disparagement. If the gentleman from Philadelphia says, our native city deserves to be thus characterized Mr SCOTT: I did not say so. In the first place, Philadelphia is not my native city and, in the next place, I did not say she deserved to be thus characterized. I said there had been scenes there of disorder and blood, and I left it to the committee to decide on the truth of my statements. Mr. BROWN resumed: The gentleman said, that there were 600 or 700 at a window, giving in their votes. It is a fact, that there have been 800 at a window. He did not mean to say, that the gentleman had so characterized the city of Philadelphia, but it was a fair inference from his statement, that the registry act had prevented these disorders. He was told by his colleague, at his side, (Mr. M'CAHEN) that the violence and bloodshed which took place, was after the polls had closed. Unless, by some legislation, you allow the people to enjoy their rights, the people will be jealous and restless, and excitements, which lead to violence, must be feared. Against bad laws the people rose, and would rise. There was a single fact, within his own knowledge, which speaks loudly for the purity of the ballot system. A gentleman told him he wished to vote in the city and county, and could not get his vote received; and, that he went to Doylestown, where he was permited to vote. He had mixed familiarly with the people, and been anxious to get voters, but he would spurn any mode which was calculated to impair the value, or sully the purity of the elective franchise. He had been at ward and committee meetings, and had never heard there any proposition of the kind, nor had he ever known any. Charges of the kind have been gotten up for political effect, but where one asserts them, there are always found others to refute them.In the township where he resided, there were a hundred votes more polled last election, than at any election before, in consequence of the natural increase of voters. The charge of importing votes rests altogether on newspaper authority. He would be as eager to check such a practice, if it existed, as any one. The gentleman from Northampton (Mr. PORTER) said, that the Bill of Rights guarantees equality in the election laws, but it has not done so in practice. Certainly, there ought to be no greater restrictions on the electors in one place than another. He hoped the amendment would be properly arranged, so as to have a place in the article to which it was most appropriate. Mr. BIDDLE, of Philadelphia, said, he had listened with no common pain to the remarks, which his friend from the county, had addressed to the committee. He was proud to say, that there was not one of the delegates from the city of Philadelphia, who had not spoken of the county on terms of respect. He had the highest respect for the county. It is easy (said Mr. B.) to make charges. Mr. BROWN: I made no charges. I thought I had praised the city. I only remarked on a single case of fraud. I thought my language was that of eulogy. Mr. BIDDLE: GoD protect the city from such eulogy! It was easy to make charges, and, in proportion as gentlemen felt themselves able to throw off the restraints of propriety, will it be the more easy. If the gen tleman knew of such frauds, why did he keep the knowledge a secret in his own heart? Why did he take no step to vindicate the majesty of the A eXphas rved an der di tateme ere 600r have be had so e from bast He was t e and blood by some la people ence, s There loudly ir: shed to vot d, that bew mixed fa Duld spun be no grea ce in the a rable man, and he knew the gentleman from the county to be high minded and honorable? He knew it had been said that the polls were converted, on some occasions, into scenes of violence. If the gentleman had listened to the eloquent remarks of my colleague he would have known that the remark which fell from him was that there was a contest for the possession of the polls, which commenced with vio lence, went on to outrage, and was consummated in blood. The gentleman had not only charged certain officers with grave offences, but had added that they belonged to the party to which his colleague and himself belonged. He had hoped that the bitterness of party strife would not have been invoked here. If any danger to our institutions can be apprehended, it is from these invocations of party strife. Instead of interchanging rebukes, each going one step beyond the other, he had hoped to have heard no more of the language of imputation. He would not hurl back these imputations on the party of the gentleman. The gentleman had said, that we were told the number of votes had increased since the passage of the registry act, and then came to the conclusion, that there must be fraudulent votes. The language of his colleague was, that they had not diminished. Could not the gentleman from the county find any other cause for this, than a fraudulent one? Might it not rather be ascribed to the fact, that quiet and order were restored, so that the aged and infirm, who had previously been prevented from appearing at the polls, were able to vote, and that thus the aggregate number of votes was increased? The gentleman had further said, that the registry law did not answer the purposes for which it had been passed, that it was inapplicable, and had totally failed; and, look at the reasoning by which the gentleman sustains this allegation. What is that reasoning? Because, in the first line, the Legislature had omited the word "general", and made the law applicable only to "special elections". So that a mere casus omissus-the result of accident, or oversight-was to be addressed, as a grave argument, to a body assembled here to deliberate on the fundamental law of the land, in favor of prohibiting future Legislatures from providing guards against