The daily gazette., 1877-02-03
THE GREAT CASE,
FLORIDA THE BONE OF CON,
TENTION.
70 URsNOTABLE SPEECHES on
THE FIRSTDAY POINTS MADE
BY THE MANAGERS THEQUES-
TON OF EVIDENCE UNDECI-
DED.
WASHINGTON, February 9.

| WASHINGTON, February ..
The great case was fairly begun to-day
before the Grand Electoral Commission
in the Supreme Court room. The very
room itself was filed with ghostly men,
ories of the great days of the American
Senate. In this little room into which to-
day are crowded the country's picked
lawyers and judges, legislators and states
men of the one hundred and first year
of the Republic, sat and spoke Clay, Web
ster and Calhoun, Benton and Cass and
Clayton, Of Dickinson, and Berrian and
Douglass more than twenty six years age.
when the Senate moved over into its pre-
sent magnificent quarters. To-day
Judge Black and Justice Strong and
Representative Jenks, of Pennsylvania.
and Charles O'Conor and William M.
Evarts and David Dudley Field, of New
York, and Frelinghuysen and Justice
Bradley, of New Jersey, and Edmunds
and Hoar and Abbott, of New England.
and Bayard and Hunton and Tucker, cf
the Southland Morton and Garfield and
Payne, of The West, occupy the seats of
the statesmen of the past. Many have as
serted that the questions of the present
hour are of equal importance with those
of that elder day.
Sharply at the hour of ten and half
the Democratic managers, two Of whom
only were allowed to speak, were on
hand. and as soon as the august Court
got itself comfortably seated, David Dud-
ley Field, whom a Democratic district
sent down to Congress, it is believed, ex-
pressly to plead their party cause, rose
and opened the case on the part of the
objectors to the Stearns return of the
Hayes electors from the State of Florida.
DAVID DUDLEY FIELDS STYLE.
Mr.. Field, the great New York lawyer,
from whose big fees it is said Tweed ran
away and not from prison, is what may
be called speaker OF the Wendell Phil
lips and George William Curtis school,
soft and persuasive in tone and rich and
Oriental in imagery, but, "they say" who
are judges, that he lacks their coherenc
of thought in argument and sharpness OF
outline in statement. "No more direct
J ness of aim than q blunderbuss," is one
of the more untavorable criticisms on his
hours speech. But certain it is his flow
erS eff rhetoric and smooth, courtly man
ners, which were the charms of David
Paul Brown, the great Philadelphia
criminal lawyer, make y very favorable
| lIllDItSSIOu OH itu anu lawyer llANf
who heard him for the first time, His
argument and that of his Southern col
league, ex-Attorney General Tucker, Ot
Virginia, was another tribute to the far
spreading fame of the proverbial Phila-
delphia lawyer, for the great strength of
the Florida case, as shown by their argu-
ments, hinges upon the quo lCdrronto pro-
ceeding concocted, instituted and sent
well OK its way by George w. Biddle, OF
.. Philadelphia. Fields compliment to
Morton-in commenting upon the alb
sence of any law allowing quo 1cdrraHto
in the case of President was finished
tribute to the craftsmanship which in
duced that Senator year ago t" endeav-
, or to meet this great issue by passing 4
, law which should be free from all the
| prejudice which surround an actual case
2 such as this.
FLOWERS OF RHETORIC.
He insisted upon the right of the com
mission to find out the Jruth-"the truth
which is rolled up and covered and put
, away." "If you can inquire into the
truth of certificate" )" says he, "you can
inquire into every fact which leads to
! that truth" His second point, that fraud
vitiates everything, was garnic -1ed with
! many fine figures, which would largely
! furnish the common lplace book of the
phrase collector. Holding up the StearnS
certificate he cried, turning in dramatic
pauses from one side to the other: zone
: of the greatest poets of the palmiest days
/ of English literature has referred to day
when
= Ancient fraud shall pale,
3 And justice lift again the scale.
Ancient fraud! was there ever fraud like
: this?" and so on to the nicely rounded
: peroration, which left "self-governing
e people clothed in sackcloth and sitting
7 in ashes"
AN IDEAL VIRGINIA LAWYER.
/ Randolph (or 'Ran," as he is familiar
| ly called Tucker, of Virginia. then takes
the floor having "chivalrously" (as Field
5 called it) given fifteen minutes of his time
: to the great New York lawyer. One
= wouldn't think as the military-loolling
| Virginian starts out that he has held the
1 chief law portfolio of the Mother OF
D Presidents and filled the chair Of consti-
t tutional law in her university. His broad
!, Southern accent is specially noticeable to
l. the Northern ear. He talks to the "coat
|. Court "aboat (about) ''yo" (your) honor,
y and makes 'weren, rhyme with dare.
He insists that the COMMISSION must
"hyar" and determine the facts, etc.
Tucker speaks with great earnestness and
= makes his points few but clear and dis
: tinct. He talks with the learning of the
|. professor and the grace of the forensic
l. orator. HIS nOUeS are mere cdICnWortlS,
, and were used only once or twice in his
!, argument Of forty-6ve minutes-an argu
IS ment which was full rounded off by a
liudicious watching of the clock. His
lspeech was singularly free from the
= flowers with which Fields argument wa;
u almost overloaded, the most noticeable
being at the point where he asked the
: question whether fraud should be permit
= ted to crawl with its slime into the seat
of Washington, whence it may sprlne
r from its couch and sting with fatal fang
|, the lfe-blood Of the grandest nation OF
the earth.
e TACTICS OF THE TILDEN MEN.
As have remarked the Tlden people
have given the Hayes men little idea o.
the real strength Of their Louisiana case
y But it will all be brought out in time t
g 20 before the Electoral Commission il
b That body's decision on the Florida case
doesn't give Tllden the one electora
y vote that is necessary to elect him II
can be shown that three separate pro
I.a.:t;o,s +o call tho Returning Board tC