814 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD. FEnnuAl~Y 2, 

nn extension of his patent on harvesting-rakes, to the Committee on Patents. 

Dy 1\lr. FARWELL: The petitions of N. T. Quarles and George 

Kerr, for property destroyed by fire in a United States hospital, to 

the Committee of Claims. 

By Mr. GAUSE : The petition of Eli T. Diamond, for a reconsideration of his claim, disallowed by the claims commission, to the Committee on War Claims. 

Dy Mr. HANCOCK: The petition of J. E. Wilson, for relief, to the 

Committee on Claims. 

Dy ~lr. HATHORN: The petition of citizens of Spraker's Ba-sin, of 

Johnstown, of Canajoharie, of Saratoga, of Schuylersville, of Mechanic ·ville, of Fort Plain, of North ville, of Broadalbin, and of Waterford, for the repe::JJ of the stamp tn.x on safety matches, to the Committee of Ways and Means. . By Mr. HOPKINS: Papers relating to the claim of Nicholas J. Bierley, for compensation for coal and steam-tug used by the United State~ to the Committee on War Claims. ' 

By 1\lr. HOUSE: Papers relating to the claims of Alfred Fly n.nd 

Duncan Marr, to the same committee. Also, pn.pers relating no the petition of Reinhart Breinn·eiss and 

others, for r elief, to the same committee. 

By Mr. HUNTON: The petition of Benjn.min Chambers, for additional compensation for executing a contract to build a screw-pile 

light-house at the entrn.nce of Hampton Ro3.ds Harbor, to the Committee of Claims. 

By Mr. LEVY: The petition of Marie Elina Metoyer and ot.hers 

for compensn.tion for property taken and used by the United State~ Army, to the Committee on War Claims. 

By Mr. L UTTRJ?LL :. Resolutions of Cal usa Grange of the Patrons 

of Husbandry, Califorma, for the repeal of the duty· on grain sacks 

and bagging, to the Committee of Ways and Means. 

By 1\lr. MACKEY, oi South Carolinn.: The petition of citizens of 

Charleston, South Carolinn., for the repeal of the stamp tax on safety 

matches, to tbe same committee. 

By Mr. McDILL: Parers relating to the application for a pension 

l>y Nathan Johnson, to the Committee on Revolutionary Pensions. 

By l\Ir. O'BRIEN: Papers relating to the claim of James Millinger 

to the Committee on War Claims. ' 

Dy Mr. PARSO...~S: Papers relating to the claim of J. B. Fishback 

for pay for services as gnide and detective for the Unit.ed States Army 

in Kentucky ancl Ea t Tennessee, to the same committee. By Mr. PIPER: The petition of citizens of San Francisco California, for the repeal of the stamp tax on safety matches, to the Committee of Ways and Means. By Mr. PIERCE: Two petitions of citizens of Boston, Massachusetts 

of similar import, to the same committee. ' 

By Mr. ROBBINS, of Pennsylvania: The petition of citizens of 

Philadelphia, Pennsy]yania, for :tid to be extended the Southern Pacific Railroad, to the Committee on the Pacific Railroad. 

Also, the petition of Elizabeth McCluney, for a pension, to the Committee on Invalid Pensions. 

By MT. ROSS, of New J ersey : The petitions of citizens of Freehold • and of Plainfield, New Jersey, for the repeal of the stn.mp tn.x ou safety 

mn.tches, to the Committee of Ways and Means. 

By Mr. SAVAGE: The petition of citizens of Oxford, Ohio of similn.r import, to tbo same committee. ' 

By 1\lr. SWANN: The petition of citizens of Baltimore, Maryland 

of s1miln.r import, to the s:tme committee. '. By Mr. STOWELL: Papers relating to the claim of Colonel John 

C. Lemmons, to tlle Committee on Military Affairs. ·By Mr. THORNBURGH: The petition of A. P. Rambo, for relief 

to tlle same committee. ' 

By Mr. THROCKMORTON: The petition of United States Army 

officers at Fort Griffin, Texas, and citizens of Shackelford Eastland 

and Worth Counties, Texn.s, for a post-route from Steph~nsville ~ Fort Griffin, to the Committee on the Post-Office and Post-Roads. 

Also, tlle petitions of citizens of the United Stat.es, for the repeal of 

the stamp tax on safety matches, to the Committee of Ways and 

Means. 

By Mr. VANCE, of North Carolina: The petition of Thoma-s l\fitche11, for an extension of his patent on hair-brush handles, to the Committee on Patents. By Mr. WADDELL: The petitions of citizensofWilmincrton and of 

New Berne, for the repeal of the stamp tax on safety mat.ilies, to the 

Committee of Ways n.nd l\fen.ns. 

Also, the petitions of Shade Pate and John A. Williams, for a re- hearing of their claims rejected by the claims commission, to the Committee on War Claims. 

By 1\lr. WALLING: The petition of Robert Y. Wood, of similar import., to the same committee. 

By Mr. A. S. WILLIAMS: The petition of D. W. Brooks and Louis 

~· Gills~m, for a change o~ the law rela~ing to attorneys' fees in pen- Sion clmms, to tho Committee on Invalid Pensions. 

By Mr. YOUNG: The petitions of Nancy Seawricrbt Needham 

llranch, Mathia-s A~p, Mrs. E. G. Abbott, Henry C. Dollis' James G. ~foore, :Francis MaJitor, Willin.m McKnight, Mary E. McG~egor, Z. C. 

Nolen, Thomn.s T. Somerville, Henry 0. Syke n.nd Robert Talley for a rehearing of their claims rejected by the cl~ims commission td the 

Committee on War Claims. ' 

IN SENATE. · 

WEDNESDAY, February 2, 1876. 

Prayer by the Chaplain, Rev. BYRON SUNDERI..A.ND, D. D. 

The Journal of yesterday's proceedings was read and approved. 

EXECUTIVE CmiM1Th'ICATION. 

The PRESIDENT pro tempore laid before the Senate a letter of the 

Secretary of War, transmitting the petition of Benjamin C. Card 

praying tJ;tat the date of his commis ion as major n.nd quartermas!.e; m the Umted States Army be corrected; which was referred to tho 

Committee on Militn.ry Affairs, and ordered to be printed. 

PETITIONS AND IEM:ORIALS. 

Mr. INGALLS presented a petition of the count.y commissioners and 

various other officers of Johnson County, in the State of Ka.n as praying for ~ction thn.t ~ll s~ttl~ the titles to that portion of th~ Shawnee Indian reservatiOn lym~ m that county;. which wa referreu 

to the Committee on Indian Affaus. 

He ~lso prese~ted t~e petition of citizens of Kan as, praying for the 

establishment of a mail-route from Ellis, Kan a , to Orlean Nebraska; which wa-s referred to the Committee on Post-Office a~d ;po tRoads. 

Mr. WALLACE presented the petition of Jollu S. McMilla.n of 

Pennsylvania, praying compensation for extrahn.zardous service ~nd for coufirmatiou of an award heretofore made; which was referred 

to the Committee on Claims. 

Mr. KERNAN pre ented the petition of R.N. Eu<ly, late lieutenn.nt 

of the On~ hnnd.red anu fourteenth Regiment of New York Volunteers, prayrng the pttBStlge of an act for his relief; w bich was referr d 

to the Committee on Military Affuirs. 

Mr. CAMERON, of Wisconsin, pre entecl the petition of 2.')0 citizens 

of Winnebago County, Wi cousin, prayin~; for an appropriation for 

the peedy co_mpletion of the Fox River Improvement, anu also for 

the construction of a canal along the banks of the Wi cousin River fr~m1 Portage City, Wisconsiu, to the Missi ippi River~ in accordanc 

w1th the thiru plan rec~mmendetl to the Government by MnJor-General Wan·en, of the Umted States Engineer Corps; which wa-s re- ferred to the Committee on Commerce. 

Mr. SHERMAN. I present a number of petitions of residents of 

Cleveland, Ohio, praying an early repeal of so much of the act of 

Congress approved J n.nuary 14, 1 75, as provides for the pavment of 

United States legal-tender notes in coin upon the 1st day of January 

1879, and so much of the said act as n.uthorizes t.he e01·etn.ry of th~ Treasury to sell and dispose of the bonds of the United State for the 

purpose of enabling him to redeem ncb legal-tender notes· and representing t~at _in their judgment the existing law will be disa Lrous 

to the leading mt.erests of the country. While I do not acrree with 

the request of these petitioners, I know many of them to b~ of high 

character, whose views are worthy of considera-tion. I move that 

these petitions be referred to tlle Committee on J<'inance. The motion was agreed to. 

Mr. ENGLISH presented a pet.ition of H . Killam & Co., and 170 

other citizens of New Haveu, Connecticut, praying for the issue of 

fifty-year 3.65 gold-bearing bonds; which was referred to the Committee on Finance. 

Mr. McMILLAN pre ented a joint resolution of the Lerrislature of 

the State of Minnesot.a, requestJug the same modifications 00f the laws 

of the United States for the ports of Saint Pn.ul and DuLuth a are now exten.ded to other ports in varioru; States; which was referred t.o 

the Comrmttee on Commerce, and ordered to be printed in the RECORD a-s follows: ' 

Whereas the vexa?ons delays and expenses incident to tho appraisal of foreign goods at the Atlantic ports of the United States, moro especially at the port of N~~ York, have ~reventeU tho proper development of tbelE gitimate trade apper- tainmg to the designated ports of entry and delivery of t.bo Stato of Minnesota., 

which embargo has been ouviaterl b;v sta.tut-e enactment of tho Unitecl States so far as the ports of Evansville, (lnd1ana.,) Milwaukee, (Wisconsin,) &c., are ~on­ earned: Therefore, 

Be it resolved by the L egislature of the State of Minnesota That tho Senators aml Repre entatives.in the Con~ s of the United States fro~ tbe State of Minnesota be_r~uested to nrge a mo~ca.tion of the law of tho United Stat , so that the • pnV1leges accorded to certain ·enumerated ports in the various tates by sections 2990. 2991, and 2997, Rensed Statutes of the United t.a.tes be extt~nd d tO the ports of Saint Pa.ul and Du Loth in this State. ' 

Resolvedfu.rther, That the secretary of state be requested to forward a copy of 

these resolutions to each of onr Senators and Representatives in Congr s. 

Approved January 25, A.. D. 1876. 

W. R. KINYON, 

Spt!.aker of tlte House of Representatives. 

J. B. W .A.KE.FIELD. 

President of the Se-nate. 

J . S. PILLSBURY, 

Governor. 

STATE OF M!NNE OTA, 

OFFICE OF THE S.ECRE1'ARY OF STATE. 

~ certify the foregoing to be a true and coiTOOt copy of the original on file in this 

office. 

Witness my hand and tbe great soal of the State, this 27th day of January, .A. D. 1876. J. S. IRGENS, Secretary of State. 

Mr. Mc~HLLAN. I uesire to give notice that to-morro.w, or some early <lay, I shall introdn e a bill in pursuance of tho request of tbe 

Legislatme of Minnesota. 
1876. CONGRESSIONAL RECORD. 815 

REPORTS OF COMMI'l'TEES. 

Mr. WRIGHT, from the Committee on Claims, to whom was referred 

the memorial of the Legislature of Arkansas in favor of the passage 

of a law authorizing the:, district attorney of the United States fur 

the- eMtern district of .A.rkausas to investigate and settle on legal~md 

equitable terms, under the di.rection of the Solicitor of the Treasury, 

the account between the United States and the sureties of the late 

Peter T. Crutchfield, of Little Rock, A.rk:tnsas, formerly Unit.ed States 

designated depositary at that place, Mked to be discharged from its 

ftuther con idera.tion; which was agreed to. 

Mr . .ALLISON, from the Comrnitte.e on Indian Affairs, to whom wM 

referred the bill ( S. No. 361) to provide for the payment of claims for 

Indian depredations, Mked to ue discharged from its further consideration, and that it be referred to the Committee on Appropriations; 

which was agreed to. BILL INTRODUCED. 

Mr. LOGAN asked, and by unanimous consent obtained, leave to introduce a bill (S. No. 394) to amend an act entitled "An act to provide for furnishing trusses to disabled soldiers," approved May 28, 

1872; which was read twice uy its title, referred to the Committee on :Military Affairs, and ordered to be printed. 

PAPERS WITHDRAWN AND REFERRED. 

On motion of Mr. McCREERY, it was 

OrdBTed~ That the petition and papers in the case of Ben Alsop be taken from 

the files or the Senate and referred to the Committee on Pensions. 

PUBLIC LANDS~ SOUTHER~ STATES. 

Mr. CLAYTON. In accordance with the notice given last Thursday I ask the Senate to proceed to the consideration of Senate bill 

No.2, to repeal section 2303 of the Revised Statutes of the United 

States, making restrictions in the disposition of the public lands in 

the States of Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Florida. 

By unanimous consent, the Senate, as in Committee of the Whole, 

proceeded to consider the bill. It repeals sect-ion 2303 of the Revised 

Statutes of t.he United States, confining the disposal of the public 

lands in the States of Alabama, Mi sissippi, Lonisiann, Arkansas, and 

Florida to the provisions of tile homest.ead law. 

Mr. CLAYTON. Mr. President, it is hardly to be expected that a uill of this character, which does not bear upon its face its full pnrpo es, can be passed this mornin~ without some explanation. I will 

therefore a k the attention of tne Sen11te for a short time for that 

purpose. 

Prior to June 21, 1866, the land laws of the United States were of a general nature, applying to tho citizens of all the States and Territories alike. On that day Congress passed an act of a special nature, 

whereby the citizens of Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, 

ancl Florida, :tnd such other citizens as might desire to enter the public lands in those States, were restricted in doing so to the provisions 

of the homestead laws; or, in other words, they were denied the privileges and benefits of all the other L-oud laws of the United States 

under the liberal provisions of which other citizens were allowed to 

purcha efrom the public domain. These restrictions are still in force, 

and are contained in ection 2303 of the Revised Statutes of the United 

States, which reads as follows: · 

.All the public lands in the States of Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, .Arkansas, 

and Florida shall be disposed of in no other manner than according to the terma and stipulations contained in the preceding provisions of this chapter. 

The preceding provisions referred to in this section is that portionoftheRevisedStatutes which embraces the homestead legislation 

in force when the act of 1 66 was passed and which bad not been 

repealed up to the time of tho revision. The object of this bill is simply 

to repeal this section, and thus restore the public lands in the States 

therein enumerated to the same condition of the other public lands, 

and to the citizens of those St:ttes the same privileges accorded to 

other citizens by the land laws of the United States. The question ha-s arisen in my mind, and doubtless will arise in. the 

minds of other Sen..'ttors, why these restrictions were imposed in the 

fu·st place. To that I cannot give a satisfactory answer, but have been 

told by a gentleman who participated in the legislation that its purpose was to more effectu~tlly secure homes from the public lands in the 

States r~ferred to, to the freedmen. Why the public lands in these 

particular States, so notoriously barren and rinfit for farming purposes, should have been selected for restriction while such vast areas of fertile Government lands in other portions of the country were ex- cluded, I cannot understand. Why Arkansas anu not ~iissouri 'f If it was for the benefit of t.L.e freedmen, there were freedmen in the 

latter State as well as the former. I can only account for it, 11Ir. 

President, upon presumption that, there being no one in Congress at 

that time to represent these five States, the unequal bearing of the 

law was not brought to the attention of Congress; out be that as it 

may, n<? matter what the reMons may have been at that time, !think 

I can safely assert that no good reason exists now why this provision 

of law so unequal in its application should longer continue in force, 

but npon the other hand I think I can give several good reasons why 

it should not. 

Mr. PresiUont, all congressional legislation which deprives the citiz-ens of ono State from tho exercise of privileges which the citizens 

of other States under similar circumstances are permitted to eujoy 

is vicious. I think that proposition needs only to be stated in this 

Chamber to be accepted as an axiom of government. And yet section 

2303 of the Revised Statutes does that very thing1 as I shall proceed 

to show. 1\fr. MITCHELL. I should like to ask the Senator from Arkansas a quest,ion, with his permission. 

Mr. CLAYTON. Certainly . . .Mr. MITCHELL. 1 ask whether the Senn,tor understands that 

under the existing law no title can be acquired to any public lands in 

the States of Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Florida 

except under the provisions of the homestead act Y 

Mr. CLAYTON. I understand that to be so, and it is so. I think 

I can safely say that no lanrur can be acquired in those States except 

under the provisions of the homestead law. Take the case of a citizen 

living in .Missouri, say five hundred yards north of the line dividing 

Arkansas from that State. If be desires to add a tract of Government land to his farm, if that land bas before been offered for ale, he can do so by going to a local land office and paying a doJ.la,r and a q uar- ter an acre for it; while his neighbor, living just south of the A.rkausa.s 

line, who desires to do the same thing under the same circumstances, 

is debarred fTom doing so by the operation of this law. 

I will put a case entirely free from any agricultural features. A 

citizen of Missouri who has found a tract of Government land valuable for its timber only, upon which he. may desire to erect a mill fo1· 

the manufacture of lumuer or wooden ware, can purchase that tract 

by applying at the land office, as before stated; but if his neighbor in 

Arkansas, under similar circumstances, desires to engage in the same laudable pursuit he is estopped by the law we now seek to repeal. 

But these are not the only restrictions that bear unfavorably upon 

the citizens of those States. Citizens outside of those particular five 

States who may be the holders of soldiers' land warrants, agricultural 

scrip, or any of the other scrip issued by the Government and made re- ceivablefortbepurchaseofpubliclands,maylocatethosewarrantsand 

scrips upon any of the public lands outside of these States which have 

heretofore been offered for sale, while citizens in these five States 

who may be similar holders of this class of warrants and scrip must 

either sell them to speculators or they must abandon their own States 

and go into other States more favored by the law. These statements 

which I have made indicate how individual hardship may arise under 

this law. I will now try to show how the States themselves are affected by it. And here I will say that these five States are comparatively old States of this Union, and these lands in question have been 

in the market for upward of fifty years. During all that time they 

have been subjected to the different land laws enacted from time to 

time; amono- others, to the operations of the graduation act. 

So you wi~l see, :Mr. President, that lands which hn,ve been in the 

market without a purchaser for fifty years, and which in 1860 could 

not find a purchaser at the low sum of twelve and a half cents an acre, are not that class of lands which settlers are looking for to make 

homes on. The fact is, as Senators in this Chamber can attest who are familiar with the character of these la.nds, that nine-tenths of 

them are unfit for agricultural purposes. They are only valuable for 

the timber upon thorn. · · . Mr. President, it is a wise provision of Providence that ha-s reserved 

certain portions of t,he earth's surface to the exclusive growth of timber. Were that not so, man in his near-sightedness would destroy 

the equilibrium existing between the agricultural and the timber re- sources. These lands in question are timber lands, and must always 

remain so. I know this is especially so of those located in Arkansas. 

I will here state that the aren, of timbered lands in that State held by 

the General Government, and the bulk of which must be held forever 

if the Government waite for men to make farms on them, amounts to 

one-fourth of the entire area of that State. 

Itiswell known, Mr. President, that in some of the Western States 

the value of timber products is very great-take your own State, for 

instance, the State of Michigan. In that State the value of the lumber 

product amounts to nearly one-half of the entire products arising from 

agriculture, including stock. Now, what would be thought in that 

State of a policy which would shut out this vast field of productive 

labor and hold it in the Government T The people of that State 

would naturally complain loudly and justly. 

Mr. President, what we Mk is that the same privilege to develop 

these timber resources be accorded to these five States that is accorded 

to the other States of the Union. Arkansas is a timber State, as I 

before said. It lies on the eastern boundary of that vast prairie re- gion which exten.ds to the Pacific Ocean. 'fhat country is fMt filling 

up with settlers. They want our timber, and we would gladly supply them with it. 

Mr. MORTON. I will ask the Senator if there is any quantity of 

the public land in Arkansas that is of such a character that it would 

be likely to be taken up by homestead settlers'f 

11Ir. CLAYTON. I b~tve said that the public lands which have been 

left :tfter fifty ye!trs of culling out on the part of settlers, and which 

have been offered at twelve and a half cents an acre, are not of that 

character which are capable of agriculture; and this accounts for the 

fact that the colored men have not settled on these lands. The colored men of the South have been raised to agricultural pursuits; they 

know the value of good lands as well as white men do, and they are not foolish euongh to spend their hard earnings in the vain attempt 

to make productive uy tillage lands which are utterly unproductive 

except for the growth of timber. Hence they have not availed them-
816 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD. FEBRUARY 2, 

selves to any extent of the privileges of this homestead law, for the 

simple reason that there are no lands left in those States which offer 

inducements for them to settle upon. 

What we ask, Mr. Pre ident, is that the people of Arkansas, of .Alab:una, of :Mississippi, of Louisiana, and of Florida may have the privilege 

of developing the timber resources in their States ~he same as other 

\Vestern States have. - The only argument that I have heard against 

the pas age of thiB bill i!! that if you remove these restrictions specu- lators will rush in and purcha-se the _lands in large bodies. I do not 

think that is a clanger that exi ts to any alarming extent. But suppose 

they should do so, what then T In the first place, they must pay into 

the Treasury of the United States the v&lue of the lands, and it is not 

to be denied that the Treasury is sorely in need of the money. In the 

second place, they must pay every year into the treasury of the States 

the taxes levied upon these lands, and I regret to say that taxation 

in those States is very heavy, a,nd that the State trea.surieE! are very 

much in need of the money. 

1th'. NORWOOD. What i8 the Government price of the lands f 

1tfi. CLAYTON. - One dollar and twenty-five cents an acre. The 

worst that could ari e would be the danger of individuals holding 

these lands out of the market. Suppose they do; that is the very 

thing the General Governme11t is doing to-day. The passage of this 

bill will add to the wealth of the citizens of the States; furnish productive labor to their citizens; bring immigration to these States; 

open up a means of supplying the vast prairie land west of us with 

lumber, and allow the States the privilege of levying a tax on these 

lands, which are now of no benefit to them. but rather an obstacle in 

the way of their development. 

Mr. MAXEY. Will the Senator from Arkansas permit me to interrupt him Y 

lli. CLAYTON. Certainly. 

lli. MAXEY. I understand him to state, first, tha,t these lands under 

the present public land laws can only be entered under the homestead lawY 

1\fi. CLAYTON. That is so. Mr. MAXEY. And, second; that very much the larger part of these 

lands are wholly unfit for homestead purposes f ·1\fi. CLAYTON. That is so. 1th'. MAXEY. And, third, that these lands cannot be absorbed by 

la,nu warrants or any other va,lid claini f 

Mr. CLAYTON. ;fhey cannot, except under the homestead act. 

Mr. MAXEY. The Government, therefore, is subject to have the 

timber on thE\ ~ l:1ntls depredated upon, because they are not fit for 

home t ad pmposes and cannot be used for other purposes. 

Mr. CLAYTO-N. I was going to come to that idea. As I before said, 

the only argument against removing these restrictions that I have 

beard is that specnln.tors may come in and buy up these lands in 

large bodies. Then I say in that event, which is the worst view of 

the case, they will have to pay into the Treasury of the United States 

the money n.nd the Go ernment gets the benefit of that. 

Mr. SH8RMAN. How much an acre Y · lli. CLAYTON. One dolla,r and twenty-five cents an a-ore. They 

will have to pay into the State treasury every year taxes on the lands, - a,nd the State gets the benefit of that, and its citizens to this ex- tent are correspondingly relieved from taxation. If they hold them 

from market, they will only be doing that which the Government is now doing. Now suppose these restrictions are not removed, what 

tben Y The Government gets no benefit from the lands. The State 

gets no benefit from them, but they are a hinderance in the way of de- -velopment. The citizen who is seeking for a homestead gets no benefit from the lands because they axe unfit for agricultural purposes. 

The yearly fires that sweep over these timber lands and are so destructive, will continue to destroy them, and dishonest men will con- tinue to depredate upon them without paying anything to the Government for them. It is well known that Government property of this 

character receives le s attention than individual property; for what 

is everybody's .business is no body's business. Let these lands go into 

the hands of individuals and they will have an interest to prevent the 

destruction of the timber by fire and otherwise. 

Mr. JONES, of Florida. Mr. President, the State which I have the 

honor in part to represent is very deeply intere ted in this measure. It seems to me to be entirely just and proper. All that has been said 

by the Senator from Arkansas meets with my entire approbation. I 

have seen something of the practical working o.f the present law. 

There is no State, perhaps, now subject to tllat law that can display 

the want of wisdom in it more than my own. This law was professedly 

enactetl to tie up the public lands in certain States for tho purpose of 

giving to the freedmen of the South the privilege of settlin~ upon 

tlJem by homestead entry. Now, how has this law operatedT The 

land which belong to the Government of the United States in the 

Stat.e of Florida are barren. But a, small portion of the public lands 

there i fit for cultiv:ttion. This is certainly true of my section of the 

St.'l.tewhich is the chief lumber region of the South. There is hardly 

a,n u.cre that is fit for the purpose of cultivn.tio:q in West Florida. 

Under the present law no title can be obtained inside of five years. Our country there is filling up with enterprising gentlemen from the 

North a.nd from the East and from the \Vest, gentlemen who have 

been reared in ihe lumber business, who are acquainted with it; and we feel a very decided interest in the development of this great interest in our State. It is very natural for that class of people to desire 

to purchase these lands. They are only va.luable for timb r purpose ; 

and under the present system the trespasser and the trespa ser alone 

ha tho advantage. The hone t man cannot go into the market antl 

buy them. He who desires to make a permanent settlement cannot 

go there and ~et a title at once, but he has to sit down five years and ta~e all ~he nsks and con~ingencies incident to ~fe before he can :tcqrure a ~J.tle to any ln.nd rn those States. ·That IS not caloula.tetl to 

build up a State. In order to facilitate improvement anu immigration we must have a system by which the ettler can obtain at once a title to the land. It is folly for gentlemen to say that thiB law of 1 G6 was intended to facilitate settlements when we know by its working 

that it has been the greatest obstacle to settlements that we have hatl 

to contend with. 

Sir, it is well known to gentlemen on this :floor who como from my 

section of the country that the colored people of the onth have 

changed not their original domicile from wher they were a,t tbe time 

of their emancipation. They were fpunu at that ime, we know, 

occupying the large productive regions of the South~ they were on the lax~e plantations, and they are there yet, and if you will just 

take a look at the statistics of my OWll State. you will find that the 

entire votin~ colored population of that State is to be found in as many counties as you can enumerate on the finger of your hantl. 

Therefore all the vast unappropria,teu hnus belonging to the Government are not in tho e counties; they are too poor for these people to 

cultivate them, and they will not cultivate them. They will not go 

into tho pine regions; they prefer to remain in the large, wealthy, rich 

counties, and to lease lands there rather than to go down into the piny 

woods and uae mechanical methods of improving the soil. They will 

not do that, and hence all this vast region is lying there at the mercy 

of depreuators and trespa ers. The Government is getting no advantage whatever from it, and hone t people are prevented from acquiring it in an honest way. 

