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Green Energy and Technology

Vyacheslav Romanov Editor

Greenhouse
Gases and
Clay Minerals
Enlightening Down-to-Earth Road Map
to Basic Science of Clay-Greenhouse Gas
Interfaces
Green Energy and Technology
More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/8059
Vyacheslav Romanov
Editor

Greenhouse Gases and Clay


Minerals
Enlightening Down-to-Earth Road Map
to Basic Science of Clay-Greenhouse Gas
Interfaces

123
Editor
Vyacheslav Romanov
National Energy Technology Laboratory
Pittsburgh, PA
USA

ISSN 1865-3529 ISSN 1865-3537 (electronic)


Green Energy and Technology
ISBN 978-3-319-12660-9 ISBN 978-3-319-12661-6 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-12661-6
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017952932

© Springer International Publishing AG 2018


This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part
of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations,
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The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
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the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this
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Printed on acid-free paper

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The registered company is Springer International Publishing AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
Acknowledgements

A significant portion of this book is a reflection on the clay/shale work that the
editor had initiated in 2006, to complement the carbon sequestration research at the
U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) National Energy Technology Laboratory
(NETL) with support and encouragement from Dr. Yee Soong (NETL). A couple of
years later, Dr. George D. Guthrie (currently at LANL) had really set a boat in
motion by promoting our collaboration with the external colleagues. Many other
NETL persons who are not named here had supported this effort and lended us a
hand whenever we needed it. We have significantly benefited from the expert
knowledge and ingenuity of the University of Illinois professors,
Stephen J. Guggenheim and August F. Koster van Groos; as well as from the
discussions with fellow DOE scientists at the Pacific Northwest National
Laboratory (PNNL) Drs. John S. Loring, Vassiliki-Alexandra (Vanda) Glezakou,
and Herbert T. Schaef. Communication with the Shell Corporation’s geoscience
experts, Drs. Andreas Busch and Tim J. Tambach, was also appreciated.
Dr. Tae-Bong Hur (former NETL ORISE Fellow) is acknowledged for the car-
bonation data. This research was supported in part by appointments to the National
Energy Technology Laboratory Research Participation Program, sponsored by the
U.S. Department of Energy and administered by the Oak Ridge Institute for Science
and Education (ORISE).

v
Disclaimer

This project was funded by the Department of Energy, National Energy Technology
Laboratory, an agency of the United States Government, through a support contract
with AECOM. Neither the United States Government nor any agency thereof, nor
any of their employees, nor AECOM, nor any of their employees, makes any
warranty, expressed or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for
the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or
process disclosed, or represents that its use would not infringe privately owned
rights. Reference herein to any specific commercial product, process, or service by
trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise, does not necessarily constitute
or imply its endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by the United States
Government or any agency thereof. The views and opinions of authors expressed
herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of the United States Government or
any agency thereof.

vii
Contents

1 Motivation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Vyacheslav Romanov and Robert Dilmore
2 Greenhouse Gases and Their Role in Climate Change . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Robert Dilmore and Liwei Zhang
3 Clay: Geologic Formations, Carbon Management, and Industry . . . 33
Daniel J. Soeder
4 Clay Mineralogy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
Bret H. Howard and Jonathan W. Lekse
5 Advanced Experimental Techniques in Geochemistry . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Vyacheslav Romanov
6 Experimental Studies: Molecular Interactions at Clay Interfaces . . . 95
Lei Hong and Vyacheslav Romanov
7 Experimental Studies: Clay Swelling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
Vyacheslav Romanov and Evgeniy M. Myshakin
8 Monte Carlo and Molecular Dynamics Simulations of Clay
Mineral Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
Evgeniy M. Myshakin and Randall T. Cygan
9 Advances in Molecular Simulation Studies of Clay Minerals . . . . . . 175
Randall T. Cygan and Evgeniy M. Myshakin
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185

ix
Contributors

Randall T. Cygan U.S. Department of Energy, Sandia National Laboratories


(SNL), Albuquerque, USA
Robert Dilmore U.S. Department of Energy, National Energy Technology
Laboratory (NETL), Pittsburgh, USA
Lei Hong U.S. Department of Energy, NETL–AECOM, Pittsburgh, USA
Bret H. Howard U.S. Department of Energy, National Energy Technology
Laboratory (NETL), Pittsburgh, USA
Jonathan W. Lekse U.S. Department of Energy, National Energy Technology
Laboratory (NETL), Pittsburgh, USA
Evgeniy M. Myshakin U.S. Department of Energy, NETL–AECOM, Pittsburgh,
USA
Vyacheslav Romanov U.S. Department of Energy, National Energy Technology
Laboratory (NETL), Pittsburgh, USA
Daniel J. Soeder U.S. Department of Energy, National Energy Technology
Laboratory (NETL), Pittsburgh, USA
Liwei Zhang NETL, Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education, Oak Ridge,
TN, USA

xi
Chapter 1
Motivation

Vyacheslav Romanov and Robert Dilmore

Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice.
—Robert Frost “Fire and Ice” in the selection “A Group
of Poems”

Don’t let me catch anyone talking about the Universe in my


department.
—Quotations by Sir Ernest Rutherford

Abstract Environmental interactions are instrumental to sustainability of life on


our planet. Evolution of life adapts to the environment and encompasses a wide
range of phenomena, from the emergence of major lineages to mass extinctions.
This book invites you to learn the science of carbon management, with particular
focus on carbon capture and storage in geological formations. Rather than jumping
to any conclusions, we will review the current state of knowledge and discuss the
risks, available options, and likely scenarios. In the early chapters, students and avid
readers who are passionate about the global challenges, can learn the basics about
greenhouse gases and their role in the Earth’s radiative balance, about natural
carbon cycles and the challenges of controlled carbon management (capture, stor-
age a.k.a. sequestration, and utilization) including the role of fossil fuels and
common geological materials. More advanced chapters are reserved for recent
research developments in understanding the nature of interactions between green-
house gases and ubiquitous geomaterials, such as clay. Motivation for this exciting
effort is to elucidate the state of understanding in the science of clay—CO2 inter-
actions, to bridge between traditional and modern geoscience perspectives, and to
introduce consistent terminology that will facilitate communication between dif-
ferent generations and areas of scientific and technological inquiry.

V. Romanov (&)  R. Dilmore


U.S. Department of Energy, National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL),
Pittsburgh, USA
e-mail: romanov@netl.doe.gov

© Springer International Publishing AG 2018 1


V. Romanov (ed.), Greenhouse Gases and Clay Minerals, Green Energy
and Technology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-12661-6_1
2 V. Romanov and R. Dilmore

1.1 Is it Possible at All?!

Environmental interactions are instrumental to sustainability of life on our planet.


Evolution of life adapts to the environment and encompasses a wide range of
phenomena, from the emergence of major lineages to mass extinctions. One of the
greatest mysteries facing humans is how on Earth life originated, in the first place.
Most scientists today agree that the building blocks of life—such as amino acids
and nucleotides (building blocks of DNA, deoxyribonucleic acid)—arose from
nonliving matter. Evidence suggests that life on our planet first evolved around 3.8–
3.5 billion years ago (Emiliani 1992). In early stages of the proto-Earth’s formation,
after a presumed collision (Fig. 1.1) with Theia (a roughly Mars-sized celestial
body) about 4.5 billion years ago, it was a cauldron of erupting volcanoes, bom-
barding meteorites, and hot toxic gases. One billion years later, shortly after a
violent period (4.1–3.8 billion years ago) of near-constant collisions with large
asteroids and comets, it was teeming with anaerobic microbial life, in the absence of
oxygen, relying on sulfates for the energy needs; the mantle temperature was still
much higher than it is today, possibly as high as 1600 °C.
When Earth formed, the Solar System was undergoing the accretion process, and
there was exchange of material between the planets; however, Earth’s atmosphere
acted as a barrier to genetic material that could have emerged from the outer space.
In the 1950s, experiments on mixtures of reducing gases, thought to be present on
primordial Earth, produced amino acids—but no nucleoside ribonucleic acid
(RNA) bases—when subjected to electrical discharges. DNA (current biological
replicator) requires an extensive array of protein components in order to replicate;

Fig. 1.1 Collision of the planet-sized objects. (artist’s impression)—courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech


1 Motivation 3

and none of the proposed pre-RNA compounds have ever been shown to catalyze
their own synthesis. Using DNA sequences of modern organisms, biologists have
tentatively traced the most recent common ancestor of all known life to an aquatic
microorganism that lived at extremely high temperatures. At that time, the acidic
ocean was filled with positively charged protons, while deep-sea hydrothermal
vents spewed out heated (at some 300 °C due to tectonic activity) hydrogen and
methane-rich, mineral-laden highly alkaline fluids. The iron- and sulfur-rich, porous
igneous-rock mineral interface formed between the two and created a natural charge
gradient that powered the reduction of carbon dioxide with hydrogen into simple
carbon-based molecules such as amino acids or proteins and then, hypothetically,
drove the creation of some leaky cellular membranes, complex proteins and RNA.
It is possible that a precursor to a cellular pump—a sodium pump that could power
cellular reactions, enabling more complex life to form—had evolved in the mem-
branes of the proto-cells. However, recent research findings by geochemists proved
that a hydrothermal proto-metabolism pathway may not have been as easy in
pre-biotic environments as previously assumed. Organic molecules are unstable at
high temperatures, and are destroyed as quickly as they are produced, without being
replicated—It has been estimated that life could not have arisen in the ocean unless
the water temperature was less than 25 °C. Three billion years ago, the Sun was
30% less luminous than it is today. Still, DNA and RNA chains are affected by
direct exposure to ultraviolet (UV) light. Without ozone layer, UV radiation would
have been 100 times today’s levels. With sufficient supply of organic molecules
provided by the hydrothermal vents and several hundred meters of ice shielding the
ocean-water ecosystem from UV and bolide impact frustration, many believe that
this was the environment allowing extra-terrestrial life (frozen lipids, created in
interstellar space and delivered by comets and meteorites) to get a foothold on
hostile Earth (Fig. 1.2).

