Forty years ago—
Says Lord Beaconsfield, that great Jew who held England in the hollow of his hand, and who played on her aristocracy as on an organ, who made himself the master of an alien nation, its ruler, its oracle, and through it, and in despite of it, for a time the master of Europe—

Forty years ago—not a longer period than the children of Israel were wandering in the desert—the two most dishonored races in Europe were the Attic and the Hebrew. The world has probably by this discovered that it is impossible to destroy the Jews. The attempt to extirpate them has been made under the most favorable auspices and on the largest scale; the most considerable means that man could command have been pertinaciously applied to this object for the longest period of recorded time. Egyptian Pharaohs, Assyrian kings, Roman emperors, Scandinavian crusaders, Gothic princes, and holy inquisitors, have alike devoted their energies to the fulfillment of this common purpose. Expatriation, exile, captivity, confiscation, torture on the most ingenious and massacre on the most extensive scale, a curious system of degrading customs and debasing laws which would have broken the heart of any other people, have been tried, and in vain.

“Lord Beaconsfield admits that the Jews contribute more than their proportion to the aggregate of the vile; that the lowest class of Jews are obdurate, malignant, odious, and revolting. And yet this race of dogs, as it has been often termed in scorn, furnishes Europe to-day its masters in finance and oratory and statesmanship and art and music. Rachel, Mozart, Mendelssohn, Disraeli, Rothschild, Benjamin, Heine, are but samples of the intellectual power of a race which to-day controls the finance and the press of Europe.

“I do not controvert the evidence which is relied upon to show that there are great abuses, great dangers, great offenses, which have grown out of the coming of this people. Much of the evil I believe might be cured by State and municipal authority. Congress may rightfully be called upon to go to the limit of the just exercise of the powers of government in rendering its aid.

“We should have capable and vigilant consular officers in the Asiatic ports from which these immigrants come, without whose certificate they should not be received on board ship, and who should see to it that no person except those of good character and no person whose labor is not his own property be allowed to come over. Especially should the trade in human labor under all disguises be suppressed. Filthy habits of living must surely be within the control of municipal regulation. Every State may by legislation or by municipal ordinance in its towns and cities prescribe the dimension of dwellings and limit the number who may occupy the same tenement.

“But it is urged—and this in my judgment is the greatest argument for the bill—that the introduction of the labor of the Chinese reduces the wages of the American laborer. ‘We are ruined by Chinese cheap labor’ is a cry not limited to the class to whose representative the brilliant humorist of California first ascribed it. I am not in favor of lowering any where the wages of any American labor, skilled or unskilled. On the contrary, I believe the maintenance and the increase of the purchasing power of the wages of the American working man should be the one principal object of our legislation. The share in the product of agriculture or manufacture which goes to labor should, and I believe will, steadily increase. For that, and for that only, exists our protective system. The acquisition of wealth, national or individual, is to be desired only for that. The statement of the accomplished Senator from California on this point meets my heartiest concurrence. I have no sympathy with any men, if such there be, who favor high protection and cheap labor.

“But I believe that the Chinese, to whom the terms of the California Senator attribute skill enough to displace the American in every field requiring intellectual vigor, will learn very soon to insist on his full share of the product of his work. But whether that be true or not, the wealth he creates will make better and not worse the condition of every higher class of labor. There may be trouble or failure in adjusting new relations. But sooner or later every new class of industrious and productive laborers elevates the class it displaces. The dread of an injury to our labor from the Chinese rests on the same fallacy that opposed the introduction of labor-saving machinery, and which opposed the coming of the Irishman and the German and the Swede. Within my memory in New England all the lower places in factories, all places of domestic service, were filled by the sons and daughters of American farmers. The Irishmen came over to take their places; but the American farmer’s son and daughter did not suffer; they were only elevated to a higher plane. In the increased wealth of the community their share is much greater. The Irishman rose from the bog or the hovel of his native land to the comfort of a New England home, and placed his children in a New England school. The Yankee rises from the loom and the spinning-jenny to be the teacher, the skilled laborer in the machine shop, the inventor, the merchant, or the opulent landholder and farmer of the West.”

A letter from F. A. Bee, Chinese Consul, approving the management of the estate, accompanied the report of the referee:

“Mr. President, I will not detain the Senate by reading the abundant testimony, of which this is but the sample, of the possession by the people of this race of the possibility of a development of every quality of intellect, art, character, which fits them for citizenship, for republicanism, for Christianity.

“Humanity, capable of infinite depths of degradation, is capable also of infinite heights of excellence. The Chinese, like all other races, has given us its examples of both. To rescue humanity from this degradation is, we are taught to believe, the great object of God’s moral government on earth. It is not by injustice, exclusion, caste, but by reverence for the individual soul that we can aid in this consummation. It is not by Chinese policies that China is to be civilized. I believe that the immortal truths of the Declaration of Independence came from the same source with the Golden Rule and the Sermon on the Mount. We can trust Him who promulgated these laws to keep the country safe that obeys them. The laws of the universe have their own sanction. They will not fail. The power that causes the compass to point to the north, that dismisses the star on its pathway through the skies, promising that in a thousand years it shall return again true to its hour and keep His word, will vindicate His own moral law. As surely as the path on which our fathers entered a hundred years ago led to safety, to strength, to glory, so surely will the path on which we now propose to enter ring us to shame, to weakness, and to peril.”

On the 3d of March the debate was renewed. Senator Farley protested that unless Chinese immigration is prohibited it will be impossible to protect the Chinese on the Pacific coast. The feeling against them now is such that restraint is difficult, as the people, forced out of employment by them, and irritated by their constantly increasing numbers, are not in a condition to submit to the deprivations they suffer by the presence of a Chinese population imported as slaves and absorbing to their own benefit the labor of the country. A remark of Mr. Farley about the Chinese led Mr. Hoar to ask if they were not the inventors of the printing press and of gunpowder. To this question Mr. Jones, of Nevada, made a brief speech, which was considered remarkable, principally because it was one of the very few speeches of any length that he has made since he became a Senator. Instead of agreeing with Mr. Hoar that the Chinese had invented the printing press and gunpowder, he said that information he had received led him to believe that the Chinese were not entitled to the credit of either of these inventions. On the contrary, they had stolen them from Aryans or Caucasians who wandered into the kingdom. Mr. Hoar smiled incredulously and made a remark to the effect that he had never heard of those Aryans or Caucasians before.

Continuing his remarks, Mr. Farley expressed his belief that should the Mongolian population increase and the Chinese come in contact with the Africans, the contact would result in demoralization and bloodshed which the laws could not prevent. Pig-tailed Chinamen would take the place everywhere of the working girl unless Congress extended its protection to California and her white people, who had by their votes demanded a prohibition of Chinese immigration. Mr. Maxey, interpreting the Constitution in such a way as to bring out of it an argument against Chinese immigration, said he found nothing in it to justify the conclusion that the framers of it intended to bring into this country all nations and races. The only people the fathers had in view as citizens were those of the Caucasian race, and they contemplated naturalization only for such, for they had distinctly set forth that the heritage of freedom was to be for their posterity. Nobody would pretend to express the opinion that it was expected that the American people should become mixed up with all sorts of races and call the result “our posterity.” While the American people had, in consequence of their Anglo-Saxon origin, been able to withstand the contact with the African, the Africans would never stand before the Chinese. Mr. Maxey opposed the Chinese because they do not come here to be citizens, because the lower classes of Chinese alone are immigrants, and because by contact they poison the minds of the less intelligent.

