The Ottawa free trader. [volume] (Ottawa, Ill.) 1843-1916, 1879-08-02
OCT OF TEMPER.


such terms as venerable" poor old man, y
&c, to another especially if the other still
happens 10 be on the right side OF sixty, BE.
sides it shows excessively bad taste when this
childish sort of dctractiOn is Of a purely pot
and kettle character The venerable" senior
of the FREE TRADER remembers very well,
when but little beyond his teens, hearing of IA
noisy abolition preacher up in the Somonauk
country by the name of William Cullen
and remembers too that at least thirty five years
ago the same individual was the candidate of
the Liberty Party" Of this county for sheriff or
coroner, or some such big office, for which he
was OF course left, as oft since hath betldcd,"
! We believe the same gentleman is now our cs
tecmed contemporary of the Ottawa RepUbltcaa,
and ESQ, he is surely no chicken, and as Il pot
| is in no position to cell the kettle black,
our esteemed contemporary exhibits "A further
and still saddcr loss Of temper in thetolowing
extract from his paper of Thursday;
The FREE TRADER charges that the natiOna,
law authorizes marshals to make a registry of
voters independent Of the states definition of
who shall be voters" That is false. He as
scrtS that they are authorized to arrest and
deprive Of his vote every person whom such
marshal may susPect of an intention to cast
! fraudulent vote" That, 100, is false. He as
serts that the marshals can and have prevented
thousands af voters from casting their ballots
! ior members of the Legislature as well AS Of
Congress" That also, is false.
The poor man must be mad to the pitch of
frenzy thus foolishly to give the lie three times
in one brief paragraph. But are these things
talse?' Let US appeal to the law and the
facts The following Is Sec 2022 Of the [. 5.
Revised Statutes and one of the sections Of the
famous or rather infamous, Davenport law:
SEC 2,022 The marshal and his general de.
puties and such special deputies, shall keep
the peace and support and protect the supervi-
sors of election in the discharge of their duties
preserve order at such places Of registration
and at such polls, preventing fraudulent regis
tration and fraudulent voting thcrcat or fraud
ulcnt conduct on the part of any officer Of cleo
ton, and Immediately, either at the place of
registration or polling place, or elsewhere, and
either before or after registering or voting, ar
rest and take into custody, with or oitt0ut pJ0-
coSs, any person who commits or attempts or
offers to commit any OfeHce sgainst the laws OF
the United States. i The supervisors shall, in
the absence Of the marshal's deputies, or if re
quired to assist such deputies, have the same
duties and powers as deputy marshals,"
The constitution says unequivocally that the
state legislatures alone shall have the power to
define who shall be voters. One OF the ways the
states have Of designating or defining who
shall be voters IS to register their names THIS
law surrounds the state officers who are max
ing this registration with II horde Of supervis-
with or UtthOW process, any person who com
miis or attempts, or offers 10 commit aug
0tense against the laws of the |. 5" These
supervisors and marshals thus arrest whom
they please on any charge it may suit them to
trump up. The state officers may register, as
they actually did IN New York ard ST. Louis,
thousands of voters against whom these |. $.
marshals and supervisors had trumped up
charges OF a design TO vote unlawfully lin New
York the favoritc charge was Il false one of
attempting to vote an insufficient naturalza-
ton papers, and on abe day of election these
men, duly registered by the state officers, but
marked" on the registry list of the L. S. su.
IQervisors, were arrested and not allowed to
vote They were thus deprived of their votes
on registration or list or definition of vot-
crs, independent " of that prepared by the
state authorities And these arrests the mar
shals and supervisors made without process,
upon charges made by themselves, or on mere
suspicion, on grounds of the truth of which
Ia, ;,Ir lad
done in New York in 1876, where Chief Su-
pervisor Davenport ordered the arrest of over
5000 legal voters, including many leading and
Irresponsible citizens; and the Teller investiga
ton showed like Wholesale arrests IN Phila.
delpbia where the marshals were proved to
have been, as the report says, "Republican pol
iticans of the worst stripe, many OF them gra
dualcs from the peni.cntlary, gamblers
thieves, DULLES and scOundrels of the lowest
class, who held the personal liberty of proper
~ holders and the better portion of the com
munity at their mercy" In short, the vllest
despotism never conceived a more infamous
system than this Proiessedly the law is con
fined to congressional elections; Impractical
Ily il affects state elections as well. For con.
renience the states have ordered the elections
for their own officers to be held on the same
day with that fixed Tor president. and congress.
Hence under the pretcnse of supervising cleo
tions for congress this law really enters into and
Affects and controls the whole CANVASS. 1t is
here that it becomes that violation OF principle
which Judge Story says, in surprising just
such case, Is 40 fragrant as TO need no
commSnt."
While defending this infamous law rs emil
nently wise and proper on the ground Of ex-
pedency, our esteemed contemporary makes
equally watched work in attempting to defend
its constituisonality To our quotation from