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At this point of his speech, Mr. Tipton
presented a list of the names of fifty-four supervisors and
special deputies appointed by Judge Woodruff of the United States
Circuit Court of New York, to enforce the above mentioned law,
which was read by the clerk of the Senate. These officers were
divided among jail-birds, penitentiary convicts, thieves,
burglars, robbers, keepers of low dives and houses of ill fame,
showing beyond a possibility of a doubt that a law was considered
infamous when such degraded characters were called on to enforce
it.
Mr. Tipton called attention to the fact that the army had adopted the doctrine of the supreme authority of the military over the civil power, as illustrated after the great fire in Chicago; in which a military commander, in utter defiance of the Governor of the State, and without shadow of law, organized troops and held control against the protest of Governor Palmer, which was in the following words: "That the duty of the president is to see that the laws of the United States are enforced, and that of the Governor of Illinois is confined to the enforcement of the laws of the State." The Governor declared "The disastrous fire in Chicago did not relieve the state of Illinois from any of its duties, nor transfer any of them to the Government of the United States." But notwithstanding all his efforts to vindicate the dignity of the State, Governor Palmer asserted, more in sorrow than in anger, "Military officers seem to believe that, under our system of government, it is a part of the duty of the officers of the army to superintend the administration of the local governments." Said Mr. Tipton, "The point I make is this, that when we have legislated so recklessly, the army has followed us equally as heedlessly and
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Federal office-holders, taking example, have set themselves up
also, with as much despotic arrogance as the military has ever
assumed."
On official corruption he quoted largely from the Message of Governor Warmoth, of Louisiana, January, 1872, in which that Republican Governor said:
In a time of profound peace, without any competent authority, or the least necessity, and without consultation with or the consent of the State authorities, the United States officials here, in violation of law, convoked a political convention in the customhouse in New Orleans, and this against the wishes and in the face of the solemn protest of a large majority of the convention. The doors of the custom-house were locked and barred for a day, and the whole business public who had interests there were excluded. United States deputy marshals, selected in many instances from rough and lawless characters, were especially deputized for the occasion, armed with loaded revolvers, and stationed within the building and around the United States court room designed for the convention. The United States marshal previously declared that they should be so within the convention itself.In addition the Governor detailed a greater outrage, as follows:
At the moment of the assembling of the House of Representatives a number of United States marshals armed with warrants from a United States Commissioner, based on a frivolous affidavit of members of the conspiracy, suddenly arrested eighteen Representatives, four Senators and the Governor and Lieutenant Governor. The revenue cutter Wilderness has been employed to take the conspirators beyond the jurisdiction of the sergeant-at-arms.
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Having submitted a vast array of evidence which could not be questioned, and never was, with a lively remembrance of the struggle, just then passed over the effort to annex San Domingo, when New York landsharks and White House officials used war steamers to intimidate Hayti, Mr. Tipton closed his discussion, as follows, referring to General Grant:
In forming a treaty he was "the Chief Magistrate," in declaring war he was "the Congress of the United States," and in "using all his influence privately" to forestall the Senate decision as per agreement of Babcock and Baez, he became a lobbyist in the outer halls of the Capitol. After the churches and schools and cemeteries
were released front the penalties of the Sumner amendment, the
bill was passed, to supervise common carriers, hotels, theaters
and other places of amusement, the Nebraska Senator voting in the
negative. In a few years his vote was vindicated, by a decision of
the Supreme Court of the United States, declaring the law
unconstitutional.
Fifty years ago the cry went out from Washington that a democratic president, Mr. Van Buren, had "gold spoons" upon his table at the White House. The country was horrified, and the orator who described the digression from primitive simplicity to European aristocratic extravagance, was ever after known as "Spooney Ogle," his name being Charles Ogle, of
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Pennsylvania. Never since government was established on earth
was there such an exciting campaign as that of 1840. The Whigs
nominated General Harrison, and adopted the emblem of the log
cabin, decorated with coon skins, hard cider barrels, latchstring
hanging out and chimney half burned away. The political cyclone
was irresistible, and Hail Columbia and Yankee Doodle were shelved
for an introduction to a tempest in a teapot.
