Autobiography of Seventy Years Part 45

2. A fair price was to be paid for supplies for the use of the Army in the field (1) to loyal persons, (2) to disloyal persons, if it were shown by a certificate of the officer who took them, or otherwise, that they were taken with the purpose of paying for them. Inhabitants of States in rebellion were presumed to be disloyal, unless their loyalty were shown affirmatively.

3. A like rule was followed in determining the questions of payment for the use of buildings, occupied as soldiers'

quarters, or for other official purposes, by the Army, or injury to them caused by such occupation.

4. Property taken by the Army was paid for at its actual value to the Government, and not necessarily at its value to owner.

5. No claim accrued by reason of the destruction of property whether of loyal or disloyal persons, to prevent its falling into the hands of the enemy.

6. An exception to the principle above stated, founded not on any strict principle or established law or conduct of Governments, but on sound public policy, was adopted in the case of inst.i.tutions of charity, education and religion.

I first affirmed that doctrine in the House of Representatives, in the case of the College of William and Mary of Virginia, against the almost unanimous opinion of my political a.s.sociates.

I thought that such a principle would be a great protection to such inst.i.tutions in all future wars, that it would tend to heal the bitter recollections of the Civil War and the estrangements then existing between the sections of the country.

I have lived to see the doctrine thoroughly established, the College of William and Mary rebuilt by the Government, and every church and school and hospital which suffered by the military operations of the Civil War reimbursed, if it has presented its claim.

If I have been able to render any public service, I look upon that I have rendered upon the Committee on Claims, although it has attracted but little attention, and is not of a nature to make great public impression, as perhaps more valuable than any other.

The duties of that Committee, when I was upon it, were very laborious. I find that in the first session of the first Congress, I made reports in seventeen cases, each of them involving a study of the evidence, a finding of the facts, and an investigation, statement and consideration of important principles of law, in most cases to be applied to a novel state of facts. I think that winter's work upon the Committee on Claims alone required more individual labor than that required to perform the duties of his office by any Judge of a State Court, of which I have any knowledge; and that the amount of money, and importance of the principles involved very far exceeded that involved in the aggregate of the cases in the Supreme Court of any State for a like period.

I was a member of the Committee on the Library for several years. For two or three years I was its acting Chairman during the summer, and in that capacity had to approve the accounts of the Congressional Library, and the National Botanic Garden.

To that Committee were referred applications for the erection of monuments and statues and similar works throughout the country, including the District of Columbia, and the purchase of works for art for the Government. They used to have a regular appropriation of fifteen thousand dollars annually, to be expended at their discretion, for works of art. That appropriation was stopped some years ago.

My service on that Committee brought me into very delightful relations with Mr. Sherman and Mr. Evarts. I introduced and got through a bill for a monument and statue to Lafayette and, as acting Chairman of the Library Committee was, with the Secretary of War and the Architect of the Capitol, a member of the Commission who selected the artists and contracted for the statue and monument. A resolution to build the monument pa.s.sed the Continental Congress, but was not carried into effect by reason of the poverty of the Confederacy in that day. In Washington's first Administration somebody called attention to the fact that the monument had not been built, to which my grandfather, Roger Sherman, answered: "The vote is the monument." I was led by the anecdote to do what I could to have the long-neglected duty performed. The statue and monument, by two French artists of great genius, now stands at one corner of Lafayette Square. The statue of Rochambeau has just been placed at another corner of that square.

I was also fortunate enough, when I was on the Library Committee, to secure the purchase of the Franklin Papers for the Department of State. William Temple Franklin, the Doctor's son, died in London, leaving at his lodgings a ma.s.s of valuable correspondence of his father, and other papers ill.u.s.trating his life, especially in France. They were discovered in the possession of the keeper of his lodgings, many years after, by Henry Stevens, the famous antiquary and dealer in rare books. Stevens had got into difficulties about money, and had pledged the collection for about twenty-five thousand dollars. It had been offered to the Government. Several Secretaries of State, in succession, including Mr. Blaine, had urged Congress to buy it, but without avail.

