Twenty Years of Congress Volume Ii Part 42

The report of the Committee on Rules, which had already been submitted by General Garfield, was now taken up. The proposed rules embraced simply verbal changes from those of 1876, and only one change of substance. This was an addition to rule eight, relating to cases where the vote of a State is divided. The old rule prescribed that where the vote was divided the chairman of the delegation should announce the number of votes cast for any candidate or for or against any proposition. The Committee reported in favor of adding the following: "but if exception is taken by any delegate to the correctness of such announcement by the chairman of his delegation, the President of the Convention shall direct the roll of members of such delegation to be called, and the result shall be recorded in accordance with the votes individually given." This amendment was designed to protect the vote of the individual delegate. It was a final blow at the Unit Rule, and aimed to reduce the precedents and decisions of former conventions to plain and unambiguous language.

The minority of the Committee, representing eleven States, reported against any change of rule. As soon, however, as the two reports were submitted to the Convention, and before they were discussed, General Sharpe of New York, who led the minority, moved that the Convention proceed at once to ballot for candidates for President and Vice-President. This was urged upon the plea of saving time, and upon the ground that nothing else remained to be done, but General Garfield pointed out, with his habitual clearness, that such action would leave the Convention without any regulations to determine the method of procedure or to decide controversies. Under the influence of his forcible argument General Sharpe's proposition was lost by a vote of 479 to 276. The rules, as reported by the majority, were then adopted, with an amendment that "the National Committee shall prescribe the method or methods for the election of delegates to the National Convention to be held in 1884, provided that nothing in the method or rules so prescribed shall be construed to prevent the several districts of the United States from selecting their own delegates to the National Convention." The overthrow of the Unit Rule and the establishment of district representation were thus finally secured.

Mr. Pierrepont of New York reported the platform. It recounted the achievements of the party and re-affirmed its accepted principles.

No one issue was treated as overmastering. Protection, which became the controlling question of the campaign, was presented only by repeating the avowal of 1876. The restriction of Chinese immigration was approved. The Democratic party was charged with sustaining fraudulent elections, with unseating members of Congress who had been lawfully chosen, with viciously attaching partisan legislation to Appropriation Bills, and with seeking to obliterate the sacred memories of the war. "The solid South," it was declared, "must be divided by the peaceful agencies of the ballot; and all honest opinions must there find free expression." The platform, as reported, was silent on the subject of Civil-Service Reform; and Mr. Barker of Ma.s.sachusetts offered an amendment "that the Republican party adopts the declaration of President Hayes, that the reform in the civil service shall be thorough, radical, and complete, and to that end demands the co-operation of the Legislative with the Executive Departments of the Government." The amendment was carried, and the platform adopted.

It was now late Sat.u.r.day afternoon, and the Convention had already extended through four days. The session of Sat.u.r.day evening, devoted to the presentation of Presidential candidates, was dramatic and stirring. The vast Exposition Hall was packed with ten thousand interested and eager observers. The contending partisans were alert for every advantage and enthusiastic in every demonstration.--Mr.

Blaine was first placed in nomination by Mr. Joy of Michigan, seconded by Mr. Pixley of California and Mr. Frye of Maine.--When Mr. Conkling rose to present the name of General Grant, the vast audience gave him an enthusiastic welcome; and his powerful and eloquent speech was followed by prolonged and generous applause.--As General Garfield moved forward to nominate John Sherman, he was the object of general and hearty admiration. His dignified bearing, his commanding ability, his persuasive eloquence, and his manifest spirit of fairness had made a profound impression on the Convention. His present speech deepened that feeling. It was a dispa.s.sionate appeal from the swelling tumult of the moment "to the calm level of public opinion."--The name of Senator Edmunds was presented by Mr. Frederick Billings of Vermont.--Elihu B. Washburne was presented by Mr. Ca.s.soday of Wisconsin, and William Windom by Mr. Drake of Minnesota. The speakers had not been the only actors of the evening. The audience took full part.

The scenes of tumultuous and prolonged applause when the two leading candidates were named has never been equaled in any similar a.s.semblage.

It was nearly midnight of Sat.u.r.day when the Convention adjourned.

