Chapter LXVII: Book III: Great Speeches on Great Issues (18)

Speech of Gen. Simon Cameron.

_On the benefits derived by Pennsylvania from the Policy of Internal
Improvements._

Any one will see, who will take the trouble to read the debates on the location of the National Capital, that the decision of that question seems to have been made solely with reference to a connection of the East with the then great wilderness of the West. All the sagacious men then in public life looked to the time when the West, with its wonderful productive soil brought under subjection by industry, would exercise a controlling influence on the destiny of the country. Columbia, in the State of Pennsylvania, was at one time within one vote of becoming the site of the Capital; and Germantown, near, and now a part of, Philadelphia, was actually decided on as the proper location by a majority of one. The first of these was favored because it was believed to be a favorable point from which to begin a slack water route to the west. Germantown near the Schuylkill, was chosen for the same reason. All looked forward to a system of canals which would accomplish this desirable object, and experience has fully demonstrated their wisdom in that great design. About 1790, General Washington and the great financier Robert Morris, traveled on horseback from Philadelphia to the Susquehanna river, with a view of deciding whether a canal could be built over that route.

Shortly after this, some gentlemen near Philadelphia actually began building a canal to the west, did some work on its eastern end, built one or two locks on the dividing ridge near Lebanon, and for want of sufficient funds and knowledge of the subject the work was stopped. The money expended on the enterprise was lost.

But the progressive men of the country, keeping their minds on the subject, continued to agitate the popular mind on it until 1820, when the Legislature of Pennsylvania chartered the Union Canal Company, and appropriated one million dollars to aid its construction. In a few years the canal was completed between the Schuylkill and Susquehanna. Although very small, this improvement did a great deal of good. And the most remarkable thing about it was its unpopularity with the masses. Not only the members of General Assembly who passed the bill, but Governor Heister, who signed the act of incorporation, were driven from office at the first opportunity legally presented for testing public opinion, and the party to which they belonged went into a minority. I remember well what a mighty sum a million dollars seemed to be; and the political revolution caused by this appropriation showed me that the idea of its vastness was not confined by any means to myself.

Our system of canals was completed, and the benefits derived from them were incalculable. When they were commenced our State was poor. Industry languished. The interchange of her products was difficult. Population was sparse. Intelligence was not generally diffused. Manufactures struggled weakly along. Work was not plentiful. Wages were low. When they were finished the busy hum of industry was heard on every hand. Our population had grown until we numbered millions. Our iron ore beds were yielding their precious hoards for human use. Coal mines, unknown or useless until means were provided for transporting their wealth to market, now sent millions of tons in every direction. Progress in every walk of advanced civilization was realized, and we were on the high road to permanent prosperity. But in the meantime a new and better means of communication had been discovered, and the building of railroads quickly reduced the value of canals, and the works we had completed at so much cost, and with such infinite labor, were suddenly superseded. We lost nearly all the money they had cost us, but this investment was wisely made. The return to our State was many times greater than the outlay.

Like all great projects intended for the public good, that of Internal Improvement progressed. In 1823, the New York canal—which had been pushed through against the prejudiced opposition of the people, by the genius of De Witt Clinton—was opened. Its success caused a revolution in the public mind all over the country. The effect was so marked in the State, that in 1825 a convention was called to consider the subject. Every county in the State was represented, I believe. That body pronounced in favor of a grand system of public works, which should not only connect the East and West, but also the waters of the Susquehanna with the great lakes, the West and the Northwest. Appropriations were recommended to the amount of three millions of dollars, and in 1826, I think the work began. This sum seemed to be enormous, and the estimates of the engineers reached a total of six millions of dollars. Meeting an ardent friend of the system one day, he declared that a sum of that magnitude could never be expended on these works. I ventured to reply, with great deference to his age and experience, that I thought it would be insufficient, and before they were completed I would not be surprised if ten millions would be found necessary. Looking at me steadily for a few moments, he closed the conversation by exclaiming, “Young man, you are a d——d fool!” I was thus left in full possession of his opinion of me. But after we had spent $41,698,594.74 in the construction of these works, I found my estimate of his judgment was singularly in harmony with my opinion of his politeness. His candor I never doubted.

