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Secure by Design

DAN BERGH JOHNSSON

DANIEL DEOGUN
DANIEL SAWANO

Foreword by Daniel Terhorst-North

Manning
Shelter Island
For online information and ordering of this and other Manning books, please visit
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Manning Publications Co.

20 Baldwin Road
PO Box 761
Shelter Island, NY 11964

Development editor: Jennifer Stout

Technical development editor: Luis Atencio
Review editor: Aleks Dragosavljevic´
Production editor: David Novak
Copy editor: Frances Buran
Proofreader: Carl Quesnel
Technical proofreader: John Guthrie
Typesetter: Happenstance Type-O-Rama
Cover designer: Marija Tudor

ISBN 9781617294358
Printed in the United States of America
 To our families
—Dan Bergh Johnsson, Daniel Deogun, and Daniel Sawano
contents in brief

Part 1: Introduction
Chapter 1: Why design matters for security
Chapter 2: Intermission: The anti-Hamlet
Part 2: Fundamentals
Chapter 3: Core concepts of Domain-Driven
Design
Chapter 4: Code constructs promoting
security
Chapter 5: Domain primitives
Chapter 6: Ensuring integrity of state
Chapter 7: Reducing complexity of state
Chapter 8: Leveraging your delivery pipeline
for security
Chapter 9: Handling failures securely
Chapter 10: Benefits of cloud thinking
Chapter 11: Intermission: An insurance
policy for free
Part 3: Applying the fundamentals
Chapter 12: Guidance in legacy code
Chapter 13: Guidance on microservices
Chapter 14: A final word: Don’t forget about
security!
contents

Cover
Titlepage
Copyright
Dedication
contents in brief
contents
foreword
preface
acknowledgments
about this book
about the authors
about the cover illustration
Part 1: Introduction
Chapter 1: Why design matters for security
1.1 Security is a concern, not a feature
 1.1.1 The robbery of Öst-Götha
Bank, 1854
1.1.2 Security features and
concerns
1.1.3 Categorizing security
concerns: CIA-T
1.2 Defining design
1.3 The traditional approach to software
security and its shortcomings
1.3.1 Explicitly thinking about
security
1.3.2 Everyone is a security expert
1.3.3 Knowing all and the
unknowable
1.4 Driving security through design
1.4.1 Making the user secure by
design
1.4.2 The advantages of the
design approach
1.4.3 Staying eclectic
1.5 Dealing with strings, XML, and a
billion laughs
 1.5.1 Extensible Markup Language
(XML)
1.5.2 Internal XML entities in a
nutshell
1.5.3 The Billion Laughs attack
1.5.4 Configuring the XML parser
1.5.5 Applying a design mindset
1.5.6 Applying operational
constraints
1.5.7 Achieving security in depth
Summary
Chapter 2: Intermission: The anti-Hamlet
2.1 An online bookstore with business
integrity issues
2.1.1 The inner workings of the
accounts receivable ledger
2.1.2 How the inventory system
tracks books in the store
2.1.3 Shipping anti-books
2.1.4 Systems living the same lie
2.1.5 A do-it-yourself discount
voucher
 2.2 Shallow modeling
2.2.1 How shallow models emerge
2.2.2 The dangers of implicit
concepts
2.3 Deep modeling
2.3.1 How deep models emerge
2.3.2 Make the implicit explicit
Summary
Part 2: Fundamentals
Chapter 3: Core concepts of Domain-Driven
Design
3.1 Models as tools for deeper insight
3.1.1 Models are simplifications
3.1.2 Models are strict
3.1.3 Models capture deep
understanding
3.1.4 Making a model means
choosing one
3.1.5 The model forms the
ubiquitous language
3.2 Building blocks for your model
 3.2.1 Entities
3.2.2 Value objects
3.2.3 Aggregates
3.3 Bounded contexts
3.3.1 Semantics of the ubiquitous
language
3.3.2 The relationship between
language, model, and bounded
context
3.3.3 Identifying the bounded
context
3.4 Interactions between contexts
3.4.1 Sharing a model in two
contexts
3.4.2 Drawing a context map
Summary
Chapter 4: Code constructs promoting
security
4.1 Immutability
4.1.1 An ordinary webshop
4.2 Failing fast using contracts
 4.2.1 Checking preconditions for
method arguments
4.2.2 Upholding invariants in
constructors
4.2.3 Failing for bad state
4.3 Validation
4.3.1 Checking the origin of data
4.3.2 Checking the size of data
4.3.3 Checking lexical content of
data
4.3.4 Checking the data syntax
4.3.5 Checking the data semantics
Summary
Chapter 5: Domain primitives
5.1 Domain primitives and invariants
5.1.1 Domain primitives as the
smallest building blocks
5.1.2 Context boundaries define
meaning
5.1.3 Building your domain
primitive library
 5.1.4 Hardening APIs with your
domain primitive library
5.1.5 Avoid exposing your domain
publicly
5.2 Read-once objects
5.2.1 Detecting unintentional use
5.2.2 Avoiding leaks caused by
evolving code
5.3 Standing on the shoulders of
domain primitives
5.3.1 The risk with overcluttered
entity methods
5.3.2 Decluttering entities
5.3.3 When to use domain
primitives in entities
5.4 Taint analysis
Summary
Chapter 6: Ensuring integrity of state
6.1 Managing state using entities
6.2 Consistent on creation
6.2.1 The perils of no-arg
constructors
 6.2.2 ORM frameworks and no-arg
constructors
6.2.3 All mandatory fields as
constructor arguments
6.2.4 Construction with a fluent
interface
6.2.5 Catching advanced
constraints in code
6.2.6 The builder pattern for
upholding advanced constraints
6.2.7 ORM frameworks and
advanced constraints
6.2.8 Which construction to use
when
6.3 Integrity of entities
6.3.1 Getter and setter methods
6.3.2 Avoid sharing mutable
objects
6.3.3 Securing the integrity of
collections
Summary
Chapter 7: Reducing complexity of state
 7.1 Partially immutable entities
7.2 Entity state objects
7.2.1 Upholding entity state rules
7.2.2 Implementing entity state as
a separate object
7.3 Entity snapshots
7.3.1 Entities represented with
immutable objects
7.3.2 Changing the state of the
underlying entity
7.3.3 When to use snapshots
7.4 Entity relay
7.4.1 Splitting the state graph into
phases
7.4.2 When to form an entity relay
Summary
Chapter 8: Leveraging your delivery pipeline
for security
8.1 Using a delivery pipeline