With the opening of Monday's session the voting began. The first ballot gave Grant 304, Blaine 284, Sherman 93, Edmunds 34, Washburne 30, Windom 10, Garfield 1. Twenty-seven ballots followed without material change, when the Convention adjourned until the next day.

On Tuesday morning the twenty-ninth ballot exhibited no variation, except that Ma.s.sachusetts transferred the majority of its votes from Edmunds to Sherman, reducing the former to 12 and raising the latter to 116. On the thirtieth ballot Sherman advanced to 120 and Windom fell to 4. The next three ballots were substantially the same. On the thirty-fourth ballot Wisconsin cast 16 votes for General Garfield, and the great body of delegates at once saw that the result was foreshadowed. On the thirty-fifth ballot Indiana, following Wisconsin, cast 27 votes for Garfield, and scattering votes carried his aggregate to 50. The culmination was now reached. As the thirty-sixth ballot opened, the delegations which had been voting for Blaine and Sherman changed to Garfield. The banners of the States were caught up and ma.s.sed in a waving circle around the head of the predestined and now chosen candidate. The scene of enthusiasm and exultation long delayed the final announcement, which gave Garfield 399 votes, Grant 306, Blaine 42, Washburne 5, Sherman 3. The nomination was immediately made unanimous on motion of Mr. Conkling. For Vice-President Elihu B.

Washburne, Marshall Jewell, Thomas Settle, Horace Maynard, Chester A.

Arthur, and Edmund J. Davis were placed in nomination, and General Arthur was chosen on the first ballot by a vote of 468 to 193 for Mr.

Washburne and some scattering votes for other candidates.

The result of the Convention was generally accepted as a happy issue of the long contest. The nomination of General Garfield was unexpected but it was not unwelcome. It was not an escape from the clash of positive purposes by a resort to a negative and feeble expedient.

General Garfield was neither an unknown nor an untried man. For twenty years he had been prominent in the public service, both civil and military, and for ten years he had ranked among the foremost Republican leaders. No statesman of the times surpa.s.sed him in thorough acquaintance with the principles of free government, in knowledge of the legislative and administrative history of our own country, and in intelligent grasp of the great questions still at issue. In eloquence, culture, and resources he had few peers. His ascendency in the Convention was so marked as to turn all eyes towards him. His conspicuous part in the debates of Congress, his numerous popular addresses, had made him familiar to all the people. He represented the liberal and progressive spirit of Republicanism without being visionary and impractical, and his nomination was accepted as placing the party on advanced ground.

General Arthur was a graduate of Union College and a member of the New-York bar. He was prominently connected with Governor Morgan's Administration during the war and gained great credit for the manner in which he discharged his important duties as Quartermaster-General of the State. He subsequently held for several years the responsible and influential position of Collector of Customs for the port of New York. During the period of his service he collected and paid into the Treasury more than a thousand millions of dollars in gold coin. He had wide acquaintance with the public men of the country and had long enjoyed personal popularity. As a citizen of New York and a conspicuous advocate of President Grant's nomination his selection met with general favor.

The Democratic Convention met at Cincinnati on the 22d of June (1880).

The preliminary canva.s.s and discussion had not indicated a prevailing choice. The only definite policy anywhere suggested was that the position of the Democratic party demanded the renomination of Mr.

Tilden for the Presidency, and that a failure to present him as a candidate would be equivalent to withdrawing the allegation and argument of the Electoral fraud. But to this plan the forcible answer was made that the discreditable attempts of Mr. Tilden's immediate circle upon the returning boards of the disputed States had compromised his candidacy and injured his party; and on this ground a strong opposition was made to his nomination. Mr. Tilden himself settled the question by writing and extended and ingenious letter a few days before the Convention, declining to be a candidate. Their immediate choice being unavailable, his New-York followers made a strenuous effort to control the nomination, first for Henry B. Payne of Ohio, and next for Samuel J. Randall of Pennsylvania. The candidates were numerous, but the leading places were held by General Hanc.o.c.k and Senator Bayard.

