MR. BROWN said: I do
not intend to detain the House by anything like an elaborate speech upon the
subject of the public printing. In the few remarks which I propose to submit, I
shall endeavor to confine myself as nearly as possible to the subjects directly
before us; nor should I have asked the indulgence of the House to say a word
but for the agency which I have taken heretofore in this matter. When I heard
that the Committee on Public Printing had done more than, by the explanation of
the honorable chairman, I am now induced to think they intended to do, I
thought they had exceeded the authority given them by law, and that they had
done that which this House ought not to sanction by its silence, much less by
its express assent. With the explanation which the honorable chairman has
given, I am satisfied the committee have intended to confine themselves to the
letter of the law; but I am just as well satisfied that their action will lead
to an abuse of the law. The Committee on Public Printing have a right,
according to one construction of the statute of 1846, to take so much of the
public printing from the present employee as he fails or refuses to execute.
Under this authority we now learn from the chairman, that they propose to take
from the public printer-what? The work which he has refused or failed to
execute, and this alone? No, sir; for in the progress of his remarks the honorable
chairman tells you that they have in their possession now a considerable
quantity of work, which has never yet been submitted to the public printer.
What brought the minds of the committee to the conclusion, that the printer
would either fail or refuse to execute the work, when it had never been in his
hands? Was it not straining a conclusion to determine that he had failed to
execute, and would not execute, work which they had never intrusted to his
care, and never asked him to execute? The honorable chairman of the committee
says that the public printer has failed to execute some of the work heretofore
intrusted to his care. But does the conclusion necessarily follow, that he will
continue to fail; or that, having failed in one kind of printing, he would fail
in all others?
Was it ever expected
that the public printer could execute the printing of this House instantly upon
its delivery to him? Has there been any extraordinary delay in the delivery of
this work? According to my recollection, the public printing is about as
forward, about as near to completion, as it usually is at this season of the
year. We have the first part of the President's message, bound and laid upon
our tables, one copy for each member; and what matters it whether the extra copies
shall be printed this month, the next month, or three months hence? When was
the last part of the President's message and accompanying documents printed
during the long session of the last Congress? According to my recollection, we
were getting along towards the dog-days before it was laid upon our tables. Was
the then venerable and highly-respected public printer [Mr. Ritchie] hauled
over the coals for a failure to perform his duty? Was Mr. Ritchie—against whom
I have no word of complaint to utter here—held up to the country as a defaulter
in the discharge of his duties? Ah! some gentleman answers, in a low tone, Yes.
It is well the tone is low. No gentleman ought to answer yes, in a loud voice.
The House knows what was the action taken upon that subject two years ago. At
the close of the session of 1850, there was found to be, in one House of
Congress, a large majority not only indisposed to call Mr. Ritchie to an
account for any failure to comply with his contract, but actually disposed and
determined to give him some sixty or seventy thousand dollars of the public
money as extra compensation. Mr. Ritchie was paid every dollar that he claimed
under his contract, and his friends were anxious to give him a great deal more.
I never understood that he did the work any better, or any more rapidly than
the contract called for; and yet there was a large party in this House ready to
vote him sixty thousand dollars, or more, over and above what the contract
called for; and it was only, according to my recollection, by parliamentary
manœuvring that the thing was prevented. You had two or three committees of
conference upon the subject, and the subject was pressed upon our attention as
no other subject was ever pressed upon us. And let me remind certain gentlemen,
who are enforcing a very rigid observance of the law against Mr. Hamilton, that
the journals show them to have been more than liberal towards Mr. Ritchie. Now,
sir, I desire to know why it is, in this land of laws, in this land of
equality, and before this Democratic House of Representatives, this kind of
distinction is made between one employee and another? I know nothing of Mr.
Boyd Hamilton; I have never seen him. If I were to meet him to-day, I should
not know him from any other man in Christendom. I care not one single solitary
farthing about him, but I do care for justice. I will not willingly make myself
a party to a transaction so unjust as this. I will not say to one man, who
wields a powerful party press, We will pay you the full amount of the bond,
wink at your short-comings, and pay you sixty thousand dollars extra; and then
to another, who has no press, no power, no influence, We will crush you,
because you have not lived up to the very letter of the law.
Mr. GORMAN. I want
the gentleman distinctly to avow whether he charges that as a motive operating
upon the committee?
Mr. BROWN. Not at
all.
Mr. GORMAN. Your
words do.
Mr. BROWN. I disavow
any personal application; but this I will say: If the House of Representatives
shall perpetrate such an act of gross injustice, it will merit, and will
assuredly receive, the reprobation of every just man in the nation. We hear
continually that the contract system has proved a failure. I do not think so.