8.2 Securing your design using unit
tests
 8.2.1 Understanding the domain
rules
8.2.2 Testing normal behavior
8.2.3 Testing boundary behavior
8.2.4 Testing with invalid input
8.2.5 Testing the extreme
8.3 Verifying feature toggles
8.3.1 The perils of slippery toggles
8.3.2 Feature toggling as a
development tool
8.3.3 Taming the toggles
8.3.4 Dealing with combinatory
complexity
8.3.5 Toggles are subject to
auditing
8.4 Automated security tests
8.4.1 Security tests are only tests
8.4.2 Working with security tests
8.4.3 Leveraging infrastructure as
code
8.4.4 Putting it into practice
 8.5 Testing for availability
8.5.1 Estimating the headroom
8.5.2 Exploiting domain rules
8.6 Validating configuration
8.6.1 Causes for configuration-
related security flaws
8.6.2 Automated tests as your
safety net
8.6.3 Knowing your defaults and
verifying them
Summary
Chapter 9: Handling failures securely
9.1 Using exceptions to deal with failure
9.1.1 Throwing exceptions
9.1.2 Handling exceptions
9.1.3 Dealing with exception
payload
9.2 Handling failures without exceptions
9.2.1 Failures aren’t exceptional
9.2.2 Designing for failures
9.3 Designing for availability
 9.3.1 Resilience
9.3.2 Responsiveness
9.3.3 Circuit breakers and timeouts
9.3.4 Bulkheads
9.4 Handling bad data
9.4.1 Don’t repair data before
validation
9.4.2 Never echo input verbatim
Summary
Chapter 10: Benefits of cloud thinking
10.1 The twelve-factor app and cloud-
native concepts
10.2 Storing configuration in the
environment
10.2.1 Don’t put environment
configuration in code
10.2.2 Never store secrets in
resource files
10.2.3 Placing configuration in the
environment
10.3 Separate processes
 10.3.1 Deploying and running are
separate things
10.3.2 Processing instances don’t
hold state
10.3.3 Security benefits
10.4 Avoid logging to file
10.4.1 Confidentiality
10.4.2 Integrity
10.4.3 Availability
10.4.4 Logging as a service
10.5 Admin processes
10.5.1 The security risk of
overlooked admin tasks
10.5.2 Admin tasks as first-class
citizens
10.6 Service discovery and load
balancing
10.6.1 Centralized load balancing
10.6.2 Client-side load balancing
10.6.3 Embracing change
10.7 The three R’s of enterprise security
 10.7.1 Increase change to reduce
risk
10.7.2 Rotate
10.7.3 Repave
10.7.4 Repair
Summary
Chapter 11: Intermission: An insurance
policy for free
11.1 Over-the-counter insurance
policies
11.2 Separating services
11.3 A new payment type
11.4 A crashed car, a late payment, and
a court case
11.5 Understanding what went wrong
11.6 Seeing the entire picture
11.7 A note on microservices
architecture
Summary
Part 3: Applying the fundamentals
Chapter 12: Guidance in legacy code
12.1 Determining where to apply
domain primitives in legacy code
12.2 Ambiguous parameter lists
12.2.1 The direct approach
12.2.2 The discovery approach
12.2.3 The new API approach
12.3 Logging unchecked strings
12.3.1 Identifying logging of
unchecked strings
12.3.2 Identifying implicit data
leakage
12.4 Defensive code constructs
12.4.1 Code that doesn’t trust
itself
12.4.2 Contracts and domain
primitives to the rescue
12.4.3 Overlenient use of Optional
12.5 DRY misapplied—not focusing on
ideas, but on text
12.5.1 A false positive that
shouldn’t be DRY’d away
 12.5.2 The problem of collecting
repeated pieces of code
12.5.3 The good DRY
12.5.4 A false negative
12.6 Insufficient validation in domain
types
12.7 Only testing the good enough
12.8 Partial domain primitives
12.8.1 Implicit, contextual
currency
12.8.2 A U.S. dollar is not a
Slovenian tolar
12.8.3 Encompassing a conceptual
whole
Summary
Chapter 13: Guidance on microservices
13.1 What’s a microservice?
13.1.1 Independent runtimes
13.1.2 Independent updates
13.1.3 Designed for down
13.2 Each service is a bounded context
 13.2.1 The importance of
designing your API
13.2.2 Splitting monoliths
13.2.3 Semantics and evolving
services
13.3 Sensitive data across services
13.3.1 CIA-T in a microservice
architecture
13.3.2 Thinking “sensitive”
13.4 Logging in microservices
13.4.1 Integrity of aggregated log
data
13.4.2 Traceability in log data
13.4.3 Confidentiality through a
domain-oriented logger API
Summary
Chapter 14: A final word: Don’t forget about
security!
14.1 Conduct code security reviews
14.1.1 What to include in a code
security review
 14.1.2 Whom to include in a code
security review
14.2 Keep track of your stack
14.2.1 Aggregating information
14.2.2 Prioritizing work
14.3 Run security penetration tests
14.3.1 Challenging your design
14.3.2 Learning from your
mistakes
14.3.3 How often should you run a
pen test?
14.3.4 Using bug bounty programs
as continuous pen testing
14.4 Study the field of security
14.4.1 Everyone needs a basic
understanding about security
14.4.2 Making security a source of
inspiration
14.5 Develop a security incident
mechanism
14.5.1 Incident handling
14.5.2 Problem resolution
 14.5.3 Resilience, Wolff’s law, and
antifragility
Summary
Index
Lists of Figures
List of Tables
List of Listings
foreword
In the early 1990s I was in my first graduate job in the middle of a
recession, and they were having a tough round of layoffs. Someone
noticed that each victim’s UNIX account was being locked out just
before the friendly HR person came to tap them on the shoulder and
escort them from the building. They wrote a small script to monitor
differences in the user password file and display the names of users
whose accounts were being locked. We suddenly had a magic tool
that would identify the next target just before the hatchet fell...and
an enormous security and privacy breach.
In my second job, as a programmer at a marketing firm, there
were lots of password-protected Microsoft Word documents flying
around, often with sensitive commercial information in them. I
pointed out how weak the encryption was on these files, and how
easy it was to read them using a freely available tool that was
making the rounds on Usenet (your grandparents’ Google Groups).
