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CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



the Treasury of the United States it was that 

 Bureau and its agents who first drew the color 

 line. And yet when the white people of the 

 South, when the men owning the property and 

 having the intelligence and the education at 

 the South, saw their very social system men- 

 aced with destruction, saw their very house- 

 holds threatened with ruin under an inunda- 

 dation of barbarism directed by the most un- 

 scrupulous of men, and when they naturally 

 came together, when they naturally united as 

 people menaced with danger ever will unite, 

 then a cry is raised against ' the solid South ! ' 

 Ah, Mr. President, it will not do. This system 

 of legislation toward the South that began ten 

 years ago is reaping its fruit ; and it is not by 

 additional penal laws that you can better the 

 condition of this country. What does the Sen- 

 ator want more penal laws for ? Let him look 

 into the statute-book on this very subject ; let 

 him read the statutes in regard to the enforce- 

 ment of the rights of citizens to vote, and I 

 defy him to find in the statute-books of any 

 civilized country on this globe a body of laws 

 so minute, so searching, and bristling all over 

 with fines and forfeitures as are these laws. 



" But that is not all. In addition to that 

 you have a vast machinery of superintendents 

 of election, Federal supervisors, marshals, dep- 

 uty marshals, paid electioneerers out of the 

 Treasury of the United States, under the guise 

 of being men to preserve the freedom of suf- 

 frage and peace at elections. You have a whole 

 army of them provided for by your statutes. 

 What more does the Senator want ? I think 

 I see, Mr. President, what is wanted. I think 

 this is a note which is sounded to the people 

 of the North that they must retrace their 

 steps ; and this very party which required two 

 amendments to the Constitution to be made in 

 the interest, it was said, of the colored popula- 

 tion of the South, is now preparing to face 

 about, retrace its steps, and undo what it did 

 only a few years ago. Either directly or by in- 

 direction that is to be done. Indeed, I thought, 

 while the Senator from Maine was making his 

 speech, how much reason this country, and es- 

 pecially the southern part of the country, had 

 to congratulate itself that the next House of 

 Eepresentatives will not have a majority of gen- 

 tlemen thinking like the Senator from Maine ; 

 for if he is right in what he said, if his threats 

 are not mere idle wind and I certainly do not 

 attribute any such thing to him if they are 

 deep-seated and permanent thoughts of those 

 with whom he acts, then I should be prepared 

 to see a House of Representatives in which 

 there was a Eepublican majority exclude South- 

 ern members by the score; then I should be 

 prepared to see them decide themselves that 

 the right of suffrage was prohibited down there 

 to the negro, and then to see them in their 

 supreme authority, as they would construe it, 

 vote out the chosen Representatives of the 

 South, not by ones, not by twos, but by the 

 score. It is a fortunate thing for this country, 



it is a fortunate thing for our free institutions? 

 that there is not in the present House of Rep- 

 resentatives, and will not be in the next, a 

 majority thinking as the Senator from Maine 

 thinks, and willing to act as I fear he is willing 

 to act. 



" Mr. President, one word on the amend- 

 ment I have offered. My own belief is that 

 there is a far greater danger that menaces our 

 institutions and menaces the right of suffrage 

 in this country than that to which the Sen- 

 ator from Maine has alluded. Sir, the most 

 disheartening thing to an American who loves 

 free institutions is to see that year by year the 

 corrupt use of money in the elections is mak- 

 ing its way until the time may come, and that 

 within the observation of even the oldest man 

 here, when elections in the United States will 

 be as debauched as ever they were in the worst 

 days of the old borough parliamentary elec- 

 tions in the mother land. Mr. President, there 

 is the great danger. The question is whether 

 this country shall be governed with a view to 

 the rights of every man, the poor man as well 

 as the rich man, or whether the longest purse 

 shall carry the elections and this be a mere 

 plutocracy instead of a democratic republic. 

 That is the danger ; and that danger, let me 

 tell my friend, exists far more in the North 

 than it does in the South. Sir, if he wants to 

 preserve the purity of elections, if he wants to 

 have this Government perpetuated as a system 

 that can be honestly administered from the 

 primary election to the signature of a bill by 

 the President of the United States, let him set 

 his face and exercise his great ability in stop- 

 ping the flood-gates of corruption that threaten 

 to deluge the whole land and bring republican 

 institutions into utter ruin and disgrace. 



" Mr. President, there is one thing that made 

 me doubt a little as to the propriety of this 

 resolution, although, as I said, I am going to 

 vote for it ; and what the Senator from Maine 

 has said has added to the great doubt which I 

 entertained on that subject ; and that is, that I 

 am not quite sure that there are not persons 

 who favor this kind of a resolution, and as 

 much debate upon it as you can have, and as 

 much investigation as you can have, in order 

 to divert public attention from the real ques- 

 tions which ought to engage the Congress of 

 the United States. Questions of economy, 

 questions of finance, questions of currency, all 

 are shoved aside that popular speeches may be 

 made, tending to excite one section of the peo- 

 ple against another, and to set their minds mad 

 with passion, instead of appealing to their cool 

 and deliberate reason. I certainly do not 

 charge the Senator from Maine with having 

 got this up for the purpose of putting aside 

 and throwing out of view that which should 

 form the subject of our thoughts and of our 

 legislation; but I fear that such may be in 

 some men's minds one of the things to be 

 effected by such a resolution." 



Mr. Lamar of Mississippi : " Mr. President, 



