The national Republican., 1861-01-17
THE POPULAR VOTE,


The paragraph in our paper Of yesterday, re-.
ferring to the popular vote in East Baton
Rouge, Clinton, and Jefferson city, in Louis.
lana, by transposition of the figures, gave an
overwhelming majority for secession, when the
fact was precisely the other way.
The total vote in New Orleans was 5000,
being less than half the registered vote i'll that
city, and showing that many persons were kept
from the polls by intimidation. 1t is not to be
presumed that indifference to the result, could
have existed to any extent
This non.appearance of the voters, is no.
ticeabe feature at many other Southern points.
Thus, in Montgomery county, Alabama, where
upwards of 2.700 votes were thrown at the
Presidential election, the secession ticket for
delegates to the State Convention, received
only l,lOO votes, but triumphed without oppo.
sition, Yancey and his confederates having
gotten up such a whrlwind of excitement that
nobody dared to vote on the other side.
In reference to the popular majority in
Georgia, the Columbus Enquirer, of January
IL, says:
the counties Of Georgia have each two dele
gates in the Convention, regardless of the mum
Der of their population or voters, and the re-
naming few have three each. There are some
forty counties of the State that poll very small
vote each, perhaps not more than 10000 in
the aggregate. Of these, as hasty eXamina-
ton shows US, tweuty.one cast less than 400
votes each in the last Presidential election. All
of these twenty one counties have been definite
ly heard from except two or three, and we are
warranted in saying that the immediate seces.
sionists have carried eighteen, perhaps nine.
teen of them, thus securing thirty.six or thirty.
eight delegates for voting population Of 45OO
or 1900 votes Our three cooperation coun.
ties of Henry, Newton, and Gwinnett, lying
side by side, polled 4,3O9 votes, and they have
only nine delegates in the Convention
"But we have taken a more comprehensive
view of the vote Of the State, and we find that
in forty.two cooperation counties, allowed us
by the secession papers, 1886 votes were cast
at the Presidential election. We have added
to these the votes of nine other cooperation
counties, the politics of whose delegates, we
learn from the Athens Udtchman, and we have
an aggregate vote Of 1880 in ffty-one coun
ties that have elected cooperation delegates
A majority of the whole popular vote of the
State at the Presidential election is SO, 90, and
these counties fall only 1913 short of it, leav
ing eight or ten cooperation counties to heal
from, and taking none Of the vote of Cobb
Clay, and Liberty, which both parties claim"
The only way to ascertain correctly the sense
of the people of a State, upon the question 0
secession, is to submit it to an aggregate vote
The managers of the present movement, who
everywhere refuse to do this, prove thereby thei
fear that the popular verdict would be agains
them.
1t is sometimes asked, whether it conforms t.
the general principles of a free Government, t.
keep State in the Union against the clearly
expressed and deliberate will of its people. NJ
such case is yet presented, certainly not OUTSIDE
of South Carolina, and even there the disunior
intent oi the people is proved, not by recen
tumultuous events, but by their previous histor,