who can clutch that by any means what ever is certain of an election, and the whole effort is to secure the nomination. It appears to me that this first provision would meet that difficultv, and I do not see anything else that would. I think the adoption of this provision would do more to commend the Constitution which we shall submit to the people of Pennsylvania, to their approval, than anything else that we could probably insert in it.

Mr. J. N. PURVIANCE. If it be in or der, I move to amend the first section in the first line by striking out after the word "Assembly," the words "and all judicial, State and county officers."

The CHAIRMAN. The amendment is not in order at present. It will be in or der hereafter. The question now is on the amendment of the gentleman from Philadelphia, (Mr. Cuyler,) to strike out all of the first section after the word "fidelity," in the sixth line.

Mr. G. W. PALMER. I must acknowledge, Mr. Chairman, that I have often been astonished at the acts of men, sometimes astonished at the acts of members of this Convention; but I certainly am much astounded at the amendment offered by the distinguished gentleman from Philadelphia (Mr. Cuyler) to this article. Coming from the locality that he does, I am astonished that this amendment should emanate from a man of his ability and his knowledge of the difficulties and the troubles of this country. In my judgment, if there is any one thing above another that the people of this Commonwealth desire this Convention to do, it is to do something to attempt to purify the ballot. The portion of this section which the gentleman's amendment proposes to strike out, in my judgment, comes the nearest to meeting that demand of any thing that can possibly be done. For example, after this proposition was first submitted to this Convention, I met one of the pure men who served as a delegate in the Convention of 1838, and he told me that if this Convention would adopt that single oath of office and adjourn and go home, the calling of the Convention would not have been in vain; that it would be sufficient to remunerate the Commonwealth for all the trouble and expense of calling this Convention if that single oath of office could be adopted. I hope that that part of the section will be retained. I fear that politicians are too much afraid to do it, but I trust that the members of this Convention will stand by it and that

the amendment of the gentleman from Philadelphia will be promptly voted down.

Mr. BOWMAN. Mr. Chairman: I did not take any part in the discussion of this question when it was before the committee some weeks since, and I do not propose to occupy much of the time of the committee this morning; but I must be permitted to say that I am in favor of the amendment offered by the gentleman from Philadelphia.

It has been stated here this morning, and it was also stated upon this floor when this question was under consideration some time since, that the whole body politie was diseased, that there must be something done to purify the elections. This proposition, then, was brought for ward as a panacea, as a remedy possess ing curative properties, so that, if incorporated into the organic law of our State, we shall not be troubled hereafter with election frauds; that it is going to operate like a bandage to a sore leg; that everything is going to be rendered pure hereafter.

It has been stated by the gentleman from Luzerne (Mr. H. W. Palmer) this morning that none but the wealthy could obtain official position. I think that is a very great mistake. Let us look over the past history of our Commonwealth for a few moments and see whether the gentleman is correct in saying that the wealthy alone can obtain official positions in the Commonwealth. I see before me gentlemen who have held high posi tions in this State. I see before me gentlemen who have been Governors of the Commonwealth. I do not know that those gentlemen were ever charged with obtaining their nominations or election by fraud or corruption. I am not aware that they were overloaded with this world's goods. They discharged the duties of that office to the satisfaction of the people of the Commonwealth.

Again, in my own county the reverse of the proposition of the gentleman from Luzerne is the truth. Since the close of the war, the men who have occupied the positions of sheriff, of prothonotary, of treasurer, and clerk of the courts, were men who served in the army and came out of that contest poor men. From that time down to the present, men of that class have been elected to those positions in our county; and I have no doubt that the same will hold true throughout the Commonwealth. They are men of honor

and integrity, men in whom the people confide without the imposition of this extraordinary oath.

Now, what is the proposition under consideration? It is proposed that an oath shall be administered to all men who enter upon an official term that they have used no undue means, fraud or corruption to obtain their nomination or election. Then the second proposition is that members of the Legislature shall, after they retire from office, take and subscribe an oath that they have been honest men. Now, sir, I wish to call the attention of the gentlemen present to this significant. fact

Mr. KAINE. I desire to call the gentleman's attention to the fact that that part of the report is not now before the conmittee.

Mr. BOWMAN, I desire to call the gentleman's attention to the fact that this proposition is before the committee, provided the amendment of the gentleman from Philadelphia passes this committee I take it that all the rest of it is struck out.

Mr. KAINE. Then I raise the question of order that the gentleman is not in or der in discussing a thing that is not before. the committee.