The Convention was promptly organized with Judge Hoadly of Ohio as temporary chairman, and Senator Stevenson of Kentucky as permanent President. A ballot was reached on the second day. The South was almost evenly divided between Bayard and Hanc.o.c.k. New England preferred Hanc.o.c.k to Bayard. The West showed no preponderance for either, and was broken among many candidates. New York was solidly for Payne, but made little impression because Payne's own State of Ohio stood for Senator Thurman. Judge Field of California and William R. Morrison of Illinois had the support of their own States, with a few scattering votes. The multiplicity of candidates indicated the lack of a definite sentiment and a clear policy. The first ballot gave Hanc.o.c.k 171, Bayard 153, Payne 81, Thurman 68, Field 65, Morrison 62, Hendricks 49, Tilden 38, with a few votes to minor candidates. On this test the Convention adjourned for the day, and during the night combinations already inaugurated were fully completed, by which Hanc.o.c.k's nomination was made certain. The next day opened with the announcement that New York had withdrawn Payne and fixed upon Randall as its choice, but it was too late. The second roll-call ended without a decision, but before the result was declared Wisconsin changed to Hanc.o.c.k. This was followed by a similar move from New Jersey, and immediately State after State joined in his support until he had 705 votes,--leaving of the whole Convention but 30 for Hendricks and 2 for Bayard. William H. English of Indiana, who had served in Congress during Mr. Buchanan's administration, was nominated for Vice-President. The platform, in marked contrast with the elaborate doc.u.ment of the preceding campaign, was a compact and energetic statement of the Democratic creed. It embodied a fatal declaration in favor _of a tariff for revenue only_, made vehement utterance on the alleged election fraud of 1876, demanded honest money of coin or paper convertible into coin, and gave a strong pledge against permitting Chinese immigration.

General Hanc.o.c.k's nomination was greeted with heartiness amounting to enthusiasm. He had received a military education at West Point; he had been brevetted in the Mexican war for gallant conduct at Contreras and Cherubusco. In the war for the Union he had acquired high rank as a commander. He distinguished himself throughout the Peninsular campaign and at Antietam. He added to his fame on the decisive field of Gettysburg. He was with Grant during most of the campaign which was crowned with final triumph at Appomattox, and bore a conspicuous part on its b.l.o.o.d.y fields. Brave, gallant, and patriotic, a true soldier and a chivalrous gentleman, he was a worthy representative of that faithful and honorable cla.s.s of "War Democrats," who in the time of the Nation's peril stood for the flag and for the integrity of their country. There were many of that type, who allowed no political differences to restrain them from doing their full share towards the preservation of the Union; and no duty is more grateful than that of recognizing their loyal services. General Hanc.o.c.k was at their head, and no partisan distinctions or subsequent political differences can diminish the respect in which he is deservedly held by every loyal lover of the Union of the States.

The campaign did not open altogether auspiciously for the Republicans.

The September election for Governor and members of the Legislature in Maine had resulted adversely. The Republican party in that State, owing to a large defection on the greenback issue and a coalition of all its opponents, had been defeated in 1878 by more than 13,000 majority. In 1879 the lost ground was in large part regained, but the party, while electing the Legislature, was again outnumbered on the popular vote. In 1880 the re-action in favor of the Republicans had not begun in any State as early as September. The issue on the Protective tariff had not yet been debated, and Maine, though giving a majority of 6,000 in the Presidential election, lost the Governorship in September by 164 votes. As a victory had been confidently expected by the country at large, the failure to secure it had a depressing effect upon the Republican party.

The discouragement however was but for a day. Re-action speedily came, and the party was spurred to greater efforts. There was also a change in the issues presented, and from that time the industrial question monopolized public attention. The necessity of special exertion in the October States led to a very earnest and spirited canva.s.s in Ohio and Indiana. The Democratic declaration in favor of a tariff for revenue only was turned with tremendous force against that party. A marked feature of what may be termed the October campaign was the visit of General Grant to Ohio and Indiana, accompanied by Senator Conkling.

The speeches of the two undoubtedly exerted a strong influence, and aided in large part to carry those States for the Republicans.

From this day forward the contest was regarded as very close, but with the chances inclining in favor of the Republicans. In the hope of counteracting the effect of the argument for a Protective Tariff in winning the industrial element of the country to Republican support, the Democratic managers concocted one of the most detestable and wicked devices ever conceived in political warfare. A letter, purporting to have been written by General Garfield, and designed to represent him as approving Chinese immigration to compete with home labor, was cunningly forged. This so-called "Morey letter," in which the handwriting and signature of the Republican candidate were imitated with some skill, was lithographed and spread broadcast about two weeks before the election.

