CHAPTER V. THE NEW ISSUES
Out of the economic and political circumstances which have just been described, there were emerging between 1865 and 1875 a wide variety of national problems. Such questions were those concerning the proper relation between the government and the railroads and industrial enterprises; the welfare of the agricultural and wage-earning classes; the assimilation of the hordes of immigrants; the conservation of the resources of the nation in lumber, minerals and oil; the tariff, the financial obligations of the government, the reform of the civil service, and a host of lesser matters. The animosities aroused by the war, however, and the insistent nature of the reconstruction question almost completely distracted attention from most of these problems. Only upon the tariff, finance and the civil service did the public interest focus long enough to effect results.
The tariff problem has periodically been settled and unsettled since the establishment of the federal government. Just previous to the war a low protective tariff had been adopted, but the outbreak of the conflict had necessitated a larger income; and the passage of an internal revenue act, together with a higher protective tariff, had been the chief means adopted to meet the demand. By 1864 the country had found itself in need of still greater revenues, and again the internal and tariff taxes had been increased. These acts were in force at the close of the war. The internal revenue act levied taxes upon products, trades, and professions, upon liquors and tobacco, upon manufactures, auctions, slaughtered cattle, railroads, advertisements and a large number of smaller sources of income.
The circumstances that had surrounded the framing and passage of the tariff act of 1864 had been somewhat peculiar. The need of the nation for revenue had been supreme and there had been no desire to stint the administration if funds could bring the struggle to a successful conclusion. Congress had been willing to levy almost any rates that anybody desired. The combination of a willingness among the legislators to raise rates to any height necessary for obtaining revenue, and a conviction on their part that high rates were for the good of the country brought about a situation eminently satisfactory to the protectionist element. There had been no time to spend in long discussions of the wisdom of the act and no desire to do so; and moreover the act had been looked upon as merely a temporary expedient. It is not possible to describe accurately the personal influences which surrounded the passage of the law. It is possible, however, to note that many industries had highly prospered under the war revenue legislation. Sugar refining had increased; whiskey distilling had fared well under the operation of the internal revenue laws; the demands of the army had given stimulus to the woolen mills, which had worked to capacity night and day; and the manufacture and use of sewing machines, agricultural implements and the like had been part of the industrial expansion of the times. Large fortunes had been made in the production of rifles, woolen clothing, cotton cloth and other commodities, especially when government contracts could be obtained. Naturally the tax-levying activities of Congress had tended to draw the business interests together to oppose or influence particular rates. The brewers, the cap and hat manufacturers, and others had objected to the taxes on their products; the National Association of Wool Manufacturers and the American Iron and Steel Association had been formed partly with the idea of influencing congressional tariff action.
After the close of the war, the tariff, among other things, seemed to many to require an overhauling. Justin S. Morrill, a member of the House Committee on Ways and Means, and one of the framers of the act of 1864, argued in favor of the protective system although he warned his colleagues:
At the same time it is a mistake of the friends of a sound tariff to
insist upon the extreme rates imposed during the war, if less will
raise the necessary revenue.... Whatever percentage of duties were
imposed upon foreign goods to cover internal taxes upon home
manufactures, should not now be claimed as the lawful prize of
protection where such taxes have been repealed.... The small
increase of the tariff for this reason on iron, salt, woolen, and
cottons can not be maintained except on the principle of obtaining a
proper amount of revenue.
Sentiment was strong against the tariff in the agricultural parts of the West and especially in those sections not committed to wool-growing. Great personal influence was exerted on the side of "tariff-reform" by David A. Wells, a painstaking and able student of economic conditions who was appointed special commissioner of the revenue in 1866. As a result of his investigations he became converted from a believer in protection to the leader of the opposition, and his reports had a considerable influence in the formation of opinion in favor of revision. The American Free Trade League was formed and included such influential figures as Carl Schurz, Jacob D. Cox, Horace White, Edward Atkinson, E.L. Godkin, editor of The Nation, and many others. William B. Allison and James A. Garfield, both prominent Republican members of the House, were in favor of downward revision.
In 1867 a bill providing for many reductions passed the Senate as an amendment to a House bill which proposed to raise rates. Far more than a majority in the House were ready to accept the Senate measure, but according to the rules it was necessary to obtain a two-thirds vote in order to get the amended bill before the House for action. This it was impossible to do. Nevertheless, the wool growers and manufacturers were able "through their large influence, persistent pressure and adroit management" to procure an act in the same session which increased the duties on wool and woolens far above the war rate. In 1869 the duties on copper were raised, as were those on steel rails, marble, flax and some other commodities in 1870.
