ELAINE, JAMES GILLESPIE. 



voters. Mr. Elaine earnestly urged that popula- 

 tion was the true basis. He presented an amend- 

 ment to the Constitution which provided that 

 "representatives and direct taxes shall be ap- 

 portioned among the several States which shall 

 be included within this Union according to their 

 respective numbers, which shall be determined 

 by taking the whole number of persons, except 

 those whose political rights or privileges are 

 denied or abridged by the Constitution of any 

 State on account of race or color." In favoring 

 this plan, he said that while the other basis 

 would accomplish the object of preventing the 

 South from securing representation for the 

 blacks unless the blacks were made voters, yet 

 there would be a radical change in the appor- 

 tionment for the Northern States, where the 

 ratio of voters to population differed from 19 

 to 58 per cent. His proposition was substan- 

 tially embodied in the Fourteenth Amendment 

 to the United States Constitution. 



When Mr. Stevens submitted his reconstruc- 

 tion bill, dividing the Southern States into five 

 military districts, with the civil tribunal under 

 military control, the majority were in its favor ; 

 but Mr. Elaine was earnest in his objections. 

 He would subscribe to nothing that should not 

 provide the methods by which the people of a 

 State could, by their own action, re-establish 

 civil government. He submitted an amendment 

 embodying the idea that when any one of the 

 States of the late Confederacy should assent to 

 the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution, 

 and should establish equal and impartial suf- 

 frage without regard to race or color, and when 

 Congress should approve its action, it should be 

 entitled to representation, and the provisions for 

 military government should become inoperative. 

 This plan, known as the Elaine amendment, was 

 carried through the Senate, and then through 

 the House, completing the Government's scheme 

 of reconstruction. 



In 1867 Mr. Elaine visited Europe, and on his 

 return he found that the proposition to pay the 

 public debt in greenbacks had obtained great 

 favor. At the assembling of Congress he made 

 a speech in opposition to it, being the first man 

 in Congress to give expression to such views. 



When the question of Government protection 

 to our naturalized citizens abroad was brought 

 up, through the arrest in England of Irish- Amer- 

 icans accused of complicity with the Fenian 

 movement, Mr. Elaine maintained that the natu- 

 ralized citizen was entitled to the same protec- 

 tion as the native-born, and through the atten- 

 tion called to the subject, Costello was released ; 

 and in 1870 a treaty was made with Great Brit- 

 ain, in which England abandoned her dictum 

 " once a subject, always a subject," and accepted 

 the American doctrine of equal rights for native 

 and foreign-born citizens. 



In February, 1876, while defending the cause 

 of honest money against inflation of the cur- 

 rency, Mr. Elaine said : 



Uncertainty as to the value of the currency from 

 day to day is injurious to all honest industry. And 

 while that which is known as the debtor interest 

 should be fairly and generously considered in the 

 shaping of measures for specie resumption, there ia 

 no justice in asking for inflation on its behalf. 

 Eather there is the gravest injustice; for you must 

 remember that there is a large class of most deserving 



persons who would be continually and remorselessly 

 robbed by such a policy. I mean the labor of the 

 country, that is compelled to live from and by its 

 daily earnings. The savings banks, which represent 

 the surplus owned by the laborers of the nation, have 

 deposits to-day exceeding $1,100,000,000 more than 

 the entire capital stock and deposits of the national 

 banks. The pensioners, who represent the patriotic 

 suffering of the country, have a capitalized invest- 

 ment of 1600,000,000. Here are f 1,700,000,000 of 

 money incapable of receiving anything but instant 

 and lasting injury from inflation. Whatever impairs 

 the purchasing power of the dollar correspondingly 

 decreases the resources of the savings-bank depositor 

 and pensioner. The pensioner's loss would be abso- 

 lute, out it would probably be argued that the laborer 

 would receive compensation by his nominally larger 

 earnings. But this would prove totally delusive, for 

 no possible augmentation of wages in a time of infla- 

 tion will ever keep pace with the still greater increase 

 of price in the commodities necessary to sustain life, 

 except and mark the exception under the condi- 

 tion witnessed during the war, when the number of 

 laborers was continually reduced by the demand for 

 men to serve in the army and navy. And those hon- 

 est-minded people who recall the startling activity of 

 trade, and the large profits during the war, and at- 

 tribute both to an inflated currency, commit the error 

 of leaving out the most important element of the cal- 

 culation. They forget that the Government was a 

 customer for nearly four years at the rate of $2,000- 

 000 or $300,000 per day buying countless quanti- 

 ties of all staple articles; they forget that the 

 number of consumers was continually enlarging as 

 our armed force grew to its gigantic proportions, and 

 that the number of producers was by the same cause 

 continually growing less, and that thus was pre- 

 sented, on a scale of unprecedented magnitude, that 

 simple problem, familiar .alike to the political econo- 

 mist and the village trader, of the demand being 

 greater than the supply, and a consequent rise in the 

 price. Had the Government been able to conduct 

 the war on a gold basis, and provided the coin for its 

 necessarily large and lavish expenditure, n rise in the 

 price of labor, and a rise in the value of commodities, 

 would have been inevitable. And the rise of both 

 labor and commodities in gold would have been for 

 the time as marked as in paper, adding, of course, the 

 depreciation of the latter to its scale of prices. . . . 



One great and leading interest of mv own and 

 other States has suffered, still suffers, and will con- 

 tinue to suffer so long as the currency is of irredeem- 

 able paper. I mean the shipbuilding and navigation 

 interest one that does more for the country and asks 

 less from it than any other except the agricultural ; 

 an interest that represents our distinctive nationality 

 in all climes and upon all seas ; an interest more es- 

 sentially and intensely American than any other that 

 falls under the legislative power of the Government, 

 and which asks only to-day to be left where the 

 founders of the republic placed it a hundred years 

 ago. Give us the same basis of currency that our 

 great competitors of the British Empire enjoy, and we 

 will, within the lifetime of those now living, float a 

 larger tonnage under the American flag than was 

 ever enrolled by one nationality since the science of 

 navigation has been known among men. Aye, more, 

 sir; give us the specie basis, and the merchant ma- 

 rine of America, sailing into all zones and gathering 

 grain from all continents, will bring back to our 

 shores its golden profits, and supply to us that coin 

 which will steady our system and offset the drains 

 that weaken us in other directions. But ships built 

 on the paper basis can not compete with the lower- 

 priced ones of the gold basis, and whoever advocates 

 a perpetuity of paper money in this country confesses 

 his readiness and willingness to sacrifice the naviga- 

 tion and commercial interests for all time. 



From 1869 to 1876 the period of his Speaker- 

 ship Mr. Elaine seldom left the chair to take 