General Garfield promptly branded the letter as a forgery and the evidences of its character were speedily made clear. Nevertheless active Democratic leaders continued to a.s.sert its genuineness, and Mr. Abram S. Hewitt was conspicuous in giving the weight of his name to this calumny, until the force of the acc.u.mulating proof constrained him to admit in a public speech, that the text of the letter was spurious, while still maintaining, against General Garfield's solemn denial, that the signature was genuine. The prompt action of General Garfield and his friends did much to render this crafty and dangerous trick abortive, but there was not sufficient time to destroy altogether the effect of its instant and wide dissemination. The forgery cost General Garfield the electoral votes of New Jersey and Nevada and five of the six votes of California. He carried every other Northern State, while General Hanc.o.c.k carried every Southern State. The final result gave to Garfield 214 electoral votes against 155 for Hanc.o.c.k.

The salient and most serious fact of the Presidential election was the absolute consolidation of the Electoral vote of the South; not merely of the eleven States that composed the Confederacy, but of the five others in which slaves were held at the beginning of the civil struggle. The leading Democrats of the South had been steadily aiming at this result from the moment that they found themselves compelled by the fortunes of war to remain citizens of the United States. The Reconstruction laws had held them in check in 1868; the re-action against Mr. Greeley had destroyed Southern unity in 1872; it had been a.s.sumed with boastful confidence, but at the last miscarried, in 1876; and now, in 1880, it was finally and fully accomplished. The result betokened thenceforth a struggle within the Union far more radical than that which had been carried on from the formation of the Const.i.tution until the secession of the South.

During the first half of this century Southern statesmen had demanded and secured equality of representation in the Senate. Its loss in 1850 was among the causes which led them to revolt against National authority. But even the equality of representation was for a section and not for a party, and its existence did not prevent the free play of contests on other issues. Partisan divisions in the South upon tariff, upon bank, upon internal improvement, between Whig on the one side and Democrat on the other, were as marked as in the North.

Southern men of all parties would unite against the admission of a Northern State until a Southern State was ready to offset its vote in the Senate, but they never sought to compel unity of opinion throughout all Southern States upon partisan candidates or upon public measures. The evident policy in the South since the close of the civil war has been, therefore, of a more engrossing and more serious character. It comprehends nothing less than the absolute consolidation of sixteen States,--not by liberty of speech, or public discussion, or freedom of suffrage, but by a tyranny of opinion which threatens timid dissentients with social ostracism and suppresses the bolder form of opposition by force.

The struggle which this policy invites, nay which it enforces, is as much a moral as a political struggle. It is not a contention over measures. It is a contest for equal rights under the Const.i.tution, for simple justice between citizens of the same Republic. Nor is the struggle hopeless. Re-action will come in the South itself. The pa.s.sion and prejudice which influence men who were defeated in the war cannot be transmitted to succeeding generations. Principle will re-a.s.sert itself; local and state interest will command a change.

The signs even now are hopeful. The personal relations between men of the South and men of the North are more amicable than they have been for sixty years. Diversity of employment, the spirit of industrial enterprise, the unification of financial interests, will tend more and more to a.s.similate the populations, more and more to enforce an agreement, if not as to measures, yet a.s.suredly as to methods. No man in the North, valuing the freedom for which a great war was waged, desires to control the vote of a single individual in the South. He only desires that every individual in the South, as in the North, shall control his own vote, and when that is done the result, whatever it may be, will always be cheerfully accepted. Contention between sections, divided by a fixed line, is the most undesirable form of political controversy. It is also the most illogical. But consolidation on one side leads naturally and always to consolidation on the other side.

The growth of the country will ultimately effect an adjustment, but the reason of men should not wait for the mere power of numbers to settle questions which properly belong in the domain of reason alone.

