Chapter LXXII: Book III: Great Speeches on Great Issues (23)

Further than that, you have been notified that I was supremely indifferent to what you did; that I had no wish to prefer, and was indifferent to your performances; that I should stand on this floor representing in part the people of the State of Virginia, for whom I have the right to speak (and not the Senator from Georgia) even of their democracy. The gentleman may not be advised that the Legislature which elected me did not require that I should state either that I was a democrat or anything else. I suppose he could not get here from Georgia unless he was to say that he was a democrat, anyhow. [Laughter.] I come here without being required to state to my people what I am. They were willing to trust me, sir, and I was elected by the people, and not by a legislature, for it was an issue in the canvass. There was no man elected by the party with which I am identified that did not go to the Legislature instructed by the sovereigns to vote for me for the position I occupy on this floor. It required no oath of allegiance blindly given to stand by your democracy, such as is, [laughter,] that makes a platform and practices another thing. That is the democracy they have in some of the Southern States.

Now, I hope the gentleman will be relieved. He has been chassezing all around this Chamber to see if he could not find a partner somewhere; he has been looking around in every direction; occasionally he would refer to some other Senator to know exactly where the Senator was who stood here as a democrat that had the manhood and the boldness to assert his opinions in this Chamber free from the dictation of a mere caucus. Now, I want the gentleman to know henceforth and forever here is a man, sir, that dares stand up [applause] and speak for himself without regard to caucus in all matters. [Applause, long continued, in the galleries and on the floor.] Mr. President, pardon me; I have done.

Mr. HILL, of Georgia. Mr. President—

The VICE-PRESIDENT. The Senate will be in order. Gentlemen on the floor not members of the Senate will take seats.

Mr. HILL, of Georgia. Mr. President, I hope nobody imagines that I rise to make any particular reply to the remarkable exhibition we have just seen. I rise to say a few things in justification of myself. I certainly did not say one word to justify the gentleman in the statement that I made an assault upon him, unless he was the one man who had been elected as a democrat and was not going to vote with his party. I never saw that gentleman before the other day. I have not the slightest unkind feeling for him. I never alluded to him by name; I never alluded to his State; and I cannot understand how the gentleman says that I alluded to him except upon the rule laid down by the distinguished Senator from New York, that a guilty conscience needs no accuser. [Applause and hisses in the galleries.] I did not mention the Senator. It had been stated here by the Senator from New York over and over that the other side would have a majority when that side was full. I showed it was impossible that they should have a majority unless they could get one democratic vote, with the vote of the Vice-President. I did not know who it was; I asked who it was; I begged to know who it was; and to my utter astonishment the gentleman from Virginia comes out and says he is the man.

The Senator from Virginia makes a very strange announcement. He charged me not only with attacking him, but with attacking the people of Virginia? Did I say a word of the people of Virginia? I said that the people of no portion of this country would tolerate treachery. Was that attacking the people of Virginia? I said that thirty-eight men had been elected to this body as democrats. Does the Senator deny that? Does he say he was elected here not as a democrat? He says he was not required to declare that he was a democrat, and in the next breath he says he is a truer, better democrat than I am. Then I commend him to you. Take good care of him, my friends. Nurse him well. How do you like to have a worse democrat than I am?

Mr. CONKLING and others. A better democrat.

Mr. HILL, of Georgia. Oh, a better! Then my friend from New York is a better democrat than I am. You have all turned democrats; and we have in the United States Senate such an exhibition as that of a gentleman showing his democracy by going over to the Republicans!

Sir, I will not defend Virginia. She needs no defense. Virginia has given this country and the world and humanity some of the brightest names of history. She holds in her bosom to-day the ashes of some of the noblest and greatest men that ever illustrated the glories of any country. I say to the Senator from Virginia that neither Jefferson, nor Madison, nor Henry, nor Washington, nor Leigh, nor Tucker, nor any of the long list of great men that Virginia has produced ever accepted a commission to represent one party and came here and represented another. [Applause on the floor and in the galleries.]

Mr. COCKRELL. I trust that those at least who are enjoying the privilege of the floor of the Senate Chamber will be prohibited from cheering.

The VICE-PRESIDENT. The Chair will state that the violation of the rules does not appear to be in the galleries, but by persons who have been admitted to the privilege of the floor. The Chair regrets to clear the floor, but if the manifestation is continued he will be obliged to do so. It is a violation of the rules of the Senate.

Mr. MAHONE rose.

Mr. HILL, of Georgia. Does the Senator from Virginia wish to interrupt me?

Mr. MAHONE. I do wish to interrupt you.

The VICE-PRESIDENT. Does the Senator from Georgia yield?

Mr. HILL, of Georgia. Certainly.

Mr. MAHONE. I understand you to say that I accepted a commission from one party and came here to represent another. Do I understand you correctly?

Mr. HILL, of Georgia. I understood that you were elected as a democrat.