In the convention of 1825, there were two gentlemen who voted for railways instead of canals. One was professor Vethake of Dickinson College, Carlisle; and the other was Jacob Alter, a man of very little education, but of strong understanding. The professor was looked upon as a dreamer, and was supposed to have led his colleague astray in his vagaries. But they both lived to see railroads extended over the whole world. As a part of our system of public works, we built a railroad from the Delaware to the Susquehanna, from Philadelphia to Columbia, and one from the eastern base of the Allegheny mountains to their western base. They were originally intended to be used with horse power. In the meantime the railroad system had been commenced, and the Pennsylvania Railroad, under the charge of a man of extraordinary ability, John Edgar Thompson, was rapidly pushed to completion. Another great railway, the Philadelphia and Reading, was built to carry anthracite coal from the Schuylkill mines to the market. A railroad was built each side of the Lehigh river, that another part of our coal territory might find a market in New York. Another was built from the north branch of the Susquehanna, connecting with the New York roads, and leading to the northern coal field. And yet another was built along the Susquehanna, through the southern coal basin, to the city of Baltimore. The total cost of these roads, independent of the Pennsylvania railroad, was $95,250,410.10, as shown by official reports. Their earnings last year are officially given at $24,753,065.32. Each of these was forced to contend with difficulty and prejudice. All were unpopular, and all were looked upon with suspicion until they actually forced their usefulness on the public mind. Those who made the fight for canals were forced to go over the whole ground again for railroads, and their double victory is greater than the success generally vouchsafed to the pioneers in any cause. These roads, with the Pennsylvania railroad and the lesser lines of improvements running through the coal region cost over $207,000,000.

The Reading Railroad will serve to illustrate the struggle of these great schemes. Its stock, now worth over par, once sold for twenty cents on the dollar; and at one time it was forced to sell its bonds at forty cents on the dollar to pay operating expenses. The vindication of the sagacity of the pioneers in these great enterprises is complete. All these lines are now profitable, and it has been demonstrated everywhere in the United States, that every new railroad creates the business from which its stockholders receive their dividends. It seems, therefore, scarcely possible to fix a limit to our profitable railroad expansion. They open new fields of enterprise, and this enterprise in turn, makes the traffic which fills the coffers of the companies.

I cannot now look back to the struggle to impress the people with the advantages of railways, without a feeling of weariness at the seeming hopeless struggle, and one of merriment at the general unbelief in our new-fangled project. Once at Elizabethtown in this State a public meeting had been called for the purpose of securing subscriptions to the stock of the Harrisburg and Lancaster Railroad. This road was intended to complete the railway between Philadelphia and Harrisburg, one hundred and five miles. A large concourse had gathered. Ovid F. Johnson, Attorney-General of our State, and a brilliant orator, made an excellent speech; but the effect was not in proportion to the effort. I determined to make an appeal, and I gave such arguments as I could. In closing I predicted that those now listening to me would see the day when a man could breakfast in Harrisburg, go to Philadelphia, transact a fair day’s business there, and returning, eat his supper at home. Great applause followed this, and some additional subscriptions. Abram Harnly, a friend of the road, and one of the most intelligent of his class, worked his way to me, and taking me aside whispered, “That was a good idea about going to Philadelphia and back to Harrisburg the same day;” and then, bursting with laughter, he added,—“But you and I know better than that!” We lived to see the road built; and now people can come and go over the distance twice a day, which Abram seemed to consider impossible for a single daily trip.

The peculiar condition of the States then known as “the West” was the subject of anxiety to many. They had attracted a large population, but the people were exclusively devoted to agriculture. Lacking diversified industry, they were without accumulated wealth to enable them to build railways; nor were the States in condition to undertake such an onerous duty, although several of them made a feeble attempt to do so. At one time the bonds of Illinois, issued to build her canals, sold as low as thirty cents on the dollar. So with Indiana. Both States were supposed to be bankrupt. It became, therefore, an important problem as to how means of communication should be supplied to the people of the West. Congress, in 1846, gave a grant of land to aid in building a railroad in Illinois. Every alternate section was given to the Company, and each alternate section was reserved by the Government. The road was built; and the one-half of the land retained by the government sold for a great deal more than all was worth before the road was constructed. This idea was original, I think, with Mr. Whitney of Mass., who spent two winters in Washington, about 1845, endeavoring to induce Congress to adopt that plan for the construction of a Trans-Continental Railway.

He died before seeing his scheme succeed. Others have built a road across the continent on the Central route. Another on the Northern route is now progressing, and the wealth and enterprise of those having it in charge renders its completion certain. And it yet remains for us to give the people of the Southern route a road to the Pacific which shall develop the magnificent region through which it will pass, and give the country one route to the great ocean protected from the ordinary difficulty of climate with which railroads must contend over so large a part of our territory. But I am admonished by the value of your space to confine myself to the limits of my own State.

I have said that the outlay we have made in building our public works was of great benefit to us even when the canals had been rendered almost valueless through the competition of railroads. This is paradoxical, but it is true nevertheless. That expenditure gave our people a needed knowledge of our vast resources. It familiarized them with large expenditures when made for the public good. And it showed them how a great debt may be beneficially incurred, and yet not break down the enterprise of the people. We at one time owed $41,698,595.74. By a steady attention to our finances, it is now reduced to $31,000,000, with resources,—the proceeds of the sale of public works—on hand amounting to $10,000,000. And while we have been steadily reducing our State debt, we have built 5,384 miles of railway on the surface of the earth, and 500 miles underground in our mines, at a cost of not less than $350,000,000, for a mile of railroad in Pennsylvania means something. We sent 368,000 men to the Federal Army. And our credit stands high on every stock exchange. Gratifying as this progress is, it is only a fair beginning. There is a large part of our territory rich in timber and full of iron, coal, and all kinds of mineral wealth, so entirely undeveloped by railroads that we call it “the Wilderness.” To open it up is the business of to-day, and I sincerely hope to see it done soon.

