ce, with such
original jurisdiction as may be provided by law in cases involving
claims against the United States, and with such other original
jurisdiction as may be provided by law, and Congress may also confer
on any other of the courts of the United States inferior to the
Supreme Court, original jurisdiction in like cases.
"Section 3. All legislation other than such as refers exclusively
to the appropriation of money in any appropriation act of Congress
shall be void, except such as may prescribe the terms or conditions
upon which the money thereby appropriated shall be paid or received."
--_Con. Record_, Vol. vii., Part III., p. 2576.
The adoption of this amendment would have relieved Congress of much
work; have given claimants at all times a speedy and certain remedy
for the disposition of their claims and at the same time secured
protection to the government against unfounded claims. A statute
of limitations could have put a rest old and often trumped-up
claims, still constantly being brought before Congress. It is
impossible for Congress to make a statute of limitations for its
own guidance.(10) It never will obey a law against its own action.
In the Forty-sixth Congress there were many contested election
cases, growing out of frauds and crimes at elections, especially
in the South. The purpose of the dominant race South to overthrow
the rule of the blacks or their friends was then manifest in the
conduct of elections. The colored voter was soon, by coercion and
fraud, practically deprived of his franchise. The plan of stuffing
ballot-boxes with tissue ballots (printed often on tissue paper
about an inch long and less in width) was in vogue in some districts.
The judge or clerk of the election would, when the ballot-box was
opened, shake from his sleeve into the box hundreds of these tickets.
In these districts voters were encouraged to vote, but the tissue
ballot was mainly counted to the number of the actual voters; those
remaining were burned. The party in the majority in the House,
however, generally voted in its men, regardless of the facts.
As early as June 7, 1878, I proposed to amend the postal laws so
as to extend the free-delivery letter-carrier system to post offices
having a gross revenue of $20,000. This amendment subsequently
became a law, and gave many cities the carrier system. Prior to
this, population alone was the test for establishing such offices.
I opposed the indiscrim
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