No one listened until I started emailing the files back to the senders
with the encryption removed.
Then I figured most people’s login passwords were probably too
weak as well. I got the same lack of response until I wrote a script
that ran a simple password-cracking tool on a regular basis, and
emailed people their login passwords. There was a pretty high hit
rate. At that stage I didn’t know anything about information theory,
Shannon entropy, attack surface areas, asymmetric cryptography—I
was just a kid with a password-cracking tool. But I became the
company’s de facto InfoSec Officer. Those were simpler times!
Over a decade later, as a developer at ThoughtWorks building a
large-scale energy trading platform, I received what is still my
favorite ever bug report. One of our testers noticed that a password
field didn’t have a check for password length, which should have
Another Random Scribd Document
with Unrelated Content
dropped him as he would have run away from the contagion, and
made a most ludicrous retreat from the field of his own selection.
To quote Mr. J. Glancy Jones, in his able defense of this item of
the Appropriation Bill brought in by his Committee, would occupy too
much space here; but the spicy debate between Messrs. Nichols,
Kelly, and Washburne cannot be entirely omitted in a memoir of Mr.
Kelly’s life.
Mr. Nichols: “I cannot take my seat without paying a just tribute to
the late Mr. Marcy, and Mr. Flagg, who had charge of the preparation
of the volume known as the ‘Commercial Relations.’ I would enquire
of the gentleman (Mr. J. Glancy Jones) whether the former
Superintendent did not resign his office under the express
declaration that a discharge of the duties of the office was no longer
necessary; and whether after that, and during this year, a successor
was appointed?”
Mr. J. Glancy Jones: “I do not know what induced the gentleman
alluded to to resign the office.”
Mr. Kelly: “I have made some enquiry on this subject, and from the
best information I could get, I learned that Mr. Flagg was compelled
to resign because there were charges made against him, to the
effect that he had employed women ostensibly at four dollars a day,
and only paid them at two dollars a day, requiring their receipts for
four dollars a day. This fact was ascertained by the gentleman who
represents the Committee on Commerce of the Senate. When he
found that such was the case, he went to the State Department and
said, that if Mr. Flagg was not turned out of that office, he would
expose the matter to the country. This was the reason that Mr. Flagg
was compelled to resign. So far as the Bureau itself is concerned,
every gentleman knows that there is no Bureau in the Government
that has been so effective in giving the country valuable statistical
information. But Mr. Flagg being compelled to resign, now comes to
Congress, and makes the effort to abolish a Bureau which has been
of so much benefit to the country.”
Mr. Nichols: “I beg leave to say that so far as my action here is
concerned, Mr. Flagg has nothing to do with it whatever. He has
been connected with that Bureau, but I have spoken to him hardly
half a dozen times.”
Mr. Nichols, but a few minutes before, had been extolling Flagg,
and coupled his name with that of Secretary Marcy in what he called
a “just tribute.” Now he wriggles out of the debate in the following
amusing style:
Mr. Nichols: “I desire to conclude what I have to say. I wish the
gentleman from New York to understand that, in reference to
anything he may say about troubles in the Democratic camp which
may have led to the removal of any of its children, I desire to enter
into no discussion. I have nothing to do with it, then, or the difficulties
of this happy family.”
Mr. Kelly: “I think the gentleman from Ohio is entirely in error. The
duty of the statisticians in the State Department is to collate and
compile all the reports made by consuls at foreign ports upon
commercial matters, and everything which pertains to the welfare
and benefit of this Government. It is done not only for the benefit of
commercial men, but for the benefit of the community generally, and
I think the abolition of that particular branch of the Government
would be entirely wrong. The whole expense of keeping it up
amounts to very little. I say again that the whole of this matter
originated—though I do not attribute it to the gentleman from Ohio—
on the part of disappointed gentlemen who had been turned out of
office, and in nothing else.”
Mr. Washburne, of Illinois: “My object in asking my friend to yield
me the floor is to say a word here in reference to Mr. Flagg. I have
had some acquaintance with that gentleman from my connection
with this matter during the last Congress, and I am astonished at the
charges the gentleman from New York has made here to-day; and I
think it is due to Mr. Flagg that the gentleman from New York should
state his authority. Those charges go to the country, and reflect
severely upon Mr. Flagg.”
Mr. Kelly: “I have made no charge, and shall make no charge
against the gentleman.”
 Mr. Washburne “Will the gentleman state his authority for what he
has said?”
Mr. Kelly: “The State Department itself. If the gentleman desires to
have this matter investigated, let him introduce a resolution for that
purpose. If information on the subject be desired for the House and
the country, let a resolution be introduced and passed calling on the
State Department to furnish it.”
Mr. Maynard: “I should like to know who is the present head of the
Bureau?”
Mr. Nichols: “These interruptions have entirely broken the thread
of my remarks. With the discussion of family differences and
difficulties which have led to the removal of one man and the
substitution of another, I have nothing to do, and I desire to have
nothing to do with them. I do not know who fills this office. It is
nothing to me who does. I find I have occupied about enough of the
time of the Committee with this question.”[48]
The Bureau of Statistics flourished on, and was no longer
disturbed by Edmund Flagg. Mr. Kelly had overwhelmingly refuted
the charges of Messrs. Nichols and Washburne against the
management of the State Department under General Cass.
There was a warm controversy between the Senate and House of
Representatives over the appropriations for the naval service for the
year ending June 30, 1859. Committees of Conference on the
disagreeing votes of the two Houses were appointed, and held
frequent meetings. The managers on the part of the Senate were
Stephen R. Mallory, Solomon Foot, and Judah P. Benjamin; those on
the part of the House were Thomas S. Bocock, John Kelly and F. H.
Morse. The conferees finally agreed upon their report. Mr. Bocock
submitted the report to the House, June 11, 1858. Of the few
amendments in controversy, the House Committee receded from
their disagreement to the second and third amendments, relating to
an appropriation of fifty thousand six hundred dollars for a new
purchase in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Messrs. Morgan, Grow,
Clemens and others energetically opposed this appropriation. Mr.
Bocock and Mr. Kelly of the Conference Committee as strongly
advocated it. The members of the Conference Committees of both
Houses had unanimously approved the report, and each of the
managers had signed it. Mr. Kelly answered the objections to this
appropriation.
