CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



159 



the party leaders controlling the States. Such 

 is the modern doctrine of State rights a doc- 

 trine which strikes a fatal blow at the power 

 and supremacy of the nation. When the peo- 

 ple of this country consent to surrender to the 

 States the enforcement and protection of rights 

 secured to them by the Federal Constitution, 

 the dissolution of the Union can not be long 

 postponed. Those lately engaged in armed 

 rebellion and their sympathizers are now em- 

 ploying the delusive cry of centralization to 

 blind the people to the fatal tendency of the 

 new State-rights conspiracy. The triumph of 

 these doctrines under the specious guise of 

 State rights and local self-government would 

 be fatal alike to liberty and union. But the 

 power of Congress to enact laws to protect 

 and guarantee the rights secured by the Con- 

 stitution is delegated to it expressly : 



" The Congress shall have power to make all laws 

 which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into 

 execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers 

 vested by this Constitution in the Government of the 

 United States, or in any department or officer thereof. 



"These are not the only provisions of the 

 Constitution conferring upon Congress the 

 power to guarantee and protect the citizen in 

 his right to vote for Representatives. The first 

 clause of section 4, Article I, of the Constitu- 

 tion confers this power. "We copy it : 



" The times, places, and manner of holding elections 

 for Senators and Representatives shall be prescribed 

 in each State by the Legislature thereof: but the Con- 

 gress may at any time by law make or alter such regu- 

 lations, except as to the places of choosing Senators. 



"It has been strenuously argued that Con- 

 gress can not make or alter the regulations 

 touching the times, places, and manner of con- 

 ducting elections unless the States fail or refuse 

 to make appropriate regulations therefor. This 

 claim is shown to be indispensable both by the 

 debates in convention on this clause of the 

 Constitution and by the express language of 

 the clause itself. The words ' Congress may at 

 any time by law make or alter regulations' 

 touching the conduct of elections for Represent- 

 atives are too clear and comprehensive to ad- 

 mit of doubt or debate. The power may be 

 asserted by Congress at any time. Doubtless 

 it was not contemplated that the power would 

 be exerted by Congress unless an emergency 

 arose which seemed to demand it. But Con- 

 gress alone was made the judge at the time 

 when and the extent to which it would legislate 

 on this subject whether it would provide ex- 

 clusively for the election of Representatives, or 

 exert only a portion of its power, leaving to 

 the States a partial control of the elections." 



Mr. Ward, of Ohio: "My colleague [Mr. 

 McMahon], in his speech opening the discus- 

 sion upon this bill, made the announcement in 

 substance, and it remains un contradicted and 

 not protested against by any one on his side of 

 the House, first, that ' we have not hitherto 

 made, do not in this bill, and will not in any 

 future bill, make any appropriation whatever 



for supervisors or special deputy-marshals, so 

 far as they have to do with Congressional elec- 

 tions.' He asserts that it was not proper for 

 any officer of the Government to appoint spe- 

 cial deputy-marshals when no appropriation had 

 been made for that specific purpose. 



t " Then further on he declares I quote from 

 his printed speech : 



" And I desire to say that because the Supreme 

 Court of the United States has decided that the elec- 

 tion law is constitutional by a sort of eight- by-seven 

 decision and I mean by that a division apparently 

 according to party lines (without impugning the 

 good faith of any member of the Supreme "Court, but 

 to show how differently a legal question may appear to 

 persons who have been educated in different political 

 schools) that although that court has decided the con- 

 stitutionality of the law, that when we come, as legis- 

 lators, to appropriate money, it is our duty to say, Is 

 this law constitutional \ or, if constitutional, is it a 

 good law, and are we bound to appropriate money for 

 it? 



" He undertakes, as will be seen, to throw 

 contempt on that decision by styling it ' a sort 

 of eight-by-seven decision.' I remind him that 

 it is a seven-to-two decision, having been adopt- 

 ed by a larger number of the members of the 

 court than the majority of the decisions of that 

 tribunal. It is a decision of a broad, sweeping 

 character, and declares that Congress may take 

 the whole control of Congressional elections, or 

 a partial control, as they choose ; that the elec- 

 tion law as it stands on the national statute- 

 book is the supreme law of the land on that 

 subject. 



" More than that : the Supreme Court, not 

 only in this case, but in another recent case, has 

 made a declaration which ought to be engraven 

 upon the minds and hearts of all the people of 

 this country. And this is its substance : 



" That a law of Congress interpenetrates and be- 

 comes a part of every law of evciy State of this Union 

 to .which its subject-matter is applicable, and is bind- 

 ing upon all people and covers every foot of our soil. 



" This is the voice of the Constitution. Now, 

 therefore, under this decision the election laws 

 of the United States are the laws of every State 

 of this Union. No judge of election, no State 

 officer or other person connected with any Con- 

 gressional election, no elector who offers his 

 ballot at any such election can, with impunity, 

 lift his hand or do any act against any of the 

 provisions of these laws. They rest down upon 

 Congressional elections in every State like the 

 ' casing air,' broad and general, protecting with 

 their dignity every act and penetrating with 

 their authority every function of Congressional 

 elections. They are the supreme law of the 

 land on that subject. 



" But now a Representative, speaking for the 

 Democratic party in this House, rises, not with 

 the plea which he could have made with some 

 show of plausibility last year, that the law is 

 unconstitutional, and that therefore they would 

 not enforce it but, with a constitutional law, 

 declared so by the Supreme Court, covering 

 him and filling the republic from end to end, 

 reaching everywhere and covering every foot 



