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 aOVEIi:N^MENT CONTRACTS. 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 OP 
 
 ^l 
 
 HON. HENRY L. DAWES 
 
 OF MASSACHUSET1<S. 
 
 jDeUvei'ed in the House of Representatives, January 13, ia62. 
 
 ■ ' ■ ■ 
 
 "^^r..".;. .,'^^^ 
 
 WASHINGTON, D» C. 
 
 ECAMMELL i CO., iPRtNTERS, CORNER OF SECOND AND INDIANA AVfiNUE, THIRD FLOOR. 
 
 1862. 
 
 5 
 
SPEECH 
 
 The House having under consideration House Bill No. 154, 
 making appropriations for sundry civil expenses of the 
 Government for the year ending the 30th June, 1SG3, and 
 additional appropriations for the year endmg 30th June, 
 1862— 
 
 Mr. DAWES said : 
 
 Mr. Speaker : I desire to return my thanks 
 to the House for affording mean opportunity to 
 reply, this morning, to the speech of the gentle- 
 man from New York, [Mr. Sedgwick, J'attempt- 
 ed to be injected on Friday last between the lids 
 of the previous question. I shall endeavor, in 
 availing myself of the opportunity thus accorded 
 me, fb deal as fairly and candidly with the 
 House as they have with me. 
 
 As the debate on Friday turned much on the 
 report of the committee of which I am one of 
 the members, though not tJie chairman, and 
 not permitted to speak for the committee itself, 
 yet, perhaps, I may speak for myself, and, so 
 far as is proper fot me, express the views of the 
 committee touching as well this matter as what 
 they have conceived to be their duty under the 
 commission with which they have been charged 
 by the House. 
 
 Mr. Speaker, though I have spent the best 
 part of my Congressional life upon investiga- 
 ting committees, no one such committee was 
 ever yet raised upon my motion. No resolu- 
 tion was ever yet offered by me calling for in- 
 quiry, or alleging accusations that needed in- 
 quiry ; no motion was ever made by me, the 
 result of which has caused an investigation in 
 this House. I have no taste for such employ- 
 ment. And although I have felt that it was 
 neither proper for me to seek nor to decline 
 the service that has been thus imposed upon 
 me, I have felt nevertheless, when it has come 
 to me, that as well as it was in my power I 
 should meet and discharge that duty without fear, 
 favor, or affection. If, when, in party times that 
 I have gone by, it has been my fortune or mis- 
 fortune to be placed upon these committees, in 
 those times when I have served in minorities — 
 if in those times I have experienced less of 
 mortification in the work which I have had to 
 do, I have found it incumbent upon me in these 
 times, when I have been placed in a majority, 
 in the dischargre of a like duty, to take heed that 
 I discharge that duty quite as fearlessly and 
 
 quite as faithfully, however much mortification 
 and discomfiture may Ije the result. 
 
 Sir, I have not failed to notice- — and I be- 
 lieve the committee of which I am a member 
 have taken notice, in common with the whole 
 country, of the fact, that for some reason or 
 other- some unaccountable reason— the charges 
 upon the Treasury in this time of war have 
 been such as to reach nearly the bottom. 
 Startling facts have come to the notice of the 
 committee, and to the notice of the whole couh- 
 try, touching the mode and manner of the ex- 
 penditure of the public money. Some of those 
 items, if the House will have patience with me, 
 I propose to call their attention to in this con- 
 nection ; and then to ask gentlemen the plain 
 question, whether they propose to meet this 
 matter at all ; and, if to meet it, how, when, 
 and where? 
 
 Mr. Speaker, the very first contract entered 
 into by this Government after our troops had 
 left their homes to come here, in April last, 
 for the defence of this capital, byjwhich they 
 were to be fed, was a contract entered into for 
 cattle — not with men whose business it is to 
 furnish cattle for the market; not with men 
 who knew what the price of beef in the market 
 was ; entered into without even telegraphing to 
 know what was the price of beef in Nev/ York — 
 was entered into by the Government here with 
 men known about this and the othar branch of 
 the Congress for the last ten years as old polit- 
 ical stipendiaries — of a class of men who, in 
 times past, have made what little money they 
 have by such operations as buying the certifi- 
 cates of members for books at a discount, and 
 then drawing from the Treasury the full 
 amount — and at such enormous rates, sir, that 
 these men sat down after they have received 
 the contract, and, in the next twenty-four hours, 
 sub-let it to men in New York, who did know 
 the price of beef, on such terms that, upon the 
 first twenty-two hundred cattle^they put into their 
 own pockets, without stirring from their chairs, 
 $32,000, and the men who furrfished the twen- 
 ty-two hundred head of cattle took $26,090 
 more into their own pockets ; so that the con- 
 tract under which these twenty-two hundred 
 cattle were furnished to the army was so made 
 
