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DEFENCE OF THE COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT 
 CONTRACTS, 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 / 
 
 HON. HENKY L. DAWES, 
 
 OF MASSACHUSETTS, 
 
 DELIVERED 
 
 IN THE U. S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 
 
 April 25, 1862, 
 
 ^ 
 
 v.. , 
 
 ^.NOyOA/,^ 
 
 WASHINGTON, D. C. 
 
 BCAMUELL & CO., PllINTBUS, CONNER OF SECOND AND INDIANA AVESTJE, THIRD FLOOR. 
 
 1862. 
 
^^2 
 
SPEECH. 
 
 The House having under consideration reso- 
 lutions heretofore reported by the Committee 
 on Government Contracts — 
 
 Mr. DAWES said: 
 
 Mr. Speaker : I do not know that I shall 
 have any disposition to say a single word in 
 opposition to the amendment just submitted by 
 the gentleman from Indiana. When he comes 
 to know the course which this committee has 
 pursued a little more fully than he seems to do 
 now, he will find no occasion for oflFering it in 
 the light of an admonition to them. The ab- 
 stract principle I agree with entirely, and to its 
 application, iHdividuallj, I have no objection. 
 
 The evidence before the committee touching 
 the second resolution has been reported to the 
 House. It is proposed at this time to ask the 
 attention of the House to that resolution and to 
 the evidence which sustains it, and to call for 
 a vote upon it. 
 
 But, sir, the House will expect from the com- 
 mittee, I doubt not— they certainly have a right 
 to expect from them before they call upon the 
 House to vote upon that resolution — some al- 
 lusion to matters which have transpired in this 
 House within the last few days. Sir, on Mon- 
 day last the committee on Government con- 
 tracts was for a second time in its absence 
 honored with a premeditated and, as it would 
 appear from the Globe, a preconcerted attack 
 upon the personal character and integrity of its 
 members. The committee received notice of 
 this attack by the telegraph when they were 
 quietly and, as they supposed, faithfully dis- 
 charging the duties the House imposed upon 
 them in the city of New York ; and inas 
 much as the telegraph was silent upon the 
 fact that it was announced to the House that 
 no member of the committee was present 
 during that attack, it went forth that no re- 
 ply of the committee was made to it at all, 
 and Ihat they were to be held as silently con- 
 fessing its justice and its truth. They can 
 hardly expect, and have no right to expect, the 
 House to vote for the resolution if|the charges 
 made against the committee on Monday last 
 
 have any foundation in truth, and therefore it 
 is that it is incumbent upon them, before ask- 
 ing that vote, to say whatever they may have to 
 say upon the character of these attacks. 
 
 The House will bear the members of the 
 committee out in the assertion, that although 
 much time has been occupied in this House 
 concerning it and its transactions, they have 
 never occupied one moment of its time except 
 in self-defence; they have never taken up one 
 moment of the time of this House in speeches 
 touching their mission or its results, and have 
 only sought, when driven to it, to defend them- 
 selves as well as they may. 
 
 The nature of this second, as of the first, at- 
 tack on the committee, in its absence, is such 
 that it forbids their silence. That the House 
 should difiPer with the committee in its conclu- 
 sions, that the House should differ with the com- 
 mittee in its arguments and in its method of 
 proceeding, is most natural. Differences of 
 that kind with committees of the House are of 
 daily occurrence. They are always expected, 
 and are always to be met in good temper and 
 without complaint by any committee charged 
 in this House with any of its duties. But at- 
 tacks upon the integrity and personal character 
 of members of a committee are, I am happy to 
 say, somewhat nnusual in this House. Yet it 
 has been the peculiar experience of this cona» 
 mittee to encounter them more than once in its 
 progress. 
 
 These attacks, Mr. Speaker, have been always 
 made upon the committee in its absence. So 
 far as I am able to know, they resolve them- 
 selves into but two charges. I ask the atten- 
 tion of the House, not to any refutation of argu- 
 ments or conclusions, but simply to questions 
 impugning the committee's integrity of purpose 
 and its fidelity to the House. They consist, I 
 say, of two points. In a report of evidence 
 containing more than eleven hundred printed 
 pages, the diligence and scrutiny of those v/ho 
 have felt it their mission to seek after the mis- 
 takes of this committee have found out only two 
 mistakes. The first was that which was the foun- 
 
4 
 
 dation of the attack made upon it in its absence 
 by the gentleman representing oce-of the Phil- 
 adelphia districts, [Mr. Kellet.] It was that 
 the committee had made use of a misprint in 
 the testimony, for which it was not answerable, 
 because not having originated with it, and in 
 regard to which I showed on a former occa- 
 sion two things — first, that it was entirely the 
 ■work of the printer, of which no member of the 
 committee had the slightest knowledge ; and 
 secondly, that it was immaterial, not altering 
 in one particle the meaning and substance of 
 the testimony in which it occurred. 
 
 The second was made the basis of an attack 
 upon' the committee last Monday. That was a 
 mistake in the name of an individual. In an 
 investigation running through eleven hundred 
 pages, it has been the good fortune of another 
 of the distinguished Representatives of Penn- 
 gylvania to detect a single mistake. It so hap- 
 pened that two men in this whole country had 
 the same name, and that a very peculiar one — 
 a foreign name — Sacchi — and that the com- 
 mittee has confounded the two persons. These 
 8tre the only two mistakes of fact — that of the 
 printer and this one — which I have heard of 
 as having been charged upon this committee. 
 They have both been charged to have been 
 wilfully and dishonestly made. 
 
 Mr. MOORHEAD. I ask the gentleman 
 from Massachusetts whether the mistake that 
 he acknowledges now was acknowledged pub- 
 licly heretofore by the committee, when it was 
 required to do so ? 
 
 Mr. DAWES. The first moment that the 
 attention of the committee was called to it, that 
 moment it admitted the mistake, and pointed 
 out how it occurred. 
 
 Mr. MOORHEAD. And made public repa- 
 ration for having charged a man with having 
 an amount of Government money in his hands, 
 and admitted that to be a mistake. 
 
 Mr. DAWES. The committee did not admit 
 that it had made one particle of mistake touch- 
 ing the point to which the gentleman alludes ; 
 but I am not going to consume any part of my 
 hour by rearguing to this Ho'use that there is 
 no difference between a man saying he has in 
 the hands of a third party a given sum of 
 money, and his saying that it is there subject 
 to his own order. The pretence that there is a 
 ditfereuce is a mere quibble, beneath the com- 
 inon sense of this House. 
 
 I was about to eay that these two are the only 
 accusations against the committee as yet made 
 
 in the House. General Fremont, however, has 
 made another, to which I. desire to call the at- 
 tention of the committee on the conduct of the 
 war, for the mere purpose of setting this com- 
 mittee right. I have no purpose in bringing 
 into this controversy any accusation against 
 General Fremont. In the lately published state- 
 ment of General Fremont, made before the com- 
 mittee on the conduct of the war, he charged 
 the committee on Government contracts with 
 having come to St. Louis encouraging insub- 
 ordination in his department ; that they cre- 
 ated a public opinion there that it was their 
 object to cause his removal ; that they refused 
 to receive evidence offered them in explanation 
 of matters inquired into by them, and suppress- 
 ed testimony which had been received by them ; 
 and that he would offer evidenoe to that com- 
 nsitte* t» iUBtain these charges. 
 
 I wish to ask the members of the committee 
 on the conduct of the war — and I see one 
 member, the gentleman from New York, [Mr. 
 Odell,] in his seat — whether any evidence has 
 been offered to that committee to sustain this 
 charge. If it is not an improper inquiry, will 
 the gentleman from New York do me the favor 
 to answer it ? 
 
