Litchfield enquirer., 1876-12-21

of election, or in verifcation of state- ments as required by law, shall be re- ceived in evidence as prima facie."
 Under this rule several hundred ex- parte afidav1ts were prepared and sworn to in New Orleans. charging intimidation and other illegal acts in distant parishes, were then put into the envelopes. .inclosing the supervisors consolidated returns, which had been brought to the city of New Orleans and kept open for the pUr- pose.E This was done to support state ments of intimidation or otherillegal acts, interpolated by supervisors long after their consolidated returns h ad been made out and sworn to as correct and had been filed with the proper district clerk with, out any protest or allegation of intimida- ton or other acts of violence.
 The proceedings of the board in ex- ecutive session, to which we were admit ted, consisted in opening the returns from each parish and examining the votes for Presidential electors. If no protest or objections appeared among the papers, and there was no outside protest from any one, the returns were laid aside, to be afterwards considered by the board in secret. In the few cases in which there were charges of fraud, intimidation or other illegal acts, the candidates or their attorneys were permitted to take copies of the charges, and testimony taken on written interrogatories was submitted in regard to such parishes.
 December 2. after all the returns had been opened, the board went into secret session, and we were uot permitted to see the compilation of returns already made, nor to know what rules the board adopt ed in passing upon contested cases, nor the processes by which it arrived at results,
 We have been furnished duplicate, or certified copy of the duplicate statement of the commissioners of election at each voting-place in the State, from which has been compiled a consolidated statement of the entire vote of the State for Presi- dential Electors.
 From this statement, which we believe to be accurate. the majority for the high est Tildcn elector over the lowest Hayes elector is 8,957, and the majority for he lowest Tilden elector over the highest Hayes elector is $500.
 The returns in our possession cores pond precisely in most cases with those opened by the Returning Board. Tie diff ference in the aggregate arises maiuly from the fact that the board did not have all the returns before it The supervj- sors, all of whom were Republicans, many of them employees in the Custom.House in New Orleans, some non-residents of the State, and one of them under indictment for murder, withheld the statements of the Commissioners of Election in some in- stances where Democratic maj jorities were in ho fn about l .5O0 votes. The Returning Board refused to receive certified copies of the duplicates of these missing returns filed in the offices of the Secretary of State and the Clerks of the District Courts, or to take any effective measures to procure the originals.
 The Returning Board, in proclaimlng the result of the vote for electors, makes no statement of the votes cast n the seve- ral parishes, but simply announces the ag- gregate vote for each elector in the State, giving the Hayes electors maiorities vary ing from 4.626 to 4,7l2.
 To accomplish this they disfranchised l3,35O Democratic and 2,042 Republican voters. This announcement is made in the face of the fact that the statements made by the Commissioners of Election showed majority ranging from 6.300 to 8,957 for the Tilden electors. No attempt is made to give a reason for this arbitrary action of the board, nor is there any state- ment to show what votes were counted and what rejected. As we'll might the off, cers canvassing the returns of the election for Presidential electors in Ohio or Mass achusetts declare the Tllden electors in those states elected in the face of the fact that the returns showed a majority fnr hou ohn hat questionable whether the Legislature of Louisiana has made provision for the ap- pointmeHt of electors at all; that if it h as not vested the Returning Board with au- thority to canvass for snch officers: and that if it were possible to construe the statute as conferring such authority on the Returning Board, then the same stat ute limits the authority of the board to the canvass and compilation of ''the statements made by the Commissioners of Election" without authority to reject on account of intimidation or other acts of violence unless the foundation therefor be first laid laid as provided in the statute that the evidence does not disclose that such foundation was laid in any instance There is, however, evidence of attempts surreptitiously to lay such foundation after the consolidated returns were con- pleted, and that the Supervisors of Elec- tion iu many instances unlawfully with held their returns for that purpose, and interpolated among them ex-parte afida- wits taken in secret Tn New Orleans, be- fore United States Commissioner, which the board has no jurisdiction to consider.
 The evidence taken on both sides, so far as it has been accessible to us, dis closes a state of lawlessneness in certain parishes, not in the State generally, about the cause of which parties are not agreed. The Democrats attribute it to the ineffi- ciency and imbecility of the State Govern ment, which they allege to be a usurpa- patton, resting wholly for support on the Federal army. without the confidence or respect of the people, and without the disposition to prevent or punish crime which they can pervert to political uses. Such state of things, as might be ex- pectsd, has led to disorder, and in some instances to the most shocking barbara ties.
 The Republicans, on the other hand at- tribute the lawlessness to the hostility of the white against the colored race, and as largely due to politics,
 The murders and outrages which have been brought to our notice are frequently committed by persons of the same race upon each other, and. in large majority of cases, have no political significance.
 Many of such cases were brought to the notice of the board by ex-parte affida. wits, without regard to the. time of their occurrence, and when they did not have the slightest connection with the recent election. Strangely enough, it is assum- ed by the Republicans, who have had complete control of the State Government for years, that if they could show that lawlessness prevailed in certain localities and crime went unpunished, those facts furnished reason why they should be continued in power. notwithstanding the large majority of ballots cast against them.
 Another assumption of the Republicans ia, that all the colored men in the State are necessarily Republicans. This is by no means true. We were visited hy a large number of colored persons from difftArank marta of kha Nfaka inclpdipry ho