rest the reckless and false charge that this side of the house desires to run elections by bayonets. I admit, as my friend from Indiana has said, that the section is mere surplusage. It does not repeal or change any existing law; but if its framers. expect, by offering it, to gain a party advantage by getting me, or those with whom I act, to cast a vote that implies that the army ought to be used as an ordinary police at elections, they are greatly mistaken, for they have set a very open trap, baited with a very small piece of very poor cheese.

Now, Mr. Chairman, a word further in reference to the language of the section. Some gentlemen may be troubled about the scope and meaning of the words "to be used as a police force." Let me recall a little history. When flagrant war was raging, when eleven States were banded against the Union to destroy it, and the theatre of war covered five or six States that adhered to the Union, there was in fact military interference at the elections; it was the military interference of the armed enemies of the United States. I once voted at an election where there was very serious military interference. In the autumn of 1862, under the heights of Missionary Ridge, near the city of Chattanooga, where five thousand Ohio soldiers under the laws of that State were permitted to vote, in company with my comrades I voted for a Governor of Ohio. While we were voting, the shells from the batteries of armed enemies of the United States were bursting over our heads, and some of our voters were killed while in the exercise of the right of suffrage as citizens of Ohio. That was the only military interference with elections that I ever witnessed. It was to prevent that kind of military interference that our armies in time of war kept off the armed enemies of the United States in the State of Kentucky, and in other border States, while elections were being held there. And in order that they might not, in the performance of that necessary duty, interfere with the freedom of elections and the right of citizens, the act of February 25, 1865, was passed, while our guns were yet smoking and while we were yet in line of battle. Even in that act it was provided, under the severe penalties of criminal law, that no officer, civil, military, or naval, should interfere with the right of any man to vote, or should undertake to prescribe qualifications for a voter.

1 Mr. Baker.

Now, I say that the act of 1865 was in the interest of civil liberty, restraining our armies from doing any wrong, or committing any outrage. In that act there occurs, for the first time in the history of our legislation connected with the army, the expression "to keep the peace at the polls." And even there it is used for the purpose of saying that the law does not make it a crime punishable by imprisonment and fine for an officer of the government to keep the peace at the polls, or to repel the armed enemies of the United States. Nothing in that law refers to the use of the army as an ordinary police force. The marshals and their deputies are the police force of the United States. Our army is governed by the Rules and Articles of War, and is always used as an army when it is ordered to execute the laws. The proposition to use our army as a police, to force the soldiers out and station them one by one at the polls to run the elections as a police, is a fiction so absurd that I trust no man on this side of the House will give the least color to the assumption that he favors it by holding that this sixth section repeals, suspends, or modifies any existing statute.

MR. WILLIAMS. Are you now in favor of using any portion of the army of the United States at any time, under any circumstances, in any emergency, to keep the peace at the polls?

Not in the sense of using that army as an ordinary police force.

MR. WILLIAMS. In any form or manner?

MR. CARLISLE. This section does not refer to the use of the army as an ordinary police force. I do not mean as an ordinary civil police, but in any form whatever. Is the gentleman in favor of using the army in any form whatever to keep the peace at the polls?

I am in favor of using the army and the navy, and all the militia of the United States, to enforce the laws of the United States, any one of them, and all of them, everywhere, and at all times, when the civil force is inadequate, but not until then.

MR. WILLIAMS. Including the keeping of the peace at the polls?

If there be any law that authorizes the President to use the army as an ordinary police force for that purpose, I am in favor of enforcing it.

MR. WILLIAMS. Does my friend think that we have that law, or does he think that we do not have it?

I think we have not, that we never have had it, and that we never ought to have it; the marshals and their deputies are our police. Under our laws at the present moment, we have the amplest power to add deputy marshals and assistant marshals in any number that may be needed to keep the peace at the polls, and those marshals may summon the posse, the armed posse of all faithful citizens who will obey the orders of the marshals, for this purpose. This is the traditional law of the English-speaking people.

