# VFW Volume 9: "Cuban Intervention Proposed"



## Library4Science (Apr 13, 2011)

*REVIEWERS WANTED!* If you would like to review any of the books in this 
series, PM me with your Amazon email address and I will gift copies to you.

*The thread title refers to the latest extract from the book which may be found at the bottom of this thread.*

This post is to introduce a Kindle version of Volume 9 of a series entitled 
"AMERICA Great Crises In Our History Told by Its Makers" which was published as 
a print version by the Veterans of Foreign Wars in 1925. The ninth volume 
covers the period 1865-1890. This Kindle version is published in partnership 
with the VFW who receive 50% of sales revenue.



Product Description

The reconstruction era following the Civil War, and the history of the Union up
to 1890, is covered by this volume, which gives you a profound and fascinating
basis on which to form your opinions. It opens with the post-war reflections of
Generals Robert E Lee and Ulysses S Grant. Buffalo Bill Cody describes buffalo
hunting, and there are contemporary accounts of the financial crisis of 1869,
the great Chicago fire of 1871, and the panic of 1873. You'll read reports of
great technological advances: the laying of the first successful Atlantic cable,
the first transcontinental railroad, the coming of the telephone, Edison's
invention of the electric light. In politics, writers of the time comment on the
impeachment of President Johnson, the election of President Grant, the 14th and
15th amendments, the Alaska Purchase, the Ku-Klux Klan, 'carpet-bag' government,
the McKinley Tariff Bill - and some bitterly-fought Presidential contests and a
Presidential assassination.

Introduction To The Series

"After you've heard two eyewitness accounts of an auto accident, you begin to
worry about history." This observation, attributed to the comedian Henny
Youngman, summarizes the dilemma you face when you want to find out what really
happened in the past. When you read a history book, the "facts" are actually the
author's own interpretation, often colored by a conscious or unconscious wish to
have you share a particular point of view. You're one step (or many steps)
removed from the original source material.

That's why the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States compiled this 12-
volume collection of writings of people who actually witnessed the key events in
American history - the actual actors in the events or contemporary observers of
them. Past historians have spent decades locating, studying and consulting vast
amounts of material such as this. This meticulously chosen selection brings you
the essence of history as originally recorded by those who participated in it.

You'll be reading mostly eye-witness accounts, by people contemporary with the
events they describe, including many significant historical figures themselves.
So you can make your own assessments, draw your own conclusions and gain an
understanding of past events undistorted by the prejudices, assumptions and
selectivity of professional historians. In some instances where there aren't
reliable or easily accessible eye-witness accounts, the compilers have chosen
extracts from objective, authoritative historians of past generations such as
Francis Parkman whose judgements have stood the test of time. Through these
accounts, your knowledge of American history will be immeasurably greater, your
understanding of the key events in the building of the nation immensely
increased.

Founded in 1899, the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States (VFW) is a
nonprofit organization dedicated to foster camaderie among United States
veterans of overseas conflicts, from the Spanish-American War to Iraq and
Afghanistan, and to ensure that they receive due respect and entitlements for
the sacrifices they and their loved ones have made on behalf of the nation. With
this mission, the VFW has a natural desire to encourage a broad understanding
and appreciation of American history, and this essential collection of
historical documents makes a huge contribution to that aim.

This reissue was scanned, formatted and converted to e-book format by
Library4Science.com with the permission and encouragement of the VFW, to make
the series more accessible to a wider public. The VFW will receive 50% of all
sales revenue from these e-books. This book is about 300 print pages.


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

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## Library4Science (Apr 13, 2011)

This is an excerpt from Volume 9 "Reconstruction" of the Series "America: Great Crises in our History".

*Why The United States Wanted Alaska*

By Senator Charles Sumner.

_ALTHOUGH the purchase of Alaska was consummated by William H. Seward, as Secretary of State, Sumner, as chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, was its chief sponsor in Congress. His speech upon the cession of Russian America to the United States, on April 9, 1867, was followed the next day by the vote in favor of ratification.

In this celebrated address he described to his less enlightened compeers the character and value of Alaska, comprising 590,000 square miles of territory, exceeding that of the original thirteen States and nearly one-sixth the area of the United States. Its coast line, including bays and islands, is greater than the circumference of the earth.

Subsequently Senator Sumner wrote out his speech for publication, and this is the main portion of it. It is taken from his collected "Works," by permission of the publishers, Lothrop, Lee & Shepard, Boston._

ADVANTAGES to the Pacific Coast, Foremost in order, if not in importance, I put the desires of our fellow-citizens on the Pacific coast, and the special advantages they will derive from this enlargement of boundary. They were the first to ask for it, and will be the first to profit by it. While others knew the Russian possessions only on the map, they knew them practically on their own resources. While others were indifferent, they were planning how to appropriate Russian pelteries and fisheries. This is attested by the resolutions of the Legislature of Washington Territory; also by the exertions at different times of two Senators from California, who differing in political sentiments and in party relations, took the initial steps which ended in this treaty.

These well-known desires were founded, of course, on supposed advantages ; and here experience and neighborhood were prompters. Since 1854 the people of California have received their ice from the fresh-water lakes in the island of Kadiak, not far westward from Mount St. Elias. Later still, their fishermen have searched the waters about the Aleutians and the Shumagins, commencing a promising fishery. Others have proposed to substitute themselves for the Hudson's Bay Company in their franchise on the coast. But all are looking to the Orient, as in the time of Columbus, although like him they sail to the west. To them China and Japan, those ancient realms of fabulous wealth, are the Indies.

The absence of harbors belonging to the United States on the Pacific limits the outlets of the country. On that whole extent, from Panama to Puget Sound, the only harbor of any considerable value is San Francisco. Farther north the harbors are abundant, and they are all nearer to the great marts of Japan and China. But San Francisco itself will be nearer by the way of the Aleutians than by Honolulu.

The advantages to the Pacific coast have two aspects domestic and foreign. Not only does the treaty extend the coasting trade of California, Oregon and Washington Territory northward, but it also extends the base of commerce with China and Japan.


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## Library4Science (Apr 13, 2011)

This is an excerpt from Volume 9 "Reconstruction" of the Series "America: Great Crises in our History".

*The Purchase Of Alaska*

By Frederic Bancroft.

_SEWARD not only regarded the purchase of Alaska from Russia, in 1867, as of the highest value and significance, but he believed it was the destiny of the United States to incorporate the whole of North America, with the City of Mexico as the ultimate capital of the Republic. Asked what he considered the most important act of his political career, he replied: "The purchase of Alaska; but it will take the people a generation to find it out." As early as 1846 he said: "Our population is destined to roll its resistless waves to the icy barriers of the North, and to encounter Oriental civilization on the Pacific."

Two years after the transaction, here recounted by Frederic Bancroft in his "Life of Seward," the imperialistic Secretary of State visited what was called "Seward's Arctic Province," and at Sitka made a memorable address expressing his impressions of the $7,200,000 purchase.
_
THE purchase of Alaska has often been called Seward's greatest service to his country. A vast territory which Russia acquired by right of discovery and held for considerably more than a century was sold to the United States before hardly a dozen Americans knew that such a proposition was even under consideration. There is a tradition that during Polk's administration something was said to Russia about parting with her possessions in North America. It is certain that as early as 1859 Senator Gwin and the Assistant Secretary of State discussed the question with Stoeckl, the Russian Minister at Washington, and that as much as five million dollars was offered. The official answer was that this sum was not regarded as adequate, but that Russia would be ready to carry on negotiations as soon as the Minister of Finance could look into the question. There was no occasion for haste; Buchanan soon went out of office; and the subject, which was never known to many persons, seems to have been entirely forgotten for several years.

The interests of a few citizens on the Pacific slope were the mainspring of the little that had been done. For more than a decade San Francisco had annually received a large amount of ice from Russian America, and United States fishermen had been profitably engaged in different parts of the far northern Pacific. Those interests had rapidly increased from year to year. At the beginning of 1866 the legislature of Washington Territory sent a petition to President Johnson, saying that an abundance of codfish, halibut and salmon had been found along the shores of Russian America, and requesting him to obtain from the Russian government such concessions as would enable American fishing vessels to visit the ports and harbors of that region for the purpose of obtaining fuel, water and provisions. Sumner says that this was referred to the Secretary of State, who suggested to Stoeckl that some comprehensive arrangement should be made to prevent any difficulties arising between the United States and Russia on account of the fisheries. About this time several Californians wished to obtain a franchise to carry on the fur-trade in Russian America. Senator Cole, of California, urged both Seward and Stoeckl to support the request. Seward instructed Cassius M. Clay, the United States Minister at St. Petersburg, to consult the Russian government on the subject. Clay reported on February, 1867, that there was a prospect of success. In fact, the time happened to be peculiarly opportune for negotiation.

Russian America had never been brought under the regular rule of the imperial government. Since the beginning of the century its few thousand civilized inhabitants had been governed by a great monopoly called the Russian-American Company. Its charter had expired with the year 1861, and had not been renewed; yet a renewal was expected. This monopoly was so unprofitable that it had sought and obtained special privileges, such as the free importation of tea into Russia. It had even sublet some of its privileges to the Hudson Bay Company. This sublease to Englishmen was to expire in June, 1867. By the usual means of communication Russian America was from Russia one of the most distant regions on earth. To organize it as a colony would involve great expense and continuous financial loss. To defend it in time of war with Great Britain or the United States would be an impossibility. When the Crimean war broke out common interest led the Russian-American and the Hudson Bay companies to induce their respective governments to neutralize the Russian and the British possessions on the northwest coast of America. Otherwise Great Britain might easily have seized the Russian Territory. To the imperial government at the beginning of 1867 the problem resolved itself into these three questions : Shall the charter of the monopoly, with its privileges and unsatisfactory treatment of the inhabitants, be renewed? Shall an expensive colonial system be organized? Shall we sell at a fair price territory that will surely be lost, if it ever becomes populated and valuable? It was foreseen that unless sold to the most constant and grateful of Russia's friends, it was likely to be taken by her strongest and most inveterate enemy. Stoeckl was spending part of the winter of 1866-67 in St. Petersburg, and the different questions were talked over with him, for he had long been Minister to the United States. In February, 1867, as he was about to return to Washington, "the Archduke Constantine, the brother and chief adviser of the Emperor, handed him a map with the lines in our treaty marked upon it, and told him he might treat for this cession."


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## Library4Science (Apr 13, 2011)

This is an excerpt from Volume 9 "Reconstruction" of the Series "America: Great Crises in our History".

*The Coming Of The Telephone*

By Thomas A. Watson.

_WATSON was an expert machinist and pioneer electrician who greatly assisted Alexander Graham Bell in the discovery and early construction of the telephone. This address, delivered at Chicago in 1913, before the Third Annual Convention of the Telephone Pioneers of America, is reprinted from The Telephone Review. It recounts the memorable June 2, 1875, when a sound was first electrically transmitted and "the speaking telephone was born," at 109 Court Street, Boston. Directed by Bell, Watson "made the first telephone, put up the first telephone wire and heard the first words ever uttered through a telephone." They were, "Mr. Watson, please come here. I want you."

On February 14, 1876, Bell received a patent for his speaking telephone. Though his claims were disputed by other inventors, his rights were sustained by the United States Supreme Court, and he is given credit for being the first to perfect and construct a working instrument._

I AM to speak to you of the birth and babyhood of the telephone, and something of the events which preceded that important occasion. These are matters that must seem to you ancient history; in fact, they seem so to me, although the events all happened less than 40 years ago, in the years 1874 to 1880.

I realize now what a lucky boy I was, when at 13 years of age I had to leave school and go to work for my living, although I didn't think so at that time. There's a "tide in the affairs of men," you know, and that was the beginning of its flood in my life, for after trying several vocations clerking, bookkeeping, carpentering, etc. and finding them all unattractive, I at last found just the job that suited me in the electrical workshop of Charles Williams, at 109 Court Street, Boston one of the best men I have ever known. Better luck couldn't befall a boy than to be brought so early in life under the influence of such a high-minded gentleman as Charles Williams.

Besides the regular work at Williams', there was a constant stream of wild-eyed inventors, with big ideas in their heads and little money in their pockets, coming to the shop to have their ideas tried out in brass and iron.

Among them was dear old Moses G. Farmer, perhaps the leading practical electrician of that day. He was full of good ideas, which he was constantly bringing to Williams to have worked out. I did much of his work and learned from him more about electricity than ever before or since. He was electrician at that time for the United States Torpedo Station at Newport, Rhode Island, and in the early winter of 1874, I was making for him some experimental torpedo exploding apparatus. That apparatus will always be connected in my mind with the telephone, for one day when I was hard at work on it, a tall, slender, quick-motioned man with pale face, black side-whiskers, and drooping mustache, big nose and high sloping forehead crowned with bushy, jet black hair, came rushing out of the office and over to my work bench. It was Alexander Graham Bell, whom I saw then for the first time. He was bringing to me a piece of mechanism which I had made for him under instructions from the office. It had not been made as he had directed and he had broken down the rudimentary discipline of the shop in coming directly to me to get it altered. It was a receiver and a transmitter of his "Harmonic Telegraph," an invention of his with which he was then endeavoring to win fame and fortune. It was a simple affair by means of which, utilizing the law of sympathetic vibration, he expected to send six or eight Morse messages on a single wire at the same time, without interference.

Although most of you are probably familiar with the device, I must, to make my story clear, give you a brief description of the instruments, for though Bell never succeeded in perfecting his telegraph, his experimenting on it led to a discovery of the highest importance.


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## Library4Science (Apr 13, 2011)

This is an excerpt from Volume 9 "Reconstruction" of the Series "America: Great Crises in our History".

*Hunting Buffalo To Feed The Railroad Builders*

By William F. (Buffalo Bill) Cody.

_COLONEL" CODY, better known as "Buffalo Bill," was the last of the line of great American scouts. In his "True Tales of the Plains" (Harper & Brothers) he gives this account of his buffalo-hunting exploits. He gained his sobriquet as a hunter engaged, in 1867, to furnish buffalo-meat to the laborers at work on what is now the Union Pacific Railroad. In a twelvemonth, as here recorded, he killed 4,280 bison, 69 of them in one day. Later he was made chief of United States Army scouts ts by General Sheridan, then campaigning against the Indians, and in 1876 he slew Chief Yellow Hand in a celebrated personal encounter during the Sioux War.

With his picturesque "Wild West Show," he toured America and Europe for many years, accumulating a fortune which he invested in land embracing the Present site of Cody, Wyoming. Dying in 1917, his picturesque grave is on a Colorado mountaintop near Denver._

ONE of my favorite buffalo hunting horses was a small roan or large Indian pony which I got from a Ute Indian. As this horse came from Utah I named him "Brigham," after the Mormon prophet, Brigham Young. During the construction of the Kansas Pacific Railroad (now the Union Pacific), in 1867, the construction of the end of the track got into the great buffalo country, and at that time the Indians the Sioux, Cheyennes, Comanches and Arapahoes were all on the war-path. It was before the railway refrigerator car was in use and the contractors had no fresh meat to feed their employees. The men were grumbling considerably for fresh meat, for they could see fresh meat that is, the buffalo, deer and antelope in every direction, and they would growl because the contractors did not kill the buffaloes so that they could have fresh meat to eat. This was a little more difficult job than they thought, as the Indians were contesting every mile of railroad that was being built into their country. Besides having military escorts to guard the graders every man from the boss down who went to work on the grading of the road carried a rifle with him as well as a pick and shovel, and when he was using them his gun lay on the ground near him, as the Indians would daily attack them.

The construction of that road, in 1867, was nearly a continuous fight, and it was dangerous fora man to venture any distance away from the troops and the graders to hunt the buffalo. They tried several hunters who claimed that they could kill buffalo and bring it into camp so that they could have fresh meat for their men. One or two of these men were killed by Indians while doing so, and the others gave up the job.

At that time I was guide and scout at Fort Hays, Kansas, and had quite a reputation as a buffalo hunter. Some one told the main contractor that if he could get me I would be able to kill all the buffalo he would require. He came to Fort Hays to see me. Of course I could not accept although he made me a very tempting financial offer without permission of the Military Department Commander, General Sheridan.

The subject was even discussed at headquarters in Washington, and, after considerable delay, evidence was presented that it would solve one of the main labor problems in the great work of constructing the transcontinental railroad and facilitate matters greatly. Leave of absence for the purpose was given me, with the understanding that in case of an important outbreak I should resume the duties of my position. As roving Indians generally followed the herds of buffalo, I was really in a certain sense performing scouting duty also.

I started in killing buffalo for the Union Pacific Railroad. I had a wagon with four mules, one driver and two butchers, all brave, well-armed men, myself riding my horse "Brigham." We could leave the end of the construction work to go out after buffalo, and had an understanding with the commanding officer who had charge of the troops guarding the construction that, should a smoke signal be seen in the direction in which I had gone, they would know I was in trouble and would send mounted men to my assistance.

I had to keep a close and careful lookout for Indians before making my run into a herd of buffalo. It was my custom in those days to pick out a herd that seemed to have the fattest cows and young heifers. I would then rush my horse into them, picking out the fattest cows and shooting them down, while my horse would be running alongside of them. I had a happy faculty in knowing how to shoot down the leaders and get the herd to run in a circle. I have killed from twenty-five to forty buffalo while the herd was circling, and they would all be dropped very close together ; that is to say, in a space covering about five acres. When I had the number I wanted, I would stop shooting and allow the balance of the herd to get away. The wagon would drive up and my men would instantly begin to secure the hams, the tenderloins, the tongues, and the choicest meat of each buffalo, including the heads, which were afterward mounted and used for advertisement for the said road, loading the wagon until it was full. We would then drive back to our camp, or to the end of the track where the men were at work, and when the men would see me coming with a load of fresh meat they would say : "Ah, here comes Bill with a lot of nice buffalo!" For a while they were delighted with the fresh tender meat, but after a time they tired of it, and, seeing me come would say : "Here comes this old Bill with more buffalo !" and finally they connected the name buffalo and Bill together, and that is where the foundation was laid to the name of "Buffalo Bill," which afterward I defended as a title with Comstock before the officers at Fort Wallace with success.


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## Library4Science (Apr 13, 2011)

This is an excerpt from Volume 9 "Reconstruction" of the Series "America: Great Crises in our History".

*The Ku-Klux Klan*

By the Federal Grand Jury.

_SOUTHERN opposition to the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution took the form of secret societies, whose members were sworn to curb the ******* in the use, or rather abuse, of their newly acquired citizenship, and also to put down both the "carpet-baggers" and their Southern supporters, the "scalawags." Chief among these societies was the Ku-Klux Klan, which originated in Tennessee but quickly extended its "invisible empire" over the South. Its activities in South Carolina, where the worst results of carpetbag government were seen, caused President Grant, under the authority given him by the Ku-Klux Act of 1871 to enforce the fourteenth amendment, to suspend the habeas corpus privilege. Federal judges were authorized to exclude from juries those who were believed to be accomplices of persons engaged in committing Ku-Klux outrages.

The accompanying presentment was made in the Circuit Court at Columbia, South Carolina, after the privilege of the habeas corpus writ had been suspended._

TO the judges of the United States Circuit Court: In closing the labors of the present term, the grand jury beg leave to submit the following presentment : During the whole session we have been engaged in investigations of the most grave and extraordinary character investigations of the crimes committed by the organization known as the Ku-Klux Klan. The evidence elicited has been voluminous, gathered from the victims themselves and their families, as well as those who belong to the Klan and participated in its crimes. The jury has been shocked beyond measure at the developments which have been made in their presence of the number and character of the atrocities committed, producing a state of terror and a sense of utter insecurity among a large portion of the people, especially the colored population. The evidence produced before us has established the following facts:

1. That there has existed since 1868, in many counties of the State, an organization known as the "Ku-Klux Klan," or "Invisible Empire of the South," which embraces in its membership a large proportion of the white population of every profession and class.

2. That this Klan [is] bound together by an oath, administered to its members at the time of their initiation into the order, of which the following is a copy:

OBLIGATION I, (name,) before the immaculate judge of Heaven and Earth, and upon the Holy Evangelists of Almighty God, do, of my own free will and accord, subscribe to the following sacredly binding obligation :

"1. We are on the side of justice, humanity, and constitutional liberty, as bequeathed to us in its purity by our forefathers.

"2. We oppose and reject the principles of the radical party.

"3. We pledge mutual aid to each other in sickness, distress, and pecuniary embarrassment.

4. Female friends, widows, and their households, shall ever be special objects of our regard and protection.

"Any member divulging, or causing to be divulged, any of the foregoing obligations, shall meet the fearful penalty and traitor's doom, which is Death ! Death! Death ! "

That in addition to this oath the Klan has a constitution and by-laws, which provides, among other things, that each member shall furnish himself with a pistol, a Ku-Klux gown, and a signal instrument. That the operations of the Klan were executed in the night, and were invariably directed against members of the republican party by warnings to leave the country, by whippings, and by murder.


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## Library4Science (Apr 13, 2011)

This is an excerpt from Volume 9 "Reconstruction," of the Series "America: Great Crises in our History".

*The Great Chicago Fire*

By Horace White.

_WHITE was editor-in-chief of the Chicago Tribune, in the office of which, October 14, 1871, he wrote this eye-witness account of the most destructive conflagration in American history. It was written as a letter to Murat Halstead, then editor of the Cincinnati Commercial. White had accompanied Abraham Lincoln, in 1858, in his campaign against Stephen A. Douglas, and his account of that celebrated contest appears in Herndon's "Life of Lincoln." Moving to New York six years after the great Chicago fire, White joined with Carl Schurz and Edwin L. Godkin in producing the New York Evening Post, of which he eventually succeeded Godkin as editor-in-chief.

Starting in a barn in De Koven Street, the Chicago fire raged for two days and nights, sweeping over 2,100 acres, destroying 17,450 buildings, and causing 200 deaths, besides the greatest destitution and suffering. More than 70,000 were rendered homeless, out of a population of 324,000._

AS a slight acknowledgment of your thoughtful kindness in forwarding to us, without orders, a complete outfit of type and cases, when you heard that we had been burned out, I send you a hastily written sketch of what I saw at the great fire.

The history of the great fire in Chicago, which rises to the dignity of a national event, cannot be written until each witness, who makes any record whatever, shall have told what he saw. Nobody could see it all no more than one man could see the whole of the Battle of Gettysburg. It was too vast, too swift, too full of smoke, too full of danger, for anybody to see it all. My experience derives its only public importance from the fact that what I did, substantially, a hundred thousand others did or attempted that is, saved or sought to save their lives and enough of their wearing-apparel to face the sky in.

I had retired to rest, though not to sleep (Sunday, October  when the great bell struck the alarm, but fires had been so frequent of late, and had been so speedily extinguished, that I did not deem it worth while to get up and look at it, or even to count the strokes on the bell to learn where it was. The bell paused for fifteen minutes before giving the general alarm, which distinguishes a great fire from a small one. When it sounded the general alarm I rose and looked out. There was a great light to the southwest of my residence, but no greater than I had frequently seen in that quarter, where vast piles of pine lumber have been stored all the time I have lived in Chicago, some eighteen years. But it was not pine lumber that was burning this time. It was a row of wooden tenements in the South Division of the city, in which a few days ago were standing whole rows of the most costly buildings which it has entered into the hearts of architects to conceive. I watched the increasing light for a few moments. Red tongues of light began to shoot upward ; my family were all aroused by this time, and I dressed myself for the purpose of going to the "Tribune" office to write something about the catastrophe. Once out upon the street, the magnitude of the fire was suddenly disclosed to me.


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## Library4Science (Apr 13, 2011)

This is an excerpt from Volume 9 "Reconstruction," of the Series "America: Great Crises in our History".

*Behring Sea Troubles With Great Britain*

Official Communication of Secretary Blaine to British Minister Pauncefote.

_WAR between Great Britain and the United States over Behring Sea sealing rights was narrowly averted by the diplomatic negotiations of 1890 here recorded, which resulted in the modus vivendi between Britain and the States signed June 15, 1891. Canada was at the bottom of the trouble, Canadian an sealers doing such wholesale poaching that in 1889 several Canadian vessels were seized. Thereupon Great Britain made a threat of war against the United States if such seizures continued.

