Democratic Sentinel, Volume 2, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 December 1878 — THURMAN ON BLAIAE. [ARTICLE]

THURMAN ON BLAIAE.

Speech of the Ohio Senator, Delivered in the United States Senate. Mb. President : I attempted to offer that amendment before the Senator from Maine proceeded with his remarks, but failed to have any opportunity to do so. I intended then to say that, whatever opinion might be entertained on this side of the chamber as to the competency of Congress to make all the investigations that these resolutions contemplate, yet we were disposed te waive all scruples of that character and suffer the resolutions to pass without opposition, if the amendment now proposed* should be added to them. The Senator from Maine, however, having a speech carefully studied and prepared, exercised his right to deliver that speech before any amendment could be offered. Ido not complain of tnat at all, nor do I now rise to make any extended reply to the speech that I have heard just now. Should this debate be protracted I may exercise my privilege of saying something in reply to the Senator from Maine, but to-day I shall confine myself to a very few general observations. The Senator is frank in one thing—his resolution is broad. It includes all the States. It provides for an investigation whether the rights of American citizens in connection with the eleotiye franchise have been violated *br mtorfered with in any of the States, but ho frankly admits in the Very outset of his remarks that that was not his purposes, that his purpose was to assail ftie Democracy of the South. He had two purposes in preparing a carefully elaborated speech—not to vindicate the right of suffrage throughout this whole Union, but to inquire whether the Democracy of the Southern States had violated the rights of American citizens, and then to find out what should be done with them. Now, Mr. President, that is a very frr.nk, and, I have no doubt, a very true statement of tho animus of this resolution. Mr. President. I Bald there might be some doubts as to tho propriety of this investigation. I repeat it There may be sucb doubts, especially to-day. Here is the short session of Congress. We have, excluding the recess that wo always take, less, perhaps, than two months within which to dispose of the appropriation bills and other measures of legislation that necessarily require the attention of Congross if the business of the session is to be disposed of and no extra session is to lie called. And now, sir, the Senator proposes an investigation that I defy any committee that can be found to make, with anything like thoroughness—nay in any satisfactory manner, with anything like justness, either to those who are implicated or those who may be implicated—within the time that remains of the session of the Senate. It is an impossibility. I have therefore wondered why this resolution was introduced unless it was to be made a string upon which to haDg speeches to arouse sectional hatred in one portion of this Union against an almost defenseless people in another portion of the Union. Now, Mr. President, this assault of the Senator from Maine is not an assault simply upon the people of the South. I said five months ago in a speech, which I beg pardon for repeating here, that it did seem to me as clear as anything in American politics could be that there was a de-liberately-formed purpose under the pretext that there was a solid South to create a solid North to rule not only the solid South, but to rule one-half nearly, if not more, of the people of tho North. I thought so then—l think so now. I thought then, and I think now, that a purpose more unpatriotic, more unjust, more fraught with ruin to this country, never entered the brain of man. That is my belief. Why, Mr. President, of what is it that the Senator of Maine complains? That there were not enough Republican votes at the South. That is the amount of it. And how does he make that out? He assumes, without one shadow of truth produced here, that tho negroes of the South were prevented from voting, or forced to vote the Democratic ticket. He assumes, therefore, that owing to these causes the negroes of the South are not represented by members of the House of Representatives who come from that section of the Union, or by Senators on this floor who represent the Southern States. What right has the Senator from Maine to say that tho negroes of the South are not represented by chosen Representatives of the South and chosen Senators of the South ? What right has he to vote those negroes on one side himself, and say the men who bear credentials of election do not represent their constituents ? Why, Mr. President, it is a bare assumption on his part that lie has no right to make. But, again, the Senator ought to liave thought of this when he was framing his Fourteenth and Fifteeenth amendments, or when he was assisting in framing them. There were men then—men of his own party, too—who told him with long foresight that'in the end property and intelligence will rule the land, and ignorance cannot. Mr. President, there wore men of his party who foresaw that those people who have the intelligence, the education, and property will not be rilled by those who have neither, and in that it is not necessary to separate the community into white people and colored people; not at all is it necessary to do that. No, Mr. President, the result of these constitutional amendments was easy enough to be foreseen. lam not here today to justify the violation of the rights of any man, however humble he may be, or whatever may be the poverty of his situation. lam here for no such purpose as that. If I know my own heart, I am here as much in favor of respecting the rights of every man under the constitution as the Senator from Maine or any other Senator on this floor. But I do know that property, intelligence, and education will assert their supremacy everywhere on the face of this globe. Now, Mr. President, let me say one word more on this subject. *¥ho was it that drew the color-line between the whites and negroes in tho South? Let me toll you. sir, that millions of money of tho people of the United States were expended by your agent*—the Freedman’s Bureau agents—ln getting every colored man tho South into loyal leagues and swearing them never to vote for a Democrat. That is where the color-line began to be drawn. That institution which took charge of tho negro at the ballot-box took charge of him in the cottonfields—everywhere—supervised every contract he made, allowedfno contract to be made unless it had the approval of the agents of the Freedman’s Bureau, and spent money and property called “captured and abandoned property’’ that was surrendered to it and many millions of money directly appropriated out of the treasury of the United States. It was that bureau and its agents who first drew the color-line. And yet, when the white people of the South, when the men owning the property and having the intelligence and education of the South, saw their very social system menaced with destruction; saw their very households threatened with ruin under an inundation of barbarism directed by the most unscrupulous of men; and, when they naturally came together, when they naturally united, as people menaced with danger ever will unite, then a cry is raised against the “ solid South.” Oh, Mr. President, it will not do. This system of legislation toward the South that began ten years ago is reaping its fruit, and it is not by additional penal laws mat you can better the condition of this country. What does the Senator want more penal laws for? Let him look into the statute-book on this very subject. Let him read tho statutes in regard to the enforcement of the rights of citizens to vote, and I defy him to find in the statute-books of any civilized country on this globe a body of laws bo minute, so searching, and bristling all over with penalties and fines and forfeitures as do these laws. But that is not aIL In addition to that you have the vast machinery of Superintendents of Elections, Federal Supervisors, Marshals, Deputy Marshals—paid electioneers out of the treasury of the United States under the guise of being men to preserve the freedom of suffrage and the peace at elections. Son have a whole army of them provided for by your statutes. What more does th, Senator want? I think I see, Mr. President what is wanted. I think this is a note which is sounded to the people of the North that they must retrace their steps, and this very party, which required the amendments to the constitution to be made in the interest, it was said, of the colored population of the South, is now preparing to face about, retrace its steps, and undo what it did only a few years ago, either directly or by indirection. Indeed, I thought while the Senator from Maine was making his speech how much reason this country, and especially the southern part of the country, had to congratulate ifaelf that the next House of Representatives will not have a majority of gentlemen thinking like the Senator from Maine; for, if he is right in what he said; if his threats are not mere idle wind (and 1 certainly do not attribute any such thing to him); if they are the deep-seated* and permanent thoughts of those with whom he acts, then I should be prepared to see a House of Representatives in which there was a Republican majority exclude Southern members by the score; then I should have been prepared to see them decide themselves that the right of suffrage was prohibited down there to the negro, and then to see them in their supreme authority, as they would oonztrue it, vote out the ohosen Representatives of the Boutb-=-not by ones, not by twos, bnt by the score, It is a

