Show CAINE CONTINUED I 1 The Remarks of the Gentleman Gentle-man from Utah ELOQUENT AND TRUTHFUL t air Tucker Receives Little Slap That Must Have Made S S Him Wince Continued from yestcrday Do you say I am presumptions in comparing the despised Mormons with the French Huguenots the English Puritans and the Catholic IrishmenIn numbers we will probably not equal either and yet there is nearly a quarter of a million who hold that religious belief in the United States This bill Strikes at the property of the Mormon Church and proposes a test oath to professors pro-fessors of the Mormon faith It is true that our religious establishment is only fiftysix years old but in that short period our people have been driven irotn three States by mob violence our property destroyed our prophet and leaders murdered in cold blood and fortyone years ago we had in the dead of winter to leave our homes on the I east bank of the Mississippi Riverwhich we had won by honest toil andmakean unparalleled pilgrimage of more than I 1500 miles across trackless plains and unknown mountains to find beyond the i pale of civilization a new abiding place I We found a desert land not then the domain of the United States The first act of the pioneer band nearly all of whom came of good New England Pennsylvania and New York stock was to hoist the stars and stripes and take possession in the name of the United States a government which we then believed and still believe tp be of divine origin The country was at war with Mexico The Mormons driven from their homes on the banks of the Mississippi andliving in tents and rude huts scatfered in camps along the way from the Mississippi to the Missouri had been especially appealed to by the President to furnish a battalion of 500 men to make a forced march across the continent and help seize and hold California Cali-fornia The appeal was responded to although it required every fifth man to abandon his familyat the outset of an eI forced journey long arduous and perilous but whither no one then knew save that their tabernacle was to be setup set-up somewhere beyond the Rocky Mountains In making this heroic sacrifice S as S in hoisting tbeflag of their country on the mountain peak overlooking the valley of Great Salt Lake and taking possession posses-sion in the name of the United States the Mormon pilgrims were simply doing their duty They believed and taught then as they believe and teach today I that the government of the United I States was founded by men who were I inspired of God It mattered not what I they had suffered at the hands of lawless I I law-less men or wherein those in authority had failed to do their duty the Mormon Mor-mon religion imposed upon those who accepted the faith the sacred obligation of supporting defending and aggrandizing aggrandiz-ing that government the establishment of which was but part of the latterday dispensation The achievements of the Mormons speak for themselves They found a desert region in the interior of the continent con-tinent which the few white men who had theretofore penetrated pronounced an irreclaimable waste Hostile savages sav-ages held the then supposed to be only habitable places round about Almost 2000 miles of plains and mountains uninhabited save by warlike savage nomads separated us from the eastern frontier line Between Great Salt Lake Valley and the few scattered Spanish settlements on the Pacific more than 800 miles of still more inhospitable deserts and rugged mountains intervened inter-vened The history of mankind does not afford another such example of a people stripped of all theirjposses I sions and with the scantiest possjble I provisionssuccesstullv accompl shipg so I marvelous an undertaking Withii less than two years more than 5000 souls made the pilgrimage from the banks of the Mississippi to Great Salt Lake Valley Val-ley growing on the way their provisions and making the raiment with which they were clothed What was endured during that exodus the awful suffering from hunger until the first years crops were grown and matured in the valley would require a far more eloquent tongue than mine to adequately describe Men and women who were children then will tell you that even now they experience in dreams an aftertaste after-taste of the pangs of hunger gnawing at their vitals through the long and dreary winterof 18i74S All stores were held under strict guard and meager rations meted out But for the kindly assistance of the scarcelybetter provided Indians who taught our people to find dig and cook wild roots starvation would have b en the lot of all the weak and ailing Those of you who have made the journey across the great plains over the Rocky Mountains and through the great valley in palace cars and seen the wonders wrought the persistencethe industry and thrift of the Mormons can have only the faintest idea of what the transformation has cost the people whom you now deliberately propose to turn over to insatiable