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CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



legislation of which I speak rest? On what 

 theory does the United States Government 

 send troops to the polls at a State election ? 

 On what theory do supervisors of elections 

 stand at the polls to supervise and interfere 

 with State elections? Only upon this: that 

 the right of suffrage is a right guaranteed by 

 the Constitution of the United States, in the 

 exercise of which it is the business of Con- 

 gress to protect the citizen. But, as I have 

 shown you by the express phraseology of the 

 Constitution and by the decision of the Su- 

 preme Court of the United States, no such 

 right does exist to be protected by the Consti- 

 tution of the United States and by the legisla- 

 tion of Congress. And, therefore, is not the 

 conclusion inevitable and irresistible that any 

 legislation upon the subject is unconstitutional ? 



"I know that gentlemen undertake to sus- 

 tain the constitutionality of this legislation by 

 referring to a provision of the Constitution, 

 article 1, section 4: 'The times, places, and 

 manner of holding elections for Senators and 

 Representatives shall be prescribed in each 

 State by the Legislature thereof ; but the Con- 

 gress may at any time by law make or alter 

 such regulations, except as to the places of 

 choosing Senators.' The manifest and true 

 construction of this provision is that in the 

 event of the people of a State failing to make 

 provision on these subjects, Congress in the 

 exercise of its discretion may make regulations 

 on the subject, and that when States make 

 regulations Congress may alter them as to ' the 

 time, places, and manner of holding elections.' 



" Who are the voters ? They are determined 

 by section 2, which I have already read. They 

 are the persons who can vote under the law of 

 a State and possess the qualifications requisite 

 as voters of the most numerous branch of the 

 State Legislature. The time of holding the 

 election, the place of holding the election, the 

 manner of holding the election, may be pro- 

 vided by Congress in the cases which I have 

 suggested, but when the time and places of 

 holding the elections are fixed, what power re- 

 mains ? 



"The manner of voting may be determined, 

 whether it is to be viva voce or by ballot, as 

 Congress may decide, and this view is abun- 

 dantly justified by the debates in the constitu- 

 tional convention, and in the various conven- 

 tions of the States which ratified the Constitu- 

 tion originally, and the speech of Mr. Iredell, 

 of the State of North Carolina, is unanswer- 

 able, who said that it never was intended or 

 designed to give the power over the elections 

 in the States to Congress, only the regulation 

 of the time, places, and methods of voting. It 

 has been contended in the progress of this ar- 

 gument that the power over this subject may 

 be derived from that provision of the Constitu- 

 tion which authorizes Congress to guarantee 

 to every State a republican form of govern- 

 ment, and to send troops to suppress domestic 

 violence on the call of the executive in the ab- 



sence of the Legislature, or of the Legislature 

 of a State. 



" There may be such domestic violence at 

 the polls that the Governor of the State, if the 

 Legislature be not in session, would be bound 

 to call upon the President of the United States 

 for assistance, and in such cases as that the 

 power of the Government can be properly ex- 

 ercised ; but the ground on which the power 

 is exercised is, that it is at the request of the 

 authorities of the State. The troops of the 

 United States have no business at the polls 

 except for the suppression of violence or for 

 repelling invasion at the request of the State 

 authorities, the State authorities having first 

 indicated to the General Government the de- 

 sire of assistance. Is not this very clause to 

 which I have referred an additional argument 

 in favor of the position that this law is uncon- 

 stitutional? The troops of the United States 

 can only be used to suppress domestic violence 

 or repel foreign invasion, and here is a law 

 which proposes to send troops to the polls at 

 any time, at the order of anybody, without any 

 request of the State authorities ; and it is the 

 plainest violation of that provision of the Con- 

 stitution which directs the only way in which 

 the troops of the United States shall be sent to 

 a State. The Constitution thereby prohibited 

 any other way of sending troops to a State. I 

 say, then, that these provisions should be re- 

 pealed because they are in direct conflict with 

 the fundamental law of the country and in the 

 plainest violation of an expressed adjudication 

 of the highest judicial tribunal of the laud. 



"In the second place, these laws should he 

 repealed because they introduce a dungerous 

 method and practice into the conducting of elec- 

 tions and the administration of justice. They 

 authorize men to interfere with the election of 

 the local officers of the State. In the State of 

 Ohio, and I believe in most of the States of the 

 Union, the law is that all officers shall be voted 

 for on a general ticket State officers, county 

 officers, municipal officers, township officers, 

 and members of Congress. In the State of 

 Ohio every man whose name is on the ballot 

 is voted for as an officer of the State, and yet 

 this provision of this law proposes to put 

 United States supervisors to supervise the 

 counting and casting of the votes for county 

 officers and State officers. I submit that no 

 such power was ever intended by the Consti- 

 tution of the United States to be conferred 

 upon Congress ; and I submit that the State 

 can not be shorn of her sovereignty in this 

 way, as is claimed by the Republican party by 

 such a provision as this, without danger to its 

 institutions. 



" What arises from the very section to 

 which I have referred? Who are the voters? 

 They are the persons whose qualifications are 

 fixed by the constitution of the State, and un- 

 der this law the supervisors of election are sta- 

 tioned at the polls, for what? If the law of 

 Congress fixed the qualifications for the elec- 