Nor do the Southern leaders seem ever to have correctly estimated the political force that is to come from the predestined increase of numbers. Aside from the vast growth of population in the new States and Territories of the North-West, the increase of the colored race in the South must arrest attention. In the lifetime of those now living, that cla.s.s of the population will reach the enormous aggregate of five and twenty millions. As this increase continues, no policy could possibly be devised so fatal to Southern prosperity as that which Southern leaders have pursued since the close of the war. Ceasing to be a slave the colored man must be a citizen. He cannot be permanently held in a condition between the two. He cannot be remanded to slavery.

His numbers will ultimately command what should now be yielded on the ground of simple justice and wise policy.

The twenty years between 1861 and 1881 are memorable in the history of the Congress of the United States. Senators and Representatives were called upon to deal with new problems from the hour in which they were summoned by President Lincoln to provide for the exigencies of a great war. They confronted enormous difficulties at every step; and if they had failed in their duty, if they had not comprehended the gravity and peril of the situation, if they had faltered in courage, or had been obscured in vision, the Union of the States might have been lost, the progress of civilization on the American Continent checked for generations. With the National arms triumphant, with the Union of the States made strong, the American people, in the quiet of domestic peace, in the enjoyment of wide-spread prosperity, should not forget the dangers and sacrifices which secured to them their great blessings.

--The first demand of war is money. So great was the amount required that Congress provided and the Executive expended a larger sum in each year of the civil struggle than the total revenues of the Government had been for the seventy-two years elapsing between the inauguration of Washington and the inauguration of Lincoln.

--When the power of the Nation was challenged, the Army was so small as scarcely to provide an efficient guard for the residence of the Chief Magistrate against a hostile movement of the disloyal population that surrounded him. Congress provided for the a.s.sembling of a host that grew in magnitude until it surpa.s.sed in numbers the largest military force ever put in the field by a European power.

--A domestic inst.i.tution whose existence had menaced the peace of the country for forty years, and now threatened the National life, was either to receive renewed strength by another compromise, or was to be utterly overthrown and destroyed. Congress had the foresight, the philanthropy, the courage to choose the latter course, and to transform four millions of slaves into four millions of citizens.

--Triumphant in the struggle of arms, Congress had the statesmanship and persistence to bind up in the Organic Law of the Republic the rights which victory had secured, and to provide against the recurrence of a rebellion which imperiled the existence of free inst.i.tutions.

The action of Congress and the spirit that inspired it were but the action and spirit of the loyal people. A common danger awakened them to a sense of their aggregate strength, and that awakening proved to be the beginning of a new progress. Prolonged peace and quiet in a country, even of our large resources, had engendered the habit of caution, of economy, of extreme conservatism. The dominance of the State-rights' school had created in the minds of the people a distrust of the power of the General Government,--a fact which no doubt was taken into the calculations of those who revolted against its authority. As an ill.u.s.tration of the weakness of administration under their lead, it may be recalled that during the years of Mr. Buchanan's Presidency,--and indeed during a part of the Presidency of Franklin Pierce,--the project of a Pacific Railroad had been considered, and year after year abandoned, because of the argument, first, that the National Government had no power to contribute to its construction; and, second, that the hundred millions of dollars required to complete it was a sum beyond the power of the Government to expend. In contrast with the chronic irresolution and timidity which delayed an enterprise that would strengthen the bonds of the Union, the administration of Mr.

Lincoln, in the midst of gigantic outlays for the war, authorized the building of the Pacific Railroad, and successfully used the Government credit to complete it in less time than the State-rights' leaders had been abortively debating the question in Congress.

--It is difficult to estimate the progress of the people of the United States in intelligence and in wealth since the close of the civil struggle. When evidence is so voluminous it is not easy to select a unit of comparison that shall succinctly present the truth. Perhaps the extension of postal facilities is the most significant measure of the intellectual activity of a people. From the formation of the National Government in 1879 to the beginning of the war in 1861, the total receipts from postages amounted to $182,000,000. From 1861 to 1881 the total receipts from postages amounted to $433,000,000. But even these figures do not exhibit the full contrast of the popular use of the post-office for transmission of papers and letters,--because the larger part of the former period was on the basis of high postage.

--Comparison in industrial development are so numerous as not to be readily and compactly stated. Economists consider that the material advance of a people is measured more accurately by the consumption of iron than by any other single article. a.s.suming this to be a test, the progress of the American people in wealth is beyond precedent. The production and use of iron between the years 1861 and 1881 were many fold greater than during the entire preceding century.

