The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1870-06-17

Conclusion of the Speech Of Hon. S. S. Cox, 0:
New York, on the Bill to Enforce the Fiji
teenth amendment, in the House, May a.
1870.
Mr. Speaker, in the time allotted me
have not the opportunity to go through
this bill and dissect it, section by section
as | could wish. / can only marvel at the
Indifference with which gentlemen regard
this attempt to tramp down with elephan-
tine foot all private rights and legal codes.
You cannot thus interfere by penalties with
the ballot without destroying the virtue OF
the latter, by attempting rudely to uproot
its abuses. You would grasp at political
power by those undue statutory means
but you will grasp shadow. You follow,
like Macbeth, the dangerous vision and I'M
hallowod hopes of bewitched ambition
You will fail. You would enforce cen
tralization with bayonct and posse with qo,o
ac01ranto and affidavit, but you will fail.
Centralized power, like that seized and
welded by the present Napoleon, was won
by holder means and is being to-day grad
ually resigned, with wisdom infinite com
pared with yours.
What is your congomeratc incongruity
which you call law? Let me enumerate
some Of its beauties:
/. 1t is so full Of penal clauses as to he
ridiculous and Intellectual
2. 1t is so full of spite as to be promotive
Of litigations and prosecutions.
3. 1t is SO general in its terms that no in
formation or indictment could be drawn
upon its provisions and therefore it is a
fraud upon the public and the accused.
4. 1t destroys jury trial.
3. 1t is so partisan that it discrimnatcs
in favor Of the black against the white.
6. 1t is so unmindful of the Constitution,
that it compels State officers to enforce Fed
eral laws.
r. 1t is so vcngeful that it would fill iails
and cumulate fines beyond the capacity of
masonry to immune the prisoners or the
people to pay the sums.
s. 1t creates a class of paid government
counsel, furnishes fees for them from the
pockets of our constituents, and thus in
creasos taxes, while it fills the nation with
a horde of detestable spies and intormers.
8. 1t begets a conflict between State and
Federal authorities, and by throwing the
sword into the Federal balance, seeks by
military power to overawe and control the
elections ofthe States, and while aggrandiz
ing power in the Federal government de-
stroys the form, structure and genius Of the
Federal government.
1t will be impossible to elaborate all
these points. l will endeavor to clucidate
few of them:
1. The penal clauses. There are twelve
sections Of fines and penalties out of TWEEN
ty-threc in this bill! Need | rehearse
them? Imprisonments and fines, fines and
imprisonments relieved only by civil suits
and counsel fees This law is so cumula-
tive with punitive clauses rs to be q mon
strosity. Most of these sections punish
with Imprisonment and fine for oilenses al
ready amply provided for in State laws IS
to election frauds, although those State
laws do not attach to them such heavy pen
alties. could go over the sections of the
seriatim, to show the uncalled for weight
of these penalties; and then might in this
presence be permitted to read Jeremy Ben
than on the old harsh English penal codes,
to show that all excessive penal clauses
overlap themselves. They fail of their
aim. Will the scholarly gentleman Mr..
Bingham who reported this bill turn to
the fourth chapter of Bouring's edition of
Jeremy Bentham volume nine, page 22),
on penal law3 The philosopher considers
what dividends may be made from the
'stock" of human felicity by the penal
codes. We know that he was no advocate
of such Draconian codes. In the spirit of
our "Anglo-American representative de-
mocracy," or in the spirit of its Constitu-
ton against excessive" punisments, he ira
ces out all such codes to lawyercraft and
hypocrisy. He finds such codes confeder-
ate with fraud, and subservient to tyranny.
He finds their synonym in the word "visi-
tation-penal visitation" To this same
source of civil disorder and turbulence do
trace this iniquitous bill.
In what cases shall such severe punish
ments be applied9 In what shape; what
proportion? Rather, Bentham asks, in
what shape or proportion shall it not be APP
Piled He answers, as answer for all the
twelve sections of these twenty three sec
lions of this punative enactment, these
penalties are groundless, needless, inetiica-
cious and improbable. In such cases pun
ishment, in the language of the quaint
philosopher, is inapt and the cases unmeet.
Take the cases of this bill, from the futile
attempts to raise civil issues to the attempt
to punish the landlord for collecting rent
of the voting tenant under fine not less
than $500; from the indefinite conspiracy
of the highway in disguise, with the limit
of So, 900 fine and Imprisonment not exceed
ing ten years, to the still more uncertain
misdemeanor of holding office illegally
against the fourteenth amendment, under
the penalty of 81 900 fine and years i'm
prisonment, or both, and you will see what
Bentham means when, by an a priOri scorn
he derides such unphilosophic and con
temptible schemes as this bin is replete
withal.
Bentham evidently foresaw cases where
the evils appurtenant to punishment were
greater than the evils to be punished. The
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