Mr. Saulsbury had something to say in favor of the bill, and Mr. Garland, who voted against the last bill because the treaty had not been modified, expressed his belief that the Government could exercise properly all the powers proposed to be bestowed by this bill. Some time was consumed by Mr. Ingalls in advocacy of an amendment offered by him, proposing to limit the suspension of immigration to 10 instead of 20 years. Mr. Miller and Mr. Bayard opposed the amendment, Mr. Bayard taking the ground that Congress ought not to disregard the substantially unanimous wish of the people of California, as expressed at the polls, for absolute prohibition. The debate was interrupted by a motion for an executive session, and the bill went over until Monday, to be taken up then as the unfinished business.

On March 6th a vote was ordered on Senator Ingalls’ amendment. It was defeated on a tie vote—yeas 23, nays 23.

The vote in detail is as follows:

Yeas—Messrs. Aldrich, Allison, Blair, Brown, Cockrell, Conger, Davis of Illinois, Dawes, Edmunds, Frye, Harris, Hoar, Ingalls, Jackson, Lapham, McDill, McMillan, Mitchell, Morrell, Saunders, Sewell, Sherman and Teller—23.

Nays—Messrs. Bayard, Beck, Call, Cameron of Wisconsin, Coke, Fair, Farley, Garland, George, Hale, Hampton, Hill of Colorado, Jonas, Jones of Nevada, McPherson, Marcy, Miller of California, Miller of New York, Morgan, Ransom, Slater, Vest and Walker—23.

Pairs were announced between Davis, of West Virginia, Saulsbury, Butler, Johnson, Kellogg, Jones, of Florida, and Grover, against the amendment, and Messrs. Windom, Ferry, Hawley, Platt, Pugh, Rollins and Van Wyck in the affirmative. Mr. Camden was also paired.

Mr. Edmunds, partially in reply to Mr. Hoar argued that the right to decide what constitutes the moral law was one inherent in the Government, and by analogy the right to regulate the character of the people who shall come into it belonged to a Government. This depended upon national polity and the fact as to most of the ancient republics that they did not possess homogeneity was the cause of their fall. As to the Swiss Republic, it was untrue that it was not homogeneous. The difference there was not one of race but of different varieties of the same race, all of which are analogous and consistent with each other. It would not be contended that it is an advantage to a republic that its citizens should be made of diverse races, with diverse views and diverse obligations as to what the common prosperity of all required. Therefore there was no foundation for the charge of a violation of moral and public law in our making a distinction as to the foreigners we admit. He challenged Mr. Hoar to produce an authority on national law which denied the right of one nation to declare what people of other nations should come among them. John Hancock and Samuel Adams, not unworthy citizens of Massachusetts, joined in asserting in the Declaration of Independence the right of the colonies to establish for themselves, not for other peoples, a Government of their own, not the Government of somebody else. The declaration asserted the family or consolidated right of a people within any Territory to determine the conditions upon which they would go on, and this included the matter of receiving the people from other shores into their family. This idea was followed in the Constitution by requiring naturalization. The Chinaman may be with us, but he is not of us. One of the conditions of his naturalization is that he must be friendly to the institutions and intrinsic polity of our Government. Upon the theory of the Massachusetts Senators, that there is a universal oneness of one human being with every other human being on the globe, this traditional and fundamental principle was entirely ignored. Such a theory as applied to Government was contrary to all human experience, to all discussion, and to every step of the founders of our Government. He said that Mr. Sumner, the predecessor of Mr. Hoar, was the author of the law on the coolie traffic, which imposes fines and penalties more severe than those in this bill upon any master of an American vessel carrying a Chinaman who is a servant. The present bill followed that legislation. Mr. Edmunds added that he would vote against the bill if the twenty-year clause was retained, but would maintain the soundness of principle he had enunciated.

Mr. Hoar argued in reply that the right of expatriation carried with it the right to a home for the citizen in the country to which he comes, and that the bill violated not only this but the principles of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments which made citizenship the birthright of every one born on our soil, and prohibited an abridgement of the suffrage because of race, color, etc.

Mr. Ingalls moved an amendment postponing the time at which the act shall take effect until sixty days after information of its passage has been communicated to China.

After remarks by Messrs. Dawes, Teller and Bayard, at the suggestion of Mr. Brown Mr. Ingalls modified his amendment by providing that the act shall not go into effect until ninety days after its passage, and the amendment was adopted.

On motion of Mr. Bayard, amendments were adopted making the second section read as follows: “That any master of any vessel of whatever nationality, who shall knowingly on such vessel bring within the jurisdiction of the United States and permit to be landed any Chinese laborer,” &c.

Mr. Hoar moved to amend by adding the following: “Provided, that this bill shall not apply to any skilled laborer who shall establish that he comes to this country without any contract beyond which his labor is the property of any person besides himself.”

Mr. Farley suggested that all the Chinese would claim to be skilled laborers.

Mr. Hoar replied that it would test whether the bill struck at coolies or at skilled labor.

The amendment was rejected—Yeas, 17; nays, 27.

Mr. Call moved to strike out the section which forfeits the vessel for the offense of the master. Lost.

Mr. Hoar moved to amend by inserting: “Provided that any laborer who shall receive a certificate from the U.S. Consul at the port where he shall embark that he is an artisan coming to this country at his own expense and of his own will, shall not be affected by this bill.” Lost—yeas 19, nays 24.

On motion of Mr. Miller, of California, the provision directing the removal of any Chinese unlawfully found in a Customs Collection district by the Collector, was amended to direct that he shall be removed to the place from whence he came.

On motion of Mr. Brown an amendment was adopted providing that the mark of a Chinese immigrant, duly attested by a witness, may be taken as his signature upon the certificate of resignation or registration issued to him.

The question then recurred on the amendment offered by Mr. Farley that hereafter no State Court or United States Court shall admit Chinese to citizenship.

Mr. Hawley, of Conn., on the following day spoke against what he denounced as “a bill of iniquities.”