The returns of the land offices show how this law has worked. I 

read the other day a report, I think from one of the local land offices 

in Louisia:ija., in which it was stated that this law had a vm·y bad 

effect upon the settlement of the public lands in that State, anu the 

officer in charge of the office there urged the Commjssioner to u eovery 

effort in his power to bring about its repeal. So far as the State of 

Florida is concerned, I have thiB to say in regaxd to the injo tice of 

this law: When Florida was admitted to the Union in 1845 she macle a compact with the General Government irr regarcl to tho public lanu 

of that State. The act admitting her into the Union provided that 

the State should relinquish forever its right to tax the public lantls 

there, provided the Government would agree to pay to the ta,te 5 

per cent. of the net proceeds of the sales of tho eland, to be appropriated for school purposes. I take the ground that this Governmont 

ha,g violated its compact by withdrawing the entire botly of the public lands from sale, antl saying to the State, " -The uisposition of them 

onder the homestead law is no sale which will entitle you to claim 

the fund." I will say here, 1tfi. Pre ident, that I have very high au- thority for the assertion that when the General Government becomes a landed proprietor she has no right to claim that her lands shall be 

exempt from taxation by the States unles those lands are set off for some of the objects and purpose de cribed in the Constitution. This, 

sir, was the opinion of Mr. Sumner, expressed many years ago in dobate here, that every foot of public lantls owned by the Geneml Government within the States of this Union wa, on principle o law and 

equity, liable to be taxed for the support of the local institutions and 

governments of the States; and, if thiB were not so, why was it i;ha.t 

in almost every act of admission by which the new States were atlmitted into the Union it was required as a condition to their admission that they should relinquish their right of taxation Y It wonlu 

have been folly to ask for a relinquishment of that which did not 

oxist. The Government in nearly every ca. e requiretl that when a State asked for admission into the Union she hould give upthisgr a,t 

power of taxation so far a-s it mi&_ht be sought to apply it to the public 

domain of the United States. ln the case of Florida this language was used in th~ act of admission : 

That in consideration of the concessions made by the State of Florida. in :re pect to the public lands, there be granted to the said Sta.te eiaht entire sections of land 

for the purpose of fixing their seat of government; also, section No. 16 in very township, or other lands equivalent thereto, for the use of the inhabitants of such 

township, for the support of public schools; also, two entire town hips of lund, in 

addition to the t.wo townships already reserved, for the u e of two seminaries of 

learning-one to be located east, a.nd the other west of tho Suwannee River; also 

5 per cent. of the net proceeds of the sale of lands within said State, which h<ill 

be hereaft.er sold by Congress, after deducting all eA"}Jenses inchlent to the srun ; a.ud which said net procOOds shall be applied by saicl State for the purposes of 

educ3tion. 

What did Florida do to call for this stipulation on the paxt of tho 

General Government 7 

Said State of Florida shall embrace the territories of East and W e t Florida, 

which, by the treaty of amity, settlement, and limits between the United tates and Spain, on the 22d day of February, 1819, we1·e ceded to the United S£a.te . 

* * * • * * * 

Said Stat.es of Iowa and Florida are admittell into the Union on the expr ss con- dition that they shall never int~rfere with the primary disposal of the pulllic:lanlls lving within them, nor levy any tax on the same while remuiu:ing the property of 

th0 United States. 

"In consideration of the conces ions made by the State of Floriua." 

Can the lauguage of compact be more explicit than that, recognizi!:!g 
1876. CONGRESSIONAL RECORD. 817 

t.he right of the State to relinquish this powerf The General Government says that, in consideration of the concessions made by the 

Sbte, it hereby pledges to her 5 per centum of the proceeds of the 

sale of public lands in that State. How has this compact been kept f 

It is indicated by the law on your statute-book, by withdrawing every acre of public land there from sale and requiring that if it be disposed of at all it can only be done under the terms of the homestead law; and when we go to-day to the Department and ask for 

the 5 per cent. which the compact guarantees, we are told that tllis 

is not a sale. I say that this would not be creditable in the case of 

individuals. Here is a solemn undertaking on the part of the Government which I ask yon to fnl:fill by restoring these lands to market 

and putting them upon the same footing as the L'mds of the great 

West stand to-day. 

The duties and bmdens of these State governments with regard to 

education are yery great, and nothing can b'e more appropriate than 

that this Sbte and the others should have the benefit of this com- pact and this fund for building up and sustai uing a school system there. 

I have beard nothing said aga.inst tills bill wbi~h ought in my opinion to prevent its rece.i.ving the sanction of this body. Look at Florida, with a territorial area grea.ter than t.he State of New York, and only 

187,000 inhabitants. Will you tell me that there is not room there for 

the operation of the pre-emption system and every other system which 

is calculated to build up a State¥ These lands will lie there forever, as the Senator from Arkansas has said, unless they are cut loose from 

the present law and the same principles of entry and acquisition be 

extended to them that now apply to the other land States of the 

Union. 

Mr. EDMUNDS. Mr. President, I rememb~r very well when the 

act passed which it is now propo ed to repeal, and I believe it wa-s universally thought in Congress at that time that we were makin(J' a very wise and beneficent measure for the great body of the people, 

particularly the colored people, in those five States where there wa-s a great deal of unappropriated public land and a very large proportion of colored population who wo~d wish to get homesteads and 

who had no money to buy by pre-emption or at public sales; for the 

substance of this section which it is now proposed to repeal simply 

is, taking it in its connection with the context, that in those five 

States situated in that way with large amounts of public lands, timbered and fertile, as well as barren in some phces, of course there was a very lar~e proportion of the population desirous of obtaining homesteads, whlch it would be for the interest of the Government in every 

point of view that they should do. This act provided that they could 

obtain these lands in small bodies by homestead settlements, and that 

they should not be crowded out by having public sales and then preemption rights under which the whole body of these lands might fall 

at· a very cheap price into the hands of large holders, sometimes called 

speculators, and others, and thus deprive the poor and weak populations of these States of the benefit of the homestead laws. That was the philosophy upon which this act passed; andirememberitstrnck me at the time, as it evidently did a majority of both Houses of Congress, as being a most beneficent and humane measure. Now, it is proposed to repeal it, and to turn what thore is left of 

the public lands in these States over to the common effe·ct of the statutes preva.ili.ng in other States about the disposition of public lands, 

1mder which, as we all know, much injury ha-s been done to the States 

of the great West, as they have been very properly called, by speculators getting hold of large tracts of land, to say nothing of grants to 

corporations of large tracts, who hold them in one form or another 

much longer, it may be, than the statute intended they should, in 

restraining immigration and stopping the filling up of good lands 

with settlers. 

This law as it stands simply does not open to sale at a dollar and a quarter an acre these fertile lands and these lands covered with 

timber which are worth, really, by and by, a great deal more, as timber 'is growing scarcer and scarcer in this country, to purchasers who, 

buying at public sale, can buy in unlimited quantities, locate bountyland warrants upon them, and all the thousand ways that are known 

to northern and westocn people of, as they say, out West, "scooping" 

-=I believe that is the expression-large bodies of land, and then 

holding them for a rise, for speculative purposes. That sort of thing 

does not do the community in which the lands are any sort of good; 

it does not do the public any good, because t.be actual amount of rev- enue derived from these public sales is of course very small. The 

dollar and a qnartar an acre is all that is ever given at an auction, as a general rule, though there may be exceptions. 

It appears to me that we ought to consider very seriously the bearings that it may have, before we enter on this legislation. I have not 

noticed any petitiom presented from the poor people or other people 

of these five States, representing that this law works a hardship to 

their home interests in exclnding speculators and inviting homestead 

settlers upon these lands. I know it has been suggested that the 

timber upon these lands is being carried off by thieves. Well, the 

timber will be carried off by thieves just as fast with this new law as it will as the law now stands. I take it the timber thief, as he is 

called, would be just as willing, unless he was a very patriotic man, 

to take timber from the la,nd of a private owner who lived somewhere 

else ashe would from Government land. But I do not p~t large reli- ance upon the extent to which these Government lands are being denuded of their timber by the wrongful intrusion of trespassers. UnIV-52 

doubtedly, if yon were to aggregate. it all together, a good deal of 

timber would have been lost ; but if in any particular locality that 

sort of thing is carried on to any extent, then it is high time we have an inquiry into the character and behavior of the officers who administer ju tice and execute the laws of the United Stated in such quarters. The penalties for taking timber without authority of law from 

the public lands are ready aml are sufficiently severe, and the Government provides the machinery for enforcing those penalties by 

grand juries, by marshals, by district attorneys, by judges, by all the 

machinery of protective and retributory justice; and therefore, if, in 

any of these States this timber-thieving really amounts to any noticeable quantity, certainly it either ought to be prosecuted or we ·ought 

to have some officers who would prosecute it and stop it. 

But apart from that, Mr. President, I think we ought to make haste 

slowly in taking these lands, as in substance we do, away from the 

homestead people, who, from their previous want of education and 

knowledge of the affairs of this world, must emerge slowly from their 

unhappy condition, and putting them in a posture where, when they 

begin g:radually to go forward and take up their little homesteads, 

they shall find that all the land which is good for anything is owned 

by some Vermonter or New Yorker or somebody who has bought it 

for a speculation. 

I move, therefore, as the subject has now been opened for our con- sideration, that the bill be postponed until to-mox:row, in order that we may.have ruther time to reflect upon it. 

The PRESIDENT pro te7npm·e. The Senator from Vermont moves the postponement of this bill until to-morrow. 

Mr. CLAYTON. Of course I do not want to deprive Senators of an opportunity of inspecting this bill. I want to say, though, a few 

words in answer to what has been said by the Senator from Vermont. 

He says no person has petitioned here for the passage of this bill. I 

will say that at the last session of Congress the House of Representatives passed a bill which, among other provisions, provided for the 

repeal of this section of the Revised Sta tntes. That bill was sent here 

and went to the Committee on Public Lands. The Committee on Public Lands reported back a substitute for the bill, and that substitute had in it this very provision for the repeal of this section. While 

the Senator from Vermont may not have heard of petitions for the 

repeal of this law, on the other hand no person from the South has 

petitioned Congress against its repeal. If the repeal of this law will 

affect the poorer classes injuriously, you would have heard from them, 

because this is not the first time the thing has been mooted. 

His arguments might be very good if these restrictions applied to 

the fertile portions of the country. If these restrictions applied to 

Missouri as well as to Arkansas, to Nebraska, to Kansas, to Iowa, and 

to the States where there are lands really fit for homestead entry, they 

might perhaps be borne; but it is capable of proof that these lands, 

which have been subject to selection for over fifty years and which 

have been offered at the low price of twelve and one-:half cents an acre, are not of that chara'cter that poor men can occupy them with 

advantage for farming purposes. 

Mr. ED~flJNDS. May I ask the Senator a question t 

1\Ir. CLAYTON. Ye-s, sir. . 

Mr. ED~flJNDS. I should like to ask him whether, by the laws as they existed down to 1864, a colored man could enter land and take 

it up as a homesteader or as a pre-emptor at all' 

Mr. CLAYTON. I suppose he could not ; but that does not affect 

this case. If this restriction be repealed, the homestead law will still 

apply the same as in other States of the Union. This bill does not re- peal the homestead law at all. It simply gives to the people of the 

State of Arkansas an opportunity to engage in lumbering, a. legitimate pursuit, not a discreditable one; a pursuit that amounts in some of the States of the Union to a value only second to that of agriculture. Why shut them off from the privilege of buying these timber 

lands and furnishing their neighbors in Texas. which is a prairie coun- try, with timber f 

Mr. SHERl\IAN. I would like to ask the Senator whether, if this 

section is repealed, these lands will be open to entry under the graduation law' 

Mr. CLAYTON. ·I can answer that question in a word or two. The 

graduation law was repealed in 1862, and is not in force at all; but 

these lands had been subject to the operations of the graduation law. 

They were in 1860. They found no purc~asers then, though they had come down as low as twelve and a half cents an acre. Mr. SHERMAN. They can only be entered at $1.25 an acre. Mr. CLAYTON. Theycould beenteredattwelveandahalfcentsan 

acre, but now only $1.25. Where were the speculators in 1860, when 

these lands were being offered for twelve and a half cents an acre Y 

Your speculators examined the lands, and they would not put twelve 

and a half cents an acre in them. Your policy would be very humane 

to the colored man if yon were offering him: something that was worth 

anything to him; but you offer him poor, barren lands thatbavepine 

timber upon them. In the first place, be must go to work and clear 

off that pine timber and spend his hard earnings for that purpose; 

and after he has cleared off the pine timber a partridge cannot live 

upon the land. He is not fool enough to put his hard earnings into 

any such investment. He has not done it. This law has been in force 

since 1866, and the facts are that the poor men of the South have not 

made homesteads to any extent upon these lands simply because they are worthless for that purpose. 
~18 CONGRESSIONil RECORD. FEBRUARY 2, 

Mr. EDMUNDS. Can the Senator tell us-he has probably looked 

it up-what the reports of the Commissioner of the General Land Office for these nine years show in respect to the number of homestead 

entries in those five States or any of them Y 

Mr. CLAYTON. I will answer. Tho e reports show comparatively 

very small entries. I have examined that point. But the entries 

made are not fair, for the simple reason that persons who desire to obtain possession of these timber lands evade the homestead law in or- der to get them. It is the only way they can get ownership to these 

timber lands. Hence they evade and violate the homestead law in 

order to get these timber lands. How Y They go to the land office 

and make an application ; they pay a fee of $5, and that gives them a right to enter on the land and dispose of the timber. 

Mr. EDMUNDS. How does an entry give that right! 

Mr. CLAYTON. One minute if you please. I say that even the 

lands that are reported as being entered under the homestead law in 

nine cases out of ten were entries in evasion of the law. Now I will answer the question. 

Mr. EDMUNDS. Will the Senator tell me how it is that these people now get the right of going on and taking off the timber by paying $5 to the register of the land office f 

Mr. CLAYTON. They do not get the right, but they do it. If the 

Senator is familiar with the operation of the homestead law, he knows 

that if a Irian makes an application for a homestead tmct and pays 

the fee of $5 he can enter on the lands and occupy them for five years. 

During the five years he can make a disposition of the timber and then 

he is not compelled to take the land. When the timber is all off, he can simply give up his homestead right, and the Governmentha received 

$5, the timber is gone, and he has evaded and violated the law. We 

ought to make our laws for the benefit of honest men. Our criminal 

legislation is for.rogues and scoundrels ; but this legislation is for the 

benefit of honest men, to give honest men in Arkansa-s and these other 

States the same privileges to acquire the timber lands in those States 

that men have in Michigan and also in Missouri right alongside of 

Arkansas. 

Mr. EDMUNDS. -In Michigan can a citizen obtain a title to the 

pine lands at $1.25 a.n acre t 

Mr. CLAYTON. If those lands have been offered he can, and a very larO'e portion of them have been offered, nearly all of them, I cruess. So that question is answered. Any lands that have heretofore been offered for sale and ha,ve not found purchasers can be en- tered by private entry in all the States of the Union, with the exception of these poor five States who had. no repre entation here when 

this law was passed. . It is easy for Senators to talk abont speculators coming in. I know 

that is a great bugbear. But let speculators come in if they see proper 

to do so. As I before stated, when they come in they will pay into 

the Treasury of the United States the price of the land and subject 

themselves to high taxation from the Stn:,te overy year,, and then, if 

they hold the lands from market, they will only be doing what the 

Government of the United States is doing to-day. 

The PRESIDENT p1·o tem.po1·e. ,The morning hour has expired. Mr. CLAYTON. I believe I must ask the Senate to extend the 

morning hour. Let us proceed with this bill a little further. 

.Mr. WEST. Subject to a call for the regular order. 

Mr. CLAYTON. I think when Senators make themselves familiar 

with its provisions there will be no objection to the bill. 

Mr. SARGENT. It would be better I think, to allow Senators to 

reflect on what has been said. It wili be impossible to get a vote 

within a rea onable time now. Mr. CLAYTON. Very welL I will not press it now. 1\ir. T:ij:URMAN. I do not know what I may ultimately think of 

this bill. My present impre sion is not unfavorable to it; but if it is 

to pass, the amendment which I send up ought to be adopted. I a-sk 

leave to offer the amendment which I send to the chair. 

The PRESIDENT p1·o tempore. The !tmendment will be read. 

The Chief Clerk read the amendment as follows: 

Provided, That the repeal of said section shall not have the effect to impair the 

right, complete or inchoate, of any homestead settler, and no land occupied by such 

settler at the time this act shall take effect shall be subject to entry, pre-emption, or sale. 

Mr. CLAYTON. I think that that will be the effect of the law, 

but I have no objection to J,hat amendment going on the bill. The 

homestead settler would not be deprived of his rights under the bill. 

Mr. THURMAN. It is only to prevent a man from entering on land on which a homestead settlement has n.lready been made. I think 

out of abundant caution it ought to be put in. 

1\Ir. CLAYTON. I have no objection to thn.t. 

The PRESIDENT pro ternpm·e. Is there objection to tho continu- ance of this bill subject to call for the regular order f 

Mr. CLAYTON. I should like to proceed about half an hour longer 

with this bill. 

Mr. SARGENT. I do not think the pending business before the 

Senate ought to be pushed aside for any local measure. Mr. CLAYTON. If Senators desire to become familiar with the 

provisions of this proposed legislation, and I desire that they should, 

because I believe that every Senator who makes himself familiar with 

it will vote for the bill, I sha.U not object to the bill lying over. The PRESIDENT pro tem1_1ore. The unfinished business of yesterday is befol'e the Senate. 

MESSAGE FRQ:\I THE HOUSE. 

A message from the House of Representatives, by Mr. G. M. ADAMs, 

its Clerk, announced that the House had pa sed the bill (H. R. No. 

1796) to grant an American register to the Hawaiian bark Arctic; 

in which it requested the concurrence of the Senate. .The message also announced that the House had pa sed the bill (S. 

No. 204) to remove the political disabilities of George S. Hawkins, of 

Florida. DISTRICT 3. 65 BO:l\"DS. 

The Senate, as in Committee of the Whole, resumed the consideration of the joint re olution (H. R. No. 52) directing the commissioners 

of the District of Columbia to pay the interest on the bonds issued in 

pursuance of the act of Congress approyed June 20, 1874, out of any 

funds in the United Shtes Trea ury subject to the requisition of said 

commissioners, and for other purposes. 

:Mr. SARGENT. 1\Ir. President, it is very rare that the extraordinary spectacle is presented to the Senate of a committee which sat 

for months in its deliberations, and took reams of testimony, and made 

up what was supposed by the Senate to be a careful ann considemte 

report covering the subject-matter which was committed to it, com- ing in afterward as a committee or as individuals with ex post facto 

statements and subsequent light to inform the Senate of matters upon 

which they did not report but upon which they could have reported. 

That spectacle, however, wa-s presented to the Senate yesterday. I 

had seen in the papers of the country, especially the independent 

press, from time to time, vague statements against the District of Columbia board of public works, implying that there was some groat 

oonuption of which those parties had been guilty and which was un- earthed by the committee of in>e tigation. I knew that the e statements were irresponsible; for when I looked to the report of the com- mittee I found no trace there of any evidence that there was corruption on the part of the board of public works. I found there nothing more than the simple criticism which one lawyer might kindly make 

of another lawyer's construction of certain statutes, and perhaps a mild depl'ecation of certain features of a system of operations which 

had been adopted, but not a line in their report from the beginning 

to the end implying fraud, corruption, or malfeasance in office of any 

kind whatever. I had a right to suppose, sir, thus instructed by the 

committee of the Senate, that in the opinion of this committee Gov- ernor Shepherd and his a sociates on the board of public works had 

discharged their duty, if with some slight indiscretions, at any rate 

without any moral obliquity. 

Now comes in the Senator from Ohio, [1\Ir. THURMAN,] and says 

that the committee took evidence for months, and then scarcely broke 

the shell of the egg; that there was much more testimony that they 

might have taken. I would like to inquire, in all fairness, if it is the 

testimony they did not take which convinced their minds that there was corruption, of which he now comes to speak. If it was the testimony which they did take, why then did he not analyze that testimony, ~ither as a minority of the committee, if the majority would 

not go with him, or from his seat here in the Senate, or by any other 

means, ' before we were required to a,ct on the measure which was brought forward by that committee What iniluence was thel'e potent enough to tie up the tongues of this committee of investigation Y 

The Senator says they were discharging a high public duty, and wero not after individuals. Is it not a high public duty to ascertain 

whether individuals, who, right under our very face, are intrusted 

with the discharge of public duties, are guilty of conup'tion; whether 

they have filled their pockets with ill-gotten gain; whether they have 

rewarded favorites at the expen e of the Treasury of the United State f 

Is not that a high public duty It is the very idea that was suggested 

in the charges of the memorialists, which were submitted to the com- mittee of investigation, and they shirked their duty if they found 

really in fact, by the testimony which they took, that there was f&aud or corruption, if they did not exhibit that fraud and corruption to the 

Senate. 

But we get the whole key of the matter by an incautious remark 

made by the Senator in adverting to this poin'ti. He says that th.ey could agree that the board of public works ought to be abolished or ·that the District government ought to be abolished ; it was cumbrous, 

&c.; and that, if they had gone on to consider questions of guilt 

of individuals, then there would be divisions of opinion among the 

committee, and consequently they could not agree in such a report. 

Does not the Senator know that every Senator who heard him believes 

that, if a majority of the committee had been of his political faith, 

had believed that there were these acts of public corruption, he, in 

spite of a. difference of opinion on the part of the minority, would 

have reported that this corruption existed! 

Sir, it was because the majority of that committee believed that 

there was no corruption on the part of these gentlemen, and the minority could not persuade them that that corruption existed, that they 

made no report in that direction. 

Furthermore; I say that, after being somewhat a diligent student of 

the two or three thousand pages of testimony which were taken by this 

committee and following out the references w hie h they.gi vein the only 

part of their report where it is implied that perhaps there was some favoritism used toward certain individuals,~ have not been ::tble to 

find one instance in all that testimony which goes to ca t a stigma on any man who was connected with the board of public works, and I 
1876. CONGRESSIONAL RECORD. 819 

say here now boldly, and I challenge any gentleman, on the committee or off it, to put his finger on a oircumstance that shows that any one member of the board of public works defiled his hands with a bribe or did any act which was dishonorable to a gentleman. You 

may taJk as you please about the extmvagant system of improvement ; you may say that these men had a law to construe, and have 

construed it in a certain way according to their judgment, not according to yours, or that their judgment was erroneous; but this is not a basis to assail the character of men who are now private gentlemen 

a.nd citizens. Upon no such structure as that can you build ei~her 

party succe s or legislative decency. There mnst be on the part of 

the individuals themselves whom you attack something in yonr testimony to warrant your attacks, or else it is unjust, or it is improper; 

it is un-senatorial. 

Now, sir, what did this committee report with reference to this 

board of public works. I have read the whole report; but they sum- marize it all in these lines, the conclusion of their report: · 

Your committee have unanimously arrived at the conclusion that the existing form of government of the District is a failure; that it is too cumbrous and too expPn ive; that the powers and relations of its several departments are so ill-de- fint~d that limitations intended by- Congress to apply to the whole ~overlllliont 

are construed to limit but one of 1ts department-s ; that it is wanting rn sufficient saf guard again ·t maladministration and the creation of indebtedness; that the 

system of taxation it allows opens a door to great illequality and injustice, and is 

wholly insufficient to secure the prompt collection of taxe ; antl that no remedy short of its abolition and the substitution of a impler, more restricted, and econo- mical government will suffice. Your committee have, therefore, reported a bill 

for a temporary government, until Congress shall p.ave time to mature and adopt a permanent form. 

How much could that have been ornamented; how much at any 

rate would it have been enforced, provided they could say that the 

governor of the District has been guilty -of taking bribes; that t-he 

governor of the District has for a con ·ideration seen that contract were given to his favorites; that the board of public works has been 

guilty of false and fraudulent measurement , by which frau<lulently 

and corruptly they had caused amounts to be paid to their favorjtes 

which they knew were not due Y If tho e thing$ had been said in the 

report, we should have been put upon our guard ; we certainly should 

have looked over the testimony, and expected references to it which 

would have shown that these things were true. I say it was just to 

this board of public works that, if there were charges of this kind to 

be made against ·them, they should be made, and that the committee 

should report that they were sustained, if they were sustained. You 

cannot whistle away a man's character behind his back, and by innu- enuo you cannot put a fair face on it in your report, and then a year or two after rise up and say, We could if we would, jf we had had a mind to, say the evil thinO"S which were in our minds, and the coun- try would have been startYed. I say that this is not a proper course of legislative proceeding. It was due to those individuals who were arraigned by the memorialists that, if these charges were sustained, 

they should have been set forth in the report. So far from that, this 

summary which I have presented cpntains about all there is in the 

1·eport. There is a criticism or two which the Senator from Delaware 

(Mr. BAYARD] read, and emphasized the adjectives as if those adjectives contained charges of corruption, when they did nothing of the 

kind, but simply related to a system. I say there are one or two criticisms on the proceedings of the board of public works, but nothing 

implying corruption. 

Now, jnst look at this matter of measurements which the Senator 

from Ohio, by this ex post facto system to which I have referred, lugged 

in ye terday to the ear of the Senate, as if there had been fraud in the e matters. He says a popular error is, that the committee did not know 

of frauds existing, and did not report upon them; let me quote his own la.nguage : 

It has been said that there were no charges in our report of corruption on the 

pn.rt of particular individuals. That has been said a ~ea t deal, and the absence of 

such charges has been taken <ts a vindication of the omcials in that government. 

Might it not be well so taken T Certainly the composition of the 

committee, with one or two exceptions, was not favorable to finding 

innocence if they were guilty. I do not think the composition of the 

committee with any exception wa of that kind in an improper sense; 

but I mean to say that the majority of the committee, so far as the 

Honse of Repre entatives at any rate was concerned, was made up 

against the District government, that it was made up, taking a liberal republican into account, a majority against the republican pa.rty, 

and there certainly were very strong men upon it from the democratic 

party; and, therefore, if there were. any charges of corruption to be 

m:-tde or sustained, they would have been very apt to :find them. He 

sa.ys: 

Snob never was the intention of the committee. I mu9t say something on that 

subject to correct this popular error. 

And now he goes on to the specification which he makes to correct 

this popular error that there was no fraud or corruption. 