Arbitration was resorted to, and what is known as the Blaine-Pauncefote Treaty provided for a tribunal which met at Paris in 1893 and framed regulations to prohibit all pelagic sealing within 60 miles of the Pribylov rookeries. The restrictions were never strictly observed, and by 1900 the Canadian sealing fleet numbered 33 vessels, with a catch of over 35,000 seals a year. In 1911 an international agreement was entered into to save the seals from extinction._

IN the opinion of the President, the Canadian vessels arrested and detained in the Behring Sea were engaged in a pursuit that was in itself "contra bonos mores," a pursuit which of necessity involves a serious and permanent injury to the rights of the Government and the people of the United States. To establish this ground it is not necessary to argue the question of the extent and nature of the sovereignty of this Government over the waters of the Behring Sea ; it is not necessary to explain, certainly not to define, the powers and privileges ceded by His Imperial Majesty the Emperor of Russia in the treaty by which the Alaskan territory was transferred to the United States. The weighty considerations growing out of the acquisition of that territory, with all rights on land and sea inseparably connected therewith, may be safely left out of view, while the grounds are set forth upon which this government rests its justification for the action complained of by Her Majesty's Government.

It cannot be unknown to Her Majesty's Government that one of the most valuable sources of revenue from the Alaskan possessions is the fur-seal fisheries of the Behring Sea. Those fisheries had been exclusively controlled by the Government of Russia, without interference or without question, from their original discovery until the cession of Alaska to the United States in 1867. From 1867 to 1886 the possession in which Russia had been undisturbed was enjoyed by this Government also. There was no interruption and no intrusion from any source. Vessels from other nations passing from time to time through Behring Sea to the Arctic Ocean in pursuit of whales had always abstained from taking part in the capture of seals.

This uniform avoidance of all attempts to take fur-seal in those waters had been a constant recognition of the right held and exercised first by Russia and subsequently by this Government. It has also been the recognition of a fact now held beyond denial or doubt that the taking of seals in the open sea rapidly leads to their extinction. This is not only the well-known opinion of experts, both British and American, based upon prolonged observation and investigation, but the fact has also been demonstrated in a wide sense by the well-nigh total destruction of all seal fisheries except the one in the Behring Sea, which the Government of the United States is now striving to preserve, not altogether for the use of the American people, but for the use of the world at large.

Whence did the ships of Canada derive the right to do in 1886 that which they had refrained from doing for more than ninety years? Upon what grounds did Her Majesty's Government defend in the year 1886 a course of conduct in the Behring Sea which she had carefully avoided ever since the discovery of that sea? By what reasoning did Her Majesty's Government conclude that an act may be committed with impunity against the rights of the United States which had never been attempted against the same rights when held by the Russian Empire?

The ground upon which Her Majesty's Government justifies, or at least defends, the course of the Canadian vessels, rests upon the fact that they are committing their acts of destruction on the high seas, viz., more than three marine miles from the shore line. It is doubtful whether Her Majesty's Government would abide by this rule if the attempt were made to interfere with the pearl fisheries of Ceylon, which extend more than twenty miles from the shore line and have been enjoyed by England without molestation ever since their acquisition. So well recognized is the British ownership of those fisheries, regardless of the limit of the three-mile line that Her Majesty's Government feels authorized to sell the pearl-fishing right from year to year to the highest bidder. Nor is it credible that modes of fishing on the Grand Banks, altogether practicable but highly destructive, would be justified or even permitted by Great Britain on the plea that the vicious acts were committed more than three miles from shore.

There are, according to scientific authority, "great colonies of fish" on the "Newfoundland banks." These colonies resemble the seats of great population on land. They remain stationary, having a limited range of water in which to live and die. In these great 4. colonies" it is, according to expert judgment, comparatively easy to explode dynamite or giant powder in such a way as to kill vast quantities of fish, and at the same time destroy countless numbers of eggs. Stringent laws have been necessary to prevent the taking of fish by the use of dynamite in many of the rivers and lakes of the United States. The same mode of fishing could readily be adopted with effect on the more shallow parts of the banks, but the destruction of fish in proportion to the catch, says a high authority, might be as great as ten thousand to one. Would Her Majesty's Government think that so wicked an act could not be prevented and its perpetrators punished simply because it had been committed outside of the three-mile line?


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## Library4Science (Apr 13, 2011)

This is an excerpt from Volume 9 "Reconstruction," of the Series "America: Great Crises in our History".

*Disputing The Samoan Islands With Germany*

By Harry Thurston Peck.

_DR. PECK gives this stirring account of the threatened conflict between the United States and Germany over the Samoan Islands, in his "Twenty Years of the Republic," published by Dodd, Mead & Company. In 1888 interests hostile to the Germans brought about the election of Mataafa as opposition King to Tamasese, and civil war broke out. While a general insurrection was in progress, with several German, British and American warships anchored in Apia roadstead, on March 16, 1889, a tidal wave and typhoon destroyed the American and German fleets. The British cruiser, Calliope, alone escaped.

Of the American vessels, the Trenton and the Vandalia were sunk, and the Nipsic cast on shore, fifty-two officers and men being lost. Eventually the incident" was closed by a complete American diplomatic victory, in the Act of Berlin, June 14, 1889._

THE Samoan Islands are twelve in number, lying in the track of vessels which ply between the American seaports on the Pacific Coast and Australia. They have, therefore, a certain commercial importance, and to a naval power a definite strategic value. Upon the principal island, Upolu, where the chief town, Apia, is situated, a number of Germans, Americans and English had settled. A Hamburg trading firm was established there, besides a thriving American business house and a company of Scotch merchants. In 1878, a treaty was made by which the Samoan chief or "king" of that time gave to the United States the use of the harbor of Pago-Pago for a naval station.

As was natural, the small foreign community in Upolu, isolated from the greater world outside and thus thrown in upon itself, was rent by the small jealousies, intrigues and bickerings which arise when petty interests clash in a petty sphere. Race prejudice intensified the feeling, until Apia fairly seethed with pent-up enmities. Gradually, however, two distinct factions were formed, when the Americans and English made common cause against the Germans, who were the more numerous and who were also unpleasantly aggressive. By the year 1884, it had become clear that Germany intended by hook or by crook to get control of the Islands, and in doing so to ignore the rights of the English and American residents. The German consul, one Herr Stubel, began to manifest extreme activity. He had all the "morgue and frigid insolence of the true Prussian official, and moreover he had at his beck several German ships of war, which always appeared most opportunely whenever Stubel was carrying things with a particularly high hand. The German residents assumed a most offensive bearing toward the other foreigners as well as toward the natives. In April 1886, Stubel raised the German flag over Apia and in a proclamation declared that only the Government of Germany should thereafter rule over that portion of the islands. The British consul hesitated to act without instructions; but the American representative hoisted the colors of the United States and proclaimed an American protectorate. This conflict of authority was serious, and led Secretary Bayard to energetic action. A conference at Washington between the representatives of Germany, Great Britain and the United States, agreed that the action of both consuls should be disavowed and that the "status quo ante" should be preserved in Samoa pending further negotiations.

Bismarck, however, had no intention of abandoning his ultimate purpose, or even of abiding by his agreement. A new consul, Herr Becker, was sent out from Berlin and proved to be as obnoxious as his predecessor. He planned a stroke that was delivered with prompt efficiency. The native king, Malietoa, was favorable to the English and Americans. Becker, seizing upon the pretext afforded by a drunken brawl between the German sailors and a few Samoans, declared war upon Malietoa, "by order of His Majesty, the German Kaiser." Martial law was proclaimed in Apia; German marines were landed; Malietoa was seized and was deported in a German ship ; while a native named Tamasese, a creature of the Germans, was set up in his place. From that moment events tended rapidly toward a crisis. The American consul, Mr. Harold M. Sewall of Maine, wrote vigorous despatches to Washington and sent emphatic protests to Herr Becker, who answered him with sneering incivility. The Samoans refused to acknowledge the German puppet king and took to the bush, where the English and Americans furnished them with arms. But in Apia, a German judge was set over the local courts, the captain of a German cruiser was made Prime Minister, and the German flag again flew over the soil which Germany had pledged itself to regard as neutral territory. A writer of genius, Mr. Robert Louis Stevenson, who was a resident of Samoa throughout these troublous times, has left a minute account of the intolerable bearing of the Germans and of the indignities to which other foreigners were subjected by them. Mr. Sewall, single-handed, resisted their aggressions. The British consul sympathized with him ; but the spell of Germany's predominance in Europe seemed to paralyze his will. At last, to punish those Samoans who were in arms against Tamasese, the German corvette "Adler" was ordered to shell the native villages, and thus to inspire the people with a wholesome dread of German power.

just prior to this time, there had arrived in Samoan waters the United States gunboat "Adams,' I under the orders of Commander Richard Leary. Commander Leary was to his very finger-tips a first-class fighting man. His name, as Stevenson remarked, was diagnostic. It told significantly of a strain of Celtic blood in the man who bore it. Leary had, indeed, a true Irishman's nimbleness of wit, an Irishman's love of trouble for its own sake, and even more than an Irishman's pugnacity. When he had learned just how things stood in Apia, and when he had noted the bullying demeanor of the Germans, his blood grew hot. Until now the notes of protest addressed to Becker had been couched in formal phrases. From the moment when Leary took a hand in the correspondence these notes became suddenly pungent with a malicious and most ingenious wit which made the sacrosanct emissaries of His Imperial and Royal German Majesty fairly gasp with indignation. The diabolical cleverness with which Leary followed up their every move was utterly infuriating, and no less so was his supreme indifference to what they thought or wanted. When the German warship fired rocket-signals at night, Leary used to sit on his after-deck and send up showers of miscellaneous rockets, which made the German signaling quite unintelligible. He refused to recognize their appointed king, and in a score of ways he covered them with a ridicule which seemed likely to make them ludicrous even in the natives' eyes. Meanwhile, a German night attack upon the Samoan "rebels" had been repulsed and several Germans had been killed. Very eagerly, then, did Herr Becker urge the captain of the "Adler" to bombard the "rebel" position at Apia. Surely the sound of the "Kanonendonner" would bring the natives, and also the insolent Yankees, to their senses. Captain Fritze of the "Adler" therefore ordered up his ammunition and prepared for the bombardment.

Leary's ship, the "Adams," was a wooden vessel whose heavy armament consisted of smooth-bores, only a few of which had been converted into rifled guns. The German corvette was also wooden, but her guns were of the latest pattern turned out by Krupp. Nevertheless, at short range, this superiority would count for little; and the "Adams" was commanded by a sailor who would rather fight than eat. At the appointed hour, the "Adler" steamed out with the German ensign flying at her peak. The "Adams" followed close upon her heels, as if for purposes of observation; but it was noticed that her deck was cleared for action. Soon the "Adler" slowed down and swung into position, so as to bring her broadside guns to bear upon the helpless village. Instantly volumes of black smoke poured from the funnel of the "Adams," the long roll of her drums was heard as they beat to quarters, and the American ship dashed in between the "Adler" and the shore, where she, too, swung about, her guns at port and trained directly on the Germans. Presently, Commander Leary in full uniform and accompanied by his staff boarded the "Adler." His colloquy with the German captain was short and sharp: "If you fire," said he, "you must fire through the ship which I have the honor to command. I shall not be answerable for the consequences !" So saying, he took his leave and returned to his own vessel.


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## Library4Science (Apr 13, 2011)

This is an excerpt from Volume 9 "Reconstruction," of the Series "America: Great Crises in our History".

*The Overthrow Of The Tweed Ring*

By E. Benjamin Andrews.

_DR. ANDREWS, from whose "History of the Last Quarter-Century of the United States, 1870-1895," this account is taken, by permission of Charles Scribner's Sons, graduated from Brown University the year (1870) that the plundering operations of the notorious Tweed Ring in New York were exposed. Later he was president of that university, was superintendent of schools in Chicago and became chancellor of the University of Nebraska.

As Dr. Andrews relates, it was in 1872, following a vigorous investigation and prosecution conducted by a committee of seventy citizens of New York, headed by Samuel J. Tilden, that "Boss" Tweed was indicted for forgery and grand larceny. He boasted of having amassed a fortune of $20,000,000. He was tried, convicted and imprisoned. Released on a technicality, he was rearrested, jailed, escaped to Spain, was brought back and again lodged in prison until April 12, 1878, when he died._

IN the summer of 1870 proof was published of vast frauds by leading [New York] city officials, prominent among them "Boss" William M. Tweed, who, in the language of judge Noah Davis, "saw fit to pervert the powers with which he was clothed, in a manner more infamous, more outrageous, than any instance of a like character which the history of the civilized world afforded."

William Marcy Tweed was born in 1823, at 24 Cherry Street, New York City. A youth devoted to business made him a fair penman and an adept reckoner, but not a business man. He, indeed, once attempted business, but, as he gave his chief attention to speculation, gambling and ward politics, completely failed, so that he seems forever to have renounced legitimate money-making. As a volunteer fireman, known as "Big Six," a gross, licentious Falstaff of real life, albeit loyal and helpful to his friends, Tweed led the "Roughs," being opposed by his more decent fellows, the "Quills." The tide of "respectability," receding uptown, left Tweed's ward in the hands of poor immigrants or the sons of such, who became partly his willing accomplices, partly his unwitting tools, in his onslaughts upon taxpayers. He began these forays at twenty-seven, as Alderman, suspended them for a time in Congress, resumed them in 1857 as Public School Commissioner, continued and enlarged them as member and four times president of the Board of Supervisors, and brought them to a climax as a functionary of the Street Department. He thus became, in time, the central sun in the system of brilliant luminaries known as the "Tweed Ring."

The multitudinous officials of the city were the Ring's slaves. At one time eight hundred policemen stood guard to prevent a hostile majority in Tammany Hall itself from meeting. The thugs of the city, nicknamed "Tweed's lambs," rendered invaluable services at caucus and convention. Two days before election these venal cohorts would assemble in the 340 election districts, each man of them being listed and registered under several assumed names and addresses. From Tweed's house in 1868 six registered, from Justice Shandley's nine, from the Coroner's thirteen. A State Senator's house was put down as the home of thirty voters. One Alderman's residence nominally housed twenty, another's twenty-five, an Assemblyman's fifteen. And so it went. Bales of fictitious naturalization papers were secured. One year 105,000 blank applications and 69,000 certificates were ordered printed. In one case thirteen men, in another fifteen, were naturalized in five minutes. The new citizens "put in" election day following their leaders from polling-place to polling-place as needed.

When thieves could be kept in power by such means plunder was easy and brazen. Contractors on public works were systematically forced to pay handsome bonuses to the Ring. One of them testified "When I commenced building I asked Tweed how to make out the bills, and he said, 'Have fifteen per cent. over.' I asked what that was for, and he said, 'Give that to me and I will take care of your bills.' I handed him the percentage after that." Innumerable methods of fraud were successfully tried. During the year 1863 the expenditures of the Street Department were $650,000. Within four years Tweed quadrupled them. A species of asphalt paving, dubbed "Fisk's poultice," so bad that a grand jury actually declared it a public nuisance, was laid in great quantities at vast cost to the city. Official advertising was doled to twenty-six daily and fifty-four weekly sheets, of which twenty-seven vanished on its withdrawal. But all the other robber enterprises paled before the city Court House job. This structure, commenced in 1868, under stipulation that it should not cost more than $250,000, was in 1871 still unfinished after an outlay of $8,000,000, four times as much as was spent on Parliament House in London. Its ostensible cost, at least, was not less than $12,000,000. As by witchcraft the city's debt was in two years more than doubled. The Ring's operations cheated the city's taxpayers, first and last, out of no less than $160,000,000, "or four times the fine levied on Paris by the German army." Though wallowing in lucre, and prodigal withal, Tweed was yet insatiably greedy. "His hands were everywhere, and everywhere they were feeling for money." In 1871 he boasted of being worth $20,000,000, and vowed soon to be as rich as Vanderbilt.

With his coarse nature the Boss reveled in jibes made at the expense of his honor. He used gleefully to show his friends the safe where he kept money for bribing legislators, finding those of the "Tammany Republican" stripe easiest game. Of the contractor who was decorating his country place at Greenwich he inquired, pointing to a statue, "Who the hell is that?" "That is Mercury, the god of merchants and thieves," was the reply. "That's bully!" said Tweed. "Put him over the front door." His donation of $100 for an altar cloth in the Greenwich Methodist Church the trustees sent back, declaring that they wanted none of his stolen money. Other charitable gifts of his were better received.

The city papers, even those least corruptible, were for long either neutral or else favorable to the Ring, but its doings were by no means unknown. They were matters of general surmise and criticism, criticism that seemed hopeless, so hard was it to obtain exact evidence.

But pride goeth before a fall. Amid its greatest triumph the Ring sowed the wind whence rose the whirlwind which wrought its ruin. At a secret meeting held in the house of John Morrissey, pugilist member of Congress, certain of the unsatisfied, soon known as the "Young Democracy," planned a revolt. Endeavoring to prevent the grant by the New York Legislature of a new charter which the Ring sought, the insurgents met apparent defeat, which, however, ultimately proved victory, Tweed building for himself far worse than he knew. The new charter, abstractly good, in concentrating power concentrated responsibility also, showing the outraged people, when awakened, where to strike for liberty. In spite of whitewashing by prominent citizens, of blandishments and bulldozing, of attempts to buy the stock of the "Times" and to boycott "Harper's Weekly" where Nast's cartoons his first work of the kind gave the Ring international notoriety, the reform spirit proved irresistible. The bar had been servile or quiet, but the New York Bar Association was now formed, which at once became what it has ever since been, a most influential censor of the bench. The Young Democracy grew powerful. Public-spirited citizens organized a Council of Political Reform.

The occasion of conclusive exposure was trivial enough. Sheriff O'Brien was refused part of what he thought his share of the sheriff fees. An expert accountant in the Comptroller's office supplied him with damning evidence against the Ring. On July 18, 1871, Mr. O'Brien walked into the "Times" office and, handing the editor a bundle of documents, said, "There are all the figures; you can do with them just what you please." The figures were published on the 20th in an exhibit printed in English and German, causing excitement compared with which that arising from the Orange Riot of July 12th seemed trifling. The sensation did not end with talk. On September 4th a mass-meeting of citizens was held at Cooper Institute and a committee of seventy prominent men chosen to probe the frauds and to punish the perpetrators. For the work of prosecution the Attorney-General appointed Charles O'Conor, who associated with himself the ablest counsel. Samuel J. Tilden was conspicuously active in the prosecution, thus laying the foundation for that popularity which made him the Governor of New York, 1875-77, and in 1876 the Democratic candidate for the Presidency of the United States.

On October 28, 1871, Tweed was arrested and gave a million dollars' bail. In November, the same year, he was elected to the State Senate, but did not take his seat. On December 16th he was again arrested, and released on $5,000 bail. The jury disagreed on the first suit, but on the second he was convicted and sentenced to pay a fine of $12,500 and to suffer twelve years' imprisonment. This sentence was set aside by the Court of Appeals and Tweed's discharge ordered. In the meantime other suits had been brought, among them, one to recover $6,000,000. Failing to find bail for $3,000,000, he was sent to the Ludlow Street Jail. Being allowed to ride in the Park and occasionally to visit his residence, one day in December he escaped from his keepers. After hiding for several months he succeeded in reaching Cuba.


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## Library4Science (Apr 13, 2011)

This is an excerpt from Volume 9 "Reconstruction," of the Series "America: Great Crises in our History".

*Black Friday*

By J. K. Medbery.

_THE name, Black Friday, is applied to the first of two disastrous days (September 24-5, 1869) in the financial history of the United States. It involved a panic caused by the effort of Gould and Fisk to corner the gold market, and originated in a fight between them and the Vanderbilts for control of the Erie Railroad. A campaign of bribery and corruption was carried on that soiled the reputations of public officials, including legislatures and judges by wholesale, reaching its climax in the gold conspiracy of 1869 and Black Friday. An attempt was made to control President Grant himself.

The event was a sort of precursor to a subsequent evil experience Grant had in Wall Street, after his second term as President, when he became a partner in the firm of Grant and Ward, which came to grief and involved him in financial ruin. This contemporaneous account is given in Medbery's "Men and Mysteries of Wall Street."_

ON the 22d of September gold stood at 137 1/2 when Trinity bells rung out the hour of twelve. By two it was at 139. Before night its lowest quotation was 141. This ascent, regular, unfluctuating, and evidently predetermined, carried the more alarm by the very extent of the rise. In the old Rebellion days a ten-per-cent increase in eight hours was an affair of no moment whatever. It happened every week, sometimes twice and thrice a week. But since the sharp vibrations of June 16 and 18, 1866, when gold rose and fell from 154 to 160, and again from 133 to 167 3/4, the utmost daily range had been two per cent, with occasional fractional additions. Three years of dul1 monotony, and now an advance of three and a half per cent in five hours! At the same time the Stock Market conditions exhibited tokens of excessive febrility, New York Central dropping twenty-three per cent and Harlem thirteen. Loans had become extremely difficult to negotiate. The most usurious prices for a twenty-four hours' turn were freely paid. The storm was palpably reaching the proportions of a tempest.

Nevertheless, the brokers on the bear side strove manfully under their burden. The character and purposes of the clique were fully known. Whatever of mystery had heretofore enfolded them was now boldly thrown aside, and the men of Erie, with the sublime Fisk in the forefront of the assailing column, assured the shorts that they could not settle too quickly, since it remained with the ring, now holding calls for one hundred millions, either to kindly compromise at 150 or to carry the metal to 200 and nail it there. This threat was accompanied by consequences in which the mailed hand revealed itself under the silken glove. The movement had inter-twisted itself deep into the affairs of every dealer in the Street, and entangled in its meshes vast numbers of outside speculators. In borrowing or in margins the entire capital of the former had been nearly absorbed, while some five millions had been deposited by the latter with their brokers in answer to repeated calls. When Thursday morning rose, gold started at 141 5/8, and soon shot up to 144. Then the clique began to tighten the screws. The shorts received peremptory orders to increase their borrowing margins. At the same moment the terms of loans overnight were raised beyond the pitch of ordinary human endurance. Stories were insidiously circulated exciting suspicion of the integrity of the Administration, and strengthening the belief that the National Treasury would bring no help to the wounded bears. Whispers of an impending lock-up of money were prevalent; and the fact, then shrewdly suspected, and now known, of certifications of checks to the amount of twenty-five millions by one bank alone on that day lent color to the rumor. Many brokers lost courage, and settled instantly. The Gold Boom shook with the conflict, and the battle prolonged itself into a midnight session at the Fifth Avenue Hotel. The din of the tumult had penetrated to the upper chambers of journalism. Reporters were on the alert. The great dailies magnified the struggle, and the Associated Press spread intelligence of the excitement to remote sections.

When Friday opened clear and calm, the pavement of Broad and New Streets soon filled up with unwonted visitors. All the idle population of the city and its neighborhood crowded into the financial quarter to witness the throes of the tortured shorts. Blended with the merely curious were hundreds of outside speculators who had ventured their all in the great stake, and trembled in doubt of the honor of their dealers. Long before 9 A. M. these men, intensely interested in the day's encounter, poured through the alleyway from Broad Street, and between the narrow walls of New Street, surging up around the doorways, and piling themselves densely and painfully within the cramped galleries of the Room itself. They had made good the fresh calls for margins up to 143, the closing figure of the night before. The paramount question now was, How would gold open? They had not many minutes to wait. Pressing up to the fountain, around which some fifty brokers had already congregated, a bull operator with resonant voice bid 145 for twenty thousand. The shout startled the galleries. Their margins were once more in jeopardy. Would their brokers remain firm? It was a terrible moment. The bears closed round the aggressors. Yells and shrieks filled the air. A confused and baffling whirl of sounds ensued, in which all sorts of fractional bids and offers mingled, till '46 emerged from the chaos. The crowd within the arena increased rapidly in numbers. The clique agents became vociferous. Gold steadily pushed forward in its perilous upward movement from '46 to '47, thence to '49, and, pausing for a brief twenty minutes, dashed on to 150 1/2. It was now considerably past the hour of regular session. The President was in the chair. The Secretary's pen was bounding over his registry book. The floor of the Gold Room was covered with three hundred agitated dealers and operators, shouting, heaving in masses against and around the iron railing of the fountain, falling back upon the approaches of the committee-rooms and the outer entrance, guarded with rigorous care by sturdy doorkeepers. Many of the principal brokers of the street were there, Kimber, who had turned traitor to the ring; Colgate, the Baptist ; Clews, a veteran government broker ; one of the Marvins ; James Brown ; Albert Speyer, and dozens of others hardly less famous. Every individual of all that seething throng had a personal stake beyond, and, in natural human estimate, a thousandfold more dear than that of any outside patron, no matter how deeply or ruinously that patron might be involved. At 11 of the dial gold was 150 1/2; in six minutes it jumped to 155. Then the pent-up tiger spirit burst from control. The arena rocked as the Coliseum may have rocked when the gates of the wild beasts were thrown open, and with wails and shrieks the captives of the empire sprang to merciless encounter with the ravenous demons of the desert. The storm of voices lost human semblance. Clenched hands, livid faces, pallid foreheads on which beads of cold sweat told of the interior anguish, lurid, passion-fired eyes, all the symptoms of a fever which at any moment might become frenzy were there. The shouts of golden millions upon millions hurtled in all ears. The labor of years was disappearing and reappearing in the wave line of advancing and receding prices. With fortunes melting away in a second, with five hundred millions of gold in process of sale or purchase, with the terror of yet higher prices, and the exultation which came and went with the whispers of fresh men entering from Broad Street bearing confused rumors of the probable interposition of the government, it is not hard to understand how reason faltered on its throne, and operators became reckless, buying or selling without thought of the morrow or consciousness of the present.


