Terre Haute Weekly Gazette, Terre Haute, Vigo County, 19 December 1878 — Page 2

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CQN3RESS

Mr.

Blaine's Speech un the Investigation Resolution.

A Warm Discussion on the A1 leged Frauds in Which Blaine, Thurman, Edmunds and Lamar

Participate.

Washington, Dec. 11.

Windom reported the fortification appropriation bill, and gave notice that he would call it up to-morrow.

Blaine reported the house bill^o correct an error in the enrollment of the sundry civil appropriation bill, in regard to the Hot Springs resolution, and asked present consideration, but it went over.

Mr. Blaine then took the floor on the resolutioi.s offered by him directing an investigation into alleged frauds and outrages in the recent elections, and spoke as follows:

MB. PRESIDENT: Thi pending resolution was offered by me with a two-fold purpo6ein view:

First, to place on record., in a definite and authentic form, the frauds and outrages by which some recent elections were carried by the Democratic party in the Southern States:

Second, To find if there be any method by which a repetition of these crimes against a free ballot may be prevented,

The newspaper is the channel through $|iwhich the people of the United States are informed of current events, and the accounts ^iven in the press represent the elections in some of the southern states to have been accompanied by violence in not a few cases reaching the destruction of lile to have been controlled ty threats that awed and intimidated a large class of voters to have been manipulated by fraud of the most shameless and shame ful description. Indeed in South Carolina there seems to have been no election at all in any proper sense of the the term.

There was instead a series of skirmishes over the state in which the polling-places were regarded as forts to be captured by one party and held against the other, and where this could not be done with convenience, frauds in the count and tissue-ballot devices were resorted to in order to effetu ally destroy the voice of the majority. These in brief are the accounts given in the non-partisan presp, of the disgraceful outrages that attended the recent elections, and so far as I have seen, these

We do not need investigation to establish certain facts already of official record.' We know that one hundred and six representatives in Congress were recently chosen in the states fajmerlv slaveholding, and that the Democrats elected one hundred and one or possibly one hundred and two, and the Republicans four or possibly five. We know that thirty-five of these representatives were assigned to the Southern States by reason of the colored population, and that the entire political power thus founded on the numbers of the colored people had been 6eixed and appropriated to the aggrandiznment of its own strength by the Democratic party of the south.

The issue thus raiiftd before the country, Mr. Presid$l|S|^® i}Ot one of mere sentiment for the rights of the negro— though far distant bqRthe day when the rights of any Araeitlpp, citizen, however black or however £okr, shall form the mere dust of the balance in any controversy nor is the issue one t^tat involves the waving of the "bloody shirt," to quote the elegant vernacular of Democratic vituperation nor still further is the issue as now presented only a question of the equality of the black voter of the South with the white voter of the South the is sue, Mr. President, has taken afar wider range,one of protentous magnitude and that is, whether the white voter of the .*V

North shall be equal to the white voter of the South in shapingjthe policy and fixing the destiny of this country or whether, to put it still more baldly, the white man who fought in the ranks of the Union army shall have as weighty and influential a vote in the government of the re public as the white tnan who fought in the ranks of the rebel army. The one fought to uphold, the other to destroy, the union of the 6tates, and to-day he who fought to destroy is a tar more* im portant factor in the government of the nation than he who fought to uphold it

Let me illustrate my meaning by com-, paring groups of states of the same representative strength north and south. Taks the states of South Carolina, Mississippi, and Louisiana. They send seventeen rep resentatives to Congress^ Their aggre gate population is composed of ten hundred and thirty-five thousand whites and twelve hundred and twenty-fo thousand colored the colored being nearly two hundred thousand in excess cf the whites. Of the seventeen representatives, then, it is evident that nine were apportioned to these states by reason of their colored population, and only eight by reason of their white population and yet in the choice of the entire seventeen representatives the colored voters had no more voice or power than their remote kindred on the shores of Senegambia or the gold coast. The ten hundred and thirty-five thousand white people had the sole and absolute choice of the entire seventeen representatives. In contrast, take two states in the north, Iowa and Wisconsin, with seventeen representatives. Thev have a white population of two million two hundred and forty-seven thousand—considerably more than double the entire white population of the three southern state* I have named. In Iowa and Wisconsin, therefore, it takes one hundred and thirty.two thousand white population to send a representative to congress, but in South Carolina,Mississippi, and Louisiana everv sixty thousand white people send a representative. In other words, sixty thousand white people in those southern states

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have precisely the carpe political power in the government of the country that one hundred and thirty-two thousand white people have in Iowa and Wisconsin.

