I_FROM THE CONGRESSIONAL RECORD.] 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 OF (/ 
 
 HON. TIMOTHY 0. HOWE, 
 
 In the Senate of the United States, 
 
 Monday, the 25th of March, 1878, 
 
 On his Besoltttion calling on the President for information touching the 
 ■^ y defalcation of W. B,. Whittaker. 
 
 Mr. HOWE. Mr. President, during the past year we have seen here and everywhere 
 throughout the country small but active squads of political inquisitors busy with the work 
 of assorting the republican party, gathering into hallowed garners all those who avow them- 
 selves supporters of " the President's policy," and pouring unquenchable fire upon all the 
 rest. Poles have been set up at all the cross-roads, flags inscribed with the " President's 
 policy" have been suspended from them, and the self-appointed inquisitors have lurked in 
 convenient jungles to detect who did and who did not uncover under the flag. 
 
 It has happened to me to be advertised quite beyond the pale of my own modest seeking 
 as an opponent of the '• President's policy." To the doctors of the inquisition it seems no 
 longer a question of moment whether one be a republican or a democrat. The absorbing 
 question is, does he support the " President's policy" or does he not? 
 
 Sir, I have had no wish to conceal any opinion of mine which the public was interested 
 to know. Nevertheless. I have not hitherto answered to this accusation. I did not like to 
 plead " guilty," for I hoped 1 was innocent, and I did not like to plead " not guilty," for 
 I feared 1 might be guilty. 1 had withheld no honest effort to elect Mr. Hayes. It must 
 of necessity pain me to be found not in accord with his views ; and it must pain me still 
 more to find he was not in accord with mine. M}' uncertainty arose not from the fact that 
 I was doubtful of my own policy, but because I was not sure I understood his. 
 
 My own policy is a very simple one, and may be briefly stated. Toward the States of the 
 South my policy has been identical with the policy I have held toward the States of the 
 North. I demand only that every legally-qualified elector in every State, South or North, 
 democrat or republican, black or white, shall be permitted, undisturbed by force and un- 
 awed by I'ear, to vote at all elections at the place prescribed l>y law and nowhere else, just 
 once, and no more than once; that every vote so cast shall be honestly counted, and that 
 every person chosen by such votes to any office shall be freely inducted into it. That is my 
 southern policy, and the whole of it. The very head and front of my offending against the 
 South hath this extent — no more. 
 
 It was that same sentiment which, as I understand, animated the Cincinnati convention, 
 when it declared, in 1876, " it to be the solemn obligation of the legislative and executive 
 departments of the Government to put into immediate and vigorous exercise all their con- 
 stitutional powers for removing any just causes of discontent on the part of any class, and 
 for securing to every American citizen complete liberty and exact equality in the exercise of 
 all civil, political, and public rights. To this end we imperatively demand a Congress and 
 a Chief Executive whose courage and fidelity to these duties shall not falter until these re- 
 sults are placed beyond dispute or recall." 
 
 And it was this same sentiment which, as I understand, inspired the President when, in 
 his letter of acceptance, he said : 
 
 What the South most needs is peace ; and peace depends upon the supremacy of the law. 
 There can he no enduring peace if the constitutional riglits of any portion of tlie people^are 
 hahitually disregarded. 
 
 Of course I did not like to believe that the President would abandon any part of this 
 policy, so reasonable in itself and so explicitly proclaimed both by himself and by the con- 
 vention which placed him in nomination. 
 
 Concerning the civil service my policy is not a bit more complicated. I would have that 
 service administered by the best men attainable, and I believe a republican President 
 should, as the Cincinnati convention declared, select republicans for all " those places 
 where harmony and vigor of administration require its Dolicyto be represented." I believe, 
 as the President declared in his inaugural address, that, once comn->'==''^"fd. "the officer 
 
 LIBRftRY OF CONGRESS 
 
 014 544 206 
 
2 ^H^^ 
 
 should be secure iu his leuure as long as his personal character remains untarnished and 
 the performance of his duties satisfactor}'."' Such was the command of the tenure- of-office 
 act. I struggled for thut enactment under the administration of President Johnson and I 
 struggled just as hard against its repeal under the administration of President Grant. 
 
 On the 2!(th of March, ISG'J, I spoke against the repeal of the act, concluding my re- 
 marks in these words : 
 
 If you see fit to put this modification upon the books, whicli is now propo.'^erl liy the Senate, or 
 that repeal which is insisteii upcm by the House. I must be allowed to dissent from both ; and I 
 will wait for my vindication until tlie present occupaiit of the office .''hall retire fiom it and iu 
 the course of years, hereafter, you may see the White House once more occupied by a man like 
 unto him who has recently retired from it. 
 
 Am I about to witness my own vindication? 
 
 This is the whole of my civil-service policy. 
 
 Until I listened to the message which the President sent to us upon the opening of this 
 session of Congress, I was not quite sure whether he was or was not in accord witb these 
 views. _ He was elected by a party 90 per cent, of which, I am confident, hold precisely 
 these views, and do not propose to abandon them, whoever may counsel such abandon- 
 ment. Still, some tilings had happened since his inauguration not at all in harmony with 
 the policies I have imJicated. He had selected for his Cabinet one man who was not a 
 Republican but a Democrat. Still, the individual was so well known to me, and I believed 
 .so implicitly in the moderation of his opinions, in the justness of his' sentiments, and the 
 integrity of his character, that if I could not have advised his selection, I could not and did 
 not complain of it. 
 
 He had selected one other, who, although not a Democrat, was yet not a Republican ; 
 who was equally at home with all parties and in all places. By turns he had been every- 
 where, and had espoused and deserted every party. He spoke like an oracle, and his 
 facile speech could be fitted to the vicissitudes of parties as readily as a double-faced satin 
 enn be turned to hide the accidents of society. His critiques upon his political associates 
 always gave him popularity with his political opponents, and he resembled the prophets in 
 never being without honor, except where he happened to reside. Inconstant in everything 
 else, he has been constant to his trade— that of politics. He entered upon that before he 
 was of age, and he has pursued it since without variableness or shadow of turning. His 
 first enterprise was to revolutionize the government under which he was born. That failed 
 andhe fled. He was for a short lime a lawyer in Wiscon.sin, but without clients. He was 
 a minister at Madrid, but did not reconstruct the diplomacy of the world. He was a major- 
 general, but perverse history refused to record his victories. He was a newspaper corre- 
 spondent, and was not unsuccessful. He was an editor in Detroit, and was not successful. 
 He was transplanted into Missouri, -and the generous Republicans of that State bore him 
 into this Senate. That elevation did not prove fatal to him ; but his party died, and died, 
 not in spite of him. but because of him, and under blows which he inflicted. 
 
 Having outraged one party and not yet received absolution from the other, he denounced 
 both as machines. Having failed as a dealer in legitimate politics, he turned his attention 
 to the contraband article. in 1872 he helped to lead Horace Greeley and B. (iratz Brown 
 to the Baltimore market ; and taught the democracy of that year they should call nothing 
 common or unclean if it promised "to beat Grant." For si.x years he traduced the repub- 
 lican party, probably throughout more States, with more rhetoric, and in more languages 
 than any man living. 
 
 Upon that illustrious captain who from the 4th of July, 1863, to the 4th of March, 1877, 
 led the republican party; who always led his party to victory and always lifted his country 
 to renown ; at whose approach, but recently, the eastern continent stood up and uncovered, 
 he threw more mud than any dredge, not worked by steam, ever threw in the same time. 
 
 He did not fail to learn wisdom from experience. In 1872 he found it was not easy to 
 make the country accept his candidate, but it did not follow that he could not make the 
 country',s candidate accept him. So iu 1876 he convened his disciples once more in the 
 city of New York. That he might be sure of good society he is said to have selected them 
 all himself He admitted to that convention only " by card." To that assembly he re- 
 vealed the doctrine, quite new in the science of politics, that the true reibrmer would judge 
 parties not by measures but by men ; that platforms were " worn-out claptrap ;" that the 
 reformers were indifTerent alike to all platforms, but were determined to have for the Presi- 
 dency no man " whose very name is not conclusive evidence of the most uncompromising de- 
 termination of the American people to make this a pure (iovernment once more." 
 
 He vouchsafed no hint to the country where such a man was to be fourul. He was him- 
 self placed at the head of a committee to determine which one of the political parties hap- 
 Sened to stumble upon that man. in due time the Cincinnati convention stumbled upon 
 -utherford B. Hayes, of Ohio. Some two weeks later the Saint Louis convention pre- 
 sented the name of Samuel J. Tilden. At length the country was cheered by the annoucement 
 that the committee of revision appointed in New York had discovered in the nominee of the 
 Cincinnati convet\tion that nuvn " whose name was conclusive evidence of the most uncompro- 
 mising determination of the American peop!(? Hi make this a pure Government once more." 
 And, by a happy coincidence, it seems the nominee of that convention discovered in the 
 chairman of the committee of revision, who had triumphed in no other business the very man 
 
to master the varied and complicated interests committed to the Interior Department. I do no 
 assert that these two discoveries held to each other the relation of cause and effect. So far from 
 knowing that, I do not even know, nor does the world know, which is the elder discovery. 
 
 But Cabinet officers are understood to be ministers of the President rather than of tlie 
 public ; and looking upon these selections as matters of taste, it is not ditlicult for a repub- 
 lican to acquiesce in them although quite difficult to commend them. The worst that could 
 be said of eitlier of these acts was that in matters where the President had freedom of choice 
 he had made a bad choice or not the best choice po.ssible. 
 
 One other act was open to graver criticism. In the selection of Secretaries and other 
 subordinates, the President has great latitude for the exercise of discretion ; but in the se- 
 lection of governors of States he has no discretion whatever. The people of the several 
 States in the exercise of their own uncontrolled discretion select their own governors. Upon 
 the President is charged the single duty of recognizing such governors as the people of the 
 several States may from time to time make choice of. 
 
