Democratic Sentinel, Volume 3, Number 20, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 June 1879 — Section 5,522. [ARTICLE]

Section 5,522.

It is desirable that every American citizen shall carefully consider the kernel of the law which the mouth-piece of the Republican party has just declared must be retained upon the statute book for the “ protection ” of voters. Read, learn, mark and inwardly digest this poisonous blossoming of partisan ingenuity. It reads: Section 5,522. Every person, whether with or without any authority, power or process, or pretended authority, power or process, of any State, Territory or municipality, who obstructs, hinders, assaults, or by bribery, solicitation or otherwise, interferes with or prevents the Supervisors of Election, or either of them,_orthe Marshal or his general or special deputies, or either of them, in the performance of any duty required of them, or which he or they, or either of them, may be authorized to perform by any law of the States, in the execution 'of process or otherwise, or who, by any of the means before mentioned, hinders or prevents the freo attendance and presence at such places of registration, er at such polls of election, or full and free access and egress to and from any such place of registration or poll of election, or in going to and fitdm any such place of registration or poll of election, or to and from any room where any euch registration or election or canvass of votes, or of making any returns or certificates thereof, may be had, or who molests, interferes with, removes or rejects from any such place of registration or poll of election, or of canvassing votes thereat, or of making returns or certificates thereof, any Supervisor of Election, the Marshal or his general or special deputies, or either of them; or who threatens or attempts, or offers so to do, or refuses or neglects to aid and assist any Supervisor of Election, or the Marshal or his general or special deputies, or either of them, in the performance of his or their duties, when required by him or them, or either of them, to give such aid and assistance, shall be liable to instant arrest without process, and shall be punished by imprisonment not more than two yeais, or by a flue of not more than $3,000, or by both such fine and imprisonment, and shall pay the costs’ of the prosecution. That is a statute against the exercise of a free ballot, as has been adequately demonstrated by the operation of the law. Let us suppose the Democrats had been in power and had passed such a law as that and the bayonet law. Of course the Republicans would have loved the arrangement by which the elections in the Soutn are environed and scrutinized with the vigor, penetration, impudence and intolerance of French prefects and their hirelings under MacMahon, by the hirelings of the party in power. The Republicans would, of course, rejoice to see Democratic Marshals and Deputy Marshals by the thousand, under the direction of Democratic Supervisors and the Department of Justice, blocking the way to the polls, arresting Republicans at sight, before they bad voted, and putting them in filthy cages. They would be delighted, of course, to see Democratic Marshals running around with their hands full of Democratic tickets, armed with bludgeons and pistols, and threatening with immediate arrest everybody who held a Republican ticket. How delighted, too, would the Republicans be if they hid to walk through files of soldiers to the polling places and have their ballots refused. How ecstatic, indeed, would our Republican fellow-citizens be over a law which authorizes the President to crowd the vicinity of polls with soldiers? Yet the law they have passed works exactly in that way, and they have the impudence to inform us, and Mr. Hayes informs us in his last veto message, that the law is designed to “ protect ” voters and the ballot-box from violence and fraud. They have the assurance to denounce the Democracy as “ revolutionists” for seeking to deliver American citizens from such tyranny. Had the Democrats been in power, and passed such laws, the Republicans would have shouted themselves hoarse in behalf of “ State rights ” and “ personal liberty.” No element of our population of 49,000,000 is more tenacious of State rights than Republicans when laws are executed which infringe upon them at home. Let the Federal election or bayonet law be put in operation in Maine or Vermont as it has been in New York, and the States of Blaine and Edmunds would be in an uproar. Let voters read that shameful clause of the Revised Statutes which we have quoted, and ask themselves if a more partisan and unrepublican law was ever framed. Mr. Hayes says the elections must be supervised from Washington by partisan emissaries and electioneerers, labeled, “ Stand up for your party.” That is the Republican plea. That plea and the corrupt party which makes it must be overthrown at the polls in 1880. —New York Sun.