a select committee of eleven to inquire into the Presidential vote of 1876 in Louisiana and Florida. The resolution was adopted. Mr. Clarkson was made chairman of the committee, which consisted of seven Democrats and four Republicans. It entered upon its labors during the succeeding vacation.

A great number of cipher telegrams between Mr. Tilden's managers had been brought into the custody of an earlier investigating committee of the Senate by a subpœna issued to the Western Union Telegraph Company. Mr. William M. Grosvenor, of the New York Tribune, now turned his attention to these, and ingeniously deciphered them. They showed clearly that attempts had been made, though ineffectually, to bribe members of the election canvassing boards in the disputed States to count at least one of the electoral votes for Tilden and Hendricks, which would secure their election. These facts were proved before the House investigating committee during the Congressional session of 1878-9. Mr. Tilden appeared before the committee, and swore that at the time of the negotiations he knew nothing of them, and, when afterwards informed of them, had commanded such procedure to be stopped. Nothing transpired in the evidence to refute his statement, or to connect him in any way with the attempted fraud.

On account of these disclosures no further attempt was made to impeach President Hayes's title at this or a later time.

President Hayes adopted a conciliatory policy toward the South, appointing a Southern Democrat to his Cabinet (David M. Key, of Tennessee, Postmaster-General), and in other ways attempting to unite the sections. His appointment of Senator Carl Schurz [Mo.] as Secretary of the Interior was a similar offer to the Liberal Republicans, who had seceded in 1872, to come back into the regular Republican fold.

HAYES'S GREAT CABINET TRICK-UNCLE HORACE [GREELEY] MATERIALIZES [The Great Materialization Trick on the Platform. Medium Hayes tied in the Cabinet; when the door is opened by Schurz and Evarts, the Ghost of Horace Greeley steps forth and astonishes the Liberal Committee) H. G. (LOQUITUR]: "HA-HA! HOORAW, BOYS, WE'VE GOT 'EM! JEST AS I WANTED IT, ONLY YOU'RE FOUR YEARS TOO LATE. SAM BOWLES THERE, HOB-NOBBING WITH STANLEY MATTHEWS-IT ALWAYS DID TAKE HIM ABOUT FOUR YEARS TO TURN AROUND, BUT MURAT HALSTEAD, WHISPERING TO KEY, WAS GENERALLY ABOUT FOUR YEARS AHEAD OF TIME. BOYS, WE'VE GOT 'EM! LET US CLASP HANDS ACROSS THE BLOODY CHASM! THAT MY EYES SHOULD SEE THIS DAY! AIN'T THE OLD PARTY HACKS UNDER THE HARROW! HAW, HAW! LET US CAST BEHIND US THE WRECK AND RUBBISH OF WORN-OUT CONTENTIONS AND BY-GONE FEUDS. HURRAW FOR UNIVERSAL AMNESTY AND IMPARTIAL SUFFRAGE! IN VAIN DO THE DRILL-SERGEANTS OF A DECAYING ORGANIZATION FLOURISH MENACINGLY THEIR TRUNCHEONS; IN VAIN DO THE WHIPPERS-IN OF PARTIES ONCE VITAL MY MAGNETISM IS GETTING WEAK; JOIN HANDS AND TURN OUT THE GAS. HALFrom the collection of the New York Public Library

LELULAH! GOOD NIGHT!

CHAPTER IV

CONGRESSIONAL COERCION OF THE PRESIDENT

[RIDERS ON APPROPRIATION BILLS]

The Forty-fifth Congress Fails to Pass Army Appropriation Bill-President Hayes Summons the Forty-sixth Congress [Democratic] in Special Session-William A. J. Sparks [Ill.] Introduces New Army Appropriation Bill with "Rider" Forbidding Use of Troops at the Polls-Debate: In Favor of the "Rider," John G. Carlisle [Ky.], Alexander H. Stephens [Ga.], Samuel J. Randall [Pa.], Fernando Wood [N. Y.], John A. McMahon [O.], Joseph C. F. Blackburn [Ky.]; Opposed, Gen. J. Warren Keifer [O.], Omar D. Conger [Mich.], Harry White [Pa.], William P. Frye [Me.], George M. Robeson [N. J.], Thomas B. Reed [Me.], James A. Garfield [O.]; Bill Is Passed by House and Senate; It Is Vetoed by the President, with Reasons-"Riders" on Civil Appropriation Bill (Payment in Pensions of Resumption Funds and Repeal of Federal Supervision of Elections)-Debate: In Favor, Mr. McMahon; Opposed, Gen. Garfield; Bill Is Passed by House and Senate; It Is Vetoed by the President, with Reasons.