spoilers I hazard nothing Mr Speaker when I make the statement that but for the Mormons the building of the Union and Central Pacific Railroad would have been an utter impossibility More than that sir but for the work of reclamation reclama-tion accomplished in two short years among the dreary wastes of Salt Lake Valley the California and Oregon pioneers pio-neers of 1849 and succeeding years could not havr made the overland journey from the Missouri to the Pacific We marked out the way built the roads bridged the streams established ferries and aiong the line planted settlements I repeat sir that not only would the construction of a continental iron highway high-way have been indefinitely postponed save for the Mormon settlements in the intermountain region but today all that vast region now populous grid ironed with railroads yielding millions upon millions In the products of mines > and of soil would he scarcely better known than it was forty years ago If tte material work accomplished by the Mormons has been such as to challenge chal-lenge the admiration ofthe world their political moral and intellectual Achievements have been none the lass remarkable They have not only reclaimed re-claimed wastcplaces deemed irreclaimable irreclaim-able brfore their advent they have not only subdued nature and made tbe de e t to blossom asagardenof flowers they have not only built cities and towns railroads and telegraph linesbut they hare dotted the land they won I from sterility everywhere with schoolhouses school-houses and places of worship It is our proud boast that but few of the oldest States cat show a less percentage of illiteracy il-literacy than the Mormon population of Utah There is no community on the face of this earth where so large a percentage per-centage of the heads of families own their homes Ninety per cent of Mormon heads of families in Utah own the houses they live in and the land they cultivate Of all the States and Territories in the Union there are but thirteen showing a lower percentage of total population who can not read Connecticut having the same a Utah 337 per cent The I money raised fr school purposes in Utah is greater in amount than the school fund of three States and of anv of the Territories save Dakota And more than that sir not one dollar of the school fund by far the largest part of which comes from Mormon taxpayers is used for sectarian purposes The Sfhool books of the public schools of Utah are as absolutely free from Mormon Mor-mon teachings as are those used in the i tose District of Columbia i The only successful attemptsunaided hy the general government to reclaim Indians from a savage state and teach them the arts of peace and make them thrifty agriculturists and useful citizens have been the work of the Mormon Church and its missionaries I assert only that which I know lo be true when declare that on more than one occasion occa-sion the Mormon have prevented costly Indian wars not only in Utah but in the adjoining Territories One of the many slanders so industriously industri-ously spread abroad concerning my people is the statement that the great mass of them are densely ignorant Sir the official statistics give the lie most emphatically to this reckless assertion Has the State of Connecticut 1 denselv ignorant i population But three aid thirtyseven hundredths of the inhabitants inhabi-tants of the State of Connecticut cannot can-not read Precisely the same proportion propor-tion of tha people bfUtah in l S could not read S Another unfounded slander spread abroad most industriously by our enemies is the charge that the population popula-tion of Utah is largely made up ot foreigners who are ignorant and unfit to be citizens of the United StatesWhat do the statistics prove According to the census of 18SO the total population of Utah was 143963 Of this number 74509 were males and 69451 females the males outnumbering the females by 5015 Of the total population 99909 were nativeborn and only 43974 foreighborn There were 52189 native na-tive born mqles and J 11780 native born females and the foreignborn DaleS Wore 22320 and the foreignborn females 21674 While the proportion of foreignborn population otldaho is 44061 to 100000 of Wisconsin 44548 California 51217 Minnesota 52168 Dakota 62117 Arizona 05789 Nevada 70065 in Utah it is only 44062 In Dakota Oregcth New HampshireRhode Island Michigan Maine Massachusetts Massachu-setts Florida Arkansas Washington Colorado and New mexico the foreign born population incrpased during the decade preceeding the census of 1880 from which these statistics are taken in Utah it had decreased and Utah showed a more rapid decrease in its foreignborn population during the period named than twentynine of the States and the District of Columbia Mr Speaker I assert without fear of successful contradiction that there is not upon the face of the globe another agricultural and pastoral community where the average of general