( 9) The Thirteenth Amendment was proclaimed ratified Dec. 18, 1865; the Fourteenth, July 28, 1868, and the Fifteenth, March 30, 1870.
(10) In the Florida Indian War of 1812 some depredations were committed on Fisher's corn fields. For this he made a claim originally for $8000. Congress has since paid on it $66,803, and there was still a claim in the Forty-Third Congress for $66,848, on which a committee of the House reported in favor of paying $16,848, leaving $50,000 of the claim to bother future Congresses. —Rep. (No. 134) on Law of Claims, H. of R., Forty-Third Cong., p. 18.
(11) Later the Forty-Seventh Congress passed an act authorizing the distribution of about two-thirds of the whole fund to persons whose claims were rejected by the Geneva Arbitrators in making up the award.
(12) For an authoritative decision on the right of the National Government to use physical force to compel obedience to its laws, etc., see Ex parte Seibold, 100 U. S. Rep., 371.
(13) Proceedings Society of the Army of the Cumberland, 1887, pp. 115-40.
(14) Mr. Blaine was nominated for President in 1884, but was defeated by Mr. Cleveland. Notwithstanding his duplicity towards me, I supported him. He was disloyal to Mr. Reed, of his own State, though he then also professed to support him.
(15) An unwary, but doubtless well-meaning person (M. P. Follet) of Quincy, Mass., in 1896 published a small volume on the Speaker of the House, in which she gathered up these stories. She says Keifer appointed on the elections Committee "eleven Republicans and two Democrats"; that he appointed one nephew "Clerk to the Speaker," another "Clerk to the Speaker's table." These and other like falsehoods appear to have been inspired by a member who, notwithstanding his free-trade proclivities and other objectionable qualities and incapacities, sought to be appointed Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. The Committee on Elections was composed of nine Republicans, five Democrats, and one re-Adjuster from Virginia. The Clerk to the Speaker's table was, throughout the Congress, a poor young man who had been a page on the floor of the House and a resident of the State of New York, and no relative of mine. A nephew of mine, a resident of Washington, was, for a short time, my clerk, a purely personal position, as was also that of private secretary.
The statement of Miss Follet that Keifer's "partisan rulings soon won him the contempt of Republicans as well as of Democrats," is shown to be basely untrue by the significant fact that no parliamentary or other decision of mine was ever overruled by the House, although my party can hardly be said to have been in the majority of the House over all other parties.
What "partisan ruling" of mine was not heartily approved by my party, or did not command at least the respect of the Democrats? Miss Follet was imposed on.
(16) An incident occurred near the close of the last session of the Forty-seventh Congress which should be mentioned. The reporters of newspapers, through the courtesy of the House, had been assigned a separate gallery for their convenience. This gallery, as well as others for the convenience of visitors, was under the general control of the Speaker, subject to the order of the House. There were but few occupants in the reporters' gallery the last night of the session, and there were many ladies who could not be accommodated with seats in other galleries.