Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1886-07-09

free trade is best for them. | vote and
struggle for what is called protection be
cause | feel that the people of whom am
one, and among whom | was born and
part of whom am, feel that their deep
est interests are in that kind Of law which
shall encourage the building up OF home
industries home productions, and all that.
If we could only have senate and
house of representatives that should not
represent any state, should not represent
any district, should not have any human
feeling should not have any human sym
/ pathy should not have any human knowl
/ edge of the interests and desires OF their
/ respective constituents, but should come
down, as | said before, from heaven, and
| lust sweep the calm hand OF omnipotent
| Justice and fair play over everybody, what
/ would become of the tobacco OF Kentucky
and of the wool of NermontY ! do not
know. No, Mr.. President, it is impossible
/ in this weary world of ours to undertake
! to eliminate from any legislative chamber
| or any other chamber-and am glad that
/ it is so something of bias ana cohsldera-
| ton.
The overwhelming bias, the one that
| sways us and almost controls us all, is the
| bias of locality and of state interest
can see my friend from North Carolina
| Mr. Nance before Inc now, earnest, III
/ telllgent, vigorous i'll his belief III the doc
trine of universal free trade and yet
when "A tariff bill comes mp here the North
/ Carolina resin and the North Carolina pea
nuts and the South Carolina rice MS
neighboring state, find in him a warm
| hearted advocate ; and it is right because
/ it is human.
one bias thus offsets another and the
general outcome is the good of the repub-
! lie. Therefore, unless we are to turn our
/ selves because that IS what tins Dlll
amounts toy and everybody from this
chamber and from the other who purSueS
Inn IN
terest or any human sympathy with the
people among whom he lives, you must
! find some other senate and some other
house of representatives and some other
world to live in.
/ Abiding further to a remark of Sena-
tor Becks to the effect that members of
Congress were supposed to have especial
influence over the judges of the Supreme
Court, Mr. Edmunds said:
| appeal to my friend from Kentucky to
withdraw that observation. If the repub-
lie, prosperous as it has been for century,
with the little tempests and drawbacks OF
a civil war, and 50 on, but prosperous on
the whole, has come to the pass that an
independent and coordinate branch of the
government is to be supposed to be posi-
bly, influenced by the fact that gentle
man who may have been Il member of the
senate voted for or against the COniirma-
tion of its Judges if they are to be intiu
enced by the fact that my friend from
/ kentucky appears on the opposite side of
a cause in that court bet weeu a citizen of
Kentucky and a citizen from y ermOnt, or
Il kentucky railroad, or a grant rail-
road, or any other client, then must say
that the days of this republic are number.
ed. If the thing has gone 50 far as that, !
think we might as well throw up and
leave the president of the United States to
run the concern IN his own way without
any reference to Congress at all.
Mr.. Beck here interposed remark that
he might have missed it, in the sugges
ton thus crltici>e ed and Mr. Edmunds pro
ceeded
! The Constitution has fixed our qualiti
cations IN both houses. 1t has not said
that we shall not be lawyers ; it has not
said that we shall not be farmers inter
, ested in the protection OF our products
l and in the making of laws that Will pro
| mote our industries, hut it has said thai
! we shall be Of a certain age, that we Shal
l he citizens of the United states, and III
; habitants of the states from which W,
come. No law of Congress has Great &c
l the senate Cr the house of representatives
\ law higher than any act of Cong s'
= has done that ; and that law, the Consti
To- tuition, has provided as to Us and rs to tn,
: house of representatives That each stat,
and the people of each state shall within
10 these qualifications select the gentlemen
e OF their respective states VINO are to rep
! resent them according to their will ano
!, not according to ours when we have come
, here That is where we stand. But i
= the Congress of the nited States were It
y undertake to say (Which this bill does "a
c to one single calling OF all the thOusant
a in this republic of ours, that no member
l. of Congress shall be a stakeholder in any
, railway that has received Il land gran
u from the United States, it is equally EN-
e titled to say that no person shall be
member of Congress who is a member o
any corporation that has any contrac
with the United Estates, that carries it
{ mails, that administers its finance through
h national banks, that transports its troop
+ or munitions of war or that no person
t shall be Il member of Congress who is en-
h gagged in the importation of merchandise
= because if he We're he would have bia
[ for or against n tariff.
n There you have gone entirely wide o
Il the solid principle upon which the law
T, we have passed rest, and have come to I'm
r dertake to declare a qualification amonl
l. the representatives of the people and tn
: states which the Constitution has not i'm
J. posed, and which no constitution coult
5 impose without paralyzing every opera
re ton of the government for no man cal
n be a representative or a senator who /
II not under some bias of some kind III IT
spect of the operations of the government
If us manifested by its laws.
I The bill was then referred to the con
{ mittee on the judiciary, Mr.. Edmunds It
d marking, after the vote, in reference to
,e suggestion that that would be the las
If heard of the bill, that he would use a
% effort in his power to have it back in tn
n senate within eight days.