Mower County transcript. [volume] (Lansing, Minn.) 1868-1915, 1879-04-10
f He Shows that the Law Authorizing the
!. Use Of the Army at the Polls
y ks was Passed by Demo.
cratic Votes.
The Proposed Rebellion Less Honorable than
that Of 1861.

the house was cOncurTed in, to refuse max
ing appropriations to- carry on the govern.
ment, and he also quoted from the speech
OF Senator Beck (another of the conferees\,
to the effect that the Democrats claimed the
right which the house of commons in Eng
land had established after two centuries Of
conquest, to say that they would not grant
the money of the people unless there was a
redress of grievances. These propositions,
continued Mr.. Garfield, in various forms,
more or less vehemently, were repeated
in the last house, and with that situation of
affairs the session came near its close. The
Republican majority in the senate and the
Republican minority in the house expressed
the deepest possible solicitude to avoid the
pressed the strongest desire to avoid the
danger to the country and to it's business of
an extra session Of congress, and they ex-
pressed their willingness to let go what they
considered the least important of the propo.
sitions-not as q matter of coercion at all,
but as q matter of fair adjustment and COM
promise-if they could be met in the spirit
of adjustment on the other side. Unfortu-
nately no spirit of adjustment appeared on
the other side to meet their advances. And
now the new congress is assembled, and
after ten days of elaboration, the house of
representatives. has resolved substantially to
sor-and on these propositions We are met
to-day.
The question may be asked why we make
any special resistance to propositions which
great many gentlemen have declared are
to be considered of no Importance. 50 far
as this side is concerned, I desire to say
this: We recognize you, gentlemen Of the
other side, as skillful parliamentarians and
skillful strategists. You have chosen wisely
and adroitly your line of assault. You
have put forward, perhaps, the least objec-
tionable of your measures, but we meet
that as one part of your programme. We
reply to it as an order of battle, and we are
As much compelled by the Logic of the stu
we would be if you were attacking the in.
trenchments themselves. And, therefore,
on the threshold, We desire to plant our
case on the general grounds on which we
choose to defend it. Mr.. Garfield then re-.
ferred to what he had said on the last day
of the last congress, as to the division Of
the government into three parts-,he ma
ton, the senate, and the people; and he
said a foreigner could point dozen ways
in which the government could be killed,
and that not by violence. OF course. all
governments might be overturned by
the sword. But there were some
mi ght be utterly annihilated without
the firing of gun. The people might say
that they would not elect representatives.
That, of course, was violent supposition,
but there was no possible remedy for such
a condition Of things, and without house
of representatives there could be no support
of q government, and consequently there
could be no government. So the states
might say through their legislatures that
they would not elect senator's. The very
abstention from electing senators would alb
solutely destroy the government, and there
would be no process of compulsion. Or,
sembled in their usu i order, and that a bare
majority in either house should firmly bind
itself together and say that it would vote to
adjourn at the moment of meeting each day,
and would do that for two years in success.
sion. Ia that case what would happen and
what would be the measure of redress
The government would die. There could
not be found in the whole range of judicial
or executive authority any remedy what
ever. The executive had no power to de-
stroy the government. Let the executive
travel but one inch beyond the line of law
and there was the power of impeachment.
elected representatives, or if the electors in
the state legislatures who created SEN
ators, or if senators and repre-.
sentatives themselves abstain from
the performance Of their duty, there
was no remedy. At first view itmight seem
remarkable, he said, that a body of wise
men like those who framed the constitution
should have left the whole side of the fabric
of government open to such deadly assaults,
but, on another view of the case, they were
wise. What was their reliance? It was on
- kl4 Il,
crowned and amounted sovereign to whom
all American citizens owed their allegiance
That sovereign was the body of the people
of the United States, inspired by their love
of country and their sense of obligation to
public duty.
Up to this hour, he said, our sovereign
has never failed us. There has never been
such abstention from the exercise of those
primary functions of sovereignty as either
to cripple or endanger the government
And now, for the first time in our history
land will say, for the first time in at least
two centuries, in the history of English.
speaking people, has it been proposed, OF
at least insisted upon, that these voluntary
powers shall be used for the destruction OF
the government. want it understood that
the proposition which I have read and
which is the programme announced to the
we cannot have our way in certain mat
ter, We will destroy the government oil
this country by using the voluntary power,
not of the people, but of ourselves against
the government to destroy it. What is on,
theory of law? It is free consent. What il
the granite foundation of our whole struc
ture? Nothing to this republic can be O
law that has not the free consent of the house,
the free consent of the senate, and the free
consent of the executive. Or, if the execu.
tive refuses his free consent, then it must
bsdy. Will anybody deny that? Will any
that free consent is the foundation rock oil
all our institutions? And yet the pro-
gramme announced two weeks ago was, that
if the senate refused to consent to the de-
mand of the house, the government should
stop. The proposition was then, and the
programme is now, that although there is
not q senate to veto it, there is still q third
Independent factor in the legislative powe,
of the government which is to be coerced al
the peril of the destruction of the govern
ment.
I am net arguing at present as to the
merits Of your three amendments at all;
am speaking of your methods, and l say
that they are against the constitution of our
country. say that they are revolutionary
to the core, and that they tend to the
destruction of the first element of Ameri
can liberty, which is free consent of all the
powers that unite to make the law. 1t is q
little surprising to me that our friends on
the other side should have gone into this
great contest on so slender q, topic as the
one embraced in this particular bill. Victor
Hugo said in his description of the great
battle of Waterloo that two armies were
like two mighty giants, and that sometimes
q chip under the heel of one might deter
mine the victory. 1t may BE-, gentlemen
that there is merely chip under yeur heel
or it may be that you treated it as chip on
our shoulder. But whether it is under
your heel or on our shoulder, it represents
matter of revolution, and we fight for the
chip as if it were an ingot of the richest
ore. Loud applause on the floor and in
the gailery.]
Let us see what the chip is. DO the gen.
tlemen know what they ask, when they ask
us to repeal? 1t was introduced into The
senate Of the United States by prominen,
Democrat from the state of Kentucky lMr
POWELL It was insisted upon in an able
and elaborate speech by him. It was re
ported agsinst by q Republican committee
in that body. It went through days and
weeks of debate in the senate, and when il
finally came to be acted upon in that body,