Speech #450117279

In 1876 the chief supervisor of elections again issued a ciroular to his subordinates that all those who held naturalization papers issued in 1869 by those courts should be challenged. and they were challenged. Two or three hundred warrants were issued. bt prosecutions were not made upon them. What followed ? In the mouth of March. 1878. Mi. Davenport made up his mind that he would exclude all those from voting who had been naturalized in those two courts in 186S. He got a clerk in his own office to swear out complaints against over nine thousand of those naturalized citizens who had been naturalized nearly ten years. and who. prior to that date. had been registered onwhat he claimed were false certificates of naturalization. He then applied to the district attorney for advice as to what he should do with the complaints. and the district attorney appliedto theAttorneyGeneral of the UnitedStates forinstructions asto whathe should do with thoseeomplaints. The district attorney refused to give him instructions. andwrote to the AttorneyGeneral for instructions. and the AttorneyGeneral instructed him that if there were flagrant cases of violations of the law there should be Some prosecutions. giving him to understand that no great number of prosecutions should be made.