The growth of the Liberal Republican movement in 1872, with its advocacy of downward revision, frightened somewhat the protectionist leaders of the Republican organization. It was believed that a slight concession might prevent a more radical action, and just before the campaign a ten per cent reduction was brought about. In 1873 the industrial depression so lowered the revenues as to present a plausible opportunity for restoring duties to their former level in 1875, where they remained for nearly a decade.
The lack of effective action on the part of the tariff reformers of both parties was due to a variety of causes. In the years immediately following the war, the Republicans in Congress were more interested in their quarrel with President Johnson than in tariff reform. Furthermore, the unpopular internal revenues were being quickly reduced between 1867 and 1872, and it was argued that a simultaneous reduction of import taxes would decrease the revenue too greatly. Moreover there was no solidarity among the Democrats, the South was discredited, and at first not fully represented. Wells was driven out of office in 1870, the Liberal Republican movement was a failure, the protected manufacturers knew precisely what they wanted, they knew how to achieve results and some of them were willing to employ methods that the reformers were above using. As time went on and the country was, in the main, rather prosperous, many people and especially the business men made up their minds that the war tariffs were a positive benefit to the country. For these reasons a war policy which had generally been considered a temporary expedient became a permanent political issue and a national problem.
The positions of the two political parties on the tariff were not sharply defined during the ten years immediately following the war. The Democrats seemed naturally destined for the role of revisionists because of their party traditions, their support in the South - ordinarily a strong, low-tariff section - and because they were out of power when high tariffs were enacted. Yet the party was far from united on the subject. Some prominent leaders were frankly protectionists, such as Samuel J. Randall of Pennsylvania, who was Speaker of the House for two terms and part of another. The party platform ordinarily was silent or non-committal. In 1868, for example, the Democratic tariff plank was wide and generous enough for a complete platform. The party stood for
a tariff for revenue upon foreign imports, and such equal taxation
under the internal revenue laws as will afford incidental
protection to domestic manufacturers, and as will, without
impairing the revenue, impose the least burden upon, and best
promote and encourage, the great industrial interests of the
country.
In 1872 the "straight" Democrats, that is those who refused to support Greeley, were for a "judicious" revenue tariff; but in 1876 the party denounced the existing system as "a masterpiece of injustice, inequality and false pretence." Democratic state platforms were even less firm; in fact, the eastern states seemed committed to protection. In Congress, however, most of the opposition to the passage of tariff acts was supplied by the Democrats.
The attitude of the Republicans was more important, because theirs was the party in power. There was, as has been shown, a strong tariff-reform element, and in some of the conventions care seems to have been taken to avoid any definite statement of principles - doubtless on account of the well-known differences in the party - and for many years there was no clearly defined statement of the attitude of the organization. Yet it must be emphasized that Republicans were usually protectionists in the practical business of voting in Congress. Skillful Republican leaders gave way a little in the face of opposition but regained the lost ground and a little more, after the opposition retreated. Since the war-tariffs had been passed under Republican rule, it was easy to clothe them with the sanctity of party accomplishments.
Fully as technical as the tariff problem, and presenting a wider range for the legislative activities of Congress, was the financial situation in which the country found itself in 1865. The total expenditures from June 30, 1861 to June 30, 1865 had been somewhat more than three and one-third billions of dollars, an amount almost double the aggregate disbursements from 1789 to 1861. Officers accustomed to a modest budget and used to working with machinery and precedents which were adapted to the day of small things, had been suddenly called upon to work under revolutionized conditions. Prom the point of view of expense, merely, one year's operations during the war had been equivalent to thirty-six times the average outlay of the years hitherto. As has been shown, the major part of the income necessary for meeting the increased expenses had been obtained by means of the tariff and internal revenue taxes.
The tariff worked to the advantage of many people, and its retention was insistently demanded by them; the internal revenue taxes were disliked, and few things were more popular after the war than their reduction. In 1866 an act was passed which lowered the internal revenue by an amount estimated at forty-five to sixty millions of dollars. In succeeding years further reductions were made, so that by 1870 the scale was low enough to withstand attacks until 1883.