And I am not dispose~:l to hear that committee criticized unjustly in the light o\ 

other people's doings long after that committee has ceased fQ exist. That commit- te weu t on taking testimony. It h.ad to employ an en!!i.neerto remeasure the work; 

aud after we had sat until June, and the sesSion of fiongreas was approaching its 

tt>.rmiuation, we bad, so to speak, but barely got into the crust, barely broken the 

shell of the egg. Some of the mostimportanttestimonY.that we received grew out of the remc:J urements made by t.he enpineer the comilllttee employed-a, most able 

n.ntl bonOt·a,lJle man-and they showeu in alm.o t every instance that the District 

otlicials had oycrestimated, had re~ed false measurementsObserve, thi is U: charge of false measurements. Of course this is 

not a charge directly against the nien he was talking about, the bo::trd 

of public works; but their engineer or their ubordinates, upou whose 

faith they mnst act to a certain extent, and which subordinate , the 

pre umption is, were just as fair as the engineer that was employed 

by this committee. \Vhy .not¥-

exaggerated measurements; and not only that, they showed further that more than the contract price had been paid even upon the e exaggerated estimates-estimates of work done greatly in exaggeration of the truth, anu then paym.en U! upon the contracts in excess of these exaggerated estimates. 

Observe that this is said in order to su tain the charge that there was corruption; consequently this is the charge of corruption. 

We got instance after instance of it. It would have taken perhaps sL""~: months of 

engineering, of remea uring the work, of ascertaining what wa<; the condition of tho streets and alleys and the 1ike at the time that the contracts were let so that an engineer could remeasure the work to ascertain the whole eA--tended enormity of 

these overmea urements and of these overpayments. 

Now let ns see" the manner in which they report upon this matter. 

The Senator knew at tha.t time, and knew better than he does now, 

for he was fresh from hearing all the testimony, that there were false 

measurements, that there wa.s corruption in overpayments. Certainly 

he houlu have said so. It was due to the Senate that he should have 

said it; due to these parties if it wa-s proved. Now let us ee bow 

the committee talk about it in the report. Let us see how mild they were. Then he and the committee roared "as gently as any suckingdove." 

Your committee employed an engineer to measure portions of the work, and his measurements disclosed many errors and mistakesIndeed! Not false, fraudulent, and corrupt measurements," but 

many errors and mistakes"-

on the streets and avenues, a-s will appear by examination of his testimony. Most 

of these were accounted for, however, by the engineers in charge of the work as mistakesThey were then accounted for, or most of them accounted for. That 

is the actual declaration of the unanimous committee, that they were accounted for as mistakesand the engineer in charge expres ed the opinion that the work was for the mo t part properly and accurately measured, and he challenged the most rigid scrutiny of the work of his department. 

Now, the Senator from Ohio correctsapopularerror, thattherewas no fraud or corruption in the mind of this cominittee against the 

bo::trd of public works, by an allegation, and the only allegation ho can make, that there were false mea urements, when his report, staring him in the face, states that most of these were accounted for as mistakes. Where is the presumption that those were not thns accounted 

for and were not mistakes' There were engineers employed on both 

sides. Engineers mn.y differ. Furthermore, these were mea,gurements as the work progressed, partial measurements, not concluding the 

work, ::tnd p::trtial payments, not settling contracts in full. 

I again ask what was the motive power that prevented this com- mittee from speaking out if they knew of a.U this corruption Y Certainly it could not be the board of public works, which, by tl;te Senator's own statement, is so potent that its owns Legislatures, that it runs a. con~ressional committee except his own, that it performs won- derful worKs, transforms a bog of a town into a magnificent city in 

two or three years, performs almost all the works of omnipotence. 

It could not be that this board of po blic works was so potent as to 

restr::tin the committee from telling this body things it knew about. That is not to be presumed, perhaps not even suggested. Where 

then was the potent power that prevented itT I say that it was the 

duty of the committee so to repert, and if they did not so report, 

they should ever after hold. their peace; and certainly it occurs to me that members of the committee do not do well to rise now to a perse 

the character of men who have passed out of public office and insist 

that there was fmud and corruption when their report shows that . they did not entert.a.in any such belief at the time the report was made. 

The Senator from Delaware, emphasizing as I say adjectives, and 

adjectives not applied to individuals but to a system, commented yesterday-and I am sorry his speech is not published in the RECORDupon the remarks of the board on pages 8, 9, and 10 of their report. 

Mr. BAYARD. It is at the Senn.tor's service. I have it here. 

Mr. ::;ARGENT. It is not ::tt my service now, because I cannot stop 

to read manuscript. I read the RECORD, the place where speeches 

should be found the morning after they are delivered, certainly in a runnin()' debate made to i.nfiuence the minds of the Sena.te, and I can- not find the speech there. I know there are in that speech grave 

charges aO"ainst individuals. Senators came to me this morning, 

knowing that I intended to speak, and asked me if I heard so arrd so? 

which I did not hear or remember and which they say they did hear, 

matters which I have a right to inquire about, as, for instance, a charge 

that the board of commissioners have paid $25,000 for lawyers' fees 

for the board of public works. I should like to know whether that 

statement was made in the speech or not. I simply express regret 

that the speech is not published. If it had been published, I should 

have gone this morning to the office of the board of commissioners and 

inquired whether that charge was true or not and asked for the 

vouchers. 

Mr. BAYARD. The Senator has made a statement here and it is 

the proper time for me to correct it now. What I said in regard to 

the payment of the fees of the private counsel of Mr. Shepherd and 

his associates is immediately before me in the manuscript of the re-
·820 OONG~ESSIONAL RECORD. FEBUUARY 2, 

marks I made yesterday as reported by the Official Reporter of the 

Senate unaltered by me, and will now be read. This statement was made in the presence of the Senator, he standing within a few feet of me at the time. He needed no information as to what I said upon 

that subject; and it is scarcely necessary, because an engagement dur:-

i ng the last night prevented me from seuding back to the Reporter the 

speech, which I wished to go over as H contained figures, that it 

shoulU be stated that I ha-d withheld the speech and kept it from his 

oye. 

fr. SARGENT. · I merely stated the fact that it was not in the 

RECORD, the place where it ought to be and where I had a right to 

look for it. 

:Mr. BAYARD. Hereisthereport, whichiwillreadnow. Inspeaking of the debt of the District I said: 

It is in vain to sing _peans to public credit and to national honor, and to do those thin~s which make it unpossible to preserve either. I do not know the fact, but I 

have been informed, and I may say credibly informed, that while the ta.x·11ayers of this District were with their pri\'ate moueys fighting Shepherd and his peopla 

before the joint committee and Sh pherd wa defending himself, as he had n perfect right, by counsel, the private counsel of these discarded oilicials were pai<l in 

the arne 3.G5 bonds very large f cs for tl Pfeudiu~ that whlch was admitted to be so wrong that it was legislAted out of existence. ls that so or is it not so 1 I am told 

those counsel have b en paid, paid by the people of the United States, paid by the p ople of this District, for tlefondiug a wrong: so flagiLious that the very cap:ur ity to perform it has been swept from tho sta.tute. nook by'an almo t unanimous vote of Uou!!'ress. I aru told that they have paiu ~5,000 in money to one of their party 

pap rs 'for advertising the testimony taken before that committee which el..'J)Osed 

the disgrace of those to whom power had been intrusted. 

:Mr. SARGENT. I do not wish to yield to the Senator to read his own speech; I ca11 him to order. 

Mr: BAYARD. Mr. Presiuent, I then say "Is this sof" 

Mr. SARGENT. I call the Senator to order. 

l\fr. BAYARD. The Senator makes a charge that is scarcely creditable to him. If he can afford to stop me when I offer a correction 

of this kind, I certainly can; bnt I submit to him that I should be 

allowed to finish this remark. After stating these facts stated to me) 

and asking if they were true, I repeatIs this so 'I I do not know that it is so; but I am told that it is so. The gentlemen who have interrupted meReferring to the.Senator standing when~ he doe~:~ nowin this debate perhaps may know. The fact, however, I trust will be easily ascer- tained; and I say it behooves tho e who mean to defend the action of the commissioners to answer such a. respectful question as that. 

This is the report untouched by my. hap.d, unaltered, and there it 

stands now. It was my misfortune that I could not revise the manu- script last night. 

Mr. SARGENT. I did not intend to have the time of the Senate 

taken up by t.he rehearsal of that speech over again; I merely wanted 

to know whether the Senator made a certain charge or not. Now to 

show the prejudice which speaks through the extract which he has 

read, the venom which has no cause, allow me to call the attention of 

that Senator and the Senate to the fact that the boaru of audit, which 

I objected to when it was created in the law which passed in 1874, 

must have been the authority, and the only authority, entirely independent of these commissioners, which could have paid any claim in 

3.65 bonds or certificates to be converted into them. It did not come in any sense under the supervision of the commissioners of the Distric.t. It was taken out of their supervision by the very law in question. They could not have anything to do with it. And the Senator 

either recklessly or with prejudice, it seems to me, charges honora.-

ble gentlemen with paying illegally 25,000 out of the Trea ury, 

when by the very statute they could have had nothing to do with it; 

when, on a little examination, he could have seen that they had nothing to do with it. And so he went on with bitter emphasis yesterday 

for an hour or two laying to the charge of the board of commis ion- ers matters which were entirely within the supervision of the hoard 

of audit, which the commissioners had no connection with at all and 

could not have had any connection with in any way whatever; and 

therefore I say that I .wished to understand-·and I was sorry I could 

not tind in the RECORD this morning the report of the Senator's speech, 

that I might know whether he did, as I now find that he diu, charge 

this upon the board of District commissioners. They are the persons 

he was assailing. He had nothing to say against the board of audit. 

:Mr. MORTON. Will the Senator allow me a moment T .Mr. SARGENT. Yes, sir. 

Mr. MORTON. I am authorized by one of the commissioners, now on this floor, to state distinctly and positively that the commission- ers a such never passed upon any claim, or consented to any claim, or authorized the payment of any claim for accounts for the defense 

of .Mr. Shepherd or for the defense of that investigation; nor could 

they. Such a claim could not be passed. upon by them under the 

law. They never considered, never passed upon, never authorizeu the 

payment of any money to a newspaper for advertilsements or otherwise incurred during the period of the existence of that government . .All such cla.ims were by the terms of the law to go not to them if 

they existed at all, but to the hoard of audit. 

I am authorized fru·ther to state by one of the commissioners that 

it so happened that persons having claims arising under the old ~overnment, not knowing exactly what course to t3.ke, would sometimes corue and present them to the District commissioners. In such cases 

iL.ey, without examination, woulu simply refer them to the place 

where they belonged, the boaru of audit, hut never considered them 

and never pas ed upon them themselves. 

Mr. BAYARD. Does t.he Senator state as a fact that these fees 

have not been paid to these counsel, anu paid out of the Treasury of 

the United Stales i 

Mr. MORTON. The Senator wa~:; calling upon those who defended 

the commissioners. 

Mr. SARGENT. Th...: t was alii addressed myself to. The board of 

audit was created by this committee, created by Congress, and not even appointed by the President. It was created in spite of my oppo ition 

and my protest. I called attention to the fact that these men were over- worked in the Treasury Department; that they liad no til me j;o attend to 

these thin_gs, that you devolved theirdutiesuponarag-tagand bob-tail 

of men to be selected by them to perform their duties. I made tho specific point in the debate that it wa.s improper, and asked that it might 

be stricken out. The Senator from Ohio said that every Senator voted 

for the bill but one, and emphasized that four or five times over. I was the one who voted against the bill; but he is mistaken in saying there wa.s but one. There were three or four more; the RECORD does not, show whether there was one or whether there were fifty, except that 

the bill pa sed ; but the debate shows that I stood here and objected 

to the board of audit, and told the Senate this legislation ·was mischievous; that there ought tQ be time given, .as it was then the 19th 

and Congress did not adjourn until the 22d, to reform thi plan of 

government. But the bill was rushed through with the whip and 

spur; and I remember standing here, with all the pre ure again t me to be silent, to make no amendment, and not to attempt to rm;h 

against the mighty bosses of the buckler of this committee. The 

pressure was so great that I had to say in that debate, "I speak in 

my right as a Senator of t.he United States ; I assert myself hero, 

although I ruay seem to be forcing myself upon the attention of the 

Senate." I told the Senate, "Your board of audit is not right; it i 

not properly organized; you put no limit upon it; and you plunge 

this District. government into inextricable confusion. The chairrru1u 

of the committee at that time [])Ir . .ALLisoN] and the Senator from 

Ohio [1.Ir. TlroRMAN] both seemed to think that no amendment shonlu 

be made. I said, "If this bill is to be passed by some stolid determination that no amendment shall be made to it at all, no matter what, 

that nothing shall be considered on its merits, all I can do is to vote 

against it;" and I did vote against it. 

But I was speaking of the remarks of the Senator from Delaware 

with reference to what he could find in the way of specification or generalities by this committee reflecting in any way on the boaru of 

public works or on its system. He found nothing reflecting on the 

board, simply that they had not been wise, as this wise committee 

thought, in the discharge of their duties. I must again say it seems to me that the highest vindicatimr for the members of that boanl is 

that having been investigated nearly nine months in an existence of 

less than three years, investigated nearly one-third of the time, first 

by a committee of the Honse of Representatives compo ed of republicans and democrats, and subsequently for four or· five months by a joint committee of both Houses, neither committee found they had 

been guilty of any dishonorable act whatever or anything affecting 

their integrity as men. One point which the committee attempted to make at that time was the improper construction of the laws with reference to the 

amount of expenditures which should be made by the board of public 

works. It was very important and material that the board of public 

works should properly construe their authority. Of course if they 

thought that they had authority to expend 12,000,000 when in fact 

they had the authority to expend but ,000,000 the exce would be a charge on tho Treasury which the tax-payers of the District and of 

the United States mi~ht be called upon to pay, and therefore it was a very important and. a very graYe que tion. Now the que tion of 

these law and of the propriety of their con truction of these laws was submitted to eminent counsel as well aa to this committee. Caleb 

Cu hing and J eremia,h Black held that taking the legislation of Congress and the legislation of the District together the constrnctions of 

the board of public works were correct. I have their opinions in the 

volume which I hold in my hand. TI;tese opinions were all bid before 

this committee and are to be found in the volumes which they re- ported to Congress. AmonCY others there was the opinion of Mr. 

Mattingly, one of the counseY for the board of public work , and in a very condensed form he gives the theory of the board of public works 

with reference to their powers in this particular; and I want to show 

wha,t a mild dis ent there was from the opinion of these htwyers on the pru:t of this committee. They certainly did not think that anything very flagrant had been done but they could not exactly concur in these views of the law. Now, Mattingly says: 

Section 37 of the organic act provides as follows : "And said boaru of public works shall have no power to make contracts to binu 

said District to the payment of any sum of money except in pursuance of appro· 

priations made by l:~.w. a.nd not until such appropriations shall have boon made." 

That certainly is very clear. He says : 

First. It is claimed that this provision has been violated in this, that the boaru 

of pnblio works aubmitted to the Le~isl&tive Assembly a. plan of improvement which was made the basis of the approprmt.ion of 4,000,000, and that saitl plan was not carried out by the board in accoruance with it details and specification ; antl 

further, that other contracts of the boanl beyontl the amount contemphted l.Jy t!Ji~ 

act have been made in the ab ence of any appropriat.ion matle by l:l.w. 

It might be a sufficient answer to this charge to say that 'if tlie board has maue 
• 

1876. CONGRESSIONAL RECORD. 821 

contracts not in pursuance of appropriations made by law, then the District is not bopnd for their payment. But we do not place our defense upon any such gro~d. 

The four-million act provides in express terms that the money shall be used "as 

fully as ?nay be practicable and conS'istent oith the public interest, in conformity with 

the plan of improvement." The proof in the case shows that the board deemed it 

auVIB:tble to narrow the can'iage-ways of the streets, and tl1en put down a smooth 

pavement at about the Ci>st of a much infelior pa""ement designated in the plan; other improvements that were made were but an extension and enlargement of the 

plan, and in general conformity with it. 

In the prosecution of the improvements it was inetitable that work should be 

done by the board around Government property; otherwise there would have been breaks in the work on almost every street in the city. The work was therefore 

done, and the justice and equity of the claim reliecl on to secure its payment. Re- ports have from time to time been made to the Legislative Assembly of the District 

and to the Government of tlle United Sta.tes, showing what bad been done and what waa contemplated to be done by the board. 

And that is most true. I invite to it the attentjon of any Senator 

who is disposed to cavil a.t the construction of law determined by the 

board of public works, or subsequently by their successors, the com- missioners. At every step they have fully and caref-ully laid before 

Congress their exposition and construction of the law , the amount of 

expenditures they have made up to that time, were making, and had 

contemplated to make, what claims they made against the Govern- ment of the United States or against the District. Step by step. 

Nothing has been done underhamled. It has been open and aboveboard so far as their r eports are concerned, and there never has been 

found in any testimony a fact which goes to invalidat e any statement 

which was made in one of those reports. If so, certainly it bas never ·been called to the attention of Congress. 

So universal was the appreciation of the merits and importa.nceSays the writerof the work done tha.t both ihe Le~islative Assembly ancl Congress have from time to time made appropriations for 1ts payment. Take Mr. Shellabarger's own fig- uresHe was one of the counsel for the memorialistsand lPt us see what is the result. He aays the plan prosecuted has already cost $18~872,565 71, {page 18 of his argument.) This amount is derived from pages 464 ann 465 of the governor's answer, as follows : Total amount of certificates of settlement issued. __ _ . _ .. __ •. ___ .• 17, 546, 654 00 Estimate of cost to complete contracts. _____ . _____ . _ . . --- --- __ __ .. 1, 325,911 62 

18, 872, 565 71 

He admits (page 32 of his argument) appropriations by the Legisla.-=== tive Assembly amounting to .----- -- ---- ------. __ .. ___ . __ .- ---- . $7,620,921 21 

We have had it said here over and over again that only $4,000,000 

were authorized by the District government. It was not denied by 

the committee and it is an unquestioned fact that nearly ,000,000 

were appropriated : 

Add to this approp riations made by Congress. _ . . . _ •. ____ _ . __ .•• _. $3, 522, 946 18 

Of course that would be acceptecl for improvements or for the object 

for which the appropriation was made : . 

Assessments on private property, (429, Record)---- - .. __ __ _____ _ . . . $5,217,561 40 

Going to swell the fund which was at the disposal of the board of 

public works for completing these improvements, and which was so dedicated both by the legislation of Congress and by the organic 

act. 

To this should be further added the amount due by the United 

States, (page 460, governor's answer,) which, at the very lowest est;ima~, ma~g ~owa.nces for every objection made through- out the mvestiga.tion, would amount to .--- -- ·---- ----- --_- --- _. $3,500,000 00 

Total -.- -- -. -- --- ---- -- --- --- ______ . __ . __ _ . . __ .. _______ . __ . _ 19, 861, 428 79 

Which fully justifies the statement made by the governor, that, with the nssess- ment~ a.nd the amount justly pay. able by tho United States, the entire indebtedness 

of the board could be liquidated. 

Now I say that that showing of. the appropriations made by the District and by Congress, with the addition of the amount of assess- ments on private property, shows that the amount of expenditures 

by them under their construction was a rea onable, a. natural, and a necessary construction under those laws. But, says the Senator from 

Delaware, it was entirely improper (or in effect be says so, because 

I have not hiS remarks) for Mr. Shepherd to get lawyers to go in and 

browbeat t he committee a.ncl the witnesses for the committee brought 

there to prove that he wits guilty of fraud. 

One touch of nature makes the whole world kin_ 

OccMionally you can find by a mere gesture the :flow of a man's 

thoughts. It was perfectly right for the Government to hire counsel 

to go in there and browbeat Mr. Shepherd's witnesses or those of the 

board of public works, to hunt them down, to insinuate fraud, to use all the arts of lawyers, if they did do so. That meets with no con- demnation; but when the board of public works were on trial and 

desired to _be heard by counsel, they not being lawyers, it was an un- worthy tbmg for them to employ counsel to meet those brought for- ward by the Government. 

Mr. THURMAN. The Senator will allow me to ask whether he 

says that the Government employed counsel T 

Mr. SARGENT. I mean to say that the memorialists employed counsel, and there was no criticism against the memorialists' employ- ing counsel. They were hunting somebody down. Give them blood- hounds by all means. Let them hunt them down! But bow dense 

must be that prejudice which can find obj ection to those who are be- ing b unted down using the ordinary method w:Wc:Q t~e la,w ~~ows the 

meanest culprit in the lowest police .court, and certainly in the highest 

tribunals of the land, to defend himself against what be believes or 

a-sserts to be unjust a per ions. Mr. BAYARD. Does the Senator really believe that I objected to 

the employment of counsel by l\fr. Shepherd, or that anything I said 

yesterday bore such a construction 7 

l\fr. SARGENT. Yes, sir; I understood the Senator to say that'l\I.r. 

Shepherd even employed counsel to go in there and browbeat the 

witnesses brought forward aga inst him I 

Mr. BAYARD. I express my regrets that it was impossible for me to run over my speech last night owing to an engagement over which 

I bad no control. I have hauded it to the reporter to-day, and the words will be found in every respect as they were taken down, an1l so far from my saying that it wa.s wron~ to employ counsel, I said he 

employed counsel, as be bad a perfect nght to do; but I objected to 

those counsel being paid out of the Treasury of the United State . I ma-de the inquiry of the Senator and his friends and other friemh! 

of Mr. Shepherd whether the fll,ct was &o or not, and tbat bas been 

construed by him into what he terms a reckless statement. I am not now positive of a-djectives in my r emarks here. They must speak for 

themselves and the RECORD will speak for me. If it is reckless to 

ask a question in regard to a fact which I say here wa · given to me on creditable authority, then I mu t be convicted of that offense; but 

surely it is strange that the Senator should so misunder ta.nd me, as he must have done, to suppo e that I made the least objection to tlle 

employment of counsel freely by these gentlemen. I think Mr. Shopherd and others came before that committee either mt the one side or the other precisely on the same footing, and they must bear their own expen es and not ask the people of this country to bear thom for them. l\fr. SARGENT. I did not refer to that part of the Sen ... tor's S])eech 

to which be now alludes, but my recollection seems to me to be distinct. If I am wron&',. no one takes more pleasure than I to make 

amends for a.ny injustice I may have done to the Senator. Mr. BAYARD. That will be due to t he Senator himse1i. 

M.r. SARGENT. It is due to myself and my own self-respect to 

understand i t without being rernnded of i t. But I say that in an- other portion of the Sen ator's speech I understood him distinctly to 

say among the accusations against fr. Shepherd th at he bad employed 

counsel, or that the board of public works had employed counsel, to 

brow beat witnesses, and the phrase that he employed counsel for such a purpose implied that he had no business to have counsel there or it was a reflection on the character of the counsel employed. That was the remark which be made and which is distinctly lodged in my mem- ory. If I find, however, that I am mistaken on an unchanged rec- ord, (and if the Senator says the record is unchanged it must be so,) 

I will, if be desires it, call the attention of the Senate to it, and to 

the error I make. I would stoop to no injustice. I was saying that the committee had before them these arguments 

of J udge Bla{}k and Caleb Cushing, who are certainly not liable to 

any charge of republican prejudice, and of M.r. l\Iattiugly and t he r egular counsel employed by the board of public works, advancing 

these fa<lts and thus reasoning from them; and here is what thecom- rnttee say in r eply to these arguments: 

The board have expended and contracted to expend, a{lcording to the governor's showing in his answer, {pages 464, Ml5,) 18,87:.1,565.76, or more than $12,000,000 iu excess of the estimated cost of the proposed plan, and largely in excess of the amount of appropriations made by Congress or by the Legislative Assom bly, which 

could be available as a basis upon which to make contrads. 

Now, that in itself is a very singular way of stating it. .AS to the 

$4.000,000 loan, that may appear an insignificant item. There we re $3,000,000 appropriated by Con~ess to the District at one t ime, and 

$500,000 by the District at another time, and an appropriation of be- tween one a.nd two million dollars a~tnotber time by Congress, and 

yet they talk about $4,000,000 being an excess of , 12,000,000 over $8,000,000. The excess r eally was \ery slight when you take into 

consideration the appropriation made by the District aurl by Congress. The excesa was the other way when you consider that the amount 

raised by the certificates was by the law a r esource or fund or asset 

in the bands of the board of public works to go on with their work. The committee go on: 

It is claimed by counsel on behalf of the board · of public works that the board 

had lawful authority, derived from appropriations made by Congress and by tho 

Legislative Assembly, to incur the e obligations and make tho contracts of which 

:!:ae.form a. basis. The committee cannot give their assent to tl}e claim thus 

That is all. Is not that very m ild f Docs that sound in corruption , Is there any charge of fraud horo Y Here these men have this theory 

of law, and eminent counsel say they are right from tbejr stand-point, 

but we cannot agree with them. 

The committee do not cl.ai.m that the board were required to furnish to the Legis- lative Assembly the plan in detail or the estimated cost of propo e<l improvement.s aa a precedent condition to the making of appropriations; yet good faith r eq nired 

that so great burdens as have been imposed should in some manner have recei'l"ed 

in advance legislative san~tion. . 

The very point which this counsel show- that it did receive legislative sanction- that the general plan of improvements was laid down 

not to cost $4,000,000, but that the plan should not cost more than 

that $4,0uO,OOO, with other appropriations which might be made, and 

the other r esources of the board would allow. Subsequently the Leg- islature macle further appropriation; $500,000, to carry out t.be plan. 

The proce of ex:pendittll' was going on, and the Le~ lature t hus 
• 

822 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD. FEBRUARY 2, 

showed its approv.al. The committe say they do not think it was necessary for the board of public works to submit a detailed plan to 

the Legislature. And here begin and end their criticisms on this 

point, the one of the two only w)lich are made in this report of the 

committee. Certainly there is no charge of fraud in all that. The 

committee are very mild in their manner. Why was itt If they con- sidered, on such basis, a question of fraucl, if they tried out of the 

testimony to make a showing of frand, would it not be, as the Senator said,at once the cause fora division of opinion in the committee! 

In other words, the committee, or even a majority of the committee, 

did not believe that any frauds were committed, and they had the 

testimony fresh before them. Of course there might be another rea- son- I do not know that it ought to be suggested-with reference to 

honorable Senators, that they desired simply to make party advan- ta~e in this matter. Perhaps that could have been so. The attempt 

ev1dently is now being made ; and that which is right to-day may ha-ve been right a year or two ago. It may have been supposed that if they 

could, by some logic or other, induce the majority of the committee, 

notwithstanding the failure of the testimony to inculpate those parties, to trample the existing government down on any pretense or plausible points, as, for instance, that these gentlemen erred in the 

construction of the law, and consequently this ilystem was a little 

cumbrous and expensive, and we had better stop it, and by such plausible arts induce the friends of these men and those who thought they were honest, and the other members of the committee, to comply, and 

thereby turn the government out, they knowing the rumors around 

the country, circulated by a partisan press, that these men were ac- cused of scoundrelism, the very fact of being turned out would 

be taken as evidence of charges of corruption proved. That very 

argument has been used in the country since that _time. When you 

taTh: of this to men now and show them that the old authorities of the 

city incurred a debt of $5,000,000 and left the city a quagmire, and 

then these men went on and expended thrice that amount of money, 

and made it a beautiful and healthy city, and that the committee sat 

for months and did not :find that they ever put a dollar of money into 

their own pockets, or rewarded any partieB throu~h favoritism, or did any di~honorable act, the reply is apt and read.y : "We cannot 

believe that. For what reason did they turn these men out f" That 

fact supplies the place of all showing of fraud, and does its office. It 

stands as a fact in proof of all the mean insinuations which could be 

made against these men by a partisan press, or on the floor of the 

Senate, or anywhere else. But the showing of the committee is that 

it was simply a question of construction of laws, of error-of judg- ment, and not of fraud. 