On the 9th of March what proved a long and interesting debate was closed, the leading speech being made by Senator Jones (Rep.) of Nevada, in favor of the bill. After showing the disastrous effects of the influx of the Chinese upon the Pacific coast and answering some of the arguments of the opponents of restriction, Mr. Jones said that he had noticed that most of those favoring Chinese immigration were advocates of a high tariff to protect American labor. But, judging from indications, it is not the American laborer, but the lordly manufacturing capitalist who is to be protected as against the European capitalist, and who is to sell everything he has to sell in an American market, one in which other capitalists cannot compete with him, while he buys that which he has to buy—the labor of men—in the most open market. He demands for the latter free trade in its broadest sense, and would have not only free trade in bringing in laborers of our own race, but the Chinese, the most skilful and cunning laborers of the world. The laborer, however, is to buy from his capitalist master in a protective market, but that which he himself has to sell, his labor, and which he must sell every day (for he cannot wait, like the capitalist, for better times or travel here and there to dispose of it), he must sell in the openest market of the world. When the artisans of this country shall be made to understand that the market in which they sell the only thing they have to sell is an open one they will demand, as one of the conditions of their existence, that they shall have an open market in which to buy what they want. As the Senator from Massachusetts (Mr. Dawes) said he wanted the people to know that the bill was a blow struck at labor, Mr. Jones said he reiterated the assertion with the qualification that it was not a blow at our own, but at underpaid pauper labor. That cheap labor produces national wealth is a fallacy, as shown by the home condition of the 350,000,000 of Chinamen.

“Was the bringing of the little brown man a sort of counter balance to the trades unions of this country? If he may be brought here, why may not the products of his toil come in? Now, when the laborer is allowed to get that share from his labor that civilization has decided he shall have, the little brown man is introduced. He (Mr. Jones) believed in protection, and had no prejudice against the capitalist, but he would have capital and labor equally protected. Enlarging upon the consideration that the intelligence or creative genius of a country in overcoming obstacles, not its material resources, constitutes its wealth, and that the low wages of the Chinese, while benefiting individual employers, would ultimately impoverish the country by removing the stimulant to create labor-saving machinery and like inventions. Mr. Jones spoke of what he called the dearth of intellectual activity in the South in every department but one, that of politics.

“This was because of the presence of a servile race there. The absence of Southern names in the Patent Office is an illustration. We would not welcome the Africans here. Their presence was not a blessing to us, but an impediment in our way. The relations of the white and colored races of the South were now no nearer adjustment than they were years ago. He would prophesy that the African race would never be permitted to dominate any State of the South. The experiment to that end had been a dismal failure, and a failure not because we have not tried to make it succeed, but because laws away above human laws have placed the one race superior to and far above the other. The votes of the ignorant class might preponderate, but intellect, not numbers, is the superior force in this world. We clothed the African in the Union blue and the belief that he was one day to be free was the candle-light in his soul, but it is one thing to aspire to be free and another thing to have the intelligence and sterling qualities of character that can maintain free government. Mr. Jones here expressed his belief that, if left alone to maintain a government, the negro would gradually retrograde and go back to the methods of his ancestors. This, he added, may be heresy, but I believe it to be the truth. If, when the first ship-load of African slaves came to this country the belief had spread that they would be the cause of political agitation, a civil war, and the future had been foreseen, would they have been allowed to land?

“How much of this country would now be worth preserving if the North had been covered by Africans as is South Carolina to-day, in view of their non-assimilative character? The wisest policy would have been to exclude them at the outset. So we say of the Chinese to-day, he exclaimed, and for greater reason, because their skill makes them more formidable competitors than the negro. Subtle and adept in manipulation, the Chinaman can be put into almost any kind of a factory. His race is as obnoxious to us and as impossible for us to assimilate with as was the negro race. His race has outlived every other because it is homogeneous, and for that reason alone. It has imposed its religion and peculiarities upon its conquerors and still lived. If the immigration is not checked now, when it is within manageable limits, it will be too late to check it. What do we find in the condition of the Indian or the African to induce us to admit another race into our midst? It is because the Pacific coast favor our own civilization, not that of another race, that they discourage the coming of these people. They believe in the homogeneity of our race, and that upon this depends the progress of our institutions and everything on which we build our hopes.

Mr. Morill, (Rep.) of Vt., said he appreciated the necessity of restricting Chinese immigration, but desired that the bill should strictly conform to treaty requirements and be so perfected that questions arising under it might enable it to pass the ordeal of judicial scrutiny.

Mr. Sherman, (Rep.) of Ohio, referring to the passport system, said the bill adopted some of the most offensive features of European despotism. He was averse to hot haste in applying a policy foreign to the habits of our people, and regarded the measure as too sweeping in many of its provisions and as reversing our immigration policy.

After remarks by Messrs. Ingalls, Farley, Maxey, Brown and Teller, the amendment of Mr. Farley, which provides that hereafter no court shall admit Chinese to citizenship, was adopted—yeas 25, nays 22.

The following is the vote:

Yeas—Messrs. Bayard, Beck, Call, Cameron of Wisconsin, Cockrell, Coke, Fair, Farley, Garland, George, Gorman, Harris, Jackson, Jonas, Jones of Nevada, Maxey, Morgan, Pugh, Ransom, Slater, Teller, Vance, Vest, Voorhees and Walker—25.

Nays—Messrs. Aldrich, Allison, Blair, Brown, Conger, Davis of Illinois, Dawes, Edmunds, Frye, Hale, Hill of Colorado, Hoar, Ingalls, Lapham, McDill, McMillan, Miller of New York, Mitchell, Morrill, Plumb, Saunders and Sawyer—22.

Mr. Grover’s amendment construing the words “Chinese laborers,” wherever used in the act, to mean both skilled and unskilled laborers and Chinese employed in mining prevailed by the same vote—yeas 25, nays 22.

Mr. Brown, (Dem.) of Ga., moved to strike out the requirement for the production of passports by the permitted classes whenever demanded by the United States authorities. Carried on a viva voce vote, the Chair (Mr. Davis, of Illinois) creating no little merriment by announcing, “The nays are loud but there are not many of them.”

MR. INGALLS’ AMENDMENT.

Upon the bill being reported to the Senate from the Committee of the Whole Mr. Ingalls again moved to limit the suspension of the coming of Chinese laborers to ten years.

Mr. Jones, of Nevada, said this limit would hardly have the effect of allaying agitation on the subject as the discussion would be resumed in two or three years, and ten years, he feared, would not even be a long enough period to enable Congress intelligently to base upon it any future policy.

Mr. Miller, of California, also urged that the shorter period would not measurably relieve the business interest of the Pacific slope, inasmuch as the white immigrants, who were so much desired, would not come there if they believed the Chinese were to be again admitted in ten years. Being interrupted by Mr. Hoar, he asserted that that Senator and other republican leaders, as also the last republican nominee for President, had heretofore given the people of the Pacific slope good reason to believe that they would secure to them the relief they sought by the bill.

Mr. Hoar, (Rep.) of Mass., briefly replied.

The amendment was lost—yeas 20, nays 21.

The vote is as follows:

Yeas—Messrs. Aldrich, Allison, Blair, Brown, Conger, Davis of Illinois, Dawes, Edmunds, Frye, Hale, Hoar, Ingalls, Lapham, McDill, McMillan, Mahone, Morrill, Plumb, Sawyer and Teller—20.

Nays—Messrs. Bayard, Beck, Call, Cameron of Wisconsin, Coke, Fair, Farley, Garland, George, Gorman, Jackson, Jonas, Jones of Nevada, Miller of California, Miller of New York, Morgan, Ransom, Slater, Yance, Voorhees and Walker—21.

