Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1877-02-24
SELF-EVIDENT FACTS.


By this time the following facts must
be self-evident:
l. That the Supreme Court judges
may be just as blind and bitter, as re-
lentless and uncompromising in their
partisanship as any other class of pol
iticians. They usually are, and have
been from John Marshall's day until
now, politicians, and keen ones. They
owe their places to party, and their
enforced exclusion from the active
contests of politics only makes the ST.
lent interest with which they watch
the game the more intense. The ju-
dicial nature does not differ Ia this re-
spect from human nature The disa-
bility imposed by their Office operates
upon the minds of judges very much
as the disability of sex upon the minds
of women. Female politicians are al
ways the most violent and the most
unreasoning, and so, for a similar rea-
son, are judicial politicians. Like
women, too, the judges cannot be held
to any personal accountability. The
life-tenure of their Office makes them
more independent Ct public opinion,
more Indifferent to popular praise or
blame, than Senators or Representa-
tives can afford to be. Nothing was
gained, therefore, in any way, by put,
ting the Supreme Court judges on the
Electoral Commission, except to infuse
an element of additional intensity of
partisanship and tenacity of opinion
into its deliberations.
II. That assigning men to the per-
Torrance of judicial duty, and exact
ing from them an oath to perform it
with impartiality, does not make them
one whit less partisan, less devoted to
their own side, or more capable Of do
ing justice to the opposing party.
III. That the decision of the Flee
toral Commission upon all matters
submitted to it was foregone conclu-
sion from the hour the Com was
organized. All the time, the learning,
and the eloquence expended 10 argu-
ment before the Commission, so far as
any possible influence that could be
exerted upon the minds or opinions of
the majority, were simply thrown away.
They never meant to decide otherwise
than as they have decided. The ques-
ton whether the votes of Florida and
Louisiana were to be counted for Til
den or Hayes never was an open ques-
ton with them for one moment. All
the solemn sessions of the Commission,
public and private, have been, like the
Commission itself, a mockery and
sham. The only question was how
to do it''-and the Radical Eight took
the shortest road. by voting to exclude
all testimony-that is, to shut out the
facts. 4 Commission, appointed ex-
pressly to inquire into facts, fulfils its
duty by deciding that it has no powers
ofinquiry.
". That of all the frauds resorted
to for the purpose of installing Hayes
in the sea- of Washington and Jeffer-
son, the biggest fraud of all is the So
called Electoral Tribunal" What
degree of personal perfdy on the part
of individual members of the Commits
sion, who were also members of the
committee which framed the bill, has
contributed to the result, we have not
the means of knowing 1t is very GER
tain that the bill would not have been
passed by the House of Representa-
tiVes without amendment-if passed at
all-if representations, which we're al
most in the nature of pledges, had not
been made, upon the authority of Rad
ical mem ers of the committee, to the
effect that the bill provided for the
introduction of the very testimony
which the Commission, by the votes
of tho same men, has since decided to
exclude. Probably, however, the
same men who voted to exclude the
evidence would have voted to accept
the certificates of Kellogg and of
Stearns with all the evidence before
them. 1t was but choice of roads to
reach the same end. The exclusion of
the testimony merely made it easier to
count the votes as the majority of the
Commission intended they should be
counted.
Y. By sanctioniug the frauds of Kel-
logg, of J. Madison Wells, and of
Stearns, and by accepting the fruits of
their frauds, with knowledge of the
facts, the Radical party assumes gull
ty completely in these crimes, the
greatest and the worst that have ever
disgraced our political annals. The
action of the Radical Eight will go far
to justify Judge Blacks bitter saying,
that III the present emergency it must
be expected that every Democrat will
perform his duty to the Constitution
and the country, aud that every Radi-
cal will violate-his.