The contract system has had no fair trial. There has been, what seemed to me, a
determination from the beginning to bring this system into disrepute—never to
give it fair play. Powerful parties, holding the most influential positions,
have engaged in this work. The system has operated against their interest, and
they have labored to break it down. Its triumph is not complete, but it has not
failed. Let us see how the system has worked so far. Your first contractors
were Wendell and Van Benthuysen. Did they execute their contract? I understand
they did. I am forced to that conclusion because there has been no suit entered
upon their bond for a failure to execute their contract. Thus far the system
worked well—at least it did not fail. You received the work and paid for it;
and if it was not well done, it was because you did not require it to be well
done. During the last Congress, the then venerable editor of the Union (Mr.
Ritchie) had the contract. Did he execute it? I understand he did. It is my
understanding that he executed it to the satisfaction of the Committee on
Printing, and the satisfaction of Congress. I so understand, because no suit
has been instituted upon his bond for a failure to execute the contract. You
again received the work and paid for it, and we shall presently see that
certain gentlemen proposed to do a great deal more. Surely there could have
been no failure, when you not only received the work and paid for it, but
wanted to give large extra compensation. Then Mr. A. Boyd Hamilton has the
contract for this session. The only specifications, according to my present
recollection, which the honorable chairman makes against him is, that a portion
of the paper is some twelve pounds in the ream lighter than the contract
requires. This I find Mr. Hamilton accounts for in the printed paper lying upon
our tables. He says, that for a brief season during the past winter, on account
of the closing of navigation, he was unable to get a better article of paper.
The cold weather having suspended steamboat and railroad operations, he could
not procure transportation.
Mr. STANTON, of
Kentucky. I wish to make a statement, and it is this: I understand from the
chairman of the Senate committee, or rather the late chairman of the Senate
committee, that he has rejected nearly all the work sent to the Senate by the
printer, and rejected it not solely for the reason that the paper was of an
inferior article, but because the whole committee concurred in the idea that a
great fraud had been practised upon the government if this paper should be received
as the quality of paper which he has now furnished, it being one-fifth less in
value, than what he was required to furnish.
But there is another
defect in the paper, to which the chairman of the House committee, and of the
Senate committee, I understand, objected; and it is this: that the sheets of
paper upon which the printing is done, are too small; that they have too little
margin; that when the pages are folded together, and the edges clipped or cut,
it leaves too little margin, and that in the books in which plates are to be
placed, the plates are frequently disfigured and destroyed in consequence of
the smallness of the sheets.
Nor is this all. The
printing which has been sent to us, is so imperfect in consequence of defects
in the manner in which the presswork is done, and defects in the quality of the
ink that is used, that there are not half a dozen sheets in any one book that
we have examined, that are perfect. They are full from the top line to the
bottom of the page, with what printers call technically "monks" and
"friars," that is, here a white place, and here a black blotch. So
that the work, in every view in which it can be regarded, is inferior to what
was agreed for under the contract.
Mr. FLORENCE. Did
the gentleman submit any of this work to the House? I understood the chairman
of the Committee on Printing [Mr. Gorman] to say that there had been no
documents except the President's message and accompanying documents, given to
the public printer. His complaint was, that there had been no work done; but
now the gentleman from Kentucky, a member of the Committee on Printing, rises
in his place, and says that these have been condemned. Where are they?
Mr. POLK. I will ask
the gentleman from Pennsylvania, if there are not thirty or forty executive
documents that have been furnished to the printer during the last three months,
and that have not been printed yet?
Mr. FLORENCE. I do
not know anything at all about that, for I am not a member of the Committee on
Printing. I attend to the business of the committee to which I belong, and
cannot answer the gentleman's question.
Mr. POLK. Then I say
to the gentleman from Pennsylvania that he ought not to talk about things he
knows nothing about.
Mr. FLORENCE. I rose
for the purpose of being informed; and if the gentleman had had his ears open,
he would have heard my question, and would not have made the remark he did.
Mr. POLK. I am sorry
I did not hear the gentleman; but it is my misfortune, if my ears are not as
long as his. [Laughter.]
Mr. GORMAN. The
gentleman from Pennsylvania misunderstood me, if he understood me as saying
that no document but the President's message had gone into the hands of the
printer. A great many documents have gone into his hands, but we have never
seen anything of them since; when they get there, it is the last of them. A
part of the President's message has, however, come to us, and it is to that
that the gentleman from Kentucky alludes. If you look over the pages, you will
find the "monks" and "friars," or, as I should call them,
blotches of white and then blotches of black. They are really so insufferably
bad that we could not receive them. I hope the gentleman from Pennsylvania is
satisfied. I will produce a copy, and hand it to him.
Mr. BROWN
(resuming). I was proceeding to inquire, when I was interrupted, whether it was
true that the contract system had been fairly tried, and had proved a failure?
