Democratic Sentinel, Volume 3, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 April 1879 — A FREE BALLOT. [ARTICLE]

A FREE BALLOT.

Speech of Hon. X 0. S< Blackburn, of Kentucky. Delivered in the National House The gentleman from Ohio, la that effective and able speech to which he treated this House a few days ago, used the following language, which I read from the Record: “In opening this debate, I challenge all comers to show a single instance in our history where this consent has been coerced.” What consent? The consent of the Executive to extraneous matter injected into Appropriation bills. “This is the great, the paramount issue, Whijh dwarfs all others into insignificance.” I accept the gage of battle that the gentleman throws down. I read from the records and Show him tffe instance he seeks. I find that oil the 2d day of March, 1867, a thing occurred iil this House of which the gentleman should hate been cognizant, for he was then as how an honored member on this floor. I find the following iUeisage wu sent by the then President of the United States to the Hotise of Representatives: “To the House of Representatives: “The act entitle ! ‘An act miking appropriations for the support of the army.’ ” Ah, by singular coincidence, that, too, was an army bill, just as this is: “I'be act entitled ‘An act making appropriations for the support of the army for the year ending June 30, 1868, and for other purpoees,’ contains provisions to which I must call attention. Those provisions are contained in the second section, which in certain cases virtually deprives the President of his constitutional functions as Commander-in-Chief of the Army, and in the sixth section, which denies to ten States of this Union their constitutional right to protect th mselves in any emergency by means of their own militia. These provisions are out of place in an appropriation act* 1 Did the gentleman from Ohio borrow his re-cently-w-ed protest from this official pretest of the Executive of the country? “ These pi ovisions are out of place in an appropriation act. I am compelled to defeat these necessary appropriations if I withhold my sig - nature to the act. Pressed by these considerations—” I grant you, he does not say “ coerced.* “ Pressed by these considetations, I feel constrained to return the bill with my signature, "but to accompany it with my protest against the sections wliich I have indicated. “Asdbkw Johnson. " March 2, 1867.” , Is there n» coercion there ? Why, sir, the record is full. In an act making appropriations for the sn dry civil, expenses of this Government for the year ending June 10, 1865, it was provided tuat in the courts of the United States there should be no exclusion of any witness on account of color, or in any other civil action because he is a party interested in the issue to be tried. Is not that extraneous matter? Yet upon this bill the record shows that tbe gentleman from Ohio is found voting in the list of ayes. But, sir, worse than all this. I find that on a memorable occasion in the Thirty-ninth Congress, of wliich the gentleman from Ohio was likewise a member, that occurred which will never fade from the minds of the American Beople. I refw to the proceedings looking to le impeachment of the Chief Executive of this republic, which came so nigh resulting in conviction. On that occasion I find that a colleague of the gentleman from Ohio, Mr. Ashley, moved to suspend the rules to allow him to make a report from the committee on what? Judiciary? No, sir. From the Committee on Territories, in the nature of a resolution impeaching the President of the American Government for high crimes and misdemeanors. On the vea-and-nay vote I find the gentleman from Ohio voted “ aye.” 4nd I find further, sir, the counts upon which those impeachment articles were predicated, and I beg to call the attention of this committee to them. Mr. Ashley said: “ I do impeach Andrew Johnson, Vice President and acting President of the United States, of high crimes and misdemeanors. “ I charge him with usurpation of power and violation of law.” And now come the five counts in the indictment, and I beg the careful attention of this committee, for I will bring it home to the very issue that the gentleman from Ohio has courted in this contest: “In that he his corruptly used the appointing power.” I put the gentleman on bis candor and submit to him to say whether be ever intended te impeach the President for that The country knows be did not That appointing power had not been wielded in such a way as to merit the censure of tbe gentleman himself. “ Secondly, in that he has corruptly used the pardoning power.” Did the gentleman from Ohio mean to impeach him for that ? I will answer for him, no. Everybody knows he did not. “ Thirdly, in that he has corruptly used the veto power.” And there was where the sting came in. It was the exercise of that constitutional prerogative; it was the employment of the veto power, for which the House and the gentleman from Ohio voted these articles of impeachment, coupled with one other offense only. “ Fourthly, in that he has corruptly disposed of the public property of the United States." That was a mere formal count in the indictment, and I doubt not that the gentleman from Ohio will admit it “ Fifthly, in that he has corruptly interfered—” In what? “ In the e’ections, and did acts which, in contemplation of the constitution, are high crimes and misdemeanors.” There were but two counts in that indictment upon which it was proposed to impeach the Executive; it was the exercise of the veto power and it was his interference, not in elections, but his interference to prevent the interference of the armed power of this Government in the elections of this country. Was the denunciation still ringing in that gentleman’s ears which the then President had employed in his interview with Gen. Emory, denouncing as subversive of all the principles of