UNITED STATES. 



s&ted by fees, seems to mo to constitute good pround 

 0f obligation against the Uniti-1 St:ttr-. When the 

 \i luiiu-i arc- re<|Uir.-.l, :n. iitun-s 



uro ti be made, I recognize tho dilHcultios you may 

 hftVfl t-i encounter, lu all UiLs matter, however, you 

 will liavo to ivly upon your nxi>ci-tiiti'>n of future Ic- 

 'i liy Congress that shall be just to you. All 

 -it*, except foes of marshals and their dep- 

 rive boon provide;.! t'.-r. 

 (Signed) < 11AKLES DEVENS, 



Attorney-General. 



Under the instructions of this letter the mar- 

 shals continued to serve as before the failure of 

 the appropriation. 



The conflict between the Democratic majori- 

 ty in Congress and tho President on the Fed- 

 eral election laws, which necessitated the extra 

 session, ended in the simple omission to vote 

 appropriations for -the pay of the United States 

 marshals and their deputies. Having voted 

 the appropriations for the army in a bill di- 

 vested of the unusual and objectionable condi- 

 tional legislative clause by which, with a sim- 

 ple constitutional majority, the Democratic 

 members had sought to frustrate the veto 

 power of tho President, they embodied the 

 same measure in a separate enactment, which 

 was returned to them with the President's 

 veto. The question in controversy was that 

 of the right of supervision over Congressional 

 elections given to the Federal Government 

 by the statutes of Congress passed for the en- 

 forcement of the fifteenth amendment, par- 

 ticularly the act of 1870 entitled "An act 

 to enforce the right of citizens of the United 

 States to vote in the several States of the 

 Union, and for other purposes." The repeal 

 of these laws was made a prominent object of 

 Congress. The vetoed bill, entitled " An act to 

 prevent military interference with elections," 

 provided that it should not be lawful to bring 

 to or to employ at any place where a general 

 or special election is being held in any State 

 any part of the army or navy, unless such 

 force should be necessary to repel the armed 

 enemies of the United States or to enforce sec- 

 tion 4, Article IV., of the Constitution, and the 

 laws made in pursuance thereof, and repealing 

 all provisions of law inconsistent with the pur- 

 poses of the bill. Its object was to repeal the 

 clauses in an act of 1865, and in sections 2,002 

 and 5,528 of the Revised Statutes, allowing the 

 presence of troops or armed men at elections 

 under the authority of Federal officers when ne- 

 cessary " to keep the peace at the polls." The 

 veto of President Hayes was based principally 

 on the grounds that the bill would prohibit the 

 civil officers of the United States from employ- 

 ing adequate civil force to enable them to keep 

 tho peace and execute certain laws of Congress 

 at national elections ; and that as a measure to 

 prevent military interference at the polls the 

 bill was unnecessary, since the interference of 

 the military or naval forces with elections was 

 already forbidden by existing laws. The Presi- 

 dent also took the position that the bill would 

 cripple the Executive in the enforcement of tho 



laws of tho United States, and suspend on cer- 

 tain days and in certain places certain long- 

 established laws, especially section 5,298 of the 

 Revised Statutes. The majority of the Com- 

 mittee on tho Judiciary, to which the Presi- 

 dent's veto was referred (of which Proctor 

 Knott was chairman), held that these laws 

 were no more affected by the proposed statute 

 than by the above-mentioned act of 1865 mak- 

 ing it a penal offense for officers of the United 

 States to keep troops or armed men at the 

 place where any general or special election is 

 held, except to repel the armed enemies of the 

 United States or to keep peace at the polls. 

 The committee took the constitutional ground 

 in their report that Congress has no power 

 under the Constitution to confer any authority 

 upon officers of the Federal Government to 

 keep the peace at the polls, or to impose any 

 such duty upon them, since the power to es- 

 tablish such police regulations as may be neces- 

 sary for the preservation of domestic order and 

 tho prevention of violence and crime affecting 

 life or property within their respective limits 

 belongs exclusively to the several States, and 

 the Federal Government can only intervene 

 to protect the State in the execution of its 

 own laws for that purpose upon application of 

 the Legislature, or the Governor when the Le- 

 gislature can not be convened. They protested 

 against the distinction made by the President 

 between State and national elections. The 

 electoral privilege in all elections was declared 

 to be derived from the governments of the in- 

 dividual States, and the mode of its exercise 

 subject to their statutory provisions ; all laws, 

 for the preservation of the public peace must 

 also emanate exclusively from the States, and 

 all police regulations and authority belong to 

 the separate States by virtue of their general 

 sovereignty. 



The claims of the United States against the 

 Southern States for the war levy of $20,000,- 

 000, to which all the States were called upon 

 to contribute at the beginning of the war of 

 secession, have been remitted on the ground, 

 taken by W. O. Tuggle of Georgia, in an argu- 

 ment before the Treasury Department, that no 

 taxes or assessments lie against a State in its 

 sovereign capacity, but only against the indi- 

 vidual tax-payers. The claims, which amounted 

 to about half a million dollars each for the 

 Southern States, with interest, were partly col- 

 lected by special agents from the tax-payers, 

 but since reconstruction the State authorities 

 have been held liable. 



The question of the legality of the issue of 

 United States legal-tender notes in time of 

 peaco was brought before the courts in a test 

 case by General B. F. Butler and Congressman 

 S. B. Chittenden of Brooklyn. A test case 

 based on an actual mercantile transaction was 

 presented to Judge Blatchford of the United 

 States Circuit Court. The case was entitled 

 Augustus D. Julliard against Thomas S. Green- 

 man. The plaintiff had sold defendant in New 



