THE INCREASE OF OFFICIAL SALARIES,
one year and a half ago. First, what are the accusations concerning me?
“There are several citizens in this town who have signed their names to statements in the newspapers during that discussion, declaring that Mr. Garfield had committed a theft, a robbery; that, to use the plain Saxon word, he was a thief,—that any man who took, or voted for a retroactive increase of salary, was a thief. In one of these articles it was argued in this wise: ‘If I hire a clerk in my bank on a certain salary, and he, having the key to my safe, takes out five hundred or five thousand dollars more than we agreed for, and puts it in his pocket, it is simply theft or robbery. He happened to have access to the funds, and he got hold of them; so did Congress. You can’t gloss it over,’ says the writer, ‘it is robbery.’
“Now, fellow-citizens, I presume you will agree that you can wrong even the devil himself, and that it is not right or manly to lie, even about Satan. I take it for granted that we are far enough past the passion of that period to talk plainly and coolly about the increase of salaries.
“Now, in the first place, I say to-night, what I have said through all this tempest that for a Congress to increase its own pay and make it retroactive, is not theft, is not robbery, and you do injustice to the truth when you call it so. There is ground enough in which to denounce it without straining the truth. Now if Congress can not fix its own salary, who can? The Constitution of your country says, in unmistakable words, that ‘Senators and Representatives shall receive a compensation, to be ascertained by law, and paid out of the National Treasury.’ Nobody makes the law but Congress. It was a very delicate business in the beginning, for our fathers to make a law paying themselves money. They understood it so, and when they sent the Constitution out to the several States, the question was raised, whether it would not be better to put a curb upon Congress in reference to their own pay; and in several of the States suggestions were sent in. When the First Congress met, James Madison offered seventeen amendments to the Constitution; and, finally, Congress voted to send twelve of the proposed amendments to the country: one of them was this: ‘No law varying the compensation of the Senators or Representatives in Congress shall take effect until an election has intervened.’ In other words, the First Congress proposed that an amendment should be made to the new Constitution, that no Congress could raise its own pay, and make it retroactive. That was sent to the States for their ratification. The States adopted ten of those amendments. Two, they rejected; and this was one of the two. They said it should not be in the Constitution. The reason given for its rejection, by one of the wisest men of that time, was this. He said: ‘If we adopt it, this may happen; one party will go into power in a new Congress, but, just before the old Congress expires, the defeated party may pass a law reducing the pay of Congressmen to ten cents a day.’
“It will never do thus to put one Congress into the power of another, it would be an engine of wrong and injustice. For this reason, our fathers refused to put into the Constitution a clause that would prevent back pay. Now it will not do to say that a provision that has been deliberately rejected from the Constitution, is virtually there, and it will not do to say that it is just to call it theft and robbery for Congress to do what it has plainly the constitutional right to do. I use the word right in its legal sense.
“Now, take another step. I hold in my hand here, a record of all the changes of pay that have been made since this Government was founded, and in every case,—I am not arguing now that it is right at all, I am only giving you a history of it—in every single instance when Congress has raised its pay, it has raised it to take effect from the first day of the session of the Congress. Six times Congress has increased its own pay, and every time it made the pay retroactive. I say again, I am not arguing that this was right and proper; I am only arguing that it was lawful and constitutional to do it. In 1856, the pay was raised, and was made retroactive, for a year and four months, and the member of Congress from this district threw the casting vote that made it a law. That act raised the pay by a larger per cent. than the act of last Congress. Joshua R. Giddings was the one-hundredth man that voted aye. Ninety-nine voted no. Joshua R. Giddings’s vote the other way would have turned the score against it. That vote gave back pay for a year and four months. That vote gave Congress nine months’ back pay for a time when members would not have been entitled to any thing whatever, because, under the old law, they were paid only during the session. What did this district do? Did it call him a thief and a robber? A few weeks after that vote this district elected him to Congress for the tenth time. Have the ethics of the world changed since 1856? Would I be a thief and robber in 1873, if I had done what my predecessor did in 1856? In 1866, the pay was raised; that time it was put in the appropriation bill (a very important appropriation bill), a bill giving bounties to soldiers. It passed through the Senate and came to the House; there was a disagreement about it. Senator Sherman, of Ohio, had charge of the bill in the Senate, and voted against the increase of pay every time when it came up on its own merits, but he was out-voted. Finally it went to a committee of conference, and he was made chairman of the committee of conference. The conference report between the two houses was made in favor of the bill. Mr. Sherman brought in the report, saying when he brought it in, that, he had been opposed to the increase of pay, but the Senate had overruled him. He voted for the conference report, voted for the final passage of the bill. That bill gave back pay for a year and five months. Was John Sherman denounced as a thief and robber for that? Was Benjamin F. Wade called a thief and robber?
