly had human wis dom been called to manage the business it would have taken quite other meas ures, and chosen out the profoundest rabbins, the acutest philosophers, the smoothest orators, such as would have been most likely, by strength of reason, and arts of rhetoric, to have triumphed over the minds of men, to grapple with the stubbornness of the Jews, and baffle the finer notions and speculations of the Greeks. * * * This is the wonder of it, that the first preachers of the gospel should be such rude, unlearned men, and yet so suddenly, so powerfully prevail over the learned world, and conquer so many who had the greatest parts and abilities, by the simplicity of the gospel. * * They had to deal, not only with the rude, the simple, and the unlearned, but with men of the acutest wits and most profound abilities ; the wisest philosophers and most subtile disputants, able to weigh an argument with the greatest accuracy, and to decline the force of the strongest reasoning ; who had their parts edged with the keenest prejudices of education, and a mighty veneration for the religion of their own country ; a religion that for so many ages had governed the world. And yet, notwithstand ing all these disadvantages, these plain men conquered the wise and the learned, and brought them over to that doctrine that was despised and scorned, opposed and persecuted, and had nothing but its own native excellency to recommend it. Nor can it be overlooked in this important connection that he who summoned these uneducated, untaught, untrained men to his side, and to paths of everlasting glory, was never himself the re cipient of a single page of human learning. There is no record of a day nor an hour ever spent by the Messiah in the schools, the seminaries, or the colleges. On the contrary he has made it clear that he never listened to schoolmasters, tutors or professors. When he taught in the temple, during the feast of the tabernacles, there were those standing near him who had come up, as he had, from Galilee, and who had known him there from his childhood. They had seen him daily in their midst, never in the school-room, never instructed by teachers. When, therefore, they heard for the first THE HOLY SEPULCHER. 25 time his majestic sentences ring out on his startled audience they wondered, and greatly marveled amongst themselves, and finally one of them cried out: How knoweth this man letters, having never learned ? His reply was decisive : My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me. They had publicly proclaimed him uneducated ; that he had no knowledge of letters, having never learned. He made no contra diction ; he simply pointed them to the true source of all his knowledge. And now at this point, and in view of the results which have followed, how stands the contention that he possessed only natural powers and human agencies ; that he was of none other than hu man origin ; that he had nothing to transmit except human influ ences and human methods for the accomplishment of the vast events foretold and which have come to pass; that his apostles, the humble, obscure twelve, received from him nothing supernat ural, nothing miraculous, nothing more of power to execute his will and to carry out his purposes than one man, dying in abject poverty, and in deep, overwhelming popular disgrace, could be stow on others in the same condition? I appeal on this subject to cool, logical reason, and not to emo tional faith, however beautiful that may be. He died the death of a degraded malefactor under the laws of Rome. On the dreadful day of Calvary his grief-stricken, terrified disciples gazed from a distance, in fear and horror, on his ruthless executioners at their bloody work. Never has leader amongst men at the close of a disastrous career fallen so low as he appeared to be ; so destitute of support, so forlorn, so despised, so mocked and reviled by the base rabble ; and yet, all the blood-stained conquerors of earth put together all the Alexanders, Hannibals, Caesars and Napoleons combined, at their zenith, could not have transmitted to posterity by a joint will an estate of the value of a speck of dustj a worth less mote in the air in comparison with the estate of unending glory and power bequeathed by him in his last will and testament to the nations and to the ages. 26 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. Even the crown of thorns, placed in derision on his bleeding brow, has been an emblem more sacred and of greater authority from that hour to this than all the crowns blazing with diamonds and precious stones ever worn by the proudest monarchs of earth. This statement is not strained ; on the contrary it is far short of the reality. It will not be gainsaid nor questioned. How mar velous, therefore, that intelligent beings can be found to contend that such a character and such a history represent only natural results springing from natural causes ; that the far-reaching, im perishable consequences of the Messiah s brief life, and degrading death in the company of thieves, are to be ascribed to nothing higher or stronger than weak, wayward human nature, alone and unaided! The old fashioned, well-understood connection between cause and effect, under natural laws, plainly and forever determines this question. It is not difficult to believe that such powers as Christ displayed were superhuman, while it is wholly impossible to credit them to mortal man. If the infidel denies the existence of Deity because of mystery which he can not comprehend, he en counters still a greater mystery when he assigns to the powers of a finite being, like himself, such results as could have been achieved alone by infinite power and infinite wisdom. Reason, therefore, dispassionate reason alone, independent of religious faith, must decide that the author of Christianity was divine ; his teachings of an origin higher than earth, and his doctrines those of an omnipo tent God and a merciful Redeemer of the world. When the meeting between the mighty Master and his forerun ner at the Jordan was over, their interview ended, each went his appointed way, Jesus to endure his fast and temptation in the wil derness, John to prison and to death. They parted to meet no more beneath the sun, and they had communication with each other, even at a distance, but once thereafter on the shores of time. That single instance, however, is so full of proof, so convincing in argument, and throws a light so clear and conclusive, that it can not be ignored or omitted in discussing the divinity of the Messiah. John was deeply versed in the prophecies, and knew easily and familiarly what works were foretold to take place at the Mes siah s coming; the miracles of love and mercy that would be seen, THE HOLY SEPULCHER. 2/ and would signify his presence upon earth. He had himself wit nessed some of these manifestations of divine power, and was sat isfied ; but now, in the gloomy depths of Herod s prison, and in the weird and desolate air of his captivity, he communed with such intensity over his great theme, that for once, and for once only, his faith shook and his well-stored prophetic mind doubted. He longed to be reassured by him who spake as never man spake. And John calling unto him two of his disciples sent them to Jesus, saying, art thou he that should come, or look we for another ? When the men were come unto him they said, John Baptist hath sent us unto thee saying, art thou he that should come, or look we for another ? And in that same hour he cured many of their infirmities and plagues, and of evil spirits ; and unto them that were blind he gave sight. Then Jesus answering said unto them, go your way, and tell John what things ye have seen and heard ; how that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, to the poor the gospel is preached. This answer was enough ; it needed no interpreter to the well- instructed mind of John. He never doubted again. He was re minded that the Messiah alone could do the things that were then be ing done. The answer of the Saviour could have been simply yea, or nay, but he chose to give the facts themselves in proof, on which not only John, but all the ages, might judge, and reach a conclusion. It will not do to rest in the faith, so often asserted, that Jesus of Nazareth was merely a great, wise and good man, working as other men have worked for the reformation of the world. It was in reply to the direct question whether he was the one that should come, the promised and anointed one, the Christ, or whether an other was to be looked for, that he cited the deeds which John s disciples saw him perform, as an evidence, according to the proph ets, that the Messiah had come, and was there engaged in the work foretold for him to do. He was either the Messiah, or he was an untruthful pretender, a daring impostor. By no possibility could he have been a good man, and no more. He was what he claimed to be, or he was a criminal conspirator, a dishonest leader of the people. Shortly after his final message, however, to John, he again spoke, and this time still more directly on the question of his iden tity. At Csesarea Philippi "he asked his disciples saying, whom 28 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?" and the answer was: " Some say that thou art John the Baptist, some Elias, and others Jeremiah, or one of the prophets." After hearing their report of what others said, Jesus put the direct question: "But whom say ye that I am?" The immortal, well-known response was instant and explicit: "And Simon Peter answered and said, thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." If Jesus had been no more than mortal man, wise and good, he would, without a moment s delay, have corrected Peter s mistake; he would have left no such fatally erroneous record uncontradicted. On the contrary, how ever, he perceived that to this unlettered fisherman, fresh from his boat and his nets, and ranking with the lowest caste in Judea, had been granted a correct knowledge of the mighty truth. And Jesus answered and said unto him, blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona, for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. And I say also unto thee that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. In this brief, imperishable interview with his disciples, Jesus spoke without reserve as a witness to his own divinity ; and his distinct and powerful words have rung through all the centuries since. He spoke not in argument to Peter as he did to John. To Peter, unlearned in the books, not knowing the prophecies, he spoke simply in strong, positive affirmation that he was the Christ, the Son of the living God. He left nothing to inference or con struction, and then bestowed upon Peter, in token of the occasion, and as premier of the apostles, such a grant of power as can be found nowhere else in the records of mankind. In passing upon the evidence furnished here, and elsewhere, by the Saviour himself, as to his origin and identity, the controlling point to the mind of a lawyer, trained in the courts, is necessarily his own credibility as a witness. He spoke often and explicitly on this subject, and to various persons. To the Samaritan woman at Jacob s well; to the blind man whose sight he had restored at the pool of Siloam ; at the feast of the dedication, and repeatedly at other times and places, and to other persons, he avowed himself the Christ, and in proof pointed to his works. He sanctioned the faith of Martha as he approached the grave of Lazarus and bade THE HOLY SEPULCHER. 29 the dead come forth. Not a day seems to have passed during his ministry on earth that he did not boldly and distinctly testify to the same great and awful fact. He declared, indeed, as recorded by John, that he was one that bore witness of himself. Did he speak the truth? That is the great, the only question. If he did not bear false witness, in the face of heaven and earth, then all the infidel advocates of all time, however able, gifted and eloquent, must stand defeated at the bar of judgment here, and of judgment to come. And who rises here, or elsewhere throughout the broad earth, to impeach the veracity of him who delivered the Sermon on the Mount? Who comes forward to assert that the Lord s Prayer was dictated by lips stained with falsehood and steeped in false pre tenses? What lawyer can be found, whatever his creed of faith, or of no faith, who will make such an issue in court, in the trial of a cause, and there undertake to prove that the reputation of Jesus of Nazareth for truth is not good ; that what he said of himself, even of his own personal identity, is unworthy of belief? I love and honor the profession to which I belong. I have ap peared as counsel in the courts of more states than first composed the American Union, and I have met in trials before courts and juries, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas A. Hendricks, Benjamin Harri son, John G. Carlisle, Matthew H. Carpenter, Jeremiah S. Black, and many others who might be named, of great ability, but never yet have I known a lawyer of any rank who was willing to risk his case on an attempt to impeach the testimony of that witness who was born twenty centuries ago in a village stable ; who wan dered to and fro on earth as a homeless tramp, and who died at an early age as a criminal in the company of thieves. But why further pursue this point? The testimony of the meek and lowly Nazarene was given with full knowledge of the fact of which he testified ; it stands not only unimpeached and unim peachable, but also corroborated by every step in the history of the last two thousand years. The jury of the world, and of the ages, has accepted and decided upon it as conclusive, and long ago has rendered its solemn and final verdict. And here for a moment we may pause and look on the general 3O FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. outlines and salient features of the three years itinerancy of the Divine Master. It is not for me to discuss in detail his sacred ministrations, their extent and their glory; nor may I presume to present and interpret the sublime and majestic doctrines wherein he manifested himself as the Way, the Truth, and the Life. These high and holy themes belong to the pulpits which encircle the globe and illuminate its darkness from pole to pole. It is not forbidden, however, even to the publican and sinner, standing afar off, with bowed head and contrite heart, to dwell on the unsearchable and infinite riches with which Christ, the Lord, has endowed all the habitations of earth. With his blood and in the agony of his death he provided the way of salvation for the human soul, while at the same time his mission and his teachings laid hold upon all the great temporal and practical affairs of men and of nations, and have pointed them ever since, and are point ing them now, to pathways of fraternity, liberty, peace and equality. The principles he taught are those upon which all free and up right governments must rest. With him, rank is nothing, military glory is nothing, royal diadems and great riches are nothing ; truth, honor and purity, according to his sublime code, constitute the only just and abiding foundations for civil government. The craft of kings and the skill of diplomacy went for naught with him, while he preached the gospel to the poor, poured his choicest blessings on their heads, relied entirely on the plain people, and in tender tones commended the simplicity and innocence of child hood. His labors were seldom in the synagogues, or amongst those who held the high seats of worship, and when he did enter such places he most frequently met the disdain and the obloquy of a haughty, priestly aristocracy. His congregations were mostly under the open sky, in shady groves, on the banks of running streams, along the coasts of the sea, where, in his eyes, the humblest listener, whatever his nativity, color, race or condition, was the equal of all others, and of Caesar Augustus himself, in his inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. What statesmanship of earth has matched the golden rule as a THE HOLY SEPULCHER. 31 principle of government? It was at one of his great outdoor meet ings in the plain, surrounded by his disciples, "and a great mul titude of people out of all Judea and Jerusalem, and from the sea- coast of Tyre and Sidon, which came to hear him," that with a voice of authority he cried out: "And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise." This code of only sixteen words embraces all the natural rights of man. Within its provisions neither injustice, nor despotism, nor slavery, nor op pressive laws of any kind can find a foothold ; no discrimination can be made against the toiling millions for the benefit of the privileged few ; no prison doors can be barred against the habeas corpus, and the right to speedy and impartial trial. What more is required in governments made for the people than these great guarantees? Within the last year an Indian at the head of his tribal delega tion appeared at Washington to plead for justice at the hands of official authority. His bronzed face and stoical bearing told that he was a native of the North American wilderness. The English language was an unknown tongue to him, and an interpreter told his hearers what he said. In the midst of his eloquent utterances, accompanied by dramatic gestures, there flashed from his barba rian lips, in barbarian language, that immortal sentence, first heard on the plains of Palestine: "And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise. His Christian listeners heard him amazed, and, I hope, rebuked. The Indian of the plains, with his blanket on, stood there teaching them a higher principle of government than had ever been practiced toward him and his waning, perishing race. This dusky child of a plundered, out raged people, in claiming protection for his home and the graves of his kindred, based his touching appeal on the injunction of the great Galilean, put forth twenty centuries ago. And if the experience and history of all the tribes and races of the earth be challenged, the answer will be that all things honest, of good repute and full of honor, ever known to the governments of the world, our own included, have owed their existence, their ex cellence and their glory to that rule of action which was pro claimed by the Divine Lawgiver, born at Bethlehem. Who has 32 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. improved upon it? Who has even approached it in sublimity and power? The teachings of sages, philosophers and statesmen are mute and impotent in comparison. Men, the most illustrious for ability and statesmanship, who have founded states, established constitutions, enacted just laws and secured liberty, are remembered with gratitude only in proportion as they have embodied in their works the golden rule, the parable of the good Samaritan, and been instructed by the fate of Dives. At this point, however, another feature in the history of the Messiah and of the Christian world awaits us. His labors were ended ; he stood with serene and awful majesty before Pilate ; he climbed the slopes of Calvary, and drained the bitter cup to its dregs ; he prayed for his executioners in his dying agony, and par doned the penitent thief at his side, and as the earth quaked with terror, and the sky grew dark, he cried, "It is finished." Joseph of Arimathea begged his body, and gave it a burial place for charity; and then, within three days thereafter, began that marvel ous and unending pilgrimage, which* from age to age extended in widening circles, until its line of travel became the highways of nations, and has marked the whole earth. The first pilgrims to the Holy Sepulcher were the two eager, weeping women, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary, early in the morning of the third day. The tomb was empty. Less than three whole days had the body of their Master rested there, and yet, not for a single moment in all the ages since, has that empty grave ceased to attract to its sacred precincts the emotional feelings and the devout pilgrimage of the civilized world. After the lapse of more than ten centuries the most protracted and de structive wars known to history were declared and waged for the possession of that one small, narrow spot of earth. The wars of the Crusades convulsed the world for nearly two hundred years. They were conducted under the banner of the cross, and for the rescue of the Holy Sepulcher from the hands of the Saracen. They present in themselves alone a tempting theme for an occasion like this, and yet the only great and imperishable lesson they left is to be found in their final and total failure. The soldiers of Mahomet held at bay the Christian world in arms. His THE HOLY SEPULCHER. 33 crescent has waved over the sepulcher of our Lord for the last seven hundred years and more, and it is there now. Does the Christian soul of the present day feel humiliated and cast down by this fact? If so, I desire to say that it is with espe cial reference to that sense of humiliation and disappointment that I have here alluded to the tremendous efforts which were made, and made in vain, to control, by force of arms, the last earthly resting place of the Prince of Peace ; to make him the patron of war; to recognize the sword, drawn in his name, as the symbol of his mission and power on earth. To my mind the providence of the Most High God is manifest in the ultimate and lasting results of the Crusades. Writers on this terrible episode in the world s history have been abundant and able, but have fallen far short, as it seems to me, of its true and eternal import, its instruction, its meaning and value to the human race. Philosophic historians, while deploring the loss of six million lives in the crusade-wars of two centuries, seek compensation in their alleged beneficial influences on the middle and modern ages ; in the better acquaintance and understanding brought about between the East and the West, and the striking social changes that took place; and finally, in the establishment of commerce, and long lines of transportation and trade, between different civilizations, and distant branches of the human family. Guizot and other accomplished writers on this subject stop at this, but we may not. The divinity of the Messiah, on which depends the entire struct ure of Christianity, and without which it would long since have crumbled in ruins and been swept away, was proclaimed by him, over and over again, as he cried, "My kingdom is not of this world." He constantly declared he would soon return whence he came. He pointed to his Father s house, not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. He sought no distinctions of earth; never spoke of them for himself. He desired no mausoleum, no sepul chral building, no magnificent tomb, no monument over the place where he rested after he had trodden the wine press of death. Who commissioned the captains of war to draw their swords for 3 34 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. him? All the powers of earth and hell combined could not dese crate his grave, insult his memory, his majesty or his glory. The contumely and scorn of the Saracen, however great, could not call for war at the hands of those who worshiped the Prince of Peace; He left no such injunctions or principles to those who owned his cause and carried his cross. When, for the last time, he drew near the Garden of Gethsemane, with the shadow of Calvary fall ing darkly and rapidly upon him, with not the faintest trace or semblance of human power in his hands to resist even the midnight rabble then on their way by torchlight to seize his sacred person, he calmly comforted his disciples with words of infinite love and tenderness ; called them children in terms of endearment ; told them repeatedly to love one another ; bade them be of good cheer ; and then, in the high, exultant tone of a conqueror, exclaimed: M I have overcome the world!" And his exultant cry of victory, even though his hour was then come for torture and death, has proven true on every page of history in all the ages since ; but the conquest over the world, and over the powers of the world, which he proclaimed, was not the victory of the sword, but of the spirit that is far mightier than the sword. By the peaceful power of that spirit he governs the governing powers of the earth to-day. He rules in the councils that make international law for the Christian, the infidel and the pagan world alike. The empire of Mahomet at Constantinople must bow to the mandates of the Christian powers, while the pagans of Africa and of China confess the same domina tion. It is this spirit which inspires the best purposes of those in authority, and purifies the atmosphere of the religious, moral, so cial, business and political world. The intervention of military array, and the clash of arms for a Ruler over whose coming the angels sung of peace and good-will, was a mockery and a denial of his sacred character. War, ag gressive war, in its stern, pitiless array, its remorseless spirit, blood thirsty passions ; its unsparing hates and implacable animosities ; its ghastly bivouacs of the dead and its still more ghastly encamp ments of the wounded and the dying; war, with its marches, sieges and battles, is, of all things the mind can conceive, most ab horrent to the teachings of him who even amended the ten com- THE HOLY SEPULCHER. 35. mandments as they were delivered to Moses, in order that all the children of men of every tribe and kindred should be commanded to love one another; who declared that the Son of Man is not come to destroy men s lives, but to save them." Nor have modern times, even our own, been without a striking illustration of this great feature in the history of the Christian world. It was the old warlike and mistaken spirit of the Crusades that inspired Nicholas, Czar of Russia, in 1852, to demand a pro tectorate for the Russian empire over the holy places of Palestine and over the Greek Church in Asiatic Turkey. The overthrow and absorption of the Turkish empire has been the policy of the czars since the reign of Catherine, and only a little more than forty years ago Nicholas unfurled the banner of the cross and appealed to religious zeal for the purposes of invasion and conquest, as other powerful potentates had done before him. The war of the Crimea ensued. The world saw great armies mustered on the Chersonesus ; witnessed the siege of Sebastopol, the fall of the Malakoff, the defeat of the czar at every point, and finally his death in the gloom of a broken heart as the principal results of this last attempt in the name of Christ to keep watch over his sepulcher, sword in hand. Indeed it is most obvious that the Crusades and their results, both in the middle ages and in modern times, when rightfully con sidered, are vast object lessons against war for the promotion of the Christian faith, or for any of the purposes of the Christian re ligion ; against war under the banner of the cross, or by any Chris tian people ; against the sword and the battle-ax as instruments of missionary work in the spread of Christian civilization. Rebuked with defeat and disaster from the very precincts of the Holy Sepul cher the Crusade-wars point the Christian world away from the fields of strife and carnage, and towards that day when, in the ful fillment of prophecy, the sword and the spear shall become the plowshare and the pruning hook, and nations shall learn war no more. It was on the Mount of Olives that the great Master cried : Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God," and it is his spirit and teaching now, to-day, in the calm 36 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. sunshine of a peaceful world, by which the minds of men in high places are found moving for the adjustment of all international differences and contentions without resort to tented fields, or the devastating horrors of war. Parliaments of kingdoms and congresses of republics are alike bowing before the Prince of Peace ; aspiring to become the pacifi cators of nations ; turning their faces toward the coming of that perfect day of millennial glory when there shall be none to hurt or to harm in all the holy mountain of the Lord. A treaty of arbitration between the United States of America and the empire of Great Britain for the settlement of all national variances and disputes, by an appeal to the province of reason and not to the fields of arms, is worth more to mankind and to the cause of Christian civilization than all the inventions in ordnance and fire arms since gunpowder was discovered ; more than all the men of war, battle-ships, steel cruisers, turreted monitors and torpedo gunboats ever launched with which to vex the seas of the world, turning their green waters red. Even the name of such a method of peace, like a rich strain of melody, will salute the ears, the hearts and the hopes of the peaceful, home-loving, home-toiling and home-staying millions from whom mighty armies are now drawn and mustered by their rulers and hurled to carnage and death. The example of a treaty for the honorable avoidance of bloodshed between the two strongest and most martial nations of the earth will light up the world and penetrate its darkest recesses, like a celestial halo from on high. The spirit of arbitration is moving now as a Christian missionary throughout the boundaries of all civilized nations, and will not rest until a mighty harvest of peace and good-will has been gathered in. Be not deceived nor misled. He who preached on the Mount governs the world, and as the generations come and go, and the centuries move on, he guides at his own time, and by his own methods, the councils of men and of nations to higher planes of thought and action, and to greater, broader developments of strength, happiness and true glory. All hail the day when the diplomacy of nations shall take the olive branch as its emblem, arbitration as its court of last resort, enlightened reason as its um- THE HOLY SEPULCHER. 37 pire, and the peace of mankind on principles of justice and honor as its final purpose and ultimate conclusion. Then will equality in the enjoyment of national rights be en forced by the co-operating public opinion of the world, stronger far than all the heavy artillery that ever thundered and shook the earth in battle ; then will the powerful no longer prey upon and swallow up the weak; the iron grip of might will no longer consti tute the right ; the marauding spirit of bloody conquest will dis appear ; the lawless flags of robber-nations will halt with respect at unfortified and unarmed boundaries, now treated with contempt; ruthless invasions of defenseless states for purposes of aggrandize ment and plunder will cease ; the rod of the oppressor will be broken; the scepter of injustice paralyzed. The stern opprobrium of mankind concentrated into an active international policy against wars of ambition and spoliation will overawe the most warlike rulers on earth. The spirit of Ahab, king of Samaria, is still abroad among the nations, saying to-day to helpless Naboth, as Ahab said forty centuries ago : Give me thy vineyard that I may have it for a garden of herbs, because it is near unto my house." In the light of the new dispensation now dawning upon the world agreement by arbitration, the dispensation of the peace makers the voice of the pillager and the pirate by land and by sea, will die away and be heard no more; nor will Naboth ever again be stoned to death in order to steal from him and his pos terity the inheritance of his fathers. Another reason for the failure of the crusader s armed pilgrim age as an acceptable service to the cause of Christianity yet re mains, and arises with great force in this connection. The wor ship of God depends upon no locality; requires no shrine nor altars; no temples with long-drawn aisles, fretted vaults, and tur rets pointing to the sky. The humblest peasant on the globe, far distant from Jerusalem, is as near to the Saviour s love and com passion as the prostrate pilgrim on his tomb. The Christian fire side, however lowly and obscure, is as well known to our Father in heaven as any of the holy places in Palestine. The great Mas ter, Teacher and Redeemer came not merely to the Jordan, to Lake Galilee, Mount Olivet, Gethsemane, and to Calvary; he 38 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. came to the whole earth; to every river, mountain and plain; to the wilderness, the dark forests, the lonesome deserts; to every sea coast; to the crested waves of every ocean. His burial place is not alone in Judea ; it need not be sought there ; it is in all lands and climes, and in every penitent heart that believes in him. But few of the children of men can make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and bathe with tears its sacred places, but to every generation of all peoples, tribes and nations the presence of Christ is assured, if sought, in their own homes. His voice is close to every ear that listens, and is incessantly repeating to every weary, toil-worn heart: Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. And lo ! now, what is this great light we see breaking over head, brighter far than the sun, and falling in undying splendor on our pathway as we journey towards home and draw near the end? The divinity of Jesus of Nazareth, blazing out as it does from every lesson of history, is the only solution of earth s most transcendent problem the immortality of the human soul. " If a man die shall he live again? " Since the first morning star saluted the dawn of creation, this question has lived, and breathed, and whispered eagerly and incessantly in every throbbing heart this side of the sun. On every plain and mountain; from the Himalayas, crested with eternal snow, to the jungles of Africa under the equator; in the land of Isis and Osiris, lotus-crowned Egypt, and in the tents of Zoroaster, who worshiped the fire of the sun, and besought the stars to unfold their mysteries ; in the prison- house of Socrates, with his cup of hemlock, and in the wigwam of the Indian of the New World ; wherever the footstep of man has left its print, there this yearning appeal has been felt and heard ; there the human mind, whether weak or strong, whether in dense darkness or in the misty, delusive light of the ancient philosophies, has been found peering with sleepless, unceasing vigilance into the future; making moan and prayer, often eloquent and often pitiful, to the sun, and the moon, and the blazing midnight stars; to the mountains, the rivers, the oceans, and the winds, for an answer to the universal, unappeasable cry for immortality. THE HOLY SEPULCHER. 39 But nature with all its powers, the physical universe with all its magnificence and glory, can give no response ; neither the heavens above, nor the earth below, nor the waters under the earth, can make answer to this longing cry, this ceaseless interrogation of eternity which keeps time with every heartbeat on the shores of mortality. Over the graves of the loved and lost ones of earth, from pale, quivering lips, and breaking hearts, the wailing, sobbing question is as unceasing as the murmur of the winds, and its bur den is forevermore the same: " Shall this mortal put on immor tality; shall we meet again to part no more, to weep no more, to die no more?" The philosophy of ancient paganism, and the scientific thought of modern infidelity have alike tried, and tried in vain, to wrench apart the iron jaws of death and extort an answer from the dumb and silent mystery of the tomb. Macaulay has said that not a single one of the many sciences in which we sur pass the Blackfoot Indian throws the smallest light on the state of the soul after life is extinct; that all the philosophers, ancient and modern, who have attempted, without the help of revelation, to prove the immortality of man, from Plato down to Franklin, have failed deplorably." Not a gleam of light, not a ray of hope, not even the dim twinkling of a distant star comes from the great and intellectual school of materialism. Not a promise, not a blessing, not a com fort for the living, for the dying, or for the dead, brightens a single page with which the writers of that school have confused and dark ened the counsels of mankind. The Huxleys, the Tyndals, the Darwins and their brilliant co-workers present a worse than barren, sterile, blighted fig tree to the world, and ask the soul of man to feed upon it. They offer nothing as a substitute for that system of hope which they would destroy ; not even the gentle but futile dogmas of Bud dha, nor the brutal and degraded paradise of Mahomet. They close their lives on a level with the ox and the ass, and ask the great family of man to lie down with the beasts of the field, and with them decay into dreamless dust. They look upon death, not as a transfer station from one world to another in an endless jour- 40 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. ney, but rather as a final escape from a miserable existence, be stowed upon them by a process of evolution derived, in the be ginning, from the lowest animals that hide in the jungles and creep on all fours on the face of the earth. They deny a spiritual life beyond the grave because it is not within their finite comprehension, while even the grass that grows at their feet, and the seed-corn in the ground that makes the com ing harvest, and the flower that blooms before their faces, are all equally so. They reject the attributes of Deity because such attributes are beyond the grasp of the human mind, while the mind itself is one of a myriad of mysteries which man can not solve nor explain, but which he still knows to exist. The boundaries of actual, specific knowledge are so limited, even on subjects the most familiar, and in regard to objects of daily and nightly observation, that the babe on its mother s knee, with its first use of speech, asks constant questions which the hoary headed philosopher and scientific sage can not answer. The truth is, the agnostic, in his teachings, however able and sincere, leaves nothing but a blinding fog on the river of time ; extinguishes every signal light of danger on its turbulent and deceitful currents ; in creases the care and hazard of the most skillful pilots in their soundings for true and safe channels, and threatens with final wreck the weary soul in its voyage as it goes out over the bar at the mouth of the river and into the boundless ocean of eternity. The great and hopeful heart of universal man recoils from such a solu tion of the mystery, and the purposes of his creation. There can indeed be but one answer to this tremendous ques tion, so vital, so personal to all. The advent of the Messiah, if accepted as that of a being divine, an inhabitant of two worlds, coming from the realms of eternity to the realms of time, return ing whence he came, triumphing over death and robbing the grave of its victory, furnishes absolute proof, beyond doubt, denial or discussion, that an immortal world exists, and in it immortal life. He who walked the waters and bade the winds be still, alone of all the manifestations of power this earth has known, can banish the secret dread, the inward horror of falling into naught; can re- THE HOLY SEPULCHER. 41 assure and bring peace to the trembling, affrighted soul when it shrinks back upon itself and "startles at destruction." Plato reasoned well, but the immortality of the soul which was to him merely a pleasing hope, a fond desire, a dim uncertainty, becomes a proven, fixed reality by the coming of the Messiah; by the opening of the King s highway between the two worlds, the visible and the invisible. In his divinity he came and he went; he passed from one world to the other, both ways; the route he pro claimed remains, linking time and eternity together, and affording to the human soul its only safe assurance that it will live hereafter. In view of that divinity, therefore, we listen without wonder or doubt to his own grand conclusions of the whole matter, to his own lofty anthem and promise of life eternal : I am the resurrection and the life ; he that believeth in me, though he were dead, jet shall he live ; and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. And who is he that would gainsay this pean of victory for the human soul in its hope of immortality? Who is he that would silence its strains of solace, mercy, and peace? Who is he that would rob the parting soul of the music, the light, the beckoning angels, the beloved faces that have gone before, making welcome from the sky? Who is he that would draw the black curtains of annihilation around the dying bed and bolt and bar the portals of the tomb with cold, immovable despair? Who is he that would force his way into the chamber of death to blight and destroy that sublime, yet simple faith, which alone can pluck from the heart a rooted sorrow and dry the tears of anguish ; which comes as a comforter in every trial and disaster ; which wreathes with smiles the dying face, even in the bright morning of life, and in its noon day prime, and as the sun of old age is going down? Far more merciful would it be to put poison in the wells and fountains of burning deserts where perishing travelers come to drink ; far more merciful would it be to blot out the sun, the moon, and the stars, and wrap the universe again in darkness and in chaos. If life is to end here, a mere span of the hand on the dial-plate of time, a fleeting shadow that abideth not, a flower that is cut down as soon as it is full blown, a few days full of trouble, a hur ried, anxious struggle from the cradle to the grave, and then no 42 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. more, no more every clinging love of the faithful heart extinct, every fond domestic tie dead forever, every precious memory blot ted out through all eternity, every tender hope of reunited love paralyzed ; if this is all if life here is but the insect existence of a single summer season, then indeed may the peasant and the philos opher, and all classes between them, make intense and prolonged inquiry whether such a life is worth living ; whether any being of intelligence, with free choice would enter upon its brief, sorrowful, unsatisfying scenes, knowing their inevitable termination to be in the black darkness of a sunless, starless, silent, incomprehensible nihilism; in a waveless, motionless, frozen, dead sea, where anni hilation reigns. If life is to end here, the soul must shudder at the thought that all its gathered and cherished treasures of earth, dearer far than life itself, are to go for nothing, as things without value; transient and delusive, to be swept out as mere dust and ashes, mere rubbish left in the chamber wherever death has been, and made its total, final wreck. It was Massillon, the great orator and ecclesiastic, who ex claimed : If we must wholly perish what to us are the sweet ties of kindred ; what the tender names of parent, child, sister, brother, husband, wife or friend ? The char acters in a drama are not more illusive. We have no ancestors, no descendants ; succession cannot be predicated on nothingness. Would we honor the illustrious dead ? How absurd to honor that which has no existence ! Would we take thought of posterity ? How frivolous to concern ourselves for those whose end, like our own, must soon be annihilation ! Have we made a promise ? How can it bind nothing to nothing ! The last injunctions of the dying what sanctity have they more than the last sound of a chord that is snapped, of an instrument that is broken ? But away with this vision of gloom, this dream of horrof, this nightmare of the soul ! The Christian faith neither darkens nor discredits the destiny of the human race ; its mission is one of hope, and promise, and happiness, in all the pathways of life on the shores of time. To all the children of men of every faith and creed, it comes in blessings; to the blind agnostic, who is proud of his blindness, to the groping unbeliever, who boasts of his dark ness, and even to the eloquent scoffer, with his bitter tongue, as well as to the faithful followers of the cross to one and to all it comes, with messages of charity, love, mercy, peace, rest, and everlast ing life in the name of the Divine Master. 4 I THOMAS JEFFERSON O other name in American history has been the theme of so much controversy as that of Thomas Jefferson. During his long life he was equally the object of intense devotion and of unsparing assault. Nor did the grave, when it opened to receive his aged form more than fifty years ago, bring peace to his memory. To this day opinions differ as widely, and almost as violently, in regard to his measures of public policy, and his character as a man, as they did when he was at the height of fame and power. Usually, when, at four score years and more, the statesman or the philosopher terminates his career upon earth, the final judg ment of mankind is placed upon his works, and there is little, if anything, left at issue in the public mind concerning his life. It is my purpose on this occasion to show why this general rule has not applied to Jefferson; why he not only lives, and will continue to live, in the thoughts and events of the world, but why at the same time the results of his life will always provoke contention. It is difficult at this time to appreciate the condition of the world when Jefferson reached the threshold of manhood. He was born in 1743, a subject of George the Second of England. It was a period of profound darkness. The people were everywhere steeped in lethargy as to their political rights. English literature was all reactionary. Hume and Johnson, the literary autocrats of that period, gave the weight of their great names to the most odi ous principles of the Tories. In 1760 George the Third succeeded to the throne of England (43) 44 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. at the age of twenty-three ; Jefferson then being seventeen. With in less than four years the immortal issue between liberty and des potism was precipitated on the American colonies ; an issue which not only called into action all the great minds of this country, but of the entire boundaries of civilization, and which even to this hour gives shape to every intelligent aspiration on the habitable globe for constitutional freedom. Jefferson appears to have been formed by nature for such an issue. W hile a student at the College of William and Mary, at Williamsburg, then the seat of the colonial court of Virginia, Gov ernor Fauquier, the representative of royalty, lavished upon him an intimate, fascinating friendship, and he was warmly caressed by a society, polished, cultivated, and eminently loyal to the Crown. He received no training at any time in a republican school ; and yet, when soon afterwards he stood at the door of the house of burgesses, on the 3Oth of May, 1765, listening to the flaming eloquence of Patrick Henry in support of his five resolu tions, written on a blank leaf torn from an "old Coke upon Little ton," his mind was already upon an easy level with the daring tone of the immortal orator. He simply heard for the first time a full expression of his own natural convections. Nothing amazed him in what he heard. In describing this event in after years he said that Patrick Henry appeared to speak as Homer wrote, but no mark of astonishment at the bold and rebellious sentiments then uttered ever escaped him. The rights of his countrymen were to his mind the natural rights of man, and as such he responded to their appeal at every stage of his eventful career. In May, 1769, in the midst of those thick-coming events which were soon to shake both hemispheres, Jefferson, at the age of twenty-six, took his seat as a member of the Virginia house of burgesses, and thus entered upon an official life of forty years du ration. We may here pause a passing moment to look with renewed reverence upon that splendid galaxy of immortal actors with whom he entered the fiery ordeal of his times. Washington was there in the meridian of his mental and physical powers, majestic in form and face; commanding in wisdom and courage. He was now THOMAS JEFFERSON. 45 approaching that arena of danger, death and glory from which in after years he was to emerge worn, stern and gray, but with a halo of fame about his lofty head such as never before nor since has been accorded to man by the united voice of the civilized world. Washington was eleven years the senior of Jefferson, and they met for the first time in official relations, as members of their own state legislature. There, too, was the prophet-like face of Patrick Henry, the vir tuous and distinguished Nicholas, Archibald Gary, Richard Ran dolph, the gifted Peyton, and others whose names are among the priceless treasures of their country s history. The same causes, too, which produced this brilliant group of genius and patriotism in Virginia were rapidly developing the elements of great leadership in the other colonies. This May term, 1/69, of the Virginia house of burgesses did nothing but consider and resent the wrongs inflicted on Massachu setts, and it was on that account dissolved at once by the royal governor. Massachusetts was herself, however, at the same time furnishing a vast array of talent and courage for her own defense. John Adams and James Otis were central figures in the colony of Massachusetts Bay, and were as hot and inflammatory in their defi ance of government usurpation as their most ardent brethren un der a southern sky. They shook the very foundations of monarchy by their denunciation of writs of assistance, and inflamed the American heart everywhere by their annual commemoration of the Boston massacre. The rich and stately John Hancock also em barked life and fortune on the dangerous tide ; and the now familiar names of Samuel Adams, Roger Sherman, Schuyler, Livingston, Jay and others promptly responded to the call of rushing events. As we approach a close observation of Jefferson s connection with the American Revolution we are at once struck by a fact which appears to have no distinct place in the public mind. His service in the continental congress is so deeply emphasized in history by his production of the Declaration of Independence that the ordi nary observer conceives that body to have been the principal thea ter of his labors. Nothing could be more erroneous. The first congress of the colonies convened on the 4th of Sep- 46 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. tember, 17/4, and from that time until the 6th of April, 1783, a period of nearly nine years, during which war, victory, liberty and peace followed each other, Jefferson served but two brief terms as a member of that body; in all less than six months. He was next to the youngest member when he entered congress ; he left it after his brief stay with a name as imperishable as the mountains, the rivers and the stars. He was called to concentrate the voices of his outraged countrymen into one, and in doing so he drew a chart of hliman freedom for all times, countries and races as well as his own. And then, having thus justified the cause of the American colonies before the world as the cause of every people desiring to be free, he resigned his seat in congress on the 2d day of September, 1776, and returned to Virginia. The motives which carried him from the brilliant councils of the confederation to the work of reformation in his native state were those of wise statesmanship and devoted patriotism. Virginia, in age and resources, ranked foremost among the col onies, and had been settled almost exclusively by emigrants from England loyal to the Crown . She had in turn been the object of great respect and favor on the part of the parent government. It is not a matter of wonder, therefore, when the Declaration of Independ ence was adopted, that many changes and great reforms were nec essary in this distinguished commonwealth before she could con form to a purely republican system of government. And it was this fact which caused Jefferson to turn his face homeward from the continental congress in 1776, and to take his seat in the Vir ginia house of delegates. For the same reason he declined an appointment as a foreign commissioner with Dr. Franklin and Silas Dean to negotiate treaties of alliance and commerce with France, tendered to him by congress a few days after he left that body. In speaking on this point, and of his duty to Virginia at this time, Jefferson himself says: But the new government was now organized, a meeting of the legislature was to be held in Oc tober and I had been elected a member by my county. I knew that our legislation under the regal government had many very vicious points which urgently required reformation, and I thought THOMAS JEFFERSON. 47 I could be of more use in forwarding that work. I therefore re tired from my seat in congress on the 2d of September, resigned it, and took my place in the legislature of my state on the /th of October." We thus see him abandon the forum of the confederation, de cline the pleasures of foreign travel, and attendance on courts, to enter upon the hard, ungracious task of reformation in his native state. And here began the tremendous conflict of his life; a con flict which pursued him at every step while living, and which to this hour, at times, raises its angry, unappeased cry over his grave. The " very vicious points" of legislation, mentioned by him as growing up under the regal government in Virginia, and which he declared in urgent need of reform, embraced and upheld the most powerful and sensitive interests known to his people. Neverthe less, his assault upon them was sudden, bold, and peremptory. Within five days after he took his seat as a member of the legis lature, he introduced a bill revolutionizing the entire system of laws governing the descent and the inheritance of all the vast landed estates of Virginia. There i^ scarcely in the whole range of human concerns a sub ject which resists and resents innovation more than this. The laws and customs of a people transmitting the soil from one generation to another become second only in sanctity to the principles of their religion. The law of primogeniture has been stated thus : Whenever a man dies intestate leaving real estate, lands and houses, his eldest son is the only person entitled by law to the whole, and if the other brothers and sisters are not otherwise provided for out of the personalty they are left destitute. If the eldest son is dead, but has left an eldest son, such grandson of the deceased in like manner succeeds to the whole lands exclusively, and so on, following in succession the eldest sons of the eldest sons, one by one, in the or der of their seniority. This impoverishment of younger sons and female heirs was the law of Virginia. It was a relic of feudal tyranny, an instrument of caste. It excluded nine-tenths of the population from owner ship in the soil, the common support of all, created a numerous tenantry dependent and subservient, following their landlords in a species of vassalage both in peace and war. Nothing could be 48 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. more inconsistent with the principles of free government. And in close connection with the law of primogeniture existed the law of entail. It is said that the desire to preserve in our own family land which we have either inherited or acquired is inherent in the human mind. However that may be, on the I4th day of October, 1776, Jef ferson reported a bill to the legislature of Virginia entitled a bill to enable tenants in Jaille to convey their lands in fee-simple ; and another bill entitled a bill for the revision of the laws. These two measures embraced the total extirpation of the ancient doctrines of primogeniture and of entail. A conflict at once ensued, most determined and powerful, in which the names of Jefferson and Pendleton appear as the rival leaders. Madison, Wythe, Nicholas, and others added luster to the debate. Jefferson triumphed. His opponents beheld with dis may the laws and the traditions of the fathers fall before him. They viewed the daring character of his mind with alarm, and drew off from him in distrust. He, henceforth, was to be denounced as a bold and dangerous innovator upon the established order of things. Speaking of the destruction of the laws of primogeniture and entail in Virginia, Randall, in his Life of Jefferson, says: The effect of such a change on the division of property, and the social condi tion of Virginia, must needs be enormous. In the lower counties of the state a large portion of the lands was divided into great estates, held from generation to generation by the older sons, in the same way, and producing the same political and social consequences that are now witnessed from like causes in England and some other European countries. The political and social framework was essen tially aristocratic, producing the luxury, the aesthetic culture, show and appar ently prosperous appearances incidental to such a condition, and which are often mistaken by superficial observers for the highest and best national development. The day, therefore, that Jeiferson brought his bill to abolish entails into the house he banded for the first time against himself a numerous and very influential body of enemies, a body of enemies who never forgave him nor lost a good op portunity to wreak their hate on him. But in spite of all opposition and bitter heart-burnings, a giant stride had been taken in the field of reform, and it held its ground, while Jefferson moved on at once to other great achievements. Without delay or hesitation he entered next upon a work con ceded to be the most perilous ever undertaken by man. The different religions of the world, each claiming perfection for THOMAS JEFFERSON. 49 itself, always resent the intrusion of the reformer, and fiercely re pel him from their thresholds. Church organizations, each claim ing the inspiration of the Jehovah, have in every age made un sparing warfare on such as have dared to point out their errors or instruct their ignorance. The pathway of controversy over these questions has been a pathway of blood and fire ; and when the American colonies were first planted the public opinion of the world knew no other settlement of them than by legal enactments, persecution and force. The suppression of free conscience was at that time the accepted doctrine and practice of all governments. James the First was on the throne of England, upholding and enforcing creeds of faith by imprisonment, disfranchisement and death. Louis the Thirteenth reigned in France, and was engaged in scourging the Huguenots from his dominions. Spain, always foremost in evil, was diligent ly employed in enslaving the souls as well as the bodies of men. War filled the world with its uproar in the destruction of religious freedom. The opinion prevailed everywhere that civil governments should fix and maintain their systems of faith and worship. Whether the religion was Catholic or Protestant, it was to be a part of the government where it prevailed. This odious principle came to our shores in full force and vigor in every colonial ship that ever land ed in the western hemisphere. To the hills of New England came a strong people, seeking in the midst of savages for that shelter which was denied them in civ ilized lands. That perilous pilgrimage in quest of an asylum for troubled consciences has long been the theme of admiration and inexhaustible eulogy. The bright colors, however, in which the picture is usually drawn, will not bear inspection. The unwelcome fact faces us on the canvas of history that the Pilgrim Fathers of New England established a religious intolerance as bitter, severe and sanguinary as that from which they fled. An absolute union of church and state was declared to be their form of government before they landed from the Mayflower. This was the evil from which they had fled, and yet they planted it deep and strong with their own hands in the New World before they left the deck of 4 50 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. their fugitive ship. The church was their state, and their state was their church. Dr. Baird, a friendly Protestant historian, and author of a work entitled "Religion in America, informs us that one of the first acts of legislation was to provide by law for the support of public wor ship. The civil authorities were required to levy taxes on every citizen for the erection and repairs of meeting-houses, for the sal ary and support of preachers, and for all other expenses connected with an ecclesiastical system which controlled everything. In 163 i the following law was adopted and made applicable to all the colonies of New England with the exception of Rhode Island : To the end that the body of the commons may be preserved of honest and good men, it is ordered and agreed that from the time to come no man shall be admitted to the freedom of this body politic but such as are members of some of the churches within the limits of the same. * " In other words," says the historian, "no one was to vote at elections, or could be chosen to any office in the commonwealth, without being a member of one of the churches." This doctrine forced the minds of men to accept as true an arbitrary system of religious belief before they were permitted to take the slightest part in their own government. In adopting such a measure, how ever, the American colonists are only to be held responsible for following an example which then prevailed in every country be neath the sun. The world was dark, very dark, and men walked as best they could according to the poor lights which guided them. Laws, however, can be enforced only by penalties for their violation, and these were quickly provided. A writer of that period says : Since a particular form of worship had become a part of the civil establish ment, irreligion was now to be punished as a civil offense. * * * To deny any book of the Old or New Testament to be the infallible work of God was punished by fine or by stripes, and in case of obstinacy, by exile or death. For other offenses against the established religion the penalty of mutilation was denounced, and the delinquent lost his ears, and his tongue was bored with a hot iron. These enactments were not merely empty menaces to alarm the wayward and sinful. They were actually enforced. On American soil, men and women have THOMAS JEFFERSON. 5 I been pilloried, whipped, cropped, branded and put to death for their religious convictions. In 1651 the Quakers were expelled from the colony of Massachusetts, and a number of them were publicly executed because they ventured to return to their homes. Indeed, this spirit of religious persecution prevailed in all the colonies, with but three exceptions. Religious liberty was estab lished in Rhode Island from the first. It happened in this way. Roger Williams was educated for the English bar by Sir Edward Coke, but subsequently embraced the ministry of the gospel. For his puritanical views he was expelled from the Church of England, and in 1631 took up his residence in Boston. Having suffered persecution for opinion s sake he became, in his new home, a friend to religious liberty. For this, he again fell a victim to in tolerance, and being expelled from Massachusetts " he retired to Narragansett Bay, where he became a Baptist, and founded the state of Rhode Island." There he reared and maintained the standard of free worship. It is also true that a union of church and state never took place in Pennsylvania, and that freedom of relig ion prevailed in all her peaceful borders. Maryland makes the third and last exception to the general rule of colonial proscription. Dr. Baird, the Protestant historian already quoted, says: Maryland, founded by Roman Catholics, had no union of church and state, no legal provision for any sect, and tolerated all until 1692, when Protestant episcopacy was established by law, the country divided into parishes, and the clergy, as in Virginia, supported by a tax on the inhabitants. Rhode Island, Pennsylvania and Maryland, asylums for free altars to God, founded by the Baptist, the Quaker and the Cath olic! Turning next to Virginia, however, we find there a union of church and state, during her colonial history, as firmly established by law, if not quite as intolerant, as in the colder and harsher regions of New England. A different sect prevailed, but the prin ciple was the same. The same vulture s beak was tearing the vitals of Christianity in both sections. Jefferson described the ecclesiastical condition of Virginia at that time as follows : The first settlers in this country were emigrants from England, of the English Church, just at a point of time when it was flushed with complete victory over 52 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. the religions of all other persuasions. Possessed, as they became, of making, ad ministering, and executing the laws, they showed equal intolerance in this country with their Presbyterian brethren who had emigrated to the northern govern ment. The poor Quakers were flying from persecution in England. They cast their eyes on these new settlements as asylums of civil and religious freedom, but they found they were free only for the reigning sect. Several acts of the Vir ginia assembly had made it penal in parents to refuse to have their children bap tized ; had prohibited the unlawful assembling of Quakers ; had made it penal for any master of a vessel to bring a Quaker into the state ; had ordered those already here, and such as should come thereafter, to be imprisoned till they should abjure the country ; provided a milder punishment for their first and second return, but death for their third. By an act of assembly of 1705, if a per son brought u in the Christian religion denied the being of God, or the Trinity, or asserted there are more gods than one, or denied the Christian religion to be true, or the Scriptures to be of divine authority, he was punishable for the first offense by incapacity to hold any office or employment, ecclesiastical, civil, or military ; for the second by disability to sue or to take any gift or legacy, to be guardian, executor, or administrator, and by three years imprisonment without bail. This elaborate system of church government in Virginia, with other features of like kind, had existed from the founding of the Jamestown colony in 1607. It was nearly one hundred and sev enty years old in America at the date of the American Revolution, and it was as old as human governments everywhere else in the world. It was haughty and defiant of restraint. Church property had become enormous. Glebe lands were vast in extent and of great value. A numerous clergy exerted to the fullest extent that commanding influence which superior education and religious au thority always bestow. The landed gentry strongly espoused the cause of the church, and the Virginia cavalier was as ready to fight for the lawful faith of the state as were the cavaliers of the old country. I have thus far dwelt on these details of a revolting tyranny over the human mind and consciencein order to say that in the face of such surroundings, confronted by the authority of ages, the deep and resentful prejudices of his own countrymen, and threatened with that unsparing proscription which religious bigotry never fails to inflict on the disturbers of its supremacy, Jefferson hurled his bolt of destruction full and square against the union of church and state ; against the right of lawmakers to determine by law the faith and worship of the human soul. On the i ith day of October, 1776, he was appointed a member of a standing committee of the Virginia legislature, peculiarly en titled, as it sounds now, a committee on religion, and consisting of THOMAS JEFFERSON. 53 nineteen members. This committee was expressly authorized to take into consideration all matters and things relating to religion and morality, and to send for persons, papers and records. A fierce conflict at once arose, a conflict which Jefferson himself , when seventy-seven years of age, spoke of as the severest of his life. In this first struggle to break the chains of a spiritual bondage, continuing, as he describes it, "almost daily from the iith of Oc tober to the 5th of December," a great advance, but not a final victory, was obtained. The majority of that legislature were chil dren of the church, and were led by the most revered names in the state. But when the subject, so long denied free discussion, was for the first time brought up in open debate, the most gifted advo cates of the union of church and state were borne down and beaten at every point. Every law "which rendered criminal the mainte nance of any religious opinions," the failure to attend church, or the exercise of any mode of worship, was repealed; and an enact ment was secured to exempt dissenters from contributions to the support of the established church." At this high noon of religious liberty, it is hard to realize that such legislation was ever necessary, and still harder to appreciate the vast consequences which followed. It was a sunburst in the midst of darkness, a more than electric light streaming upward to the sky. The privileged orders in church and state beheld it with rage and terror, while the lovers of liberty in both hemispheres, from the philosopher to the peasant, hailed it as the herald of the coming, perfect day. Jefferson declared, in tones yet ringing through the world, that "Almighty God hath made the mind free." Listening ears and troubled souls caught up these words on every shore and in every clime throughout all the boundaries of civilization. In Virginia the contest did not close until the union of church and state was for ever broken ; until the hand of human law no longer touched the relations between man and his Maker. In 1786 the great work was completed, and though Jefferson was then in a foreign country, yet it was his bill, entitled "A Bill for Establishing Religious Free dom," which became the law. Who shall have honors ; those who have stained the earth with 54 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. blood to enslave the spiritual nature of man, or those who have brought liberty to consciences in captivity? Who shall wear the laurel; those who have oppressed the human soul, or those who have released and made it free? Who shall be canonized; kings and princes who have carried keen-edged swords of persecution and made nations bleed at every pore for conscience sake, who have kindled the fires and scattered the ashes of martyrdom? Or, rather, shall it not be such as have labored to make all religions and all worships free and untrammeled? If all the dust and bones of every Philip, Ferdinand and Charles of Spain and Portugal, of every Louis, Henry and Charles of France, and of all the Plantag- enets, Tudors, Stuarts and Hanovers of England, were concen trated in one mighty urn, a single relic from Jefferson s remains, as they lie moldering on the slopes of the Blue Ridge in Virginia, would be more precious than them all in the sight of a just God, and in the eyes of every lover of the human race. Far different from this was the verdict of his opponents in his lifetime. A powerful and accomplished clergy believed with in tense sincerity in the church establishment by law. They de nounced the blow by which it had fallen as a blow against the authority of God himself. It was to them an act of blasphemous impiety. They were followed in their views by a large party of wealth and political power. Jefferson was at once painted as an enemy to the Christian religion, engaged in breaking down its altars of worship. Political animosity seized upon the false and hurtful charge, and it rang the onset of his adversaries for the next fifty years. Nor was his arraignment on this account confined to his own state. The puritan of the North joined the churchman of the South in a common warfare upon the man who had overthrown the legal supremacy of both. His principles, however, have sur vived and expanded in usefulness and glory, while the institutions of his enemies are left by the wayside in ruins. The next step necessary to be taken, in order to present with fidelity the character and labors of Jefferson, leads us to glance for a few moments at another question, once of ugly and awful import in American affairs. The institution of slavery was very old and firmly established THOMAS JEFFERSON. 55 when he grew up in its midst, on the headwaters of the James river. It existed at that time as a part of every civilization be neath the sun. It had received the sanction of every code of laws, sacred as well as profane, as far back in the past as history lights the way. It came to the western world with those who first touched its shores. The Spaniard, in his hunt for gold at the close of the fifteenth century, brought the negro slave to the American continent. More than a hundred years before the settlement at Jamestown, or the landing of the Pilgrims, slavery had found its way from the islands of the West Indies to the mainlands of North and South America, under Cortez, Pizarro, and other Spanish ad venturers. It was sheltered under the banners of Spain, Portugal, France, Holland and Great Britain, wherever they waved in the New World. In every one of the thirteen original American colonies it exist ed by law and in practice at the date of the Revolution. Slavery existed in New England in its most cruel form. The colonists of that section made merchandise of their Indian captives. They sold the native kings and princes, prisoners of war, to the sugar planters of the West Indies, while the African toiled for them in bondage at home. New York was a slave state as late as 1827. In fact, the responsibility for African slavery in America is not sectional, but national, and must be borne at the bar of history alike by all. The system was universal, and was upheld by the most sensitive prejudices and the heaviest property interests of mankind. Jefferson himself was a slaveholder, and continued so to the end of his life, and yet history leaves not a doubt as to his position. Whenever it could be accomplished with benefit to the slave, and without injustice to the owner, he was in favor of emancipation and colonization. The first bill he ever introduced into a legisla tive body was in 1769, in the Virginia house of burgesses, grant ing to owners of slaves the right to set them free ; a right they did not then have. It was at first defeated, but nineteen years later it became the law. The importation of slaves into the American colonies, through the African slave trade, excited Jefferson s most determined oppo- 56 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. sition from his first entrance into public life. This traffic was a favorite branch of British commerce, and was firmly upheld by the British government. When the colony of Virginia, in 1/70, at tempted by law to restrain it, the king of England, under his own hand, commanded the colonial governor, under pain of his high est displeasure, to assent to no law that obstructed the importa tion of slaves. In 1/76 Jefferson seized upon this frightful grievance and hurled it against King George as the common oppressor of both races. The face of the original draft of the original Declaration of Independ ence tells the whole story on this subject. There in Jefferson s well known handwriting, enclosed in brackets to show that it was too strong for the temper of the times and was stricken out, stands that terrific arraignment of the Christian King of Great Britain for inflicting upon the American colonies the evils of the accursed slave trade. And though this burning picture of wrong was denied the place its great author desired, yet its effect was not lost. It riv eted the attention of all civilized nations, but it is the peculiar glory of Virginia that she herself was the first political common wealth in the world to ratify this startling appeal of her distin guished son. In 1778, only two years after the Declaration of Independence was written, Virginia made it a felony to import slaves into her borders. Wilberforce took up the subject in the British parliament in 1791, thirteen years later, and immortalized his name by advocating the principles of Jefferson in the sup pression of the slave trade. Wilberforce merits all the honor the world has given him; Jefferson merits more. The great Virginian led the way; the British statesman followed. The first society for the abolition of the slave trade was organ ized, with Thomas Clarkson at its head, in 1787, eleven years after Jefferson had taken his stand against the gigantic crime, and bro ken the silence of the world on that subject. He lived to behold a complete triumph. Within thirty-two years after he struck the first blow commerce in slaves was made piracy on the high seas, and punishable with death wherever English or American law pre vailed. He lived to behold the law of nations, the public law of THOMAS JEFFERSON. 57 civilization, sanction his early views and enforce them on Christian kings and on infidel powers alike. In connection with Jefferson s hostility to the slave trade, it is natural to look at his record in regard to the existence of slavery itself. He had but one opportunity during his life to embody his views on that subject in an official act. On the first day of March, 1784, the Virginia delegates in con gress, by the authority of their state, executed a deed convey ing to the United States the entire Northwestern Territory, now composing the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin. Jefferson, Chase of Maryland, and Howell of Rhode Island, were appointed a committee to draft a plan for its temporary govern ment. The plan was drawn by Jefferson, and the original, in his handwriting, is on file in the state department at Washington. After providing rules for a temporary government, it proceeds to empower a certain number of inhabitants to organize a state or states, provided, however, they should adopt, among other funda mental propositions, the following: That after the year 1800 of the Christian era there shall be neither slavery, nor involuntary servitude in any of said states otherwise than in punishment of crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted to have been personally guilty. This famous document, so long the theme of political discus sion, may be taken as the deliberate expression of Jefferson s views in regard to the extension of slavery where it did not then exist. His position in relation to it where it did exist as a domestic institution of the states is also made clear. On the 5th of No vember, 1776, a committee was chosen by ballot in the Virginia legislature, charged with a general revision of the laws. It con sisted of Jefferson, Pendleton, Wythe, Mason and Thomas Ludwell Lee. Its duty was to report such a revision of existing laws as the transition from colonial dependence to the rights and dignity of a free commonwealth made necessary. In his celebrated notes on Virginia, Jefferson thus speaks of the position of this committee, and of his own with reference to slavery in Virginia : To emancipate all slaves born after passing the act. The bill reported by the revisers did not itself contain this proposition, but an amendment containing it 58 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. was prepared to be offered to the legislature whenever the bill should be taken up; and further directed that they should continue with their parents to a certain age, then be brought up at the public expense to tillage, arts or sciences, accord ing to their talents, till the females should be eighteen and the males twenty-one years of age; when they should be colonized at such place as the circumstances of the time should render most proper; sending them out with arms, implements of household and handicraft arts, seeds, pairs of the useful domestic animals, etc.; to declare them a free and independent people, and extend to them our alliance and protection till they have acquired strength. When near the close of his life Jefferson dwelt again in his auto biography on this painful and sensitive theme, and wrote as fol lows: The bill on the subject of slaves was a mere digest of existing laws respecting them without any intimation of a plan for a future and general emancipation. It was thought better that this should be kept back and attempted only by way of amendment whenever the bill should be brought on. The principles of the amendment, however, were agreed on, that is to say, the freedom of all born after a certain day, and deportation at a proper age; but it was found that the public mind would not yet bear the proposition, nor will it bear it even at this day. Yet the day is not distant when it must bear and adopt it or worse will follow. Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people are to be free; nor is it less certain that the two races equally free can not live in the same government. Nature, habit, opinion have drawn indelible lines of distinction between them. It is still in our power to direct the process of emancipation and deportation peaceably, and in such slow degree as that the evil will wear off insensibly, and their place be part passu filled by free white laborers. If, on the contrary, it is left to force itself on, human nature must shudder at the prospect held up. Far be it from me at this time to enter on the debatable ground here indicated in this remarkable prophecy. My only object is to disclose the attitude of a great historical character upon a great historical question. The first half of Jefferson s prediction is ful filled ; these people are free. The North and the South, alike responsible for their bondage, have alike paid the penalty in mu tual losses and sorrows. The question was left to force itself on, as Jefferson feared, and humanity did shudder at what followed. Fields of the dead, over which others have wept in later years, "rushed red on his sight" in 1821. " The sunset of life gave him mystical lore, And coming events cast their shadows before." Will the other part of the prediction also become a reality? Whether, however, the two races can live together in the same government, or whether, as Jefferson believed, a new home in an- a THOMAS JEFFERSON. 59 other land will, at some distant day, be found for the colored race, protected and aided by us, is a problem for the events of the future to solve. I need not dwell on the deep and powerful antagonisms which the position of Jefferson on the question of slavery provoked. The public mind, as early as the formation of the government, was morbidly sensitive on the subject, and it rapidly grew more irrita ble and intolerant as both sections seized upon it as a political issue. Another tneater of action, however, was awaiting Jefferson s bold and philosophic mind. He had served a stormy term as governor of Virginia during the darkest days of the Revolution ; he had been bitterly assailed by his enemies, but finally vindicated and publicly thanked by the unanimous vote of the legislature. He had re- entered the continental congress, when in 1/84 he was appointed by that body a minister to the court of Louis the Sixteenth of France. On three former occasions he had been tendered a simi lar mission, which for reasons both public and domestic he had de clined. Now it was accepted, and in August, 1/84, he landed upon the shores of France, at that time an intensely interesting field for fearless inquiry and bold political thought. It was a land of infinite oppression. Modern generations have shuddered at the scenes of the French Revolution ; humanity at the time looked on with a white and terrified face, but back of that frightful explosion there stretches away into the past a sea of des potism so dark and putrid, and so filled with crime and all unspeak able abominations, that it seemed the wrath of a just God could no longer be withheld. Five hundred years had been spent by un limited power in extinguishing not only every spark of civil and religious liberty, but in destroying the last vestige of the natural rights of man. In a country of genial climate and generous resources the laborer barely saved life from extinction. He paid taxes for the support of a debauched court and a depraved nobility and priesthood with every breath he drew. He was born beneath the scourge of the privileged orders, and they spared neither age, sex, life, property nor honor in their brutal rapacity. This was the history of France with which Jefferson was familiar, and such her condition when he took up his residence in Paris. 60 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. To the common observer all seemed calm and smooth on the sur face, but hidden fires were already burning fiercely in the hearts of the people, and it was plain to Jefferson s mind that a vast convul sion was near at hand. His fame as a revolutionary leader in America drew to him the confidence of the oppressed who aspired to be free. His presence, fresh from the vindication of a man s natural rights in his own country, gave a new impulse in France to free thought and daring speculation into the rightful origin and just powers of government. He was personally known to many of her leading men. His rela tions were intimate with Lafayette and other officers who had fought for American liberty. They had returned to their own country inspired with republican ideas, and were beginning to demonstrate them when Jefferson appeared in their midst. In his Memoirs, speaking on this point, Jefferson says : Celebrated writers of France and England had already sketched good princi ples on the subject of government, yet the American Revolution seems first to have awakened the thinking part of the French nation from the sleep of despot ism into which they were sunk. The officers, too, who had been to America, were mostly young men less shackled by habit and prejudice, and more ready to assent to the suggestions of common sense and feelings of common rights than others. They came back with new ideas and impressions. The press, not withstanding its shackles, began to disseminate them ; conversation assumed new freedom; politics became the theme of all societies, male and female, and a very extensive and zealous party was formed which acquired the appellation of the patriotic party, who, sensitive of the abusive government; under which they lived, sighed for occasions of reforming it. With the purposes and hopes of this party Jefferson could not fail to become deeply interested. The cause of the oppressed was his cause everywhere. In the Old World, as well as in the New, resistance to tyrants was, with him, obedience to God. While, therefore, he was faithful to his duties as minister, and made treaties of commerce for his infant government, yet he clung to his favorite ideas for the elevation of the people to the blessings of self-govern ment. With patient wisdom he sought information from every source. He made exhaustive investigations into the causes which were so swiftly producing the dreadful result that followed. This part of his life has been most fiercely assailed by his ene mies, yet who, either in France or America, made himself a more complete master of the philosophy of the French Revolution? Who THOMAS JEFFERSON. 6 1 studied it with a higher intelligence, or a more comprehensive benevolence? In his old age he says: I considered a successful reformation of government in France as ensuring a general reformation throughout Europe, and the resurrection to a new life of their people now .ground to dust by the abuses of the governing powers. In order to aid this sublime purpose he mastered the details of every system in Europe. With the government of France he made himself as familiar as with his own. Not content with this fund of knowledge, great as it was, he determined to ascertain by personal inspection the condition of the people at their homes. Bacon thought it not beneath him to experiment in stuffing a chicken with snow in order to find a cheap method of preserving meat for the poor. Jefferson s philosophy was of the Baconian school, practical and useful. He obscured his rank and journeyed many months among the peasantry of France in order to observe with his own eyes the abuses that called for redress. In Feb- uary, 1787, he left Paris and did not return until late in July. He passed among the people as an ordinary traveler, and had easy access to the lowest hovels, and to the humblest abodes of pinching poverty. He examined every means of human life and enjoyment. The qualities of the different soils, the manner in which they were cultivated, the amount of rent paid, the climate, the rains, the fruits, the various species of vines, the quality and quantity of the wines, the cost of their manufacture, the price of labor, how the laborer was fed and clothed, the supply of cattle, horses, mules, hogs and sheep, are all minutely noticed in his jour nal. He mentions the points where he found corn lands and corn, potatoes, red clover, wheat, rice and olives, and marks their prices. A laboring man s wages at one place he finds to be 150 livres, or $27.75 per annum, and a woman s half that amount. In another province he gives the following description of the life of a laborer : "A farmer of ten arpents," about twelve English acres, "has about three laborers engaged by the year. He pays four louis," nineteen dollars and thirty-six cents, " to a man, and half as much 62 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. to a woman," and feeds them. He kills one hog, and salts " it, which is all the meat used in the family during the year." At still another point he found the people living as follows : Their bread is half wheat and half rye, made once in three or four weeks to prevent too great a consumption. In the morning they eat bread with an an chovy or an onion. Their dinner in the middle of the day is bread, soup and vegetables. Their supper the same. On Sunday they have meat and wine. On the nth of April, during this journey, Jefferson wrote from Nice to Lafayette, urging him to make a similar tour of inspec tion. He says in this letter: I think you have not made this journey. It is a pleasure you have to come, and an improvement to be added to the many you have already made. It will be a great comfort for you to know, from your own inspection, the condition of all the provinces of your own country ; and it will be interesting to them at some future day to be known to you. This is perhaps the only moment of your life in which you can acquire that knowledge. And to do it most effectually you must be absolutely incognito ; you must ferret the people out of their hov els, as I have done, look into their kettles, eat their bread, loll on their beds un der pretense of resting yourself, but in fact to find if they are soft. You will feel a sublime pleasure in this investigation, and a sublimer one hereafter when you shall be able to apply your knowledge to the softening of their beds, or the throwing a morsel of meat into their kettles of vegetables. These are grand words. Jefferson was a stranger in a strange land, amidst a people who would never be anything more to him than a portion of the common brotherhood of humanity. He vis ited the down-trodden poor, who would never know his name, and sought to alleviate their condition. He studied human nature in its aspects of want and despair, and reached the conclusion that the French people were then in the act of turning with deathless animosity against the monsters who for so many centuries had trampled upon and outraged all their most sacred rights and their holiest affections. He sounded all the depths and shoals of the popular heart, and found there the spirit of rebellion, hot, bitter and implacable, against that awful vassalage which had extended from the reign of Louis the Ninth, in the thirteenth century, to that of Louis the Sixteenth, in the eighteenth century. And now that the gateways of reform and progress threatened to become also the gateways of vengeance and destruction, and could no longer be bolted and held against the rising tide, Jeffer son took the post of warning and pointed out a line of reformation THOMAS JEFFERSON. 63 which, in his opinion at the time, would have secured liberty with out excess. The king in his extremity had agreed that he would guarantee the following : First. Freedom of person by habeas corpus. Second. Freedom of conscience. Third. Freedom of the press. Fourth. Trial by jury. Fifth. A representative legislature. Sixth. Annual meetings. Seventh. The origination of laws. Eighth. The exclusive right of taxation and appropriation. Ninth. The responsibility of ministers. Jefferson earnestly advised the patriotic party to accept these great concessions, and pause for the present, well assured, he said, that all other proper reforms would necessarily follow. His advice, and efforts in that direction, however, came too late. The torrent was already too high to be stayed ; it swept on in its wrath and fury until old things were done away, and a new dispensation was ushered in. Jefferson remained in France until he witnessed the opening scenes of the revolution. He saw the Bastile, which had stood the siege and the assault of armies, perish in a moment at the hands of the people. He saw the heads of its keepers carried in triumph through the streets of Paris. He passed in his carriage between long lines of citizens and soldiers who fell upon each other with slaughter as soon as he disappeared. He beheld the submissive king appear before the infuriated populace, and saw the tri-colored cockade placed in his hat. And then, in the midst of these fierce preludes to the unspeakable tragedies that were to follow, he was called home in September, 1789, by domestic reasons, expecting again to return to France. As soon as he landed in America, Washington tendered him the appointment of secretary of state, the first place in the first cabinet under the constitution. It was tendered in the language of high personal compliment, and was finally, though reluctantly, accepted. He obeyed the call of the immortal chief, and though his writings disclose how intensely his mind and heart followed ever afterwards 64 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. the varying fortunes of France, he never looked upon her shores again. In March, 1790, Jefferson repaired to New York, then the seat of government, and took his place as a member of Washington s cabinet, with Alexander Hamilton, secretary of the treasury, Henry Knox, secretary of war, and Edmund Randolph, attorney-general, for his colleagues. At this point in his life we enter upon a new field of controversy, and of most instructive study. The struggle for American inde pendence had for seven years strained the American mind to the highest possible tension, and then came relaxation and reaction, and in certain minds doubt and distrust as to what the future of the government would be. An interval elapsed in our history, from October, 1781, to April, 1/89, from the surrender of Cornwallis to the adoption of the constitution, a period of nearly eight years, during which the new republic was without a chief magistrate, without a supreme law, without departments authorized to execute the public business; in fact, without form and almost void. The general congress had not power to pass laws necessary to preserve the public faith, to protect and develop the most important national interests, or really to carry on officially and regularly the common concerns of government. The states often declined or neglected to supply this deficiency so far as it de pended on their action. The lapse of time did not help this situation of affairs; the rope of sand, instead of cementing, continued to drop asunder. Then came on Shay s insurrection against the internal revenue laws of Massachusetts. For a time it rapidly spread, and seemed to threaten a formidable civil war. Chief Justice Marshall speaks of the insurrectionists as desperate and unprincipled, numbering twelve or fifteen thousand. It was from these, and other like causes, that there arose in many minds a deep distrust of the peo ple s capacity for self-government. When, therefore, the convention of 1787 began its work on a federal constitution, and after that constitution was adopted, the idea of a strong government, as it was then expressed by Alexander Ham ilton and his followers, was boldly advanced, and meant simply a government in which the popular will should have as small a part to perform as possible. Jefferson found this sentiment freely and openly avowed at the seat of the new government when he entered THOMAS JEFFERSON. 65 upon his official career as secretary of state, and he thus records his amazement. Here certainly I found a state of things which of all I had ever contemplated I the least expected. I had left France in the first year of her revolution in the fervor of natural rights and zeal for reformation. My conscientious devotion to t? ise rights could not be heightened, but it had been aroused and excited by d; ily exercise. He says that "politics were the chief topic, and a preference of kingly over republican government was evidently the favorite sen timent." In his famous "Ana" he again and again states this fact, and records the names of those who held such principles. Be cause of these statements, Jefferson has been assailed for more than threv.-quarters of a century with a rancor rarely if ever known in political warfare. His personal veracity has been violently im pugned, and a determined effort made to show that he bore false witness against his associates in public affairs. Was there, how ever, in fact, a party at the formation of our government, and dur ing its earlier years, in favor of a monarchy? This question can be settled by clear proof independent of Jefferson s word. Wash ington, who had been offered kingly power, who could have grasped a crown at his pleasure, wrote to Madison in March, 1787, in the following language : I am fully of the opinion that those who lean to a monarchical government have either not consulted the public mind, or that they live in a region which is much more productive of monarchical ideas than is the case in the southern states. Madison, in a preface to his report of the debates of the conven tion which framed the constitution, makes the following statement on this subject : It was known that there were individuals who betrayed a bias toward mon archy, and there had always been some not unfavorable to a partition of the Union into several confederacies, either from a better chance of figuring on a sectional theater, or that the sections would require stronger governments, or by their hostile conflicts lead to a monarchical consolidation. John Jay used the following striking language in a letter to Washington, dated January, 1787: Shall we have a king ? Not, in my opinion, while other expedients remain untried. Might we not have a governor-general limited in his prerogative and 5 66 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. duration? Might not congress be divided into an upper and lower house, the former oppointed for life, the latter annually? And let the governor-general, to preserve the balance, with the advice of a council formed for that only purpose of the great judicial officers, have a negative of their acts. John Marshall and James Monroe also bear testimony in their writings of the existence of a party at the formation of the govern ment which desired what was then styled a higher toned govern ment; that is to say, a government with higher powers in the hands of the few, and more nearly allied to the principles of a mon archy. Many other distinguished names might be cited as author ity on this point, but these are enough to vindicate the assertions of Jefferson and to establish the truth of history. The next step of inquiry into this great historical question touches upon an issue once exceedingly sensitive, inflamed and an gry, and even yet not at all soundly healed. Jefferson did not stop with the assertion that a party existed in favor of the princi ples of monarchy; he named its leaders and surrendered them to the judgment of the world. In the strongest and most explicit terms he depicted Alexander Hamilton on the canvas of history as the chief of the monarchists. This issue is distinctly made in Jef ferson s writing, and there is no other pleasure in re-opening it now than lies in the discovery of the truth. I would not question the sincerity of Hamilton s motives for the public good, but that he was correctly represented by Jefferson will not be questioned on the proof furnished by himself. He was a delegate from the state of New York to the constitutional conven tion at Philadelphia in 1/87. He drew up the plan of a constitu tion in all its parts and presented it to the convention. By its provisions the chief magistrate and the members of the senate were to hold office for life, the governors of states were to be appointed by the national executive, all the laws of the states were subject to revision and repeal by congress, and all the courts of the states were to be created by the legislation of the general government. Arid in presenting this vast scheme of a centralized government, Hamilton boldly stated that it fell far short of his conception of what it ought to be. In Madison s report of the debates in the convention we find him reported as saying that in his private opinion he had no scruple in declaring that the British government THOMAS JEFFERSON. 