Forty years ago George Shoemaker, a young tavern-keeper of more vigor and enterprise than his neighbors, came to the conclusion that anthracite coal could be used as fuel. He went to the expense of taking a wagon load of it to Philadelphia, a hundred miles away, and, after peddling it about the streets for some days, was forced to give it away, and lose his time, his labor and his coal. He afterwards saw a great railway built to carry the same article to the same point, and enriching thousands from the profits of the traffic. But his experience did not end there. He saw a thousand dollars paid eagerly for an acre of coal land, which at the time of his venture to Philadelphia, no one would have, and he could not give away.

I have thought that a retrospective survey of our wonderful development might point plainly to the duty of the future. For if the experience of what has gone before is not useful to cast light on what is yet to come, then it will be difficult indeed to discover wherein its value lies. It teaches me to devote time and labor for the advancement of all Public Improvements, and I trust it may have a like effect on all who have the time and patience to read what I have here written.

Speech of Hon. John A. Logan,

_On Self-Government in Louisiana, January 13 and 14, 1875._

The Senate having under consideration the resolution submitted by Mr. SCHURZ on the 8th of January, directing the Committee of the Judiciary to inquire what legislation is necessary to secure to the people of the State of Louisiana their rights of Self-government under the Constitution Mr. LOGAN said:

Mr. PRESIDENT: I believe it is considered the duty of a good sailor to stand by his ship in the midst of a great storm. We have been told in this Chamber that a great storm of indignation is sweeping over this land, which will rend asunder and sink the old republican craft. We have listened to denunciations of the President, of the republicans in this Chamber, of the republican party as an organization, their acts heretofore and their purposes in reference to acts hereafter, of such a character as has seldom been listened to in this or in any other legislative hall. Every fact on the side of the republican party has been perverted, every falsehood on the part of the opposition has been exaggerated, arguments have been made here calculated to inflame and arouse a certain class of the people of this country against the authorities of the Government, based not upon truth but upon manufactured statements which were utterly false. The republican party has been characterized as despotic, as tyrannical, as oppressive. The course of the Administration and the party toward the southern people has been denounced as of the most tyrannical character by men who have received clemency at the hands of this same party.

Now, sir, what is the cause of all this vain declamation? What is the cause of all this studied denunciation? What is the reason for all these accusations made against a party or an administration? I may be mistaken, but, if I am not, this is the commencement of the campaign of 1876. It has been thought necessary on the part of the opposition Senators here to commence, if I may use a homely phrase, a raid upon the republican party and upon this Administration, and to base that upon false statements in reference to the conduct of affairs in the State of Louisiana.

I propose in this debate, and I hope I shall not be too tedious, though I may be somewhat so, to discuss the question that should be presented to the American people. I propose to discuss that question fairly, candidly, and truthfully. I propose to discuss it from a just, honest, and legal standpoint. Sir, what is that question? There was a resolution offered in this Chamber calling on the President to furnish certain information. A second resolution was introduced, (whether for the purpose of hanging on it an elaborate speech or not I am not aware,) asking the Committee on the Judiciary to report at once some legislation in reference to Louisiana. Without any facts presented officially arguments have been made, the country has been aroused, and some people have announced themselves in a manner calculated to produce a very sore feeling against the course and conduct of the party in power. I say this is done without the facts; without any basis whatever; without any knowledge officially communicated to them in reference to the conduct of any of the parties in the State of Louisiana. In discussing this question we ought to have a standpoint; we ought to have a beginning; some point from which we may all reason and see whether or not any great outrage has been perpetrated against the rights of the American people or any portion of them.

I then propose to start at this point, that there is a government in the State of Louisiana. Whether that government is a government of right or not is not the question. Is there a government in that State against which treason, insurrection, or rebellion, may be committed? Is there such a government in the State of Louisiana as should require the maintenance of peace and order among the citizens of that State? Is there such a government in the State of Louisiana as requires the exercise of Executive authority for the purpose of preserving peace and order within its borders? I ask any Senator on this floor to-day if he can stand up here as a lawyer, as a Senator, as an honest man, and deny the fact that a government does exist? Whether he calls it a government _de jure_ or a government _de facto_, it is immaterial. It is such an organization as involves the liberties and the protection of the rights of the people of that State. It will not do for Senators to talk about the election of 1872. The election of 1872 has no more to do with this “military usurpation” that you speak of to-day than an election of a hundred years ago. It is not a question as to whether this man or that was elected. The question is, is there such a government there as can be overturned, and has there been an attempt to overturn it? If so, then what is required to preserve its status or preserve the peace and order of the people?

