Year: 1879




to once more assail the rights of the natul


allied citizen. This time the attack wa


made under the guise of preserving the pul
ity of elections The object was to bring q
elections under the control of Congressions


law and Federal officers, and to use the Who'll
power of the Federal Government and tn
| Treasury too, to maintain the -ascendenc


of the Republican party. They began b


| the introduction Of a bill professedly to en-


force the provisions of the fifteenth articl
of amendment to the Constitution, and tina
BILL originally introduced in the House
after being greatly amended and enlarged
| was passed by both House and approved b
| the President on May 81, 1870. Il Is emit
| tied . An act 70 enforce the right of citizen
of the United States TO vote in the seYera
| States of this Union, and for other purp0s
| es;" and it contains not less than twenty
| three sections. i have no time tonight Z


speak of this law in detail. l can only say
| in a general way that it assumes to contro
the action of the election officers of the State


when performing their duties under Stat
| laws and 10 punish them by Indictment il
| the Federal Courts and by numerous othe
| penalties fer any violation of the act, not
| withstanding the existence of State laws I,
| punish them for the same thing; thus inhict
! ing upon them double punishment-on,
under the laws Of the State and the othe


under this Congressional act. 1t creates 8
| host Of Federal officers and employs
paid out of the public Treasury to bt
| interfering in the elections of the States


and it seeks TO confer upon the Circuit ol
District Courts of the United States a
right to try contested elections in the case
of every Office whatsoever, except that o
Elector of President or Vice-President
Representative or Delegate in Congress OF
Member of the State Legislature. If this
provision be constitutional, the right of


your Governor to his seat, of all your


Judges, from the highest to the lowest, to


their offices, of every county and municipal


officer, might be drawn into litigation be-


fore one Of the Federal District Judges at


Cincinnati or Cleveland. But [ need not


dwell upon this statute further. Some OF


its most material provisions have been de-


clared by the Supreme Court of the United


States to be unconstitutional, and the valid


ity of others has been seriously brought


into question and will no doubt be in like
manner tested. My principal object in re-
ferring to the statute at all Is to show the
purpose of the Radical leaders to interfere
by Congressional laws and Federal officers
in the elections of the States. Having
passed this act, the Radical leaders next
turned their attention to the subject of
naturalization. They passed through the
House of Representatives, at the same ses-
sion, a bill, No. 2,201, to amend the natu-
ralization laws and to punish crimes against
the same. In the Senate the bill was re-
ferred to the Committee on the Judiciary,
who reported a substitute for it.


To some of the provisions of this substi-
tute, which was earnestly pressed for adop-
ton, want to call your attention, for of
all measures ever introduced into the Amer
lean Congress hostile to the fOreign-born
citizen of denizen, this substitute was the
worst Had it become a law its plain
effect would have been to greatly diminish
if not put an end to emigration to this
country. 1t would have made naturaliza-
tion almost an impOssibility. would have
made the certificate of naturalization, even
when obtained, almost worthless. By its
very first section it took from every State
Court the right to grant certificates of nat
uraIization, and vested that power in the
Circuit and District Courts of the United
States and Registers in Bankruptcy, as
Commissioners, alone. The consequence of
this provision, had it become a law, would
have been to compel the person seeking
to travel possibly hundreds
of miles and incur a great loss of time and
money in order to make his first declaration,
and afterwards his final application. The
bill next provided "that any alien intend
ing to apply for naturalization shall at least
one month before such application file or
cause to filed with the CLERK of said respec-
tive Courts or with the said Commissioner
{ Register in Bankruptcy, to whom such
application is to be made, a notice that he
intends to apply, which notice shall be YER
flied by the oath of such alien, and shall
state the time at which such application is
to be made, the name of the town or place
within the State or Territory, or within the
District of Columbia, in which said applica-
tion is intended to be made; also, where
the applicant has resided for the year pre-
viOus to such application, his residence at
the time, with the street and number Tin
case he resides in place having streets
named and houses numbered), and name
and keeper of the house in which he lives,
the name, age, occupation and nationality
of the applicant, together with a descrip-
tion of the applicant, age, height, complex
ion, color of the hair, color of the eyes and
any other distinguishing fact" The OBJ
ject of this provision, with all its particular
ity was to interpose another obstacle to
by the trouble and expense
that the giving of notice might impose, but
by enabling any person whom
soever to interfere and oppose the granting
of the naturalization. For the bill went on
to provide "that the application must be
heard at the time specified in the notice,
and that any person might contest the
application that no afidavits should be
and that any attOrney-at-law
should he permitted to cross-examine any
applicant or his witnesses, and to offer
conformably to the rules
of law; that for taking and filing declara-
tion of intention to become a citizen, the
fee should be fifty cents; for determining
whether the alien should or should not be
81 90; and for each days SER
hxyo in faE-
mony, So; and for authenticated copies of
proceedings in naturalization, the same fees
as in other cases, that is, twenty-five cents
per hundred words. And it further provi-
ded that the fact of residence for four years
and six months in this country should, in
addition to the oath of the applicant, be
proved by citizen of the United States.
And then, after all, if the applicant
his certificate, it was declared that
it should not be effective until six months
had elapsed after it was granted. Now,
my friends, think for one moment what a
man, seeking to be become naturalized,
would have had to do, had that bill become
a law. In the first place, he would have
had to declare his intention to become cit
izen, not in the State Court within a few
miles of his residence, but in the Federal
Court, perhaps hundreds of miles from his
residence. That is the first loss of time
and money to which he would have been
subjected.


Next, at least one month before making
his application to be naturalized, he must
have filed the notice of which have spoken
either in Court or before one of the Com
missioners of the Court. That might sub
ject him to a second journey and further
loss of time and money. Then, when his
application came on to be heard, he would
have been required to prove that he had
resided in this country four years and six
months by the testimony of citizen. He
might produce men of the highest charac-
ter who were not citizens. to prove the
fact their testimony would be rejected
Men upon whose testimony man might
lose his life, upon whose testimony the most
important property rights could be decided,
would have been utterly disqualified by
this bill, had it become law, to prove the
simple fact of how long foreign-born man
had resided in the United States. The bill