The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1857-11-12
REJECTION OF MORE FRAUDULENT RE-
TURNS.

Governor Walker has rejected the returns
from three precincts in MCGEE county, in Kan.
sss. We quote from his second proclamation
"Since our proclamation of the l9sh instant,
rejecting the so-called election returns from the
Oxford precinct In Johnson county, another
very similar case has been presented for our
official action. 1t is that of pretended returns
from three precincts of MCGEE county, ia this
Territory, containing an aggregate of more
than twelve hundred votes. This county is
located in the extreme southeastern portion of
Kansas, is constituted from the lands of the
Cherokee Indians, which are not yet open to
presumption or settlement, and ia consequently
one OF the most sparsely populated counties OF
the Territory, containing less than one hundred
qualified voters, and giving last June but four.
feen votes for Delegates to the Constitutional
Convention.
Indeed, all persons actually conversant
with the number Of the population of the coun.
ty treat with derision the large vote presented
to have been given there. Our information
also excludes the idea that there was any in.
curson of voters from the neighboring State of
Missouri, whose people do not seem to have in
terfered with the recent election. 1t is, then,
quite evident that no such vote as is presented
in these pretended returns was given at the
late electlOn IN THIS county,.
Governor Walker not only has proof that
these votes are nearly all forged, but the re-
turns are not made up in legal manner. He
says: Not one Of the Offices is mentioned for
tchich the candidates respectively ,oere intended
to be designated" Governor Walker defends
his action in the following language. How any
man or press making the least pretensions to
honesty can censure him for his conduct. we
cannot imagine:
I'm rejecting these papers, zoe do not 90 be-
htnd the returns, because no legal or valid re-
turns were made. Neither in the former IN.
stance, nor in this, haze zoe claimed the DonOer
to judge Of the ALLEGATIONS of voters. and to
exclude Uotes deemed to be illegal. What con.
stitutes return, is defined by the Territorial
statutes; and to reject paper as spurious or
fictitious, or because, in points of vital impor.
lance, 1t deviates from the acquisitions of the
law, and therefore is not a return, in legal par.
lance, is not going behind the returns, as We
have been uni Justly charged with doing.
If those papers like those from the Ok.
ford precinct) would increase, by nearly twelve
hundred, the apparent vote for the candidates
Of our party, although the Offices are not nam.
ed, our obligation is none the less paramount
TO reject them, as we now do, as spurious and
illegal. AN election secured, throug h our sane
uon, oy frauds so monstrous, would be more
fatal to our party than any defeat, however dis.
astrous. We deem it our duty to state, that, ac.
cording to our information, some, if not ali the
candidates, who it was supposed might claim
heir election by these frauds, have refused to
accept any advantage under them.
These disrePutable attempts to destroy the
elective franchise, and all popular government