67 was the best in the world." After alluding to the advance which this idea had recently made, he again remarked : This progress of the public mind led him to anticipate the time when others as well as himself would join in the praise bestowed by Mr. Necker on the Brit ish constitution, namely, that it is the only government in the world that unites public safety with individual security. He then pronounced a eulogy on the British house of lords, contending that the American senate should be created on the same model, and asserting that no temporary senate will have firm ness to carry out its proper functions. On the subject of the exec utive head of the government, he said : The English model is the only good one. The hereditary interests of the king were so interwoven with that of the nation, and his personal emoluments so great, that he was placed above the danger of being corrupted from abroad, and, at the same time, was sufficiently independent and sufficiently controlled to answer the purpose of the institution at home. It is true that this report of Hamilton s speech made by Madison has been denied, but the denial is of no avail, for Yates, in his report of the same speech, also records him as follows: I believe the British government forms the best model the world ever pro duced, and such has been its progress in the minds of many that the truth grad ually gains ground. But in addition to all this, Hamilton s own notes, written out by himself and from which he spoke in the convention, are to be found in his biography by his son. Amongst them are the follow ing points, put down to guide him in the discussion: Here I shall give my sentiments of the best form of government, not as a thing attainable by us, but as a model which we ought to approach as near as possible. British constitution best form. Society naturally divides itself into two political divisions, the few and the many, who have distinct interests. And if separated they will need a mutual check. This check is a monarch. He ought to be hereditary, and to have so much power that it will not be his interest to risk much to acquire more. To offset this overwhelming record it is claimed that Hamilton gave the constitution an earnest support after its adoption. It is true that he did not seek to violate or break it down, but the proof is ample that he was without faith in it to the end of his life. In February, 1802, nearly fourteen years after the government was 68 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY, organized, he wrote to his intimate friend, Gouverneur Morris, in the following melancholy strain : Mine is an odd destiny. Perhaps no man has sacrificed, or done more for the present constitution than myself, and, contrary to all my anticipations of its fate, as you know, from the beginning, I am still laboring to prop the frail and worthless fabric. Every day proves more and more that this American world was not for me. Gouverneur Morris himself shared Hamilton s views, and ten derly cheris hed his fame, yet in 1811, nearly seven years after his untimely death, Morris wrote Robert Walsh in these words: General Hamilton had little share in forming the constitution. He disliked it, believing all republican governments to be radically defective. And further in the same letter: General Hamilton hated republican government because he confounded it with democratical government, and he detested the latter because he believed it must end in despotism, and be in the meantime destructive to public morality. He never failed on any occasion to advocate the excellency of, and avow his attach ment to, monarchical government. But Hamilton did not stand alone. He had a strong following among leading minds, some going not quite so far, but all joining in his deep distrust of popular government. The writings of John Adams, Fisher Ames, Theodore Sedgwick, and others almost as prominent, clearly establish this fact. John Adams spoke the sentiments of them all when he said : The proposition that the people are the best keepers of their own liberties is not true; they are the worst conceivable; they are no keepers at all; they can neither judge, act, think or will as a political body. Hypocrisy, simulation and finesse are not more practiced in the courts of princes than in popular elections, nor more encouraged by courts than by the people. This is painful language from such a source. He who had ful minated against kings in the name of the people in 1776; who had been of the committee to draft the Declaration of Independence, and among the first to sign it ; whose name was placed in the black-list, reserved for the gallows if the rebellion was put down, now declared that the people could not be trusted with their own liberties, and were as false and corrupt as courts and kings. The truth is that in addition to the causes at work at home, THOMAS JEFFERSON. 69 there were others abroad destroying faith in self-government. The French Revolution was in the height of its fury, attracting the dread and horror of all nations. Many ranking among the wisest and purest friends of freedom broke down before it, abandoned their liberal principles and took refuge in the doctrines of a monarchy. It will not do to say that Hamilton and Adams, and all who thought with them, did not love their country; but it is true that their faith in man s capacity for self-government was intimidated and destroyed ; it is true that they shrank from the logical conse quences of government resting on the natural rights of man ; it is true that the abuse of these rights at home and abroad drove them to embrace the principles of monarchy as a measure of supposed safety. But in the midst of all this panic and surrender, who can find where Jefferson ever lowered his standard, or faltered in his first love for popular, free government? Who can find where he ever spoke of his early principles, in this hour of their disgrace and peril, with bated breath, or in words of whispered humbleness? Who can point out where his faith in the people, in their rights and capacity to govern themselves, ever shook for a single moment? He was at this time the object of infinite vituperation on the part of the alarmed reactionists. His affection for the people of France, and his zeal for their liberty, were open and avowed. Hamil ton had filled his writings with eulogies of the British system of government. Jefferson at all times had declared his sympathy with the liberation of France, and now that in their rush for free dom, so long denied them, the French people had gone too far, he was loaded with all the odium of their delirious politics, philosophy and religion. He was ranked, in the mouths of his enemies, with Robespierre, Marat and Saint-Just; with Condorcet, Delambre, and as a disciple of Voltaire. The shape and color of his clothes, the style in which his hair was cut, his articles of food and drink, and his manner of living at home; his mode of travel, and his so cial bearing were all closely scrutinized and published in order to class him with the French Jacobins. He had shocked, beyond for giveness, all the reverence there was at that time in the world for royalty and royal families. Hamilton had pronounced a govern- /O FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. ment of hereditary kings the best ever devised by the wisdom of man. Jefferson s scorn for kings, and especially for the hereditary principle in royal families, was intense and unsparing. In one of his letters he says : While I was in Europe I often amused myself with contemplating the charac ters of the then reigning sovereigns of Europe. Louis the Sixteenth was a fool of mj own knowledge, and in despite of the answers made for him at his trial. The King of Spain was a fool ; and of Naples the same. They passed their lives in hunting, and dispatched two couriers a week one thousand miles to let each other kno w what game they had killed the preceding days. The King of Sardinia was a fool. All these were Bourbons. The Queen of Portugal, a Braganza, was an idiot by nature. And so was the King of Denmark. Their sons, as regents, exercised the powers of government. The King of Prussia, successor to Frederick the Great, was a mere hog in body as well as in mind. Gus- tavus of Sweden and Joseph of Austria were really crazy, and George of England, you know, was in a straight waist-coat. There remained, then, none but old Catherine of Russia, who had been too lately picked up to have lost her common sense. In this state Bonaparte found Europe ; and it was this state of its rulers which lost it with scarce a struggle. These animals had become without mind and powerless, and so will every hereditary monarch be after a few generations. When it is remembered that at the time Jefferson wrote this the right of kings to rule the world was regarded by nearly the en tire human race as a divine right directly from the Creator of the universe, it will no longer be a matter of wonder that his political sentiments were looked upon with so much dread and hostility. But with a clearer view of the future than any other American he stood by his principles under all circumstances and bided the re sults. The services he rendered at this period to the cause of free government are beyond the reach of estimate. Had he faltered in his political faith as others did, the government of the United States would have been broken down in the first ten years of its trial. The people s instincts were just; they appreciated this fact and loved Jefferson. In the first year of this century they called him to the highest post of duty and of honor, and the republic entered upon a career without example in the history of nations. The declaration of 1/76 had secured its independence; Jefferson s inaugural of March 4, 1 80 1, stamped upon it a policy of administration by virtue of which all its subsequent glory has been achieved. He re-asserted the original purposes of the government, arrested its backward tendencies and placed its administration boldly on the side of lib- THOMAS JEFFERSON. 71 erty and progress. How like oracles of wisdom his well-known words now read : Equal and exact justice to men of whatever state, or persuasion, religious or political ; peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none ; the support of the state governments in all their rights as the most complete administration of our domestic concerns and the surest bul warks against anti-republican tendencies ; the preservation of the general gov ernment in its whole constitutional vigor as the sheet anchor of our peace at home and our security abroad ; a jealous care of the right of election by the people, a mild and safe correction of abuses which are lopped by the sword of revolution where peaceable remedies are unprovided ; absolute acquiescence in the decisions of the majority, the vital principle of republics, from which there is no appeal but to force, the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism ; * * * the supremacy of the civil over the military authority; economy in the public expense that labor may be lightly burdened ; the honest payment of our debts and the sacred preservation of the public faith ; encouragement of agricul ture, and of commerce as its handmaid ; the diffusion of information, and the arraignment of all abuses at the bar of public reason ; freedom of religion ; free dom of the press ; freedom of person under the protection of the habeas corpus, and trial by juries impartially selected. No other such code of government can be found in history. It contains all that is worth an effort to obtain. It stands alone, con densing into a single sentence all the safeguards of liberty, and all the philosophy of political progress ever known, in any age, to the wisdom of man. It is enough to say that on this code he admin istered the government, and history has made answer that our grand and onward career, our liberty, equality and strength at home, our dignity and honor abroad, have all flowed from these doctrines of Jefferson, as surely as waters flow from their parent fountains. There is but one measure of his long administration as president that can find mention here. It was by his act, in the face of bitter hostility, and even threats of impeachment, that the boundaries of the republic were expanded until they rested on the Pacific Ocean. The purchase of the Louisiana Territory in 1803 was embraced by him with a zeal most unusual to one in his official position. The possession of the Mississippi river from its northern sources to its southern mouths was to him an object of infinite concern. With his own hand he guided and conducted the correspondence with Napoleon which obtained for American inland commerce the ex clusive control of this vast channel, and pushed our western limits from St. Louis to the Pacific coast. Without a drop of blood, a /2 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. single sigh, or tear, or groan, he enlarged the extent of his coun try more than any warlike prince ever did by the sword. The con quests of Alexander, Caesar and Napoleon all combined sink into utter insignificance in comparison with the peaceful acquisitions of Jefferson, and the results which grew out of his policy in the acqui sition of Texas, California and New Mexico. All that mighty region from the Mississippi to the Pacific, and from the British possessions to Mexico and the Gulf, with room and resources for more than* three hundred million inhabitants, stands to-day, and will forever stand, as a monumental witness to the prophetic fore sight of Thomas Jefferson. On the 4th of March, 1809, with his country free, prosperous, and four times as large as it was eight years before, the final curtain fell on Jefferson s official career, and he turned his face towards his Virginia home. He had seventeen years of life yet before him, and he made them all very beautiful and useful, but we can follow him on this occasion but little further. We may only linger a few mo ments more to sum up the salient features of his great character. It was once the fashion, and still is in certain quarters, to charge that Jefferson s love for the people was an affectation, and his sym pathy with them assumed for selfish ends. On the contrary he did not seek to lead the blind ; he was essentially a public edu cator, in order that all could think and see for themselves. In 1777 he introduced into the Virginia legislature three bills which comprehended the foundation of the whole educational system of that commonwealth. First. For amending the constitution of the college of William and Mary, and providing more certain revenues for its support. Second. For establishing a public library. Third. For the general diffusion of knowledge. The legislation proposed by these measures was thorough and minute, and complied with the highest demands of popular educa tion. In his old age he again turned to this beneficent work, and the University of Virginia, in all its usefulness and glory, arose at his bidding. Jefferson was himself the most learned American of his times. He was a critical master of the Greek and Latin languages, and his THOMAS JEFFERSON. 73 favorite reading, as life drew to a close, was from Sophocles, Eurip ides, Eschylus and the Bible in Greek. He wrote and spoke French, Spanish and Italian with facility, and possessed a fair knowledge of German. He had acquired the old Anglo-Saxon while a student at law, and in after years he mastered nearly all the Indian dialects of this country. He engaged constantly in astro nomical observations, and corresponded with the leading minds of the world on the physical sciences. He was elected a member of the agricultural societies of both England and France in recognition of his agricultural improve ments. While in Europe he selected and sent to this country va rious specimens of grass, upland rice, olives, cork oak, and other articles of utility. He invented the curving mold-board plow, for which the agricultural society of France voted him a prize, and which was shown to the American minister, fifty years afterwards, as the prize plow of Thomas Jefferson. His notes on Virginia were written at the request of an agent of France who wished his gov ernment to have a description of that large portion of America then known as Virginia. He discussed natural history with Buffon, and to refute the er rors of that celebrated naturalist, shipped specimens of the moose, the elk and the deer from America to Europe at his own expense. He corresponded with Humboldt on the different races of mankind ; also upon great scientific projects, one of which was the plan for drawing the waters of Lake Erie into the Hudson river, afterwards accomplished by the New York and Erie canal. He was for many years president of the American Historical Society, and received from Yale and Harvard their highest degrees. He is the author of the American silver dollar as the unit of account and payment, and of its divisions and subdivisions in the decimal ratio. His system on this subject was adopted by the continental congress in 1785, while the report of Robert Morris, the financier, was rejected. Not content with the mere purchase of the Louisiana Territory, he determined to find out its resources and value. In 1804 he or ganized the celebrated exploring expedition of Lewis and Clarke, and gave minute instructions for its conduct. Captain Meriwether Lewis was his private secretary while president, and Captain Clarke 74 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. was the brother of George Rogers Clarke. With less than fifty men they ascended the Mississippi and the Missouri rivers to regions where the foot of a white man had never before been, and then descended the Columbia river until they looked upon the Pacific Ocean from its mouth. For two years they were lost to the civilized world, and for a time mourned as dead. But when they emerged into light again, laden with the ample spoils of useful discovery, a new page in American history was written more brilliant and important than that which tells of the expedition of Xenophon and his ten thousand Greeks. Jefferson appears to have been incapable of envy or unjust re sentment. For the last thirty years of his life his enemies used the name of Washington with which to assail him. Some differences in their political views did exist, but designing men magnified them in order to crush Jefferson by the weight of a name none could en counter. This, however, could not blind him in his estimate of the sublime character which was invoked to destroy him. In the calmness of his home at Monticello in 1814, he thus recorded his opinion of Washington : On the whole his character was in its mass perfect, in nothing bad, in few points indifferent ; and it may be truly said that never did nature and fortune combine more perfectly to make a man great, and to place him in the same con stellation with whatever worthies have merited from man an everlasting remem brance. For his was the singular merit and destiny of leading the armies of his country successfully through an arduous war for the establishment of its inde pendence ; of conducting its councils through the birth of a government, new in its form and principles, until it had settled down into a quiet and orderly train ; and of scrupulously obeying the laws through the whole of his career, civil and military, of which the history of the world furnishes no other example. No other tongue or pen has paid Washington a tribute more just or more glorious than this. During the last fifteen years of their lives Jefferson and Adams corresponded with all the affection of their early days. In 1811, Adams said to a mutual friend, " I always loved Jefferson, and I still love him." The generous expression was carried to Jeffer son, and he at once commenced that long and beautiful corre spondence which will forever throw a mellow light on the fame of both parties to it. It was once very common to describe Jefferson as a rude and THOMAS JEFFERSON. 75 slovenly representative of the lower and coarser orders of the peo ple. On the contrary he was a man of the greatest refinement; graceful, striking and refined in appearance and manners. In per son he was tall, six feet two inches and a half, bronze-colored hair, fair complexion and gray, hazel eyes. In Europe, as well as in this country, he was always sought by travelers of the highest dis tinction and culture. He was a passionate lover of music, statu ary and painting, and indulged his taste for works of art to the close of his life. Jefferson accomplished all the vast work of his life with his pen. He never attempted to address the public except in writing. But he wrote constantly, and upon all subjects, for more than sixty years, and it is said of him that he never knew an hour of idleness. Not more than one-tenth of his letters have been collected, and yet his published works, embracing every branch of thought and investigation, make a large library within themselves. In his home at Monticello, his life was tender, loving and beau tiful. In 1782 his young and accomplished wife died in his arms. Over her grave he placed a Greek verse in which he promised to meet her in the world to which she was gone; and then, for forty*- four years, he made the journey of life alone; honoring her mem ory by the devotion, gentleness and care which he lavished on his daughters and their children. After his death, the private drawers of the old sage and states man revealed the soft, silken tresses of a woman s hair, bound ten derly with ribbons, yellow and faded with time. Much has been said and written on Jefferson s religious faith. The following letter to a grandson, written when he was near the grave, gives in small space his creed of duty and of man s relations to his Maker: This letter will to you be as one from the dead. The writer will be in his grave before you can weigh its councils. Your affectionate and excellent father has requested that I would address you something which might possibly have a favorable influence on the course of life you have to run, and I, too, as a namesake, feel an interest in that course. Few words will be necessary with good disposi tions on your part. Adore God. Reverence and cherish your parents. Love your neighbor as yourself, and your country more than yourself. Be just. Be true. Murmur not at the ways of Providence. So shall the life into which you have entered be the portal to one of eternal and ineffable bliss. And 76 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. if to the dead it be permitted to care for the things of this world every action of your life will be under my regard. The very last letter he wrote was in relation to the day his pen had already made immortal, and was characteristic of his career. He was invited to join in the celebration of the 4th of July in Wash ington City, and in response, as his last utterance in the cause of freedom, he wrote this famous sentence: The general spread of light has already laid open to every view the palpable truth that the mass of mankind have not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred ready to ride them legitimately by the grace of God. And then ten days afterwards the veteran lay upon his dying bed, waiting for the invisible curtains which divide time from eter nity to be drawn aside. All was well with him. No wail, lament, or remorse shook his soul in that supreme hour. He had played a great part in the world and was leaving it without a stain. He had entered the service of his country in his youth rich in lands and money. At the age of eighty-three he was dying poor, with the iron hand of debt clutching at all his worldly goods. He was not attended by the ministry of wealth, but he was attended by the sublime consciousness that a "A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches." He talked some of Revolutionary times, and longed for the dawn of the 4th of July, then just at hand, in order to depart on that high and heroic day. He watched the clock and saw the moments pass until he knew his wish was accomplished. At high noon on the 4th of July, 1826, while joyous bells were ring ing and festive colors streaming in the air, while the grateful hearts of a free people were lifted up in rejoicing, his great spirit left the precincts of time and entered upon eternity. As the traveler winds his way up the side of Jefferson s old mountain home he pauses to read : "Here was buried Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of American Independence, of the statutes of Virginia for religious freedom, and father of the University of Virginia." It was written by himself as the only record he desired for that shrine where every pilgrimage must end. As a statesman his principles live in all that is greatest and best pi _j THOMAS JEFFERSON. 77 of his country s history; as a diplomatist he established our first relations with foreign powers ; as a philosopher his name will sur vive as long as the law of progress rules the world. Wherever among men, in all time to come, the oppressed aspire to be free, the enslaved mind to break its house of bondage, and ignorance struggles toward the light, there will Jefferson be hailed as the peer, in wisdom and benevolence, of the foremost who have lived in the history of the human race. THE PUBLIC MEN OF MY OWN TIMES The sudden death of Mr. Voorhees prevented the full consummation of the pur pose which animated the preparation of this lecture. While entirely finished, to the point to which the reader will be conducted, it was still the purpose of Mr. Voorhees to place an estimate upon a much larger number of the public men of his times than is here disclosed, and it is to be regretted that this part of his purpose was defeated by his sudden death. Mr. Voorhees died at five o clock on the morning of April loth, 1897, and his active connection with this manuscript continued until 6 o clock on the evening immediately preceding. At that hour he concluded the reading of the pages of the manuscript, last completed, to his daughter, and, laying them aside, said : " There, daughter, it is finished so far, and the writing of it has helped to take my mind off of my sufferings. It is not easy to know when to stop writing about such men as Lincoln and Grant, but, to-morrow, if I feel better, I will begin upon the other public men I have known, especially those of my own state, and try to finish within reasonable limits ; then I will be ready for the lecture field. If the Lord will only give me health, my child, and I can believe the half that has been written and said to me on that subject, this means that you never need have so much as a whim ungratified in the future, and this is my dearest wish." Mr. Voorhees, in his unyielding tenacity of purpose and dauntless courage, was easily the peer of the illustrious soldier who furnishes the theme for a large portion of this lecture. His touching picture of the struggles of the dying chief tain toward the completion of his memoirs, his only material legacy to those he loved, was drawn when the final shadows were closely touching his horizon. It is undoubted that, for some weeks prior to his death, his conviction was pro found that he would not live to use the manuscript, on the lecture platform, and that his unbending efforts toward its completion were founded in the hope that, from this, his last production, something of material benefit might accrue to his only daughter. As with the great soldier, so with him, his last thoughts were for her who was the chief object of his tender and loving solicitude. The delineation of Mr. Lincoln s character will be found of especial interest. It was frequently said by the late Justice David Davis, who, as circuit judge in Illinois, was intimateij acquainted with Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Voorhees, as practitioners in his court, that there were only three men who clearly under stood Mr. Lincoln s character, namely himself, Leonard Sweat and " Dan " Voorhees. (78) THE PUBLIC MEN OF MY OWN TIMES. 79 This lecture, together with those on the Holy Sepulcher and Thomas Jeffer son, were to have been used by Mr. Voorhees, in the event of returning health, in filling the many lecture engagements arranged, and in contemplation, by the Southern Lyceum Bureau, at the time of his death. HE middle of the present century was full of pro phetic significance and meaning for the years imme diately to follow. To the thoughtful student, the year 1850, as he looks back upon it now, blazes out on the darkened and troubled face of human affairs like a great searchlight on the ocean, flashing far over the stormy waves, giving warning of perils to come and pointing out also the grand possibilities of the future. The turbulent murmur of coming events, revolutions, great changes and eventual progress was heard at that time in all the four quarters of the globe. The whole world partook of a feverish agitation, and all civilized peoples everywhere were engaged with strained and anxious looks toward the future, scanning the storm beacons that were seen gathering there. This was true of all the foremost nations of Europe ; and an awakening tremor from the deathlike sleep of ages was felt at cer tain points even in the dormant, stagnant realms of the Orient. Eight millions of British subjects were appealing to the public opinion of the world for home rule and self-government, tortured by the gaunt horrors of famine in the land of Emmet and O Con- nell ; France was in the throes of a revolution only too familiar and sad in her history, a revolution in the name of liberty, be trayed into the embraces of a lawless monarchy ; a republic was proclaimed in Italy, and freedom for the time being revisited her native home and touched and gilded the seven-hilled city of Rome as in the days of Cato and Brutus; while Germany, and all the kingdoms and provinces peopled by the yellow-haired Saxon, the Teuton, the Slav, the Hun, the Magyar were shaken with more than earthquake convulsions. Free thought and daring aspirations for free government were unsettling ancient foundations and obliterating ancient landmarks. In some instances dynasties fell ; while in others the people in their search for light and liberty, were thrown back into darkness and 80 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. their leaders died on the scaffold, or lived to make sad and touch ing appeals in lands far distant from their own. Who that stood on the midway centerpiece, as it were, of the nineteenth century, nearly fifty years ago, fails to recall the electric and explosive condition of the affairs of nations and of men at that period of marvelous transition? Wherever freedom was struck down by the iron hand of power in the Old World, whether on the banks of the Shannon or in the restless provinces of the dark Dan ube ; whether on the stricken plains of Poland or in the rugged for ests of Hungary, there an instant exodus from oppression ensued; an overflow of patriotic, home-loving people escaping from an angry, triumphant despotism, their faces always to the west, seek ing that house of refuge over which the flag of our fathers flies to night. Kossuth came to our shores the incarnation of revolution for lib erty and independence ; the herald of regeneration for his down trodden country ; the voice of one crying in the darkness of despot ism for manhood emancipation ; the defeated and outcast forerunner of a cause that is yet to triumph. In him I beheld for the first time one of the public men of the world whose names adorn the annals of history, and will never perish. Early in the year 1852 an escort committee from Indiana, of which I was a member, met the great Magyar at the city of Cincinnati, in his tour of the West, and ac companied him to the capital of our state. A more impressive face than his I have never looked upon. A head and brow large and massive ; a caste of features strong and majestic; deep, large cavernous eyes, all the time lit up and glow ing as if fed by inward and inextinguishable fires were so combined in this wonderful man as to make a portraiture on the memory of the beholder never to fade or grow dim. He was fresh from con flicts in which thrones had trembled, and crowned heads had been driven to put great armies in the field against the mere magic of his unarmed eloquence. He had the careworn look of one who had tasted the bitterness of the prison-house, and sounded all the depths and shoals of the mighty cause to which he had consecrated every tie that bound him to earth. It might have been said of him as it was of the great Hebrew leader who broke the chains of LOUIS KOSSUTH. THE PUBLIC MEN OF MY OWN TIMES. 8 1 Egyptian bondage: His calm, pale features half o erawed the mind, and imaged forth a soul whose joys and woes were of a loftier stamp than aught assigned to earth ; a being sealed and severed from mankind." He seems now, indeed, in looking back over the lapse of years, like one standing apart from the ordinary concerns of the world, dedicated solely and entirely to his mangled and bleeding country and his outraged countrymen. His fame as an orator at that time surpassed all that was known of eloquence in history, and when upon landing at the city of Mad ison he spoke from the balcony of a hotel in response to a serenade, the anxiety to hear him was intense and overwhelming. There were those who stood at a distance on the street in order to observe his bearing, and test, as far as they could, his gifts as a public speaker. He was short in stature, not more than five feet eight inches, compactly built, with a port and presence magnetic and commanding. The stillness of his attitude, as he looked upon his great audience, had all the intensity of vivid emotion and deep thought. His plumed hat remained upon his head, and the first sentence that rang out from his lips fell upon the ear like a strain of music, and was in the following words: " I have come to try the cause of downtrodden liberty before a jury of the American people." Not once, during the forty-five years and more that have rolled away since then, has a single word of that sentence escaped from my memory, nor have I ever from that hour to this listened to a voice so rich in melody, power and pathos ; so filled with the clarion notes of revolution, and of bugle calls to battle, as the voice of the great Hungarian exile and patriot. His speech was short, but it swayed and thrilled the vast multitude before him as if they were listening to the strains of an enchanter. I heard him in rapt for- getfulness of everything but him ; he was a revelation to me, the first among the public men of my own times, and in that long gal lery where memory hangs its pictures and portraits of the past, I long ago placed him in a panel by himself. Kossuth never returned to his native land ; the Austrian bayonet barred his way. He died in exile under foreign skies, and yet he 6 82 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. lived not in vain. He made the cause of liberty, for which he canvassed the nations of the earth, stronger, bolder, and more glo rious in every land the sun shines on. Governments the most autocratic were forced by an awakened public opinion to liberalize their domestic policies ; reforms were planted and made to bloom and blossom and bear fruit in desert and waste places ; the shackles of the serf, the thrall, the bondman were touched and broken by the aroused and indignant spirit of liberty, in regions of relentless despotism ; and for these great measures of relief and progress the world owes more to the Magyar chief, the Hungarian statesman, than to any other one human agency. In our own country, however, here at home, with a government dedicated in specific terms to liberty and equality, with a plainly written constitution guaranteeing the natural rights of man, more and fiercer elements of contention, intellectual conflict, and finally of bloody strife and gigantic revolution, were at work in 1850, the midway of the century, than in the disturbed affairs of all other nations of the earth put together. It was a period of compromise, concession and peaceful settle ment in the minds and on the tongues of very able, pure and good men, to whom a vision of events then swiftly approaching was denied. On the surface of affairs all was smooth, calm and placid, the hoarse cries of sectional bitterness had died away to an almost inaudible whisper; the two great parties then dividing the country could make no issue with each other in 1852, and one of them, old in history and distinguished in patriotism, laid down and died, not from want of leadership, but from want of a living principle with which to support life. The sentinel on the watch tower, the states man of long service and experience, cried "All is well," as he went his rounds, and yet in that very day and hour, and just below the smiling surface which allured and deceived him, hidden fires were burning which not all the waters of all the oceans could quench. Once in a while a note of warning and of menace smote the ear when some restless, uneasy, daring spirit denounced the compro mises of the constitution, and the compromise of 1850, and, with fields of the dead rushing red on his sight, prophesied woe to the nation, but like Cassandra of old he was hooted into silence, THE PUBLIC MEN OF MY OWN TIMES. 83 and his words regarded as " a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." It is a historic fact that Vesuvius was not known to have volcanic fires in her bosom until they broke forth in a devastating deluge near the dawn of the Christian era. For nearly a thousand years we can see by the light of history a contented, unsuspecting, pros perous people building villages and cities around the base of that famous mountain, ascending its easy, sloping and fertile sides, erecting homes, planting vineyards, rearing generation after generation in peace and happiness, with no thought of danger. If any one more curious, or more intelligent than the rest ever detected and pointed out as an evil omen a thin line of smoke rising above its crater and mingling with the clouds, he was doubt less silenced as a disturber of public tranquillity, and an enemy to the public credit. The entombed ruins of Herculaneum and Pom peii, however, remain to illustrate the power of nature s secret, unheeded forces, while other and far greater results on the pages of history attest the irresistible achievements made by unseen, hid den causes in the progress of the human race. Amongst these achievements, and indeed their most striking feature, arise into view the strong, chosen and equipped public men who come with them, and take them in charge. During that period of delusive slumber, false security and con fiding repose which followed the compromise measures of 1850, men in private life, unknown to fame, as well as those more dis tinguished, moved to and fro among their fellow-men without pre monition of the parts they were to play, or the tasks that were before them. They were in the hands of destiny, will be said by some ; but with greater truth it can be said they were in the hands of God. They threaded their way amongst issues of political and moral power that could no more be suppressed than imprisoned dynamite in its bed of rock. The fugitive slave law, supplemented by the Dred Scott decision, and the repeal of the Missouri compromise, all in the brief space of four years, were charged with irrepressible and explosive forces in both sections of the Union, beside which all the 84 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. flaming volcanoes of the earth combined are tame, and insignificant in their results. t These elements of discord, radical change and sweeping revolu tion were open to every observation, and yet how rare the so- journer of that period, whether in the North or in the South, who perceived their innate meaning, or beheld their inevitable and pre destined conclusion ! The southern statesman pointed to the con stitution, and mocked at the clouds that hung dark and full of evil portent on his horizon, while the disciple of a new faith and a new era looked, up in the North, to a law higher and stronger in the forum of conscience than any written words could be. Both were sincere, brave and honest, both loved their country, but neither the one nor the other, as a rule, whether sleeping or waking, ever dreamed of the end that was to come. The exception to this rule, without doubt, did sometimes exist ; a divinely gifted being, with second-sight for events of the future, and on whose mind the con sequences of present issues were always logically depicted, though they might not transpire to the world for years, or for generations. But at this point we may cease to generalize, and become more specific. Standing as I do now, with my face to the past, and looking back over a wide expanse of time, there rises to my view a form and face familiar to me in the early days of my manhood, and since then, as familiar to all the races of the civilized globe as the morning or the evening star on the front of the sky. In the autumn of the year 1852 I first saw Abraham Lincoln, then going his weary round in the courts of the circuit that stretched from Springfield to the state line between Illinois and Indiana. He had been repeatedly a member of his state legislature, once a member of congress, but as yet was without national reputation. There was a hushed and silent air about him on national issues at that time very marked and noticeable. It was said in undertones by his friends that he had not done himself justice in the presiden tial canvass just then closed; that the principles of his party, like Dead Sea fruit, had turned to ashes on his lips; that " his soul and heart were not in the undertaking ; that his speeches had not been equal to his ability or reputation. Those who knew him best said he had lost his interest in politics ; that his ambition was THE PUBLIC MEN OF MY OWN TIMES. 85 dead ; and that he plodded on with a bent and darkened brow, unaware that a book of revelations was about to be opened, in which he was to appear and live forever as the Alpha and the Omega of a new dispensation in the world s history. This picture may have had in it some elements of truth, but it seemed not so to me at the time, nor does it seem so now. That he was dissatisfied with the position of his party ; that he felt he had been feeding on political husks where he had craved bread ; that he intensely believed the slavery question could never be compromised, that he was deeply depressed, and his mind at times shrouded in gloom by considerations of this kind, can be easily understood and conceded ; but to a close and eager observ er, who for seven years in the courts, and in social intercourse, listened with absorbed interest to every word that fell from his lips, watched the expressive play of his strong features, and saw the light come and go in his swarthy, melancholy face, something more and far higher was powerfully suggested. It never occurred to me that his long periods of intense mental abstraction, whole days and even weeks in silent, preoccupied thought, were spent among the meager relics and remembrances of his uneventful past life, but that they were devoted, more reasona bly, by a mind severely and habitually logical, to a deduction and foresight of future results that must arise from present causes. His mental vision was of long range, distinctly accurate, and abso lutely fearless of consequences to himself. The lethargic period in politics from 1852 to 1854 was to him indeed a period of comparative inaction in public affairs, but when the fierce clash of issues came, with the overthrow of the Missouri compromise, it was found at once that none of his time had been wasted in vain imaginings or moody dreams ; that in careful and ample preparation for leadership in the cause to which he was ded icated he surpassed all rivalry, and easily stood at the head of the column from the start to the finish. Only a little while before, a few swift years, and this great stal wart product of nature drove oxen and split rails as a day laborer ; now, upon the instant, and at a single step, he took rank over the able and accomplished Seward, the scholarly Sumner, and all their 86 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. powerful and experienced associates, in the most tremendous po litical movement ever known in history. Let no one claim that he foresaw Lincoln s transformation at the time it came, or caught glimpses of his amazing career before it opened ; and yet, when he stood soon afterwards on the delectable mountain, with a halo of fame and power about his head, the rea son why he was there became so plain that many who had been closest to him when most obscure persuaded themselves, and tried to persuade others, that they had long ago predicted his elevation and his glory. Whether in his cabin home in Kentucky or in Indiana ; steering a flatboat down the Mississippi river, or making rails in the groves of Illinois ; a captain in the Black Hawk war, or carrying the postoffice of Salem village in his hat ; handling a surveyor s chain or trafficking in the cheap contents of a dry goods shop ; in whatsoever position he was called to fill, including the highest on earth, he met every duty so readily, so easily, so naturally, and with so much of reserved power within himself, that the world, at an early stage in his wonderful life, ceased to be surprised at anything that happened to his fame and fortunes, or at any achievement that came from his teeming and versatile brain. Nor, on the other hand, were his greatest actions and most fa mous utterances ever anticipated or expected in advance by even those who most carefully studied him. He shared the deepest re cesses of his mind and the inmost purposes of his life with no hu man being. He was the most self-reliant, self-absorbed and intro spective public actor whose name can now be pointed out on the pages of history. When he startled the world with a new and dangerous application of the old aphorism, that " a house divided against itself could not stand," he took his position solitary and alone, asking ad vice from nobody, and refusing it when offered. Lifetime friends turned pale with dread of political disaster, and yet no sooner were his winged words abroad in the world than they were accepted and embraced as true and fitly chosen, by every follower of the great organization which he now led. In speaking of this speech after wards he simply said : " I had willed it so, and was willing, if necessary, to perish with it." To the minds of honest, patriotic THE PUBLIC MEN OF MY OWN TIMES. 8/ millions in every section of the republic his words were a tocsin of war ; to his own mind they were simply a philosophic prophecy which time has fulfilled. The house continues to stand, but it has ceased to be divided. He laid bare the heart of the great problem at a single stroke, and from that time forward no mystery obscured the purpose he had in view. The same may be said, and with equal truth, of the famous cru cial question he propounded to his competitor when they stood confronted at Freeport in their immortal debate. The question was so framed as to permit Douglas to answer, as he did, that the first settlers of a territory, the squatters, as they were called, might ex ercise sovereignty, and exclude slavery prior to state organization. The prize contended for was a seat in the senate of the United States, and the response which Lincoln opened the way for Doug las to make was known to be popular, in the northern mind, and helpful to the " Little Giant." It is a matter of history that Lincoln s friends, many of them amongst the most noted public men of Illinois, crowded around him as the Freeport meeting approached, and with painful anxiety be sought him not to propound the question so dangerously charged with his own defeat. He made but little question with them as to the effect of the issue upon himself, but, with a deeper and clearer glance into the future than any of those about him, he rejected their eager and sometimes offensive importunities, passed them by with an ex clusive and indeed haughty air and manner, and put the famous in terrogatory which elected Douglas to the senate, destroyed him po litically throughout the South, and made Lincoln president two years later. What mighty results were bound up in the settlement of a prin ciple at that time ! The mind lingers around the period of this famous joint discussion, and travels even now with the great gladi ators as they passed from point to point over the empire state of the Mississippi valley. We seem loath to leave them, and would gladly again drink in their eloquence, scan their personal traits and study their trenchant wisdom. May we not for a few moments re call them both, as they then appeared, in comparison with each other ? 88 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. They were an extreme contrast in every particular. In stature Lincoln was six feet four inches, when standing erect, lean and spare in frame, while Douglas was but five feet four inches in height, the same as the great Napoleon, and of full habit. Doug las dressed with care and taste, while Lincoln often pained his friends by his extreme indifference to his apparel. Douglas had all the advantages, not only of early education, but of long expe rience as a debater in both branches of congress, and was compared by his admirers to Charles James Fox of the British parliament in forensic discussion. His eloquence was ardent and magnetic, and the crowd was moved and electrified by him at will. He led a headlong charge in the political field, as Murat led his cavalry on the field of battle, always riding at their head, saber in hand. Lincoln as a leader was wholly different; not impulsive, not mag netic, not eloquent in the sense that Douglas was, indifferent to show or parade, apparently cold and critical with his subject, car ing but little, if at all, for enthusiasm, resting entirely for success on his great common sense, the inflexibility of his logic, his invin cible candor and the justice of his cause. In his appearance and attitude as a speaker, he did not seem to mix and mingle with his audience in personal touch and feeling as the most gifted orators are thought to do, and that sad, self-absorbed look, which covered his face like a mask at times, never wholly disappeared when en gaged in severe mental work. The followers of Douglas at the start claimed everything for their favorite, and ridiculed the pretentions of the plain man from Sangamon. At the close of the contest not one such critic re mained anywhere in all the broad land. It was conceded every where that the honors of the debate were easy between them, but it was also plain to all close-thinking people that an explosive train had been laid by Lincoln which at no distant day would precipitate collision and shatter and destroy every bulwark of human slavery on this continent. Lincoln never for a moment admitted that he was at war with the constitution on the subject of slavery, or that he gave it even a strained construction; on the contrary, he al ways insisted that his only contention was with modern and errone- THE PUBLIC MEN OF MY OWN TIMES. 89 ous judicial interpretations of that great instrument, and with unjust legislation not warranted by its provisions. In the bitterness of party strife more or less of injustice is always done to political leaders by their opponents, and Lincoln was no exception to this rule. It is due to history, however, and to true manhood to say that the opposition of Abraham Lincoln to slavery in the states and in the territories, until the war came and great bat tles had been fought, was not stronger, clearer, bolder or more ag gressive than that of Thomas Jefferson. He who has followed the author of the Declaration of Indepen dence in his burning denunciations of the slave trade ; in his local legislation in Virginia, enabling owners to set their slaves free; in the ordinance of 1787, an eternal monument to his fame, excluding slavery forever from the Northwest Territory ; he who has thus fol lowed the sage of Monticello, and then listened to his startling prophecies and warnings in 1820, when the slavery question again aroused him like a firebell in the night, will, in spite of prejudice and party bias, find a close connection between these two towering sons of the people, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln. The requirements of party spirit no longer demand that their names be not mentioned together, or that their records be kept any longer apart. Jefferson declared that nothing was more certainly written in the book of fate than that " these people shall be free" ; and Lincoln in his proclamation simply took up the prophetic utterance of the great Virginian, and fulfilled it forty years later. Nor must we overlook, in estimating his self-reliant power, the ways and means of his great work as the emancipator of a race. Who, amongst the living or the dead, can claim to have been in Lincoln s confidence on that tremendous question? Many people talked and wrote, and filled the air with clamor as noisy, uneasy birds are wont to do. Faith in the ultimate freedom of the slave sometimes rose and sometimes fell, but who can say, or now point out a human being, who was the confidant of him who held the pen and the sword which were to give freedom to enslaved millions? Delegations came and went ; newspapers toiled with argument, and filled themselves with predictions ; ministers of the churches called 92 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. tary man of the age, and then at the head of every armed force under the flag. In this rigid, peremptory, iron-clad order, however, not the faintest distrust of Grant in any particular entered Lincoln s mind for a single moment. According to the gifts of his nature he sim ply took unto himself the burdens he conceived to be his own, and with them retired into that solitude of the mind, that hermitage of thought, wherein he toiled and wrought for the present and for future ages. If it seems at this point that Lincoln was unlike not only the average of his fellow-men, but standing alone and apart from all well-known characters in history, the answer is that such is the truth, and such will be the verdict of posterity, growing stronger as the ages roll on. For forty years the attempt to compare him with others has been an incessant, but a barren, fruitless undertak ing, and so it will continue until the ready writer lays down his pen and writes no more. His counterpart amongst the living and the dead has rarely existed even in few particulars, and never in all the traits and endowments which combined to make his wonderful in dividuality. Comparisons in his case when confined alone to isolated and separate points of character and mental gifts, are vain and misleading, but when applied to him in the aggregate they be come even more so, and are without coherence, aptitude or instruc tion. If it is asked whether he was eloquent as Patrick Henry or Daniel O Connell, the world will answer he was not; and if it is further asked whether he was a master of rhetoric as Macaulay or Ruskin were, the world will point to the country school-house in the woods on the pioneer border where alone he had teachers ; and yet his inaugural addresses, his state papers, and his ten-minute oration over the new-made graves at Gettysburg will carry his name farther and higher in history as an orator and writer than the name of any one else who has lived in the present century. When we say, therefore, that Lincoln was sui generis, without ancestry, without prototype, without counterpart and without com parison, we are prepared to accept him as one chosen and guided t THE PUBLIC MEN OF MY OWN TIMES. 93 by a higher power for the times and the events wherein he lived and died. His soul was like a star and dwelt apart. That opinions and estimates of Lincoln s character, and of his relations to the world and its affairs, should differ widely, is read ily understood by those who were near him both before and after he stood at the summit of his greatness. It is hardly too much to say that to no two people did he ever appear exactly the same, and yet he never consciously deceived any one. He was spoken of by close observers as a many-sided man, am ple in resources, full of designs and purposes ahead; his eye always on them, and always making progress in that direction. He might be baffled and obstructed, and often was, in reaching one of his great objects in view, but it was never lost to his sight, and though compelled sometimes to slacken speed, and even to tack and shift his course as the skillful mariner does on a turbulent sea, and in the face of contrary winds, yet his destination was never abandoned. Those who were close alongside of him in courts, and in cabi nets, and in councils of state, often thought they were directing his course and guiding his purposes, when, in point of fact, he was sole pilot and supreme master under all such circumstances, and in variably carried them with him into the port originally fixed in his own mind. He carried at all times a well-defined, specific mental chart of future plans and progress, but never displayed it until the time was ripe for decisive action. Meanwhile the world looked on and judged him as he was seen at every shifting, changing point of view on his great voyage, and to each beholder he presented some new and different aspect. It was given to no one man at any time to fully understand him, and to no three men at all times to agree about him. Dr. Holland of Massa chusetts, in seeking materials for his well-known life of Lincoln, written after death, went to Springfield, Illinois, and when his book came out he said : The writer has conversed with multitudes of men who claimed to know Mr. Lincoln intimately, yet there were not two of the whole number who agree in their estimates of him. The fact was that he rarely showed more than one 94 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. aspect of himself to one man. He opened himself to men in different directions. To illustrate this peculiarity it may be said that men who knew him through all his professional and political life offered opinions as diametrically opposite as the following : that he was a very ambitious man, and that he was without a particle of ambition ; that he was one of the saddest men that ever lived, and that he was one of the jolliest men that ever lived ; that he was very religious, and that he was not a Christian at all ; that he was a Christian and did not know it, and that so far from being a religious man or a Christian the less said upon the subject the better ; that he was the most cunning man in America, and that he had not a particle of cunning in him ; that he had the strongest^personal attachments, and that he had no personal attachments at all only a general good feeling towards everybody ; that he was a man of indomitable will, and that he had no will ; that he was a tyrant, and that he was the softest-hearted, most brotherly man that ever lived ; that he was remarkable for his pure-mindedness, and that he told the foulest stories of any man in the country ; that he was a witty man, and that he was only the retailer of the wit of others ; that he was a boor, and that he was in all respects a gentleman ; that he was a leader of the people, and that he was always led by the people ; that he was cool and impas sive, and that he was susceptible of the strongest passions. It is only by tracing these separate impressions back to their fountain that we can arrive at anything like a competent comprehension of the man, or learn why he came to be held in such various estimation. Men caught only separate aspects of his character that were called into exhibition by their own qualities. Such a statement as this from a truthful, friendly and accom plished biographer is without precedent or parallel in the history of men. No other such picture of a double and contradictory nature, or of an elusive, hidden life, is to be found anywhere in the writ ten records of the world. The two strange, antagonistic lives of Jekyll and Hyde, wrought out in fiction and condensed into one, are here presented in cold and real biography by a writer who cherishes Lincoln s fame and honor with deep and tender affection. The truth is that with his feet in touch to the last with the com mon clay of his birth, with his heart on a level with the weary heart of humanity that labors and is heavy laden, and with his head amongst the constellations that have illuminated the ages, Lincoln was comprehended by events, and by the Creator of events, though wrapped in mystery and solitude in the eyes of his fellow- men, who knowing him, yet knew him not. While a specific discussion of points on which different opinions prevail can not here be indulged, yet I can not forbear notice of one. Mr. Herndon, Lincoln s law partner for twenty years, writing, as he assumes, a realistic life, and in some respects, a most startling one, boldly says : " When he freed the slaves there was no heart in the act." These twelve words in brief monosylla- STATUE OF EMANCIPATION. IN LINCOLN PARK, WASHINGTON. THE PUBLIC MEN OF MY OWN TIMES. 95 bles contain the most tremendous and destructive accusation ever made against Abraham Lincoln. They strip the great emancipa tor of his broad, warm and touching humanity, and leave him the cold, shriveled, calculating, political factor of a struggle for mere supremacy between contending sections. By a stroke of his pen he had caused a whole race to breathe the air of liberty, to possess and enjoy their own, and to bind themselves together by the ties of unbroken homes. It is insisted by his biographer that he was simply inspired by an element of justice, but even if that be so, the heart in the cause of justice must first be consulted. There are those yet living who very distinctly remember the tremulous voice, and the pathetic look with which Lincon always spoke of what he had seen and known of the slave, and of his down-trodden condition. In his early youth, when a boatman on the river at New Orleans, he had witnessed the slave auction, and was heard to record an oath that if ever he had an opportunity to hit the institution of slavery, he would hit it hard; and in after years, in that far-away, dreamy look, he never forgot his purpose, but learned " to labor and to wait." The slave was never distant from him or his life, and neither race nor color made any dividing line. His own origin was humble and full of toil ; closely allied to those whose labors were unrequited ; and the verdict of unending, imperish able history must be that in the act which freed the slave, Lincoln s heart was more deeply engaged, more keenly aroused, more strongly determined than in all the other purposes of his life this side of the stars. As a present and immediate purpose in view, he might at one time have restored the Union without making the freedom of the slave a condition, but their freedom was the strongest appeal to his heart, and would never have been surren dered in his grasp of the future. In this connection, however, another question of close affinity arises more naturally than in any other place. Whether Lincoln was a man of warm and sympathetic nature, or of cold, well cal culated and exact justice, and no more, in all matters appealing to him, has long been controverted amongst his biographers. Hern- don, after the close intimacy of a lifetime, claims that aside from 96 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. abstract equity, or a distinct matter of principle, Lincoln was un moved by sympathy or emotion ; that he had no deep love for humanity, and never based his actions in behalf of others on such a consideration ; that he never sought to correct an abuse however great, unless a violated principle was present demanding it to be done. Fortunately the record on this point is not blank nor silent ; it is full, and speaks in tones that can never die away. Herndon, in his analysis of character, seems to have closed his eyes to a clemency of nature, like a perennial spring, never ceasing to flow ; his criticism was made in the face of facts that defy secrecy or per version. Who has forgotten the fierce and inhuman assaults upon Lincoln during the war for the Union, because he refused to put to death homesick soldiers who deserted in order to see wife, mother or sweetheart once more in this world? The mighty apothegm which fell from his lips malice towards none and charity for all" had no restricted meaning; it applied not only to the broken and shattered ranks of the rebellion, but to every human being standing in default at the bar of duty. To his serene and lofty nature malice was a total stranger, and even brief resentment un der severest provocation but little known; while with him, at all times and under all circumstances, abided, as a celestial birthright, " faith, hope, charity, these three " ; and the greatest of these was charity. He who has stood by and looked in Lincoln s face while the mother in tearful appeal, and the father in husky tones, besought at his hands the life of a son ; who has heard the wife in her agony ask that her husband be permitted to come back to her; who has watched his emotions as he listened to the daughter s prayer that her aged father might be spared a shameful and ignominious death ; he who has witnessed these things, and lives to tell them, needs no other evidence than his own that in the heart of Abraham Lincoln the quality of mercy was not strained, but came from the mercy seat of a loving Father on High ; free as the gentle rain from heaven; twice blessed in " him that gives and him that takes." And now as we draw near the close of this strange, great life, this career without a parallel, the marvel of the ages, we are im- THE PUBLIC MEN OF MY OWN TIMES. 97 pressed anew with his vast, searching, powerful and almost super natural relations to his own country, and to the thought and con science of the entire world. The second inauguration of Lincoln arises on the mind, in recall ing it now, as an event standing out by itself in history. It was preceded by four years of bloody, continuous war; armed millions had confronted each other and fought destructive battles. The air was filled with the strife of brethren ; the earth was soaked and red with their blood. Even yet the war was not over; the lines in defense of Richmond were still unbroken at Petersburg. The death struggle of the Confederacy, however, was apparent; the signs of its dissolution were visible; its dying hour was at hand. To Lin coln himself, with his gift of second-sight into the future, the vision of a seer for coming events, this fact was plainer than to any one else, and he felt now like one who has walked through the last hours of a dark and dismal night, and looks out with joy on the first gleam of light in the dawn of a new day. In all his relations to public affairs, more or less of uncertainty and anxiety always existed in the minds of his friends, as we have seen, because of his extreme self-reliance, but this characteristic became greater, and was more marked in his personal bearing and personal conduct, during the war, than in any other respect. Per sonal danger to a life like his, at such a time, lurked in every path way, street and road, and hovered near him whether he was awake or whether he slept. The clash of arms, the flow of blood unchains every lawless, evil element of human society, and has in all ages been the excuse for private, cowardly murder. Leaders of men, heads of governments, at such times and under such circumstances, are marked for destruc tion by incoherent hate, and blind, unreasoning malice and igno rance . Lincoln literally spent his days and nights, moved and had his being, with a full knowledge, from day to day, and from hour to hour, of his dangerous environments. They were constantly pointed out to him and measures of precaution and safety were pressed upon his consideration ; yet no detective was ever allowed in his 7 98 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. train ; no member of the secret service ever shadowed or followed him for his personal protection with his consent. He trusted him self in the hands of his Maker alone, believing, as he said, that his fate, whatever it might be, was predestined by him who numbered the hairs of his head, and marked the fall of the sparrow. A being more absolutely fearless of danger to himself in the line of duty will not be found in all the widespread records of nations and of men. The Stoics of ancient Greece and Rome; Socrates, with his cup of hemlock in his hand, never descanted upon death more calmly or with more perfect composure than Abraham Lincoln. Nor was his indifference and calmness that of the nihilist, the atheist, or the fool who has said in his heart there is no God. His familiarity with the Bible was proverbial, and manifested itself strongly in all his public utterances as well as in private conversa tion. He had often in early life, and in after years, followed Bun- yan s Pilgrim in his toilsome progress to the beautiful city, and never doubted the immortality of the human soul. His insensi bility to danger and to personal consequences arose from his su preme sense of duty, his logical reasoning, and his sublime faith in the overruling justice of Divine Providence. Had he been given to vaunt himself, as he was not, he might have said with Caesar: Cowards die many times before their deaths, The valiant never taste death but once. When he talked at all on such a matter, which was not frequent, he was found to have fixed, well-defined views, imbued, however, and colored by a strong belief in omens, tokens and presages which had appeared to him in weird and lonesome hours, and of which he had sometimes spoken. What glimpses of hidden things may have come to him through the gates ajar, as the ides of March ap proached in 1865 ; what dark premonitions of impending fate may have flitted across his horizon, as in the solitude of the old office at Springfield, we can never know. It is well remembered that clouds low and dark, very dark, shrouded the fore part of the day of the second inauguration ; that at high noon, when the oath was administered, the clouds broke apart overhead, and a single star, bright and radiant, appeared in THE PUBLIC MEN OF MY OWN TIMES. 99 an open blue rift in the sky; was gazed at by thousands, and com mented upon at the time by the newspapers of the country. A phenomenon like this, which I saw, is of course explained by sci ence, and yet such a coincidence as it marked between an unusual event in the heavens above and in the earth below, caused many a thoughtful mind to carry the memory of that star through all after life. How charged with significance to the augurs of Rome and to the soothsayers of Greece would have been such an omen as this on the day of one of their great national ministrations. It seemed not, it is true, a dark or threatening portent, and yet it was just forty days from that meridian star-lit hour when Lincoln lay cold in death, an immortal martyr, at the hands of an assassin. The armies of the rebellion were scattered and gone. He had been spared to see them melt away ; he had lived to witness a tri umphant Union ; and may we not take unto ourselves the belief and the consolation that his death, tragic and cruel as it was, consoli dated his fame with the restoration of his united country, under circumstances so sublime and striking, that his sleep is more peace ful, his victory more secure, his personal glory brighter, firmer, and more enduring than could have come to him in any other way? The surrender at Appomatox illuminated the republic from ocean to ocean; Lincoln died in the light of a national jubilee, himself the chief instrumentality of what had been done. His death was not loss to him but gain, on the pages of history; the loss to his country was immeasurable, indescribable, and to no section so great and irreparable as to the prostrate and stricken South. Nor have the people of the South themselves ever been blind to this great fact which history so fully accepts and records. The patient wisdom of Lincoln s mind, the forbearance of his magnan imous spirit, the broad clemency of his nature, his unfailing char ity of heart, which suffered long and was kind, were the required ingredients of a rapid and peaceful reconstruction of the Union, so vital to the welfare of the people and the states of the South as well as to the entire country. The priceless value of his wise, firm and benevolent statesmanship was not more conspicuously proven by its presence while he lived than by its absence after his death. In spirit, however, he has continued to walk the waters and bid the 100 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. winds be still, though sleeping now for a generation on the banks of the Sangamon, in the heart of the great commonwealth he loved so well. When party strife has been at its worst, and sectional bitterness threatened to come again, they have stood rebuked by his teachings and abashed by his memory. Pausing here for a moment, and turning then, with an effort and a sigh, from the fascinating and irresistible character of Abraham Lincoln, the. next picture we see on the walls of the high, historic portrait gallery of men of our own times, looks out upon us with the calm face and unpretentious bearing of another plain man of the people. He is in military uniform, and of higher rank than ever before worn by an American, and yet our thoughts of Ulysses S. Grant are not of those hard, unsparing and relentless qualities which go to make the ruthless soldier, and the soldier alone. He rises before us rather as a pure and natural American product, im possible of existence anywhere else than here, a child of the soil and humble roof, brave, tolerant and magnanimous, with duty as the lode-star of his life, and without assumption of importance for himself. It is no part of my purpose to dwell at length on General Grant s military career, or to recount his battles from Shiloh to the Wilder ness, Spottsylvania, Cold Harbor, Petersburg and Appomatox. The world was looking on when Lincoln placed him in command of every armed force throughout the United States five hundred and thirty-three thousand men at that time in the field, and equipped for duty and bade him find and force his way to Rich mond, and destroy the armies of the rebellion. He stood confronted, too, by one of the great captains known to the history of war, one whose name, though linked to a lost cause, takes rank with the foremost military leaders who have lived. The conflict that ensued has long since placed Grant and Lee in com pany with Marlborough, Conde, Luxembourg, Nassau and Orange; Wellington and Napoleon ; and the busy hand of the industrious gleaner for history has again and again been over every field of their military exploits, their achievements and their fame. May we not hope and believe, however, that a few more sheaves of more than golden value may still be gathered from such a life as THE PUBLIC MEN OF MY OWN TIMES. IOI Grant s, not enriched by blood alone, nor ripened exclusively by the heat of battle? In a close and careful look at the years immediately preceding the secession of states, and the attempted dismemberment of the Union, it would be most difficult, if not impossible, to discover in a population then of more than forty millions, another American citizen less known, more obscure, more destitute of influence, pow er, or support; more unlikely, from all his conditions and sur roundings, to control the future than Grant was at that time. The shy, silent boy of the little Ohio village, who found his father s tan-yard an irksome place to work, who in his childhood loved horses, and was proud to become a driver on long trips for pay, had graduated at an average point in his class at West Point, and was thrust at once into the danger, death and drudgery of actual war in Mexico. Not enough, as it seems to me, has been said or written in regard to this formative period of his life. Without beard on his boyish face, but with the steadiness and heart of a veteran, he took his baptism of fire at Palo Alto and Resaca, and at the cross-streets and bloody angles of Monterey, under Taylor; at Churubusco, Con- treras, Molino del Rey, Chapultepec and the City of Mexico under Scott. A second lieutenant of infantry, who marched and fought with his company from day to day, from the beginning to the end of a war like that in Mexico, and received promotion, however modest, gave valuable assurances for the future, though then lost sight of in the glare of great names and grand results. In 1854, with the rank of captain and on the Pacific coast, Grant resigned from the army and returned to St. Louis to make it his home. There, on a farm near the city, and belonging to his wife, as he says, he toiled and struggled, and sometimes cut and hauled cord-wood for sale; often shaking with ague, and burning with fever; until in the fall of 1858 he sold out stock, crops and farm ing utensils at auction, and, as a farmer, for once acknowledged defeat. A little more than a year next spent in a real estate agency, with a partner, where he found no more business, to use his own words, " than one person could attend to, and not enough to support two IO2 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. families," during which time he was an unsuccessful candidate for county engineer, an office of respectability and fair pay, which he so much needed and for which he was so well qualified; and then, with darkness and discouragement all around him, he turned to that wise, rugged father, whose faith in his son had always been of the kind that moves mountains. In speaking of his situation at that time he says : I now withdrew from the copartnership with Boggs, and in May, 1860, re moved to Galena, Illinois, and took a clerkship in my father s store. Might we not linger here a thoughtful spell over one of the strange problems of Providence ; over one of the most striking les sons of history. From May, 1860, to April, 1861, a period of eleven months, this silent man who in his hour of need had re turned to his father s house, and in whose presence a few years later kings and kaisers, monarchs of earth, rose up and uncovered, pursued his simple traffic, no more conscious of his relations to the events then near at hand, nor of the grasp he would have upon them, than the idle, indifferent customers with whom he traded. Who can foretell the providences of God, or point out the instru ments of his designs? When the American people bent their list ening, startled ears to the ill-omened guns in their opening roar on Sumter, who could fathom the mystery of individuals, or the work that would be given them to do? He who met Robert E. Lee at Appomatox in the final scene of the awful four years tragedy, only ventured at first, while offering his services in any capacity they were desired, to suggest that he felt competent to command a regiment ; and the officials to whom he made the suggestion not only thought him not fit for such com mand, but not even worthy of an answer. On the 24th day of May, 1 86 1, with the country rising to arms, Grant wrote the following letter : GALENA, ILLINOIS, May 24, 1861. Col. L. Thomas, Adjt.-Gen. U. S. A., Washing-ton, D. C.: SIR Having served fifteen years in the regular army, including four years at West Point, and feeling it the duty of every one who has been educated at the government expense to offer their services for the support of that government, I have the honor, very respectfully, to tender my services, until the close of the war, in such capacity as may be offered. I would say in view of my present age and length of service, I feel myself competent to command a regiment, if the THE PUBLIC MEN OF MY OWN TIMES. 103 president, in his judgment, should see fit to entrust one to me. Since the first call of the president I have been serving on the staff of the governor of this state, rendering such aid as I could in the organization of our state militia, and am still engaged in that capacity. A letter addressed to me at Springfield, Illinois, will reach me. I am, very respectfully, your obt. servt., U. S. GRANT. No answer was ever made to this patriotic and modest commu nication, nor was it even put upon the files of the government. In after years, when at the height of his fame, it was sought for, and found only by accident amongst waste papers when the office of the adjutant-general was being removed to new quarters. It was in Grant s well-known handwriting, and was given to the world on his own authority. How like a mockery of the wisdom and purposes of man it reads now in the light of history. We find him also near the date of this letter calling on McClellan, then a major-general at Cincinnati, and lingering for two days at his headquarters in the vain effort to see him, and to become a mem ber of his staff. But none of these things moved him to discontent, nor did he record them afterwards in a tone of resentment, or spirit of fault finding. He bided his time, cool, well-poised by nature, and when called in the near future he sulked not in his tent, but responded to unerring events as their faithful subordinate. There is but one scene in Grant s career on the field of battle which asserts itself without denial on an occasion like this, and refuses to down at our bidding. It was night on the field of Shi- loh, April 6, 1862. From the early dawn of that day to the darkness of nightfall incessant battle had raged, and death held high carnival. It was the longest, hardest, continuous conflict of the war; more hours of unbroken bloody work than on any other field. The lines of the Union army were not where they were in the morning; they were intact and firm, but they were nearer the Tennessee river than when the action began. Night came, and near at hand were the expected troops of Buell, Nelson, McCook, and Wallace, but not in time to strike a blow. Grant s army, unaided and alone, and even without its own full strength, had done the work of that terrible day, and still stood in stubborn lines facing the enemy. If it had not won a victory, neither had it suffered defeat; and then for a few hours, exhausted nature in both the great armies declared a truce, and nothing was heard save, now IO4 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. and then, the booming of sleepless gun-boats on the river. The dead by thousands slept in peace ; the wounded in ghastly multi tudes counted the hours in agony, while the soldier who had been spared dreamed, if he dreamed at all, of the line of battle where he would stand again in the morning. And during the dismal watches of this awful night, where was the quiet man from Galena; he on whom all the responsibility rested? Had he left the field and sought a place of rest? Was he at a distant point and in safety, as great commanders have been known to be? General Grant answers these questions himself, and in doing so unconsciously draws a picture which can never be obscured in his tory. He says: During the night rain fell in torrents and our troops were exposed to the storm without shelter. I made my headquarters under a tree a few hundred yards back from the river bank. My ankle was so much swollen from the fall of my horse the Friday preceding, and the bruise was so painful, that I could get no rest. The drenching rain would have precluded the possibility of sleep without this addi tional cause. Some time after midnight, growing restive under the storm and the continuous pain, I moved back to the log house under the bank. This had been taken as a hospital, and all night wounded men were being brought in, their wounds dressed, a leg or an arm amputated, as the case might require, and everything done to save life or alleviate suffering. The sight was more unen durable than encountering the enemy s fire, and I returned to my tree in the rain. He who makes his estimate of Grant, as he sees him that night in the rain under the tree, in pain and suffering, yet cool and un faltering, waiting for another day, will never again wonder at his career. Victory came the next morning, as if it was his natural right to win, and as if he had never doubted. Capacity and courage, however, even in hours of greatest peril and responsibility, will not alone measure this remarkable charac ter, nor illustrate its greatest and most attractive qualities. In his magnanimity towards others, friend and foe alike; in his gen erous recognition and praise of conduct that might rival his own ; and in his chivalrous fidelity to the rights of a defeated adversary, but few, if any, exact counterparts to General Grant can be found in the world s history of public men. In his dispatches and offi cial reports, during the war, his subordinate officers by his side in the field were always accorded the highest honors, while for him self he was never known to prefer a claim. Hours might be given THE PUBLIC MEN OF MY OWN TIMES. IO5 to this point alone, and all freighted with instruction and pleasure. Let young and rising generations for ages to come study the mod est, self-abnegating reports of Grant, and the world will grow wiser as to the easy and simple elements of true greatness. In his relations and personal bearing towards those who had gone down in the giant contest, his grandest and best qualities also took control of his conduct and put it on a lofty plane. It is a historical fact, that after Lincoln s death, and with Stanton yet ruling the vast powers of the war office, it was determined to arrest General Lee by civil process, ignore his parole, indict him for treason, put him on trial in court and execute him when found guilty. Grant was general of the army, but by virtue of the constitution, Andrew Johnson, president of the United States, was commander- in-chief , and at that time was dominated by Stanton and inclined in policy and feeling in the same direction. Grant had accepted Lee s parole, his word of honor, his promise to fight no more against the government, and in consideration for the same had given him his liberty as a prisoner of war. He hesitated not a moment. Though there was higher executive authority than his own that might permit the faith of the government to be broken to an individual who had trusted it, and was then helpless, yet his decision was taken at once. The parties to the movement for the abrogation of terms granted by him at Appomatox were warned that it could not be done ; that not a jot or tittle of that famous surrender, so far as personal liberty and personal rights were concerned, should be touched while he was at the head of the army. The scheme slunk away at the sound of his voice; the conspiracy perished at his bidding. In after years, ruined in estate, and broken in health, he was appointed to the retired list with the full rank and pay of general of the army. When the bill authorizing the president to make this ap pointment was pending, I well remember the appeal I made on the floor of the senate, especially to southern senators, for its passage, and with what effect I stated his conduct towards Lee as I have stated it here ; nor will I ever forget his look and manner, and the 106 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. few impressive, kindly words he said when we afterwards met and parted for the last time. And yet another incident, similar in character and kindred in spirit to the one just told, comes tapping to-night on the chamber door of my memory and asks to lay its quiet but precious wreath of laurel on the tomb of the illustrious dead. It was in the last month of spring in 1865; the forces of the rebellion were dis banded and had returned to their desolate homes; the chief of the late Confederacy lay fettered in irons at Fortress Monroe ; his official subordinates were in foreign lands, or languishing in mili tary prisons here at home. In the midst of the thick gloom of these events which then en veloped the southern mind and darkened hope itself, there came to Washington City the highly cultured and accomplished wife of one who, before the war, had long served as a distinguished sena tor of the United States from a southern state ; who had resigned his seat when the crisis came and cast his lot with his section ; who held the rank of brigadier-general in the Confederate army, though not present with his command when the surrender took place ; who had been arrested by executive authority, and was then a government prisoner in Fort Warren. This lady was known to Governor Garland of Arkansas, late a senator, and more recently attorney-general of the United States, and through him she be came known to me. To us both she told the sad errand she was on. She came, in the dark as it were, to ask the liberty of her husband and permission to take him home. Her interview with Andrew Johnson, then president, was suc cessful, so far as he was concerned, and her brilliant face sparkled with light and joy as she showed the order he had given her to the secretary of war for the prisoner s release, and described his kindly look and manner when she reminded him that she too, as well as himself, was born in North Carolina. A hurried lunch, an eager drive to the war department, a brief interview with the great war secretary, with a rapid return to the hotel, and lo ! this buoyant, hopeful lady, with a sunlit face an hour ago, stood before us, an image of black despair, an impersonation of heart-broken misery. Stanton had received the president s order from her hand, torn THE PUBLIC MEN OF MY OWN TIMES. IO/ it to pieces with contempt, and cast the pieces in his waste basket. No other answer made he at that time to this devoted wife, crushed, and paralyzed in such a presence and by such an event; no other answer did he ever make, so far as known, to the outraged chief magistrate of his government. He was not, however, to escape with so cheap a triumph over a powerless president, and the helpless woman who stood before him. She was advised at once, and in no uncertain tone, to make a last appeal to General Grant, then living in the city. Without any definite idea of the powers of the general of the army in such a case, and not knowing what the record soon afterwards disclosed, yet Garland and I urged her to go at once to Grant in person as her last resort. That evening, in great depression, and with hardly a ray of hope, she drove to his house, a total stranger, relying on herself, and not even carrying a note of introduction. He was hurried for time, being almost in the act of starting to New York, but heard her statement with a polite and patient air until he caught its meaning and purpose. Turning to Colonel Badeau, the well-known mem ber of his staff, he called for the roster of Lee s army, where at once was found the name of the imprisoned officer as a brigadier- general of the Confederate army, surrendered and paroled as such by name at Appomatox. He picked up his pen, saying to his now expectant visitor that her husband would be released, and pro ceeded to put his decision in writing. Then like a flash came to her the thought that she had not told him all ; that she had made no mention of the fact that she had applied to the president, received his order, and that the secretary of war had destroyed it. She knew, as all the world did, that Grant s relations with the president and with the secretary of war were severely strained at that time, and the temptation to keep silent was intense and painful. Her sense of honor, however, tri umphed ; she asked for a moment to be heard, and as she narrated the vicissitudes of the day, and told of the order issued by the president, Grant laid down his pen with a look as if his time was being wasted, and there was nothing in the case for him to do, but when she reached the climax of her brief story, and described the 108 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. destruction of the president s order by his secretary of war, he turned again to his writing, and, without a word spoken, finished his note to Stanton as secretary of war, saying that Clement C. Clay of Alabama, late a brigadier-general in the Confederate army, was included in the surrender at Appomatox, and was entitled to give his parole and return home. The closing sentence was terse and peremptory: Let him be discharged. U. S. GRANT, General. When that brief half sheet of note-paper was presented to the secretary next morning it was not torn up; it was obeyed. Whether Grant had authority to make such an order on the execu tive department of the government was a question of doubt at the time, and remains so to this hour, but it was not raised, and Grant maintained the national honor, as well as his own, by his care for the rights of a fallen foe. It was in scenes of generous magnanimity like this, and in his unhesitating faith in his friends, that Grant was most attractive and lovable. To find his highest points of courage, his most winning traits of leadership, his supreme devotion to duty, we need not study him at Shiloh or Spottsylvania ; we need not look upon him for eight years in the White House, nor accompany him around the world and see him the inmate of palaces and the guest of crowned heads . I have said I would not dwell on the great and familiar battles with which his name and presence are so well known, nor will I change my purpose. He fought one battle, however, that has had no name given it on the map, and has never, as it seems to me, been fully reported. His career closed in gloom and distress, but he was greater then than at any other time of his life. Wrecked in fortune and penniless, because of his mistaken trust in others; stricken with inevitable death; a soldier, mortally wounded on the field of action, he fought his last and greatest battle, won his most enduring victory, and erected the most imperishable monument that will ever be reared to his fame. Grant s Personal Memoirs, written when the fierce spirit of the glass and scythe stood over him, and he knew the sands of time were running fast and low, have no parallel in the history of literary productions. He THE PUBLIC MEN OF MY OWN TIMES. IOQ wrote with no thought of his own fame, nor of himself in any par ticular. Often amid shot and shell he had offered his life for his country; now from hour to hour, and from day to day, he faced relentless, approaching death and toiled for those under his own roof-tree; the wife, the children of his love, his faith, and his hope. That a work of this kind, at such a time, and under such cir cumstances, should have been undertaken at all, excites the admira tion of the world for his heroic and faithful nature, but when the student of history reads for the first time these volumes dedicated to the American soldier and sailor," finished at Mount MacGregor twenty-two days before his death, amazement and wonder will com bine with admiration at the manner and style in which the dying man s task was executed. Annals of warfare are abundant on every hand ; military men have told the story of their own lives, and recounted their achieve ments in every decade of the past; the favorite pastime of soldiers, in peace and comfort, and as age comes on, has been to write autobi ography and fight their battles over again ; but there is no risk in saying that nowhere between the widespread lids of human history can there be found a work of this kind surpassing that which was done on his death-bed by Ulysses S. Grant. In all that constitutes high literary excellence; in clear, lucid, easy, rapid narration of events ; in the force and power with which facts are grouped and presented ; and above all in the modesty of the writer, and in his generous justice to his comrades, Grant s Memoirs easily take rank with the Commentaries of Caesar, and will hold their place as a model and gem of literature even when the conquest of Gaul by the great Roman will have grown dim. How much greater, too, becomes the marvel of all this, when it is known that large portions of these most attractive Memoirs were dictated in a whisper, when their author could not speak above his breath, nor hold his pen ! Brass and marble will carry the fame of the hero to distant ages, but the story of his lifework, as told by himself, will win the enduring and ever-increasing love of the world for the man. The 110 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. mists and fogs of party spirit are breaking away, and soon the name and fame of every great American will be cherished, irre spective of party, as the common heritage of all. POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC PLUNDER OF ELEVEN STATES A speech delivered in the house of representatives, March 23, 1872. R. SPEAKER The condition of many of the states of this Union excites to-day the mingled pity and indignation of the civilized world. They are the theme of sorrowful and of bitter comment wherever the channels of human intelligence penetrate. They engage the attention of all the departments of this government. Executive proclamations spread evil tidings about them, and hurl every principle of their liberties, every muniment of their safety, to the ground. Congress enacts laws against them which utterly de stroy every vestige of freedom, and forge and rivet on their help less limbs the fetters of despotism. It also sends forth its power ful missionaries of mischief in the form of committees, backed by the money and the power of the government, whose labors are to blacken the character and fame of their people, under the guise of official investigations and official reports. The head of the department of justice, the late attorney-gen eral he who led his people into the war, and then returned to plague and lay waste the hearthstones of his followers superin tended in person the inquisition and the torture inflicted upon the descendants of those who fought in the battles of the Revolution. The army of the United States, in a time of profound peace, is launched like a bolt of destruction into their midst. It is engaged in seizing, without sworn charge or warrant of law, the youth, the middle-aged, and the gray-haired grandsires in the sanctuary of American homes, and driving them like herded beasts into crowded prisons. 8 H 114 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. The odious service of Claverhouse, Kirke, and Dundee, in the bloody oppressions of Scotland, which gave their names more than a hundred years ago to the everlasting execration of mankind, is being repeated hourly on American soil. And the president him self, in his recent message, prepared, as he says, in haste, as if he had affairs of greater importance to engage his attention, yet found time to give his sanction to all this, and to add his malignant mite to the gene/al arraignment and accusation. Surrounded and confronted by this disastrous state of public affairs, I rise to address this house in behalf of free institutions, of impartial justice, and of the oppressed and outraged citizen, wher ever his home may be planted. I shall speak by the authority of those who sent me here. To them I am beholden for all that I am, and to them alone I acknowledge myself responsible in this world for what I utter on this floor. Sir, who has filled one-third of the boundaries of this republic with all the curses and calamities ever recorded in the annals of the worst governments known on the pages of history? Nearly seven years ago, blessed peace, like a merciful, white-winged angel, came to the land. Who, since then, has poured upon the unre sisting and helpless South the floods of disorder, corruption, bank ruptcy, crime, oppression and ruin? Every result has its distinct and specific cause in the moral and political world as well as in the mathematical realms of the physical sciences. The greatest thinker and writer of the present century has said : In the moral world, as in the physical world, nothing is anomalous ; nothing is unnatural ; nothing is strange. All is order, symmetry, and law. There are opposites, but there are no contradictions. In the character of a nation, incon sistency is impossible. Such, however, is still the backward condition of the human mind, and with so evil and jaundiced an eye do we approach the greatest problems, that not only common writers, but even men from whom better things might be hoped, are on this point involved in constant confusion, perplex ing themselves and their readers by speaking of inconsistency as if it were a quality belonging to the subject which they investigate, instead of being, as it really is, a measure of their own ignorance, "it is the business of the historian to remove this ignorance, by showing that the movements of nations are perfectly regular, and that, like all other movements, they are solely determined by their antecedents. If he can not do this, he is no historian. He may be an annalist, or a biographer, or a chronicler, but higher than that he can not rise, unless he is imbued with that spirit of science which teaches as an article of faith, the doc trine of uniform sequence ; in other words, the doctrine that certain events having already happened, certain other events corresponding to them will also happen. PLUNDER OF ELEVEN STATES, 11$ But this great doctrine of uniform sequence, of cause and effect in all things, has even yet higher authority than the powerful and philo sophic Buckle, or than any other earthly sanction. When the trav eler over desert plains finds a cooling and healthful stream, he knows there is a fountain of sweet waters above ; but if the stream is impure and poisonous, it needs no argument to convince him that the source from which it descends is likewise bitter and unclean. The apple and the pomegranate, the olive and the grape, all pro claim by their own good qualities the generous and bounteous trees and vines on which they grow; but the noxious weed, the deadly creeper, and the useless bramble furnish no such evidences of their merit and worth to the husbandman. And when the mighty Nazarene made his brief but awful sojourn upon earth, he pointed to these productions of the laws of nature, and proclaimed, not merely to his followers in Judea, but to the people of all the con tinents and all the islands of the seas, and to the remotest gener ations of mankind, that the same unerring certainty also existed between the visible results of human conduct and the absolute causes from which they arise. He warned the whole world against false, corrupt, and plundering leaders of the people, and announced the means by which their spurious pretentions shall always be deter mined : Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles ? