Republican political handbook for public speakers and local committees

Part I

The Democratic Party as the Party of Obstruction. — Nothing if not Purely "Bourbon."

The history of the last session of the Forty-fifth Congress, and the first session of the Forty- sixth or present Congress, known as the extra session, is still fresh in the minds of the people. A brief resume, however, of that revolutionary period, even though it may prove tedious to the quiet and indifferent ease-loving Eepublican, is nevertheless important and necessary to the millions of honest, liberty-loving men and women whose hopes and patriotic aspirations are bound up in the progress, prosperity and perpetuity of this " Great Kepublic." As all the South American and Eastern nations invariably style it in their diplomatic papers, " The Great Eepublic of the North."

Few people in the near East or the great West, who were not here in Washington during that six months of strain and trial comprising the short three-month session of the Forty-fifth, and the three succeeding months of the extra session, when the Democrats got control of both Houses of Congress, knew the real dangers that threatened the nation, and from which it was saved only by the firmness of a faithful and patriotic President. All honor to Eutherford B. Hayes for his timely and manly vetoes.

Here is the history of that contest between a Democratic majority in both Houses and the Executive. This Democratic majority itself being ruled by a caucus, and the majority of that caucus being Southern Eebels, three-fourths of the latter being ex- Confederate officers, from Major -Generals down to Captains, so that, in fact, if we had had then in the executive chair Tilden or any other Democrat, the country would have been practically captured, and a prisoner in the hands of the traitors who had just come from the fields where they had spent four years trying with their swords to destroy it.

It will be remembered, that in the Presidential year of 1868, New York, the great Empire State of the Union, Eepublican always since 1856, when she gave Fremont eighty thousand majority, was carried by Hoffman, as Governor, and Seymour, for President, by a few thousand majority. It turned out soon after that that success was achieved by means of the most glaring frauds on the ballot-box, on the sacred right of suffrage that had ever, up to that time, been perpetrated in this or any country. (True, they have been surpassed since in Louisiana, South Carolina and Mississippi. The shot gun is more effective than the " repeater," unless it be a repeating rifle.) Sixty thousand votes were cast in the cities of New York and Brooklyn by men who had no more right to vote in America than a man who lived in Tissn Lamoo or Terra-del- Fuego. Naturalization papers were hawked about in bundles through the low slums of New York by Democratic shoulder hitters, guttersnipes and vagabonds of the lowest degree, and men who received these papers at Castle Garden as they landed, voted at that election before they had been three weeks in the country. They were signed in blank by Democratic judges, and court seals fraudulently affixed *by the Democratic clerks. I have had many of these papers before me, and know whereof I speak.

The thing was overdone; the sense of the nation was shocked; Congress took the matter in hand and passed certain laws, known as the Supervisor laws, and also provided for the enforcement of these laws and maintaining the peace at the polls by the calling out of the military force when the civil authority should prove inadequate to that duty.

The laws which I now quote from the Eevised Statutes followed. I put them together here for convenience, and they will also be found in the several vetoes of the President, which are also appended.

" Sec. 2016. The supervisors of election, so appointed, are authorized and required to attend at all times and places fixed for the registration of voters, who, being registered, would be entitled to vote for a Representative or Delegate in Congress, and to challenge any person offering to register ; to attend at all times and places when the names of registered voters may be marked for challenge, and to cause such names registered as they may deem proper to be so marked ; to make, when required, the lists, or either of them, provided for in section two thousand and twenty-six, and verify the same; and upon any occasion, and at any time when in attendance upon the duty herein prescribed, to personally inspect and scrutinize such registry, and for purposes of identification to affix their signature to each page of the original list, and of each copy of any such list of registered voter's, at such times, upon each day when any name may be received, entered, or registered, and in such manner as will, in their judgment, detect and expose the improper or wrongful removal therefrom, or addition thereto, of any name.

Sec 2018. To the end that each candidate for the office of Representative or Delegate in Congress may obtain the benefit of every vote for him cast, 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 indorsement on the ballot, or in whatever box it may have been placed or be found ; to make and forward to the officer who, in accordance with the provisions of section two thousand and twenty-five, has been designated as the chief supervisor of the judicial district in which the city or town wherein they may serve, acts, such certificates and returns of all such ballots as such officer may direct and require, and to attach to the registry-list, and any and all copies thereof and to any certificate, statement, or return, whether the same, or any part or portion thereof, be required by any law of the United States, or of any State, territorial, or municipal law, any statement touching the truth or accuracy of the registry, or the truth or fairness of the election and canvass, which the supervisors of the election, or either of them, may desire to make or attach, or which should properly and honestly be made or attached, in order that the facts may become known.

