Part 14
“In conclusion,” and his words reveal a genuine patriotism and zeal of affection for the soldier, “nothing so discourages the brave men at the front as the belief that proper measures are not adopted at home for re-enforcing and sustaining them.
“After four years of such patriotic and heroic effort for national unity as the world has never witnessed before, we cannot now afford to have the great cause injured, or its fair fame darkened by a single unworthy incident connected with it. The improper practices of individuals cannot disgrace and degrade the nation, but after these practices are brought to the attention of congress, we shall assuredly be disgraced and degraded if we fail to apply the remedy. Let us, then, in this hour of the national need, do our duty here, our duty to the troops in the field, our duty to our constituents at home, and our country; above all, to our country, whose existence has been in such peril in the past, but whose future of greatness and glory seems now so assured, and so radiant.”
Few utterances of those long, dark years, breathed a spirit of more devoted loyalty than is found even in these few sentences, and they were uttered when they would do the most good, and secure just those re-enforcements that would gladden the hearts of veterans, and hasten the end of the struggle.
Mr. Blaine had a keen eye for fraud, and made it his business to detect it; and he was just fearless enough to hold it up to the light of day. Wherever he unearthed it he would point out the individual, and point his finger at him and say, with a boldness known only to invective and scorn, “Thou art the man!”
He never seemed to take care of his popularity, but of his constituents and of his country. Enemies abounded, and evil, and wrong; and to these he paid effective attention, rightly judging that no course is safer, or accords with fuller satisfaction, than the right course. With him, character was the citadel of strength and influence; and so we find him knowing and trusting himself, reaching for wrong in all of its strongholds.
And there was much to encourage now Sherman had reached the sea; Columbia, S. C., was captured; Charleston was evacuated; the old flag was again flying over Fort Sumter, and Washington’s Birthday was to be celebrated, by order of the secretary of war, E. M. Stanton, by a “national salute at West Point, and at every fort, arsenal, and army head-quarters of the United States, in honor of the event.” This twenty-second day of February was a long, busy day in congress. It was a quarter past five before the House adjourned. Mr. Blaine was in his seat all day long, voting steadily for the right and against the wrong. The conquered states, cut off from the Rebellion and rescued to liberty and lawful authority, were left without government, and must be provided, as Tennessee had been in the person of Andrew Johnson, now vice-president, with provisional governors. Much legislation was requisite. Every man in congress who had ever had any pro-slavery proclivities, was in his place contesting every step of progress with men who had never breathed aught but the air of freedom and known only loyal heart-beats.
One bill granted citizenship to all colored men who had served in the army and navy.
Right royal work, this, for such a man to be doing on a day so sacred; helping into citizenship the colored man, ever loyal, ever true.
This seemed to be the great feature of all the great bills before the House that day. It came up in the bill to encourage enlistments, and the worth and dignity of being an American citizen was held up before the negro as a prize for him to win; as something in store for him in the future; and so as giving to the colored troops, and all who united with them, this personal interest in relation to the government. But it takes time to get such thoughts adjusted to minds struggling with the fact of Emancipation, and so little is done but give the bills a hearing and pass them to another reading. Coming events had cast their shadows before them. It was, however, but the shadow of a passing cloud, and told of a great, bright sun shining in the heavens yonder, which would soon dissipate all clouds and shadows, and the long night of bondage ended, give a glorious day, in which the world might see in the poorest black man of the South an American citizen, possessed of certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
To the happy consummation of a task so grand, whose inspiration comes from that free and holy place where “all are one,” Mr. Blaine had set his hand, only to remove it when the chaplet of America’s proudest, noblest glory was on the black man’s brow.
That life is most divine which is most in line with Providence, and has the most of uplifting power in it, which stands the highest up, and can reach the farthest down, is many-handed in its helpfulness, and strong-handed as well, to unshackle humanity in body, in soul, and in spirit, and tell the fallen or sunken ones how to get upward toward God and heaven.
Opening the gates of heaven means unlocking the gates of earth, and to this latter task the statesmen of the nation stood pledged from that day, since numbered among the nation’s holidays. A close student of Mr. Blaine’s congressional career will be impressed with the fact that it seems planned and determined before-hand. There are no surprises in it. He seems to have determined upon his course before entering it, and gives his strength to certain measures, and does not fritter it away upon every resolve, or amendment, or motion, that happens to be before the House, affecting some far away interest of a day-dreamer.