Fig. 1.2 What do we know or believe in? (adapted from www)


4 V. Romanov and R. Dilmore

Terrestrial or extra-terrestrial, it remains unknown what exactly are the possible


pathways to self-replication. There are several essential differences between living
cells and inanimate formations of atoms: the former tend to be much better at
capturing energy from their environment and dissipating it as heat while tending
towards lower internal entropy; the living cells are resilient to decay while multi-
plying exponentially. According to recent studies, when a group of atoms is driven
by an external source of energy and surrounded by a heat bath, it will gradually
restructure or replicate itself in order to dissipate increasingly more energy. It was
shown that the minimum value for the allowed rate of heat generation during irre-
versible self-replication is determined by the growth rate, internal entropy, and
resilience (copying-fidelity and propensity to recover from reproductive errors) of
the replicator (England 2013). The driving force of irreversibility phenomenon is,
ostensibly, the arrow of time or else the generalized second law of thermodynamics,
known as the law of increasing entropy. The hypothesis that microscopically
detailed, quantitative relationship so far derived between irreversibility and entropy
production is directly applicable to a class of phenomena that includes life remains
unproven, yet. Conspicuously, the adaptability (via mutation and/or behavioral
patterns) part of the resilience was left out of the studies mentioned here, as per-
taining to more complex systems than the building blocks investigated by using a
simple thermodynamic approach. Live (open and mobile) systems operate far from
equilibrium, whereas the original second law states that isolated systems evolve
toward thermodynamic equilibrium. Ilya Prigogine (1977 Nobel Prize in chemistry)
made progress on predicting the behavior of open systems weakly driven by external
energy sources; but the behavior of systems that are far from equilibrium, which are
connected to the outside environment and strongly driven by external sources of
energy, could not have been predicted until a generalized version of the fluctuation
theorem for stochastic, microscopically reversible dynamics was deduced.

1.2 Here Comes Nothing!

The observed macroscopic irreversibility, however, is not a universal law and is


attributed to a particular configuration of the universe as a consequence of the
unusual low-entropy “initial” conditions 13.8 billion years ago, at the end of the
Planck era of quantum gravity (10−43 s past the Big Bang (Hawking 1988)‚ cos-
mological time zero singularity) marked by the separation of gravity and elec-
tronuclear forces. Soon (10−36 s later to be exact) after that period of quantum
fluctuations—for which modern science does not provide any model or explanation
other than a controversial string theory which describes elementary threads of
energy—a phase transition tilted the balance between matter and antimatter and the
universe’s fabric had exponentially expanded for about 10−33 s (by a factor of 1030–
1040, from subatomic- to golf-ball-sized; in a manner suggestive of self-replication
of the space cells, driven by borrowed gravitational energy, in order to preserve a
meta-stable false-vacuum equilibrium of the early universe that was possibly
1 Motivation 5

Fig. 1.3 Milestones in how the scientists view the universe. (adapted from https://science.nasa.
gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2003/11feb_map)

supercooled during the above-mentioned earlier phase transition from the Grand
Unification to Electroweak era) after which the expansion of “cosmic egg” began to
slow down due to gravitational forces (Fig. 1.3).
That is until about 5 billion years ago, when the dark energy of vacuum—
allowed for by the Einstein’s theory of general relativity—increased along with the
metric expansion of space to the point that the generated negative pressure (vacuum
energy density that causes space to repel itself) became sufficient to overcome the
diminishing gravitational attraction forces. At that time, the expansion rate began to
accelerate as discovered by Saul Perlmutter and colleagues (2011 Nobel Prize in
physics). Coincidently, at about the same time (4.6 billion years ago) an external
event at a passing-by giant star or supernova presumably caused the nascent Solar
System’s dust cloud to coalesce, which led to formation of the Sun and the planets
orbiting it. However, little the scientists know about the properties of the dark
energy (“antigravity” of sorts)—for decades, it had been known as Einstein’s
greatest mistake, until a few years ago—whose portion is already 72% in the current
universe and is growing at an accelerating pace, and the dark matter (another 23%).
So, it is quite possible that more surprises are coming our way (Fig. 1.4).
The biggest surprise so far is that our universe appears to have Goldilocks
properties: an almost perfect balance of matter and energy among others, as if it were
designed with engineering precision to support the development of life, at least for
now. The Planck era quantum fluctuations, mapped by NASA (Bennett et al. 2013),
are believed to be the original factories and cradles of life; but without gravity, it
6 V. Romanov and R. Dilmore

Fig. 1.4 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_element accessed 15 May 2017)

would not be possible. The pull of gravity gradually transformed the originally tiny
fluctuations (in amazingly uniform and astonishingly flat early universe) into
galaxies, stars, and planets; the ideal spatial dimension of the fluctuations is a
mystery of its own: large enough for rapid formation of giant stars but not too large,
to avoid widespread formation of black holes instead. The short-lived primordial
stars (supergiants; past 400 million years from time zero) were quintessential to the
evolution of the Universe and to life itself as they forged the heavy elements out of
the clumps of hydrogen, helium, and some lithium (available after the separation of
matter and radiation; past 380,000 years from time zero) and then exploded as
supernovae, expelling these elements to be incorporated into the next generation of
stars such as our Sun, and the time arrow presumably did the rest.

1.3 Evolution of Life (as We Know It)

Even so, the life on this planet had to go through a very long evolution before—
according to the theory popularized by Charles Darwin (1809–1882)—the gradual
process of natural selection (by means of the differential reproductive success of
organisms interacting with their environment, as caused by inheritable random
1 Motivation 7

mutations arising in genome of an individual organism) produced complex multi-


cellular organisms via symbiotic relationship between cells of the same or different
species (2.1 billion years ago) and much later the first sexually reproducing
organisms (about 1.1 billion years ago). The latter events coincided with waves of
free oxygen build-up in atmosphere-ocean system (Fig. 1.5), as the oxidizable-rock
reservoirs near the surface of the Earth’s crust eventually became saturated (first,
near the ocean surface and much later, in deep ocean).
Most scientists believe the amount of atmospheric oxygen was insignificant up
until about 2.4 billion years ago when the Great Oxidation Event (GOE) occurred.
The seemingly sudden jumps in oxygen levels were almost certainly due to the
origin and evolution of the photosynthetic organisms; although, Pennsylvania State
University atmospheric scientists proposed (about two decades ago) that Earth
gained an oxygen-rich atmosphere largely because molecular hydrogen belched out
by volcanoes diffused into space. As the supply of free oxygen increased, most of
the anaerobic organisms that had formerly occupied the Earth’s surface were
probably poisoned by oxygen. Cyanobacteria or blue-green algae became the first
microbes to produce oxygen by photosynthesis, perhaps as long ago as 3.5 billion
years ago and certainly by 2.7 billion years ago. It consumed water and carbon
dioxide during photosynthesis, making organic matter and releasing oxygen. Other
bacteria consumed the organic matter, yielding molecular hydrogen and acetate.
These, in turn, were consumed by microbes that produced methane.
The ultimate and puzzling explosion of diversity and number of complex animal
forms occurred during the Cambrian period of Paleozoic era, possibly due to the
ultimate rise of atmospheric oxygen and formation of UV-protective ozone layer
that allowed for land-colonization, the end of Cryogenian (or Sturtian-Varangian)
ice age marked by the greatest ever glaciations (two Snowball Earths) or other,
unidentified yet environmental changes; within 10–20 million years (about 530
million years ago) most of the major animal phyla appeared and marine animals
evolved most of the basic body forms observed in modern groups. Still, the nature
took its time developing the mammalian brain. Only very recently (2.4 million
years ago) genus Homo first demonstrated the ability to utilize tools; Homo sapiens,
the extant humans (the species that is most likely to read this book) evolved from
Homo erectus about 200,000 years ago. But of course, the only species that are not
afraid of playing with fire had to be developed, naturally, at the very onset of a new
ice age. Admittedly, meeting that deadline was not a trivial matter at all. Due to its
complexity, the human brain is very challenging to emulate: with a total power
consumption of around 20 W, it is capable of performing tasks that would require
the most efficient modern computers to consume megawatts of electricity; in fact,
the engineered computing systems may not be able to fully emulate a human brain
for decades yet.
Despite the many hurdles to overcome for intelligent life to evolve, it would
seem unreasonable to believe that there have been no other forms of intelligent life
present in the universe, outside of the planet Earth. In fact, the observed microwave
background (a relic from the earliest universe when particles were first able to emit
photons that were not simultaneously reabsorbed; past 380,000 years from time
8 V. Romanov and R. Dilmore

Fig. 1.5 Milestones in the history of Earth. (adapted from www)

zero) shows remarkable (within 0.001%) uniformity at a scale of 1024 m (> 100
million light-years) despite the primordial universe being partitioned into about
1080 regions which, presumably, were causally separated during the remarkably
(and mysteriously) synchronized inflation at a pace far exceeding (by orders of
magnitude) the speed of light, during the first second of its creation. So, it is
reasonable to expect that, most likely, a multitude of extra-terrestrial life forms have
been developing elsewhere at about the same pace, in comoving framework. There
are about 71022 stars in the visible part of the universe; since the knowledge
acquired and technological progress achieved by the humans have advanced and
expanded our capabilities at a rapidly accelerating, revolutionary pace for just a few
past centuries, it might suggest that many extra-terrestrial civilizations that have had
a step of a few hundred million years on us should have achieved the power to
make their presence known. So far, no signals have been detected as coming from
life elsewhere in the universe. We can only speculate what might be a possible
answer to this Tsiolkovsky-Fermi-Viewing-Hart paradox, “Where Is Everybody?”
Aside from the most speculative hypotheses like Earth was destined to be the cradle
for the one and only or the most advanced civilization; or a possibility that every
time a supercivilization advances to the critical level allowing them to possess a
technological capability to perform stellar engineering or even significant stellar
manipulation of any kind, they inevitably find out by then that an obvious collateral
would be extremely detrimental and hence either deliberately refrain from such
actions or simply do not bother to communicate using the signal transmission forms
detectable by the low-life or immature civilizations; what on Earth would be
considered more prudent explanations (Frank & Sullivan 2016)?
1 Motivation 9