But the other day when I asked the question of a Senator on the other side, who was discussing this question, whether or not he indorsed the Penn rebellion, he answered me in a playful manner that excited the mirth of people who did not understand the question, by saying that I had decided that there was no election, and that therefore there was no government to overturn. Now I ask Senators, I ask men of common understanding if that is the way to treat a question of this kind; when asked whether insurrection against a government recognized is not an insurrection and whether he endorses it, he says there is no government to overturn. If there is no government to overturn, why do you make this noise and confusion about a Legislature there? If there is no State government, there is no State Legislature. But I will not answer in that manner. I will not avoid the issue; I will not evade the question. I answer there is a Legislature, as there is a State government, recognized by the President, recognized by the Legislature, recognized by the courts, recognized by one branch of Congress, and recognized by the majority of the citizens by their recognition of the laws of the State; and it will not do to undertake to avoid questions in this manner.

Let us see, then, starting from that standpoint, what the position of Louisiana is now, and what it has been. On the 14th day of September last a man by the name of Penn, as to whom we have official information this morning, with some seven or ten thousand white-leaguers made war against that government, overturned it, dispersed it, drove the governor from the executive chamber, and he had to take refuge under the jurisdiction of the Government of the United States, on the soil occupied by the United States custom-house, where the exclusive jurisdiction of the United States Government extends, for the purpose of protecting his own life.

This then was a revolution; this then was a rebellion; this then was treason against the State, for which these men should have been arrested, tried, and punished. Let gentlemen dodge the question as they may; it may be well for some men there who engaged in this treasonable act against the government that they had Mr. Kellogg for governor. It might not have been so well for them, perhaps, had there been some other man in his place. I tell the Senator from Maryland if any crowd of armed men should undertake to disperse the government of the State of Illinois, drive its governor from the executive chamber, enter into his private drawers, take his private letters, and publish them, and act as those men did, some of them would pay the penalty either in the penitentiary or by dancing at the end of a rope.

But when this rebellion was going on against that State, these gentlemen say it was a State affair; the Government of the United States has nothing to do with it! That is the old-fashioned secession doctrine again. The government of the United States has nothing to do with it! This national government is made up of States, and each State is a part of the Government, each is a part of its life, of its body. It takes them all to make up the whole; and treason against any part of it is treason against the whole of it, and it became the duty of the President to put it down, as he did do; and, in putting down that treason against the Kellogg government, the whole country almost responded favorably to his action.

But our friend from Maryland, not in his seat now, [Mr. HAMILTON] said that that was part of the cause of the elections going as they did. In other words, my friend from Maryland undertook in a roundabout way to endorse the Penn rebellion, and claim that people of the country did the same thing against the government of the State of Louisiana, and on this floor since this discussion has been going on, not one Senator on that side of the chamber has lisped one word against the rebellion against the government of the State of Louisiana, and all who have spoken of it have passed it by in silence so as to indicate clearly that they endorse it, and I believe they do.

Then, going further, the President issued his proclamation requiring those insurgents to lay down their arms and to resume their peaceful pursuits. This morning we have heard read at the clerk’s desk that these men have not yet complied fully with that proclamation. Their rebellious organization continued up to the time of the election and at the election. When the election took place, we are told by some of these Senators that the election was a peaceable, and a fair election, that a majority of democrats were elected. That is the question we propose to discuss as well as we are able to do it. They tell us that there was no intimidation resorted to by any one in the State of Louisiana. I dislike very much to follow out these statements that are not true and attempt to controvert them because it does seem to me that we ought to act fairly and candidly in this Chamber and discuss questions without trying to pervert the issue or the facts in connection with it.

Now, I state it as a fact, and I appeal to the Senator from Louisiana to say whether or not I state truly, that on the night before the election in Louisiana notices were posted all over that country on the doors of the colored republicans and the white republicans, too, of a character giving them to understand that if they voted their lives would be in danger; and here is one of the notices posted all over that country:

This “2 × 6” was to show the length and width of the grave they would have. Not only that, but the negroes that they could impose upon and get to vote the democratic ticket received, after they had voted, a card of safety; and here is that card issued to the colored people whom they had induced to vote the democratic ticket, so that they might present it if any white-leaguers should undertake to plunder or murder them:

NEW ORLEANS, _Nov. 28, 1874_.

