Terre Haute Weekly Gazette, Terre Haute, Vigo County, 24 April 1879 — Page 2

A THUNDERBOLT

Cast Into the Republican Camp.

Wpeecli «r H©n. ®. Voorhees in ttoc Senate Yesterday,

Upon the Subject of the Present Election Laws.

Words That Must Areuse all Who Aro Not More Partisan Then Patriotic

To the Imminent Dangers That Threaten the Liberties of the American People.

Mr. Vocrhees—Mr. President, it is due to the American people, ihnt a clear and ample statement shouid be maJe of tt.e causeB which have led to the present extra session of Congress. I propose, therefore, to examine in detail tne laws of the United States as tlu now exist on the two {.^reat questions ot popular elections and impartial courts, and to show that if these laws arc permitted to regain in force it will only he necessary Cor some bold man, clothed with executive authority", to put thetn in active operation in order, at his own pleasure, to overthrow. this Republic in spirit, form, and name from its turrets to it* foundation-stones. I prtpoke to demonstrate that all the parts of a complete and systematic machinery for a successful revolution ugainst every principle of free government, against every reserved right of the .States aed against the most hallowed safeguards of individual liberty are to be found in the malign legislation of the last iourteen years. Let the laws themselves speak, and when their ominous and threatning voice* are fully heard throughout the land 1 am willing to stand or fall bv the candid judgment of the people.

Sir, I cite, to begin with, section 5596 of the Revised Statutes, chapter 7 ef the title "crimes," as the kaymone to the •whole arch of Federal-usurpation over the freedom of the ballot-box. I do not believe it is generally known that the Federal Government4 has asserted the right by law to interfer with and control all the elections ol every description throughout the Union. On the contrary, the prevalent opinion, I think, has beeh tlut this tremendous power oaly claimed and exercised at times and places when and where Federal officials such as Members and Delegates in Congress were chosen by the people. The section, however, cited reads as follows: "Every person who, by any unlawful means, hieders, delay*, prevents, or obfctiucts, or combines and confederates with ethers to hinder, delay, prevent, or obstruct, any citizen from doing any act required to be done to qualify him to vote, or from voting in any State, Territory, district, county, city, parish, township, schoel district, municipality, or other territorial subdivision, shall be Incd not less th*n $500, or b« imprisoned not less than one month, nor more lhan one year, or be punished by both such iir.e and imprisonment."

Can the human mind conceive an election of any kind in all this broad land which is not reached and embraced in these sweeping provisions? All the States and territories are here invaded and their right to regulate their own elections and to punish those who offend against their freedom and purity is broken down. Wherever also a county or a parish is engaged in choning their cleiks, auditors,treasurers, and sheriffs, wherevei a city proceeds to eltct her mayor and other municipal officers, or a township or a school district is voting for their constables and tru»tees, there the presence of United States authority, to arrest, tine, and imprison is asserted .and lecured by this law. If in the excitement 01' election day two citizens quarrel, and one hinders, delays or obstructs the other from reaching the polls as soon as he otherwise might, a fine of not less Lhan $500 is here denounced against the offender, to which may be added an imprisonment of one year. This is the plain reading of this enactment, and 1 challenge contradiction. But it may bo said lhat the section does not provide for its own execution, and therefore it can never become destructive to the liberties and local rights of the people. No such overnight, however, occurred on the part of those who devised this legislation. The most ample provisions have been made for its rigid enforcement in every nook and corner ot the Union. Section 1982 contains the following peremptory comr&and to Federal officials everywhere: "The district Attorneys, Marshals, and deputy Marshals, the Commissioners appointed by the circuit and territorial courts, with power to arrect, imprison, or hail offenders, and every other officer

law a chapter of twenty-seven elaborate sections, in twenty-three of which ^the fiery and unscrupulous zeal of party a't he and the refined ingenuity cf trained lawyers have exhausted themselves in creating new offenses, against the elective franchise, in digging pitfalls and weaving snares for the unwary feet of plain and honest citizens, in proscribing the ready instrumentalities by which they may* be overtaken in seeming violations of law, in dragging them suddenly away from among their neighbors to distant hostile Federal courts for trial, and in denouncing against them such penalties, after conviction by packed juries, as would warm the dust of Scroggs and Jeffries with joy could they hear them, though they have lain two centuries dead.