 When the President was inaugurated, Stephen B. Packard was governor of Louisiana. 
 Within sixty days after that inauguration he ceased to be governor. When he disappeared, 
 the will of Louisiana was sul»verted and trampled upon. Such an event is always matter of 
 sincere regret to all who respect republican institutions. But very few such events would 
 be required to render republican institutions that by word and that hissing on this continent 
 which for centuries they have been on the other. Contemporaneously with the disappciir- 
 ance of Governor Packard in Louisiana there began to be much talk, some applause, and 
 more criticism of what was called the " President's southern policy." There was to my 
 knowledge no authoritative definition of that policy. I was nut myself prepared to believe 
 it covered or aimed at such events as had transpired in Louisiana. 
 
 I supposed Packard ceased to be Governor of Louisiana because he could not help him- 
 self and because the President felt unable to help him. I could not believe the President 
 was guided by policy, but by necessity, either actual or seeming. True, the newspapers 
 had reported that certain gentlemen had been sent to Louisiana; sent, it was said, by the 
 President. The newspapers called them "commissioners." But it is not said to whom the 
 gentlemen was commissioned, and there was no authority of law for sending such commis- 
 sioners to anybody in Louisiana. It seemed, therefore, more natural to infer that the so- 
 called "commissioners" were merely personal friends of the President, invited to assist 
 him in the performance of some duty imposed by law rather than ministers employed to de- 
 velop a new and far-reaching policy. This inference was strengthened, and not weakened, 
 by the report that the Secretary of State gave to the commissioner a letter of instructions, 
 which appeared in the public prints ; for the letter did not purport to emanate from the 
 State Department, but simply from Washington, and it bore no official signature whatever. 
 
 It was hardly credible that if the President had resolved upon a definite policy to execute 
 in Louisiana, his premier should hesitate to avow that policy officially. Moreover, it was 
 noticeable that the Secretary nowhere told the commissioners that it was the President's 
 policy to hurl Mr. Packard from his office, or to let him be hui-led from it. On the contrary, 
 the letter informed the so-called commissioners that "upon assuming his office the Presi- 
 dent finds the situation of affairs in Louisiana such as justly to demand" — what? Not any 
 particular course of action, but simply " his prompt and solicitous attention." " For," it 
 was explained, •' this situation presents as one of its features the apparent intervention of 
 the military power of the United States, in" — what? Not in upholding a legal or an illegal, 
 an actual or a pretended government, but simply in "domestic controversies which un- 
 doubtedly divide the opinions and disturb the harmony of the people of that State. This 
 intervention arising during the term and by the authority of his predecessor tlirows no pres- 
 ent duty upon the President except to examine and determine the real extentand form and 
 effect to which intervention actually exists, and to decide as to the time, manner, and con- 
 ditions which shall be observed in putting an end to it." 
 
 Undoubtedly if the military power of the United States had intervened in purely domestic 
 controversies in Louisiana, it was quite proper, if not important, that the President should 
 know why they intervened, how far they intervened, and upcn what condition that interven- 
 tion should be wi' hdrawn. And the Secretary proceeded : 
 
 It Is in aid of his intellis'ent and prompt discliarge of this duty that the President has secured 
 the services of this commission to supply by means of its examinations conducted in the State of 
 Louisiana, some iuformation that may be pertinent— 
 
 To what? Not to the execution of any well-defined policy, already resolved upon, bu 
 simply " to the circumspection and security of any measures he may resolve upon.^^ 
 
 Seeking information pertinent to the circumspection and security or measures to be re- 
 solved upon is a very different thing from giving directions how to execute measures already 
 resolved upon. 
 
 It is true also that Governor Packard disappeared while those gentlemen were in Louisi- 
 ana. That circumstance is indeed suspicious. It suggests the possibility that they might 
 have been accessory to the fact. But, although suggestive, it is not conclusive against the 
 visitors. They reported the results of their visit to the President. It is remarkable that 
 while they did not deny their complicity with the deposition of a governor they did not admit 
 it. They did not seem even to be aware that a governor had been deposed. In their report 
 
4* 
 
 they speak at some length of the tranamogritication which had been effected in the Legisla* 
 ture, and soem quite sure reform had been achieved in that department of the government; 
 but apparently they left, the executive department precisely as they found it. They seem to 
 have found two pretended governors, and, knowing there could be but one, recognized 
 both — called both by their official titles. According to their report each governor had a skele- 
 ton legislature with him. One had his skeleton at the State-house, when there ought to have 
 been a living Legislature ; and the other had his at another place, where there ought not to 
 have been the shadow of a Legislature. Their was not a quorum of both houses in either place. 
 
 While those visitors were in Louisiana the work of reform so prospered that, instead of 
 getting the Legislature all into the State House, where it ought lo have been, they had got 
 the legislative skeleton out of the Slate House and united it with that other skeleton at 
 Odd-1'^ellows' Hall, where both the skeletons were equally offensive in the eye of the law. 
 
 The visitors did not avow any direct agency in that work of transmogrification. They 
 did hint at such agency, when in their report they admit that on the 20th of April thej' sug- 
 gested to the President "that the immediate announcement of the time when the troops 
 would be withdrawn to their barracks would be better for the peace of Louisiana than the 
 postponement of such an announcement to some distant day.'' Rut while they told the 
 President precisely how many legally qualified senators and representatives had assembled 
 at Odd-FellowV Hall, where no semttor and no representative ought to have appeared, 
 they did not intimate to the President what became of either of the pretended governors. 
 
 Moreover, those gentlemen spent some three weeks in Louisiana. Their instructions 
 were dated on the 2d of April, and their report on the 21st of the same month. If it was 
 their mission there to dispose of a pretended governor, they consumed quite too much time 
 in the operation. Three hours should have been abundant for sui;h a purpose. If, on the 
 contrarv, it was their mission to depose an actual governor, they did not consume time 
 enough. Under the constitution of Louisiana, four years are required for that purpose. 
 
 I could not, therefore, see in all that transpired in Louisiana the development of a new 
 policy for the Republican (jarty or the abandonment of an old policy. I saw only acquies- 
 cence in what seemed to be a disagreeable necessity. I thought the President acted, not 
 with rashness, but with deliberation. 
 
 If the act was applauded somewhat too much in one section of the country I felt that as 
 a Republica!i I could tolerate that. Republicans had not been surfeited with applause 
 from that section. It was not unnatural that Democrats should manifest some gratification 
 at the disappearance of a Republican Governor in Louisiana. They had made altogether 
 too manifest their disposition to dispense even with a Republican President for the United 
 States. But I was not prepared to see the act advertised as one of the President's choice, 
 which every Repu])lic:ui as well as every Democrat was bound to approve. 
 
 There is found in military history the record of more than one retreat which has been pro- 
 nounced *' masterly ; '' and .lohn Phcjenix improved upon the idea by boasting how he held 
 his antagonist down by inserting his nose between the other's teeth. Yet, in fact, retreats 
 are never '' masterly,"" and most combatants would prefer to let their antagonists stand up 
 rather than to hold them down after the Phoenix fashion. , 
 
 It was therefore matter of surprise, and of profound regret also, that I heard the President 
 declare in his late annual message that "the discontinuance of the use of the Army for the 
 purpose of upholding local governments in two Slates of the Union was no less a constitu- 
 tional duty and requirement, under the circumstances existing at the time, than it was a 
 much-needed measure for the restoration of local self government and the promotion of na- 
 tional harmony." 
 
 If that be a correct definition of the President's southern policy, I am no longer in doubt 
 as to whether I approvr; it or not. It is impossible that I should ajiprove it, now or ever. It is 
 a clear abandonment ol' one of the plainest and must solemn duties charged upon the President 
 by the Constitution anl laws of the United States. By the Constitution it is provided that — 
 
 The United States slnill qiiarantee to every State in this Union a republican form of g-ovorment, 
 and shall protoct oaoli (if tliein * * * on appliciit ion of the Legishiture, or of the executive 
 (when th(! Lej^ishiture Ciunot be convened) ayainst lioniosric violence. 
 
 Such is the solemn g larantee made by the Constitution on behalf of the United States. 
 It is clear and unambi^ruous. Theif shall protect each State against domestic violence, if 
 called upon hi/ the Leijldature, or bi/ the governor when the Legislature cannot be convened. 
 The duty thus charged upon the United States was by Congress, more than eighty years ago, 
 delegated to the President. By the act of 1795 the President was authorized, in case of an 
 insurrection in any Stale against the government thereof, " to call forth such number of the 
 militia of any other Sln!e or States * * * as he may judge sunici(mt to supfu-ess such insur- 
 rection." And by the at of 1807 the President was authorized to employ for the same purpose 
 "such part of the land or naval forces of the United States as shall be judged necessary." 
 
 If, then, Packard was the governor of Louisiana, and if he asked the President to defend 
 his authority against dr. uestic violence, it was plainly his duty to employ the Army, and, if 
 need be, the Navy, and. if need be, the militia of any of the States, or of all of the States, 
 to uphold that local go irnment. Self-government in a State is ihe government not of the 
 strongest but of the gr.'atest number. In the language of the President's inaugural, "it 
 must be a governmen; which submits loyally and heartily to the Constitution and to the 
 
5 
 
 laws — the laws of the nation and the laws of the States themselves — accepting and obeying 
 faithfullj' the whole Constitution as it is." 
 
 Preponderance of physical strength does not always coincide with preponderance of num- 
 bers. The bullies can often beat the ballots. And even when the majority in a State are 
 physically stronger than the minority, the President has no right to leave the majority to 
 the chances of the encounter. The/Inited States has guaranteed the majority against those 
 chances. Not an election has occurred in a northern State for many years which has not 
 shown parties so evenly balanced as that if the minority had appealed to force, it would 
 have had a fair chance of success. 
 
 Accident often c mtrols the result of a battle. The result of a battle has often decided 
 the fate of a cause or of a dynasty. 
 
 Every State is guaranteed by the Constitution against such chances ; and, what is of infi- 
 nitely more importance, against the expenditure of blood and treasure, inevitable if hostile 
 parties in a State are left to fight for supremacy between themselves. The authority and 
 the power of the United States thrown upon the right side of a contest within a State, not 
 only insures the triumph of the right, but insures it at the least possiiile cost — often without 
 any cost whatever. 
 