_This is to certify that Charles Durassa, a barber by occupation, is a
Member of the 1st Ward Colored Democratic Club, and that at the late
election he voted for and worked in the interests of the Democratic
Candidates._

_WILLIAM ALEXANDER,
President 1st Ward Col’d Democratic Club._

_NICK HOPE, Secretary._

* * * * *

ROOMS DEMOCRATIC PARISH COMMITTEE.

_New Orleans, Nov. 28, 1874._

_The undersigned, Special Committee, appointed on behalf of the Parish
Committee, approve of the above Certificate._

_ED. FLOOD, Chairman._
_PAUL WATERMAN._
_H. J. RIVET._

ATTEST:
_J. H. HARDY, Ass’t Sec. Parish Committee_.

These were the certificates given to negroes who voted the democratic ticket, that they might present them to save their lives when attacked by the men commonly known as Ku-Klux or white-leaguers in that country; and we are told that there is no intimidation in the State of Louisiana!

Our friend from Georgia [Mr. GORDON] has been very profuse in his declamation as to the civility and good order and good bearing of the people of Louisiana and the other Southern States. But, sir, this intimidation continued up to the election. After the election, it was necessary for the governor of that State to proceed in some manner best calculated to preserve the peace and order of the country.

* * * * *

Now, Mr. President, I want to ask candid, honest, fair-minded men, after reading the report of General Sheridan showing the murder, not for gain, not for plunder, but for political opinions in the last few years of thirty-five hundred persons in the State of Louisiana, all of them republicans, not one of them a democrat—I want to ask if they can stand here before this country and defend the democratic party of Louisiana? I put this question to them for they have been here for days crying against the wrongs upon the democracy of Louisiana. I want any one of them to tell me if he is prepared to defend the democracy of Louisiana. What is your democracy of Louisiana? You are excited, your extreme wrath is aroused at General Sheridan because he called your White Leagues down there “banditti.” I ask you if the murder of thirty-five hundred men in a short time for political purposes by a band of men banded together for the purpose of murder does not make them banditti, what it does make them? Does it make them democrats? It certainly does not make them republicans. Does it make them honest men? It certainly does not. Does it make them law-abiding men? It certainly does not. Does it make them peaceable citizens? It certainly does not. But what does it make them? A band of men banded together and perpetrating murder in their own State? Webster says a bandit is “a lawless or desperate fellow; a robber; a brigand,” and “banditti” are men banded together for plunder and murder; and what are your White Leagues banded together for if the result proves that they are banded together for murder for political purposes?

O, what a crime it was in Sheridan to say that these men were banditti! He is a wretch. From the papers he ought to be hanged to a lamp-post; from the Senators he is not fit to breathe the free air of heaven or of this free Republic; but your murderers of thirty-five hundred people for political offenses are fit to breathe the air of this country and are defended on this floor to-day, and they are defended here by the democratic party, and you cannot avoid or escape the proposition. You have denounced republicans for trying to keep the peace in Louisiana; you have denounced the Administration for trying to suppress bloodshed in Louisiana; you have denounced all for the same purpose; but not one word has fallen from the lips of a solitary democratic Senator denouncing these wholesale murders in Louisiana. You have said, “I am sorry these things are done,” but you have defended the White Leagues; you have defended Penn; you have defended rebellion; and you stand here to-day the apologists of murder, of rebellion, and of treason in that State.

I want to ask the judgment of an honest country, I want to ask the judgment of the moral sentiments of the law-abiding people of this grand and glorious Republic to tell me whether men shall murder by the score, whether men shall trample the law under foot, whether men shall force judges to resign, whether men shall force prosecuting attorneys to resign, whether men shall take five officers of a State out and hang or shoot them if they attempt to exercise the functions of their office, whether men shall terrify the voters and office-holders of a State, whether men shall undertake in violation of law to organize a Legislature for revolutionary purposes, for the purpose of putting a governor in possession and taking possession of the State and then ask the democracy to stand by them—I appeal to the honest judgment of the people of this land and ask them to respond whether this was not an excusable case when this man used the Army to protect the life of that State and to preserve the peace of that people? Sir, the man who will not use all the means in his power to preserve the nationality, the integrity of this Government, the integrity of a State or the peace and happiness of a people, is not fit to govern, he is not fit to hold position in this or any other civilized age.

Does liberty mean wholesale slaughter? Does republican government mean tyranny and oppression of its citizens? Does an intelligent and enlightened age of civilization mean murder and pillage, bloodshed at the hands of Ku-Klux or White Leagues or anybody else, and if any one attempts to put it down, attempts to reorganize and produce order where chaos and confusion have reigned, they are to be denounced as tyrants, as oppressors, and as acting against republican institutions? I say then the happy days of this Republic are gone. When we fail to see that republicanism means nothing, that liberty means nothing but the unrestrained license of the mobs to do as they please, then republican government is a failure. Liberty of the citizen means the right to exercise such rights as are prescribed within the limits of the law so that he does not in the exercise of these rights infringe the rights of other citizens. But the definition is not well made by our friends on the opposite side of this Chamber. Their idea of liberty is license; it is not liberty, but it is license. License to do what? License to violate law, to trample constitutions under foot, to take life, to take property, to use the bludgeon and the gun or anything else for the purpose of giving themselves power. What statesman ever heard of that as a definition of liberty? What man in a civilized age has ever heard of liberty being the unrestrained license of the people to do as they please without any restraint of law or of authority? No man, no not one until we found the democratic party, would advocate this proposition and indorse and encourage this kind of license in a free country.