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. Let this unchangeable standard of truth, established by the physical and the moral sciences, and sanctioned by the voice of Divinity, be applied to the party now in power, and to its un bridled and unrestrained dealings with the people and the states of the South. Who has planted and nurtured the thick growth of thorns and thistles there? We have heard endless speech here and everywhere in regard to the fruits of the war. By whose wicked devices have they been turned into apples of Sodom and of the Dead Sea, and been made to mock the hopes and the expectations of the anxious beholder? By whose conduct and policies has every blessing of free government been scourged from the face of Il6 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. a country containing over twelve million people and larger in extent than many of the foremost powers of Europe? I call upon the majority in this house to answer. Have you not had all power from the beginning of what you call reconstruction over that sub ject? Has there been anything wanting to your absolute author ity? What has stood in the way of your wishes, your partisan plans, your lawless fanaticism? The constitution has been no restraint upon your actions. It has been trampled under foot, dwarfed into a dead letter, or widened and extended by fraudulent amendments, according as the unscrupulous purposes of a powerful party would be best pro moted. To quote the dear and hallowed principles of that immor tal instrument here now is only to excite the displeasure and the sneers of those who are bloated and overgrown with the insolence of office and a long lease of power. To express a reverence for those who bought its original draft with their blood, and to hold it up as it was before the hand of modern vandalism had assailed it, is denounced as treason. This great charter of liberty has not even been a stumbling block to your feet in your swift encroachments upon the rights of all the people and the states of this Union, and especially upon those of the South. You have taken all the powers it gave you, and you have usurped every power you desired besides. No law, however revolutionary, barbarous and destructive, was ever found, by your construction, to be in conflict with its provisions, if it was de manded by the interests of your party. Your own will, without let or hinderance from any quarter, has been the measure of your legislation. The army of the United States has also been made ready and obedient to your command. It has been the irresistible instrument with which to execute your pleasure on a prostrate people. You say, "Go, and it goeth; come, and itcometh;" and nothing has withstood the accomplishment of your purposes. The purse of the nation, too, has been in your grasp, as well as the sword. The tax-payers of America have toiled for you as the serfs of Russia have not for their rulers. Their streaming floods of golden tribute have been poured into your coffers with every mo- PLUNDER OF ELEVEN STATES. I I/ tion of the pendulum of time. You have taken the laborer s earn ings and lavished uncounted millions on your baleful schemes of government under a southern sky. You have likewise controlled presidents. When one of your own election rose up and stubbornly confronted you with your own precedents and solemn committals in regard to the inviolable ex istence of states, and their perpetual right of representation, you sought his overthrow and ruin with a fury and a hate until then unknown in the history of legislative bodies. While you barely failed to hurl him from his place, you were completely successful in rendering him powerless to execute his policy, or to prevent you from executing yours. This house was purged in a memora ble way, in order that you might have the two-thirds majority with which to pass unconstitutional laws over presidential vetoes. Ex pulsions of members took place under the thin and flimsy guise of contested elections, until the minority here was sufficiently depleted, and you became paramount over the executive, and absorbed all his official functions. Lawless legislation then broke loose upon him, by which he was bound hand and foot, and made as powerless as a manacled pris oner in the depths of a dungeon. Andrew Johnson no longer divided with you the responsibility of the government ; you wielded it alone. The executive who has succeeded him submits willingly and unconditionally to whatever congress may propose. You hold all his powers in your hands and level them against any lib erty or right of the citizen which you may wish to destroy. He avows his purposes to run any career you may point out to him, with no more mind of his own than the orderly who holds his horse. I pause not now to ask how you obtained this degrading control. Whether it is the cunning of a vaulting ambition on his part, which, with a pretended humility, has been known to push aside the imperial crown in order to be a little further persuaded, or whether it springs from his ignorance, matters not for the purposes of my present argument. The great fact that you possess all the powers and control all the departments of this government is what I demonstrate. Il8 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. The federal patronage, with its immense and corrupting influ ences, has also come into your hands with the surrender of the ex ecutive. The venal and the mercenary have been seduced into your support by your offices and your profligate expenditure of the public money, while the timid have been overawed by the bayonet and the cannon. Every appliance by which men have ever been subdued to tyranny has been held and used in profusion by the party now in power, from the day that the war closed on the bloody soil of Virginia until the present hour. In proof of this, let the specific details of long-continued usurpation, evil gov ernment, and maladministration be presented to the candid judg ment of the country. Sir, the absolute destruction of free institutions from the Po tomac to the Rio Grande commenced with the earliest dawn of peace. Sherman received Johnston s surrender upon the precise basis on which the war had been prosecuted at every stage. He stipulated that the soldiers of the South should lay down the arms of their unequal warfare, return to their states, whose existence had not then been denied, and resume the pursuits of industry where they had left off, subject only to the destruction of slavery, which was wrought by the movements of armies, and not by proc lamations. He had more than a thousand precedents in the delib erate and recorded actions of this government for his conduct. He was sustained by both branches of congress in innumerable ways ; by four years of incessant and voluminous legislation, by the en actment of apportionment laws throughout the states whose people were in rebellion, by districting them for judicial purposes, by levying upon them direct taxes as members of the Union under the constitution, by the constant reception of their representatives on this floor and in the senate, by the most solemn and bind ing joint resolutions, and by every other mode in which this department of the government can commit and pledge itself. He was upheld by every document also to which the name of the ex ecutive was attached during the war by every message, inau gural, proclamation, and order of that prolific period. The courts added their weighty sanction, from those of the lowest and feeblest jurisdiction to those of the loftiest pretensions and powers. PLUNDER OF ELEVEN STATES. 119 No government in the wide-spread history of the nations of the earth was ever under voluntary and self-imposed obligations of greater force and magnitude. The word and the honor of the re public had been plighted over and over again to its own citizens, and in the sight and hearing of the civilized world. The moment, however, that resistance ceased, and the way was opened for the long pent-up purposes of revolution, centralization, and rapine, the party in power broke with shameless haste its most sacred faith, flung aside the mask it had worn for years, admitted that its previous pretensions and promises were fraudulent, and clam ored with wild ferocity against the hero of the march to the sea because he had believed they were true and sincere, and had acted on them. The terms which Sherman gave to a fallen foe had often been tendered to that foe before he fell ; but they were now madly thrust aside in the hour of victory, and the general himself denounced far and wide as a traitor to his country. The hue and cry was raised against him as if he was a fleeing fugitive from justice. That memorable and disgraceful outburst can not be cov ered with oblivion. It more resembled the enraged scream of a beast of prey about to be baffled out of its victim than the reason able expression of human beings. The victim, however, was surrendered to the clutches of an in flamed and victorious party, and the work of demolition and ruin was at once commenced. From turret to foundation you tore down the governments of eleven states. You left not one stone upon another. You rent all their local laws and machinery into fragments and trampled upon their ruins. Not a vestige of their former construction remained. Their pillars, their rafters, their beams, and all their deep-laid corners, the work of a wise and de voted generation of the past, were all dragged away, and the sites where they once stood left naked for the erection of new and dif ferent structures. You removed the rubbish, pushed the army into the vacant ground, established provisional governments as you would over territory just acquired by conquest from a foreign power, and clothed brigadier and major-generals with extraordi nary functions as governors. This was the beginning of the present organizations those odi- I2O FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. ous and unsightly fabrics which now cumber the earth, and which stand as the open, reeking and confessed shambles of corruption, pollution, and revolting misrule. They embrace not one single el ement of popular consent. They are the hideous offspring of your own unnatural and unlawful force and violence. The great body of the people of that unfortunate section had no more share in the rebuilding of their local governments than the sepoys of the East Indies have in the affairs of the British empire. They were ex cluded from all participation by the most elaborate and minute schemes of legislative proscription of which history makes any record. The first duty of the provisional governments which you estab lished was to call conventions to frame new constitutions for these old states, and to prepare them for readmission into that Union from which you had sworn so often and so solemnly that no state could ever withdraw. These conventions were provided for by laws enacted here. The number and the quality of the delegates to them were here specified. Who should be eligible and who in eligible was your work, and not the work of the people who were to be governed. You not only said who should be elected, but you likewise determined who should elect them. You fixed the qualifications and the color of the voters. You purged the ballot- box of the intelligence and the virtue on which alone popular lib erty can be safely founded, and you admitted in their stead the suffrage of the most ignorant and unqualified race now inhabiting the globe. Mingled with this dark and turbid tide of dense ignorance came all the vices of this lower race, together with the crimes of a more powerful and a more profligate class, with pale faces, from the North, now and then receiving their worst recruits from the apos tates of the same complexion in the South. You winnowed the threshing-floor, but you rejected the wheat. You accepted the tares, and sowed them, and now you curse the soil because you have reaped nothing but tares for your harvest. You built upon a foundation of shifting sand, and now you rail at everybody but yourselves because the house has not resisted the winds and the rains that have beat upon it. PLUNDER OF ELEVEN STATES. 121 When these conventions met, they represented the wretched constituency which spoke them into existence, and they went to their servile tasks with the bayonet of the federal government at their throats. They sat, in every instance, within point-blank range of shotted cannon. The delegates crept about and framed constitutions with the eyes of military governors upon them. The sword rested lightly in its scabbard, and was ready to leap forth at any moment and upon the slightest pretext to assist in devising fundamental laws for a people said to be free. The state constitutions that were thus created and thrust upon the country could not fail to partake of the depraved nature of their illegitimate origin. They sprang from the loathsome union of ignorance, vice and despotism ; and they have inherited many of the ugliest features of each one of their progenitors. The des potic principle is strongly marked in them all. It is there in obe dience to the mandates of federal power, as well as in accordance with the character of the instruments who were used to fasten it upon American citizens. Proscription and ostracism are the lead ing elements of every state government in the South. Intellect and virtue, public and private worth, spotless character, splendid attainments, graceful culture, and the experience and wisdom of age were all passed by under the reconstruction of violence and fraud. Those who were possessed of these traits and acquirements were pushed aside, and made to give place to the most degraded classes of mankind. The people were not allowed to select their official agents from among those who were qualified for public sta tion, but were driven into the purlieus of ignorance and vice to choose their rulers. In the reorganization of all the states whose present condition is matter of such sore complaint and such bitter accusations, the dominant party here, and in those states, excluded from office and deprived the people of the services of every man who, by his tal ents, industry, and integrity, had sufficiently acquired the con fidence of his fellow-citizens before the war, to be made governor, secretary, auditor, or treasurer of state; attorney-general, judge, clerk, or reporter of the supreme court; superintendent of public instruction, member of either branch of congress, or of the legisla- 122 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. ture of his state ; clerk, sheriff, treasurer, auditor, or recorder of his county; judge of a probate court, whose jurisdiction follows the inevitable footsteps of death, and whose functions are those of benevolence toward the orphans and the widows of the human race; justice of the peace, or constable of his township, or notary public. Every man who had been called in former days to fill any one of these stations, and many more that might be enumer ated, and, who, during the conflict between the sections, was clothed with the slightest responsibility or charged with the small est official duty by those with whom his destiny and his home had fallen, was marked by the blight of ineligibility, and like the leper of old, it was made a crime for the people to again reach forth to him the hand of friendship, confidence, and support. Even the sacred instincts of human nature became disqualifica tions for office. The ties of kindred were made criminal under this new and revolting system. He who gave a cup of cold water and a crust of bread to his thirsty and famished son, under arms for a cause which he believed to be right, and for which he was willing to die, was branded with dishonor, and driven out from the councils of his countrymen. The loving mother who sheltered her weary and wounded boy, laid him in his own familiar bed at home once more, kissed his feverish lips, wiped away the gathering dews of death, and with a broken heart closed his dear eyes forever, was condemned for these acts of angelic ministering, and incurred the penalties of confiscation. He who dismounted and gave his horse to a brother in the moment of danger and close pursuit; the sister who wrought and sent clothing to him on the toilsome march ; the maiden who prayed for her lover as he lay dying in the Wilderness or at Stone River, all fell under a common curse. Even the white-haired grandmother of fourscore years, whose youthful husband perhaps was at the Cowpens, Eutaw Springs, and Yorktown, or, may be, fought under Jackson, at New Orleans, in the war of 1812, was deprived of her pension, that small morsel of bounty from an ungenerous government, if her heart yearned, or her aged hand was extended in sympathy, to her children and her children s children on the plains of the South. A more sweeping and universal exclusion from all the benefits, PLUNDER OF ELEVEN STATES. 123 rights, trusts, honors, enjoyments, liberties, and control of a gov ernment was never enacted against a whole people, without respect to age or sex, in the annals of the human race. The disgraceful disabilities imposed upon the Jews for nearly eighteen hundred years by the blind and bigoted nations of the earth, were never more complete or appalling. Who denies a single statement I make? I challenge and defy contradiction. Every fact that I here proclaim is contained in the laws and in the recorded trans actions of this government, and will constitute, "after some time be past," and the passions of the present have subsided, the most frightful and crushing arraignment which history ever summed up against a ruling political party. Sir, shall a people thus bereft of every attribute of self-govern ment, be held responsible at the bar of public opinion, or at the judgment seat of God, for the consequences which have overtaken them? If so, then the doctrine of free agency, in measuring the accountability of man, is a snare and a delusion. As well might you go to the galley-slave, and accuse him of the misrule and the tyranny which chained him to the oar. As well might you de nounce the banished exile in the snows of Siberia for the despotism of the Russian czar. With the same propriety you may visit the prisons of all lands, and rail at their inmates through the iron- grated windows, on account of the evil administration of the gov ernments to which they belong. The fierce and marauding high wayman with the same justice can accuse his victim, at whose head he presents the loaded pistol, of obstructing the public road. The story of the wolf, with his false accusation against the lamb, and of the prompt manner in which he tore the helpless and unoffend ing thing to pieces for muddying the stream from which he drank, although it stood by the brink of the waters far below him, is fa miliar to us all, and is being re-enacted at this time on a vast scale in American history. The stream has been defiled by the party now in power, and it rends and tears the unresisting people of the South for its own offense. This shall no longer be done without exposure and warning to the country. I call upon that party to assume its just responsi bility, and not to shrink back now from the bad eminence it 124 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. has attained in the conduct of southern affairs. To it much has been given, and from it much is demanded. More than the ten talents have been intrusted to its care, and the present and future generations will exact a rigid account at its hands. But now, as the ghastly and hideous results of its control in the South appear on every square mile of that oppressed and plundered section, it starts back with horror and disclaims its own offspring, the fruits of its own .unholy rapine and lust. With pale lips and affrighted mien it ejaculates, " Thou canst not say I did it." But the deeds which it has committed are of imperishable infamy, and they will not down at its bidding, nor can all the waters of the ocean wash away their guilty stains. Having, however, now shown where the absolute, thorough and minute management of every interest, right and privilege of the southern states and their people has been lodged during the whole process of pulling down and rebuilding their local governments, I shall proceed next to call upon the results which have followed. Let the great state of Georgia speak first. The preparations which she underwent were prolonged, elaborate and complete. The work of her purification was repeated at stated intervals until she was radiant and spotless in your eyes. One reconstruction did not suffice. You permitted her to stand up and start in her new career, but seeing some flaw in your own handiwork, you again destroyed and again reconstructed her state government. You clung to her throat ; you battered her features out of shape and recognition, determined that your party should have undisputed possession and enjoyment of her offices, her honors, and her sub stance. Your success was complete. When did the armed con queror ever fail when his foe was prostrate and unarmed? The victim in this instance was worthy of the contest by which she was handed over, bound hand and foot, to the rapacity of rob bers. She was one of the immortal thirteen. Her soil had been made red and wet with the blood of the Revolution. But she con tained what was far dearer to her despoilers than the relics of her fame. Her prolific and unbounded resources inflamed their de sires. Nature designed Georgia for the wealthiest state in this Union. She embraces four degrees of latitude, abounding with PLUNDER OF ELEVEN STATES. 12 5 every variety of production known to the earth. Her borders con tain fifty-eight thousand square miles, eleven thousand more than the state of New York, and twelve thousand more than the state of Pennsylvania. She has one hundred and thirty-seven counties. The ocean washes a hundred miles of her coast, provided with harbors for the commerce of the world. Rivers mark her surface, and irrigate her fruitful valleys from the boundaries of Tennessee and North Carolina to the borders of Florida and the waves of the Atlantic. All this vast region is stored with the richest and choicest gifts of physical creation. The corn and the cotton reward the tiller of the soil, and coal and iron, tin, copper, and lead, and even the precious metals, gold and silver, in paying quantities, await the skill and industry of the miner. This is not a picture of fancy. The statistics of her products even heighten the colors in which I have drawn it. Georgia was the fairest and most fertile field that ever excited the hungry cupidity of the political pirate and the official plunderer. She was full of those mighty substances out of which the taxes of a laboring people are always wrung by the grasping hand of licentious power. She was the most splendid quarry in all history for the vultures, the kites, and the carrion- crows that darken the air at the close of a terrible civil war, and whet their filthy beaks over the fallen ; and they speedily settled down upon her in devouring flocks and droves. Sir, let us refresh ourselves at this point with some reminiscences of the former history of Georgia, and in that way fix a basis for comparisons between her condition in the past and the present de plorable state of her affairs. When the calamities of the war broke upon the country, in 1861, she was free from debt. If she had any outstanding obligations at all, they were for merely nominal amounts. Her people felt none of the burdens of taxation. The expenses of her state government were almost wholly paid by the revenues of a railroad between Chattanooga and Atlanta, which was constructed and owned by the state. Taxes throughout all her wide-spread borders were trifles light as air. The burdens of gov ernment were easy upon her citizens. Her credit stood high wher ever her name was mentioned; and, when the war closed, she was still free from indebtedness. If she had incurred any during the 126 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. four years of strife, she was required by the federal government to repudiate it upon the advent of peace. Now, look at her to-day, after six years and a half of supreme control by the republican party. She had been a member of this Union more than seventy years when the war came, and found that she owed no man anything. Her rulers in the olden times, doubt less, had faults in common with the imperfect race to which we be long, but larceny of the public money was not among them. You took her destiny into your hands a few brief years ago, incumbered by no liabilities, and you now present her, to the amazement and horror of the world, loaded with debts which reach the appalling sum of at least $50,000,000. A large portion of these debts are officially ascertained and stated, and the remainder are sufficiently well known to warrant the statement I make. The mind recoils, filled with wonder and indignation, in contem plating this fearful and gigantic crime. It had no parallel in the annals of all the nations and the ages of mankind until the ascend ency of the republican party and its inauguration of state govern ments in the South. Now, all the seven vials of the Apocalypse have been opened on that great and beautiful, but unhappy region ; and the crime against Georgia is but one of many others of kindred magnitude inflicted by the same party on other states. The authors of this stupendous burden, however, are not even entitled to the benefit of the full time since the incoming of peace for its creation. It was mainly the work of only about three years. In 1868 a year more fatal to the interests of the people of that state than the scourge of pestilence, war, or famine the most venal and abandoned body of men ever known outside of the boundaries of penal colonies, state prisons, or southern reconstruction, was chosen as the legislature of Georgia; not by the people, but by virtue of the system which you enacted and put in force. It con tained a large majority of your political adherents, men who vote your ticket, support your candidates, and with whom you embrace and affiliate on all political occasions. They were the leaders and the representatives of the republican party. With them, too, came into office one who speedily secured a national reputation, and became a controlling power in your na- PLUNDER OF ELEVEN STATES. I2/ tional councils. At one time Rufus B. Bullock dictated the legis lation of congress and the actions of the executive in regard to the great and ancient commonwealth that was cursed by his pres ence. It was his potent finger that pointed out the pathway which led to your second assault upon her state government; and it was his voice and his presence in and about these halls that commanded and cheered you on to the breach. He was mentioned in many quarters as the probable candidate of his party for that exalted place now held by a distinguished citizen of my own state, the second highest in the gift of the American people. He was a suc cessful, conspicuous, and brilliant specimen of your system. His advent into Georgia was as the agent of some express company. He had no permanent interest there. I have been reliably informed that his poll was his entire tax when he was elected gov ernor. He neither knew nor cared for the people or their wants. He was there as an alien and a stranger spying out the possessions of a land that was at his mercy, and embracing every opportunity to seize them. He is now a fugitive from justice, a proclaimed and confessed criminal, with stolen millions in his hands. He went into the South on that wave of reconstruction which bore so many eager, hungry, and inhuman sharks in quest of prey; and, having in a few short years glutted his savage and ravenous maw, he now retires into the deep waters of the North to escape pun ishment on the one hand, and to enjoy the comforts of his plunder on the other. With such a governor and such a legislature in full and perfect sympathy and harmony with each other, morally and politically, a career of villainy at once opened on the soil of Georgia, which will go down to posterity without a peer or rival in the evil and infamous administrations of the world. The official existence of the legislature lasted two years, com mencing in November of 1868. The governor was elected for a term of four years, and served three before he absconded with his guilty gains. Pirates have been known to land upon beautiful islands of the sea, and, with cutlass, dirk, and pistol, proclaim a government, pillage and murder their inhabitants, and from the shelter of their harbors sally forth on all the unarmed commerce that 128 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. the winds and the waves brought near them. Bandits have been known to rule over the secluded wilds and fastnesses of moun tain ranges, and, with bloody hands, extort enormous ransoms for their prisoners ; but the pirate and the bandit have not been worse or blacker in there spheres than the republican legislature and the republican governor of whom I am speaking were in theirs. Sir, I hold in my hand the official statistics on which I make this charge. The reports of the comptroller-general of Georgia show that for eight years, commencing with 1855 an d ending in 1862, there was expended for the pay of members and officers of all her legislatures during that entire period the sum of $866,385.53. This is the record of her administration under the management of her own citizens. During the two years existence of the republican legislature, elected in 1868, the report of the comptroller-general shows that there was expended for the pay of its members and officers the startling sum of $979,055, only a fraction less than $1,000,000. One legislature is thus discovered to have cost $112,669.47 more than the legislatures of eight previous years in the single matter of its own expenses. There has been no increase in the number of members. On the contrary, there are fewer now than under the former apportionment. In earlier times the clerk hire of the legislatures of that state did not average over $10,000 per annum. That item alone reached the sum of $125,000 for the one legislature whose conduct I am dis cussing ; more than equal to the expenditures on that account of any ten years of the previous history of Georgia. Her general assembly consists of one hundred and seventy-five representatives and forty-four senators, making two hundred and nineteen, taking both branches together. The record discloses one hundred and four clerks in the employ of this body while the republican party had the ascendency there. One clerk for every two legislators is a spectacle which I commend to the consideration of the American tax-payer and voter everywhere. Who can doubt that such a body was organized for the purposes of robbery and extortion? There is another high-handed outrage, however, in connection with the payment of its members and officers which surpasses the deeds of even a professional highwayman. The children of the PLUNDER OF ELEVEN STATES. 129 state did not escape. By the constitution of Georgia the poll-tax of its people is made a part of the common-school fund, and set aside as sacred to the cause of education. Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars had accrued from this source when the ill-omened legislature of 1868 convened. Before it finally adjourned this whole amount provided for the cause of learning and human prog ress was swept away. Not a single dollar was left. An appro priation for their own expenses placed it all in the pockets of the members, clerks and other officials. They took this money, be longing to children white and black, as pay for their own base services in the cause of universal destruction, bankruptcy and misery. They robbed the rising generations of both races, de prived them of school-houses and seminaries, and left them to grope their own unaided way out of the realms of ignorance. The hand of the spoliator, at times in the history of the world, has taken consecrated vessels from the altar and plundered the sanctuary of God. Even the hallowed precincts of the grave have sometimes been invaded and the coffin rifled of its contents ; but human villainy has sounded no lower depth than was here fath omed, in stealing the very books of knowledge from the youth of the land. Having given these evidences of inherent depravity, this most memorable legislature proceeded naturally to its work of more gigantic peculation, fraud and corruption. The limits of my time on this floor will permit me to bring forward only a few of its deeds, but like the specimen ore of the mines, they will satisfy the explorer that strata, veins, lodes, and layers of rascality lie under the surface beyond. The treasurer of Georgia, in his recent re port, informs the public that prior to the year 1868, and since re construction commenced, there were issued in state bonds, $5,912,- 500. He further states that he has ascertained the amount of $ r 3, 7 5 6,000 to have been issued since the year 1868, and then proceeds to say: Governor Bullock had other large amounts under the same act engrossed and sent him. But this office does not know what has become of them. 130 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. The treasurer has pushed his discoveries to nearly twenty mil lions, and then finds that large amounts of other bonds have been issued which are not registered, and which are now in unknown hands. The extent of these floating, vagrant liabilities may fairly be estimated by the character and conduct of those who created them. Let us, however, examine one transaction which will serve as a key to the whole history of that legislature. A charter was granted to -construct what was to be known as the Albany and Brunswick Railroad, a distance of two hundred and forty-five miles. For this work the governor was authorized to issue the bonds of the state to the extent of $23,000 per mile, making a subsidy in money to one railroad corporation of $5,639,000. The bonds have been issued, put upon the market, the money realized from them, and their redemption will fall upon the tax-payers of the state. In the meantime the road has not been built, and the proceeds of these bonds have gone into the coffers of private indi viduals. This fact is not disputed; it stands confessed; and no words of mine can darken the hues of its infamy or increase the horror and indignation with which it will be regarded by the American people. Other railroad schemes followed in rapid succession as the easiest method of plunder. The Macon and Brunswick Railroad, the South Georgia and Florida Railroad, the Cartersville and Van Wert Railroad, the Georgia Air-line Railroad, the Cherokee Rail road, the Alabama and Chattanooga Railroad, and many others, were all made the recipients of subsidies from the state, by which uncounted millions were stolen from the tax-payers. The traces of vast sums of squandered money can be found on every hand, except upon the railroad lines themselves, in whose names the work of fraud and plunder was conducted. But while the legislature of Georgia was thus engaged in its unparalleled career of crime, the governor, in his sphere, was also busy, and by his individual deeds proclaimed to the world that a perfect harmony, not only of political faith, but of official prac tices, prevailed between the executive and legislative branches of the state government. He ranged in his peculations from the smallest to the greatest objects and amounts ; from the petit to the PLUNDER OF ELEVEN STATES. 13! grand larcenies of this new era of felonies. From a bill of $76,- 432.95 paid for extra printing to partisan newspapers, without war rant of law and without consideration in work actually performed, up to the fraudulent issue of state bonds by the million, nothing seems to have been too small or too great to escape his eager eye or his rapacious hand. He has left the impress of his grasp every where. But his exploits in connection with the state railroad will more especially be remembered by the people of Georgia. This road, as I have heretofore stated, was built by the state of Georgia nearly twenty years ago, from the city of Atlanta to Chattanooga. It connects the regions of the Tennessee river and the lines of travel descending through them from the North with the cotton belt of the South, and with five railroad routes which come up through it and concentrate at Atlanta. It is one hundred and thirty-seven miles long, and there is not a road of equal length on this continent which is more important in its trade and connections, or which is more valuable to its owners under an honest and competent man agement. We have seen that before the war its proceeds paid into the treasury almost defrayed the entire expenses of the state government, and in an official report, made July I, 1867, Colonel Jones, the treasurer of the state, and who had for eight years received the earnings of this noble public work, estimated its net products for the following year at $600,000. In February, 1870, General Bullock appointed one Foster Blod- gett, recently a claimant for a seat in the United States senate, superintendent of this road. He held that position eleven months. During the entire term of his superintendency, he paid into the state treasury only $45,000; less than the net proceeds of one month before he took the place. The repairs which the ravages of war had made necessary had been completed at a heavy expense under the administration of Governor Jenkins. The road was in good condition, and but few expenditures outside of the regular course of business were needed when Blodgett assumed his ruinous control. Its freight and travel were greater than ever before, and yet its earnings, as accounted for, were comparatively nothing. In 1867 we find it paying all expenses and yielding besides $50,000 132 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. per month. At the same rate there are $500,000 now retained in the hands of Blodgett and his accomplices. What answer can be made to this? Will any one pretend that such a vast sum was properly expended in equipping a road already equipped, in repairing a road already repaired, in stocking a road already stocked? I find one item of expense which may, however, indi cate the character of them all. Twenty-one thousand dollars were paid as lawyers fees to partisan favorites for alleged legal services in behalf of this peaceable corporation during these disastrous eleven months of its existence. It might perhaps more properly be said that there was a division of a general plunder under the head of expenses incurred. But the work of spoliation did not stop with the close of Blodgett s management. A law was obtained from the legislature, of which I have spoken, authorizing the road to be leased in the interest of Bullock and his friends. Under that law it has been leased for $25,000 per month, about one-half of its real value. One of the lessees under this most valuable contract is a member of the present cabinet, and was so when the lease was made; and another is a distinguished republican member of the other branch of congress. Sir, there was but one thing more to be done by this shameless adventurer whom your policy has made governor of Georgia against the consent of her people. He completed his record and finished his work by corrupting the channels of justice. He ren dered the courts powerless to enforce the laws and punish crimi nals. The emissaries of convicted felons crowded his antechambers and trafficked with him for his pardoning power. The record shows that the verdicts of juries were thus wiped out, the doors of the prisons opened, and the guilty turned loose to prey again upon the peace of society to an extent never before known in American history. He pardoned three hundred and forty-six offenders against the law, out of four hundred and twenty-six who made ap plication to him! His amnesty for crime was almost universal. Indeed, his zeal in behalf of those under indictment was so great that his grace and clemency was often interposed before the trial of the culprit. He granted seven pardons in advance of trial to one man in the county of Warren, who pleaded them to seven PLUNDER OF ELEVEN STATES. 133 separate indictments when he was arrested and brought into court. This special object of favor is one J. C. Norris, who haunts com mittee rooms and swears on all occasions to fabulous outrages and the imperfect administration of the law in the South. As a spared monument of Bullock s mercy, with manifold villainies unatoned for, he is always to be seen lurking around investigating commit tees, and pouring into their ears the black and concentrated malice of an apostate against a people whom he hates because he has betrayed. Other instances like this might be cited, but enough is here shown to account for even greater disturbances than any that have taken place in Georgia. The confidence of all classes in the su premacy of the law was destroyed. They saw the will of one unscrupulous man supplant all its authority. It afforded them no security for life or property when its most solemn decisions were set aside every day in the year. Its uplifted hand was arrested in the court-room before their indignant gaze, and the judicial blow was averted from the guilty head of the law-breaker at the bar. If the violence of the mob thereupon ensued, the curse came from those who were charged with the execution of the laws, and who, instead of doing their duty, interposed to shield villains, both be fore and after their conviction. If this is not the true philosophy of mankind, I have studied its motives and its conduct all in vain. And now, Mr. Speaker, at this point I must take leave of the state of Georgia, her plundered treasury, her oppressed tax-payers, her railroad schemes of robbery, her squandered school funds, and her mocked, insulted and baffled courts of justice. Other impover ished fields cry to us in piteous tones for redress, and have long cried in vain. Let us, at least for a few moments, hearken to the story of each one s woes, whether we are willing to enter into righteous judgment with them or not. I turn to South Carolina, once the proud land of Marion and Sumter, now the most wretched state that the sun shines on in its course through the heavens. There is no form of ruin to which she has not fallen a prey, no curse with which she has not been baptized, no cup of humiliation and suffering her people have not drained to the dregs. I am told that disorder has reigned in some 134 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. counties within her borders, and we behold martial law, worse than the lawless tyranny of the dark ages, ravaging her firesides and scattering her households. Bad governments are fruitful of such calamitous results. History has taught this lesson in every age. The wickedness of corrupt rulers breeds outbreaks among citizens. How has South Carolina been governed? The republican party has held undisputed sway there every hour since the overthrow of the rebellion. Her entire delegation in both branches of congress belong to the party now in power. Her state officers and legisla tors, of all colors, have been of the same political faith. What are their works? What trophies of progress and civilization do they bring to propitiate the judgment of the world? Not one good deed adorns the polluted pages of their record. At the close of the war the valid debt of the state amounted to $5,000,000. A committee of investigation, in an official report made December 26, 1871, but a few weeks ago, say: In regard to the state debt, the committee declare they can not believe other than the fearful truth, which stares us in the face, that the bonds and stocks printed by the American Bank-note Company, $22,540,000, represent the liabilities of the state, for which the faith and credit of the state, however unlaw fully procured, has been pledged for payment. The contingent liability incurred by railroad indorsements swells the total up to nearly $29,000,000. Add to this $10,000,000 more that is disputed as fraudulent, and we have an increase of $34,000,000 in the debt of the state since it fell into the hands of its present destroyers. All the lands in South Carolina are not worth over $55,000,000 showing that more than every alternate acre is now absorbed by her crushing and frightful indebtedness. If she were sold at public auction for two-thirds her appraised value, she would scarcely more than meet the demands that have been created against her within less than seven years. The New York Tribune, of December 19, 1871, announces that over $6,000,000 of her bonds have been fraud ulently issued by her republican governor; but no mode by which the toiling tax-payer can escape their payment is pointed out to him. Taxation for the support of a good government often becomes a grievous burden, but when it springs directly and avow edly from fraud and forgery, it is a curse intolerable and not to be borne. PLUNDER OF ELEVEN STATES, 135 The New York Tribune also states that one ignorant and mon grel general assembly of South Carolina drew from the treasury the enormous amount of $583,651.44 to defray its own expenses for one session, and incurred a debt of $91,500 besides for furni ture for the state-house which it so foully disgraced. A session of the legislature of the great state of Ohio at the same time cost the people of that prosperous commonwealth but $90,000. This gen eral assembly of abject ignorance and irresponsibility, in South Carolina, levied over $4,000,000 of taxes on the property of the state. It was in view of these and kindred facts that the Cin cinnati Gazette, with all its party fealty, was forced to exclaim: The common fame of the South Carolina legislature is that it is a body in which no measure can be carried without bribery, and in which bribery can carry anv measure ; in which bribery is as much a part of legislation as the pay ment of wages to a field-hand is of raising cotton, and is almost as open, and in which the greater part of the members regard it as the privilege of the office to plunder the state in every possible way. Governor Scott gives some items going to countenance this impression. He says that the appropriations for the legislative expenses of the last session were $400,000, while that of the Ohio legislature were but $90,000 ; that every senator has his clerk, page, and messenger, all at heavy pay ; and besides, there is a horde of hangers-on, all on pay under various pretexts, and that there are innu merable leaks for the public money. In this we behold the gorgeousness of the African nature when it can be indulged at the expense of others, and the avidity of the political adventurer who knows that his hay-making sunshine will be short. This will give a glimpse of the elements that have multiplied the state debt with nothing to show for it ; of the conditions which make the property -holders believe that the taxes exacted from them are robbery ; of a rule odious to all the respectable inhabitants of the state, and of conditions which excite both white and black inhabitants to deadly hostility. These are some of the features of the southern situation which have constrained us to remark that congress should not only provide means for suppressing violence in the late rebel states, but should make a thorough and impartial inquiry into the situation, in order to find the real cause of these disorders. Where is the man on the opposite side of this chamber who has lifted up his voice in behalf of a thorough and impartial inquiry in order to find the real causes of disorder in the South? The great est organ of your party proclaims Governor Scott himself a forger of more than six million bonds. He is said to be investing large sums at Napoleon, Ohio, where his home in reality is, and where he expects to retire when he is fully gorged with plunder. He went to South Carolina for pillage and rapine, and will soon return with his spoils. Your policy emanating from here made him gov ernor. The virtue and the talent of the state were proscribed by 136 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. your laws. Alluding to the condition of South Carolina, a few weeks since, one of her citizens (Senator Sawyer) in the other branch of congress used the following strong language : It is due to the circumstance that this large number of men in the southern states were shut out from the possibility of holding state and federal offices that we have had so many abuses in the local governments of those states. It is due to that circumstance that in the state which I have the honor in part to repre sent on this floor we have to-day a state government which is a disgrace to civ ilization. It is due to those disabilities, and to those disabilities only, that we had not an ample field from which to select honest, capable men for ouV local public offices, men who would have made faithful officers, and who would have been in complete harmony with the national administration and the great republican party on questions of public policy. Instead of that what do we see to-day? A spectacle alike disgraceful to the republican party, under whose banner and in whose name gross abuses have been perpetrated, and to the men who have thus stained its honor ; and yet senators desire us to continue a system which has been fruitful of such results. This was spoken by a leader of the republican party, and I call upon those who may regard my statements as overdrawn, to care fully consider and weigh his testimony. He deliberately pro nounces the republican state government of South Carolina a disgrace to civilization." There she stands, the result of your own handiwork, bankrupt in money, ready to plunge into the dismal gulf of repudiation, ruined in credit, her bonds hawked in the markets for sale in vain at ten cents on the dollar, her prosperity blighted at home and abroad; without peace, happiness or hope; and all her liberties stolen as well as her material substances. There she stands, with her skeleton frame and withered death s-head, admonishing all the world of the loathsome consequences of a gov ernment fashioned in hate and fanaticism, and founded upon the ignorant and vicious classes of mankind. Her sins may have been many and deep, and of the color of scarlet, yet they will become as white as wool in comparison with those that have been commit ted against her in the hour of her helplessness and distress. In North Carolina the same scenes of misrule salute us as we cross her borders. Her debt, in 1861, was $9,699,500. A debt now of $34,000,000, without the ability to pay the interest on it, $11,000,000 of her bonds besides declared to have been fraudu lent and void, her people groaning beneath unbearable taxation, and despair and gloom gathering over their future, are the chief PLUNDER OF ELEVEN STATES. 137 consequences which have befallen North Carolina under the policy and ascendency of the republican party. Louisiana presents even a still more striking instance of scandal ous and stupendous robbery. The official statistics show her to be in debt to the appalling amount of $50,540,206; all of which, ex cept $10,099,074, has been created in the degenerate days that have overtaken her since the war. The human mind, as it pon ders over these figures, recoils from the villainy which they neces sarily involve. The feeble state of Florida comes forward also with her burden of complaint. When she fell into the clutches of her new rulers she had a little debt of $221,000. Now her liabilities reach the sum of $15,763,447.54, the payment of which is utterly and totally beyond her power. She has suffered from drought and flood and worm, but the presence of republican officials has been more dam aging to her than them all combined. But I can go no further in the discussion of these terrible details. Time and space would fail me. I submit the following condensed table of figures, and I defy their successful contradiction on this floor or anywhere else. Alabama. Debts and liabilities at the close of the war, $5,939,~ 654.87; debts and liabilities, January I, 1872, $38,381,967.37. Arkansas. Debts and liabilities at the close of the war, $4,036,- 952.87; debts and liabilities, January I, 1872, $19,761,265.62. Florida. Debts and liabilities at the close of the war, $22 1 ,000 ; debts and liabilities, January I, 1872, $15,763,447.54. Georgia. Debts and liabilities at the close of the war, nominal; debts and liabilities, June, 1871, $50,137,500. (See statement of Mr. Augier, treasurer of Georgia.) Louisiana. Debts and liabilities at the close of the war, $10,- 099,074.34; debts and liabilities, June I, 1871, including the excess of expenditures over receipts, $50,540,206.91. North Carolina. Debts and liabilities at the close of the war, $9,699,500; debts and liabilities, January I, 1872, $34,887,467.85. South Carolina. Debts and liabilities at the close of the war, $5,000,000; debts and liabilities, January i, 1872, $39,158,914.47. Mississippi. Debts and liabilities at the close of the war, nom inal ; debts and liabilities, January I, 1871, about $2,000,000. 138 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. Tennessee. Debts and liabilities at the close of the war, $20,- 105,606.66; debts and liabilities, January i, 1872, $45,688,263.46. Texas. Debts and liabilities at the close of the war, nominal; debts and liabilities, January I, 1872, $20,361,000. Virginia. Debts and liabilities at the close of the war, $31,- 938,144.59; debts and liabilities, January i , 1872, $45,480,542.21. The present assessed value of the taxable property of the states on whom this vast mountain of debt has been so fraudulently and so frightfully accumulated, is considerably less than one-half what it was in 1860. It was not merely the liberation of their slaves that wrought this great change. Their system of labor was broken up, great battles were fought in all their borders, their railroads were destroyed, their towns and cities and cotton burned, and every description of property handed over to the destruction of a fierce and implacable war. They emerged from the desolating conflict fit objects for the wisdom and care of a benevolent states manship, rather than as the proper prey of hungry jackals, who mangle and feed upon the wounded after the battle. Their fate, however, in many respects, surpasses in infamy and in misery the worst that ever befell a conquered people. Sir, what single benefit, what solitary blessing has been bestowed on that devastated region in return for the hundreds of millions of taxation which have been wrung from it, and the yet greater bur dens which still impend over its struggling and impoverished inhabitants? Where is the great public work that tells of the out lay of these immense sums? What deed of benevolence or honest fame has been achieved? Other lands have been plundered by the oppressor, but none was ever left so naked and destitute of every advantage arising from its own mighty contributions. The great Napoleon wasted the substance of France, and con sumed her vitals in the remorseless rage of ambition ; he hurled the rising generations of his empire, one after another, into the flaming vortex of war ; he gave them to the edge of the sword and to the unconquerable fury of the elements ; he palsied all the indus tries, and blighted every field and fireside; the shadow of the tax- gatherer and the conscript officer fell on every foot of French soil ; and yet convulsive sobs of grief shook the breasts of his subjects PLUNDER OF ELEVEN STATES. 139 when he fell, and the whole empire stood uncovered at his bier when his dead body was brought back from tropical seas to sleep in her bosom. Though he had oppressed France, he had given her glory in return. Though he had taken with an unlicensed hand, he had adorned her as a lover does the mistress of his heart. Stately buildings reared their heads on high ; solid thoroughfares were opened for the people ; waste lands were drained and re claimed ; education was fostered ; the arts and sciences were munificently patronized ; and a code of laws was passed and pro mulgated which established and enforced domestic justice and peace. She had these benefits of which to boast when reminded of her awful sacrifices. And when Caesar, the armed conqueror and spoliator of his own and other countries, lay in bloody funeral state in the market-place, it was said of him with truth : He hath brought many captives home to Rome Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill. And- When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept. And again the orator of his good deeds exclaimed Here is the will, and under Csesar s seal. To every Roman citizen he gives, To ever} r several man, seventy-five drachmas. ******* Moreover, he hath left you all his walks, His private arbors, and new-planted orchards On this side Tiber; he hath left them you, And to your heirs forever; common pleasures, To walk abroad, and recreate yourselves. If he had plundered the Roman treasury, he had often filled it again; if his vaulting ambition brought sorrow to the poor, he sympathized with them; if his career was stained with extortion, he expended his gains in beautifying the Eternal City ; if he had robbed the people of their substances in his lifetime, he provided that much of it should return to them at his death. And if we turn from the far-off regions of antiquity to the im mediate present, still we find no parallel to the evil administrations 140 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. of the South. With what a clamor the corrupt practices of four or five men in the city of New York have been hailed for many months past ! The air has been vocal ; the press has resounded ; the telegraph has been made weary of its daily burden ; and the accusing voice of self-righteous indignation has been universal and unceasing. The democratic party, it is true, crushed these men in an instant; but still the story of their offenses salute us every where. And yet their work of extortion, compared to that in the South, is the mote to the beam, the mole-hill to the mountain, the speck in the sky to the cloud that overspreads and darkens the whole heavens. Their crimes, too, have a still further mitigation in the comparison. If they enriched themselves, they at least did not take all. They made New York the wonder and the glory of modern civilization. If they robbed the people, they bestowed upon them, in return, a city more magnificently adorned with public works than Rome or Paris in their days of pride, of pomp, and of power. Her glorious parks, her vast avenues, her newly opened, solid, and far-reaching streets, will testify to after ages that her officials bequeathed to her some compensation for the wrongs they inflicted upon her good name. No such conduct illuminates a single page of the present epoch in the South. You look in vain from Hampton Roads to the Bay of Galveston for a single monument erected to the public good by that party which has so sternly and so corruptly governed in all that wide-spread region. No colleges, seminaries, or schools founded and endowed with the treasures that have been stolen ; no lofty edifices or durable roads constructed ; no massive bridges thrown across wide rivers ; no parched plains irrigated and made productive ; no rice-swamps ditched and redeemed for cultivation ; no canals cut in order to connect the natural channels of trade and commerce; no rivers improved or harbors made more spacious and secure ; none of these works of utility and patriotism relieve the monotonous desolation which unholy avarice and unrestrained oppression have stamped upon the South. She has nothing to mitigate her degradation. She has been stripped and robbed and left by the wayside. Her effects, moneys, and credits have been transported to other states and climes, to return to her no more PLUNDER OF ELEVEN STATES. 141 forever. Her well-favored and fat-fleshed kine, feeding in her meadows, have been devoured. The frogs, the darkness, the lice, and the locusts left more blessings behind them in Egypt than this portion of the republic has received from its modern rulers. Sir, I challenge the darkest annals of the human race for a par allel to the robberies which have been perpetrated on eleven Ameri can states. Ireland has been made to enrich many a lawless lord- lieutenant sent over by England to govern that beautiful but unhappy island. The stories of her wrongs and pillage have been said and sung in every hamlet in the civilized world ; yet her con tributions to the cause of a wicked government have been mere pittances compared to what the South has been compelled to make. Seventy years before the birth of Christ, Sicily was ravaged and despoiled by a consul of Rome. Though more than nineteen cen turies have come and gone since then, yet the name of Verres retains all its freshness of immortal infamy. He was prosecuted by the authority of the Roman senate, and fled for an asylum to strange and foreign lands. He died miserably in exile, and his dishonored dust was not permitted to mingle with the soil of the Roman republic. We find, however, in Middleton s life of Cicero, that all the peculations, extortions, bribes, and larcenies charged upon Verres during his entire administration of the affairs of Sicily did not exceed $2,000,000 equal to only one-third of the amount for which the Tribune of New York says Governor Scott fraudu lently issued the bonds of South Carolina in a single transaction. The basest Roman consul, whose name is preserved on the pages of the historian, becomes respectable by the side of a southern gov ernor under the present policy of this government. The crimes of Warren Hastings, as the ruler of distant and con quered colonies, have long been the theme of swelling periods and lofty declamation. There was much in his situation to extenuate his offenses. He was charged by his government to hold its valu able possessions on the opposite side of the globe. He was in the midst of fierce, revengeful, and undying hostilities. He was sur rounded by a race with which he had no bond or tie of blood or of language. It was perfidious and cruel, and mocked at the faith of treaties. But even admitting that his guilt was as great as it was 142 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. painted by the flaming imagination of Burke or the impassioned rhetoric of Sheridan, yet all the burdens he imposed upon all the East Indies do not equal those which have been fastened upon the two states of Georgia and Louisiana alone since the disastrous dawn of reconstruction. Sir, on the facts which I have stated, I invoke the judgment of the country. What right have you to expect peace and order in a land whose rulers are lawless felons? When did a bad govern ment ever fail to produce wickedness and crime? Do you expect the people to obey the laws when their officials do not? Do you expect them to love and reverence a government whose policy has made them bankrupt and miserable? Do you wonder that they become restless, desperate, and disobedient, as they daily behold the fruits of their toil stolen in the name of their government? Are you amazed at scenes of violence, outrage, bloodshed, and cruel vengeance, when the executive of a state sets aside the entire administration of justice? Rather should you be filled with aston ishment at the forbearance and moderation you have witnessed. If the foremost agents in the work of southern ruin and destruction, since the close of the war, had been driven from that country by its plundered citizens, who now would rise up here and condemn the act? In the disorders which afflict the South, the philosophic mind beholds the inevitable results of well-known causes. Had you sown the seeds of kindness and good-will, they would long ere this have blossomed into prosperity and peace. Had you sown the seeds of honor, you would have reaped a golden harvest of con tentment and obedience. Had you extended your chanties and your justice to a distressed people, you would have awakened a grateful affection in return. But as you have planted in hate and nurtured in corruption, so have been the fruits which you have gathered. THE TARIFF HOW A HIGH PROTECTIVE TARIFF IS EATING UP THE FARMERS A speech delivered in the senate of the United States, March 19, 1890, upon the following resolution, submitted by Mr. Voorhees, March 17, 1890: WHEREAS, The deep and widespread depression and decay of the agricultural interests of the American people, the enormous and appalling amount of mort gage indebtedness on agricultural lands, the total failure of home markets to furnish remunerative prices for farm products, the palpable scarcity and insuf ficiency of money in circulation in the hands of the people with which to transact the business of the country and effect exchanges of property and labor at fair rates, are circumstances of the most overwhelming importance to the safety and the well-being of the government; therefore, Be it resolved, That it is the highest duty of congress in the present crisis to lay aside all discussion and consideration of mere party issues and to give prompt and immediate attention to the preparation and adoption of such measures as are required for the relief of the farmers and other overtaxed and underpaid laborers of the United States. R. PRESIDENT There is trouble at this time in the hearts and minds of the farmers of this country. There is a deep, strong current of discontent, anxi ety and alarm prevailing in all the farming regions of the United States, and that current is growing swifter, stronger, and more threatening every hour. The spirit of unrest, irritation and reproach is abroad amongst the tillers of the soil to an extent never before known in American history. The millions who plow and sow and reap are being moved by a mighty and concerted impulse to inquire into the causes which have led to their present calamitous and oppressed condition. I propose, on this occasion, to aid them to the extent of my ability in pushing this most natural and necessary inquiry, and in securing an honest and truthful answer. The farmer is the pro genitor of the human race, and was the first to stand in the pres ence of the Creator and to receive from him the decree of the di- (143) 144 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. vine mind on the question of labor. From the farmer s loins has descended the human family, with all its widespread and far-reach ing branches, and wherever his dignity, honor, and prosperity have been ignored or trampled under foot, there the worst forms of gov ernment and the darkest scenes of barbarism have been found. God created a farmer to begin with, and in all the ages since his blessings have been most abundant and his civilization most glori ous in the. history of the nations and peoples where the farmer has ranked highest, and where his comfort and prosperity have been the greatest care and chief concern of government. The foundations of all human progress are in the hands of the farmer, and are laid by him as he asserts dominion by his daily toil over the tremendous forces and illimitable resources of nature. Who fails to be fascinated by a contemplation of the commerce of the seas? The thought is a most inspiring one that at this mo ment the richly-freighted ships of all the nations of the earth are moving through all the oceans, and swarming on all the coasts and into all the harbors known to civilized man ; and yet, all this mighty system of commerce, traffic and exchange is as dependent upon the corn-fields and wheat-fields of the farmer as the fields themselves are upon the dews and rains and sunshine of heaven. How brilliant, wonderful, and awe-inspiring appear the great cities of the world to the casual glance of the unreflecting mind. The ordinary traveler speeds on and on, thousands of miles through farm lands, gazing listlessly at farm houses and farm pro ductions, thinking nothing of the vast fundamental lessons they teach, but looking eagerly forward to the problems, mysteries, and wealth contrivances of the crowded, speculating, stock-gambling city which he is rapidly approaching , and yet that city would wither and perish, shrivel back to a barren, naked beach; its wharfs would rot, and its swollen corporations and haughty million aires would dwindle into poverty-stricken skeletons, no better fed than Pharaoh s lean kine, were it not that the fountains of all its wealth, support and grandeur are kept open and running, day and night, by the cultivation of the soil in the great domain of agricul ture. Gilded palaces, baronial castles, marble halls, colossal estates THE TARIFF. 145 outrivaling in value the richest dukedoms of the Old World, all draw their sustenance from the bosom of mother earth ; their roots strike deep into the mold that is turned by the plow, and the farmer at last is made to pay for all. It is estimated that over twenty millions of the present population of the United States, counting all ages and both sexes, are engaged in the cultivation of the soil, and on their productive labor, not only the government itself leans for support, but also all other classes of citizens derive from the same source their prosperity, their wealth, and too often their profuse and criminal luxuries. Is it not well, therefore, in the present juncture of affairs, to turn away from less important questions and look carefully into the condition of the agricultural masses, who bear the burdens and constitute the strength and glory of the republic? Sir, it is now nearly thirty years since the crisis of a terrible war gave to unhallowed avarice an opportunity to prey upon the self- sacrificing patriotism of the country and to plunder the laboring people of their hard and honest earnings, such as was never before in the history of nations presented to the basest passion and most sordid and odious vice in the fallen nature of man. In all the financial councils of the government at that time, Mammon, the demon of riches for the favored few, seemed to preside and con trol. Mammon, the least erected spirit that fell From heaven; for e en in heaven his looks and thoughts Were always downward bent, admiring more The riches of heaven s pavement, trodden gold, Than aught divine or holy else enjoyed In vision beatific. Nor did this evil god of ill-gotten wealth, this fallen angel of greed and lust for gold, once a dweller in heaven, but now an in habitant of hell, for a moment fall short of his delineation by Mil ton when, in his base, hard, grinding and oppressive spirit, our present financial system, with its many and widespread branches and its far-reaching and destructive consequences, was organized and enacted during the war. No " vision beatific " of an unselfish patriotism, of mighty, mustering multitudes, comprising the flower of the land marching to the altar of self-sacrifice, and tread- 10 146 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. ing with high, heroic step and mien the wine-press of the battle field ; no vision of a Union restored, a country united, and a flag floating in the sunlight of peace ever for an instant allured the thoughts or diverted the gaze of the American Mammon and his ignoble conclave when they were engaged in laying deep and strong the foundations of the plutocracy, the giant money power, which now governs and curses this country and its laboring people. A system of finance has been fastened on the American people with more hands than the fabled Briareus, and each one with an itching palm to clutch the fruits of honest industry for the enrich ment of those who toil not, and yet outvie in splendor many of the crowned heads of Europe. Of this oppressive system there are many parts and contrivances, all skillfully woven together like a great network, and having all the time the same object in view, the taxation of one class of citizens for the enrichment of another class. It is sometimes said that certain old sins of the government should not be recalled at this late day ; that they have the sanc tion of time, wear a venerable aspect, and should be condoned. When ministers of the Christian religion cease to denounce the sins and crimes of the human race because they are old, " hoary and white with eld," then, and not till then, will the fraudulent manner in which our bonded debt was doubled on the tax-payer be forgotten; then, and not till then, will the demonetization of silver be forgiven, and then, and not till then, will a high pro tective tariff, existing not for revenue, but as a machine with which to gorge, glut, and cram the privileged few at the expense of the many, cease to exasperate and inflame the indignation of the intel ligent laborers of the world. The tariff, with all its overwhelming prominence and its over whelming oppression at this time, is but a part of the vast system devised more than a quarter of a century ago, whereby a moneyed aristocracy has been created, labor degraded and deprived of its earnings, and the government itself revolutionized in substance and in form. It is true that while the tariff is only a part of the money-power system of government, yet its place and agency in that system are of the most vital and commanding influence in its execution. To take toll from all the laboring men, women and THE TARIFF. 147 children of the United States on all their wants and necessities, not for government revenue, but for the protection of the million aire manufacturers, powerful corporations, trusts, and syndicates, is the base function of the tariff laws now on our statute-books. Who has the hardihood to rise and say that such laws are now, or ever have been, or ever will be, a blessing to the farmer? On the one hand behold the present condition of the farmer, and on the other behold the towering peaks of the highest protective tariff ever known, with perhaps the exception of the Chinese wall. Will you dare to go before the distressed farmers of the country in the approaching political canvass with the old, stale, worn-out falsehood that a high protective tariff is for them an advent of joy, a rich benefaction, a season of prosperity, and of home markets at good prices? Such a lie in this year of 1890, like a murderer s prayer, will stick in the throat of him who tries to utter it. When you again push the tariff, with its enormous and unnecessary taxa tion on every article of farming life, into the farmer s weather- beaten and care-worn face as a wise policy for him, will he not exclaim in indignation at your fraudulent pretense Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree can not bring forth evil fruit; neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them Are you willing to have your tariff tree, your protective policy, tried by this high and immortal standard? The able and distin guished secretary of state under the present administration, in a recent magazine article in reply to Mr. Gladstone, has pointed out certain periods in American affairs, when, as he claims, there was general prosperity in connection with a protective tariff, and that therefore, by virtue of the unrepeatable laws of cause and effect, prosperity was begotten by protection, and the laboring people, the farmers especially, were blessed in their homes and at their firesides by being forced to buy what they needed in a high-priced market protected from competition, and to sell their products, 148 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. whatever they might be, according to the cheap prices prevailing in the London markets and in the other markets of the civilized world where no protective policy is known, and where the wheat and other great staples of the United States are brought face to face in competition for sale with the productions of the serf labor of Russia, the sepoy servitude of the Indies, and the practical slavery of other portions of the globe. I will not stop to controvert, as others have successfully done, the secretary s accuracy in his statement of historical facts; I need not dwell on the past for the support of my contention that a pro tective tariff is a curse and not a blessing. I am not dealing with a theory, but with a condition on which even a blind man, by brief, primary instruction, can look with unclouded vision arad reach an unerring conclusion. What is the issue this day between the farmer and the restrictions, repressions, and extortions of a protect ive tariff? That is the question to consider; that is the question in which American farmers are now everywhere most vitally inter ested. Are they gathering figs, are they plucking good fruits from the policy of their government? I challenge the advocates of the present system of protection to answer on this floor or anywhere else. The farmers of the United States are this hour realizing, upon a general average, not more than 10 cents per bushel for corn, 50 cents per hushel for wheat, 2-3- to 3 cents a pound for hogs, i-J- to 2 cents for fat cattle, and even this low and almost nominal rate of prices would be reduced to nothing at all, and the farmers would be brought in debt if the expenses of production as well as of transportation were taken into account. The compensation to the farmer for the enormous and infernal tax he has to pay under the tariff on all he needs and all he uses has always been the loud, prolonged and vehement promise of an eager, remunerative home market for all he raised and wanted to sell. Where is that home market? The farmer is looking for it, and mourning because it is not to be found. Home market ! What lies have been told in its name ! The ignorant charlatan and the designing knave have alike poured falsehoods into the ears of the people, assuring the unsus- THE TARIFF. 149 peering, and those of easy faith in the direction especially of their party ties, that home markets are created and sustained by a pro tective tariff, until now, after all these years of deception and lucrative mendacity on the part of the money power and its advo cates, thousands of farmers, in different parts of the country, own ing and tilling lands richer far than the delta of the Nile, are pointing in derision and scorn of all tariff protection to their stoves and fire-places as their only home market for corn. The rich con tents of corn-cribs, the fruits of the year s toil, have become cheaper as fuel than wood or coal, and as they mournfully gaze on this great staple breadstuff turning to ashes for want of a market in this land of railroads, rivers and lakes, it would seem as if all their hopes of relief at the hand of the party now in power would perish in the same way. Experience is teaching a harsh and severe lesson to the Ameri can farmer, and the time will come, at no distant day, when he will look upon the proposition to tax him, his wife, and his chil dren for the protection and benefit of other people besides himself and his own as he would look upon a law of congress establishing the army worm, the weevil, and the midge in his wheat, legalizing locusts, lice, grasshoppers, and infecting his cattle with murrain and his hogs with cholera. It is not possible that the fraudulent and monstrous policy of taxing the farmer into poverty in order to make another class of people nabobs and millionaires can much longer delude and mislead any one fit to manage his own affairs and have the care of a family. From year to year the farmer has been assured, and in certain quarters he is now again being reminded, that protection is ex tended to the products of his labor against the competition of sim ilar products imported from abroad for sale in our markets. The protectionist who advances this argument is either himself a fool, or an audacious knave who assumes that the farmers to whom it is addressed are fools. Do the home markets of the United States invite the great staples of agriculture from foreign lands? Does the price of wheat, of corn, of cotton, of pork, and of beef in our markets excite the cupidity of the grain-growers and stock-raisers of Europe, Canada, Mexico, or South America? What need is 150 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. there of a tariff duty to keep the products of foreign farms away from our shores, when in point of fact prices in American markets for agricultural productions pay the American farmer but little more than neighborhood transportation, and nothing at all for his labor. The farmers of the United States sell abroad and feed the world. Every pretense of protection for their home markets is a fraud ; every duty laid on such articles as wheat, corn, cattle, horses, eggs, poultry, and other like productions of farm life and farm labor is a cheat and a sham, and is so intended. Under cover of a deception and pretended protection, which affords no protection at all for anything he has to sell, the farmer has been for years, and is now, compelled to pay taxes on the necessaries of life after the following average rates : On woolen goods, an average of 70 per cent.; knit cotton goods, 39 per cent.; cotton clothing, 35 per cent. ; cotton bagging, 44 per cent. ; cotton ties, 35 per cent. ; tin-plate for roofing, milk pails, and kitchen utensils, 40 per cent. ; earthen and stoneware, 58 per cent. ; chains, 44 per cent. ; win dow glass, 73 per cent., and sugar, 70 per cent. To convince the farmer that he is protected and benefited by such an abominable system as this would seem to a rational mind utterly impossible, and yet in some instances it has been done. I recall one instance at this time, and I will venture to describe it to senators as I have once before done to a popular assemblage. Dur ing the campaign of 1888, in one of our beautiful Indiana towns, and in a very fertile belt of country, I witnessed a republican pro cession. It had in it many industrial exhibits, claiming to show the power and the glory of a tariff laid for protection. As I scanned along the line of moving vehicles I caught sight of one that riveted my gaze and gave me much food for reflection on the power to mislead and deceive which was abroad in the land. It was a wagon driven by a farmer and loaded with the productions of his field. There were specimens of corn, wheat, rye, hay, and oats; of potatoes, pumpkins, watermelons, and cantaloupes; of cabbages, beans, onions, pie-plant, and tomatoes; of apples, peaches, pears, grapes, and cultivated blackberries, and on each side of the wagon, in big, staring letters, I read the following: "These are the fruits of protection." My first thought was that THE TARIFF. 15 I such a man would certainly become the victim of a bunko-steerer or a confidence swindler before he got out of town, but in a mo ment I reflected that he had been listening to the eloquent advocates of the monopolists, and had been persuaded that tariff protection had done more for him than the sun, the dews, the rains, and a rich and beautiful soil, with all his own labor thrown in. The stupendous extent of this unfortunate man s delusion can only be estimated when you turn away from a political parade and look at him while at work on his farm. You there behold the poor blind dupe breaking up his grounds, preparing them for crops, and then planting and drilling his corn, wheat, oats and rye with plows, harrows, planters and drills on which he has paid out of his own pocket from 75 to 100 per cent., nearly double their real value, as a tariff tax laid for the protection and enrichment of the manufacturer of such implements in this country. You behold this enslaved and deluded victim of the money power cutting his small grain and his hay with a reaper and a mower for which he has paid twice what they would cost him but for a protective tariff. He uses a double-priced hoe in his cabbage patch and a double- priced pitchfork at his hay-mow and wheat stack in order to enable the manufacturers of hoes and pitchforks to avoid foreign compe tition and thus get rich. He then puts a set of harness on his horses, taxed from the bridle-bits to the breech-bands, and on every buckle, link and chain, hitches them to a wagon taxed 85 per cent., at least, on every bolt, spike and tire that holds it together, and then, with a suit of clothes on his back taxed at about the same rate, and with his wife by his side, also covered with raiment at twofold protected prices, he starts to town shouting for the re publican party, the sideboards of his wagon proclaiming that the productions of his farm are the fruits of protection. The fruits of protection! They were planted, nurtured and gathered in spite of protection, and at a double expense because of such a curse in the statute books of the government. It is a notorious and self-evident truth that the tariff, as it now stands, increases the farmer s expense account from 35 to over 100 per cent, on every implement of husbandry with which he toils from one year s end to another. 152 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. The Mills bill attempted to place all fibers, such as hemp, jute, flax goods and manilla, used in the manufacture of twine, on the free list. That just and moderate bill was defeated by the monop olists ; and now, with a tariff of $20 a ton and 40 per cent, ad valorem on twine, and also a twine trust, creating a close monop oly in its manufacture, thousands of farmers during last summer s harvest were not able to pay the increased price of twine-binders. They have been forced back to the machinery of their naked hands, and with bloody fingers and thumbs they have reflected upon the price of binding twine, enhanced to 18 cents a pound by tariff and by trust. It is true that party prejudices are stubborn and hard to remove, but surely it is not too much to suppose that between these same sore fingers and thumbs a republican ticket will not be found this year. The very house in which the farmer lives is a monument to unnecessary, unjust, vicious, wicked and criminal taxation. His barn is the same. There is not an inch of lumber, or a single nail, or a pane of glass in either of them which has not cost the farmer an average tax of more than 50 per cent., paid, not to the govern ment, but as a naked subsidy to the manufacturers of lumber, iron and glass. His table, spread with dishes and with his daily food, is an altar to taxation, on which he sacrifices three times a day to the unholy god of Mammon now controlling the councils of the nation and devouring the enforced offerings of unpaid labor. His bed is not a place of untroubled rest; it is lined and stitched and quilted with dishonest taxes, which he is compelled to pay before he can draw his blanket over his weary frame and sink down to sleep. But in discussing the effects of a high protective tariff on the farmer, and on his struggles for a prosperous home, there remains for consideration another page of startling statistics and agricul tural disasters. In high-sounding phrase, and with the swelling note of a bugle proclaiming victory in advance, the advocates, the orators and the essayists of protection are constantly boasting of the growth and development of the country, and citing its wealth as an evidence that their policy is sound and just. But is it true that there has been a healthy development of the true interests of THE TARIFF. u 153 the American people, and an honest, beneficial accumulation of wealth in this country under our present policy, and more espe cially by virtue of the present system of tariff taxation? The prosperity of huge corporations, the accumulation of vast fortunes in the hands of a few, the swollen bank accounts of trusts, syndicates, and protected manufacturers, are no more evidences of a people s wholesome growth and greatness than were the riches of Dives when he refused a crumb of bread to Lazarus, nor than the ill-gotten possessions of the .scribes and Pharisees who devoured widows houses and made long prayers in the days of our blessed Saviour on earth. The only genuine strength, progress and glory of a nation must arise from the increasing value of its agricultural lands, and in the yearly incomes and substantial gains of its labor ing people, thereby, as a consequence, securing their contentment and their happiness. Sir, our present system of protective tariff taxes was enacted twenty-eight years ago, and I deny that the farmers of the United States have been prosperous under its operation ; I deny that they have fair profits on their labor ; I deny that they have had reason able yearly incomes, or, on an average, any income at all, after barely securing the necessaries of life. On the contrary, I assert that while farmers have been compelled to continue the payments of war taxes in a time of peace, there has been not only no increase in the value of their lands during the last quarter of a century, but an absolute loss of not less than 33 per cent. Reliable statistics warrant me in saying that the improved farm lands of the United States, if put to sale to-day under the most favorable circumstances now possible, would not, upon a general average, realize more than two-thirds their value of twenty-five years ago. Take the lands of the state of Ohio as an illustration of this startling fact. Ohio is one of the most favored states by nature in the American Union, and yet three years ago Governor Foraker, in an official address, comparing the value of real estate in 1887 with what it was in 1880 in that great commonwealth, said: There has been a heavy decline. Farm property is from 25 to 50 per cent, cheaper than it then was. 154 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. But the rich and productive lands of Ohio have been not only rapidly diminishing in value, but their owners have also been forced to mortgage them to a most alarming extent. It is esti mated from official statistics that the mortgaged indebtedness of the farmers of Ohio reaches the enormous sum of $300,000,000. In Illinois, that empire of natural resources and vast cultivation, the showing as to her farming lands and farming interests is still darker and more disastrous. A recent number of the Bankers Magazine, commenting on the report of Mr. John S. Lord, chief of the Illinois bureau of statistics, points out the fact that the private debts secured by mortgages of record in that state exceed $402,000,000. It is also shown that of this mortgage indebtedness $181,000,- ooo is outside of Cook county, the farm indebtedness, exclusive of mortgages on chattels and town lots, being $142,000,000, with an annual interest of $4,919,000. Taking the entire average of the state, 23 per cent, of its whole face is under mortgage. The Bankers Magazine characterizes these figures as stupendous and alarming, and yet there are other states with even worse records of debt and financial distress than Illinois or Ohio. According to the last report of the labor bureau of Michigan, over 47 per cent, of all the farm lands within her borders are under mortgage. During the last congress the able and accomplished representative of the Harper s Ferry district of West Virginia made the following strik ing and uncontradicted statement on the floor of the house : I do not wish to make any statement that is not sustained by the facts, and so I have obtained the last report of the labor bureau of the state of Michi gan, which covers an investigation into the mortgages on Michigan farms and which presents some striking figures. I stand here to-day and say that I have not the slightest doubt that the Michigan farmer is as industrious, as hard-work ing, as intelligent as the farmer in any other section of the country, and yet this official volume shows that 47 per cent, of the assessed valuation of the farms are mortgaged. Compare the condition of the unprotected Michigan farmer with the condition of the protected owner of the copper mines in Michigan, the latter piling up dividend upon dividend, million upon million, out of the privilege granted him by congress to tax the people of this country, while the farmer is working early and delving late and piling up mortgage after mortgage upon his estate. The farmers have neither the time nor the money to come here and be siege congress about these matters. They are chained to their plow, to their daily labor. They can not come here to look after their own interests; but the owners of the copper mines and the other industries that are protected and sub sidized are here at all times in your lobbies, urging measures for their own benefit. THE TARIFF. 155 In Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska, and indeed throughout the whole Northwest, from 20 to 50 per cent, of the improved farms are covered by mortgage liens at such rates of interest as farmers can never pay out of the proceeds of their crops, much less also the principal. They are thus brought face to face with the loss of their homes, with ruin, and hundreds of thou sands of them are standing in that attitude this day and hour. If, however, it is retorted, as we constantly hear, that the deplora ble condition of western and northwestern farmers is local, excep tional, peculiar to themselves, growing out of their lack of thrift and skill, and not due to the general policy of the government, it will only be necessary to turn our inquiries in another direction in order to find that the decay of values in farm lands and in farm productions has been even greater and more ruinous in the older eastern states than in the West. Sir, New England is the home of high protection; the busy brains of her people have been engaged from the beginning of the government in devising tariff duties for other people to pay to the manufacturing classes, and she has placed her privileged few at the head of the money of this country, if not of the world. But like the boomerang as a weapon of war, New England s high pro tective-tariff policy is at last returning against her own bosom, and carrying widespread destruction to her farmers in their homes, in their lands, and in everything they possess. We are informed by Bradstreet s reliable journal, in an article on statistics, " that de population in rural New England is something to create wonder. Recent investigations by the state authorities of Vermont, New Hampshire and Massachusetts show that an alarming number of farms in fair condition and once owned by thrifty farmers are abandoned entirely and turned over to the bramble and the thistle, untenanted and unrentable." And, again, we find the following careful and amazing state ment recently made public in the press of the country : The movement to recolonize Vermont and New Hampshire with Scandi navian immigrants has brought out some significant facts with reference to these two New England states. From the state commissioner of agriculture and man ufacturing interests it is learned that good farming land is passing out of occu pation. In the town of Reading, Windsor count} , Vermont, 4,000 acres of lands 156 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. which are now Or have been in former times good farms are offered for sale. One-half of these, says the commissioner, are lands which formerly comprised good farms, but with buildings now gone, and fast growing up with timber; some of this land is used for pasturage, and on other portions the fences are not kept up, leaving old cellar holes and miles of stone walls to testify to a former civili zation. Such lands can be purchased at from one to two dollars per acre. The com missioner tells of having heard ot one farm of 200 acres, with fair buildings and good soil, in the township of Chelsea, Vermont, which can be bought for $100. In the township of Vershire, Orange county, there are from thirty-five to forty farms, contiguous, or nearly so, abandoned or unoccupied. Many of these farms have a fair set of buildings on them, and others could be made comfortable with a small outlay. A recent telegram in the papers reported that fifteen families of Swedish immigrants had been engaged to settle in Vermont. A gentleman in Jamaica, Windham county, has compiled a list and descrip tion of farms in that town, from which the state commissioner takes the follow ing examples: "A farm of 200 acres, fair buildings, good sugar orchard, plenty of wood and timber, has been one of the best in the town, listed at $810. "A farm of 135 acres, good buildings, sugar orchard, fruit orchard, and in good state of cultivation, listed at $700. "A farm of 90 acres, good buildings, vacant only one year, with timber enough on the place to pay for it. "A farm of 22 acres, good buildings, vacant one year, listed at $225. "A farm of 97 acres, good buildings, sugar and fruit orchards, a good farm, listed at $700. "A farm of 90 acres, in a high state of cultivation, must be sold, listed at $765. "A farm of 155 acres, the finest location in the town ; has got to be sold for what it will bring. " The Vermont commissioner then goes on to say that in Essex county there are six towns containing 89,491 acres of land, on which there are, probably, all told, not more than fifteen or twenty families. These are described as good lands, lands that will make good, productive farms, well watered, and with tim ber sufficient for home consumption, wanting nothing but the energy, the bone and muscle to clear them up. " In Newark, Caledonia county, twenty-five farms, only three miles from rail road, can be bought for $3 to $4 per acre. "This is only a partial report on the unoccupied and abandoned farming lands of Vermont. It is known to the commissioner that there are 5,000 acres of such lands in the town of Wilmington. " These are startling facts, and what is affirmed of Vermont is also true of New Hampshire and other New England states. Extensive tracts of land, once dotted with farm houses, are now covered with young forest trees and brambles. " The only explanation offered by the Vermont commissioner is that, of the people who once occupied these farms, some have died, others have gone west and to the cities, and none have come to fill their places." In still another account of agricultural decay and desolation in New England I find the following melancholy facts and figures : Vermont is bad off. and New Hampshire is no better. The last legislature of New Hampshire appointed Mr. Bachelder to devise means by which the farm ing interests might be restored, if possible, and waste fields be cultivated. He sent out letters, and the replies are said to be startling. In the town of Jackson alone thirty farms have been deserted, while in Bath there are 75,000 deserted acres. And so in fifteen other towns there are from one to thirty deserted farms, while in fourteen others there are in ail 21,000 vacant acres with tumble-down buildings, and this is said to be only the beginning of the list, which promises, THE TARIFF. 157 on the basis of what has already come in, to be a revelation. The Boston Globe says the condition of the other northern New England states is similar. From New York and Pennsylvania sad stories also come of the manufacturer eating up the farmer. In fact, the tiller of the soil is being ruined by a system which creates an order of plutocrats, fosters monopolies, and begets all -devour ing trusts. Sir, in the face of these appalling facts and cruel figures of ruin to the farmers of New England, as well as to the farmers of the middle states and of the Mississippi valley, who will now confront the country and eulogize the workings and the results of a system of tariff protection which, after a continuous trial of twenty- eight years, has accomplished nothing save the concentration, the amassment of enormous wealth in a few protected and privileged hands, depriving the people of a sufficient amount of currency in circulation, impoverishing and enslaving wage laborers, and inflict ing upon farmers such a condition of financial wretchedness as to fill their hearts with bitterness and resentment against the law- making power of the government? With a cry resounding through the land for Scandinavians and other half-civilized races of northern Europe to come over and re- colonize American states that were of the original and immortal thirteen, who is there, here or elsewhere, to maintain and defend an economic policy under which such shameful disasters have over taken the most meritorious, the most useful, the most honorable, and the most absolutely essential class of American citizens? With the depopulation of the agricultural regions of New England and their abandonment to the bush and the bramble ; with a home market for the farmers of the United States generally for nothing at active rates, except mortgages on their lands on terms as to in terest, amount, and time which render payment impossible, and foreclosure, sale and dispossession swift and inevitable, surely it is not difficult to discover the character of the highway we are travel ing or the end we are approaching. This highway is not new; other nations have trodden it before, and have reached the overthrow of popular government and per sonal liberty, as we will unless the people speedily rise and rescue themselves from the awful condition in which they are involved. The improved lands of the United States, the homes of farmers, 158 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. are passing under mortgage foreclosures from occupant freeholders to loan associations, to non-resident money-lenders, and becoming tenant rookeries, paying rent to a landed aristocracy. The mean ing of all this is obvious in the light of history. Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, Where wealth accumulates, and farms decay. In the strong language of a gifted writer on this subject When darkness settled over Egypt and she lost her place among the great nations of the earth, 3 per cent, of her population owned 97 per cent, of her wealth. When Babylon went down, 2 per cent, of her population owned all the wealth. When Persia bowed her head, i per cent, of her population owned all the land. When the sun of Rome set in black despair, eighteen hundred men owned and controlled all the then known world. For the past thirty years more particularly since the close of the civil war the United States has moved rapidly along the path followed by these old nations. In 1850 our capitalists owned 37)^ per cent, of the nation s wealth. In 1870, only twenty years later, they owned 63 per cent., having almost doubled their accumulations. They have more than kept up this ratio since 1870, and probably now hold fully 80 per cent, of the total wealth of the country. What proportion of the population holds this large per cent, it is not easy to determine, but it does not probably exceed 10 per cent, of the 60,000,000 who inhabit this country, and this per cent., so small in numbers, but so omnipotent in wealth, is using its immense power in every department of business and of government in the development and prosecu tion of schemes for making the rich richer and the poor poorer. Sir, the inquiry as to the cause or causes of this appalling con dition is earnest and universal among the laboring classes, and especially among farmers, at this time. The main answer is easy and obvious; it is to be found on the very surface of our affairs. Living under a plutocracy, the farmer does not own his full time and labor; he owns a part, but not all. He needs all the six days of the week in which to work for himself, his wife and his children, but under the iniquitous system by which the tariff taxes him upon every necessary of life, he is compelled to devote the proceeds of at least two days out of the six to the protection and enrichment of the robber barons. One-third of his time the American farmer is a toiling serf for the payment, not of revenue to his government, but of naked trib ute to those who are protected in charging him from 25 to 100 per cent, more than it is worth on every article his wants compel him to buy. For two days work, we will say, a farmer can earn a pair of blankets worth $3 to make, but which are increased in price by THE TARIFF. 