The other point which they make is worthy of some elaboration, 

because it was commented on here yesterday, and that is the policy 

which the board adopted in the letting of contracts, causing, it was charged, a hi<Yher price to be paid than should have been. I h~ve 

looked ·through the records -of the testimony cited in this report this 

morning, commencing at page 1013 and ending at page 2356, to ver- ify the following statement made in the report : 

This systemOf letting bidsmade ea8y another reprehensible feature of this business, namely, the awarding of 

:~i:J:~ ~~~:~ fo~o :::~i~!!clo~~d ~~r~~r:~~te: but who were thereby 

I say,the testimony shows nothing of the kind. It does show that 

certain men claimed that they had influence in getting ·con tracts, and 

in every case where it wa-s traced up it was not shown that any mem- ber of the board of public works knew of any such pretension on their 

part or that they had any reason for saying it. Now, this syster..1 of 

letting these contra-cts was simple, and it is worthy the attention of 

the Senate. Before any contract could be let at all the board of pub- lic works made a very thorough advertising of all the different kinds 

of pavement which they were likely to put down and invited bids. The co~ petition was very strong and they received a very large num- ber of b1ds. Of course they could have gone on and let out the con- tract to the lowest bidder under those bids to have done the work 

and t.hen repeated the operation when furtherworkwas to be done- a omewhat expensive system a.nd, as has been shown by the experi- ence of the Government and private enterprise, a most dangerous one, 

leading certainly to favoritism, leading to straw bids and to imper- fect work. Instead of adopting that system, which might have been 

done, the board of public works received this large number of bids. 

For instance, on the MacAdam pavement they received seventy-five 

bids, the average of which was $1.78 per square yard. They would 

not pay that price. They offered to men who would give good secur- ity, to any man who would give good security, that he should have 

the contract for $1.50 ; that is to say, less than the avera,ge of the 

bids. And so they did with all other kinds of work, with concrete 

pavement per square yard, for the average of tlle bids was 3.15 and 

it was let for 3. l find -here on page 180 of the testimony a show- ing of the co t of doing such work in different cities of the United States~New York, and l3rooklyn, and Baltimore, and Boston, and all 

the large Atlantic apd western cities-and I say, and any Senator can -verify the trnt.hof what I say, that under this system adopted-bytho 

board of puulic works the average cost of performing the work in the 

District of Columbia wa 20 per~ cent., and from that to 25-over 20 

per cent.-le s tha.n the average of the work clone in t.he_citles which 

I have named. It may be accounted for by some ot.her considerations ; for instance, there was considerable work to be done hero and men might take contracts for large amounts of work at lcs than 

they would take casual small contracts; but., however it may b ,. giving that its full influence, nevertheless the cost of doing the work 

here was from 20 to 25 per cent. less than the average cost of uch 

work in other cities of the United States. . This of itself, which cannot be controverted, is testimony in favor 

of the economical manner in which the work was done; and you fa,l] 

back, after all, upon the criticism that they did too much. Yet they 

did no more than they supposed they might do, as the phra e used by 

Congress and the Legislature was that it might be a comprehen i e system of public improvements. In view of these facts- and if I have overlooked any of the charges 

in the report I want my attention called to it-in view of these facts 

and of this treatment of the matter, I want to know what guarantee 

there is for these general charges of corruption t What excuse for this 

extreme vituperation t What excuse for impaling men here before 

the highest tribunal of the country, delighting iu their torment, u ing 

studied epithets, and exhausting the dictionary for words that will 

express contempt and contumely of men against whom the committee 

report nothing dishonorable, and in all their three thousand pages 

nothing is to be found to show that they acted dishonorably Y 

Again I express my regret that I have not the speech of the Senator from Delaware. He spoke of a tremendous crime. Perhaps I do 

not use an adjective a.s strong as he, but it was a crime at any rate 

against Columbus Alexander in believing or making the cha.r~e that 

he paltered with men to steal the private books of auother. This was one of t.ge outrageous and nefarious crimes against omebody-I believe the Senator did not say who. I wonder if it was again t Alexander R. Shepherd, or which other member of the board of public 

works, or perhaps the District commis ioners. Why, ir, there are several things to say about that. Declamation doe not nece arily 

convince. Branding an accusation as an infamous crime does not 

make it such; and it may be that in the calm and ober jndgment of some other people there was some foundation for that :wen ation; 

and if there wa , there may have been some foundation for it in the 

minds of those men who brought the charge. I take Alexander's 

statement only for it, and I will show that he offered to pay expre s charges on stolen books. A man comes to him who he knows is not 

the custodian of tho e books, has no right to them, and come by them 

by an improper, illicit proceeding. Whether a burglar or not I do 

not know, and I do not know whether it was explained, but he doc 

not seem to have inquired, and be makes a bargain which he subsequently agrees to keep, that if this man would give those books to 

him, he would pay the ex pre charges on them. Does any one deny 

that that is a fair statement of what he aid t If so, I have hi testimony right here, and it will give me great plea ure to read, it at 

length _if any one ·de ires me to do so. If gentlemen do not de ire it 

read, I say that is a fair statement of his testimony, and I am prepared 

to show it. A man comes to him and is introduced to him as having 

po ession of the books of another who obviously had no right to 

them, and a bargain is made that he will pay him expre s charg to 

bring them frQm another city where they are concealed; and th y 

say that when the e parties subsequently went on and endeavor d to 

steal the books and carry ont their side of the contTact it was infa- mous to suspect Columbus Alexander of having anything to do with 

it or knowingthattheyintended to so act. Their theory, on the other 

hand, is that all this machinery, this sending men to Columbu Alexander, this getting the innocent man to act the thief, was all set in 

motion in order to make it appear that Columbus Alexander was such a man that he would countenance the stealing of book . Is there 

anything more·of their theory¥ Suppose Harrington, as they would 

allege, set up all this plot, what was the object of it To disgrace 

Columbus Alexander by showing that he would be privy to or coun- sel a burglary by which books should be stolen. There is the infa- mous crime committed in saying that that was probable under the 

circumstances. Columbus Alexander shows that he himself treat d 

with a man who could not have got posses ion of tl.lo books except 

by stealing them, and I suppose one crime of stealing is as bad a an- other. Larceny is as bad as burglary. He wa.s willing to pay the 

express charges on them by his own statement. It is a terrible crime 

for the board of public works because someuody su pectcd him, and 

it is not known who, with being susceptible to such influences. I do 

not know this man and have not the slightest disposit.ion to do him 

injustice and would not have thought of mentioning his name in con- nection with this debate. He has nothing to do with thi bill, which 

is simply an attempt on the part of the Government of the Unit d 

States to observe its pledge and see that the interest of these bonds 

is paid. But wh~n he ·is lugged in here by the Senator from Dela- ware and exhibited like the Savior of tl.le world crucified between 

thieves, I think it is worth while to find out which ~the thief and 

which is the Sa vi or. ' . Now, as near as I can remember the extremely long speech of tl.l 

Senator from Delaware, he spoke of extraordinary burdens which were laid upon the people of this District. I know the debt of this District is considerable. I regret that it is o much, but I hazard the a ertion that there i not an intelligent unprejudiced re 'ident of thi 

District who would be willing that this District should be plun~ed 

ba,c&: i:qtQ the misery, the filth, the sickness, the squalor of ten years 
• 

1876. CONGRESSIONAL RECORD. 823 

ago, to be relieved from every dollar of the dept. I say that a great 

public benefit has been done here. It may have cost money; and I 

sn.y to you republicans that the republican party, if it had a sense of 

its own rights, of it own <lignity, would glory for this great work 

that has been done here for the capital of the nation next in order to 

that great work which it did when it saved this capital from falling 

into the hands of the rebels. It preserved this capital of the nation. 

It cost some money to do it. Does anybody regret tbe cost of that' 

It has taken this capital, which was a mere swa,mp, where on a rainy 

day, crossing any of your crowded thoroughfares, the 8treet-sweeper, 

the little ragged boy or girl, would stand with his or her broom and 

make a lane through the w~1lls of mnd which were running in from 

t.be sides, as the finger of God made a lane for Moses through the Red 

See1 , the mud piled up on each side, that you and your wife might go 

through with your garments undefiled. That was the condition of 

things. You could not drive a carriage over three of the streets of 

this city. None of them was paved, or with scarcely an exception. Some red Seneca tone or stone of that kind was laid in one or two 

of the treets and there were cobble-stones on Pennsylvania avenue until theyweroreplaced with a wooden pavement, as implied by the 

Senator from Del a ware, by the board of public works, but not l!Y the 

board of public works but anterior to them. That charge cannot be 

laid to them. It cost something to do this, as it cost something to save the city from the clutches of the rehels; and who regrets the 

cost nnle tho money wa,s tolen "I Then it might be regretted; but, 

if the money was expemled so that it went 20 to 25 per cent. further 

toward valuable a.nd useful improvements than the same expenditure in other citie , who shall regTet itt The junior Senator from 

Illinois [.Mr. OGLE BY] seemed to imply that the old filthy hovels, 

tho old filthy street , and pestilence-breeding swamps unredeemed 

by ewers were good enough for shqp-keepers and the men who lived 

in the huts along the obscure highways of the city as they then were. Tho e might be good enough for them ; and if they were not let tb m go out We t au<llive. But I say they were not good enough for the 

capital of the nation. Under the influence of these wholesome improvements which have been mn.de, the taxable property of this District during the pa t year ha increased $:3,500,000. Instead of having 

the e ol<l sbautie , which be said would be appropriate in the wilds of 

Arkansa, they are beioO' pulled down and comfortable homes are b-o- ing erected; tho city is being beautified on every hand; the citizens aro emuln.tiug the government in the work of improvement which :i.s 

being made. 

I rem mber the time during my service in Congress when an epidemic of small-pox in this city, feel from the contagion in the air, was sometlllng terrible; but a year or two n.go when a pestilence of th~ 

a me kind was threatened it was immediately arrested; and why 'Y De- a use we had healthy air to breathe and wholesome water to drink; 

because the filth was carried far a.way from our dwellings by a com- pi te sy tern of sewers. It cost money, of course, and why should it 

not cost money Y 

But the debt of the District is not so extraorclinary as it is stated 

to be, and there is no nece sity, in the language of the Senator from 

Illinois, for Almighty God in His wrath to pn t His foot n pon any body on account of the debt. If so, I am afraid that New York city would 

go deeper, and the city of Boston; a.nd I could suggest to him Buf- falo n.ml several others. I should like to call attention to the debt of 

the e cities, and ee whether the debt of this District of Columbia is so extraordinary. In New York the debt is 136,000,000, which is 

144.34 per head of the population. The debt of this District at the 

time of the report I bold in my band, which was after the board of 

public works had once been investigated and during the last investigation, was only $75.18 per bead. .Mr. i1ERRIMON. That was the ascertained debt, I suppose. 

Mr. SARGENT. .A.scerf ained debt. Since that time, of coorso, there 

ha.s been the addition of the claims allowed ·by the board of audit and 

the bonds issued upon them, which would modify this statement l)er- haps 10 or 15 per cent. Of course the statement is subject to correction 

for anything which has happened since th.e time the report was made. By the table, which will be found on page 1944-I call attention to thefact-itwill be seen that New York, Brooklyn, Jersey City, 

Elizabeth, Boston, Portland, and several other cities enumerated here 

have a greater debt per head than Washington. Take the city of 

Buffalo, which has 118,000 population and an annual municipal ex- pense of 1,335,000, while the District of Columbia bas 131,700 people, 

and its annual expense, a ide from these extraordinary improvements 

a.nd extraordinary expen es which were contemplated by the legislation of 1874 and enjoined upon the board of commissioners, is less 

than two millions, or in less mtio. New York expends even at the 

present time over thirty dollars per bead of its population, and Washington does not expend half of that. Now I should like to a k,in connection with all these facts, why it 

i that this committee were so very 1·eticent 7 Why did they not make some showing against the board 'f I should like to appeal to the 

chairman of the committee whether he believed himself that there was this corruption on the part of the board of public works, if any 

member of it stained his hands with illicit gain 'f and I should like an answer. When it is gravely alleged by a colleague of the Senator on the committee that these things are so, I have aright to appeal 

to the chairman of the committee to know whether tb.~coiilll!ltt o thought or not. 

Mr. ALLISON. I will endeavor to answer the Senator's question 

after he has concluded his remarks. 

Mr. SARGENT. I wish the Senator to answer me now merely to 

that point. fr. ALLISON. I prefer to wait. Mr. SARGENT. The Senator does not wish to do it. Then I hope 

he will answer me whether this is authentic or not : 

Shortly after the adjournment of Congress last year Mr. ALLISON addressed the 

following crisp and ringing words to a friend: "I am sorry that Shepherd was tem- porarily sacrificed, as he has done so much for the city. He cau afford to wait, 

however, a,s no stain is cast upon his honor or integrity by the investigation or report." · 

I should like to httve the Senator tell me whether he wrote that 

document or not. 

Mr. ALLISON. I trust the Senator will give me an opportunity to answer after be finishes his remarks. 

l\1r. SARGENT. Very well; in the Senator's own time. 

1\Ir. ALLISON. I do not propose to be catechised in that manner by the Senator from California. · Mr. SARGENT. No, I am very far from any disposition to catechise; and I believ-e it is not catechising when a Senator re pectfully 

asks anot.her a question. If it is, I apologize and withdraw it. I only 

hope the Senator will not for~et to inform the Senate before he gets 

through whether this was wnttcn by him; and, if so, whether there 

wa8 any foundation for the statement of his colleague on the com- mittee that the committee knew that the e men were guilty of frauds 

and wrongs on the Government of the United States. This is no thing 

to play ''hide and seek" about. The committee bad a public duty to 

discharge. Were tbese men guilty or innocent! I do not care whether 

the Sen a. tor answers or not; but I say, if he does not an wer, the judgment of the public will be formed upon the written report; and my 

opinion is that it will be formed upon that in any event. It certainly 

would bo if the public could get it. I understand- or I thought at the time I under tood, as I read day 

after day the testimony which wa taken down verbatim and pub- lished in the daily press in this city, the proceedings of this committee-the political exigencies that required that .prosecution. It was not difficult to understand. Men's mincls were then recently dwelling 

upon the affairs which had happened in New York City, and it was necessary that the democratic party should find somebody upon whom 

they conl<l fMteR, justly or unjustly, some infamy, in order to offset 

the horrible crimes committed by the agents of the democratic party 

in New York City, byTweedandHallandcompany. Therewasthene- cessity. Some bright and hiDing example of corruption must be had, 

and consequently men were at once a igned their part : this one to 

pro ecute, that one to gather te. timony, this one to scribble, and that one to declaim. They attempted to wake up a revival against there- publican party over this matter in the Moody and Sankey fashion, 

where a great deal should be done by claquelws and a good deal by 

shouting, and nothing very definite be said and nothing very definite 

be understood by t4e public. It was n~cessary to cover up the infamy 

of Tweed. 

I have been a reader o1 the speeches of my friend from Ohio [Ml·. 

THURMAN] and I know he is a strong parti an, as he has a right to 

be. I honor him )or following his convictions; and I believe that he 

desires to give ad-doe where it will be for the benefit of the Republic, 

and I have been puzzled to know why it is, when he and other Senators, after such a report and with such testimony, have been a.ble to 

stand up here and charge corruption in the expenditure of public 

money in this District, they have never said one ~ord of rebuke in 

their own party, where their counsels'would be so potent, against 

those men who were bankrupting the reputation as well as ruining 

the finances of a great city. Why, sir, the crimes and infamies of the 

democratic administration in New York stand conspicuous, a land- mark that no one can miss, like l\Iont Bln.nc among the Alps, like 

Andersonville among the horrors of dungeons and torture, pre-eminent and startling. Have we forgotten what this pore democratic 

administration did in New York There were no republicans there 

to interfere with their operati~ns, nobody even to call them to order. 

They ran everything, as e sed the taxes, made the laws under which 

taxes were a,sses ed; collected them, spent them, put them in their own pockets. Doring two and a half years of Tweed's democratic rule 

in New York, Hall, Tweed, and Company expended 147,713,870-

$59,000,000 and over a year, and over 5i per cent. of the valuation of 

all the ta,xable property in the county. They increased the del.lt over $83,000,000 and spent be ides over '63,000,000 cash. In other worcls, 

in two and a half years they squaJldered 14 per cent. of all the tax· 

able property of the people of that county. We heard something about a printing bill, of 25,000 I think the 

amount was, that this board of audit paid or at lea t gave certificates 

for. What a horrible crime! What busine had they to pay 25,000 

for printing T This democratic administr:ttion in New York, so near to the Senator from Delaware that as he went to bed at night if he 

bad his windows open he could smell their stench, spent over 7,000,000 

for printing besides 3,000,000 of claims for tlw same which were un- settled when the developments were made. 

The New York Transcript, having a circulatiop of five hundred, was made the official journal, and had all the advertisement , aJld it was ownecl by the officials who were prohibited by law from having con- tracts. How fofi~3jte l~ wo~q ha,.y~ b~e.f!to~ tlt~ enator from De~ 

• 
• 

824 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD. FEBRUARY 2, 

ware if he could have coupled a condition-a circumstance-:with his 

statement and said that Shepherd was interested in the paper that 

got the $25,000. The New York Leader was also a corporation paper, 

and Mayor Hall was said to have been a large owner in that journa.l; 

whether truly or not, I know not. 

This District committee find that there was some construction of 

law different from what they would have construed it, by which more money was spent than they think they would have spent if they had 

had the expending of it. This TwE_led government in New York, this 

pnre democracy, had an appropriation for repairs of $70,000 for 1868 

and 1869; and, contrary to law, they spent on such repairs $4,016,11U.I 1. , What an excellent thing it is to belong to a party that is so pnre and so good that you can pa.y all your attention to your adversaries, point 

out their evils, and have no fault to find at home! 

Mr. SAULSBURY. Will the Senator allow me to ask a question T 

Mr. SARGENT. With pleasure. 

l'tir. SAULSBURY. I am not, as the Senator from California is, a friend of the board of public works here, but I desire to ask him this 

question : Does he not know that it was the present governor of the 

State of New York who interfered to overthrow the corruptions in 

that city practiced by Tweed and who prosecuted him to judgment 

and conviction 7 

Mr. SARGENT. So far a.s the present democratic governor of New 

York is entitled to credit in that matter, I cheerfully accord it. I do 

not know how much he had to do with it. I understand he did have 

something to do with it. I have no doubt that other patriotic democrats worked to the same end, overwhelmed and shamed by the cor- ruptionsof their party. But my impression is that arepublicannews- pa.per in NewYork,a large, leading paper was the one that :first called 

attention to these enormities and forced them upon the attention of 

democrats. 

Mr. SAULSBURY. I do not wish to interrupt the Senator, but I 

de ire to ask him one further question. Does he not know that the 

ring, as it was called inN ew York, was composed of men who claimed 

affiliation both with the republican and with the democratic party 'I' 

I wish to ask him this further question, whether he ever knew of any 

prominent democrat in the State of New York in the legislative halls 

rising up to defend their action 7 :Mr. SARGENT. I do not know about that, because I have not been a reader of the debates in New York; but that there are dishonest re- publicans in New York I have no doubt. The example set before 

them by the democrats was so contagious and so bad that I am afraid some of them may have been contaminated. But I call the Senator's 

attention ~o one thing, and I should like to have him state the infer- ence fTom it if he ca.n, and that is that after all these frauds I speak 

about, blackening and staining this man Tweed until the deyil himself would be a-shamed of the comparison, he was elected by a democratic constituency to the senate of Naw York. Whether he there 

raised his voice in defense of these frauds I do not know. 

Mr. KERNAN. I would ask t.he Senator from California what was done with Tweed and those other robbers 'I' Were they continued in 

place 'I' Were they continued even in the city 7 Or have they been 

either sent to prison or compelled to fly to foreign countries, forfeiting their bail 'I' Did they stay there, recognized as men who were to 

be sustained and defended 7 

l'tir .. SARGENT. My last reading of the matter-the Senator may 

be fresher than I am-is that democratic officials allowed Tweed to 

go in broad dayligh t.. :Mr. KERNAN. Will my friend give me the slightest pretense of 

authority for that¥ I will ask him another question. Is it not true 

that during the l~t fall a democratic attorney-general and governor 

received into the trea8ury from one of these men, collected by suit, 

GOO,OOO; and snits are now pending against the others 'I' 

One other question. As the Senator arraigns New York, will he tell me who were in power in the Legislature when the extraordinary charter was pa.ssed which gave those men the powers by which, under the 

pretense of governing, they robbed the people of New York. Samuel 

J. Tilden went up, and republicans with him, an remonstrated with 

the committee against that charter,. but a repu lican Legislature 

])a ed it, and a republican senator afterward wa-s arraigned and tried 

for being bribed in reference to those measures, and resigned to esca.pe what was worse. Mr. SARGENT. I dare say he was guilty. If you hold the republican Legislature as responsible for extravagance or illegal expenditures nuder the legislation that you refer to. then I would like to ask 

whether you do not arraign this committee worse than I have done 

in proposing amlsecuring the pa.ssage of a law the effect of which is 

to produce the additional expenditure of :five a.nd a half million in this 

District Y But I am not sufficiently farniliar--

Mr. KERNAN. Will the Senator permit me to answer 'I' I have ar- raigned nobody. I simply, when 11pparently to justify the action 

h ere what wa done in New York is lugged in, ask gentlemen to follow out the precedent, if the action here corresponds with New York, 

and puui h the men and recover ba-ck the money. 

J\lr. SARGENT. All right. 

Mr. KERNAN. I do not say it is so, for I do not know. I have n.rrn.ignect nobody. Mr. SARGENT. I <lo not know wllethcr the Senator arraigns anybody or not; he says" recoYer back the money." ~ecoyer back what 

money! Who stole money here f · 

Mr. KERNAN. The Senatorwns citing from New York apparently 

to justify something here. I do not say it <lo ; but I sa.y then b . should follow out the precedent. I have arraigne(.l nobody; I am not familiar with these details; but when you bring up that matter· here, if it has any bearing, I a k you to follow t.he .sample to the end 

and send the men who deserve it to prison if there be such, and re- cover back the money for the people if it haa been wrongfully taken; 

I do not know that it has. But why is the corruption of New York 

paraded here 1 That corruption I do not defend and never defenued, 

and the party I acted with turned tbe repre entatives of these men, 

regular though they were, out of our convention in 1 71 because they were guilty of these things. 

Mr. SARGENT. Mr. President, who defends corruption bore, ancl 

who dares charge it7 That is the question. Who dares charge it 

The Senator says be does not charge it. Who does charge it 7 I ha.ve 

looked through the report of this committee, and I do not find any 

cha.rge of corruption. Mr. KERNAl~. My que tion is--

Mr. SARGENT. I do not yield. Mr. KERNAN. Ahl 

1\Ir. SARGENT. I do not yield for a speech. I have li tened to t he Senator, and now intend to reply, and intend al o to proceed with my 

remarks. I say the charge is not found by this committee ; it cannot 

be made, that any money ever was snrreptitionsly ta.ken out of thu 

Treasury of t.he Government or the treasury of tbi District. I did 

not bring in the frauds in New York as an excn efor these; but. when 

democrats get up and are so eloquent over the e matters occurring in 

this District, and make loose aUegations of fraud, I call their a.ttention to fa-cts that are startling in their party. That is the object of 

bringing it here. I say that they them elves must eith r repudiate 

tho. e things or blush with shame~ 

Who ordered the inve tigation into the management of affairs in 

this District f Was it not a republican Congre Y Who tolerated 

the investigation and ordered it and carried it on'¥ It wa a republican Congress, although those who composed the committee were largely democrats. What ha been done in New York toward this 

point f There were certain judges, not nece sarily democrat , who 

held that Tweed was amenable to la.w,anddemocrat.ic official allowed 

him to escape. The Senator says tha,t there were some few hundred 

thousand dollars recovered by judgment, and perhap paid into the 

State treasury. ·What is that A mere drop in the bucket. Tho e men stole more, and the Senator knows it, than the whole debt of this 

District. If they had done something toward the improvement of 

the city, if they had--

Mr. KERNAN. The gentleman says I know it. Will he yield f 

Mr. SARGENT. Certainly, if I misrepresent the Senator. Mr. KERNAN. Mr. President, I want it distin~tly understood that we did discover in New York that there was plundering, and so soon as we could we commenced prosecntin~ the guilty parties criminally7 

and recovering the money civilly. We overthrew the men from political power, and have sought antl to this day are seeking to pnuish 

them criminally and to recover back the money civilly. 'l'hat has 

been and is being done. I am not here now to talk party; but every 

good man in the party in power there bas aided, in convention. , in 

courts, and in the administration, to bring the e men to justice and recover back from them and put in the treasury that which was plundered from the people by them when they were in power. Although 

they were democrats they got no mercy at the hands of those who were intrusted with the government under that party from the time we overthrew them. 

:Mr. SARGENT. M:r. President--

Mr. MORTON. ·will my friend from California yield to me for a 

momentf 

Mr. SARGENT. Yes, sir. l\fr. MORTON. I want to say in regard to thi New York fraud, 

though it has no connection with this subject except as a reply to tho 

attempt that ha.s been made here, obviously to make political capital, 

that it was belieyed by this country for years before it wa finally 

developed that enormous frauds existed in the city of New York. 

There was a corrupt judiciary, the most corrupt this country ha ever known. But after the Tweed fraud had been developed by a republican newspaper a.nd evidences brought forward that could not be 

met at all, then prominent democra.ts jumped in with a vi w of investigating the fraud and l'elieving the party from tho odium aml 

taking to themselves the credit. It is to be said, I think, a a matter 

of fact, that that was not done until tho evitlonco had first been bid 

before the nation of a character that could not be answered. Mr. KERNAN. Permit me to say in reply to that--

l\fr. SARGENT. I would prefer that the Senator should wait. 

Mr. KERNAN. Certainly, I have no objection. 

Mr. SARGENT. The Senator will have ample opportunity to talk. 