intelligence is so high where so small a percentage of men women and children can not read This is not an idle boast I I dared to trespass upon your time and your patience I could bring overwhelming prooLof my assertion I is the universal uni-versal verdict of the intelligent and unbiased observers who have visited Utah and gone among her people j Thefact that the Mormon people have in a high degree capacity for selfgov ernment is attested by their history 1 defy any impartial student of institutional institu-tional history to take up the legislative enactments of the Territorial Assembly of Utah beginning with our provisional government and coming down to date and fail to pronounce the highest encomium upon the wisdon the fairness fair-ness the justness and equity of the Mormon government of Utah A gentleman who has devoted years to a critical study of their ecclesiastic and political institutions says The wisdom of their leading men has been exemplifiedin the founding and elaboration of a local governmentwhich will receive the unqualified approval of every student of institutional history In the settlement of no other western Territory has the distinguishing feature of olft New England the principle of the tow OtheetIng community selfgovern ment been so Jigidly adhered to a in Utah Brigham Young who was preeminently pre-eminently great as a leader of men and a builder of communities was a native of Vermont His chief colaborers were either natives of New England New York Pennsylvania or the Western Reserve of Ohio Their civil like their ecclesiastical policy was essentially demobratic They built not for today but for all time The community was the starting point Mutual assistance mutual forbearance unity of sentiment senti-ment unity of sympathy love of God love of fellow menand absolute reliance on divine providence were the foundations founda-tions ol the community Cooperation of communities was the guiding principle of the State The result is a model local government govern-ment The Territory is absolutely without with-out debt The expenses of administration administra-tion are reduced to the minimum Taxation Tax-ation on a very low valuation is for Territorial purposes three mills on the dollar Property in Salt Lake City with its 30000 people and all its public improvements has a debt of less than 1200000 created to build an irrigating canal 20 miss long and the rate of taxation tax-ation Territorial school county and municipal in only 17 mills on the dollar dol-lar A model schooj system i maintained main-tained without sectarianism The tined sectnaism percentage per-centage of illiteracy is threetenths of 1 per cent less than that of Massachuse etts and onetenth of 1 per cent greater than that of Vermont S There i no agricultural community on the face of the globe where you can meet so many traveled and educated men as you will in the different Mormon settlements 01 Utah You will cease to wonder at this statement when you are told that every year the church calls upon a large number o young men togo to-go without scrip and without purse as missionaries to all lands Thesemen are gone on au average of three years They preach the gospel learn languages langua-ges take floe of a they see and hear The Mornionid inquisitive as well as acquisitive ac-quisitive He i cautions secretiveaud prudent because look athim I asKant Shrewd at making a bargain I his word i as good as his bond They I are scrupulously lionest pay invariably 110 I et nts to the and mmd their I own business I Such Mr Speaker is the testimony of a disinterested observer I A great deal was said before the judiciary judi-ciary committee and the bill now under un-der consideration contains a provision aoout grants of laud water and timber privileges made to certain individuals by the provisional legislature of Utah It was claimed before the committee and apparently with effect that these grants were for thepurpose of creating monop lies and thereby aggrandizing particular men or interfering in someway some-way with settlement by nonMormons Nothing could be farther from the truth Water and timber were scarce articles Grants were given to a few men who had means to build roads into canyons to enable the people to get timber out and the privilege of charging toll was given to those who at great expense made the roadways Toll bridges were allowed to be built by private individuals individu-als for the accommodation of the public pub-lic But these were mere expedients ex-pedients necesary in a poor community commun-ity They lung since ceased to exist As to the charge of monopolizing water rights I will repeat what I said betore the committee the truth of which cannot can-not be questioned I The Mormon pioneers undoubtedly had an eye to securing whatever there was food in the desert country they had bought out as a rlace of refuge The area of laud which can successfully be cultivated by irrigation by a family is not great Commuriitv