Year: 1879

EAGTd OeSSlOu'J


The Senate.


THE OFFICERS.


WASHINGTON, April 23.-The morning hour
was principally occupied with the resolution
relative to removals and appointments to office
without the intervention of the presiding
officer. Several amendments were agreed to-,
but before final action the morning hour ex-
pred.


PUBLIC BUILDINGS.


Senator Pendleton introduced a bill to
the secretary of the treasury to re-
pair and extend the public buildings owned by
the government at Cleveland, Ohio.


THE ARMY BILL.


Consideration of the army bill was then re-
sumed, and Senator Williams addressed the
Senate. He said before proceeding to the
merits of the bill, he wished to,say few
soothing words to his friends of the other side
who had expressed alarm at the presence of
confederate brigadiers upon the floor of the
Senat'. One might think from their speeches
that there was doubt as to whether or not the
war for the Union had been a success. He and
his side held the deliberate opinion, and their
experience gave their opinion considerable
weight THAT the war had been great success,
and no better evidence thereof could be had
than this very presence here of these brigadiers.
He wished the people of the North had been
animated by the same wise policy as their
Southern brethren, and sent their


GALLANT soLDIERY


to be their representatives, because if the
questions growing out of the war had been left
for solution to the brave men who fought the
war, the return of prosperity and the approach
of reconciliation would have been fastened. 1t
was not the belligerents but those who stayed
at home and made money out of the misery of
their country, who now threw stumbling
blocks in the way Of good feeling by creating
false issues. He had been Union man, Op-
posed to secession until it was inevitable.
When the "bonne blue flag went down before
millions in arms he accepted the situation and
renewed his allegiance to the union of States.
There was no regret, Senator Williams contin-
ued, on their part for the part they had played
in the


GREAT DRAMA OF WAR,
neither was there any doubt as to their duty
now, which was to support and cherish the
government under the constitution, and so far
from being revolutionists it would be found
that the confederate brigadiers were the most
conservative men in Congress. Nothing would
again stir them up into conflict. If, as the
great prophet and thinker of the Republican
party, Wendell Phillips had said, the next re-
bellion should come from New England, all
the confederate brigadiers would be found raj
lying round the old flag to bring the seeding
States back into the Union. They would all
he coercionists then.


Senator Williams then REQUIRED to the bill in
question, and said he had no desire to refuse
necessary supplies, but defended the right of
Congress to dictate the use of money voted by
them. He did not think the President, who
had more than once risen above party preJu-
dice, would refuse, as a mere party measure, to


SIGN A CONSTITUTIONAL MEASURE,
the defeat of which would destroy the de-
troops at the polls had been prohibited his
oath which excluded from the jury box good
men merely because they had been in rebellion
Every other Office under the government was
open to these men. Why should they be kept
from juries? After that they intended to dc
away with United States supervisors and dep
uty marshals of elections and the whole ingen-
ious machinery by which the people were
vexed and harrassed in the discharge of theil
most sacred civil right. The constant intermed
ling by the general government with private
affairs of citizens tended to dishearten pa
triotism and encourage


ACQUIEsCENCE IN GENERALIZATION.
The people were their own sovereigns, and thi'
question would not be finished here, but woule
be taken up by the people and be kept aliv'
until their full rights were restored to thei
hands. Senators and Representatives are Stat
officers and not federal officers. If they re
signed they do so by letter to the Governor, no
to the President. Therefore, the federal gov
ernment had nothing to do with their election
It was a State affair. The mission of tn
Democratic party was to restore the supremac.
of the civil over the military power, and set VI
again the boundaries between the prerogative
of State and national government which hat
been thrown down. The war had established
some facts. 1t freed the negro, and demon
were determined the union of States should b
perpetuated. Beyond this it gave the govern
ment no new right nor took any away from tn
States. His party intended to observe the COZ
stitution in it's present form, and all othe
legislation.


SENATOR JONES,


of Florida, argued there was nothing revolution
ary in the proposed legislation, as Congress ha
the right under the constitution, to prescrib
that the army should not be used for polite,
purposes at the polls.


The chair appointed Senator Hampton to II
vacancies on the committee on military affair
mines and mining, and transportation to tt
seaboard.


WITHDRAWN.


Senator Blaine withdrew the amendment





and at a later stage of the proceedings gave NJ
tice he would again submit it, but not unit
after the sixth section of the bill had bee
acted upon, as some Senators had expressed
desire to vote directly on striking out that Sc
tion. His intention in offering the amendme1
was to test the sincerity of those who expresse
a desire to have no coercion used at the poll
for it had occurred to him that the alarl
about the army surrendering liberty was me-
o]s md otto frt


IMAGINARY DANGER


his friends opposite were negotiating fru
full and ever present source of danger to th
ballot in the Southern States. He read fro'
the testimony before the Telle
showing that numbers of white men can
around the polls, firing guns and frighteni1
colored men away. This, said Blaine, occurre
at divers polls in South Carolina, at which the
was no more freedom of election than the
would be in any mob.


Senator Butler asked Blaine if it were n
true that within the last three days an a
ouittal had been ordered by the presidil
Judge in Charlie. ton county, in a case depen
ing upon just such evidence as that just rea


Senator Blaine said he believed there b
been a dismissal upon flaw in the indictme1
INIT Senator Butler insisted that it was on t
evidence.


Senator Blaine said he would recur to th
hereafter and went on to allude to the id
that this amendment was contrary to
clause of the constitution, giving every mar
right to carry arms. Would it be said,
asked, that arms could be carried everywht
and always in the jury box, on the bench or
the Senate. There has never been free ell
tion, he continued, in five Southern States
could name since the Democratic party
into power. There was no more q free ell
tion in South Carolina for this Congress th
there would be in mob of roughs who shou