Democratic Sentinel, Volume 3, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 September 1879 — SPEECH or GEN. THOMAS EWING [ARTICLE]

SPEECH or GEN. THOMAS EWING

AT GhAXiLiIPOLiIS, OHIO, In Reply lo the Sprcche* of Secretaries Sherman and Schurz. Fellow-Citizens : About ton (lays ago two of the heads of departments at Washington illustrated civil-service roform by taking the stump in Ohio for the administration candidate for Governor. They took my Lancaster speech aH a text, and discussed such parts of it as they could most plausibly answer and dodged the rest. In the pauses between other and previous engagements in the campaign I have examined their speeches and now reply to them Mr. Schurz, who is relied on every year by the Ohio Republicans to shoo Democrats into Republican ranks by shouting “Inflation!” repeats with some variation his specious and extravagant speech of last year. Ho makes a frantic effort to provo that the success of the Ohio Democracy means abandonment of resumption and return to paper money not limited by redeemability in coin, and, therefore, unlimited in volume: and he thereupon proceeded to fight us on the ground on which ho places us instead of on that which in fact we occupy. Our platform says not a word against resumption; not a word for irredeemable currency ; not a word for any increase of the currency, except that which will come from the unlimited coinage of the old silver dollar and the issue of certificates for silver bullion.

Rut Mr. Hchurz says though a return to an irredeemable currency is not expressly declared for in the Democratic platform, it is necessarily involved in the proposition to substitute legaltender notes for national-bank notes. He reasons thus: The United States now has the burden of redeeming only the greenbacks in coin—the national banks haviug to lookj after the redemption of their own paper. If wo substitute treasury notes for bank note 3, we shall thus double tho burdens of resumption on the United .States. That involves doubling the coin held for red' mption purposes. But that coin reserve eau not be doybled, because tee coin can’t be got; nor can it even be increased without increasing tho public debt; and the Ohio Democracy declare against any increase of that debt. Hence, the substitution of treasury notes for bank notes necessarily involves the abandonment of resumption and a return to an irredeemable paper currency. This reasoning is the warp and woof of the fabric of Mr. Schurz’s speech. It is utterly fallacious, and betrajs an astonishing ignorance either of the laws affecting resumption, or of tho intelligenceof the peoplesought to be influenced by his false and dazzling rhetoric. Listen, now) my fellow-citizens, to this provision of tho act of Congress of June 20, 1874, now in force: * * * * “ Whon the circulating notes of any such [National ’Banking] Association, assorted or unassorted, shall bo presented for redemption in sirms of $l,lOO. or any multiple thereof, to the Treasurer of the United States, tho samo shall be redoemed in United States notes.” This is all the redemption thero is, in fact, of national-bank notes, because each bank is only bound to redeem its own notes, and no man can collect out of tho general eirculalion any considerable number of the notes of tho bank of his immediate locality. Hence, tho United States, in effect, alone rodeems the bank notes, and the same officer who rodeems greenbacks in coin redeems bank notes in greenbacks. Now, sttpposo you want SI,OOO in gold; you can only get it by presenting to the Treasurer or Sub-Treasurer of the United States $ 1,000 in green backs or in national-bank notes. It makes no difference which you present. Supposo, if you present hank notes and demand eoin, the Treasurer should say: “I am not hound to pay you in coin.” Your answer will be: “ Then pay mo iu greenbacks.” Aud when he hands you tho greenbacks you will hand them back aiid say: “Now pay mo iu coin.” Docs not tho United States, therefore, iu fact and offeot redeem equally greenbacks and banknotes in eoin? Is not the burden of furnishing the coin for the entire paper circulation wholly on the United States ? Would that burden he increased a dollar by substituting greenbacks for bank notes? There is no school-boy iu Ohio who, on reading that law, would uot see that both Mr. Schurz and Mr. Sherman are falsifying the facts when they assert that the, substitution of legal tenders for hank notes either increases the burden of resumption or impairs its stability. Yet on this shallow invention is built almost the whole structure of their arguments on the money question against the position of tho Ohio Democracy.

