IMPRESSION'S OF AMERICA. 



145 



The politician who was creating the greatest 

 sensation while I was in America was Mr. Conk- 

 ling, one of the senators for the State of New 

 York, a distinguished orator, and one of the ablest 

 leaders of the Republican party. Last autumn 

 he and his immediate friends were very wroth 

 with Mr. Hayes, and the cause of their anger will 

 serve to illustrate the magnitude of the task 

 which the President has undertaken in attempt- 

 ing to regenerate the civil service. 



It is provided by the Constitution that the 

 President " shall nominate, and by and with the 

 advice and consent of the Senate shall appoint, 

 embassadors, other public ministers and consuls, 

 judges of the Supreme Court, and all other offi- 

 cers of the United States whose appointments are 

 not herein otherwise provided for, and which 

 shall be established by law." l The clear inten- 

 tion of the Constitution was to vest the patronage 

 in the President, but to enable the Senate to pre- 

 vent corrupt and improper appointments. As it 

 was impossible for the President to have any per- 

 sonal knowledge of the claims and qualifications 

 of all applicants for employment, it was the com- 

 mon practice for him to consult the senators rep- 

 resenting a State in which a Federal office had 

 fallen vacant before he made any nomination to 

 the Senate. The private suggestions of the sena- 

 tors were sometimes accepted, sometimes reject- 

 ed. The President asked for advice, but retained 

 in hi3 own hands the authority vested in him by 

 the Constitution. Under the reign of Andrew 

 Johnson, the illiterate and drunken successor of 

 Abraham Lincoln, it is alleged that the nomina- 

 tions of the President were so flagrantly bad that 

 the Senate was driven to adopt some decisive 

 measures to save the public service from absolute 

 ruin. It was therefore agreed among the mem- 

 bers of the Senate that, when a Federal appoint- 

 ment was to be made in any State, the nomination 

 of the President should not be confirmed unless 

 he nominated the man whom the senators from 

 that particular State had recommended to him. 

 This informal understanding has, of course, prac- 

 tically transferred the Federal patronage from the 

 President to the senators. The senators for New 

 York are able, through what is commonly de- 

 scribed as " the courtesy of the Senate," to dis- 

 tribute among their own political supporters all 

 the Federal offices in the State of New York. 

 The senators for the other States have a similar 

 power. Mr. Hayes was resolved to reassert the 

 prerogative of the President. He regarded the 



1 Article II., section 2. 



82 



" courtesy of the Senate " as a new and most 

 pernicious instrument of political corruption. 

 Mr. Conkling, with great vehemence and energy, 

 defended the " rights" of the senators, and took 

 a course which contributed to widen the rents 

 which already existed in the Republican party. 



It is not merely in relation to Federal offices 

 in the several States that the Senate has attempt- 

 ed to wrest the patronage from the hands of the 

 President. Last autumn a new American minis- 

 ter had to be sent to England. The senators 

 from Pennsylvania claimed the right of selection, 

 and, from all that I saw in the newspapers, the 

 man they selected was preposterously unfit for 

 the post. Mr. Hayes resolutely refused to nom- 

 inate him. After some private negotiations, in 

 which it was understood that the President would 

 recognize the claims of Pennsylvania, the candi- 

 date was withdrawn. Mr. Hayes nominated Mr. 

 Welsh, of Philadelphia, to whom, as I have good 

 reason for believing, he intended from the first to 

 give the appointment. Mr. Welsh was in every 

 respect qualified for the position, and he now 

 represents the United States at the court of St. 

 James's. 



I had long discussions with several of my 

 American friends on free trade. Some of them 

 maintained the extraordinary proposition that 

 the present tariff is a tariff for purposes of rev- 

 enue, not for purposes of protection. Those 

 who admitted that in an enormous number of 

 cases the duties are prohibitory, and who de- 

 fended the policy of prohibition, used the old 

 arguments with which we were familiar before 

 1846. The unquiet ghosts of Lord George Ben- 

 tinck's speeches are still "walking" in Massa- 

 chusetts, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. Had 

 my friends argued, as I believe some American 

 statesmen have argued, that economically protec- 

 tion inflicted a heavy loss on the country, but 

 that it was worth while to submit to the loss in 

 order to secure variety of employment for the 

 population, and to rescue the national life and 

 character from the dull monotony which would 

 follow from uniformity of occupation, the plea 

 for protection would have some force. Assum- 

 ing that, in the absence of protective duties, 

 nearly all forms of manufacturing industry would 

 be unprofitable, and that the whole people would 

 have to devote themselves to growing buckwheat 

 and Indian-corn, and to raising pigs, I can im- 

 agine an intelligent and patriotic American de- 

 fending the protective tariff. But the defense wa3 

 rested on the old economical fallacies which in 

 this country have been finally exploded. 



