A call to action : an interpretation of the great uprising, its source and causes

Front matter

STOHAGE-ITEn LIBRARY

LP9-R21C

U.B.C. LIBRARY

Contents

PAGE.

I. Th3 Senate 9

II. The Speaker of the House 49

Preface

The author's object in publishing this book is to call attention to some of the more serious evils which now disturb the repose of American society and threaten the overthrow of free institutions.

We are nearing a serious crisis. If the present strained relations between wealth owners and wealth producers continue much longer they will ripen into frightful disaster. This universal discontent must be quickly interpreted and its causes removed. It is the country's imperative Call to Action, and can not be longer disregarded with impunity.

The sovereign right to regulate commerce among our magnificent union of States, and to control the instruments of commerce, the right to issue the currency and to determine the money supply for sixty-three million people and their posterity, have been leased to associated speculators. The brightest lights of the legal profession have been lured from their honorable relation to the people in the administration of justice, and through evolution in crime the corporation has taken the place of the pirate; and finally a bold and aggressive plutocracy has usurped the Government and is using it as a policeman to enforce its insolent decrees. It has filled the Senate with its adherents, it controls the popular branch of the National Legislature by cunningly filling the Speaker's chair with its representatives, and it has not hesitated to tamper with our Court of last resort. The public domain has been squandered, our coal fields bartered away, our forests denuded, our people impoverished, and we are attempting to build a prosperous

D PREFACE.

commonwealth among people who are being robbed of their homes — a task as futile and impossible as it would be to attempt to cultivate a thrifty forest without soil to sustain it. The corporation has been placed above the individual and an armed body of cruel mercenaries permitted, in times of public peril, to discharge police duties which clearly belong to the State. Wall Street has become the Western extension of Threadneedle and Lombard streets, and the wealthy classes of England and America have been brought into touch. They are no longer twain, but one, and have restored to Great Britain all the dominion she desires over her long lost colonies. We have in late years become an important prop to the British throne and the hope of her dominant classes. We are careful not to act in monetary affairs without her consent; and if not in monetary affairs, then in none other, for money has become the Alpha and Omega of modern life.

The aristocratic classes in the old country constantly point their turbulent starving masses to the United States, in proof that republics afford no refuge or hope to the oppressed millions of mankind.

But the present stupendous uprising among the industrial people of the new world confounds them. It is the second revolt of the colonies. It required seven years for our fathers to overthrow the outward manifestations of tyranny in colonial days. But our weapons now are not carnal, but mighty to the pulling down of strongholds. Their children can vanquish the American and British plutocracy combined in a single day — at the ballot-box. They have resolved to do it. If this book can in the least aid in the mighty work, we shall be content.

The few haughty millionaires who are gathering up the riches of the new world, make use of certain instruments to accomplish their selfish purposes. The Deoole are

PREFACE. 7

beginning to understand what these instrumentalities arc. and are preparing to resist their destructive force. The purpose of this book is to make clear the great work which lies before us. It must be thorough and complete in order to be permanent. The magnitude of our task will appear as we advance in the struggle.

We have made no attack upon individuals, but have confined our criticisms to evil systems and baleful legislation. We have endeavored to be accurate, but claim no literary merit for our effort. We submit the work to the criticism of our co-temporaries and the candid consideration of patriotic people.

The Adthok.

a CALL TO ACTION.