Mr. President, I have perhaps said more on this question of Louisiana than might have been well for me to say on account of my strength, but what I have said about it I have said because I honestly believed it. What I have said in reference to it comes from an honest conviction in my mind and in my heart of what has been done to suppress violence and wrong. But I have a few remarks in conclusion to submit now to my friends on the other side, in answer to what they have said not by way of argument but by way of accusation. You say to us—I had it repeated to me this morning in private conversation—“Withdraw your troops from Louisiana and you will have peace.” Ah, I heard it said on this floor once “Withdraw your troops from Louisiana and your State government will not last a minute.” I heard that said from the opposite side of the Chamber, and now you say “Withdraw your troops from Louisiana and you will have peace.”

Mr. President, I dislike to refer to things that are past and gone; I dislike to have my mind called back to things of the past; but I well remember the voice in this Chamber once that rang out and was heard throughout this land, “Withdraw your troops from Fort Sumter if you want peace.” I heard that said. Now it is “Withdraw your troops from Louisiana if you want peace.” Yes, I say, withdraw your troops from Louisiana if you want a revolution, and that is what is meant. But, sir, we are told, and doubtless it is believed by the Senators who tell us so, who denounce the republican party, that it is tyrannical, oppressive, and outrageous. They have argued themselves into the idea that they are patriots, pure and undefiled. They have argued themselves into the idea that the democratic party never did any wrong. They have been out of power so long that they have convinced themselves that if they only had control of this country for a short time, what a glorious country they would make it. They had control for nearly forty long years, and while they were the agents of this country—I appeal to history to bear me out—they made the Government a bankrupt, with rebellion and treason in the land, and were then sympathizing with it wherever it existed. That is the condition in which they left the country when they had it in their possession and within their control. But they say the republican party is a tyrant; that it is oppressive. As I have said, I wish to make a few suggestions to my friends in answer to this accusation—oppressive to whom? They say to the South, that the republican party has tyrannized over the South. Let me ask you how has it tyrannized over the South? Without speaking of our troubles and trials through which we passed, I will say this: at the end of a rebellion that scourged this land, that drenched it with blood, that devastated a portion of it, left us in debt and almost bankrupt, what did the republican party do? Instead of leaving these our friends and citizens to-day in a territorial condition where we might exercise jurisdiction over them for the next coming twenty years, where we might have deprived them of the rights of members on this floor, what did we do? We reorganized them into States, admitted them back into the Union, and through the clemency of the republican party we admitted representatives on this floor who had thundered against the gates of liberty for four bloody years. Is that the tyranny and oppression of which you complain at the hands of the republican party? Is that a part of our oppression against you southern people?

Let us go a little further. When the armed democracy, for that is what they were, laid down their arms in the Southern States, after disputing the right of freedom and liberty in this land for four years, how did the republican party show itself in its acts of tyranny and oppression toward you? You appealed to them for clemency. Did you get it? Not a man was punished for his treason. Not a man ever knocked at the doors of a republican Congress for a pardon who did not get it. Not a man ever petitioned the generosity of the republican party to be excused for his crimes who was not excused. Was that oppression upon the part of the republicans in this land? Is that a part of the oppression of which you accuse us?

Let us look a little further. We find to-day twenty-seven democratic Representatives in the other branch of Congress who took arms in their hands and tried to destroy this Government holding commissions there by the clemency of the republican party. We find in this Chamber by the clemency of the republican party three Senators who held such commissions. Is that tyranny; is that oppression; is that the outrage of this republican party on you southern people? Sir, when Jeff Davis, the head of the great rebellion, who roams the land free as air, North, South, East, and West, makes democratic speeches wherever invited, and the vice-president of the southern rebellion holds his seat in the other House of Congress, are we to be told that we are tyrants, and oppressing the southern people? These things may sound a little harsh, but it is time to tell the truth in this country. The time has come to talk facts. The time has come when cowards should hide, and honest men should come to the front and tell you plain, honest truths. You of the South talk to us about oppressing you. You drenched your land in blood, caused weeping throughout this vast domain, covered the land in weeds of mourning both North and South, widowed thousands and orphaned many, made the pension-roll as long as an army-list, made the debt that grinds the poor of this land—for all these things you have been pardoned, and yet you talk to us about oppression. So much for the oppression of the republican party of your patriotic souls and selves. Next comes the President of the United States. He is a tyrant, too. He is an oppressor still, in conjunction with the republican party. Oppressor of what? Who has he oppressed of your Southern people, and when, and where? When your Ku-Klux, banded together for murder and plunder in the Southern States, were convicted by their own confession, your own representatives pleaded to the President and said, “Give them pardon, and it will reconcile many of the southern people.” The President pardoned them; pardoned them of their murder, of their plunder, of their piracy on land; and for this I suppose he is a tyrant.

