Year: 1879

FOcLOF hnOLt, III Tue 1OuS0 lu-


dietary commltte, submitted to the
House to-day the committees re-


port upon the Presidential message


yetoing House bill No. 1882,


known as the military interference


bill. The document is six or seven
thousand words in length and takes
up and examines in detail all the
objections made by the President
to the bill in question. It begins by
stating that the danger to be ap-
pretended from the presence of
troops at the polls is sufficiently
apparent, and has. been repeatedly
pointed out. As long ago as 1868
Congress found it necessary to pass
a bill to obviate it by strictly pro-
hibiting military interference with
elections, except upon the call of
States or to keep peace at the polls.
That bill was approved by Lincoln
and is now in force, as sections POOP
and 5528 Of the Revised Statutes.
The words, 'keep the peace at the
polls," were not in the original
draft of the bill, but were added in
in the Senate against the remon-
strances of the majority of its sup
porters who feared they would be
misconstrued and it be used as
pretext to evade with impunity the
penalties prescribed. To remove
that preteXt and prevent the recur-
renee of practices already shown to
by dangerous, the present Congress
in making appropriations for the
support of the army struck out the
words in question. The President
therenpon returned the bill without
his signature because in his opinion:
first it was unnecessary !; second, it
would prevent civil officers from
using civil force to keep the peace
at the polls, and third, the method
of repeating the clause in question
was not in harmony with the ex-
ecutive taste. The first two obiec-
tions the committee for the present
passes without remark. With re-
gard to the third the report says:
''The manner of repeal was in strict
conformity to the constitution and
the rules of the House, and justified
by numerous precedents in the an
nails of Federal legislation. The
latest of these precedents was con-
tanned in the army appropriation
bill for the present fiscal year which
the President signed without OBJ
lection, notwithstanding the provis-
ion contained therein prohibiting
the use of the army as posse COM
9totws. 1t might not De improper,
therefore, for the president to de
vote some attention to the consls-
tency of his own record if not to
the ordinary proprieties hitherto
observed by chief magistrates in
communication with the supreme
legislature of the country"


The report then recites the pre-
paration and passage OF separate
measure of the same nature with a
view to obyiate the Presidents Oh
jections to the method of the re
peal, and says it, too, was returned
without approval.


1t then takes up and examines
in course the Presidents reasons
for returning the measure in ques-
ton. With regard to the first of
them that the bill is unnecessary,
the report says: "Whether the
opinion Of the representatives of
the people is entitled to any con-
sideration at the hands of the chief
executive is, of course, matter to
be determined by himself; but it is
impossible to read the two veto
messages together without being
struck by their marked difference
in tone as regards this objection
The inevitable conclusion to be
drawn from the first message was
that all authority to use the army
at the polls even in aid of the civil
officers was tacitly if not expressly


obiured. In the second message,
however, there is no such disclainl-
CT. 1t is admitted that the cleo
tions ought to be free from military
interference, but no intimation that
such interference would be unlawful.
On the contrary the inference


from the second message is that
under certain circumstances it
: would be eminently proper. The
entire argument against the necos-
sity of the bill is, therefore, left to
rest upon the Presidents assertion
; that troops have not been and will
! not be used to interfere with. cleo
! tions during his, administration
But his term of Office will soon end
! and his opinions may change The
{ subjects of a despot must depend


for security upon the grace of theil


master, but free people will insisi
: upon the guarantees of positive
> law. The second objection of the
: President to the measure unGe