The Congressional Globe, Volume 13, Part 1: Twenty-Eighth Congress, First Session Page: 349
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CONGRESSIONAL GLOBE.
349
electors of President and Vice President of the
United States in each State shall be the Tuesday next
after the first Monday of November next; and after-
wards, except when a special election shall be held
in pursuance of the 10th section of the act to which
this is an amendment, the time of choosing the
electors shall be the Tuesday next after the first
Monday of November in every fourth year suc-
ceeding the last election of said electors; and when
such special election shall be held, the time therefor
shall be the Tuesday next after the first Monday of
-November in the year when the same shall be held
pursuant to the section aforesaid.
Mr. DUNCAN rose, after the Clerk had read the
bill, and said he looked upon this as a very impor-
tant subject, and he was not alone in that opinion;
since its introduction into this House, the public at-
tention had been called to it, and he was in posses-
sion of a number of petitions, signed by many cit-
izens of several States, other than that which he had
the honor in part to represent. He had not present-
ed these petitions, because he had received them
since the bill was reported by the Committee of
Elections, and he only spoke of them now to show
the extent of feeling in favor of the passage of this
bill, which prevailed throughout the States. The
bill, he repeated, was important; and he was of
opinion, there were very few gentlemen on this
iloor who would not support it.
There was no higher duty incumbent upon the
peopje of this country, than that they should make
themselves acquainted with what they owed to each
other as citizens, and what they owed to the country—
viz: that they should defend the government, and
support the free institutions of the country. They
were in the enjoyment of emphatically a free gov-
ernment; and while the subjects of either govern-
ments owed obedience to laws which they had no
share in making, the people of this country not only
owed obedience and submission to the laws of the
country, but they had higher duties and higher privi-
leges, being themselves a part of the government.
They were not only subject to the law, but they
were the framers and authors of the law. They
were the law makers.
Mr. D. entered into a comparison of the different
forms of government. The very foundation of our
free institutions was the elective franchise; it was
more valuable than all others; destroy that institu-
tion, and all the others would crumble to dust. It
was impossible, at the commencement of the govern-
ment, to establish apure, primary, (or if they pleased)
unsophisticated democracy; but the fiamers of the
constitution were aware of the impoitance of regu-
lating, defending, and securing the elective franchise.
They who purchased our free institutions with
their treasure and their blood had a right to
expect that they would be maintained by their
posterity; they had a right to suppose that
no wretch would be found base enough to trample
them under his feet; they had a right to confide
in the integrity and political honesty of those who
were to come after them. But, by a wisdom almost
■superhuman, they seemed to have anticipated the
possibility of its abuse, for they provided in the con-
stitution a means by which, in case there should be
a disposition to trample upon it, it might be exer-
cised. Not relying upon the patriotism or the po-
litical obligations resting upon e\ ery individual un-
der this government, they superadded the obliga-
tions of religion and morality, and provided that he
who should have the official control of the elective
franchise, should be arrayed before the throne of
Him who is the judge of the quick and the dead,
and with uplifted hand should swear to uphold the
purity of the elective franchise and the ballot-box.
But, not content with this, the framers of the consti-
tution introduced a provision to guard against its vi-
olation.
Mr. D. here sent to the Clerk's table the provision
of the constitution to which he alluded, and desired
that it might be read; and it was read accordingly.
Now, if he could show that the elective franchise
had been violated, and the ballot-box polluted, he
trusted he would be considered as strictly within the
sphere of his duty in introducing this bill, and
urging its passage. Mr. D. adduced authorities to
prove that the elective franchise had been violated.
