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LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
 Deceive J JZ&'fi- . 1 89 3 
 
 Accessions- No.^ZS^/ . CLns No. 
 
* 
 
 PKNSIONS 
 
 BY 
 
 D. CADY EATON 
 
 B. P. JUDD 
 
 NEW HAVEN, CONN. 
 1893 
 
PENSIONS 
 
V. 
 
 The following articles published from time to 
 time in the New Haven Register substantially as 
 they now appear were commenced when the enor- 
 mity of pension legislation was beginning to attract 
 public attention. They were written as much for 
 the purpose of marking and defining reading on 
 the subject as for imparting information. They 
 are now published as an individual contribution to 
 the general movement for reform. 
 
 D. CADY EATON. 
 
 New Haven, Conn., March, 1893. 
 
PENSIONS 
 
 I. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 With the permission of The Register I propose 
 commencing with its readers a careful study of 
 the pension laws. I use the word study advisedly, 
 because I have found by experience that one of 
 the best ways to study a subject is to write about 
 it. I also use the word study for the additional 
 reason that my own knowledge of the subject is 
 as yet superficial and limited, and because I may 
 change my views and may come to other conclu- 
 sions from those to which I seem tending. At 
 present I have the notion that pension laws are 
 unconstitutional ; that Congress had no power 
 to pass them, has no legal power to exercise them ; 
 that they are not only in opposition to the letter 
 of the fundamental law of our government, but in 
 opposition to its spirit; that they are unrepubli- 
 can and autocratic, and that they are unwise and 
 injurious in the highest degree. 
 
They have not as yet been brought before the 
 Supreme Court. Incidentally United States judges 
 have decided that the power to grant pensions is a 
 part of the power given to the United States by 
 the Constitution to raise armies. 
 
 If so, the power should certainly be limited 
 to the armies of its own raising and should 
 not be extended to volunteer forces, raised by 
 the several states and mustered into the ser- 
 vice of the United States for limited periods. The 
 laws governing the compensation of retired army 
 and navy officers and privates, cover all this ground 
 completely and satisfactorily. To accord a pen- 
 sion is an act of sovereign grace ; not of right, 
 but of bounty. Such is the radical idea of a pen- 
 sion ever sinca pensions existed. A pension is an 
 act of kindness and charity. A discharged soldier 
 has no more natural right to a pension than has a 
 discharged postmaster or revenue collector. 
 
 If there be any force at all in the theory of re- 
 served rights, then the right of conferring pen- 
 sions is reserved ; and if exercised at all, should 
 be exercised by the several states in accordance 
 with laws they may be pleased to pass. If ex- 
 ercised by states under state laws, fraud would be 
 more easily detected, for public opinion would be 
 awake. Public opinion cannot carry at long 
 range. 
 
 4 
 
Later pension laws are ex post faffio, and there- 
 fore strictly unconstitutional. They were not in 
 existence when the volunteer volunteered, and 
 therefore could not have influenced his action. A 
 law is none the less ex post faElo because it carries 
 a favor and not a penalty. The patriots who did 
 not volunteer have a right to say that if they had 
 known that such laws were to be passed they 
 would have volunteered. It would be strictly 
 legal to include them. Perhaps the next amend- 
 ment will be their inclusion and that of their sis- 
 ters, their brothers, their cousins and their aunts. 
 
 If a government be representative and limited 
 it has no right to exercise charity, for charity is 
 personal. Charity should be local ; within the 
 sphere of local observation and regulation ; within 
 the limit of personal sympathy and of personal 
 action. No republican government has a right to 
 direct the charities of any one of its citizens, 
 much less to tax its citizens in behalf of a charity 
 in which political leaders happen to be temporarily 
 interested. 
 
 Enough has already been written as an intro- 
 duction to the questions I propose studying and 
 discussing. 
 
 What is a pension ? 
 
 A brief review of the history of pensions before 
 the civil war. 
 
 5 
 
The United States pension laws before and since 
 1861. 
 
 United States pension laws legally and equitably 
 considered. 
 
II. 
 
 WHAT IS A PENSION? 
 
 The word is an old word, derived from the Latin, 
 pensio, which signifies a paying, a payment ; and 
 appears in many of the languages of Europe. It 
 is used in some meanings which do not affect the 
 questions to be discussed. For instance the word 
 is used in France to designate a boarding house, 
 or a boarding school ; where so much is paid by 
 the week, or by the month. At a French hotel 
 you are said to live " en pension" when you have 
 arranged to pay so much a day for board and lodg- 
 ing, etc. There are also in England specific uses 
 of the word and of its derivatives. A pensioner 
 at the University of Cambridge is a student who, 
 like a commoner at Oxford, pays his own way. 
 The king's pensioners are gentlemen appointed to 
 attend the person of majesty. A clergyman's 
 stipend is called a pension when it is not derived 
 from tithes. These technical uses of the term, 
 and there are others, are only mentioned to ex- 
 clude them and to confine attention to the one 
 meaning which is common to all modern civilized 
 languages and countries. 
 
 Webster thus gives it : 
 
" Specifically, a stated allowance to a person in 
 consideration of past services ; payment made to 
 one retired from service, for age, disability or other 
 cause ; especially a yearly stipend paid by govern- 
 ment to retired public officers, disabled soldiers, 
 the families of soldiers killed, to meritorious and 
 needy authors, artists, etc., or the like." 
 
 Worcester's definition is similar to Webster's, 
 though shorter and more concise. 
 
 u An allowance, or annual sum, paid on any ac- 
 count particularly an allowance from a govern- 
 ment for services rendered." 
 
 The Century Dictionary gives the following 
 definition : 
 
 u A stated payment to a person in consideration 
 of the past services of himself or of some kins- 
 man or ancestor ; periodical payment made to a 
 person retired from service on account of age or 
 other disability ; especially a yearly sum granted 
 by a government to retired public officers, to 
 soldiers or sailors who have served a certain num- 
 ber of years, or have been wounded, to the fami- 
 lies of soldiers or sailors killed or disabled, or to 
 meritorious authors, artists and others." 
 
 The definition in Stormonth's Etymological 
 Dictionary (Edinburgh, 1881,) is as follows: 
 
 " An annual allowance of money from the pub- 
 lic purse, or from a private person, without an 
 
equivalent in labour or otherwise generally in 
 consideration of past services." 
 
 The Imperial Dictionary of London, which is 
 going through the press, gives the following : 
 
 " A stated allowance to a person in consideration 
 of past services ; periodical payment made to a 
 person retired from service on account of age, dis- 
 ability, or the like ; especially a yearly sum grant- 
 ed by government to retired public officers, to 
 soldiers and sailors who have served a certain 
 number of years or have been wounded, to the 
 families of soldiers or sailors killed, to meritori- 
 ous authors, artists and the like." 
 
 The Century and the Imperial evidently had an 
 understanding on the subject. 
 
 The Encyclopaedic Dictionary, which is also 
 going through the English press, defines as fol- 
 lows : 
 
 " A fixed allowance made to a person in con- 
 sideration of past services ; a periodical payment 
 of money to a person retired frern service on ac- 
 count of age or other disability ; especially a sum 
 of money allowed yearly by government to officers, 
 civil or military, soldiers, sailors, and other public 
 servants, who have retired after having served a 
 certain number of years, or who have been wound- 
 ed or otherwise disabled in the public service, to 
 the families of soldiers or sailors who have been 
 
 9 
 
killed in a6Hon, and to persons who have distin- 
 guished themselves in art, science, literature, etc." 
 
 These definitions are from the dictionaries which 
 are accepted to-day as authority both in this coun- 
 try and in England. 
 
 Earlier dictionaries are no longer in general use. 
 They should, however, be consulted because they 
 give the opinions held at the time of publica- 
 tion. 
 
 Before Webster and Worcester appeared, Walker 
 was the leading dictionary of the English lan- 
 guage. In Walker of 1836, remodeled by Smart, 
 is this definition : 
 
 " Pension A payment of money an allowance 
 or annual sum paid on any account ; frequently 
 an allowance from government for services ren- 
 dered, sometimes secret and base, sometimes public 
 and honorable." 
 
 In the earlier editions of Walker the definition 
 is shorter. For instance in the fifth edition of 
 1809 this appears : 
 
 " Pension An allowance made to anyone with- 
 out an equivalent. Pensioner One who is sup- 
 ported." 
 
 Knowles 7 Dictionary of 1835, the rival of Wal- 
 ker, has the following : 
 
 " Pension An allowance made to anyone with- 
 out an equivalent. 
 
 10 
 
To pension To support by an arbitrary allow- 
 
 ance." 
 
 This is almost identical with the definitions in 
 Barclay's Liverpool Dictionary of 1810, which are 
 as follows : " Pension An allowance given to a 
 person without an equivalent. 
 
 To Pension To support by an arbitrary allow- 
 
 ance." 
 
 In Bailey's Popular Dictionary, which first ap- 
 peared in 1821 and which ran through many 
 editions, a pension is very briefly defined as : 
 
 " A salary, or yearly allowance." 
 
 In 1780 appeared Sheridan's Dictionary, which 
 was received with favor, but which could only 
 hold its own for a short period against the ever 
 increasing popularity of Johnson's Dictionary. 
 In Sheridan is as follows : 
 
 " Pension An allowance made to anyone with- 
 out an equivalent. 
 
 Pensioner One who is supported by an allow- 
 ance paid at the will of another, a dependent." 
 
 The first edition of Johnson's Dictionary ap- 
 peared in 1755. This was during the last years 
 of the reign of George II. who distributed pen- 
 sions with a lavish hand. If he did not reward 
 vice with them as did the Stuarts, he committed 
 the greater public crime of using them for politi- 
 cal debauchery. Johnson who knew a spade when 
 
he saw one, and who never hesitated to call things 
 by their proper names, has left for the profit of 
 mankind the following definitions which should be 
 read and pondered by all citizens of the United 
 States of the year 1893 : 
 
 " Pension An allowance made to anyone with- 
 out an equivalent. In England it is generally 
 understood to mean pay given to a state hireling 
 for treason to his country. 
 
 Pensioner A slave of state hired by a stipend 
 to obey his master. " 
 
 The fact that Johnson himself subsequently 
 accepted and enjoyed a pension shows the more 
 clearly the deadly nature of the system ; for it 
 proves it's power to hurt even a man of his force 
 and steadfastness. If he could be corrupted, what 
 chance for lesser humanity ! 
 
 All these definitions are generic. No one speci- 
 fically describes a United States pension of to-day. 
 
 Till another Johnson appear, the following at- 
 tempt may be offered : 
 
 Pension An allowance in cash : 
 
 Given To anyone ; without reference to time 
 or quality of service rendered, to bravery dis- 
 played, or to wounds received ; who can establish 
 directly or by kin the fact of a three months' con- 
 nection with the armies which put down the rebel- 
 lion, and the further fact of need. 
 
 12 
 
Secured By laws offered by one political party 
 for the purpose of obtaining votes for its candidates, 
 supported by the other party from the fear of los- 
 ing them, and passed by Congress in defiance of 
 the Constitution, in contempt of equity, in opposi- 
 tion to the fundamental principles of the country's 
 government and in cowardly neglect and supine 
 ignoring of duty. 
 
 Approved by a contemptible and time-serving 
 executive. 
 
III. 
 
 THEORY OF GOVERNMENT ENGLISH PENSIONS. 
 
 The people of the United States are rapidly for- 
 getting the fundamental principles which distin- 
 guished their government from the governments 
 of Europe. Yet it is only by a, lively remem- 
 brance of these principles and by a constant re- 
 currence to the source of their origin that mistakes 
 in legislation can be corrected and the government 
 preserved in its primeval simplicity and purity. 
 
 So many idle and bombastic words have been 
 spoken about the Constitution that the mere men- 
 tion of the instrument may repel the hearer. No 
 more difficult task than to excite interest in consti- 
 tutional questions. The ordinary citizen takes it 
 for granted that he knows all about the Constitu- 
 tion ; that a sufficiency of knowledge on the sub- 
 ject has come to him by a species of intuition. At 
 all events he desires no further information. The 
 Constitution is for him a thing of the past ; a thing 
 that happened, like an act of birth or a funeral. 
 He assumes and presumes that constitutional ques- 
 tions were all settled years ago, at the beginning 
 of the country's history, settled and done for 
 never more to bother, molest or trouble him or his 
 14 
 
descendants to the remotest generations. That 
 the Constitution is a body of fundamental princi- 
 ples of government to which constant reference 
 must be made, as the theologian refers to the deca- 
 logue and the mathematician to his logarithms; 
 that knowledge of the Constitution is no more by 
 descent than is spiritual grace, and that each gen- 
 eration must be indoctrinated de nuovo into its 
 spirit, are ideas he never permits to trouble him. 
 That the Constitution is an ever living document, 
 the sacred palladium of liberty, to be regarded 
 with the same personal sentiments of devotion, 
 loyalty, reverence and affection with which an 
 Englishman regards his queen or a German his 
 emperor, are notions to which he is obliged to lis- 
 ten on the Fourth of July and about election time ; 
 but which make no more impression on his mind 
 than if they were delivered in Sanscrit. The 
 statement that an act of Congress is unconstitu- 
 tional, conveys no clearer idea to the ordinary 
 citizen than if it were stated to be opposed to 
 Plato's theory of a republic. That unconstitu- 
 tionality is a radical defect and should render a 
 law inoperative is beyond the reach of his compre- 
 hension. That the Constitution is a fixed, perma- 
 nent living force, comprehending and vivifying 
 the body politic as the atmosphere surrounds, and 
 vivifies the earth is too vague a proposition for his 
 
 15 
 
understanding. It was undoubtedly very impor- 
 tant in its day, but it, has had its day. History 
 has outgrown it. Orators who still prate about it 
 are ponderous, heavy, tiresome. 
 
