SPEECH- CLEVELAND 1872 
 
 sirtpeeta ee esitites Sephee Ay Uiaene erenerresiesesers EE PAA TE ROY ERIN ENE AOE 
 
LIBRARY 
 @HIO STATE UNIVERSITY 
 
Soe ED Fa 
 
 HON. ALPHONSO TAFT. 
 
 DELIVERED AT CLEVELAND, OHIO, 
 
 POLI MS Ee 6.340 8:7,0). 
 
 Feittow Cirmens oF CLEVELAND: 
 
 - Once more I stand before the people of Cleveland, to declare the 
 Republican truth as it applies to the present hour. It so happens, that 
 
 “I have been several times assigned to Cleveland, by the Republican 
 
 Executive Committees. Whether it be, that they have some inkling 
 of my partiality for your fair city, or ofa corresponding sentiment on 
 your part, I can not pretend to say. 
 
 Fellow citizens, in my judgment, the principles of the Republican 
 party were never more important than at the present time. This 
 organization has had great responsibility from the very time of its 
 origin. Every year has brought with it some great and necessary 
 duty for the Republican party to perform, and it is gratifying to re- 
 flect that it has generally performed those duties when and where 
 they have been made manifest, and left the consequences to the Ruler 
 of the Universe. Thus it has happened that, for the last eighteen 
 years the Republican standard has been seen in the front of every 
 battle on this continent for human liberty and equal rights. It has 
 been an emblem of knowledge to the ignorant, and of hope to the 
 down-trodden. It has brought schools to the poor and the lowly, and 
 the dusky freedmen haye looked up to it for protection in the exercise 
 of their dear bought, but perilous right to vote. 
 
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2 
 
 We can not afford to lower that standard now. No! Let us 
 rather raise it still higher, until the right to vote shall be equally 
 secure in the town and in the country, in the South and in the North. 
 It is a greater crime to defraud the voter of his ballot than to rob him 
 of his money. When the American people shall become convinced that 
 honest elections can not be had, which God grant may never be, faith 
 in Republican institutions will fail. 
 
 Our Republican party has been a positive force in this country from 
 its beginning. It came into power only when it was wanted. It 
 was born of resistance to the extension of slavery. The irrepressible 
 ambition of the slave power had affected all departments of our gov- 
 ernment. 
 
 In 1820, it triumphed, by getting Congress to enact what was 
 known as the Missouri compromise. When Missouri had become well set- 
 tled with slavery, and the time came for settling other Territories, and 
 admitting other new states, the South was no longer satisfied with that 
 part of the Missouri compromise which limited slavery by the line of 
 36° 30’ north latitude. Aided by its northern allies, it urged Congress 
 into the adoption of squatter sovereignty. 
 
 It boldly crossed the compromise line, and tried the tremendous 
 experiment of subjecting Kansas to its power. Finally it mastered 
 the Supreme Court of the United States, and obtained the Dred Scott 
 decision, by which all compromise lines were declared null and void, 
 and the dominion of slavery was made coextensive with the Territo- 
 ries of the United States, whether North, or South. 
 
 From these mighty wrongs, the Republican party took its birth. 
 Like the Goddess Minerva, it sprang into being full grown, and 
 armed. It elected Abraham Lincoln. Then came _ secession, 
 and there was no other power to put it down, but this new born 
 Republican party. The majority of the Democrats were insur- 
 gent, or in sympathy with the insurrection, and the minority were 
 paralyzed. This Republican organization, invested as it then was, with 
 Federal power, recognized the duty of the hour, invoked the God of 
 battles, and suppressed the rebellion. Nor did it shrink from the per- 
 formance of other duties, made necessary by the paramount obligation 
 to maintain the government of the Union against treason and rebel- 
 lion. It created the currency for the war, and incurred the necessary 
 debt. It has reduced the war debt. It has now reduced the interest 
 on that debt by the issuing and selling ‘of 4 per cent. bonds, saving 
 thereby many millions of money every year to the public Treasury. 
 For this the Secretary of the Treasury, under whose skillful conduct 
 
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 it was done, is entitled to our thanks and our confidence. The credit of 
 this country under the Republican administration has been preserved, 
 and is now unsurpassed and impregnable. 
 
 The United States has had most, if not all the diseases of young 
 nations, and has thus proved the soundness and the strength of our 
 National Constitution. We have had party conflicts, fierce and 
 strong. We have had rebellions, small and great, and have reduced 
 them all to obedience. We ‘have had our continental money and our 
 greenbacks. We have created a respectable national debt, and 
 have funded it judiciously, as a powerful nation should do. We have 
 had our bonds in foreign markets, and have, in due time, brought 
 them home, and now, instead of being, as the learned financiers of 
 Europe have superciliously said, internationally poor, we have become, 
 by their own rule, internationally rich. After having been long 
 accustomed to have the balance of trade against us, we have lived to 
 see that balance turned in our favor, and are now receiving from 
 abroad nearly $300,000,000 a year, as the difference which foreign 
 nations pay us in such medium as they can best spare, whether it be 
 in our obligations, in goods, or in gold. We say of a child, when it 
 has had the chicken pox, the mumps, the measles, and perhaps the 
 scarlet fever, and recovered from them all, that it has a fair prospect 
 of good health and long life. The United States has survived the 
 want of population, the want of domestic manufactures, the want of 
 money, and the want of credit. It has survived insurrection, rebellion 
 and foreign war; and it now stands firm in its history as a nation, 
 with a prospect of great prosperity and perpetuity. 
 
