Chapter XXVI
President Hayes was inaugurated on the 5th day of March (1877)--the 4th falling on a Sunday. As matter of precaution the oath of office was administered to him by Chief Justice Waite on Sunday--Mr. Hayes deeming it wise and prudent that he should be ready as President of the United States to do his official duty if any Executive act should that day be required for the public safety. Although his title had been in doubt until within forty-eight hours of his accession, he had carefully prepared his Inaugural address. It was made evident by his words that he would adopt a new policy on the Southern question and upon the question of Civil Service Reform. It was plainly his determination to withdraw from the South all National protection to the colored people, and to put the white population of the reconstructed States upon their good faith and their honor, as to their course touching the political rights of all citizens.
The Inaugural address did not give satisfaction to the radical Republicans, but was received with every mark of approbation by the more conservative elements of the party. Many Democrats would have supported Mr. Hayes cordially but for the mode of his election. It was impossible for them to recover from the chagrin and disappointment of Mr. Tilden's defeat. The new President, therefore, began his administration with a bitter personal opposition from the Democracy, and with a distrust of his own policy on the part of a large number of those who had signally aided in his election.
The one special source of dissatisfaction was the intention of the President to disregard the State elections in the three States upon whose votes his own title depended. The concentration of interest was upon the State of Louisiana, where Governor Packard was officially declared to have received a larger popular majority than President Hayes. By negotiation of certain Commissioners who went to Louisiana under appointment of the President, the Democratic candidate for Governor, Francis T. Nicholls, was installed in office and Governor Packard was left helpless.(1) No act of President Hayes did so much to create discontent within the ranks of the Republican party. No act of his did so much to give color to the thousand rumors that filled the political atmosphere, touching a bargain between the President's friends and some Southern leaders, pending the decision of the Electoral Commission. The election of the President and the election of Mr. Packard rested substantially upon the same foundation, and many Republicans felt that the President's refusal to recognize Mr. Packard as Governor of Louisiana furnished ground to his enemies for disputing his own election. Having been placed in the Presidency by a title as strong as could be confirmed under the Constitution and the laws of the country, it was, in the judgment of the majority of the Republican party, an unwise and unwarranted act on the part of the President to purchase peace in the South by surrendering Louisiana to the Democratic party.
The Cabinet selected by President Hayes was regarded as one of great ability. Mr. Evarts, Secretary of State, Mr. Sherman, Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. Schurz, Secretary of the Interior, were well known.
--The Secretary of War, George W. McCrary of Iowa, had steadily grown in public esteem by his service in the House of Representatives, and possessed every quality desirable for the administration of a great public trust.
--Mr. Richard W. Thompson of Indiana, appointed Secretary of the Navy, was in his sixty-eighth year, and had been a representative in Congress thirty-five years before. He was known throughout the West as an ardent Whig and an equally ardent Republican.
--Charles Devens of Massachusetts was appointed Attorney-General. His standing as a lawyer can be inferred from the fact that he had left the Supreme Bench of his State to accept the position. To eminence in his profession he added an honorable record as a soldier, having served with distinction in the civil war and attained the rank of Brigadier-General. As a private gentleman he was justly and widely esteemed.
--For Postmaster-General the President selected David M. Key of Tennessee, who during the previous session had served in the Senate, by appointment of the Governor of his State, to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Ex-President Johnson. The selection of Mr. Key was made to emphasize the change of Southern policy which President Hayes had foreshadowed in his Inaugural address. Mr. Key was a Democrat, and personally popular. A Southern Democrat in a Republican Cabinet presented a novel political combination, and it is evidence of the tact and good sense of Mr. Key that he administered his Department in such manner as to secure, not merely the respect of the Republican party, but the sincere friendship of many of its leading members. He was wise enough and fortunate enough to induce Hon. James N. Tyner, whom he succeeded as Postmaster-General, to remain in the Department as First Assistant, in order that Republican senators and representatives might freely communicate upon party questions, which Mr. Key delicately refrained from even hearing. The suggestion was made, however, by men of sound judgment, that in projecting a new policy towards the South, which was intended to be characterized by greater leniency in certain directions, it would have been wiser in a party point of view, and more enduring in its intrinsic effect, to make the overture through a Republican statesman of rank and ability.
Among the new senators of the Forty-fifth Congress were some who were transferred from the House and were already well known to the country. James B. Beck of Kentucky, George F. Hoar of Massachusetts, Benjamin H. Hill of Georgia, had each made a brilliant record by his service in the House. Mr. Blaine of Maine now entered for a full term, but had come to the Senate several months before as the successor of Honorable Lot M. Morrill, when that gentleman was called by President Grant to administer the Treasury Department.--Among those who had not served in Congress were several distinguished men. David Davis of Illinois, who had been fifteen years on the Bench of the Supreme Court of the United States, now entered the Senate as the successor of General Logan. With the exception of John Rutledge, who served in the House of Representatives after he had been on the Supreme Bench, Judge Davis is the only man who entered Congress after service on the Bench. John Jay was Minister to Great Britain and Governor of New York after he resigned the Chief-Justiceship; and Oliver Ellsworth was Minister to France after his retirement from the Bench. A large proportion of the justices had been in Congress before they entered upon their judicial service; but the transfer of Judge Davis to the Senate was a reversal of the natural order.
Samuel J. Kirkwood, already well known by his service in the Senate, now returned from Iowa.--Preston B. Plumb of Kansas, who had been printer, editor, soldier in the civil war with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel, member of the Bar, reporter of the Supreme Court of his State, Speaker of the House of Representatives of Kansas, now succeeded James M. Harvey. Mr. Plumb was actively and largely engaged in business affairs, and had perhaps as accurate knowledge of the resources of the West as any man in the country.--A. H. Garland entered from Arkansas, being promoted from the Governorship of his State. He was popular among his own people, and had been a member of the Secession Convention and of both branches of the Confederate Congress. His reputation as a lawyer had preceded his entrance into the Senate, where he was at once accorded high rank among his political friends.--John R. McPherson, a business man of good repute in New Jersey, succeeded Mr. Frelinghuysen.--Edward R. Rollins of New Hampshire, who had creditably served six years in the House, now came to the Senate as the successor of Aaron H. Cragin.--Alvin Sanders, who was appointed Governor of the Territory of Nebraska by Mr. Lincoln in 1861, and held the position until the State was admitted to the Union in 1867, now came as one of her senators.--Richard Coke who had been Governor of Texas, and Lafayette Grover who had been Governor of Oregon, now entered the Senate.--Isham G. Harris, who had been in Congress twenty-five years before and had played a somewhat conspicuous part in the rebellion as Governor of Tennessee, now succeeded Henry Cooper as senator from that State.
--William Pinkney Whyte, who entered the Senate the previous Congress for a full term, had already served in that body for a brief period in 1868-69, succeeding Reverdy Johnson when he resigned to accept the mission to England. In the interval between the close of his first service and his second election he had served as Governor of Maryland. He is a grandson of the eminent William Pinkney, who was a member of the Senate at the time of his death, and who as an orator was considered by Mr. Benton, Mr. Clay, and the younger men of that period, as the most eloquent in the country. Mr. Pinkney Whyte held a distinguished position at the bar of Maryland, was recognized as a senator of great ability, and as a private gentleman was highly esteemed without reference to party lines.
--Stanley Matthews took the seat made vacant by the transfer of Mr. Sherman to the Treasury Department. His reputation as a lawyer was well established. He had ben United-States District Attorney for three years preceding the war. He commanded an Ohio regiment for two years in the field and resigned to accept a position on the bench of the Supreme Court. His legislative experience had been limited to a single term in the Ohio Senate, and as the Democrats had carried Ohio in the autumn of 1877 before he could take his seat, he saw before him a short service in Congress. Within the limit of two years, however, he made a profound impression upon his associates in the Senate. He proved to be an admirable debater, and seemed intuitively to catch the style of Parliamentary discussion as distinguished from an argument in court. He left the Senate with an enlarged reputation, and with a valuable addition to his list of personal friends.
--Simon Cameron from Pennsylvania resigned his seat in the spring of 1877. He had been four times elected to the body, and had twice resigned, leaving his total service some eighteen years. He was in his seventy-ninth year when he retired, but in exceptional vigor of body and mind. He had the graces of age without its infirmities, and shared the good will of his fellow senators on both sides of the chamber in an exceptional degree. He was succeeded by his son, James Donald Cameron, who up to that period had never been a member of any legislative body and who was in this forty-fourth year when he took his seat in the Senate. He was educated at Princeton and had indeed devoted his life to business. During the last year of President Grant's Administration he was a member of the Cabinet as Secretary of War, in which position he showed the same executive power that had characterized the prompt and orderly dispatch of his private business.
--A fortnight after the meeting of Congress the Senate sustained a deep loss in the death of Oliver P. Morton. He died at his home in Indiana on the 1st day of November (1877). He had for several years been in ill health, but struggled with great nerve against the advances of disease. Few men could have resisted so long and so bravely. An iron will sustained him and enabled him through years of suffering to assume a leading part in the legislation of the country and in directing the policy of the Republican party.
Governor Morton was succeeded by Daniel W. Voorhees, already widely known by his service of ten years in the House. Mr. Voorhees was a Democrat of the most pronounced partisan type, but always secured the personal good will of his political opponents in Congress.
--M. C. Butler of South Carolina entered the Senate on the 2d of December, 1877. He had been engaged in all the partisan contests by which the Republican party was overthrown in South Carolina, and encountered much prejudice when he first took his seat; but his bearing in the Senate rapidly disarmed personal hostility, and even gave to him a certain degree of popularity upon the Republican side of the chamber.
The House was organized at an extra session called by the President on the 15th of October, 1877. The failure of the Army Appropriation Bill at the preceding session rendered this early meeting of Congress necessary. Samuel J. Randall was re-elected Speaker, receiving 149 votes; his Republican competitor, James A. Garfield, receiving 132. Among the new members of the House were some men who were afterwards advanced to great prominence.--Thomas B. Reed of Maine came from the Portland district. He had been a member of the Bar some twelve years, had rapidly risen in rank, had served in the State Legislature two terms, and had been Attorney-General of his State for three years. He was a strong man in his profession, and had an admirable talent for parliamentary service. His promotion was not more rapid than his ability justified and his friends expected.--The Massachusetts delegation received a strong reinforcement in several new members. George D. Robinson was a conspicuous figure. He developed great readiness as a debater, and his career in the House plainly indicated the eminence he has since attained.--George B. Loring came from the Salem district. He had served several terms in both branches of the Massachusetts Legislature and had been President of the Senate. He had for many years taken part in National contests, and of the personnel and principles of the political parties he possessed a knowledge equaled by few men in the United States.--William W. Rice of the Worcester district had devoted himself assiduously to his profession of the law and had generously shared in its rewards and its honors. From the midst of his full practice he was chosen to Congress.--William Claflin, well known as a merchant, had taken active part in the politics of Massachusetts, had been in both branches of the Legislature, and served as Lieutenant-Governor, and Governor of the State.
Horace Davis (a son of the eminent Senator John Davis of Massachusetts), long resident in California, came as the representative of the San Francisco district. He had been successful as a business man on the Pacific Coast, and brought to the service of the House large experience, strong sense, and high character.--The Indiana delegation was especially strong, with Thomas M. Browne, John H. Baker, and William H. Calkins, among its members. Mr. Browne and Mr. Calkins united a talent for parliamentary discussion with exceptional power as platform speakers. Mr. Baker was one of the most thorough men in the House on all questions of finance and taxation.--Hiram Price, who had already served six years, returned from Iowa.--William A. Phelps, Dudley C. Haskell and Thomas H. Ryan made a strong delegation from Kansas.--James F. Briggs, a lawyer of good standing, entered from the Manchester district of New Hampshire.--John T. Wait, a highly intelligent representative from Connecticut, had served a part of the Forty-fourth Congress, and was now returned for a full term.--Edwin Willets who proved to be a wise legislator came from Michigan.--Anson G. McCook, of the well-known Ohio family that furnished so large a number of good soldiers, came from New-York City, with the personal distinction of having carried a Democratic district. --Frank Hiscock came from the Syracuse district. He had been a member of the Convention of 1867 and stood high as a lawyer. He rose rapidly in the House, soon acquiring a position of the first rank.--John H. Starin and George A. Bagley were among the conspicuous members of the New-York delegation.--Judge A. B. James, of long service on the Supreme Bench of his State, came from the Ogdensburg district, and George W. Patterson, in his seventy-ninth year, from the Chautauqua district. Mr. Patterson was Lieutenant-Governor of the State when Hamilton Fish was governor.
Among the prominent Ohio representatives were Jacob D. Cox, from the Toledo district; Joseph W. Keifer, from the Madison district, afterwards promoted to the Speakership of the House; Amos Townsend, from the Cleveland district, a successful merchant and a man of strong sense.--General Thomas Ewing came from the Fairfield district. He was one of the private secretaries of President Taylor before he had attained his majority, was Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Kansas at thirty-one years of age and a member of the Ohio Constitutional Convention in 1873-74. He was an able lawyer and strong debater.--William McKinley, jun., entered from the Canton district. He enlisted in an Ohio regiment when but seventeen years of age, and won the rank of Major by meritorious service. The interest of his constituency and his own bent of mind led him to the study of industrial questions, and he was soon recognized in the House as one of the most thorough statisticians and one of the ablest defenders of the doctrine of Protection. He was more widely known afterwards as a platform speaker, always welcomed by large audiences.
Russell Errett and Thomas M. Bayne entered from the Pittsburg districts, Pennsylvania. Mr. Errett was a veteran editor in the anti-slavery cause, and Mr. Bayne was recognized as a young man of superior ability, ready in debate and with special adaptation to parliamentary service.--John I. Mitchell, afterwards chosen senator, entered from the Lycoming district, and Edward Overton from the Bradford district.--General Harry White entered from the Armstrong district. He had been confined in Libby Prison for sixteen months during the war and being a member of the Pennsylvania Senate his absence made a tie vote. He was not allowed to send his resignation and thus permit a Republican successor to be chosen, because the Confederates were not engaged at that time in promoting Republican success. His resignation was finally sent through the lines, concealed in a Testament carried by an exchanged surgeon.
The distinctive measure of the Forty-fifth Congress was the passage of the Act for the coinage of silver dollars. The subject had been discussed in the Senate and House and before the people, with increased zeal, ever since the movement for resumption of specie payment took decided form. For those who had not given special attention to the question, arguments were at hand from an official source. It would be more difficult to find a more exhaustive examination into the silver question than is embodied in the report of the Monetary Commission (organized under the joint resolution of August 15, 1875), presented to Congress on the 2d of March, 1877. It has permanent value for the compact and lucid form in which the history of the precious metals is presented, and for the clear statement of conflicting theories in regard to monetary systems.
--Three members of the Commission, John P. Jones and Louis V. Bogy of the Senate, and George Willard, a representative from Michigan, believed that the United States should remonetize silver without regard to the future policy of Europe, and that a law should be passed fixing 15½ to 1 as the standard of relative value between silver and gold in this country.
