History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United StatesBarnes, William Horatio
History
History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States
Barnes, William Horatio
United States -- Politics and government -- 1865-1869; United States. Congress (39th : 1865-1867)
Mr. Cowan, of Pennsylvania, spoke in favor of the veto, premising that
his words, "if they are not to convince any body in the Senate, may go
to the country and be reflected on there." Mr. Cowan said he was quite
willing that all the people of this country should enjoy the rights
conferred upon them by this bill. But, supposing the bill had all the
merit in the world, it would not be effective to attain the ends hoped
for by its friends; and apart from that, its provisions were
exceedingly dangerous. It gave married women and minors the right to
make and enforce contracts. The grammatical structure of a portion of
the bill was such as to enable a corrupt, passionate, or prejudiced
judge to take advantage of it in order to widen the jurisdiction of
the United States courts, and drag into them all the business which
had heretofore occupied the State courts. This would be enough in this
nineteenth century to make a man tremble for the fate of
constitutional government. "If," said Mr. Cowan, "we had undoubted
authority to pass this bill, under the circumstances I would not vote
for it, on account of its objectionable phraseology, its dubious
language, and the mischief which might attend upon a large and liberal
construction of it in the District and Circuit Courts of the United
States." The trouble and expense of obtaining justice in the United
States courts, but one, or at most two existing in any of the Southern
States, would debar the African from applying to them for redress.
"Your remedy," said the Senator, "is delusive; your remedy is no
remedy at all; and to hold it up to the world as a remedy is a gross
fraud, however pious it may be. It is no remedy to the poor debtor
that you prosecute his judge, and threaten him with fine and
imprisonment. It is no remedy to the poor man with a small claim that
you locate a court one or two hundred miles away from him which is so
expensive in its administration of justice that he can not enter
there.
[Illustration: WM. M. Stewart, Senator from Nevada.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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