“At that time I was not chairman of the committee, and had no other responsibility than that of an individual representative. I voted against the increase of salary then; at all stages I voted against the conference report, but it passed through the House on final vote by just one majority. I don’t remember that any body ever praised me, particularly, for voting against that report, and I never heard any body blaming John Sherman for voting for it.
“Now, in 1873, the conditions were exactly the reverse. I was chairman of the committee that had charge of the great appropriation bill. There was put upon that bill, against my earnest protest, a proposition to increase salaries. I take it there is no one here who will deny that I worked as earnestly as I could to prevent the putting of that increase upon the bill. I did not work against it because it was a theft or robbery to put it on there; I worked against it because I thought it was indecent, unbecoming, and in the highest degree unwise and injudicious to increase the salaries at that time. First, because they had been increased in 1866, and in proportion to other salaries, Congressmen were paid enough—paid more in proportion than most other officials were paid. Second, the glory of the Congress had been that it was bringing down the expenditures of the Government, from the highest level of war to the lowest level of peace; and that if we raised our own salaries, unless the rise had been made before, it would be the key-note on which the whole tune of extravagance would be sung. I believed, too, that it would seriously injure the Republican party, and on that score I thought we ought to resist it. I did all in my power to prevent that provision being added to the bill. I voted against it eighteen times. I spoke against it, but by a very large vote in the House, and a still larger vote in the Senate, the salary clause was put upon the bill. I was captain of the ship, and this objectionable freight had been put upon my deck. I had tried to keep it off. What should I do? Burn the ship? Sink her? Or, having washed my hands of the responsibility for that part of her cargo I had tried to keep off, navigate her into port, and let those who had put this freight on be responsible for it? Using that figure, that was the course I thought it my duty to adopt. Now on that matter I might have made an error of judgment. I believed then and now that if it had been in my power to kill this bill, and had thus brought on an extra session, I believe to-day, I say, had I been able to do that, I should have been the worst blamed man in the United States. Why? During the long months of the extra session that would have followed, with the evils which the country would have felt by having its business disturbed by Congress, and the uncertainties of the result, men would have said all this has come about because we did not have a man at the head of the Committee on Appropriations with nerve enough and force enough to carry his bill through by the end of the session. The next time we have a Congress, we had better see if we can not get a man who will get his bills through. Suppose I had answered there was that salary increase—‘That won’t do. You had shown your hand on the salary question; you had protested against it and you had done your duty.’ Then they would have said, there were six or seven sections in that bill empowering the United States to bring the railroads before the courts, and make them account for their extravagance. They would have said we have lost all that by the loss of this bill, and I would have been charged with acting in the interest of railroad corporations, and fighting to kill the bill for that reason. But be that as it may, fellow-citizens, I considered the two alternatives as well as I could. I believed it would rouse a storm of indignation and ill feeling throughout the country if that increase of salary passed. I believed it would result in greater evils if the whole failed, and an extra session came on. For a little while I was tempted to do what would rather be pleasing than what would be best in the long run. I believe it required more courage to vote as I voted, than it would to have voted the other way, but I resolved to do what seemed to me right in the case, let the consequences be what they would. [Applause.] I may have made a mistake in judgment; I blame no one for thinking so, but I followed what I thought was the less bad of two courses. My subsequent conduct was consistent with my action on the bill.
“I did not myself parade the fact, but more than a year ago the New York World published a list, stating in chronological order the Senators and Representatives who covered their back pay into the Treasury. My name was first on the list. [Applause.]
“I appeal to the sense of justice of this people, whether they will tolerate this sort of political warfare. It has been proven again and again that I never drew the back pay, never saw a dollar of it, and took no action in reference to it except to sign an order on the sergeant-at-arms to cover it into the general Treasury, and this was done before the convention at Warren. I say more. Some of these men who have been so long pursuing me, have known these facts for many months. During the stormy times of the salary excitement, a citizen of this county wrote a letter to a prominent official in the Treasury of the United States, wanting to know whether Mr. Garfield drew his pay or not, and received a very full and circumstantial reply stating the facts. That letter is in this town, I suppose, to-day, but those who have had possession of it have been careful never to show it. I have a copy of it here, and if these men continue lying about it, I will print it one of these days. [Sensation and great applause. Cries of ‘Let us have that letter read now, General Garfield.’] I will not give the name of the party. The name I have not to whom it is addressed.
[The audience here absolutely insisted on having the letter read, some demanding the name, and all positively refusing to allow the speaker to proceed without reading the letter in justice to himself and for the information of the audience.]