that a profit of $58,000 over the market price 
 of the beef was realized on that small number. 
 A thousand head of cattle are consumed by 
 the army in less time than it takes for them 
 to reach the capital ; arid I ask this House, 
 at that rate, to consider how long the most 
 ample provisions of the Treasury would be able 
 to meet simply the subsistence department of 
 the army. 
 
 Sir, poorly as the army is shod to day, a mil- 
 ■ lion of shoes have already been worn out, and 
 a million more are already manufactured and 
 in the hands of the quartermasters for delivery ; 
 and yet upon every one of these shoes .there has 
 been a waste of seventy-five cents — $750,000 
 upon the shoes already worn out, and another 
 $750,000 upon the shoes already manufac- 
 tured, and not delivered, have been worse than 
 wasted in that item of expenditure. 
 
 Mr. Speaker, horse contracts have been so 
 plenty that Government ofiicials have gone 
 about the streets with their pockets filled with 
 them, and with which they make presents to 
 the clergymen of their parishes. Some of these 
 contracts have served to heal old political sores, 
 and cure bitter political feuds ; and the tele- 
 graph announced that high public functionaries 
 have graced with their pi'esence the love-feasts 
 which were got up to celebrate political recon- 
 ciliations thus brought about — where the hatch- 
 et of political animosity is buried in the grave 
 of public confidence, and the national credit is 
 crucified between malefactors. We have just 
 received the fruits of one of these contracts. A 
 regiment of cavalry has just reached Louisville, 
 one thousand strong, and a board of army offi- 
 cers has condemned four hundred and eighty- 
 five of the one thousand horses as utterly worth- 
 less. The man who examined those horses de- 
 clared, upon his oath, that there is not one of 
 them worth twenty dollars. They are blind, 
 spavined, ringboned, afflicted with the heaves, 
 with the glanders, and with every disease that 
 hor^e-flesh is heir to. Those four hundred and 
 eighty-five horses cost the Government before 
 they were mustered into the service $58,200, 
 and it cost the Government to transport them 
 from Pennsylvania to Louisville more than one 
 thousand dollars more, before they were con- 
 demned and cast oS". 
 
 Mr. MALLORY. Will the gentleman per- 
 mit me to. inquire from whence those horse 
 were furnished? 
 
 Mr. DAWES. It is Colonel Williams's regi- 
 ment of cavalry from Pennsylvania. The horses 
 were purchased in Pennsylvania, and forward- 
 ed from that State to Louisville, 'and there con- 
 demned. There are, sir, eighty-three regiments 
 of cavalry, one thousand strong, now in or 
 round about the army. It costs $250,000 to 
 put one of those regiments upon its feet before 
 it marches a step. Twenty millions of dollars 
 have thus been expended upon these cavalry 
 regiments before they left the encampments in 
 which they were gathered and mustered into 
 
 the service. They have come here and then 
 some of them have been sent back to Elmira ; 
 they have been sent back to Annapolis : they 
 have been sent here and they have been sent 
 there to spend the winter ; and many of the 
 horses never sent back have been tied to posts 
 and to trees within the District of Columbia, 
 and there left to starve to death. A guide can 
 take you around the District of Columbia to-day 
 to hundreds of carcasses of horses chained to 
 trees where they have pined away, gnawing 
 bark and limbs till they starve and die ; and 
 the Committee for the District of Columbia 
 have been compelled to call for legislation here, 
 to prevent the city wherein we are assembled 
 from becoming a horse Golgotha. 
 
 Why, Mr. Speaker, an ex Governor of one 
 State offered to the ex-judge of another State 
 $5,000 to get him permission to raise one of 
 these regiments of cavalry ; and when the ex- 
 judge brought back the commission the ex- 
 Governor took it to his room at the hotel, while 
 another co-plunderer sat at the keyhole watch- 
 ing like a mastiff for his dinner. He counted 
 up $40,000 profit upon the horses, $20,000 on 
 the accoutrements, and like profits for the other 
 details in furnishing the regiment. 
 
