The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1878-12-19
Ill J.. 4t}5-,.t tttSH .."Itst5- t.t. .ff..
ELECTION FRAUDS IN THE SOUTH.
Speech of Hon. James G. Blaine, Delivered
i'm the Senate of the United States.

Speech of Hon. James G. Blaine, Delivered
i'm the Senate of the United States.
On motion of Mr. Hamlin, the Senate pro
ceeded to the consideration of the resolution
submitted by Mr.. Blaine in regard to an in
quiry as to whether, at the recent elections, the
constitutional rights of American citizens were
violated Mr.. Blaine addressed the Senate as
follows: ....,....,. 5tt4t J.... u.s..
Mr.. PRESIDENT: The pending resolution
was offered by me with two-fold purpose in
view:
First-To place on record, in definite and
authentic form, the frauds and outrages by
which some recent elections were carried by the
Democratic party in the Southern States.
tSecoaad-To find if there be any method by
which repetition of these crimes against free
ballot may be prevented ..tt..s.-
The newspaper is the channel through which
the people of the United States are Informed of
current events, and the accounts given in the
press represent the elections in some Of the
Southern States to have been accompanied by
vioence--in not a few cases reaching the de-
struction of life; to have been controlled by
threats that awed and intimidated large
class Of voters; to have been manipulated
by fraud of the most shameless and shame
full description Indeed, in South Carolina
there seems to have been no election at all in
any proper sense Of the term. There was in.
stead series of skirmishes over the State, in
which the polling places were regarded as forts
to be captured by one party and held against
the other, and, where this could not be done
with convenience, fraud in the count, and
tissue ballot devices were resOrted to in order
to effectually destroy the voice of the majority,
These. in brief, are the accounts given IN the
non-partisan press of the disgraceful outrages
that attended the recent elections, and, so far
as I have seen, these statements are without
serious contradiction 1t is but just and fair
to all parties, however, that an impartial in
vestigation of the facts shall be made bya COM
mittee of the Senate, proceeding under the au-
thority of law and representing the power of
the nation. Hence my resolution.
But we do not need investigation to establish
certain facts already of official record. We
know that 106 Representatives in Congress we're
recently chosen in the States recently slave
holding, and that the Democrats elected 101, or
possibly 102, and the Republicans 4, or posi-
bly, s. We know that IS of these Representa-
tives were assigned to the Southern States by
reason of the colored population, and that the
entire political power thus founded on the num-
bers of the colored people has been seized and
appropriated to the ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Of its own
strength by the Democratic party of the South.
Il The issue thus raised before the country, Mr..
President, is not one of mere sentiment for the
rights of the negro-though far distant be the
day when the rights of any American citizen,
however black or however poor, shall form the
mere dust of the balance in any controversy;
nor is the issue one that involves the waving of
the bloody shirt" to quote the elegant yer
nacular of Democratic vituperation; nor still
further is the issue as now presented only
question of the equality of the black voter of
the South with the white voter of the South;
the issue, Mr.. President, has taken a far wider
range, one Of portentous magnitude; and that
u.s. whether the white voter of the North shall
be equal to the white voter of the South in
shaping the policy and fixing the destiny Of this
country; or whether, to put it still more BADLY,
the white man who fought in the ranks of the
Union army shall have as weighty and influen
tial vote in the government Of the republic as
the white man who fought in the ranks of the
other to destroy, the Union of the States, and
to day he who fought to destroy is a far more
important factor in the Government of the ma
ton than he who fought to uphold it.
let me illustrate my meaning by comparing
groups of States of the same representative
South Carolina, Mississippi, and Louisiana.
They send seventeen Representatives to Con-
gress Their aggregate population is composed
of ]. O35 600 whites and ,224, 600 colored; the
colored being nearly 2O0,O 900 in excess of the
whites. Of the seventeen Representatives.
then, it is evident that nine were apportloned to
these States by reason of their colored popula-
ton, and only eight by reason of their white
populations and yet, in the choice of the entire
seventeen Representatives, the colored voters
had no more voice or power than their remote
kindred on the shores of Senegambia or on the
Gold Coast The 1895, 900 white people had
the sole and absolute choice of the entire seven
teen Representatives. In contrast, take two
States in the North, Iowa and Wisconsin, with
seventeen Representatives. They have white
population of 2,247, 000-considerably more
than double the entire white population of the
three Southern States have named. In Iowa
and Wisconsin, therefore, it takes 132, 600 white
to send Representative to Con-
gress, but in South Carolina, Mississippi, and
Louisiana every 10000 white people send a
In other words, 10000 white
people in those Southern States have precisely
the same political power in the government of
the country that $4,000 white people have in
Iowa and Wisconsin.
Take another group of seventeen Representa-
tives from the South and from the North. |
Georgia and Alabama have white population |
of ,15S, 900 and colored population of 1920 |
0O0 They send seventeen Representatives to
Congress- of whom nine were appointed on &C
count of the white population and eight on &C
count of the colored population But the col |