The weekly register. [volume] (Point Pleasant, Va. [W. Va.]) 1862-1909, 1890-02-19

What :, Friend 81 Judge Jack
son thinks of the Wrong NlK-
htcfcG EiDOir Him by tire ma
50rtts ia Congress.
Parkersburg Sentinel.
The Republican Representatives
in the Congress OF the United States,
temporariiy-and most uI,fartunate
y for the country, ii may be re-
marked in passing-in the majority,
have just established precedent
that will return to plague them
when, two years hence, they are
again in the minority. The unseat-
ing of Judge Jackson, who admit
teElly was fairly chosen TO represent
this, the Fourth District of West
Virginia in Congress, 10 meet the
exigeneies Of partisan majority
made desperate by the fact that
practis ally it was not ~ maj ajority, is
a crime against Justice and good
government ,l,at will be visited with
merited rctribution in the elections
e: be held next fall upon the party
that perpctratedit
The fact tllat, for the occasion and
by bringing in s.tlleir lame, their
halt and their blind, as Judge Jack
son so aptly pllrased it, they sue
ceeded in securing a constitutional
majority in i;,vo- Of consukimating
this bare-faced rape of Represen-
tativc's seat, in nowise extenuates
it The ultimate purpose of the
majority, as made manifest in the
arbitrary and outrageous rulings of
Mr.. SReaSersRced upon all prcliinin-
AIRY questions, was 10 steal the seat
at all Notwithstanding the theft
by the votes OF a constitutional ma
iority, ii possible, but in any event
to consumRate II and trust 10 subsc-
quent circumstances to keep them
in- possession of their stolen proper
ty. AS it stands, Capt. Smith, Rep
rcsentative de tacto, is placed by his
party in the anomalous and unenvi-
able position of "fence, $ or receiver
of stolen goods in accepting and re-
tanning the scat of Judge Jackson.
Representative de JUre from this
District.
However, time at last invariably
makes all things even and when the
next Congress convenes upon the
first Monday of December, 1891, it
will be with a good working Demo
cratic majority in the lower house,
sent there by the American people
who will, by this means. rebuke the
outrage just perpetrated in the name
of the law. Even Republicans, 10th
as they are to do so, are forced to
admit this.
The American people love fair
play above aif things .intisthey know
that Judge Jackson, who stood as
the representative of the Democratic
minority in the House in the late
proceedings, did not have this and
they will resent it. No rules had
been adopted for the governanee of
the House; the majority was afraid
to submit any. Consequently,
Judge Jackson may be said to have
been uhseated-not by Congress,
but by one man, the despotic and
arbitrary occupant of the Speakers
chair.
In a word, Judge Jackson has been
sacrificed to the necessities of the
Republican majority in Congress
which did not dare tie ter'into the
merits of the case. but unseated him
without making even the pretense
of examining the evidence offered
in his behalf: The whole House,
under the Constitution, is given
power to prescribe rules for the gov
ernment of that body; and the ma
jority, under the principles of repre-
sentative government, is charged
with the duty of bringing in rules
and securing their adoption. For
the Speaker to do individually what
only the House can do as body,
and to carry his end by ruling out
motions privileged in all parlimen-
tary bodies, and forbidding mem
bers to read records german to the
discussion. is an unprecedented and
unwarrantable assumption of per-
sonal power.
If the Republicans had brought
in rules for the government of the
House, designed to prevent fillibus-
tering, the attitude of the party dur
ing the fight which would have en-
sued, would have been, very differ
ent That would have been an as
sertion OF the right of the House to
govern itself. Although Mr.. Reed,
himself, when the Democrats took