nounced silver when it was first proposed as a subsidiary coinage in place of paper scrip, and sought to laugh it out of the House. But it so happens that the wind now sits in another quarter. He and some other financiers of the new school accept silver only as a step to the next stage of controversy. It is not the silver dollar, but the irredeemable paper dollar, to which they cry, "All hail! that shalt be King hereafter." The programme of these advocates of "fiat money" is beginning to appear. We had it in the powerful speech made by the gentleman from Massachusetts, a few days since, in which he said he wanted that dollar stamped upon some convenient and cheap material of the least possible intrinsic value, so that neither its wear nor its destruction would be any loss to the government issuing it. He said he also desired the dollar to be made of such material that it would never be desirable to carry it out of the country. He did not propose to adapt an American system of finance to the wants of any other nation, and especially the Chinese, who are nearly one quarter of the world. He desires also that the dollar so issued shall never be redeemed.

This is the new battle line on which these champions of the new system of American finance challenge all men of both parties, who believe in gold and silver coin, and paper exchangeable for coin, to join issue. They wish to strike from our law the nation's promise and pledge to redeem its notes. They wish to supersede the "barbarism of gold and silver" by a coinage of paper; and in the kingdom to be, when paper - worthless paper has become our currency, then will the time have arrived, welcomed by the apostles of the new finance, when our bonds will not only come back to us from abroad, but will depreciate to fifty cents on the dollar. This is the very essence of communism.

If I read aright the signs in the political horizon, the time is just at hand when men who love their country, its honor and its plighted faith,-men of both political parties,—will stand together against this new heresy known as "American finance." On the issue which the gentleman and his associates raise, my choice has long since been made. It is an issue of such transcendent importance that it may render all others obsolete. It is the struggle of honor against dishonor, of law against

1 Mr. Butler.

anarchy, a struggle in which the peace and safety of both employer and employed, government and people, are involved. In such a contest I care not into what party the issue lands me, or in what company it finds me; when it comes, I shall stand with the men who defend the money of the Constitution and the faith of the country. And we cannot be a moment too soon in understanding the nature and designs of those who are preparing the conflict.

Mr. Chairman, I beg the pardon of the committee for delaying the appropriation bill by this speech, and I specially regret the necessity which compelled me to make it.

OLIVER P. MORTON.

REMARKS MADE IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

JANUARY 18, 1878.

THE Senate sent the following resolutions to the House of Representatives:

"IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, January 17, 1878. "Resolved, That from an earnest desire to show every mark of respect to the memory of Hon. Oliver P. Morton, late a Senator of the United States from the State of Indiana, and to manifest the high estimate entertained of his eminent public services, his distinguished patriotism, and his usefulness as a citizen, the business of the Senate be now suspended, that the friends and associates of the deceased Senator may pay fitting tribute to his public and private virtues.

Resolved, That a wide-spread and public sorrow on the announcement of his death attested the profound sense of the loss which the whole country has sustained.

Resolved, That, as a mark of respect for the memory of Mr. Morton, the members of the Senate will go into mourning by wearing crape upon the left arm for thirty days.

"Resolved, That the Secretary of the Senate communicate these resolutions to the House of Representatives."

Pending these resolutions in the House, Mr. Garfield made the following remarks.

́R. SPEAKER,— Special training-schools have been estab

known among Americans, except statesmanship. And yet no profession requires for its successful pursuit a wider range of general and special knowledge, or a more thorough and varied culture. Probably no American youth, unless we except

John Quincy Adams, was ever trained with special reference to the political service of his country.

In monarchical governments, not only wealth and rank, but political authority, descend by inheritance from father to son. The eldest son of an English peer knows from his earliest childhood that a seat awaits him in the House of Lords. If he be capable and ambitious, the dreams of his boyhood and the studies of his youth are directed toward the great field of statesmanship. To the favored few, this system affords many and great advantages, and upon the untitled many, whom "birth's invidious bar" shuts out from the highest places of power, it must rest with discouraging weight.

Our institutions confer special privileges upon no citizen, and we may now say they erect no barrier in the honorable career of the humblest American. They open an equal pathway for all, and invite the worthiest to the highest seats. The fountains of our strength as a nation spring from the private life and the voluntary efforts of forty-five millions of people. Each for himself confronts the problem of life, and amid its varied conditions develops the forces with which God has endowed him. Meantime, the nation moves on in its great orbit, with a life and destiny of its own, each year calling to its aid those qualities and forces which are needed for its preservation and its glory. Now it needs the prudence of the counsellor, now the wisdom of the lawgiver, and now the shield of the warrior to cover its heart in the day of battle. And when the hour and the man have met, and the needed work has been done, the nation crowns her heroes and makes them her own forever. Such hours we have often seen during the last seventeen years, hours which have called forth the great elements of manhood and strength from the ranks of our people, and filled our pantheon with national heroes.

Seventeen years ago, at a moment of supreme peril, the nation called upon the people of twenty-two States to meet around her altar and defend her life. Of all the noble men who responded to that call, no voice rang out with more clearness and power than that of Oliver P. Morton, the young Governor of Indiana. He was then but thirty-seven years of age. Self-made, as all men are who are worth the making, he had risen from a hard life of narrow conditions by fighting his own way, thinking his own thoughts and uttering them without fear, until, by the fortune of political life, he had become the chief

executive of his State. He saw at once and declared the terrible significance of the impending struggle, and threw his whole weight into the conflict. His State and my own marched abreast in generous emulation. But he was surrounded by difficulties and dangers which hardly found a parallel in any other State. With unconquerable will and the energy of a Titan he encountered and overcame them all; and, keeping Indiana in line with the foremost, he justly earned the title of one of the greatest war Governors of that heroic period. Thus the great need of the nation called forth and fixed in the enduring colors of fame those high qualities which thirty-seven years of private life had been preparing.

To learn the lesson of his great life, let us recall briefly its leading characteristics.

He was a great organizer; he knew how to evoke and direct the enthusiasm of his people. He knew how to combine and marshal his forces, political or military, so as to concentrate them all upon a single object, and inspire them with his own ardor. I have often compared him with Stanton, our great War Secretary, whose windows at the War Office, for many years, far into the night shone out "like battle lanterns lit," while he mustered great armies and launched them into the tempest of war, and "organized victory." In the whole circle of the States, no organizer stood nearer to him in character, qualities, and friendship than Oliver P. Morton.

His force of will was most masterful. It was not mere stubbornness or pride of opinion, which weak and narrow men mistake for firmness; but it was that stout-hearted persistency which, having once intelligently chosen an object, pursues it through sunshine and storm, undaunted by difficulties and unterrified by danger.

He possessed an intellect of remarkable clearness and force. With keen analysis, he found the core of a question, and worked from the centre outwards. He cared little for the mere graces of speech; but few men have been so greatly endowed with the power of clear statement and unassailable argument. The path of his thought was straight,

"Like that of the swift cannon-ball,

Shattering that it may reach, and shattering what it reaches."

When he had hit the mark, he used no additional words and sought for no decoration. These qualities, joined to his power