Sacramento daily record-union., 1890-07-22
THE SUPERVISION OF FEDERAL ELEc-
TONS

There is cultivated by the Democracy,
and with some degree of success, the idea
that the Federal election bill will sap the
vital traditions of the American Govern
ment and trench dangerously upon the
personal liberty of the citizen. But the
truth is that the Lodge bill does not affect
any State election at all. 1t relates solely
and only to those elections for Federal po-
sitions that the Constitution gives Con-
gress the power to supervise and guard
from fraud. In the South, for instance,
while the Lodge bill will enable the negro
to vote in Congressional elections as he
chooses, IN all State elections his vote may
be repressed as in the past and the pres
ent, SO far as the Federal law is con-
cerned
The negro has heen managing things for
himself down South or has permitted his
enemies to do il now dozen years, with
the result that he is literally crowded from
the polls unless he votes the Democratic
ticket. His subsection in that direction is
practically complete. The Federal Gov
ernment owes him freedom, at least SO far
as elections are concerned, over which the
Federal legislature is by the Constitution
given jurisdiction.
Ii there was reason to expect that there
would be any reformation of the abuse re-
ferred to on the part of the dominant ele-
ments in the South, then there might be
reason in Withholding the measure under
discussion. But there is nothing what
ever to indicate that there will be any
change, or that the negro be given as full
opportunity to vote as any other citizen.
The measure Is not, however, sectional
but is applicable to all portions of the
Union, and may be invoked whenever
petition for its enforcement is presented to
the proper authority, and the demand is of
a certain strength. As we said the other
day, wherever an election is honestly held
for Congressman, and there is untrammeled
exercise of the electoral franchise, the bill
cannot excite the fears of honest men, and
if there is not freedom and honesty in a
Congressional election, then there is need
for the protection such measure is de-
signed to give.
There have been too many Congress
ional elections that were nothing more
than farces, and national integrity is i'm
perilled by all such. There must be no
disfranchisement of citizens in this country
except for crime committed, if we are to
preserve free institutions. If voters are to
be counted for the purpose of securing
representation in the Federal Legislature,
then they must be counted also in the
ballot-boxes at the election of representa-
tives. 1t was not the intention of the
fathers that the citizen should anywhere
in the nation be prevented from voting at
an election that is to determine who shall
represent him. The power to protect the
represented in the free exercise of their
right to choose their representatives is ex-
pressly given by the Constitution of the
United States. 1t was not embodied in
the fundamental law to be meaningless,
that Congress shall have the power to
regulate times, places and the manner of
holding elections for its own members.
The truth is that no liberties will be en-
dangered by the bill, except of those who
have prostituted them to the base end of
preventing others from declaring anew
at the polls the sentiment that the Gov
ernment is defenslble, right and sacred
that is based upon the consent of the gov
erned The purpose Of the bill is to crush
out election frauds in choosing representa-
tives to Congress- and We repeat that it is
dangerous only to those who are guilty of
such frauds-that is the sum and substance
of the whole matter