Year: 1876

Senate.


WASHINGTON, August 3.-The river and
harbor bill is nearly completed. l: passed
as reported by the committee, without



Adjourned.


The silver bill was flibustered over until
tomorrow.


The impeachment managers reported the
result o; the trial to the House.


The House then went into committee of
the whole.


Mr.. Lamar, of Mississippi, proceeded to
make a speech OF political subjects. He
commenced by saying that it could nc. be
truthfully asserted that the practice and Pc
culiar system of measures adopted BY the
present administration, commanded the
appreciation Of the majority Of the people.
But, on the contrary, the sentiment in
which the American people regard The con-
duct of national affairs, was one OF very de-
cided dissatisfaction and despondeDcy, ac-
companied with strong and Intense de-
sire for a change. There was deep and
anxious protest against the methods Of the
administration; the tone and character of
the public service, and the principles of
legislation that had marked the action of
the government for many years past. And
vet u - remarkable that popular feeling
had proSQced no change in the administIa-
ton.


Such development Of public sentiment
in England would have produced l. change
IN the administrative agencies Of the gov
ernmeno within twentyfour hours. He
attributed the absence Of reform 20 the
principle of centralized party organization
which garriEOns the country with 100, 600
fee. He quoted from the speech of Mr..
Sanford, in the recent Republican State
Convention Of Massachusetts, IL arrai gDment
of the administration, which speech, he said,
if it had been made by Democrat would
have been regarded as O gross partisan
exaggeration, and yet that convention
and its members were in active cooperation
with the very administration thus charsc-
terized. and held up to public reprehensiOn,
in the support of political party which
had endorsed that administration and had
in turn been endorsed by it. It was utterly
impossible that the reforms desired could
be effected by continuing il pOwsr that
party whose debasement of the civil ser
vice Of the country, and whose corruption
of the administration, was the thing to be
reformed. The success of that party
would give impunity to the corrupt prac-
tees that are the subject of such universal
condemnation. But 1t was said that the
advent Of the Democratic party tc power
would endanger the permanency of the
new institutions established by the war,
and there was an apprehension that what
was called the Southern sectional combina-
ton would be brought back. and. there
fore, the people were not prepared, for the
mere sake Of correcting the disorder of the
administration, to put these new institu-
tons into the hands of those who were ORR
glnally opposed to their establishment. He
appreciated the value of these grave appre-
tensions. He would speak, however, in be-
half OF a people who had accepted with sin
cerity the results of the war. Who feel that
they had on them the burden Of recovering
the confidence Of the nation, and who also
feel assured that with better knowledge
of their purposes and motives, would revive
to bind together the various sections OF the
republic in the bonds of peace, q peace
which in the days of party discord, he
feared, was almost past understanding. He
did not believe that the apprehension grow
ing out of the united support by the South
ern people Of the Democratic party was well
founded, or that it should stand in the way
of the aspirations of great people for
progress and reform. The idea that the
circumstances, would ever again obtain the
control of this giant republic and will its
destinies against the will and instinct of
the mighty people, was Of all ideas the
most visionary and baseless. The people of
the South were PROSTATE, and they had
been defeated in war and made to feel that
the sacrifices and humiliations, and help
lessness of defeat had been allotted to them
as their share, while the people of the North
had reaped the rich results of q victorious
war, and had embodied and guaranteed
them in the very life and constitution Of
the nation. The institutions of the South
had been shattered and destroyed, her in
dustries had been disorganized, every foot
of her fertile soil sterilized by an all.devour-
ing taxation, her educational interests
waning and languishing, and her popu-
lstion was so feeble in comparison
with that Of the great Union that
with the South united, black and white,
it would be impOtent to secure q single
Southern man or defend single Southern
interest. 1t was, therefore, absurd for
great people to apprehend that tie people
Of the South arrogated to themselves the
ruling OF the interests of this great nation.
There was no aspiration which they had
that was not bounded by the horizon Of the
Union. If they we're united with the Dem.
ocratic party, it was not for the purpose of
sectional ACKNOWLEDGMENT; it was not for
the purpose of reversing the policy Of the
government but it was because they had
observed an instructive and superlative law
of self preservation.


He proceeded to argue against the idea
that the power of the Democratic party
would suspend the supervision of the ma
tional government over the conduct of af-
fairs in the South; that such supervision
would imperil the right of the colore1 race.
He quoted from a Hpeech made by Senator
then Governor) Morton, of Indiana, in
1865, against conferring franchise on tha
colored race, and in favor of postpOning
their political rights for ten, fifteen or
twenty years, at which time, he argued, the
States would have been SO completely filed
up by immigration from the North and
from Europe that the negroes would be in
permanent minority. Ii that distinguished
statesman away up in Indiana had such
must have been the appalling feeling of
Southern society on which that avalanche
was to be let loose!


Was it to be wondered at that the people
of the South at that time eEdeavored to
save themselves from that shock He
claimed, however, that after that syetem
became fastened upon them they had
etliven earnestly and honestly to give it q
tair and free development, snd that they
might have succeeded in some degree but
for the measures which had been adopted
in consequence of the conflict between Con-
gress and President johnson, the worst Of
which measures was the establishment of the
Freedmen's Bureau, which had cut the two
races right asunder. The inevitable effect
OF that reconstruction policy had been to
draw one race to it's support and drive the
the other race to it's opposition. He quoted
Gibbon, the historian, as saying that the
most absurd and oppressive system OF gov
ernment that could be conceived Of was
that which subjected the natives Of coun-
try to the domination of their own slaves.
He also OuOted John Staw,rt Mil m tha af.
feet that when a government is administered
by rulers not responsible to the people
governed, but to some other community; it
was one of the worst OF conceivable gov