Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1877-04-04
The Electoral Commission.


A arge.minded and well-informed man is
slow to impute insincerity or willful error.
He may have his own very decided views of
question and yet see very clearly that it
msy-nay, that it must-seem very different
to certain other minds as fair and upright
as his own, and even not less intelligent and
well-informed.
On most subjects human opinions are not
matters of mere intellect. They are the
products of many factors, some of which are
usually quite unsupported by the mind
which entertains them. Unconscously we
open our minds to the arguments which
favor the conclusion we desire, and close
them against those which make against it.
Yet all the while we think we are tax
ing an impartial view, and we attribute
it to misinformation, or to dulness of in
telect, or to prejudice or to a perverse will
if any one holds an opposite opinion.
Thus distinguished lawyer is reported
to have said before the Electoral Commits
sion in effect that no man of common sense
could doubt that Mr.. Tilden was fairly
elected. Nor is it necessary to suppose this
a mere lawyers trick. Possibly he really
thought so, or at least thought that of which
these words are but slight exaggeration.
And if man of Mr.. O'Conner's large cul-
ture could honestly hold such an opinion,
how much more must this be true of thou.
sands of less intelligent men of the same
political sympathies
Yet to us it seems that there were two
sides to the question: and that it is not at all
strange, nor any ground for impeaching the
integrity of either side, if each man, I'M
consciously, opened his mind more fully to
the arguments for that side toward which
his preferences leaned.
Take, for instance, the question whether
the properly certified returns from any state
ought to be final, or whether Congress ought
to go behind the returns. Decided one way, it
is liable, whether in this case it actually did
so or not, to make the question who is to be
President, with all the vast national interests
involved, dependent on the fraudulant ac-
ton of a returning board, perhaps even on
the price offered to one purchasable man.
Decided the other way, it imposes on Con-
gress duty which it is as liable to meet in
a spirit of unfair prejudice as any returning
board can be-to say nothing of the want of
time. for any fair investigation, after the re-
turns are made to Congress. Decided either
way, it is easy for the Imagination to conjure
up any amount of wrong and of disaster, as
liable to result, if that decision become a
precedent.
The constitution, then not being express
on this point, is it strange if each commits
sioner saw the question in the light of his
own party prejudices ? Even the judges of
our Supreme Court are but men. Though
upright, they are but human.
We shall, then, greatly err if we suffer our
confidence in the uprghtness and integrity
of the judges of our Supreme Court to be
impaired by what would seem to be their
partisan action in the case of the electoral
commission.
Yet we may well, from this action, take a
lesson on the falibilty of all human judg-
ments--a lesson on the true sources of human
opinion, on the true reasons of the differing
judgments of different men of equal ability
and general fairness And we may well
learn not to assume that either the judgment
of other men, or even our own, is that wholly
impartial, unbiased and purely intellectual
thing which we so often imagine it to be.
lesson of charitable judgment, a new appi-
cation of the precept, Judge not that We be
not Judged"