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CHICAGO HISTORICAL SOCIETY
PRINTEO COLLECTIONS

HAND-BOOK OF POLITICS

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FROM JULY 15, 1872, TO JULY 15, 1874.
HlSTCriTcAL SOCIETY, &$f

BY

Hon. EDWAED Mcpheeson, LL.D.,

CLERK OF THE HOUSE OP BEPBE8ENTATIVES OF THE UNITED STATES. •

SIXTH EDITION.

WASHINGTON:

SOLOMONS & CHAPMAN

Aqtb, Fob Fommw Statistical uxa Qcmamam Boon*
[SUCCESSORS TO PHILP & SOLOMONS.]

1874.

Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1874, by

EDWARD McPHERSOlN\ In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

M'gill & Withxbow,

PRINTERS AND STEBEOTTPEBfi, WASHINGTON, D. C.

PREFACE.

An examination of this Volume will satisfy any one that the last two years have developed an unusual activity in political thought, the record of which will repay careful study. Probably the most instructive chapters are those devoted to a statement of the Amendments, proposed and made, to the Constitutions of various States, as illustrating the peculiar experiences of the life of those branches of the body politic; and to the record of facts touching Cheap TransPortation, which has suddenly assumed the proportions of a grave political issue. The House bill expresses the one theory of relief; the Senate Report, another; and the legislation of certain States, a third. The subject will, for years, of necessity engage a large share of attention.

Hardly less absorbing is the interest attached to the Currency Question, which has assumed a variety of phases, and which occupied a largo portion of the time of the late session of Congress. In connection with this record, it has been deemed important to re-produce the votes of 1862, 1864, 1866, and 1868, which created the "Legal Tender" note and fixed the limit of it, and which provided for contraction and then stopped it, to the end that, reviewing the whole subject, access can readily be had to the votes and views of the lawmakers of those years.

The controversy over the "supplementary Civil Eights Bill" is fully presented; and the enactmeut and repeal of the Salary Act of 1873 form* a curi•0U8 and instructive chapter of current history.

The remaining Chapters contain the principal Facts of the Period; and the accompanying Tables of Elections, Appropriations, Eevenues and Expenditures, Currency Distribution, and Public Debt, will prove to be a mine of interesting information.

In the votes given, the Eepublicans are printed in Eoman, the Democrats in italic, and the Liberal Eepublicans in Small Caps, the classification being according to their political affiliations at the date of voting.

Much care has been taken to ensure accuracy and completeness, and it is hoped that the volume may prove useful, both to those who have present occasion to use it, and others who, in the future, may wish to trace the paths trod by those who now wield the political forces of the nation.

EDWAED McPHEESOtf.

Washington, D. C, Jvne 30, 1874.

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