172 



CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



and places it should have and exercise the 

 power of preserving the peace on election-day 

 at the polls. 



" On the necessity of this Government hav- 

 ing ample power and the right to exercise it 

 in all fundamental matters which concern its 

 life, I read a single extract farther from Justice 

 Bradley's opinion : 



"The true doctrine, as we conceive, is this, that 

 while the States are really sovereign as to all matters 

 which have not been granted to the jurisdiction and 

 control of the United States, the Constitution and con- 

 stitutional laws of the latter arc, as we have already 

 said, the supreme law of the land ; and, when they 

 conflict with the laws of the States, they are of para- 

 mount authority and obligation. This is the funda- 

 mental principle on which the authority of the Con- 

 stitution is based, and unless it be conceded in 

 practice, as well as theory, the fabric of our insti- 

 tutions, as it was contemplated by its founders, can 

 not stand. The questions involved have respect not 

 more to the autonomy and existence of the States than 

 to the continued existence of the United States as a 

 government to which every American citizen may look 

 for security and protection in every part of the land. 



" Mr. Chairman, I believe in State sovereign- 

 ty in purely State matters. But I believe in 

 United States sovereignty in all United States 

 matters. I believe States to be creatures of 

 the Constitution, and in all matters not re- 

 served by the Constitution to the States they 

 are subordinate to the United States. Some 

 of these States the United States bought and 

 paid for with both treasure and blood. We 

 bought from the first Napoleon the territory 

 comprised in the States of Louisiana, Arkansas, 

 etc., and in due tim3 we erected this once 

 French territory into States. Later some of 

 these States set up for themselves the pretense 

 that the thing created was superior to their 

 owner and creator. The Rspublic of Texas, 

 not quite able to stand alone, knocked at the 

 door of the United States, and it was admitted 

 within the portals of the Union and habilitated 

 with the garb of a State in the Union with a 

 republican form of government ; and in a few 

 years she, too. proposed to turn the United 

 States out and set up a new government on the 

 sains mistaken notion that the created was 

 superior to the creator." 



The bill passed the House and Senate, and 

 was approved by the President. 



In the Senate, on May 10th, the bill to pro- 

 vide for a tariff commission was considered, a 

 measure looking toward tariff reform from a 

 protective standpoint, brought in by Senator 

 Eaton, of Connecticut. 



Mr. Dawes, of Massachusetts, said: "I pre- 

 sent the petition of a large number of business 

 firms and individuals transacting almost every 

 variety of business in Massachusetts, in Maine, 

 in New Hampshire, and in Vermont, represent- 

 ing a very large capital in this great variety of 

 business, and also representing, in what they 

 ask, 24,700 laborers. They pray favorable ac- 

 tion upon what is called the Eaton bill. 



" I desire for a moment to call the attention 



of the Senate to that bill. The Senate can not 

 have failed to observe that very many petitions 

 of this character are now upon the table. They 

 have come here since the Committee on Finance 

 has reported that the bill ought to pass. The 

 bill is upon the calendar. It can not be brought 

 before the Senate in the short time remaining 

 of this session in the order in which it stands 

 upon the calendar. I desire the attention of 

 the distinguished chairman of the Committee 

 on Finance [Mr. Bayard] to the importance of 

 asking the Senate to act upon this bill out of its 

 order. The petitioners whom I represent, it is 

 true, are mostly persons engaged in the manu- 

 facturing industries and those whom they fur- 

 nish with employment, Probably fifty thou- 

 sand men who are furnished with employment 

 are petitioners, whose petitions are upon the 

 table of the Senate at this moment, praying for 

 favorable action upon this bill. They do not 

 ask for any special legislation. They recognize 

 every industry of this country as constituting a 

 part of one whole, in which there should be no 

 antagonisms, and no one of which should ask 

 at the hands of Congress legislation at the ex- 

 pense of any other; that all must stand or fall 

 together ; that what shall contribute to the per- 

 manent prosperity of any one industry must 

 contribute in like manner, if not in equal de- 



S~ree, to the permanent prosperity of every in- 

 ustry in the land. 



" They ask, in view of the evident desire and 

 manifest justice of a revision of the tariff that 

 affects all industries in this land, that it shall be 

 done in a manner which shall most contribute 

 to do justice to all industries, and therefore to 

 permanency. 



" It is in that hope and that desire that the 

 manufacturing interests of the country (now 

 spreading all over it and not confined, as in for- 

 mer times, more largely to one section than 

 another) are solicitous that that revision, which 

 changes constantly going on in the industries of 

 the land make necessary in the tariff, shall be 

 by such legislation as would be more likely to 

 come from a commission, wisely appointed, to 

 review the whole matter in all its bearings to 

 the interests of the United States and to the in- 

 terests of each and every industry in the land." 



Mr. Bayard, of Delaware: "I will merely 

 say that the Committee on Finance have made 

 the best response possible to the desire of the 

 Senator and his constituents for an early hear- 

 ing of this question, by reporting back the bill 

 introduced by the honorable Senator from Con- 

 necticut [Mr. Eaton] favorably, and having it 

 placed on the calendar. 



" The history of the Senate's business is of 

 course well known. Here is the calendar. The 

 number in the order of business last reached 

 was No. 304. The bill for a tariff commission, 

 known as the Eaton bill, is No. 510. The Sen- 

 ator and the Senate well know, when any at- 

 tempt has been made to take up a bill out of its 

 order which seems likely to lead to any debate, 

 how promptly objection has been made. 