 Under the auspices of the Republican administration, the resump- 
 tion of specie payments has been accomplished, and every paper 
 dollar is convertible into a dollar of gold or silver. Al! the people 
 have the same currency. The bondholders get no better money than 
 the farmers, manufacturers and workingmen. This is what we have 
 long waited for. “‘ Many have died without the sight.” We have lived 
 to see all the money, ofall the people, equally good, 
 
 But itis not the Democratic party who have done this. As a party 
 they have opposed it; and the great financial question between that 
 party and ours is, whether we shall go back again to irredeemable 
 paper, or stand firmly by our currency of gold and silver, supplemented 
 as it is, with convertible paper. 
 
 Gentlemen, our record is clear and consistent. The period in which 
 our party has controlled the destinies of the republic, has been the 
 most brilliant in its history. We stand boldly on our whole record. 
 
4 
 
 Before the war, in the war, and since the war, our party has been 
 direct and positive in its methods and purposes. It has never changed 
 its position, but has steadily aimed to perpetuate our Union and our 
 Republican government. It is not so with the Democratic party. It 
 can not stand upon its whole record. It would have to stand in too 
 many different places, and look in too many different directions, at one 
 and the same time. For instance, it would have to be both for, and 
 against the issue of greenbacks; both for, and against all the three 
 constitutional amendments which grew out of the war, and on both 
 sides of every great measure, originated and carried through by the 
 Republicans. 
 
 They did not succeed in repealing the election laws.in 1876. They 
 tried desperately, but were stopped by the Republican Senate. They 
 never will forgive the Republican party for their loss of that election. 
 Some of the intimidated Republicans were protected, and dared to 
 vote—and some of the Democratic intimidators and repeaters failed to 
 get in their work according to the programme, and the Democracy, 
 North and South, were furious at the result. 
 
 The Forty-fifth Congress, with its Democratic House of Representa- 
 tives, tried the same thing, and refused to grant the supplies to carry 
 on the government, looking forward to the time when both houses of 
 the Forty-sixth Congress would be in the hands of the Democracy. 
 The struggle has been continuous, from the moment the Democratic 
 party gained power in the House of Representatives, to remove the 
 restrictions upon the commission of frauds at the election of members 
 of Congress and Presidential Electors. 
 
 The present Congress, controlled as it is by the champions of State 
 sovereignty, is trying to strip the United States Government of the 
 power to execute its own laws; to take away the power which belongs 
 to every republican government—the power to keep the peace at its 
 own elections. 
 
 State rights are as dear to Republicans, as to Democrats. But 
 the egotistical heresy which has been called by that name, we ab- 
 hor. By this fatal heresy, it was claimed that States could secede from 
 the Union, and could nullify the operation of acts of Congress within 
 their limits. By the same token, it is now claimed that the State only, 
 has the function of regulating and controlling the elections of members 
 of Congress, and that the United States, within the sacred limits of a 
 sovereign State, is to be regarded either as a guest, or an intruder, 
 
 Gen. Ewing, in his speech at Music Hall, after some railing accusa- 
 tions against the Republican party, exclaimed, ‘‘ But States yet stand 
 
5 
 
 untouched.” ‘States to whom our fathers, in framing the Con- 
 stitution, reserved the vast mass of the powers of the government, 
 giving but little, comparatively, only enough for the purposes of 
 the actual and necessary welfare, to the general government.” 
 ‘‘The next move,” he says, “toward the destruction of popular 
 government — toward empire —is to undermine these fortresses 
 of American liberty. We hear now the doctrine preached, unknown 
 and unheard of ever heretofore in America, that there is no such thing 
 as State rights.” 
 
 Where he has heard such doctrine preached, it is not easy to imag- 
 ine. It certainly is not a Republican doctrine. While we may not 
 be so anxious as he seems to be, to belittle the powers which our fathers, 
 by the Constitution, conferred upon the general government, we have 
 always recognized and maintained the ample powers reserved to the 
 States. 
 
 It is proper here, to state the plain distinction existing between the 
 separate spheres of operation of the State, and the United States 
 governments. The State government has ample powers for the 
 administration and control of State affairs. Its jurisdiction is domestic 
 and not foreign. It is local, and in general is limited in its operation 
 to its own boundaries. It concerns the enforcement of its own laws. 
 It provides laws against perjury, forgery, counterfeiting, riot, theft, 
 arson, robbery, murder; against the violation of the safety and order 
 of families; against the violation of the municipal regulations of its 
 towns, villages, and cities; against the violation of its election laws. 
 These and many other legislative provisions belong to the State gov- 
 ernment. In some things, the State authority is concurrent with that 
 of the United States. In regard to those subjects which belong to 
 the State governments exclusively, the United States has no 
 concern or power, unless the State government shall find its 
 authority threatened and liable to be overpowered by violence, and 
 shall call upon the general government for assistance, in which case it 
 may be the duty of the general government to call forth the militia of 
 the States, or to use the army or navy to suppress such insurrection or 
 violence. Now, whoever by unlawful force resists the execution of 
 the laws of the State, breaks the peace of the State. Whoever by 
 force deprives citizens of their rights as citizens, or as voters, com- 
 mits a breach of the peace. The peace which a State, is charged 
 with maintaining, is obedience to its laws against unlawful violence. 
 Hence, the courts of the United States do not take jurisdiction of a 
 murder committed in a State. Ordinarily, riot, or theft, or robbery, 
 
6 
 
 or murder are crimes against the laws of the State, and not of the 
 United States. Even the Ku Klux, who banded together to intimidate 
 and commit violence against colored citizens, either to prevent them 
 from assembling together, or to prevent them from bearing arms, and 
 committed a murder in so dving, were not amenable to the tribunals 
 of the United States for murder. The United States Government 
 does not assume to administer the criminal laws of a State. Their 
 criminal jurisdiction is confined to crimes against the national govern- 
 ment. 
 