The national debt was the source of more complicated questions. It was composed, on June 30, 1866, of a variety of loans carrying five different rates of interest and maturing in nineteen different periods of time. Parts of it had been borrowed in times of distress at high rates; but after the struggle was successfully ended, the credit of the government was good, and enough money could be obtained at low interest charges to cancel the old debt and establish a new one with the interest account correspondingly reduced. Hugh McCulloch and John Sherman as secretaries of the treasury were most influential in accomplishing this transition, and by 1879 the process was completed and a yearly saving of fourteen million dollars effected.
Differences of opinion concerning the kind of money with which the principal of the debt should be paid brought this matter into the field of politics. When the earliest loans had been contracted, no stipulation had been made in regard to the medium of payment. Later loans had been made redeemable in "coin," without specifying either gold or silver; while still later bonds had been sold under condition that the interest be paid in coin, although nothing had been said about the principal. There was considerable demand for redemption of the bonds in paper money, except where there was agreement to the contrary, although the previous custom of the government had been to pay in coin. The proposal to repay the debt in paper currency, the "Ohio idea," gained considerable ground in the Middle West, as has already been explained. In the campaign of 1868 the Democratic platform advocated the Ohio plan. Some of the Republicans, like Thaddeus Stevens, agreed with this policy; some of the Democrats opposed it - Horatio Seymour, the presidential candidate, among them. Nevertheless the Democratic platform committed the party to payments in greenbacks unless express contract prevented, while the Republicans denounced this policy as "repudiation" and promised the payment of the debt in "good faith" according to the "spirit" and "letter" of the laws. The credit of the government was highly benefited by the payment of the debt in gold, yet the bonds had been purchased during the war with depreciated paper, and gold redemption greatly enriched the purchasers at the expense of the remainder of the population. It is hardly surprising that the debtor classes were not enthusiastic over this outcome. The Republicans on being successful in the election and coming into power, carried out their campaign promises and pledged the faith of the country to the payment of the debt in coin or its equivalent.
The income tax was a method of raising revenue which did not produce any considerable returns until after the war was over. Acts passed during the war had levied a tax on all incomes over six hundred dollars and had introduced progressively increasing rates on higher amounts. Incomes above $5,000, for example, were taxed ten per cent. The greatest number of people were reached and the largest returns obtained in 1866 when nearly half a million persons paid an aggregate of about seventy-three million dollars. The entire system was abolished in 1872.
Aside from the tariff, the "legal-tender" notes gave rise to the greatest number of political and constitutional tangles. By acts of February 25, 1862 and later, Congress had provided for the issue of four hundred and fifty million dollars of United States paper notes, which were commonly known as greenbacks or legal-tenders. The latter name came from the fact that, under the law, the United States notes were legal tender for all debts, public or private, except customs duties and interest on the public debt. In other words, the law compelled creditors to receive the greenbacks in payment of all debts, with the two exceptions mentioned. Three main questions arose in connection with these issues of paper: whether Congress had power under the Constitution to make them legal tender; whether their volume should be allowed to remain at war magnitude, be somewhat contracted or entirely done away with; and whether the government should resume specie payments - that is, exchange gold for paper on the demand of holders of the latter.
The first of these questions was twice decided in the Supreme Court. In 1870, in Hepburn v. Griswold, the point at issue was whether the greenbacks could lawfully be offered to satisfy a debt contracted before the legal-tender act had been passed. As it happened, Salmon P. Chase, who had been Secretary of the Treasury during the war, was now Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and delivered its opinion. By a vote of four to three it decided that the greenbacks were not legal tender for contracts made previous to the passage of the law. At the time when the case was decided, however, there were two vacancies on the bench which were immediately filled, and shortly thereafter two new cases involving the legal-tender act were brought before the Court (Knox v. Lee, and Parker v. Davis). The decision, which was announced in 1871, over-ruled the judgment in Hepburn v. Griswold and held by a vote of five to four that the legal-tender act was constitutional as applied to contracts made either before or after its passage.