Mr. MAHONE. Never mind; answer the question.

Mr. HILL, of Georgia. Yes, I say you accepted a commission, having been elected as a democrat. That is my information.

Mr. MAHONE. I ask you the question: Did you say that I had accepted a commission from one party and came here to represent another? That is the question.

Mr. HILL, of Georgia. Oh, I said that will be the case if you vote with the republicans. You have not done it yet, and I say you will not do it.

Mr. MAHONE. If not out of order in this place, I say to the gentleman that if he undertakes to make that statement it is unwarranted and untrue.

Mr. HILL, of Georgia. I should like to ask the gentleman a question: Was he not acting with the democratic party, and was he not elected as a democrat to this body? Answer that question.

Mr. MAHONE. Quickly, sir. I was elected as a readjuster. Do you know what they are? [Laughter and applause.]

The VICE-PRESIDENT rapped with his gavel.

Mr. HILL, of Georgia. I understand there are in Virginia what are called readjuster democrats and debt-paying democrats, or something of that kind, but as I understand they are all democrats. We have nothing to do with that issue. We are not to settle the debt of Virginia in the Senate Chamber; but I ask the Senator again, was he not elected to this body as a member of the national democratic party?

Mr. MAHONE. I will answer you, sir. No. You have got the answer now.

Mr. HILL, of Georgia. Then I conceive that the gentleman spoke truly when he said that I do not know what he is. What is he? Everybody has understood that he voted with the democrats. Did he not support Hancock for the Presidency? Did not the Senator support Hancock for the Presidency, I ask him? [A pause] Dumb! Did he not act with the democratic party in the national election, and was not the Senator from Virginia himself a democrat? That is the question. Why attempt to evade? Gentlemen, I commend him to you. Is there a man on that side of the Chamber who doubts that the Senator was sent to this body as a democrat? Is there a man in this whole body who doubts it? Is there a man in Virginia who doubts it? The gentleman will not deny it. Up to this very hour it was not known on this side of the Chamber or in the country how he would vote in this case, or whether he was still a democrat or not. I maintain that he is. The Senator from New York seemed to have information that somebody who was elected as a democrat was not, and I went to work to find out who it was. It seems I have uncovered him. For months the papers of the country have been discussing and debating how the Senator would vote. Nobody could know, nobody could tell, nobody could guess. I have been a truer friend to the Senator than he has been to himself. I have maintained always that when it came to the test the Senator would be true to his commission; that the Senator would be true to the democratic professions he made when he was elected. He will not rise in this presence and say he could have been elected to the Senate as a republican. He will not rise in the Senate and say he could have been elected to the Senate if he had given notice that on the organization of this body he would vote with the republicans. He will not say it.

The gentleman makes some remarks about the caucus. I have no objection to a gentleman remaining out of a caucus. That is not the question. I have no objection to a gentleman being independent. That is not the question. I have no objection to a gentleman being a readjuster in local politics. That is not the question. I have no objection to a man dodging from one side to another on such a question. With that I have nothing to do. That is a matter of taste with him; but I do object to any man coming into this high council, sent here by one sentiment, commissioned by one party, professing to be a democrat, and after he gets here acting with the other party. If the gentleman wants to be what he so proudly said, a man, when he changes opinions, as he had a right to do, when he changes party affiliations as he had a right to do, he should have gone to the people of Virginia and said, “You believed me to be a democrat when you gave me this commission; while I differed with many of you on the local question of the debt, I was with you cordially in national politics; I belonged to the national democratic party; but I feel that it is my duty now to co-operate with the republican party, and I return you the commission which you gave to me.” If the gentleman had done that and then gone before the people of Virginia and asked them to renew his commission upon his change of opinion, he would have been entitled to the eulogy of manhood he pronounced upon himself here in such theatrical style. I like manhood.

I say once more, it is very far from me to desire to do the Senator injury. I have nothing but the kindest feelings for him. He is very much mistaken if he supposes I had any personal enmity against him. I have not the slightest. As I said before, I never spoke to the gentleman in my life until I met him a few days ago; but I have done what the newspapers could not do, both sides having been engaged in the effort for months; I have done what both parties could not do, what the whole country could not do—I have brought out the Senator from Virginia.

But now, in the kindest spirit, knowing the country from which the honorable Senator comes, identified as I am with its fame and its character, loving as I do every line in its history, revering as I do its long list of great names, I perform the friendly office unasked of making a last appeal to the honorable Senator, whatever other fates befall him, to be true to the trust which the proud people of Virginia gave him, and whoever else may be disappointed, whoever else may be deceived, whoever else may be offended at the organization of the Senate, I appeal to the gentleman to be true to the people, to the sentiment, to the party which he knows commissioned him to a seat in this body.

