fund. And every such officer, person, or stockholder who shall knowingly vote, declare, make, or pay any such dividend, contrary to the provisions of this act, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and, on conviction thereof, shall be punished by a fine not exceeding ten thousand dollars, and by imprisonment not exceeding one year.

SEC. 7. That the said sinking fund so established and accumulated shall at the maturity of said bonds so respectively issued by the United States, be applied to the payment and satisfaction thereof, according to the interest and proportion of each of said companies in said fund, and of all interest paid by the United States thereon, and not reimbursed, subject to the provisions of the next section.

SEC. 8. That said sinking fund so established and accumulated shall, according to the interest and proportion of said companies respectively therein, be held for the protection, security, and benefit of the lawful and just holders of any mortgage or lien debts of such companies respectively, lawfully paramount to the rights of the United States, and for the claims of other creditors, if any, lawfully chargeable upon the funds so required to be paid into said sinking fund, according to their respective lawful priorities, as well as for the United States, according to the principles of equity, to the end that all persons having any claim upon said sinking fund may be entitled thereto in due order; but the provisions of this section shall not operate or be held to impair any existing legal right, except in the manner in this act provided, of any mortgage, lien, or other creditor of any of said companies respectively, nor to excuse any of said companies respectively from the duty of discharging, out of other funds, its debts to any creditor except the United States.

SEC. 9. That all sums due to the United States from any of said companies respectively, whether payable presently or not, and all sums required to be paid to the United States or into the Treasury, or into said sinking fund under this act, or under the acts herein before referred to, or otherwise, are hereby declared to be a lien upon all the property, estate, rights and franchises of every description granted or conveyed by the United States to any of said companies respectively or jointly, and also upon all the estate and property, real, personal and mixed, assets, and income of the said several railroad companies respectively, from whatever source derived, subject to any lawfully prior and paramount mortgage, lien, or claim thereon. But this section shall not be construed to prevent said companies respectively from using and disposing of any of their property or assets in the ordinary, proper and lawful course of their current business, in good faith and for valuable consideration.

SEC. 10. That it is hereby made the duty of the Attorney-General of the United States to enforce, by proper proceedings against the several railroad companies respectively or jointly, or against either of them, and others, all the rights of the United States under this act and under the acts herein before mentioned, and under any other act of Congress or right of the United States; and in any suit or proceedings already commenced, or that may be hereafter commenced against any of said companies, either alone or with other parties, in respect of matters arising under this act, or under the acts or rights herein before mentioned or referred to, it shall be the duty of the court to determine the very right of the matter without regard to matters of form, joinder of parties, multifariousness, or other matters not affecting the substantial rights and duties arising out of the matters and acts herein before stated and referred to.

SEC. 11. That if either of the said railroad companies shall fail to perform all and singular the requirements of this act and of the acts hereinbefore mentioned, and of any other act relating to said company, to be by it performed, for the period of six months next after such performance may be due, such failure shall operate as a forfeiture of all the rights, privileges, grants, and franchises derived or obtained by it from the United States; and it shall be the duty of the AttorneyGeneral to cause such forfeiture to be judicially enforced.

SEC. 12. That nothing in this act shall be construed or taken in any wise to affect, or impair the right of Congress at any time hereafter further to alter, amend, or repeal the said acts herein before mentioned; and this act shall be subject to alteration, amendinent, or repeal, as in the opinion of Congress, justice or the public welfare may require. And nothing herein contained shall be held to deny, exclude, or impair any right or remedy in the premises now existing in favor of the United States.

SEC. 13. That each and every of the provisions in this act contained shall severally and respectively be deemed, taken, and held as in alteration and amendment

of said act of eighteen hundred and sixty-two and of said act of eighteen hundred and sixty-four respectively, and of both said acts.

Approved, May 7, 1878.

To prevent the passage of this bill was arrayed the whole power of the railroad kings, Gould, Huntington, et id omne genus; the lobbies swarmed with their agents, and their representatives on the floor by voice and vote exerted their utmost energies to compass its defeat. Indeed, Mr. Gould was there and in person directed the operations of the lobby. The cause of the people, however, was in the hands of that great leader, Allen G. Thurman, earnestly aided by Mr. Edmunds, and no subterfuge could blind and no specious argument swerve him from the accomplishment of the object in view.

Among those in the Senate who most stoutly resisted the passage of the Thurman act was James G. Blaine. In fact, in the long debate that attended the bill, he was the leader of the opposition.

In the Senate, April 9, 1878, Mr. Blaine offered the following amendment to the Pacific Railroad Funding Act:

But so long as said Central Pacific and Union Pacific Railroad Companies shall faithfully comply with the provisions of the said acts of 1862 and 1864, and of this act, relating to the payments to the United States on account of the bonds advanced, and of sinking funds to be established as aforesaid, such compliance shall be deemed and taken as sufficient to meet the obligations of said companies on account of such bonds prior to the maturity thereof.