Chapter I. The Senate

The English Parliament was copied after the Saxon National Assemblies. The Gemot, as it was called, consisted of a single body and was composed of the great and powerful supporters and defenders of the King. The Magna Charta provided for the addition of a certain number of Lords and church dignitaries, to be selected from the spiritual hierarchy, such as Arch- bishops, Bishops and Abbots. To these theocratic law makers were referred, among other important matters, all questions relating to taxation. From the remotest period in the history of the Saxons it had been the settled policy never to submit to the imposition of taxes unless the subject had consented thereto either personally or through some authorized representative. So scant were the royal revenues at this remote period, as compared with the extravagant expenditures, that it was with extreme difficulty that the wants of the crown and the nobility could be supplied at all; and history shows that in nearly every instance the taxes were voted only in return for some new concession of liberty to the people. During the fitful intervals of peace, wealth accumulated and centers of population and commerce multiplied. Naturally enough these communities, in course of time, asked for representation in the great council. The prince and his barons consented— for a price. The purchase was made and in this way the great body of the English people, who were neither clerical nor noble and who were simply organized into "communities," and shires, secured a hearing and gradually acquired a foothold among the law makers of the realm. With the lapse of time and the increase of popula tion and wealth, came the extension of suffrage. "When the crown was powerful and the unrepresented people weak, the right of representation was sold for so much money paid directly into the royal treasur}r. When the electors became numerous and had the power of electing members of Parliament within their own hands, they in turn sold their votes to the highest bidder. Mr. May, in his excellent work on the British constitution, informs us that up to within a very recent period, it was a common thing for candidates for Parliament to visit the locality of their candidacy and with ready cash purchase the votes necessary to elect them, and then close the negotiations with an agreement properly signed and witnessed. But thanks to the extension of suffrage, and cognate reforms, England of to-day is comparatively free from this abuse. There is virtue in the people, and the plague spots of the world have often been healed by jostling against the multitude — by reaching out and touching the hem of their garments.

For many years the Commons occupied the same hall with the Barons and Lords. As they increased in numbers the Lords consented that these plebeian intruders might occupy a separate hall. The Commons represented those who paid the taxes and fought the battles, and soon after the separation into the two houses or halls, they took the question of taxes exclusively into their own hands. The power of the Commons has increased through all its history, while that of the Lords has constantly waned. These manifestations of decay on the one hand and of growth on the other, are both natural and philosophic. The functions of the House are normal and legitimate, while those of the Lords are imposed by law and are purely arbitrary and artificial. Hence the tendency among enlightened people is to cherish the one and reject the other. Mr. Gladstone, in a speech delivered at Newcastle, in October of this year, favors the utter abolition of the House of Lords. He 8track a popular chord which was already vibrating in America.

The revolt which brought on the American revolution was not so much against British institutions as against the tyranny of', administration. England, except under Cromwell's Commonwealth, had a House of Lords, therefore, it was argued, the young republic must have a similar body; the Lords were men of great wealth and represented the aristocracy of the realm, therefore our senators should be selected because of their holdings in order that they might represent the wealth of this country; the Lords were not compelled to look to the people for their positions, but either inherited them from their ancestors or received them at the hands of the sovereign; therefore there should be some intervening select body of men in this country who should designate and select our Senators. It might be safe, they thought, to intrust the commonalty to select their State Legislators and national Representatives, but here their power must cease. It would be positively dangerous to go farther. Alexander Hamilton likened the method decided upon to a filter. The State Legislatures were ''filtered" through the people. This refined and purified them, of course. The Senators, in turn, were to be " filtered " through the Legislatures. This removed them, with great prudence, far enough from the common herd to enable the wealthy classes to repose confidence in them. It was argued that this would afford a safe retreat from the excesses of the multitude and the follies of democracy. Hence they severed the legislative department and relegated the House to the vote holders and the Senate to the wealth holders.

When they reached the Executive, it was, of course, preposterous to think of electing that officer directly by the people. If the upper house of the National Legislature was too exalted to admit of popular selection, of course it would be shocking to think of electing a President by that method. Whoever heard of a British king being chosen by the multitude? Did he not wear his crown by divine authority? Our President could not hope to derive his office from so high a source, and yet it would never do to intrust his selection directly to the common people. Who so rash as to think of cutting loose from the doctrine oijwe divino and deferring to the opinions and wishes of the vulgar majority? No, if we were not to have divine selection, it were rash to go to the other extreme and adopt direct plebeian election; and so, with great solemnity, the middle ground was taken — that of selection by the Hamiltonian process of infiltration. Hence the Electoral College was constructed. The Constitution does not contemplate, nor did its founders ever dream of great national nominating conventions and Presidential campaigns such as are common in our day. All that the law requires is for the people in the several states to repair to the polls every four years, at the stated time, and quietly vote for Presidential Electors, corresponding in number to the whole number of Senators and Representatives in Congress. The persons thus ordained and consecrated in turn select the chief magistrate. So far as the law is concerned it is not necessary that a single name shall be designated by anybody in connection with that high office prior to the day upon which the electors cast their votes. Ever}^thing in connection with our Presidential elections which is outside of this prescribed formula is extra-constitutional. The electors may select whomsoever they please for President and Vice- President, provided they be native-born citizens of the