Messrs. Butler, Camden, McPherson, Johnston, Davis of West Virginia, Pendleton and Ransom were paired with Messrs. Hawley, Anthony, Sewell, Platt, Van Wyck, Windom and Sherman.

Messrs. Hampton, Pugh, Vest, Rollins and Jones of Florida were paired with absentees.

PASSAGE OF THE BILL.

The question recurred on the final passage of the bill, and Mr. Edmunds closed the debate. He would vote against the bill as it now stood, because he believed it to be an infraction of good faith as pledged by the last treaty; because he believed it injurious to the welfare of the people of the United States, and particularly the people on the Pacific coast, by preventing the development of our great trade with China.

The vote was then taken and the bill was passed—yeas 29, nays 15.

The following is the vote in detail:—

Yeas—Messrs. Bayard, Beck, Call, Cameron of Wisconsin, Cockrell, Coke, Fair, Farley, Garland, George, Gorman, Hale, Harris, Hill of Colorado, Jackson, Jonas, Jones of Nevada, Miller of California, Miller of New York, Morgan, Pugh, Ransom, Sawyer, Teller, Vance, Vest, Voorhees and Walker—29.

Nays—Messrs. Aldrich, Allison, Blair, Brown, Conger, Davis of Illinois, Dawes, Edmunds, Frye, Hoar, Ingalls, Lapham, McDill, McMillan and Morrill—15.

Pairs were announced of Messrs. Camden, Davis of West Virginia, Grover, Hampton, Butler, McPherson, Johnston, Jones of Florida and Pendleton in favor of the bill, with Messrs. Anthony, Windom, Van Wyck, Mitchell, Hawley, Sewell, Platt, Rollins and Sherman against it.

Mr. Frye, (Rep.) of Me., in casting his vote, stated that he was paired with Mr. Hill, of Georgia, on all political questions, but that he did not consider this a political question, and besides, had express permission from Senator Hill to vote upon it.

Mr. Mitchell, (Rep.) of Pa., in announcing his pair with Mr. Hampton stated that had it not been for that fact he would vote against the bill, regarding it as un-American and inconsistent with the principles which had obtained in the government.

The title of the bill was amended so as to read, “An act to execute certain treaty stipulations relating to Chinese,” though Mr. Hoar suggested that “execute” ought to be stricken out and “violate” inserted.

The Senate then, at twenty minutes to six, adjourned until to-morrow.

PROVISIONS OF THE BILL.

The Chinese Immigration bill as passed provides that from and after the expiration of ninety days after the passage of this act and until the expiration of twenty years after its passage the coming of Chinese laborers to the United States shall be suspended, and prescribes a penalty of imprisonment not exceeding one year and a fine of not more than $500 against the master of any vessel who brings any Chinese laborer to this country during that period. It further provides that the classes of Chinese excepted by the treaty from such prohibition—such as merchants, teachers, students, travelers, diplomatic agents and Chinese laborers who were in the United States on the 17th of November, 1880—shall be required, as a condition for their admission, to procure passports from the government of China personally identifying them and showing that they individually belong to one of the permitted classes, which passports must have been indorsed by the diplomatic representative of the United States in China or by the United States Consul at the port of departure. It also provides elaborate machinery for carrying out the purposes of the act, and additional sections prohibit the admission of Chinese to citizenship by any United States or State court and construes the words “Chinese laborers” to mean both skilled and unskilled laborers and Chinese employed in mining.

The sentiment in favor of the passage of this bill has certainly greatly increased since the control of the issue has passed to abler hands than those of Kearney and Kalloch, whose conduct intensified the opposition of the East to the measure, which in 1879 was denounced as “violating the conscience of the nation.” Mr. Blaine’s advocacy of the first bill limiting emigrants to fifteen on each vessel, at the time excited much criticism in the Eastern states, and was there a potent weapon against him in the nominating struggle for the Presidency in 1880; but on the other hand it is believed that it gave him strength in the Pacific States.

Chinese immigration and the attempt to restrict it presents a question of the gravest importance, and was treated as such in the Senate debate. The friends of the bill, under the leadership of Senators Miller and Jones, certainly stood in a better and stronger attitude than ever before.

The anti-Chinese bill passed the House just as it came from the Senate, after a somewhat extended debate, on the 23d of March, 1882. Yeas 167, nays 65, (party lines not being drawn) as follows:

Yeas—Messrs. Aikin, Aldrich, Armfield, Atkins, Bayne, Belford, Belmont, Berry, Bingham, Blackburn, Blanchard, Bliss, Blount, Brewer, Brumm, Buckner, Burrows, of Missouri; Butterworth, Cabell, Caldwell, Calkins, Campbell, Cannon, Casserley, Caswell, Chalmers, Chapman, Clark, Clements, Cobb, Converse, Cook, Cornell, Cox, of New York; Cox, of North Carolina; Covington, Cravens, Culbertson, Curtin, Darrell, Davidson; Davis, of Illinois; Davis, of Missouri; Demotte, Deuster, Dezendorf, Dibble, Dibrell, Dowd, Dugro, Ermentrout, Errett, Farwell, of Illinois; Finley, Flowers, Ford, Forney, Fulkerson, Garrison, Geddes, George, Gibson, Guenther, Gunter, Hammond, of Georgia; Hardy, Harmer, Harris, of New Jersey; Haseltine, Hatch, Hazelton, Heilman, Herndon, Hewitt, of New York; Hill, Hiscock, Hoblitzell, Hoge, Hollman, Horr, Houk, House, Hubbell, Hubbs, Hutchins, Jones, of Texas; Jones, of Arkansas; Jorgenson, Kenna, King, Klotz, Knott, Ladd, Leedom, Lewis, Marsh, Martin, Matson, McClure, McCook, McKenzie, McKinley, McLane, McMillan, Miller, Mills, of Texas; Money, Morey, Moulton, Murch, Mutchler, O’Neill, Pacheco, Page, Paul, Payson, Pealse, Phelps, Phister, Pound, Randall, Reagan, Rice of Missouri, Richardson, Robertson, Robinson, Rosecrans, Scranton, Shallenberger, Sherwin, Simonton, Singleton, of Mississippi, Smith of Pennsylvania, Smith of Illinois, Smith of New York, Sparks, Spaulding, Spear, Springer, Stockslager, Strait, Talbott, Thomas, Thompson of Kentucky, Tillman, Townsend of Ohio, Townsend of Illinois, Tucker, Turner of Georgia, Turner of Kentucky, Updegraff, of Ohio, Upson, Valentine, Vance, Van Horn, Warner, Washburne, Webber, Welborn, Whitthorne, Williams of Alabama, Willis, Willetts, Wilson, Wise of Pennsylvania, Wise of Virginia, and W. A. Wood of New York—167.