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## Library4Science (Apr 13, 2011)

This is an excerpt from Volume 9 "Reconstruction," of the Series "America: Great Crises in our History".

*Carpet-Bag Government*

By James Shepherd Pike.

_THIS is one of a series of articles Pike wrote after visiting South Carolina in 1873, and observing the evils of carpetbag government. They were published by D. Appleton & Company as "The Prostrate State: South Carolina Under ***** Government." Before the Civil War the author was Washington correspondent of the New York Tribune. During the war he was American Minister to the Netherlands. In the Grant-Greeley campaign of 1873 he supported the Liberal Republican movement in opposing further coercive measures in the Southern States.

During this orgy of misgovernment in the South a wholesale system of plunder was inaugurated. In South Carolina alone the public debt was increased from $5,000,000 in 1868 to $18,000,000 in 1872, with little to show for it. The tax levy of $500,000 a year were raised to $2,000,000, although the Value of taxable property was reduced one-half._

IN the place of an old aristocratic society stands the rude form of the most ignorant democracy that mankind ever saw, invested with the functions of government. It is the dregs of the population habilitated in the robes of their intelligent predecessors, and asserting over them the rule of ignorance and corruption, through the inexorable machinery of a majority of numbers. It is barbarism overwhelming civilization by physical force. It is the slave rioting in the halls of his master, and putting that master under his feet. And, though it is done without malice and without vengeance, it is nevertheless none the less completely and absolutely done. Let us approach nearer and take a closer view.

We will enter the House of Representatives. Here sit one hundred and twenty-four members. Of these, twenty-three are white men, representing the remains of the old civilization. . . . Deducting the twenty-three members referred to, who comprise the entire strength of the opposition, we find one hundred and one remaining. Of this one hundred and one, ninety-four are colored, and seven are their white allies. Thus the blacks outnumber the whole body of whites in the House more than three to one. . . . As things stand, the body is almost literally a Black Parliament, and it is the only one on the face of the earth which is the representative of a white constituency and the professed exponent of an advanced type of modern civilization. But the reader will find almost any portraiture inadequate to give a vivid idea of the body, and enable him to comprehend the complete metamorphosis of the South Carolina Legislature, without observing its details. The Speaker is black, the Clerk is black, the doorkeepers are black, the little pages are black, the chairman of the Ways and Means is black, and the chaplain is coal-black. At some of the desks sit colored men whose types it would be hard to find outside of Congo ; whose costume, visages, attitudes and expression, only befit the forecastle of a buccaneer. It must be remembered, also, that these men, with not more than half a dozen exceptions, have been themselves slaves, and that their ancestors were slaves for generations.

The corruption of the State government of South Carolina is a topic that has grown threadbare in the handling. The last administration stole right hand and left with a recklessness and audacity without parallel. The robbers under it embraced all grades of people. The thieves had to combine to aid one another. It took a combination of the principal authorities to get at the Treasury, and they had to share the plunder alike. All the smaller fry had their proportions, the legislators and lobbymen included. The principal men of the Scott administration are living in Columbia, and nobody undertakes to call them to account. They do not attempt even to conceal their plunder. If everybody was not implicated in the robberies of the Treasury, some way would be found to bring them to light. All that people know is that the State bonded debt had been increased from five to fifteen millions, and that, besides this, there are all sorts of current obligations to pay afloat, issued by State officers who had authority to bind the Treasury. They are all tinctured with fraud, and some of them are such scandalous swindles that the courts have been able temporarily to stop their payment.

The whole of the late administration, which terminated its existence in November, 1872, was a morass of rottenness, and the present administration was born of the corruptions of that; but for the exhaustion of the State, there is no good reason to believe it would steal less than its predecessor. There seems to be no hope, therefore, that the villainies of the past will be speedily uncovered. The present Governor was Speaker of the last House, and he is credited with having issued during his term in office over $400,000 of pay "certificates" which are still unredeemed and for which there is no appropriation, but which must be saddled on the taxpayers sooner or later.

Then it has been found that some of the most unscrupulous white and black robbers who have, as members or lobbyists, long plied their nefarious trade at the capital, still disfigure and disgrace the present Assembly. So tainted is the atmosphere with corruption, so universally implicated is everybody about the government, of such a character are the ornaments of society at the capital, that there is no such thing as an influential local opinion to be brought against the scamps. They plunder, and glory in it. They steal, and defy you to prove it. The legalization of fraudulent scrip is regarded simply as a smart operation. The purchase of a senatorship is considered only a profitable trade. Those who make the most out of the operation are the best fellows. "How did you get your money?" was asked of a prominent legislator and lobbyist. "I stole it," was the prompt reply. The same man pursues his trade today, openly and unabashed. A leading member of the last administration was told he had the credit of having robbed the State of his large fortune. "Let them prove it," was his only answer. Meanwhile both of them openly revel in their riches under the very shadow of the lean and hungry Treasury whence their ill-gotten gains were filched.

As has been already said, it is believed that the lank impoverishment of the Treasury and the total abasement and destruction of the State credit alone prevent the continuance of robbery on the old scale. As it is, taxation is not in the least diminished, and nearly two millions per annum are raised for State expenses where $400,000 formerly sufficed. This affords succulent pasturage for a large crowd. For it must be remembered that not a dollar of it goes for interest on the State debt. The barter and sale of the offices in which the finances of the State are manipulated, which are divided among the numerous small counties under a system offering unusual facilities for the business, go on with as much activity as ever. The new Governor has the reputation of spending $30,000 or $40,000 a year on a salary of $3,500, but his financial operations are taken as a matter of course, and only referred to with a slight shrug of the shoulders.

The narration I have given sufficiently shows how things have gone and are going in this State, but its effect would be much heightened if there were time and room for details. Here is one : The total amount of the stationery bill of the House for the twenty years preceding 1861 averaged $400 per annum. Last year it was $16,000. . . . The influence of a free press is well understood in South Carolina. It was understood and dreaded under the old regime, and was muzzled accordingly. Nearly all the newspapers in the State are now subsidized. The State government employs and pays them "ad libitum." One installment of $75,000 lately went to about twenty-five papers in sums ranging from $1,000 to $7,000 apiece, a list of which was published by order of a vote of the Legislature a short time ago. Down here these small weekly sheets can be pretty nearly kept going on these subsidies. Of course none of the deviltry of the State government is likely to be exposed through them. The whole amount of the printing bills of the State last year, it is computed (for every thing here has to be in part guesswork), aggregated the immense sum of $600,000.

The black men who led the colored forces the other day against a railroad charter, because their votes had not been purchased, were models of hardihood in legislative immorality. They were not so wily nor so expert, perhaps, as the one white man who was their ally in debate, but who dodged the vote from fear of his constituency; but they exhibited on that, as they have on other occasions, an entire want of moral tone, and a brazen effrontery in pursuing their venal purposes that could not be surpassed by the most accomplished "striker" of Tweed's old gang. I have before alluded to the fact that on this occasion the blacks voted alone, not one white man going with them in opposing the measure they had conspired to defeat in order to extort money from the corporators.

This mass of black representatives, however ignorant in other respects, were here seen to be well schooled in the arts of corruption. They knew precisely what they were about and just what they wanted, and they knew the same when they voted for Patterson for Senator.

This is the kind of moral education the ignorant blacks of the State are getting by being made legislators. The first lessons were, to be sure, given by whites from abroad. But the success of the carpetbaggers has stimulated the growth of knavish native demagogues, who bid fair to surpass their instructors. The imitative powers of the blacks and their destitution of morale put them already in the front ranks of the men who are robbing and disgracing the State, and cheating the gallows of its due.


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## Library4Science (Apr 13, 2011)

This is an excerpt from Volume 9 "Reconstruction," of the Series "America: Great Crises in our History".

*The Centennial Of The Republic*

A Contemporary Account.

_NO EVENT of the reconstruction period following the Civil War compared in importance with the Centennial Exposition held in Philadelphia from May 10 to November 10, 1876. Being the first exhibition of the kind in the United States, it paved the way for subsequent undertakings such as the World's Fair at Chicago and the Louisiana Exposition at St. Louis.

Despite the panic of 1873 and the three years of depression that followed, the success of the project was unprecedented. To the outside world it was a revelation of the economic power and progress of the hundred-year-old Republic. It was significant that of the forty-nine foreign governments represented among the exhibitors, the magnitude of the British exhibit was only exceeded by our own. At this exposition articles of Japanese manufacture first became well known in the United States._

AN exposition of the industry of all nations, to be held in the United States, was suggested by similar fairs which have been held within the last twenty years in London, Paris and Vienna. The holding of it in 1876 was suggested by the fact that during this year the Republic completes its hundredth year of existence. It therefore seemed fitting that, while each community might celebrate by itself the Fourth of July of this year with special eclat, and where there had been battles or Revolutionary events might celebrate them also with pomp and circumstance, the nation as a whole should this year make one grand jubilee, and out of its unparalleled prosperity exhibit its advance, and invite the whole world to be present. Several parties undertook to inaugurate it, and several places were suggested as its seat Washington, New York and Philadelphia. The latter place was finally selected on account of its central location, its facilities of access, its ability to provide for a multitude, and to carry them about the city, and its ample and convenient space in Fairmount Park for the purposes contemplated, and also on account of its numerous and marked Revolutionary memories.

The General Government was petitioned to aid the enterprise pecuniarily, and by an exhibit, and by its countenance make it an international affair, becoming the medium of invitation to foreign countries to participate. The Government complied. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, several other States, and numerous individuals in New York City and elsewhere subscribed liberally to the project. The Park Commissioners set apart 450 acres on which to locate the fair, 236 of which have been enclosed and applied. July the fourth, 1874, ground was first broken for the enterprise. May the tenth, 1876, though not quite completed, but being sufficiently so, it was opened by the President of the United States, accompanied by suitable ceremonies, military and civic, of music and of speech, and in the presence of numerous dignitaries, home and foreign, and of the people. As many as 250,000 people, it was estimated, were on the grounds that day. The Exhibition is to be kept open until November the tenth. On opening day, the President of the United States and the Emperor of Brazil started the Corliss engine, which runs the machinery in Machinery Hall. Of this act Bayard Taylor observes, "North and South America started the machinery of the world."

There are nearly two hundred buildings on the grounds, all of them erected within two years. Some of them are to remain. But most of them are to be taken down at the close of the Fair. Some of these buildings are very large. Others are splendid, substantial, costly. All of them are an ornament, useful, creditable and a study. From sixty to seventy acres are under roof. These buildings are arranged chiefly on fine Avenues the Avenue of the Republic, Belmont, Fountain, Agriculture and State avenues.

The Main Exhibition Building is 1,880 feet long, 464 feet wide, and 70 feet high. It has corner towers 75 feet, and central towers 120 feet high. It is built of iron and glass, and cost over $1,500,000. Over 5,000,000 pounds of iron have been used in constructing the roof, trusses and girders. It covers 21 1/2 acres, and is the largest building in the world. There are four entrances, one on each side and end. Within are twelve miles of show. Over thirty countries, including nearly all the civilized nations of the globe, here exhibit themselves and their industries. The United States exhibit covers about seven acres, or nearly one-third. Great Britain and her dependencies come next, occupying about one-fifth of the space. Here is to be seen almost every thing that the globe, through the industry and skill of its men, produces, except what is peculiar to the other buildings. Here are things rare, ancient, costly and curious, and in endless variety. A pair of vases valued at $3,000 are here. Though the building is so spacious, it has been found necessary to attach three annexes. Gilmore's band of sixty-five performers, gives two concerts daily, free, in this edifice.

Machinery Hall covers 13 acres. A Corliss Engine of 1,400 horse power, runs the machinery through over two miles of shafting. There are 1,500 sections, and several thousand machines in this building. Here is a waterfall 36 feet wide, 33 feet deep, and four inches thick, carrying 30,000 gallons per minute. On the outside of the main front of this building is a clock ; and in the towers a chime of bells, for which Professor Widdows, the Director, has arranged a great many popular airs. Connected with this building, are as many as eleven annexes.

Agricultural Hall covers 10 acres. There are five annexes to this building. One of these is the Pomological, where will be displayed fruits and vegetables in their season. It covers two acres. A stock yard is also connected, which is near the Belmont station of the Pennsylvania Railroad; where is an Ox of 4,000 pound weight, and a Heifer of 3,300. In the main building is an Aquaria, and Professor Ward of Rochester, has a rare exhibit in Paleontology. Brazil displays one thousand varieties of wood. There are three hundred plows here ; one, it is said, cost $1,000. Many wonderful labor-saving inventions are here exhibited, in which it is probable the United States takes the lead.

Memorial Hall or the Fine Arts Building is one of the most costly on the grounds. Its cost is set down as $1,125,000. It is built of granite, iron and glass. It is 365 feet long, 210 feet wide, and 59 feet high, surmounted by a dome 150 feet high, with a figure of Columbia on the top, and at the base colossal figures typifying the four quarters of the globe. Here are exhibited paintings and statuary. It affords 75,000 feet of wall space for the former, and 20,000 feet of floor space for the latter. It is intended to remain after the Exhibition is over, and will probably be the seat of a museum, &c., similar somewhat to the Kensington Gardens, London. There are two annexes to this building.

Horticultural Hall is the last to be mentioned of the main buildings which have been erected by the Commission. Here are exhibited tropical and other plants. Orange and lemon trees, banana, sago and like trees, are here to be seen. Also a century plant ready to bloom. Around are thirty-five acres of garden. This building also is intended to be permanent.


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## Library4Science (Apr 13, 2011)

This is an excerpt from Volume 9 "Reconstruction," of the Series "America: Great Crises in our History."

*The Assassination Of Garfield*

By Theodore Clarke Smith.

_THIS account of Garfield's assassination, shortly after he succeeded Grant in the Presidency, is taken from Smith's "Life and Letters of James Abram Garfield," published by the Yale University Press. The author is at this writing professor of American history at Williams College, of which President Garfield was a graduate and to which he was on his way to attend his class reunion when he was shot, July 2, 1881.

The assassin, Charles J. Guiteau, was an office-seeker whose vanity had been wounded by the refusal of a government post, and whose unbalanced brain had been excited by contemporary dissensions in the Republican party. The crime excited the horror and sympathy of all parties alike; and foreign nations joined in mourning. Garfield had been removed from Washington to Elberon, New Jersey, and died there September 19, 1881. Guiteau was hanged in the jail at Washington, June 30, 1882._

ON July 2, at twenty minutes past nine o'clock, as President Garfield, accompanied by Blaine, entered the Pennsylvania Railroad station in Washington, to begin his journey to Williamstown for his class reunion, a man stepped forward and fired two pistol shots at him, each of which took effect, one grazing the arm, the other striking him in the back near the spine. The President fell under the shock, momentarily unconscious, but after an instant of stunned amazement some of the bystanders carried him to an office room in the building while others seized the assassin. The members of the Cabinet, Hunt, Windom, James and their families, who had already entered the train were hastily recalled and, with Harry and James Garfield, who had entered the station shortly after the shots were fired, assumed charge of the situation.

The first impression was that the wound was a fatal one. The injured man, not bleeding profusely but "presenting the appearance of perfect collapse," was removed from the station to the White House, where various doctors, hastily summoned by different persons, gathered in consultation. From the symptoms it was generally agreed that Garfield was undergoing internal hemorrhage and could not survive the night. It later appeared that the signs of collapse were due to the fact that the bullet had struck the spinal column, torn through part of it, although without actually touching the spinal cord, and had inflicted a violent shock upon the whole nervous system. Under the circumstances the members of the Cabinet promptly notified the Vice-President, Arthur, that he ought to be ready to take the oath of office at any minute and on the following day, the third, he arrived in Washington to wait until the outcome should be known. During the rest of the day the group of physicians did little more than watch the symptoms, after a rather superficial examination of the wound, and give stimulants under the impression that any operation to extract the ball would certainly be fatal, merely accelerating what appeared to be the rapidly approaching end.

During these hours Garfield himself was for the most part conscious and, as the bulletins said, was "mentally clear, conversing intelligently when permitted to do so." From persons who were with the crowd around him at the station or who followed to the White House have come reports showing that at this crisis his steadiness of soul stood perfectly unshaken. Garfield was always a man of marked physical courage and not even the shock of an apparently fatal bullet wound and the idea of approaching death could unnerve him. As he lay at the station before the doctors arrived he said, "I don't think this is serious," and later remarked, "I will live." Whatever his physical suffering he immediately assumed and maintained an attitude of unshaken hopefulness. At the same time he did not hesitate to face facts. One of the doctors told him plainly that he probably had internal hemorrhage. "The President," said the doctor, "replied, 'I am very glad to know my condition. I can bear it.' These words were spoken as calmly and peacefully as anything I ever heard in my life."

During the night which followed, the expected collapse did not occur and by morning, to the surprise of the surgeons and the joy of the whole country, the patient was visibly rallying. Hope now returned and the situation was taken in hand with new determination. "The President,"in the language of the official bulletin, "was cheerful, gave evidence of having rested and made definite inquiries regarding his condition and prospects." Less formally, one of the doctors described what happened." At this time he inquired of me what his chances of recovery were, saying, in his bright and cheerful way, that he desired a frank and full statement, that he was prepared to die, and feared not to learn the worst. He added that personally he was willing to lay down the heavy burden thrust upon him. I replied, 'Mr. President, your injury is formidable. In my judgment you have a chance for recovery.' He placed his hand upon my arm and, turning his face more fully toward me, said with a cheerful smile: `Well, Doctor, we will take that chance.' " Before night these words were telegraphed all over the United States, evoking tears of sympathy and pride at the indomitable courage and steadiness that lay behind them.


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## Library4Science (Apr 13, 2011)

This is an excerpt from Volume 9 "Reconstruction," of the Series "America: Great Crises in our History."

*The Death And Funeral Of General Grant*

By General James Grant Wilson.

_IN his "Life of General Grant," published by D. Appleton & Company, General Wilson thus recounts the death and funeral of the great Civil War commander and eighteenth President of the United States. Grant died at Mount McGregor, near Saratoga, New York, July 23, 1885, and his body rests in a magnificent tomb overlooking the Hudson River from Riverside Drive, New York City.

Wilson served under Grant in the Civil War and was brevetted brigadier-general. After the war he lived in New York and was President of the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society. He was a prolific author and editor of history and biography. In the summer of 1884 General Grant entered upon a long period of suffering from a cancerous affection of the throat. Until a few days before his death he was diligently engaged in writing his memoirs, in order to make provision for his family._

EARLY in the summer of 1884 the General began to feel a slight pain in his mouth and throat, which increased and developed into cancer of the tongue a painful and incurable disease. As he gradually grew weaker, the whole nation watched with solicitude the progress of his malady, and prayers were offered in many pulpits in the land for his recovery; day after day expressions of sympathy came not only from all quarters of our own country, but from distant lands. Old strifes and enmities were all forgotten in the presence of approaching death, and the Blue and the Gray alike uttered the warmest expressions of sympathy for the dying soldier. Early in the month of April there was a marked improvement in General Grant's condition, and, among some of his more sanguine friends, hopes were entertained and expressed of his ultimate recovery. Through the length and breadth of the land the morning and evening journals contained daily bulletins of one or more columns concerning the condition of the illustrious patient, and many of the leading papers of Great Britain and other lands published daily telegrams.

Fortunately his prayer was answered that he might be permitted to live to complete his Military Memoirs, which were substantially finished. It may be doubted if any book has been written under similar conditions since the world began. It far surpasses Sir Walter Scott's gallant efforts to maintain the integrity of his character, that he might bequeath an untarnished name and a fantastic mansion to a long line of Scotts of Abbotsford. Seeing the last enemy approach, the dying but undaunted soldier, suffering almost constant, and at times the severest agony, determined to "fight it out" bravely as he did when he faced General Lee in the Wilderness struggle. This Grant did, to the general astonishment of publishers, physicians, family and friends, the fruit of this great effort being a fortune for his family. It was probably the most successful expensive book ever issued more than a quarter of a million copies having been ordered in advance of publication, and nearly half a million of dollars having been received as copyright. In clearness and accuracy of statement, in literary style and finish, it compares favorably with the models of English literature.

The General, contrary to the expectations of his physicians and friends, survived to see the twentieth anniversary of the surrender of Lee's army, and to exchange greetings with his family on the return of the anniversary which may be said to have substantially broken the Confederacy and closed the four years' civil conflict. He survived to see the sun rise on the twenty-fourth anniversary of the surrender of Fort Sumter and the commencement of the war, living also to see the anniversary of the death of President Lincoln, which General Grant deemed the darkest day of his life. After more than a month's confinement to his house, he recovered sufficiently to drive out in the park again on Monday, April 20th, and on the following day he was seen walking in Sixty-sixth Street with one of his sons. About this time he was able to resume his literary work by dictating to a secretary.

He survived to complete substantially his military autobiography, by far the most valuable contributions yet made to the literature of the war. Owing to his increasing weakness and the warm weather, the date of his departure was anticipated by a week, and on June 16th, accompanied by his family, his physician, and attendants, he proceeded in a private car to Mount McGregor, near Saratoga, where a comfortable cottage was placed at the General's disposal for the summer by his friend, Joseph W. Drexel, of New York, by whom it was presented after Grant's death to the Grand Army of the Republic of New York.

From his mountain home on a spur of the Adirondacks General Grant could see at a glance the great theater of the many brilliant movements of Burgoyne's campaign his marches, his defeats, and his surrender and the stately monument which commemorates the historic field of the grounded arms.

A few days before his departure from the city, when in a cheerful mood, the General said to a friend: "It is a great consolation to me in my sickness to know that the people, both North and South, are seemingly equally kind in their expressions of sympathy. Scores of letters come to me daily, without reference to politics or locality, containing kind words. Many communications are also received from public bodies. But nothing has touched me more deeply than the daily spectacle of the crowds of people gathering about my door for months, and eagerly seeking information as to my condition. Yes, I can certainly say that I tried to do my duty to my country, and I hope I have always treated those who were not on the same side with me, both in the field and in politics, with justice. The men of the South I always looked upon as citizens of our common country, and when it was in my power I always treated them as such. I can say with truth that I never, even in the midst of duty, had any other feeling than that which one citizen should feel toward another." The General also referred with much feeling to the many kind schemes projected in his behalf by friends in. California and in other portions of the country.

The ex-President's prayer that the end would come soon was granted, but not before the wish nearest to his heart was gratified that he should live to finish his book. After many temporary rallies and improvements and much physical suffering, borne in the spirit of Paul's grand text "Endure hardness as a soldier" surrounded by all those who were near and dear to him, the illustrious commander passed away peacefully at eight minutes past eight on Thursday morning, July 23, 1885.

More than royal honors may be said to have been paid to his memory by the messages of condolence which came to Mrs. Grant from crowned heads and from distinguished personages of various countries and climes. It was the absorbing topic with the press and people of the United States during the period that elapsed between the time of the illustrious soldier's death and burial. Both at home and abroad he was universally recognized as the First Soldier and the First Citizen of the New World. Against this compact consensus of opinion there was no discordant voice, even among the people against whom he wielded his mighty sword. The men of the South had only words of praise for their generous conqueror.

Before his death General Grant expressed in writing a wish that he should be buried in one of three places at West Point, where he received his education, in Illinois, where he resided for several years, or in New York, "because the people of that city befriended me in my need." New York, through its Mayor, having proffered to Mrs. Grant a burial place in any of the city parks, a spot was selected and accepted in Riverside Park with the single condition that, in accordance with the General's desire, his wife should hereafter be laid by his side. His preference would have been for West Point had he not been under the mistaken impression that Mrs. Grant could not be buried there.


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## Library4Science (Apr 13, 2011)

This is an excerpt from Volume 9 "Reconstruction," of the Series "America: Great Crises in our History."

*Uncle Sam Resumes Specie Payments*

By Secretary of the Treasury John Sherman.

GOVERNMENT specie payments had been suspended since 1861, and a law providing for their resumption was passed by Congress in 1875. It was to take effect January 1, 1879. During the interval it was the object of repeated attack, but all efforts to repeal it failed.

The Resumption Act authorized the Secretary of the Treasury to amass an adequate supply of gold wherewith to resume specie payments. John Sherman was Secretary when the act became operative. This article is from his "Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet" (Superior Printing Company). By the sale of bonds at favorable opportunities, Sherman had on hand $140,000,000 in gold on the resumption date, which passed off without the dreaded shock materializing. Sherman was a younger brother of the General who led the famous "march to the sea."