Mr. LOGAN. Mr. President, I have but a word to say. I have listened to a very extraordinary speech. The Senate of the United States is a body where each Senator has a right to have a free voice. I have never known before a Senator, especially a new Senator, to be arraigned in the manner in which the Senator from Virginia has been, and his conduct criticised before he had performed any official act, save one, so far as voting is concerned. He needs no defense at my hands; he is able to take care of himself; but I tell the Senator from Georgia when he says to this country that no man has a right to come here unless he fulfills that office which was dictated to him by a party, he says that which does not belong to American independence. Sir, it takes more nerve, more manhood, to strike the party shackles from your limbs and give free thought its scope than any other act that man can perform. The Senator from Georgia himself, in times gone by, has changed his opinions. If the records of this country are true (and he knows whether they are or not) he, when elected to a convention as a Union man, voted for secession. [Applause in the galleries.]

The VICE-PRESIDENT rapped with his gavel.

Mr. HOAR. If my friend will pardon me a moment, I desire to call the attention of the Chair to the fact that there has been more disorder in this Chamber during this brief session of the Senate than in all the aggregate of many years before. I take occasion when a gentleman with whose opinions I perfectly agree myself in speaking to say that I shall move the Chair to clear any portion of the gallery from which expressions of applause or dissent shall come if they occur again.

Mr. LOGAN. What I have said in reference to this record I do not say by way of casting at the Senator, but merely to call attention to the fact that men are not always criticised so severely for changing their opinions. The Senator from Georgia spoke well of my colleague. Well he may. He is an honorable man and a man deserving well of all the people of this country. He was elected not as a democrat but by democratic votes. He votes with you. He never was a democrat in his life; he is not to-day. You applaud him and why? Because he votes with you. You want his vote; that is all. You criticise another man who was elected by republican votes and democratic votes, readjusters as they are called, and say that he has no right to his opinions in this Chamber. The criticism is not well. Do you say that a man shall not change his political opinions?

The Senator from Georgia in days gone by, in my boyhood days, I heard of, not as a democrat. To-day he sits here as a democrat. No one wishes to criticise him because he has changed his political opinions. He had a right to do so. I was a democrat once, too, and I had a right to change my opinions and I did change them. The man who will not change his opinions when he is honestly convinced that he was in error is a man who is not entitled to the respect of men. I say this to the Senator from Georgia. The Senator says to us, “take him,” referring to the Senator from Virginia. Yes, sir, we will take him if he will come with us, and we will take every other honest man who will come. We will take every honest man in the South who wants to come and join the republican party, and give him the right hand of fellowship, be he black or white. Will you do as much?

Mr. HILL of Georgia. We have got them already.

Mr. LOGAN. Yes, and if a man happens to differ with you the tyranny of political opinion in your section of country is such that you undertake to lash him upon the world and try to expose him to the gaze of the public as a man unfaithful to his trust. We have no such tyranny of opinion in the country where I live; and it will be better for your section when such notions are driven to the shades and retired from the action of your people.

I do not know that the gentleman from Virginia intends to vote as a republican. I have never heard him say so. I know only what he has said here to-day; but I respect him for stating to the Senate and the country that he is tired of the Bourbon democracy; and if more men were tired of it the country would be better off. The people are getting tired of it even down in your country, every where. The sooner we have a division down there the better it will be for both sides, for the people of the whole country.

I did not rise to make any defense of the Senator from Virginia, for he is able, as I said, to defend himself, but merely to say to the Senator from Georgia that the criticism made upon that Senator without any just cause is something I never witnessed before in this Chamber or in any other deliberative body, and in my judgment it was not justified in any way whatever.

Mr. HILL, of Georgia. I desire to say once more, what everybody in the audience knows is true, that I did not arraign the Senator from Virginia. In the first speech I never alluded to Virginia or to the Senator from Virginia.

Mr. LOGAN. Every one in the Chamber knew to whom the Senator alluded.

Mr. HILL, of Georgia. I alluded to somebody who was elected as a democrat, and who was going to vote as a republican.

Mr. TELLER. He was not elected as a democrat.

Mr. HILL, of Georgia. Then I did not allude to the Senator from Virginia.

Mr. TELLER. The Senator said that thirty-eight members of the Senate were elected as democrats.

Mr. HILL, of Georgia. Certainly they were.

Mr. TELLER. That is a mistake.

Mr. HILL, of Georgia. Certainly they were, and the record shows it.

Mr. CONKLING. May I ask the Senator a question?

Mr. HILL, of Georgia. Let me go on and then you can follow me. I again say it is strange that the Senator from Virginia should say I arraigned him, and his valiant defender, the Senator from Illinois, comes to defend him from an arraignment that was never made.

Mr. LOGAN. Did not the Senator from Georgia ask the Senator from Virginia in his seat if he was not elected as a Democrat? Did not the Senator charge that a man was acting treacherously to his constituents? Did the Senator not make the most severe arraignment of him that he could possibly make?