Sec. 2020. When in any election district or voting precinct in any city or town, for which there have been appointed supervisors of election for any election at which a Representative or Delegate in Congress i3 voted for, the supervisors of election are not allowed to exercise and discharge, lully and freely, and without bribery, solicitation, interference, hindrance, molestation, violence or threats thereof, on the part of any person, all the duties, obligations, and powers conferred upon them by law, the supervisors of election shall make prompt report, under oath, within ten days after the day of election to the officer who, in accordance with the provisions of section two thousand and twenty-five, has been designated as the chief supervisor of the judicial district in which the city or town wherein they served, acts, of the manner and means by which they were not so allowed to fully and freely exercise and discharge the duties and obligations required and imposed herein. And upon receiving any such report, the chief supervisor, acting both in such capacity and officially as a commissioner of the Circuit Court, shall forthwith examine into all the facts ; and he shall have power to subpoena and compel the attendance before him of any witness, and to administer oaths and take testimony in respect to the charges made; and, prior to the assembling of the Congress for which any such Representative or Delegate was voted for, he shall file with the Clerk of the House of Representatives all the evidence by him taken, all information by him obtained, and all reports to him made. (See § 5522.)

Sec. 2021. Whenever an election at which Representatives or Delegates in Congress are to be chosen is held in any city or town of twenty thousand inhabitants or upward, the marshal for the district in which the city or town is situated shall, on the application, in writing, of at least two citizens residing in such city or town, appoint special deputy marshals, whose duty it shall be, when required thereto, to aid and assist the supervisors of election in the verification of any list of persons who may have registered or voted ; to attend in each election district or voting precinct at the times and places fixed for the registration of voters, and at all times and places when and where the registration may by law be scrutinized, and the names of registered voters be marked for challenge; and also to attend, at all times for holding elections, the polls in such district or precinct.

Sec. 2022. The marshal and his general deputies, and such special deputies, 4shall 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 any officer of election, and immediately, either at the place of registration or polling place, or elsewhere, and either before or after registering or voting, to arrest and take into custody, with or without process, any person who commits, or attempts or offers to commit, any of the acts or offenses prohibited herein, or who commits any offense against the laws of the United States; but no person shall be arrested without process for any offense not committed in the presence of the marshal or his general or special deputies, or either of them, or of the supervisors of election, or either of them, and, for the purposes of arrest or the preservation of the peace, the supervisors of election shall, in the absence of the marshal's deputies, or if required to assist such deputies, have the same duties and powers as deputy marshals ; nor shall any person, on the day of such election, be arrested without process for any offense committed on the day of registration. (See §§ 5521, 5522.)

Sec. 2023. Whenever any arrest is made under any provision of this Title, the person so arrested shall forthwith be brought before a commissioner, judge, or court of the United States for examination of the offenses alleged against him ; and such commissioner, judge, or court shall proceed in respect thereto as authorized by law in cases of crimes against the United States.

Sec. 2024. The marshal or his general deputies, or such special deputies as are thereto specially empowered by him, in writing, and under his hand and seal, whenever he or either or any of them is forcibly resisted in executing their duties under this Title, or shall, by violence, threats, or menaces, be prevented from executing such duties, or from arresting any person who has committed any offense for which the marshal or his general or his special deputies are authorized to make such arrest, are, and each of them is, empowered to summon and call to his aid the bystanders or posse comitatus of his district.

Sec. 2025. The circuit courts of the United States for each judicial circuit shall name and appoint, on or before the first day of May, in the year eighteen hun dred and seventy-one, and thereafter as vacancies may 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 required of him under this Title as the chief supervisor of elections of the judicial district for which he is a commissioner, and shall, so long as faithful and capable, discharge the duties in this Title imposed. (See § 627.)