Mr. Kelly: “I will say a word on this matter with the permission of
the gentleman from Virginia. The Government owns the land
between the Navy Yard and the Marine Hospital. It is now all, or
nearly all, a swamp. A part has been filled in, and filled in, I believe,
for the very small price of sixteen cents a yard. As the property now
stands, it cannot be of any use to the Government. Even if the
Government desires to sell, it would be a sound economy and
prudent foresight to first fill it in. It would then command a large price.
It extends for a considerable way along what is called the Wallabout,
and it shows a complete water-front. If the Government filled it in at
the rate contracted for before, they might sell lots there for large
sums, which are now of no earthly use to anybody. Until it is filled in
the Marine Barracks ordered by Congress cannot be built; and the
Marines at that Yard are now quartered in sheds. They are small,
and not at all suitable for the purpose for which they have been
temporarily put up. I hope, therefore, that this appropriation will be
concurred in. I am convinced that it is needed and needed now.”[49]
The objectors, however, were unyielding, and the report of the
Committee of Conference was disagreed to by a vote of 74 noes to
67 ayes.
The interests of Brooklyn always have had a warm advocate in Mr.
Kelly, and although in more recent days he has found there some of
his most active political opponents, it may be doubted whether those
gentlemen have proved themselves truer friends of the general
interests of that great city than John Kelly.
In a former chapter of this book allusion has been made to the
many gross misrepresentations of Mr. Kelly’s motives and actions to
which the press has given circulation. A glaring instance of this
bearing of false witness against the neighbor is to be found in a
volume entitled The American Irish, by “Philip H. Bagenal, B. A.,
Oxon.” This Mr. Bagenal seems to be, not an American Irishman, but
an English Irishman of the London Tory variety, whose booklet
smacks of the facile courtier of some Cabinet Minister, not far off
from Downing Street or Pall Mall. It is a libel on Ireland and Irishmen
at home and abroad, now on Mr. Parnell in Wicklow, and again on
Mr. Kelly in New York. Bagenal writes not so well, but after the
fashion of Dr. Russell, another English Irishman, familiarly known as
“Bull Run Russell.” The latter’s vulgar caricatures of President
Lincoln, in his letters to the London Times, caused his expulsion
from the military lines of the Federal army during the war. Peripatetic
book-makers from abroad, who take hasty journeys through this
country, generally contrive to pick up a budget of miscellaneous
misinformation, which they cram into misbegotten books, and offer
for sale in the London market. Mr. Bagenal’s mission appears to
have been to contribute an English tract on Irish life in the United
States, for English partisan use in Ireland. To say that the alleged
facts in this book are frequently untrue, is to characterize the
performance very mildly. Mr. Parnell and his followers, according to
Bagenal, are enemies of Ireland, and architects of ruin and anarchy
only less reprehensible than the dynamiters.
“In New York,” says this scribe of the London Times, “we find the
Irish dying faster than any others, less given to marriage than any
others, and more given to hard work and fasting than any others. * * I
visited the tenement houses in New York where the Irish population
dwell. * * Everywhere the moral atmosphere is one of degradation
and human demoralization. Gross sensuality prevails. The sense of
shame, if ever known, is early stifled. * * Thus live the descendants
of the great Irish exodus of 1845-48. * * They sought such
occupation as offered; they underbid labor, adapted themselves
manfully to the conditions of industry, or joined the rabble that
trooped as ‘ballot-stuffers’ and ‘shoulder-hitters’ in the train of the
Tweeds, the Morrisseys, and the Kellys of the day; and so became
the scourge of American politics. In those bygone days when the
Irish-American nation began to grow on Yankee soil, had
Government directed and assisted the tide of emigration, hundreds
of thousands would have been carried out West; where, accustomed
to agricultural pursuits, they would have become quiet and
prosperous citizens, instead of fire-brands and perpetuators of the
animosity between England and Ireland.”[50]
This slanderous picture of the Irish population in New York is
followed by an account of Bishop Ireland’s noble efforts to build up
an Irish colony in Minnesota, and the great West. Mr. Bagenal holds
up Mr. Kelly as an enemy of this great movement. What a pity he did
not ask Bishop Ireland, with whom, he says, he became acquainted
at St. Paul, who were the leading co-workers with that pious
churchman in opening up a home for Irish settlers in the new States
of the West? Bagenal would have learned from Bishop Ireland, had
he sought to know the truth, that John Kelly had aided this
philanthropic work by giving to the Bishop one thousand dollars,
afterwards increased to nearly two thousand, as a contribution to the
St. Paul Catholic Colonization Bureau. Knowledge of this
circumstance probably would not have deterred Bagenal, the vilifier
of Mr. Parnell, from describing Mr. Kelly as the enemy to Irish
colonization in the West. The typical London snob abroad is revealed
in the mendacious sentence concerning “the rabble that trooped as
‘ballot-stuffers’ and ‘shoulder-hitters’ in the train of the Tweeds, the
Morrisseys and the Kellys of the day,” and sufficiently proves the
Downing Street inspiration of this Tory romancer, who, it appears
from his preface, is a writer for the London Times.
John Kelly, throughout his whole career, has been an earnest
advocate for the settlement on the fertile prairies of the West of the
poor emigrants who crowd into the Eastern cities, too often to starve
for the want of employment. Twenty-seven years ago he introduced
one of the first Homestead bills brought forward in Congress, which
was a statesmanlike effort to relieve the overcrowded population of
the great cities, and to build up the prosperity and happiness of the
struggling masses of his fellow-citizens. He supported this bill in a
speech of great vigor, in which he pointed out the advantages of
homes in the West to the poor, and sought to place the acquisition of
such homes within the reach of every citizen of the United States,
who wished to become an actual settler upon the teeming millions of
land that then belonged to the Government. Had his bill been
passed, the gigantic railroad monopolies of to-day might not be in
possession of the mighty landed empire which they, in so many
cases, acquired by fraud, and hold by corruption, against the rights
of the people of the United States.