The nays were Messrs. Anderson, Barr, Bragg, Briggs, Brown, Buck, Camp, Candler, Carpenter, Chase, Crapo, Cullen, Dawes, Deering, Dingley, Dunnell, Dwight, Farwell of Iowa, Grant, Hall, Hammond, of New York, Hardenburgh, Harris, of Massachusetts, Haskell, Hawk, Henderson, Hepburn, Hooker, Humphrey, Jacobs, Jones of New Jersey, Joyce, Kasson, Ketchum, Lord, McCoid, Morse, Norcross, Orth, Parker, Ramsey, Rice of Ohio, Rice of Massachusetts, Rich, Richardson of New York, Ritchie, Robinson of Massachusetts, Russel, Ryan, Shultz, Skinner, Scooner, Stone, Taylor, Thompson of Iowa, Tyler, Updegraff of Iowa, Urner, Wadsworth, Wait, Walker, Ward, Watson, White and Williams of Wisconsin—65.

In the House the debate was participated in by Messrs. Richardson, of South Carolina; Wise and Brumm, of Pennsylvania; Joyce, of Vermont; Dunnell, of Minnesota; Orth, of Indiana; Sherwin, of Illinois; Hazelton, of Wisconsin; Pacheco, of California, and Townsend, of Illinois, and others. An amendment offered by Mr. Butterworth, of Ohio, reducing the period of suspension to fifteen years, was rejected. Messrs. Robinson, of Massachusetts; Curtin, of Pennsylvania, and Cannon, of Illinois, spoke upon the bill, the two latter supporting it. The speech of Ex-Governor Curtin was strong and attracted much attention. Mr. Page closed the debate in favor of the measure. An amendment offered by Mr. Kasson, of Iowa, reducing the time of suspension to ten years, was rejected—yeas 100, nays 131—and the bill was passed exactly as it came from the Senate by a vote of 167 to 65. The House then adjourned.

Our Merchant Marine.

An important current issue is the increase of the Navy and the improvement of the Merchant Marine, and to these questions the National Administration has latterly given attention. The New York Herald has given much editorial ability and research to the advocacy of an immediate change for the better in these respects, and in its issue of March 10th, 1882, gave the proceedings of an important meeting of the members of the United States Naval Institute held at Annapolis the day before, on which occasion a prize essay on the subject—“Our Merchant Marine; the Cause of its Decline and the Means to be Taken for its Revival,” was read. The subject was chosen nearly a year ago, because it was the belief of the members of the institute that a navy cannot exist without a merchant marine. The naval institute was organized in 1873 for the advancement of professional and scientific knowledge in the navy. It has on its roll 500 members, principally naval officers, and its proceedings are published quarterly. Rear Admiral C. R. P. Rodgers is president; Captain J. M. Ramsay, vice president; Lieutenant Commander C. M. Thomas, secretary; Lieutenant Murdock, corresponding secretary, and Paymaster R. W. Allen, treasurer. There were eleven competitors for the prize, which is of $100, and a gold medal valued at $50. The judges were Messrs. Hamilton Fish, A. A. Low and J. D. Jones. They awarded the prize to Lieutenant J. D. J. Kelley, U. S. N., whose motto was “Nil Clarius Æquore,” and designated Master C. T. Calkins, U. S. N., whose motto was “Mais il faut cultiver notre jardin” as next in the order of merit, and further mentioned the essays of Lieutenant R. Wainwright, United States Navy, whose motto was “Causa latet, vis est notissima,” and Lieutenant Commander J. E. Chadwick, United States Navy, whose motto was “Spes Meliora,” as worthy of honorable mention, without being entirely agreed as to their comparative merits.

STRIKING PASSAGES FROM THE PRIZE ESSAY.

From Lieut. Kelley’s prize essay many valuable facts can be gathered, and such of these as contain information of permanent value we quote:

“So far as commerce influences this country has a vital interest in the carrying trade, let theorists befog the cool air as they may. Every dollar paid for freight imported or exported in American vessels accrues to American labor and capital, and the enterprise is as much a productive industry as the raising of wheat, the spinning of fibre or the smelting of ore. Had the acquired, the ‘full’ trade of 1860 been maintained without increase $80,000,000 would have been added last year to the national wealth, and the loss from diverted shipbuilding would have swelled the sum to a total of $100,000,000.

“Our surplus products must find foreign markets, and to retain them ships controlled by and employed in exclusively American interests are essential instrumentalities. Whatever tends to stimulate competition and to prevent combination benefits the producer, and as the prices abroad establish values here, the barter we obtain for the despised one tenth of exports—$665,000,000 in 1880—determines the profit or loss of the remainder in the home market. During the last fiscal year 11,500,000 gross tons of grain, oil, cotton, tobacco, precious metals, &c., were exported from the United States, and this exportation increases at the rate of 1,500,000 tons annually; 3,800,000 tons of goods are imported, or in all about 15,000,000 tons constitute the existing commerce of this country.

“If only one-half of the business of carrying our enormous wealth of surplus products could be secured for American ships, our tonnage would be instantly doubled, and we would have a greater fleet engaged in a foreign trade, legitimately our own, than Great Britain has to-day. The United States makes to the ocean carrying trade its most valuable contribution, no other nation giving to commerce so many bulky tons of commodities to be transported those long voyages which in every age have been so eagerly coveted by marine peoples. Of the 17,000 ships which enter and clear at American ports every year, 4,600 seek a cargo empty and but 2,000 sail without obtaining it.

“Ships are profitable abroad and can be made profitable here, and in truth during the last thirty years no other branch of industry has made such progress as the carrying trade. To establish this there are four points of comparison—commerce, railways, shipping tonnage and carrying power of the world, limited to the years between 1850 and 1880:—

“In 1850, therefore, for every $5,000,000 of international commerce there were fifty-four miles of railway and a maritime carrying power of 9,900 tons; and in 1880 the respective ratios had risen to seventy-seven miles and 12,000 tons; this has saved one-fourth freight and brought producer and consumers into such contact that we no longer hear “of the earth’s products being wasted, of wheat rotting in La Mancha, wool being used to mend wads and sheep being burned for fuel in the Argentine Republic.” England has mainly profited by this enormous development, the shipping of the United Kingdom earning $300,000,000 yearly, and employing 200,000 seamen, whose industry is therefore equivalent to £300 per man, as compared with £190 for each of the factory operatives. The freight earned by all flags for sea-borne merchandise is $500,000,000, or about 8 per cent. of the value transported. Hence the toll which all nations pay to England for the carrying trade is equal to 4 per cent. (nearly) of the exported values of the earth’s products and manufactures; and pessimists who declare that ship owners are losing money or making small profits must be wrong, for the merchant marine is expanding every year.