United States, thirty-five years of age, and do not both reside in the same state. Prior to the year 1824, even the Electors were chosen by the State Legislatures instead of by the people, the State Legislatures having the power to designate the manner of their selection. At present the practice is for a few clever manipulators and party managers to select their favorite for the Presidential office and designate him in National convention. Following this, usually, sometimes before, the same men select the electors in the state conventions. The multitude, having no alternative left, may then be safely entrusted with the work of carrying the torches, doing the voting and footing the bills. The Senators, having been chosen by practically the same process of transudation, recognize in the Yice-President the shadow of the Executive and their natural presiding officer. This brings the Executive and the upper house en rapport, and the two combined are at once prepared to resist with lordly and platonic firmness all radical innovations threatened by the multitude. We call this government by the people. If it were not for the label it would never be so recognized.

The controversy which took place in the Federal Constitutional Convention concerning the method of choosing United States Senators, is a most interesting studj\ Among other things to be prominently noticed therein are the confused and contradictory opinions entertained by the fathers relating to this important subject. Some were in favor of their appointment for life by the Executive; others wished them to be chosen by the House of Representatives; a strong minority thought they should be selected by the people in the several States; a few were of the opinion that they should be chosen from districts composed of more than one State, and should be restricted to a very small number. Some members of the Convention thought they should consist of persons of wealth and influence, and be chosen to represent the property rather than the people, and be empowered to choose the President and Vice-President of the United States.

After protracted dela}' and much discussion, however, the present method of selection by the State Legislatures was adopted by the vote of ten States, on the 7th day of June, 1787, on motion of Mr. Dickinson, of Delaware.

Mr. Dickinson stated that he had two reasons for his motion: "First, because the sense of the States would be better collected through their governments, than immediately from the people at large; secondly, because he wished the Senate to consist of the most distinguished characters, distinguished for their rank in life and their weight of property, and bearing as strong a likeness to the British House of Lords as possible, and he thought such characters more likely to be selected by the State Legislatures, than in any other mode." (Madison papers, page 813.)

The operation of this method of selection during the latter half of the century, at least, has fully met the expectations of its author. That Mr. Dickinson was fervently attached to the British monarchy is abundantly shown by his repeated eulogiums upon the British Constitution during the sessions of the Convention, and by the further fact that eleven years prior to the meeting of the Federal Convention, and while he was a member of the Continental Congress, he was the only member of that body who declined to sign the Declaration of Independence.

THE EARLY SENATE.

The first twenty years after the adoption of the Constitution were spent in adjusting the machinery of the new government. Then came the controvers}' with Great Britain which culminated in the war of 1812. Following the successful issue of that struggle came the questions of re-chartering the United States bank, internal improvement, the boundary line between the treaty making and the legislative power, the troubles growing out of the celebrated Hartford Convention, the compromise measure of 1820, which established the line of 36-30, nullification in South Carolina, the Indian wars, and the Mexican war. Then followed a wide-spread slavery agitation which shook the country from center to circumference, and which finally resulted in civil war. These, and other important questions engaged public attention for about seventy years. The chief characters who figured from 1789 to 1850 would have adorned any age. As a rule, the Senate was filled with men justly distinguished for their talent—not wealth — and whether, as judged by the present generation, they entertained correct or incorrect opinions of public policy, they were selected because they were known by the whole body of the people to represent some idea — some policy — and they retained their positions for that reason. This brought together a body of strong men and made the Senate the theater of great intellectual conflicts. A glance at some of the great names who made the Senate illustrious during the first half century under the constitution, will be of interest. From Massachusetts we had John Quincy Adams, Daniel Webster, Timothy Pickering and Eufus Choate. From Connecticut, Roger Sherman, Oliver Ellsworth and Jonathan Trumbull. From New York, Gouveneur Morris, Martin Yan Buren, Daniel S. Dickinson, Rufus King, Silas Wright and John A. Dix. From New Jersey, William L. Dayton, Theodore Frelinghuysen. From Pennsylvania, James Buchanan and Simon Cameron. From Delaware, Caesar A. Rodney, James Bayard, John M. and Charles Clayton and Richard H. Bayard. From Maryland, Charles Carroll, of Carrollton, William Pinkney and Reverdy Johnson.