“‘Dear Sir: Your letter written early in May was forwarded to me at Youngstown, where it could not be answered for want of accurate data. When about to return to Washington, I searched for the letter but could not find it. My recollection of its contents is that you inquired as to the repayment into the Treasury by General Garfield of the additional compensation due him as a member of the Forty-Second Congress, under the provisions of the general appropriation act of March 3, 1873.
“‘The additional compensation due General Garfield was drawn by Mr. Ordway, sergeant-at-arms of the House of Representatives, and by him paid into the Treasury as a miscellaneous revenue receipt. The money was drawn by Mr. Ordway on the order of General Garfield. The practice of the sergeant-at-arms is to take receipts from members in blank in anticipation of the dates at which they are to become due, and to pay their check on him by drawing the money from the Treasury on those receipts. In this way he is, in a measure, the banker of the members. General Garfield has signed such receipts month after month at the beginning of the month, one of which was filled up by Mr. Ordway and presented to the Treasury. At that time, I believe, General Garfield was out of the city, but I happen to know that as early as the 22d day of March this written order was delivered to Mr. Ordway, viz: if he had not drawn any money from the Treasury on his account to close the account without drawing it, and if he had drawn it to return it. Mr. Ordway then informed him that it was necessary for him to sign a special order on the Treasury if he wished it drawn out and covered in, otherwise Mr. Garfield could draw it at any time within two years; whereupon Mr. Garfield drew an order for $4,548, payable to the order of Mr. Ordway, to be by him covered into the Treasury. This was presented to the Treasurer and the money turned over from the appropriation account to the general account, so that no portion of it ever left the Treasury at all. It was simply a transfer from the appropriation account to the general funds of the Treasury.
“[Applause.]
“Question.—What was the date of the adjournment of Congress?
“General Garfield.—Congress adjourned on the 3d of March.
“Question.—What was the date of your letter?
“General Garfield.—The 22d day of March was the date of my letter.
“A voice.—Give us some of the De Gollyer matter.
“General Garfield.—We will take each particular thing at the proper time and place. A note is handed me of which I will speak in this connection. It is that during the debate Mr. Garfield answered a question of Mr. Hibbard, of New Hampshire, who said, ‘How about this plunder? How much plunder will it take out of the Treasury?’ And that Mr. Garfield’s answer seemed to imply that he did not regard it as plunder. I believe there has been as much said on that particular reply of mine in connection with this salary business as any thing else that has been said. Now I have already answered that in the general remarks I have made this evening, namely, when a Democrat from New Hampshire rose in his place and put a question to me, inquiring how much money it would take out of the Treasury if this salary act passed, and put it in the form of saying how much ‘plunder’ it would take, I did not at first notice that he used the word ‘plunder,’ and I answered it would take a million and a half dollars out of the Treasury. Then Mr. Dawes rose and said, ‘Did my friend from Ohio notice the word ‘plunder?’’ Does he acknowledge this to be ‘plunder?’ I then said, ‘No, I don’t acknowledge that this is plunder. If any gentleman thinks that he is taking more than is justly due him in his conscience, let him call it plunder if he pleases.’
“Now, an attempt has been made to make it appear that Mr. Garfield approved the salary act because he answered this man that he didn’t regard it as robbery. I answer now, I do not regard it as robbery, and never have.
“Now, one word more before I leave this question. I am glad the American people rose up in indignation against that salary increase. There were some unkind and unjust things said by the people in their uprising, but they rose against it and rebuked it with a power and might that has been of very great service to the country during the last winter. It could not have been repealed but for the rebuke of the people, and I could not have led as I did lead in more than $20,000,000 reduction of public expenses, if I had not felt behind me the weight, and help, and reinforcement of the indignation of the people in regard to that salary increase. I say it was an indecent thing to do, to increase the salary thus, and it was a great conservative thing for the people to do to demand its repeal; and it was repealed. But let us, in discussing it, deal with the subject according to the truth. I now pause to inquire if any gentleman in the audience has any questions to ask touching this salary, or any thing concerning it? If he has, I shall be very glad to hear it. [The speaker here paused, but no questions being asked, he proceeded as follows:] If not, I pass to the subject my friend over yonder seemed to be so anxious I should get to before I finished the last; and here I approach a question that in one sense is not a question at all, and in another sense it may be. I understand that several persons in the district are saying that Mr. Garfield has taken a fee for a so-called law opinion, but which, in fact, was something he ought not to have done—which was in reality a kind of fee for his official influence as a member of the Committee on Appropriations; or, to speak more plainly, that I accepted pay for a service as a kind of bribe, and that too, in
THE SO-CALLED DE GOLLYER PAVEMENT.
