It is our duty to repeal these laws. It is not worth while
to attempt the repeal except upon an appropriation bill.
The Republican Senate would not agree to nor the Republican
President sign a bill for such repeal. Whatever objection to
legislation upon appropriation bills may be made in ordinary
cases does not apply where free elections and the liberty of
the citizens are concerned. * * * We have the power to vote
money; let us annex conditions to it, and insist upon the
redress of grievances.


By another distinguished member of the House it was said:

The right of the Representatives of the people to withhold
supplies is as old as English liberty. History records
numerous instances where the Commons, feeling that the people
were oppressed by laws that the Lords would not consent
to repeal by the ordinary methods of legislation, obtained
redress at last by refusing appropriations unless accompanied
by relief measures.


That a question of the gravest magnitude, and new in this country, was
raised by this course of proceeding, was fully recognized also by its
defenders in the Senate. It was said by a distinguished Senator:

Perhaps no greater question, in the form we are brought to
consider it, was ever considered by the American Congress
in time of peace; for it involves not merely the merits or