 Mr. ODELL, There is no evidence of that 
 character before the committee, save that given • 
 by General Fremont himself in his statement, 
 so far as I recollect. 
 
 Mr. DAWES. That is all I desire to« say 
 touching that matter. The charge is of a seri- 
 ous character, and I know that that committee 
 would have notified us of any testimony that 
 had been offered to sustain it. 
 
 I now recur to the second of these charges 
 made in the House. It is of such a character, 
 if the House remembers what appears in the 
 Globe, that no man, having any selfrespect, 
 could pass it over without asking for the evi- 
 dence on which it is sustained. A gentleman 
 stands up in the House and declares that he 
 believes in his conscience that this committee 
 has perpetrated more frauds than it has de- 
 tected — that it is aljingcommittee — a scandal- 
 hunting committee, expending the people's 
 money and bringing disgrace on the public 
 servants. The only evidence brought in sup- 
 port of the charge is, what I have already sta- 
 ted, that the committee has confounded two 
 persons of the same name. The committee 
 expected to meet all other accusations of short- 
 comings on their part. They had not expected 
 to meet an 'attack of this kind. I am sorry 
 
that the gentleman who made it [Mr. ShsTffSs] I which he had been charged for some time, 
 is not now in his seat. I informed him but a | The committee have had occasion, as I have 
 
 few moments atjo, while he was in the House, 
 that I was about to call the attention of the 
 House to the remarks which he made at that 
 time. He felt it his duty, as I suppose, to with- 
 draw from the House on business which to 
 him appeared to be more pressing than to re- 
 main and hear what I had to say. 
 
 Mr. COLFAX. Will the gentleman permit 
 me to say a word ? 
 
 Mr. DAWES. Yes. 
 
 Mr. COLFAX. The gentleman from Penn- 
 sylvania desired me to 8ta,te, if his absence 
 should be alluded to, that before the gentleman 
 from Massachusetts had notified him of his m- 
 tention to allude to hi^ speech, he had made an 
 appointment with some friends from Pennsyl- 
 vania, who had to leave this afternoon, and 
 that he could not break his engagement. 
 
 repeated, to encounter these charges from dif- 
 ferent quarters, in this House and out of it. 
 They know better than the House or the public 
 can what has been the course of their pro- 
 ceedings, and they have, therefore, been better 
 able to appreciate these charges than the pub- 
 lic or this House can, and they have' accepte<t 
 them from time to time as testimonials to their 
 fidelity in the doty with which they have been 
 charged. 
 
 Sir, any lawyer in threading the complicated 
 labyrinths of conspiracies, deceits, and frauds, 
 knows very well when he puts his finger upon 
 the key to the whole. The physician, probing 
 an abscess, be it ever so deep, be it ever so foul, 
 is at no time at a loss to know when he touches 
 the quick. It is the galled jade that winces, or 
 there is no truth in England's poet. And there- 
 fore the committee have been prepared for all 
 
 Mr. DAWES. Mr. Speaker, I do not feel , , . „ 
 
 ^1 . T • 11 J r^ L • • ti,„ this, and have accepted cheertully, as a trioute 
 
 that I am called upon, after havmg given the I ''"'°' * ^ ^' . •' ' . . 
 
 gentleman notice, to wait for his return. The 
 
 committee is obliged to my colleague, [Mr. 
 Thomas,] prompted by that sense of justice 
 which pervades his whole being, for calling 
 ■ the attention of the gentleman from Penn- 
 sylvania on Monday last, in the midst of 
 . his accusatory philippic against the committee, 
 ^ to the fact that no member of the committee 
 was then present in the House. We are obliged 
 to my colieagae for two reasons : first, because 
 the Globe now shows the reason why no reply 
 was then made to this serious accusation ; and 
 secondly, because the subsequent course of the 
 gentleman from Pennsylvania illustrated, bet- 
 ter than anything I can say on this occasion, 
 the motives which prompted that attack on the 
 committee. While admitting the force and 
 propriety of the suggestion of my colleage, the 
 gentleman from Pennsylvania was so charged 
 with that accusation against the committee 
 that he said he could not be stopped from 
 making it, then and there, by any such con- 
 sideration as the fact that the committee was 
 absent from the- House when it was made. It 
 would seeiii from the report in the Globe that 
 there wl\s even a feeling of relief from all re- 
 straint on the part of the gentleman from 
 Pennsylvania when he came to be assured that 
 all the raeinbers of the committee were absent. 
 His speech leaves a conviction, certainly, on 
 the minds of those who were the subjects of 
 that attack, that it was' to him an opportune 
 occasion on which to be delivered of that with 
 
 to their fidelity, from time to time, this rustling 
 and this fluttering, even this bitterness and ma- 
 lignity, heaped upon them. It is only because 
 the House and the country are ignorant of the 
 hidden springs, sometimes far off, which move 
 men, that they are compelled to self-defence. 
 
 Why were we arraigned here on Monday 
 last in our absence ? The occasion arose from 
 no matter connected with us or with any of our 
 proceedings. We had not at all arraigned any- 
 body in this House. It appears from the Globe 
 that the discussion arose from a resolution in- 
 troduced into this"^ House by the gentleman 
 from New York, [Mr. Diven] on my right, in- 
 troduced without the knowledge of the com- 
 mittee, and I am sure the gentleman will say, 
 without any responsibility on our part ; to which 
 the committee, if they had been here in the House 
 at the time, would have had nothing to say. 
 The gentleman from New York, actuated by 
 what he felt to be a sense of duty, introduced a 
 resolution here, in consequence of no action 
 proposed by this committee, but it was seized 
 upon as an opportunity to destroy the confi- 
 dence of the House and the confidence of the 
 country in this committee, and the confidence 
 uf all honest men in them as individuals. 
 
 Sir, it is known to the public that there has 
 been a systematic effort to break down this 
 committee. It has found its way into pamphlet 
 form begotten by contractors, containing a de- 
 liberate attack on the individual members of 
 the committee ; and which wisdom or some 
 
6 
 
 other monitor suggested would be more effect- 
 ive, if, instead of seeing the light in the form 
 of the pamphlet opposition of contractors, it 
 could take on the form of an attack in this 
 House from members of the House itself; and 
 hence it is that that which was originally in- 
 tended merely as a pamphlet crusade against 
 this committee has acquired that additional 
 strength and influence which ought to attach 
 to statements made in this House by members 
 upon their responsibility. 
 
 I am not surprised to learn what was the 
 efff-ct of that statement upon the House. I am 
 not surprised that the House, were ready, 
 almost, in the absence of the committee, to 
 order their discharge from further duty when it 
 had been stated that they themselves had com- 
 mitted frauds, when it was stated that they 
 themselves had lied, that they had squandered 
 the people's money in the guise of an effort to 
 save it. I only wondered that my friend from 
 Pennsylvania on my left, who, I understand, 
 had charge of a resolution on that occasion to 
 discharge the committee from further duties, 
 refrained from offering it. 
 
 Mr. MOORHEAD. As the gentleman has 
 referred to me, I wish to say that I was not 
 charged with any such resolution ; but I think 
 I have had reason to vote for such a resolution 
 when it does come before the House. I repeat 
 that I was not charged with any such i"esolu- 
 tion, and do not propose to offer any. 
 
 Mr. DAWES. I do not know as the gentle- 
 man ever did draft any particular resolution, or 
 that it was handed to him, or that he was wait- 
 ing fur an opportune moment to offer it. I 
 only know that the gentleman announced him- 
 self ready to vote for such a resolution, and I 
 only wonder that he did not offer and the House 
 pass such a resolution. 
 
 Mr. MOORHEAD. I understood the gentle 
 man to assert that I was charged with such a 
 resolution. 
 