“The maximum tonnage of this country at any time registered in the foreign trade was in 1861, and then amounted to 5,539,813 tons; Great Britain in the same year owning 5,895,369 tons, and all the other nations 5,800,767 tons. Between 1855 and 1860 over 1,300,000 American tons in excess of the country’s needs were employed by foreigners in trades with which we had no legitimate connection save as carriers. In 1851 our registered steamships had grown from the 16,000 tons of 1848 to 63,920 tons—almost equal to the 65,920 tons of England, and in 1855 this had increased to 115,000 tons and reached a maximum, for in 1862 we had 1,000 tons less. In 1855 we built 388 vessels, in 1856 306 vessels and in 1880 26 vessels—all for the foreign trade. The total tonnage which entered our ports in 1856 from abroad amounted to 4,464,038, of which American built ships constituted 3,194,375 tons, and all others but 1,259,762 tons. In 1880 there entered from abroad 15,240,534 tons, of which 3,128,374 tons were American and 12,112,000 were foreign—that is, in a ratio of seventy-five to twenty-five, or actually 65,901 tons less than when we were twenty-four years younger as a nation. The grain fleet sailing last year from the port of New York numbered 2,897 vessels, of which 1,822 were sailing vessels carrying 59,822,033 bushels, and 1,075 were steamers laden with 42,426,533 bushels, and among all these there were but seventy-four American sailing vessels and not one American steamer.

“While this poison of decay has been eating into our vitals the possibilities of the country in nearly every other industry have reached a plane of development beyond the dreams of the most enthusiastic theorizers. We have spread out in every direction and the promise of the future beggars imaginations attuned even to the key of our present and past development. We have a timber area of 560,000,000 acres, and across our Canadian border there are 900,000,000 more acres; in coal and iron production we are approaching the Old World.

During these thirty-seven years the relative increase has been in coal 300 to 2,900 per cent., in iron 200 to 400 per cent., and all in our favor. But this is not enough, for England, with a coal area less than either Pennsylvania or Kentucky, has coaling stations in every part of the world and our steamers cannot reach our California ports without the consent of the English producers. Even if electricity takes the place of steam it must be many years before the coal demand will cease, and to-day, of the 36,000,000 tons of coal required by the steamers of the world, three-fourths of it is obtained from Great Britain.

“It is unnecessary to wire-draw statistics, but it may, as a last word, be interesting to show, with all our development, the nationality and increase of tonnage entering our ports since 1856:—

“This,” writes Lindsay, “is surely not decadence, but defeat in a far nobler conflict than the wars for maritime supremacy between Rome and Carthage, consisting as it did in the struggle between the skill and industry of the people of two great nations.”

We have thus quoted the facts gathered from a source which has been endorsed by the higher naval authorities. Some reader will probably ask, “What relation have these facts to American politics?” We answer that the remedies proposed constitute political questions on which the great parties are very apt to divide. They have thus divided in the past, and parties have turned “about face” on similar questions. Just now the Democratic party inclines to “free ships” and hostility to subsidies—while the Republican party as a rule favors subsidies. Lieutenant Kelley summarized his proposed remedies in the two words: “free ships.”

Mr. Blaine would solve the problem by bounties, for this purpose enacting a general law that should ignore individuals and enforce a policy. His scheme provides that any man or company of men who will build in an American yard, with American material, by American mechanics, a steamship of 3,000 tons and sail her from any port of the United States to any foreign port, he or they shall receive for a monthly line a mail allowance of $25 per mile per annum for the sailing distance between the two ports; for a semi-monthly line $45 per mile, and for a weekly line $75 per mile. Should the steamer exceed three thousand tons, a small advance on these rates might be allowed; if less, a corresponding reduction, keeping three thousand as the average and standard. Other reformers propose a bounty to be given by the Government to the shipbuilder, so as to make the price of an American vessel the same as that of a foreign bought, equal, but presumably cheaper, ship.

Mr. Blaine represents the growing Republican view, but the actual party views can only be ascertained when bills covering the subject come up for consideration.

Current Politics.

We shall close this written history of the political parties of the United States by a brief statement of the present condition of affairs, as generally remarked by our own people, and by quoting the views of an interesting cotemporaneous English writer.

President Arthur’s administration has had many difficulties to contend with. The President himself is the legal successor of a beloved man, cruelly assassinated, whose well-rounded character and high abilities had won the respect even of those who defamed him in the heat of controversy, while they excited the highest admiration of those who shared his political views and thoughts. Stricken down before he had time to formulate a policy, if it was ever his intention to do so, he yet showed a proper appreciation of his high responsibilities, and had from the start won the kindly attention of the country. Gifted with the power of saying just the right thing at the right moment, and saying it with all the grace and beauty of oratory, no President was better calculated to make friends as he moved along, than Garfield. The manifestations of factional feeling which immediately preceded his assassination, but which cannot for a moment be intelligently traced to that cause, made the path of his successor far more difficult than if he had been called to the succession by the operation of natural causes. That he has met these difficulties with rare discretion, all admit, and at this writing partisan interest and dislike are content to “abide a’ wee” before beginning an assault. He has sought no changes in the Cabinet, and thus through personal and political considerations seems for the time to have surrendered a Presidential prerogative freely admitted by all who understand the wisdom of permitting an executive officer to seek the advice of friends of his own selection. Mr. Blaine and Mr. MacVeagh, among the ablest of the late President’s Cabinet, were among the most emphatic in insisting upon the earliest possible exercise of this prerogative—the latter upon its immediate exercise. Yet it has been withheld in several particulars, and the Arthur administration has sought to unite, wherever divided (and now divisions are rare), the party which called it into existence, while at the same time it has by careful management sought to check party strife at least for a time, and devoted its attention to the advancement of the material interests of the country. Appointments are fairly distributed among party friends, not divided as between factions; for such a division systematically made would disrupt any party. It would prove but an incentive to faction for the sake of a division of the spoils. No force of politics is or ought to be better understood in America than manufactured disagreements with the view to profitable compromises. Fitness, recognized ability, and adequate political service seem to constitute the reasons for Executive appointments at this time.

The Democratic party, better equipped in the National Legislature than it has been for years—with men like Hill, Bayard, Pendleton, Brown, Voorhees, Lamar and Garland in the Senate—Stephens, Randall, Hewitt, Cox, Johnson in the House—with Tilden, Thurman, Wallace and Hancock in the background—is led with rare ability, and has the advantage of escaping responsibilities incident to a majority party. It has been observed that this party is pursuing the traditional strategy of minorities in our Republic. It has partially refused a further test on the tariff issue, and is seeking a place in advance of the Republicans on refunding questions—both popular measures, as shown in all recent elections. It claims the virtue of sympathy with the Mormons by questioning the propriety of legal assaults upon the liberty of conscience, while not openly recording itself as a defender of the crime of polygamy. As a solid minority it has at least in the Senate yielded to the appeal of the States on the Pacific slope, and favored the abridgment of Chinese immigration. On this question, however, the Western Republican Senators as a rule were equally active in support of the Miller Bill, so that whatever the result, the issue can no longer be a political one in the Pacific States. The respectable support which the measure has latterly received has cast out of the struggle the Kearneys and Kallochs, and if there be demagoguery on either side, it comes in better dress than ever before.

Doubtless the parties will contest their claims to public support on their respective histories yet a while longer. Party history has served partisan purposes an average of twenty years, when with that history recollections of wars are interwoven, and the last war having been the greatest in our history, the presumption is allowable that it will be freely quoted so long as sectional or other forms of distrust are observable any where. When these recollections fail, new issues will have to be sought or accepted. In the mere search for issues the minority ought always to be the most active; but their wise appropriation, after all, depends upon the wisdom and ability of leadership. It has ever been thus, and ever will be. This is about the only political prophecy the writer is willing to risk—and in risking this he but presents a view common to all Americans who claim to be “posted” in the politics of their country.

