Saint Paul weekly Minnesotian. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1858-1859, 1859-03-26
No. 3..!The Election OF C0ngressmen..
Mr.. Sibley's Reasons for Disfranchts-
ing Minnesota.

Our previous numbers exhibited the pre-
dicdment Minnesota was now placed in by |
the policy of the Democratic Party in the first
State Legislature, and through the veto of
Mr.. SIBLEY by which we could not be rep
resented in an Extra Session Of Congress
nor even in the first regular session of the |
next Congress; unless the People at the en-
suing October election, assumed the response |
bility of electing members to that body with
out waiting for any State law on the subject
do so under the Uuited States law which
assigned us that amount of representation
when we were admitted into the Union.
We quoted the admissions Of the Pioneer
that Mr.. SIBLEY vetoed the bill regulating
elections a bill which it confesses would have
authorized Congressional election last Octo-
Der and we gave at length Mr.. SlBLEYs veto,
containing his reasons for thus deliberately
doing what he knew would emasculate the
sovereignty of Minnesota and depriue US Of
representation on the floor of the House OF
Congress until December, 1860.
His real reason, as we were we'll assured,
was a fear to have the Congressional election
held when it ought to have been held-in Oc-
tober last-lest the Republicans should carry
their members.
His ostensi6k reasons were two-one con-
stitutional objection to one section of the bill
allowing the majority of the judges of an cleo
ton poll, if they deemed it best, to require
other evidence besides mans own oath, in
confirmation of his right to vote after being
challenged. :.
To this Mr.. SHELLEY objected, for the owl
like reason, that this was an arbitrary
power" dangerous in the hands of unscru-
pulous men, who might abuse it; and that
the existing law was sufficient, as under it
eff the challenged party swore falsely, ne
could be punished for perjury"
We ridiculed this, by showing that arb-
trary powers capable of "abuse in the hands
of INSCRIPTIONS men" were necessarily lodged
in Governors, Judges, Juries, and other in
struments of government; but that therefore
it would not do to argue for those powers be-
| ing withheld entirely, which was MIR. SIBLEY's
position.
| And we stated what every body knows,
that mems uncorrooorated oaths were fire.
quently discredited by Judges and Juries:
and that in acquiring right to citizenship
and suffrage by men Of foreign birth, the
United States laws required the oath of the
applicant to be sustained by the oath of two
credible witnesses-an exactly parallel case to
that very provision which was the half-occa-
sion, as he says, for Mr.. SHELLEY vetoing the
bill for the Congressional elections
With this reeapitplation we resume the dis
cussion:
Besides the naturalization laws of the Uni
ted States requiring the oaths Of three persons
to establish the facts necessary to citizenship,
the Land Laws of the United States and re-
gulations of the Land Offices, offer still an
other instance to justify the wisdom of the
provision in the bill which Mr.. SHELLEY thought
was so extremely bad, as to demand at his
hands the sacrifice Of our representation in
Congress, rather than see that feature Of it
become law!
This instance, is the well known regulation
of the United States Land Offices, in relation
to proving up prescriptions, by which native
citizens must not only soear that they are ma
tive born citizens of the United States, but
must proue it also by at least one other person
under oath, and this, too, before they receive
their duplicate Yet, if the pre-emptor
"swore falsely he, also, could be punished for
purjury," just as the false uoter could be who
forswears himself; but whose vote therefore
Mr. SIBLEY will not allow to be received, even
though the Judges of the election have reason
to ka.op he is not honestly voter
All, that Indian trade is mine of wis
dom A graduate therein of twenty years
standing like Mr.. SHELLEY, can, in virtue Of his
deer skin diploma, with authority instruct the
general government in the evidence necessa-
ry, and the amount of swearing necessary, to
prove fact wherein the swearing party is d.
rectly interested
But we would put it to Mr.. SIBLEY and his
friends, whether Notwithstanding the lawpun-
ishing purjury, our experience in Minnesota
elections does not vindicate the propricty of
the most stringent tests being appealed to
prevent the fraudulent voting under oath
which annually occurs? Why it is notorious
that in Ramsey County alone, hundreds of
votes have been polled, by men reckless Of
oaths-voting, indeed, over and over again as
high as sixteen times apiece, as one of the
editors of the Pioneer charged was done on
the Democratic side at the election in June,
1857, for delegates to the Constitutional Con-
vention and even more than that number
apiece at the Loan Election in April, 1853
and in lesser degree at elections since held.
So notorious have been the frauds, so reckless
the peruries, and that, too, without punish
ment ensuing in any case, that it is no won
der our legislators thought by section 10 of
that Congressional election act to retrieve our
polls in future from some of the frauds which
disgraced them, by permitting the Judges a
little wider discretion in testing the right of
voters when challenged, and not make their
own oaths farce obignig them to prevent
fraudulent voting on the one hand, while on
the other they are seemingly obliged to admit
q rascal to vote when they have good reason
to know he is not entitled to the right of suf-
frage though he is willing to swear he is.
Taking Mr.. SHELLEY at his own word, that
this was really one of bis reasons, and not a |
sham reason for vetoing the bill in question,
the argument is resolved into this: That the