On the 18th of January, 1858, Mr. Kelly introduced a bill in
Congress to secure homesteads to actual settlers upon the public
domain. The bill was read a first and second time, and referred to the
Committee on Agriculture. This great measure which Mr. Kelly then
brought forward, one of the most beneficent that ever claimed
attention in the American Congress, was originally introduced by
Andrew Johnson, March 27, 1846, then a Representative in
Congress from Tennessee. More than six years elapsed before the
House acted on this bill, but the indomitable Andrew Johnson, future
President of the United States, persevered in his statesmanlike
advocacy of the measure, and the House of Representatives finally
passed it May 12, 1852, by a majority of two thirds. The bill,
unfortunately, failed in the Senate. The same bill, in substance, was
again introduced in the House in 1853 by John L. Dawson of
Pennsylvania, where it was passed a second time by an
overwhelming majority. As it had done before, the Senate again
rejected the bill, under the mistaken notion that it would weaken
some of the old States to allow a flood-tide of population to pour into
the new ones.
The next attempt to carry through the measure in Congress, and
to bestow happy homesteads on homeless millions of American
citizens, was that of Mr. Kelly of January 18th, 1858. About the same
time Andrew Johnson, then a Senator, introduced a similar bill in the
Senate, and became, as before, its powerful champion. The House,
being in the Committee of the Whole, May 25, Mr. Kelly made one of
the ablest speeches of his life on the Homestead Bill. The length of
the speech, and the scope of this volume, preclude its reproduction
here. A few extracts are all that can be given:
“Mr. Chairman,” said he, “I regret that the bill which I had referred
to the Committee on Agriculture, in the early part of this Session, has
not as yet been reported on, as I would have much preferred
addressing my remarks on the homestead question to the bill itself. I
will take occasion to observe, in passing, that the Committees of this
House have been prompt in making their reports even on matters
that sink into insignificance when compared with the question of
giving an humble homestead to actual settlers on the lands of the
Government. If the Committee should think proper to delay their
report much longer, I shall feel it to be my duty, at an early day, to
move for their discharge from the further consideration of the
subject, and ask leave to bring the bill directly before the House. If
the Senate bill does not reach us in the meantime, I may fail even in
this way to secure a vote on the question; but I will have the
consolation to know that I have done my duty to those of our fellow-
citizens who are either too modest or too poor to command much
influence in this Hall.”
“The main provision of the bill now before the Committee consists
in the liberal appropriation contained in the first section, in the
following words: ‘That any person who is the head of a family, or who
has arrived at the age of twenty-one years, and is a citizen of the
United States, or who shall have filed his intention to become such,
as required by the naturalization laws of the United States, shall,
from and after the passage of this act, be entitled to enter, free of
cost, one quarter section of vacant and unappropriated public lands
which may, at the time the application is made, be subject to private
entry, at $1.25 per acre, or a quantity equal thereto, to be located in
a body, in conformity with the legal sub-divisions of the public lands,
and after the same shall have been surveyed.’”
“The other sections of the bill are either explanatory of the first, or
designed to guard against mistake or fraud in its execution. Its
general purport and object is, as its title indicates, to secure
homesteads to actual settlers on the public domain.”
Mr. Kelly next enters into a minute history of the vast extent of the
public lands of the United States, how and when title to them was
acquired, from whom derived, and an interesting resumè of the
subject from a period anterior to the adoption of Articles of
Confederation between the thirteen original States, down to the
latest acquisition of territory in 1854, known as the Gadsden
Purchase. After an instructive review of European, and especially of
English colonization, he continues as follows:
 “But, sir, humanity claims for this bill the serious consideration of
every member of this House, more especially of those who, like
myself, represent in part any of the large and populous cities of the
Union. For the laboring classes, large cities and towns, with
superabundant populations, are too often but the portals from
wretchedness to death. They can find no employment whereby to
earn their bread by the sweat of their brow, and idleness, poverty
and crime are the inevitable results. The very shifts they resort to,
the avocations they follow in quest of subsistence, even if they
desire to live honestly, yield but scarcely sufficient to supply
unwholesome, scanty, unnutritious diet; and hence the statistics of
city life exhibit a frightful mortality. * * Does not humanity, then, as
well as patriotism, invoke our favorable action on a bill which will
withdraw from our large cities this overplus population, and by giving
a proper incentive to its industry and labor, rescue it from pauperism
and death? It is not for the worthless vagrant who is found in every
large city, lurking amid the haunts of vice and wretchedness, I
appeal. This pauperism strikes down those who are able and willing
to work, and, therefore, are fit subjects for the bounty of Congress. It
is a truism in political economy that when pauperism siezes upon
this class of citizens, the wages of labor are reduced to the cost of
subsistence. The whole class must therefore be subjected to the
necessity of working, rather to avoid the poor-house than to better
their condition. Rescue these and such as these, not only from New
York or Boston, or New Orleans or Baltimore, but from every city,
and town, and village in the Union; rescue them from drudgery and
death, and transform them into useful and industrious citizens of a
free Republic. The earth which God made is man’s. Give him, at
least, a share of it, a spot for a cot and a garden, and a grave when
he dies, else God will hold us as usurpers and faithless stewards,
when the great day of reckoning shall come.”[51]
Nothing in the political career of John Kelly has been more marked
than his hostility to the great land cormorants, particularly the
railroad corporations, and in nearly all his public utterances from that
day to this he has uniformly denounced the venal men who have
controlled the lobbies of Congress, and bought legislation by bribery
and gifts, whereby they have usurped so vast a part of the public
domain. A true history of Congressional grants to those corporations
has yet to be written. The annals of Congress show nothing so
disgraceful, and so disastrous to the public welfare, as the wholesale
donations of the lands of the people to the great railroad
monopolists.
In closing this rapid sketch of John Kelly’s Congressional career, it
may be observed that necessarily many things have been omitted
which properly should find a place in his complete biography. The
object sought here is to elucidate his character, and the transactions
which have been selected for this purpose were among those in
which he more especially displayed the bent of his mind, his love of
human kind, and the practical business direction of his thoughts and
language. Mr. Kelly had not reached his thirty-fourth year when he
entered Congress. He had had no former experience in National
politics, and was called upon to contend with statesmen of great
ability, long service, and with a large following in the House. Two or
three terms are required, generally, before members can hope to
attain prominence as legislators and debaters in a body where men
of so much ability are in rivalry for the palm of superiority. In spite of
these obstacles, Mr. Kelly took rank among the leading men even
during his first term, and during his second he was placed on the
Committee of Ways and Means, the most important committee of the
House, was recognized as one of the leaders of his party, and
wielded an influence with the Administration scarcely exceeded by
any one. Had he remained in the House of Representatives,
considering the high position he won there in two terms, and judging
from the remarkable ability he has displayed in his subsequent
career, in all probability John Kelly would have become one of those
few great parliamentary worthies whose names occupy so large a
space in American history. He has given ample evidence that he
possessed the requisite qualifications to have succeeded Stephen A.