Tho twin Secretaries mako merry over my speeches m 1875 and 1577 against resumption, in winch 1 declared that it was impracticable, and would result in “a general massacre of business.” I can read llioso speeches now ' witbi.'O heim/ at, all asliaanetl *>... *“ -**•■ -- the manner of them. They were spoken from conviction in view of the law and the situation as then existing, and in no spirit of extravagance or partisanship. Judging tho law as it stood, my criticisms were sound. But subsequent legislation greatly changed the scheme of resumption. As it originally stood, it provided for the total destruction of the greenback currency. So Mr. Sherman admitted on tlie day he introduced the bill iu tho Senate. So Mr. Bristow d. dared in his report for 1875, saying that “ the faith of tho Government now stands pledged to the final redemption and removal from the currency of the country of the legal-tender notes as fast as they shail be presented for redemption.” So Mr. Morrill declared in lus report, for 1876, in which ho says that “by the Resumption law Congress declared in effect a monetary system composed of coin* and nationa-ltmnk notes redeemable iu eoin.” Tito scheme, too, uot only involved tho destruction of all the greenbacks, hut also contemplated redemption in gold alone—silver having been stealthily demonetized in advance of the Resumption law. This was the programme of resumption when I discussed it in the speeches now criticised and ridiculed by those gentlemen. But since then, and as a result of tho agitation against tho scheme by the Western and Southern Democracy, and iu spite of all tho opposition of Sherman, Schurz & Co., tho destruction of the greenback money was stopped, and $346,000,000 of it saved from destruction. To the stoppage of this sweeping contraction of tho currency the people owe the fact that their business was ouiy maimed by tho resumption scheme—not “massacred.” Moreover, silver has boon partially remonetized by tho efforts of the Western and Southern Democracy since my predictions of the disastrous effect of tho resumption scheme, aud its certain failure—enough berng coined to protect the gold in the treasury from being drained off after resumption day. In a debate in tho Senate oil May 28, 1878, Mr. Blaine expressed tho opinion common among the friends and the enemies of forced gold resumption when he said in the Senate: “ Undoubtedly, the whole question of resumption has boen changed by tho coinage of tho silver dollar. The Secretary of the Treasury may begin resumption to-morrow with $lO,000,000 in silver, in my judgment, with perfect safety. For resumption in silver you have got plonty. For resumption in gold you havo not got half enough.” To this partial restoration of silver aud to three enormous crops in the United States, accompanied by three failures of crops in Europe, which havo turned the balance of trade largely in our favor, Mr. Sherman owes the fact that lie has so far equaled bis great prototype, Sir ltabert Pee', in reaching ana maintaining resumption; while he has far surpassed him in the miseries inflicted on the people in his march to his bad eminence. Not only has the Resumption law been made by our efforts lobs disastrous by stopping the destruction of the greenback currency, and less impracticable by the remonetization" of silver, and the unexampled succession of large crops at home and eager markets abroad, but it is also to be borne in mind that the result attaiued is not, in fact, resumption. We have equalization only, not resumption. Resumption, as promised by its advocates and understood by the people, was the freo circulation of gold, silver and paper, and their interchange at all the bank counters in tho United States. There will be no resumption iu fact until every bank in the United States receives deposits of coin and paper without distinction, and pays demands m eitlior form of money the holder may prefer. Such is not now tho ease. Gold is no more in general oironlation now than it was five years ago. There is, in effect, none iu the bank vaults. No man iu Ohio can get a thousand dollars in gold without paying as a premium the cost of expressage tiand from New York. A friend of mine the other day at Columbus—a city of 50,000 inhabitants, with a dozen banks—wanted to got two S2O gold pieces as presents for his daughters, aud went from bank to bauk in vain to find thorn. Instead of resumption tlio people have merely equalization of paper and coin; that is, gold prices for their lands, labor and products; that is, $2.25 per 100 for their pork, 90 coots per bushel for their wheat, and 75 cents to $1 per day for their labor, with which to pav enormous and undiminisliiDg taxes and debts, contracted when their products and labor were worth over 5 ) per cent, more than they are today. It is true the money earned by a day’s labor will buy about as much as a day’s earnings would have bought four years ago. It is true the money got for 100 pounds or pork or a bushel of grain will buy about as much as the money got for the same products four years ago. Here is neither gain nor loss. But it is also true that every man’s debts and taxes cost him in labor or products 50 per cent, more to pay them now than four years ago. The debts of the country, public, corporate and private, running from four years ago, amount to uot less, as I have heretofore repeatedly shown, than $10,000,000,000. This shrinkage of values results in compelling the payment of debts with 50 percent, more of labor and property, and in effect ad Is $5,000,000,0« 0 to the weight of that vast debt burden. Our taxes, national aud local, amount, in the aggregate, to f800 ( 000,COO each year, This