cooperation co-operation is one of the features of the Mormon polity A settlement was first made where the water qould be with the least labor and cost bought to irrigate the land The custom which has come to be recognized law in all other countries coun-tries is that those w o first take out the water can not be deprived of the quantity quan-tity to which they thereby become entitled en-titled The Mormons were provident and thoughtful of the future They set tfed at the mouths of canyons where the mountain streams debouched They did just what every forehanded peopie pioneers will do they took all they could get I is now made a serious charge against them that they monopolized monopo-lized the waterand the arabl land not to aggrandize themselves but to provide for their children and their brethren of other sections of the Union and of other lands who might come to join them Was i a crime Every one acquainted with the lpcal history of western Territories knows that I was the common practice to grant charter for toll roads and bridges in almost every Territory I believe it is an undisputed fact that for a longtime long-time the firm of Barlow k Sanderson two enterprising Vermonters had a monopoly mo-nopoly of the stage coach and mailcar rying business in Colorado because they owned the toll roads through every available pass in a certain region They got the charters from the Legislature of Colorad built the roads and the tolls they were allowed to charge prevented competition in their business S There is no mote occasion for the twentyfirst section of this bill than there would be for an enactment requiring requir-ing the AttorneyGeneral to institute suits to annul grants given to Barlow Sanderson for toll roads in Colorado by its Territorial Assembly Mr Jpeaker disguise the fact as the advocates of this bill may seek with great ingenuity as the authors of this bill have done to slip round or under or over constitutional prohibitions they call not escape certain demonstrable conclusions First That in prescribing a test oath as a qualification prerequisite to exercising exer-cising the right of suffrage they are doing do-ing comethiug that is not only hateful and odious in the sight of every Amei can but they in this case do i in despite de-spite of the plain letter of the Constitution Constitu-tion I need only quote the honorable gentleman from Virginia lMr Tucker who has charge of this bill When the socalled Edmunds antpol gamy bill was under consideration in this House he said m premising his remarks I believe the most precious assurance for American liberty and the most essential > es-sential guarantee of American civilization civiliza-tion in the Constitution of the United States To destroy any evil by unconstitutional uncon-stitutional methods is to cure a disease by a poison which disturbs the vital functions of the body politic and inject into it a principle most difficult to be extirpated ex-tirpated and creates a precedent whose influence must be injurious and may be fatal to the life of constitutional government govern-ment That was sound doctrine right elO quentlv and pithily announced But hear him on the question of the test oath prescribed by that bill I come now v He said to the eighth sectionof the bill That provides that no bigamist polygamist or any person cohabiting as before mentioned men-tioned shall vote orbe eligible to office or hold office in any Territory or place over whichthe United States have exclusive ex-clusive jurisdiction or under the United States This disfranchises every such person from every office from the Presi dencv down to the most petty place under un-der the government I waive the question oi a constitu constu tonal power to make disqualifications for offices to which another department appointsor as to which the Constitution itself establishes its own free qualifications qualifica-tions I assert that this section without with-out trial of any kind takes from every person guilty of any of these offenses the precious right of suffrage and the privilege of eligibility to or the title to hold any office under the United States This is done by act of Congress for crime I operates to instanti of tho approval ap-proval of this law I at that moment he is guilty of a new offense created by this act this act in the same moment inflicts this heavy penalty It does more The ninth section establishes es-tablishes a commission of five persons whose decision of exclusion of any man from the polls is absolute and final He has no appeal That commission tries the question of guilt or innocence in order or-der to determine bis right to vole His citizenship is emasculated under this law without the process of law by indictment in-dictment and jury trial before a court of law The commission of five are the absolute ab-solute arbiters of the rights and immunities im-munities States of 140000 citizens the United The gentleman from Virginia held that such a law was