Speech #450117260

I have a few figures which I desire to give of that monstrous election of 1863. the most monstrous and marvelous that ever was held anywhere in this world for fraud. for wickedness. and for every device of the devil that the democratic party under the lead of Tweed and Tammany could suggest. Lookat thehorrible picture. and then tell me. do you wish it repeated . In 1863 the supreme court of the State of New York suddenly came to the rescue of the democracy as a naturalization power. Prior to that yearthe court of common pleas and the superior court alone had issued naturalization papers. In 1868. on the 6th day of October. the supreme court. presided over by Judge Barnard. afterward impeached. naturalized in one single day twentyone hundred and nine persons. and the superior court. Judge Me unn. also impeached. alone naturalized nine hundred and fourteen persons on the 19th day of October of that year. Now. in 1844 the Congress of the United States presented for impeachment and found guilty a Lonisianajudge because he naturalized some four hundred persons in one day. The committee of Congress declared that it was a. physical impossibility. In 1864 the supreme court of New York naturalized in the mouth of October ten thousand and seventy persons. and the superior court in the same month naturalized 27.897 persons. an average of a thousand a day. The common pleas court. an honest old court. out of fashion and favor with the democracy. naturalized only thirtyone hundred and fortyfive persons. More than five thousand minors presented their minor papers. were heard. and their case passed upon in one single court in New York City. and received certificates only to save the necessity for the two years declaration of intention. In more than twenty thousandcases neither witness nor applicant ever appearedinside of either one of the New York courts. The papers were distributed in bundles to groggeries and groceries. to houses of illfame. to barrooms. and billiardrooms. in blank. and filled up as men called for them. In scores of instances ignorant natives of the United States voted upon these naturalization papers. They were sent in packages. five hundred in a package. up into the river counties of New York. They were sent. a thousand in a package. into the State of Connecticut. along the New Haven Railroad. and New Jersey received the full benefit of this democratic machine. In one instance they were delivered to thirtysix men working in a brickyard. the names being written in on the top of a machine. They were sold in scores o places for from fifty cents to *2 each. There was one naturalization room where these poor ignorant fellows were sworn by a mock judge to support the Constitution and vote for Hoffman. and then received their papers clothing them with citizenship. [Here the hammer fell.]