shrinkage of valueß increases the tax burden one-half, or $400,000,000 a year. That increase amounts to interest at 4 per cent on $10,000,000,000, more than one-tbird of the present wealth of the country. Messrs. Sherman and Schurz adroitly and elaborately attempt to convince the people that there is vast gain in increasing the purchasing power of their money. I deny it. The greenback of 1874 was precisely as good for all the purposes of business in tho bands of the producers and exchangers of weilth as the greenback of 1879. It is true the greenback dollar now buys 50 percent more than it bought then, but it takes 50 per cent more of wheat pork, land or labor to get it now than then. There is no gain at all to the industrial classes by this appreciation of the dollar, which means merely the lowering of prices of land, labor and products. When we consider the vast distress inflicted upon the industrial classes in the process of forcing prices down to the low gold level, and the vast addition to debtand tax burdens wlach are necessary consequences of that reduction of values, the pretended advantage of adding 50 per cent to the purchasing power of our paper currency is met by a set-off of losses a hundred times greater than the vaunted gain. The two Hecretaries think it fine sport to underrate and ridicule the industrial distresses aud disasters which have strewn with the wrecks of lives and fortunes the pathway to resumption. The fiddliDg Nero was once delighted at a somewhat similar spectacle. I doubt if their fun will be shared by the masses of the people. The ore diggers, the furnace moD. the coal miners, the day laborers, and mechanics and tYadesmen, and mortgagors and other debtors throughout Ohio have not found the cup of resumption and demonetization a cheering ono. Distressful days and sleepless nights, scanty food and ragged clothes, lost homes aud broken hearts have beon tho price of resumption to them. Mr. Sherman attempts to make me appear ridiculous by asserting that I attributed the panic of 1873 to the Resumption act of 1875. That is not a perversion of anything I ever said, but merely a pure invention. I have always attributed the panic of 1873 in chief part to th*e contriction of the currency which went on steadily after 1866, causing an expansion of credits to take the place of diminishing currency, which credits collapsed in the panic. But Mr. Sherman says “ the amount of pap_er money outstanding on the 80th of June, 1873, was more than it was on the 30th of J tine, 1865; the amount on the 30th of June, 1873, was $749,440,1)00; and on the 30th of June, 1865, was but $747,233,000.” I answer this assertion by quoting from his own report, issued from the Treasury Department on the Ist of July last, giving the “ total amount of currency outstanding ” at various dates as follows : June 30, 1865 $1183.318.000 June 30, 1873 750.002.000 Total contraction $223,250,000 Showing a difference between Mr. Sherman’s statement as Secretary on tho 18th of Ju'y and his statements as stump-orator on tho 20th of August of over $233,000,C00. But there are two kinds of contraction, both equally effective in shrinking values; one is by actual reduction of the currency; the other by the growth of business, the currency remaining stationary. Tho demand of business for currency may be assumed to increase approximately in "proportion to increase of population. The actual currency in 1865, according to this treasury statement' of Mr. Sherman, was S2B per capita, while the actual currency in 1873, by the same statement, was but sl7. Sopor capita, being a reduction of over one-third. Before tho contraction of our currency our people and our cities and our counties were very little in debt, as statistics and records and experience attest. With the contraction which followed up to 1873 camo the expansion of credits to maintain business. The enormous grants by tho Republican party of public lauds to promote the premature construction of railways combined with this expansion of credits to bring on the collapse of 1873, from which tho country, as Mr. Sherman stated in his speech in the Scnato iu 1874, had iu effect recovered, when the demonetization of silver and forced resumption in gold set in motion the influences which have shrunk prices, paralyzed industry and confiscated the property of debtors and tax-payers. Mr. Sherman asserts that not only had wo more currency in 1873 than at the close of the war, hut that We now have more than we ever had. In tills Treasury Department statement of tho Ist of July last he gives the total circulation at $713,801,000 on the Ist of July, 1879, which is about $14.87 por capita, as agaiust $17.85 per capita on the same day iu 1873, and S2B on tho samo day in 1 ''(ls. This statement of the currency now outstanding includes $74,000, (KiO greenbacks withdrawn from circulation and hoarded in the treasury, and $125,000,000 which the Comptroller of the Currency in his speech to the national bankers at Saratoga last mouth says are hoarded by the national banks. Mr. Sherman attempts to sustain his assertion that the currency is greater now than ever by adding to the volume now afloat all the eoin in the trea.-ury held for redemption. He might just as reasonably count the gold in the mountains. The coin will stay in the treasury until the green uacks are surrendered to lake its place, aud then tho greenbacks will stay in until the coin comes back again. When one is rii' .'li h,tine tho oiuor ijoftifU.Cl, and both can’t be counted as part of the circulation.