This matter is very inter sting, and I am perfectly willing to hear 

any explanation which can be made by the democratic party for their 

silence heretofore in condemning these things. I do not know but 

that some of the democrats of New York may have endeavored to 

tra.ce up these things. l\Iy recollection is that Charles O'Conor did 

so; anu, ::tltbough he wa iu opposit;ion to hi party on na.tioual ma.tters at the last presidential election, still I pre ume be would ue con- sidered a good democrat, a,nd I give the democratic party creclit for 

any exe:rLio.q tb\\.t Mr. O'Conor made in that direction. They say that 

• 
1876. CONGRESSIONAL RECORD. 825 

GoYernor Tilden did something in the su,me direction. All right; I am glacl to hear it; a.nu I hope they will be u,ble to show a roll of one hundretl uernocrat who did the same thing, and of leailing and infl.uent.ial on s; but I aythe fact still rema.ins to which I called attention, 

that after u,ll these disrrraceful iniquitie , which I have not half stated 

yet, Tweed wa taken up by a democratic constituency and put into , t.lle Senate of that State. They did these things boldly and shame-

' fully. They did them through all the machinery of the party and 

all tho machinery of the city. They did them by subsidizing the 

newspapers in which they owned an interest. The scandals existed 

for months, and then a republican paper, a.s the Senator from Indiana 

says, called ·attention to them, and nailed public attention down to 

them, until .finally it was impo sible to avoid hearing ; and then it was thu,t democrats as well as republicans began to stir. I am glad 

they did even at that late time. I give them full creclit for it. But as against the paltry few hundred thousand dollars which it is said 

has been recovered or judgments obtained for, I do not know which, 

let us see what they did. 

The furni hingof the court-house there alone cost$7,000,000. Think 

of it I The furnishing of one insignificant building, while the building itself co t double what the magnificent post-office built by the 

United States close by it cost iilcluding all its furnishing. It was a . grand nest-egg for the democratic retaine'rs of that city. The car· pets, the estimated value of which was 1,200, cost $350,000. I think 

it is about time that some democrat should object to the scandals 

which were raised by transa-ctions like that. The repairs of the ar~ 

mories, of which I think there were twenty, cost $2,700,000, and the 

plastering 2,800,000. Why think of it ! It would almost plaster a roof over Manhattan Island. There was paid to Keyser for plumbing 

$1,221,000. The window-shades of that sublime building cost$23,573. 

Ingersoll's bills for furniture were over , 5,000,000. 

I do not wonder that democrats writhe under a statement like that. 

I do not wonder that the frauds in their party are distasteful to them. 

They certainly would be distasteful to me i1 they were in my party. 

I could not say a word in defense of them. 

I said that there was a necessity for a republican Tweed. That was why I was looking into the e things. These things were a stench 

in the nostrils of the people of the nation, and the crowning a-ct was when a democratic constituency rewarded Tweed by sending him to 

the State senate, and then it was necessary to find somebody, and they 

went to the city where most work was bein~ done, and they organized investigations which lasted for nearly nrne months, first by one House of Congress, and then both Houses, and what was the result ' 

The first committee reported an entire approbation of the proceedings of the board of public works-and this report wa.s signed by 

tlemocrats-of their construction of the law as well as of their expenditures, and specifically acquitted them of any charge of fraud, said 

there was no such slwwing of any kind whatever; ~nd yet there was a most envenomed prosecution before them, and all the power of the 

Government was used to compel the attendance of wi tnes es. Baffied 

in this mere party attempt, they then started in for another investigation, and then they got a committee of both Houses, and they took over two thousand pages of testimony. The mountain again labored, 

and brought forth that ridiculous mouse. [Holding up the report.] 

No charges of corruption are sustained at all, and there is no asser- tion on the part of the committee that there was any corruption. 

Now what ought the Government to do with reference to this Dis- trict f Ought it to tie up its purse-strings and do nothing f I have seen the fiTe department of this city playin~ its streams and wearing 

out its bose in saving public property at mght, and at a time when we were not paying a dollar for the fire department, and we have 

only done it wit-hin a year or two. Take the Seaton Honse down on Louisiana avenue, where there are vouchers and evidences of indehtedne s paid by the Government to the extent probably of 150,000,000, 

at the mercy of the devouring element. Upon whom do you rely to 

keep that building from being entirely consumed; and so of all . our public buildings Y The fire department of the District of Columbia. 

It is only qniterecently that you have paid a.nything toward the l\1etropolitan police. Here for years and years, for generations, the people of this District paid for guarcling the streets and alleys, and mn,do our live safe as we went to and fro. So I might go through the whole 

li t . The amount of property the Government owns in this District 

is equal to, or a little exceeding, hy the report of the assessors, not 

counting personal property in the public buildings, that owned by 

the citizens of the District-about $U6,000,000 in each ca2e. 

Wllat is the duty of the Government in such a state of things 1 It 

is not tb.e case of an isolated post-office or custom-house elsewhere, 

however magnificent, 'or the ownership of a wharf, which is no local 

inconvenience or burden to the people, and where the Government 

simply pays for its share of streets around it; but here is a city made 

up of Government property almost, where it has the fee simple of the 

very treets, and can close any street or avenne by legislation to-mor- row and would be upheld by the conrts in so doing, a it ha-s been 

heretofore. The Government owns this ma.gnificent building and 

other buildin(Ts costing over $30,000,000, and to replace which now would cost $50,000,000. I ask what the Government, being this great 

prop rty-owner here, ought to do for the people of this District¥ 

Ougllt we to say to these men, "Wallow about in yonr filth; be decimated by the death rate; keep your old huts along dingy highways, 

l;.lecause in A.rkansas or in the back pa.rt of Jlli.q.o~ they have such." 

Is that f~ir or liberal 7 Is that the spirit which we ot;ght to entertain 7 

I come from a distant State, and have no more interest and I might 

say less than almost any other Senator on the fln or; but I recognize 

this as the capital of the Republic, as a sociated with all its glorie. ·, a-s deserving tq be well and decently treated by the GoveFnment. 

Ought it not to have at least one-half of its annual expenditures paid 

out of the Treasury of the United States in consideration of the United 

States having one-half of the property heref We are told that we are talking grandiloquently about the capital, and some Sen:J.tors tm·n 

deaf ears thereto. This is not justice to this District; and I claim 

that we ought to be liberal, or at any rate ought to be fair, toward 

the people of the District and enable them to bear their burdens. It 

hu,s been sa.ia over and over again, but I repeat it, that the magnitude 

of these streets and these avenues is an additional reason. Do people 

anywhere in the world aside from a national capital-and I know of none on a scale so magnificent-ever for themselves lay down such a plan for a city Y How shall the people here keep these avenues in 

repair, these mere shop-keepers, as they are sneeringly called f Tho 

Government does more to wear out these streets than the citizens do. 

Hauling the great granite blocks to the Treasury ruined Penn y lvania avenue when it was paved with cobble-stones. The Government 

dragged those blocks along in their carts day by day, causing great 

boles down in the Avenue until it was impossible to pass along it . Yet the Government did not repair it. If anybody said anything 

about it, it was answered, "We have corduroy roads in lllinois; let 

the people go to Illinois, go West." It is these works of the Government which have destroyed the streets after the citizens have put 

them in partial order. The ordinary use would not so wear them o.ut. 

So the columns of this Capitol, great, heavy burdens, the artillery 

which wa-s concentrated here and thundered through the streets during the rebellion, all contributed to destroy the streets. The Government in this way made extraordinary wear and laid on the people ex- traordinary work. 'As the Government owns half the property, roal 

and per onal, in the District, ought it not to tax itself if it will not 

allow the city to tax itf - · There seem to have been two branches to this discussion, one en- tirely unnecessary to it which I would not have adverted to had it 

not been forced upon us-a discussion of the character of the board 

of public works, assailing them as corrupt men, as unfaithful officers, 

of being guilty of some mysterious thing which the committee of investigation could not report to us because it could not make up its 

mind whether it existed. That is part of the debate on a bill simply 

to redeem the credit of the Government. The other part is that the 

boardofcommissionerswbo succeeded them also have been guilty of illegal transactions, and, by a certain implication, perhaps of corruption. 

The responsibility of these commissioners is limited to the construction of the act of June 20, 1874, and the application of the la~ as construed to the work they ordered. They have had nothing to do 

with the auditing or payment of claims of any amount existing prior 

to June 20, 1874, all such having been pa-s eel upon by the board of 

audit exclusively, without any communication or consultation with 

the commissioners, and so of all claims arising out of contracts 

of the board of public works executed by the commissioners. All 

these passed to the board of audit for their examination and audit. 

The commissioners have nothing to do with the settlement of those 

claims. All they do is to order the work to be done under the direction of the engineer, who is appointed by the President under the a-ct 

of June 20, 1874, even the engineer being supp~ed to them. 

Now, it is said that these commi sioners did not know their duty; 

could not construe that statute, or knowing their duty construed it 

wrongly. I do not know whether they knew bow to construe it or not. I defy any man to construe tbu,t, statute with certainty. In 

parts it is not even grammatical. If the object which is avowed to 

have been in view was the real object, there never wa.s a statute so ill 

calculated to carry out its purpose. We are told now that one object 

of the statute wa8 to terminate at once and forever the board of public 

works and its transactions; that the system wa-s obnoxious and must 

he done away with; and yet the committee in effect and Congress did 

nothing more to change the system and make all things new except to 

change a board of public works of five into a board of commissioners 

of three. There was not a power belonging to the old board that they 

did not confer on the new. In general terms, it was simply a continuance 

of the old scheme of government with all its powers and duties, ex- cept that they took away from the board of commissioners; I havG no doubt to the full satisfaction of that board, the auditing of old claims or auditing of anything in reference to improvements. If there is 

any o.ther distinction, I should like to have it pointed out. Now le\; ns see what this statute says: 

That the President of the United States, by and with the advice and consent of 

the Senn.te, is hereby authorized t.o appoint a commission, consisting of throo per· sons, who shall, until otherwise provided by law, exercise all the po;ver and 

authority now lawfully vested in the governor or board of public work3 of RaiU. District, except ItS hereinafter limited; and shall be subject to all the rel'trictions 

and limitations now imposed by law on said governor or boardShall "exercise all the power ancl authmity now lawfully vested 

in the governor or board of public works of said District, except. as hereinafter limited." Those so-called limitations do not limit tbc e words at all; if anything, they explain and enlarge the aut.hority, 

whatever their intention may have beonantl sbn.ll have power to apply the taxes or other re,-enues of s.'\id District to tl.te 

payment of the ctUTent expenses tqereof1 1;4> the support. of the public schools, tho 
- 826 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD. FEBRUARY 2, 

fire department, and tho police, and to the payment of the debts of said District 

secured by a pledge of the sooLuities of saill District or board of public works as collateral, ancl also to the _:payment of debts due to laborers ancl employ6s of the 

District and board of public works; ancl for that purpose shall takepos ession and 

supervision of all the office , books, paper , records, moneys, creclits, securitie , as· ets, and accounts belonging or appertaining to the business or interests of the gov- ernment of the District of Columbia. and the board of public works, and exercise 

the power ancl authority aforesaid- · 

If there ever was'an ampler grant of power than that I do not know 

how it waa or could be framed. It was as broad as the subject and 

language could not make it more comprehensive. And now let us look at the" limitations"-

but said commission, in the exercise of such power or authority, shall make no con- tract, nor incur any obli~ation, other than such c011 tracts aml obli~ations as may be 

necessary to the faithful administration of the valid laws enacted for the govern- ment of said DistrictDoes anybody pretend to say that the board of public works had 

power to make contracts to carry out invalid laws 'I If not, that limitation amounts to nothing. The power of each was co-extensive-· 

to the execution of existing legal obligations and contractsThese are the only ones that any board has the power to execute, 

and consequently the e are not words of limitationand to the protection or preservation of improvements existing, or commenced and not completed, at the time of the passage of this act. 

That is to say, they were to perform all existing contracts, where 

they were legal and valid, made by the board of public works. They were to step right into their shoes. The Senator from Ohio said that. after their report of December, 1874, when they found that Congress 

did not act and treat this as a temporary government, and appoint 

their succe sors in a more permanent form, they got new life and 

branched out and assumed new powers. I say, sir, that the Senator 

is utterly mistaken in that, and I call his attention to the document 

which was read by the Senator from Massachusetts, [l\fr. DAWES,] 

written in August, 1874, and called out by this circumstance. The 

memorialists, or some of them, or persons representing them, called 

upon tlle board of commissioners and requested them not to carry out 

the contracts of t,he board of public works; the commissioners beard 

them carefully, took the advice of their counsel, and then wrote a document, a portion of which- and I am sorry I have not the whole 

of it-was read by the Senator from Massachusetts, bearing date in 

August, 1874, one month after they went into office, and in that doc- ~lment they themselves review their relations to the District, and 

s-peak of the powers which are conferred on them by the statute, and 

directly say that they are entitled to do these very things, and in fact 

enjoined l;>y law to do them. On the 13th of August, 1 74, they say : 

First. We hold that by the a-ct of .Tune 20, 1874, Congress has recognized the va- lidity of the contracts of the board of public works, whatever their defects in their 

origin or the manner of their execution, subject to the exception common to all 

codes of law, namely, that contra-cts fraudulently made are void, and that all con- tractors who shall elect to accept the provisions of the law as to the mode of ·pay- ment prescribed therein secure to themselves all benefit. 

There is no uncertain voice about that; nothing is done in a corner. They stated exactly as they would state to-day and as has been con- tended for them in this debate, at the very outset of their duties as also at the first session of Congress, exactly how they construed the 

law. 

Secondly. That the defects, if they existed, of excessive price, want of antecedent 

appropriation, or thoso involving the making of the debt of the District to exceed '10,000,000, were all known to the investigating committee and to Congress, and were covered by the act <If .Tune 20, 1874, under which the commisl:lion was organ- ized. · Thirdly. The commissioners, therefore, hold that the prosecution of any or all 

the contracts of the board of public works to completion is for tbem alone to decide. * * * You will remember that in rendermg their decision the commissioners adverted to the fact that unless the act of Congress had providocl for the 

payment for all future work under existing contracts in what are known a 3.65 

bonds, it would have been impossible to have completed the sewer system or any considerable portion of the contracts for other improvements, as the making of new contra-cts would have compelled the paying o£ money, &c. 

If t hat had been said, not at the time, but a year and a half thereafter, there would have been some color for the Senator's statement. I fear he has not read this and did not know of it. I understooll him 

to say that he had not rea.O. the report of the commissioners for 1tl74 or for 1875. If he did not say so, some Senator who was arguing on his side of the subject said so. I should like to know what justice 

there is t o the commissioners in talking about their constructjon of 

the law, their exceeding their powers, &c., without even reading their report and knowing the grounds on which they placed their construc- -tion. It seems to me that is injustice in itself which ought not to be 

done. Then they did not get any new lif?ht. 

But I was saying that the powers of th1s board were made very ex- tensive. Let us look further : 

All taxes heretofore lawfully assessed and due or to become due shall be collected 

pursuant to law, except aa herein otherwise provided ; but said commissioners shall 

have no power to anticipate taxes by a. sale or hypothecation of any such taxes, or evidence thereof. · 

Construe that with the ample jurisdiction of the board of audit over all claims on contracts, written or oral, and on all claims for damages ::mel there was a grant of power amply su.fficiet to carry on all pro- ceedings of the board of public works. Here was this committee pro- fessing at the time to be thrillingly impressed with the idea that a boaru recognized by Congress might misconstrue the law, might become extnwagant1 might enlarge its own powers1 a.nQ. t4t~ QQmmitte~, 

with this monition so fresh in their minds, write here -with their pen a law throwing every imaginable power into the bands of these partie , anu by their qualifications even enlarging the scope of the duties of 

these men, and then come in and complain, "We did not understand 

that these men would construe it this way, we did not suppose that 

these operations would go on." 

:Mr. MORTON. I will ask the Senator if, in their report to .Congres , they did not state the construction that had been given to this 

law! 

1\fr. SARGENT. Yes, sir, theydjd in that very first report; and they 

gave a list of ninety-nine contracts as tho e they had approved, part 

of which they had already e:s:ecnteu at a cost of five hundred and odu 

thousand dollars, and they estimated that to complete the rest would 

costsomewhere about ·1,700,000. Here wasthedirectmonition to Congress of their construction of the law, of the contracts which they ba(l 

sanctioned, and the other proceedings thereunder, and the partial ex- penditure. When did they enlarge their juris diction Y When did they 

get new light 'I Perhaps they got new lights in reference to oral con- tracts which the Senator from Ohio talked about and which he refi.nctl 

down by saying that referred to the wages of laborer employed by the 

board of public works. He has refined it down and said that meant only 

laborers, the men who swept out the office , with whom of course there was no written contract, and we in all magnanimity would not over .. look them, and therefore put in the word "oral contra{}ts !" 0, the 

infirmity of senatorial memory! In that very legislation there was a provision of 75,000 to pay tho e very employe , covering that very 

subject. The committee meant obviously ·as now the Senator himself must admit in view of all the facts, that the word "oral" there 

meant those contracts which were extensions orally by the board of 

public w01·ks, as for instance when a man had a contract to pave 

certain streets he had a promise that if he did that faithfully and 

thoroughly be should have the extension of it to still another street. 

Those were oral contracts, (there were contracts of that nature,) and men went( on and had partly executed the e oral contracts, and the 

question was whether they should be left out imply because the con- tract was not in WTiting. I think it was a proper proceeding on the 

part of the committee to do that. I commend that. The law is defective enough certainly in other respects to entjtle it to that charity on my part. But that is what they meant by the word'' oral." It is ex post fact-o wisdpm which would apply it to laborers who were provided for expressly by another provision of the bill. The Senator from Ohio complains rn the specifications he makes 

against the board of commis ioners of the cost of the board of audit, as if they created the board of audit or could limit its expense . . Among other criticisms which I made against this legislation at the 

time it was adopted-- Mr. THURMAN. I made no complaint at all against their allowing 

the expenses of the board of audit- not one word. Mr. SARGENT. Did you not make complaint of that item of ex- . penditnre Y · 

1\fr. THURMAN. I was speaking about the expenses of the District. The Senator interrupted me, and I s~tid he was mistaken in 

supposing that I was making complaints. I spoke of the expensive 

system which was carried on. I was making no charges against anybody. 

1\fr. SARGENT. Very well, the Senator's complaint, or his criticism, was of a system by which a board of audit became so expensive and was so expensive .. Why, sir, I thought of that when the bill of 1874 was under consideration, and in my remarks I said that you were going 

to give an irresponsible authority to pick Tom, Dick, and Harry up out 

of the streets, their services to be paid for at any price the board of 

audit might see fit, without any control; and I proposed that, instead 

of that, the supervision should be given to the Secretary of the Treasury, and that he should have the power to limit the number of assistants aud prescrille their compensation. That was refused, and the 

Senator from Ohio himself argued against the proposition which I 

made and said that I misunderstood the bill entirely. I said further- more that assi tants were authorized to go on and 'discharge all tho 

unties of the First and Second Comptrollers; in other words, the 

board of audit under the act. I said, "Some unknown persons may 

be a.ppointed to discharge these duties." . The Senator might finu that t.here was wistlom in that remark of 

mine, aml that there is reason to believe that the First and Second 

Comptrollers have not been tho only parties that have pa-ssed on claims. I sa ill that it was an improper board; that it ought not to be 

constituted, but that, if it was, the power to select subordinates should 

be given to the Secretary of the Treasury, who him elf should be held 

responsible for the acLion of his subordinates, that we had j ust con- firmed him unauimoosly, and I bad no doubt Senators on both sides 

of the Chamber would say that they had confidence in him, and I a ked that he be given tho supervi ion of tho e expend itures. Now 

the Senator comes in and complain of a , tern reported in his own bill, of a system defended against argument on the floor of the Senate, of a system which he insisted was so perfect that there hould 

not be any amendment to the bill whatever, even to correct thisfea,t- ure of it. It is well that s U<\torial memory should be good. If the 

Senator wants the debate, I will give him the pages. Let him look 

at the RECORD of the Forty-thiru Congre s, first se ion, pages 5154, 

5155, and5156, containing the debate of June 18,1874. 

The Senator emphasizes that only oue Sen~torvQtedagainstthe b~ 

' 
1876. CONGRESSIONAL RECORD. 827 

I voted against the bill and was the Senator alluded to ; and I gave 

such ren.sons as I could at the time, although the pressure here upon us for a vote was so strong that, as is shown in the debate, at onemo- ment I had to say "I stand here in my right as a Senator of the United 

States to state my objections to this bill." The pressure was to g~t 

me off th(:' floor. He suys it was open to debate, and the Senator from 

Indiana could have come in and debated it and made motions, &c. I 

received, I will not say discourtesy, for I received none at all and do 

not complain of what occurred, but if the Senator from Indiana had 

been here and felt the pre sure of the opinion which bad been worked 

up by the newspa,pers, by the memorialists, by the comntittee; by the 

;nysterious something they would not report about, which was pres ed 

upon us, and the as ertion that there was no time to elaborate or perfect anything, he would not have made any remarks at all perhaps, 

unless he had been, a I was, determined to assert his right to be heard 

where he thought a thing was wrong. 

I ay then, sir; that this law from beginning to end was so loosely 

drawn that a cart and ho1· e might be driven through it. In that 

very debate the chairman of the committee got up and said in reply 

to a question of mine, "We do not intend to limit the amount of this 

debt; we do not limit the amount of the debt." Well, then, if you 

did not limit the amount of the debt, if you llid not put that important limitation on it, who shall you blame for making a debt different from the limit you had in your minds and clid not express either 

in your report or in your statute¥ Let me read what he said: 

Mr. ALLISON. I o:i:tly desire to say one word in reply to the amendment proposed 

by the Senator from California. The committee carefully considered the very question which he raises with reference to this board of audit. The First and 

Second Comptrollers of the Treasury are the proper officers of the United States to supervise all the accounts of the United States. Now the Government proposes in a measure to take charge of this debt of the District of Columbia. We pledge 

the faith of the United States to the payment of the interest of this debt and to the payment of the principal at maturity. . Again, we place no limitation upon the amount of this debt. We do not say that 

it shall be five million or six million or three million dollars; but we say that, what- ever it is, when these two a-ccounting officers of the Government, who have shown 

by their acts hitherto that they are faithful accountin~ officers, put their signatures to these accounts, the e a{Jcounts shall go to the sinkinp;-fund commissioners, and 

there and then be converted into a bond of the Distnct, the faith of the United 

States being pledged for the principal and interest.-Oongressional Record, Fortythird Congress, fu-st session, page 515G. 

I did not believe in the logic at the time. I thought that there 

ought to be a limit to the debt. I thought we ought to understand 

just where we were driving to. But finally it passed under this 

pledge: "These men we make our referees ; they shall ascertain the 

amount of the debt; they shall issue certificates, which shall be con- verted by the sinking-fund commissioners into 3:65 bonds; and Congre s will stan(}. by them, and we pledge the faith of the Government 

to pay the interest." On the 1st day of February prominent Senators on this floor, who might be supposed to have some responsibility in 

reference to the finances of the Government, received telegrams from 

New York from the men who had acted-on that pledge and invested 

in-3.65 bonds, asking why the faith of the Government bad gone to 

protest, why their coupons were not paid. 

Thou canst not say I did it : never shake 

Thy gory locks at me. 

I tried to remedy these things and prevent the very difficulty into 

which you are now plunged. This board were required to go on and 

complete all the legal contracts, written or oral, of the board of public works. They were required to preserve all the improvements. 

The board of audit was required to take into account all damages of 

every sort whatever. Now you come in and complain that you find ·a large deht, when you yourselves said when the bill was passed in 

the Senate that you did not propo e to limit the debt in any way! 

It li! unkind to thus carp and criticize eminent gentlemen who heretofore hav~ had high service in the Republic, who are respected at 

home, and respected here, and re pected throughout the country, be- cause they have carried out your intention and you find that the result 

is that there is more of debt than you expected. At any rate, they did 

not do it without making it known to Congres , as I have said, st.ep 

by step. In 1 74 they reported to Congress; in 1 75 they reported to 

Congress. Senators think this of no account, no matter, and therefore do not read the reports. 

Mr. HAMILTON. Will the Senator allow me to a k him a question 'I 

Mr. SARGENT. Yes, sir; I will yield for a question. Mr. HAMILTON. In addition to the limitation spoken of by the 

Senator from Massachusetts the other day, and by other Senators, on the power of the board of public works to contract debts, not only 

against the Government of the United States but against the District 

of Columbia, I beg to call the Senator's attention to sections 124 and 

125 of the Revi ed Statutes and to ask whether they have been repealed. 

I cannot find a repeal. Section 124 reads thus: 

The District government shall have no power to borrow money or issue stock or bonds for any object whatever, unle s specially authorized by an act of the Legislative Assembly, pa ed by a vote of two-thirds of the entire number of the mem. bers of each branch thereof. 

'fhat does not amount to much; but the next section, 125, is this: 

The dobt of the District, including the debts of the late corporations, shall at no time exceed the sum of 10,000,000, unless an inm-eas oy4;}r ~h~ sail"l !IIlli nut lillaU 

llave been previously authol'ized by a-ct of Congress, 

Mr: SARGENT. The law now operative was passed subsequently. 

Mr. HilllLTON. Did it repe~tl that . Mr. SARGENT. Yes, sir, becau e inconsistent with it. 

Mr. HAMILTON. I understand not. 

Mr. SARGE:tfT. Yes, I think it did. It placed the power in the 

hands ttA~ese commissioners without limit. 

Mr. ILTON. Seeing that at the time the District government was put in commission the debt had almost reached 20,000,000, I 

would like the Senator to read the repeal of this section. 

1\-Ir. SARGENT. I do not say it is repealed in express terms. I 

merely meant to say that the District government was abolished and 

that a board of audit was appointed with power to go on and exam- ine certain classes of indebtedness, and that when they found that indebtedness good they were to is ue certificates of indebtedness which were to be converted into bonds, and that the faith of the Government is pledged to the payment of those bonds; yon may call these 

District bonds or United States bonds, as you choo e; but this legislation was subsequent to that statute and would take its place if inconsistent with it. • :Mr. H.AM:ILTON. Let me state the point I wish to make. The 

board of public works had exceeded its authority by ,000,000 at 

least, if not more, at the time the board was abolished or when the 

Congress of the United States thought it wa aboli hed, for I doubt 

whether it is abolished yet, and I do not think it is, but at any rate 

there was an attempt to abolish it. The point I make is that all con- tracts in excess of the $10,000,000 at that time were void. Nevertheless the Government authorized this board of audit to go on and audit 

all the vouchers that had been given out by the board of public work , thereby implying that the Government would shoulder that debt. I so understand it. But in all conscience will the Senator or anybody 

undertake to s!l.ythat ninety-nineoronehundred unexecuted contracts 

at that time amounting to millions of dollars were subsi ting valid 

contracts Y I do not understand it that way, and the very language 

of the law shows that Congress did notconsiderthem valid contract . They spoke of legal obligations of the Government, valid contracts--

Mr. SARGENT. I cannot yield for a speech. I am willing that 

the Senator should be beard, but I am somewhat weary and want to 

conclude. I shall do it in a few moments, and give way to the 

Senator. . Mr. HAMILTON. I beg the gentleman's pardon. I thought he was speaking against time. If he will pardon me one other observation 

I have this remark to make : I that thought he might withdraw his 

amendment now, for I have no doubt the bonds have exceeded 

$15,000,000 before this time. That is my impression. I thought the 

Senator was arguing against time with that object. 

