1*7Q 

 78 



CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



here or there. No source of appointment 

 could have purged such a body of men of the 

 despotic and unconstitutional powers reposed 

 in them by the act. 



"Does the Senator remember also the cir- 

 cumstances under which the first of those 

 bills was put through in the Senate ? Does he 

 remember that he and his associates in this 

 body compelled the minority to sit here from 

 twelve o'clock at noon of one day until seven 

 o'clock of the morning of the next day ? And 

 he wants to know why that little jaded band 

 of men, to whose eyes even the excess of their 

 fatigue forbade sleep to come through all those 

 long and weary hours he is astonished that 

 during that session of nineteen hours when 

 there was but a handful of us here in all, and 

 frequently but two or three, as it were, to 

 mount guard against the assaults upon the 

 Constitution he wonders now why none of us 

 had not any thing to say as to why these ap- 

 pointments should not be given to the district 

 judges rather than the circuit judges ! Why, 

 sir, that would have been a very foolish under- 

 taking for us! We had matter much more 

 serious to deal with." 



The Presiding Officer : " The question is on 

 the amendment of the Senator from Illinois, 

 upon which the yeas and nays have been or- 

 dered." 



The result was announced as follows : 



YEAS Messrs. Alcorn, Bayard, Casserly, Cooper, 

 Davis of West Virginia, Hamilton of Maryland, 

 Hamilton of Texas, Johnston, Kelly, Norwood, Pratt, 

 Kansom, Saulsbury, Sprague, Stevenson, Stockton, 

 Tlmrman. Tipton, and West 19. 



NAYS Messrs. Ames, Anthony, Boreman, Car- 

 penter, Chandler, Cole, Corbett, Edmunds, Ferry of 

 Michigan, Flanagan, Frelinghuysen, Harlan, Kel- 

 logg, Logan, Morrill of Vermont, Morton, Osborn, 

 Pool, Eice, Scott, Stewart, Sumner, Wilson, Win- 

 dom, and Wright 25. 



ABSENT Messrs. Blair, Brownlow, Buckingham, 

 Caldwell, Cameron, Clayton, Conkling, Cragin, 

 Davis of Kentucky, Fenton, Ferry of Conneticut, Gil- 

 bert, Goldthwaite, Hamlin, Hill, Hitchcock, Howe, 

 Lewis, Morrill of Maine, Nye, Patterson, Pomeroy, 

 Ramsey, Kobertson, Sawyer, Schurz, Sherman, Spen- 

 cer, Trumbull, and Vickers 30. 



So the amendment was rejected. 



The Presiding Officer : " The question now 

 is on concurring in the amendment made in 

 Committee of the Whole, which was proposed 

 by the Senator from Indiana (Mr. Morton) to 

 insert an additional section relative to the 

 designations of district judges by the circuit 

 judges." 



The amendment was concurred in. 



Mr. Saulsbury, of Delaware, said : " I offer 

 the following amendment as an additional 

 section : " 



SEC. . That if any person having any duties to 

 perform under the provisions of this act, or the act 

 to which this is an amendment, shall use the power 

 upon him conferred in such manner as to prevent any 

 person from voting entitled to vote, he shall be guilty 

 of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction thereof shall 

 be imprisoned not less than three months, and shall 

 be liable to the party injured in a civil suit. 



"I understand that there is no provision in 

 the bill to which this is an amendment, or in 

 the bill under consideration, providing for the 

 punishment of these officers in any manner 

 for the oppressive use of the powers conferred 

 upon them. The bill under consideration pro- 

 poses to add to the long list of supervisors and 

 other officers provided for in the original law, 

 and there is no provision in it punishing those 

 men in case they use the power conferred 

 upon them oppressively or injuriously to the 

 voters of the country. My amendment is 

 simply to provide that, if any officer having 

 power conferred upon him under the original 

 act, or under this act, shall so use it as to de- 

 prive any person entitled to vote of the exer- 

 cise of that right, in such case he shall be 

 guilty of a misdemeanor, and punishable by 

 fine and imprisonment." 



Mr. Edmunds: " The original act of 1870, 

 and on that very point which seems now to 

 give rise to this amendment, was resisted by 

 our friends on the other side. The whole 

 scope of the original act is to prevent any 

 unlawful interference with the right of any- 

 body to vote who is entitled to vote, whether 

 that interference is under color of law or with- 

 out color of law ; and, therefore, if one of these 

 people unlawfully and wrongfully interferes 

 with any person's right to vote, the most 

 sweeping provisions are made against it, just 

 as against inspectors of election, and the pun- 

 ishments are all provided. This would only 

 tend to produce confusion instead of advan- 

 tage." 



Mr. Stockton, of New Jersey, said : "I have 

 not had time to read the section relied upon ; 

 but it seems to me that the explanation made by 

 the Senator from Vermont does not reach the 

 point that the amendment of the Senator from 

 Delaware aims at. It does reach the point of 

 punishing any person who interferes with an 

 election or prevents a man from voting ; but it 

 does not reach an officer who, clothed with 

 your authority, clothed with power given to 

 him by your act, armed by you with powers 

 which are dangerous, much more dangerous 

 than the powers which exist between one 

 individual and another, exceeds his authority 

 and abuses the trust which you repose in 

 him. The very reason on which I sustained 

 the amendment of the Senator from Illinois, 

 providing that these persons should not be 

 paid, so that they might be men whom you 

 could trust, men who would not abuse your 

 trust, induces me to support the amendment 

 of the Senator from Delaware, for that is a 

 safeguard. You should inflict punishment 

 upon your own officers if they violate the 

 powers you have given them for protection, 

 and make them powers to coerce and con- 

 strain free elections. The amendment of the 

 Senator from Delaware is in the very spirit 

 of the bill itself, if the spirit of the bill is 

 what these gentlemen insist that it is." 



Mr. Saulsbury said : " All I want to do by 



