He delivered a speech in the Senate on the thesis "That gold and silver are the money of the Constitution, the money in existence when the Constitution was formed, and Congress has the right to regulate their relations." It is easy for the reader to see the stress of the situation, which would demand this kind of inconsequential argument from a statesman of Blaine's capacity. In his speech he advocated the coinage of "such a silver dollar as will not only do justice among our citizens at home, but prove an absolute barricade against the gold mono-metallists." He took the ground also that the standard silver dollar of three hundred and seventy-one and one-fourth grains of pure silver would not make such a dollar as would prove a barricade against the advocates of a gold standard only. In a word, the argument of Blaine wasand the same may be noted with peculiar interest, after the lapse of fifteen years that a new silver dollar of greater value than the old one should be substituted therefor. This, of course, would imply that the silver standard should be altered and adjusted to the gold standard, and this is not bi-metallism at all, but mono-metallism. Nevertheless, the position taken by Blaine in the debates on the silver question was as prudent and politic as might well have been discovered under the circumstances.

On nearly all of the questions before the Senate, during the after half of the eighth decade, decade, Blaine had something to say in a measure of determinative influence. As he became experienced, certain subjects of the vastest interest absorbed his attention and became the subject-matter of his subsequent policy. Of those subjects, one of the most important was that of the restoration of the commerce of the United States. Time had been, as late as the middle of the sixth decade, only five years before the outbreak of the Civil War, when the merchant marine of the United States had, by its expansion and prosperity, come into strong competition with that of England on the high seas. It appears, however, that before the shock of our great conflict, the premonition of a decline in our foreign commerce was felt; that is, in the tonnage of our ships and their success in competition. Now it was that sailing vessels began to yield to steamships. Iron took the place of wood as the principal material in the building of vessels. There came a day of speed and of cheap fuel, and of many other changes in the conditions of navigation and commerce.

Mr. Blaine has himself, in his history of Congress, admirably summarized these conditions and at the same time expressed the beginning of his anxiety for a restoration of the supremacy of the United States in the carrying trade of the world. He there shows that after 1856 a loss of 2 per cent annually had been incurred by the navigation of the United States. At the epoch of the civil war this rate of loss had risen higher and higher, until American commerce was almost obliterated. He showed in the next place that literally nothing had been done to recover the ground which our country had lost in her maritime enterprises. He enlarges upon the history of American commerce;

shows some particular facts relative to our commerce with Brazil; gives an account of the attempt of John Roach, the Irish-American ship-builder, to establish steamship lines between our country and the Brazilian Empire; arraigns the Democratic party in Congress for its alleged hostility to the efforts which had been put forth to restore the commerce of the United States, and points out with great force the natural advantages which the United States enjoyed for the establishment and maintenance of a great mercantile marine. He calls attention to the fact that in the past sixteen years the Government of the United States had expended more than three hundred millions on the navy, and scarcely three millions in the attempt to build up the commercial marine of the country!

THE subject thus presented in Mr. Blaine's writings became ever more important in his estimation. It was in his nature to fret at any disparagement of his country. If he did not positively fret at the loss of his country's prestige on the sea, he at least seriously and nervously considered the question with a view to the remedy of the evil.

The praise of Blaine as a legislator has respect in particular to his unequivocal patriotism. He wished to see his country established and confirmed in her greatness. He wished to contribute to her pre-eminence among the nations, and to devise such measures as should make her forever secure in her primacy. The great part of his work in the Senate was in support of such policies as he deemed requisite to the consolidation of American influence among the nations of the world.

It was for the existence of such a sentiment and its activity in his nature that he took so strong a part with respect to the Halifax Fisheries Award. Perhaps the worst example of a deep-laid scheme to beat a great nation of people ever devised in the somewhat cunning diplomacy of ministers was that which resulted in the award of five and one-half million dollars in gold coin against the United States and in favor of Great Britain for the very dubious advantage of the former in the matter of our northern fisheries.

The award was one of the issues of the great Treaty of Washington. The article of the treaty on which the matter turned was XXII., as follows: "Inasmuch as it is asserted by the Government of Her Britannic Majesty that the privileges accorded to the citizens of the United States under Article XVIII. of this treaty are of greater value than those accorded by Articles XIX. and XXI. of this treaty to the subjects of Her Britannic Majesty, and this assertion is not admitted by the Government of the United States, it is further agreed that commissioners shall be appointed to determine, having regard to the privileges accorded by the United States to the subjects of Her Britannic Majesty, as stated in Articles XIX. and XXI. of this treaty, the amount of any compensation which in their opinion ought to be paid by the Government of the United States to the Government of Her Britannic Majesty in return for the privileges accorded to the citizens of the United States under Article XVIII.

of this treaty; and that any sum of money which the said commissioners may so award shall be paid by the United States Government in a gross sum, within twelve months after such award shall have been given."