From Yirginia, James Monroe, John Randolph and Richard Henry Lee. From North Carolina, W. P. Mangum. South Carolina, Charles Pinkney, Robert Young Haine and John C. Calhoun. Kentucky, Henry Clay, John J. Crittenden, Humphrey Marshall, John Breckenridge and Phelix Grundy. Ohio, Thomas Corwin, Thomas Ewing and "William Allen. Indiana, William Hendricks, Edward A. Hannegan and Albert S. "White. Mississippi, George Poindexter and Robert J. "Walker. Maine, John Chandler and John Ruggles. Missouri, Thomas H. Benton. Michigan, Lewis Cass. Florida, David L. Yulee. Texas, Sam Houston. Iowa, A. C. Dodge and Geo. "W. Jones. Almost every State within the Union was represented at this time by statesmen possessing national fame and influence. They did not rise above criticism, of course. Indeed, they were subject to that infirmity or perversity of judgment which caused them to transmit to posterity a solemn duty which they should have discharged themselves and which, in after years, had to be atoned for in blood.

Some one has well said that if a man would properly estimate public questions and foresee public crises, he must lay aside personal ambition and stubbornly and persistently decline official position. The suggestion is full of wisdom. "With but few exceptions the official managers of public affairs and the law-makers, in periods of public tranquility, have been deaf to the wrongs and blind to the signs of the times in which they lived. They have generally failed even to comprehend the tremendous fact of impending revolution when it was just ready to burst upon them in devastating fury. The Magna Charta was extorted from a ruler who was blind to the march of events; Cromwell became Lord Protector of England because of another obdurate prince; George III and his ministry understood neither the character of the colonists whom they were oppressing nor the manifest destiny of the new world. Louis XVI, of France, and his ministers, had the}r comprehended the march of ideas and the consequences likely to follow their own corrupt and oppressive reign and that of their immediate and profligate predecessors, could easily have averted the French Revolution, saved their heads and withheld from history the most tragic chapter in the blood-stained annals of mankind. But they could not comprehend the situation. Neither would they listen to those who did. Sins of omission are bad enough and lead to fearful consequences. But how frightful the result when aggressive wrong doing takes the place of duty omitted. Dut}" omitted sits idle and waits for calamity to overtake it. The aggressive wrong-doer turns round and starts in quest of the avenger, meets him half way and hastens the catastrophe. As a rule, men and women in the private walks of life — the sufferers — are first to apprehend impending danger, and it is their sleepless energies which finally arouse the drowsy conscience of the nations.

The renewal of the anti-slavery controversj7, which occurred immediately preceding and following the compromise measures of 1850, developed and inducted into official life a new group of men, who represented the great forces which made up the irrepressible conflict destined to burst upon the nation at the end of that decade. Illustri ous among these were Seward, of New York, Hamlin and Fessenden, of Maine, James Harlan, of Iowa, Hunter and Mason, of Virginia, Wade and Chase, of Ohio, Hale, of New Hampshire, Sumner and Wilson, of Massachusetts. Stephen A. Douglas, of Illinois, Bell, of Tennessee. Crittenden, of Kentucky, Robert Toombs, of Georgia, and Judah P. Benjamin, of Louisiana.

IS A CALL TO ACTION.