I had shown that there was no evidence of its failure up to the commencement of
this session of Congress, and I had stated that I believed there had been
combinations to break it down. If it has failed, or shall hereafter fail, in
the hands of Mr. Hamilton, is that conclusive that the system is wrong, and
ought to be abandoned? That it must fail in his hands, under
the policy that the committee propose to pursue towards him, is to my mind the
most evident proposition on earth. If the committee suspends a job when it is
half completed, takes other jobs from him entirely, and makes large deductions
from time to time on the work which he has executed, who does not see that the
man's credit must be broken down? If he was worth a quarter of a million of
dollars, he could not execute the contract under such a policy as this.
But I do not mean to
dwell upon this branch of the subject. I have said that, in my judgment, the
system has not proved a failure. If it has failed at all at any time, or in any
man's hands, it is because you have not given it a fair trial.
Mr. FREEMAN
(interrupting). I did the chairman of the committee to say that the contract
had been abrogated, but only that they should employ others to carry out such
parts of the contract as the contractor has failed to carry out. I do not
understand that this is an attack upon the contract system, but only upon the manner
in which this party has acted under his contract. Is not that the fact?
Mr. GORMAN. It is.
Mr. BROWN. If the
committee take the printing from this man and hand it over to others, or if
they refuse to deliver it over to him, what is it but an abandonment of the
contract? Is not that a breaking up of the contract? Does not every man see
that the result of this action on the part of the committee must be that the
whole of the House printing will go to Donelson & Armstrong, and the whole
of the Senate printing to Gideon & Co.? Mr. Boyd Hamilton will be left at
the end of three weeks from to-day with not a penny's worth of work on hand. It
is useless to say what the committee mean to do, or what is meant by this
proceeding. The question is, what does their action inevitably lead to? If the
work is taken from Hamilton by the committee, and their action is sanctioned by
the House, there is an end of his contract; and with it we all see that
the whole contract system will end. It cannot be otherwise.
The committee has
notified us that they have ceased to send the work to Hamilton, and have made
arrangements with other parties to do it. Is it not ridiculous, then, to say
that they have not abrogated the contract? They have, to all intents and
purposes, abrogated one contract and made another. It is stultifying ourselves
to pretend that it is otherwise.
My reason for
introducing a resolution in reference to this subject was this and I had no
other purpose to subserve—I wanted to arrest what I thought a dangerous
proceeding. I knew the committee were acting without having made a report to
the House. I did not pause to inquire whether they had authority to do all that
they proposed. I looked only to the effect which their action was certain to
produce. Mr. Hamilton says he has made an outlay of $50,000 in preparing
himself to execute the printing of Congress. It is proposed summarily to take
the contract from him—and by whom and in what manner, pray? Not by Congress—not
by a committee of Congress, but by three members of the House and one member of
the Senate; for, bear you in mind, this is not the act of a full committee. And
this fragment of a committee are doing this without consulting Congress, and
without reporting its proceedings. Now, let Congress sanction this act of the
committee, and think you, sir, that this man will not come here at the next
Congress, and ask indemnity for his losses on this outlay? No man will question
that. And what do you suppose he will prove? If he is half as smart in making proof
as others have been, he will prove that he was executing the work as well as it
had ever been done; that he was delivering it as fast as it had ever been
delivered; that his contract was rudely and summarily snatched from him, his
business broken up, his credit destroyed, and himself ruined. And instead of
your getting the penalty of the bonds, he will present a claim for some
$100,000 or more against you. Then, if a committee is appointed, as there will
be, to investigate the subject, what evidence will there be on the record to
show that you were justified in this proceeding? Take the contract from Mr.
Hamilton, under these circumstances, if you will; but I ask you to leave upon
the record the evidence which shall justify your action to those who are to
come after you, and who will be charged with an investigation of Hamilton's
claims. Do not go out of this contract and leave no trace behind to mark your
exit. Before you sanction the acts of this committee, demand a report, a full
report, one that will justify you before another Congress in dismissing
Hamilton from his contract—for rest assured he will present his claim from year
to year, and send it down to his children after him, from generation to
generation. It will be presented time and again, until, finally, Congress will
be brought to pass it. It is this result against which I now raise my warning
voice.
If there is anything
to justify this step on the part of Congress, let the committee report it. Let
the House take the responsibility. Let us know where we stand. Let those who
are to come after us have something with which to meet Mr. Hamilton, when he
comes here by himself, or through his attorney or successors, to make a demand
for damages on account of the breaking up of his contract.