What politicians abroad think of our “situation” is well told, though not always accurately, by a distinguished writer in the January (1882) number of “The London Quarterly Review.” From this we quote some very attractive paragraphs, and at the same time escape the necessity of descriptions and predictions generally believed to be essential in rounding off a political volume, but which are always dangerous in treating of current affairs. Speaking of the conduct of both parties on the question of Civil Service Reform, the writer says:

“What have they done to overthrow the celebrated Jacksonian precept ‘to the victors belongs the spoils?’ What, in fact, is it possible for them to do under the present system? The political laborer holds that he is worthy of his hire, and if nothing is given to him, nothing will he give in return. There are tens of thousands of offices at the bestowal of every administration, and the persons who have helped to bring that administration into power expect to receive them. ‘In Great Britain,’ once remarked the American paper which enjoys the largest circulation in the country, ‘the ruling classes have it all to themselves, and the poor man rarely or never gets a nibble at the public crib. Here we take our turn. We know that, if our political rivals have the opportunity to-day, we shall have it to-morrow. This is the philosophy of the whole thing compressed into a nutshell.’ If President Arthur were to begin to-day to distribute offices to men who were most worthy to receive them, without reference to political services, his own party would rebel, and assuredly his path would not be strewn with roses. He was himself a victim of a gross injustice perpetrated under the name of reform. He filled the important post of Collector of the Port of New York, and filled it to the entire satisfaction of the mercantile community. President Hayes did not consider General Arthur sufficiently devoted to his interests, and he removed him in favor of a confirmed wire-puller and caucus-monger, and the administration papers had the address to represent this as the outcome of an honest effort to reform the Civil Service. No one really supposed that the New York Custom House was less a political engine than it had been before. The rule of General Arthur had been, in point of fact, singularly free from jobbery and corruption, and not a breath of suspicion was ever attached to his personal character. If he had been less faithful in the discharge of his difficult duties, he would have made fewer enemies. He discovered several gross cases of fraud upon the revenue, and brought the perpetrators to justice; but the culprits were not without influence in the press, and they contrived to make the worse appear the better cause. Their view was taken at second-hand by many of the English journals, and even recently the public here were gravely assured that General Arthur represented all that was base in American politics, and moreover that he was an enemy of England, for he had been elected by the Irish vote. The authors of these foolish calumnies did not perceive that, if their statements had been correct, General Garfield, whom they so much honored, must also have been elected by the Irish vote; for he came to power on the very same ‘ticket.’ In reality, the Irish vote may be able to accomplish many things in America, but we may safely predict that it will never elect a President. General Arthur had not been many weeks in power, before he was enabled to give a remarkable proof of the injustice that had been done to him in this particular respect. The salute of the English flag at Yorktown is one of the most graceful incidents recorded in American history, and the order originated solely with the President. A man with higher character or, it may be added, of greater accomplishments and fitness for his office, never sat in the Presidential chair. His first appointments are now admitted to be better than those which were made by his predecessor for the same posts. Senator Frelinghuysen, the new Secretary of State, or Foreign Secretary, is a man of great ability, of most excellent judgment, and of the highest personal character. He stands far beyond the reach of all unworthy influences. Mr. Folger, the Secretary of the Treasury, possesses the confidence of the entire country, and the nomination of the new Attorney-General was received with universal satisfaction. All this little accords with the dark and forbidding descriptions of President Arthur which were placed before the public here on his accession to office. It is surely time that English writers became alive to the danger of accepting without question the distorted views which they find ready to their hands in the most bigoted or most malicious of American journals.

“Democrats and Republicans, then, alike profess to be in favor of a thorough reform in the Civil Service, and at the present moment there is no other very prominent question which could be used as a test for the admission of members into either party. The old issue, which no one could possibly mistake, is gone. How much the public really care for the new one, it would be a difficult point to decide. A Civil Service system, such as that which we have in England, would scarcely be suited to the “poor man,” who, as the New York paper says, thinks he has a right occasionally to ‘get a nibble at the public crib.’ If a man has worked hard to bring his party into power, he is apt, in the United States, to think that he is entitled to some ‘recognition,’ and neither he nor his friends would be well pleased if they were told that, before anything could be done for him, it would be necessary to examine him in modern languages and mathematics. Moreover, a service such as that which exists in England requires to be worked with a system of pensions; and pensions, it is held in America, are opposed to the Republican idea.^[57] If it were not for this objection, it may be presumed that some provision would have been made for more than one of the ex-Presidents, whose circumstances placed them or their families much in need of it. President Monroe spent his last years in wretched circumstances, and died bankrupt. Mrs. Madison ‘knew what it was to want bread.’ A negro servant, who had once been a slave in the family, used furtively to give her ‘small sums’—they must have been very small—out of his own pocket. Mr. Pierce was, we believe, not far removed from indigence; and it has been stated that after Andrew Johnson left the White House, he was reduced to the necessity of following his old trade. General Grant was much more fortunate; and we have recently seen that the American people have subscribed for Mrs. Garfield a sum nearly equal to £70,000. But a pension system for Civil Servants is not likely to be adopted. Permanence in office is another principle which has found no favor with the rank and file of either party in America, although it has sometimes been introduced into party platforms for the sake of producing a good effect. The plan of ‘quick rotation’ is far more attractive to the popular sense. Divide the spoils, and divide them often. It is true that the public indignation is sometimes aroused, when too eager and rapacious a spirit is exhibited. Such a feeling was displayed in 1873, in consequence of an Act passed by Congress increasing the pay of its own members and certain officers of the Government. Each member of Congress was to receive $7,500 a year, or £1,500. The sum paid before that date, down to 1865, was $5000 a year, or £1000, and ‘mileage’ free added—that is to say, members were entitled to be paid twenty cents a mile for traveling expenses to and from Washington. This Bill soon became known as the ‘Salary Grab’ Act, and popular feeling against it was so great that it was repealed in the following Session, and the former pay was restored. As a general rule, however, the ‘spoils’ system has not been heartily condemned by the nation; if it had been so condemned, it must have fallen long ago.