He recognizes the fact fully that he is one of a great body of men, each one of whom is charged with interests of an important character to their state or district, and many heavily weighted with special and peculiar measures of national importance. These must all have their opportunity. Less than ninety working-days usually comprise the session, and there are but four of these in a congress,--from March to adjournment, and from December to March, and then repeated, constitutes a congressional term, with eight of them in a presidential term, or two a year for the four years. Beside, it takes so long a time to get measures through congress that the successful man finds it necessary to devote himself with great carefulness to the few measures of importance he would have adopted, and become law organic or otherwise.
Very soon after Mr. Blaine entered congress he presented a resolution instructing the Committee on Judiciary to inquire into the expediency of amending the constitution so as to allow congress to levy an export tax. But the session closed, and it is not reported, and now his second session is closing, and still it is not forthcoming. Why not? He will know the reason why! And so there comes a day near the session’s close, only the day before Mr. Lincoln’s second inauguration, when he arises and states “a little grievance.” He states the resolution, its being offered at the last session, and now again at the present session. It had been to the Ways and Means Committee, to which it had been transferred. Evidently he had been ready to grapple with the subject for some time, and proceeded to do so. It involved an amendment to the constitution, and one “essential to the financial success of the government, and to the agricultural, commercial, and manufacturing prosperity of the country in all future time.”
It was stated that the measure would have been presented by the committee, if they had supposed time would have permitted of its consideration. It presented a subject that was discussed at length in the Convention of 1787. The “Madison Papers” give a synopsis of the constitutional debates of that convention, and show that many of the strongest men of that body, the really far-sighted ones, opposed the insertion of the clause prohibiting a tax on exports. The vote was not a very decisive one, nor did its advocacy come from the Southern or “staple states,” and opposition from Northern states.
He proceeds to deliver what is his great speech, if not the great speech of the session. It was probably not over an hour long, but he had not proceeded far before it became apparent that he had thoroughly studied the subject, and was investing it with a new interest.
A great debt of more than two billion eight hundred million was on the nation. Mr. Blaine’s amendment was looking towards its liquidation. It was the wise, strong look far ahead. He saw in it several hundred millions of revenue in the export of cotton, tobacco, and naval stores, without affecting the demand for them, and also in petroleum, and numberless articles, still more of revenue. France was taxing her wines and brandies, and countries having peculiar commodities taxed them.
Cotton which sold in Liverpool at eleven and three-quarters pence per pound in December, 1861, sold for twenty-four and one-half pence per pound in just one year from that date. The three million two hundred thousand bales of five hundred pounds each, this country had exported, were missed there.
“Whoever as secretary of the treasury shall undertake and succeed in paying the debt,” he argues in closing, “must have open to him the three great avenues of taxation, namely, the tariff, the excise system, and the duties on exports, and must be empowered to use each in its appropriate place, by congressional legislation.”
And so he closed the first half of his second congressional year, with the same policy of questions with which he began, aiming still at thoroughness and mastery, still the guiding stars of his history, the moulding powers and the prominent features of his great career.
XII.
CONTINUED WORK IN CONGRESS.
It is Inauguration Day in Washington. Not McClellan,--he is in Europe,--but Lincoln is to be inaugurated. It is a day of wondrous glory to him, and to the nation, but one so oppressed with the cares of state has but little joy in it. There is no retiring president to sign all the tardy bills of an expiring congress. He must do it all, and then go from the realizations of the past to the unknown of the new. There was no instant of rest for him between laying off the armor and putting it on anew.
Of all the many thousand eyes that looked on him that day, none were more brilliant with the look of praise, none gleamed with a soul-light more fervent, none took in the scene with deeper thoughts of the hour or the future, oppressive with interest, than Mr. Blaine.
Little did he dream of twenty years to come. He had thought to scale the centuries as they stood like silent statues in the sombre, shadowy past, and read out the hieroglyphics of their history. But just as the rebellion was broken, shattered, staggering to its fall, and seemed certain, and was scarce hung about with doubt, so now to faith the future is bright and clear, while hope is strong and almost gay with vivid anticipations.
Mr. Blaine was profoundly impressed with the religious character of Abraham Lincoln, as exemplified in the tone of his public documents.
He says: “Throughout the whole period of the war he constantly directed the attention of the nation to dependence on God. It may indeed be doubted whether he omitted this in a single state paper. In every message to congress, in every proclamation to the people, he made it prominent. In July, 1863, after the battle of Gettysburgh, he called upon the people to give thanks because ‘it has pleased Almighty God to hearken to the supplications and prayers of an afflicted people, and to vouchsafe signal and effective victories to the army and navy of the United States,’ and he asked the people ‘to render homage to the Divine Majesty and to invoke the influence of His Holy Spirit to subdue the anger which has produced and so long sustained a needless and cruel rebellion.’”
