Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1879-02-27

the qualification of its own members
May it appoint committees and compel
the attendance Of witnesses to testify
as to the mode in which elections were
conducted? And yet has it no power
to station witnesses at the polls in adj
vance in order the better to ascertain
these facts? IS the United States obIi-
gated to guarantee to every state a
republican form Of Government And
yet must it see thirty thousand citizens
disiranchised by absolute force without
lifting i hand to prevent it. or institut-
ing any method of defining It's truth =?
Is every person under the constitution
, entitled to the equal protection Of the
laws? And yet may a state virtually
outlaw thirty thousand Of its citizens
with impunity, simply preserving the
shell of a republican form of govern
ment
But, sir, coming back to tie original
source of power contained in section
t, article /, Of the constitution. And
what words measure the grant Of power
both to the state and to congress :?
Are they not these: The times,
places, and manner Of holding cleo
tons, ETC., shall be prescribed in each
state BY the legislature, etc, but Gen.
gress may at any time make OF alter
what? why, whatever the state may
prescribe. Thus the power Of con-
gress is measured by the power of the
state. Whatever the state may do in
the first instance, congress may do in
second, except to change the place of
choosing Senators. The two powers
so together j; they have common or
igin they measure and bound each
other reciprocally; they were spoken
into being at the same moment, and
stand or fall together. But for this
clause in the constitution the state
could not prescribe such regulations.
And for the same reason congress
could not make or alter them There
fore, to deny that congress can make
or alter the times, places, and manner
of holding elections is to deny that
the state can in the first instance pre-
scribe them. And yet gentlemen
stand here not only denying to congress
any such power but threatening to rev
olutionize the government if it shall
attempt to exert it, and at the same
time insisting that the state is supreme,
amenable TO no power on earth
Z AS all roads once led to
Rome, SO who can doubt, judging from
the course of events in this country
fer the last five years, that we are
again drifting upon troublous times !;
that if we ever needed the qualities of
tirmness, justice and mercy to all alike
we need them now.
The race issue is not dead, neither
will it be in our day. By the claim
that the superior race must rule, that
the property and intelligence will
govern, that the 'Anglo-Saxon' never
yields, we are abundantly admonished
of the purposes Of our opponents. It
simply means this: that either with
or without law, by the constitution or
against the constitution, the men who
have always ruled this country through
their state organizations are determin-
ed to do so still. My response to all
such should be that, by the suffering
we have endured, by the treasure we
have squandered, by the lives we have
sacrificed and by the sacredness Of our
free institutions, which we revere, we
now declare no power in this country
shall ever set itself above the consti.
tuition again, but by the plain provis-
ions Of that instrument the citizen
who obeys the laws, pays his taxes,
and contributes TO the common de-
fence must and shall be protected in
all his rights, cost what it may"
x. X. x.