The Washington bee., 1891-02-21

give way to the enlistments IN the baser
methods to reach power.
Mr.. President, although he is quite
right in thinking of it as a surprising
thing, yet it rests exactly upon this, that
it is an exercise of power and of will at
each time that the people are called upon
to exercise it, and therefore, in our human
nature, it is easy to slip out of the control
of law and of respect of the rights of
others and of curbing claims of our own,
which may obtain in all the ordinary
affairs oflife, into the old contest of bat
tie for the right to the crown, or of strug-
giles of revolution, or at least of insurrec-
ton against obnoxious measures or obnox-
iOus candidates. 1t is for this reason,
Mr. President, that unless we can keep
the suffrage within the regulation of legal
obligation and maintain it by authority
and obedience to it on the part of the peo-
pie of the whole country as working
force in our affairs, wider and wider
arrangements from these methods will
extend themselves among the people.
Now, this is to be observed, as wise
politician of Italy has said, that in the
BODY polite as in the natural body there
would be stage where If the evil that was
working were only appreciated it might be
easily corrected, but then it was apt not
easily to be discerned or practically felt.
When, however, the stage OF its morbid
humors had manifested itself In decom-
posing the natural or the political body,
then it was perhaps too late to apply
corrective, at least without great danger
and powerful remedies.
do not, therefore, think that, under
a correct inspection of this business of a
nation, founding its authority upon con-
nd hplnO nrQotlcaI
operation from day to day, We should be
accused of too great solicitude when in a
proper time and by proper and easy
methods and remedy We expect to guard
against the excuses of this great machin-
cry of consent.
Mr.. President, the weapon given to the
very least" in this country to protect HIM
self bv his share in this authority is the
right to vote and have the vote honestly
ascertained and counted. 1t is by this
weapon that "the very least" feeling the
care of law and finding something closer
than that of general good principles or
general good institutions, stand on an
equal footing with all the rest IN the man
hood suffrage which is the basis of cur
government If all around him, all who
sympathize with him are overborne IN the
results of elections, it is because those who
are the least, as we'll as the creates. lave
felt the care of law, and he Is -
right, the equal right otmet by
majority. a superior
force and fraud. huk eattempted between
49, ss6asaaS<1H there is no difference
Between fofce and fraud as bearing upon
the matter that am referring to. Fraud
takes from a man with whom it deals his
property, his house, his money, or his suf-
frage, by force, through fraud, because it is
not given with his consent. 1t is not a
breach of the peace; it does not carry the
dangers that belong to the infamed condi
ton of violence The maxim of the civil
law frauls aquiparotur II is perfectly sound
because of this, that though it proceeds as
with consent it is in fact procee ding with
out consent and just as much without con-
sent when obtained by fraud as when 1t is
obtained by force and not by consent; and
thus it is that fraud is equivalent to force.
Mr.. President, if there be anything in
the value of this aspect of our structure of
society and of the suffrage. why should
there be found in this country any differ
ence of opinion as to the wisdom and the
duty of seeing that this all-prevalent law
to which we owe homage is to be secured
as an everyday protection for all the peo-
pie in it? What reason is there why dem
ocrats or republicans, why rich or poor,
why ignorant or instructed people should
not bind themselves to the fact that when
ever they are misled by passion or inter-
est from this homage to law in the matter
of the suffrage, they are not striking down
the individuals that are oppressed, they
are not striking down the party or the
candidates that are brought into review,
but they are striking against the loyalty
of the American people, which is a loyalty
to law and which intends that law shall
compel that loyalty when it is withheld
by force or by fraud.
One thing is sure, that nothing Is
gained by talking about this party or that
party. Let us concede that in this coun-
try, as by necessity under free and rep
resentative government, government
must be carried on by party and its power
must be sou-ht by the methods of party.
The only point is that all these are to be
within the law and not TO escape into the
region of force and fraud. Nothing can
produce wider disorganizing feTmenta-
ton, pervading the immense range of the
community, than that which is felt when
this LOYALTY to law our only ruler, our only
power, is thus invaded by light or friyol-
Gus or derisive treatment of actual fraud
and actual force.
How long are people to be patient in
obedience to law in the suffrage, when
their vote, instead of being measured as it
should be with the multitude of votes to
be collected in the nation, is thrown to
the winds by the predominance gained by
force or fraud? What resource have they
in the long and final run of The resistance
to that except, when this method of con-
sent is like garment eaten through and
through by moths, to say: We'll. then we
must try the methods not Of fraud but of
force until loyalty is established to law;
until consent is the master of the deter
mination of authority"
Mr.. President, the election bill came
under mature, certainly very quiet, con-
sideration in the committee on privileges
and elections. A bill was prepared; a
bill was introduced; the methods by
which details are to be questioned or cor
rected passed through the same ordeal as
o1f oil ar Ior-o 40 I'D Gould ~