We are told day
after day in the newspapers and elsewhere, that the contract system has
failed, and that Congress ought to abandon it. I am no friend of the system. I
am not its friend or its apologist. But it has not failed. Its success has been
wonderful, considering the amount of opposition it has encountered. Does it not
strike us all as being rather remarkable, that a member can take up one of
these printed documents on his desk, direct it to some one in some remote
corner of California or Oregon, put his frank upon it, call a page and send it
to the post-office of the House, and that it should then be taken up and
carried from one point to another, and that too by contract, until finally it
reaches its far off destination, and yet that this document thus borne from one
part of the continent to another by contract, cannot be printed here, under the
eye of Congress, by contract? Your army and navy can be supplied by contract;
your troops on the distant frontier of Texas, California, and Oregon, can be
furnished with supplies by contract; and yet you cannot print a book by
contract. If these manuscripts belonged to a private individual, could he not
get them printed by contract? and would he not do it? Why is it, then, that we
cannot do the same thing? I do not profess to know, but I will tell you what I
think may be the cause. I do not say why it is we have failed, but I will tell
you on what I think has interfered with our success. There are party editors in
the city of Washington—Whigs as well as Democrats and there may be such a thing
as this going on:
"If you'll
tickle me, I'll tickle you."
If a member will
vote large supplies to a party editor, and thus tickle him—and it applies not
more to one party than the other—why, then, the editor speaks well of the member
to his constituents, and thus tickles him in return; but before an excuse can
be given for voting these supplies, the contract system must be broken up.
Besides, it may be possible that party men, after all, care more for the
success of party editors than for the success of a system like this. And they
may strive to bring the system into discredit and to destroy it in public
favor, in order that party editors may come up and be elected public printers,
or have contracts given to them, out of which they may realize large sums of
money. I say these things may be. I do not say they are so. But these
are reflections which force themselves on my mind. And when I can find no good
reason why the contract system is failing, or is likely to fail—no reason why
it is cried down my mind dwells here; and I inquire of myself, whether it is
not possible, that at the bottom of all the difficulty in executing this
contract system, there do not lie some hidden and secret causes like these? If
these be the causes of failure, let them be removed. Let us fling defiance in
the teeth of those who would use the national treasury to purchase favor. Let
members stand on their merits, and editors, like other men, work for what they
get, and the contract system will triumph.
I do not say the
contract system is the best; I only say it has not had a fair trial, and we
have no reason to conclude that it has failed. If I had my own way, or if my
suggestions are worth anything to the House, I would say, that above all other
modes, I should prefer to have the public printer elected, and that it should
be required of him, by law, that he should have no connection with any party
press, Whig or Democratic, during his service; but that he should be what his
vocation indicated him to be the public printer, and nothing else. If I had my
own way, I should prefer to have the work executed by a public printer, who
should be well paid. But of all the schemes that I have ever seen or heard of,
this last one of the Committee on Printing, is to me the most objectionable—objectionable
in many points of view. I do not like these combinations between Whigs and
Democrats. I do not say there has been a combination or coalition for bad
purposes, because I will not charge my honorable friend from Indiana [Mr. Gorman]
with entering into combinations; but it will strike the mind of this country as
a coalition; and, however well intended, its effects upon the Democratic party
must be most disastrous. Talk about the Massachusetts coalition! Why, sir, the
honorable chairman of the committee ought to have retained the gentleman from
Massachusetts [Mr. Rantoul], to defend this business. He is a capital defender
of coalitions, as he has given us good reason to know. [Laughter.]
This whole thing
looks to me, and I fear it will strike the country, as very much like a
combination or coalition between the Whigs and Democrats, or rather between the
organs of the two parties, to control the government printing, keep the game in
their own hands, and pocket the profits. I do not say that it is so, but it
occurs to me that it looks that way, and that the country will so regard it.
Mr. GORMAN. I want
to put a friendly question to the gentleman from Mississippi. I ask that
gentleman whether the present coalition suits him?
Mr. BROWN. It does
not.
Mr. GORMAN. I
understand it does not. Would the Southern Press suit him?
Mr. BROWN. It would
not.
Mr. GORMAN. I am
inclined to come to the same conclusion in relation to my friend from
Mississippi that he does in relation to myself. He suspects me of forming a
coalition with the organs of the Whig and Democratic parties. I suspect him of
doing precisely the same thing with the Southern Press. He suspects me,
therefore, of exactly what I suspect him; so, if he kills my dog, I will kill
his cat in the same way. [Laughter.]
Mr. BROWN. Let me
say to my friend from Indiana, that he was never more mistaken. I have at no
time sought, directly nor indirectly, to give any part of the public printing
to the Southern Press. And, what is more, if it were left to me to direct the
whole subject, I would not give one dollar of it to any party editor.
Mr. VENABLE.
Wouldn't you give it to the National Era? [Laughter.]
Mr. BROWN. About as
soon as to some others.
Mr. POLK. I ask the
gentleman if he would not vote to give it to the Southern Press?
Mr. BROWN. No, sir.
I have already stated, and I believe it to be true, that it is wrong in
principle to give the public patronage to party editors at all. It destroys
that independence and boldness which should belong alike to editors and
representatives; it begets a sort of paralyzing sympathy between the recipient
of a favor and the giver of it, which stands palpably in the way of a fair,
upright, equitable, and honest administration of political justice.