T

HE elections of 1878 resulted in a reduction of the Democratic majority in the House, and in a change in the Senate from a Republican majority to a Democratic majority of six. Thirteen of the new Representatives were members of the Greenback party. On most questions these voted with the Democrats in the new (Forty-sixth) Congress, giving them a majority of about thirty.

The former Congress having failed to pass necessary appropriation bills, owing to a disagreement over the use of troops at the polls, President Hayes summoned the new one in special session. It sat from March 18 until July 1 1879.

On March 27, 1879, William A. J. Sparks [Ill.] introduced in the House a bill making appropriations for the army. It was substantially the bill disagreed to in the previous session with the repeal of the statute relat

ing to the use of troops at the polls, on the retention of which the Senate (then Republican) had insisted. Upon this point the debate was concentrated.

TROOPS AT THE POLLS

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, MARCH 28-APRIL 30, 1879

On March 28 General J. Warren Keifer [O.] opposed the repeal of the statute in question.

This is not a work of repeal which we are engaged in. It is a work of making that which was hitherto a duty, made so by law, a crime; a crime entirely new, wholly new, in connection with officers of the army and officers of the navy and the civil officers of this Government. Never before, I believe, in the history of this country has it been attempted to make it a crime for an officer of the army or an officer of the navy, or a marshal of the United States, or a deputy marshal of the United States to keep the peace. This proposed legislation is intended to do that. Then this is not legislation that pertains to the army alone. It undertakes to make it a high crime, punishable by fine and imprisonment, for any civil officer of the United States to appear on election day at the polls with an armed body of men, not troops, not United States soldiers, but to go with an armed body of men to the polls to quell a riot. They may go with feathers in their hands without violating the law; but when armed force is to be resisted, when it becomes necessary to quell rioters with arms in their hands, persons gathered together for the purpose of murder, intimidation, or whatever else it may be, the marshals and their deputies, whose duty it is now by law to quell such disturbances and restore and preserve peace, must go without any armed men with them; otherwise under this proposed legislation they will be guilty of a high crime.

Now, when the marshal or deputy marshal comes, as it is his duty to come, to quell a riot, he has the right to summon the law-abiding citizens of the community to obey his orders, to go, if you please, armed-to become his posse comitatus in quelling such disturbances. But this proposed legislation takes away from the marshals and other civil officers of the United States who are charged with similar duties the power of putting down a riot on election day at the polls, and makes it a high crime punishable by fine and imprisonment if such an officer undertakes to do it. This does not relate to the army and navy alone, but to the civil side of the Government.

Hence, I insist that this proposed legislation is not germane to the army appropriation bill. It is not germane because it affects officers of the navy; and this is not a naval bill. It is not germane because it affects civil officers of the Government. If the legislation proposed as a whole includes anything not within the rule it must all fall together.

The gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Sparks] asked whether prior to the act of February 25, 1865, there was any law on the subject of the use of troops at the polls. Now let me say to him that was the first time in the history of the country that there was any restraining statute upon our statute-books at all in relation to the use of troops at the polls or anywhere else in the United States, and that legislation prohibited the use of troops and armed men at the polls by military, naval, or civil officers in the service of the Government, except for the purpose of repelling armed enemies of the United States or to keep the peace at the polls. Those two cases were excepted in this legislation passed by a republican Congress, and we propose that this legislation shall remain as it now is, so that it shall not be said as a reproach and a stigma upon this country that we have officers, military, naval, and civil, whose duty it is by law, under penalties, to keep the peace everywhere, save and except on one day at least in each year these officers shall be required to fold their arms and look on and witness riot, murder, intimidation, or anything else of an unlawful character, going on before their eyes, or be subject to severe penalties. By the second section of the second article of the Constitution the President is made commander-in-chief of the army and navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several States when called into actual service of the United States; and together with other powers given him he has the right to move the army whenever and wherever it is necessary. Such power cannot be taken away by law.

John G. Carlisle [Ky.] supported the provision.

I undertake to affirm, and I do it deliberately, that under the Constitution of the United States the President has no right to use the army or navy, or any part of the army or navy, to protect the States against domestic violence or to enforce State laws unless he is authorized so to do by act of Congress. I will read to the House that provision of the Constitution which is in point:

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 application of the legislature or of the Executive (when the legislature cannot be convened), against domestic violence.