1.4 So, What Happens Next?

Well, half of the supply of hydrogen in the Sun has been used up; whence has the
hydrogen in its core all been used, the fusion of hydrogen in a shell around the core
will make the Sun swell and its luminosity increase. In about 600 million years, the
growing luminosity will significantly increase the weathering of the Earth’s surface
rocks, thus trapping CO2 in the ground. To make it harder, following a reunification
of the continents (about 250 million years from now) plate tectonics will slow
down, volcanoes will stop recycling carbon into the air and CO2 levels will begin to
fall. This will impede photosynthesis and, eventually, kill most of the plant life. In
about 1 billion years, the Sun will be 10% more luminous than it is today. This will
cause the average Earth’s surface temperature to rise, up to about 47 °C (over 30 °C
above the current levels) resulting in a runaway spiraling cycle of evaporation of the
oceans and an extreme greenhouse gas effect—Water vapor is short-lived but is the
most important greenhouse gas (GHG) because of this very powerful positive
feedback loop. However, this is already beyond our concern as 200 million years
prior to that the multicellular life will cease to exist, which will bring the Earth’s
biosphere back to square one or to a single-cell, most resilient microbial life. Mars
may become a temporary habitable shelter for humans, but not for long. So, the
window of opportunity does not look very wide then, does it—Our planet is near
the end of a habitable cycle. Now, a large asteroid (6–12 miles in diameter) hits
Earth approximately every 100 million years. The last time it happened 65 million
years ago, allegedly resulting in extinction of the dinosaurs. Who is next in about 30
million years from now? Long-range forecasting is a fool’s errand, especially when
you have a limited knowledge about, optimistically, only 4% of the matter-energy
involved, but you’ve got the idea. Now let’s put our pessimistic hats on and
hammer it home. By the end of this century, Earth is expected to heat up by 5°C or
more above today’s average temperature. The next century, climate change may kill
millions of people, collapse many ecosystems and drive many wildlife species to
extinction—and the current CO2 emissions will still linger in the atmosphere,
despite technological advances that will offset some climate-related problems.
While more than half of the CO2 emitted is naturally removed from the atmosphere
within a century, about 20% of it remains there for thousands of years. Other
greenhouse gases also have a variable atmospheric lifetime that cannot be specified
precisely, for many it is longer than for CO2. Human-produced greenhouse-gas
emissions do tilt the balance in the wrong way (IPCC 2001). Which brings us back
to the Tsiolkovsky paradox: one plausible reason why we do not hear from the
would-be super civilizations is self-destruction at a certain level of their develop-
ment due to explosive technological advances spinning out of control.
Despite resilience of the life’s most primitive building blocks, there are many
threats to continued existence of complex life forms once they even had a chance to
develop. Living species constantly face the prospects of extinction by means of
environmental disasters. Once they tune up to a certain ecosystem, they generally
require a sustainable balance of energy, water, and carbon. Carbon-based (organic)
10 V. Romanov and R. Dilmore

molecules are crucial for life on Earth. Living organisms need carbon either for
structure, energy, or both. The carbon cycle is the biogeochemical cycle by which
carbon is exchanged among the Earth’s ecosystems. These are key processes to
making our planet capable of sustaining life. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas
and traps heat in the atmosphere. Without it and other GHGs, Earth would be a
frozen world. Learning how to maintain the right balance is the challenge of our
time. Since the 1980s, growing international concern about potentially severe
consequences of the rising GHG concentrations led to coordinated efforts to
develop the scientific basis for understanding the nature of human-induced climate
change. The following chapters of this book introduce the geochemistry involved,
potential impact of imbalances on climate change, and specifics of the available
carbon management options.
To put things into perspective, we are in a midst of the Quaternary ice age that
began about 2–3 million years ago (and may last tens of millions of years) while in its
relatively warmer interglacial period. The last glaciation ended about 11,500 years
ago. The latest interglacials lasted for 10,000–30,000 years, but, according to
computer models, it is possible to prolong the current one for up to 500,000 years by
slowly burning all potential fossil energy reserves (which is about 5000 Gt of car-
bon). The glacial periods typically last for 80,000–90,000 years. For the current solar
activity, that would require CO2 concentration in atmosphere to drop down to about
240 ppm. The previous, Karoo ice age occurred during the Carboniferous period of
Paleozoic era but it was not as cold as the recent one. However, the Andean-Saharan
ice age resulted in mass extinction of species at the end of the Ordovician period of
the Paleozoic era. The bituminous coalfields of the Eastern U.S., Europe, and
Northern China were primarily deposited during the Upper Carboniferous period,
suggesting that lush vegetation persisted even during the ice age.
The Sun’s activity fluctuations, periodic changes in the Earth’s orbit, axial tilt,
magnetic field, and surface reflectivity, continental drifts, volcanoes, fires, and the
living things are changing the atmosphere all the time. Long-term changes in the
composition of the atmosphere and oceans are linked to the ongoing geophysical
changes and the evolution of life. The atmosphere and oceans appeared in the very
early stages of the Earth’s formation, when gas emissions from lava, erupting
through volcano vents, rapidly created a radiation-shielding haze enveloping the
young planet, thus allowing a primitive crust to cool to the point where liquid water
could condense. Following the massive early escape of volatile gases (helium and
hydrogen; facilitated by the very strong solar wind during the heat-up phase of the
young Sun, prior to differentiation of the Earth’s core and formation of magneto-
sphere deflecting it) into outer space (4.3 billion years ago) and partial decompo-
sition of ammonia (here comes nitrogen) and methane (one of the most potent
greenhouse gases) triggered by sunlight, the Earth’s hot and dense atmosphere was
primarily made of steam as the entire content of the would-be oceans was up in the
air. Yet, as soon as primordial heat had dissipated to space, precipitating masses of
water (about 0.023% of Earth’s total mass) vigorously came down to the ground, in
such a spectacular/cataclysmic fashion that it would make a brick wall (or even a
thousand of them) pale in comparison. At the same time, volcanoes were pouring
1 Motivation 11

massive amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere. Just a few hundred million years
later, the atmospheric pressure dropped to nearly its current level; however, after
condensation of water into the oceans, CO2 (along with nitrogen) remained a
dominant gas until the advent of photosynthetic (Archean eon) and multicellular
(Proterozoic eon) life. Life, right from the onset, started to have a major impact on
the environment by reducing CO2 into carbon-based molecules. Some scientists
believe that the first living organisms were self-replicating iron-rich clays which
fixed CO2 into carboxylic acids. With evolution of photosynthetic organisms (3.7–
2.5 billion years ago) this process accelerated and simultaneously contributed to
ongoing oxygen build-up, which has allowed the evolution of animal life.
For the past 200 million years, the atmosphere has not changed much. However,
human activity (e.g., burning fossil fuels and deforestation) is causing it to change.
Since the Industrial Revolution, the global annual mean concentration of CO2 in the
atmosphere has increased from 280 to over 400 ppm; thus providing more food
(CO2 that had become relatively scarce, on geological time scale) and energy (GHG
effect) to the older, more primitive life forms but endangering the younger, more
complex species including humans. The implications of this rapid increase in
atmospheric CO2 concentration are not fully understood, with respect to the stresses
that it might impose on the natural environment and the ability of ecosystems to
adapt to and attenuate those. One could argue that there is no harm in pushing the
atmosphere “ever so slightly” toward the early days (i.e., billions of years ago).
After all, the younger Earth’s atmosphere was once extremely enriched in carbon
dioxide, with CO2 partial pressure then being several orders of magnitude higher
than today (Mojzsis 2001); nevertheless, it did not slow down the continued cooling
of the Earth’s surface nor did it slow down the condensation of water vapor. In fact,
the oceans formation and the origin of life just happened to roughly coincide with
the all-time maximum in atmospheric CO2 concentration, and then the CO2 had
begun to rapidly dissolve in the ocean water and react with sedimentary rocks.
So, apart from a steady increase in the power output of the Sun, what is different
now? For one, this is our house now—We have to defend it! Here’s the thing: The
most likely result of the projected rise of GHG concentration in the atmosphere
(granted, with the current models) would be a subsequent rise in mean global
temperatures by several degrees. It is increasingly unlikely, but still possible, that
such increase will be lost in the natural background. However, the risk that the
anomalous temperature increases may cause serious climate disruptions cannot be
simply ignored. Prudent carbon management will be needed to continue sustainable
economic growth while avoiding major disruptions.
Carbon dioxide, methane and other GHGs, in current concentrations, are not
dangerous air pollutants, but they may affect global climate and ecosystems. The
detailed weather patterns on Earth are produced by a web of interacting physical,
chemical and biological processes. Due to complexity of such interactions, sig-
nificant changes in one component will affect the other components, thus making
accurate weather forecast very challenging. Climate change is a much slower but
also very complex process. The challenge is to develop recommendations on how to
12 V. Romanov and R. Dilmore

avoid the unmanageable and how to manage the unavoidable climate changes,
including possible adaptation and mitigation measures.
Is preservation of the existing ecosystems, while maintaining the current rate of
economic growth, a sustainable strategy? Or would it be viable if we relied on
natural (often dramatic) adaptability of the life forms to ever changing environ-
ment? These and other relevant questions cannot be satisfactorily answered without
due diligence based on advanced scientific knowledge and understanding.

This book invites you to learn the science of carbon management, with particular
focus on carbon capture and storage in geological formations. Rather than jumping
to any conclusions, we will review the current state of knowledge and discuss the
risks, available options and likely scenarios. In the early chapters, students and avid
readers who are passionate about the global challenges, can learn the basics about
greenhouse gases and their role in the Earth’s radiative balance, about natural
carbon cycles and the challenges of controlled carbon management (capture, stor-
age a.k.a. sequestration, and utilization) including the role of fossil fuels and
common geological materials. More advanced chapters are reserved for recent
research developments in understanding the nature of interactions between green-
house gases and ubiquitous geomaterials, such as clay. Motivation for this exciting
effort is to elucidate the state of understanding in the science of clay–CO2 inter-
actions, to bridge between traditional and modern geoscience perspectives, and to
introduce consistent terminology that will facilitate communication between dif-
ferent generations and areas of scientific and technological inquiry.
Natural prevalence of clays makes their research relevant to a broad spectrum of
economic sustainability aspects, from energy production to environmental preser-
vation. Not surprisingly, clays have been actively studied. However, natural
1 Motivation 13

heterogeneity due to weathering of clay minerals, combined with rapid advances in


fundamental research, all but ensured discovery of some unusual mechanisms of
clay interaction with various gases and fluids, which resulted in shifting conceptual
paradigms. It naturally triggered a social process to reconcile communication dif-
ferences between the traditional experts and the scientists attempting to advance
new knowledge and understanding. And there clearly is an urgent need to facilitate
such a transition. To paraphrase a Chinese proverb: The best time to start was years
ago; the next best time is now.

