Democratic Sentinel, Volume 4, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 September 1880 — A SCRAP OF HISTORY. [ARTICLE]

A SCRAP OF HISTORY.

How Gen. Garfielil, in ISBS, • Sought 10 “Improve tlie Army” by I*cmoving Gen. Hancock. [Washington Letter.] It lias been announced with a flourish that the Republican Congressional Committee are issuing the speeches of Gen. Garfield as campaign documents.. He risks nothing in saying, though, that one of his speeches that would be as greedily devoured by the public as anything he ever said, and which is peculiarly pertinent just now, was overlooked by the committee in preparing their oracular list, and, had*not Senator Wallace come upon it to-day, it is hardly likely that the omission of the Republicans would have been corrected. As it is, the Democratic Congressional Committee will apply themselves industriously to its circulation. The famous order No. 40 was issued by Gen. Hancock Nov. 29, 1867. Early in the ensuing session of Congress—Jan. 13, 1868—Mr. Garfield, according to the Congressional Globe, page 489, asked unanimous consent in tho House to introduce for immediate consideration and action a bill “To reduce and improve the military establishment by discharging one Major General.” The bill provided that the army should be reduced by the discharge from military service of the Major General who was tho last commissioned in that grade before January, 1868, the bill to take effect from its passage, so that there should remain but four Major Generals in the army. As soon as the bill had been read, Mr. Garfield expressed the wish that it might be acted upon the next morning. Objection being made, Mr. Garfield then said that he should bring it up the first thing on the following Mjonday. The bill was aimed directly at Gen. Hancock, who had been commissioned Major General July 26, 1866, and was the last commissioned in that grade before January, 1868. Thus it is seen that within six weeks after Hancock had sued order No. 40, Garfield, Chairmaije' of the Military Committee, moved a bite* to punish him-for issuing it—hot by re *- e tirement or pension, but by removal The Garfield bill was not heard of for. the reason that on the same day, Jan. 13, Mr. Bingham, from the Committee on Reconstruction, reported a hill that answered nearly the purpose sought by Garfield. It was in three wordy sections, but its purport was to compel Hancock to obey Grant, the General, rather than Johnson, the President, and investing in Grant the power to remove Hancock if he obeyed Johnson. It also gave Grant the power to do* anything he might see fit in each of the military departments, regardless of the President. In broader terms, it meant that the powers granted the President by the constitution should be overthrown by statute. The bill was put upon its pns sage Jan. 17, and on that day Garfield made a speech from an alleged constitutional standpoint. After he had disposed of what he called its constitutionality, he let the light, in on his real purposes by arraigning Hancock for issuing order No. 40. Mr. Bingham’s bill passed the House, after Mr. Garfield's speech, by a strict party vote of 124 Republicans to 45 Democrats—Garfield of course voting yea. It was not heard of again in Congress, for tho reason given by Garfield to Hinsdale that Hancock afterward “kept his place.” The speech, however, places Garfield in square antagonism, not only to Gen. Hancock’s doctrines, but also to those which he has permitted his party associates of late to attribute to himself, at least so far as it embodies what he was pleased to consider his opinions of the relations of the civil and military powers as warranted by the constitution.