“A number of persons in Mississippi visited this city to find arguments by which I might be influenced to become a candidate. I hesitated, because it would necessitate the abandonment of my whole military life. Finally, for personal and public reasons, I decided to become a candidate and leave the Army. My intentions were publicly declared and sincere.”
On which the Committee remark:—
“The intentions thus declared were not only to become a candidate for the Senate, but to remain and reside in Mississippi.”[5]
Sir, what more can you ask? On the report of your own Committee you have explicit evidence of the intent of General Ames to reside in Mississippi; and where intent is enough, you need add nothing to it. There is no necessity for any act beyond this declaration, which, as I have already said, is in itself an act, as the Senator from Michigan [Mr. Howard] says, taken in connection with his personal presence on the spot,—and I would add, taken in connection with all the necessary implications from his position, and from his acceptance of the candidacy. This is not a case in a justice’s court, or even in a county court. This is the Senate of the United States; and we are considering the evidence with regard to the declarations of a gentleman already chosen by a State of this Union to take his seat among us. We cannot apply to these declarations any technical rule which possibly might be applied in an inferior tribunal. We are to look at the case in its essence, and, if satisfied of the intent, we cannot go further. The Senate does not sit in chains. It may act according to its conscience on the evidence, without any constraint, except from the rule of law requiring intent.
Much stress has been laid upon the fact that General Ames held a commission in the Army of the United States, and was actually the military commander and provisional governor of Mississippi. What then? Does this affect his position now? Is a soldier or officer in the Army, is the commander of an army, shut out from the same privileges that belong to you, Sir, and to me? Each of us may change his domicile as he pleases, and to-morrow or next week transfer his home to another State of the Union, and nobody can say, No. Has the soldier or the officer fewer rights than you and I have? I think not; and I am sure that both reason and authority sustain my conclusion. I have in my hands a volume of the California Reports,—the twenty-eighth volume. I call attention to the case of The People v. William Holden, and I will not trouble you with anything more than one clause from the marginal note, as follows:—
“Residence while in the service of the United States.—The clause in the Constitution of this State, which declares that ‘no person shall be deemed to have gained or lost a residence by reason of his presence or absence while employed in the service of the United States,’ does not prevent a person who removes to a county while in the service of the United States from acquiring a residence in that county while in the said service, if it is his intention so to do.”
“If it is his intention so to do.” These words are strictly applicable to the case of General Ames. There was nothing in his service in Mississippi, nothing in his high military command, to prevent him from establishing an inhabitancy in that State, if it was his intention so to do.
Thus at every point are we brought back to the single rule of law and the evidence under it,—the rule being that there must be an intent to remain, and the evidence being open to the judgment of the tribunal before which the question is raised. Especially must this be the case with the Senate, which will look through all technicalities, all cobwebs, to find the truth. Nor can the Senate be so unjust to any class of citizens as to say that a military commander may not acquire inhabitancy in a State where he is fixed by military duties, provided he so intends. All the adverse presumptions from military residency will be overcome at once by the animus manendi, so soon as this is proved.