The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1877-01-04
JURISDICTION OF CONGRESS.

In regard to the Jurisdiction of Con.
gress in counting the electoral vote, Mr.
White is thoroughly sound. He says:
"It has always taken jurisdiction and
must necessarily have it. The doctrine
that it has no jurisdiction was never be-
fore heard of. The Constitution of the
UAited States had its origin in the neces-
sity of enabling the General Govern
ment to reach and deal with individuals
instead of dealing with the States as in
dependent sovereignties. Under the old
Confederation the General Government
could only deal with the States, and had
consequently fallen into feebleness, self.
contempt and bankruptcy. The real and
vital difference between the old Confed-
Grafton and the present Constitution is
that the latter enables the Government
to deal directly with individuals in mat
ters affecting itself, instead of operating
in roundabout and uncertain manner
through the States. To say that it may
not deal with individuals in ascertaining
who has been chosen to its own Chief
Magistracy is the most alarming asser-
ton of State rights ever heard Of
Calhoun never went so far as this, or
anybody else till the present year."
SENATOR sHERMAN's REPORT.
In regard to Senator Sherman's report
upon the Louisiana case, Mr.. White says:
II have read with surprise and pain
that one holding 80 important position
and influential asSenator Sherman could
call the ex parte affidavits in the hands
of the Returning Board proofs when
every lawyer knows that they are not
proofs: and that he could spend so much
time in telling what took place at the
election in Louisiana eight years ago and
say nothing what happened at the cleo
ton two years ago, when, according to
the report of the Committee of Congress
of which Mr. Hoar was Chairman, the
President of the Louisiana Returning
Board, Ex-Governor Wells, made an affi-
davit of intimidation in certain parish
where he was not personally present,
and where there was, in fact, no intimi-
dation--the result of which was the
throwing out of the returns of that par
ish, and the ereversal of the political COM
plexion of one branch of the State Leg
islature. Since Senator Sherman has
gone at great length into the election OF
1868, and since he has given quasi in
dorsement of the individual members OF
the Louisiana Returning Board, candor
should have required him to state the
facts of recent elections as well as of re-
mote ones, if anything in the past is 10
be brought up as furnishing presumptive
proof of facts in the present. For these
reasons Mr. Sherman's report, in my
Judgment, is not entitled to. respect with
tair-minded men,"
THE SUPREME COURT.
In regard to the policy Of transferring
the counting of the electoral vote to the
Supreme Court, Mr.. White says:
"If we have lost the power to count
votes and to tell what is majority, the
Supreme Court cannot enable us to re-
cover that power. Moreover, the Court
needs to have less politics infused into
rather than more. To make the Supreme
Court national returning board would
ultimately break down the Court without
in the least degree purifying politics. i
the Court should step one inch outside
of the arithmetical result of the election
its decision would be scofed at by one
party or the other. If it should not ster
outside of the arithmetical result its de.
cision would simply be that two and two
make four, instead of five or three or any
other number. But the chances are that
ere long the Court would gravely consider