The herald and mail. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1873-188?, 1875-01-08
Elections by Returning Boards.

new 1rOR
fla Returning Board in Louisiana may
canvass the votes for Legislature and
State officers, and work their own sweet
| will with the returns, throwing out such
| as they please and counting such as suit
| their purpose, why may they not do 1t in 9th
er States Ifthey may declare Legisla-
ture elected which is not and is hardly
pretended to be the choice of the people,
why may they not exercise the same pow
err in counting the votes for Presidential
Electors, and so elect the President and
Eice-President by Returning Boards in
stead of by the people? The action OF
the Louisiana Returning Board, if sustain
ed by the Administration and by. Congress,
as it now bids fair to be under the rule OF
the caucus, will not be simply an outrage
upon the people of that State, an over
throw in that State merely of the Repubii-
can form of government. 1t must be held
as precedent. 1t will govern the con-
duct of future elections. 1t will have just
as much force in Presidential as in
State election, and even should it not be
followed in other States, there may an
emergency arise in which the returning
Board of Louisiana could, under this pre-
cedent, choose a President Of the United
States who would not be the choice of the
people.
The violence done by the proceedings
of this Board to all our notions of popular
elections, and the absolute disregard OF
what we are apt to consider the sanctlty
of the ballot, the very essence of republi-
can institutions, are hardly appreciated
here at the North. For these men now
hardly make the pretense of considering
the votes actually cast and counted as in
dicating in any way the result. At other
times and elsewhere there have been com
plaintS-tOo often well grounded-Of
frauds in elections perpetrated in va
riety of ways and by various cheating
methods But we have never known
case before where the returns of whole
precincts were deliberately thrown aside
by the dozen and by the score, voters dis
frauchised and cheated of their rights by
the hundred and the thousand, upon the
most frivolous pretexts for the obvious and
unmiStaFable purpose of defeating the ex-
pressed will of the voters. In all the his
tory-bad as it is and as we must confess
1t to be-of election frauds in this country,
we have never had anything which in
shameless effrOntery, brazen audaClty,
and reckless disregard of even the forms
of law and the appearance of fairness, |
can approach the contemplated outrage |
upon Louisiana. Under the rulings of
this Board there might as well have been |
no voting done. For no matter how |
many votes were cast against the candi- |
dates of the Kellogg Ring, the members |
of this Board had only to bring forward |
some trumped up afiidavit-easily enough |
obtained from any of their creatures
charging intimidation or undue influence
ing of voters, and the whole of them were
thrown ont and minority candidates de-
clared elected 1t was not in any sense, |
under the rulings of the Board, popular
election.
1t seems almost incredible that such
vilIainy should be allowed to 90 on to
success, and that the Republican party in
Congress should be bullied by the Admin
istration and its leaders into giving coun-
Icnaucc and support to so plain and so