 This is no exaggerated description of the con- 
 dition of the public mind to-day. Yet unless the 
 mind can be forced back to a consideration of the 
 underlying principles of the Constitution, discus- 
 sions of constitutional questions will be as useless 
 as music addressed to the dumb, color exposed to 
 the blind. There must be a common understand- 
 ing ; a point of departure, accepted premises ; or 
 no agreement is possible. 
 
 Therefore let it be once more stated, heard and 
 accepted that the fundamental, radical and vital 
 difference between the government of the United 
 States and the government of England, for in- 
 stance, is that in England all power is supposed 
 to emanate from the king ; in the United States, 
 all power is supposed to emanate from the people. 
 The theory of the English government is that all 
 ultimate and reserved power is in the sovereign. 
 The theory of the United States government is 
 that all ultimate and reserved power is in the peo- 
 ple. In the one the king is the source and foun- 
 tain of unwritten law ; in the other, the people. 
 In the one the king acts in unprovided emergen- 
 cies ; in the other, the people. In England laws 
 
 16 
 
are supposed to be the expression of the sover- 
 eign's will ; in the United States they should be 
 the expression of the people's will. Monarchies 
 are founded on the theory that the monarch is not 
 only the sovereign disposer of his people's persons, 
 but the a6hial holder of their possessions. Lands 
 are held at his will. He may bestow, he mak take 
 away. Commerce is exercised by his permission. 
 He may permit, he may prohibit. The learned 
 professions are exercised by his license. He 
 may allow, he may disallow. He issues all writs. 
 Even parliament must await his writs for its 
 meetings. The theory of to-day is founded up- 
 on the practice of yesterday. Charles Stuart 
 did with the people of England as if he owned 
 them, and kept on doing so till they rose against 
 him and cut his head off. But the people of 
 England could devise no better theory of gov- 
 ernment. The existence of an ultimate and su- 
 preme power from which there is no appeal is 
 necessary to a government's stability. Where 
 shall this power be, was the problem. The Eng- 
 lish could devise no other way of disposing of it 
 than by locating it in the person of the sovereign. 
 The people of the United States have not disposed 
 of it at all ; they hold it. 
 
 If this be accepted, understood and held, then 
 subsequent steps will be clear. 
 
 17 
 
In England parliamentary laws are limitations 
 and definitions of the king's will. In the United 
 States the Constitution is a grant to the central 
 government of so much of the sovereign power as 
 the people chose to surrender for the purpose of 
 creating a union. Everything not specifically 
 surrendered is still held, precisely as everything 
 not specifically surrendered by means of parlia- 
 mentary acts is still held by the king. 
 
 Constitutions, grants, charters and ads of legis- 
 lative bodies, which limit sovereignty by convey- 
 ing sovereign powers, are to be rigidly and strictly 
 construed. This is a fundamental principle of law 
 reaching back to the beginnings of government. 
 Only just so much sovereign power is conveyed as 
 is clearly, precisely and indubitably described. 
 All doubts are in favor of the grantor. Nothing 
 is conveyed by inference, by imputation or by 
 strained construction. How different would be 
 the condition of this country if this rule had 
 always been obeyed ! 
 
 These few fundamental, elementary and prelimi- 
 nary principles being accepted, their exemplifica- 
 tion in the history and theory of pensions is easily 
 followed. 
 
 In England, down to the reign of George III. 
 there was no limiting, no attempt at limiting, no 
 idea of limiting, the royal prerogative of pensions. 
 
 18 
 
The king pensioned whom he pleased, when he 
 pleased and as he pleased. In comparison with 
 the greater rights he exercised, the right of pen- 
 sioning seemed small and did not attract attention. 
 He pensioned for life, or he pensioned for weeks or 
 days. He bestowed pensions. He recalled pen- 
 sions. In each and every case he acted in accord- 
 ance with his own sovereign will. Were not all 
 the revenues of the realm his to do with as he 
 pleased ? There seems to have been an under- 
 standing that the pensions granted by one sover- 
 eign should be continued by his successor ; but 
 there was only an understanding. A sovereign 
 continued the pensions of his predecessor in the 
 expectancy that his successor would continue those 
 of his own creation. The fundamental idea of an 
 allowance without an equivalent was not so appa- 
 rent as claimed by lexicographers. There was no 
 equivalent to the country any more than there is 
 to the United States now ; no equivalent to the 
 people from whom came the money which paid the 
 pensions, but there was equivalent in subserviency 
 to the king and to his political interests. If a pen- 
 sioner voted against the king's candidates, or used 
 his influence against the king's desires, or inter- 
 ests, he ceased to be a pensioner. 
 
 In 1782 King George III. was sorely pressed by 
 his enemies. Lord Cornwallis had surrendered at 
 
 19 
 
Yorktown, and all hope of conquering the Ameri- 
 can colonies was at an end. The Spanish had re- 
 taken Florida and many of the English islands of 
 the East and West Indies. One hundred millions 
 sterling had been wasted in the American war 
 alone. The French were defiant and victorious. 
 At home there was poverty, discontent and loud 
 cries for peace at any price. Under these circum- 
 stances it was thought the times were ripe for the 
 introduction of measures curtailing the royal pre- 
 rogatives. A bill was introduced into parliament 
 and passed, known as 22, George III. c. 82. The 
 preamble of the bill and the part relating to pen- 
 sions are interesting and instructive ; the pre- 
 amble, because it sets forth the theory of the 
 English government as held then and held to-day ; 
 the part relating to pensions, because it is the first 
 legislation on the subject. 
 
 The preamble is as follows : 
 
 " Whereas his Majesty, from his paternal re- 
 gard to the welfare of his faithful people, from his 
 desire to discharge his debt on his civil list with- 
 out any new burthen to the publick, for prevent- 
 ing the growth of a like debt in the future as well 
 as for the introducting a better order and economy 
 in the civil list establishments, and for the better 
 security of the liberty and independence of parlia- 
 ment, has been pleased to order, etc., etc." 
 
 20 
 
Observe that his majesty is represented as the 
 father of the people, that the people are repre- 
 sented as his people, and that the act is supposed 
 to emanate from his paternal regard and his solicit- 
 ous desire. That to sign the bill must have been 
 as galling to the king as it was a year later to sign 
 the treaty acknowledging the independence of the 
 United States does not affect the theory of the 
 procedure. After the enumeration of the things 
 it has graciously pleased his majesty to order 
 comes as follows : 
 
 ' l Wherefore, for carrying his majesty's said 
 gracious order into execution, may it please your 
 majesty that it may be enacted ; and be it enadled 
 by the king's most excellent majesty, etc., etc. 
 
 Then is repeated the things enumerated in the 
 first part of the preamble. Forms, of course, may 
 lose their meaning and only be preserved as mat- 
 ters of form. But all forms originally clothed 
 thought and meaning and in England they still 
 have great meaning. There is no power to com- 
 pel an English sovereign to sign an act of parlia- 
 ment. The only recourse would be to cut his head 
 off and crown a compliant successor. The exist- 
 ence of ultimate sovereignty and its proper loca- 
 tion are the ideas to be emphasized throughout 
 this discussion. 
 
 The act, 22 George III. c. 8, was most impor- 
 
 21 
 
tant. In the first place it abolished a large num- 
 ber of offices, fat sinecures with which the Stuarts, 
 Queen Anne and Georges I. and II. had rewarded 
 flattery and compensated successful political schem- 
 ing. It provided that if it should appear necessary 
 to renew any of these offices or establish other 
 ones in their places it should be done by parlia- 
 ment and the incumbents should be appointed and 
 paid by parliament. 
 
 The sections relating to pensions were drawn 
 carefully and with attention to detail. They pro- 
 vide that the king shall graciously of course 
 reduce his pensions to ^90,000, or about $450,000 
 a year, and that until this limit be reached no pen- 
 sion of over ^300 a year shall be given to any one 
 person and no sum of over ^600 shall be given in 
 any one year; and that after the limit has been 
 reached no single pension exceeding ^1,200 a year 
 shall be accorded. The act moreover provides that 
 the king shall lay before parliament a full list of 
 his pensioners and that hereafter they shall not be 
 paid in secret by the king but in public at the 
 office of the exchequer. A drastic act to which, 
 however, George paid little attention for there are 
 documents in existence to show that in 1793 the 
 pension list had increased to ^124,000. A tre- 
 mendous sum for the times, almost one two-hun- 
 dredth of the sum the people of the United States 
 
 22 
 
are paying, not of their sovereign will, but com- 
 pelled by acts of Congress which are as despotic as 
 the edicts of the czar of Russia. 
 
IV. 
 
 ENGLISH PENSIONS AND THEIR TEACHING. 
 When the people of England had persuaded 
 King George III. to graciously consent to the acl: 
 of 1782, they undoubtedly congratulated them- 
 selves upon having terminated the greater abuses 
 of the pension system. When, however, they per- 
 ceived that the abuses continued to about as great 
 an extent as ever, they naturally opened their eyes 
 with surprise, wondering whence came the funds 
 for such prodigality. They seemed to have for- 
 gotten for the moment that George was, by the 
 grace of God, not only king of Great Britain, but 
 also king of Ireland, that the acts of their parlia- 
 ment did not extend to Ireland, that Ireland had 
 its own parliament (till 1801), that King George 
 could still dispose of the Irish revenues as he had 
 been disposing of the revenues of England, and 
 that the hereditary revenues of Ireland amounted 
 to about the sum of ^300,000. Nothing could be 
 done but to persuade the king to be as graciously 
 disposed in the matter of the Irish revenues as he 
 had been in the matter of the English revenues. 
 The pressure was all the stronger on the part of 
 the Irish because the Irish revenues were for the 
 
 most part distributed outside of their country, 
 
 24 
 
among English pensioners whose votes and influ- 
 ence were of importance, while Ireland which sup- 
 plied the cash enjoyed but little of the benefit. 
 
 In 1793, when war was declared between Eng- 
 land and France, and it became of vital importance 
 to hold the turbulent Irish fast to the English 
 crown, a pension bill was introduced into the Irish 
 parliament, was pa'ssed and was signed by the 
 king. 
 
 By this bill, which was modeled on the English 
 bill of 1782, it was provided : 
 
 " That the whole amount of pensions to be 
 granted in Ireland in one year should not exceed 
 one thousand two hundred pounds until the 
 whole pension should be reduced to eighty thou- 
 sand pounds, which sum it should not afterwards 
 be lawful to exceed ; and that no pension should 
 be granted after such reduction, to or for the use 
 of any one person, exceeding the sum of one thoii- 
 sand two hundred pounds except to his majesty's 
 royal family, or on an address of either house of 
 parliament." 
 
 The king still had the hereditary revenues of 
 Scotland. These he continued to enjoy till 1810 
 when insanity put a stop to his activities. At 
 about the time of the transfer of the regal author- 
 ity to the Prince of Wales, afterwards George IV., 
 an act was passed to the effect that no amount 
 
 25 
 
greater than ^f8oo should be granted in any one 
 year from the Scotch revenues until the Scotch 
 pension list should be reduced to ^25,000, and 
 that no pension exceeding ^300 a year should be 
 given to any one person. 
 
 During the reigns of George IV. and William 
 IV. other .and minor acts were passed still further 
 reducing the funds available for pensions and also 
 consolidating the pension lists of the three king- 
 doms. 
 
 Finally, on the accession of Queen Victoria, an 
 act was passed (i & 2 Vic. c. 2.) regulating all the 
 expenses of royalty. As this act is law to-day, 
 parts of it may be read with interest. 
 
 The parts relating to pensions are as follows : 
 
 " Sec. 5. And, whereas, it is expedient to make 
 provision at the rate of ^1,200 a year for each and 
 every succeeding year of her Majesty's reign to 
 defray the charge of such pensions as may be 
 granted by her Majesty, chargeable on her Majes- 
 ty's civil list revenues ; be it therefore enabled : 
 That it shall be lawful for the lord high treasurer, 
 or for the commissioners of her Majesty's treasury, 
 for the time being to charge upon and issue quar- 
 terly out of the said consolidated fund, as an addi- 
 tion to the sum hereby granted for her Majesty's 
 civil list, such sums as shall be required to defray 
 the charge of such pensions as may be granted, as 
 26 
 
aforesaid, at the rate of ^1,200 a year for the first 
 year of her Majesty's reign, and at the like addi- 
 ' tional yearly rate for the second and every succeed- 
 ing year of her said reign. 
 