 The predecessor of Governor Packard was, in a single day, driven by revolutionary force 
 from the executive othce ; but a telegram from the President reinstated him therein, and 
 not a drop of blood was shed in the cause. 
 
 When, during the past summer, the governor of West Virginia called on the President 
 for national help against the labor riots, the latter did not leave tlie people of that State to 
 govern themselves, but saved blood and treasure by throwing the national authority on the 
 side of the local government. 
 
 Mr. Evarts, in his instructions to the Louisiana visitors, suggests that — 
 
 An attentive consideration of the eonditious under which tlie Federal Constitution and the acts 
 of Congress provide or permit military intervention liy the President in protection of a State 
 against domestic violence has satisfied the President that the use of this authority in determin- 
 ing or influencing disputed elections in a State is most carefully to be avoided. 
 
 And he asserts that — 
 
 Neither the constitutional provision nor the acts of Congress were formed with any such 
 design. 
 
 But if the President really came to any such conclusion, he is unhappily at variance with 
 the doctrine avowed by the Supreme Court of the United States, as expressed by Justice 
 Story in the case of Martin vs. Mott, with the concurrence of the whole Court ; and with 
 the doctrine avowed by the same Court, by Chief-Justice Taney, in Luther vs. Borden. In 
 the last case the Court said : 
 
 The power of deciding whether the exigency had arisen upon whicli the Government of the 
 United States is bound to interfere is given to the President. He is to act upon the application of 
 the legislature or of the executive, and, consequently, he must determine what body of men con- 
 stitute the legislature, and who is the governor, before he can act. The fact that both parties 
 claim the right of government cannot alter the case, for both cannot be entitleiJ to it. If there is 
 an armed conflict like the one of which we are speaking, it is a case of domestic violence, and one 
 of the parties must be in insurrection against the lawful government ; and the President must of 
 necessity decide which is the governmeiit, and which party is unlawfully arrayed against it. 
 
 There is the President's duty twice written. Written in the text of an ancient law so 
 plain that he who reads may understand ; and written again in a judgment of the Supreme 
 Court so plain that he who runs may read. When, therefore, the President abandoned the 
 government of Louisiana to domestic violence, he surrendered the constitutional rights of 
 a single State. But when he advertised that he would never interfere where the result of an 
 election is disputed, he surrendered a national prerogative vital to our institutions- He 
 abjured a constitutional duty essential to every State. He proclaimed license to insurrec- 
 tion. He notified the minority in every State, when defeated by the ballot, to appeal to the 
 bayonet; and he proclaimed in advance that the nation shall be neutral in the conflict. 
 Even before this unparalleled desertion it was possible to be silent if so commanded in the 
 interests of harmony ; but when commanded by a garrulous faction, intent only upon ex- 
 ecutive patronage, to approve the monstrous wrong, I answer, not until 1 am prepared to 
 forswear the Constitution of my country and my own constitution as well. 
 
 Of course, if Packard was not elected governor of Louisiana then the Army of the 
 United States ought not to have been employed to defend his possession of the office. 
 Then it was the constitutional duty of the President to refuse the use of the Army for that 
 purpose. But if the Constitution forbade the President to use the Army for the defense of 
 Governor Packard, it forbade him to use the Army for any purpose whatever. If Mr. 
 Packard was not elected governor of Louisiana, nothing can be more certain than that Mr. 
 Hayes was not elected President of the United States. Without the electoral vote of Lou- 
 isiana the whole world knows that Mr. Hayes had not the votes in the electoral college 
 necessary tc constitute an election ; and if Louisiana did not vote for Packard, the whole 
 world knows that Louisiana did not vote for Hayes. Packard received nearly two thousand 
 votes more than some of the Hayes electors. 
 
 Under the Constitution the President had but one plain duty to discharge. That was to 
 ascertain whether the constituted tribunals of Louisiana had declared Packard to be gov- 
 
ernor. If so, then to defend his authority to the extent of his ability when legally required 
 so to do. If they had not so declared, then it was equally liis duty, not merely to have 
 withheld all support of Packard's pretense, but to have given all required support to the 
 claim of Packard's rival. It was his duty to have done that, not merely on the 20th of 
 April, but to have done it on the 4th of March, immediatel}'^ upon his assuming the office 
 of President ; and if he found it his constitutional duty to require Packard to surrender his 
 office, he should have also recognized the duty of surrendering his own. 
 
 I do not mean to intimidate a doubt that President Hayes was entitled to the vote of 
 Louisiana. It is my settled belief that Louisiana declared for him. But all I certainly 
 knoiv is that if Packard was not elected, President Hayes was not. If the latter is not a 
 usurper Nicholls is. I can see no possible escape from the conclusion either that the Presi- 
 dent has usurped his own office or that he has aided Governor Nicholls to usurp his. I can 
 conceive how an apt politician, with handy convictions, trained to follow his wishes as the tides 
 follow the moon, might fancy he believed either that Louisiana voted for Tilden and Nichols 
 or for Hayes and Packard ; but no human opinion is sufficiently pliant to believe that Hayes 
 received the vote of Louisiana and that Packard did not. That result is simply impossible. 
 
 Seeng the difficulties by which the President was environed, that the Army was shrunken 
 to a skeleton, that it was exhausted in its conflicts with savages in the Northwest, and that 
 a democratic House had deliberately refused to appropriate money for its support except 
 upon the condition that it should not be employed in defense of the government of Louisi- 
 ana, I felt no disposition to complain of his neglect. But when that neglect is paraded not 
 as a necessity but as a policy, and when 1 am required, upon my allegiance, not merely to 
 excuse but to applaud it, I must decline. And 1 must be allowed to add that the path of 
 duty was mapped out before the President, by the Constitution last March, quite as plainly as 
 before President Buchanan in the winter of 1861 ; that his duty was less difficult of exe- 
 cution than was the duty charged upon Mr. Buchanan, and the desertion of the former was 
 not less flagrant than that of the latter. 
 
 It is attempted to justify the treatment of Louisiana as being a measure much needed for 
 the "promotion of national harmony." I do not underrate the value of that great interest 
 but there is a price which we cannot afford to pay for national harmony. We cannot afford 
 to purchase it by the sacrifice of the constitutional rights of majorities. Upon the protec- 
 tion of those rights hangs the perpetuity of our institutions. When they are sacrificed the 
 American system is gone. Besides, ail our history has proved, if it proves anything, that 
 national harmony cannot be secured by sacrificing right to wrong. It cannot be e»en pro- 
 moted by such means. Prophecy is but another name for calculation. When we correctly 
 comprehend the past it is not difficult to unfold the future ; and if I have not misread the 
 past, then I can most confidently predict that in the future national harmony is not to be 
 secured by disobedience to constitutional duty, nor by infidelity to " local self-government." 
 We have tried these methods for nearly a century. 
 
 AVhen the convention assembled which framed our Constitution nothing more was intend- 
 ed than to amend the Articles of Confederation, to patch up the compact between the States. 
 They did not mean to create a new government, supreme over all the States. 
 
 But after the convention assembled it very soon became apparent that in order to secure 
 " a more efficient government" for the United States the several States must surrender 
 sovereignty. 
 
 For that measure, however, their constituents were not prepared. The States were reluc- 
 tant to accept such a Constitution when it was offered to them, and hesitated long before 
 they did accept it. In order to secure their compliance the friends of the Constitution in- 
 dustriously published the weakest interpretations of it. 
 
 Immediately upon its adoption, those who had resisted it upon the plea that it deprived 
 the States of sovereignty at once began to insist that the States were still sovereign in spite 
 of the Constitution. To conciliate the opponents of the Constitution by a gradual renuncia- 
 tion of its authority, was the work of the first administration. 
 
 The story is told of a hardy frontiersman who, when with his family he was pursued by 
 wolves, directed his wife to check the pursuit by occasionally dropping a child out of the 
 sleigh. That measure was successful, and the mother in narrating the adventure piously 
 remarked that though they lost all their children, yet by the blessing of God she and her 
 husband both reached home safely. 
 
 The federal party was loss triumphant. The pursuing republicans devoured every con- 
 stitutional prerogative which the federalists renounced, and after twelve short years, despite 
 the effulgence which the dying Washington left upon its head, they swallowed the federal 
 party itself. 
 
 On my first introduction to politics I found the nation cashiered. The federal authority 
 had become a mere aid-de-camp to the sovereign States. But still the national harmony 
 was not established. The sleuth-hounds of politics wore even then sniffing along all our 
 highways, eager to overtake and tear down some unfortunate who might have the smell of 
 federalism upon his garments. Then the hunger for national harmony, which impels all 
 sentimental statesmen, set before the country a new effort at conciliation. 
 
 The cotton-gin had elevated slavery into a commanding interest. To conciliate it, to re- 
 concile it to the Union, became the object of national endeavor. The very year after I had 
 
cast my first ballot, William Slade, of Vermont, presentod in the House of Representatives 
 two petitions from constituents of his own, praying for the abolition of slavery in the Dis- 
 trict of Columbia. He moved their reference to a select committee. On the 20lh of De- 
 cember, 1837, he addressed the House upon his motion. 
 
 The Congressional Globe has not preserved that speech, but it has preserved the narra- 
 tive of a scene which transpired during 'ts delivery. A Representative from South Caro- 
 lina interrupted the speaker with some spirited remarks not necessary to quote ; and then 
 the Globe proceeds : 
 
 Mr. Slade again resumed his remarks; and, nffer procpeding for some time entered into an 
 ar<^umcut toucliiiig- the subject of slavery in the State of vicginia. He was about to read a paper 
 on the same subject, whereupon 
 
 Mr. Wise iuternosed, and said tliat the gentleman had bpen discussin*^ th(^ subject of slavery in 
 the Soutli, slavery in the State of Virginia, slavery in his district, ; and he now asked his colleagues 
 to retire with him from that Hall. 
 
 A stormy scene ensued which it might be instructive to read. Mr. Slade was rudely 
 seated and silenced. Finally, Mr. Campbell, , of Virginia, gave notice " that the Southern 
 del<^gations were assembled in the room of the Committee on tiie District of Columbia," 
 and requested the presence of " all gentlemen having slave-holding interests." Then the 
 House adjourned. 
 