Sir, this chapter has no parallel among the penal codes of civilized nations. It two persons con6pire to threaten anv cltIxiu in the enjoyment oflany right or privilege secured to him by the constitution or law6 of the United States, or because of hi6 having exercised such right or privilege, they are liable, under section 5508, to a fine of $5,000, and to imprisonment for a term of ten years, although the threat may not have been carried out or its execution even attempted. If tome timid or malicious partisan can satisfy a jury of his own politics, and a biased court, that two or more persons have agreed among themselves to intimidate him in the free exercise and enjoyment of his rights, he will secure their conviction and their punishment by enormous fines and long imprisonment, although in fact he may not have been intimidated or scared at all or injured in any respect whatever. And to this penalty shall be added ineligibility to any office or place of honor, profit, or trust created by the Constitution or laws of the United States. This is the very barbarism of party wartare and has its origin in the moat vindictive passions of the human heart.

Penal codes for the purpose of securing and maintaining party ascendency are familiar to the historian of every age, but none have been more malignant than this. Bearing this fact in mind I ask the attention of the Senate next to another branch of this general system

for

the suppression of tret: elections. It bears to the other parts of the system a close and vita! connection. The Federal Government having usurped full and complete authority over every species of elections, State, county, township, and city, and having given. this usurpation in charge to the Federal courts and their officials, to execute, an omnipresent detective corps, clothed with unlimited power over the ballot-box and over the liberties of the voter, was nexl generated and called into existence by evil and rancorous legislation. It is held by some that noxious vermin and poisonous reptiles have their origin in the corruptions of nature

Be that as it may, I come now to deal with a class of Federal officials who have been spawned upon the country through the degenerating processes of party animosity, and who are more offensive to American freemen than anything, however loathsome or dangerous, to which they may be likened in the animal kingdom. Supervisors of elections! The dictionaries call them overfceers. Overseers of elections! A most apt and truthful definition when their duties are considered! The American people going to the polls and voting under overseers would indeed be a nation of slaves, and if ley submit to do so they will deserve their fate. Let us examine the sources whence these overseers come, and let us inspect the long and cruel lash of their unbridled power6. By virtue of Section 2011 ot the Revised Statutes any two citizens of any citv or town, having upward of twenty thousand inhabitant*, or any ten citizens of any countv or parish of any Congres sionai district in the United States who mav, from any motives however sinister, des'ire to have a registration of voters or an election '"guarded or scrutinized," are empowered to open and to keep open the circuit court of the United States wherein such citv or town, county or parish is sitnated,' and there begin their work. The next five sections point out the methods by which the hand of the judge and the seal of the court are used in manufacturing supervisors of elections. A chief of this band of intruders upon the rights of freemen is' also provided for in section -,0*5, as follows: 'The circuit oourts of the United States for each judicial circuit shall name and appoint, on or before the 1st day of May, in the year 1871, and thereafter as vacancies noav from any. cause arise, from among the circuit court commissioners for each judicial district in each judicial circuit, one of such officers, who shall be known for the duties require* of him under this title as the chief supervisor of elections ot the judicial district for which he is a commissioner, and shall, so long as faithful and capable, discharge the duties in this title imposed."

The supervising force, being organized and stationed at every precinct where the people vote for a member or delegate in Congress, and its chiefs, its generals of departments being appointed and placed in command, we are next to examine and ascertain how completely the ballotbox is torn from the hands of the local authorities and given over to the clutches of Federal ofiLcials. In States which have registration laws the supervisors of elections, or overseers as Webster defines them, by virtue of section 2016, take absolute control Ot" the whole subject, making the list* to suit themselves, putting on or strik

ing

off names or marking them for challenge, as they please. The American citizen must find favor in the sight of his overseer, or his name will not appear on the li»t of voters on election day. While

who is especially empowered by the .... President, are authorized an required, at such an enactment as this is in existence the expense of the niied Slates, to in- the State which adopts a registration stitute prosecutions against all persons! law makes a practical surrender of the violating any of the provisions of Chap- control of its election^to the officers of ter 7 ot the title "crimes," and to cause! the Federal Government. It is the such persons to be arrested, and im- [election itself, however, that calls forth prisoned or bailed, for trial before the all the powers of the overseers in their court of the United States or the terri-j most repulsive and dangerous light. In torial court having cognizance of the of- being authorized to^ control elections^ for fense."