 But there isa sphere as distinct and well defined, which belongs to the 
 United States, though within the geographical limits of a State, over 
 which the executive, the legislative, and the judicial departments of 
 the general government exercise national power. It sends the mail to 
 every town in every State, and delivers it to every inhabitant, and 
 protects its own agents from all interference. State authorities can 
 not opposeit. If they should attempt to obstruct the mail, they would 
 be subject to indictment and punishment by the United States courts, 
 and there is not sovereignty enough in any State, to save them. Al- 
 though the mail is delivered within the limits of the State, the State 
 has no control over it, nor any business to meddle withit. And of 
 the violations of the Postoffice laws committed within a State, the 
 Federal courts alone have jurisdiction. The United States Court 
 which tries a thief who has stolen letters or money from the mail in 
 Ohio, and the State Court which tries any other thief, are alike at 
 home. The State government has no more right to turn the Federal 
 government out, than the Federal government has to turn out the 
 State. They are both at home on the same soil. Neither can in any 
 sense be regarded as an intruder. Each has the right and the duty 
 to attend to its own business in its own way, and if either becomes 
 conceited and undertakes to dictate to the other, it may excite bad 
 blood and cause some commotion, but it cannot change the law or the 
 Constitution, and will sooner or later have to subside, and mind its 
 own business. 
 
 The Federal government protects the ingenuity of its citizens, in 
 whatever State they may reside, by granting patents for their inven- 
 tions, and into whatever State the patentee may go, to make, or vend, 
 or use his invention, he is acting under and by the authority of the 
 national government, and no State authority can hinder him. 
 
 The national government levies its tax on whisky, and its agents 
 inspect the whisky and collect the tax, asking no leave of any func- 
 tionary of the State. The Collector of the Revenue of the United 
 
7 
 
 States in Cleveland, is just as much at home in Cleveland, as is the 
 Treasurer of your city, and the same is true of the United States officer 
 in Charleston, 8. C., or in New Orleans, or in any other city, or State 
 of the Union. Any man who obstructs the Federal officers in the 
 collection of the revenue, or defrauds the government of the taxes, is 
 punishable by the Federal courts. 
 
 It has been for some years regarded in the mountain regions of Ken- 
 tucky, Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia as one of the State rights 
 to have free whisky—that is, to-make whisky without paying the 
 government tax. When tried for violation of the revenue laws, these 
 people complain of the tyranny of the general government. But no 
 State court, or Governor can intervene. They are answerable to the 
 general government, which is their government, as truly as is the par- 
 ticular State in which they live. ~The United States makes war 
 and peace, and treats with foreign nations, and no State can interfere. 
 It raises and supports the army and the navy, and no State has such 
 power. 
 
 Now, there is no function more essential to the safety and 
 usefulness of this general government, than the regulation of the 
 election of its legislators. This power would belong to it, as 
 truly and naturally as the regulation of the mails and the revenue 
 agencies, if there were no express provision to that effect in the Con- 
 stitution. But there is express power given by the Constitution to 
 Congress, ‘‘by law, to make or alter regulations” as to “the times, 
 places, and manner of holding elections for Representatives.” 
 
 If Congress does not act, the State regulations are adopted. But 
 Congress has found it necessary to use its power, to ‘‘make and alter” 
 the regulations for the election of members of Congress. It found 
 that it could not rely on the State authorities, to prevent frauds and 
 violence at the polls. Hence, those election laws which the Demo- 
 cratic State rights party are trying to repeal, laws which Congress had 
 the same right to pass, as they have to pass laws for the assessment 
 and collection of taxes on whisky in whatever sovereign State it may 
 be. Congress, therefore, has now made some important regulations of 
 its Congressional elections, and it has many other duties, as we have 
 seen, all of which are to be performed within the States and Territories 
 of the United States. In the performance of these duties it enacts laws 
 for the enforcement of the rights of all its citizens. Whoever by 
 force, violates the rights of citizens under these laws, breaks the peace 
 of the United States, as clearly as the robber breaks the peace of the 
 State. It is therefore a great mistake and a confusion of ideas, when 
 
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 8 
 
 the State rights champions proclaim that the States only have author- 
 ity to keep the peace. 
 
 A government that has not the power by a HR to enforce its own 
 laws, is not a sovereignty. That was precisely the difficulty with the 
 old confederation which preceded our constitutional government, that 
 it could not enforce its own decrees. Its laws had no sanction, and 
 therefore were not respected. Hence, the second recourse to the peo- 
 ple; and hence, the general government of the United States was 
 formed under our present Constitution. 
 