The second question relating to the greenbacks was that in regard to their volume. At first Congress adopted the policy of contraction and when greenbacks came into the treasury they were destroyed. As continued contraction tended to make the volume of currency smaller and to make money harder to get, and therefore, to raise its value, the debtor classes began to object. As early as 1865 there was strong sentiment against contraction and in favor of paying the public debt in paper. Economic distress in the West furthered the movement and some of the Republican leaders were doubtful of the wisdom of reducing the outstanding stock of paper. Contraction was stopped, therefore, in 1868, and only President Grant's veto in 1874 prevented an increase in the amount. Eventually, in 1878, the amount then in circulation - $346,681,000 - was fixed by a law forbidding further contraction.[1]
The western farmers, meanwhile, were feeling the pinch of falling prices. Believing that their ills were due to the scarcity of money, they opposed the policy of contraction and even launched the Greenback party to carry out their principles. In 1876 it polled 80,000 votes, and in 1878 at the time of the congressional elections over 1,000,000, but thereafter its strength rapidly declined. Neither the East nor the West understood the motives of the other in this controversy. Eastern congressmen considered western insistence upon a large volume of currency as a dishonest movement to reduce bond values by legislation. Such an action, they asserted, would do away with the national integrity. The people of the West thought of the eastern bondholders as "fat bullionists" who dined at costly restaurants on terrapin and Burgundy and paid for their luxuries with bonds whose values were raised by a contracted currency.
The third question relating to the greenbacks was that of the resumption of specie payments. At the close of the war practically all the money in circulation was paper, which passed at a depreciated value because it was not redeemable in coin. The obvious thing was to resume the exchange of specie for paper and thus restore the latter to par value, but serious obstacles stood in the way. A money crisis in 1873 aroused a clamor for larger supplies of paper; gold was hard to procure, as France and Germany were both accumulating a redemption fund and specie was actually flowing out of the country. Outside of the treasury there was little gold in the United States, the amount being less than one hundred million dollars as late as 1877. The friends of resumption could not be sure of the feasibility of their project, and the opponents were aggressive and numerous.
In the elections of 1874 the Republicans were severely defeated, and it was seen that the Democrats would have a clear majority in the next House of Representatives. Hence the Republicans hurried through a resumption bill on January 14, 1875 - a sort of deathbed act. It authorized the secretary of the treasury to raise gold for redemption purposes, and set January 1, 1879, as the date when resumption should take place. As in the case of the tariff, the political parties found difficulty in determining which side of the resumption question they desired to take. Although the Democratic platform of 1868 contained a greenback plank, yet some of its leaders opposed, and the state platforms of 1875 and 1876 demanded resumption. The national platform of the latter year both denounced the Republicans for not making progress toward resumption and demanded the repeal of the act of 1875, without disclosing whether the party was prepared to offer any improvements. In November, 1877, a bill practically repealing the resumption act passed the House - the western and southern Democrats furnishing most of the affirmative votes, assisted by twenty-seven Republicans. A resolution declaring it to be the opinion of Congress that United States bonds were payable in silver was introduced and advocated by many Republicans. On the other hand, eastern state Democratic and Republican platforms were much alike. Apparently, therefore, differences of opinion in regard to the greenbacks and resumption were caused as much by sectional as by party considerations.
More lasting than finance as a political issue but less enduring than the tariff, was the reform of the civil service. In its widest sense, the term civil service included all non-military government officers from cabinet officials and supreme court judges to the humblest employee in the postal or naval service. The reform, however, was directed mainly toward the appointment and tenure of the lower officers. Before the Civil War the "spoils system" had been in full swing; appointments to positions had been frankly used as rewards for party activity; office-holders had been openly assessed a fraction of their salaries in order to fill the treasure chest at campaign times; rotation in office had been the rule. During the war, President Lincoln had found his ante-room filled with wrangling, importunate office-seekers who consumed time which he needed for the problems of the conflict. As he himself had expressed the situation, he was like a man who was letting offices in one end of his house while the other end was burning down. During the war, also, the patronage at the disposal of the government had vastly increased. Not only had the number of laborers, clerks and officials become greater, but numerous contracts had been let for the production of war materials, and manufacturers and merchants intrigued for a share of federal business. "Influence" and position had been more powerful than merit in procuring the favor of government officers.