 On the next day Mr. Patton, of Virginia, asked leave to submit a resolution, in the fol- 
 lowing words : 
 
 Resolved, Tiiat all petitions, memorials, and papers touching the abolition of slavery, or the 
 buying or selling or transferring of slaves in a State, district, or Territory of the United States be 
 laid on the table without being adopted, printed, read, or referred, and tliat no further action 
 whatever shall be had thereon. 
 
 The rules were suspended to enable Mr. Patton to submit that resolution. 
 
 Mr. Patton said he had olfered this resolution in the spirit of p-^ace and harmony. " It 
 involves," said Mr. Patton, " so far as I am concerned, as so far and concerns some portion 
 of the Representatives of the slave-holding States, a concession — a concession which we 
 make for the sake of peace, harmony, and Union." 
 
 The resolution was agreed to. One hundred and twenty two members of the House voted 
 for it; and but seventy-four voted against it. 
 
 That was perhaps the most generous, if not the only "concession" ever made by Mr. 
 Patton and his friends *' for the sake of the Union." They conceded to the people the right 
 to make and sign petitions, but denied to their petitions all utterance, either by printing, by 
 reading, or by reference. Petitions placed under haystacks would be quite as potential, and 
 laid under floor carpets would be more useful. The representative of a State had been 
 silenced and seated in the House for presuming to speak of slavery in Virginia. The cham- 
 pions of the commanding interest had been summoned from the floor of the House to a com- 
 mittee-room. On the demand of that conclave the House had solemnly renounced the right 
 of petition, and sternly prohibited all debate "'touching the interest of slavery." 
 
 Still national harmony was not restored, strange as it may seem. Further sacrifice was 
 sought for and found. Having barricaded the House against every possible assault which 
 could weaken slavery, its champions began to look around to see what could be done to 
 strengthen that interest. 
 
 For a quarter of a century a national ordinance had excluded slavery from the territory 
 north of a certain latitude. New area must therefore be sought for it on the south. Texas 
 was annexed. I do not stop to notice the methods by which that was effected ; I merely 
 say that Texas was annexed, and by that acquisition 274,856 square miles of territory were 
 acquired, almost equal to six States of the size of New York. In Te.vas slavery was already 
 planted. Still national harmony was not secured. 
 
 A war with Mexico was the price paid for Texas. As the result of th.at war v^e acquired 
 657,980 square miles more. Excluding Alaska, that is more than one-fifth of the whole 
 area of the United States, and is all south of the line which under the act of 1820 marked 
 the northern boundary of slavery. Still national harmony was not complete. 
 
 A few years later we made another acquisition from Mexico through what is known as the 
 Gadsden purchase, consisting of 45,58.) square miles. That is almost as large as New York. 
 Under that treaty we disbursed to ^Mexico ten millions in cash. But that did not secure na- 
 tional repose. Still slavery cried for more room, and still the nation toiled at pacification. 
 
 Then the Missouri compromise was abrogated. For nearly twenty-five years that great 
 compact had confined slavery south of 36° 30' north latitude. When the compact was an- 
 nulled, slavery had free course to the north, as toward the south, subject only to the veto of 
 the first occupants, or the " squatter sovereigns," as they were called. Even then national 
 harmony lingered. 
 
 Then was organized that great exodus rarely equaled since the Israelites left Egypt, pf 
 Missourians who went out to help the squatters of Kansas to plant slavery on their soil. 
 Even that did not harmonize the nation. 
 
 It is true the dominant interest was not wholly insensible to this prolonged effort at con- 
 ciliation. It was not conciliated at all, but for a time did seem to repose some confidence 
 in the National Government. 
 
 By the act of 1850, respecting persons escaping from service, the Goveroment was tern- 
 
8 
 
 porarily promoted from aidde-carap to the slave-holding interest, to the overseer of the 
 same. Then the Army and the Xavy of the United States, and the militia of the States, 
 and eveiybod}', everywiiere, were orn;anized in one grand slave-hunt. The national Con- 
 stitution had declared that persons escaped trom service should not be released thereby ; 
 and so the Government undertook to catch slaves and carrj' them back. If a mule escape 
 from his owner and stray from one State into another, the man who would reclaim it 
 must catch it for himself or with such help as he can employ for such pui-pose ; and if the 
 right cif the claimant is disputed he must vindicate it before the courts of the State where 
 the mule is found. But under the terms of that great act of conciliation if a citizen of 
 Georgia made claim to a man in New York or Massachusetts the claim was not preferred to 
 a court, but to a court commissioner — not necessarily to a regular court commissioner, but 
 as well to a special one appointed for that special hearing. The court commissioner ordered 
 any marshal or any man, or any number of men he might select, to catch the person claimed. 
 The persons desitrnated to aid the catohing might order all ciMzens to assist. And if, 
 when the man was seized, the commissioner, adjudged the claim good, he granted a certifi- 
 cate which authorized the claimant to remove the individual to his own State, in spite of all 
 the courts. State or Federal, in the State where the man was fmnd. And the commissioner 
 was distinctly offered a bounty of $5 for deciding in favor of the claimant. If the claimant, 
 or any vagabond he might make his agent for the purpose would make an affidavit that he 
 feared a rescue of the one arrested, then that officer making the arrest was required, with 
 .such assistance as he might select, to convey the party arrested from his own home to the 
 home of the claimant. Still the dominant interest was not conciliated. It grew more and 
 more discontented. 
 
 In 1831 the legislature of Georgia adopted a series of resolutions, from the first of which 
 I quote the following words : 
 
 That t]io sum of $5,000 be. and the .same is hereby, appropriated, to be paid to any person or 
 persons wlio shall arrest. brhiR- to trial, and prosecute to conviction under the laws of this State, 
 the editor or publisher of a certain paper called the Liberator, published in the town of Boston 
 and State of Massachusetts. 
 
 On the 2-'')th of January, 1842, Mr. John Quincy Adams, of Massachusetts, presented in 
 the House of Representatives a petition signed by forty-si.K persons describing themselves 
 as citizens of Haverhill, in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, praying Congress to adopt 
 measures " peaceably to dissolve the Union of these States." Mr. Adams moved the ref- 
 erence of the petition "to a select committee, with instructions to report an answer to the 
 petitioners showing the reason why the prayer of it ought /wt to be granted." For that of- 
 fense an effort was made to visit the mover with the censure of the House ; but after pros- 
 ecuting the endeavor for some weeks, it was abandoned. 
 
 On the 21st of March following, Joshua R. Giddings, of Ohio, moved in the House of Rep- 
 resentatives a scries of resolutions, the most flagrant of which were in the following words: 
 
 Resolved, That when the brig- Carroll, on her late passage for New Orleans, left the territorial 
 jurLsdiction of Vir^nnia, the slave law.s of that State ceased to h.ave .iurisdiction over the persons 
 on board said brig-, and such persons became amenable only to the laws of the United States. 
 
 Resolved. That the persons on board the said ship, in resuming their natural rights of personal 
 lib"rty, violated no law of the United States, incurred no legal penalty, and are justly liable to no 
 punishment 
 
 For that offense Mr. Giddings was not only censured, but denounced by a vote of the 
 House. 
 
 Two years later the State of Massachusetts, feeling to complain that her citizens were 
 seized and imprisoned in other States without being charged with any crime, authorized the 
 governor, by^ a resolution of th« legislature, to select an agent to reside at the port of 
 Charleston. South Carolina, for a term of time not to exceed one year; and I quote from 
 the resolution a statement of the object in the following words: 
 
 For the purpose of colloctinar and transmitting accurate information respecting the number 
 and names of the citizens of Massachusetts who have heretofore been, or may be duriu'^ the pe- 
 riod of his engagement. im])risoned without the allegation of any crime. The said .agent sh.all al.so 
 be enabled to bring and prosecute, with the aid of counsel, one or more suits on behalf of any cit- 
 izens that may be .so imprisoned, at the e.Kponse of Massachusetts. for:the purpose of having the 
 legality of such impnsonineut tried and determined upon in the Supreme Court of the United 
 States. 
 
 The agent selected by the governor of Massachusetts was Samuel Hoar. Mr. Hoar went 
 to South Carolina, and. on his arrival, communicated to the governor of that State the pur- 
 pose of his mission. The governor referred his letter to the legislature of the State, and 
 thereupon the legislature resolved — 
 
 That the emissary sent by the State of Massachusetts to the State of South Carolina, with the 
 avowed purpose of interfering with her institutions and disturbing her peace, is to be rcg.irded 
 In the character he has assumed, and to be treated accordingly. 
 
 And again : 
 
 That his excellency the governor be requested to expel from our territory the said agent after 
 due notice to depart, and that the legislature will sustain the executive authority in any measure 
 It may adopt for the purpose aforesaid. 
 
 Mr. Hoar was accordingly e.xpelled from the State of South Carolina. A dlstingui.shed 
 son of that distinguished citizen of Mass.achusetts thus driven from South Carolina now 
 holds a seat upon this floor. He is one of those who, as it is understood, now pursue the 
 
9 
 
 unreconciled democrats of the Sotij;h with small dishes of patronage, believing in their speedy 
 capture as fondly as the boys believe they will catch the' birds whoso flight they eagerly fol- 
 low, if they can only sprinkle a little salt on their tails. 
 
 When Jesus of Nazareth was thirty-one years of age we are told he visited Capernaum. 
 While there he was sent for to heal the servant of a centurion, '' sick and ready to die." 
 Oa his way to the house friends of the centurion met him, saying in the name of the centurion : 
 
 I am not worthy that thou shouklost enter under my roof : 
 
 When-fore neither thought I myself worthy to come unto Thee ; but say in a word, and my ser- 
 vant shall be healed. 
 
 Says his biographer : 
 
 When Jesus heard tliese things. He marveled at hira and turned him about, and said unto the 
 people that followed liim, I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel. 
 
 Manifestly Christ had not seen — possibly had not forseen the Senator from Massachusetts. 
 The faith of the Senator shames that of the centurion. 
 
