This brief period of acclamation was, however, only a gleam of sunshine through the clouds before the night set in with utter darkness.Relations between President Cleveland and his party in the Senate had long been disturbed by his refusal to submit to the Senate rule that nominations to office should be subject to the approval of the Senators from the State to which the nominees belonged.On January 15, 1894, eleven Democrats voted with Senator David B.Hill to defeat a New York nominee for justice of the Supreme Court.President Cleveland then nominated another New York jurist against whom no objection could be urged regarding reputation or experience; but as this candidate was not Senator Hill's choice, the nomination was rejected, fourteen Democrats voting with him against it.President Cleveland now availed himself of a common Senate practice to discomfit Senator Hill.He nominated Senator White of Louisiana, who was immediately confirmed as is the custom of the Senate when one of its own members is nominated to office.Senator Hill was thus left with the doubtful credit of having prevented the appointment of a New Yorker to fill the vacancy in the Supreme Court.But this incident did not seriously affect his control of the Democratic party organization in New York.His adherents extolled him as a New York candidate for the Presidency who would restore and maintain the regular party system without which, it was contended, no administration could be successful in framing and carrying out a definite policy.Hill's action, in again presenting himself as a candidate for Governor in the fall of 1894, is intelligible only in the light of this ambition.He had already served two terms as Governor and was now only midway in his senatorial term; but if he again showed that he could carry New York he would have demonstrated, so it was thought, that he was the most eligible Democratic candidate for the Presidency.
But he was defeated by a plurality of about 156,000.
The fall elections of 1894, indeed, made havoc in the Democratic party.In twenty-four States, the Democrats failed to return a single member, and in each of six others, only a single district failed to elect a Republican.The Republican majority in the House was 140, and the Republican party also gained control of the Senate.The Democrats who had swept the country two years before were now completely routed.
Under the peculiar American system which allows a defeated party to carry on its work for another session of Congress as if nothing had happened, the Democratic party remained in actual possession of Congress for some months but could do nothing to better its record.The leading occupation of its members now seemed to be the advocacy of free silver and the denunciation of President Cleveland.William J.Bryan of Nebraska was then displaying in the House the oratorical accomplishments and dauntless energy of character which soon thereafter gained him the party leadership.With prolific rhetoric, he likened President Cleveland to a guardian who had squandered the estate of a confiding ward and to a trainman who opened a switch and caused a wreck, and he declared that the President in trying to inoculate the Democratic party with Republican virus had poisoned its blood.
Shortly after the last Democratic Congress--the last for many years--the Supreme Court undid one of the few successful achievements of this party when it was in power.The Tariff Bill contained a section imposing a tax of two per cent on incomes in excess of $4000.A case was framed attacking the constitutionality of the tax,* the parties on both sides aiming to defeat the law and framing the issues with that purpose in view.On April 8, 1895, the Supreme Court rendered a judgment which showed that the Court was evenly divided on some points.Arehearing was ordered and a final decision was rendered on the 20th of May.By a vote of five to four it was held that the income tax was a direct tax, that as such it could be imposed only by apportionment among the States according to population, and that as the law made no such provision the tax was therefore invalid.This reversed the previous position of the Court** that an income tax was not a direct tax within the meaning of the Constitution, but that it was an excise.This decision was the subject of much bitter comment which, however, scarcely exceeded in severity the expressions used by members of the Supreme Court who filed dissenting opinions.Justice White was of the opinion that the effect of this judgment was "to overthrow a long and consistent line of decisions and to deny to the legislative department of the Government the possession of a power conceded to it by universal consensus for one hundred years." Justice Harlan declared that it struck "at the very foundation of national authority" and that it gave "to certain kinds of property a position of favoritism and advantage inconsistent with the fundamental principles of our social organization." Justice Brown hoped that "it may not prove the first step towards the submergence of the liberties of the people in a sordid despotism of wealth." Justice Jackson said it was "such as no free and enlightened people can ever possibly sanction or approve." The comments of law journals were also severe, and on the whole, the criticism of legal experts was more outspoken than that of the politicians.
Pollock vs.Farmers' Loan and Trust Company, 157 U.S.429.