Here it will be seen that the entire executive force of all the United States courts, backed by the money of the United States Treasury, is dedicated to he enforcement of all the rovisions of chapter 7 of he title "crimes," including, of ccurte, section 5506, heretofore quoted. Section 5506, however, simply stands at he head of a chapter of crimes such as ere never before known to American

Representatives and Delegates in Congress they have the entire control of the ballot for all other officers, State, county, and municipal, who are candidates at the same time and place and on the same ticket. Let us analyze section 2017. It reads as follows: "The supervisors of elections are authorized and required to attend at *11 times and places for holding elections of Representatives or Delegates in Con-

such elections to challenge any rote offered by any person whose legal qualifications the supervisors, or either of them, may doubt: to be and remain -where the ballot-boxes are kept at all times after the polls are open until every vote cast at such time and place has been counted, the canvass of all votes polled wholly completed, and the proper and requisite certificates or returns made, whether the the certificates or returns be required under any law of the United Stales, or any State, territorial, or municipal law, and to personally inspect ond scrutinize, from time to time, and at all times, on the day of election, the manner in which the voting is done, and the way and method in which the poll-books, reg-istry-lists, and tallies, or check-books whether the same are required by any law of the United States, or any State, territorial, or municipal law, kept."

The duties here proscribed are mainly those of a spy, a spy upon the people as they come together at every voting precinct in the United States. The spirit which dictated this law was one of total distrust ol tne American people a distrust of their virtue and intelligence, of their capacity tor self government through thi instrumentality of free elections. What a spectacle is here presented! The Federal Government furnishing officers to stand at all the polls "to challenge any vote offered by any person whose legal qualifications" may be doubted by them, as if the people of the different localities could not be trusted to choose their own challengers! These officials are also charged to keep watch and guard, with unceasing vigilence, over all the ballot-boxes, to be and remain with them all the time, "and to personally inspect and scrutinize from time to time and at all times the manner in which the American citizen exercises his dearest right and most sacred privilege. This whole enactment proceeds upon the assumption that the officers of elections under state authority are predetermined felons, ballot-box thieves, forgers, and the like, and that the local communities which select them are accessory to their villainies. On this false and scandalous pretext the F,ederai authority has been /nade to overthrow the most vital and cherished principles of local self-govern-ment. The entire theory of the constitution has been subverted. A centralization of power in the hands ot the Federal Government over the local rights of the people and the states has been consummated which would have startled Alexander Hamilton in his day, although he believed in a monarchy. The judgts and inspectors of elections acting under state laws are not permitted even to count out the ballots that have been cast by their neighbors. Section 201S provides that: "The supervisors of election are, and each of them is, required, to personally scrutinize, count, and canvass each ballot in their election district or voting precinct cast, whatever may be the indoisement on the ballot, or in whatever box it may have been placed or be found."

I call upon toe thoughtful and just men of all parties everywhere to take note of this provision, and to make answer whether in their judgement the election Ipoards of the states, folding state, county, township, and ci£y eleq tions, are unfit to count and canvass the votes they have received. Have the people consented to such an unspeakable degradation a6 this? Have they in fact become slaves in spirit, and willing to receive the yoke of their overseers Sir, I do not believe it. On the contrWv. I believe that the minds and hearts of a brave people, in love with liberty, kindle in .fierce indignation against insulting tyranny when the whole ject is fairly placed betore them.

*p'i A

VSL& TEHEE HAUTE WEEKLY GAZETTE.

will such sub-

The ingredients in this cup of humiliation and sharne grow worse, howpver, if possible, as we proceed. Who can read the next "Section, Section 2019, without a righteous sense of resistance springing up in his breast? Hear it: "The better to enable the supervisor of election to discharge their Huties, they are authorized and directed, in their respective election districts or voting precincts, on the day of registration, on the day when registered voters may be mark ed'to be challenged, and on the day of election, to take, occupy, and remain in 6uch position, from time to time, whether before or behind the ballot-boxes, as will, in their judgment, best enable them to •ee each person offering himself for registration or offering to vote, and as. will best conduce to their scrutinizing the manner in which the registration or voting, is being conducted and at the closine ®f the poils for the reception of votes, they are required to place themselves in such position, in relation to the ballot-boxes, for the purpose of engaging In the work of canvassing the ballots, as will enable them to fully perform the duties in respect to such canvass provided herein, and shall there remain until every duty in respect to such canvass, ocrtiiicates, returns, and statement# has been wholly completed."

