In another point of view, the protection of commerce has become more indispensable.  The discovery is completely made, that it is from commerce that the revenue is to be drawn which is to support this government, A direct tax, a stamp act, a carriage tax, and an excise, have been tried; and I believe, sir, after the lesson which experience has given on the subject, no set of men in power will ever repeat them again, for all they are likely to produce.  The burden must be pretty light upon the people of this country, or the rider is in great danger.  You may be allowed to sell your back lands for some time longer, but the permanent fund for the support of this government is the imports.

If the people were willing to part with commerce, can the government dispense with it?  But when it belongs equally to the interest of the people and of the government to encourage and protect it, will you not spare a few of those dollars which it brings into your treasury, to defend and protect it?

In relation to the increase of a permanent military force, a free people cannot cherish too great a jealousy.  An army may wrest the power from the hands of the people, and deprive them of their liberty.  It becomes us, therefore, to be extremely cautious how we augment it.  But a navy of any magnitude can never threaten us with the same danger.  Upon land, at this time, we have nothing—­and probably, at any future time, we shall have but little—­to fear from any foreign power.  It is upon the ocean we meet them; it is there our collisions arise; it is there we are most feeble, most vulnerable, and most exposed; it is there by consequence, that our safety and prosperity must require an augmented force.

THOMAS F. BAYARD (1828-1898)

In 1876, when the country was in imminent danger of the renewal of civil war as a result of the contested presidential election, the conservative element of the Democratic party, advised by Mr. Tilden himself, determined to avoid anything which might result in extreme measures.  The masses of the people were excited as they had not been since the close of the Civil War, and the great majority of the Democrats of the country were undoubtedly opposed to making concessions.  Thomas F. Bayard, who took the lead in the Senate as the representative of the moderate policy favored by Mr. Tilden, met the reproaches sure to be visited in such cases on the peacemaker.  Nevertheless, he advocated the Electoral Commission as a method of settling the contest, and his speech in supporting it, without doubt one of the best as it was certainly the most important of his life, paved the way for the final adoption of the bill.  It is no more than justice to say that the speech is worthy of the dignity of that great occasion.