tatives.

Mr. Beck declared that that course would be adopted and adhered
to, no matter what came of the Appropriation Bills. He was
followed by Mr. Thurman of Ohio, the leader of his party in
the Senate, and Chairman of the Judiciary when it came into
power. He said it was a question upon which he had thought
long and deeply, one of the gravest which ever arose for the
consideration of the American Congress, and added:

"We claim the right, which the House of Commons in England
established after two centuries of contest, to say that we
will not grant the money of the people unless there is a redress
of grievances . . . . England was saved from despotism and an
absolute monarchy by the exercise of the power of the House
of Commons to refuse supplies except upon conditions that
grievances should be redressed . . . . It is a mistake to suppose
that it was a fight simply between the Throne and the Commons;
it was equally a fight between the Lords and the Commons;
and the result of two centuries of contest in England was
the rule that the House of Lords had no right to amend a Money
Bill."

This startling proposition claimed that it was in the power
of the House of Representatives to control the entire legislation
of the country. It could, if the doctrine of Mr. Beck and
Mr. Thurman had prevailed, impose any condition upon an appropriation
for the Judges' salaries, for the salaries of all executive
officers, for carrying on the courts, and for all other functions
of the Government.

I made a careful study of this question and satisfied the
Senate,--and I think I satisfied Mr. Beck and Mr. Thurman,
--that the doctrine had no support in this country, and had
no support even in England. An examination of Parliamentary
history, which I studied carefully, afforded the material
for giving a narrative of every occasion when the Commons
exerted their power of withholding supplies as a means of
compelling a redress of grievances, from the Conquest to the
present hour. I did not undertake in a speech in the Senate
to recite the authorities in full. But I summed up the result
of the English and American doctrine in a few sentences, which
may be worth recording here.

"First. The Commons never withheld the supplies as a means
of coercing the assent of the Crown or the Lords to _legislation._

"Second. The supplies withheld were not the supplies needed
for the ordinary functions of government, to which the ordinary
r