On the 7th day of January, 1874, the question of
repealing a bill regulating congressmen's salaries, passed in a
preceding session, was before the senate. The law in question had
placed salaries at $7,500 per year, but had taken away excessive
mileage, put a limit on stationery and left members without the
franking privilege. Previously a senator from Oregon might receive
$7,500 in pay and mileage, where one from Maryland could only draw
$5,000; his mileage being so small. The law had been made to act
back to the beginning of the session and thus raised the salaries
of that present congress. But as congress was the only power that
could establish salaries, the question of when an act should take
effect was one for their own discretion, and in this case they
followed universal precedent. It was not a party vote that had
established the laws, but the democratic party were attacking the
republicans for extravagance and a portion of the republican press
was preaching economy and hence they vied with each other in
denouncing the new law as a "salary grab." Some senators who had
always received their pay in this manner before became suddenly
virtuous and turned the "back pay" into the treasury, others
promising their constituents that if forgiven they would vote for
the repeal of the law, and others asked to be instructed so they
could do the will of their political friends. In the next general
election, after the new enactment, the party in power lost members
of congress and assembled at Washington to make speedy
atonement.
To this state of affairs Mr. Tipton alluded in
the subjoined extract in reply to a correction made by a senator
from Iowa:
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Mr. Tipton believed from the first that,
unless a change was made in salaries, poor men were doomed to stay
at home, and millionaires occupy the senate and house; and hence
when a proposition came up to take back by future legislation what
members had received by express law there was no alternative but
to use recorded facts, "without fear, affectation or favor."
In order to show that the retroacting clause of the law was not the cause of the public clamor he pointed to the fact that, from the foundation of the government to the present time, every such law had acted back upon the congress in which it was passed. Mr. Tipton:
I say, therefore, unhesitating and positively, that the attack upon the integrity of congress, of being thieves and plunderers of the treasury, was not on account of any peculiarity of the law. Did any man dare before last spring charge the present vice president, Mr. Wilson, with being a salary grabber and back-pay plunderer? Never! and yet it is upon record that in 1856 his extra pay amounted to $2,168. Time rolled on, and in 1866 again he received back pay, $2,805, and with the back pay of those two laws, amounting to $5,000, in his pockets, he was triumphantly elected vice president of the United States.
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The financial condition of the country was far better than in 1866. Mr. Tipton believed that the fact that certain senators hastened to denounce the law and turn their extra portion under the law into the treasury, had given them credit for conscientiousness to which they were not entitled and cast discredit on their honest associates. He said:
Almost the first man to present himself was our honored vice president. Under the pressure and clamor he returned $4,448. Then, as a matter of course, they would go to the honorable senator from Indiana and say, "Now sir, your chief, the vice president of the United States, has made a clean breast of it; he has returned to the treasury $4,448; he did it on his own conscience; he felt that a wrong had been perpetrated; and as he expected and desired happiness hereafter, he felt that he would not be entitled to it if he entered heaven with this amount of blood money upon his skirts. Now, if you have drawn yours, will you not return it also?" That is the manner in which the appeal was made. Poor fool, was he, who made the appeal? Did he not know
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Having followed the precedents of seventy-five years and duplicated the votes of senators who had cast them on two different occasions before, Mr. Tipton felt that new senators were treated in an infamous manner when abandoned by those of whom he had received instruction; and hence he uttered the following:
Mr. President, if the people had not been misled, they might have said this frankly: "Gentlemen, you have followed the precedents that we have set for seventy-five years; but hereafter we would prefer that a new precedent should be established on the subject." Under these circumstances we could have met them and discussed calmly and dispassionately the propriety of a new precedent; but when men approached us, and denounced us for an act of infamy, when we could retort, "your precedents were our guide," they would have observed a different course had they been misled.Some of the most popular senators failed of re-election, and though they went down frowning, came up smiling in future campaigns and always having a vivid appreciation of the phrase--"After that--the fireworks." The members from Nebraska in the senate voted for the law, when passed, and received
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their pay under it and Mr. Tipton voted against repeal, concluding a speech with the following:
"I shall vote against all amendments, and especially most heartily against the amendment of the honorable senator from Indiana (Mr. Morton). If his popularity in the state of Indiana bears any comparison to the magnitude and magnificence of his physical contour, he needs no such species of legislation as this to hold him in the cords of affection; but if there is a standard that is to regulate prices in congress for members from Indiana, I beg him to recollect that though he is here the concentrated and embodied manifestation of health, perhaps a less salary than ordinary, might attach to the remains of such a citizen as had escaped or been left from the ravages of the Wabash ague?