Mr. RANTOUL. The
suggestion which the gentleman from Mississippi [Mr. Brown] has thrown out,
that I might be employed to defend this coalition, places me in a rather
unpleasant situation; and, therefore, I beg leave to say, in advance, that I
shall decline entirely to undertake any such task upon any conditions whatever.
A coalition which is founded in principle, I can defend; but one which looks
entirely to the division of the spoils, seems to me to be entirely
indefensible. [Renewed laughter.]
Mr. BROWN. Well, I
have only said that if a coalition should be completed, better counsel could
not be found to defend it.
Mr. GORMAN. I
congratulate the gentleman upon his new coalition.
Mr. BROWN. If my
friend, the chairman of the Committee on Printing, will look over the vote of
yesterday upon this subject, he will find some reason to congratulate himself
upon another coalition. My recollection is, that he was found in very strange
company on that occasion. If he will but turn to his friend over the way from
New York [Mr. Haven], he will find in him a coadjutor with whom he struck hands
in making this bargain.
Mr. GORMAN. I was
congratulating the gentleman upon his coalition with the gentleman from
Massachusetts [Mr. Rantoul].
Mr. BROWN. Upon the
great issues which unite us as Democrats, we work together. And on these
issues, I believe there is not a more trustworthy member of the party on this
floor than the honorable gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Rantoul]. Those are
the issues upon which the gentleman from Massachusetts and myself unite. Upon
other issues, there is no bond of sympathy between us. The bond which unites us
is political only; and the points of affinity are those which unite the
gentleman from Indiana and myself, and indeed all Democrats. But my friend from
Indiana [Mr. Gorman], and the gentleman from New York [Mr. Haven], seem to be
united, and to have formed a coalition to obtain the spoils. [Laughter.]
Mr. Speaker,
although I listened with the most profound attention, as I always do, to the
remarks of my friend from Indiana [Mr. Gorman], I am at a loss to know why it
became necessary to employ two party organs to aid in the public printing? I
cannot understand why somebody else could not have done it just as well. There
were other printing establishments here. There was the Towers's establishment.
There was Mr. Rives's establishment; and there were others. But I understand
the committee voted down all these establishments; they even voted down
Donelson & Armstrong, as my friend [Mr. Gorman] says. And in order to secure
to them a part of the work the right hand of fellowship was extended by him to
his Whig co-laborers, they agreeing to divide it between the two great party
organs, the Union and the Republic. I ask my friend [Mr. Gorman] if he did not
vote against Rives, and against Towers, and against others.
Mr. GORMAN. I did.
Mr. BROWN. Exactly;
and other members of the committee voted against Donelson & Armstrong, and
in this way no conclusion was arrived at, until at last the two Whigs on the
committee obtained their own terms, and got half the job for the Republic. It
seems to me that if my friend from Indiana [Mr. Gorman], and my friend from
Kentucky [Mr. Stanton], who was a member of that committee, had gone with the other
members of the committee for Mr. Rives, there would have been no difficulty.
Mr. ORR. Will my
friend from Mississippi yield for a motion to adjourn?
Mr. BROWN. I will
yield for that purpose.
Mr. ORR. I move,
then, that the House do now adjourn.
The motion was put
and agreed to; and
The House adjourned
till twelve o'clock to-morrow.
WEDNESDAY, April 14th, 1852.
Mr. BROWN continued:
Before I enter upon the subject which was under consideration at the time of
adjournment yesterday, I desire to correct an impression which I ascertain to
have made a lodgement upon the minds of some gentlemen, whose opinion I prize very
highly. And that is, that I have been actuated in my course by some feeling of
personal hostility to the parties engaged by the committee to execute the
public printing. I desire to say, once for all, that I distinctly disavow any
such feeling. My personal relations with all the gentlemen (or with all of them
that I know), are of a friendly character, and I know of no reason why they
should not so continue. I owe them no thanks for past favors, and no grudge for
past injuries. Occupying such a position, I can deal out to each one, and to
all of them, equal and exact justice.
It seems to me, that
in the action of the committee upon this subject of printing, there has been
no bona fide effort to employ any one to execute the
work, except Donelson & Armstrong. With the majority of the committee on
the part of the House of Representatives, this appears clearly to have been the
case. It seems that no other establishment was thought of, in connection with
this printing, or was treated as worthy to receive it, except the Union
establishment. With the majority, it was Donelson & Armstrong at the
beginning—it was Donelson & Armstrong through its whole progress it was
Donelson & Armstrong at the conclusion.
Mr. STANTON of
Kentucky (interrupting). Will the gentleman from Mississippi allow me to say a
word?