Douglas as leader of the Northern Democracy, when death snatched
the sceptre from the hands of that gifted man. Of the calibre of Kelly,
the reader has seen the opinions in the preceding pages which were
expressed by such weighty statesmen as Lewis Cass, and
Alexander H. Stephens. The gauge and measurement which those
distinguished men took of him over a quarter of a century ago have
been justified by the events of the past fifteen years, and the
marvellous grip upon the minds and imagination of the American
people which the very name of Kelly has come to possess.
Hardly had he taken his seat in Congress when he was confronted
by Wm. H. Seward, as leader of the Banks forces, in the famous
contest over the Speakership in the Thirty-fourth Congress, and yet
after nine weeks of stubborn battle in the House, John Kelly named a
candidate, William Aiken, as competitor against Mr. Seward’s
candidate, and Aiken came within two votes, in a House containing
seventy-four Democrats and one hundred and four Republicans, of
beating Mr. Banks for Speaker of the House of Representatives. In
his second struggle with Mr. Seward, when the Collectorship of the
Port of New York was at stake, Mr. Kelly may be said to have
entered the lists almost single handed against a powerful adverse
interest in the Senate and House from his own State. He was,
nevertheless, completely successful in securing the confirmation by
the Senate of Augustus Schell for that office, as he had been mainly
instrumental in procuring his nomination by President Buchanan. In a
letter to a friend in New York, written some time after, Mr. Kelly said:
“Mr. Schell’s nomination was opposed very bitterly by a large number
of Democrats, and I have no doubt but that it was my influence with
Clay, Orr, Dowdell, Shorter, Fitzpatrick, and I might say quite a
number of the members of the Senate, that brought about the
confirmation of Mr. Schell.” John Kelly and Augustus Schell were
devoted personal and political friends, although in the factional
divisions in New York the former had been a Soft Shell and the latter
a Hard Shell Democrat. They stood shoulder to shoulder in victory
and defeat, thinking the same things about the Republic, inseparable
in affection and fellowship throughout a long and tempestuous period
in the politics of the country. In city, State and National conventions
of the Democratic party these two men always appeared together,
and in their journeys to and fro they travelled together, roomed
together, sat at the same table, and presented a picture to the public
eye of more than brotherly affection. In looking at them, as they
conversed with each other at such times, one would be reminded of
Gales and Seaton in real life, or of the Cheeryble Brothers of
romance. The death of Mr. Schell, in 1884, was a grievous blow to
Mr. Kelly. All who heard his speech at the memorial meeting for his
departed friend at Tammany Hall, will remember the unwonted
emotions under which he labored.
Society at the Capital during Mr. Kelly’s day in Congress was very
agreeable and homelike, and the manners and tastes of the people
were formed in the school of frugality and simplicity well befitting a
Democratic Republic. Boast as men may of the material progress of
the country, the old school which held sway at Washington, during
Democratic Administrations, was the nursery of civic virtues, and had
about it the flavor of the golden age of the fathers. This was the
school Jefferson founded, and Madison and Monroe illustrated. It
was the school in which appeared John Taylor of Caroline, Rufus
King, William Pinkney, Governor Gore, Josiah Quincy, William
Gaston, and Littleton Waller Tazewell. Along Pennsylvania Avenue
John Marshall and Daniel Webster might be seen wending their way
to market with baskets on their arms, while Chancellor Bibb has
gone fishing to the Long Bridge, John Quincy Adams to have a swim
in the Potomac, and John C. Calhoun has gone out in the old-
fashioned omnibus to Georgetown College to talk philosophy with
Father Dzierozynsky.[52] This society was based on simplicity, the
heritage handed down from Revolutionary soldiers, offshoot of
freedom and downrightness. There was no charlatanism in
Washington then, neither had there been any since Jefferson came
to tell the people “we are all Republicans, all Federalists.” For fifty
years the official rogues could be counted on the ten fingers. How
different in that respect since the antique school has passed away.
The great wars have blown out the old-fashioned virtues, and
money-changers have unhinged the morality of the people.
Corruption in high places has prevailed, and it has been in
Washington as it was in Rome during the last days of the Empire,
when Fabricius and Tully were forgotten, and turgid and loquacious
rhetoricians mouthed in the Capitol. The golden age of manners, and
tastes, and honest living still survived while the subject of this
memoir sat in Congress. To be a gentleman above reproach was
glorious. Poverty was no badge of disgrace, for James Monroe had
given his fortune to the country in the war of 1812, and died, “like
rigid Cincinnatus, nobly poor.” Henry Clay could never reach the
White House, because after the fashion of the simple great ones he
would rather be right than President. Webster was an old school
patriot, for after Calhoun’s speech in 1833, he modified his views so
greatly that he never afterwards denied that the Government of the
United States was a compact between sovereign States. The rule of
right living was so inflexible that Calhoun relinquished all hopes for
the Presidency, rather than have his wife visit Bellona, at the
dictation of General Jackson.
Happy days! Fortunate John Kelly! to have been there to witness
the antique social phases, and to have come away again before the
era was quite passed and gone, and another and a different one had
arisen in its place.

FOOTNOTES:
[44] The reference in the speech was to the murder of a waiter
named Keating, in the spring of 1856, at Willard’s Hotel, by a
drunken Congressman from California named Herbert. Great
indignation was aroused by this unprovoked crime, and although
after two trials, the jury failing to agree in the first, Herbert was
acquitted, his usefulness as a representative was destroyed. “He
remained in Congress till the end of his term,” says Gobright in
his Recollection of Men and Things at Washington, “but failed to
be respected by his fellow-members,” p. 164.
[45] Cong. Globe, p. 2, 1st Sess., 35th Cong., p. 1919.
[46] Cong. Globe, p. 2, 1st. Sess. 35th Cong., p. 1919.
[47] Cong. Globe, p. 2, 1st Sess. 35th Cong., p. 1919.
[48] Cong. Globe, P. 2, 1st Sess. 35th Cong., pp. 1918-19.