Mr. HILL, of Georgia. If the Senator will allow me, I did that only after the Senator from Virginia had arraigned himself. The Senator from Virginia insisted that I alluded to him when I had not called his name, and I had not alluded to his State and when I had arraigned nobody.

Mr. LOGAN. Will the Senator allow me to ask him this question: Did he not have in his mind distinctly the Senator from Virginia when he made his insinuations?

Mr. HILL, of Georgia. I will answer the gentleman’s question fairly. I did believe that the gentlemen on the other side who were counting upon a democratic vote were counting upon the Senator from Virginia, but I equally believed that they would be disappointed. I did not believe that the Senator from Virginia was guilty, and I in perfect sincerity and good faith, so far from arraigning him, intended to defend him from the foul suspicion, and my honest repulsion of the insinuation, which was necessary in consequence of what they expected, was regarded by the Senator himself as an arraignment. There is an anecdote told in the life of the great minister, Whitefield. When he was speaking one day in the country to an audience, he described the enormity of sin and the characteristics of sin; he did it with wonderful power. When he came out he was assailed by a gentleman for having made a personal assault on him. “Why,” said Whitefield, “I never heard of you before; I did not intend any assault upon you.” He replied, “Well, sir, you told me everything I have been doing all my life.” I frankly confess I am not a man to dodge. The papers have justified me in believing, Senators have justified me in believing, that you are calculating to get the democratic vote of the Senator from Virginia, whom the whole country has treated as having been elected as a democrat. I believed you would be disappointed; I believed that because you would be disappointed it was wholly unnecessary to delay this organization. I did not believe the Senator would vote with you, and in vindication of that Senator I will not believe it yet. He has not said so. He has made the mistake, because of what the papers say, of assuming that I alluded to him; but I vindicate him yet. He said if I asserted that he was elected as a democrat and would be false to his commission, I said what was not warranted and what was untrue. I am glad he said so. I did not say he would; but I say you expected it, I say your papers expected it, and I say it has been calculated on. I vindicate the Senator from Virginia, and I hope he will vindicate himself by not doing what you expect him to do. The Senator from Illinois charges me again with criticising a man for changing his opinion. I distinctly said that every man in this country has a right to change his opinion. The distinguished Senator from Illinois has changed his opinion. He says the country is tired of Bourbon democracy. He ought to know, for he used to be one of the worst Bourbon democrats this country ever saw.

Mr. LOGAN. That was when you belonged to the other side.

Mr. HILL, of Georgia. The first time I ever heard of that Senator was when I was battling in the South for the good old whig principles and he was an outrageous Bourbon democrat. That amounts to nothing. You had a right to change, if you have changed; I do not say you have.

Mr. LOGAN. I will only say, if the Senator will allow me, that when I saw the light I changed for the right. The Senator saw the darkness and changed for the wrong.

Mr. HILL, of Georgia. Ah, that is not argument.

Mr. LOGAN. It is true, however, just the same.

Mr. HILL, of Georgia. I hope the Senator will see more light and change again.

Mr. LOGAN. I do not think I shall.

Mr. HILL, of Georgia. He needs a great deal of light.

Mr. LOGAN. No doubt of that. I do not expect to get it, however, from that side.

Mr. HILL, of Georgia. I object to this style of interruption; it is unworthy of the Senate. I am not here to indulge in such remarks. The Senator has a right to change; I have arraigned nobody for changing his opinion. If the Senator from Virginia has changed his opinions he has a right to change them; I have not said he has not. I do not deny his right. I admit that a man has a right also to change his party affiliations if he is convinced he has been wrong; but a man has no right to hold a commission which was given him while he was a democrat and because he was a democrat and given to him as a democrat, and change his opinions and act with the adversary party. It is his duty to return that commission to the people who gave it and ask them to renew it upon his change of opinion. That is all I ask.

Mr. LOGAN. Will the Senator allow me to ask him what right has he as a Senator to undertake to dictate to the Senator from Virginia as to what shall be required in his State?

Mr. HILL, of Georgia. That is incorrect again. I have not undertaken to dictate to the Senator from Virginia. The Senator from Virginia can do just as he pleases; but when the Senator from Virginia acts as a public man I have a right to my opinion of his public acts, and I have a right to speak of all public acts and their character. I will not deny his right; I am not dictating to him—far from it. There is not in my heart now an unkind feeling for the Senator from Virginia. I would if I could rescue him from the infamy into which others are trying to precipitate him. That is what I want to do. I am not assailing him; I am not arraigning him; I am not dictating to him. I know the proud nature of the Senator from New York. I know if that Senator was elected to this body as a republican, although he might have been a readjuster at the time, and if he should come to this body and the democrats should begin to intimate in this Hall and the democratic papers should intimate over the country that he was going to vote with the democrats on the organization, he would feel insulted just as my friend from Tennessee (Mr. Harris) justly felt by the allusions to him in the newspapers. So with any other man on that side. If the Senator from Virginia was elected as a democrat I am right; but if as a republican I have nothing more to say.

