4 were not familiar with the other provisions of the bill. The salary clause was the first of the sixty-five amendments referred to the committee, and six full hours were spent in considering it. Notwithstanding the fact that the battle against the salary clause was already lost, I made the best effort I could to retrieve it in the conference committee. I faithfully presented the considerations urged against it by the minority in the House, and moved to strike out the clause relating to congressional salaries. The Senate conferees were unanimous against the motion, and my two associates agreed with them. I moved to strike out the retroactive feature, and the vote stood as before. By the same majority the amount was fixed at $7,500. There was no longer any doubt that the salary clause must stand or fall with the bill. It was clear that a majority of the committee represented the judgment of the twTo Houses. In this situation there were but two courses before me: one was to refuse to act with the conference committee, abandon the bill to Mr. Butler, the next on the conference, and go into the House and oppose its final passage; the other was to stand by the bill, make it as perfect as possible, limit and reduce the amount of the appropriation as much as could be done, and report it to the House for passage. In a word, I was called upon to decide this question : Is the salary amendment so impolitic, so unwise, so intolerable, that in order to prevent its becoming a law the whole bill ought to be defeated ? If so, it was the duty of both the Senate and the House to defeat it; and if they passed it, it was the duty of the President to veto it. Upon the decision I then made, and the reasons for and against it, I invoke the judgment of my constituents; for there, if anywhere in the course of this legislation, I forfeited my claim to their confidence. If the enactment of this amendment into a law’ was itself a crime, then any bill, however important it might be, to which it was attached, ought to be defeated. No public emergency can justify theft or robbery. But bad as this amendment was in some of its provisions, it is an abuse of language and of truth to call it either theft or robbery. On the contrary, many of the items of increase were acknowledged to be just, even by those who opposed the amendment most earnestly. It was clearly within the constitutional power of Congress to pass that clause. The Constitution makes it their duty to fix the salary of all officers of the Government, including their own, The retroactive pay provided for in this amendment, unwise, indelicate, and indefensible as I believe it to have been, wjas in accordance with all the precedents, for every increase of pay of members of Congress since the adoption of the Constitution has applied to .the whole term of the Congress that authorized it. It was not a crime, and we have no right to say that those w'ho ad
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