 Sec. 6. And, whereas, it was resolved by the 
 houses of parliament, on the i8th day of Feb- 
 ruary, 1834, that it is the bounden duty of the 
 responsible advisers of the Crown to recom- 
 mend to his Majesty (William IV.) for grants of 
 pensions on the civil list such persons only as 
 have just claims on the royal beneficence, or who 
 by their personal services to the Crown, by the 
 performance of duties to the public, or by their 
 useful discoveries in science and attainments in 
 literature and the arts, have merited the gracious 
 consideration of their sovereign and the gratitude 
 of their country : and whereas it is expedient that 
 provision should be made by law for carrying into 
 full effect the said resolution, and for giving an 
 assurance to parliament that the responsible ad- 
 visers of the Crown have acted in conformity 
 therewith : be it therefore enacted, That the pen- 
 sions which may hereafter be charged upon the 
 civil suit revenues shall be granted to such per- 
 sons only as have just claims on the royal benefi- 
 cence, or who by their personal services to the 
 Crown, by the performance of duties to the public, 
 or by their useful discoveries in science and attaiii- 
 
 27 
 
ments in literature and the arts, have merited the 
 gracious consideration of their sovereign and the 
 gratitude of their country : and that a list of all 
 such pensions granted in each year ending the 
 twentieth day of June shall be laid before parlia- 
 ment within thirty days after the said twentieth 
 day of June in each year, if parliament shall be 
 then sitting, but if parliament shall not be then 
 sitting, then within thirty days after the next 
 meeting of parliament." 
 
 The effect of this act on pensions is thus stated 
 by Sir Thomas Erskine May in his Constitutional 
 History of England, Vol. i, p. 214: 
 
 ' The pensions thus reduced in amount and 
 subjected to proper regulations, have since been 
 beyond the reach of constitutional jealousy. They 
 no longer afford the means of corruption ; they 
 add little to the influence of the Crown they im- 
 pose but a trifling burden on the people and the 
 names of those who receive the royal bounty are 
 generally such as to command respect and sym- 
 pathy." 
 
 Thus by persistent endeavor, lasting for gener- 
 ations, the English people have succeeded in driv- 
 ing from their country demons of corruption 
 which the American people are welcoming to their 
 shores, clothing them with the outward apparel of 
 
 patriotism and gratitude. 
 28 
 
Other parts of the act, though relating only in- 
 directly to the subject, are interesting for they 
 show the sums the queen still has at her disposal. 
 
 Three hundred and eighty-five thousand pounds 
 a year are devoted to supporting the dignity and 
 comfort of royalty. This sum is divided into six 
 classes, as follows : 
 
 First class For her majesty's privy purse, . . 60,000 
 Second class Salaries for her majesty's household, 
 
 and retired allowances, 131,260 
 
 Third class Expenses of her majesty's household, 172,500 
 Fourth class Royal bounty, alms and special ser- 
 vices, 13,000 
 
 Fifth class 1,200 for pensions, a special appro- 
 priation. 
 Sixth class Unappropriated moneys, . . . 8,040 
 
 Total, ,385,000 
 
 Anything saved in one class during the year 
 may be used to cover excesses in other classes, 
 with the exception of the pension class. Pay- 
 ment, distribution, etc., to be made by the lord 
 high treasurer, or by any three or more commis- 
 sioners of the treasury. 
 
 The Crown has in addition certain other sources 
 of income which have not as yet been disturbed by 
 any act of parliament but which remain as they 
 have always existed. These are called " The 
 Small Branches of the Hereditary Revenue " and 
 consist in a number of medieval rights and taxes 
 
 29 
 
which are apparently allowed to remain in remem- 
 brance of the time when royalty was supreme. 
 They still yield about ^150,000 a year. The 
 crown has also the independent enjoyment of the 
 revenues of the duchy of Lancaster which amount 
 to about ^50,000 a year. These sums, together 
 with classes one and four, constitute a large 
 amount with which her majesty could commit 
 large iniquities if so disposed, but bribery and cor- 
 ruption have ceased to be factors in English polit- 
 ical life. 
 
 The argument against the constitutionality of 
 pension laws might stop right here ; for enough 
 has already been shown to prove their inconsist- 
 ency with such a republican form of government 
 as the government of the United States. The 
 Constitution was ordained and established to form 
 a more perfect union. Laws that tax the Union 
 for the benefit of a part of it, or for the benefit of a 
 certain class of its citizens, impair the strength of 
 the Union, because they teach the most unrepub- 
 lican of notions, that a man may live without 
 labor ; may draw sustenance from the government 
 without service. The Constitution was ordained 
 and established to promote the general welfare. 
 It is impossible to conceive of laws more inju- 
 rious to the general welfare than pension laws, or 
 anything more dangerous to a republic than the 
 30 
 
creation of a large body of pensioners whose 
 methods of thought and manners of living are un- 
 republican because their political convictions are 
 handicapped ; their energies directed to sapping the 
 resources of the Union to which their lives and 
 their resources should be ever ready contributions. 
 The Constitution was ordained and established to 
 provide for the common defence. With such laws 
 on the statute book as a precedent, it would be im- 
 possible for this country, were it ten times richer, 
 to bear the expense of a war of any magnitude. 
 The Constitution was ordained and established to 
 secure the blessings of liberty. It is idle to speak 
 of liberty in a country of which the people permit 
 themselves to be taxed hundreds of millions with- 
 out a cent of return. If there be any limit what- 
 soever to the power of Congress, that limit has 
 been overstepped. If Congress is not to be recog- 
 nized as autocratic and as despotic as the sul- 
 tan, then what has become of American citizen- 
 ship that it should keep silent ! 
 
 To confer a pension is an individual act of pri- 
 vate munificence and gratitude. Congress is not 
 a person and has not a dollar of its own for charity. 
 Its funds are trust funds, raised and held for cer- 
 tain well defined constitutional purposes and for 
 no others. 
 
 Pensions should be managed by the people of 
 
 31 
 
the United States precisely as they manage their 
 other charities. The power to grant pensions on 
 a large scale is a sovereign power, only to be exer- 
 cised by a sovereign, and only with funds over 
 which he has sovereign control. Distribution of 
 pensions in this country can only be constitu- 
 tionally done by the sovereign people in their 
 sovereign and individual capacity, and with funds 
 which they take voluntarily from their individual 
 pockets. Congress has no more right to tax the 
 people of the United States for pensions for a par- 
 ticular class of citizens than it has a right to tax 
 for foreign or domestic missions ; for hospitals, or 
 for free beer. Whether individual States have the 
 right is another question. Certain it is that if 
 they possessed it they have not surrendered it. 
 
 At the first meeting of the next Congress the 
 following amendment to the pension laws might 
 be offered : 
 
 " Resolved Funds for pensioning soldiers of the 
 civil war shall hereafter be provided by the volun- 
 tary contributions of the people of the United 
 States and only the citizens of the States which 
 remained faithful to the Union shall be permitted 
 to contribute." 
 
 That would put the matter on a proper basis. It 
 cannot be doubted that the citizens of the loyal 
 States would respond in a manner creditable to 
 32 
 
their generosity and to their common sense. There 
 is no possible notion, or theory, of the government 
 of the United States by which Congress can im- 
 pose a tax on the people at large without a result- 
 ing and equivalent benefit to the people at large. 
 The only definition, which is as clear in history 
 as in lexicology, is that a pension is an allowance 
 without an equivalent. 
 
 33 
 
V. 
 
 FRENCH PENSIONS. 
 
 As in the United States principles and notions 
 of government were derived from Great Britain, 
 and as the laws of the several States are founded 
 upon English laws, it would seem that a review of 
 the history of English pensions were sufficient to 
 prepare the mind for the study of United States 
 pensions. Still a brief review of the history of 
 pensions in the so-called sister republic of France 
 cannot fail to increase general information on the 
 subject and may expose one, if not the chief, of 
 the fallacies on which the idea of United States 
 pensions rests. That is the French idea of PEtat. 
 
 French kings from Philip Augustus to Louis 
 XVI. had the same notions of prerogatives which 
 were held by English kings across the channel. 
 They had at first more difficulty in enforcing 
 them, for the country was not a conquered coun- 
 try and at times the kings of France had subjects 
 who were their equals in wealth and power. 
 The origin of pensions is past finding out. In 
 France the word had a more extended meaning 
 than in England and apparently included all gifts 
 made by the king. The earliest mention of the 
 
 34 
 
word given by Littre, the celebrated French, lexi- 
 cographer, is of the fourteenth century. In the 
 chronicles of the Church of St. Denis it is stated 
 that there were several cardinals who belonged to 
 Charles VI. and were of his pension (de sa pension) . 
 Littre does not state who the cardinals were, or 
 when, for what purpose, or to what amount, they 
 were pensioned. As Charles lived till 1422, and 
 as the famous Council of Constance was in session 
 from 1414 till 1418, it may be that the king's cash 
 was for the purpose of having the interests of 
 France properly represented before that famous 
 body. When the Council had finished burning 
 heretics and settled down to regular business, one 
 of its adls was to depose Benedict XIII., the 
 French anti-pope. The king's cash, therefore, 
 may have been bestowed " without an equivalent,'' 
 as are United States pensions to-day. 
 
 From the time of Charles VI. to the revolution 
 of 1790 French histories, biographies, memoirs 
 and letters contain many references to pensions 
 and pensioners. From these it appears, as al- 
 ready stated, that the word was used in a very 
 general sense and included all the graces, favors 
 and gifts of royalty, from the half pay of a retired 
 sub-officer to the rich establishments of princes ; 
 from the reward for gallantry on a field of battle 
 to the fiefs of powerful families. It also appears 
 
 35 
 
that pensions of every description and of every 
 value, were alike accorded and rescinded in an ar- 
 bitrary manner which was complete and absolute. 
 The whim, or pleasure, of the sovereign, was the 
 only rule. 
 
 History records frequent mutterings, protests, 
 even risings of the people against the profuse and 
 unjust distributions of pensions. In 1582, during 
 the reign of Henry III. the clergy got together 
 and vehemently protested against charging rich 
 abbeys and ecclesiastical livings with pensions to 
 the favorites of Catherine de Medicis. A subject 
 for the casuists of the time was the quaere whether 
 a bishop, or other ecclesiastic, whose salary was 
 docked to pay a pension, could without sin wish 
 for the demise of the beneficiary. In the words of 
 a writer of the day : " Pensions were pure favors. 
 Only exceptionally were they given to retired mil- 
 itary and civil officers. These were dependent for 
 their support on the reservation of a small portion 
 of the wages of their successors, which portion 
 their successors could easily avoid paying." Al- 
 though in times of peace a large portion of the 
 national revenues was dissipated in pensions, it is 
 only till a comparatively modern period of French 
 history that definite information on the subject is 
 to be had. 
 
 Sully, the patriotic minister of Henry IV. is- 
 36 
 
sued, with the consent of his master, a decree lim- 
 iting the annual amount of pensions to 2,000,000 
 livres. How much of a reduction this ordinance 
 effected would be better understood if the intrinsic 
 value of the French livre and its purchasing 
 power at the time could be accurately ascertained. 
 Originally the French livre was a pound or 16 
 ounces of silver. From Charlemagne down, the 
 livre decreased in value till at the time of the rev- 
 olution it was the equivalent of the franc, which is 
 of about the value of 20 cents. Without entering 
 into a close calculation, it may be assumed that 
 2,000,000 livers of the time of Henry IV. had the 
 purchasing power of about $10,000,000 of to-day's 
 money. If a decrease to such a sum attracted no- 
 tice and applause, what must have been the sum 
 from which the decrease started ! 
 
 After the death of Henry IV. and during the 
 regency of Marie de Medicis, pensions increased 
 enormously. In 1614 a body known as the " Etats 
 du Royaume," a representative body without any 
 of the powers of representatives, protested against 
 the disorderly increase of pensions. In 1617 the 
 assembly of notables, a house of lords without any 
 of the powers and with but few of the privileges of 
 the English house of lords, insisted upon a return 
 to the decree of Sully. The records of the re- 
 gency and of the reign of Louis XIII. are full of 
 
 37 
 
resolutions passed by one house or the other ; to 
 all of which Marie and Louis paid as little atten- 
 tion as if they had been formulated in Timbuctoo. 
 Concini, the first favorite of Marie de Medicis, 
 "knocked down" three millions on the pensions 
 he granted in Marie's name. Over thirty millions 
 were distributed in pensions before the strong 
 hand of the Cardinal Richelieu seized the helm of 
 state. After the advent of Richelieu pensions 
 were kept at four millions annually. They grew 
 rapidly under Louis XIV., reached fifteen millions 
 under the still more profligate Louis XV. and 
 nearly doubled under the weak and vacillating 
 Louis XVI. From documents obtained by the 
 revolutionary general assembly of 1790 it appeared 
 that pensions had reached the sum of 29,954,000 
 livres, a sum out of all proportion to the resources 
 of the nation and one greater, as stated in a report 
 made to the king, than the aggregate sum given 
 in pensions by all the other sovereigns of Europe. 
 What would the revolutionary assembly have 
 thought of the magnificent total already reached 
 by the United States ? 
 
 I use the word already with intent, because it is 
 of the nature of pensions, as of all unarrested 
 forces, to go on increasing. The momentum they 
 have acquired in this country has the proportions 
 of an avalanche. 
 38 
 
Among the private effects of the king was 
 found a book known as " Le Livre Rouge. " 
 In it were inscribed the names of the king's 
 pensioners and the respective sums they re- 
 ceived. The publication of this book, in April, 
 1790, precipitated the revolution and dulled com- 
 punctions at the lopping off of his majesty's head. 
 May the people of the United States be spared, in 
 terminating the rascally abuses and mountainous 
 prodigalities of its pension system, anything more 
 bloody than one of its own, peaceful, orderly, and 
 well understood revolutions. One of some kind 
 and to the purpose is sure to come. 
 
