Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1879-05-08

Rational legislation to provide safe
guards for free and honest elections is
necessary, as experience has shown, not
only to secure the right to vote to the
enfranchised race at the South, but also
to prevent fraudulent voting in large
cities of the North. Congress has,
therefore. exercised the power conferred
by the Constitution, and has enacted
certain laws to prevent discrimination
on account of race, color, or previous
condition of servitude, and to punish
fraud, violence, and intimidation at
Federal elections. Attention is called
to the following sections of the revised
statutes, viz: Section 20O4, which guar
antees all citiZeus the right to vote with
out distinction ON account of race, color,
or previous condition of servitude; sec
tiOns zoos and 20O6, which guarantee to
all citizens an equal opportunity, with
out distinction, to perform all the acts
required by law as prerequisite or quail
ification for voting: section 2022, which
authorizes the United States Marshal
and his Deputies to keep the peace and
preserve order at Federal elections; sec
tion 2024. which expressly authorizes
the United States Marshal and his Dep
uties to summon posse comitatus
whenever they or any Of them are fOrci-
bly, resisted in the execution of their du-
ties under the law, and are prevented
from executing their duties by violation
of section 5522, which provide for the
punishment of the crime of interfering
with Supervisors of Election and Depu-
ty Marshals in the discharge of their
duties at election of Representatives in
Congress. These are some of the laws
on the subject, which it is the duty of
the Executive Department of the gov
ernment to enforce. The intent and eff
feet of the sixth section of this bill is to
prohibit all civil officers of the United
States, under penalty of fine and impris-
onment, from employing any adequate
civil force for this purpose at place
where their enforcement is most neceS-
sary, namely, at places where Congress
sional elections are held. Among the
most valuable enactments to which /
have referred are those which protect
Supervisors of Federal elections in the
discharge of their duties at the polls.
If the pending legislation should become
a law, there is no power vested in any
officer of the government to protect
from violence the officers of the United
States engaged in the discharge of their
duties. Their rights and duties under
the law Will remain, but the national
government will be powerless to enforce
its own statutes. The State NAV employ
both civil and military power to keep
peace and to enforce the laws at State
elections 1t is now proposed to deny to
the United States even the necessary
civil authority to protect national cleo
tionS. No sufficient reason has been
given for this discrimination in favor of
the State and against the national au-
thority. If well founded objections ex-
ist against the present national election
laws, all good citizens should unite in
their amendment. Laws providing safe
guards of elections should be impartial,
just, and efficient. They should, if pos
sible, be so non-partisan and fair in
their operation that the minority party
out of power will have no just grounds
to complain. The present laws have, in
practice, unquestiOnably cOnduced to the
prevention of fraud and violence at cleo
tions. In several of the States members
of different political parties have ap-
piled for the safeguards which they fur
nish. 1t is the right and duty of the ma
tional government to enact and enforce
laws which will secure free and fair
Congressional elections. The laws now
In force should not be repealed, except
in connection with the enactment of
measures which will better accomplish
that important end. Believing that sec
ton of the bill before me will weaken,
if it does not altogether take away, the
power of the national government to
protect Federal elections by civil author
tiles, am forced to the conclusion that
it ought not to receive my approval.
That section is, however, not presented
to me as a separate and independent
measure, but is, as has been stated, at
tached to the bill making the usual an
nual appropriations for the support of
the army. 1t makes vital change in
the election laws of the country, which
is in no way connected with the use of
the army. 1t prohibits, under heavy
penalties, any person engaged in the civ
il service of the United States from hav-
ing any force at the place of any cleo
tion prepared to preserve order, to make
arrests, to keep the peace OF in any
manner to enforce the laws. This is
altogether foreign to the purpose of an
army appropriation bill. The practice
OF tacking to army appropriation bills
measures not pertinent to such bills did
not prevail until more than fifty years
after the adoption of the Constitution
1t has become a common practice. All
parties when in power have adopted it.
Many abuses and great waste of public
money have in this way crept into the
appropriation bills. The public opinion
of the country is against it. The States
which have recently adopted COnstitu-
tions have generally provided remedy
for the evil by enacting that no law
shall contain more than one subject,
which shall be plainly expressed in it's
title. The Constitutions of more than
half the States contain substantially this
provision. The public welfare will be
promoted in many words by return to
the early practice of the government
and to the true principle of legislation,
which requires that every measure shall
stand or fall according to its own mer-
its.
If it were understood that to attach
to an appropriation measure irrele-
want to the general object of the bill
would imperil and probably prevent its
final passage and approval, valuable
reform in the parliamentary practice of
Congress would be accomplished. The
best justification that has been offered
for attaching irrelevant riders to the ap-
preparation bill is that it is done for con-
venience sake, to facilitate the passage
of measures which are deemed expedi-
ent by all branches of the government
which participate in the legislation.
1t can not be claimed that there is
any such reason for attaching this
amendment of the election laws to the
army appropriation bill. The history of
the measure contradicts this assump-
tion. A majority of the House of Rep
resentatives in the last Congress were
in favor of the section to this bill. 1t
was known that a majority of the SEN