Sec. 2026. The chief supervisor shall prepare and furnish all necessary books, forms, blanks and instructions for the use and direction of the supervisors of election in the several cities and towns in their respective districts ; he shall receive the applications of all parties for appointment to such pobitions ; upon the opening, as contemplated in section two thousand and twelve, of the circuit court for the judicial circuit in which the commissioner so designated, acts, he shall present such applications to the judge thereof, and furnish information to him in respect to the appointment by the court of such supervisors of elections ; he shall require of the supervisors of election, when necessary, lists of the persons who may register and vote, or either, in their respective election districts or voting precincts, and cause the names of those upon any such list whose right to register or vote is honestly doubted to be verified by proper inquiry and examination at the respective places by them assigned as their residences ; and he shall receive, preserve and file all oaths of office of supervisors of election, and of all special deputy marshals appointed under the provisions of this Title, and all certificates, returns, reports, and records of every kind and nature contemplated or made requisite by the provisions hereof, save where otherwise herein specially directed. (See § 627.)

Sec 2027. All United States marshals and commissioners who in any judicial district perform any duties under the preceding provisions relating to, concerning, or affecting the election of Representatives or Delegates in the Congress of the United States, from time to time, and, with all due diligence, shall forward tc the chief supervisor in and for their judicial district, all complaints, examinations, and records pertaining thereto, and all oaths of office by them administered to any supervisor of election or special deputy marshal, in order that the same may be properly preserved and filed.

Sec. 5522. Every person, whether with or without any authority, power or process, or pretended authority, power or process, of any State, Territory, or municipality, who obstructs, hinders, assaults, or by bribery, solicitation, or otherwise, interferes with or prevents the supervisors of election, or either of them, or the marshal or his general or special deputies, or either of them, in the performance of any duty required of them, or either of them, or which he or they, or either of them, may be authorized to perform by any law of the United States, in the execution of process or otherwise, or who by any of the means before mentioned hinders or prevents the free attendance and presence at such places of registration or at such polls of election, or full and free access and egress to and from any such place of registration or poll of election, or in going to and from any such place of registration or poll of election, or to and from any room, where any such registration or election or canvass of votes, or of making any returns or certificates thereof, may be had, or who molests, interferes with, removes or ejects from any such place of registration or poll of election, or of canvassing votes cast thereat, or of making returns or certificates thereof, any supervisor of election, the marshal, or his general or special deputies, or either of them; or who threatens or attempts, or offers so to do, or refuses or neglects to aid and assist any supervisor of election or the marshal or his general or special deputies, or either of them, in the performance of his or their duties, when required by him or them, or either of them, to give such aid and assistance, shall be liable to instant arrest without process, and shall be punished by imprisonment not more than two years, or by a fine of not more than three thousand dollars, or by both such fine and imprisonment, and shall pay the costs of the prosecution.

It also contains clauses, says the President in his veto, amending sections 2017, 2019, 2028 and 2031 of the Revised Statutes. Here are the sections referred to :

" Sec. 201*7. The supervisors of election are authorized and required to attend at all times and places for holding elections of Representatives or Delegates in Congress, and for counting the votes cast at such elections ; to challenge any vote 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 certificates or returns be required under any law of the United States, or any State, territorial, or municipal law, and to personally inspect and 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, registry-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, are kept.

Sec. 2019. The better to enable the supervisors of election to discharge their duties, 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 marked to be challenged, and on the day of election to take, occupy, and remain in such position, from time to time, whether before or behind the ballot-boxes, as will, in their judgment, best enable them to see 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 closing of the polls for the reception of votes.

Sec. 2028. No person shall be appointed a supervisor of election, or a deputymarshal, under the preceding provisions, who is not, at the time of his appointment, a qualified voter of the city, town, county, parish, election district, or voting precinct in which his duties are to be performed.

Sec. 2031. There shall be allowed and paid to the chief supervisor, for his services as such officer, the following compensation, apart from and in excess of all fees allowed by law for the performance of any duty as circuit-court commissioner : For filing and caring for every return, report, record, document, or other paper required to be filed by him under any of the preceding provisions, ten cents ; for affixing a seal to any paper, record, report, or instrument, twenty cents ; for entering and indexing the records of his office, fifteen cents per folio ; and for arranging and transmitting to Congress, as provided for in section two thousand and twenty, any report, statement, record, return, or examination, for each folio, fifteen cents; and for any copy thereof, or of any paper on file, a like sum. And there shall be allowed and paid to each supervisor of election, and each special deputymarshal who is appointed and performs his duty under the preceding provisions, compensation at the rate of five dollars per day for each day he is actually on duty, not exceeding ten days ; but no compensation shall be allowed, in any case, to supervisors of election, except to those appointed in cities or towns of twenty thousand or more inhabitants. And the fees of the chief supervisors shall be paid at the Treasury of the United States ; such accounts to be made out, verified, examined, and certified as in the case of accounts of commissioners, save that the examination or certificate required may be made by either the circuit or district judge."

