Page:The Presidents of the United States, 1789-1914, v. III.djvu/179

 RUTHERFORD BIRCHARD HAYES 145 1865, under President Lincoln, which permitted the use of troops &quot;to keep peace at the polls&quot; on election-days. The house also attached to the legis lative, executive, and judicial appropriation bill a repeal of existing laws providing for the appoint ment of supervisors of election and special deputy marshals to act at elections of members of con gress. The Republican majority of the senate struck out these legislative provisions, and, the two houses disagreeing, the appropriation bills failed. President Hayes, on March 4, 1879, called an extra session of congress to meet on March 18. The Democrats then had a majority in the senate as well as the house, and attached to the army appro priation bill the same legislative provision on which in the preceding congress the two houses had dis agreed. President Hayes returned the bill with his veto on April 29, 1879. He took the ground that there was ample legislation to prevent military in terference at elections; that there never had been any such interference since the passage of the act of 1865, and there was no danger of any; that, if the proposed legislation should become law, there would be no power vested in any officer of the gov ernment to protect from violence the officers of the United States engaged in the discharge of their duties; that the states may employ both military and civil power to keep the peace, and to enforce the laws at state elections, but that it was now pro-