ON the 1st of January, 1879, when the resumption act went into effect, the aggregate amount of gold coin and bullion in the Treasury exceeded $140,000,000. United States notes, when presented, were redeemed with gold coin, but instead of the notes being presented for redemption, gold coin in exchange for them was deposited, thus increasing the gold in the Treasury.

The resumption of specie payments was generally accepted as a fortunate event by the great body of the people of the United States, but there was a great diversity of opinion as to what was meant by resumption. The commercial and banking classes generally treated resumption as if it involved the payment and cancellation of United States notes and all forms of government money except coin and bank notes. Another class was opposed to resumption, and favored a large issue of paper money without any promise or expectation of redemption in coin. The body of the people, I believe, agreed with me in opinion that resumption meant, not the cancellation and withdrawal of greenbacks, but the bringing them up to par and maintaining them as the equivalent of coin by the payment of them in coin on demand by the holder. This was my definition of resumption. I do not believe that any commercial nation can conduct modern operations of business upon the basis of coin alone. Prior to our Civil War the United States undertook to collect its taxes in specie and to pay specie for its obligations ; this was the bullion theory. This narrow view of money compelled the States to supply paper currency, and this led to a great diversity of money, depending upon the credit, the habits and the wants of the people of the different States. The United States notes, commonly called greenbacks, were the creature of necessity, but proved a great blessing, and only needed one attribute to make them the best substitute for coin money that has ever been devised. That quality was supplied by their redemption in coin, when demanded by the holder.

The feeling in the Treasury Department on the day of resumption is thus described by J. K. Upton, Assistant Secretary, in an article written at the close of 1892:

"The year, however, closed with no unpleasant excitement, but with unpleasant forebodings. The 1st day of January was Sunday and no business was transacted. On Monday anxiety reigned in the office of the Secretary. Hour after hour passed; no news came from New York. Inquiry by wire showed all was quiet. At the close of business came this message : '$135,000 of notes presented for coin $400,000 of gold for notes.' That was all. Resumption was accomplished with no disturbance. By five o'clock the news was all over the land, and the New York bankers were sipping their tea in absolute safety.

"Thirteen years have since passed, and the redemption fund still remains intact in the sub-treasury vaults. The prediction of the Secretary has become history. When gold could with certainty be obtained for notes, nobody wanted it. The experiment of maintaining a limited amount of United States notes in circulation, based upon a reasonable reserve in the Treasury pledged for that purpose, and supported also by the credit of the government, has proved generally satisfactory, and the exclusive use of these notes for circulation may become, in time, the fixed financial policy of the government."

The immediate effect of resumption of specie payments was to advance the public credit, which made it possible to rapidly fund all the bonds of the United States then redeemable into bonds bearing four per cent interest.

Letters written about this date will show my view better than anything I can say now.

Washington, D. C., January 8, 1879.

R. C. Stone, Esq., Secretary Bullion Club, New York.

I regret that my official duties will not permit me, in person, to respond to the toast you send me, and I cannot do so, by letter, in words more expressive than the toast itself, "To Resumption may it be forever."

Irredeemable money is always the result of war, pestilence, or some great misfortune. A nation would not, except in dire necessity, issue its promises to pay money when it is unable to redeem those promises. I know that when the legal tenders were first issued, in February, 1862, we were under a dire necessity. The doubt that prevented several influential Senators, like Fessenden and Collamer, from voting for the legal tender clause, was that they were not convinced that our necessities were so extreme as to demand the issue of irredeemable paper money. Most of those who voted for it justified their vote upon the ground that the very existence of the country depended upon its ability to coin into money its promises to pay. That was the position taken by me. We were assured by Secretary Chase that nearly one hundred millions of unpaid requisitions were lying upon his table, for money due to soldiers in the presence of the enemy, and for food and clothing to maintain them at the front. We then provided for the issue of legal tender United States notes, as an extreme remedy in the nation's peril. It has always seemed strange that so large and respectable a body of our fellow-citizens should regard the continuance of irredeemable money as the permanent policy of a nation so strong and rich as ours, able to pay every dollar of its debts on demand, after the causes of its issue had disappeared. To resume is to recover from illness, to escape danger, to stand sound and healthy in the financial world, with our currency based upon the intrinsic value of solid coin.

Therefore I say, may resumption be perpetual. To wish otherwise is to hope for war, danger and national peril, calamities to which our nation, like others, may be subject, but against which the earnest aspiration of every patriot will be uttered.


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## Library4Science (Apr 13, 2011)

This is an excerpt from Volume 9 "Reconstruction," of the Series "America: Great Crises in our History."

*The First Transcontinental Railroad*

By John P. Davis.

_ON May 10, 1869, the last spike was driven, at Promontory Point, Utah, that joined the Union and Central Pacific and signalized the completion of the first transcontinental American railroad. In "The Union Pacific Railway," from which this account is taken by permission of the Scott, Forsman Company, the author tells of the ingenious plans to apprise the country of the "wedding of the rails."

Spikes of gold were contributed by California and neighboring Territories. A silver sledge was provided and wires were connected with it so that the sound of each stroke, delivered alternately by President Stanford, of the Central Pacific, and Vice-President Durant, of the Union Pacific, was instantaneously transmitted to a nation-wide audience. Locomotives were drawn up to "touch noses," bands blared, there was feasting in private cars, and a parade of banners reading, "What God hath joined together let no man put asunder."_

THE inducements offered by the Act of 1862 were insufficient to attract to the Union Pacific individual capitalists desirous to display industrial heroism and save the nation, but doubling the amount of the prizes by the amendments of 1864 had the desired effect, and a beginning was made by the completion of eleven miles of the Union Pacific by September 25, 1865, and of forty miles by the end of that year.

On October 5, 1866, the mileage had increased to two hundred forty-seven. By January 1, 1867, the road was finished and operated to a point three hundred five miles west from Omaha. In 1867 two hundred forty miles were built. The year 1868 produced four hundred twenty-five miles; and the first four months of 1869 added the one hundred twenty-five miles necessary to complete the road to its junction with the Central Pacific at Promontory Point.

Work on the Central Pacific had begun at Sacramento more than a year before it was begun on the Union Pacific at Omaha; and by the time the first eleven miles of the latter had been completed, the former had attained a length of fifty-six miles, increased by January 1, 1867, to ninety-four miles. In 1867 forty-six miles were built ; in 1868 three hundred sixty-three miles were added; in 1869 the remaining one hundred eighty-six miles were covered, and Promontory Point was reached. The Union Pacific had built one thousand eighty-six miles from Omaha ; the Central Pacific had built six hundred eighty-nine miles from Sacramento.

The natural obstacles presented by the mountains and desert land, the absence of timber on the prairies, of water in the mountains, and of both in the alkali desert, had made the work exceptionally difficult and expensive. The Central Pacific, though under the necessity of getting its iron, finished supplies, and machinery by sea, via Cape Horn or Panama, had the advantage of Chinese ****** labor and the unified management of its construction company; while the Union Pacific, having no railway connection until January, 1867, was subjected to the hardship of getting its supplies overland from the termini of the Iowa railways or by the Missouri River boats, and had to depend on intractable Irish labor and the warring factions of the Credit Mobilier.

The Sierra Nevada furnished the Central Pacific all the timber needed for ties, trestlework and snowsheds, but the Union Pacific had little or no timber along its line, except the unserviceable cottonwood of the Platte Valley, and many boats were kept busy for a hundred miles above and below Omaha on the Missouri River in furnishing ties and heavy timbers. Both roads were being built through a new, uninhabited, and uncultivated region, where were no foundries, machine-shops, or any other conveniences of a settled country. The large engine used in the Union Pacific Railway shops was dragged across the country to Omaha from Des Moines. Twenty-five thousand men, about equally divided between two companies, are said to have been employed during the closing months of the great work. Several thousand Chinamen had been imported to California for the express purpose of building the Central Pacific. On the Union Pacific, European emigrant labor, principally Irish, was employed. At the close of the Civil War many of the soldiers, laborers, teamsters and camp-followers drifted west to gather the aftermath of the war in the work of railway construction.

The work was essentially military, and one is not surprised to find among the superintendents and managers a liberal sprinkling of military titles. The surveying parties were always accompanied by a detachment of soldiery as a protection against interference by Indians. The construction-trains were amply supplied with rifles and other arms, and it was boasted that a gang of tracklayers could be transmuted at any moment into a battalion of infantry.

The only settlements between Omaha and Sacramento in 1862 were those of the Mormons in Utah, and Denver and a few mining camps in Colorado and Nevada. Colorado was given over to the Kansas Pacific, and Salt Lake City was left for a branch line; Ogden, a Mormon town of a few hundred inhabitants, was the only station between the termini of the Union Central Pacific. The necessities of the work of construction created new settlements and stations as it progressed, and as fast as the road was completed to each convenient point it was operated to it, while the work went on from the terminus town as a headquarters or base of operations; thus, when the entire line was put in operation, July 15, 1869, such places as North Platte, Kearney, and Cheyenne had "got a start, while other towns, being made the termini of branch lines, secured the additional impulse due in general to junction towns. Some of the "headquarters towns," like Benton, enjoyed only a temporary, Jonah's gourd existence, and nothing is now left to mark their former location. The life in them was rough and profligate in the extreme.

It had been expected that the Central Pacific, chartered by the State of California, would build east to the Nevada boundary, and that the Union Pacific, chartered by the National Government, would build westward from Omaha through the territories to a meeting at the California boundary. But the object of the Pacific Railroad charter was to secure a railway from the Missouri to the Pacific, by whomsoever constructed, and its terms (section 10 of the Act of 1862) had provided that "in case said first-named [Union Pacific] company shall complete their line to the eastern boundary of California before it is completed across said State by the Central Pacific Railroad Company of California, said first-named company is hereby authorized to continue in constructing the same through California until said roads shall meet and connect, and the Central Pacific Railroad Company of California, after completing its road across said State, is authorized to continue the construction of said railroad and telegraph through the Territories of the United States to the Missouri River, including the branch lines specified, until said roads shall meet and connect."

This was changed in the Act of 1864 (section 16) to a provision that the Central Pacific might "extend their line of road eastward one hundred fifty miles on the established route, so as to meet and connect with the line of the Union Pacific road." Of which change Collis P. Huntington, of the Central Pacific, has said: " 'One hundred fifty miles' should not have gone into the bill; but I said to Mr. Union Pacific, when I saw it, I would take that out as soon as I wanted it out. In 1866 I went to Washington. I got a large majority of them without the use of a dollar." Accordingly the Act of 1866 renewed the original provision of the Act of 1862, and provided (section 2) that "the Central Pacific Railroad Company of California, with the consent and approval of the Secretary of the Interior, are hereby authorized to locate, construct, and continue their road eastward in a continuous completed line, until they shall meet and connect with the Union Pacific Railroad."


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## Library4Science (Apr 13, 2011)

This is an excerpt from Volume 9 "Reconstruction," of the Series "America: Great Crises in our History."

*The Chicago Haymarket Riot*

By Harry Thurston Peck.

_PECK, in his "Twenty Years of the Republic," published by Dodd, Mead & Company, gives this well-written, impartial account of the Haymarket Square tragedy of 1886, in Which 8 Chicago policemen Were killed and scores wounded by a bomb thrown by an anarchist, supposed to have been one Schnaubelt. As Dr. Peck states, the tragedy was the culmination of labor disturbances throughout the country, largely instigated by "preachers of violence" bent on a general seizure of property and the murder of its owners.

In Chicago a great eight-hour strike had left some 50,000 Workers idle and in an ugly temper. In Haymarket Square, May 4, the bomb-throwing occurred while a mob was being harangued by such radicals as Spies, Fischer, Engel and Parsons, who were later convicted and hanged as accomplices; Fielde and Schwab, who were sentenced to life imprisonment, and Neebe, to fifteen years. Another, Lingg, committed suicide._

THE year 1886 was marked by serious disturbances arising from strikes and other labor movements, which recalled the events of 1877, when the industries of the country were paralyzed, and when, at the great centers of traffic in twelve States, conditions existed that seemed to threaten civil war. In 1886, there was less violence, yet the social unrest was so widespread as to be at once significant and ominous. From the shipyards in Maine to the railways in Texas and the Far West, there was continual disorder in nearly every branch of industry. In New York City, the employees of the street-car lines began a strike on February 3d, which was ended on the 18th by a victory for the strikers. The disturbances, however, broke out again on March 2d and continued intermittently until September 1st, when the managers of the roads once more gave way. On one day every line in New York and Brooklyn was "tied up" completely. In June, the elevated railways had a similar, though much more brief, experience. The mania for striking seemed to be in the very air; and on April 20th, in Boston, even the children in two of the public schools struck for a continuous session, and adopted all the approved methods of the conventional strike, stationing pickets, attacking such children as refused to join them, and causing a small riot which had to be put down by the police.

The storm centers of labor agitation were in St. Louis and Chicago. In St. Louis a demand was made by the employees of the Texas Pacific Railway for the reinstatement of a foreman who had been discharged. The receiver refused the demand, and a strike took place which very soon extended to the Missouri Pacific, and, in fact, to all the roads constituting the Gould system. Traffic throughout the whole Southwest was practically suspended, and before long the strike took on the form of riot and incendiarism. United States troops were sent to maintain order, but their numbers were insufficient, and the rioters cared nothing for the special deputies who had been sworn in to keep the peace. A squad of these deputies fired upon a crowd, killing or wounding a number of persons (April 7th). This act inflamed the mob, which armed itself, and for a time was master of the city. The torch was applied to railroad property, factories were closed, and great losses were inflicted, not only upon the railways, but upon the entire population.

The leader in these depredations was a Scotchman named Martin Irons, a typical specimen of the ignorant fanatic, exactly the sort of man who comes to the front whenever the populace is inflamed by passion and bent on violence. Sly, ignorant, and half an animal, he nevertheless was able to play upon the prejudices of his fellows, and to stimulate their class-hatred so artfully as to make them deaf to the counsels of their saner leaders. For a time he had his way; yet in the end this strike collapsed after those who shared in it had forfeited hundreds of thousands of dollars in wages, and after the railroads had incurred an even heavier loss.

In Chicago, the men in the Pullman works began a strike in May; and before long nearly fifty thousand laborers were out. In a conflict with the police a number of workingmen were shot. Chicago had for some time been the headquarters of a small but very active group of anarchists, nearly all of whom were foreigners. The strikers had no sympathy with anarchists, nor any affiliation with them. Nevertheless, the anarchists believed that the proper moment had now come for them to strike a blow, and they hoped thereby to win to their support new followers from the ranks of the discontented. There were published in Chicago two newspapers, one in English (the "Alarm"), conducted by a man named Parsons, and the other in German (the "Arbeiter Zeitung") I conducted by one August Spies, both of them devoted to the anarchistic propaganda. About the time when the strike began, there appeared in the "Alarm" a most inflammatory article, of which the following is a part :

"DYNAMITE! Of all the good stuff this is the stuff. Stuff several pounds of this sublime stuff into an inch pipe, plug up both ends, insert a cap with a fuse attached, place this in the immediate neighborhood of a lot of rich loafers who live by the sweat of other people's brows, and light the fuse. The dear stuff can be carried around in the pocket without danger; while it is a formidable weapon against any force of militia, police or detectives that may want to stifle the cry for justice that goes forth from the plundered slaves."

On May 4th, a mass-meeting of workingmen was held in the Haymarket Square to protest against the acts of the police. Late at night, after some rather tame addresses had been delivered, an anarchist leader, an Englishman named Samuel Fielde, broke forth into a violent harangue. He denounced all government in the most savage terms, yelling out, "The law is your enemy! We are rebels against it!" Word had been sent to police headquarters; and while Fielde was in the midst of his wild talk, a battalion of nearly two hundred policemen marched into the Square. Their captain commanded the gathering to disperse. Fielde replied, "We are peaceable." He was, however, arrested. A moment later, a pistol was fired, apparently as a signal, and at once a bomb was hurled into the ranks of the police. It exploded with terrible effect.

Nearly fifty policemen were thrown to the ground,, and seven of them were so badly wounded that they died soon after. With splendid discipline, the ranks were at once closed up and a charge was made upon the mob, which scattered hastily in flight. Of the anarchists arrested for this outrage, seven were sentenced to death by Judge Gary. Of these seven, four--Engel, Spies, Parsons and Fischer were hanged ; one Lingg committed suicide, and two Schwab and Fielde had their sentences commuted to imprisonment for life. Eight years afterward, a Governor of Illinois, John P. Altgeld, moved partly by the appeals of sentimentalists, and partly by his own instinctive sympathy with lawlessness, gave a free pardon to such anarchists as had been imprisoned.

In June, 1886, in New York, the disturbed conditions were reflected in political agitation, though here, also, the anarchists showed their heads. They were, however, dealt with before they could do mischief. One of their leaders, named Johann Most, and three of his companions, were imprisoned on the charges of inciting a riot.

Wherever throughout the country the labor element had shown its discontent, the name of the Knights of Labor was, in one way or another, pretty certain to be heard. This organization was one whose origin and evolution are of great significance in the social and economic history of the United States. Prior to 1866, such organizations of workingmen as existed were either societies for general purposes, not necessarily connected with labor questions, or else they were trade-unions in the narrowest sense, confining their membership to men and women engaged in particular and special industries. In 1866, however, there was formed the National Labor Union, of which the purpose was to promote the solidarity, not only of skilled workmen, but of the masses in general, with a view to the amelioration of their condition. This body, unfortunately, almost from the first, fell into the hands of politicians, and in 1870 it died a natural death. Its aims, however, were adopted by a number of garment-cutters in Philadelphia, in 1869, who at first formed a secret order secrecy being adopted because of the hostility of employers to labor organizations.

This was the origin of the Knights of Labor, who admitted to membership in their body all persons above the age of sixteen, except saloon-keepers, gamblers, bankers and lawyers. In 1882, it ceased to be a secret order; and thereafter it rapidly increased in membership until, in 1886, it was said to number more than seven hundred thousand persons. The principles which the order officially professed were distinctly socialistic. It advocated equal rights for women, the common ownership of land, and the acquisition by the Government of public utilities, such as railroads, telegraphs and telephones. It is here that we first find in the United States a large and influential body of men pledged to the support of what was in reality a system of State Socialism.

In order to understand the significance of this movement, and to explain the rapid propagation of socialistic principles, it is necessary to recall a few important facts relating to American economic history of the preceding thirty years. One effect of the Civil War had been the rapid acquisition of great fortunes by individuals, and the growth of powerful corporations. Conspicuous among the latter were the railway companies. The period succeeding the war had been a period of railway building. Between 1860 and 1880 more than sixty thousand miles of railway had been constructed and put into operation. They represented an enormous amount of capital, and this capital represented an enormous amount of influence, both political and social. How much the nation owed to its railway system was very obvious. The easy distribution of its products brought prosperity to every section. Great cities sprang up in the prairies at the magic touch of the railway.

Moreover, in one sense, the unity of the Republic itself was the work of the railway, which proved to be a great assimilator, annihilating distance, bringing one section into easy communication with another, and thereby creating not only common interests, but a common understanding. On the other hand, a moment's thought will make it clear that railways were essentially monopolies, and that their growth lodged in the hands of their owners the right to tax at will the people from whom they had received their charters, and whose interests they were supposed to serve.

Even if the individuals to whom this irresponsible power was entrusted had been always wise, unselfish and public-spirited, the unregulated right of taxation would have been an anomaly in a free State. But as they were very human, serving their own interests, and naturally seeking their own enrichment, abuses, and very gross ones, were inevitable. Still, no hostile sentiment would have been aroused against them had they levied their transportation tax equitably upon all and without discrimination. That they did not do so, and that in consequence they began, about 1870, to create and foster other still more gigantic combinations inimical to the public welfare, are facts which serve to explain the prevalence throughout the country of great social discontent, beginning in 1870 and growing deeper and more intense with each succeeding year.


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## Library4Science (Apr 13, 2011)

This is an excerpt from Volume 9 "Reconstruction," of the Series "America: Great Crises in our History."

*The Geneva Award In The "Alabama" Claims*

By the Arbitrators.

_BY the terms of the Treaty of Washington the claims of the United States against Great Britain, arising out of depredations committed during the Civil War on American commerce by the Alabama and other cruisers fitted out in England, were submitted to arbitration. There were five arbitrators, four of whom, headed by Charles Francis Adams, the American representative, signed the accompanying document of award, September 14, 1872, at Geneva. The other signers were Count Frederick Sclopis, of Italy; Jacob Stampfli, of Switzerland, and Vicomte d'Itajuba, of Brazil. The British arbitrator, Sir Alexander Cockburn, refused to sign it.

Of the several English-built-and-manned cruisers involved in the controversy, the Alabama alone is said to have captured and destroyed seventy American vessels. The court awarded $15,500,000 as a full indemnity of all claims against Britain._

THE United States of America and Her Britannic Majesty having agreed by Article I of the treaty concluded and signed at Washington the 8th of May, 1871, to refer all the claims "generally known as the Alabama claims" to a tribunal of arbitration.

And the five arbitrators . . . having assembled at Geneva . . . on the 15th of December, 1871.

The agents named by each of the high contracting parties . . . then delivered to each of the arbitrators the printed case prepared by each of the two parties, accompanied by the documents, the official correspondence, and other evidence on which each relied, in conformity with the terms of the third article of the said treaty.

The tribunal, in accordance with the vote of adjournment passed at their second session, held on the 16th of December, 1871, reassembled at Geneva on the 15th of June, 1872; and the agent of each of the parties duly delivered to each of the arbitrators, and to the agent of the other party, the printed argument referred to in Article V of the said treaty.

The tribunal having since fully taken into their consideration the treaty, and also the cases, counter-cases, documents, evidence and arguments, and likewise all other communications made to them by the two parties during the progress of their sittings, and having impartially and carefully examined the same,

Has arrived at the decision embodied in the present award:

Whereas, having regard to the VIth and VIIth articles of the said treaty, the arbitrators are bound under the terms of the said VIth article, "in deciding the matters submitted to them, to be governed by the three rules therein specified and by such principles of international law, not inconsistent therewith, as the arbitrators shall determine to have been applicable to the case";

[ Rules. A neutral Government is bound--

"First, to use due diligence to prevent the fitting out, arming, or equipping, within its jurisdiction, of any vessel which it has reasonable ground to believe is intended to cruise or to carry on war against a Power with which it is at peace ; and also to use like diligence to prevent the departure from its jurisdiction of any vessel intended to cruise or carry on war as above, such vessel having been specially adapted, in whole or in part, within such jurisdiction, to warlike use.

"Secondly, not to permit or suffer either belligerent to make use of its ports or waters as the base of naval operations against the other, or for the purpose of the renewal or augmentation of military supplies or arms, or the recruitment of men.

"Thirdly, to exercise due diligence in its own ports and waters, and, as to all persons within its jurisdiction, to prevent any violation of the foregoing obligations and duties."]

And whereas the "due diligence" referred to in the first and third of the said rules ought to be exercised by neutral governments in exact proportion to the risks to which either of the belligerents may be exposed, from a failure to fulfill the obligations of neutrality on their part;

And whereas the circumstances out of which the facts constituting the subject-matter of the present controversy arose were of a nature to call for the exercise on the part of Her Britannic Majesty's government of all possible solicitude for the observance of the rights and the duties involved in the proclamation of neutrality issued by Her Majesty on the 13th day of May, 1861;

And whereas the effects of a violation of neutrality committed by means of the construction, equipment, and armament of a vessel are not done away with by any commission which the government of the belligerent power, benefited by the violation of neutrality, may afterwards have granted to that vessel; and the ultimate step, by which the offense is completed, cannot be admissible as a ground for the absolution of the offender, nor can the consummation of his fraud become the means of establishing his innocence;

And whereas the privilege of exterritoriality accorded to vessels of war has been admitted into the law of nations, not as an absolute right, but solely as a proceeding founded on the principle of courtesy and mutual deference between different nations, and therefore can never be appealed to for the protection of acts done in violation of neutrality;

And whereas the absence of a previous notice cannot be regarded as a failure in any consideration required by the law of nations, in those cases in which a vessel carries with it its own condemnation ;

And whereas, in order to impart to any supplies of coal a character inconsistent with the second rule, prohibiting the use of neutral ports or waters, as a base of naval operations for a belligerent, it is necessary that the said supplies should be connected with special circumstances of time, of persons, or of place, which may combine to give them such character;

And whereas, with respect to the vessel called the "Alabama," it clearly results from all the facts relative to the construction of the ship at first designated by the number "290" in the port of Liverpool, and its equipment and armament in the vicinity of Terceira through the agency of the vessels called the "Agrippina" and the "Bahama," dispatched from Great Britain to that end, that the British government failed to use due diligence in the performance of its neutral obligations ; and especially that it omitted, notwithstanding the warnings and official representations made by the diplomatic agents of the United States during the construction of the said number "290," to take in due time any effective measures of prevention, and that those orders which it did give at last, for the detention of the vessel, were issued so late that their execution was not practicable;

And whereas, after the escape of that vessel, the measures taken for its pursuit and arrest were so imperfect as to lead to no result, and therefore cannot be considered sufficient to release Great Britain from the responsibility already incurred;

And whereas, in despite of the violations of the neutrality of Great Britain committed by the "290," this same vessel, later known as the Confederate cruiser "Alabama," was on several occasions freely admitted into the ports of colonies of Great Britain, instead of being proceeded against as it ought to have been in any and every port within British jurisdiction in which it might have been found;

And whereas the government of Her Britannic Majesty cannot justify itself for a failure in due diligence on the plea of insufficiency of the legal means of action which it possessed:

Four of the arbitrators, for the reasons above assigned, and the fifth for reasons separately assigned by him,

Are of opinion--

That Great Britain has in this case failed, by omission, to fulfill the duties prescribed in the first and the third of the rules established by the VI th article of the Treaty of Washington.

