CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



one of them laying heavy penalties upon any 

 soldier, whether enlisted man or officer, who 

 may in any way interfere with the freedom of 

 elections. 



"Gentlemen talk as though these sections 

 had been adopted to empower the army to in- 

 terfere with the freedom of elections. On the 

 contrary, they were in precisely the opposite 

 direction. It should be remembered that these 

 sections were enacted in 1865, when the roar 

 of battle was still in our ears; when our guns 

 were still smoking ; when none of the States 

 in rebellion had been reconstructed; when 

 none of them had been restored to their place 

 in the circle of the Union ; when all was chaos ; 

 when from governor down to the humblest 

 officer in every one of those States there was 

 no one that bore in the new order of things 

 any recognized authority ; when even the ma- 

 chinery for the service of ordinary civil process 

 had all to be set up anew ; when by the neces- 

 sity of the case the military occupation of all 

 that part of the country was indispensable 

 even in the view of the most extreme opposers 

 of the Union. It was at the time, when our 

 Government was seeking to restore civil au- 

 thority in the place of the chaos that the war 

 had left, when it was necessary to have armies 

 all through that portion of the country it was 

 at such a time that the victorious Government 

 in the interest of liberty put up these muni- 

 ments and armaments against any aggression 

 of the military upon the right of electors by 

 saying to them, ' You shall obstruct no man in 

 his free right to the suffrage. If you do, im- 

 prisonment and fine shall be visited upon the 

 officer or man who may do it.' That is what 

 those laws were for, and that is what they are 

 to-day laws restrictive of the military power 

 with exception of the single clause which does 

 not prohibit them from keeping the peace at 

 the polls. Is that a wrong, an act of tyranny? 

 Perhaps the law is now as necessary as it was 

 in 1865. I am free to admit for one that these 

 enactments were passed at a period so differ- 

 ent from the present that probably we can 

 without serious harm in any direction muster 

 them out, as we mustered out of service the 

 victorious armies when the war was done. For 

 myself, I see no serious practical objection to 

 letting these sections go, though I do not quite 

 see how anybody can say that, while a State 

 may call out its own militia to keep the peace 

 at its own polls (and nobody calls that tyranny, 

 nobody calls that wickedness, injustice, and a 

 menace to civil liberty), so it seems to me that 

 a nation when it has its own elections, which 

 its own Constitution says it may regulate as to 

 the time, place, and manner of holding them, 

 may with great propriety use its own military 

 force to keep the peace at its own national 

 polls. That is all there is in these two sections 

 that any gentleman has complained of. Now, 

 I believe, as a matter of fact, no one will say 

 that any citizen during the thirteen years and 

 more that this law has stood on our statute- 



book has been denied the full and free exercise 

 of the elective franchise in consequence of the 

 presence of armed soldiers of the United States 

 near the polls. If there has been such a case, 

 I will join with any man of any party in depre- 

 cating it, in deploring it, in doing what I can 

 to prevent its recurrence." 



Mr. Townshend of Illinois : " The gentleman 

 from New York has uttered a truthful senti- 

 ment here, which is creditable to him. He has 

 mentioned the fact that during the late civil 

 war the people of this country did surrender 

 many things, one of which was specie pay- 

 ments. Another surrender of the people of 

 this country was to a large extent their consti- 

 tutional liberty. He has also announced that 

 we have resumed specie payments, but we have 

 not yet resumed our liberties. I have no more 

 to say upon that point, except to say the time 

 has arrived for a resumption of our liberties. 

 I want now further to call the attention of this 

 House to the spectacle which has been pre- 

 sented to the American people during the past 

 few days. 



" Why is it that there is an extra session 

 imminent ? It is because gentlemen upon the 

 other side of the House, since last Saturday, 

 have been filibustering and obstructing legis- 

 lation in order to screen a man holding an 

 exalted position as a representative of the 

 Government abroad from punishment who is 

 charged with high crimes and misdemeanors. 

 There are some other issues before us to which 

 I will refer. Let me call your attention to the 

 fact that an appropriation bill making provis- 

 ion for postal expenses has been in a confer- 

 ence committee and there is a disagreement 

 upon it. Why? Because the Senate, a Re- 

 publican body, has said to the House, * Unless 

 you yield to us a scheme for subsidizing the 

 Brazilian steamship line there shall be an extra 

 session.' Another issue is presented before the 

 country upon the army bill, when it is insisted 

 we have reached that period of peace in the 

 country when soldiers should be taken from the 

 polls in order that we may have free elections, 

 a Republican Senate says to us in plain lan- 

 guage it will force an extra session before the 

 authority to use troops at the polls shall be 

 repealed. The point, then, that the Senate 

 makes upon us here, as uttered by the gentle- 

 men from Ohio [Mr. Foster and Mr. Garfield] 

 here to-night, is that in reference to the bill pro- 

 vidingfor the legislative, executive, and judicial 

 expenses of the Government, there shall be no 

 repeal of laws which provide for the appoint- 

 ment of Republican recruiting sergeants at the 

 polls in the shape of deputy marshals and su- 

 pervisors. I want to state the fact before the 

 House and the country that the Democratic side 

 of this House has not been guilty of resorting 

 to filibustering or any means of obstructing 

 legislation in order to provoke an extra session. 

 If an extra session shall be found necessary, it 

 is because the Republican party is obstructing 

 legislation, and because the Democratic party is 



