SKETCH OF DAVID AMES WELLS. 837 



elaborate report on the existing revenue resources and condition of 

 the country, submitted to Congress through Secretary McCulloch, 

 and with his hearty indorsement, in December, 18G7, nevertheless 

 found great favor, and, embodied in a bill, with slight modifications, 

 came very near being successful. The Senate passed it by a vote of 

 27 to 10. In the House it failed, in the closing hours of the session, 

 by a very few votes — and not by a direct vote, but on a motion to 

 suspend the rules, take the bill from out the Committee of the Whole, 

 and " put it on its passage." This motion, which required a two-thirds 

 vote, was defeated — 106 in the affirmative to 64 in the negative. It 

 was thus made evident that, could the bill as it came from the Senate 

 have been brought directly before the House, it would have passed by 

 a large majority, and probably have quieted for years all tariff agi- 

 tation. 



When the office of Special Commissioner expired by limitation in 

 1870, President Grant, giving the personal dislike of the Secretary of 

 the Treasury at that time — Mr. Boutwell — to the Commissioner as a 

 reason, refused to reappoint Mr. Wells in case of a renewal of his office. 

 On his retirement in July, 1870, a large number of members of both 

 Houses of Congress, without distinction of party, united in a letter 

 headed by Messrs. Sumner, Trumbull, Carpenter, Henry Wilson, Buck- 

 ingham, Anthony, Thurman, Schurz, Bayard, Edmunds, Fenton, and 

 others, on the part of the Senate, and Messrs. Blaine, Garfield, Logan, 

 Allison, Cox, Hooper, B. F. Butler, Kerr, Dawes, Eugene Hale, Banks, 

 Poland, Oakes Ames, Niblack, Randall, Brooks, Beck, J. A. Griswold, 

 James Brooks, A. A. Sargent, J. F. Wilson, F. Wood, Noah Davis, 

 D. W. Voorhees, W. H. Barnum, and others, on the part of the House 

 — of which the following is an extract : " The undersigned, mem- 

 bers of the Forty-first Congress, who have been cognizant of your 

 labors as Special Commissioner of the Revenue, take the occasion of 

 your retirement from public duties to express to you their appreciation 

 of the work you have accomplished, and the great ability with which 

 you have discharged the duties of your office. How much soever 

 they may perhaps have differed with you touching the matter of your 

 conclusions upon particular points, they desire nevertheless to bear 

 testimony to the great value of your work, and to the honesty and the 

 faithful and untiring zeal which have characterized your whole public 

 career." At the same time a committee of citizens of different States, 

 members of both parties, presented to Mr. Wells several testimonials 

 of great value ; one of which, a superb bronze statuette, some thirty 

 inches high, representing " Labor," in the form of a fully-developed 

 workman, leaning upon his sledge-hammer, bears upon a silver plate 

 the following inscription : 