free government the interference of the military with the right of suffrage at the polls? But, Mr. Chairman, these counts in this indictment were voted on more than once. The gentleman from Ohio is recorded every time as voting in their favor. And may Ibe permitted to remind this committee that the record of that Congress shows that he was supported in his action, that he had standing by him, voting side by side with him to impeach the President for the legitimate exercise of the veto power, one who was then comparatively obscure, and who, but for a combination of accidents, would have remained to this day and until his dying day in that obscurity for which nature and bis Creator seemed so designedly to have fitted him—that side by side with the gentleman from Ohio stood and voted with him Mr. Rutherford B. Hayes, with whose prospective veto we are threatened. Now, sir, I beg you to tell me by what rule of consistency does the gentleman from Ohio come upon this floor to flaunt in the face of an American Congress an anticipated exetcise by this Executive of his veto when he and that Executive both stand committed upon the record to his impeachment if he dares to employ And while lam at this point I might ask by what sort of authority either that gentleman or any other comes upon this floor to threaten us with the probable or possible action of that Executive at all What provision of the Federal constitution, what law enacted by any preceding Congress undertakes to clothe anybody, either that President himself or one of bis privy council, even including his Premier, his Secretary of State, to sit as he did on the floor of this Chamber on Saturday of last week and by his presence and his indications of approval seek to intimidate, overawe, and browbeat an American Congress? Who commissioned the gentleman from Ohio to tell us that we had best be careful because the issue was made and the Executive would not be coerced into a message of approval ? I would ask, does the gentleman from Ohio, or does any other gentleman, put so low an estimate upon the self-respect, the integrity, the courage and the manhood of this House, without regard to party, as to believe that such a threat so flaunted is to intimidate the law-mak-ing branch of this Government to shape its action on measures of legislation? I cannot think that we are measured by so short a standard. But, sir, I am not through with the speech which the gentleman has made. He tells us: “ The proposition now is, that after fourteen years have passed, and notone petition from one American citizen has come to us asking that this law bo repealed; while not one memorial

has found ite way to our desks complaining at the law, so far aa I have heard, the Democratic House of Representatives now holds that if they are not permitted to force upon another H«nee and npon the Executive against their consent the repeal of a law that Democrats made, this refusal anal! be considered a Sufficient ground for stat vs ng this Government to death; ‘fttat id the prdpdsitioh Which We ds- - aS revolution.” And that was received with apjibiude eta thfc Republican side Does the gentleman from Ohio mean to stand upon that declaration ? By that significant nod ho says that he does. Does he not know that the Congress jusi expired bore npon ite flies petition after petition, memorial after memorial, in contested-election cases, sent by the House to its committee, protesting ’against the presence of the military at the polls and denouncing the usurpation, demanding ite repeal, in order that a free ballot might be had? Does the gentleman fail lo remember that the State of Louisiana—a sovereign State of this confederacy once more, thank God—sect her memorial to these halls, in which in thunder tones she uttered her. anathemas against the very practice which this amendment seeks to correct? But that gentloffian did more; he went further and, if possible, lie did Worse. I mean to deal in exact fairness. I even mean to be liberal in the construction I put upon his utterances: Ms. Chairman, it is generally true that the grave suffices to silence the tongue of detraction. It is not often that ite darkened portals are invaded to prontiunce severe critic'sm, even though richly deserved; if it is to be pronounced upon the dead. But the gentleman from Ohio, forgetting himself in his speech on last Saturday, forgot also to observe this manly and magnanimous rule. By that speech he certainly must have sought, or, if not. seeking, he was unfortunate in nrodiuing the impresflioii mat a dfetiuguished dead Senator from the State of Kentucky had introduced into the Federal Senate Chamber the k ill which we, by this amendment, seek to repeal, and to send his name down to posterity to ne.blasted by the act, if indeed he had performed it, and that charge to rest upon that gentleman’s own high authority. I hold in my hand the very bill, No. 37, which was introduced upon the sth of January, 1864, by Senator Powell, of Kentucky. There lies before me, on my desk, the manly, statesmanlike and patriotic, bold utterances that he delivered in the shape of a speech upon the Consideration of that bill. I challenge the gentleman to find within the limits of (his measure a single, solitary provision, line, sentence, word or syllable that this amendment seeks to repeal. Does not ths gentleman know—if he does not, it is his fault—that the amendment incorporated upon this bill which we now seek to repeal was incorporated and ingrafted upon it, not when the Senate was in committee or the whole, but in open Senate, upon motion of Senator Pomeroy, and, when the vote was taken upon that amendment by yeas and nays, every solitary Democrat in that chamber voted against it and put the seal of his condemnation upon it, Mr. Powell among the number? Here stands Senator Powell’s utterance, in which he explains how and why it was that the Democratic members in that body and'thls