Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1890-05-28
REPORT BY HON. II. ST. GEO. TUCKER ON
THE McCOMAS BILL.

| HUI. d6Hry Ots UeoIBo Iuckor WdS eo-
lected by the minority of the select Com
mite on the election Of President, vice.
President, and Representatives in Congress
to prepare their report on the McComas
bill, which he did with marked ability, and
submitted it on the 3rd of May as follows:-
The minority of the Communities on the
Election of President and Vice-President
and Representatives in Congress being un-
| able to agree to the report of the majority
| of the committee in recommending a favor
able report on House bill No. 7712, known
| as the '.McComas bill, !" beg leave to submit
| the following views in support of their pos
| ition:
| This bill purports to be aimed at the vice
of gerrymaudering and seeks to cut up by
the root this vicious system as alleged to be
practiced by the States, when in fact it only
transfers the system to the national theatre,
where we may confidently expect, in this
enlarged field, to witness its highest devel-
opment and reap it's ripesG fruits.
1t processes to prohibit gerrymandering
by the States, but invites its adoption by
Congress. 1t denies to the State the right
to change the districts for members of Con-
gress except once in ten years, and reserves
that right exclusively in Congress, to be
exercised at its pleasure or upon the demand
of party exigency. 1t denies the right of
each member of the sisterhood of States to
determine for itself what districts are pro-
per for itself, and delegates the determlna-
tion to that question to forty. one other
States that know, and in the nature of
things can know, but little, if anything, of
the habits, employments, and homogeneity
of it's people.
| Waving for the present the question of
power, we ask, for example, what peculiar
facilities of knowledge can the Representa-
tives 10 Congress from the State of Massa-
chusetts possess over the legislature of the
State of California in their ability to deter
mine the districts best suited to the people
of California aud best calculated to preserve
in its integrity the representative function
of our Government. To place the exercise
of such power in Congress would be to
assume knowledge, on the part of every
member of Congress, of the topography
and geography, as well as the character of
the people of each State of the Union, equal,
at least, or superior, to that possessed by
the Legislatures of each as to their own State.
Governments are ordained for the preser-
vatlon and good order of society, and that
government is best which leaves with the
governed the maximum Of power for minim-
m,uimises the power of the governed to re
sist oppression, and marimizes the power of
the government to oppress the governed.
The power of State now to correct this
evil Cf such 1t beg is as one to nOne. If
this bill becomes law it will be as one to
forty one..
But is there any reason to believe that a
disregard of propriety and justice in the
formation of districts by the Legislatures of
the States would arouse the national con-
science in Congress to sense of the wrong
more quickly than that of the people of each
Stata wherein the wrong was enacted? To
answer in the affirmative would be to sane
tion the belief that the people of each State
are less jes lous of their own rights aud riOre
submissive to wrongs, under which they
ialone are suffering than are the people of
the other States who have never felt the
oppression and know nothing of it's ipquity.
The practical operations of sue law
(should this bill be enacted into law could
rasnlt in a system of corruption, abuse Of
power, and disregard Of the lights and
wishes of the people, before which the ino
uities :of political bosses and the evils of
n schine politics would pale into insiguii.
cance. A distinguished statesman of South
Carolina has said:
nature of political parties to feel power and
forget right" The end which every party pro-
poses to itself the object oft united effort is
power. In the pursuit OF this object the ma
ljofity lose their sense OF justice which should
protect the rights of the weak sr party. They
easily persuade themselves that the good of tbs
country will be promoted by excluding their
opponents from power. and under the delusivt
belief that they are sustained by patriotic mo
tives, they commit the most fagrant acts o
outrage upon the minority.
At every meeting of a new Congress vi
can easily imagine the dominant party, flush
ed with victery and ambitious for continued
power, would be tempted to summon t.
? their party councils the local partisan lead
ers in each State, to whom could safely bt
/ intrusted the task of suggesting suitable q
and effective gerrymandering legislation b.
a Congress for the preservation and increas