References

Bennett, C. L., et al. (2013). Nine-year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP)
observations: Final maps and results. Astrophysical Journal Supplement, 208(2), 20.
Emiliani, C. (1992). Planet earth: Cosmology, geology, and the evolution of life and environment
(Hardback ed.). Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.
England, J. L. (2013). Statistical physics of self-replication. Journal of Chemical Physics, 139
(121923), 1–8.
Frank, A., & Sullivan, W. T. (2016). A new empirical constraint on the prevalence of
technological species in the universe. Astrobiology, 16(5), 359–362.
Hawking, S. (1988). A brief history of time: from the big bang to black holes (1st ed.). London and
New York: Bantam Dell Publishing Group.
IPCC. (2001). Climate change 2001: The scientific basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the
third assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. New York:
Cambridge University Press.
Mojzsis, S. J. (2001). Life and the evolution of earth’s atmosphere. In E. A. Mathez (Ed.), Earth:
Inside and Out (American Museum of Natural History Book) (pp. 32–39). New York: New
Press.
Chapter 2
Greenhouse Gases and Their Role
in Climate Change

Robert Dilmore and Liwei Zhang

The Sun, with all the planets revolving around it, and
depending on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as though it
had nothing else in the Universe to do.
—Galileo Galilei

Abstract The chapter begins with a comprehensive review of the representative


greenhouse gases and their role in the Earth’s radiative balance. Eight greenhouse
gases (CO2, CH4, N2O, HFC-23, HFC-134a, PFC, SF6, and NF3) and their con-
tributions to radiative heating of the atmosphere are analyzed, and the mechanisms
associated with global warming potential are discussed. To illustrate the reported
evidence of changes in the radiative balance attributed to greenhouse gases, the
correlation between the global temperature rise and the increase in atmospheric
concentration of CO2, the most important greenhouse gas, is presented. The primary
anthropogenic CO2 emission sources and the amount of CO2 emissions by region,
and the disturbance of anthropogenic CO2 emission to global carbon cycle are
discussed. At the conclusion of this chapter, a brief review of global actions to
mitigate anthropogenic CO2 emissions is presented.

Human activity since the advent of the Industrial Revolution has contributed to the
gradual increase in atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) and con-
centrations of other greenhouse gas constituents. These concentration increases, in
combination with other human-induced changes, have driven additional retention of
solar energy, in the form of thermal infrared radiation, by the atmosphere. This has
led to the increase in mean global temperature at the Earth’s surface, with signif-
icant and impactful effects such as reduction in extent and thickness of Earth’s sea

R. Dilmore (&)
U.S. Department of Energy, National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL),
Pittsburgh, USA
e-mail: Robert.Dilmore@netl.doe.gov
L. Zhang
NETL, Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education, Oak Ridge, TN, USA

© Springer International Publishing AG 2018 15


V. Romanov (ed.), Greenhouse Gases and Clay Minerals, Green Energy
and Technology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-12661-6_2
16 R. Dilmore and L. Zhang

and terrestrial ice, sea level rise, increased incidence of extreme weather events,
increased incidence of crop failure and famine, and loss of health and biodiversity
in the Earth’s ecosystems. Furthermore, atmospheric CO2 concentration rise also
contributes to the acidification of our planet’s oceans, with implications for the
health and productivity of marine ecosystems, and likely impacts to the contribution
of our oceans to the global carbon cycle.
Identifying and implementing ethical and effective approaches to stabilize at-
mospheric greenhouse gas concentrations at a level that would avoid the worst
weather, environmental, and social impacts, and prevent irreparable damage to
Earth’s climate system is the focus of significant technical and policy research. In
this chapter, a general review of the basic physical and chemical phenomena that
underpin the Earth’s response to the greenhouse gas effect and the role of atmo-
spheric CO2 in the context of global carbon cycle is provided—to give context to
the technical discussion of technology alternatives to mitigate atmospheric GHG
concentration rise.

2.1 Radiative Forcing and Greenhouse Gases

Energy from the sun travels to Earth in the form of electromagnetic radiation. In
classical electromagnetic wave theory, this radiation is considered to take the form
of oscillating waves of various frequencies. While the frequency of solar energy
reaching the Earth spans the broader electromagnetic spectrum, most of that energy
is in the visible to near-infrared range, with a smaller amount falling in the ultra-
violet frequency range. A little less than a third of the energy that reaches the
Earth’s atmosphere is reflected back into space by the atmosphere itself, clouds, and
the Earth’s surface, as a function of the reflectivity (the albedo) of those bodies. The
remaining approximately 70% of that solar energy passes into the atmosphere and is
absorbed by the atmosphere, clouds, and Earth’s surface (water and ground). The
vast majority of that absorbed radiation is radiated out from those absorbing bodies
as infrared energy (energy in the infrared spectrum) (Kiehl & Trenberth, 1997;
NASA, 2016a). A portion of that radiated energy is trapped by the Earth’s atmo-
sphere—warming the lower atmosphere, moderating the extreme diurnal variations
in temperature that would otherwise exist, and allowing our planet to be habitable.
The difference in the balance between the energy entering the Earth’s atmo-
sphere and that which is radiated back out to space (Fig. 2.1) drives changes in the
mean atmospheric temperature at the Earth’s surface (NASA, 2016b). Maintaining
equilibrium (zero difference) in that balance means that average surface tempera-
tures will remain stable.
The contribution that a system component makes to disequilibrium in that
system is termed ‘radiative forcing.’ Radiative forcing, as defined by the IPCC
(2007), is
2 Greenhouse Gases and Their Role in Climate Change 17

Fig. 2.1 Simplified Sankey diagram illustrating example of the Earth’s radiative balance with
solar energy input to the Earth and thermal infrared energy in relation to the Earth’s surface, its
atmosphere, and outer space (modified from NASA, 2014)

a measure of the influence a factor has in altering the balance of incoming and outgoing
energy in the Earth-atmosphere system and is an index of the importance of the factor as a
potential climate change mechanism.

The publication (IPCC, 2007) specifies values of radiative forcing as being in


terms of changes relative to preindustrial conditions (based on the year 1750 as a
selected datum) and reports that in units of Watts per square meter (W/m2).
Factors contributing to changes in radiative balance (agents of radiative forcing)
include changes in the amount of radiation delivered to the Earth from the Sun and
changes in the composition or characteristics of the material with which that
radiation comes in contact. That includes changes in reflective and absorptive
properties of the terrestrial Earth (e.g., changed reflectance and absorbance resulting
from deforestation) and changes in the composition of the Earth’s atmosphere that
impact how the atmosphere behaves in response to incoming solar radiation and
infrared radiation emitted by Earth’s surface, and the atmosphere itself (e.g.,
increased reflectance of insolation associated with increased concentration of par-
ticulate matter in the upper atmosphere resulting from volcanic activity).
One type of radiative forcing agent that is of significant concern as a contributor
to perturbations in radiative balance is the increase in atmospheric (tropospheric and
stratospheric) concentrations of certain constituents that lead to the trapping of
18 R. Dilmore and L. Zhang

thermal infrared energy in our Earth’s lower atmosphere, such as carbon dioxide,
methane, halocarbons, and nitrous oxide, collectively called “greenhouse gases”
(White et al., 2003; IPCC, 2007) because of the blanketing role that they play in
trapping thermal energy near the Earth’s surface. Increases in the atmospheric
concentrations of these gases directly contributes to positive radiative forcing and
increases in atmospheric temperature, but can also indirectly cause radiative forcing
in response to physical/chemical changes that their increased concentrations in the
atmosphere induce (e.g., chemical alteration of ozone concentrations and distri-
bution in the upper atmosphere, and greenhouse effects from increases in atmo-
spheric water vapor concentration resulting from atmospheric warming).
An index has been developed to estimate the contribution of incremental
increases in greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. This index, called global warming
potential (GWP) allows the relative comparison of the direct global warming effects
of different greenhouse gas constituents and is commonly applied in policy and
planning related analyses to understand the GWP contribution of various activities.
GWP of a greenhouse gas is a function of the amount of time it spends in the
atmosphere before being destroyed, the frequency ranges in which it absorbs radi-
ation, and the strength of that absorption, its molecular weight, and the time period
over which the GWP analysis is being considered. A convention has been adopted in
which the GWP is normalized to that of CO2, such that the GWP factor is the time
integrated radiative forcing of a greenhouse gas divided by the time integrated
radiative forcing of CO2 for the same time interval. Table 2.1 provides a list of
calculated GWP values of select GHGs, as reported in the IPCC Fifth Assessment
Report (2013). Because GWPs are indexed to CO2, the GWP of CO2 is 1.
These values are calculated based on the best-available scientific information; as
the research community’s understanding of the behavior of these constituents in the
atmosphere evolves, these values are revised. Also, it should be noted that there are
other, perhaps more technically rigorous approaches for considering the contribu-
tion of GHGs to radiative forcing that are advocated by some in the scientific
community; consideration of those is outside the scope of this overview. For a far
more detailed consideration of radiative forcing and GWP associated with these and

Table 2.1 Summary of 20- and 100-year GWP values of select GHG constituents (IPCC 2013)
Half-life (years) GWP time horizon
20 years 100 years
Carbon dioxide (CO2) Complex 1 1
Methane (CH4) 12.4 84 28
Nitrous oxide (N2O) 121 264 265
HFC-23 222 10,800 12,400
HFC-134a 13.4 3710 1300
CF4 (PFC) 50,000 4880 6630
Sulfur hexafluoride (SF6) 3200 17,500 23,500
Nitrogen trifluoride (NF3) 500 12,800 16,100
2 Greenhouse Gases and Their Role in Climate Change 19

many other GHG constituents, please refer to the Chap. 8 of the IPCC Fifth
Assessment Report (2013).
The greenhouse gas with the largest atmospheric concentration, and the largest
volumetric rate of anthropogenic emission, by far, is carbon dioxide, a byproduct of
the large-scale use of fossil fuels as an energy source for electricity generation,
transportation, and industrial processes. Electricity generation is the largest con-
tributor to CO2 emissions, which accounted for 37% of CO2 emissions from 1990
to 2014. Transportation is the second largest contributor to CO2 emissions, which
accounted for 31% of CO2 emissions from 1990 to 2014 (U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency, 2016). Among all GHGs, CO2 is the largest contributor to
global warming. The anthropogenic radiative forcing induced by CO2 emissions in
2011 was 1.68 relative to a datum radiative forcing value of zero for the year 1750
(IPCC, 2013).
Another greenhouse gas that significantly contributes to global warming is
methane (CH4). In the United States, 33% of CH4 emissions came from natural gas
and petroleum systems from 1990 to 2014, followed by enteric fermentation (22%),
landfills (20%), coal mining (9%) and manure management (8%) (U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency, 2016). CH4 is the second largest contributor to
global warming. The anthropogenic radiative forcing induced by CH4 emissions in
2011 was 0.97 relative to a datum radiative forcing value of zero for the year 1750
(IPCC, 2013).
Developing and deploying technology and policy measures to reduce the rate at
which these greenhouse gases are being emitted into the atmosphere as a result of
human activity and, in some cases, to reduce the concentration of these gases in the
atmosphere is the focus of international efforts. These technologies include the
capture of anthropogenic CO2 from large industrial point sources and transportation
of that CO2 to locations where it can be stored away from the atmosphere or
beneficially reused.

