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or securing to all persons within such State the equal protection of the laws, or shall conspire together for the purpose of in any manner impeding, hindering, obstructing, or defeating the due course of justice in any State or Territory, with intent to deny to any citizen of the United States the due and equal protection of the laws, or to injure any person in his person or his property for lawfully enforcing the right of any person or class of persons to the equal protection of the laws, or by force, intimidation, or threat to prevent any citizen of the United States lawfully entitled to vote from giving his support or advocacy in a lawful manner towards or in favor of the election of any lawfully qualified person as an elector of President or Vice-President of the United States, or as a member of the Congress of the United States, or to injure any such citizen in his person or property on account of such support or advocacy, each and every person so offending shall be deemed guilty of a high crime, and, upon conviction thereof in any district or circuit court of the United States or district or supreme court of any Territory of the United States having jurisdiction of similar offences, shall be punished by a fine not less than five hundred nor more than five thousand dollars, or by imprisonment, with or without hard labor, as the court may determine, for a period of not less than six months nor more than six years, as the court may determine, or by both such fine and imprisonment as the court shall determine. .

SEC. 3. That in all cases where insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combinations, or conspiracies in any State shall so obstruct or hinder the execution of the laws thereof, and of the United States, as to deprive any portion or class of the people of such State of any of the rights, privileges, or immunities, or protection, named in the Constitution and secured by this act, and the constituted authorities of such State shall either be unable to protect, or shall, from any cause, fail in or refuse protection of the people in such rights, such facts shall be deemed a denial by such State of the equal protection of the laws to which they are entitled under the Constitution of the United States; and in all such cases . . . it shall be lawful for the President, and it shall he his duty to take such measures, by the employment of the militia or the land and naval forces of the

United States, or of either, or by other means, as he may deem. necessary for the suppression of such insurrection, domestic violence, or combinations. . .

SEC. 4. That whenever in any State or part of a State the unlawful combinations named in the preceding section of this act shall be organized and armed, and so numerous and powerful as to be able, by violence, to either overthrow or set at defiance the constituted authorities of such State, and of the United States within such State, or when the constituted authorities are in complicity with, or shall connive at the unlawful purposes of, such powerful and armed combinations; and whenever, by reason of either or all of the causes aforesaid, the conviction of such offenders and the preservation of the public safety shall become in such district impracticable, in every such case such combinations shall be deemed a rebellion against the government of the United States, and during the continuance of such rebellion, and within the limits of the district which shall be so under the sway thereof, such limits to be prescribed by proclamation, it shall be lawful for the President of the United States, when in his judgment the public safety shall require it, to suspend the privileges of the writ of habeas corpus, to the end that such rebellion may be overthrown: Provided, That all the provisions of the second section of . [the Habeas Corpus Act of March 3, 1863]. . ., which relate to the discharge of prisoners other than prisoners of war, and to the penalty for refusing to obey the order of the court, shall be in full force so far as the same are applicable to the provisions of this section: Provided further, That the President shall first have made proclamation, as now provided by law, commanding such insurgents to disperse : And provided also, That the provisions of this section shall not be in force after the end of the next regular session of Congress.

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SEC. 5. That no person shall be a grand or petit juror in any court of the United States upon any inquiry, hearing, or trial of any suit, proceeding, or prosecution based upon or arising under the provisions of this act who shall, in the judgment of the court, be in complicity with any such combination or conspiracy; and every such juror shall, before entering upon any such inquiry, hearing, or trial, take and subscribe an oath in

open court that he has never, directly or indirectly, counselled, advised, or voluntarily aided any such combination or conspiracy.

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No. 173. Act removing
Act removing Political Disabili-

ties

May 22. 1872

MAY 13, 1872, the House having before it a number of bills for the removal of the political disabilities of the persons named therein, the rules were suspended, and a general bill for the removal of disabilities imposed by the fourteenth amendment was introduced by Butler of Massachusetts, from the Committee on the Judiciary, and passed. The Senate passed the bill on the 21st by a vote of 38 to 2. The debate was without special interest. The disabilities not provided for by this act were removed by an act of June 6, 1898. REFERENCES. - Text in U.S. Statutes at Large, XVII., 142. For the proceedings see the House and Senate Journals, 42d Cong., 1st Sess., and the Cong. Record.

An Act to remove political Disabilities imposed by the fourteenth Article of the Amendments of the Constitution of the United States.