Mr. Sherman now asserts that tho panic of 1873 was caueed by an inflated and irredeemable currency. But here is his speech in the United Sratos Senate, made on the 16th of January, 1874, in which he says: “ Mr. President, the condition of our currency lias no relation whatever to the panic that has passed over tlie country. * * * I never have charged the panic upon tlie currency. Indeed, I was the first iu the midst of the panic to declare that the currency had no connection with it. Money was secure. Men hoarded it * * * These panics are but the ebb and flow of great enterprises. No action of ours can prevent them.” He now asserts that all the busiuess distresses and blighted industries of the past four years were due to that panic, but in this same speech lie declares that the effect of the panic was then past. I quote his language: “ Confidence is restored, and every commodity is advanced to the price that it was before the panic. ” Ho now assorts that “ experience haß shown that tho Resumption act has not produced any distress;” but in his published examination before the Finance Committee of the Senate last year, which was carefully revised by him before it went to tho Public Priuter, he says: “ Wo havo now passed through all the agony and struggle for resumption.” To crown tho display of his characteristic versatility of assertion, Mr. Sherman says: “ Suffice it to say that every Btep under the Resumption act has had a tendency to produce easy times, restore confluence, reduce prices, advance the values of our currencies, and to lead us gently, slowly and surely to tho specie standard.” Could human ingenuity combine in one sentence a greater .jumble of contradictions? It is perfectly true that every step toward resumption lias tended to reduce prices, or, in other words, to advance the value or purchasing power of money ; but the assertion that a reduciion of prices causes or can be accompanied by “easy times” contradicts all human experience and all authority on the nature and office of money. Falling prices have everywhere inflicted, and must necessarily inflict, industrial distress. There nevor has'been a period iu the history of this or any other country of failing prices, or, what is the same thing, risiDg value of money, which has not been a period ot distress of industries and oppression of debtors and tax-payers. The reason is obvious. When prices are falling the goods of tho merchant shrink in value on his shelf ; the stock of the trader is worth less when he gets it to market than when he bought it; the manufacturer when he turns ont his goods finds they have cost more for raw material and labor than they will sell for ; the farmer must pay debts and taxes in products constantly shrinking in value. Money loaned in productive enterprises is, therefore, withdrawn because the enterprises themselves become unprosperous and the loan hazardous; money flows from the voins and arteries of business and congests in the vaults of hoarders. It is true “ that every step under the Resumption act has had a tendency to reduce prices, and to lead us thus slowly and surely to the specie standard;” and it is just this steady and protracted fall of prices, caused by the Resumption law, of which the people havo complained. But to assert that it has produced “easy times” ft preposterous, unless easy times are those in which money shrinks from all investment or loan in productive industry, while it seeks investment in 4-per-cent. Government bonds, or is loaned only on collaterals which can be converted into money on a day’s notice. Tho two Secretaries bring to the people of Ohio the inteliigence that prosperous ‘times have como again; that ail labor is fully employed and well paid; every branch of manufacturing industry prosperous; trade flourishing, and that we all have reason to rejoice and be content with the present situation. 1 admit that some special branches of business are in better condition than before the Democracy stopped contraction and partially remonetized silver, but I cannot learn of any general revival of business. The iron industries are specially quoted as reviving rapidly, yet a Pittsburgh friend, who is manufacturing iron, told me the other day that wages have not increased at all, and that there is a very large surplus of labor. Hanging Bock mill and foundry iron sells this year lower than last, and sold last year lower than the year before. I saw hundreds of oro-diggers in Lawrence county last week whose "average wages don’t exceed 50 cents a day. The coal mined in the Hocking valley—one-third of tho whole product of the State—sells on the cars now at 65 to 75 cents a ton, against 9Q cents last year, $1 the year before and $1 50 the year after the panic. The coal-diggers there now get 50 cents a ton and half work, as againßt 75 cents a ton and full work in 1874, the year after the panic, and tho year beforo the industries, of tne country were put under the screw of preparation for gold resumption. Iron furnaces at Shawnee and Ogden, Steubenville and Ashland, rolling-miils at Steubenville, Marietta and Pomeroy, have recently been sold at from a fourth to a sixth of their cost. Salt, which sold at the furnace at an average or $1.26 per barrel in 1874, now sells at 82 cents per barrel The iron, coal and salt industries of Ohio, so far as I can learn, are paying, where best managed, only the cost °f piQfl'ffitjoD, and that based on starvation

