CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



207 





This section is, howovor, not presented to mo as a 

 separate and independent measure, but is, as ha been 

 stated, attached to the bill making the usual annual 

 appropriation* for the nupport of the army. It makes 

 n vital change in the election laws of the country, 

 wh'u-h is in no way connected with the use of tho 

 army. It prohibit*, under heavy penalties, any per- 

 son engaged in tho civil service 01 the United States 

 from having utiy force at the place of any election pre- 

 pared to preserve order, to make arreste, to keep the 

 peace, or In any manner to enforce the laws. This is 

 altogether foreign to tho purpose of an army appropri- 

 ation bill. Tho practice of tacking to appropriation 

 bills measures not pertinent to such bills did not pre- 

 vail until more than forty years after the adoption of 

 the Constitution. It has become a common practice. 

 All parties whi'ii in power have adopted it. Many 

 abuses and great waste of public money have in this 

 way crept into appropriation bills. The public opin- 

 ion of the country is against it. The States which 

 have recently adopted constitutions have generally 

 provided a remedy for the evil by enacting that no 

 law shall contain more than one subject, which shall 

 be plainly expressed in its title. The constitutions of 

 more than half of the States contain substantially this 

 provision. The public welfare will bo promoted in 

 many ways by a return to tho early practice of the 

 Government, and to the true principle of legislation, 

 which requires that every measure shall stand or fall 

 according to its own merits. If it were understood 

 that to attach to an appropriation bill a measure irrele- 

 vant to the general ooiect of the bill would imperil 

 and probably prevent its final passage and approval, 

 n valuable reform in the parliamentary practice of 

 Congress would be accomplished. The "best justifica- 

 tion that has been offered for attaching irrelevant rid- 

 ers to appropriation bills is that it is done for conve- 

 nience' sake, to facilitate the passage of measures 

 which are deemed expedient by all the branches of 

 Government which participate m legislation. It can 

 not be claimed that there is any such reason for at- 

 taching this amendment of tho election laws to tho 

 army appropriation bill. The history of the measure 

 contradicts this assumption. A majority of the House 

 of Representatives in the last Congress was in favor 

 of section 6 of this bill. It was known that a major- 

 ity of the Senate was opposed to it, and that as a sepa- 

 rate measure it could not bo adopted. It was attached 

 to the army appropriation bill to compel the Senate to 

 assent to it. It was plainly announced to tho Senate 

 that the army appropriation bill would not be allowed 

 to pass unless the proposed amendments of tho elec- 

 tion laws wore adopted with it. The Senate refused 

 to assent to the bill on account of this irrelevant sec- 

 tion. Congress thereupon adjourned without passing 

 an appropriation bill lor the army, and the present 

 extra session of the Forty-sixth Congress became ne- 

 cessary to furnish tho means to carry on the Govern- 

 ment. 



The ground upon which the action of the House of 

 Representatives is defended has been distinctly stated 

 by many of its advocates. A week before the close of 

 the hist session of Congress the doctrine in question 

 was stated by one of its ablest defenders as follows : 



It la our duty to repeal these laws. It Is not worth while 

 to attempt the repeal except upon an appropriation bill. The 

 Republican Senate would not agree to, nor the Republican 

 President sign, a bill for such a repeal. Whatever objection 

 to legislation upon appropriation bills may be made In ordi- 

 nary cases does not apply where free elections and the liberty 

 of the citiiens are concerned. . . . We have the power to vote 

 money ; let us annex conditions to it, and insist upon the re- 

 dress of grievances. 



By another distinguished member of the House it 

 was said : 



The right of the Representatives of the people to withhold 

 applies is as old a* English liberty. History records numer- 

 ous instances whom the Commons, feeling that the people 

 were oppressed by laws that the Lords would not consent to 

 repeal by the ordinary methods of legislation, obtained redress 

 at last by refusing appropriations unless accompanied by re- 

 lief measures. 