And whereas, with respect to the vessel called the "Florida," it results from all the facts relative to the construction of the "Oreto" in the port of Liverpool, and to its issue therefrom, which facts failed to induce the authorities in Great Britain to resort to measures adequate to prevent the violation of the neutrality of that nation, notwithstanding the warnings and repeated representations of the agents of the United States, that Her Majesty's government has failed to use due diligence to fulfill the duties of neutrality;

And whereas it likewise results from all the facts relative to the stay of the "Oreto" at Nassau, to her issue from that port, to her enlistment of men, to her supplies, and to her armament, with the cooperation of the British vessel "Prince Alfred," at Green Cay, that there was negligence on the part of the British colonial authorities ;

And whereas, notwithstanding the violation of the neutrality of Great Britain committed by the "Oreto," this same vessel, later known as the Confederate cruiser "Florida, was nevertheless on several occasions freely admitted into the ports of British colonies;

And whereas the judicial acquittal of the "Oreto" at Nassau cannot relieve Great Britain from the responsibility incurred by her under the principles of international law; nor can the fact of the entry of the "Florida" into the Confederate port of Mobile, and of its stay there during four months, extinguish the responsibility previously to that time incurred by Great Britain :

For these reasons,

The tribunal, by a majority of four voices to one, is of opinion--

That Great Britain has in this case failed, by omission, to fulfill the duties prescribed in the first, in the second, and in the third of the rules established by Article VI of the Treaty of Washington.

And whereas, with respect to the vessel called the "Shenandoah," it results from all the facts relative to the departure from London of the merchant-vessel the "Sea King," and to the transformation of that ship into a confederate cruiser under the name of the "Shenandoah," near the island of Madeira, that the government of Her Britannic Majesty is not chargeable with any failure, down to that date, in the use of due diligence to fulfill the duties of neutrality;

But whereas it results from all the facts connected with the stay of the "Shenandoah" at Melbourne, and especially with the augmentation which the British government itself admits to have been clandestinely effected of her force, by the enlistment of men within that port, that there was negligence on the part of the authorities at that place:


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## Library4Science (Apr 13, 2011)

This is an excerpt from Volume 9 "Reconstruction," of the Series "America: Great Crises in our History."

*Ulysses S. Grant, Eighteenth President*

By James Ford Rhodes.

_GRANT came as near being the unanimous choice of the country for President in 'n 1868 as any candidate for that office ever has been. Besieged by both the Republican and Democratic parties to accept the nomination, his views were more in accord with the former, and in the race against Horatio Seymour, the Democratic candidate, Grant carried all but eight States.

Rhodes, from whose "History of the United States" this account is taken, by permission of the Macmillan Company, spent much time, during Grant's first administration, making industrial investigations in the South and gathering material for his monumental history, to the writing of which he devoted sixteen years. His narrative is impartial and sober, and is generally considered the best work covering the period treated._

BETWEEN the days of the two votes on the articles of impeachment the National Union Republican Convention assembled in Chicago [May 20] and with great enthusiasm nominated General Grant for President by a unanimous vote. Grant's position during the ante-Convention canvass had been an enviable one. Either party was willing to take him as its standard bearer. So far as he had ever had any political leanings they were Democratic. His only presidential vote had been cast for Buchanan and, had he acquired a residence in Illinois in 1860, he would have voted for Douglas. In 1867 the radical Republicans, fearing that Grant was not sound on Reconstruction and the *****, had desired the nomination of Chase; and there were also advocates of Colfax, who, as a great friend of his wrote, "has got the White House on the brain." Referring to Grant, Wade said, "A man may be all right on horses and all wrong on politics." But the shrewd Republican leaders and the bulk of the party wanted Grant and showed great eagerness to get him on their side. He had however told General Sherman that he would not accept a nomination for the Presidency. On August 9, John Sherman wrote: "If he has really made up his mind that he would like to hold that office he can have it. Popular opinion is all in his favor. . . . I see nothing in his way unless he is foolish enough to connect his future with the Democratic party." Yet, "if Grant declines then by all odds Chase is the safest man for the country." "So far as mortal ken can decide," wrote Bowles a month later, "Grant will take the game at a swoop." The Democratic victories of the autumn of 1867 convinced all the sagacious Republicans of influence that their success in 1868 would be in jeopardy if they could not bolster up their failing fortunes by the great personal popularity of Grant. Fate now intervened with Johnson's stupid quarrel which drove him avowedly into their fold. He was quick to acknowledge the situation and during the impeachment trial it became generally understood that he would accept the Republican nomination : he promptly confirmed expectation in a brief and characteristic letter of acceptance.

Schuyler Colfax of Indiana, the Speaker of the House, was nominated for Vice-President on the fifth ballot, his most formidable competitor being Wade who led on every ballot until the last.

The important platform declarations were, the approval of the reconstruction policy of Congress, the denunciation as "a national crime" of all forms of repudiation and the demand that the debt of the nation be paid according to the spirit as well as the letter of the law.

The Democratic Convention was the more interesting owing to the maneuvers of George H. Pendleton and Chief Justice Chase, both Ohio men.

That the Democrats were hopeful of success is shown by the eagerness with which their nomination was sought. And the enthusiasm engendered by their convention seemed to indicate that the country was weary of Republican rule. Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana held State elections in October and, to carry them, both sides made a strenuous effort; in Pennsylvania and Indiana it was a sharp contest. Pennsylvania went Republican by less than ten thousand ; and Hendricks, who had accepted the Democratic nomination for Governor of Indiana in the hope of carrying the State, so that he might be reelected Senator, was beaten by only 961. Ohio, a more certain Republican State than either, gave the Republican candidate only 17,000 majority. These elections, however, made the main result a practically foregone conclusion. Seymour with great energy took the stump and made a number of excellent and moderate speeches in Western New York, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Pennsylvania ; but the tide had set against his party and his efforts to stem it were ineffectual. Grant carried 26 States receiving 214 electoral votes while Seymour had a majority in 8 that chose 80 electors. Of the late Confederate States, North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Alabama, Arkansas and Tennessee went for Grant; Georgia and Louisiana for Seymour. Virginia, Mississippi and Texas were, as we have seen, unreconstructed and took no part in the presidential election. The victory for Grant was not so overwhelming as the figures seem to indicate. Seymour carried New York, New Jersey and Oregon and had he received as well the votes of the "solid South," which were a possession of the Democrats from 1880 to 1892, he would have been elected. It was however believed by Republicans at the North that Georgia and Louisiana had been carried for Seymour by "organized assassination" and that in Louisiana fraud had come to the assistance of terror.

The strongest factor in Republican success was the immense personal popularity of Grant; the adroit use made of the unrest and "outrages" at the South was another. That the result did not turn on the financial question is obvious enough ; for New York and New Jersey, hard money States, went for Seymour while Ohio and Indiana where the "Ohio idea" was most influential went for Grant. Could Seymour have made his own platform and chosen his associate on the ticket, the election would have been more closely contested but no combination of circumstances could have beaten Grant. His candidacy allayed the discontent both with ***** suffrage and with the high-handed rule at the South. And the result of his election was generally tranquillizing.

Amid the general acclamations of the people on March 4, 1869 General Grant was inaugurated President. No President since Washington, except Monroe and Lincoln at their second inaugurations, went into office so favorably regarded by men of all parties. As I have previously stated, he could have had the Democratic nomination had he not decided to cast his lot with the Republicans ; and although the contest had been a lively one, Democratic zeal had in hardly any degree been directed against Grant but rather against Republican policy. Thus Democrats regarded him as their President as well as that of the party which chose him. His record as a general had won the admiration, and his simple and honest nature the affections, of the educated and highly placed as well as of the plain people. In the ceremony of inauguration there was but one jarring note. Grant felt so bitterly towards Johnson, because of their controversy of the year before, that he departed from the usual custom and declined to drive with him in the same carriage from the White House to the Capitol.

His brief inaugural address was characteristic. "The responsibilities of the position I feel," he said, "but accept them' without fear. The office has come to me unsought; I commence its duties untrammeled." He had a great opportunity ; only Washington's and Lincoln's were greater. In his appointments for the Cabinet he showed his complete independence, choosing his ministers without the usual consultations with prominent men of the party and without regard to public sentiment and its canvassing of the merits of different candidates through the press. Hardly any newspaper guessing of the make-up of the Cabinet was even in part correct and five of the appointments were a general surprise, some of them indeed to the men themselves who were named. Elihu B. Washburne of Illinois, the faithful friend of Lincoln and Grant, was nominated for Secretary of State. He had been an excellent representative in Congress but was entirely without fitness for the State Department. For Secretary of the Treasury the President's choice fell upon Alexander T. Stewart, the rich and successful dry goods merchant of New York City. Some senators and representatives did not like this selection but it was well received by the public. Stewart was one of the three richest men in the country and had built up his immense fortune from a small inheritance by remarkably able business management. For a number of years the newspapers had been full of anecdotes of his executive ability as shown in his systematization of a large trade and his excellent choice of subordinates ; and few men outside of public life were better known. Grant, so it was said, had observed the skill with which Stewart conducted his private affairs and desired to enlist it in the public service. His nomination, along with all the others, was promptly and unanimously confirmed, but within two days it was discovered that he was not eligible for the office. The Act of September 2, 1789 establishing the Department provided that no one appointed Secretary of the Treasury should "directly or indirectly be concerned or interested in carrying on the business of trade or commerce." The President asked Congress to exempt Stewart by joint resolution from the operation of the act and Sherman asked unanimous consent of the Senate to introduce a bill repealing so much of the act as made Stewart ineligible, his intention being to have it passed at once; but Sumner objected to such a summary proceeding. The President withdrew his request, and, "to fill a vacancy," appointed George S. Boutwell of Massachusetts, a sturdy Puritan and politician of sterling virtue but with no especial qualifications for Secretaryship of the Treasury. . . . Jacob D. Cox, of Ohio, was made Secretary of the Interior; E. Rockwood Hoar, of Massachusetts, Attorney-General ; John A. Rawlins, Grant's faithful friend and mentor in the army, was appointed Secretary of War, and John A. J. Creswell, of Maryland, Postmaster-General.


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## Library4Science (Apr 13, 2011)

This is an excerpt from Volume 9 "Reconstruction," of the Series "America: Great Crises in our History."

*General Grant Reviews Post-War Conditions In The South*

His Report to President Johnson.

_ANDREW JOHNSON, a North Carolinian, who had risen from the position of a tailor to the Vice-Presidency, succeeded to the Presidency on the death of Lincoln. As President he reversed his attitude toward the South, and soon proclaimed a general policy of leniency toward the seceded States. As a step in that direction, he requested Grant, for whom Congress had created the full rank of General, to tour the South and prepare for him (Johnson) the accompanying report of conditions as he found them.

Throughout this trying period Grant maintained a loyal and dignified position, but was drawn into the struggle between the President and Congress as it became intensified. He was inclined to support Johnson, who characterized the course of Congress toward the South as another rebellion. It was while Grant was on this mission that the Wade-Davis Reconstruction Bill, aimed as a gun at Johnson, was passed by a defiant Congress._

WITH your approval, and also that of the honorable Secretary of War, I left Washington City on the 27th of last month (November) for the purpose of making a tour of inspection through some of the Southern States, or States lately in rebellion, and to see what changes were necessary to be made in the disposition of the military forces of the country ; how these forces could be reduced and expenses curtailed, etc. ; and to learn, as far as possible, the feelings and intentions of the citizens of those States toward the general Government. The following are the conclusions come to by me:

I am satisfied that the mass of thinking men of the South accept the present situation of affairs in good faith. The questions which have heretofore divided the sentiment of the people of the two sections slavery and State rights, or the right of a State to secede from the Union they regard as having been settled forever by the highest tribunal arms that man can resort to. I was pleased to learn from the leading men whom I met that they not only accepted the decision arrived at as final, but, now that the smoke of battle has cleared away, and time has been given for reflection, that this decision has been a fortunate one for the whole country, they receiving like benefits from it with those who- opposed them in the field and in council.

Four years of war, during which law was executed only at the point of the bayonet throughout the States in rebellion, have left the people possibly in a condition not to yield that ready obedience to civil authority the American people have generally been in the habit of yielding. This would render the presence of small garrisons throughout those States necessary until such time as labor returns to its proper channel, and civil authority is fully established. I did not meet any one, either those holding places under the Government or citizens of the Southern States, who think it practicable to withdraw the military from the South at present. The white and the black mutually require the protection of the general government.

There is such universal acquiescence in the authority of the general government throughout the portions of country visited by me, that the mere presence of a military force, without regard to numbers, is sufficient to maintain order. The good of the country, and economy, require that the force is kept in the interior, where there are many freedmen (elsewhere in the Southern States than at forts upon the sea coast no force is necessary), should all be white troops. The reasons for this are obvious without mentioning many of them. The presence of black troops, lately slaves, demoralizes labor, both by their advice and by furnishing in their camps a resort for the freedmen for long distances around. White troops generally excite no opposition, and therefore a small number of them can maintain order in a given district. Colored troops must be kept in bodies sufficient to defend themselves. It is not the thinking men who would use violence toward any class of troops sent among them by the general government, but the ignorant in some places might ; and the late slave seems to be imbued with the idea that the property of his late master should, by right, belong to him, or, at least, should have no protection from the colored soldier. There is danger of collisions being brought on by such causes.

My observations lead me to the conclusion that the citizens of the Southern States are anxious to return to self-government, within the Union, as soon as possible; that while reconstructing they want and require protection from the government; that they are in earnest in wishing to do what they think is required by the Government, not humiliating to them as citizens, and that if such a course were pointed out they would pursue it in good faith. It is to be regretted that there cannot be a greater commingling, at this time, between the citizens of the two sections, and particularly of those intrusted with the law-making power.


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## Library4Science (Apr 13, 2011)

This is an excerpt from Volume 9 "Reconstruction," of the Series "America: Great Crises in our History."

*Civil Service Reform Demanded*

By George William Curtis.

_CURTIS gave the best years of his useful life as an editor and publicist to bringing about civil service reform in this country. In 1871 President Grant appointed the first Civil Service Commission, with Curtis as chairman. From that time until 1883, when "a constitutional, practical and effective measure for the remedy of the abuse known as the spoils system" was adopted by Congress, Curtis fought valiantly for the "merit system."

Personally he never sought political office, though many attractive posts were offered him. He was long the chief editor of Harper's Weekly, and enhanced his reputation by establishing and conducting a department in Harper's Magazine called The Editor's Easy Chair.

This address, delivered before the American Social Science Association, in 1881, is taken from his "Orations and Addresses," by permission of Harper & Brothers._

A VITAL and enduring reform in administrative methods, although it be but a return to the constitutional intention, can be accomplished only by the commanding impulse of public opinion. Permanence is secured by law, not by individual pleasure. But in this country law is only formulated public opinion. Reform of the Civil Service does not contemplate an invasion of the constitutional prerogative of the President and the Senate, nor does it propose to change the Constitution by statute. The whole system of the Civil Service proceeds, as I said, from the President, and the object of the reform movement is to enable him to fulfill the intention of the Constitution by revealing to him the desire of the country through the action of its authorized representatives. When the ground-swell of public opinion lifts Congress from the rocks, the President will gladly float with it into the deep water of wise and patriotic action.

Now, it is easy to kill weeds if we can destroy their roots, and it is not difficult to determine what the principle of reform legislation should be if we can agree upon the source of the abuses to be reformed. May they not have a common origin? In fact, are they not all bound together as parts of one system? The Representative in Congress, for instance, does not ask whether the interests of the public service require this removal or that appointment, but whether, directly or indirectly, either will best serve his own interests. The Senator acts from the same motives. The President, in turn, balances between the personal interests of leading politicians President, Senators, and Representatives all wishing to pay for personal service and to conciliate personal influence. So also the party labor required of the place holder, the task of carrying caucuses, of defeating one man and electing another, as may be ordered, the payment of the assessment levied upon his salary all these are the prices of the place. They are taxes paid by him as conditions of receiving a personal favor. Thus the abuses have a common source, whatever may be the plea for the system from which they spring. Whether it be urged that the system is essential to party organization, or that the desire for place is a laudable political ambition, or that the spoils system is a logical development of our political philosophy, or that new brooms sweep clean, or that any other system is un-American whatever the form of the plea for the abuse, the conclusion is always the same, that the minor places in the Civil Service are not public trusts, but rewards and prizes for personal and political favorites.

The root of the complex evil then is personal favoritism. This produces congressional dictation, senatorial usurpation, arbitrary removals, interference in elections, political assessments, and all the consequent corruption, degradation, and danger that experience has disclosed. The method of reform, therefore, must be a plan of selection for appointment which makes favoritism impossible. The general feeling undoubtedly is that this can be accomplished by a fixed limited term. But the terms of most of the offices to which the President and the Senate appoint, and upon which the myriad minor places in the service depend, have been fixed and limited for sixty years, yet it is during that very period that the chief evils of personal patronage have appeared.

If, then, legitimate cause for removal ought to be determined in public as in private business by the responsible appointing power, it is of the highest public necessity that the exercise of that power should be made as absolutely honest and independent as possible. But how can it be made honest and independent if it is not protected so far as practicable from the constant bribery of selfish interest and the illicit solicitation of personal influence? The experience of our large public patronage offices proves conclusively that the cause of the larger number of removals is not dishonesty or incompetency; it is the desire to make vacancies to fill. This is the actual cause, whatever cause may be assigned. The removals would not be made except for the pressure of politicians. But those politicians would not press for removals if they could not secure the appointment of their favorites. Make it impossible for them to secure appointment, and the pressure would instantly disappear and arbitrary removal cease.

So long, therefore, as we permit minor appointments to be made by mere personal influence and favor, a fixed limited term and removal during that term for cause only would not remedy the evil, because the incumbents would still be seeking influence to secure reappointment, and the aspirants doing the same to replace them. Removal under plea of good cause would be as wanton and arbitrary as it is now, unless the power to remove were intrusted to some other discretion than that of the superior officer, and in that case the struggle for reappointment and the knowledge that removal for the term was practically impossible would totally demoralize the service. To make sure, then, that removals shall be made for legitimate cause only, we must provide that appointment shall be made only for legitimate cause.

Mr. President, in the old Arabian story, from the little box upon the seashore, carelessly opened by the fisherman, arose the towering and haughty demon, ever more monstrous and more threatening, who would not crouch again. So from the small patronage of the earlier day, from a Civil Service dealing with a national revenue of only $2,000,000, and regulated upon sound business principles, has sprung the un-American, un-Democratic, un-Republican system which destroys political independence, honor and morality, and corrodes the national character itself. In the solemn anxiety of this hour the warning words of the austere Calhoun, uttered nearly half a century ago, echo in the startled recollection like words of doom : "If you do not put this thing down it will put you down." Happily it is the historic faith of the race from which we are chiefly sprung, that eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. It is that faith which has made our mother England the great parent of free States. The same faith has made America the political hope of the world. Fortunately, removed by our position from the entanglements of European politics, and more united and peaceful at home than at any time within the memory of living men, the moment is most auspicious for remedying that abuse in our political system whose nature, proportions and perils the whole country begins clearly to discern. The will and the power to apply the remedy will be a test of the sagacity and the energy of the people. The reform of which I have spoken is essentially the people's reform. With the instinct of robbers who run with the crowd and lustily cry "Stop thief!" those who would make the public service the monopoly of a few favorites denounce the determination to open that service to the whole people as a plan to establish an aristocracy. The huge ogre of patronage, gnawing at the character, the honor and the life of the country, grimly sneers that the people cannot help themselves and that nothing can be done. But much greater things have been done. Slavery was the Giant Despair of many good men of the last generation, but slavery was overthrown. If the spoils system, a monster only less threatening than slavery, be unconquerable, it is because the country has lost its convictions, its courage and its common sense. "I expect," said the Yankee as he surveyed a stout antagonist, "I expect that you're pretty ugly, but I cal'late I'm a darned sight uglier." I know that patronage is strong, but I believe that the American people are very much stronger.


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## Library4Science (Apr 13, 2011)

This is an excerpt from Volume 9 "Reconstruction," of the Series "America: Great Crises in our History."

*The Hayes-Tilden Presidential Contest*

By Edward Stanwood.

_THE election of Hayes, Ohio Republican, over Samuel J. Tilden, New York Democrat, in n the Presidential campaign of 1876, was the most closely contested in the political history of the country. The electoral vote, as decided by a commission consisting of five Senators, five Representatives and five Supreme Court Justices, was 185 for Hayes and 184 for Tilden. This account of the long and bitter contest is from Stanwood's "History of Presidential Elections," published by Houghton Mifflin Company.

Hayes had a brilliant Civil War record, being brevetted major-general, but was unfortunate in running counter to the political leaders of his party during his Presidency. He stalwartly supported measures for the public welfare that were nullified by Congress, and opposed measures that were passed over his veto. His liberality in dealing with the South sowed the seeds of a prosperity such as it had not enjoyed since the War._

THE nomination of Rutherford B. Hayes was made unanimous on the seventh ballot. He was the only candidate who had made a gain on every vote ; and as he was, if not very well known, entirely unobjectionable to the friends of all other candidates, it was less difficult to concentrate votes upon him than upon any other person in the list. Blaine, who was informed by telegraph at his house in Washington of the progress of the voting, wrote a dispatch congratulating Hayes immediately on receiving the result of the fifth vote.

The Democrats met at St. Louis two weeks later.

The Convention was deprived of much of its interest by the fact that Tilden's lead for the nomination was so very great. He was known to have more than four hundred delegates out of the whole convention of 744, and while his candidacy was opposed, the opposition came from States which nevertheless chose unanimous delegations in his favor. The delegates chosen in the interest of other candidates were for the latter, but not against Tilden. His nomination was therefore universally expected, except by the more sanguine friends of other candidates.

The polls had hardly closed on the day of election, the 7th of November, when the Democrats began to claim the Presidency. The returns came in so unfavorably for the Republicans that there was hardly a newspaper organ of the party which did not, on the following morning, concede the election of Tilden. He was believed to have carried every Southern State, as well as New York, Indiana, New Jersey and Connecticut. The whole number of electoral votes was 369. If the above estimate was correct, the Democratic candidates would have 203 votes, and the Republican candidates 166 votes. But word was sent out on the same day from Republican headquarters at Washington that Hayes and Wheeler were elected by one majority; that the States of South Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana had chosen Republican electors.

Then began the most extraordinary contest that ever took place in the country. The only hope of the Republicans was in the perfect defense of their position. The loss of a single vote would be fatal.

An adequate history of the four months between the popular election and the inauguration of Hayes would fill volumes. Space can be given here for only a bare reference to some of the most important events. Neither party was overscrupulous, and no doubt the acts of some members of each party were grossly illegal and corrupt. Certain transactions preceding the meetings of electors were not known until long afterward, when the key to the famous "cipher dispatches" was accidentally revealed.

,In four States, South Carolina, Florida, Louisiana and Oregon, there were double returns. In South Carolina there were loud complaints that detachments of the army, stationed near the polls, had prevented a fair and free election. Although the Board of State Canvassers certified to the choice of the Hayes electors, who were chosen on the face of the returns, the Democratic candidates for electors met on the day fixed for the meeting of electors and cast ballots for Tilden and Hendricks. In Florida there were allegations of fraud on both sides. The canvassing board and the governor certified to the election of the Hayes electors, but, fortified by a court decision in their favor, the Democratic electors also met and voted. In Louisiana there was anarchy. There were two governors, two returning boards, two sets of returns showing different results, and two electoral colleges. In Oregon the Democratic governor adjudged one of the Republican electors ineligible, and gave a certificate to the highest candidate on the Democratic list. The Republican electors, having no certificate from the governor, met and voted for Hayes and Wheeler. The Democratic elector, whose appointment was certified by the governor, appointed two others to fill the vacancies, when the two Republican electors would not meet with him, and the three voted for Tilden and Hendricks. All of these cases were very complicated in their incidents, and a brief account which should convey an intelligible idea of what occurred is impossible.

