Litchfield enquirer., 1864-07-07

ANDREW JOHNSON, of Tennessee .................@.
 THE CONTESTED ELECTION "CxsE AGAIN. We publish elsewhere lengthy commullics tion from Mir. Charles Ives of New Haver whom we had occasion to allude to last wee in terms which. it appears, he did not conside wholly complimentary, in which he'labors t. refute our exceedingly plain statements, ant to prove that |" Wrong is Wright" We giv' him the benefit of our columns for his effjrt,- not, most certainly, for the pleasant threat con tained in the last paragraph of his letter. since five years service in the editorial iele renders us tolerably oblivious of such argl ments, and prepares us to speak out very frank ly and freely our opinions on all occasions but, because we believe in "giving even the devil his due" and cheerfully permit hearing to anybody who feels himself aggrieved by what we have written.
 We will endeavor, in our reply to Mir. Ives defence of his course in this matter, to be as brief and succinct as possible, promising, fol fear of any misunderstanding on the part o our readers, that we fully appreciate the Compliment of being entirely unknown to MT Ives, either personally or by reputation, point in our favor which enables us to speak with greater freedom of the course he has chosen to pursue in this matter. :.
 We agree with him entirely that the Glitch field case was one which the House could we'll afford to decide upon it's ,nerits," and our chiei cause of regret is, that under Mir. Ives leader ship, it chose not to do SO. The four reasons he gives for his opinion of this fact are equally conclusive, with the exception of, perhaps, the third. which, as we have never known of any consultation between Dr. Bostwick and Mr Ives over the matter, we must believe to be rather assumed than proven by the latter.
 To come down to our correspondents '.sound reasons' for his personal action in the matter we do not perceive that he throws any new light upon his first ground of opposition to tn. majority report of the House Committee, ant only sets up again his own personal opinion or the construction of the Statute, against those at least as fully versed in the law and in par liamentary usages as himself. and host o1 rulings and decisions. With this personal opinion we have no reason to believe our cor respondent is at all dissatisfied, and should despair of attempting to convince him of it's fallibility. It is the people at large whom we have reason to believe are dissatisfied, ,-who will not be apt to be convinced even by Mir. I.'s ipse dirit on the subject
 If we get at Mir. Ives claim alright this time, in the second branch of his argument, we con. fess ourselves entirely in accordance with his views in the premises he takes. We are very glad to learn that he did not claim, as he was reported in the New Haven papers to do, that the legislature had no power to go behind the boards of registration, but that such power clearly exists in cases where fragrant wrong had been committed, and where partizan boards had intentionally and clearly violated their oaths.. Now we claimed precisely this state of things in the contested election case from Litchfeld, and, in view of them, we brought our petition to the House of Represen tatives, to test this very matter of the right of a par tizan board to send one of their own members to the legislature, through the medium of illegal votes. The House readily entertained the re- solution offered by MT. Platt, (uo objection being then raised by the member from East Hayen,) and appointed Committee to investi. gate the matter. All the evidence in the case was laid before that committee; affidavits, al most without numbers showing up the thorough ly unjust and illegal decisions of the Litchfeld board, were, procured and placed in the hands ef'that Committee; witnesses were examined end arguments of able counsel on both sides heard and after deliberate hearing and re- visal of the whole testimony, the committe, decided by majority of two to one, that Mr Wright was not entitled to his seat in tn House, but that Dr. Bostwick pas.
 But our correspondent very conveniently an, adroitly dodges this decision of the Hous Committee, and says nothing about it. Eve he would not probably claim publicly that tn House was as we'll able to decide in committe of the whole on the merits, in two hours, a thecommittee on contested elections, who ha had the whole matter before them for tw weeks. What we complain of, then, is, ths the House allowed itself te be led away by th buncombe talk, about turning the crank" an Judgment and conscience" to do very injud cious and wrong act, That we were mortified g the decision of the House, we are free to admit
 but we can assure our correspondent that
 was great deal more in sorrow than in apge that we perceived the dozen unionists of th
 Honse led away from their strict duty in thi
 important and vital matter to us by the pueril
 reasoning, and offensive intermeddling of th
 member from East Rock.
 We might say considerable more on th,
 subject but feel that it has already taken n
 more space in our paper than the matter war
 rants, and great deal more than the persc
 who has given rise to so much rema,
 deserses. In conclusion. we can only repe
 yhat Ws said last week, that the pettiioggir -ESa ct tsss s9 s'.ts''s