That a question of the gravest magnitude, and new 

 in this country, wat raised by thbj court*) or proceed- 

 ing, was fully recognized also by it* defender* in the 

 Senate. It was said by a diatinguiwhed Senator : 



Perhapi no greater question. In the form we are brought to 

 consider it, was ever considered by the American Congress in 

 time of peace : for it Involves not merely the merits or de- 

 merits of the laws which the House bill proposes to repeal, 

 but involves tho rights, the privileges, the powers, the duties 

 of the two branches of Congress, and of the President of the 

 United States. It is a vast question ; it Is question whose 

 Importance can scarcely be estimated ; it is a question that 

 never yet has been brought so sharply before the American 

 Congress and the American people as ft may be now. It is a 

 question which, sooner or later, must be decided, and the 

 decision must determine what are the powers of the House 

 of Representatives under tho Constitution, and what Is the 

 duty of that House In the view of the framttrs of that Consti- 

 tution according to Its letter and its spirit 



Mr. President I should approach this question, if I were (n 

 the best possible condition to speak and to argue it, with very 

 grave diffidence, and certainly with the utmost anxiety, for 

 no one can think of it as long and as carefully as I have 

 thought of it without seeing that we are at the beginning, 

 perhaps, of a struggle that may last as long in this country at 

 a similar struggle lasted in what we are accustomed to call 

 the mother land. There the struggle lasted for two centuries 

 before it was ultimately decided. It is not likely to bat BO 

 long here, but it may lost until every man in this chamber Is in 

 his grave. It is the question whether or no the House of 

 Representatives has a right to say, " We will grant supplies 

 only upon condition that grievances are redressed. We are the 

 representatives of the tax-payers of the Republic ; we, the 

 House of Representatives, alone have the right to originate 

 money bills ; we, the House of Representatives, have alone 

 tho right to originate bills which grant the money of the peo- 

 ple. The Senate represents States : we represent the tax- 

 payers of the Republic ; we, therefore, by the very terms of 

 the Constitution, are charged with the duty of originating the 

 bills which grant the money of the people. Wo claim tho 

 right, which the House of Commons in England established 

 after two centuries of contest, to say that we will not grant 

 the money of the people unless there is a redress of grievances. 



Upon the assembling of this Congress, in pursuance 

 of a call for an extra session, which was made neces- 

 sary by the failure of the Forty-fifth Congress to make 

 the needful appropriations for the support of the 

 Government, the question was presented whether the 

 attempt made in the last Congress to ingraft, by con- 

 struction, a new principle upon the Constitution should 

 be persisted in or not. This Congress has ample op- 

 portunity and time to pass the appropriation biDs, and 

 also to enact any political measures which may be de- 

 termined upon in separate bills by the usual and order- 

 ly methods of proceeding. But the majority of both 

 Houses have deemed it wise to adhere to the principle 

 asserted and maintained in tho last Congress by the 

 majority of the House of Representatives. That prin- 

 ciple is that the House of Representatives has the sole 

 right to originate bills for raising revenue, and there- 

 fore has the right to withhold appropriations upon 

 which the existence of the Government may depend, 

 unless the Senate and tho President shall give their 

 assent to any legislation which the House may see fit 

 to attach to appropriation bills. To establish this prin- 

 ciple is to make a radical, dangerous, and unconstitu- 

 tional change in the character of our institutions. The 

 various departments of the Government, and the army 

 and tho navy, are established by the Constitution, or 

 by laws passed in pursuance thereof. Their duties 

 are clearly defined, and their support is carefully pro- 

 vided for" by law. The mono v required for this pur- 

 pose has boon collected from tfie people, and is now in 

 the Treasury ready to be paid out as soon as the ap- 

 propriation bills are passed. Whether appropriations 

 are mado or not, the collection of tho taxes will go on. 

 The public money will accumulate in the Treasury. 

 It was not the intention of the trainers of the Constitu- 

 tion that any single branch of the Government should 

 have the power to dictate conditions upon which this 

 treasure should be applied to tho purposes for which 

 it was collected. Any such intention, if it had been 

 entertained, would have been plainly expressed in the 

 Constitution. 



That a majority of the Senate now concurs in the 