 These champions of State sovereignty had sought out many inven- 
 tions previous to 1861. The right of secession was their strong point. 
 Their teaching culminated in the rebellion. We had hoped that the 
 logic of the sword, to which they then appealed, would put an end to 
 their theories. But a more direct blow has never been aimed at the 
 foundation of our general government, than this attempt to take away 
 its power to protect itself from fraud and unlawful force at the polls. 
 It goes upon the idea, that the general government isa stranger within 
 the boundaries of a State, and enters them by permission only, or by 
 force—that the United States government may help the State on its 
 request, to keep its peace, but has no peace of its own to keep. In 
 short, that our fathers having tried the confederation of States and 
 found it wanting, attempted to form a national government, but only 
 succeeded in making another confederation. 
 
 Gentlemen, the United States Government is as sovereign as any 
 government on earth. It is at home in every State and Territory, 
 and on every foot of ground between the Atlantic and the Pacific. 
 Its laws, made in pursuance of the Constitution, are supreme, and the 
 President is clothed with the power, and is charged with the duty, to 
 enforce their execution. President Hayes will never sign any act, to 
 divest himself of his constitutional power to enforce the laws, and 
 keep the peace of the United States at the polls, as well as elsewhere. 
 His veto messages have placed the whole matter clearly and strongly 
 on the true and only ground. And the Republican party will stand 
 by him, shoulder to shoulder, in his resistance to those desperate 
 efforts to degrade our great and benign national government, to a 
 miserable confederacy of wrangling States. 
 
 It may seem to you a waste of breath to discuss so plain a proposi- 
 tion as that the United States Government is national, with full 
 authority to enforce and defend, and execute its own laws. Lest you ~ 
 should think we are fighting a shadow, I will quote a few passages 
 from a leading orator on the other side. Mr. Carlisle, M. C., from 
 
9 
 
 Kentucky, who made what was considered as one of the ablest, if not 
 the very best speech in favor of repealing the election laws, said, 
 ‘‘that the several Deputy Marshals of the United States were sent 
 there (to the polls) for the ostensible purpose of preserving what is 
 called by the late Attorney-General, ‘the peace of the United 
 States.” To protect the voter before the election in his personal 
 freedom, and to see that he ig not molested before the election on ac- 
 count of any vote that he may be about to give, or after the election 
 on account of any vote he may have already given.” He says: ‘It 
 will be seen also that Mr. Taft claimed that it was the duty of these 
 officers to preserve ‘the peace of the United States,’ a thing which he 
 ventured to say was never heard of till this document was promul- 
 gated.” He then proceeds at considerable length, greater than it is 
 proper for me to follow on this occasion, to show that the United States, 
 has no peace to preserve, and that the only peace that can be preserved 
 is the peace of the State. He concluded with these words: “ I sub- 
 mit it without further comment to the consideration of gentlemen who 
 are contending for the power of special Deputy Marshals to keep the 
 peace and preserve order in a State on the day of election, or any other 
 day, that they can have no such power, and any attempt to confer it 
 on them is simply an attempt to usurp the rightful authority of the 
 State.” 
 
 This is but a brief outline of the persistent and oft repeated argu- 
 ments of the champions of the so called State sovereignty, to show that 
 the United States Government was not rightfully in the States for any 
 purpose of keeping peace, and that the whole authority and assump- 
 tion by the United States Government to protect its own polis by 
 Supervisors and Marshals, was a usurpation. They put together 
 some scraps from opinions of the courts, asserting that the States are 
 responsible for the general order and peace of the community, to pre- 
 vent murder, or theft, or robbery, or arson within the jurisdiction of 
 the State governments; and on those assertions claim to exclude the 
 United States Government from all right to execute its own laws, or 
 to protect itself against fraud at the polls in the election of members 
 of Congress, intent upon reducing the government of the United States 
 to a condition of dependency upon the local power of the States, and 
 forgetting that our fathers commeaced the Constitution with these sig- 
 nificant words: ‘‘ We, the people of the United States, in order to form 
 a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, 
 provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and 
 secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain 
 and establish this Constitution of the United States of America.” 
 
10 
 
 This Constitution was “formed” by ‘the people of the United 
 States,” not as mere representatives of State sovereignties, but in their 
 natural capacity as citizens of the United States. Their objects were 
 well expressed in this preamble, ‘In order to form a more perfect union,” 
 than had been accomplished by the Articles of Confederation—an inti- 
 mate union of the people, instead of a political partnership of States. 
 ** Establish justice.” How? By the United States Courts, whose juris- 
 diction should not be subordinate to State prejudices or local passions, 
 and which should administer the laws of the United States enacted 
 under that Constitution, as supreme. ‘ Insure domestic tranquillity.” 
 How? By guaranteeing to each State a republican form of govern- 
 ment, and protecting it against domestic violence. © “‘ Provide for the 
 common defense.” In what manner? By assuming the construction 
 and maintaining of forts and fortresses, and ships of war, and manning 
 
 them with an adequate army and navy, and providing such other 
 means of common defense against attacks from abroad, as the situation 
 of the whole country may require. 
 
 ‘* Promote the general welfare.” And how was that to be done, but by 
 consulting the general interest of the whole nation, as distinguished 
 from the peculiar local interest of any State, and paramount to it. 
 And, 
 
 “ Secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity,’—by a 
 Constitution which shall secure the largest human liberty, consistent 
 with social order and a permanent government. 
 