Mr. BROWN. If I am
at all mistaken, I want to be corrected
Mr. STANTON. The
remark the gentleman has just made does not apply to me. I attempted, at an
early part of this struggle, to get this work divided out to Donelson &
Armstrong and John T. Towers, and offered a resolution to that effect. I did so
for this reason: because there was a necessity, at the time, of doing
something. I thought those gentlemen were prepared to do the work, and I
proposed to the committee to give to them such work as the public printer could
not, or would not, do.
Mr. BROWN. Still I
find, from the explanation of my friend from Kentucky [Mr. Stanton], that he
insisted upon having Donelson & Armstrong in the contract somewhere. Now,
sir, while these gentlemen [Messrs. Stanton and Gorman] were indulging their
predilections for their friends, it seems they never thought of indulging other
gentlemen to the same extent. They, it seems, had their likes for Donelson
& Armstrong, and their dislikes for other printers and editors, and it was
all right that they
should indulge them. But if other people indulge their likes and dislikes, then
these gentlemen think it is all wrong. They think it very odd that other
gentlemen should refuse to give up their opposition to Donelson &
Armstrong; but they seem at no time to have been willing to yield their
position in favor of these gentlemen. These facts being true, I say there does
not seem to have been a bona fide single purpose of
procuring the public work to be done in the speediest manner, and by those who
would do it the cheapest and best. But there seems to have been but one
purpose, running throughout the whole proceedings, from the beginning to the
end, and that was to favor the printing establishment of Donelson &
Armstrong. That I object to. I do not object to those particular individuals.
What I object to is this: that the committee did not go to work in good faith
to obtain the printing upon the best terms, but that they made the public
interest secondary to the private interest of the Union establishment. Their
position appears to have been, that unless Donelson & Armstrong could be
included in the contract, they would make no contract. This, in my judgment,
was wrong. Why not contract with other parties, if they would do the work as
speedily and as cheaply? Why did the committee, from the beginning to the end,
insist, without special reference to the speedy completion of the work, that
this particular establishment should be included in whatever contract was made?
It was the duty of the committee to have given the contractor every reasonable
indulgence, and if he failed or refused to do the work, to have reported that
failure to Congress; and if they put the work in other hands they ought to have
employed the man who would do it the quickest, cheapest, and best.
The honorable
gentleman, the chairman of that committee [Mr. Gorman], in the course of a
colloquy yesterday, endeavored to impress upon the minds of this House, and so
far as his printed speech could do it, upon the minds of the country, that
there was something like an understanding between gentlemen entertaining
extreme views; or, in other words, between what is called the Southern ultras
and Northern Free-Soilers. An intimation was more than once made in the
progress of the debate that there was something like a coalition between these
extremes, and that by agreement they were acting in concert upon this question.
No such thing is true of me. I repudiate any such insinuation, come from what quarter
it may. I act here solely and alone, upon my own responsibility, never
thinking, never inquiring, and never caring whether any other man North or
South is or is not acting with me.
The gentleman from
Indiana [Mr. Gorman] intimates that he will expose these understandings. For
me, he is quite at liberty to begin. But before he puts my friends or myself on
trial, I would advise him to try his hand on his associate, the gentleman from
Kentucky [Mr. Stanton]. He is a capital subject to practise on. I shall expect
to hear him say, "Richard Stanton, slaveholder and pro-slavery Democratic
representative from the slaveholding state of Kentucky, stand up and answer to
this House, by what warrant you were found in an unholy coalition with Truman
Smith, Free-Soiler and Abolition Whig Senator from Connecticut, voting to
divide the public printing between the Union and the Republic?" It would
be an interesting trial, and I should watch its progress with great interest.
Let the gentleman settle accounts like this between his colleagues on the
committee before he charges coalition upon others. It seems there is no
account taken of coalitionists like theirs. But if persons occupying such
extreme positions as the gentleman from Massachusetts and myself are found
opposing a bargain made by others holding quite as extreme positions as we do,
we hear a great outcry about coalition! coalition!! If the bargain was made by
a coalition, it may be opposed in the same way. If there was nothing wrong in
the gentleman from Kentucky [Mr. Stanton] and Truman Smith acting together in
making the bargain, there can be nothing wrong in the gentleman from
Massachusetts [Mr. Rantoul] and myself acting together in opposing it. If I am
found acting with gentlemen entertaining extreme views against the
contract, it will be found that it was made by gentlemen holding opinions just
as extreme.
Mr. STANTON of
Kentucky (interrupting). If the gentleman from Mississippi will allow me, I
will tell him the result. We succeeded in bringing over a Connecticut Whig
Senator and Abolitionist to the support of a compromise press.
