Harper's Encyclopedia of United States History
Benson Lossing, Ed.

The national election bill of 1890, as was pointed out several times during the discussion which it aroused, both in and out of Congress, is a long bill. Yet if any one will take the trouble to compare it with the general election laws of most, if not all, of the States, he will find that in its class it is more conspicuous for brevity than for length. The truth is that no election law which attempts to provide accurately [191] for all the different stages of an election can be otherwise than long. At the same time, although it takes many paragraphs in a bill to state exactly how each act, great and small, having relation to an election shall be performed, it is perfectly easy to put into very few words the purpose of an election law and the methods by which it proposes to accomplish that purpose.

The first object of the national election law was to secure entire publicity in regard to every act connected with the election of members of Congress. To effect this it provides for the appointment of United States officers, selected from the two leading political parties, to watch over and report upon naturalization, registration, the conduct of the election, the count of the ballots, and the certification of the members. These officers have no power whatever to interfere with local officers or existing methods. Their only duty is to protect the honest voter, secure evidence to punish wrong-doers, and make public every fact in connection with the election. The State systems, whether they provide for the secret and official ballot or otherwise, are all carefully protected under this law against any interference from United States officers. Moreover, if the officers of the United States at any election precinct exercise their powers improperly, the local officers are there to report their conduct. Thus is obtained a double assurance of publicity from two sets of men, among whom both the leading political parties are represented, without any interference with local officers or local systems.

At only one point does the United States take what may be called control of any essential step in the election of Representatives. Where an entire congressional district is placed under the law, a United States board of canvassers appointed for the district receives the supervisors' returns, and on those returns issues a certificate for the candidate who appears to be elected. If that certificate agrees with the certificate of the State officers, the name of the candidate who holds them both is, of course, placed upon the roll of members of the House. If the two certificates disagree, then the certificate of the United States board is prima facie evidence and places the name of the holder upon the roll of Representatives; but in this case any candidate may appeal from the decision of the board of canvassers to the circuit court of the United States, which has power to set aside the certificate of the canvassers and virtually decide whose name shall be placed on the roll of the House. A candidate who is not willing to have his cause tried by a court of high jurisdiction must be hard to please, when we consider that the only other known method is that of a committee of Congress made up of party representatives.

Thus it will be seen that the whole purpose of this bill may be summed up in one word— “publicity.” It proceeds on the sound American theory that all that is necessary, in the long run, to secure good government and to cure evils of any kind in the body politic is that the people should be correctly informed and should know all the facts. It proposes, therefore, by making public all the facts relating to elections, to protect the voters and to render easy the punishment of fraud. If wrong exists, it will disclose and punish it. If all is fair and honest, it proves that all is well, restores public confidence, and removes suspicion. There is absolutely nothing in this bill except provisions to secure the greatest amount of publicity in regard to elections, and to protect the ballot-box by making sure the punishment of those who commit crimes against the suffrage. It interferes with no man's rights: it changes no local system; it disturbs no local officers; but it gives publicity to every step and detail of the election, and publicity is the best, as it is the greatest, safeguard that we can have in this country for good government and honest voting. No wrong can long continue when the people see and understand it, and nothing that is right and honest need fear the light. The Southern Democrats declare that the enforcement of this or any similar law will cause social disturbances and revolutionary outbreaks. As the negroes now disfranchised certainly will not revolt because they receive a vote, it is clear, therefore, that this means that the men who now rule in those States will make social [192] disturbances and revolution in resistance to a law of the United States. It is also not a little amusing to observe that small portion of the newspaper press which has virtue generally in its peculiar keeping, raving in mad excitement merely because it is proposed to make public everything which affects the election of the representatives of the people in Congress. There must be something very interesting in the methods by which these guardians of virtue hope to gain and hold political power when they are so agitated at the mere thought of having the darkness which now overhangs the places where they win their victories dispersed.

So much for the purpose of the bill. A word now as to some of the objections which have been raised against it. The most common is that which is summed up in the phrase “force bill.” There is nothing very novel in this epithet, for it can hardly be called an argument, or the suggestion of one. It proceeds on the old doctrine of giving a dog a bad name—a saying which is valuable, but perhaps a trifle musty. There was a bill introduced many years ago to which that description was applied not without effect; and the persons opposed to the new measure, whose strongest intellectual quality is not originality, brought out the old name without much regard to its appropriateness. The trouble with this is that the old bill and the new one are totally unlike, and that what applies to one has no application to the other except that they both aim to protect American voters in their rights. There is no question of force in the new bill. One able editor referred to it as “bristling with bayonets in every line” ; but as there is absolutely no allusion to anything or anybody remotely connected with bayonets, it is to be feared that the able editor in question had not read the bill. So anxious, indeed, are the opponents of the measure on this point that, not finding any bayonets in the bill, they themselves have put them in rather than not have them in at all. One newspaper took a clause from the revised statutes of the United States relating to United States troops and printed it as a part of the election bill, although the bill contains no such clause, but merely re-enacts a law which has been on the statute-books for twenty years, and which would have remained and been in force, whether re-enacted or not, so long as it was not repealed.

