i%. 75 Ustfs &# 77 \ JSTo. 3. SPEECH OF Hon. G. M. Robeson, OF NEW JERSEY, In the House of Representatives, Saturday, April 10, 1880. The House being in Committee of the Whole, and having under consideration the bill (H. It. No. 5523) making appropriations for the support of the Army for tlie fiscal year ending June 30, 1S8J, and for other purposes— Mr. ROBESON said: Mr. Chairman: I would be glad to have the amendment reported. The Clerk read as follows : Sec. 2. That no money appropriated in this act is appropriated, or shall be paid, for the subsistence, equipment, transportation, or compensation of any portion of the .Army of the United States to be used as a police force to keep the peace at the polls at any election held within in any State. Mr. ROBESON. By a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, the highest and ultimate tribunal of judicial judgment under the organization of our Government, it has been declared, “ that the Government of the United States may, by means of physical force exercised through its official agents, execute on every foot of American soil, the powers and the functions which belong to it. This necessarily involves the power to command obedience to its laws, and hence the power to keep the peace to that extent.” This is the inevitable, incontrovertible result of right reasoning from established princi¬ ples. This declares the principle on this subject of the Constitution of our country, (a principle which lies at the foundation of all Anglo-Saxon govern¬ ment,) and these are the conclusions which follow inevitably from it. All laws of Congress are, and must be held to be made, in the light of those prin¬ ciples which have been settled, adjudicated, and declared by the highest tri¬ bunal of the country ; and this law, if it becomes law, must mean and be un¬ derstood to mean just what is permitted by this declaration ; otherwise, if not unconstitutional, it is at least in defiance of constitutional command, and in derogation of constitutional duty. In the discussion of this question, Mr. Chairman, which, to my mind, lies not only at the foundation of the power of the Government in this country, but relates to the very principles upon which rests the superstructure of popu¬ lar government—in the discussion of this important question, I shall deal in no flowers of speech, nor indulge in the unsubstantial harmony of declamation. I shall declare what I conceive to be undeniable principles, and shall endeavor to follow them by unwavering logic down to irresistible conclusion ; and if I fail to convince, the fault will not be with the truth which I declare, but must rest either with the minds and temper of my auditors or in the want of power ‘of the humble individual who has attempted their illustration. This amendment looks to, and is meant to control, the execution of United States law on election day. Need I pause to say to you, citizens, Representa¬ tives, Americans, that if there be a day in the calendar when the laws should have full sway; when that atmosphere of perfect peace and perfect liberty which can only be found in the enjoyment of freedom under the perfect con- o trol of law shall surround us and our action like the “all-incasing air,” that day is the one day which is set apart by the laws of our country, on which the freemen who are to govern this continent act in their individual capacity for themselves, and set in motion, primarily, the political machinery of our Gov¬ ernment. We are so familiar with their action on that day that we do not ap¬ preciate its significance and force. The orderly gathering together on election day of the free voters of a great republic, with a continent as an empire and freedom as a heritage, and there exercising their political will under the pro¬ tection of law, supreme, powerful, efficient, and all-pervading, to keep the peace for the perfect exercise of that will, is as sublime a spectacle in govern¬ ment as the world has ever seen. To accomplish that result' all the agencies of political progress and civilization have culminated here on our shores. That is the day of American freedom, that union of liberty and law which is our heritage, not the day of its celebration, but the day of its exercise. That is the time and there is the place when and where the American citizen impresses for himself, and not through any representative, his will upon American pol¬ icy and government. There and then he casts that vote, A weapon that comes down as still As sn®w-flakes fall upon the sod ; But executes a freeman’s will. As lightning does the will of God. And if there be one day in the whole calendar of time when the laws should not only exist, but when they should be powerful and effective, when they should be able to command all the force of the government for the pres¬ ervation of peace, this is that day. If there be such a day more than another, when is it if this be not it! If the laws of the country are to be executed, and for that purpose its peace preserved at all , will you make an exception of election day ? Does the Democratic party of this country choose byitsaction to say, “We will reluctantly execute the laws ; we will, for very shame, main¬ tain peace; we will sustain the Government on every clay except on election day, but upon that occasion, when the freemen of the country desire freely to execute their will, and without let or hinderance to impress their power upon the Government of the country, we cannot afford to keep the peace of the United States!” Let us look at this question as it is. What is government! Government is an organization of civil society which governs; and for that purpose makes and executes laws. If it does not make the laws, it is no government. If it does not execute them, it does not govern. There can be no government, in theory or in fact, which lias not the power to execute its laws. Are these