Here at last we behold the citadel of free government stormed and ta.keti. The enemv is placed bv these provisions inside of that sacred bulwark of freedom for whose erection and defence the best blood of the world has streamed in torrents on the battle-field and under the dripping ax Of the exscutionei. With the supervisors, as they take possession of the polls and ot the ballot-boxes, come also the United States marshals, their general deputies and their special deputies, without limit as to number, in order, in the language of section 2022, to— "Keep the peace, and support and protect the supervisors of election in the discharge of their duties, preserve order at such places of registration and at such polls, prevent fraudulent registration and fraudulent voting thereat, or fraudulent conduct on the part of anv officer of election, and immediately, either at the place of registration or polling place, or elsewhere, and either betore or after registering or voting, to arre-t and take into custody, with or without process, any person who commits, or attempts to offer to comaait, any ot the acts or offensea prohibited herein," or who commits any offense •gainst the laws of the United States."

Thus supported, and by still greater forces when called for as I shall show hereafter, the supervisors are absolute masters of the entire situation. I repudiate all 6uch as consent to become instruments ot Federal power for the overthrow of the doctrines and practices of the fathers, regardless of the party name they bear. Suppose we witnesa

eress and for counting the votes cast at the operations 01 a pair of these super 1 1 1

imm

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visors on election day under the laws as they now stand. A Representative in Congress is to be chosen and 60 also i6 the governor of the State, and all the State and county officers on the same day and on the same ticket. The people of "the precinct have assembled to vote for those who make their laws, and tor others to execute them.

few old oien

are there whose fathers fought in the Revolution here and there one who himself fought in the war of 1S12, and was with Jackson at New Orleans the mid-dle-aged in the prime of manhood and the youth with his first ballot in his hand all mingle together with the proud sense (hat they are sovereign, especially on that day and at that place

A room has been secured, and the judges and clerks of the election, selected by the people under the laws of their State, have taken their seats inside, near the accustomed window, for the convenient reception of votes. The judges aTe among the oldest and most respccted citizens of the community, while the clerks are young tnen of integrity, and readv writers. All is ready for the great dav's work to begin, and for the ballot to execute the will of freemen, when two Federal officers, strangers to the laws of the State, push forward and demand admittance. If the door or the window is not at once opened for their entrance they break them in without hesitation or delay, and proceed to t«ke, occupy, and remain in such position, whether before or behind the ballot box, as they please. They are directed by the law to so fix themselves in place and attitude as to best enable them, in their judgment, to watch the voters and see their faces as they come up to deposit their ballots, and" also to scrutinize the manner in which the officers of the election are conducting it. More unwelcome than Banquo's ghost and with far greater powers, they force themselves into the seats of other men but, unlike the spirit of that murdered chieftain, they do not appear to strike terror into a guilty conscience, but rather themselves to stab the cause of liberty to the heart. They are unlike that uneasy ghost in another particular: they never leave. From solid, odious substances they never vanish into thin air. They remain to the close of the banquet, masters ot ceremony from the beginning to the end. But this is not all. If at these colonists to armed resistance and polls, where we are witnessing an election, a single spark ot impatience or indignation should be manifested at the presence of these supervisors, and if any person by a word, a look, a gesture, or in any other conceivable way is thought by the supervisors themselves—for they "are the sole iudges

that subject—to "obstruct or hinder them, or either of them, in their approach, th ir assault, or their occupancy, such, person is "liable to instant arrest without process, and shall be punished by imprisonment not more than two vears, or by a fine of not more than $3,000, or by hoth such fine and impris onment, and shall pay the cost of the prosecution." If one of the old, gravhaired judges on the board of election inspired by the memory other days, when such intruders would have been exterminated like marauding wolves in a