Be it enacted (two-thirds of each house concurring therein), That all political disabilities imposed by the third section of the fourteenth article of amendments of the Constitution of the United States are hereby removed from all persons whomsoever, except Senators and Representatives of the thirty-sixth and thirty-seventh Congresses, officers in the judicial, military, and naval service of the United States, heads of departments, and foreign ministers of the United States.

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THE need of a revision of the laws relating to the mints, assay offices, and coinage was suggested as early as 1866, and April 25, 1870, a report on the subject, prepared by John Jay Knox, comptroller of the currency, was submitted to Congress, together with the draft of a bill. A bill in accordance with this report was reported in the Senate December 19, 1870, by Sherman, and passed that body January 10, 1871. A substitute reported in the House February 25 was recommitted. A second bill to the same effect was introduced in the House March 3, by William D. Kelley of Pennsylvania, and referred to the Committee on Coinage, Weights, and Measures. The bill was not reported until January 9, 1872, and the next day was recommitted. A bill with similar title was reported February 9 by Hooper of Massachusetts, and also recommitted. The latter bill was taken up April 9, and May 27 a substitute offered by Hooper was passed under suspension of the rules. The Senate referred the bill to the Committee on Finance, and the session closed without further action. December 16 the bill was reported in the Senate, further amendments being reported January 7, 1873. The bill was taken up on the 17th, and passed with amendments the same day. The final form of the bill was the work of a conference committee. The omission of the standard silver dollar of 412 grains from the list of coins led later to the charge that the act aimed to demonetize silver, and caused the advocates of silver to refer to the act as the "crime of 1873." Only those sections of the act giving the list of coins are inserted here.

REFERENCES. — Text in U.S. Statutes at Large, XVII., 424-436, passim. For the proceedings see the House and Senate Journals, 41st Cong., 3d Sess., and 42d Cong., and the Cong. Record; see also the Record, 53d Cong., Ist Sess., pp. 1219-1224. Knox's report is Senate Misc. Doc. 132, 41st Cong., 2d Sess.; the correspondence connected with it is in House Exec. Doc. 307.

An Act revising and amending the Laws relative to the Mints, Assay-offices, and Coinage of the United States.

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SEC. 14. That the gold coins of the United States shall be a one-dollar piece, which, at the standard weight of twenty-five and eight-tenths grains, shall be the unit of value; a quarter-eagle, or two-and-a-half dollar piece; a three-dollar piece; a half-eagle, or five-dollar piece; an eagle, or ten-dollar piece; and a double eagle, or twenty-dollar piec. . . . ; which coins shall be a legal tender in all payments at their nominal value when not below the standard weight and limit of tolerance provided in this act for the

single piece, and, when reduced in weight, below said standard and tolerance, shall be a legal tender at valuation in proportion to their actual weight. . . .

SEC. 17. That the silver coins of the United States shall be a trade-dollar, a half-dollar, or fifty-cent piece, a quarter-dollar, or twenty-five-cent piece, a dime, or ten-cent piece; and said coins shall be a legal tender at their nominal value for any amount not exceeding five dollars in any one payment.

SEC. 16. That the minor coins of the United States shall be a five-cent piece, a three-cent piece, and a one-cent piece . . . ; which coins shall be a legal tender, at their nominal value, for any amount not exceeding twenty-five cents in any one payment. SEC. 17. That no coins, either of gold, silver, or minor coinage, shall hereafter be issued from the mint other than those of the denominations, standards, and weights herein set forth.

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ONE result of the financial crisis which began in September, 1873, was the introduction, in the next session of Congress, of an extraordinary number of bills relating to banks and the currency. A bill providing for the redemption and reissue of United States notes, with gradual payment of the notes in coin or bonds after January 1, 1876, was reported in the Senate by Sherman March 23, 1874, and passed that body April 6 and the House April 14, but was vetoed by President Grant. A bill to provide for the resumption of specie payments, prepared in the first instance by a committee of the Republican members of Congress, and submitted by them to the Senate Committee on Finance, was reported by Sherman December 21, and passed the Senate the next day by a vote of 32 to 14. The bill was taken up in the House January 7, 1875, and passed the same day, the vote being 136 to 98, 54 not voting. President Grant communicated his approval in a special message to the Senate, in which further legislation to make the law effective was suggested.

REFERENCES. Text in U.S. Statutes at Large, XVIII., 296. For the proceedings see the House and Senate Journals, 43d Cong., 2d Sess., and the Cong. Record. On resumption see Sherman, Recollections, I., chaps. 2426; II., chaps. 30 and 36; annual reports of the Secretary of the Treasury (Sherman) for 1877-1879; House Misc. Doc. 48, 45th Cong., 2d Sess.

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