Mr. BOWMAN. Let me reiterate. I understand the amendment of the gentleman from Philadelphia to be to strike out all after the word "fidelity" in the sixth line.

guilty of perjury; that he has been guilty of bribery; and then to cover up everything and to sustain his character before the world, he is compelled as a matter of course to take the second oath.

Mr. HAZZARD. I want to know if the gentleman will say to this Convention that the candidates in Erie county do not pay money to secure their nominations? Mr. BOWMAN. The gentleman may draw his own inferences. I have already told the gentleman that the candidates for office in Erie county were not wealthy men. If they paid large sums of money, I do not know where they got them. I say that the position of the gentleman from Luzerne that none but wealthy men can get in office, is not true, so far as Erie county is concerned; and I have no doubt the same will hold good, as I said before, throughout the State.

Now, sir, what is the oath administered to members of Congress? What is the oath administered to the President of the United States? That he will support, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States; and that is all. But the gentleman from Luzerne says that men in Congress raised their hands before high Heaven and took an oath to support the Constitution of the United States, and then violated that oath. That may be true; and I suppose if the Constitution of the United States had prescribed such an oath to be taken as we have here, the gentleman would have arrested every man in

Mr. BOWMAN. It is not confined to the paragraph; it includes the entire section.

The CHAIRMAN. The question of order is not debatable. The Chair thinks the gentleman from Erie is in order, the propositions in the first and second sections being so intimately connected together.

Mr. BOWMAN. Yes, sir, I think so. I was about to remark that I do not believe there is a gentleman present who supposes for one moment that when a member of the Legislature retires from the position that he has been holding in that body he will not take that oath. Whether he is an honest man, or a dishonest man, he will most certainly take it. Why? He has either got to do it, or he has got to stand as a self-accuser. When he declines to take that oath, it is a virtual admission on his part that he has been guilty of some infraction of the law; that he has been

him before a grand jury and a court for trial during the days of the rebellion!

Is there a gentleman here who believes that if this oath that we have now under consideration had been prescribed by the Constitution of the United States, and been adminstered to every one of those gentlemen to whom allusion has been made by the gentleman from Luzerne, it would not have been violated just as easily? Would it not have been trampled upon just as the oath was that they did take to support the Constitution. Why, Mr. Chairman, in my judgment, the good, the pure, the upright and the virtuous man needs no oath to bind his conscience; he needs no oath to admonish him to do his duty, but if it is the corrupt man that you say you propose to reach, he is the very man who will violate the oath, no matter in what form you put it; and he will most surely do it. As stated by the gentleman from Schuylkill, put this into your criminal code and make it a penal

offense for a man to receive a bribe, make it a crime for a man to undertake to buy his way into office. If he has been guilty of bribery prosecute him. If he has violated his oath of office, call that perjury by positive, well-defined enactment. Do not put into your Constitution that a man when he comes into office will swear that he has been a pure man in getting his nomination and election, and that he is going to discharge his duties with fidelity and that he is going to go beyond all that, as is prescribed in this oath, and then when he retires swear him over again that he has done all this. Why, Mr. Chairman, it seem to me that this is entirely out of place in the Constitution of our State. Leave it for the Legislature to enact laws and punish the man who will disobey those laws and will prove recreant to the official trust and confidence that may be reposed in him by a confiding people; and when you have done that you will have done all, in my judgment, that it is necessary to do.

Mr. BOYD. Mr. Chairman: I presume that I am responsible, in a great measure, for the present discussion; for this question was up, as we all know, before, and in the height of that discussion, principally for the purpose of relieving us of it for that time, and to get the subject before a committee in which I had confidence-I of course being one of them-I moved that the matter should be referred to our committee. Views were expressed in that debate on either side, and I presumed the subject was well nigh exhausted. The committee of the whole, I suppose as a compliment to myself, immediately deferred the further discussion of the question, and it resulted in its reference to the committee who have made this report. I suppose that that committee met; I infer that from the fact that they have made a report. A fair inference from this remark of mine, of course, would be that I was not present at the committee when this thing was adopted. Well, it was not even necessary that I should be, because the gentlemen there were sufficient to get up what they considered a proper oath.