Mr. BROWN. Yes, sir;
and when he came over he brought with him a Whig paper which has heaped more
abuse upon the Democratic majority of this House than all the presses from
Maine to Louisiana. Its columns teem from day to day with abuse of members of
this House whose Democracy has never been questioned—Northern men and Southern
men. When you talk about your Free-Soil ally from the North going for a
compromise press, let me remind you, that he carried you over to the Whig
press, and that one, the most vindictive of them all. The country will inquire
how this was brought about; how, with an overwhelming Democratic majority in
this House, and an equally effective Democratic majority in the Senate, you
have not been able to choose a Democratic printer? Why it was that the Republic
was fastened upon us? Why has this coalition been formed? These are the
questions that will be asked. And the answer will be, that Donelson &
Armstrong might be provided for. That is the whole secret of the matter that is
the nest in which the coalition was hatched.
Mr. POLK
(interrupting). Will the gentleman from Mississippi allow me to propound a
question to him?
Mr. BROWN. Simply a
question.
Mr. POLK. Will you
vote to elect the compromise Union press to be public printer?
Mr. BROWN. I will
not vote to elect any newspaper editor public printer. I said so yesterday.
Mr. KING. I rise to
a question of order.
Mr. POLK. I see the
coalition is now formed. The gentleman from New York [Mr. King], a Free-Soiler,
says I am out of order. [Laughter.]
Mr. BROWN. I beg not
to be interrupted by a side-bar colloquy.
The SPEAKER. The
Chair understood the gentleman from Mississippi to yield the floor to the
gentleman from Tennessee [Mr. Polk].
Mr. BROWN. I did for
a question, but not for a colloquy. Now, let us see, sir, to what strange
reasons gentlemen of this committee are driven in justification of their
course. The honorable gentleman who sits before me [Mr. Haven], says that he objected
to Mr. Rives's doing this work. He already had a large and important job from
the government. How many important and profitable jobs has the Republic under
the government? Who does not know that the Republic newspaper is fattened
and made sleek by the pap it receives from the Executive departments? All this
the gentleman takes no account of. It was his sow that was drinking the swill,
and he never thought it worth his while to charge it.
If this printing had
to be divided out, why was not more justice observed in the division? Why
should the committee have confined themselves exclusively to the Union and
Republic? Why take two newspapers, occupying extreme positions, and turn all
others out? Why not take in the "old fogies" of the Intelligencer?
Why were they, like Nebuchadnezzar, turned out to grass? I do not see any
reason why they should not have had a share. They are for the compromise. Was
it because they had not been peculiarly abusive of the Democratic party, and of
the Democratic members of this House? I must confess, sir, if I had to elect
between Donelson & Armstrong and the Intelligencer, on the one hand, and
Donelson & Armstrong and the Republic, on the other, I would take the
Intelligencer by large odds.
I ask the attention
of gentlemen to what I am about to say. What are we to understand by this
procedure? My friend from Indiana [Mr. Gorman], on yesterday, when he came to
allude to the Southern Press, to which he evidently thought I was much
attached, and in whose service I was laboring (and in all of which he was very
much mistaken), became almost frantic. His manner was excited, and he became a
little denunciatory for a gentleman of his amiable temper. [Laughter.] Why was
this? Why was it thought necessary thus to denounce the Southern Press. That
paper, as is well known, reflects the sentiments of a large number of the
Southern Democrats. Are we to understand, in its exclusion, and the bitter
denunciations which follow the mention of its name, that such portion of the
Democracy as sympathize in the sentiments uttered through its columns, are also
to be proscribed, excluded, and denounced? Is this what we are to understand?
And if we are, where is this proscription to stop? If Southern Democrats, who
sympathize with the sentiments uttered through the columns of the Southern
Press, are to be proscribed before the election, what is to be their position
after the election? These are matters, sir, to be reflected upon.
Now, I am free to
say to you, Mr. Speaker, to the House, and to the country, that my vote and my
course in the presidential canvass, are not to be controlled by your action
upon this subject. But I am not authorized to say that your action may not
control the votes of hundreds and thousands of others in the South. If you
shall indicate to them, that because certain newspapers and gentlemen have
defended what they believe to be the rights of the Southern States, they are
therefore to be proscribed, they will probably feel it to be due to their own
dignity and self-respect to proscribe you in return. Lightly as gentlemen may
think of it, this view of the subject may be found worthy of consideration.
There are in the states of Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi alone, one hundred
thousand State-Rights men. Proscribe them, proscribe the organ that more nearly
than any other in this city reflects their views, and do it because of those
views, and I tell you, I will not be accountable for the manner in which they
will dispose of their votes. They may not ask favors at your hands for themselves
or for any one else, but they may feel it to be due to their own self-respect
to resent an insult—to resent proscription. I will not undertake to say what
they will do. I am not authorized, as I have said before, to state what their
future action will be; but I do feel authorized, in a friendly way, to say that
you should be cautious how you act. You may endanger the success of your
presidential candidate. You may endanger a matter infinitely more important to
you than the public printing. You may endanger the patronage of the President,
and the distribution of the $50,000,000. A little caution, and a little good
temper, properly exercised, and a slight sprinkle of justice and common sense,
may save a deal of trouble by and by. It is one thing to give up that which is
one's due voluntarily, and it is another thing to have it snatched away, and
that in so rude a manner as to give offence. I repeat again that I do not want
any part of this printing for any friend of mine on earth. But I should not
like to be told that certain parties could not have it because they were my
friends. And I think it likely this may be the feeling of a great many southern
people.