After the war many abuses that had earlier been overlooked began to attract the attention of a few thoughtful men. It was estimated that not more than one-half to three-fourths of the legitimate internal revenue was collected during Johnson's presidency, so corrupt and inefficient were the revenue collectors. Endless Indian troubles and countless losses of money resulted from the corruption of the federal Indian agents. Conditions were even worse during the Grant regime. The President's appointments were wretched; he placed his relatives in official positions; revenue frauds amounting to $75,000,000 were discovered during his second administration. In certain departments, it was customary, when vacancies occurred, to allow the salaries to "lapse" - that is, accumulate - so as to provide a fund to satisfy patronage seekers. In one case, thirty-five persons were put on the "lapse fund" for eight days at the end of a fiscal year, in order to "sop up" a little surplus which was in danger of being saved and returned to the treasury. One customs collector at the port of New York removed employees at an average rate of one every three days; another, three every four days; and another, three every five days, in order to provide places for party workers. One secretary in an important department of the government had seventeen clerks for whom he had no employment. The party assessments on officeholders became little short of outrageous. Two or three per cent. of the salary of the lower officers was called for, while the more important officials were expected to contribute much larger sums. In New York - for the system held in the states and cities - candidates for the mayoralty were reputed to pay $25,000 to $30,000; judges, $10,000 to $15,000; and representatives in Congress, $10,000. While these conditions were by no means wholly due to the spoils system, the method of appointment in the civil service made a bad matter worse.
Conditions such as these could hardly fail to produce a reform movement. In fact, as far back as 1853 some elementary and ineffective legislation had attempted a partial remedy. The war gave added impetus to the movement and attention turned to the reform systems of Great Britain and other countries, where problems similar to ours had already been met and solved. The first American who really grasped civil service reform was Thomas A. Jenckes, a member of Congress from Rhode Island. He introduced reform bills in 1865 and later, based on studies of English practice and on correspondence with the leaders of reform there; but no legislation resulted. In brief, his plan provided for the appointment of employees in the public service on the basis of ability, determined by competitive examinations. After a time Jenckes and his associates achieved considerable success and finally interested President Grant in their project. In 1871 they got a rider attached to an appropriation bill which authorized the chief executive to prescribe rules for the admission of persons into the civil service and allowed him to appoint a commission to put the act into effect. George William Curtis, a well-known reformer, was made chairman, and rules were formulated which were applied to the departments at Washington and to federal offices in New York. Grant, although favorable to the reform, was not enthusiastic about it, and soon made an appointment which was so offensive that Curtis resigned. Congress, nothing loath, refused to continue the necessary appropriations and the reform project continued in a state of suspended animation until the inauguration of President Hayes.
The human elements in the struggle for civil service reform, both during the decade after the war and for many years later, are necessary for an understanding of the course of the controversy and its outcome. These elements included the advocates of the patronage system, the reformers and the president.
Sometimes the advocates of the patronage system viewed the reform with contempt. Roscoe Conkling, for example, expressed his sentiments in the remark, "When Dr. Johnson said that patriotism was the last refuge of the scoundrel he ignored the enormous possibilities of the word reform!" Sometimes they attempted to discredit the project by an exaggeration of its effects, as when John A. Logan declared that he saw in it a life-tenure and an aristocratic caste. "It will not be apparent how great is its enormity," he declared in Congress, "how vicious are its practices and how poisonous are its influences until we are too far encircled by its coils to shake them off." The strength of the exponents of the patronage system, however, lay not in their capacity for contempt and ridicule, but in a theory of government that was founded upon certain very definite human characteristics. The theory may be clearly seen in the Autobiography of Thomas C. Platt, a colleague of Conkling in the Senate and for many years the boss of New York state. It may be expressed somewhat as follows.
In the field of actual politics, parties are a necessity and organization is essential. It is the duty of the citizen, therefore, to support the party that stands for right policies and to adhere closely to its official organization. Loyalty should be rewarded by appointment to positions within the gift of the party; and disloyalty should be looked upon as political treason. One who votes for anybody except the organization candidate feels himself superior to his party, is faithless to the great ideal and is only a little less despicable than he who, having been elected to an office through the energy and devotion of the party workers, is then so ungrateful as to refuse to appoint the workers to positions within his gift. Positions constitute the cohesive force that holds the organization intact.
