Speech #460016422

But if we are not able to do it nowI ama for doing all things properly and in orderif for any reason Congress cannot enact it now. I desire to appeal to the people of this country of both parties that they. see to it that they express their sentiments and put in officers to execute the duties of their Government who will pass a law restraining everybody from using the Army on election day at the polls. Look back to our former years of party conflict. years when there were mobs at elections. years when men who had a right to claim protection. if any citizen had. the naturalized citizens. were hunted by mobs from the polls. their dwellings mobbed. their churches mobbed. and when riot ran r6ughshod over them on election day and other days. and yet although the democrats sympathized with them. the democrats never dreamed that the Army could be sent to the polls to see that those naturalized citizens were not hunted down because they happened to have been born in other lands or because they happened to profess a creed which for the time being there was prejudice against. 1 appeal to the record of our own party with pride. Neither during the turmoils and troubles of the war of 1812. nor during the riots and outrages of the knownothing party in politics. did any man ever claim or want to claim that the Federal power should interfere at elections to prevent mobs driving men away from the polls? The State authorities. it was understood. must preserve the peace. but if there was an insurrection or anything which they could not suppress. they could call. according to the Constitution. on the Federal Goveminent for aid. but the notion that a file of soldiers was to be sent with a sergeant or a company with a captain to enforce the rights of