 On the nth day of March, 1874, Charles Sumner, of Massachusetts, died. In making an- 
 nouncement of that event to the Senate on the day following, the eloquent Senator from 
 Rhode Island [Mr. Anthony] said it was one which needs not to be announced, for its dark 
 shadow rests gloomily upon this Chamber, and not only upon the Senate and capitol, but 
 upon the whole country; and the intelligence of which, borne on the mysterious wires that 
 underlie the seas, has been carried to the remotest lands, and has aroused profoundest sym- 
 pathy wherever humanity weeps for a friend, and wherever liberty deplores an advocate. 
 
 Afterward, in commemorating the life and services of the deceased, the eloquent Senator 
 from Mississippi [Mr. Lamar] said, in another place, that Mississippi regretted the death of 
 Charles Sumner — 
 
 Not because of the splendor of his intellect, though in him were extinguished one of the bright- 
 est lights which liave illuminated the councils of the nation ; not because of the high culture and 
 elegant scholarship, and the varied learning which revealed themselves so clearly in all hia public 
 eiforts as to justify the appli(!ation to him of Johnson's felicitous expression, "He attempted 
 nothing that he did not adorn ;" not these, thougli these are qualities by no means, it is to be 
 feared, so common in public places as to make their disappearance, in even a single instance, a 
 matter of inrtilference ; but because of those peculiar and strongly marked moral traits of his 
 character which gave color to the whole tenor of his singularly dramatic career. 
 
 In May, 1850, notwithstanding the enormous sacrifices which had been made to secure 
 national harmony, that same Charles Sumner, whose death aroused profoundest sym- 
 pathy throughout the world, whose moral traits Mississippi mourned ; on the floor of the 
 Senate Chamber, in the panoply of a Senator, bearing the commission of a sister State, was 
 for parliamentary words uttered in parliamentary debate, by a Representative of South 
 Carolina, beaten as only brutal men beat dogs. The Senate complained to the House of the 
 conduct of its member, but the house refused to expel the member. A few years before, 
 when Giddings moved some resolution which the House did not approve, that body ex- 
 pressed its sentiments in the following terms : 
 
 This House holds the conduct of the said member as altogether unwarranted and unwarranta" 
 ble, and deserving the severe condemnation of the people of this country, and of this body In 
 particular. 
 
 That resolution passed by a vote of 125 in the aBSrmative and 69 in the negative. But 
 when a Senator was cruelly beaten on the floor of the Senate by a member of the House, all 
 the House could say of the act was expressed in these terms : " That this House hereby de- 
 clares its disapprobation of the said act ;" and even that passed the House by a vote of only 
 106 to 96. 
 
 The member resigned his seat, returned to his constituents, and by them was returned to 
 the House again by a unanimous vote. It is perhaps th6 only act in history held by any 
 constituent body of such transcendent merit as to secure the universal approval of every 
 individual. But the applause of South Carolina did not stop with returning her Represen- 
 tative to the House. By the judicial tribunals of the District of Columbia he had been 
 fined for his assault. When his constituents voted for the choice of his successor, they not 
 only voted for him but they deposited with their ballots the money required to pay his fine. 
 Mr. Sumner was whipped by South Carolina as unequivocally as Hoar was expelled by that 
 State. South Carolina applauded the beating and paid the penalty which the law imposed * 
 upon the act. «* 
 
 So far in the effort to promote national harmony the right of petition had been immolated, 
 freedom of debate had been stifled, empires had been acquired for the use of the dominant 
 interest, millions had been disbursed, wars had been fought, an ancient covenant of repose 
 had been broken, but after all harmony did not come. 
 
 Now, grown fat by all it had fed on, intolerance burst all bounds and gave loose rein to 
 its appetites. Hitherto a bounty had been offered for Mr. Garrison, but he was unquestion- 
 ably an abolitionist and lived in Massachusetts ; Martin Van Buren had been denied a i-e- 
 nomination, but he had objected to the annexation of Texas ; Giddings had been grossly 
 denounced by the House, of which he was a member, but he had oftered an obnoxious 
 resolution ; Hoar had been banished and Sumner had been beaten, but the former had at- 
 tempted to take a census of his fellow-citizens who had been imprisoned without charge of 
 crime and the latter had criticised the opinions of a brother Senator. Those were excep- 
 tional cases. Now, at last, other and conservative men were proscribed. John Sherman 
 
10 
 
 had commended an obnoxious book, and for that offense it was declared that his election 
 as Speaker of the House would be "a burning, withering, blistering curse and shame." 
 William H. Sewa; d had liinted at the existence of a law in tho universe higher than the 
 Constitution of the United States, and for that offense it was declared that his election to 
 tlie Presidency would be a cause for dlssolvdng the [Tnion. Stephen A. Douglas had been 
 dropped from the head of a Senate committee because, as waf! explained by .Mr. Jefferson 
 Davis, "the Senator's opinion upon the power of a territorial Legislature was deemed a 
 sufficient cause, by the democracy, for not continuing him in the position of chairman of 
 the Committee on Territories." Republicanism was banished from the South. In the 
 Carolinas, in Georgia, in Florida, Alabama, Mississippi. Tennessee. Arkansas, Louisiana, 
 and 'J'exas the presidential ticket beariug the names of Abraham Lincoln and of my hon- 
 orable friend did not receive a vote. 
 
 And, finally, in 18(i0, the Democratic party was shivered into fragments to make it pos- 
 sible to elect Lincoln to the Presidency. And when he was elected, civil war was waged 
 upon the Union to rebuke that election. 
 
 In (jod's own time the war ended : ended, as we supposed, in a victory for that triple 
 alliance between the Union, the Constitution, and the people of the United States. 
 
 Then the American Sisyphus recommenced the labor of reconciliation. A broad am- 
 nesty redeemed from forfeiture, lives, estates, and political privileges. A small number 
 disqualified by the Constitution from holding Federal offices were referred to Congress for 
 the removal of that single disability ; and Congress speedily made known thai to secure 
 that removal it was only necessary to ask it. A large portion of those who make laws for 
 the Union is composed of those who were but lately armed against its life. That element 
 governs every .State south of the Potomac. Republican governments in two States have 
 been surrendered. From all those States, but nine Republicans now sit in the other House. 
 In very many districts at the last election there was but the shadow of Republican opposi- 
 tion seen. Only five Republicans from the disaffected section now remain in the Senate. 
 The Republican majority here is already but nominal. If the opposition does not get pos- 
 session before, by a coup cVetaf, it will take it in a few brief months by election. 
 
 \\ hile [ am permitted to linger here. Task of Senators on the other side of the Chamber to 
 be merciful in the dayof tiieir final triumph ; to remember then that the Republican party only 
 wrested the sword from their hands that they might grasp a scepter. Phalaris roasted the 
 mechanic who made the brazen bull for him. We have rebuilt the Union which they de- 
 stroyed. We have raised it to an exalted rank among the nations of the earth. We sh.all 
 surrender it, at the bidding of the people, to their control ; but we never designed it for an 
 instrument of torture, and I hope they will he more tolerant than the tyrant of Agregentum. 
 Let them remember that in the minority to which we sink there will be buried the remains 
 of a party which now stands crowned with great achievements, and even in the grave to 
 which it goes will be instinct with great memories. Let them remember that in the last 
 two thousand years more than one Saviour has been crucified and buried. And let them 
 not forget that when a real Saviour is buried, the very heaviest stones, rolled against the 
 sepulcher, will not secure against a resurrection. 
 
 But still Sisyphus labors in vain, and still Sisyphus labors. Two more efforts were possi- 
 ble in the name of conciliation. One was to patronize democrats .and the other to proscribe 
 repul)licans. The first was undertaken early. Democrats have been selected for district 
 attorneys, for marshitls, for postmasters, and for other places at home and abroad. " Not 
 many," it is said. My answer is, ranch too many or altogether too few. 
 
 If the ol)ject is to seduce democrats into the repnblican party the President has appointed 
 democrats quite too sparingly. Tho shepherd who would have that fiock follow him cannot 
 nopcto get along with a very little salt. No good seaman would think of anchoring the Great 
 Eastern to a skillet. Such anchorage would be insecure in a storm ; and no wise statesman 
 will believe that the democratic party can be made fast to Colonel Fitzsimmons. 
 
 Lord Dundreary is not at all distinguished f )r sagacity ; but even he discovered that the 
 tail of the dog never waggles the dog ; but, on the contrary, that the dog always waggles 
 the tail. And there is reason to apprehend that the United States marshal for Georgia 
 will not waggle the democratic party, but the democratic party will waggle the marshal. If 
 the hope is to induce democrats to embrace the republican cause, he should deluge them 
 wifli patronage, liepublicans can dispense with post-"ffices if they can pHr[)etuate their 
 principles. Rut if, on the contrary, the object is to persuade republicans to surrender their 
 principles; to make atonemeutfor the lastaeventeen years; to learu to do what disaffection 
 demands, not what discretion warrants ; to mount guard on the white-line ; to squander the 
 purchase of the costliest struggle known to history ; then he does well to appoint just demo- 
 crats enough to stamp them with respectability, and to pour the balance of patronage upon 
 such republicans as come to such a market. 
 
 I c-immend the judgment of those Senators on the other side who so often protest they do 
 not want democrats appointed to office. They are wise beyond their wont, when instead of 
 askinsi for post-offices u> reward their partisans, they lead republicans of their selection to 
 the White llouso to be consecrated to their service. 
 
 What the purpose of these eccentric efforts actually is, of course, is not for me to say. 
 What the effect is may be clearly seen. The republican party has disappeared in the South. 
 In the North it is still visible; but even in the North its sentinels no longer make our hills 
 
11 
 
 resound with the old watch-words, and on the flag which droops from the Executive Mansion 
 we no longer read the proud inscription which has hitherto inspiied every true friend of the 
 Republic between the two sens, and been a beacon of hope to millions beyond the seas, 
 " Equal rights to American citizens ; " but those other words " of delusion," if not of folly, 
 ^' The pacification of the South." 
 