 During August, 1791, France, represented by 
 the general assembly, passed its first set of consti- 
 tutional laws. Other sets have followed ever 
 since at intervals, all showing the singular notions 
 held in France about constitutions and constitu- 
 tional forms of government ; that is, singular 
 from the American point of view. A constitution 
 must be of the nature of a contract in so far as it 
 requires independent parties to form it, to sustain 
 it, and to prevent its violation. A person may 
 not make a constitution for his individual action ; 
 for he can terminate it as easily as he created it. 
 There must be at the outset for the construction 
 of a constitution independent parties, or powers, 
 and these must be preserved in their independence 
 
 39 
 
and balance to preserve the instrument. Every 
 blow at State rights is a blow at the Constitution. 
 Centralization is therefore logically destructive. 
 France labors under the disadvantage of not pos- 
 sessing the independent elements requisite for 
 formulating a constitution. When a king has 
 been on the French throne he has been supreme ; 
 when the people got the upper hand they have 
 been equally supreme and tyrannical. Personal 
 liberty is no more secure in France to-day than 
 when Napoleon III. was emperor. French kings 
 and the French people are at the two ends of a 
 teeter which never stays balanced ; and it is 
 almost time for the king end to come up once more. 
 William, the Norman, conquered England so 
 effectually that since his time no English kings 
 have sat on the throne of England. The political 
 history of England since the conquest has been a 
 series of constitutional compromises between indig- 
 enous and foreign forces. To the equibalance of 
 these two independent and never thoroughly 
 blended powers England owes her liberties and 
 her glorious history. The United States has the 
 still greater advantage of being founded on inde- 
 pendent and sovereign States. Destroy their 
 independence and their sovereignty and the de- 
 struction of the Union will be sure to follow. 
 
 Republican France in its political poverty has set 
 
 40 
 
up for reference, loyalty and balance, a vague thing 
 it calls /' Etat. A pleasant subject for theoretical 
 speculation ; but a mere shadow, having no prac- 
 tical existence apart from the party in power. 
 Louis XIV. in the plenitude of his sovereignty, 
 could safely assert: D Etat, c^est moi ! So could 
 President Carnot to-day if he chose ; for there is 
 nothing to contradict the assertion. 
 
 In the so-called Constitution of 1790, the sec- 
 tion relating to pensions begins with the following 
 articles. These articles are interesting as show- 
 ing French sentiment and ideas on the subject. 
 
 "ARTICLE I. The State (PEtaf) should recom- 
 pense services rendered to the civil body when 
 their importance and their duration justifies this 
 testimony (temoinage). The nation should also 
 pay to citizens the price of sacrifices they have 
 made to public utility. 
 
 ART. II. The only services it becomes the 
 State to recompense are those which interest so- 
 ciety at large. The service which one individual 
 renders to another cannot be ranked in this class 
 unless they are accompanied by circumstances 
 which cause the effect to be reflected upon the 
 whole social body. 
 
 ART. III. The sacrifices of which the nation 
 should pay the price are those which arise from 
 losses in defending the country or from expenses 
 
 41 
 
met in securing for the country a real and authen- 
 ticated (cons tat ) advantage. 
 
 ART. IV. Every citizen who has served, de- 
 fended, or adorned or enlightened the country, or 
 who has given a grand example of sacrifice to the 
 public good (chose), has rights to the recognition 
 of the nation and can, following the nature and 
 duration of his service, claim (prktendre) a com- 
 pensation." 
 
 This declaration of principles is instructive. 
 The first thing that will strike an American con- 
 stitutional student is the prominence given to a 
 vague personality called " /' Etat" or " La Na- 
 tion" which the French endeavor to set up and to 
 endow with the qualities of a wise and benign sov- 
 ereign. What is this thing which is neither 
 executive, legislative nor judicial, but an at- 
 tempted combination of the three, which in addi- 
 tion must be able to experience gratitude and to 
 appreciate sacrifice ; which has obligations to dis- 
 charge, though possessing no resources with which 
 to discharge them ? What is this new member of 
 the body politic ? Is not the body politic com- 
 plete without it ? Is this not an effort to re-estab- 
 lish sovereignty where no sovereignty should 
 exist ? Gratitude is not a political principle and 
 cannot be exercised by political bodies. The citi- 
 zens of a republic cannot relieve themselves of the 
 42 
 
obligations of gratitude by imputing the virtue to 
 a vague thing they call the nation. The word 
 has the same ring as the word " world " in the 
 assertion that "The world owes a man a living." 
 No more destructive notion to a republic than that 
 there is a certain something connected with the 
 government which has obligations of charity and 
 that these are to be defined and regulated by bene- 
 ficiaries. How far away from theft is the manip- 
 ulation of such beneficence ? Is not this vague 
 thing already large and growing in this country ? 
 How many citizens continue to feel that they are 
 integral parts of the United States government 
 and that schemes to plunder it are conspiracies 
 against their individual rights ? The phrase, "A 
 paternal government," is in many mouths. A 
 paternal .government should be as impossible in a 
 republic as it is physically impossible for a man to 
 be his own father. Beware the French " /' Etat" 
 It has no place in this country. It may permit 
 pleasant and easy theories for shirking the duties 
 of freemen ; but let the people of a republic know 
 that if they will not keep the sovereignty of the 
 nation to themselves it will be exercised against 
 them. 
 
 Apart from this recognition of a fourth member 
 in the body politic French pension laws have ex- 
 cellent points. Their most excellent point is that 
 
 43 
 
they do not recognize such pensions as burden 
 this country ; that is pensions bestowed indiscrim- 
 inately and without an equivalent. This state- 
 ment may require explanation. 
 
 All civilized nations provide for the support of 
 those who have given the better part of life to the 
 public service, or who, while in the public service 
 have been incapacitated by accident or sickness. 
 This is not gratitude, or benevolence ; but right, 
 founded on necessity. The soldier who has been 
 a soldier for a score of years, or more, cannot be 
 expected to be thereafter successful in the arts of 
 peace ; nor, on the modest pay of a soldier, can he 
 save for the time of age and infirmity. Provision 
 must therefore be offered as an inducement for en- 
 li'sting. Otherwise he would not enlist. The 
 same rule applies to candidates for positions in the 
 civil service in those countries where such posi- 
 tions are permanent. So far this country has 
 shown a decided opposition to the formation of a 
 body of permanent office-holders ; though it con- 
 sents to the formation and the increase of a far 
 more dangerous body of permanent pensioners. 
 Dangerous, because they are not under the control 
 of the power that fees them ; dangerous, because 
 they make no returns for the sums paid them ; 
 still more dangerous because each payment solidi- 
 fies them as a body having interests opposed to 
 
 44 
 
the interest of the rest of their fellow-citizens. 
 They necessarily regard the government from a 
 selfish and interested point of view. Their condi- 
 tion unfits them for the performance of the duties 
 of American citizenship. 
 
 The French laws are very liberal. In general 
 terms they provide that twenty-five years of ser- 
 vice in some cases ; thirty in others, may be fol- 
 lowed by retreat on half pay, whether the service 
 has been military, naval or civil ; and incapacity 
 from wounds or sickness, operates as a completion 
 of the term of service. In many particulars the 
 laws are the same as those of the United States 
 army and navy. The chief executive of France 
 has but little power over pensions. The decora- 
 tions of the Legion of Honor, the bit of red ribbon 
 so highly prized all over Europe, is about the only 
 gift he controls. His salary of 600,000 francs, 
 with 600,000 francs added for household expenses, 
 is not a large sum when it is considered that ac- 
 cording to French notions their president is a 
 sovereign and must hold his own with the other 
 sovereigns of Europe. 
 
 45 
 
VI. 
 
 CONSTITUTIONAL CONSIDERATIONS. 
 
 In considering constitutional questions certain 
 facts must be kept in mind, well-known facts, trite 
 facts, primary facts, fundamental facts, facts taught 
 at school, facts repeated all through American life, 
 but facts which are apt to be forgotten, ignored, 
 neglected, lost sight of ; facts which therefore must 
 be recalled, repeated or reiterated in newspapers 
 and magazines, on the stump and in representative 
 assemblies. These facts are the facts which dis- 
 tinguish the Constitution of the United States 
 from the constitutions of other countries. In con- 
 stitutional monarchies, constitutions define the 
 amount of power conceded to the people by the 
 sovereign. They are the result and mark the 
 gains of revolutions, of uprisings against unjust 
 exercises of power. Rather than lose his crown, 
 with or without the encircled head, the sovereign 
 compromises and consents to the surrender of a 
 certain amount of prerogative. But all he does 
 not concede he holds. The unwritten laws of sov- 
 ereignty are still within his grasp. In emergen- 
 cies he retains the initiative. 
 
 The Constitution of the United States was 
 46 
 
formed differently. It resulted from the voluntary 
 acts of sovereign bodies who had declared and 
 fully conquered independence of their sovereign. 
 They had rid themselves of him and his jurisdic- 
 tion completely. They had re-entered into the 
 possession of all the primal rights of a perfectly 
 independent and aboriginal man. They were as 
 free from George III. as if he had never existed. 
 They had no notion of ever again recognizing him 
 as their ruler and they were equally determined 
 never to surrender the sovereignty they had 
 won. 
 
 When an American states, " I am a king," he 
 means something, but he should be taught to 
 know exactly what he means. The spirit in 
 which the Constitution was framed is the spirit in 
 which it must be examined. The Constitution of 
 the United States defines and limits the exact 
 amount of the surrender made by the people of the 
 United States of their regained rights for the con- 
 structing and maintenance of a government se- 
 lected by themselves for themselves and their 
 descendants. 
 
 For fear that this their will in this particular 
 was not sufficiently clear in the original document, 
 they emphasized it in one of the earliest amend- 
 ments to the Constitution. This amendment is as 
 follows. It should be printed in large letters and 
 
 47 
 
hung up in the busiest room of every man's home 
 and office : 
 
 "Amendments to the Constitution Article X. 
 
 " The powers not delegated to the United States 
 by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the 
 States, are reserved to the States, or to the people." 
 
 If the language be a bit antiquated, the meaning 
 is as clear as crystal. In the people and the 
 States is forever to remain the principle and the 
 power of reserved sovereignty. If this article had 
 always been taken as a paramount rule of inter- 
 pretation, what burdens and miseries the country 
 would have been spared. Another fact. From 
 the time the Constitution was adopted to the 
 present day the country, politically, with but few 
 interruptions, has been divided between two par- 
 ties whose differences can be traced directly back 
 to differing interpretations of that Constitution ; 
 one party being disposed to interpretate it so as to 
 increase the powers of the central government ; 
 the other disposed to interpretate it so as to pre- 
 serve the powers and dignity of States, and the 
 liberty and privileges of their citizens, as they ex- 
 isted at the time the Constitution was adopted. 
 The centralizing, or aggressive, party has been the 
 successful party. There is more force in aggres- 
 sion than in defence. To acquire power is more 
 stirring than to defend liberties. It is not the ob- 
 4 8 
 
ject of these articles to criticise the policy of polit- 
 ical parties or to question the sincerity and purity 
 of the patriotism of political leaders ; but it is a 
 most self-evident fact that, as the result of central- 
 ization, powers have been accumulated at Wash- 
 ington which are quite sufficient to fire ambitions 
 dangerous to the republic. In the meantime 
 state offices and state affairs, except those of the 
 largest states, are shrinking away in public esti- 
 mation, while the individual of to-day is of less 
 account in this country than he is in England. 
 There was a time when an individual preferred to 
 be mayor of the city of New York to being a 
 United States senator ; and when an individual, 
 though the chiefest of federalists, resigned the 
 chief justiceship of the Supreme Court of the 
 United States to be the governor of the State of 
 New York. 
 
 The Supreme Court of the United States is the 
 interpreter of the Constitution. For 71 of the 103 
 years of the existence of the court the chief justice 
 has been of the centralizing party. Jefferson was 
 the first opponent of the centralizing party to be 
 elected to the presidency. The last act of the fed- 
 eralist congress preceding his inauguration was to 
 remodel the Supreme Court ; and the last act of 
 Adams, Jefferson's predecessor, at which he was 
 interrupted at midnight on the 3d of March, 1801, 
 
 49 
 
was filling the new and the vacant judgeships with 
 staunch federalists. Most conspicuous among 
 them was John Marshall of Virginia, Adams' sec- 
 retary of state, who was made chief justice. The 
 making of such appointments at such a time and 
 in such a manner and in the face of a tremendous 
 popular majority just recorded against federalism, 
 shows that politics in those days were about as 
 politics are to-day, that we are no worse than 
 our ancestors, and that the great and virtuous 
 Adams was, under pressure, quite as much of a par- 
 tisan as any of his successors. During the time of 
 centralizing control nearly seventy constitutional 
 questions came up before the court, all of which 
 were decided in as satisfactory a manner as 
 possible to the centralizing party. In 1811, 
 when under Madison the federalists once more 
 controlled the executive, Joseph Story was added 
 to the bench. The decisions of these two great 
 men controlled and shaped the political growth 
 of the country down to the time of the rebel- 
 lion. Their sincerity is as beyond question 
 as their most exalted ability, but all their de- 
 cisions were against the people and in favor 
 of centralized power. The famous case of McCul- 
 loch vs. Maryland, in which it was decided that 
 Congress had a right to establish a national 
 bank and that the United States had, under the 
 50 
 
Constitution, a right to go into the banking busi- 
 ness ; and the equally famous Dartmouth case, in 
 which it was decided that a charter granted by a 
 State is a contract and therefore under the control 
 of United States jurisdiction, are but two of many 
 decisions which are at variance with the spirit, if 
 not the letter, of the Constitution. General Jack- 
 son knocked the first of the two decisions into a 
 cocked hat by his veto of the bill renewing the 
 charter of the United States bank. The second 
 has been so modified and limited by subsequent 
 decisions that it would no longer be quoted as 
 authority. It might be in order for the democracy 
 of Connecticut, under their chosen governor, to 
 give it the coup-de-grace by rescuing Yale, the 
 national university, from the exclusive control of 
 Congregational clergymen residing in Connecticut. 
 
