n
considered leader of the House. Its duties, though of a somewhat
miscellaneous character, relate chiefly to devising the ways and means
of raising revenue. The fact that the Constitution provides that "all
bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House of
Representatives," gives the Committee of Ways and Means a sort of
preeminence over all other committees, whether of the Senate or the
House.

The work of the Committee of Ways and Means, as it had existed before
the Thirty-ninth Congress, was, at the opening of this session,
divided among three committees; one retaining the old name and still
remaining the leading committee, a second on _Appropriations_, and a
third on _Banking and Currency_.

Of the new Committee of Ways and Means, Justin S. Morrill, of Vermont,
was appointed chairman--a Representative of ten years' experience in
the House, who had seen several years of service on the same
committee. While his abilities and habits, as a student and a thinker,
well adapted him for the work of conducting his committee by wise
deliberation to useful measures, yet they were not characteristics
fitting him with readiest tact and most resolute will to "handle the
House."

Thaddeus Stevens, the old chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means,
was appointed the head of the new Committee on Appropriations. His
vigilance and integrity admirably fitted him for this position, while
his age made it desirable that he should be relieved of the arduous
labors of the Committee of Ways and Means. Of this committee he had
been chairman in the two preceding Congresses, and had filled a large
space in the public eye as leader of the House. His age--over seventy
years--gave him the respect of members the majority of whom were born
after he graduated at college--the more especially as these advanced
years were not attended with any perceptible abatement of the
intellectual vivacity or fire of youth. The evident honesty and
patriotism with which he advanced over prostrate theories and policies
toward the great ends at which he aimed, secured him multitudes of
friends, while these same qualities contributed to make him many
enemies. The timid became bold and the resolute were made stronger in
seeing the bravery with which he maintained his principles. He had a
habit of going straight to the issue, and a rugged manner of
presenting his opinions, coupled with a cool assurance, which, one of
his unfriendly critics once declared, "