As soon as the electoral votes were cast it became a question of the very first importance how they were to be counted. It was evident that the Senate would refuse to be governed by the twenty-second joint rule in fact, the Senate voted to rescind the rule and it was further evident that if the count were to take place in accordance with that rule it would result in throwing out electoral votes on both sides on the most frivolous pretexts. It was asserted by the Republicans that, under the Constitution, the President of the Senate alone had the right to count, in spite of the fact that the joint rule, the work of their party, had assumed the power for the two Houses of Congress. On the other hand, the Democrats, who had always denounced that rule as unconstitutional, now maintained that the right to count was conferred upon Congress. A compromise became necessary, and the moderate men on both sides determined to effect the establishment of a tribunal, as evenly divided politically as might be, which should decide all disputed questions so far as the Constitution gave authority to Congress to decide them. The outcome of their efforts was the Electoral Commission law of 1877, which was passed as originally reported.


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## Library4Science (Apr 13, 2011)

This is an excerpt from Volume 9 "Reconstruction," of the Series "America: Great Crises in our History."

*The Threatened Impeachment Of Andrew Johnson*

By Senator Shelby M. Cullom.

_SENATOR CULLOM, from whose "Fifty Years of Public Service" this account is taken, by permission of A. C. McClurg & Company, was a member of Congress from Illinois at the time impeachment proceedings were brought against President Andrew Johnson.

Leading up to the threatened impeachment of Johnson, which was averted in the Senate by the narrow margin of one vote less than the two-thirds necessary, Congress had repassed several bills over the President's veto. In August, 1867, Stanton was displaced by General Grant as Secretary of War. A month later Congress refused to ratify Stanton's suspension, whereupon Grant resigned and Stanton resumed his post. Early in 1868 Johnson again removed Stanton, and put General Lorenzo Thomas in his place, thereby provoking the historic impeachment proceedings, which Cullom supported._

AS I look back now over the vista of the years that have come and gone, it seems to me that I entered the Lower House of Congress just at the beginning of the most important period in all our history. The great President had been assassinated; the war was over; Andrew Johnson, a Union Democrat, was President of the United States. Reconstruction was the problem which confronted us, how to heal up the nation's wounds and remake a Union which would endure for all time to come. These were the difficult conditions that had to be dealt with by the Thirty-ninth Congress.

Andrew Johnson was the queerest character that ever occupied the White House, and, with the exception of Lincoln only, he entered it under the most trying and difficult circumstances in all our history; but Lincoln had, what Johnson lacked, the support and confidence of the great Republican party. Johnson was never a Republican, and never pretended to be one. He was a lifelong Democrat, and a slaveholder as well; but he was loyal to, the Union, no man living more so. As a Senator from Tennessee, alone of all the Southern Senators, he faced his colleagues from the South in denouncing secession as treason. His subsequent phenomenal course in armed opposition to the Rebellion brought about his nomination for the Vice-Presidency as a shrewd stroke to secure the support of the War Democrats of the North and the Union men of his State and section.

The scene which took place in the Senate chamber when Johnson was inducted into office as Vice-President; the exhibition he made of himself at the time of taking the oath of office, in the presence of the President of the United States, and the representatives of the governments of the world all this, advertised at the time in the opposition press, added to the prejudice against Johnson in the North and made his position more trying and difficult.

There were two striking points in Johnson's character, and I knew him well: first, his loyalty to the Union; and, second, his utter fearlessness of character. He could not be cowed; old Ben Wade, Sumner, Stevens, all the great leaders of that day could not, through fear, influence him one particle.

In 1861, when he was being made the target of all sorts of threats on account of his solitary stand against secession in the Senate, he let fall this characteristic utterance: "I want to say, not boastingly, with no anger in my bosom, that these two eyes of mine have never looked upon anything in the shape of mortal man that this heart has feared." This utterance probably illustrates Johnson's character more clearly than anything that I could say. He sought rather than avoided a fight. Headstrong, domineering, having fought his way in a State filled with aristocratic Southerners, from the class of so-called "low whites" to the highest position in the United States, he did not readily yield to the dictates of the dominating forces in Congress.

Lincoln had a well-defined policy of reconstruction. Indeed, so liberal was he disposed to be in his treatment of the Southern States that immediately after the surrender of Richmond he would have recognized the old State Government of Virginia had it not been for the peremptory veto of Stanton. Congress was not in session when Johnson came to the Presidency in April, 1865. To do him no more than simple justice, I firmly believe that he wanted to follow out, in reconstruction, what he thought was the policy of Mr. Lincoln, and in this he was guided largely by the advice of Mr. Seward.

But there was this difference. Johnson was, probably in good faith, pursuing the Lincoln policy of reconstruction; but when the legislatures and executives of the Southern States began openly passing laws and executing them so that the ***** was substantially placed back into slavery, practically nullifying the results of the awful struggle, the untold loss of life and treasure, Mr. Lincoln certainly would have receded and would have dealt with the South with an iron hand, as Congress had determined to do, and as General Grant was compelled to do when he assumed the Presidency.

From April to the reassembling of Congress in December, Johnson had a free hand in dealing with the seceding States, and he was not slow to take advantage of it. He seemed disposed to recognize the old State governments; to restrict the suffrage to the whites; to exercise freely the pardoning power in the way of extending executive clemency not only to almost all classes, but to every individual who would apply for it. The result was, it seemed to be certain that if the Johnson policy were carried out to the fullest extent the supremacy of the Republican party in the councils of the nation would be at stake.

To express it in a word, the motive of the opposition to the Johnson plan of reconstruction was the firm conviction that its success would wreck the Republican party, and by restoring the Democrats to power bring back Southern supremacy and Northern vassalage. The impeachment, in a word, was a culmination of the struggle between the legislative and the executive departments of the Government over the problem of reconstruction. The legislative department claimed exclusive jurisdiction over reconstruction; the executive claimed that it alone was competent to deal with the subject.

It was at once determined by the Republican majority in Congress that the representatives of the eleven seceding States should not be admitted. The Constitution expressly gives to the House and Senate the exclusive power to judge of the admission and qualification of its own members.

We were surprised at the moderation of the President's message, which came in on Tuesday after Congress assembled. In tone and general character the message was wholly unlike Johnson. It was an admirable state document, one of the finest from a literary and probably from every other standpoint that ever came from an executive to Congress. It was thought at the time that Mr. Seward wrote it, but it has since been asserted that it was the product of that foremost of American historians [George] Bancroft, one of Mr. Johnson's close personal friends.

There existed three theories of dealing with the Southern States; one was the President's theory of recognizing the State governments, allowing the States to deal with the suffrage question as they might see fit; the Stevens policy of wiping out all State lines and dealing with the regions as conquered military provinces; and the Sumner theory of treating them as organized territories, recognizing the State lines.

What determined Johnson in his course, I do not know. It was thought that he would be a radical of radicals. Being of the "poor white" class, he may have been flattered by the attentions showered on him by the old Southern aristocrats. Writers of this period have frequently given that as a reason. My own belief has been that he was far too strong a man to be governed in so vital a matter by so trivial a cause. My conviction is that the radical Republican leaders in the House were right; that he believed in the old Democratic party, aside from his loyalty to the Union; and was a Democrat determined to turn the Government over to the Democratic party, reconstructed on a Union basis.

I cannot undertake to go into all the long details of that memorable struggle. As I look back over the history of it now, it seems to me to bear a close resemblance to the beginning of the French Revolution, to the struggle between the States General of France and Louis XVI. Might we not, if things had turned differently, have drifted into chaos and revolution? If Johnson had been impeached and refused to submit, adopting the same tactics as did Stanton in retaining the War Department; had Ben Wade taken the oath of office and demanded possession, Heaven only knows what might have been the result.

But reminiscing in this way, as I cannot avoid doing when I think back over those terrible times, I lose the continuity of my subject. An extension to the Freedman's Bureau bill was passed, was promptly vetoed by the Executive, the veto was as promptly overruled by the House, where there was no substantial opposition, but the Senate failed to pass the bill, the veto of the President to the contrary notwithstanding.

I had not the remotest idea that Johnson would dare to veto the Freedman's Bureau bill, and I made a speech on the subject, declaring a firm conviction to that effect. A veto at that time was almost unheard of. Except during the administration of Tyler, no important bill had ever been vetoed by an executive. It came as a shock to Congress and the country. Excitement reigned supreme. The question was, "Should the bill pass the veto of the President regardless thereof?"

Not the slightest difficulty existed in the House; Thaddeus Stevens had too complete control of that body to allow any question concerning it there. The bill, therefore, was promptly passed over the veto of the President. But the situation in the Senate was different. At that time the Sumner-Wade radical element did not have the necessary two-thirds majority, and the bill failed to pass over the veto of the President. The war between the executive and legislative departments of the Government had fairly commenced, and the first victory had been won by the President.

The Civil Rights bill, drawn and introduced by Judge Trumbull, than whom there was no greater lawyer in the United States Senate, in January, 1866, on the reassembling of Congress, was passed. Then began the real struggle on the part of the radicals in the Senate, headed by Sumner and Wade, to muster the necessary two-thirds majority to pass a bill over the veto of the President.

Let me digress here to say a word in reference to Charles Sumner. . . . It was his mission to awake the public conscience to the horrors of slavery. He performed his duty unfalteringly, and it almost cost him his life. Mr. Lincoln was the only man living who ever managed Charles Sumner, or could use him for his purpose. Sumner's end has always seemed to me most pitiful. Removed from his high position as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee of the Senate, followed relentlessly by the enmity of President Grant, then at the very acme of his fame; drifting from the Republican party, his own State repudiating him, Charles Sumner died of a broken heart.

But to return to the struggle between the President and Congress. Trumbull, Sumner, Wade and the leaders were bound in one way or another to get the necessary two-thirds. The vote was taken in the Senate: "Shall the Civil Rights bill pass the veto of the President to the contrary notwithstanding?" It was understood the vote would be very close, and the result uncertain.


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## Library4Science (Apr 13, 2011)

This is an excerpt from Volume 9 "Reconstruction," of the Series "America: Great Crises in our History."

*The Panic Of 1873*

By E. Benjamin Andrews.

_DR. ANDREWS, from whose "History of the Last Quarter-Century of the United States," this account is taken, by permission of Charles Scribner's Sons, occupied the chair of political economy and finance in Cornell University, 1888-9, and was president of Brown University from 1889 to 1898. He resigned because of criticism by the university trustees of his advocacy of free silver. In 1892 he was a United States commissioner to the Brussels monetary conference, and was a strong advocate of international bimetallism.

The crisis of 1873 is usually dated from the failure of Jay Cooke & Company. There had been premonitory symptoms of the approaching collapse. Railroad-building reached its highest point in 1871, pig-iron its highest price in 1872. The crisis lasted a few months only, but was followed by a tenaciously long period of depression, the lowest point of which was touched in 1876._

THE panic of 1873, so far as it resulted from contraction, had its main origin abroad, not in America, so that its subordinate causes were generally looked upon as its sole occasion ; yet these bye causes were important. The shocking destruction of wealth by fires and by reckless speculation, of course, had a baneful effect. During 1872 the balance of trade was strongly against the United States. The circulation of depreciated paper money had brought to many an apparent prosperity which was not real, leading to the free creation of debts by individuals, corporations, towns, cities and States. An unprecedented mileage of railways had been constructed. Much supposed wealth consisted in the bonds of these railroads and of other new concerns, like mining and manufacturing corporations. Thus the entire business of the country was on a basis of inflation, and when contraction came disaster was inevitable.

In the course of the summer solid values began to be hoarded and interest rates consequently to rise. In August there was a partial corner in gold, broken by a government sale of $6,000,000. In September panic came, with suspension of several large banking-houses in New York. Jay Cooke & Co., who had invested heavily in the construction of the Northern Pacific Railway, suspended on September 18th. When authoritative news of this event was made known in the Stock Exchange a perfect stampede of the brokers ensued. They surged out of the Exchange, tumbling pell-mell over each other in the general confusion, hastening to notify their respective houses. Next day, September 19th, Fiske & Hatch, very conservative people, went down.

September 19th was a second Black Friday. Never since the original Black Friday had the Street and the Stock Exchange been so frantic. The weather, dark and rainy, seemed to sympathize with the gloom which clouded the financial situation. Wall, Broad and Nassau Streets were thronged with people. From the corner of Wall Street and Broadway down to the corner of Hanover Street a solid mass of men filled both sidewalks. From the post-office along Nassau Street down Broad Street to Exchange Place another dense throng moved slowly, aimlessly, hither and thither. Sections of Broadway itself were packed. Weaving in and out like the shuttles in a loom were brokers and brokers' clerks making the best speed they could from point to point. All faces wore a bewildered and foreboding look. To help them seem cool, moneyed men talked about the weather, but their incoherent words and nervous motions betrayed their anxiety. The part of Wall Street at the corner of Broad Street held a specially interested mass of men. They seemed like an assemblage anxiously awaiting the appearance of a great spectacle. High up on the stone balustrade of the Sub-Treasury were numerous spectators, umbrellas sheltering them from the pelting rain as they gazed with rapt attention on the scene below. All the brokers' offices were filled. In each, at the first click of the indicator, everybody present was breathless, showing an interest more and more intense as the figures telegraphed were read off.

It was half-past ten in the morning when the Fiske & Hatch failure was announced in the Stock Exchange. For a moment there was silence; then a hoarse murmur broke out from bulls and bears alike, followed by yells and cries indescribable, clearly audible on the street. Even the heartless bear, in glee over the havoc he was making, paused to utter a growl of sorrow that gentlemen so honorable should become ursine prey. The news of the failure ran like a prairie fire, spreading dismay that showed itself on all faces. Annotators of values in the various offices made known in doleful ticks the depreciation of stocks and securities. Old habitues of the exchanges, each usually placid as a moonlit lake, were wrought up till they acted like wild men.

At the corner of Broad Street and Exchange Place a delirious crowd of money-lenders and borrowers collected and tried to fix a rate for loans. The matter hung in the balance for some time until the extent of the panic became known. They bid until the price of money touched one-half of one per cent. a day and legal interest. One man, after lending $30,000 at three-eighths per cent., said that he had $20,000 left, but that he thought he would not lend it. As he said this he turned toward his office, but was immediately surrounded by about twenty borrowers who hung on to his arms till he had agreed to lend the $20,000.

The Stock Exchange witnessed the chief tragedy and the chief farce of the day. Such tumult, push and bellowing had never been known there even in the wildest moments of the war. The interior of the Exchange was of noble altitude, with a vaulted top, brilliantly colored in Renaissance design that sprang upward with a strength and grace seldom so happily united. A cluster of gas-jets, hanging high, well illuminated the enclosure. On the capacious floor, unobstructed by pillars or by furniture, save one small table whereon a large basket of flowers rested, a mob of brokers and brokers' clerks surged back and forth, filling the immense space above with roars and screams. The floor was portioned off to some twenty different groups. Here was one tossing "New York Central" up and down ; near by another playing ball with "Wabash"; "Northwestern" jumped and sank as if afflicted with St. Vitus's dance. In the middle of the floor "Rock Island" cut up similar capers. In a remote corner "Pacific Mail" was beaten with clubs, while "Harlem" rose like a balloon filled with pure hydrogen. The uninitiated expected every instant to see the mob fight. jobbers squared off at each other and screamed and yelled violently, flinging their arms around and producing a scene which Bedlam itself could not equal.

Behind the raised desk, in snowy shirt-front and necktie, stood the president of the Exchange, his strong tenor voice every now and then ringing out over the Babel of sounds beneath. The gallery opposite him contained an eager throng of spectators bending forward and craning their necks to view the pandemonium on the floor. The rush for this gallery was fearful, and apparently, but for the utmost effort of the police, must have proved fatal to some. Excitement in Wall Street not infrequently drew crowds to the main front of the Exchange; but hardly ever, if ever before, had the vicinity been so packed as now. Two large blackboards exhibited in chalk figures the incessantly fluctuating quotations. Telegraph wires connected the Exchange with a thousand indicators throughout the city, whence the quotations, big with meaning to many, were flashed over the land.

The first Black Friday was a bull Friday; the second was a bear Friday. Early in the panic powerful brokers began to sell short, and they succeeded in hammering down from ten to forty per cent. many of the finest stocks like "New York Central," "Erie," "Wabash," "Northwestern,""Rock Island,"and "Western Union." They then bought to cover their sales. Bull brokers, unable to pay their contracts, shrieked for margin money, which their principals would not or could not put up. They also sought relief from the banks, but in vain. It had long been the practice of certain banks, though contrary to law, early each day to certify checks to enormous amounts in favor of brokers who had not a cent on deposit to their credit, the understanding in each case being that before three o'clock the broker would hand in enough cash or securities to cancel his debt. The banks now refused this accommodation. In the Exchange, eighteen names were read off of brokers who could not fulfill their contracts. As fast as the failures were announced the news was carried out on the street. In spite of the rain hundreds of people gathered about the offices of fallen reputation, and gazed curiously through the windows, trying to make out how the broken brokers were behaving. Toward evening, as the clouds lifted over Trinity spire, showing a ruddy flush in the west, everybody, save some reluctant bears, said, "The worst is over," and breathed a sigh of relief. The crowd melted, one by one the tiny little Broadway coupes rattled off, one by one the newsboys ceased shrieking, and night closed over the wet street.

In deference to a general wish that dealings in stocks should cease, the Exchange was shut on Saturday, September 20th, and not opened again till the 30th. Such closure had never occurred before. On Sunday morning President Grant and Secretary Richardson, of the Treasury, came to New York, spending the day in anxious consultation with Vanderbilt, Clews, and other prominent business men.

Had the Secretary of the Treasury acted promptly and firmly he might have relieved the situation much; but he vacillated. Some $13,500,000 in five-twenty bonds were bought, and a few millions of the greenbacks which Secretary McCulloch had called in for cancellation were set free. But as Mr. Richardson announced no policy on which the public could depend, most of the cash let loose was instantly hoarded in vaults or used in the purchase of other bonds then temporarily depressed, so doing nothing whatever to allay the distress. On the 25th the Treasury ceased buying bonds. The person who, at the worst, sustained the market and kept it from breaking to a point where half of the street would have been inevitably ruined, was Jay Gould, mischief itself on the first Black Friday, but on this one a blessing. He bought during the low prices several hundred thousand shares of railroad stocks, principally of the Vanderbilt stripe, and in this way put a check on the ruinous decline.

The national banks of New York weathered this cyclone by a novel device of the Clearing-house or associated banks. They pooled their cash and collaterals into a common fund, placed this in the hands of a trusty committee, and issued against it loan certificates that were receivable at the Clearing-house, just like cash, in payment of debit balances. Ten million dollars' worth of these certificates was issued at first, a sum subsequently doubled. This Clearing-house paper served its purpose admirably. By October 3d confidence was so restored that $1,000,000 of it was called in and canceled, followed next day by $1,500,000 more. None of it was long outstanding. The Clearing-house febrifuge was successfully applied also in Boston, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and other cities, but not in Chicago.

The panic overspread the country. Credit in business was refused, debtors were pressed for payment, securities were rushed into the markets and fell greatly in price. Even United States bonds went down from five to ten per cent. There was a run upon savings-banks, many of which succumbed. Manufactured goods were little salable, and the prices of agricultural products painfully sank. Factories began to run on short time, many closed entirely, many corporations failed. The peculiarity of this crisis was the slowness with which it abated, though fortunately its acute phase was of brief duration. No date could be set as its term, its evil effects dragging on through years.


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## Library4Science (Apr 13, 2011)

This is an excerpt from Volume 9 "Reconstruction," of the Series "America: Great Crises in our History."

*The Fifteenth Amendment*

By Senator Henry Wilson.

_THIS amendment, adopted in 1870, gave the American ***** his full civil rights, as a sequel to the thirteenth amendment, of 1865, which legally destroyed the institution of slavery. Accompanying the text of the amendment is the main part of a speech which Wilson, the "Natick Cobbler," delivered in the United States Senate at the time of its adoption.

Wilson had succeeded Edward Everett as Senator from Massachusetts in 1855, and retained his seat until 1873. Before the Civil War he was one of the most effective speakers against slavery, and was a Republican leader who believed in abolishing slavery through the machinery supplied by the Federal Constitution. In 1872 he was nominated for the Vice-Presidency on the ticket with Grant, and was elected. Not long afterward he was stricken with paralysis, and died in office. His nickname was an allusion to his early shoemaking days at Natick, Massachusetts._

SECTION I. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude.

Section II. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Sir, it is now past six o'clock in the morning a continuous session of more than eighteen hours. For more than seventeen hours the ear of the Senate has been wearied and pained with anti-republican, inhuman, and unchristian utterances, with the oft-repeated warnings, prophecies and predictions, with petty technicalities and carping criticisms. The majority in this Chamber, in the House, and in the country, too, have been arraigned, assailed and denounced, their ideas, principles and policies misrepresented, and their motives questioned. Sir, will our assailants never forget anything nor learn anything? Will they never see themselves as others see them? Year after year they have continuously and vehemently, as grand historic questions touching the interests of the country and the rights of our countrymen have arisen to be grappled with and solved, blurted into our unwilling ears these same warnings, prophecies and predictions, their unreasoning prejudices and passionate declamations. Time and events, which test all things, have brought discomfiture to their cause and made their illogical and ambitious rhetoric seem to be but weak and impotent drivel.

In spite of the discomfitures of the past, the champions of slavery and of the ideas, principles and policies pertaining to it are again doing battle for their perishing cause. Again, sir, we are arraigned, again misrepresented, again denounced. Why are we again thus misrepresented, arraigned and denounced? We, the friends of human rights, simply propose to submit to our countrymen an amendment of the Constitution of our country to secure the priceless boon of suffrage to citizens of the United States to whom the right to vote and be voted for is denied by the constitutions and laws of some of the States. This effort to remove the disabilities of the emancipated victims of the perished slave systems, to clothe them with power to maintain the dignity of manhood and the honor and rights of citizenship, spring from our love of freedom, our sense of justice, our reverence for human nature, and our recognition of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. This effort, sanctified by patriotism, liberty, justice and humanity, is stigmatized in this Chamber as a mere partisan movement. Who make it a partisan movement? The men who are actuated by an imperative sense of duty, or the men who instinctively seize the occasion to arouse the unreasoning passions of race and caste and the prejudices of ignorance and hate?

Because frivolity and fashion put their ban upon the black man, be his character ever so pure or his intelligence ever so great, statesmen in this Christian land of republican institutions must deny to him civil and political rights and privileges. Because social life has put and continues to put its brand of exclusion upon the black man, it is therefore the duty of statesmanship to maintain by class legislation the abhorrent doctrine of caste in this Christian Republic. This is the argument, the logic, the position of Senators.

Honorable Senators have grown weary in reminding us that it would be a breach of our plighted faith to submit to the State Legislatures this amendment to the Constitution to secure to American citizens the right to vote and to be voted for. They tell us we were pledged by our National Convention of 1868 ; that we were committed to the doctrine that the right to regulate the suffrage properly belonged to the loyal States. So the earlier Republican National Conventions proclaimed that slavery in the States was a local institution, for which the people of each State only were responsible. But that declaration did not stand in the way of the proclamation of emancipation, did not stand in the way of the thirteenth article of the amendments of the Constitution, did not stand in the way of that series of aggressive measures by which slavery was extirpated in the States. Slavery struck at the life of the nation, and the Republican party throttled its mortal foe. The Republican party in the National Convention of 1868 pronounced the guarantee by Congress of equal suffrage of all loyal men at the South as demanded by every consideration of public safety, gratitude, and of justice, and determined that it should be maintained. That declaration unreservedly committed the Republican party to the safety and justice of equal suffrage. The declaration that the suffrage in the loyal States properly belonged to the people of those States meant this, no more, no less : that under the Constitution it belonged to the people of each of the loyal States to regulate suffrage therein.