2.2 Climate Change

Anthropogenic emissions of CO2 are recognized as the predominant contributor to


the observed rise in atmospheric concentrations of CO2. Atmospheric CO2 con-
centration increase was observed after the Industrial Revolution, and the increase
was accelerated after 1900. From 1800 to 1900, atmospheric CO2 concentration
increased from 280 ppmv to 290 ppmv. Over the next century from 1900 to 2000,
atmospheric CO2 concentration increased from 290 to 370 ppmv (Halmann &
Steinberg, 1999; Keeling et al., 2009).
Detailed consideration of the role that GHGs and anthropogenic emissions of
GHGs play in shifting the radiative balance, mean temperature, and related issues of
weather patterns, distribution of water in the atmosphere and Earth’s surface, and
other issues potentially impactful to global stasis, is beyond the focus of this
summary.
20 R. Dilmore and L. Zhang

Corresponding to that trend of increasing CO2 concentration, the IPCC reported


that the Earth’s average global surface temperature increased 0.6 ± 0.2 °C, over
the twentieth century (IPCC, 2007). A plot of indexed mean land-ocean temperature
(an average temperature at the Earth’s surface derived from surface air temperature
measurements and satellite data-derived estimates of sea surface temperature in
regions without sea ice) as reported by the NASA Goddard Institute for Space
Studies (GISTEMP Team, 2016; Hansen, Ruedy, Sato, & Lo, 2010) as a function of
the atmospheric concentration of CO2 between 1959 and 2008 (Keeling, Piper,
Bollenbacher, & Walker, 2009) shows a strong correlation between CO2 concen-
tration change and land-ocean temperature change (Fig. 2.2).
Concurrent with observations of the rise of the Earth’s average global surface
temperature, other related significant effects have been observed with important
implications for the health of our planet. A global rise in sea level of 0.1–0.2 m was
observed through the twentieth century—with this rise primarily attributed to a
decrease in snow and ice cover over the northern hemisphere (NASA, 2016c). Also,
as atmospheric concentrations of CO2 rise, the amount of CO2 that is absorbed into
surface water bodies at the atmosphere/water interface also increase. While this
absorption does remove significant amounts of CO2 from the atmosphere, the
dissolution of this gas causes the acidity of that water to increase. Since the
beginning of the Industrial Revolution, the pH of surface ocean waters has fallen by
0.1 pH units, which represents approximately a 30% increase in acidity. Future
predictions indicate that the oceans will continue to absorb CO2 and become even
more acidic. Estimates of future carbon dioxide levels, based on business-as-usual
emission scenarios, indicate that the surface waters of the ocean could be nearly

Fig. 2.2 Plot of the mean land-ocean temperature index as reported by the NASA Goddard
Institute for Space Studies (GISTEMP Team, 2016; Hansen et al., 2010) as a function of the
atmospheric concentration of CO2 through time, derived from in situ air samples collected at the
Mona Loa, Hawaii, USA (Keeling et al., 2009) for years of 1959 through 2008
2 Greenhouse Gases and Their Role in Climate Change 21

150% more acidic by the end of this century, resulting in a pH that the oceans have
not experienced for more than 20 million years (National Oceanic & Atmospheric
Administration, 2016a).
In 2010, countries agreed in Cancún, Mexico, that global temperature rise above
preindustrial levels should not be allowed to exceed 2 °C and made pledges to limit
their emissions by 2020. However, an analysis by the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC) published in 2013 concluded that measures called out by
that agreement will be insufficient to address this challenge and will likely lead to
the warming of more than 3 °C by the end of the twenty-first century.

2.3 Carbon Cycle

The carbon cycle is the biogeochemical cycle by which carbon is exchanged among
atmosphere, land, and oceans of the Earth (Wigley & Schimel, 2005). Exchange of
carbon between atmosphere and land is mainly achieved by uptake/release of CO2
by the terrestrial biosphere, and exchange of carbon between atmosphere and
oceans is mainly achieved by dissolution of CO2 into the oceans and uptake/release
of CO2 by marine biota. The carbon cycle is important because carbon is the
fundamental building block of life on Earth and an important component of many
chemical processes (National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration, 2015).
Moreover, as described previously, CO2 in the atmosphere acts like a blanket over
the planet by absorbing infrared radiation that would otherwise radiate excess heat
away from the planet. In short, maintaining the balance of the carbon cycle is
crucial to sustain the stability of the Earth’s ecosystems.