--Mr. William S. Groesbeck favored the remonetization of silver at the old relation in the United States of 16 to 1, and was joined in this suggestion by Mr. Richard P. Bland of Missouri.
--Senator George S. Boutwell expressed the opinion that it was not expedient to coin silver dollars to be a legal-tender, and that the introduction of silver as currency should be postponed until the effort to secure the co-operation of other nations had been faithfully made.
--Professor Francis Bowen and Representative Randall L. Gibson thought that a double standard was an illusion and an impossibility, and declared the proper place for silver in the monetary system to be that of subsidiary or token currency, considerably overvalued by law and a legal-tender only within certain minor limits. They advocated the coinage of silver dollars of 345-6/10 grains, to be legal-tender for sums not over twenty dollars, and to take the place of all paper currency of less denomination than five dollars.
President Hayes presented the subject in his message, December 3, 1877. He did not believe that "the interests of the Government or the people would be promoted by disparaging silver," but held that it should be used only at its commercial value. "If," said he, "the United States had the undoubted right to pay its bonds in silver coin, the little benefit from that process would be greatly over-balanced by the injurious effect of such payments if made or proposed against the honest convictions of the public creditors."
Secretary Sherman, in his annual report at the same time, said that in the work of refunding he had informed his associates in an official letter that "as the Government exacts in payment for bonds their full face value in coin, it is not anticipated that any future legislation of Congress or any action of any Department of the Government will sanction or tolerate the redemption of the principal of these bonds, or the payments of the interest thereon, in coin of less value than the coin authorized by law at the time of their issue,--being gold coin." He earnestly urged Congress to give its sanction to this assurance.
These official utterances were put forward in the heat of the general discussion, and fell upon the ears of persons already engaged on one side of the other of the earnest controversy in regard to the coinage of silver. Congress was at once called upon from an unexpected source to make a declaration hostile in its aim and purpose to the policy advocated both by the Head of the Nation and its chief financial officer. In direct hostility to the recommendations of an Ohio President and an Ohio Secretary of the Treasury, an Ohio senator, Mr. Stanley Matthews, moved a concurrent resolution in the Senate, declaring that "all bonds of the United States are payable in silver dollars of 412½ grains, and that to restore such dollars as a full legal-tender for that purpose, is not in violation of public faith or the rights of the creditor." A motion to refer the resolution to the Committee on the Judiciary was defeated--ayes 19, noes 31. It was kept before the Senate for immediate consideration and discussion. The eagerness for debate on the subject is shown by the record. Thirty-four senators delivered speeches, most of them elaborately prepared, going over the history of the precious metals, the field of American legislation, and international practice in money.
The Senate refused to adopt Mr. Conkling's suggestion to make the resolution joint instead of concurrent and thus require the signature of the President. Mr. Matthews had framed it so as simply to evoke an expression by both branches of Congress without sending it to the Executive, whose opinions had just been made known through his annual message. This was intended as an expression of dissent on the part of Congress from the views of the President. Mr. Edmunds moved an amendment declaring that "the bonds are payable in gold coin or its equivalent, and that any other payment without the consent of the creditor would be in violation of the public faith." It was defeated--ayes 18, noes 44. On an amendment offered by Mr. Justin S. Morrill, declaring that "the bonds will be payable in silver if the Silver Bill becomes the law of the land," the division was ayes 14, noes 41. On the passage of the resolution in the Senate, the ayes were 43, the noes 22. In the House of Representatives, the resolution was passed under a suspension of the rules,--ayes 189, noes 79. This proclamation of the financial creed of Congress was made complete on the 28th of January, 1878.
On the 5th of the previous November, during the extra session, the House passed, under a suspension of the rules, a bill for the free coinage of silver dollars of 412½ grains, full legal tender for all debts public and private. Mr. Richard P. Bland of Missouri was the author of the measure. The vote upon it stood 163 ayes to 34 noes, 93 members not voting. It was reported in the Senate with amendments, in December, and its discussion was superseded for the time by the resolution of Mr. Matthews. As reported from the Finance Committee, it provided for a coinage of dollars of 412½ grains to the extent of not less than $2,000,000 or more than $4,000,000 per month; all seigniorage to accrue to the Treasury. A second section, proposed by Mr. Allison of Iowa, authorized the President to invite other nations to take part in a conference, and to appoint three Commissioners to represent the United States, with a view to the adoption of a common ratio for gold and silver.
The bill gave rise to a longer and broader discussion than that which had occurred on Mr. Matthews' resolution. It was opened by Mr. Morrill of Vermont. He pronounced the measure a "fearful assault upon the public credit. It resuscitates the obsolete dollar which Congress entombed in 1834, worth less than the greenback in gold, and yet to be a full legal-tender." He thought that the causes of the depreciation of silver were permanent. "The future price may waver one way or the other, but it must finally settle at a much lower point. Nothing less than National will and power can mitigate its fall."
--Mr. Wallace of Pennsylvania charged that the opponents of the bill, were "taking a course for the abasement, depreciation and disuse of silver. The supporters of the bill favor both gold and silver."
--Mr. Dawes dwelt on the uncertain commercial value of silver and on the harm to the public credit threatened by the impending measure, insisting that the cheapest money would be our only money.
--Mr. Beck of Kentucky submitted a proposition to direct the coinage of "not less than $3,000,000 per month, or as much more as can be coined at the mints of the United States."
--Mr. Morgan of Alabama said the law did not deal with commercial values. It promised coin to the bondholder--coin of silver or coin of gold.
--Mr. Thurman of Ohio thought that the contract provided for the payment of public debts in coin of the standard of 1870, when the dollar of 412½ grains was full legal-tender, and that such dollar would approximate to gold in value.
--Mr. Kernan of New York said: "This bill does not proceed upon the basis that we are to make a silver dollar equivalent to a gold dollar," and thought that the cheaper coin would inevitably drive out the gold coin.
--Mr. Blaine submitted an argument "that gold and silver are the money of the Constitution, the money in existence when the Constitution was formed, and Congress had the right to regulate their relations." He favored the coinage of "such a silver dollar as will not only do justice among our citizens at home, but prove an absolute barricade against the gold monometallists." He did not believe that "412½ grains of silver would make such a dollar."
--Mr. Davis of West Virginia favored the utilization of silver, "because it is one of our chief products, will make the money known to the Constitution more abundant, will relive distress, and lead back to prosperity."
--Mr. McDonald of Indiana thought that "if no change had been made in our coinage laws, no proposition would be made to change them now. The Act of 1873 demonetizing the silver dollar made the pending measure necessary."
--Mr. McPherson said that he was "charged by a large majority of the people of New Jersey to remonstrate against the measure, which they believe will retard prosperity, and throw a blot upon our National integrity."
--Mr. Sargent of California, representing a mining State, opposed the bill, "as against good faith, and against the interests of the Government and of the people."
--Mr. Jones of Nevada supported the bill in a very elaborate speech. He had an enthusiastic faith in silver as a circulating medium, and had given a great deal of study to the question.
--Mr. Ingalls of Kansas argued "that the public debt is payable in silver, and if the money unit should be established in the metal least subject to fluctuation that metal is silver. Gold is the money of monarchs, and was in open alliance with our enemies in the civil war."
--Mr. Lamar presented resolutions from the Legislature of his State, instructing the senators and representatives to vote for the pending measure. He explained that he could not comply with the instructions, and would give the reasons for his vote to his own people.
--Mr. Allison of Iowa closed the debate, drawing the distinction between free coinage as proposed in the House Bill, and limited coinage as proposed in the Senate amendment. He dwelt on the invitation for an International Monetary Conference. He recited the growing demand for gold in Europe, and explained that "France ceased coining silver because she already had in circulation as full legal-tender from $350,000,000 to $400,000,000 in that coin."
In the course of the discussion the history of the Demonetizing Act of 1873 was brought out, and the degree of attention, or rather inattention, which was given to its passage,--On proceeding to vote the Senate rejected an amendment by Mr. Morrill, providing that for the first year only 25 per cent, and for the second year only 50 per cent, of the duties should be receivable in silver.--The amendment of Mr. Wilson "that $100,000,000 should be coined in silver dollars within three years, and then the coinage should cease if bullion should be more than three per cent below par," was also rejected.--The Senate refused to agree to an amendment offered by Mr. Edmunds, "that nothing in this section contained shall be construed to interfere with the coinage of gold and of the subsidiary silver now authorized by law."--The section providing for an International Conference was adopted,--ayes, 40; noes, 30.--Several forms of amendment relative to the legal-tender provision were suggested, but the phrase as it appears in the law was preferred.--Amendments offered by Mr. Eaton, Mr. Christiancy, Mr. Blaine, and Mr. Cameron of Wisconsin to increase the amount of silver in the coin, so as to approximate it to the value of the gold dollar, were severally rejected by large majorities.--After providing, on Mr. Chaffee's motion, for certificates of not less than $10 in exchange for silver coin deposited and redeemable in the same on demand, the Senate passed the bill with its amendments, by ayes 48, noes 21.
On the return of the bill to the House of Representatives debate began on February 21st.--Mr. Phillips of Kansas advocated the double standard with the ratio of metal properly determined, and he thought this was done in the dollar of 412½ grains.--General Butler of Massachusetts was in favor of insisting on the House bill for free coinage, and was seconded by Mr. Atkins of Tennessee.--Mr. Bland was willing to accept the Senate amendments and then pass a supplementary measure for free coinage on an appropriation bill. He added: "If we cannot do that I am in favor of issuing paper money enough to stuff down the bondholders until they are sick."--Mr. Dwight of New York sought to limit the legal-tender quality of the silver dollar to $50, and for larger sums to make it receivable at its value in gold.--A motion by Mr. Hewitt of New York to lay the bill on the table was lost by ayes 71, noes 205. The several amendments of the Senate were then adopted; that limiting coinage by 203 ayes, to 72 noes, and that for an International Monetary Conference by ayes 196, noes 71.(2) The concurrence of the House in these amendments passed the bill.
President Hayes returned the bill the House of Representatives with his objections, on the 28th of February. He based his veto on the proposition that "the silver dollar authorized is worth eight to ten per cent less than it purports to be worth, and is made a legal tender for debts contracted when the law did not recognize such coin as lawful money. The effect would be to put an end to the receipt of revenue in gold, and thus compel the payment of silver for both the principal and interest of the public debt." This he thought would be regarded as a grave breach of public faith: "It is my firm conviction that if the country is to be benefitted by a silver coinage, it can only be done by the issue of silver dollars of full value which will defraud no man. A currency worth less than it purports to be worth, will in the end defraud not only creditors, but all who are engaged in legitimate business, and none more surely than those who are dependent on their daily labor for their daily bread."
The House voted at once on the veto--passing the bill against the objections of the President, by ayes 196, to noes 73. The vote was taken in the Senate on the same day, without debate, and the bill was passed over the veto by ayes 46, noes 19. The senators not voting were paired. Had every senator been present and voted the result would have been ayes 53, noes 23. New England, New York and New Jersey supplied the principal part of the negative vote. Mr. Bayard, Mr. Pinkney Whyte, Mr. Butler of South Carolina, and Mr. Lamar were the senators from the South who voted in the negative. Pennsylvania, the South and the West sustained the bill. The Pacific coast was divided,--Mr. Booth supporting the bill and Mr. Sargent opposing it. The only vote for the bill in either House from New England was that of General Butler. The proportion and general location of the votes in the House were about the same as in the Senate.
The opinions of senators and representatives were of three distinct types. The majority believed, as the vote showed, in the policy of coining silver dollars of full legal-tender, regardless of their intrinsic equality of value with gold dollars,--thus creating two metallic currencies differing in value for all purposes of commercial interchange with the world, and keeping them at an equality of value at home by the force of law. The great mass of the Democratic party and a considerable number of Republicans joined in this view.
A small minority of both parties disbelieved in the use of silver as money, except for subsidiary coins, with its legal-tender value limited to small sums,--fifty dollars being the highest proposed, the majority apparently favoring ten dollars.
A majority of Republicans and a minority of Democrats asserted the necessity of maintaining silver coin at full legal-tender, but upon the basis of equality in intrinsic value with the gold dollar. This class feared the effect of an exclusively gold standard, while the supply of gold, compared with the commercial demands of the world, is relatively and rapidly growing less. They had seen the ratio of gold-supply far beyond that of silver for a series of years following 1850, and then for a series of years the ratio of silver-supply in excess of the supply of gold. The theory advanced by this class rested upon the proposition that the dollar of commerce could not with safety be exclusively based either upon the scarcer or upon the more plentiful metal. An adjustment is required providing for the employment of both metals--maintaining between them such fair equalization as would not violently disturb the value of real property or of annual products, and most important of all would secure a steadiness to the wages of labor and a sound currency in which to recompense it. The supply of both metals for two periods of sixteen years each (1850-1865 both included and 1866-1881 both included) in the United States and in the world at large may suggest some useful lessons.(3)
From the Silver Bill the public interest turned to the approaching day of Specie Resumption, January 1, 1879. To the last month there had been many doubters, but when the day came it was found that the Treasury was fully prepared and the gold coin which had borne a premium for the seventeen years of specie suspension was not now demanded even by those who had been hoarding legal-tender notes for that express purpose.
The result has proved that legislators and financiers were wisest who had the largest faith in the resources of the nation. The legislation proved to be adequate to the end in view, and resumption was achieved with the least practicable disturbance of trade and the least practicable depression to industry. The process of funding the debt was of great assistance, as was the constant reduction of the principal, which all the while drew our bonds from Europe and thus reduced the amount due for foreign interest. The monthly charge for interest had been in 1865 as high as $12,581,474.--a part payable in paper. During the fiscal year ending with June, 1879, it was only $6,981,148. It is obvious that from this source alone the Treasury was greatly strengthened.
Generous credit was accorded to Secretary Sherman for the great achievement. It seldom happens that the promoter of a policy in Congress had the opportunity to carry it out in an Executive Department. But Mr. Sherman was the principal advocate of the Resumption Bill in the Senate, and during the two critical years preceding the day for coin payment he was at the head of the Treasury Department. He established a financial reputation not second to that of any man in our history.
During the period of the Crimean war (1854-6), the mercantile marine of the United States gained so rapidly that it approached equality with that of England, in tonnage. But even before the calamities of our civil war, a change was foreshadowed favorable to England, hostile to the United States. It was the change from sail to steam. The utilization of iron as a ship-building material, the cheapening of fuel, the superior speed, all betokened a radical change in transportation on the principal ocean routes of the world. From the close of 1856 to the outbreak of the rebellion the average loss to the Navigation interests of the United States was two per cent annually. This ratio of loss was immensely accelerated by the course of events during the civil war, involving the utter destruction of many American vessels or their change of flag. The natural result was that in the spring of 1865 we stood in the carrying trade relatively and absolutely far behind our position in 1855.
Practically, nothing has since been done to recover the lost ground. Provision was made by Congress for the admission of certain ship-building materials free of duty. This somewhat improved the prospects and stimulated the construction of sailing vessels; but the competition in the world's carrying-trade is in steam-vessels. Great Britain had for many years covered the ocean with subsidized steamers, paying heavily for mail service until the lines were self-supporting, and withdrawing her aid only when competition could be safely defied. Congress steadily refused to enter upon any system of the same kind. Fitful aid was granted to special lines here and there, but no general system was devised, and the aid extended being temporary and accompanied sometimes by scandals in legislation was in the end rather hurtful than helpful.