Let us carry the comparison to a more comprehensive generalization. The eleven states that formed the confederate government had "ny the last census a population of nine and a half millions, ot which in round numbers five and a half millions were white an.l four million* coloied. On this aggregate population seventy-three representatives in Congress were apportioned to those states—fortvtwo or three ot which were by reason the white population, and thirty or thirty one by reason of the colored population. At the recent elections the white Democracy of the South seized seventy ot the seventy three districts, and thus secured a Democratic majority in the next house of representatives. Thus it appears that throughout the states that formed the late confederate government seventy-five thousand whites—thi very people that rebelled against the Pinion—are enabled to eleci a representative in congress, while in the loyal states it requires one hundred and thirty-two thouband of the white people that fought for the union to elect a representative. In levying every tax, therefore, in making every appropriation of money, in fixing every line of public policy, in decreeing what shall be the fate and fortune of the republic, the confederate soldier ot the south is enabled to cast a vote that is twica as powerf and twice as influential as the vote of the union soldier north.

But the white men of the south did not acquire and do not hold this superior power by reason of law or justice, but in disregard and defiance of both. The Fourteenth amendment to the constitution was expected to be and was designed to be a preventive and corrective of all such possible abuses. The reading of the clause applicable to the case is instructive and suggestive. Hear it:

Representatives shall be apportioned among the several states according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each state, excluding Indiana not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors lor president and vice president of the United States, representatives in Congress, the executive and judicial officers of a state, or the members of the legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such state, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein, shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in sudh state.

The patent, undeniable intent of this pro\ision wa6 that if any class of voters were denied or in any way abridged

statements are without serious contra diction. It is but just and fair to all par- their right of suffrage, then the class so ties, however, that an impa.tial investi-l denied or abriged si.ould not be counted gation of the facts shall be made by a committee of the Senate, proceeding under the authority of the law and representing the power of the nation. Hence my resolution.

in th'e basis of representation or, in other words, that no state or 6tates should gain a large increase of representation in Congress by reason of counting any class of population not permitted to take part in electing such representatives. But the construction given to this provision is that before any forfeiture of representation can be enforced the denial or abridgement of suffrage must be the result of a law spe cificallv enacted by the state. Under this construction every negro voter may have his suffrage absolutely denied or fatally abridged by the violence, actual or threatened, of irresponsible mobs, or by frauds and deceptions of state officers from the governor down to the last election clerk, and then, unless some state law can be shown that authorizes the denial, or abridgement, the state escapes all penalty or peril of reduced represent* tion. This construction may be upheld by the courts, ruling by the letter of the law, "which killeth," but the spirit of justice cries aloud against the evasive and atrocious Conclusion that deals out oppression to the innocent and shields the guilty from the legitimate consequences of willful transgression.

The colored citizen is thus most unhappily situated his right of suffrage is but a hollow mockery it holds to his ear the word of promise but breaks it always to his hope, and he ends only in being made the unwilling instrument in increasing the political strength of that party from which he received ever-tight ening fetters when he was a slave and contemptuous refusal of civil rights 6ince he was made free. He resembles indeed those unhappy captives in the east who, deprived of their birthright, are compelled to yield their strength to the upbuilding of the monarch from whose tyrannies they have most to fear, and to fight against the power from which alone deliverance might be expected. The franchise intended for the shield and defence ot the negro has been turned against him and his friends and has vastly increased the power of those from whom he has nothing to hope and everything to dread

The political power thus appropriated by southern Democrats by reason of the negro population amounts to thirty-five representatiues in Congress. It is massed almost solidly and offsets the great state of New York or Pennsylvania and New Jersey together or the whole of New England or Ohio and Indiana united or the combined strength of Illinois Minnesota, Kansas, Cali foraia, Nevada, Nebraska, Colorado, and Oregon. The seizure of this power is wanton usurpation it a flagrant outrage it is violent perversion of the whole theory of republican government. It inures solely, to the advantage and yet, I blieve, to theperma nent dishoner of the Democrat party It is by reason of this trampling down of human rights, this ruthless seizure of unlawful powar that lhe Democratic party holds the popular branch of Congress to day and will in less than ninety days have control of this body also, thus grasping the entire legislative department ot the government through the unlawful capture of the Southern States. If the prescribed vote of the south were cast as its lawfnl owners desire, the Democratic party could not gain power. Nay, if it were not counted on the other side against the instincts and the interests, against the principles and the prejudices of its lawful owners, Democrats success would be hopeless. 2s it not enough then, for modern the negro vote shall be mand goes farther and be counted on their side, resentatives in congress

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dential electors apportioned by reason of the negro vote shall be 60 cast and so governed as to insure Democratic success regardless of justice in defiance of law.