 Mr. DAWES. I only took the gentleman 
 from Pennsylvania to be a candid man, a man 
 of good judgment, with a disposition to do what 
 was right. I was only alluding to the effect 
 which the charge made upon the committee on 
 Monday last must have had upon the gentle- 
 man, and saying to the House that I did not 
 wonder that gentlemen under the influences of 
 such a charge were ready to offer and adopt 
 such a motion as the gentleman from Pennsyl- 
 vania now says he is ready to vote for. He sees, 
 I trust, the force of my remark. It is due to the 
 
 gentleman's candor and sensitiveness to what 
 he believes to be right. I would not for a mo- 
 ment believe that there is any lack of courage 
 on his part to move that resolution. 
 
 Now, sir, the gentleman from Pennsylvania, 
 [Mr. Stevens,] in the discussion of another 
 matter which had no reference to the committee, 
 travelled out of that discussion to accuse the 
 committee. It was thought necessary, in order 
 to defeat the resolution of the gentleman from 
 New York, to accuse the committee on Govern- 
 ment contracts with being enemies of General 
 Fremont. The committee had said nothing in 
 reference to General Fremont. They had never, 
 in this House or elsewhere, made any accusa- 
 tion against General Fremont. 
 
 Whether correctly or hoit, it was supposed 
 that certain documents brought before the 
 House, official documents, by the committee in 
 their report, reflected upon General Fremont. 
 And therefore the committee were charged 
 with being the enemies of General Fremont, 
 and that going out to St. Louis as his enenyes, 
 we were seeking after cause for his removal. 
 Now, I am able to say, as one who knows quite 
 as much about the real sentiments and feelings 
 of every member of that committee as per- 
 haps any gentleman in this House, that tha 
 gentleman from Pennsylvania who has made 
 this accusation is entirely mistaken upon that 
 point. It will be somewhat new to my con- 
 stituents, who know me quite as well as the 
 gentleman from Pennsylvania does, to hear at 
 this late day that I am counted one of the en- 
 emies of General Fremont. It will be equally 
 unjust to every other member of the committee 
 to make the accusation against them. I have 
 importuned his special friends to warn him 
 against false friends, wolves in sheep's clothing, 
 who were bankrupting him in fortune and 
 character. I have not been otherwise his en- 
 emy. 
 
 • The mistake into which my kind friend from 
 Indiana [Mr. Colfax] has fallen, and all other 
 members who have arraigned this committee 
 for the method in which they have pursued 
 their investigations, lies right here': they for- 
 get what duties the committee were charged 
 with. My friend referred, with great pride, to 
 the proceedings of an investigJtting committee 
 in a formA- Congress, and he held it» up as a 
 pattern for us to follow. He forgets that the 
 one committee was charged with investigating 
 the conduct of individtials, and that the other 
 committee was charged solely with investigating 
 
the cliaracter of. contracts; that we were to 
 examine those contracts- without regard to per- 
 sons, and that we had nothing to do with per- 
 sona in the investigation of those contracts. 
 He says we failed in our duty, because when 
 we went out to St. Louis we did 'Viot invite 
 General Fremont to aid us in investigations 
 touching the contracts which McKinstry had 
 entered into there, as quartermaster, for the 
 purpose of carrying on the war. Why, sir, we 
 went out there without knowing General Fre- | 
 mont, or General Fremont's accusers in that j 
 department. We were treated with kindness , 
 and attention by both sides, and we felt it pru- 1 
 dent to decline all proffers of hospitality ex- 
 tended to us upon either aide, and in our in- | 
 vestigations there to imitate, humbly as we i 
 might, but as far as in us lay, that personifica- j 
 tion of Justice which hangs in all our courts, 
 and which makes her blindfold — hearing, but 
 not seeing, men. We were no respecters of 
 persons. We were charged with the duty of 
 examiaing into contracts made, and the report 
 upon which would be a matter of consideration 
 for the House. 
 
 Therefore it is that I care not for the amend- 
 ment of the gentleman from Indiana, [Mr. Col 
 FAX,] for it may be that it should be adopted 
 as a proper course of examination when it has 
 any application to the subject of it, and not 
 otherwise. 
 
 The gentleman from Pennsylvania says we 
 went out there as the enemies of Fremont, pur- 
 suing him. And what was the awful result ? 
 That when we found out a contract made there 
 about horses — a contract, about which the 
 quartermaster who made it said he had spent 
 hours and weeks and months in trying to find, 
 without any success, the man Sacchi, who made 
 it — we blundered in the name. The'quarter- 
 master who made this inquiry was a tried sol- 
 dier of the regular army, who has, served for 
 many a year in that capacity, with unquestioned 
 integrity. In reference to this Sacchi, who had 
 this contract. Quartermaster Turnley says — 
 not the committee, though we are held respon- 
 sible for what the quartermaster said : 
 
 "It came out that Sacchi was nobodj-, a man 
 of straw, living in a garret in New York, whom 
 nobody knew anything about ; a m^n who was 
 brought here (St. Louis) as a good person 
 through whom to work. That rather recoiled 
 upon Wood, who brought him to me." 
 
 That is the language of Captain Turnley of the 
 regular army, and not the language of the com- 
 mittee. And yet the gentleman from Pennsyl- 
 
 vania arraigns the committee, and says that 
 there are two things, dreadful and awful — -dis- 
 honest is the word used — and the result of fraud 
 upon the part of the committee; for he says it 
 turned out afterwards, on the affidavit of the 
 man himself, that this Sacchi,- whom the witness 
 said was nobody, was somebody, and did not 
 live in anybody's garret in New York, but had 
 given deeds and mortgages in New York — es- 
 pecially mortgages — as to which he referred to 
 the records. And just at this moment, as ap- 
 pears by the Globe, in the midst of that most 
 intense and terrific philippic of the gentleman 
 from Pennsylvania [Mr. Stevens] against the 
 committee for this mistake of theirs, rises the 
 gentleman from New York, [Mr. Roscoe Conk- 
 ling,] as if intending to interrupt the gentleman 
 from Pennsylvania for some important commu- 
 nication absolutely necessary at that point, and 
 wishes the gentleman from Pennsylvania to 
 give way right there. The gentleman from 
 Pennsylvania gives way, and the gentleman 
 from New York says \^e wishes to call the at- 
 i tention of the House, in this connection, to the 
 [ "star of Bethlehem" [laughter] and the "cru- 
 I sade for freedom in freedom's holy land." 
 [Ptenewed laughter.] But the gentleman from 
 Pennsylvania was in no mood for poetry, and 
 thrust aside the gentleman's sentimentality and 
 eloquence. He felt, as it appears from the 
 Globe, too much as the bloodhound does at the 
 moment of' springing upon the throat of his 
 victim, to be interrupted by poetry; and he ex- 
 claims, as much as to say, "away with your 
 ' star of Bethlehem ' and your * crusade for free- 
 dom in freedom's holy land ' " — says he does 
 not care any more about that than he doe 8 
 about the contract for horses, though steeped 
 in fraud dark as the bottomless pit. What does 
 he care if it. is fraudulent? He says, "it is 
 enouf'h for me to know that he (Sacchi) was 
 not the man who made the horse contract at 
 all •" it is enough for me to know that I have 
 detected the committee, not in any mistake 
 about the fraudulent character of the contract — 
 I don't care a copper about that — but in the 
 great mistake of supposing that one man, bear- 
 ing the same name, happened to be another 
 man who bore that name ;. and then, upon the 
 strength of that, rising in triumph over the 
 committee he exclaims: 
 
 " And if the committee had had an honest 
 purpose to know the truth, they would have 
 known that ; and yet they fill several pages ot 
 their report in charging that Fremont gave this 
 contract to a member of his own staff. I ask 
 
■ 8 
 
 wlwrt you Avould think of the testimony of such 
 a witness found lying one day? Would you be- 
 liere him on the next?" 
 
