683

RESTORATION OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY TO POWER. didates before the people of this country in 1884. In fact, they present points of contrast, rather than of comparison. The Republican candidate was no new man in Federal politics, as was Governor Cleveland.

When one would compare James G. Blaine, that splendid glancing figure in our politics, with the sedate, quiet, and unostentatious governor of New-York, it is like comparing the electric flashings of the aurora borealis to the stately movements of the rising sun,- that source of growth and life. Grover Cleveland was born in Essex County, New Jersey, in 1837. His father was a Presbyterian clergyman. His family was ennobled through many generations by honest men and women. Its most conspicuous member steadily advanced to high position. After serving as mayor of Buffalo, Grover Cleveland became governor of the State of New-York. Since then his star has been in the ascendant. Since his first vote was cast he has been a Democrat of the best type. His election to the gubernatorial chair by an astounding majority of two hundred thousand votes indicates the fickleness of the popular breath. It was so tempestuous in his favor, that he cannot fail to discern the power of that independent element to which he is indebted for his first, as well as his more recent triumphs. That he respects this element, is significant of his prudence and his gratitude.

Grover Cleveland is in his forty-eighth year. He has a powerful frame. His manners are agreeable. He is liberal in his thoughts. He is a man of democratic simplicity. He dislikes ostentation. The key-note to his character is found in the moderation and frugality of his life. His firmness and courage, and his deliberate judicious action mark him as a man of manliest mould, and high capacity for leadership and administration. He is a Jeffersonian Democrat, honest, capable, and faithful to the Constitution.

ness.

In the election of 1884 the people expressed their national consciousIn other words, there was a revolution which dethroned a corrupt and effete party. In closing the last decade of this history, we see the Democratic party restored to power,— and at the head of our Nation, Grover Cleveland. If Silas Wright deserved to be called by Thomas Benton the Cato of America, may we not in tracing the life of the successor of Silas Wright, from his birthplace, through childhood and as student, following him through his professional career until his election as magistrate of a city and then as governor of a great state, find many of the attributes of Wright, and also something of the famous Roman? In many ways the similitude is striking; and most in that he is truthful, honest, unselfish, kind hearted, and devoted to the principles of Democracy and the welfare of the country. Rome never needed a Cato more than America needed a man of similar qualities, to free her from the gyves of corrupt politics. This Nation has such a man for President. While others may falter in duty, he will stand firm and true to the principles of the platform on which he was elected, and observe and carry out his pledges of reform in letter and spirit. His need

was so exigent that we may well stand appalled at the danger we have escaped, and which threatened our free institutions. It needed a statesman as courageous as Cæsar and as honest as Cato to save our liberties from a decadence worse than death!

It is upon the same day of the week, and the same month, eighty-four years after the inauguration of the first Democratic President, Thomas Jefferson, at the new city of Washington, that Grover Cleveland and Thomas A. Hendricks are installed in their high offices. A contrast of the city of 1801 with the city of to-day will show something of the progress of our country in all that makes up grandeur, extent, influence, prestige, and power. Perhaps a more striking contrast would be that of the two inaugurations. The first was as unostentatious as the village in which it occurred. The second well became the capital of a mighty nation. There seemed to be no end to the grand and imposing cavalcade which ushered in this new epoch. No such display of men in line, or of enthusiasm at heart, has ever been witnessed in any country. The cycle of our felicities closes with this grand restoration of Democratic government! After three decades of wandering in the wilderness, the people at last have their representative men installed in their great trusts.

The writer, in closing this volume at the commencement of a new régime, cannot but recall the attempts of those who opposed the Democratic party in its efforts for peace and harmony during the terrible struggles of the past three decades. At length peace has come! Slavery, the béte noir of our politics, is no more. The constitutional amendments are acquiesced in. A majority of the Southern members of Congress, on a resolution offered by the writer, have affirmed their devotion to the Union, and asserted that secession is forever gone to the rearward and abysm.