 But even Marshall and Story in the plenitude 
 of federalistic power would certainly have hesi- 
 tated to give their approval to the unconditional 
 pension legislation of late congresses. Perhaps 
 enough has not yet been written to make perfectly 
 clear the difference between a legitimate pension 
 law and an unconditional, and therefore illegiti- 
 mate, pension law. 
 
 Under Sec. 8 of Art. i, of the Constitution, Con- 
 gress is given power "To raise and support 
 armies ; to provide and maintain a navy ; to 
 
 51 
 
make rules for the government and regulation of 
 the land and naval forces ; to provide for calling 
 forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, 
 suppress insurrection and repel invasions ; to pro- 
 vide for organizing, arming and disciplining the 
 militia, and for governing such parts of them as 
 may be employed in the service of the United 
 States, reserving to the States respectively the 
 appointing of the officers, and the authority of 
 training the militia according to the discipline 
 prescribed by Congress. " 
 
 The power to do a particular thing includes all 
 subordinate powers necessary to the exercise of 
 the chief power. That' is common sense. The 
 power to raise armies includes, therefore, the 
 power to place before men requisite inducements 
 for enlisting ; assurances of pay, food and clothing ; 
 of care when wounded, old, or disabled ; provision 
 for wife and children in case of death, etc., etc. 
 However large and liberal these offers may be, 
 they are legitimate. No question can be raised 
 about their constitutionality. They should be 
 fully explained to every man presenting himself 
 for enlisting, and should be fully understood by 
 him before enlisting. But when he has enlisted 
 and has accepted the conditions the contract is 
 closed. Congress has no more power to give him 
 increased aid thereafter than it has to aid other 
 52 
 
citizens who may be, or become, worthy objects of 
 compassion, or gratitude. Such sovereign powers 
 of beneficence, however admirable may be their 
 exercise, have not been delegated directly, or 
 indirectly, to the United States and therefore 
 remain reserved to the States respectively or to the 
 people. 
 
 The Constitution gives the United States power, 
 as it is expressed, " For governing such parts of 
 them (that is, the militia), as may be employed in 
 the service of the United States." This power 
 may include the subordinate and essential power 
 of laying before the militia inducements necessary 
 to persuade them to accept service. Nor may 
 there be any limit prescribed to the inducements 
 offered. But, as in the case of enlisting in the 
 regular army, when the conditions have been 
 offered and accepted the contract is closed and 
 there is no existing power to open it. 
 
 The existence of this latter and doubtful power 
 may be conceded for the nonce for the purpose of 
 simplifying discussion. But the difference be- 
 tween raising and supporting its own armies ; and 
 calling forth the militia already raised, equipped 
 and officered by separate and sovereign States is 
 radical and must be observed by constitutional 
 students and by students of pension legislation. 
 The relations of the United States to its own 
 
 53 
 
armies are permanent ; its relations to the militia 
 of the several States are temporary and should 
 terminate absolutely with the termination of the 
 emergency which made the " calling forth " neces- 
 sary. The duty of the militia to the United 
 States is voluntary : its State duty is obligatory. 
 
 When the rebellion broke out in 1861, Congress 
 at once passed a law governing the raising and 
 using of volunteers. The section relating to pen- 
 sions is as follows : 
 
 " Sec. 6. And be it further enadted, that any 
 volunteer who may be received into the service of 
 the United States under this act, and who may be 
 wounded, or otherwise disabled, in the service, 
 shall be entitled to the benefits which have been, 
 or may be, conferred on persons disabled in the 
 regular service. And the widow, if there be one, 
 and if not the legal heirs of such as died, or may 
 be killed in service, in addition to all arrears of 
 pay or allowances, shall receive the sum of one 
 hundred dollars." With the exception of the 
 three words, " or may be" there may be no 
 objection to the act. But the three words in 
 question are most certainly unconstitutional. The 
 idea they contain seems eminently fair and just. 
 Their intent is to give volunteers offering their 
 services at the time the benefit of future legisla- 
 tion, so that no volunteer of one time shall have 
 
 54 
 
advantages over volunteers of other times. But 
 look at the words closely. They propose confer- 
 ring upon future congresses the power to pass 
 retroactive laws ; that is, ex-post-fafto laws, laws 
 violating contracts. 
 
 Art. I. Sec. 9, clause 3 of the Constitution is as 
 follow r s : " No bill of attainder, or ex-post-faElo act, 
 shall be passed." And Sec. 10 of the same article 
 proclaims with equal force : " No State shall pass 
 any law impairing the obligation of contracts. " 
 If no State may, whence comes the power which 
 permits the United States to violate with impunity 
 " the first principles of the social compact every 
 principle of sound legislation?' 7 The words are 
 the words of the chief of the federalist party, the 
 party of centralization. To quote in full : " Bills 
 of attainder, ex-post-falo laws and laws impairing 
 the obligations of contracts are contrary to the 
 first principles of the social compact and to every 
 principle of sound legislation." (The Federal- 
 ist, 44.) 
 
 It is nevertheless true that in the matter of pen- 
 sions this principle has been repeatedly violated, 
 and that for the reckless legislation of late years 
 abundant precedents may be found extending back 
 to the earliest years of the country's history. 
 
 Attention must be called to the fact that the 
 prohibition to Congress and the prohibition to the 
 
 55 
 
States are now worded alike. The prohibition to 
 Congress is : " No bill of attainder, or ex-post-falo 
 law shall be passed." The prohibition to the 
 States is : " No State shall pass .... any bill of 
 attainder, ex-post-falo law, or law impairing the 
 obligations of contracts." The term relating to 
 the obligations of contracts would seem to be su- 
 perfluous. Its existence has led jurists to distin- 
 guish it from the ex-post-faElo clause, confining the 
 former to criminal matters and limiting the latter 
 to civil matters. It has also been the tendency of 
 decisions to leave to States their sovereign power 
 to pass retroactive laws, whenever these laws did 
 not affect the obligations of contracts ; as, for in- 
 stance, when contracts had been left vague or 
 insecure by former legislation. The idea that the 
 United States has a right to violate contracts be- 
 cause it is not expressly prohibited from doing so 
 is apparently the insane notion upon which all 
 retroactive pension legislation rests ; though, as 
 Mr. Justice Chase remarked in the great case on 
 the subject of Calder vs. Bull, 3 Dal., 386 : " It is 
 against all reason and justice for a people to en- 
 trust a legislation with such powers . . . . i. e. to 
 take property from A and give it to B." 
 
 The only possible excuse for the pension laws 
 passed during the continuance of the rebellion is 
 that they were war measures of imperative neces- 
 56 
 
sity, passed because : " Salus populi, suprema est 
 lex." If the necessity for such legislation be 
 acknowledged, it must also be acknowledged that 
 the necessity terminated with the surrender of 
 Lee's army. 
 
 57 
 
VII. 
 
 EARLY U. S. PENSIONS. 
 
 Congress met for the first time under the Con- 
 stitution on March 4, 1798, in the city of New 
 York, and the first pension law under the Consti- 
 tution was passed September 2oth, of the same 
 year. In 1785 the colonial congress had passed a 
 resolution recommending the States to provide for 
 invalid soldiers, and the acT: of September 1789 of 
 the new, or constitutional congress, was an act to 
 pay for one year the pensions hitherto granted by 
 the States. There seems to have been good rea- 
 son for the act, for the relations of the regular 
 army to the militia had been changed by the Con- 
 stitution. Under the Constitution the troops 
 which had hitherto been pensioned by the States 
 could be regarded as parts of the regular army. 
 It seemed right, therefore, that the United States 
 should assume the payment of pensions which the 
 States under the Constitution might discontinue. 
 This bill was extended from year to year. 
 
 In April, 1790, a law was passed reorganizing 
 
 the army. Under it pensions to commissioned 
 
 officers for wounds and other disabilities were fixed 
 
 at half pay ; and to privates, musicians, etc., at five 
 
 58 
 
dollars a month. A dollar in those days had as 
 much purchasing power as three dollars nowadays, 
 yet silver lunatics are seeking to still further de- 
 press the purchasing power of the dollar " of the 
 daddies," as with feigned affection they call it. 
 On June 4, 1790, the very bad precedent was es- 
 tablished of voting a pension to an individual 
 whose case was not reached by any law on the 
 statute book. Baron Steuben was the recipient 
 and $2,500 a year for life was the sum; Wash- 
 ington and Hamilton using their stong personal 
 influence with Congress to secure the passage of 
 the bill. These gentlemen, it must be remem- 
 bered, were such strong federalists that their re- 
 publicanism was more than once called in question. 
 It would be most tiresome and quite useless to 
 follow pension legislation in detail. Over two 
 hundred pension laws of a general character were 
 passed by Congress previous to the outbreak of 
 the rebellion, and over one thousand of a private 
 character. The majority of the general laws are 
 retroactive, increasing the scope and liberality of 
 former laws. Now and then a law slips through 
 Congress which is so outrageous in character that 
 a subsequent Congress repeals it ; but the drift is 
 all the other way. As stated, congresses of to-day 
 find in these early laws full precedent for any 
 action however monstrous. The only reason why 
 
 59 
 
public attention is aroused and the principles of 
 pension laws are being studied and exposed is be- 
 cause the sums required by modern legislation are 
 so enormous as to affect the economics of the 
 whole nation and to retard effort to reduce iniqui- 
 tous taxation. It appears from these early laws 
 that from the start Congress assumed and exer- 
 cised full and sovereign power in the matter of 
 pensions ; nor, so far as my reading extends, has 
 the constitutionality of any of the most extreme 
 laws been called in question till very recently, and 
 not as yet in such a manner as to bring the ques- 
 tion before the highest court of the nation. 
 
 When Hayne of South Carolina made in the 
 United States senate the first recorded speech of 
 any account against pension laws he did not 
 broach the question of their constitutionality. 
 Many of his remarks apply with force to-day. 
 Speaking of the bill in question by its popular 
 name " The Mammoth Pension Bill" he said: 
 " Under the specious pretext of paying a debt of 
 national gratitude to the soldiers of the revolution 
 it was calculated to empty the treasury, by squan- 
 dering away the public treasure among a class of 
 persons many of whom, I do verily believe, never 
 served in the revolution at all, and others, only for 
 such short periods as hardly to entitle them to 
 praise." He goes on to speak of the mighty host 
 60 
 
many of whom never saw an enemy : " Sunshine 
 and holiday soldiers, the hangers on of the camp, 
 men of straw, substitutes who never enlisted until 
 after the preliminaries of peace were signed." In 
 his review of the pension system he gives in brief 
 the history of the establishing of the system in 
 the United States. The paragraphs are so inter- 
 esting and instructive that they must be quoted 
 in full : 
 
 "The people of the United States, even before 
 the revolution, had imbibed a deep-rooted and set- 
 tled opposition to the system of pensions. 
 
 In the country from which they had emigrated 
 they found it operating as a system of favoritism, 
 by which those in authority made provision at the 
 public expense for their friends and followers. In 
 Great Britain pensions have long been used as the 
 ready means for providing for the ' favored few ' at 
 the expense of the many. This system affords 
 the most convenient means of appropriating the 
 industry and capital of the laboring classes for the 
 support of those drones in society, the fruges nati 
 consumere, who occupy so large a space in all re- 
 fined, civilized and* Christian countries. Our 
 ancestors had seen, and severely felt, the effect 
 of such a system, which necessarily converts the 
 great mass of the people into the ' hewers of wood 
 and drawers of water ' for the privileged orders of 
 
 61 
 
society. When our revolution commenced, there- 
 fore, a deep, settled and salutory prejudice against 
 pensions almost universally prevailed. On the 
 recommendation of General Washington, however, 
 Congress had found it necessary to provide that 
 the officers of the regular army who should con- 
 tinue to serve until the end of the war should be 
 entitled to half pay for life. So strong, how- 
 ever, was the prejudice against pensions that the 
 officers entitled ( to half pay for life ' found it nec- 
 essary so far to yield to public opinion as to accept 
 of a ' commutation J in lieu thereof of five years' 
 full pay, a debt which was not finally discharged, 
 according to the true spirit of the contract, until 
 about two years ago. 
 