 And here, just at this point, he addresses 
 some able lawyer of the House — the Glohe 
 does not do him ^uSjtice here, for it does not 
 state to whom he alludes — 
 
 "You are an able lawyer, and know how much 
 credit such a witness is entitled to. You know 
 thiU if he is found falsifying in one case, you 
 will not believe him in any." 
 
 This is the charge, falsus in uno, falsus in 
 omnibus; they make a mistake in reference to 
 the individual, and that is enough for me. I 
 charge thera with lying ; I charge them with 
 falsehood ; and I ask some able lg.wyer in this 
 House if it is not enough ? Such is substan- 
 tially the language of the gentleman from Penn- 
 sylvania. 
 
 But 1 do not want to do injustice to this 
 scene ; and I beg the House to let me read this 
 language just as it occurred, in order that the 
 whole beauty and force of this passage may be 
 better seen than I can describe it. I said that 
 in the midst of this accusation of the gentle- 
 man from Pennsylvania, the gentleman from 
 New York, whom I like always to hear, for he 
 is always eloquent, always classical, sometimes 
 biblical, rushes to the floor, and says : 
 
 " Will the gentleman allow tme to make a re- 
 mark just there ? 
 
 " Mr. Stevens. Yes, sir. 
 
 " Mr. RoscoE CoNKLiNG. This young man 
 Sacchi, who is named here, is, I understand, a 
 man Avho has been decorated for heroic actions 
 upon the battle-fields of Italy more than once, a 
 man who came here following the star of freedom 
 as the shepherds fqllowed the star of Bethlehem, 
 and went out into that department and joined 
 Fremont's staff, not for pay, not for rank, but as 
 a volunteer ; a man who came here, in the lan- 
 guage of another, ' to crusade forfreedom in free- 
 dom's holy land.' 
 
 " Mr. Stevens. It is enough for me to know 
 that he is not the man who made the horse con- 
 tract at all." 
 
 [ The reading of the above extract excited 
 great merriment in the House.] 
 
 The gentleman from New York will pardon 
 me — for he knows that I appreciate the beauty 
 of that passage as well as he does — for saying 
 that that elegant passage of his in connection 
 with the speech of the gentleman from Penn- 
 sylvania, reminds me of what my friend from 
 Missouri [Mr. Rollins] said yesterday of the 
 pearl in the toad's head. [Great laughter.] 
 And then the gentleman from Pennsylvania 
 exclaims : " It is enough ; my soul is satisfied ; 
 I have the committee by the throat ; here is a 
 
 mistake in the name of an individual ; falsus 
 in uno, falsus in omnibus ; 1 put it to the ablest 
 lawyer in this House : are not the committee 
 liars?" Sir, it reminds me of a lawyer who 
 told me that upon a certain occasion he under- 
 took, with what success he might be able, to 
 defend a criminal detected in flagrante delicto, 
 and, as is always the custom when men aTe so 
 detected, the only defence was to set up an 
 alibi. He proved the alibi with great success ; 
 the man had never been on the spot, and knew 
 not where the spot was where the crime had 
 been committed ; and toward the close, the 
 prisoner, thinking he was something of a law-' 
 yer also, got up and insisted on putting in his 
 view of the case, and declared to the jury that 
 he could show them that the witnesses swore 
 falsely when they said there were two lights in' 
 the room; he. told them, as my friend from 
 Pennsylvania said here, upon his conscience, 
 that there was only one light in that room that 
 night, and then exclaimed, triumphantly, in the 
 language of the gentleman from Pennsylvania, 
 " witnesses who can be false in one thing are 
 false in all — falsus in uno, falsiis in omnibus .'" 
 The difficulty was in the verdict of the jury 
 more than in the theory of the defendant on 
 that occasion. He may have convinced them 
 that the witnesses were mistaken about the 
 light, but in doing it he confessed his own 
 guilt. So here these men may convince the 
 House and country that the committee have 
 made a mistake in a name ; but if that is all in 
 this book of IJOO pages, then the stupendous 
 frauds it discloses stand confessed. 
 
 Mr. W ASHBDRNE . If my friend will give 
 way for a moment, as illustrating this Sacchi 
 contract, which has so much sympathy here, 
 I desire to read an extract from the report of 
 the Holt and Davis commission in St. Louis. 
 It seems that a certain number of horses were 
 really bought under that contract, amounting 
 to some six or seven thousand dollars, but wjien 
 the matter came to be exposed, there was no 
 man who dared to come before the commission 
 and make that claim. They say : 
 
 " Though the claim was for the large sum of 
 $6,500, none of the original papers were filed, 
 nor did Mr. Bitting [the mau who claimed to 
 own it] eve^ appear before us. It is hardly pos- 
 sible tiiat he would have run the chance of los- 
 ing a claim of such magnitude, unless there had 
 been some urgent reason for declining to submit 
 himself to such an examination, either on his 
 own account, or on that of the persons from 
 whom he obtained an assignment of the contract.'^' 
 
 That is what the Holt commission say. 
 
Mr. DA.WES. True. But what matters it 
 that the Holt commission find that the contract 
 was fraudulent ? What matters it, if that com- 
 mission, composed of such men as Judge David 
 Davis, known to the people of my district where 
 he spent his early days, as well as to the people 
 of Illinois, to be just and true — of Joseph 
 Holt, who, in a time not very far distant in the 
 past, was one of those patriots who snatched 
 thf nation itself from out of the jaws of disso- 
 lution; and of Hugh Campbell, worthy to be 
 their associate — what if this commission has 
 sustained every position, and substantiated 
 more than every finding of the committee in 
 the Western Department, and has saved the 
 Treasury millions of dollars ? What matters it 
 that that commission was the result of the in- 
 vestigations of this committee and was recom- 
 mended by it ; or tliat its success has produced 
 another, now in session in this city, with the 
 same Holt at its head, saving, if sustained, 
 other millions to. the Treasury ? What mat- 
 ters all this if the committee made a mistake 
 in a name ? 
 
 Mr. KELLEY. I would ask the gentleman 
 from Illinois whether the contract to which 
 that passage refers was a contract made by a 
 member of General Fremont's staff? For that 
 is the question in issue now. Does that para- 
 graph refer to a contract made by a member of 
 General Fremont's staff? 
 
 Mr. DAWES. I will dispose of that ques- 
 tion. It refers to a contract drafted by Captain 
 Turnley, of the regular army, by the direction 
 of J. C. Woods, upon General Fremont's staff, 
 silting in General Fremont's office, or else 
 Captain Turnley is mistaken. That is all. My 
 friend from Indiana [Mr. Shanks] suggests, 
 which I believe is true, that Woods was direct- 
 ed to make it by Fremont himself. 
 
 Mr. SHANKS. Captain Turnley was direct- 
 ed to do it. 
 
 Mr. DAWES. I have studied, in order to 
 avoid other complications in this matter, not 
 to mention Fremont's name, or anything 
 that reflects upon him, during this discussion. 
 Whatever there may be in that matter, the com- 
 mittee on Government contracts are on trial at 
 this time, and not Genera* Fremont or any of 
 his party. 
 
 Mr. KELLEY. Will the gentleman yield to 
 me for a single question ? 
 
 Mr. DAWES. If the House will let me have 
 my time, I have no objection. 
 Mr. KELLEY. I simply want to ask 
 
 whether Auguste Sacchi, of GeaeraJ Fremont's 
 staff, had part or lot in the contract to which 
 that paragraph relates ? He has a character 
 as well as other men. 
 