One day Mr. Dwight, Librarian of the State Department, came to see me at the Capitol about some not very important matter.

While I was talking with him, he said that the one thing he wished most was that Congress would buy the Franklin Papers.

He added "I think if I were to die, the words 'Franklin Papers,'

would be found engraved on my heart." I said I thought I could accomplish the purchase. So I introduced a resolution, had it referred to the Library Committee, and we had a hearing.

It happened that Edward Everett Hale, who probably knew as much about the subject and the value of the papers as anybody, was then in Washington. At the same time John Russell Bartlett was here, who had charge of the famous Brown Collection in Rhode Island. They were both summoned before the Committee, and on their statement the Committee voted to recommend the pa.s.sage of the resolution. It pa.s.sed the Senate. The provision was then put upon the Sundry Civil Appropriation bill. With it, however, was a provision to buy the Rochambeau Papers, which had been sent to this county on the a.s.surance of Mr.

Sherman, who was Chairman of the Committee on the Library, that Congress would purchase them. There was also a provision for buying the papers of Vans Murray, Envoy to France in Napoleon's time; and for buying two other quite important ma.n.u.script collections. When the bill got to the House, all these things were stricken out. The Conference Committee had a great strife over them, the House refusing to put any of them in, and the Senate insisting upon all. At last they compromised, agreeing to take them alternately, including the first one, rejecting the second; including the third, rejecting the fourth, and so on. In this lottery the Franklin Papers were saved, and Mr. Sherman's Rochambeau Papers were stricken out, much to his disgust. But he got an appropriation for them in a subsequent Congress.

The Committee on Rules have the control of the Capitol, and the not very important power of a.s.signing the rooms to the different Committees. Beyond that they have not, in general, much to do. There have been few important amendments to the rules in my time, of which I was the author of two.

One of them provides that an amendment to any bill may be laid on the table, on special motion, without carrying the bill itself with it. The motion to lay on the table not being debatable, this enables the Senate to dispose promptly of a good many propositions, which otherwise would consume a good deal of time in debate. There had been such a provision as to appropriation bills before. When I first suggested this change, Mr. Edmunds exclaimed in a loud whisper, "we won't do that." But I believe he approved it finally.

The other was an amendment relating to order in debate, made necessary by a very disagreeable occurrence, which ended in the exchange of blows in the Senate, by two Senators from the same State. I had long in mind to propose, when the occasion came, the last clause of this amendment. If Senators are to be considered to any degree as amba.s.sadors of their States, it would seem proper that they should not be compelled to hear any reproachful language about the State they represent.

Such attacks have given rise to a great deal of angry debate in both Houses of Congress.

The following is the amendment:

No Senator in debate shall directly or indirectly by any form of words impute to any Senator or to other Senators any conduct or motive unworthy or unbecoming a Senator.

No Senator in debate shall refer offensively to any State of the Union.

I was also for several years a member of the Committee on Woman Suffrage. That Committee used to hear the advocates of Woman Suffrage who liked to have their arguments reported and sent through the mails as public doc.u.ments under the franking privilege.

Although a very decided advocate of the extension of the right of suffrage to women, I have not thought that it was likely that that would be accomplished by an amendment to the National Const.i.tution, or indeed that it was wise to attempt to do it in that way. The Const.i.tution cannot be amended without the consent of three-fourths of the States.

If a majority can be got in three-fourths of the States for such an amendment, their people would be undoubtedly ready to amend their State Const.i.tutions by which, so far as each State is concerned, the object would be accomplished. So it seems hardly worth while to take the trouble of plying Congress with pet.i.tions or arguments.

But my longest service upon Committees has been upon the two great Law Committees of the Senate,--the Committee on Privileges and Elections, and the Committee on the Judiciary.

