Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1878-12-19
SPEECH
HON. JAMES G. BLAINE,
OF MAINE,
a the Senate Of the United States
DECEMBER ~, 1873,

On the resolution offered by him directing al
investigation into alleged frauds and out
RACES in the recent elections.
Mr.. PRESIDENT: The pending re5o
luton was offered by me with q two
fOuld purpose in view:
First, To place on record, in def
mite and authentic form, the frauds ant
Outrages by which some recent elec
tiOns were carried by the Democrati
party in the Southern States:
Second, To find il there be any meth
od by which repetition of these crime
against a free ballot may be prevented
The newspaper is the channel through
which the people of the United State
are informed of current events, and thu
accounts given in the press represent
the elections in some of the Southern
States to have been accompanied by
violence; in not few cases reaching
the destruction of life; to have beer
controlled by threats that aWed and in
undated large class of voters; to have
been manipulated by fraud of the mos
STAINLESS and shameful description
Indeed in South Carolina there seems
to have been no election at all in any
sense of the term. There was instead
a Sc ries of skirmishes over the State in
which the pOlling-places were regard
ed as forts to be captured by one party
and held against the other, and where
this could not be done with any con-
venienee, frauds in the count anC
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'partisar
press, of the disgrsceful Outrages that
attended the recent elections, and sc
far as | have seen, these statements
are without serious contradiction. 1t
is but just and fair to all parties how
ever, that an impartial Investigation
OF the facts shall be made by com
mittee of the Senate, proceeding under
the authority of law and representing
the power of the nation. Hence m y
resolution.
But we do not need investigation to
establish certain facts already of Off
cial record. We know that one hun.
dred and six Representatives in Con.
gres5 were recently chosen in the States
formerly sIsveholding, and that the
Democrats elected one hundred and
one or possibly one hundred and two,
and the Republicans four or possibly
five. We know that thirty-fve oi
these Representatives were assigned
to the Southern States by reason of the
colored population, and that the entire
political power thus founded on the
numbers of the cGlored people has been
seized and appropriated to the aggrand-
izement of its own strength by the
Democratic party of the South.
The issue thus raised before the
country, Mr.. President, is not one of
mere sentiment for 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 elegsnt vernacular of Democratic
vitupeTntion; nor still further is the is
sue 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 d far wider range-One OF pOr-
tentious magnitude; and that is, wheth-
er 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 vheth-
er, to put it still more boldly, the
white man VINO fought in the ranks Of
the Union Army shall have as weighty
and Influential q vote in the Govern
ment of the Republic as the white man
who fought in the rebel army. The
one fought to uphold, the other to de-
stroy, the Union of the States, and to-
day he who fought to destroy 1t is a
far more important factor in the Gov
ernment of the nation than he who
fought to uphold 1t.
Let me illustrate my meaning by
comparing groups of States OF the same
representative strength North and
South. Take the States of South Caro-
lima, Mississippi, and Louisiana. They
send seventeen Representatives to
Congress. Their aggregate population
is composed OF ten hundred and thirty
five thousand whites and twelve hun.
dred and twenty-four thousand color
ed; the colored being nearly two hun
dred thousand in excess of the whites
or the seventeen Representatives. then,
it is evident that nine were appOrtion-
ed to these States by reason of their
colored population, and only eight by
reason OF their white population; and
yet in the choice of the entire seventeen
Representatives the colored voters had
no more choice or power than their
remote kindred on the shores Of Sene-
gambia or on the Gold Coast. The ten
hundred and thirty.five thousand
white people had the sole and absolute
choice of the entire seventeen Repre-
sentatives. In contrast, take two
States in the North, Iowa and Wiscon-
sin, with seventeen Representatives.
They have white population of two
million two hundred and forty-seven
thousand-considerably more than dou-
Bile the entire white population Of the
three Southern States L have named.
In Iowa and Wisconsin, therefore, it
takes one hundred and thirty-twO
thousand white population to send a
Representative to Congress, but In
South Carolina, Mississippi and Louis
ana every sixty thousand white peo-
ple send a Representative. In other
words, sixty thousand white people In
those Southern States have precisely
ment Of the country that one hundred