“On another occasion,” writes Mr. Blaine, “recounting the blessings which had come to the Union, he said: ‘No human counsel hath devised, nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.’ Throughout his entire official career, attended at all times with exacting duty and painful responsibility, he never forgot his own dependence unto the same authority, or the dependence of the people upon a Higher Power.” And then he quotes those words of the great man, uttered reverently to the people assembled in crowds to congratulate him upon the return of peace: “In the midst of your joyous expressions, He from whom all blessings flow must first be remembered.”
His last inaugural, delivered but a little while before this final utterance, was in keeping with it. It was a deeply religious document, referring to no political measure or material interest, and in six days after the people crowd about him, full of joy at the close of the war, the bullet of the assassin is in his brain! What a week was that in which the war closed, and the great Lincoln was murdered! And what a summer was that, when the broken armies came marching home, halting in Washington for the great review!
But a campaign is on Mr. Blaine, and he hurries home. For the third time Samuel Coney is elected governor, and Mr. Blaine has again done his work well. Autumn passes, and he is in his place at the opening of the thirty-ninth congress. With his usual unforgetfulness, he resumes connection with a bill presented by him in the early part of the previous congress, for reimbursing the loyal states for war-expenses in response to the president’s call for troops. His bill is very explicit, and shows that during the long delay he had perfected it in its details. No flaw is found in it, no amendment is made to it, but it is at once referred, upon his motion, to a select committee of seven, and upon his motion he demands the previous question, so that the matter shall be attended to at once. The bill was read a first and second time, and so referred.
Mr. Blaine is of course upon the committee, and by his motion members are added to it, and they are empowered to hire a clerk. What a work to examine and pass upon all the war-debts of the loyal states! A grave question soon makes its appearance in congress. In undoing the legislation of years, enacted in the interests of slavery, they have come to the basis of representation. The slave is not yet a citizen, and if the basis is population and not suffrage, the South will have an immense advantage,--indeed an advantage similar to that enjoyed before the war, when, though slaves were expressly recognized as chattels, and according to the Dred Scott decision, “a black man had no rights a white man was bound to respect,” yet, according to slavery law five of them gave their master three extra votes.
But the ratio of voters to population varied from nineteen to fifty-eight per cent. in different states, as, for example, California had two hundred and seven thousand voters out of a population of three hundred and fifty-eight thousand one hundred and ten, while Vermont had but eighty-seven thousand voters out of a population of three hundred and fourteen thousand three hundred and sixty-nine, and each had three representatives in congress; that is, eighty-seven thousand voters in Vermont sent three congressmen, while two hundred and seven thousand voters in California sent but the same number.
There were more women and children in Vermont, two to one, than in California, and so in the latter state there were more than twice as many voters in the same population.
It was with such arguments as the above,--a mathematical argument, without sophistry, and that cannot be impeached,--that he opposed a constitutional amendment making suffrage and not population the basis of representation, and so reserving an argument to use in framing the citizenship of the freemen.
Mr. Blaine has long been noted for the great rapidity with which he works.
He very soon has an immense report from his committee of nine, to pay the loyal states their war-claims. In it twenty-six states, five territories, and the District of Columbia have their war-claims adjusted, and they are to receive all the way from nine thousand nine hundred and fifty-five dollars, as in the case of the territory of Dakota for enlisting one hundred and eighty-one men, up to twenty million nine hundred and ninety-three thousand two hundred and eighty dollars, as in the case of New York for enlisting three hundred and eighty-one thousand six hundred and ninety-six men; and it is a peculiarity with him to know for himself, by careful computation, the exact truth of the statistics he employs.
One day it so happened that he used the calculations of a distinguished member who was chairman of a prominent committee,--that of ways and means,--and they were called in question; but soon after he was able to affirm publicly that they were correct.
There was such a charm in being right and knowing it, despite all contradiction, that he could not forego the pleasure, the very confidence and self-respect, even at the expense of perplexing effort. A point of order was raised against him one day; his instant reply was, “That point was raised exactly ten years ago and overruled,” and the chair ruled in harmony with his remembrance.
His great love for mathematics, and the position he was in requiring it, he was led to make an extensive study of the history of finance, and in a speech of great length, by which he supported his report to pay the vast war-claims of the loyal states, he clearly shows the wide range of his acquaintance with the subject. He shows great familiarity with the policy and utterances of Alexander Hamilton, his exceeding common-sense methods, which he quotes with so great aptness as to give them the power of living arguments, as he offers them in evidence of the wisdom of his own views and the tenable nature of the positions he has taken.
