The weekly clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1863-1882, 1879-10-29
VOLUME XIII.

MS repeal would have affected seventy.
i've cities, slxty-seven of which adhered Il
the Union in the war of secession and only
eight OF which belonged to the secedin.
States
In the great body of Southern district.
the law remained unchanged, and the cities
OF the South which would have been affect
ed have large majorities of white inhabi
tants and are admitted to be Democratic
No rifle clubs are charged to be in these
cities, so that the South was in no way t
De affected by the proposed repeal of these
laws And yet the Republican leaders
; shamelessly and falsely denounced the
efforts to repeal these laws as an effort oil
rebel brigadiers to license violence and free
fraud in the South
THE DAVENPORT LAW ONLY AIMED AT TIKI
NORTH.
If there was anything sectional in the
issue made in the extra session il was a
Northern and not Southern issue Thes
laws were not passed for the South for al
the time they were enacted the South was
supposed to be secure under carpet-bag dom
ination for the Republican party. They
were made for Northern Democrats and
their execution has been in accord with
their enactment In 1876 there was expend-
ed for supervisors and deputy marshal-
1910, 296.G0 Of this only $44 ,77466 were
spent in the South and $230, up in the
North. In 1873 $202 00l 90 were expended
for this purpose-Only S24, 639 in the South
and $l77 ,652 in the North In 1876 John
Davenport had under his command in the
single city of New York 1910 supervisors
and $500 deputy marshals.
In 1878 he had / ,225 supervisors and
1850 deputy marshals. These figures show
better than an hours argument could de-
! monstrate whether this is a Northern or a
- II.
| sought to repeal. The ingenuity of man
could scarcely devise a system which in
| the hands OF INSCRIPTIONS partisans would
! be better calculated to destroy the freedom
| of elections, and his Satanic Majesty could
not furnish an agent better fitted to execute
I them than John 1. Davenport, of New York,
who boosted in his correspondence with
Acknowledgement Devens that he robbed
more than ten thousand foregn-b born
citizens of their naturalization pa
pers. The repeal of these election
laws, including the law authorizing
the use of the army to keep the peace
at the polls is now the great issue between
the parties The Republican party answer
our demand for their repeal by yelling Sc
cessIOn and Confederate brigadiers in Con-
gre5s. They pretend that these laws are
necessary to prevent "the rebel Democracy"
from Selling the Government by fraud and
violence in Southern elections in 1880. A
more miserable and contemplate subter-
fuge was never attempted to be practised
on the credulity of a free people. As the
laws now stand the States of the South can,
if they choose, select their Presidential
electors by their Legislatures, and no Uni
ted States Supervisors can even witness the
election of their members. As the laws
now stand in Mississippi, where we have no
city of 10000 inhabitants no supervisor
can call on marshal for support, and no
marshal can call on the army to assist him,
and hence the repeal of these laws, as at
tempted in the last extra session of Con-
gress, could have had no possible effect on
the election in Mississippi. And yet the
shotgun plan" of Mississippi has been de-
nounced on every stump, by every Repub
lcan orator from Maine to California, as if
to prove that these laws should not be
repealed. Such arguments are utterly false
and delusive, and no men know it better
than those who make them. Such argu-
ments are made not to prevent the repeal of
the election laws they stand, but to
make them stronger if possible These |
denuncations of Southern outrages, as they |
are called are intended to fire the Northern
heart and prepare the Northern mind for
fresh reconstruction laws and further en-
croachments on the rights of the States, |
until every Democrat charged with crime |
against Republican in the South can be |
tried by national laws in national courts. |
They stretched the jurisdiction of United |
States courts and passed the infamous test |
oath to organize juries to convict political |
opponents in the South, and they will not |
hesitate to stretch that jurisdiction still |
further and to pass jury laws more stringent
if the Republican party ever controls the |
Government again.
THE SOUTH DOES NOT OBJECT To EXIST |
ING FEDERAL SUPERVISION THERE.
We did not in the extra session ask the
repeal of the entire election laws. In order
to refute the false and slanderous charge |
that we were preparing to cover up fraud |
in Southern elections, Southern members
of Congress agreed to leave the United States
supervisors at the polls to witness both the
fairness of the elections and the fair count
ing of the votes. But when we asked that
the power of election officers should be the
same everywhere, the same rule for the city
that there is for the country, the same rule
for the Democrats that there is for Repub
licans, they cry out that the supervisors
have been shorn of their strength, and Mr.. |
Conkling facetiously calls them "stool-pig- |
cons with their wings clipped" They made |
the law for Republican districts just as we
now propose to apply it to the whole coun-
try Ii supervisors with no authority ex-
cept to witness the election are without
power, if they are stool pigeons with their |
such themselves. But as | said on a former
occasion, "while they were creating stool |
pigeons with clipped wings to nestle gently |
at Republican polls, they created vultures
with fierce beaks and sharpened talons to |
hover around Democratic precincts and tear
the vitals of Democratic voters" But |
while we proposed to leave the supervisors
as witnesses ut the polls because we did not
desire to give any color even to the charge
that we were seeking to conceal fraud any
where, and especially in the South, we re-
fused to make any affirmative legislation on
the subject refused even to reduce the pay
of the supervisors, lest it should be claimed
that we sanctioned the eonstitutionality OF
their appointment, which we utterly deny.
Every writer on constitutional law and
every Chief Justice of the United States
from John Jaw to NJ. r. Waite has held, as
Chief Justice Waite has recently well eX-
pressed it, that "the Government OF the
United States is one of delegated power
alone Its authority is defined and limited
by the Constitution. All powers not granted
to Il bv that instrument are reserved to the
States or the people. No right can be ac-
ouired under the Constitution or laws of the
United States except such as the Govern
ment of the United States has authority to
grant or secure-all that can not be so
granted or secured are left under the pro-
lection of the States"
Therefore, unless there Is SoIne ca PIoSSou
or reasonably implied power in the Consti-
tuition for the passage of these election laws
they are utterly null and void. When we
look into the history of these laws We see
that they were evidently passed under a
mistaken belief that they were authorized
bv the fifteenth amendment of the Constitu.
ton, and they were intended as the title of
the act expressly shows to protect voters IN
their rights.
BY THE LAW THE NATION HAS NO VOTERS.
But the Supreme Court has distinctly de-
cided in the Reese case that the fifteenth
amendment did not create any voters, that
the United States has no voters in the State
of it's own creation and consequently 1t can.