159 tariff protection to $5. To whom does the additional labor on his part, necessary to enable him to buy them, belong? The same question may be asked in regard to all his agricultural implements, his household and kitchen utensils and furniture, and all the cloth ing on his back, purchased in markets viciously protected in the right to add war taxes to prices for the benefit of the manufactur ing monopolist on every article there sold. Sir, we are all familiar with the name applied to a system of gov ernment by virtue of which one class owns the labor of another class, and it is a moderate and reasonable statement to make that the American laborer, and more especially the farm laborer, is already one-third a slave by law, with the clutch, greed, and power of his master, the plutocracy, increasing the degree and the degra dation of his servitude every hour. The relations of the laboring classes to the feudal barons of Europe during the Middle Ages were exactly the same in principle as those now existing between the laboring classes of the United States and the favored few, for whom they are hewers of wood and drawers of water. Cedric, the Saxon, had no surer hold on the services of Gurth, the swineherd, than the lords of the money power have at this time on the hard earnings of American industry. Are we to be blind to the lessons of history? There is always a point in the oppres sion and enslavement of labor where safety ceases- and danger begins. A tax known as corvee in France, requiring and enforcing gratuitous labors on the part of the inhabitants of a district for their lord of the manor, was one of the sore grievances which led to the French Revolution. A French writer thus describes the workings of this tax : It consisted of a number of days work which the seigneur had the right to require annually gratis of the serf, originated with Charlemagne, only ended by the Revolution. It might be required at any day, any hour, at the pleasure of the lord of the manor. He might require any sort of labor plow the lands of the baron, train his hedges, make and clean his ditches, repair roof or walls of his cas tle, and even beat the water in the pond all night to keep the frogs still so that monseigneur s sleep should not be broken. Well might Mirabeau denounce the corvee tax as the most cruel of all servitudes," and yet the French peasantry of that pe riod were no more required to render gratuitous services to the 160 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. French aristocracy than are the grain-growers and stock-raisers of the United States to-day to render gratuitous millions and hun dreds of millions annually to the coffers of those whom a high pro tective tariff has made their lords and masters. It remains to be seen whether the American laborer at the close of the nineteenth century will be any more patient of a corvee tax on his time and his industry than was the down-trodden French peasant of a hun dred years ago. Sir, the aristocracy of money is always cruel and coarse and unmindful of all else save its own gains and meretricious splendor. Its lavish and ostentatious displays of ill-gotten wealth often light up the whole argument on the relations between labor and capital, and point to the soundest conclusions ever found in history. Who is protected and enriched by a protective tariff ? has been a ques tion of debate prolonged through generations, but can be best de termined now by pointing out as an object lesson the condition of our agricultural communities on the one hand and certain arrogant, ambitious and dazzling demonstrations of wealth which have re cently taken place on the other. There came to this country, not many years ago, a subject of Great Britain, with a keen capacity and hungry instinct for the amassment of great riches. He became a citizen of the state of Pennsylvania and engaged in manufacturing iron and steel. The productions of his mines and his mills have been and still are pro tected in the American markets from foreign competition by tariff duties ranging from forty to over one hundred per cent, on im ported iron and steel of various kinds and in various conditions. These enormous per cents have been added to the price of all his sales, and have been paid at last by the farmer, whether the sales were for the equipment of railroads or the equipment of farms. What has been the effect of this policy on Mr. Carnegie and his fortunes? We know that his laborers have not grown rich, for only last July he gave them notice of a heavy reduction in their wages, and persuaded them into submission by the presence of Pinkerton men and Springfield rifles. Who is it, then, if not the working people, that protection has pampered into more than Oriental magnificence in the iron and THE TARIFF. l6l steel works of Pennsylvania? Three or four weeks ago there was a banquet spread in this city, a description of which the next morning was the joy and the glory of the newspapers and the sen sation of the whole country. Accounts were head-lined as follows : "Like Lucullus of old Gorgeous dinner that rivaled an ancient Roman feast Mr. Carnegie s entertainment Over two thousand tulips and crocuses and thousands of roses used A memi which almost the whole world furnished Delightful musical programme. We are informed that this banquet was given to the president of the United States and his cabinet, and also to the delegates and officers of the international conference, and the brilliant reporter proceeds to say that All that money could provide and taste suggest to combine beauty of sur roundings with the enjoyments of an epicurean repast had been brought into requisition to secure the desired end. and the result was a success far beyond that anticipated, but none the less gratifying * * * * Undoubtedly it was the most elegant affair ever given in this city, if not in the United States. The room resembled a conservatory supplied with plants and blossoms. The side halls were almost completely hid from view by plaques of palmetto leaves, inter twined with southern smilax, deep green and glossy, and which grows wild in the Carolinas, from whence this had been brought. The north hall, back of where President Harrison and Mr. Carnegie sat, was a gem from the florist s hands. Then after a vast deal more of the same sort about maiden hair ferns," " palms sixteen feet high," " mammoth four-leaf clover," "mounds of Ulrich Bruner, Gabrielle, Luizett, and Magna Charta roses," the reporter told a gaping world what the modern Lucul lus, sired by a protective tariff, gave his guests to eat. Among other things, the farmers and wage-workers of the country were informed that the fish, being a " sole, was secured from England, the mutton from Scotland, and the spring chickens from Louisiana. The celery, olives, and anchovies were served in the finest cut glass, and the salted almonds and radishes in dishes of solid silver. The forks and table-ware used throughout the dinner were also of solid silver, while the plates and service comprised Haviland china, with the exception of the fish course, which was served on plates of royal Worcester." It is also stated that the silver alone on the table cost three thousand dollars. To the farmer now in trouble, with a mortgage on his home- ii 1 62 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. stead, the interest unpaid, foreclosure approaching, no demand for what he has to sell, and no money in the house to him I com mend this picture of the Carnegie banquet as the best explanation of a high protective tariff ever before known in American history. At one end of the tariff question the manufacturer, the protected monopolist, spreads an imperial banquet-board, loaded with epi curean dainties from every clime, and flowing with wines costlier than nectar, while at the other end of the question farm laborers, wage-workers, and all who live by the sweat of their faces, are in deep apprehension, in sighs, in distress, and often in tears. When I reflect on the bitter trials which the farmers are undergoing at this time, and the depression and suffering attendant upon other working classes, there is but one other occasion of the kind which can parallel, to my mind, the impious mockery of Carnegie s en tertainment. Belshazzar the king made a great feast to a thousand of his lords, and drank wine before the thousand. They drank wine, and praised the gods of gold, and of silver, of brass, of iron, of wood, and of stone. In the same hour came forth fingers of a man s hand, and wrote over against the candlestick upon the plaster of the wall of the king s palace ; and the king saw the part of the hand that wrote. Then the sacred historian says the king was filled with terror, his knees smote together, and he cried aloud, and for a time in vain, for an interpreter of the writing on the wall. An interpreter came into his presence at last, and after taxing him with the use of the sacred vessels taken from the Temple of Jerusalem, said: And thou hast praised the gods of silver, and gold, of brass, iron, wood, and stone, which see not, nor hear, nor know ; and the God in whose hand thy breath is, and whose are all thy ways, hast thou not glorified. How swiftly your minds anticipate the remainder of the old and sublime story! " Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin" signified the downfall of a kingdom upheld by injustice, impiety, and crime. My earnest prayer and belief is that a handwriting, beginning in the banquet halls of unrighteous monopolies, and spreading over the walls of all the farm-houses and homes of labor in the United States, is now heralding the speedy overthrow of a system of extor tion and robbery more wicked and criminal in the sight of God and THE TARIFF. 163 man than all the sins of Babylon when her robes were most scarlet with iniquity. And now, sir, having pointed out, to some extent at least, the condition of the farmers of the United States at the present time, and the widespread and crushing evils which have befallen them through the criminal policy of their government, it remains as a part of my duty to suggest such remedies as I would adopt had I the power to enact and enforce them. First. Tariff reform should be so thorough, complete, and unsparing that, after providing sufficient revenue for the govern ment, not one dollar would be further required of the farmer as protection to high-priced goods, wares and merchandise, because of their being manufactured and sold by American monopolists. The only protection connected with tariff taxation should be a mere incident to a tariff laid for nothing else but government reve nue, and even that, when it enhances the cost of the necessaries of life, should be wholly eliminated if possible. A tariff enacted for the sake of protection, designed as a law whereby one class of our citizens is protected against competition in the manufacture and sale of articles at increased prices over their real value, is not only a violation of the constitution, but a legal ized crime, more distinctly at war with principles of liberty and equality than the stamp tax which caused the American Revolu tion. Such is the system now in existence. Its reform and revision on the basis of a tariff for revenue only would relieve the farming class of the payment of not less than $500,000,000 annu ally extorted from them for the protection, aggrandizement, and enrichment of manufacturing monopolies, trusts, and all the kindred brood of ugly moneyed monsters which now infest the land and prey upon the people. By the tariff reform which I indicate it would become the farm er s turn to enjoy protection; protection against high-priced markets in which to buy, and low-priced markets in which to sell ; protection to the ownership of his own time and labor ; protection against the condition of a slave for two days out of every six, with monopoly as his owner and overseer ; protection against class rob bery, spoliation and plunder; protection in the secure possession 1 64 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. and enjoyment of his own earnings without being compelled to divide with legalized looters or pay ransom to financial brigands. I am for this kind of protection, and it would afford immeasurable relief where relief is most needed and most deserved. Second. A full supply of legal-tender money in the hands of the people, proportioned in amount to the population and business of the country is as essential to the prosperity of the farmer as a suffi cient quantity of blood is to human life. It is nowhere denied that there is at this time a meager and stinted volume of currency in circulation amongst the producing and business classes. This fact is owing largely to the absorption of money by the monopolies at the money centers, and to a great extent also to the growth of pop ulation and the expansion of business without any corresponding increase in the amount of our circulating medium. The figures of the census and the statistics of finance show that while our population has increased 25,000,000 in the last twenty- five years, and the requirements of business for the use of money have increased in the same proportion, yet there is in fact less money in actual circulation in the hands of the people or attainable by them for daily use than there was a quarter of a century ago. It is the constitutional power and the constitutional duty of the government to authorize and enact by its stamp, on either gold, silver, or paper, a sufficient amount of money, full legal-tender in quality, to meet the sound and healthy demands of the people in their trade, their commerce, and their development of the physical resources of the country. Thus the supreme court of the United States has decided, and thus, in despite of those interested in the scarcity of money, in low- priced property, and in cheap labor, the law stands settled. With the power in congress to declare what shall be money and how much shall be issued, what necessity can there be for the farmer to offer his lands to the government as security for a small loan in his sore distress? He has a higher right than this to a much ampler and more enduring relief. I fully agree with the senator from Cali fornia [Mr. Stanford] in his statement that "an abundance of money means universal activity, bringing in its train all the bless- THE TARIFF. 165 ings that belong to a constantly employed, industrious, and intelli gent people." I do not, however, agree with him that the land-owners of the United States, the sovereign people who own and support the gov ernment, should be left to become borrowers at the door of the treasury on their mortgaged homes at one-half or one-quarter of their assessed value, or at any other appraisement. I do not agree with him that such a system would in the long run bring any relief at all. The owners of the soil stand on higher, safer, and more dignified ground. The constitution of the United States confers the power on congress to create and issue all the money needed for the relief of the people; and for the value, the integrity, the good faith, and the final redemption of this money all the lands between the two oceans, all the homes on the farms or in the cities, all the wealth of monopoly and of corporations, all the credit, resources, and honor of the government itself stand pledged, and will stand pledged forever. Let congress, on such a pledge, such a mortgage, furnish to the laboring masses and the active business interests of the country an amount of currency in proportion to population and trade, and every active industry will be stimulated, prices for agricultural pro duce will become remunerative, mortgages will be paid off, old debts will be wiped out, wages will increase to a fair exchange for work in the shops and in the coal mines, the wrinkled visage of hard times will be smoothed, and homes now dark with gloom and distress will smile with peace and plenty. The largest amount of legal-tender notes (greenbacks) known in our financial history since the war was $432,757,604, and that at a time when our popu lation was 25,000,000 less than it is now. The present amount of the greenback circulation is $346,68 1 ,o 1 6, being a contraction of the currency, for an enormously increased pop ulation, of $86,076,588. Had I the power, I would, as a measure of justice, wise policy, and permanent relief to every worthy and industrious class of citizens, restore the greenback circulation to the highest point it ever reached in time of peace, and there main tain it. Let the $86,076,588 be reissued, with debt-paying power, and the humiliating idea of mortgaging homesteads for small loans 1 66 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. will disappear forever. No speculative disturbance in values would follow such an increase of our circulation, for it would even then be too small in its ratio to a population of 60,000,000 and to the giant developments yet to take place in this Union of forty-two states Third. The free coinage of silver also presents itself as a meas ure of relief to the American farmer, and to the laborer for daily wages. Argument against the use of silver money to the full extent of all our silver resources is never heard in the channels of trade nor in the fields of active industry. Its enemies are not to be found in the ranks of labor, but in the sumptuous council chambers of the arrogant plutocracy, where the chief aim and end of govern ment is to increase the power of money over lands and houses, and over men and women, by making it scarce and hard to obtain by the plain, unprotected people. Those who affect an alarm at silver inflation are mostly those who are bent on the contraction of all kinds of currency in order to increase the purchasing power of the money which monopoly and privilege have already given them. The financial credit of no nation in the world stands higher than that of France, and the cir culation of silver amongst the French people is $14.67 per capita, while it is but $2.72 per capita with us. With more silver products than all the world besides, the people of the United States are demanding fair play for silver money and the assistance and stim ulus of its unlimited coinage and circulation. With all the dis crimination that has been made against it, with all the sneers and calumnies that have been heaped upon it, gold can buy no more in the markets than silver, and can carry its aristocratic head no higher than the dollar of the fathers. The adoption of the free coinage of silver will mark an era of prosperity to the American farmer and to all the industrial classes. Fourth. Another measure of relief for the embarrassment and depression of agricultural interests and the disturbance of their mar kets should be the prompt enactment of laws, either by congress or by the states, or by both, punishing with state s prison imprison ment those who speculate in the great food products of the world and gamble on their future prices, without ever having owned a THE TARIFF. l6/ bushel of corn or wheat, or a pound of beef or pork, or of any other commodity which they assume to buy and sell. This is an interference with the honest, legitimate trade of the farmer which should be made a felony, and punished as such. Fifth. To the foregoing propositions in the interest of the farmer I would add a liberal policy of pensions and a full and generous recognition of those who served their country in the hour of its peril. Money paid in pensions to the soldier is not only a benefit and blessing to him and those who are dear to him, but also to the produce dealer, the merchant, and to all within the range of its circulation. But for the large sums which for years have been dis bursed by the pension office and thus reached nearly every neigh borhood in the United States and gone into general circulation the present financial crisis amongst the farmers and laborers would have come at an earlier day. As a beneficial measure, therefore, to all, as well as a duty of the most sacred character, the soldier should be paid by his government as one who was willing to die for his government. On that lofty basis his equities are without limit, and justice should at all times stand ready to enforce them. Mr. President, those who have sought to reform the enormous abuses growing out of consolidated wealth, legalized avarice, and educated rapacity, have in all ages been met with the most vindic tive, unsparing and sanguinary hostility of which history makes any record in the affairs of men. Those who have invaded the seats of ancient wrong, and disturbed the enjoyments of privileged oppres sion, have in every era of human progress been assailed as enemies of law and order, seeking to break down the safeguards of society ; as agitators, fire brands, iconoclasts, and traitors to their govern ment. Evils which have grown venerable and hoary in plundering the toiling masses of mankind have always been upheld by caste and aristocracy, whether in council, debate, or by the steel-clad hand of war, or by the ghastly gibbet. It was the awful denunciation of the mighty Nazarene hurled against those who were " full of extor tion and excess," rather than the preaching of a new dispensation which inspired the accusations before Pontius Pilate ; and those who followed him with bitterest execrations and most insolent tri- 1 68 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. umph to his death agony on the cross were the usurers, the money-changers, the accursed plutocracy of Judea. And from that great hour to this the resentment of chronic and corrupt riches, intrenched behind accumulated laws and constructions, has known no bounds at the intrusion of the reformer. It has been the most envenomed and merciless sentiment ever known to infest and pollute the human soul. The ablest statesmen and the broadest philanthropists have not been spare d when found, in any age or in any part of the globe, laboring to reform the abuses of concentrated wealth. John Bright led the column of reform for the repeal of the corn laws of England, laws imposing tariff duties on the importation of corn into Great Britain, thereby protecting the landed aristocracy in selling their corn at high prices to the laboring classes, who were compelled to have it or starve. He took the side of justice to the working peo ple as against the proprietors of vast estates, and a recent writer says: For many years Mr. Bright was assailed incessant^, and with extraordinary vehemence and rancor, and as an incendiary agitator who provoked the poor to regard the -rich with envy, jealousy and hatred; as a reckless demagogue who wished to destroy all those ancient institutions which had made England great; as the friend and ally of the worst enemies of his country; as a traitor who cared nothing for her safety and honor. Now that the stormiest of those times are sufficiently remote to be recalled without bitterness and passion, even those who were Mr. Bright s most loyal supporters, may see that it was natural, per haps inevitable, that he should have been regarded as a revolutionist. For dur ing the greater part of his political life he was the strenuous assailant of laws and institutions which were protected by the interests, by the affections, by the convictions and by the traditions of the wealthiest and most powerful classes of the state. He became known by the energy and vehemence with which he attacked the corn laws. He did not merely argue against them as economically indefensible; he denounced them as criminal. Thomas Jefferson, more than a hundred years ago, laid the hand of reform on the laws of primogeniture, the laws of entail, and the union of church and state, and as a consequence was painted as a Jacobin and atheist, an enemy to God and man, by the orders of privileged society, and by the same powerful classes which after wards so fiercely sought the destruction of the great British states man and reformer. No one need suppose that the same rule will not prevail now. The tariff reformers of the United States in the present crisis will encounter a hostility filled with all the wicked- THE TARIFF. 169 ness, corruption, and malevolence which more than $500,000,000 a year as a clear robbery from the people, and a clear bonus to pro tected monopoly, can inspire. All that money can do to subsidize the press and fill its columns with false arguments, false statements, and false accusations against tariff reform and tariff reformers will be done ; all that cor ruption funds can do in carrying elections by venal blocks of five, and in thus defeating the advocates of honest and equal taxation, will be accomplished ; and all the arts of intimidation on the one hand, and alluring seduction on the other, in the bestowal of office and the distribution of official patronage, will be resorted to, in order to retain the ascendancy of the money power over the pos sessions and liberties of the people. In the face of these things, however, and with a full knowledge of what is before us, we will gird up our loins like men and go forward to the fight. The battle may be long and weary, and some of us may fall in the conflict, or sleep in peace by the wayside before it is over ; but after awhile, amidst the glad shouts of liberated millions, the sun will go down on the great and final victory of the eternal right over legalized wrong, of freedom and equality over caste and servitude. Hail mighty day of the swift-coming future ! Born of the seventh generation of farmers in an unbroken line on American soil, inured in my youth to their daily labors, and made familiar with their hardships and privations, it is my birthright to speak for their deliverance from oppression and their restoration to prosperity, dignity, and honor. This I have here and now aimed to do on principles fully indorsed by the people of Indiana when they sent me to this body, and to that intelligent and just-minded people I hold myself responsible. THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS The physical man must grow old, his hair must whiten, and his face bear the furrows of years ; his step must falter and his hand grow feeble. Not necessarily so with the intellectual man. The mind fed at the crystal fountains of accumu lated knowledge will continue its youth, its growth and its expansion until it makes its final transition to a sphere of endless and unlimited development. This speech was made by Mr. Voorhees on the 5th of May, 1880, and was the first of several made by him on this subject. When he began his crusade in behalf of a proper preservation and use of the written thought of the world, the nation s books littered the floors and all other inharmonious and unclean space in small, cramped and illy arranged quarters in the capitol building. His aim was, by setting forth in detail and in strong colors the deplorable and disgrace ful condition of the library of congress, and the total and shameful inadequacy of its accommodations, to procure from congress action looking to the erection of a national library building which, theretofore, notwithstanding the abject and lamentable condition of the books and other intellectual treasures, had seemed impossible of accomplishment. The speech attracted marked attention, leading senators gathering around the speaker and listening intently to his startling expositions, and its almost imme diate result was the creation by the senate of a joint select committee entitled "The Committee on Additional Accommodations for the Library of Congress," of which Mr. Voorhees was unanimously made chairman. With the exception of two years, while chairman of the finance committee, he remained, through every change of the political complexion of the senate, at the head of this com mittee for the construction of the new library, and when he retired on the 4th of March, 1897, he held this same chairmanship, which was given him nearly sev enteen years before. A greater mark of confidence in and satisfaction with his work has rarely, if ever, been given any senator by his associates. Indeed, the efforts of Mr. Voorhees for the erection and completion of the grand build ing which now towers " a thing of beauty and a joy forever " on Capitol Hill, and in which the books of the civilized nations of the earth for ages to come will accumulate, were tireless and incessant. When he first mastered and cham pioned the feeble and fainting cause of the library, the ground whereon it now stands resplendent was covered by residences and various other buildings. When he laid his chairmanship down and retired from the scene of this conspicuous success, the glorious structure showed all its fair proportions in finished perfec tion. With the exception of the capitol itself, this building is much the largest (170) THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. I/ I of our government structures, being twenty-one thousand square feet larger on the ground than the state, war and navy departments combined. It cost, in round numbers, six million five hundred thousand dollars, and, in its blending of great capacity, adaptation to library needs and beauty of architecture, has no equal in the world. Mr. Voorhees, of course, had faithful co-workers in what he did. The ven erable senator from Vermont, Mr. Morrill, was always at the front in the cause of the new library, and his name was appropriately joined with that of Mr. Voorhees in a bill introduced in the senate providing for the placing of a mar ble statue of each in the splendid edifice. Nor can the assistance rendered him in procuring its construction be justly referred to without conspicuous mention of the eminent librarian, Mr. Ainsworth R. Spofford, and Mr. John L. Smith- meyer, the senior member of the firm composed of John L. Smithmeyer and Paul J. Pelz, the architects of the building. The two latter gentlemen spent about thirteen years in their effort to attain in their plans superiority, in artistic design and utilitarian arrangement, over all other library buildings. This effort was in close accord with the fixed aim of Mr. Voorhees and always received his warm encouragement, and, in aid of it, he, as chairman of the committee, sent Mr. Smithmeyer to the large cities of Europe to study the library architecture of the Old World, that the attempt at improve ment might start from a full knowledge of the best then existing. R. PRESIDENT Some weeks ago I was authorized by the joint committee on the library of congress to report a bill providing for additional accommoda tions for the library. I feel impelled by a high sense of duty to ask the senate to listen this morning to some reasons why it is now imperatively necessary to take prompt action in that regard. If it be the pleasure of the senate, I should like to occupy its time briefly upon that question, and will then leave it to the senate to determine what it ought to do in view of the condition of our collection of books at this time. THE VICE-PRESIDENT. Will the senate grant the request of the senator from Indiana? The chair hears no objection. The seqa- tor from Indiana. MR. EDMUNDS. Had not the bill better be reported? THE VICE-PRESIDENT. The bill will be read. The chief clerk read the bill (S. No. 1117), to provide additional accommodations for the library of congress. Be It Enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives ofth* United States of America in Congress Assembled, That a joint select committee, consisting of three senators and three members of the house of representatives, shall have 1/2 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. power to employ, as soon as may be, at the expense of the United States, three persons of suitable skill and attainments, who, or a majority of whom, shall, with the approval of said committee, carefully examine and consider what prac tical and beneficial changes can be made in and of the capitol building in the District of Columbia, for the better accommodation of the houses of congress and of the congressional library, having in view especially the need of better ventilation, light and exposure to the open air of the legislative halls, and the convenience of communication between them, and between them and the library, and the need of greater space and better arrangement thereof for the library. They shall, if they find any mode or modes of accomplishing the ends afore said practicable and beneficial, cause proper plans, designs, and estimates of cost to be made thereof, and submit the same to said committee, which shall re port the same to congress at the earliest practicable time. And said committee shall in any case make a full report on the subject. SEC. 2. The sum of $5,000, or so much thereof as shall be necessary, is hereby appropriated, out of any money in the treasury not otherwise appropriated, for the purpose named in this act, which shall be paid on vouchers approved by said committee. MR. VoORHEES. Mr. President, it is impossible to magnify the importance of immediate action looking not merely to the accom modation, but to the preservation of the library of congress. We have reached a point where we have no choice on this subject. Our duty is imperative as the guardians of public property, and we can not excuse ourselves or be excused by the country if we delay the discharge of that duty any longer. There has been much talk here and elsewhere on this subject, but my desire now is to impress upon the minds of senators the fact that prompt and decided action is an absolute necessity. The present condition of the congressional library is a reproach and a shame to this government. But for the services of an ex ceptionally able and accomplished librarian, its utility as a place of resort for information would be almost wholly destroyed. It con tains now 375,ooo volumes of books, with shelf room for 280,000 volumes, leaving 95,000 volumes to be piled in heaps on the floor and in the alcoves, or packed on the shelves behind the others. The principal value of a library consists in the readiness with which you can find what you want. In the library of congress, how ever, at this time, every fourth book is denied a place on a shelf and has to be sought for on the floor, or in some nook or corner, or hidden place. When we reflect that the call for books on the part of those who are entitled to their use is incessant, we may form some conception of the perpetual overhauling going on from" THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS IN THE CAPITOL BEFORE ERECTION OF THE NEW BUILDING. FROM t. PHOTOGRAPH BY MR. FRED. SAWYER HARDESTY. THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 1/3 day to day among the contents of that library. Books are dam aged and worn out by this condition of things. In addition to the books in the library, there are one hundred and twenty thousand pamphlets for which no other provision can be made than to cord them up together in an almost inaccessible condition. Nor is there any room whatever for filing the periodi cals or the newspapers of the day. There are more than six thousand bound volumes of newspapers in the library, embracing more than a century of American history; also, complete sets of the London Times since 1/96, of the London Gazette since 1665, of the Moniteur Universal since 1/89, and of nearly all the Eng lish and American reviews and magazines. Two newspapers from each state, representing both political parties, have also been taken for many years, and kept for reference. All this great mass of valuable matter has no place at all provided for it, and has to take its chance for an obscure and inconvenient lodgment somewhere. It is mostly packed together like dry goods in a crowded store, one piece on top of another. There was yet another collection which strongly attracted my attention on a recent occasion. In a dark room up stairs there is an immense accumulation of maps and charts chiefly, as I was informed by the librarian, American both manuscript and en graved, illustrative of the chartography of our widely extended country in every stage of its development. These splendid maps, thousands in number, are actually inaccessible, because there is no space in which to arrange them for use. The officers in charge of the various government surveys, to whom these maps would fur nish most valuable and essential aid, have made strenuous attempts, assisted by the librarian, to utilize them, but have all failed. They are lying there, a huge fund of knowledge, acquired in that form at great labor and expense, and now of no value whatever to any body. Their condition is more that of an accumulation of leather, some bound in rolls and some spread out in piles together, than anything else that now occurs to me. Imagine, if you can, the process of hunting for one of these maps or charts if some commit tee of congress, or some senator or member, should be seized with a sudden curiosity to examine it ! It simply could not be 1/4 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. had, and the applicant would have to go elsewhere or do without the desired information. Not only the usefulness of the library but the propriety of its business details is destroyed by its limited and craniped condition. Thousands of volumes are annually received there from foreign agents of the library, from the bindery, and from other sources. The smallest town library in the country usually has some place, outside of the library room itself, to pack and unpack books. Not so with the library of congress. All this vast work, going on almost daily, breaking open boxes and nailing them up, takes place in the public halls of the library, and, to use the language of the librarian, under the eyes and almost under the feet of members of congress and of the public resorting to the library. This spectacle of toil and confusion can be witnessed almost any hour. Of course there is not, in the whole library, a retired or quiet place where a member of congress, or any one else, can have a table to himself for such researches and writings as are constantly demanded in the discharge of public duty. Such a thing as an hour alone, undisturbed, in the library is an impossibility. The use of its books is free to everybody while using them in the library rooms, and the consequence is that every chair at every table is often occupied by those not connected with the public service. This is not a matter of complaint against the people who resort there, but at the same time there ought to be a room where author ities could be examined and ample notes taken without any inter ruption from any source. Again, the librarian of congress, in addition to his other duties, is required by law to preserve the records of copyright and to re ceive copyright publications for the United States. This of itself is a business of great magnitude and of the highest importance. During the last year there were more than eighteen thousand en tries of copyright publications, and for each entry two copies of the publication are required to be deposited in the library. The money value of the law books alone deposited under this law is estimated at over $8,000 per annum. I am also informed by the librarian that under this law, during the ten years of its operation, an immense number of prints, en- THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 1 75 gravings, chromos and photographs, some of them of great size, have been received, and that there is rapidly forming a collection which will make a most instructive gallery of the progress of the arts of design in America. Yet none of these interesting works can be seen by the public. There are not ten feet of space any where in which to exhibit them. They are completely hidden from view, piled up with their copyright stamps and numbers until more room is obtained. The entire records of copyright in the United States, from the first enactment of the law in 1790 to this date, comprising the orig inal records of more than forty United States district clerks offices, as well as those of the librarian of congress since 1870, are actually stored away in a dark room, two stories under the library, where the constant references to them are prosecuted under every con ceivable disadvantage and inconvenience. What first-class busi ness house in the world would tolerate such obstructions for a sin gle year, or even a month? But there is still another and even a far more pressing cause for immediate action on our part than any I have yet named. There is danger every hour of a destructive fire in the library. It is true that after it was destroyed by fire in 1851 the library room "was rebuilt in fire-proof material, the walls, ceiling and shelving being wholly of cast iron, the first instance, it is said, of the employment of that material exclusively for the interior of any public edifice in America." There, however, congress stopped, while the library has continued to grow. An avalanche of over twenty thousand vol umes a year has poured in upon the librarian, all of which have been provided for somewhere and somehow. In order to accom modate, to some extent, at least, this increasing flow of books, and to keep them from absolutely blocking up the passage-ways of the library rooms, the librarian has been compelled to introduce over two hundred wooden cases of shelves into the iron alcoves. The language of the librarian himself on this point is as follows : These cases of pine wood may not be immediately dangerous, since the heat that warms the library is brought in steam pipes for two hundred feet under ground from the heating apparatus of the senate and the house of representa tives. But there is serious risk of fire in the upper loft of the library, which con tains most of the newspapers and documents, and where the great collection of 1/6 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. maps are from necessity piled in heaps. This room is full of combustibles, and is detached from the fire-proof or iron-cased apartments of the library, so that a fire once communicated would sweep shelving, periodicals, maps., and all before it. With incessant watchfulness such a calamity may be averted, but congress should not suffer such a risk to be run for a day by failing longer to provide ade quate and fire-proof accommodations for the great and precious collections of which it is the responsible custodian. Sir, a fire may break out at any moment in that dark upper loft, where gas has to be lit by the librarian and his assistants whenever their duties call them there. The very dust of decomposing paper, and of the friction induced by constant handling, may become in flammable. In fact, with all the incessant watchfulness of the offi cers, of the library there is no safety there at all for the public property under our care. I hope a conflagration here in the capi- tol may not be necessary to unite our minds in the discharge of a plain public duty. If such a disaster, however, should befall the country, the responsibility must rest upon those who, knowing the danger, shall hereafter delay the action of congress upon this sub ject. In considering the proper construction of a library building for the future, which I think I have now sufficiently shown must be speedily done, it may not be without profit and interest to look for a few moments at the history of the library in the past. It has had a most singular and instructive career a career which should ad monish us to build for the centuries, and not merely for the dec ades or the generations. It made an humble and modest start, and its progress was slow until within these later days. It is curi ous now to mark its origin and its various stages. On the 24th day of April, in the year 1800, an act passed con gress, then sitting in Philadelphia, "making provision for the re moval of the government of the United States" to this city, and in that act there was appropriated the sum of $5,000 " for the pur chase of such books as may be necessary for the use of congress at the said city of Washington." This was the beginning of the present splendid library of congress. At that time Washington City contained less than five hundred inhabitants, and everything was on a very small scale compared with what came afterward. There were not then more than three public libraries in the United States embracing over five thousand volumes. Congress, before it THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. convened in this city, appears to have relied almost entirely on pri vate sources for its works of reference. In December, 1801, a bill was introduced into congress which afterward, January 26, 1802, became a law in the form of an act, entitled An Act Concerning the Library for the Use of both Houses of Congress." It was warmly debated, such men as Mr. Bayard, of Delaware, John Randolph, of Virginia, and John Bacon, of Massachusetts, taking a leading part in the discussion. Mr. Bay ard proposed an appropriation of a thousand dollars a year for the period of ten years for the purchase of books; Mr. Bacon moved to make it ten thousand a year, while it surprises me to find that the scholarly and cultivated Virginian thought they were both ex travagant in their notions. The act, as it finally passed, made $3,800 available for books, provided for the present joint committee of three senators and three members of the house, regulated the use of books outside of the library, and gave the president authority to appoint a librarian. Until 1815 the clerks of the house of representatives were the libra rians of congress. Since that time there have been but four: George Watterson, appointed by James Madison, served fourteen years; John S. Meehan, appointed by General Jackson, served thirty-two years; John G. Stephenson, appointed by Mr. Lincoln, served three years, and the present incumbent, Ainsworth R. Spof- ford, appointed by Mr. Lincoln in 1864, having now served about sixteen years. I have said that the early progress of the library was slow, yet it seems almost incredible that on the 24th of August, 1814, when our British relations visited this capitol by way of Bladensburgh, they found a library of only three thousand volumes to which to apply their torch of uncivilized, barbarian, vandal warfare. Book-burning and the sacking of libraries have not been esteemed among the graces of warfare between Christian nations, but it was perhaps for the best that the British forces made a bonfire of what little we had. It illustrated their hatred of a people who had con quered them on the fields of the Revolution, and it also provoked one of the most attractive incidents in the history of the congressional 12 1/8 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. library. The very few volumes, as we reckon them now, which had been accumulated in the space of fourteen years, had disap peared in smoke and ashes when congress convened in special session on the 1 9th of September, 1814. The library of congress had ceased to exist; it was wholly swept away. There was not a book here for public use. It was at this juncture of disaster and discouragement that Thomas Jefferson, whose great name even to this day provokes so much controversy, spoke from his retirement at Monticello in behalf of a better foundation for the library than it had ever possessed before. He offered his entire collection of books on such terms as congress itself might determine, a collection which had cost him fifty years to make, in which he had spared neither pains, opportunity, nor expense. Allow me to submit his grand letter to his friend Samuel Harrison Smith on the subject. It may encour age the young men of the present time in their love of libraries, and in their thirst for knowledge. It is as follows: DEAR SIR: I learn from the newspapers that the vandalism of our enemy has triumphed at Washington, over science as well as the arts, by the destruction of the public library, with the noble edifice in which it was deposited. Of this trans action, as of that of Copenhagen, the world will entertain but one senti ment. * * * I presume it will be among the early objects of congress to recommence their collection. This will be difficult while the war continues and intercourse with Europe is attended with so much risk. You know my collection, its condition and extent. I have been fifty years making it, and have spared no pains, oppor tunity, or expense to make it what it now is. While residing in Paris I devoted every afternoon I was disengaged for a summer or two in examining all the prin cipal book-stores, turning over every book with my own hands, and putting by everything which related to America, and, indeed, whatever was rare and valu able in every science ; besides this, I had standing orders, during the whole time I was in Europe, in its principal book-marts, particularly Amsterdam, Frank fort, Madrid and London, for such works relating to America as could not be found in Paris. So that in that department particularly such a collection was made as probably can never again be effected, because it is hardly probable the same opportunities, the same time, industry, perseverance, and expense, with some knowledge of the bibliography of the subject, would again happen to be in concurrence. During the same period, and after my return to America, I was led to procure also whatever related to the duties of those in the highest concerns of the nation ; so that the collection, which I suppose is of between nine and ten thousand volumes, while it includes what is chiefly valuable in science and liter ature generally, extends more particularly to whatever belongs to the American statesman ; in the diplomatic and parliamentary branches it is particularly full. It is long since I have been sensible it ought not to continue private property, and had provided that, at my death, congress should have the refusal of it at their own price ; but the loss they have now incurred makes the present the proper moment for their accommodation, without regard to the small remnant of time and the barren use of my enjoying it. I ask of your friendship, there- THE MAIN READING ROOM IN THE NEW LIBRARY BUILDING. THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. fore, to make for me the tender of it to the library committee of congress, not knowing myself of whom the committee consists. I inclose you a catalogue which will enable them to judge of its contents. Nearly the whole are well bound abundance of them elegantly, and of the choicest editions. They may be valued by the persons named by themselves, and the payment made conven ient to the public ; it may be, for instance, in such annual installments as the law of congress has left at their disposal, or in stock of any of their late loans or any loan they may institute at this session, so as to spare the present calls of our country, and await its days of peace and prosperity. They may enter, never theless, into immediate use of it, as eighteen or twenty wagons would place it in Washington in a single trip of a fortnight. * * * I do not know that it con tains any branch of science which congress would wish to exclude from their collection. There is, in fact, no subject to which a member of congress may not have occasion to refer. But such a wish would not correspond with my views of preventing its dismemberment. My design is either to place it in their hands entire or preserve it so here. Accept the assurance of my great esteem and respect, THOMAS JEFFERSON. The senate, it seems, had no trouble in passing a bill on the loth of October, 1814, to purchase Jefferson s library. When the question was presented to the house, however, a different scene occurred. There was a hot discussion and a close vote. Some thought the extent of the library was greater than the public wants required ; some thought it would cost too much ; some thought too many of the books were in foreign languages, and some thought the collection was entirely too philosophical in its character. One gentleman, Mr. King, of Massachusetts, felt impelled to move an amendment authorizing the library committee as soon as said library shall be received at Washington to select therefrom all books of an atheistical, irreligious and immoral tendency, if any such there be, and send the same back to Mr. Jefferson without any expense to him." This amendment was not adopted, and the bill eventually passed, after much controversy, by only ten major ity 8 1 yeas and 71 nays. The house of representatives at that time seems to have been hard to please, when, without a book in their possession, they had the privilege of purchasing such a library as Jefferson s at their own price and time of payment, and came so near not doing it. This library has been pronounced by competent judges one of the best selections of ancient and modern literature up to the com mencement of the present century ever made, and they say that by no other method than its purchase en bloc could congress 180 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. have acquired so valuable and comprehensive a library of refer ence." It remained three years in the post-office building of this city, then came to the capitol, and after sojourning in different quarters, finally, in 1824, found its present location. It appears that every time the subject was agitated the library of congress gained something, though for a long time not much. After the purchase of the Jefferson collection the annual appro priation for. the increase of the library was raised from $1,000 to $2,000, at which figure it stood until in 1824, when, upon the re moval of the library to its present place, the amount was again raised to $5,000 per annum. Something was afterward added for the purchase of law books, yet a half century after the library was founded, when the fire took place in 1851, there had been gath ered together, all told, only 55,000 volumes, averaging but little over a thousand volumes a year from the beginning. Of this col lection, so slowly acquired, the fire from " a defective flue" de voured 35,000 volumes, leaving but 20,000 to again start with. But the fire had awakened congress from a long drowsy spell, just as a fire in the library would now disturb the repose of this body. Something really very creditable was done under this fiery impulse, and without delay. Congress appropriated $85,000 in one year for the purchase of books, and $72,500 for repairing and restoring the library room. With what praiseworthy zeal we are prone to act for the prevention of accidents after they have hap- pened ! It is the old story, and will be repeated forever. The next most important events in the history of the library, showing its growth in the past and its probable developments in the future, were the construction of the two wings in 1865, with room in each for 75,000 volumes, which was almost immediately filled; the acquisition of the great scientific Smithsonian library in 1866; the purchase of the Peter Force historical collection for $100,000 in 1867, and the enactment of the copyright law in 1870. Each one of these events is full of most interesting details, and under different circumstances they would be pleasant themes for com ment. They are cited now, however, simply to illustrate the quickening influences of the last twenty-five years ; to account for THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. l8l the present condition of the library, and to point out our duty in making provision for the future. In 1864, when Mr. Spofford became the librarian of congress, it contained 86,414 volumes. It now contains more than 375,000. He has handed me the following table, which exhibits the pro gressive growth of the library each year from 1864, when the annual enumeration of the books was commenced by him : YEAR. VOLUMES. YEAR. VOLUMES. 1864 86,414 1872 246,345 1865 9 2 45 l8 73 258,752 1866 99*650 1874 274,157 1867 165,467 1875 293,507 1868 i739 6 5 l8 7 6 3 II 97 1869 185,227 1877 33MI8 1870 197,668 1878 352,655 1871 236,846 1879 374>22 It will be seen from this table that the library has been more than quadrupled in the last sixteen years. It is now the tenth col lection of books in size in the world. What will it be in the brief space of another sixteen years under our present system of laws for the reception of books and other library matter? Ten years ago there were forty-two European libraries larger than the congres sional library. In my judgment, sixteen years hence it will be the largest in the world, with possibly two exceptions, the national library, Paris, and the British museum, London. Considering the constant increasing activity and power of the intellectual world, the determined spirit of inquiry into every realm, whether of speculation or demonstration, the magical profusion with which the press is flooding all countries with the published thoughts of thinking people, and considering further the fact that under the requirements of the copyright law, the library of con gress is rapidly becoming a complete repository of the entire product of the American press, it is very safe to estimate that in the next six teen years the contents of the library will be swollen to six times their present proportions. This will make a collection of about 2,250,000 volumes, a much larger one than now exists anywhere. The national library, Paris, has now 2,000,000 volumes, the British museum, 1,150,000, and the imperial library, Saint Peters burg, 1,100,000. Looking back upon the centuries it has taken 1 82 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. them to make these accumulations, it is clear to rny mind that they will soon be outstripped by their young rival, the library of the United States. This will certainly be the case unless we deliber ately cripple the growth of an institution which it should be our care and pride to foster and sustain. But the next question which naturally arises relates to the meas ures which ought to be taken for the relief of the library from its present deplorable condition, and for its safety and greatness in the future. It is now between seven and eight years since the librarian first urged upon congress the necessity of more room for books. During that time I find that various plans upon the subject have been put forth and discussed. One suggestion is to largely reduce the library by the sale of duplicate volumes, and to exclude here after, by some sort of censorship, much that is now placed there by the law of copyright. Mr. Spofford has stated the objections to this plan so strongly and so well in a private memorandum made for my use that I can not refrain from submitting it entire. He says: But this proposition overlooks the facts, first, that the duplicates are mostly of a class absolutely needed for the use and reference of congress and of the reading public, one copy being kept constantly in while another may be drawn out by those privileged; and, second, that congress has received the copyright publica tions as a trust, to be permanently preserved unbroken in the archives of the government. The library of congress has, through the legislation of congress, become national in its character, and by the legal requirements of the copyright law is becoming a complete repository of the whole product of the American press, so far as secured by copyright. Such a library is not for one generation alone, but its value extends beyond our day, in handing down to successive gen erations an approximately complete representation of the nation s literature. The American people should rely with confidence upon finding in one great and monumental library, and that belonging to the government, every book which their country has produced. To reduce or cripple such a collection, so well be gun, and now in the full tide of a successful and inexpensive accumulation of those literary stores which can be fully secured in no other way, and which, once lost, could never be reassembled, could not but be looked upon as a narrow and unwise policy, unworthy of a nation claiming to hold a front rank in civil ization. Another method proposed, in order to avoid the construction of new library accommodations, is to store or colonize portions of the books in some other and separate building. The idea of segregat ing the contents of the library, and locating them at different points, is worthy only of being stated and not of being discussed. And this brings us to the last and only practical plan, the erection THE GRAND STAIRCASE HALL IN THE NEW LIBRARY BUILDING. THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 183 of a suitable building, either in connection with the capitol or at some other convenient point. It is conceded by all that if such a building can be constructed as a part of the capitol, with a due regard to the architectural har mony and beauty of that magnificent national edifice, it is desirable in every respect that it should be done. There exists, however, a wide variety of opinions whether such a structure is possible. When the question was last before the senate, in February, 1879, there was an extended and instructive debate. It came up on a bill reported by Mr. Howe, of Wisconsin, then chairman of the joint committee on the library, providing for additional accommo dations for the library of congress, and on an amendment offered by Mr. Morrill, the senator from Vermont. The bill reported from the committee provided for the erection of a library building on Judiciary Square, in this city, and the amendment of the senator from Vermont made provision for a similar building on the squares that directly front the east of the capitol. The other senator from Vermont (Mr. Edmunds), then and now a member of the com mittee on the library, agreed with neither one of the foregoing propositions, and had one of his own. He strenuously insisted that such changes could be and ought to be made in the capitol as would furnish proper relief from the present evils of the library, and afford sufficient accommodations for its future expansion. The senator from New York (Mr. Conkling) offered a resolution, which, after being amended, finally passed in the following form : That the bill (S. No. 1591) to provide additional accommodations for the library of congress be recommitted to the committee on the library on the part of the senate, with instructions to report a bill providing for a commission of skilled persons to examine and report to congress at the next session touching practicable changes which may be made in the capitol building, adapted to the accommodation of the two houses of congress and the library. In obedience to this instruction the senate committee on the library, through the senator from Vermont (Mr. Edmunds), on the 2 ist day of February, 1879, reported a bill in accordance therewith. It fell to the ground, however, on the 4th of March ensuing, that being the close of the forty-fifth congress. During the present session the matter was again taken up in the joint com mittee on the library, and the bill now under consideration was 1 84 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. agreed upon and ordered to be reported in both houses of con gress. It has already been read. This bill is plain and simple in its meaning, and needs but little explanation, and that little mainly personal to myself. I did not believe, when the question was here before, that such changes could be made in this capitol without defacing its imposing beauty and just proportions as the growing wants of the library required. I so stated on this floor at that time, and I have not changed my opinion, for I have had no opportunity for further instruction on the point. I value my opinion, however, but slightly on such a question, and senators will pardon me for saying that I value theirs no more than my own. There is not an architect by profession, I presume, in this body, and though it is said that poets are born full-fledged and ready to fly, yet I believe that architects, as a rule, are only made by education and experience. Such being the case, I cheerfully concurred in this bill, and reported it, in order that I, and others knowing no more than I do, might be instructed by skilled persons in architecture, whether the proposed new structure for the library can, with a due regard to the fitness of things, be attached to the capitol. It is necessary to determine that question before we can move on. The controversy growing out of it must be eliminated from the situation, or we will remain at a standstill until some great disaster overtakes the library. It is true that I can not perceive how suffi cient space can be planned for the library of the future in connec tion with the capitol without marring its symmetry, but if experts can I will be glad of it. There are 11,600 square feet of floor for books, about one-fourth of an acre in space, in the present library rooms. There are 1 10,000 square feet for the same purpose in the library of the British museum, about two acres and a half, and it is absolutely certain that the library of congress will require at least a similar space within the next ten years. How such an area can be properly incorporated into this capitol I do not at all comprehend, and for that reason I want this bill passed at once as the only fair and satisfactory way of putting an end to controversy and of securing action. If the skilled persons provided for in this bill shall overrule my unskilled judgment, I THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 185 shall most gladly acquiesce; but if, on the contrary, they deter mine that the new library building must stand detached from the capitol, then the sooner we know that fact the better. I look upon the passage of the bill before us as the first possible step toward the conclusion which we must now reach in the speediest manner practicable. It will settle and put behind us a vexed question which is now an invincible obstruction to the wishes, purposes and duties of this body. The amendment offered by the senator from Vermont (Mr. Mor- rill), and now pending, provides for the appointment of a joint committee of three senators and three members of the house to proceed at once and select a site for a new library building, with out the aid of architectural experts to ascertain whether it can be incorporated into the capitol. I have great respect for that sena tor s judgment and taste, but I think his amendment ought not to be adopted, at least for the present. If it should be found that accommodations for the library can not be provided for within the capitol, then his proposition will perhaps be the next step in order. But to adopt it now would simply leave open and undetermined a prolific source of dispute, which I see no way of closing except by the operations of the bill as reported from the committee. If the skilled persons contemplated by the bill shall ascertain and report that the library must be located away from this capitol building, then I will join the senator in the support of his or some similar measure. Sir, I have now endeavored to lay this whole subject before the senate. I have pointed out the condition of the library, its press ing necessities, the different remedies suggested ; and I have ex plained the proposed pending legislation. I might, indeed, make additional appeals to senators. I might dwell upon the inestima ble value of the library of congress aside from the mere numerical extent of its collection. It is rich in every branch of human knowl edge. It is not only a great collection of American thought, but it embraces the best productions of all other countries. It has been made very complete up to the present time in all that per tains to the legislative, executive and judicial departments of the government, in works on jurisprudence, political science, political 1 86 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. history and parliamentary law. The collection of works on the physical sciences is also very extensive and valuable, while in the fields of architecture, painting, sculpture, natural history, medi cine, theology, topography, genealogy and kindred subjects, the foundation has been laid for great future excellence. To neglect the proper care of such a source of information and of light, or to leave it in jeopardy an hour longer than is now pos sible, appears little less than a crime against civilization and prog ress. We all eagerly turn to it in order to renew our strength for the conflicts of life. Those who drink most deeply at its springs are the strongest and most enduring. Ponce de Leon, the Spanish adventurer, sought the fabled foun tain of perpetual youth, a fountain whose warm waters would melt the frosts of age and change the autumn and the winter time of human existence into an eternal spring. He did not find it; no such fountain flows except in the immortal realms beyond ; but even had he made the discovery his heart longed for, it would have had but slight value in comparison with a vast fountain of thought into which the best minds of all the ages have poured their mighty resources, and from whose depths we may draw from hour to hour and from day to day the inspirations of unfailing intellect ual youth, vigor and progression. The physical man must grow old, his hair must whiten and his face bear the furrows of years ; his step must falter and his hand grow feeble. Not necessarily so with the intellectual man. The mind fed at the crystal fountains of accumulated knowledge will con tinue its youth, its growth and its expansion until it makes its final transition to a sphere of endless and unlimited development. Let us, therefore, give this great national library our love and our care. Nothing can surpass it in importance. Knowledge is power, the power to maintain free government and preserve con stitutional liberty. Without it the world grows dark and the human race takes up its backward march to the regions of bar barism. I can not believe that the plain and imperative duty of congress on the subject of its library will be longer neglected. ARREARS OF PENSIONS FOR UNION SOLDIERS A speech delivered in the senate of the United States on January 16, 1882, upon the following resolution: Resolved, That in the opinion of the senate the act of January 25, 1879, com monly known as the arrears of pensions act, ought not to be repealed. R. PRESIDENT It is my purpose to-day to say a few plain words on a subject of commanding impor tance to the honor of this government and to the welfare of the most meritorious class of its citizens. For more than a year past it has been obvious to all that a determined effort was to be made in certain quarters to repeal the act of January 25, 1879, granting arrears of pensions to the disabled soldiers of the Union army in the late war of the rebellion. The columns of the leading newspapers of the country have teemed with the most envenomed denunciations of this act and reeked with coarse and ignorant abuse of all who sustained it. It would indeed be impossible to exaggerate the tone of malignant animosity which has prevailed, and which more than ever now prevails, on this subject in the most prominent journals from the north end of New England to the Pacific coast. I can recall but two enactments which have called forth such ran corous literature. The passage of the fugitive slave law and the repeal of the Missouri compromise are the only measures within my recollection which provoked such an explosion of intense wrath as we have heard against the arrears of pensions act. If it had been a measure to disseminate pestilence, breed famine, or provoke war, it could hardly have been stigmatized with greater bitterness. If, instead of being, as it is, a law to fulfill a plain, honest obliga tion toward those who, in sober fact, bled and died for their gov- (is/) 1 88 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. ernment, it had been a measure to reward highwaymen and enrich pirates, it could not have been assailed in terms of baser meaning than have been used against it and against all who support it. It seems to be thought by a certain portion of the press that a public opinion can be created against this law strong enough to enforce its repeal, and also to awe into silence those who, like my self, voted and worked for its passage. I have at hand some of these organs of swollen pretensions and arrogant mendacity. One speaks of the arrears of pensions act as a huge swindle upon the people of the United States." Another says "it is hoped the president, in his message to congress, will call attention to the stu pendous proportions of the pension swindle as it has been devel oped under the operation of the pension arrears act," and then proceeds to express its amazement and horror at the consumma tion of so great an outrage." Another prominent organ of all kinds of corporation wealth is so enraged at the sight of disabled soldiers and the widows and orphans of the dead obtaining some of the money of the govern ment that it breaks forth in the following exclamation : There is a well-grounded impression that the whole measure is a swindle a swindle in conception, a swindle in legislative prosecution and in executive enforcement." It then adorns along article of ignorance and falsehood with such epithets as "jobbery," "fraud," and " demagogism," applied to all who supported the measure. An other very prominent journal, tenderly devoted to the interests of the rich and powerful, cries out, " Let the infamous arrears of pen sions law of 1879 be repealed ; " and still another announces, as one with authority, that the bill which has been introduced in con gress repealing the outrageous job called the pension arrears act should be passed." Hundreds of such extracts might be read here, and many of them from leading journals in my own state. I will content myself , how ever, with the following editorial from a representative New Eng land newspaper. After announcing with approval that " a bill has been introduced in congress to repeal the arrears of pension bill," it says : ARREARS OF PENSIONS FOR UNION SOLDIERS. 189 Nor were a majority of those who voted for this bill actuated by honest mo tives. Not one in ten believed that justice to the nation s defenders required the enactment of such a law. * * * The pension claim agents had sent petitions for the adoption of the arrears of pensions bill into every congressional district in the Union, and had secured the signatures of hundreds of thousands of ex- soldiers, many of whom signed the papers because they were promised back payments amounting to $1,000 each, and many more thoughtlessly, without knowing the effect of the measure they advocated. * * And so these faith less representatives closed their ears to the warnings of the commissioner of pensions, and to the exposure of the fraudulent way in which the matter was being worked up among the people, and voted for the bill in order that they might not offend the soldier element in their districts. These citations are submitted as samples of an almost infinite quan tity of like calumny upon the ex-soldiers of the country, and upon congress for doing its duty, as I shall show, toward them. And then, as if a climax had to be reached on this subject, a senator upon this floor, during the last week, made the following shocking and astounding statement : I would promptly repeal the arrears of pension act. It was conceived in sin and brought forth in iniquity. It is a fraud upon the American people and a standing monument to the ignorance, selfishness, and cowardice of the Ameri can congress. Sir, I need not say that this language, coming from the senator from Kentucky (Mr. Beck), has filled me with amazement and with pain ; but if he feels it consistent with his sense of propriety to thus characterize a measure for which forty-four of his senatorial associates voted, and against which there were only four votes, and his own not one of them, he will certainly not be surprised if oth ers, as well as himself, shall exercise some freedom of speech in dis cussing this question. If he can make it appear that in sin this measure was conceived, and that in iniquity the congress of the United States brought it forth as a fraud upon the American peo ple, to stand as a monument to ignorance, selfishness, and coward ice, then its supporters will hang their heads in shame; but if on the other hand I shall demonstrate that it was a work of simple jus tice, dictated by the highest sense of obligation to duty, then the senator from Kentucky will find ample reason to repent of his rash and ill-considered expressions. And now, sir, I take up this much-maligned law itself, and with it I confront the leaders of this hue and cry, and if I do not con vict them, both great and small, of a false clamor and a criminal 190 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. libel, then I will be willing hereafter to suffer in silence all the inso lence and calumny they can heap upon me. Here is the law, let it speak in its own plain terms. I submit it entire, that it may be carefully scanned and fully understood : AN ACT to provide that all pensions on account of death, or wounds received, or disease contracted in the service of the United States during the late war of the rebellion, which have been granted, or which shall hereafter be granted, shall commence from the date of death or discharge from the service of the United States; for the payment of arrears of pensions, and other purposes. Be It Enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress Assembled, That all pensions which have been granted under the general laws regulating pensions, or may hereafter be granted, in consequence of death from a cause which originated in the United States serv ice during the continuance of the late war of the rebellion, or in consequence of wounds, injuries, or disease received or contracted in said service during said war of the rebellion, shall commence from the date of the death or discharge from said service of the person on whose account the claim has been or shall hereafter be granted, or from the termination of the right of the party having prior title to such pension: Provided, The rate of pension for the intervening time for which arrears of pension are hereby granted shall be the same per month for which the pension was originally granted. SEC. 2. That the commissioner of pensions is hereby authorized and directed to adopt such rules and regulations for the payment of the arrears of pensions hereby granted as will be necessary to cause to be paid to such pensioners, or, if the pensioners shall have died, to the person or persons entitled to the same, all such arrears of pension as the pensioner may be, or would have been, entitled to under this act. SEC. 3. That section 4717 of the Revised Statutes of the United States, which provides that " no claim for pension not prosecuted to a successful issue within five years from the date of filing the same shall be admitted without record evi dence from the war or navy department of the injury or the disease which re sulted in the disability or death of the person on whose account the claim is made : Provided, That in any case in which the limitation prescribed by this section bars the further prosecution of the claim, the claimant may present, through the pension office, to the adjutant-general of the army or the surgeon- general of the navy, evidence that the disease or injury which resulted in the disability or death of the person on whose account the claim is made originated in the service and in the line of duty; and if such evidence is deemed satisfactory by the officer to whom it may be submitted, he shall cause a record of the fact so proved to be made, and a copy of the same to be transmitted to the commis sioner of pensions, and the bar to the prosecution of the claim shall thereby be removed," be, and the same is hereby repealed. SEC. 4. No claim agent or other person shall be entitled to receive any com pensation for services in making application for arrears of pension. SEC. 5. That all acts or parts of acts so far as they conflict with the provisions of this act be, and the same are hereby, repealed. Approved January 25, 1879. This is the law entire which has had every term of dishonor ap plied to it by reckless ignorance and brazen mendacity. I ask the intelligent and just people of this country to consider these five brief sections, and point out, if they can, the swindle therein contained. Webster defines a swindle to be, " The act or ARREARS OF PENSIONS FOR UNION SOLDIERS. 19 1 process of defrauding by systematic imposition." Who is imposed upon, and who is defrauded by this law? What false pretense does it contain? Wherein is its meaning obscure or susceptible of misconstruction? On the contrary, it is so plain and clear in its terms and purposes, that even a fool, if he were not likewise dis honest, could not misunderstand it. Let us examine it for a few moments in the light of previous pension legislation to which it was a necessary sequel. By the act of July 14, 1862, the first on the subject of pensions growing out of the war of the rebellion, it was provided that if the soldier made application within one year after his discharge, his pension should commence with the date of such discharge, but if he failed to make his application until after the expiration of the year, then his pen sion, when granted, should commence with the date of such appli cation. This was a statute of limitations of one year, and deprived the crippled soldier of one year s pension money or more if, for any reason, he was not prompt in presenting his claim within the time prescribed. It was a vicious principle with which to begin our pension system. No government can afford to higgle with its preservers over the price of their blood, nor is it a becoming thing to thrust a contemptible statute of limitations, the last resort of a dishonest debtor, into the faces of the maimed who are living, or of the widows and orphans of the dead, in full payment of the most sacred obligations ever incurred by a nation in the history of the world, By subsequent acts amendatory of the act of 1862, the statute of limitation, or the time within which to file an application so as to carry a pension from the date of discharge, or death, was ex tended first to three and next to five years, and it stood at this lat ter period in January, 1879. The law at that time was as follows : All pensions which have been or which may hereafter be granted in conse quence of death occurring from a cause which originated in the service since the 4th day of March, 1861, or in consequence of wounds or injuries received or dis ease contracted since that date, shall commence from the death or discharge of the person on whose account the claim has been or is hereafter granted, or from the termination of the right of party having prior title to such pension: Pro vided, The application for such pension has been or is hereafter filed with the commissioner of pensions within five years after the right thereto has accrued; otherwise the pension shall commence from the date of filing the last evidence necessary to establish the same. 192 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. Sir, this is the well-known section 4/09 of the Revised Statutes of the United States, and the act for the payment of pension arrears was passed for the purpose of making one single change, and one alone, in its provisions. That act was designed to eliminate from the then existing law that meanest form of defense to a debt ever interposed by an individual or a government, the defense of the statute of limitations. It repealed that clause of section 4709, and did no more and no less. It destroyed the detestable argument, so often heard, that the lapse of time can pay an honest debt; that if you can successfully evade the payment of a claim for a certain number of years, either through your own ingenuity or the ignorance and helplessness of your impoverished creditor, the claim becomes an old claim ; then, in the pompous and stupid par lance of the day, a stale claim, and that at this point it is to be considered paid and wiped out without a dollar. The arrears of pensions act was not drawn on the principle of paying old and sacred debts without the use of money. It said, in few and plain words, that if the broken soldier broken by wounds or disease had been slow, from any cause, in presenting his claim upon the government, and had allowed five years to pass away before doing so, we would still permit him to prove up his injuries just as they occurred and pay him his pension from the time he was discharged from the army on their account ; it said to the widow of him over whose moldering dust the dark grass and the bright flowers now grow that though she might have been neg ligent, though penury and ignorance might have prevented her from asserting her rights for a few years, yet this great, strong government, so full of God s abundance, would still pay her pen sion, contribute its small annual pittance to her support, commenc ing at the day and hour when her husband sealed his measureless devotion to that government with his death in its service ; it said that we, as men of conscience and common honesty, could not look each other in the face and take advantage of such a class of public creditors; that we were not quite capable of saying to those who had been swift in battle that they should lose their pensions because they had been slow in peace to make their claims. All ARREARS OF PENSIONS FOR UNION SOLDIERS. 193 this was made known when the bill was under discussion in Janu ary, 1879. I have seen it repeatedly stated that the bill was not discussed, but was passed under some sort of parliamentary compulsion here in the senate. What an unqualified and stupendous falsehood? Are there any rules here by which to cut off debate? Were such rules ever enforced in this body? Certainly not since I have been a member of it. In point of fact, however, the bill for the pay ment of pension arrears was fully and carefully discussed, the Congressional Record showing that no less than twenty-one sena tors participated in the debate, and that it extended through many solid pages of that useful document. The senior senator from Kansas (Mr. Ingalls), then chairman of the committee on pensions, reported the bill from that committee and explained it on this floor with great clearness and force and with absolute pre cision. As to the purpose of the bill, he said: Mr. President, senators appear to treat this bill as if it was in some way an innovation upon existing law, or an attempt to introduce a new principle in regard to the administration of pensions. But I want to call the attention of the senate back again to this point, that the purpose of this bill is simply to remove a limitation that was imposed in section 4709 of the Revised Statutes, which was in itself arbitrary, which was unnecessary, which was unjust, and which finds no parallel, so far as I am aware, in any other legislation of congress. The senator from Kansas was, more than any other one man, the author of the bill. He spoke in its favor, however, not merely for himself, but for the whole committee, of which he was chairman. The bill was in the hands of each senator on this floor, and they could all discover whether he correctly stated it. As a member of the committee on pensions at that time I also discussed the bill and stated its object. I find myself reported at one point in the dis cussion as follows : Now, Mr. President, I hope no amendment will be attached to this bill. As a member of the committee on pensions it has been my duty to examine it. It is simple in its character. The principle on which pensions are allowed at all is that at the time of a man s death in the service of his country those who are de pendent upon him have a right to the pension ; or, if he has not suffered death, but has been disabled by wounds received in battle, or by disease contracted in the service, his right to his country s beneficence then accrues to him at once. This is the principle, and the purpose of this bill is to carry it out. It simply says to those who have been disabled by wounds or disease, and to such as have been deprived of support by death, that they shall receive their pensions from 13 194 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. the date of death or disability, notwithstanding the} may not have made their application or their proof within the limitation of time now on the statute-book. That is all there is in this bill. It asserts no new principle, but wipes out a stat ute of limitations. Sir, that was my statement of the nature of the bill when on its passage and it was not disputed. I repeat it now and challenge any one to take issue upon it. After further discussion, engaged in by the ablest and most distinguished members of this body, some of whom, are not here now, notably the senator from Ohio (Mr. Thurman), the senator from New York (Mr. Conkling), the sena tor from Connecticut (Mr. Eaton), and the senator from Maine (Mr. Elaine), the bill became a law by an almost unanimous vote of the senate. I submit in all candor, and with no desire to make personal issues with any one, whether it is becoming, whether it is just, whether it is decent or truthful to charge that a measure thus reported from a standing committee of this body, thus supported by many of the most honored names of the republic, and thus enacted into a law under vigilant scrutiny, was conceived with sinful designs and put into operation as an agent of iniquity and fraud. Such an accusa tion is monstrous to my mind beyond anything ever heard in these legislative halls. MR. BECK. Now, Mr. President, one word. If the senator from Indiana supposes for one moment that I charged in that statement, or intended to charge, that any member of that committee, or any member of the senate, had anything to do with concocting the fraud, which I claimed the act was, he is utterly mistaken. I was as ignorant as any other man in the senate of many facts which I now think I can make clear ; and I assure him I never intended to charge that any member of the senate, or of the other house, had anything to do with it. I hope to show that it was worked up by men outside of both bodies and that we were all imposed upon. MR. VOORHEES. I accept the statement of the senator from Kentucky in connection with the remarks I am making. But an impression has been created that the number of pensioners is largely increased by reason of the law I am discussing, and that by its provisions more names have been placed on the pension rolls than would have been there but for its enactment. There is not a ARREARS OF PENSIONS FOR UNION SOLDIERS. 195; word of truth in such an assumption. The law did not create a single new cause for granting a pension; it made no change at all in the kind or quantity of proof necessary to obtain one ; it did not disturb the existing rules of evidence in the slightest degree ; it en larged no one s chance the breadth of a hair to become a pen sioner, neither man, woman, nor child; it only declared that the right to a pension being made clear under existing laws, rules and regulations, it should be paid from the time the right began by virtue of wounds, disease, or death. Every person who can now prove up a claim for a pension could do so in exactly the same way before the act for paying pension arrears became a law. No assist ance has been given in that respect whatever. It is only after a pension has been granted that the law under consideration begins to aid the pensioner. It then says that from the time his blood flowed in defense of his government his services ought to be recog nized and his injuries compensated. It being plain, therefore, that this law is not responsible for any increase in the number of pensioners, let us look for the next swin dle, fraud, or crime of which it stands accused. And now we come to the real cause which has inspired so many mendacious pens and reckless tongues. It is found that the execution of this law is dis tributing among disabled soldiers and the widows and orphans of the dead more money than was estimated for, and more than it is thought in certain quarters that such people ought to have. It is this fact which has caused all the hideous uproar we have heard. If justice in this world cost nothing, how popular in certain minds justice would be ! If honesty was only the cheapest as well as the best policy, how rapidly the ranks of honest men would fill up ! If this law for the arrears of pensions had been a poor, mean, nig gardly affair, and had doled out pennies instead of paying dollars, its justice would never have been questioned by its present ene mies, nor would it have been pelted with the vile epithets we now hear. The adversaries of this measure are moved to wrath, not because it is wrong in principle, but because the virtue which they know it contains is not as cheap as they wish not without money and without price, a luxury to enjoy without expense. Sir, it is no argument to me against paying pension arrears that 196 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. we owed more of them than we thought we did. Many a man has gone into settlement with his creditor, and in figuring up his ac count found it larger than he expected ; but if it was shown to be just and due, no one except a scoundrel would, because of its size, refuse to acknowledge it and to pay it as soon as he could. The payment of pensions may amount to a hundred millions this year, and two hundred millions next year, and then the arrears being settled upon the principle of honest payment for blood and dying breath, and not upon the rogue s usual plea of limitation by stat ute, the annual cost of pensions will, from that time on, go back to about forty millions. But whether this or any other estimate is correct, or not, touches nothing of the merits of this question. Is it right that the money should be paid? Is it right that the soldier should have a pension from the time his frame was shattered on the field of battle, or blighted by disease in camp? Is it right that the widow should receive the aid of her government from the time her husband, her stay and her support, was torn from her arms forever in its service, or shall she be answered as to two or three thousand dollars of this sacred money, this feeble compensation for an anguish which comes but once to the human heart, that while she slept, while she was out of the way, while she was ignorant of what was going on in the great world, we canceled her claim, wiped it out, and called it paid, because five years had elapsed before she presented it? Sir, is there any statute of limitation as to the time when a bond holder shall present his bonds for payment? Within the last year, if I remember correctly, some miserly old man came here with his bonds, not one of which had been presented for payment during a period of eighteen years. He demanded gold, and he got gold; he was a very hard-money man; silver, and silver certificates, and greenbacks, and bank notes were all too soft for him ; and as he lugged his bag of gold from the treasury through the streets, some other friend of the gold basis alone robbed him, and left him to go his way lamenting. If a soldier, however, who had invested a leg or an arm, buried on the field, in defense of the flag, instead of money at an enormous speculation, as this old fool did, he would have been required to file his claim within five years or lose pay ARREARS OF PENSIONS FOR UNION SOLDIERS. 197 for five and possibly for ten years. Was this just? Was it right? That is the question involved here. My vote to repeal this statute of limitation and to allow the crip pled soldier, and the widow and the orphan to stand upon the equity of their claims, and upon their legal proof, has been termed an infamous vote. Infamous? Sir, the man who applies such epithets to the votes by which the arrears of pensions act was passed can not receive a sufficient answer in this hall without offending the decorum of the senate. But let us look somewhat to the practical workings of this much- abused law. A few days ago, when I was at home in Indiana, a soldier called upon me whom I had known from his cradle, and whose parents I knew before he was born. He had responded to the call of his country when its need was the sorest, and he had been discharged on account of a disability incurred in the service and specifically named in his discharge. There was no question at all as to the fact of the injury, or that he received it while in the line of his duty. He was not prompt in making his application ; he was a plain country boy, familiar only with life on a farm ; he delayed, hoping to get strong and well again, for nearly six years, and then in an awkward way, and with much reluctance, commenced with a slow, halting step to thread the long and intricate processes of the law, through which alone the disabled veteran can reach a pension at the hands of his far-off and indifferent government. He met with a thousand obstacles that he had not dreamed of ; he was rebuffed many times by frigid official information that his proof was not sufficient; he went hither and thither to find the evidence tech nically required by the government ; he often gave over in discour agement and despair until he was again cheered with a few words of hope by some sanguine friend ; he made mistakes as to the law, and was ten miles distant from those who could professionally advise him, even if he had the money to pay for such advice; he stumbled on in this way nearly ten years, doing the best he could, but not succeeding, when about three weeks ago I told him I would look to his case as soon as I returned to this capitol. I 198 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. kept my word; his case was complete, perfect in proof, and his pension has been granted. Sir, when should that pension begin? That is the question. Should it begin at the time he offered his life and sacrificed his health for all time to come upon the altar of his country, or should it begin now after he has borne his afflictions sixteen or seventeen years, during ten of which he was vainly striving, to the best of his ability, to secure his rights? Is there a senator here who would pay such a debt by slamming the door of statutory limitation in the face of this soldier? Is there a member of this body who is afraid to permit this and all other claims of soldiers to stand on their actual merits as disclosed by the evidence, or is there any one here who wishes to resort to a mere technicality, barren of justice, destitute of equity, and rotten in morals, with which to defeat the highest obligation a nation can incur? Still another case occurs to my mind. There came into my office at Terre Haute, when I was last there, the mere shadow of a once robust, vigorous man. In his youth, when he filed away to the front of battle with the flower of the land, he was handsome, strong and buoyant ; his step was firm, his hand steady, his eye clear, and his voice full of hope and courage. At that time he wore good clothes and bore a prosperous and happy air. His wife and two children strained their eyes after him as he marched away ; with pride that he looked so well, and with tears that he had to go. With his eye on the colors of his country he served until nearly the close of the war ; he supped full of its horrors ; he was at all those places where the soil was most enriched by the red rain of human slaughter; he lived to return to his home, and to his loved ones there; but, oh ! how changed, how blasted and withered. He was emaciated, scarred, and worn; there was a look in his face as if there was nothing more for him to endure, as if the angel of death had hovered close and low over his prostrate form as he lay wounded on the field, and as if he had already tasted the bitter ness of the parting moment. But feeble and languid from wounds and disease, as he was, still he was the beloved husband and father, and he put forth all his faltering energies to shelter and care for his brood. How he had ARREARS OF PENSIONS FOR UNION SOLDIERS. 199 succeeded I could see when he called upon me, as I have stated, a few days ago, at my home. His frame was thin and bent; his garments were in tatters and almost too scant for decency, much less for comfort; his hair was gray, but not with years; the ashen hue of premature age had settled in his face, and in his lusterless eye there was an expression of fixed and submissive melancholy. He told me that nearly fourteen years ago he commenced taking steps to procure a pension on account of wounds which nobody disputed, but the technical proof of which, by the witnesses desig nated by the rules and regulations of the pension office, and accord ing to the prescribed forms, he had never yet been quite able to make. He had struggled long and earnestly, he said, more on account of those dependent upon him than for himself, and now he thought that if he could get a statement from the surgeon of his regiment, who he heard was somewhere in Texas, he would suc ceed at last. I told him that I would help him all I could, and that promise I shall keep ; but what I want to know now is, whether upon the con science of senators, that man s pension, if he overcomes all diffi culties, and makes full proof, shall commence when it is granted, if it ever shall be, or when it was earned, under murderous shot and bursting shell. I say that it should commence at the time he performed the conditions on which it will rest. What say you? I say that when a soldier has performed his part of the contract with the government by paying down his life, or his mutilated body in its defense, he, or those whom he left, are from that moment entitled, in all honest minds, and in all honest legislation, to the full per formance on the part of the government of all its undertakings under the contract. Who says otherwise? Let him stand forth who wishes to do so. He will not have an idle encounter on this floor. But, again ; let us recur to the mere question of the expenditure of money under the law for the payment of pension arrears. As one of the servants of the public, standing here in a representative capacity, I am ready to meet the precise issue made on that point by the opponents of the act of January 25, 1879. I assert that the money is paid to those to whom it is justly due, and I assert fur- 2OO FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. ther that every dollar paid out under that act is not only in dis charge of individual obligations, but that it also enhances the public welfare. Sir, who receives this money, and where does it go? Does it go out of the country, and make money scarcer here? Is the pay ment of pension arrears a drain on the currency engaged in carry ing on the business of the country? We hear an angry and pro longed howl that the people are being robbed to pay pensions. Instead of that being true, the people and all business interests are benefited by the payments, and consequently increased circulation, made under the act for pension arrears. Allow me to illustrate this fact by an individual case. There are Jiree men whom I know, living in the district which I formerly represented in congress, who are blind from injuries received while soldiers, in the line of duty, serving their government. One of them has walked to and fro, led by a child, on the streets of Terre Haute, for over seventeen years. He has been imprisoned, as it were, in total darkness during all that long and dreary time. He has known nothing but deep, black night, around him. The sun* moon, and stars are to him blotted out forever. He can remem ber how the beautiful earth and sky once looked, but he sees them no more. The odor of flowers may recall to his recollection the appearance of the spring-time, with its orchard blossoms, and its gay attire ; the scent of new-mown hay may conjure up harvest scenes to his mind ; the sighing winds of autumn may remind him that he once saw the foliage of the forests turn purple and gold in the fall of the year ; the music of the sleigh-bells may revive on the faded canvas of his memory the fantastic beauties which the frost king displays in the winter-time, but all seasons are alike to him, they are all wreathed in funeral colors, they are all shrouded in darkness, the emblem of the tomb. He can know not even the faces of those most beloved. He once knew them, but they are changed, and he wonders in vain how they look as they are, like himself, growing old. Blindness, total blindness, a misfortune by the side of which death is a sweet mercy ! I will not mock the sensibilities of human nature by asking whether such an affliction can be compensated in money. INTERIOR OF THE PENSION BUILDING AT WASHINGTON. ARREARS OF PENSIONS FOR UNION SOLDIERS. 