with their kindred Copperheads of the North, would always elect the President and control Congress. While slavery sat upon her defiant throne, and insulted and intimidated the trembling North, the South frequently divided on questions of policy between Whigs and Democrats, and gave victory alternately to the sections. Now, you must divide them between loyalists, without regard to color, and disloyalists, or you will be the perpetual vassals of the free-trade, irritated, revengeful South. For these, among other reasons, I am for negro suffrage in every rebel State. If it be just, it should not be denied; if it be necessary, it should be adopted; if it be a punishment to traitors, they deserve it.

JAMES ABRAM GARFIELD,

OF OHIO.

(BORN 1831, DIED 1881.)

ON THE

REACTION AGAINST RECONSTRUCTION; HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, MARCH 29, 1879.

MR. CHAIRMAN:

I have no hope of being able to convey to the members of this House my own conviction of the very great gravity and solemnity of the crisis which this decision of the Chair and of the Committee of the Whole has brought upon this country. I wish I could be proved a false prophet in reference to the result of this action. I wish I could be overwhelmed with the proof that I am utterly mistaken in my views. But no view I have ever taken has entered more deeply and more seriously into my convictions than this: that this House has resolved to-day to enter upon a revolution against the Constitution and Government of the United States. I do not know that the intention exists in the minds of half the Representatives who occupy

the other side of this Hall. I hope it does not. I am ready to believe it does not exist to any large extent. But I mean to say the consequences of the programme just adopted, if persisted in, is nothing less than the total subversion of this government.

Let me in the outset state, as carefully as I may, the precise situation. At the last session all our ordinary legislative work was done, in accordance with the usages of the House and the Senate, except as to two bills. Two of the twelve great appropriation bills for the support of the government were agreed to in both Houses as to every matter of detail concerning the appropriations proper. We were assured by the Committees of Conference in both bodies that there would be no difficulty in adjusting all differences in reference to the amount of money to be appropriated and the objects of its appropriation. But the House of Representatives proposed three measures of distinctly independent legislation; one upon the army appropriation bill, and two upon the legislative appropriation bill. The three grouped together are briefly these: first, the substantial modification of certain sections of the law relating to the use of the army; second, the repeal of the

jurors' test oath; and third, the repeal of the laws regulating elections of members of Congress.

These three propositions of legislation were insisted upon by the House, but the Senate refused to adopt them. So far it was an ordinary proceeding, one which occurs frequently in all legislative bodies. The Senate said to us through their conferees: "We are ready to pass the appropriation bills, but we are unwilling to pass as riders the three legislative measures you ask us to pass." Thereupon the House said, through its Conference Committee -and, in order that I may do exact justice, I read from the speech of the distinguished Senator from Kentucky [Mr. Beck] on the report of the Conference Committee:

The Democratic conferees on the part of the House seem determined that unless those rights were secured to the people [alluding to the three points I have named] in the bill sent to the Senate, they would refuse, under their constitutional right, to make appropriations to carry on the government, if the dominant majority in the Senate insisted upon the maintenance of these laws and refused to consent to their repeal.

Then, after stating that if the position they had taken compelled an extra session, and that the new Congress would offer the repealing

bills separately, and forecasting what would happen when the new House should be under no necessity of coercing the Senate, he declared that:

If, however, the President of the United States, in the exercise of the power vested in him, should see fit to veto the bills thus presented to him, * * * then I have no doubt those same amendments will be again made part of the appropriation bills, and it will be for the President to determine whether he will block the wheels of government and refuse to accept necessary appropriations rather than allow the Representatives of the people to repeal odious laws which they regard as subversive of their rights and privileges. * * * Whether that course is right or wrong it will be adopted, and I have no doubt adhered to, no matter what happens with the appropriation bills.

That was the proposition made by the Democracy in Congress at the close of the Congress now dead.

Another distinguished Senator (Mr. Thurman) and I may properly refer to Senators of a Congress not now in existence,-reviewing the situation, declared in still more succinct terms:

We claim the right, which the House of Commons in England established after two centuries of contest, to say that we will not grant the money of the people unless there is a redress of grievances.

These propositions were repeated with variious degrees of vehemence by the majority in the House.