I have been a member of the Committee on Privileges and Elections since March 9, 1877. I was Chairman for more than ten years.

I have been a member of the Committee on the Judiciary since December, 1884, and have been its Chairman since December, 1891, except for two years, from March 4, 1893, to March 4, 1895, when the Democrats held the Senate.

While I was Chairman it was of course my duty to represent and defend in debate the action of these Committees on all the important questions referred to them. I have also, by reason of my long service, now more than twenty-six years, on the Committee of Privileges and Elections, been expected to take part in the discussion of all the Election cases, and of all matters affecting the privileges and dignity of the Senate, and of individual Senators. The investigations into alleged outrages at the South, and wrongs connected with them, have been conducted by that Committee. So it has been my fortune to be prominent in nearly all of the matters that have come up in the Senate since I have been a member of it, which have excited angry sectional or political feeling. Matters of finance and revenue and protection, while deeply interesting the people, do not, in general, cause angry feeling on the part of the political leaders. To this remark, the state of mind of our friends, whom we are in the habit of calling Mugwumps, and who like to call themselves Independents, is an exception. They have commonly discussed the profoundest and subtlest questions with an angry and bitter personality which finds its parallel only in the theological treatises of the dark ages. It is lucky for some of us that they have not had the fires of Smithfield or of the Inquisition at their command.

So, at various times in my life, I have been the object of the most savage denunciation, sometimes from the Independent newspapers, sometimes from the Democratic newspapers, especially those in the South, and sometimes from the press of my own party whom I have offended by differing from a majority of my political friends.

But such things are not to be taken too seriously. I have found in general that the men who deliver themselves with most bitterness and fury on political questions are the men who change their minds most easily, and are in general the most placable, and not uncommonly are the most friendly and pleasant men in the world in private intercourse. I account it my great good fortune that, although I have never flinched from uttering whatever I thought, and acting according to my own conviction of public duty, that, as I am approaching four score years, I have, almost without an exception, the good will of my countrymen, certainly if I may trust what they tell me when I meet in private intercourse men from different parts of the country, or what they are saying of me just now in the press. But it is quite possible that I may say or do something before I get through which will change all that.

So whether my sunset, which is to come very soon, is to be clear or under a cloud, it is impossible even to guess.

During this period I have taken a leading part in all questions affecting the security of the right of suffrage conferred by the Const.i.tution of the United States on the colored people, of honesty in elections, of questions affecting disputed t.i.tles to seats in the Senate, and the extension of suffrage to women.

A very interesting question, now happily almost forgotten, came up at the December session of 1878, and was renewed at the following March session of 1879.

In 1878 the Democrats had a majority in the House of Representatives, while the Republicans had the Presidency and the Senate. In March, 1879, there was a Democratic majority in the Senate and in the House, but a Republican President. The Democratic Party chafed exceedingly under the National laws for securing the purity of elections and for securing impartial juries in the courts of the United States. In the December session of 1878, the House inserted a provision repealing these laws.

They insisted, in conference, on keeping in this provision, and refused to consent to the pa.s.sage of the Executive, Legislative and Judicial Appropriation Bill, unless the Senate and the President would yield to their demand. Mr. Beck of Kentucky, one of the conferrees on the part of the Senate, representing what was then the Democratic minority, but what became at the March session the majority, stated the doctrine of the House, as announced by their conferrees--adding that he agreed with it--that unless the States should be allowed to conduct their own elections in their own way, free from all Federal interference, they would refuse under their Const.i.tutional right to make appropriations to carry on the Government.

This was in defiance of the express provision of the Const.i.tution that Congress might at any time alter the regulations prescribed by the State Legislatures as to time, place and manner of holding elections for Senators and Representatives.