Mr. LOGAN. Will the Senator allow me right there? Is it not true that the democracy of the Virginia Legislature that elected the Senator now in his seat from Virginia did nominate Mr. Withers as their candidate and supported him, and was not this senator elected by the opponents of the democrats of that Legislature? Is not that true? I ask the Senator from Virginia.

Mr. MAHONE. Substantially so.

Mr. LOGAN. Then if that be true, why say that he came here as the representative of the democracy of Virginia?

Mr. HILL, of Georgia. My understanding is that the democracy of Virginia is very much like the democracy of other States, as Tennessee. We are divided down there in several States on local questions that have nothing to do with national politics. In Virginia the democracy was divided between what are called readjuster democrats and debt-paying democrats, but all democrats.

What was called the republican party it was said, although I must vindicate many of the republicans in the State from the charge, coalesced with what are called the readjuster democrats. The late Senator from Virginia was nominated by what are called the debt-paying democrats, and the present Senator from Virginia, as I understand it, was run against him as a readjuster democrat.

Mr. LOGAN. And the republicans all supported him.

Mr. HILL, of Georgia. Certainly, because they always support a candidate who is running against the regular nominee. I suppose the republicans always go for men who are not in favor of paying debts! I had thought that republicans professed to affiliate with those who would pay debts. But I have nothing to do with that question; it does not come in here. What I say and what will not be denied, and I am ashamed that there is an attempt to deny it, is, and it is the worst feature of this whole thing, that anybody should get up here and attempt to deny that the Senator from Virginia was elected to the Senate as a democrat; should attempt to evade the fact that he was a Hancock democrat last year; that he has acted with the national democracy all the time; and that whatever might have been the local differences in Virginia, he has been a national democrat every hour, held out to the country as such. I say I am ashamed that anybody should attempt to make a question of that fact. He was not only a democrat, a national democrat, and voted for Hancock, but I remember the historical fact that he had what he called his own ticket in the field for Hancock and voted for it. He is just as much a democrat, sent here as a readjuster democrat, as the other candidate, the debt-paying democrat, would have been if he had been elected.

Mr. LOGAN. The difference is, if the Senator will allow me, if the other had been elected, he would have been in full accord with the democracy here. This gentleman does not happen to be, and therefore the criticism of the Senator from Georgia.

Mr. HILL, of Georgia. I do not wish to do the republicans of Virginia injustice; I do not wish to do any body injustice. There are some republicans of Virginia for whom I confess, if reports be true, I have a profound respect. When a portion of the democrats, under the cry of readjusterism, sought to get the support of the republicans of Virginia, there were manly republicans who refused to go into a coalition that would compromise the character of the State on the question of its debt. I am told there are republicans now in Virginia who say that if republicanism here means the Senator from Virginia, and you accept him as a republican, you must give them up as republicans. I do not know how true it is. But this is unworthy of the Senate.

I repeat, the worst feature of this whole transaction is that anybody should get up here and attempt to make an impression that there was a doubt as to the democracy of the Senator from Virginia heretofore. That is an evasion unworthy of the issue, unworthy of the place, unworthy of the occasion, unworthy of Virginia, unworthy of the Senator, unworthy of his defenders. Admit the fact that he was a democrat, and then claim that he exercised the inalienable right of changing his opinions and his party affiliations, but do not claim that he had a right to do it in the manner you say he has done it.

Once more let me say, the Senator from Virginia ought to know that by all the memories of the past there is not a man in this body whose whole soul goes out more in earnest to protect his honor than my own. I would rather lose the organization of the Senate by the democratic party and never again have a democratic committee in this body than have Virginia soiled with dishonor. I do not say that the Senator is going to do it, but I see the precipice yawning before him. I see whither potential influences are leading him. I know the danger just ahead. I would rescue him if I could. He may say it is enmity; he may say it is an unfriendly spirit; he will live to know the force of the words I am uttering. Men in this country have a right to be democrats; men in this country have a right to be republicans; men in this country have a right to divide on national issues and local issues; but no man has a right to be false to a trust, I repeat it, and whether the Senator from Virginia shall be guilty or not is not for me to judge and I will not judge. I say if he votes as you want him to vote God save him or he is gone. If he comes here to illustrate his democracy by going over to that side of the House and voting with that side of the House, he will be beyond my rescue. No, gentlemen, I honor you. I like a proud republican as well as I do a proud democrat. I am conscious of the fact that some of the best personal friends I have in this body sit on that side of the Chamber, men whose high character I would trust anywhere and everywhere. Gentlemen, you know your hearts respond to every word I am uttering when I say you despise treachery, and you honor me to-day for making an effort to rescue a gentleman, not from treachery, but from the charge of it. If the Senator shall vote as you desire him to vote, he cannot escape the charge.

