Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1876-08-24

AN UGLY RECORD.
THE CONFEDERATE con-
GRESS ARRAIGNED.
Its Sins of Omission and Com mis-
siOn-Is the Country SO Given
Over to Corruption as
Charged From the
Speech of Hon. j. A.
Garfield in the
House.
/ desire to glance for moment now
at the career of this House, and at what
they have done and omitted to do,
Passing by their treatment of contest.
ed election. cases, their appointment Of
officers, employees, and committee
clerks who have reflected no credit
upon the House, l desire to ask what
valuable work of general legislation
has this house accomplished
We had hardly been here q month,
when, among the first things demand.
ed, was that, in disregard of the deep
feelings of the Northern people, it was
proposed to crown Jefferson Davis with
full and free Observation-Disclosures
he had contemptuously declared he
never would ask for it; and this was to
be done, or no amnesty was to be grant
ed to any one. And when we objected
because he was the author of the unut.
terabIe atrocities of Libby and Ander-
sonvilIe prisons, the debate which fol-
lowed disclosed the spirit and tendency
of the dominant party.
We were hardly in our seats when
the gentleman from Virginia (Mr.
Tucker), brought in a bill to repeal u
statute of 1866 which no Democrat had
before that proposed TO disturb, so far
as 1 know; statute which provided
that no man who voluntarily went into
the rebellion against the United States
should ever hold a commission in our
army or navy. And y Democrat from
my own State (Mr. Banning), the
Chairman on the Committee on Mill
tary Affairs, became the champion of
| that bill, and this House passed it.
Again, we had passed law to pro-
tee: the sanctity and safety of the bal
lot in National elections, so that the
horrors of the Ku-Klux and the White
liners should not No riot at the polls,
and among the earliest acts of this
House was clause added to one of the
appropriation bills to repeal the elec-
tion law; and to effect thas repeal they
kept up the struggle lately under the
fierce rays of the dOg-star. They have
been compelled by Republican Senate
to abandon the attenp.
Again, what have they neglected :?
Early in the session, indeed in the first
days of it, proposition was made, in
troduced by the gentleman from Maine
(Mr. Blaine), so to amend the COnsti.
tuition as to remove forever from the
party politics of the country the vexed
and dangerous question Of Church and
State by preventing the use of the
school fund for sectarian purposes.
The amendment was sent to the Com
mittee on Judiciary to sleep, perhaps
to die; for it is said to have been three
times voted down in that committee.
Again, the Secretary of the Treasury
officially informed US that his power
was exhausted further to refund the
debt; and that if we would give him
the requisite authority he could refund
$i0O, ,O0O, 600 or $500, 5000 more at so
favorable rate as to save to the Treas
ury at least one per cent. per annum of
the whole amount. The Senate passed
the bill more than six months ago, but
this House has taken no action upon
it.
Our revenues have been threatened
with q deficit, and our industries have
been shaken with alarm by bills report.
ed to the House but never been brought
to vote; for example, the tariff bill,
floating lazily upon the stagnant
waters of the House,
As idle as a painted ship
Upon painted ocean
a promise to free-traders, threat of
danger to manufacturers, but with no
prospect or purpose OF acting upon it.
And the Government has been Grip
pied by the Withholding OF necessary
appropriations; withheld, as / do not
hesitate to say, for the purpose of polit-
which the gentleman from Mississippi
desires his party to succeed In the name
of honesty and REFORM His colleague
was frank enough to declare that he
wanted to reduce the general appropri-
atiOns, so as to have money enough to
devote to some scheme for his section,
such as the cotton claims and the South
ern Pacific Railroad.
But party necessity has held many
waiting schemes and claims IL the
leash. They are anchored in the lob
bies and committee rooms of the House,
till the election is over. There is the
bill to refund the cotton tax to the
amount of S60,0O0,000, waiting to be
launched when the election is over. A
subsidy of hundred millions upstairs
Pacific Railroad Committe Room) is
waiting to come down upon US for the
Southern Pacific Railroad, when the
election is over. There are $3S, 900, 900
of private claims, Southern claims, war
claims waiting to burst up from the
committee rooms below stairs, when
the election is over.
While these things surround as
while the very earth shakes with the
tramp of the advancing army of fschem-
ers, who are coming "with the Consti-
tuition and an appropriation" the gen.
tleman from Mississippi thinks that as
measure of reform the Democratic
party ought at once to be brought back
into power.
Meanwhile what has been the chief
emplOyme of this House. 1t has di-
vided itself in score of police courts,
in the hope of finding corruption. Like
those insects that feed upon sores, it has
hoped to live and thrive upon the cor
ruption of others. Like that scavenger |
of the air, the carrion bird that buries |
its beak in the rotten carcass, 80 the |
Democratic party seeks to fatten on the |
refuse which is here and there thrown |
out of the public service.
This House has adopted eighty-three |
resolutions of Investigation, besides a !
legion of resolutions Lf inquiry of the !
several departments Twentv-five