I do not care, sir,
to pursue this discussion. I have said about all that I care to say, and if I
go farther, I may say that which had better be left unsaid. The concluding
portion of my remarks, I throw out only as a friendly warning to my political
brethren here. They can receive them in a friendly spirit or not. I want it to
be understood, and it is all I have to say, that when proscription commences
for opinion's sake, there can be proscription upon one side as well as upon the
other. I offer the following resolution. It is not my own, and does not fully
meet my approbation. A friend has handed it to me, with a request that I should
offer it. I do so in compliance with his request:—
"Resolved,
That the report of the Committee on Printing be referred to the Committee on
the Judiciary, with instructions to report upon the whole subject, and to
recommend for the adoption of Congress such a system for the execution of the
public printing as they may deem most expedient, and that they especially take
into consideration the plan for a printing bureau, for the execution of the
work under the supervision of a government officer."
Mr. BROWN. The
Judiciary Committee had been selected, because in taking this contract, if it
must be taken, out of the hands of Hamilton, and disposing of it otherwise,
legal questions must necessarily arise, which it will be better to have passed
upon by the Judiciary Committee than any other. I have done, sir.
At a later period in
the debate, Mr. NABERS and Mr. POLK both made inquiries of Mr. Brown as to how
far he agreed with Mr. RANTOUL, and what he meant by old issues. When Mr. B.
was about to respond, he was decided to be out of order.
Mr. BROWN. It is in
order to ask questions, but out of order to answer them.
[Mr. BROWN requests
the reporter to say, that if he had been allowed to respond to Mr. Nabers and
Mr. Polk, he would have said: The time was when the gentleman from
Massachusetts (Mr. Rantoul) was accepted as a sound Democrat. President Polk
appointed him United States District Attorney for Massachusetts, and thus
endorsed him to me and to the nation. He was a Democrat then on the old issues.
If he has changed his opinions on these issues, I have yet to learn it; and if
he has not, he is a Democrat on these issues yet. By old issues, I mean those
that divided the two parties in the days of Jackson, Van Buren, and Polk. Such,
for example, as the Bank, Tariff, Distribution, and the Sub-Treasury. If
the bank charter, or a protective tariff, distribution, wasteful
appropriations, or the repeal of the sub-treasury, any one or all of them shall
be proposed, I will not reject the aid of the gentleman from Massachusetts
(Free-Soiler though he be) in upholding the Democratic side of these questions.
These were the issues—the old issues—when the honored brother of the gentleman
from Tennessee appointed Robert Rantoul district attorney. On these he was
sound at that time; we all trusted him then, and if he has not changed his
opinions on these issues, I know of no reason why we should not trust him now.
On the new issues—those
growing out of the slavery strife and the territorial acquisitions, the compromise,
&c.—there is no bond of sympathy, no affinity between the gentleman from
Massachusetts and myself. On all these issues, direct and collateral, that
gentleman and myself are as wide apart as the poles. This the gentlemen from
Tennessee and Mississippi know full well.
If gentlemen on both
sides of the House who are the special friends of the compromise are to be
trusted, the slavery agitation, and all the incidental issues growing out of
it, have been settled; they were all compromised; and it was but the other day
that we passed a finality resolution, which meant, as I supposed, that there
was an end of the main issue and all its incidents. Now we have it dug up,
resurrected, and dragged in here again, and that, too, by its own best friends.
I hope we shall be done with this business.
If fidelity to the
Democratic party means that I must vote large and fat jobs of printing to
Donelson & Armstrong, and if I can only signalize my fidelity by voting
other large and fat jobs to the Republic, I must say to the gentlemen who are
croaking "Coalition!" "Coalition!" that, in this view of
the subject, I am not faithful, and never mean to be.
I would as soon have
the aid of the gentleman from Massachusetts in severing the unholy bonds which
unite the Union and Republic newspapers, as I would in pulling down protection
and upholding the independent treasury. When a good work has to be done, I will
accept aid from any quarter.
It is a weak
invention of the coalitionists to raise this hue and cry. And they expect
thereby to divert public attention from the fact that they have fastened the
Union to one teat of the National Treasury, and then, by way of quieting the
Republic, given it another and a better one. Cry coalition as much as you
please, the people will inquire by whom and for what reason these things were
done.
SOURCE: M. W.
Cluskey, Editor, Speeches, Messages, and Other Writings of the Hon.
Albert G. Brown, A Senator in Congress from the State of Mississippi, pp.
289-303