2.3.1 Exchange of Carbon Between Atmosphere and Land

Carbon in the atmosphere mainly exists in two forms: carbon dioxide (CO2) and
methane (CH4). Methane exists in much lower concentrations than CO2 in the
atmosphere, and methane is less stable than CO2 in the atmosphere. Therefore, CO2
plays a major role in the exchange of carbon between atmosphere and land. Carbon
in the atmosphere represents only a small fraction of total carbon on Earth (720
gigatonnes, where a tonne or “metric ton” is equivalent to 1000 kilograms, or
approximately 1.1 short tons, and a gigatonne refers to billions of tonnes) of carbon
in the atmosphere, representing 1.9% of total carbon in the oceans and less than
0.001% of total carbon in the lithosphere (Falkowski et al., 2000). The atmosphere,
however, acts as a “nexus” with respect to the carbon cycle, and the other carbon
reservoirs interact with each other primarily by trading carbon through the atmo-
sphere (Archer, 2010; Archer, Buffett, & Brovkin, 2009). The terrestrial biosphere
takes carbon from the atmosphere mainly through photosynthesis. Photosynthesis is
the process by which plants synthesize organic compounds from carbon dioxide
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
degraded, and that the true prescription to elevate, reform, and
purify the public service is to prevent the clerks from being removed
out of their places in the Departments. This brotherhood has not
been hitherto very largely re-enforced from the Democracy. If there
has been an original civil-service reformer who has deserted from the
ranks of the Democracy, history does not record his name. It has
been left to the party to which I belong to afford conspicuous and
shining illustrations of that class of political thinkers who are never
quite sure that they are supporting a party unless they are reviling
the candidates and denouncing its platform, who are not positive
that they are standing erect unless they are leaning over backward,
and whose idea of reforming the organization in which they profess
to be classified is to combine with its adversaries and vote for
candidates who openly spurn their professions and depreciate the
stock in trade which they denominate their principles. Standing on
the corners of the streets, enlarging the borders of their phylacteries,
they loudly advertise their perfections, thanking God that they are
not as other men, even these Republicans and Democrats; they
traffic with both to ascertain which they can most profitably betray.
Mr. President, the neuter gender is not popular either in nature or
society. “Male and female created He them.” But there is a third sex,
if that can sex be called which sex has none, resulting sometimes
from a cruel caprice of nature, at others from accident or malevolent
design, possessing the vices of both and the virtues of neither;
effeminate without being masculine or feminine; unable either to
beget or to bear; possessing neither fecundity nor virility; endowed
with the contempt of men and the derision of women, and doomed to
sterility, isolation, and extinction. But they have two recognized
functions. They sing falsetto, and they are usually selected as the
guardians of the seraglios of Oriental despots.
And thus to pass from the illustration to the fact, these political
epicenes, without pride of ancestry or hope of posterity, chant in
shrill falsetto their songs of praise of non-partisanship and civil-
service reform, and apparently have been selected as the harmless
custodians of the conscience of the national Executive.
Sir, I am not disposed to impugn the good faith, the patriotism, the
sincerity, the many unusual traits and faculties of the President of
the United States. He is the sphinx of American politics. It is said
that he is a fatalist; that he regards himself as the child of fate—the
man of destiny; and that he places devout and implicit reliance upon
the guiding influence of his star. Certainly, whether he be a very
great man or a very small man, he is a very extraordinary man. His
career forbids any other conclusion.
The Democratic party was not wanting when its convention
assembled at Chicago in many renowned and illustrious characters;
men who had led the forlorn hope in its darkest and most desperate
days; men for whose character and achievements, for whose fame
and history, not only that organization but the country had the
profoundest admiration and respect. There was Thurman, and
Bayard, and Hendricks, and Tilden, and McDonald, and others
perhaps not less worthy and hardly less illustrious, upon whom the
mantle of that great distinction might have fallen; but the man at the
mature age of thirty-five abandoned a liberal and honored profession
to become the sheriff of Erie, without known opinions and destitute
of experience or training in public affairs, outstripped them all in the
race of ambition; and when but little more than a year ago he entered
this Chamber as the President elect of the United States, he
encountered the curious scrutiny of an audience to whom he was a
stranger in feature as in fame; a stranger to the leaders of his own
party as well as to the representatives of all the nations of the earth
who had assembled to witness the gorgeous pageant of his
inauguration.
Sir, the career of Napoleon was sudden, startling, and dramatic.
There have been many soldiers of fortune who have sprung at one
bound from obscurity to fame, but no illustration of the caprices of
destiny so brilliant and bewildering is recorded in history as the
elevation of Grover Cleveland to the Chief Magistracy of sixty
millions of people.
If when he was inaugurated he had determined that the functions
of Government should be exercised by officers selected from his own
party the nation would have been content; but he did not so
determine, and herein and hereon is founded the justification that
the majority of the Senate can satisfactorily use and employ in
demanding that no action shall be had in connection with these
suspensions from office until there has been satisfactory assurances
that injustice has not been done. If it were understood that these
suspensions and removals were made for political reasons the
country would be content, the Republican majority in the Senate
would be content. But what is the attitude? Ever since his
inauguration and for many months before, by many utterances,
official and private, in repeated declarations never challenged, Mr.
Cleveland announced that he would not so administer this
Government. At the very outset, in his letter of acceptance, he
denounced the doctrine of partisan changes in the patronage, and
through all of his political manifestoes down to the present time he
has repeated these assurances with emphatic and unchanging
monotony.
He has declared that there should be no changes in office, where
the incumbents were competent and qualified, for political reasons,
but that they should be permitted to serve their terms. Like those
who were grinding at the mill, one has been taken and another has
been left. Some Republicans have been suspended and others have
been retained. What is the irresistible inference? What is the logic of
the events, except that, in view of what the President has declared,
every man who is suspended is suspended for cause, and not for
political reasons? It is not possible to suspect the President of
duplicity and treacherous deception.
For the purpose of illustration, let me call the attention of the
Senate and through the Senate the attention of the country, which is
to judge of this matter, to the basis on which this inquiry proceeds. I
read from the letter of Grover Cleveland, dated Albany, August 19,
1884, accepting the nomination for the Presidency of the United
States. He says:
The people pay the wages of the public employés, and they are entitled to the fair
and honest work which the money thus paid should command. It is the duty of
those intrusted with the management of their affairs to see that such public service
is forthcoming. The selection and retention of subordinates in Government
employment should depend upon their ascertained fitness and the value of their
work, and they should be neither expected nor allowed to do questionable party
service.
There is another utterance in this document to which I might
properly allude further on, but which appears to me to be so
significant that I will read it now. It has a singular fitness in
connection with this subject that we have been discussing. Speaking
of honest administration, he says,
I believe that the public temper is such that the voters of the land are prepared to
support the party which gives the best promise of administering the Government
in the honest, simple, and plain manner which is consistent with its character and
purposes.
And now:
They have learned that mystery and concealment in the management of their
affairs cover tricks and betrayal.
Yes, they have learned that mystery in the administration of the
patronage of the Government, by the concealment from the people of
the documents and papers that bear upon the character and conduct
of officials suspended and those that are appointed, cover tricks and
betrayal. “I thank thee for that word.” A “Daniel” has “come to
judgment.” No more pertinent and pungent commentary upon the
facts of the present situation could be formulated than that which
Grover Cleveland uttered before his foot was upon the threshold, that
mystery and concealment in the management of the affairs of the
people covered tricks and betrayal. There are tricks and somebody
has been betrayed.
Again, on the 20th day of December, 1884, after the election, some
of the contingent of Republican deserters who elected Mr. Cleveland
to the Presidency, becoming apprehensive that there might be
trouble about their thirty pieces of silver, formulated their
uneasiness in words and addressed him a letter calling his attention
to the professions upon which he had been elected and demanding
further guarantee. To that letter, on the 25th day of December, 1884,
Mr. Cleveland replied, and from that reply I select certain
paragraphs, not being willing to tax the patience of the Senate or
waste my own strength in reading what is not strictly material.
I regard myself pledged to this—
That is, to this practical reform in the civil service, this refusal to
turn out competent and qualified officials and put in Democrats—
because my conception of true Democratic faith and public duty requires that
this and all other statutes should be in good faith and without evasion enforced,
and because, in many utterances made prior to my election as President, approved
by the party to which I belong and which I have no disposition to disclaim, I have
in effect promised the people that this should be done.
Not his party, but the people, Republican as well as Democrats.
Then he proceeds to castigate the Democratic party:
I am not unmindful of the fact to which you refer that many of our citizens fear
that the recent party change in the national Executive may demonstrate that the
abuses which have grown up in the civil service are ineradicable. I know that they
are deeply rooted, and that the spoils system has been supposed to be intimately
related to success in the maintenance of party organization, and I am not sure that
all those who profess to be the friends of this reform will stand firmly among its
advocates when they find it obstructing their way to patronage and place.
He goes on thus, and this is a most significant promise and pledge:
There is a class of Government positions which are not within the letter of the
civil-service statute but which are so disconnected with the policy of an
administration that the removal therefrom of present incumbents, in my opinion,
should not be made during the terms for which they were appointed solely on
partisan grounds, and for the purpose of putting in their places those who are in
political accord with the appointing power—
And then follows that celebrated definition which lifted the lid
from the box of Pandora—
but many men holding such positions have forfeited all just claim to retention
because they have used their places for party purposes in disregard of their duty to
the people, and because, instead of being decent public servants, they have proved
themselves offensive partisans and unscrupulous manipulators of local party
management.
The letter closes with this somewhat frigid assurance of
consolation to the Democratic party.
If I were addressing none but party friends, I should deem it entirely proper to
remind them—
That is, party friends—
that though the coming administration is to be Democratic—
Strictly Democratic—
a due regard for the people’s interest does not permit faithful party work to be
always rewarded by appointment to office, and to say to them that while
Democrats may expect a proper consideration, selections for office not embraced
within the civil-service rules will be based upon sufficient inquiry as to fitness,
instituted by those charged with that duty, rather than upon persistent importunity
or self-solicited recommendations on behalf of candidates for appointment.
“Here endeth the first lesson!” This was in the year 1884. I now
come to the declaration of 1885. Just as the Democratic State
convention which nominated the present governor of New York for
the position that he now holds, was about to assemble at Saratoga on
the 24th, I think, of September, the President gave out for
publication the letter of resignation of Dorman B. Eaton, a civil-
service commissioner, which was dated July 28, 1885, and
accompanied it with a letter of his own accepting that resignation
which was dated September 11, 1885. It was alleged in Democratic
newspapers that the President held back these letters in order to give
publicity to his reply at that time for effect upon the convention, and
it was remarked that it had caused a panic among the Democracy.
His letter is dated, as I said, September 11, 1885, and I will read a few
paragraphs showing his opinion of the Democratic party and the
course that they had pursued in attempting to force him off the civil-
service reform platform. After some rather glittering platitudes in
regard to the work accomplished by Mr. Eaton, he proceeds:
A reasonable toleration for old prejudices, a graceful recognition of every aid, a
sensible utilization of every instrumentality that promises assistance and a
constant effort to demonstrate the advantages of the new order of things, are the
means by which this reform movement will in the future be further advanced, the
opposition.
Now, this is an epithet to which I desire to call particular attention

