CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



179 



Miodo and manner of electing mcm- 



' .11-1-088." 



Sherman : '' Ami the punishment for 

 iiiuiitted iu consequence of tho olec- 







Mr. Tluinnan: " Undoubtedly that might ho 

 il.it let us see what that is. Is that this 



Mr. Sherman: "I think that is yielding tho 

 whole matter." 



.Mi. Thunuuii: "Is this hill limited to tho 



>u i if members of Congress? No, sir; 



it extends to all elections, from tho highest of- 



i this country, tho President of the United 



s, down to the lowest office in the" coun- 



try, to a fence-viewer. It includes every sin- 



glo fleet ivo office in the country, either under 



1-Yderal authority or the authority of a State, 



and therefore it derives no aid whatsoever from 



the power given to Congress to regulate the 



mode and the manner of electing members of 



Congress. 



" But I have something to say on that sub- 

 jeet, as ray colleague has called my attention 

 to it. That provision to regulate the mode and 

 manner of elections never was construed to 

 authorize Congress to fix the qualifications of 

 eleetors. If such had been its interpretation 

 you would not have needed your fifteenth 

 amendment, so far as the election of members 

 of Congress is concerned. Neither was it ever 

 interpreted to take away from the States the 

 right of providing officers of election and the 

 mere machinery of elections. But the mode 

 of that election, for instance, whether it should 

 be by ballot or whether it should be viva voce, 

 and the manner of that election, Congress is 

 authorized to prescribe. But that provision 

 was never intended in the world to dispense 

 with the agency of the States, and substitute 

 an agency provided by the Congress of the 

 United States. 



" "We are considering a bill, as I said before, 

 that reaches elections for all officers, from the 

 President of the Kepublic down to the hum- 

 blest township or town officer that can be 

 found in the United States ; that reaches tho 

 election of school directors in the humblest 

 hamlet of the country as amply as it reaches" 

 the election of Governors of the States, the 

 judges of courts, and the President and Vice- 

 President of the United States. That is this 

 bill, which goes to every popular election held 

 in the States and says that under a provision 

 which simply makes State laws void, which 

 simply operates on the State as a State, which 

 simply renders void all provisions in the con- 

 stitution and laws of a State contrary to this 

 fifteenth amendment, under a provision which 

 goes no further than that, which does not 

 reach to individual infractions of the law done 

 under no color of State authority whatsoever, 

 it is proposed to take the whole subject of 

 elections in a State for State officers, county 

 officers, township, city, and town officers, into 

 the hands of Congress. I say again, if you 



can do that, if you can pass this bill, you have 

 just as much right to wipe out the whole State 

 machinery of elections und supplant them by 

 officers of your own." 



Mr. Sherman : " Mr. President, there is 

 one grievance that I feel ought to be dealt 

 with at this moment, as we have this bill 

 before us ; a grievance which has become of 

 greater magnitude even than the denial of tho 

 right to vote to colored people ; and that is, the 

 open, glaring, admitted frauds by wholesale in 

 tho great cities of this country, by which our 

 Government is about to be subverted. If I 

 were asked to point out the greatest evil that 

 now threatens our country, I should point to 

 the subversion of all authority by overthrowing 

 the elective franchise. We have official docu- 

 ments without number in both Houses of Con- 

 gress showing the growing evil of trampling 

 down the rights of communities and States to 

 representation in Congress in the election of 

 members of Congress and in tho election of 

 Senators. At the last presidential election in 

 the city of New York, according to an official 

 examination in the other House, there was an 

 attempt to subvert the election of a President 

 of the United States by wholesale and glaring 

 frauds. Does anybody deny or dispute it ? It 

 was sufficiently proven. 



"Therefore I think we ought to avail our- 

 selves of the pendency of the present bill to 

 adopt some provision tending to guard the 

 election of members of Congress and electors 

 for President and Vice-President from these 

 wholesale frauds. There has been handed to 

 me a bill, very carefully prepared by a large 

 committee of the House of [Representatives ; I 

 believe a committee composed of fifteen mem- 

 bers, upon which all parties and all sections 

 were fairly represented. That committee, after 

 a careful examination, have reported three 

 sections to accomplish the purpose of preserv- 

 ing the purity of elections. There can be no 

 doubt about the constitutional power of Con- 

 gress in this particular, because it is in plain 

 accordance with the provisions of the Con- 

 stitution which authorize Congress to change 

 and alter the mode and manner of electing 

 members of Congress and electors for Presi- 

 dent. I propose to offer these three sections, 

 which I find are embodied in substance in the 

 laws of most of the States, but which are dis- 

 regarded and nullifie*d and overthrown in every 

 election in the city of New York, as three in- 

 dependent sections, to come in at the end of 

 the bill : 



And be U further enacted, That if at any election 

 for Representative or Delegate in the Congress of 

 the United States any person shall knowingly per- 

 sonate and vote, or attempt to vote, in the name of 

 any other person, whether living, dead, or fictitious ; 

 or vote more, than onco at the same election for any 

 candidate for the same office ; or vote at a place 

 where he may not b lawfully entitled to vote ; or 

 vote without having a lawful right to vote ; or do 

 any unlawful act to secure a right or an opportunity 

 to vote for himself or any other person ; or by force, 