 In addition to the arms now in the hands of 
 the six hundred thousand soldiers in the field, 
 and those purchased abroad, there are outstand- 
 ing contracts to-day — made with private indi- 
 viduals, and not made upon public advertise- 
 ment; made with' ex-members of Congress — 
 who know no more of the difference between 
 arms than a mere child, with ex-brokers and 
 their fathers and brothers — outstanding con- 
 tracts for the manufacture of Springfield rifled 
 muskets, the first one of which cannot be deliv- 
 ered within six months from this day, one mil- 
 lion and ninety-two thousand in number, at 20 
 or 21 dollars a piece, when the Springfield armo- 
 ry manufactures them to-day for $LS.50. An 
 ex-member of Congress is today in Massachu- 
 setts trying to get the machinery made by which 
 he can manufacture, some six months hence, 
 at twenty dollars a piece, the rifled Spring- 
 field muskets that are manufactured to-day at 
 the Springfield armory for |13.50. Before a 
 single one of these muskets will have been de- 
 livered, the Springfield armory will be put in 
 capacity to turn out thirty thousand rifled mus- 
 kets every month. The Lord, before six months 
 shall have passed, will have disposed of this 
 war, or He will have disposed of us. There 
 will not be one of these muskets here before 
 this difficulty will, in the providence of God, 
 have been surmounted. I ask my friends from 
 the Northwest, who expect to have a United 
 States armory at Chicago, or at Rock Island, 
 or Quincy, or some .other beautiful place there, 
 what they will make in it if one million and 
 ninety-two thousand Springfield muskets are to 
 be put upon the country after this war is over, 
 and at this enormous price. In addition, Mr. 
 Speaker, there are outstanding contracts for 
 
5 
 
 the manufacture, sometime hence, of two hun- 
 dred and seventy-two thousand Enfield rifles. 
 
 Mr. WICKLIFFE. What is the name of 
 the ex-member of Congress? 
 
 Mr. DAWES. It is unnecessary, for the 
 purpose of my argument at this time, for me to 
 mention names, and especially when I am 
 charged by my friend from New York with de- 
 siring to blacken men's names, and using my 
 position upon the select committee to that end. 
 I desire to bring to the attention of the House 
 the enormous expenditures of the Government; 
 and it does not make so much difference in 
 this discussion whether A or B gets the job. 
 
 Mr. ARNOLD. Will the gentleman from 
 Massachusetts permit me to have read a letter 
 from General Ripley, showing how much cheap- 
 er and better arms can be made by the Gov- 
 ernment than they can be furnished by these 
 contractors ? 
 
 Mr. DAWES. The gentleman can have that 
 letter read when I get through. I speak by 
 the figure; and I know what I am speaking on 
 at this time, if I should not on'some other oc- 
 casion. 
 
 Seventy-fis'e thousand three hundred and for- 
 ty-three carbines are contracted for, to be made 
 by and by at $1,978,442. I have not time to 
 enumerate all the contracts. While we appro- 
 priated at the last se^ssion $20,000,000 for this 
 purpose, $.'57,000,000 and odd have already been 
 pledged, not for the purchase of arms for raen 
 in the field, not to provide arms for the men 
 who are fighting the battles of the country, but 
 for some use upon some future occasion. Not 
 only has the appropriation been exhausted, but 
 $17,000,000 has been pledged. The fall of 
 Sumter and the riot of 19th of April in Balti- 
 more opened this drama. On the 21st of April, 
 in the city of New York, there was organized a 
 corps of plunderers upon the Treasury, and 
 $2,000,000 was put at the discretion of a poor 
 unfortunate — honest, I think — but entirely in- 
 competent editor of a newspaper. He went 
 straightway to purchase linen pantaloons and 
 straw hats, and London porter and dried her- 
 rings, and such like provisions for the army, 
 including Hall's carbines, until he had used up 
 $240,000 of the money, and then he got scared 
 and stopped. [Laughter.] 
 
 Mr. HOLM AN. My friend has made a slight 
 mistake. He expended $390,000 instead of 
 $240,000. 
 
 Mr. DAWES. With the eye of my friend 
 from New York upon me, I would rather keep 
 a little under. [Laughter.] The appropriation 
 for that expenditure was contained in the bills 
 of -the last session, and the appropriation for 
 the others I have no doubt are provided for in 
 the bills already reported by the Committee of 
 Ways and Means. 
 
