The daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1878, 1875-04-25


and vo.hies by avote Of cal to 7o4-
majority Of 217. The Returning Board
could only reduce this majority to ;157,
and accordingly was compelled to give
the Conservatives certificates of election.
by aSmajofity Of 86, and the Returning
Board could not disturb these figures
In Orleans the majority wns simply over
whelming. These men took their seats
in the Legislature under the certificates
which they held, and no attempt was
made by Grant or Kellogg to oust them
with the bayonets of Detrobriand. When
the Conservatives retired nfter the House
had been invaded by United States SOL
diery those four members went with the
rest. -'.- r.
In their absence, the Radical rump
elected Speaker-cx-Govcrn Hahn
and other officers, and pretended that
they constituted the legal House of Rep
resentativos. Acting under this absurd
pfetense, they expelled Messrs. Collins,
Delamaine, Vorhies and Burkhnrdt, dur
ing their absence and without hearing
and put four Republicans in their places.
This action WAS clearly unwRrTanted.
There was no legal House and no legal
organization. Tho whole proceedings
were patent nullity. The Compromise
recognized this fact by seating excluded
members and providing for another and
q very different organization. When
this organization was effected, tho in
truders were elected, and the duly elected
and legally returned members restored
to their places. Has there been any vio-
lation Of the compromise by the Con-
servatives? Most certainly not. Tho
ostensible object of that measure was to
seat tho legally elected members of the
Legislature.
This view is further fortified by m ex-
tract from the New Orlenns I'icayune It
says:
Tho Conservative claimants were de-
clnred elected by the Returning Board
Tho sitting Republicans were admitted
by resolution Of the House during the
session at which ex-Gov. Hahn presided
over its deliberations. That body had
as much right to exclude all the other
Conservatives declared elected by the
Returning Board as to unseat the four
gentlemen who are about to be re-admit-
ted. The same process might have been
applied to the whole Returning Board
list of Conservative members, and thus
forty-nine places accorded to these Con
seryatives might have been awarded to
nm equal number of Republicans who
were never elected. In such an event
the effect of the award would simply
have been to seat twelve Conservatives
from among the number of those whose
cases were considered by the committee,
and these would have found themselves
lost among q crowd of SO Republicans
1t is clear that such result would have
vitiated the award and the adjustment
would, in fact, have made it burlesque
instead of q serious decision. The final
condition of the compact of adjustment
Is that the House, as constituted by the
award, shall remain undisturbed except
by such changes as might result from
death or resignation. But what is the
"House?" It is clearly not body
created by the fantastic rulings of the
quoruniless body of which Ex-Governor
Hahn was Speaker. It is the House as
constituted by the Returning Board, and
as modified by tho committees award.
The basis of the whole agreement is that
those Conservatives declared elected by
the Returning Board, were, and are, un-
questionably entitled to seats. To these
were to be added such members as the
committee might decide to havo been
elected, but whose places had been
wrongfully withheld from them. This
is the House ns constituted by the
award.