Provided, That the annual payments from each railroad company, in addition to the half transportation account and the five per cent. of the net earnings presently applicable to the interest, and the bonds, shall never be less than $600,000, including the other half of the transportation account applicable to the sinking fund herein established, and that nothing in this act shall be construed to waive any claim of the United States against either of said railroad companies, from whatever source arising.

The purpose and effect of this amendment was to defeat the object of the bill and to nullify its salutary provisions. This was recognized by Mr. Thurman, who said: I consider this amendment as really determining the fate of the bill.

The amendment of the Senator from Maine is the worst attack upon the bill that could be made. He knows very well that with that provision fastened on to this bill the bill not only would not be worth the paper upon which it is written, but that it would be far worse than nothing; he knows that that would be a fatal death-blow given to the bill.

Mr. President, let no one deceive himself about this; let no one imagine he can be a friend of the Judiciary Committee bill and at the same time a friend of the amendment of the Senator from Maine. The amendment of the Senator from Maine is prussic acid to the bill. It cannot survive a day, nor an hour perhaps, after that amendment is adopted. It is a stab at the very heart of the bill; it is as fatal as any stab could possibly be. I hope, therefore, the friends of this bill, those who mean to make these companies live up to their obligations, do what they assumed to do; those who mean that these companies shall know that the Government is their master, and they are not the masters of the Government-will see that no such poison is taken into the bill as the amendment of the Senator from Maine.

The acute mind of Mr. Edmunds was not deceived. He said:

He (Blaine), as I said before, is. the original father, there is no grandfather and no collateral relation of a proposition in the legislation of this country of the Congress of the United States, since the time when the evil of the hands of states and of congresses has been discovered in the last few years, to provide that in any respect or under any circumstances the hands of the legislative power shall be held off from the exercise of their legitimate and constitutional control over public corporations. You cannot tell, sir, what will happen; you cannot tell who will manage these corporations; you cannot tell how long there will be any net income or not, depending not upon the fair progress of natural re

sources of development and natural competition, but depending upon the evil deviltry of stock-boards and private jobs. There is the trouble about all these corporations, and yet my honorable friend from Maine, in that sweet innocence which characterizes his character, that sublime faith that everybody is as virtuous as he is, is willing to fold up his arms and be tied up in a bag by the Union Pacific and Central Pacific Railroad Companies for twenty-two years, merely because we require them to establish a sinking fund.

The amendment of Mr. Blaine was defeated-yeas 23, nays 35.

The bill was then passed-yeas 40, nays 20.

Mr. Blaine voted "no."

See Cong. Record, Ap. 2 to 9, 1878.

That the object of Mr. Blaine's amendment was understood in California is shown by the following editorial :

[From the San Francisco Chronicle of April 10, 1878.]

The Railroads must pay.

The bill of the Senate Judiciary Committee providing that the Union and and Central Pacific Railroad Companies shall each create a sinking fund, with which to finally liquidate their indebtedness to the Government, passed the United States Senate yesterday, by the decisive vote of 40 to 19. It passed without Blaine's amendment, which was intended to nullify its force, and indeed, without amendments of any kind. This is the first real and effective check which the arrogance of the railroad companies have yet received. Remarkable as it may seem, in this era of corruption, neither sham nor compromise is embodied in this bill. It is a plain, straightforward, compulsory demand that these companies which have grown so enormously rich from the prodigal donations of the country, and from their oppressive tariff exactions, shall now meet the obligations they have evaded so long. The House Committee on Railroads has been instructed to report a similar bill which will undoubtedly pass. Blaine's amendment was defeated by a vote of

35 to 23.

From the foregoing debate it will be seen that it was not without proper knowledge that Mr. Edmunds wrote to a friend in Vermont :

"It is my deliberate opinion that Mr. Blaine acts as the attorney of Jay Gould. Whenever Mr. Thurman and I have settled upon legislation to bring the Pacific railroads to terms of equity with the Government, up has jumped James G. Blaine, musket in hand, from behind the breastworks of Gould's lobby, to fire into our back."

The law thus treated of, having in operation discovered some defects, a bill to amend the Thurman act and correct its defects was passed in the House at the last session, under the leadership of Hon. Phil. B. Thompson of Kentucky. The Republican Senate failed to take any action on it, as it did on most other measures where the people demanded action and the corporations desired delay.

The Friend of the Miner.

