Well, it was impossible to select the fifth man from geographical considerations, you can see that yourselves. There was nothing left to choose between, you know, as far as geography was concerned. They then agreed that they would not take a Justice from any State in which the candidate for President lived. They left out Justice Hunt, from New York, and Justice Swayne, from Ohio. They knew of course that that would not influence them, but they did that simply—well, they did not want them there; that was all, and it would be unhandy to pick one man out of four. So they left Swayne and Hunt out. And then they would pick one man as between Justice Bradley and Justice Davis. Just at that time the people of the State of Illinois happened to be out of a Senator, and Judge Davis was there and expressed a willingness to go to the Senate. And the people of the State of Illinois elected him, and therefore there was nobody to choose from except Justice Bradley, and he was a Republican.
Now, you know this runs in families. His record was good—by marriage. He married a daughter of Chief Justice Hornblower, of New Jersey. Now, Hornblower was what you might call a partisan. Do you know they went to him—it was in the old times, and he was a kind of Whig,—they went to him with a petition, in the State of New Jersey, a petition addressed to the Legislature for the abolition of capital punishment, and Hornblower said, "I'll be damned if I sign it while there is a Democrat in the State of New Jersey."
As a matter of fact, however, I believe that Justice Bradley and all the other Justices, and all other persons on that tribunal decided as they honestly thought was right.
Judge Davis is as broad mentally as he is physically; he has an immensity of common sense, and as much judgment as any one man ever needs to use, and, in my judgment, he would have come to the same conclusion as Judge Bradley, precisely. These men were appointed—it was a Democratic scheme, and I am glad they got it up—and during that entire investigation, so much were the members of that party controlled by old associations and habits, and by partisan feeling that there was not a solitary one of the seven Democrats that ever once voted on the Republican side. And, as a necessity, the Republicans had to stand together. And so, notwithstanding the seven Democrats voted constantly together, the eight Republicans kept having a majority of one, until the last disputed State was given against the great party of "honesty and reform." And, finally, when they found they were defeated, they made up their minds to prevent the counting of the vote. They made up their minds to wear out the session and prevent the election of a President. Just at that point, for a wonder, (nothing ever astonished me more), the members from the South said: "We do not want any more war; we have had war enough and we say that a President shall be peacefully elected, and that he shall be peacefully inaugurated!" As soon as I heard that I felt under a little obligation to the Democracy of the South, and when they stood in the gap and prevented the Democracy of the North from plunging this Government into the hell of civil war, I felt like taking them by the hand and saying, "We have beaten the enemy once, let us keep on. Let us join hands." I felt like saying to the Democracy of the South, "You never will have a day's prosperity in the South until you join the great, free, progressive party of the North—never!" And they never will.
Now, I say, I felt as though I were under a certain obligation to these people. They prevented this thing, and they made it possible for the Vice-President to declare Rutherford B. Hayes President of the United States. Now, right here, I want you to observe that this shows the real defects in our system of government. In the first place, our Government is being governed by fraud. If the very fountain of power is poisoned by fraud, then the whole Government is impure. We must find out some way to prevent fraudulent voting in the United States or our Government is a failure. Great cities were the mothers of election frauds. They inaugurated violence and intimidation. They produced the repeaters and the false boxes. They invented fan-tail tickets and pasters, and gradually these delightful and patriotic arts and practices have spread over almost the entire country.
Unless something is done to preserve the purity of the ballot-box our form of government must cease. The fountain of power is poisoned. The sovereignty of the people is stolen and destroyed. The Government becomes organized fraud, and all respect will soon be lost for the laws and decisions of the courts. The legislators are elected in many instances by fraud. The judges are in many instances chosen by fraud. Every department of the Government becomes tainted and corrupt. It is no longer a Republic, unless something can be devised to ascertain with certainty the really honest will of the sovereign people.
