hese evils and to prevent these crimes the
United States laws regulating Congressional elections were enacted.

The framers of these laws have not been disappointed in their results.
In the large cities, under their provisions, the elections have been
comparatively peaceable, orderly, and honest. Even the opponents of
these laws have borne testimony to their value and efficiency and to
the necessity for their enactment. The committee of the Forty-fourth
Congress, composed of members a majority of whom were opposed to these
laws, in their report on the New York election of 1876, said:

The committee would commend to other portions of the country
and to other cities this remarkable system, developed through
the agency of both local and Federal authorities acting in
harmony for an honest purpose. In no portion of the world and
in no era of time where there has been an expression of the
popular will through the forms of law has there been a more
complete and thorough illustration of republican institutions.
Whatever may have been the previous habit or conduct of
elections in those cities, or howsoever they may conduct
themselves in the future, this election of 1876 will stand as
a monument of what good faith, honest endeavor, legal forms,
and just authority may do for the protection of the electoral
franchise.

This bill recognizes the authority and duty of the United States
to appoint supervisors to guard and scrutinize the Congressional
elections, but it denies to the Government of the United States all
power to make its supervision effectual. The great body of the people
of all parties want free and fair elections. They do not think that
a free election means freedom from the wholesome restraints of law or
that the place of election should be a sanctuary for lawlessness
and crime. On the day of an election peace and good order are more
necessary than on any other day of the year. On that day the humblest
and feeblest citizens, the aged and the infirm, should be, and should
have reason to feel that they are, safe in the exercise of their
most responsible duty and their most sacred right as members of
society--their duty and their right to vote. The constitutional
authority to regulate the Congressional elections which belongs to the
Government of the United States, and which it is necessary to exert
to secure the right to vote to every citizen possessing the requisite
qualifications, ought