the evils incidental to the exercise of the right of suffrage in large cities. Το say the least, the argument of the gentleman from the county was not very conclusive. The gentleman had asserted, that the county of Philadelphia was not worse than other counties. No, neither the city nor the county were any worse than others. The case of the facility with which shoals could be transfered from New York and New Jersey, to our shores, was put with much force by his colleague (Mr. SCOTT). And while the eulogy on Philadelphia on her citizens was true, it was not less true that they was peculiarly liable to have their quiet and good order and harmony broken up, and converted into discord, and tumult, and violence, by these inundations of lawless and dangerous hosts from other States. The cases cited by the gentleman from the county were not very applicable. His illustration of the gentleman, who had not been permited to vote in Philadelphia, and who had gone to Berks and voted, proved nothing more than that Philadelphia was right, and Bucks was wrong.He would say, in conclusion, and every gentleman who had had an opportunity of witnessing, would bear testimony to the fact, that peace, order, and harmony, had prevailed since the operation of the registry law, while, before its adoption, the elections were the scenes of violence, tu about the time my old friends, the democrats, and myself got together again, the delegate from Beaver and some of his friends who had been very solicitous to get me back into the ranks, deserted to the enemy. The delegate from Lancaster says, there is no representative of federalism here; that all is now pure democratic antimasonry. This may be so, as it regards some places; but I scarcely think it will suit some of my worthy and estimable friends who are not ashamed of the old fashioned name of federalism; and I am sorry that my friend from Lancaster should have abjured his ancient name, and the faith of his fathers, in form, whilst he has not, perhaps, departed from them in feeling. I have lived long enough to have seen many queer things, and among the queerest of them is, the chamelion-like facility with which party politicians can change their hues and name. My earliest recollections carry me back to the years 1799 and 1800, when we knew no other names than democrats and federalists. The leading characteristic of these parties I have already stated on this floor. A portion of the old federal party, thirteen in number, composed the majority of the Senate of Pennsylvania in November, 1800, when the Legislature was convened to enact a law for the choice of electors of President and Vice President. A bill passed the House of Representatives for the choice of those electors, by joint meeting of the two houses. When it came into Senate, they altered the bill, so that the House of Representatives should choose eight and the Senate seven electors, thus giving, in fact, but one vote for the State of Pennsylvania, in the election of President and Vice President of the United States, when the preceding gubernatorial and representative elections in 1799 and 1800, had given conclusive evidence that a majority of the people of the State were favorable to JEFFERSON and BURR, the democratic candidates. The Senate was then composed of twenty-four members, thirteen of whom, as I have said, were federalists, and eleven were democrats. The majority of the House of Representatives were democrats. The majority of the Senate were lauded by their partizans for thus standing between the voice of the people and their own wishes, and denominated "the Spartan Band". And it was for the similarity between their conduct and that of the majority of the late Senate of Pennsylvania, that I denominated the latter by the same appellation. That Spartan Band soon died a natural death, and were never heard of again in Pennsylvania; and, if I mistake not, the same fate awaits their recent imitators. We knew no other names but triumphant democracy and prostrate federalism, from 1800 to 1805, when the mass of the democratic party cast off THOMAS M'KEAN, and nominated SIMON SNYDER for Governor of Pennsylvania. The office-holders and their friends who had acted with the democratic party, desirous of holding on to the loaves and fishes, organized themselves as the "Constitntional republicans", and federalism hitched on to them, and aided them in re-electing THOMAS M'Kean, whose administration thenceforward might be esteemed essentially as federal. In 1808, the democratic party rallied, and, by an overwhelming majority elected SIMON SNYDER, Over JAMES Ross, the federal, and JOHN SPAYD, the Constitutional republican; or, as the democrats then called the party, "the were disappointed in their expectations of office and influence under Governor SNYDER, and seceded under the denomination of the old school party, many of whom, with the federal party, were opposed to the administration of the General Government during the war, and supported DEWIT CLINTON, the peace party candidate for President. In 1817, these same gentlemen and the federal party, under the denomination of "independent republicans", unsuccessfully supported General HIESTER, in opposition to WILLIAM FINDLAY, Esq., for Governor. But, having received an augmentation of strength from the disappointed officehunters, and the unpropitiousness of the times, they were, in 1820, successful in defeating the democratic candidate by a small majority, and elected General HIESTER, Governor. In 1823, the democratic party, having kissed and made friends, united their strength, and elected J. ANDREW SHULZE by a triumphant majority, over ANDREW GREGG, the candidate of the opposition. There was little party feeling in the election, and still less in the re-election of Mr. MONROE as President. In 1824, the old usages