Meanwhile the products we were exporting and importing enlarged so rapidly that we were giving more cargoes to ships than any other nation of the world,--furnishing in the year 1879 between thirteen and fourteen million tons of freight, and this altogether exclusive of our coasting trade. Some very extreme cases occurred, strikingly illustrative of the reluctance of Congress to help the American carrying trade. It was shown by statistics that we were exporting to Brazil not over $7,000,000 of our own products, and taking from her over $40,000,000 of her products. We had no steam communication with Rio Janeiro, except by way of Europe. In 1876 the Emperor of Brazil, an able and enlightened monarch, visited the United States. As a result of his inquiries and examinations His Majesty expressed a sincere desire for closer commercial connections between the two countries, and eagerly spoke of his willingness to contribute by an annual bounty to the establishment of a line of steamers.
After the Emperor's return to his dominions John Roach (a native of Ireland, but long naturalized in the United States), an energetic and capable ship-builder, of unusual foresight, energy, and integrity of purpose, sent an agent to Rio Janeiro, and procured a contract from the Brazilian Government pledging $125,000 per annum, provided the Government of the United States would give the same amount, for the establishment of a steam line between the two countries. Not doubting the readiness of the American Government to respond, Mr. Roach proceeded with full confidence, and built vessels for the line in his own shipyard. The enterprise promised the best commercial results; but to his chagrin and discomfiture, Mr. Roach found that no amount of argument or appeal by those who were willing to speak for him could induce Congress to contribute a single dollar for the encouragement of the line. Brazil cancelled her offer when the United States refused to join with her. Mr. Roach's ships were withdrawn, and the line was surrendered to an inferior class of English steamers.
During the period of this futile experiment, as well as before and afterwards, Congress annually appropriated more than a million dollars for the maintenance of the South-American squadron of naval vessels, to protect a commerce that did not exist, and for the creation of which the United-States Government was unwilling to pay even ten per cent of the cost annually of maintaining the squadron. Every intelligent man knows that it is impossible to maintain a navy unless there be a commercial marine for the education of sailors. The American marine preceding 1861 was so large that it could furnish seventy-six thousand sailors to maintain a blockading squadron on the South Atlantic and Gulf coasts. The value of this school for seamen, as one of the arms for National defense, could not have been more strikingly illustrated, or more completely proved. The lesson should have been heeded. It is a familiar adage requiring no enforcement of argument, that navies do not grow at the top. They grow from and out of a commercial marine that educates men for sea service. If the Government of the United States had, since the close of the war, expended annually upon the mercantile marine one-fifth of the amount that has been expended upon the Navy, our ships would have covered every sea, and the Navy would have grown of itself. Instead of that, we have been constructing the navy as an exotic, forcing it to grow without a favoring atmosphere, establishing it with officers and not with men, educating cadets on land, and not educating sailors on the ocean.
The Democratic party in Congress was hostile to every movement for the encouragement of our carrying trade, and the Republican party was fatally divided. The men who had earnestly attempted to do something were therefore constantly defeated and compelled to abandon the effort. Following this came the demand for the ships, which meant simply that American capitalists might secure the registry of the United States for vessels built in English ship-yards and manned with English sailors. This is the last movement necessary to complete the dominion of Great Britain over the sea, to complete the humiliation of the United States as a commercial country. It would abolish the art of ship-building on this side of the Atlantic, would educate no American sailor, except in the coasting trade. As a result, our naval vessels, if a Navy should be maintained, would necessarily be constructed where the merchant vessels were constructed; and the last point of absurdity in this policy would be reached when, in case of possible conflict with a European Power, we should be dependent for naval vessels upon a foreign country from which we could be cut off by the superior strength of our opponent on the sea.
With a more extended frontage on the two great oceans of the world than any other nation; with a larger freightage than that of any other nation, it will be a reproach to the United States, more pointed and decisive every year, if it neglects to establish a policy which shall develop a mercantile marine, and as the outgrowth of the mercantile marine, a Navy adequate to all the wants of the Republic. If Congress, in the sixteen years following the war, had given a tithe of encouragement to the building and sailing of ships, that it has wisely given to manufactures, to the construction of railways, and to every industrial pursuit on land, our flag would before the close of that period have stood relatively on the ocean as strong and permanent as it stood before steam was applied to the carrying trade of the world. In those sixteen years the Government expended more than three hundred millions on the Navy!(4) It expended scarcely three millions to aid in building up its mercantile marine, and expended much of that unwisely.
[(1) The Louisiana Commission was composed as follows:
General Joseph R. Hawley of Connecticut, Judge Charles B. Lawrence of Ohio, General John M. Harlan of Kentucky, Ex-Governor John C. Brown of Tennessee, Hon. Wayne McVeagh of Pennsylvania.]
[(2) The International Monetary Conference for which provision was made in the bill was held at Paris in the autumn of 1878. The American Commissioners were Reuben K. Fenton, William S. Groesbeck, and Francis A. Walker, with S. Dana Horton as Secretary. The principal European Nations were present with the exception of Germany. The Commissioners receive the impression that decided progress had been made towards the remonetization of silver in Europe, but subsequent event have not vindicated their judgment. Mr. Goschen, who was the head of the British delegation, declared that "it would be a misfortune for the world if a movement for a sole gold standard should succeed;" but he indicated no purpose on the part of his own government to change from the gold standard. The Conference came to no practical conclusion, simply agreeing that "it is necessary to maintain in the world the monetary functions of silver as well as those of gold;" but that "the selection for use of one or the other of the two metals, or both simultaneously, should be governed by the special position of each State or group of States." The proposition of the United States "that the delegations recommend to their respective governments the adjustment of a fixed relation between the two metals and the use of both in that relation as unlimited legal-tender money," was rejected. The supporters of a bi-metallic standard, though disappointed in the immediate result of the Conference, received encouragement from the advance in International opinion in the years that had elapsed since the previous Conference (1867). At that time the Nations declared almost unanimously in favor of a single standard of gold. Many of them had found in the interval great difficulty in maintaining it and were withheld from declaring for the double standard simply by the influence and example of England.]
[(3) The following tables have been prepared with care by Hon. A. Loudon Snowden, the able superintendent for several years of the United States Mint at Philadelphia.
ANNUAL PRODUCTION OF GOLD AND SILVER IN THE UNITED STATES, FROM 1850 TO 1881, INCLUSIVE.
YEARS. GOLD. SILVER. YEARS. GOLD. SILVER.
1850 . . . $50,000,000 $50,000 1866 . . . $53,500,000 $10,000,000 1851 . . . 55,000,000 50,000 1867 . . . 51,725,000 13,500,000 1852 . . . 60,000,000 50,000 1868 . . . 48,000,000 12,000,000 1853 . . . 65,000,000 50,000 1869 . . . 49,500,000 12,000,000 1854 . . . 60,000,000 50,000 1870 . . . 50,000,000 16,000,000 1855 . . . 55,000,000 50,000 1871 . . . 43,500,000 23,000,000 1856 . . . 55,000,000 50,000 1872 . . . 36,000,000 28,750,000 1857 . . . 55,000,000 50,000 1873 . . . 36,000,000 35,750,000 1858 . . . 50,000,000 500,000 1874 . . . 33,500,000 37,300,000 1859 . . . 50,000,000 100,000 1875 . . . 33,500,000 31,700,000 1860 . . . 46,000,000 150,000 1876 . . . 39,930,000 38,780,000 1861 . . . 43,000,000 2,000,000 1877 . . . 46,900,000 39,800,000 1862 . . . 39,200,000 4,500,000 1878 . . . 51,200,000 45,281,000 1863 . . . 40,000,000 8,500,000 1879 . . . 38,900,000 40,800,000 1864 . . . 46,100,000 11,000,000 1880 . . . 36,000,000 39,200,000 1865 . . . 53,225,000 11,250,000 1881 . . . 30,650,000 43,150,000
Total. . $822,525,000 $38,400,000 Total. . $678,805,000 $467,011,000
Total Gold for thirty-two years, $1,501,330,000. Total Silver, $505,411,000
ANNUAL PRODUCTION OF GOLD AND SILVER IN THE WORLD, EXCLUSIVE OF THE UNITED STATES, FROM 1850 TO 1881, INCLUSIVE.
YEARS. GOLD. SILVER. YEARS. GOLD. SILVER.
1850 . . . $15,000,000 $39,500,000 1866 . . . $67,600,000 $40,750,000 1851 . . . 12,600,000 39,950,000 1867 . . . 52,300,000 40,725,000 1852 . . . 72,750,000 40,550,000 1868 . . . 61,725,000 38,225,000 1853 . . . 90,450,000 40,550,000 1869 . . . 56,725,000 35,500,000 1854 . . . 67,450,000 40,550,000 1870 . . . 56,850,000 35,575,000 1855 . . . 80,075,000 40,550,000 1871 . . . 63,500,000 38,050,000 1856 . . . 82,600,000 40,600,000 1872 . . . 63,600,000 36,500,000 1857 . . . 78,275,000 40,600,000 1873 . . . 60,200,000 53,500,000 1858 . . . 74,650,000 40,150,000 1874 . . . 57,250,000 34,200,000 1859 . . . 74,850,000 40,650,000 1875 . . . 64,000,000 48,800,000 1860 . . . 73,250,000 40,650,000 1876 . . . 63,770,000 48,820,000 1861 . . . 70,800,000 42,700,000 1877 . . . 67,100,000 41,200,000 1862 . . . 68,550,000 40,700,000 1878 . . . 67,800,000 49,519,000 1863 . . . 66,950,000 40,700,000 1879 . . . 69,800,000 55,200,000 1864 . . . 66,900,000 40,700,000 1880 . . . 70,400,000 57,500,000 1865 . . . 66,975,000 40,700,000 1881 . . . 65,800,000 62,800,000
Total $1,072,125,000 $649,800,000 Total $1,008,420,000 $716,864,000
Total Gold, $2,080,545,000. Total Silver, $1,366,664,000.
TOTAL FOR THE WHOLE WORLD. GOLD. SILVER. 1850-1856 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $1,894,650,000 $ 688,200,000 1866-1881 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,687,225,000 1,183,875,000]
[(4) The Naval expenditures for the sixteen years following the war were as follows:--
Four years under President Johnson . . . . . $114,500,000 Eight years under President Grant . . . . . 154,500,000 Four years under President Hayes . . . . . . 57,000,000]
Chapter XXVII
The question of the fisheries has been in dispute between Great Britain and the United States for more than seventy years. During that period it has been marked by constantly recurring, and sometimes heated, controversy; and it will continue to be a source of irritation until the two Government can reach a solution which shall prove satisfactory, not only to the negotiators, but to the class of brave and adventurous men who, under both flags, are engaged in the sea-fisheries. For a long period each recurring season brought its series of complaints, often threatening violence between the fishermen, and tending to bring the two Governments into actual collision. An adjustment was effected by the Reciprocity Treaty of 1854 and again by the Treaty of Washington in 1871, but for so brief a time under each agreement as only to postpone the difficulty and not to settle it. There is a right and a wrong side to this questions, and either the Government of the United States or the Government of England is to blame for the chronic contention which marks it.
The American case can be briefly stated. When the independence of the Colonies was recognized in the preliminary treaty of 1782 the provisions agreed upon in regard to two subjects were held by both Governments to be final and perpetual. One was the territory embraced within the boundaries conceded to the United States: the other was the right to the fisheries. The people of the Colonies, especially the people of the New-England Colonies, had as British subjects used all the British fisheries in what is now known as the Dominion of Canada and the island of Newfoundland; and in the preliminary treaty to which George III. gave his assent in 1782, as well as in the final and more definite treaty of 1783, it was provided that the privilege should continue to be enjoyed by citizens of the new Republic.(1) No doubt of the intent and proper construction of this clause in both treaties had ever been suggested, until the English and American negotiators were engaged in framing the treaty of peace at Ghent in 1814, at the close of the second war with Great Britain. The British negotiators claimed that the war of 1812 had put an end to all existing treaties, and that, the fishery clause in the treaty of 1782 being no longer in force, our fishery rights had expired, and if revived at all must be revived under new stipulations.
The direct purpose of this movement was obvious. By the treaty of 1782 it was declared that "the navigation of the Mississippi River from its source to the ocean shall forever remain free and open to the subjects of Great Britain and to the citizens of the United States." It was at that time assumed that the boundary line between the territory of British America and the United States, as set forth in the treaty of peace, would at a certain point cross the Mississippi River, and that the navigation of that river would thus be secured to the subjects of his Britannic Majesty. But his was soon ascertained to be an error, and to that end that the line might be determined with precision the Jay treaty of 1794 provided for a joint survey. By the time of the negotiation of the Treaty of Ghent, twenty years later, it was definitely ascertained that the northern boundary of the United States ran above the sources of the Mississippi, while the purchase of Louisiana had given to our Government the control of the mouth of the river. Hence the privilege of navigating the Mississippi (so earnestly desired by the British Government) could not be insisted on, since the river from its source to the sea was wholly within the territory of the United States. If, therefore, our fishery rights were void by the abrogation of the fishery clause of the treaty of 1792, the restoration of those rights could be demanded only in exchange for some equivalent; and the equivalent to be asked, as was well known, would be the concession to Great Britain of the free navigation of the Mississippi River.
The position thus taken by the British Government was plainly untenable. The treaty of 1782 was only the formal declaration of certain facts consequent upon the termination of the Revolutionary war. That treaty recognized three conditions as fully established: I. The independence of the thirteen Colonies. II. The territorial limits of the United States. III. The rights and methods of the common fisheries in Colonial waters which the citizens of the United States had exercised as British subjects.--The history of the negotiation and the explicit language of the treaty prove that the clause touching the fisheries was the recognition of an existing right and not the grant of a new right. The British Government, in 1814, might with equal force and justice have claimed that under this theory of the abrogation of the treaty of 1782 by war, the recognition of our independence and the establishment of our boundaries had also become void. It is a rather curious fact, apparently unknown or unnoticed by the negotiators of 1814, that as late as 1768 the law officers of the Crown under the last Ministry of Lord Chatham (to whom was referred the treaty of 1686 with France, containing certain stipulations in reference to the Newfoundland fisheries) gave as their opinion that such clauses were permanent in their character, and that so far the treaty was valid, notwithstanding subsequent war. The American negotiators of course refused to admit the principle (that the war of 1812 had put an end to any provision of the treaty of 1782) or its application; and the result was that the Treaty of Ghent was signed and ratified, without any provisions either as to the Fisheries or the navigation of the Mississippi River,--a position which left the United States in the full exercise of its rights under the treaty of 1782, from which it could be excluded only by the exercise of force on the part of the British Government. There was no danger of force being applied. The war of 1812 had satisfied Great Britain that she could gain nothing by going to war with the United States.