Now, if I am to be counted as one of the committee, I desire to express my dissent to the adoption of their report for the reason that it is decidedly too stringent, and it is an oath that it will be impossible for any elective officer in future to live up to. I apprehend there is not a man in this Convention but what could be convicted under this section. I doubt whether there

is a gentleman here who did not contribute something towards his election to this body. I have a very vivid recollection that after my nomination I was called upon to pay into the general fund a very handsome sum of money, which I have not got back yet, [laughter, ] for the purpose of conducting the campaign in Montgomery county; and I believe that my friend near me (Mr. Darlington) not only had to contribute at the State election, but also at the Presidential election, so that he had a double shot. I presume that has been the case with every gentleman here. I believe that the gentlemen who were on the ticket at large, in some instances, were required to pay the sum of five hundred dollars into the hands of the State Central committee, for the purpose, as I presume, of defraying the necessary expenses to secure the election of the ticket. So it was in our party, although we are not as highpriced as the other party, [laughter,] but at the same time it cost us considerable money. [Laughter.]

Now, sir, it does seem to me that it is, to say the least of it, rather severe for us to undertake to impose upon those who shall come after us crimes of which we should be now guilty if this were in force at the present time, and hence it was that I submitted to my friend from Blair (Mr. Calvin) the question that I did, whether in the simple case that I presented to him, I being a candidate for nomination, being desirous of having a messenger sent into another portion of the county, to inform my friends in that neighborhood that I was a candidate, and that I desired the delegates from that township, and I should pay his expenses for giving that information and going around to see my friends, pay his horse hire and a little for his whiskey, &c., [laughter,] amounting even to the small sum of five or six dollars, I should then be within the provisions of this section, because I should be contributing money for the purpose of securing my nomination. When I sent him on that mission and paid him for going, and his horse hire and his incidental expenses, as a matter of course I was paying money for the purpose of securing my nomination, and therefore I should be amenable and could be indicted for perjury.

It seems to me that if the committee had concentrated this iron clad more upon the man after he is elected than before he is elected, it would have had much more force, and would be much

more potent. I beg the gentlemen here will observe critically the language used in this oath :

"And I do further solemnly swear (or affirm) that I have not paid or contributed, or promised to pay or contribute, either directly or indirectly, any money or other valuable thing, to procure my nomination."

That covers the whole ground. I doubt very much whether under this clause a candidate would be warranted in paying the expenses of printing the tickets that the people were to vote for him upon. Does the gentleman say that would be in violation of this section and render me amenable to perjury?

Mr. H. W. PALMER. Unquestionably. The tickets ought to be printed at the public expense.

Mr. BOYD. I beg you will all hear that, because the man second on this committee tells me that if I am a candidate and pay the expenses of printing the tickets to be sent out for people to vote for me, and they would be voting for the best man of course-[laughter]-I should be guilty of perjury under this section. Do gentlemen realize that this is the length, breadth and extent of this section? If they had any doubt of it before, we now have the interpretation placed upon it by one of the fathers of it. The Chairman (Mr. Kaine), of course drew it, but the second member of the committee (Mr. H. W. Palmer) is his son, [laughter, ] and of course he stands here, by adoption at least, and sanctions what has been done; and that is the construction of this section. I do protest against it, not that I ever expect to be in public life again; though as good men are getting scarcer every day, it may well be that I shall be called upon again [laughter]; but if I am, I shall certainly feel like contributing my share toward the ordinary expenses of the election, and I would consider helping to pay for tickets, paying to the State Central Committee and to the County Committee, &c., the usual ordinary sums, as legitimate. All that this oath ought to be aimed at is corruption and bribery, which would amount to a fraud, and that is the only thing that ought to be covered by this oath. It is because of the extravagance and extreme length to which this oath goes, especially as to securing a nomination, that I desire here to enter my protest against it, and to inform this committee that although I was on the com3-VOL. V.

mittee that reported this article, I am a dissenter.

Mr. J. M. BAILEY. Mr. Chairman: Like the gentleman from Montgomery (Mr. Boyd) I also was a member of the committee which reported this oath. Whether the gentleman was present or not when it was considered in committee I really do not know, and I do not believe any other member of the committee can tell, and whether he was there or not might have forever remained a mystery had he himself not told us.

Mr. Chairman, I desire to say a word or two in defence of the report of the committee. It is admitted by every gentleman who has addressed the committee of the whole, that an oath of some kind should be prescribed for the officers of the government. It being conceded then, that we should have an oath--the only question that remains to be considered is what kind of an oath shall it be. One, I take it, sir, that would best answer the purpose for which any oath is intendedone that will tend to promote the administration of governmental affairs in purity, and prevent those in whose hands the people place the powers of government from using that power for corrupt purposes and self aggrandizement.

