itable
provisions for honest elections and an honest ascertainment
of the result, and that such legislation ought to be enacted
and kept on the statute book and enforced. But such legislation,
to be of any value whatever, must be permanent. If it only
be maintained in force while one political party is in power,
and repealed when its antagonist comes in, and is to be constant
matter of political strife and sectional discussion, it is
better, in my judgment, to abandon it than to keep up an incessant,
fruitless struggle. It is like legislation to prohibit by law
the selling of liquor. I believe that it would be wise to
prohibit the sale of liquor, with the exceptions usually made
in prohibitory laws. But if we are to have in any State,
as we have had in so many States, a prohibitory law one year,
another with different provisions the next, a license law
the next, and the difficulty all the time in enforcing any
of them, it is better to give the attempt at prohibition
up and to adopt a local option, or high license, or some
other policy. In other words, it is better to have the second
best law kept permanently on the statute book than to have
the best law there half the time.

So, after Senator Hill's repealing act got through the Senate,
I announced that, so far as I was concerned, and so far as
I had the right to express the opinion of Northern Republicans,
I thought the attempt to secure the rights of the colored
people by National legislation would be abandoned until there
were a considerable change of opinion in the country, and
especially in the South, and until it had ceased to be a matter
of party strife. To that announcement, Senator Chandler of
New Hampshire, who had been one of the most zealous advocates
of the National laws, expressed his assent. That statement
has been repeated once or twice on the floor of the Senate.
So far as I know, no Republican has dissented from it. Certainly
there has been no Bill for that purpose introduced in either
House of Congress, or proposed, so far as I know, in the Republican
press, or in any Republican platform since.

The question upon which the policy of all National election
laws depends is, At whose will do you hold your right to be
an American citizen? What power can you invoke if that right
be withheld from you? If you hold the right at will of your
State, then you can invoke no power but the State for its
vindication. If you hold it at the will of th