[49] Cong. Globe, p. 3, 1st Sess. 35th Cong., p. 2,977.
[50] “The American Irish,” pp. 70-1-3.
[51] Cong. Globe, Appendix, 1st Sess., 35th Cong., p. 430.
 [52] “Father Curley tells me that John C. Calhoun used to come
to the College to talk philosophy with old Father Dzierozynsky.”
Extract from a letter of the late Father J. S. Sumner, of
Georgetown College, to the author.
 CHAPTER VIII.
ELECTED SHERIFF—MASTERS DUTIES OF OFFICE—RE-
ELECTED—NOMINATED FOR MAYOR AGAINST A. OAKEY
HALL—CAUSES OF HIS WITHDRAWAL—GOES TO EUROPE
—VISITS HOLY LAND—INNER LIFE—HIS CHARITIES—
RELATIONS WITH S. J. TILDEN—LEADER OF TAMMANY—
SECOND MARRIAGE—COMPTROLLER OF NEW YORK—
SPEECH AT LOTOS CLUB, ETC.
On Christmas Day, 1858, having been elected Sheriff of the City
and County of New York, November 2d of that year, Mr. Kelly
resigned his seat in the Thirty-fifth Congress. He remained in
Washington at his post until it was necessary to go to New York to
enter upon his new office; but in refreshing contrast to those
Representatives in a subsequent Congress, the Forty-second, who
voted themselves back-pay, he declined, after his election as Sheriff,
to draw any salary at all for his service as a member of Congress.
The total number of votes cast at the election for Sheriff was 69,088,
of which John Kelly received 39,090, and William H. Albertson
received 29,837, scattering 161. Kelly was the regular nominee of
the Democratic party of the city. His majority was 9,092.
He entered with characteristic energy upon the duties of Sheriff,
that most ancient of county officers known to the common law, Vice-
comes to the Earl, as Blackstone calls him. The difficulties and
responsibilities of this office in New York are peculiarly great. The
reported cases upon Sheriff’s law in that city indicate the immense
number of statutes applicable to the office, and the subtleties,
refinements, and nice legal distinctions, together with the liabilities,
which constantly press upon the Sheriff in the discharge of his
duties. As laymen nearly always have been elected to the office, it
was the rule, before Kelly’s term, for incumbents to rely for guidance
upon legal advisers and prompters behind the scenes, whose
special knowledge of business was supplemented by professional
knowledge of law, and by training and experience in the office. But
John Kelly set resolutely to work with his law books, for it is one of
the leading traits of his character to perform conscientiously
whatever duties are imposed upon him, and he was determined to
delegate to no one else a labor which the people had elected him to
do himself. While he was in the office the Under-Sheriff ceased to be
the High-Sheriff. After reading one or two good elementary books, he
next applied himself to the Code of Procedure, the Revised Statutes,
and Reported Cases, and wrote out a syllabus, or private digest for
himself, of opinions delivered in the lower Courts and the Court of
Appeals in relation to Sheriff’s law. To master such questions he
worked with unflagging zeal, not only by day but far into the night,
during the greater part of his term. In the meantime he acquired
familiarity with the routine and usages of the office. Thus equipped,
he was perhaps the first Sheriff who thoroughly understood the
duties of the office, and discharged them in person. He became a
favorite among the members of the bar, and was an authority,
theoretically and practically, upon disputed questions of Sheriff’s law.
In the Sheriff’s Court Mr. Kelly himself presided over the intelligent
juries there empanelled. He heard arguments of counsel, passed
upon authorities cited, was conversant in the law applicable to
cases, and in the opinion of leading members of the profession he
displayed a judicial mind of high order.
The best body of jurors in the United States is undoubtedly the
Sheriff’s Jury in New York city. The members of this jury are chosen
annually by an eminent Commission of judicial and other high
officers, and are selected from among the foremost citizens in the
community, whose wealth, intelligence, and established character
afford a guarantee of their freedom from improper influences. Large
fines for absence are imposed, and cheerfully paid. An annual
banquet, known of all men, ubique gentium, as the Sheriff’s Jury’s
Dinner, is provided for with the ample sum thus accumulated.
Delmonico’s choicest menu is laid under requisition, and a
distinguished and brilliant company is always brought together.
That accomplished and discerning gentleman, Mr. Rosewell G.
Rolston, President of the Farmers’ Loan and Trust Company of New
York, was one of the members of the Sheriff’s Jury during Mr. Kelly’s
term. He once expressed to the writer of these pages his high
respect for the Sheriff, and descanted upon his sturdy qualities,
saying, that while he was a stern and austere man to look at, he
was, nevertheless, brimful of kindly human nature. After mentioning
some occurrences which had come under his own observation, he
said, with no little earnestness, “John Kelly is a love of a man, a
grand fellow undoubtedly.”
Under-Sheriffs had presided at the trial of Sheriff’s cases before
Mr. Kelly’s entry into the office. The Jury was surprised now to see
the usual rule broken, and the new Sheriff going upon the bench
himself. The more experienced members gave each other a smile of
astonishment and a knowing wink, for they suspected that Kelly was
led away by zeal, and by ignorance of the mysteries of the law, into
whose knotty labyrinths he would be plunged presently by wrangling
lawyers. But Mr. Rolston and his fellow-jurors quickly discovered that
the imperturbable Sheriff behaved like a veteran under legal fire, and
the lawyers themselves were surprised to find him not only familiar
with questions at issue, both of traverse and demurrer, but practically
master of the situation. He had broken the precedent, and what had
been before a fiction was now a fact, a Sheriff of New York who
knew more about his office than any of his subordinates. John Kelly
made a reputation for honesty and capacity as Sheriff, which in the
whole history of the office has never been excelled by any man who
has occupied it. The best evidence of this is found in the fact that at
the earliest moment when he was eligible under the Constitution of
the State, namely, at the expiration of the term of Sheriff Lynch, his
immediate successor, John Kelly was renominated and re-elected
Sheriff of New York. He is the only man since the foundation of the
Government who has been elected twice to this important office. In
the early day, before the Hamiltonian or monarchical features of the
State Constitution had been abolished, and the Jeffersonian or
elective principle had been substituted for them by constitutional
amendment, the Governor and Council held the appointment, not
only of judicial and other great officers, a most fruitful source of
corruption and centralization, but they were likewise clothed with the
power to appoint Sheriffs and County Clerks in the several counties
of the State. But twice only, in the early history of the State, did the
Council of Appointment at Albany select the same men to fill a
second term as Sheriff of the city and county of New York. Marinus
Willett was appointed Sheriff of New York in 1784, and served until
1787. He was re-appointed in 1791, and held until 1795. Benjamin
Ferris also held the office by appointment from 1808 to 1810, and
again from 1811 to 1813. On the 6th of November, 1864, John Kelly,
who had filled the office so faithfully from 1859 to 1861, was re-
elected Sheriff of New York, an unprecedented honor, as well as
endorsement of his official integrity, now bestowed for the first time in
the history of the city, by the people themselves, upon any individual.
