Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1880-11-05
THE PROTECTION OF NATIoEsL REP
RESENTA TON.

mission TO persons VINO claim TO nave been
elected to seats in it by Southern districts
where the vote of the Republicans has
VIGOROUSLY been suppressed. There ought
not to be any hesitation in making prop.
osition of this character. for to act upon it
is not merely the right but the duty of the
majority in the House. Congress is the
sole judge of the qualifications of its mem.
bers, and Congress knows perfectly well
that members who have not been fairly
elected by majority of the untrammeled
voters Of their districts cannot be entitled
to seats in that body. So long as the
Democrats possessed control of the House
they let in everyone who brought Demo-
cratic credentials from the South, and they
never paused to inquire how those creden-
tails were obtained. In this way the solid
South came to have very real signif-
canoe, and in this way the systematic re-
preston of the Southern Republican
vote was encouraged. 1t is necessary that
all this should be changed. 1t is the duty
of Congress to protect the national repre-
sentation against partisan fraud, and as it
appears that there is no other way of reach
ing this end than by refusing to concede
the political prizes to obtain which these
frauds have been committed, the plan pro-
posed ought to be adopted. OF course
it is plain that 50 long as fraud is allowed
to succeed it will be adhered to. The way
to get rid OF it is to make it apparent that
it is no longer profitable. Ii the Southern
bulldozers and ballot-box suffers are made
to realize that they cannot elect Congress
men by their favorite methods, and that if
they persist in employing these methods
they will only lose their representation,
they will speedily abandon the solid. South
programme, and return to honest prac-
tices. In the new Congress there will be
many claimants whose credentials will not
stand scrutiny, and everyone of these men
ought to be rejected. The country will
indorse such policy on the part of the
Republican majority, and that majority
will be taking the most direct method to
purify the election machinery and to break
up the solid South. 1t is, indeed, prob
able that the Southern people will from
this time place very little dependence upon
that arrangement, but they must be
taught to regard it as worse than broken
reed Ill their hands. The country has
been rescued from a great danger by the
recent election, but great and urgent re-
form measures yet remain to be accom-
plished, and the first and most important
of these is the restoration of the franchise
to the DISTINGUISHED elements at the South
The nation has testified its disapprobation
of the practices by which the South was
made solid, but Congress must execute the
national judgment, and see to it that the
latest frauds upon the franchise fail of
effect
Time was when the Republican party in
Congress was accused of unseating South
ern members as matter of mere partisan
expediency, and without regard to the
merits of the case. That was when the
Northern people were inclined to take
their version of Southern matters from
Southern sources, and wher >ey were dis
posed to believe that the -Juth was very
mich oppressed " and ill.used. That
period ended when the Reconstruction ex-
pertinent was abandoned, and when Presi-
dent Hayes withdrew the last federal troops
from Southern soil. Then it became APP
parent that the previous complaints against
Northern officials had been mainly false,
for the first use the South made of its new
liberty was to re-enslave the negroes and
to wrest from them their political rights.
a Democratic majority IN Congress made
this work OF "redeeming" the South very
profitable, and Southern Congressman were
manufactured to order with unexampled
CELEBRITY. In that region there ceased to
be constitutional government. The laws
of the United States were systematically
defied at every election. No man was
allowed to vote, or if allowed to vote, to
have his vote counted as be cast it, unless
he was a Democrat. AS a matter of course
the Congressman who went to Washington
from the bulldozed districts did not repre-
sent their actual constituencies. In many
cases they were voted for by Gninorities,
and in most cases the figures used in their
certificates were fabricated. Congress
always had the right to reject those men,
but Democrats would not do so, and so
long as they were in the minority Republic
cans could not do so. Now the case is
altered, and now therefore it becomes the
plain duty OF the Republicans in the
House to exclude every candidate who
cannot prove that he was fairly elected.
Il does not matter how many Democratic
Congressman may be thus shut out The
principle must apply to all. No man has
any right on the floor of Congress who
does not honestly represent the majority
choice of his district. That is the test
which it is now in order to apply, and it
will puzzle the Democrats to find loop
hole for evasion in the proposition. The
dignity, integrity and purity of the ma
tional representation must be restored and
vindicated That is the first duty of the
victorious Republican party, and the man
ner in which this duty may be best per-
formed fortunately suggests itself in this
case. By all means let the illegally re-
turned members be expelled.
AN ABSURD FOREIGN CRITICISM.
The cable has brought over curious
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