206 



CONGKESS, UNITED STATES. 



Mr. Blair : " Then the Senator has given me 

 one specific case in which parties were arrested 

 on suspicion for an offence committed just be- 

 fore the declaration of martial law. The par- 

 ties arrested were acquitted by his own ac- 

 knowledgment, and he cites another case of 

 a destruction of a school-house in York Coun- 

 ty. Mr. President, attention was called to the 

 fact. These are the cases. One, an isolated 

 case of outrage, for which the suspected per- 

 sons were acquitted, and another, the burning 

 of a school-house ; and this is insurrection 

 and rebellion ! 



"Now, sir, what is to prevent any State or 

 any city or county in the United States from 

 being put under martial law by the President, 

 if rebellion and insurrection are made by one 

 isolated outrage of disguised men and the 

 burning of a school-house ? 'These are all that 

 are claimed. The Senator says he could refer 

 to one or two others. These are all that he 

 thought it worth while to put in his speech 

 delivered here last Friday, and which I now 

 hold in my hand. The President had not one 

 word to say on the subject of the time when 

 the offences were committed. He could not have 

 got any information of crimes committed there 

 from the Ku-klux committee, although he re- 

 fers to the joint select committee as being one 

 of the sources of his information. He could not 

 have referred to any thing stated to him by 

 that committee, because the committee never 

 authorized any one to give the information to 

 the President. He may have got information 

 from one of its members ; but no one of its 

 members could have given him information of 

 any crime or outrage committed within less 

 than nine months previous to the declaration 

 of martial law, for no such crime or outrage is 

 proven, and none can be found in their reported 

 testimony. Here is a book with its seven 

 thousand pages, here is the committee's re- 

 port made subsequent to that declaration of 

 martial law, and, to justify it, they name no 

 crime committed ; the people were quiet, Tar- 

 rests were made, a one-armed sheriff arrested 

 individuals throughout that district without aid 

 or assistance from any one. 



" The Chief Magistrate of this country has 

 seen proper to exercise this great authority 

 never before given to a President of the 

 'United States, yielded against the protests of 

 the ablest Republicans in this House and in 

 the other, and which ought not to have been 

 used except in the clearest and most over- 

 whelming case of necessity. It has been exer- 

 cised. The President has failed to show to us 

 that there existed, at the time he exercised 

 this authority, any ground of justification 

 whatsoever. Admitting all that is claimed, 

 that from a year to eighteen months, or two 

 years previous, there had been such a condi- 

 tion of things as has been described by the Sen- 

 ator in his eloquent speech, it had passed 

 away. You might as well attempt to defend the 

 exercise of this power of declaring martial law, 



and suspending the privileges of the writ of ha- 

 beas corpus, because the rebellion existed seven 

 years before this declaration. The occasion 

 had passed; there was no disturbance. The 

 officers there admit there was no disorder. My 

 colleague of the House, Mr. Van Trump, who 

 was there with the Senator, declares in his re- 

 port, which is unchallenged, which cannot be 

 successfully denied, that there was no disturb- 

 ance ; that he knew it of his own knowledge. 

 The President does not pretend that there 

 was. The Senator cannot make it appear that 

 there was any ; and here was the wanton ex 

 ercise of this power, to overthrow the guaran- 

 tees of the Constitution for the personal liber- 

 ty of the individual, without excuse and with- 

 out cause I 



" Martial law is still maintained within 

 those nine counties. Hundreds of citizens 

 have been dragged, without any allegation of 

 crime, from their homes, without the right of 

 appeal to the courts, to be discharged from il- 

 legal custody. Thousands, as has been said 

 by the Senator, have fled from their homes 

 and he, in imitation of the President, declares 

 that those who have fled from illegal arres 

 confess, by flying, their guilt, when they knew 

 that, if arrested, they would not have the right 

 of the writ of habeas corpus. The Senator 

 knows well that they could be followed and ar- 

 rested; if charges could be brought against 

 them, the courts are open ; but no military ar- 

 rest could be made outside of these counties, 

 upon which the courts would not have a right 

 to pass." 



The Presiding Officer : " No amendment 

 being offered, the bill will be reported to the 

 Senate without amendment." 



Mr. Alcorn, of Mississippi, said: "Mr. 

 President, for three hundred miles en the 

 Mississippi front in the State of Mississippi 

 there has not been a case of Ku-klux violence 

 established or even charged since the year 

 1868, within my knowledge. In all that vast 

 rich delta that is now scarce of labor, sus- 

 ceptible of the production of a bale of cotton 

 to an acre, where capital seeks to obtain labor, 

 they are sending out their emissaries, as I have 

 said, and agents every year, to bring labor 

 there ; and I undertake to say there is not a 

 plantation there that has the amount of labor 

 it could use. In all those river counties for 

 three hundred miles not a man holds an office 

 unless he holds it at the will of the colored 

 people, and a majority of the offices, I will say 

 two-thirds of the offices, are in truth and in 

 fact held by the colored people. Is it possible 

 that the courts cannot administer justice to 

 the colored people in a society like this ? Is it 

 possible that the county in which I live, where 

 the colored population is seventy-six per cent, 

 of the whole ; in the county below me, where 

 it is eighty per cent. ; in the county below 

 that, where it is eighty-three per cent. ; and 

 in the county below that, where it is ninety 

 per cent, of the whole, justice cannot be ad- 