At this election there were three candidates in the field, two
Democrats and a Republican, but after an exciting canvass John
Kelly led the poll by a plurality of nearly 6,000, his Republican
competitor coming next. The whole number of votes for Sheriff was
106,707, of which Kelly received 42,022, John W. Farmer 36,477,
and Michael Connolly, commonly called the “Big Judge,” 28,099. The
number of scattering votes was 109. Mr. Kelly’s second term expired
December 31, 1867. That it was a repetition of the first one in his
fidelity to the important interests and duties confided to his charge,
was universally declared at the time, without one whisper of dissent.
In the fierce conflicts of party fifteen years after his first term as
Sheriff, and seven years after the second, when his talents and
commanding position in the community had made him a formidable
antagonist, John Kelly’s official integrity as Sheriff was called in
question for the first time by certain political opponents, whose
misconduct he had exposed, and whose arbitrary acts he had
resisted. These tardy shafts of malice fell harmless at his feet.
In the year 1868, eleven months after he had ceased to be Sheriff
a second time, a still handsomer testimonial to the stainlessness of
his character was tendered to him than that implied in his re-election
as Sheriff; an emphatic endorsement of his qualifications for the
highest civic preferment was received by him when the Democratic
Union of New York nominated him for Mayor of the city against A.
Oakey Hall, the candidate of the Tweed Ring. In a laudable and
patriotic attempt to drive the Ring from power at the Charter election
of November, 1868, New York’s best citizens,—merchants, bankers,
tradesmen, mechanics, and members of the various professions,
turned to John Kelly to lead them, to the man whose admirable
administration of the trusts he had previously held as Alderman,
Congressman, and Sheriff, afforded satisfactory proof of his fitness
to grapple with the Ring, and if elected, to crush it, and restore
honesty and economy in the various municipal offices.
Among those who looked to Mr. Kelly at this interesting and critical
hour in the history of New York, as a safe leader against the
notorious triumvirate of Tweed, Sweeny and Connolly, were Samuel
J. Tilden, Andrew H. Green, Augustus Schell, and still another—tell it
not in Gath! mention it not in the streets of Ascalon! for it is surprising
to relate—Nelson J. Waterbury himself. Yes, in the very next year
after John Kelly had ceased to be Sheriff, this gentleman, who has
since lavished so much savage abuse upon him for mythical
misdeeds as Sheriff, the self-same Nelson J. Waterbury was an
enthusiastic supporter of John Kelly for Mayor of New York.
The support which Mr. Tilden was disposed to bestow upon Mr.
Kelly was a more important incident of that eventful campaign. For a
long time they had been intimate acquaintances, and Tilden not only
looked upon Kelly as a man of invincible honesty, but recognized in
him a born leader of men. It was a most unfortunate thing that Mr.
Kelly’s health, at this particular juncture, was so much impaired that
it was not possible for him to stand the strain of such a contest, or,
indeed, of any contest at all. The blackest chapter in the history of
New York was about to be written. He felt the magnitude of the
occasion, and rose from a sick bed to go meet the people half way,
when they called him to lead them in the fight. No personal sacrifice
could be too great, not even life itself, when the stakes were the
reformation of the public service, and the rescue of a million people
from the corrupt domination of such a Ring. “You will never live to
reach the army,” said Voltaire to the feeble and emaciated Mareschal
de Saxe, as the leader was setting out for Fontenoy. “The object
now,” replied the fiery commander, “is not to live, but to go.” But Mr.
Kelly, however willing to act his part, soon found that nature’s
barriers are not to be overcome. The hand which had rejoiced in its
strength was relaxed and powerless under wasting illness, and like
that of Old Priam, telumque imbelle, no longer could strike an
effectual blow. He was, indeed, destined to smite the Tweed Ring a
death-blow, but not now, nor until four years had come and gone,
when, with health restored, and energies all on fire, he drove them
from Tammany Hall, and inscribed his name among the benefactors
of New York. He lived, like Saxe, to fight and win his Fontenoy.
From early life Mr. Kelly had suffered from bronchial troubles,
which always were increased by public speaking. His mind is
intensely active. “I must be occupied in some way,” he once said to a
friend, “and I can’t sit still five minutes without doing something. I
cannot be an idler.”[53] Whatever he undertook to do, his faculties
became concentrated upon the task until it was accomplished. His
occupations for a long time had been engrossing and laborious, and
his health had suffered under the strain. “For twenty years,” to repeat
the remark of the editor of the Utica Observer, quoted in a preceding
chapter of this volume, “he had devoted several hours of every day
to the pursuit of literature and science,” and at length his constitution
was seriously impaired. Domestic afflictions also came upon him
about this period, and his physical maladies were increased fourfold.
John Kelly had entered into wedlock when a very young man, and
for twenty years his circle of domesticity was unclouded by a single
shadow. His wife, nèe McIlhargy, was the daughter of an Irish
adopted citizen of New York, and an interesting family, a son and two
daughters, grew up to the verge of manhood and womanhood about
him. Mrs. Kelly, whom the present writer knew well, and greatly
respected for the excellent but unostentatious qualities of her
character, was a good wife, a devoted mother and a pious Christian
woman. In the year 1866 she fell a victim to consumption. Her son
Hugh, a bright and winning young man, just as he had turned his
twenty-first year, succumbed to the same disease, and followed his
mother to the grave. Symptoms of consumption also appeared in the
daughters, and it was evident that death had marked them both for
its early victims. To a man of John Kelly’s strongly affectionate
nature, wrapped up in his home and family, these visitations falling
upon him like unmerciful disasters, one after another in quick
succession, proved well nigh irreparable. His health already
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