Senator Powell of KY on Jan 6, 1864 (pg 104):
I will tell my worthy friend that officers of the sixty-fifth regiment of Indiana located at that time in other precincts of that county [in Kentucky] went and took their pens and struck from the poll-book every Democratic candidate. They would allow no man to cast his vote unless he voted for the other ticket. The ticket of the Democratic Party was headed by Mr. Wycliffe, my honorable colleague during the last Congress in the other end of the Capitol, and I never heard anybody accuse him of disunionism.These things occurred in the town and county in which I reside. I will tell the worthy Senator further, that I have in my hand proclamations defining the qualifications of voters, and prescribing oaths to be taken by the voters, in the state of Kentucky, issued by military commanders, in conflict with the qualifications and oaths prescribed by the constitution and laws of Kentucky.
Senator Saulsbury (DE) on Jan 6, 1864 (pg 105):
A military officer knows very well that in making these unconstitutional and unwarrantable orders, he intrusts (sic) their execution to comparatively irresponsible men, and the grossest oppression has resulted in their execution. I state one fact to the Senator from Indiana. I know his frankness and his candor and should like to have his opinion on it. In one of the voting districts of the county in which I live, at the opening of the polls the judge of the election announced that the military had made this order, and that he faithfully intended to execute it, and that he should administer this oath to every voter at that poll. One party in the State did not vote at all. Ninety-five persons appeared and took the oath, and nineteen belonging to the party to which the gentleman belongs refused to take the oath, although prescribed by the military, and offered to be administered by the judge of the election, and thereupon a provost marshal was sent for, who appeared on the ground and threatened to arrest the judge of elections if he administered that oath to those persons. They were, I presume, assumed to be loyal.
Senator Powell of KY on Jan 6, 1864 (pg 106):
I hold that no officer of this Government, high or low, has any power except that with which he is clothed by the Constitution, and the laws made in pursuance thereof; and whenever he transcends the power conferred by the Constitution and laws, be he President, major general, Congressmen. Senators, or any other official, he is a usurper, and a liberty-loving people will treat him as such. … I wish them to show the clause in the Constitution upon which they predicate this great power of a commander-in-chief. He does not have it, sir; he is not clothed with it; and he who executes the order, and he who makes it, are alike usurpers, and deserve to be treated as such….
Senator Saulsbury (DE) on Jan 6, 1864 (pg 102):
I, sir, had to vote under crossed bayonets; soldiers were stationed at the polls, and at some of the voting places at that election peaceable citizens were assaulted by your soldiery. At one of the voting places the judges of the election, who had declined to take the vote of an unnaturalized foreigner, who, according to the constitution and laws of our State, had not a right to vote, were threatened that if they did not take that vote the ballot-box should be broken; and the vote was taken.
Sorry to hit and run, but I'm out of here for a few days.