The President of the United States has from the beginning of the government had power to use the army and navy in support of the laws of the United States, and this general power was explicitly conferred many years ago in that portion of the revised statutes which now cones under the title “civil rights.” The new election bill neither adds to nor detracts from that power, and as the liberties of the country have been safe under it for at least twenty years, it is not to be apprehended that they will now be in danger. The fact is that the talk about this being a “force bill” and having bayonets in every line is mere talk designed to frighten the unwary, for the bill is really an “anti-force” bill, intended to stop the exercise of illegal force by those who use it at the polls North or South; and it is exactly this which the opponents of the bill dread. The United States have power to enforce all the laws which they make, whether they are laws regulating elections or for other purposes. That power the United States must continue to hold and to exercise when needful, and the national election law neither affects nor extends it in any way.

The objection next in popularity is that the measure is sectional, and not national. That this should be thought a valuable and important shibboleth only shows how men come to believe that there is real meaning in a phrase if they only shout it often enough and loudly enough. Repetition and reiteration are, no doubt, pleasant political exercises, but they do not alter facts. In the first place, if we look a little below the surface, it will be found that no more damaging confession could be made than this very outcry. The law when applied can have but one of two results. It will either disclose the existence of fraud, violence, or corruption in a district, or show that the election is fair and honest. If the latter proves to be the case, no one can or would object to any law which demonstrates it. If, on the other hand, fraud is disclosed, then the necessity of this legislation is proved. The election law is designed to meet and [193] overcome fraud, force, or corruption, as the case may be, in elections anywhere and everywhere, and if it is sectional, it can only be so because fraudulent elections are sectional. Those who rave against the bill as sectional—that is, as directed against the South, for Southern and sectional appear to have become synonymous terms— admit by so doing that they have a monopoly of impure elections. If it were otherwise, the law, even when applied, would not touch them except to exhibit their virtues in a strong light.

In the sense, however, in which the charge of sectionalism is intended there is no truth in it. Why, it has been asked, did not the Republicans accept the amendment of Mr. Lehlbach, of New Jersey, and make the measure really national? The Lehlbach amendment, if adopted, would have made the bill universally compulsory, but would not have made it one whit more national than it now is. The clause on which the accusation of sectionalism rests is that which makes the application of the bill optional; but to make a measure optional is not to make it sectional. If everybody and every part of the country have the option, the bill is as broadly national as if every provision in it were compulsory. No one would think of calling the local-option liquor laws, which are not uncommon in the States, special and not general legislation; and it is equally absurd to call an election law containing the local-option principle sectional. A law which may be applied anywhere on the fulfilment of a simple and easily-fulfilled condition is as national and general as a law which must be applied everywhere, whether asked for or not.

Moreover, the origin of the legislation of which this is a mere continuance is the best proof of its national character. The original supervisors' law, of which this is an extension, was designed especially to meet the notorious frauds in the city of New York, and the new bill aims quite as much to cure frauds in the great cities of the North as in any part of the country. It is, indeed, the knowledge of this fact which sharpens the anguish of the Northern Democrats at what they pathetically call an invasion of State rights. It is not the peril of State rights which afflicts them, but the thought of an abridgment of those liberties with the ballot-box of which the performances in Hudson county, N. J., have afforded the most recent illustration. The South shouts loudest, but it is merely because the ruling statesmen there think they have most to lose by fair elections. What chiefly troubles the opponents of the bill North and South is, not that it is sectional, but that it will check, if not stop, cheating at the polls everywhere.

Another objection of a sordid kind brought forward against the bill is that it will cost money. If this or any other measure will tend to keep the ballot-box pure, it is of little consequence how much it costs. The people of the United States can afford to pay for any system which protects the vote and makes the verdict of the ballot-box so honest as to command universal confidence; but it is, of course, for the interest of the enemies of the law to make the expense seem as startling as possible. They talk about $10,000,000 being the least probable expenditure. Assuming, as they do, that the law will be put in operation everywhere, this sum is at least twice too large. Careful and liberal estimates put the cost, supposing the law were to be applied in every district, at less than $5,000,000; but as there is no probability that the law will be asked for in a third of the districts, the cost would not reach a third of the sum actually necessary for all districts. Admitting, however, that $5,000,000 or $6,000,000 would be expended, no better expenditure of money could be made than one which would protect the ballot, give publicity to the conduct of elections, and demonstrate to all men their fairness and honesty. The States of the North have not hesitated to take upon themselves the burden of the expense of their own elections under the secret and official ballot, and the wisdom of this policy is beyond question. It is difficult to see why the policy which is sound for the States is not sound for the United States.

It is also objected that the penal clauses are very severe. This is perfectly true. They are very severe; and if any crime is more deserving of severe punishment or more dangerous to the public weal than a crime against the ballot, it has not yet been made generally known in this country. [194] The penal clauses of the law are intentionally severe, and the penalties are purposely made heavy. The penalties against murder, highway robbery, and burglary are also heavy and severe, but in every case it is easy to avoid them. Do not be a murderer, a burglar, or a highwayman; do not commit crimes against the ballot, and the penalties for these offences will be to you as if they never existed.