 There, too, is a wood contract, where a man 
 has the pledge of the Government to pay him 
 seven dollars a cord for all the wood that he 
 •will deliver to the camps around about this 
 
 .Jerusalem. Nevertheless, he picks up the wood 
 cut down to clear the way for our dumb batte- 
 ries, and he sends it to the camps in the army 
 baggage wagons. He has no further trouble, 
 so far as I am able to learn, than to draw his 
 seven dollars a cord, and to let, the Govern- 
 ment draw the wood. [Laughter.] That ap- 
 propriation-will come up in one of these bills. 
 If I should raise an objection, I fear I should 
 be met with the imputation that I desire to 
 blacken some man's character. 
 
 Mr. Speaker, it takes $2,000,000 every day 
 to support the army in the field. One hundred 
 millions have been expended since we met here 
 in the beginning of December, upon an army 
 in repose. What they will be when that great 
 day shall arrive — if it shall ever arrive — when 
 our eyes shall be gladdened with the sight of 
 the army in motion, I do not know. Another 
 $100,000,000 will go with this, as the $100,000,- 
 000 more I have here enumerated, outside of 
 the daily support of the army, have gone — an- 
 other $100,000,000, I say, must be added to 
 this before the 4th of March. Sir, what it may 
 cost to puf down this rebellion, I care very little, 
 provided it may be put down ; but, sir, faitih 
 without works is dead ; and I am free to confess 
 that ray faith sometimes fails — my f'aitli in men, 
 not in the cause. 
 
 Sir, when the history of these times shall 
 have been written, it will be somewhat doubt- 
 ful upon whom the guilt will rest most heavily — ■ 
 upon him who has conspired to destroy, or upon 
 him who may prove incompetent to preserve, 
 the institutions which have been bequeathed to 
 us by our fathers. Sir, amid all these things, 
 is it strange that the public Treasury trembles 
 and staggers like a strong man with a great 
 burden upon him ? Sir, that man beneath an 
 exhausted receiver gasping for breath is not 
 more helple'ss to-day than is the Treasury of 
 this Government beneath the exhausting pro- 
 cess to which it is subjected. The mighty mon- 
 arch of the forest himself may hold at bay the 
 proudest and themightiest of his foes, while the 
 vile cur comes up behind him, opening his 
 veins, and though he may struggle and strug- 
 gle on, boldly and valiantly, the life-blood trick- 
 ling from his soul, yet sooner or later his grasp 
 will be unloosed, and he will faint and falter 
 and die. 
 
 Without income from youi- custom-houses, 
 from your land sales, from any source whatever, 
 to sustain the Treasury notes you are issuing, 
 they are already beginning to fall in the mar- 
 ket. Already are they sold at five per cent, 
 discount at the tables of the money changers — 
 six per cent, my friend near me says — and 
 while we were exhibiting the singular spectacle 
 here on Friday of struggling with the Commit- 
 tee of Ways and Means itself in an endeavor to 
 lift up and sustain the credit of the couatry, the 
 sutler, that curse of the camp, was following 
 the paymaster, as a shark follows a ship on its 
 ' voyage, and buying up for four dollars every 
 
five of the wages of the soldier paid in Treasu- 
 ry notes. 
 
 Now, sir, I have no desire to hasten on this 
 army. I have no desire to interfere with its 
 operations, or to criticise any of its movements; 
 but in view of the stupendous drafts upon the 
 Treasury, I have to say, the longest road has 
 its turn, and the deepest well has, its bottom. 
 Sixty days of the present stale of things will 
 bring about a consummation. It Is impossible 
 for the Trea&ury of the United States to meet 
 and continue to meet this state of things sixty 
 days longer ; and an ignominious peace is upon 
 the country, and at our very doors, unless we 
 see to it that the credit of this country is sus- 
 tained, and sustained, too, by a conviction upon 
 the people, going forth from this Hall, that we 
 will treat as traitors not only those who are 
 bold and manly enough to meet us face to face 
 in the field, but also those who clandestinely 
 and stealthily draw our life-blood from us in 
 this mighty struggle. 
 
