The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1879-04-30
SPEECH
Hun. ROSCOE CONKLING,
OF NEW YORK,
Ia The Senate of the United States, Thurs
day, April -, 1879.

,, Inc Sen ate having under consideration the bill
u. n. NO y making appropriations for the legsla
tVe eXeucutiye, and judicial xpenses of the Govern
ment Tor the fiscal year ending June 80 1885, and fol
other purposes
Mr.. Conkling said:
Mr.. President: During the last fiscal yeal
the amount oil national taxes paid into the
Treasury was S234 1881 ,461.77. OF this sum one
hundred and thirty million and fraction was
collected under tariff laws as duties ON imported
merchandise, and one hundred and four mil
lion and fraction as tax on American pro.
dnctions Of this total of 1926, ,000, 900 in round
numbers, twebty-seven States which adhered
to the Union during the recent war paid 1921,
204,26S.8S. The residue came from eleven
States. will read their names: Alabama,
Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Missis-
sippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Ten
Dessee, Texas, Virginia. These eleven States
paid $13, ,627, 1872 So. OF this sum mora than
SIX million and half came from the tobacco
OF virginia. Deducting the amount of the
tobacco.tax 10 VlrRinia, the eleven States emu
mersted paid 81 ,125, ,462. go of the revenues and
supplies Of the Republic.
Mr.. Hill, of Georgia. Will the S-nator from
New York allow me to ask him q question?
of US are needed to make statement of figures
L will
Mr.. Hill, of Georgia. Two no doubt can
make it better.
The Presiding officer. Does the Senator
from New York yield to the Senator from
Georgia?
Nj Conkling. After the expressed OPT nion
of the Senator from Georgia that the statement
needs his aid cannot decline.
Mr.. Hill, of Georgia. | will not interrupt
the Senator if it is disagreeable to him, assure
him. l ask if in the compu tation he has made
of the amount paid he does not ascribe to the
States that adhered to the Union, to use his
language, ALI
Mr. Conkling. Having heard the Senator
SO far, must ask him to desist.
The Presiding Officer. The Senator from
New York declines to yield further.
Mr.. Conkliog. I have stated certain figures
as they appear published in the official ac-
counts: the Senator seems about to challenge
the process or system by which the accounts
are made up cannot give way for this, and
must beg him to allow ne to proceed with OBJ
servations which fear to proong lest they
become too wearisome to the Senate.
The laws exacting these few millions from
eleven States and these hundreds of millions
from tweuty.seven States, originated, as the
Constitution requires all bills for collecting
revenue to originate, in the House of Represen-
tatives. They are not recent laws. They have
been approved and affirmed by succeeding
Congresses. The last House of Representa-
tives and its predecessor so approved them,
and both these were ruled by Democratic
Speaker, By Democratic committees, and by a
are Democratic now, and we hear of no pur-
pose to repeal existing revenue laws. They are
to remain in full force They will continue to
operate and take tribute of the people. sIf the
SUM they exact this year and nextsyear shall be
less than last year. il will be only or chiefly be-
cause recent legislation favoring Southern and
tobacco. growing regiobs has dismissed twelve
or fourteen million OF annual tax on tobacco.
This vast revenue is raised and to be raised
for three uses. 1t is supplied in time Of severe
depression and distress, to pay debts inflicted
by rebellion; to pay pensions to widows, Or
phans, and cripples made by rebellion; and to
maintain the Government and enforce the laws
preserved at inestimable cost of life and
treasure.
1t can be devoted TO its use in only one mode.
Once In the Treasury, it must remain there
useless until appropriated by act of Congress.
The Constitution so ordains. To collect it, and
then defeat or prevent Its object and use, would
be recreant and abominable oppression. The
Constitution leaves no discretion 10 Congress
whether needful appropriations shall be made.
Discretion to ascertain aud determine amounts
ueedful, is committed to Congress, but the ap-
preparation of whatever is needful after the
amount has been ascertained, is commanded
positively and absolutely. When, for example,
the Constitution declares that the President
and the judges at stated periods shall receive
compensation fixed by law, the duty to make
the appropriations is plain and peremptery !;
to refuse to make them, is disobedience of the
Constitution and reasonable.
