great debate recalled vividly that of Webster and Hayne, in the other wing of the Capitol, almost half a century before. This session also witnessed the impeachment of a Cabinet officer, General Belknap, Secretary of War. The trial occurred before the Senate, sitting as a court of impeachment during the closing weeks of the session, and resulted in his acquittal, less than two-thirds of the Senators voting for conviction. General Belknap was represented by an able array of counsel, chief of whom were Judge Black of Pennsylvania and the Hon. Matthew H. Carpenter of Wisconsin. Mr. Knott of Kentucky, Mr. Hoar of Massachusetts, and Mr. Lord of New York, conducted the prosecution in the main as managers on the part of the House of Representatives. The principal contention on the part of the counsel for the accused was that there could be no conviction, inasmuch as Belknap had resigned his office before the articles of impeachment had been preferred. This view seems to have been decisive of the final vote of many Senators, and the accused stood acquitted at the bar of the Senate.

When the second session of this Congress convened, in December, 1876, the excitement throughout the country was intense over the pending Presidential contest between Hayes and Tilden. As will be remembered, the electoral vote of two States, Louisiana and Florida, was claimed by each of the candidates. These votes were decisive of the result. As the days passed and the time approached for the joint session of the Senate and the House, for the purpose of counting the electoral votes and declaring the result, the tension became greater, and partisan feeling more intense. The friends of Hayes were in the majority in the Senate; those of Tilden, in the House. With conflicting certificates, both purporting to give the correct vote from each of the States named, and no lawful authority existing to determine as to their validity, it can readily be seen that the situation was one to arouse the grave apprehension of all thoughtful men. The condition was without a precedent in our history. Twice had there been a failure to elect a President by the people, and by constitutional provision the election in each instance

devolved upon the House. In the first-mentioned case, in 1801, Mr. Jefferson was chosen; and in the latter, in 1825, Mr. John Quincy Adams. In neither of the cases just mentioned had there been a question as to how any State had voted. It was simply that no person had received a majority of all of the electoral votes cast. The method of settlement was clearly pointed out by the Constitution. As already indicated, the case was wholly different in the Hayes-Tilden controversy. The question then was as to how certain States had voted. It was for the purpose of ascertaining this fact and certifying the same to the joint session of the Senate and House, that the Electoral Commission was constituted. The bill having this end in view originated in the House in January, 1877; the Commission was constituted, and the controverted questions were soon thereafter determined.

The Electoral Commission was an imperative necessity. As such it was created, — consisting of five members each, from the Senate, the House of Representatives, and the Supreme Court. Its decisions were adverse to Mr. Tilden from the beginning, and resulted in the finding that all the disputed votes should be counted for his opponent. This, it will be remembered, gave Hayes a majority of one on the final count, and resulted in his induction into office. Partisan feeling was at its height, and the question of the justice of the decision of the Electoral Commission was vehemently discussed.

To the end that there might be a peaceful determination of the perilous question, that of disputed succession to the Presidency, I was an earnest advocate of the bill creating the Commission. Upon the question of concurrence by the House of Representatives in the final determination of the Commission, bitter opposition was manifested upon the part of friends of Mr. Tilden, and a heated partisan debate resulted, and during this debate I spoke as follows:

"When this Congress assembled in December, it witnessed the American people from one end of the country

to the other divided upon the question as to which candidate had been lawfully elected to the high office of President of the United States. The business industries of the country were paralyzed, public confidence destroyed, and the danger of civil war was imminent. That Mr. Tilden had received a majority of more than two hundred thousand of the popular vote was not disputed. That he had secured a majority of the Presidential electors in the several States, and was lawfully entitled to be inducted into the great office, was the firm belief of fully one-half of the people of this country. The hour was one of great peril to our institutions, and many were apprehensive that we were but entering into the dark night of anarchy and confusion. After many weeks of angry discussion, which resulted in still further arousing the passions of the people, a measure of adjustment was proposed. It was believed that there was still patriotism enough left in the American Congress to secure an honorable and fair settlement of this most dangerous question. We all recall how our hopes revived, and how gladly we hailed the introduction of the bill recommended by a joint committee of conference of the Senate and House of Representatives. It was welcomed as the harbinger of peace by the entire people of our country.