The second of the human elements, the reform group, was led by such men as George William Curtis, Dorman B. Eaton and Carl Schurz, with the support of periodicals like Harper's Weekly and The Nation. The career and character of Curtis is typical at once of the strength and the weakness of the group. As a young man Curtis had intended to enter a business career, but finding it unsuited to his tastes he had abandoned his ambition, spent some years in European travel and then devoted himself to literary work, first on Harper's Magazine and afterwards, for many years, as editor of Harper's Weekly. He had early interested himself in politics, had been in the convention which nominated Lincoln, had taken part in numerous state and national political conferences and conventions, was president of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and chancellor of the University of the State of New York. For many years, during the period when civil service reform was making its fight for recognition, Curtis was the president and one of the moving spirits of the National Civil Service Reform League. In politics he was an independent Republican. Although of the intellectual class, like the other prominent leaders of the reform movement, he was a man of practical political ability, not a mere observer of politics, so that he and his associates made up in capacity and influence what they lacked in breadth of appeal. Some of the leaders were patient men who expected that results would come slowly and who were ready to accept half a loaf of reform rather than no loaf at all, but there were also such impatient critics as E.L. Godkin who put so much emphasis on the failures of the reformers as to overshadow their positive achievements. Moreover, there were the well-meaning but impracticable people who constituted what Theodore Roosevelt once called the "lunatic fringe" of reform movements.
The attitude of the exponents of the patronage system toward the reformers was one of undisguised contempt. In a famous speech delivered at a New York state convention in Rochester in September, 1877, Conkling poured his scorn on the reform element in general and on Curtis in particular, as "man-milliners," "carpet-knights of politics," "grasshoppers in the corner of a fence," and disciples of ladies' magazines with their "rancid, canting self-righteousness."
The third personal element in the reform controversy was the chief executive. Beginning with Grant, if not with Lincoln, the presidents were favorable to the progress of reform, but they were surrounded by circumstances that made vigorous action a difficult matter. The task of distributing the patronage was a burden from which they would have been glad to be relieved, yet the demands of the party organization were insistent, - and to turn a constantly deaf ear to them would have been to court political disaster. The executive was always in the position of desiring to further an ideal and being obliged to face the hard facts of politics. The progress which he made, therefore, depended on how resolutely he could press forward his ideal in the face of continued opposition. A great difficulty lay in getting subordinates-in the cabinet, for example-who were in sympathy with progress, and sometimes even the vice-presidential nomination was given to the patronage element in the party in order to placate that faction, while the presidential nominee was disposed to reform.
Public opinion was slow in forming and was lacking in the means of definite expression. For many years after the war there was widespread fear that the installation of a Democratic president would result in the wholesale debauch of the offices, and sober northerners believed, or thought they believed, that "rebels" would again be in power if a Democrat were elected. Under such conditions and because the offices were already filled with Republicans, the Republican North was willing to leave things as they were.
The party pronouncements on civil service reform were as evasive as they were on finance and the tariff. To be surer the Liberal Republicans in 1872 sincerely desired reform and made it the subject of a definite plank in their platform, but the wing of the Democratic party that refused to ally with them was silent on the civil service, and the "straight" Republicans advocated reform in doubtful and unconvincing terms. In 1876 both party platforms were even more vague, although Hayes himself was openly committed to the improvement of the service.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
The best work on the tariff is F.W. Taussig, Tariff History of the United States (6th ed., 1914), a scholarly and non-partisan account, although giving slight attention to legislative history; Ida M. Tarbell,Tariff in Our Times (1911), emphasizes the personal and social sides of tariff history and is hostile to protection; Edward Stanwood, American Tariff Controversies (2 vols., 1903), devotes considerable attention to the historical setting and legislative history of tariff acts, and is distinctly friendly to protection.
The most useful single volume on financial history is D.R. Dewey, Financial History of the United States (5th ed., 1915), which is concise, accurate and equipped with full bibliographies; A.B. Hepburn,History of Currency in the United States (1915), is by an expert; A.D. Noyes, Forty Years of American Finance (1909), continues the same author's Thirty Years and is reliable; T.B. Burton, John Sherman (1906), is useful here. The legal-tender decisions are in J.W. Wallace, Cases argued and adjudged in the Supreme Court, VIII, 603, and XII, 457.
The standard work on the civil service is C.R. Fish, The Civil Service and the Patronage (1905); the reports of the Civil Service Commission, especially the Fourth Report, are essential; the articles by D.B. Eaton in J.J. Lalor, Cyclopaedia of Political Science (3 vols., 1893), are justly well-known; G.W. Curtis, Orations and Addresses (2 vols., 1894), and Edward Cary, George William Curtis (1894), are excellent. The politician's side may be found in A.R. Conkling, Life and Letters of Roscoe Conkling (1889), and T.C. Platt, Autobiography (1910).
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[1] This is the amount still outstanding.