Mr. MAHONE. Mr. President, I want to interrupt the Senator from Georgia.

The VICE-PRESIDENT. Does the Senator from Georgia yield?

Mr. HILL, of Georgia. Certainly.

Mr. MAHONE. I cannot allow you to make any such insinuation.

Mr. HILL, of Georgia. I make no insinuation.

Mr. MAHONE. You did emphatically, and it was unmanly. Now it must stop. Let us understand that.

Mr. HILL, of Georgia. I repeat, I do not know how the Senator is going to vote. I believe he is not going to vote as you expect. I believe he is not going to be guilty of being false to his commission. I will not charge that he will; I will not insinuate that he will. I have not insinuated it. The gentleman must be his own keeper; the gentleman must solve his own questions; but I repeat, I repeat as a friend, I repeat as a friend whose friendship will be appreciated some day, that the Senator is in danger of bringing upon himself a charge which he will never have the power to explain.

Mr. MAHONE. I cannot allow you or any other man to make that charge without a proper answer.

Mr. HILL, of Georgia. Oh, well.

Senator Mahone’s Reply to Senator Hill

_in Extra Senate Session, March 28th, 1881_.

Mr. MAHONE. Mr. President, my profound respect for the wisdom and experience of my seniors in this Chamber compels me to renew expression of the reluctance with which I so soon intrude upon its deliberations. Senators and the country will concede that to this seeming forwardness I have been provoked.

If I do not challenge generous consideration from those who would appear to have found pleasure in their unjustifiable assaults, I do not doubt that I shall command the respect of the brave and independent here, as I know I shall command that of my own people. I shall not complain of the intolerance and indirection which have characterized the allusions of some Senators to myself. Doubtless they comport entirely with their own sense of manly deportment and senatorial dignity, however little they do with mine. Virginia is accustomed to meet occasions where the independent spirit of the Anglo-Saxon is required to assert itself; Virginia has ever met, with fortitude and dignity, every duty that destiny has imposed, always, however, with much contempt for small party tactics where principles were involved to which her faith and her honor were committed.

With absolute confidence in my loyalty to her and my devotion to every interest of her people, I shall not relax my purpose to repel every impeachment of the constituency which sent me here with clearly defined duties which they and I comprehend. I was elected to the _Senate_ of the United States to do _their_ will, not to a _caucus_ to do _its_ petty bidding. Virginia earned her title of the Old Dominion by the proud and independent action of her own people, by the loyalty of her sons to the instincts of independence, without help at the hands of those who would now interfere with her affairs.

However feebly I may assert that spirit against the gratuitous and hypocritical concern for her of strangers to her trials, her sacrifices, and her will, I feel that the spirit of my people inspires me when I scornfully repel for them and for myself ungracious attempts to instruct a Virginia Senator as to his duty to them and to himself. Senators should learn to deal with _their_ constituencies, while I answer to _mine_.

To him who would insinuate that my action in respect to the organization of the committees of this body and the proposed election of its officers has been governed or controlled by impure considerations—and I am loth to believe that any honorable Senator has so intended—in the language of another, I say:

If thou saidst I am not peer
To any lord in Scotland here,
Lowland or highland, far or near,
Lord Angus, thou hast lied!

And now, Mr. President, permit me to say that Senators can no more realize my regret than they can measure my amazement that my colleague should have felt it incumbent upon him to join the assaulting column in this Chamber. He first introduces the consideration of my political consistency, and he next introduces me, with the eighty-odd thousand of his fellow-citizens who sent me here, to this honorable body as a repudiator of public obligations. The sense of justice of fellow Senators renders it unnecessary for me to apologize for noticing my colleague’s criticisms on the one hand and his perversions on the other. However much he and his friends may endeavor, by the chop-logic of the attorney, to demonstrate what I ought to be, I know by my convictions and by my sense of duty what I am. In this particular I have largely the advantage of my colleague; for if I take him by his record, diminutive as it is, he neither knows what he was, what he is, or what duty he came here to perform. A very brief recital of Virginia political history, covering but a decade, will give a clear view of the Virginia situation as it is represented on this floor. My colleague gave the first page, and then, like the lazy, truant school-boy, skipped many pages, or, like the shifty lawyer, read only so much of the authority as suited his case. I am duly grateful to him for the small meed of praise he would deal out to me for the humble part I bore in the great liberal movement of 1869, which was undertaken to return our State to her normal condition in the Union.