propositions fair ones ! Can anybody dispute them! Is any¬ body bold enough to deny them ! Next let us consider what are laws. Laws are those rules which a govern¬ ment executes; and if they be not executed by government they are not laws. How do governments execute their laws! By force. Who shall deny it! Why are laws efficient and why do they govern the actions of men ! Because they have the power of the government behind them. What is the power of the government ! The physical force at its command. Laws, then, are those rules which governments execute by physical force. Shrink not from that proposition, for none can deny it. Society is organized in order to put the whole power of the community into the form of laws and regulations, behind which the whole strength of that organized community exists in the shape and substance of what we call the civil power. Nothing is law, then, which is not to be executed by the power of the government—that is, by physical force. Sir William Blackstone has defined municipal law to be “rules of civil conduct prescribed by the supreme power of the State, commanding what is right, and forbidding what is wrong.” The whole theory of law which I have declared, is to be found in that exact and comprehensive language. It is a rule prescribed by the supreme power of the State , by the government, which carries with it not only the authority but the force to execute its will. Now, Mr. Chairman, by what means is this force to be applicable to the execution of laws! In this country, under our constitutional system born of the line of English precedents, traditions, and laws, and in the light of Eng¬ lish history, and established in the atmosphere and operating according to the principles of Anglo-Saxon common law, all laws are executed in time of peace and under ordinary circumstances by the executive through the civil officers of the government. I do not contend that in time of peace under ordinary circumstances and without special authority of law, the civil laws are to be 3 \ executed by tbe Army, under military control and acting directly under mili¬ tary inspiration. Mark well the proposition as I have endeavored accurately to state it. I yield nothing of the power of the Government necessary for its preservation and safety. This is no question of direct, forcible attack upon government. Then governments, like men, are driven to their reserved forces, and have and must have and must exercise all their force for self-pres¬ ervation, and are, if necessary, a law unto themselves for that purpose. Such is not the proposition now, nor are we maintaining this power. But we do now say that the Republican party is the party of civil govern¬ ment ; and it believes that, to govern, the Government must have laws to carry out its constitutional rights and duties, and that the failure to make these laws is a failure of constitutional duty. And it believes that when these laws are made, the Government, if it is a government, must execute them; that if they are to be executed they are to be executed by the power of the Government which is behind them; that if the power of the Government is behind any law, it must be there every day in the year; and that if any part of the power of the Government is behind any law, the whole power of the Government must be there. Who shall deny tliis last proposition ? Who will state and defend the monstrous anomaly that a part of the force of the Gov¬ ernment is behind the law and not the whole; that the Government is bound and its officers sworn to execute a law, and that it has reserved strength which it will not use to execute it ? No, sir; such is not the character of American law, nor the spirit of the American people. If it be law, it must be executed to the very edge if neces¬ sary, and all the power of the Government is and must be behind it. To go a little more into detail, Mr. Chairman: under Anglo-Saxon govern¬ ment the process of the execution of the law is this: The laws are made by the legislative power in obedience to the constitutional duty and obligation imposed by the commands of the Constitution. They are executed by the executive power, through the civil officers of the Government, to whom in time of peace is ordinarily intrusted the execution of these laws, and into whose hands is given, for that purpose, the whole physical power of the Gov¬ ernment and all the strength of the people. Is that a fair proposition ? Does it command the assent of thoughtful minds, and will it have the affirmative .assent of patriotic action ? Now, how do the civil officers execute the laws in this country? They put in motion primarily the machinery provided to carry them into execution. They breathe the inspiration of life into the system and put it into working order and effective operation on all persons anti things, so that the freemen of the country may exercise their inalienable or guaranteed rights in its atmos¬ phere and under its protection, and “in the peace of the United States.” And if any man, by force or by fraud, by riot or by confusion, by wrong action or by unjust command, seeks to interfere with that exercise, and break that peace, they put down that interference and they keep the peace for that pur¬ pose. How do they keep that peace? First, by the majesty and respect of the law itself. In what consists this majesty of the law, and whence comes its respect? It consists in the strength of the Government, and comes from the fact that the individual who represents it is clothed with the power and backed by the force of the whole people. If the wrong-doers submit, nothing further is required. If the}' do not submit, what then is to be done ? All the forces of the civil power, as represented by its executive officers, are then called in requisition. If this be not sufficient for the purpose, wliat then? The by¬ standers may be called upon. If they be