CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



but few amendments were offered in the Sen- 

 ud the conl'eivi-.- DU the part of the Senate 

 were promptly willing to recede from those 

 union. 1 incuts on hearing the proper explana- 

 tion : ao that I am able to say if other matters 

 could hiivc been arranged this bill could Imve 

 been reported to the House without the addi- 

 tion of a single dollar, except for a military 

 post which had been recommended subsequent- 

 ly to the passage of the bill by the House. 



" There were, however, two points of dis- 

 agreement in the bill. 



" The bill provided for the reorganization of 

 the army in many clauses which were added 

 after full consideration here, as the House will 

 remember. Those clauses were only informal- 

 ly discussed by the conferees. Practically they 

 were passed over in order to see if an agree- 

 ment could be arrived at on the final provision 

 of the bill in regard to the presence of the 

 troops at the polls. It was very soon appar- 

 ent that upon this point no agreement was 

 likely to bo reached. 



" I think I can state without impropriety 

 that there would have been no difficulty in ar- 

 ranging for such a reorganization of the army 

 as would have been satisfactory to this House 

 and to the Senate. Both sides professed their 

 willingness to accommodate themselves to the 

 pressing and admitted necessity which exists 

 for a reorganization of the army. But upon 

 the other point, as to whether it shall continue 

 to be lawful for troops to be present at the 

 polls under any circumstances, the difference 

 seemed to be irreconcilable. The conferees on 

 the part of the Senate declined to assent to tho 

 repeal of so much of the two sections of the 

 Revised Statutes as authorize troops to be pres- 

 ent at the polls. The issue, therefore, was 

 fairly and clearly defined. On the one side 

 we insisted that the time had come when it 

 should no longer be lawful for a soldier to bo 

 at the polling-place on the day of election. 

 Upon the other side it was insisted with equal 

 force that this provision of the statute should 

 be maintained, and the power should remain 

 in the executive to order the troops to the 

 polls on the day of election if in his judgment 

 it was necessary to preserve the peace. 



'' Mr. Speaker, this presents an issue which 

 involves the very essence of free government. 

 The difference between a despotic government 

 and a free government is this : that in a des- 

 potism the military power is superior to the 

 civil ; in a free government the civil dominates 

 the military power. And this principle is one 

 which wo never fought for ; it came to us as 

 an inheritance from our fathers. It was so 

 well recognized that when the Constitution 

 was formed it was not even deemed necessary 

 to insert an article to that effect. But as a 

 protection against military interference pro- 

 vision was made that citizens might bear arms, 

 and that no soldiers should be quartered up- 

 on them without their consent. No English- 

 speaking man for two hundred years has ques- 



tioned the principle that soldiers should 

 be present at the polls ; and the question could 

 never have been raised in this country, the de- 

 mand could never have been made in our land, 

 but for the unhappy calamity of a civil war. 

 In time of civil war all political rights must be 

 surrendered to the necessities of the conflict. 

 And so it was here. We surrendered the right 

 we had inherited, and which up to that hour 

 we had exercised, that no soldier should show 

 himself at the polls. We surrendered that safe- 

 guard as we surrendered many other things 

 that were dear to us. A convertible currency, 

 specie payments, almost every traditional right, 

 disappeared in the presence of the great dan- 

 ger with which we were confronted. Now, 

 for fifteen long years we have been striving to 

 recover that lost ground. We have made gi- 

 gantic efforts, sacrifices such as the world nev- 

 er saw, to get back to the resumption of specie 

 payments ; and yet we have done nothing for 

 the resumption of our political rights, the rights 

 which lie at the very foundation of this gov- 

 ernment. The time has come to recover this 

 lost ground, and I think it is a reproach to our 

 patriotism that the resumption of specie pay- 

 ments should have preceded the resumption of 

 the rights necessary for the preservation of 

 free government. It is an imputation upon 

 this liberty-loving people and its representa- 

 tives that they have allowed the time to pass 

 by until now, when the question is finally 

 about to be settled in this bill, and in an- 

 other bill, the result of the conference on 

 which will soon be reported to this House. 



" Now, Mr. Speaker, can we surrender this 

 question ? Would we be justified by the peo- 

 ple of this country, now that the issue has been 

 raised in conceding the principle in time of 

 profound peace, fifteen years after the close 

 of a civil war, that soldiers may be ordered by 

 the executive power to the polls on the day of 

 election ? 



" The issue thus made is one that we are 

 ready to accept before the country. Let the 

 people decide whether they are prepared to 

 surrender the sacred right of untrammeled 

 suffrage which this bill seeks to guard, and 

 the provisions which in the legislative bill are 

 designed to maintain unimpaired the trial by 

 jury, which is the great achievement of our 

 race. Unless the blood which courses in our 

 veins has degenerated from the vital fluid which 

 has made the Anglo-Saxon people great and 

 free, I can not doubt the result of the appeal 

 which I now make to the country." 



Mr. Foster of Ohio : " The gentleman from 

 New York has been on the conference com- 

 mittee on the army bill alone. Fortunately 

 or unfortunately for me, I have been on the 

 conference committees of both of the bills 

 where these political questions arise, and I 

 can say to the House that so far as my own 

 action is concerned I think I have fully real- 

 ized the importance of trying to come to an 

 agreement on these bills and save the country 