wages—counting their capital and investment as nothing. That is the extent of the boom which is always gotten np in speeches and newspapers by the Republican party in its imEortant campaigns. I believe it to be true that usiness generally in Ohio is almost as unproeperous now as it was in 1878 or 1877; that the condition of debtors generally whose debts amount to one-fourth of the estimated value of their property four years ago is in effect hopeless; that the burden of taxes increased through fallen prices is almost intolerably oppressive; and I further believe that the people ought to and must have a rise of prices above the present low gold level before general prosperity can possibly return. This relief is offered by the Democracy in the bill which passed the House of Representatives last session, and will unquestionably pass the Sonata next session,for the unlimited coinage of the old silver dollar and the issue of certificates for silver bullion. That act would cause an easy increase of metallic money, or of paper representing and redeemable in metallic money, of from $100,000,000 to $200,000,000, followed* bv a yearly increase of $30,000,000 or #40,000,000. This would raise price, very nearly to the old bimetallic level, lightening the burdens of debts and taxes, stimulating industries and bringing into play all the productive energies of our people. It is a great wholesome, indispensable measure of relief; open to no just criticism either in respect of its honesty or sound policy. It will bring down the purchasing power of gold, which has been dishonestly increased by the demonetization of silver—an act to which the American people never consented —done iu the dark by some rascal for the purpose of robbing the‘masses and piling up the fortunes of the moneyed class. The two parties are squarely at issue on this question. Mr. Sherman and Mr. Schurz both take ground in favor of stopping the coinage of the silver dollar when the' amount under existing law shall reach a sum supposed to be the lurgest which will float at par with gold; or, on the other hand, adopting a new and more valuable silver dollar for the benefit of the creditor class. Either of these methods involves the perpetuation of tho wrong inflicted upon the people by tho secret ana fraudulent act of demonetization. I thank these gentlemen for their frankness on this great question, and call on the people of Ohio to decide by their voles whether our great American money product shall be put on an even par with gold, aud whether they will have the old dollar of the fathers or the new dollar of the Shj locks. Mr. Sherman, who was the first to propose the demonetization of silver in the interest of the moneyed class, attempts to sustain it by the following statement: “Many causes contribute to reduce the relative value of silver, and now it requires eighteen ounces of silver to be equal to one ounce of gold; and, therefore, the chief commercial countries have either wholly or partially suspended the coinage of silver. ” He here, with studied vagueness, asserts that silver at the old ratio of 16 to 1 had depreciated as compared with gold, and for that reason was demonetized; thus illustrating again his fluent disregard of facts. The trutli is, the American silver dollar was al vays, since 1833, worth more than the American gold dollar down to the very date when it was demonetized, and at that date it stood at a premium of 3J* per cent. The depreciation of our silver, as compared with our gold dollar, was caused by tne acts of demonetization, accomplished through a conspiracy of usurei s. If Mr. Sherman does not know that fact, he is less informed on this subject than nine out of ten of his hearers. He ought to know why it was demonetized, for he introduced a bill lor that purpose in the United States Senate in 1868, and advocated its demonetization before the congress of bondholders in Paris. The solo reason was that the insatiable avarice of ihe bondholders of Europo aud America sought to appreciate the value of their bonds and depreciate the value of all property and labor in which their bonds were payable by striking out of existence one-haifjof the world’s metallic money.