 And now, it seems, the last effort possible at conciliation is to be put forth. Republicans 
 are to be proscribed. The newspapers assuming to speak by authority, advertise that — 
 
 It is the Pre.sident's firm belief that the republican party cannot continue to exist as a national 
 orfranization and maintain the spirit of hostility to the South that Blaine, Conkling, and their 
 adlierents would have it do. 
 
 Sir, I shall attempt no defense of Senators Conkling and Blaine. I have an abiding 
 faith that they are quite equal to their own defense. But for many years I have been ac- 
 customed to vote with those Senators ; and may perhaps be taken for an adherent of theirs. 
 I wish, therefore, to say for myself, that whoever accuses me of " hostility to the South " 
 utters a wanton calumny. I have done but two things of which the South can complain, 
 not one of which she ought to complain. I voted to emancipate all her slaves, and to en- 
 franchise all her citizens. That is all. 
 
 If any man connected with this Administration is prepared to denounce either of those, 
 as acts of hostility to the South, it ought to be known. 1 know that both ,those acts were 
 beneficent and not malevolent in intent. I firmly believe that they were beneficent in efiect. 
 And I believe that the South will never assume that commanding position in the industrial 
 world to which her wonderful natural advantages entitle her until she submits to the guid- 
 ance of universal emancipation, of universal enfranchisement, and universal culture. 
 
 Formerly the South imported dogs from Cuba to hunt down her savage foes in the ever- 
 glades of Florida. But when she would pull down an eminent citizen in the North, she 
 always found a pack bred among ourselves ready to join in the chase. 
 
 When the chief priests and elders sought witness against Jesus, that they might put him 
 to death, but found none, " at the last came two false witnesses, and said, ' This fellow said 
 I am able to destroy the Temple of God and to build it again in three days.' " So, when 
 the South has sought for witnesses to silence Shide, to condemn Giddings or Sumner or 
 Sherman or Douglass, or to exclude George VV. Curtis from the lecture-room, she has 
 found false witnesses among their own partisans ready to swear that they were the enemies 
 of the South. The South can hardly be blamed for using such instruments when they 
 crowd themselves upon her service : but I had hoped the breed was extinct. Is it possible 
 a fresh litter has come upon the market? 
 
 Mr. President, let no man say I do injustice to the purposes of the President. I am not 
 discussing his purposes, but his acts. I understand that he avows himself still to be a re- 
 publican and the friend of equal citizenship. It is not for me to dispute him, but it is for 
 me to say that he has offended both republicanism and equal citizenship as Samuel J. Til- 
 den never would have offended them. Perhaps, had Mr. Tilden been made President, 
 events would have transpired in South Carolina and Jjouisiana as they have transpired. 
 Mr. Hampton would have been governor in the former State and Mr. NichoUs in the latter. 
 So far the offense would have been precisely the same. But that would have been an of- 
 fense not against republicanism, but against the republicans in those States. Mr. Tilden 
 would have decided, perhaps, that Hampton and Nicholls were chosen governors of those 
 States, and that, if so, they ought to be recognized ; and even if not so, since he had juris- 
 diction of the question, the world would have acquiesced in his decision. 
 
 But President Hayes never made such a decision, and dare not make it to day. Mr. 
 Tilden would have excluded Packard and Chamberlain because he decided against their 
 election. President Hayes excluded them because their election was disputed. The former 
 would have given an erroneous judgment and would then have seen it executed. President 
 Hayes has abandoned the judgment-seat to the rifle-clubs in those States — left them to make 
 the decision which the Constitution and the courts command him to make ; and, inflnitely 
 worse than that, has permitted proclamation to be made in his name, that when the rifle- 
 clubs choose to take the field in behalf of a ticket, that it is not necessary for them to elect 
 their ticket, but only to dispute the election of the other. 
 
 The President cannot deny the title of Governor Packard and defend his own. He can- 
 not permit Packard to be ousted because he was not elected, and retain the Presidency him- 
 self, because the great commission decided he was elected. You, sir, if you know you do 
 not own my farm, cannot honestly keep possession of it, although it be awarded to you by 
 the judgment of the highest court in the land. 
 
 And after all this prolonged effort at pacification, this outpouring of concession and good- 
 will, the angel of peace still refuses to descend upon us. Doy after day the President sends 
 the dove out over the angry floods, and night after night the bird returns weary and leafless. 
 In these very days that government which rules in Louisiana, which was born of presidential 
 grace and not of popular choice, has signalized its ingratitude by an act not less insulting to 
 the President than atrocious in itself. It has dared to accuse, to try, and to convict a mem- 
 ber of the State board of returns of the crime of forging the election returns of Vernon Parish 
 for 1876. 
 
 Remember, sir, I do not complain because Anderson was tried for a political offense. It 
 
12 
 
 he is guilty of the offense charged I have not a syllable to urge in his defense. The point I 
 make against the government of Louisiana is that it prosecuted not in the name of public 
 justice but of partisan malice ; that it prosecuted a man guiltless of the offense alleged against 
 him, and known to be guiltless. 
 
 Anderson is the victim not of mistake but of malice ; not of personal but of partisan malice.' 
 He was prosecuted by that same fell spirit of party spite which promj^ted Georgia forty 
 years ago to offer $5,000 for the privilege of prosecuting Garrison and which twenty yeats 
 ago made South Carolina clap her hands at the whipping of Sumoer. 
 
 Anderson stands convicted in a court commissioned by Governor Nichols, who, in turn, 
 stands practically commissioned by President Hayes. , 
 
 Sir, I have tried that case myself. I propose now to make a brief statement of it to this 
 grand inquest : and I shall be curious to see if in this body there can be found one man bold 
 enough to affirm Anderson's guilt. ^ 
 
 The vote of Vernon Parish as given at the election of 1876 was returned at 647 for each 
 of the democratic candidates, at 2 for some of the republican candidates, while for the other 
 republicans on the ticket no votes were returned. That return was received by the officers 
 of the board, of whom Anderson was one. It was opened in the presence of large and re- 
 spectable committees representing both political parties. Each committee copied and 
 printed the return. There is no deed on the records of Washington City the contents of 
 which are half so widely known as was the character of that return from Vernon Parish. 
 
 But when the returns from the different parishes in the State were finally tabulated and 
 promulgated on the 5th of December, Vernon Parish appeared as having given 469 votes for 
 each of the democratic candidates and 180 votes for those republicans who actually had 2 
 votes, and 178 votes for those who actually received no votes. Thus the democratic vote of 
 that parish was promulgated at 178 less, and the republican vote at 178 more than the vote 
 actually returned. 
 
 When the Senate sub-committee on Privileges and Elections reached New Orleans, about 
 the 18th of December, no one, not even the members or the clerks of the returning board, 
 seemed to be aware of the manifest error in that statement. In answer to a call from the com- 
 mittee the board submitted three certified tables; one showing the vote actually returned by 
 the supervisors of parishes, another showing the number of votes rejected from count upon 
 allegation of fraud or intimidation, and a third showing the vote as finally adjusted and pro- 
 mulgated. 
 
 In the first and last tables the vote of Vernon Parish was recorded as just stated. Bu^ 
 from the second table it appeared that the board had rejected from count, upon proof of in- 
 timidation, the vote of three polls or voting-precincts, numbered 1, 7, and KJ, which had re- 
 turned an aggregate of 179 democratic and no republican votes. Of course that table showed 
 conclusively that in the promulgated vote the democratic vote should have been reduced 179 
 instead of 178, and the republican vote should not have been increased at all instead of be- 
 ing increased 178. 
 
 All saw the mistake ; no one suggested it was anything more than a mistake, and no one 
 could explain how the mistake occurred. I heard no suggestion of fraud or forgery in re- 
 spect of that discrepancy, and, so far as I know, no witness was examined for the purpose 
 of establishing a fraud. 
 
 In February following, after the Senate and House committees had both returned to 
 Washington City, the newspapers announced that one J. T. Littlefield had appeared in 
 Washington upon the subpoena of the House committee, and had produced there the origi- 
 nal return from Vernon Parish, and had testified before the committee that he himself had 
 altered the return by the direction of J. Madison Wells, the chairman of the returning 
 board. 'J'herenpon Mr. Littlefield was hunted out and brought before the Senate commit- 
 tee. He was examined at great length. The material points in his story were these : That 
 he had acted as a subclerk to the returning board ; that he was employed by the board at 
 the instance of another clerk, being himself a stranger to the members of the board ; that 
 on Sunday evening, the 3d of December, Mr. Wells brought to him the return from Vernon 
 Parish ; that it appeared by that return that poll 2 of that parish had given 97 Democratic 
 votes and no Republican votes ; that poll No. 9, in the same parish, had given 81 Demo- 
 cratic votes and no liepublican votes ; that Mr. Wells directed him (Littlefield), in the 
 presence of th^ other clerks, to erase those figures from the Democratic column and trans- 
 fer them to the Republican column ; that he explained his purpose to be to effect the elec- 
 tion of a district attorney, a district judge, and, if possible, the State senator ; that he named 
 the persons in whose interest he directed the forgery, and, lest the clerk might forget the 
 names, he was directed to write them down (as if votes transferred from lirown to Smith 
 would not count for Smith unless the agent was specially notified that such was the purpose 
 of the transfer, and as if they would cease to count for Smith if the agent should fail to re- 
 noember his name); that, with the aid of other clerks, he (Littlefield) made the altera- 
 tions directed ; that a day or two afterward Wells told him to destroy the altered returns 
 (as if the vabie of tlie forged instrument depended not upon the use but upon the destruction 
 of It) ; that he did not destroy the paper, but took it to his home ; that after the committees 
 
