trolled power of the governor. That was another step in the direction of giving the power to the governors to appoint senators. If this line of construction is pursued, when gentlemen reject clauses in the constitution in order to attain liberal results, the time is not distant when the powers of the legislature to elect will be very largely abridged, and the day is not distant when there will be combinations in the states to defeat the choice of senators by the legislatures so as to insure appointments by the governors. The process is an easy one.

We have the remarkable example of three states now with senators appointed by the governors knocking at these doors. The legislatures have been in session. Every man of them was under the obligation of a solemn oath to obey the requirement to elect a senator as the representative of his state and its people. They failed to do so. From what consideration? Senators say they could not elect. I, in turn, say that it was their duty to elect, and that their inability was a fictitious inability, imaginary, pretended; that it was not real. The spirit of faction may have taken control of some or all of them, but there is reason to be lieve, and it is a possible conclusion, that certain interests preferred that the governors should make appointments.

"The gentlemen who are here, so far as I know, are blameless, free from fault. They have my personal respect; but there lies the danger, and step by step we depart from the pathway of the fathers. We become wise in our own conceit. The senator from New Hampshire conceives the doctrine of liberal interpretation which would change the government, and step by step our institutions are subverted by this spirit of change. No man can forsee the result.

"The safe course is to restrict the power of governors to the exact limits of the constitution. If the legislatures fail to elect senators, let them be responsible for those who elect them. You afford to faithless legislators a

means of escape by this substitutionary method of appointing senators. Gentlemen talk about representation in this body as if it was a matter of such transcendent consequence that anybody might appoint, or as if the origin of the appointment is a matter of comparatively small consequence. The object is, we are told, that the senate shall be full, always full. It is not so, Mr. President. The object is that the senate shall be filled with the representatives of the states, representatives selected by the agencies to which the election has been confided by the constitution, by the representatives of the people, and every step that removes from the legislature a sense of its responsibility is a step toward the subversion of free institutions.

"If the people of Montana, or of Washington, or of Wyoming are without representation in this body, whose fault is it? Have not their legislatures had ample power to elect? In a session that lasted for months they have been struggling, they tell us, over an election for senator, and have been unable to elect. What was the ground for that inability? Did they will to discharge their duty? Were they there to meet their obligations to their constituents? No; they were obeying the voice of faction, which would sacrifice sometimes free institutions for the sake of mere temporary advantages. They have failed to discharge their duty. What is the remedy? Gentlemen suggest that the governor of a state shall relieve them of all responsibility by appointing a senator for them. Sir, the governors of those states (and I speak again respectfully of these gentlemen) have appointed as senators gentlemen whom the legislatures would not elect.

"They did not elect them. They had the opportunity to elect them and they would not do it. The effect of this is to relieve these recreant members of the legis lature from their responsibility to the people.

"If the states of Washington, Montana and Wyoming were to remain without representation who would be re

sponsible for it? Whom would the people hold responsible? They would visit the proper punishment upon the faithless men who disregarded their duty. But the senate kindly proposes to relieve them of all trouble. The men whose duty it was to choose a senator go back to their constituents and say: "The governor has done that which we ought to have done, and the senate of the United States has held that where the legislature of a state refuse to elect, the governor shall appoint.' I ask pardon; these legislatures have not used the word 'refuse,' but let me put a case. Suppose that before ending its session the legislature had passed this resolution: 'Resolved, that we will not elect a senator to the senate of the United States.' What would the senator from Massachusetts say then? To be logical he would say: 'Let the governor appoint a senator,' forgetful that the convention would not entrust the legislature with the discretion to refer appointments for the senate to whom they pleased. The senator has the book before him. They would not entrust the legislature with that power, yet the senator maintains a doctrine here that would enable the legislature to abandon its duty and delegate the power of election to a governor who might not represent the people. I am done when I say that I respect the power of the executive of the states and I claim for them all the powers which belong to their office. I had the honor of being the governor of a state once, and I surely magnified my office. I never allowed its honors to be trailed in the dust. I employed its powers in season and out of season, whenever its dignity was invaded or its laws violated; but I also believe that the safety of the people of this country depends upon a rigid adherence to the constitution as it is.

"In the great struggle which commenced in 1861 and ended in 1865, the efforts of patriots were not to establish a new government; it was to maintain the dignity and authority of the constitution as it is, as it was, as it came from the hands of the fathers. I believe it my

duty now to stand by the ancient ways and to resist these innovations, because I cannot foresee where they will end. When we depart, we take a final departure; we break loose from our moorings under the influence of the liberal doctrines of the senator from New Hampshire, doctrines which have no other merit than their liberality. They are liberal with sacred things. It is a liberality without the sanction of law, conscience, or right. It is a liberality which disregards the interests of the free people of this country; it disregards popular liberty as defined and guaranteed and defended by the written constitution and fair and honest interpretation.

"Mr. President, I trust this question will be settled definitely on this vote. It is a great occasion. We are making a government by enlarging its powers. The power of construing constitutions is in fact the power to make them. We are to-day exercising a part of that power, and I warn the senate that this innovation, this liberal interpretation, at some time will return to torment the inventors.'

CHAPTER XXXIII.

Letter to Mr. Isaac H. Webb-Letter to the President.

The senate was still engaged in the discussion of the tariff bill, when I received a letter from Mr. Isaac H. Webb, to which I replied as follows:

"ISAAC H. WEBB, ESQ., McLeansboro, Illinois:

"My Dear Sir-I have your favor of June 18, 1894, in which you inform me that you are one of the delegates. to the Democratic state convention, which meets in Springfield on the twenty-seventh day of this month, and ask my 'opinion upon the silver question,' which you intimate will be the main subject for contention in the convention, and ask me also whether I favor the gold standard, or would it be expedient for the convention to adopt a platform favoring bimetallism? I do not favor an exclusive gold standard; but before answering the other questions which you propound to me-which I will hereafter do categorically-I beg to call your attention to the fact that the declarations of the Democratic state convention of Illinois will be regarded by the country as of very great importance. The nomination of Mr. Cleveland by the controlling vote of the delegation to the national convention from Illinois reconstructed the political geography of the United States. Before that event, which was accomplished by the votes of Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana and other states, influenced by like views of political policy, it was believed that Democratic success in national elections depended, and would always depend, upon the ability of the party to find candidates satisfactory to New York and two or three contiguous states and the 'solid South.'

"Mr. Cleveland had been rejected by New York, and