Mr. D. regretted that it was not in his power to
entertain the House with more of the same kind of
evidence, of which he had an abundance. He de-
sired it to be understood, that it was not his own
case of which he was complaining, and that it was
not on account of any bearing these fx-auds had on
him that he complained. It was the principle, under-
mining the very foundations of the government, of
which he complained. He had evidence as conclu-
sive as ever was offered, that there were others who
held their seats here by virtue of the same frauds,
and the same kind of swindling. This system was
carried on as far back as the years 1836 and 1838,
and he had the most conclusive evidence to show
that a man by the name of Naylor held a seat here
in violation of the elective franchise. Three mem-
bers from the State of New York held their seats
here by the same means. In relation to himself,
and the book of evidence from which he had been
quoting, he would remark that there was a gentle-
man here from Ohio, who was present when these
depositions were taken, and was one of the commis-
sioners. He would give to that gentleman, or to
anybody else, one hundred dollars for every illegal
democratic vote that he could find in that election,
if they would give him one for every illegal whig
vote he could find. On this subject he had nothing
to say, except so far as his constituents were con-
cerned. The people of the first congressional dis-
trict in Ohio had no representative here in the last
Congress. The democratic candidate was elected
by more than 500 majority, and yet he was deprived
of his seat. He did not know that his competitor,
[Mr. Pendleton,] who \Vas declared to be elected,
had any hand in the frauds by which that result
was obtained, though he was one of the richest men
in Ohio. His competitor might not have known of
the swindling and the frauds which were practised
in his favor, though he participated in all the hard
cider orgies, coon and snapping turtle exhi-
bitions, and other whig mummeries of the
day; and though it was said that more than
twenty thousand dollars was expended in this elec-
tion, he did not know that his competitor had given
a single dollar, though he was more deeply interest-
ed than anybody else in the result. That gentle-
man's political friends, in their anxiety to defeat the
democratic candidate, might have advanced all the
money. The gentleman was, however, in a dilem-
ma. If he encouraged the system of swindling by
which he profited so much—if he advanced any
money—if he knew those nefarious piactic.es were
going on, without stopping them, and took the ad-
vantage of them, he was unfit to hold a situation as
a representative on that floor; he was unfit for any
situation but within the gloomy walls of a peniten-
tiary. If, on the other hand, lie was of a nature so
jackassical and stupid as not to know what was go-
ing on, he was unfit to represent anybody—even
the cut throats, thieves, robbers, and swindlers of
Kentucky, who helped to elect him. Mr. D. regret-
ted that lie had not time to have more of this evi-
dence read, and he therefore gave notice that he
would publish it with his speech. He maintained
that, of all the institutions of the country, the elec-
tive franchise was the most valuable, and deserved
the most peculiar care and guardianship; and it was,
therefore, proper to allude to the means by which it
had been violated, which he had already done; and
the effect that was intended to be produced by its
violation, which he was about to do. First, he
must be permitted to remark that the frauds
of 1840, in the fiist congressional district
of Ohio, weie a matter of every day's conversation,
and there was not a man who spoke of it, who did
not believe that $20,000 was given for his competi-
tor's certificate, with the bioad seal. He knew
nothing of this himself; but if he knew anything at
all of morals, he knew that there was no crime
known to the laws of his State, and the commis-
sion of which would send a man to the penitentiary
there, which'would more afflict his conscience had
he been guilty of it, than would a violation of the
elective franchise. Had he violated that franchise
in the slightest degree, he would have considered
himself as having violated the constitution, by ta-
king the oath to support it; and he would have con-
sidered himself as violating that oath, every mo-
ment he retained a seat in Congress, so corruptly
obtained. He had been asked a thousand times by
those who knew of the frauds that were practised in
his district in 1840, why he did not come here, and
contest Mr. Pendleton's seat. Sir, (said Mr. D.)
there were two reasons, equally sufficient, which
prevented me from doing so. In the first place, I
was too proud to come here, and demand justice of
a House, one-half of which, I knew, owed their
seats to the very frauds by which I lost mine. My
constituents (said Mr. D.) were too proud to come
here, and ask for redress, when they could re-
dress themselves; and they effectually did so.
They would have been, prouder of their >°e*
dress had Mr. Pendleton been induced to come
forward as the opposing candidate; but be was
not to be driven nor kicked into it. It was
said that he had already paid too dearly for the seat
he had just filled.