not sufficient, or if they be not proper persons for any reason, or if they be the very people who are making the dis¬ turbance and encouraging or enforcing the wrong, what then is to be done? The peace must be kept by the whole force of the bailiwick, “theposse comi- tatus ,” covering and including the whole power of the Government; includ¬ ing every citizen who is under the protection of the laws, all the militia, organized or unorganized, all the Army, wherever it may be, within read), every man, citizen or soldier, militia or regular, that is or can be brought within reach. This, you will see, is not the Army moving with the “plumed troops” and in the “big wars” which make military power! and primacy, but the Army held in subjection by, and subordinate to, and acting as the instrument and the weapon of, civil power. Can this be denied ? Who dare deny it before the good sense of the Amer¬ ican people? Who has the courage to stand up here in his place and say that that is not the true theory of Anglo-Saxon government, upon which our Con- 4 stitution is founded and upon which it rests; in striking at which you strike at the very foundation-stone of its power, till the edifice, symmetrical and beau¬ tiful as our fathers left it, may topple to its fall ? These armed citizens come, not as warriors, but as the servants and con¬ servators of peace, contributing only to her victories, no less important than those of war. They are not armies surrounded by the “pomp and circum¬ stance of glorious war,” excititg the imagination, swaying the feelings, and trampling on the rights of the people; they come, arrayed not for the destruc¬ tion of their Government, but for its safety, its maintenance, and its preser¬ vation. As illustrative of this I will read a few lines from the speech of Lord Mansfield in the British House of Lords, upon the Westminster riot cases, in which lie puts this projiosition exactly: The military have been called in- Said lie—I read from Hansard’s Keports, volume 21: The military have been called in, and very wisely called in, not as soldiers, but as citi¬ zens ; no matter whether their coats are red or brown, they have been called— Not to strike down, but— in aid of the laws; not to subvert or overturn the Constitution, but to preserve both. Is that right or is it wrong ? If there were riot in the city of Washington on election day so violent, so uncontrollable that it threatened with its terrors the destruction of your beautiful city and all that the country has done to adorn its Capital, would it not be competent for the civil officers of the law, acting under our Constitution and our laws, to call upon the organized force of marines, which is quartered yonder within half a mile of this Chamber, and bring them up as citizens of this country, under its laws subordinate to its civil power, for the execution of the laws and the preservation of the peace of the country ? This, as I have said, is the very last and fullest subordination of the mili¬ tary to the civil power. It is no exercise of military dictatorship. It lias no element of Ctesarism. It is a splendid spectacle of peace, liberty, and law— armed, organized military power marching under the banners of peace, armed, with the weapons of civil liberty, carrying on their shoulders bayonets that think, the very safeguards of American institutions, and following humbly and simply, cheerfully and obediently, under the control of civil power. The military shall be subordinate to civii power. Yes. That is its noblest atti¬ tude, because it shows that it is the weapon of law, which may be used and rightly used for the civil purposes of peace, and will not itself seek domina¬ tion and command. The military acting subordinate to the civil power. Why, if your amend¬ ment does not mean that it shall so act, then it means to destroy this principle and to say that the military shall not be subordinate to the civil power. Does it not mean that? If you do not mean that, you must mean that when civil laws are to be executed, and when peace is to be maintained by civil officers in order that the freeman’s will may have full and free control, that at that time and there the Army shall no longer be subordinate to civil power, shall not come to its assistance when properly called upon, but shall refuse or be pow¬ erless to act for civil purposes and under civil control, and shall stand idly by to see peace destroyed and civil government overthrown, till quiet and orderly citizens must either submit to the domination of force or fraud, the rule of the bludgeon or the knife, or the civil laws, which are powerless because unexe¬ cuted, must give way and be silent in the presence of armed power, because the legislative power will not provide for them adequate force, and martial law must prevail because it only can be executed. Mr. Chairman, the first direction that we receive upon the subject of the execution of the laws is the Constitution of the United States. In the third section of the second article we find: ■ The President shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed. r The President shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed! That is the constitutional provision, clothing the President with affirmative power, and enioining upon him an affirmative duty. Olq but, say gentlemen, the President cannot act unless that power be organized bv the National Legislature into the forms of law. Suppose, for the purpose of this argument, I admit that. Where, then, does it put the opponents, of this executive power ? The Constitution says: “He shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” 5 That is undoubtedly a constitutional duty. But it requires, you say, that' the National Legislature shall act to put it in motion. Then it is your con¬ stitutional obligation and duty so to organize it into the forms of law, but if you do not so