CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



openly, but who would bo willing to testify 

 :ly. That I understand to bo the posi- 

 tion of tin- Senator. I do not know, Mr. 1'ivs- 

 ident, tor one, any part of thus country where 

 that stati- <>f tilings exists. The Senator says 

 that it is alleged. Like a great many other alle- 

 g it ions it is entirely without any proof to sus- 

 tain it. I respectfully submit to the Senator 

 that he has not one particle of proof, and if he 

 desires (and I have no right to question but that 

 he does desire) a free, full, complete, thorough, 

 public investigation of this question, I can not 

 MV why he should object to ray amendment. 



" So far as I ara concerned, as a representa- 

 tive in part of South Carolina, I wish to say to 

 the Senator, to the Senate, and to the country, 

 since he has chosen to select and single out my 

 State as the special object for this investigation, 

 that we desire the most complete and the full- 

 est investigation we can get ; and I can say to 

 the Senator that any witness who goes before 

 the committee in South Carolina may do so 

 just as safely and may testify as fully as he can 

 in the State of Maine." 



Mr. Eustis of Louisiana : " Mr. President, I 

 desire to state to the Senator from Maine, so 

 far as any investigation in Louisiana is con- 

 cerned, that past investigations prove that Re- 

 publican witnesses are not intimidated, because 

 Republican witnesses not only testify, but a 

 great many testify on both sides Therefore I 

 can see no objection to having this investiga- 

 tion a public investigation. 



" It was not my intention to reply to the re- 

 marks made by the Senator from Maine, be- 

 cause whether or not there has been intimida- 

 tion is a question of fact and not a question of 

 conjecture or guesswork or partisan statement ; 

 and therefore it occurred to mo as a very ex- 

 traordinary position for the honorable Senator 

 from Maine to occupy, that in advance of the 

 examination of a single witness, in the absence 

 of a single inquiry, as the introducer of the res- 

 olution asking for an investigation, which im- 

 plies that there has been so far no sustained 

 fact upon which to base an accusation, the hon- 

 orable Senator should take the liberty of stating 

 to the Senate and to the people that the col- 

 ored citizens of the State of Louisiana had no 

 more rights as suffragans and as voters than 

 the inhabitants of Senegambia. I could very 

 easily demonstrate, if this were a proper time, 

 that the election in Louisiana, so far as results 

 are concerned, either as to the general State 

 ticket or as to the Congressional elections, was 

 a fair and a peaceable election, and that there 

 were a great many reasons why the Democrat- 

 ic nominees were elected ; and I could also 

 demonstrate that the colored people selected 

 their choice as to Congressional candidates and 

 exercised their choice as to legislative candi- 

 dates, showing'that they exercised a discrimi- 

 nation in the matter." 



The Vice-President : " Will the Senate agree 

 to the amendment proposed by the Senator 

 from South Carolina ? " 



Mr. Blame : u I have no desire to prolong 

 the debate; but the Senator from South Caro- 

 lina either possesses or all'ects great ignorance 

 of past events. Ho certainly ought to know 

 that one of the primal troubles in every investi- 

 gation South has been the very one on which 

 I have commented. I used the word ' alleged ' 

 because 1 wanted to put it in as mild a form as 

 possible. I might have used the word ' proved ' 

 or ' recorded ' in Congressional reports acces- 

 sible to him as to every other Senator ; but in 

 advance of the investigation which the Senate 

 is to order I do not care to go into particulars. 

 I have had as many as two hundred letters 

 from the South giving details of great outrages 

 upon the right of suffrage; many from the 

 State of the Senator who last spoke. I do not 

 adduce them or parade them here. They at 

 least form the basis, in connection with that 

 which has become matter of public notoriety, 

 of a serious and sober investigation ; and, if the 

 Senator from Louisiana does not know that a 

 great massacre occurred in one of the parishes 

 of his own State on the last election day, he is 

 probably the only gentleman in the United 

 States who is ignorant of it." 



Mr. Butler: "The Senator from Maine says 

 he has two hundred letters from people in the 

 South giving evidence of intimidation and fraud 

 and wrong and riot and murder. Why, Mr. 

 President, I understood the Senator to say the 

 other day, and if I am mistaken I hope he will 

 correct me, that he based his statements upon 

 the newspapers of the country. Well, now, 

 Mr. President, I submit in all frankness and in 

 all kindness to the Senator that, if he based his 

 statements upon the newspaper press alone, he 

 and I should have been hung and quartered 

 long ago. It is not safe for the Senator to 

 base his opinions and his statements and his al- 

 legations upon any such authority ; not that I 

 mean to say that the newspapers do not com- 

 municate the truth, but I do mean to say that 

 when correspondents are sent into a country, 

 as they have been into my country, to make a 

 case, to write down all that is bad about our 

 people and to suppress all that is meritorious, 

 the accounts they send are unreliable. I say 

 to the honorable Senator that with, the same 

 feeling and with the same spirit 1 could go 

 into his State with a corps of detectives and I 

 could make his State a stench in the nostrils 

 of the civilized world." 



Mr. Blaine : " You have the authority under 

 these resolutions to do it." 



Mr. Butler: "I say I could do that; yet 

 when I propose to open the doors of the com- 

 mittee to permit everybody to go in who has 

 the right to go, whom the committee will per- 

 mit to go, to allow the witnesses to be cross- 

 examined, the Senator attempts to answer that 

 by saying that witnesses white and colored will 

 bo notified that they do that at their peril. I 

 say, Mr. President, that that is not true so far 

 as South Carolina is concerned. I say that it is 

 absolutely untrue. I do not mean this in an 