Within four years of this time a treaty was negotiated and ratified, which is altogether the most inexplicable in our diplomatic history. The war just concluded with Great Britain had reflected the highest honor upon our navy; while on land we had demonstrated, if not the absolute impossibility, certainly the serious difficulty and danger, of an invasion of our soil by any foreign power. We had risen greatly in the estimation of the world as to our capacity for war, and we had learned the especial importance of maintaining the fisheries as the nursery of our sailors. The State Department was under the direction of John Quincy Adams, who, above all statesmen of his day, was supposed to appreciate the value of the fisheries and who had stubbornly refused at Ghent to consent to any diminution of our fishing-rights even if the alternative should be the continuation of the war. Yet on the 20th of October, 1818, a treaty was concluded at London, containing as its first and most important provision an absolute surrender of some of our most valuable rights in the fisheries. The negotiation was conducted by Albert Gallatin and Richard Rush, men of established reputation for diplomatic ability and patriotic zeal. The history of the transaction is meagre. A brief and most unsatisfactory correspondence contains all that we know in regard to it. Neither in the minute and important diary of Mr. Adams, nor in the private letters, as published, of Mr. Gallatin and Mr. Rush, is there the slightest indication of any reason for recommending, or any necessity for conceding, the treaty.
By reference to the Third Article of the treaty of 1782, already quoted, it will be seen that the rights of the citizens of the United States were recognized; first, to take fish of every kind on the Great Bank, and on all the other banks of Newfoundland, and also in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and at other places in the sea where the inhabitants of both countries used at any time before the treaty to fish; second, to take fish of every kind on such part of the coast of Newfoundland as British fishermen should use, but not to dry or cure the same on that island; third, to take fish of every kind on the coasts, bays, and creeks of all other of his Britannic Majesty's dominions in America; fourth, to dry and cure fish in any of the unsettled bays, harbors, and creeks of Nova Scotia, Magdalen Islands, and Labrador. By the provisions of the First Article of the treaty of 1818, the right to take fish on the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador was limited to certain portions of the coast, without prejudice, however, to any of the exclusive rights of the Hudson Bay Company; second, the right to dry and cure fish was granted on the limited portions of the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador, so long as they remained unsettled; third, for this privilege of drying and curing fish, the United States "renounced forever and liberty theretofore enjoyed or claimed by the inhabitants thereof to take, dry, or cure fish on or within three marine miles of any of the coasts, bays, creeks, or harbors of his Britannic Majesty's dominions in America not included within the limits so described." Of this extraordinary renunciation Mr. Rush wrote, many years after: "We [Mr. Gallatin and himself] inserted the clause of renunciation; the British plenipotentiaries did not desire it."
From the execution of this treaty--as might well have been seen--the misunderstanding between the two countries in relation to the fisheries became more and more complicated. The treaty seems to have considered only the cod-fishing, and even from that point of view we paid an enormous price for the poor privilege of drying fish on the Newfoundland coast, by abandoning the right of mackerel fishing within three marine miles of all other coasts of his Britannic Majesty's dominions in America; for from that time the mackerel fisheries grew into large proportions, and without regard to treaty provisions the right of cod-fishing on the banks could never have been taken from us.
The difficulty of determining the three-mile line, the presence of armed vessels to prevent its violation, the vexatious seizure of American fishing-vessels, the reckless injustice of the British local courts in their condemnations, constantly exasperated both parties, and on several occasions threatened to bring the two Governments into actual collision. Both countries recognized the necessity of a more definite settlement; and in June, 1854, after thirty-six years of continuous disturbance and danger, Mr. Marcy as Secretary of State, and Lord Elgin, Governor-General of Canada, as plenipotentiary for Great Britain, negotiated what is known as the Reciprocity Treaty. It was hoped that the opportunity would be used to settle this question permanently, or at least to secure and understanding that we should not upon the termination of a temporary arrangement be relegated to the irritating injustice of the treaty of 1818. But the wary diplomatists of England, with sarcasm scarcely concealed, had so phrased the opening clause of the Reciprocity treaty as to make its provisions only "additional to the liberty secured to the United States fishermen by the Convention of 1818."
The right in the fisheries conceded by the treaty of 1854(2)--originally ours under the treaty of 1782, and unnecessarily and unwisely renounced in the treaty of 1818--was not given freely but in consideration of a great price. That price was reciprocity of trade (so-called) between the United States and the British North American Provinces in certain commodities named in the treaty. The selection as shown by the schedule was made almost wholly to favor Canadian interests. There was scarcely a product on the list which could be exported from the United states to Canada without loss, while the great market of the United States was thrown open to Canada without tax or charge for nearly every thing which she could produce and export. All her raw materials were admitted free, while our manufactures were all charged with heavy duty, the market being reserved for English merchants. The fishery question had been adroitly used to secure from the United States an agreement which was one-sided, vexatious, and unprofitable. It had served its purpose admirably as a makeweight for Canada in acquiring the most generous and profitable market she ever enjoyed for her products. And yet Canadians seemed honestly to believe that they had conceded to us more on the sea than we had conceded to them on the land.(3)
The treaty of 1854 was to continue for ten years, with the right of termination upon twelve months' notice by either party. It was terminated on the 17th of March, 1866, upon notice given by the United States one year before. By the abrogation of this treaty our fishery rights were again, through our own unwise concession, subjected to the provisions of the treaty of 1818. But Canada gained little by this relegation, while she suffered great loss in consequence of being deprived of her free access to the markets of the United States for all her products of forest, field and sea.
During the existence of the Reciprocity Treaty the enterprise and capital of the American fishing industry had in some degree developed mackerel fishing, while a free market in the United States had encouraged the inshore fishing of the British dominions to a great and profitable extent. Perhaps at this time the British fishermen placed an exaggerated estimate upon the three-mile fisheries, while the American fishermen followed the privilege rather as a convenience and as an exemption from this annoyance and expense of seizure and trial, than as having any very large intrinsic value.
When the Joint High Commissioners proceeded to consider the question of the fisheries three different views were manifest. The British Commissioners desired a restoration of the Reciprocity Treaty, to which the American Commissioners replied that such a concession was impossible. During the discussion to which this refusal led, the American Commissioners declared that the value of these inshore fisheries had been largely over-estimated, and that the United-States Government desired to secure their enjoyment, not for their commercial or intrinsic value, but for the purpose of removing a source of dissension. They intimated that $1,000,000 was the largest sum which they would be disposed to offer for the full and permanent use of the inshore fisheries without the addition of any privilege as to the free admission of fish and fish-oil. The British Commissioners considered this to be an entirely inadequate estimate of the value of the fisheries and found insuperable difficulties in the way of an absolute and permanent transfer of the rights.
After prolonged consideration and discussion the American Commissioners finally declared that they were "willing (subject to the action of Congress) to concede the admission of Canadian fish and fish-oil free of duty as an equivalent for the use of the inshore fisheries, and to make the arrangement for a term of years." They were firmly and intelligently of the opinion that free fish and free oil to the Canadian fishermen would be more than an equivalent for these fisheries; but they were also willing to agree upon a reference to determine that question and the amount of money-payment that might be found necessary to complete the equivalent--it being understood that the action of Congress would be needed before any payment could be made. This proposition was referred by the British Commissioners to their Government, was accepted by cable, and was at once embodied in the treaty. These articles adopted the language of the Reciprocity Treaty of 1854, recognizing, as it might again be claimed by the British Government, the existence and full force of the Convention of 1818. The Commission then provided for the freedom from duty of Colonial fish and fish-oil, granted reciprocity of inside fisheries to British fishermen, and finally provided that the question of compensation should be referred to three Commissioners.(4)
It would not be just to impute carelessness to the American members of the Joint High Commission in framing the articles of the treaty relating to the fisheries. It is quite evident however that they had not closely studied the question, and had allowed the British Commissioners to gain an advantage. It was a mistake to agree to a new confirmation of the treaty of 1818, apparently establishing it as the basis of all our rights and giving to it the authoritative position which the treaty of 1782 originally held and should have continued to hold on this question. We might not be able to annul the treaty of 1818, but it was not wise to forfeit, by the assent of so imposing a body as the Joint High Commission, our right of protest against the injustice of its provisions and to agree practically to the assertion that our fishing-rights began in 1818. But a much graver blunder was committed. Our Commissioners had very justly maintained that the admission of Canadian fish and fish-oil free of duty into the United States would be more than an equivalent for the fishery rights to be conceded by the British Government. They had also maintained that for a concession of those rights in perpetuity the Government of the United States would not be willing to pay more than $1,000,000. Holding these views, believing as they did that we were giving more than we were gaining, the Commissioners nevertheless consented to a reference to determine how much in addition we should pay to Great Britain. The agreement certainly should have been to ascertain to which party, if either, a money consideration should be paid. Still further, if they were willing to imply in advance that a money consideration might be due to Great Britain and not to the United States, a maximum limit should have been inserted in the treaty beyond which the American Government would not be willing that any award should extend. But by practically conceded, in the first place, that money should be paid to Great Britain, and by leaving the Reference to determine the amount without any limit whatever, they offered a great temptation to wrong dealing, against which the United States had reserved no defense and could secure no redress.
Of the three Commissioners referred to in the Article providing for an arbitration, the treaty directed that one should be appointed by the President of the United States, one by Her Brittanic Majesty, and the third by the President and Her Brittanic Majesty conjointly; and if they could not agree upon the third within a period of three months after the Article should take effect, then "the third Commissioner shall be named by the representative at London of his Majesty the Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary." The legislation necessary to give the Fishery Articles of the treaty full effect having been completed in 1873, Acting Secretary of State J. C. Bancroft Davis, on the 7th of July in that year, notified the British Minister at Washington, Sir Edward Thornton, that in regard to the third Commissioner "the Government of the United States is willing to take the initiative and suggest to her Majesty's Government the names of a number of persons, each one of whom would be in the opinion of the President be influenced only by a desire to do justice between the parties." He then proposed (for the consideration of the British Government) the names of the Mexican Minister, the Russian Minister, the Brazilian Minister, the Spanish Minister, the French Minister, and the Minister of the Netherlands, residing at that time in Washington. Mr. David advised Sir Edward that they had "omitted the names of those Ministers who have not the necessary familiarity with the English language," and also of those who "by reason of the peculiar political connection of their governments with Great Britain would probably esteem themselves disqualified for the position."
Sir Edward Thornton, being absent from Washington, did not receive the note of Mr. Davis until the 11th of July, when (as he advised him on the 16th) he immediately telegraphed the substance of it to Lord Granville, and dispatched a copy by mail. Five weeks later, on the 19th of August, without any intervening correspondence Sir Edward (writing from the Catskills) recalled to Secretary Fish that he had spoken to him when last in Washington "on the subject of the Belgian Minister, Mr. Delfosse, being a suitable person as third Commissioner on the Commission which is to sit at Halifax. . . . I had hoped [wrote Sir Edward] that he would have been agreeable to your Government, until I spoke to you upon the subject. I subsequently received a telegram from Lord Granville, desiring me to ascertain whether Mr. Delfosse would be agreeable to the Government of the United States as third Commissioner. . . . Lord Granville desired me to ask you in his name that you would consent to the appointment of the Belgian Minister, who, as he believes, would be in all respects a suitable person for the position."
Mr. Fish was utterly astounded by this proposition submitted by Sir Edward Thornton and coming almost as a personal and pressing request from Lord Granville. The one Minister who was regarded as especially disqualified by Mr. Maurice Delfosse, the representative of Belgium at Washington. The disqualification did not convey a personal reflection upon that gentleman, but was based upon the relations of his government to the Government of Great Britain. The Kingdom of Belgium owed its origin to the armed interposition of Great Britain, and its continuance, to her friendship and her favor. Its first monarch Leopold, who had been but five years dead when the Treaty of Washington was negotiated, had married the Princess Charlotte, daughter of the Price-Regent of England; he was brother to Queen Victoria's mother, and to Prince Albert's father; he held the rank of Marshal in the British Army, and had been for a long period in receipt of an annual allowance of fifty thousand pounds from the British Exchequer. He was on terms of the most affectionate friendship with the Queen and was her constant and confidential adviser.
His son and successor Leopold II., the reigning monarch, cousin of Queen Victoria, had married an Austrian princess, and the unfortunate Carlotta, widow the Emperor Maximilian, was his sister. The House of Hapsburg associated the American support of the Mexican President Juarez with the death of Maximilian, and might not be well disposed towards the Government of the United States. It was not therefore an altogether happy circumstance that the Austrian Ambassador in London had been designated as the person to choose a third Commissioner, in the event of the British and American Governments failing to agree in his selection. A sense of honest dealing at the outset had plainly suggested the ineligibility of a Belgian subject to the third Commissionership, and suggested also the impropriety of leaving to the Austrian Ambassador in London the selection of the Commissioner. The narrative will show that the British Government had determined upon the one or the other, and in the end accomplished both.
The reply of Mr. Fish to Sir Edward's extraordinary communication of August 19 was prompt and pointed. In a note of August 21 he courteously affected to believe that a grave mistake had occurred in the transmission of Lord Granville's telegram. He could not believe that Lord Granville, advised of the inability of the Government of the United States to assent to the selection of Mr. Delfosse, would deliberately propose that gentleman. Mr. Fish was sure that there had been "some mis-conveyance of information or instruction, for which the telegraph must have been responsible." He reminded Sir Edward that in an interview with him in Washington he (Mr. Fish) had declared that "while entertaining a high personal regard for the character and abilities of the Belgian Minister to his country, there are reasons in the political relations between his government and that of Great Britain why the representative of the former could not be regarded as an independent and indifferent arbitrator on questions between the Government of her Majesty and the United States." Mr. Fish still further reminded Sir Edward that during the session of the Joint High Commission, when the question of referring the Fishery dispute to the head of some foreign State was under discussion, Earl de Grey, chairman of the British Commissioners, in proposing several powers, voluntarily said to the American Commissioners, "I do not name Belgium or Portugal, because Great Britain has treaty arrangements with them that might be supposed to incapacitate them."
Five days later Sir Edward advised Mr. Fish that "as the matters which are to be considered by the Commission deeply concern the people of Canada, it was necessary to consult the Government of the Dominion upon the point of so much importance as the appointment of a third Commissioner; and some delay was therefore unavoidable. . . . I have now [continued Sir Edward] the honor to inform you that her Majesty's Government has received a communication from the Governor-General of Canada (Lord Dufferin) to the effect that the Government of the Dominion strongly objects to the appointment of any of the foreign Ministers residing at Washington as third Commissioner on the above mentioned Commission, and prefers to resort to the alternative provided by the treaty; namely, to leave the nomination to the Austrian Ambassador at London."
The State Department was justified by this time in considering that the British Government was resorting to devices for delay. Circumstances all pointed in that direction. The Government of the United States had submitted the names of six Ministers, representing countries of which at least four held more intimate relations with Great Britain than with the United States. Specific reasons had been given for not mentioning others. After a totally unreasonable delay (from July 11 to August 19) the English Government responded, proposing the very name that had originally been objected to by the United States--proposing it with the urgency of a personal request from Lord Granville. When it was found that our Government would not accept Mr. Delfosse, the intelligence came within a week that the Canadian Government objected to any foreign Minister, who had been residing in Washington, as third Commissioner. Of course this objection excluded Mr. Delfosse with all the others, for Mr. Delfosse had resided in Washington several years longer than the majority of those who had been proposed by the United States.