The amendment offered by.the gentleman from Philadelphia (Mr. Cuyler) strikes out of the oath reported by the committee all that is useful for these purposes in it. The part that remains is merely promissory, and there is not a lawyer upon this floor who will assert that such an oath is worth anything. An indictment for perjury would not lie against any official, however gross has been his misconduct, or however glaring has been his official misdeeds, upon an oath in which he merely promises to do something. The part proposed to be stricken out looks to the past. By it we propose to swear the officer that he has not done so and so, and if he swear falsely an indictment and punishment for perjury would be his portion; for the facts would be entirely susceptible of proof; for instance, if he procure his election by unfair or fraudulent means, other persons must necessarily know it; if he pay money corruptly, some person has received it, and such person would be a living witness called to testify of the fact against him. His political adversaries would constantly be on the alert to ferret out such misdeeds.

The only other objection urged against the oath as reported froin the committee

is, that it implies an imputation on the honesty and integrity of the man asked to take it. But I take it, sir, that the gentlemen who assert that, themselves yield all that can be claimed for the position, when they concede that an oath of any other kind should be administered-they yield that position when they say that an officer shall be sworn to support, obey and defend the Constitutions of the United States and Pennsylvania and to discharge the duties of his office with fidelity. I might reply, with equal force, that asking a man to take such an oath implies that he would not obey the Constitution and would not discharge his duties faithfully if he were not so sworn. Why, sir, it might with equal propriety be said that any oath which a man is required to take is an imputation upon his character. With the same propriety might it be alleged that when a witness is put upon the witness stand, and he is sworn to tell the truth, it is an imputation upon his character for truth. Almost all, if not all of us have taken the witness oath, and I do not believe that any of us felt our sensibilities very severely wounded by it. No one ever looks upon that oath as an imputation on the character of the person to whom it is administered, and I do not think, sir, that the sensibilities of any officer are so tender that they would be wounded by the oath which has been reported. What has been stated by my colleagues on the committee and others in reply to the other objections of which I have not spoken, I take to be sufficient answers to all that has been said by the gentlemen who have addressed the committee in opposition to this section, and I shall say nothing further.

The CHAIRMAN. The question is on the amendment of the gentleman from Philadelphia, (Mr. Cuyler,) to strike out all of the first section after the word "fidelity," in the sixth line.

The amendment was agreed to, there being on a division ayes thirty-five, noes thirty-two.

The CHAIRMAN. The question now recurs on the amendment of the gentleman from Clearfield, (Mr. Bigler,) which is to strike out the whole section and insert as a substitute that which will be read. The CLERK read as follows:

· Members of the General Assembly before entering upon their duties shall take and subscribe the following oath:

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that to the best of my knowledge and belief I

have been elected a member of the Senate (or House of Representatives) in accordance with the laws of the State, and without the improper use of money or other corrupt or corrupting means to produce that result. I do also solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will obey and support the Constitution of the United States and of the Commonwealth, and discharge the duties of member of the Senate (or House of Representatives) honestly and faithfully, and with the sole desire to promote the public good, uninfluenced to the contrary by the promise or hope of pecuniary reward or gain to me, or by any other corrupt or corrupting consideration."

Mr. CUYLER. I understand that the Convention, in adopting the amendment proposed by me, struck out everything in what we have called section one, after the sixth line, extending thus to the end of the twenty-fifth line. All that matter then is gone.

The CHAIRMAN. Certainly.

Mr. CUYLER. The question now, I suppose, is on the section as amended, and not on the motion of the gentleman from Clearfield.

The CHAIRMAN. The amendment of the delegate from Clearfield is in order before the question is taken on the section.

Mr. BIGLER. There is certainly no difficulty about this question. I moved to strike out the entire first section, and to insert what I sent to the Clerk's desk. In the attitude of perfecting the text, the gentleman from Philadelphia moved to perfect it by striking out a part of it. That motion prevailed, and the question now is between the amendment which I proposed and the original matter remaining in the section.

The CHAIRMAN. The question is on the amendment of the gentleman from Clearfield.

The amendment was rejected, the ayes being twenty-six, less than a majority of a quorum.

The CHAIRMAN. The question recurs on the section as amended.

Mr. J. N. PURVIANCE. Now I move to amend the section by adding to the oath as it now stands:

"And I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will not knowingly receive, director indirectly, any money or other valuable thing for the performance or non performance of any act or duty pertaining to any office other than tho salary and mileage allowed by law; nor will I vote for