Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2

by George Frisbie Hoar

They had to deal with claims amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars, some wholly fraudulent, some grossly exaggerated and some entirely just. Some of these belonged to persons who had contracts with the Government for constructing and supplying a powerful Navy, or for supplies to the Army. There were demands still larger in amount from the inhabitants of the territory which had been the theatre of the War. This class of claims was wholly new in the history of our own country. There were few precedents for dealing with them in the experience of other countries, and the Law of Nations and the law of war furnished imperfect guides.

Men wounded or disabled in the Military or Naval Service, and their widows and orphans, were to be provided for by a liberal pension system.

These were a part only of the questions that must be studied and understood, under the gravest personal responsibility by every member of either House of Congress. Under the Administration of Grant and those that succeeded, of course, there was a constant struggle on the part of the party in power to keep in power and on the part of its opponent to get power. So that it was necessary that a Representative or Senator who would do his duty, or who had the ordinary ambition, or desired that the counsel best for the country should prevail, should master these subjects and take a large part in discussing and advocating the policy of his party.

During the thirty-two years from the 4th of March, 1869, to the 4th of March, 1901, the Democratic Party held the Executive power of the country for eight years. For nearly four years more Andrew Johnson had a bitter quarrel with the Republican leaders in both Houses of Congress. For six years the Democrats controlled the Senate. For sixteen years they controlled the House of Representatives. There is left on the Statute Book no trace of any Democratic legislation during this whole period except the repeal of the laws intended to secure honest elections. The two Administrations of President Cleveland are remembered by the business men and the laboring men of the country only as terrible nightmares. Whatever has been accomplished in this period, which seems to me the most brilliant period in legislative history of any country in the world, has been accomplished by the Republican Party over Democratic opposition. The failure to secure honest National elections and the political and civil rights of the colored people is the failure of the Republican Party and the success of its Democratic antagonist. With that exception, to all the problems which confronted the country in 1869 the Republican Party has given a simple, wise, final and most successful solution. It has done it not only without help, but over the constant opposition of its Democratic antagonist.

Every State that went into the Rebellion has been restored to its place in the Union.

There has been complete and universal amnesty. No man has been punished for his share in the Rebellion.

In spite of dishonest and subtle counsel, and in spite of great temptation, we have dealt with the public debt on the simple and honest principle that the only thing to do with a debt is to pay it. The National credit is the best in the world, and the National debt has ceased to be an object either of anxiety or consideration.

Specie payments have been resumed. Every dollar issued by the Government, or by national banks under government authority, passes current like gold. Indeed the ease with which it can be transported and the certainty of its redemption makes the paper money of the United States better than gold.

The United States has joined the commercial nations of the first rank in making gold the world's standard of value. In doing this we have never departed from the theoretical principle of bimetallism as announced by Hamilton and Washington and Webster and all our statesmen without exception down to 1869. The contest was an exceedingly close one. The arguments in support of the free coinage of silver were specious and dangerous. Undoubtedly for a time, and more than once, they converted a majority of the American people. The battle for honest money would have been lost but for the wisdom of the Republican statesmen who planted the party not only upon the doctrine of theoretical bimetallism, but also upon the doctrine that the question of the standard of value must be settled by the concurrence of the commercial nations of the world and that if there were to be one metal as a standard, gold, the most valuable metal, was the fittest for the purpose. That was the doctrine of Alexander Hamilton. To have avowed any other principle would have reinforced our opponents with the powerful authority of Hamilton and all his disciples down to the year 1873.

The war taxes have been abolished. The weight of the burden which has been in that way lifted from the shoulders of the people may perhaps be understood from the statement of a single fact. The Worcester District, which I represented, paid in the direct form of taxes to the National Treasury the enormous sum of $3,662,727 for the year ending June 30, 1866. For the year ending June 30, 1871, the taxes so paid amounted in all to $225,000, and for the year ending June 30, 1872, they amounted to about $100,000.