she^p-fold,should

Sir, assert, in the hearing of the Senate and the country, ti.at there is not one American voter, leom the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean and from the chain of lakes on the north to the Gulf of Mexico, who is not liable to arrest any moment on flection day at tie polls, without any other accusation than exists in the mind of a supervisor or a deputy marshal, and with ro other process ot warrant than a club or a pair of handcuff's. I assert, and challenge denial, as long as this law stands, that every citizen of the Uunitcd States holds his personal liberty while attending the rolls and casting his ballot, solely and absolutely at the mere whim, carprice, impulse && party, imalice, or private hate of a supervisor, c.r of his coadjutor, the deputy Marshal. If it is pretended that by section 2029 the supervisors of election lor county or parish cannot make arrests, my answer is that the Section which I have just read, Section 5522, overrides all other provisions on this subject, and i» express words authorizes the instant arrest, without process, of every person who mav in any conceivable manner interfere with a supervisor or a deputy Marsh? 1 at any place of registration or election in .the

United States where by law such officers are entitled to be present. No cause need be assigned for the arrest, either verballv or in writing. No oath or affirition is required before the citizen is dragged awav and locked up. It i» only necessary lor the mind of the overseer or the deputy marshal to fix an offence upon a voter, however innocent he may be. and hi* arrest tollows instantaneomlv a* the explosion of powder follows the tou of fire. The silent, unspoken conclusions of irresponsible, ignorant and brutal partisan ruffians are permitted, and indeed required, by existing laws to determine every man's right to personal liberity as. he passes under their inspec tion at the polls. The language of the Constitution is: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effect*, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants sha'l issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.'

What becomes of tdese sacred provisions? Who will pretend that the laws under discussion are in harmony with them? Who win pretend that laws, by virtue of which the people may be seized for purelv imaginary offenses, or, what is even worse, for offensos created in the minds of malicious hireling spies and informers, and imprisoned without any accusation under oath, are sustained by the constitution? If such was the fact, if indeed the constitution did sanction such atrocious enactments, it would be conclusive proof thai the heroes of the revolution had died in vain, and that their blood was not shed in the cause of free government. Sir, these laws are not the offspring ol that great instrument which has descended to us with ev

increasing strength and glory from

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the days of our revolutionary ancestors. They emanate rather from that malignant spirit of political oppression and tyranny which preceded the French revolution, and caused its fires at last to break forth which filled the prisons of France with victims arrested on secret orders, and made every citizen tremble as one who fears a blow in the dark. They emanate from that spirit which rnled over Venice, when a whisper or a look of tuspicion was more to be dreaded than the blow of a dagger, and when the silent and voiceless accusation doomed its object to walk the Bridge of Sighs into the caverns of a ruthless and lingering death. In English history there never was a period in which they could have been executed. Charles the First Inst his head, James the Second his throne, and George* the Third his American colonies in attempting far less encroachments on the liberties of Englishmen than these laws perpetrate on the liberties of Americans. Dionvsius, the tyrant of Syracuse, suspended a sword by a single hair over the heads of his guests at a banquet, and enjoyed their terror. The party but yesterday in power in this chamber has suspended over the heads of the American people and put into operation in their midst enactments lar deadlier than the 6word for without the unassailable safeguards of personal liberty life itself is of no value. The Senator from Maine [Mr. Blainej has urged that opposition to these enactments is a false issue on the part of those who have not felt their cruel enforcement. He asserts that because the Federal election laws have not been called into active execution in some portions of the country, and troops have not been placed at the polls, therefore the people have no reison for resenttnen. The tories cf the Revolution argued the same way on the stamp act and the tax on tea. They insisted that the claim of right to bind the colonies in all things put forth by the British Parliament could do no harm, and ought to be submitted to as long as no attempt was made to enforce it. But it was that very claim of right which made the Revolution. It was not the amount of the tax collected, or even demanded, that caused the sword of Bunker Hill to be drawn. It was the naked assertion of a principle subversive of local self government which drove the ind kept the army of the Revolution in the field under Washington until American independence was secured. Our fathers were unwilling for a claim of despotic power to hang over them as a threat liable at any lime to be put in execution They revolted against the idea that they were to hold their rights subject only to the fotbearance of their rulers. Tney resented the menace of the British government contained in its declaration of power a6 they would a personal indignity. Burke, in his speech of Maich, 1775,

protest by

Virtue of hi6 authority as an omfcer of the State against being superseded and thrust aside, neither his age, his official character, nor the love and veneration of his neighbors will sheleter him from instant arrest and the horrible punishment which I have just described.

