by the thought that I was looking upon his memorable form for the last time. I knew that before I could return from California another Chief Justice would be numbered with the dead. I went from his house to the Executive Mansion to say good-bye to the President. I found him pressed with affairs, but on my saying 'Mr. President, I am going to California, but before I return for the next term of court you will have to appoint a new Chief Justice,' he looked at me with an inquiring expression peculiar to him, and asked me if I could not remain a day longer. I responded, certainly. The next day he told me that, in case of a vacancy, he had made up his mind to appoint Chase, and asked me if I thought Chase would accept. I then told him what had occurred. "That is all,' said the President, and then added 'I wonder how Katie will like it?""

In this way the eminent man was called to his true vocation. That question with which the story ends has its significance. It was well known that one of the most potent factors in the formation of the Chase party was in the winning grace and subtle tact of his accomplished daughter. Now, while President Lincoln was more amused than offended at this, his wife became furious, and kept up a war of a social sort that was far more disagreeable than effective.

Here, however, is the letter:

II.

WASHINGTON, April 30, 1866.

MY DEAR JUDGE: It grieved me much to hear from your brother, Mr. Cyrus W. Field, that you have been quite ill. I supposed that you were now in or very near California. You must take the best care of yourself, not only for the sake of your family but of your country, which now needs true patriotism as well as legal learning upon the bench. I feel all the interest of a warm personal friendship in your welfare. It is not in my nature to forget friends even when serious differences of judgment and political affinities come in to make separation; and no such differences come between us. Do you remember when, just before the end of the term in the spring of 1864, you met me on the avenue, and expressed your warm wish that I might fill the place I now occupy? If you have forgotten it, I have not, nor shall I ever

forget it. It took me by surprise, but was very grateful to my feelings.

What do you think of the plan of reconstruction, or rather of completing reconstruction, presented by the Committee of Fifteen? To me it seems all very well, provided it can be carried; but I am afraid it is, as people say, rather too big a contract. So far as I have had opportunity of conversing with Senators and Representatives, I have recommended to confine constitutional amendments to two points: (1.) No payment of rebel debt and no payment for slaves; (2.) No representation beyond the constitutional basis. And, as so many are trying their heads at form, I drew up these two amendments according to my ideas, as follows:

ARTICLE 14.-Section 1. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers; but wherever in any State the elective franchise shall be denied to any of its inhabitants, being male citizens of the United States, and above the age of twenty-one years, for any cause except insurrection or rebellion against the United States, the basis of representation in such State shall be reduced, in the proportion which the number of male citizens so excluded shall bear to the whole number of male citizens over twenty-one years

of age.

Section 2. No payment shall ever be made by the United States for or on account of any debt contracted or incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States; or for or on account of the emancipation of slaves.

And I proposed further that the submission of this article to the States should be accompanied by a concurrent resolution to this effect:

"That whenever any of the States which are declared to be in insurrection and rebellion by the proclamation of the President of the United States, dated July 1st, 1862, shall have ratified the foregoing article, Senators and Representatives from such ratifying State or States, ought to be admitted to seats in the Senate and House of Representatives, respectively, in the like manner as for States never declared to be in insurrection; and that, whenever the said article shall have been ratified by three-quarters of the several States, Senators and Representatives ought in like manner to be admitted from all the States."

It has really seemed to me that on this basis the completion of reorganization by the admission of members in both Houses of Congress would be safe; and I have greatly doubted the expediency of going beyond this. In two other important respects the report of the committee does go beyond this: (1) Prohibiting the States from interfering with the rights of citizens; (2) Disfranchising all persons voluntarily engaged in rebellion until 1870, and (3) In granting express legislative power to Congress to enforce all the new constitutional provisions. Will not these

propositions be received with some alarm by those who, though opponents of secession or nullification, yet regard the real rights of the States as essential to proper working of our complex system? I do not myself think that any of the proposed amendments will be likely to have injurious effects, unless it be the sweep of the disfranchisement; but I repeat, that I fear the recommendation of too much; and, I add, that it seems to me that nothing is gained sufficiently important and sustainable by legislation to warrant our friends in overloading the ship with amendment freight.