The Treaty of Washington also prescribed the manner in which three commissioners should be appointed to determine the possible amount of such payment, should any be made, by the United States to Great Britain. One commissioner was to be appointed by the President of the United States; one by Her Britannic Majesty, and the third by concurrence of the President and the Queen. But, should these two distinguished personages, or rather the Governments which they represented, be unable to agree on the third commissioner, then the choice of the third should rest with the Austrian Ambassador at the Court of St. James. Why it was left to him is one of the inscrutable things which must be revealed from diplomatical history at the last day.

The reader is perhaps informed as the result of the contest for the third commissioner. Great Britain got him. The Count Von Beust named Mr. Maurice Delfosse, Minister of Belgium, resident at Washington. Mr. Blaine has himself happily pointed out the extraordinary character of this appointment. It would have been impossible perhaps to impossible perhaps to name any prominent statesman, not himself a British subject, who was more likely to make an award in favor of Great Britain than the person chosen in the arbitration. He was in every way especially disqualified. In the first place, the Government of Great Britain had virtually created the Kingdom of Belgium. That Government was the upholder of the kingdom almost against the logic of events. King Leopold, its first sovereign, had taken in marriage the Princess Charlotte, daughter of the Prince Regent of the kingdom. He was Queen Victoria's uncle on the mother's side and also Prince Albert's uncle on the father's side. He was marshal in the British army and actually, at the time of his service, a pensioner to the extent of fifty thousand pounds sterling on the British exchequer! He was indeed an extraordinary personage to sit on a court of arbitration in a matter where the interests of Great Britain were concerned. Nevertheless, he did so sit, and it was he who, by his casting vote, made the award of the five and one-half million dollars against our Government.

It was a strong attestation of the progress which arbitration has made among the peoples of the world, that the Halifax award, iniquitous as it was, was promptly and fully paid by the Government of the United States. There was sharp criticism all along the line, particularly in the Senate; but it was felt to be better by far that the wrong should be fulfilled by payment than that the beneficent principle of arbitration should be renounced.

Mr. Blaine, in common with his fellow Senators, shared and uttered the deep dislike and repugnance of the people relative to the award against his country. He very properly says: "The wrong was done when he [Delfosse] was elected as third commissioner, and the tenacity with which he was urged will always require explanation from the British Government." Another matter

which was constantly in the mind of Blaine at this epoch was the Southern question. He saw around him, in both houses of Congress, the leaders of the defunct Confederacy. He saw abroad, throughout the South, the ways and means prepared for the production of that political phenomenon called "The Solid South." He upheld such measures as appeared to him likely to break somewhat the Southern influence in Congress, and it was pursuant of this policy that he favored the limited interference of the Government with what may be called the freedom of elections in the States.

It was in this spirit that he entered into the senatorial battle with respect to the use of troops at the polls. The Democratic party had appended to the army appropriation bill an amendment to the effect "that no money appropriated in this act is appropriated or shall be 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 peace at the polls at any election held within any State."

The project of stationing soldiers at the polls failed. Whether it were were not meritorious as an expedient, it was not fit as a precedent or a policy. The measure went by, and Blaine, in common with nearly all the first leaders of the Republican party, was constrained to see the complete revival of power in the hands of the ancient Confederate party throughout the South.

Another question which came to Mr. Blaine in the Senate was that of Chinese immigration. In a subsequent chapter of this volume we have presented his speech on this question as well as that on the Halifax award. Perhaps no question has possessed more contradictory elements than that of the immigration of the Chinese into the United States. The character of Chinese civilization is well understood. Perhaps we should emphasize the isolation of the race and dwell upon the fact that thus far it has not shown disposition or, indeed, capacity to assimilate with any other than itself. Wherever the Chinese go they seem to drift around among the peoples whom they visit as foreign particles incapable of assimilation.

With the opening of the great industries of California and the other Pacific States as far back as the earlier years after the discovery of gold, the men of the Celestial empire began to reach the American coasts. As laborers there are none more assiduous than they and none others who can live as cheaply. The Chinese gold-miners were able to accumulate not a little of the precious metal; but it was observed that they immediately returned to their own country, giving place to an increasing train of immigration.

Relations thus began between our country and China. These relations date back, indeed, to the year 1844. In 1868 a treaty was negotiated between the United States and China known as the Burlingame Treaty; for at that time the Honorable Anson Burlingame, who had been the American minister to China, had accepted from the Emperor an appointment as his representative to foreign Powers. The Burlingame Treaty recognized the right of both Americans