For the accomplishment of this object the good and patriotic men of all parties should most heartily unite. To cast an illegal vote should be considered by all as a crime. We must if possible get rid of the mob—the vagrants, the vagabonds who have no home and who take no interest in the cities where they vote. We must get rid of the rich mob too; and by the rich mob I mean the men who buy up these vagabonds. Various States have passed laws for the registration of voters; but they all leave wide open all the doors of fraud. Men are allowed to vote if they have been for one year in the State, and thirty or sixty days in the ward or precinct; and when they have failed to have their names registered before the day of election, they can avoid the effect of this neglect by making a few affidavits, certified to by reputable householders. Of course all necessary affidavits are made, with hundreds and thousands to spare. My idea is that the period of registration, in the first place, is too short, and, in the second place, no way should be given by which they can vote unless they have been properly registered, affidavit or no affidavit. Every man, when he goes into a ward or precinct, should be registered. It should be his duty to see that he is registered. Officers should be kept for that purpose, and he should never be allowed to cast a vote until he has been registered at least one year. Sixty days, say, or thirty days—sixty would be better—sixty days before the election the registry lists should be corrected, and every citizen should have the right to enter a complaint or objection as against any name found upon that list. Thirty days, or twenty days before the election, that list should be published and should be exposed in several public places in each ward and each precinct, and upon the day of election no man should be allowed to vote whose name was not upon the registry list. Our wards and precincts should be made smaller, so that people can vote without violence, without wasting an entire day, so that the honest business man that wishes to cast his ballot for the Government of his choice can walk to the polls like a gentleman and deposit his vote and go about his affairs. Allow me to say that unless some such plan is adopted in the United States, there never will be another fair election in this country. During the last campaign all the arts and artifices of the city, all the arts and artifices of the lowest wards were spread over this entire country, and unless something is done to preserve the purity of the ballot-box, and guard the sovereign will of the people, we will cease to be a Republican Government.
Another thing—and I cannot say it too often—fraud at the ballot-box undermines all respect in the minds of the people for the Government. When they are satisfied that the election is a fraud they despise the officers elected. When they are satisfied it is a fraud, they despise the law made by the legislators. When they are satisfied it is a fraud, they hold in utter contempt the decisions of our highest and most august tribunals.
Another trouble in this country is that our terms of office are too short. Our elections are too frequent. They interfere with the business of our country. When elections are so frequent, men make a business of politics. If they fail to get one office they immediately run for another, and they keep running until the people elect them for the simple purpose of getting rid of the annoyance. Lengthen the terms, purify the ballot, and the present scramble for office will become contests for principles. A man who cannot get a living—unless he has been disabled in the service of his country or from some other cause—without holding office, is not fit for an office.
A professional office-seeker is one of the meanest, and lowest, and basest of human beings—a little higher than the lower animals and a little lower than man. He has no earthly or heavenly independence; not a particle; not a particle. A successful office-seeker is like the center of the earth; he weighs nothing himself, and draws all things towards the office he wants. He has not even a temper. You cannot insult him. Shut the door in his face, and, so far as he is concerned, it is left wide open, and you are standing on the threshold with a smile, extending the hand of welcome. He crawls and cringes and flatters and lies and swaggers and brags and tells of the influence he has in the ward he lives in. We cannot too often repeat that splendid saying, "The office should seek the man, not man the office." If you will lengthen the term of office it will be so long between meals that he will have to do something else or starve. Adopt the system of registration, as I have suggested; have small and convenient election districts, so that, as I said before, the honest, law-abiding, and peaceable citizen can attend the polls; so that he will not be compelled to risk his life to deposit his ballot that will be stolen or thrown out, or forced to keep the company of ballots caused by fraudulent violence. Lengthen the term of office, drive the professional hunter and seeker of office from the field, and you will go far toward strengthening and vivifying and preserving the fabric of the Constitution. That is the kind of civil service reform I am in favor of, and as I am on that subject, I will say a word about it. There is but one vital question—but one question of real importance—in fact I might say in the whole world, and that is the great question of Civil Service Reform. There may be some others indirectly affecting the human race, and in which some people take a languid kind of interest, but the only question worth discussing and comprehending in all its phases is the one I have mentioned. This great question is in its infancy still. The doctrine as yet has been applied only to politics.*