FOURTH DAY.

SATURDAY, June 5, 1880-11 A, M.

Prayer will be offered by the Rev. John R. Paxton, of

Pursuant to adjournment the Convention met.

The PRESIDENT.

Washington.

The Rev. Mr. Paxton offered the following

PRAYER:

Let us unite in prayer. O God, ordainer of all things, mighty sustainer of all Thy creatures, we begin this day with thankful acknowledgment of Thy mercies. We commend unto Thy favor and grace the members of this Convention. Rule, we pray Thee, in all its counsels, guide all its deliberations, declare through its vote for the wisest, for the truest, for the best man to lead this great party in the contest that awaits it. Forbid, O God, that the cry of passion should be louder here than the calm voice of duty. Forbid, O God, that prejudice should warp judgment and compromise principle. Forbid that personal preference should impair or imperil the peace, the harmony, the enthusiasm, the unity of purpose, and the fidelity to trust of this Convention. Teach these men that they be brethren, and teach them all that the cause they represent, the principles they advocate, the interests at stake, the ends to be secured are vastly greater and more important than the success of any man in the race for the nomination. Hear us now, O God, and help us; and may the work of this day be done wisely and be done well; and may the Divine Providence shape all the ends of the Convention, its decisions, its policy, its platform and its candidate. We ask in Jesus' name. Amen.

The PRESIDENT. The Secretary, before proceeding to business, will read for the information of the Convention a communication from some of the railroads.

RAILROAD TICKETS.

The SECRETARY, Mr. Clisbee. The following railroads have authorized me to announce that the excursion tickets will be good for one day after the adjournment of the Convention: The Michigan Central, Great Western, Chicago and West Michigan, Chicago and Alton, Chicago and Northwestern, and Grand Trunk railways.

METHOD OF ELECTION OF DELEGATES.

Mr. BOUTWELL, of Massachusetts. I send to the Chair a resolution, which I trust will be agreed to by the Convention, and ask that it may be read by the Secretary.

The PRESIDENT. The resolution will be read for information.
The Secretary read as follows:

Resolved, That the National Republican Executive Committee be and it is hereby instructed to prescribe a method or methods for the election of delegates to the National Convention, to be held in 1884, to announce the same to the country, and to issue the call for that Convention in conformity therewith.

The PRESIDENT. Is there objection to the presentation of the resolution? Mr. HALE, of Maine. Mr. President—

The PRESIDENT. The Chair will state that the pending business before the Convention is the completion of the disposition of the report of the Committee on Credentials. The resolution of the gentleman from Massachusetts will be entertained, if at all, by unanimous consent. Does the gentleman rise to object?

Mr. HALE. I wish to ask the gentleman from Massachusetts to lay down here distinctly whether he makes it apply to the National Committee or the National Executive Committee. There is a distinction. The Executive Committee is a branch of, or a committee within, the National Committee. I think it ought to apply to all the committees.

Mr. BOUTWELL. Strike out the word "executive," then.

Mr. HALE. That is right.

The PRESIDENT. If there is no objection the question will be stated upon the resolution. It will be read again for information.

Mr. CONGER. I shall object to taking up anything that leads to debate. I call for the regular order which the Convention has adopted in regard to the report of the Committee on Credentials.

The PRESIDENT. The gentleman from Michigan calls for the regular order.

Mr. BOUTWELL. I, then, give notice that, at the earliest moment the rules of the Convention will allow, I shall ask for its consideration.

The PRESIDENT. The Chair will recognize the gentleman from Massachusetts immediately after the disposition of the present order, if he shall rise for the purpose. The question before the Convention is upon so much of the majority report of the Committee as relates to the State of Kansas.

RAILROAD TICKETS.

Mr. WARNER, of Alabama. Mr. President

The PRESIDENT. For what purpose does the gentleman rise?

Mr. WARNER. I want to make a suggestion. Many of the delegates are uneasy about return tickets, and I suggest that the Convention pass a resolution asking the Chairman and Secretary to communicate with the railroads, that the time may be extended at least three days beyond the Convention.

The PRESIDENT. A portion of the railroads have already directed a communication to be made to the Convention, which has been read. The Chair, without a formal order of the Convention, will direct the Sergeant-at-Arms

to make that request of the railroads in behalf of all the members of the Convention, no objection being made.