 Mr. DAWES. Well, my dear sir, do be pa- 
 tient with me, and hear me till I get to the end, 
 I was about to say that the committee are on 
 trial on a charge ot dishonesty for making a 
 mistake and confounding the Sacchi who made 
 the contract with this Sacchi upon General 
 Fremont's staff. The gentleman from Penn- 
 sylvania [Mr. Stevens,] who took command 
 of the attack on Monday — and in which attack 
 my friend from the Philadelphia district acted 
 only as a subaltern — charged the committee, 
 upon that occasion, with occupying several pa- 
 ges of their report in attempting to prove that 
 that Sacchi was the same Sacchi who was upon 
 General Fremont's staff, when every word in 
 the report touching that point is contained in 
 three lines, which I have before me, and which 
 I will read : 
 
 " It will hardly be believed that the name of 
 this same Sacchi appears in the newspapers as 
 being on the staff of General Fremout, at Spring- 
 field, with the rank of captain." ;, 
 
 That is all — just three lines. The committee 
 supposing that the name referred to the same 
 individual, called attention to the fact that the 
 newspapers contained that name. And yet the 
 gentleman from Pennsylvania felt justified in 
 saying that we devoted several pages of our 
 report to an endeavor to prove that fact ! Now, 
 it is absolutely necessary to convict the gentle- 
 man from Pennsylvania of utter ignorance of 
 what he was. talking about, in order to acquit 
 him of an intentional misrepresentation of the 
 committee. 
 
 Mr. KELLEY made a remark which was in- 
 audible at the reporters' desk. 
 
 Mr. DAWES. As the gentleman seems de- 
 sirous of taking part in this controversy, I will 
 just say to him that when he attacked the com- 
 mittee in its absence several weeks since, we 
 accepted his apology that he did it inadvert- 
 ently, although the Globe shows that his atten- 
 tion was called to the fact, when he rose to 
 make that attack, that the committee were 
 absent from the House ; and the gentleman re- 
 turned to the attack the first time he found the 
 committee again absent from the House. This 
 is the only remark I desire to make in this 
 connection touching his disposition to assault 
 the committee in its absence. If the final re- 
 port of the committee does not revea^ why the 
 
10 
 
 gentleman is desirous of undermining tbe con- 
 fidence of the House in the committee, then 
 there may be occasion for us to remark further 
 npon the question, why, upon two distinct oc- 
 casions, when the committee were absent, the 
 gentleman felt it to be his bounden duty to un- 
 dertake to undermine the confidence of the 
 House and the country in the committee. 
 
 Now I wish to call the attention of the House 
 distinctly to the motives which prompted the 
 attack of Monday last. When the House and 
 the country come to know, as the committee 
 knows, what prompted this attack, they will 
 appreciate it quite as well as the committee 
 does. The committee encountered no such 
 opposition from the gentleman from Pennsyl- 
 vania, the chairman of the Committee of 
 Ways and Means, in the early stages of their 
 investigation. It was only when the committee, 
 in the way of its duty, came to throw itself be- 
 tween the Treasury of the United States and a 
 private speculation in which one Simon Stevens 
 was interested, and through which $90,000 was 
 to be taken out of the Treasury of the United 
 States, without a dollar of consideration, in the 
 simple^ale and repurchase of five thousand arms 
 by the United States, that the committee en- 
 countered the opposition of the chairman of 
 the Committee of Ways and Means. It first 
 manifested itself in delaying the appropriation 
 to pay the expenses of the committee, and it 
 then brought out a speech in the House ridi- 
 culing the committee and the committee's efforts 
 to rescue the Treasury from the vampires that 
 had seized upon it and the harpies that hung 
 around and h6vered over it. And last of 
 all, it culminated in an attack last Monday on 
 the integrity and character of the committee, 
 and that, too, after the gentleman from Pennsyl- 
 vania had been duly notified that every member 
 of the committee was absent and could not re- 
 ply. The. amendment offered by him to the 
 second resolution looks to the same end. Sir, 
 if that fact had gone forth with his charge, the 
 committee would have been content to have put 
 themselves with it on their country and to have 
 waited for the verdict. 
 
 Sir, I am not permitted to overlook also the 
 connection of others in this matter. Although 
 I had not the privilege of being present during 
 the fore part of this week, when this scene 
 transpired, I am informed that a distinguished 
 ex-functionary of the Government was here in 
 this House as the generalissimo on that occa- 
 sion. I am informed that subsequently he ap- 
 
 peared at the seat of the distinguished member 
 from Pennsylvania, [Mr. Stkvens,] and con- 
 gratulated him on the signal success of his 
 achievement over the committee in their ab- 
 sence, and that he conferred with the lieuten- 
 ant in that attack, [Mr. Kelley,] and with my 
 other distinguished friend from Pennsylvania, 
 [Mr. MooRHEAD,] who feels courage enough, 
 and is sufficiently prompted by a sense of duty, 
 to vote for the discharge of the committ^. 
 Sir, I had hoped not to be compelled to allude 
 to any one else in connection with this matter ; 
 but justice to the committee requires me to 
 call attention to these singular coincidences. 
 
 That is not all. The committee has had 
 fair notice served upon it by this distinguished 
 ex-Secretary that its members are to hear from 
 him elsewhere. Why, sir, the accmation which 
 the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Kel- 
 ley] made on the committee a few weeks ago 
 was published as an advertisement in the news- 
 paper in my present district, in the vain. at- 
 tempt to make the people of my district believe 
 that I was not an honest man. Of course the 
 gentleman from Pennsylvania did not pay ^r 
 that advertisement. [Laughter.] Of course 
 it could not be the distinguished Secretary, who 
 had served' notice on every member of the 
 committee that he would be laid out in his own 
 district at the next election. I know not who 
 paid for the advertisement, nor do I care. No 
 man who was here at the last session of the 
 last Congress can forget how the distinguished 
 chairman of the Committee of Ways and 
 Means made it public that he had represented 
 to President Lincoln the true character of that 
 distinguished individual and the danger of 
 taking him into his Cabinet; how gentlemen 
 from Pennsylvania protested in writing to Pres- 
 ident Lincoln against taking him into the Cab- 
 inet; and yet we find how, one by oue,*they 
 were, some of them at least, brought up before 
 President Lincoln, on their knees, and made to 
 retract it all. 
 
 A Member. Not all of them. 
 
 Mr. DAWES. "Not all." The exceptions 
 were not as many as were necessary to save 
 Sodom. [Laughter.] I am happy to say, Mr. 
 Speaker, that altho«gh I have been compelled 
 to speak thus of gentlemen from Pennsylvania, 
 I do not reflect on Pennsylvania herself. I 
 only speak of the power of that distinguished 
 ex-Secretary over individual men. I am happy 
 to know that Pennsylvania is true when she is 
 
11 
 
 herself, and that she is herself on this floor as 
 well as elsewhere. 
 
 Mr. Mcknight. Will my friend from Mas- 
 sachusetts yield to me a moment? 
 
 Mr. DAWES. Yes, sir. 
 
 Mr. Mcknight I desire to say, as the 
 gentleman has not particularized members of 
 the Pennsylvania delegation, that, so far as I 
 am concerned, I am one of the members from 
 Pennsylvania who protested to President Lin- 
 coln apjainst the admission of Mr. Cameron into 
 the Cabinet, and that I never withdrew nor 
 qualified that protest. ' 
 
 Mr. MOORHEA.D. As my colleague has 
 taken occasion to set himself right, I desire to 
 say that I recommended the appointment of 
 General Cameron to the Cabinet, that I worked 
 heartily to accomplish it, and that I am here 
 ready to stand by it. I believe that it was a 
 good appointment, and that it represented the 
 people of Pennsylvania. 
 
