New-York tribune., 1870-05-31
ENFORCING THE FIFTEENTH AMENDMENT
I1W

We have before called attention to the pro-
visions of the stringent bill for enforcing the
Fifteenth Amendment lately adopted by Con-
gress. 1t is evident from the Outcry that is
made against it, that it touches the very large
number of our fellow-citizens who have habit
ually INDUCED to excess in the glorious privi-
lege of the suffrage, almost nearly as the Nat
uralization law does. 1t is an immediate
effect of its enactment that was to be expected.
There are other results which are to follow its
enforcement, and which are worth cOnsidera-
tiOn.
The bill as finally enacted appears more
admirable the closer it is examined. Its main
features, it will be remembered, fix heavy
penalties in fines and imprisonment for false
voting, false registering, and false counting,
for refusal of officers to register or receive
vote, for bribery and intimidation. But it in
directly goes much further than this. 1t
makes it at once the duty and interest of
every citizen to aid in detecting and exposing
fraudulent voting, by authorizing him to hold
the Judges of Election responsible as well as
the repeater" There were numerous in
stances at the last election in this city in
which legal voters waiting and watching at
the polls heard their names called and their
votes cast by well-known "repeaters' whose
arrest they urged in vain. This would not
| have been so if the Judges who received the
votes which they knew to be illegal were
responsible, as they are now made, for their
share in the crime. Candidates and party
| organizations, too, are urged to like activity
| in preserving the purity of the ballot and pre-
| venting false voting by the partisans of either
| eide. by the clause which authorizes a candi-
date, defeated by reason of the refusal to re-
| ceive single legal vote, to recover pos
session of the Office. The strict enforcement
of this clause alone will do more than any
other one thing which has been suggested to
restore the purity of the ballot 1t was urged
against it in the Senate that it would have the
effect simply of invalidating every election
which disappointed candidate chose to dis
pute. We can imagine precisely the opposite
result, and trust to see this clause strictly en-
forced, for the very reason that it will make
all elections valid and legal
1t is interesting also to note that the juris-
| diction of the Offenses enumerated in the bill
is not to rest with the State Courts, but is
vested solely in the United States Courts. We
have lately had in Brooklyn illustrations of the
manner in which corrupt Judges of Elections are
punished by State laws and Courts. Out of a
score of criminals arragned under charges of
falsely counting election returns five were con-
demned to imprisonments of ten or twenty days,
a portion of which were passed in feasting with
partisan friends and the remainder OF which
were remtted by order of the Court. We be-
Ieye that the new law will not be thus adj
ministered or enforced by the United States
authorities, but that the full penalties for the
crime will be pronounced and will have to be
paid.
1t is urged by the Democratic organs and
sneakers that the law is to be enforced in State
and municipal elections This is done to make
it more obnoxious, if that he possible to their
party. But, unfortunately, this is an error.
The law clearly applies only to Presidential
and Congressional elections, though we heartily
wish it could be made to apply 10 all others.
| But tAe omission has its Conversations. We