It was proposed to bring all troops to a three years’ basis, and then refund at the rate of fifty-five dollars a man. Thus, Pennsylvania, with three hundred and sixty-six thousand three hundred and twenty-six men, which, reduced to a three years’ basis, gave two hundred and sixty-seven thousand five hundred and fifty-eight, which at the rate proposed made the claim of that state fourteen million seven hundred and fifteen thousand six hundred and ninety dollars. The Gettysburgh battle alone had cost the state seven hundred thousand dollars, and as for that and other service she had furnished men for a much shorter period than three years, the whole number of men were reduced nearly one hundred thousand to get them all on the three years’ basis.
No question commanded a more wide-spread or deeper attention for years subsequent to the war than the question of money, and it behooved any man with the aspirations of a statesman, to make a long and thorough study of it.
“Reading,” it is said, “makes a full man, speaking a ready man.” He was both reader and speaker, and so proved the truth of the maxim, by being both a full and a ready man; and he never allowed himself to get empty. It was the knowledge of the day, most valuable to him, with which he was filled, as well as that which came from historical research.
It was about this time that, as a member of the committee on military affairs, and while the conduct of the office of provost-marshal general was being investigated, that he had his lively tilt with Mr. Roscoe Conkling, and brought out all of his powers of wit and sarcasm, showing him more than a match for the gentleman. It was undoubtedly the most brilliant intellectual contest of the session. Ex-Governor Morrill says, “It was a pretty lively time, but they were boys then, and probably are better friends to-day, though it is certainly evident they both did their best.”
Consistency in legislation seemed a law with Mr. Blaine, so that the House should not be found contradicting itself on the military functions of the president. Indeed the powers of government are so nicely balanced between the executive and the Senate and House, that great watchfulness is needed that there be no conflict; and new members,--and sometimes old members,--are found transgressing legitimate bounds. For instance, there was a section to a bill that “until the fourth day of July, in the year 1870, all persons who voluntarily adhered to the late insurrection, giving it aid and comfort, shall be excluded from the right to vote for representatives in congress, and for elections for president and vice-president of the United States.” He at once raised the question of bad faith, because on July 17, 1862, they had authorized the president to grant pardon and amnesty to any person, state or part thereof, that was in rebellion.
And to this effect President Lincoln did issue a proclamation, and hundreds, and perhaps thousands of pardons were granted. And in 1865 President Johnson issued his celebrated amnesty proclamation, pardoning all below the military rank of colonel, who had participated in the Rebellion, excepting certain classes.
One thing is clearly manifest in all of Mr. Blaine’s operations in congress,--he thoroughly enjoys it all; he is at home, and feels so constantly. He can trust himself; there is no striving for effect. He never gets lost in depths, nor aground upon shallows. He can fish in deep water, or seine near shore. It is quite noticeable how he will go with the passage of a motion from some minor detail of internal revenue to the gravest questions of constitutional law. It was said once by a great preacher who was pastor of a large church, editor of a large paper, and engaged in writing a book, that he had to live in those three great spheres, transporting himself daily from one to another, as he worked in each. But here were not less than a dozen great departments with which one must be as familiar as with the rooms of his dwelling, and have in possession, living, present, trenchant facts; the latest phases of new, fresh life, and the old and musty as well. For it will not do to blunder in congress; it is blundering before the nation, and before the world. The folks at home will find it out right off, and worst of all _you_ will find it out, and a man will feel so terribly small, and ashamed, and mean, and it will be such desperate hard work to own up, and sit down with all-hands looking straight at you.
It is one of the first matters of congressional courtesy, to let anyone ask you a question. And this is all done so blandly, and in such elegant diction, one is almost charmed by the tones so as scarcely to get hold of the question itself; but that question is like the bee, so bright and beautiful, and musical withal, and yet it has a sting.
What is denominated “brass,” in modern parlance, will not serve one’s purpose. It is at once detected by its sound, and then confusion comes,--it will come, it must come, and brass cannot prevent it.
The present was a long, tedious term, and kept the members well into the summer. The internal-revenue laws must be properly adjusted; the army re-organized; settlers were pouring, by the thousand, and actually by the hundred thousand, into the great region between the Missouri and the Pacific,--so much so that the lieutenant-general urges congress to provide the means requisite for their protection, as a great body of citizens who are filling up the country, rendering it productive, and erecting states; and beside these, a multitude of other things are demanding attention.