CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



201 



here as a false issue. I am not at liberty to say 

 that any gentleman making the issue knows it 

 to be false ; I hope he does not ; hut I am go- 

 ing to prove to him that it is false, and that 

 there is not a solitary inch of solid earth on 

 \\ h irh to rest the foot of any man that makes 

 that issue. I have in my hand an official tran- 

 script of the location and the number of all 

 the troops of the United States east of Omaha. 

 By 'east of Omaha,' I mean all the United 

 States east of the Mississippi River and that 

 belt of States that border the Mississippi River 

 on the west, including forty-one million at 

 least out of the forty-five million people that 

 this country is supposed to contain to-day. In 

 that magnificent area, I will not pretend to 

 state its extent, but with forty-one million 

 people, how many troops of the United States 

 are there to-day ? Would any Senator on the 

 opposite side like to guess, or would he like to 

 * state how many men with muskets in their 

 hands there are in the vast area I have named? 

 There are two thousand seven hundred and 

 ninety-seven ! And not one more. From the 

 headwaters of the Mississippi River to the 

 lakes, and down the great chain of lakes, and 

 down the Saint Lawrence and down the valley 

 of the Saint John and down the Saint Oroix 

 striking the Atlantic Ocean and following it 

 down to Key West, around the Gulf, up to the 

 mouth of the Mississippi again, a frontier of 

 eight thousand miles either bordering on the 

 ocean or upon foreign territory is guarded by 

 these troops. Within this domain forty-five 

 fortifications are manned and eleven arsenals 

 protected. There are sixty troops to every 

 million of people. And the entire South has 

 eleven hundred and fifty-five soldiers to intimi- 

 date, overrun, oppress, and destroy the liber- 

 ties of fifteen million people! In the South- 

 ern States there are twelve hundred and three 

 counties. If yon distribute the soldiers, there 

 is not quite one for each county ; and when I 

 give the counties I give them from the census 

 of 1870. If you distribute them territorially, 

 there is one for every seven hundred square 

 miles of territory, so that if you make a terri- 

 torial distribution, I would remind the honor- 

 able Senator from Delaware, if I saw him in 

 his seat, that the quota for his State would be 

 three, ' one ragged sergeant and two abreast,' 

 as the old song has it. That is the force ready 

 to destroy the liberties of Delaware 1 



" Mr. President, it was said, as the old max- 

 im lias it, that the soothsayers of Rome could 

 not look each other in the face without smil- 

 ing. There are not two Democratic Senators 

 on that side who can go into the cloak-room 

 and look each other in the face without smiling 

 at this talk, or more appropriately I should say 

 without blushing, the whole thing is such a 

 prodigious and absolute farce, such a miserably 

 manufactured false issue, such a pretense with- 

 out the slightest foundation in the world, and 

 talked about most and denounced the loudest 

 in States that have not and have not had a sin- 



gle Federal soldier. In New England we have 

 three hundred and eighty soldiers. Through- 

 out the South it does not run quite seventy to 

 the million people. In New England we have 

 absolutely one hundred and twenty soldiers to 

 the million. New England is far more over- 

 run to-day by the Federal soldier, immensely 

 more than the whole South is. I never heard 

 anybody complain about it in New England, 

 or express any very great fear of their liberties 

 being endangered by the presence of a handful 

 of troops. 



" As I have said, the tendency of this talk is 

 to give us a bad name in Europe. Republican 

 institutions are looked upon there with jeal- 

 ousy. Every misrepresentation, every slander 

 is taken up and exaggerated and talked about 

 to our discredit, and the Democratic party of 

 the country to-day stand indicted, and I here 

 indict them, for public slander of their coun- 

 try, creating the impression in the civilized 

 world that we are governed by a ruthless mili- 

 tary despotism. I wonder how amazing it 

 would be to any man in Europe, familiar as 

 Europeans are with great armies, if he were 

 told that over a territory larger than France 

 and Spain and Portugal and Great Britain and 

 Holland and Belgium and the German Empire 

 all combined, there were but eleven hundred 

 and fifty-five soldiers ! That is all this Demo- 

 cratic howl, this mad cry, this false issue, this 

 absurd talk is based on the presence of eleven 

 hundred and fifty-five soldiers on eight hun- 

 dred and fifty thousand square miles of terri- 

 tory not double the number of the Demo- 

 cratic police in the city of Baltimore, not a 

 third of the police in the city of New York, 

 not double the Democratic police in the city of 

 New Orleans. I repeat, the number indicts 

 them, it stamps the whole cry as without any 

 foundation, it derides the issue as a false and 

 scandalous and partisan makeshift. 



" You simply want to get rid of the super- 

 vision by the Federal Government of the elec- 

 tion of Representatives to Congress through 

 civil means; and therefore this bill connects 

 itself directly with another bill, and you can 

 not discuss this military bill without discussing 

 a bill which we had before us last winter, 

 known as the legislative, executive, and judi- 

 cial appropriation bill. I am quite well aware, 

 I profess to be as well aware as any one, that 

 it is not permissible for me to discuss a bill 

 that is pending before the other House. I am 

 quite well aware that propriety and parliamen- 

 tary rule forbid that I should speak of what ia 

 done in the House of Representatives ; but I 

 know very well that I am not forbidden to 

 speak of that which is not done in the House 

 of Representatives. I am quite free to speak 

 of the things that are not done there, and 

 therefore I am free to declare that neither this 

 military bill nor the legislative, executive, and 

 judicial appropriation bill ever emanated from 

 any committee of the House of Representatives 

 at all ; they are not the work of any committee 



