262 



CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



of the House of Representatives, and, although 

 the present House of Representatives is almost 

 evenly balanced in party division, there has 

 been allowed no solitary suggestion to come 

 from the minority of that House in regard to 

 the shaping of these bills. Where do they 

 come f rom ? "We are not left to infer ; we are 

 not even left to the Yankee privilege of guess- 

 ing, because we know. The Senator from 

 Kentucky [Mr. Beck] obligingly told us I 

 have his exact words here ' that the honor- 

 able Senator from Ohio [Mr. Thurman] was 

 the chairman of a committee appointed by the 

 Democratic party to see how it was best to 

 present all these questions before us.' There- 

 fore, when I discuss these two bills together, I 

 am violating no parliamentary law, I am dis- 

 cussing the offspring and the creation of the 

 Democratic caucus of which the Senator from 

 Ohio, whom I do not see in his seat, is the 

 chairman. 



"Now, Mr. President, I say this bill con- 

 nects itself directly with the provisions which 

 are inserted by the Democratic caucus in the 

 legislative, executive, and judicial bill. The 

 two stand together ; they can not be sepa- 

 rated ; because if to-day we enact that no civil 

 officer whatever shall appear under any cir- 

 cumstances with armed men at the polls I am 

 not speaking of Federal troops or military or 

 naval officers I should like to know how, if 

 you strike that out to-day in the military bill 

 that is pending, you are going to enforce any 

 provisions of the election laws even if we 

 leave them standing. Take this section of the 

 election law, section 2024 of the Revised 

 Statutes : 



" The marshal or his general deputies, or such spe- 

 cial deputies as are thereto specially empowered by 

 him, in writing, and under his hand and seal,, -when- 

 ever he or either or any of them is forcibly resisted in 

 executing their duties under this title, or shall, by 

 violence, threats ? or menaces, be prevented from exe- 

 cuting such duties, or from arresting any person who 

 has committed any offense for which the marshal or 

 his general or his special deputies are authorized to 

 make such arrest, are, and each of them is, empow- 

 ered to summon and call to his aid the bystanders or 

 posse comitatu* of his district. 



"I should like anyone to tell me whether a 

 marshal can call together armed men under 

 that if you repeal this section in the military 

 bill. Under heavy penalties you say that no 

 civil officer whatever, no matter what the dis- 

 turbances, at an election of Representatives to 

 Congress no civil officer of the United States 

 shall keep order. You do not say that in that 

 same election the State officer may not be 

 there with all the force he chooses, legal or 

 illegal. You say that the United States in an 

 election which specially concerns the Federal 

 Government shall not have anything what- 

 ever to do with it. That is what you say, al- 

 though the Constitution, as broadly as lan- 

 guage can express it, gives the Government of 

 the United States, if it chooses to exercise it, 

 the absolute control of the whole subject 



familiar to school-boys, who have even once 

 read the Constitution, in the clause: 'the 

 times, places, and manner of holding elections 

 for Senators and Representatives, shall be pre- 

 scribed in each State by the Legislature there- 

 of ; but the Congress may at any time by law 

 make or alter such regulations, except as to 

 the places of choosing Senators.' And every 

 one knows that the contemporaneous exposi- 

 tion of that part of the Constitution, familiar 

 also to every one in the country, the exposition 

 by Madison and Hamilton, was to the effect 

 that ' every government ought to contain in 

 itself the means of its own preservation,' and 

 according to Mr. Madison, quoting a Southern 

 authority, it was 'more consonant to just the- 

 ories to intrust the Union with the care of its 

 own existence than to transfer that care to any 

 other hands.' 



" There is not the slightest possible denial^ 

 here that this is a constitutional exercise of* 

 power. If there is such a denial, it is a mere 

 individual opinion. There has been no adju- 

 dication in the least degree looking to the un- 

 constitutionality of these laws. Your individ- 

 ual opinion is no better than mine ; mine is no 

 better than that of any other man who can 

 hear a horn blown from the front steps of the 

 Capitol. No individual opinion is worth any- 

 thing. We have a department of the Govern- 

 ment to pass upon the question. The legisla- 

 tive department has enacted these laws under 

 what is believed to be a clear and explicit 

 grant of power, and you have never had it ju- 

 dicially determined otherwise. But now you 

 propose to assault the election laws, the su- 

 pervisors, and the marshals in this military 

 bill ; and under the pretense of getting rid of 

 troops at the polls you propose that no Fed- 

 eral officer no civil officer of the Federal Gov- 

 ernment shall be there. That is the design ; 

 that is the plain, palpable object." 



Mr. Withers of Maryland: "Mr. President, 

 as the Senator to whom the charge of this bill 

 has been intrusted by the committee, I propose 

 to make one or two brief statements in re- 

 sponse to the rhetorical and highly imaginative 

 utterance to which we have just listened. 



" The object of the Committee on Appro- 

 priations, or a majority of that committee, in 

 reporting this bill, was simply to provide for 

 the repeal of a law under the operation of 

 which it is possible that the freedom of elec- 

 tions may be utterly destroyed. The fact which 

 has been alluded to by the Senator from Maine 

 so frequently and forcibly that few soldiers 

 were to be found now in any of the States east 

 of the Mississippi, and bis futile attempt to di- 

 vert public attention from the principle which 

 lies at the bottom of this great question to a 

 consideration of that immaterial issue, will not, 

 I am sure, produce much effect upon this Sen- 

 ate or upon the country. It is not a question 

 before this body to decide whether a sufficient 

 number of soldiers are to be found distributed 

 among the States of this Union to dominate 