Mr. Fish very justly and sharply rebuked this interposition of the Government of Canada. On September 6 he wrote to Sir Edward that "the reference to the people of the Dominion of Canada seems to imply a practical transfer to that Province of the right of nomination which the treaty gives to her Majesty." He informed Sir Edward that "in the opinion of the President, a refusal on his part to make a nomination, or to concur in the conjoint nomination contemplated by the treaty, on the ground that some local interest (that for instance of the fishermen of Gloucester) objected to the primary mode of filling the commission intended by the treaty, might well be regarded by her Majesty's Government as a departure from the letter and spirit of the treaty." Mr. Fish went still farther: "In the President's opinion, such a course on his party might justify the British Government in remonstrating, and possibly in hesitating as to its future relations to the Commission." The rebuke was not too severe, because if the matter was to be left to the judgment of the people of Canada, it would have been far wiser to remand the negotiation originally to the authorities of the Dominion, with whom the United States could probably have come to an agreement much more readily than with the Imperial Government.
On the 24th of September Sir Edward advised Mr. Fish that he was instructed by Earl Granville to propose that "the Ministers of the United States and of her Majesty, at the Hague, should be authorized to see if they could not agree upon some Dutch gentleman to act as third Commissioner, who would be acceptable to both Governments." Mr. Fish replied to Sir Edward, two days later, that in regard to the plan of selecting "some Dutch gentleman," through the American and English Ministers at the Hague, he was directed by the President to say that such mode of appointment "varies from the provisions of the treaty, which has received the Constitutional assent of the Senate. The President, therefore, does not feel himself at liberty to entertain a proposition which would require the conclusion of a new treaty in Constitutional form before the proposition could be assented to by the United States." Mr. Fish added, with a justifiable brusqueness not often found in his diplomatic correspondence, that "it is deeply to be regretted that her Majesty's Government has made no effort to comply with that provision of the Twenty-third Article of the Treaty, whereby it was agreed that the third Commissioner should be named by the President of the United States and her Brittanic Majesty conjointly."
A reply came from Sir Edward on the 1st of October. To Mr. Fish's charge that no effort had been made on the part of her Majesty's Government, he answered by reminding him that he had proposed Mr. Delfosse, and also "some Dutch gentleman" to be agreed upon by the Ministers of England and the United States at the Hague. Mr. Fish replied on the 3d of October, in a somewhat caustic review of the entire correspondence, in which he clearly proved that "the effort of this Government to carry into execution the provisions of the Twenty-third Article of the treaty have hitherto failed from no fault or negligence on its part." He closed his note by renewing the statement that "the President earnestly hopes that the two Governments will yet agree upon a third Commissioner, and to that end is willing to waive the question of the time within which the joint nomination should be made."
After protracted correspondence Sir Edward advised Mr. Fish that her Majesty's Government considered that the three months having expired, the appointment of the third Commissioner rested with the representative in London of the Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary. Mr. Fish argued to the contrary in a dispatch of October 25th. He was unable to perceive that any right of nomination had passed beyond the control of the two Governments, and still entertained the hope that an effort might be made by her Majesty's Government to agree upon a third Commissioner, in the spirit of the treaty and with the concurrent appointment of the two Governments. Sir Edward replied, on December 2, as instructed by Lord Granville, that "her Majesty's Government, concurring with the Law Officers of the Crown, thinks the Article is explicit as to the appointment of the third Commissioner being left to the Austrian representative in London if not made within a certain date," and added: "Her Majesty's Government, therefore, consider that the Government of the Dominion of Canada might complain if the nomination were not made as provided for by the treaty; and that if the arbitrator were to give a decision unfavorable to Canada great discontent might arise in consequence in the colony." Earl Granville, therefore, asked that the two Governments might agree upon an "identic note to be addressed to the Austrian Government by the representatives of the United States and Great Britain, requesting that the Austrian embassador at London may be authorized to proceed with the nomination of the third Commissioner."
Having by this dilatory if not tortuous process thrown the choice of the third Commissioner into the hands of the Austrian Ambassador at London, the British Government evidently felt that it had won a great advantage. If that Government had reason to fear the influence of any foreign Minister residing at Washington,--unless he should be one representing a country dependent upon British power for its origin and existence,--it assuredly could not doubt that an Austrian Ambassador, residing in London, instinctively hostile to a Republican government, and cherishing a special grievance against the United States, would lean to the English side of any question submitted to arbitration. Beyond these considerations came the social influences in the richest capital of the world--all favorable to England, all hostile to the United States. Apparently believing that the United States would shrink from presenting the case of the fisheries to a commission in which Great Britain had so manifest an advantage, that Government proposed (before the Commission could sit) to open negotiations looking to a renewal of the Reciprocity Treaty between Canada and the United States. The British authorities had in their own hands, as they naturally supposed, a strong leverage, by which our Government could be coerced, as it had been in 1854, into reciprocity of trade upon other products. It was to be a series of moral coercions, either accomplished or attempted. Coerced into accepting Mr. Delfosse as third Commissioner, we were now to be coerced into a commercial treaty for the benefit of Canada in order to escape the possible award on the fisheries.
What the British Government desired was substantially a renewal of the Reciprocity treaty of 1854,--fishery clauses included. That treaty had expired in 1866; and to aid in securing its renewal a highly intelligent special Commissioner, Mr. Rothery, was now sent to Washington to aid the British Legation in negotiating such a convention. Success was more easily attained with the Executive department of our Government than with the Legislative. A treaty of reciprocity was agreed upon between Mr. Fish and Sir Edward Thornton, and duly transmitted to the Senate. If ratified by that body, it would still be incomplete until the consent of the House should be obtained. But it was rejected by the Senate on the 3d of February, 1875; and the two Governments were left to renew the arrangements for the Fishery Commission, which by agreement had not been affected by the postponement resulting from the negotiations for reciprocity.
Various delays hindered the agreement between the two Governments upon an identic note to be addressed to the Austrian Government, requesting the appointment of the third Commissioner by the representative of that Government in London; and it was not accomplished until the winter of 1876-77. Mr. Fish realized by that time that he no longer had the power to prevent the selection of Mr. Delfosse, and that his selection, made against open and avowed opposition, might be especially detrimental to the interests of the United States. Mr. Fish realized also that Count von Beust, the Austrian Ambassador, might select some one even more objectionable than Mr. Delfosse, if that were possible; and he therefore thought it expedient to withdraw his personal objections to that gentleman, and agree to that which he could not change or avert. Upon intimations to that effect Count von Beust named Mr. Delfosse as the third Commissioner. The Canadian Government, whose interests and influence in the matter had been apparently consulted by Lord Granville at every step, and which had been represented as objecting to the appointment of any Minister accredited to Washington, gladly approved the selection of Mr. Delfosse, although he was and had been for many years "a Minister accredited to Washington."
The record of this case, as thus shown by the official correspondence, is not creditable to the English Government. If in an arbitration between private persons, either of them should make palpable and avowed effort to secure a particular man--connected with him by kinship and business interests--he would be considered as acting unfairly, the common judgment of the people would condemn him, and the tribunal to which the award was rendered would unhesitatingly set it aside as vitiated, upon proof that advantage had been secured in the selection of the Arbitrators. The English Government would no doubt fall back for its defense upon the acquiescence which was ultimately and reluctantly extorted from Secretary Fish. But the official correspondence shows that Mr. Fish resisted and protested as long as he had power to resist and protest, and consented when his consent was only a form of courtesy to the gentleman whose appointment had been predetermined by the British Government. It might have been wiser, perhaps, for Mr. Fish to continue his protest to the last, and leave to the British Government no shadow of excuse for its extraordinary and unjustifiable course.
The Fishery Commission met at Halifax, N. S., in the summer of 1877. Sir Alexander T. Galt was the British Commissioner, Honorable Ensign H. Kellogg of Massachusetts was the United-States Commissioner, and Mr. Delfosse was the third. The agent of the British Government was Sir Richard Ford, a member of the British Diplomatic Corps; and the agent of the United-States Government was Honorable Dwight Foster, formerly a judge of the Massachusetts Supreme Court. The British case was represented by five able members of the Colonial Bar, four of whom were Queen's counsel.--Sir W. V. Whiteway of Newfoundland; L. C. Davies, Premier of Prince Edward's Island; J. Doutre of Montreal; C. J. Weatherby of the Province of Nova Scotia; S. R. Thompson of New Brunswick. The American case was represented by the agent, Judge Foster, Richard H. Dana of Massachusetts, and William Henry Trescot of South Carolina, American Secretary of Legation in London under the Presidency of Mr. Fillmore, and Assistant Secretary of State during the Administration of Mr. Buchanan.
The case was elaborately prepared and ably argued on both sides. Reduced to its most simple statement, the contention of the United States Government was this: that the duty of the Commission was limited; that it was charged with the decision of no political or diplomatic questions; that all such questions had been determined by the high contracting parties in signing the treaty of Washington; and that this Commission was simply a reference for an accounting in a given department of trade. They contended that the value of the inshore fisheries was simply their value as mackerel fisheries; that to estimate one-fourth of the whole mackerel-catch as taken by American fishermen was a liberal, even an extravagant concession on the part of the United States; and that the remission of duty on Colonial fish and fish-oil, which was admitted to be worth $350,000 per annum to the Dominion of Canada, was an ample equivalent.
In presenting the British case every consideration was put forward by the clever men who represented it, to magnify the concession made to the United States. They dwelt at great length upon the thousands of miles of coast thrown open to Americans; upon the fabulous wealth of the fisheries, where every one caught had, like the fish of the miracle in Scripture, a bit of money in its mouth; upon the fact that the chief resource and variety of fishing lay within the three-mile limit. They managed to obscure the real issue by great masses of confused statistics, and caused the sparsely settled provinces to appear as granting an extraordinary privilege to American fishermen, in allowing their nets to be dried and their fish to be cured on the sands and rocks of their remote and uninhabited coasts.
After the respective cases had been stated and all the evidence and arguments heard it was found that the difference of opinion between the British and the United-States Commissioners were irreconcilable. The decision was therefore left to Mr. Delfosse--as was anticipated from the first. He estimated the superior advantage of the privilege of the inshore Colonial fisheries, over such as were given to British subjects in American waters, at $5,500,000 for their twelve years' use. The result of the negotiation, therefore, was that for twelve years' use of the inshore British Colonial fisheries which were ours absolutely by the treaty of 1782, we paid to the British Government the award of $5,500,000, and remitted duties to the amount of $350,000 per annum (for the period of twelve years, $4,200,000), besides building up into a profitable and prosperous industry the shore-fishing of Prince Edward's Island, which before the Reciprocity Treaty was not even deemed worthy of computation.
The award was made on the 23d of November, 1877. It produced profound astonishment throughout the United States, accompanied by no small degree of indignation. Rumors in regard to the mode of Mr. Delfosse's appointment became frequent during the ensuing winter; and on the 11th of March, 1878, Mr. Blaine of Maine submitted a resolution in the Senate, requesting the President, if not incompatible with the interests of the public service, to transmit the correspondence which preceded the selection of Mr. Delfosse as third Commissioner. It was promptly given to the Senate and to the public, and increased to a great degree the popular dissatisfaction with the result. For the first time Mr. Delfosse became acquainted with the serious objections made by the Government of the United States to his appointment. It is probably that if his government had been advised of the facts Mr. Delfosse would never have been subjected to the embarrassment and mortification of serving on the Commission.
In transmitting to Congress the papers relating to the award, on the 17th of May (1878), President Hayes recommended the "appropriation of the necessary sum, with such discretion in the Executive Government, in regard to the payment, as in the wisdom of Congress the public interests may seem to require." The whole matter was referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations, and on the 28th of May the chairman of the Committee, Hon. Hannibal Hamlin, made an elaborate report, reviewing the history of the transaction in a very thorough and impartial manner. He also submitted a resolution, declaring that "the views and recommendations embraced in the report of the Senate Committee of Foreign Relations, touching the award made by the Fishery Commission at Halifax, are hereby approved." The Committee, at the same time, reported a bill appropriating five and a half millions for the payment of the award.
The report of the Committee recommended that "the President of the United State should be authorized to pay the award, if, after correspondence with the Government of Great Britain, he shall, without further communication with Congress, deem that such payment shall be demanded by the honor and good faith of the Nation; and if in pursuance of that conclusion the award shall be paid, the President shall, as soon as may be convenient thereafter, lay the correspondence with the British Government relating thereto before Congress." Mr. Hamlin pointed out in his report the possibility that "the Halifax Commission had proceeded ultra vires and taken into consideration certain elements not fairly in the case submitted." "When the King of the Netherlands," said the report, "was selected as umpire in 1827 to settle the North-eastern Boundary dispute between Great Britain and the United States, his award was set aside on the plain and justifiable ground stated by Mr. Clay, then Secretary of State, that his Majesty had recommended a mode of settlement outside of the facts and terms of submission." Had Mr. Delfosse and Mr. Galt proceeded in a similar manner?
Attention was called by Mr. Hamlin to the fact that the award was made only by two Commissioners, the third dissenting. In the two other Commissions organized under the Treaty of Washington it was specifically provided that a majority of the Commissioners should decide, but in constituting the Fishery Commission no such provision was made. What was the fair inference? Redmond on arbitration and awards, Francis Russell, and other eminent English authorities, lay down the doctrine that "on a reference to several arbitrators, with no provision that less than all shall make an award, each must act, and all must act together; and every stage of the proceedings must be in the presence of all, and the award must be signed by all at the same time." The London Times, July 6, 1877, just before the Commission was organized at Halifax, had asserted that "on every point that comes before the Fishery Commission for decision, the unanimous consent of all its members is, by the terms of the treaty, necessary before an authoritative verdict can be given." And Mr. Blake, the Minister of Justice for Canada, had declared in 1875 that "the amount of compensation we shall receive must be the amount unanimously agreed upon by the Commissioners."
Mr. Hamlin, representing the Committee on Foreign Relations, was careful not to put the United States in the attitude of repudiating the award. "However much," said the report, "we may regard the award made at Halifax as excessively exorbitant and possibly beyond the legal and proper power of those making it, your Committee would not recommend that the Government of the United States disregard it, if the Government of her Britannic Majesty, after a full review of all the facts and circumstances of the case, shall conclude and declare the award to be lawfully and honorably due." It was aptly added that "the intelligence and virtue of British statesmen cannot fail to suggest that arbitration can only be retained as a fixed mode of adjusting international disputes by demonstrating its efficiency as a methods of securing mutual justice and thus assuring that mutual consent without which award and verdicts are powerful only for mischief."