conciliation with America, thus

describes the coloni6t6: "In other countries the people, more simple and of a less mercurial cast, judge of an ill principle in government only by an actual grievance here they anticipate the evil, and judge of the pressure of the grievance by the badness of the principle. They augur misgovernment at a distance and snuff the approach of Ijmnn in every tainted breeze."

This was the sublime sentiment of liberty which inspired Jefferson and John Ajdarns, Patrick Henry and John Hancock which welded together the toilworn and destitute veterans of Virginia and Massachusetts in many a bitter and bloody charge.

Notwithstanding the derision Of the Senator from Maine, all history attests the danger of leaving instruments of usurpation and oppression ready for the use of those intrusted with executive authority. The usurper will cotne at last. The hour of his advent is inevitable. The temptations of supr me and arbitrary power have never yet failed to develop a Cic^ar, a Cromwell, or a Napoleon, whenener the .people have relaxed their vigilance and suffered their law 8 to pave the way toward derpotism.

But in the present instance we have vastly more than the mere menace or threat of future subjugation b* virtue of

the

laws under discussion. We are not left to conjecture what will be done hereafter. Already these laws have been executed over the prostrate forms and liberties of American citizens in a manner and to an extent which would arouse any people of Europe to revolt, except, perhaps the serfs of Russia. I speak not now of the South,which has so long been considered a legitimate prey to the spoiler, but of the great, dominant, and stalwart North. Look to New York, that inightv emporium of the wealth and commerce ot the western hemisphere. Scenes have been enacted there within the last few years which bring shame and disgrace to the Republic wherever they are known. John 1. Davenport is chief supervisor ot elections in the city of New York, appointed by the circuit court of the United States He is also clerk of the United States circuit court, and a United States commissioner. With all the power* of these manifold official positions combined in his own person he has indeed been the autocrat of the ballot-cox. In the elec tions of 1S76 he had under him one thous and and seventy supervisees, twenty-five hundred deputy-marshals, and an indefinite number of commissioners, at an expense for them and for himself .of 194,587.

In 1S78 he employed twelve hundred and twenty-five supervisors, thirteen hundred and fifty deputy marshals, and commissioners in proportion, for all whose pay and expenses he drew upon the money of the people in the Treasury.

In June,

1876, as clerk of the United

States circuit court, he issued warrants for the arrest of twenty-six hundred naturalized voters to be brought before him as United States commissioners and chief supervisor lor the purpose of making them surrender their naturalization papers. Tne Federal courts themselves afterward held that the naturalization papers in question were all legal and valid, but the desired result had been accomplished. The terror inspired by these arrests intimidat ed thousands from going to the polls. It became well known that there was no personal security in New York in connection with the elections, and the poor, the timid, and the humble staid awav. The same course was pursued in 1S78. During the summer of that vear nine thousand four hundred citizens were notified that they would be arrested unless they surrendered their

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naturalization papers to the head-over-seer. John I. Davenport. In the montn of October, 1S7S, thirty-one hundred persons were actually arrested, and a reign of terror inaugurated just in advance of the election. The pretense that these persons held fraudulent naturalization papers had already been shown to be false, but it was necessary to party sue-

Sir, most likely this soldier of the Union army was with Grant in the Wilderness, at Cold Harbor, and at Petersburg. Or perhaps he was with Sherman in his march to the sea, and as a soldier of the Army ot the Tennessee took part in the bloody battle at Atlanta.

Was he not impressed with the fact that the liberation of one race had been followed by the enslavement of another? What were his thoughts, and the thoughts of his fellow victims, who had also been his fellow-soldiers, as they lay like felons in prison, in "Fort Davenport," for offering to vote? How did their bitter thoughts in that hour of degredation compile with their glorious dreams as they often lay together on the tented field when their—* '..

