I have asked several gentlemen who voted against the repeal whether they did not think so, and they all now agree that the measure was eminently wise and right.

The argument against it was too strong not to have prevailed without any one man's contribution to it; and the Senate was not so strongly inclined to support President Cleveland as to give a two-thirds majority to a measure, unless it…

When I reflect upon the effects, when I see how profitable they have been to us, I feel all the pride of power sink, and all presumption in the wisdom of human contrivances melt and die away within me.

Because the people of New England, besides the natural claim of mankind to the gifts of Providence on their coast, are specially entitled to the fishery by their charters, which have never been declared forfeited.

The fishery on the shores retained by Britain is in the next article not ceded, but recognized as a right inherent in the Americans, which though no longer British subjects, they are to continue to enjoy unmolested.

But the value of the fisheries does not consist chiefly in historic association or in the wealth which they contribute to any such community.

They are the nursery of seamen, more valuable and less costly than the Naval School at Annapolis.

While it is true that many of our common sailors engaged in our cod and other fisheries are of foreign birth, it is equally true that they, almost all of them, come to live in this country, get naturalized and become ardent Americans.

Bayard who was, I think, inspired by a patriotic and praiseworthy desire to establish more friendly relations with Great Britain, seemed to me to give away the whole American case, and to have been bamboozled by Joseph Chamberlain at every…

The Treaty gave our markets to Canada without anything of value to us in return, and afforded no just indemnity for the past outrages of which we justly complained, and gave no security for the future.

I want to call your attention to the remarkable change that has come over the spirit of the dream of the Republicans; to remind you, gentlemen of the North, that your slogans of the past--brotherhood of man and fatherhood of God--have gone…

The brotherhood of man exists no longer, because you shoot negroes in Illinois, when they come in competition with your labor, and we shoot them in South Carolina, when they come in competition with us in the matter of elections.

You used to pretend that you did; but you no longer pretend it, except to get their votes.

You deal with the Filipinos just as you deal with the negroes, only you treat them a heap worse.

The Republicans, who had elected President Harrison and a Republican House in 1888, were agreed, with very few exceptions, as to the duty of providing a remedy for this great wrong.

I had, myself, no doubt of the Constitutional authority of Congress, and of its duty, if it were able, to pass an effective law for that purpose.

They realized that the waning power of their party at the South, many of whose business men saw that the path of prosperity for the South as well as for the North lay in the adoption of Republican policies, might be reestablished by…

On reflection, I came myself to the conclusion that, while the Bill was reasonable and there was no reasonable doubt of the power of Congress to enact it, yet the attempt to pass it, if it were to fail, would do the cause infinite mischief.

It would be an exhibition of impotence, always injurious to a political party.

It would drive back into the Democratic Party many men who were afraid of negro domination; who looked with great dislike on the assertion of National power over elections, and whom other considerations would induce to act with the…

Not only a majority of the Republican Senators, but a majority of the whole Senate declared emphatically for an Election Bill.

But I know that in heated political strife men of honor, even men of ability, sometimes deceive themselves by a casuistic reasoning which would not convince them at other times.

The Election Bill deeply excited the whole country.

Its supporters were denounced by the Democratic papers everywhere, North and South, with a bitterness which I hardly knew before that the English language was capable of expressing.

I think this is the last great outbreak of anger which has spread through the American people.