.Mr. SARGENT. After having courteously yielded the floor to the 

Senator to ask me a question, and then to make a speech thereupon, 

I did not suppose that I was to expect an ungenerous remark. I shall 

not reply in the same spirit, and I therefore proceed with my remarks. 

I believe that so far as I have addressed the Senate it has been in 

strict reply to the remarks on the other side of this question. I think 

it is about time that one side of this case should be presented when we have these mysterious winks and nods from members of defunct 

committees of what they could do if an opportunity had only been 

givea to them. As we gave them that opportunity we had a right to 

expect them to speak or else forever after bold their peace ; and therefore I have felt that it wa-s my duty, by examinino- the testimony 

which they submitted at that time and the report whlch they made, 

to show that these thoughts of theirs are long sub equent to the time 

when they made the report, or else they were restrained by some mysterious influence which was not reported to the Senate. 

The Senator from Massachusetts [.Mr. DAWES] made one point 

in his speech, amid much that would require no particular reference, which seemed to imply th3t the board of commissioners had 

largely and extravagantly exceeded their poweTs. I do not know 

what means the Senator took to inform himself with reference to that 

matter, and perhaps the simple reading of the document on its face was all that he wa-s required to attend to; but I believe that he himself would do ample justice and make ample reparation provided he were shown by the original documents themselves that contract No. 

916, to which he alluded as being for some seven or eight thousand 

dollars and afterward extended to some 202,000, was not merely for 

the original contract, confined to a li.n:i.ited space in a single street, 

but involved under exactly the same conditions contracts 36, 41, 246, 

921, 709, and 989,contracts which themselves, together with 916, made 

the exact area which is covered by the contract to which he refers as 916. These contracts were each of them legal, valid, binding con- tracts, coming clown from the board of public works and under this 

legislation necessary to be ·carried out by the board of commis ioners. 

If that is so, the inference which the Senator draws that seven or eight thousand dollars was expanded to ·202,000 falls entirely to the 

ground, and this I have no doubt he will admit on this statement of 

the facts. I have the document here. 

Mr. DAWES. I inquire of the Senator what is the nam~ of the 

contra-ctor . Mr. SARGENT. The original contractor was John 0. Evans, the one referred to by the Senator, who assigned his contract to Murdock, 

who goes on under this extension of the contract, or under this con- solidation of contract, to do the work on street which were provided in the ol'igmal cqntr~ct, 
828 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD. FEBRUARY 2, 

Mr. D.A. WES. The Senator alludes to the man who assigned his cruing revenues of the District coming from t:tx.es :tnd other Distdct 

contract in one and executed it in the other capacity. income, and not from an appropriation. . :Mr. SARGENT. I allude to contract No. 916. The proposition before the Senate iB simply to c:nry out the pledge 

Mr. D.A. WES. Not having the book before me-- . which was made in the law, an ill-advised la,w I think, ai1d reiterated 

Mr. SARGENT. I suppose the Senator has his remarks; if he has by the chairman of the committee, that the Go7ernment would pay 

not, I will send them to him. I am replying to his criticism upon No. this interest or see t.hat it was paid : that it pledged its f:bith to that 

916. I have the book here and he is entirely welcome to it. I say effect. That is the simple question before the Senate. Senn.tors have 

with reference to that contract, as I understood him, he said it was a seen fit in the discussion of that question to wander over t.ho board 

contract of seven or eight thousand dollars and had expandecl to of public works and matter antecedent to the creation of the hoard of 

202,000, I think-at any rate to over, 200,000; and it was simply for audit by which this debt ha-s been ascertained and I have conmdered 

the work done on a single street, a limited portion; whereas I call his it my duty to follow them in that devious path.. I have spoken as I 

attention to the fact that, so far as the board of commissioners is con- considered it my right to do in defense of men who, so far as our records 

cerned, the contract he refers to relates to seven contracts, and the show, after full and fair examination, are spotless of iniquity. If in 

aggregate of those contracts covers what his ground embraced in this the testimony which wa not given before the committee, to which 

extension of 916. the Senator from Ohio [Mr. THURMAN] alluded, and consequentlv 

Mr. D.A. WES. If the Senator has my speech before him I would which he did not hear, there wa-s something which would have incnilike to understand his point more fully. I have not got it and my pated ·the e men, I simply say that is dehors the record. I speak of 

memory is very l)Oor. But it seems to me that the total of the John the record as it is. If I poke outside of it I would declare my b - 0. Evans contract was 101,000. If the Senator :finds that I stated it lief in their integrity and admiration of their energy and public pirlt. 

differently from the way in which it was reported in the book, 1iheu Mr. CHRISTIANCY. 1\Ir. Pre ident, it seems to me that this debate 

I stand corrected and agree to the correction very cheerfully. If I ha-s taken a very wide range and that it has run into somewhat incledid not read it accurately from the book, it is a mistake that I am vant matter. I may, however, be miBtaken. When the learned 

willing to conect: If I did read it accurately from the book (and I Knickerbocker sat dowp to write the history of New York he spent 

had the book here) and the Senator has some information which I was a large portion of the first volume on the various cosmogonies and 

not furnished with, I would be glad to have him state it. theories of the creation of the world, for which he gave the very satis-

:Mr. SARGENT. The Senator could have han the same information factory reason that if the world had never been created there wou1tl 

that I have furnished him by asking for it. I did not make the have been no such place as New York. Upon that principle I can ex- charge; I am simply replying to it. If the Senator will examine the plain the ilTelevancy of much of the discussion that has taken place 

remarks I make, which he will find in the RECORD to-morrow morn- upon the measure now before the Senate, but upon no other. 

ing, if I do him any injustice I know my friend well enough to know In connection with these ·bonds, or the legislation with regard to 

that he is sharp enough to set himself right. them, some facts are very clear and appear to be admitted on all 

Mr. DAWES. I inquire of the Senator if he finds, on comparing hands, and, as it seems to me, some very plain principles result from 

what I did read here with the report from which I rean, that there those facts. was any inaccuracy in my statement Y First, the act of Congress did authorize the issue of valid bonds. 

Mr. SARGENT. I do not say the Senator misquoted any figure, but That is not disputed. 

I merely say that he overlooked the fact that No. 916 was a consoli- Second, it is admitted that part of the bonds which have been issued 

dation of several other contracts, and that so explained the increase were duly and legally issued and for valid claims. That is not disin amount cannot be thought improper. puted. • Mr. DAWES. If my friend will allow me, I will put in an inter- Third, all are made negotiable and :ill refer to the same statute for 

rogatory which his last remark suggests. If No. 916 grew out of a authority for their. issue. 

consolidation of several contracts, did it not make a new contra~t Y It is claimed that part of the bonds were illegally issued; but in 

Mr. SARGENT. That is another subject and foreign to my pur- what is it claimed that. this illegality or ilTegularity consisted¥ Not 

pose; but I think not. Certainly not involving a new subject-mat- in the law ; not in anything that appeaa·s upon the bond; but because 

ter or new parties. the state of facts which would bring the case within the statute 

Mr. D.A. WES. I do not know enough about the way in which the had not taken place. That is the ground and the only ground upon 

business was done here, but it seems to me like this : If you take half which the validity of the e bonds so far as the Government is con- a dozen contracts and consolidate them 'into one and make them all cerned, is resisted. These bonds have mainly, I suppose, beennegotiup into one contract, applying to that one contract the several sub- ated to and are in the hands of men who have advanced money upon 

jects-matter which No. 916 in the beginning applied to, it seems to them. They were all negotiable, and all in the same form. Of what me as if it was a new contract; but I may be mistaken. were the holders of these bonds bound to take notice when they r - Mr. SARGENT. 0, yes; I understand the humility of the Senator ceived them Y They were bound to take notice only of what appeared 

and I appreciate it. I simply remarked that there wa-s no subject- upon the face of the statute and the fa~e of the bond. They could not 

matter changed and no change of parties except that which was be required to takenoticeofthestateoffact whichalonewouldbring 

worked by an a-ssignment; but whether it was a new or an old con- the case within or without the provisions of the statute. Seeing the 

tract w-as not pertinent to my remarks at all. I am not discussinO" names of the proper public officers atta~hed to the bonds, they had 

that proposition. I simply called the Senator's attention to what I the right to presume that those officers had ascertained the existence 

supposed to be an error in his arithmetic. of the necessary state of facts to authorize them to issue the bonds. 

Now this committee, or the members of it, now that it is scattered, If any other view were taken, it will be readily seen that the negotiplace some stress upon the fact: that the board of commissioners ex- ation of public bonds could never be accomplished. 

ceeded the estimates of the committee. I want to call attention just I therefore think that as a matter of equity, of justice, and of 

for a moment to the estimates which they made under several heads, law, between the holders of these bonds and the Government of 

in order to show how very far the committee were mistaken. They the United States, the Government is bound to make good its guaa·-

estimated the amount due or to become due on incomplete contracts antee. Thi8 would be the rule of law if the case were capable of as- at $1,325,000. The amount on these uncompleted contracts become suming the shape of a snit at law. At least such is my view of the 

due was $1,717,268, and that became due by the neeessary operations law as well as of 'the justice and equity of the case. But to prevent 

of the contracts, and without the extension of them or additional any fnrther abuse of power under this statute, if such abuses have 

expenditures at all. The claims for damages on accoun of change of taken place, I would stop the is ue of all further bonds until a proper 

grade andforproperty taken from streets was estimated by this com- inve tigation has been made in regard to the certificates said to be 

mittee, after months of laborious examination, at $550,000, whereas still outstanding. I shall therefore vote for the amendment offered 

the amount allowed by this board of audit, created in the manner in by the Senator from New York, [1\Ir. KERNAN.] 

which I have described, was 1,035 42 .39. Who iB to blame for that This, Mr. Pre idcnt, is all I have to say in regard to this joint reso- or who is deceived Y If Congress placed any reliance upon these esti- lution, aucl it seems to me I have covered all that iB really involved 

mates of the committee, ana thought this amount would be half a in the merits of the case. million instead of over a million, it was deceived. The committee Mr. EDMUNDS. I would like to ask the Senator from New York was deceived probably in making that report; but are the board of to give me his attention in respect to his amendment. What does he 

commissjoners responsible for that T The board of audit finds on this propose to do with that class of 1)ersons, if there be any such, to whom 

single item alone over half a million of money in excess, and the debt certificates have already been i sued but who have not received their runs up, and consequently the board of commissioners must be railed boncls for them, assuming that that cla s of persons held legitimate 

at. They had nothing to do with auditing them or paracling them; certi:fica.tcs; taking that for granted"' 

it is taken by the pol\CY of this statute entirely out of their hands. Mr. KERNAN. I will state to the Senator that I supposed in view 

Mr. THURMAN. What was that item of $550,000 fort of this discussion that this bolly would a-ppoint some committe~ to 

Mr. SARGENT. "Claims for damages on account of change of grade examine and find. the true state of things; and if there be any cer- aud for propertytakenfrom streets." Now I think it might be worth tificates, to examine and see if they were for just debts, and thon we while to call attention to the fact that since this board of commis- could provide for their payment. l\Iy only object, the Senator will 

sioners have been in power they have paid off and reduced the_debts permit me to sa.y, was-aud from what I hear(l I thought it wise in 

of this District since July 1, 1874, by $1,564,843 56. Of this amount reference to our constituency and the people of the District-tha.t 

455,627 has been reduced during the past year. That does not look we should not permit negotiable bondt:~ to be issued for which when 

like much extravagance. If the board of audit on one side is iucr 'a - they passed into the hands of bona flew holders the issuer and indon;or 

ing this debt, the commissioners on the other side are doing their bc<>t would be liable whether their Lsue was just or not. By my 3Jllendto decrease it. And of all this aiP.o~~ o er fl. ~ioq 'Y'~& Ollt of flig.,. . ment we would prevent that, aud yet w~ wo414 deal ~ustlr witll 
1876. CONGRESSIONAL RECORD. 829 

everybody who had or had not certificates, and a committee could 

look into them anu see whether they were right or not. 

Mr. EDMUNDS. I aru not at all sure that that is not perhaps the 

best wn.y (although naturally I should have supposed that the limitation ought to be upon any further issue of bonds except such as might be necessary to complete the proper certiftcates already issued) 

that we should stop there; but if we are to have an inquiry, that is 

probably of no special moment. 

I J;IIerely wish to add that, having paid some attention to this debate 

and to the law, I am not by any means persuaded that these com- missioners hn,ve exceeded their powers. That we have ourselves been 

greatly disappointed as to the amount which they have found it neces- SM'Y to expend to put things into proper order here, under the law and 

in the execution of their powers, I am quite ready to agree, because I 

thought in the time of it that it would not amount to half as much. I did think it would amount to a g1'en,t deal more than the estimates 

then· made, as i tile case with everything. Every one of. us who 

buil<lli a private house knows that, in spite of everythino- we can do, 

the nd exceeds the estimate. I dicl not sur•pose it wo~d exceed it 

by so great a sum as it appears to have done. I do not know precisely myself what tho e:s:plann,tion is, llut, so far as I can see, I am not 

by any means satisfied that these gentlemen have exceeded the au- thority that the law has rcpo ed in them. Whether they have exer- ci ed that authority in goocl faith or not is of course an entirely different question. From what I know of them myself (and before this 

time all of. them were men known to the public) it would take cer- tainly great evidence to lead rue to believe that they had acted otherwise than with the utmo t purity. That they may have made mistakes, and gone further than on reflection they would be now satisfied 

they ought to have gone, is very possible. 1 do not know that, inasmuch as I have had no conversation with any of them upon the subject; but, 

Qn the construction of the la"· as it reads, I thi~k they might fairly 

have been ad vised by eminent conn el (as I have heard, not from them, 

tllat they were) that this line of policy which they have pursued was clearly within the duty which Congre s had marked out for tllem; 

but, as has been stated so well by the Senator from Michigan, [Mr. 

CHRISTIANCY,] the only thing we have to do now, as we are not on an investigation, is to provide the means of paying this interest. 

1\Ir. SHERMAN. Mr. President, I am afraid the Senate at the end 

of a wearisome debate is apt and is likely to do what I regard to 

be a violation of the public faith which we pledged to the holders 

of theoe certificn,tes. The amount, I am told by the chairman of the 

Committee on Appropriations, is $000,000, a very large sum, reaching 

from the beginning of the action of the board of audit until this time. 

lly the terms of the certificates, printed on the face of them, a copy 

of which I produced the other day in connection with my argument, 

they are plainly convertible into a 3.65 bond, and the only rea-son why 

the board of audit did not issue the borid in the first instance instead ofthecertiftc~tewasthatthatdntywasimposed upon thesin1..'ing-fund 

commisf!ioners. It was a mere clerical duty. The sinking-fund com- missioners, having to provide the sinking fund, also were required to 

issue the 3.65 bonus. The holders of these certificates stand exactly 

in the same light as if they were the holders of 3.65 bonds, because 

they have the right under the law to convert them into 3.65 bonds. 

The Senator from New York [:Mr. KERNAN] raises the question as to whether these certificates are negotiable. I do not know whether 

they are technically negotiable or not. They are issued convertible 

into negotiable bon<ls o1· into bonds negotiable by delivery, and they are in a sense quas-i negotiable, and .I am not sure but that under the 

terms of the law they are strictly negotiable. An onlinary certificate 

of indebtedness, not in the form of a promi sory note, is not negotiable in a legal sense. We all know that ; but these are certificates 

issued convertible at tbe wi:ll of the holder into bonus deliverable and 

transferable by delivery. It seems to me they are therefore in the 

nature of negotiable paper, and I as ure the Senator from New York 

that the efiect of his amendment would only be to raise a doubt of 

the willingness of Congress to stand squarely and fairly by the public faith pledged in tbe act of 187 4, and it would tend also to lower 

the merc~ntile value of the securities in the market, and they will 

unquestionably have to be paid eventually either in money or in 3.65 

bonds. · Suppose the ~nited States now refuse to pn,y these certificates in 

3.65 bonds as we have agreed to do, are we not bound to pay them in 

money Y Suppose hereafter a committee should inquire and find that 

these certificates were issued for-value received, for work done in the 

execution of valid contract , and we had refused and denied and 

withheld our pelformance of the mode of paying the certificates, 

could not the holders of the certificates come in here and demand of us instead of 3.65 bonds "9001

000 in money f It seems to me it would 

place us in a very embarras mg position. 

Mr. MORRILL, of Mn,ine. Why not sue us for the money in the 

Court of Claims Y 

Mr. SHERMAN. The Senator saysthey mightsne before the Court 

of Claims. If we now refused to pay them tllat which we a(J'reed to 

pay them when we issued the certificates, we would be bound to pay 

them in money. Now it does seem to me it is better for us to aJ1ow 

these certificates to be converted intJO 3.65 bonds. The board of audit seems to be the only authority that could h:we issued the certificates or that could affect this matter at alJ, uecause the commissioners had 

nothing to do with the is 'Ll.e of certificates or of bonds. If there has 

been any fault, it has been the fault of t.he judicial offic rs elected by us by law to issue these certificate . It seems to me it would be a fruitless thing to adopt the amendment exc.ept to delay and procrastiJ,late the payment of these certificates, which must be paid in tllo 

end, either in money or in 3.6[) bonds, anu it struck me as wise at once to settle these liabilities, limit them, aucl repeal the board of audit. 

Mr . .ALLISON. :Mr. President, I did not expect to again participate 

in this debate, and would not have done so, nor taken up the time•of 

the Senate, but for the fa{lt that latterly the committee who originally 

framed the act of the 20th of June, 1874, seems to be on trial, rather 

than an effort being made to pa sa bill authorizing tho payment of 

interest on bonds which we have guaranteed by onr law. The Senator from Indiana [Mr. Mm~TON] says if he had ueen present when 

this bill was under consideration lle would have. voted against it. 

The Senator from California [Mr. SARGE .. T] takes pains to tell us that 

he did vote against it; and I do not know but that if this debate 

should continue for a week longer it would be difficult to find Senators here who voted for the law, so great has the effort been to ar- raign the gentlemen of the joint committee wl!o presented the bill to 

the Senate, and upon whose recommendation it finally pas ell both 

Houses of Congress. · I am not t o be drawn into any charge against the old board of public works, nor am I to be drawn into a defense of that board. The 

Senator from California has taken pains to rake up the dry bones of 

this dead government, manifestly for tlle purpose of putting some- body in the Senate, either on the republican side or on the democratic 

side, upon the defensive. I shall not undertake to make remn,rk upon 

the courtesy of debate which should make such an attempt. I have 

only to say in reply to that Senator, and to all Senators, on this subject, that I stand upon the report made by the joint committee which 

investigated the affairs of this District. I stand upon t.he report 

made there, and upon tho testimony there made, and I have nothing 

to take from it, nor to add to it. It may be that I have written letters, extracts from which were pubished in some newspapers and reau by the Senator here to-day, in mitigation of some things which oc- curred with reference to that report and to thn,t investigation. I do 

not deny that I have written letters upon this subject, but I only 

wish to say that I stand upon what was said in tho report and unan- imously agreed to by the joint committee. Is there not enough in the 

testimony and in the report made by this committee to justify the 

committee in recommending to Congress the abolition of the government existing in the District of Columbia on the 20th of June, 1874 

The Senator from Indiana tells us that if he had been here he would 

have voted against the bill. The Senator from California tells us that he did vote against it. Therefore I am to assume, I suppose, 

that if these two Senators had been in their places they would have 

voted to retain the existing condition of things, as that was the only 

alternative presented to the Senate in the last days of the session. 

:Mr. MORTON. I will say to my friend from Iowa that I dicl not mean to say that I would have voted to retain the old government at.s 

it stood, because there was a part of that government of which I never approved. I mean to say to my friend that I would have voted 

aga-inst any bill which proposed to abolish entirely popular government in this District. 

Mr . .ALLISON. I speak now only with reference to the Senator 

from California. That was the opinion of the Senator from California. 

.Mr. MORTON. I did not at that time refer to changes in this bill 

at all, but I had a fundamental objection to it, that it created an absolute government over the people of this District n,nd deprived them 

of all representation and all power in the management of tlleir domestic affairs. 'l'hat was the fault. I found with the bill at that time. 

1\Ir. ALLISON. I perhaps did the Senator from Indiana an injustice, and if so, I did not mean to do it of cour e. Every gentleman on the committee, so far as I know, quite agreed with the Senator 

from Indiana; but we had not time during the closing hours of the 

session to prepare a system of_ government in which the people of this 

District could take part. Therefore we proposed only a temporary 

government, and did provide by law for a joint committee of the two 

Houses, whose duty it should be to prepare a system of government 

for this District republican in form-and I believe that language wa-s used in the section of the ~tatute to which I refer-a bill in which it was supposed the people of this District would participate at least in a degree. 

I want to call attention for a moment to another sneject, and I do 

this only in justification of my own action. I did not anticipate or expect to precipitate a debate here, lasting for days on this question 

when I offered the amendment which I offeretl on the first day the bill was considered; nor did I make a single charge against the integrity or purity of the gentlemen composin~ this bo:1rd of commissioners. I 

said then as I say now, and repeat here t.hat I have a much confidence in their integrity, in their ability, in their purity as any gentleman on this :floor. I only said that I believed they had exceeded 

their authority and misconstrued the act under which they were cre- ated. I had a right as a Senator on this floor to say that. N otwith · standing their high character, they are public servants; they are the 

creatures of our laws; and as such we have in a temperate wa~.,. cer- tainly the right to criticize their conduct and their actions. lt was only in that spirit and in that sense that I aUndecl to the e gentlemen 

at all in clebate on the first day that this joint re olntion was nuder consideration in the Senate. Hut inasmuch as I made these allusions 
830 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD. FEBRUARY 2, 

and inasmuch as other collateral que tions have been raised here in 

this debate, I want to call the attention of the Senate briefly to the 

questions involved in the original act as reported by the joint, com- mittee. Gentlemen say the commissioners had a right and it was their duty 

to recognize as binding all the contracts made by the board of public 

works. Now let us see whether that was their duty. 'l'he board of 

public works was created by the act of ltl71. Thn District govern- ment was created by the same act. Congress imposed upon this 

board an inhibition with reference to creating a debt in this District. 

They said they could create no debt nor incur any obligation except 

in pursuance of appropriations made by law, and previously made. 

That is in the organic act. The board of public works in the begin- ning so construed that law and called upon the District Legislature 

to make appropriations of money. They pre ented to the District 

Legi lature what they calle<l a comprehen ive plan of public im- provements in this District. And, in pas ing, let me say that they 

adopted a species of division with reference to the e improvements 

that made it necessary that a comprehensive plan should lle agreed 

upon. Wha:t was that¥ That the people of the District should pay 

two-thirds of the co t of these improvement-s and the adjacent prop- erty-holders should pay only one-thir<l. · Therefore it would lle man- ife tly unjust to make a distribution of tile 0 improvements in one })art of the city to the exclusion of another part of tho city. One of 

the great difficulties the inve tigating committee had in its examination was the complaint that a certain so-called combination of realestate operators in this city han pnrcha e<l up the northwestern portion of the city and all the improvements were being made in that 

part of the city to the exclusion of Capitol Hill and other portions of 

the District. Therefore this comprehensive plan was submitted to the Legisln- ture. It wa agreed to by tho Legislatnre. It was to cot .,;u,UOU,OUO 

in roun<l numbers; there were some odd thou auds. That comprehensive plan, which involved various streets in the District, was agreed 

to by the Legislature. One-third of the sum was to be paid by the adja- c nt property-holders, namely, t,oou,ouo, and 4,0UU,U00was to be paid 

by the Dist.rict, and bonds were issued to pay the ,OOO,UUO, and a debt w.as created for that purpose. 

That was the origin of this great system of pnblic improvements, so called, and it continued nntil a portion of the people of this District became dissatiRfiecl, and they appealed to the Hon e of Representatives in 1872 to investigate tho conduct of this board of· public 

works. A committee did investigate their conduct, took the testimony of witnes es, made exten ive examination , and I believe finally 

reported that they were not derelict in an,y rc pcct. But mark what 

followed that report. It wa followed by the statute so pertinently 

alluded to by the Senator from Texa , namely, -that the total cleut 

of thi District should never exceed lO,ooo,ouu. Notwithstanding 

they relieved this board of public works from any uisilonesty or ex- tr:wagance in that report, Congre s upon the heels of it lirnited .t.he 

debt of this District to $10,000,000. 'fhe object of the statute was to restrain this board of public works from con tinning the e improve- ments upon the grand scale which they had adopted. Now this old 

system went on, the board of po Llic works paying no aLtentioll what- ever to this limitation of the act of Aby 8, t:S7~, incurring ouliga- tions, creating debts without any reference either to the qnestiou of 

appropriatious as provided by the orga.nic act or \Vithout any refer- ence to the limitations of this act of iay ::;, 1!::!7:.!, aml the joint com- mittee found in its report that they had exceeded this limit by some $ ,000,000. If Senators will ta.ke the pains to read tbis report they 

will ee that the committee was unanimously of tile opinion that they 

had exceeded their authority; that these coutracts, except iu pursu- ance of appropriations made by the District goverument, in excess of 

the limitation of 10,000,000 were void contract . 1'ilat was the con- struction put upon these laws by your coruruittec. It is true that 

this board of public works had as an iudorsemeut of tileir action the 

advice of eminent counsel, such as Mr. Black and .Mr. Cnsbiug, as has been stated by Senators in argument; but it seemed perfectly 

plain to your committee that here was an intention on the p:u·t of 

Congress, :first, that this board of public work slwul<l not go beyond 

the appropriations; and, secondly, that t4ere should be no power in 

this District that could create an obligation to be paid for by the 

property of the District exceeding ,YlO,UOO,OOO. 

Therefore your committee decided that these contracts were with- out authority of law; that they were not legal and valid contracts. 