Bugles sang trace for the night-cloud bad lowered, And the sentinel stars eet their watofa in the sky And thousands had sank on the graend overpowered,

Tbe weary to sleep, and the wounded to die.'- fkl, 4 1

In such an hour as this they dreamed not only of returning to the dear ones at home, of their rapturous, clingin cmbrace, and burning kiss, but they likewise dreamed of returning to a land of liberty, to homes made free from the invasive

steps

of the spy and infor.tier, and to a state of personal security under laws of their own making. These bright dreams have all vanished, and in thtir place the returned soldier, and all others, have embraced a reality as horrible and at unbearable to the soul of a man lit to be free as Dante's conceptions of Ir.ferno are to the Christian mind. T^e following description of election day in Davenport's court in New York is said to be but a tame and imperfect presentment of the facts as they there transpire from year to ear as the elections occur: "Such a scene a# the rooms-of this court presented on that election dav has never before been witnessed in this city or in this country, and it is to he hooed never will again. From early morning' until after the polls were closed these 'ct*. rooms were packed and jammed with a. mass of prisoners and marshals. Not only were they crowded beyond their

Commissioner John

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cess that an alarm should be raised and a panic created in the minds of foreignborn citizens and of the poor laboring classes generally.

The movement was successful, a.id it has been estimated that ten thousand legal voters remained away from the polls rather than risk the jails and the prison-pens of the chicf supervisor and his subordinates. But it was reserved for the day of election itself to give free scope to the frightful powers with which this band of Federal kuklux is invested. Those who braved the dangers which environed the ballot box, and ap- 4 proached it as if they were still freetfcen, soon found their mistake. Theyqjickly ascertained that the previous threats and warnings which they had heard were neither idle nor unmeaning. As a specimen of thousands of similar occurrences on election day, I quote a statements recently mad by a member of the other branch of Congress from New York. Speaking from nis place on the floor, he 6aid: "A neighbor of mine, who had resided in the same district for seventeen years, and a soldier of the Union Army at that, was arrested. I was asked to go to the Republican headquarters in an adjoining district, whither he had been taken. The sfreet for an entire block waa lined with carriages, in which the unfortunate citizens who had fallen iuto the hands of the Philistines had been or were to be conveyed. When I entered the building I,found the front room decorated with the paiaphernalia of a political, headquarters, and tilled with Republican politicians. In the back room.a United States commissioner was holding court. The door was closed, watched by a Cerberus. No one was allowed inside but the prisoners and the Republican managers. Alter about half an hour's waiting I was informed by the doorkeeper that the man I was looking fur was no longer there. A asked whither he had been taken. 'Suppose to Fort Davenport,' was thj laconic reply."

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capacity, but the halls and corridors were thronged with those who were unable tO|,^' obtain admission, so that the counsel. representing the prisoners and the bonds.' men who wer* offered to secure their re as ad he re at if culty, and were frequently unsuccessf j1 4] in obtaining entrance. In addition to all this was that delectable iron^ "pen" on the upper floor, in which men-

were crowded until it resembled the, black hole of Calcutta, and where they were kept for hours hungry, thirsty, sufferingin every way, until their ca«escould be reached. Withscarcrly an exception,'1 these n.en had gone to the polle" expecting to be absent but a short time. Many of them were thinly clad numbers had 1, sick wives or relatives some were sick themselves. There were carmen who",^ had left their horses standing in the public streets men whose situation* dependea oa their speed /'re^-A turn men who wished^ leave the city on certain traine. Every imaginable vexation, inconvenience, injury, and wrong which the mir.d can -f' conceive existed in their cases, so that it J' was painful for the counsel who were endeavoring to secure their reiease to Approach sufficiently near tbe railing to hear their piteous appeals and witness the distress which they had no power to '•alleviate. And over all this pushing, i, in a in in

Davenport sat

supreme, with a sort of oriental magnificence, calmly indifferent to everything but the single fact that no man who was arrested was allowed to vote.

May 1 not, in view of this dark and shameful picture, appeal to Senators,without impropriety to know whither we are drifting? Are we still hugging the miserable delusion that there is no dan

ger,

while scen^ are being enacted in strict accordance with the laws on our statute-books which would be a disgrace to Turkish civilization if enacted by the

IWntlnaei .on .Sixth Pige]