Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1878-12-20
SPEECH OF HON. JAMES G. BLAINE.

In the Senate of the United States
on the 11th, Mr.. Blaine's resolution di
recting an investigation into alleged
frauds and outrages in the South at tn,
recent election was called up, and tha
! gentleman spoke as follows:
Mr.. PREsIDENT-The pending reso
luton was offered by me with two
fold purpose in view.
First. To place on record, in a def
mite and authentic form, the frauds anc
outrages by which some recent election.
were carried by the Democratic party
in the Southern States.
Second. To find if there be any
method by which a repetition of these
crimes against free ballot may be pre-
vented.
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
violence, in not few cases reaching
the destruction of life; to have been
controlled by threats that awed and in
timidated a large class of voters; to
have been manipulated by fraud of the
most shameless and shameful descrip-
ton. Indeed, in South Carolina there
seems to have been no election at all in
any proper sense of the term. There
was instead a 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, frauds 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
attenCed the recent elections, and so
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 a committee
of the Senate, proceeding under the au-
thority of law and representing the
power of the nation. Hence my reso-
luton.
But we do not need investigation to
establish certain facts already of official
record. We know that one hundred
and six Representatives in Congress
were recently chosen in the States for
merly slave-holding and that the Dem
ocrats elected one hundred and one or
probably one hundred and two and the
Republicans four or possibly five. We
know that thlrty-fve of these Repre-
sentatives were assigned to the South
ern States by reason of the colored
population, and that the entire political
power thus founded on the numbers of
appropriated to the aggrandizement 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 rights of the
negro-though far distant be the day
when the rights of any American citi-
zen, 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 vernacular
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.. Pres
ident, has taken far wider range, one
Of portentious magnitude; and that is,
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,
10 put it still more boldly, the white
man who fought in the ranks of the
Union army shall have as weighty and
influential a vote in the Government of
5he Republic as the white man who
fought in the ranks of the rebel army
The one fought TO uphold, the other to
destroy, the Union of the States, and
,o-day he who fought to destroy is a
,ar more important factor in the Gov
,rnment of the nation than he who |
ought to uphold it.
Let me illustrate my meaning by COM
oaring groups of States of the same
representative strength North and
South. Take the States of South Caro-
ina, Mississippi and Louisiana. They
lend seventeen Representatives to Con- |
yress. Their aggregate population is
of 1,035,0 whites and L.
,34, 900 colored; the colored being near-1
y 200, 900 in excess of the whites. Of |
he seventeen Representatives, then, it |
s evident that nine were apportioned |
% these States by reason of their col |
'red population, and only eight by rea-
on of their white population; and yet |
n the choice of the entire seventeen
lad no more voice or power than their
emote kindred on the shores of Sene-
gambia or ON the Gold Coast. The l.
)35, 900 white people had the sole and
Lbsolute choice of the entire seventeen
representatives. In contrast, take two
states in the North, Iowa and Wiscon-
in, with seventeen Representatives.
they have white population of 2,247,-
more than double
he entire white population of the three
southern States have named. In Iowa
nd Wisconsin, therefore, it takes 1872
100 white population to send Repre-
entative to Congress, but in South Car
lima, Mississippi and Louisiana every
%, 900 white people send Representa-
i've. In other words, 10000 white peo-
lie in those Southern States have pre-
isely the same political power in the
government of the country that 1872, 900
Vhite people have in Iowa and Wiscon-
in.
Take another group of seventeen
representatives from the South and
rom the North. Georgia and Ala
anna have white population of l, ,158,-
90 and cOlored population of l,O20,-
90. They send seventeen representa-
ives to Congress, of whom nine were
pportioned on account of the white
population and eight on account of the
olored population. But the colored
oterS are not able to choose single
representative, the white Democrats
hoosing the whole seventeen. The
our Northern States, Michigan, Mime
ota, Nebraska and California, have
eventeen representatives, based on a
1hite population of two and quarter
nillions, or almost double the white
population of Georgia and Alabama,
o that in these relative groups of