CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



181 



Mr. Thurman : " I said nothing of the kind." 



Mr. Blaine : " I understood the Senator to 

 say that as John Marshall had failed in doing 

 it, and Martin Van Buren had failed in doing 

 it, it seemed to be something we ought not to 

 take any reproach to ourselves for not doing." 



Mr. Thurman: "If the Senator will allow 

 me to interrupt him, I said that what they 

 failed to accomplish, it was no disgrace to us 

 that we can not. I did not say, however, that 

 it would not be accomplished." 



Mr. Blaine : " I do not know of any disgrace 

 that was said to attach to it." 



Mr. Thurman : " If the Senator from Maine 

 should remain in the Senate and I am sorry 

 he is going out of it I have no doubt he would 

 accomplish it before another presidential elec- 

 tion." 



Mr. Blaine : " I believe he would if he could 

 get the votes of the Senators to go with him. 

 I believe that any good, square, sensible man, 

 and I do not profess to be anything else, could 

 correct this if you could get the two parties to 

 forego partisan advantage. But the trouble is, 

 that the moment the Democratic party got into 

 possession of both branches of Congress at the 

 middle period of the last four years, they did 

 not want to touch the question. I do not, in 

 this debate, attribute to the Democratic party 

 anything more than I would attribute to any 

 other party ; but it somehow has fallen out in 

 the history and development of this country 

 that whereas the founders of the Constitution 

 intended that Congress should have nothing 

 whatever to do with controlling the election 

 of President and Vice -President, they now 

 have everything to do with it, and it has now 

 fallen out that when a party, whether it be the 

 [Republican or the Democratic party, controls 

 both branches of Congress, and decide on a 

 question of doubtful electoral votes, they are 

 apt to decide for their own candidate." 



Mr. McDonald, of Indiana : " On their own 

 side?" 



Mr. Blaine : " Yes, whether it is a Demo- 

 cratic or a Republican Congress. In my judg- 

 ment, if the elections of 1878 had given a Re- 

 publican House of Representatives, and we had 

 had a Democratic Senate, we would have se- 

 cured a law on this subject. If that is any 

 reproach to either party, it is equally divided, 

 and I am perfectly impartial in the distribution 

 of blame. 



"If we are to believe the earnest speeches 

 made here in 1876, we were then right on the 

 crater of the volcano, right where the yawning 

 gulf of chaos and dissolution confronted us, 

 and we escaped it by a make-shift, and a pretty 

 rickety one it was. The Senator from Con- 

 necticut [Mr. Eaton] bows assent to that state- 

 ment. He and I walked out of this chamber 

 together on that pleasant winter morning when 

 the bill for the Electoral Commission passed, 

 having both voted against it. Whether it was 

 an evil or a good it is not worth while now to 

 discuss. If an evil, we are in the negative on 



that vote, on the right side of the record. No 

 matter, it was a make-shift ; it was purely and 

 entirely a make-shift. It settled nothing, and 

 unsettled everything, and in the most impor- 

 tant crisis that can confront any people, or any 

 government the law of succession the peo- 

 ple of the United States are to-day without 

 law. There is no rule by which this system is 

 settled. The chairman of the Judiciary Com- 

 mittee tells us it looks to him like an impossi- 

 bility that we can get a law on this subject. 



" I do not know what may possibly be the 

 political complexion of Congress for the next 

 four years. We are going to start out with a 

 Republican House, but if anybody can tell me 

 what the Senate will be after the 4th of March 

 he is a wiser man than I am. However, I hope 

 there will be at least that sort of divided power 

 which will not give the assurance to either 

 political party that they will have the undis- 

 puted sway in 1884, or in any subsequent year, 

 over the electoral votes, and that the patriot- 

 ism of both parties will come to see that taxa- 

 tion and tariff and funding bill and public debt 

 are all of a subordinate character compared 

 with this great question, which may involve a 

 civil revolution at any moment. Fortunately, 

 the present election was conclusively settled in 

 the electoral college, but I ask, without intend- 

 ing the slightest offense, what chance would 

 General Garfield have to be inaugurated on the 

 4th of March if there was a doubtful electoral 

 vote that came up here, which counted one 

 way would elect Hancock, and counted the 

 other way would elect Garfield ? " 



Mr. Farley, of California : " Has the Senator 

 come to that conclusion from the action of the 

 Republicans in 1876?" 



Mr. Blaine : u I have come to that conclusion 

 from things I have seen here, and from the 

 common frailties and common instincts of hu- 

 man nature. I have come to the conclusion 

 that if this were a Republican Congress they 

 would decide for their candidate, and being a 

 Democratic Congress they would decide for 

 their candidate. I am imputing nothing to the 

 Democratic party that I do not also impute to 

 the Republican party. I will not impute any- 

 thing to either of them not inherent in the 

 weakness of human nature. With that crisis 

 staring us in the face, quadrennially returning 

 here, and with that wonderful inclination or 

 destiny which divides people about half and 

 half on any given issue, the question remains 

 undetermined. You can assemble the people 

 by blowing a horn on the east front of the 

 Capitol and state any issue to them, and ten to 

 one they will divide about equally upon it. 

 Of the thirty-eight States in this Union nine- 

 teen voted for Hancock and nineteen for Gar- 

 field. The nineteen for Garfield had a few more 

 electoral votes than the nineteen for Hancock." 



Mr. Eaton : " And the other nineteen had a 

 few more thousand votes." 



Mr. Blaine : " Upon that subject I will not 

 enter. The popular vote, I believe, as shown 