So, when it is declared that Congress shall
have power to provide money to pay deb,s, and
for the common defense and general welfare
tine plain meaning is that Congress shall do
these things, and refusal to do them is revo.
lutionary, and subversive of the Constitution.
A refusal less f1agraDt would be impeachaSle
in the case of every officer and department of
the Government within the reach of impeach-
ment. Were the President to refuse to do any
-. 4 h.
would be impeachable and ought to be convict
ed and removed from office as convict.
Should the jadges, one or come or all of the N,
refuse to perform any duty which the Consti-
tuition commits to the judicial branch, the re-
fusal would be plainly impeschable. Congress
ia not amenable to impeachment Congress
sonal msjorties are triable at the bar Of pub
lie opinion, and in no other human forum.
Could Congress be dissolved instantly here as in
Eng land, could Senators aud Representatives
be driven instantly from their seats by popu-
lar disapproval, were they amenable presently
somewhere, there would be more of bravery, if
not less of guilt, 10 disregard of sworn obi
cation. Legislators are bound chiefly by their
honor and their oaths; and every impurity and
exemption they enjoy eXalts and measures
their obligations, and the crime and odium of
violating them. Because of the fixed tenure by
which the members of each House hold their
places and their trusts, irrepsrable harm may
come of their acts and omissions, before they
can be visited with even political defeat and
before the wrong they do can be undooe. A
congressional majority is absolutely safe during
its term, and those who suffer such impunity to
exist in the frame of our Gevernment, must
have relied on the enormity and turptude of
the act to deter the representatives of the peo-
pie and the representatives of States from be.
trayiug a trust so exalted and so sacred as
these off es imply.
Mr.. President 1t does not escape my atteu-
- hos
that in ordinary times obvious apbOrisms. l
might say truisms, like these would be need
less, If not out of place in the Senate. They
are pertinent now because of an occasion With
out example in American history. know of
no similar instance in British history. Could
one be found, it would only mark the difference
between an hereditary monarchy without a
written constitution, and free republic with q
written charter plainly defining from the be-
ginning the powers, the rights, and the duties
of every department of the government. The
nearest approach in English experience to
the transactions which now menace this coun-
try, only gid with broad light the wisdom of
those who established system to exempt
America forever from the struggles b5tween
kingcraft and liberty, between arstocratic pre-
tension and human rights, which in succeeding
centuries had checkered and beglimed the an
nails of Great Britain. 1t was not to trans
plant, but to leave behind and shut out the
psurpati0ns and prerog gatives of kings, mobiles,
and gentry and the rude and violent resorts
which, with varying and only partial success,
had been matched against them, that wise and
far-seeing men Of many DatiOnalities came to
these shores aud founded "a government of tho
people, for the people, and by the people,
Such bOisterous conflicts as the Old World baC
witnessed between subjectsiand rulers-betweer
privilege and right, were the warnings which
our fathers needed, the dangers which they
Stunned, the evils which they averted, the dis
asters which they made impossible so long a:
their posterity should cherish their Inheritance
Until now no madness of party, no audacity
or desperation of senister, sectional or partisan
as ha, rscently come to pass in the two Houses
of Congress. The proceedings mean to char
acterize, If misunderstood anywhere, is misun
derstood h. re. One listening to addresses de
livered to the Senate during this debate, as it IL
called, must think that the majority is ar
raigned, certainly that the majority wishes tt
seem and is determined to seem, arraigned
merely for insisting that provisions sppropriat
ing money to keep the GOvernmen
alive and provisions not 10 themselves improp
er relating to other matters may be united II
the same bill. With somewhat of monoton
ous and ostentatious iteration we have beel
asked whether Incorporating general legisla
tion in appropriation bills is revolution, or rev
olutionary? No one in my hearing has eve
so contended.
Each House is empowered by the Constitu
tion to make rules governing the modes of it
| own procedure The rules permitting, l know
| of nothing except convenience, common sense
| and the danger of log-rOlling combinations