 I do not, Mr, Speaker, fail to recognise the 
 great duties which are incumbent upon the 
 Committee of Ways and Means. They will 
 not find in m.e an antagonist. They will, to 
 the amount of my ability, find me contributing 
 what little is in my power to aid them in carrying 
 through the mighty measures they have got to 
 institute to save us from utter ruin. By their 
 side, if it be worth anything,' I will stand to 
 aid them in all those measures ; but those mea- 
 sures will fall like a dead pall upon the public 
 unless before them goes this assurance, that 
 these vast and extreme measures instituted to 
 resuscitate and revive and replenish the Trea- 
 sury are not mereiy for means to fill other and 
 longer as well as the already gorged pockets of 
 public plunderers. How, then, are we to con- 
 tribute in this matter of reviving public confi- 
 dence in our measures here, if it he not, when 
 these appropriations come up, that we show a 
 willingness and determination td probe them, 
 that we may ascertain whether there be or be 
 not in thern anything that can be spared at this 
 moment ? During the last vacation, that which 
 was to most of you a vacation, I felt that the 
 duty imposed upon me by the Speaker was to 
 do what little was in my power practically -to 
 save the Treasury from further plunder. I went, 
 as a committee man, to work. I travelled 
 nearly six thousand miles without compensa- 
 tion. I devoted myself faithfully, if not suc- 
 cessfully, tp that work, in a disposition to ren- 
 der myself practically useful with my colleagues 
 upon that commiitee : and when we thought 
 we found any matter that needed investigation, 
 that there might be a practical result, v/e laid 
 the matter before the Departments, and it is 
 due to them to say that with one or two excep- 
 tions they heartily co-operated with us ; and I 
 venture to say that some little at least has been 
 saved to the country through that instrument- 
 ality. It was this that prompted us in the mat- 
 ter now more immediately before the House. I 
 
 regret that any gentleman should infer that it 
 wag a disposition to attack a high public func- 
 tionary, whose character has always been so 
 high and so above reproach that no man ia 
 bitter party times, or any other, has brought 
 aught against him. The attempt to force this 
 controversy upon the shoulders of the Secre- 
 tary of the Treasury by those who are disposed 
 to hurry this appropriation through, without 
 further consideration of its merits, has been, 
 if from any quarter, that of which the Secrettui^ 
 himself has most reason to complain. The 
 man is no true friend of the Secretary or of his 
 reputation who insists upon charging to him, 
 or to his door, whatever of complaint there 
 grows out of this matter. With the distinct 
 and positive declaration upon the part of every 
 man who has called in question this particular 
 item, that it was without fault of the Secretary 
 of the Treasury, I repeat that the attempt to 
 carry it in upon the shoulders of the Secretary 
 is an attempt, if not intended, certainly at- 
 tended with the result of making him answer 
 for other people's sins. Nor am I disposed'tQ 
 be driven from the position at first assumed 
 upon this question. 
 
 I am not, sir, to lose sight of the fact that 
 all that was asked by the amendment offered 
 by my colleague [Mr. Holman], upon the com- 
 mittee, and supported by the other members of 
 the committee, was to postpone so much of this 
 appropriation as was necessary to fulfill that 
 existing contract, and to leave the rest of it, 
 if possible, to its legitimate expenditure — to 
 postpone it, not to defeat it, unless, upon aa 
 investig;ation by those upon whom investiga- 
 tion is incumbent here, it shall prove such a 
 contract as deserves to be scorned and repu- 
 diated by those upon whom the just adminis- 
 tration of the affairs of the Government rests* 
 My colleague upon the committee said, all who 
 have spoken upon this question have said, that 
 such were the peculiar circumstances of this 
 case, that it demanded further invea.tigation. 
 My friend from New York, even, says that to 
 him all is dark. The Secretary of the 
 Treasury estimated in July that it would cost 
 $.300,000 to execute this work. It has been 
 so coutracted for that it not only has cost* 
 $300,000, but $550,000. ^ Now, I say, that of 
 itself requires of us, who are voting public 
 money by the hundred thousands in this way, 
 to ask the question, and have the question an- 
 swered by somebody, before we pay this money. 
 There may be the best reason in the world, and 
 it is not my fault if I am not able to furnish at 
 this moment, from the Secretary himselfi 
 every particular pertaining to this contract, 
 I have sought it diligently ever since last 
 Friday. It is scarcely an hour since I left the 
 Treasury building ; and I repeat, it is not my 
 fault that I am not able to spread before this 
 House not only the contract itself, but every- 
 thing which has been done under it. I prefer, 
 for one, before I vote to pay any more money, 
 
to know exactly where and why It is going. 
 