Mr. Sherman has the amazing recklessness to assert that “the Republican administration has boen marked by a uniform decrease of expenditures, as shown by the official table of net ordinary expenditures;” and “the Democrats have been rapidly increasing appropriations since they have had control of Congress.” He attempts to sustain these assertions by figures made up, not from published official reports, but from data of which the public has no" information. I appeal from John Sherman on the stump to John .-hcr.man in the treasury. 1 hold in my hand his own last report to Congress, in a volume entitled “Finance Report, 1878. ” On page 17 is given the net ordinary expenditure of the Government (exclusive of premiums, interest and public debt), in which it is stated that those expenditures since 1870 were each year as follows. I give the figures exactly "as published by him: 1871 $157,583,000 1872 153,201,000 1873 180,488,000 1874 194118,010 1875 171,529,000 1876 164.857.000 1877 144,209,(00 1878 134.468,000 Tho appropriations from 1871 to 1876 inclusive were made by ouug»ram:o, ami those ot 1877 and 1876 by a Democratic House. The Republicans run up these expenditures from # 150,000,000 in 1872 to an averago of nearly $178,000,000 for each of the four years thereafter; while the Democrats reduced the expenditures for the two last years of the report to but little over $139,000,000 per year, making an annual saving of over $38,000,000. It is true that for 1879 the Democrats increased those appropriations to $157,000,000, and for 1880 to $100,000,000; a chief part of which increase was claimed by the administration to he necessary because the Democratic House had cut down too much of the appropriations for the preceding years. But take the whole average of appropriations and expenditures for the four years of Republican rule, from 1873 to 1870 inclusive, and the result is as follows: That the Republicans expended an average of $177,748,01 0 for the net ordinary expenditures -of the Government, while the Democrats appropriated an average of $149,201,000, being a saving to the people by reason of Democratic economy of $28,547,000 per year, or $114,198,000 in tho four years. Mr. Sherman, in replviug to my Lancaster speech, asserts that, so far from this economy being forced upon the administration by the Democratic Congress, we actually appropriated more than the departments asked for. Hoi* the Finance Minister of our Government is equally at fault. For the year 1877 the administration asked a little over $200,125,000 for its ordinary expenditures; we gave it $145,182,000 For tho year 1878 tne administration asked $176,226,000; we gave it $157,213,000. For the year 1880 it asked $164,181,000; and we gave it $160,919,000. So that the Democratic Congress has in four years prevented the administration from spending over $120,000,000 moro than was necessary for the ordinary expenses of the Government. I say more'than was necessary, for Mr. Sherman says that, duriDg the four years of Democratic control over appropriations, “the administration has felt no restraint from insufficient appropriations in the great branches of the Government.” Mr. Sherman, in explaining the enormous appropriation of $194,000,000 for the ordinary expenses of the Government in 1874, says that, “ tho appropriations for that year were purposely largely increased as a means of relief from the effect of the panic.” Sympathetic Mr. Sherman! llow good it was in you and your party to come to the relief of the struggling industries of the country! But the fact is. the appropriations for that year were made at the session of Congress which ended March 4, 1873—six months before the panic occurred. The excessive appropriation was due, therefore, to extravagance, and not to sympathy for the people. Messrs. Sherman and Schurz are distressed with apprehensions of danger to the Government from tho Confederate Brigadiers. They cry out against the caucus, as though it was an invention of these Southern men to control the Democratic party and thus rule the country. They have themselves sat in more caucuses than they have hairs on their heads. What danger is there from Confederate Brigadiers? Notone of them has proposed any measure in Congress to impair any settlements of the war. They have over and over again declared that they and their.people accept those settlements as final and never to be disturbed. What more is demanded? Nothing. Tho Republican party has not asked for more. The outcry against the Southern people for sending to Congress men who fought in the Confederate army is senseless and shameful. They have no other men of large experience and capacity to send. Would you force them to send only negroes and carpet-baggers? Would you undo the work of pacification which the President has done? Would you revoke the trade consummated by Mr. Fpster, by which Packard, who got more votes in Louisiana for Governor than Hayes got for President, was counted out and Hayes counted in? Recollect, gentlemen of the Republican party, that the South has not tte same large choice of non-combat-ants to select for high offices which the Republican party has. All her men and boys had to go into the Confederate army to meet our overwhelming numbers, while the North did not send a half of her men. In this respect the Republican party lias the South at a big disadvantage. They can select such men as Messrs. Sherman" and Foster, who’quietly stayed at home, while the unfortunate South has no noncombatants to prefer over her soldiers for high public honors. Mr. Updegraff and Mr. Garfield said in effect at the Soldiers’ Reunion, at Steubenville the other day, that when the South will consent that the Government shall be conducted on tho accepted fact that the North was right and the South was wrong on the great issues of the war, then sectional strife should cease. The Southern Representatives have admitted it. They do not admit, and we have no right to expect them to admit, that they were false to their convictions of duty in asserting and maintaining the alleged right of secession. But I assert that there is not one man from the South in either house of Congress who does not accept the decision of the war as the final settlement of that question, or who does not agree that all the amendments of the constitution made to give permanent effect to that settlement shall be respected aDd obeyed and executed by appropriate legislation. In view pf thja i[ js mean and unpatriotic in the Repub-