unconstitutional and in this he was but voicing the unbroken un-broken current of decisions up to that time by the courts of last resort in vel State in this Union that had pa sed upon the question as well as that of Supreme Court of the United States Learned lawyer a the gentleman i I know he must have had in mind at that time the celenrated casein the mat tme tar of Dorsey found in 7 Porter 293 A statute of Alabama disqualified persons who had engaged in duels and prescribed I pre-scribed a test oath Mr J L Dorsey I declin nl to take this oath was refused I admission to the barand the casecom ing up to the supreme court of that State was elaborately considered in all I its bearings In the oure of the op inion thecourt says S section of the bill ot tenth sec rights The among other compelled things provides to give I oe ° fedPto that no one shall himelf I nor shall he evidence against htrryeU hap or be deprived of due his i we course liberty oflaw After pmess but by examination of mature e a patient and Jatfrhe pinion that I am of the matteI mt expurgatory oath of the the requisition 01 exPdur t this oflends against this law agal exacted by ofen rights It is so of toe bill of portion xights o f jus offensive to the first principles idince ve evidence to give gl ice to require man f case J nat m himself in a penal dependent constitutional inter pendent of the consttutInal enlightened age wIll duct no one in this the But advocate principle be found to it may be said this is not I case of thIS kind as no corporal pecuniarY pun T of a refusal ishment is the consequence to tak the oath against duelling But are not the results the same whether follows from the admission punishment folows onsequence oi sion or is imposed as ac I silence Can ingenuity make a du I inflicted tinctien between a punishment consequencef the in this mode as a consequence refusal to take the oath by closing one I of the avenues to wealth and fame and pecuniary mulct If there a positive mtlct I think it entirely in be a difference I entrely 1 favor of the latter so far as the amount or weight of the penalty could affect S the decision of thequestion I do not doubt that familiar as the gentleman is with constitutional law he had overlooked the opinion of the Sew York court of appeals in Barker vs The People 3 Cowen 686 wherein that hih court held that Eligibility to office is not declared as a right or principle by any express terms of the constitution built results as a just deduction from the express powers and provisions of the system The basis of the principle is the absolute abso-lute liberty of electors and the appoint apf ing authorities to choose and appoint an v antbrties person is npt made ineligible bvtue constitution Eligibility to office const fee therefore belongs not exclusively or specially to electors enjoying the right of suffrage I belongs equally to all person whomsoever not excluded by the constitution 1J thereiore con ctive it to be entirely clear that the Legislature can not establish arbitrary exclusions from office or any general regulation requiring qualifications wuich the constitution has not required I for example i should be enacted bylaw by-law that all physicians or all persons of a particular religioussect should bejn eligible to public trusts i or that all persons not possessing a certain amount of property should be excluded or that a member of the Assembly must be a freeholder any such regulation would be an infringement of the constitution and it would be because should it prevail pre-vail in would be in effect an alteration of the constitution itself As aright flowing from the constitution consti-tution it can not be taken away by any law declaring that classes of men or even a single person not convicted of a public offense shall be ineligible to public station but as a right not expressly ex-pressly secured by the constitution it may be takep from convicted criminals when the Legislature in their plenary power over crimes deem such a deprivation depri-vation a necessary punishment To say this is to say in substance that the right in question may be forfeited by crimes when the Legislature so direct di-rect S rectNow I appeal to the gentleman to say if the law laid down by the supreme court of Alabama and the New YorK courtof appeals in these cases was not I sound I it was good law as declared by the New York court of appeals that by a right flowing from the constitution constitu-tion it can not be taken away by any law declaring that classes of men 01 even a single person not convicted of a public offense shall be ineligible to pub lie station then I want to know if Lie rignt of suffrage can be taken from a class of men oreven an individual not accused or even suspected of any crime because he will not take a prescribed oath in which he is required to swear that he will not violate certain lawsl Was there ever anything more preposterous pre-posterous proposed But the gentleman