He had already said that these frauds were
known far and wide at the time. We saw it here
(said Mr. D.) before the close of the preceding Con-
gress. We saw your mails loaded down with hun-
dreds of thousands—nay, he might say, with mil-
lions of pamphlets, containing as base lies and slan-
ders as ever were manufactured in the vilest dens of
falsehoods and infamy, going from this Capitol,
packed up with the public stationery, and franked
by whig members of Congress.
The moral part of the community made cocasion-
al appeals to the whig party, asking them if it was
not wrong to overthrow the moral institutions of the
country to carry out their ends. Oh, no, they said;
the end justifies the means: and he proposed to ex-
amine into the means, and he had the documents to
do it with. He had documentary proof enough to
convince any boy of Israel, and enable him to over-
throw the greatest Goliah in the Philistine camp.
He would be able to show that the means were
worthy of the end, and the end worthy of the means,
and both worthy of the party that used them. What
were the means? He had said before, that they
were a system of swindling and falsehood, disgrace-
ful to the country, disgraceful to civilized man, and
only to be parallelled in atrocity by the corrupt
measures intended to be brought about by them.
Promises were made that never were intended to be
carried out. Promises were made, that those who
made them had not the power nor the capacity to
fulfil. Charges the most false and groundless were
made against the existing administration, (Mr. Van
Buren's;) and as he only troubled himself with
wholesale falsehoods, he would now mention only one
or two of them. One of these charges against Mr.
Van Buren's administration was that it was an ex-
travagant administration. Now, he would examine
into the truth of this charge; and in doing so, refer
to facts and fignres. He would first remark that
there was a difference between the ordinary expend-
itures of an administration and its extraordinary ex-
penditures; and that extraordinary expenditures oc-
curred under Mr. Van Buren's to a greater extent
than under any preceding administration. Mr. D.
here referred to the extraordinary expenditures of
the extra session, which Mr. Van Buren was com-
pelled to call in consequence of the banks stopping
payment; also to the heavy expenditures of the Florida
war, and to the number of public buildings that were
put up. lie also referred to the Creek war—to the
removal of the Creeks and Cherokccs; and to the
settlement of our border difficulties.
Here the SPEAKER announced that Mr. D.'s
hour had expired.
Mr. ELMER obtained the floor.
Mr. HUNT of New York expressed the hope
that the gentleman from Ohio would be permitted to
go on.
Mr. PAYNE moved that the rales be suspended
so as to enable the gentleman from Ohio to continue
his remarks.
Mr. VINTON suggested to the gentleman to
amend his motion, so as to suspend the hour rule
while the present debate continued.
Mr. PAYNE said he would cheerfully vote for a
suspension of the hour rule on all occasions.
Some conversation here followed.
The SPEAKER put the question on the suspen-
sion of the rules; but, before the vote was taken, a
conversation ensued, in which Mr.' COBB, Mr.
WINTHROP, and others, took part.
Mr. SCHENCK suggested that not only the
hour rule should be suspended during this debate;
but the "previous question" also; so that when one
side had spoken, it should not be sprung on the
other.
Mr. ADAMS inquired if this motion to suspend
was m order? To suspend the one-hour rule, 'in-
definitely, during the debate on this bill, was very
comprehensive—it was equivalent to a change of a
rule which required one day's notice, and he in-
quired if this motion was in order without giving
notice.
The SPEAKER (Mr. Hopkins presiding pro
tem.,) decided that it was in order; but that it would
require a vote of two-thirds.
Mr. PAYNE withdrew his motion.
Mr. DROMGOOLE inquired if it was in order to
make a motion for another purpose.
The SPEAKER replied that the gentleman from
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United States. Congress. The Congressional Globe, Volume 13, Part 1: Twenty-Eighth Congress, First Session, book, 1844; Washington D.C.. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth2367/m1/373/: accessed April 27, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.