 I must hurry on, and say a few words more 
 nearly to the question before the House on 
 Friday last, and upon which the House gave 
 me permission to speak ; and that wa? the 
 speech of fhe gentleman from New York, [Mr. 
 Sedgwick.] I understand the gentleman from 
 New York not to dispute, but that if the facts 
 laid before the House are true as contained in 
 the testimony of Samuel A. Hopkins, they fur- 
 nish good ground for further delay and exam- 
 ination of this matter. But he attempts to 
 weaken that testimony, and says it is not 
 worthy of credit before this House. Without 
 any testimony outside of that evidence, he 
 finds in the evidence itself what he claims to 
 be reason enough for our discrediting it. 
 Sir, look into the testimony, and say whether 
 it is a probable story. The first complaint he 
 makes, and which he seems to lay great stress 
 upon — because he repeats it twice in his speech 
 — is that this investigation proceeded upon the 
 part of the committee for another purpose, to 
 wit : to investigate the conduct of Wood, Com- 
 missioner of Public Buildings. And tben he 
 says that this man Hopkins thought he had 
 some claim up^ the consideration of the Ad- 
 ministration, because he was chairman of the 
 committee at J ersey City to receive the presiden- 
 tial train on its passage to Washington. I hope 
 it is no particular tenderness for his own constit- 
 uent and townsman, the self-constituted con- 
 ductor of that presidential train, who travelled 
 all the way from Syracuse to Springfield, Illi- 
 nois, and put himself at the head of that train, 
 and so gallantly conducted it through Baltimore 
 even and all the way, that he secured the place 
 nearest the throne as compensation for the 
 valuable services he thus rendered. [Laugh- 
 ter.] That was my friend's constituent and 
 townsman — Mr. Wood. My friend does not 
 know him now. We all turn from the setting 
 to the rising sun. [Laughter.] 
 
 Mr. SEDGWICK. I desire to say that the 
 gentleman is as wide from the truth in this 
 statement as he is in some others. Wood is 
 not my constituent, and has not lived in 
 my town for fifteen years. 
 
 Mr. DAWES. Oh, how he has fallen! There 
 was a time when he was valet de chambre, and 
 then he smiled on us all, and all of us would 
 have been glad to own him as our constituent 
 and townsman ; now none so poor to do him 
 reverence. [Laughter.] It was this gentle- 
 man, once a resident of my friend's town, whom, 
 he says, and repeats twice in his speech, we 
 took testimony to displace, and whom we did 
 displace. Hinc illce lachymoe I Is that the 
 cause of all these complaints ? But the next 
 thing my friend finds is a palpable contradic- 
 tion in the testimony of Hopkins, to wit ; that 
 he. says in the beginning, "I came on here 
 with Mr. Ormsby," and then, before he gets 
 through, he says " Mr. Ormsby came on a day 
 or two before I did." I got here a little while 
 
 the first. A terrible contradiction, truly I Hag 
 not my friend seen such a contradiction as 
 this, brought out in glaring letters, so as to as* 
 tonish a judicial tribunal at i:ome cross-roads 
 in his district? It is worthy of some justice's 
 court at some cross-roads or some tavern. 
 What if Hopkins did say that he got here a 
 little while first ? Did anybody inquire of him 
 whether they came together or not ? Did any- 
 body inquire if they travelled in the same car, or 
 care whether they did or not ? They were here 
 for a common purpose. My friend turns ofif 
 for a moment from his late constituent and 
 townsman — not now, but formerly — and if such 
 men filled the district now, I dare say quite an* 
 other man would come here as its Representa- 
 tive. He turns off from hira to Ormsby, and 
 he says that Ormsby, when he says he is pro- 
 prietor of the New York Bank Note Company, 
 is a myth, and he goes on a little way further, 
 and says he is an impostor. Now, upon v/hat 
 authority does he say that ? What does he find 
 in the testimony about it? Nothing in the 
 world. He asked me if I knew him, and then 
 he asked his neighbor if he knew him. I said 
 I did not and his neighbor said he did not, and 
 thereupon he pronounced him first a myth and 
 then an impostor, because two members of 
 Congress dfd not know him. Now, that is as- 
 suming altogether too much. It would take a 
 very large volume to contain what even a 
 member of Congress does not know. [Laugh- 
 ter.] 
 
