CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



203 



vindictive legislation, without proof, succeed? 

 To refuse inquiry, and to punish political 

 offences, even under an established and legal 

 mode, is to hury powder under the ground. 

 Its explosion will tear up the very rocks on 

 which our political foundations are founded. 

 Better burn our powder on the surface, harm- 

 lessly. 



"You have already failed in such legislation. 

 We have had six years of that experience. 

 Your powers here and in the South have been 

 unshackled. You have reconstructed and re- 

 reconstructed ; you have disfranchised and dis- 

 abled suffragan and officer; you have confis- 

 cated and harassed, and have had as allies the 

 bureau and the bayonet. You had a new set 

 of voters and their control ; you had unlimited 

 taxation and its collection in Federal and State 

 affairs. You squandered revenues and you 

 created debts ; you fed your vampires and 

 sent down your janizaries ; you had negro 

 militia and military governors; you made 

 amendments to the Constitution and had them 

 adopted under duress ; you fed like vultures on 

 the prey the war left for your hungry beaks ; 

 you have glutted yourselves and parasites with 

 plunder; you have exercised your clemency 

 only to add renegades to your recruits ; in fine, 

 you have had the President as the prime mover 

 in these exercises of caprice and power ; yet 

 you have failed, and you fear to inquire into 

 the causes ! 



" Indeed, you have had laws, and you have 

 them now, on the statute, similar to one sec- 

 tion of this law. The act of May 31, 1870, 

 gives the Federal courts the jurisdiction you 

 reenact in this bill. That act punishes bands 

 and conspirators, disguised or not, who have 

 the intent only to injure, oppress, threaten, or 

 hinder the citizen in the free exercise and 

 enjoyment of any right under the Constitution 

 and laws of the United States, and you have 

 had the judges and other officers South to exe- 

 cute it. Am I mistaken in this ? Here is the 

 law : 



That if two or more persons shall band or conspire 

 together, or go in disguise upon the public highway, 

 or upon the premises of another, with intent to 

 violate any provision of this act 



"It does not stop 'with intent to violate 

 any provision of this act,' which was intended 

 to secure the right to vote ; it goes on to say 

 with intent to violate any provision of this act, or to 

 injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any citizen 

 with intent to prevent or hinder his free exercise and 

 enjoyment of any right or privilege granted or 

 secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the 

 United States, or because of his having exercised 

 the same, such persons shall be held guilty of felony, 

 and on conviction thereof shall be fined or impris- 

 oned, or both, at the discretion of the court, the fine 

 not to exceed $5,000 and the imprisonment not to 

 exceed ten years, and shall, moreover, be thereafter 

 ineligible to and disabled from holding any office or 

 place of honor, profit, or trust created by the Con- 

 stitution or laws of the United States. 



" My statement is confirmed by one of the 

 most respectable leaders of the Republican 



party (Mr. Blair, of Michigan). He not only 

 found similar laws of equal cogency with this 

 in the statute of May 31, 1870, but under the 

 law of 1793. He said : 



My own judgment has been that this Congress 

 ought to have adjourned immediately upon its or- 



fanization, and my votes have so been steadily given, 

 wished that the laws as they stand might be 

 thoroughly tested before we should attempt to enter 

 upon new and untried fields of legislation. Many 

 and very broad powers have been granted to the 

 Executive by previous acts of Congress, for the 

 preservation of order in the lately insurgent States, 

 which do not seem to have been brought into requi- 

 sition as yet. Why pile statute upon statute to sleep 

 in your books unused ? If a multitude of laws could 

 bring order out of Southern confusion, there ought 

 to have been a millennium there before this time. 



" Quoting the law of 1870, he said further: 

 This seems to me broad enough, clear enough, 

 and definite enough to meet every form of intimida- 

 tion, injury, or oppression of the people by disguised 

 bands or conspirators such as are proved to exist in 

 many States. Neither are there wanting statutes to 

 enable the President to enforce the laws of the Unit- 

 ed States. As early as 1792 Congress began to pass 

 laws authorizing the President to use the military 

 power in the performance of his duty, to take care 

 that the laws oe faithfully executed, and never since 

 that day has he been without authority to call forth 

 the militia ' whenever the laws of the United States 

 shall be opposed or the execution thereof obstructed 

 in any State by combinations too powerful to be sup- 

 pressed by the ordinary course of judicial proceed- 

 ings.' I do not stop now to refer to these laws in 

 detail, but they will be found very full and ample, 

 and will surprise many gentlemen, no doubt. 



" And yet, Mr. Speaker, this able gentleman 

 has consented to disturb public opinion out 

 of this Hall, and the public business in it, by 

 piling useless statutes of hate upon laws of ven- 

 geance, to make confusion worse confounded, 

 to help the sinking fortunes of his party ! You 

 confess that you now come here for new lawa 

 to the same effect. You thereby confess that 

 your laws are inoperative. If your statements 

 are true, they are so flagrant a violation of 

 liberty and law that they fall dead. 



" It will not, therefore, be doubted that your 

 Federal legislation and its execution have failed 

 to produce content South. This much must 

 be admitted. I doubt not, also, that the dis- 

 content has taken the form of secrecy. It has 

 committed in many localities many heinous 

 crimes and outrages. I admit and denounce 

 these enormities, but as a legislator am I not 

 bound to fix the cause, so as to remove the 

 effect ? 



"Measures of repression and usurpation are, 

 in their nature, revolutionary. The strain to 

 keep freemen down is sure to rebound. This 

 is one of those unvarying laws of human 

 society which Buckle would delight to reveal. 

 The statesman cannot overlook it. 



" Sir James Mackintosh has laid down a wise 

 rule for us when he says that in or after a civil 

 conflict, when the passions and turbulence of 

 men are aroused 



Little quiet is left for moral deliberation, yet by 

 the immutable principles of morality, and by them 

 alone, must the historian try the conduct of all men 