The House having under consideration, May 17, 1866, the bill to amend" an act to provide internal revenue to support the Government, to pay interest on the public debt, and for other purposes," and acts amendatory thereof, the following debate was had :

The Clerk read as follows:

47.-Miners shall pay ten dollars. Every person, firm or company, who shall employ others in the business of mining for coal, or for gold, silver, copper, lead, iron, zinc, spelter, or other minerals, not having paid the tax therefor, as a manufacturer, and no other, shall be regarded as a miner, under this act. Provided : That this shall not apply to any miner whose receipts from his mine shall not exceed annually, $1,000

MR. MERCUR-I move to strike out the words "employ others in" and insert "carry on."

Mr. CHAIRMAN-I do not know how it is in the mines where the precious metals are procured, but in the coal mines this phraseology would result disastrously to the miners. "Miner" is a technical term. Persons are called miners who have no interest in the mines at all. A is put in with one or two laborers. He is called a miner, though he has no interest in the sale of coal. It may be thought the proviso to the bill would exempt him from the effect of this tax, but on looking, it will be seen it does not apply to any person who is a miner.

Mr. STEVENS (Pa.)-I move to strike out the whole paragraph.

Mr. CHAIRMAN-I do not know how many this would embrace. Every man who mined limestone for his farm, every man who mined a little coal for his furnace, all these men, and ten thousand others like them, would be embraced.

Mr. Morrill opposed the amendment, and Mr. Bidwell, in behalf of the gold mines, favored it.

Mr. BLAINE then said:

I do not think the amendment of the gentleman from Pennsylvania from the Pittsburgh district ought to prevail.

I think that during the whole progress of this bill, with all due respect to the gentleman from Pennsylvania and the gentleman from California, I have seen no motion made more groundless than this. We place a tax upon every trade and calling we can find out, and I undertake to say that the miners in the Pennsylvania coal mines are infinitely better able to pay taxes than the builders, contractors, lawyers, physicians and surgeons.

Mr. MOOREHEAD (Pa.)—The receipts of these men are not from the mines, but from labor, and the proposition really is to tax labor.

Mr. MCRUER (Cal.)—I wish to say in reply to the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Blaine), that there is not a single tax in this whole bill analogous to this. This is a direct tax upon the labor producing the raw material.

Mr. KELLEY (Pa.)—The tax proposed is a direct tax upon wages and labor, at least as far as Pennsylvania is concerned.

It was contended by Mr. Morrill, Mr. Blaine, Mr. Schenck and others that the tax referred to applied to employer of miners. On this point, Mr, Hooper said: "I hold here in my hand a petition from some fifty laboring miners, who state that the tax of ten dollars is imposed upon them, because by the custom of mining coal it is usual for a miner to have with him a laborer, the miner being paid so much a ton for the coal he raises, out of which he pays the laborer. The assessor claims that the miner employs others, and charges him with the tax of ten dollars." Subsequently, the amendment of Mr. Stevens was agreed to by a vote of ayes 57, noes 38, and the paragraph was stricken out. (Cong. Globe, vol. 58, p. 2657,

1st Sess., 39 Cong.)

A Return to Constitutional Methods.

Democratic Principles.

A strict adherence to the Constitution is the leading principle of the Democratic party—a party whose theory of construction gave it birth and has preserved it in the affections of the people for nearly one hundred years.

In Washington's Cabinet there was a continual conflict of opinion between the aristocratic Hamilton, then Secretary of the Treasury, and the democratic Jefferson, then Secretary of State, about the construction of the new Constitution. The former advocated a loose construction and strong central power; the latter, strict construction and local self-government.

From these rivalries sprang into existence the two great rival parties which, under one name and another, have continued to the present day.

The difference is fundamental and eternal. It is well described by De Tocquevill in his work on Democracy in America, as follows:

De Tocquevill's Definition.

"When the war of independence was terminated, and the foundations of the new government were to be laid down, the nation was divided between two opinions-two opinions which are as old as the world and which are perpetually to be met with, under different forms and various names in all free communities-the one tending to limit, the other to extend indefinitely the power of the people."

Temporary questions, such as slavery, knownothingism, a foreign war, etc., may distract attention from the main issue and even change party names, but when disposed of the fundamental rivalry between local and central power is bound to return. It is well that it does, for the discussion of rival theories of construction tends to keep the people educated in the principles of civil liberty and government Such a discussion was never more needed than to-day for the Republican party continues in time of peace a war construction of the Constitution-a drift toward centralization which, if not soon checked, will verge upon imperialism.

The American people should therefore in the present campaign go back to first principles and closely scrutinize the tendencies of the two rival parties.

The Democratic party inherits its love of local and personal liberty from its founder, Thomas Jefferson, and its construction of the Constitution from that greatest of all authorities, James Madison.

Madison's Rules of Constitutional Construction.

His construction as given in the Federalist (No. 38) is as follows: “First—In order to ascertain the real character of the government, it may be considered in relation to the foundation on which it is to be established; to the sources from which its ordinary powers are to be drawn; to the operation of those powers; to the