THE KANSAS CASE.

Mr. CONGER, of Michigan. Mr. President: The case submitted to the Convention I will state in a few words, and the recommendation of the Committee. The Committee recommend the admission as delegates from the Second district of Kansas of T. C. Sears and S. A. Day, and from the Third district Thomas J. Anderson and John W. Steele, and that the ten present sitting members be allowed to retain their seats and to cast six votes among them. The case is simply this: At a State Convention held in Kansas, by one resolution ten delegates were elected to the National Convention-by the same resolution. They were assigned by agreement four to one district, three to another, and three to another, without designating which were delegates-at-large. Subsequently, on notice in the convention, district conventions were held in two of these districts, and the delegates to those two districts elected the two district delegations which I have read to this Convention. Now, Mr. President, this resolution gives seats to the two delegates of each of the conventions elected by the district delegates assembled in convention. The Committee were of opinion that, under the rule and principle they had adopted, they should be entitled to seats, but the Committee could not say whose seats they should occupy or who should be unseated, because there was no distinction made in the general resolution of delegates-atlarge and delegates from the districts, and therefore the Committee recommend that the district delegates be admitted in the two districts where they were chosen, and cast each one a vote, but that the ten delegates remain in their seats and between them cast six votes.

Mr. BATEMAN, of Ohio. I move that the debate be limited to thirty minutes-fifteen minutes on each side.

Mr. PLUMB, of Kansas. I desire to modify that motion so that it may better express the desire of the delegates from Kansas as to the matter of time. I would suggest to the gentleman from Ohio that he extend the time to forty minutes, as was done yesterday, giving us twenty minutes to each side. With that I think no injustice will be done to any one. I do not believe that anybody will talk for the purpose of hearing himself talk, but we certainly need more time than thirty minutes. The principle to be settled in this case is just as vital as the one that was acted on yesterday.

The PRESIDENT. Will the gentleman from Ohio accept the modification? Mr. BATEMAN. Certainly, sir.

The PRESIDENT. The modification is accepted. The gentleman from Ohio moves that the debate on the Kansas case be limited to forty minutestwenty minutes of which may be occupied by each side.

The motion was agreed to.

Mr. PLUMB. Mr. President: After the vote of yesterday upon a similar question affecting a portion of the delegation from Illinois, it may be perhaps argument after the fact; but, nevertheless, there is due, not alone to the sitting delegates from the State of Kansas, but to the State convention which sent them here, and to the people who chose the delegates which constituted that State convention, that there should be presented to the National Republican Convention a statement of the facts and of the theories upon which the regular delegates appear and have so far participated in the proceedings of this body.

There are two theories in regard to this case, as in regard to the other cases that have been decided. One is that the call of the National Committee, was directed to the State, and that under that call the State, through such instrumentalities as had been invoked theretofore, or as it might adopt, should proceed to the choice of the number of delegates required by the call to represent it in this body; and that to settle and determine that case we must consider not only the line of action in the given case, but the previous practice, if there had been any, in similar cases within the State.

The other theory is that the call was directed to the districts within the State, ignoring the State, except so far as it related to the choice of delegates-at-large.

The State convention, which sent to this Convention the delegates who have been and are now sitting upon this floor, proceeded upon the first theory. They did so because that was in accordance with the previous practice of the State. They did so because that practice and that idea, was strengthened by the analogy which runs through all this business of electing a President. They knew that when Kansas was called in the Electoral College it was not called for votes by districts, but it was called to cast its entire vote as a State. And they knew, and took some pride in knowing, that when Kansas had made utterance there would be no doubt as to what her position was.

Following that analogy, the State committee issued a call for a State convention. That call distinctly stated that the Republican electors of the several counties, upon an apportionment therein named, should proceed to elect delegates to the State convention, whose function, when assembled, should be the choice of ten delegates for the State of Kansas in the National Republican Convention. The only thing in the call about districts was that the committee proceeded to advise the State convention, or recommended to it when it had assembled, that in choosing delegates it should choose two from each one of the territorial subdivisions known in the State as Congressional districts. There was no recognition in the call whatever of the function or of the power of a Congressional district, as such, to choose delegates to the State convention, or to this Convention, nor of any right to such district to interfere with the proceedings of the Convention in any way whatever; but the call was for the choice and assembling of a single body of men for one particular purpose and acting for the accomplishment of one end, namely: the nominating and electing of ten men who should represent the united voice of the State of Kansas in this Convention.

