ined. It
is not only wonderful in its amount, but in its origin, its
resources, and in its whole conduct. All its instrumentalities
are American. It is American at both ends, and throughout
all the way. This last year a bill providing for an expenditure
of sixty millions, nearly four times the amount of that which
President Arthur, and the newspapers that supported him, thought
so extravagant, passed Congress without a murmur of objection,
and if I mistake not, without a dissenting vote.

I should like to put on record one instance of the generosity
and affection of Mr. Dawes. He had not voted when his name
was called, expecting to vote at the end of the roll-call.
He meant to vote against the passage of the bill over the
veto. But when he heard my vote for it, he saw that I was
bringing down on my head a storm of popular indignation,
and made up his mind that he would not throw the weight of
his example on the side against me. So, contrary to his opinion
of the merits of the bill, he came to my side, and voted with
me.

I suppose a good many moralists will think that it is a very
wicked thing indeed for a man to vote against his convictions
on a grave public question, from a motive like this, of personal
friendship. But I think on the whole I like better the people,
who will love Mr. Dawes for such an act, than those who will
condemn him. I would not, probably, put what I am about to
say in an address to a Sunday-school, or into a sermon to
the inmates of a jail or house of correction. I cannot, perhaps,
defend it by reason. But somehow or other, I am strongly
tempted to say there are occasions in life where the meanest
thing a man can do is to do perfectly right. But I do not
say it. It would be better to say that there are occasions
when the instinct is a better guide than the reason. At any
rate, I do not believe the recording angel made any trouble
for Mr. Dawes for that vote.

CHAPTER IX
CHINESE TREATY AND LEGISLATION

Much of what I have said in the preceding chapter is, in substance,
applicable to my vote on another matter in which I had been
compelled to take an attitude in opposition to a large majority
of my own party and to the temporary judgment of my countrymen:
that is the proposed legislation in violation of the Treaty
with China; the subsequent Treaty modifying that negotiated
in 1868 by Mr. Seward on our part, and Mr. Burlingame for
China; and the laws which have been enacted