 In 1806 provision was made by law for pensions 
 to all persons disabled in the military service of 
 the United States during the revolution ; and in 
 1808 the United States assumed the payment of 
 all the pensions granted by the States for disa- 
 bilities incurred in the revolution, and from that 
 time to 1818 the principle was settled that all per- 
 sons disabled in the course of military service 
 should be provided for at the public expense, and 
 the United States took upon themselves the pay- 
 ment of pensions to such persons, ' whether they 
 served in the land or the sea forces of the United 
 States, or any particular State, or the regular 
 62 
 
army, or the militia, or as volunteers.' Here then 
 was the American pension system established on a 
 fast and sure foundation. The principle assumed 
 was not merely gratitude for services rendered, for 
 that principle would have embraced civil as well as 
 military pensions, and would have been broad 
 enough to admit all the abuses which have grown 
 up under the pension system even of Great Britain. 
 Our principle was, that pensions should be granted 
 for disabilities incurred in military service a 
 measure deemed necessary to hold out those in- 
 ducements for gallantry and deeds of daring which 
 have been found necessary in all other countries, 
 and which we have, perhaps, no right to suppose, 
 can be safely dispensed with in ours. 
 
 Here, then, we find that, up to the year 1818, 
 the principle of our pension system was disability 
 a wise and safe principle limited in its extent, 
 and almost incapable of abuse." 
 
 The whole speech should be read by all inter- 
 ested in the subject of pensions. It is given in 
 Benton's Abridgement of the Debates of Con- 
 gress, Vol. X, p. 547. 
 
 In the opinion of some Hayne's arguments may 
 be weakened by his assertions that pension laws 
 were part of the protective system and were de- 
 vised to keep up the expenditures of the govern- 
 ment so as to make the retention of a high tariff 
 
 63 
 
necessary even after the public debt was paid off. 
 Whether this view were true or not at the time 
 Hayne was speaking it is certain to-day that there 
 can be no tariff reform till existing pension laws 
 are modified or repealed. About Hayne's time 
 Pickering and Calhoun were equally outspoken 
 and bold in their opposition and both, as he, based 
 their opposition on the notion that the pension 
 laws were part of the protective system. If the 
 party of revenue reform adopt these principles it 
 will find itself opposed by the serried ranks of a 
 million of pensioners controlling the distribution 
 of $200,000,000 a year. Yet how can the issue be 
 avoided ? 
 
 After 1850, in spite of additions caused by the 
 Mexican war and by expansions of legislation, the 
 number of possible pensioners so diminished that 
 pension laws ceased to be a topic of legislative dis- 
 cussion. It was universally acknowledged that 
 legislation had been vicious, but the hope was felt 
 and expressed that there would be no more wars 
 and that consequently pension laws would become 
 dead letters. The great mistake committed was in 
 not making use of the calm years of the early 
 fifties to emphasize opinion and to secure the 
 future by repeals, or by a constitutional amend- 
 ment. Soon it was too late. The slavery ques- 
 tion from a small beginning grew into a grand 
 6 4 
 
conflagration filling the whole atmosphere of 
 thought with its dark passions and its fiery flames. 
 Then came the rebellion and now is the reaping 
 of the whirlwind. For a serene jurist in the quiet 
 and comfort of his own study to express the opin- 
 ion that a certain law is unconstitutional is one 
 thing. For the justices of the Supreme Court 
 assembled in Washington during a session of Con- 
 gress, or during a heated political campaign, to 
 declare the same law to be unconstitutional is 
 quite another. In the first place it may be years 
 after the passage of an act before the opportunity 
 occurs of presenting it to the court. In the mean 
 time it may have been so interwoven with national 
 life that the court from motives of public policy 
 will decide every doubtful point in its favor and 
 against the Constitution. Again an appointment 
 to a position on the supreme bench is a political 
 appointment made, as most political appointments 
 are made, not especially for merit but more espe- 
 cially for political purposes, as political rewards, 
 or as personal favors for personal services. It 
 seems to be an established custom when the presi- 
 dent tires of a cabinet officer and there happens to 
 be a vacancy on the bench to shelve him as it is 
 called ; that is, to elevate him to a Supreme Court 
 justiceship. Of course no president will appoint a 
 man who is not of his own political party. And it 
 
 65 
 
is reasonably safe to say now-a-days that no jus- 
 tice will decide against his party. Under all these 
 adverse circumstances what chance for able, disin- 
 terested, impartial, rigid, exact construction of the 
 Constitution ? 
 
 A decision lately made by the Supreme Court is 
 most apt in illustration. Immediately after the 
 passage of the McKinley bill action was inaug- 
 urated by a number of importers to test its consti- 
 tutionality. Although the lower courts helped 
 them in every way to expedite action decision has 
 but lately been rendered. In the meantime, under 
 the reciprocity section several treaties have been 
 made with foreign nations ; new lines of commerce 
 drawn and new outlays of capital fixed. The 
 main point, and the only point worth considering 
 against the bill, is the reciprocity section, added, 
 it is supposed, under the advice of Secretary 
 Elaine, to soften the bill's sting. This section 
 gives the president the power within certain spec- 
 ified limits of making and unmaking commercial 
 treaties with foreign nations without consulting 
 the senate. 
 
 The text of the Constitution is as follows : " He 
 (the president) shall have the power, by and with 
 the advice and consent of the senate, to make 
 treaties, provided two-thirds of the senate present 
 concur." The text of the Constitution seems as 
 
 66 
 
simple, as plain, and as easily understood as any- 
 thing possibly can be. If such a clause can be 
 twisted for party purposes then indeed, as a witty 
 New Haven editor puts it, " The Constitution is a 
 concertina upon which any given tune can be 
 played." Yet on this point the Supreme Court 
 was divided and divided strictly along the lines of 
 political parties. Messrs. Fuller and Lamar, the 
 only appointees of a democratic chief executive, 
 were of the opinion that the section in question is 
 unconstitutional. The other justices, all republi- 
 can appointees, held to the contrary. Yet let no 
 one assert that their convictions are not honest. 
 When we were young we were told to speak the 
 truth. It takes a lifetime of devotion to the truth 
 to know a little of what the absolute truth may 
 be. How pension laws would fare before the court 
 as at present constituted can easily be anticipated. 
 
VIII. 
 
 U. S. PENSIONS TILL 1873. 
 
 The late election, in the hopes and expectations 
 of the people of the United States, has settled the 
 future of unequally protected industries, of trusts, 
 combines and all other devices for using the labor 
 of the many for swelling the fortunes of the few. 
 Not since 1860 has an election been held where 
 the issues were so vital, the decision so signal. In 
 1860 the people decided that thereafter difference 
 of color should have no weight in estimating 
 American citizenship. In 1892 the people have 
 decided that forevermore differences of cash shall 
 not be factors in the matter, and that where by mis- 
 taken policies such differences have been permitted 
 to grow to the injury of the republic there they 
 must be eliminated ; not by the play of dynamite 
 bombs but by the slow and easy processes which 
 a free people understand and which the democratic 
 party is selected to put into action. The doctrine 
 that a corporation created by one State can exer- 
 cise corporate powers and transact corporate busi- 
 ness in all the States is a modern doctrine. The 
 old and better doctrine was that the activities of a 
 corporation should be confined to the territory of 
 
 68 
 
the State creating it. A good addition would be 
 to the effect that all the officers of a corporation 
 should be bona fide citizens of the State creating 
 it. Under such ruling trusts and combines would 
 fade away like the mists of a summer morning 
 and the advantages of healthful competition would 
 be restored to the people. But pensions, not cor- 
 porations, are the theme. For the convenience of 
 study the pension laws passed since the outbreak 
 of the rebellion may be divided into two classes ; 
 those passed before and those passed after the re- 
 vision of 1873 of the United States Statutes. 
 Reference has already been made to the first law, 
 passed July 22, 1861, applying the pension laws 
 of the regular army to volunteers and giving both 
 regulars and volunteers the benefit of future legis- 
 lation. From July 22, 1861, to March 3, 1873, 
 there were passed four general laws on the subject 
 of pensions and any number of special and specific 
 laws, exclusive of thousands of private and indi- 
 vidual acts. In the matter of pensions Congress 
 has ever acted as if it were a sovereign body and 
 not a body created by and subject to a constitu- 
 tion. The apparent object of all legislation since 
 1 86 1 has been to increase the number of possible 
 pensioners and to increase the amount of each 
 pension received. Therefore instead of the de- 
 crease to be expected in accordance with the work- 
 
 6 9 
 
ing of natural laws, there has been a steady and 
 constant increase in the nnmber of pensioners and 
 in the amounts appropriated till now the number 
 of pensioners is rapidly approaching 1,600,000 and 
 the amount required is with equal rapidity ap- 
 proaching $200,000,000. 
 
 The first general law after the law of 1861 was 
 passed July 14, 1862. This law extends the bene- 
 fits of previous laws to persons who, though 
 neither officers nor privates, may still be said to 
 have been " in " the army or navy. It is therefore 
 an act of large and liberal expansion. In the act 
 the notion .of rank controlling the amount to be 
 received is still preserved : $30 goes to a colonel 
 while only $8 goes to a similarly wounded private 
 or " other person." The act, moreover, provides 
 that when the pensioner leaves neither wife nor 
 children, then a dependent mother may enjoy; 
 and if there be no dependent mother, then depend- 
 ent sisters under sixteen can come in. The word 
 " dependent " is most liberally construed. Man- 
 ual labor seems to be the test. If a relative be not 
 able to support him, or herself, by manual labor, 
 then the word applies though the applicant be a 
 millionaire bondholder or be earing a large income 
 by his wits or his learning. A son should sup- 
 port his mother ; therefore a mother is dependent 
 
 whether the son has supported her or not. The 
 
 70 
 
expansive power of pension laws is illimitable. A 
 played out old pensioner cannot be allowed to die 
 in peace. He is too valuable. He must be mar- 
 ried in extremis, and married to the youngest and 
 heartiest woman of the community who is willing 
 to sacrifice herself on her country's altars for the 
 indefinite prolongation of the moribund's pension, 
 Never at any time, or in any country, were laws 
 in operation more stimulating to deception and 
 crime. 
 
 The next general law was passed July 4, 1864, 
 the date undoubtedly selected to make the conceal- 
 ing veil of patriotism thicker. It is a hodge-podge 
 law containing good points and bad points. All 
 the good points have been repealed by subsequent 
 legislation and all the bad points are still in force. 
 The good points were in the way of strict examin- 
 ations and of prescribed time for registration. 
 Under present laws examinations are farces, and 
 there is no limit to the time within which one 
 must apply for a pension and no limit to the back- 
 ward reach of the time when the pension begins to 
 be payable. Pensions date back to the time of the 
 original cause, though not applied for till thirty 
 years afterward. So holy a thing is a pension 
 that legislators have been afraid to surround it 
 with the most ordinary business and legal safe- 
 guards. It would seem as if everybody who did 
 
 71 
 
not mind a fib or two, and who could fib with 
 assurance, might live at the expense of the gov- 
 ernment ; and in the matter of pensions, con- 
 sciences are no less apt to be weak than in all 
 other matters connected with the public purse. 
 
 Sec. 5 of the act raises pensions to $20 a month 
 in the case of loss of both feet; and to $25 in the 
 case of the loss of both hands, or eyes, whether 
 the sufferer be a private or an officer. If to every 
 person who has suffered such loss in the defence 
 of country $20,000 a month could be paid no one 
 would begrudge the amount. The question in 
 this case as in all other cases is : " Where is the 
 money to come from ? Who is to do the pay- 
 ing?" 
 
 It would seem as if Congress regarded the 
 United States as an outside benevolent old Uncle, 
 with unlimited cash and that everything got out 
 of him was so much gain ; ignoring the fact that 
 every penny voted away comes directly from the 
 pockets of constituents. 
 
 Sec. 7 is hard on widows. It provides that if 
 they remarry their pensions shall terminate. The 
 effect of this law was to knock soldiers' widows out 
 of the matrimonial market by destroying their 
 commercial value. The severity of the action was 
 partially atoned by Sec. 14, which permits colored 
 
 widows to prove marriage after the ways and man- 
 
 72 
 
ners of their own race. The value of this magnifi- 
 cent boom to the colored race is large. It is 
 almost impossible to take pension laws seriously. 
 One would suppose they were incidents of opera 
 bouffe and were addressed to opera bouffe under- 
 standing. 
 
 During the years 1864 and 1865 in response to 
 the easy legislation of the act the number of pen- 
 sioners, in round numbers, sprang from 14,000 to 
 85,000; the appropriations from $1,000,000 to 
 $8,000,000, and the number of widows from 6,000 
 to 50,000. Under the system of legislation which 
 has prevailed and is still prevailing there has 
 never been, and never is, any difficulty in increas- 
 ing the number of pensioners and the amount of 
 appropriations. One would suppose that con- 
 gresses and presidents instead of dealing with the 
 trust funds of the people of the United States were 
 ladling the waters of the Atlantic ocean. 
 
 To follow in detail all the pension laws would 
 fatigue and confuse the general reader. Besides, 
 the result is the principal part in which he takes 
 interest. The laws are so numerous, so compli- 
 cated and at times so contradictory that to under- 
 stand them clearly requires special and protracted 
 study. They and the official rulings under them 
 form a weighty volume. The literature of the 
 subject is an independent library. 
 