Senators accuse us of being actuated by partisanship, by the love of power, and the hope of retaining power; yet they never tire of reminding us that the people have in several States pronounced against equal suffrage and will do so again. I took occasion early in the debate to express the opinion that in the series of measures for the extirpation of slavery and the elevation and enfranchisement of the black race the Republican party had lost at least a quarter of a million of voters. In every great battle of the last eight years the timid, the weak faltered, fell back or slunk away into the ranks of the enemy. Yes, sir; while we have been struggling often against fearful odds, timid men, weak men and bad men, too, following the examples of timid men, weak men and bad men in all the great struggles for the rights of human nature, have broken from our advancing ranks and fallen back to the rear or gone over to the enemy, thus giving to the foe the strength they had pledged to us. But we have gone on prospering, and we shall go on prospering in spite of treacheries on the right hand and on the left. The timid may chide us, the weak reproach us, and the bad malign us, but we shall strive on, for in struggling to secure and protect the rights of others we assure our own.


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## Library4Science (Apr 13, 2011)

This is an excerpt from Volume 9 "Reconstruction," of the Series "America: Great Crises in our History."

*The Greeley Campaign*

By James G. Blaine.

_BLAINE, from whose "Twenty Years of Congress" this account is taken by permission of the copyright-holders, was a member of Congress during the Grant-Greeley campaign of 1872. As Speaker of the House during three of his seven successive terms in Congress, he became a power and his conduct was uniformly marked by great readiness and ability.

Blaine, although a political opponent of Greeley in this campaign, does not conceal his admiration for the sterling character and journalistic ability of the famous editor of the New York Tribune. To Greeley the campaign was disastrous in more ways than one. Not only was he overwhelmingly defeated, but the contest overtaxed his strength and left him a mental and physical wreck. Near its close he lost his wife, and he himself died within a month after President Grant was re-elected._

WITH Grant and Greeley fairly in the field, the country entered upon a remarkable contest. At the beginning of the picturesque and emotional "log cabin canvass of 1840," Mr. Van Buren, with his keen insight into popular movements, had said, in somewhat mixed metaphor, that it would be "either a farce or a tornado." The present canvass gave promise on different grounds of similar alternatives. General Grant had been tried, and with him the country knew what to expect. Mr. Greeley had not been tried, and though the best known man in his own field of journalism, he was the least known and most doubted in the field of governmental administration. No other candidate could have presented such an antithesis of strength and of weakness. He was the ablest polemic this country has ever produced. His command of strong, idiomatic, controversial English was unrivaled. His faculty of lucid statement and compact reasoning has never been surpassed. Without the graces of fancy or the arts of rhetoric, he was incomparable in direct, pungent, forceful discussion. A keen observer and an omnivorous reader, he had acquired an immense fund of varied knowledge, and he marshaled facts with singular skill and aptness.

In an era remarkable for strong editors in the New York press embracing Raymond of the 'Times, the elder Bennett of the "Herald," Watson Webb of the "Courier-Enquirer," William Cullen Bryant of the "Evening Post," with Thurlow Weed and Edwin Crosswell in the rival journals at Albany Mr. Greeley easily surpassed them all. His mind was original, creative, incessantly active. His industry was as unwearying as his fertility was inexhaustible. Great as was his intellectual power, his chief strength came from the depth and earnestness of his moral convictions. In the long and arduous battle against the aggressions of slavery, he had been sleepless and untiring in rousing and quickening the public conscience. He was keenly alive to the distinctions of right and wrong, and his philanthropy responded to every call of humanity. His sympathies were equally touched by the sufferings of the famine-stricken Irish and by the wrongs of the plundered Indians.

Next to Henry Clay, whose ardent disciple he was, he had done more than any other man to educate his countrymen in the American system of protection to home industry. He had on all occasions zealously defended the rights of labor; he had waged unsparing war on the evils of intemperance ; he had made himself an oracle with the American farmers; and his influence was even more potent in the remote prairie homes than within the shadow of Printing-House Square. With his dogmatic earnestness, his extraordinary mental qualities, his moral power, and his quick sympathy with the instincts and impulses of the masses, he was in a peculiar sense the Tribune of the people. In any reckoning of the personal forces of the century, Horace Greeley must be counted among the foremost intellectually and morally.

When he left the fields of labor in which he had become illustrious, to pass the ordeal of a Presidential candidate, the opposite and weaker sides of his character and career were brought into view. He was headstrong, impulsive and opinionated. If he had the strength of a giant in battle, he lacked the wisdom of the sage in council. If he was irresistible in his own appropriate sphere of moral and economic discussion, he was uncertain and unstable when he ventured beyond its limits. He was a powerful agitator and a matchless leader of debate, rather than a master of government.

Those who most admired his honesty, courage and power in the realm of his true greatness, most distrusted his fitness to hold the reins of administration. He had in critical periods evinced a want both of firmness and of sagacity. When the Southern States were on the eve of secession and the temper of the country was on trial, he had, though with honest intentions, shown signs of irresolution and vacillation. When he was betrayed into the ill-advised and abortive peace negotiations with Southern commissioners at Niagara, he had displayed the lack of tact and penetration which made the people doubt the solidity and coolness of his judgment. His method of dealing with the most intricate problems of finance seemed experimental and rash. The sensitive interests of business shrank from his visionary theories and his dangerous empiricism. His earlier affiliation with novel and doubtful social schemes had laid him open to the reproach of being called a man of isms.

Mr. Greeley had moreover weakened himself by showing a singular thirst for public office. It is strange that one who held a commanding station, and who wielded an unequaled influence, should have been ambitious for the smaller honors of public life. But Mr. Greeley had craved even minor offices, from which he could have derived no distinction, and, in his own phrase, had dissolved the firm of Seward, Weed and Greeley because, as he conceived, his claims to official promotion was not fairly recognized. This known aspiration added to the reasons which discredited his unnatural alliance with the Democracy. His personal characteristics, always marked, were exaggerated and distorted in the portraitures drawn by his adversaries. All adverse considerations were brought to bear with irresistible effect as the canvass proceeded, and his splendid services and undeniable greatness could not weigh in the scale against the political elements and personal disqualifications with which his Presidential candidacy was identified.


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## Library4Science (Apr 13, 2011)

This is an excerpt from Volume 9 "Reconstruction," of the Series "America: Great Crises in our History."

*The Fourteenth Amendment*

By Representative Thaddeus Stevens.

_STEVENS was the recognized leader of the radical Republicans in Congress from 1859 until his death in 1868. It was Stevens who reported the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution, giving the ******* citizenship. At that time he was chairman of the important House Reconstruction Committee. After the House had passed the amendment the Senate modified it, greatly to his disapproval.

Stevens and Johnson were bitter political enemies, and it was the former who was mainly responsible for the impeachment proceedings against President Johnson. Stevens was intolerant of compromises. During the Civil War, as chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means, he was as prompt and unsparing in helping the Federal Government meet its financial obligations as he afterwards was in condemning "rebels, traitors and copperheads." His theory of reconstruction was that the Southern States had forfeited all their rights, and being guilty of treason merited no mercy._

THIS proposition is not all that the committee desired. It falls far short of my wishes, but it fulfills my hopes. I believe it is all that can be obtained in the present state of public opinion. Not only Congress but the several States are to be consulted. Upon a careful survey of the whole ground, we did not believe that nineteen of the loyal States could be induced to ratify any proposition more stringent than this. I say nineteen, for I utterly repudiate and scorn the idea that any State not acting in the Union is to be counted on the question of ratification. It is absurd to suppose that any more than three-fourths of the States that propose the amendment are required to make it valid; that States not here are to be counted as present. Believing then, that this is the best proposition that can be made effectual, I accept it.

The first section prohibits the States from abridging the privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States, or unlawfully depriving them of life, liberty, or property, or of denying to any person within their jurisdiction the "equal" protection of the laws.

I can hardly believe that any person can be found who will not admit that every one of these provisions is just. They are all asserted, in some form or other, in our Declaration or organic law. But the Constitution limits only the action of Congress, and is not a limitation on the States. This amendment supplies that defect, and allows Congress to correct the unjust legislation of the States, so far that the law which operates upon one man shall operate equally upon all. Whatever law punishes a white man for a crime shall punish the black man precisely in the same way and to the same degree. Whatever law protects the white man shall afford "equal" protection to the black man. Whatever means of redress is afforded to one shall be afforded to all. Whatever law allows the white man to testify in court shall allow the man of color to do the same. These are great advantages over their present codes. Now different degrees of punishment are inflicted, not on account of the magnitude of the crime, but according to the color of the skin. Now color disqualifies a man from testifying in courts, or being tried in the same way as white men.

I need not enumerate these partial and oppressive laws. Unless the Constitution should restrain them those States will all, I fear, keep up this discrimination, and crush to death the hated freedmen. Some answer, "Your civil rights bill secures the same things." That is partly true, but a law is repealable by a majority. And I need hardly say that the first time that the South with their copperhead allies obtain the command of Congress it will be repealed. The veto of the President and their votes on the bill are conclusive evidence of that. And yet I am amazed and alarmed at the impatience of certain well-meaning Republicans at the exclusion of the rebel States until the Constitution shall be so amended as to restrain their despotic desires. This amendment once adopted cannot be annulled without two-thirds of Congress. That they will hardly get. And yet certain of our distinguished friends propose to admit State after State before this becomes a part of the Constitution. What madness! Is their judgment misled by their kindness; or are they unconsciously drifting into the haven of power at the other end of the avenue? I do not suspect it, but others will.

The second section I consider the most important in the article. It fixes the basis of representation in Congress. If any State shall exclude any of her adult male citizens from the elective franchise, or abridge that right, she shall forfeit her right to representation in the same proportion. The effect of this provision will be either to compel the States to grant universal suffrage or so to shear them of their power as to keep them forever in a hopeless minority in the national Government, both legislative and executive. If they do not enfranchise the freedmen, it would give to the rebel States but thirty-seven Representatives. Thus shorn of their power, they would soon become restive. Southern pride would not long brook a hopeless minority. True it will take two, three, possibly five years before they conquer their prejudices sufficiently to allow their late slaves to become their equals at the polls. That short delay would not be injurious. In the meantime the freedmen would become more enlightened, and more fit to discharge the high duties of their new condition. In that time, too, the loyal Congress could mature their laws and so amend the Constitution as to secure the rights of every human being, and render disunion impossible. Heaven forbid that the southern States, or any one of them, should be represented on this floor until such muniments of freedom are built high and firm. Against our will they have been absent for four bloody years ; against our will they must not come back until we are ready to receive them. Do not tell me that they are loyal representatives waiting for admission until their States are loyal they can have no standing here. They would merely misrepresent their constituents.

I admit that this article is not as good as the one we sent to death in the Senate. In my judgment, we shall not approach the measure of justice until we have given every adult freedman a homestead on the land where he was born and toiled and suffered. Forty acres of land and a hut would be more valuable to him than the immediate right to vote. Unless we give them this we shall receive the censure of mankind and the curse of Heaven. That article referred to provided that if one of the injured race was excluded the State should forfeit the right to have any of them represented. That would have hastened their full enfranchisement. This section allows the States to discriminate among the same class, and receive proportionate credit in representation. This I dislike. But it is a short step forward. The large stride which we in vain proposed is dead; the murderers must answer to the suffering race. I would not have been the perpetrator. A load of misery must sit heavy on their souls.

The third section may encounter more difference of opinion here. Among the people I believe it will be the most popular of all the provisions; it prohibits rebels from voting for members of Congress and electors of President until 1870. My only objection to it is that it is too lenient. I know that there is a morbid sensibility, sometimes called mercy, which affects a few of all classes, from the priest to the clown, which has more sympathy for the murderer on the gallows than for his victim. I hope I have a heart as capable of feeling for human woe as others. I have long since wished that capital punishment were abolished. But I never dreamed that all punishment could be dispensed with in human society. Anarchy, treason, and violence would reign triumphant. Here is the mildest of all punishments ever inflicted on traitors. I might not consent to the extreme severity denounced upon them by a provisional Governor of Tennessee I mean the late lamented Andrew Johnson of blessed memory but I would have increased the severity of this section. I would be glad to see it extend to 1876, and to include all State and municipal as well as national elections. In my judgment we do not sufficiently protect the loyal men of the rebel States from the vindictive persecutions of their victorious rebel neighbors. Still I will move no amendment, nor vote for any, lest the whole fabric should tumble to pieces.

I need say nothing of the fourth section, for none dare object to it who is not himself a rebel. To the friend of justice, the friend of the Union, of the perpetuity of liberty, and the final triumph of the rights of man and their extension to every human being, let me say, sacrifice as we have done your peculiar views, and instead of vainly insisting upon the instantaneous operation of all that is right accept what is possible, and "all these things shall be added unto you.


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## Library4Science (Apr 13, 2011)

This is an excerpt from Volume 9 "Reconstruction," of the Series "America: Great Crises in our History."

*North American Relations To South America*

By James G. Blaine, Secretary of State.

_BLAINE having been instrumental in bringing about the nomination, followed by the election, of James A. Garfield for the Presidency in 1880, became Secretary of State in the Garfield Cabinet. While occupying that office, his foreign policy was censured, especially because of its tendency to dictate to the Latin-American governments. His policy of intervention in the Chilian-Peruvian War was reversed by Garfield's successor, President Arthur.

Blaine wrote this letter, which is preserved among the House Executive Documents of the Forty-seventh Congress, in 1881, to H. J. Kilpatrick, United States Minister to Chili. Chili Was at war with Peru and Bolivia over possession of the Atacama Desert, rich in nitrate deposits, and the Chilian army occupied Lima and Callao. Desultory fighting continued until 1883, when a treaty between Peru and Chili was signed._

THE unfortunate condition of the relations between Chili and Peru makes the mission upon the duties of which you are now entering one of grave responsibility and great delicacy. Difficult as would be any intervention of the United States under ordinary circumstances, our position is further embarrassed by the failure of the conference at Arica, undertaken at our suggestion. It is evident from the protocols of that conference that Chili was prepared to dictate and not to discuss terms of peace, and that the arbitration of the United States upon any questions of difference with the allied powers of Peru and Bolivia was not acceptable and would not be accepted by the Chilian Government. Since that time the war has closed in the complete success of Chili, and in what can scarcely be considered less than the conquest of Peru and Bolivia.

This government cannot therefore anticipate that the offer of friendly intervention in the settlement of the very serious questions now pending would be agreeable to the Government of Chili. It would scarcely comport with self-respect that such an offer should be refused, and it would be of no benefit to Peru and Bolivia that it should be offered and declined. But I am sure the Chilian Government will appreciate the natural and deep interest which the United States feels in the termination of a condition so calamitous in its consequences to the best interests of all the South American Republics. It should also know that if at any time the interposition of the good offices of this government can contribute to the restoration of friendly relations between the belligerent powers, they will, upon proper intimation, be promptly offered.

While, therefore, no instructions are given you to tender officially any advice to the Government of Chili which is unsought, you will, on such opportunity as may occur, govern your conduct and representations by the considerations to which I shall now call your attention.

Without entering upon any discussion as to the causes of the late war between Chili on the one side and Peru and Bolivia on the other, this government recognizes the right which the successful conduct of that war has conferred upon Chili; and, in doing so, I will not undertake to estimate the extent to which the Chilian Government has the right to carry its calculations of the indemnities to which it is entitled, nor the security for the future, which its interests may seem to require. But if the Chilian Government, as its representatives have declared, seeks only a guarantee of future peace, it would seem natural that Peru and Bolivia should be allowed to offer such indemnity and guarantee before the annexation of territory, which is the right of conquest, is insisted upon. If these powers fail to offer what is a reasonably sufficient indemnity and guarantee, then it becomes a fair subject of consideration whether such territory may not be exacted as the necessary price of peace.

But at the conclusion of a war avowedly not of conquest, but for the solution of differences which diplomacy had failed to settle, to make the acquisition of territory a "sine qua non" of peace is calculated to cast suspicions on the professions with which war was originally declared. . . . At this day, when the right of the people to govern themselves, the fundamental basis of republican institutions, is so widely recognized, there is nothing more difficult or more dangerous than the forced transfer of territory, carrying with it an indignant and hostile population; and nothing but a necessity proven before the world can justify it. It is not a case in which the power desiring the territory can be accepted as a safe or impartial judge.

While the United States Government does not pretend to express an opinion whether or not such an annexation of territory is a necessary consequence of this war, it believes that it would be more honorable to the Chilian Government, more conducive to the security of a permanent peace, and more in consonance with those principles which are professed by all the Republics of America, that such territorial changes should be avoided as far as possible; that they should never be the result of mere force, but, if necessary, should be decided and tempered by full and equal discussion between all the powers whose people and whose national interests are involved.

At the present moment, the completeness of the victory of Chili seems to render such a diplomatic discussion impossible. The result of the conflict has been not only the defeat of the allied armies, but the dissolution of all responsible government in Peru.

An effort, and apparently a very earnest and honest one, has been made to create a provisional government, which shall gradually restore order and the reign of law. But it is obvious that for such a government to succeed in obtaining the confidence either of its own people or foreign powers, it must be allowed a freedom and force of action which cannot be exercised while Chili holds absolute possession and governs by military authority. This government, therefore, has been glad to learn from its Minister in Chili, whom you succeed, that the Chilian authorities have decided to give their support to the efforts of Senor Calderon to establish on a steady footing a provisional government in Peru.

You will, as far as you can do so with propriety and without officious intrusion, approve and encourage this disposition on the part of the Chilian Government, and this Department will be exceedingly gratified if your influence as the representative of the United States shall be instrumental in inducing the Government of Chili to give its aid and support to the restoration of regular, constitutional government in Peru, and to postpone the final settlement of all questions of territorial annexation to the diplomatic negotiations which can then be resumed with the certainty of a just, friendly and satisfactory conclusion.

In any representation which you make, you will say that the hope of the United States is that the negotiations for peace shall be conducted and the final settlement between the two countries determined, without either side invoking the aid or intervention of any European power.

The Government of the United States seeks only to perform the part of a friend to all the parties in this unhappy conflict between South American Republics, and it will regret to be compelled to consider how far that feeling might be affected, and a more active interposition forced upon it, by any attempted complication of this question with European politics.


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## Library4Science (Apr 13, 2011)

This is an excerpt from Volume 9 "Reconstruction," of the Series "America: Great Crises in our History."

*Laying The First Successful Atlantic Cable*

By Cyrus W. Field.

_HENRY M. FIELD, brother of Cyrus W. Field, its chief promoter, has told the story (Volume VII) of the first Atlantic cable laid in 1858. After a few hundred messages were transmitted it ceased to work. In this account, written in 1866, Cyrus Field resumes the wonder-story where it was left off eight years previously, and carries it to the successful establishment of the enterprise, in September, 1866. Since then cable communication between Europe and America has been uninterrupted.

In view of its long and continuous success, it is hard to realize the obstacles Field had to surmount. In the face of disheartening failures he never despaired of the triumph achieved July 27, 1866, when the "Great Eastern" reached Newfoundland without a mishap, and the land connection was made. Other brothers of the promoter were Stephen J. Field, United States Supreme Court Justice, and David Dudley Field, the eminent lawyer._

AFTER the failure of 1858 came our darkest days. When a thing is dead, it is hard to galvanize it into life. It is more difficult to revive an old enterprise than to start a new one. The freshness and novelty are gone, and, the feeling of disappointment discourages further effort.

Other causes delayed a new attempt. The United States had become involved in a tremendous war; and while the nation was struggling for life, it had no time to spend in foreign enterprises. But in England the project was still kept alive. The Atlantic Telegraph Company kept up its organization. It had a noble body of directors, who had faith in the enterprise and looked beyond its present low estate to ultimate success. Our chairman, the Right Honorable James Stuart Wortley, did not join us in the hour of victory, but in what seemed the hour of despair, after the failure of 1858, and he has been a steady support through all these years.

All this time the science of submarine telegraphy was making progress. The British Government appointed a commission to investigate the whole subject. It was composed of eminent scientific men and practical engineers Galton, Wheatstone, Fairbairn, Bidder, Varlet' and Latimer and Edwin Clark with the secretary of the company, Mr. Saward names to be held in honor in connection with this enterprise, along with those of other English engineers, such as Stephenson and Brunel and Whitworth and Penn and Lloyd and Joshua Field, who gave time and thought and labor freely to this enterprise, refusing all compensation. This commission sat for nearly two years, and spent many thousands of pounds in experiments. The result was a clear conviction in every mind that it was possible to lay a telegraph across the Atlantic. Science was also being all the while applied to practice. Submarine cables were laid in different seas in the Mediterranean, in the Red Sea, and the Persian Gulf. The last was laid by my friend Sir Charles Bright.

When the scientific and engineering problems were solved, we took heart again and began to prepare for a fresh attempt. This was in 1863. In the United States though the war was still raging I went from city to city, holding meetings and trying to raise capital, but with poor success. Men came and listened and said it was all very fine and hoped I would succeed, but did nothing. In one of the cities they gave me a large meeting and passed some beautiful resolutions and appointed a committee of "solid men" to canvass the city, but I did not get a solitary subscriber ! In New York city I did better, though money came by the hardest effort. By personal solicitations, encouraged by good friends, I succeeded in raising three hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Since not many had faith, I must present one example to the contrary, though it was not till a year later. When almost all deemed it a hopeless scheme, one gentleman came to me and purchased stock of the Atlantic Telegraph Company to the amount of one hundred thousand dollars. That was Mr. Loring Andrews. But at the time I speak of, it was plain that our main hope must be in England, and I went to London. There, too, it dragged heavily. There was a profound discouragement. Many had lost before, and were not willing to throw more money into the sea. We needed six hundred thousand pounds, and with our utmost efforts we had raised less than half, and there the enterprise stood in a deadlock. It was plain that we must have help from some new quarter. I looked around to find a man who had broad shoulders and could carry a heavy load, and who would be a giant in the cause.

At this time I was introduced to a gentleman, whom I would hold up to the American public as a specimen of a great-hearted Englishman, Mr. Thomas Brassey. In London he is known as one of the men who have made British enterprise and British capital felt in all parts of the earth. I went to see him, though with fear and trembling. He received me kindly, but put me through such an examination as I never had before. I thought I was in the witness-box. He asked me every possible question, but my answers satisfied him, and he ended by saying it was an enterprise that should be carried out, and that he would be one of ten men to furnish the money to do it. This was a pledge of sixty thousand pounds sterling! Encouraged by this noble offer, I looked around to find another such man, though it was almost like trying to find two Wellingtons. But he was found in Mr. John Pender, of Manchester. I went to his office in London one day, and we walked together to the House of Commons, and before we got there he said he would take an equal share with Mr. Brassey.

The action of these two gentlemen was a turning-point in the history of our enterprise; for it led shortly after to a union of the well-known firm of Glass, Elliott & Company, with the Guttapercha Company, making of the two one concern known as the Telegraph Construction and Maintenance Company, which included not only Mr. Brassey and Mr. Pender, but other men of great wealth, such as Mr. George Elliott, and Mr. Barclay of London, and Mr. Henry Bewley of Dublin, and which, thus re6nforced with immense capital, took up the whole enterprise in its strong arms. We needed, I have said, six hundred thousand pounds, and with all our efforts in England and America we raised only two hundred eighty-five thousand pounds. This new company now came forward, and offered to take the whole remaining three hundred fifteen thousand pounds, besides one hundred thousand pounds of the bonds, and to make its own profits contingent on success. Mr. Richard A. Glass was made managing director and gave energy and vigor to all its departments, being admirably seconded by the secretary, Mr. Shuter.

A few days after, half a dozen gentlemen joined together and bought the "Great Eastern" to lay the cable ; and at the head of this company was placed Mr. Daniel Gooch, a member of Parliament, and chairman of the Great Western Railway, who was with us in both the expeditions which followed. His son, Mr. Charles Gooch, a volunteer in the service, worked faithfully on board the "Great Eastern."

The good fortune which favored us in our ship favored us also in our commander, Captain Anderson, who was for years in the Cunard Line. How well he did his part in two expeditions the result has proved, and it was just that a mark of royal favor should fall on that manly head. Thus organized, the work of making a new Atlantic cable was begun. The core was prepared with infinite care, under the able superintendence of Mr. Chatterton and Mr. Willoughby Smith, and the whole was completed in about eight months. As fast as ready, it was taken on board the "Great Eastern" and coiled in three enormous tanks, and on July 15, 1865, the ship sailed.

I will not stop to tell the story of that expedition. For a week all went well ; we had paid out one thousand two hundred miles of cable, and had only six hundred miles farther to go, when, hauling in the cable to remedy a fault, it parted and went to the bottom. That day I never can forget how men paced the deck in despair, looking out on the broad sea that had swallowed up their hopes; and then how the brave Canning for nine days and nights dragged the bottom of the ocean for our lost treasure, and, though he grappled it three times, failed to bring it to the surface. The story of that expedition, as written by Dr. Russell, who was on board the "Great Eastern, is one of the most marvelous chapters in the whole history of modern enterprise. We returned to England defeated, yet full of resolution to begin the battle anew. Measures were at once taken to make a second cable and fit out a new expedition; and with that assurance I came home to New York in the autumn.