I have read and vet I refuse to believe that the distinguished gentleman, who made an energetic but in successful canvass for the governorship of that state, has indorsed and approved these charges, and I have accordingly made mv resolution broad enough to include their thorough investigation. I am not demanding fair elections in the South without demanding fair elections in the North also. But venturing to speak for the New Eneland states, of whose laws and customs I know something, I dare assert that in the late election in Massachusetts, or any of her neighboring commonwealths, it will be impossible to find even one case where a voter was driven from the polls, where a voter did not have the fullest, fairest, freest opportunity to cast the ballot ofhis choice and have it honestly and faiihfull) coifnted in the returns. Suffrage on this continent was first made universal in New England, and in the administration of their affairs her people have found no other appeal necessary than that which is addressed to their honesty of conviction and to their inteligent self-interest. If there be anything different to disclose I pray you show it to us that we may amend our ways.

But whenever a feeble protest is made against such injustice as I have described in the South the response we get comes to us in the form of a taunt, "What are you going to do about it?" and "How do you propose to help yourselves?" This is the stereotyped answer of defiance which intrenched wrong always gives to inquiring justice and those who imagine it to be conclusive do not know the temper of the American people. For let me assure you that against the complicated outrage upon the right of representation lately triumphant in the South, there will be arrayed many phases of public opinion in the North not often hitherto in harmony. Men who have cared little, and affected to care less, for the rights or the wrongs of the negro, suddenly find that vast monetary and commercial interests, great questions of revenue, adjustments of tariff, vast investments in manufactures, in railways, and in mines, are under the control of a Democratic Congress whose majority was obtained by depriving the negro of his rights under a common constitution and common laws. Men who have expressed disgust with the waving of bloody shirts and have been offended with talk about negro equality are beginning to perceive that the pending question of to-day relates more pressingly to the equality of white men under this government, and that however careless they may be about the rights or the wrongs of the negro they are very jealous and tenacious about the rights of her own race and the dignity of their own firesides and their own kindred.

In a memorable debate in the house of commons Mr. Macauley reminded Daniel O'Connell, when he was moving for repeal, that the English Whig* had endured calumny, abuse, popular fury, loss of position, exclusion from parliament rather than the great agitator himselt should be less than a British subject and Mr. Macauley warned him that they would never suffer him to be more. Let me now remind you, that the government, under whose protecting flag we sit to-day, sacrificed myriads of lives and expended thousands of millions of treasure that our countrymen of the South should remain citizens of the United States, having equal personal rights and equal political privileges with all other citizens. And I venture, now and here, to warn the men of the Sauth, in the exact woids of Macaulay, that we will never suffer them to be more.

Thurman then took the floor and submitted the following, as an amendment to the resolution of Blaine: The committee shall also inquire whether any citizen of any state has been dismissed or threat* ened with dismissal from employment, or deprivation of any right or privelege, by reason of hie vote, or intention to vote, at the recent elections, or has- been otherwise interfered with and to inquire whether in the year ig7S, money was raised by assessment or otherwise upon federal officeholders, or employes, for election purposes, and under what circumstances, and by what means, and if so, what amount was so raised, and how the same was expended and further, whether such assessments were not in violation ot* law and it shall further inquire into the action and conduct of the United States supervisors of elections in the several states, as to number of marshals, deputy marshals and others employed to take part in the conduct of said elections, in what states or cities appointed, the amount of money paid or promised to be paid to them, and how or by whom, and under what law and authority