 Mr. DAWES. I desire to say, in reply to 
 the gentleman from Pennsylvania, that the 
 newspapers did not leave us in ignorance at 
 th^'time— — 
 
 [Here the hammer fell.] 
 
 Mr. KELLEY obtained the floor. 
 
 Mr. KELLOGG, of Michigan. I hope the gen- 
 tleman's time will be extended. [Cries of "Go 
 on."] 
 
 Mr. ROSCOE CONKLUSTG. I object. 
 
 Mr. KELLEY. I wish it understood that I 
 did not object ; but I should like to have the 
 floor when the gentleman is done, without his 
 time being taken out of mine. 
 
 Mr. DAWES. I thought there was a tacit ac- 
 quiescence on the part of the House that if I 
 j-ielded the floor to gentlemen my time would be 
 extended. 
 
 The SPEAKER. Does the gentleman from 
 New York withdraw his objection ? 
 
 Mr. ROSCOE CONKLING. I decline to with- 
 draw it. I have listened as long as I desire to 
 listen to refuting an attack which no one has 
 ever made on the committee. 
 
 Mr. KELLEY. I hope the gentleman from 
 New York will withdraw his objection. 
 
 Mr. DAWES. Allow me to say that, when I 
 was asked to yield to other gentlemen, I under- 
 stood the House to assent to my proposition, that 
 my time should be extended. I regret that the 
 gentleman from New York did not object at that 
 time, as 1 would then have saved my own time. 
 
 Mr. ROSGOE CONKLLVG. I raise the point 
 of order that the gentleman from Pennsylvania 
 is entitled to the floor, and must either occupy 
 it or yield it. The time of tire gentleman from 
 Massachusetts having expired, it is not in order 
 for him to pursue this discussion. 
 
 The SPEAKER. The gentleman from Penn- 
 sylvania cannot yield the floor if objection be 
 made-. 
 
 Mr. KELLEY. I am willing to yield the floor, 
 but not the time, and therefore I will proceed. 
 
 ]\[r. ROSCOE GONKLING. I object to that. 
 
 The SPEAKER. The gentleman cannot yield 
 except unconditionallyr 
 
 At the close of Mr. Kelley's remarks Mr. 
 Dawes obtained the floor, and concluded as fol- 
 Jows : 
 
 I do not desire to be turned aside from my 
 original purpose in this discussion by any ques- 
 tion as to the propriety of the purchases of 
 Alexander Cummingsin April of last year, or 
 the propriety of giving, in the midst of a snow- 
 storm, straw hats and linen pantaloons to the 
 shivering soldiers of Maine and Massachusetts, 
 on their way to defend the capitai I do not 
 desire to enter into that question, for I arose 
 to finish the few remarks I designed tg make 
 when I opened this discussion. 
 
 But before going further, I ask the pardon 
 of the gentleman from New York [Mr. Roscoe 
 Conkling] for wounding his feelings so seri- 
 ously in the poor attempt I made at pleasantry 
 when appre nating the beauties of his remarks. 
 I found them a gem in such strange settings 
 that I was incautiously led to make the remarks 
 I did. I was innocent of any design to wound 
 him. 
 
 One complaint of the gentleman from -Penn- 
 sylvania, the chairman of the Committee of 
 Ways and Means, [Mr. Stevens,] and in re- 
 ference to which nothing but the rule of the 
 House prevented him from moving to discharge 
 the committee, was that the committee were 
 expending the people's money. Now, I wish 
 to ask the gentleman from Pennsylvania if he 
 has any idea what this committee has cost, over 
 and above what they have saved to the Treas- 
 ury thus far ? . I want to know whether he had 
 the slightest idea about that when he charged 
 upon the committee such expenditure and such 
 extravagance as to justify him in moving to 
 discharge them from further duty, and that, too, 
 in their absence ? 
 
 But before I go further, and lest I forget it, 
 it is due to the Pennsylvania delegation in the 
 House that I should be more explicit upon the 
 matter to ^thich I have before alluded. I spoke 
 of the great influence of an ex-Secretary over 
 men, and I spoke of the attempt upon his part 
 to accomplish a certain end in that way. I 
 alluded, what seemed to be well knoww as a 
 fact, to his influence upon distinguished gentle- 
 men from Pennsylvania, in and about and out 
 of the laait Congress. I think, upon the testi. 
 mony I have received here since I made that 
 
 / 
 
12 
 
 remark, that I ought to say that none of those 
 gentlemen, members of the present House at 
 least, were induced by any consideration to 
 withdraw the protest they filed with the Presi- 
 dent. I thiuk there is no doubt of the fact, 
 however. The newspaper publications announ- 
 ced, and it was never contradicted, that many 
 of the gentlemen who were induced to sign such 
 a protest were also induced, by the exercise of 
 that influence always attendant on great minds 
 and great men over othess not so great, to with- 
 draw that protest. 
 
 But to return ; I was asking the gentleman 
 from Pennsylvania about the expenses of this 
 committee. ' The gentleman is before me, and 
 as I have put the matter in the form of an in- 
 terrogatory, I hope the gentleman will at some 
 time indicate to the House his knowledge upon 
 that subject. 
 
 Mr. SfEVENS. What question does the 
 gentleman put to me? 
 
 Mr. DAWES. Whether the-gentleman is 
 aware of- the expenses of that committee over 
 and above what they have saved to Govern- 
 ment? 
 
 Mr. STEVEN'S made a reply which was not 
 distinctly heard by the reporters, but the pur- 
 port oT which was understood to be, that he 
 hoped to have an opportunity hereafter to re- 
 ply to the gentleman's remarks and interroga- 
 tories. 
 
 Mr. DAWES. I stated to the House on a 
 former occasion that the committee had en- 
 deavored to render its action as practical 
 as possible, and whenever they had dis- 
 covered what they thought to be a fraudu- 
 lent or profligate contract, to lay it before the 
 proper Departrnent ; the Department co-ope- 
 rating with the committee in correcting abuses. 
 Arithmetic shows that the committee had 
 brought back — when this report was made— in 
 dollars and cents, into the Treasury, just about 
 the amount of their current expenses; and 
 they have saved, in contracts, amounts which 
 would seem almost fabulous in other times. I 
 may be permitted to allude to a single contract 
 which was made last September — made by the 
 then Secretary of War himself, Mr. Cameron — 
 its terms not known at the Ordnance Bureau 
 until three days before he resigned, for the pur- 
 chase of one hundred and fifty thousand mus- 
 kets abroad, to be inspected abroad by a man 
 sent out there by the War Department, and 
 whose expenses were to be borne by the parties 
 selling the arms, and under such circumstances 
 
 that the man who was sent out by the party 
 who had made this contract with the Secretary 
 of War, went out under an assumed name ; a 
 brother-in-law of a distinguished officer of a 
 Pennsylvania railroad. Brothers-in-law, I may 
 be permitted to say, are very fortunate in these 
 times, and if I ever begin life again I will take 
 care to be somebody's brother-in-law. [Laugh- 
 ter.] I say I may be permitted to refer to such 
 a contract, and when this committee came "to. 
 investigate it, the parties came straightway 
 here before the commission on ordnance and 
 ordnance stores, now sitting in this citf, and 
 consented to a settlement of it upon terms by 
 which $1,300,000 have been saved to the Gov- 
 ernment in a single contract. That contract, I 
 say, was made by the then Secretary of War him- 
 self, and, as appears by the document I have 
 before me, its terms were not known to the Ord- 
 nance Bureau until the 10th day of January 
 last, three days before the Secretary resigned. 
 