The Senator from Indiana too exceeding great care iu every wor<l he 

uttered in this debate to say that these mu t Le val id contrttcts. As a matter of course, valid contracts of the District of Columbia would 

be binding upon these new coml.l.lis ioners whether they a.s en ted to 

them or not. A valid contract ag11i ust the cor·pora.tion cou1d be en- fotced in the corirts. But the very questiou was whether tl.lese con- tracts were valid or invalid, and upon the invalidity of tho ·e contract.s, 

and upon the fact that this board of public works exceeded their an- thority, your committee recommended tha.t this board of public 

works be abolished. What for For the pnrposeof establishing here, 

in lieu of that board, a power which would not exceed its autltot·ity. 'l'bat was the design of it. This board of public works bad expended 

1 ,ooo,ooo in the improvement of the street ' anu alleys, :.m<l sewer- age of this District. They had incurred a debt \ hich, wllen it wa-s 

summed up by the committee, amounted to $11,000,000. And right 

here let me say to the Senator from Indiana, who object to this orig-- inal act because it provided for 3.65 bonds, that, if he objected to that 

feature of .the bill, he must of conrse have been in favor of appro:-

priating 11,000,000 to pay this debt on the one hand or else have 

been in favor of repudiating it on the other. 

Mr. MO.l{TON. Will my fTiend allow me to interrupt him¥ 

l\ir. ALLii::iON. Certainly. Mr. 10H.1'0N. Of cour e, as my friend has said, I would not pay 

any contracts, either in 3.Uf> bonds or in money, unless it was legal 

and valid; out my objection to the 3.6G-lloud arrangement was tiliH : that it was designed to pay contra-ctors who had expected by the terms 

ot their contract to be paid in money according to the face of the 

contract, and were compelled to receive in discharge of their contract, 

not money, not legal-tender note , but bonds worth only sixty or ev- enty cents in the dollar. I thought that was in the nature of repudiation, though it was not so intended by the committee. Mr. ALLli::iON. I am very glad that t 1 e Senator has given his r a- sons now and here why he objected to the 3.65 bonds being is ned, 

because both are based on thing that diu not exist. In the fiT t 

place, the e contractors knew perfectly well, and there was testimony 

to that etlect, witness after witne testified, that they knew perfectly 

well at the t ime tbat they woulu not be paid in money, and several of 

the conh·actor them elves te tifie<l that in estimating their bid they 

made up their bids on the basi of eighty-five cents on the dollar. Mr. '1'HU1U1AN. ' Vill the Senator allow me to interrupt him 

Mr. ALLl1::lON. Certainly. l\ir. THURMAN. If the Senator will refresh his recollection he 

wiU rememiJer that the chief engineer of the Di trict, Mr. Cluss, testified that the estimates for the work upon which contracts were let were increased ~5 per cent. on account of the certificates in which the 

contractors were to receive. their payments. There were cases in 

which the increa e was much larger than that, but th~ estimate of • this official himself enhanced them 25 per cent. on account of their 

payment in all the kinds of yellow, green, and red-backed certificate 

that the contractors knew they would get. .Mr. l\10.l{TON. I would like to make this inquiry of my fTiend from 

Iowa in this connection. We are told that they expected to be pai<l 

not in money, but in certificates. Did they not expect the certificates 

to be paid, and how were they to be paid t 

Mr.ALLISO..., . IwillanswertheSeuator. Theyprobablyexpectell 

that some time they would Le paid, au<l they expected that the Senator from Indiana and other Senators on this f.oor would put their 

hands into the 'l'rea.sury of tl.le United States and pay these certiticates rather than ee this Government repudiate, because it had cre- ated this boarcl of public work . That was what they anticipated. 

But I call the attention of my frieud from Indiana -to another fact 

existing at this time, that when this report of the joint committee was made in June, ll:l74, these identical certificates which we allow <l 

to be converted into :t65 bonds were selling on your streets at forty 

cents on the dollar; and it was a great source of coruplaiut that poor men were Leing compelled to sacrifice their property at forty ceuts on the dollar, wl.lile rich men, who had million of tilese Di trict con- tracts, could ilolll their certificates in their pockets. Thereupon it wM 

that these people 'Pressed upou the committee, saying, "vVhatever 

you do with this District, make some provision whereby we can re- ceive payment for our honest toil.n 

Anotiler tbing that the Senator from Indiana forgets with reference 

to these 3.GG bonds, that i~:> that they were nut compulsory. No man was required to take these 3.65 boll(ls uuless he chose to do so. It 

was a privilege and not compulsory. It was au additional security 

given to these people. · Mr. MORTON. I woul<l ask my friend if any other form of payment wa provided but that 

Mr. ALLIBON. Not •.1 th11t law; but the form of payment nggested by me a moment ago was open to these people, an appropriation by Congre ·s, taYation npon tile people of til is District. My friend 

will remember that with all this we taxed the e peo.ple 3 per cent. upon their property in that ·arne act. Three per cent. of taxatiun was put upou tho e people at that time. Now, then, I woul<l askS n- ators if they want anything-4'nrt.ber by way of evidence of mi government iu this city thau tile fact that a debt had boon create<l here 

uf 11,000,000; that tile secnritie 9f the capital of your country were being hawketl about your treets at forty cents on tho <lolla.r, 

in<lebtellness c1·eateJ IJy a board of public works authorize<l by Congre ·sand onr own appointees. Tbese were the rea ons-- Mr. THURMAN. The Senator speaks of eleven millions a if it were the whole debt. 

ir. ALLISON. I me~tn the flou,ting debt. Mr. THURt!iAN. In exce s of the teu millions. Mr. ALLbON. The debt upon the government here in audition 

to the ten million of funded· debt provi<led for by your statutes. Aud yet we are to Le brought in here and arr::tigued lly Senatorl::l for 

recomnJending such a moustl'Ous propo iLion as the abolition of n. government of this character. 

Mr. HAMILTON. Will t.he Senator from Iowa allow me a momentY 

Ir. ALLISON . . Certainly. Mr. HAMILTOJ . poaking of forcing tbese depreciatecl bonds uvon the contra-ctors, I Leg to call attention, if the Se~ator from Iowa 
1876. CONGRESSIONAL RECORD. 831 

will allow me, to the repo~t of Mr. Hoxie. Yon will find. it in thereport of the commission for 1874, page 160. After mentioning his appointment and qualification, &c., he says this : 

In conformity with the foregoin"' I assumed control on July 7, 1874, of the work 

of repair and improvement hereto¥ore devolving upon the board of public works 

and organized the engineer's office for this purpose. At tliis time contractors and others claiming contracts were at work with a view to establish their claims. The 3.65 bonds, :provided for meeting the existing legal obligations of the District, had apparently mdnced many who had long since abandoned their work to resum.e without authority or directions. 

He goes on to state that only about twenty contracts were in opera- - tion at the time this act passed, and he found forty odd when he came to take possession. The contractors had :flocked from all quarters 

around, seeing that they were going: to get 3.65 bonds, nlthough they 

had abandoned their contracts absolutely. · Mr. ALLISON. Tha~ is a point to which I intended to call attention in a moment. Tho profits upon these contracts were so enormous tba~ men could enter into these contracts and complete them and sell 

their certifica.tes of indebtedness for them at from forty to fifty cents on the doUar; and that was done in numerous cases. Then it is true, as stated just now by the Senator from Texas-and I thank him for 

cn.lling my attention to it, because I have noticed this fact also in the 

report-that the moment these 3.6r> bonds were authorized, that mo- ment every contractor, who had a contract dead or alive, beset these 

commissioners to have his contract renewdd, because he saw of course that the moment these new commissioners onld recognize the validity 

of that contract he could take his payment in 3.65 bonds and make a large profit. Therefore it is true, and I speak of it in mitigation of 

the construction put upon this law by these people, that the moment 

this law came into force, that moment all these old contractors rushed 

to these new commissioners and insisted that their contracts were not 

dead but still lived. If you will return to the report of Engineer 

IIoxie yon will see that in many instances contracts were revived, 

although they were dead, by means of petitions by citizens of adjacent streets. There were many good reasons why the people should 

make such a petition. Under the system established by the board of 

public works the tax-payers of the city were compelled to pay twothirds of the cost of these improvements, and a man would naturally 

S'3.Y1 "I have paid two-thirds of the cost of the beautiful improvement on K street, and I live only on M; why sho.uld I not have :M 

street improved as well asK, because the government of the District 

pays two-thlrds of the cost¥'' Therefore I appreciate the troubles 

and trials of our friends who came here and took charge of this government with reference to these contracts; but I must submit to 

them, notwithstanding all this, that it was the intention of this act-· 

and I should have required the opinion of very eminent counsel before I woultl have departed from the manifest intention of the actmtmely, to cut off the rapidly accumulat.ing debts of the District of 

Colrunbia, these extravagant and reckless expenditures of the public 

wouey, because these expenditures must sooner or later be paid, either 

by taxation upon this District or by taxation upon the people of the 

Unite<]. States. We cannot blink t.his if we would. 

I wa-s surprised at the Senator from California undertaking to array 

the amount of the debt in this District in comparison with other cities. 

I have not made that comparison. I only know that the debt of this 

District this day counting t.hese 3.65 bonds, amounts to one-fourth of 

the entire cash value of the real estate in the District subject to taxation. 

Now, I submit to Senators whether it is wise for us to tax these 

people or encourage them for a moment in creating a debt that even contingently involves such an obligation upon the tax-payei'S. By 

the last assessment the taxable real estate in tbis District is $93,000,000. 

The debt, as near as I can make it out, is about 23,000,000 or perhaps 

$24,000,000 including the 3.65 bonds. 

But I objected at the time to this construction because I saw plainly 

where it would lead to, and I called the attention of the Senator from 

Indiana to it the other day in debate. His coustmction would authorize the District commissioners to repair and repave (because that is 

repairing a~ cording to the construction of these commissioners) almost 

every street in the District of Columbia; and Mr. Hoxie, the intelligent engineer, who makes this report of 1H75, tells us that nearly all 

the wooden pavement and nearly all the concrete pavement of thls 

city must at a very early moment be repaired. K street was repaired 

and a few other streets at a cost of $GOO,OOO. There are fifty-three 

and a half miles of wooden pavement in this District, and there are thirty-two or thirty-three miles of worthless or partially worthless 

concrete pavement in this District. Now, under the construction 

given to this law by leading Senators on this :floor and by these com- missioners, these eighty-six miles of pavement can be relaid under the 

law of June 20, 1874. 

Mr. DA. WES. A.nd the United States give their bonds. 

Mr . .ALLISON. A.nd the United States, as suggested by the Senator from Massachusetts, issue th.eir 3.65 bonds to pay therefor. I submit to Senators that I had a right in good faith to raise these questions without bringing down upon my head ancl upon the heads of the 

committee, who labored hero for four months to relieve this District 

from its embarrassment, the maledictions of Senators because we chanced to raise a doubt about the authority of these commissioners. 

Senators speak of the board of audit. I have no apologies for the 

board of audit . . I do say that t.lJe boaru of audit ought not to have 

passed upon these certificates. They are equally to blame with reference to this matter, if any blame there be. In looking over these 

reports, which I have done since this debate began, I am glad to see that the commissioners of tbe District of Columbia notifietl every 

contractor that he must depend for his pa.yment and. for the final adjustment of his account upon the board of audit; that that board was to judge of whether or not these different items of expenditure came under the provisions of the act of Jnne 20, 1&74. 

11fr. President, I do not wish to prolong this debate, nor will I un- dertake to read statutes .or construe statutes ::t.t this late hour in the 

debate. I only call attention to some leading points which would 

justify us, or rather reqt:Jire us all to put a different construction upon 

this statute. 

Mr. LOGAN. Will the Senator allow me to ask h.im a question right 

hereY 

11-ir . .ALLISON. Yes, sir. 

Mr. LOGAN. The construction which has been given to the law in 

reference to these bonds, antl which I agree to, is that yon have got to 

look to the statute on which the bond is based and to the face of the 

bond when it is in the hands of innocent parties. That being so, with a law on the statute-book that prohibits the indebtedness of the Dis 

trict becoming more than 10,000,000 standing unrepealed, all bonds 

issued in excess of that are void and no~ payable by the Government 

of the United States. Now I would ask the Senator while he is on his feet, if he will be kind enough, inasmuch as be helpetl frame the 

law nnder which these commi~sioners and the board of auilit are acfring, to turn to the section that repeals the law prohibiting any indebtedness in exce s of $10,000,00'0. .A13 I understand the rule in 

reference to repeal, there must be either an express provision repealing 

the former statute or the statute subsequent to this must be in con- flict with this, or it is not repealed. I should like to see where the 

conflict is. From this discussion I cannot see it. 

Mr . .ALLISON. I have not the statute before me, bnt my impression is that there is a repealing clause in it. But whether there is or not I take it that this Government never will repudiate a.n obligation 

which is. provided for in a law passed by itself, and. these 3.65 bonds are all created under the act of June 20, 1874. 

Mr. LOGAN. 'fhe repealing clause as I heard it read-! have not 

got the statute before me-was in regard to the board of public 

works. I did not hear, as the matter was argued by Senators on the 

floor, anything that was in conflict with this provision of the statute 

which prohibited a larger indebtedness than $10,000,000. If there is, . as a matter of course the proposition as maintained by Senators on this :floor, that the Government is responsible for this indebtedness, is 

correct so fa.r as the legal proposition is concerned; but if this statute 

is not repealed, either by a subsequent inconsistent statute or by an act repealing it positively, then the Government is not responsible 

and the doctrine .of caveat emptor would apply to these gentlemen. 

Then there is no obligation on the Government to pay one dollar, and 

every dollar of bonds issued over and above the $10,000,000 of debt 

and every dollar of indebtedness created by th~se gentlemen over that is in Violation of a positive statute. The Senator from Massachusetts said last night that if n, prohibition were put in this law he 

would indict men for violating it. If that is tho rule I would like some Senator to show me in what particular the statute limiting the 

debt has been repealed before he asks me to vote at least for this 

$5,000,000 of increase that has been put upon us in one year by this 

board of audit or whatever it may be. 

M.r . .ALLISON. I can only speak for myself with reference to that 

statute. I believe that, ina-smQ.ch aa the act of June 20, 1874, authorized the issuing of 3.65 bonds to cover certain debts and obligations, 

the Government of the United States is bound to stand by that statute, and that all statutes inconsistent with it., passed prior to th;l.t 

time, woultl to that extent be 'repealed. I do not think, therefore, 

that the Government of the United States can very well afford, after 

passing such a law, to say that, because they had limited the debt to 

$10,QOO,OOO at a prior date, they would be authorized to repudiate the 

obligation. 

Mr. LOGAN. I was not sp'eaking in. reference to what the Government could afford to do. I was only speakidl of a legal proposition as to what we were obligated to do; not what we might feel that it 

might be well to do, but what we are required to clo under the law. 

Mr . .ALLISON. I understand the Senator perfectly well. 

:Mr. LOGAN. I must oonfess I do not know m_uch about statutes, 

and especially those in regard to the District of Columbia; but I find 

nothing in the later statute repealing auy act of Congress theretofore 

passed, except the first section, which provides: 

That all provisions of law providing for an executive, for asecretaryfortheDis- trict, for a Legislative Assembly, for a board of public works, andforadelegatein 

Congress in the District of Columbia are hereby repealed: P1·ovided, That this 

repeaJ. shall not affect the term of office of the present delegate in Congress. 

That is all the repealing clause there is in the statute. Now, unless 

the section that authorizes these commissioners and the boartl of audit 

to go beyond the ten millions makes it inconsistent, it is not repealed, 

and that law stands. I cannot find anything of that character in the 

statute . . Mr . .ALLISON. I cannot construe the law for the Senator or for 

any other Senator except myself. A.s I understand it, this law of li:\7 4 

repeals that of 1872 p?'O tanto; and therefore I find no difficulty on that score in standing by these 3.65 bonds. I believe in good faith we are bound to do it to the extent of their issue. I cannot ~ive bet-
832 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD. FEBRUARY 2, 

ter reasons for it than were given by the Senator from Michigan, [Mr. 

CHJUSTIANCY.] 

Now, before I close I wish to say one word--

Mr. EDMUNDS. Will the Senator allow me, in connection with 

what he has been saying, to read for the benefit of my friend from 

Illinois the language of the first part of the sixth section 1 

That it shall be the duty of the First Comptroller of the Trea.~ury and the Second Comptroller of the Treasury of the United States, who are horeby con titut.ed a board of audit to examine and audit for settlement all the unfunded or floating 

debt of the District of Columbia and of the board of public works, hereinafter specified. 

Then the section goes on to specify. It appears to me to be pretty 

plain that this latter act requiring this bou,rd to examine and u,udit 

u,Jl outstanding liabilities, without limit, of the particular class 

named, if the liabilities of that class named exceeded ten millions, this 

law must stand if they are to obey it, a,nd not the old one. Mr. LOGAN. I should like to ask the Senator from Vermont a question, then,for J;e is certainly a \:ery good lawye.r and a v~r_y_tecl~

nica.l one. Accordmg to the reasonmg heretofore, if a prohib1t10n 1s 

placed upon this law that we are now about to enact we cannot go 

beyond it. I ask the Senator to tell me how the hoard of public works 

got. a debt in excess of the ten millions for the purpose of being audited; whether that wa.s not in violation of lawf 

Mr. EDMUNDS. My friend from Iowa can give that story. _ Mr. ALLISON. That is a story very easily told, and I should like 

to have the Senator from Vermont tell it. 

Mr. EDMUNDS. I can tell it ve1:y quickly. It will be remembered 

that it was with the utmost difficulty that some Sen:1tors-I will not 

say who-succeeded in getting this ten-million limit in at all, to begin with; and when we got it in it wa.'3 a gootl deal like otherpromi es- th:1t we extract in statutes from people: those who were to 

obey the law did not care anything about it anti they went on and in- curred debts in violation of that law, in my opinion, unquestionably. 

But tlJeu on the report of my friend from Iowa and my friend from 

Ohio and the othe:t gentlemen it was found that the District was almost 

ba.nkrnpted by this violation of law; but the debts had been incurred to people who had parted with their property and labor in 

honest good fa.ith, and we all thought, I suppose, that the honor of 

the power that had charge of the District of Columbia-that is Congress who had imposeu this government upon them-required that we should take some step to liquidate and get out of this slough of 

despond; and so we directed this board of audit to take everything 

that was outstanding of certain classes and find out how mnch it was and square off. 

:Mr. HAMIL rON. Does the Senatorfrom Vermont mean to include 

all that has been clone since the organization of the District commission, as well as the debts that then existed¥ 

Mr. EDMUNDS. That is a different question which I have not addressed myself to at all. Mr. HA-rtiTLTON. It is the same question. It is involyed in the 

amount of these bonds now. . :Mr. LOGAN. The Senator from Vermont has referred to a part of 

the sixth section of the act of 1874 as repealing the limitation on the 

amount of the debt of the District. That section requires the board 

of audit to audit all debts of certain classes. 

First, the debt evidenced by sewer certificatesSewer certificates in existencesecondly, the debt purporting to be evidence(l and ascertained by certificates of the 

auditor of the board of public works; thirdly, the tlcbt evidenced by the certifi- cates of the auditor and the comptroller of the District of-Columbia; fourthly, 

claims existing or hereafter created for which no evidence of indebtedness has 

beeu issued, arising out of contracts, written or oral, made by the boa.rd M public 

works; fifthly, claims for which no evidence of indebtedness has been issued, 

arising out of contracts, written or oral, made by or on behalf of the District of 

Uolumbia; sixthly, all claims for private property taken by the board_ of public 

works from the avenues, streets, and alleys of the cities of Washington and 

Georgetown. 

That statute only applies to contracts prior to its enactment, and 

limits it to those. It provides expressly that the board shall audit 

such claims as exist and such as .arise from contracts then made, 

oral or -wTitten, not for contracts made afterwn,rd, not for a.ny adilitional work afterward, but contracts then existing, made by the 

board of public works, and not contracts made by this bo:trd of com- missioners. That is the statute, and that is as far as it goes. Hence 

it is confined within the restriction and limitation provided in the 

statute prior to its enactment, and does not repeal directly or indirectly the previous statute of limitation. It applies only to that 

which existed. I was astonished and have been while listening O--

this debate at the argument of Senators as applied to this particular 

provision of the statute. I cannot read it as they have read it. There 

is not one word in it that applies to contracts maue by these com- missioners in order to increase the public debt or the debt of this 

District. 

Mr. ALLISON. The Senator and I do not differ as to the construction of the statute of June 20, 1874. I agree with him that it was confined to valid contracts existing and to the construction and pre- servation of work: already begun and not fiuisheu. That is the plain construction of it, the plain sense of it, and it requires a lawyer, and a good one, to give advice that woulu justify any other construction. 

Of course there were such contracts exi ting at the time this report 

was made. The contracts that were made under the authority of the 

District Le(J'islature were valid contracts. They were made in pur- suance of appropriations by that District Legislature; they were within the limit of $10,000,000; therefore, they were valid contracts. The 

com_mjttee intenueu that they should be enforced. 

Then there was another ·set of contracts, to wit, the sewer con- tracts, which were made afterward, but which were deemed necessary 

by the committee to proLect and preserve the large amount of money 

alread:v expended. This waa another class of contracts provideu for. 

:1\fr. EDMUNDS. How much was the District debt at the time of 

the passage of this la.w and the report of this committee Y 

1\!r. ALLISON. The District debt, funded and obliga.tion-if I may use that word-was $18,000,000. Mr. EDMUNDS. So that it was above the $10,000,000. Mr. ALLISON. It was $8,000,000 above the $10,000,000 then, antl 

that is what I complain of, that no attention in con~ti·uing the validity or invalidity of these contracts was paid to the limit of $10,000,000 

previously provided for, and that no attention was paid to tho provision in the organic act of 1871 which required that appropriations 

should be made before contracts should be bimling. That is what I 

have objected to, and only that. 

Now, I desire to say oueword with reference to the amendment proposed by the Senator from New York, [Mr. KERNA..t~.] I shall feel 

compelled to vote a_gainst that amendment. Why¥ Stmply because, as was said by the o::;enator from Texa.s [:Mr. HAMILTON] awhile ago, 

it is probaule that all these ~nds have already been issued. If I had 

held a certificate, certainly during this debate I would have taken 

pains to convert it into a 3.65 bond before this law is enacted. Therefore, before it can become a law-because it must go back to the House 

of Representatives-the e certificates will be converted into 3.65 

bonds amounting to the 15,000,000. I want to place an absolute limitation upon the issuing of these bonds and an absolute limitation upon 

the certificates to be issned, so that hereafter no mau, however high his 

chamcter or pure his motives, can find an excuse, either upon the a(_lvice of eminent lawyers or eminent men otherwise, to increase the obligatiors created by the act of June 20, 1874. - · Mr. MAXEY. I would ask theSenatorfromiowa bywhatauthority 

those dead and abandoned contracts were revived and then thou ands 

of dollars expended upon those contrCLcts thus resurrected' 

Mr. ALLISON. It is beyond my ken to know how this resurrection 

took place or what human or divine power breathed into them tho 

breath of life. I do not know how that was done; but it must have 

required au eminent lawyer, as ha-.s been said, to do it. [Laughter.] 

Mr. MORTON. 1\fr. President, if the Senator from Iowa understoou me as impugning the motives of the committee that frameu this law, 

he was entirely mistaken. I have no doubt the committee diu what 

they thought was the best at the time. I objected to the law then 

for what I regarded as a fundamental mistake, which I think uow nearly everybody will subscribe to. That is to say, it aboli bed popu- lar government, not that it abolished the old government as it then 

stood. 

But what is the history of this debate f A simple proposition was presented to pay the interest of the bonds that hau been already 

issued ; anti then my friend from Iowa and other Senators came forward and insistetl that the commission had exceeded their authority 

and had given a wrong construction to the law. That was a very 

grave objection, and it was simply to meet that objection th:1t this 

debate has spruug up. 

If the act of 1872 limited the debt to $10,000,000, and afterward, 

in 1874, when that limit had been passed, Congress provideu for au- diting the excess and for paying that excess in 3.65 bonds, that was p1·o tn-nto a repeal of the original limit of $10,000,000 unquestionably. 

Mr. President, I now call attention to the amentlment offereu by tho 

Senator from New York, -and I think the Sen:1te ought to under·tn,ud 

what is to be the effect of that amendment. In regard to the e 3.G5 

bonds, on the original proposition to issue them, I differed somewhat 

with my friend from Iowa. If the contracts made by the board of 

public works were valid, or any of them, those contracts we1·e made 

by authority of the Government of the United States. They were to 

be paid in money. It makes no difference whether they had depre- ciated and were being hawked about for forty cents on the dollar. 

That has nothing to do with it. If the original contracts wero valid 

and were made by authority of the Government of the United State 

and were upon their face to be paid in money: a subsequent enactment requiring t.he contractors to take in payment a bond worth sixty 

cents on the dollar is, in my opinion, a violation of the conti·act, and 

there is no escape from it. 

Mr. ALLISON. I quite agree with the Senator; and hence the 

committee did provide for the pn,yment in money, out of the 'l'reasucy 

of the United States, of certain obligations which had been incnrred 

to be paid in money. For example, the employes of this Disti·ict, not one of whom had "been paid for nine months prior to this inve tigation, were authorized to be paid out of an appropriation made by 

Congress. We endeavoreu to preserve intact every obligation of the 

United States, either expre s or implied. 

Mr. MORTON. I was not speaking of the employes, the workin~­

men. 'l'his law did not proviue for paying the workingmen but rt 

proviued for e~ecuting the contracts that wero valid, made by the au- thority of Congress, which on their fa,ce were to be paid in money. It 

provided for paying them in a bond worth only sixty or sixty-five 

cents on the dollar; ancl this I lmve always believed, without intend-
1876. CONGRESS! ON RECORD. 833 

ing to find fault with anybody about it, was impairing the obligation 

of a cont.ract, and that no State could have done, whatever Congre s may do. 

Now, I come to the effect of the amendment offered by my friend 

from New York, and it operates unjustly to the Government in an- other way. I do not agree with the argument of the Senator from 

Ohio, [Mr. SHERMAN,] that the faith of the Government is now pledged so far as the holders of the old certificates are concerned growing out 

of contracts made by the board of public works. They will be glad 

enough to get clear of the 3.65 bonds ; they never wanted to take 

them ; and the very moment you abolish the provie:>ion to pay them 

in 3.65 bonds they are entitled to be pai4 in money-and to be paid 

according to the face of their certificates. That is just what they 

want, so far as they are concernetl. You have paid the most of them 

in 3.65 bonds. The efi;'ect of the amendment of my friend from New 

York will be to pay the rest of them in money at their face, because 

when you take away the payment in 3.65 bonds the faith of this Government stands pledged to pay them in money. Tbey ha>e got to be 

paid in some' way. Congress may refnse to make an appropriation, 

because it may refuse to do anything; but when you take away the 

3.65-bond arrangement there is but one thing left for you to do, and 

that is to pay these certificates at their face. That will be what they 

we1·e entitled to in the first place, I admit, but you paid most of them 

the .other way. Now, what is the effect of it in regard to the new contracts, contracts made by the present commission to carry out an old contract¥ I will suppose they have authority to make snch con- tract.s. Taking that for granted, they have made these contracts 

with the understanding on the part of the contractors that they were to be paid in bonus worth only sixty or seventy cents on the dollar. 

