CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



201 



tin- substance of what ho has said; but the 

 Si-nator has greatly mistaken, with his present 

 explanation, the point of the Senator from 

 Maine. The Senator from Maine did not com- 

 plain of the inequality of personages in one 

 part of the Union or another. What he com- 

 plained of was, supposing what he believes to 

 be true turns out to be so when you have an 

 investigation, that a small number of persons 

 in the South, by a gross and outrageous viola- 

 tion of the Constitution, have taken to them- 

 selves by that species of usurpation the power 

 of a large number under the Constitution exer- 

 cised in a rightful way in the Northwest. Is 

 the Senator dissatisfied if that turns out to be 

 true, or would he like to rectify it? The Sena- 

 tor, of course, would like to rectify it. I must 

 assume that he would. What, then, is the use 

 of saying that you are going to overturn the 

 Government if we undertake to find out wheth- 

 er the Constitution has been grossly and fla- 

 grantly violated by a denial of equal rights in 

 respect of the elections to the popular branch 

 of the Congress of the United States? And 

 where is the necessity, in such a case, of hold- 

 ing out the terror and kindling the conflagra- 

 tion that the Senator referred to in respect of 

 senatorial representation upon an inquiry of 

 that kind ? The people of New England, as far 

 as I may speak for them, believe in justice and 

 in equal rights under the Constitution and ac- 

 cording to it, just aa the fathers and their suc- 

 cessors have made it ; and that is, that in the 

 States (and I am surprised to hear a Southern 

 Senator assail the very foundation of State 

 rights) there is and there must be political 

 equality ; that in respect of the people repre- 

 sented in the other branch of Congress there 

 shall be the fair equality of fair numbers fairly 

 and freely exercising their rights, and not the 

 subjects of tyranny, and corruption, and fraud 

 anywhere. That makes your Government; 

 nothing more, nothing less." 



Mr. Lamar: "Still, Mr. President, I can not 

 accept the position to which the Senator from 

 Vermont assigns me. He says that he is sur- 

 prised to find a Southern Senator assailing the 

 principle of State rights. He will never find 

 me in that position, sir. I have ever been the 

 defender of that doctrine. But surprises are 

 constantly sprung upon us, and the country 

 will be not a little astonished to find the doc- 

 trine of State rights advocated by the distin- 

 guished Senator from Vermont." 



Mr. Edmunds : " I think not. I have always 

 done it." 



Mr. Blaine : " Mr. President, I desire merely 

 to say, in reply to the Senator from Mississippi, 

 that in the little colloquy between him and the 

 Senator from Vermont, I understand this to 

 be about the residuum, that if I move an in- 

 quiry into the unconstitutional representation 

 of Mississippi in the other House, he will move 

 one into the constitutional representation of 

 Maine in this branch ! " 



Mr. Lamar: "That will do pretty well for 



wit and pretty well for the Senator's peculiar 

 species of perversion; but it will not do for 

 the truth, for, sir, I protested that I not only 

 would move no such inquiry, but that I would 

 oppose and fight against any such purpose. 

 No, sir ; the doctrine that I stated was, that 

 if the right of suffrage be invaded anywhere, 

 or any constitutional rights infringed upon, in 

 any quarter or by anybody, it shall be main- 

 tained and enforced, if necessary, by all the 

 constitutional power of the Government." 



Mr. Edmunds: "Then we are all at one." 



Mr. Lamar : " Exactly so, but not upon the 

 ground that States shall be deprived of any of 

 their representatives, because under the opera- 

 tion of the Constitution, either in its original 

 provisions or in its amendments, their political 

 power may be not in exact proportion to their 

 numerical power in this Government. And I 

 repeat the warning against this agitation about 

 sectional power based on numbers; I warn 

 Senators that in throwing their net into this 

 troubled sea they may drag to the shore a vase 

 like that of the fisherman in the ' Arabian 

 Nights,' from which, when the seal was once 

 broken, a demon emerged more potent than 

 his deliverer, and threatening his destruction." 



The Vice-President : "The question recurs 

 on the amendment proposed by the Senator 

 from Ohio. Will the Senate agree to the 

 resolutions as amended ? " 



Mr. Bayard of Delaware : " I propose to 

 amend the first resolution, in line 6, by insert- 

 ing after ' any State ' the words ' or of the 

 United States ' ; so as to read : 



" Whether the right of suffrage of citizens of the 

 United States, or or any class of such citizens, was 

 denied or abridged by the action of the election officers 

 of any State, or of the United States, in refusing to 

 receive their votes. 



" This will make the inquiry include both 

 officers of the State and of the United States, 

 who were election officers." 



Mr. Blaine : " I have no objection to that. 

 I hope there will be no objection to that 

 amendment." 



The Vice-President : " The Chair hears no 

 objection to the amendment suggested by the 

 Senator from Delaware. The resolutions are 

 so modified." 



Mr. Conkling of New York : " I suggest 

 that if either branch of this inquiry is to pro- 

 ceed, a special committee should be charged 

 with it. The chairman of the Committee on 

 the Judiciary [Mr. Edmunds] is not here. 

 There are several members of that committee 

 here, and they all know, as I know, that com- 

 mittee is already, I might say, smothered 

 under labor and duties which are put in its 

 charge ; and the idea that during this session 

 of Congress either alternative of this inquiry 

 is to be conducted by that committee possibly 

 my friend before mo [Mr. Davis of Illinois] 

 says ' properly ' but I say possibly seems to me 

 so improbable that I venture to call the atten- 

 tion of the Senate to it. Believing as I do 



