Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1880-05-12
FORTY-SIXTH CONGRESS.
Second Session.
The Senate.

WASHINGTON, May 1.-THE President pro
tenn. laid before the Senate communication
from the secretary of war recommending an
appropriation of SIT 900 to continue in service
seventy clerks preparing reports to expediate
the settlement of pension applications who
otherwise will have to be discharged the 30th
proximo. The necessity for their retention has
been previously shown.
The bill to provide for ascertaining and set
tling private land claims in New Mexico, Wy
oming, Oregon, Utah, Nevada and Colorado
was taken up.
Pending debate the morning hour expired
and the land claims bill went over.
The Senate coneurred in the House amend
nent to the Joint resolution authorizing the
President to call an international sanitary con-
ference Tho amendment includes in the
countries from which delegates are to be in
vited, those subjected to cholera.
Consideration was then resumed of the Kel-
losg-Spofford resolutions. Senator Hill, of
Georgia, spoke in their advocacy. He proposed
to discuss chiefly the legal views presented in
the case, going into the facts only so far as was
necessary to the elucidatiOn Of these prin-
ciples.
Senator Hill said there could be nothing
more dangerous than to say that the Senate, or
was a legislature If the Senate could go into
a State and decree that any mob was its legis-
lature, what would become of the State! He
warned his friends in the weaker part of the
country to beware when the doctrine that the
Senate could reverse the action of the State
prevailed, for then States would be at the
mercy of an outside power, and lose their
rights forever. The safety of the States
Law in the preservation of their constitutional
rights. Webster we'll said, 'the State alone could
decide this question, and when the State de-
cided it she decided it for all the world" He,
Hill, would bow at the shrine of the great
Webster who represented Massachusetts when
she was universally respected and holding this
view he examined the facts. The Packard
legislature was shown never to have passed an
act that was obeyed by anybody in Louisiana.
1t was q body of conspiratOrs against the will
of the people, covered by fraud and held to-
gether by force, controlled by bribery and cor
ruption, having no purpose IN view but to elect
the chief of their own band of conspirators to a
seat in the Senate. Kellogg ought not to have
been seated in face of the evidence
that there was no quorum of returned members
in the Packard Legislature. The sergeant-at
arms testified that the House lacked five of a
quorum and people were brought in to person
ate and answer TO the names Of members. The
Senate was also without a quorum. The
journals were falsely entered up to show quo
rum in the Joint convention.
As to bribery the proof was simply over
whelming. Senator Hill read some of the testi-
mony on this point. IF the witnesses and
facts brought out by the sitting member him
self were to be believed, there was no escape
from the conclusion that the election was void,
even admitting the legality of the legislature.
In further remarks he spoke of the appoint
ments and promotions in the custom house Of
witnesses for Kellogg, asserting that they were
thus directly rewarded for perjury. 1t is as
tonishing he added, what flood of light was
thrown on this fact by the eleven cipher tele
grams of which the committee had obtained
possession. He proposed to read some of the
translations made by them, but as it was late,
and he felt somewhat fatigued, he accepted
the suggestion of several Senators to suspend
his remarks until tomorrow.
Senator Kellogg hoped the Senator from
Georgia Senator HilD would, before he con-
cluded, read the testimony as to bribery and
want of quorum in the Packard legislature.
He had thus far quoted but two witnesses, and
Senator Kellogg undertook to say that no others
could be quoted, though the general statement
had been made that there were many others.
Senator Hill remarked that he yielded the
floor, but on the understanding that motion
for executive session was to be made.
Senator Eaton thereupon making that mo-
tiOn, the Senate went into executive session and
soon adjourned