They made tl ·eir bids a-ccorilingly. They put a higher price on their 

work than they would have tlone if they were to be paid in money. 

Now, when you repeal the ~.o5-bond provision, what is left T Nothing 

but to pay them in money, unless you intend to repudiate the con- tract altogether. So that it operates unjustly in both ways; first, 

the 3.65-bond arrangement was unjust as to creditors, and the new debt8 having been contractetl with the uhderstanding they were to 

be paid in 3.05 bonds the holders get 30 per cent. more than they ever expected to get. 

My friend from Michigan said that he would vote for the amendmen't of the Senator from New York for this reason: that he would 

suspend the issue of the 3.65 bonds until there was an investigation. 

That is not the effect. It does not suspend it merely; it abolishes it; 

and it will never lle restored, in my judgment. How do you know 

there will be an investigation f Tho Senate makes no provision for an investigation. What will be the result of that investigation, who can tell J The imple fact is that when you abolish this bond arrangement as to contracts made by the commission, you pledge the faith 

of thi Government i;o pay tho e contracts in money at their face, and 

the t>ffcct of it is to pay them 30 per cent. more than the contractors ever expected to get. Let us a-ct understandingly. If we want to do 

thnt, let us do it; lmt let us know what is to be the effect of our action. 

Mr. EATON. Will the Senator from Indiana allow me to ask him a 

question T 

.Mr. MORTON. Certainly. . Mr. EATON. Do I understand the Senator to say that the contracts 

made by the board of commissioners are contracts' ma{le to be paid in 

3.65 bonds, and that if these bonds are not issued they must be paid 

their face in full in money. 

Mr . . l\10RTON. I certainly think that would be the effect of it as a plain proposition of law. 

Mr. EATON. I think right the other way as a plain proposition of 

law. 

Mr. MORTON. If the commissioners gave a contract to repair a street to carry on t. an old contract made by the board of public works, 

being authorized to do it-for I am ttssuming that they were authorized to do it, and I believe they were-- :Mr. EATON. I do not. 

Mr. MORTON. They were to be paid as the law then stood in a 3.65 bond. When you repeal the provi~ion authorizing the creation 

of that bond, what is there left but to pay in money Y 

Mr. EATON. This is left; if I should make a contract with the 

honorable Senator from Indiana to pay him in wheat which was worth a dollar a bushel and I did not pay, I should have to pay him in money 

the vn,lue of the thousand or ten t.housand bushels of wheat, I apprehend; and so the Government of the United States, in my opinion, 

would be bound to pay only the value of the 3.65 bonds, provided it 

is bound at all. 

Mr. MORTON. 1\Iy friend proposes then that the Government shall 

pay what the bond would be worth in the market, sixty cents to-day, 

sixty-five cents to-morrow, seventy cents the next day, and that the 

Government shall discredit its own bond by proving that it is worth 

less Lhan it.s face. But my friend forgets this material fa-ct; it is not 

like a case of adjusting a measure of damages on a contract in a suit 

at law where the contract is to be met by the payment of specific 

articles, because when you strike out the payment in this bontl you 

have no tribunal to determine the measure of damages. There is but · one thing left for you to do unless you legislate further, and that is 

to pay the face of that bond in money. That is what you ultimately 

will do, becal'lSe if you once get clear of the 3.65 bond arrangement I 

IV-53 

do not believe Congress will ever be prevailed upon to restore it. So 

the proposition to repeal the 3.65 bond comes in just at a time when 

it injures the Government. The bond was first provided at a t~me 

when it injured the creditor. So it was wr~mg all the time. . Mr. LOGAN. Will the Senator from Iniliana allow me to ask h1m a question Y According to what we have before us the board of public works exceeded theil· authority-! presume no one will doubt thatto the amount, as the Senator from Iowa says, of $8,000,000. The Senate and the House of Representatives felt themselves obligated, as acting on the part of the G'()vernment, to vote that amount of money, 

thinking that the Government was bound for it although there was an express prohibition of their going beyond ton millions. The com- mission go beyond what the Senate and the Honse of Representatives intended, certainly according to the debate at that time. Now 

if you put a prohibition here on the same theory that the Senator from 

Indiana maintains now, and say in this law that they shall not exceecl 

$15,000,000, and when Congress meets again they have exceeded it 

$5,000,000 more, according to the argument Congress will then be 

under obligation to pa.ss a law paying that amount of money. 

Mr. MOH.TON. I think not. 

Mr. LOGAN. Why not f I understand the Senator to maintain 

that we are obligated to pay the 8,000,000 of liabilities incurred on the part of the board of public works, although there was an E.'Xpress 

provision in tho statute prohibiting them from incurring that debt. 

We did do that. Now we have gone beyond that some $4,000,000, and 

Ire maintains that we are under obligation to pay that. Now if they 

go on and incur $5,000,000 more debt DPXt year tlian we authorize, 

shall we not be under as much obligation to pay that as we are to pay 

this' 

Mr. MORTON. If I understand this law it does not fix any limit 

at aU to the claims that might be audi ed by the board of audit, but 

it simply enumerates the classes of claims. The question in corrtroversy here is whether these contracts an<l these claims are contracts 

and claims arising under contracts made by the board of public works. 

That is a question of construct.ion. They have decided it one way, and 

it has been arg1.1ed the other way here in the Senate. But if we were now to fix a limit, say $15,000,000 or 18,000,000, that would cut off 

the power of the boarll. of audit, because they would not be limited 

simply by the class of claims, as they now are, but would be limited by a fixed amount. Now they are only limited by the class of claims, and 

the onlyqnestion is whether these claims come under the enumeration 

made by the law. 

Mr. LOGAN. Let the Senator understand me. This limitation here 

is upon .the amount; it is not a limitation at all upon their going 

ahead and executing contracts. It is only a. limitation upon the 

amount of bonds, and does not prohibit them from going on and com- pleting contracts under this law under the same construction that 

they have given. Hence, if that construction obtain,they may go on and :finish contracts amounting to millions next year, and you are un- der the same obligation to meet them you are to provide for these now. There is no limitation upon the contracts in this bilL 

Mr. ED.MUNDS. I propose to offer, if it is in order, an amendment as additional to the amendment of the Senator from New York--

The PRESIDENT P"'O tempore. It is not in order; there is an amendment pending to an amendment . Mr. EDMUNDS. Then I give ·notice that, when it is in order, if the 

fortunate time should come, I shall propose to add the following words: 

And there shall be no increase of the present amount of the total indebtedne~ of 

the District of Columbia. 

I think, when we had the old law and the board of public works, 

just as my frieD<l from Illinois, if I understand him, thinks, that all 

contracts made after they had got up to the limit of $10,000,000, with 

anybody, no matter how honest that person might be, were contracts 

that were against the statute and were void in law; and it was the 

misfortune of the honest contractor-if there were any such, as ·un- doubtedly there were-that he contracted in ignorance of a fact which 

he was bound to inquire into before he made his contract, and no legal 

obligation existed on the part of the District of Columbia, or on the 

part of Congress, to take any steps for his redress at all. 

That was the condition in which we found ourselves when the com- mittee of l b74 reported this law. They reported, as I understood, in 

order to do natural equity, to wind up this continuous running in 

debt and get out of the difficulty, not by cutting off at the ten-million limit, but by cutting oft' on the limit of taking things as they 

existed with honest contractors who had made valid contra-cti so far as the contracts themselves were concerned. 

Mr. LOGAN. Contracts existing at the time. 

Mr. EDl1UNDS. Contracts existing at the time, and also to pro- . vide for liability that might be created for work done thereafter growing out of an existing contract; but whether these gentlemen have 

done things which did not grow out of existing contracts, I do not 

know. If they have done things which grew out of existing contracts 

beyond what they might do under the second section out of taxes, for 

repairs, &c., which of course is another thin~, then they have violated the law; but, if they have acted within this classification, it is 

perfectly plain to my .mind that the ten-million limit had noi;hing to 

do with it. I may be wrong; I fear that I am, as my friond from 

Illinois does not think with me; but that is my view. As I view it., we all intended not to turn adrift these $~,000,000, for which work had 

been done and which were reported as being outstanding in excess of 
834 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD. FEBRUARY 2, 

the ten millions, but to provide for that and to provide also for some work being done which would also be in excess of the ten millions 

bec:mse that had been rea,ched, and on the ten-million limit not a step 

could be taken of any kind. They could not :finish anything, a sewer or anyt.hing else. So we provided that they might go on, but they 

should keep within that range of subjects which grew out of the ex- isting st:~te of things and for the preservation of those things that 

would go to decay withont action; and upon that we put no limit. 

Then we provided a board of audit t.o get in all the claims of these 

various classes and certify them. 

The creditor who had a claim was not forced hy the bill to bring it 

before the board of audit. He had a right to stand ont and say, "I 

will not submit to this shave of 30 per cent.," that my friend from Indiana dwells upon. He was not coerced in the least degree. The 

difficult.y was that there was no means known to the law by which 

this outstanding creditor could get any pay at all. In the first place, 

he would have to meet the question that his contract beyond the tenmillion limit was void to begin with, and then he would go out of 

court. In the second place, snpposingitwercnotvoid orwebad waived 

that by this statute, and we do not compel him to come in, whatishe 

to do¥ He cn.n easily keep his debt independent of this board of audit 

entirely, in whatever form it existed, and trust to his power in the 

courts to compel the municipality to pay it, as in the New England 

States he could by a levy upon the private property of the citizens as soon as he got his judgment, and get his pay, or he could take his 

certificate. Taking his certificate did not chan~e his rights a hair. 

He could still hold the certificate and not take his bond. He is not 

required to take the bond. The only thing on the subject of the bond 

is that the commissioners of the sinking fund are authorized to ex- change these bonds for these certificates, face for face. 

That is all. 

Now this man having got his certificate gets out of the dilemma of 

the ten-million limit, and has got on solid ground. How is he to get 

his pay! He can sue the District of Columbia unquestionably, now represented by the board of cQJDmissioners instead of by an ordinary 

municipal corporation. He sues them in their official capacity and 

be recovers judgment, as I do not see how be can fail to do; but when 

be comes to the question of how he is to get his pay it is quite a different thing. 

Mr. MORTON. He can levy on the office furniture. 

Mr. EDMUNDS. He can levy on the office furniture. In New England, as I say, be conld levy ou the real estate or the personal property 

of any person residing there. I do not know that the old laws of 

Maryland, which have furnished the civil code for the District of Colombia, provide for that. I do not know that 'they do not provide 

for it. Having a little abiding-place here myself, I hope the law is 

not so, [laughter,] and that the furnitnre of the commi~;sioners will 

have to respon<l, instead of the litt1f' shanty that I live in. 

But that is the attitude of the case. Therefore it does not appear 

to me that we are guilty of any breacL of faith-that is my present 

impression; I do not state it very con:fident.ly-in saying, We will 

issue no more bonds. vVhether we should not be bound, as having 

the supreme legislative power here, to provide that in some way the 

property of the District of Columbia should pay its honest debts, is 

another question. I think we should unquestionably. But in order 

to get ont of the present difficulty, as we do not wish to guarantee 

tb;l.t the United States will continue without limit to issue 3.65 bonds, 

I think wit.h my frit\nd from New York that we ought to stop it. 

Having stopperl. it, I think, as my friend from lllinois has said, that 

will do no good unless we also stop -the creation of further liabilities. 

To do that I propose to say to these commissioners, who, I believe, 

have endeavored to manage these operations, as difficult and complicated as they were, with the utmost good faith and intelli~ence, 

From this time, ~entlemen, you must go on with the funds you nave; 

the taxation which is to be imposed upon this peopl , and to be con- trilmted to by the United States according t.o our judgment of what 

is a fair proportion for us to contribute, must supply the nece ities 

of·this city. In tl:iat view, when I get an opportunity I shall move the amendment I have indicated. 

Mr. MAXEY. I should like to ask a question of the Senator from 

Vermont. The purpose of his amendment, I understand, is to limit 

the creation of further indebtedness by the board. Is that it f 

Mr. EDMUNDS. Not precisely to prevent the creation of further 

indebtedness, because the e commissioners may find a hole in the 

street that is dangerous to life, and they may not have money in hand 

at themomentto pay for :filling it up; but if theyhavetaxeswithin the 

limits of the appropriation, so that, 'Yithout increasing the aggregate 

of indebtedne s, they may go on .and keep things in order, they may 

do it. But my proposition simply is that the aggregate indebtedness 

shall not be increased; so that, from this time forth, the taxes and 

other sources of income from the District shall proviue for its wants. 

Mr. MAXEY. Then I a kif the act of June 20,1874, does not limit 

the indebtedness to ten millions f 

1\Ir. EDMUNDS. It did not limit the indebtedness to ten millions. 

That was a prior act when the old board of public works was in 

operation; and the act of 1874, as I read it, is a plain authority to do 

the specific acts that are mentioned without regard to the ten-million 

limit . .Mr. MORRILL, of Maine. Mr. President, I am only going to detain 

tbe Senate a single moment, for I am very much in hopes that we may 

get a vote. I wish to call the attention of the Senator from Michigan 

to the discrimination be makes between the bonds issued and the cer- tificates issued. I agree almost entirely with what the Senator from 

Michigan said in regard to the legal relations between the Government and the bondholder, but I do not quite agree, as I understand 

the facts in the case, with his statement of the relations as to the cer- tificates already issued. As I understand the legal relations existing 

between the Government and the holders of the certificates, they are in law and in equity identical with those of the holders of the bonds. 

The faith of t.he Government is pledged to the redemption of the cer- tificates in the way of payment in bonds, as I ma.intain, precisely as they are to pay the bonds. My reason is this: They are negotiable, 

necessarily, in their character, and I think I can satisfy my honorable 

friend by a brief reference to the statutes. These liabilities-- Mr. NORWOOD. Will the Senator yield for a motion to adjourn f 

Mr. MORRILL, of Maine. No, sir. I shall be through in a moment. 

These liabilities were to be audited by a hoard of audit created by 

the Government, ~nd this is 'the language : 

Said board of audit shall also issue to each claimant a cer·tificate signed by each 

of sald board and countersigned by the comptroller. 

That was to be the evidence .of indebtedness on the part of the Government. Now what is to be done with itT 

And the said sinking fund commissioners are hereby authorized to exchang&said bonds at par for like sums of any cla.~s of indebtedness in the preceding section of 

this act named, including sewer taxes or a. sessments paid, evidenced by certifi- cat-ed of the auditing board provided for in this act. 

I have a. certificate here. The process is this: first any person 

having a claim goes to the board of audit; the board of audit is ne this certificate; when the certificate is delivered to the commissioners 

of the sinking fund they are obliged to issue a bondforit. This hap- pens to be a certificate in the bands of«1 third person. Does the 

hoi!orable Senator doubt that that third person is entitled to the bond T 

Mr. CHRISTIANCY. A. certificate instead of a bond T 

Mr. MORRILL, of Maine. This is a certificate about which I am speaking. The certificate upon the face of it refers to this act and the 

party holding it is the owner of it in the sense of this act. He takes 

it to the commissioners and he asks for his bond. 

:Mr. KERN .AN. Will· the Senator from Maine allow me to ask him a question T Supposing it.should turn out (a hypothetical case) that a man bas got his certificate, and after he has got it it is discovered 

that he procured by fraud, by imposition, that he h~d not done any 

work, would there not be a defense to it in his hands or the bands of 

his assignee 'f Whereas if he gets a bond it may go to a bona fide 

holder againstw hom such a defense conld not. be made. ~fi'. MORRILL, of Maine. That is the very proposition I have 

already urged, that it is negot.iable in its character and effect by the 

construction of this statute. He is an innocent holder; he is a bona 

fide holder for a good consideration, and you cannot examine the ques- tion as against him; that is my point. 

Mr. EDMUNDS. Do you mean the payee of the certificate t . Mr. MORRILL, of Maine. No, I do not. This is a certificate in the hands of a third party, an assignee. 

Mr. EDMUNDS. Do you regard that as in the nature of a negotiable security T 

Mr. MORRILL, of Maine. I do under the statute. 

Mr. EDMUNDS. I do not think that will do. 

1\fi'. M_ORRILL, of Maine. I think it is negotiable under this statute. The statute is broad enough to cover any claim that has been 

audited by these commissioners in anybody's ha.nds. That is my ar- gument. There are no negotiable words in this certificate, I know; 

but it is the necessary effect of the statute itself. The statute is broad 

enongh to require the issue of this certificate to any person who presents the evidence of a claim against the Government. 

One word more. I understood my honorable friend from Michigan 

to say that this certificate would be evidence of inde.btednes undoubt- edly against the Government at its face value; and I suppo e he would 

not question that tho holder of it might have his remedy in the Court 

of Claims; but I understood him to say that the measure of damages 

would be the value of the 3.65 bond in which it was to be paid, or for 

the payment of which provision is made in this statute. Am I right 

in supposing that t.o be the opinion of the Senator T 

Mr. CHRISTIA.}.;CY. I did not say a word on the subject of the 

amount of damages. If the Senator wishes my opinion on that now, 

I would say that he could only recover what the bonds were worth in 

the market at the time. Mr. MORRILL, of Maine. My answer to that is that. in the first 

place this statute provides for the auditjng of all the e claims and 

the issuing of certificates. It does not require, when that is done, the 

claimant, the holder of a certificate, to take a 3.65 bond in payment. That is optional with him. If he chooses to hold the certificate, he 

holds it as an evidence of debt, trusting t o the Government for its 

payment ; and when ever he chooses to bring that to the attention of 

the Government, it will be optional of course with the Government 

to make its appropriation; but it is an evidence of indebtedness for its full face and the Government cannot require him to take the 3.65 

bond or its equivalent, I submit. Therefore it seems to me that it is a very doubtful economy indeed to adopt the amendment of the Sen- ator from New York; but as I am anxious to get a vote upon this bill 

I do not propose to argue it further. 
1876. CONGRESSIONAL RECORD. 835 

Mr. CHRISTIANCY. I have no question in regard to the issue of 

these certificates; and if certificates were issued under this st.atnte, 

subsequent to its taking efl'ect, I do not think they could be issued in a negotiable form. I see nothing in the statute which gives them the 

properties of commercial paper01: negotiable pa:per. Hence I think that 

any equities existing between the original holder and the Government 

might be shown for the purpose of defeating their validity in whose- soever hands they may come. Not being negotiable, they must come into the hands of third persons merely by assignment, and that assignment should appear upon the ba{lk of the instrument., and would con- vey but an equitable right. It would not therefore prevent the Govermnent from setting up any defense as between the original parties. 

This shows, in my VIew, the propriety of stopping the issue of bonds 

for these certificates until the whole thing bas been investigated. 

The payment of them can then be provided for if they are found to 

be valid, t~itber by the issue of further bonds or by any other provision the Government may see fit to make. 

Mr. NORWOOD. I move that t.he Senate adjourn. The motion was·agreed to; and (at five o'clock p. m.) the Senate 

adjourned. 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. 

WEDNESDAY, February 2, 1876. 

The House ~t at twelve o'clock m. Prayer by the Chaplain, Rev. 

I. L. TOWNSEND, D. D. 

READING OF THE JOURNAL. 

The J ourna.l of yesterday was read. 

The SPEAKER. Is there objection to the Journal as read f · Mr. COXGER. 'I notice that in the Journal as read the Clerk has 

noted the f.irue when the motion to adjourn was made, but not the time 

when the motion to a1ljourn was actually agreed to. 

The SPEAKER. The r ecollection of the Chair is that the requirement of the rule relates to the time when the motion to adjourn is 

submitted. 

Mr. CONGER. I s~ppose the object was to tell when the House 

did a{ltually adjourn. 

The SPEAKER. No doubt that is the object. 

Mr. CONGER. Other business miglJt intervene after the motion 

to adjourn was submitted, so that half an hour might elapse before 

the motion was agreed to. _ The SPEAKER. After the motion to adjourn is submitted, usually 

only such business intervenes as happens to be upon the Speaker's 

table, not of importance and having no relation to the current busineHs of the House. 'rhe rule upon the subject is: "The hour at ·which 

every m9tion to arljonrn is made shall be entered upon the Journal." 

The Clerk hnEI lit.erally followed the rule of the House. 

1\lr. CONGER. I was not aware of that rule ; I thought the time 

when the House actually adjourned was the time to be noted. 

The Journal as read was then approved as correct. 

ELECTION CONTEST-BROMBERG YS. HARALSON. 

The SPEAKER, by unanimous consent, laid before the House the 

report of the supervisors of the congressional elections in 1874 for the 

first congress~onal district of Alabama; which was referred to the 

Committee of Elections. 

C_OMMERCIAL TREATY WITH FRANCE. 

Mr. O'BRIEN. I ask unanimous consent to submit for consideration at this time the preamble and resolution which I send to the 

Clerk's desk. 

The Clerk read a.s follows: 

Whereas, owing to the fa{)t that no treaty regulating commercia-l affairs between 

the lJnited States and the republic of France exists, the productions of the United 

States are not received into the ports of France on as favorable terms as are the 

productions of other nations; and whereas the citizens of the United States are placed at a great disadvantage in comparison with citizens of other states in com. peting for the trade of the republic of France on account of the discriminations 

aforesaid : ThPrefore, - .Resolved, That the Committee on Foreign A.ft'a.irs be instructed to inquire into 

the expediency of requesting the President to negotiate a. commercial treaty be- tween the United States and the republic of France placing the citizens of the 

United States on as favorable a footing as :the citizens of other and more favored 

nations in respect to duties and charges imposed upon imports into the republic of F1-ance. · 

1\fr. CONGE.R. I think the recital in the preamble is not strictly 

correct. I think that by an old treaty between the United States and 

France it is provided that in all future time the same regulations 

sbonld operate upon importations of goods from this country as from 

t.he most favored nations. 

Mr. O'BRIEN. The gentleman is in error upon that precise point; 

there are other nations more favored than the United States. 

Mr. CONGER. I think the treaty with France required that the 

t'e6rnlations in relation to the United States should be the game a.s for 

the most favored nation. I only question the strict correctness of the 

assertion in the preamble. - Mr. O'BRIEN. There is no incorrectness in that. 

The preamlJle and resolution were adopted. 

ELIZABETH A. SANFORD. 

Mr. AINSWORTH, by unanimous consent, introduced a bill (H. R. 

No. 1799) granting a pension to Elizabeth A. Sanford, widow of U. 

W. Sanford; which was read a first and second time, referred to the 

Committee on Invalid Pensions, and ordered to be printed. 

REVISED STATUTES FOR REPORTERS OF DEBATES. 

Mr. FORT, by unanimous consent, submitterl the following resolution; which was read and referred to the Committee of Accounts: 

&8olved, That the Clerk of the House furnish each of the official reporters of the House one copy of the Revised St.atutes of the United States. 

ORDER OF BUSINESS. 

Mr. SPRINGER. I call for the regular order of business. 

The SPEAKER. Befure entering upon the regular order this morn- ing, the Chair desires to inquire of the House if there be any objection to taking from the Speaker's table and referring to the appropriate committees the bills and resolutions from the Senate f 

There was no objection. JOL~T RULES. 

The first business on the Speaker's table was the :£allowing conclU'-

rent resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Rules: 

Resolved by the Senate, (the House of Represmtatives concurring,) That the joint- rules of the Senate and House of Representatives in force at the close of the last session of Congn>ss, except the twenty-seconrljointrnle, be, a-nd the same are hereby, 

adopted as the joint rules of the two Houses at t.he present session. 

COMMISSI03ER OF TU~"'IS AT THE CENTENNIAL. 

The next buEiiness upon the Speaker's table was the amendment of 

the Senate to the joint resolution (H. R. No. 11) authorizing G.Harris 

Heap, United States consul at Tunis, to accept the trust of commissioner of the Bey of Tunis. 

Mr. KASSON. Owing to the rapidly approaching time when this 

commissioner must enter upon his duties, if at all, I would suggest 

that the House concur in the amendment of the Senate, unless there 

be objection. - ~ 

Mr. SPRINGER. There is objection. 

The joint resolution and Senate amendment were referred to the 

Committ-ee on Foreign Affairs. 

The next business on the Speaker's table was the joint resolution 

(S. R. No. 3) authorizing the acceptance by G. Harris Heap, comml of 

the United States at Tunis, of the trust of the commissioner of the 

Bey of Tunis at the international exhibition of 1876 at Philadelphia; 

which was read a first and second time, and referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs. 

CIRCUIT COURT IN €ALIFORJ\'1A1 OREqON1 Al\'D NEVADA. 

The next business on: the Speaker's table was the bill (S. No. 53) fixing t.he time of holding the circuit court of the United States in the 

dtstrict of California, Oregon, and Nevada; which was read a first 

and second time, and referred to the Committee on the Judiciary. 

ACCEPTANCE OF PRESENTS BY GEORGE P. MARSH. 

The next business on the Speaker's table was the bill (S. No. 62) to 

authorize George P. Marsh to accept a certain present from the government of Switzerland and a certain present from the government of Italy; which was read a first and second time, and refer1·ed 

to the Committee on Foreign .Affairs. · 

NAVAL MONUMENT. 

The next business on the Speaker's table was the bill (S. No. 83) to 

provide for the completion and location of the naval monument; 

which was read a first and -second time, and referred to the Committee on Naval .Affairs. · LIQUOR TRAFFIC. 

The next business on the Speaker's table was the bill (S. No. 124) 

to provide for the appointment of a commission on the subject of the 

al<>A>holic and fermented liquor traffic and manufacture; which was read a :fh-st and second time. 

Mr. MORRISON. I move the reference of this bill to the Commit:. 

tee of Ways and Means. 

Mr. FRYE. This subject is already before the Judiciary Committee. 

:Mr. GARFIELD. I think the bill should go to the Judiciary Committee to which a large number of petitions on the subject have 

already been referred. - · Mr. MORRISON. They ought not to have been so referred. This 

bill comes from the Finance Committee of the Senate. 

Mr. GARFIELD. The bill has relation to the temperance question, 

not to any question of taxation. 

The motion of Mr. MoRRISON wa-s agreed to, and the qUI was ~ 

ferred to the Committee of Ways and Means. 

S. K. THOMPSOY ~ 

The next business on the Speaker's table wa~th~ pill($. No. ~6Q) 

for the relief of S. K. Thompson; wh~ch w~ rea-d a fi~t anq s~co~1 

time, and referred to the Committee on Milit~ry M.fa~rs~ . 

P~AS~~y & ~'C~Y~ 

The next bus:ine&s on the Speaker'~ table was the bill (S! No. l9H 

for the relief of Peasley & McClary, of Nashua, New Bampsbue; 

which was read a first and second time, and referred to the Committea on the Post-Office and Post-Roads.