“Now, I have tried to state that in the broadest way, with the broadest point forward. I ask the attention of this audience for a few moments to the testimony. In the first place, I want the audience to understand that the city of Washington is governed, and has always been governed so far as its own improvements are concerned, by its own laws and its own people, just as much as Warren has been governed by its own corporate laws and authority. I remember perfectly well what has been paraded in the papers so much of late that Congress has full power to legislate over the District of Columbia. Well, Congress has full jurisdiction over what is now called the District of Columbia, and Congress could, I suppose, make all the police regulations for the city of Washington; but Congress always has allowed the city of Washington to have its city council, or a legislature, until the present time. We have abolished it, because we had a cumbrous machine. In the year 1871 a law was passed by Congress creating the board of public works, appointing a governor, and creating a legislature for the District of Columbia. That act stated what the board of public works could do and what the other branches of the District government could do; and among other things, it empowered the legislature to levy taxes to make improvements on the streets. The legislature met. The board of public works laid before them an elaborate plan for improving the streets of Washington, a plan amounting to six million dollars in the first place, and the legislature adopted the plan and provided that one-third of the entire cost of carrying out that plan should be raised by assessing the front foot on the property holders, and the other two-thirds should be paid by money to be borrowed by the city government; in other words, by the issuing of their bonds. The city government of Washington borrowed money and raised by special taxation enough to carry on a vast system of improvement. When they got ready to execute their plan one of the questions that came before them was, What kind of pavement shall we put in? and in what way shall we go about the business of letting our paving contracts? In order to settle that question they wrote to all the principal cities and found out all the methods pursued by them, and finally appointed from leading officers of the army—General Humphreys, chief engineer; General Meigs, quartermaster-general; the Surgeon-General, and General Babcock of the engineer corps; and those four men sat as an advising board, having no power but merely to advise. They took up all kinds of pavement ever made; specimens were sent in; they looked over the whole, and as a result recommended this: ‘We recommend you, instead of letting this work be done by the lowest bidder, with all the scheming “straw-bids” that may come in, to fix a tariff of prices you will pay for different kinds of pavement, and we recommend as follows: If you put down concrete pavement you had better say you will pay so much per square yard for putting it down. We have looked the cities all over and find that it is the proper amount to pay; but for stone so much; for gravel so much; for asphaltum so much; and for wood so much.’ Now, that board of public works adopted the plan and that schedule of prices, and having elected if they put those various kinds of pavements down, they would put them down at those rates, they then said to all comers ‘bring in your various kinds of pavements and show us their merits, and when we have examined them we will act.’
“Then the various paving companies and patentees all over the country who had what they called good pavements, presented themselves; but in almost all cases by their attorneys. They sent men there to represent the relative merits of the pavements. A pavement company in Chicago employed Mr. Parsons, of Cleveland, as early as the month of April, 1872, to go before the board of public works and present the merits of their pavements. Mr. Parsons had nothing whatever to do with the question of prices; they had already been settled in advance by the board. Mr. Parsons was marshal of the Supreme Court at that time, and was just about running for Congress. He asked the Chief Justice of the United States whether there was any impropriety in his taking that case up and arguing it, merely because he was an appointee and under his direction, and the Chief Justice responded: ‘There was none in the world.’ He proceeded with the case until the 8th day of June, when, for the first time, I heard any thing about it. This was two days before the adjournment of Congress. On that day Mr. Parsons came to me and said to me he had an important case; he had worked a good while on it but was called away. He must leave. He did not want to lose his fee in it—was likely to lose it unless the work was completed; he must go at any rate. He asked me if I would argue the case for him; if I would examine into the merits of this pavement and make a statement of it before the board. I said, ‘I will do it if I, on examination, find the patent what it purports to be—the best wood pavement patent there is, but I can’t do it until after Congress adjourns.’ Congress adjourned two days later; the papers of patents were sent to me, modeled specimens, and documents showing where pavement had been used were forwarded to me. The investigation of the patents and the chemical analysis representing all the elements of the pavement was a laborious task and I worked at it as faithfully as any thing I ever worked at. I did it in open daylight. I have never been able to understand how any body has seen any thing in that on which to base an attack on me. I say I am to-day intellectually incapable of understanding the track of a man’s mind who sees in this any ground for attacking me. I made the argument; there were two patents contained in that pavement itself; there were some forty different wood pavements proposed, and to carefully and analytically examine all the relative merits of those was no small work. Mr. Parsons was to get a fee providing he was successful, and not any if he was not successful, and hence the sum offered was large—a contingent fee, as every lawyer knows.”
This is enough to show Mr. Garfield’s relation to the De Gollyer affair. After some further discussion of it this Warren speech closed as follows:
“If no further questions are to be asked I will conclude with a few general reflections on the whole subject.
“Nothing is more distasteful to me than to speak of my own work—but this discussion has been made necessary by the persistent misrepresentations of those who assail me.