lican leaders to keep up the senseless clamor against the South, and prevent the restoration of harmony and good will, without which the sacrifices of the war were all in vain. Neither Mr. Scbnrz nor Mr. Sherman has a word to say justifying the use of troops at the Dolls, for which they and the administration fought so vigorously. They know that it is a power that is an alien and a foe to our republican system of Government, and that the determination of the [administration to retain that power will meet the disapprobation of the people. But Mr. Schurz attempts to ridicule the stern demand of the Democracy to havo that odious power wiped from our statute books. He says: “Does any sane man think this administration capable of sending the Federal soldiers to the ballot-box to overawe the freedom of the electors? * * * The President withdrew the Federal soldiers from the legislative halls of the Southern States.” Yes, sir; that was when the President was t playing the rolo of conservative; that was when he had just been put into power by a truck and dicker arrangement, got up by Mr. Foster: that was when both of them were crying ont against Federal interference with State Legislatures and State elections, and were anxioue for “ the flag to float over Btates, not provinces.” But a change bas come over the spirit of their dreams. Mr. Foster pleads the “ baby act,” and the President his taken up all the low fellows in the Southern Btates whom he tramped down in getting to power, and given them high stations and good salaries. He is a .stalwart now; has made up with all whom he offended by “withdrawing Federal soldiers from the legislative halls of the . Southern Statesand is as lion-mettled as Zach Chandler. But whether he would or would not abuse the power, as Grant did, is not the question. The question is whether any President can constitutionally be given, or should have, the power to send troops to keep the peace at the polls, or to, in any way, intermeddle with State elections. Mr. Sherman does not attempt to justify the Marshals aud Supervisors law as either constitutional or expedient Its nnconstitutinnaliiy is demonstrable to any man of common intelligence, whether lawyer or layman. When the constitution was framed the whole control of elections of members of Congress was reserved to the States; but Congress was given power to alter the State regulations as to the'time, places and manner of hekling such elections, because it was thought probable that it might be important to the General Government to have those elections all on one day or to have them held in single districts. Then it was suggested, at the very close of the debate, that possibly some States might refuse altogether to elect members of Congress; and iu such event Congress ought to have power to make all necessary provisions for electing members of Congress in such States. Solely to provide for this contingency, as Mr. Madison says, the clause was finally amended so as to read as follows: “Sec. 4. The times, places and manner of holding elf ctions for Senators and lteprescntatives shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof, but the Congress may at any time by law make or alter such regulations, except as to the places of cboosmg Senators.” Now here is the constitution of Ohio. It provides that “every white male citizan of the United States of the age of 2L years who shall have been a resident of the State one year next preceding the election, and of tho county, township or ward in which he resides such time as may be provided by law, shall havo the qualifications of an elector and be entitled to vote at all elections.”

Hero is the Election law of the State providing for the election of members of Congress and other officers. It provides how long a person must be a resident of the county, township and ward prior to tho election to have the right to vote; it provides how persons may gain or lose a residence, aud what facts shall determine a residence; it provides for dividing the State into election districts, for furnishing bal-lot-boxes, fixing places of election, selecting judges from residents of tho election precincts, and providing the whole manner of conducting the elections, and of makiug returns and proclaiming results. All the officers so authorized to conduct elections are State officers They derive tlioir authority under and are sworn to obey tho State constitution and law. No one disputes the authority of the State to conduct these elections, or denies that this whole election machinery, thus conducted and managed by State officers, is valid and in full force and operation. But tho Republican parly, by its Federal Election law, has provided that two Federal Supervisors may be appointed at each one of these election precincts, with power to inspect the ballots of electors and determine what votes shall be received and what votes rejected ; and if any State election officer refuses to submit his judgment, to that of the Federal Supervisors, tlie Supervisors may seize such election officer and drag him from the ballotbox to a Federal prison, to be indicted and tried for the felony of disobedience to these Federal interlopers. If a man’s vote be challenged, aud the State judges, in disobedience to the State law, determine, on tho facts presented, that he is entitled to vote, the Federal Supervisor may seize the doctor before his ballot is put in aqd drag him off .to a Fedaitnough tne porter to define qualifications of electois, and, consequently, to provide for a method in which a right to vote may be determined, is, by the