Some strong men were sent to Congress, a very large proportion of whom had seen service in the Confederate army. Their presence aroused many sneers at "rebel brigadiers" and an immense amount of "bloody shirt" oratory. They accomplished little for their section or for the nation, as they were always on the defensive and could hardly have been expected to have any consuming love for the Union, in which they had been kept by force. They were frequently taunted in debate in the hope that indiscreet answers would furnish campaign material for use in the North. Sometimes they failed to control their tempers and their tongues and played into the hands of their opponents. They advocated no great reforms and showed little political vision. They clung to the time-honored doctrines of the Democratic party--tariff for revenue only, opposition to sumptuary laws, economy in expenditures, and abolition of the internal revenue taxes--and they made ponderous speeches upon the Constitution, "viewing with alarm" the encroachments of the Federal Government upon the sphere of action marked out for the States. ¹ See The Agrarian Crusade, by Solon J. Buck (in The Chronicles of America) Partly because of constitutional objections, partly because of fear of Federal supervision of the administration of the measure, a majority of the Southern representatives opposed the Blair Bill, which might have hastened the progress of their section. This measure, now almost forgotten, was much discussed between 1882 and 1890 when it was finally shelved. It provided for national aid to education out of the surplus revenues of the Federal Government, the distribution to be made in proportion to illiteracy. Though the South would have received a large share of this money, which it sorely needed for education, the experience of the South with Federal supervision had not been pleasant, and many feared that the measure might result in another Freedmen's Bureau. ¹ Not all Southerners, however, were opposed to the project. Dr. J. L. M. Curry, agent of the Peabody Fund, did valiant service for the bill, and some members of Congress were strong advocates of the measure. Today we see a measure for national aid to education fathered by Southerners and almost unanimously supported by their colleagues. ¹ See The Sequel of Appomattox, by Walter Lynwood Fleming (in The Chronicles of America).