2OI But this man of whom I am speaking had much difficulty and delay in securing the grant of his pension ; there was a defect in the muster-rolls of his company, and it was only after years of careful attention that his claim was made out according to law and evidence and allowed. On account of this delay, caused by no fault of his, he became entitled to and received some three or four thousand dollars under the act for paying pension arrears. I will not insult the senate by asking whether he ought to have had this money ; every man fit for this presence knows he ought ; but I will ask what injury, if any, the business prosperity of the country sustains by such an expenditure as this. The money paid to this blind soldier passed on at once from his hands into a hun dred different channels of trade. With some of it he paid for a humble home in which to pass his benighted old age, and in which at last to wake, by the touch of death, with eyesight cleansed, to a brighter morning than earth can ever know. With the remainder of his pension arrears he paid his little debts, and added something to the comforts of those about him. And such is substantially the history of all the money expended under this beneficent law, so basely and so insanely villified. It goes at once into circulation ; it pays debts ; it passes from hand to hand ; it is not hoarded as coupon-cutters hoard their interest ; it makes money plentier among the people where it ought to be plentiest. Sir, it is dead money which does no good to the people, money which is packed away in bags, crammed into iron vaults, there to corrode and eat into the labor of the people with an immense, never-ceasing, cancerous interest account. Public expenditures which go in that direction are indeed a curse ; but not so with money which is alive and active in the daily transactions of life. But it is in connection with this very idea, and, in fact, almost solely on account of it, that the principle assaults have been made on the law for the payment of pension arrears. The leaders of this crusade are inspired with a frenzy of rage at the sight of poor peo ple obtaining any considerable sums of money from their govern ment, no matter how precious the consideration upon which the payment is based. From the application of this remark I exempt 202 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. the senator from Kentucky. I will be just to him, although he has been just to nobody on this subject. I do not believe that he is inspired with hostility to this law because the poor laboring classes obtain its benefits ; but the great newspaper organs of cor poration wealth and power represent a favored class in this govern ment, a class which believe that all the money, and all the power of money, ought to be concentrated in their own hands. Money, in the estimation of this class, should not be diffusive or general in its movements among the people; it should be con tracted within a narrow circle and exclusive in the bestowal of its benefits on themselves. But a little while ago they were declaring through the same columns which now denounce our system of pensions that the hard times then upon the country were due to the fact that the laboring classes lived too well ; that they had too many luxuries, and that they must learn to regulate their wants according to the cheap wages paid for labor in Europe. And now the great moneyed corporations, and all such as live on the inter est of money, are exasperated at the spectacle of money flowing freely among the common people. The scarcity of money is their harvest and a full circulation is their bane and grief. They feel, therefore, that every dollar expended for pensions is hostile to their interests. The sight of a penniless soldier obtaining a few hun dreds of dollars, or thousands, perhaps, fills their sordid souls with fury. On the other hand, the plain people hail such money coming into their midst as a general blessing. The civilization of the world, the progress of mankind, the improvement of the people from generation to generation, all begin in the improvement of their homes. The policy of a government is a wise one which enables the laborer to better his habitation, to put a warm carpet on his floor in the winter, to paper his walls and make them attract ive, to buy the best cooking-stove to be had, to provide good beds to sleep in, and to have such comforts as health and contentment require. The money of this government paid out for pensions has, in thousands of instances, accomplished all these things for the soldier and his family, and why should he not have them? Why should he not educate his children as well as the rich ; have them ARREARS OF PENSIONS FOR UNION SOLDIERS. 203 wear genteel clothes, his daughter have an organ, perhaps, on which to play some old familiar marching air while the broken soldier Sits by his fire and talks the night away Weeps o er his wounds, or tales of sorrow done, Shoulders his crutch and shows how fields were won. Sir, why should the organs of capital, why should those great journals, whose tenderest words of endearment and support have always been for the bondholder and the national banker, cry out now upon the extravagance of pension arrears? What right have they to prate about legislative plunder, even if the crime of plunder was committed? From July I, 1861, to July i, 1881, a period of twenty years, this government paid to pensioners $516,543,396, being at the rate of $25,827,169 per annum, during that period. Sir, by a legislative construction of the contract between the United States and the holders of its bonds, by the famous coin act of March, 1869, seven years after the contract was made, the bond holders made a clear gain, an actual profit, of more than every dollar of the above sum paid in twenty years for pensions. This is not a disputed fact ; the whole world knows it by heart, and yet I will be denounced for barely mentioning it, so much more sacred are the rights of the bondholder, however acquired, than the rights of a soldier purchased by his blood ! But still further; we have paid as interest on bonds from July I, 1861, to July i, 1881, the enormous sum of $1,987,567,801, being at the rate of $99,378,390 per annum for the last twenty years, and amounting to only a fraction less than two thousand millions of dollars. I have heretofore on more than one occasion demonstrated by figures which are not disputed that the whole bonded debt of $2,049,975,700 cost the purchasers of the bonds at the time they were issued only $1,371,424,238 in money of gold value, the kind of money in which they are paid. Here is a difference between the face of the bonds at which they are paid and the amount the government in its distress received for them of $678,551,462; being a clear, naked speculation, something for nothing, such as a heartless usurer makes when he discounts the note of some one in trouble at half its face, and collects the same 204 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. at its full face ; and amounting, as the arithmetic will show, to $162,008,066 more than all the pension list put together since July i, 1861. In other words, the bondholders have received a bonus, a mere gift, for which they never expended a cent, of $162,000,000 over and above all that has been paid in pensions for every life laid down in the war of the rebellion, for every drop of blood that fell from a wound, for all the dread ravages of disease, and for every pang endured. Dispute this statement who may or can; I stand ready to defend it at all times, and under all circumstances. But there is another feature in this calculation which the bond holders would do well to consider prudently before they provoke a conflict between the merits* of their claims and those of pensioners claiming arrears. There is no people beneath the sun who love to pay the amount of a debt to their creditors more than once. I have no recollec tion in my reading of history that any class of tax-payers on the face of the earth have been anxious to keep on paying a debt, over and over again, after it had been once fully paid. Indeed, recent occurrences in this country show how unsafe it is to submit the payment of an unpaid debt to the hazard of a ballot where any question at all can be raised as to its justice or legality. But how stands the account to-day between the bondholders and the people of the United States upon an account stated, and upon an equitable settlement? I have already shown that the actual payments made for all the bonds issued amounted to $1,371,424,- 238, and that as interest on these bonds the people of the United States have already paid, during the last twenty years, $1,987,- 567,801. It will thus be seen that all the money received from the bondholders has been paid back to them, and that in addition there have been paid $616,143,563 ; showing that the actual debt has been once paid and nearly half paid the second time, while the business of paying still goes on. It will be seen also that the amount thus received as interest from the public treasury by the bondholders, over and above what they paid in, is about a hun dred millions of dollars greater in amount than all the pensions of ARREARS "OF PENSIONS FOR UNION SOLDIERS. 20$ every kind and description paid by the government from the firing on Fort Sumter to the present hour. Sir, if you would poll the bondholders of the United States, and take the vote of all the national banks, I doubt not that their voices would be unanimous for the repeal of the law for the payment of pension arrears ; and yet look at their own record of gigantic legis lative plunder! It is stated upon good authority that there are nine thousand soldiers still alive in this country who have undergone amputation of leg or arm. If placed in line as they once stood in battle, and allowing three feet to each man, they would present a front six miles in extent. This six miles of mutilated heroes, at from eighteen dollars to twenty-four dollars per month apiece, receive about two million dollars per annum from their government. I can name one bondholder, who never saw the flag of his country in any greater peril than on the custom house in the city of New York, who draws more money from the United States treasury every year, on account of his bonds, than all these shattered veterans put to gether. Which of these debts do you call the most sacred? Which is sustained by the most valuable consideration? One grew out of the principle of note shaving, while the other grew out of a willing ness to die for the Union ; one grew out of a hard advantage taken of the government when its existence was assailed ; the other arises from the daring of devoted patriots determined that the existence of the government should be maintained. They are alike pro tected in section 4 of the fourteenth amendment to the constitution of the United States : The validity of the public debt of the United States authorized by law, includ ing debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in sup pressing insurrection and rebellion, shall not be questioned. This is the supreme law of the land, and guarantees equally the debt due to the pensioner and the debt to the bondholder ; but it is very apparent now that the bondholder desires to repudiate the constitutional brotherhood. It is very true that his bonds would have been worth nothing and the government itself would have been a thing of the past but for the pensioner. He has had the serv- 206 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. ices, however, of the pensioner, and, like all base natures, he de sires now to be rid of his benefactor as cheaply as possible. Sir, do you remember the fable of the wolf and the crane, as told by JEsop? If not, I will refresh your boyhood recollections. I have it here, and it reads as follows : A wolf had got a bone stuck in his throat, and in the greatest agony run up and down, beseeching every animal he met to relieve him, at the same time hint ing at a very handsome reward to the successful operator. A crane, moved by his entreaties and promises, ventured her long neck down the wolf s throat and drew out the bone. She then modestly asked for the reward, to which the wolf, grinning and showing his teeth, replied with seeming indignation, " Ungrateful creature, to ask for any other reward than that you have put your head into a wolf s jaws and brought it out safe again." And the crane went without her reward. Sir, there were whole gangs of thrifty, speculative wolves during the war who staid in the rear and howled beseechingly to everybody whom they met to go forward to the front and save the government. They promised everything to the soldier when he returned from the war ; the hon ors and emoluments of office were to be his in no stinted measure ; he was to be a member and a senator in congress, a governor of states, a judge in the land, hold lucrative places in the counties, and as to pensions, bounties, land warrapts and homesteads, the wolves told him that he should have his heart s fullest desire if he, in the smoke of battle, would only see to it that the government which sheltered them in their profitable practices was not torn down over their heads and destroyed. But the danger now is over and past, and instead of the bounteous fulfillment of promises in spired by terror, the wolves show their teeth and snarl in rage at every crumb the soldier receives. How much longer is the spirit of this fable to be continued in this country? How much longer is organized wealth to dictate to every branch of this government? A few months ago it bullied the president of the United States into vetoing a three-per cent, fund ing bill at the expense of many millions of the people. It is now thundering for the repeal of the arrears of pensions act, with seem ing full confidence that it can terrify congress into submission to its wishes. We shall see; yes, Mr. President, we shall see. But there yet remains another important branch of this question to be noticed. There has been such a concerted, widespread, and ARREARS OF PENSIONS FOR UNION SOLDIERS. 2O/ vehement cry of fraud raised against the administration of the pen sion bureau that if one-half was true as alleged the whole system ought to be abolished. This accusation of general and stupendous pension frauds has been made so boldly, and pressed with such force, that doubtless thousands of honest and intelligent people be lieve that our pension laws are either so loosely drawn and so unguarded as to invite fraud, or that they are corruptly and dis honestly administered from the beginning to the end. Sir, let us look to the laws themselves for a few moments, and to the rules and regulations adopted by which to execute them. I say here in my place that they appear to have been constructed rather upon the idea that every possible applicant for a pension would commit perjury and steal, than that he was a worthy citizen who deserved well of his country. Our pension laws are based upon the same principle exactly which pervades all our internal revenue acts, and that is to the effect that everybody who falls under their provisions is capable of crime, and anxious to commit it if he can do so without detection. On a former occasion in this body I pointed out the almost ab solute impossibility of obtaining a pension to which the applicant was not entitled, and I will make no apology for doing so again, and still more fully. To begin with, the applicant, in the first pa per he swears to and files, has to give a personal description of himself as minute as is taken of a convict in the warden s office of a penitentiary. This is done in order to fix his identity by com parison with his muster-roll, and in all other ways known to hu man testimony. In this first paper, styled his application, he states his name, his age, his occupation, and describes the color of his hair, the color of his eyes, and how tall he is; he states the time and place when and where he enlisted, in what regiment and company, and the names of his officers ; he puts down next the time and place when and where he was discharged, and the reason he was discharged. If that reason was because of a wound, he must tell when and where he was wounded, and describe the na ture and character of the wound itself, the circumstances under which it was received, and the duty on which he was at the time engaged. If he was discharged on account of disability from dis- 208 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. ease, he states when the disease first appeared, the place where he was when it appeared, and the duty upon which he was engaged at that time ; details the causes which in his opinion produced the disease; and then he gives the names, numbers, and the localities of all the hospitals in which he received medical or surgical treat ment, and furnishes the dates of his admission. All these facts and circumstances, the regulations of the pension office say, he should minutely detail." Considering that the record of all the soldier s movements while in the army, whether in the field or in the hospital, is on file here, and in the hands of the government, can the human mind conceive anything more certain to detect and expose a fraudulent claim than the filling up of an application such as I have described? Before, however, this application is allowed to be filed, two credible wit nesses must go with the applicant before a court of record and make oath that he is the identical man he has described himself to be ; then he must get a commissioned officer to swear in a formal affidavit that these last two witnesses have told the truth, and also that the facts set forth in the application are true ; or if this com missioned officer can not be had, the applicant is permitted, as a favor, to prove the same facts by two comrades who were in the service with him, only that they are required to particularly state their means of knowledge. What a pile of perjury is required, even to start with, if the claim is a fraud ! I am not a believer in the doctrine of total depravity, but I would be if I thought that for eight or ten dollars a month four or five well-known persons could be found to swear to that amount of falsehood. But at last, the application being made out, the applicant, putting in his post-office address, his street and number, if living in a city, sends it forward to that government which once trust ed him in war but which seems afraid to do so in peace. When it reaches here, then begins that sort of cross-examination upon every statement it contains, under which, when rigidly enforced, it is not possible for a fraudulent claim to survive. The application is sent to the war department, and the work of scrutiny commences. Did the soldier enlist at the time and place he says he did ; is his name on the rolls; is his personal description the same, except so ARREARS OF PENSIONS FOR UNION SOLDIERS. 2OQ far as age may change it ; is his name on the rolls at the time he says he was wounded or at the time he says he was taken sick ; do the daily reports of his company show that at that time he was present or absent from duty ; do the hospital returns show that he was an inmate of the one he names and at the date he mentions ; does his signature on the rolls when compared with his signature to his application look like it was genuine ; and do all these tests when applied to his two army comrades fail to show fraud on their part ? All these questions have their answers in the records of this gov ernment, but even after the claimant has run this official gauntlet he is not at all through with his tiresome journey. He is then ex amined by a pension office surgeon, and sometimes a second time before three such surgeons. Not yet content, however, at this point the government makes another restriction. I will read one of the regulations of the bureau : In a claim on account of disability from disease the applicant must furnish the testimony of the physicians who have attended him since the date of discharge, explicitly setting forth the history of the disease and disability since its first appearance. It is especially important that the physician who first attended the applicant after his discharge should state the date at which his attendance com menced and his condition at that time. If it should not be possible for the applicant to show the condition of his health during the whole period since the date of his discharge by the testimony of the physicians, the cause of his inabil ity to do so should be stated by him under oath. The testimony of other per sons on this point may then be stated. The statement of the witnesses in regard to the manner in which the applicant was affected should be full and definite, and they should state how they obtained a knowledge of the facts stated by them. And when all the rules and regulations which I have mentioned have been complied with, the commissioner can still send one of his special agents to the claimant s home to see him, ascertain his habits, find out whether he can do a day s work or not, inquire into his moral character, and also the character of his witnesses for truth and veracity, and make a full report on everything. And after the pension has been granted the commissioner has the power, whenever he makes the slightest discovery of fraud, to re open the investigation and to strike the name of the pensioner from the rolls whenever he is satisfied that it ought to be done. In the name of justice and common sense how can fraud escape detec tion under such a system ? 2IO FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. Take also the application made by a widow for a pension. In addition to all the evidence of her husband s enlistment, service and disability, already explained, she must make proof of all the facts relating to the cause of his death, including his last illness, and the time and place when and where he died. This proof must be made fully and in detail by the physicians attending him, or, if he died without medical assistance, then the testimony of other persons acquainted with the circumstances may be furnished. The proof of marriage must then be made by a duly verified copy of a church or other public record ; or by the affidavit of the clergyman or magistrate who officiated ; or by the testimony of two or more eye-witnesses to the ceremony ; or by a duly verified copy of the church record of baptism of the children ; or by the testimony of two or more witnesses who know that the parties lived together as husband and wife, and who will state how long, within their knowledge, such cohabitation continued. If children have been born, their births are to be proven as follows : by a duly verified copy of the church record of baptism or other public record ; or by the affidavit of the physician who attended the mother ; or by the testimony of persons who were present at the births, who should state how they are able to testify to the precise dates. Sir, I will pause in this branch of investigation. What addi tional safeguards do you think are necessary to protect the treasury from the scheming frauds of the widows of the war, in whose wan, sad faces I have so often seen the mute, supplicating appeal of dis tress, and sometimes of actual want? My heart sickens at such accusations against such helpless objects. But there is another class of persons who are constantly thrust forward in connection with the general question of frauds upon the pension office. Claim agents are said to have secured the passage of the arrears of pensions act and are now committing vast frauds by virtue of it. The best answer to this wholesale and sweeping assertion is to be found in the act itself. By the fourth section, as it now stands in the law, it is expressly provided as follows : No claim agent or other person shall be entitled to receive any compensation for services in making application for arrears of pension. ARREARS OF PENSIONS FOR UNION SOLDIERS. 211 Who but those bereft of reason on this subject, or who are de termined to sustain a self-evident falsehood, will pretend to believe that claim agents, expressly denied a single dollar of profit under this act, controlled the congress of the United States in its favor and secured its passage ? Can anything be more absurd than such a proposition? I have already shown that this act made no new rule of evidence, and that if a claim agent or any one else commits a fraud upon the government he must do it under the law exactly as it stood before this act was passed, in the face of the long line of bristling obstacles which I have cited and which stand like a hedge-row of thorns between an applicant for a pension and the treasury of the United States. The claim agent who attempts a fraud does so not merely at the peril of his practice before the pension office, but with the state s prison in full view where some of them have been sent. Their duties are performed under the constant and vigilant scrutiny of the commissioner, who can, and I have no doubt does, suspend, dismiss, indict, and punish them whenever the facts war rant him in doing so. Some frauds have been attempted, no doubt, and some made successful for a short time, but they are very trifling in amount compared to the popular impression sought to be created. If there is a better system than the one we have to prevent fraud, or to de tect it after it has been committed, let it be submitted and I will give it my earnest attention ; but I am not willing that laws which met my approval when they were enacted shall be misrepresented to the public mind. And now, Mr. President, a few words more and I am done. I regret the necessity of these remarks, but with self-respect I could say no less. This subject is not one of politics; it is one of naked justice. Is this government of fifty millions of people and vast rev enues too weak to be just to those who preserved its present proud position among the nations of the earth? To my mind that is the sole question here. On the 3<Dth day of last June there were 16,253 pensioners paid at the capital of the great and powerful state which I have the honor, in part, to represent here, and they receive annually a frac- 212 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. tion over three millions of money. I believe it is money honestly earned and honestly paid, and I do not believe the people of Indiana want them deprived of any part of it. The soldier has been made to sit at the second table as a public creditor, while others banqueted at the first far too long already; and the American people, in my judgment, do not wish to further degrade him by the repeal of the act under consideration. He was paid during the war in paper worth but little more than fifty cents on the dollar, while other creditors of the government were paid in gold, or its full equivalent. Let us have no more such discrimi nations, and let us say so here and now. However different the aspects of the war itself may have been to different minds, the soldier presents but one. In devotion to the highest duty of a citizen, he tendered the dearest sacrifice man can make for his fellow-man. He offered his life for the welfare of others, and, whether living or dead, his claims upon the respect and gratitude of the American people will endure as long as his deeds are spoken by the American tongue. PENSIONS FOR MEXICAN VETERANS Remarks made in the senate of the United States, April 14, 1880, upon the fol lowing resolution then submitted by Mr. Voorhees : Resolved, That the committee on pensions be, and is hereby, instructed to report, without unnecessary delay, a bill authorizing the commissioner of pen sions to place on the pension roll of this government the names of the surviving soldiers and sailors of the war between the United States and Mexico : Pro vided, That this resolution shall not apply to such as are now on any account drawing pensions, or who are laboring under political disability. R. PRESIDENT In presenting this resolution I hope I may be pardoned a few words in explana tion. I am fully aware of the obstacles to be encountered. An impression has been created in certain quarters that we are already engaged in pay ing pensions in too lavish a manner. A note of alarm is raised on this floor whenever the subject is discussed. We heard it a few days ago in connection with a private bill to pension a disabled scout from West Virginia. The senator from Kansas (Mr. Ingalls) drew a vivid picture of the dangers to which our growing pension list was subjecting the country. He announced that we were paying more money in pen sions to disabled soldiers and sailors, their widows and orphans, than any other government in the world. This is true, and in my judgment it is greatly to our credit. While the governments of Europe pour out enormous sums in annuities and pensions on their royal families, and on their nobility, we are left free to expend similar sums, if we choose, on far worthier objects, on the citizen soldiery of the republic, in grateful recognition of the fact that but for them the Union would not now exist, nor would foreign nations salute the American flag with respect. I can not consent that the policy of other governments on this (213) 214 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. subject shall be held up to us for adoption or imitation. There is nothing in the pension system of Great Britain for us to consider except as an example to be avoided. It is true that there is com paratively a small sum paid in pensions to her soldiers and sailors, but she has a pension list which is truly amazing to the eye of an American. Under the heads of hereditary pensions, political pen sions, special pensions, annuities, compensation allowances, compas sionate allowances, retiring allowances, and superannuation allow ances, she pays more than $10,000,000 a year in part to such as have retired from the different branches of her public service, and in part to a worthless nobility which has fastened itself by inherit ance on the tax-paying toil of that kingdom. I have examined that pension-roll. It is full of curious things. One man was pensioned for the sum of 7,191 on the excise, and for 3,384 on the post-office revenue, making the annual sum of $52,875, because he was descended from an illegitimate son of Charles the Second. His base but high-born ancestor had been pensioned, and the pension descended to those who came after him. In 1857 his government redeemed, as it is called, its excise and post-office revenues from this annual charge, by paying the pensioner 255,777 I 3 S - 2 d. ; counted in our money, $1,278,885 in round numbers. The old Duke of Schomberg fell at the battle of the Boyne, in 1690, and a pension of 4,000, or $20,000 per annum, was settled upon his heirs. They have drawn more than $2,000,000 from the English treasury. The private purse of the queen of England and her household expenses paid by the peo ple amount to over $2, 000,000 a year; and the annual allowances granted to her children reach the sum of $5,000,000 and upward; while adding marriage portions to their other allowances, these favored youths have drawn from the revenues of their government the sum of $62,790,095 up to the year 1877. Facts like these, it seems to me, Bought to have a strong tend ency to reconcile the most dissatisfied American citizen to the pol icy of his own government, even if we do pay our scarred and vet eran soldiers liberal pensions, and even if, for the time being at least, we are deprived of the blessings of royalty and the economy of a royal family. For my part it does not alarm me at all that PENSIONS FOR MEXICAN VETERANS. 21$ we are paying many times as much in pensions to our soldiers as Great Britain pays to hers ; nor do I ever wish to see them de prived of their pensions or cut short in their rates in order to be stow them on the favorites of an empire, as is done in that coun- try. Sir, in addition, however, to what we have already done for the American soldier, there remains, in my judgment, an imperative duty yet to be discharged. The soldier of the war with Mexico has not yet had justice. The lifetime of a generation has passed by since he obeyed the call of his country and upheld its honor in a foreign war. Thirty-four years ago he moved with the elastic step of youth to battle and to victory. He is now old, and waits from year to year for that recognition which, though it may be small in amount, is always dear to a soldier s heart. There is but little difficulty in making a correct estimate of the number of soldiers and sailors who would be entitled to a pension for having participated in the Mexican war. The muster-rolls contain 101,000, all told, in the military and naval service against Mexico. Of these, however, 17,224 were re-enlistments, showing that there were in fact but 83,776 men in that service. From this number must be deducted the dead who died in Mexico, 16,000, and 1 1 ,000 heretofore pensioned for wounds and disabilities in curred in the line of duty. I regret to note the fact that 7,225 are marked as deserters. This leaves a body of 49,551 men to the accidents of time and the assaults of disease during a period of nearly thirty-three years of intense activity, and stupendous scenes of excitement, danger and death. It is known to all that the survivors of the Mexican war were among the foremost to take part in the war of the rebellion. They had been trained as soldiers, and they snuffed the approach of battle. Many of them died on the field or in the hospitals during the four bloody years. Others survive crippled, and drawing pensions for their services in the cause of the Union. All these circumstances, added to the natural death rate since the close of the war with Mexico, have reduced the number of soldiers and sailors now sur viving, and who would be entitled to pensions, according to the most intelligent and careful calculations, to perhaps less than ten 2l6 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. thousand. Very competent judges who have spent much time in gathering statistics on this subject put the survivorship entitled to pensions as low as seven thousand. It is said that the following facts are well authenticated : Of the two Pennsylvania regiments, mustered in with 2,503 officers and men, but 181 survive. Of the Second Mississippi, 1,035 officers and men, 47 survive. Of the Palmetto regiment, 1,077 officers and men, only 34 are now living. According to these melancholy illustrations no one need be alarmed at the increase of our pension roll, even if the veterans of Mexico are added to it. A million a year will pay what remains of them at $8 per month. A million a year! A single manufac turing establishment in the city of Terre Haute, where I live, pays more revenue annually into the treasury of the United States than it would require to pension every survivor of the Mexican war; and yet we are met with a sort of panic in regard to the increased expenditures of the government whenever this subject is mentioned. Sir, what we shall pay them is a mere atom compared to the mighty acquisitions of wealth and national power achieved by their courage and endurance. The veterans of the Mexican war are not asking charity; they are not pleading for support out of the hard earnings of others ; they simply desire an infinitesimal per cent., a per cent, so small that it can not be designated, of that vast domain and inexhaust ible treasure which they secured to their government by their own exertions. Such a conquest of far-reaching boundaries, and of present and future wealth, power, and glory as was made by their arms has, perhaps, no parallel in human history. The ephemeral conquests of Alexander the Great in the East, the subjugation of extensive portions of Europe by Caesar, and afterward by Napo leon, the Norman conquest of England by William the Conqueror none of these achievements were equal in their effects upon the progress of the world to those which were accomplished by the war between the United States and Mexico. Does this statement appear extravagant? Let the cold facts of history speak for them selves. A condition precedent to the war was the annexation of Texas, PENSIONS FOR MEXICAN VETERANS. 2 1/ a state larger in extent, more fertile in natural resources, and capa ble of sustaining a more numerous population than many of the leading powers of Europe. A settlement of the proper boundary between that state and Mexico followed the war, and secured the disputed territory between the Nueces and the Rio Grande, a terri tory as large and as rich as the state of Ohio. The Union was composed of twenty-nine states when the war closed, and by the treaty of peace a more extensive country than them all put together was brought under the authority of the American flag, and under the protection of American law. The boundaries of the American republic were nearly doubled, and fountains of wealth were secured which have revolutionized the commerce of the seas and the traffic of the civilized parts of the earth. California, the queen of the Pacific, with her dower of gold, marks a new era in the activity and advancement of the human race. Enough of the precious metals have been taken from her mines alone, coined in this country and taken to Europe for coin age, to pay our national debt. She has caused this continent to be spanned by an iron thoroughfare for the travel and transportation created by her wonderful products. The customs duties received by the federal government at her ports in any period of five years since her admission into the Union have been sufficient to defray the entire cost of the war with Mexico. Nevada, Utah, Colorado, a portion of Wyoming, Arizona and New Mexico, with their tre mendous capacities for future development, also stand to the credit of those who fought at Cerro Gordo, and in the valley of Mexico under Scott, and at Monterey and Buena Vista under Taylor. The imagination of man can hardly grasp the reality of those vast regions fifty years hence. If a statue of the precious metals was erected to-day to each surviving veteran of the Mexican war, instead of the enactment of a law giving them $8 a month for their lives and their widows after them, the expense would be but a bar ren pittance in comparison with what this government has received as the proceeds of their privations and their valor. Sir, why further delay this act of justice? It has already been far too long delayed for the honor of this government. There is but a remnant of these heroes left. Their ranks are growing 2l8 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. thinner from year to year like the gray locks on their honored heads. Those battlefields on which they startled the world with the constancy and daring of American volunteers are beginning to be seen through the haze of long intervening time. Let us not wait until all who made these fields illustrious have gone to their graves before we recognize, in some slight degree, the debt we owe them. Congress is far in the rear of a grateful public opinion on this subject. When we last considered it on this floor, less than a year ago, the legislatures of twenty states had instructed their senators and requested their representatives in congress to pension the vet erans of the war with Mexico. Now, the legislatures of twenty- five states have made similar instructions and preferred similar requests. There are fifty senators instructed, and more than two hundred members of the house requested by their states to pension these surviving veterans without further postponement. Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, California, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Oregon, Nevada, Kentucky, Tennessee, Texas, Alabama, Arkan sas, Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Louisi ana, Mississippi, Georgia, Florida, Missouri, New Jersey and Mas sachusetts have joined their potent voices in this demand. Will they not be respected and obeyed ? Who will presume to say so ? And why defer action another day? The step is to be taken; the American people have so willed it; why not take it now? There is nothing sectional in this question. All the states in this Union have shared in the increased greatness of our common country. Every section has alike reaped the fruits of the fortitude and wisdom displayed in the field and in the national councils in the conduct and in the conclusion of the Mexican war. American enterprise and intelligence, from the hardy regions of New England to the Pacific coast, and from the northern lakes to the warm wa ters of the gulf, have found new and boundless fields for their rest less activity and their almost fabulous achievements. I can not believe that there will be any further reluctance in any quarter to the small recognition and reward which I ask for those who proved themselves the benefactors of every portion of the American peo ple, and in fact of the whole commercial and civilized world. r DANIEL W. VOORHEES, AT THE AGE OF FIFTY, WHEN HE ENTERED THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES. "THE CONFEDERATE BRIGADIER 1 A speech delivered in the senate of the United States, June 18, 1879, during a running debate upon the bill making appropriations for the support of the army for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1880, and for other purposes. R. PRESIDENT In the order of Divine Providence nothing is made in vain, and in the physical world every object has its sphere. This is eminently true in the world of men, and having known the senator from Maine a long time, I had assigned him a higher, a better, and a more useful sphere in public affairs than he seems determined to occupy. For many years I have looked upon him as fitted by nature to fill that place among men which the eagle occupies among the birds of the air. I have fondly hoped to see him soar toward the sun in the clear, upper atmosphere of an ex alted statesmanship; but if, as a matter of choice, he adopts the part of the scavenger bird, hunts for offal, the cast-off and putre fying matter of past years, I may deplore but I can not prevent such a course. If he prefers to abandon the pursuits of the lion and to follow the habits of the hyena, to dig into the graves of the past for loathsome and offensive things, I deeply regret it, but it is a matter for him alone to decide. MR. ELAINE. Offensive to whom? MR. VOORHEES. Offensive to the public interests, if not to com mon decency. The senator from Maine has seen fit to resurrect an old, stale and exploded charge against an Indiana regiment on the field of Buena Vista. MR. BLAINE. No, sir. One moment. I disclaim the charge. It was a scandal against the Indiana regiment, and I showed that the southern friends of the senator from Indiana were perpetuating that and teaching it to their children. (219) 220 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. MR. VOORHEES. I have no such southern friends, and I find no such miserable literature. I do not burrow in the sewers where such cast-off slanders are to be found. I never saw such a book as the senator holds in his hand ; I never heard of it until the senator, a few moments ago, sought to rescue it from its anonymous and oblivious condition, and confer upon it a certain respectability by his public mention. A senator of the United States can give a calumny, however gross, an air of probability without a direct indorsement, if he is simply willing to pollute his fingers by bring ing it into this presence. While the senator from Maine may say that he does not make this charge against the troops of Indiana or indorse it, I know him too well to be deceived as to his purpose in parading it here. Sir, it happened in the Mexican war that great war which resulted in so much glory and wealth to this country that one of Indiana s five regiments was placed in an exposed position on the field of Buena Vista; it was placed there before it was fully known, even by that great and sagacious military leader, Zachary Taylor, where the brunt of battle would fall. He was ^awaiting, not deliv ering battle. The senator from Maine, although like myself wholly destitute of military experience, although like myself he fought the battles of his country by a substitute (and I think mine was better than his from his account the other day), must know how unex pectedly sometimes the full force of an enemy making attack falls on an exposed part of the line of battle. It happened so in this instance, and for the truth of history I appeal to the bloody record of that day. Within twenty minutes after battle was joined the second Indiana regiment suffered more in death and wounds than any other regiment that ever stood upon a field for no greater length of time. They were in a position that five regiments could not have held, their firing was rapid and determined, their ammu nition almost exhausted; they broke. That is true. Some of them rallied afterward ; a few did not. Of those who rallied was then Captain Nathan Kimball, afterward Major-General Kimball. With a large portion of the regiment he formed on one of the Mis sissippi regiments, perhaps the fifth, I do not remember the num bers, and fought all through the conflict. THE CONFEDERATE BRIGADIER." 221 The senator from Maine obtrudes that historical question here. Let me ask him why it is he presumes to criticise the conduct of Indiana troops, when there was not a single soldier there from Maine? Indiana behaved well, extremely, bravely well; and her blood bathed every battle-field in the subsequent war of the rebel lion. She sent three times as many troops to the field in that war as Maine. The district that I represented in the other branch of congress sent more troops than the entire state of Minnesota, from which we heard such a criticism through her senator on Indiana last evening. Why does not the senator from Maine learn a lesson of common prudence? Why does he not look behind him? Why does he not stop to inquire whether anybody represented Maine on that bloody and glorious field of Buena Vista, before he assails those who were there? Why, sir, not only Maine but New Eng land was not there ! All New England was absent with the excep tion of a regiment of regulars raised by the general act of congress, of which that gallant and immortal spirit, now gone to his great reward, Thomas H. Seymour, was, as I remember, major Thomas H. Seymour, whose counterpart for courage, high spirit, and fidel ity to the constitution is here on this floor in the person of the senator from Connecticut (Mr. Eaton). This is all, with the exception of a hired levy made in New York on money raised in Massachusetts by Caleb Cushing, who was then a democrat. Is it not a shame that Massachusetts and Maine and all New England were not better represented in that great conflict for national honor? MR. ELAINE. Where was Franklin Pierce, whom you made president of the United States? MR. VoORHEES. Ay, sir, how like retributive justice it sounds to hear the senator from Maine call upon the name of Franklin Pierce to save the reputation of his own section! [Laughter.] I am rejoiced that New England is at last forced to shriek, " We had Franklin Pierce." I thought I would catch the senator. I thought he would bite at the temptation of Pierce s name and services. I was waiting for him. [Laughter.] With what jeers and gibes and sneers this name has hitherto been mentioned by the senator and his party; and yet, in his despair, like a noted 222 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. character in ancient history who cried, " Help me, Cassius, or I sink," the senator from Maine cries out, " Help me, oh! memory of Franklin Pierce, in the war with Mexico, or all New England sinks." MR. MoRRILL. Will the senator from Indiana allow me to re mind him that he omits entirely a very gallant colonel from Ver mont who lost his life, Colonel Ransom? MR. VOORHEES. In the regular army? MR. HLAINE. No, sir. MR. MORRILL. The volunteers. MR. VOORHEES. Had Vermont altogether one volunteer sol dier? MR. MORRILL. Certainly. MR. VOORHEES. I have examined this question at the adju tant general s office, and I say here, that with the exception of here and there a sporadic case not amounting to a whole regiment I think not a company all put together, there was no volun teering from New England. MR. BURNSIDE. The senator from Indiana will allow me to state that from the state of Rhode Island I think there were as many soldiers in proportion to its size and as many officers as there were from the state of Indiana. Colonel Slocum, who was killed at the first battle of Bull Run, was an officer in a company from Rhode Island. General Pitman, who was in the late war, was captain of a company from Rhode Island. General Viall, one of the most prominent officers of the state of Rhode Island in the late war, was in a company from Rhode Island ; and I think if the comparison was made, it would be found that Rhode Island sent as many soldiers and as many officers in proportion to its popula tion to the Mexican war as the state of Indiana. MR. VOORHEES. I am sorry the senator from Rhode Island comes to the rescue of my opponents. He was born in Indiana and started on his illustrious career from that state. A stab from him now might properly extort from me the exclamation, "ettu Brute!" I say to him, however, and I say to every other senator, that there were not one thousand volunteers from New England in the Mexican war. There were not half that number, nor one- THE CONFEDERATE BRIGADIER/ 223 fourth. There were regular soldiers from those states in the army before the war with Mexico, and they behaved well. I repeat, there were no volunteer troops, as such, from the six states of New England. They had regular troops in the army before the Mexi can war broke out who did their duty and did it well, many of whom fell illustriously upon the field of battle ; but when the ques tion arises whether the popular heart of New England responded to the call of the country in a war with a foreign foe, history re cords in no uncertain phrase, in no doubtful language, that she did nothing of the kind. Otherwise why would Gushing have raised a regiment in New York, I speak from the record, to be somehow credited to New England? He recruited, with the use of money, a regiment nearly one thousand strong. They illustrated their venal character afterward in the fact that twenty-five per cent, of them deserted the service in the face of the enemy in a foreign country. Well they might. They did not belong to the substantial and worthy element of the people of New York; they were hired, hired with money; and I repeat that twenty-five per cent, of them deserted the colors of their country in the face of the foe. When hereafter a senator from New England is disposed to gibe at a broken, bleeding, reeling western regiment, driven from the field by a force of ten to one, I think he will pause to reflect whether any man from his own state was there, even as a sutler, a camp- fol^wer, a mule-drive, in any capacity whatever. When the roll of the living and the dead for Buena Vista is called, there is no answer for Maine except in the voice of the senator from that state, with daring hardihood criticising the troops that were there. I see before me the gallant senator from Illinois (Mr. Logan) . Although political differences have divided us, although the tide of political events have broken up ancient political ties, I never look on him without respect for a brave and gallant soldier. He was in Mexico. He knows whether it well becomes New England senators to flout at the misfortunes occurring in a bloody day to an Indiana, or an Illinois, or an Ohio regiment, or to the regiment of any other western state. MR. BURNSIDE. Mr. President 224 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. MR. VOORHEES. I do not wish to prolong this debate on the question of Mexico, because I have to go on. I have other work before me. MR. BURNSIDE. Will the senator allow me? MR. VOORHEES. The senator from Rhode Island knows how willingly and how readily I would yield to him if I did not feel that I must get along with some things that I yet desire to say. MR. BURNSIDE. The senator from Indiana does not desire to misrepresent MR. VOORHEES. Oh, no. MR. BURNSIDE. I want to correct him. MR. VOORHEES. I will hear the senator. What does he desire to say? MR. BURNSIDE. The troops to which I referred were raised for the war and had nothing to do with the regular army before the war. They were raised to enter the service for the war. MR. VOORHEES. What war? MR. BURNSIDE. The Mexican war, and they were not in the regular army before that war. MR. VOORHEES. I say to the senator in all frankness, and with perfect respect for his large military experience, that I will go with him to-morrow to the adjutant-general s office, and if he can find even one full company of volunteers raised in New England under the call of the government for volunteers to fight Mexico, I will state the fact hereafter on this floor. I think that is fair. MR. BURNSIDE. Very well; I will go to the adjutant-general s office with the senator from Indiana to-morrow. MR. VOORHEES. All right; we will go together. MR. EATON. I know my friend will allow me one word. MR. VOORHEES. Certainly I will. MR. EATON. He does not desire, of course, to misrepresent New England at all. I know he does not. Now, I wish to say here, the ninth regiment, which was called a regular regiment, was a regiment of New England men, mainly gotten up through the influence of the gentleman spoken of by the senator from Vermont, Colonel Ransom, and my friend Colonel Thomas H. Seymour, of Connecticut, who was one of its majors. "THE CONFEDERATE BRIGADIER." 225 MR. VOORHEES. But they were not volunteers. In fact and in law they were regulars. MR. EATON. They were volunteers in one sense, for they were the bone and sinew of New England. They were troops that were enlisted through the influence of New England men. MR. VOORHEES. They were on the roll of the army as regulars raised, as I understand, under the ten-regiment bill, and not all from New England. MR. EATON. As the Ninth regiment. MR. BURNSIDE. Will the senator from Indiana allow me a word more? MR. VOORHEES. I beg pardon for declining, but I must go on. Mr. President, there is a reason for this hostility to the Mexican war which lies back even of that event. New England was never in favor of the extension of the boundaries of this country. The Mexican war grew out of the annexation of Texas. When I speak of New England, my friend from Connecticut (Mr. Eaton) must not understand that I am criticising the democracy of that section. I am assailing that nefarious sentiment which always opposed Jef ferson and the extension and glory of this republic. The puritan federalist of New England is the character I am speaking of. He opposed every step of progress the American people have ever taken. The Mexican war grew out of one of the grandest progressive events the world has ever known. The annexation of Texas is really without a parallel in the history of nations, and arising out of that event behold what has happened since ! We have acquired a wealth of states and territories that rivals the grandest epoch of the Roman empire. If, however, the predominant sentiment of New England had triumphed, nothing of this would have happened. Texas would either be to-day an independent government or sub jugated to Mexico or some other foreign power. New Mexico would not be an American territory ; California, with her golden mines and silver mountains, would not be ours. San Francisco would belong to some distant nation ; another flag would float upon the Pacific coast. All this would have happened if the policy of New 226 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. England, whose brilliant representative is the senator from Maine, had prevailed ; and yet he feels it worthy of himself not merely aspiring to be, but actually believing himself and believed to be, a statesman he finds it worthy of his public ideas to carp at and hold up to animadversion the conduct of one regiment on a glorious field where they struggled and bled to accomplish all the mighty results which have actually followed, while no man from Maine answered the roll-call on that stricken field either before or after the battle, either from the living ranks or from the dead. Maine was no such new-comer into the Union that she needed to be en tirely exempted. She was admitted in 1820; she had enjoyed the protection of the laws of this country and the honor of its flag for more than a quarter of a century. Sir, let us go back a little further. When Mr. Jefferson was president it was by his skill as a diplomatist, by his energy as an executive officer, by his prevision as a statesman, that the western boundaries of this country were extended from the Mississippi river to the Pacific Ocean. All that mighty region extending from the British possessions to the Gulf of Mexico and from the Mississippi to the Pacific Ocean stands as an everlasting monument to the wis dom, foresight and sagacity of Thomas Jefferson. The entire New England sentiment, however, now represented here by the senator from Maine, denounced him and his policy. They would have left the mouth of the Mississippi river in the hands of a foreign power ; they would have made us beg, dicker, and barter for our right of way down that great national channel if they had been successful. Sir, there are no apologies to make for the Northwest, one of the central states of which is Indiana. We do not come here to bow down to those who come from the East, "m many respects a more favored section. Last evening the senator from Maine and the senator from Minnesota vied with each other in disparaging the state of Indiana. The senator from Maine saw fit to repeat to-day what he then said, that one Massachusetts regiment stampeded all the democrats in Indianapolis and demoralized them. I have no reply to make to that. MR. ELAINE. I never said it at all. MR. VoORHEES. I so understood you; and my reply is that THE CONFEDERATE BRIGADIER. 22/ Indiana casts 165,000 more votes than Maine and Minnesota put together, and she sent twice as many troops to the field as both those states put together. She also casts more votes than Maine and Massachusetts put together, and she sent as many troops to the field as both Maine and Massachusetts. Allow me to say in this connection that the senator from Maine does himself great injustice when he speaks, as he has often done, in derision of the influence which the presence of soldiers creates at the ballot-box or in any other part of a peaceful community. I once heard that well illustrated by a friend and kinsman of mine in New Orleans. I said to him, in view of the troubles there, "A single regiment can hold your state in absolute subjection. Yes, said he, "not merely a single regiment, but one single soldier planting the flag, sticking the staff in the sand, with the flag aloft, will govern the state; the emblem of authority, the insignia of government is enough." The senator from Maine knows this to be true as well as any senator on this floor. He knows that his argument is spurious and absurd when he speaks of the paucity of numbers in connection with soldiers and free elections. One sol dier as the emblem of power is as good as a thousand, and he knows it. When he rises here and repeats for the fourth or fifth time that it is absurd to cry out against the use of troops at the polls, because there are not enough to control all the elections, he commits a mockery, and there is not a fair-thinking man on this floor who does not know it. It is the merest trifling to say there are not enough troops to control all the elections, when we all know that the control is by virtue of the emblem of authority, and not by reason of the actual numerical force. Mr. President, I turn now to another matter. The senator from Maine, with his peculiar talent, thinking doubtless that nobody else would take the same pains, has, as it appears, hunted up the vote of Marion county, Indiana, for some years back. I will enlighten him still further on that point. He says that because in 1864 my colleague, then the democratic candidate for governor of the state, received about one hundred more votes that is the result of his calculation, I believe than Stephen A. Douglas in 1860, therefore there could have been no intimidation; therefore 228 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. the alleged outrages committed by a military mob can not be true. I have said there was a military mob in Indianapolis in the fall months of 1864. I repeat it. There was a disorganized, disor derly, demoralized military camp there at that time. Its condition can be accounted for from the fact that it was commanded by officers who never sought service at the front and who disgraced, in many instances, the uniform they wore. Those whom I mean will understand what I say. But let us examine the point raised by the senator from Maine. I have facts here to submit. I have figures as well as he has. I have statistics here that the senator from Maine would do well to attend to. In 1862 the republican vote for secretary of state in Marion county was 4,844, and the democratic vote for the same office was 3,863, being a republican majority of 981 in that year. It isnot long till we reach 1^64. Two years is a brief period. Popula tions do not swell very enormously in that length of time. I will venture to repeat my statement of figures in order to emphasize conclusions. In 1862 the vote in that county for the republican candidate for secretary of state was 4,844, for the democratic candidate 3,863, giving a republican majority of 981. In the year 1864, the year under discussion, the figures stand as follows: Governor Morton received 9,554 votes, and Senator McDonald received 3,221 votes, making a republican majority swollen from 981 in 1862 to 6,333 in 1864. How is this to be accounted for? Solely on the ground stated by my colleague yesterday, that there was a vote given that did not belong there, making the aggregate vote larger than one- half the ascertained population of Indianapolis, men, women and children included. -The Massachusetts troops spoken of, and per haps others, voted illegally and as often as they pleased. How was it, also, in the district which I then represented? The per sonal view of the matter is nothing; that is of no consequence. I accept defeat without depression and success without elation. In 1862 I received, as the democratic candidate for congress in the county of Vigo, of which the city of Terre Haute is the coun ty seat, 2,121 votes, and my competitor, Mr. Scott, received "THE CONFEDERATE BRIGADIER." 229 2,068. In 1864 I received 2,265, an increase of 144 votes. This was a natural and legitimate increase in two years ; but what is the showing for the republican candidate? The gentleman who ran against me in 1864 was by.no means so strong in Vigo county as Mr. Scott, who made the race in 1862, yet he received 2,856 votes in that county, showing a republican increase in the space of two years of 788 as against a democratic increase of 144. I presume the senator from Maine will find some way to explain these figures to his own satisfaction, but to nobody else s. They fasten but one conclusion on every fair mind. The republican party cast a false and spurious vote in Vigo county in 1864. The leaders of that party took advantage of the disorders then prevail ing to import repeaters from other states, some in the guise of Massachusetts soldiers, and some from other quarters. They did not intimidate anybody at Terre Haute ; they drove no one from the polls at that place, for we made that city a free shire during the war ; but they voted themselves and repeated as often as pos sible. But, Mr. President, while I am on my feet I desire to pay some attention to another matter. We have heard so much clamor and persistent outcry from republican leaders in regard to the alleged hostility of the democratic party to the federal soldier that I pro pose to say a few words on that subject. A short time ago the republican party of Ohio, in nominating as their candidate for governor a man who staid at home during the entire war and never exposed himself to a moment s danger, saw fit in connection with that nomination to indulge in a hypo critical gush against the abuse which federal soldiers were receiv ing from the democratic party. They passed the following res olution : Resolved, That the memory of our dead heroes who gave their lives to save the nation from destruction protests against the expulsion of their living comrades from public offices to gratify the partisan purposes of the dominant party in con gress. Sir, it so happened, when the present session of congress was organized, that it became my duty as a member of a committee, to look into the number and character of the senate employes. I sup- 230 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY, posed, and had a right to suppose, from the loud pretense of republican love for the soldier, that at least every other man offi cially connected with the senate was a discharged and wounded veteran. Sir, I here state the fact, and it shall go to the country, that when the senate was turned over to the control of the demo cratic party we found just six wounded soldiers on its rolls, and no more. Out of one hundred and fifty men in employment at this end of the capitol you had six, and only six, who were crip pled in the service. I wonder that you had that many considering how easy it would have been to keep up the false pretense without any at all. But where are those six now under democratic rule? They are all here now. It afforded me great pleasure with my humble influence to recommend that each one of them should be retained for the sake of the blood he had shed, and they are all here. Every man who has bled under the flag and who was here on the 4th of last March is here now. MR. FERRY. The senator from Indiana does not wish to mis state. I remind him of the late postmaster of the senate, who is a wounded soldier and has been discharged by the party of the ma jority in the senate. MR. VoORHEES. He was not a wounded soldier. He may have been a soldier. He did not report himself as wounded. MR. FERRY. He is a wounded soldier, and was so reported and known as such. MR. VoORHEES. He was not so reported or known on this side of the chamber. Every wounded soldier who reported himself as such is here to-day at these doors. I can name them all. MR. FERRY. I simply state that he is a wounded soldier, and his condition will prove the fact. Let that test the correctness of my statement. MR. McDONALD. He did not make any complaint on that ground. MR. VoORHEES. The police board, composed of men of both parties, has removed the chief of police; but his place is filled by another soldier as good. Does the senator want to talk about par ticular cases? MR. FERRY. No; but when the senator from Indiana makes the ROSCOE CONKLING. "THE CONFEDERATE BRIGADIER." 231 broad statement that there were none of the wounded soldiers who were dismissed, I simply rise to state that, so far as the state of Michigan is concerned, represented in the case of the late Postmaster Creary, he is a wounded soldier and was discharged. I simply want to correct the senator. MR. VOORHEES. Then the late postmaster has more to com plain of in the conduct of the senator from Michigan than he has of anybody else ; for this is the first time that fact has been commu nicated. It was a subject of investigation for the purpose of not allowing a single man who had felt lead in his body on the field to be removed, and the senator from Michigan can only congratulate himself in informing the senate and the country too late to do the man any good. MR. FERRY. I but repeat the fact, and it was stated throughout the press at the time, and I think Mr. Creary is entitled to a great deal of credit for his service here, not only in having commended himself so generally to the approval of members of the senate, but in not making the point of his wounds to shelter himself from dis missal. There were many others who did state it before and at the date of dismissal, and the press took it up ; but so far as he was concerned he quietly acquiesced in the order of the authority here in control, believing, as the democratic party had the majority here, it was their political pleasure, it was certainly within their power, to remove him, and he accepted the situation. But so far as the statement that he was not a wounded soldier is concerned, I state the fact to be so, and his condition, as well as his state ment, his military record, and that of the press, will substantiate what I say. MR. VOORHEES. I do not dispute the fact if the senator says it is a fact ; but his is only another instance of republican infidelity to a wounded soldier in not having disclosed that fact sooner. MR. FERRY. That was stated to the senator s colleague before dismissal, and he replied that he was not disabled, which is not the point the senator seeks to make. MR. VOORHEES. I can not yield further. My time will not permit. MR. FERRY. As I noticed the senator s colleague [Mr. Me- 232 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. Donald] was rising, I only wished to add that the reply of his col league was that he was "not a disabled soldier." That, I repeat, was not the point. The point stated by the senator from Indiana before me was that no wounded soldier was discharged. MR. CONKLING. Other disabled soldiers were discharged. MR. McDONALD. I very cheerfully bear testimony to the fact that Mr. Creary, late postmaster, was a good officer, but he was not known as a wounded soldier until after this question had passed beyond the control of the committee to which it belongs. He did not make any claim on that ground at all. MR. FERRY. Mr. Creary has never paraded his wounds, has never boasted of his services, but when the chairman of the com mittee, the senator from Pennsylvania (Mr. Wallace), stated in his remarks, prior to his dismissal, that it was not the design of the democratic party to remove any wounded soldier, notwithstanding Mr. Creary was removed on the next day, or the next day but one, it certainly then became generally known, if not before, that he was a wounded soldier ; and inasmuch as such a statement had been made, it was a surprise not only to him but to his friends and the country that he, being a wounded soldier, had been dis missed. Since the senator from Indiana (Mr.Voorhees) has singled out the state which I in part represent, I desire to add, in justice to Michigan, that of the six employes of her citizens in this capitol, kept in office by the republican party, four of the six were wounded soldiers one, the late postmaster of the house (Mr. Sherwood), having lost one leg; another, Mr. Bishop, having lost an arm; another, Mr. Coleman, with one arm, and the other, Mr. Creary, late postmaster of the senate, wounded defending the flag of the Union; and all these four wounded, and all have been dismissed from employment by the party now holding the majority in both houses of congress. Mr. McDONALD. It takes nothing from the statement of my colleague that this committee did make a thorough investigation for the express purpose of retaining every wounded soldier who was then in the employ of the senate unless he should be removed for cause, and that fact was not known to them nor to the members of "THE CONFEDERATE BRIGADIER." 233 the majority on this side until the order for his removal had gone forth. MR. VOORHEES. The facts being as stated by the senator from Michigan, of which I have no doubt, he has only to blame himself for this removal because he did not do sooner what he has done to-day. Enough on that point. In regard to the employes of the house I submit the following : DOORKEEPER S OFFICE, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, UNITED STATES, WASHINGTON, D. C., June 6, 1879. I certify on honor that there are now upon the rolls of the doorkeeper s depart ment, house of representatives, my appointees, twenty gentlemen who served in the " Union army " during the late war. Of this number is Colonel Baker, chief of document room, one of the most responsible positions in the house; a sec ond is Captain Knight, assistant doorkeeper, appointed by me to that place for the reason that he was a Union soldier and fought against me during the war. CHARLES W. FIELD. ENGINEER S DEPARTMENT, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, June 5, 1879. There are employed in the engineer s department of the house of representa tives two persons who served in the war for the Union, namely, William Lannan, chief engineer, who served in the navy, and S. J. Davenport, who served in the army. WM. LANNAN. Chief Engineer House of Representatives, CLERK S OFFICE, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, UNITED STATES, WASHINGTON, D. C., June 6, 1879. There are employed in the office of the clerk of the house of representatives five ex-Union soldiers, among whom are Hon. George M. Adams, clerk of the house, and Henry H. Smith, journal clerk. GREEN ADAMS, Chief Clerk Hotise of Representatives. Sir, the soldier roll at this hour, with the democratic party in the ascendency in both branches of congress, under the control, if you please, to use a hackneyed phrase, of Confederate brigadiers, shows a better patronage bestowed on the Union soldier than it did when the republican party had unlimited sway. But I come to another feature of this subject which constantly confronts us. I listened, as we all did, some time ago to the brill iant speech of the senator from New York in which he fiercely arraigned the democratic party on account of the present composi tion of the senate. Because a number of gentlemen on this side served in the Confederate army and a less number on the republi can side served in the Union army, therefore in his opinion the 234 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY, democratic party was largely to blame, and therefore he launched all his powerful invective against us. I call attention to the passage to which I allude in the speech of the senator from New York. He said upon that occasion: Twenty-seven states adhered to the Union in the dark hour. Those states send to congress two hundred and sixty-nine senators and representatives. Of these two hundred and sixty-nine senators and representatives, fifty-four, and only fifty-four, were soldiers in the armies of the Union. He is now speaking of the house as well as the senate : The eleven states which were disloyal send ninety-three senators and repre sentatives to congress. Of these, eighty -five were soldiers in the armies of the rebellion, and at least three more held high civil station in the rebellion, making in all eighty-eight out of ninety -three. Let me state the same fact, dividing the houses. There are but four senators here who fought in the Union army. They all sit here now; and there are but four. Twenty senators sit here who fought in the army of rebellion, and three more senators sit here who held high civil command in the Confederacy. He says there are four Union soldiers sitting now on that side. I can count but three, but I will take his count. MR. CONKLING. Which three does the senator mean? MR. VOORHEES. I count the senator from Illinois (Mr. Logan), I count the senator from Rhode Island (Mr. Burnside), I count the senator from Kansas, not now in his seat (Mr. Plumb), and I never heard of anybody else. I do not know who the other is. Will the senator from New York tell me? If I am doing any man injustice, let me know it; I would not do so for any consideration whatever. Shall I treat it as three or four? The senator from New York says "four" in his printed speech, and there are four I am now told who were under the colors of the Union in the late war. Be it so. With powerful force, with vehement voice and gesture, and with a look of lofty reproach and menace, the senator from New York called us to account for that state of affairs. He assailed us until we sat here looking at each other in a sort of be wildered way, wondering which one among us was most to blame because there were not more members of the senate on the republican side, chosen by republican legislatures, who had served their country under the flag in the time of danger. The senator so amazed me, and arrested my attention so thoroughly, that I have looked into the subject somewhat since. "THE CONFEDERATE BRIGADIER." 25 Sir, I am the last man to indulge in a wanton personality; but the senator from New York can not complain I will not say com plain, for that he never does but he can not charge me with a want of fairness when I remind him, as I do now, that since the war closed there have been four senators elected in the state of New York by republican legislatures. Each time the party of which the senator is so brilliant and distinguished a leader and ornament had an opportunity to send somebody here who had shed his blood or offered to shed it in the war for the Union. Four times they refused to do it, three times by sending the senator himself, and once in sending a gentleman whom I presume I may mention as once his colleague, Mr. Fenton. Four times the party of which the senator is leader and king in his own state had a chance to select as senator some soldier who had adorned the his tory of New York by his valor, who had been conspicuous by his heroism, who had faced the belching batteries of the enemy, and yet each time the towering figure of the senator himself intercepted the soldier s hopes. Those who wore the blue went to the rear while the tall plume of the civil chieftain went to the front ; and yet he now rails at us for not filling the republican seats on this floor with Union soldiers ! Amazing spectacle ! Was ever such daring displayed before in the senate? Does the senator assume that our forbearance is illimitable? Behold him ; the representative of a state which four times has had the opportunity to send some one of her many soldiers to this place, and which has persistently refused, arraigns others in that regard ! The senator from New York said and said well, as he says every thing well, that New York sent a half million of her men to the field. So she did. I claim an interest in the glory of New York. She is the great metropolitan state of this republic. New York city is the great commercial outlet for us all. The senator from New York can never utter one word of praise adding to the distinction and glory of his state that will not meet with a warm response from me and from the western people. And I insist that in the vast population of that great state there are many soldiers who would make good senators if the republican party would only give them a chance. 2 $6 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. Firmly persuaded, however, Mr. President, that the senator from New York by this time feels convinced and convicted in his own mind of his errors upon this point, I will pass to another state, a very busy state on this floor through its great-brained and warm-hearted senator. If I have not heard the exact words fall from his lips which we heard from the senator from New York, yet the same spirit has pervaded all he has said. He has made con stant assault on the democratic party for its alleged hostility to federal soldiers. He, too, has been disturbed because there are so many men on one side of this chamber who periled their lives in battle and so few on the other. If this fact is to be deplored, then I ask why comes the senator from Maine (Mr. Elaine) here? Why does he not yield to some gallant soldier from the Pine Tree state ? The senator from Maine was just as good a soldier as I was, and no better. We both staid at home, and kept our seats in congress; we paid our money to fill the quotas of our townships and in this way hired substitutes. Some of my kindred, perhaps it is not im proper for me to say also some of my wife s kindred, went to the front, and some of them died from wounds in battle. How that may be with the senator from Maine I seek no further to disclose. But there have been in the state of Maine five elections for sen- ator since 1865, each time resulting in the choice of a republican senator. Are there in fact no soldiers in that state to send to the senate? Is there nobody there fit to be a member of this body who wore the blue during the war? If there is and he has been jostled aside by the superior ability, and I will not say artifice, but ingenuity of the senator from Maine, certainly that senator ought not to come here and reproach us for his own grievous fault. Five times the state of Maine has had the chance to do honor to some soldier in her borders, and five times she has done nothing of the kind, and thus she has added five conspicuous illustrations of the dire hypocrisy, the vile sham, and black, false pretense of the republican party in its pretended love for the federal soldier. We have now and then heard a rush of fervid sound from the state of Michigan. It comes sometimes as a hurricane of wrath. It invokes all the bloody memories of the past and wishes the THE CONFEDERATE BRIGADIER." 237 country to feed on them. The senator from Michigan (Mr. Chan dler) is especially incensed at the presence of a democratic major ity, and at the presence of more senators who fought in the Con federate than in the Union army. The Confederate soldier was sincere, for no man can deny the good faith of those who freely die for their principles. When such men pledge themselves to the government, as they have since the war, I believe in their man hood and honor. But what right has the senator from Michigan to complain that Union soldiers are not here to meet them as senators as they often did on the field ? Since 1865, the close of the war, four elections in Michigan have taken place for senator. What soldier has been honored? Not one. My friend who sits opposite me (Mr. Ferry) knows that I am not complaining that he is here, or criticising the wis dom or the judgment of the legislature that sent him ; nor will the other senator (Mr. Chandler), junior in rank but senior in years, misunderstand me. I intend, however, to silence those who re proach the present composition of the senate, or compel them to explain why it is that their own states have so universally ignored the federal soldier and sent men here who staid at home, never confronted the enemy, nor encountered danger during the war. How well the gallant and brave senator from Illinois (Mr. Logan) understands this. I think I can at this moment read his thoughts. The " home guards " are here in force. We see them all around us. The proper order of things is here reversed. The rear ranks are to the front, and the front ranks have gone to the rear. And now these rear men in war and front men in peace fill all the air with a dismal cry over the injustice which they themselves have inflicted on the soldier. MR. FERRY. Will the senator allow me a moment? MR. VOORHEES. I do not believe that you ought to want to interrupt me, but I will yield, of course. MR. FERRY. Since the senator has volunteered allusion to the state of Michigan, which I have the honor in part to represent, I would suggest to the senator from Indiana that it is hardly in taste that he should criticise that state and other states as represented 238 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. on this side of the chamber when he does not himself, as the rep resentative of his state, set an example. I fail to discover a Union soldier representing the state of Indiana now on this floor. MR. VOORHEES. I am as good a one as you were. MR. FERRY. The Senator will allow me MR. VOORHEES. This is a fine point for a man to make who staid at home with such fidelity as the senator from Michigan did. [Laughter.] MR. FERRY. I was not one who raised the point. The senator from Indiana made the criticism, and I will not follow him in that respect. I may, however, add that the senator himself has no lau rels earned on the battle-field. Nine-tenths of the Union soldiers of Michigan united in choosing me to represent them on the floor of the senate, and that is more than the senator from Indiana can say of the Union soldiers of his own state. I am merely replying to him and saying that it is not in good taste for the senator from Indiana to criticise the state of Michigan and other states when there is not a man who served in the Union army representing the state of Indiana ; and more than that, I would state to the senator that I have scanned the senators who now face me, and there is not a Union officer or a man who served in the Union army on the democratic side, and they are now in the majority on this floor. MR. VOORHEES. Mr. President, I did not raise this point; it was raised in enormous proportions by the senator from New York and others on that side. The senator from Michigan could not have misunderstood me. I stated that I had heard complaint from his own state on this subject. There is where the point came from. I am not for the first time raising it. MR. FERRY. When was it? MR. VOORHEES. I beg pardon. I can not yield further. The point was raised by your own party in fierce declamation here with an appeal to the country against this side of the chamber, and on account of what? On account of a state of things which was within your own party s control; on account of the fact that you have but four men in the senate who were ever under the flag. I am pointing out that in common decency you ought to be silent on the subject, because you have had a hundred chances, taking all the states "THE CONFEDERATE BRIGADIER. " 239 throughout the North together, to remedy the very evil you rail about, and you have not done it. The senator from Michigan says that no Union soldier has been elected from Indiana. I reply, which is good enough as far as it goes, that I am as good a soldier as ever he was, and my colleague I will put against his colleague. So honors are easy in that regard. MR. FERRY rose. MR. VOORHEES. I can not yield now. The senator knows I do not decline out of personal disrespect, but I can not go into a run ning controversy further on this point. MR. FERRY. But when the senator from Indiana MR. VOORHEES. The senator from Michigan knows when I decline to yield he ought not to insist. THE PRESIDING OFFICER. The senator from Indiana declines to yield. MR. VOORHEES. I do it without the slighest personal disre spect, but I laid out for myself a work this afternoon much of which yet remains to be done. A word more, however, in re sponse to the senator s remarks in regard to the fact that Indiana is not represented here at this time by federal soldiers. Nor was she so represented when your party had the Indiana legislature and sent Oliver P. Morton, Daniel D. Pratt, and that class of states men. The republican party in Indiana, with all its clamorous outcry about the soldier and its love for the soldier, always pushed the soldier aside, and sent men here who never faced the enemy. The Union army is as well represented on this floor to-day, so far as Indiana is concerned, as it ever was. When the republican party was in power, before it was broken down by its crimes, its shams, and its hypocrisy, when it controlled legislatures in that state it sent here men of ability and of whom I speak with entire respect, but they were just such distinguished veteran soldiers as the sena tor from Maine and the senator from New York, neither better nor worse. But to proceed. MR. BLAINE rose. MR. VOORHEES. I suppose I shall have to yield. MR. BLAINE. Do I understand the senator from Indiana to 240 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. maintain that himself and his colleague represent the soldier vote of Indiana just as much as Senator Morton did? MR. VOORHEES. Yes, sir, just as much. MR. MCDONALD. I think more. MR. ELAINE. We doubt on that. MR. VOORHEES. Just as much, did as much individually for the safety and comfort of soldiers in hospital and field, more out of our own, means; certainly as much as any other two men in the state, and I am willing for that statement to go home. But let us go on. The senator from Vermont (Mr. Edmunds) is not here. I hope prosperous gales are attending upon the ship that is bearing him abroad. I took a kindly leave of him, and I wish him a pleasant and safe voyage ; yet if he were here I doubt not his voice would be swelling the chorus of assault, because there are more military men on this side of the senate than on the other side. Sir, Vermont has held seven senatorial elections since the war closed. There could not have been any soldiers, I think, in that state, or some one might have been found in seven trials. The state is not large, the population is not extensive. Seven times a senator was called and seven times a civilian answered and was chosen. Seven times the roll of public merit has been called of those who deserved well of their country ; and seven times the eager, hungry, stay-at-home, home-guard politician has rushed to the front, seized the prize, and the soldier has staid at home. He comes not here from Vermont. What I say of Vermont is likewise eminently true of the old Bay State. There have been six senatorial elections in Massachusetts since the war, and where is the face of the bronzed veteran on this floor? Why comes he not? Why does he remain away from these halls? Massachusetts sent, I believe, one hundred and fifty thousand troops to the field, and yet not one is honored by a seat on this floor, and the hearts of the two senators from that state beat in unison with the heart of the bold senator from New York as they all together charge on the democratic party in hot anger because the republican party, almost omnipotent all over the North, has sent here but four men who were Union soldiers, while "THE CONFEDERATE BRIGADIER." 241 the South has sent twenty or thirty I do not know how many, nor do I care who were soldiers on the other side. Sir, I think perhaps I have illustrated this phase of hypocritical politics sufficiently for the present, and, if so, I may pass to an other feature of the same general fraud. The cry is not only that there are too few soldiers of the federal army in congress, but there is a great panic because there are too many of what are called Confederate brigadiers. They are painted as very dangerous char acters ; they are held up to the country for the purpose of alarm ing it. We are to have a shrieking campaign in Ohio; it has now commenced in favor of a man who staid at home and put money in his purse, against two federal soldiers traveling on three legs be tween them, and the issue is the danger of Confederate brigadiers. That is to be the battle-cry of the republican leaders in the great Ohio contest between two Union soldiers on the democratic side with three legs, and a " home-guard " who got rich by the oppor tunities of the war on the other side, the leader of the republican hosts. What a campaign it will be! lean see it now. With banners uplifted, with songs and battle-cries, drum and fife, it is expected to affright the souls of all the good people of Ohio into the support of Foster for fear the election of Ewing and Rice will give over the state to the Confederate brigadiers. Let us see a little further, however, about this dangerous person called the Confederate brigadier. Who first brought him here? Who is responsible for the introduction of the Confederate brigadier to the theater of national politics? Southern gentlemen around me on this floor are here because they thought the country was re stored to its normal relations ; that the states were rehabilitated under the constitution ; that each state had the right to select its own representatives in both branches of congress, and that they were not compelled to ask leave to come of any set of men from any part of the country. Gentlemen, I welcome you. You are right in being here. You are met, however, by a party with a violent unwelcome, with abuse and denunciation hurled as a key-note to party warfare by 16 242 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. the great senator from New York, and followed up by all the sen ators on that side of the chamber. Sir, there is something due to history on this subject. Is the Confederate soldier unfit to take part in the affairs of this govern ment ; or is it in fact only the Confederate soldier who votes the democratic ticket to whom you object? Is it the Confederate sol dier per s&, or does the objection to him only arise when he votes the democratic ticket? If a Confederate soldier votes the republi can ticket, and indorses all the rascality that overwhelmed the South as a deluge during carpet-bagism, do you not embrace him? Tell me when you have ever spewed such a one out of your mouths. Tell me where you ever repulsed him from your warmest and most affectionate political embrace. None such have ever been cast out by the republican party. On the contrary, all such have had seats of dignity and robes of honor assigned. It is but a little while ago since a Confederate brigadier first took part in the control of public affairs. He was invited to do so by the candidate of the stalwarts for the next presidency, General Grant. Grant appointed Brigadier-General Amos T. Akerman, of Georgia, to a seat in his cabinet. A majority of the republican senators sitting here to-day, on their oaths voted to confirm him as the first law officer of this government. They gave it to him to construe the constitution, to interpret the laws, to render decisions binding for years, and perhaps for all time. General Grant put into the hands of Confederate Brigadier-General Amos T. Akerman the portfolio of justice, and a republican senate confirmed him; and why? Not because he was greatly learned in the law. Nor did they object that he had carried a sword, and killed whom he could, under the Confederate flag; he voted the republican ticket, and that was enough ; it washed away all his sins, and made him clean and pure in their eyes, though his sins had been as scarlet before. Another instance nearer home in time and place occurs next to my mind. I know what profound satisfaction I will afford the sena tor from New York (Mr. Conkling) when I pause fora moment to pronounce a eulogy upon the present administration. I know the appreciation which his robust intellect has of the patriotic and com prehensive capacities of the administration now in power. I know, AMBROSE E. BURNSIDE. THE CONFEDERATE BRIGADIER." 243 therefore, he will be grateful to me for calling attention to the fact that although he has arraigned us for the disproportion of Confed erate brigadiers in this body to the Union brigadiers or major-gen erals, yet this favorite administration of his has confided one of its very important cabinet portfolios to another Confederate brigadier, General Key, of Tennessee. I have no word of disparagement for General Key or General Akerman. I am not here to abuse or denounce these men for changing their politics ; they had a right to do so. I do say, how ever, that senators on the other side, after voting to confirm these men for positions of the very highest public importance, have not the shadow of a right to assail us for welcoming the southern sen ators who are on this floor. General Key drew his sword under the flag of the South and fought through the war. He then came to the senate, and while here made a speech. I refer to it now principally to show how much the senator from New York has forgiven, to exhibit that gracious phase of his character which some do not know of as well as I do, to illustrate that his forbearance and charity are as broad as the mantle that covers all sin. General Key spoke just before he was appointed to the place he now holds. Commenting upon that very memorable field of testimony wherein Eliza Pinkston covered herself and the republican party with infamy, and while arraigning John Sherman for being the patron of that paragon of falsehood, the present postmaster-general on this floor, on the i8th day of December, 1876, used this language: And on this testimony, the falsehood of which is so apparent on its face, a state is to be disfranchised, and a president, whom the people never elected, is to be placed in office. I told you, Mr. President, I would prove how generous the charity of the senator from New York has been. Within but a few days of his appointment and confirmation the present postmaster- general not only announced that the present president of the United States was not elected president by the people at all, but further, that there was a plot to foist him into that office by dis franchising a state through the instrumentality of wholesale false hood. He has never recanted this truthful statement that I know 244 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. of. I suppose he has agreed to vote the republican ticket, and doubtless he does so. I presume it was on that condition that a republican senate confirmed this Confederate brigadier with an additional handicap in the shape of the speech I have read from. MR. CONKLING. How does the senator stretch my charity over that? MR. VOORHEES. Because I have never heard that ringing voice which God has given the senator from New York in denunciation of that appointment. I therefore supposed he had condoned the offenses enumerated by me. I think the word " condone " a fit ter word in this connection, all things considered, than "forgive." The senator has been unsparing in his assaults because of our affiliation with the men of the South, while the administration of his party appoints not merely a Confederate brigadier, but one who in this presence said that your president never was elected by the people, that his claim to that great office rested on wholesale falsehood and threatened the disfranchisement of a state. Passing on, however, I invite senators to take a walk with me through the South, starting from the Potomac. I will promise still further to illustrate the shameless, bare-faced, false pretentions of the republican party on this subject. As soon as we cross the Potomac we at once find a federal judge holding an office for life in Virginia. I shall not seek to disparage his ability or his char acter, but he was an original secessionist and the editor of a seces sion paper when the war broke out. I allude, of course, to Judge Hughes. He is now where he construes the laws of the United States throughout a wide expanse of country and over a large and intelligent population. He was appointed by a republican admin istration, confirmed by a republican senate, confirmed by the voices of those who have since hurled their anathemas in our ears because we welcomed you, and you, southern senators, to this floor. They have welcomed Confederate officers to the bench and to the cabinet ; they have welcomed them to foreign missions ; they have welcomed them to official positions of every description, on the one sole condition that they would vote the republican ticket. Party politics controls this whole matter. When they vote the THE CONFEDERATE BRIGADIER." 245 republican ticket they are your brigadiers; when they vote the democratic ticket they are our brigadiers. My purpose must not be misunderstood. I am not producing any of these names here to assault them ; I am simply using them to illustrate a policy so crooked and so outrageous that it deserves exposure, and it shall have it. Here, next, is ..another Virginian, John S. Mosby. Who was John S. Mosby? I know him well. I speak no unkind word of him, yet I can remember when it was a question whether his sur render would be received, whether he would be accepted as a prisoner of war, or whether he should be outlawed from that gen eral amnesty which the government was then extending. There was a time when the name of Mosby shook the fears of men in this capitol. There was a time when it was supposed he fought under a black flag, and that it could sometimes be seen from the dome in the soft sunlight of an afternoon. It was thought that his war fare partook of the nature of the guerilla, and such a belief largely prevails to this hour. But all is forgiven now; not only forgiven, but verily this most offensive Confederate warrior has his rich re ward. He embraced radicalism, and it in turn embraced him. Instead of some wounded federal soldier occupying the position, this republican senate has confirmed John S. Mosby as consul at Hong-Kong, and he is now an American representative to the oldest empire on earth; he is among the Celestials. The traveler in passing through Virginia naturally visits North Carolina next. We will do the same. Thomas Settle, of North Carolina, is now a district judge of the United States, a life office of rank and importance. It is doubtless true that Judge Settle is a competent man ; I am told he is by both the senators from that state, but he was an officer of the Confederate army. He was a secessionist ; he fought the battles of secession ; he turned to be a republican, and was made president of the republican national convention which nominated Grant, in 1872, at Philadelphia. Afterward he was made minister to Peru, and he now occupies a high judicial station. I proclaim here, as far as my voice will go, that the most profitable speculation a man who fought in the Con- "THE CONFEDERATE BRIGADIER." 