 All this was done” by the people themselves, who ‘ordained and 
 established this Constitution of the United States of America,” as the 
 fundamental law of a nation of freemen. 
 
 This preamble and the Constitution did not ignore the States, nor 
 destroy them, but reserving for them ample powers and duties for the 
 government of their own affairs, formed a national government of the 
 people of the United States, with powers and duties of a national 
 character, whose laws, enacted in pursuance of the Constitution, 
 should be supreme. 
 
 To an unsophisticated citizen of the free States of the North, where 
 slavery and its consequences are practically unknown, it is difficult to 
 understand the depth and perversity of the egotism of so called State 
 rights. It was the outgrowth of slavery. It became a household 
 sentiment, in that part of the country where this institution flourished. 
 It formed the pretense, for keeping the rest of the world from looking 
 into the mysteries of slavery, which its advocates declared was 
 religiously right, but which the rest of the world believed was diabolic- 
 
11 
 
 ally wrong. They, therefore, cherished no sentiment so strong as this, 
 that their State was their political castle, into which no power on 
 earth should be permitted to peer; and that even the general govern- 
 ment of the United States should be excluded from their boundaries, 
 as far as possible. Gentlemen, this fatal heresy, which sprung from a 
 conscious wrong against humanity, ana whick inspired the audacious 
 pretensions, that a State had the right to nullify an act of Congress 
 without even taking the judgment of the Supreme Court thereon, or 
 to secede from the Union at its own sweet will, and which now holds 
 that State rights men have the right of bulldozing the negroes to vote 
 as they wish, or not to vote at all, of using tissue ballots, and of count- 
 ing in or out whom they please, without the scrutiny of the national 
 Supervisors or Marshals—all under the name of State rights, and 
 which has so often, and so recently, broken out among the Confederate 
 Brigadiers in Congress, has not been cured by the war of the rebel- 
 lion, nor by the reconstruction after the rebellion. 
 
 Let our deportment be conciliatory, and just. These men are 
 not more perverse than others might be under like influences. 
 The civilization of slavery had its peculiarities. It had its charms. It 
 gave great social, as well as political power to the ruling class. But, if 
 the government of the United States shall surrender any of its con- 
 stitutional powers, in order to conciliate this perverse sentiment, in the 
 hope that these Southern champions of so called State rights, will 
 relent, and waive some of their political dogmas, it will take the fear- 
 ful responsibility of leaving its own friends ‘‘ naked to their enemies.” 
 
 For one, I am glad that the administration has become satisfied 
 with the experiment which it has recently tried on that subject, and is 
 now ‘‘stalwart”’ enough to insist on retaining its power to execute the 
 laws of the United States. Some of us have felt that no such exper- 
 iment was necessary—that nothing could justify the abandonment of 
 Southern Republicans, through whose efforts and sacrifices, Republican 
 success had been made possible—in order to conciliate the Democrats 
 who had plotted for its defeat. 
 
 I feel peculiarly interested in this campaign, for the reason 
 that we have all come to the same opinion—that it is our duty 
 to resist the repeal of the laws for the protection of the citizens of the 
 United States, wherever they are, and to resist the further attempt to 
 repeal or defeat the laws for the safety and purity of its elections. I 
 trust that in the future we shall feel that it is not only our solemn duty 
 to prevent the repeal of those laws, but to enforce them at whatever 
 hazard. Protection and support between government and people are 
 
’ 
 
 12 
 
 mutual. If the government fails to protect them, the citizens, sooner 
 or later, will fail to support the faithless government that rules them, 
 and taxes them, and drafts them into its military service, but fails to 
 protect them in their dearest rights. 
 
 The fact that slavery had created an aristocracy, which lived in compar- 
 ative ease, rendered that, kind of State rights more and more dear to the 
 class who were enjoying the luxury of the situation. But what sur- 
 prises us is that after their impracticable theories had been overthrown, 
 as we had hoped forever, these men come forth with the same old 
 political dogmas as before. In some respects they go quite beyond 
 their old masters. Calhoun never thought of taking away the con- 
 stitutional power of the President to execute the laws of the Union. 
 This was left for the generation who survived the war of the rebellion. 
 
 If they desire again to rebel or to evade the execution of the 
 national laws, it is not difficult to understand why they insist 
 upon depriving the President of his constitutional command of the 
 army and navy, and his power, when the laws of the United States 
 are resisted by force, to call them to assist the civil power. We can 
 even understand why Mr. Carlisle, and politicians of his school, should 
 ignore ‘‘ the peace of the United States ” 
 
 But the general government has met resistance to the laws by mili- 
 tary force under Presidents of every school of politics; nor is it a 
 novelty that the United States Marshals should embody the posse 
 comitatus to meet such resistance, or that the soldiers within their 
 respective districts should form a part of such posse. 
 
 The whisky rebellion in Pennsylvania was put down by George 
 Washington. Dorr’s rebellion in Rhode Island was put down by John 
 Tyler. The tariff nullification in South Carolina was put down by 
 Gen. Jackson, and the great rebellion of 1861 was overthrown under 
 the administration of Abraham Lincoln. All these instances involved 
 the right of the President to call forth the militia of the States or the 
 military forces of the nation. There have been many other instances 
 in which the military has been called upon to aid in the enforcement 
 of the civil authority where that authority has been resisted by mob 
 or insurrectionary violence that could not be otherwise suppressed. 
 The use of troops in Kansas in the time of Mr. Buchanan, is a signal 
 instance of the exercise of executive power under a Democratic 
 President. 
 