These manifestly just, impartial laws for the protection and security of the dearest privilege that an American citizen can enjoy, the Democrats sought to repeal during the three months of the second session of the Forty-fifth Congress — first, directly, and then by tacking to the general appropriation. By the courage and superior parliamentary management ot the Eepublican minority, they were thwarted in their revolutionary plans, and the session finally ended with the end of that Congress on the 4th of March, leaving the Government absolutely without a dollar to run it during the next fiscal year.

The Extra Session of the new Congress thus became a necessity, and they met in April. The Democrats now had control of both the Senate and House of Eepresentatives, and, under the caucus rule of the Brigadiers, they were able to engraft this infamous legislation on the General Appropriation Bill, Blackburn, Singleton and others making such declarations as this sample exhibits:

" THE SOUTHERN PROGRAMME. [From the Hartford {Conn.) Post]

The special work of the New York Tribune, in these days, is furnishing the Republicans with an incomparable mass of campaign literature. Its papers on the repudiation of debts at the South, the account of the massacre of the Chisholm family and their friends, and the resume of reactionary legislation pending in Congress, which the Southern masters of the Democratic party now have the power as well as the will to complete, comprise a series of documents that must produce a marked effect upon the intelligent public sentiment of the country. The last-named paper proves from the files of Congress that the declaration of Mr. Blackburn of Kentucky that " We do not intend to stop till we have stricken the last vestage of your war measures from the statute book,"" was no idle threat, but the embodiment of a settled purpose that has already taken form in the shape of sweeping bills leveled at the power, the honor, the credit and the revenue of the National Government. These bills contain numerous provisions looking to the same general purpose. Some of them prohibit the removal to United States Courts of charges brought against revenue officers for their conduct in the discharge of their dut}'-, thus leaving them at the mercy of local tribunals in sympathy with moonshiners and revenue robbers. The passage of one of the bills for which the Democrats made a desperate struggle at the extra session would practically suspend the collection of internal revenue in most of the Southern States. Other bills propose to leave it to the "honor" of the moonshiners to report how much spirits they have distilled and pay 25 cents per gallon tax — a measure that would, it is estimated, reduce the revenue $30,000,000 ! One bill is to break the contract between the Government and its creditors, by virtue of which United States bonds were non-taxable, and several are designed to enable Southern cities and counties to cheat their non-resident creditors without the interference of United States Courts, and to compel Northern insurance companies to defend claims against them only in State courts. Other bills remove the restrictions against disloyal claimants and open wide the door for a gigantic raid on the Treasury. Still others are to protect timber thieves. In short, these men seem to regard themselves rs the agents and abettors of all who would rob the Government or the holders of any public securities.

As yet, a Republican President stands in the way of the consummation of these plots against the supremacy of the Nation and the integrity of its Treasury. But the character of these measures, and the source whence they come, show what we may expect in case the people are hoodwinked into admitting to the Presidential office a Democratic tool of the ex-Confederates."

I find, on looking at the papers now before me, that to give these speeches of the Rebels in extenso would fill a large volume.

The bill with the repeal riders passed both Houses, was sent to the President, and here is his answer to the traitors who, failing to destroy the Nation with the sword, sought to starve it to death, as they did thousands of the Union prisoners during the war :

" VETO OF LEGISLATIVE APPROPRIATION BILL.

Message from the President of the United States, returning, without his Approval, the Bill of the House (H. R. 2), entitled " An Act making Appropriations for the Legislative, Executive and Judicial Expenses of the Government for the Fiscal Year ending June 30, 1880, and for other Purposes."

May 29, 1879. — Referred to the Committee on the Judiciary and ordered to be printed. To the House of Representatives :

After mature consideration of the bill entitled ' An act making appropriations for the legislative, executive and judicial expenses of the Government for the fiscal year ending June thirtieth, eighteen hundred and eighty, and for other purposes,' I herewith return it to the House of Representatives, in which it originated, with the following objections to its approval:

The main purpose of the bill is to appropriate the money required to support, during the next fiscal year, the several civil departments of the Government. The amount appropriated exceeds in the aggregate eighteen millions of dollars.

