CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



169 



dently. What good does it do to make argu- 

 ment against this amendment, if it is absolutely 

 certain to pass ? The Democrats say that the 

 Army shall not live without it, and we say the 

 Army must live. There can be no freedom of 

 lebate or vote. It is our duty and only resort 

 to vote against any political amendment and 

 vote against any appropriation bill containing 

 a political amendment, until this practice shall 

 have been abandoned. 



" It is a coercion of the Senate. We do not 

 permit the Senate to originate revenue bills, 

 and it is our claim that the Senate shall not 

 originate appropriation bills, though it may 

 amend those that have originated in the House. 

 But what freedom of debate Avill the Senate 

 have when political amendments are put on 

 appropriation bills in the House, and it is told 

 by the House that the money can not be grant- 

 ed without those amendments? 



" In Fngland the House of Lords discovered 

 th> one hundred and seventy years ago. Dur- 

 ing the long revolutionary period, before the 

 advent of William of Orange, the British Par- 

 liament tried all manner of revolutionary pre- 

 texts to carry their purposes. After the gov- 

 ernment was fairly established in 1688, the 

 House of Lords put its foot on this particular 

 practice, and protested, in a rule \vhich remains 

 upon the books, and will remain there, that 

 such practices are subversive of the Constitu- 

 tion and destructive of the rights of the House 

 of Lords. 



" Our Senate has taken precisely that ground 

 before this, when a Republican majority in the 

 House of Representatives unwisely and uncon- 

 stitutionally undertook to do precisely this very 

 thing in connection with the use of the Army 

 in Kansas, and brought on an extra session. 

 And the discussion in the Senate showed Re- 

 publicans and Democrats, the ablest and best 

 men in the country, arguing against this policy 

 precisely in the line that we, the Republicans, 

 argue against it to-day. The Senate becomes 

 a nullity, the Executive becomes a nullity, the 

 House of Representatives, so far as the mi- 

 nority is concerned, becomes a nullity; and 

 the whole Government is in the temporary 

 majority, or rather the majority of a caucus of 

 the majority. Under this system seventy-five 

 men in this House may absolutely rule this 

 nation. According to the discipline which 

 prevails upon the other side, the majority 

 would all vote with the majority of their cau- 

 cus; and the majority of the caucus would tell 

 them what political legislation to pass upon an 

 appropriation bill. Then the minority of the 

 House would be helpless; the Senate would 

 be helpless ; the Executive would be helpless. 

 It is logically, clearly, distinctly a revolution 

 in free government, and is to be resisted ac- 

 cordingly." 



Mr. Robeson, of New Jersey : " Mr. Chair- 

 man, I would be glad to have the amendment 

 reported." 



The Clerk read as follows : 



" SECTION 2. That no money appropriated in this act 

 is appropriated or shall be paid for the subsistence, 

 equipment, transportation, or compensation of any 

 portion of the Army of the United States to be used 

 as a police force to keep the peace at the polls at any 

 election held within any State." 



Mr. Robeson : "By a decision of the Su- 

 preme Court of the United States, the highest 

 and ultimate tribunal of judicial judgment 

 under the organization of our Government, it 

 has been declared 'that the Government of 

 the United States may, by means of physical 

 force exercised through its official agents, exe- 

 cute, on every foot of American soil, the pow- 

 ers and the functions which belong to it. This 

 necessarily involves the power to command 

 obedience to its laws, and hence the power to 

 keep the peace to that extent.' This is the 

 inevitable, incontrovertible result of right rea- 

 soning from established principles. This de- 

 clares the principle on this subject of the Con- 

 stitution of our country (a principle which lies 

 at the foundation of all Anglo-Saxon govern- 

 ment), and these are the conclusions which 

 follow inevitably from it. All laws of Con- 

 gress are, and must be held to be, made in the 

 light of those principles which have been set- 

 tled, adjudicated, and declared by the highest 

 tribunal of the country; and this law, if it 

 becomes a law, must mean and be understood 

 to mean just what is permitted by this decla- 

 ration ; otherwise, if not unconstitutional, it is 

 at least in defiance of constitutional command, 

 and in derogation of constitutional duty. 



" This amendment looks to, and is meant to 

 control, the execution of United States law on 

 election-day. Need I pause to say to you, citi- 

 zens, Representatives, Americans, that if there 

 be a day in the calendar when the laws should 

 have full sway, when that atmosphere of per- 

 fect peace and perfect liberty which can only 

 be found in the enjoyment of freedom under 

 the perfect control of law shall surround us 

 and our action like the ' all-incasing air,' that 

 day is the one day which is set apart by the 

 laws of our country, on which the freemen 

 who are to govern this continent act in their 

 individual capacity for themselves, and set in 

 motion, primarily, the political machinery of 

 our Government ? We are so familiar with 

 their action on that day that we do not appre- 

 ciate its significance and force. The orderly 

 gathering together on election-day of the free 

 voters of a great republic, with a continent as 

 an empire and freedom as a heritage, and there 

 exercising their political will under the protec- 

 tion of law, supreme, powerful, efficient, and 

 all-per vail ing, to keep the peace for the perfect 

 exercise of that will, is as sublime a spectacle 

 in government as the world has ever seen. To 

 accomplish that result, all the agencies of po- 

 litical progress and civilization have culminated 

 here on our shores. That is the day of Amer- 

 ican freedom, that union of liberty and law 

 which is our heritage, not the day of its cele- 

 bration, but the day of its exercise. That is 

 the time and there is the place when and where 



