inate distribution of the remaining $10,000,000
of the $15,500,000 paid by Great Britain, as adjudged by the Geneva
Arbitration, for indemnity for losses occasioned by Confederate
cruisers which went to sea during the Rebellion from English ports
with the connivance or through the negligence of the British
Government. I insisted in a speech (December 17, 1878) that the
fund should be distributed in payment of claims allowed by the
arbitrators in making the award, or retained by the government as
general indemnity. Many of the losers whose claims were taken into
account in making the award could not be proper claimants to the
fund, as they had been fully paid by marine insurance companies.
It was insisted by some members that the companies had no equitable
right to be subrogated to the rights of the claimants who were thus
paid, because the companies had charged war-premiums, and hence
did not deserve reimbursement.(11)

The Forty-sixth Congress will long be memorable in the history of
our country. It was Democratic in both branches, for the first
time since the war.

The previous Congress (House Democratic) adjourned March 4, 1879,
without having performed its constitutional duty of appropriating
the money necessary to carry on,. for the coming fiscal year, the
legislative, executive, and judicial departments of the government,
and for the pay of the army. The avowed purpose of this failure
was to coerce a Republican President to withhold his veto and
approve bills prohibiting the use of troops "to keep the peace at
the polls on election days"; taking from the President his power
to enforce all laws, even to the suppression of rebellion, except
on the motion first taken by State authorities; repealing all
election laws which secured the right, through supervisors of
elections and special deputy marshals, to have free, fair elections
for electors and members of Congress; and also that made it a crime
for an officer of the army to suppress riots or disorder or to
preserve the peace at elections.

The President called the Forty-sixth Congress in extra session,
March 18, 1879, to make the necessary appropriations. The effort
was at once made, through riders to appropriation bills and by
separate bills, to enact the laws mentioned. Excitement ran high.
For the first time in the history of the United States (perhaps in
the history of any government) it was announced by a party in
control of its law-making power, an