of party seemed broken up, and the party, being left without candidates selected in the usual manner, scattered their support among various individuals. On that occasion, I was found among those who supported HENRY CLAY, and have never had cause to regret my having done so. It was not my fortune at any time to have supported the election of General JACKSON, a circumstance for which I have never reproached myself. In all the subsequent Presidential elections, until the last, I found myself separated from many of the democratic friends with whom I had previously acted. I had belonged during that time to a very respectable party called "the national republicans". But they having become lost, or merged in some new party, I found myself almost alone. I must either have stood still, until, in the revolution of years, my old friends were brought back to me, or I became persuaded again to action by the arguments and solicitudes of my old friends-among the most anxious and strenuous of whom, were my friend from Beaver, and some gentlemen then acting and afterwards deserting with him. Now it seems, that good old honest federalism is to be shuffled off the stage, and its place supplied by some of the modern nomenclatured parties. Democracy, however, has gained a signal triumph. All must now muster, and all must fight under her broad banner-a just, but to some, a humiliating tribute to the right and capacity of the people for self-government. We have now nothing but democracy-in name I mean. The old party names are laid aside, and you find all the newspapers now headed "Democratic Reporters", "Democratic State Journals", "Democratic Gazettes", and, bless the mark, "Democratic Anti-Masonic" papers. We have Democratic Whigs, too: and, to cap the climax, we have had a Convention held here called "The Democratic Republican Anti-Masonic State Convention", whose proceedings have been laid before us, at the head of which we find my most worthy and estimable "democratic friend" from Adams, (Mr. M'SHERRY). Now, I know where to find, and I respect an old federalist, although we differ-because I know we differ honestly. I find him an honest, open hearted, gentlemanly and independent man, of proud, yet mostly pleasant bearing, who generally does not stoop to little matters, the new converts. But these new-fangled shreds and patches, the factions and fragments of factions, I cannot commune with, nor understand; and I only regret to find my worthy and high-minded federal friends sometimes becoming hewers of wood and drawers of water to such factions. As to Anti-Masonry, I know little of it; and care less about it. This much I know, that, having no principle for its basis, it need not alarm us by any fears of its duration. The delegate from Beaver having repudiated democracy, must, to prove the sincerity of his conversion, depreciate her, and prophecy her downfall. In this he will find his mistake, as he has in most other matters; and I would advise him to be a little cautious in what he says; for if, in a course of years, he comes begging his way back to democracy, he may find his present denunciations in the way of his re-admission. This thing of strict consistency, in all the details of politics in the present day, is rather a rare virtue, and one which not every one can boast; and if we go into a strict investigation of the subject, it will be found to be rather a sore business for more than one of the would-be great men of the present day. This observation is a general one, and it may fall where it hits; and whoever it fits can make the application to his particular case. I had originally argued this question in a legitimate and regular manner, as a violation of the Constitution. To this, gentlemen have carefully abstained from replying, but have digressed and introduced extraneous matter, arguing about the expediency of the act in question, and endeavouring to justify the motives of those who passed it. My position remains untouched and unanswered, and I challenge all the talent and all the ingenuity of the other side to answer it if they can. It is this "The Constitution declares that all elections shall be free and equal. It specifies certain things as qualifications of electors. A freeman in one part of the State is entitled to vote under these provisions. By the operation of this registry act, another freeman in a different part of the State, under precisely similar circumstances, is excluded from exercising the right of suffrage. Such a law is a violation of the Constitution, and an encroachment on the rights of the citizen". But it seems that the observation I made, that this registry law is calculated to prejudice the poor and to trample their rights under foot, has met the special reprobation of the gentlemen on the other side, and allusion has been made sneeringly and contemptuously to the terms "the people", and they are called "the dear people". There is no man living who more heartily condemns the unworthy arts of demagogues, and the low and grovelling attempts to pander to diseased and depraved appetites, than I do. Sir, I scorn all such unworthy appeals, and I make none such. I dislike on the one side the slang about the poor, and the continual placing the rich and the poor-the poor and the rich-in the fore-ground of every harangue; and, on the other hand, I dislike this sneering at the rights of the people. Sir, in this country, the poor and the rich are mutually dependent on each other: They ought to be friends, and most generally, I trust, are so. The poor man of to-day, if industrious, is often found the rich man of to-morrow; and he who to-day is rolling in wealth, may shortly experience all the inconveniences and distress of poverty and want, with few qualifications to bear up under them. The rich have equal rights with the poor, and |