In response to that call, Mr. President, every county in the State sent delegates to Topeka, who there assembled as a State convention, organized in a regular way, and proceeded under the call to the election of ten delegates upon one ticket, recognizing none of the districts as such, and making no distinction between one delegate and another, in the way of designating one as at large and the other from a district; but in fact, apportioning the delegates, according to the recommendation of the State committee, among the several districts in proportion to their population: that is to say, among those territorial subdivisions which were known and recognized as Congressional districts.

The same convention, in pursuance of the further mandate of the State committee, proceeded to and did choose five electors, upon whom will devolve the duty, as it will be their pleasure, to cast the unanimous vote of the State of Kansas, backed by at least 60,000 majority, for the candidates who shall be nominated here.

Up to 1876 the State of Kansas never had had separate Congressional districts. It had in itself constituted only one district, because at the time of the first apportionment, by which three members of Congress had been assigned to it, the Legislature was not in session to create the districts with

in which these several members of Congress should be chosen, and so all the States had met together to nominate candidates for members of Congress in the same manner that it did in March last, for the purpose of nominating members of the National Republican Convention.

In 1876 a State convention was called for the purpose of choosing delegates to represent the State in the National Republican Convention at Cincinnati. The delegates were all chosen on one ticket, as at the Convention of 1880, except that certain delegates from the districts assembled together, and made an informal recommendation of certain persons or delegates to the Cincinnati Convention, which recommendation was acted upon to the extent that the convention chose such persons as part of the delegation to represent the State at Cincinnati.

When the convention of 1880 assembled, every delegate took part in the organization. The convention divided in the choice of a presiding officer. The division was upon the line of preference concerning the Presidential nomination. The prevailing party then proceeded to select the ten delegates who are now upon this floor, and the other party, some of them, participated in the election, and some of them simply declined to vote. Prior, however, to this naming of the ten delegates, a caucus of a portion of the delegates from the Second district and also a similar caucus from the Third district of the State got together and recommended to the State convention, each one of them, two candidates, to be placed upon the ticket by the convention. The convention declined to accede to that recommendation, and the persons who are here to-day contesting are the persons who were thus recommended for candidates before the action of the convention had taken place.

Mr. President, if the opinion prevail, and it be determined here that the call was directed to the districts, and not to the State, except so far as the delegates-at-large are concerned, I desire now to call the attention of the Convention specifically to the fact that no delegate appeared at that State convention in response to anything but the mandate of the State committee. There is in each one of the Congressional districts of that State a complete Congressional district organization, in the shape of a committee, having a "local habitation and a name," and having a function with reference to district matters. But these committees never acted. No delegates ever came together in convention in any one of these districts summoned by the authorities of his district. No one ever participated in the election of a delegate here except delegates who came together under the call of the State committee, commanded to appear and represent the Republicans of that State in a State convention to choose ten men to come here; and it seems to me, Mr. President, that in all fairness, and according to the rule which should govern in all deliberative bodies, and especially in bodies which are removed from the people, especially in bodies which cannot be supposed to concern themselves with the details of local organization, the call of the committee should be regarded as the organic command, as the law of the assemblage, and that any person who acts outside of that should be nothing else than simply a member of the body politic-the general body of the State-and that therefore those men who came in compliance with this call and this demand came there as delegates to a State convention, and that, except for the purpose of discharging the functions as such delegates, they had no power any more than any others of the 200,000 voters of the State of Kansas who may have voluntarily assembled anywhere for the purpose of electing delegates to this Convention. While I am on that, I want to say this: That there is no question but what those persons who are here contesting are men who are in every practical sense, in every proper sense, representative men of their respective localities. They are just as the balance of us, no better and no worse than the 100,000 Republican voters of the State of Kansas; and, if they are entitled to seats here, then I submit that any mass meeting of the Republican