The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1879-09-04
masters, or in depressing the Free State men in

masters, or in depressing the Free State men in
Kansas
The United States troops in no case prescribe
the qualifications of voters or interfere with
any mans right to vote No instance can be
found OF any such interference 1t has been
most rare, ii indeed it has ever happened, that
the troops have been present at the polls at
all, except, perhaps, in the solitary case of
kentucky III 1864, during the war; to keep
the rebels from voting. Soldiers have not
been stationed at the polls. The law forbids it.
lhey have had their quarters away from the
po!ls and only been called on, if called at all,
TO keep the peace against lawless violence All
that can be truly said by the ,unsatisfed Demo-
Gratis is that reporters and intimidators are
less enterprising if a squad of United States
soldiers happens to be in the neiehborhood or
town than they might otherwise be. know that
1t is stoutly denied by the Democrats that there
are, or ever have been, Rifle Clubs or White
Liners, or any form of violence or intimi-
datlon to prevent voters from exercising their
right OF free suffrage. Those political
denias are of the same character with
the phenomenon which was observed in 1870.
when the Ku-Klux Klans were operating in the
South. Political men in the South and their
Democratic friends in the North stoutly denied
that any outrages, such as had been charged
against the Ku- Klux KIans, existed anywhere.
until a considerable number of them had been
tried in the United States courts in South Caro-
lima and convicted of all the enormities that
had been charged, and sentenced to the
penltentiary. When the facts were thus
proved beyond denial and made public, the
K. K. K. were disavowed. and they were left
to their fate. Some Of them ought to have
been hung, but as the State courts had exclu-
slve jurisdiction of MURDER and would not try
them at all, the United States court could only
try them for the lesser crime of banding to-
gether to deprive citizens of their civil rights,
of which they were also guilty The public
were as well assured Of their guilt before as
after the trial But those convictions made de-
malls no longer available. There is as little
doubt that the elections are controlled by in
hmldation and force in several of the Southern
States, SO that the election returns are not an
expression of the will of the majority of the
citizens
Since the State Governments of the South
have passed into the hands Of the minority,
the enforcement of the Fourteenth and Fiji
teenth amendments in those States has become
for the present precarlous, and, to certain ex-
tent, impracticlble Nevertheless, are we
ready to suffer the elections to be made farce
or tragedy? Are we ready to permit in ST.
lence the Republicans to be deprived of their
right to vote in any part of the country? | sag
no. We are as much interested in the fairness Of
the Congressional elections in Mississippi or in
Alabama as in Ohio The duty of the General
Government is not to be measured by the ex-
tent of the wrong to the parties deprived of
their votes, or even by the wrong to citizens of
the State where such frauds occur. It is q
grievous wrong to the people of all those States
who maintain the law, and hold honest cleo
tons, that all their vigilance should be thwart-
ed by the lawless frauds of a minority in Mis-
sissippi, or in South Carolina or in any other
State
Under our system of General and State Gov
ernments the people are bound together by
constitutional law, in one comprehensive union,
with well-defned rights, powers and duties b
Pturibus Imam. 1t is system OF laws, and
depends for it's perpetuity upon their just in
depreciation and faithful execution. The in
depreciation has been intrusted to the Supreme
Court, and their execution to the President
AS in the solar system, by the law Of
it's creation, the sun attracts every particle
of matter in every planet and holds the orb
itself 10 its orbit, SO In our Federal system the
General Government reaches every citizen, in
every State, and holds the State ITSELF in its
republican form and course. If the State
rights malcontents should succeed in taking
from the General Government either the power
to interpret or to execute its own laws it would
work the destruction of our glorious Union, as
surely as the repeal of the law of gravitation
would work the destruction of the solar sys-
tenn.