Free Elections

There was a rousing Democratie meeting at Columbus, O., September 28, which was addressed by Senator Voorhees of Indiana, the Hon. I). S. Gooding and others. The following is the substance of Mr. Voorhees' remarks on the presence of United States troops at the polls: There have been placed in the laws of Congress, enacted by the leaders of the Republican party, at least three sections which specitically provide for the öontrol of elections by the army and navy. Two of these sections provide that it shall be lawful for the President, or some one by him designated, "to employ such portion of the t.,.fi iKivül torces of the United States, or of the militia as may ue necessary," in his opinión, to govern and coerce the people at the polls. The other remaining sectionof tuis subject inflicts even a still greater degradation on the people. Certain United States Commissioners having been created in connection with the management of elections, their duties are defmed by law as follows: "The commissioners authorized to ■ be appointed by the preceding section are empowered.within their respective counties, to appoint, in writing, under their hands, one or more suitable persons, from time to time, who shall execute all such warrants or other process as the commissioners may issue in the lawful performance of their duties, and the persons so appointed shall have authority to summons and cali to their aid the bystanders or posse comitatus of the proper county, or such portions of the land or naval forces of the United States, or of the militia, as may be necessary to the performance of the duty with which they are charged,and such warrants shall run and be executed anvwhere in the State or ,ory within which they are issued." CONTKOL OF THE ARMY. The warrants or other procesa mentioned in this section, which commissioners may issue, are such as are provided f or the arrest and intimidation of voters before elections on eleetion day, and afterward. They are such as are contemplated in chapter seven of ;he title "Crimes," on which I have already commented. We hehold, therefore, by virtue of this most amazing section, the army and navy of the United Ststes, not placed under the command of the President or such persons as he may empower, presumably an officer of high rank and cuaracter to secute and control elections, but ordered to obey the "summon and cali" of thelowest agents,and, naturally, the vilest instruments of this pernicious business. Let us pause and look for a moment at the scène which is here provided for. The circuit courts of the United States and the district courts of the Territories are authorized by section 1,983 to increase the number of commissioners f rom time to time, so as to afford a speedy and conyenient raeans for the arrest and exainination ef persons charged with crimes against the election laws, until the whole land shall swarm with commissioners bent 0:1 the success of their party. Then t'iese commissioners, appointed for a political purpose, are empowered in every county in the United States to appoint one or more persons whom they may deern suitable to execute their processes and carry out their edicts. And how astounding and incredible it 3eems in this age of advanced civilization that these innumerable deputy lommissioners, these irresponsible subsssees of unconstitutional power, should have by the express words of American law.the authority to summon and cali to their aid not merely the bys anders and the posse comitatus of 1 'ie country, but such portion of the '..nd and naval forces of the United States or of the militia as they may consider necessary to the performance of their duies! Here are the plain words of the law, and no one will gainsay my statement. Who are these people on whom the most tremendous powers known to tiurnan governments have been so lavishly bestowed? I have no word of disparagement f or United States commissioners, appointed to perform the legitímate duties of that useful office, but for political instrumenta, thrustby partisan hate and ambition in that position. and for those still below Uiem, I have neither respect or forbearance. Yet of such as these are made the commanders of the military and. naval f orces of this government ; to these miserable, cringing camp fellows of any party in power, occupying as they do the lowest and most disreputable places in the rear rank of political, warf are, the proudest plumed chief tain the most peerless warriors on land and on sea, must bow their tall heads and obey their mandates. Will some one teil me how Sherman, bearing a higher rank than Washington ever bore, is to escape obedience to a depnty United States commissioner V W ill some one point out to me how, nnder the law as ■t now stands, Sheridan, Hancock, or the Secretary of War himself, is to ref use military subjection and co-operauion to any offsiring of the politieul sewer appointed by a United States commissioner and bearing a warrant of other process for the arrest of a citizen charged with an offensp against the election law ? THE ISSUE STATED. These are the laws which caused the recent extra session of Congress. The Democratie Representatives of the people in both branches of Congress determined they would not lay taxes on the voting population of the country to support laws which virtually disfranchised tliem. The Republican leaders going somewhat beyond the practices of highwaymen, demanded your money and your liberties both. They demanded your money in appropriation bilis, to be used in depriving you of your liberties. The Democratie members and Senators joined issue of this felonious demand. A more glo rious issue onbehalf of man's capacity for self -government on the one hand, and more infamous