“During my long public service the relation between the people of this district and myself has been one of mutual confidence and independence. I have tried to follow my own convictions of duty with little regard to personal consequences, relying upon the intelligence and justice of the people for approval and support. I have sought to promote, not merely local and class interests, but the general good of the whole country, believing that thereby I could honor the position I hold and the district I represent. On the other hand my constituents have given me the great support of their strong and intelligent approval. They have not always approved my judgment, nor the wisdom of my public acts. But they have sustained me because they knew I was earnestly following my convictions of duty, and because they did not want a representative to be the mere echo of the public voice, but an intelligent and independent judge of public questions.
“In conclusion, I appeal to the best men of the district—to men who are every way worthy and every way capable to judge my conduct—nor do I hesitate to refer all inquiries to those noble men with whom I have acted during my public life. They have worked with me as representatives during all these years, and know the character and quality of my work. I have sought to make myself worthy of an honorable fame among them, and have not sought in vain. They have placed me in many positions of large trust and responsibility, and in the present Congress I again hold the chairmanship of the committee of the second if not the first importance in the House of Representatives. I fearlessly appeal to the honorable members of the present Congress, and of all the Congresses in which I have served, to say if my conduct has not been high and worthy—the very reverse of what these home enemies represent it to be. [Applause.] All this time it has been a source of great strength and confidence to know that here in this district there has been a strong, manly, intelligent constituency willing to hold up my hands and enable me more effectually to serve the country and honor them by my service. While this has been true, a bitter few have long been doing all in their power to depreciate my work and weaken my support.
“Mr. Wilkins.—You are rising too fast; they are afraid of being eclipsed.
“Mr. Garfield.—In all this I have relied upon the good sense and justice of the people to understand both my motives and the motives and efforts of my enemies. On some questions of public policy there have been differences between some of my constituents and myself. For instance, on the currency question, I have followed what seemed to me to be the line of truth and duty, and in that course I believe that the majority of the people of this district now concur. Whether right or wrong in opinions of this sort, I have believed it to be my duty to act independently, and in accordance with the best light I could find.
“Fellow-citizens, I believe I have done my country and you some service, and the only way I can still continue thus to serve you is by enjoying, in a reasonable degree, your confidence and support. I am very grateful for the expression of confidence which you have again given me by choosing me a seventh time as your candidate. It was an expression which I have reason to believe was the result of your deliberate judgment, based on a full knowledge of my record; and it is all the more precious to me because it came after one of those storms of public feeling which sometimes sweeps away the work of a life-time.”
Aside from what has been here recounted, Garfield did not speak much on these unpleasant topics. Having put himself on record, he did not convict himself by protesting overmuch.
That he felt these things deeply one can not doubt. In a letter of January 4, 1875, written to B. A. Hinsdale, he said:
“With me the year 1874 has been a continuation, and in some respects an exaggeration, of 1873. That year brought me unusual trials, and brought me face to face with personal assaults and the trial that comes from calumny and public displeasure. This year has perhaps seen the culmination, if not the end, of that kind of experience. I have had much discipline of mind and heart in living the life which these trials brought me. Lately I have been studying myself with some anxiety to see how deeply the shadows have settled around my spirit. I find I have lost much of that exuberance of feeling, that cheerful spirit which I think abounded in me before. I am a little graver and less genial than I was before the storm struck me. The consciousness of this came to me slowly, but I have at last given in to it, and am trying to counteract the tendency.”
These efforts were successful; for prosperity and popularity returned to him; and even if they had not, General Garfield was not the man to acquire bitterness of spirit.
In fact, if there was one thing wherein Garfield was greater than any man in the illustrious group, whose names form a matchless diadem for the epoch in which he lived, it was in a sweetness of temper, a loftiness of spirit, the equal of which can hardly be found in secular history. His spirit knew no malice; his heart no revenge. A distinguished man who served with him in Congress, but who was not a great friend, told the writer that in this regard Garfield inspired him with awe. His conservative views made him many party enemies. Time after time these brilliant debaters—Farnsworth and the rest—would attack Garfield. No sarcasm was too cutting, no irony too cold. At times the speaker seemed to leave the quiver of ridicule without an arrow. When Garfield rose to reply, it was in a tone of calm discussion. He would proceed to the subject in hand in the friendliest and most earnest manner. No attack could provoke him to reply to personalities or invective. Never did he lose self-poise for a moment. It was said that a stranger entering the House after Garfield had begun his speech in answer to some most galling attack would never suspect that the speech was a reply to hostile and malignant assault.
The elections of 1874 having resulted favorably to the Democratic party, the Republicans found themselves with only a minority in the House in the Forty-Fourth Congress. Blaine lost his position as Speaker, and Michael C. Kerr, of Indiana, presided. Committees were all reorganized with Democratic chairmen and majorities.