The opposition of incorrigible spoilsmen rendered ineffectual and the cause
placed upon a sure foundation.
But not content with applying his scourge to the “incorrigible
spoilsmen” of the Democratic party, the President took occasion to
express his opinion in rather picturesque language of another class of
politicians that had somewhat afflicted him, and to whom he was
under bonds:
It is a source of congratulation that there are so many friends of civil-service
reform marshaled on the practical side of the question; and that the number is not
greater of those who profess friendliness for the cause, and yet, mischievously and
with supercilious self-righteousness, discredit every effort not in exact accord with
their attenuated ideas, decry with carping criticism the labor of those actually in
the field of reform, and ignoring the conditions which bound and qualify every
struggle for a radical improvement in the affairs of government, demand complete
and immediate perfection.
“Supercilious self-righteousness, attenuated ideas, and carping
criticism,” can not be regarded as complimentary phrases when
applied to the apostles of this new evangel of political reformation.
He continues—
I believe in civil-service reform and its application in the most practicable form
attainable, among other reasons, because it opens the door for the rich and the
poor alike to a participation in public place-holding. And I hope the time is at hand
when all our people will see the advantage of a reliance for such an opportunity
upon merit and fitness, instead of a dependence upon the caprice or selfish interest
of those who impudently—
To whom does he refer?—
who impudently stand between the people and the machinery of the
Government.
You will agree with me, I think, that the support which has been given to the
present administration in its efforts to preserve and advance this reform by a party
restored to power after an exclusion for many years from participation in the
places attached to the public service, confronted with a new system precluding the
redistribution of such places in its interest, called upon to surrender advantages
which a perverted partisanship had taught the American people belonged to
success, and perturbed with the suspicion, always raised in such an emergency,
that their rights in the conduct of this reform had not been scrupulously regarded,
should receive due acknowledgment and should confirm our belief that there is a
sentiment among the people better than a desire to hold office, and a patriotic
impulse upon which may safely rest the integrity of our institutions and the
strength and perpetuity of our Government.
The first official utterances of President Cleveland upon the 4th of
March, 1885, renewed the assurance that had been given. He
declared:
The people demand reform in the administration of the Government and the
application of business principles to business affairs. As a means to this end civil-
service reform should be in good faith enforced. Our citizens have the right to
protection from the incompetency of public employés who hold their places solely
as the reward of partisan service, and from the corrupting influences of those who
promise and the vicious who expect such rewards. And those who worthily seek
public employment have the right to insist that merit and competency shall be
recognized instead of party subserviency or the surrender of honest political belief.
How this system, thus inaugurated, this amphibious plan of
distributing the patronage of the country among his own partisans
and at the same time insisting upon the enforcement of civil-service
reform doctrines practically resulted finds its first illustration in the
celebrated circular of the Postmaster-General that was issued on the
29th of April, 1885. I do not propose to defile my observations by
reading that document. I allude to it for the purpose of saying that a
more thoroughly degraded, loathsome, execrable and detestable
utterance never was made by any public official of any political
persuasion in any country, or in any age. It was an invitation to every
libeller, every anonymous slanderer, every scurrilous defamer, to
sluice the feculent sewage of communities through the Post-Office
Department, with the assurance that, without any intimation or
information to the person aspersed, incumbents should be removed
and Democratic partisans appointed. I offered a resolution on the
4th of this month calling on the Postmaster-General for information
as to the number of removals of fourth-class postmasters, not
requiring confirmation by the Senate, between the 4th day of March,
1885, and that date. It was a simple proposition. It required nothing
but an inspection of the official register and a computation of
numbers. No names were required and no dates. There was a simple
question of arithmetic to ascertain the number of removals of fourth-
class postmasters not included in the list sent to the Senate by the
President, the salary being less than $1,000. Eighteen days elapsed.
There seemed to be some reluctance on the part of the Department
to comply with that request, and I thereupon offered a supplemental
resolution, which was adopted by the Senate, asking the Postmaster-
General to advise us whether that first resolution had been received,
and, if so, why it was not answered, and when a reply might be
expected.
On the second day following an answer came down. It does not
include the number of places that were filled where there had been
resignations. It does not include the list of those appointed where
there had been vacancies from death or any other cause; but simply
those who had been removed without cause and without hearing in
the space of the first twelve months of this administration pledged to
non-partisanship and civil-service reform. The number foots up
8,635. Eighty-six hundred and thirty-five removals of fourth-class
postmasters under an administration pledged by repeated utterances
not to remove except for cause, making an average, counting three
hundred and thirteen working days in that year, of twenty-eight
every day; and, counting seven hours as a day’s work, four removals
every hour, or at the rate of one for every fifteen minutes of time
from the 4th day of March, 1885, until the 4th of March, 1886. And
that is civil-service reform! That is non-partisanship in the
administration of this Government! That is exercising public office as
a public trust!
Mr. Cockrell. How many of these fourth-class postmasters are
there?
Mr. Ingalls. I do not know.
Mr. Cockrell. About fifty-one thousand, are there not?
Mr. Ingalls. It makes no difference how many; they did the best
they could, and angels could do more. I see that the Senator from
Missouri is impatient; he is anxious that the axe should fall more
rapidly.
The President pro tempore. The Senator from Kansas will pause
a moment. It is the duty of the Chair to inform the occupants of the
galleries that the rules of the Senate forbid any expression of
approbation or disapprobation. It will be the painful duty of the
Chair to enforce that rule, if it is insisted upon.
Mr. Ingalls. I hope the Senator from Missouri will curb his
impatience and restrain his impetuosity. The Postmaster-General
will get through if you only give him time.
Mr. Cockrell. He will get through in four years at this rate.
Mr. Ingalls. One every fifteen minutes!
Mr. Cockrell. Fifty-one thousand is the number of fourth-class
postmasters, I believe, and only eight thousand in a year have been
removed.
Mr. Ingalls. Only one every fifteen minutes! How often do you
expect them to be removed? He has done the best he could. And this
does not include the number of those who resigned; this does not
include any except those who have been removed. To the Senator
from Missouri rising in his seat, impatient at the dilatory
procrastination of the Post-Office Department in not casting out
more Republican postmasters, I say this does not include all.
Undoubtedly many more than eighty-six hundred and thirty-five
have fallen beneath the axe of the Department or have been filled by
partisans of the party in power as a reward for efficient and faithful
party service in consequence of the retirement of thousands of
patriotic Republicans: and when the Senator from Missouri attempts
to convey the impression here that out of fifty-one thousand fourth-
class postmasters only eighty-six hundred and thirty-five have been
changed during this past year he is entirely outside the record. It is to
be observed that this is but a single Department. How many have
gone out of the State department, how many have gone out of the
Interior department, how many out of the Army and Navy
departments, and out of that illuminated Department of Justice, and
out of the Treasury, of course is entirely unknown, and probably will
always remain unknown till the secrets of earth are revealed at the
last day. They are carefully concealed; there are no lists furnished to
the press for publication. Therefore I trust that the friends of the
administration will be consoled, that the complaints which have been
so frequent hitherto of the want of activity on the part of the
administration in finding places for their friends will be tempered by
the consideration that they have done the best they could in the time
at their disposal.
Mr. President, the list of official utterances is not yet complete. On
the first day of this session President Cleveland again repeated his
declaration that the civil service was to be divorced from
partisanship, and he took occasion to inflict some more castigation
upon those who were endeavoring to force him off the civil-service
platform which he had declared he intended to occupy. This was his
language:
Lay siege to the patronage of Government, engrossing the time of public officers
with their importunities, spreading abroad the contagion of their disappointment,
and filling the air with the tumult of their discontent.
Rather florid, rather oriental phrase, but in its exactness
mathematical; a demonstration in geometry could not be more
explicit and satisfactory than that description by President Cleveland
of the occupation and the lamentations of the Democratic party. It
will bear repetition.
Lay siege to the patronage of Government, engrossing the time of public officers
with their importunities, spreading abroad the contagion of their disappointment,
and filling the air with the tumult of their discontent.
A besieging, importunate, contagious, tumultuous, discontented
organization.
There is more to the same effect in this document that I should like
to read, but time does not serve, nor is it material, because there are
other independent utterances to which I must pass; and I do this for
the purpose of showing the consistent and persistent adhesion of the
President of the United States to the declarations with which he
started out when he commenced to administer the Government.
On the 30th day of January, 1886, the ordinary avenues of
communication with the public being inaccessible, President
Cleveland availed himself of the interviewer, and in the Boston
Herald was printed a long letter detailing in quotations a
conversation with President Cleveland, the many points of which will
be found below. This was after this controversy, if you call it so,
between the President and Senate, had begun to develop and there
were some indications of approaching misunderstanding or
disagreement:
He next spoke of his position toward the Senate in the matter of confirmations to
office. He said it gave him some anxiety, for the Senate had been a good while in
disclosing what it meant to do. “They seem”—
He says plaintively—
“to distrust me,” said he, “if I am to accept what I hear from others. But I hear
nothing from them. They have not called upon me for information or for
documents.”
That complaint no longer exists.
“I have tried”—
He says—
“to deal honorably and favorably by them. My purpose was announced at the
beginning of my administration. I meant then to adhere to it. I have never changed
it. I do not mean to change it in the future. It seems to me unjust and ungenerous
in them”—
That is, in the Senate—
“unjust and ungenerous in them to suspect that I do. If I had not meant to
adhere to my policy it would have been foolish in me to begin it. I should have
escaped much in refusing to begin it. It is not at all pleasant for me to disappoint,
and I fear sometimes to offend, my party friends. Nothing but a sense of duty has
brought me to this step. Why run all this risk and incur this hard feeling only in the
end to retreat? It seems to me it would have been as impolitic as it is wrong. No; I
have tried to be true to my own pledges and the pledges of my party. We both
promised to divorce the offices of the country from being used for party service. I
have held to my promise, and I mean to hold to it.”
Then there was an answer to a question propounded by the
interviewer, in which he defines his relation toward offensive
partisanship in the Democratic party:
“I did not propose to hold party service in the past in the Democratic ranks as
against a man. On the contrary, it gave him a strong, equitable claim to office. He
had been excluded for twenty-four years because he was a Democrat. He should be
remembered for the same reason when a Democratic administration came into
power, provided he was a competent man for the position to be filled. What I
understand by civil-service reform, as I am carrying it out, is that the office-holders
shall be divorced from politics while they fill their positions under this
government. That rule I have meant to stand by.” I asked him if he was aware of
any deviation from it among his appointees. “If there has been any,” said he, “it has
not been called to my attention.” I suggested that some such charge had been made
in New York. He said he did not believe that there was any foundation for it, and
that it was well known there that his wishes were that the office-holders should
attend to the duties of their positions, and interfere neither with candidates nor
election contests.
And here comes in the significant statement bearing upon the duty
of Republicans in connection with these suspensions and removals
from office:
“My removals from office, such as are made,” said he, “are made for cause. It
would be absurd for me to undertake to give the country my reasons in all cases,
because it would be impracticable. When I have removed a Republican for political
reasons or for any other reasons, I would apply the same rule to my own party. I
think the Republican Senators should be just enough to believe this of me. They
ought to appreciate that I am trying to do my duty. Why they should continue to
distrust me I do not see. They do not come to me either personally or by committee
to get an understanding of my attitude, or to obtain explanations on points of
action to which they object. They stand off and question the sincerity of my
purposes.”
The eight thousand six hundred and thirty-five fourth-class
postmasters and the six hundred and forty-three suspensions before
the Senate and the thousands of changes in other departments “are
made for cause,” not for political reasons merely; but to give those
who have been so removed the opportunity to explain or defend
themselves would be “absurd” and “impracticable.”
But this is not all. Later in the winter the Civil Service Commission
was reorganized, and in a newspaper printed in this city appeared a
statement alleged to be “personal” and included in quotation marks,
and which it is commonly reported was in the handwriting of the
President.
I cannot rid myself—
He said, after speaking about the personnel of the Civil Service
Commission—
I cannot rid myself of the idea that this civil-service reform is something
intended to do practical good and not a mere sentiment invented for the purpose of
affording opportunity to ventilate high-sounding notions and fine phrases.
He alludes to the action of the Civil-Service Commission about a
weigher in the city of Brooklyn, and says:
When the Civil Service Commission consulted with me as to the status of Mr.
Sterling and the true construction of the rule bearing upon that subject, I agreed
with them in their second opinion that the position of weigher was subject to an
examination, and that it should be filled by one who by means of a proper
examination under the law proved himself competent and eligible. But it seemed to
me that the good of the service required that the person to be appointed should be
possessed of certain traits and qualifications which no theoretical examination
would develop. One having in charge two or three hundred men of the class with
which a weigher has to deal should possess personal courage, energy, decision and
firmness of character. It is entirely certain that the possession of such
qualifications could not in the least be determined by the result of an examination
organized for the purpose of testing an applicant’s knowledge and education.
And he closes:
No cause can gain by injustice or by a twisting of its purposes to suit particular
tastes. And when a result is fairly reached through the proper operation of methods
adopted to further a reform, it should be accepted—especially by the friends of the
movement. They should not permit those of whom they require submission to say,
with any semblance of truth, that they themselves submit only when the result
accords with their views.
This closes the public declarations of the President of the United
States upon the views which he entertains as to the method and
plans and system upon which the public service is to be conducted
under his administration. There are some interesting details as to the
practical effects and results of the effort of the administration to
purify the public service, which I would be glad if I had time to refer
to, but I believe I will forbear. I can only say that it seems from an
inspection of the record as if the cry “put the rascals out” had been
changed in effect to “put the rascals in.” Of course Mr. President, no
party is exempt from accidents, no organization has a monopoly
either of good men or of bad men, and in calling attention to the
results of civil-service reform as applied to this administration, I
should be insincere if I were to assume that such results had followed
from any predetermined purpose to put bad men into office.
We heard a great deal during the campaign about the corruptions,
profligacy, misdeeds, and maladministration of Republican officials.
I can only say that in view of what has occurred under this
administration, if I were inclined to be uncharitable I could with
entire propriety say that while the Republican party was in power it
endeavored whenever it detected crime anywhere to punish it; but
one of the practical results of Democratic administration has been
the reverse, and that is to place in office a very large number of
admitted and convicted felons. I have before me a selection from
which I will, I believe, in support of this view of the case, give a law
extract, stating in advance that these compilations are made from
Democratic newspapers which, of course, is a mitigation of the
slander, though it does not necessarily destroy its credibility.
Mr. ——, of Baltimore, who was made an Indian inspector in 1885,
had been involved in notorious election frauds and was condemned
by the civil-service reform Independents of Maryland as a
companion of Higgins, as a ballot-box stuffer, and a professional
gambler.
The postmaster at Sioux City, Iowa, was convicted and sentenced
in Dakota for violation of the pension laws. The man who was
removed to make a place for this eminent civil-service reformer had
eight months yet to serve, and there was no complaint against him
even to the extent that he was an offensive partisan.
Mr. Holmes, a postmaster in Mississippi, had been involved in
notorious election-fraud scandals.
Mr. Shannon, appointed postmaster at Meriden, Miss., was the
editor of the Mercury newspaper, which after President Grant’s
death contained a rabid editorial attacking the General’s character;
and he had been indicted in the United States court for “unlawfully
and criminally conspiring with many others for the evasion of the
civil rights law.”
In Rhode Island a Democratic postmaster was appointed who had
been in the preceding three months arrested nine times for violation
of the liquor law.
In Pennsylvania a man was appointed in the Philadelphia Mint
who openly confessed to writing a forged letter from Neal Dow to be
used in influencing the German vote in the State of Ohio the
preceding year.
There have been some strange things done in Maine. I almost
hesitate to quote this, but if I am wrong the Senators from that State
will undoubtedly correct me. It is alleged that the postmaster in the
town of Lincolnville was at the time of his appointment actually in
the Portland jail, where he was serving a term for a misdemeanor.
An agent by the name of Judd, who was appointed in the Bureau of
Labor Statistics, was, upon inquiry as to the fact whether he had
been a horse-thief and served in the penitentiary, suspended from
office. The writer states that the only ground for supposing that he
was not a horse thief arose from the fact that they do not put men in
the penitentiary for stealing horses out West: that if he was alive it
was a reasonable, natural conclusion that he had not stolen any
horses. Nobody denied the penitentiary.
A gentleman named Richard Board, of Kentucky, was appointed in
July, on the recommendation of Comptroller Durham, clerk in the
railway mail service and assigned to duty in New Mexico. This is
under the Postmaster-General, who found leisure between removing
postmasters every fifteen minutes to appoint this man in another
branch of the service where he incautiously mentioned to his friends
something about his previous history, and it appeared that he had
been three times arrested in Cincinnati for obtaining money under
false pretenses, that he had been twice arrested for stealing in
Kentucky, and once in Texas—a variegated and diversified career.
“No pent up Utica” contracted his powers. He had stolen in three
states. His father was a very wealthy man in high standing who had
spent a great deal of money to protect his son, and through him he
secured the endorsement of Comptroller Durham, and after he had
been in service for a few weeks he committed a number of robberies,
stole $163 from the money order service, and at the date of this
communication was lying in jail at Santa Fé awaiting trial.
The Senator from Indiana [Mr. Voorhees] yesterday took
occasion to advert with somewhat of animated hilarity to the
suggestion of the Senator from Iowa about the evolutionary
condition of the Democratic party, and dwelt with considerable
unction upon a term that the Senator from Iowa had applied to the
Democracy in his very able and interesting speech: “a protoplasmic”
cell, and the Senator then proceeded to give us the definition of the
term as it appears in the dictionaries, and suggested that if those
facts had been known at the time when the canvass was pending Mr.
Cleveland would undoubtedly have been counted out in New York.
The Senator from Iowa might have gone further in his application
of the doctrine of evolution with much propriety. Geology teaches us
that in the process of being upward from the protoplasmic cell,
through one form of existence to another there are intermediary and
connecting stages, in which the creature bears some resemblance to
the state from which it has emerged and some to the state to which it
is proceeding. History is stratified politics; every stratum is
fossiliferous; and I am inclined to think that the political geologist of
the future in his antiquarian researches between the triassic series of
1880 and the cretaceous series of 1888 as he inspects the jurassic
Democratic strata of 1884 will find some curious illustrations of the
doctrine of political evolution.
In the transition from the fish to the bird there is an anomalous
animal, long since extinct, named by the geologists the pterodactyl,
or the winged reptile, a lizard with feathers upon its paws and
plumes upon its tail. A political system which illustrates in its
practical operations the appointment by the same administration of
Eugene Higgins and Dorman B. Eaton can properly be regarded as in
the transition epoch and characterized as the pterodactyl of politics.
It is, like that animal, equally adapted to waddling and dabbling in
the slime and mud of partisan politics and soaring aloft with
discordant cries into the glittering and opalescent empyrean of civil-
service reform.
The President closes his recent message to the Senate in this
language:
The pledges I have made were made to the people, and to them I am responsible
for the manner in which they have been redeemed. I am not responsible to the
Senate and I am unwilling to submit my actions and official conduct to them for
judgment.
There are no grounds for an allegation that the fear of being found false to my
professions influences me in declining to submit to the demands of the Senate. I
have not constantly refused to suspend officials, and thus incurred the displeasure
of political friends, and yet willfully broken faith with the people for the sake of
being false to them.
Neither the discontent of party friends nor the allurements constantly offered of
confirmation of appointees conditioned upon the avowal that suspensions have
been made on party grounds alone, nor the threat proposed in the resolution now
before the Senate that no confirmations will be made unless the demands of that
body be complied with, are sufficient to discourage or deter me from following in
the way which I am convinced leads to better government for the people.
He is not responsible to the Senate, nor is the Senate responsible
to him; both are alike responsible to the people. But in the cases at
bar we are compelled to inquire, in justice to the people, whether
those pledges have been redeemed, or whether they have been
broken, violated, and disregarded. Had the patronage of the
Government, within proper limits, been turned over for its exercise
to the party intrusted with power by a majority of the people there
could have been no complaint, but upon the assurances that I have
read, the declaration was made that in every case where an
incumbent was competent and qualified he should remain in office
till the expiration of his term.
When, therefore, some were suspended and others were left, what
is the irresistible inference, after the declarations of the President,
except that these persons were suspended for cause either affecting
their personal integrity or their official administration? Upon the
ground, then, of personal justice, if no other, we are entitled to know
whether wrong has been done by the accusations that have been filed
in the Departments, so that we may protect those who are unable to
defend themselves from injustice and defamation.
But there is another reason, and to me a still more convincing
reason, why we should be advised in the case of these suspensions
what are the papers, the official documents, and the reports on the
files of the departments affecting the administration of these offices,
and that is this: under the tenure-of-office act, every official
suspended is reinstated by the provisions of section 1768 of the
Revised Statutes, if the Senate adjourns without confirming the
designated person, and continues to exercise and discharge the
duties of that office, until he is again suspended by the President.
Therefore, in acting upon these cases we have a double duty to
perform; in the first place, to decide whether the person suspended
was properly suspended, and in the next place, whether he is a
competent person to be restored to office under and by virtue of the
operation of the statute under which he was suspended. If he is not a
competent person then he ought not to be restored, and we cannot
determine whether he is competent and qualified and fit to discharge
the duties of that office until we have the official declarations and
statements upon which the action of the President was based.
Since this debate began, there are indications that the President
has become convinced that his position is untenable, and that he has
concluded to yield to the reasonable requests of the Senate and
relieve suspended officials from the otherwise inevitable imputations
upon their conduct and character. I find the following
correspondence in one of the metropolitan journals, which if
authentic relieves the relation between the President and the Senate
of the principal restraint:
Committee on Finance, United States Senate, March 17, 1886.

