Mr. CONKLING. Oh, yes, Mr. President. Whenever my honorable friend from Indiana or I speak, we have two reasons for continuing. In the first place, we like to listen to a sensible man. [Laughter.] In the next place, we are not aware, as we speak, how rapidly time may fly; and some member of the Convention, with the utmost fairness of disposition, having the floor, may speak much longer than he is aware of, and thus abridge the right of the other side. I ask the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Harrison] to so modify his resolution as to prescribe a certain number of minutes, and I suggest to him, say twenty minutes a side-or thirty minutes.

Mr. HARRISON. I accept the suggestion of the gentleman from New York, [Mr. Conkling] and with the consent of my seconder, will so modify the motion as that forty minutes shall be allotted for the consideration of this question, which shall be divided-twenty minutes to the contestants, and twenty minutes to the sitting delegates.

The PRESIDENT. The gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Harrison] moves that forty minutes be allotted for the consideration of the Alabama case, of which twenty minutes be allotted to the contestants and twenty minutes to the sitting members.

Mr. TURNER, of Alabama. Mr. President

Mr. CONKLING. I ask the gentleman to yield to me an instant only. It is suggested by gentlemen around me that, although forty minutes may be enough in the Alabama case, the gentlemen interested in other cases-for example, the Illinois case- may want a longer or a shorter time, and therefore, I feel at liberty, as one member of the Convention, to assume that this will not be taken as a precedent for the precise number of moments which may be asked for in another case.

Mr. TURNER, of Alabama. Mr. President. As a member of the delegation from Alabama, and being acquainted with the facts which will be presented to the Convention, I do not think that twenty minutes on each side will be sufficient. I appeal to the gentleman [Mr. Harrison] who makes the motion to adhere to the original motion, and allow half an hour on each side.

The PRESIDENT. Will the gentleman from Indiana modify his motion?

Mr. HARRISON. I think not. It is known to the Convention that we have already listened, in the report of the minority of the Committee on Credentials to an argument in favor of the sitting delegates, and in the report of the majority of the Committee on Credentials to an argument in favor of those to be admitted by the report. But in addition to that, sir, there has been generally circulated among the delegates a printed argument, I think, on each side- certainly one in favor of the sitting delegates. The facts in the case are simple, the precedents must be few, and it certainly is possible for representatives of either side of this question to possess the Convention of every fact essential to a right decision on it within that time.

The PRESIDENT. Will the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Harrison] state his motion again?

Mr. HARRISON. The motion was

The PRESIDENT. The Chair will inform the gentleman from Indiana that he is not sure what is meant by the phrase "be allowed to the contestants,"-whether it is intended to give the contestants the right to be heard in their own persons. It is important that the Convention should see that point before they vote. The gentleman will be good enough, perhaps, to reduce his motion to writing.

Mr. HARRISON. I mean by the motion, that time should be allowed to the contestants, or any one whom they may choose to speak for them, and that the time allowed to the sitting delegates might be occupied by any one or more of them, or by any person they might choose to speak for them. It was not intended to limit the argument personally to the contestants or the sitting delegates.

The PRESIDENT. Will the gentleman from Indiana reduce his motion to writing? If the gentleman will come to the platform the short-hand writer will take it down for him at once.

Mr. CONKLING. While the gentleman is reducing to writing his resolution it will occupy no time for me to suggest to him on his way to the Chair,-I suggest to the gentleman as a matter of parliamentary law and usage, that the report in the Alabama case, as I understand it, is divisible. There is a manifest distinction between these three cases, the three seats involved, and if it be, as I think it is, the right of any member of the Convention to demand a division of the question, I suggest to my honorable friend that his resolution should provide not only to guard against the suggestion made by the Chair, because surely we do not propose to have those not members of the Convention discuss these questions; and that, in addition, it should provide whether this debate is to cover all cases in the Alabama report or only one at a time. There being one of these cases, as the honorable gentleman has not failed to observe, resting on a footing quite distinct, as I understand it, from the other two.

TICKETS.

The PRESIDENT. The Secretary will make an announcement from the National Committee.

The SECRETARY. I am instructed by the National Committee to say that tickets dated June 4, will be good for Saturday should there be a session of the Convention on that day.

THE ALABAMA CASE.

The PRESIDENT. The gentleman from Indiana, [Mr. Harrison,] has reduced his resolution to writing. It will be read.