To the resolution approving the report made by Mr. Hamlin, Mr. Edmunds offered an amendment, declaring that "Articles XVIII. and XXI. of the treaty between the United States and Great Britain, concluded on the 8th of May, 1871 (remitting the duties on fish and fish-oil), ought to be terminated at the earliest period consistent with the provisions of Article XXXIII. of the same treaty (providing that the remission should be for ten years)." A brief debate ensued and the resolution, with Mr. Edmund's amendment, was adopted by a large majority. The bill reported by the committee, appropriating the five and a half million dollars, was then passed without objection. Congress had now done with the subject, and its final disposition was left to the Executive Department of the Government.(5)
Responding to the judgment of Congress, Mr. Evarts, then Secretary of State, presented the whole argument against the award in a dispatch of September 27, 1878. He was compelled to believe from the magnitude of the award, that considerations foreign to the questions submitted had been brought before the Arbitration. He called the attention of Lord Salisbury, who had become Foreign Secretary in the second Disraeli Cabinet, that five fishing-seasons under the treaty had elapsed before the Halifax Commission was organized, and that therefore we had actual statistics showing the value of the privilege conceded to the United States, instead of the conjectural estimates which had been used when the treaty was made. By these actual and careful statistics, it had been found that from the inshore fishing American fishermen had in the five seasons secured 125,961 barrels of mackerel,--worth when packed and ready for exportation $3.75 per barrel, and in the aggregate $472,353. But in this price, as Mr. Evarts explained, "are included the barrel, the salt, the expense of catching, curing and packing, which must all be deducted before the profit is realized. Upon the evidence, a dollar a barrel would be an excessive estimate of net profit, and this would give to our fishermen, for the five seasons of the fishery privilege, but $25,000 a year, or for the whole twelve years but $300,000."
Not content to rest his argument upon this statement alone, Mr. Evarts called Lord Salisbury's attention to the fact that if the mackerel be estimated at the most extravagant price of $10 per barrel, and half the sum estimated as net profit, the total value of the fishery would be but $125,000 per annum, or $1,500,000 for the twelve years. The only problem, therefore, left for the Government of the United States to consider, was whether in exchange for the $5,500,000 awarded by Mr. Delfosse, and the $4,200,000 of duties remitted to Canada on fish and fish-oil, we were actually to receive a total of $300,000 or $1,500,000? In other words was the loss to the United States by the transaction to be $9,400,000 or $8,200,000?
Lord Salisbury, in his reply, quoted eminent American publicists to show that a majority of the Commission was authorized to make an award. He maintained that the rule in international arbitrations empowered the majority of the arbitrators to decide; but if that be a generally recognized rule, his Lordship should have explained why in the case of the Geneva and Washington arbitrations, (provided for in the same treaty with the Halifax arbitration), the right of the majority to decide was specifically provided for, and was regarded in at least one case as a concession by the High Commissioners of Great Britain. His Lordship declined to follow Mr. Evarts "into the details of his argument." He maintained that "these very matters were examined at great length and with conscientious minuteness by the Commission whose award is under discussion." He admitted, with diplomatic courtesy, that "Mr. Evarts' reasoning is powerful," but still in his judgment, "capable of refutation." He did not, however, attempt to refute it, but based his case simply on the ground that the award gave the $5,500,000 to England. In all frankness his Lordship should have said that Mr. Delfosse, in his grace and benevolence, gave the large sum to England.
Secretary Evarts, with great propriety, declined to press the points submitted in his dispatch. His only design was to call the attention of the British Government to the extraordinary facts, and leave to the determination of that Government whether any thing should be done to mitigate the glaring and now demonstrated injustice of the award. "The Government of the United States," said Mr. Evarts in closing his dispatch, "will not attempt to press its own interpretation of the treaty against the deliberate interpretation of her Majesty's Government to the contrary." He made no rejoinder to Lord Salisbury, and paid on the day it was due--one year from the date of award--the amount adjudged to Great Britain. Every American felt that under such circumstances it was better to pay than to be paid the five and a half million dollars.
It is not difficult to understand how Mr. Delfosse was brought to such an extraordinary conclusion, and there has been no disposition in the United States to impute his action to improper motives. The wrong was done when he was selected as third Commissioner, and the tenacity with which he was urged will always require explanation from the British Government. Mr. Delfosse had spent his life in the Diplomatic service, was not in any sense a man of affairs, and was profoundly ignorant of the fishery question. From the diplomatic point of view he could not understand that the Dominion of Canada should open her inshore fisheries to such a power as the United States without some consideration beyond that of mere commercial demand. Measuring in his own mind the value of such a right on the restricted coast of his own country, it was natural that he should multiply it somewhat in the proportion of the vastly extended coast of British America, now thrown open to the United States. He was further influenced by the claim shrewdly put forward by the British agent and British attorneys that the inshore fisheries were worth $12,000,000 to the United States for the period of the treaty, and the Newfoundland fisheries $2,280,000 in addition. It is difficult to speak of these pretensions with respect, or to treat them as honestly put forward by men to whom all the facts were familiar.
Above all, Mr. Delfosse knew that the Belgian sovereign, whose favor was his own fortune, would earnestly desire a triumph for the British cause. Both sides made strong representations, and presented statistics and tabular statements and elaborate comparisons, which he did not analyze, and perhaps did not understand. England, he knew, had been mulcted in fifteen and a half millions in the Geneva award, and the San Juan controversy had been decided against her by the Emperor of Germany. With the connections and surroundings of Mr. Delfosse he would have been more than human if he had not desired England to triumph in at least one of the questions submitted to arbitration under the Treaty of Washington. But while these circumstances relieve Mr. Delfosse from any imputation upon his personal or official honor, they only render more prominent and more offensive the singular pertinacity with which the British Government insisted upon his appointment as one of the Commissioners in an arbitration that was originally designed to be impartial.
[(1) The third article of the treaty of 1782 is as follows: "It is agreed that the people of the United States shall continue to enjoy unmolested the right to take fish of every kind on the Grand Bank, and on all the other banks of Newfoundland; also in the Gulph of St. Lawrence, and at all other places in the sea, where the inhabitants of both countries used at any time heretofore to fish; and also that the inhabitants of the United States shall have liberty to take fish of every kind on such part of the coast of Newfoundland as British fishermen shall use (but not to dry or cure the same on that island); and also on the coasts, bays, and creeks of all other of his Britannic Majesty's dominions in America and that the American fishermen shall have liberty to dry and cure fish in any of the unsettled bays, harbours, and creeks of Nova Scotia, Magdalen Islands, and Labrador, so long as the same shall remain unsettled; but so soon as the same or either of them shall be settled, it shall not be lawful for the said fishermen to dry or cure fish at such settlement, without a previous agreement for that purpose with the inhabitants, proprietors, or possessors of the ground." Precisely the same concession is embodied in the treaty of 1783.]
[(2) Article I. of the treaty of 1854 provided:--
"ARTICLE I. It is agreed by the high contracting parties that in addition to the liberty secured to the United-States fishermen by the above-mentioned convention of Oct. 20, 1818, of taking, curing, and drying fish on certain coasts of the British North American colonies therein defined, the inhabitants of the United States shall have, in common with the subjects of her Britannic Majesty, the liberty to take fish of every kind, except shell-fish, on the sea-coasts and shores, and in the bays, harbors, and creeks of Canada, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward's Island, and of the several islands thereunto adjacent, without being restricted to any distance from the shore, with permission to land upon the coasts and shores of those colonies and the islands thereof, and also upon the Magdalen Islands, for the purpose of drying their nets and curing their fish; provided that, in so doing, they do not interfere with the rights of private property, or with British fishermen, in the peaceable use of any part of the said coast in their occupancy for the same purpose."
In Article II. of the treaty it was reciprocally agreed as follows:--
"ARTICLE II. It is agreed by the high contracting parties that British subjects shall have, in common with the citizens of the United States, the liberty to take fish of every kind, except shell-fish, on the eastern sea-coasts and shores of the United States north of the 36th parallel of north latitude, and on the shores of the several islands thereunto adjacent, and in the bays, harbors, and creeks of the said sea-coasts and shores of the United States and of the said islands, without being restricted to any distance from the shore, with permission to land upon the said coasts of the United States and of the islands aforesaid, for the purpose of drying their nets and curing their fish, provided that, in so doing, they do not interfere with the rights of private property, or with the fishermen of the United States, in the peaceable use of any part of the said coasts in their occupancy for the same purpose."
Both concessions reserved "the salmon and shad fisheries and all fisheries in rivers and the mouths of rivers."]
[(3) The following is a complete list of the articles to be admitted to either country from the other free of all duty:--
Grain, flour, and breadstuffs of all kinds; animals of all kinds; fresh, smoked, and salted meats; cotton-wool, seeds, and vegetables; undried fruits, dried fruits; fish of all kinds; products of fish, and of all other creatures living in the water; poultry, eggs; hides, furs, skins, or tails, undressed; stone or marble, in its crude or unwrought state; slate; butter, cheese, tallow; lard, horns, manures; ores of metals, of all kinds; coal; pitch, tar, turpentine, ashes; timber and lumber of all kinds, round, hewed, and sawed, unmanufactured in whole or in part; fire-wood; plants, shrubs, and tress; pelts, wool; fish-oil; rice, broom-corn, and bark; gypsum, ground or unground; hewn, or wrought, or unwrought burr or grindstones; dyestuffs; flax, hemp, and tow, unmanufactured; unmanufactured tobacco; rags.]
[(4) Article XXII. of the Treaty of Washington is as follows: "Inasmuch as it is asserted by the Government of her Brittanic Majesty that the privileges accorded to the citizens of the United States under Article XVIII. of this treaty are of greater value than those accorded by Articles XIX. and XXI. of this treaty to the subjects of her Britannic Majesty, and this assertion is not admitted by the Government of the United States, it is further agreed that Commissioners shall be appointed to determine, having regard to the privileges accorded by the United States to the subjects of her Brittanic Majesty, as stated in Articles XIX. and XXI. of this treaty, the amount of any compensation which, in their opinion, ought to be paid by the Government of the United States to the Government of her Britannic Majesty in return for the privileges accorded to the citizens of the United States under Article XVIII. of this treaty; and that any sum of money which the said Commission may so award shall be paid by the United States Government, in a gross sum, within twelve months after such award shall have been given."]
[(5) The following is the text of the bill appropriating the amount necessary to pay the award:--
"That the sum of five and one-half million dollars, in gold coin, be, and the same is hereby, appropriated, out of any money in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, and placed under the direction of the President of the United States, with which to pay to the Government of her Britannic Majesty the amount awarded by the fisheries commission, lately assembled at Halifax in pursuance of the Treaty of Washington, if, after correspondence with the British Government on the subject of the conformity of the award to the requirements of the treaty and to the terms of the question thereby submitted to the commission, the President shall deem it his duty to make the payment without further communication with Congress."]
Chapter XXVIII
The last session of the Forty-fifth Congress closed without making provision for the expenses of the Legislative, Executive and Judicial departments, or for the support of the army. Differences between the two branches as to points of independent legislation had prevented an agreement upon the appropriation bills for these imperative needs of the Government. President Hayes therefore called the Forty-sixth Congress to meet in extra session on the 18th of March (1879). His Administration had an exceptional experience in assembling Congress in extra session. In time of profound peace, with no exigency in the public service except that created by the disagreement of Senate and House, he had twice been compelled to assemble Congress in advance of its regular day for meeting.
The House was organized by the re-election of Mr. Randall as Speaker. He received 143 votes to 125 for James A. Garfield, while 13 members elected as Greenbackers cast their votes for Hendrick B. Wright of Pennsylvania. Among the most prominent of the new members were George M. Robeson from the Camden district of New Jersey, who proved to be as strong in parliamentary debate as he was known to be in argument at the bar; Levi P. Morton from one of the New-York City districts, who had all his life been devoted to business affairs and who had achieved a high reputation in banking and financial circles; Warner Miller from the Herkimer district, who was extensively engaged as a manufacturer and had already acquired consideration by his service in the New-York Legislature; Richard Crowley from the Niagara district, a well-known lawyer in Western New York.
--Henry H. Bingham came from one of the Philadelphia districts with an unusually good record in the war, which he entered as a lieutenant in a Pennsylvania regiment and left with the rank of brevet Brigadier-General. He served on the staff of General Hancock and was wounded in three great battles.--John S. Newberry was a successful admiralty lawyer from the Detroit district.--Roswell G. Horr, from one of the Northern districts of Michigan, became widely known as a ready and efficient speaker with a quaint and humorous mode of argument.
Thomas L. Young came from one of the Cincinnati districts. He was a native of Ireland, a private soldier in the Regular Army of the United States before the war, Colonel of an Ohio regiment during the war, and was afterwards elected Lieutenant-Governor of Ohio on the ticket with Rutherford B. Hayes.--Frank H. Hurd, an earnest and consistent advocate of free trade, entered again from the Toledo district.--A. J. Warner, distinguished for his advocacy of silver, came from the Marietta district.
--William D. Washburn, a native of Maine but long a resident in the North-West, came as the representative of the Minneapolis district. Of seven brothers, reared on a Maine farm, he was the fourth who had sat in the House of Representatives. Israel Washburn represented Maine, Elihu B. Washburne represented Illinois, Cadwalader C. Washburne represented Wisconsin. They were descended of sturdy stock and inherited the ability and manly characteristics which had received consideration in four different States.
The Democratic ascendency in the South had become so complete that out of one hundred and six Congressional districts the opposition had only been able to elect four representatives,--Leonidas C. Houck from East Tennessee, Daniel L. Russell of North Carolina, Milton G. Urner of Maryland, and Joseph Jorgensen of Virginia. These were the few survivors in a contest waged for the extermination of the Republican party in the South.
Among the new senators were some well-known public men:--
John A. Logan took his seat as the successor of Governor Oglesby. He had been absent from the Senate two years, and returned with the renewed endorsement of the great state which he had faithfully served in war and peace. He had been in Congress before the rebellion. He was first a candidate for the House of Representatives in the year of the famous contest between Lincoln and Douglas, and was a partisan supporter and personal friend of the latter. He changed his political relations when he found himself summoned to the field in defense of the Union. General Logan's services at that time were peculiarly important. He lived in that section of Illinois whose inhabitants were mainly people of Southern blood, and whose natural sympathies might have led them into mischievous ways but for his stimulating example and efforts. The Missouri border was near them on the one side, the Kentucky border on another, and if the Southern Illinoisans had been betrayed, in any degree, into a disloyal course the military operations of the Government in that section would have been greatly embarrassed. General Logan did not escape without misrepresentation at that critical time, but the impartial judgment of his countrymen has long since vindicated his course as one of exceptional courage and devoted patriotism. His military career was brilliant and successful, and his subsequent course in Congress enlarged his reputation. Indeed no man in the country has combined a military and legislative career with the degree of success in both which General Logan has attained.
--George H. Pendleton, who had served in Congress during the administrations of Mr. Buchanan and Mr. Lincoln, retired temporarily from public life after his unsuccessful canvass for the Vice-Presidency on the ticket with General McClellan in 1864. He was the Democratic candidate for Governor of Ohio in 1869, against Rutherford B. Hayes, and now returned to the Senate as the successor of Stanley Matthews. He entered with the advantage of a long career in the House, in which, as the leader of the minority during the war, he had sustained himself with tact and ability.