fortunate thing for this country—it is a fortunate thing for our free institutions—that there is not in the present House of Representatives, and will not be in the next, a majority thinking as the Senator from Maine thinks, and willing to act as he is willing to act. Mr. President, one word on the amendment have offered It is my own belief that there is a far greater danger that menaces our institutions, and menaces the rights of suffrage in this country, than that to -which the Senator from Maine has alluded. Sir, the most disheartening thing to an American who loves free institutions is to see that year by year the corrupt use of money in elections is making its way, until the time may come, and that within the observation of even the oldest man here, when elections in the United States will be as debauched as ever they were in the worst days of borough Parliamentary elections in the mother land. Mr. President, there is the greatest danger. The danger is whether this country shall be governed with a view to the rights of every man, tho poor man as well as the rich man, or whether the largest purse shall carry elections, and thus be a mere plutocracy instead of a democratic republic. That is the danger, and that danger, let me tell my friend, exists far more in tho North than in the South. Sir, if he wants to E reserve the purity of elections; if he wants to ave this Government perpetuated as a system that can be honostly administered from the primary election to the signature of a bill by the President, let him set his face toward and exercise his great ability in stopping the floodgates of corruption that threaten to deluge the whole land and bring republican institutions into ntter ruin and disgrace. Mr. President, there is one thing that mado me doubt a little as. to the propriety of this resolution, although, as I said, I am going to vote for It, and what the Senator from Maine has said has added to the great doubt which I entertained on that subject, and that is that I am not ouite sure there are not persons who favor this kind of resolution, and as much debate upon it as you can have, and as much investigation as you can have, in order to divert public attention from tho real questions which ought to ongage tho Congress of tho United States—questions of economy, questions of finance, questions of government—all are shoved aside tliat popular speeches may be made, tending to excite one section of the people against another, and to sot their minds mad with passion instead of appealing to tlioir cool and deliberate reason. I certainly do not charge the Senator from Maine with having got this up for the purpose of putting aside and throwing out of view that wbioh should form the subject of our thoughts and of our legislation, but I fear that such may be in some men’s minds one of the things to be de- ! sired by such a resolution.