13 
 
 of the Senate and House reached New Orleans and commenced their investigations, Wells 
 grew anxious about the forgery ; that he began to concert measures to cover it up ; that at- 
 tention had been called to the fact — either through the newspapers or. by the Morrison com- 
 mittee — that the tlepublican vote in Vernon Parish had been raised by the addition of 178 ; 
 that thereupon Wells directed himself and another clerk, by the name of Davis, to find polls 
 which cast "about 178 Democratic votes," in order that the board might procure affidavits 
 and reject those polls ; that they found three polls which cast in the aggregate 179 Demo- 
 cratic votes ; that thereupon Wells procured some affidavits impeaching those threepoUs, 
 and on the 18th day of December handed them to Davis, another clerk; that Davis said. 
 " This is about as good a thing as I ever saw," or something like that, in a laughing sort of 
 way, and those polls were rejected ; that he was himself ashamed of the forgery, and re- 
 solved to conceal his share in it ; that, accordingly, about the I'Jth of December, he revealed 
 the crime to two men ; that one of the two was his uncle, by the name of Spearing, a Dem- 
 ocrat and the proprietor of a livery-stable in New Orleans, and the other was a Republican 
 from Iowa, by the name of Gifford ; that Gifford desired to suppress the forged return, and 
 wanted Littlefield to take it to Washington, where he expressed the opinion the Treasury 
 would pay $100,000 for it; that Spearing desired not to suppress it, but to use it for the 
 benefit of the Democratic party; that he (Littlefield) was wholly opposed to selling the 
 paper ; nevertheless, on the same evening on which he made the revelation to Spearing and 
 Gilford, he accompanied those gentlemen to a telegraph office, and helped Gifibrd to write 
 a dispatch to a Republican Senator in Washington, to call his attention to the great discov- 
 ery ; that the telegram did not arouse sufficiently the interest of the Republican party, and 
 thereupon, on the 24th of December, he placed the forged instrument in the hands of Spear- 
 ing ; that, in company with Spearing, he left New Orleans on Christmas day for St. Louis; 
 that at St. Louis they met one Murphy, a Democratic lawyer from the .State of Iowa, who 
 had formerly been in New Orleans ; that the trio proceeded from St. Louis to Springfield, 
 Illinois, where they had an interview with Governor Palmer ; that then and there such pro- 
 ceedings were had as led Spearing to return to New Orleans, while he (Littlefield) went on 
 to Boston ; that in a short time he received a telegram from Spearitig which brought Little- 
 field to New York ; that in New York he met Spearing, who served upon him a subpoena 
 which brought him to Washington as a witness before a committee of the House of Repre- 
 sentatives. 
 
 Such was Littlefield's story, twisted out of him by a three days' examination. In chal- 
 lenging the judgment of the Senate upon the truth of this story I discard all the ordinary 
 tests by which the credit of a witness is usually tried. Littlefield tells a story of his own 
 manner of life which plainly shows that if he never committed a felony he was not withheld 
 by any moral restraints ; and he admits that he has committed a felony, because he falsely 
 altered a public record, at a mere invitation, and when ordered to destroy the instrument 
 he purloined it instead. But I waive all exceptions to his character. He is contradicted 
 flatly by other witnesses. The clerks whom he accuses of having aided him in the forgery 
 testify that they did not aid any such forgery, nor know of it until they heard him testify in 
 Washington. The commissioner before whom the affidavits were sworn on which the polls 
 in Vernon Parish were rejected swore that the affidavits were taken weeks before the 
 vote was promulgated, and not, as Littlefield declared, weeks afterward. Gifford and Gov- 
 ernor Palmer contradicted him. And the records of the board show that at the very time 
 Littlefield says he was altering the return of Vernon Parish, by transposing the democratic 
 vote to the republican side, under the direction of Wells, the board had excluded three 
 other polls from count on allegation of misconduct. But I waive all lliese contradictions. 
 
 He also contradicts himself, and states, retracts, athrms, denies, reaffirms, and redenies 
 to an extent rarely if ever witnessed. But I waive all those self-contradictions. Either 
 one of these tests applied to a plausible story would discredit it with an impartial jury. I 
 ask the Senate to waive all this, and to consider the story told by Littlefield as told by one 
 of good repute, told coherently, and standing without contradiction ; and then I challenge 
 the most credulous Senator on this floor to say he believes it ; and I challenge the most in- 
 genious man who hears me to invent one single tint of improbability with which Littlefield 
 has not embellished his monstrous falsehood. 
 
 You are asked by him to believe that Wells claimed the authority to exclude from count 
 the vote of any poll, or any parish, if fraud or intimidation were proved against it ; that if 
 such proof were not tendered he could manufacture it; that he had in fact excluded the 
 vote of many polls and of some whale parishes ; that by such methods he had produced ap- 
 parent majorities for a great variety of candidates, from Presidential electors down to 
 parish judges, who had in fact been defeated ; that on Sunday night, the od of December, 
 he formed the purpose of achieving the election of some minor officers in Vernon Parish ; 
 that just then his right hand forgot its cunning: the art of excluding votes from count per- 
 ished in Louisiana ; that accordingly he resorted to .a new expedient : instead of simply re- 
 fusing to count the votes returned, he resolved to erase the votes from the returns, and not 
 only to erase democratic votes actually returned, but to write in republican votes which never 
 were returned ; he resolved to falsify a paper, the true character of which was in print, and 
 was better known to both political parties in New Orleans than is the Declaration of Inde- 
 pendence. And the incredible does not stop there. When he had resolved upon a forgery 
 
14 
 
 which could by no posdibility escape detection, he did not do it himself but charged the 
 duly upon a clerk, and selected for that delicate trust the one clerk in his employ least 
 knowa to him and witli whom he had no personal relations. 
 
 And the incredible does not stop there. When he had resolved that the instrument 
 should be destroyed, he did not himself destroy it. For that simple piece of rascality he em- 
 ployed an asrent, and he employed the same agent, a stranger of whom he knew only that 
 he "was a villian, but in whom he seemed to confide so recklessly as not even to see whether 
 the paper was destroyed or not. In fine, you have the picture of one villian emifloying 
 another in his rascality, from no sort of necessity, but with that simple and artless faith 
 which the nun reposes in the novice. And the incredible does not end there ; it had 
 scarcely bi^gnn. Wells' method in perpetrating his forgery was rational compared with his 
 method of hiding it. When he committed his forgery he had forgotten his old trick of ex- 
 clusion. When he would hide that crime the memory of that trick recurred to him. He 
 had never thought to defeat the democrats of Vernon Parish as it is claimed he defeated 
 the democrats all over the State, just by refusing to count their votes, but he erased their 
 votes from the return and then wrote in republican votes. 
 
 Having done that, he attempted to explain both the decrease of the democratic vote and 
 the increase of the republican vote by the trick of exclusion. But even that expedient is 
 not more insane than the method by which, according to Littletield. he pursued it. Two 
 weeks before Wells had pointed Littlefield to polls 2 and '.) and said. " Transpose the demo- 
 cratic votes at these polls to the republican side." That reduced the democratic vote and 
 increased the republican vote just 178. So much Wells remembered, according to the narra- 
 tive ; but he forgot where he found the 178 votes ; so he did not tell Littlefield to find the 
 polls which he altered, but to find polls which gave " about 178 votes." And Littlefield 
 and Davis, just as oblivious as Wells, never thought of the altered polls, but selected three 
 other polls, which did not return 178 democratic votes but did return 179. And more 
 marvelous still, it did not occur to Littlefield while inventing his monstrous fiction that when 
 Wells told him to search for polls returning about 178 votes he must have supposed there 
 was no possible place where he could find them. Wells supposed that every paper which 
 showed the vote of the several polls in that parish had been destroyed. According to Lit- 
 tlefield he had stood by when the commissioner's statement of precinct votes was thrown 
 into the fire. lie had directed Littlefield to destroy the supervisor's statement. He sup- 
 posed that had been destroyed, and so the last paper in which he could find the required 
 precinct vote had perished. 
 
 Such is a rough outline of that lie by which a Louisiana court has slain Anderson. I do 
 not understand that Littlefield was actually sworn upon the trial of Anderson. On the 
 contrary I understand the court employed Littlefield's invention but did not employ him. 
 
 I said not only that Anderson was innocent but that he was known to be innocent. In 
 proof of that knowledge I offer no evidence but this: that Littlefield told his story last 
 February before the Senate sub-committee on Privileges and Elections; that it did not se- 
 cure the respect of a passing notice in the report of either the majority or the rpinority of 
 that committee ; that if it was ever believed in Louisiana it w,as believed then ; but Ander- 
 son was not prosecuted till late in the summer. He was holding an important trust under 
 the Government of the United States. Either Louisiana permitted him to go at large and 
 hold that trust, believing him to be guilty, during the spring and summer, or she prosecuted 
 him in the autumn believing him to be innocent. 
 
 Anderson's conviction has been reversed by the supreme court of the State. I have not 
 seen the text of the opinion given by that court, but I understand the court to have held 
 that the return from Vernon Parish was not a record within the meaning of the Louisiana 
 statute. I believe it was a record, and I decline to urge that judgment either as evidence 
 that Anderson was innocent or that he was known to be innocent. I rest my defense of 
 Anderson solely upon the ground that he had no more to do with altering the return from 
 Vernon than any Inan who died last century. I believe the district court outraged the body 
 of truth to procure a conviction, and I believe the supreme court outraged the body of 
 Louisiana law to save Govrrnor Nicholls from the responsibility of either pardoning Ander- 
 SOt\ or rcfiisiiig to jiardon him. 
 
 If anything c;ui add to the ghastliness of this satire upon justice, I expect that addition 
 will be supi)lied by the answer to th(! pending resolution. Unless I am misinformed, that 
 answer will show that, W. H. Whitiaker sat upon the bench while Anderson stood in the 
 criminal dock : that Whiltaker denied bail to Anderson ; that Whittaker perched himself 
 on Littlefield's lie and sent Anderson to the penitentiary ; that Whittaker, by the grace of 
 Andrew Johnson, was formerly assistant treasurer of the United States at New Orleans ; 
 that as such he was a defaulter to the Government in the sum of more than half a million 
 of dollars, when he sent Ander.son to prison ; that Whitraker had been under indictment 
 for that heavy embezzlement, but that on the 10th of April last, just as Nicholls took the 
 olfice which Packard ought to have, the indictment against Whittaker was nolprossed, and 
 he was permitted to send AndiTS jn to the penitentiary, where he ought to be himself. 
 