Now, if my friend from Wisconsin 1 will remember, it was distinctly provided in the law of last year that the army of the United States should not be used as a part of the posse comitatus in any case, except where the law expressly provided that it should be so used. Therefore, in the presence of that restrictive legislation, passed almost unanimously by a Republican Senate,

although my friend and I voted against it in the House, yet it was finally concurred in without a division, in the presence of that restrictive legislation, I say there is no law in the United States to which this sixth section can attach itself, either as a repealing or as a modifying clause. Therefore I say, in conclusion, that whatever use may be made of this section as party literature, it is evident to me that, in the judgment of the lawyers, courts, and executive officers of the government, it will be regarded merely and only a stump speech, changing no law and having no legal effect whatever.

1 Mr. Williams.

CONGRESSIONAL NULLIFICATION.

REMARKS MADE IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

JUNE 19, 1879.

THE "Certain Judicial Expenses Bill," mentioned in the introductory note to the remarks of June 10, passed the House on that day. On the 16th of June the Senate made amendments in which the House did not concur, and the subject went to a committee of conference. Upon the report of this committee Mr. Garfield made the following remarks. The bill as finally amended passed the House, but was vetoed by the President, June 23. A bill was now passed called the "Jurors Bill," and was approved June 30, 1879. Section 2 contained the following provisions concerning jurors: "That the per diem pay of each juror, grand or petit, in any court of the United States, shall be two dollars; and that the last clause of Section 800 of the Revised Statutes of the United States, which refers to the State of Pennsylvania, and Sections 801, 820, and 821 of the Revised Statutes of the United States, are hereby repealed; and that all such jurors, grand and petit, including those summoned during the session of the court, shall be publicly drawn from a box containing, at the time of such drawing, the names of not less than three hundred persons, possessing the qualifications prescribed in Section Soo of the Revised Statutes, which names shall have been placed therein by the clerk of such court, and a commissioner, to be appointed by the judge thereof, which commissioner shall be a citizen of good standing, residing in the district in which such court is held, and a well-known member of the principal political party, in the district in which the court is held, opposing that to which the clerk may belong, the clerk and said commissioner each to place one name in said box alternately, without reference to party affiliations, until the whole number required shall be placed therein. But nothing herein contained shall be construed to prevent any judge from ordering the names of jurors to be drawn from the boxes used by the State authorities in selecting jurors in the highest courts of the State; and no person shall serve as a petit juror more than one term in any one year, and all juries to serve in courts after the passage of this act shall be drawn

in conformity herewith. Provided, that no citizen possessing all other qualifications which are or may be prescribed by law, shall be disqualified for service as a grand or petit juror in any court of the United States on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude."

MR.

R. SPEAKER, -We do not insist that this House is obliged to vote all the money which some of us may think necessary for any given purpose. If the majority offer to appropriate for a particular purpose a part only of the money needed, we should not be justified in voting against the bill merely because the amount is insufficient, for it might be your purpose to supply the deficiency hereafter. But it is certainly an objectionable mode of legislation so to cut down the appropriation bills as to make a deficiency inevitable. This bill is open to that objection; it does not appropriate enough; for it wholly omits a part of the usual supplies. But that objection alone would not prevent this side from voting for it.

The feature of the bill which is most objectionable, and to which we do not and cannot agree, has been well stated by my colleague. The bill goes beyond appropriations, and proposes by law to lay hold of the executive department of this government, and affirmatively prevent its officers from enforcing certain of the laws of the land. That is the attempt which we resist and shall continue to resist. The objectionable provision is now made definite and unmistakable in this conference report. The language of the clause as it first passed the House was somewhat vague; but here it is plain, and we perfectly understand its import. If any doubt remained, my colleague who presented the report 2 removed it, by declaring the purpose of the clause. The issue is narrowed down to this. The gentleman tells us that he and his associates are determined that no marshals, deputy marshals, or assistant marshals shall be appointed to execute the laws of the Union, as required in Title 26 of the Revised Statutes; that they have devised and agreed on this clause in the conference between the two houses, so as to prevent the enforcement of that part of the existing law. This makes a sharp issue which everybody can understand. Now, assuming that the gentlemen on the other side do not

1 Mr. Monroe.

2 Mr. McMahon.