Feliciana sentinel. [volume] (St. Francisville, La.) 1877-1892, 1877-12-08
THE ELECrOHAL FRAUD.
BLACKS REPLY TO MIR. T.
w. STOUGHTON.
The StougEton Article in the North
American Review for October
Plainly Dealt with.


Plainly Dealt with.
To the Hon. E. w. Stonghton:
If do not reply to your article in the
last number of tho North -1mericun Rcriem
you will remain under the dclusion that
: your argument is irresistible. I i'll try
to correct that mistake hy showing that
if there be q defense for the Great Fraud
you decidedly are not the person to make
it. Doing this mainly foi your own eGiii-
cation, address you directly. Iseparate
your personal invective from your dis
cussion of the case, though they are so
mixed as to make separation difficult,
and will consider your objections to my
view of the subject as if they had been
expressed in becoming and decent Ian
guage.
You think, as your political friends in
general think, that after the decision Of
| the Electoral Commission against us, we
| ought to submit in silence ard not veX
! the victorious party with an appeal to
the tribunal of public opinion. We have
submitted. The proper representatives
of both parties agreed to leave the dis
pnte to 4 body which they constituted for
the purpose of settling it. We could not
refuse to abide by the award without be-
| ing guilty of bad faith. We do not now
assert the injustice of it, with any view
! to reverse or modify it. Yon need not
fear the stability of that award, however
iniquitous you may know it to be. You
con enjoy it's fruits i'll perfect security,
and we, the people, will, on our part,
"pcrfOrm the VOWS which we have vowed
before the Lord" however much it may
be ''to our own hurt"
But to acquicscc without a protest-to
confess tacitly that tic wrong is right
and the evil a good-that is out Of the
question. In discussing the whole sub
ject with great plainness of speech, we
not only obey an impulse, but perform a
duty. For this I will give some reasons,
and take the chances Of making you com
prchend them.
WHY IT CANNOT BE CONDONED.
In th,. first place, it concerns the rcpu-
| tations of nearly all the public men of
| the present day. You and are too obscure
characters of our time on both sides will
go down to pnstcritv clot he'd with honor
or covered witl iutia:uy, according as tiie%
have been trying to further the fraud or
stop it. Remember, there Was IL irlnd,
and very gross one. committed by one
party or the other. If The State Of Lou
isiana chose Kellogg and the either candi-
Il
Electors, and the Democratic politicians
KNOWN. this, did, nevertheless, deny
the truth ard t:,h.icntcu Il false return
for Til,len, which they persisted TO the
last in trying to pass for fo oue' they
were a combination Of moJ kr,lcmpiion
less rog,lcs; and il Will teWcorded, as all
agyravation of their crime, that when
the righteous majority of the Electoral
Commission crushed ont their falSehond
they turned aboHt and, with caiUmnious
accusations. charged their own guilt upon
tlreir innocent opponents. The converse
of these propositions is also true. If the
Tilden electors were duly chosen by the
people, and the Republican leaders ia
and out of the State altered the returns,
falsified the records, and constituted a
counterfeit Electoral College, whereby
the people of the State and the Union
were cheated out of the President whom
they had legally elected by Il large major
ity, then it is only anticipating history to
say that all who aided, allotted and en-
couraged that Ottense ought to be ''classed
among the worst maletactors of the age
Seeing the great interest that hangs on
this question, is it not fairly worth our
while to give it full examination while
the facts are yet fresh in the memory of
men 7
Another consideration there is, which
makes a public appeal upon the subject
not only proper, but absolutely necessary,
if our convictions are not founded in total
mistake. The candidate to whom you
are opposed was, as we understand the
case, elected by an overwhelming popu-
lar vote, and by majority of at least
| twcnty-three in the Electoral College.
But you defeated the legally expressed
will of the people and the States, and by
meaus of false tokens and divers covinous
practices, contrary to the law and against
| the moral sense of all honest men. The
| decision of the Electoral Commission, by
making the frand perfectly successful, in
vites repetition of it, and you undoubt-
edly will repeat it, unless you a1e i'll some
way deferred. Now, the nation will not
submit to another such outrage. We pro-
mote your true interests as well as ours,
if we prevent you from cndangering the
! peace of the country by trying this Kind
of foul play over again. TO that end the
i ], L L L,