The Ottawa free trader. [volume] (Ottawa, Ill.) 1843-1916, 1879-07-26
OH, DEAR OH, DEAR

ever have tempted us 10 enter upon that GAIA
ml,ous discussion of the L. S. election law
with our esteemed bat most unhappy cotem
porary of the Ottawa R,puJlican Is there NJ
panacca--no potent moral astringen,-no ener
ge,c psychical cholera medicine that can check
that amazing lingual tluX--that alarming ano
lcplorable diarrhoea Of words with which hC
j has been seized:
What IN our innocency We had started ont
} vctoes, to show up the yiciousness Of the 50
called Davenport election law, 10 the mainlen
ance of which the President and the stalwar,
Republicans seemed 30 cling with such 81 lgu'
lar tenacity. We criticised the law on the
} grounds both OF It's unconsttutionaity and un.
!, Irighteou.nets Our stalwart contemporary flew
TO its defence, but instead Of meeting our
points, strangely misstatcd and perverted them,
We chavitably supposed he had tailed 10
comprehend Us and resated our position.
Another tangled mess of misconcepton and
twattle was the result. We patiently went ov-
the ground a third time and now-oh, dear!
oh, dear,-w have caused this astonishing
and narrowing lingual diabetes.
Yet not TO be unkind, and IN the hope of en-
Aiding HIM to collect his scattered senses and
come down to simple business, we shall make
a fourth, and we hope a last attempt, 10 state
the FREE TRADER position and line OF argu
incDt.
It objected to the Davenport law first, on
the ground Of lis unconstitutionaiity, main
tanning that by The constitution the state legs
laturcs were vested with the exclusive power
70 prescribe the times, places and manner Of
holding elections for members Of congress.
The language OF the constitution Is, The leg
| islatures OF the states SHALL prescribe the
times, places" &c. What the constitution
says the legislatures Of the states "shal' DO, il
is absurd to say it directs or allows congress
to do, The federal government, however, has
no means to compe the state legislatures to do
anything and the framers of the constitution
Iconcelying the possibility that the legislatures
might refuse or neglect TO obey this behes', or
might execute it in asllpshod, ineffective way
therefore gave in the same connection power
20 congress to add to or change the state regu
ations so as fully to accomplish the constitu
tonal intent and purpose which was to secure
the regular stated election of full representa-
ton in congress from each state. For over 50
years, however, congress never had occasion to |
exercise tins simply corrective power, the states
having fully complied with the constitutional
mandate to prescribe the time, place and man.
ner of holding the elections
The FREE TRADER also conceded that if the
states neglected TO obey the constitutional be-
hest. selfpreservaton would Justify congress,
under the "corrcctve' power OF sec. of art |, |
to take the whole matter of congressional cleo. |
tons out of the hands Of the states and run the
elections under its own auspices In that
case, however, congress must conduct the cleo |
tons with its own officers, on the PLAN consti.
tutonaI principle that the federal government
can exercise no control over purely state off |
GERS. That congress must do this is obvious to
any man of common sense on moments con-
sideiation. Suppose Illinois should direct its
state elections to be held on the I'd Tuesday of
October and make no provision whatever for
holding congressional elections in November,
as now required by law of congress We
should like to know by what process congress
can compel the state election officers to hold
an election on that day The simple matter is,
that congress would be compelled to provide
its own set of officers and machinery to hold |
such election
Lastly-the position Of the FREE TRADER
is that conceding TO congress all the power
claimed by the stalwarts to alter the election
laws of states the Davenport election law is in
no sense a change CT alteration of any state
law. The constitution gives to the states the
sole power 10 prescribe the qualifications of
voters, and each state has prescribed these
qualifications for itself and adopted its meth.
DDS, by registry laws or otherwise, to ascertain
on the day of election who has right to vote |
The Davenport law provides for separate re.
glstratlon, and II authorizes Il horde of super
vIsors and marshals to make this registration
Independent, of the states definition of who
shall be voters, and il authorizes ITS marshas
to arrest and deprive Of his vote every person
whom such marshal may suspect" of an in
tention to cast fraudulent vote Most of the
states elect their legislatures on the same day
of the congressional elections and no matter how
full and perfect may be voters right to vote I'M
der the state regulations, the Davenport marsh
ais and elccuoneering agents can prevent(and re-
peatedly have prevented) thousands of voters
from casting their ballots tor members of the
Legislature as well as of congress. What"
says Judge Story, would be said should con
gress undertake to regulate the state elections
of members of the legislatures? 1t would be
deemed a most unwarrantable exercise of pow
er, indicating premeditated design to destroy
the state governments. 1t would be so fragrant
"A violation of PRINCIPLE as to require no com
ment" Yet this is exactly what the Daven,
mort lau and baS ,l,,o