More than that, sir, this tyrant in the White House has done more for you southern people than you ought to have asked him to do. He has had confidence in you until you betrayed that confidence. He has not only pardoned the offences of the South, pardoned the criminals of the democratic party, but he has placed in high official position in this Union some of the leading men who fought in the rebellion. He has put in his Cabinet one of your men; he has made governors of Territories of some of your leading men who fought in the rebellion; he has sent on foreign missions abroad some of your men who warred against this country; he has placed others in the Departments; and has tried to reconcile you in every way on earth, by appealing to your people, by recognizing them and forgiving them for their offenses, and for these acts of generosity, for these acts of kindness, he is arraigned to-day as a Cæsar, as a tyrant, as an oppressor.

Such kindness in return as the President has received from these people will mark itself in the history of generosity. O, but say they, Grant wants to oppress the White Leagues in Louisiana; therefore he is an oppressor. Yes, Mr. President, Grant does desire that these men should quit their everyday chivalric sports of gunning upon negroes and republicans. He asks kindly that you stop it. He says to you, “That is all I want you to do;” and you say that you are desirous that they shall quit it. You have but to say it and they will quit it. It is because you have never said it that they have not quit it. It is in the power of the democratic party to-day but to speak in tones of majesty, of honor, and justice in favor of human life, and your Ku-Klux and murderers will stop. But you do not do it; and that is the reason they do not stop. In States where it has been done they have stopped. But it will not do to oppress those people; it will not do to make them submit and subject them to the law; it will not do to stop these gentlemen in their daily sports and in their lively recreations. They are White Leagues; they are banded together as gentlemen; they are of southern blood; they are of old southern stock; they are the chivalry of days gone by; they are knights of the bloody shield; and the shield must not be taken from them. Sirs, their shield will be taken from them; this country will be aroused to its danger; this country will be aroused to do justice to its citizens; and when it does, the perpetrators of crime may fear and tremble. Tyranny and oppression! A people who without one word of opposition allows men who have been the enemies of a government to come into these legislative Halls and make laws for that government to be told that they are oppressors is a monstrosity in declamation and assertion. Who ever heard of such a thing before? Who ever believed that such men could make such charges? Yet we are tyrants!

Mr. President, the reading of the title of that bill from the House only reminds me of more acts of tyranny and oppression of the republican party, and there is a continuation of the same great offenses constantly going on in this Chamber. But some may say “It is strange to see Logan defending the President of the United States.” It is not strange to me. I can disagree with the President when I think he is wrong; and I do not blame him for disagreeing with me; but when these attacks are made, coming from where they do, I am ready to stand from the rising sun in the morning to the setting sun in the evening to defend every act of his in connection with this matter before us.

I may have disagreed with President Grant in many things; but I was calling attention to the men who have been accusing him here, on this floor, on the stump, and in the other House; the kind of men who do it, the manner of its doing, the sharpness of the shafts that are sent at him, the poisonous barbs that they bear with them, and from these men who, at his hands, have received more clemency than any men ever received at the hands of any President or any man who governed a country. Why, sir, I will appeal to the soldiers of the rebel army to testify in behalf of what I say in defense of President Grant—the honorable men who fought against the country, if there was honor in doing it. What will be their testimony? It will be that he captured your armed democracy of the South, he treated them kindly, turned them loose, with their horses, with their wagons, with their provisions; treated them as men, and not as pirates. Grant built no prison-pens for the southern soldiers; Grant provided no starvation for southern men; Grant provided no “dead-lines” upon which to shoot southern soldiers if they crossed them; Grant provided no outrageous punishment against these people that now call him a tyrant. Generous to a fault in all his actions toward the men who were fighting his country and destroying the constitution, that man to-day is denounced as a very Cæsar!

Sherman has not been denounced, but the only reason is that he was not one of the actors in this transaction; but I want now to say to my friends on the other side, especially to my friend from Delaware, who repeated his bitter denunciation against Sheridan yesterday—and I say this in all kindness, because I am speaking what future history will bear me out in—when Sheridan and Grant and Sherman, and others like them, are forgotten in this country, you will have no country. When the democratic party is rotten for centuries in its grave, the life, the course, the conduct of these men will live as bright as the noonday sun in the heart of every patriot of a republic like the American Union. Sirs, you may talk about tyranny, you may talk about oppression, you may denounce these men; their glory may fade into the darkness of night; but that darkness will be a brilliant light compared with the darkness of the democratic party. Their pathway is illuminated by glory; yours by dark deeds against the Government. That is a difference which the country will bear witness to in future history when speaking of this country and the actors on its stage.