--Nathaniel P. Hill, a native of New York, a graduate of Brown University and afterwards professor of chemistry in the same institution, a student of metallurgy at the best schools in Europe, became a resident of Colorado as manager of a smelting company, in 1867. He soon acquired an influential position in that new and enterprising State, and now took his seat in the Senate as the successor of Mr. Chaffee.
--Henry W. Blair, already well known by his service in the House, now entered the Senate; and Orville H. Platt of Connecticut, who had never served in Congress, came as the successor of Mr. Barnum.
Southern men of note were rapidly filling the Democratic side of the Senate chamber: Wade Hampton had taken a very conspicuous part in the Rebellion, had assisted in its beginning when South Carolina was hurried out of the Union. He immediately joined the Confederate Army, where he remained in high command until the close of the war, after which he took active part in the politics of his State and was elected to the Governorship in 1876. An extreme Southern man in his political views, he was in all private relations kindly and generous. His grandfather Wade Hampton was engaged in two wars for the Union which the grandson fought to destroy. He was with the men of Sumter and Marion during the Revolutionary war, and was a major-general in the war of 1812, commanding in Northern New York. At his death in 1835 he was believed to be the largest slave-holder in the United States, owning it was said three thousand slaves.
--George G. Vest, a native of Kentucky, was one of the few gentlemen who had occupied the somewhat anomalous position of representing in the Confederate Congress a State that had not seceded. He was a member of both House and Senate at Richmond. He was a good debater, of what is known as the Southern type; logical, direct, forcible, withal showing certain peculiarities of style and phrase characteristic of graduates from Transylvania University.
--Zebulon B. Vance was born and reared in Buncombe County, North Carolina. He belonged originally to that conservative class of Southern Whigs whose devotion to the Union was considered steadfast and immovable. He was a representative in Congress during Mr. Buchanan's Administration, adhering to the remnant of the Whig party, which went under the name of "American" in the South. He joined the Confederate Army immediately after the war began, and a year later was elected Governor of his State. He became extensively known through the North, first by the rumors of his disagreements with Jefferson Davis during the war, and afterwards by Horace Greeley's repeated reference, in the campaign of 1872, to his "political disabilities" as an illustration of Republican bigotry. He has been noted as a stump-speaker and as an advocate. Since the war he has been so pronounced a partisan as in some degree to lessen the genial humor which had always been one of his leading personal traits.
--John S. Williams of Kentucky succeeded Thomas C. McCreery in the Senate. He had gained much credit when only twenty-seven years of age as Colonel of a Kentucky regiment in the Mexican war; but when the rebellion broke out he joined the Confederates and served as a Brigadier-General in the army of General Joseph E. Johnston. It was said of him, as of many other Southern men of character and bravery, that they had gallantly borne the flag of the Union in foreign lands and the flag of Disunion at home. The genial nature of General Williams won for him in Congress many friends beyond the line of his own party.
Mr. Chandler of Michigan succeeded Mr. Delano as Secretary of the Interior in the Cabinet of President Grant in the autumn of 1875, a few months after his retirement from the Senate. He returned to the Senate in less than two years from the close of President Grant's Administration. Mr. Christiancy resigned to accept the mission to Peru, and Mr. Chandler resumed his old seat on the 22d of February, 1879. He exhibited his full strength, physically and mentally, taking active part at once in the debates, and in the extra session of March, 1879, assuming to a large extent the lead. In the long discussion on the Army Bill he made a brief speech, which for force and point excelled any of his previous efforts. In the campaigns of the ensuing summer and autumn he was invited to almost every Northern State, and exerted himself for too long a period. He died suddenly at Chicago on the night of November 1, after having addressed a vast audience in the evening. He had nearly completed his sixty-sixth year, and was apparently in the vigor of life. His active political career embraced about twenty-five years, and was added to a business life of unusual industry and prosperity. The appreciation of his public character and the strong attachment of his personal friends were shown in the eulogies pronounced in both Senate and House. At the moment of his death, Mr. Chandler had no doubt the most commanding political position he ever held. He was a man of strong intellect, strong will, and rugged integrity.
For the first time since the Congress that was chosen with Mr. Buchanan in 1856, the Democratic party was in control of both branches. In the House, with their Greenback allies, they had more than thirty majority; in the Senate they had six. But under a Republican President they were able to do little more than they had already effected with their control of the House. With one branch they could hold in check any legislation to which they were opposed, and even with the control of both branches, if they fell short of two-thirds in either they could be checked in any legislation which was in conflict with the Constitutional views and opinions of the President. There was, however, a certain line of legislation to which the mass of Republicans might be opposed, and which might at the same time harmonize with the conservative views of the President. And this they could accomplish.
The main point of difference which had caused the failure of the Army Bill in the previous Congress was an amendment insisted upon by the Democratic majority in the House concerning "the use of troops at the polls," as the issue was popularly termed. It would be unjust to the Republicans to say that they demanded military aid with the remotest intention of controlling any man's vote. It was solely with the purpose of preventing voters from being driven by violence from the polls. But as has been already set forth in these pages, public opinion in the United States is hostile to any thing that even in appearance indicates a Government control at elections, and most of all a control by the use of the military arm. The majority of Republicans seemed to prefer that voters by the thousand should be deprived by violence of the right of suffrage, rather than that their rights should be protected by even the semblance of National authority present in the person of a soldier.
It was demonstrated in the debate that it was only the semblance of National authority which was present in the South. The number of troops scattered at various points through the Southern States was not as large as the number of troops in the Northern States, and, as was readily shown, did not amount on an average to one soldier in each county of the States that had been in rebellion. But this fact seemed to have no weight; and the Democrats, having a majority in both Senate and House, now appended to the Army Appropriation Bill the amendment upon which the House had insisted the previous session: "that no money appropriated in this act is appropriated or shall be paid for the subsistence, equipment, transportation or compensation of any portion of the Army of the United States to be used as a police force to keep peace at the polls at any election held within any State." As this enactment was in general harmony with the Southern policy indicated by President Hayes upon his inauguration, he approved the bill; and the elections in several of the Southern States were thenceforth left, not to the majority of the voters, but to the party which had the hardihood and the physical resources to decree any desired result. But it was well known to all familiar with political struggles in the South that the white men were not required to use force after the protection of the National Government was withdrawn. Colored voters were not equal to the physical contest necessary to assert their civil rights, and thenceforward personal outrages in large degree ceased. The peace which followed was the peace of forced submission and not the peace of contentment. Even that form of peace was occasionally broken by startling assassinations for the purpose of monition and discipline to the colored race.
The reform of the Civil Service of the National Government occupied a considerable share of public attention during the administration of President Grant and was still further advanced under President Hayes. The causes which led to the necessity of reform are more easily determined than the measures which will effect a cure of admitted evils. When the Federal Government was originally organized, the President and Vice-President, Senators and Representatives, were specifically limited in their term of service. The Federal judges were appointed for life. All other officers were appointed without any limit as to time, but, according to the decision of Congress, were removable at pleasure by the Executive. During the administrations of General Washington and John Adams, covering the first twelve years of the Federal Government, there were practically no removals at all. Partisan spirit was developed in the contest of 1800 and the change of public opinion installed Mr. Jefferson as President.
There is no reason to doubt that Mr. Jefferson's personal views in regard to removals from office were as conservative as those of his two predecessors, but he was beset for place in an extraordinary manner by the hosts of eager applicants who claimed to have contributed to his triumph over John Adams, and who, like their successors in the later days of the Republic, demanded their reward. Mr. Jefferson, entertaining the belief that it was not fair that all the offices should be held by Federalists, began a series of removals. There was great outcry against this course by conservative men, who were averse to the removal of competent and faithful public servants; and before Mr. Jefferson had proceeded far in his scheme of equalization it became widely known, through a letter which he had written in defense of his course in removing the Collector of Customs at New Haven, that he was intending to remove only a sufficient number to give his own supporters a fair proportion of places under the Government.
As soon as this design was perceived it seems to have occurred to the office-holders, most of whom had taken no decided stand upon political issues, that they could effect the partition more readily than Mr. Jefferson, by simply avowing themselves to be members of the party that had elected him. There were certainly many instance of political conversion among the office-holders of a character which would to-day subject the incumbents of Federal places to personal derision and public contempt. But the effect was undoubted; for between the clamor of those opposed to the system of removal and the ready transfer of political allegiance on the part of those already in place, Mr. Jefferson abandoned the whole effort to change the public service after the removal of forty-seven officers. Thenceforward, under his administration and under the administrations of Mr. Madison and Mr. Monroe, removals were so few as scarcely to be noted, and were made only upon the proof or the presumption of a justifying cause.
In 1820 a change was wrought which ultimately affected, to a serious extent, the tenure of office under the General Government. Thirty-one years had passed since the Constitution was adopted, and during that whole period there had only been some sixty-five removals from office. It was inevitable, therefore, that a considerable proportion of the incumbents had by reason of age become somewhat unfit for the discharge of their duties. Many of them were Revolutionary officers and soldiers, the youngest of whom must have been verging upon threescore and ten. No provision had yet been made for retiring disabled officers of the army, and pensioning the civil list was not even dreamed of. What, then, should be done with these old men who had been holding office for so long a period? Mr. Monroe was opposed, on principle, to removals from office, and was too kindly disposed to disturb men who had strong patriotic claims, and who had personal need of the emoluments they were receiving.
As the Executive Department would take no step for relief, Congress initiated action, and passed a bill which Mr. Monroe approved on the 15th of May, 1820, declaring that "all district attorneys, collectors of customs, naval officers and surveyors of customs, navy agents, receivers of public monies for lands, registers of the land offices, paymasters in the army, the apothecary-general, the assistant apothecaries-general, the commissary-general of purchases, to be appointed under the laws of the United States, shall be appointed for the term of four years, and shall be removable from office at pleasure." It was further enacted that all commissions of these officers bearing date prior to September 30, 1814, "shall cease and expire on the day of their dates occurring next after the following 30th of September;" and others were made to expire after four years from the date thereof.
The Cabinet of Mr. Monroe contained at that time three able men, each ambitious for the Presidency--John Quincy Adams, Secretary of State; William H. Crawford, Secretary of the Treasury; John C. Calhoun, Secretary of War. As there was much opposition to the four-year law, the friends of Mr. Calhoun and of Mr. Adams united in imputing its authorship to Mr. Crawford, whose Department included far the largest share of Executive patronage. The accusation was openly made that Mr. Crawford intended to use the offices of the Treasury Department to promote his political fortunes; and the friends of Mr. Calhoun and of Mr. Adams, seeing that their chiefs had no corresponding number of offices to dispose of, found their resource in virtuous denunciation of the selfish schemes projected by Mr. Crawford. But there appears to have been no substantial ground for the imputation--the official registers of the United States showing that between the date of the Act and the year 1824 (when Mr. Crawford's candidacy was expected to ripen) only such changes were made in the offices of the Treasury Department as might well have been deemed necessary from causes of age and infirmity already referred to. Besides, Mr. Crawford during all this period was in ill-health, with ambition chastened, and strength constantly waning.
President John Quincy Adams, following Mr. Monroe, maintained the conservative habit already established as to removals,--depriving very few officers of their commissions during the four years of his term, and those only for adequate cause. With the inauguration of General Jackson in 1829, and the appointment of Mr. Van Buren as Secretary of State, the practice of the Government was reversed, and the system of partisan appointments and removals, familiar to the present generation, was formally adopted. It became an avowed political force in those States where the patronage of the Government was large. It had no doubt a special and potential influence in the political affairs of New York where the system had its chief inspiration, where the "science" of carrying elections was first devised and has since been continuously improved. The system of partisan removals was resisted by Mr. Clay, Mr. Calhoun, Mr. Webster, and all the opponents of the Democratic party as then organized; but it steadily grew, and became the recognized rule under the well-known maxim proclaimed by Mr. Marcy in the Senate of the United States in 1832: "To the victors belong the spoils." In two years President Jackson had made ten times as many removals as all his predecessors had made in forty years.
When the Whigs came into power by the election of 1840, President Harrison discussed the question of patronage and its abuse, not merely as tending to strengthen one political party against the other, but as building up the power of the Executive against the Legislative Department. Nevertheless with all the denunciations of the leaders and the avowals of the new President, it is not to be denied that the Whigs as a party desired the dismissal of the office-holders appointed by Jackson and Van Buren. From that time onward, although there was much condemnation of the evil practice of removing good officers for opinion's sake, each party as it came into power practiced it; and prior to 1860 no movement was made with the distinct purpose of changing this feature off the civil service.
The Administration of Mr. Lincoln was prevented by the public exigencies from giving attention to any other measures than those necessary for the preservation of the Union, and during the war no change was made or suggested as to the manner of appointment or removal. The first step towards it was announced in Congress on the 20th day of December, 1865, when Mr. Thomas A. Jenckes of Rhode Island introduced a bill in the House "to regulate the civil service of the United States." A few months later, in the same session, B. Gratz Brown, then a senator from Missouri, submitted a resolution for "such change in the civil service as shall secure appointments to the same after previous examination by proper Boards, and as shall provide for promotions on the score to merit or seniority." While he remained in Congress Mr. Jenckes annually renewed his proposition for the regulation of the civil service, but never secured the enactment of any measure looking thereto.
Neither of the two great political parties recognized the subject as important enough to be incorporated in their platforms, until 1872, when the National convention of the Republican party declared that "any system of the civil service under which the subordinate positions of the Government are considered rewards for mere party zeal is fatally demoralizing, and we therefore demand a reform of the system by laws which shall abolish the evils of patronage and make honesty, efficiency, and fidelity essential qualifications for public positions, without practically creating a life tenure of office." Thenceforward the subject found a place in the creed of the party. But even prior to this declaration of a political convention, Congress had on the 3d of March, 1871, appended a section to an appropriation bill, authorizing the President "to prescribe such regulations for the admission of persons into the civil service of the United States as may best promote efficiency therein and ascertain the fitness of each candidate in respect to age, health, character, knowledge, and ability for the branch of service in which he seeks to enter; and for this purpose he may employ suitable persons to conduct such inquiries, prescribe their duties, and establish regulations for the conduct of persons who may receive appointments in the civil service."
Under this authority President Grant organized a Commission composed of Messrs. George William Curtis, Joseph H. Blackfan, and David C. Cox. But the Commissioners soon found that Congress was indisposed to clothe them with the requisite power, and that public opinion did not yet demand the reform. Their good intentions were therefore frustrated and the Commission was unable to move forward to practical results. When President Hayes came into power he sought to make reform in the Civil Service by directing competitive examinations for certain positions, and by forbidding the active participation of office-holders in political campaigns. The defect of this course was that it rested upon an Executive order, and did not have the permanency of law. The next President might or might not continue the reform, and all that was gained in the four years could at once be abandoned.