body at last accepted this as the best that could be bad; notwithstanding, against their protest, the ingrafting of the Pomeroy amendment, because it was to be taken in lieu of what they charged was true, of what the President of the United States in an official sommunic&tion to Congress had declared to be true, that in the absence of even the limitations that amended bill would give, the military authorities and officers of the Government had arrogated to themselves the power in all the lately seceding States of declaring what should be the qualification of voters and what should be the qualification to hold office. It was as the least offensive of two offensive alternatives. It was not candid, it was not fair; the record rebukes the gentleman for seeking to place a dead statesman in such a false position. But, Mr. Chairman, it is useless to follow these things further. It is not, sir, for me to waste the time and trench npon the patience of this committee by following out the tergiversations through which the Republican party has wound itself to this high plane of protest against revolutionary legislation. Why, sir, the gentleman from Ohio in 1872, made a speech upon this floor which he will not deny. It was, as is always the case with his efforts, an adroit as well as an able speech. In that he declared that the minority to which we then belonged, but in which in God’s providence we are no longer found—he declared that the minority were guilty of revolution. For what? Because they said that extraneous matter should not be put upon appropriation bills. He said that was revolution. We took him at his word, and now where does he stand ? It was revolution then to resist the injection of extraneous matter over the protest of the majority. It is revolution now for the majority to resist that same protest of that majority; but in the one case it was his side protesting, in the other case it was ours.

Ah, Mr. Chairman, let one take the darkened page# of hia country’s history for the last seventeen long years and read it carefully, and tell me then whether it lies in the mouth of that worthy leader of a once-grcat but waning party to read lectures to anybody, either upon the score of revolutionary legislation or of extraneous introductions into appropriation bills. Better far in the face of the record that they have made, better to listen patiently to the confirmed inebriate as he dilates upon the virtues of temperance, better let the queen of the domi monde elaborate the beauties of female virtue, or let the devil prate of the scheme of universal redemption, than for homilies upon good morals and lectures upon revolutionary legislation to be delivered from such a source. There is but one issue here, and I insist that neither this House nor the people of this country shall be'allowed to wander from it It is but this, and nothing more; whether thd military power shall be allowed at your polls; whether the elections shall be guarded by the mailed hand of military power; whether the ballot-box, that last and safest shield of the freeman’s liberties, shall be turned over to the tender mercies of the armies of your land. Or, to state it yet more tersely and probably more fairly, it is simply whether the spirit and the genius of this Government shall be reversed, and wither the civil shall be made subordinate to the military power. Why, sir, among the most favored, the most cherished and precious principles ingrafted on our system of government from our old prototype, the English people, is that provision wuich would not tolerate not only the interference but the presence of the military at the polls. Over 100 years ago an English statute declared the will of Englishmen upon this vital question. Iread the statute: “lie it enacted by the King's most excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords, spiritual and temporal, and Commons in Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, That when and as often as any election of any peer or peers to represent the peers of Scotland in Parliament, or any members to serve in Parliament, shall be appointed to be made, the Secretary at War for the time being, or, in case there shall be no Secretary at War, then such person who shall officiate in the place of the Secretary at War, shall, and is hereby required, at some convenient time before the day appointed for such election, to issue and send forth proper orders, in writing, for the removal of every such regiment, troop or company, or other number of soldiers as shall be quartered or billeted in any such city, borough, town or place, one day at the least before the day appointed for such election, to the distance of two or more miles from such city, borough, town or place, as aforesaid, until one day at the least after the poll to be taken at such election shall be ended and the poll-books closed.— Statute George II.” From that time till now I do declare that it is not within the power of any man to find a single scion of the Saxon race that has not held in utter abhorrence the efforts of him or them who sought to control the freedom of the ballot by the employment of the military power. The very army of this country protests against such a prostitution of its service. I see before me the. justly-distinguished General-in-Chief of our army, and I do not believe that I overstate the fact when I say that from him down to the private in the ranks it is difficult to find one who has not recoiled from this service which they have been called upon to render. It is this question, and it is none other .that I insist shall be kept before this House. We are declaring that the ballot shall be free. We are denying that it is either constitutional, legal, just, fair, or decent, to subject the sovereign to the surveillance of the soldier. Now, upon that issue the gentleman from Ohio and his associates tell us that they stand committed. I answer so do we. We are willing to discuss it, and for my part I shall oppose any limitation being put upon this debate. If we cannot stand upon an issue so broad, so constitutional, so catholic, so fair, so free as this, then tell me, in Heaven’s name. Where are there battlements strong enough for us to get behind ? Let it go to the country that one party asserts that the manacles shall fall