When hostilities began between the two sections, many of the southern Senators withdrew, and within a brief period the Senate was re-inforced by Grimes, of Iowa, Trumbull, of Illinois, Sherman, of Ohio, Boutwell, Morrill, Doolittle, and others, all men of distinguished ability. But when hostilities were at their heighth the following gentlemen were among the most distinguished of the

WAR GKODP OF SENATORS.

Charles Sumner and Henry Wilson, of Massachusetts, B. F. Wade and John Sherman, of Ohio, James Harlan and James W. Grimes, of Iowa, John P. Hale, of New Hampshire, William Pitt Fessenden, of Maine, Lyman Trumbull, of Illinois, Lot M. Morrill, of Maine, James R. Doolittle, of Wisconsin, and Foote, of Vermont.

These were all men of extraordinary intellectual strength. They passed to their positions through struggles which tested their capacity and developed their transcendent powers. At the appointed time they sprang into the arena like gladiators and challenged the world to intellectual combat. There were giants in those daj's. Mr. Douglas closed his eyes upon life just as the curtain rose upon the great drama. Most of the others filled their places until the curtain fell over the last scene and then joined the silent majority. A few — Sherman, Morrill, Trumbull and Harlan — still survive and are in the enjoyment of robust and serene old age.

Sumner was the diplomat of the group — the scholarly evangel of liberty and the flaming tongue of fire; Chase, the fiscal manager and stately jurist; Wade, the rugged, intellectual athlete; Harlan, the logician, the resistless orator, practical iegislator and unerring interpreter of international law; Sherman, the adroit financier, while

THE SENATE. IS

Grimes, Trumbull and Doolittle were the great law yers of the bod}r. All were thoroughly schooled in practical affairs, accomplished legislators and filled their places with matchless ability. With but few exceptions all of these great characters have passed from the theater of action, and a

THIRD GROUP,

the immediate successors of the second, now briefly claims our attention. A few of the second are found also in the third. Among the most distinguished characters of the third group were Roscoe Conkling, Matthew EL Carpenter, Oliver P. Morton, John Sherman, George F. Hoar, George F. Edmunds, Henry L. Daws, David Davis, John A. Logan, William B. Allison, James Beck, James G. Blaine, John J. Ingalls, Daniel Vorhees, Preston B. Plumb, Joseph E. Brown, L- Q- C. Lamar, Benjamin H. Hill, Thomas F. Bayard, John P. Jones, Francis Kernan and Allan G. Thurman. Fifteen have disappeared from this group. Nine have died and six others are not now in the Senate.

The Senate of 1861-5 was called upon to legislate amid the perils of civil war. To the third group was given the task of reconstructing and readjusting civil government lifter the conflict was over. If peace hath her victories no less renowned than war, it must be that she hath her foes and perils also. The courage which can successfully meet and foil the tempter is superior to that required in the shock of battle. The former besieges the spirit, the latter assails only the body. The one is an enchantress and lurea us to destruction, while the other is a mailed warrior and smites only with the sword.

It seems strange that the legislators of the war and reconstruction periods failed to comprehend that those whc drove hard bargains and exacted cruel concessions whec the Republic was in peril, were as hostile to the spirit ol liberty, though not so brave, as the armed Confederate. The motto of the Confederate leader was, "Give us oui slaves and a dissevered Union or we will take them bv force; " while that of the money shark was, " If you dc not give us our price you can perish." The slaveholder lost his human chattels and the Confederacy perished. Bui the tyranny of capital was not broken by the war. On the contrary it was augmented be\^ond measure. The money power gained all that the slaveholder lost. It conquered the whole country and chained the children of toil, both black and white, to its chariot wheels. They threw the husk of liberty to the newly emancipated slave and appropriated to themselves the corn. All that liberty gained in that struggle was the extension of its nominal area far enough to include the black man. Surrounded by the perils of battle, the statesman of the war period made concessions which strengthened the tyranny of capital beyond the power of the imagination to conceive. In the days of reconstruction our leaders surrendered to it without a struggle. The battle for substantial and real emancipation has yet to be fought and it is but just ahead.