Now, Mr. President, I have a word to say about our duty. A great many people are asking, what shall we do? Plain and simple in my judgment is the proposition. I say to republicans, do not be scared. No man is ever hurt by doing an honest act and performing a patriotic duty. If we are to have a war of words outside or inside, let us have them in truth and soberness, but in earnest. What then is our duty? I did not believe that in 1872 there were official data upon which we could decide who was elected governor of Louisiana. But this is not the point of my argument. It is that the President has recognized Kellogg as governor of that State, and he has acted for two years. The Legislature of the State has recognized him; the supreme court of the State has recognized him; one branch of Congress has recognized him. The duty is plain, and that is for this, the other branch of Congress, to do it, and that settles the question. Then, when it does it, your duty is plain and simple, and as the President has told you, he will perform his without fear, favor, or affection. Recognize the government that revolution has been against and intended to overthrow, and leave the President to his duty, and he will do it. That is what to do.

Sir, we have been told that this old craft is rapidly going to pieces; that the angry waves of dissension in the land are lashing against her sides. We are told that she is sinking, sinking, sinking to the bottom of the political ocean. Is that true? Is it true that this gallant old party, that this gallant old ship that has sailed through troubled seas before is going to be stranded now upon the rock of fury that has been set up by a clamor in this Chamber and a few newspapers in the country? Is it true that the party that saved this country in all its great crises, in all its great trials, is sinking to-day on account of its fear and trembling before an inferior enemy? I hope not. I remember, sir, once I was told that the old republican ship was gone; but when I steadied myself on the shores bounding the political ocean of strife and commotion, I looked afar off and there I could see a vessel bounding the boisterous billows with white sails unfurled, marked on her sides “Freighted with the hopes of mankind,” while the great Mariner above, as her helmsman, steered her, navigated her to a haven of rest, of peace, and of safety. You have but to look again upon that broad ocean of political commotion to-day, and the time will soon come when the same old craft, provided with the same cargo, will be seen, flying the same flag, passing through these tempestuous waves, anchoring herself at the shores of honesty and justice, and there she will lie undisturbed by strife and tumult, again in peace and safety. [Manifestations of applause in the galleries.]

Speech of Hon. James G. Blaine, of Maine,

_On the False Issue raised by the Democratic Party, Delivered in the
Senate of the United States, Monday, April 14, 1879_.

The Senate having under consideration the bill (H. R. No. 1,) making appropriations for the support of the Army for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1880, and for other purposes—

Mr. Blaine said:

Mr. PRESIDENT: The existing section of the Revised Statutes numbered 2002 reads thus:

No military or naval officer, or other person engaged in the civil, military, or naval service of the United States, shall order, bring, keep or have under his authority or control, any troops or armed men at the place where any general or special election is held in any State, unless it be necessary to repel the armed enemies of the United States, _or to keep the peace at the polls_.

The object of the proposed section, which has just been read at the Clerk’s desk, is to get rid of the eight closing words, namely, “or to keep the peace at the polls,” and therefore the mode of legislation proposed in the Army bill now before the Senate is an unusual mode; it is an extraordinary mode. If you want to take off a single sentence at the end of a section in the Revised Statutes the ordinary way is to strike off those words, but the mode chosen in this bill is to repeat and re-enact the whole section leaving those few words out. While I do not wish to be needlessly suspicious on a small point I am quite persuaded that this did not happen by accident but that it came by design. If I may so speak it came of cunning, the intent being to create the impression that whereas the republicans in the administration of the General Government had been using troops right and left, hither and thither, in every direction, as soon as the democrats got power they enacted this section. I can imagine democratic candidates for Congress all over the country reading this section to gaping and listening audiences as one of the first offsprings of democratic reform, whereas every word of it, every syllable of it, from its first to its last, is the enactment of a republican Congress.

I repeat that this unusual form presents a dishonest issue, whether so intended or not. It presents the issue that as soon as the democrats got possession of the Federal Government they proceeded to enact the clause which is thus expressed. The law was passed by a republican Congress in 1865. There were forty-six Senators sitting in this Chamber at that time, of whom only ten or at most eleven were democrats. The House of Representatives was overwhelmingly republican. We were in the midst of a war. The republican administration had a million or possibly twelve hundred thousand bayonets at its command. Thus circumstanced and thus surrounded, with the amplest possible power to interfere with elections had they so designed, with soldiers in every hamlet and county of the United States, the republican party themselves placed that provision on the statute book, and Abraham Lincoln, their President, signed it.