constitution of the United States, expressly reserved to the States, absolutely and unconditionally. Now, I believe there is not a lawyer of fair standing in Ohio who will risk his reputation on an opinion that the Federal Government has any power to thus prevent an elector from votiug, or to in any manner supervise, control or direct, or meddle with-the State election officers while conducting a Congressional election under this State law. Such interference is organizid anarchy. No officer of a State Government can lawfully be directed or controlled by a Federal officer in the performance of his duties under valid State laws, for each Government is supreme in its sphere as defined by the constitution of the United States. This Federal Election law is, therefore, utterly and obviously unconstitutional. Mr. Sherman makes a faint attempt to justify the Republican party in enacting this law by claiming that there were 30,000 illegal votes cast in the city of New York in 1868; but he does not pretend that experience has proved the law to have beon a wise one, for he knows that wherever its power has been invoked the Deputies employed and paid out of the public treasury have been largely poor Democrats, bribed to desert their party for $5 a day, and stili moro largely the most dispicable scoundrels that could be raked from the bolls of the big cities. The law lias demonstrated itself everywhere to be the basest and corruptest instrument of partisanship ever seized upon to stay the downfall of a parly in power. Dodging tho question of the constitutionality and expediency of the law, Mr. Sherman arraigns Gen. Rico and myself for having refused appropriations of money to hire these spies and Marshals to intermeddle with State elections. He says the “ withholding of public money for this purpose is a more dangerous opposition than the attempted nullification of the Tariff laws by South Carolina, put down by Gen. Jackson, or even the attempted secession gut down by civil war. By this doctrine nullication and secession are made easy by the refusal of a majority of either house to obey the law.” He seems particularly sorry to find Gen. Rice and myself, after our “houorablo record during the war,” in this terrible aMitude of nullification ana rebellion. “If they were right during the war, they are wrong now. I have no disposition to arraign them, but I prefer to follow the old Republican flag that was hoisted in 1854.” Stop there, Mr. Sherman! I want, iu the midst of your patriotic peroration, to call your attention to the fact that in following the Republican flag in 1856 yon, yourself, offered an amendment to the Army Appropriation bill to the effect that “no part "of the military force of the United States herein provided for shall be employed in aid of the enforcement of the enactments of the alleged Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Kansas;” and, further, that your amendment was adopted; and, further, because the Senate refused to concur in your amendment, you filibustered and forced the adjournment of the first session of the Thirty-fonrth Congress, leaving the army without a dollar of appropriations; and, further,, that when the President called Congress together again you voted to adhere to your amendment, and undertook to force the adjournment of the second session without permitting the passage of the Army Appropriation bill, but were overruled by a few of your conservative Republican colleagues joining the Democrats and saving the army from disbandment for want of an appropriation. As you seem to have forgotten this striking page in your political history, I referyou to the Congressional Globe, Thirty-fourth Congress, part second,lßss-756,pages 1,754,1,790,1,794 and 2,240, and page 18 of the appendix. You will find the references handy, as they are all in one volume.

The difference between your position then and now is this: Then you were struggling against a bad use of Federal troops in a Territory, over which the Federal Government had supreme control; and now you are struggling for a bad use of Federal troops and Marshals to control State elections, with which the Federal Government has nothing whatever to do. You were willing to disband the whole army then rather than suffer the Federal Government to exercise its undoubted powers; and now you denounce as rebels and nullitiers men who served through the war for the Union, while you prospered in peace and comfort at home, for disbanding your hordes of partisans, paid from the common treasury of the people to wrest from them the control of their ballot-box. I am not disposed, my fellow-citizens, to claim that in the ordinary exercise of its powers Congress is at liberty to withhold appropriations for purposes prescribed by law. We did not withhold any appropriations the failure of which is at all likely to interfere with any of the departments of the Government in the exercise of their ordinary and acknowledged powers. We merely forbade the use of any money appropriated for the armv to transport or maintain troops at the polls: and we withheld no appropriations, except for the fees of Marshals and their deputies. We knew that all the Marshals would be patriotic enough to hold on to their offices and draw their regular salaries, and perform all their ordinary and useful duties, trusting to Congress

to pay their fees for legitimate servioe. We merely resolved that the public treasure should not be wasted, nor the control of our State elections interfered with by hiring bummers and shoulder-hitters, or bribing needy men out of the common treasnre of the people. And we now appeal from the advocates of Federal interference to the lovers of home rule to sustain our action. We will let the ballot-box itself declare whether it is safer iu the hands and under the control of the officers of the election precincts, or of emissaries hired by the administration and backed by bayonets. This is not revolution nor nullification nor secession ; but only an orderly, honest and patriotic appeal from Caesar to the people.