Thurman then addressed the Senate. He

said

the

E TERRE HAUTE WEEKLY GAZETTE

.that he intended to have offered

the above amendment before Blaine spoke, but could not get an opportunity. He gave Blaine credit for the frankness of his resolution, which provided for an investigation into the conduct of the election in all the States,but declared that the animus of the investigation was to look into the conduct of the elections, in the Southern States only. He objected to the propriety of the investigation at this time, as there was not time at this session to complete the work, as it should be done, with justice to both sides of the question. He then declare his belief that the object was to keep alive and fan to glowing heat the slumbering fires of sectional animosity,and by the scare-crow of a solid South to create a solid North which should rule the country. He declared such a purpose fraught with danger to the country He asked what more in the way of a penal code was wanted, and declared that the statute book bristled all over with fine*, forfeitures and penalties against any one who should abridge the civil rights of any citizen of the United States. He said that the color line was first drawn by the Freedmen's bureau, which had used

money of the people ot the United States to unite, colored people against their former masters. He ascribea the position of the negro in Southern politics to the inexorable law that declared that

the

tactics that the de that it shall the rep presi

property, intelligence and education of a community will always make the laws. He intimated that the Republicans were about to retrace their steps, and either directly or indirectly, disfranchise the negro in the South, and congratulated the country that the next congress was Democratic. He closed by saying that

the danger was the corrupt use of money in elect:ons, and that elections in the United States will become as debauched as they were in the days of the borough parliamentery elections in the mother land.

The Vice-President—The resoluticfcis go to the calendar, and the Senate resumes the consideration of its unfinished businef s.

Lamar followed and said that at the proper time he would prove that not one colored vote had bsen suppressed, and the political phenomenon is one that would occur in any free society. He also, speaking to the point of overplus of southern representation, said that the same state of things existed in the north, between 6tates having great disparity of population, and that it was constitutional and legal. He closed as follows:

But as the gentleman has vouchsafed advice to southern men on this floor and outside, in a spirit of fairness and equity, I will speak to New England people, and tell them that, in my opinion, the direst foe they have got on earth is a representative or Senator, whether from their own section or any other that will kindle this fire, whose subterranean flame will liquify the very foundations on which these proud and free commonwealths are now rearing their aspiring heads. Sir, the Senator is fishing in troubled waters upon the subject, and when you compare questions of this kind you will find that changes of a more radical and fundamental nature will be necessary, in order to adjust the representation to numbers ii this country. I will not now proceed, sir, any further in my course of remarks At another time, when these question' come up, if they are to be discussed, shall participate in the discussion.

After a wordy war between Lamar and Edmunds, characterized by considerable animosity, the resolution and amendment was then laid aside, and Blaine gave notice that he would call it up again at the earliest opportunity. The Senate took up the bill to revise the patent laws, pending the discussion of which the Senate went into executive session, and soon adjourned. ....

DOG SUICIDES.

An instance somewhat similar to that mentioned above was noticed in an early number of this piper. The cause of the suicide in that case was severe physical agony, the dog having had both forelegs broken, and having uttered intensely for some days.

Although these cases fall properly within the province of psychology rather than that of natural history (or biology), they are none the less interesting to all friends of the dumb animals. Evidence which proves conclusively that the lower animal's reason, has been accumulated by many a student, and at present there are few who will deny to the dog, the horse, and indeed almost all of our domestic animals, the possession of reasoning faculties of a comparatively high order.

And yet when man commits suicide he is said to be suffering from mental aberration. Queer reasoning, that!

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Son, safl V. Sixth stretft, Philadelphia. Sold i- Terre Haute by Buntin^dt Armstrong.

BAIN WAGONS.

A Few on Hand at Wildy & Poths Which |WiU be Closed oat as Soon as Possible.

The undersigned have a few more Bain wagons which will be sold at prices less than wholesale in order to close them out. The opportunity is a good one. There is no better wagon made than the Bain. |WlLDY St POTHS,

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A PSYCHOLOGICAL MYSTERY".' From the Janesvllle (Wis.) Gazetts. One of the most singular cases of sui cide of which we have any knowledge occurred this morning in this city. At an early hour, a large yellow dog was seen slowly walking jwn the alley at No. 2's engine house, leading from Main street to the river. Paying no attention to those who were watching his movements, he went directly to the river, carefully stepped in and deliberately plunged his head under the water and held it there a sufficient length of time to drown. There was no struggle, no splashing around, but a cool and determined purpose of self-destruction. From the time the dog put his head under the water it was not raised out, but the other part of his body was exposed to vie ar. In a few moments life was extinct, and the dog floated down the river. This remarkable case of suicide was witnessed with astonishment by several of our prominent citizens. This rare and interesting circumstance proves that an animal as well as a human being, for causes of which we can form no definite knowledge, can deliberately take its own life.

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