The settled judgment of discreet men in both political parties is adverse to the custom of changing non-political officers on merely political grounds. They believe that it impairs the efficiency of the public service, lowers the standard of political contests, and brings reproach upon the Government and the people. So decided is this opinion among the great majority of Republicans and among a very considerable number of Democrats, that the former method of appointment will always meet with protest and cannot be permanently re-established. The inauguration of a new system is hindered somewhat by an honest difference of opinion touching the best methods of selecting subordinate officers. Competitive examination is the methods most warmly advocated, and on its face appears the fairest; yet every observing man knows that it does not always secure the results most to be desired. Nothing is vouched for more frequently by chiefs of Government bureaus, than that certain clerks who upon competitive examination would stand at the head do in point of efficiency and usefulness stand at the foot.
Another point of difference is in regard to the power of instant removal, many of the most pronounced reformers of the civil service holding that power to be essential, and believing that it will not be abused so long as the removing power cannot arbitrarily appoint the successor. The matured opinion of others is that a tenure of office definitely fixed for a term of years, during which the incumbent cannot be disturbed except upon substantial written charges, will secure a better class of officials. They hold that a subordinate officer is stripped of his manhood by the consciousness that he may at any moment be removed at the whim or caprice of some one superior in station. It too often brings sycophants into the Government Departments, and excludes men of pride and character. On the question of a life tenure there is a similar division of opinion, which logically follows the two positions just stated. A life tenure cannot be adopted as a rule, unless pensions for a civil list shall follow.
There is also a belief with many who are most anxious to improve the civil service, that the political influence of Government patronage, as applied to the whole country, has been constantly misunderstood and therefore exaggerated. At certain places where the customs and postal services are large the appointing power can no doubt wield great influence. New-York City is the strongest illustration of this; and in less degree a similar influence is recognized at all the large cities of the country, especially the cities of the seaboard. But even at those points the political influence of the Federal patronage is far less than that of the municipal patronage. During the many years that the patronage, both of National and State governments, has been in the hands of the Republicans in New York, the municipal patronage, steadily wielded by the Democrats, has been far more potential in controlling elections. And throughout the United States to-day the patronage controlled by municipal governments largely outweighs in the aggregate that of the General and State Governments at all points where they come into conflict.
Towards the close of President Hayes' Administration the total number of men connected with the Postal service of the United States was about 64,000. Excluding mail contractors and mail messengers (whose service is allotted to the lowest bidder), the number subject to political influence was nearly 49,000. Of these, 5,400 had salaries under $10 per annum each; 19,400 others had salaries under $100 per annum each; 11,500 others had salaries under $500 per annum each; 8,100 others had salaries under $1,000 per annum each; 3,300 other had salaries under $1,600 per annum each; 700 other had salaries under $2,000 per annum each; 400 others had salaries under $3,000 per annum each; 84 had salaries under $4,000 per annum each. Only 14 had salaries of $4,000, and 2 (the Postmaster-General and the postmaster at New York) had $8,000 per annum each. In a majority of the Congressional districts of the United States there is scarcely any patronage known except that of postmasters; and when more than one-half of the total number of Postmasters have salaries under $100 per annum each, the political influence derived therefrom cannot be great.
The remaining officers of the United States were at the same period about 21,000 in number. The mass of these were in the Customs and Internal Revenue, and in the various Executive Departments at Washington. They had a larger average of salary than those engaged in the Postal Service. But one-half of the whole number had less than $1,000 per annum each, and less than one-third had salaries in excess of $2,000 per annum. Large salaries under the Federal Government are extremely few in number. Excluding the Federal Judiciary, whose members are appointed for life, and excluding senators and representatives, who are elected in their respective States, there are not more than one hundred and fifty officials under the National Government whose respective salaries equal or exceed $5,000 per annum. The emolument cannot be regarded as large in a country that opens so many avenues to fortune, and the places of this highest grade cannot be regarded as numerous when (in 1879-81) there were not more than three of them to every million inhabitants of the Republic.
While these figures demonstrate that the civil service of the United States is moderately paid, they also demonstrate that it can be more easily modified than if the emoluments were greater. A correct apprehension of an evil is the first step towards its remedy, and it is a serious mistake to apply to the interior States and the rural districts the imputations and accusations which justly lie against the service where of necessity a large number of officers are brought together. If lack of zeal is found in many sections of the country on this subject, it is because the people are never brought in contact with the evils, the abuses, and the corruptions which are well known to exist at points where the patronage is large, and where consequently many citizens are struggling for place.
No reform in the civil service will be valuable that does not release members of Congress from the care and the embarrassment of appointments; and no boon so great could be conferred upon senators and representatives as to relive them from the worry, the annoyance, and the responsibility which time and habit have fixed upon them in connection with the dispensing of patronage, all of which belong under the Constitution to the Executive. On the other hand the evil of which President Harrison spoke--the employment of the patronage by the Executive to influence legislation--is far the greatest abuse to which the civil service has ever been perverted. To separate the two great Departments of the Government, to keep each within its own sphere, will be an immeasurable advantage and will enhance the character and dignity of both. A non-political service will be secured when Congress shall be left to its legitimate functions, when the President shall not interfere therewith by the use of patronage, and when the responsibility of appointments shall rest solely with the Department to which the Organic Law of the Republic assigns it.
The rapid settlement of California, stimulated as it was by the discovery of gold, attracted a considerable immigration from China. Industrious and patient laborers, the Chinese were found useful to the pioneers; and they received for their work a degree of compensation many fold greater than they had ever realized in their native land, yet far below the average wages of an American laborer. The treaty relations between China and the United States, negotiated originally by Caleb Cushing in 1844 and afterwards by William B. Reed in 1858, did not contemplate the immigration into either country of citizens or subjects of the other. But in 1868 the treaty negotiated by Mr. Seward as Secretary of State and Mr. Burlingame, acting as Minister Plenipotentiary for China, recognized the right of the citizens of either country to visit or reside in the other, specially excluding in both, however, the right of naturalization.
Upon Mr. Seward's urgent request the following stipulation was inserted in the Fifth Article of the Treaty: "The high contracting parties join in reprobating any other than an entirely voluntary emigration. . . . They consequently agree to pass laws making it a penal offense for citizens of the United States or Chinese subjects to take Chinese subjects either to the United States or to any foreign country, or for a Chinese subject or citizen of the United States to take citizens of the United States to China or to any foreign country without their free and voluntary consent respectively."
The treaty was negotiated in Washington on the 28th of July, 1868, but the ratifications were not exchanged until November, 1869. Fear of the evils that might result from it followed so closely upon its conclusion that General Grant, in his first annual message (December, 1869), gave this warning: "I advise such legislation as will forever preclude the enslavement of Chinese upon our soil under the name of coolies, and also to prevent American vessels from engaging in the transportation of coolies to any country tolerating the system." In his message of December, 1874, the President recurred to the subject, informing Congress that "the great proportion of the Chinese emigrants who come to our shores do not come voluntarily to make their homes with us or to make their labor productive of general prosperity, but come under contracts with head men who own them almost absolutely. In a still worse form does this apply to Chinese women. Hardily a perceptible percentage of them perform any honorable labor, but they are brought here for shameful purposes, to the disgrace of the communities where they are settled and to the great demoralization of the youth of those localities. If this evil practice can be legislated against, it will be my pleasure as well as duty to enforce and regulation to secure so desirable an end." In his message of December, 1875, he again invited the attention of Congress to "the evil arising from the importation of Chinese women, but few of whom are brought to our shores to pursue honorable or useful occupations."
These repeated communications to Congress by the President were based upon accurate information furnished from California, where the condition of Chinese immigrants had created grave solicitude in the minds of leading citizens. So serious, indeed, had it become in the view of the people of California, that the Legislature of that State, in January, 1876, memorialized Congress in favor of a modification of the treaty with China, for the purpose of averting the grave evils threatened from immigration--carried on against the letter and spirit of the treaty. Before appealing to Congress California had attempted the accomplishment of this end through laws of her own; but the Supreme Court of the United States had decided that the subject was one within the exclusive jurisdiction of Congress, and hence the State could do nothing to protect itself against what a large majority of its citizens regarded as a great danger. On the 20th of April, 1876, Mr. Sargent of California submitted a resolution, asking the Senate to "recommend to the President to cause negotiations to be entered upon with the Chinese Government to effect such change in the existing treaty between the United States and China as will lawfully permit the application of restrictions upon the great influx of Chinese subjects to this country." A few days later Mr. Sargent addressed the Senate at length on the whole subject of Chinese immigration in California, and presented in full detail the grievances of which the people on the Pacific Coast complained.
The Senate, reluctant to take at once so decisive a step as was involved in Mr. Sargent's resolution, adopted a substitute, moved by Mr. Morton of Indiana, directing that "a committee of three senators be appointed to investigate the character, extent, and effect of Chinese immigration to this country." It was afterwards enlarged by being changed into a joint committee with the addition of two members from the House. Mr. Morton of Indiana, Mr. Sargent of California, and Mr. Cooper of Tennessee were the senatorial members; Mr. Piper of California and Mr. Meade of New York were the Representatives on the joint committee. The Committee made a thorough examination of the question, visiting California and devoting a large part of the Congressional recess to the duty. Their report embraced a vast amount of information touching the Chinese immigrants in California, their religion, their superstitions, their habits, their relations to the industrial questions, to trade and to commerce. A large number of the reports were printed but nothing further was done for the session.
In the succeeding Congress, the first under President Hayes, the subject was kept alive in both branches, in the first and second sessions, by the introduction of bills and resolutions; but no conclusions were reached until the last session. Early in December (1878) a bill was introduced by Mr. Wren of Nevada, "to restrict the immigration of Chinese into the United States," and was referred to the Committee on Education and Labor. It was reported to the House by Mr. Willis of Kentucky on the 14th of January, and on the 28th, after brief debate (maintained in the affirmative by the California members and in the negative principally by Mr. Dwight Townsend of New York), the bill was passed by ayes 156, noes 72, considerably more than two-thirds voting in the affirmative.
The bill called forth prolonged debate in the Senate. The senators from California (Mr. Booth and Mr. Sargent), Mr. Thurman, Mr. Mitchell of Oregon, and Mr. Blaine, took the leading part in favor of the bill; while Mr. Hamlin, chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations, Mr. Conkling, Mr. Hoar, and Mr. Stanley Matthews, led in opposition. The bill passed the Senate by ayes 39, noes 27. The principal feature of the measure was the prohibiting of any vessel from bringing more than fifteen Chinese passengers to any port of the United States, unless the vessel should be driven to seek a harbor from stress of weather. The bill further required the President to give notice to the Emperor of China of the abrogation of Articles V. and VI. of the Burlingame treaty of 1868. A large portion of the debate was devoted to this feature of the bill,--the contention on one side being that fair notice, with an opportunity for negotiation, should be given to the Chinese Government, and on the other, that as the treaty itself contained no provision for its amendment or termination, it left the aggrieved party thereto its own choice of the mode of procedure.
The argument against permitting Mongolian immigration to continue rested upon facts that were indisputable. The Chinese had been steadily arriving in California for more than a quarter of a century, and they had not in the least degree become a component part of the body politic. On the contrary, they were as far from any assimilation with the people at the end of that long period as they were on the first day they appeared on the Pacific Coast. They did not come with the intention of remaining. They sought no permanent abiding-place. They did not wish to own the soil. They built no houses. They adhered to all their peculiar customs of dress and manner and religious rite, took no cognizance of the life and growth of the United States, and felt themselves to be strangers and sojourners in a country which they wished to leave as soon as they could acquire the pitiful sum necessary for the needs of old age in their native land. They were simply a changing, ever renewing, foreign element in an American State. They were ready to work at a rate of wages upon which a white man could not subsist and support a family. Theirs was in all its aspects a servile labor,--one which would inevitably degrade every workman subjected to its competition. To encourage or even to permit such an immigration, would be to dedicate the rich Pacific slope to them alone and to their employers--in short, to create a worse evil in the remote West than that which led to bloody war in the South. The number at home was great. The cost of landing a Chinaman at San Francisco was less than the cost of carrying a white man from New York to the same port. The question stripped of all disguises and exaggerations on both sides, was simply whether the labor element of the vast territory on the Pacific should be Mongolian or American. Patriotic instinct, the American sentiment dominant on the borders and outposts of the Republic, all demanded that the Pacific coast should be preserved as a field for the American laborer.
President Hayes vetoed the bill rather upon the ground of the abrogation of a treaty without notice, than upon any discussion as to the effects of Chinese labor. He did not doubt that the legislation of Congress would effectually supersede the terms of the treaty, but he saw no need for a summary disturbance of our relations with China. Upon the communication of the veto to the House a vote was taken thereon without debate; and upon the question of passing the bill despite the objections of the President, the ayes were 110, the noes 96. A considerable number of gentlemen who voted for the bill on its passage had meanwhile changed their views, and they now voted to sustain the veto. Among the most conspicuous of these were Mr. Aldrich of Rhode Island, Mr. Abram S. Hewitt of New York, Mr. Blair of New Hampshire, Mr. Landers of Indiana, and Mr. Townsend of Ohio. Finding his veto sustained by Congress, President Hayes opened negotiations with the Chinese Empire for a modification of the treaty. To that end he dispatched three commissioners to China, gentlemen of the highest intelligence, adapted in every way to the important duties entrusted to them,--James B. Angell, President of Michigan University, also appointed Minister Plenipotentiary to China, John F. Swift of California, and William Henry Trescot of South Carolina. They negotiated two treaties: one relating to the introduction of Chinese into the United States, and one relating to general commercial relations. Both treaties were ratified by the Senate, and laws restricting the immigration of Chinese were subsequently enacted.
Some of the objections to the importation of Chinese on the Pacific coast apply to certain types of laborers that have been introduced in the Atlantic States from Hungary and other European countries. Where the labor is contracted for in Europe at a low price and brought to the United States to produce fabrics that are protected by customs duties, a grave injustice is done to the American laborer, and an illegitimate advantage is sought by the manufacturer. Protective duties should help both labor and capital, and the capitalist who is not willing to share the advantage with the laborer is doing much to break down the protective system. That system would indeed receive a fatal blow if it should be demonstrated that it does not secure to the American laborer a better remuneration than the same amount of toil brings in Europe. Happily the cases of abuse referred to are few in number and have perhaps proved beneficial in the lesson they have taught and the warning they have evoked. The allegation that the exclusion of the Chinese is inhuman and unchristian need not be considered in presence of the fact that their admission to the country already provokes conflicts which the laws are unable to restrain. The bitterest of all antagonisms are those which spring from race. Such antagonisms can be prevented by wise foresight more easily than they can be cured after their development is either intentionally or carelessly permitted.
President Johnson made no appointments to the Supreme Bench during his Administration. In 1870 President Grant appointed William Strong of Pennsylvania and Joseph P. Bradley of New Jersey Associate Justices. The former was an addition to the court; the latter succeeded Robert C. Grier. In 1872 he appointed Ward Hunt of New York to succeed Samuel Nelson. In 1873 he appointed Morrison R. Waite Chief Justice to succeed Salmon P. Chase, who died in May of that year. In 1877 President Hayes appointed John M. Harlan of Kentucky to succeed David Davis, and in 1880 William Woods of Georgia to succeed William Strong (retired). President Hayes nominated Stanley Matthews to succeed Noah Swayne, but the Senate not acting on the nomination, it was renewed by President Garfield, and Mr. Matthews was confirmed in 1881.