The last objection here to be touched, and the only one remaining which has been zealously pushed, is that the enforcement of this law will endanger Northern property and affect Northern business in the South. It is not easy to see why honest elections, whether State or national, should affect injuriously either property or business. If honest elections are hostile to property and business, then the American system of free government is indeed in danger; and no more infamous reflection could be made upon the people of America than to say that they cannot be trusted to express their will by their votes, but must have their votes suppressed in the interests of order and virtue. No one, however, really believes in anything of the sort. This is simply a revival of the old cry of the Northern “doughface” against the agitation of the slavery question in the days before the war. It was base and ignoble then, but at that dark period there was at least a real danger of war and bloodshed behind the issue. Now it is not only as utterly ignoble and base as before, but it is false and ludicrous besides. Property and business in the Southern States, as elsewhere, depend almost wholly for protection on State laws and municipal ordinances: and neither this nor any other national law, even if it could be conceived to be injurious to business interests, could touch either State or municipal governments. The proposition, without any disguise, really is that fair elections of Congressmen would endanger business and property in the Southern States; and the mere statement of the proposition is its complete confutation, for, even if Congress had the power or the desire to interfere in local legislation, the election of fifteen or twenty Republicans in the South would not affect the composition of the House materially, and as Congress has no such power, the cry, of course, is wholly without meaning. So keen, however, is the sympathy of the Northern Democrats with this view of the subject, that definite threats of war against the national government have been heard.

But there is, unfortunately, a much more serious side to this phase of the question. Legislation is proposed which the South does not like, and, thereupon, headed by the gallant Governor Gordon, Southern leaders and Southern newspapers begin to threaten and bluster as if we were back in the days of South Carolinian nullification. It is the old game of attempting to bully the North and West by threats. The North and West are to be boycotted for daring to protect citizens in their constitutional rights, and even more dreadful things are to follow. It has been generally believed that the war settled the proposition that this country is a nation, and that the nation's laws lawfully enacted are supreme. Yet here we have again the old slavery spirit threatening to boycott Northern business, trying to bully the Northern people, raising the old sectional cry, and murmuring menaces of defiance and resistance if a certain law which can injure no honest man is enacted. The war was not wholly in vain, and it is time that this vaporing was stopped. The laws of the United States will be obeyed; election laws, as well as every other, will be enforced; and the sensible way is to discuss the question properly and have the people pass upon it, and to throw aside these threats of boycott and nullification as unworthy the use or notice of intelligent men.

The difficulty, however, with all these objections, both for those who make them and those who reply to them, is that they are utterly unreal. They are but the beating of gongs and drums, without any greater significance than mere noise can possess. The national election bill is a moderate measure. It is not a force bill; it does not interfere in any way with local elections or local government. It does not involve extravagant expenditure, nor is it sectional in its scope. It does not seek to put the negro or any other class of citizens in control [195] anywhere, but aims merely to secure to every man who ought to vote the right to vote and to have his vote honestly counted. No one knows these facts to be true better than the opponents of the bill; but their difficulty is that they cannot bring forward their real and honest objection, and so they resort to much shrieking and many epithets. They believe, whether rightly or wrongly, that fair elections mean the loss of the national House at least nine times out of ten to the party to which they belong. They believe that fair elections mean the rise of a Republican party in every Southern State, led by and in good part composed of white men, native to the ground, whose votes are now suppressed under the pretence of maintaining race supremacy as against the negro. They believe that the law threatens the disappearance of the race issue on which they found their power and the fall of the narrow oligarchy which for so many years has ruled with iron hand in the Southern States and in the national conventions of the Democratic party.

The real objection to the bill, in other words, comes from the fact that one of the two great parties believes that free elections imperil their power. They know that by this bill the United States officers, taken from both parties, are appointed by the courts, the body furthest removed from politics. They know that these United States officers will be held in check by local officers and be utterly unable to interfere with the proper conduct of the election. But they know also that the result will be publicity, and they believe that in consequence of publicity many districts will be lost to them. This law is as fair to one party as another; but if one party is cheating that party will suffer, and where the cry against the law is loudest it is the best evidence of its necessity, and proves that those who resist it profit by the wrong-doing which it seeks to cure.

The Constitution of the United States promises equal representation to the people, and it makes the negro a citizen. Equality of representation has been destroyed by the system in the South which makes one vote there overweigh five or six votes in the North, and the negro has been deprived of the rights the nation gave. No people can afford to stand quiet and see its charter of government made a dead-letter; and no wrong can endure and not be either cured or expiated. Fair elections North and South are vital to the republic. If we fail to secure them, or if we permit any citizen, no matter how humble, to be wronged, we shall atone for it to the last jot and tittle. No great moral question of right and wrong can ever be settled finally except in one way, and the longer the day of reckoning is postponed the larger will be the debt and the heavier its payment.