SPEECH 



OF 



HON. JAMES A. GARFIELD. 



The Committee of the TVhole on the state of the Union, having under consider- 

 ation the bill (H. K. No. 640) making appropriations for the legislative, executive 

 and judicial expenses of the Government for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1880, 

 and for other purposes, upon the sections consolidating the geological and other 

 surveys — 



Mr. GARFIELD said: 



Mr. Chairman : I think it a misfortune that so important a meas- 

 ure as this is placed upon one of the annual appropriation bills. I 

 have had occasion hitherto to characterize that method of legislation, 

 and I thinlt it is well illustrated in this case. If it could have been 

 avoided in any way it ought, it seems to me, to have been avoided 

 here. The subject embrace^ in the sections which relate to the sur- 

 veys of the public land should have been embodied in a separate bill 

 and subjected to the most careful scrutiny. But as the sections are 

 here and may be ruled in order, I offer a few suggestions upon their 

 merits. 



I will say, however, that one subject provided for in these sections 

 has had no other i)lace in our laws except in appropriation bills ; and 

 probably cannot be ruled out on the point of order. I speak of those 

 scientific surveys which for the last ten or twelve years have been 

 supported by the Government. I think I am right in saying that 

 there is no independent statute touching them ; all the legislation in 

 regard to them is to be found in the appropriation bills. And what 

 I shall say in the short time I propose to address the committee this 

 morning will relate chiefly to those surveys. 



It is of the utmost importance that whatever the United States 

 undertakes to do in reference to science shall be done upon some 

 well-understood, well-reasoned, and well-defined system. And I vent- 

 ure to ask the attention of the Committee of the Whole for a few 

 minutes to some general views on the relation of the National Gov- 

 ernment to this subject. 



We are accustomed to hear it said that the great powers of govern- 

 ment in this country are divided into two classes: national powers 

 and State powers. That is an incomplete classification. Our fathers 

 carefully divided all governmental powers into three classes ; one 

 they gave to the States ; another to the nation ; but the third great 

 class, comprising the most precious of all powers, they refused to con- 

 fer upon the States or the nation, but reserved to themselves. This 

 third class of powers has been almost uniformly overlooked by men 

 who have written of and discussed the American system. 



My attention was called to this in a striking way not long since in 

 reading a speech of Bismarck before the Reichstag of Germany. A 

 proposition was pending to grant some political rights to the Jews in 



