Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1891-01-09


tic interest which demand olr attention, and
which will fail for another year at least ui-
less we act upon them.
The apportionment bill, which has some
due regard to the increasing population in
certain localities in our country, waits for us
to act upon it. Important measures demanded
by farming communities in the charge of the
Senator from Nebraska Mir. Paddock, the
chairman of the committee to which the bills
were referred and from which they have been
reported back are--waiting for an opportunity
to be called to the attention of the Senate.
The copyright measure, which has already
passed one body and which secures to skilled
labor only the decent recognition which this
body should give it, still awaits our action.
The private land court bill, measure
which effects a section larger than the thir-
teen colonies and the whole territory east of
the AlleghanieS, a bill which viii remove a
vast area {; measure which has passed one
body and to which we are pledged by every
principle OF honor and OF treaty, lies idly here
because the time engrosSed by this bill will
not permit it to be taken up.
More than all this, We stand in the shadow
of great financial disaster. The people turn
naturally to Congress for relief, either to as
certain that there will be no legislation, SO
that they may then set their house in order, or
to receive some at equate medium for the
transaction OF their business. Prices are
shrinking and merchants are failing for lack
of a suitable currency, and it seems to me a
trayesty on duty that we sit here day after
day discussing a change in an electoral law
which has stood without amendment for
twenty years.
But it is not alone, Mr.. President, because
these measures are clamo,in ing for recognition
that feel compelled to oppose the passage of
this bill; ard if the session were to last indef-
initely. or were none OF these vital measures
before us for consideration, | should still
vote against it.
If nv opinion warrant is not to be found
;,,et IN pithpY mt tho Crnun1 of
stltutionality OF harshness. Leaving out OF
view the wisdom or eXpediency OF such a
course. there is in my mind no sort OF doubt
that Congress has the clear right to see to it
that at any election whereat members of Con-
gross are to be voted for. in large communi-
ties or small, at the North or i'll the South,
the registry lists are properly prepared, that
those only shall vote who have the right, and
that all who do have the right shall be pro-
tected in its exercise.
More than this: IN the provisions of the
bill itself, involved and confused as they are,
there is but little, if anything, to criticise
because OF the il severity; and if the law would
be always fairly administered by competent
officials it would prove all efficient aid, by the
Federal arm, in securing the purity of the
ballot box.
Nor can it be objected to the bill that il
ANS at the correction of all abuse when none
exists. Notwithstanding the elaborate eva
| sions of Senators on the other side, there is
| probably not one of them who would not at
once admit in private conversation what
every booty knows TO be true, that wherever in
| the South the colored vote OutnumberS the
| white vote the colored vote is not permitted
! to be cast, OF, if cast, is not permitted to be
counted. The old days of secret organiZa-
tions and midnight marauders seem for the
| time to have passed, but the vote is as effectu-
ally suppressed as i'll those times of horror and
| of blO0dshed.
| We have, then, bill seeking to right an
undoubted violation of law, constitutional in
! nv dIt hny I'M
| and yet a measure which, in my judgment, ii
! would be most unWise and unpatriotic to en-
| act into law.
The bill, Mr. President should not become
! a law, because it involves Federal interference
and espionage at other than national elec
lions, and such interference is contrary to the
spirit of our institutions and an obstacle tC
| the right enjoyment of cur liberties.
! Ii a measure could be framed making the
day for the election OF members of Congress
separate and distinct from any local election
| and the officers appointed to supervise such
election could be SO limited in their powers
| and tenure OF Office as to secure lmpartiallty
| in the. exercise OF their functions should ia
vor it. but any Federal meddling with State
elections is, in my mind, intolerable. We are
| told of the great good the present law has
done in the larger cities, and that STATE offc-
ials have frequently worked in harmony with
| the Federal officers at elections. All this
may be true, but think it does not offer q
suficien4 argument for the law.
Take the city of New York, with thousands
Of ignorant and criminal and venal voters Ii
is, to my mind, better that its local and State
elections should be attended with fraud and
dishonesty than that they should be kept pure
| by federal interference. Even i'll the city OF
| New York there are infinitely more good men
| than baltimore men who want honest cleo
i tions than there are men who want dishonest
elections; and while for the time local inter
ests suffer, in the end decent men band together
animated not only by motives of good citizen
ship, but by desire to protect property
| interests, and by united action they secure
good government OF as near an approach to
it as can be had in great cities. Public Opin-
ion is always not only finally right, but finally
| controlling, and federal surveillance only
Weakens the citizens sense OF responsibility
without permanently Graduating the evil.
| We tried the remedy OF Federal interference
| in Denver, the capital Of Colorado; we tried
it last in 1888, at the suggestion and under the
management of Democratic district attorney
and a Democratic marshall. The law was
administered by a Judge who is so exceedingly
| fair and impartial that he is invariably OPP
posed to both sides Laughter In that
community, the capital Of the State of Colo
probity and uprightness on election day as
we'll as every other day in the year, we had
Federal supervision Of the election two years
ago.
No change was made in the result, and there
could be no change, because it was an honest
election, and yet, Mi. President, | do not
! believe that in the city of Denver there was a
citizen who loved his State who did not in his
heart resent the presence at the polling places
OF those Federal marshals to supervise his
exercise of the high function of suffrage res
pecting the matters which affected his COM
monwealth; and in the last Congressional
election, by the united and expressed wish
OF both political parties, we dad away with
| Federal supervision and managed our own
election fairly and impartially and uncor-
ruptedly
The friends of the bill, Mr.. President as
sumo it to be in the interest OF the colored
| man, when its enactment could bring him only
harm. 1t would be idle to say that the Gov
eminent could not enforce this law; it would
be equally idle to claim that it ever would in
fact be enforced, The people of the United
States want no more civil strife, and against
| the united opposition of the white population
in the Southern States any attempt to enforce
| it would mean practically conflict between
the State and national authorities. The old
i'll feeling would be resumed, and while We
as party, were fighting to protect the color;
ed voter, the old days of terroriZing would
come again and the weaker race would be the
sufferer.
1t is true the very foundation and corner
stone of our Republic is the right of suffrage,
and the protection ct every citizen entitled to
vote in the equal enjoyment of that right; yet
| must risk adverse criticism by suggesting
that at this time, i'll the pr sent economic con-
diti0n OF the South, and W.T. the present gen
| Grdl ignorance OF the COlUftU race, Tor winch
| it is in no wise responsible, there are many
things more important and vital to the wei
fare Of this nation than Il Al the eolored citi-
| Zens of the South shall vote
| There has been a lack, ] fear, of ingeuous-
ness on both sides of this Chamber. The DEM
ocratic opponents of this bill would have lost
nothing had they publicly admitted, what is
everywhere claimed for them in private, that
in certain Southern States where the colpred
population ortnnmbers the whites the colored
/ ,yOtarS GWnip6 T. TiEelV of thu
taxable property in the community. are led
and controlled by few Irresponsible men,
and would, if permitted to exercise the right
of suffrage secured to them under the Consti-
tuition, destroy all safeguards to property and
work irreparable injury to the best interests
of the Commonwealth, and that for these
reasons they are circnmvented Of their rights.
This would he, AT least, an intelligent reason
f,,,,, a