Garfield, after having been four years Chairman of the Committee on Appropriations, now found himself near the foot of the Committee of Ways and Means, with a weighty group of Democrats above him on the list. During his last four terms, Garfield was a member of the House Committee on Rules. His knowledge of Parliamentary Law amounted to a mastery of the subject.
In consequence of this change, General Garfield, suddenly relieved of his usual large responsibility in the work of legislation, was turned into a comparatively new field of public life. Relieved of the real work of legislation, for the first time he had a good opportunity to observe how others would do that work.
A very brief season of such observation on the part of Garfield and his fellow-partisans was enough to make them dissatisfied with Democratic statesmanship. The new majority began to destroy what Republicans had spent so many years in building up. Then came organized opposition.
The first great collision occurred in January, 1876. This first Democratic House since the war was, very naturally, led by Southern members. Many late rebel generals had been sent to it. It was popularly named the Confederate Congress—the rule of rebel brigadiers. Of course, it was not long till they began to propose measures peculiarly favorable to themselves.
When, at the close of the civil war, the Southern States were restored to their right places in the Union, many of their citizens, guilty of treason, had lost their political privileges. By acts of legislation and presidential proclamations, most of these disabilities had been removed. Early in the Forty-Fourth Congress the Amnesty Bill was proposed, extending pardon to all ex-Confederates unconditionally.
It had been the policy of the Government to restore the South completely in this respect, as fast as it was expedient to do so; but this was, as yet, too sweeping a measure. The Republican leaders were opposed to it; and Mr. Blaine proposed an amendment, excepting Jefferson Davis absolutely and by name, and excepting seven hundred and fifty others until they should renounce their treason by taking the oath of allegiance to the United States. The friends of the bill would not except even Davis, and on this point there arose one of the most exciting debates ever held in Congress.
The attack was first made by Mr. Blaine, in the course of a series of sharp thrusts between himself and Samuel J. Randall, of Pennsylvania, who had charge of the bill. Finally the “plumed knight” rushed to the front and dealt his heavy blows. It was a terrible arraignment of the Confederate President, making him responsible for the savage cruelties practiced on Union prisoners. All the horrors of Andersonville and Libby prisons were described. He read the celebrated order “Number Thirteen,” directing rebel guns to be turned on the suffering thousands at Andersonville, on the approach of Sherman. Davis, he said, was a party to these proceedings, and the American people would not, should not sanction any act which made it possible for this man ever again to hold any honorable public position within the gift of his Southern friends.
After Blaine’s speech, the debate was continued by Mr. Cox. Then came Benjamin Hill, of Georgia, and James A. Garfield, of Ohio. Hill took up the charges of Blaine, parried them skillfully without answering them, made counter-charges against the Government in its treatment of rebel prisoners, and, in fine, succeeded in his attempt to overcome the impression made by the Blaine attack. In this emergency, while the whole Democracy was exulting, and Hill was the hero of the hour, all eyes turned towards Garfield, for he promised a reply, and was known to be better able for that task than any other man.
On the next day, January 12, Mr. Garfield was given the floor, and began. After stating his regret that such an unpleasant discussion had arisen, he made a brief review of the situation, and proceeded thus:
“Let me say in the outset that, so far as I am personally concerned, I have never voted against any proposition to grant amnesty to any human being who has asked for it at the bar of the House. Furthermore, I appeal to gentlemen on the other side who have been with me in this hall many years, whether at any time they have found me truculent in spirit, unkind in tone or feeling toward those who fought against us in the late war. Twelve years ago this very month, standing in this place, I said this: ‘I believe a truce could be struck to-day between the rank and file of the hostile armies now in the field. I believe they could meet and shake hands together, joyful over returning peace, each respecting the courage and manhood of the other, and each better able to live in amity than before the war.’
“I am glad to repeat word for word what I said that day. For the purposes of this speech I will not even claim the whole ground which the Government assumed toward the late rebellion. For the sake of the present argument, I will view the position of those who took up arms against the Government in the light least offensive to them.
“Leaving out of sight for the moment the question of slavery, which evoked so much passion, and which was the producing cause of the late war, there were still two opposing political theories which met in conflict. Most of the Southern statesmen believed that their first obedience was due to their State. We believed that the allegiance of an American citizen was due to the National government, not by the way of a State capital, but in a direct line from his own heart to the government of the Union. Now, that question was submitted to the dreadful arbitrament of war, to the court of last resort—a court from which there is no appeal, and to which all other powers must bow. To that dread court the great question was carried, and there the right of a State to secede was put to rest forever. For the sake of peace and union, I am willing to treat our late antagonists as I would treat litigants in other courts, who, when they have made their appeal and final judgment is rendered, pay the reasonable costs and bow to its mandates. Our question to-day is not that, but is closely connected with it. When we have made our argument and the court has rendered its judgment, it may be that in the course of its proceedings the court has used its discretion to disbar some of its counselors for malpractice, for unprofessional conduct. In such a case a motion may be made to restore the disbarred members. Applying this illustration to the present case, there are seven hundred and fifty people who are yet disbarred before the highest authority of the Republic—the Constitution itself. The proposition is to offer again the privileges of official station to these people; and we are all agreed as to every human being of them save one.