--The increased ratio in the construction of railroads gives some conception of the progress of wealth. The miles of rail in 1861 within the United States were 31,286, while in 1881 they were 103,334. It is no exaggeration to say that the construction and repair of railway lines in the twenty years preceding 1881 involved an expenditure of money larger than the total National debt at the close of the war.

--Nor have these twenty years been distinguished only by the acquisition of wealth. No period of history had been more marked by generous expenditure for worthy ends. The provision made for those who suffered in the civil war has perhaps no parallel at home or abroad. The comparative poverty of the country after the close of the Revolutionary war may account for the inadequate a.s.sistance to those who had suffered in the struggle for independence. The same cause, though in less degree, existed after the war of 1812. The pensions paid to the sufferers in both wars, including those of the Mexican war (when the country had made great advance in wealth), amounted in all, from 1789 to 1861, to the sum of $80,000,000; whereas from 1861 to 1881 the sum of $516,000,000 was paid to those who had claim upon the bounty, rather upon the justice, of the Government.

--The twenty years form indeed an incomparable era in the history of the United States. Despite the loss of life on the part of both North and South the Republic steadily gained in population for the entire period, at the rate of nearly a million each year; and each year there was added to the permanent wealth of the people $1,500,000,000;--a fact made all the more surprising when it is remembered that they were at the same time burdened with the interest on the National debt, of which they discharged more than eleven hundred millions of dollars of the princ.i.p.al within the period named.

Such progress is not only unprecedented but phenomenal. It could not have been made except under wise laws, honestly and impartially administered. It could not have been made except under an industrial system which stimulated enterprise, quickened capital, a.s.sured to labor its just reward. It could not have been made under the narrowing policy which a.s.sumes the sovereignty of the _State_. It required the broad measures, the expanding functions, which belong to a free _Nation_. Not simply to the leading statesmen of the Senate and the House, but to Congress as a whole, in its aggregate wisdom,--always greater than the wisdom of any one man,--credit and honor are due; due for intelligence, for courage, for zeal in the service of an endangered but now triumphant and prosperous Republic.

During the twenty years, the representatives serving in the House exceeded fifteen hundred in number. As an ill.u.s.tration of the rapidity of changes in elective officers where suffrage is absolutely free, each succeeding House in the ten Congresses, with a single exception, contained a majority of new members. Only one representative in all this number served continuously from 1861 to 1881,--the Honorable William D. Kelley, eminent in his advocacy of the Protective system, steadily growing throughout the entire period in the respect of his a.s.sociates and in the confidence of the const.i.tuency that has so frequently honored him. In the Senate the ratio of change, owing to the longer term of office, has been less; but, even in that more conservative body, rotation in membership has been rapid. In the twenty years nearly two hundred and fifty senators occupied seats in the chamber. Of the whole number, Henry B. Anthony of Rhode Island, warmly remembered by both political parties, was the only senator whose service was unbroken from the opening to the close of the period. Two others were in Congress for the whole time, but not continuously in either House. Justin S. Morrill served six years in the House and fourteen in the Senate; Henry L. Dawes served fourteen years in the House and six in the Senate. For the entire period both were consistent upholders of Republican ideas and Republican politics.--James A. Garfield who was a member of the House for eighteen of the twenty years was, in November, 1880, by a singular concurrence of circ.u.mstances placed in an official position altogether without precedent. He was at the same time Representative in Congress, Senator-elect from the State of Ohio, President-elect of the United States.

The National Government has in these twenty years proved its strength in war, its conservatism in peace. The self-restraint which the citizens of the Republic exhibited in the hour of need, the great burdens which they bore under the inspiration of patriotic duty, the public order which they maintained by their instinctive obedience to the command of law, all attest the good government of a self-governing people. Full liberty to criticise the acts of persons in official station, free agitation of all political questions, frequent elections that give opportunity for prompt settlement of all issues, tend to insure popular content and public safety. No Government of modern times has encountered the dangers that beset the United States, or achieved the triumphs wherewith the Nation is crowned.