247 England, France, Germany and Russia; and this Confederate officer received it as his reward for joining the republican party. I know what my friend from Illinois (Mr. Logan) is saying to him self. He is mentally exclaiming, "Would to God that some of my comrades who fought under the old flag could have a great place like that." I can not be mistaken as to what is going on in the breast of that hard-fighting federal soldier. I think even my genial friend from Rhode Island (Mr. Burnside) has his con science somewhat quickened if not entirely aroused on the subject by this time. Colonel Northup, of South Carolina, is now United States dis trict attorney; he was an officer in the Confederate army. We move on again and pause next in Mississippi, the land of the brave and the warm-hearted, as I know, for I have been there; the land of genius, because the senator from Mississippi sitting behind me (Mr. Lamar) has his home there. Let us see how the repub lican party has managed its affairs in that state. Major Morphis was the most prominent scout of General Stephen D. Lee s command, and he is now the United States marshal for the northern district of Mississippi. Captain G. W. Hunt was an aid to General Hardee, and he is now the United States marshal for the southern district of Missis sippi. Ah! how the good things come to the regenerate! Thomas Walton I knew him ; he is in his grave, and peace to his ashes was an aid to General Longstreet. He was appointed United States district attorney ; and after his death he was suc ceeded by Green Chandler, a Confederate officer who was at that time United States mail agent, and is now United States district attorney in the place of Walton, deceased. Colonel G. W. Henderson was a colonel of cavalry in General Chalmer s division. He is now receiving the reward of his serv ices as a United States revenue collector ; and in order to make you feel proud of your party in Mississippi, and to finish up my work properly, it only remains for me to state that the republican candidate for state auditor in 1875 was Captain Buchanan, captain in the Second Missouri Cavalry at Fort Pillow. He is said, ac cording to all accounts, to have fought fiercely in that memorable 248 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. battle. Yet he received all the votes the republican party had to give as well as the prayers of his northern friends who could not get to the polls to vote for him. With what devout aspiration the senator from Maine hoped for his success, and I have no doubt he could get up now and prove that he would have been elected if his supporters had not been bulldozed. Yes, he was a captain fighting at Fort Pillow under the Confed erate flag. The leaders of the republican party standing here as the representatives of indignant loyalty against Confederate briga diers take to their bosoms this Confederate officer who bathed his sword in the blood of Fort Pillow ! I have heard of the means of grace. I used when a boy to at tend camp-meetings. I have heard the richest outpourings of the gospel. I have heard grace described as a fountain flowing in boundless beauty and eternal and illimitable wealth. I have lis tened when it was claimed that this grace washed away all stains, cleansed the murderer s soul on the gallows, purified and gave peace to the guiltiest conscience ever called shivering and quaking with fear from this world to the world beyond ; but I have never before heard of a fountain of grace so wide, so deep, so exhaust- less, so spontaneous in its unceasing flow as that of the republican party to Confederate officers if they will only vote the republican ticket ! Take next Louisiana, that fated region of riot, disorder, and stupendous unveracity. We have known it long as the land of the magnolia and the cypress; we know it now as the land also of stalwart liars, as disclosed within the last few weeks in this capitol. Let the curtain be raised and let us look at some federal officials in Louisiana. We see one who was long in office there and who has made a great and bloody figure in history; a man of commanding military capacity General James Longstreet. General Grant made him surveyor of the port of New Orleans, took his bloody hand in his, not only forgave but rewarded him, not only wel comed him but said, " Come up higher." Who was Longstreet? I have heard one who commanded a corps in the Wilderness speak of that dreadful shock of battle when his corps encountered Longstreet s, and the blood ran in rivulets. I "THE CONFEDERATE BRIGADIER." 249 No braver, harder fighter ever drew sword or encountered an enemy than Longstreet. He was educated for a soldier by his government, and he cost it more lives than any other one man who commanded no more than a corps in the Confederate army. Who was Longstreet at Gettysburg and at Antietam? An educated American soldier fighting with desperate courage to establish an independent government. When the history of the late sectional war shall be written, along side of the names of Gordon and Stonewall Jackson, of Joseph E. Johnston and Albert Sydney Johnston, will be written in living let ters the military achievements of James Longstreet. Yet nothing stood between him and civil preferment the moment he was willing to turn his back upon his old comrades who had shared with him the bloody charge, the nightly bivouac, and the overwhelming dis aster that fell upon them all at the close. And am I to sit still in my seat and hear hourly reproaches from the mouths of men who confirmed James Longstreet to a civil office, because this side of the chamber is composed in part of those who were in the same contest by his side? No, sir, I do not propose to do it. I propose to appeal for fairness, for com mon honesty, and common decency to the country upon this ques tion. I do not intend that the record shall be made up in the in terest of injustice. It is not in the power of republican senators to make it up in the way they propose, for the truth is not their way. Their accusations shall recoil on their own heads. Their charges rest upon false foundations. If there is guilt at all on this subject the leaders of the republican party are themselves the guilty parties. Other officers may be cited in Louisiana. Colonel Wharton is United States marshal. He was a Confederate officer. Colonel William H. Hough is a district judge, Mr. Leonard is a United States district attorney, Colonel Smith is postmaster at Baton Rouge, George B. Johnson was late auditor, Alexander Boarman is United State judge, General P.O. Hebert was in office as one of the levee commissioners under General Grant. All these were officers in the Confederate army. I can not dwell, however, longer on Louisiana. I turn for a mo ment to Alabama. W T ho was Judge Humphreys, who is now of 250 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. the judiciary of this District? Is there any office of more impor tance than a judicial office? Who was Judge Humphreys? He raised a regiment for the Confederate service. He had, however, only to join the republican party and he was at once appointed one of the judges of the supreme court of this District, where he now sits. He was confirmed by republican senators, who now prate about the presence of Confederate brigadiers in the public service. I could proceed on this theme almost without limit. I could dwell upo*n federal appointees in other states and territories, but I shall forbear for the present. Some days ago I received a news paper, published at my own home by a gentleman whose birth, training, and education all make him a republican upon every issue between the North and South. He was himself a soldier, and no braver or better one than Major Smith went to the front from Indiana. He tasted all the horrors of the war on the field and in prison. In speaking of the political issues now presented he indulges in the following article, which I will venture to read: THE CONFEDERATE BRIGADIER. The Confederate brigadier is looming up to considerable importance as a po litical issue in the North. Republican politicians are urging it with as much persistence as they did the false issue of " southern war claims " a few years ago. The timid ones those who staid at home during the war and, on govern ment contracts, furnished the soldiers at the front with stale rations and shoddy clothing at full price greatly fear the Confederate brigadier. As all this trump ery about paying the rebel debt and pensioning the rebel soldiers was made use of in the political campaigns of the past, so will the Confederate brigadier be utilized in those of the future. The campaigning on Confederate brigadiers is a new style of bloody shirt a new political issue intended for those whose fear, not understanding, influences their votes. The fact that there are more rebel soldiers in congress than Union soldiers shows that the South thinks more of her military heroes than the North does of hers. The North has as many brigadiers as the South, men, too, of eminent ability, and if she does not send them to congress it is her own fault. That is what I have been trying to impress on my patient listen ers. If there is danger to be apprehended from the southern brigadier in congress, why not send the northern brigadier there to meet him ? The northern briga dier met him successfully on the battle-field, and his ability to meet him in con gress can not be doubted. But the North prefers to send national bankers to congress to face them, and then cry " Confederate brigadier" in the ears of the timid and ignorant. The North has forty-four members in the senate, and only four of them Union soldiers ; the South has thirty-two, and nineteen were rebel soldiers. For a long "THE CONFEDERATE BRIGADIER." 251 time the North only had two Union soldiers in the senate, and this, too, when she has so many whose abilities entitle them to any position. The North has only nine per cent, of her representation in the senate soldiers, while the South has fifty-nine per cent, of hers. And a republican president has appointed nearly as many rebel soldiers to his cabinet as he has Union soldiers. Just the same in the cabinet, one to one the interior and post- office department. The head of one was in the federal army and the other in the Confederate army. MR. CONKLING. What do you say of the attorney-general? MR. VOORHEES. What do I say? MR. CONKLING. Of General Devens? MR. VOORHEES. I never heard of his doing anything particu larly except returning a fugitive slave, for which Wendell Phillips scored him so unmercifully afterward. MR. BURNSIDE. General Devens was one of the most distin guished soldiers in the army. MR. VOORHEES. He was? Then 1 beg his pardon and credit this administration with having a majority of federal soldiers in the cabinet; that is a majority over the Confederates. If there is any comfort in that, take it. This writer continues: The chief inference to be drawn from this is that the republican party has not been extremely solicitous to put the Union soldier in office. I think not. That is what I have been saying, and that all the outcry on the subject from republican sources is a sham : The sure republican states have the smallest number of soldiers in congress. Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Nevada, Colorado, Oregon and Delaware have no soldiers in the house of representatives, nor, in fact, in congress at all, except Rhode Island, which persists in keeping Burnside in the senate. MR. BURNSIDE. One of the members in the house from Rhode Island was in the army. MR. VOORHEES. All right. This writer continues: It will be noticed that all but two of these states are republican, solidly so, and in them the soldier is pushed aside for the lawyer and the banker. New York, Massachusetts and Rhode Island have a greater number of lawyers and bankers in congress, in proportion to representation, than any other state. Now I desire at this point to say a word for the comfort of my friend from Rhode Island. Of all the six New England states the 252 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY, litttle state of Rhode Island is the only one that does herself the honor to send a soldier to this body. I am glad to see him here; he adorns the position he occupies. It is refreshing in view of the conduct of republican legislatures in New England that Rhode Island does send a soldier here. I have a kind feeling for Rhode Island for two reasons : She sheltered Roger Williams when he fled from the barbarism of bigotry in Massachusetts. Under his inspiration she established religious liberty and maintained it after ward. This can only be said of the early history of two other states Catholic Maryland and Quaker Pennsylvania. Roger Williams established the Baptist church and free worship for all in Rhode Island. This is one reason for liking that state. The other is that she has sent my friend to the senate, a conspicuous illustration of the general infidelity of the republican party in New England toward the Union soldier, for none comes from any other state. Mr. President, I have detained the senate much longer than I desired to do; but I did not intend, if I could help it, that this session should terminate until the country had placed before it, in my poor humble way though it be, the actual facts in regard to the treatment of the soldiers of both the federal and Confederate armies by the republican party. You have appointed a fewer number of federal soldiers to office than the democratic party when it has had the power. There are more federal civil officers to-day from the Confederate army than there are senators on this floor who served in that army, and they were appointed by republican administrations and confirmed by republican senators. REPEAL OF THE PURCHASING CLAUSE OF THE " SHERMAN ACT SILVER AND GOLD MUST BE OUR COIN STANDARD A speech inaugurating, as chairman of the committee on finance, the debate upon the bill for the repeal of the purchasing clause of an act approved July 14, 1890, entitled "An act directing the purchase of silver bullion and the issue of treasury notes thereon, and for other purposes," commonly known as the " Sher man act," delivered in the senate of the United States, August 22, 1893. R. PRESIDENT Congress has been convened in extraordinary session and under extraordinary cir cumstances. It is undoubtedly true that the calm, unbiased public opinion of the great body of the American people, irrespective of parties, justifies the action of the executive in assembling the legislative branch of the government at this time, and yet the causes which have made such action necessary are, I think, widely and dangerously misunder stood, and by certain classes purposely and persistently misrepre sented. I have conceived, therefore, that a few plain words in this connection, embracing a careful and candid look at the pres ent financial condition of the country in its general as well as in its special features, and spoken in no spirit of strife or controversy, may not be unfit for this striking occasion. For the last five months and a little more, the cry of the pes simist, the voice of the prophet of financial evil, and the wail of the apostle of national bankruptcy have all been heard in the land. The sounds of warning and menace against the authorities of this government have gone up from all those financial centers where money, its gains and its powers, constitute the chief objects of human worship, and from those centers have also emanated the cruel edicts of great financial corporations, commanding a stern contraction of the currency, a sudden and harsh shrinkage in its (253) 254 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. circulation, and the consequent inauguration of a panic, a distress period in the public mind. Sir, no candid observer of existing public facts can believe that this attempted panic and business distress has been inspired by any real fear, or genuine want of confidence in the credit of the government, or in the soundness and stability of its various kinds of currency. It is true that amongst the ugly assets of a former ad ministration which came over on the 4th of last March were an empty treasury and the record of a billion-dollar congress in its expenditures, but despite so heavy a handicap the public credit of the United States has not faltered for a single moment, nor has the faith of the civilized world been lessened by the breadth of a hair in American honor and American resources, in this year of 1893, and in the custody of the administration now in power. The national credit of the American republic, tried by every test which can be applied, is better and stronger to-day than the credit of any other government on the globe. Her bonds, her promis sory notes to pay her debts, as they may be called, bearing a low rate of interest, stand at a premium in the money markets of the whole earth, and even the cold, cowardly instinct of hoarded, in active, interest-hunting capital, in its cautious search for perma nent investments, seizes upon them with swift greed wherever they can be found. The safety of the security appeases somewhat even the usurer s highly-seasoned appetite for richer profits. Not only do the traffickers in money and the permanent investors of capital hunger and thirst after all the government bonds now in ex istence, but their chief complaint against the present administration is that the president and his very able secretary of the treasury have refused their demand to issue at least three hundred mill-ions more. This additional block of national indebtedness, increasing in a time of profound peace the interest-eating burdens of Ameri can labor, would be hailed with the keenest delight and swept with miserly enjoyment and avidity into unpatriotic vaults by the very parties who have most loudly and continuously declared, ever since the present administration came into power, that the credit of the government was in deadly peril and its treasury practically bankrupt. REPEAL OF PURCHASING CLAUSE OF "SHERMAN ACT." 255 Sir, there are many and powerful reasons, plain to the thought ful mind, why at this time our financial credit as a nation is strong er, more permanent, and freer from future danger than ever be fore, and far safer than that of any other of the great powers of the world. The mighty rock on which American credit now rests is the absolute unity of purpose on the part of the American peo ple that it shall be upheld. For the first time since 1820, when sectional discord startled the country like a fire bell ringing in the night, there is a perfect union of design and of patriotic effort be tween the people of all the states in behalf of the honor, the power, the dignity and the glory of the republic. Peace, content, repose, and fraternal confidence have taken the place of sectional strife and distrust forever. There are no mental reservations now, not the slightest friction of interest or of feeling as we move forward in the pathway of pub lic duty. All eyes are bent in the same direction; all prayers as cend for the welfare of a common country ; all the ends and aims we have are bound together and linked to a single destiny. No one now but a political madman could deem a political contest in this country ever again possible on lines of sectional animosity; nor does there linger in the public opinion of the world the slight est trace of doubt that the people of all the sections are the same in their pride as American citizens and in their jealous love for the name and fame of their government, for its unsullied honor and high bearing among the nations of the earth. Let those who are looking with anxiety on this extra session of the fifty-third congress, whether they are here at close range, or at distant points in the United States or in Europe, dismiss their unfounded fears, banish the imaginary dangers and evils which they have conjured up, and rest thoroughly assured that the finan cial credit of this government was never quite so secure as at the present hour. The task of its maintenance ought not to be a dif ficult one. The public credit of every government on the map of Europe is unceasingly threatened by the shadows of coming wars, and financial resources there are constantly weakened by vast standing armies and permanent navies. We are not only a united people among ourselves, but through- 256 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. out all the wide earth there are none to molest or make us afraid of war or rumors of war. Nothing within the range of reasonable conjecture can be more improbable than war between this govern ment and any foreign power. In Europe there are none but an tagonistic and distrustful neighbors ; the natural and inevitable sel fishness of nations makes them so. The providence of history, the conformation of continents, the geography of the earth and seas, have all combined to give the American republic a widely different and more fortunate career. None but friendly neighbors will ever touch her tremendous boundaries. The two oceans on the east and on the west are her gigantic and unsubsidized allies in the world s advancement, and those who dwell on her northern and southern borders have no desire to break the peace to their own overthrow. Alone, as it were, the Colossus of the western hemisphere, and towering up in isolated power and glory, her limitless material resources are sometimes overlooked in summarizing the elements of her financial strength. Nature has here endowed a free people with wealth more prolific, more infinite in variety, and more inexhaustible than was ever before disclosed in the annals of the human race. We hear at all times of the boasted commerce of Great Britain and other European powers engaged in carrying the productions of the entire world. Sir, it may be stated as a fact that the interstate commerce of the United States alone is greater in value than all the foreign commerce and carrying trade of Great Britain, Germany, France, Austria, Holland, Russia, and Belgium put together. With abso lute freedom of trade between the states, an equitable exchange of their productions has taken place according to the wants and neces sities of producers and consumers. Developments of wealth on the farm lands, in the manufactories, in the rich canons of the mountains, on the mighty rivers, along the vast ocean borders and on the inland seas of this favored country have consequently fol lowed in such profusion and magnificence as to dwarf into insignifi cance the achievements of every other age, race, or nation. If our foreign trade has not kept pace with our domestic com merce, the reason is open before us in our statutes. Legislation REPEAL OF PURCHASING CLAUSE OF "SHERMAN ACT." 257 avowedly unfriendly to trade with foreign countries, placing their productions under the ban of our displeasure, ordering them away from our ports by prohibitory tariffs, can have but one result on the foreign commerce of the United States. Ungracious and for bidding to others, we have no right to expect others to be gracious and friendly in trade to us. We have not to-day a commercial friend in the world. Nobody abroad seeks our trade unless under some sort of compulsion. Nobody in Europe, Asia, or Africa will buy a bushel or a pound of our breadstuffs or our meats if they can get what they want anywhere else. Human nature governs nations as well as individuals, and for every law we enact denying to foreign productions a place in our markets on fair terms, and announcing that we decline all com mercial friendships, we may be certain of an injurious blow in return from every trading people in the world. But I have abun dant faith that the giant evil which has restricted and crippled our foreign commerce and closed foreign markets, or made them hostile to the productions of the American farmer, will be removed with other evils which challenge our consideration and action. In the meantime, if farmers, mechanics, merchants, intelligent bankers, and even Wall street brokers and stock gamblers, will study the true greatness and the inevitable and invincible future of their country in the light of the last census, they will learn that financial panics and alarms can have no real foundation here, and must pass away, like vapors before the sun, notwithstanding a vicious law may now and then temporarily disturb the public mind. But there is yet another, and exceedingly sensitive and power ful, test of our government credit, which, in this connection, asserts its claim, not only to the trust and admiration of the American people, but also to the business confidence and respect of every civilized nation beneath the sun. Money is simply a medium of exchange of values, furnished in this country by the government for the business transactions of its people. Money has no other origin or power to exist in the United States than is to be found specifically granted by the constitution. Let all the vague and chimerical delusions which in some minds 17 2 5 8 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. always haunt this subject with mysterious and intangible talk about the source and derivation of money be dismissed at once and for ever. In the heavens above, nor in the earth below, is there any power to make a dollar for the American people, whether it be in gold, silver, or paper, except the power of the American congress. Money is the creature and congress its creator. Gold and its alleged intrinsic value goes for naught as a circulating medium un less the coin bears the stamp of the government a stamp more powerful than the grasp of the lion s paw or the eagle s claw in bestowing life and activity on a dead and otherwise useless mate rial. The same official stamp on silver, or on paper, at once ennobles them to an equality with gold in purchasing power, no matter how debased, how degraded, or how valueless the silver or the paper may have become as commodities by sinister and unwise legislation. Sir, I hold in my hand the government s official statement, made July I, 1893, f its various kinds of currency now circulating by its authority as money in the hands of the American people. It will doubtless sound strange to some ears that there are nine different currencies here described as now engaged in transacting the busi ness of this country, and to a large extent the business of the world. The amount of each kind coined or issued is here put down, how much remains in the treasury, and how much of each is in circula tion. This table carries with it a lesson of profound importance, and is entitled to the gravest consideration. Statement showing the amotmts of gold and silver coins and certificates, United States notes and national bank notes in circulation July 1, 1893. General stock coined or issued. In Treasury. Amount in circulation July 1, 1893. Amount in circulation July 1, 1892. Gold coin $513,743,623 $110,109,923 $403,633,700 $408,767,740 Standard silver dollars Subsidiary silver Gold certificates. 419,332,450 77,256,212 94,041,189 362,302,707 11,855,944 1,071,170 57,029,743 65,400,268 92,970,019 56,799,484 62,386,518 141,235,:9 Silver certificates Treasury notes, act July 14, 1890 United States notes 330,957,504 147,190,227 346,681,016 4,468,339 6,528,5:33 25,805,333 326,489,165 140,661,694 320,875,683 326,880,803 98,051,657 311,814,840 Currency certificates, act June 8, 1872 National bank notes 12,365,000 178,713,872 430,000 3,982,733 11,935,000 174,731,139 29,830,000 167,306,957 Total . . . $2,120,281,093 $526,554,682 $1,593,726,411 $1,603,073,338 REPEAL OF PURCHASING CLAUSE OF "SHERMAN ACT." 259 In it will be found, circulating at this time, a currency of gold amounting to over $400,000,000, and a currency of silver dollars and of subsidiary silver amounting in the aggregate to nearly $500,- 000,000; a currency of gold certificates and a currency of silver certificates ; a currency of treasury notes authorized by the act of July 14, 1890, and a currency of certificates authorized by the act of June 8, 1872 ; a currency of national bank notes, and a currency of United States notes, or, in other words, the well-known green backs created more than thirty years ago, and protected and pre served at $346,681,016 by the act of May 31, 1878. So uniform in purchasing and debt-paying power are all these currencies, so in harmony with each other, and so interchangeable at even and equal rates, that hardly one-half of them are generally known to exist. If one kind of our circulating, purchasing, and debt-paying me diums ranked below the others in practical use, there would be friction and confusion at once in every channel of trade and busi ness. The creative power of congress, however, as defined by the constitution, underlies and supports every American dollar in ex istence, and it has proved impossible for the most determined assaults of interested and powerful classes, on any one of our currencies, to shake the faith of the American people in the credit and honor of their government. National credit has been tested by the smooth and harmonious circulation of our nine separate currencies, and has met the ordeal in a manner to awaken the pride of every pa triotic American heart. It is, indeed, a historical fact, fraught with extreme significance and importance, that no branch or part of our national currency was ever at a discount, or stood below a parity with the best in circulation, except it was first discredited and dishonored by the government itself. This happened once, and only once, in Ameri can history, and it will never happen again. Provision was made in the memorable year of 1862 for the purchase of government bonds with a depreciated currency for the benefit of capitalists seeking investments, and who could be induced in no other way to support their government in the hour of its deadliest peril. The greenback currency was authorized, and everybody required to take it in payment of debts except the government which created it. 260 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. The bar sinister was written on its escutcheon when it was made non-receivable for customs duties and interest on the public debt ; when it was stripped of the highest functions of money in the hands of the citizen, and stood in open disgrace before the world. In that condition it became an instrument of gigantic wrong and oppression on the laboring masses of the American people. For every dollar received by the government an obligation was issued to pay in the long run more than two, and the people of the United States are still engaged in carrying out this unjust and dis honest arrangement. What a striking contrast to American states manship in 1862 was presented by the statesmanship of France when crushed to the earth in the Franco-Prussian war in 1870. France issued her assignats with full legal-tender power for all kinds of debts, and based them on national honor and national re sources. They never wavered in the storm; they never sunk be low gold, and France maintained, as she has ever since, the strongest financial credit in Europe. The American greenback, however, has had its full revenge for all the indignities once heaped upon it. In the midst of obloquy, opprobrious epithets, threats of total destruction wherewith its interested enemies assailed it fifteen years ago, the greenback currency was again touched by the power of the government, this time with respect ; and by the authority of law it has remained in circulation ever since, always on an easy level with the best money in existence, whatever that might be. This once despised and slandered currency is now in the pockets of the people, perpetuated by act of congress, guaranteed by the public credit, and defying the impotent rage of its enemies. I have referred to its well-known career and to its present useful and honorable existence in order to still further illustrate and empha size the power and the duty of the government in furnishing a sound, reliable, and constitutional money for the use of the people. But, sir, at this point we are confronted by a law without prece dent or parallel in American history, a law which for months past has been the theme of all tongues and pens, and in whose name financial panic, alarm and distress have been invoked, and for whose repeal this congress has been convened. The origin of the Sherman act, its motives, and the object it was designed to accom- REPEAL OF PURCHASING CLAUSE OF "SHERMAN ACT." 26 1 plish, claim especial consideration in reaching a conclusion as to its merits. Its author, the distinguished senator from Ohio, has repeatedly and quite recently explained the end he had in view in its enactment. A bill for the free coinage of silver had passed the senate by the great majority of sixteen, and then the measure, since known by the name of the senator from Ohio, was brought forward and ten dered to the representatives of the states having silver bullion to sell, as a compromise in lieu of the great victory they had just obtained. In an evil hour, the worst and darkest that ever befell the cause of bimetallism, or the honor and existence of silver mon ey, this pernicious compromise was accepted and fastened on the country. The senator from Ohio, it is true, now claims credit for his repeated assertion of late that there has never been an hour since the compromise was effected that he has not stood ready to violate it by voting for its repeal. In other words, having induced the producers of silver to sur render their right to its free coinage at the mints in exchange for the right to sell 4,500,000 ounces per month of bullion to the gov ernment, the senator from Ohio and his followers on that side of the chamber have been willing and anxious ever since to break the compact, repeal the consideration on which the compromise was made, and leave their victims of misplaced confidence from the Pacific coast and mountain ranges empty-handed, without either the privilege to coin their silver or even to sell it as a mercantile commodity to the government. The dog in the fable, letting go the meat he already had for the shadow which looked larger, made no greater mistake than did the silver states when they supported the Sherman act as a substitute for legitimate free coinage. The act was not intended in good faith for the coinage of silver at all. On the contrary, it emanated from the enemies of silver money, and its purpose was to degrade, dishonor, and disgrace this one of the precious metals until it could no longer hold its place with gold as a part of the specie basis of this country and of the world. In reducing silver to a merchantable commodity, placing it on a level with corn, wheat, cotton, tobacco, and other productions of 262 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. the field and farm, issuing treasury certificates on it according to its market value, there could be but one effect on the rank, dig-- o nity, honor, and stability of silver as one of the great money metals. It reeled and staggered under the blow, until now its enemies pre dict with joy its speedy and total destruction. Sir, I speak in no partisan vein to-day, and yet it is with great satisfaction I find from the record that not a single vote on this side of the chamber was cast for the act which bears the name of the senator from Ohio to such a peculiar eminence. The vote by yeas and nays, by which this most dangerous makeshift ever known in our financial history passed this body, appears as follows : Yeas Aldrich, Allen, Allison, Blair, Casey, Cullom, Davis, Dawes, Dixon, Dolph, Edmunds, Evarts, Farwell, Frye, Hawley, Higgins, Hiscock, Hoar, Ingalls, Jones of Nevada, McMillan, Manderson, Mitchell, Moody, Pettigrew, Pierce, Platt, Plumb, Power, Quay, Saunders, Sawyer, Sherman, Spooner, Squire, Stewart, Stockbridge, Washburn, Walcott 39. Nays Barbour, Bate, Blackburn, Call, Carlisle, Cockrell, Coke, Colquitt, Daniel, Faulkner, Gibson, Gorman, Hampton, Harris, Jones of Arkansas, Kenna, McPherson, Pasco, Pugh, Ransom, Reagan, Turpie, Vance, Vest, Voorhees, Walthall 26. Let the grave responsibility for the violation of every sound principle of finance which such measure creates be met before the American people by those who are shown by the record to have assumed it. As a firm, unfaltering believer in bimetallism, and as an undeviating supporter of the coinage and use of both gold and silver as the standard money of the country, without discrimina tion against either metal, I voted against the passage of the Sher man act, and for the same reason I shall vote for its repeal. The outcry in certain quarters at this time that those who vote for the repeal of this measure are enemies of silver as money, and in favor of its demonetization, is not only false, so far as I am concerned, but, in the light of what has happened in the past, it is absurd. Beginning with the first speech I made in this body, and down to the present hour, I can recall no vote or word on the subject of the coinage and circulation of silver which I would now change or blot from the record if I could. And now in this, the darkest day REPEAL OF PURCHASING CLAUSE OF "SHERMAN ACT." 263 ever known for silver amongst civilized people since Abraham, the Hebrew prince, paid 400 shekels " current money with the mer chant " for a resting place for the beloved Sara, I avow my un shaken faith that it will remain forever one of the world s great and potential factors of finance, commerce, traffic, and daily busi ness transactions. It will neither be demonetized nor driven away from the habita tions of the laboring masses of mankind. It has come down to us from immemorial ages, and it will continue to exist as one of the precious metals, upholding the credit of nations and bringing bless ings to the sons and daughters of toil when the scenes through which we are now passing have grown dim in the light and prog ress of distant centuries. I shall vote to repeal the Sherman act as I would remove a dead fly from a box of sweet ointment, as I would abate a nuisance, and wipe out an obstruction to rational, wholesome leglislation. It taints and vitiates our entire financial system, and destroys confidence in all business transactions every hour it remains a part of our laws. Often the question has been asked whether a vote should be given for its unconditional repeal, or whether, before it goes, something in the way of a substitute must be agreed upon to take its place. Sir, I would at once eradicate this confessed evil, this univer sally condemned enactment, from the body of our laws, with no other condition than my right and free agency to support and to secure in connection with its repeal or afterwards by an inde pendent measure, as the success of its immediate repeal, the primary duty of the hour, may at the time dictate a sound financial system, embracing the coinage of silver on an equality with gold. In making this statement I only repeat the declaration of the dem ocratic party in national convention at Chicago in June, 1892, and on which the American people restored to the presidency one of the strongest, ablest, purest and most patriotic characters ever known in American history. That declaration, containing as it does the concensus of democratic opinion from every state and ter ritory in the Union, may be heard at this time again with profit and advantage: 264 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. We denounce the republican legislation known as the Sherman act of 1890 as a cowardly makeshift That is no reflection on the courage of the senator from Ohio, for that is too well known ; but we go on to say fraught with possibilities of danger in the future which should make all its sup porters, as well as its author, anxious for its speedy repeal. We hold to the use of both gold and silver as the standard money of the country, and to the coinage of both gold and silver without discriminating against either metal, or charge for mintage, but the dollar unit of coinage for both metals must be of equal intrinsic or exchangeable value, or be adjusted through international agreement, or by such safeguards of legislation as shall insure the maintenance of the parity of the two metals and the equal power of every dollar at all times in the markets and in the payment of debts; and we demand that all paper currency shall be kept at par with and redeemable in such coin. We insist upon this policy as especially necessary for the protection of the farmers and laboring classes, the first and most defenseless victims of unstable money and a fluctuating currency. It will here be seen that the united democracy of the country, fourteen months ago, in formal convention assembled, denounced the Sherman act, which had degraded silver to a commodity, de manded its repeal, and declared in the strongest language in favor of the coinage of both the precious metals on fair and honest terms of absolute equality. But the record made on this subject in the momentous year of 1892 does not stop at this point. Grover Cleveland, the great leader of his party then, and the great chief magistrate of the whole people now, in accepting his nomination, addressed the public in well remembered terms, which have been in nowise changed, modified, or contradicted by the singularly able message delivered a few days ago to this body. His language was as follows : The people are entitled to sound and honest money, abundantly sufficient in volume to supply their business needs. But whatever may be the form of the people s currencv, national or state, whether gold, silver or paper, it should be so regulated and guarded by governmental action, or by wise and careful laws, that no one can be deluded as to the certainty and stability of its value. Every dol lar put into the hands of the people should be of the same intrinsic value or pur chasing power. With this condition absolutely guaranteed, both gold and silver can be safely utilized upon equal terms in the adjustment of our own currency. MR. STEWART rose. MR. VOORHEES. I shall have to decline in advance. I can not be interrupted to-day. This is not the kind of a speech for inter ruptions, and I shall have to appeal to the chair. REPEAL OF PURCHASING CLAUSE OF "SHERMAN ACT." 265 THE VICE-PRESIDENT. The senator from Indiana declines to be interrupted. MR. STEWART. I should like to ask the senator a question. MR. VOORHEES. I will say to the senator now that he will have plenty of chances at me. I shall be a naked object here. I expect to remain for some time, and will answer all questions as far as I can. I hope I may have a little peace to-day for about an hour. Sir, this statement of President Cleveland of the duty of the gov ernment toward the American people is embraced in four brief sen tences, and yet it contains every sound, wholesome, enduring principle of finance ever known in the history of the most prosper ous nations of the earth. "Sound and honest money, abundantly sufficient in volume," " gold, silver and paper," "regulated and guarded by governmental action," " by wise and careful laws," "securing certainty and stability" in the people s currency, guar anteeing that every dollar put into the hands of the people should be of the same intrinsic or purchasing power," and then upon these sure and everlasting foundations the use of both gold and silver in the adjustment of our currency is squarely indorsed and recom mended. Where in the annals of financial legislation can be found a wiser, a stronger, a more comprehensive monetary system, or one more richly freighted with blessings to the laboring masses of mankind, than is here so briefly and so powerfully depicted? Who dares in the face of the clear and explicit words which I have just read to charge that their author is a monometallist in disguise, a believer in the use of gold and gold alone, but wearing, for the sake of an election to the presidency, a bimetallic mask? Sir, who has the hardihood to assert or to insinuate that Grover Cleveland is a dissembler, a man who conceals his opinions or dis positions under a false appearance; a hypocrite, practicing decep tion upon his countrymen in order to gratify his personal ambition ? On the contrary, his fearless frankness in the expression of his views on all public questions without regard to their effect upon himself has long been conceded by friend and foe to be the lead ing characteristic of his mind. Lord Bacon says: It is the weakest sort of politicians that are the greatest dissemblers. 266 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. I think it will be admitted by all that Mr. Cleveland belongs to the strongest and not the weakest school of political thought and action. The secret of his immense strength with the plain masses of the American people has long since been solved. By his bold, clear utterances, followed by his manly and direct action, he has inspired universal and absolute confidence, from one ocean to the other, in his perfect integrity of purpose, in his unfaltering patriot ism, his supreme love of country, as well as in his stalwart and commanding ability. If I am reminded that he did not repeat his letter of acceptance in his recent message, recommending the repeal of the Sherman act, my answer is, that while such a reassertion of his well-known views would have gratified many worthy and well-meaning people, yet it was not necessary on his part in order to retain the confi dence of the people that he was in favor of the coinage and use of both gold and silver on terms which would insure a parity in their values. He has never recalled, retracted, or explained away a single word of his letter accepting the nomination for the presi dency. His assurances in that letter are to-day alive and in force, and as binding this hour as they were when first given to the world ; and I hereby declare that I am willing to stand or fall by my faith in the truth and honor of Grover Cleveland and in his well-known fidelity to pledges when once they are made. [Ap plause in the galleries.] THE VICE-PRESIDENT. The chair desires to remind the occu pants of the galleries that a repetition of this offense will cause the galleries to be cleared instantly. MR. VOORHEES. Sir, I also invoke in this connection the hon ored name of the secretary of the treasury. John G. Carlisle is the peer in intellect and spotless integrity of any of the illustrious statesmen who have held the folio of finance since the treasury de partment was created, including Alexander Hamilton, its first sec retary. I make no mistake in placing him as a bimetallist, con curring fully with the president in support of a bimetallic system of coinage. As a democrat, as an American citizen, as a man loving and believing in justice, fair play, and common sense, I appeal to those REPEAL OF PURCHASING CLAUSE OF " SHERMAN ACT." 267 around me, and to the great body of the people, to know whom we can trust, whom we can believe, if we are to turn our backs, at such a time as this, on such men as Grover Cleveland and John G. Carlisle? Sir, the terms, conditions, and ratios fixing the intrinsic or in terchangeable value of these two metals have always from the earliest ages been matters of detail, and will so continue; but the great, paramount fact has been declared and established in the most solemn and overwhelming manner by the voice and votes of the American people within the last year that silver shall not be demonetized, that one-half the specie basis of the world shall not be destroyed, that the volume of paper money now in circulation for the payment of labor and the products of labor shall not be contracted, with their consent, to the basis of monometallism, and to the standard and the existence of gold alone. It is not my pur pose at this time to discuss the details of coinage, or the number of grains of each of the precious metals which should go into the different coins of silver and gold. Let it be distinctly understood, however, not only by the Ameri can people of every class, calling, and condition, but also by the people of every nation with whom we have commercial relations, that a fair and honest ratio will be established and maintained by the American congress, and that neither the one nor the other of the two metals will be dismissed from the public service. We will omit no honorable effort to induce foreign governments to unite with us in achieving, by international agreement, this great and gigantic blessing for the human race ; but let it be distinctly under stood now and for all time to come that the laboring, debt-paying masses of this country, constituting nine-tenths of the people, will never, under any circumstances, consent to double the debts of debtors and double the claims of creditors by destroying one-half the money authorized by the constitution with which debts may rightfully be paid. It is well also to remember that the American republic is a gov ernment of the people, whatever may be true of other nations, and that here on American soil no system of public policy can stand, or ought to stand, which does not rest on the consent of the gov- 268 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. erned. Nor will I hesitate to say to those who are now urging the adoption of monometallism, with gold alone as a standard, and a specie basis for all our currency, to the exclusion and extinction of silver money, that, by virtue of their great powers of self-govern ment, the people at the very earliest opportunity will tear down and utterly annihilate such an oppressive and destructive system of finance, should it ever be established. Sir, the peculiar relations which the silver-producing states and territories of the country bear to the question now under consider ation can not be overlooked, and ought not to be misunderstood. Not less than five states and three territories are richly endowed with the precious metals, and, indeed, all that vast and magnifi cent region of wealth and power from the Rocky Mountains and the upper waters of the Mississippi to the Pacific Ocean, and from our Mexican boundary to the British possessions, is in close affinity of interest as well as of feeling on this subject. Every American heart swells with pride in contemplating the gigantic progress and development there accomplished. Under the guidance of that supreme and overshadowing Provi dence which shapes and dictates the history of nations, the dis covery of gold and silver, those mighty talismans of the human intellect and of human energy, was not to take place in their full strength and glory on this continent until the hour came, in the fullness of time, when their presence would not only round out the boundaries, but also fix the destiny and complete the colossal greatness of an ocean-bound republic. Early in the sixteenth century, more than three centuries and a half ago, the foot of the gold-hunting Spaniard was on the soil of California ; and his covetous eye scanned in vain her plains and mountain slopes in search of the tremendous treasure which had laid hidden there since the morning stars sang creation s hymn of praise in the beginning of time. Spain, at that time the most powerful government on the globe, was engaged in discovering, subduing and colonizing the countries of the western hemisphere, and a look now at her ancient boundaries on the map of the United States is full of instruction to the thoughtful student of history. She owned and possessed, when at the zenith of her power, the REPEAL OF PURCHASING CLAUSE OF "SHERMAN ACT." 269 treasure-laden lands of California, Nevada, and nearly all of Colo rado, together with New Mexico, Arizona and the most of Utah. She was the mistress of more wealth than was contained in all the world besides, but she knew it not. She hungered and thirsted for the precious metals ; she sent forth fleets and armies and squandered life and treasure to find them ; she was a pirate on the seas and a robber and murderer on every shore in their search ; but she passed over them on the Pacific coast with blinded eyes, while the years and the centuries moved on, waiting for a different people and a higher dispensation of human affairs. Not only the map of the world, but the destiny of the human race would have been changed, marred and blotted had the dis covery of gold and silver on our western shores been given to Spain; to such as Cortez, Pizarro and other ferocious, red-handed Spanish adventurers, then engaged in wholesale pillage and slaughter. That peaceful region would have been transformed at once, as if by an infernal magic, into the very similitude of hell. The uproar of avaricious strife, the enslavement and destruction of unoffending native tribes, the shock of contending armies repre senting the frantic greed of every nation, the desolation of fire and sword, the hideous riot of vice in all its dark and bloody forms, marking the downfall of the kingdom of peace, love and mercy, would have prevailed like inextinguishable fires throughout all those vast realms, from San Francisco to Denver and to St. Louis, and blighting and blackening for centuries to come everything of value, and every hope of resurrection on the sunset side of the Father of Waters. A ruined land, rifled and plundered of all its treasures, worn out, seamed and wasted in its substance by the non-laboring, warlike marauders of the whole earth, and at last abandoned like a miner s claim when it ceases to pay, or held in the clutch of some victorious European power for further diggings such would have been the condition of the trans-Mississippi country when our fathers struck for independence, in 1/7^, if the providence of history had permitted the Spaniard to see gold and silver when he was walking over them. Sir, may I not be pardoned for the faith I cherish, that the mighty revelation which burst upon the world in 1849 from Sutter s 2/0 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. camp in California, and from the canons and gulches of the moun tains, was reserved for a people of wisdom and patriotism, and came at the right time to draw the best energies and intellects of this country, and of the world, into the development of the wilder ness and the waste places of the republic, and to assist with the power of invincible cement in holding together the American Union, and in making it the pride and wonder of the earth and of the ages yet to come? Let no man lightly consider or put aside what God hath wrought. The states of the Pacific, of the Sierras, of the towering peaks of the Black Hills, and all others bearing in their bosoms the precious metals, are the treasure-houses of American riches, power and glory. They have been preserved to us, and placed in our hands as a trust and a blessing to the present and future generations. With the discovery of gold and silver forty-four years ago, and their coinage and use on free and equal terms by the American people, came such an abounding prosperity, such an increase of national life and force, and such help to individual exertions as were never before known in the history of nations. We bounded forward with such impetuous force that even the calamity of a tremendous interstate war hardly checked the speed of our progress, and has not even left a scar visible to-day on the material advancement of the country. The aid of both metals was invoked, without discrimination against either, and the result was a financial strength equal to the severest emergencies that can over take a nation whether in peace or in war. In fact, no disturbance in business circles or in the channels of trade, in connection with silver, ever took place in this country until after the stealthy and treacherous attempt to stab it to death in 1873. While silver has been honorably coined on proper terms, while it has been treated with dignity and respect as money and not dis criminated against and dishonored as an ordinary product, a com modity to be hawked in the markets, it has never failed to do its duty, and to stand the peer, at all times and under all circum stances, of gold. I appeal on this subject with great respect, and with full confidence in the ultimate result, to the silver-producing states themselves. The very able and distinguished senators from REPEAL OF PURCHASING CLAUSE OF "SHERMAN ACT." 2/1 those states need no assurance of my warm personal regard, nor of my keen and anxious desire for the welfare of their constituencies. May I not, therefore, submit to them, without offense, that the safety, the stability, the honor, and the very existence of a true sil ver currency in this country require the fair and legitimate coinage of silver rather than its sale as bullion? Must we not, at once and without delay, get back of all makeshifts, subterfuges, and insincere compromises, and place ourselves, after the financial deck has been cleared, on the plain constitutional right to coin gold and silver into money? Why should any friend of silver money from the Pacific, or from any of the other states, vote to retain the Sherman act a day longer as a law? The worst calamities that have ever befallen the cause of silver money have come since its enactment and in its name. What hope is there that silver will rise from the degradation inflicted on it while that enactment remains? Who supposes for a moment that the present financial condition of the country can be improved by simply clinging tenaciously to a law which forces a low, reluc tant, grudging market for silver as a commodity? Who in this chamber or elsewhere is willing to remain responsible for such an enactment a single day longer than its repeal is possible? Sir, the people of Indiana own no silver mines ; they have no silver bullion to sell ; their only interest is in the silver dollar itself with which to do business ; but had it been my destiny to represent on this floor a state inlaid with silver and threaded with veins of gold, I would have resented and resisted to the utmost any and every attempt by legislation to cast contumely and reproach on either one of these great metals or to discriminate between them in their coin age, even down to the point of a charge for mintage. Were I a senator from a silver-producing state, as I am from a great industrial state simply desiring the use of silver in the shape of a sound currency to help in the daily transactions of her busi ness, I would vote with even increased zeal and pleasure for the repeal of the ill-omened and bad-odored act now under discussion. I would then, as I will now, hail the hour in which to cast such a vote successfully as one of the most auspicious of my life. But there are still further features of the present financial situa- 2/2 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. 13 tion which, in my judgment, demand consideration, and which do not result from the Sherman act, except in so far as its unsound- ness in principle and its outlawed character as an instrument of finance are seized upon to shake public confidence and create busi ness distress, thus advancing the ends and aims, not yet openly avowed, of certain vigilant and powerful moneyed classes in this country and throughout the world. The bitter and determined assault which we have witnessed on the present administration to compel an enormous issue of government bonds has not gone un heeded by the American people, nor have the authors of this as sault, and those interested in its success, escaped widespread and intelligent observation. Motive is the surest trail on which to find the perpetrator of a deed, and tried by this rule, the authors of the money stringency during the last five months, and of the incessant demand for a large increase in our bonded debt, stand plainly revealed. By vir tue of a treasury regulation, rather than by explicit provisions of law, a gold reserve of a hundred millions has been held for years past in the treasury for the declared purpose of redeeming a branch of the currency which has never yet been presented for redemp tion. By breaking this reserve, by reducing it below its fixed amount, it was supposed the secretary of the treasury would be under immediate legal necessity to issue and sell bonds, with the proceeds of which the gold reserve was to be kept at its maximum. The attack, therefore, on the head of that column was swift and strong. With intervals of delay for ample and skillful preparation, these attacks have been repeated again and again, and have only slackened in their frequency and force since it has been found that the executive department of the government can not be coerced in that way. But the campaign of capitalists seeking a new supply of interest- bearing government bonds did not confine itself to any one point of assault. While they operated with unrelenting vigor to break down the reserve of gold in the treasury, and to that extent impair the public credit, they also startled this country and filled the world with the cry that American gold was running away from this silver- blasted country, chased out by silver money, and that there was no REPEAL OF PURCHASING CLAUSE OF "SHERMAN ACT." 2/3 way to lure it back except to bait plentifully with government bonds. It is in this connection also that the Sherman act has been made to do double duty. It has been held to answer not only for the inherent and ineradicable vices which it does possess, but it has been charged with grave offenses in which it has had no part. Sir, I do not believe for a moment in placing this country on a silver basis any more than on a gold basis. I have never advo cated such a policy. The two metals together on a parity and in harmony with each other must constitute the broad and ample specie basis required by the vast and progressive character of American trade and industry. Nor have I the slightest faith in the pretense that our silver coin or our silver certificates have been driving our gold to foreign shores, where our creditors are said to be sitting in fear and trembling lest the silver itself should come, or something worse. My experience on this subject leads to a totally different conclu sion. When in 1878 the attempt was made to check the torrent of bankruptcy and ruin occasioned by the demonetization of silver in 1873, and the consequent contraction of currency which fol lowed, there went up such a wail of dismal prophecy in these halls over the proposed restoration of silver as will never be forgotten. An inspection now of the Congressional Record of that date is full of entertainment, and indeed of instruction. It will there be seen how able and learned men can grow eloquent in predicting what never comes to pass ; how they can disregard the traditions and the constitution of their fathers, as well as the teachings of all the ages known to human history. Much indeed may be learned by recourse to the debates of fif teen years ago on this subject. I could occupy the time of the senate hour after hour, in reading the prophetic visions of dire dis aster which then appeared to certain distinguished senators, if the Bland-Allison act remonetizing silver, and providing for its partial coinage, should become a law. One of the first and most certain evils predicted was the hurried departure of gold from beneath the folds of the American flag ; that it would take to itself wings and 18 274 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. fly to the uttermost parts of the earth, in order to escape the con tamination of base, ignoble silver. It is true the two metals had been for four thousand years the twins of the financial world, the Gemini of nations, compeers and co-factors in the development, the advancement of the human race ; but a new light seemed suddenly to burst upon certain minds to the effect that gold would no longer abide the companionship of its kindred metal, its old-time, and long-tried ally. The alarming measure, however, was enacted into law, and the believing disci ples of false prophets stood gaping in awful anticipation of coming ruin. What was it that did occur? The government proceeded in orderly and constitutional meth ods to coin $24,000,000 per annum of silver money for the use and benefit of the American people, and continued so to do for the next twelve years, during which time the increase not the de crease, but the increase of gold in the United States was at the rate of about forty millions a year. At the date of the passage of the Bland-Allison act the estimate of gold money in this country was $230,000,000, and when coinage ceased under that act the esti mate was more than $700,000,000. And such was the fulfillment of the prophecies of 1878, and yet I am now expected to believe that the fair and legitimate coinage of silver, its free coinage upon a properly ascertained and determined ratio, will banish all our gold and put us on a single silver basis. I must be pardoned for believing nothing of the kind. The ship ments of gold which have taken place from this country in the last four or five months must be accounted for, to my mind, in a differ ent way. They were a part of the same plan which attempted to sack the treasury of its gold reserve fund, to create distrust, fear, agitation, panic, and a withdrawal, as far as possible, of all money in circulation ; and all this to be accompanied by a concerted out cry from terror-stricken business circles and from the whole national banking system that nothing can restore public confidence and save the public credit except the issuance of at least three hun dred millions of interest-bearing government bonds. Sir, I have no desire to assail the national banks, nor any feel ing to gratify in doing so. As a general rule, they are under the REPEAL OF PURCHASING CLAUSE OF "SHERMAN ACT." 2/5 management and control of gentlemen standing high for ability and integrity. It is the system which I arraign, and not the individ uals who conduct it. Eulogies on the national banks as a system of finance are very familiar to us all; they have many merits, some which I desire to avail the country of at this time, as is well known ; and yet it may be replied to every word in their praise that the good the banks have done in handling a safe and reliable currency has come atone from the power of the government which pervades them, while the evils they accomplish have arisen from the fact that far too much power has been left in the hands of men to tempt their avarice and ambition. The merits possessed by the national banks are created and up held, every one of them, by the official hand of the government, by the bonds on which their notes are issued, by their official en graving, and by a vigilant and efficient administration of their affairs at the hands of the comptroller of the currency. On the other hand, the unrestricted, unrestrained, and unbridled power which is permitted to the management of these banks, whereby the circulation of money in the hands of the people can be, and often has been, suddenly fluctuated from a prosperous maximum to a stunted and distressful minimum, constitutes a standing and a frightful menace against the safety, the welfare, and the happi ness of the great and most useful body of the American people those who teave labor and the products of labor to exchange for money, and who have a right to expect steady and remunerative rates of pay. The idea here presented is an appalling one. No other govern ment within the boundaries of civilization, as far as I can learn, has ever committed to private parties the power to make money plenty, or money scarce; times easy, or times hard; business prosperity, or business bankruptcy; the power, in fact, to circu late the government s own currency, or to withhold it from circu lation, at such times, and under such circumstances, and in such amounts, as will inure to the benefit of private speculation and per sonal gain, rather than to the public interests. Yet, such is ex actly the terrible power now possessed by those engaged in national 2/6 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. banking, and such the power they have called into disastrous ac tion. If it be asserted and admitted that some of the banks have them selves suffered and fallen by the overthrow of public and private confidence which has taken place, it only adds one more illustra tion to the well-known fact that a demon of destruction once raised sometimes escapes the control of its masters and turns and rends them. If panic-stricken depositors make sudden and unexpected runs for their money, catching now and then a bank less prepared for such an emergency than its better managed kindred, it is be cause the policy of the banks has first inspired them with distrust and finally filled them with terror. In their attempt to force the government into the attitude of a borrower to escape bankruptcy, the banks have endangered their own credit, and in many instances totally lost the confidence of those who have trusted them most. Without a single trace of un- kindness towards them in my heart, still I must say, the conse quences be on their own heads. Those who sow to the wind need not complain if they reap at least a portion of the whirlwind, in the destruction of the weaker ones of their own species. Who has not seen the boast in the great organs of banking cap ital, that the managers of national banks have such a complete understanding among themselves, such harmony of interests and such a perfect system of concerted action, that the whole of their overwhelming and destructive power can be brought to bear on the sensitive business nerves of every state in the Union on a week s notice, and that they can bring the congress of the United States itself a suppliant at their feet. For months past all legitimate business pursuits have staggered as if from a sudden and unex pected blow, and are brought at this time to a confused and bewil dered sort of standstill, while wondering how it has all happened and what will happen next. While in the midst of a fair and reasonable degree of prosperity, the volume of our circulating medium, even while the people were looking at it, suddenly shriveled away, and practically vanished from their sight. As if by some infernal enchantment, money dis appeared, as it were, in a single night, and left the people in REPEAL OF PURCHASING CLAUSE OF "SHERMAN ACT. 2// mourning and deep trouble when the morning came. Have the men of active business, and the toiling millions who suffer most, been tempted in their distress to say that there is no longer any money in this country? On the contrary, the records show that $2,120,000,000 and more of currency, coined and issued by the government in various forms, are now in existence. Of this vast amount, it is true, over $500,000,000 are held by virtue of different provisions of law in the treasury; but, even allowing for this retention, it is made by the books of the government to appear that something more than $1,500,000,000 were in circulation within the past year and should .be in circulation to-day. It is claimed that this aggregate circu lation, when estimated per capita, amounts to nearly $24 for each man, woman, and child in the United States. Never were wilder or more unreliable fictions rehearsed in ro mance than these estimates of our circulation, when they come to be compared with the hard, realistic experience of the plain masses of the people. Not the exploits of Sinbad, the sailor, nor of Lem uel Gulliver, the traveler, nor the exquisite skill and fancy of the story-teller of the Arabian Nights, can surpass the results some times accomplished by what are called, in the irony of history, cold facts. According to the official estimates of money now in circulation, a family of seven father, mother, and five children stands entitled to $168 as their per capita proportion, not for one day only, but for every day the year round. When we reflect how many millions of people there are in this country who never, at any one time, nor even during the whole year put together, see or touch that much money, we may well pause a few moments to consider the obstructions which prevent money actually in existence, with authority to circulate, from being found in actual circulation. The trouble is that there is an intermediary, a middleman, between this government and its own people in the matter of the government s duty to furnish them with a sound and stable currency. The government is not in direct and proper contact with its citizens on this subject. The national banks are between the government and the people, and in their vaults to-day lie hidden millions and hundreds of mil- 2/8 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. lions not less than two-thirds of the whole amount designated for circulation on the books of the treasury held there by the cow ardly, unpatriotic fear which has always haunted great earthly possessions ; which would rather see the business of the country overwhelmed in ruin than to risk the loss of a hundred dollars loaned on gilt-edged paper. Can any one be blind to the fact that the banks have not only, and without cause, except their own interests, turned their keys on all business prosperity, but that they have also attempted to seize the government itself by the throat and to play bully and master toward those highest in authority? Well might the accomplished senator from South Carolina (Mr. Butler), in his very able and instructive speech on this floor in June, 1892, exclaim: These complaints of the people are not imaginary. They are well founded and based on a deep-seated cause. Our financial system and policy is defective, unjust, ruinous to large classes of the people. It enables a few centers and a few persons to get possession of the currency and hold it from millions of their fellow-citizens upon their own terms. It enables them to hoard the money of the country, and to say how much of it shall go out and upon what terms. You may say that this will be true under any system, but the financial history of this country does not sustain the proposition. It was never true prior to 1863, when the national-banking system went into operation, and the national government delegated to a few persons the power to issue the currency for all the people, except such as it reserved to itself the exclusive right to issue. But, sir, at this point, and in this connection, another great evil, arising from the selfish and greedy instincts of the money power, whether engaged in banking or in other avaricious pursuits, de mands thoughtful attention. On general principles the contraction of the currency throughout the whole country is an object eagerly sought and a consummation devoutly to be wished, by that limited but powerful class of people who own or control four-fifths of the wealth and nearly the entire volume of the circulating medium of the United States. The greater the scarcity of money in the hands of the many, the greater its power in the hands of the few who have gathered it in and hoarded it away. In the business world the man who has a thousand dollars will have the best of the man who has only a hundred ; the man who has a hundred will dictate to the man who has only ten ; while the man with ten dollars in his pocket will absolutely dominate the man who has no money at all. The power of the millionaire REPEAL OF PURCHASING CLAUSE OF "SHERMAN ACT." 2/9 to-day over the property, the labor, and the very lives of the people depends not merely on the great sums in his own coffers, but equally as much, and indeed far more, on the fact that the great industrial classes have scarcely any money at all at this time in their hands and are deprived of every reasonable chance to obtain more. The two extremes of vast consolidated wealth on one hand and absolute poverty on the other, both very dangerous, not only to each other, but to social safety and to liberty regulated by law, are rapidly culminating in this country. Every proposition here or elsewhere to aid the people in their distress by putting more money in circulation, and within the reach of their daily toil, is always fiercely denounced by those who are interested in minimiz ing the wages of labor and the exchangeable value of property. Every source of financial relief to the plain people is scanned in certain quarters with hostility, and every dollar which tends to make them independent of the banks, and of usurers and task masters, is looked upon with aversion. Even the pension rolls of the government, those records sacred to the blood and tears of millions shed for the existence of the American Union, have not escaped determined and vindictive assault. The fact that the amount of money in circulation is largely increased every three months of the year by the payment of pensions, that it is done without the agency of the banks and beyond their control for fluctuation or speculation, has excited the open and bitter opposition of the great money centers from the very beginning of our present pension system. The charges now made of fraudulent pensions are simply a con tinuation of what we have heard from the start, and they have the same inspiration as in former years. That frauds are sometimes committed in the pension office is undoubtedly true, and they should be investigated and exposed ; but the same can be truth fully said of every other office or institution known among men. Would you denounce an entire church and impute rascality to all its members because here and there a hypocrite and knave pollutes the altar and defiles the sacrament of the Lord s Supper by his presence and participation? 280 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. Fraud is incident to human affairs, and from which there can be no complete escape, but better far that even a fraudulent pen sion should be granted than an honest, well-earned, well-merited pension should be denied. It is the question of money, however, and not the question of fraud, which provokes the greatest wrath in certain quarters on the subject of pensions. Who that lived at that time will ever forget the storm of invective which broke on some of our heads because of the passage of the act of January 25, 1879, gfanting arrears of pensions to disabled soldiers? Speak ing on that subject three years later, I said : The columns of the leading newspapers of the country have teemed with the most envenomed denunciations of this act, and reeked with coarse and ignorant abuse of all who sustained it. It would, indeed, be impossible to exaggerate the tone of malignant animosity which has prevailed, and which more than ever now prevails, on this subject in the most prominent journals, from the north end of New England to the Pacific coast. I can recall but two enactments which have called forth such rancorous literature. The passage of the fugitive slave law and the repeal of the Missouri compromise are the only measures within my recol lection which provoked such an explosion of intense wrath as we have heard against the arrears of pensions act. If it had been a measure to disseminate pestilence, breed famine, or provoke war, it could hardly have been stigmatized with greater bitterness. If, instead of being, as it is, a law to fulfill a plain, hon est obligation toward those who, in sober fact, bled and died for their govern ment, it had been a measure to reward highwaymen and enrich pirates, it could not have been assailed in terms of baser meaning than have been used against it and against all who support it. Sir, it is true that the amount of money carried to the soldiers of the country, by the act paying them arrears, was large and impos ing ; but I held then, and I hold now, that every dollar paid for pensions does good and not harm ; that it is not merely a blessing to the pensioner himself, but also to all the active business inter ests and laboring classes of the entire country. On the 1 6th of January, 1882, I used the following language on this floor, and I can do no better than reproduce it now, as the candid expression of my mature convictions : The money paid to this blind soldier passed on at once from his hands into a hundred different channels of trade. With some of it he paid for a humble home in which to pass his benighted old age, and in which at last to wake, by the touch of death, with eyesight cleansed, to a brighter morning than earth can ever know. With the remainder of his pension arrears he paid his little debts, and added something to the comfort of those about him. And such is substantially the history of all the money expended under this beneficent law, so basely and so insanely vilified. It goes at once into circulation ; it pays debts ; it passes from hand to hand ; it is not hoarded as coupon cutters hoard their interest ; it makes money plentier among the people where it ought to be plentiest. REPEAL OF PURCHASING CLAUSE OF "SHERMAN ACT." 28 1 Sir, it is dead money which does no good to the people, money which is packed away in bags, crammed into iron vaults, there to corrode and eat into the labor of the people with an immense, never-ceasing, cancerous interest account. Public expenditures which go in that direction are indeed a curse ; but not so with money which is alive and active in the daily transactions of life. But it is in connection with this very idea, and in fact almost solely on account of it, that the principal assaults have been made on the law for the payment of the pension arrears. The leaders of this crusade are inspired with a frenzy of rage at the sight of poor people obtaining any considerable sum of money from the government, no matter how precious the consideration upon which the pay ment is based. Money, in the estimation of this class, should not be diffusive or general in its movements among the people ; it should be contracted within a narrow circle and exclusive in the bestowal of its benefits on themselves. But a little while ago they were declaring through the same columns which now denounce our system of pensions that the hard times then upon the country were due to the fact that the laboring classes lived too well ; that they had too many luxuries, and that they must learn to regulate their wants according to the cheap wages paid for labor in Europe. And now the great moneyed corpora tions, and all such as live on the interest of money, are exasperated at the spec tacle of money flowing freely among the common people. The scarcity of money is their harvest, and a full circulation is their bane and grief. They feel, therefore, that every dollar expended for pensions is hostile to their interests. The sight of a penniless soldier obtaining a few hundreds of dollars, or thou sands, perhaps, fills their sordid souls with fury. On the other hand, the plain people hail such money coming into their midst as a general blessing. Sir, the payment of pensions in this country has become so im portant a feature in our financial situation that no apology is needed for the reference I have made to the subject on this occa sion. It is clear to my mind that pension money amounting to over $160,000,000 per annum perhaps, and going everywhere, is one of the greatest sources of relief now left to the people in the way of currency, independent of the contracting, retiring power of the banks. There were paid to pensioners in Indiana last year the sum of $11,880,117 an increase to the circulating medium of that state without the aid of which the condition of her trade and business may be imagined but not adequately described. The amount of money in circulation in many of the other states has been increased even to a much greater extent than in Indiana by the redistribution, as it were, of the people s own money back into their hands, in the payment of pensions ; and there is not a state nor a neighborhood in the American Union which has not felt the relief of this system. For my own part, and speaking for myself, I shall take no step backward on the subject of pensions. Turning at this point, however, to a more explicit consideration of the motives which govern the national banks in their present policy, I reach the next matter I wish to present and to consider. 282 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. The banks are entering on their final fight for a prolonged future existence; they are engaged at their Quatre Bras, preliminary to their Waterloo. They intensely realize that the present supply of government bonds for banking purposes must be very largely in creased within the next five years, or they will be forced to com mence winding up and retreating from the theater of action on which they have so long appeared. The American people are steadily engaged from day to day, and from year to year, in paying their national debt as it falls due, and in 1907, only fourteen years hence, the last bond on which the banks have issued their currency will have been redeemed and can celed. But long before these fourteen years expire the amount will be so much reduced by constant payments that the question of the perpetuation of the national banking system will be pressed peremptorily upon us. Indeed, we are face to face with it now, and in view of the recent action of the banks, we can not too soon con sider, calmly and frankly, what system the government will adopt, in the near future, in furnishing a circulating medium to the people. Is there a friend of the national banks bold enough to announce his belief that the tax-paying American people will consent to the continuance, indefinitely, through generations, perhaps through centuries, of an immense interest-bearing bonded debt merely for the sake of upholding such a system as we now have? That is the exact question looming up just before us. Without such a con tinuing, interest-gathering national debt, with no limit as to dura tion or time for payment, except as to interest coupons, the national banking system of the United States will pass away for ever, and the resources of statesmanship will be called upon to establish another and a different fiscal agency in its place. I take my stand now against the existence, the increase, or the perpetuation of a national debt for purposes of national banking, and I call upon the millions who toil for their bread, and who con stitute the great army of labor, to take notice of this issue, from this time on. It is an issue that will not down at any man s bid ding. On one side is arrayed the most powerful and best organ ized syndicate of money on the globe, and on the other side the REPEAL OF PURCHASING CLAUSE OF "SHERMAN ACT." 283 sunburnt masses of productive industry. The end of the contest, just now beginning I may not live to see, but I have not a doubt of the result. The present national banking system, with its acknowledged virtues, which I would take advantage of in the present emergency, as I remarked awhile ago, but with great and grievous faults, will go down, and in its place and stead will come a better, wiser and safer financial dispensation. The people, I believe, are ready for the change which I think I foresee. May I not be pardoned if I briefly question the future as to what that change is likely to be? Those who desire and expect old things to pass away should have something in lieu to propose, and I am willing to abide the rule. The political campaign of last year was, in fact, as it was claimed, one of education, but the awakening and teaching of the public mind was not confined alone to any one question. Various branches of learning were taught in that great popular school of polemics. A lesson was given in history, wherein more instruction was imparted on the subject of a past and extinguished system of state banking than the present generation ever before received. When the democratic party declared in its national platform for the repeal of the government tax on the issues of state banks, and on all the currency put in circulation by them, a hue and cry was raised by republican leaders, as if a public enemy, under arms, was about to invade the country. State banks belong to a former generation, and the subject was a new one for debate, and very fertile in material for the rank imagination of the campaign orator. The ghost of every dishonest and defunct scheme of bank swind ling that ever had its brief day in the United States, and of every short-lived, rotten, wild-cat concern, was invoked from the charnel house of the dead past, with which to alarm the financial souls of men. Smutty printing machines were called into requisition, and did a rushing business in flooding the country with fac-similes of poor, cheap-looking trash which once circulated for a brief space as the notes of a few long-since forgotten banks. In the midst of all this spectacular display, however, there were other and far more important matters of information conveyed to the public mind. Everybody was put upon inquiry, and it was 284 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. speedily ascertained that no man, woman, or child had ever lost a dollar by the depreciation of the notes of a regular chartered state bank, or its failure to redeem its currency in gold or silver when called to do so. This, I have been assured on the very highest authority, is true of even the banks of the southern states when closing their business amidst the opening scenes of the war. I know it to be true of the State Bank of Indiana not of those called free banks, which were purely individual concerns, but the chartered bank of the state, subject to the control of state authority. This institution, in closing its long and honorable career, after re deeming in specie, or specie equivalents, all its currency that was presented, placed and left on deposit at Indianapolis the sum of $60,000 for the further redemption of such portions of its currency as might yet be in existence and outstanding. Under proper restrictions and safeguards, therefore, against abuses arising from a general law under which individual banks of issue were permitted, I do not think the people of Indiana would be at all alarmed by the reappearance of a state bank currency, such a currency as the honored name of Hugh McCulloch sanc tioned in that state forty and fifty years ago. It was this kind of a circulating medium, resting on a specie basis, and always re deemable, that was driven out of existence by a spurious, insincere method of taxation for the benefit of the national banks. It is impossible for me to conceive the constitutionality of the ten per cent, tax on state bank circulation, even though a majority of the supreme court reached such a conclusion. I can not escape the conviction that the law of the constitution in the case of Veazy Bank vs. Fenno is to be found in the great disssenting opinion delivered by Justices Nelson and Davis. The power of the states to create banks for the issue of a circulating medium, not as legal-tender, but resting on a legal-tender basis of gold and silver, has been conceded from the very foundation of this government. On this point I can not refrain from citing a short passage from the unanswerable opinion to which I have just referred : At the time of the adoption of the constitution there were four state banks in existence and in operation one in each of the states of Pennsylvania, New REPEAL OF PURCHASING CLAUSE OF "SHERMAN ACT." 285 York, Massachusetts, and Maryland. The one in Philadelphia had been orig inally chartered by the confederation, but subsequently took a charter under the state of Pennsylvania. The framers of the constitution were, therefore, familiar with these state banks and the circulation of their paper as money, and were also familiar with the practices of the states that was so common, to issue bills of credit, which were bills issued by the state exclusively on its own credit and in tended to circulate as currency, redeemable at a future day. They guarded the people against the evils of this practice of the state government by the provision in the tenth section of the first article : " That no state shall * * * emit bills of credit," and in the same section guard against any abuse of paper money of the state banks in the following words : " Nor make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts." As bills of credit were thus entirely abolished, the paper money of the state banks was the only currency or circulating medium to which this prohibi tion could have had any application, and was the only currency, except gold and silver, left in the states. The prohibition took from this paper all coercive circu lation and left it to stand alone upon the credit of the banks. It was no longer an irredeemable currency, as the banks were under obligation, including, frequently, that of its stockholders, to redeem their paper in circula tion in gold or silver at the counter. The state banks were left in this condition by " the constitution, untouched by any other provision. As a consequence they were gradually established in most or all of the states, and had not been en croached upon or legislated against, or in any other way interfered with, by acts of congress, for more than three-quarters of a century from 1787 to 1864." The reserved right of the states to provide their people with a circulating medium through the agency of state banks, being thus explicitly shown, and always admitted as an incident of domestic state sovereignty, the idea that the federal government can consti tutionally, by a pretended tax law, paralyze such a power of the states, and render it void and of no effect, is a total contradiction of every sound principle on which the American Union was formed and now rests. When I speak of the act as " pretended tax law," I do so advisedly. A genuine tax law, to be in harmony with the constitution, can be enacted for the purpose of revenue only, while the law now in question was never intended for the collection of a single dollar of revenue, and was never administered or executed a single day or hour for such a purpose. The sole purpose of the federal govern ment by such legislation was to drive out of existence all state cur rencies, and to give the entire and lucrative field of finance to the bond-buying, bond-speculating, and bond-holding managers and stockholders of the national banks. No one, I think, will have the hardihood now to deny this fact. The blow aimed at the currency of the states was administered with deadly aim and force. It was intended to be fatal, and no half-way work marked this high-handed job of federal usurpation. 286 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. In addition to the ten per cent, tax on the notes of a state bank, and on the notes of any person or other state bank in its possession and used for circulation, after a certain date there was also author ized and created a tax of five per cent, per annum on all dividends to state bank stockholders, besides a monthly tax of one twenty- fourth of one per cent, on all deposits and on the capital of the bank, making an aggregate annual federal imposition on all state banks of over sixteen per cent. The extinction of life in the banks of the states, and in every thing to them appertaining, was as complete and almost as sudden as that which follows the charge of a thousand volts of electricity through the human frame. Once more I recur to the words of wisdom contained in the opinion qf the great justices from whom I have already quoted : This taxation of the powers and faculties of the state governments which are essential to their sovereignty and to the efficient and independent management and administration of their internal affairs is, for the first time, advanced as an attribute to federal authority. It finds no support or countenance in the early history of the government, or in the opinions of the illustrious statesmen who founded it. These statesmen scrupulously abstained from any encroachment upon the reserved rights of the states and within these limits sustained and sup ported them as sovereign states. And now, Mr. President, let us for a few moments suppose that this taxation of the powers and faculties of the state governments which are essential to their sovereignty and to the efficient and independent management and administration of their internal affairs" has been repealed, and the state once more left free to exercise their clear, unquestioned right to establish banks and pro vide for the circulation of a constitutional currency. In the event of such action on the part of congress, should it take place, wherein would lay the danger to the public welfare, and from what quarter would it come? I do not expect the government ever to abandon a national cur rency, though it will abandon the system of national banks ; but I do expect at no very distant day that United States notes, such in principle and in fact as are now in existence and in circulation, and have been for thirty years past, their payment guaranteed by the honor of the government, will supersede all other national money except gold and silver, and that without jar or friction they will REPEAL OF PURCHASING CLAUSE OF "SHERMAN ACT." 287 circulate in the hands of the people alongside of the well-guarded, safely secured currencies issued by the states, and guaranteed according to the constitution by both the precious metals. To my mind, there are no reasons why these two monetary sys tems may not work in harmony together for the well-being of the American people. There is nothing in the history of the Ameri can states to lead me to believe them less capable of creating and maintaining a sound currency, or less honorable or reliable in the exercise of their legitimate powers under the constitution, than the federal government. We are far advanced beyond the days when it was possible for a bank of issue to be authorized in any state of the Union without ample and indestructible security and a strict compliance with rigid laws. Business men and business committees to-day, two thou sand miles apart, are nearer together and better informed about each other, for business purposes, touching the credit of banks, the character of their currency, the value of municipal bonds, and the solvency of individuals than when they were separated by only an hour s walk fifty years ago. The lightning of the telegraph and the still greater mystery of the articulating wires of the telephone have made the world an open book, and we reacj^ it through every morning. There are no hidden things any more, and the faintest attempt of any state in the American Union to establish a banking system on an insecure basis would be known and treated with scorn in every quarter of the business world before a single note of her cur rency could get ten miles from its place of issue. But the great value of state-bank money is, and ought to be, mainly local. It will increase the home circulation and the home accommodation of every agricultural community on American soil. It will be in use with people who know each other in every respect, and it will stim ulate industry in the raising of crops, make trade more active and the development of plantations and farm lands more rapid and profitable. And while all these great results, with consequences beyond limit or calculation, are being accomplished by the states in the ^xercise of one of their greatest and most undoubted prerogatives, 288 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. the wisest policy as well as the plain duty of the federal govern ment will be to issue its own unassailable notes and put them in circulation by calling in and retiring much of its present outstand ing currency, and also by the payment of its debts and in meet ing its enormous current expenses ; to issue them in amounts equal to the requirements of trade as nearly ascertained as possi ble, bearing within them the breath of national life, honored in every village and hamlet in the American Union, uniform in value from Maine to Alaska, and their faces as well known as the flag, wherever flies that emblem of the power and glory of a united and fraternal people. Those who live to witness the adoption of the policy here out lined will, in my judgment, look upon the safest, strongest, and most beneficial system of finance ever before known in American history. It has in it the elements with which to accomplish the following paramount and indispensable features of all sound finan cial legislation : 1. A sufficient volume of currency at all times, state and national, on practically a specie basis, guaranteed also by public honor, with which to transact the growing and expanding business developments of the country. 2. The absolute denial and destruction of all power in the hands of individuals, corporations or syndicates to cause fluctua tions in the amount of the different currencies in circulation, thus rendering panics and periods of business distress impossible for the future. 3. Every dollar in circulation, whether gold or silver, state bank paper or United States notes, on a strict parity and inter changeable with every other dollar, thus securing to the people the benefits and advantages of both a state currency and a national currency, circulating in harmony and uniformity and performing all the functions of money at home and abroad. 4. The settlement of the vexed question of silver money at once and forever, by authorizing it to form its proportion of the specie basis required by the constitution of the United States for every chartered state bank in the Union ; by recognizing it, as it is rec ognized by the terms of the federal constitution when defining REPEAL OF PURCHASING CLAUSE OF "SHERMAN ACT." 289 power of the states to make legal-tender money, thus making the use of silver, coined into money, as imperative as it will be useful to the great body of the people. 