 Marshals have frequently had occasion to call out a posse comitatus 
 to enforce the laws against resistance to national authority. A noted 
 case was that of the slave Burns, in Boston, when the authority of 
 
13 
 
 the Marshal in returning Burns to his master, was resisted. Another 
 similar case occurred in Wisconsin, in which Mr. Cushing, the Attor- 
 ney General under John Tyler, declared that the call upon the military 
 as part of his posse comitatus by the Marshal was lawful, and that the 
 expenses should be paid by the government. 
 
 There is no law more sacred than that which protects the voter in the 
 exercise of his franchise. If such a law is resisted by force, there can be 
 no excuse for permitting such resistance to be successful, but inability to 
 prevent it. 
 
 But the Democrats, by what they eall their act ‘to prevent military 
 interference at elections,’ which was vetoed, made an exception of 
 election days. On all other days, week days, Sundays, and holidays, 
 the government was permitted to retain its legitimate power to keep the 
 peace, and to use adequate force to overcome resistance to the laws of 
 the United States. But on election days, when the occasion for its use 
 is most likely to occur, the power is taken away from the general gov- 
 ernment, while the State is left in exclusive possession. 
 
 It is claimed, that the enforcement of the election laws through the 
 Marshals in 1876, and in Cincinnati in 1878, has been condemned by the 
 Supreme Court of the United States as unconstitutional. If that is 
 true, there needs no repeal of a law that is null. The opinion of 
 the court was given in the case of The United States vs. Reese, 92 U. 
 S. f., 214. The case arose upon an indictment against two of the 
 inspectors of a municipal election in Kentucky, for refusing to receive 
 and count at such election, the vote of William Garner, a citizen of 
 the United States of African descent. 
 
 The court examined and passed upon the first, second, third, and 
 fourth sections of the act of 1870, which were intended by Congress as 
 “‘appropriate legislation,” to enforce the 15th amendment to the Con- 
 stitution. That amendment provides—first, that ‘‘ The right of citizens 
 of the United States to vote, shall not be denied or abridged by the 
 United States, or by any State, on account of race, color, or previous 
 condition of servitude ;” and second, “That the Congress may enforce 
 this article by appropriate legislation.” 
 
 The case arose out of a purely State election, over which Congress 
 had no right whatever, except by the 15th amendment. If it at- 
 tempted to go beyond the scope of that amendment, its legislation was 
 not appropriate, nor valid. The court held that the law was too broad, 
 as it provided “that any inspector or other officer of election who shall 
 wrongfully refuse to receive and count the vote of any citizen, shall for 
 every such offense forfeit and pay,” etc. he 15th amendment de- 
 
14 
 
 clares that the right to vote shall not be denied to any citizen “on ac- 
 count of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” The court held 
 that as the act of Congress undertook to. regulate the right to vote 
 generally, and was not limited to the denial of the right ‘‘ on account 
 of color,” etc., it trenched upon the authority of the States. It was not 
 ‘appropriate legislation” therefore, to enforce the constitutional pro- 
 vision, and was void. The defendants escaped the punishment they 
 deserved, for want of ‘appropriate legislation” to enforce the amend- 
 ment at State elections. 
 
 But this case did not arise upon an election of members of Congress, 
 who are legislators of the Federal government. The court, to pre- 
 vent the willful mistake into which politicians have fallen, went out of 
 its way to say that the effect of ‘article 1, section 4. of the Constitu- 
 tion, in respect to the election of Senators aud Representatives, was 
 not then under consideration.” It was simply considering the right of 
 Congress to enforce the 15th amendment, in the election of State 
 officers. There has been no decision of the Supreme Court impeach- 
 ing the validity of the acts of Congress for the protection of voters at 
 the election of members of Congress, and no such decision is likely to 
 be made, unless that court should fall into the hands of the Confederate 
 Brigadiers, as both houses of Congress seem to have done, in which 
 event, something like the Dred Scott decision might’ possibly be 
 repeated. 
 
 No such question has hitherto been raised, or taken to that court, a 
 circumstance that would be most remarkable, if there had been any 
 hope of success. No, gentlemen, they have no ground for their out- 
 ery against the constitutionality of these laws, or of the proceedings 
 under them; and their conduct, which speaks louder than their 
 words declares that they know it. 
 
 Now, as the 15th amendment of the Constitution does not 
 enforce itself, but requires ‘appropriate legislation” on the part of 
 Congress, to give it effect in the Southern States, at the State elections, 
 the colored citizens of the South, at present, can have no protection 
 against disfranchisement at their own State elections. The decision of 
 the Supreme Court was rendered in 1876, since which time the House 
 of Representatives has been in the hands of Democrats. Colored 
 voters can not look to a Democratie Congress for ‘‘appropriate legisla- 
 tion” to secure the right of citizens under the 15th amendment to 
 vote at State elections, without distinction of ‘race, color, or previous 
 condition of servitude.” When the Republicans shall again control 
 both houses of Congress, and not till then, can the colored citizens of 
 
“15 
 
 the Southern States hope to have this great amendment made effective, 
 to give them their constitutional right to vote at State elections. 
 
