236 



CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



as the late Senator Morton had the good sense 

 to foresee, an element of weakness. Our Re- 

 publican friends commit a radical mistake 

 when they assume that the colored vote be- 

 longs to their party as a matter of right. 

 Their argument, syllogistically put, is this: 



"First. .The party that gave the colored 

 man the right to vote is entitled to his vote. 



" Second. The Eepublican party gave him 

 the right. 



"Therefore, the Eepublican party is enti- 

 tled to his vote. 



" Colored men are beginning to comprehend 

 this, and to understand that if it is good logic, 

 it may be bad policy ; and when they remem- 

 ber how often the men for whom they have 

 voted have cheated and swindled them, it is 

 not strange that they should conclude to 

 change their votes, and regard good policy as 

 better than doubtful logic. They have found 

 by experience that best of teachers that 

 the average white radical who came down 

 from the North and professed so much love 

 for them was often a hypocrite, still oftener a 

 swindler, and sometimes a thief. They are 

 beginning to comprehend the situation and to 

 think for themselves and to ask, ' How is it 

 that our good friends who love us so, and who 

 are always whining about our rights and 

 wrongs, especially as election time approaches, 

 how is it that these good friends have never 

 invited us to Maine or Michigan, to Massachu- 

 setts or to Minnesota, to Iowa or to Indiana, 

 or to some other northern State where sweet 

 liberty was born and grew for us ? ' Sir, our 

 Republican friends underrate the colored man 

 if they suppose that he can always be deceived 

 by the cunning arts of the men who first be- 

 wildered and then swindled him. It is a mis- 

 take to suppose that he will not follow the 

 great law of self-interest which governs other 

 men especially our Republican friends and 

 vote in accordance with their interests." 



Mr. Hewitt of New York : " Mr. Chairman, 

 the opposition which is expressed against this 

 amendment by the gentlemen on the other side, 

 shows how absolutely impossible it is for them 

 to comprehend the motives which govern the 

 Democracy in their desire and their fixed de- 

 termination to erase from the statute-books 

 every provision which infringes upon the per- 

 sonal liberty of the citizen. These provisions 

 have all been placed upon the statute-book dur- 

 ing and since the close of the late war. For 

 nearly three-quarters of a century the old prin- 

 ciples upon which free government had been 

 based were found strfficient for the preserva- 

 tion of the right of /suffrage, the most sacred 

 right of the citizen. Once only in our history 

 was an attempt made to violate the principles 

 upon which George Mason, and Thomas Jeffer- 

 son, and James Madison, and Alexander Ham- 

 ilton had firmly planted the structure of free 

 government, and that was when the alien and 

 sedition laws were forced on this country. 

 They were swept from the statute-books in a 



burst of popular indignation, which consigned 

 John Adams to private life, and placed Thomas 

 Jefferson, the great expounder of the Democ- 

 racy, in the Presidential chair. So now the 

 Democracy to-day plant themselves on the old 

 stronghold that there is no safety for civil lib- 

 erty when power is centralized ; that the only 

 security for free institutions lies in the distri- 

 bution of power among the people, so as to 

 strengthen local self-government. We believe 

 if abuses occur they will be remedied more 

 quickly, more readily, and more effectually 

 than by any central power. 



" And when the gentleman from Maine [Mr. 

 Frye] alluded to those corrupt judges who had 

 granted false naturalization papers in 1868, he 

 overlooked the fact that Judges Barnard and 

 McCunn were driven from the bench, not by 

 the Government at Washington, but by the in- 

 dignant voice of the people of the State of New 

 York. And we say now that these statutes, 

 thus centralizing power in Washington, al- 

 though they may alleviate temporary difficulty, 

 are sure to produce evils on a scale of infinitely 

 greater magnitude, and to become the parent 

 of abuses which, if tolerated, will imperil, and 

 if permanently tolerated will destroy, the right 

 of suffrage and the inestimable blessings to 

 which it gives birth. 



" The gentleman from Maine said it was ne- 

 cessary to repeal these laws in order to carry 

 the State of New York for the Democracy. 

 Does the gentleman not know, did he not him- 

 self bear witness to the fact, that the election 

 of 1876 was an honest election in the State of 

 New York ; and did not Governor Tilden re- 

 ceive a majority in that State of over thirty 

 thousand ? What motive, then, have we to re- 

 peal those laws in order that the Democratic 

 party may carry the State of New York ? We 

 have carried that State by constantly increas- 

 ing majorities at every election since their en- 

 actment. And we shall do it to the end of 

 time, unless by the abuse of those election laws 

 which we seek to repeal free citizens shall be 

 deterred from exercising the right of suffrage. 



" Now, Mr. Davenport has administered this 

 law from the time of its enactment up to the 

 present hour, and found no way honestly to 

 keep Democratic voters from the polls. But 

 in 18Y6 they taught him a lesson in New Or- 

 leans. They issued ten thousand warrants in 

 one day, and upon the strength of that Mr. 

 Davenport, on the night before the election, 

 upon the affidavit of his own clerk, issued war- 

 rants which resulted in the arrest of four thou- 

 sand citizens of the city of New York, and 

 their imprisonment on the day of election in 

 the iron den of the court-house. What oc- 

 curred on that memorable day has been de- 

 scribed with graphic power by General Win- 

 gate in his argument before Judge Blatchford 

 against the validity of these arrests, which 

 will be confirmed by my colleague from New 

 York [Mr. Eickhoff], who was present and saw 

 what occurred: 