5. The total and complete overthrow of the dangerous central ization of the money power now existing at a few money centers and in the hands of a few individuals, by giving to the people of the states the right of home rule on the subject of money, and thereby securing to them a reliable, non-fluctuating home circula tion. Sir, to the foregoing five propositions I will at this time add but one more. A tax upon incomes, carefully adjusted and graded, has always been, to my mind, a most equitable and upright meas ure in providing government revenue. While laying taxes on the necessities and wants of laboring men, women, and children, and from which there is no escape for them, justice eternal, old-fash ioned justice demands that those who have incomes beyond their necessities, and as a surplus over their expenditures, should be required to contribute from their abundance, and at fair rates, to the support of the government under whose care and protection they have prospered and grown rich. And now, in the meantime, and in view of the present crisis, full of peril as it is, let the whole people of the United States, of every commonwealth and of every neighborhood, cast out their fears and abide in an unshaken faith that present disasters will pass away, and be followed, as soon as much-needed reforms can be accomplished, by the unbroken sunlight of prosperity, and that he who determines the destiny of nations will cause the republic of their fathers to win, and not to lose, in the transcendent mission to which it was dedicated more than a hundred years ago. 19 THE COINAGE AND USE OF SILVER ON THE SAME TERMS WITH GOLD A speech delivered in the senate of the United States, January 28, 1896, upon a bill to maintain and protect the coin redemption fund, and to authorize the issue of certificates of indebtedness to meet temporary deficiencies of revenue. This was the last set speech of Mr. Voorhees in the senate, and it will be noted that it was an appeal for the appropriate recognition of the silver dollar of the fathers. R. PRESIDENT I rise to-day to indulge in a short talk, rather than for the purpose of making a speech of more elaborate pretensions. We are in the crisis of a financial revolution inaugurated twenty-two years ago for the destruction of silver money and for the overthrow of the constitution and the laws as they were framed and enacted on that subject by the founders of the republic. Those who support the coinage and use of silver on the same terms with gold are not the agitators nor the disturbers of the peace of the country. They did not make the present issue. On the contrary, they are simply asking that the policy, the precepts, and the prin ciples of those who made this government and put it in operation be let alone. That is all. The friends of silver as one of the money metals are now, and have been for nearly a quarter of a century, in an attitude of vigi lant resistance, on guard, as it were, against those who seek to subvert the financial system of the fathers in the interest of corpo rations, speculating syndicates, and individual avarice. The ene mies of silver money, those who plot its destruction, are alone responsible for the panics, the business troubles and depressions of the last twenty years and more, and for the disturbed condition of financial affairs at the present time. They alone have labored in (290) COINAGE AND USE OF SILVER ON SAME TERMS WITH GOLD. 29 I season and out of season, in open fight and by secret, hidden methods, to disturb the harmony of the two precious metals, to destroy their parity, to put them at strife and variance, to break up their fraternal and cooperating relations in the business transac tions of the country by discrediting and slandering one and unduly exalting the other. The men who enacted the law of 1873 for the demonetization of silver were revolutionists with deliberate and premeditated malice against the settled, unbroken, and universally accepted policy of this government from the beginning. They were wanton and unprovoked aggressors against the peace and welfare of the Ameri can people. Nor has their assault on silver then or at any time since had any other incentive or provocation than the desire to make money scarcer in the hands of the people, and thus double its purchasing power and value in the hands of the rich and grasp ing. Silver has been guilty of no sin against the prosperity of the country, either of omission or commission. Jt has never failed in standing at a parity with gold, and was a little better, about three per cent, better, than gold in 1873. It was the sounder money of the two, if such a comparison is to be made, when the hour of its destruction drew nigh. Am I expected to speak with bated breath and in words of whispered humbleness in resisting to the utmost of my power the persistent self-seeking and unrelenting efforts now made for the extermination of silver money from our currency? Sir, I appeal to history ; I recur to the fountain head of patriot ism and wisdom, and I invoke the sanction of the purest and best days of the republic. With what respect, awe and reverence we look by the light of history into a meeting of Washington s cabinet in the very beginning of our career. There we behold Washington himself, with his secretary of the treasury, Alexander Hamilton, and his secretary of state, Thomas Jefferson, in deep consultation over the financial principles required for the strength, progress, safety, and glory of the new government. It will hardly be con tended, I think, that any other such cabinet has, from that day to this, considered the subject of the finances. I am pointing now to the early part of the year 1792. The government of the United 292 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. States was then less than three years old. It was in the fullest sense of the term an infant in its swaddling clothes. Washington s cabinet, however, did not ask the co-operation or the permission of any other nation or nations or any international conference or agreement even then that the United States might coin gold and silver and maintain their parity at such ratio and on such conditions as was thought best for the American people. Jefferson and Hamilton were very American in spirit, and Wash ington intensely so. The act prepared by them, entitled "An act establishing a mint and regulating the coins of the United States," which became a law April 2, 1792, was thoroughly American and was born of the spirit of American independence. It stooped to no foreign power, deferred to none, and leaned on none. It boldly proclaimed its own system of coinage without cringing or fear, and fixed the ratio between silver and gold at 1 5 to I . Jefferson and Hamilton differed widely in regard to many of the fundamental principles of government, but on the great problem of finance they agreed and stood shoulder to shoulder in support of Washington s administration. Hamilton, in his famous report to congress in 1791, said : To annul the use of either of the metals as money is to abridge the quantity of the circulating medium, and is liable to all the objections which arise from a comparison of the benefits of a full with the evils of a scanty circulation. And Jefferson, in a letter to Hamilton, written in February, 1792, replied: I return you the report on the mint. I concur with you that the unit must stand on both metals. With Washington s approval of the act of 1792, embodying these views of Hamilton and Jefferson, the financial policy of this government was established, and so remained through every vicis situde and trial of American history for a period of eighty-one years. The constitution of the United States gives to congress the only power that exists between the heavens above and the earth below to create money for the American people ; "to coin money, regulate the value thereof and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures." The great act of April 2, COINAGE AND USE OF SILVER ON SAME TERMS WITH GOLD. 293 1792, was the first exercise of this transcendent power by the men who had achieved American independence, framed the constitu tion, and understood it. The lofty origin of gold and silver money in the United States is an old story, but it can not be too often re peated in plain and simple words, or too deeply impressed on the public mind. The act of 1792, the immortal charter for the free coinage of gold and silver both, ought to be in the hands of every American. Nor was this act of a temporary character, or devised to meet temporary conditions. As the country grew and waxed strong in population, and in the development of its unparalleled resources, the value and necessity of the double standard vindicated the wisdom of its authors, and made it permanent. In peace and in war, in all the great events of American history, the reliance of the people for final safety and deliverance has been upon the two metals as inseparable as the Siamese twins, and never on one metal alone. Within the first twenty-three years of our national existence, Eng land, with deliberate design and premeditated revenge, forced her late American colonies to fight a second war for independence, which was closed by General Jackson, it will be remembered, at New Orleans. The war with Mexico came thirty years later, with its vast and overwhelming results, and then, after an interval of only fifteen years, the convulsive and gigantic struggle for national life and union broke upon the country in the war of the rebellion. During all these perils and trials of financial strength no one spurned silver money ; no one disparaged its use or impugned its honor ; no one questioned the wisdom that put it in the constitution, and in the first financial measure enacted under the constitution. For eighty- one years, from 1792 to 1873, no one talked of gold as the only sound money in existence, thereby stigmatizing the silver money of Washington s administration as unsound. The present cry of sound money applied to gold, and gold alone, is a fraud a cheap, transparent fraud in the face of every line of American history and in the face of existing facts this hour. It is true that gold is sound money, but so also is silver. No man dares to say in this presence that silver ever faltered or fell short 294 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. in performing all the functions of money, or that it has ever stood for a single hour in American history at less than a parity with gold. Who has the audacity to assail such a currency as unsound? Even now, with every discrimination in the power of the govern ment against it, discredited and dishonored as far as possible by hostile legislation, and pursued by incessant and interested slander for more than twenty years past, the silver dollar has not gone to the rear among the business and laboring masses ; it still remains the money of the fathers with the people, and whatever can be purchased with gold can be purchased at the same price with silver wherever the American flag flies and American law prevails. Never before in the history of the world has a currency so per secuted, hunted down, and vilified by concentrated wealth and official sanction maintained such perfect rank and power in finan cial transactions. The truth is it is embedded in the confidence of the people and will never be dislodged. It is "money current with the merchant" now as it was in the days of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and has continued so to be in all the ages since. It is full and perfect legal tender to-day with which to meet every out standing obligation against the government, to pay every bond that demands payment, and to redeem every species of currency, every treasury note, and every greenback that seeks redemption. Will it shock sensibilities and excite alarm in certain quarters if I ask why the debts of this government may not be paid in one kind of lawful money as well as in another, when they are at a parity with each other? It would most effectually protect the hundred million gold reserve against the further premeditated, periodical raids of speculative marauders if the government should exercise its unquestioned legal right to meet their unpatriotic demands for coin with silver. The government of France holds and exercises the option to pay her creditors in silver or in gold, according to the circumstances under which demand for payment is made, and France maintains the strongest and most reliable credit in Europe. The same option exists by law in the hands of the secretary of the treasury of the United States, and I do not hesitate to say that it ought to be exercised. COINAGE AND USE OF SILVER ON SAME TERMS WITH GOLD. 2Q5 Who asserts that the silver dollar of Jefferson and Hamilton, un impaired in purchasing power or as standard money, is not good enough in quality to tender to the money sharks and sharpers of the world when they enter the treasury with hostile and mercenary designs against the gold reserve? There are senators on this floor to-day who were members of congress, here and at the other end of the capitol, during the war for the Union; notably the senator from Ohio (Mr. Sherman), whose absence from the chamber I regret. That distinguished senator was more responsible than any other man now living for the deliberate and intentional creation of a depreciated currency at that time. The government discredited its own currency by refusing to make it a legal tender for customs duties or for interest on the public debt. For the creation and enactment of this policy the senator from Ohio and those who acted with him were bitterly denounced in my hearing on the floor of the house by the eloquent old commoner, as he was styled, Thaddeus Stevens, the most effective leader of men I have ever seen in a par liamentary body. Speaking of the currency act as it passed the senate in February, 1862, the fiery and veteran leader of his party cried out in tones which I still well remember : Instead of being a beneficent and invigorating measure, it is now positively mischievous. It has all the bad qualities which its enemies charged on the orig inal bill and none of its benefits. It now creates a money, and by its very terms declares it a depreciated currency. It makes two classes of money one for the bankers and brokers, and another for the people. * * * The first purchase of gold by the government will fix the value of these notes which we issue and declare to be a legal tender. The sale will fix their value at ten, fifteen or twen ty-five per cent, discount, and then every poor man when he buys his beef, his pork, and his supplies, must submit to this fifteen or twenty-five per cent, dis count because you have said that shall be the value of the very notes which you have made a legal tender to him but not a legal tender to those who fix the value of these very notes. This strong appeal against the dishonor of American money went unheeded, however, at that time. The deed of shame was accomplished ; in the interest of cow ardly, hoarded gold the greenback was sent forth crippled and maimed. It fell from one grade of discount to another, until its purchasing and debt-paying power was often but one-half that of gold or silver, and yet the senator from Ohio and his party asso- 296 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. ciates found nothing wrong in compelling the soldier to take this dishonored currency at par in full payment for his life on the field of battle. There was no hysterical cry then for sound money with which to pay the creditors of the government who, in long lines of blue and under a four years hail of lead and iron, saved the government s existence. The financial legislation of the sena tor from Ohio at that time enabled the owner of idle wealth to transmute the greenback at double its value into government bonds to be paid in gold, while the soldier was forced to stand a discount of fifty cents on the dollar when he bought a barrel of flour or a suit of clothes or any other necessity for his family. What an appropriate and striking stage setting for the play of "The Honest Dollar," with the senator from Ohio in the title role, was made by the toil-worn, battle-scarred soldier when repub lican legislation put him on half-pay in front of the enemy, and re duced his pension money fifty per cent, in value ! Such a play would have been a reality, pregnant with meaning and full of blessings a generation ago; it is a farce now. Every dollar now in existence is an honest dollar, and equal to every other dollar in the discharge of all the functions for which money was ever created. This fact is known and appreciated by every senator within the sound of my voice, and yet the bare suggestion that the govern ment should use honest silver money, sound silver money, full legal-tender silver money with which to pay the demands of gold gamblers, stock jobbers, and professional usurers from Wall street, New York, and Lombard street, London, will be met in certain quarters with ejaculations of pious horror and loud prayers in behalf of the public credit. The dishonest features of financial legislation during the war for the Union did not entirely escape observation at the time. I recall with satisfaction, at least to myself, that at the proper time and in the proper place I made all the effort I could to protect the soldier then in the field from the oppressive evils of unsound money. It was true the government could not pay the soldier in gold, but it is equally true that he could have been paid a sufficient amount of the depreciated currency he was then receiving to have kept the COINAGE AND USE OF SILVER ON SAME TERMS WITH GOLD. 297 contract price of his enlistment and preserved the public honor. This I proposed to do, but the measure I introduced found a burial place without resurrection in the committee to which it was re ferred, while I was denounced as an unpatriotic member of a troublesome but helpless minority. The truth is there are hun dreds of millions of dollars as honorably and equitably due to-day to the surviving soldiers of the Union army under their contract of enlistment, and to the widows and children of those who are dead, as if the amount had been ascertained by a paymaster and the government had issued its bonds for the same. This just debt was repudiated long ago ; it will never be paid, but at the same time it will never be .forgotten. The senator from Ohio in his recent speech on this floor arraigned the democratic party for incompetency in the administration of the government. Sir, I commend to his attention the record of his own party, where in, under his leadership, it broke faith with the most meritorious creditors the government ever had, paid them for their blood in paper that was purposely depreciated, while guaranteeing double profits in gold on every dollar invested in bonds or other public securities. When that senator has looked into the records of par ties a little more carefully, I hope we may hear from him again on the subject of sound money, and that he may not fail to give us the proper distinctions between sound money for the Wall street operator and the millionaire magnate on the one hand and sound money for the soldier and the citizen on the other. Let him show us, if he can, why it would impair and break down the public credit to pay the gold raiders of the treasury in standard silver money, when in point of fact the American people, soldiers and citizens alike, during the war, and until 1878, a period of thirteen years after the war, received pay for everything and transacted all business in a depreciated circulating medium. Sir, I am no advocate of a silver basis any more than a gold basis, nor would I favor the free coinage of silver if experience showed that such free coinage would disturb the parity between gold and silver money. I am in favor of no measure which will beget a single dollar of depreciated currency. By my voice and vote I stand pledged to maintain all our several kinds of currency 298 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. at par with each other, and in strict uniformity in purchasing and debt-paying power. The accusation, however, against silver that its coinage would destroy the parity between the two metals has been proven to be false by every page of our country s history. The charge that it has ever driven gold out of the country, or that the fear of its coinage is doing so now, is equally false and un founded. When ^ in 1878 the attempt was made to check the torrent of bankruptcy and ruin occasioned by the demonetization of silver in 1873, and the consequent contraction of currency which followed, there went up such a wail of dismal prophecy in these halls over the proposed restoration of silver as will never be forgotten. An inspection now of the Congressional Record of that date is full of entertainment, and, indeed, of instruction. It will there be seen how able and learned men can grow eloquent in predicting what never comes to pass; how they can disregard the traditions and the constitution of their fathers, as well as the teachings of all the ages known to human history. Much indeed may be learned by recourse to the debates of sev enteen years ago on this subject. I could occupy the time of the senate hour after hour in reading the prophetic visions of dire dis aster which then appeared to certain distinguished senators if the Bland-Allison act remonetizing silver, and providing for its partial coinage, should become a law. One of the first and most certain evils predicted was the hurried departure of gold from beneath the folds of the American flag ; that it would take to itself wings and fly to the uttermost parts of the earth in order to escape the con tamination of base, ignoble silver. It is true the two metals had been for four thousand years the twins of the financial world, the Gemini of nations, compeers and cofactors in the development, the advancement of the human race ; but a new light seemed suddenly to burst upon certain minds to the effect that gold would no longer abide the companionship of its kindred metal, its old-time and long-tried ally. The alarming measure, however, was enacted into law, and the believing disci ples of false prophets stood gaping in awful anticipation of coming ruin. What was it that did occur? COINAGE AND USE OF SILVER ON SAME TERMS WITH GOLD. 299 The government proceeded in orderly and constitutional meth ods to coin $24,000,000 per annum of silver money for the use and benefit of the American people, and continued so to do for the next twelve years, making in all $288,000,000, and during this time the increase not the decrease, but the increase of gold in the United States was at the rate of about $40,000,000 a year. At the date of the passage of the Bland-Allison act the estimate of gold money in this country was $230,000,000, and when coinage ceased under that act it was more than three times that amount ; over $700,000,000. And such was the fulfillment of the prophecies inspired by Pluto in 1878, and yet I am expected to believe now that the fair and legitimate coinage of silver, its free coinage upon a properly ascertained and determined ratio, will banish all our gold and put us on a single silver basis. I must be pardoned for believing nothing of the kind. The ship ments of gold which have taken place from this country in the last twelve months must be accounted for, to my mind, in a dif ferent way. They were a part of the same plan which has at tempted to sack the treasury of its gold reserve fund, to create distrust, fear, agitation, panic, and a withdrawal, as far as possi ble, of all money in circulation; and all this to be accompanied by a concerted outcry from terror-stricken business circles and from the whole national banking system that nothing can restore public confidence and save the public credit except the issuance of inter est-bearing government bonds in large amounts. Sir, forty centuries of human history bear testimony that gold and silver in circulation as money have no natural hostility to ward each other, and are never at a disparity unless made so by sinister and improper interests and legislation. When both metals were coined on an equality for more than three-quarters of a cen tury in the United States, no friction or disturbance ever occurred between them, and all went well with the country. Since the de monetization of silver in 1873, we have been saluted with constant financial uproar and confusion, and bombarded by rapidly recur ring panics. Earthquakes are frequent and familiar in certain quarters of the globe, owing to physical laws which prevail there; panics in the minds of men on monetary affairs have become a 300 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. common and an almost every-day affair in this country, owing to the bad legislation and attempted legislation of the last twenty-two years . The attempt to put the business of this vast country, with its gigantic developments in progress everywhere, on a specie basis of gold alone signifies the most frightful contraction of money in cir culation ever inflicted on any people beneath the sun. The con traction which followed the overthrow of silver in 1873 filled the country with wreck and calamity on all hands, and laid a train of evils throughout the whole land which have never been eradicated, and which from time to time still explode and shock and shatter the homes and the prosperity of the people. Contraction of the currency so that it will rest on one of the precious metals, instead of resting on both, means the destruction of one-half the money now in use, and to the laboring man it means one dollar where he now gets two for his work ; to the farmer it means half price for what he has to sell ; while to the money holder, the money lender, the money investor, it means a double power for his money in purchasing the labor and the property of all the productive classes. The annulment of the silver dollar necessarily results in the shrinkage of the amount of paper in circulation one-half if the specie basis is to be maintained at all and that basis is to be gold alone. Who is ready to embrace such a consequence as this, of silver demonetization? The laboring and business people of this country can stand no more contraction of the currency; they have been compelled to stand too much already. Blood-letting was once the cure in the medical profession for all ills of the human body ; the doctors bled George Washington to death for a sore throat; and with equal sense and enlightenment financial quacks and empirics are now prescribing a depletion of the circulating medium, a contraction of the most deadly character, by withdraw ing one-half the support which upholds our entire monetary sys tem. Money, sound money, such as silver and gold, and paper resting upon them, is the life blood in the arteries of business, trade, commerce, and national progress, and can not be withdrawn without producing paralysis and death. By far the greatest need now felt by the great mass of the Ameri- COINAGE AND USE OF SILVER ON SAME TERMS WITH GOLD. 301 can people is for an increase of currency on which to do business, for more money to stimulate trade and secure employment and good wages for labor. The volume of money in the hands of our people could reasonably be doubled this hour with indescribable advantages to all meritorious classes and without complaint from any except such as shave notes, buy up judgments on their neigh bors, loan money on mortgaged homes, and speculate generally on the misfortunes of their fellow-beings. The human mind has never had conception of greater evils, more horrible miseries, than attend the scarcity of money, falling prices, impoverishment of labor, and the consequent enslavement of men and women by the swollen power of hoarded money in the hands of the few. Slavery, stubborn, brutal slavery, can be no more effectually es tablished than by doubling the value of debts and securities in the hands of creditors, and by diminishing at the same time and in the same proportion the means whereby debtors are enabled to meet their obligations and redeem themselves and their earnings from bondage. In the year 1816, at the close of the Napoleonic wars, when the laboring people, the tax-payers of Great Britain, found themselves owing a national debt of over four thousand millions of dollars to a comparatively few holders of her securities, Lord Liverpool secured the demonetization of silver, compressed the currency of his country to a gold basis, magnified the value of debts to those who collected them, and multiplied their pains and penalties to those who had them to pay. In the year 1873, when the laboring people, the tax-payers of the United States, found themselves owing a national debt nearly as great as that of Great Britain to a class of wealth-holders and wealth-hoarders, who had staid in the rear and speculated during the war for the Union, a similar movement was made in this coun try to that of Lord Liverpool in England, and for the same purpose and inspired by the same motives. To enrich creditors by the impoverishment and oppression of debtors was the object on both sides of the ocean. There was not a single commercial reason between the two nations on the subject. England had been on a so-called gold basis fifty-one years before the heavy indebtedness of the American people made it the interest of their creditors to 302 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. strike down silver, contract the currency, and increase the power of the money that was left. No commercial difficulties had arisen because England was on a single standard of gold and the United States on a double standard of gold and silver. This condition has lasted a half century, with great prosperity to the two countries, and without a whimper or word of complaint from either in regard to rates of exchange, balances of trade, or anything of that kind. Greedy eyes and avaricious hearts were watching, however, from this side of the Atlantic, and rejoiced in the opportunity presented by an enormous national debt to follow the lead of the aristocracy of England. And now we are told from day to day and from hour to hour that we must imbibe the financial policy of England and conform to her dictation or lose our credit with the nations of the earth. We are incessantly reminded and solemnly warned that we can not maintain the dou ble standard and preserve the parity between gold and silver unless England joins us in an agreement to that effect and lends us the favor of her countenance and assistance. Sir, I am aware that in certain matters belonging to frivolous society and mercantile matrimony in this country there exists a harmless and very useless class of Anglomaniacs, but the great body of the American people believe intensely in their individual and national independence, and have great self-respect in remem bering how, and from whom, and at what cost that independence was won. The empire of Great Britain can set no example, dic tate no fashion, inspire no policy which any patriotic portion of our citizens will feel called upon to follow unless in strict accord with their own interests. The credit of this government is a crea tion of its own, resting on its own resources and its own honor. Nor was it ever stronger or firmer in all the four quarters of the world than it is now. It has not shaken nor quivered for a mo ment, or fallen the breadth of a hair in any market or money cen ter on the face of the earth, notwithstanding the incessant tirade which for several years past has assailed it because silver was one of its elements. It is within my knowledge upon the most reliable authority that during the past summer treasury notes of the United States, green- COINAGE AND USE OF SILVER ON SAME TERMS WITH GOLD. 303 backs, and silver certificates were received without questioner hesi tation in trade and in exchange transactions in England, Germany, and France, and in other parts of Europe. Silver money is not a fly in the ointment of our national credit, and has not tainted or impaired it in the least. Sir, in discussing the policy of this government on the subject of silver, and the competency and incompetency of parties and persons as manifested in legislation, the celebrated and very ill- omened Sherman act arises to our view at every step. I speak with habitual respect of the senator from Ohio, but never before in the history of the world did a member of a parliamentary body find himself compelled to turn, as he did, on his own offspring and assist in putting it to death. It stood openly confessed as an unnatural monster by the very author of its being. It was neither a friend to silver nor to any other form of sound money, and did not even pretend to be. It was a disturber of the financial peace of the country and a standing menace to permanent business pros perity. I do not cite this act now, however, for the purpose of dwelling upon it at any length, nor to hold it up as an evidence of the wis dom or the unwisdom, the competency or the incompetency, of the senator from Ohio, or of his superior qualifications to sit as a censor on the mental capacity of other people in matters of financial legislation. I allude to this most discreditable act in our legisla tive history for the purpose of showing the clear, explicit, and une quivocal position which this government assumed in regard to the coinage and use of gold and silver both, as standard money, only a little more than two years ago. The act repealing the purchas ing clause of the Sherman act is composed of only three sentences, and two of them read as follows : And it is hereby declared to be the policy of the United States to continue the use of both gold and silver as standard money, and to coin both gold and silver into money of equal intrinsic and exchangeable value, such equality to be se cured through international agreement, or by such safeguards of legislation as will insure the maintenance of the parity in value of the coins of the two metals, and the equal power of every dollar at all times in the markets and in the pay ment of debts. And it is hereby further declared that the efforts of the govern ment should be steadily directed to the establishment of such a safe system of bimetallism as will maintain at all times the equal power of every dollar coined or issued by the United States in the markets and in the payment of debts. 304 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. How like the bugle notes of the constitution and the laws as en acted and interpreted by the fathers of the republic these utter ances salute our ears ! The policy here declared received the sanction of both houses of congress, and was approved by the executive on the ist day of November, 1893. There it stands, and there it will stand forever. The doctrines therein contained have been indorsed and upheld by all the great names in Ameri can history from George Washington to Abraham Lincoln. Illus trious leaders of parties have differed on all things else ; but on the one great cardinal question of the coinage and use of both the pre cious metals as standard money no differences have ever existed until since the creation of a vast national debt and the hungry, in satiate demands of a powerful creditor class. Jackson, and Clay, and Adams, and Crawford were all in the field as rivals for the presidency in 1824, and antagonized each other on every other issue except the greatest of them all the bimetallic specie basis for all our currency. On this question no sound of disagreement was heard between them. General Harrison, with the battlefields of Tippecanoe and the Thames behind him, defeated Martin Van Buren in 1840 on a cry of hard times and disordered finances, but there was no note of discord between parties then as to the soundness or unsoundness of either silver or gold. Lincoln and Douglas in their well-known contests debated almost every proposition that could arise under our constitution, but they never found any disagreement on the subject of the two metals. Webster and Calhoun strained the very existence of the government itself by their discussions in this body, but they stood united at every step in support of the policy of the United States to continue the coinage and use of both gold and silver as standard money. The giants of other days were all one way on this question, irrespective of party politics, just as the peo ple, the great body of the laboring and business masses, are to day, if a fair and direct chance were given them to settle it. Not a single citizen of the United States, of any party, creed, or per suasion, can ever be benefited by the banishment of silver, its deg radation and destruction, unless he is the owner and holder of idle COINAGE AND USE OF SILVER ON SAME TERMS WITH GOLD. 305 money which he desires to invest in cheap labor or property at half value, or loan at usurious rates of interest. Sir, there is one other point in the record of parties on this sub ject which I can not pass over in silence. In the great and suc cessful campaign of 1892 the democratic party went before the country on a plain and explicit platform of principles. The Chi cago convention which nominated the present very able and patriotic executive, and the American people who supported and elected him, stood on the following declaration of perfect faith in both the precious metals : We hold to the use of both gold and silver as the standard money of the coun try, and to the coinage of both gold and silver without discriminating against either metal, or charge for mintage, but the dollar unit of coinage for both metals must be of equal intrinsic or exchangeable value, or be adjusted through international agreement, or by such safeguards of legislation as shall insure the maintenance of the parity of the two metals and the equal power of every dollar at all times in the markets and in the payment of debts; and we demand that all paper currency shall be kept at par with and redeemable in such coin. We insist upon this policy as especially necessary for the protection of the farmers and laboring classes, the first and most defenseless victims of unstable money and a fluctuating currency. Who, sir, on this side of the chamber, dissents now from this great landmark of financial truth? I know of no one. From the days of my youth I have marched, and camped, and fought with the democratic party, and I expect to do so to the end. I found no difficulty in standing on the national platform of my party in 1892, and find none now. We need go no further for harmony, union, and strength than its readoption in 1896. It is broad and explicit enough to insure the coinage and use of both metals as standard money, and on equal terms, while every possible guaranty is given for their parity and for their equal power in the payment of debts. The spirit of concession and compromise also presides over every relation of society and every function of government. It was present every moment during the construction of the consti tution, and has guided the wisest councils of parties and of the government ever since. I invoke its benignant presence at this time whenever discord prevails. As to my own position on the question now before the senate, I have said nothing to-day that I have not said heretofore. 20 306 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. I am now in the nineteenth year of my service in this body. The leading issue on which I was first chosen to the senate by the people of Indiana was the repeal of the act of 1873 and the restora tion of the free coinage of silver. A popular majority of more than thirty thousand was given to the members of the legislature who supported that issue and gave me their votes. Nor has there been any change of position or expression on that question by the party to which I belong in the state which has honored me so many years. My record here on the subject of silver is very familiar to the people I represent, and by them it has never been rebuked. I simply here and now reassert it, and further declare that not for all the honors this government or this world has to bestow would I be responsible for the ruin and suffering I foresee in the further destruction and contraction of debt-paying money in the hands of the American people. Whether any one man remains in public life or goes into peace ful retirement matters little to the world, and perhaps less to him self, but all the gold and silver of the earth put together can not compensate him for violating his deep-seated convictions of duty and debauching his never-dying conscience. Without reproach toward others or impeachment of anyone, I shall go forward in behalf of the right as it has been given me to see the right. A great historic character, when environed by perils, once exclaimed : Unless I be convinced, I neither can nor dare retract anything, for my con science is a captive to God s word, and it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience. There I take my stand. I can do no otherwise. Deeply important, however, as the question now under discus sion is to the American people, yet no one issue has ever consti tuted the life, nor will it ever cause the death, of any one of the great political parties of the country. The democratic party has lived for and through all the issues of the past, and it grapples now with every question which affects the present welfare of the people. To abolish tariff taxation for protection ; to preserve the sovereignty of home rule in the states ; to guarantee free elections without threat or menace from force bills ; to secure the people everywhere from the invasive, domiciliary, and sumptuary legisla- COINAGE AND USE OF SILVER ON SAME TERMS WITH GOLD. 307 tion of centralized power, whether exercised by the federal or by state governments ; to establish and maintain a foreign policy of strength, and fearless, prompt response toward the strong and the arrogant, of forbearance and charity toward the weak, and of jus tice and honor toward all ; these great and vital policies and pur poses of government, and others akin to them, have no sure and safe support outside of the party founded by Thomas Jefferson. They are imbued with immortal life, and the democratic party will live and triumph as their custodian and guardian as long as free government survives on this continent. CAPTAIN SAMUEL CHESTER REID AND THE ENGAGEMENT OF THE BRIG ARMSTRONG Remarks made in the senate of the United States, April 26, 1890, upon a joint resolution accepting the donation of the battle sword of the late Captain Samuel Chester Reid, and providing for the striking of a medal commemorative of Cap tain Reid s services to his country. R. PRESIDENT Before a vote is taken on the joint resolution just read, I venture to ask a few moments in which to tell the story of the sword which it ten ders for our acceptance. When the last year of the war between the United States and Great Britain, the year 1814, was drawing to a close, it was clouded and darkened by certain events most galling to the pride and honor of the American people. Although the oceans and the lakes had been lit up by the glories of Perry, Decatur, Hull, Porter, Truxton, and other like heroic spirits, whose names were not born to die, and although Lundy s Lane, Chippewa, and the Thames stood to our credit on land, yet, if a treaty of peace had been signed before this sword was drawn in battle, it would have been, on the part of the United States, a peace rankling and sore with a sense of humiliation and national dishonor. On the 24th day of August, 1814, Washington City was igno- miniously surrendered to an invading British force, and British troops marched through these streets using the torch where they found no use for their bayonets. How inconceivably strange all this seems now! This national capital, which the combined pow ers of Europe could not now successfully assail, was, within the lifetime of some who hear me, given up to desecration and vandal- (308) SAMUEL CHESTER REID. CAPTAIN SAMUEL CHESTER REID. 309 ism after a mere skirmish in its defense, in which less than eighty men were killed and wounded. This event, to my mind, is the ugliest stain to be found in the history of the American govern ment. To recall it even now fires the blood and quickens the heart with patriotic shame and resentment. With what feelings of mortification and rage the American peo ple learned at the date of the disaster that their flag had been pulled down by a foreign foe in their own capital, and the capitol itself burned, is amply shown in the publications and history of those times. The secretary of war, General Armstrong, was driven to resign his place in Mr. Madison s cabinet; congress ordered in vestigations ; the press laid the lash indiscriminately on every one in official station ; but none of these things brought any comfort to the deep sense of wounded honor, or appeased the national desire and longing for some signal and splendid blow of retaliation. To add to the indignation and bitterness of the American people over the fall of their capital and the barbarous use of the torch, the government of Great Britain exulted enormously, "caused the tower guns to be fired in honor of Ross s victory; thanked the act ors through parliament; decreed a monument to that general in Westminster Abbey at his death; and, making additions to his armorial bearings, authorized his descendants forever to style them selves " Ross of Bladensburgh." Lossing, in one of his notes to his Field-Book of the War of 1812, says: The London Times, then, as now, the exponent of the principles of the ruling classes in England, and the bitter foe of the American people, gloried over the destruction of the public buildings and the expulsion of the president and cabi net from the capital, and indulged in exulting prophecies of the speedy disap pearance of the great republic in the West. "That ill-organized association," said the Times, " is on the eve of dissolution, and the world is speedily to be delivered of the mischievous example of the existence of a government founded on democratic rebellion." In long after years, when Cockburn died at the age of eighty-two, the Times lauded him chiefly for his marauding exploits in this country and his " splendid achievement " in firing our national capitol. But the designs of England at that time against the United States were still more extensive and destructive than even the cap ture of Washington city indicated. Napoleon had fallen from the throne of France and for the time being was caged at Elba. The 310 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. flower of the British army was thus released from duty on European battle-fields, and a descent with fire and sword all along our Atlantic seaboard was organized and put into bold and audacious operation. Pursuant to this daring scheme of wholesale conquest and plun der of American cities, a rendezvous was appointed at the Island of Jamaica for the concentration of British forces with which to seize New. Orleans. On the 6th of October, Admiral Cockburn, fresh from the incendiarism of the capitol and swollen with pride over his new laurels, sailed out of Chesapeake Bay on his way to join the transports and troop-ships of Keane and Pakenham, then in Negril Bay, Jamaica, awaiting re-enforcements with which to ravage the coasts of Louisiana and despoil the Crescent City of her beauty and her glory. But while this threatening muster of veteran British regiments was taking place almost insight of our shores, and yet all unknown to our people, the spirit of retribution was aroused in American hearts on land and sea, and events were transpiring in distant parts of the world with such subsequent relations to each other as to in dicate the presence of a Divinity which shapes the destinies of men and of nations. On the Qth day of September, in this eventful year of 1814, a small brig of only 240 tons, owned by private parties, carrying 7 guns, as a privateersman, with a crew of but 90 men and officers all told, sailed out of New York harbor on a very swift keel, ran the blockade of British frigates off Sandy Hook, and boldly put to sea for the honor of the American name. It was the famous brig General Armstrong, commanded by Sam uel Chester Reid. The career of this vessel was meteoric, brief, but full of glory. Within three weeks after leaving New York the General Armstrong was committed to immortal fame alongside the Bon Homme Richard, the Essex, and the Ironsides, and Captain Reid took rank with the foremost warriors known to the annals of the sea. On the evening of the 26th day of September the Armstrong lay at anchor in the neutral waters of Portugal, in the Bay of Fayal, and in that condition was discovered by a British squadron con- CAPTAIN SAMUEL CHESTER REID. 311 sisting of the Plantagenet, a ship of the line of 74 guns, the frigate Rota, of 44 guns, and the brig Carnation, of 18 guns, these vessels carrying 2,000 men and officers, and commanded by Commodore Lloyd, on his way to meet Admiral Cockrane at the rendezvous in Jamaica with Keane and Pakenham. This formidable naval force was a part of the extensive expedition against New Orleans, and Commodore Lloyd thought to halt for a moment, pick up the Armstrong, and carry her along as an enforced ally for the destruc tion and dishonor of her own countrymen. With the characteristic disregard of his government for the rights of weaker powers, the British commander without hesitation in vaded the neutrality of Portugal, launched four armed boats con taining one hundred and sixty men, and by the light of a full moon at 9 o clock at night attacked the little motionless American brig, with full confidence in an easy and immediate victory. The oc currences of that memorable and glorious night from this point of time forward were told a few days later by a fair-minded English man who witnessed them from the walls of the town which over looked the bay. In a letter dated October 15, 1814, to William Cobbett, of London, the following account is given: * * * The authorities all considered the American privateer perfectly secure, and that his majesty s officers were too well acquainted with the respect due to a neutral port to molest her ; but, to the great surprise of every one, about 9 in the evening four boats were dispatched, armed and manned, from his maj esty s ships for the purpose of cutting her out. It being about full moon, the night perfectly clear and calm, we could see every movement made. The boats approached with rapidity toward her, when, it appears, the captain of the pri vateer hailed them and told them to keep off several times. They, notwithstand ing, pushed on, and were in the act of boarding before any defense was made by the privateer. A warm contest ensued on both sides. The boats were finally repulsed with great loss. After the first attack all the inhabitants were gathered about the walls, ex pecting a renewal of the fight. At midnight fourteen launches were discovered to be coming in rotation for the purpose. When they got within gunshot, a tre mendous and effectual discharge was made from the privateer, which threw the boats into confusion. They now returned a spirited fire, but the privateer kept up so continual a discharge it was almost impossible for the boats to make any progress. They finally succeeded, after immense loss, to get alongside of her, and attempted to board at every quarter, cheered by the officers with a shout of " No quarter," which we could distinctly hear, as well as their shrieks and cries. The termination was near about a total massacre. Three of the boats were sunk, and but one poor solitary officer escaped death in a boat that contained fifty souls. He was wounded. The Americans fought with great firmness. Some of the boats were left without a single man to row them ; others with three and four. The most that anyone returned with was about ten. Several boats floated ashore full of dead bodies. With great reluctance I state that they were manned 312 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. with picked men and commanded by the first, second, third and fourth lieuten ants of the Plantagenet, first, second, third, and fourth ditto of the frigate, and the first officer of the brig, together with a great number of midshipmen. Our whole force exceeded four hundred men. But three officers escaped, two of whom are wounded. This bloody and unfortunate contest lasted about forty minutes. Nothing more was attempted until daylight next morning, when the Carnation hauled in alongside and engaged her. The privateer still continued to make a most gallant defense. These veterans reminded me of Lawrence s dy ing words on the Chesapeake, " Don t give up the ship." The Carnation lost one of her topmasts, and her yards were shot away. She was much cut up in her rigging, and received several shots in her hull. This obliged her to haul off to repair and to cease firing. The Americans now finding their principal gun (Long Tom)*and several others dismounted, deemed it folly to think of saving her against so superior a force. They therefore scuttled her and went ashore. Two boats crews were soon after dispatched from our vessels, which went on board, took out some provisions, and set her on fire. For three days after we were employed in burying the dead that were washed on shore in the surf. After burning the privateer Commodore Lloyd made a demand on the gov ernor to deliver up the Americans as his prisoners, which the governor refused. He threatened to send five hundred men on shore and take them by force. The Americans immediately retired, with their arms, to an old gothic convent, knocked away the adjoining draw-bridge, and determined to defend themselves to the last. The commodore, however, thought better than to send his men. Lossing, in his excellent history of the war of 1812, puts the forces engaged in attacking the Armstrong during the night at over six hundred and their losses in killed and wounded at over three hundred. It will thus be seen that the Americans were attacked by seven times their own number; that they killed and wounded more than three times as many as they carried on their entire muster-roll ; that they beat the Carnation, an eighteen-gun brig, in open fight the next morning, and then retired to the shore in the face of such unparalleled odds with a loss to themselves of but two men killed and seven wounded. And how the American heart swells with pride at the manner in which that heroic band, now reduced to about eighty men, bore themselves on the land amongst strangers in a foreign country, beyond the reach of aid, and with all the world and future history looking on the wonderful scene. They had heard that cry of murder, the cry of "No quarter," from their ferocious assailants the night before, and now they heard of the demand of the British commodore on the Portuguese authorities for their surrender as prisoners. When this demand was refused, Captain Reid and his men were informed that a force of five hundred men from the British squadron would be sent CAPTAIN SAMUEL CHESTER REID. 313 ashore at once for their capture and destruction. How did they hear this dread announcement? They could have scattered and hid in the adjacent hills until the danger was over ; they could have dissolved as a body, and disappeared from the approach of an armed force, each one individually for himself, thus escaping the threatened doom. No such thoughts as these, however, shook their staunch souls; no panic for a single moment unsteadied their iron nerves. With coolness and in perfect order Captain Reid led his powder and blood-stained company through the streets of Fayal to an old Gothic convent, cut away the draw-bridge that led to it,- and there, grim and tired from the dreadful work of the night before, they waited, armed to the teeth, to sell their lives at a terrible cost to the enemy. But the enemy reconsidered and came not. For once the English bull-dog shrank from his quarry, insignificant in size as it was, but now at deadly bay, with no thought but to die before the world for the honor of American manhood and to copiously soak that neutral soil with the insolent blood of their foes. Instead of inviting another massacre by attacking the Gothic convent, the British commander spent the next three days "in burying the dead that were washed on shore in the surf." We are informed, also, that two sloops of war, the Thais and the Calypso, which came up some days after the fight, were sent back to England carrying the wounded. The whole affair detained Commodore Lloyd and his squadron more than ten days at Fayal, and as a consequence delayed the fleet under Admiral Cochrane at Jamaica at least three weeks beyond its appointed time to sail with the army of Pakenham in its descent on Louisiana. These are grave and established facts, and but for them American history would not read as it does now and the lines of our map would, perhaps, be different. When Lloyd s squadron arrived at Jamaica in its crippled condi tion he was loaded with bitter reproaches by Cochrane, Pakenham, and Keane; and well he might have been, in view of the expedi tion before them. General Jackson had scented danger in the tainted gales from the West Indies, and, with the prescience of 314 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. great military genius, decided that the impending blow was aimed at New Orleans. He reached that city on the 2d of December; the British army landed a few miles below on the 22d, just twenty days later. But for the terrific injury inflicted on Lloyd s forces at Fayal the British would have reached New Orleans as soon, if not a day or two sooner than General Jackson. Had this happened, that city would have fallen without a blow. Speaking of Jackson s arrival there December 2 , Lossing says : He found the city utterly defenseless and the councils of the people distracted by petty factions. The patriotic Governor Claiborne had called the legislature together as early as the 5th of October. The members were divided into several factions, and there was neither union nor harmony nor confidence to be found. The people, alarmed and distrustful, complained of the legislature ; that body in turn complained of the governor, and Claiborne complained of both the legisla ture and the people. Money and credit were equally wanting, and arms and ammunition were very scarce. There was no effective naval force in the adjacent waters ; and only two small militia regiments and a weak battalion of uniformed volunteers, commanded by Major Planche, a gallant Creole, constituted the military force of the city. The store-houses were filled with valuable merchandise, and it would be natural for the owners to prefer the surrender of the city at once to a seemingly invincible foe to incurring the risk of the destruction of their property by a resistance that should invite a fiery bombardment. In every aspect the situation was most gloomy when Jackson arrived, worn down with sickness, fatigue, and anxiety. Sir, I am not about to dwell on the compaign of New Orleans. What occurred there after Jackson entered the city has been writ ten in imperishable lines of light on the scroll of eternal fame and needs no recital here. It is my simple task on this occasion to show that the sword now offered for the acceptance of the govern ment so guarded the passage-ways of the ocean and so crippled and retarded the enemy that time was gained by which General Jackson prepared for and won the immortal victory at New Or leans. No such battle would have been fought, no such victory won, but for the stubborn and invincible courage of Captain Reid and his crew at Fayal. General Jackson himself in after years was in the habit of saying that to the battle of the little brig General Armstrong in sustain ing the honor of the American flag," he was indebted for his suc cess in defending New Orleans. And these two actions, thus linked together, the battle of Fayal on the 26th of September, 1814, and the battle of New Orleans on the 8th of January, 1815, wiped every stain from the escutcheon of our arms, caused Bla- JOHN PAUL JONES. CAPTAIN SAMUEL CHESTER REID. 315 densburgh to be almost forgotten, filled downcast hearts with joy and exultation, and closed the war of 1812 on the American side with a sunburst of undying glory. Charles Sumner is quoted as praising the extraordinary polite ness of a cultivated Englishman who, while passing with him through Lafayette Square in this city, made no comment on the equestrian statue of Jackson as a work of art, and, indeed, feigned not to see the old hero in bronze at all. It is well known that the presence of General Jackson was never enjoyed by Englishmen, and if a statue of Captain Reid was erected, as it ought to be, in the vicinity of Jackson, it is probable no Englishman would ever enter that square again. Samuel Chester Reid was born at Norwich, Connecticut, on the 2$th of August, 1/83. He went to sea at eleven years of age, and afterwards became a midshipman under Truxton. He was thirty- one years of age when he electrified his countrymen and the whole civilized world by the splendor of his courage and conduct in the Bay of Fayal. Amongst all the gallant men furnished by New England or by the entire republic to naval warfare none bear a name with prouder luster or adorned with brighter honor. Sir, it is painful in the extreme to be compelled to add that none have been treated by the government they fought for with greater injus tice, neglect, and ingratitude. The senator from Ohio (Mr. Sherman), when this question came up a few days ago, remarked that the government had already treated Captain Reid very generously and liberally. The facts of history prove that statement very far from correct. Cap tain Reid died in 1861 , poor. For forty-seven years he had sought from his government the simple payment of his private losses on the Armstrong and the value of the brig to her private owners. He sought in vain, and died without receiving a dollar. Some twenty years later a bill passed congress paying the as sessed value of the immortal vessel, without interest, and paying for the clothing and personal losses of her officers and seamen, all of whom were doubtless dead by that time. If these humiliating facts constitute generous and liberal treatment by the government 316 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. towards one who achieved in its service a name as deathless as the stars of the sky, then I have much indeed yet to learn. Sir, we will accept this sword, and place it where the youth of America can see it for all time to come. If they shall find here and there on this fine old Toledo blade a speck of red rust it will remind them that once it dripped from point to hilt with the blood of its country s enemies; that before it, in the hands of Captain Reid, fell the first lieutenant of the Plantagenet while leading a charge of boarders against the Armstrong. No relic in the cus tody of this government will teach future generations loftier lessons of duty, patriotism, manhood, and courage than the sword of Cap tain Samuel Chester Reid As to the medal in memory and in honor of his sea fight of Fayal and its far-reaching consequences, as provided for in the resolution under discussion, nothing of the kind was ever more merited in American history. A medal was granted by congress to John Paul Jones in his lifetime for the victory of the Bon Homme Richard over the Serapis, and from that day to this no token of this kind was ever more worthily bestowed for achieve ments on the ocean than this will be when voted to the memory of the commander of the brig General Armstrong. This much I have said, Mr. President, in vindication of the committee which has done me the honor to instruct me to present this matter for the consideration and action of the senate. PROTECTION OF AMERICAN CITIZENS ABROAD A speech delivered in the senate of the United States, April 14, 1882, upon the consideration of the following resolution, submitted by Mr. Voorhees, April 3, 1882: Resolved, That the conduct of the state department of the government in re lation to the arrest and imprisonment of Daniel McSweeney and other Ameri can citizens by the authorities of Great Britain is in violation of American law, inconsistent with the value of American citizenship and derogatory to the honor of the United States. R. PRESIDENT The resolution just read relates to a question vital to the rights and liberties of the American people ; as much so as any asserted in the declaration of our independence or secured on the fields of the Revolution. The security, the dignity, and the inviolability of American citi zenship constitute, more than all other things combined, the strength and honor of this government. Any policy emanating from any source which ignores in the slightest degree this great fact calls for prompt and stern condemnation. A government which is indifferent to the fate of its own citizens, whether at home or abroad, which fails to respond boldly and swiftly to their appeals for justice, and leaves them to waste away their lives in prisons, untried, unconvicted, is unworthy of allegiance and ought not to have and will not long retain a respectable position among the in dependent powers of the earth Duties are reciprocal between the government on the one hand and its citizens on the other. A failure to perform these duties by either party to the political compact is fraught with weakness, danger and disgrace If the citizen fails to keep upright faith with his government and bear (317) 3l8 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. true obedience to its laws in peace and in war, he weakens and perhaps totally destroys his claim upon that government for pro tection. If the government itself, however, abandons the citizen to injustice and oppression, permits him to be stripped naked of all legal security or defense, turns a deaf ear to his just demands, and leaves him to suffer indefinite terms of imprisonment without trial, either in his own or foreign countries, no one will deny that the obligations of the citizen are at an end. And it is equally true that such an example of weakness, timidity, or indifference on the part of the government must go far to shake the respect and at tachment of the whole body of its people, and to render it con temptible in the eyes of neighboring nations. Sir, what is the attitude of the American government at this time on this momentous question? Is it one which inspires a feel ing of satisfaction and pride in the American heart? I appeal to the record. On the 9th day of the last month this body made in quiry in the following form after the condition of a citizen of the United States then confined in a British jail : WHEREAS, It is alleged that Daniel McSweeney, a citizen of the United States and lately a resident of the state of California, while peaceably sojourning in England, has without just cause been imprisoned by the British government; be it, therefore, Resolved, That the secretary of state be, and is hereby, instructed to ascertain the cause for the alleged imprisonment of the said Daniel McSweeney, and make report to the senate at the earliest day possible. On the 2Oth day of March, eleven days after the passage of this peremptory resolution, the secretary of state transmitted to us his answer. Every particle of information on the subject was in his hands when the resolution reached him, and could have been reported in twenty-four hours had he reported at the earliest day possible," as instructed. The American state department, how ever, has always, in late years, taken its greatest leisure and pro ceeded most slowly when an American citizen was in a foreign prison, and this diplomatic custom was not broken in the present instance. But, sir, prepared as I was for the exhibition of a weak foreign policy on our part, I was utterly amazed at the contents of the communication from the secretary of state in this case. It appears PROTECTION OF AMERICAN CITIZENS ABROAD. 319 that Daniel McSweeney was arrested June 2, 1881, now more than ten months ago, and that he has suffered in prison from that day to this. He was dragged from a bed of sickness, in the presence of his wife and children, by British constables. He was guilty of no crime, not even the shadow of any crime known to the laws of any civilized nation on the face of the globe. No one will pretend that he was; no one will rise here and say so. If the party so long in power in this government has a friend on this floor who will risk his reputation in trying to point out the guilt of McSwee ney I want to hear him. Let him stand forth at once and recon cile us if he can to the policy of the republican party in relation to foreign-born citizens. This extraordinary document from the state department tells the whole miserable story. I challenge par ticular attention to dates. On the 3d day of August, 1881, Julia McSweeney wrote to the secretary of state from the county Done gal, Ireland, in behalf of her husband, and her letter was received here in Washington on the i6th day of the same month. In that letter the brave, high-spirited wife says: Some four years ago I came with my family, on account of my husband s fail ing health, to reside temporarily in this country. I was aware that England claimed this island, but I was under the impression that Americans might venture to travel or reside abroad protected by their flag, but in this I was mistaken. And then she proceeds, with a woman s keen sense of wrong and outrage, to describe the brutal arrest of her invalid husband. She continues : It is not alleged that he committed any crime or violated any law. He, being an American citizen, immediately forwarded his naturalization papers, together with a solemn protest against this British outrage, to the American minister at London. That gentleman answered that the matter would be laid before one Granville, and that inquiries would be made as to the ground of his arrest. She protests that she knows nothing of Granville, but does know that she is entitled to the protection of the secretary of state of the great American republic," and exclaims, with all the lofty force of the ancient appeal of a citizen of Rome when Rome was greatest: " I am an American, my husband is an American citi zen, and he has committed no crime." But this grand hailing cry of distress found no Roman spirit here ; it fell still-born in that 320 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. department where American rights have so long been held cheap est; it was never answered. This American woman, however, making her appeal to her own countrymen from a foreign land, proceeds to state the reasons for her husband s arrest and to claim protection for herself and her children. Commenting on the kind of government to which the people of Ireland are subjected, she says: One of those tax collectors, Wybrants Olphert, of this county, sent his horses and carts and carried away a poor woman s crop grown on her land from seed obtained from charitable sources. This same Olphert refused permission to erect school-houses on his 20,000 acres to educate his 6,000 serfs, alleging as a reason that if those people were educated a landlord could not walk out of his house. My husband expressed his opinion that these things were wrong, and for the expression of those opinions he was cast into a British dun geon. I ask, will the American government protect me ? This destruction of person and property spares neither age nor sex. I have opinions; this is already known to the enemy. I am liable at any moment to be cast into a dungeon. Our arms have been taken from us ; my crop is destroyed by vermin ; my hus band is in delicate health, pining in prison. Will you leave me unprotected in the enemy s country with eight American orphans on my hands ? And still there was no response to this Amercan wife and mother. She invoked the justice of law for her husband, innocent of crime, and she asked in respectful terms whether she herself would be protected, or left to share his fate because she could not help sharing his opinions. She spoke for him, for herself, and for her virtually orphaned children. Sir, a government, or the department of a government, which in any age of the world s history would turn a deaf ear to burning words like these, could not complain of being regarded with aver sion and contempt in all quarters of the globe. A policy of silence and indifference under such circumstances is so unmanly and pu sillanimous that every American head will be bowed with shame and every American heart filled with humiliation as the facts of this case become generally known. I feel degraded in my pride as a citizen of the American republic when compelled to state, as I now do, with the communication of the state department in my hand, that until six long and weary months to the prisoner had elapsed after this government had received his wife s letter not a single step was taken by the authorities here directing inquiry into the circumstances of his arrest, and then only when influenced to . PROTECTION OF AMERICAN CITIZENS ABROAD. 321 do so by other considerations, as I shall show, than a just appre ciation of his claims to protection. MR. JONES, of Florida. Will the senator permit me to ask him a question, without interrupting him? Is McSweeney now in prison? MR. VOORHEES. I understand so, as no notice whatever has been given of his release. The woman s appeal lay unheeded in the official pigeon-holes of the department whose duty it was to protect her husband and all his family ; but in the meantime the voice of such an outrage could not be stifled, and was finding its way to the public ear through more natural channels than the artificial and heartless methods of diplomacy. On the 23d day of January, 1882, there was published in the San Francisco Examiner a letter from the prisoner himself. It was accompanied by an editorial in which it was stated, among other things, that The writer, Daniel McSweeney, was for many years a well-known and es teemed resident of San Francisco, doing business at the corner of Ninth and Howard streets, where he was engaged in the cattle trade. That he had a large family, six of his children being with their mother in Ireland, and two in San Francisco, and that Mrs. Mc Sweeney s health was being rapidly undermined on account of her husband s unjust imprisonment. Mr. McSweeney s letter was written to his daughter in California, and its recitals are so simple, and yet so horrible, coming from a man whose rights as an Amer ican citizen are as perfect as yours, Mr. President, or as mine, that I can not refrain from laying them again before the American sen ate. The letter is written from "Dundalk jail," and is dated December 12, 1881 : MY DEAR MAMIE : You must excuse me for not answering your last two letters sooner. Since winter set in I was unable, owing to severe cold in this dungeon, to sit still long enough to write even a few lines. I have to keep mov ing about continually in my narrow space to keep from freezing. You must know how dreadful it is to be locked up eighteen hours a day in this cold, damp climate, without any fire, and, worse still, we are compelled to stand or walk about daily for five hours in the open air, in a damp, muddy yard, ankle deep in water, and then retire to our cold cells, trembling with cold. It requires a strong constitution to stand it long. I fear many of our brave fellows will succumb before the winter is over. As I was only sentenced for sixteen months, I 21 322 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. thought at first I might live it out ; but you know I was in delicate health when I was arrested, being barely able to move about after a severe attack of sickness. Sir, this is a picture of wanton brutality such as barbarians alone inflict on prisoners, whether guilty or innocent. It shows that the spirit of torture, which for so many ages stained and blackened English history, is yet alive and active, and especially so when the victim belongs to a government whose administration cares nothing for his safety, and still less, if possible, for its own honor. But to continue Mr. McSweeney s letter: All efforts on the part of your mother and all our friends failed to discover the cause of my arrest. I appealed to Mr. Lowell, United States minister at London, for protection, but he answered that it is absurd for a naturalized citizen of the United States to claim protection. He says that even an American citizen could only have recourse to an appeal to the courtesy of the British government to be released. He added, in a later communication, that the British govern ment refused to give him any information about the charge against me, and that they snubbed him. Strong as this statement is, contained in a letter written in jail from a father to a daughter, yet I will show that it is the exact truth when I come to comment on the dispatches and official con duct of Mr. Lowell, the American minister at London. Mr. McSweeney, however, proceeds in his letter: Your mother wrote to Mr. Elaine about my case, but that gentleman did not deign even a reply. I heard nothing whatever from him. * * * I am now in jail going on seven months, charged with no crime, and not even a shadow of suspicion that I violated any law; and when our American minister asks a civil question about me he is snubbed, insulted, and his flag trampled on; but he does not appear to make much fuss about it, and the American government takes no notice of the question any more than the king of the Sandwich Islands would. Sir, I think Mr. McSweeney does injustice to the foreign policy of King Kalakaua in placing it as low and weak as our own. But he continues : Truly it is rather an awkward position for me. I swore allegiance to the United States, renounced my allegiance to all kings, princes, or foreign poten tates forever, but most particularly to Queen Victoria, of whom it was alleged I was a subject, but which I deny; but I went through the form lest she might claim me. Then exercising the only right which chains and dungeons can not take away, this man enjoys the freedom of his thoughts at least in the following strain of wise and philosophic reflections : PROTECTION OF AMERICAN CITIZENS ABROAD. 323 I have in my possession a very nice document, with the proud American eagle perched on it, purporting to be a certificate of American citizenship. The American government will not recognize me; I have no claims on France or Russia; I have no country or government to raise its voice while England is slowly but surely putting me to death. But death itself would be preferable to this torture. So you see now what the once proud title of American amounts to. But it is a question that should be settled. Millions in the United States should be interested in my fate, lest it might be their misfortune some day to visit their native home and find themselves cast into a dungeon and put to death without trial by judge or jury. It matters little how the question is settled, so far as my case is concerned; it will not take many more days in this dungeon to settle it. Your mother, of course, will try and make her way to California again with the children. Our property will be confiscated. The landlord magistrates in our district have raised the poor rate to 18 per cent, on the assessed valuation of our property, while on their own 2^ per cent.; but they have the resources of civili zation at their backs. There are now fifty " suspects " in this jail, some of whom are among the most reputable men in their respective districts. Sir, I doubt if anything has ever occurred in connection with the official affairs of this government more remarkable for a just appre ciation of the rights of a citizen, or for pathetic patience under in justice, cruelty, and neglect, than the letter from which I have read. It appeared, as I have already stated, in the public press of Cali fornia, January 23, 1882. On the next day, January 24, 1882, it appears that a citizen of West Oakland, California, Mr. John Cuddy, inclosed it directly to the president of the United States with a respectful letter of his own in which he ventured to assert the following just and upright policy: As I understand the laws of our country, there is no distinction or difference between a native or a foreign-born citizen with the exception of the non-eligi bility of the foreign-born to the office of president or vice-president. In all other respects they are equal. Therefore in this case Mr. McSweeney is en titled to the same protection as if he was General Grant. What could be done for General Grant under like circumstances can likewise be done for Mr. McSweeney. One is a native citizen, the other a foreign-born citizen. Therefore I earnestly pray you to exert all the powers of the government toward a speedy release of Mr. McSweeney and all other American citizens now illegally languishing in British dungeons. I do not know Mr. Cuddy, but I most heartily commend his sen timents to the department of state. If they were embodied in a diplomatic circular to foreign powers, they would be hailed with more satisfaction by the American people than any paper which has emanated from that quarter in the last twenty-five years. There is no evidence, however, in the executive document before the senate, that the slightest attention was given to the letter of Mr. Cuddy, or to the enclosed letter of Mr. McSweeney. 324 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. Some three weeks later, February 6, I find that Hon. C. P. Berry, a member of the house of representatives from California, addressed the secretary of state, from his seat in the house, a note inclosing the letter of Daniel McSweeney and calling especial atten tion to it, and also to the fact of his inhuman treatment in the Dundalk jail. It is not pleasant to say, but it is the truth, that even this communication from one of the representatives of the people met with no response whatever. In the meantime, how ever, the friends and neighbors of Mr. McSweeney in San Fran cisco were moving in a manner to command and compel the at tention of the government. On the i6th day of February, ten days after the note of Mr. Berry, the entire California delegation in congress, four members of the house and both her senators, joined in the following note to the secretary of state : WASHINGTON, D. C., February 16, 1882. The undersigned respectfully transmit for your consideration and such action as the case may require, a joint letter to us, numerously signed by our best citi zens, representing that Daniel McSweeney, now in a British prison, is a citizen of the United States, and was for twenty-five years a resident of San Francisco, and asking that he receive from our government that protection which law and justice in his case require. We beg to say that we share in those wishes and desires and hope that your department will do us the favor to assure us that what is right will be promptly and effectively done. This was the voice of an American state, uttered through her entire representation in congress in behalf of the liberty of an American citizen, and the following is the inclosure alluded to as being numerously signed by her best citizens, and which was transmitted to the secretary of state : SAN FRANCISCO, February 4, 1882. GENTLEMEN : We, the undersigned, citizens of the United States of America, and residents of California, do most respectfully request that you would lay before the government of the United States the case of Daniel McSweeney, now incarcer ated in a British prison for some imaginary political offense. Mr. McSweeney is a citizen of the United States and has lived in this city (San Francisco) some twenty-five years, and we expect that the government that offers a home and pro tection to strangers will protect her own citizens from abuse and degradation by a foreign power. Sir, I have thus far carefully traced the history of this case by the light of the correspondence now officially published, and with reference to the startling dates therein contained, for the purpose of showing beyond the possibility of dispute that the conduct of PROTECTION OF AMERICAN CITIZENS ABROAD. 325 the state department has been in open, flagrant violation of Ameri can law. McSweeney was arrested on the 2d day of June, 1881, and his government was at once notified of that fact through the American minister at London ; also that he had violated no law, and was not permitted to know what charge was made against him. All this is shown by Mr. Lowell himself in his correspondence, as well as in the various papers which I have commented on. And yet the days, the weeks, and the months went by, the American citizen languished in a British jail, unjustly deprived of his liberty, and the American authorities looked after things of minor importance, or busied themselves about base squabbles, as if there were no obli gations of law or of duty on them at all in regard to a matter of this kind. Sir, a day of reckoning must come to the party in power on this great question, and it may as well commence now. The act of congress of July 27, 1868, now standing as section 2001 in the Re vised Statutes of the United States, has been so grossly, so will fully, and so persistently violated in our foreign relations that somebody ought to answer for it at the bar of this senate under articles of impeachment. If this language sounds harshly and as an extreme expression, I ask senators to pause and listen to the reading of the law : Whenever it is made known to the president that any citizen of the United States has been unjustly deprived of his liberty by or under the authority of any foreign government, it shall be the duty of the president to forthwith demand of that government the reasons of such imprisonment; and, if it appear to be wrongful and in violation of the rights of American citizenship, the president shall forthwith demand the release of such citizen, and if the release so demanded is unreasonably delayed or refused, the president shall use such means, not amounting to acts of war, as he may think necessary and proper to obtain or effectuate the release; and all the facts and proceedings relative thereto shall, as soon as practicable, be communicated by the president to congress. Revised Statutes of the United States, Section 2001. Will any one in all this broad land have the temerity to say that this law has been executed, or that even the faintest pretense has been made to enforce it? Look at its clear, bold, and mandatory provisions. It is refreshing to examine them ; they are American in spirit, tone and purpose. In the same day and hour that the president is notified that a foreign government has laid its hand 326 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. unjustly on the liberty of an American citizen it is made his duty by this law to demand, not to request, but to demand of that gov ernment the reasons for its action. This demand can not be post poned, it is the very first business in order after the knowledge is obtained ; the language of the law is splendid in that regard : "It shall be the duty of the president forthwith to demand ; the word 1 forthwith admits of no delay ; it signifies that wherever beneath the sun tne principles of free and just government are stricken down in the person of one of our own citizens, no matter how humble, how poor, how friendless, where born, or what color his skin may be, there this government shall extend its power at once to know the reason why it has been done. But what a shameful contrast between this provision of the law and the action of the state department in the case under consideration ! I am making no personal assault in this matter, either upon the living or the dead. I make due and full allowance for those dark and dreadful days between the 2d of July and the ipth of Septem ber, 1 88 1, when the functions of the government were, in a meas ure, suspended; but with all this considered, no answer can be made to the law for the delay which has occurred. According to the published correspondence which, as the secre tary informs us, " contains all the information in regard to the case at present known to the department of state," not a word or sylla ble emanated from that department on the subject of McSweeney s arrest and imprisonment until the loth of February, 1882, eight months after he was known to be in jail. Permit me to read that first utterance, that timid, spiritless dispatch, on a subject that stirs the blood of American manhood like a bugle-call to glorious deeds. It is addressed to Mr. Lowell, and runs as follows: ( No. 316.) DEPARTMENT OF STATE, WASHINGTON, February 10, 1882. SIR: I inclose herewith, for your information, copies of correspondence relat ing to the arrest and imprisonment, by the British authorities, of Mr. Daniel McSweeney, a naturalized American citizen, residing in Ireland. I will thank you to inquire into the circumstances of this case through the proper channels, and to report the result of your investigations to this depart ment, meanwhile taking any action in reference to the matter which you may deem proper. I am, sir, etc., J. C. BANCROFT DAVIS, Acting- Secretary. From this communication, would any one infer the existence of PROTECTION OF AMERICAN CITIZENS ABROAD. 327 the law of July, 1868? Would any one suspect the intention to carry out a single one of its provisions? Here was simply a mild request to Mr. Lowell to inquire into the circumstances of a case after a citizen of the United States had already undergone for two- thirds of a year a most brutal imprisonment and then to do as he pleased about the whole matter. A more monstrous violation of law, a more deliberate betrayal of the value of citizenship, or a more complete degradation of the national honor than is here dis closed can hardly be found in the history of any first-class power, ancient or modern. There was but one other step taken by the state department, and that explains itself. A few weeks ago, March 3, that depart ment sent a dispatch to Mr. Lowell stating " that the cases of our citizens under arrest in Ireland was the occasion of inquiry in the house of representatives, and instructing Mr. Lowell to use all dil igence in regard to the late cases, especially of Hart and McSwee ney," and to report his action by cable. The late cases! Then may God in his mercy help the early ones ! When this dispatch of March 3 was written McSweeney had been ten months in the Dundalk jail without a charge of crime against him, and yet his is styled one of "the late cases." These two dispatches of February 10 and March 3 are the only efforts made for the relief of McSweeney by the American authori ties at home, and it is obvious that the last would not have been written but for the action of the house of representatives. These two dispatches comprise the entire record made by the state de partment whose duty it was under direction of the president to uphold and execute the law of 1868. I call for the candid judg ment of the country on such administration of its laws. Before leaving, however, this branch of the case I desire to point out the remaining provisions of the act of July, 1868, and to com mend them to the careful consideration of those intrusted with pub lic affairs. That act does not seem to contemplate the refusal of a foreign government to give its reasons for imprisoning an American citizen; but in the event of its doing so, or in the event of the rea sons assigned being regarded insufficient, and the imprisonment " appears to be wrongful and in violation of the rights of Ameri- 328 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. can citizenship, the president shall forthwith demand the release of such citizen." Here the power is given to the executive, and it is made his duty to determine whether the imprisonment of an Amer ican citizen in a foreign country, without charge and without trial, is wrongful and in violation of the rights of American citizenship, and if he decides that it is, he has a plain and immediate obliga tion to discharge. He shall forthwith demand the release of the citizen, an,d if such release is refused or unreasonably delayed, he shall resort to every means short of acts of war to accomplish it; and then he shall lay all the facts before congress, as soon as prac ticable, in order that the national honor may be vindicated by a declaration of war in the last extremity. The American government was driven to this position in 1812 to protect American citizens from imprisonment and death at the hands of Great Britain. My prayer is that it may not so happen again, but the true meaning of this great act of July, 1868, for which the credit is so largely due to my distinguished friend from the house of representatives, now before me, from the Brooklyn district of New York (Mr. Robinson), contemplates an appeal to force rather than submission to the insolence, outrage, dishonor, and open shame now inflicted on the citizens, the flag, and the name of this republic. I honor every word and line of this act. I rejoice in its scope and meaning. When this government no longer violates it; when the American authorities execute it, the Ameri can name will be mentioned with reverence and awe where it is now spoken with derision and contempt. But, sir, there is another feature in this case arising out of the correspondence before us, which demands attention. The conduct of the American minister at London and his conceptions of duty on a question of such vital moment are matters of paramount im portance at this time. It will be remembered that Mr. McSweeney states in his letter to his daughter that he applied to Mr. Lowell for protection, and that he applied in vain. An inspection of Mr. Lowell s dispatches and letters on this point deepens and intensi fies, if possible, the sense of American humiliation. The prisoner alleged in his application for protection not only that he was not guilty of any violation of law, but that he was not even notified of PROTECTION OF AMERICAN CITIZENS ABROAD. 329 any criminal charge against him ; that he was in prison without trial and without accusation. With this statement he forwarded his naturalization papers, concerning whose legality and sufficiency no question has ever been made. With the case thus made out before him, the first step taken by the American minister was such, I venture to say, as never before occurred in the diplomatic or judicial annals of the human race. On the loth of June, 1881, he instructed the vice-consul at Belfast to ascertain the cause of arrest, and, if innocent if innocent to present the matter in the competent quarter, wherever that might be, and ask that Mr. McSweeney be released or brought to trial. I defy the records of the dullest-witted justice of the peace in the United States to equal in the stupid evasion of duty this amazing diplomatic paper. The vice-consul at Belfast was instructed to find out, if he could, the cause of McSweeney s arrest; then in some inconceivable and incomprehensible way he was to pass upon the entire question of this unfortunate man s guilt or innocence. It was to be done without a judicial trial, for that had been refused ; without witnesses, for the vice-consul had no power to call, swear, or examine them in such a case ; without the presence of McSweeney himself, for he was in jail, and could not attend. Under the in structions of Mr. Lowell the prisoner, while in the Dundalk jail, with a British turnkey over him, was to be tried and convicted or acquitted without one single form of law, but simply in the void and empty mind of a vice-consul at Belfast. But the result of this trial, not in a court of law, but in the un informed mental processes of the vice-consul, was perhaps to be the most astounding feature of this whole disgraceful business. The vice-consul at Belfast was instructed by the American minister that if he found McSweeney innocent then he was to ask, not demand, but ask that he be released or brought to trial ; and it seems from the dispatch that which measure of relief, release or trial, he would ask was left to himself to determine. If this is not the first time in the history of the nations of the earth that a man s right to a trial before the law was made to de pend upon his ascertained innocence beforehand, then my reading is at fault. If it is not also the first instance in which a respecta- 330 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. ble government was ever known to shrink from demanding a fair and open trial for one of its own citizens imprisoned in a foreign country, until his innocence was established, then I will confess that I have overlooked the degrading example which we are fol lowing. The dispatch of Mr. Lowell to the vice-consul at Belfast would be a farce if it were not a crime. It marks his total, absolute un- fitness for the place he holds. The man whose methods of thought, whose education and legal training could give birth to such a docu ment as this can not be trusted with the safety of American citi zens or with the honor of this government. He reverses every rule of human responsibility to civilized jurisprudence. He appears ignorant of the fact that every man is innocent in the eye of the law until his guilt is proven. He assumes McSweeney s guilt and requires his innocence to be established before his demand for a legal trial will be presented to the British government. Instead of saying to the British government that this man was an American citizen, that he denied all violation of law, that the law itself presumed him innocent, and that, therefore, he demanded for him a trial, Mr. Lowell s position was that only in case the vice- consul at Belfast should be satisfied of McSweeney s innocence was the request to be made for his trial or discharge. But what investigation in point of fact was made under the instructions of the American minister into McSweeney s guilt or innocence? Absolutely none, whatever. It was enough that the guardian of American rights abroad was answered with insolent brevity that the prisoner was " reasonably suspected," not that he was charged upon oath or affirmation, not that he had been indicted by a grand jury or committed by an examining magis trate, not that he had committed a breach of the peace or been taken in the act of violating law, but that he was " suspected " by some servile English detective of a feeling, not an act a feeling in common with the enlightened and humane sentiment of the whole human race hostile to the colossal iniquity of British spolia tion, rapine, lust, and murder in Ireland. Upon receipt of this atrocious answer, the American minister, in utter abandonment of the laws of his own country and without PROTECTION OF AMERICAN CITIZENS ABROAD 331 pride or shame, announced that " no further means of ascertaining the justice of the accusation were open to the vice-consul." He never afterward officially broached the subject to the authorities of Great Britain. He tells us, indeed, that at a subsequent date, Mr. McSweeney having asserted his innocence, he ventured, unof ficially, disrobing himself of all weight as a representative of this government, to communicate this circumstance, and to ask that the case might be considered favorably. Then, however, Mr. Lowell was completely and perpetually silenced by the curt and distinct reply of Lord Granville that under no circustances would his re quest be granted." Browbeaten, insulted, and without the proper spirit to resent arrogance or to execute American law, he sheltered himself under the expressed belief, as will be seen on page 7 of the published correspondence, that the prisoner was " no more in nocent than the majority of those under arrest." "No more inno cent"! MR. JONES, of Florida. On that point I wish the senator would observe that the language of Lord Granville, as reported by Mr. Lowell to the state department, is that under no circumstance would any explanation be given to the American minister of the cause of the arrest of an American citizen, whether naturalized or native-born, beyond what could be found on the face of the war rant under which he was arrested. MR. VOORHEES. I have the statement before me, and have so repeated it. "No more innocent," says the American minister; there is no reason to suppose that McSweeney is any more inno cent than the rest of them ! Will any senator rise in his place and risk his reputation by saying that a man who has used such an expression as that ought to be retained in any branch of the pub lic service? Comparative innocence! Everybody is innocent until after a fair trial and a verdict of guilty, and yet the American minister at London dares, with infinite hardihood, to assume and assert that all the untried, unconvicted " suspects " in British jails, who are citizens of the United States, are guilty, and that Daniel McSweeney is as guilty as the others. He does not know, he can not know, whether this is true or false ; I presume he does not care. 332 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. But this is not all. Outside of and beyond the meager and life less records of the department of state, a few letters from the American minister to the American in prison have found their way into the public press. They throw a light on our foreign policy at this time which ought to be fully understood and thoroughly condemned. I did not suppose that at this late day there was any doubt in any intelligent mind as to the equality of the naturalized with the native-born American citizen in his right to the protection of his government. I thought that question forever settled by the diplo matic writings of Cass, Marcy, Webster, and other great secreta ries of state in past generations. But in this it seems I was mis taken. The American minister at London asserts a distinction between naturalized and native-born citizens of the United States as odious to every principle of justice as the ancient spirit of the alien and sedition laws. Let the following letter attest the truth of this statement : LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES, LONDON, September 22, 1881. SIR: I have to acknowledge your letter of the i7th instant. I have not thought it proper to make any application for your release from prison for the the proclaimed district of Ireland, whether they are British subjects or not. It would be manifestly futile to claim that naturalized citizens of the United States should be excepted from its operation. The only case, in my opinion, in which I ought to intervene would be when an American citizen who was in Ireland attending exclusively to his own business, and taking no part whatever in public meetings or political discussions, should be arrested. Under these circumstances it would be proper to appeal to the courtesy of the government here on the ground of mistake or misapprehension, and ask for the release of the prisoner. I have communicated these views to the department of state, and have received so far no instructions in a contrary spirit. It does not appear to me that the reasons above given for intervention exist in your case so far as I understand it. I am, sir, your obedient servant, J. R. LOWELL. MR. D. MCSWEENEY. Here we find the terms "naturalized citizen" and "American citizen" used in contradistinction to each other. For the natur alized citizen Mr. Lowell says it would be manifestly futile to claim protection from the operations of an act of parliament which he admits to be " contrary to the spirit and fundamental principles of both English and American jurisprudence." On the other hand, if "an American citizen who was in Ireland attending exclusively PROTECTION OF AMERICAN CITIZENS ABROAD. 