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HAND-BOOK OF POLITICS

FOR 1874:

BEING A RECORD OF

IMPORTANT POLITICAL ACTION,

NATIONAL AND STATE,

FROM JULY 15. 1872, TO JULY 15, 1874.

BY

HON. EDWARD MCPHERSON, LL.D.,

CLERK OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UNITED STATES.

WASHINGTON:
SOLOMONS & CHAPMAN

ACTS, FOR FOREIGN STATISTICAL AND GOVERNMENT BOOKS.

[SUCCESSORS TO PHILP & SOLOMONS.]

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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 large 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 RIGHTS BILL" is fully presented; and the enactment and repeal of the SALARY ACT of 1873 form a curious and instructive chapter of current history.

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

In the votes given, the Republicans are printed in Roman, the Democrats in italic, and the Liberal Republicans 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.

EDWARD MCPHERSON.

WASHINGTON, D. C., June 30, 1874.

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