 In connection with this statement, I send up 
 to the Clerk a document, and ask him to read 
 what I have marked. It is a document ad- 
 dressed to the Senate of the United States fcy 
 the then Secretary of War. It bears date the 
 loth day of January last, two days after he had 
 resigned, while he was then acting Secretary 
 of War, and while -his nomination as minister 
 to Russia was pending in the Senate, and where 
 it encountered opposition because of certain 
 statements which I happened to make here 
 upon this floor upon the day he resigned, about 
 contracts made in the War Office. 
 
 The Clerk read as follows : 
 
 " In the mean time I take occasion to state that 
 I have, mj-self, not made a single contract for 
 any purpose whatever ; having always iuter- 
 ])reted the laws of Congress as contemplating 
 that the heads of bureaus, who are experienced 
 and able officers of the regular army, shall make 
 all contracts for supplies for the branches of the- 
 service under their charge respectively. 
 
 " So far, I have uot found any occasion to in- 
 terfere with them in the discharge of this portion 
 of their responsible duties. 
 
 " I have the honor to be, very respectfully, 
 your obedient servant, SIMON CAMKRON, 
 " Secretary of M'ar. 
 
 " Hon. II. Hamlin, 
 " President of the Senate of the United States." 
 
 Mr. DAWES. I have stated thar, in this 
 solemn declaration, signed by the then Secreta- 
 ry ©f War, and addressed to the Senate when 
 his nomination was pending, and when the ac- 
 cusation .was made against him that he had 
 made contracts for the purchase of arms, as 
 stated by me upon this floor, to the amoubt of 
 
13 
 
 one million ninety-six thousand muskets, he 
 stated deliberately that he never made a con- 
 tract, when the book I have before me, which 
 is Executive Document No. 67, containing all 
 the contracts made for arms by the War De- 
 partment, recapitulates and sums up the whole 
 matter in these words : 
 
 3Iuske(s and Rifles. 
 Contracts by order of Secretary of War, 1,836,900 
 Clontracts by the Chief of Ordnance... 64,400 
 Contracts by order of Major General 
 
 Fremont 
 
 Contracts by order of Major P. V. 
 
 Hagner 
 
 1,000 
 
 1,500 
 
 1,903,800 
 This document, in the face of the solemn 
 declaration of the then Secretary of War that 
 he had never made one of these contracts, re- 
 Viaals contracts made by him, and by his order, 
 to the amount of one million eight hundred and 
 thirty six thousand nine hundred muskets and 
 rifies,and that upon the very day he made this 
 statement — the 15th day of January, two days 
 after he had resigned, and while he was acting 
 Secretary of War, and while his nomination 
 was pending in the Senate — he put his hand 
 to a contract for swOrds and sabres to an un- 
 limited amount — all that the parties, resident 
 in Philadelphia, could furnish in six months ; 
 and this, too, against the protest of the Chief 
 of Ordnance, now before me in print. It was 
 a contract that had expired, or was about to 
 expire, by its limitation, and which the Chief of 
 Ordnance refused to extend, and gave this 
 reason for not doing so, addressed to the Sec- 
 retary of War : 
 
 "As regards the extension, I have to state that 
 an arrangement has already been made R>r ob- 
 tiiining on prospective deliveries, one hundred 
 and twenty-one thousand seven hundred and 
 five swords and sabres; and the unlimited order 
 to Messrs. Horstman was given, only because of 
 short time to the deliveries of sabres of their 
 own manufacture. I do not think an extension 
 of the order fs necessary or ajivisable. 
 " Respectfully, &c., 
 
 "JAS. W. RIPLEY, 
 
 "Jiriffadier General. 
 "Hon. SiMO.v Cameron, 
 
 " Secretary of War.^' 
 
 Beneath this is the extension of that contract 
 by order of the Secretary of War, for four 
 months ; and still beneath that, on the 15th 
 day of January, are these words : 
 
 Jakuahy 16, 1862. 
 This order is extended for si-^c months from 
 the termination of the time mentioned above. 
 SIMON CAMERON; 
 Secretary of War. 
 
 Now, sir, it was this public statement, of his, 
 upon his responsibility as an officer of the 
 Government, to which I have referred, that in- 
 duced a distinguished Senator and colleague • 
 of mine, noble and generous-hearted, who 
 would do no man any wrong, and who believes 
 that all men tell the truth, to urge, after having 
 moved, the unanimous confirmation of this 
 man, whose name was then before the Senate, 
 and to state, in words as kind towards me, his 
 colleague in this House, as he was capable of 
 using, that he had the authority of this man, 
 Si!mon Cameron, for stating that I was alto- 
 gether mistaken when I said that .these con- 
 tracts had been made. 
 
 Sir, the distinguished gentleman from Penn- 
 sylvania, the chairman of the Committee of 
 Ways and Means, s&ysfalsiis inuno,falsus in 
 omnibus. I wish to quote these two thingis to- 
 gether, and let my friend from Pennsylvania 
 answer them in the light of the principle which 
 he has laid down. 
 
 I submit, then, that the charge of expending 
 the public money as a reason why this com- 
 mittee should be discharged comes with ill grace 
 from the quarter from whence it comes. Why, 
 sir, who does not know, what all the papers sta- 
 ted, that political feuds were healed by horse 
 contracts, and that the healing of them was cele- 
 brated by a great feast ? I have once alluded 
 to it myself. I am able now to state more par- 
 ticularly the details of the aflfair. It took four 
 horse contracts, each for one thousand horses, 
 to settle those old political feuds, and every one 
 of those contracts cost the Gpvernment $100,000 
 — $400,000 in four horse contracts ; and let me 
 tell you, Mr. Speaker, that some of them were 
 in men's names who did not know of it until 
 the contracts were made. It does not need to 
 be told togentlemen who know so much about 
 the wav things are done as we do here in this 
 House, why it is and for whose benefit it is that 
 large contracts aretr.ade in men's names with- 
 out their knowing anything about it. My dis- 
 tinguished friend from Pennsylvania, [Mr. Ste- 
 vens,] who, in the discharge of what appeared 
 to be a high duty, protested against such a 
 man as' Simon Cameron going into the Cabi- 
 net, the papers say, graced that feast with his 
 presence, and that these persons were, over 
 this entertainment, celebrating the restoration 
 of harmony among old political antagonists, 
 and some of them certainly knew the consider- 
 aticn. It seems to me that the $400,000 should 
 be saved to the Treasury somehow or other. 
 
14 
 
 It is a poor expenditure of the public money 
 just at this time when it is used for no better 
 purpose than to heal political feuds. These 
 gentlemen enjoyed themselves, the papers told 
 us. 
 
 Mr. STEVENS. The gentleman will allow 
 me to ask him. a question, as I do not very well 
 understand his allusion. I suppose he is re- 
 ferring to something not yet published ; or is it 
 to anything that has been published ? 
 
 Mr. DAWES. I stated that it was published 
 in all the papers. 
 
 Mr. STEVENS. In his remarks about the 
 horse contracts, does the gentleman refer to 
 anything contained in the report of the com- 
 mittee ? 
 
 Mr. D AWES. No, sir ; not to anything pub- 
 lished in the report. I am speaking now of 
 what is known to everybody. It did not take 
 even the poor Van Wyck committee to find it 
 out. [Laughter.] The parties fell out over one 
 of these arrangements and toldot it ; and I have 
 only to say that at that particular time there 
 was, according to the newspapers, great har- 
 mony among these men. I do not know wheth- 
 er the gentleman from Pennsylvania on my 
 left [Mr. Moorhead] was there or not. 
 
 Mr.'MOORHEAD. I would like to know 
 why the gentleman refers to me. I do not wish 
 the gentleman from Massachusetts, and I will 
 not permit him or any other gentleman, to put 
 me in a false position. I want to know why 
 he refers to me. 
 