I am the more grateful because the organs of the faction he represents here have recently published columns to prove that I was breathed into political existence subsequently to that momentous period. Not being sworn, my colleague thought it was sufficient for him to tell the truth without the usual obligation to tell the _whole_ truth. It is now my privilege, as well as duty, to supply all deficiencies. The views I entertained then I still adhere to, and though, as far as my information goes, we had no material assistance from him in that severe and trying ordeal of 1869, I do know that after his election to this body he confessed himself in entire accord with all that had been done by Virginia as a condition precedent to her restoration, and with the zeal of a new convert expressed the hope that other States of the Union without the same propelling cause should do likewise. In a letter addressed to the then governor of Virginia (Walker) he wrote as follows:

JOHNSTON TO GOVERNOR WALKER IN 1869.

Believing fully not only that we in Virginia could not prosper, but
that our continued exclusion from the Union interfered with the
business of the whole country, I have been anxious for an early
compliance with the reconstruction laws, and that the State should
itself inaugurate some movement similar to that which resulted in your
election for the purpose, and not wait, like Micawber, “for something
to turn up.”

* * * * *

The fifteenth amendment, which I trust will soon be adopted by States
enough to make it a part of the Constitution of the United States,
will end a question which has agitated the country for half a century.
I entirely approve of the principles of that amendment, and as we have
invested the freedman with the right to vote, let us give him a fair
opportunity to vote understandingly. He has civil rights, and it is
our interest he should know their value.

* * * * *

That we are apparently so near to the consummation of reconstruction
we are greatly indebted to President Grant’s kind offices. The State
was in a dilemma; it wanted a constitution; but the one made for it
has at least two very objectionable features. We felt that we were
suffering in all our material interests by staying out of the Union,
and yet to go in under the constitution with all its provisions would
have been worse.

The Gordian knot was happily cut by the President’s first message to
Congress and the prompt response of that body. Up to this time the
conduct of the administration has been liberal, and if the same policy
is pursued hereafter it ought to have the hearty support of this
State. If we cast dead issues behind us and look only to that line of
conduct which shall restore quiet and confidence, and encourage
enterprise and industry, we shall even see the country richer and more
prosperous than it has ever been.

This movement in 1869 accomplished the restoration of our State under
the expurgated constitution and gave us representation here in the
persons of my colleague and ex-Senator Lewis. We were relieved of
military government, became rehabilitated in our sovereignty, with
entire control of our local autonomy. Thus, for a period, Virginia
seemed to be enjoying the full freedom of her long-deferred hope for
peace.

In the curious panoramic exhibition of my colleague I next appear as a
candidate for governor in 1877. To be a candidate in Virginia is a
privilege which every qualified voter may constitutionally exercise,
and in that year there were three prominent candidates other than
those named by the Senator. Two of them had been major-generals and
one a brigadier-general. What an omission! Shades of departed glory
defend us! when a United States Senator of the Bourbon persuasion can
omit imposing titles in detailing events with which they were
intimately associated. ’Tis true I was not nominated, lacking forty
votes of a certain majority of a convention composed of over fourteen
hundred delegates against a combination of five candidates, one of
whom my colleague preferred, that preference perhaps being based upon
motives as unselfish as are usual in veteran politicians and
office-holders.

Mr. President, I can scarcely hope, in the presence of this body, where my colleague has served for many years, and where the altitude of his statesmanship frowns contemptuously down upon all who would aspire to reach its summit, to attain the awful diffidence with which I should undertake to correct any of his statements. He is one of the conscript fathers of the Senate, old in all its ways and usages; and long absence from his constituency and perpetual service to the national democratic party in helping to organize its numerous defeats make him forgetful of recent events in Virginia. Hence the necessity of my attempting to inform him as to certain matters of recent history at home.

“The next event,” says my colleague, “was that the readjusters separated themselves from the _democratic_ party;” and after treating this at some length he says, “This brings us down to what is called Mozart Hall convention,” in which, he adds, “I spoke of the _conservative_ party as though I belonged to it.”

Mr. President, I confess my inability to understand all this curious mixture of the odds and ends of my colleague’s scrap-book. He parades his facts in curiously-contrived array. He empties his ill-assorted jewels of information and “chunks of wisdom,” and seems to rely upon Senators to give them that consecutive arrangement as to fact and date which they have, possibly, in his own great mind. But, sir, the fact is there was no remarkable incident in Virginia politics between the election of 1877 and 1879, the month of February of the latter year being, the date of the assembling of the Mozart Hall convention. Certainly until February, 1879, there was no change in the status of parties in Virginia within that period. There was no organization of readjusters until February, 1879, and there was no _declared_ democratic party until 1880.

This brings me, Mr. President, to a period when I propose to do more than follow my colleague in his half-way candid and nearly always inaccurate statement. It is at this juncture, he says, that Mr. Riddleberger and I are so much identified that he cannot separate us. It is at this point the organization of the readjusters begins; and it is at this point he appears to seek to make an impression wholly unwarranted by any act of the readjusters in Virginia. It is at this point, too, Mr. President, that I am constrained by a sense of duty to my people, my State, and myself to treat the question of our State debt as it presents itself in Virginia. In doing this, I wish it distinctly understood that I hold this to be a matter belonging exclusively to the State of Virginia, and I should repel any Federal interference with this as I would with any other question of mere State concern. I shall presume upon the indulgence of Senators because they have heard but one side, and that more than once, and I know they will be willing to hear a defense of Virginia against unjust attacks from those who ought to be her defenders.

