nation been threatened
as the penalty for the Crown's not approving laws passed by the
House of Commons, and that the English statutes provided for preserving
peace and order by the army, especially at elections.

In some cases during this memorable contest in the Forty-sixth
Congress I took issue in the House with the majority of my party
colleagues when they, through timidity, or for other causes, yielded
their opposition to proposed legislation touching the use of the
army and special deputy marshals and supervisors of elections to
secure peaceable and fair elections. In one notable instance (June
11, 1879), Mr. Garfield of Ohio, Mr. Hale of Maine, and the other
Republican members of the appropriation committee so far surrendered
their previously expressed views as to concur in the adoption of
a section in the army appropriation bill which prohibited any of
the money appropriated by it from being "paid for the subsistence,
equipment, transportation, or compensation of any portion of the
army of the United States to be used as a police force to keep the
peace at any election held within any State."

The application of the previous question cut off general debate,
and I was only able to get five minutes to state my objections to
the proposed measure.

Though the section was plainly intended to deprive the President
of his constitutional power as Commander-in-Chief of the army,
eleven Republicans only of the House joined me in voting against
it. The Republican Senators, however, generally opposed the section
when the bill reached the Senate. Later in the same Congress the
Republicans of the House unitedly supported the position taken by
me. This and other like incidents led, however, to a charge being
made later by some weak, jealous, and vain Republicans that I was
not friendly to Mr. Garfield as a leader and not always loyal to
my party.

In the last army appropriation bill of the same Congress, after
full discussion, a similar provision was omitted, and no such
limitation on the use of the army has since been or is ever again
likely to be attempted to be enacted into law.

The political heresies of the Forty-fifth and Forty-sixth Congresses
have apparently passed away, and a more patriotic sentiment generally
exists in all parties, and, fortunately, the necessity for troops,
supervisors of elections, and special deputy marshals at the polls
no longer exists in so marked a degree.

I spoke, December 7, 1