 Mr. DAWES. I did not know the gentle- 
 man was there, and therefore I would not say 
 that he was there. 
 
 Mr. MOORHEAD. Then why refer to me 
 at all ? What reason have you to suppose that 
 I was there ? 
 
 Mr. DAWES. Because the gentleman has 
 avowed himself at this moment, and under all 
 the lights of the present day, an ardent advo- 
 cate and admirer of the man whose character, 
 public and official, I have been commenting 
 upon, and I thought it was but natural he 
 should be invited to such a feast. I hope he 
 was not overlooked. [Laughter.] I have only 
 to say that the papers described it as being a 
 delightful occasion; but I remembered, and I 
 think the country remembered, all about the 
 antecedents of these parties, and put the inter- 
 rogatories, " why, and what for, and what has 
 it cost?'' I wonder they did not sing, as they 
 closed, those lines of the poei appropriate to 
 each of them : 
 
 " I know not, I care not, if guilt's in thy heart; 
 I but know that I love thee, whatever thou art." 
 
 [Laughter.] 
 
 Mr. Speaker, I have a word or two to say 
 upon the suggestion of the gentleman from 
 Pennsylvania, [Mr. Stevens,] that he would 
 move to discharge the committee if it were only 
 in order. The gentleman's duties in this House 
 and the duties of the committee have been of 
 a different description. I have no disposition 
 to criticise his performance of his. I know the 
 ability with which he discharges them. I know 
 •very well what I encounter in attempting tore- 
 ply to his attack upon the committee. I have 
 only to say, that his labors and the labors of 
 the committee are yet to be appreciated. When 
 the thumb-screws of the tax bill which the com- 
 mittee, of which he is the he.ad, originated and 
 passed through the House from the necessities 
 of the times, so nicely adjusted, shall begin to 
 reach the bones of the poor, industrious, intel- 
 ligent men of the country, and force from them 
 so much of their hard earnings to replenish 
 the Treasury of the nation, beggared, plunder- 
 ed, and depleted as it has been during this 
 war, then, I fancy, this report of ours will come 
 to be read ; then, I fancy, if his constituents are 
 as intelligent as mine are — and I have no doubt 
 they are — they will ask him the question, and 
 he will be compelled to answer it, "where is 
 all this money gone ?" They will want to 
 know what was the need of putting out such 
 lavish and unjustifiable contracts — contracts 
 at such enormous and extravagant rates 
 that the owners of them are willing to discount 
 what is estimated at $1,300,000 on a single 
 contract, and then save two and a half per cent, 
 commisson. They will ask the question, and 
 the committee of which I am an humble mem- 
 ber, which has struggled all this time, while the 
 gentleman from Pennsylvania, impelled by the 
 necessities of the. Government, has been rack- 
 ing his ingenuity to contrive how to reach the 
 last farthing that can be reached to replenish 
 the Treasury — this committee which has been 
 placing their feeble efforts between the plun- 
 derers and the Treasury — are willing to abide 
 that lirfne. They are willing to let this book 
 be read by the side of the tax bill at any 
 time, and more especially at that particular 
 time when the clamps of the tax bill shall be 
 brought round about the industry and resources 
 of the country, and when my friend from Penn- 
 sylvania will be turning the screw. If (he 
 gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Stevens] 
 
15 
 
 had made that •motion, and if the House had 
 adopted it, as I have no doubt they would have 
 done that day, the committee then would 
 have hailed it as a glorious deliverance from 
 a most unpleasant duty, which no one member 
 of it had sought, but which no one felt himself 
 at liberty to shrink from. 
 
 I say to him, therefore, that if he will make 
 a motion to discharge the committee, and will 
 give me the liberty of asking for the yeas and 
 nays on his motion, that is all I desire. I will 
 say to him, as an honored and leading member 
 of the party to which I belong, that I am cred- 
 ited at home as being a sincere member of that 
 party for principle's sake, and I am willing to 
 do what within me lies to see the consumma- 
 tion and final prevalence of those principles. 
 Having devoted myself to them in the past, I 
 am ready to do more for them ; but I tell him 
 that when he asks this House to discharge a 
 committee whose efforts are to put themselves 
 and this House between the Treasury and the 
 plunderers of it, while he busies himself with 
 making a tax bill to wrench out of the hard 
 earnings of the people money to supply tiie 
 leaks in the Treasury, he must, and I must, and 
 the party to which we belong must, answer the 
 question why it is so. This book and the report 
 of the evidence yet unpublished cannot be hid 
 under, a bushel. 
 
 The geuUeman must remember that in the 
 first year of a Republican Administration, which 
 came into power upon professions of reform 
 and retrenchment, there is indubitable evidence 
 abroad in the land that somebody has plundered 
 the public Treasury well nigh in that single 
 year as much as the entire current yearly ex- 
 penses of the Government during that Admin- 
 istration which the people hurled from power 
 because of its corruption. Do not understand 
 m-Q as saying that your friends and mine are 
 alone responsible for this plunder, although we 
 are in power and have the responsibility of the 
 administrationof this Government. My friends 
 on the committee of different politics from me 
 will have the justice to say that the Republican 
 party is not the only one that has participated 
 in these plunders. I will not say on which 
 party the greater amount of this plunder rests. 
 And yet we have got to answer for them, and 
 justly, unless we put forth every effort in our 
 power to prevent them, and unless we call these 
 men to a rigid and strict account. It will not 
 be enough to say that we found that we had a 
 
 committee who had made a mistake about a 
 man's name ; that we found that a blunder had 
 been made in printing a man's letter and the 
 committee did not correct it; and that therefore 
 we discharged that committee, and proclaimed 
 to these plunderers that they might go about 
 their work without let or hindrance. 
 
 While it may be easily shovVn that this Re- 
 publican party is not altogether responsible for 
 plundering and profligacy, yet they cannot hold 
 themselves guiltless before the country if they 
 shrink from every effort, if they fail to sustain 
 the hands and quicken the zeal of the men 
 who have put their strength and their life for 
 the past six months to the work ; even although 
 they may have made a mistake, as doubtless 
 thfy have many in this large book ; even al- 
 though injustice to an individual may be, as 
 probably it has- been, committed in some in-, 
 stance ; unless they sustain a committee which 
 has been devoting itself by day to this work, 
 and riding by night upon the cars, finding, 
 while they are busy at work, that arrows are 
 sent after them from behind to undermine the 
 confidence of the country in them. I say that 
 this Republican party, to which I am as devo- 
 ted as my friend, cannot hold itself guiltless if 
 it shrink from the work. 
 
 I hope the gentleman will take these words 
 kindly from one whose political life, humble 
 and unimportant as it is, is bound up in the 
 principles of that party. He has all to sacrifice 
 for those principles, but he is irreconcilably 
 hostile here and everywhere to the thieving, 
 the stealing, and the plundering that charac- 
 terize the present time, in the concrete as well 
 as in the abstract. Sir, I doubt i?ot that Alex- 
 ander Cummings and those other men have 
 lost confidence in this committee, and that in 
 their opinion there is wonderful unanimity 
 among all the public plunderers and their de- 
 fenders throughout the country. T hope it is 
 so. 1 should feel a distrust of the committee 
 if I found that its course was agreeable to these 
 men. The House and the country hold the 
 committee responsible for the truth and justice 
 of what they say, and the country, sir, holds 
 you. and me and our friends responsible that 
 we do nothing that shall tend to give the idea 
 that we encouraged and countenanced this 
 plunder. I proposed to speak plainly to my 
 friends, whether they*will hear or whether they 
 will forbeiir. "Faithful are the wounds of a 
 friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful." 
 
illSSl,.?'^ CONGRESS 
 
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