Virginia free press. (Charlestown, Va. [W. Va.]) 1832-1916, 1892-03-09
F4ULKNER,S PORTRAIT.
A Handsome Tribute Paid the Senator
by Hon. Chauncey +. Black.

speciat Tcicgram to tic Register.
WASHINGTON, Feb. 2O.-The handsome
portrait of Senator Faulkner presented to
the State of West Virginia by the leading
members of the National Association of
Democratic Clubs. which was shipped from
this city Yesterday, will be delivered to Gov
ernor Fleming at Charleston on Monday
Ii is an admirable likeness of the Senator
and was painted by well-known artist
Mr.. Morgan, of this city. 1t is half
length and shows the Senator's face almost
in profile. The features and expression are
about as near perfect as art could make
them, and all who have seen the picture,
agree that it is an excellent likeness. 1t is
heavily framed in gilt and viii be vaua-
BILE addition TO the pictures in the State
Capitol As already announced, it is pre-
sented to West Virginia in recognition of
the Senator's invaluable services to the par
ty in aiding to defeat the Force bill in the
Fifty-frst Congress. The picture was ac-
COlDDdulGu UN iut iNNtSi ilOh "a
Lieut.. Governor Black, President of the
National Association of Democratic Clubs,
which explains fully the reasons of its pre-
sentation:
To the Hon. f. b. Hemiag Gorenor Of West
Virginia.
SIR. The country beheld deiiantIy devel-
oped in the Fifty first Congress and in the
forms of proposed law the most daring and
desperate plot against the liberties of the
people that could possibly be conceived
At no time in the history Of English North
America was any assault upon the rights of
free election, so direct and crushing as this
one, even contemplated by any government,
however distant or hostile. In all the con-
troversies with the mother country the right
of the colonies to conduct their own elec-
tons for representatives in their own as
semblies remained unassaied. The impe-
rial government sent among us very inso-
lent agents, but they did not assume to su
pervise the sutirages of the people, or to as
certain and certify results according to their
pleasure. 1t quartered troops among some
of the inhabitants, but it never proposed to
distribute them to the polling places, nor to
put them. in platoons, under the orders of a
multitude of Tory emissaries in the pay of a
Tory administration.
The Force Bill, matured and urged in the
last Congress, with every prospect of sue
cess, was certainly without parallel in the
annals of English speaking countries. 1t
would have overthrown, as 1t was intended
it should, our entire constitutional system,
leaving but n skeleton and mockery of the
institutions our forefatherS supposed they
had established for all time 1t would have
erected a stupendous political machine, with
almost unlimited means of corruption and
intimidation, paid from the public funds
aud welding the public forces, with arms
reaching into every election district, and
fingers in.o every election precinct and even
into every household. 1t would have taint-
ed and prostituted the federal judiciary, as
signing to it an unjudicial function, and ex-
acting from its participation in the basest
partisan service. 1t would have quartered
political party upon the common treasury
and betrayed its campaign expenses from
the proceeds of common taxation-expen-
ses moderately estimated at Sl5,0OO,OOO or
$40 OOO, 900, for each execution Of the law,
without note of the inevitable popular COM
motions a measure so odieus and tyrannical
would necessarily have provoked and the
consequent employment of the army in all
parts of the couatry.
1t need hard Y be said that the Force Bill
was obviously anl wholly unconstitutional.
1t would, in i-st, have wrought the total
subversion of our representative system, and
il was because it would have done so, that
it was brought forward by the desperate
chiefs of the party overwhelmingly defeated
in the elections of the previous year. 1t
was based upon bold aud insolent perYer-
sion of the proper power of Congress to
regulate" elections in certain contingen-
cies and certain respects; but instead of
regulating, it obtruded federal machine,
maintained by Federal money and hacked