gentle-man may say the right of suffrage is not expressly secured by the Constitution Constitu-tion of the United States to white men Then I reply to him in the language of the New York court of appeals as aright a-right expressly secured by the constitution consti-tution it may be takQn from convicted criminals when the Legislature in its plenary power over crimes deem such deprivation a necessary punishment To say this is to say in substance that the right in question may be forfeited by crimes when the Legislature so directs di-rects But could the legislature in diet a punishment like this upou innocent inno-cent men who will not swear that they never will be guilty of an offense which the Legislature may create The Supreme Court of the United States in Cnmmings case declared of the provisions of tte constitution ol Missouriwhich disfranchised thJse who would not swear that they had not been guilty of certain things The clauses in question subvert the presumption of innocence and alter thi rules of evidence which heretofore un der universally recognized principles s of common law have been supposed to be fundamental and unchangeable They assume that the parties are guilty they call upSn the parties to establish their innocence i and they declare that such innocence can be shown only in one wayby an inqusition in the form of an expurgatory oath into the conscience of the parties How much more reprehensible the provisions of section U5 of the bill under consideration 3y this the citizen who will not swear that he is not going to violate a law by his refusal is ipso facto subjected t a severe penalty total dis franchisement and disqualification Could anything be more monstrous The Supreme Court of New York in Gotchens vs Matheson 58 Barb ur 152 said Citizenship of the United States i an important right and the privileges con ferred by it are important privileges dearly prized by the American people An act that provides for a forfeiture thereof imposes a penalty and comes within the provisions of the Constitu tion m regard to Bills of attainder The gentleman from Virginia stand mg 1n hIS place in this House on the 13th of March 1832 declared of the eighth and ninth sections of the bill then un der consideration bi I should be false to my sworn duty to support and defend the Constitutjo wor of the Umtld States if I Cnstiutio voted i or a bill which not only violates the Constitu ton but makes a precedent of Consttn preceent omen to the liberties 9f the people I can not consent to eradicate one vice cn of eradIct by an act usurpation of power which ht in powe might yole results of greater magnitude and Importance to the happiness tbe of the sent Union and future generations of this great pre u I forbear He said further to dwell pon the agergus9wers vest d Ihe by t1i Q o1g at y tobe constituted thl nltl 1 section GIven a b id bad which It is to regulg election suffrage to hold electon to make returns thereof and SI altthia without al be nodlffirafeiir and there no difficultc in difcly reaching win sion that for te the i the time c ° ncla zens of the UnitedTaS l40Qy 5 United Jm4000 Cl Unied Slates will 0 to an autocratic wi i bv suits su-its authority and oligarchy as absofbJ t capable of achint as much unhappineas 1116 1 for its SUbjecVlng the plunder of their proS fuCls by privation of their liberties property and the de lation of their lbertIes and the laton constitutiona Ae Clever Cl-ever existed constiutonal ghts any neoni people cient or modern times In an That bill which the gentle denounced became a genteran S the provisions of the eight 22 1182 sections being unchanged Jv incii telms of the twentyfourth By the s the bill now under consideraH0n of ninth section of the consideration act of Marc the 18S2 is continued in force Yes Mr Speaker that board thatboatdWhicb the gentleman so eloquently u Uas a automatic oligarchy denounced in its authority and as absolute capable of ing as much unhappiness tchie I for by the plunder oT their its SUbjet deprivation of their liberties Property the violation of their and the i violaton 9f ther constitutional rUV as ever existed among any people K1 cient or modern times an tmes is by this bm be continued in full force and effect but0 And that too efec gentleman knows notwithstanding Territor the Assembly of Utah at its last Itoria Is ssio passed a billmeeing in bIl mcejing l every Possible way the requirements of the act i March 1882 hut which was of lessly vetoed bj the then governor caUse the Territory I know i has been claimed that nle t Supreme Court of the Unita Slate in Murphy et al vs Rim say etal HI United States imi i has affirmed the power of Congress to prescribe a test oath such as was DM Tided by the eighth section of the act of March 22 1882 but I insist that that judgment of the Supreme Court does I I not meet the issue raised by the pro posed legislation contained in section25 I of this bill sectton2 bi To be continued tomorrow j |