from the limbs of the citizen, and that the army shall not hold its mailed hand at the throat of the sovereign, and that the other party refuses to release the throttling grasp, and declares that it will block the wheels of the Government and bring ft to starvation. 1 am willing, and those with whom I stand Sfo trilling to accept this issue, and we go further, we tender it W« are the ones to make the issue and we are ready for you to accept it Planting ourselves upon this broad ground, weWelcome controversy. We seek no quarrel with you, biit for the first time in eighteen years past the Democracy are back in power in both branches of the Legislature, and she proposes to celebrate her recovery of her long-lost heritage by tearing off these degrading badges of servitude and destroying the machinery of a corrupt and partisan legislation. We do not intend to stop until we have stricken the last vestige of your war measures from the statute-book, which like these Were born of the passions incident to civil strife and looked to the abridgement of the liberty of the citizen. We demand an untrammeled election; no supervising of the ballot by the army. Free, absolutely free right to the citizen in the deposit of his* ballot as a condition-precedent to the passage of your bills, Now, sir* it the gentleman from Ohio is to be eicusSd—for surely he cannot be justified—if he is to be excused for parading before this House the threat, the tirtjilmeitium th terrorcm of a veto that "is already ctlt and dried to be filkchd Upon a bill that is not yet passed; if he is to be pardoned for Warning this House that the executive branch of this Government will never yield its assent to this measure in its present form, may I not be warranted and justified in employing equal candor, and may I not asstird that gentleman and his associates that the dominant party, of this Congress, the ruling element of this body, is also equally determined that until their just demands are satisfied, demands sanctioned by all laws human and divine, protected and hedged around by precedents without number, demanded by the people of this land without regard to section, who fire clamoring for a free, untrammeled ballot (not for the ttouih, I bog you to remember, for if there be sectionality in this issue I cannot discover it); for Philadelphia as well as for New Orleans, for San Francisco and Boston as will as for Charleston and Savannah—that this side of the Chamber, which has demonstrated its power, never means to yield or surrender until this Congress shall have died by virtue of its limitation. We will not yield. A principle cannot be compromised. It may be surrendered, but that can only be done by its advocates giving proof to the world that they afe cravens and cowards, lacking the courage of their own conviction. We cannot yield, and will not surrender. Let me assure my friend, and it is a picture that I know he does not dwell upon with pleasure, that this is the restoration to power of a party as old as dur Government Itself, which for almost a hundred years has stood the boldest, fairest, freest exponent and champion and defender of the doctrine of constitutional limitations against the doctrine of the aggrandizement of power. It is this organization that has come back to rule, that means to rule, and means to rule in obedience to law. Now. sir, the issue is laid down, the gage of battle is delivered. Lift it when you please; we are willing to appeal to that sovereign arbiter that the gentleman so handsomely lauded, the American people, to decide between us. Standing upon such grounds, we intend to deny to the President of this republic the right to exercise such unconstitutional power. We do not mean to pitch this contest upon ground of objection to him who happens, if not by the grace of God yet by the run of luck, to be administering that office. I tell you here that if from yonder canvas [pointing to the picture of Washington] the first President of this republic should step down and resume those powers that the grateful people of an infant republic conferred upon him as their Chief Magistrate, if he were here find by that patriotic ardor that moved him in the earlier and better days of this republic, to him we would never consent to yield such dangerous and unwarranted powers, to rest the liberties of the citizen upon any one man’s discretion, nor would he receive it. It was not for the earlier but for the later Executives of this Government to grasp and seek to retain such questionable prerogatives. You cannot have it. The issue is made—it is made upon principle, not upon policy. It cannot be abandoned; it will not be surrendered. Standing upon such ground, clothed in such a panoply, resting this case upon the broadest principles of eternal justice, we are content to appeal to the people of this land. There is no tribunal to which we are not willing to carry this case of contest; and we are willing to allow Him who rules the destinies of men to judge between us and give victory to the right Ido not mean to issue a threat Unlike the gentleman from Ohio, I disclaim any authority to threaten. But I do mean to say that it is my deliberate conviction that there is not to be found in this majority a single man who will ever consent to abandon one jot or tittle of the faith that is in him. He cannot surrender if he would. I beg you to believe he will not be coerced by threats nor intimidated by parade of power. He must stand upon his conviction, and there we will all stand. He who dallies is a dastard, and he who doubts is damned.