 Should these fjxcts appear, I fancy the farce will be complete. Then we shall seethe return- 
 ing board of Louisiana giving judgment for President Hayes, and for the Legislature which 
 gave judgment for Governor Packard. We shall see President Hayes taking his high office 
 
15 
 
 undor that jiulgment: we shall see hina sending a commission to New Orleans to decoy that 
 Legislature from the support of Packard at the state-house to the service of Nicholls at Odd- 
 P'ellows' Hall ; we shall see him in the name of conciliation withdraw the iiational authority 
 from tho protection of the lawful governnipnt of Louisiana ; we shall see him signal the ad- 
 vance of Nicliolls at the head of an insurgent force; we shall see Whittaker, cleansed from 
 his embezzlemeni in the blood of this new atonement, clothed in the judicial ermine, throned 
 upon the judgment seat, equipped with Littlelield's tumid lie, fling chains upon those under 
 wiiose decree the President himself holds. 
 
 When that farce is unrolled before the President I think he will be able to understand that 
 the millennium has not yet arrived, and that if he really means to conciliate the South he 
 will have to get up and do something. 
 
 01 the civil service, of its abuses and its reform, I have but little to say ■ 
 
 Mr. HO All. Before the Senator from Wisconsin passes from the point he is just making, 
 I should like to inquire whether it is not his information that Whittaker was tried for this 
 offense some eight years ago and acquitted upon the merits, and that the indictment which 
 was nolprossed a year ago in April was merely a second indictment which was drawn to pre- 
 vent doubts in pleadings, which is very often the case. There havingbeen two indictments 
 for the same fact, one stating the offense in one way and the other in another, Whittaker 
 was tried eight years ago on the lirst and acquitted on the merits, and it was the second only 
 which was cleared out of the way eight years afterward. 
 
 Mr. HOWE. It is due to truth to say that I have such information, and I have no reason 
 to question its accuracy. I have information, which I consider official, that the defalcation 
 actually existed. 
 
 Mr. PIOAli. I dare say. 
 
 Mr. HOWE. The answer to the resolution I hope will explain how he happened to be 
 acquitted upon that trial. 
 
 Mr. HOAR. I have no information on the question of Whittaker's guilt or innocence at 
 all, but I am informed that the question of his guilt or innocence was tried early in the ad- 
 ministration of President Grant, and that he was acquitted ; that when the present Attor- 
 ney-General came inte office, within a week or two of his assuming his office, there came 
 from the subordinate officer in Louisiana a request what shall be done with this indictnient 
 and with a number of others against other persons, and that the Attoruey-Gex^eral replied, 
 referring the question to the district attorneya nd to the gentleman who had been specially 
 employed by (General Grant's administration to conduct the prosecution, sa ng that the in- 
 dictment No. "2 should be nolprossed or not, at their discretion. They thereupon^ reported 
 that it would be impossible to obtain conviction, and this, with sundry other ciiminal pros- 
 ecutions of the same kind, was swept off the docket. And I understand that that action 
 was taken by the Attorney-General in the ordinary course of his administrative duties with- 
 out any consultation with the President or with anybody else. 
 
 Mr. HOWE. I have made no charge against anybody in reference to this transaction, 
 unless it be by implication against Judge Whittaker. The resolutions call for information 
 which will make it very clear whether the statements just recited by the Senator from Mas- 
 sachusetts prove Whittaker's innocence or the guilt of those who prosecuted him. 
 
 Mr. HOAR. I did not rise with the view of making any suggestion in regard to the 
 question of Whittaker's guilt or innocence. I have no information or opinion about that ; 
 1 never heard of him until lately ; but it seemed to me that the statement which was made 
 by the Senator from Wisconsin would have the effect of inducing the audience and the 
 country to believe that he thought the nelU pros, of Whittaker had something to do with the 
 political events which he was describing. 
 
 Mr. HOWE. I should not be surprised if that turned out to be the fact. [Laughter.] 
 
 Mr. HOAR. That is exactly what I meant. 
 
 Mr. HOWE. That would not overwhelm me with astonishment. 
 
 Mr. President, the idea has been widely disseminated that the President is struggling to 
 reform the civil service, and that republican Senators and Representatives were endeavor, 
 ing to defeat that reform. A friend wrote me a few days since from Wisconsin, saying thaj. 
 he " regretted to seethe republican Senator.s opposing the reform of the civil service.') 
 An eminent statesman from Kentucky recently made a pilgrimage to Boston in the interes^ 
 of civil-service reform. There, in sight of that great monument which marks the spo^ 
 where immaculate valor died for immortal truth, he dared to say : 
 
 The cause of reform in the hands of brave men will not be put down or defeated by the sc^fTs 
 and derision of its enemies. 
 
 I asked my friend to tell me what those reforms were which the Senate opposed. He re- 
 plied, as every truthful man must, that he did "not know." I should like to ask this 
 apostle to the Bostonians who those enemies of reform are against whose derision he has to 
 incite brave men ! 
 
 Sir, if any man in or out of the White House fancies that he favors a better administration 
 of the civil service than I do, the sooner he dismisses that delusion the sooner he will give one 
 evidence of sanity. In spite of all this vociferous prate about a reform of the civil service, 
 no man has formulated it, no man has defi;ied it. I do not know what they mean by it. 
 The President did issue an order forbidding those employed in the civil service from 
 
16 
 
 acting on political committees or in political conventions. Is that what is meant by reform 
 of the civil service? If so, the President has already abandoned it, or I am misinformed; 
 or if he still believes that means reform, he is the only man in the Unitea States who does 
 believe it. That is not reform. That is tyranny. Tyranny wjiich no predecessor of his 
 ever attempted and no successor will venture to imitate. Undoubtedly the first obligation 
 of a public oliicer is to discharge his official duties. If he neglects to do that he ought to be 
 removed. But if he does that, then the President who removes him because he attends a 
 political or religious meeting, or because he acts upon a political committee, or is trustee 
 of a church, uses the power of removal, not to regulate the official conduct of the incumbent, 
 but to control his personal conduct. That is tyranny, no matter by whom practiced. 
 
 Once it was industriously advertised that public officers should not be removed during 
 their official terms without cause. As already remarked, I believe in that rule. I have my- 
 self adhered to it. But the President has flagrantly violated it. That surely cannot be 
 what is meant by reform of the civil service. 
 
 Latterly it has been suggested that the great reform consisted in making appointments to 
 office regardless of the advice of Senators and Representatives from the States, and so 
 smashing the machine. In some conspicious cases the very reverse has been done. What 
 the rule is upon this or upon any point touching appointments it is not given to finite intel- 
 ligence to know. But I have four remarks to make upon this last suggestion. 
 
 First. All Presidents have been, all Presidents must be, and President Hayes is guided 
 by some advice ; and that advice does come and will come from one or the other of three 
 scources. Either it will be supplied by those whom the several States have selected for 
 their representatives or by those who have not been, but aspire to be, chosen as representa- 
 tives, or it will come from office-brokers who have no political aspirations, but do a strictly 
 cash business. 
 
 Second. When any President will absolutely relieve representatives from all responsibility 
 for that multitude who want office and do not get it, he will shield them from that service 
 which most impairs their usefulness and imperils the continuance of their employments. 
 
 Third. When any PresitJent, will take upon himself the sole responsibility for all men 
 whom he does and all others whom he does not appoint, he will not need to pledge him- 
 self against a second term. The best man ever born could not achieve a second term under 
 such a load. 
 
 Fourth. Whether the people will have an improved civil service when its agents are se- 
 lected upon the advice of those not in Congress depends upon whether the people send their 
 best men to Congress or keep them at home. 
 
 It is said that Senators " dictate " to the President. I deny the assertion. It is not true. 
 It is conspicously untrue. Not many years since nearly the whole Semite advised Presi- 
 dent ijincoln to change a member of his Cabinet. President Lincoln was never remarkable 
 for obstinacy of opinion, yet he did not comply with the advice of the Senate. And even 
 in these times of unbridled mendacity I would like to see the man bold enough to assert 
 that any Senator or any combination of Senators ever dictatpd the course of President 
 Grant. Should a man ever be called to the Presidency so pusillanimous that he cannotdis- 
 crimate between advice and dictation, the sooner he quits the White House and lets himself 
 for a coachman ihe sooner he will let himself to that calling for which his temper best fits him. 
 
 Mr. President, the Republican party has achieved something in its time — something 
 which needs not to be repented of. It battled for freedom in the Territories against slav- 
 ery ; for union against disunion; for emancipation against bondage; for enfranchisement 
 against disfranchisement; for the equal rights of citizens against the privileges of caste; for 
 the reign of law against the domination of the Ku Klux and the White League; for human 
 progress against a stagnant or reactionary con.servatism. The conflict has been fearful, but 
 the triumj)h has been grand. This generation may have forgotten this work, but history 
 has rt^corded it, and tlie future will not fail to applaud it. I see its authority totters — tot- 
 ters perhaps to its fall. With uniuUled temper I await the final judgment ol the people. 
 
 Foreseeing what numbers would seek admission to the Romish Church after the acces- 
 sion of .lames 11. a distinguished lady of the court early joined that communion. When 
 asked why she did so, she cxjilained that she disliked to travel in a crowd, and as she saw so 
 many were soon going to Rome, she thought she would precede them. I shall not imitate 
 her wisdom. Prudent republicans who think defeat is the last calamity which can befall 
 them, may do well to avoid it by taking refuge in the camp of the enemy. But as for my- 
 self, I propose to stay at home and do niit much fear a crowd. I fear disgrace more than 
 defeat, and shall not consent to see our historic temples turned inf) old junk-shops, where 
 pinchbeck virtue is sold by mock auctioneers. 
 
 But must, then, political strife be pcrjielnal? Shall we never have peace? No, never, 
 whih; human opinion is free, and is not accordant ; never, until justice is everywhere the 
 supreme law ; never, until the lowest and the blackest of God's children finds the pursuit of 
 happiness as free from legal obstruction as the highest a d the whitest finds it; never, until 
 the sweat of a man, however humble, as much concerns the State as the sweat of a dollar, 
 no matter how precious the metal of which the dollar is coined. Four thousand years of 
 history prove that peace upon other terms than these is a delusion and a snare. 
 
 R. O. Polkinbom, Printer, Washington, D. C. 
 
A 
 
 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
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