The Washington bee., 1891-02-21

frage In the great city of New York be
maintained if the efhcaciouS means and
efficient agents and the power of law
behind them We're not provided? So you
must accuse these vast democratic COM
munlties of Brooklyn and New York-for
they are SO by immense prepOnderance,
put together and separately, as well-as
submissive to principles at variance with
the rights of men and the privileges of
electors.
No, Mr.. President, although will not
dwell moment upon the personal invec-
tlves against our supervisor, Mr. Daven-
port, the reason of these invectives has
been because he was efficient, and
because he depressed, in mass and in
detail, democratic frauds, as he now
represses, in mass and in detail, all frauds
by any party in reference to our elections
When, therefore, the motive and the
measure of the invectives against public
servant are weighed and probed we can
see how much We value these vitupera-
tons. They do not touch this bill They
have nothing to do with it. If Mr.. Daven-
port knew more about fraud and violence
than other men, it was wise for us TO find
from him the methods of efficacious
restraint and correction.
The trouble is not about the methods
of this bill as repressive of the suffrage,
but that they do control fraud and vio-
lence. The only criterion by which the
details of every portion of our process in
this bill in watching and reporting and
certifying are to be judged, the only way
by which to test them and the bill as
whole, is whether or not the details are
improper, and whether they are shown to
be substantially correspondent with the
methods adopted in the states that are
interested in good suffrage, and even in
the states Ofthe south in general.
Your objections, therefore, are really
that the supervision is federal appointee,
and that flows from your objection to the
United States inspecting and valuing your
elections and your returns. The senator
from Indiana Mr.. Turpiel, who
addressed us first ON this bill at this ses-
sion, had very accurate view of what
under our arrangement the elections in
any state or in the United States meant,
that it is the process not merely of depOs-
iting the vote, but of carrying it up
through all the steps of canvass and final
certifcatiOn.
That is the sound doctrine. That is the
doctrine We applied to the Montana case.
We were not much assisted in that doc
trine by senators on the other side at that
time. That was the doctrine in the cleo
toTal commission of the great judges and
great senators and great representatives
who sat there. That was the doctrine
which l there maintained, and success
fully. 1t is the doctrine of the constitu
ton and the election laws of the United
States now, that the last act of the cleo
ton, including the certification, if it is an
act in the election, is to control.
Away, then, with the suggestions that
clerk Of house of representatives can be
guided by certiication coming from state
and when that certification is
questioned and Inconsistency appears the
clerk cannot be guided and controlled by
the certifcation of the United States
supervisor of the elections. Somebody
must guide him, and congress and the
house of representatives determine freely
the right.
Then we have great deal of wise criti-
cism upon the courts and about the APP
pointing power. If they concede that the
United States should regulate and observe
and report and certify, what is the Objec-
ton to the method of appointment?
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by executive power, by the president or
would they prefer that apparatus should be
provided that would be under the inspec-
ton and control Of the court? If 1t is
unconstitutional that is one thing.
| am now talking about the methods
and then about the provision that final
canvass may be promptly and cheaply car
ried into the judiciary and there deter
mine. Every lawyer on both sides knows
the practice in all the states shows that
YOU can 90 to a court for a mandamus; and
| suppose that if the committee on prlvl-
leges and elections had chosen to say that
any aggrieved party might apply to the
circuit court and ask for mandamus and
then an answer should be made, and then
upon the facts thus disclosed the court
should determine, there would have been
no trouble about its being judicial. Can
it be said in sensible circles of jurispru-
dence that we cannot regulate summary
and expeditions methods of certiOrorl
instead of mandamus and pleadings and
issues, etc? That is the end of all that
criticism.
Now, Mr.. President, there is not one
provision in this bill that if found in a
state bill regulating state election would
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full; and it all comes back to the question
of the United States undertaking to steady
the steps of officers sworn to support thi:
constitution in the conduct of the election
according to their suffrage.
Now, for the argument OF a hundred
years. Mr.. President, let us draw lint
in this hundred years. You would sup
pose that if we were to be tried anC
measured by our dealing with the suffrage
through the hundred years we shOulC
find the condition of the suffrage and tn
condition of our population remaining tn
same, increased in numbers, increased IL
wealth, but of uniform opinions and uni
form interests about the suffrage.
Let US cut off thirty years from tn
hundred, and go back to 1860. The
there was an experience Of seventy year'
and then the black population, being nor
civic in every sense, did not form a nal
plot or a difficulty, a danger or duty
about elections. But by the transaction
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