The country is greatly changed. It is changed politically, socially, materially, nationally. Novus seculorum nascitur ordo. Our next census will show sixty millions of people. By the end of the century it will show a hundred millions. The questions of municipal independence, state rights, and local self-government may come again; but never again with so much. terrible consequence as in 1860-'61.

In the judgment of the writer, it is only by guarding against the centralization of government that the great diversity of interests in a Union of such extent as ours can be harmonized, and individual rights be secured. The doctrines of local independence and self-government have ever been the inspiration of the writer. Without these doctrines our Union would be forever endangered. By adhering to them it will fulfill the hopes and answer the prayers of all true patriots. They furnish the key to unlock the magic chambers of our future.

tremes of faction.

They are the safe and golden mean between the ex

CHAPTER XL.

MATERIAL PROGRESS IN THREE DECADES.

RESULTS OF CENSUSES-OBJECT OF CENSUS FROM 1790-THE LEGISLATION FOR THE TENTH CENSUS, OF 1880- ITS COMPLETENESS-STAR OF EMPIRE AND CENTRE OF POPULATION IN 1880-SOCIAL STATISTICS - CENTENNIAL YEAROUR INCREASE FROM DECADE TO DECADE - DETAILS OF ADVANCEMENTFEDERAL TRADE AND TARIFF RESTRICTIONS - HINDRANCES TO PHYSICAL GROWTH-ODDITIES OF THE CENSUS-THE PUBLIC LANDS - PRIMARY OBJECT OF THE CENSUS THE APPORTIONMENT OF REPRESENTATION - RESULT OF THE LAST APPORTIONMENT INCREASE OF THE SOUTH IN POLITICAL POWER POPULATION, AND NOT VOTES, THE BASIS OUR UNIQUE SYSTEM-THE MUNIMENTS OF PUBLIC LIBERTY FOUNDED ON THE CENSUS OF POPULATION OUR LIGHT OF LIBERTY.

I

N the concluding chapters of this volume, which has reference to only thirty years of our American history, there would be an incompleteness of etching if, amid the vicissitudes of war and peace, the advancement of the country were not more or less touched upon. No country

ever had better established data for the ascertainment of its progress than the United States. It is no new remark that this country stands alone among nations in its exhaustive state and federal system of registry or census, beginning with the commencement of the government and extending down to the present time. It has already taken ten national censuses. All of these have had reference to the enumeration of the inhabitants required by the Federal Constitution to be made once every decade. The primary object of the constitutional provision is to fix the apportionment of representatives, and of direct taxes among the states. The matter of direct taxes has become, for reasons not necessary to detail, obsolete. The apportionment of representatives has passed through many and curious processes of legislation. In the course of a decade, it would become almost impossible to insure the indispensable prerequisite of fair representation for a rapidly increasing population like that of the several states, in a Federal polity like ours, without a veracious return of their inhabitants. The first census, of 1790, merely undertook to require a return of the inhabitants. The second census, of 1800, was like the first. The third was identical with the second. But a grand stride was taken in 1810, on the first day of May, under the direction of the Secretary of the Treasury, Albert Gallatin. He went outside of the strict construction of the Constitution and undertook to have an ac