The a.s.sa.s.sination of two Presidents, one inaugurated at the beginning, the other at the close of this period, while a cause of profound National grief, reflects no dishonor upon popular government. The murder of Lincoln was the maddened and aimless blow of an expiring rebellion. The murder of Garfield was the fatuous impulse of a debauched conscience if not a disordered brain. Neither crime had its origin in the political inst.i.tutions or its growth in the social organization of the country. Both crimes received the execration of all parties and all sections. In the universal horror which they inspired, in the majestic supremacy of law, which they failed to disturb, may be read the strongest proof of the stability of a Government which is founded upon the rights, fortified by the intelligence, inwrought with the virtues of the people. For as it was said of old, wisdom and knowledge shall be stability, and the work of righteousness shall be peace!

ADDENDUM.

Hon. Galusha A. Grow, who filled the important post of Chairman of the Committee on Territories in the Thirty-sixth Congress, criticises the statements made on pages 269-272 of Volume I. The anomaly was there pointed out that the men who had been most active in condemning Mr.

Webster for consenting to the organization of the Territories of New Mexico and Utah in 1850 without a prohibition of slavery, consented in 1861 to the organization of the Territories of Colorado, Dakota, and Nevada without a prohibition. Mr. Grow as a zealous anti-slavery man writes in defense of the course adopted in 1861. The wisdom of the course was not criticised. Its consistency only was challenged. After giving a history of the various steps in organizing the three Territories in 1861, and of the great need, by reason of the pressure of thousands of emigrants, of providing a government therefor, and the impracticability of pa.s.sing a Territorial bill with an anti-slavery proviso, Mr. Grow, in a letter to the author, says,--

"The Republican party, about to be entrusted for the first time with the administration of the Government, must show, in addition to sound principles, that it possessed sufficient practical statesmanship to solve wisely any question relative to the development of the material resources of the country, or it would prove itself incompetent to the trust imposed by the people.

"There was this difference in the condition of the public affairs, then, from what it was when Mr. Webster made his celebrated speech of March 7th. The great battle between Freedom and Slavery for supremacy in the Territories had been fought and won in Kansas, and the people had elected a Chief Magistrate on Freedom's side, so that the influences of National Administration would no longer be wielded for the extension of human bondage. Besides, Kansas, a free State, and New Mexico, a Territory already organized, would lie between these new Territories and slave inst.i.tutions, so that by no possibility could they in the ordinary course of events become slave States.

"On the 7th of March, 1850, when Mr. Webster from the Senate chamber appealed to the North to 'conquer its prejudices' and rely on the laws of G.o.d and Nature to prevent the extension of the inst.i.tution of human bondage, the two great forces of Liberty and Slavery were in deadly and irrepressible conflict,--with all the powers of the Government on the side of Slavery. That struggle reached its last peaceable stage in the triumph of Freedom in Kansas and the election of Lincoln to the Presidency."

Mr. Grow mistakes the relative positions of the slavery question in 1850 and 1861. When Mr. Webster was willing to waive the anti-slavery clause in the bill organizing the Territories of New Mexico and Utah, all the Territories to the North were already protected from slavery by the general prohibition of the Missouri Compromise in 1820, and by the specific prohibition in the Oregon bill of 1848. To Mr. Webster's view, in 1850 Kansas was as secure against the introduction of slavery as it was to Mr. Grow's view in 1861 after Mr. Lincoln was chosen President and the Free State men had won their victory on the soil of the Territory. Mr. Webster saw before him therefore a long procession of States in the North-West whose free inst.i.tutions were a.s.sured by the absolute inhibition of Slavery. He was in the midst of a heated and hated controversy over two Territories adapted only to mining and grazing and never likely to attract slave labor. Neither he nor any other person at that time imagined the possibility of repealing the Missouri Compromise; and therefore when all the territory north of 36 30' was secured by a prohibition as absolute as Congress could make it, Mr. Webster did not consider it necessary to wage a bitter contest and possibly endanger the Union of the States merely to secure a prohibition of slavery in two Territories where he believed the inst.i.tution could not go. Precisely in the same way Mr. Grow did not believe that slavery would go into Colorado, Dakota, and Nevada, and he was therefore willing to waive the anti-slavery clause rather than add to the danger of disunion by insisting on it.

The same motives that inspired Mr. Webster in 1850, inspired Mr.