Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1878-09-14
HON. JOHN =. HOUSE
Extracts from His speech i'm Nash
willie, Sent. 2. 1878.

district, have met in several place
and we have had a discussion {
= two, and it affords me pleasure
say to you tonight that my con
petltor arraigns me upon no part {
my Congressional record during tn
time l have had the honor to b
your representative He does nc
ask the people to turn me out an
put him in on account of anythin
that / have done in Congress Whicl
was untrue or unfaithful to your in
terestS-not once. And it does al
ford me pride to say that my com
petitor has not been able to find il
my course as member anythin;
for which he asks the people to con
denim me; but he goes away bacl
to the Constitutional Convention il
1870 and brings up some resolution
that | introduced in that conVen
tion, and that, believe, is the sOli
tary point he makes against me
He did start out to make the point
against me on my vote on the elec
tOral bill, but he notified me the
other day that he did not propose
to make point on that any more
and since then it has ceased to be
an issue, and if there is any issue
between us now at all it is these
resolutions in the Constitutional
Convention, which he is pleased tc
call the property qualification.
| stand by these resolutions, and
desire every fair-minded man to
hear me for a few moments upon
that subject. | had the honor to be
a member of the Constitutional
Convention of 1870, as the represen-
tatiye from Davidson, Robertson
and Montgomery counties, and
what | have done | am willing to
be responsible for and seek to shirk
no responsibility for any public act
of mine and what | believe to be
right l dare assert to be right in the
face of million of voters and at
the risk OF losing forty seats in Con-
greSs. Applause. 1t has gone all
over this country in the remote re-
giOns that am in favor of property
/ qualifications before man can
vote. / heard that an old gentle
man in Dickson county said, 81 al
ways voted for House, but / learn
he introduced a bill in Congress
providing that no man should vote
unless he had five thousand dollars
of property" Just think what it is
to be candidate when an honest
man would think such a thing as
that of me. OF course every word
of such charge is false from Begin
ming to end. But l will read you
the resolutions introduced by me in
the convention in 1870:
Resolved, That the credit of the State shall
never be given or loaned in aid of any per-
son, association, municipality or corpora
ton.
Well, my competitor says that
was all right. That was incorpO-
rated into your Constitution.
Second, That the Legislature may contract
debts to meet casual deficits or failure in
the revenue, but such debts, direct or con-
tingent, singly or in the aggregate, shall not
at any time exceed six hundred thousand
dollars; and the moneys arising from loans
creating such debt shall be applied to the
purposes for which they We're obtained, or
to pay such debts.
That is, that no future Legislature
should have the power to run you
in debt except for what was abso-
lutely necessary to run your State
government and to keep your laws
in force, and that they should never
exceed six hundred thousand dol
lars, that being the estimated
amount necessary to run the gov
ernment.
Third, No act of the Legislature shall au-
thOrize any debt to he contracted ON behalf
of the State except for purposes mentioned
in the foregoing section, unless provision be
made therein to lay and collect an annual
tax sufficient to pay the interest stipulated
and TO discharge the debt in thirty years
nor shall any such act take effect until it
shall have been submitted to the people at
general election, and shall have received
majority of all the votes cast for and against
it Provided that the Legislature may con-
tract debts by borrowing money to pay any
part of the debt of the State without sub
mitting the question to the people, and
without making a provision in the act
authorizing the same for a tax to discharge
the debt so contracted and the interest
thereon.
OF course the convention did not
undertake to restrict the Legislature
in the payment of debts already
contracted for. No respectable
body would have done that. No
convention, except it was a syna-
gOgue of jackaSSes, would have un-
dertaken to restrict the Legislature
in the payment of debt already
made. The convention did nothing
with reference to what had already
been done; did not meddlC with
the Legislature only as to future
debts. And why? Because no
Constitutional convention could tell
what the people or the Legislature
might wish to do in the future in
reference to the debt which we al
ready owed. Therefore my resOlu- |
tiOn leaves the Legislature perfectly |
free to act on the question of our
existing Indebtedness. If the inter
est of the State or the people of the
State required the Legislature to |
submit any question to the people |
in reference to the debt we then |
owed, the Legislature is left perfectly |
free to do it there is nothing in the |
resolution to prohibit it. The reso-
luton leaves the Legislature per-
fectly free to deal with the existing
debt as the interest of the State |
might require, and the convention
could have done nothing else with
out stultifying itself.
Now for the last clause to which |
he more particularly objects:
Fourth, No one who does not own at least |
two hundred and fifty dollars worth of tax
able property shall be entitled to vote in any |
election in which the question is submitted |
to q vote of the people of contracting debts |
or raising money ON behalf of the State, any |
association or municipality or corporation |
whatsoever.
Now, fellOw-citiZens, what was
the condition of the State of Ten |
nessee when the convention of 1870 |
convened in the Capitol? You |
were burdened with debt of be- |
tween thirty-five and forty million
dollars. Two of the counties | rep
resented already had a large debt |
upon them which had been con-
tracted for the purpose of building
railroads. BY the convention of |
1870 universal suffrage was accorded |
to every man in the State. Now,
suppose the power had still existed |
of a bare majority voting taxes up
on the people for the purpose of
building railroads and internal i'm
provements, many of the counties
in this State would have been ut
terly bankrupt, totally ruined. In
the resolutions which / submitted |
to the convention and which were
referred to the committee, l pro-
vided that no man who did not pay
taxes should vote taxes upon the
man who did and / say the princi-
pie is right, and / stand by it, here,
elsewhere and everywhere, Ap-
plause.