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## Library4Science (Apr 13, 2011)

This is an excerpt from Volume 9 "Reconstruction," of the Series "America: Great Crises in our History."

*The Interstate Commerce Commission*

By Aldace Freeman Walker.

_WHEN the Interstate Commerce Commission was organized in 1887, President Cleveland appointed Walker, the author of this article which was printed in The Forum of July, 1891, a member of the body. He served on the Commission two years, subsequently holding important positions in railway traffic associations until 1894, when he became a receiver of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad, and, later, chairman of the board of directors of the reorganized company.

The operation of the Interstate Commerce Act has not been all that was hoped for. The most satisfactory result of the law has been the publicity which it has given to railroad affairs. The clause of the act designed to prohibit pooling has accomplished the desired end, but has helped rather than hindered the unified management of railroads which it was designed to prevent._

ON April 5, 1887, an act of Congress became effective, bearing the comprehensive title of "An in Act to Regulate Commerce." It was an entirely new departure in Federal legislation. Its authority rests upon a constitutional provision which confers upon Congress power "to regulate commerce . . . among the several States," the extent and limitations of which have never been judicially determined.

The railroads of the United States are creatures of State legislation. There has been no governmental supervision of railway construction. New lines have everywhere been authorized with the utmost freedom by the various States and Territories, and leases, purchases and consolidations have been easily arranged in which State lines have been altogether disregarded. The railroad system has been a most potent agency for the practical unification of our country by quietly obliterating territorial divisions, while threading the land with a network of iron rails along which interstate commerce moves without rest.

The course pursued in establishing the modern transportation facility has been so hasty and inconsiderate that the fundamental relation of the Nation to the several railroad corporations is to this day unsettled. . . . Competing lines have been multiplied and expanded, until their very number is now the source of the most serious practical difficulties connected with our domestic commerce.

This universal reliance upon competition as the safeguard of the public has had two noticeable results: first, it has tended to entrench railroad managers in the belief that the public was protected sufficiently thereby, and that carriers by rail, like carriers by sea, were entitled to fix rates at will, subject only to the control of competitive conditions.

In the second place, in its practical working, competition bred discrimination. The evils of unjust discrimination in railway methods cannot be too vividly portrayed. As time went on they became more and more pronounced, until they were too great to be endured. Legislative investigations were demanded.

The remedy proposed was the forbidding of unjust discrimination under pains and penalties. That was the essence of the Interstate Commerce law. In other words, the result was prohibited while the cause was left in full operation. It was thought that free and unrestricted competition must be maintained as an essential principle of the American railway system.

Of course discriminations in railway rates are necessary; for example, the rate upon silk and upon sand should not be the same, and the question is often a doubtful one whether a particular discrimination is or is not unjust. The determination of this question, arising in innumerable forms, is the matter which has chiefly occupied the attention of the Commission since the passage of the law.

When the law first went into operation it was felt that a new era had arrived. The statute demanded the undeviating and inflexible maintenance of the published tariff rates. . . . This was just what conservative and influential railway managers desired. It was not only just, but it protected their revenues. The new rule was cheerfully accepted and imperative orders were issued for its obedience. But toward the close of 1887 it began to be perceived that there were difficulties, which became much more serious in 1888. On even rates the traffic naturally flowed to the direct lines, which could give the best service and make the best time. Roads less direct or of less capacity, roads with higher grades or less advantageous terminals and roads otherwise at a disadvantage, found that business was leaving them. It was discovered that the law in this its most essential feature, as well as in other respects, was practically a direct interference by the government in favor of the strong roads and against the weak. Dissatisfaction arose among officials of roads whose earnings were reduced and which were often near the edge of insolvency. It had been customary for them to obtain business by rebates and other like devices, and they knew no other method. It presently became to some of them a case of desperation. There was nothing in the law specifically forbidding the payment of "commissions, and it was found that the routing of business might be secured to a given line by a slight expenditure of that nature to a shipper's friend. Other kindred devices were suggested, some new, some old; the payment of rent, clerk hire, dock charges, elevator fees, drayage, the allowance of exaggerated claims, free transportation within some single State a hundred ingenious forms of evading the plain requirements of the law were said to be in use. The demoralization was not by any means confined to the minor roads ; shippers were ready to give information to other lines concerning concessions which were offered them, and to state the sum required to control their patronage. A freight agent thus appealed to at first perhaps might let the business go, but when the matter became more serious and he saw one large shipper after another seeking a less desirable route, he was very apt to throw up his hands and fall in with the procession.

Meanwhile nothing was done in the way of the enforcement of the law. It was found that the sixth or administrative section had been so framed as to require the exact maintenance of the tariffs of each carrier, but that this important provision had been omitted respecting "joint tariffs," in which two or more carriers participate.

Toward the end of the second year came a reaching out for a remedy. In the closing days of the Fiftieth Congress amendments to the law were adopted by which shippers as well as carriers were made subject to its penalties, and the punishment of imprisonment was added to the fine in cases of unjust discrimination; joint tariffs were also distinctly brought within the jurisdiction of the Commission and the courts.

These amendments became effective March 2, 1889, and their influence was immediately felt. . . . The third year therefore exhibited an almost entire cessation of the use of illegitimate methods for securing business, and until near its close little complaint was heard. The fourth year, 1890, witnessed a renewed relaxation of the spirit of obedience. The conditions that had prevailed in 1888 again became pressing, and evasions secretly inaugurated were not efficiently dealt with; for a considerable time no prosecutions were commenced; customers began to renew their appeals for favors, or as they term it, for relief; and it was presently a common statement among shippers and traffic agents that the law was a dead letter, and that its penalties need not be feared.


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## Library4Science (Apr 13, 2011)

This is an excerpt from Volume 9 "Reconstruction," of the Series "America: Great Crises in our History."

*Robert E. Lee's Attitude After The War*

His Own Written Statement.

_LEE, to whom Lincoln had first offered the command of the United States Army, in April, 1861, and had declined it, stating that, "though opposed to secession on and deprecating war," he "could take no part in the invasion of the Southern States," ranks as the greatest of the Confederate leaders, not only because of his military genius, but for the magnanimous way in which he accepted the result. This letter, addressed to a personal friend, in September, 1865, is valued as an important document in evidence of his desire to infuse others with his own spirit. It is taken from the Rev. J. W. Jones's "Personal Recollections of Lee," published in 1875.

A month after writing this letter, General Lee was installed as president of Washington College at Lexington, Virginia, now Washington and Lee University a post which he held until his death, October 12, 1870._

I HAVE received your letter of the 23d ult. [August, 1865], and in reply will state the course I have pursued under circumstances similar to your own, and will leave you to judge of its propriety. Like yourself, I have, since the cessation of hostilities, advised all with whom I have conversed on the subject, who come within the terms of the President's proclamations, to take the oath of allegiance, and accept in good faith the amnesty offered.

But I have gone further, and have recommended to those who were excluded from their benefits to make application under the proviso of the proclamation of the 29th of May, to be embraced in its provisions. Both classes, in order to be restored to their former rights and privileges, were required to perform a certain act, and I do not see that an acknowledgment of fault is expressed in one more than the other. The war being at an end, the Southern States have laid down their arms, and the question at issue between them and the Northern States having been decided, I believe it to be the duty of every one to unite in the restoration of the country, and the reestablishment of peace and harmony.

These considerations governed me in the counsels I gave to others, and induced me on the 13th of June to make application to be included in the terms of the amnesty proclamation. I have not received an answer, and cannot inform you what has been the decision of the President. But, whatever that may be, I do not see how the course I have recommended and practiced can prove detrimental to the former President of the Confederate States.

It appears to me that the allayment of passion, the dissipation of prejudice, and the restoration of reason, will alone enable the people of the country to acquire a true knowledge and form a correct judgment of the events of the past four years. It will, I think, be admitted that Mr. Davis has done nothing more than all the citizens of the Southern States, and should not be held accountable for acts performed by them in the exercise of what had been considered by them unquestionable right. I have too exalted an opinion of the American people to believe that they will consent to injustice; and it is only necessary, in my opinion, that truth should be known, for the rights of every one to be secured. I know of no surer way of eliciting the truth than by burying contention with the war.


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## Library4Science (Apr 13, 2011)

This is an excerpt from Volume 9 "Reconstruction," of the Series "America: Great Crises in our History."

*The Blaine-Cleveland Campaign*

By Harry Thurston Peck.

_PROFESSOR PECK, from whose "Twenty Years of the Republic" (1885-1905) this account of the memorable Blaine-Cleveland Presidential campaign of 1884 is taken, by permission of Dodd, Mead & Company, was long a member of the faculty of Columbia University and was editor of the New International Encyclopedia, as well as of a popular "Dictionary of Literature and Antiquities."

As here set forth, the defeat of Blaine, the Republican, by Cleveland, the Democratic candidate, was largely attributable to the impolitic speech of the Rev. Samuel D. Burchard in which the Democratic party was styled "the party of Rum, Romanism and Rebellion." In an unusually bitter campaign the combined Democratic and "mugwump" vote elected Cleveland, who received 219 electoral votes to 182 cast for Blaine, and was inaugurated March 4, 1885, the first Democratic President since the Civil War._

THE nomination of James G. Blaine produced an indescribable sensation throughout the length and breadth of the United States. No American statesman had ever had more ardent and intensely loyal friends than he, as none had ever had more virulent and bitter enemies. The former hailed his candidacy with intense enthusiasm; the latter began at once moving heaven and earth to compass his defeat.

Mr. Blaine had already enjoyed a remarkable career. Born in Pennsylvania of Scotch-Irish parentage, he had been by turns a teacher and an editor, having taken up in 1854 his residence in Maine. In 1858 he had entered the State Legislature, where for two years he served as Speaker. In 1862 he was sent to Congress, and at once made his mark by his readiness in debate, his quick grasp upon political principles, and his exceptional fertility in resource. He had the impetuosity of the Celt and the clear reasoning brain of the Anglo-Saxon, besides that indescribable quality which, for want of a better name, is known as magnetism. His personal charm was indeed remarkable, and it was to this as much as to his other gifts that he owed the extraordinary devotion of his followers and friends. Early in his political life he had been compared to Henry Clay, to whose career his own was to exhibit a striking parallel. At first he was better known to his associates in Congress than to the country as a whole; but when, in 1869, he was elected Speaker of the House, he rose at once to the rank of a great party leader.

But the fierce white light which beats upon a throne is no more fierce than that which beats upon a Presidential aspirant. It was turned at once upon Mr. Blaine's whole past career. Every incident and every act of his were now subjected to minute investigation by his enemies and rivals. A dozen stories grew until they filled the minds of every one about him. It was said that Mr. Blaine had pledged a number of worthless railroad bonds to the Union Pacific Railway Company in return for a loan of $64,000 which had never been repaid. It was also charged that without consideration he had received bonds of the Little Rock and Fort Smith Railroad.

These reports obtained so widespread a currency that Mr. Blaine was forced to rise in his place and bring the matter to the attention of the House. He read a letter from the treasurer of the Union Pacific and from Colonel Thomas A. Scott, the president of that railway, denying the story of the worthless bonds. He read another letter from Morton, Bliss & Company, who were alleged to have cashed the draft for $64,000, mentioned in the story, but who now declared that no such draft had been presented to them. Mr. Blaine went on to say that he had never owned the Little Rock and Fort Smith bonds which he was said to have received without any consideration. Apparently his name was cleared.

The time for the National Republican Convention was drawing near. Many States had already instructed their delegates to support his candidacy. That he should be the subject of an investigation for corrupt transactions while his name was before the Convention would be fatal to his chances; and he desired above all things to stave it off. Nevertheless, the House, which was strongly Democratic, ordered its Judiciary Committee to make such an investigation, though in the resolution ordering it, Mr. Blaine was not specifically named. This was on May 2d; and at the first sessions of the committee the evidence was corroborative of Mr. Blaine's assertions.

On May 31st there was brought before the committee a man named James Mulligan. Mulligan had at one time been a clerk for Mr. Jacob Stanwood (the brother of Mrs. Blaine), and later a bookkeeper for Warren Fisher, Jr., a business man of Boston, who had had close relations with the management of the Little Rock and Fort Smith Railroad. While Mr. Mulligan was testifying, he chanced to mention very quietly that he had in his possession certain letters written by Mr. Blaine to Warren Fisher, Jr. Mr. Blaine asked a friend on the committee to move an immediate adjournment. The committee rose, to meet again the following morning. When it so met it listened to a most extraordinary story.

During the brief respite given by the adjournment of the committee, Mr. Blaine had flashed his mind over all the possibilities of the situation. He knew that Mulligan had letters, which, if made public by Mulligan himself, would be interpreted by every one in a sense extremely unfavorable to Mr. Blaine. He knew that these letters would surely be asked for by the committee so soon as it should reconvene in the morning. To prevent this and to gain time he must act at once. He therefore went to the Riggs House, where Mulligan was staying, and met Mulligan, Fisher and one Atkins. There he first asked to see the letters which Mulligan had with him.

On June 5th, Mr. Blaine rose in the House of Representatives and claimed the floor on a question of privilege. . . . Throughout this animated and even fiery justification of his right, the crowded House had listened in breathless silence, and with a tension of feeling which could almost be felt. There was abundant sympathy with Mr. Blaine. Even his adversaries were sorry for him. He seemed like a man driven into a corner and fighting for his very life. After a brief pause, Mr. Blaine dealt a master-stroke which he had planned with consummate art, and which he now delivered with a dramatic power that was thrilling. Raising his voice and holding up a packet, he went on:

"I am not afraid to show the letters. Thank God Almighty, I am not afraid to show them ! There they are. There is the very original package. And, with some sense of humiliation, with a mortification that I do not pretend to conceal, with a sense of outrage which I think any man in my position would feel, I invite the confidence of forty-four millions of my countrymen while I read those letters from this desk."

The tension was broken. The whole assembly burst out into frantic and prolonged applause. Then Mr. Blaine read the letters, one by one, with comments and explanations of his own. Having done so, he faced one of the Democratic members of the committee, Mr. Proctor Knott, and in the course of a rapid dialogue brought out the fact that Mr. Knott had received a cablegram from a Mr. Caldwell, whose knowledge of the whole affair was very intimate, and that Mr. Knott had apparently suppressed it. The scene at the end of this exciting parliamentary duel baffled all description. The House went mad; and for fifteen minutes there reigned a pandemonium amid which the Speaker was helpless in his efforts to restore even a semblance of order. Mr. Blaine, for the moment, had won a brilliant triumph. He had restored and strengthened the faith of all his followers and had turned apparently inevitable disaster into victory.

The famous Mulligan letters sufficed to prevent Mr. Blaine's nomination for the Presidency in 1876 and 1880, and now, in 1884, from the outset of his candidacy, were printed and scattered broadcast over the country by his political opponents.

The Democratic candidate against whom Mr. Blaine had now to make his fight was a man of a wholly antithetical type. Mr. Cleveland was in no respect a brilliant man. The son of a clergyman, and early left to make his own way in the world, he had, like his rival, been a teacher, and had later taken up the practice of the law in Buffalo. There he had held some minor public offices. In 1863 he was Assistant District Attorney for the county, and from 1870 to 1873 he had served as Sheriff. He first attracted attention outside of his own city when, in 1881, he was elected Mayor of Buffalo by a combination of Democrats and Independents. In this office he instituted reforms and defeated various corrupt combinations, while his liberal use of the veto power maintained a wise economy. In 1882 he had received the Democratic nomination for the governorship of New York, and had been elected by the remarkable plurality of 192,000 votes.

Mr. Cleveland was a type of man such as had not before come to the front as a Presidential possibility. He represented the practical, everyday, usual citizen of moderate means, and no very marked ambitions a combination of the business man and the unimportant professional person, blunt, hardheaded, brusque, and unimaginative, and with a readiness to take a hand in whatever might be going on. His education was of the simplest, his general information presumably not very large; and his interest in life was almost wholly bounded by the limits of his own locality. As a practicing lawyer he was well thought of; yet his reputation had not gone much beyond the local circuit. A bachelor, he had no need of a large income. His spare time was spent with companions of his own tastes. His ideal of recreation was satisfied by a quiet game of pinochle in the backroom of a respectable beer-garden ; and perhaps this circumstance in itself is sufficient to give a fair notion of his general environment. He was, indeed, emphatically a man's man--**** inter homines--careless of mere forms, blunt of speech, and somewhat primitive in his tastes.

But he had all the virile attributes of a Puritan ancestry. His will was inflexible. His force of character was extraordinary. He hated shams, believed that a thing was either right or wrong, and when he had made up his mind to any course of action, he carried it through without so much as a moment's wavering. So great was the confidence which his character inspired, that when a committee of the independent voters of Buffalo called upon him for the purpose of urging him to stand for the mayoralty, they asked him for no written pledges, but accepted his simple statement as an adequate guarantee. "Cleveland says that if elected he will do so-and-so," they told the people. And the people elected him, because they knew his word to be inviolable.


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## Library4Science (Apr 13, 2011)

This is an excerpt from Volume 9 "Reconstruction," of the Series "America: Great Crises in our History."

*Why The United States Wanted Alaska*

By Senator Charles Sumner.

_ALTHOUGH the purchase of Alaska was consummated by William H. Seward, as Secretary of State, Sumner, as chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, was its chief sponsor in Congress. His speech upon the cession of Russian America to the United States, on April 9, 1867, was followed the next day by the vote in favor of ratification.

In this celebrated address he described to his less enlightened compeers the character and value of Alaska, comprising 590,000 square miles of territory, exceeding that of the original thirteen States and nearly one-sixth the area of the United States. Its coast line, including bays and islands, is greater than the circumference of the earth.

Subsequently Senator Sumner wrote out his speech for publication, and this is the main portion of it. It is taken from his collected "Works," by permission of the publishers, Lothrop, Lee & Shepard, Boston._

ADVANTAGES to the Pacific Coast, Foremost in order, if not in importance, I put the desires of our fellow-citizens on the Pacific coast, and the special advantages they will derive from this enlargement of boundary. They were the first to ask for it, and will be the first to profit by it. While others knew the Russian possessions only on the map, they knew them practically on their own resources. While others were indifferent, they were planning how to appropriate Russian pelteries and fisheries. This is attested by the resolutions of the Legislature of Washington Territory; also by the exertions at different times of two Senators from California, who differing in political sentiments and in party relations, took the initial steps which ended in this treaty.

These well-known desires were founded, of course, on supposed advantages ; and here experience and neighborhood were prompters. Since 1854 the people of California have received their ice from the fresh-water lakes in the island of Kadiak, not far westward from Mount St. Elias. Later still, their fishermen have searched the waters about the Aleutians and the Shumagins, commencing a promising fishery. Others have proposed to substitute themselves for the Hudson's Bay Company in their franchise on the coast. But all are looking to the Orient, as in the time of Columbus, although like him they sail to the west. To them China and Japan, those ancient realms of fabulous wealth, are the Indies.

The absence of harbors belonging to the United States on the Pacific limits the outlets of the country. On that whole extent, from Panama to Puget Sound, the only harbor of any considerable value is San Francisco. Farther north the harbors are abundant, and they are all nearer to the great marts of Japan and China. But San Francisco itself will be nearer by the way of the Aleutians than by Honolulu.

The advantages to the Pacific coast have two aspects domestic and foreign. Not only does the treaty extend the coasting trade of California, Oregon and Washington Territory northward, but it also extends the base of commerce with China and Japan.

To unite the East of Asia with the West of America is the aspiration of commerce now as when the English navigator recorded his voyage. Of course, whatever helps this result is an advantage. The Pacific Railroad is such an advantage; for, though running westward, it will be, when completed, a new highway to the East. This treaty is another advantage; for nothing can be clearer than that the western coast must exercise an attraction which will be felt in China and Japan just in proportion as it is occupied by a commercial people communicating readily with the Atlantic and with Europe. This cannot be without consequences not less important politically than commercially. Owing so much to the Union, the people there will be bound to it anew, and the national unity will receive another confirmation. Thus the whole country will be a gainer. So are we knit together that the advantages to the Pacific coast will contribute to the general welfare.

2. Extension of Dominion. The extension of dominion is another consideration calculated to captivate the public mind.

The passion for acquisition, so strong in the individual, is not less strong in the community. A nation seeks an outlying territory, as an individual seeks an outlying farm. . . . It is common to the human family. There are few anywhere who could hear of a considerable accession of territory, obtained peacefully and honestly, without a pride of country, even if at certain moments the judgment hesitated. With increased size on the map there is increased consciousness of strength, and the heart of the citizen throbs anew as he traces the extending line.

3. Extension of Republican Institutions. More than the extension of dominion is the extension of republican institutions, which is a traditional aspiration.

John Adams, in the preface to his Defense of the American Constitutions written in London, where he resided at the time as Minister, and dated January 1, 1787, at Grosvenor Square, the central seat of aristocratic fashion, after exposing the fabulous origin of the kingly power in contrast with the simple origin of our republican constitutions, thus for a moment lifts the curtain: "Thirteen governments," he says plainly, "thus founded on the natural authority of the people alone, without a pretense of miracle or mystery, and which are destined to spread over the northern part of that whole quarter of the globe, are a great point gained in favor of the rights of mankind." Thus, according to the prophetic Minister, even at that early day was the detesting of the Republic manifest. It was to spread over the northern part of the American quarter of the globe, and it was to help the rights of mankind.

By the text of our Constitution, the United States are bound to guaranty "a republican form of government" to every State in the Union; but this obligation, which is applicable only at home, is an unquestionable indication of the national aspiration everywhere. The Republic is something more than a local policy; it is a general principle, not to be forgotten at any time, especially when the opportunity is presented of bringing an immense region within its influence.

The present treaty is a visible step in the occupation of the whole North American continent. As such it will be recognized by the world and accepted by the American people. But the treaty involves something more. We dismiss one other monarch from the continent. One by one they have retired, first France, then Spain, then France again, and now Russia, all giving way to the absorbing Unity declared in the national motto, "E pluribus unum."

4. Anticipation of Great Britain. Another motive to this acquisition may be found in the desire to anticipate imagined schemes or necessities of Great Britain. With regard to all these I confess doubt; and yet, if we credit report, it would seem as if there were already a British movement in this direction. Sometimes it is said that Great Britain desires to buy, if Russia will sell.

5. Amity of Russia. There is still another consideration concerning this treaty not to be disregarded. It attests and assures the amity of Russia. Even if you doubt the value of these possessions, the treaty is a sign of friendship. It is a new expression of that "entente cordiale" between the two powers which is a phenomenon of history. Though unlike in institutions, they are not unlike in recent experience. Sharers of common glory in a great act of Emancipation, they also share together the opposition or antipathy of other nations. Perhaps this experience has not been without effect in bringing them together. At all events, no coldness or unkindness has interfered at any time with their good relations.

The Rebellion, which tempted so many other powers into its embrace, could not draw Russia from her habitual good-will. Her solicitude for the Union was early declared. She made no unjustifiable concession of ocean belligerence, with all its immunities and powers, to rebels in arms against the Union. She furnished no hospitality to rebel cruisers, nor was any rebel agent ever received, entertained, or encouraged at St. Petersburg, while, on the other hand, there was an understanding that the United States should be at liberty to carry prizes into Russian ports. So natural and easy were the relations between the two Governments, that such complaints as incidentally arose on either side were amicably adjusted by verbal explanations without written controversy.

In relations such as I have described, the cession of territory seems a natural transaction, entirely in harmony with the past. It remains to hope that it may be a new link in an amity which, without effort, has overcome differences of institutions and intervening space on the globe.

At all events, now that the treaty has been signed by plenipotentiaries on each side duly empowered, it is difficult to see how we can refuse to complete the purchase without putting to hazard the friendly relations which happily subsist between the United States and Russia. The overtures originally proceeded from us. After a delay of years, and other intervening propositions, the bargain was at length concluded. It is with nations as with individuals. A bargain once made must be kept. Even if still open to consideration, it must not be lightly abandoned. I am satisfied that the dishonoring of this treaty, after what has passed, would be a serious responsibility for our country. As an international question, it would be tried by the public opinion of the world; and there are many who, not appreciating the requirement of our Constitution by which a treaty must have "the advice and consent of the Senate," would regard its rejection as bad faith. There would be jeers at us, and jeers at Russia also: at us for levity in making overtures, and at Russia for levity in yielding to them. Had the Senate been consulted in advance, before the treaty was signed or either power publicly committed, as is often done on important occasions, it would be under less constraint. On such a consultation there would have been opportunity for all possible objections, and a large latitude for reasonable discretion. Let me add that, while forbearing objection now, I hope that this treaty may not be drawn into a precedent, at least in the independent manner of its negotiations. I would save to the Senate an important power justly belonging to it.


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