But this letter is too long. Pardon and answer. read the opinion and the dissent in the Bank case? Yours cordially,

Have you

S. P. CHASE.

I inclose an opinion in an Admiralty case, which I think right. The question is of importance, especially in California and on the Pacific Coast.

WHAT SHALL BE DONE WITH THE SURPLUS?

THIRTY millions a month goes into the Treasury by the force of existing laws. Not more than twenty millions a month can be paid out, without violation of existing laws, except for the redemption of bonds. At that rate the last of the bonds that can be called until 1891 will be paid off next July. Then what can be done with the surplus of $10,000,000 per month? Without stealing, it cannot be got out of the Treasury, unless the laws be changed. Without ruin, it cannot be kept in the Treasury.

Not many governments have ever been in trouble because they were too rich. Twenty years ago, when the net debt was more than twice what it is now, there were few who imagined that, within the life-time of any then active in affairs, the United States government would be embarrassed by riches. Two years after the war had ceased, the Treasury sold six per cent. bonds at a premium of only a quarter's interest; now it cannot buy a four per cent. bond without paying a premium equal to seven years' interest. Now, prostration of industry impends, through absorption of the currency into a plethoric treasury. In 1887, if there comes no change of the laws, the life-blood of trade must be drained into the Treasury at the rate of $120,000,000 yearly.

Micawber was not, perhaps, a model financier, but he knew that a surplus could not be made less by putting out a new promise to pay instead of an old. It is, therefore, a curious mistake when Secretary Manning proposes "payment of $346,681,016 outstanding promissory notes of the United States with the present and accruing treasury surplus, issuing silver certificates in their room, without contraction of the present circulating volume of the currency." If the certificate is a title deed to the silver in the Treasury, the greenback is equally a title deed to the gold. It is possible to cancel greenbacks with the surplus revenue, but that is contraction of the currency. It is also possible to offer silver

certificates in exchange for greenbacks, but that is not using or diminishing the surplus. The sum of notes to be paid after the exchange would be no less than before, and the sum of cash accumulated for their payment just the same. How it would help the public credit or the country to put out promises to pay seventy-five cent dollars instead of promises to pay one hundred cent dollars, need not here be asked. Nor will Congress vote to lend the money to bondholders, as Senator Beck proposes. It will rightly say that the bondholders need it less than anybody else, and can borrow now on governments more than the Treasury ought to lend.

There are two ways, and but two, of dealing with the surplus. Income can be reduced, or expenditures can be increased. Apoplexy can be cured by sending less blood to the base of the brain. It can be cured by drawing off the excess. But it cannot be cured by calling the crowding and mounting blood by a different name. It must be confessed that the great statesmen of the day do not shine with especial effulgence in their treatment of this problem. One class would cut down or cut off taxes on articles of voluntary use, on luxuries and on sugar; another would cut down or cut off duties on articles which compete with important products of home industry; but neither stops to ask whether the remission of taxes would do as much good as a wise use of the money raised. The veteran Morrill would like to untax the sugar bowl and the pipe. Is he quite sure that more education would be less useful than more pipes? Mr. Randall, with "a tariff only for revenue" as his slogan, would encourage whiskey drinking rather than industrial schools. Mr. Morrison urges that a surplus revenue makes it necessary to invite larger importations and raise a larger revenue, by reducing protective duties.

The talk of cutting down protective duties, as a remedy for the threatened surplus, is worse than child's play. Not a man of those who urge this remedy would dare to vote for a bill to so change these duties that they should yield even $50,000,000 less to the Treasury than they do now. The revenue duties on sugars, fruits, tobacco, liquors, jewelry, furs, kid gloves, fancy articles, embroideries and laces, velvets, silk cloths, and hosiery, yielded last year $91,400,000, and all other duties, mainly, but not wholly, protective in character, yielded $98,000,000. A proportionate reduction of ten or twenty per cent. in duties of the latter class