 73 
 
From, 1865 to 1873 the number of pensioners 
 increased from 85,000 to 238,000 and the propor- 
 tion of widows from 50,000 to 118,000. In 1861 
 the cost per pensioner was a little less than $100. 
 In 1875 it was a little over $150; while to-day it 
 is close to $200. This at a glance shows clearly 
 the reckless history of pension legislation. 
 
 In 1873 tne l aw s of the United States, including 
 the pension laws, were revised. The pension 
 laws occupy about one hundred sections of the 
 Revised Statutes beginning with Section 4,692. 
 To copy them were a waste of space. Besides the 
 few who would read them may consult a copy 
 of the Statutes. The revision is the result 
 and the compilation of all preceding legislation. 
 Very few changes were made from former statutes. 
 Laws were simplified and contradictions were par- 
 tially removed. The extreme liberal character of 
 legislation was preserved, widows hold their own, 
 the sphere of dependent relatives is enlarged and 
 the principle is fully recognized that whenever 
 legislation benefits a particular class of pension- 
 ers, the benefits must be extended to" all classes, 
 whether the working of the law be retrospective or 
 not ; or in other words, whether the plain pre- 
 scripts of the Constitution be obeyed or be disre- 
 garded. 
 
 The Revised Statutes are important as giving 
 
 74 
 
the result of legislation up to the time when they 
 were enacted. They are of but secondary import- 
 ance to-day, because the enormities of subsequent 
 legislation are so startling that the Revised Stat- 
 utes seem meek and mild in comparison. 
 
 75 
 
IX. 
 
 PENSIONS SINCE 1873. 
 
 The Revised Statutes were passed March 4, 
 1873, and the people thought they were entitled to 
 and would thereafter enjoy, for a while at least, 
 peace from pensions. They knew they were suffi- 
 ciently taxed and they presumed that the most 
 ardently assumed buncombe patriotism of the 
 most radical congressional howler could excite no 
 further legislation to their injury. The people 
 of the United States have yet to learn that *when 
 a pecuniarily profitable evil has been given the 
 impulse of congressional sanction, and has started, 
 it gathers force and power like an avalanche, and 
 nothing can stop its career till its devastating 
 powers are exhausted. 
 
 In 1874, but a year after the revision, the ball 
 was started anew. On the 6th of June, 1874, an 
 act was launched providing that no pensioner 
 should be injured by the Revised Statutes and 
 that all pensioners should be entitled to all the 
 contained benefits. That is, that all pensions 
 must be increased to the Revised Statutes limit 
 and that wherever the Revised Statutes inadvert- 
 ently cause a reduction, there they are inopera- 
 7 6 
 
tive. Or, in other words, that every clause of the 
 Revised Statutes protecting the United States is 
 void, and that all clauses beneficial to particular 
 pensioners must be construed to the benefit of all 
 pensioners. Read the act. It is an act of the 
 United States Congress and not an act of the Mid- 
 dletown Lunatic Asylum. 
 
 On June 18, of the same year another act was 
 passed increasing all thirty dollar pensions to fifty 
 dollar pensions. The second section of the act 
 provides that the act shall take effect from and 
 after June 4, 1874 ; that is, a fortnight before its 
 passage. By the same kind of unconstitutional leg- 
 islation a tariff law might be passed and a section 
 inserted making the act operative four, fourteen or 
 forty years before its passage and another section 
 added putting the entire force of the government 
 to work collecting, or remitting, consequent duties. 
 And yet we are supposed to be a civilized people 
 to have acquired a knowledge of a few of the fun- 
 damental principles of law and to possess a fair 
 share of common sense. On the same day of the 
 same year another law of the same species was 
 passed giving twenty-five dollars a month to all 
 pensioners " who are now entitled to pensions and 
 who have lost an arm either at or above the elbow, 
 or a leg either at or above the knee." The act to 
 take effect fourteen days before its passage. The 
 
 77 
 
law dos not say how, when or where the arm or 
 leg may have been lost. For all the wording of 
 the act, the loss may have been sustained in a 
 drunken row ten years after the close of the war. 
 Gilbert and Sullivan's attention should be called 
 to legislation which so far exceeds the legislation 
 of their imaginary " Mikado." 
 
 In 1875 a law was passed extending the benefits 
 of pension laws to parties who, after discharge, 
 were attacked by Missouri guerrillas. Why these 
 particular victims of assault and battery were se- 
 lected does not appear, nor why under former laws 
 all sufferers from assault may not come in. 
 
 During 1876 Congress seems to have satisfied 
 itself with an act concerning the distribution and 
 affixing of artificial limbs. If the people hoped 
 that pension expansion was over they were rudely 
 awakened from their dreams in 1879 by the pas- 
 sage of the so-called "Arrears of Pensions Act." 
 This act is so stupendous in the amounts involved 
 and sets forth so clearly the evil principles under- 
 lying all pension legislation that it should be 
 carefully examined by every voter in the United 
 States. The act is also important because it 
 seems to have been about the first pension law 
 passed since the outbreak of the war to attract 
 public attention and to lead a few patriotic citi- 
 zens to put the question where such prodigality 
 78 
 
would finally land the nation. The act provides 
 that all pensions, etc., shall commence from the 
 date of death, or discharge from service, of the per- 
 son on whose account the claim has been, or hereaf- 
 ter shall be, granted. Or in other words, a party 
 enjoying a pension to-day which was taken out 
 yesterday is to receive in a bunch all the annual 
 payments for as many years back as, with the 
 assistance of Congress, he may be able to date the 
 cause of his claim. Here is presented in perfectly 
 clear and simple language the notion that Con- 
 gress claims and exercises the right of voting 
 away the people's money when and how it pleases, 
 to whom and in what quantities it pleases, with- 
 out service or compensation, without any more 
 regard for the Constitution than if the Constitu- 
 tion had never existed and without any more 
 observance of the principles of a republican form 
 of government than if acting under orders from 
 Emperor William ! Congress would be equally 
 justified in raising the salary of the president to 
 $500,000 a year and in voting the same amount 
 per annum since the foundation of the republic to 
 the heirs, representatives or assigns, of all the 
 presidents from Washington down. Congress 
 would be equally justified in voting $10,000 a 
 year to every living and dead post-master since 
 Washington wrote his first love-letter. Congress 
 
 79 
 
would be equally justified in voting an inde- 
 pendent fortune to every citizen of the United 
 States without reference to age, sex, color or pre- 
 existing condition of servitude, or pre-existing 
 condition of birth for that matter ; the fortune to 
 be voted to take effect at the beginning of the his- 
 tory of the government and to be regarded as 
 accumulating at compound interest till the living 
 representative appear and claim the heritage. 
 How can one speak seriously of such an act ? 
 What kind of argument can be addressed to a peo- 
 ple who will accept it ? Where can be found 
 common ground for discussion ? 
 
 One point apart from the question of the consti- 
 tutionality of the law. 
 
 If the congressmen who passed the law owned 
 of their own personal right all the property of the 
 United States they would not have passed it. 
 Nor would they have passed it were their clients 
 and intimate friends, or partners, the sole owners. 
 If they had possessed a strict sense of responsi- 
 bility and had felt thoroughly the representative 
 character of their office they would not have 
 passed the law. Sense of representative responsi- 
 bility decreases with the square of the distance of 
 time and space from the homes of electors and the 
 date of election. Therefore in a republic where 
 public opinion should govern supply and expen- 
 80 
 
diture should be kept as close together as 
 possible. This is the principle which should gov- 
 ern in all republican economics. When a duty 
 involving expenditure can be performed by a 
 state, let a state perform it. Where it can just 
 as well be done by a city or town, let the city or 
 town do it. Can it be asserted that Connecticut 
 pensions would not be better, more wisely and 
 more economically, administered by the State of 
 Connecticut than by the general government? 
 How many persons in easy circumstances in New 
 Haven are to-day receiving pensions which under 
 state or city regulations would be stopped, because 
 the parties enjoying them do not deserve them, 
 do not need them, and by no stretch can be said to 
 be dependent ? Even with the best of intentions 
 existing at the pension office in Washington, its 
 optics are totally inadequate to distinguish a 
 thousand miles away cases of fraud from cases of 
 true desert. The objection is made that under 
 such regulations the veterans of one state might 
 fare better than the veterans of another. In 
 amount of cash they might ; for in one state the 
 same amount of cash will go further and do more. 
 Instead of inequalities being increased, they would 
 therefore be diminished. That in any state wor- 
 thy and dependent veterans would suffer cannot 
 be supposed. Even if a state were negligent, no 
 
 Si 
 
other state has the right, the United States has 
 still less right, to regulate charitable duties. Oth- 
 erwise we are living in a greater despotism than 
 any of the despotisms of the old world. If a citi- 
 zen or a state can be forced to pay a certain 
 sum of money to provide pensions for a certain 
 class of men, then he, or it, can be forced to provide 
 any sums of money to pay pensions for all classes 
 of men ; democracy is terminated ; personal lib- 
 erty and rights of property abrogated. The 
 right to accord pensions, as shown in a previous 
 article, is a sovereign right and one which has 
 never been directly or indirectly surrendered by 
 the states to the general government. The right 
 may only be exercised by the general 'government 
 as a war measure. Only during and in immediate 
 contemplation of war may the general government 
 bestow and promise pensions. When peace is de- 
 clared the right terminates. 
 
 During the years 1879 and 1880, under the work- 
 ing of the new law, the amount disbursed for pen- 
 sions increased from $26,000,000 to $57,000,000, 
 though the number of pensioners increased only 
 27,000. That is an increase of over $1,000 per 
 pensioner. Eighteen hundred and seventy-nine 
 was the banner year to date for pension agents, for 
 during it they succeeded in filing 110,673 new 
 claims, of which 77.7 per cent, were allowed. 
 82 
 
The law of 1879 is still in full swing. Not a 
 day passes but keen-scented pension hounds nose 
 out scores of well-to-do parties living in affluence 
 and in ignorance of the fortune the agents disclose 
 and offer to share. It is a wonder that foreign 
 capitalists are selling United States securities and 
 demanding their pay in gold ! If a nation will 
 bankrupt itself, there is no international court 
 with power to issue an injunction restraining the 
 act. On the ist of March of the same year 
 another act was passed which throws still more 
 light on the character of pension legislation. In 
 1865 a very reasonable act was passed to the effect 
 that veterans who had so far recovered from their 
 disabilities as to be able to perform labor, and who 
 were actually employed, and receiving salaries, in 
 the civil departments of the government should 
 have their pensions docked to the amount of their 
 salaries. This excellent law was repealed the 
 year after its passage and the act of March i, 
 1879 restores to poor sufferers the amounts they 
 lost during this brief sway of common sense. It 
 would seem as if in the matter of pensions legis- 
 lators are determined that common sense shall 
 have no play and that if by accident a bit of it 
 appear the bit must be eradicated on detection. 
 
 Month after month and year after year the 
 havoc goes on. Never in the wildest days of the 
 
 83 
 
French revolutionary assembly was legislation 
 more senseless, more unrestrained. Now and 
 then an act is passed which, by way of relief, 
 may be regarded humorously. For instance, on 
 March 3, 1879 the following was enadled : 
 
 "Be it enadled, that all pensioners now on the 
 pension rolls, or who may hereafter be placed 
 thereon, for amputation of either leg at the hip 
 joint, shall receive, etc., etc." The act does not 
 state that the pensioners must undergo the ampu- 
 tation in question in order to enjoy its benefits. 
 It only states that they must be put on the rolls 
 for the purpose. Purpose is one thing, accom- 
 plishment another. There is nothing in the act 
 to prevent the soundest soldier in the army hav- 
 ing himself put on the rolls for the purpose of 
 amputation and with both legs enjoying the ben- 
 efits of the act indefinitely. 
 
 All through the eighties, numbers increase in 
 magnitude. In 1880 there were over 250,000 pen- 
 sioners and over $57,000,000 of disbursements. 
 In 1890 there were over 537,000 pensioners and 
 over $106,000,000 of disbursements. An increase 
 of 10 per cent, a year. 
 
 Finally the last and most startling enormity is 
 reached which if not repealed will bankrupt the 
 nation before the nation is five years older. 
 
 84 
 
X. 
 
 THE ACT OF 1890. 
 
 The readers of these articles cannot have failed 
 to acquire a knowledge of the origin and nature of 
 pensions and of the history and character of 
 United States legislation on the subject. The 
 writer's object has been to present the subject 
 simply and free from technicalities, not fully but 
 tersely and without detail, so that reading would 
 be without fatigue and understanding without 
 effort. 
 
 The last act to be considered is the act of June 
 27, 1890, the act which substantially puts on the 
 pension list " all persons who served ninety days 
 or more in the military, or naval service of the 
 United States during the late war of the rebel- 
 lion." By the time the student of United States 
 pension legislation reaches this law his mind by 
 successive shocks will have lost the capacity of 
 surprise. He will read without emotion, and it 
 will require an extra effort to understand and 
 appreciate the monstrous legislation contained in 
 the act. 
 
