which became laws, and 41 awaited the President's approval. In the Senate 2,283 bills and joint resolutions were introduced, 466 of which were passed. The following were among the bills and joint resolutions of general interest that remained on the Senate calendar: To establish a uniform system of bankruptcy; to provide for ocean mail service between the United States and foreign ports; to regulate and improve the civil service; to incorporate the Maritime Canal Company of Nicaragua; to incorporate the Inter-ocean Ship Railway Company, known as the Eads bill; to constitute the department of agriculture, an executive department, and to enlarge its powers and duties; to provide for the performance of the duties of the office of President, in case of removal, death, resignation, or inability, both of the President and Vice-President. The amount appropriated this session for various purposes was $214,243,097.36. After appropriate remarks from the presiding officers of both branches, Congress adjourned on the 8th of August. GARFIELD'S FOREIGN POLICY. It is now known that had the life of President Garfield been preserved he would have made his administration especially brilliant abroad. Secretary Blaine conceived a policy which looked to a closer relation with all the republies on the western hemisphere. The secretary desired a congress of the republics of America at Washington and under the patronage of the United States government, with the object of promoting trade and of settling all difficulties by arbitration. This cabinet officer sent a letter to the United States' ministers in Central and South America, which proposed the conference, explained its mission, and gave instruction to the ministers. The question was complicated by the war between Chili and Peru, and a scandal resulted, the import of which was to implicate officers of the United States government in improper speculations on mines in Peru. The scandal attracted the attention of Congress, and a resolution was offered instructing the committee on foreign affairs to give the matter ample investigation. The resolution was adopted and its directions carried out, but nothing was found that would implicate any officer of the government, as was recited in the resolution of Congress. The information obtained by this investigation, and from other sources, would indicate that the foreign policy, as conceived by Secretary Blaine, though abandoned by his successor, was brilliant beyond any example in our history. STATE ELECTIONS, NOVEMBER, 1882. On the 7th of November there were elections in thirty-twostates of the Union. Republican losses were unexpectedly severe, and the victory of the democrats was overwhelming. The result of the elections was construed by many, aside from accidental considerations, as a protest against the methods of machine politics, as represented by machine politicians, the whole import of which was a demand, on the part of the republic, for civil service reform. Congress met December 5, 1882. The democrats entered Forty-seventh Congress, upon the work of legislation enSecond Session. couraged by the success of their organization at the elections the preceding month, while the republicans felt that only through prudent action could they overcome the recent defeat of their party. William Windom................Secretary of the Treasury ............. Theodore Frelinghuysen. ...1881-1881 .........1881-1881 ......1881 Secretary of the Navy. Robert T. Lincoln.............. Secretary of War....... Timothy O. Howe.......... N. M. Teller......... Postmaster-General..... .....1881-1881 ........1881 ....1881-1881 ...1881 ....1881 .....1881-1881 .......1881 ...1882 .....1881 Chief Justice Morrison R. Waite... Ohio............Jan. 21, 1874...... $10,500 ..Jan. 12, 1858........ 10,000 LEGISLATIVE OFFICERS. Chester A. Arthur........ President of the Senate pro tempore.........1881-1881 1881.-VIRGINIA READJUSTER PLATFORM. [Adopted June 2.] 1. We recognize our obligation to support the institution for the deaf, dumb and blind, the lunatic asylum, the public free schools and the government out of the revenues of the state; and we deprecate and denounce that policy of ring rule and subordinated sovereignty which for years borrowed money out of banks at high rates of interest for the discharge of these paramount trusts, while our revenues were left the prey of commercial exchanges, available to the state only at the option of speculators and syndicates. 2. We reassert our purpose to settle and adjust our state obligations on the principles of the "Bill to re-establish public credit," known as the "Riddleberger bill," passed by the last general assembly and vetoed by the Governor. We maintain that this measure recognizes the just debt of Virginia, in this, that it assumes two-thirds of all the money Virginia borrowed, and sets aside the other third to West Virginia to be dealt with by her in her own way and at her own pleasure; that it places those of her creditors who have received but six per cent. instalments of interest in nine years upon an exact equality with those who by corrupt agencies were enabled to absorb and monopolize our means of payment; that it agrees to pay such rate of interest on our securities as can with certainty be met out of the revenues of the state, and that it contains all the essential features of finality. 3. We reassert our adherence to the constitutional requirements for the “equal and uniform" taxation of property, exempting none except that specified by the constitution and used exclusively for "religious, charitable and educational purposes." 4. We reassert that the paramount obligation of the various works of internal improvement is to the people of the state, by whose authority they were created, by whose money they were constructed, and by whose grace they live; and it is enjoined upon our representative and executive officers to enforce the discharge of that duty; to insure to our people such rates, facilities and connections as will protect every industry and interest against discrimination, tend to the development of our agricultural and mineral resources, encourage the investment of active capital in manufactures, and the profitable employment of labor in industrial enterprises, grasp for our city and our whole state those advantages to which by their geographical position they are entitled, and fulfill all the great public ends for which they were designed. 5. The readjusters hold the right to a free ballot to be the right preserv ative of all rights, and that it should be maintained in every state in the Union. We believe the capitation tax restriction upon the suffrage in Virginia to be in conflict with the fourteenth amendment to the constitution of the United States. We believe that it is a violation of that condition of reconstruction wherein the pledge was given not so to amend our state constitution as to deprive any citizen or class of citizens of a right to vote, except as punishment for such crimes as are felony at common law. We believe such a prerequisite to voting to be contrary to the genius of our institutions, the very foundation of which is representation as antecedent to taxation. We know that it has been a failure as a measure for the collection of revenue, the pretended reason for its invention in 1876, and we know the base, demoralizing and dangerous uses to which it has been prostituted. We know it contributes to the increase of monopoly power, and to corrupting the voter. For these and other reasons we adhere to the purpose hitherto expressed to provide more effectual legislation for the collection of this tax, dedicated by the constitution to the public free schools, and to abolish it as a qualification for and restriction upon suffrage. 6. The readjusters congratulate the whole people of Virginia on the progress of the last few years in developing mineral resources and promoting manufacturing enterprises in the state, and they declare their purpose to aid these great and growing industries by all proper and essential legislation, state and federal. To this end they will continue their efforts in behalf of more cordial and fraternal relations between the sections and states, and especially for that concord and harmony which will make the country to know how earnestly and sincerely Virginia invites all men into her borders as visitors or to become citizens without fear of social or political ostracism; that every man, from whatever section of country, shall enjoy the fullest freedom of thought, speech, politics, and religion, and that the state which first formulated these principles as fundamental in free government is yet the citadel for their exercise and protection. 1881.-VIRGINIA DEMOCRATIC PLATFORM, The conservative democratic party of Virginia -democratic in its federal relations and conservative in its state policy assembled in convention, in view of the present condition of the Union and of this commonwealth, for the clear and distinct assertion of its political principles, doth declare that we adopt the following articles of political faith; 1. Equality of right and exact justice to all men, special privileges to |