Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1877-02-03
THE ELECTORAL BILL.
MOrtOn's Position.

We gave the text of this imno--'--.fU
measure last week apd-fu this paper
we give large portion of Mr.. Ed
munds' very able speech on introduce
ing it into the Senate. Our readers,
those of them at least who desire to be
thoroughly informed on the subject,
will now be DESTROYS of hearing what
has been said against it. In order
that they may be satisfied on this head
we have concluded to give the some
attention to the speech of Mr.. Nor
ton of Indiana, recognized as the
leader of the opposition in this mat
ter 1t is true that some eminent
Democrtic leaders spoke against the
principle of the measure, and especl-
ally Mr.. Proctor Knott, of Kentucky;
but the opposition was practically or
ganized aud re-enforeed by the extreme
Radicals in both House and Senate,
aud under those circumstances we nat
arally look to the dictum of the cory
pheus of that section of the party, as
defining the principle on which they
conduct their fight. That We are
not wrong in pronouncing the opposi-
ton substantially Radical one is
manifest from the following statement.
The vote in the Senate was AZ for and
IL against the bill; Of the II votes
against it only one was Democratic.
In the House the opposition mustered
Sc vo.es of which only IS were Demo
cratic.
Taking the opposition then as Rad
ical movement, we will examine the
manifesto of the great Radical lead
err Mr.. Morton's argument was
crippled by his argument of last year
which in almost every item controver-
ted the positions the party now desired
TO occupy. He denounced then the
claim of the President of the Senate
to count the vote as "a vast and dang
erous power to repose in the hands Of
one man-especially when he may be
ardently devoted to the fortunes of a
great party and eagerly cOntended
that, unless Congress adopted some
rule by which the matter could be con-
trOlled every vote must be counted,
no matter how false, how fraudulent,
how unlawful it may be" Here OBJ
viously he contends that Congress has
4 right and is bound in duty to take
measures for preventing the admission
of false, fraudulent and unlawful votes;
aud this clearly maintains the right to
go behind a state certificate, for how
otherwise could it be determine that
vote was false, fraudulent or unlaw-
full. He even suggests the measure
adopted in the bill he is now opposing
of referring disputed points to the
judges of the Supreme Court, and
making their decision final.
He also cUntended that Congress
had in 1887, in the case of Michigan
assumed substantially the power over
contested votes.
If now our readers will take up their
last weeks CHRONICLE and peruse the
text of the bill now before Congress,
he will see that man who made these
utterances less than year ago, has
very rough ground to stand on when
he makes it his business to oppose it.
He does indeed state one point to
show some shadow Of consistency be-
tween his position last year and now.
1t is this, that when he was urging
Cor OCCASIONAL action last year he con-
tended that unless Congress did act,
the dangerous power would have to be
exercised by the Vice President, and
in consideration of this position pro-
tested that any plan is better than
none almost" But having said all
this in 1876, what does he do in 1877.
Why, he directs the whole tactics of
his party to the obstruction of any ae-
ton of Congress in the matter, express
" in order that the President of the
Senate may be compelled to exert the
dangerous power" and count in or
count out votes at his pleasure aud so
make the Inauguration of Mr.. Hayes
certainty.
This was his policy, and now for his
speech. If he intended an argument
F he must have been puzzled in seeking
one which his previous speeches had
not reluted-but he neither sought
nor needed one, his speech from first
to last teens, !not infringement but
denunciation, and that denunciation is
aimed no longer at the Democrats and
copper heads and x-confederates,
but against his own party whom he
accuses of being inundated and bull
do-ad, of having backed down through
Z fear of the hundred thousand men
whom Watterson had threatened to
bring up from the West. He scOrn-
fully tells them that they had no
ground for fear; that that counting, in
process was a certainty and they had
been scared into abandoning it for
what at the best was an uncertain
tv-that the resistance to his scheme
was all talk, bully and brag, and would
never have come to anything practical
That is all-he did not even con-
tend that the counting, in process was
right, Che had accommodation vigorous
" in former times for that but that 1t
was certain to save the party aud II
would not have been resisted. Mr..
Morton. alas, has lived too long In a
political atmosphere where right and
wrong are ruled out as beside the ques-
lion, and party expedieney alone is re-
coCnized as a rule of action; but hap
pily all the Republican party have not
sunk to this level and large number
of them united with the almost entire
Democracy in carrying out legislation
which effectually crushed the count
ing out plaza legislation identical in
principle with that which Mr.. Morton