 But my friend goes on further, and refers to 
 the testimony of Hopkins that there was not 
 sufficient competition. He read in his testimo- 
 ny that he called and ascertained "at the prop- 
 er office" that circulars were sent to these two 
 bank note companies. And what is the com- 
 plaint about that? Why, it is that Hopkins 
 did not inform us whether "the proper office" 
 was the office at Willard's Hotel or not, as if 
 the investigating committee even did not know 
 that the proper office to obtain this information 
 was uot the office at Willard's Hotel. My 
 friend says that he goes upon the presumption 
 that all public functionaries discharge their du- 
 ties, and are honorable men, until the contrary 
 is shown. So do I, and I include witnesses 
 also. Unless my friend can find something be- 
 sides what he has pointed out here in this ex- 
 amination, why we should not put confidence, 
 in this man's testimony, I presurfse with him 
 that he ia a fair and honorable man. I pre- 
 sume that much, at least, when he testifies to a 
 transaction which will explain this strange fix 
 we are in of being required to vote $250,000 
 additional upon the estimate of $300,000. We 
 ask that this matter may be investigated, and 
 that this item shall be postponed until it can be 
 made to appear to the proper accounting offi- 
 cers that it is right and ju?ito pay this money. 
 My friend from Vermont [Mr. Walton] offered 
 an amendment, having that object in view, on 
 Friday ; and if our friends on the other side of 
 
s 
 
 this question had been patient enough to have 
 heard him explain it, instead of attempting to 
 put it dowa«as they did, they would have seen 
 a disposition on the part of every man here who 
 desires investigation into this item to sustain the 
 Government in the prosecution cf its lawful 
 and just functions — a disposition to direct the 
 appropriation of this money in such a way that 
 it shall reach the Secretary's office, and the 
 clerks and agents connected with it; and at the 
 same time give the Secretary permission, if he 
 sees fit, to make a contract under his own eye 
 for the further printing of these Treasury notes, 
 that shall secure to the country a conviction 
 that he is seeing to it that every dollar of the 
 public money which goes through his hands is 
 expended v/ith rigid economy and accounta- 
 bility. 
 
 I shall endeavor, Mr. Speaker, to carry out, 
 in an amendment which I shall offer to the bill, 
 precisely those ideas suggested by the amend- 
 ment ot the gentleman from Vermont. I hope 
 that the amendment will be adopted, for I un- 
 derstand that a considerable portion of this 
 $250,000 must necessarily go to pay the clerks 
 in the Department connected with the issue of 
 these Treasury notes. I desire that they shall 
 have their pay, and that that bureau in the 
 Treasury Department shall go on .unabridged 
 in its strength and efG.ciency, and at the same 
 time I ask the House to postpone for a while 
 the payment of any further money into the 
 hands of these engravers, not because I am sat- 
 isfied beyond a doubt that they have made an 
 improper contract with subordinate officers of 
 
 the Gcwernment, but because such are the cir- 
 cumstances surrounding it that it is just and 
 proper that there shall be investigation. There 
 has been time lor the mails to reach here from 
 New York since this debate closed on Friday, 
 and I have no doubt that there will come in 
 here, if the previous question is not called, any 
 amount of letters and certificates to back up 
 this claim. I stated on Friday that I might be 
 doing these men injustice, and that all 1 asked 
 of the House was that the case might be made 
 clear, and that time should be given. I think 
 that if these men have received $300,000 alrea- 
 dy for the engraving and printing of these Treas- 
 ury notes, it is but fair that they wait, if any- 
 body must wait, while the poor, honest labor- 
 ers that have been making clothes for the army 
 receive some of their pay ; and, in the meaa 
 time, some tribunal — the Secretary of the 
 Treasury himself, and no more just and upright 
 tribunal could be found — will see to it that 
 this contract was not made unadvisedly or im- 
 providently. Inasmuch, however, as some part 
 of this appropriation ought to be applied to 
 worthy objects, I offer the following amend- 
 ment to the bill : 
 
 For the uecessai-J' expenses in carrying Into effect the act 
 of mil 01" July, 1861, and the act of 5th of August, 1861, in 
 addition to the appropriations made by those acts, SI 50 ,000: 
 Provided, lliat no part of this appropriaiiou shall be usod 
 in the i)ayment or liquidation of any sum duo on any exist- 
 ing contract for engraving or printing bonds or notes. 
 
 If that amendment shall be adopted, I pro- 
 pose to offer a similar amendment touching 
 the $100,000 in the next clause but one of the 
 bill. 
 
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