ken up for action. It was a very simple measure.

It only extended the law which, with the approbation of both
parties, had been in force in cities of more than twenty
thousand inhabitants, to Congressional districts, when there
should be an application to the Court, setting forth the
necessity for its protection. That law had received the
commendation of many leading Democrats, including S. S. Cox,
Secretary Whitney, the four Democratic Congressmen who represented
Brooklyn, and General Slocum, then Representative at large
from the State of New York. It had been put in force on the
application of Democrats quite as often as on that of Republicans.
We added to our Bill a provision that in case of a dispute
concerning an election certificate, the Circuit Court of the
United States in which the district was situated should hear
the case and should award a certificate entitling the member
to be placed on the Clerk's roll, and to hold his seat until
the House itself should act on the case. That provision was
copied from the English law of 1868 which has given absolute
public satisfaction there. This was the famous Force Bill,
and the whole of it--a provision that, if a sufficient petition
were made to the court for that purpose, officers, appointed
by the court, belonging to both parties should be present
and watch the election; that the Judge of the Circuit Court
should determine, in case of dispute, what name should be
put on the roll of the House of Representatives, in the beginning,
subject to the Constitutional power of the House to correct
it, and that a moderate punishment for bribery, intimidation
and fraud, on indictment and conviction by a jury of the vicinage,
should be imposed. That was the whole of it.

But the Southern Democratic leaders, with great adroitness,
proceeded to repeat the process known as "firing the Southern
heart." They persuaded their people that there was an attempt
to control elections by National authority. They realized
that the waning power of their party at the South, many of
whose business men saw that the path of prosperity for the
South as well as for the North lay in the adoption of Republican
policies, might be reestablished by exciting the fear of negro
domination. The Northern Democrats, either very ignorantly
or wilfuly, united in the outcry. Governor William E. Russell
of Massachusetts, a gentleman of large influence and popularity
with both parties, telegraphed to