Dear Sir: Will you please advise the Committee on Finance whether or not there
are any papers or charges on file reflecting against the official or moral character of
——, late collector of internal revenue for the first district of ——, suspended?
If there are any such papers or charges will you please communicate their nature
and character to the committee?

Very truly, yours,


JUSTIN S. MORRILL.

Hon. Daniel Manning,


Secretary of the Treasury.

March 19, 1886.

Sir: Your communication on behalf of the Finance Committee of the Senate,


dated March 17, 1886, asking whether or not there are any papers or charges on file
reflecting against the official or moral character of ——, late collector of internal
revenue for the first district of ——, suspended, is received.
In reply thereto I have the honor to state that, so far as this inquiry relates to a
suspension from office, I feel bound by the rules laid down in the President’s recent
message to the Senate upon the general subject of such suspensions.
But in order that I may surely act within the requirements of the statute relating
to the furnishing by this Department of information to the Senate, I beg leave to
remind the committee that the office referred to has no fixed term attached to it,
and to further state that the President is satisfied that a change in the incumbency
of said office will result in an improvement of the public service, and that the policy
of the present administration will be better carried out by such change.
Except as the same may be involved in these considerations, no papers
containing charges reflecting upon the official or moral character of the suspended
officer mentioned in your communication are in the custody of this Department.

Respectfully, yours,
D. MANNING, Secretary.

Hon. Justin S. Morrill,


Chairm’n of the Senate Com. on Finance.
But whether this be true or not, this is not the forum in which this
controversy is to be ultimately decided. The Executive is not on trial
before the Senate; the Senate is not on trial before the Executive; but
both, as to the sincerity of their professions and the consistency of
their actions, are on trial before that greater, wiser, and more
powerful tribunal—the enlightened conscience of the people, from
whose verdict there is neither exculpation nor appeal.
THE GREAT TARIFF CAMPAIGN OF 1888.

The views which point to the tendency of the Democratic party in


the direction of Free Trade, at least to their antagonism to the theory
of Protection for protection’s sake, are well given in the special
message of President Cleveland, given elsewhere in this work. A wing
of the Democratic party, headed by Samuel J. Randall, of
Pennsylvania, dissented from this view, and opposed both the
Morrison and the Mills bills. For the purpose of illustrating the views
of this class of Democrats, as well as because of the distinction of the
speaker, we append

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