 Fellow citizens, it is an error to suppose that the appointment of 
 Deputy Marshals to assist in the enforcement of the election laws is a 
 military appointment, or increases the use of military power. Ifa Mar- 
 shal or a Sheriff meets with forcible resistance, he may embody a 
 posse. That is not a military proceeding. It is a civil proceeding. 
 But his posse may include such persons as are within his jurisdiction, 
 whether civilians or soldiers, This is not peculiar to Marshals in 
 keeping the peace at congressional elections, but is a necessary 
 power of both Marshals and Sheriffs, as officers of the peace. 
 
 The outery against the Marshals, and against the military being 
 called upon on proper occasions, to keep the peace, is groundless and 
 absurd. We have but a handful of men in our peace establishment, 
 compared with the extent and population of the country. It is em- 
 ployed in overcoming resistance to the laws, and in keeping the peace 
 on our interminable frontiers, while our navy is wanted to police the 
 ocean. 
 
 The characteristic of a government as distinguished from a league or 
 confederation of States, is that it has power to enforce its own laws 
 by the use of all its forces when necessary. If the laws are resisted 
 with force, that force must be overcome, and a government such as 
 the United States is, has power to do it, even to the extent of using 
 the military. It must be so, or it would fail of its mission. The 
 attempt of the present Congress, therefore, to take away that power 
 was a blow aimed at the heart of the general government. 
 
 The framers of the Constitution knew what was necessary to make 
 a good government, and provided that whenever resistance to any law 
 of the United States should become too great to be otherwise over- 
 powered, force should be applied under the Constitution and laws. 
 This is precisely the difficulty with Democrats in Congress. They 
 wish to make an exception in the case of the election laws, and to 
 have all resistance to those laws left to the States. If the election 
 laws are to remain in force, then the power to enforce them should 
 remain. The election laws which provide for Supervisors, and give 
 the Marshals power to appoint special Deputies, were made necessary 
 by the enormous frauds in New York and other cities, and by the 
 frauds and intimidation in the Southern States. 
 
 The Supervisors are by the law authorized to observe what is done 
 by the officers of election in receiving and counting the votes. Their 
 duties are harmless, and need to annoy nobody who is willing to have 
 
16 
 
 an honest election. The law requires the appointment of the two 
 Supervisors from different parties, and this the courts have carried 
 out. In Cincinnati last year, the Court, in precincts where the Demo- 
 crats refused to serve, took one from the Republican, and one from 
 the National or Socialist party. 
 
 The Constitution, and the laws enacted under it, give to the gov- 
 ernment expressly, all the powers which we have ever claimed for 
 the execution of the laws. By the Constitution (art. 1, sec. 8, ch. 
 13), ‘Congress has power to provide for calling forth the militia, to 
 execute the laws of the United States, suppress insurrection, and repel 
 invasion.” 
 
 Art. 2, sec. 2, ch. 1: ‘The President is the Commander-in-Chief 
 of the army and navy; and of the militia of the several States when 
 called into active service.” 
 
 “ He shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” 
 
 Art. 4, sec. 4.: ‘The United States shall guarantee to every State 
 in this Union a republican form of government, and shall protect 
 each of them against invasion,” and, on proper application, ‘‘ against 
 domestic violence.” 
 
 By the 14th amendment to the Constitution, ‘‘all persons born or 
 naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, 
 are citizens of the United States, and of the State wherein they reside.” 
 
 The 15th amendment has already been quoted. 
 
 I cannot quote the acts which have been passed on the subject 
 giving power to the government to enforce all the laws, by the Mar- 
 shals, and where the resistance is too great to be otherwise overcome, 
 by the President calling forth the militia, or using the army or navy 
 as he may deem expedient. These enforcement acts have been passed 
 at sundry times, and remain unrepealed. 
 
 The first enforcement act was passed by Congress in 1792, which 
 provided that the President should have authority ‘‘to call forth the 
 militia to suppress insurrection, and to overcome resistance to the execution 
 of the laws too powerful to be overcome by the ordinary means.” It 
 was also provided ‘that the United States Marshals and their Depu- 
 ties should have in each State the same powers in executing the laws 
 of the United States as Sheriffs and their Deputies may have by law 
 in executing the laws thereof.” 
 
 The second enforcement act was passed in Washington’s second ad- 
 ministration, somewhat enlarging the authority. These provisions 
 have been enlarged and strengthened as occasions have arisen, but 
 never repealed. In 1833, in the administration of Gen. Jackson, it 
 
17 
 
 was enlarged to enable him to deal with South Carolina in its efforts 
 to nullify the operation of the tariff law in that State. In 1861, 
 another act was passed to meet the emergencies of the rebellion. 
 
 In 1865, an act was passed providing “that it should not be lawful 
 for any military officer to bring troops to the polls unless to resist in- 
 vasion, or to keep the peace at the polls.” This act seems to have been 
 caused by the use of the troops the year before, to prevent the rebels 
 from coming home to carry the elections against the Union, and for 
 the Confederacy, in Kentucky. 
 
 By the act of April 9, 1866, “All persons born in the United 
 States, and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not 
 taxed, are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States;” and 
 under the 9th section of the act, the President is authorized to employ 
 the military power to enforce the protection of such citizens in their 
 rights. 
 