On the 12th day of January, 1875, one and a
half months before the expiration of his term, in the 43d
congress, the omni-present Louisiana case was before the senate.
Senator Howe, of Wisconsin, had the floor, and was to be followed
by Mr. Tipton, and he to be succeeded by General Logan, of
Illinois. But inasmuch as some of the General's constituents were
in the city and desired to hear him, Mr. Tipton yielded to his
request and gave him the right of way, especially as he promised
to give the Nebraska senator "something to stir him up and to
answer."
For two days the general ranged the field of
discussion and, like Olympian Jove, commingling earth and heaven,
dealt out eulogies upon friends and defiance and political death
to all opposers. Mr. Howe closed his speech by comparing the
Republican party to a sailing vessel,--"If the ship goes down
before the voyage is ended, I propose to go down with it." The
peroration of the general was in the same strain, while his
inspired vision was cheered by the motto flaming from her
side,--"Freighted with the hopes of mankind." Following such a
display of oratorical pyrotechnics, Mr. Tipton essayed to satisfy
the general that he had succeeded in "stirring him up," and
inasmuch as the Nebraska senator had previously spoken upon the
Louisiana case in all its bearings, he was de-
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lighted with the "free and easy" range allowable in following
the general, and was ready to decorate the statue of tragedy with
the garlands of comedy. Quiet being restored, he proceeded.
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Mr. TIPTON: Mr. President, the honorable Senator from Illinois made yesterday and to-day the point, with a great degree of force and energy, that certain audacious editors are charging that there have been frauds committed in this country. So far as that question of frauds is concerned,
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Mr. President, the honorable Senator from Illinois has been very much excited because somebody has talked about the oppression of the republican party. Very well; he only can speak, I suppose, for the body that he is connected with in this chamber. Two years ago he gave you his opinion of the tyranny of the republican party in the Senate, and if he had been connected with the army he might have discussed the character of army officers; if he had been connected with office-holders outside he might learnedly have discussed their characters. But he was intimate with the Senate and he knew that the Senate stood here the great correcting instrumentality of the republican party of the country, and he turned his attention to the Senate; and I will give the country the benefit to-day of his deliberate opinion on the subject of what the republican party was just two years ago. The honorable Senator then said in a speech in this chamber: "By calling your little meetings and seeking to direct everybody no man can be an independent man in this Senate." I think his course in this debate has illustrated his opinion of it two years ago. "No man," said he then, "can be an independent man in this Senate."
Here a vast amount of official testimony was produced showing that the same policy of coercion was invoked again at Louisiana which was attempted against Georgia, Mississippi and Virginia. Mr. Tipton then said:
The witness testifies that they got up affidavits before the election was over, and filled them up in blank, and carried them out over the whole country; and one of the witnesses
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The President sent them the military. What came of that? You know what came of that. Judge Durell, the aged and venerable--for they say he is too old to impeach now, and he goes free--Judge Durell put on his legal cap and came to the conclusion, as soon as they told him that the president allowed the army to aid the marshal to enforce the mandates of a court, that he would allow them to do the rest. Then he says by his action, "Let it be so; let the troops be stationed in the state house of Louisiana." Where did he make the decision? He never had a court organized to do it; he never had a clerk near him to put the seal of the State to it. He went into his garret, and there, I hope without even the light of a tallow dip, in darkness--and yet he thought he saw very clearly said, "Let the military at two o'clock go into the state-house and occupy it." No, he did not fix the time; he left it to their discretion, because he thought they could not get there before three; but they got in at two. The morning dawned, and the Army of the United States had control of a state-house; and a set of unmitigated political villians (sic), cutthroats of the first water, had concocted a list of members to go in under the dictation of the United States. They walked in; they took possession of that hall. Then came a protest long and loud; but no, that legislature promised to send a republican to sit over there where Kellogg had abandoned his seat and they proposed to send another republican for six years. We waited. They set their mill to grinding and then produced two senators in a short time. But the people of Louisiana, where were they? The Senator from Wisconsin (Mr. Carpenter) said they were under the foot of a Federal judge. That Senator is not a liberal republican; that Senator is not a democrat in his political affiliation. He is the Vice President of the United States pro tempore whenever our worthy presiding officer is
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When he gave them the army two years
before, it was precisely on this same basis. They said to the
President, "There are rumors that there may be difficulties,
and we therefore ask you for the use of the army." Here he says
they satisfied him that there might be difficulty and that they
might want an army; and as he had an army, in the kindness of
his disposition to his political friend, the governor of
Louisiana, he says: "Certainly keep the army there and perhaps
an opportunity may offer when I may be able to use it." He
seems to have desired that his soldiery should not rust out for
want of use, and that whenever there is an opportunity for them
to do something they should be on hand, that the governor
should have the privilege without any requisition of the
President, according to the constitution, to use the army.