333 to his own business and taking no part whatever in public meet ings or political discussions should be arrested," the representative of American honor abroad thinks he would venture to appeal to the courtesy of the British government on the ground not of right but of mistake or misapprehension. The rule of action here declared in behalf of the native American will excite the contempt of the civilized world, and yet it is some what less infamous than the policy laid down in reference to those whom our laws have adopted as citizens. There is a discrimination against the American of foreign birth inconsistent with American law and with the law of nations. It is very plain that I do not misinterpret Mr. Lowell on this point. His letter of September 22 was replied to by Mr. McSweeney from his jail September 27, and in that reply the prisoner says : Then I learn for the first time that there is a distinction between naturalized and native-born citizens of the United States regarding their rights to claim protection abroad. But, sir, it is evident you are laboring under a misapprehen sion, as far as my case is concerned. I did not claim to be excepted from the operation of the coercion or any other law. My claim was based on the fact that I violated no law. On September 30 Mr. Lowell acknowledged the reception of Mr. McSweeney s letter of the 2/th, and commented quite fully on his own policy and that of the British government in this and kindred cases, but he made no pretense of disclaiming the fact that in his mind, and in his treatment of the subject, there was a distinction between the rights of native and foreign-born citizens of the United States. He was unmindful of the fact that Great Britain herself, by treaty with the United States in 1870, had at last yielded all claim to perpetual allegiance, and agreed that she had no more right to deal with a naturalized than with a native-born American citizen. He was unmindful of the fact that even before that claim was relinquished this government, when properly administered, never for a moment conceded it. Lewis Cass, near the close of his long and illustrious life, while secretary of state in 1859, interposing for the protection of an American citizen of German birth, held the following doctrine in a letter to the United States minister at Ber lin: 334 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. The right of expatriation can not at this day be doubted or denied in the United States. The idea has been repudiated ever since the origin of our gov ernment that a man is bound to remain forever in the country of his birth. The doctrine of perpetual allegiance is a relic of barbarism which has been disappear ing from Christendom during the last century. Sir, this relic of barbarism, as it is here justly styled, has prac tically disappeared from every quarter of Christendom, except the American embassy in London and the British jails in Ireland. But still earlier than the letter of General Cass, from which I have read, the law of American honor, strength, and glory was announced in such majesty of truth and power that I recur to it now in these degenerate days with the feeling of a traveler in the burning desert as he approaches the cooling, healing waters of a fountain in the depths of a grove. William L. Marcy honored forever be his name ! What American can read his immortal letter to Hulseman, touching the arrest and imprisonment of Martin Koszta by the Austrian empire, without feeling his patriotism kindle into a flame and his pride of country rise high toward the zenith? On the 26th day of September, 1853, tne great democratic secretary of state proclaimed the following grand utterances to the listening, ex pectant, and wondering nations of the earth: Whenever, by the operation of the law of nations, an individual becomes clothed with our national character, be he a native-born or naturalized citizen, an exile driven from his early home by political oppression, or an emigrant enticed from it by the hopes of a better fortune for himself and his posterity, he can claim the protection of this government, and it may respond to that claim with out being obliged to explain its conduct to any foreign power, for it is its duty to make its nationality respected by other nations, and respectable in every quarter of the globe. * * * International law looks only to the national character in determining what country has the right to protect. If a person goes from this country abroad with the nationality of the United States, this law enjoins upon other nations to respect him in regard to protection as an Ameri can citizen. Koszta was not yet a citizen of the United States ; he had simply declared his intention to become one. McSweeney s naturalization papers are full and complete. Koszta had a domicile in this country less than two years. McSweeney has resided, a well- known and respected business man, a quarter of a century in San Francisco. Yet, having laid down the principles of public law on the subject of American rights throughout the world, Mr. Marcy continues : WILLIAM L. MARCY. PROTECTION OF AMERICAN CITIZENS ABROAD. 335 Giving effect to these well-established principles and applying them to the facts in the case, the result is that Koszta acquired while in the United States their national character ; that he retained that character when he was seized at Smyrna, and that he had a right to be respected as such while there by Austria and every other foreign power. The right of a nation to protect and require others to respect at home and abroad all who are clothed with its nationality is no new doctrine, now for the first time brought into operation by the United States. It is common to all nations, and has had the sanction of their practice for ages, but it is new that at this late period, when the United States assert a claim to it as a common inheritance, it should at once be discovered that it is a doctrine fraught with danger and likely to compromise the peace of the world. The United States see no cause for alarm ; no reason for renouncing for them selves what others have so long and so harmlessly enjoyed. Sir, these are high, heroic words, and they well became the occasion. An American sloop-of-war, the Saint Louis, Captain Ingraham, a son of South Carolina, commanding, had with shot ted guns and lighted matches rescued, in a distant sea, from chains, dungeons, and certain death the person of a wanderer and an exile who had barely touched our shores, but who, in that brief stay, had clothed himself with the mantle of American nationality. The imperial house of Hapsburg demanded that the government of the United States should deliver him up to Austrian vengeance ; that it should disavow the conduct of Captain Ingraham and all the American agents in the affair; punish them severely, and then tender to Austria such satisfaction as she might deem proportion ate to the outrage complained of. And in order to enforce this demand upon the United States, Austria applied to the principal powers of Europe, and actually induced them to warn and admon ish this government in regard to its duty in the premises. It was under these circumstances., with the whole world looking on, and with all Europe in sympathy with Austria, that Marcy wrote his immortal communication to the representative of Austrian power and despotism. The Hungarian refugee was not delivered up ; the conduct of Ingraham and the other American agents at Smyrna was not disavowed ; they were not punished ; they were honored, and no other kind of satisfaction than this was ever ten dered to the empire of Austria. [Manifestations of applause in the galleries.] Now an American secretary of state is content for the British government to inform him distinctly, through the American minis ter, that it is none of his business why American citizens are in 336 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. British jails; that the cause of their arrest will not be given, and that they shall neither be tried nor released. The contrast is com plete; it can go no further. But it is said by the apologists of British arrogance and Ameri can pusillanimity that under the act of parliament known as the coercion act, it is lawful for men and women to be arrested, sentenced, and indefinitely imprisoned who have committed no crime, and are charged with none, but who have fallen under the suspicion of the spies and informers of the British government. We hear these unfortunate captives styled "suspects," not crim inals, but "suspects." They are not alleged to have violated any law, but they are sus pected of an intention to discuss those questions, as old as human existence, which involve the scant measure of bread on their poor tables, and the hard beds on which they and their children sleep of nights. The law of sworn accusation, indictment, public trial, and conviction before imprisonment under sentence, has given way to the law of suspicion. There can be no more atrocious system of jurisprudence than this; there can be no blacker crime commit ted by a government against its own citizens, or those who happen to sojourn within its barbarous jurisdiction. Tiberius, imprisoning and slaughtering Roman citizens upon suspicions poured into his ears by his infamous parasite, Sejanus, presented not such a spectacle of horror as the British government in its policy toward Ireland now presents. The evil-minded tyrant of Rome lived in a darker age than this. He was a heathen ; this is the nineteenth century of the Christian era, and near its majestic close. Such an enactment as the coer cion act now in operation in Ireland can not be law at this period of the world ; it is the subversion of law ; it openly assaults every element of justice, human and divine; it grapples with and seeks to overturn those immutable, eternal, inherent rights of man which are higher and stronger than all the acts of repressive legislation in the entire annals of despotism. If it is claimed that a government has the right to legislate for its own citizens as it pleases, even this can not be admitted with out qualification. The civilized nations of the earth are not com- PROTECTION OF AMERICAN CITIZENS ABROAD. 337 pelled to stand silently by and see one of their number convert it self into a prison or a charnel-house. International law recognizes a point where they may interfere in the interests of humanity. But I am only insisting now that Great Britain shall not be allowed to consign American citizens to chains and death, whatever she may do with her own, by virtue of an act which uproots, overturns, and annihilates every vestige of freedom and law. I am insisting that when the American, " be he a native-born or naturalized citizen," goes abroad in the peaceful pursuit of his own affairs, whether of business or pleasure, the nationality which he carries shall protect him as well from judicial as from clandestine murder ; from the illegal acts of foreign governments as well as from the brutal conduct of foreign mobs. Under existing treaties with foreign powers American citizens who happen within their jurisdiction are entitled to the best, not the worst, treatment which these powers can furnish to their own people. Less than this would render our citizenship a delusion and a snare to all who relied upon it in the hour of need. Sir, let us look this momentous question plainly in the face. We can less afford to ignore it or trifle with it than any other gov ernment on the globe. All our interests, traditions, and every sentiment of sacred honor bind us to the most vigilant protection of our citizens wherever they may be and whatever their nativity. The American republic was established by the united valor and wis dom of the lovers of liberty from all lands. The Frenchman, with his gay disregard of danger; the German, with his steady cour age; the Pole, with his high enthusiasm; and the Irishman, with all these qualities combined, were here in the long and bloody contest for American independence. La Fayette, the beloved of Washington; Hamilton, who rode by his side and assisted to or ganize the government; Pulaski, who fell at the head of his legion at Savannah; De Kalb, who died upon the field with all his saber wounds in front; Montgomery, who gave up his life in the storm of Quebec; Steuben, the accomplished military organizer; Kosci- usko, with his genius and daring; and large numbers of their fol lowers and associates were born under alien skies and came to the 22 338 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. banquet of battle and of death because of their love for human free dom. On every battle-plain of the Revolution, from Bunker Hill to Yorktown, the bones of their countrymen have long since crum bled to dust, and at every subsequent period of American history the foreign-born citizen, in council and in field, has been faithful to the common cause for which his ancestry bled. There are nearly ten million American citizens and inhabitants now of foreign birth. They come not here as aliens in blood with race prejudices against them. They are our kindred; their blood and ours commingle. We are of a common parent stock. Shall they be denied the protection of those institutions which they helped to purchase at so dear a cost, and which they have done so much to uphold and honor? Sir, there are now five senators on this floor who were born subjects of Great Britain three in Ireland, one in Scotland, and one in England. Shall they fall under the law of suspicion if they should revisit their native homes, be arrested at the pleasure of the British government, cast into dun geons without sworn charge, and held there indefinitely without trial? They are as liable to such a fate as Daniel McSweeney or any other naturalized citizen, and under the servile policy of the department of state and Mr. Lowell, they would remain in their cells instead of returning to their seats in this body. It has been announced that an eminent American woman con templates a visit to her imprisoned son in Ireland. Mrs. Parnell would doubtless be arrested as a " suspect." There is a twofold reason why the suspicion of British spies would haunt her : she is the mother of one who believes his people ought to have a chance to own their homes, and who loves liberty and justice well enough to suffer for them ; she is likewise the daughter of Stewart of the Ironsides, who saluted the British flag on the high seas in 1812, to better purpose, and with far greater propriety, than the salute of October last at Yorktown. [Applause in the galleries.] I plead for the right of this woman, and of all women and men of foreign birth, or with foreign alliances, to visit their kindred, share in their joys and their sorrows, look upon the graves of their parents and caress the loved ones they left behind them, without PROTECTION OF AMERICAN CITIZENS ABROAD. 339 molestation or hinderance from any power whatever, as long as they break no law. This is hot a question as to the people of any one nativity ; it is not an Irish nor a German question ; it applies to naturalized citi zens of every clime and land, and it affects their rights and their safety, on whatever sea or shore they may wander. It will be settled at no distant day in accordance with American honor. The people of the United States have too proud a sense of justice and of their own strength and glorious destiny to submit longer to the policy of a party which permits the American citizen, the Ameri can flag, and the American name to be outraged with impunity by foreign nations. [Applause in the galleries.] ELECTION LAWS OR LIBERTY AT THE BALLOT-BOX A speech delivered in the senate of the United States, April 17, 1879, upon the consideration of the bill making appropriations for the support of the army for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1880. R. PRESIDENT It is due to the American people that a clear and ample statement should be made of the causes which have led to the present extra session of congress. I propose, therefore, to examine in de tail the laws of the United States as they now exist on the two great questions of popular elections and impartial courts, and to show that if these laws are permitted to remain in force it will only be necessary for some bold man, clothed with execu tive authority, to put them in active operation in order, at his own pleasure, to overthrow this republic in spirit, form, and name from its turrets to its foundation-stones. I propose to demonstrate that all the parts of a complete and systematic machinery for a successful revolution against every principle of free government, against every reserved right of the states, and against the most hallowed safeguards of individual liberty are to be found in the malign legislation of the last fourteen years. Let the laws them selves speak, and when their ominous and threatening voices are fully heard throughout the land I am willing to stand or fall by the candid judgment of the people. Sir, I cite, to begin with, section 5506 of the Revised Statutes, chapter 7 of the title "crimes," as the keystone to the whole arch of federal usurpation over the freedom of the ballot-box. I (340) ELECTION LAWS. 341 do not believe it is generally known that the federal government has asserted to itself the right by law to interfere with and control all the elections of every description throughout the Union. On the con trary, the prevalent opinion, I think, has been that this tremendous power was only claimed and exercised at times and places when and where federal officials such as members and delegates in con gress were chosen by the people. The section, however, cited reads as follows : Every person who, by any unlawful means, hinders, delays, prevents, or ob structs, or combines and confederates with others to hinder, delay, prevent, or obstruct, any citizen from doing any act required to be done to qualify him to vote, or from voting at any election in any state, territory, district, county, city, par ish, township, school district, municipality, or other territorial subdivision, shall be fined not less than $500, or be imprisoned not less than one month nor more than one year, or be punished by both such fine and imprisonment. Can the human mind conceive an election of any kind in all this broad land which is not reached and embraced in these sweeping provisions? All the states and territories are here invaded and their right to regulate their own elections and to punish those who offend against their freedom and purity is broken down. Wherever also a county or a parish is engaged in choosing their clerks, au ditors, treasurers, and sheriffs, wherever a city proceeds to elect her mayor and other municipal officers, or a township or a school dis trict is voting for their constables and trustees, there the presence of United States authority to arrest, fine, and imprison is asserted and secured by this law. If in the excitement of election day two citizens quarrel, and one hinders, delays or obstructs the other from reaching the polls as soon as he otherwise might, a fine of not less than $500 is here denounced against the offender, to which may be added an imprisonment of one year. This is the plain reading of this enactment, and I challenge contradiction. But it may be said that this section does not provide for its own execution, and therefore it can never become destructive to the liberties and local rights of the people. No such oversight, how ever, occurred on the part of those who devised this legislation. The most ample provisions have been made for its rigid enforce ment in every nook and corner of the Union. Section 1982 342 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. contains the following peremptory command to federal officials everywhere : * The district attorneys, marshals and deputy marshals, the commissioners appointed by the circuit and territorial courts, with power to arrest, imprison or bail offenders, and every other officer who is especially empowered by the presi dent, are authorized and required, at the expense of the United States, to insti tute prosecutions against all persons violating any of the provisions of chapter 7 of the title " crimes," and to cause such persons to be arrested, and imprisoned or bailed, for trial before the court of the United States or the territorial court having cognizance of the offense. Here it will be seen that the entire executive force of all the United States courts, backed by the money of the United States treasury, is dedicated to the enforcement of all the provisions of chapter 7 of the title " crimes," including, of course, section 5506, heretofore quoted. Section 5506, however, simply stands at the head of a chapter of crimes such as were never before known to American law; a chapter of twenty-seven elaborate sections, in twenty-three of which the fiery and unscrupulous zeal of party hate and the refined ingenuity of trained lawyers have exhausted them selves in creating new offenses against the elective franchise, in digging pitfalls and weaving snares for the unwary feet of plain and honest citizens, in prescribing the ready instrumentalities by which they may be overtaken in seeming violations of law, in dragging them suddenly away from among their neighbors to distant hostile federal courts for trial, and in denouncing against them such pen alties, after conviction by packed juries, as would warm the dust of Scroggs and Jeffreys with joy could they hear them, though they have lain two centuries dead. Sir, this chapter has no parallel among the penal codes of civil ized nations. If two persons conspire to threaten any citizen in the enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the con stitution or laws of the United States, or because of his having exercised such right or privilege, they are liable, under section 5508, to a fine of $5,000, and to imprisonment for a term of ten years, although the threat may not have been carried out or its execution even attempted. If some timid or malicious partisan can satisfy a jury of his own politics, and a biased court, that two or more persons have agreed among themselves to intimidate him ELECTION LAWS. 343 in the free exercise and enjoyment of his rights, he will secure their conviction and their punishment by enormous fines and long imprisonment, although in fact he may not have been intimidated or scared at all or injured in any respect whatever. And to this penalty shall be added ineligibility to any office or place of honor, profit, or trust created by the constitution or laws of the United States. This is the very barbarism of party warfare and has its origin in the most vindictive passions of the human heart. Penal codes for the purpose of securing and maintaining party ascendency are familiar to the historian of every age, but none have been more malignant than this. Bearing this fact in mind I ask the attention of the senate next to another branch of this gen eral system for the suppression of free elections. It bears to the other parts of the system a close and vital connection. The fed eral government having usurped full and complete authority over every species of elections, state, county, township, and city, and having given this usurpation in charge to the federal courts and their officials to execute, an omnipresent detective corps, clothed with unlimited powers over the ballot-box and over the liberties of the voter, was next generated and called into existence by evil and rancorous legislation. It is held by some that noxious ver min and poisonous reptiles have their origin in the corruptions of nature. Be that as it may, I come now to deal with a class of federal officials who have been spawned upon the country through the degenerating processes of party animosity, and who are more offensive to American freemen than anything, however loathsome or dangerous, to which they may be likened in the animal king dom. Supervisors of elections! The dictionaries call them over seers. Overseers of elections! A most apt and truthful defini tion when their duties are considered ! The American people going to the polls and voting under overseers would indeed be a nation of slaves, and if they submit to do so they will deserve their fate. Let us examine the sources whence these overseers come, and let us inspect the long and cruel lash of their unbridled powers. By virtue of section 2011 of the Revised Statutes any two citizens of any city or town having upward of twenty thousand 344 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. inhabitants, or any ten citizens of any county or parish of any congressional district in the United States who may, from any motives however sinister, desire to have a registration of voters or an election "guarded and scrutinized," are empowered to open and keep open the circuit court of the United States wherein such city or town, county or parish is situated, and there begin their work. The next five sections point out the methods by which the hand of the judge and the seal of the court are used in manufactur ing supervisors of elections. A chief of this band of intruders upon the rights of freemen is also provided for in section 2025, as fol lows: The circuit courts of the United States for each judicial circuit shall name and appoint, on or before the first day of May, in the year 1871, and thereafter as va cancies may from any cause arise, from among the circuit court commissioners for each judicial district in each judicial circuit, one of such officers, who shall be known for the duties required of him under this title as the chief supervisor of elections of the judicial district for which he is a commissioner, and shall, so long as faithful and capable, discharge the duties in this title imposed. The supervising force, being organized and stationed at every precinct where the people vote for a member or delegate in con gress, and its chiefs, its generals of departments being appointed and placed in command, we are next to examine and ascertain how completely the ballot-box is torn from the hands of the local au thorities and given over to the clutches of federal officials. In states which have registration laws the supervisors of elections, or overseers, as Webster defines them, by virtue of section 2016, take absolute control of the whole subject, making the lists to suit them selves, putting on or striking off names or marking them for chal lenge, as they please. The American citizen must find favor in the sight of his overseer, or his name will not appear on the list of voters on election day. While such an enactment as this is in ex istence the state which adopts a registration law makes a practical surrender of the control of its elections to the officers of the federal government. It is the election itself, however, that calls forth all the powers of the overseers in their most repulsive and dangerous light. In being authorized to control elections for representatives and delegates in congress they have the entire control of the bal lot for all other officers, state, county, and municipal, who are can- ELECTION LAWS. 345 didates at the same time and place and on the same ticket. Let us analyze section 2017. It reads as follows: The supervisors of elections are authorized and required to attend at all times and places for holding elections of representatives or delegates in congress, and for counting the votes cast at such elections ; to challenge any vote offered by any person whose legal qualifications the supervisors, or either of them, may doubt ; to be and remain where the ballot-boxes are kept at all times after the polls are open until every vote cast at such time and place has been counted, the canvass of all votes polled wholly completed, and the proper and requisite cer tificates or returns made, whether the certificates or returns be required under any law of the United States, or any state, territorial or municipal law, and to personally inspect and scrutinize, from time to time, and at all times, on the day of election, the manner in which the voting is done, and the way and method in which the poll-books, registry-lists and tallies, or check-books, whether the same are required by any law of the United States or any state, territorial or munici pal law, are kept. The duties here prescribed are mainly those of a spy a spy upon the people as they come together at every voting precinct in the United States. The spirit which dictated this law was one of total distrust of the American people a distrust of their virtue and their intelligence, of their capacity for self-government through the instrumentality of free elections. What a spectacle is here presented ! The federal government furnishing officers to stand at all the polls to challenge any vote offered by any person whose legal qualifi cations " may be doubted by them, as if the people of the differ ent localities could not be trusted to choose their own challengers. These officials are also charged to keep watch and guard, with un ceasing vigilance, over all the ballot-boxes, to be and remain with them all the time, "and to personally inspect and scrutinize from time to time, and at all times, the* manner in which " the American citizen exercises his dearest right and most sacred privilege. This whole enactment proceeds upon the assumption that the officers of elections under state authority are predetermined felons, ballot- box thieves, forgers, and the like, and that the local communities which select them are accessory to their villainies. On this false and scandalous pretext the federal authority has been made to overthrow the most vital and cherished principles of local self-gov ernment. The entire theory of the constitution has been subverted. A centralization of power in the hands of the federal government over the local rights of the people and the states has been consum mated which would have startled Alexander Hamilton in his day, 346 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. although he believed in a monarchy. The judges and inspectors of elections acting under state laws are not permitted even to count out the ballots that have been cast by their neighbors. Section 2018 provides that The supervisors of election are, and each of them is, required to personally scrutinize, count, and canvass each ballot in their election district or voting pre cinct cast, whatever may be the indorsement on the ballot, or in whatever box it may have been placed or be found. I call upon the thoughtful and just men of all parties everywhere to take note of this provision, and to make answer whether in their judgment the election boards of the states, holding state, county, township, and city elections, are unfit to count and canvass the votes they have received. Have the people consented to such an unspeakable degradation as this? Have they in fact become slaves in spirit, and willing to receive the yoke of their overseers? Sir, I do not believe it. On the contrary, I believe that the minds and hearts of a brave people, in love with liberty, will kindle in fierce indignation against such insulting tyranny when the whole subject is fairly placed before them. The ingredients in this cup of humiliation and shame grow worse, however, if possible, as we proceed. Who can read the next sec tion, section 2019, without a righteous sense of resistance spring ing up in his breast? Hear it: The better to enable the supervisors of election to discharge their duties, they are authorized and directed, in their respective election districts or voting pre cincts, on the day of registration, on the day when registered voters may be marked to be challenged, and on the day of election, to take, occupy, and remain in such position, from time to time, whether before or behind the ballot-boxes, as will, in their judgment, best enable them to see each person offering himself for registration or offering to vote, and as will best conduce to their scrutinizing the manner in which the registration or voting is being conducted ; and at the closing of the polls for the reception of votes, they are required to place them selves in such position, in relation to the ballot-boxes, for the purpose of engag ing in the work of canvassing the ballots, as will enable them to fully perform the duties in respect to such canvass provided herein, and shall there remain un til every duty in respect to such canvass, certificates, returns, and statements has been wholly completed. Here at last we behold the citadel of free government stormed and taken. The enemy is placed by these provisions inside of that sacred bulwark of freedom for whose erection and defense the best blood of the world has streamed in torrents on the battle-field and ELECTION LAWS. 347 under the dripping ax of the executioner. With the supervisors, as they take possession of the polls and of the ballot-boxes, come also the United States marshals, their general deputies, and their special deputies, without limit as to number, in order, in the lan guage of section 2022, to Keep the peace, and support and protect the supervisors of election in the dis charge of their duties, preserve order at such places of registration and at such polls, prevent fraudulent registration and fraudulent voting thereat, or fraudulent conduct on the part of any officer of election, and immediately, either at the place of registration or polling place, or elsewhere, and either before or after registering or voting, to arrest and take into custody, with or without process, any person who commits, or attempts or offers to commit, any of the acts or of fenses prohibited herein, or who commits any offense against the laws of the United States. Thus supported, and by still greater forces when called for as I shall show hereafter, the supervisors are absolute masters of the entire situation. Am I to be told that it lessens the outrage on local self-government because they are to be of different political parties? Does it mitigate the crime against the freedom of the ballot because the corrupt men of both or of all the parties in the country may be appointed by the administration in power to com mit it? Sir, the man who is willing to accept the position of spy and informer on the honest voters of this country, who is willing to invade the rooms where their votes are received, and there seize their ballot-boxes, and arrest their judges of elections without pro cess of law, can claim no political kindred with me. I repudiate all such as consent to become the instruments of federal power for the overthrow of the doctrines and practices of the fathers, regardless of the party name they bear. Suppose we witness the operations of a pair of these super visors on election day under the laws as they now stand. A rep resentative in congress is to be chosen and so also is the governor of the state, and all the state and county officers on the same day and on the same ticket. The people of the precinct have as sembled to vote for those who make their laws, and for others to execute them. A few old men are there whose fathers fought in the Revolution ; here and there one who himself fought in the war of 1812, and was with Jackson at New Orleans; the middle- aged in the prime of manhood and the youth with his first ballot 348 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. in his hand all mingle together with the proud sense that they are sovereign, especially on that day and at that place. A room has been secured, and the judges and clerks of the election, selected by the people under the laws of their state, have taken their seats inside, near the accustomed window, for the con venient reception of votes. The judges are among the oldest and most respected citizens of the community, while the clerks are young men of integrity and ready writers. All is ready for the great day s work to begin, and for the ballot to execute the will of freemen, when two federal officials, strangers to the laws of the state, push forward and demand admittance. If the door or the window is not at once opened for their entrance they break them in without hesitation or delay, and proceed to take, occupy, and remain in such position, whether before or behind the ballot-box, as they please. They are directed by the law to so fix. themselves in place and attitude as to best enable them, in their judgment, to watch the voters and to see their faces as they come up to deposit their ballots, and also to scrutinize the manner in which the officers of the election are conducting it. More unwelcome than Banquo s ghost, and with far greater powers, they force themselves into the seats of other men ; but, unlike the spirit of that murdered chief tain, they do not appear to strike terror into a guilty conscience, but rather themselves to stab the cause of liberty to the heart. They are unlike that uneasy ghost in another particular; they never leave. From solid, odious substances they never vanish into thin air. They remain to the close of the banquet, masters of ceremony from the beginning to the end. But this is not all. If at these polls, where we are witnessing an election, a single spark of impatience or indignation should be manifested at the presence of these supervisors, and if any person, by a word, a look, a gesture, or in any other conceivable way, is thought by the supervisors themselves for they are the sole judges on that subject to obstruct or hinder them, or either of them, in their approach, their assault, or their occupancy, such person is " liable to instant arrest without process, and shall be punished by imprisonment not more than two years, or by a fine of not more than three thousand dsllars, or by both such fine and imprisonment, ELECTION LAWS. 349 and shall pay the cost of the prosecution. If one of the old, gray- haired judges on the board of election, inspired by the memory of other days, when such intruders would have been exterminated like marauding wolves in a sheep-fold, should protest by virtue of his authority as an officer of the state against being superseded and thrust aside, neither his age, his official character, nor the love and veneration of his neighbors will shelter him from instant arrest and the horrible punishment which I have just described. In proof of this statement I submit section 5522 of the Revised Statutes, with the earnest hope that every word of it will be read and carefully considered by the American people until the very name of super visors of election becomes an abhorrence in the public mind. The section is as follows: Every person, whether with or without any authority, power, or process, or pretended authority, power, or process, of any state, territory, or municipality, who obstructs, hinders, assaults, or by bribery, solicitation, or otherwise, inter- terferes with or prevents the supervisors of election, or either of them, or the marshal or his general or special deputies, or either of them, in the performance of any duty required of them, or either of them, or which he or they, or either of them, may be authorized to perform by any law of the United States, in the ex ecution of process or otherwise, or who by any of the means before mentioned hinders or prevents the free attendance and presence at such places of registra tion or at such polls of election, or full and free access and egress to and from any such place of registration or poll of election, or in going to and from anv such place of registration or poll of election, or to and from any room, where any such registration or election or canvass of votes, or of making any returns of certificates thereof, may be had, or who molests, interferes with, removes, or ejects from any such place of registration or poll of election, or of canvassing votes cast thereat, or of making returns or certificates thereof, any supervisor of election, the marshal, or his general or special deputies, or either of them; or who threatens, or attempts, or offers so to do, or refuses or neglects to aid and assist any supervisor of election, or the marshal or his general or special deputies, or either of them, in the performance of his or their duties, when required by him or them, or either of them, to give such aid and assistance, shall be liable to in stant arrest without process, and shall be punished by imprisonment not more than two years, or by a fine of not more than $3,000, or by both such fine and imprisonment, and shall pay the cost of the prosecution. Sir, I assert in the hearing of the senate and the country, that there is not one American voter, from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, and from the chain of lakes on the north to the Gulf of Mexico, who is not liable to arrest any moment on election day at the polls, without any other accusation than exists in the mind of a supervisor or a deputy marshal, and with no other process or war rant than a club or a pair of handcuffs. I assert, and challenge 350 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. denial, as long as this law stands, that every citizen of the" United States holds his personal liberty while attending the polls and cast ing his ballot, solely and absolutely at the mere whim, caprice, impulse, party malice, or private hate of a supervisor, or of his coadjutor, the deputy marshal. If it is pretended that by section 2029 the supervisors of elec tion for a county or a parish can not make arrests, my answer is that the section which I have just read, section 5522, overrides all other provisions on this subject, and in express words authorizes the instant arrest, without process, of every person who may in any conceivable manner interfere with a supervisor or a deputy marshal at any place of registration or election in the United States where by law such officers are entitled to be present. No cause need be assigned for the arrest, either verbally or in writing. No oath or affirmation is required before the citizen is dragged away and locked up. It is only necessary for the mind of the overseer or the deputy marshal to fix an offense upon a voter, however innocent he may be, and his arrest follows as instantaneously as the explosion of powder follows the touch of fire. The silent, un spoken conclusions of irresponsible, ignorant, and brutal partisan ruffians are permitted, and indeed required, by existing laws to determine every man s right to personal liberty as he passes under their inspection at the polls. The language of the constitution is: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and ef fects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. What becomes of these sacred provisions? Who will pretend that the laws under discussion are in harmony with them? Who will pretend that laws, by virtue of which the people maybe seized for purely imaginary offenses, or, what is even worse, for offenses created in the minds of malicious hireling spies and informers, and imprisoned without any accusation under oath, are sustained by the constitution? If such was the fact, if indeed the constitution did sanction such atrocious enactments, it would be conclusive ELECTION LAWS. 351 proof that the heroes of the Revolution had died in vain, and that their blood was not shed in the cause of free government. Sir, these laws are not the offspring of that great instrument which has descended to us with ever-increasing strength and glory from the days of our Revolutionary ancestors. They emanate rather from that malignant spirit of political oppression aud tyranny which pre ceded the French Revolution, and caused its fires at last to break forth ; which filled the prisons of France with victims arrested on secret orders, and made every citizen tremble as one who fears a blow in the dark. They emanate from that spirit which ruled over Venice, when a whisper or a look of suspicion was more to be dreaded than the blow of a dagger, and when the silent and voice less accusation doomed its object to walk the Bridge of Sighs into the caverns of a ruthless and lingering death. In English history there never was a period in which they could have been executed. Charles I lost his head, James II his throne, and George III his American colonies in attempting far less encroachments on the lib erties of Englishmen than these laws perpetrate on the liberties of Americans. Dionysius, the tyrant of Syracuse, suspended a sword by a single hair over the heads of his guests at a banquet, and en joyed their terror. The party but yesterday in power in this chamber has suspended over the heads of the American people and put into operation in their midst enactments far deadlier than the sword; for, without the unassailable safeguards of personal liberty, life itself is of no value. The senator from Maine (Mr. Elaine) has urged that opposition to these enactments is a false issue on the part of those who have not felt their cruel enforcement. He asserts that because the fed eral election laws have not been called into active execution in some portions of the country, and troops have not been placed at all the polls, therefore the people have no reason for resentment. The tories of the Revolution argued the same way a hundred years ago on the stamp act and the tax on tea. They insisted that the claim of right to bind the colonies in all things put forth by the British parliament could do no harm, and ought to be submitted to as long as no attempt was made to enforce it. But it was that very claim of right which made the Revolution. It was not the 352 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. amount of the tax collected, or even demanded, that caused the sword of Bunker Hill to be drawn. It was the naked assertion of a principle subversive of local self-government which drove the colonies to armed resistance and kept the army of the Revolution in the field under Washington until American independence was secured. Our fathers were unwilling for a claim of despotic power to hang over them as a threat liable at any time to be put in execution. They revolted against the idea that they were to hold their rights subject only to the forbearance of their rulers. They resented the menace of the British government contained in its declaration of power as they would a personal indignity. Burke, in his speech of March, 17/5, on conciliation with America, thus describes the colonists : In other countries the people, more simple and of a less mercurial cast, judge of an ill principle in government only by an actual grievance; here they antici pate the evil, and judge of the pressure of the grievance by the badness of the principle. They augur misgovernment at a distance and snuff the approach of tyranny in every tainted breeze. This was the sublime sentiment of liberty which inspired Jeffer son and John Adams, Patrick Henry and John Hancock; which welded together the toil-worn and destitute veterans of Virginia and Massachusetts in many a bitter and bloody charge. The sound of the clanking chains of political bondage was heard in the dis tance, and it was enough. They did not sit supinely and heedlessly until the manacles were fastened on their limbs. Are their descend ants of this day so degenerate that they will wait until the hand of power clutches them by the throat and hurls them into prison before they will turn and destroy the laws which provide for such debasement? Shall we salute with reverence the tokens of tyranny, the emblems of our enslavement? The Swiss peasant refused to bow his uncovered head to the cap of the Austrian tyrant elevated as a sign of subjugation ; and the hearts of brave men and fair women in all the four quarters of the globe have poured incense to the name of William Tell. John Hampden thought twenty shill ings of ship money too dear a price to pay for security, ease, peace, and life itself, as long as .the prerogative to levy such a tax was claimed by the king ; and he yielded up his peerless spirit on ELECTION LAWS. 353 the plains of Chalgrave in defying an unjust principle of govern ment. Notwithstanding the derision of the senator from Maine, all history attests the danger of leaving instruments of usurpation and oppression ready for the use of those intrusted with executive authority. The usurper will come at last. The hour of his advent is inevitable. The temptations of supreme and arbitrary power have never yet failed to develop a Caesar, a Cromwell, or a Na poleon, whenever the people have relaxed their vigilance and suf fered their laws to pave the way toward despotism. But in the present instance we have vastly more than the mere menace or threat of future subjugation by virtue of the laws under discussion. We are not left to conjecture what will be done here after. Already these laws have been executed over the prostrate forms and liberties of American citizens in a manner and to an ex tent which would arouse any people in Europe to revolt, except, perhaps, the serfs of Russia. I speak not now of the South, which has so long been considered a legitimate prey to the spoiler, but of the great, dominant, and stalwart North. Look to New York, that mighty emporium of the wealth and commerce of the western hemisphere. Scenes have been enacted there within the last few years which bring shame and disgrace to the republic wherever they are known. John I. Davenport is chief supervisor of elec tions in the city of New York, appointed by the circuit court of the United States. He is also the clerk of the United States circuit court, and a United States commissioner. With all the powers of these manifold official positions combined in his own person he has indeed been the autocrat of the ballot-box. In the elections of 1876 he had under him one thousand and seventy supervisors, twenty-five hundred deputy marshals, and an indefinite number of commissioners, at an expense for them and for himself of ninety- four thousand five hundred and eighty-seven dollars. In 1878 he employed twelve hundred and twenty-five super visors, thirteen hundred and fifty deputy marshals, and commis sioners in proportion, for all whose pay and expenses he drew upon the money of the people in the treasury, In June, 1876, as clerk of the United States circuit court, he issued warrants for the 23 354 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. arrest of twenty-six hundred naturalized voters to be brought before him as United States commissioner and chief supervisor for the purpose of making them surrender their naturalization papers. The federal courts themselves afterward held that the naturaliza tion papers in question were all legal and valid, but the desired result had been accomplished. The terror inspired by these arrests intimidated thousands from going to the polls. It became well known that there was no personal security in New York in connection with the elections, and the poor, the timid, and the humble staid away. The same course was pursued in 1878. During the summer of that year nine thousand four hundred citizens were notified that they would be arrested unless they sur rendered their naturalization papers to the head overseer, John I. Davenport. In the month of October, 1878, thirty-one hundred persons were actually arrested and a reign of terror inaugurated just in advance of the election. The pretense that these persons held fraudulent naturalization papers had already been shown to be false, but it was necessary to party success that an alarm should be raised and a panic created in the minds of foreign-born citizens and of the poor laboring classes generally. The movement was successful, and it has been estimated that ten thousand legal voters remained away from the polls rather than risk the jails and the prison-pens of the chief supervisors and his subordinates. But it was reserved for the day of election itself to give free scope to the frightful powers with which this band of federal ku-klux is invested. Those who braved the dangers which environed the ballot-box, and approached it as if they were still freemen, soon found their mistake. They quickly ascertained that the previous threats and warnings which they had heard were neither idle nor unmeaning. As a specimen of thou sands of similar occurrences on election day, I quote a statement recently made by a member of the other branch of congress from New York. Speaking from his place on the floor, he said : A neighbor of mine, who had resided in the same district for seventeen years and a soldier of the Union army at that, was arrested. I was asked to go to the republican headquarters in an adjoining district, whither he had been taken. The street for an entire block was lined with carriages, in which the unfortunate citizens who had fallen into the hands of the Philistines had been or were to be ELECTION LAWS. 355 conveyed. When I entered the building I found the front room decorated with the paraphernalia of a political headquarters, and filled with republican politicians. In the back room a United States commissioner was holding court. The door was closed, watched by a Cerberus. No one was allowed inside but the prisoners and the republican managers. After about half an hour s waiting I was informed by the doorkeeper that the man I was looking for was no longer there. I asked whither he had been taken. " Suppose to Fort Davenport," was the laconic reply. Sir, most likely this soldier of the Union army was with Grant in the Wilderness, at Cold Harbor, and at Petersburg. Or per haps he was with Sherman in his march to the sea, and as a sol dier of the army of the Tennessee took part in the bloody battle of Atlanta. Wherever he was, however, and on whatever field he was baptized with fire, he was assured that he was offering his life for the preservation of the Union under the safeguards of constitu tional liberty. He was also assured that human slavery should not survive the triumph of the Union cause, and he rejoiced to believe that his country would in fact soon be the land only of the free. What must have been his reflections, therefore, in November last to find, in attempting to cast his ballot, that he was as very a slave in the hands of a brutal overseer as any negro ever driven in a cot ton-field, and that he had no more power under existing laws to protect his personal freedom than an African bondsman on the auc tion-block before the war. Did he not, most probably, conclude that one of the fruits of the war, under the nurture and cultivation of the republican party, was the extension of slavery, rather than its overthrow and destruction? Was he not impressed with the fact that the liberation of one race had been followed by the en slavement of another? What were his thoughts, and the thoughts of his fellow-victims, who had also been his fellow-soldiers, as they lay like felons in prison, in "Fort Davenport," for offering to vote? How did their bitter thoughts in that hour of degradation compare with their glorious dreams as they often lay together on the tented field ; when their Bugles sang truce ; for the night-cloud had lowered, And the sentinel stars set their watch in the sky ; And thousands had sunk on the ground overpowered The weary to sleep, and the wounded to die. In such an hour as this they dreamed not only of returning to 356 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. the dear ones at home, of their rapturous, clinging embrace and burning kiss, but they likewise dreamed of returning to a land of liberty, to homes made free from the invasive steps of the spy and informer, and to a state of personal security under laws of their own making. These bright dreams have all vanished, and in their place the returned soldier, and all others, have embraced a reality as horrible and as unbearable to the soul of a man fit to be free as Dante s conceptions of inferno are to the Christian mind. The fol lowing description of election day in Davenport s court in New York is said to be but a tame and imperfect presentment of the facts as they there transpire from year to year as the elections occur: Such a scene as the rooms of this court presented on that election day has never before been witnessed in this city or in this country, and it is to be hoped never will again. From early mornipg until after the polls were closed these rooms were packed and jammed with a mass of prisoners and marshals. Not only were they crowded beyond their capacity, but the halls and corridors were thronged with those who were unable to obtain admission, so that the counsel representing the prisoners and the bondsmen who were offered to secure their release had the greatest difficulty, and were frequently unsuccessful, in obtaining entrance. In addition to all this was that delectable iron "pen" on the upper floor, in which men were crowded until it resembled the black hole of Calcutta, and where they were kept for hours hungry, thirsty, suffering in every way until their cases could be reached. With scarcely an exception these men had gone to the polls expecting to be absent but a short time. Many of them were thinly clad, numbers had sick wives or relatives; some were sick themselves. There were carmen who had left their horses standing in the public streets; men whose situations depended on their speedy return; men who wished to leave the city on certain trains. Every imaginable vexation, inconvenience, injury, and wrong which the mind can conceive existed in their cases, so that it was painful for the counsel who were endeavoring to secure their release to approach sufficiently near the railing to hear their piteous appeals and witness the distress which they had no power to alleviate. And over all this pushing, struggling, complaining crowd Mr. Commissioner John I.Davenport sat supreme, with a sort of oriental magnificence, calmly indifferent to everything but the single fact that no man who was arrested was allowed to vote. May I not, in view of this dark and shameful picture, appeal to senators without impropriety to know whither we are drifting? Are we still hugging the miserable delusion that there is no danger, while scenes are being enacted in strict accordance with the laws on our statute books which would be a disgrace to Turkish civilization if enacted by the arbitrary authority of the sultan? Has a fatal lethargy seized the American people, and are we indeed to follow the downward pathway of all the republics that have risen and fallen in the past? The sailor in northern seas veers off into safer ELECTION LAWS. 357 waters the moment he feels the current of the great maelstrom un der his keel. We are in the very vortex of the whirlpool wherein every local privilege, every right of citizenship, all the sanctuaries of home, and the ship of state itself are being drawn down and dashed to pieces, and yet the cry that all is well, uttered by false pilots, lulls us into a sense of security and repose. I call upon my countrymen to awaken, for the hour of mortal peril to their insti tutions is here. What has happened in New York has happened elsewhere, and may happen every-where. Shall the laws which make such scenes possible remain in force? I invoke against them the memories of the mighty dead who fell for independence ; who enriched the soil of Massachusetts with their blood at Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill; who struggled with Washington at Brandy wine, and charged under his eye at Princeton, Trenton, and Monmouth ; who tasted death at Camden, the Cowpens, and Eutaw Springs, in order that we might be free ; who yielded up their brave spirits on the plains of Yorktown in the precious hour of final vic tory. By these great souls, by their privations, sorrows, anguish, and pain, I implore the American people not to forget the value of those liberties which are now trampled under foot with every cir cumstance of scorn and contempt. At this point, however, and in this connection, another branch of legislation on the subject of popular elections calls for our consid eration. In presenting the elaborate and carefully constructed system of laws for the suppression of self-government, we are next confronted by those provisions which place the land and naval forces of the United States at the polls. Those who conceived and enacted these laws were not content until the sword as well as the purse of the nation was prostituted to the suppression of free elections. I have only to appeal to the laws themselves to make good this statement, strong as it may appear. The section most familiar to the public mind is 5528 of the Revised Statutes, and is often cited in proof of the harmless pur poses of the army. It has in fact, at a hasty glance, a somewhat innocent aspect, but a moment s inspection will show that like the Trojan horse its real object is to carry armed men into a citadel in this instance the citadel of liberty without exciting suspicion 358 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. or resistance. It was enacted in February, 1865, and its language is as follows : Every officer of the army or navy, or other person in the civil, military, or naval service of the United States, who orders, brings, keeps, or has under his authority or control any troops or armed men at any place where a general or special election is held in any state, unless such force be necessary to repel armed enemies of the United States, or to keep the peace at the polls, shall be fined not more than five thousand dollars, and suffer imprisonment at hard labor not less than three months nor more than five years. Here is simply a cheap display of pretended severity against military interference with elections, while the sole purpose of the section was to authorize the presence of armed troops at the polls under the vague pretext of keeping the peace. Sir, who is to determine the necessity of the presence of the army or the navy at the place of voting on election day to keep the peace? Who is to pass upon this plea of military necessity and give the command to close in on the ballot-box with the bayonet? Under this section it is evident that the president of the United States as commander- in-chief would have that duty to perform. What a dazzling field here opens for the operations of a usurper ! It is matter of history that Caesar while in Gaul sent his emissaries to Rome to incite riots and disturbances at the elections in order to give him the pre text he craved, to keep the peace at the polls with his trained legions at his back. Napoleon the Great crushed the liberties of France under the tyrant s usual guise of preserving public order by force of arms ; and Napoleon the Lesser in our own day fol lowed his example. What a temptation is presented, by the section I have read, to some American executive to practice the same usurpations ! He has only to stir up troubles through his partisan emissaries in the South, as has often been done heretofore, and the occasion is made for the use of the army to any extent he may choose. He is the judge of the number of troops and the time they are to move and the places they are to invest. He may order any number of ships of war into the harbor of New York or in front of New Orleans on election day, or at any time before that day, to overawe the people, simply avowing that he does so under this law to keep the peace at the polls. It is difficult to conceive that such an enactment could be found among the statutes ELECTION LAWS. 359 of a republic, but it is my painful duty to show two others on the same subject far more dangerous, if possible, than this. Section 1989, found in the Revised Statutes under the title " civil rights," confers on the president in express terms the powers which are implied in section 5528. There is no attempt here to deceive . The army and navy are boldly placed at the disposal of the president to use at his discretion over a range of subjects and in the control of their details as extensive as the rights of man under a free con stitution. The words of the section are as follows: It shall be lawful for the president of the United States, or such person as he may empower for that purpose, to employ such part of the land or naval forces of the United States, or of the militia, as may be necessary to aid in the execu tion of judicial process issued under any of the preceding provisions, or as shall be necessary to prevent the violation and enforce the due execution of the pro visions of this title. There are fifteen sections in this title, and they embrace the as sertion and enforcement of every right and privilege known to American citizenship. They were prepared and enacted for the purpose of placing the negro on an exact equality in every partic ular with the white man before the law, and they consequently cover as much ground as the constitution itself. For instance, the first section of this title provides for the right to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties, and give evidence; and the second section provides for the right to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey real and personal property. It is made lawful for the president, at his own will and pleasure, and without reference to state laws on these subjects, to launch the army into any state he may choose to crush, under the pretense of enforcing these pro visions or preventing their violation. The third section of this title relates to actions at law and suits in equity for damages by such as deem themselves deprived of any rights, privileges, or im munities secured by the constitution and laws. The fourth section treats of conspiracies first, to intimidate persons from accepting and holding office; second, to deter witnesses from testifying in any United States court to influence grand or petit jurors, or in any manner to impede or defeat the due course of justice; and, third, to deprive any class of persons of the equal protection of the laws, or to prevent any one from voting for the candidate of his 360 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. choice. The section concludes by giving a right of civil suit for damages to any one conceiving himself aggrieved under its pro visions. Other sections follow of intricate and diversified charac ter, but I have cited enough to show the vast and sweeping scope of the duties devolved on the army and navy by virtue of section 1989 and the absolute supremacy of one-man power there created. Under the wide and universal provisions of the civil rights title, which we are now considering, there is not a phase in human affairs wherein the army and navy of the United States can not be called by the executive to prevent or to enforce the execu tion of some act by individuals, states, and territories. Section 1989 contemplates the military control of elections not only, but of everything else that belongs to the states, territories, counties, cities, and every other species of municipality. It utterly abro gates the constitution of the United States. By that instrument, section 4, article 4, the extent of the power of the federal govern ment to send troops to a state is defined : The United States shall guarantee to every state in this Union a republican form of government, and shall protect each of them against invasion, and on ap plication of the legislature, or of the executive (when the legislature can not be convened), against domestic violence. This short and pregnant sentence marks the boundaries, as understood by the fathers, between the federal government and the states in regard to the character and enforcement of state constitu tions and laws. There has been much confusion of ideas and the wildest vagaries of construction growing out of this clause of the federal constitution, and especially in relation to that part of it which guarantees to every state a republican form of government. I have heard it contended in debate in congress that by virtue of tlys power of guarantee the federal government could unseat mem bers of a state legislature, annul laws of their enactment, direct other members to be sworn in and other laws to be enacted, and in a general and in an especial manner take charge of all local interests. All this, too, was to be upheld and enforced by United States military authority if necessary. Sir, may it not be well to under stand exactly what it is that the federal government is called on to guarantee to the states? A republican form of government is ELECTION LAWS. 361 something easily defined. The term "republic," as applied to a political organization, is derived from the two Latin words, res, a thing, an affair, and publica, public, meaning a public affair in which all have a common interest, in which there is neither royalty nor rank fixed by law. Webster defines a republican form of gov ernment to be : A state in which the sovereign power is exercised by representatives elected by the people; a commonwealth. Taking this as the true meaning of the expression used in the federal constitution, and we have no difficulty in understanding that when a state has framed and adopted a constitution in har mony therewith, and maintains it, the federal government has no more power to interfere with or send armed forces into the state, except upon its own application to resist invasion or to suppress do mestic violence, than the state has to assume the functions of the fed eral government. If the legislature of a state should pass laws repug nant to the constitution or the laws of the United States , which together with treaties are the supreme law, the courts are charged with the duty of arresting them. If riots break out at elections, or on any other occasion, begetting domestic violence which the state can not put down; or if invasion occurs, and the state calls for assistance in the manner prescribed by the constitution, then and then only can the government of the United States come to its relief in martial array. A contrary doctrine to this, the doctrine contained in the section under discussion, changes this government in the twink ling of an eye from a republic to a consolidated military des potism, governed in all its parts and details by the army and navy, at the sole behest of the commander-in-chief, the president of the United States. There is no more escape from this conclusion than there is from the evidence of our senses that light follows the morn ing and darkness the night. By this section the president is left to determine everything, and to execute without restraint from any quar ter his arbitrary conclusions. He may declare it necessary to aid in the execution of judicial process with the army in any portion of the country, whether it is so or not. He may declare any city of over twenty thousand inhabitants, or any county or parish in the 362 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. United States, in a state of insurrection, station troops in them, proclaim martial law, and cut them off from all communication with other parts of the world. But there remains one more section authorizing the use of the army and navy to subvert free elections which demands our atten tion. I turn to it, I confess, with feelings of repugnance. It com pletes the degradation of that army and navy whose fame and glory fill the whole earth. It shows to what base uses the heroes of a hundred battles may be put by the vaulting ambition of radi cal partisans. It is section 1984, and reads as follows: The commissioners authorized to be appointed by the preceding section are empowered, within their respective counties, to appoint, in writing, under their hands, one or more suitable persons, from time to time, who shall execute all such warrants or other process as the commissioners may issue in the lawful performance of their duties, and the persons so appointed shall have authority to summon and call to their aid the bystanders or posse comitatus of the proper county, or such portion of the land or naval forces of the United States, or of the militia, as may be necessary to the performance of the duty with which they are charged; and such warrants shall run and be executed anywhere in the state or territory within which they are issued. The warrants or other process mentioned in this section, and which the commissioners may issue, are such as are provided for the arrest and intimidation of voters before elections, on election day, and afterward. They are such as are contemplated in chap ter 7 of the title "crimes," on which I have already commented. We behold, therefore, by virtue of this most amazing section, the army and navy of the United States, not placed under the com mand of the president or such person as he may empower, pre sumably an officer of high rank and character, to regulate and control elections, but ordered to obey the "summon and call" of the lowest agents, and, naturally, the vilest instruments of this whole pernicious business. Let us pause and look for a moment at the scene which is here provided for. The circuit courts of the United States and the district courts of the territories are author ized by section 1983 to increase the number of commissioners from time to time, so as to afford a speedy and convenient means for the arrest and examination of persons charged with crimes against the election laws, until the whole land shall swarm with commissioners bent on the success of their party. Then these ELECTION LAWS. 363 commissioners, appointed for a political purpose, are empowered in every county in the United States to appoint one or more per sons whom they may deem suitable to execute their process and carry out their edicts. And how astounding and incredible it seems, in this age of advanced civilization, that these innumerable deputy commissioners, these irresponsible sublessees of unconstitu tional power, should have, by the express words of American law, the authority to summon and call to their aid not merely the bystanders and the posse comitatus of the county, but such por tion of the land or naval forces of the United States or of the militia as they may consider necessary to the performance of their duties ! Here are the plain words of the law, and there is not a senator on this floor who will gainsay my statement. Sir, who are these people on whom the most tremendous powers known to human governments have been so lavishly bestowed ? I have no word of disparagement for United States commissioners, appointed to per form the legitimate duties of that useful office, but for political instruments, thrust by partisan hate and ambition into that posi tion, and for those still below them, I have neither respect nor forbearance. The experience of the last few years in the different states, and notably in New York, shows that political commis sioners, their deputies and subordinates, foisted into the control of elections, belong essentially to that class of human pests so power fully described by Curran in his defense of Rowan, who, in the language of the great Irishman, "overwhelmed in the torrent of corruption at an early period, lay at the bottom like drowned bodies while soundness or sanity remained in them ; but at length becoming buoyant by putrefaction, they rose as they rotted and floated to the surface of the polluted stream, where they were drifted along, the objects of terror and contagion and abomination. Yet of such as these are made the commanders of the military and naval forces of this government; to these miserable, cringing camp-followers of any party in power, occupying, as they do, the lowest and most disreputable places in the rear rank of political warfare, the proudest plumed chieftains, the most peerless warriors on land and sea, must bow their tall heads and obey their man- 364 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. dates. Will some senator tell me how the brave and brilliant Sherman, bearing a higher rank than even Washington ever bore, is to escape obedience to a deputy United States commissioner? Will some one point out to me how, under the law as it now stands, Sheridan, Hancock, or the secretary of war himself, is to refuse military subjection and co-operation to any offspring of the polit ical sewer appointed by a United States commissioner and bearing a warrant or other process for the arrest of a citizen charged with an offense against the election laws? I assert, fearless of contra diction, that under the section I have read the veriest reptile of ward politics, the most abandoned scavenger of party warfare, armed with a commissioner s appointment and any sort of process against the liberty of an American citizen, can call the whole army and navy to his support, and the tallest heads must bow to his command. The scarred and veteran legions who bore the eagles of the republic in triumph in Mexico and who are yet in the army ; the dauntless, chivalric, and generous hearts who closed with their own equal kindred in the mortal grasp of civil war; all these, and others besides, are placed at the beck and nod of a commander selected by a United States commissioner. I will not stop to say that this is monstrous. That will be the universal verdict. I will not pause to denounce such laws as wholly infamous, for that will be the judgment not only of the American people but of all the civilized nations of the world. Sim ply to call up and exhibit such a horrible death s head as this in the laws of a commonwealth pretending to be free is enough to excite the jeers, the hisses, and the execrations of every lover of liberty on the habitable globe. The army and the navy of the United States ! How often the banquet hall and the festive board have rung with eloquence in their praise ! How often their achievements have been the theme of poetry and song ! Whose heart has not swelled with emotion at the mention of Revolutionary fields of fame? Whose eye has not kindled at the story of Lundy s Lane, the Thames, Tippecanoe, and New Orleans? Whose spirit does not feel exalted when Buena Vista, Monterey, Cerro Gordo, Churubusco, and Chapultepec pass in stately review? And whose eyes have not grown moist and dim with enthusiasm in reading the ELECTION LAWS. 365 battles of the ocean, those deadly conflicts of the sea which have made American genius and courage as imperishable in history as the fixed stars are in the heavens over our heads? Sir, these sentiments are universal in the American heart, but who now will speak the eulogy or sing in heroic verse the deeds of the army and navy of the United States used to overthrow free elections under the command of deputy United States commission ers? Others may answer the question; I cannot. History, how ever, gives no uncertain answer as to the final result of such legis lation. All the free governments of the past have withered away and perished by the introduction of military force into the manage ment of their civil affairs. We will prove no exception to this invariable rule. Even in England, the home of monarchy, gov erned by kings and queens and a hereditary nobility, the people, nearly a hundred and fifty years ago, demanded and enforced the entire absence of troops from the polls on election day, in order that they might preserve their rights, whatever they were, under the British constitution. A committee of this body on a former occasion described the objects of the well-known statute of George II in the following terms : It can not escape notice that the leading object of this ancient statute, as suffi ciently evidenced by the preamble, was the preservation of the rights and liber ties of the kingdom, not their destruction. And the history of the times shows that the prohibition to keep military forces near places where there was an elec tion of members of parliament, arose from outrages practiced upon the electors by the ministers in posting troops so as to overawe them, and coerce them into the returning of candidates friendly to the ministerial party, and the supporters of prerogative against popular rights. This description of the use of the military on election day sounds painfully familiar at this time to American ears. Our an cestors, even in the dark reign of the second George, a century and a half ago, would not brook such outrages upon the electors. Are we, with all the increase of light and liberty now in the world, to be denounced for demanding just what they did? The senator from Massachusetts (Mr. Hoar) in his recent speech found noth ing to censure or disapprove in the use of the army or the navy to control elections. Another senator from the same state held dif ferent views. Daniel Webster declared: 366 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. If men would enjoy the blessings of republican government they must govern themselves by reason, by mutual counsel, and consultation, by a sense and feeling of general interest, and by the acquiescence of the minority in the will of the majority properly expressed ; and above all the military must be kept, according to the language of our bill of rights, in strict subordination to the civil authority. Wherever this lesson is not learned and practiced there can be no political freedom. Absurd, preposterous is it, a scoff, and a satire on free forms of constitutional liberty, for forms of government to be prescribed by mil itary leaders, and the right of suffrage to be exercised at the point of the sword. Passing, however, in the order of discussion to another part of this general system for the suppression of free elections, I approach next the improper use of the federal judiciary. A greater calam ity than political courts hardly ever befell any people. There is no form of oppression so dangerous as judicial unfairness. An armed invasion of constitutional rights can be speedily met by armed resistance. Force provokes force in return, and the hum blest intellect can comprehend such an issue as quickly as the greatest. The proceedings of courts, on the other hand, are not always plain to the common mind. Little by little they can, by false constructions, destroy the principles of free government unob served except by the few who are learned in the law. Judges, therefore, of a partisan bias, carrying with them on the bench party convictions and party zeal, are of all the officers of the gov ernment the most formidable instruments of political warfare. It was of such as these that Jefferson spoke in 1820 when he said: The judiciary of the United States is the subtle corps of sappers and miners constantly working under ground to undermine the foundations of our confed erated fabric. They are construing our constitution from a co-ordination of a general and special government to a general and supreme one alone. It was in view, also, of partisan judges that he said: Our judges are as honest as other men and not more so. They have, with others, the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of their corps. Their maxim is "boni judicis est ampliare jurisdictionem" and their power the more dangerous, as they are in office for life, and not responsible, as the other functionaries are, to the elective control. It is indeed a most obvious fact, verified by the experience of all ages, as well as by the wisdom of the foremost minds in history, that courts of justice can not be invested with political purposes without demoralizing the whole judicial system, and inflicting dan ger on every right belonging to the citizen. Yet the judiciary of ELECTION LAWS. 367 the United States has been boldly seized upon, and nearly all its parts applied to the support and permanence of a political party. The authors of the laws for that purpose made the circuit and the district courts of the United States the fountain and the beginning of the entire plot against the freedom of the ballot-box. Any two persons rilled with party zeal in a city or town of over twenty thou sand inhabitants, or any ten persons under the same inspiration in a county or parish without respect to population, can command the federal courts at their pleasure. At their orders the circuit judge shall open court, and in his absence the district judge shall obey the call. This shall occur in vacation as well as term time, and the court shall remain open, or in the language of the law, "be always open for the transaction of business under this title," that is to say, the business of the elections, until the elections are over. Not only is the court to be always open, but the judge is to be pursued to his chambers by eager local party leaders, where he has the same powers on this subject as when sitting in court. The absolute subserviency of the federal judges, wherever found, whether in court or in chambers, being thus secured, their duties are necessarily of an injurious and odious character. Every squad of supervisors of elections, equipped as spies, informers, bailiffs, and burglars at the ballot-box, emanate directly from the hands and seals of the federal judiciary. The chief supervisor, the commander-in-chief in certain respects of this invading force, is likewise an offspring of judicial prostitu tion. So, also, the innumerable hordes of political United States commissioners contemplated and authorized by section 1983, and all their deputies under them, with power as I have shown, to command the army and the navy ; all these strange and illegitimate election officials spring from the federal courts, embraced as they have been by an arrogant and lawless political party. The deputy United States marshals, unlimited in number and viciously partisan in purpose, have in fact a similar origin, for they are appointed by the marshal, always in political accord with the administration in power and always subject to the influence and control of the court. Can it be necessary to show that the framers of the constitution never designed the federal judiciary for such base ends as these? FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. Can it be necessary to show that the appointment and control of election officers constitute no part of the judicial power of this gov ernment? The constitution declares : The judicial power of the United States shall be vested in one supreme court, and in such inferior courts as the congress mav from time to time ordain and establish. It also further declares : The judicial power shall extend to all cases, in law and equity, arising under this constitution, the laws of the United States, and treaties made, or which shall be made, under their authority : to all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls : to all cases of admiraltv and maritime iurisdiction ; to controversies to which the United States shall be a party ; to controversies be tween two or more states ; between a state and citizens of another state ; between citizens of different states : between citizens of the same state claiming lands un der grants of different states, and between a state, or the citizens thereof, and foreign states, citizens, or subjects. This list of carefully enumerated powers comprises all that the constitution devolves on the federal judiciary. Will some senator point out to me the clause which authorizes United States judges to appoint officers to manage popular elections? The judicial power of the United States has been given to the federal courts, and the subjects to which that power can be applied have been specifically designated. Is there anything in this specific designation which relates to the control of federal, state, county, parish, city, or town elections? Is it a judicial function to appoint a supervisor or a chief supervisor of elections? Is it a judicial duty imposed by the constitution to open court, keep open court, and sit in chambers at the command of excited and prejudiced politicians? It is a bur lesque on the memory of our fathers to pretend that laws imposing such services and duties on the judges of the United States courts are constitutional. I am aware that by virtue of the latter clause of section 2, article 2, of the constitution it is claimed that con gress has the power to confer upon the United States courts the appointment of certain inferior officers, and among them the elec tion officers to whom I object. That clause is in these words: But the congress may by law vest the appointment of such inferior officers as they think proper in the president alone, in the courts of law, or in the heads of departments. ELECTION LAWS. I - But a construction has been placed on this provision which shows that congress can not authorize the courts or the heads of departments to make appointments outside of their respective spheres of duty. In the case Ex parU Duncan N. Herman, 13 Peters 257, the supreme court of the United States pass upon this question as follows: % Br the constitution of the United States, article 2, section 2, it is piwidcd that the president shall nominate, and bj and with the advice and consent of the senate shall appoint, certain officers therein designated, and all other offiuas of the United States whose appointments are not herein uthqniae provided for, and which shall be established bj law : bat the congress mar bj law Test the appointment of such inferior officeis as they thill think proper in the pic*Mfiit alone, in the courts of law. or in the heads of departments. The appointing power here designated in the latter part of the section was no doubt intended to be exercised by the department of the government to which the officer to be ap pointed most appropriatelj belonged. The appointment of clerks of courts prop erly belongs to the courts of law. and that a clerk is one of the interior uniuii contemplated br this provision in the constitution can not be questioned. Will any one contend, however, in view of this decision, that because the courts have been authorized to appoint their own clerks and other inferior officers appropriately belonging to the courts, they can also be authorized by congress to appoint all the clerks in the various departments? Will any one insist that con gress has the power to vest the appointment of postmasters, rev enue collectors, and custom house officials in the courts of law? It was the plain purpose of the constitution, as decided by the su preme court, that congress might simply devolve upon the courts of law the appointment of such officers as were necessary and ap propriate to the exercise of judicial duties, and upon the heads of departments a similar appointing power over persons appropriately connected with department duties. Sir, where does a supervisor of elections appropriately belong? Is he a part of our judicial system? Do the duties of the courts of law extend to a seizure of the polls on election day, to the removal of the ballot-box from the proper custody of state officers, to the counting and canvassing of the votes, and to the instant arrest of voters without process? Are these some of the duties of the federal judiciary under the con stitution? Were the United States courts originally organized lor the purpose, among other things, of inspecting American citizens -- 3/0 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. while depositing their ballots, of having spies placed in favorable positions to watch the countenances and gestures, and to overhear the talk of the voters on election day, of engendering a foul and loathsome brood of informers to pollute with their perjuries the sanctuaries of justice? Did the authors of the constitution invest the courts with power to appoint a class of election commissioners, who in turn can appoint their own underlings to the command of the land and naval forces of the United States ? If these questions can be answered in the affirmative, and if such duties were actually imposed on the courts, then, and only then, can congress make use of the courts for the appointment of supervisors, commissioners, and other officers for the invasion of local self-government. On the contrary, it is clear to my mind that congress has no such power, and that the federal courts have been debauched for political ends and party success, in open and flagrant violation of the constitution. The founders of this govern ment aimed to create an impartial and independent judiciary, with no other than judicial duties to contemplate or to perform. Such a judiciary can only be maintained by its entire separation from all party issues, considerations, or management. The minister of the gospel, standing in holy places, must not be more free from the taint of the world than the judge from political feeling or bias. And not only the evil itself, but the very appearance of the evil must be avoided. I once witnessed a signal illustration of this idea. A distinguished judge of one of the state courts of Indiana was holding court at a time of high political excitement in a strongly democratic county. It was brought to his attention that the grand jury was made up entirely from the democratic party, of which he was himself a prominent member. He at once dis charged the panel, remarking that it was as necessary to satisfy the people that the administration of justice in their courts was free from political influences as that in fact it should be so. He held, most justly and wisely, that no greater evil could befall the cause of good government than a loss of confidence on the part of the people in the purity and impartiality of their courts. And yet at this moment the Revised Statutes of the United States are crowded with laws inspired and enacted in the very rage of party bitterness ELECTION LAWS. 3/1 and ambition, which pour the whole business of party contests and party elections into the once sacred precincts of the federal courts ! The mere contact even of such subjects with the judicial mind is unwholesome to the cause of justice ; but when judges are required and are willing to become active instruments in their control, the fountains of our jurisprudence have received a deadly poison. It is in this connection, too, that the perversion of the jury system to political purposes by test oaths assumes its most impor tant and most alarming aspect. Sections 820 and 821, excluding from the jury-box all such as in any way participated in the late rebellion, are simply parts of a general system of legislation plac ing the entire machinery of the federal courts, including the grand and petit juries, in strict alliance with the fortunes of a political party. In at least eleven states these sections surrender the find ing of indictments and trials by jury in the United States courts to negroes, controlled by party leaders, and to a still more unworthy class of white men. The intelligence, the cultivation, the public virtue, all such as are responsible for the peace, order, and wel fare of society, are disqualified as jurors if they joined in the rebel lion or if they gave it aid or comfort in money, arms, horses, clothes, or anything whatever for the use or benefit of any person who had joined or was about to join. If the son was in the con federate army and his father gave him shelter over night, his breakfast next morning, and a change of clothing, neither father nor son can now serve on a jury in a federal court anywhere in the United States. Such legislation as this has had its parallel only in enslaved countries like Poland, Hungary, and Ireland, where courts were organized by the governing party, as they have been now for the first time in this country, to convict, oppress, and keep in subjugation entire states and communities on account of their political principles. Laws of this kind were never before found on the statute books of any government claiming to estab lish equality, fraternity, and liberty among its citizens. It is dif ficult to understand how any further political use could be made of the federal judiciary, or how any additional indignity could be inflicted on its character. But the patient ingenuity of those who designed the perpetual ascendency of their party by overawing the 3/2 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. people sounded one more depth into which they compelled the courts to descend. By section 1988 of the Revised Statutes it is made lawful for the president to order the judges, marshals, and district attorneys from place to place at his own will and pleasure, whether in term time or in vacation, for the purpose of the more speedy arrest and trial of persons charged with offenses against the election laws. This extraordinary section reads in the follow ing words : Whenever the president has reason to believe that offenses have been, or are likely to be committed against the provisions of chapter 7 of the title crimes, within any judicial district, it shall be lawful for him, in his discretion, to direct the judge, marshal, and district attorney of such district to attend at such place within the district, and for such time as he may designate, for the purpose of the more speedy arrest and trial of persons so charged, and it shall be the duty of every judge or other officer, when any such requisition is received by him, to attend at the place and for the time therein designated. In the old and darker days of English jurisprudence we read of juries in a state of disagreement being carted through the circuit from one point to another until coerced into rinding a verdict, but I think this is the first instance in civilized history where the court itself, with all its officers, was compelled to travel, to stop and to open for business at the discretion and the command of execu tive authority. The president, perhaps a candidate for re-election, has only to pretend to believe that offenses are likely to be com mitted and he can at once send the courts where he pleases, to remain as long as he orders, intimidating and overawing the in habitants of any county, parish, or town that is politically opposed to him. The judges of the circuit and district courts of the United States are reduced to a state of itinerancy for political purposes whenever any administration from motives of party success shall order them to move on. If some distant seaboard town or some point on a navigable stream should become obnoxious to the pres ident or stand in the way of his ambition, the laws of the United States as they now exist authorize him, at his own discretion, to invest it on the land side with the army, on the water side with the navy, and at the same time locate a federal court in its midst to dispose of the prisoners at a special assize. This conjunction of all the great powers of this government in the hands of the execu tive is not accidental nor the result of thoughtless action. It is ELECTION LAWS. 373 the climax of a premeditated system for the complete withdrawal of all powers from the people and the states and for their centrali zation in the executive department. It is the logical conclusion of a well-wrought plan, perfect in all its details, for a revolution toward consolidation and ultimate monarchy. There was a party, when our constitution was formed, in favor of what they styled a higher-toned government; that is to say, a government further removed from the sovereign will of the common people. The idea of such a government was embraced in the draught of a constitu tion presented to the convention of 1787 by the great leader of the federalists providing for a hereditary monarchy and corresponding departments of government. There is a far larger party to-day in this country in favor of the principles then enunciated than there was at that time, and the laws are now in force to put them at once into active operation. And what cause is to be assigned for all these violent departures from the original principles and purposes of this government? Who will stand forth and justify them, and say why the very ele ments of civil liberty must now be destroyed in our midst? Is this massive structure of despotism, created by the laws I have pointed out, made necessary by the results of the war which ended .fourteen years ago ; and must it be upheld for the government of the southern states? If so, then indeed has the North paid a dearer price than has ever yet been estimated for the preservation of the Union. Time repairs the loss of treasure and assuages a nation s grief for her gallant dead, but for the loss of liberty there is no compensation, and after it there comes no resurrection. The conquest of the South at the expense of free elections and upright courts would be a most dismal and barren victory, recoiling with curses on this and all succeeding generations. What shall it profit the American people if they gain the whole earth and lose their own liberties? But I utterly deny that anything in the conduct or condition of the southern people requires such laws as now blacken the pages of our statutes. They have borne the results of the war with patient submission to every form of force or of law that has been imposed upon them. Their states were torn down and recon- 374 FORTY YEARS OF ORATORY. structed from their foundations up for the purpose of establishing the supremacy of the republican party throughout the South. Aliens, strangers, and enemies went into their midst, seized upon their places of honor, trust, and profit, and grew fat on the remains of their broken fortunes. Political emissaries from the North have, at the approach of every important election, penetrated all por tions of the South in order to incite strife between the two races for its* effect on the northern mind. The leaders of the republican party have falsely proclaimed the existence of insurrections in the southern states a thousand times since the war closed, and have sorely regretted from year to year that the people of those states could not be goaded into even a show of armed resistance. And the southern people are now reaping the reward of their brave for bearance. They have regained the rights of local self-government to the same extent as their fellow-citizens of the North ; they con trol their own states ; they have re-established domestic peace and social order, and are rapidly repairing the widespread devastations of war. They have done more. They have vindicated them selves, under the most trying circumstances, as a law-abiding peo ple, and have fastened upon their enemies the odious crime of cal umny and slander. Others may, if they choose, conjure up with evil magic the fierce sectional spirits that led to rivers of blood in the past; I will not. Nor do I envy the heart of the man who engages in such a work. His efforts are at war with the peace and glory of his country, and his name will be preserved by the future historian to illustrate the obstacles which progress and Chris tian civilization had to overcome. Sir, my task on this occasion draws to a close. I have confined myself to the discussion of a series of laws which are, in my judg ment, wholly fatal to free government. Among others, I have pointed out those for the repeal or modification of which the party to which I belong stands pledged. The issue thus joined is not sectional. It now concerns the personal liberty of the northern as much as it does the southern voter. The destruction originally aimed at free elections and an independent judiciary in the South extends now to every section of the Union alike. I ask the Amer ican tax-payer, regardless of his locality, whether he approves that ELECTION LAWS. 375 system of destruction? When we vote away his hard-earned money on this floor, I ask him whether we ought not first to guar antee to him his liberties and give him the protection of a freeman at the ballot-box and in the courts? This is the sole question here this hour. Shall the tax-payer receive as compensation for his toil the blessings of self-govern ment ; or shall he like Issachar of old crouch down between two burdens, the burden of debt, and the burden of enslavement both? Shall he bow his shoulder to bear, and become a servant unto trib ute, with no more rights in the control of his own government than election overseers, deputy marshals, commissioners, and political courts may see fit to grant him? That is the naked question for the people to decide. Others have discussed with great ability the manner in which the repeal of these laws is proposed. I have no concern on that point. If they are obnoxious to freedom and jus tice they ought to fall, and no better time or place for their repeal could occur than in connection with measures appropriating the people s money for the support of their government. The cheap and shallow cry of revolution will deceive nobody, not even those who want to be deceived. The people will principally care to know the true character of the laws under consideration, and they will judge our work here accordingly. If the laws we propose to repeal are right we will stand condemned in the public mind ; but if on the other hand they are odious in the sight of the American people we will be justified, END OF VOLUME I. THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE STAMPED BELOW AN INITIAL FINE OF 25 CENTS WILL BE ASSESSED FOR FAILURE TO RETURN THIS BOOK ON THE DATE DUE. THE PENALTY WILL INCREASE TO SO CENTS ON THE FOURTH DAY AND TO $1.OO ON THE SEVENTH DAY OVERDUE. JMM C WM urn 7 1944 JUN * 2JAN 64BG REC D LD DECS 63 -^PM LD 21-10m-5, 43 (6061s) r YD 12514 M149943 \/7 THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY s i * . & *&?