Sir, there is not a fact upon which to base any one of the statements or arguments of my colleague. Instead of the Mozart Hall convention being held to effect a repeal of an irrepealable contract, it was a body of people assembled on a call of members of the General Assembly opposed to what is known in Virginia as the “brokers’ bill.” They assembled before that bill had passed either House of the General Assembly, and, coming fresh from the people, expressed their unqualified disapproval of that measure. It was apparent the measure was to pass, and organized opposition began. But, Mr. President, this is neither the beginning nor the end of this question. It was in 1871 that the first funding bill was enacted, and this we know in Virginia as the first contract.

I will not go into the details of this measure, as I shall ask the clerk to read a review of all the Virginia funding acts before concluding my remarks. It is my purpose now only to notice the speeches of Senators, notably that of my colleague, in this Chamber. It will be news to Senators to hear to-day that the readjusters never repealed either of the funding contracts. That enacted and only partially executed in 1866–’67 was in effect repealed by the Assembly which passed it, and the work of repeal was consummated by the Legislature that enacted the more obnoxious measure of 1871. This in turn was repealed by the Assembly of 1872, the propounder of the repeal measure being the present lieutenant-governor of the State, subsequently in full fellowship with the alleged debt-payers. Indeed this measure was so obnoxious that Governor Walker, who was conceded to be its author, subsequently urged that the Federal Government should assume the debts of the Southern States.

Mr. President, I might pause to inquire if that is a part of the doctrine of my colleague and the Senators who co-operate with him, when they stand here to represent the party for which Governor Walker then spoke, the pretended debt-payers of Virginia? It was this repeal bill which the Virginia court of appeals held to be unconstitutional, and here the matter rested until the State had accumulated interest arrears to over five million dollars, beside diverting one and a half million dollars which was dedicated by the constitution to the public free schools.

In 1877 what is known as the Barbour bill was proposed and passed, not a few of the latter-day self-styled debt-payers being among its most zealous supporters. Although this did not repeal in terms the original funding bill, it was nevertheless vetoed by the governor.

Such was our condition at the succeeding election—schools reduced 50 per cent., length of sessions abridged, asylums sustained by money borrowed from the banks—after exhausting every possible expedient even to a reduction of judicial salaries, that a Legislature was returned pledged to a resettlement of this debt.

That settlement came in the form of the brokers’ bill, for which my colleague stands at home and here the champion, aided and abetted by distinguished gentlemen on this floor. I commend the virtuous democracy of this Chamber to read that bill, and then tell this Senate whether there ever was a more undemocratic measure than the bill propounded in Virginia by the party whose cause they espouse.

That settlement came in the form of the broker’s bill, as I have said, and this was the last repeal of the original contract. Yet my colleague would say the readjusters of to-day disregard the court decisions. Surely he has not forgotten that he was upon the hustings in Virginia advocating each of the successive measures repealing the “irrepealable” contract, while in every instance the readjusters proper opposed the new measure.

But here again I am called upon to answer the charge of personal inconsistency. My colleague cannot ascertain that I opposed the funding scheme of 1871—a measure which, I assert without the fear of contradiction, not only repudiated but forcibly repudiated what my colleague understands to be one-third of the debt of Virginia. I suggest to my fellow-Senators on the opposite side to take care of that contamination of which they have warned the country in respect to the readjusters of Virginia.

My colleague adverted to the Richmond Whig, and proclaimed it as my mouthpiece. Mr. President, nobody speaks for me; I speak for myself. Why not have ascertained from the same source how I stood on the funding bill of 1871? Senators will not find that I ever supported the measure of 1871.

Passing over what appears in my colleague’s speech as extracts from newspapers, to whose misstatements he has contributed a full share, I come now to notice his animadversions on the Riddleberger bill. If his criticisms were based on fact and a proper understanding of that measure, they would be unanswerable. He says that “the ‘Riddleberger bill’ has been substantially pronounced unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of the United States.” I ask him in what particular? Is it in this—that it does not recognize the interest that accrued during the war? If so, will my learned colleague inform me upon what principle of right he last summer sustained a measure which repudiated one-half of the interest that has accrued since the complete restoration of our State? Does he not know that that measure of forcible readjustment absolutely repudiated one-half of the accrued and unfunded interest, while the Riddleberger bill provides for paying it dollar for dollar? The difference is simply this: that since 1871 we have denied the right of the creditor to exact war interest and proposed to pay him all else in full. Our adversaries would and did fund that war interest and proposed to repudiate one-half of that which we are in honor and in law bound to pay.