Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1880-09-10
senat;l Blaine On the Census Frauds in tie
South.
In a speech
Blaine said :

In speech at Portland, recently, Mr..
Blaine said
THE Southern census, as now foreshad-
owed, is a terrible menace 10 the peace,
prosperity, and dignity of the Republic
God forbid that l should charge an innocent
man with crime, or that l should indict a
whole people for fraud. But the attempt to
falsify the census Of any State or any section
for the purpose of securing greater strength
in the House of Representatives and in the
electoral colleges than an honest enumera-
ton would give, is deadly stab at the very
existence OF Republican government. Ger
tain men in the South, according to all the
information We can get from the census bu-
reau, have been engaged in connecting
fraudulent returns whereby much larger
population is enumerated than actually ex-
lists. Who these guilty men are know not,
but feel very sure that the crime, whatever
may be IFS extent, did not originate with the
enumerators of the several subordinate dis
tricts, and feel equally sure that an in
crease - much in advance Of the actual
growth could not occur in the same average
ratio in all the districts OF State and all the
States of q section witho4 concert and con-
spiracy.
1--WE have heard little about the South in
the past ten years from certain party ex-
cept jeremiads on the ruin and pros
tration of the whole country. People
were leaving their ancestral homes, we
are told. No immigrants were coming in
to fill their places. Stagnation was said
to be reigning throughout the section, and
mourning and adversely formed the hard lot
of her people. But now, at the end of ten
years. the ratio of increase in South Caro-
lima is claimed to be greater than in Mas
sachusetts or Pennsylvania. Virginia, op-
pressed with debt and discouraged, as we
have been told in every form, and hindered
in her progress by a thousand difficulties,
has yet had such a steady and rapid growth
that her ratio of gain runs far ahead - OHIO
or New York Kentucky shows ~ aieT
incre.se than Indiana. Tennessce Outstrip.
Wisconsin, the ratio IN Alabama is beyond
that of Iowa, while West Virginia, without
immigration, has kept even pace with the
tremendous growth Of Minnesota timulat-
ed as that has been by accession from almost
every civilized country on the globe The
growth of the aggregate wealth has been ac-
cording 10 the returned figures of the census
at more rapid rate thar the growth of the
aggregate North. Certain Southern States,
according to these fraudulent tables, have
grown more in the last 10 years than in the
preceding 40 years, and in one case the re-
ported growth of the last decade outruns the
growth of the previous half century. There
is not man Of intelligence in the 80 States
that believes these returns are genuine and
true, and submit that the attempt TO force
fraudulent returns from any State upon the
National census is n very grave crime.
THE trainers of the federal constitution
ordained with apparent wisdom and fore
sight that all direct taxes shall be laid in pro-
portion to the census of the inhabitants, thus
intending TO place II check upon the possible
temptation to enlarge the representation by
fraudulent enumeration. If to-day one-fifth
of the National revenues, say $50, 000, 900,
was raised by direct taxation, and every
State felt and knew that it would be re-
quired to pay 81 per annum per head on its
inhabitants, the tendency toward swclled
and padded census would receive very
palpable check. Between the positive desire
for large representation in Congress on the
one hand, and the indisposition to increase
the direct tax Of the State on the other, the
trainers OF tie constitution placed in Just
equipoise tue two motives that would most
powerfully conduce to an honest and fair
enumeration of the inhabitants of each State.
But owing 10 our abandonment long since of
direct taxes by the National Government, the
equipoise has been destroyed, and any State
that chooses now to fraudulently enlarge her
census does so without mourning any penalty
whatever Customs and excise duties pre-
sent such ready and efficient modes of rails
ing revenue that no party will ever favor a
return TO the direct tax which our foreiuth-
ers anticipated and designed as the counter
balance in the splendid machinery of govern
ment which they organized.
The situation is very grave one. Four
and half millions OF negroes in the South
give IS representatives in Congress and 50
electors of President and Vice President,
and yet the negroes themselves have no voice
in choosing either representative or clector
The result is, Is have taken occasion else
where 10 demonstrate, that the vote of a
wl.ite man in the South, even with an honest
count, is immensely more influential and po-
tenIiul than the vote of white man in tho
North, and the vote o. confederate soldier
is immensely more influential than the
vote of Union soldier, even in fixing
the rate of pension for the widow and the or.
phan. In Georgia, the white man exercises
as much political influence as three white
men in Pennsylvania. In Mississippi, four
Confederate soldiers in National election
offset the votes Of nine Union soldiers in New
England. To this inequality already exist
ing, calling and uncomfortable in character as
il is, the fraudulent census will add still
greater, and still DEEPER and still more un-
endurable one. The suppression of the ne
gro vote and the usurpation by the white
man Of the representation founded on it is
the result of the systematic violence which
has prevailed in the South. The recent
by which 8, OOO. 900 of imagina-
ry people are 10 be added to the South is the
most gigantic achievement of fraud that was
ever attempted in the world under the forms
of law.
The question now is, How can we of the
North and West, the great body of loyal
States, meet and destroy this daring attempt
to undermine the foundations and remove the
landmarks of honest government The first
duty in hand is to beat the Democratic party.
II is the ally and the servant of that South
crn power which is TO profit by this fraudu-
lent enumeration Of the people. The plain
is TO usurp the representative and
electoral rights Of four and Il half millions Of
negroes, and then 10 add TO il the represent
ative and electoral strength of 5000 900 Of
observation-disclosures of people who
are in gravcyards or never were born, and in
the power Of these seven and half millions
Of people wrongfully seized and added TO the
Democratic column the hope is to defeat the
Republican party. The census IN its orderly
development Of facts and truths and numbers
would beat the Democratic party, and hence
The Democratic party seems to have made up
its mind to heat the census
There was a great mass meeting of the