He had become so established in the hearts of the people of Maine, and their confidence in his good judgment and integrity was such that any honor which they had to bestow they pressed upon him as one above all others entitled to their suffrages.

CHAPTER XV.

Blaine on Southern War Claims.-The Celebrated Neal Dow Case. -Chinese Emigration.-Blaine's Answer to William Lloyd Garrison.-The Silver Question.-Remonetization of Silver.Pensioning Jeff Davis.-United States Troops at the Polls.A Sharp discussion in the Senate.

During Blaine's service in the United States Senate he wrote a letter to the Toledo Blade upon the Southern war claims, which so fully explains his position in the Senate and in his public speeches, that it is given here to save the recital of the many things he said and did upon the subject: TOLEDO, October 5, 1876.

To the Editor of the Toledo Blade:

I observe in The Cincinnati Enquirer of yesterday, a letter from Bion Bradbury, Esq., an attorney-at-law in Portland, Maine, in regard to the decision made by Judge Clifford of the United States Supreme Court, in the now famous Neal Dow case. Mr. Bradbury is counsel for the plaintiff in that suit, is fully committed to all its dangerous doctrines, and is well known in Maine as one of the most rancorous and uncompromising of partizan Democrats. He is a fair and full type of the men whom the loyal Republican sentiment of the North will have to fight to the bitter end on all questions of this kind. Only two or three points of Mr. Bradbury's letter require my attention, and I am compelled to write "on the wing," and of course very hastily.

Mr. Bradbury intimates that I have had in my possession,

ever since my Boston speech of September 18th, a letter from Judge Clarke, of New Hampshire, who sat with Judge Clifford, and dissented from his opinion. The inference Mr. Bradbury desires the public to draw is that I have concealed or withheld Judge Clarke's letter all that time. The truth is, Judge Clarke's letter was not written till September 22d, mailed the 23d, and has been following me from point to point, and finally reached me at Cincinnati three days since. The letter is as follows, and I give it verbatim et literatim:

MANCHESTER, N. H., Sept. 22, '76.

My Dear MR. BLAINE :

My attention has been called to a passage of your speech at Boston, in which you refer to a suit against Neal Dow, recently heard by Judge Clifford and myself at Portland.

Your statement of the case is substantially correct, and forcibly illustrates the danger to be apprehended from these Southern war claims, and yet it may do injustice to Judge Clifford, by leaving an impression that he is in favor of paying such claims. I hardly think this is so, and no such inference can be drawn from his conduct or decision in this case. He heard the case in the first instance sitting alone. Neither Judge Shepley nor Judge Fox could sit with him. He had the case for a long time under advisement, it presenting a question of great National importance, and of fine pleading. He did not wish to decide it alone, and it could in only one way be carried to the Supreme Court, to wit., a certificate of difference between two judges, because the amount being about $1,700, it could not go upon writ of error. able the parties, therefore, if they wish, to take the case to the Supreme Court, he sent for me to come and sit with him, and sign the certificate of difference, as I did.

To en

One great difficulty in the case is, General Dow let a judgment go by default in a court recognized by Judge Shepley while Military Governor of New Orleans, and that judgment is now sued here. The judgment is conclusive if the court had jurisdiction, and the court was one recognized by the Military Governor, and its process was duly served on General Dow.

The case is one of difficulty, but I am quite certain Judge Clifford is anxious it should be decided right.

Yours truly,

DANIEL CLARke.

It will be observed that Judge Clarke frankly says that my "statement of the case was substantially correct," and further that it forcibly illustrates the danger to be apprehended from these Southern war claims. These remarks by Judge Clarke sufficiently answer Mr. Bradbury's ill-tempered, illmannered, untruthful assertions respecting the main point at issue.

I am not responsible for the report of my speech at Warren, as quoted by Mr. Bradbury. I never saw the reporter's notes, and never read the extract quoted by Mr. Bradbury until I saw it in his letter. But I was assuredly reported incorrectly. I certainly never dreamed of calling Judge Clifford "a hungry Democrat." I am too familiar with the Judge's well-fed and portly dimensions to apply to him any such absurd characterization. Neither did I reflect on his personal or official integrity. On the contrary, I state that one of the most alarming features of the decision was that Judge Clifford belonged to that gnarled, twisted, ingrained, incurable school of Bourbon Democracy that honestly believes in just such dangerous and destructive doctrines as are covered by this decision.

Mr. Bradbury says that the only point involved in Judge Clifford's decision was the question of jurisdiction of the Louisiana Court. Precisely! The Louisiana Court gave judgment against a colonel of the Union army, for property seized and appropriated by a foraging squad of the regiment; judgment was taken by default, Colonel Dow being with his command in the field, utterly unable to respond to a summons, and certainly not dreaming that civil suits could be brought in the country of insurgents against officers of the

invading army of the Union. I have always stated the case with accuracy, and neither Judge Clifford nor Mr. Bradbury can show why every other officer of the Union army may not, in like manner, be sued for all the property which his command may have seized and appropriated during the four years of the rebellion. Judge Clifford's decision is far worse than if it sustained a suit brought since the war, for it distinctly recognizes, if it does not positively affirm, that while the war was actually going on flagrante bello, an officer of the Union army was bound, at whatever peril it might be to the Union cause, to leave his command when summoned by a local court, in the heart of a rebellious country. And Judge Clifford, without looking at the facts which notoriously surrounded the case-nay, shutting his eyes to these facts, when it required a great effort to close them, recognizes the jurisdiction of a Louisiana court to interfere, at the very crisis of the war, with the operations of the Union army. Judge Clarke says: "Judge Clifford has had the case a long time under advisement, it presenting a case of grave National importance." The "long time," referred to by Judge Clarke, covers at least eight years, I am told. It is not for me to say that Judge Clifford has not had good reasons for withholding his opinion this "long time," but it cannot fail to strike the country that the decision is promulgated just at the time that Judge Clarke thinks that there is "danger to be apprehended from these Southern war claims." I have no right to comment on Judge Clifford's motives, and do not assume to judge them, but I have a perfect right to discuss the mood and tense of his remarkable opinion. And the danger concealed under that opinion is greatly enhanced by the reported expression of the Democratic candidate for the Presidency, that "every soldier who marched across Southern soil was a trespasser, and liable to suit for damages in an action for trespass." Ex-Gov. Underwood, of Ver