Mr. Chandler's business principles were carried out in his committee work as thoroughly as they had been in his mercantile career. He believed that what was worth doing at all was worth doing well. It was the custom of the Senate Committee on Commerce to assemble formally once a week, for the consideration of such petitions and bills as had been referred to it for action. Whenever the appointed hour for meeting arrived Mr. Chandler was always in his seat, while its other members but rarely displayed anything like his promptitude. It annoyed the chairman to have any one late, and it was his custom to proceed with business as soon as a quorum was present, or if no quorum appeared within fifteen or twenty minutes, to assume that there was one and commence work; no protests against this course were ever made by the tardy or absent members. The location of the room of the Senate Committee on Commerce during Mr. Chandler's whole term of Senatorial service was in the northwest corner of the capitol, on the floor leading to the galleries. Its windows look down upon the city of Washington, with the broad, historic Potomac and the forest-crowned Virginia hills the distance, and the sunset view from them—including the blue glimmering river, the golden gossamer clouds, the green foliage upon the brow of the hills in the extreme horizon—could never be excelled in an artist's most vivid conception.
The first bill reported by Mr. Chandler as chairman of the Committee on Commerce was one to provide for the collection of duties on imports and for other purposes. He brought it in five days after the appointment of the committee at the first session of the Thirty-seventh Congress, and asked that it should be put upon its passage at once. A single objection carried it over under the rules until the next day, when it was passed by a vote of 36 to 6. The scope of the bill was extensive. It provided for confiscating to the United States all vessels belonging to rebels, for closing ports of entry in rebellious States, and for the employment of additional revenue cutters. It also authorized the President under certain circumstances to declare by proclamation States, sections, or parts of States, in insurrection against the United States, and prohibited all commercial intercourse between such insurrectionary States, or parts of States, and the rest of the Union so long as the insurrection should continue. It was thus among the earliest and most important of the war measures.
It is not necessary to occupy space with the details[13] of the enormous mass of business transacted by the Senate Committee on Commerce during Mr. Chandler's chairmanship. It was in those years that the sentiment of every section, in favor of extending the fostering care of the government to the aid of internal commerce, was consolidated and organized until it bore down all opposition and completely reversed the general policy and practice of the United States. How important and complete this revolution was will appear from the table of the appropriations for river, harbor and kindred improvements made at successive Congressional sessions since the foundation of the republic.
Mr. Chandler was the firm friend of an intelligently-planned and general system of internal improvements. His labors, and those of men like him, have borne fruit in manifold aids to commerce scattered over river, lake and ocean—light-houses, breakwaters, harbors of refuge, straightened and deepened channels, ship-canals and improved natural highways. He was prompt to recognize the claims of all sections, but was especially vigilant in regard to the necessities of the Northwest, and his memory will long be cherished throughout the region of the Great Lakes as that of the most ardent and efficient champion of its commercial development.
| YEARS. | AMOUNT. | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Monroe. | 1822[14] | $34,200 | |
| 1823 | 6,150 | ||
| 1824 | 145,000 | ||
| J. Q. Adams. | 1825 | 40,600 | |
| 1826 | 88,900 | ||
| 1827 | 160,200 | ||
| 1828 | 565,300 | ||
| Jackson. | 1829 | 254,200 | |
| 1830 | 377,600 | ||
| 1831 | 637,000 | ||
| 1832 | 693,500 | ||
| 1833 | 546,300 | ||
| 1834 | 791,200 | ||
| 1835 | 505,200 | ||
| 1836 | 1,198,200 | ||
| Van Buren. | 1837 | 1,681,700 | |
| 1838 | 1,467,200 | ||
| 1839 | 18,000 | ||
| 1840 | ....... | ||
| Tyler. | 1841 | 17,500 | |
| 1842 | ....... | ||
| 1843 | 233,000 | ||
| 1844 | 701,500 | ||
| Polk. | 1845 | 7,000 | |
| 1846 | ....... | ||
| 1847 | 14,220 | ||
| 1848 | ....... | ||
| Taylor-Fillmore. | 1849 | 20,000 | |
| 1850 | ....... | ||
| 1851 | ....... | ||
| 1852 | 2,099,300 | ||
| Pierce. | 1853 | 900 | |
| 1854 | 140,000 | ||
| 1855 | ....... | ||
| 1856[15] | 775,000 | ||
| Buchanan. | 1857 | ....... | |
| 1858 | ....... | ||
| 1859 | ....... | ||
| 1860 | ....... | ||
| Lincoln. | 1861 | ....... | Term of Z. Chandler as Chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce. |
| 1862 | ....... | ||
| 1863 | ....... | ||
| 1864 | 537,500 | ||
| Johnson. | 1865 | 23,000 | |
| 1866 | 3,579,700 | ||
| 1867 | 4,816,800 | ||
| 1868 | 1,601,500 | ||
| Grant. | 1869 | 2,200,000 | |
| 1870 | 4,173,900 | ||
| 1871 | 5,047,000 | ||
| 1872 | 5,603,000 | ||
| 1873 | 6,102,900 | ||
| 1874 | 5,282,500 | ||
| 1875 | 6,643,500 | ||
| 1876 | 5,213,000 | ||
| Hayes. | 1877 | ....... | |
| 1878 | 8,337,000 | ||
| 1879 | 7,912,600 | ||
| TOTAL, | $80,292,270 | ||
| NOTES. | |||
| This table only includes $750,000 of the $5,250,000 appropriated to pay Capt. James B. Eads for the jetty improvements at the mouth of the Mississippi. | |||
| The total of these appropriations during the years of Mr. Chandler's term as chairman was $45,610,800, or more than one-half of the entire amount. | |||
FOOTNOTES:
[13] Mr. Chandler entered the Senate when Congress was under the control of Democratic majorities. He was in the minority, but he never feared to assert his views, and denounce measures of doubtful advantage to the best interests of the country. The policy of the dominant party had been uniformly adverse to internal improvements—especially to making appropriations for harbor and river improvements. Soon after taking his seat, Mr. Chandler brought this important subject before the Senate, and insisted upon the necessity of fostering and aiding internal commerce. He introduced several measures, with this object in view.... These improvements were not then considered; but his vigorous speeches and persistent efforts subsequently compelled their partial recognition, and Mr. Chandler was placed on the Committee of Commerce, of which he was made chairman when the Republican party came into power, and so continued to the end of his Senatorial labors. It is not too much to say, for it is only the truth, that to Mr. Chandler's untiring zeal in this capacity, the country is indebted for many of those magnificent harbor and river improvements, which have been made since the Republican party came into power. Says a recent writer—an excellent authority, "The evidences of their utility are seen on every hand, scattered along our seaboard, along our extended lake coast, and upon all our rivers. The beneficent effects of these improvements are demonstrated by our vastly-increased and increasing commerce, its greater safety, the economy with which the work is performed, the extraordinary development of our agricultural and mineral resources and the increased compensation of productive labor." Reference is thus made to Mr. Chandler's efforts in behalf of those great internal improvements in aid of the commerce and internal development of the country, in order to demonstrate his peculiar fitness for the position which he has just been commissioned to fill.—Editorial of the Washington Chronicle of Oct. 20, 1875, announcing the appointment of Zachariah Chandler as Secretary of the Interior.