"I gave that bill my earnest support. It had in the House no friend more ardent in its advocacy than myself. I believed it to be a measure in the interest of peace. I believed that those who framed it, as well as those who gave it their support upon the floor, were honest in their statements, that no man could afford to take the Presidency with a clouded title, and that the object of the bill was to ascertain which of the candidates was lawfully entitled to the electoral votes of Florida and Louisiana. I never mistrusted for a moment that statesmen of high repute could in so perilous an hour, upon so grave a question, palter with words in a double sense.

"We who are the actors in this drama know, and history will record the fact, that the Conference Bill became a law, and the Electoral Commission was organized, not for the pur

pose of ascertaining which candidate had prima facie a majority of the electoral votes; not for the purpose of ascertaining that the Governor of Florida, and the de facto Governor of Louisiana, had given certificates to the Hayes electors. It was never dreamed that a tribunal, consisting in part of five judges of the highest court upon earth, was to be constituted, whose sole duty was to report a fact known to every man in the land, that the returning-board of Louisiana had given the votes of that State to the Hayes electors. The avowed object of that bill was to ascertain which candidate had received a majority of the legal votes of those States. The avowed object of the bill was to secure the ends of justice; to see that the will of the people was executed; that the Republic suffered no harm; to see that the title to this great office was not tainted with fraud. How well the members of this tribunal have discharged the sacred trust committed to them, let them answer to history.

"The record will stand that this tribunal shut its eyes to the light of truth; refused to hear the undisputed proof that a majority of seven thousand legal votes in the State of Louisiana for Tilden was by a fraudulent returning-board changed to eight thousand majority for Hayes. The Republican Representative from Florida, Mr. Purman, has solemnly declared upon this floor that Florida had given its vote to Tilden. I am not surprised that two distinguished Republican Representatives from Massachusetts, Mr. Seelye and Mr. Pierce, have in such thrilling tones expressed their dissent from the judgment of this tribunal. By this decision fraud has become one of the legalized modes of securing the vote of a State. Can it be possible that the American people are prepared to accept the doctrine that fraud, which vitiates all contracts and agreements, which taints the judgments and decrees of courts, which will even annul the solemn covenant of marriage-fraud, which poisons wherever it enters can be inquired into in all the relations of human life save only where a returning-board is its instrument, and the dearest rights of a sovereign people are at stake?

"But we are told that we created this tribunal and must

abide its arbitrament. I propose to do so in good faith. I have, from the beginning, opposed every movement that looked only to delay. I have voted against all dilatory motions. But the decision of this tribunal is too startling and too far-reaching in its consequences to pass unchallenged. That the returning-board of Louisiana will find no imitators in our future history is more than I dare hope. The pernicious doctrine that fraud and perjury are to be recognized auxiliaries in popular elections is one that may return to plague its inventors. The worst effect of this decision will be its lesson to the young men of our country. Hereafter old-fashioned honesty is at a discount, and villainy and fraud the legalized instruments of success. The fact may be conceded, the proof overwhelming, that the honest voice of a State has been overthrown by outrage and fraud, and yet the chosen tribunal of the people has entered of solemn record that there is no remedy.

'O Judgment, thou art fled to brutish beasts!'

"My criticism of the decision of this tribunal rests upon its finding in the cases of Louisiana and Florida; upon the Oregon case I have no criticism to offer. It is true that but two votes of that State could have been given to Hayes had the decision first adopted by the Commission been followed in the case of Oregon. However inconsistent it may be with other rulings of the Commission, standing alone it is in the main correct. The sanctity of seal of State and certificate of Governor applied only to Louisiana and Florida; the Governor of Oregon was not of the household of the faithful.

"The people of Oregon cast a majority of their votes for Hayes, and no vote or act of mine shall stand in the way of its being so recorded. Such have been my convictions from the beginning, and the great wrong done in Louisiana and Florida cannot warp my convictions at this hour.

"We have now reached the final act in this great drama, and the record here made will pass into history. Time, the great healer, will bring a balm to those who feel sick at heart because of this grievous wrong. But who can estimate,