“I do not object to Jefferson Davis because he was a conspicuous leader. Whatever we may believe theologically, I do not believe in the doctrine of vicarious atonement in politics. Jefferson Davis was no more guilty for taking up arms than any other man who went into the rebellion with equal intelligence. But this is the question: In the high court of war did he practice according to its well-known laws—the laws of nations? Did he, in appealing to war, obey the laws of war; or did he so violate those laws, that justice to those who suffered at his hands demands that he be not permitted to come back to his old privileges in the Union? That is the whole question; and it is as plain and fair a question for deliberation as was ever debated in this House.”
From this point Mr. Garfield proceeded by a long argument, well supported by authorities, to show forth the real history of the atrocities mentioned, and to demonstrate the responsibility of Jefferson Davis for them. He ended this portion of the discussion in these words:
“It seems to me incontrovertible that the records I have adduced lay at his door the charge of being himself the author, the conscious author, through his own appointed instrument, of the terrible work at Andersonville, for which the American people still hold him unfit to be admitted among the legislators of this Nation.
“And now, Mr. Speaker, I close as I began. Toward those men who gallantly fought us on the field I cherish the kindest feeling. I feel a sincere reverence for the soldierly qualities they displayed on many a well-fought battle-field. I hope the day will come when their swords and ours will be crossed over many a doorway of our children, who will remember the glory of their ancestors with pride. The high qualities displayed in that conflict now belong to the whole Nation. Let them be consecrated to the Union, and its future peace and glory. I shall hail that consecration as a pledge and symbol of our perpetuity.
“But there was a class of men referred to in the speech of the gentleman yesterday for whom I have never yet gained the Christian grace necessary to say the same thing. The gentleman said that, amid the thunder of battle, through its dim smoke, and above its roar, they heard a voice from this side saying, ‘Brothers, come!’ I do not know whether he meant the same thing, but I heard that voice behind us. I heard that voice, and I recollect that I sent one of those who uttered it through our lines—a voice owned by Vallandigham. General Scott said, in the early days of the war, ‘When this war is over, it will require all the physical and moral power of the Government to restrain the rage and fury of the non-combatants.’ It was that non-combatant voice behind us that cried ‘Halloo!’ to the other side; that always gave cheer and encouragement to the enemy in our hour of darkness. I have never forgotten, and have not yet forgiven, those Democrats of the North whose hearts were not warmed by the grand inspirations of the Union, but who stood back, finding fault, always crying disaster, rejoicing at our defeat, never glorying in our victory. If these are the voices the gentleman heard, I am sorry he is now united with those who uttered them.
“But to those most noble men, Democrats and Republicans, who together fought for the Union, I commend all the lessons of charity that the wisest and most beneficent men have taught.
“I join you all in every aspiration that you may express to stay in this Union, to heal its wounds, to increase its glory, and to forget the evils and bitterness of the past; but do not, for the sake of the three hundred thousand heroic men who, maimed and bruised, drag out their weary lives, many of them carrying in their hearts horrible memories of what they suffered in the prison-pen—do not ask us to vote to put back into power that man who was the cause of their suffering—that man still unaneled, unshriven, unforgiven, undefended.”
As the autumn of 1876 approached, it became evident that the Democratic party, already dominant in the House; would make a desperate struggle at the November elections to get complete control of the Government.
Before the long session of that hot summer ended, Mr. Lamar, of Mississippi, took occasion to deliver in the House a powerful campaign speech, attempting to prove that the Republican party did not deserve further support from the people, and that the Democracy was eminently worthy to rule in their stead. The next day, August 4, Mr. Garfield replied. A part of this reply is here given:
“Mr. Chairman: I regret that the speech of the gentleman from Mississippi [Mr. Lamar] has not yet appeared in the Record, so that I might have had its full and authentic text before offering my own remarks in reply. But his propositions were so clearly and so very ably stated, the doctrines that run through it were so logically connected, it will be my own fault if I fail to understand and appreciate the general scope and purpose of his speech.
“In the outset, I desire for myself and for a majority at least, of those for whom I speak, to express my gratitude to the gentleman for all that portion of his speech which had for its object the removal of the prejudices and unkindly feelings that have arisen among citizens of the Republic in consequence of the late war. Whatever faults the speech may have, its author expresses an earnest desire to make progress in the direction of a better understanding between the North and the South; and in that it meets my most hearty concurrence and approval.