organize it you yourselves fail in constitutional duty. Accept the / position if you wish. Go before the country on that day when the freeman ex¬ ercises his power, and say to him: “It is true here is a law upon the statute- book which we by our votes have made, pretending we would give you free elections ; it is true that the President is called upon by the Constitution affirma¬ tively to take care that it be faithfully executed. But it is necessary that to ex¬ ecute it he should have his power for that purpose organized in forms of law. But that is our constitutional duty, and we refuse to do it. This is the Con¬ stitution our fathers gave for the government of the country, which we swore to maintain before high Heaven when we stood here and took our oaths of of¬ fice. That is the Constitution upon which rests the structure of our Govern¬ ment, the liberties of our people, the last hope of freedom for all the world. Here is our duty imposed expressly upon us, but*we decline to execute it, for fear our party may lose its majority .” Gentlemen, pause. Some of you have formerly been arrayed against this Constitution and this Government—I refer to it only as a matter of history—but when you were so arrayed you took your lives in your hands, and poured on the altar of success your fortunes and your sacred honors; you appealed boldly to the God of battles, and stood bravely on a field where every man who fell could see the foe who struck him; but nsw you are enlisted under the banner of that Government; you are its chosen representatives; you are sworn into its service; you have pledged your honor and your oaths that you will maintain its Constitution and carry out its laws. You are armed with its weapons, admitted inside the defenses of its strength, have control of its citadel, make its defensive garrison. Would you now saw oft its flag-staff, undermine its walls, spike the cannons of its strength, bind its defenders hand and foot, and poison the pure well-spring of its power at its source? Are such the plumed troops, these the big wars that make am¬ bition virtue ? Oh, gentlemen, the history of the world presents many spectacles which according to moral or political law may be considered outrageous and wrong, but in which the very magnitude of the struggle itself, the audacity of the courage displayed, the mighty interests and splendid destinies of nations which follow in its track of fire, and the imperial spirit which inspires its sacrifices and guides its action, conspire to defy reprobation, if they do not disarm criti¬ cism. Thus it has been said that ambition, though a vice, is a vice so equivocal that it seems to sometimes verge on virtue; that though its grasp may be ruin and its flight may be famine, yet it sits on earth’s pinnacle, and sports with the lightnings of heaven. But, gentlemen, there is neither heroism, patriotism, nor ambition in that spirit which, intrusted by a confiding country with the * welfare of the Government, would betray it to its destruction and its fall. Now, gentlemen, how are these laws to be executed? The President is to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” What does that mean? He shall take every means in his power to do it. Not that he shall order the Army under its military officers, and acting, as I have said, directly under the mili¬ tary inspiration, to execute the civil laws, but that if it be necessary, or if it be likely to be necessary, he shall have not only ready but amply ready and con¬ venient every element of physical force which the Government has a right to control, ready to apply it at a moment’s notice. What sort of an officer would lie be who, acting under military orders, if ordered to support a division to¬ morrow with his corps, keeps it fifty miles away, so that such support would be impossible? What sort of a President would lie be, acting under the com¬ mand of his constitutional obligations and duty and the force of his constitu¬ tional oath, if he had reason to believe that there was to be organized riot in the city of New York on next election day, that five thousand men were to be there, organized or unorganized, ready to put down the law, to destroy the peace of the United States, and to interfere with the popular will—what sort of a President would he be if he did not have every soldier he could muster ready to execute and maintain the laws; not by military power, not as a military con¬ stabulary force, but to be there where they were needed, restrained under proper commands, waiting for the call of the civil power and acting under its control and governed by their orders whenever action was necessary ? I am happy to say that that President under whose banner I served, and Vf whose administration I was an humble member, whenever lie had informa- Jon that the laws of the United States were to be threatened and interfered jrith in their execution, provided all the force of the Government at command, 6 to be ready at the call of the civil power to maintain the laws and to keep the peace for that purpose, whenever and wherever it was threatened or dis¬ turbed. Do not misunderstand me, gentlemen. I have already said, and will » say again, if need be, that in time of peace, and in the absence of specific law authorizing it, the military power of the Government is not to be used as a military organization, acting under military inspiration alone, for the execu¬ tion of civil law. But I do say that all the military power of the Government is at the com¬ mand of the President and of the civil officers, when properly called upon for the proper execution of the laws of the country. And I say that that Presi¬ dent fails in his duty before God and man, before our generation and in the face of our hopes for the future, who, if he is informed of and understands its need, fails to have that power ready for use wherever and whenever the occa¬ sion absolutely requires it. Gentlemen, Democrats, this law appointing marshals to keep the peace at the polls was passed by .your votes, since the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States affirming the constitutionality of the election laws and the Tight and power of the Government to keep the peace for their execution, and I suppose it is to be construed by that decision, that all you mean by it is to declare an unquestioned principle, that the military arm of the country, as a military organization, acting under military officers and by direct military in¬ spiration, is not to be used as a constabulary force; that they are not the peo¬ ple who are to act in the first instance to keep the peace. But you do notmean to say, in the face of that decision, and in the face of the constitutional duty and power which are there affirmed, that the Army of the United States, a part of the physical force of the Government, is not at the command of the civil officers of the Government whenever it is necessary for the execution of the law and the preservation of the i^eace of the United States for that purpose. If there is any doubt of your intentions and position on this subject I will give you a chance to define it by your votes before this bill becomes a law, and shall judge you, as the people will, by your conduct and not by your profes¬ sions, if you refuse to carry them into action. Last session, gentlemen, if they saw fit, might stand upon the question that the United States had no peace to preserve; that it was the peace of the State, and must be preserved by the power of the State. But the Supreme Court has now decided otherwise, and declared that the United States may execute its laws at any place, at any time, and in any State, and may preserve its peace for that purpose. I would say to my friend from Maryland, [Mr. McLane,] if he were here, that there is now a decision of the Supreme Court that the United States has “a peace to preserve;” and that decision goes also to the extent that it lias the power and-the duty to preserve it. Those gentlemen, who standing in their representative capacity here said in effect bv their votes: “It is true that this is the decision of the Supreme # Court of the United States; it is true that by that decision these laws are con- * stitutional; it is true that they are to be executed, and it is true that there is a peace to be preserved for that purpose; but as the representatives of the peo¬ ple, as members of a co-ordinate branch of the Government, we refuse to be controlled by that decision, and therefore will not vote for this law,” are con¬ sistent. Wrong as I think them, false as they are in position, unconstitutional as is their stand in refusing to execute a constitutional duty, they at least preserve their consistency in wrong. But to those men who have made this law pro¬ viding for the services of marshals at elections, who have said that there shall be marshals to carryout the election law; to those who have said that these marshals shall be clothed with the power of civil government, shall have the power to enforce the law, I put the inquiry: Where do you stand? Will you say, “Yes, -wehave made this law; but the Government shall not execute it, if it needs power to do so; if no power is needed to execute it, then let it be enforced; but if it is resisted, if it needs forcible execution, we will clothe the Government with no weapons of power for that purpose?” On which side are you, gentlemen? Are you on the side of government, of law, of constitution, of right? Do you believe that that only, is a government which makes and executes law; that if it fails either to make laws or to execute them, it is no government? Do you believe that laws are rules to be executed by all the force that the Government can command? Or do you deny fhose proposi¬ tions? If you deny them, I am able to understand you; but if you accept them, and refuse by your action to carry them out, I beg you will understand that if you trifle thus with the intelligence of the American people, and think 7 you deceive them, you are ‘‘like little wanton boys that swim on bladders, far but beyond tlicir depth.” Let us understand what you mean by this proposition—you gentlemen who have introduced and vs ted for it. Do you mean that the President shall ' retain all his constitutional power for the execution of the law through the civil officers, and that if need be every man and every boy in this country w ho can carry a firelock shall be organized and called upon to enforce the laws and maintain the Government; or do you mean that, as I have said, being inside the fortress and clothed with the weapons of the strength of this Government you will spike its guns and leave it to disorganization and destruction? Take which side you please. We accept the issue before the country. The Repub¬ lican party stands on it to-day. Laugh not in your assumed cleverness, think¬ ing that you have got us in a trap by means of this equivocal provision. Truth, right principle, is never in a trap. It marches right onward from principle to achievement. It is only cowardice or subterfuge that puts itself in the w rong. [Loud applause.] [Here the hammer fell.] Mr. ATKINS. I w ill move that the gentleman’s time be extended, if he desires to go on. [Cries of “That’s right.”] Mr. ROBESON. If anybody will undertake to answer my propositions, I shall be very glad to reply. I will reserve the time gentlemen so kindly offer me to reply to any one who w T ill answer my propositions. The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman’s time is exhausted. The Chair has recognized the gentleman from Ohio, [Mr. Keifer.] Mr. TUCKER. We might give the gentleman from New Jersey more time to enable him to say something that would require answer. Mr. ROBESON. Truth is unanswerable; you must accept it or be silent’ * * i / *