This money is needed to keep in operation the essential functions of all the great departments of the Government — legislative, executive and judicial. If the bill contained no other provisions no objection to its approval would be made. It embraces, however, a number of clauses relating to subjects of great general interest, which are wholly unconnected with the appropriations which it provides for. The objections to the practice of tacking general legislation to appropriation bills, especially when the object is to deprive a co-ordinate branch of the Government of its right to the free exercise of its own discretion and judgment touching such general legislation, were set forth in the special message in relation to House bill number one, which was returned to the House of Representatives on the 29th of last month. I regret that the objections which were then expressed to this method of legislation have not seemed to Congress of sufficient weight to dissuade from this renewed incorporation of general enactments in an appropriation bill, and that my Constitutional duty in respect of the general legislation thus placed before me cannot be discharged without seeming to delay, however briefly, the necessary appropriations by Congress for the support of the Government. Without repeating these objections, I respectfully refer to that message for a statement of my views on the principle maintained in debate by the advocates of this bill, viz., that 'to withold appropriations is a Constitutional means for the redress* of what the majority of the House of Representatives may regard as ' a grievance.'

The bill contains the following clauses, viz. :

And provided further, That the following sections of the Revised Statutes of the United States, namely, sections two thousand and sixteen, two thousand and eighteen, and two thousand and twenty, and all of the succeeding sections of said statutes down to and including section two thousand and twenty-seven, and also section fifty-five hundred and twenty -two, be, and the same are hereby, repealed; * * * and that all the other sections of the Revised Statutes, and all laws and parts of laws authorizing the appointment of chief supervisors of elections, special deputy marshals of elections or general deputy marshals having any duties to perform in respect to any election and prescribing their duties and powers and allowing them compensation, be, and the same are hereby repealed.

It also contains clauses amending sections 2017, 2019, 3028 and 2031 of the Revised Statutes.

The sections of the Revised Statutes which the bill, if approved, would repeal or amend, are part of an act approved May 30, 1870, and anunded February 28, 1871, entitled 'An act to enforce the rights of citizens of the United States to vote in the several States of this Union, and for other purposes.' All of the provisions of the above-named acts, which it is proposed in this bill to repeal or modify, relate to the Congressional elections. The remaining portion of the law, which will continue in force after the enactment of this measure, is that which provides for the appointment, by a judge of the Circuit Court of the United States, of two supervisors of election in each election district, at any Congressional election, on due application of citizens who desire, in the language of the law, 'to have such election guarded and scrutinized.' The duties of the supervisors will be to attend at the polls at all Congressional elections, and to remain after the polls are open until every vote cast has been counted, but they will 'have no authority to make arrests, or to perform other duties than to be in the immediate presence of the officers holding the election, and to witness all their proceedings, including the counting of the votes, and the making of a return thereof.' The part of the election law which will be repealed by the approval of this bill includes those sections which give authority to the supervisors of election ' to personally scrutinize, count and canvass each ballot ' and all the sections which confer authority upon the United States marshals and deputy marshals, in connection with the Congressional elections.

The enactment of this bill will also repeal section 5522 of the criminal statutes of the United States, which was enacted for the protection of United States officers engaged in the discharge of their duties at the Congressional elections. This section protects supervisors and marshals in the performance of their duties, by making the obstruction or the assaulting of these officers, or any interference with them, by bribery, or solicitation, or otherwise, crimes against the United States.

The true meaning and effect of the proposed legislation are plain. The supervisors, with the authority to observe and witness the proceedings at the Congressional elections, will be left ; but there will be no power to protect them, or to prevent interference with their duties, or to punish any violation of the law from which their powers are derived. If this bill is approved, only the shadow of the authority of the United States at the national elections will remain ; the substance will be gone. The supervision of the elections will be reduced to a mere inspection, without authority on the part of the supervisors to do any act whatever to make the election a fair one. All that will be left to the supervisors is the permission to have such oversight of the elections as political parties are in the habit of exercising without any authority of law, in order to prevent their opponents from obtaining unfair advantages. The object of the bill is to destroy any control whatever by the United States over the Congressional elections.