issue against freedom and right on the other, has not been nown in human history for over 200 years. Every assertion of principie, every tendency of thought and action, every impulse, every sentiment, every struggle put fortn by the Representatives of the Democratie party at the late extra session of Congres was on he side of man's natural right to gov;rn himself - on the side oí the absoute truths of the Declaration of Indejendence ; in harmony with every asriration of down-trodden men for a setter condition of things. On the jontrary every thought, every purpose md every effort of the leaders of the Republican party, not only during the sxtra sen, but for many years beEore, hagroeen to introduce forcé, compulsión, intimidation into the deliberations of the people in choosing public ofïicers. The leaders of that party have clung to the bayonet with which to mie a free people in time of peace. They lean upon military force and not upon the consent of the governed. If there is a man here to.day who sincerely believes in that doctrine - in the doctrine that be and his countrymen ought to be managed, regulated and supervised on election day by soldiers - I pass hitn by. I have no argument or appeal to make to him. He is unflt to take part in the government which our fathers made. He w-i Ivirn ín lia -i cluvo, axitl anjrht tO have lived in Rome when a depraved Emperor bestowed upon his horse higher privileges than the citizens of Rome enjoyed. But to the free men of Oliio, men born free and fit to be free- to you I appeal in the deathless spirit of self-government, the eternal spirit of liberty. Shall the army rule your elections, or will you rule thern? That is the question. Shall the roll of the military drum cali out the guards to the polls, or will you guard them yourselves? There is not a monarchy in the world where even qualifled suffrage prevails, in which the enforcement of the Election lavvs of the Reuublican Dartv woulri not, frente i revoluti on. Nearly a hundred and ifty years ago the people of England, ilthough governed by a king, declared y act of Parliament that he should not mder any circumstances, or by virtue if any pi etense, place troops ator near i voting precinct on election day. ?rom that hour to this no people ipeaking the English tongue, on either ide of the ocean, have dared to invoke nilitary interference at elections uniil ;hese evil and degenerate days - evil uid degenerate in the fact that they lave produced a party miscaliing itself Republican, which is a foe to free institutions. NO SUKKENDER. But the leaders of the Kepublican party insist that you ought to surrenler the principie of self-government and of free elections in the North in order that the bayonet may be used, according to the forms of law, at the polls in the South. Por every piece of wicked and villainous legislation, inpired by the hearts of designing men, who believe in despotism and not in the people, the South is held up and railed at as an all-sufflcient cause. If the people there are to be shorn of their most sacred rights ; curtailed of their freedoin and insulted in their homes, y oxi are told that something in the Soutu imperatively demanda H. If indeed it was true that to govern the South we had to give up the Constitution, depriveourselves and ourposterity of its protection, our condition would be most deplorable ; but I deny that any such necessity exists. We can not nor are we called on to govern one part of this country one way, and the other part another way. A Southern State is in this Union exactly as Ohio is. Whenever distinctions are made between States, or the people of States, the Union and the Constitution are both destroyed. But you are told by the great political Pharisees of the times that the people of the different Southern States are not conducting themselves properly on certain subjects, and therefore you should cast away your own liberties in order to regúlate by f orce their domestic affairs. You are also stimutated to this course by a constant streamof slander poured out on. an entirely helpless and subrnissiye people; a people who have submitted to eyery constitutional amendment, and to every other condition of reconstruction which the government has imposed upon them. It is to the interest of the Republican party to slander them. Every faalt they have is not only set down in malice and conned by rote, but it is magnitied andmultiplied by all the lens power of party machinery. An actual offense against the laws in the South, such as have happened every day and every hour since the human race began, ís a sweet morsel, a delicious item, a savory paragraph, over whioh the Republican editor rubs his hands in keeu enjoyment. A thousand murders may and do occur in the Northern States, but how flat and insipid they appear when dished up in our morning papers at breakfast in comparison with any act of crime, however commonplace in its motive, that comes to us, hot and sensational, u pon the breezes of the South! You live in a law-abiding State, as much so as any other in the TJnion, and more so than some of the loud pretending States of New England, yet I doubt if there is a county in Ohio in which blood has not been unlawfully shed in the last twelve months. The same may be said of the great State of Indiana, and perhaps of every other Northern State. Crime is inherent in the heart of man, and it prevails everywhere. It is without quarantine. It penetrates every latitude, every longitude, and every climate. I hold that the ppcvple r.f theNorth, and thepeople of the South, on the average of conduct and motive, are neither better nor worse than each otker; and in this opinión the statistics of crime in proportion to population will amply sustain me.