Congress. Nowhere, in no State, has there been a fair apportionment, unless, indeed, it was in a particular and exceptional case where the two branches of a Legislature were divided in political opinion and one checked the other; but ordinarily, as we know, in the course of northern politics, legislative bodies have been of the same political complexion in the upper and lower houses; and I venture to say that whenever this was the fact, unfair and dishonest apportionment bills have been passed.

Under the present system the temptation to party is too great to be resisted; party interest appeals to members of a Legislature, and they yield to its demands and enact injustice into law. The party that does this knows perfectly well that when a future apportionment shall be made, the opposite party, if it be in power, will retort this injustice, perhaps with increased force. Thus you have a competition between political interests with reference to the apportionment of the States continually increasing in injustice, leading to degradation of the Legislatures and the corruption of the people. The plan of cumulative voting, however, dispensing with single districts in a State, avoids altogether this capital evil and mischief of gerrymandering and brings it to an end so far as the selection of members of Congress is concerned.

Well, Mr. President, in the southern country, as already hinted by me, I consider this plan of cumulative voting to be indispensable to the harmony, to the welfare of that section of the Union. You have vast masses of voters belonging to two different races there who are to be brought into antagonism

to each other at the polls, and that in and through every State of the whole ten now unrepresented. How will you have them vote? Against each other, voting each other down under the majority rule, producing bad blood and riot and turbulence upon thousands of occasions, with wide-spread discontent and dissatisfaction through the whole social body? Will you permit the majority rule of elections to have uninterrupted effect there, causing results like these? Will you make no provision for amendment, for counteracting and countervailing these manifest evils and dangers?

Take the case of Georgia, with seven members. You can see what the result would be under cumulative voting following a regular registration of voters. It could be known beforehand about what number of representatives the colored voters and their white allies were entitled to, and how many representatives under that registration the other elements of population would be entitled to. The election would take place quietly, without collision; neither side could deprive the other of its fair share in the result.

I should like to enlarge on that point, but I shall not do so; for the reason that the decision of the Senate ruling the amendment proposed by me out of order upon this bill does not render a discussion of the effects of this plan in those States, in connection with the coming elections, as important as it would otherwise be.

I go over, as briefly as I can, the different heads of the argument, in order that they may be considered here and elsewhere, because this is not the end of this subject. A proposition which is just in

itself, which is capable of being vindicated by debate, which is important and vital to the working of our representative system, cannot be kept down or suppressed. If it be pushed aside at one time it will recur upon us, it will return again and again, until it be determined upon its merits and according to an enlightened public sentiment developed or produced by discussion.

In the last place, Mr. President, this plan of cumulative voting will be a most valuable check upon fraud at elections. No measure ever proposed in this Union would have so extensive and salutary an effect in checking election frauds and corruption as this plan of fair and honest voting which I defend. Do you not discover at a glance in looking over the States of the Union the main source from which electoral corruption issues, the main cause that brings it into existence? What is that? Why, sir, the motive put before every candidate in every district of the country that is anything like close, the strong incentive and the strong temptation is to corrupt a few votes in order to turn them into his scale and carry his election over an opposing candidate. And when one candidate resorts to this mode of promoting his interests, the opposing candidate feels justified in acting in the same way; and thus it is that an iniquity perpetrated on one side begets similar iniquity upon the other. There is a pitting of corruption against corruption, in the closely contested districts at all events, or most noticeably at commercial points, and our system of government is thereby poisoned at its very fountain. The evil is growing yearly.

As the country becomes denser in population, as wealth accumulates, as the various interests of society become more diverse, its affairs more complicated and dependent upon legislation, this evil of electoral corruption must increase and swell in volume. You must correct your arrangements for elections in order to check it. Cumulative voting will check it. There will be no longer a struggle for district majorities, a struggle for a few votes for one man over another, because one party in a State casting its votes for the number of men or about the number of men it can elect according to its numbers in that' State will elect them against the whole world, and there will be no motive to corrupt anybody, no turning of the scale by any species of illegitimate influence which may be brought to bear. Then, no little local interest can come to a political party and command terms from it, command its action. Then no man with his pocket full of accumulated gain can go to election agents and through them corrupt a part of the electoral body to turn the scale in his own favor, provoking thereby similar corruption on the other side. Then illegitimate, pernicious, and selfish interests in a State will not use the machinery of your electoral system for the purpose of poisoning the sources of political power, because there will not be a sufficient motive. It is these contests for majorities between candidates that cause the major part of the evil of which we complain.

CORRUPTION OF THE PRESENT SYSTEM.

Sir, we have not in this regard attained to the full height and depth and breadth of possible evil.

But we have declined far below the purity of former times. The Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. WILSON] thinks our elections in this country are models of purity, that nobody is corrupted, that there is little departure from honest principles in their management. Notwithstanding his opinion, I think that this evil is already extensive enough with us to alarm every patriot and every honest man. I could if it were necessary and time permitted put my finger upon cases in my own State which would establish a very different opinion (at least as to that section of the Union) from that which the Senator from Massachusetts announces.

Let me illustrate the extent to which, under a system of elections by the majority rule, corruption may be carried for the purpose of obtaining these local majorities. I take cases from England-some parliamentary boroughs. In the debate in the House of Commons on the 30th of May last a provision of the reform bill was pending which had been proposed by the ministry for the disfranchisement of certain boroughs, on the ground of the corruption of the electors therein. Four boroughs were to be struck from the list of those to be represented hereafter in Parliament, (whether the inhabitants were to be counted as electors of the counties in which they were located or not was not determined at the last accounts.) There had been an examination by a board of commission of the subject of corruption in those boroughs at the previous parliamentary election. Witnesses were examined under oath; the case of each borough was thoroughly investigated, and the facts were laid before