“I will attempt to state briefly what I understand to be the logic of the gentleman’s speech.
“Now I have stated—of course very briefly, but I hope with entire fairness—the scope of the very able speech to which we listened. In a word, it is this: The Republican party is oppressing the South; negro suffrage is a grievous evil; there are serious corruptions in public affairs in the national legislation and administration; the civil service of the country especially needs great and radical reform; and, therefore, the Democratic party ought to be placed in control of the Government at this time.
“It has not been my habit, and it is not my desire, to discuss mere party politics in this great legislative forum. And I shall do so now only in so far as a fair review of the gentleman’s speech requires. My remarks shall be responsive to his; and I shall discuss party history and party policy only as the logic of his speech leads into that domain.
“From most of the premises of the gentleman, as matters of fact and history, I dissent; some of them are undoubtedly correct. But, for the sake of argument only, admitting that all his premises are correct, I deny that his conclusion is warranted by his premises; and, before I close, I shall attempt to show that the good he seeks can not be secured by the ascendency of the Democratic party at this time.
“Before entering upon that field, however, I must notice this remarkable omission in the logic of his speech. Although he did state that the country might consider itself free from some of the dangers which are apprehended as the result of Democratic ascendency, he did not, as I remember, by any word attempt to prove the fitness of the Democracy as a political organization to accomplish the reforms which he so much desires; and without that affirmative proof of fitness his argument is necessarily an absolute failure.
“It is precisely that fear which has not only made the ascendency of the Democratic party so long impossible, but has made it incompetent to render that service so necessary to good government—the service of maintaining the position of a wise and honorable opposition to the dominant party. Often the blunders and faults of the Republican party have been condoned by the people because of the violent, reactionary, and disloyal spirit of the Democracy.
“He tells us that it is one of the well-known lessons of political history and philosophy, that the opposition party comes in to preserve and crystallize the measures which their antagonists inaugurated; and that a conservative opposition party is better fitted to accomplish such a work than an aggressive radical party, who roughly pioneered the way and brought in the changes. And to apply this maxim to our own situation, he tells us that the differences between the Republican and the Democratic parties upon the issues which led to the war, and those which grew out of it, were rather differences of time than of substance; that the Democracy followed more slowly in the Republican path, but have at last arrived, by prudent and constitutional methods, at the same results; and hence they will be sure to guard securely and cherish faithfully what the Republicans gained by reckless and turbulent methods. There is some truth in these ‘glittering generalities,’ but, as applied to our present situation, they are entitled only to the consideration which we give to the bright but fantastic pictures of a Utopian dream.
“I share all that gentleman’s aspirations for peace, for good government at the South; and I believe I can safely assure him that the great majority of the nation shares the same aspirations. But he will allow me to say that he has not fully stated the elements of the great problem to be solved by the statesmanship of to-day. The actual field is much broader than the view he has taken. And before we can agree that the remedy he proposes is an adequate one, we must take in the whole field, comprehend all the conditions of the problem, and then see if his remedy is sufficient. The change he proposes is not like the ordinary change of a ministry in England when the government is defeated on a tax-bill or some routine measure of legislation. He proposes to turn over the custody and management of the Government to a party which has persistently, and with the greatest bitterness, resisted all the great changes of the last fifteen years; changes which were the necessary results of a vast revolution—a revolution in national policy, in social and political ideas—a revolution whose causes were not the work of a day nor a year, but of generations and centuries. The scope and character of that mighty revolution must form the basis of our judgment when we inquire whether such a change as he proposes is safe and wise.
“In discussing his proposition we must not forget that, as the result of this revolution, the South, after the great devastations of war, the great loss of life and treasure, the overthrow of its social and industrial system, was called upon to confront the new and difficult problem of two races—one just relieved from centuries of slavery, and the other a cultivated, brave, proud, imperious race—to be brought together on terms of equality before the law. New, difficult, delicate, and dangerous questions bristle out from every point of that problem.
“But that is not all of the situation. On the other hand, we see the North, after leaving its 350,000 dead upon the field of battle and bringing home its 500,000 maimed and wounded to be cared for, crippled in its industries, staggering under the tremendous burden of public and private debt, and both North and South weighted with unparalleled burdens and losses—the whole nation suffering from that loosening of the bonds of social order which always follows a great war, and from the resulting corruption both in the public and the private life of the people. These, Mr. Chairman, constitute the vast field which we must survey in order to find the path which will soonest lead our beloved country to the highway of peace, of liberty and prosperity. Peace from the shock of battle; the higher peace of our streets, of our homes, of our equal rights, we must make secure by making the conquering ideas of the war every-where dominant and permanent.
“With all my heart I join with the gentleman in rejoicing that—