AN ALSATIAN DEN.

The leading members of the United States Senate during the war and reconstruction periods are chiefly responsible for the unconscionable acts of legislation which have cursed the Nation for over a quarter of a century and which, if not speedily corrected, are likely to precipitate a tragic revolution. This chain of legislation began in the early days of the war and was finished during the period of reconstruction. The following were enacted during the war period:

First. The exception clause of the Legal Tender act which placed a premium on gold for the benefit of gold gamblers, and at the same time depreciated the pay of the soldier fully one-half and greatly increased public expen ditures. It in fact placed the country at the mercy of the New York and European speculators and stock jobbers during the whole period of the war. The exception clause was not in the bill when it passed the House. It waa inserted in the Senate.

Second. The law which authorized the issue of bonds. The exigencies of war never called for the issue of a single, bond. Those who framed the law simply intended to pro-* vide an opportunity for speculators whereby they could dispose of, at its face value in United States bonds, the paper which they had purposely depreciated and afterward purchased. They procured one law which enabled them to purchase Greenbacks at less than their face value, and another which empowered them to realize in gold the face value of the Greenbacks. They induced Congress to literally legislate hundreds of millions of wealth into their noffers.

Third. The National bank act. This act authorizes the bond holder to deposit his gold bearing bonds and secure from the treasury ninety per cent of his investment, and still draw quarterly from the people interest on the whole amount, of the bond. It further invested the associated banks with -the power which belongs to the Government — the power to issue the money of the people and regulate its volume.

Fourth. The Land Grant acts. By these acts the Homestead law was made a nullity and the Public domain given away to corporations, syndicates, and foreign nabobs.

Fifth. The act which surrendered the first mortgage lien of the government, on the Pacific railroads, and compelled the people to pay interest on the money which they advanced to construct the roads. These bonds amounted to $64,623,512. We have paid on them, in interest, up to August, 1891, the sum of $65,350,008.61, and the end is not yet. The company now defies the government and laughs at the helplessness of the people.

Sixth. The contraction act of 1866, which authorized the destruction of our currency and its conversion into interest-bearing, non-circulating, and non-taxable debt. Under this act more than one billion of the currency was :aken from circulation and destroyed. All these acts were passed under the supervision of the war group of Senators.

The following acts were passed during the reign of the third, or reconstruction group:

The Credit Strengthening act of 1869.

The act of 1873, demonetizing silver.

The Kesumption act of 1875.

The object of the first was to pledge the payment of the entire public debt in gold. It looked to changing the contract in the interest of the grasping public creditor, long after the perils of war had passed and after our brave soldiers had abundantly strengthened the public credit by their valor and blood. The war was over and the bonds were selling at a premium at the time the act was passed.

The second stealthily struck down one-half of our coin money, doubled the value of gold and converted the coin bonds into gold obligations.

The third, under the guise of resuming specie payments, in fact provided for the utter destruction of our legal tender currency and the increase of the bonded debt. The calamity was in part averted by subsequent legislation which stopped the destruction of the greenback and partially remonetized silver. Public sentiment came to the rescue, but the conspirators yielded with manifest and dogged reluctance.

Various degrees of responsibility attach, of course, to the public servants concerned in the passage of these accursed laws. Charity, if not absolute regard for truth, requires us all to conclude that most of these legislators were at the time unadvised concerning the motives of those who forced this pitiless legislation upon the- country. The majority, perhaps, were as clay in the hands of the potter. A few cruel and skillful schemers moulded them at will. Honest men had their eyes on the salvation of the Union. Bad men took advantage of the situation. It was even sc at the very foundation of our government. Our fathers were forced, by professed friends of liberty, to make choice of evils. Posterity had to atone for it. So, many of our legislators, during the periods of war and reconstruction, fell short of their duty. A few were willfully vicious. We are now suffering the penalty. It is to be hoped that the next generation may not have occasion tc accuse those who shall legislate amid the tergiversations ol the new revolution.