Let Us Have Peace

We have in niany of the StateH punished, and in the adjoining State of Maryland I read daily of prosecutions contiuuing agaiDst men, convictions followed by fine and impriaonment for violation or interference with tho abridginent and denial of the right of voting. There is no pretonse in theae cases tliat there wan an abridgment of the right of any colored man. In Maryland I read the review of tho trials and they are for not holding polling places in convenient places, for abridging the right of voting by the inconvenient loeality of the polls, and uuder such charges men are being sontonced anddoprived nf thoirliberty and their property. The Supremo Court of the United States in EheM two cases of Cruikshank and Reeso have dearly and emphaticallv Slolnded any mich jtirisdic'ion. They have ójïclared that the United States liad no class of voters of their own creation, that thoy nover made a voter, that they never bc stowr'd the right of suff rage, that they have nc control over it, bilt that there was simply tho inhibition of a State or of the United States to abridge or deny the right of suff rage by reason of one of three particular causes- th race, the color or the previoua condition of aervitude of the party coucerned. For any abridgment for any and all causes except those threo are no more within the power of the Federal Gove nmi'iit by lcgislation to prevent or direct than they are to decide in any question between two eitizens of the same State in regard to anv matter of their private and local conttacts. ïhie is the language of the Supreme Court of the Unitcd States. This is their decisión, made, I belieye, almost unanimously in the two cases to which I have referred. Yet we aro askod by theso roBolutions to oontinue the enac'ment of general laws ;'of the eharaeter alreay paesed" for tnat purpose. I am as clear as I ever was of a proposition in my life that the oath I have taken to support the constitution would eomgel me to vöte against such a proposition as ïat. Thereforo, the wholo object of these resolutions is to procure from the riouate an approval of this claas of unconstitutional legislation, against whicb, at the time of its enactment ou this Hoor, I struggled in vain, and to exteud this usurping and fatal attempt at the centralizatinn of all pólice powers of the States in the hands of the Congress of the United States. Mr. President, this is nothiug but the overthrow of our inherited system of gevernment. Such a construction cannot be accepted; it would be utterly fatal to freedom and local selfgovernment. There is no necossity for such a constrnction. All ovéT this land, and I ehalleuge the denial, there is no law in any State in conflict with these amondmonts. All over thiH land thero is acqnieaccnce in their provisions; all over this land thore is obedience. The language, as Justice Miller says, which prohibita a State from passing a law whïoh violatos the obligation of a contract and gives the Congress of the Uuited States power to pass laws to make that effeetive, is just as f uil as that which prohibiU a State from abridging the privileges and immunities of citizens. It is just as reasonable to find power to peualize by fine and imprisonment a cítizen in a State who fails to pay bia promissory note as it is to puniah by fine and imprisonment the man who interferes with another's right to vota at an election. The innibltory l&nstuge of the coustitution is the same and as full in the one case as in the otter. No State shall pass a law violating the obligatton of a contract. The State shall not pasa a law discriminating in favor of one race or the other. Both are addressed to States as States. A law passed by a State in violation of that provisión is nuil and void. By writ of error it can come either before the State court, or that failing in its duty it can be transferred to the Supreme Court of ihe United States, Every decisión which involves the iuTerpretation of the constitution of the United States, every decisión which is in alleged conflict with any provisión of the constitution of the United States, is subject to review by the Supremo Court of the United States. The guaran tee is full and the protection by the judicial branch is complete. No law can be sustainfrd that gives to a man of one race or color a right withheld from bis f ellow-citizen of a different race or color. Any law so pretending must meet with speedy overthrow at tho hands of the judicial branch. These amendments have brought more and more fully into recognition and force the great object of our Government, whicb. was to secure to all men the groat equality, the equality of opportuuity. But it was not intande'd that individual or class differences, weaknesjes, or imperfeetions, on one side, or the extraordinary powers on the other, should be all leveled down by foree of statutea, and Thai we should be forever vainly enacting laws to destroy all tho natural inëqualitiea with which God bas marked his creations. These amendments do give equality of oprortunity. Any law that attempts to do more will prove futile and mischievous, nor ean it be executed, and it is vain in the exigency of party, in the e-xigency of a falso and sentimental philanthropy, to be attempting to do more than this. All men are equal before the law. Every day of our lives we see instancea - where from ignoranco or poverty or imbecility men fail to obtain their legal rights - and no general statutea can prevent this. A thousand reasons prevent it, and all that we may do is to say that when the law does speak it shall speakwith the same voice to all alike, and be administered equally and freely to all. I b'elieve that I can see in these resolutions and in others of a similar tenor a dcsire to renew doubt, suspicion, and distrust in bne party and one section of our country against the other. Sir, we have had too mnch of that already. I believe that all the difh'culties that have aneen in our land, that have darkened our houses with mourning, and spread their baleful shadow over the face of our country, have chieüy come from the tact that our countrymen woro ignorant of each other; it was the want of proper mutual understanding. it was the want of proper confidence that bred strife and confusión. If this spirit of renewed confusioa is to be invoked, if the exigencias of party shall still cali upon men to raise the standard of strife and distrust among their countrymen, whatever may be the result, I shall be found on the other side invokiiig the metJiods of peace and good will and not those of war, invokicg generous conüdence and kind feeling and not suspicion and hsstility, asktug our countrymcu to dweil not upon their mutual faults bnt npon their mutual virtues, of which every day and every hour we can witness harjpy illustrati'ons if wedobutseek to realize ana comprehend them. This country to-day needs peace and rest, recuperation from tho losses of war and from the unwisdom of angry legislation. Tho man serves his country bost who seeks to avoid confusión and strife, who seeks to disarm suapicion and to recréate eonfidenee; and, if this is to be the issne that this hateful, dingerous geographical line of sentiment and action is sought to be establiBhed, 1, for one, will not accept it; I will be of no party, I will aid in vo legislation that shall not recog'nize the right of each man in all parts of this country and their duty to do that which no legislation can enforce, I mean the great duty of the croation of a spirit t.f natiocality among the inhabitants of this broad land. kow can that be created if men are to be pormitted to stand on this iloor and elaewhere and denounco with railing accusations, and unmeasured as-iaults whole sections and States of a Union and hold them up to scorn, to opprobrium, to deteetationV Mr. President there must be, and pleaee heaven there f-lmll be yet the unwritten law that will visit with popular execration and denunciation the man who eeeks to establish the domination of a party at the coat of the peace and security and welfare of the entiro American people.