I could not have asked for a more favorable ending of the matter.
At the close of the examination the committee addressed to the head of each department of Arthur's administration an inquiry whether the laws then in force provided ample safeguards for the faithful expenditure of its contingent appropriation, and each of them replied that no change in existing law was necessary. The committee concurred in the views of the heads of the departments, and suggested that they keep a constant supervision over the acts of their subordinates; that the storekeeper of the treasury department should be required to give a bond, and that careful inventories of the property of each department should be made, and that annual reports of the expenditures from the contingent fund should be made by each department at the commencement of each regular session. While this investigation imposed a severe labor upon the committee on appropriations, it had a beneficial effect in securing a more careful control over the contingent expenses of the departments, and it silenced the imputations and innuendoes aimed at me.
In regard to these accusations, I no doubt exhibited more resentment and gave them more importance than they deserved. I felt that, as Secretary of the Treasury, I had rendered the country valuable service, that I had dealt with vast sums without receiving the slightest benefit, and at the close was humiliated by charges of petty larceny. If I had recalled the experience of Washington, Hamilton, Jefferson, Jackson and Blaine, and many others, under like accusations, I would have been content with answering as Washington and Jackson did, or by silent indifference, but my temperament led me to defy and combat with my accusers, however formidable or insignificant they might be.
The annual message of President Arthur, submitted to Congress on the 6th of December, was a creditable, businesslike statement of the condition of the government. It commenced with a very proper announcement of the appalling calamity which had fallen upon the American people by the untimely death of President Garfield. He said:
"The memory of his exalted character, of his noble achievements, and of his patriotic life, will be treasured forever as a sacred possession of the whole people.
"The announcement of his death drew from foreign governments and peoples tributes of sympathy and sorrow which history will record as signal tokens of the kinship of nations and the federation of mankind."
Our friendly relations with foreign nations were fully described, and the operations of the different departments of the government during the past year were clearly and emphatically stated. In closing he called attention to the second article of the constitution, in the fifth clause of its first section, that "in case of the removal of the President from office, or of his death, resignation, or inability to discharge the powers and duties of said office, the same shall devolve on the Vice President," and asked that Congress should define "what is the intendment of the constitution in its specification of 'inability to discharge the powers and duties of said office,' as one of the contingencies which calls for the Vice President to the exercise of presidential functions? Is the inability limited in its nature to long continued intellectual incapacity, or has it a broader import? What must be its extent and duration? How must its existence be established?"
These and other questions connected with the subject were not acted upon by Congress, as it could not foresee the conditions of the inabilities in advance of their occurrence. He closed with the following sentence:
"Deeply impressed with the gravity of the responsibilities which have so unexpectedly devolved upon me, it will be my constant purpose to co-operate with you in such measures as will promote the glory of the country and the prosperity of its people."
At the regular meeting of the House of Representatives, on the 5th of December, 1881, J. Warren Keifer was elected speaker by a small majority. Both Houses were almost equally divided on partisan lines.