The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1890-01-29


for the law, stronger than love of liberty,
stronger than the impulses of humanity
the Law of God written in every human
heart. If the resolution would accomplish
nothing else, it would subserve that one
good purpose.
Mr.. SpOoner said he intended to vote for
the resolution, and that ne had not the
slightest fear Of being punished hereafter
for violating his oath to the constitution.
He expected to be forgiven it
hereafter, if not by the senator
from Mississippi. daughter So
far as the resolution appeared on
Its face it was not an assumption by the
Senate to deal with crimes, isolated or in
general, in the state of Mississippi. 1t did
involve the contention that the United
States government by any existing law, or
by any law that could be constitutionally
passed. could punish man, in its courts,
for an assault and battery committed in the
state Of Mississippi.
JURISDICTION MIGHT BE GIVEN.
Still be was not ready to admit that there
might not be circunst ances under which
jurisdiction might be afforded by congress
to the courts of the United States to secure
a citizen of the United States in his con
stitutional rights of life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness which the states
denied him by force and by fraud. But it
was not necessary now to discuss that ques-
ton. AS to the course of the Attorney
General in the matter, Mr.. Spooner said he
was glad that the day had come when the
United States had an Attorney General that
would take notice of an outrage on an
American citizen. He denied that there
existed in the north any feeling Of ami
mostly toward the people of the south.
Long, long ago, in a general way, for all
the sorrow and suffering and trouble
brought upon the American people, had
come full, formal and complete forgiveness.
There could be no better evidence Of it than
the fact that, long ago, all the southern
states were represented in both
houses of congress, and that, too
mostly by gentlemen who had
fought under their flag and against the
American flag.
A SWEEPING ACCUSATION.
The hanging in effigy of Secretary Proc
tor had not only brought out the feeling of
bitterness that existed in the south, and
which had no counterpart in any village of
the north, but it had also brought into the
sunlight that recklessness that cruelty,
that brutality, that Indifference to law and
to decsncy which the country had for
many years Toccasion to complain of.
Referring to the accidental letting fall of
the rope which held the Proctor effigy in
Franz had been an old Indiana soldier that
effigy would have fallen in the street, not by
accident but with rush and whirlwind of
indignation. He then pictured Franz,
whom he described as a mere boy,
being led down the street Of
Aberdeen like a slave in the olden
days. surrounded by 200 or 300 people, with
a brawny man marching behind him and
laying on his defenseless head and body and
foo looh hinh
with every blow, cut his face and head until
he was SO disfgured that he could hardly be
recognized. An appeal, he said, had been
made to the mayor of the city and had been
made in vain.
PICTURING THE LAsHING.
Think of 1t (he exclaimed in passionate
tones.) Alone, far from his home, away from
friends, lashsd and scourged in the market
place-in the presence of 800 chivalrous
gentlemen, and not one to step forward and
arrest the brutal arm That night, Mr..
Spooner said, Franz had been marched out
of the city of Aberdeen. been put into a
train, and where he was now, nobody knew.
He expressed his regret that the senator
from Mississippi Mr. George) had not
been called upon to pronounce a eulogy
on Jefferson Davis. 1t was to have been
expected that homage would be paid to JEFF
ferson Davis throughout the south on the
occasion of his death. 1t was to have been
expected that he would be borne to his last
resting place surrounded by his old compan-
ions, and to the music of the mutfled drums.
DIDN'T LOOK FOR IT IN THE SENATE.
But he (Mr. Spooner) had hoped that no
one would deem it necessary to pronounce
eulogy of jefferson Davis in the Senate
chamber of the United States 1t would
strike harsh chord in the breasts of mill
ions of men all through the north. The
people had not regarded him, although the
chief Of the confederacy, as falser to the
union and TO its flag, and to his oath, than
thousands of his confreres, but the people
had not believed what the senator (Mr.
GEORGE said to-day about Jefferson Davis,
that whether under the constitution or the
confederacy, he had never betrayed
trust. The people believed, on
the contrary, that he had sat in the Senate
chamber, betraying daily and hourly and
nightly the best trust ever reposed in man.
But it was not for that that they despised
his memory. 1t was because they had held
him responsible for atrocities unspeakable;
the devilish horrible cruelties visited on
union prisoners at Libby prison, Belle Isle,
Salisbury and Andersonville. 1t was be-
cause they charged him with the response
bility of holding men prisoners of war to
starve them.
WEAK CONSTITUTION.
Mr.. Platt said he understood Mr.. Georges
intention to be to say that congress was
powerless to pass any law to protect the
citizens of one state in his rights in another
state. If that were so it was pretty i'm
portant that the country should understand
how weak, powerless, insignificant (he had
almost said contemptible) government
they lived under. That had not
been the idea of the American citizen.
1t had not been the idea of the expOunders
of the constitution or of the courts. He
held that under the constitution there was
power in congress to protect a citizen in
the enjoyment of the rights guaranteed to
him by the constitution, and to punish
those who deprived or attempted to deprive
him of those rights, and if there were not
laws already on the statute book to punish
in any state any infracton of the rights
guaranteed by the constitution, it was high
time that such laws were passed.
HARRISON HUNG IN EFFIGY.
Mr.. Gray referred to the fact that quite
recently President Harrison had been
hanged in effigy in the state Of Indilna.
He moved t. amend the resolution by add
ing the words: "And also a letter of in
struction to said marshal TO which the
report of SAID marshal was response" and
also to add to it the following: "And that
he be requested to inform the Senate whether
in the alleged assault on Franz any right
to him by the constitution or laws
of the United States was invaded or
Mr. Butler offered an amendment in
structing the At orney General to furnish