CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



ballot shall be tho heritage for all time of the 

 AIIHTKMII citizen. Under the Constitution, 

 Article 1, section 4, it is provided that 'That 

 the times, places, and manner of holding elec- 

 tions for Senators and Representatives, shall 

 be prescribed in each State by the Legislature 

 thereof ; but the Congress may at any time by 

 law make or alter such regulations, except as 

 to the places of choosing Senators.' Now, it 

 is claimed that under this provision of the Con- 

 stitution the existing laws in regard to super- 

 visors of election and their aids, deputy mar- 

 shals, and which are sought to be repealed by 

 the pending amendment, were enacted. 



" It is admitted that Congress may rightfully 

 adopt regulations as to the time, place, and 

 manner of the elections of Representatives in 

 Congress, but it is denied that Congress in the 

 exercise of this right to make regulations, 

 either as to time, place, or manner, can deter- 

 mine the question of the sovereignty of the 

 elector or his qualification in this regard. This 

 belongs alone to the States or the people there- 

 of. The people of the States may fix the quali- 

 fication of the elector as to age, residence, and 

 character, and when so fixed and determined, 

 these electors become and are the supremo 

 sovereignty in and of the Government of the 

 United States. Now, then, any attempt made 

 to impair this sovereignty is an attack upon 

 the fundamental theory upon which our whole 

 popular institutions are based. It is war upon 

 the people and their right of defense and pro- 

 tection. Let me say, Mr. Chairman, that if it 

 be necessary to the preservation of the national 

 life that the existing laws should be enforced, I 

 am in favor of their enforcement. But what 

 is the source of the national life? It is the 

 sovereignty of the people ; it is the freedom of 

 the elector. 



" The Democratic party of the country believe 

 that the laws sought to be repealed go beyond 

 the rightful authority of Congress to regulate 

 the time, place, and manner of holding tho 

 elections for members of Congress ; and in the 

 authority given to the supervisors and marshals 

 to arrest and imprison the elector before regis- 

 tering and before voting, as well as in the act 

 of voting, assert a dangerous and unconstitu- 

 tional exercise of authority upon the part of 

 the Government, and seek to destroy the source 

 of the life of the Government. No more ar- 

 bitrary, tyrannical, or oppressive power was 

 ever given to any body of men than is lodged 

 in the hands of deputy marshals by section 

 2022 of the Revised Statutes, which I read : 



" SEC. 2022. Tho marshal and his general deputies, 

 and such special deputies, shall keep the peace, ana 

 support and protect the supervisors of election in tho 

 discharge of taeir duties, preserve order at such places 

 of registration and at such polls, prevent fraudulent 

 nyi--tr.it i' >n and fraudulent votiner thereat, or fraudu- 

 lent conduct on the part of any officer of election, and 

 immediately, either at tho place of registration or poll- 

 ing-place, or elsewhere, and either before or after 

 registering or voting, to arrest and toko into custody, 

 with or without process, any person who commits, or 

 attempts or oilers to commit, any of tho acts or of- 



fenses prohibited herein, or who commit* any offence 

 against tho laws of tho United Status ; but no ponton 

 shall bo arrested without process for any oifetuo 

 not committed in tho presence of tho marshal or hi* 

 general or special deputies, or either of them, or of the 

 supervisors of election, or either of them : and for tho 

 purposes of arrest or the preservation of the peace, the 

 supervisors of election shall, in the absence of tho mar- 

 shal's deputies, or if required to assist such deputies, 

 have tho same duties and powers as deputy marshal.- ; 

 nor shall any person, on tho day of such election, be 

 arrested without process for any offense committou on 

 the day of registration. 



" It will be seen from this section that an in- 

 definite number of marshals may be appointed. 

 It is a fact that pending the elections of 1876 

 over eleven thousand were appointed ; a body 

 of men in numbers equal to one half of your 

 regular army, and, as 1 have said, may be mul- 

 tiplied beyond the strength of that army. Re- 

 membering that these marshals are paid by the 

 National Government out of the taxes derived 

 from the people, we come to look into the pow- 

 er with which these marshals are vested. They 

 are clothed with the power to decide of their 

 own will, whether 'order' is observed, either 

 at places of registration or voting; whether 

 there is 'fraudulent registration'; whether 

 there is ' fraudulent voting ' ; whether there is 

 ' fraudulent conduct' on the part of any officer 

 of the election; whether the State authorities 

 have rightfully administered their own election 

 laws, and upon their own will to decide and de- 

 termine whether any attempt to violate the 

 law has been made, and thereupon to arrest 

 and take into custody, with or without process, 

 such parties as they may decide or determine to 

 be guilty of these offenses or any one of them. 

 Thus clothed with new, strange, and extraor- 

 dinary powers, they are at once judges and 

 executive officers, powers the exercise of which 

 arbitrarily takes from the citizen his liberty and 

 from the elector his sovereignty. Sir, it is 

 simply an invasion of authority upon the free- 

 dom of the ballot. 



"The genius of tyranny never conceived a 

 more insidious assault upon the rights of a free 

 people than is concealed under this pretense 

 of guarding the purity of the ballot-box. The 

 citizen invested with sovereignty by his State 

 or the people thereof is subordinated to the 

 control and will of a foreign, and it may be an- 

 tagonistic, tribunal, which, in the assertion of 

 its supremacy by its supple minions, disrobes 

 him of his sovereignty and leaves him the 

 slave of a superior power. The tendency of 

 the law is to prostitute tho judiciary to the 

 domination of the executive, and to take away 

 this asylum of the oppressed and make it the 

 castle, if not the bastile, of the oppressor." 



Mr. Davidson of Florida: "The amendment 

 proposes to repeal the several sections of the 

 Revised Statutes of the United States from and 

 including section 2011 to and including section 

 2081 . It was introduced by a gentleman whose 

 home is north of the Ohio River, and it is ear- 

 nestly supported and advocated by members 

 from the North and West as well as from the 