Therefore we have it understood that that use of the army was
given upon the same old basis of "Use it at your pleasure and
return it when you are done with it." How does that agree with
the Constitution of the United States?
Here the startling doctrine is announced for the first time officially in the history of this country that the United States
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When it was charged that the Speaker of the Democratic House of Louisiana had called for protection of Federal troops, Mr. Tipton disposed of the charge thus:
But if General De Trobriand had called at the private residence of Speaker Wiltz and if General De Trobriand had been on a hunting excursion, as southern gentlemen sometimes are, and if his pack of hounds had followed him to the premises of Speaker Wiltz, and after he entered the parlor, and, while he was engaged in conversation with the speaker, if his hounds had raised a disturbance with the watchdog of the speaker's mansion, what would the speaker be likely to do? He would ask him politely if he would please step to the hall and call off his dogs; and that is all Speaker Wiltz did. He found the hounds, the political hounds, of this officer of the army belaboring and setting upon his officers of the peace in the lobby, and knowing that the owner of the dogs could do more with them than anybody else, said he, "General De Trobriand, will you please step out into the hall and call off your dogs?" [Laughter.]
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I do regret that a man of his position before the country should deem it necessary to attack the stricken people of the South in. the manner in which he has during this whole discussion. Senators from the South have been so attacked, they have been so denounced, they have been so pressed (if you look for the pressing to the reports that will go out of these speeches), that I scarcely know how they will be able to face a chivalrous, bold and fighting constituency; and I have fancied that the object was to take advantage of the circumstances under which they were placed here. I did feel that a great injustice was done to the Senator from Georgia (Mr. Gordon) the other day, when there seemed to be a studied effort to irritate and to goad that faithful representative. At that very time he had sent a dispatch to the people of Louisiana in which he had called upon them in words positive and unequivocal, "Bear all your tribulations; suffer, even suffer to manacles; but resist not the authority of the United States." While the honorable Senator from Georgia, in the spirit of the Cincinnati platform-of amity, of friendship, and healing of wounds, the spirit of conciliation, the spirit of magnanimity, the spirit of chivalry and of honor--was thus attempting to throw oil upon the troubled elements, that he should thus be attacked was to me most astounding, especially as he had just placed the fetters of peace upon hands that illustrated his valor in battle. The people of the country will understand it. Men are Dot to be badgered now from the North any more than it was once said, in the days of slavery, that they were not to be badgered from the South. We now stand upon a common platform, we now occupy the same position, and the people will apply the corrective. The people at the polls will give it the quietus; and the people of the North everywhere are
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Here followed a searching analysis of
centralizing legislation, in which it was shown that almost every
function of states rights was assumed by congress; though the
Lincoln republican platform of 1860 had declared, it was "The
right of each state to order and control its own domestic
institutions, according to its own judgment, exclusively."
Finishing his second day's speech Mr. Tipton called attention to the great political upheaval which had advanced democratic interests.
It was so, Mr. President (Mr. Scott in the chair), in your own State of Pennsylvania. You had been the author of thirteen volumes, containing reports of outrages in the South. That document had gone all over Pennsylvania. You had at least probably one hundred thousand majority for Hart-
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