The Secretary, Mr. Clisbee, read as follows:

Resolved, That the Convention do now proceed to the consideration and determination of so much of the report of the majority of the Committee on Credentials as relates to the contested seats from the State of Alabama, and that twenty minutes time be allotted to those desiring to speak in support of the report of the majority of said Committee, and the same time to those desiring to oppose the adoption of said majority report, and that at the expiration of said time the debate close and the Convention proceed immediately to vote upon the question.

Mr. ALEXANDER, of Alabama. I would like to ask that this resolution be divided. The case of the Fourth district and that of the Seventh are entirely different.

The PRESIDENT. The Chair does not understand that the division of the question, so far as the vote of the Convention is concerned, is affected one way or the other by this resolve.

Mr. CESSNA, of Pennsylvania. I am not going to make a speech, but I want to ask a parliamentary question. If this resolution is adopted, I desire to inquire from the Chair whether or not the vote

upon the amendment of the gentleman from Arkansas [Mr. Clayton] will still be pending? Is the first question to strike out and insert? If so, then I am content.

The PRESIDENT. The Chair so understands.

The resolution was adopted.

The PRESIDENT. The question now is upon the substitution of so much of the minority report as relates to the contested seats from the State of Alabama, for so much of the report of the majority of the Committee as relates to those seats.

Mr. CONGER. I desire to occupy the attention of the Convention but for five minutes in favor of the report, stating its contents, its objects, and the result of the amendment offered by the gentleman who has made the motion.

A DELEGATE. Which report, the majority or minority?

Mr. CONGER. The majority report. The majority, in the first of these cases, recommend that J. T. Rapier is entitled to a seat in this Convention. At some time the report of the Committee may be read. The Convention will bear in mind in this case, that Mr. Rapier was duly elected by the delegates of his district at a State convention and duly recognized, but that, when that convention adjourned, a printed letter is put in evidence to show that the president was to refuse the credentials to Mr. Rapier, unless he would pledge himself that he would vote for Gen. Grant. That is all of it, in a nut shell. In the other case, the majority of the Committee recommend that Willard Warner and William H. Smith be admitted as delegates in place of Arthur Bingham and R. A. Mosely, now present in the Convention. Both cases turn upon the same question. Both were elected by delegates in a separate convention, for their respective districts; reported in both these cases to the convention of the State. Both sets were ratified by that convention, and to both the credentials were refused by the chairman of the State convention, under instructions of the convention, because in both cases these delegates, the colored man and the white man refused to be guided by the convention of that State in their judgment and choice as free delegates to this Convention. This is the opening case, full, fair and free, for this Convention to determine, whether, in a State where the precedent had been continuous for that mode of electing delegates by separate conventions of district delegates to a State convention, it is now to be respected,-whether the district delegation system is the choice of all the Republicans of the United States, where it has been followed heretofore. That is all I desire to say, Mr. President; and I await with impatience for the vote of this Convention upon a principle upon which, in my solemn judgment, rests the contingency of the existence of a Republican party in the United States.

Mr. CLAYTON. Mr. President: I have concluded that the delegates from the State of Alabama perhaps know more about this case than I do, although I think I understand it. I therefore yield the allotted time to Mr. Turner, a delegate from Alabama.

Mr. GEO. TURNER, of Alabama. Mr. President: I desire to express, briefly, the views of the Alabama delegation upon this question. It is not true that any district convention has been held in the State of Alabama to send delegates to this Convention. I hold in my hand the only call which has been issued in the State of Alabama for a convention to send delegates to this Convention. I will read it to you, in order that you may understand what conven

tion it was that was intrusted by the Republicans of the State of Alabama with the duty of sending delegates to this Convention. I ask that this call may be read by the Clerk.

The PRESIDENT. It will be read.

The Secretary read as follows:

"CALL FOR A REPUBLICAN STATE CONVENTION. In pursuance of a resolution adopted by the Republican Executive Committee, held at Montgomery, Ala., March 10, 1880, a State convention is hereby called to meet in Selma, May 20, 1880, for the purpose of selecting delegates to the Chicago Convention June 2, 1880. The following basis of representation was agreed upon: Autagua, 3 delegates; Baldwin, 2; Barbour,

Mr. GEO. TURNER. That is sufficient, Mr. Clerk. The balance of that call, gentlemen, simply relates to the apportionment of delegates to the State convention. You will see from the reading of this call that it provides for a State convention to send delegates to the National Convention. And no gentleman here, either representing these contestants, or the contestants themselves, will come before this Convention and claim that any other body ever assembled within the State of Alabama, for the purpose of performing this duty, except the Republican State convention.

