These laws, although
they had the support of eminent and zealous Democrats and
although they were as much needed and had as much application
to the Northern cities as to the Southern States, were the
object of bitter denunciation from the beginning. Good men
in the North listened with incredulity to the narrative of
well established facts of cruelty and murder and fraud. These
stories were indignantly denied at the time, although they
are not only confessed, but vauntingly and triumphantly affirmed
now. The whole country seems to be made uneasy when the old
practice to which it had been accustomed everywhere of having
offences tried by a jury taken by lot from the people of the
neighborhood, and the result of election ascertained by officers
selected from the bystanders at the polls, is departed from.
Besides, no strictness of laws which provide only for the
proceedings at the elections will secure their freedom if
it be possible to intimidate the voters, especially men like
the colored voters at the South, from attending the elections,
by threats, outrages and actual violence at their homes.
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