 First direct attention to the second section of 
 the act : 
 
 85 
 
"Sec. 2. That all persons who served ninety 
 days, or more, in the military, or naval service of 
 the United States during the late war of the rebel- 
 lion, and who have been honorably discharged 
 therefrom and who are now, or may hereafter be, 
 suffering from a mental or physical disability of a 
 permanent character, not the result of their own 
 vicious habits, which incapacitates them from the 
 performance of manual labor in such a degree as 
 to render them unable to earn a support, shall 
 upon due proof of the fact, according to such rules 
 and regulations as the Secretary of the Interior 
 may provide, be placed upon the list of invalid 
 pensioners of the United States, and be entitled to 
 receive a pension not exceeding twelve dollars a 
 month, and not less than six dollars per month, 
 proportioned to the degree of inability to earn a 
 support, and such pension shall commence from 
 the date of the filing of the application in the pen- 
 sion office, after the passage of this act upon proof 
 that the disability then existed, and shall continue 
 during the existence of the same." 
 
 The rest of the section is of lesser importance. 
 It provides that parties may choose under which 
 law to enjoy pensions; that rank does not affect, 
 and that no one may enjoy two pensions, or pen- 
 sions under two laws, at the same time. 
 
 Let particular attention be directed to those 
 
 86 
 
words of the section relating to disability. The 
 disability specified is the disability to support 
 one's self by manual labor. Manual labor is labor 
 performed by the hand in distinction to labor per- 
 formed by the brain, or directed by the brain. 
 Manual labor is the labor performed by persons 
 known as daily laborers. 
 
 How many persons actually support themselves 
 entirely by manual labor ? How many are ca- 
 pable of doing so ; and for how long a period 
 of their lives can they keep it up ? How much 
 proof on the subject would be required by 
 such a commissioner as Tanner? How much 
 proof on the subject could be obtained in each 
 particular instance by a conscientious commis- 
 sioner of the very reverse of Tanner ? The 
 disability restriction of the act is inoperative as 
 those who passed it very well knew it would be. 
 The act is a service pension act in disguise. Its 
 conditions are ninety days of any kind of service, 
 a shorter period according to my reading than 
 appears in any bill of any country at any period 
 of history ! 
 
 Again ; consider the number of persons who 
 may be brought, or who may bring themselves, 
 under the provisions of the bill. The number 
 of men who enlisted during the war is given as 
 2,778,304. Of these but 75,000 enlisted for a 
 
 87 
 
less period than three months. Of all the others 
 very few are not still represented by themselves, 
 their wives , their children, or their dependent 
 relatives. But the act is not limited to enlisted 
 men. It includes all who " served in the military 
 or naval service " without specifying or limiting 
 kind or place of service. Every steamboat char- 
 tered by army or navy was in the service of army 
 or navy and every member of the crew was in ser- 
 vice. Every civilian at work in any department 
 of army or navy was equally in service. How 
 many hundreds and hundreds of thousands of 
 civilians may be included will depend entirely 
 upon the construction put upon the act, and they 
 all are as well represented to-day as their enlisted 
 confreres. The statement is therefore not an ex- 
 aggeration that the act at the very least contem- 
 plates an increase in pensioners of from 1,000,000 
 to 3,000,000, and an increase in expenditure at the 
 present ratio of from $200,000,000 to $600,000,000! 
 There are hundreds and hundreds of thousands 
 of new claims on file to-day. They would all 
 be examined and passed to-morrow were there 
 not a limit to the space and force which can be 
 utilized for the purpose and were there not a fear 
 that an abrupt increase of vast magnitude might 
 possibly arouse the people of the United States 
 from their lethargic slumbers to economic inquiry 
 
and activity. The bill was not passed hurriedly, 
 nor stealthily. It was fully discussed. Its possi- 
 bilities were exposed so far as its supporters 
 desired and its opponents dared to expose them. 
 The bill is substantially the same bill as the 
 bill passed by the Forty-ninth Congress and 
 vetoed by President Cleveland. In the follow- 
 ing Congress it was again introduced ; passed 
 by the Senate, but defeated in the democratic 
 house. It was debated for years. Hundreds 
 of pages of the Congressional Record are cov- 
 ered with its discussion. It was during one of 
 the various and varied debates on the bill that 
 Senator Platt uttered his famous remark : " Noth- 
 ing is extravagant that is right." Which being 
 interpreted must mean that the republican party 
 will enforce ruinous extravagance upon the coun- 
 try in prosecution of measures which it, the 
 republican party, chooses to assert, or asume, to 
 be right. The senator is a man of few words ; but 
 his words are solid and weighty. Nor would any 
 one presume to suggest that his convictions are 
 not most upright, most unselfish and most patri- 
 otic from his point of view. The utterance shows 
 how diverging may grow views which start with 
 differing interpretations of the Constitution and to 
 what extremes a man may be logically led from 
 assumed premises. 
 
 8 9 
 
One point will strike every reader of the Rec- 
 ord : that is the obligation every speaker acknowl- 
 edges of commencing remarks by proclaiming 
 supreme, undying and unrivalled love for each 
 and every veteran, veteran's widow, veteran's baby 
 and veteran's dependent relative. Without this 
 exordium_ speech would apparently not have been 
 permitted. It would seem as if no one, in or out 
 of Congress, had the courage to proclaim the sim- 
 ple truth that only in the immediate presence, or 
 by the personal knowledge, of misery is the heart 
 of the individual moved, and that the generic hu- 
 manitarian makes no classification of causes. Is 
 it not equally true that injuries from war are 
 assuaged, comforted and exalted by sympathies 
 and honors denied to civil disaster ; though many 
 a humble man in the discharge of civil duty has 
 displayed heroism and self-sacrifice to make a 
 battle-field resplendent. 
 
 Congressional protestations of love for pen- 
 sioners are supreme and unmitigated bosh ; and 
 no one knows it better than congressional protes- 
 tators. 
 
 The third section of the aft would have 
 attracted more attention than it has had it not 
 been for the overwhelming character of the second 
 seftion. It extends the provisos of the aft to 
 widows and children under eighteen upon about 
 90 
 
the same conditions that occur in former acts, and 
 then occurs this clause : " Provided that in case a 
 minor child is insane, idiotic, or otherwise perma- 
 nently helpless, the pension shall continue during 
 the life of the said child, or during the period of 
 disability, and this proviso shall apply to all pen- 
 sions heretofore granted, or hereafter to be 
 granted under this or any former statute, and 
 such pensions shall commence from the date of 
 application therefor after the passage of this act. 
 And further provided : That said widow shall 
 have married said soldier prior to the passage of 
 this act." This means, if it means anything, that 
 hereafter all pensions are to be continued during 
 another generation provided the helplessness of 
 any one child can, to the satisfaction of the com- 
 missioner, be established to have commenced dur- 
 ing its minority. What possible hope of the 
 reduction of pensions by the working of natural 
 laws so long as such legislation is possible ? 
 Given the right to accord pensions, there is no 
 logical limit to their reach. There is no logic in 
 excluding the one month volunteers who re- 
 sponded witn patriotic impulse to the first call for 
 troops. There is no logic in excluding one rela- 
 tive because one degree more remote than another. 
 There is no logic in discriminating between 
 classes, or in refusing to any class the full 
 
 91 
 
amount, with arrears, accorded to any class. Log- 
 ically every pocket in the United States, except 
 those of pensioners, may be turned inside out and 
 kept empty. Moreover, if the pension system be 
 recognized as a principle of government, what log- 
 ical reason can there be why the system should 
 not be extended to other classes of citizens, to 
 postmasters, to revenue collectors, in fact, to all 
 government employes ? If three months of toy- 
 ing with a musket be rewarded with a pension, 
 should not twenty-five years of faithful and valu- 
 able service in a post office be rewarded ? Most 
 certainly, most logically ! 
 
 The report of the commissioners for pen- 
 sions for the year ending June 30, 1892 has 
 lately been issued and brings the official his- 
 tory of pensions down to date. The report is 
 not so full or satisfactory as it might be and 
 fails to answer important questions. An idea 
 of the magnitude of the system may be obtained 
 from the statement, on page 28, that there are 
 4,209 medical examining surgeons engaged in the 
 work of examining applicants for pensions, what 
 a medical examining surgeon is does not appear : 
 from the further statement, on page 20, that " the 
 salaries of clerks and the per diem and expenses 
 of special examiners were, from March 4, 1889 to 
 October 31, 1892, $8,799,387.92," though it does 
 92 
 

 not appear why these particular dates were se- 
 lected, nor why the salaries of the regular exam- 
 iners were not included ; and from the still further 
 statement, on page 29, that there are " 2,009 em- 
 ployes engaged principally in the work of adjudi- 
 cating pension claims, " though it be not stated 
 how many more thousands may be employed in 
 other duties of the bureau, nor how many more 
 millions may be required to pay them. 
 
 In the report for the year ending June 30, 1891, 
 it is stated that there are " 3,800 physicians en- 
 gaged in the work of the medical examination of 
 applicants for pensions. " The number of " medi- 
 cal examining surgeons," if there were any at the 
 time, is not given. The 1891 report also refers to 
 the " total number of 6,246 officers and employes 
 of the bureau." Both reports are filled with con- 
 fusing details which make it in some cases most 
 difficult, in others impossible, to obtain the desired 
 general information. In the report of 1891 the 
 commissioner states : "I have no hesitation in 
 saying that in my opinion the present appropria- 
 tion of $133,478,085 will be amply sufficient" for 
 the ensuing fiscal year. The actual disbursements 
 were over $141,000,000. The report of 1892 
 states in the same vein : "I estimate that the 
 greatest number of pensioners under all laws will 
 be 1,200,000 at an aggregate annual cost of 
 
 93 
 
$i88,ooo,ooo." As all predictions from Garfield's 
 down have not come within millions and millions 
 of the reality it is safe to assume that they were all 
 made in the same spirit of ignorance and for the 
 same purpose of deception. 
 
 What is the remedy and how is it to be 
 applied ? The people have issued their mandate 
 and have entrusted the democratic party with its 
 execution. If the views set forth in these papers 
 are correct, even in part, then the remedy is in 
 affirming, proclaiming and enforcing a strict inter- 
 pretation of the Constitution, and in remanding to 
 each State the care of its own veteran volunteers. 
 If the United States government be a government 
 of limited powers then unlimited extravagance 
 cannot be constitutional. The constitutional right 
 of the United States to confer pensions has not as 
 yet been brought before the Supreme Court. 
 United States district and circuit judges have in a 
 few unimportant cases based the right upon the 
 right to raise armies as has already been stated. 
 The words of the Constitution are these : " Con- 
 gress shall have power to raise and support 
 armies." If it be conceded that the right to 
 confer pension follows, the right should be 
 limited to the armies " raised " by Congress. 
 The volunteer forces of the war of the rebel- 
 lion were raised, equipped and officered by State 
 
 94 
 
governments and not by Congress. They pre- 
 served their State names and distinctions during 
 their periods of service. The differences between 
 the volunteer and the regular troops always 
 appeared and were always observed. The volun- 
 teers were mustered in as State troops ; they were 
 mustered out as State troops. Then how can 
 they be brought in under this army clause of the 
 Constitution ? 
 
 The democratic party has before it a task of 
 supreme difficulty. It is of the nature of eco- 
 nomics that whenever there has been a disturb- 
 ance of values there can be no readjustment with- 
 out injury. No modification or repeal of existing 
 pension laws can be made without serious hurt. 
 The innocent and the guilty alike will be included 
 in the suffering. Reform must move not only 
 against the outcry of the innocent victim, but also 
 against the vast army of pensioners who, with 
 enormous sums at their disposal, are ready at a 
 signal with wedge-shaped compact to oppose un- 
 friendly legislation. Unless the country at large 
 add personal service to voting no change can be 
 effected. Even then steps will be slow, difficult, 
 dangerous. For thirty years the system has been 
 built up in towering strength and assured in con- 
 scious power. It may well take thirty years to 
 reduce the structure to a republican level. 
 
 95 
 
The country is to be congratulated that the 
 bravest and the wisest of Americans has been 
 elected to the presidency. And he is to be con- 
 gratulated that the country reposes such absolute 
 confidence in his leadership. The existence of 
 such leadership and of such confidence assures a 
 right beginning. 
 
 The points set forth in these papers may be 
 briefly recapitulated as follows : 
 
 1. The right to confer pensions is a sovereign 
 right which can only be exercised by a sovereign 
 person, or by a government possessing full sover- 
 eign powers. 
 
 2. After separation from England each State 
 became a separate and independent sovereignty. 
 
 3. The power to confer pensions still remains in 
 the States, not having been conveyed to the 
 United States by the Constitution. 
 
 4. If exercised by the United States it can only 
 be exercised as a war measure, or by virtue of the 
 right conferred by the Constitution on Congress 
 of raising armies. 
 
 (a.) In the latter case it should be limited in its 
 application to armies raised by Congress ; that is, 
 to the regular army. 
 
 (.) In the former case it should only be exer- 
 cised during, and in immediate contemplation, of 
 
 war. 
 
 9 6 
 
5- All United States pension laws passed dur- 
 ing periods of peace are contrary to the spirit, if 
 not to the exact letter, of the Constitution. 
 
 6. All retroactive pension laws passed during 
 periods of peace are unconstitutional and void. 
 
 TJHIVBESITY 
 
 97 
 
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