Mr. Beck declared that that course would be adopted and adhered to, no matter what came of the Appropriation Bills. He was followed by Mr. Thurman of Ohio, the leader of his party in the Senate, and Chairman of the Judiciary when it came into power. He said it was a question upon which he had thought long and deeply, one of the gravest which ever arose for the consideration of the American Congress, and added:

"We claim the right, which the House of Commons in England established after two centuries of contest, to say that we will not grant the money of the people unless there is a redress of grievances . . . . England was saved from despotism and an absolute monarchy by the exercise of the power of the House of Commons to refuse supplies except upon conditions that grievances should be redressed . . . . It is a mistake to suppose that it was a fight simply between the Throne and the Commons; it was equally a fight between the Lords and the Commons; and the result of two centuries of contest in England was the rule that the House of Lords had no right to amend a Money Bill."

This startling proposition claimed that it was in the power of the House of Representatives to control the entire legislation of the country. It could, if the doctrine of Mr. Beck and Mr. Thurman had prevailed, impose any condition upon an appropriation for the Judges' salaries, for the salaries of all executive officers, for carrying on the courts, and for all other functions of the Government.

I made a careful study of this question and satisfied the Senate,--and I think I satisfied Mr. Beck and Mr. Thurman, --that the doctrine had no support in this country, and had no support even in England. An examination of Parliamentary history, which I studied carefully, afforded the material for giving a narrative of every occasion when the Commons exerted their power of withholding supplies as a means of compelling a redress of grievances, from the Conquest to the present hour. I did not undertake in a speech in the Senate to recite the authorities in full. But I summed up the result of the English and American doctrine in a few sentences, which may be worth recording here.

"First. The Commons never withheld the supplies as a means of coercing the a.s.sent of the Crown or the Lords to _legislation._

"Second. The supplies withheld were not the supplies needed for the ordinary functions of government, to which the ordinary revenues of the Crown were sufficient, but were for extraordinary occasions, as to pay the King's debts, or to conduct foreign wars.

"Third. That when the hereditary revenues of the Crown, or those settled on the King for life at the beginning of his reign, ceased to be sufficient for the maintenance of government and for public defence, the practice of withholding supplies ceased.

"Fourth. There has been no instance since the Revolution of 1688 of attaching general legislation to a bill for raising or appropriating money, and scarcely, if ever, such an instance before that date. When such an attempt has been made it has been resisted, denounced and abandoned, and the English Const.i.tutional authorities, without exception, are agreed that such a proceeding is unwarrantable, revolutionary and destructive of the English Const.i.tution.

"It is true that the luxury or ambition of Kings or their indulgent bounty to their favorites led them to a.s.semble Parliament and to ask additional supplies from their subjects.

It is also true that these requests furnished the occasion to the Commons to stipulate for redress of grievances. But the grievances so redressed had no relation to the laws of the Realm. These laws were made or altered by the free a.s.sent of the three estates in whom the law-making power vested by the Const.i.tution. The grievances of which the Commons sought redress, whether from Tudor, Plantagenet or Stuart, were the improper use of prerogatives, the granting of oppressive monopolies, the waging of costly foreign wars, the misconduct of favorites and the like. The improvident expenditure of the royal patrimony, the granting the crown land or pensions to unworthy persons, is a frequent ground of complaint.

"But there is a broader and simpler distinction between the two cases. The mistake, the gross, palpable mistake, which these gentlemen fall into in making this comparison, lies at the threshold. The House of Commons, in its discretion, used to grant, and sometimes now grants, supplies to the King.

The American Congress, in its discretion, never grants supplies to the President under any circ.u.mstances whatever. The only appropriation of the public money to which that term can properly apply, the provision for the President's compensation, is by design and of purpose placed wholly out of the power of Congress. The provision is peremptory that--

"'The President shall, at stated times, receive for his services a compensation, which shall neither be increased nor diminished during the period for which he shall have been elected, and he shall not receive within that period any other emolument from the United States, or any of them.'

"Alexander Hamilton, in No. 72 of the 'Federalist,' declares that the very purpose of this enactment is to put it beyond the power of Congress to compel the President 'to surrender at discretion his judgment to their inclinations.'"