count of the manufacturing establishments and manufactures returned by the census takers of the several districts. He was limited to an expenditure of $30,000. How meagre that outlay in comparison with that of 1880, which amounted to millions! In the fourth census law, of 1820, the same provisions were re-enacted. In 1830, there was little change for the better in the mode of taking the census. But in 1840, under the act of March 3, 1839, for the sixth census, the census lists included revolutionary pensioners, manufacturing, agricultural, and educational statistics. A grand progress was being made in our country at that time. The following decade showed remarkable vitality in the Republic. The star of empire was moving rapidly to the westward. Wealth was following its course. Bankruptcies and crises also followed; but the railroad, the steamship, and the telegraph began to foreshadow an approaching revolution in all that would make material progress and physical grandeur. Immigration began to set in, especially from Ireland, whence the famine drove out fabulous numbers of people. These interesting features of our advancement led to a better law. It was enacted on May 3, 1850. Under it the censuses of 1850, 1860, and 1870 were taken. And yet, owing to our swift progress, that law turned out to be very inadequate and imperfect, as applied to the condition of things in 1870 and 1880. It then seemed to be so clumsy, antiquated, and barbarous, as applied to the new conditions of life in America, that, in the language of Superintendent Walker, it was as the smooth-bore, muzzle-loading queen'sarm of the Revolution, to the repeating rifle of the present time. The law needed radical change, if not repeal. It was the privilege of the author to take a part in forwarding the amendments of General Garfield's bill for the census of 1870. One of the features of that bill was to delegate the power of taking the census to supervisors and special enumerators, and to take the business away from the United States marshals, who, for very many reasons not necessary to be named, were incompetent and untrustworthy. This bill failed, not in the House but in the Senate.

The author introduced a bill for the tenth census of 1880, which substantially became a law on the 3d of March, 1879. It fixed the cost of the work at three millions, but, as it turned out, a larger sum became necessary, owing to the multitude of statistics collected outside of the mere registry of population. Under that law it was requisite, on or before the 1st of March, 1880, to designate the number of supervisors of census to be appointed in each state and territory. Various other provisions were made, by which the enumerators who acted under the supervisors were required to visit each dwelling-house and family, and obtain certain information in addition to statistics of population. But there was an additional provision in that law which authorized the employment of a number of experts on certain subjects connected with our physical progress. Their reports have not yet been fully printed. And although many misadventures have occurred in relation to the completion of the census according to the design of its authors, yet, by

THE TENTH CENSUS, OF 1880.

687

the general consent of all statisticians, there never has been made for mankind, in any nation, such a stupendous collection of facts upon which to base political representation and discuss questions of social science. Nearly every review in Germany, Great Britain, France, and other countries where intelligence has ruled upon this subject, has commended this remarkable

census.

The census of 1870 was, in some states, an unreliable and slovenly performance. The conditions just after the war, in the South, were too chaotic for accuracy and completeness, even in the simple matter of population. No fault, however, was found with the census work of 1880, that was not promptly corrected, even by a second taking of the population. The work of enumeration, which began on the first Monday of June, was completed, so far as it related to population, within the month, viz.: by the 1st of July following. In cities of over ten thousand inhabitants it was completed within two weeks. The census was thus taken, as to population, in a shorter time than ever before.

The writer may be partial to the census work, but he cannot omit, in a book on Federal legislation, some mention of that which gives us the most perspicuous and methodical account of the improvement of our country in the three decades comprehended by this history. The Compendium of the Tenth Census, if not the more elaborate volumes themselves, is within the reach of the people. The schedules are intelligible. The special and novel inquiries, and their responses, as to railway, telegraph, and express and insurance companies, and especially matters connected with manufactures and agriculture in every form and variety of human product, have had their full return in this census. Accurate and reliable statistics have been secured for the first time in these various modes of business, and in bulk the material collected and published has been double that obtained by any former census. In relation to taxation and the public debt, no such return has ever been made to the authorities of any other nation. The tabular statement as to population shows that from 1790, when we reached nearly four millions of people, to 1880, when our population became 50,155,783, there has been no such national progress made in any other country, within the like period. To go back only to 1860, so as to bring it specially within the field of the observations in this volume, it will be seen that the population in that year was rising of thirty millions, or 31,443,321. So that, since we started in our career in 1790, we increased our population nearly thirteen times; and since 1860, we have nearly doubled our population!

A fanciful way of exhibiting our progress, is that adopted in our last census volumes by graphic maps and diagrams. But nothing shows more strikingly the march of this Nation across the continent than the large census map of 1880 which illustrates the movement of the "centre of population." By the centre of population is meant "the point at which equilibrium would be reached were the country taken as a plane surface, itself without weight,