“President Arthur has been admonished by his English counsellors to take heed that he follows closely in the steps of his predecessor. General Garfield was not long enough in office to give any decided indications of the policy which he intended to pursue; but, so far as he had gone, impartial observers could detect very little difference between his course of conduct in regard to patronage and that of former Presidents. He simply preferred the friends of Mr. Blaine to the friends of Mr. Conkling; but Mr. Blaine is a politician of precisely the same class as Mr. Conkling—both are men intimately versed in all the intricacies of ‘primaries,’ the ‘caucus,’ and the general working of the ‘machine.’ They are precisely the kind of men which American politics, as at present practised and understood, are adapted to produce. Mr. Conkling, however, is of more imperious a disposition than Mr. Blaine; the first disappointment or contradiction turns him from a friend into an enemy. President Garfield removed the Collector of New York—the most lucrative and most coveted post in the entire Union—and instead of nominating a friend of Mr. Conkling’s for the vacancy, he nominated a friend of Mr. Blaine’s. Now Mr. Conkling had done much to secure New York State for the Republicans, and thus gave them the victory; and he thought himself entitled to better treatment than he received. But was it in the spirit of true reform to remove the Collector, against whom no complaint had been made, merely for the purpose of creating a vacancy, and then of putting a friend of Mr. Blaine’s into it—a friend, moreover, who had been largely instrumental in securing General Garfield’s own nomination at Chicago?^[58] Is this all that is meant, when the Reform party talk of the great changes which they desire to see carried out? Again, the new President has been fairly warned by his advisers in this country, that he must abolish every abuse, new or old, connected with the distribution of patronage. If he is to execute this commission, not one term of office, nor three terms, will be sufficient for him. Over every appointment there will inevitably arise a dispute; if a totally untried man is chosen, he will be suspected as a wolf coming in sheep’s clothing; if a well known partizan is nominated, he will be denounced as a mere tool of the leaders, and there will be another outcry against ‘machine politics.’ ‘One party or other,’ said an American journal not long ago, ‘must begin the work of administering the Government on business principles,’ and the writer admitted that the work would ‘cost salt tears to many a politician.’ The honor of making this beginning has not yet been sought for with remarkable eagerness by either party; but seems to be deemed necessary to promise that something shall be done, and the Democrats, being out of power, are naturally in the position to bid the highest. The reform will come, as we have intimated, when the people demand it; it cannot come before, for few, indeed, are the politicians in the United States who venture to trust themselves far in advance of public opinion. And even of that few, there are some who have found out, by hard experience, that there is little honor or profit to be gained by undertaking to act as pioneers.

“It is doubtless a step in advance, that both parties now admit the absolute necessity of devising measures to elevate the character of the public service, to check the progress of corruption, and to introduce a better class of men into the offices which are held under the Government. The necessity of great reforms in these respects has been avowed over and over again by most of the leading journals and influential men in the country. The most radical of the Republicans, and the most conservative of the Democrats, are of one mind on this point. Mr. Wendell Phillips, an old abolitionist and Radical, once publicly declared that Republican government in cities had been a complete failure.^[59] An equally good Radical, the late Mr. Horace Greeley, made the following still more candid statement:—‘There are probably at no time less than twenty thousand men in this city [New York] who would readily commit a safe murder for a hundred dollars, break open a house for twenty, and take a false oath for five. Most of these are of European birth, though we have also native miscreants who are ready for any crime that will pay.’^[60] Strong testimony against the working of the suffrage—and it must have been most unwilling testimony—was given in 1875 by a politician whose long familiarity with caucuses and ‘wire-pulling’ in every form renders him an undeniable authority. ‘Let it be widely proclaimed,’ he wrote, ‘that the experience and teachings of a republican form of government prove nothing so alarmingly suggestive of and pregnant with danger as that cheap suffrage involves and entails cheap representation.’^[61] Another Republican, of high character, has stated that ‘the methods of politics have now become so repulsive, the corruption so open, the intrigues and personal hostilities are so shameless, that it is very difficult to engage in them without a sense of humiliation.’”^[62]

Passing to another question, and one worthy of the most intelligent discussion, but which has never yet taken the shape of a political demand or issue in this country, this English writer says:

“Although corruption has been suspected at one time or other in almost every Department of the Government, the Presidential office has hitherto been kept free from its stain. And yet, by an anomaly of the Constitution, the President has sometimes been exposed to suspicion, and still more frequently to injustice and misrepresentation, in consequence of the practical irresponsibility of his Cabinet officers. They are his chief advisers in regard to the distribution of places, as well as in the higher affairs of State, and the discredit of any mismanagement on their part falls upon him. It is true that he chooses them, and may dismiss them, with the concurrence of the Senate; but, when once appointed, they are beyond reach of all effective criticism—for newspaper attacks are easily explained by the suggestion of party malice. They cannot be questioned in Congress, for they are absolutely prohibited from sitting in either House.

For months together it is quite possible for the Cabinet to pursue a course which is in direct opposition to the wishes of the people. This was seen, among other occasions, in 1873–4, when Mr. Richardson was Secretary of the Treasury, and at a time when his management of the finances caused great dissatisfaction. At last a particularly gross case of negligence, to use no harsher word, known as the ‘Sanborn contracts,’ caused his retirement; that is to say, the demand for his withdrawal became so persistent and so general, that the President could no longer refuse to listen to it. His objectionable policy might have been pursued till the end of the Presidential term, but for the accidental discovery of a scandal, which exhausted the patience of his friends as well as his enemies. Now had Mr. Richardson been a member of either House, and liable to be subjected to a rigorous cross-questioning as to his proceedings, the mismanagement of which he was accused, and which was carried on in the dark, never could have occurred. Why the founders of the Constitution should have thrown this protection round the persons who happen to fill the chief offices of State, is difficult to conjecture, but the clause is clear:—‘No person holding any office under the United States shall be a member of either House during his continuance in office.’^[63] Mr. Justice Story declares that this provision ‘has been vindicated upon the highest grounds of public authority,’ but he also admits that, as applied to the heads of departments, it leads to many evils. He adds a warning which many events of our own time have shown to be not unnecessary:—‘if corruption ever eats its way silently into the vitals of this Republic, it will be because the people are unable to bring responsibility home to the Executive through his chosen Ministers. They will be betrayed when their suspicions are most lulled by the Executive, under the guise of an obedience to the will of Congress.’^[64] The inconveniences occasioned to the public service under the present system are very great. There is no official personage in either House to explain the provisions of any Bill, or to give information on pressing matters of public business. Cabinet officers are only brought into communication with the nation when they send in their annual reports, or when a special report is called for by some unusual emergency. Sometimes the President himself goes down to the Capitol to talk over the merits of a Bill with members. The Department which happens to be interested in any particular measure puts it under the charge of some friend of the Administration, and if a member particularly desires any further information respecting it he may, if he thinks proper, go to the Department and ask for it. But Congress and Ministers are never brought face to face. It is possible that American ‘Secretaries’ may escape some of the inconvenience which English Ministers are at times called upon to undergo; but the most capable and honest of them forfeit many advantages, not the least of which is the opportunity of making the exact nature of their work known to their countrymen, and of meeting party misrepresentations and calumnies in the most effectual way. In like manner, the incapable members of the Cabinet would not be able, under a different system, to shift the burden of responsibility for their blunders upon the President. No President suffered more in reputation for the faults of others than General Grant. It is true that he did not always choose his Secretaries with sufficient care or discrimination, but he was made to bear more than a just proportion of the censure which was provoked by their mistakes. And it was not in General Grant’s disposition to defend himself. In ordinary intercourse he was sparing of his words, and could never be induced to talk about himself, or to make a single speech in defense of any portion of his conduct. The consequence was, that his second term of office was far from being worthy of the man who enjoyed a popularity, just after the war, which Washington himself might have envied, and who is still, and very justly, regarded with respect and gratitude for his memorable services in the field.