This convention assembled. It made its organization. It completed the temporary business of the convention, and then it proceeded to select the delegates to this convention And what was the method adopted? It was a resolution authorizing the delegates in attendance upon this State convention to retire by districts, and-now mark the language-"to retire by districts and report the names of proper persons to be selected as delegates."

The delegates retired under that resolution, and they brought in a list of names. I took the precaution to preserve one of the reports which was made by one of those district officers to the State convention.

What was the report? Not that the districts had selected delegates to this Convention; but it was a report to the Convention that the district had nominated Mr. Rapier and the other gentlemen for delegates to this Convention. If there had been any idea upon the part of these district delegates that, by retiring into a little room, they had constituted themselves a district convention-if there had been any idea upon their part that the selection which they made then and there constituted a selection in the sense of an election independent of the State convention the language of their report would not have been "that we nominate these gentlemen," but that we elect them as delegates to Chicago."

66

Mr. HILL, of Mississippi. Will the gentleman allow me to ask him a question?

Mr. GEO. TURNER. Certainly.

Mr. HILL. I want to know what is the date of that call you have got there? Was it after the issuance of the National call for the National Convention, or was it before?

} Mr. GEO. TURNER. It is dated March 13, 1880.

Mr. HILL. That was after the call for the National Convention? Mr. GEO. TURNER. Yes, sir.

Mr. HILL. Yes, I thought so. That was what I wanted to know. Mr. GEO. TURNER. If I understand the implication of that question, it is that the National Committee having called for the election

of delegates from the district, it is improper for the State to proceed and elect them itself. I take it that when you attack a man's title you have got to show a better title. When it is proposed to attack the title of the sitting members from Alabama upon this floor, who have been elected by an accredited and by a regular State convention; and I may add that it was the most representative Republican convention which has assembled in the State of Alabama since 1868. I say when it is proposed to attack their title to seats here a better title must be shown, and what is the title that these gentlemen have? It is a nomination, to the State convention, of these gentlemen, as delegates. They never were elected as delegates, as stated by the honorable Chairman of the Committee on Credentials, by a district convention or by any other convention. They were simply nominated to the State convention by a caucus of the district delegates, who did not at that time, and do not now, entertain the belief that what they did had any binding force unless it received the ratification of the State convention.

There is another point with reference to this contest, and the report of the minority makes it very plain. It is that this district caucus, under which Mr. Smith and Mr. Warner claim their title to seats in this body, did not, as a matter of fact, select them to be delegates to this Convention. I state it as a fact, and it was proven before the Committee on Credentials, that the vote in the district caucus stood a tie between the sitting members and Mr. Warner and Mr. Smith, and that that contest was decided then and there by one of the delegates casting the vote of an absent member of the convention, which vote he had no authority to cast. And, to prove that, I propose to read you a letter from that absent delegate. Now, mind you, the vote stood seven and seven in the district caucus, for the election of these gentlemen, and their selection to be recommended to the convention by the casting of the vote of this absent delegate. I propose to have his letter read, in order that you may see how he was misrepresented in that convention.

The Secretary read as follows:

R. A. MOSELY, Talladega, Ala.:

WEDOWEE, ALA., May 27, 1880.

Dear Sir: In your letter to me of the 22d ult., you stated as fact that, in the district caucus at Selma, in the Seventh district, to select the names of two men as delegates to Chicago, to be recommended to the convention, the vote stood seven for Mr. Bingham and Mr. Mosely and seven for Gov. Smith and Mr. Warner. Until then, Gov. Smith never pretended to cast my [Haflin's] vote in the convention. He cast it in the district caucus, giving himself and Warner one majority. I have this to say, that Gov. Smith was notified that, at the Republican convention held in Randolph county, we were instructed to use our best efforts to secure a delegation favorable to the nomination of U. S. Grant at Chicago for President. Mr. Smith had no right to abuse the trust placed in us as such delegates. He knows full well that I would not have voted for him and Warner; and, on the contrary, if he [Smith] was not willing to carry out in good faith the expressed will of the convention, he ought not to have taken any part in said convention. If his [Smith's] feelings were such toward any other aspirant as to prevent his carrying out the expressed will of his constituency in solemn convention, then he ought to have declined to act. It was wrong on the part of Gov.