 By section 5,299 of the United States revised statutes: 
 
 ‘¢ Whenever insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combinations, 
 or conspiracies in any State so obstructs or hinders the execution of 
 the laws thereof, and of the United States, as to deprive any portion 
 or class of the people of such State of any of the rights, privileges, 
 or immunities or protection named in the Constitution and secured by 
 the laws for the protection of such rights, privileges, or immunities, 
 and the constituted authorities of such State are unable to protect, or 
 for any cause fail in or refuse protection of the people in such rights, 
 such facts shall be deemed a denial by such State of the equal protec- 
 tion of the laws to which they are entitled under the Constitution of 
 the United States; and in all such cases, or whenever any such insur- 
 rection, violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy opposes or ob- 
 structs the laws of the United States, or the due execution thereof, or 
 impedes or obstructs the due course of justice under the same, it shall 
 be lawful for“the President, and it shall be his duty, to take such 
 measures, by the employment of the militia or the land and naval 
 forces of the United States, or of either, or by other means, as he may 
 deem necessary, for the suppression of such insurrections, domestic 
 violence, or combinations.” 
 
 By the act of 1878, section 15, it is made unlawful “ to employ any 
 part of the army or navy as a posse comitatus or otherwise for the 
 purpose of executing the laws, except in such cases and under such 
 circumstances as such employment of said force may be expressly au- 
 thorized by the Constitution or by act of Congress.” This provision 
 was passed with the concurrence of both parties as a sort of protest 
 
18 
 
 against any desire to use the military in elections. It was without any 
 practical effect, because the Constitution and laws, as we have seen, 
 gave expressly all the power which had ever been exercised, or desired.. 
 
 There has been no abuse of military power by our government, 
 unless it was in enforcing the law for the return of fugitive slaves to . 
 their masters, or in repressing the Free State men in Kansas. 
 
 The United States troops in no case prescribe the qualification of 
 voters, or interfere with any man’s right to vote. No instance can be 
 found of any such interference. It has been most rare, if indeed it 
 has ever happened, that the troops have been present at the polls at 
 all, except perhaps in the solitary case of Kentucky in 1864, during 
 the war, to keep the rebels from voting. Soldiers have not been sta- 
 tioned at the polls. The law forbids it. They have had their quarters 
 away from the polls, and have only been called on, if called at all, to 
 keep the peace against lawless violence. All that can be truly said by the 
 unsatisfied Democrats is, that repeaters and intimidators are less en- 
 terprising if a squad of United States soldiers happens to be in the 
 neighborhood or town, than they might otherwise be. I know that it 
 is stoutly denied by the Democrats that there are, or ever have been, 
 Rifle Clubs or White Liners, or any form of violence or intimidation, 
 to prevent voters from exercising their right of free suffrage. These 
 political denials are of the same character of the phenomenon which 
 was observed in 1870, when the Ku Klux Klans were operating in the 
 South. Political men in the South, and their Democratic friends in 
 the North, stoutly denied that any outrages, such as had been charged 
 against the Ku Klux Klans, existed anywhere, until a considerable 
 number of them had been tried in the United States Court of South 
 Carolina, and convicted of all the enormities that had been charged, 
 and sentenced to the penitentiary. When the facts were thus proved 
 beyond denial, and made public, the K. K, K. were disavowed, and 
 were left to their fate. Some of them ought to have been hung, but 
 as the State courts had exclusive jurisdiction of murder, and would 
 not try them at all, the United States Court could only try them for 
 the lesser crime of banding together to deprive citizens of their civil 
 rights, of which they were also guilty. The public were as well as- 
 sured of their guilt before, as after their trials. But those convictions 
 made denials no longer available. There is as little doubt that the 
 elections are controlled by intimidation and force in several of the 
 Southern States, so that the election returns are not an expression of 
 the will of the majority of the citizens. Since the State governments 
 of the South have passed into the hands of the minority, the enforce- 
 
19 
 
 ment of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, in those States 
 has become for the present precarious, and to a certain extent, imprac- 
 ticable. 
 
 Nevertheless, are we ready to suffer the elections to be made a farce 
 or a tragedy? Are we ready to permit, in silence, the Republicans 
 to be deprived of their right to vote in any part of the country?) I 
 say no. We are almost as much interested in the fairness of the 
 Congressional elections, in Mississippi or in Alabama, as in Ohio. The 
 duty of the general government is not to be measured by the extent 
 of the wrong to the parties deprived of their votes, or even by the 
 wrong to the citizens of the State where such frauds occur. It is a 
 grievous wrong to the people of all the other States who enforce the 
 law and hold honest elections, that alj their vigilance should be 
 thwarted, by the lawless frauds and violence of a minority in Missis- 
 sippi, or in South Carolina, or in any other State. 
 
 Under our system of general and State governments, the people are 
 bound together by constitutional law in one comprehensive union, 
 with well defined rights, powers, and duties. E Pluribus Unum. It 
 is a system of laws, and depends for its perpetuity upon their just in- 
 terpretation and faithful execution. The interpretation has been in- 
 trusted to the Supreme Court and their execution to ‘the President. 
 As in the solar system, by the law of its creation, the sun attracts 
 every particle of matter in every planet, and holds the orb itself in its 
 orbit, so in our federal system, the general government reaches every 
 citizen, in every State, and holds the State itself, in its republican form 
 and course. If the State rights malecntents should succeed in taking 
 from the general government either the power to interpret, or to 
 execute its own laws, it would work the destruction of our glorious 
 Union, as surely as the repeal of the law of gravitation would work 
 the destruction of the solar system. 
 
Hon. ‘As 
 
 peech of Hon. 
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